Chapter IX: Part 9

It has been said that the "divine hand" of Michel Angelo painted the portrait of Luigia de' Medici. This is the name given, in reality, during the last century, to the head of a young female, "handsome rather than really beautiful," writes father Della Valle--a work in which Buonarotti's drawing was said to be recognised, with a softer and more lively colouring than obtains in the other pictures from his easel. Angelo's repugnance to paint portraits is one of the best established traits of his character. But he sculptured several--among those positively known are that of Julius II., lost in the chateau of Ferrara, and another of Gabriel Faerne, preserved in the Museum Capitolinum. We know, besides, that he consented to paint the portrait of the noble and witty Messer Tomasso de' Cavalieri, (see _Vasari_,) of the natural size; but that was a rare favour. "For," said he, "I abhor the obligation to copy that which, in nature, is not of infinite beauty." In another place, sonnet nineteen, addressing the object of his tenderness, Michel Angelo reminds her, that works of art are endowed, so to say, with eternal life and youth. "Perhaps," he adds, (_Sonnetto_ 19 ,) "I shall be able to prolong thy life and mine beyond the tomb, by employing, if thou wilt, colour, or marble, if thou preferest, to fix the lines of our features and the resemblance of our affection!"

Again he writes--"While I paint her features, why cannot I convey to her face the pallor which disfigures mine, and which comes from her cruelty to me?"--(_Madrigale_ 24.) But in some others of Angelo's poems, mention is made of a statue, or more probably of a bust, on which the young artist worked with an impassioned mixture of zeal and faint-heartedness.

"I fear," he says, "to draw from the marble, instead of her image, that of my features worn, and void of grace."--(_Madrigale 22._ ) And when he drew near the term of his labour--"Behold," he exclaims, "an animated stone, which, a thousand years hence, will seem to breathe! What, then, ought heaven to do for her, its own work, while the portrait only is mine; for her whom the whole world, and not myself alone, regard as a goddess rather than a mortal? Nevertheless the stone remains, while she is about to depart."--(_Madrigale 39._)

It was probably on this occasion that Michel Angelo wrote those charming, and mysterious verses, whose sense it is otherwise difficult to determine:-

"Qui risi e piansi, e con doglia infinita,
Da questo sasso vidi far partita
Colei ch 'a me mi tolse, e non mi volse."
(_Sonnetto 29._)

The bust of Luigia de' Medici, if it really came from the hands of Angelo, has shared the fate of many other _chefs-d'oeuvres_, of which his contemporaries appear to have spoken with such great enthusiasm, only to increase our regret; while the most diligent researches have led to no recovery since their disappearance, caused by the disasters that visited Florence, and by the culpable negligence which, throughout the whole of Italy, followed the period of which Buonarotti was the principal ornament.

If it be to the affection of Luigia de' Medici that Angelo's nineteenth sonnet[55] really refers, we are led to the belief that this lofty soul, temperate in its own hopes, yet imbued with a generous ambition, had suffered itself, for a moment, to be carried away by the illusion of a permanent happiness; but a blow, as terrible as unforeseen, scattered these thoughts. The "Magnificent" Lorenzo, scarcely in his forty-second year, sunk at his seat of Careggi, under a short illness, but of which he foresaw the inevitable term with great resignation from the earliest moment. With Lorenzo de' Medici descended to the tomb all that was yet bright in the glory of his family--all that was real in the prosperity of Florence--all that was assured in the fortune, or attractive in the labours of the young Buonarotti, then only seventeen years of age.

