Chapter 10 No.10

Vanity, say they, quoting him of old.

Yet, if full knowledge lifted us serene

To look beyond mortality's stern screen,

A reconciling vision could be told,

Brighter than western clouds or shapes of gold

That change in amber fires,-or the demesne

Of ever mystic sleep. Mists intervene,

Which then would melt, to show our eyesight bold

From God a perfect chain throughout the skies,

Like Jacob's ladder light with winged men.

And as this world, all notched to terrene eyes

With Alpine ranges, smoothes to higher ken,

So death and sin and social miseries;

By God fixed as His bow o'er moor and fen.

The Blessed Damozel

The blessed Damozel leaned out

From the gold bar of Heaven:

Her blue grave eyes were deeper much

Than a deep water, even.

She had three lilies in her hand,

And the stars in her hair were seven.

Her robe, ungirt from clasp to hem,

No wrought flowers did adorn,

But a white rose of Mary's gift

On the neck meetly worn;

And her hair, lying down her back,

Was yellow like ripe corn.

Herseemed she scarce had been a day

One of God's choristers;

The wonder was not yet quite gone

From that still look of hers;

Albeit to them she left, her day

Had counted as ten years.

(To one it is ten years of years:

........ Yet now, here in this place

Surely she leaned o'er me,-her hair

Fell all about my face.........

Nothing: the Autumn-fall of leaves.

The whole year sets apace.)

It was the terrace of God's house

That she was standing on,-

By God built over the sheer depth

In which Space is begun;

So high, that looking downward thence,

She could scarce see the sun.

It lies from Heaven across the flood

Of ether, as a bridge.

Beneath, the tides of day and night

With flame and blackness ridge

The void, as low as where this earth

Spins like a fretful midge.

But in those tracts, with her, it was

The peace of utter light

And silence. For no breeze may stir

Along the steady flight

O seraphim; no echo there,

Beyond all depth or height.

Heard hardly, some of her new friends,

Playing at holy games,

Spake, gentle-mouthed, among themselves,

Their virginal chaste names;

And the souls, mounting up to God,

Went by her like thin flames.

And still she bowed herself, and stooped

Into the vast waste calm;

Till her bosom's pressure must have made

The bar she leaned on warm,

And the lilies lay as if asleep

Along her bended arm.

From the fixt lull of heaven, she saw

Time, like a pulse, shake fierce

Through all the worlds. Her gaze still strove,

In that steep gulph, to pierce

The swarm: and then she spake, as when

The stars sang in their spheres.

"I wish that he were come to me,

For he will come," she said.

"Have I not prayed in solemn heaven?

On earth, has he not prayed?

Are not two prayers a perfect strength?

And shall I feel afraid?

"When round his head the aureole clings,

And he is clothed in white,

I'll take his hand, and go with him

To the deep wells of light,

And we will step down as to a stream

And bathe there in God's sight.

"We two will stand beside that shrine,

Occult, withheld, untrod,

Whose lamps tremble continually

With prayer sent up to God;

And where each need, revealed, expects

Its patient period.

"We two will lie i' the shadow of

That living mystic tree

Within whose secret growth the Dove

Sometimes is felt to be,

While every leaf that His plumes touch

Saith His name audibly.

"And I myself will teach to him-

I myself, lying so,-

The songs I sing here; which his mouth

Shall pause in, hushed and slow,

Finding some knowledge at each pause

And some new thing to know."

(Alas! to her wise simple mind

These things were all but known

Before: they trembled on her sense,-

Her voice had caught their tone.

Alas for lonely Heaven! Alas

For life wrung out alone!

Alas, and though the end were reached?........

Was thy part understood

Or borne in trust? And for her sake

Shall this too be found good?-

May the close lips that knew not prayer

Praise ever, though they would?)

"We two," she said, "will seek the groves

Where the lady Mary is,

With her five handmaidens, whose names

Are five sweet symphonies:-

Cecily, Gertrude, Magdalen,

Margaret, and Rosalys.

"Circle-wise sit they, with bound locks

And bosoms covered;

Into the fine cloth, white like flame,

Weaving the golden thread,

To fashion the birth-robes for them

Who are just born, being dead.

"He shall fear haply, and be dumb.

Then I will lay my cheek

To his, and tell about our love,

Not once abashed or weak:

And the dear Mother will approve

My pride, and let me speak.

"Herself shall bring us, hand in hand,

To Him round whom all souls

Kneel-the unnumber'd solemn heads

Bowed with their aureoles:

And Angels, meeting us, shall sing

To their citherns and citoles.

"There will I ask of Christ the Lord

Thus much for him and me:-

To have more blessing than on earth

In nowise; but to be

As then we were,-being as then

At peace. Yea, verily.

"Yea, verily; when he is come

We will do thus and thus:

Till this my vigil seem quite strange

And almost fabulous;

We two will live at once, one life;

And peace shall be with us."

She gazed, and listened, and then said,

Less sad of speech than mild:

"All this is when he comes." She ceased;

The light thrilled past her, filled

With Angels, in strong level lapse.

Her eyes prayed, and she smiled.

(I saw her smile.) But soon their flight

Was vague 'mid the poised spheres.

And then she cast her arms along

The golden barriers,

And laid her face between her hands,

And wept. (I heard her tears.)

Reviews

The Strayed Reveller; and other Poems. By A.-Fellowes, Ludgate-street.-1849.

If any one quality may be considered common to all living poets, it is that which we have heard aptly described as self-consciousness. In this many appear to see the only permanent trace of the now old usurping deluge of Byronism; but it is truly a fact of the time,-less a characteristic than a portion of it. Every species of composition-the dramatic, the narrative, the lyric, the didactic, the descriptive-is imbued with this spirit; and the reader may calculate with almost equal certainty on becoming acquainted with the belief of a poet as of a theologian or a moralist. Of the evils resulting from the practice, the most annoying and the worst is that some of the lesser poets, and all mere pretenders, in their desire to emulate the really great, feel themselves under a kind of obligation to assume opinions, vague, incongruous, or exaggerated, often not only not their own, but the direct reverse of their own,-a kind of meanness that has replaced, and goes far to compensate for, the flatteries of our literary ancestors. On the other hand, this quality has created a new tie of interest between the author and his public, enhances the significance of great works, and confers value on even the slightest productions of a true poet.

