Imágenes de páginas
PDF
EPUB

the poor youth neither stopped nor stayed, till he had reached and pass ed into the shade of the alley of trees that leads to the gardens-his original destination, as he sallied forth from his own unlightsome rooms. And scarcely, even now, did he venture to look up, or around him. The eruption from the basket, the air-dance of cakes and apples, continued still before his eyes. In the sounds of distant glee he heard but a vibration of the inhuman multitudinous horse-laugh (ávápidμov yeraoμa) at the street corner. Yea, the restrained smile, or the merry glance of pausing or passing damsel, were but a dimmer reflection of the beldam's huggish grin. He was now at the entrance gate. Group after group, all in holiday attire, streamed forward. The music of the wind instruments sounded from the gallery; and louder and thicker came the din of the merry-makers from the walks, alcoves, and saloon. At the very edge of the rippling tide, I once saw a bag-net lying, and a poor fascinated haddock with its neb through one of the meshes: and once from the garrison at Villette, I witnessed a bark of Greece, a goodly Idriote, tall, and lustily manned; its white dazzling cotton sails all filled out with the breeze, and even now gliding into the grand port, (Porto Grande,) forced to turn about and beat round into the sullen harbour of quarantine. Hapless Maxilian! the havens of pleasure have their quarantine, and repel with no less aversion the plague of poverty. The Prattique boat hails, and where is his bill of health? In the possession of the Corsair. Then first he recovered his thoughts and senses sufficiently to remember that he had given away-to comprehend and feel the whole weight of his loss. And if a bitter curse on his malignant star gave a wildness to the vexation, with which he looked upward,

Let us not blame him: for against such

chances

The heartiest strife of manhood is scarce proof.

We

We may read constancy and fortitude To other souls-but had ourselves been struck,

Even in the height and heat of our keen wishing,

It might have made our heart-strings jar, like his !

VOL. XI.

Old Play.

Hapless Maxilian! hard was the struggle between the tears that were swelling into his eyes and the manly shame that would fain restrain them. Whitsunday was the high holiday of the year for him, the family festival from which he had counted and chronicled his years from childhood upwards. With this vision before him, he had confined himself for the last four or five weeks to those feasts of hope and fancy, from which the guest is sure to rise with an improved appetite: and yet had put into his purse a larger proportion of his scanty allowance than was consistent with the humblest claims of the months ensuing. But the Whitsunday, the alba dies, comes but once a-year-to keep it, to give it honour due, he had pinched close, and worked hard. Yes, he was resolved to make much of himself, to indulge his genius, even to a bottle of claret,—a plate of French olives, or should he meet, as was not improbable, his friend, Hunshman, the Professor of Languages—i. e. a middle-aged German, who taught French and Italian: excellent, moreover, in pork, hams, and sausages, though the anti-judiac part of the concern, the pork shop, was ostensibly managed by Mrs Hunshman, and since her decease, by Miss Lusatia, his daughter-or should he fall in with the Professor, and the fair Lusatia, why then, a bowl of Arrack punch, (it is the ladies' favourite, he had heard the Professor say, adding with a smile, that the French called it contradiction)—Yes, a bowl of punch, a pipe-his friend, a townsman and maternal descendant of the celebrated Jacob Behmen, had taught him to smoke, and was teaching him Theosophy-coffee, and a glass of Inniskillen to crown the solemnity. In this broken and parenthetic form did the bill of fare ferment in the anticipator's brain and in the same form, with some little interpolation, by way of gloss, for the Reader's information, have we, sacrificing elegance of style to faith of History, delivered it.

Maxilian was no ready accountant; but he had acted over the whole expenditure, had rehearsed it in detail, from the admission to the concluding shilling and pence thrown down with an uncounting air for the waiter. Voluptuous Youth!

