Spirit of the English Magazines

1157

Its silver beams rest on the tombs,

But enter not the grave's confines; There neither sun nor moonlight shines, But blackest night for ever dwells.

The joy and grief of ages past,

The father's hope, the widow's stay,
The fear, and hopes of former day,
Are mingled in one common mass.

Why are the dead reserv'd with care?
I see each narrow house confin'd
Or with the briar or willow bind,
Or marble monument inscrib'd?

"Tis the bright hope the Bible gives,
That Death shall render back his slain,
And all the dead shall live again,
That teaches thus to guard their dust.

This storehouse of the dead shall ope,

And all that sleep in dust shall wake; When the archangel's trump shall shake The deep foundations of the earth.

DANIEL COPSEY.

Braintree; May 29, 1816.

From the New Monthly Magazine:
RETIREMENT.

Poetry.

By the late ALFRED POINTZ SANDERSON.

[The following lines are the production of a young gentleman now no more! Though written before he had attained his twentieth year, they discover a correct taste, united with a fine imagination. We find in them none of those laboured ornaments--none of those pompous and fantastic epithets which usually load juvenile performances. A chaste simplicity, every where supported by elegance, is (if my prejudices do not mislead me) their distinguishing character. They address the heart by the tenderness of their sentiments and recommend themselves to the taste by the purity of their style. The youth who has given this early display of genius was a native of Northleach, in Gloucestershire, and received a part of his education at the Free School there, of which his father was head-master. About the age of thirteen, he had the misfortune to lose his father, who died of an apoplexy, soon after he had obtained some church preferment. The destitute situation of the family, occasioned by this event, drew upon them the benevolent attention of the late Dowager Lady Spencer, who adorned high life by the lustre of her virtues. Under her patronage, the subject of this brief memoir was sent to Pembroke College, Oxford, where he pursued his studies with an

[116

of a blood-vessel, occasioned by too violent
exercise, closed the earthly scene of this amia-
ble and ingenious young man, at the age of
twenty-two.---CRITO.]

WEET ev'ning star! whose placid ray
"With soft sensations moves my heart,
Indulge thy vot'ry's pensive lay;
O hear a song devoid of art!"

Hush'd are the woods, the groves, the vales,
A sacred stillness breathes o'er all;
While soft o'er hills and dewy dales

The mellow beams of moon-light fall.
Calm'd are my thoughts, no wild'ring woes
Within my tranquil bosom rage;
Might I enjoy such sweet repose,

From life's gay morn to closing age!
No fame I wish, no wealth require,
No sigh for grandeur heaves my breast;
RETIREMENT's shade 's my sole desire,
My only wish domestic rest!
Do they who climb AMBITION's height,
Who eager grasp at scepter'd power,
Feel that still flow of fix'd delight,

That soothes the swain's unruffled hour?'

Safe in life's vale, from harsh alarms,
He tarns to bliss whate'er he sees;
Him NATURE's Sweetly simple charms,
And all her varying scenes can please.
Dear to my heart the village green,
When drest in EV'NING'S pensive beams
O may I there, unknown, unseen,

Feel sorrow but in FANCY's dreams!
Yes! may my life there glide away,
Smooth as the stream that murmurs near
And from my home, if e'er I stray,

May all I see that home endear!
When death shall close my wearied eyes,

And friends around my bed shall weep,
May I ('t is all I then shall prize,)
Beneath the hallow'd church-yard sleep!
And may the morn my lonesome grave

And may the breeze the green grass wave,
Gem with the sparkling dews of heaven;

And o'er it beam the sun of even!

And nought be heard near my low cell,

Save village-sounds at daylight's close ;
Then may the softly pensive bell*
Soothe, sweetly soothe, my last repose !

From the Gentleman's Magazine.
SONG.