That the systematic infusion of this spirit into the drama and epic compositions is incompatible with strict notions of art will scarcely be disputed: but such a general objection does not apply in the case of lyric poetry, where even the character of the subject is optional. It is an instance of this kind that we are now about to consider.

"The Strayed Reveller and other Poems," constitutes, we believe, the first published poetical work of its author, although the following would rather lead to the inference that he is no longer young.

"But my youth reminds me: 'Thou

Hast lived light as these live now;

As these are, thou too wert such.'"-p. 59.

And, in another poem:

"In vain, all, all, in vain,

They beat upon mine ear again,

Those melancholy tones so sweet and still:

Those lute-like tones which, in long-distant years,

Did steal into mine ears."-p. 86.

Accordingly, we find but little passion in the volume, only four pieces (for "The Strayed Reveller" can scarcely be so considered) being essentially connected with it. Of these the "Modern Sappho" appears to us not only inferior, but as evidencing less maturity both of thought and style; the second, "Stagyrus," is an urgent appeal to God; the third, "The New Sirens," though passionate in utterance, is, in purpose, a rejection of passion, as having been weighed in the balance and found wanting; and, in the last, where he tells of the voice which once

"Blew such a thrilling summons to his will,

Yet could not shake it;

Drained all the life his full heart had to spill;

Yet could not break it:"-

he records the "intolerable change of thought" with which it now comes to his "long-sobered heart." Perhaps "The Forsaken Merman" should be added to these; but the grief here is more nearly approaching to gloomy submission and the sickness of hope deferred.

The lessons that the author would learn of nature are, as set forth in the sonnet that opens the volume,

"Of toil unsevered from tranquillity;

Of labor that in one short hour outgrows

Man's noisy schemes,-accomplished in repose,

Too great for haste, too high for rivalry."-p. 1.

His conception of the poet is of one who

"Sees before him life unroll,

A placid and continuous whole;

That general life which does not cease;

Whose secret is, not joy, but peace;

That life, whose dumb wish is not missed

If birth proceeds, if things subsist;

The life of plants and stones and rain;

The life he craves:-if not in vain

Fate gave, what chance shall not control,

His sad lucidity of soul."-pp. 123-4.

(Resignation.)

Such is the author's purpose in these poems. He recognises in each thing a part of the whole: and the poet must know even as he sees, or breathes, as by a spontaneous, half-passive exercise of a faculty: he must receive rather than seek.

"Action and suffering tho' he know,

He hath not lived, if he lives so."

Connected with this view of life as "a placid and continuous whole," is the principle which will be found here manifested in different modes, and thro' different phases of event, of the permanence and changelessness of natural laws, and of the large necessity wherewith they compel life and man. This is the thought which animates the "Fragment of an 'Antigone:'" "The World and the Quietest" has no other scope than this:-

"Critias, long since, I know,

(For fate decreed it so),

Long since the world hath set its heart to live.

Long since, with credulous zeal,

It turns life's mighty wheel:

Still doth for laborers send;

Who still their labor give.

And still expects an end."-p. 109.

This principle is brought a step futher into the relations of life in "The Sick King in Bokhara," the following passage from which claims to be quoted, not less for its vividness as description, than in illustration of this thought:-

"In vain, therefore, with wistful eyes

Gazing up hither, the poor man

Who loiters by the high-heaped booths

Below there in the Registan

"Says: 'Happy he who lodges there!

With silken raiment, store of rice,

And, for this drought, all kinds of fruits,

Grape-syrup, squares of colored ice,

"'With cherries served in drifts of snow.'

In vain hath a king power to build

Houses, arcades, enamelled mosques,

And to make orchard-closes filled

"With curious fruit trees brought from far,

With cisterns for the winter rain;

And, in the desert, spacious inns

In divers places;-if that pain

"Is not more lightened which he feels,

If his will be not satisfied:

And that it be not from all time

The law is planted, to abide."-pp. 47-8.

The author applies this basis of fixity in nature generally to the rules of man's nature, and avow himself a Quietist. Yet he would not despond, but contents himself, and waits. In no poem of the volume is this character more clearly defined and developed than in the sonnets "To a Republican Friend," the first of which expresses concurrence in certain broad progressive principles of humanity: to the second we would call the reader's attention, as to an example of the author's more firm and serious writing:-

"Yet when I muse on what life is, I seem

Rather to patience prompted than that proud

Prospect of hope which France proclaims so loud;

France, famed in all great arts, in none supreme:-

Seeing this vale, this earth whereon we dream,

Is on all sides o'ershadowed by the high

Uno'erleaped mountains of necessity,

Sparing us narrower margin than we deem.

Nor will that day dawn at a human nod,

When, bursting thro' the net-work superposed

By selfish occupation-plot and plan,

Lust, avarice, envy,-liberated man,

All difference with his fellow-man composed,

Shall be left standing face to face with God."-p. 57.

In the adjuration entitled "Stagyrus," already mentioned, he prays to be set free

"From doubt, where all is double,

Where Faiths are built on dust;"

and there seems continually recurring to him a haunting presage of the unprofitableness of the life, after which men have not "any more a portion for ever in anything that is done under the sun." Where he speaks of resignation, after showing how the less impetuous and self-concentred natures can acquiesce in the order of this life, even were it to bring them back with an end unattained to the place whence they set forth; after showing how it is the poet's office to live rather than to act in and thro' the whole life round about him, he concludes thus:

"The world in which we live and move

Outlasts aversion, outlasts love.....

Nay, and since death, which wipes out man,

Finds him with many an unsolved plan,....

Still gazing on the ever full

Eternal mundane spectacle,

This world in which we draw our breath

In some sense, Fausta, outlasts death.....

Enough, we live:-and, if a life

With large results so little rife,

Tho' bearable, seem scarcely worth

This pomp of worlds, this pain of birth,

Yet, Fausta, the mute turf we tread,

The solemn hills around us spread,

This stream that falls incessantly,

The strange-scrawled rocks, the lonely sky,

If I might lend their life a voice,

Seem to bear rather than rejoice.

And, even could the intemperate prayer

Man iterates, while these forbear,

For movement, for an ampler sphere,

Pierce fate's impenetrable ear,

Not milder is the general lot

Because our spirits have forgot,

In actions's dizzying eddy whirled,

The something that infects the world."-pp. 125-8.-Resignation.

