In the extract which follows, the pure and tender morality of the sentiment vies with the atmosphere of fine writing that invests it. The passage is one which Plato might have envied, and which we should imagine the most hardened and successful of our modern apostates cannot read without some feeling like contrition and remorse. Fortunate indeed were the youth trained to virtue by such a monitor, and still more fortunate the country where such a duty was confided to such a man:—

"I have tried to analyze the popular party: I must now endeavour to do the same with the party opposed to it. Of course an anti-popular party varies exceedingly at different times; when it is in the ascendant, its vilest elements are sure to be uppermost: fair and moderate,—just men, wise men, noble-minded men,—then refuse to take part with it. But when it is humbled, and the opposite side begins to imitate its practices, then again many of the best and noblest spirits return to it, and share its defeat though they abhorred its victory. We must distinguish, therefore, very widely, between the anti-popular party in 1640, before the Long Parliament met, and the same party a few years, or even a few months, afterwards. Now, taking the best specimens of this party in its best state, we can scarcely admire them too highly. A man who leaves the popular cause when it is triumphant, and joins the party opposed to it, without really changing his principles and becoming a renegade, is one of the noblest characters in history. He may not have the clearest judgment, or the firmest wisdom; he may have been mistaken, but, as far as he is concerned personally, we cannot but admire him. But such a man changes his party not to conquer but to die. He does not allow the caresses of his new friends to make him forget that he is a sojourner with them, and not a citizen: his old friends may have used him ill, they may be dealing unjustly and cruelly: still their faults, though they may have driven him into exile, cannot banish from his mind the consciousness that with them is his true home: that their cause is habitually just and habitually the weaker, although now bewildered and led astray by an unwonted gleam of success. He protests so strongly against their evil that he chooses to die by their hands rather than in their company; but die he must, for there is no place left on earth where his sympathies can breathe freely; he is obliged to leave the country of his affections, and life elsewhere is intolerable. This man is no renegade, no apostate, but the purest of martyrs: for what testimony to truth can be so pure as that which is given uncheered by any sympathy; given not against friends, amidst unpitying or half-rejoicing enemies. And such a martyr was Falkland!

"Others who fall off from a popular party in its triumph, are of a different character; ambitious men, who think that they become necessary to their opponents and who crave the glory of being able to undo their own work as easily as they had done it: passionate men, who, quarrelling with their old associates on some personal question, join the adversary in search of revenge; vain men, who think their place unequal to their merits, and hope to gain a higher on the opposite side: timid men, who are frightened as it were at the noise of their own guns, and the stir of actual battle—who had liked to dally with popular principles in the parade service of debating or writing in quiet times, but who shrink alarmed when both sides are become thoroughly in earnest: and again, quiet and honest men, who never having fully comprehended the general principles at issue, and judging only by what they see before them, are shocked at the violence of their party, and think that the opposite party is now become innocent and just, because it is now suffering wrong rather than doing it. Lastly, men who rightly understand that good government is the result of popular and anti-popular principles blended together, rather than of the mere ascendancy of either; whose aim, therefore, is to prevent either from going too far, and to throw their weight into the lighter scale: wise men and most useful, up to the moment when the two parties are engaged in actual civil war, and the question is—which shall conquer? For no man can pretend to limit the success of a party, when the sword is the arbitrator: he who wins in that game does not win by halves: and therefore the only question then is, which party is on the whole the best, or rather perhaps the least evil; for as one must crush the other, it is at least desirable that the party so crushed should be the worse."

Dr Arnold—rightly, we hope—assumes, that in lectures addressed to Englishmen and Protestants, it is unnecessary to vindicate the principles of the Revolution; it would, indeed, be an affront to any class of educated Protestant freemen, to argue that our present constitution was better than a feudal monarchy, or the religion of Tillotson superior to that of Laud—in his own words, "whether the doctrine and discipline of our Protestant Church of England, be not better and truer than that of Rome." He therefore supposes the Revolution complete, the Bill of Rights and the Toleration Act already passed, the authority of King William recognized in England and in Scotland, while in Ireland the party of King James was still predominant. He then bids us consider the character and object of the parties by which Great Britain was then divided; on the side of the Revolution were enlisted the great families of our aristocracy, and the bulk of the middle classes. The faction of James included the great mass of country gentlemen, the lower orders, and, (after the first dread of a Roman Catholic hierarchy had passed away,) except in a very few instances, the parochial and teaching clergy; civil and religious liberty was the motto of one party—hereditary right and passive obedience, of the other. As the Revolution had been bloodless, it might have been supposed that its reward would have been secure, and that our great deliverer would have been allowed to pursue his schemes for the liberty of Europe, if not without opposition, at least without hostility. But the old Royalist party had been surprised and confounded, not broken or altogether overcome. They rallied—some from pure, others from selfish and sordid motives—under the banner to which they had been so long accustomed; and, though ultimately baffled, they were able to place in jeopardy, and in some measure to fling away the advantages which the blood and treasure of England had been prodigally lavished to obtain.

The conquest of Ireland was followed by that terrible code against the Catholics, the last remnant of which is now obliterated from our statute-book. It is singular that this savage proscription should have been the work of the party at whose head stood the champion of toleration. The account which Mr Burke has given of it, and for the accuracy of which he appeals to Bishop Burnet, does not entirely coincide with the view taken by Dr Arnold. Mr Burke says—

"A party in this nation, enemies to the system of the Revolution, were in opposition to the government of King William. They knew that our glorious deliverer was an enemy to all persecution. They knew that he came to free us from slavery and Popery, out of a country where a third of the people are contented Catholics, under a Protestant government. He came, with a part of his army composed of those very Catholics, to overset the power of a Popish prince. Such is the effect of a tolerating spirit, and so much is liberty served in every way, and by all persons, by a manly adherence to its own principles. Whilst freedom is true to itself, every thing becomes subject to it, and its very adversaries are an instrument in its hands.

"The party I speak of (like some amongst us who would disparage the best friends of their country) resolved to make the King either violate his principles of toleration, or incur the odium of protecting Papists. They, therefore, brought in this bill, and made it purposely wicked and absurd, that it might be rejected. The then court-party discovering their game, turned the tables on them, and returned their bill to them stuffed with still greater absurdities, that its loss might lie upon its original authors. They, finding their own ball thrown back to them, kicked it back again to their adversaries. And thus this act, loaded with the double injustice of two parties, neither of whom intended to pass what they hoped the other would be persuaded to reject, went through the legislature, contrary to the real wish of all parts of it, and of all the parties that composed it. In this manner these insolent and profligate factions, as if they were playing with balls and counters, made a sport of the fortunes and the liberties of their fellow-creatures. Other acts of persecution have been acts of malice. This was a subversion of justice from wantonness."

Whether Dr Arnold's theory be applicable or not to this particular case, it furnishes but too just a solution of Irish misgovernment in general. It is, that excessive severity toward conquered rebels, is by no means inconsistent with the principles of free government, or even with the triumph of a democracy. The truth of this fact is extorted from us by all history, and may be accounted for first, by the circumstance, that large bodies of men are less affected than individuals, by the feelings of shame and a sense of responsibility; and, secondly, that conduct the most selfish and oppressive, the mere suspicion of which would be enough to brand an individual with everlasting infamy, assumes, when adopted by popular assemblies, the air of statesmanlike wisdom and patriotic inflexibility. The main cause of the difference with which the lower orders in France and England regarded the Revolution in their respective countries, is to be found in the different nature of the evils which they were intended to remove. The English Revolution was merely political—the French was social also; the benefits of the Bill of Rights, great and inestimable as they were, were such as demanded some knowledge and reflection to appreciate—they did not come home directly to the business and bosom of the peasant; it was only in rare and great emergencies that he could become sensible of the rights they gave, or of the means of oppression they took away: while the time-honoured dwellings of the Cavendishes and Russells were menaced and assailed, nothing but the most senseless tyranny could render the cottage insecure; but the abolition of the seignorial rights in France, free communication between her provinces, equal taxation, impartial justice—these were blessings which it required no economist to illustrate, and no philosopher to explain. Every labourer in France, whose sweat had flowed for the benefit of others, whose goods had been seized by the exactors of the Taille and the Gabelle,[1] the fruits of whose soil had been wasted because he was not allowed to sell them at the neighbouring market, whose domestic happiness had been polluted, or whose self-respect had been lowered by injuries and insults, all retribution for which was hopeless, might well be expected to value these advantages more than life itself. But when the principles of the Revolution were triumphant, and the House of Brunswick finally seated on the throne of this country, it remains to be seen what were, during the eighteenth century, the fruits of this great and lasting victory. The answer is a melancholy one. Content with what had been achieved, the nation seems at once to have abandoned all idea of any further moral or intellectual progress. In private life the grossest ignorance and debauchery were written upon our social habits, in the broadest and most legible characters. In public life, we see chicanery in the law, apathy in the Church, corruption in Parliament, brutality on the seat of justice; trade burdened with a great variety of capricious restrictions; the punishment of death multiplied with the most shocking indifference; the state of prisons so dreadful, that imprisonment—which might be, and in those days often was, the lot of the most innocent of mankind—became in itself a tremendous punishment; the press virtually shackled; education every where wanted, and no where to be found.