By Lord THURLOW.

ardour and activity of mind which difficulties NOW the pied April shows her blossom'd

could not check. The Greek and Roman Classics were bis particular favourites; and he acquired a skill in them which older scholars seldom attain, of which a version of Pope's Messiah into Latin poetry (the product of some of his leisure hours in college) is a sufficient evidence. It shews a mind well acquainted with the felicities of style and expression, with the versification, and idiomatical elegancies of the Roman Poets. But his literary career, though brilliant, was short. The roptare

thorn,

And saffron cowstips the green meads adora;
Wood-loving primroses their stars display,
And wheaten fields are in their prime array;
Now hedge-rows bud with green'; the beechen

tree

And household elder of their leaves are free:
And Procne 'gins to sing, and frequent show'rs
Augment the floods, and swell the chalic'd
flow'rs.

* Curfew.

Let us, my Silvia, to the woods begone, And make the birth-day of the year our own. Thou art as sweet as Spring; as dear to me As is the golden honey of the bee; And Ocean shall be parted from the strand, Ere I forsake thee or thy lov'd command.

Nor grew it white

In a single night,

As men's have grown from sudden fears:
My limbs are bowed, though not with toil,
But rusted with a vile repose,
For they have been a dungeon's spoil,
And mine has been the fate of those
To whom the goodly earth and air,
Are bann'd and barr'd---forbidden fare.
But this was for my father's faith
I suffered chains and courted death;
That father perish'd at the stake,
For tenets he would not forsake;
And for the same his lineal race
In darkness found a dwelling place;
We were seven--who now are one,
Six in youth and one in age,

Finish'd as they had begun,

Proud of Persecution's rage;

One in fire, and two in field,

Their belief with blood have seal'd;
Dying as their father died,
For the God their foes denied ;
Three were in a dungeon cast---
Of whom this wreck is left the last.

II.

There are seven pillars of gothic mould,
In Chillon's dungeons deep and old,---
There are seven columns massy and grey,
Dim with a dull imprisoned ray,
A sunbeam which bath lost its way,
And through the crevice and the cleft
Of the thick wall is fallen and left;
Creeping o'er the floor so damp,
Like a marsh's meteor lamp :
And in each pillar there is a ring,
And in each ring there is a chain;
That iron is a cankering thing,

For in these limbs its teeth remain,
With marks that will not wear away,
Till I have done with this new day,
Which now is painful to these eyes,
Which have not seen the sun so rise
For years---I cannot count them o'er,---
I lost their long and heavy score
When my last brother droop'd and died,
And I lay living by his side.

III.

They chain'd us each to a column stone,
And we were three---yet each alone;
We could not inove a single pace,
We could not see each other's face,
But with that pale and vivid light
That made us strangers in our sight;
And thus together---yet apart,
Fettered in band, but pined in heart;
Twas still some solace in the dearth
Of the pure elements of earth,
To bearken to each other's speech,
And each turn comforter to each.

With some new hope, or legend old,
Or song heroically bold;
But even these at length grew cold.
Our voices took a dreary tone,
An echo of the dungeon-stone,

A grating sound---not full and free
As they of yore were wont to be:
It might be fancy---but to me
They never sounded like our own.
IV.

I was the eldest of the three, And to uphold and cheer the rest I ought to do---and did my best--And each did well in his degree. The youngest, whom my father loved, Because our mother's brow was given To him--with eyes as blue as heaven, For him my soul was sorely moved; And truly might it be distrest To see such bird in such a nest; For he was beautiful as day--(When day was beautiful to me As to young eagles, being free)--10 A polar day, which will not see A sunset till its summer's gone, Its sleepless summer of long light, The snow-clad offspring of the sun: And thus he was as pure and bright, And in his natural spirit gay,

With tears for nought but other's ills,

[118

And then they flowed like mountain rills, Unless he could assuage the woe

Which he abhorr'd to view below.

The other was as pure of mind,

But formed to combat with his kind;
Strong in his frame, and of a mood
Which 'gainst the world in war had stood,
And perish'd in the foremost rank

With joy :--but not in chains to pine:
His spirit withered with their clank,
I saw it silently decline---
And so perchance in sooth did mine;
But yet I forced it on to cheer

30 Those relics of a home so dear.
He was a hunter of the hills,

Had followed there the deer and wolf;
To him this dungeon was a gulf,
And fettered feet the worst of ills.