"Shall we," he asks, "go hence and find that our vain dreams are not dead? Shall we follow our vague joys, and the old dead faces, and the dead hopes?"

He exhorts man to be "in utrumque paratus." If the world be the materialized thought of one all-pure, let him, "by lonely pureness," seek his way through the colored dream of life up again to that all-pure fount:-

"But, if the wild unfathered mass no birth

In divine seats hath known;

In the blank echoing solitude, if earth,

Rocking her obscure body to and fro,

Ceases not from all time to heave and groan,

Unfruitful oft, and, at her happiest throe,

Forms what she forms, alone:"

then man, the only self-conscious being, "seeming sole to awake," must, recognizing his brotherhood with this world which stirs at his feet unknown, confess that he too but seems.

Thus far for the scheme and the creed of the author. Concerning these we leave the reader to draw his own conclusions.

Before proceeding to a more minute notice of the various poems, we would observe that a predilection is apparent throughout for antiquity and classical association; not that strong love which made Shelley, as it were, the heir of Plato; not that vital grasp of conception which enabled Keats without, and enables Landor with, the most intimate knowledge of form and detail, to return to and renew the old thoughts and beliefs of Greece; still less the mere superficial acquaintance with names and hackneyed attributes which was once poetry. Of this conventionalism, however, we have detected two instances; the first, an allusion to "shy Dian's horn" in "breathless glades" of the days we live, peculiarly inappropriate in a sonnet addressed "To George Cruikshank on his Picture of 'The Bottle;'" the second a grave call to Memory to bring her tablets, occurring in, and forming the burden of, a poem strictly personal, and written for a particular occasion. But the author's partiality is shown, exclusively of such poems as "Mycerinus" and "The Strayed Reveller," where the subjects are taken from antiquity, rather in the framing than in the ground work, as in the titles "A Modern Sappho," "The New Sirens," "Stagyrus," and "In utrumque paratus." It is Homer and Epictetus and Sophocles who "prop his mind;" the immortal air which the poet breathes is "Where Orpheus and where Homer are;" and he addresses "Fausta" and "Critias."

There are four narrative poems in the volume:-"Mycerinus," "The Strayed Reveller," "The Sick King in Bokhara," and "The Forsaken Merman." The first of these, the only one altogether narrative in form, founded on a passage in the 2nd Book of Herodotus, is the story of the six years of life portioned to a King of Egypt succeeding a father "who had loved injustice, and lived long;" and tells how he who had "loved the good" revels out his "six drops of time." He takes leave of his people with bitter words, and goes out

"To the cool regions of the groves he loved........

Here came the king holding high feast at morn,

Rose-crowned; and ever, when the sun went down,

A hundred lamps beamed in the tranquil gloom,

From tree to tree, all thro' the twinkling grove,

Revealing all the tumult of the feast,

Flushed guests, and golden goblets foamed with wine;

While the deep-burnished foliage overhead

Splintered the silver arrows of the moon."-p. 7.

(a daring image, verging towards a conceit, though not absolutely such, and the only one of that character that has struck us in the volume.)

"So six long years he revelled, night and day:

And, when the mirth waxed loudest, with dull sound

Sometimes from the grove's centre echoes came,

To tell his wondering people of their king;

In the still night, across the steaming flats,

Mixed with the murmur of the moving Nile."-pp. 8, 9.

Here a Tennysonian influence is very perceptible, more especially in the last quotation; and traces of the same will be found in "The Forsaken Merman."

In this poem the story is conveyed by allusions and reminiscences whilst the Merman makes his children call after her who had returned to her own earth, hearing the Easter bells over the bay, and who is not yet come back for all the voices calling "Margaret! Margaret!" The piece is scarcely long enough or sufficiently distinct otherwise than as a whole to allow of extract; but we cannot but express regret that a poem far from common-place either in ubject or treatment should conclude with such sing-song as

---"There dwells a loved one,

But cruel is she;

She left lonely for ever

The kings of the sea."

"The Strayed Reveller" is written without rhyme-(not being blank verse, however,)-and not unfrequently, it must be admitted, without rhythm. Witness the following lines:

"Down the dark valley-I saw."-

"Trembling, I entered; beheld"-

"Thro' the islands some divine bard."-

Nor are these by any means the only ones that might be cited in proof; and, indeed, even where there is nothing precisely contrary to rhythm, the verse might, generally speaking, almost be read as prose. Seldom indeed, as it appears to us, is the attempt to write without some fixed laws of metrical construction attended with success; never, perhaps, can it be considered as the most appropriate embodiment of thought. The fashion has obtained of late years; but it is a fashion, and will die out. But few persons will doubt the superiority of the established blank verse, after reading the following passage, or will hesitate in pronouncing that it ought to be the rule, instead of the exception, in this poem:

"They see the merchants

On the Oxus stream:-but care

Must visit first them too, and make them pale:

Whether, thro' whirling sand,

A cloud of desert robber-horse has burst

Upon their caravan; or greedy kings,

In the walled cities the way passes thro',

Crushed them with tolls; or fever airs

On some great river's marge

Mown them down, far from home."-p. 25.

The Reveller, going to join the train of Bacchus in his temple, has strayed into the house of Circe and has drunk of her cup: he believes that, while poets can see and know only through participation in endurance, he shares the power belonging to the gods of seeing "without pain, without labour;" and has looked over the valley all day long at the M?nads and Fauns, and Bacchus, "sometimes, for a moment, passing through the dark stems." Apart from the inherent defects of the metre, there is great beauty of pictorial description in some passages of the poem, from which the following (where he is speaking of the gods) may be taken as a specimen:-

"They see the Indian

Drifting, knife in hand,

His frail boat moored to

A floating isle, thick-matted

With large-leaved low-creeping melon plants,

And the dark cucumber.

He reaps and stows them,

Drifting-drifting:-round him,

Round his green harvest-plot,

Flow the cool lake-waves:

The mountains ring them."-p. 20.