[1] "Taille and the Gabelle." Sully thus describes these fertile sources of crime and misery:—"Taille, source principale d'abus et de vexations de toute espece, sans sa repartition et sa perception. Il est bien a souhaiter, mais pas a esperer, qu'on change un jour en entier le fond de cette partie des revenus. Je mets la Gabelle de niveau avec la Taille. Je n'ai jamais rien trouve de si bizarrement tyrannique que de faire acheter a un particulier, plus de sel qu'il n'en veut et n'en peut consommer, et de lui defendre encore de revendre ce qu'il a de trop."

The laws that were passed resemble the edicts of a jealous, selfish, and even vindictive oligarchy, rather than institutions adopted for the common welfare, by the representatives of a free people. Turn to any of the works which describe the manners of the age, from the works of Richardson or Fielding, to the bitter satire of Churchill and the melancholy remonstrances of Cowper, and you are struck with the delineation of a state and manners, and a tone of feeling which, in the present day, appears scarcely credible. "'Sdeath, madam, do you threaten me with the law?" says Lovelace to the victim of his calculating and sordid violence. Throughout the volumes of these great writers, the features perpetually recur of insolence, corruption, violence, and debauchery in the one class, and of servility and cunning in the other. It is impossible for the worst quality of an aristocracy—nominally, to be sure, subject to the restraint of the law, but practically, almost wholly exempt from its operation—to be more clearly and more fearfully represented. The South Sea scheme, the invasion of Scotland, the disgraceful expeditions on the coast of France; the conduct of Lord George Sackville at Minden, the miserable attempt on Carthagena, the loss of Minorca, the convention of Closterseven, the insecurity of the high-roads, nay, of the public streets in the metropolis itself, all serve to show the deplorable condition into which the nation was fast sinking, abroad and at home, when the "Great Commoner" once more aroused its energies, concentrated its strength, and carried it to a higher pinnacle of glory than it has ever been the lot even of Great Britain to attain. Yet this effect was transient—the progress of corruption was checked, but the disease still lurked in the heart, and tainted the life-blood of the community. The orgies of Medmenham Abbey, the triumphs of Wilkes, and the loss of America, bear fatal testimony to the want of decency and disregard of merit in private as well as public life which infected Great Britain, polluting the sources of her domestic virtues, and bringing disgrace upon her arms and councils during the greater part of the eighteenth century. It is with a masterly review of this period of our history that Dr Arnold closes his analysis of the three last centuries. His remaining lecture is dedicated to the examination of historical evidence—a subject on which it is not our present intention to offer any commentary.

To trace effects to their causes, is the object of all science; and by this object, as it is accomplished or incomplete, the progress of any particular science must be determined. The order of the moral is in reality as immutable as the laws of the physical world; and human actions are linked to their consequences by a necessity as inexorable as that which controls the growth of plants or the motion of the earth, though the connexion between cause and effect is not equally discernible. The depression of the nobles and the rise of the commons in England, after the statutes of alienation, were the result of causes as infallible in their operation as those which regulate the seasons and the tides. Repeated experiments have proved beyond dispute, that gold is heavier than iron. Is the superior value of gold to iron a fact more questionable? Yet is value a quality purely moral, and absolutely dependent on the will of man. The events of to-day are bound to those of yesterday, and those of to-morrow will be bound to those of to-day, no less certainly than the harvest of the present year springs from the grain which is the produce of former harvests. When by a severe and diligent analysis we have ascertained all the ingredients of any phenomenon, and have separated it from all that is foreign and adventitious, we know its true nature, and may deduce a general law from our experiment; for a general law is nothing more than an expression of the effect produced by the same cause operating under the same circumstances. In the reign of Louis XV., a Montmorency was convicted of an atrocious murder. He was punished by a short imprisonment in the Bastile. His servant and accomplice was, for the same offence at the same time, broken alive upon the wheel. Is the proposition, that the angles of a triangle are equal to two right angles, more certain than the ruin of a system under which such a state of things was tolerated? How, then, does it come to pass, that the same people who cling to one set of truths reject the other with obstinate incredulity? Cicero shall account for it:—"Sensus nostros non parens, non nutrix, non poeta, non scena depravat; animis omnes tendentur insidiae." The discoveries of physical science, in the present day at least, allow little scope to prejudice and inclination. Whig and Tory, Radical and Conservative, agree, that fire will burn and water suffocate; nay, no tractarian, so far as we know, has ventured to call in question the truths established by Cuvier and La Place. But every proposition in moral or political science enlists a host of feelings in zealous support or implacable hostility; and the same system, according to the creed and prepossessions of the speaker, is put forward as self-evident, or stigmatized as chimerical. One set of people throw corn into the river and burn mills, in order to cheapen bread—another vote that sixteen shillings are equal to twenty-one, in order to support public credit—proceedings in no degree more reasonable than a denial that two and two make four, or using gunpowder instead of water to stop a conflagration. Again, in physical science, the chain which binds the cause to its effect is short, simple, and passes through no region of vapour and obscurity; in moral phenomena, it is long hidden and intertwined with the links of ten thousand other chains, which ramify and cross each other in a confusion which it requires no common patience and sagacity to unravel. Therefore it is that the lessons of history, dearly as they have been purchased, are forgotten and thrown away—therefore it is that nations sow in folly and reap in affliction—that thrones are shaken, and empires convulsed, and commerce fettered by vexatious restrictions, by those who live in one century, without enabling their descendants to become wiser or richer in the next. The death of Charles I. did not prevent the exile of James II., and, in spite of the disasters of Charles XII., Napoleon tempted fortune too often and too long. It is not, then, by the mere knowledge of separate facts that history can contribute to our improvement or our happiness; it would then exchange the character of philosophy treated by examples, for that of sophistry misleading by empiricism. The more systematic the view of human events which it enables us to gain, the more nearly does it approach its real office, and entitle itself to the splendid panegyric of the Roman statesman—"Historia, testis temporum, lux veritatis, vita memoriae, magistra vitae, nuntia vetustatis."

But while we insist upon the certainty of those truths which a calm examination of history confirms, and the sure operation of those general laws by which Providence in its wisdom has ordained that the affairs of this lower world shall be controlled—let it not be supposed that we for a moment doubt the truth which Demosthenes took such pains to inculcate upon his countrymen, that fortune in human affairs is for a time omnipotent. That fortune, which "erring men call chance," is the name which finite beings must apply to those secret and unknown causes which no human sagacity can penetrate or comprehend. What depends upon a few persons, observes Mr Hume, is to be ascribed to chance; what arises from a great number, may often be accounted for by known and determinate causes; and he illustrates this position by the instance of a loaded die, the bias of which, however it may for a short time escape detection, will certainly in a great number of instances become predominant. The issue of a battle may be decided by a sunbeam or a cloud of dust. Had an heir been born to Charles II. of Spain—had the youthful son of Monsieur De Bouille not fallen asleep when Louis XVI. entered Varennes—had Napoleon, on his return from Egypt, been stopped by an English cruizer—how different would have been the face of Europe. The poco di piu and poco di meno has, in such contingencies, an unbounded influence. The trade-winds are steady enough to furnish grounds for the most accurate calculation; but will any man in our climate venture to predict from what quarter, on any particular day, the wind may chance to blow?

Therefore, in forming our judgment of human affairs, we must apply a "Lesbian rule," instead of one that is inflexible. Here it is that the line is drawn between science, and the wisdom which has for its object the administration of human affairs. The masters of science explore a multitude of phenomena to ascertain a single cause; the statesman and legislator, engaged in pursuits "hardliest reduced to axiom," examine a multitude of causes to explain a solitary phenomenon. The investigations, however, to which such questions lead, are singularly difficult, as they require an accurate analysis of the most complicated class of facts which can possibly engross our attention, and to the complete examination of which the faculties of any one man must be inadequate. The finest specimens of such enquiries which we possess are the works of Adam Smith and Montesquieu. The latter, indeed, may be called a great historian. He sought in every quarter for his account of those fundamental principles which are common to all governments, as well as of those peculiarities by which they are distinguished one from another. The analogy which reaches from the first dim gleam of civility to the last and consummate result of policy and intelligence, from the law of the Salian Franks to the Code Napoleon, it was reserved for him to discover and explain. He saw that, though the shape into which the expression of human thought and will was moulded as the family became a tribe, and the tribe a nation, might be fantastic and even monstrous—that the staple from which it unrolled itself must be the same. Treading in the steps of Vico, he more than realized his master's project, and in his immortal work (which, with all its faults, is a magnificent, and as yet unrivalled, trophy of his genius, and will serve as a landmark to future enquirers when its puny critics are not known enough to be despised) he has extracted from a chaos of casual observations, detached hints—from the principles concealed in the intricate system of Roman jurisprudence, or exposed in the rules which barely held together the barbarous tribes of Gaul and Germany—from the manners of the polished Athenian, and from the usages of the wandering Tartar—from the rudeness of savage life, and the corruptions of refined society—a digest of luminous and coherent evidence, by which the condition of man, in the different stages of his social progress, is exemplified and ascertained. The loss of the History of Louis XI.—a work which he had projected, and of which he had traced the outline—is a disappointment which the reader of modern history can never enough deplore.