But, ah! that fatal incursion on the

B

apple-basket—all was lost! The brimming cup had even touched his lipsit left its froth on them, when it was dashed down, untasted, from his hand. The music, the gay attires, the tripping step and friendly nod of woman, the volunteer service, the rewarding smile-perhaps, the permitted pressure of the hand felt warm and soft within the glove-all shattered, as so many bubbles, by that one malignant shock! In fits and irregular pulses of locomotion, hurrying yet lingering, he forced himself alongside the gate, and with many a turn, heedless whither he went, if only he left the haunts and houses of men behind him, he reached at length the solitary banks of the streamlet that pours itself into the bay south of the Liffey. Close by, stood the rude and massy fragment of an inclosure, or rather the angle where the walls met that had once protected a now deserted garden,

"And still where many a garden-flower

grew wild."

Here, beneath a bushy elder-tree, that
had shot forth from the crumbling ruin,
something higher than midway from
the base, he found a grassy couch, a
sofa or ottoman of sods, overcrept with
wild-sage and camomile. Of all his
proposed enjoyments, one only remain-
ed, the present of his friend, itself al-
most a friend-a Meerschaum pipe,
whose high and ample bole was filled
and surmounted by tobacco of Lusa-
tian growth, made more fragrant by
folded leafits of spicy or balsamic plants.
For a thing was dear to Maxilian, not
for what it was, but for that which it
represented or recalled to him: and
often, while his eye was passing,
"O'er hill and dale, thro' CLOUDLAND,

gorgeous land!"

had his spirit clomb the heights of
Imaus, and descended into the vales of
Iran, on a pilgrimage to the sepulchre
of Hafiz, or the bowers of Mosellara.
Close behind him plashed and mur-
mured the companiable stream, beyond
which the mountains of Wicklow hung
floating in the dim horizon: while full
before him rose the towers and pinna-
cles of the metropolis, now softened
and airy-light, as though they had
been the sportive architecture of air
and sunshine. Yet Maxilian heard not,
saw not-or, worse still,

He saw them all, how excellently fair-
He saw,
not felt, how beautiful they were.

The pang was too recent, the blow too
sudden. Fretfully striking the fire-
spark into the nitred sponge, with
glazed eye idly fixed, he transferred
the kindled fragment to his pipe. True
it is, and under the conjunction of
friendlier orbs, when, like a captive
king, beside the throne of his youthful
conqueror, Saturn had blended his sul-
len shine with the subduing influences
of the star of Jove, often had Maxilian
experienced its truth-that

The poet in his lone yet genial hour
Gives to his eye a magnifying power:
Or rather he emancipates his eyes
From the black shapeless accidents of
size-

In unctuous cones of kindling coal,
Or smoke upwreathing from the pipe's
trim bole,

His gifted ken can see
Phantoms of sublimity.
MSS.

But the force and frequence with its successive volumes, were better suitwhich our student now commingled ed, in their effects, to exclude the actual landscape, than to furnish tint or canvas for ideal shapings. Like Discontent, from amid a cloudy shrine of her own outbreathing, he at length gave vent and utterance to his feelings in sounds more audible than articulate, and which at first resembled notes of passion more nearly than parts of speech, but gradually shaped themselves into words, in the following soliloquy:

"Yes! I am born to all mishap and misery!-that is the truth of it! -Child and boy, when did it fall to my lot to draw king or bishop on Twelfth Night? Never! Jerry Sneak or Nincompoop, to a dead certainty! When did I ever drop my bread and butter-and it seldom got cuit-but it fell on the buttered side? to my mouth without some such cirWhen did I ever cry, Head! but it fell tail? Did I ever once ask, Even or odd, but I lost? And no wonder ; for I was sure to hold the marbles so awkwardly, that the boy could count them between my fingers! But this is to laugh at! though in my life I could never descry much mirth in any laugh I ever set up at my own vexations, past or present. And that's another step-dame trick of Destiny! My shames are all immortal! I do believe, Nature stole me from my proper home, and made a blight of me, that I might not be owned again! For I never get