From "the Sick King in Bokhara," we have already quoted at some length. It is one of the most considerable, and perhaps, as being the most simple and life-like, the best of the narrative poems. A vizier is receiving the dues from the cloth merchants, when he is summoned to the presence of the king, who is ill at ease, by Hussein: "a teller of sweet tales." Arrived, Hussein is desired to relate the cause of the king's sickness; and he tells how, three days since, a certain Moollah came before the king's path, calling for justice on himself, whom, deemed a fool or a drunkard, the guards pricked off with their spears, while the king passed on into the mosque: and how the man came on the morrow with yesterday's blood-spots on him, and cried out for right. What follows is told with great singleness and truth: "Thou knowest," the man says,

"'How fierce

In these last day the sun hath burned;

That the green water in the tanks

Is to a putrid puddle turned;

And the canal that from the stream

Of Samarcand is brought this way

Wastes and runs thinner every day.

"'Now I at nightfall had gone forth

Alone; and, in a darksome place

Under some mulberry-trees, I found

A little pool; and, in brief space,

With all the water that was there

I filled my pitcher, and stole home

Unseen; and, having drink to spare,

I hid the can behind the door,

And went up on the roof to sleep.

"'But, in the night, which was with wind

And burning dust, again I creep

Down, having fever, for a drink.

"'Now, meanwhile, had my brethren found

The water-pitcher, where it stood

Behind the door upon the ground,

And called my mother: and they all,

As they were thirsty and the night

Most sultry, drained the pitcher there;

That they sat with it in my sight,

Their lips still wet, when I came down.

"'Now mark: I, being fevered, sick,

(Most unblessed also,) at that sight

Brake forth and cursed them. Dost thou hear?

One was my mother. Now, do right.'

"But my lord mused a space, and said,

'Send him away, sirs, and make on.

It is some madman,' the king said.

As the king said, so was it done.

"The morrow at the self-same hour,

In the king's path, behold, the man,

Not kneeling, sternly fixed. He stood

Right opposite, and thus began,

"Frowning grim down: 'Thou wicked king,

Most deaf where thou shouldst most give ear;

What? Must I howl in the next world,

Because thou wilt not listen here?

"'What, wilt thou pray and get thee grace,

And all grace shall to me be grudged?

Nay but, I swear, from this thy path

I will not stir till I be judged.'

"Then they who stood about the king

Drew close together and conferred;

Till that the king stood forth and said:

'Before the priests thou shalt be heard.'

"But, when the Ulema were met

And the thing heard, they doubted not;

But sentenced him, as the law is,

To die by stoning on the spot.

"Now the king charged us secretly:

'Stoned must he be: the law stands so:

Yet, if he seek to fly, give way;

Forbid him not, but let him go.'

"So saying, the king took a stone,

And cast it softly: but the man,

With a great joy upon his face,

Kneeled down, and cried not, neither ran.

"So they whose lot it was cast stones,

That they flew thick and bruised him sore:

But he praised Allah with loud voice,

And remained kneeling as before.

"My lord had covered up his face:

But, when one told him, 'He is dead;'

Turning him quickly to go in,

'Bring thou to me his corpse,' he said.

"And truly, while I speak, oh king,

I hear the bearers on the stair.

Wilt thou they straightway bring him in?-

Ho! enter ye who tarry there."-pp. 39-43.

The Vizier counsels the king that each man's private grief suffices him, and that he should not seek increase of it in the griefs of other men. But he answers him, (this passage we have before quoted,) that the king's lot and the poor man's is the same, for that neither has his will; and he takes order that the dead man be buried in his own royal tomb.

We know few poems the style of which is more unaffectedly without labor, and to the purpose, than this. The metre, however, of the earlier part is not always quite so uniform and intelligible as might be desired; and we must protest against the use, for the sake of rhyme, of broke in lieu of broken, as also of stole for stolen in "the New Sirens." While on the subject of style, we may instance, from the "Fragment of an Antigone," the following uncouth stanza, which, at the first reading, hardly appears to be correctly put together:

"But hush! H?mon, whom Antigone,

Robbing herself of life in burying,

Against Creon's laws, Polynices,

Robs of a loved bride, pale, imploring,

Waiting her passage,

Forth from the palace hitherward comes."-p. 30.

Perhaps the most perfect and elevated in tone of all these poems is "The New Sirens." The author addresses, in imagination, a company of fair women, one of whose train he had been at morning; but in the evening he has dreamed under the cedar shade, and seen the same forms "on shores and sea-washed places," "With blown tresses, and with beckoning hands."

He thinks how at sunrise he had beheld those ladies playing between the vines; but now their warm locks have fallen down over their arms. He prays them to speak and shame away his sadness; but there comes only a broken gleaming from their windows, which "Reels and shivers on the ruffled gloom." He asks them whether they have seen the end of all this, the load of passion and the emptiness of reaction, whether they dare look at life's latter days,

"When a dreary light is wading

Thro' this waste of sunless greens,

When the flashing lights are fading

On the peerless cheek of queens,

When the mean shall no more sorrow,

And the proudest no more smile;

While the dawning of the morrow

Widens slowly westward all that while?"

And he implores them to "let fall one tear, and set him free." The past was no mere pretence; it was true while it lasted; but it is gone now, and the East is white with day. Shall they meet again, only that he may ask whose blank face that is?

"Pluck, pluck cypress, oh pale maidens;

Dusk the hall with yew."

This poem must be read as a whole; for not only would it be difficult to select particular passages for extraction, but such extracts, if made, would fail in producing any adequate impression.

We have already quoted so larely from the concluding piece, "Resignation," that it may here be necessary to say only that it is in the form of speech held with "Fausta" in retracing, after a lapse of ten years, the same way they had once trod with a joyful company. The tone is calm and sustained, not without touches of familiar truth.

The minor poems comprise eleven sonnets, among which, those "To the Duke of Wellington, on hearing him mispraised," and on "Religious Isolation," deserve mention; and it is with pleasure we find one, in the tenor of strong appreciation, written on reading the Essays of the great American, Emerson. The sonnet for "Butler's Sermons" is more indistinct, and, as such, less to be approved, in imagery than is usual with this poet. That "To an Independent Preacher who preached that we should be in harmony with nature," seems to call for some remark. The sonnet ends with these words:

"Man must begin, know this, where nature ends;

Nature and man can never be fast friends;

Fool, if thou canst not pass her, rest her slave."