The province of science lies in truths that are universal and immutable; that of prudence in second causes that are transient and subordinate. What is universally true is alone necessarily true—the knowledge that rests in particulars must be accidental. The theorist disdains experience—the empiric rejects principle. The one is the pedant who read Hannibal a lecture on the art of war; the other is the carrier who knows the road between London and York better than Humboldt, but a new road is prescribed to him and his knowledge becomes useless. This is the state of mind La Fontaine has described so perfectly in his story of the "Cierge."

"Un d'eux, voyant la brique au feu endurcie Vaincre l'effort des ans, il eut la meme envie; Et nouvel Empedocle, aux flammes condamne Par sa pure et propre folie, Il se lanca dedans—ce fut mal raisonne, Le Cierge ne savait grain de philosophie."

The mere chemist or mathematician will apply his truths improperly; the man of detail, the mere empiric, will deal skilfully with particulars, while to all general truths he is insensible. The wise man, the philosopher in action, will use the one as a stepping-stone to the other, and acquire a vantage-ground from whence he will command the realms of practice and experience.

History teems with instances that—although the general course of the human mind is marked out, and each succeeding phasis in which it exhibits itself appears inevitable—the human race cannot be considered, as Vico and Herder were, perhaps, inclined to look upon it, as a mass without intelligence, traversing its orbit according to laws which it has no power to modify or control. On such an hypothesis, Wisdom and Folly, Justice and Injustice, would be the same, followed by the same consequences and subject to the same destiny—no certain laws establishing invariable grounds of hope and fear, would keep the actions of men in a certain course, or direct them to a certain end; the feelings, faculties, and instincts of man would be useless in a world where the wise was always as the foolish, the just as the unjust, where calculation was impossible, and experience of no avail.

Man is no doubt the instrument, but the unconscious instrument, of Providence; and for the end they propose to themselves, though not for the result which they attain, nations as well as individuals are responsible. Otherwise, why should we read or speak of history? it would be the feverish dream of a distempered imagination, full of incoherent ravings, a disordered chaos of antagonist illusions—

——"A tale Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, Signifying nothing."

But on the contrary, it is in history that the lessons of morality are delivered with most effect. The priest may provoke our suspicion—the moralist may fail to work in us any practical conviction; but the lessons of history are not such as vanish in the fumes of unprofitable speculation, or which it is possible for us to mistrust, or to deride. Obscure as the dispensations of Providence often are, it sometimes, to use Lord Bacon's language—"pleases God, for the confutation of such as are without God in the world, to write them in such text and capital letters that he who runneth by may read it—that is, mere sensual persons which hasten by God's judgments, and never tend or fix their cogitations upon them, are nevertheless in their passage and race urged to discern it." In all historical writers, philosophical or trivial, sacred or profane, from the meagre accounts of the monkish chronicler, no less than from the pages stamped with all the indignant energy of Tacitus, gleams forth the light which, amid surrounding gloom and injustice, amid the apparent triumph of evil, discovers the influence of that power which the heathens personified as Nemesis. Her tread, indeed, is often noiseless—her form may be long invisible—but the moment at length arrives when the measure of forbearance is complete; the echoes of her step vibrate upon the ear, her form bursts upon the eye, and her victim—be it a savage tyrant, or a selfish oligarchy, or a hypocritical church, or a corrupt nation—perishes.

"Come quei che va di notte, Che porta il lume dietro, e a se non giova, Ma dopo se fa le persone dotte."

And as in daily life we rejoice to trace means directed to an end, and proofs of sagacity and instinct even among the lower tribes of animated nature, with how much greater delight do we seize the proofs vouchsafed to us in history of that eternal law, by which the affairs of the universe are governed? How much more do we rejoice to find that the order to which physical nature owes its existence and perpetuity, does not stop at the threshold of national life—that the moral world is not fatherless, and that man, formed to look before and after, is not abandoned to confusion and insecurity?

Fertile and comprehensive indeed is the domain of history, comprising the whole region of probabilities within its jurisdiction—all the various shapes into which man has been cast—all the different scenes in which he has been called upon to act or suffer; his power and his weakness, his folly and his wisdom, his virtues in their meridian height, his vices in the lowest abyss of their degradation, are displayed before us, in their struggles, vicissitudes, and infinitely diversified combinations: an inheritance beyond all price—a vast repository of fruitful and immortal truths. There is nothing so mean or so dignified; nothing so obscure or so glorious; no question so abstruse, no problem so subtile, no difficulty so arduous, no situation so critical, of which we may not demand from history an account and elucidation. Here we find all that the toil, and virtues, and sufferings, and genius, and experience, of our species have laboured for successive generations to accumulate and preserve. The fruit of their blood, of their labour, of their doubts, and their struggles, is before us—a treasure that no malignity can corrupt, or violence take away. And above all, it is here that, when tormented by doubt, or startled by anomalies, stung by disappointment, or exasperated by injustice, we may look for consolation and encouragement. As we see the same events, that to those who witnessed them must have appeared isolated and capricious, tending to one great end, and accomplishing one specific purpose, we may learn to infer that those which appear to us most extraordinary, are alike subservient to a wise and benevolent dispensation. Poetry, the greatest of all critics has told us, has this advantage over history, that the lessons which it furnishes are not mixed and confined to particular cases, but pure and universal. Studied, however, in this spirit, history, while it improves the reason, may satisfy the heart, enabling us to await with patience the lesson of the great instructor, Time, and to employ the mighty elements it places within our reach, to the only legitimate purpose of all knowledge—"The advancement of God's glory, and the relief of man's estate."

* * * * *



POEMS AND BALLADS OF SCHILLER.

No. V.

THE VICTORY FEAST.

[This noble lyric is perhaps the happiest of all those poems in which Schiller has blended the classical spirit with the more deep and tender philosophy which belongs to modern romance. The individuality of the heroes introduced is carefully preserved. The reader is every where reminded of Homer; and yet, as a German critic has observed, there is an under current of sentiment which betrays the thoughtful Northern minstrel. This detracts from the art of the Poem viewed as an imitation, but constitutes its very charm as an original composition. Its inspiration rises from a source purely Hellenic, but the streamlets it receives at once adulterate and enrich, or (to change the metaphor) it has the costume and the gusto of the Greek, but the toning down of the colours betrays the German.]

The stately walls of Troy had sunken, Her towers and temples strew'd the soil; The sons of Hellas, victory-drunken, Richly laden with the spoil, Are on their lofty barks reclin'd Along the Hellespontine strand; A gleesome freight the favouring wind Shall bear to Greece's glorious land; And gleesome sounds the chaunted strain, As towards the household altars, now, Each bark inclines the painted prow— For Home shall smile again!

And there the Trojan women, weeping, Sit ranged in many a length'ning row; Their heedless locks, dishevell'd, sweeping Adown the wan cheeks worn with woe. No festive sounds that peal along, Their mournful dirge can overwhelm; Through hymns of joy one sorrowing song Commingled, wails the ruin'd realm. "Farewell, beloved shores!" it said, "From home afar behold us torn, By foreign lords as captives borne— Ah, happy are the Dead!"

And Calchas, while the altars blaze, Invokes the high gods to their feast! On Pallas, mighty or to raise Or shatter cities, call'd the Priest— And Him, who wreathes around the land The girdle of his watery world, And Zeus, from whose almighty hand The terror and the bolt are hurl'd. Success at last awards the crown— The long and weary war is past; Time's destined circle ends at last— And fall'n the Mighty Town!

The Son of Atreus, king of men, The muster of the hosts survey'd, How dwindled from the thousands, when Along Scamander first array'd! With sorrow and the cloudy thought, The Great King's stately look grew dim— Of all the hosts to Ilion brought, How few to Greece return with him! Still let the song to gladness call, For those who yet their home shall greet!— For them the blooming life is sweet: Return is not for all!

Nor all who reach their native land May long the joy of welcome feel— Beside the household gods may stand Grim Murther with awaiting steel; And they who 'scape the foe, may die Beneath the foul familiar glaive. Thus He[2] to whose prophetic eye Her light the wise Minerva gave:— "Ah! blest whose hearth, to memory true, The goddess keeps unstain'd and pure— For woman's guile is deep and sure, And Falsehood loves the New!"

The Spartan eyes his Helen's charms, By the best blood of Greece recaptured; Round that fair form his glowing arms— (A second bridal)—wreathe enraptured. "Woe waits the work of evil birth— Revenge to deeds unblest is given! For watchful o'er the things of earth, The eternal Council-Halls of Heaven. Yes, ill shall ever ill repay— Jove to the impious hands that stain The Altar of Man's Hearth, again The doomer's doom shall weigh!"

"Well they, reserved for joy to day," Cried out Oileus' valiant son, "May laud the favouring gods who sway Our earth, their easy thrones upon; Without a choice they mete our doom, Our woe or welfare Hazard gives— Patroclus slumbers in the tomb, And all unharm'd Thersites lives. While luck and life to every one Blind Fate dispenses, well may they Enjoy the life and luck to day By whom the prize is won!

"Yes, war will still devour the best!— Brother, remember'd in this hour! His shade should be in feasts a guest, Whose form was in the strife a tower! What time our ships the Trojan fired, Thine arm to Greece the safety gave— The prize to which thy soul aspired, The crafty wrested from the brave.[3] Peace to thine ever-holy rest— Not thine to fall before the foe! Ajax alone laid Ajax low: Ah—wrath destroys the best!"