older. Shut my eyes, and I can find no more difference between eighteen me and eight me, than between to-day and yesterday! But I will not remember the miseries that dogged my earlier years, from the day I was first breeched! (Nay, the casualties, tears, and disgraces of that day I never can forget.) Let them pass, however school-tide and holiday-tide, school hours and play hours, griefs, blunders, and mischances. For all these I might pardon my persecuting Nemesis! Yea, I would have shaken hands with her,

as forgivingly as I did with that sworn familiar of hers, and Usher of the Black Rod, my old schoolmaster, who used to read his newspaper, when I was horsed, and flog me between the paragraphs! I would forgive her, I say, if, like him, she would have taken leave of me at the School Gate. But now, vir et togatus, a seasoned academic-that now, that still, that evermore, I should be the whipping-stock of Destiny, the laughing-stock of Fortune." *

*

*

[WE must take Mr COLERIDGE as he chooses to offer himself. We certainly expected to have had a great deal more of this article for the present Number, when we sent the MS. to our Printer; but we suppose it may very safely be taken for granted that nobody will complain of us for opening our monthly sheets with a fragment indeed—but such a fragment as we are sure nobody but Mr Coleridge could have written.

In case there should be any reader of ours unfortunate enough never to have read Mr Coleridge's FRIEND, we strongly advise him to betake himself to that singular Storehouse of scattered genius, and make himself master of the beautiful letters in which the early history of Idoloclastes Satyrane's mind is displayed. He will then come with infinitely more advantage to the Historie and Gests of Maxilian, and their rich Prologomena.

Mr Coleridge will be behaving himself "something amiss," if we have not the continuation of these "Select Chapters" ere next month.

C. N.]

SONNET.

HAST thou, in feverish and unquiet sleep,
Dreamt that some merciless dæmon of the air
Raised thee aloft, and held thee by the hair,
Over the brow of a down-looking steep,
Gaping below into a chasm so deep,

That by the utmost straining of thine eye,
Thou canst no base, no resting-place descry;
Not even a bush to save thee, should'st thou sweep
Adown the black descent-that then the hand
Suddenly parted thee, and left thee there,
Holding but by the finger-tips, the bare
And jagged ridge above-that seems as sand,
To crumble 'neath thy touch ?—If so, I deem
That thou hast had rather an ugly dream.

THE NIGHT-BLOWING STOCK.

"COME! look at this plant, with its narrow pale leaves,
And its tall, slim, delicate stem,

Thinly studded with flowers-yes, with flowers-there they are,
Don't you see, at each joint there's a little brown star?
But in truth, there's no beauty in them."

"So, you ask, why I keep it, the little mean thing! Why I stick it up here just in sight?

'Tis a fancy of mine."-" A strange fancy!" you say, "No accounting for tastes-In this instance you may, For the flower-but I'll tell you to-night..

"Some six hours hence, when the Lady Moon
Looks down on that bastion'd wall,

When the twinkling stars dance silently
On the rippling surface of the sea,
And the heavy night dews fall,

"Then meet me again in this casement niche,
On the spot where we're standing now,
Nay, question not wherefore-perhaps with me
To look out on the night, and the bright broad sea,
And to hear its majestic flow."

"Well, we're met here again; and the moonlight sleeps
On the sea and the bastion'd wall;

And the flowers there below-how the night wind brings
Their delicious breath on its dewy wings!"

"But there's one," say you, "sweeter than all!"

"Which is it? the myrtle or jessamine,

Or their sovereign lady, the rose?

Or the heliotrope, or the virgin's bower?

What! neither!"-" Oh no, 'tis some other flower,
Far sweeter than either of those."

"Far sweeter! and where, think you, groweth the plant
That exhaleth such perfume rare?"

"Look about, up and down, but take care, or you'll break
With your elbow that poor little thing that's so weak."-
"Why, 'tis that smells so sweet, I declare!"