VI.

Lake Leman lies by Chillon's walls;
A thousand feet in depth below
Its massy waters meet and flow;

40 Thus much the fathom-line was sent
From Chillon's snow-white battlement,
Which round about the wave enthralls<
A double dungeon wall and wave
Have made---and like a living grave
Below the surface of the lake
The dark vault lies wherein we lay,
We heard it ripple night and day;

100

110

Sounding o'er our heads it knock'd And I have felt the winter's spray Wash through the bars when winds were high 121 And wanton in the happy sky;

And then the very rock hath rock'd,

And I have felt it shake unshock'd,

Because I could have smil'd to see

The death that would have set me free.
VII.

I said my nearer brother pined,
I said his mighty heart declined,
He loath'd and put away his food;
It was not that 'twas coarse and rude.

For we were used to hunter's fare,
And for the like had little care:
The milk drawn from the mountain goat
Was changed for water from the moat,
Our bread was such as captive's tears
Have moisten'd many a thousand years,
Since man first pent his fellow men
Like brutes within an iron den:
But what were these to us or him?
These wasted not his heart or limb;
My brother's soul was of the mould
Which in a palace had grown cold,
Had his free breathing been denied
The range of the steep mountain's side:
But why delay the truth ?---he died.
I saw, and could not hold his head,
Nor reach his dying hand---nor dead,
Though hard I strove, but strove in vain,
To rend and gnash my bonds in twain.
He died--and they unlocked his chain,
And scoop'd for him a shallow grave
Even from the cold earth of our cave.
I begg'd them, as a boon, to lay
His corse in dust whereon the day
Might shine---it was a foolish thought,
But then within my brain it wrought,
That even in death his freeborn breast
In such a dungeon could not rest.
I might have spared my idle prayer---
They coldly laugh'd---and laid him there:
The flat and turfless earth above
The being we so much did love;
His empty chain above it leant,
Such murder's fitting monument!
VIII.

But he, the favourite and the flower
Most cherished since his natal hour,
His mother's image in fair face,
The infant love of all his race,
His martyr'd father's dearest thought,
My latest care, for whom I sought
To hoard my life, that his might be
Less wretched now, and one day free;
He, too, who yet had held untired,
A spirit natural or inspired---
He, too, was struck, and day by day
Was withered on the stalk away.
O God! it is a fearful thing
To see the human soul take wing
In any shape, in any mood:---
I've seen it rushing forth in blood.

180 I've seen it on the breaking ocean

Strive with a swoln convulsive motion,
I've seen the sick and ghastly bed
Of Sin delirious with its dread:
But these were horrors---this was woe
Unmix'd with such--but sure and slow;
He faded, and so calm and meek,
So softly worn, so meekly weak,
So tearless, yet so tender---kind,
And grieved for those he left behind;

L120

180

140 While all the while, a cheek whose bloom 199
Was as a mockery of the tomb,
Whose tints as gently sunk away
As a departing rainbow's ray---
An eye of most transparent light,
That almost made the dungeon bright,
And not a word of murmur--not
A groan o'er his untimely lot,---
A little talk of better days,
A little hope, my own to raise,
150 For I was sunk in silence--lost
In this last loss, of all the most;
And then the sighs he would suppress
Of fainting nature's feebleness,
More slowly drawn, grew less and less:
I listened, but I could not hear---
I called, for I was wild with fear;
I knew 'twas hopeless, but my dread
Would not be thus admonished;

160

170

900

I called, and thought I heard a sound---
I burst my chain with one strong bound, 210
And rushed to him :---I found him not,

I only stirred on this black spot,

I only lived---I only drew
The accursed breath of dungeon-dew;
The last---the sole---the dearest link
Between me and the eternal brink,
Which bound me to my failing race
Was broken in this fatal place.