To his dead sire—(the Dorian king)— The bright-hair'd Pyrrhus[4] pours the wine:— "Of every lot that life can bring, My soul, great Father, prizes thine. Whate'er the goods of earth, of all, The highest and the holiest—FAME! For when the Form in dust shall fall, O'er dust triumphant lives the Name! Brave Man, thy light of glory never Shall fade, while song to man shall last; The Living, soon from earth are pass'd, 'THE DEAD—ENDURE FOR EVER!'"

"While silent in their grief and shame, The conquer'd hear the conqueror's praise," Quoth Tydeus' son, "let Hector's fame, In me, his foe, its witness raise! Who, battling for the altar-hearth, A brave defender, bravely fell— It takes not from the victor's worth, If honour with the vanquish'd dwell. Who falleth for the altar-hearth, A rock and a defence laid low, Shall leave behind him, in the foe, The lips that speak his worth!"

Lo, Nestor now, whose stately age Through threefold lives of mortals lives!— The laurel'd bowl, the kingly sage To Hector's tearful mother gives. "Drink—in the draught new strength is glowing, The grief it bathes forgets the smart! O Bacchus! wond'rous boons bestowing, Oh how thy balsam heals the heart! Drink—in the draught new vigour gloweth, The grief it bathes forgets the smart— And balsam to the breaking heart, The healing god bestoweth.

"As Niobe, when weeping mute, To angry gods the scorn and prey, But tasted of the charmed fruit, And cast despair itself away; So, while unto thy lips, its shore, This stream of life enchanted flows, Remember'd grief, that stung before, Sinks down to Lethe's calm repose. So, while unto thy lips, its shore, The stream of life enchanted flows— Drown'd deep in Lethe's calm repose, The grief that stung before!"

Seized by the god—behold the dark And dreaming Prophetess[5] arise! She gazes from the lofty bark, Where Home's dim vapour wraps the skies— "A vapour, all of human birth! As mists ascending, seen and gone, So fade earth's great ones from the earth, And leave the changeless gods alone! Behind the steed that skirs away, Or on the galley's deck—sits Care! To-morrow comes—and Life is where? At least—we'll live to-day!"

[2] Ulysses.

[3] Need we say to the general reader, that Oileus here alludes to the strife between Ajax and Ulysses, which has furnished a subject to the Greek tragic poet, who has depicted, more strikingly than any historian, that intense emulation for glory, and that mortal agony in defeat, which made the main secret of the prodigious energy of the Greek character? The poet, in taking his hero from the Homeric age, endowed him with the feelings of the Athenian republicans he addressed.

[4] Neoptolemus, the son of Achilles.

[5] Cassandra.

* * * * *



RUDOLPH OF HAPSBURG.—A BALLAD.

[Hinrichs properly classes this striking ballad (together with the yet grander one of the "Fight with the Dragon") amongst those designed to depict and exalt the virtue of Humility. The source of the story is in AEgidius Tschudi—a Swiss chronicler—and Schiller (who, as Hinrichs suggests,) probably met with it in the researches connected with the compositions of his drama, "William Tell," appears to have adhered, with much fidelity, to the original narrative.]

At Aachen, in imperial state, In that time-hallow'd hall renown'd, At solemn feast King Rudolf sate, The day that saw the hero crown'd! Bohemia and thy Palgrave, Rhine, Give this the feast, and that the wine; The Arch Electoral Seven, Like choral stars around the sun, Gird him whose hand a world has won, The anointed choice of Heaven.

In galleries raised above the pomp, Press'd crowd on crowd, their panting way; And with the joy-resounding tromp, Rang out the million's loud hurra! For closed at last the age of slaughter, When human blood was pour'd as water— LAW dawns upon the world![6] Sharp Force no more shall right the wrong, And grind the weak to crown the strong— War's carnage-flag is furl'd!

In Rudolf's hand the goblet shines— And gaily round the board look'd he; "And proud the feast, and bright the wines, My kingly heart feels glad to me! Yet where the lord of sweet desire, Who moves the heart beneath the lyre, And dulcet Sound Divine? Dear from my youth the craft of song, And what as knight I loved so long, As Kaisar, still be mine."

Lo, from the circle bending there, With sweeping robe the Bard appears, As silver, white his gleaming hair, Bleach'd by the many winds of years: "And music sleeps in golden strings— The minstrel's hire, the LOVE he sings; Well known to him the ALL High thoughts and ardent souls desire!— What would the Kaisar from the lyre Amidst the banquet-hall?"

The Great One smiled—"Not mine the sway— The minstrel owns a loftier power— A mightier king inspires the lay— Its hest—THE IMPULSE OF THE HOUR! As through wide air the tempests sweep, As gush the springs from mystic deep, Or lone untrodden glen; So from dark hidden fount within, Comes SONG, its own wild world to win Amidst the souls of men!"

Swift with the fire the minstrel glow'd, And loud the music swept the ear:— "Forth to the chase a Hero rode, To hunt the bounding chamois-deer: With shaft and horn the squire behind:— Through greensward meads the riders wind— A small sweet bell they hear. Lo, with the HOST, a holy man,— Before him strides the sacristan, And the bell sounds near and near.

The noble hunter down-inclined His reverent head and soften'd eye, And honour'd with a Christian's mind The Christ who loves humility! Loud through the pasture, brawls and raves A brook—the rains had fed the waves, And torrents from the hill. His sandal shoon the priest unbound, And laid the Host upon the ground, And near'd the swollen rill!

"What wouldst thou, priest?" the Count began, As, marvelling much, he halted there. "Sir Count, I seek a dying man, Sore hungering for the heavenly fare. The bridge that once its safety gave, Rent by the anger of the wave, Drifts down the tide below. Yet barefoot now, I will not fear (The soul that seeks its God, to cheer) Through the wild wave to go!"

He gave that priest the knightly steed, He reach'd that priest the lordly reins, That he might serve the sick man's need, Nor slight the task that heaven ordains. He took the horse the squire bestrode; On to the chase the hunter rode, On to the sick the priest! And when the morrow's sun was red, The servant of the Saviour led Back to its lord the beast.

"Now Heaven forefend," the hero cried, "That e'er to chase or battle more These limbs the sacred steed bestride, That once my Maker's image bore! But not for sale or barter given; Henceforth its Master is the Heaven— My tribute to that King, From whom I hold as fiefs, since birth, Honour, renown, the goods of earth, Life, and each living thing."

"So may the God who faileth never To hear the weak and guide the dim, To thee give honour here and ever, As thou hast duly honour'd Him! Far-famed ev'n now through Switzerland Thy generous heart and dauntless hand; And fair from thine embrace Six daughters bloom—six crowns to bring— Blest as the Daughters of a KING— The Mothers of a RACE!"

The mighty Kaisar heard amazed; His heart was in the days of old: Into the minstrel's eyes he gazed— That tale the Kaisar's own had told. Yes, in the bard, the priest he knew, And in the purple veil'd from view The gush of holy tears. A thrill through that vast audience ran, And every heart the godlike man, Revering God, reveres!

[6] Literally, "A judge (ein richter) was again upon the earth." The word substituted in the translation, is introduced in order to recall to the reader the sublime name given, not without justice, to Rudolf of Hapsburg, viz., "THE LIVING LAW."

* * * * *



THE WORDS OF ERROR.

Three errors there are, that for ever are found On the lips of the good, on the lips of the best; But empty their meaning and hollow their sound— And slight is the comfort they bring to the breast. The fruits of existence escape from the clasp Of the seeker who strives but these shadows to grasp—

So long as Man dreams of some Age in this life When the Right and the Good will all evil subdue; For the Right and the Good lead us ever to strife, And wherever they lead us, the Fiend will pursue. And (till from the earth borne, and stifled at length) The earth that he touches still gifts him with strength![7]

So long as Man fancies that Fortune will live, Like a bride with her lover, united with Worth; For her favours, alas! to the mean she will give— And Virtue possesses no title to earth! That Foreigner wanders to regions afar, Where the lands of her birthright immortally are!

So long as Man dreams that, to mortals a gift, The Truth in her fulness of splendour will shine; The veil of the goddess no earth-born may lift, And all we can learn is—to guess and divine! Dost thou seek, in a dogma, to prison her form? The spirit flies forth on the wings of the storm!

O, Noble Soul! fly from delusions like these, More heavenly belief be it thine to adore; Where the Ear never hearkens, the Eye never sees, Meet the rivers of Beauty and Truth evermore! Not without thee the streams—there the Dull seek them;—No! Look within thee—behold both the fount and the flow!

[7] This simile is nobly conceived, but expressed somewhat obscurely. As Hercules contended in vain against Antaeus, the Son of Earth,—so long as the Earth gave her giant offspring new strength in every fall,—so the soul contends in vain with evil—the natural earth-born enemy, while the very contact of the earth invigorates the enemy for the struggle. And as Antaeus was slain at last, when Hercules lifted him from the earth and strangled him while raised aloft, so can the soul slay the enemy, (the desire, the passion, the evil, the earth's offspring,) when bearing it from earth itself, and stifling it in the higher air.

* * * * *



THE WORDS OF BELIEF.