"Ah ha! is it that?-have you found out now Why I cherish that odd little fright?

All is not gold that glitters, you know;

And it is not all worth makes the greatest show,
In the glare of the strongest light.

"There are human flowers, full many, I trow,
As unlovely as that by your side,
That a common observer passeth by,
With a scornful lip, and a careless eye,
In the hey-day of pleasure and pride.

which gave a certain cynical animation to his manner, altogether overwhelming and unpleasing. While Edward was coolly revolving in his mind the apparent accuracy of the reported character of his commander, to the living figure before him, the clerk of the cheque came on board, and the boatswain immediately piped All hands to muster, hoy!

No sooner was the clerk gone, than the Captain, ordering all hands aft the mainmast, took his station at the capstan, and began the following speech: "It has pleased the Lords Commissioners of the Admiralty, my lads, to bestow the command of this hooker on me; and as we are to be together in future, I hope we shall agree well, and be good friends. I must, however, say, that I am determined to have nothing from you but strict, steady, good discipline. I hold in my hands the Articles of War, which are to be, in future, the rules of every man's conduct; and it shall be my fault if they are not strictly enforced; but as most of you already know them, I shall refrain from reading them at this time, certain as I am, that those among you who have never heard them, will, very likely, think they hear them soon enough. Two things, however, I must mention; for, by the sacred Power that made me, I am determined to enforce them with the utmost strictness, and to punish all aggressors without mercy. The first of these things is, I never will forgive a thief; and the second, I never will forgive a drunkard. Now, pay attention, my lads; I say I never will forgive e'er a one of you who turns out to be either a thief or a drunkard. No-so help me God, I will punish a thief in the severest manner wherever I catch him; ay, though I should leave my cott, and burn an inch of candle at it. Regarding drunkenness, my lads, I will take another way. You all know it to be a low, lubberly, beastly crime, to which, God knows, we are all liable enough at times; I mean, therefore, to make this one exception to its universal punishment. If it is committed by any one of you, while we are in harbour, I pledge you my honour, I will be at some pains in considering the offender's general character; and, as he performs his duty at sea, so shall he have every reasonable allowance given him.

But always bear in mind, my lads, that this great indulgence I will only allow to good steady men in harbour; for no person whatever shall escape the most rigorous punishment I can think of at sea.

[ocr errors]

Now, my lads, although I know that it is not common for officers like me, commanding his Majesty's vessels of war, to condescend to explain to their crew their motives for either this or that punishment, I will yet be so honest with you as to tell you, that I have very weighty reasons for punishing both these crimes severely. We sail to-morrow, please God, for the North Sea station; and when you know that it is one which requires the utmost steadiness, good conduct, and sobriety, both from the variableness of the climate, and the intricacy of its occasional navigation, I am certain you cannot fail of perceiving my reasons for the punishment of drunkenness ; since it principally proceeds on a determination I have long ago formed, that every man, while God grants him health, shall always keep himself in a state fit for duty, and not trundle his labour on the shoulders of some other poor fellow, who has no manner of business with it; while he, forsooth, is either pigging it below, under his mess-table, or else scampering the decks like a fool and a madman, creating confusion, disorder, and mutiny wherever he comes. Again, when you recollect how very short most of you are in the necessary rigging for a North Sea winter, you certainly can neither think me harsh nor cruel, in severely punishing the scoundrel who would deprive e'er a one of you of the most trifling article of wearing apparel. I would ill perform my own duty were I to do otherwise; and it's a long look forward before pay-day appears.

"You now know my mind, my lads, on the two principal points I ever mean to quarrel with you on. I am going on shore to take leave of my friends; and as some of your old messmates may wish to see you before we go, I mean you all to be as merry as myself; and I shall accordingly leave orders for you to receive a double allowance of grog to-day, with which you may drink his Majesty's health, and a good cruize to us-if you have any left after that is done, you may add my health, and the rest of your

« AnteriorContinuar »