Of the three sons left by Lorenzo, not one was capable of replacing him. The Cardinal Giovanni had a cultivated mind, engaging manners, and vast ambition; but, overwhelmed already, in spite of his youth,[56] with the weight of his benefices and ecclesiastical dignities, he pursued, at the Papal Court, the high fortune of which he then foresaw the accomplishment. Giuliano, born in 1478, was as yet little more than a child, in whom appeared the germ of amiable and even generous qualities, spoiled by pride, the hereditary vice of his house. With regard to Pietro, the new prince of the government--for he succeeded without opposition to the ill-defined and conventional, rather than regularly constituted authority which his ancestors and his father had left in his possession--he evinced only incapacity, presumption, improvidence, and foolish vanity. Aged twenty-one, he had already espoused Alfonsina Orsini, and drew a false security from an alliance in which he hoped for the support of one of the most warlike and powerful families of southern Italy. Michel Angelo felt the necessity of quitting the abode of the Medici, where Pietro, of too vulgar a mind to appreciate the artist's character, displayed a soul mean enough to make him feel the bitterness of protection. He returned to the paternal home; and although he continued to show a marked attachment for the legitimate interests of the Medici, and was even again sometimes employed--but not in important matters--by the younger members of the family, the separation was final, and the republican convictions of the young artist developed themselves, after that time, at full liberty. Angelo's poetical collection proves to us how cruelly his removal, from the house where Lorenzo had entertained him with the most agreeable hospitality, affected his heart. In future it must become a stranger, at least in looks and conversation, to her whom he loved with an inquiet fervour.

"How, separated from you, shall I ever have the power to guide my
life, if I can not, at parting, implore your assistance?

* * * * *

Lest absence condemn my loyal devotion to forgetfulness, in
remembrance of my long affliction, take, Signora, take in pledge a
heart which hereafter belongs no more to me."--(_Madrigale 11._ )

And in another place:

"He who departs from you has no more hope of light: where you are
not, there is no more heaven."--(_Madrigale 9._ )

The hour approached, however, when, according to the usage of the country, and the relations of her family, Luigia's lot should be decided. Various projects of alliance were discussed. The choice hesitated between two brothers, descended from Giovanni de' Medici, a branch from the dominant house, and of that which took the name of its individual ancestor, Lorenzo. The latter, brother of Cosmo, Pater Patriae, had, by Ginevra Cavalcanti Piero Francesco, to whom his wife, Landomia Acciajuoli, brought two sons, Lorenzo and Giovanni. Both had arrived at the age of maturity, and were reckoned among the most considerable citizens of Florence. The marriage, however, did not take place. It is said that Luigia herself prevented its conclusion, until a misunderstanding, caused by some opposition of interests, had definitely separated Pietro from the two brothers, more especially from Giovanni, upon whom the reigning prince appears principally to have reckoned. Others, however, have supposed that the obstacles to the proposed union arose only on the part of Giovanni and his brother, who, in fact, followed the principal citizens in the opposition, then planned, against Pietro's unskilful administration. And last, it has been asserted, that Luigia was betrothed to Giovanni, but died before the time fixed for the marriage. Among these opinions, Litta appears to incline to the second; Roscoe adopts the last. However it may be, it is only certain that, alone of all Lorenzo's daughters, Luigia left the paternal house but to exchange it for the repose of the tomb.

According to the historians, she died a few days before the catastrophe which overturned Pietro's government, and condemned all the descendants of Cosmo l'Antico to an exile of sixteen years. It was consequently late in the autumn of 1494 that Luigia departed this life. Amid the passionate prejudices which prepared, and the convulsions which followed, the Florentine revolution, the extinction of the beauteous light excited no sensation.

Michel Angelo was not at that moment in Florence. Politiano's death seems to have broken the last ties that attached him to the obligations contracted in his early youth. His penetrating intelligence warned him of the coming fall of the Medici. He neither wished to renounce his ancient attachments, nor to give them the predominance over the duties of a citizen, to a free state, which it was of the highest importance to wean from a blind and dangerous course. In this painful alternative, Michel Angelo determined to withdraw for a time. He went first to Venice, and afterwards to Bologna, where the warm reception of the Aldrovandi kept him during an entire year, and even longer.