One on the earth, and one beneath---
My brothers---both had ceased to breathe:
I took that hand which lay so still,
Alas! my own was full as chill;
I had not strength to stir or strive,
But felt that I was still alive---
A frantic feeling when we know
That what we love shall ne'er be so.
I know not why,

I could not die,

I had no earthly hope---but faith, And that forbade a selfish death. Concluded in our next.

LONDON

221

230

INTELLIGENCE IN LITERATURE, AND THE ARTS AND SCIENCES.

Mr. NICHOLS has nearly completed at the press Two Volumes of "Illustrations of Literature, consisting of Genuine Memoirs and Original Letters of Eminent Persons, who flourished in the Eighteenth Century;" and intended as a Sequel to the " Literary Anecdotes."

He has also nearly ready for publication, a Third Quarto Volume of the Biographical Memoirs of WILLIAM HOGARTH; with illustrative Essays, and 50 Plates not in the two former Volumes.

Shortly will appear a new work, compris ing The State Lottery, a Dream: by Sam. Roberts. Also Thoughts on Wheels, a Poem: By James Montgomery, Author of the Wanderer of Switzerland, &c. In one vol. Duodecimo.

The Round Table, a collection of Essays, on Literature, Men, and Manners. By LEIGH HUNT and WILLIAM HAZLITT. 2 vols. 12mo.

Mr. W. SAVAGE is making great progress in his work on Decorative Printing; which promises to form a new era in Printing, by enabling us to represent subjects in their proper colours, so as to imitate Drawings, at the common press, and by the usual process.

Mr. Coke, of Holkham, was the purchaser, at Mr. Roscoe's sale, of the fine portrait of Leo the Tenth, for 500 guineas.---The library sold for £5150; the prints for £1880; and the drawings £738.

Mr. Campbell, the Poet, has determined to proceed with his Critical Lives of the Poets, with Specimens, which will certainly appear in the course of the winter.

What passion cannot Music raise and quell!
When Jubal struck the chorded shell,
His list'ning brethren stood around,
And wond'ring on their faces fell,
To worship that celestial sound;
Less than a God they thought there could not
dwell

Within the hollow of that shell
That spoke so sweetly and so well:
What passion cannot Music raise and quell!
DRYDEN.

By Music, minds an equal temper know,
Nor swell too high, nor sink too low;
If in the breast tumultuous joys arise,
Music her soft assuasive voice applies;
Or when the soul is press'd with cares,
Exalts her in enliv'ning airs.

Warriors she fires with animated sounds:

rational amusement, which, relieving the mind at intervals from the fatigue of serious occupation, invigorates and prepares it for fresh exertion. It is the perfection of any science to unite these advantages, to promote the advancement of public and private virtue, and to supply such a degree of amusement, as to supersede the necessity of recurrence to frivolous pursuits for the sake of relaxation-and of this nature, in a peculiar degree, is the science of Music.

The sister of Mirth and friend of Sorrow, it is this which recreates our

Pours balm into the bleeding lover's wounds; spirits when fatigued with care, that ban

Melancholy lifts her head,

Morpheus rouses from his bed,

Sloth unfolds her arms, and wakes,
List ning Envy drops her snakes;

Intestine wars no more our passions wage,
And giddy factions hear away their rage.
Music the fiercest grief can charm,
And Fate's severest rage disarm :
Music can soften pain to ease,
And make despair and madness please;
Our joys below it can improve,
And antedate the bliss above.

THE

POPE.

HE value of any science, says Tytler, is to be estimated according to its tendency to promote improvement; either in private virtue, or in those qualities which render man extensively use ful to society. Some objects of pursuit have a secondary utility; in furnishing M Eng. Mag. Vol. I.

ishes our melancholy when oppressed with sorrow, that augments our pleasures when inclined for mirth; as seasonable in grief as in joy; as properly employed in ceremonies of the greatest solemnity, as in those of mirth and pleasure; as much relished when we are in solitude as when we are in company; it is this alone which, at once calculated to delight the young and old, the joyful and the sad, is equally suited to all ages and capacities, all times and places.