Three Words will I name thee—around and about, From the lip to the lip, full of meaning, they flee; But they had not their birth in the being without, And the heart, not the lip, must their oracle be! And all worth in the man shall for ever be o'er When in those Three Words he believes no more.

Man is made FREE!—Man, by birthright, is free, Though the tyrant may deem him but born for his tool. Whatever the shout of the rabble may be— Whatever the ranting misuse of the fool— Still fear not the Slave, when he breaks from his chain, For the Man made a Freeman grows safe in his gain.

And VIRTUE is more than a shade or a sound, And Man may her voice, in this being, obey; And though ever he slip on the stony ground, Yet ever again to the godlike way. Though her wisdom our wisdom may not perceive, Yet the childlike spirit can still believe.

And a GOD there is!—over Space, over Time, While the Human Will rocks, like a reed, to and fro, Lives the Will of the Holy—A Purpose Sublime, A Thought woven over creation below; Changing and shifting the All we inherit, But changeless through all One Immutable Spirit!

Hold fast the Three Words of Belief—though about From the lip to the lip, full of meaning they flee; Yet they take not their birth from the being without— But a voice from within must their oracle be; And never all worth in the Man can be o'er, Till in those Three Words he believes no more.

* * * * *



THE MIGHT OF SONG.

A rain-flood from the mountain-riven, It leaps, in thunder, forth to Day, Before its rush the crags are driven— The oaks uprooted, whirl'd away— Aw'd, yet in awe all wildly glad'ning, The startled wanderer halts below; He hears the rock-born waters mad'ning, Nor wits the source from whence they go,— So, from their high, mysterious Founts along, Stream on the silenc'd world the Waves of Song!

Knit with the threads of life, for ever, By those dread Powers that weave the woof,— Whose art the singer's spell can sever? Whose breast has mail to music proof? Lo, to the Bard, a wand of wonder The Herald[8] of the Gods has given: He sinks the soul the death-realm under, Or lifts it breathless up to heaven— Half sport, half earnest, rocking its devotion Upon the tremulous ladder of emotion.

As, when the halls of Mirth are crowded, Portentous, on the wanton scene— Some Fate, before from wisdom shrouded, Awakes and awes the souls of Men— Before that Stranger from ANOTHER, Behold how THIS world's great ones bow— Mean joys their idle clamour smother, The mask is vanish'd from the brow— And from Truth's sudden, solemn flag unfurl'd, Fly all the craven Falsehoods of the World!

So, rapt from every care and folly, When spreads abroad the lofty lay, The Human kindles to the Holy, And into Spirit soars the Clay! One with the Gods the Bard: before him All things unclean and earthly fly— Hush'd are all meaner powers, and o'er him The dark fate swoops unharming by; And while the Soother's magic measures flow, Smooth'd every wrinkle on the brows of Woe!

Even as a child that, after pining For the sweet absent mother—hears Her voice—and, round her neck entwining Young arms, vents all his soul in tears;— So, by harsh custom far estranged, Along the glad and guileless track, To childhood's happy home, unchanged, The swift song wafts the wanderer back— Snatch'd from the coldness of unloving Art To Nature's mother arms—to Nature's glowing heart!

[8] Hermes.

* * * * *



HONOUR TO WOMAN.

Honour to Woman! To her it is given To garden the earth with the roses of Heaven! All blessed, she linketh the Loves in their choir— In the veil of the Graces her beauty concealing, She tends on each altar that's hallow'd to Feeling, And keeps ever-living the fire!

From the bounds of Truth careering, Man's strong spirit wildly sweeps, With each hasty impulse veering, Down to Passion's troubled deeps. And his heart, contented never, Greeds to grapple with the Far, Chasing his own dream for ever, On through many a distant Star!

But Woman with looks that can charm and enchain, Lureth back at her beck the wild truant again, By the spell of her presence beguil'd— In the home of the Mother her modest abode, And modest the manners by Nature bestow'd On Nature's most exquisite child!

Bruised and worn, but fiercely breasting, Foe to foe, the angry strife; Man the Wild One, never resting, Roams along the troubled life; What he planneth, still pursuing; Vainly as the Hydra bleeds, Crest the sever'd crest renewing— Wish to wither'd wish succeeds.

But Woman at peace with all being, reposes, And seeks from the Moment to gather the roses— Whose sweets to her culture belong. Ah! richer than he, though his soul reigneth o'er The mighty dominion of Genius and Lore, And the infinite Circle of Song.

Strong, and proud, and self-depending, Man's cold bosom beats alone; Heart with heart divinely blending, In the love that Gods have known, Souls' sweet interchange of feeling, Melting tears—he never knows, Each hard sense the hard one steeling, Arms against a world of foes.

Alive, as the wind-harp, how lightly soever If woo'd by the Zephyr, to music will quiver, Is Woman to Hope and to Fear; Ah, tender one! still at the shadow of grieving, How quiver the chords—how thy bosom is heaving— How trembles thy glance through the tear!

Man's dominion, war and labour; Might to right the Statute gave; Laws are in the Scythian's sabre; Where the Mede reign'd—see the Slave! Peace and Meekness grimly routing, Prowls the War-lust, rude and wild; Eris rages, hoarsely shouting, Where the vanish'd Graces smil'd.

But Woman, the Soft One, persuasively prayeth— Of the Senses she charmeth, the sceptre she swayeth; She lulls, as she looks from above, The Discord whose Hell for its victims is gaping, And blending awhile the for-ever escaping, Whispers Hate to the Image of Love!

* * * * *



THE FIGHT WITH THE DRAGON.

Who comes?—why rushes fast and loud, Through lane and street the hurtling crowd, Is Rhodes on fire?—Hurrah!—along Faster and fast storms the throng! High towers a shape in knightly garb— Behold the Rider and the Barb! Behind is dragg'd a wondrous load; Beneath what monster groans the road? The horrid jaws—the Crocodile, The shape the mightier Dragon, shows— From Man to Monster all the while— The alternate wonder glancing goes.

Shout thousands, with a single voice, "Behold the Dragon, and rejoice, Safe roves the herd, and safe the swain! Lo!—there the Slayer—here the Slain! Full many a breast, a gallant life, Has waged against the ghastly strife, And ne'er return'd to mortal sight— Hurrah, then, for the Hero Knight!" So to the Cloister, where the vow'd And peerless Brethren of St John In conclave sit—that sea-like crowd, Wave upon wave, goes thundering on.

High o'er the rest, the chief is seen— There wends the Knight with modest mien; Pours through the galleries raised for all Above that Hero-council Hall, The crowd—And thus the Victor One:— "Prince—the knight's duty I have done. The Dragon that devour'd the land Lies slain beneath thy servant's hand; Free, o'er the pasture, rove the flocks— And free the idler's steps may stray— And freely o'er the lonely rocks, The holier pilgrim wends his way!"

A lofty look the Master gave, "Certes," he said; "thy deed is brave; Dread was the danger, dread the fight— Bold deeds bring fame to vulgar knight; But say, what sways with holier laws The knight who sees in Christ his cause, And wears the cross?"—Then every cheek Grew pale to hear the Master speak; But nobler was the blush that spread His face—the Victor's of the day— As bending lowly—"Prince," he said; "His noblest duty—TO OBEY!"

"And yet that duty, son," replied The chief, "methinks thou hast denied; And dared thy sacred sword to wield For fame in a forbidden field." "Master, thy judgment, howsoe'er It lean, till all is told, forbear— Thy law in spirit and in will, I had no thought but to fulfil. Not rash, as some, did I depart A Christian's blood in vain to shed; But hoped by skill, and strove by art, To make my life avenge the dead.

"Five of our Order, in renown The war-gems of our saintly crown, The martyr's glory bought with life; 'Twas then thy law forbade the strife. Yet in my heart there gnaw'd, like fire, Proud sorrow, fed with stern desire: In the still visions of the night, Panting, I fought the fancied fight; And when the morrow glimmering came, With tales of ravage freshly done, The dream remember'd, turn'd to shame, That night should dare what day should shun.

"And thus my fiery musings ran— 'What youth has learn'd should nerve the man; How lived the great in days of old, Whose Fame to time by bards is told— Who, heathens though they were, became As gods—upborne to heaven by fame? How proved they best the hero's worth? They chased the monster from the earth— They sought the lion in his den— They pierced the Cretan's deadly maze— Their noble blood gave humble men Their happy birthright—peaceful days.

"'What! sacred, but against the horde Of Mahound, is the Christian's sword? All strife, save one, should he forbear? No! earth itself the Christian's care— From every ill and every harm, Man's shield should be the Christian's arm. Yet art o'er strength will oft prevail, And mind must aid where heart may fail!' Thus musing, oft I roam'd alone, Where wont the Hell-born Beast to lie; Till sudden light upon me shone, And on my hope broke victory!

"Then, Prince, I sought thee with the prayer To breathe once more my native air; The license given—the ocean past— I reach'd the shores of home at last. Scarce hail'd the old beloved land, Than huge, beneath the artist's hand, To every hideous feature true, The Dragon's monster-model grew. The dwarf'd, deformed limbs upbore The lengthen'd body's ponderous load; The scales the impervious surface wore, Like links of burnish'd harness, glow'd.