According to all appearance, on quitting Florence, Buonarotti was aware of Luigia's declining health; and his poetry shows us the courageous artist sinking under the burden of his melancholy presentiments:--

"Be sure, O eyes, that the time is past, that the hour approaches
which will close the passage to your regards, even to your tears.
Remain, in pity to me, remain open while this divine maiden deigns
yet to dwell on this earth. But when the heaven shall open to
receive these unique and pure beauties ..., when she shall ascend
to the abode of glorified and happy souls, then close; I bid you
farewell."--(_Madrigale 40._ )

It was while at Venice, at least so it is believed, that Michel Angelo learned the death of Luigia de' Medici. An expression of profound sadness and manly resignation pervades the poems which escaped from his oppressed soul, already familiarized with grief: he knew "that death and love are the two wings which bear man from earth to heaven."

... "chi ama, qual chi muore,
Non ha da gire al ciel dal mondo altr'ale."

(Sonnetto: _Dall' aspra piaga._)

There are, in Angelo's collection, four compositions which may be regarded as dedicated to the memory of Luigia de Medici; first, the sonnet.--"Spirto ben nato," ... in which the poet deplores "the cruel law which has not spared tenderness, compassion, mercy--treasures so rare, united to so much of beauty and fidelity; then the Sonnets 27, 28, and 30, where Michel Angelo, as though emboldened by the irreparable calamity which had befallen him, raises the veil under which the circumstances and the illusions of his love had hitherto been shrouded, for every one, and almost for himself. Now he exclaims:--"Oh, fallacious hopes! where shall I now seek thee--liberated soul? Earth has received thy beauteous form, and Heaven thy holy thoughts!--(_Sonnetto 27._).... This _first love_, which fixed my wandering affections, now overwhelms my exhausted soul with an insupportable weight.--(_Sonnetto 28._) ... Yes, the brightness of the flame, which nourished while consuming my heart, is taken from me by heaven; but one teeming spark remains to me, and I would wish to be reduced to ashes only after shining in my turn." The sense of the latter triplet is very enigmatical; it is here interpreted in accordance with the known character of the poet, and the direction which he delayed not to give to his faculties. From this moment Angelo, devoted to the threefold worship of God, art, and his country, constantly refused to think of other ties. He had, he remarked, "espoused the affectionate fantasy which makes of Art a monarch, an idol; "my children," he added, "will be the works that I shall leave behind me." More than thirty years were to elapse, ere in this heart, yet youthful at the approach of age, another woman, and she the first of her era, (Vittoria Colonna,) occupied in part the place left vacant by Luigia de' Medici.

It is to these few imperfect indications, conjectures, and fugitive glimpses, to which the most perspicacious care has not always succeeded in giving a positive consistency, that all our knowledge is reduced of one of the purest and most amiable forms presented by the historical and poetical gallery of Florence, during what is named her _golden age_. But what destiny was more worthy than that of Luigia de' Medici to excite a generous envy? Orphan from her birth, her life experienced that alone which elevates and purifies: hope, grief, and love. No vulgar cares abased her thoughts; no bitter experience withered her heart; death, in compassion, spared her the spectacle of the reverses of her family, and participation in the guilty successes which followed those disasters. Delicate and stainless flower, she closed on the eve of the storm that would have bathed her in tears and blood! The only evidence remaining to us of her is poetry of a fame almost divine--of a purity almost religious; and this young maiden, of whom no mention has come down to us, in addressing herself to our imagination, borrows the accents of the most extraordinary genius possessed by a generation hitherto unequalled in achievements of the mind. The place of sepulture of Luigia de' Medici is unknown; her remains were most probably deposited, without monumental inscription, in the vaults of San Lorenzo, the _gentilizia_ church of her house. Among the epitaphs composed by Angelo, without attempting to indicate for whom, there is one whose application to Luigia de' Medici would be apt and touching. It may be thus translated:--"To earth the dust, to heaven the soul, have been returned by death. To him who yet loves me, dead, I have bequeathed the thought of my beauty and my glory, that he may perpetuate in marble the beautiful mask which I have left."

The editors of Michel Angelo have assumed that this admirable composition, as well as those which accompany it under the same title, were written for a certain Francesco Bracci. The expression "chi _morta_ ancor m' ama" is sufficient to refute this singular supposition.