Now, as far as this sonnet shows of the discourse which occasioned it, we cannot see anything so absurd in that discourse; and where the author confutes the Independent preacher by arguing that

"Nature is cruel; man is sick of blood:

Nature is stubborn; man would fain adore:

Nature is fickle; man hath need of rest:"

we cannot but think that, by attributing to nature a certain human degree of qualities, which will not suffice for man, he loses sight of the point really raised: for is not man's nature only a part of nature? and, if a part, necessary to the completeness of the whole? and should not the individual, avoiding a factitious life, order himself in conformity with his own rule of being? And, indeed, the author himself would converse with the self-sufficing progress of nature, with its rest in action, as distinguished from the troublous vexation of man's toiling:-

"Two lessons, Nature, let me learn of thee,

Two lessons that in every wind are blown;

Two blending duties harmonised in one,

Tho' the loud world proclaim their enmity."-p. 1.

The short lyric poem, "To Fausta" has a Shelleian spirit and grace in it. & "The Hayswater Boat" seems a little got up, and is scarcely positive enough. This remark applies also, and in a stonger degree, to the "Stanzas on a Gipsy Child," which, and the "Modern Sappho," previously mentioned, are the pieces least to our taste in the volume. There is a something about them of drawing-room sentimentality; and they might almost, without losing much save in size, be compressed into poems of the class commonly set to music. It is rather the basis of thought than the writing of the "Gipsy Child," which affords cause for objection; nevertheless, there is a passage in which a comparison is started between this child and a "Seraph in an alien planet born,"-an idea not new, and never, as we think, worth much; for it might require some subtlety to show how a planet capable of producing a Seraph should be alien from that Seraph.

We may here notice a few cases of looseness, either of thought or of expression, to be met with in these pages; a point of style to be particularly looked to when the occurrence or the absence of such forms one very sensible difference between the first-rate and the second-rate poets of the present times.

Thus, in the sonnet "Shakspear," the conclusion says,

"All pains the immortal spirit must endure,

All weakness that impairs, all griefs that bow,

Find their sole voice in that victorious brow;"

whereas a brow's voice remains to be uttered: nor, till the nature of the victory gained by the brow shall have been pointed out, are we able to hazard an opinion of the precise value of the epithet.

In the address to George Cruikshank, we find: "Artist, whose hand with horror winged;" where a similar question arises; and, returning to the "Gipsy Child," we are struck with the unmeaningness of the line: "Who massed round that slight brow these clouds of doom?"

Nor does the following, from the first of the sonnets, "To a Republican Friend," appear reconcileable with any ideas of appropriateness:

--"While before me flow

The armies of the homeless and unfed."

It is but right to state that the only instance of the kind we remember throughout the volume have now been mentioned.

To conclude. Our extracts will enable the reader to judge of this Poet's style: it is clear and comprehensive, and eschews flowery adornment. No particular model has been followed, though that general influence which Tennyson exercises over so many writers of this generation may be traced here as elsewhere. It may be said that the author has little, if anything, to unlearn. Care and consistent arrangement, and the necessary subordination of the parts to the whole, are evident throughout; the reflective, which appears the more essential form of his thought, does not absorb the due observation or presentment of the outward facts of nature; and a well-poised and serious mind shows itself in every page.

Published Monthly, price 1s.

This Periodical will consist of original Poems, Stories to develope thought and principle, Essays concerning Art and other subjects, and analytic Reviews of current Literature-particularly of Poetry. Each number will also contain an Etching; the subject to be taken from the opening article of the month.

An attempt will be made, both intrinsically and by review, to claim for Poetry that place to which its present development in the literature of this country so emphatically entitles it.

The endeavour held in view throughout the writings on Art will be to encourage and enforce an entire adherence to the simplicity of nature; and also to direct attention, as an auxiliary medium, to the comparatively few works which Art has yet produced in this spirit. It need scarcely be added that the chief object of the etched designs will be to illustrate this aim practically, as far as the method of execution will permit; in which purpose they will be produced with the utmost care and completeness.

No. 3. (Price One Shilling.) MARCH, 1850.

With an Etching by F. Madox Brown.

Art and Poetry:

Being Thoughts towards Nature

Conducted principally by Artists.

When whoso merely hath a little thought

Will plainly think the thought which is in him,-

Not imaging another's bright or dim,

Not mangling with new words what others taught;

When whoso speaks, from having either sought

Or only found,-will speak, not just to skim

A shallow surface with words made and trim,

But in that very speech the matter brought:

Be not too keen to cry-"So this is all!-

A thing I might myself have thought as well,

But would not say it, for it was not worth!"

Ask: "Is this truth?" For is it still to tell

That, be the theme a point or the whole earth,

Truth is a circle, perfect, great or small?

London:

DICKINSON & Co., 114, NEW BOND STREET,

AND

AYLOTT & JONES, 8, PATERNOSTER ROW.

G.F Tupper, Printer, Clement's Lane, Lombard Street.

CONTENTS.

Cordelia-W. M. Rossetti 97

Macbeth 99

Repining.-Ellen Alleyn 111

Sweet Death-Ellen Alleyn 117

Subject in Art, No. II 118

Carillon.-Dante G. Rossetti 126

Emblems.-Thomas Woolner 127

Sonnet.-W. B. Scott 128

From the Cliffs.-Dante G. Rossetti 129

Fancies at Leisure.-W. M. Rossetti 129

Papers of "The M. S. Society," Nos. I. II. & III 131

Review, Sir Reginald Mohun.-W.M. Rossetti 137

The Subscribers to this Work are respectfully informed that the future Numbers will appear on the last day of the Month for which they are dated. Also, that a supplementary, or large-sized Etching will occasionally be given (as with the present Number.)

[Illustration: GONERIL: REGAN: LEAR: FOOL: CORDELIA: FRANCE:]

Cordelia

"The jewels of our father, with washed eyes

Cordelia leaves you. I know you what you are

And, like a sister, am most loth to tell

Your faults, as they are named. Use well our father:

To your professed bosoms I commit him.

But yet, alas!-stood I within his grace,

I would prefer him to a better place.

So farewell to you both."

Cordelia, unabashed and strong,

Her voice's quite scarcely less

Than yester-eve, enduring wrong

And curses of her father's tongue,

Departs, a righteous-souled princess;

Bidding her sisters cherish him.