"Life-like, the huge neck seem'd to swell, And widely, as some porch to hell You might the horrent jaws survey, Griesly, and greeding for their prey. Grim fangs an added terror gave, Like crags that whiten through a cave. The very tongue a sword in seeming— The deep-sunk eyes in sparkles gleaming. Where the vast body ends, succeed The serpent spires around it roll'd— Woe—woe to rider, woe to steed, Whom coils as fearful e'er enfold!

"All to the awful life was done— The very hue, so ghastly, won— The grey, dull tint:—the labour ceased, It stood—half reptile and half beast! And now began the mimic chase; Two dogs I sought, of noblest race, Fierce, nimble, fleet, and wont to scorn The wild bull's wrath and levell'd horn; These, docile to my cheering cry, I train'd to bound, and rend, and spring, Now round the Monster-shape to fly, Now to the Monster-shape to cling!

"And where their gripe the best assails, The belly left unsheath'd in scales, I taught the dexterous hounds to hang And find the spot to fix the fang; Whilst I, with lance and mailed garb, Launch'd on the beast mine Arab barb. From purest race that Arab came, And steeds, like men, are fired by fame. Beneath the spur he chafes to rage; Onwards we ride in full career— I seem, in truth, the war to wage— The monster reels beneath my spear!

"Albeit, when first the destrier[9] eyed The laidly thing, it swerved aside, Snorted and rear'd—and even they, The fierce hounds, shrank with startled bay; I ceased not, till, by custom bold, After three tedious moons were told, Both barb and hounds were train'd—nay, more, Fierce for the fight—then left the shore! Three days have fleeted since I prest (Return'd at length) this welcome soil, Nor once would lay my limbs to rest, Till wrought the glorious crowning toil.

"For much it moved my soul to know The unslack'ning curse of that grim foe. Fresh rent, mens' bones lay bleach'd and bare Around the hell-worm's swampy lair; And pity nerved me into steel:— Advice?—I had a heart to feel, And strength to dare! So, to the deed.— I call'd my squires—bestrode my steed, And with my stalwart hounds, and by Lone secret paths, we gaily go Unseen—at least by human eye— Against a worse than human foe!

"Thou know'st the sharp rock—steep and hoar?— The abyss?—the chapel glimmering o'er? Built by the Fearless Master's hand, The fane looks down on all the land. Humble and mean that house of prayer— Yet God hath shrined a wonder there:— Mother and Child, to whom of old The Three Kings knelt with gifts, behold! By three times thirty steps, the shrine The pilgrim gains—and faint, and dim, And dizzy with the height, divine Strength on the sudden springs to him!

"Yawns wide within that holy steep A mighty cavern dark and deep— By blessed sunbeam never lit— Rank foetid swamps engirdle it; And there by night, and there by day, Ever at watch, the fiend-worm lay, Holding the Hell of its abode Fast by the hallow'd House of God. And when the pilgrim gladly ween'd His feet had found the healing way, Forth from its ambush rush'd the fiend, And down to darkness dragg'd the prey.

"With solemn soul, that solemn height I clomb, ere yet I sought the fight— Kneeling before the cross within, My heart, confessing, clear'd its sin. Then, as befits the Christian knight, I donn'd the spotless surplice white, And, by the altar, grasp'd the spear:— So down I strode with conscience clear— Bade my leal squires afar the deed, By death or conquest crown'd, await— Leapt lightly on my lithesome steed, And gave to God his soldier's fate!

"Before me wide the marshes lay— Started the hounds with sudden bay— Aghast the swerving charger slanting Snorted—then stood abrupt and panting— For curling there, in coiled fold, The Unutterable Beast behold! Lazily basking in the sun. Forth sprang the dogs. The fight's begun! But lo! the hounds in cowering fly Before the mighty poison-breath— A yell, most like the jackall's cry, Howl'd, mingling with that wind of death!

"No halt—I gave one cheering sound; Lustily springs each dauntless hound— Swift as the dauntless hounds advance, Whirringly skirrs my stalwart lance— Whirringly skirrs; and from the scale Bounds, as a reed aslant the mail. Onward—but no!—the craven steed Shrinks from his lord in that dread need— Smitten and scared before that eye Of basilisk horror, and that blast Of death, it only seeks to fly— And half the mighty hope is past!

"A moment, and to earth I leapt; Swift from its sheath the falchion swept; Swift on that rock-like mail it plied— The rock-like mail the sword defied: The monster lash'd its mighty coil— Down hurl'd—behold me on the soil! Behold the hell-jaws gaping wide— When lo! they bound—the flesh is found; Upon the scaleless parts they spring! Springs either hound;—the flesh is found— It roars; the blood-dogs cleave and cling!

"No time to foil its fast'ning foes— Light, as it writhed, I sprang, and rose; The all-unguarded place explored, Up to the hilt I plunged the sword— Buried one instant in the blood— The next, upsprang the bubbling flood! The next, one Vastness spread the plain— Crush'd down—the victor with the slain; And all was dark—and on the ground My life, suspended, lost the sun, Till waking—lo my squires around— And the dead foe!—my tale is done."

Then burst, as from a common breast, The eager laud so long supprest— A thousand voices, choral-blending, Up to the vaulted dome ascending— From groined roof and banner'd wall, Invisible echoes answering all— The very Brethren, grave and high, Forget their state, and join the cry. "With laurel wreaths his brows be crown'd, Let throng to throng his triumph tell; Hail him all Rhodes!"—the Master frown'd, And raised his hand—and silence fell.

"Well," said that solemn voice, "thy hand From the wild-beast hath freed the land. An idol to the People be! A foe our Order frowns on thee! For in thy heart, superb and vain, A hell-worm laidlier than the slain, To discord which engenders death, Poisons each thought with baleful breath! That hell-worm is the stubborn Will— Oh! What were man and nations worth If each his own desire fulfil, And law be banish'd from the earth?

"Valour the Heathen gives to story— Obedience is the Christian's glory; And on that soil our Saviour-God As the meek low-born mortal trod. We the Apostle-knights were sworn To laws thy daring laughs to scorn— Not fame, but duty to fulfil— Our noblest offering—man's wild will. Vain-glory doth thy soul betray— Begone—thy conquest is thy loss: No breast too haughty to obey, Is worthy of the Christian's cross!"

From their cold awe the crowds awaken, As with some storm the halls are shaken; The noble brethren plead for grace— Mute stands the doom'd, with downward face; And mutely loosen'd from its band The badge, and kiss'd the Master's hand, And meekly turn'd him to depart: A moist eye follow'd, "To my heart Come back, my son!"—the Master cries: "Thy grace a harder fight obtains; When Valour risks the Christian's prize, Lo, how Humility regains!"

[In the ballad just presented to the reader, Schiller designed, as he wrote to Goethe, to depict the old Christian chivalry—half-knightly, half-monastic. The attempt is strikingly successful; and, even in so humble a translation, the unadorned simplicity and earnest vigour of a great poet, enamoured of his subject, may be sufficiently visible to a discerning critic. "The Fight of the Dragon" appears to us the most spirited and nervous of all Schiller's ballads, with the single exception of "The Diver;" and if its interest is less intense than that of the matchless "Diver," and its descriptions less poetically striking and effective, its interior meaning or philosophical conception is at once more profound and more elevated. The main distinction, indeed, between the ancient ballad and the modern, as revived and recreated by Goethe and Schiller, is, that the former is a simple narrative, and the latter a narrative which conveys some intellectual idea—some dim, but important truth. The one has but the good faith of the minstrel, the other the high wisdom of the poet. In "The Fight of the Dragon," is expressed the moral of that humility which consists in self-conquest—even merit may lead to vain-glory—and, after vanquishing the fiercest enemies without, Man has still to contend with his worst foe,—the pride or disobedience of his own heart. "Every one," as a recent and acute, but somewhat over-refining critic has remarked, "has more or less—his own 'fight with the Dragon,'—his own double victory (without and within) to achieve." The origin of this poem is to be found in the Annals of the Order of Malta—and the details may be seen in Vertot's History. The date assigned to the conquest of the Dragon is 1342. Helion de Villeneuve was the name of the Grand Master—that of the Knight, Dieu-Donne de Gozon. Thevenot declares, that the head of the monster, (to whatever species it really belonged,) or its effigies, was still placed over one of the gates of the city in his time.]

[9] War-horse.

* * * * *



REYNOLDS'S DISCOURSES. PART II.