We shall now attempt to give some idea of the poetical compositions from which we have not yet quoted, and which we conjecture to have been similarly inspired in Michel Angelo by his love for Luigia de' Medici. We incline to consider as belonging to the earliest poetic age of the great artist, to the epoch of the first and only real love experienced by him, all the pieces forming the first part of his work, commencing with the celebrated sonnet--

"Non ha l'ottimo artista," * * *

and ending with the thirtieth--

"Qual meraviglia e se vicino al fuoco."
* * *

in addition, the sonnet, three _madrigali_, (pieces without division of stanzas or couplets,) and one _canzone_, which the editors have placed at the head of the collection, entitled by them--"Componimenti men gravi e giocosi." The commencement of a new era in Angelo's thoughts and poetic style appears to us marked by the composition of the two admirable pieces which he dedicated to the memory of Dante Alighieri:--

"Dal mondo scese ai ciechi abissi;"
* * *

and

"Quanto dime si dee non si puo dire."

Michel Angelo _petitioned_ but once: this was that Leo X. would grant the ashes of Dante to Florence, where the artist "offered to give a becoming burial to the divine poet, in an honourable place in the city."--(Condivi, _Vita di Michel Angelo_.)

Previously a stranger to the sentiments of love, the young artist at first wonders and fears at their violence:

"Who, then, has lifted me by main force above myself? How can it be
that I am no longer my own? And what is the unknown power which,
nearer then myself, influences me; which has more control over me;
passes into my soul by the eyes; increases there without limit, and
overflows my whole being?"--_Madrigali_, 3, 4.

Soon, however, he no longer doubts upon the character of this intoxication; he feels that he loves; he traces in sport the most graceful and animated picture of her who has captivated his heart! But this pure and ardent soul speedily becomes alarmed at the profound agitation in which it sees itself plunged; desires to go back to the cause, to recognise its origin, and measure its danger. Michel Angelo recognises, in conjunction with the danger, a sublime reward reserved for him who shall know how to merit it.

"The evil which I ought to shun, and the good to which I aspire,
are united and hidden in thee, noble and divine beauty! * * * Love,
beauty, fortune, or rigour of destiny, it is not you that I can
reproach for my sufferings; for in her heart she bears at once
compassion and death! Woe to me if my feeble genius succeed only,
while consuming itself, in obtaining death from it!"[57]

Yes, dangerous and often fatal is that passion which seems to choose its favourite victims among hearts the most generous--intelligence the most ample:

"Very few are the men who raise themselves to the heaven; to him
who lives in the fire of love, and drinks of its poison, (for to
love is one of life's fatal conditions,) if grace transport him not
towards supreme and incorruptible beauties--if all his desires
learn not to direct themselves thither--Ah! what miseries overwhelm
the condition of lover!"--(_Sonnet_ 10.)

But this declaration has not been applied to all passionate and deep affections:

"No, it is not always a mortal and impious fault to burn with an
immense love for a perfect beauty, if this love afterwards leave
the heart so softened that the arrows of divine beauty may
penetrate it."

"Love wakens the soul, and lends it

wings for its sublime flight: often its ardour is the first step by
which, discontented with earth, the soul remounts towards her
Creator."--(_Sonnet_ 8.)

Transported with this thought, in which he feels the passion to which he has yielded at once transforming and tranquillising itself, Michel Angelo gives to it in his verses the most eloquent and most ingenious developments.

"No, it is not a mortal thing which my eyes perceived, when in them
was reflected, for the first time, the light of thine; but in thy
look, my soul, inquiet, because it mounts towards its object
without repose, has conceived the hope of finding her peace."

"She ascends, stretching her wings towards the abode from whence
she descended! The beauty which charms the eyes calls to her on her
flight; but, finding her weak and fugitive, she passes onwards to
the universal form, the divine archetype."

This expression, and many others dispersed throughout the collection, show that he had profited more than he cared to acknowledge by the discourses of the Platonic Academy.