They turn on her and fix their eyes,

But cease not passing inward;-one

Sneering with lips still curled to lies,

Sinuous of body, serpent-wise;

Her footfall creeps, and her looks shun

The very thing on which they dwell.

The other, proud, with heavy cheeks

And massive forehead, where remains

A mark of frowning. If she seeks

With smiles to tame her eyes, or speaks,

Her mouth grows wanton: she disdains

The ground with haughty, measured steps.

The silent years had grown between

Father and daughter. Always she

Had waited on his will, and been

Foremost in doing it,-unseen

Often: she wished him not to see,

But served him for his sake alone.

He saw her constant love; and, tho'

Occasion surely was not scant,

Perhaps had never sought to know

How she could give it wording. So

His love, not stumbling at a want,

Among the three preferred her first.

Her's is the soul not stubborn, yet

Asserting self. The heart was rich;

But, questioned, she had rather let

Men judge her conscious of a debt

Than freely giving: thus, her speech

Is love according to her bond.

In France the queen Cordelia had

Her hours well satisfied with love:

She loved her king, too, and was glad:

And yet, at times, a something sad,

May be, was with her, thinking of

The manner of his life at home.

But this does not usurp her mind.

It is but sorrow guessed from far

Thro' twilight dimly. She must find

Her duty elsewhere: not resigned-

Because she knows them what they are,

Yet scarcely ruffled from her peace.

Cordelia-a name well revered;

Synonymous with truth and tried

Affection; which but needs be heard

To raise one selfsame thought endeared

To men and women far and wide;

A name our mothers taught to us.

Like placid faces which you knew

Years since, but not again shall meet;

On a sick bed like wind that blew;

An excellent thing, best likened to

Her own voice, gentle, soft, and sweet;

Shakpere's Cordelia;-better thus.

Macbeth {9}

{9} It is proper to state that this article was written, and seen, exactly as it at present stands, by several literary friends of the writer, a considerable time before the appearance, in the "Westminster Review," of a Paper advocating a view of "Macbeth," similar to that which is here taken. But although the publication of the particular view was thus anticipated, nearly all the most forcible arguments for maintaining it were omitted; and the subject, mixed up, as it was, with lengthy disquisitions upon very minor topics of Shaksperian acting, &c. made no very general impression at the time.

The purpose of the following Essay is to demonstrate the existence of a very important error in the hitherto universally adopted interpretation of the character of Macbeth. We shall prove that a design of illegitimately obtaining the crown of Scotland had been conceived by Macbeth, and that it had been communicated by him to his wife, prior to his first meeting with the witches, who are commonly supposed to have suggested that design.

Most persons when they commence the study of the great Shaksperian dramas, already entertain concerning them a set of traditional notions, generally originated by the representations, or misrepresentations, of the theatre, afterwards to become strengthened or confirmed by desultory reading and corroborative criticism. With this class of persons it was our misfortune to rank, when we first entered upon the study of "Macbeth," fully believing that, in the character of the hero, Shakspere intended to represent a man whose general rectitude of soul is drawn on to ruin by the temptations of supernatural agents; temptations which have the effect of eliciting his latent ambition, and of misdirecting that ambition when it has been thus elicited.

As long as we continued under this idea, the impression produced upon us by "Macbeth" came far short of that sense of complete satisfaction which we were accustomed to receive from every other of the higher works of Shakspere. But, upon deeper study, the view now proposed suggested itself, and seemed to render every thing as it should be. We say that this view suggested itself, because it did not arise directly from any one of the numerous passages which can be quoted in its support; it originated in a general feeling of what seemed to be wanting to the completion of the entire effect; a circumstance which has been stated at length from the persuasion that it is of itself no mean presumption in favour of the opinion which it is the aim of this paper to establish.

Let us proceed to examine the validity of a position, which, if it deserves any attention at all, may certainly claim an investigation more than usually minute. We shall commence by giving an analysis of the first Act, wherein will be considered, successively, every passage which may appear to bear either way upon the point in question.

The inferences which we believe to be deducible from the first scene can be profitably employed only in conjunction with those to be discovered in the third. Our analysis must, therefore, be entered upon by an attempt to ascertain the true character of the impressions which it was the desire of Shakspere to convey by the second.

This scene is almost exclusively occupied with the narrations of the "bleeding Soldier," and of Rosse. These narrations are constructed with the express purpose of vividly setting forth the personal valour of Duncan's generals, "Macbeth and Banquo." Let us consider what is the maximum worth which the words of Shakspere will, at this period of the play, allow us to attribute to the moral character of the hero:-a point, let it be observed, of first-rate importance to the present argument. We find Macbeth, in this scene, designated by various epithets, all of which, either directly or indirectly, arise from feelings of admiration created by his courageous conduct in the war in which he is supposed to have been engaged. "Brave" and "Noble Macbeth," "Bellona's Bridegroom," "Valiant Cousin," and "Worthy Gentleman," are the general titles by which he is here spoken of; but none of them afford any positive clue whatever to his moral character. Nor is any such clue supplied by the scenes in which he is presently received by the messengers of Duncan, and afterwards received and lauded by Duncan himself. Macbeth's moral character, up to the development of his criminal hopes, remains strictly negative. Hence it is difficult to fathom the meaning of those critics, (A. Schlegel at their head), who have over and over again made the ruin of Macbeth's "so many noble qualities"{10} the subject of their comment.

{10} A. Schlegel's "Lectures on Dramatic Literature." Vol. II. p. 208.

In the third scene we have the meeting of the witches, the announcement of whose intention to re-assemble upon the heath, there to meet with Macbeth, forms the certainly most obvious, though not perhaps, altogether the most important, aim of the short scene by which the tragedy is opened. An enquiry of much interest here suggests itself. Did Shakspere intend that in his tragedy of "Macbeth" the witches should figure as originators of gratuitous destruction, in direct opposition to the traditional, and even proverbial, character of the genus? By that character such personages have been denied the possession of any influence whatever over the untainted soul. Has Shakspere in this instance re tained, or has he abolished, the chief of those characteristics which have been universally attributed to the beings in question?