Having shown that the standard of Taste is in the Truth of Nature, and that this truth is in the mind, Sir Joshua, in the Eighth Discourse, proceeds to a further development of the principles of art. These principles, whether poetry or painting, have their foundation in the mind; which by its sensitive faculties and intellectual requirements, remodels all that it receives from the external world, vivifying and characterizing all with itself, and thus bringing forth into light the more beautiful but latent creations of nature. The "activity and restlessness" of the mind seek satisfaction from curiosity, novelty, variety, and contrast. Curiosity, "the anxiety for the future, the keeping the event suspended," he considers to be exclusively the province of poetry, and that "the painter's art is more confined, and has nothing that corresponds with, or perhaps is equivalent to, this power and advantage of leading the mind on, till attention is totally engaged. What is done by painting must be done at one blow; curiosity has received at once all the satisfaction it can have." Novelty, variety, and contrast, however, belong to the painter. That poetry has this power, and operates by more extensively raising our curiosity, cannot be denied; but we hesitate in altogether excluding this power from painting. A momentary action may be so represented, as to elicit a desire for, and even an intimation of its event. It is true that curiosity cannot be satisfied, but it works and conjectures; and we suspect there is something of it in most good pictures. Take such a subject as the "Judgment of Solomon:" is not the "event suspended," and a breathless anxiety portrayed in the characters, and freely acknowledged by the sympathy of the spectator? Is there no mark of this "curiosity" in the "Cartoon of Pisa?" The trumpet has sounded, the soldiers are some half-dressed, some out of the water, others bathing; one is anxiously looking for the rising of his companion, who has just plunged in, and we see but his hands above the water; the very range of rocks, behind which the danger is shown to come, tends to excite our curiosity; we form conjectures of the enemy, their number, nearness of approach, and from among the manly warriors before us form episodes of heroism in the great intimated epic: and have we not seen pictures by Rembrandt, where "curiosity" delights to search unsatisfied and unsatiated into the mysteries of colour and chiaro-scuro, receding further as we look into an atmosphere pregnant with all uncertain things? We think we have not mistaken the President's meaning. Mr Burnet appears to agree with us: though he makes no remark upon the power of raising curiosity, yet it surely is raised in the very picture to which we presume he alludes, Raffaelle's "Death of Ananias;" the event, in Sapphira, is intimated and suspended. "Though," says Mr Burnet, "the painter has but one page to represent his story, he generally chooses that part which combines the most illustrative incidents with the most effective denouement of the event. In Raffaelle we often find not only those circumstances which precede it, but its effects upon the personages introduced after the catastrophe."

There is, however, a natural indolence of our disposition, which seeks pleasure in repose, and the resting in old habits, which must not be too violently opposed by "variety," "reanimating the attention, which is apt to languish under a continual sameness;" nor by "novelty," making "more forcible impression on the mind than can be made by the representation of what we have often seen before;" nor by "contrasts," that "rouse the power of comparison by opposition."

The mind, then, though an active principle, having likewise a disposition to indolence, (might we have said repose?) limits the quantity of variety, novelty, and contrast which it will bear;—these are, therefore, liable to excesses. Hence arise certain rules of art, that in a composition objects must not be too scattered and divided into many equal parts, that perplex and fatigue the eye, at a loss where to find the principal action. Nor must there be that "absolute unity," "which, consisting of one group or mass of light only, would be as defective as an heroic poem without episode, or any collateral incidents to recreate the mind with that variety which it always requires." Sir Joshua instances Rembrandt and Poussin, the former as having the defect of "absolute unity," the latter the defect of the dispersion and scattering his figures without attention to their grouping. Hence there must be "the same just moderation observed in regard to ornaments;" for a certain repose must never be destroyed. Ornament in profusion, whether of objects or colours, does destroy it; and, "on the other hand, a work without ornament, instead of simplicity, to which it makes pretensions, has rather the appearance of poverty." "We may be sure of this truth, that the most ornamental style requires repose to set off even its ornaments to advantage." He instances, in the dialogue between Duncan and Banquo, Shakspeare's purpose of repose—the mention of the martlets' nests, and that "where those birds most breed and haunt, the air is delicate;" and the practice of Homer, "who, from the midst of battles and horrors, relieves and refreshes the mind of the reader, by introducing some quiet rural image, or picture of familiar domestic life. The writers of every age and country, where taste has begun to decline, paint and adorn every object they touch; are always on the stretch; never deviate or sink a moment from the pompous and the brilliant."[10]

[10] Could Sir Joshua now be permitted to visit his own Academy, and our exhibitions in general, he would be startled at the excess of ornament, in defiance of his rule of repose, succeeding the slovenliness of his own day. Whatever be the subject, history, landscape, or familiar life, it superabounds both in objects and colour. In established academies, the faults of genius are more readily adopted than their excellences; they are more vulgarly perceptible, and more easy of imitation. We have, therefore, less hesitation in referring the more ambitious of our artists to this prohibition in Sir Joshua's Discourse. The greater the authority the more injurious the delinquency. We therefore adduce as examples, works of our most inventive and able artist, his "Macbeth" and his "Hamlet"—they are greatly overloaded with the faults of superabundance of ornament, and want unity; yet are they works of great power, and such as none but a painter of high genius could conceive or execute. In a more fanciful subject, and where ornament was more admissible, he has been more fortunate, and even in the multiplicity of his figures and ornaments, by their grouping and management, he has preserved a seeming moderation, and has so ordered his composition that the wholeness, the simplicity, of his subject is not destroyed. The story is told, and admirably—as Sir Joshua says, "at one blow." We speak of his "Sleeping Beauty." We see at once that the prince and princess are the principal, and they are united by that light and fainter fairy chain intimating, yet not too prominently, the magic under whose working and whose light the whole scene is; nothing can be better conceived than the prince—there is a largeness in the manner, a breadth in the execution of the figure that considerably dignifies the story, and makes him, the principal, a proper index of it. The many groups are all episodes, beautiful in themselves, and in no way injure the simplicity. There is novelty, variety, and contrast in not undue proportion, because that simplicity is preserved. Even the colouring, (though there is too much white,) and chiaro-scuro, with its gorgeousness, is in the stillness of repose, and a sunny repose, too, befitting the "Sleeping Beauty." Mr Maclise has succeeded best where his difficulty and danger were greatest, and so it ever is with genius. It is not in such subjects alone that our artists transgress Sir Joshua's rule; we too often see portraits where the dress and accessaries obtrude—there is too much lace and too little expression—and our painters of views follow the fashion most unaccountably—ornament is every where; we have not a town where the houses are not "turned out of windows," and all the furniture of every kind piled up in the streets; and as if to show a pretty general bankruptcy, together with the artist's own poverty, you would imagine an auction going on in every other house, by the Turkey carpets and odds and ends hanging from the windows. We have even seen a "Rag Fair" in a turnpike road.

Novelty, Variety, and Contrast are required in Art, because they are the natural springs that move the mind to attention from its indolent quiescence; but having moved, their duty is performed—the mind of itself will do the rest; they must not act prominent parts. In every work there must be a simplicity which binds the whole together, as a whole; and whatever comes not within that girdle of the graces, is worse than superfluous—it draws off and distracts the attention which should be concentrated. Besides that simplicity which we have spoken of—and we have used the word in its technical sense, as that which keeps together and makes one thing of many parts—there is a simplicity which is best known by its opposite, affectation; upon this Sir Joshua enlarges. "Simplicity, being a negative virtue, cannot be described or defined." But it is possible, even in avoiding affectation, to convert simplicity into the very thing we strive to avoid. N. Poussin—whom, with regard to this virtue, he contrasts with others of the French school—Sir Joshua considers, in his abhorrence of the affectation of his countrymen, somewhat to approach it, by "what in writing would be called pedantry." Du Piles is justly censured for his recipe of grace and dignity. "If," says he, "you draw persons of high character and dignity, they ought to be drawn in such an attitude that the portraits must seem to speak to us of themselves, and as it were to say to us, 'Stop, take notice of me—I am the invincible king, surrounded by majesty.' 'I am the valiant commander who struck terror every where,' 'I am that great minister, who knew all the springs of politics.' 'I am that magistrate of consummate wisdom and probity.'" This is indeed affectation, and a very vulgar notion of greatness. We are reminded of Partridge, and his admiration of the overacting king. All the characters in thus seeming to say, would be little indeed. Not so Raffaelle and Titian understood grace and dignity. Simplicity he holds to be "our barrier against that great enemy to truth and nature, affectation, which is ever clinging to the pencil, and ready to drop and poison every thing it touches." Yet that, "when so very inartificial as to seem to evade the difficulties of art, is a very suspicious virtue." Sir Joshua dwells much upon this, because he thinks there is a perpetual tendency in young artists to run into affectation, and that from the very terms of the precepts offered them. "When a young artist is first told that his composition and his attitudes must be contrasted; that he must turn the head contrary to the position of the body, in order to produce grace and animation; that his outline must be undulating and swelling, to give grandeur; and that the eye must be gratified with a variety of colours; when he is told this with certain animating words of spirit, dignity, energy, greatness of style, and brilliancy of tints, he becomes suddenly vain of his newly-acquired knowledge, and never thinks he can carry those rules too far. It is then that the aid of simplicity ought to be called in to correct the exuberance of youthful ardour." We may add that hereby, too, is shown the danger of particular and practical rules; very few of the kind are to be found in the "Discourses." Indeed the President points out, by examples from Raffaelle, the good effect of setting aside these academical rules. We suspect that they are never less wanted than when they give direction to attitudes and forms of action. He admits that, in order "to excite attention to the more manly, noble, and dignified manner," he had perhaps left "an impression too contemptuous of the ornamental parts of our art." He had, to use his own expression, bent the bow the contrary way to make it straight. "For this purpose, then, and to correct excess or neglect of any kind, we may here add, that it is not enough that a work be learned—it must be pleasing." Pretty much as Horace had said of poetry,

"Non satis est pulchra esse poemata, dulcia sunto."

To which maxim the Latin poet has unconsciously given the grace of rhyme—

"Et quocunque volent animum auditoris agunto."