To a science like this, then, possessed of such great and varied advantages, we should imagine it impossible for any to find objection; and though it is not en

123]

On Music.

[124

tirely the case, yet its opponents, as it is might be applied to better purposes? And natural to suppose, are comparatively and tortunately few.

might it not, as is too frequently the case, be applied to worse? Might not the The chief and only arguments, how- mind that is thus engaged, be otherwise ever, that seem to be urged against its vacant and misemployed; exercised upcultivation are, the immoral effects which on thoughts that are frivolous and useless, it is believed to produce in female minds, or, what would be still worse, upon such by the employment of their thoughts as are vicious and improper? might not too much upon the subject of love; the the hours we devote to this be otherwise time which it occupies, that might be consumed in the doing of nothing, or, devoted to better purposes; and its ten- what would be still worse, in the doing dency to effeminate the soul and banish of harm; frittered and fooled away in the the manly virtues. shuffling and cutting of cards, the perusal of The first argument against the study novels, or an over-attention to the foppeof music, the immoral impression it is ries of dress, and the frivolities of fashion. apt to produce by employing the mind The third argument, adduced by way too much upon the subject of love, is of objection to this art, is the tendency it certainly a false one. The same objec- is said to possess in effeminating the soul, tion might be made with equal force, to and banishing the manly virtues; but the cultivation of letters. We know that the truth of this assertion must be denied ; there are works of an immoral tendency, on the contrary, there is nothing, when as well as those of an opposite nature; properly directed, so well calculated to but it would be absurd, on this account, exalt the mind, or ameliorate the heart. to condemn the cultivation of literature in general. In respectable families, neither books nor songs of an immoral or improper description are, of course, admitted; and, where it is otherwise, the fault must not be attributed to letters or the science of music, which in the hands of the well-intentioned will ever be wielded in a good cause, as instruments to suppress vice and encourage virtue.

Nor is not moved with concord of sweet sounds,
Is fit for treasons, stratagems, and spoils ;
The motions of his spirits are dull as night,
Let no such man be trusted.

The man that hath not music in his soul,

And his affections dark as Erebus ;

SHAKSPEARE.

Is there a heart that music cannot melt?
Alas! how rugged is that heart forlorn!
Is there, who ne'er those mystic transports
felt,

Of solitude and melancholy born?

He needs not woo the muse; he is her scorn;
The sophist's robe of cobweb he shall twine;
Mope o'er the schoolman's peevish page; or

mourn

And delve for life in Mammon's dirty mine, Sneak with the scoundrel fox, or grunt with glutton swine. BEATTIE.

The next objection, that is urged against music, is the time that it occupies-but what is this? rather a reflection upon the person than the science; an argument that may be equally applied to every thing else that is excellent as this; for what is there good and useful,in modBut there are no greater testimonies eration,that is not at the same time hurtful in favour of this science than the respect and pernicious, in the extreme? as well which it has received from the first chamight we,for the same reason,argue against racters of all ages and nations, sacred and food, because there are some who are in- profane. Omitting, however, to speak temperate in feasting; food in itself is of its divine sanction ;* the share it posbeneficial; it is only in excess that it sessed in the Jewish service; and the becomes injurious; it is not this, thereplace it still holds in the religious cerefore, that deserves censure when we suf- monies of the present day; we only obfer from the effects of its abuse; the reproof must fall upon ourselves; and it is the same with music; if we allow it to engross too much of our time, it is our own error, and cannot, in justice, be produced as an objection to the science,

But the time that is occupied in this

* 2 Chron. xxix. 95, &c.

+Vide Lightfoot's Description of the Temple of Solomon, and Capel's Templi Hierasolymitani triplex delineatio ex Villalpando Josepho, Maimonide et Talmude, prefixed to Walton's Polyglot, &c.

« Anterior Continuar »

Libros

Spirit of the English Magazines, Volumen 1