We think that he has retained it, and for the following reasons: Whenever Shakspere has elsewhere embodied superstitions, he has treated them as direct and unalterable facts of human nature; and this he has done because he was too profound a philosopher to be capable of regarding genuine superstition as the product of random spectra of the fancy, having absolute darkness for the prime condition of their being, instead of eeing in it rather the zodiacal light of truth, the concomitant of the uprising, and of the setting of the truth, and a partaker in its essence. Again, Shakspere has in this very play devoted a considerable space to the purpose of suggesting the self-same trait of character now under discussion, and this he appears to have done with the express intent of guarding against a mistake, the probability of the occurrence of which he foresaw, but which, for reasons connected with the construction of the play, he could not hope otherwise to obviate.

We allude to the introductory portion of the present scene. One sister, we learn, has just returned from killing swine; another breathes forth vengeance against a sailor, on account of the uncharitable act of his wife; but "his bark cannot be lost," though it may be "tempest tossed." The last words are scarcely uttered before the confabulation is interrupted by the approach of Macbeth, to whom they have as yet made no direct allusion whatever, throughout the whole of this opening passage, consisting in all of some five and twenty lines. Now this were a digression which would be a complete anomaly, having place, as it is supposed to have, at this early stage of one of the most consummate of the tragedies of Shakspere. We may be sure, therefore, that it is the chief object of these lines to impress the reader beforehand with an idea that, in the mind of Macbeth, there already exist sure foundations for that great superstructure of evil, to the erection of which, the "metaphysical aid" of the weird sisters is now to be offered. An opinion which is further supported by the reproaches of Hecate, who, afterwards, referring to what occurs in this scene, exclaims,

"All you have done

Hath been but for a wayward son,

Spiteful, and wrathful, who, as others do,

Loves for his own end, not for you."

Words which seem to relate to ends loved of Macbeth before the witches had spurred him on to their acquirement.

The fact that in the old chronicle, from which the plot of the play is taken, the machinations of the witches are not assumed to be un-gratuitous, cannot be employed as an argument against our position. In history the sisters figure in the capacity of prophets merely. There we have no previous announcement of their intention "to meet with Macbeth." But in Shakspere they are invested with all other of their superstitional attributes, in order that they may become the evil instruments of holy vengeance upon evil; of that most terrible of vengeance which punishes sin, after it has exceeded certain bounds, by deepening it.

Proceeding now with our analysis, upon the entrance of Macbeth and Banquo, the witches wind up their hurried charm. They are first perceived by Banquo. To his questions the sisters refuse to reply; but, at the command of Macbeth, they immediately speak, and forthwith utter the prophecy which seals the fate of Duncan.

Now, assuming the truth of our view, what would be the natural behaviour of Macbeth upon coming into sudden contact with beings who appear to hold intelligence of his most secret thoughts; and upon hearing those thoughts, as it were, spoken aloud in the presence of a third party? His behaviour would be precisely that which is implied by the question of Banquo.

"Good sir, why do you start and seem to fear

Things which do sound so fair?"

If, on the other hand, our view is not true, why, seeing that their characters are in the abstract so much alike, why does the present conduct of Macbeth differ from that of Banquo, when the witches direct their prophecies to him? Why has Shakspere altered the narrative of Holinshed, without the prospect of gaining any advantage commensurate to the licence taken in making that alteration? These are the words of the old chronicle: "This (the recontre with the witches) was reputed at the first but some vain fantastical illusion by Macbeth and Banquo, insomuch that Banquo would call Macbeth in jest king of Scotland; and Macbeth again would call him in jest likewise the father of many kings." Now it was the invariable practice of Shakspere to give facts or traditions just as he found them, whenever the introduction of those facts or traditions was not totally irreconcileable with the tone of his conception. How then (should we still receive the notion which we are now combating) are we to account for his anomalous practice in this particular case?

When the witches are about to vanish, Macbeth attempts to delay their departure, exclaiming,

"Stay, you imperfect speakers, tell me more:

By Sinol's death, I know I am thane of Glamis;

But how of Cawdor? the thane of Cawdor lives,

A prosperous gentleman; and, to be king

Stands not within the prospect of belief,

No more than to be Cawdor. Say, from whence

You owe this strange intelligence?"

"To be king stands not within the prospect of belief, no more than to be Cawdor." No! it naturally stands much less within the prospect of belief. Here the mind of Macbeth, having long been accustomed to the nurture of its "royal hope," conceives that it is uttering a very suitable hyperbole of comparison. Had that mind been hitherto an honest mind the word "Cawdor" would have occupied the place of "king," "king" that of "Cawdor." Observe too the general character of this speech: Although the coincidence of the principal prophecy with his own thoughts has so strong an effect upon Macbeth as to induce him to, at once, pronounce the words of the sisters, "intelligence;" he nevertheless affects to treat that prophecy as completely secondary to the other in the strength of its claims upon his consideration. This is a piece of over-cautious hypocrisy which is fully in keeping with the tenor of his conduct throughout the rest of the tragedy.

No sooner have the witches vanished than Banquo begins to doubt whether there had been "such things there as they did speak about." This is the natural incredulity of a free mind so circumstanced. On the other hand, Macbeth, whose manner, since the first announcement of the sisters, has been that of a man in a reverie, makes no doubt whatever of the reality of their appearance, nor does he reply to the expressed scepticism of Banquo, but abruptly exclaims, "your children shall be kings." To this Banquo answers, "you shall be king." "And thane of Cawdor too: went it not so?" continues Macbeth. Now, what, in either case, is the condition of mind which can have given rise to this part of the dialogue? It is, we imagine, sufficiently evident that the playful words of Banquo were suggested to Shakspere by the narration of Holinshed; but how are we to account for those of Macbeth, otherwise than by supposing that the question of the crown is now settled in his mind by the coincidence of the principal prediction, with the shapings of his own thoughts, and that he is at this moment occupied with the wholly unanticipated revelations, touching the thaneship of Cawdor, and the future possession of the throne by the offspring of Banquo?

Now comes the fulfilment of the first prophecy. Mark the words of these men, upon receiving the announcement of Rosse:

"Banquo. What! can the devil speak truth?

Macbeth. The thane of Cawdor lives: why do you dress me

In borrowed robes?"