He again shows the danger of particular practical rules.—"It is given as a rule by Fresnoy, that 'the principal figure of a subject must appear in the midst of the picture, under the principal light, to distinguish it from the rest.' A painter who should think himself obliged strictly to follow this rule, would encumber himself with needless difficulties; he would be confined to great uniformity of composition, and be deprived of many beauties which are incompatible with its observance. The meaning of this rule extends, or ought to extend, no further than this: that the principal figure should be immediately distinguished at the first glance of the eye; but there is no necessity that the principal light should fall on the principal figure, or that the principal figure should be in the middle of the picture." He might have added that it is the very place where generally it ought not to be. Many examples are given; we could have wished he had given a plate from any one in preference to that from Le Brun. Felebein, in praising this picture, according to preconceived recipe, gives Alexander, who is in shade, the principal light. "Another instance occurs to me where equal liberty may be taken in regard to the management of light. Though the general practice is to make a large mass about the middle of the picture surrounded by shadow, the reverse may be practised, and the spirit of the rule be preserved." We have marked in italics the latter part of the sentence, because it shows that the rule itself must be ill-defined or too particular. Indeed, we receive with caution all such rules as belong to the practical and mechanical of the art. He instances Paul Veronese. "In the great composition of Paul Veronese, the 'Marriage of Cana,' the figures are for the most part in half shadow. The great light is in the sky; and indeed the general effect of this picture, which is so striking, is no more than what we often see in landscapes, in small pictures of fairs and country feasts: but those principles of light and shadow, being transferred to a large scale, to a space containing near a hundred figures as large as life, and conducted, to all appearance, with as much facility, and with attention as steadily fixed upon the whole together, as if it were a small picture immediately under the eye, the work justly excites our admiration, the difficulty being increased as the extent is enlarged." We suspect that the rule, when it attempts to direct beyond the words Sir Joshua has marked in italics, refutes itself, and shackles the student. Infinite must be the modes of composition, and as infinite the modes of treating them in light and shadow and colour. "Whatever mode of composition is adopted, every variety and license is allowable." All that is absolutely necessary is, that there be no confusion or distraction, no conflicting masses—in fact, that the picture tell its tale at once and effectually. A very good plate is given by Mr Burnet of the "Marriage of Cana," by Paul Veronese. Sir Joshua avoids entering upon rules that belong to "the detail of the art." He meets with combatants, as might have been expected, where he is thus particular. We will extract the passage which has been controverted, and to oppose the doctrine of which, Gainsborough painted his celebrated "Blue Boy."

"Though it is not my business to enter into the detail of our art, yet I must take this opportunity of mentioning one of the means of producing that great effect which we observe in the works of the Venetian painters, as I think it is not generally known or observed, that the masses of light in a picture be always of a warm mellow colour, yellow red or yellowish white; and that the blue, the grey, or the green colours be kept almost entirely out of these masses, and be used only to support and set off these warm colours; and for this purpose a small proportion of cold colours will be sufficient. Let this conduct be reversed; let the light be cold, and the surrounding colours warm, as we often see in the works of the Roman and Florentine painters, and it will be out of the power of art, even in the hands of Rubens or Titian, to make a picture splendid and harmonious." Le Brun and Carlo Maratti are censured as being "deficient in this management of colours." The "Bacchus and Ariadne," now in our National Gallery, has ever been celebrated for its harmony of colour. Sir Joshua supports his theory or rule by the example of this picture: the red of Ariadne's scarf, which, according to critics, was purposely given to relieve the figure from the sea, has a better object. "The figure of Ariadne is separated from the great group, and is dressed in blue, which, added to the colour of the sea, makes that quantity of cold colour which Titian thought necessary for the support and brilliancy of the great group; which group is composed, with very little exception, entirely of mellow colours. But as the picture in this case would be divided into two distinct parts, one half cold and the other warm, it was necessary to carry some of the mellow colours of the great group into the cold part of the picture, and a part of the cold into the great group; accordingly Titian gave Ariadne a red scarf, and to one of the Bacchantes a little blue drapery." As there is no picture more splendid, it is well to weigh and consider again and again remarks upon the cause of the brilliancy, given by such an authority as Sir Joshua Reynolds. With regard to his rule, even among artists, "adhuc sub judice lis est." He combats the common notion of relief, as belonging only to the infancy of the art, and shows the advance made by Coreggio and Rembrandt; though the first manner of Coreggio, as well as of Leonardo da Vinci and Georgione, was dry and hard. "But these three were among the first who began to correct themselves in dryness of style, by no longer considering relief as a principal object. As these two qualities, relief and fulness of effect, can hardly exist together, it is not very difficult to determine to which we ought to give the preference." "Those painters who have best understood the art of producing a good effect, have adopted one principle that seems perfectly conformable to reason—that a part may be sacrificed for the good of the whole. Thus, whether the masses consist of light or shadow, it is necessary that they should be compact, and of a pleasing shape; to this end some parts may be made darker and some lighter, and reflections stronger than nature would warrant." He instances a "Moonlight" by Rubens, now, we believe, in the possession of Mr Rogers, in which Rubens had given more light and more glowing colours than we recognize in nature,—"it might easily be mistaken, if he had not likewise added stars, for a fainter setting sun." We stop not to enquire if that harmony so praised, might not have been preserved had the resemblance to nature been closer. Brilliancy is produced. The fact is, the practice of art is a system of compensation. We cannot exactly in all cases represent nature,—we have not the means, but our means will achieve what, though particularly unlike, may, by itself or in opposition, produce similar effects. Nature does not present a varnished polished surface, nor that very transparency that our colours can give; but it is found that this transparency, in all its degrees, in conjunction and in opposition to opaque body of colour, represents the force of light and shade of nature, which is the principal object to attain. The richness of nature is not the exact richness of the palette. The painter's success is in the means of compensation.

This Discourse concludes with observations on the Prize pictures. The subject seems to have been the Sacrifice of Iphigenia. All had copied the invention of Timanthes, in hiding the face of Agamemnon. Sir Joshua seems to agree with Mr Falconet, in a note in his translation of Pliny, who would condemn the painter, but that he copied the idea from the authority of Euripides; Sir Joshua considers it at best a trick, that can only with success be practised once. Mr Fuseli criticises the passage, and assumes that the painter had better reason than that given by Mr Falconet. Mr Burnet has added but two or three notes to this Discourse—they are unimportant, with the exception of the last, wherein he combats Sir Joshua's theory of the cold and warm colours. He candidly prints an extract of a letter from Sir Thomas Lawrence, who differs with him. It is so elegantly written that we quote the passage. Sir Thomas says,—"Agreeing with you in so many points, I will venture to differ from you in your question with Sir Joshua. Infinitely various as nature is, there are still two or three truths that limit her variety, or, rather, that limit art in the imitation of her. I should instance for one the ascendency of white objects, which can never be departed from with impunity, and again, the union of colour with light. Masterly as the execution of that picture is (viz. the Boy in a blue dress,) I always feel a never-changing impression on my eye, that the "Blue Boy" of Gainsborough is a difficulty boldly combated, not conquered. The light blue drapery of the Virgin in the centre of the "Notte" is another instance; a check to the harmony of the celestial radiance round it." "Opposed to Sir Thomas's opinion," says Mr Burnet, "I might quote that of Sir David Wilkie, often expressed, and carried out in his picture of the 'Chelsea Pensioners' and other works." It strikes us, from our recollection of the "Chelsea Pensioners," that it is not at all a case in point; the blue there not being light but dark, and serving as dark, forcibly contrasting with warmer light in sky and other objects; the colour of blue is scarcely given, and is too dark to be allowed to enter into the question. He adds, "A very simple method may be adopted to enable the student to perceive where the warm and red colours are placed by the great colourists, by his making a sketch of light and shade of the picture, and then touching in the warm colours with red chalk; or by looking on his palette at twilight, he will see what colours absorb the light, and those that give it out, and thus select for his shadows, colours that have the property of giving depth and richness." Unless the pictures are intended to be seen at twilight, we do not see how this can bear upon the question; if it does, we would notice what we have often observed, that at twilight blue almost entirely disappears, to such a degree that in a landscape where the blue has even been deep, and the sky by no means the lightest part of the picture, at twilight the whole landscape comes out too hard upon the sky, which with its colour has lost its tone, and become, with relation to the rest, by far too light. It is said that of all the pictures in the National Gallery, when seen at twilight, the Coreggios retire last—we speak of the two, the "Ecce Homo" and the "Venus, Mercury, and Cupid." In these there is no blue but in the drapery of the fainting mother, and that is so dark as to serve for black or mere shadow; the lighter blue close upon the neck is too small to affect the power of the picture. It certainly is a fact, that blue fades more than any colour at twilight, and, relatively speaking, leaves the image that contains it lighter. We should almost be inclined to ask the question, though with great deference to authority, is blue, when very light, necessarily cold; and if so, has it not an activity which, being the great quality of light, assimilates it with light, and thus takes in to itself the surrounding "radiance?" A very little positive warm colour, as it were set in blue, from whatever cause, gives it a surprising glow. We desire to see the theory of colours treated, not with regard to their corresponding harmony in their power one upon the other, nor in their light and shadow, but, if we may so express it, in their sentimentality—the effect they are capable of in moving the passions. We alluded to this in our last paper, and the more we consider the subject, the more we convinced that it is worth deeper investigation.