"Yes, I perceive it; that which must die can offer no repose to the
wise man. * * * That which kills the soul is not love; it is the
unbridled disorder of the senses. Love can render our souls perfect
here below, and yet more in heaven!"--(_Sonnet_ 2.)

And fruther on:

"From the stars most near to the empyrean, descends sometimes a
brightness which attracts our desires towards them: it is that
which is called love!"--(_Mad._ 8.)

But this celestial route demands extraordinary efforts on the part of him who aspires to travel it:

"How rash and how unworthy are the understandings, which bring down
to the level of the senses this beauty whose approaches aid the
true intelligence to remount to the skies. But feeble eyes cannot
go from the mortal to the divine;[58] never will they raise
themselves to that throne, where, without the grace from on high,
it is a vain thought to think of rising."

Michel Angelo believed that he recognised these characteristics, as rare as sublime, in the love which pervaded his own heart.

"The life of my love is not the all in my heart. * * This affection
turns to that point where no earthly weakness, no guilty thought,
could exist."

"Love, when my soul left the presence of her Creator, made of her a
pure eye, of thee a splendour, and my ardent desire finds it every
hour in that which must, alas! one day die of thee."

"Like as heat and fire, so is the Beautiful inseparable from the
Eternal. * * * I see Paradise in thy eyes, and so return there
where I loved thee before this life,[59] I recur every hour to
consume myself under thy looks."--(_Sonnet_ 6.)

He writes elsewhere, with a singular mixture of affectionate ardour and metaphysical boldness,--

"I know not if this is, in thee, the prolific light from its
Supreme Author which my soul feels, or if from the mysterious
treasures of her memory some other beauty, earlier perceived,
shines with thy aspect in my heart."[60]

"Or if the brilliant ray of _thy former existence_ is reflected in
my soul, leaving behind this kind of painful joy, which perhaps, at
this moment, is the cause of the tears I shed;"

"But after all, that which I feel, and see, which guides me, is not
with me, is not in me, * * sometimes I imagine that thou aidest me
to distinguish it." * * * * (_Sonnet_ 7.)

It is easy to conjecture the danger of this inclination to metaphysical speculation for an ardent and subtile genius, which, even in its works of art, has left the proof of a constant disposition towards an obscure mysticism or a sombre austerity. Michel Angelo was enabled to avoid these two dangers, on one or the other of which he would have seen his genius wrecked, by the noble confidence which he ever maintained in "the two beacons of his navigation," tenderness of heart, and pure worship of beauty.

Thus, we shall see with what outpouring he proclaims the necessity, for the human soul, to attach itself strongly to some generous love:

"The memory of the eyes, and this hope which suffices to my life,
and more to my happiness, * * * reason and passion, love and
nature, constrain me to fix my regard upon thee during the whole
time given me. * * * Eyes serene and sparkling; he who lives not in
you is not yet born!"

And again:

"It is to thee that it belongs to bring out from the coarse and
rude bark within which my soul is imprisoned, that which has
brought and linked together in my intelligence, reason strength,
and love of the good." (_Mad._ 10.)

Then was renewed that sweet and pregnant security in which the soul, "under the armour of a conscience which feels its purity," may gain new energy and journey towards her repose:[61]

"Yes, sometimes, with my ardent desire, my hope may also ascend; it
will not deceive me, for if all our affections are displeasing to
heaven, to what end would this world have been created by God?

"And what cause more just of the love with which I burn for thee,
than the duty of rendering glory to that eternal peace, whence
springs the divine charm which emanates from thee, which makes
every heart, worthy to comprehend thee, chaste and pious?

* * * * *

"Firm is the hope founded on a noble heart, the changes of the
mortal bark strip no leaves from its crown; never does it languish,
and even here it receives an assurance of heaven."--(_Sonnet_ 9.)

Now it is with accents of triumph and anon with the serener emotion of an immortal gratitude, that the poet exhibits the luminous ladder which his love assists him to mount, the support he finds in it when he descends again to the earth:

"The power of a beautiful countenance, the only joy I know on
earth, urges me to the heaven, I rise, yet living, to the abode of
elect souls--favour granted rarely to our mortal state!