Mark how that reception is in either case precisely the reverse of that given to the prophecy itself. Here Banquo starts. But what is here done for Banquo, by the coincidence of the prophecy with the truth, has been already done for Macbeth, by the coincidence of his thought with the prophecy. Accordingly, Macbeth is calm enough to play the hypocrite, when he must otherwise have experienced surprise far greater than that of Banquo, because he is much more nearly concerned in the source of it. So far indeed from being overcome with astonishment, Macbeth still continues to dwell upon the prophecy, by which his peace of mind is afterwards constantly disturbed,

"Do you not hope your children shall be kings,

When those that gave the thane of Cawdor to me

Promised no less to them?"

Banquo's reply to this question has been one of the chief sources of the interpretation, the error of which we are now endeavouring to expose. He says,

"That, trusted home,

Might yet enkindle you unto the crown,

Besides the thane of Cawdor. But, 'tis strange;

And often times, to win us to our harm,

The instruments of darkness tell us truths,

Win us with honest trifles, to betray us

In deepest consequence."

Now, these words have usually been considered to afford the clue to the entire nature and extent of the supernatural influence brought into play upon the present tragedy; whereas, in truth, all that they express is a natural suspicion, called up in the mind of Banquo, by Macbeth's remarkable deportment, that such is the character of the influence which is at this moment being exerted upon the soul of the man to whom he therefore thinks proper to hint the warning they contain.

The soliloquy which immediately follows the above passage is particularly worthy of comment:

"This supernatural soliciting

Cannot be ill; cannot be good:-if ill,

Why hath it given me earnest of success,

Commencing in a truth? I am thane of Cawdor:

If good, why do I yield to that suggestion,

Whose horrid image doth unfix my hair,

And make my seated heart knock at my ribs

Against the use of nature? Present fears

Are less than horrible imaginings.

My thought, whose murder yet is but fantastical,

Shakes so my single state of man, that function

Is smothered in surmise, and nothing is,

But what is not."

The early portion of this passage assuredly indicates that Macbeth regards the communications of the witches merely in the light of an invitation to the carrying out of a design pre-existent in his own mind. He thinks that the spontaneous fulfilment of the chief prophecy is in no way probable; the consummation of the lesser prophecy being held by him, but as an "earnest of success" to his own efforts in consummating the greater. From the latter portion of this soliloquy we learn the real extent to which "metaphysical aid" is implicated in bringing about the crime of Duncan's murder. It serves to assure Macbeth that that is the "nearest way" to the attainment of his wishes;-a way to the suggestion of which he now, for the first time, "yields," because the chances of its failure have been infinitely lessened by the "earnest of success" which he has just received.

After the above soliloquy Macbeth breaks the long pause, implied in Banquo's words, "Look how our partner's rapt," by exclaiming,

"If chance will have me king, why chance may crown me,

Without my stir."

Which is a very logical conclusion; but one at which he would long ago have arrived, had "soliciting" meant "suggestion," as most people suppose it to have done; or at least, under those circumstances, he would have been satisfied with that conclusion, instead of immediately afterwards changing it, as we see that he has done, when he adds,

"Come what come may,

Time and the hour runs through the roughest day!"

With that the third scene closes; the parties engaged in it proceeding forthwith to the palace of Duncan at Fores.

Towards the conclusion of the fourth scene, Duncan names his successor in the realm of Scotland. After this Macbeth hastily departs, to inform his wife of the king's proposed visit to their castle, at Inverness. The last words of Macbeth are the following,

"The prince of Cumberland!-That is a step,

On which I must fall down, or else o'erleap.

For in my way it lies. Stars, hide your fires!

Let not light see my black and deep desires;

The eye wink at the hand; yet let that be,

Which the eye fears, when it is done, to see."

These lines are equally remarkable for a tone of settled assurance as to the fulfilment of the speaker's royal hope, and for an entire absence of any expression of reliance upon the power of the witches,-the hitherto supposed originators of that hope,-in aiding its consummation. It is particularly noticeable that Macbeth should make no reference whatever, not even in thought, (that is, in soliloquy) to any supernatural agency during the long period intervening between the fulfilment of the two prophecies. Is it probable that this would have been the case had Shakspere intended that such an agency should be understood to have been the first motive and mainspring of that deed, which, with all its accompanying struggles of conscience, he has so minutely pictured to us as having been, during that period, enacted? But besides this negative argument, we have a positive one for his non-reliance upon their promises in the fact that he attempts to outwit them by the murder of Fleance even after the fulfilment of the second prophecy.

The fifth scene opens with Lady Macbeth's perusal of her husband's narration of his interview with the witches. The order of our investigation requires the postponement of comment upon the contents of this letter. We leave it for the present, merely cautioning the reader against taking up any hasty objections to a very important clause in the enunciation of our view by reminding him that, contrary to Shakspere's custom in ordinary cases, we are made acquainted only with a portion of the missive in question. Let us then proceed to consider the soliloquy which immediately follows the perusal of this letter:

"I do fear thy nature.

It is too full o' the milk of human kindness,

To catch the nearest way: thou wouldst be great;

Art not without ambition; but without

The illness should attend it. That thou wouldst highly,

That wouldst thou holily; wouldst not play false

And yet wouldst wrongly win: thou'dst have, great Glamis,

That which cries this thou must do if thou have it,

And that which rather thou dost fear to do,

Thou wishest should be undone."

It is vividly apparent that this passage indicates a knowledge of the character it depicts, which is far too intimate to allow of its being other than a direct inference from facts connected with previous communications upon similar topics between the speaker and the writer: unless, indeed, we assume that in this instance Shakspere has notably departed from his usual principles of characterization, in having invested Lady Macbeth with an amount of philosophical acuteness, and a faculty of deduction, much beyond those pretended to by any other of the female creations of the same author.

The above passage is interrupted by the announcement of the approach of Duncan. Observe Lady Macbeth's behaviour upon receiving it. She immediately determines upon what is to be done, and all without (are we to suppose?) in any way consulting, or being aware of, the wishes or inclinations of her husband! Observe too, that neither does she appear to regard the witches' prophecies as anything more than an invitation, and holding forth of "metaphysical aid" to the carrying out of an independent project. That this should be the case in both instances vastly strengthens the argument legitimately deducible from each.

At the conclusion of the passage which called for the last remark, Macbeth, after a long and eventful period of absence, let it be recollected, enters to a wife who, we will for a moment suppose, is completely ignorant of the character of her husband's recent cogitations. These are the first words which pass between them,

"Macbeth. My dearest love,

Duncan comes here to-night.