"So perfect is the agreement of this divine work with its Creator,
that I ascend to Him on the wings of this celestial fervour; and
there I form all my thoughts, and purify all my words.

* * * * *

"In her beautiful eyes, from which mine cannot divert themselves, I
behold the light, guide upon the way which leads to God;

* * * * *

"Thus, in my noble fire, calmly shines the felicity which smiles,
eternal, in the heavens!--(_Sonnet_ 3.)

"With _your_ beautiful eyes I see the mild light which my darkened
eyes could not discern. Your support enables me to bear a burden
which my weary steps could not endure to the end."

* * * * *

"My thoughts are shaped in your heart; my words are born in your
mind.

"With regard to you, I am like the orb of night in its career; our
eyes can only perceive the portion on which the sun sheds his
rays."--(_Sonnet_ 12.)

The admirable picture of indissoluble union in a settled tenderness, one of the most perfect pieces which has come from Angelo's pen, was sketched, doubtless, in one of those moments of severe and entire felicity:

"A refined love, a supreme affection, an equal fortune between two
hearts, to whom joys and sorrows are in common,

because one single mind actuates them both;

"One soul in two bodies, raising both to heaven, and upon equal
wings;

* * * * *

"To love the other always, and one's self never, to desire of Love
no other prize than himself; to anticipate every hour the wishes
with which the reciprocal empire regulates two existences:

"Such are the certain signs of an inviolable faith; shall disdain
or anger dissolve such a tie?"--(_Sonnet_ 20.)

The last verse makes allusion to some incident of which we have been unable to find any historical explanation:

"Or potra _sdegno_ tanto nodo sciorre?"

But these ill-founded fears soon gave way to the presentiment of the cruel, the imminent trial, for which the poet's affection was reserved.

"Spirit born under happy auspices, to show us, in the chaste beauty
of thy terrestrial envelope, all the gifts which nature and heaven
can bestow on their favourite creation!"

* * * * *

"What inexorable law denies to this faithless world, to this
mournful and fallacious life, the long possession of such a
treasure? Why cannot death pardon so beautiful a work?"--(_Sonnet_
25.)

The poet, however, already knew that such is the law, severe in appearance, but merciful in reality, which governs all things on this earth, "where nothing endures but tears."[62] It was then that Michel Angelo discovered in his heart that treasure of energy destined to sustain him in the multiplied trials of a life, of which he measured the probable length with a melancholy resignation.[63]

"Why," he exclaims, "grant to my wounded soul the vain solace of
tears and groaning words, since heaven, which clothed a heart with
bitterness, takes it away but late, and perhaps only in the tomb?"

"_Another_ must die. Why this haste to follow her? Will not the
remembrance of her look soothe my last hours? And what other
blessing would be worth so much as one of my sorrows?"[64]

In fine, armed with "the faith that raises souls[65] to God, and sweetens their death," Michel Angelo, when the fatal blow fell, was enabled to impart to his regrets an expression of thankfulness to the Supreme Dispenser of our destinies; and giving a voice from the tomb to her whom he had so deeply loved, he puts these sublime words into her mouth:

"I was a mortal, now I am an angel. The world knew me for a little
space, and I possess heaven for ever. I rejoice at the glorious
exchange, and exult over the death which struck, to lead me to
eternal life!"--_Epitaffio_, v.

FOOTNOTES:

[50] "Dietro al mio legno, che cantando varca."--_Dante._

[51] Michel Angelo lived until the beginning of the year 1564, the seventieth after the death of Luigia de' Medici.

[52] In the Florentine style, 1474. The Florentine year began at Easter.

[53] Michel Angelo was the fourth and last of the sons of Ludovico.

[54] The Platonic Academy was established at Florence in 1474. Politiano's death, twenty years later, was the cause of its entire dispersion.

[55] "But, perhaps, thy compassion regards with more justice than I thought in the beginning, my pure and loyal ardour, and the passion which thy looks have kindled in me for noble actions.

"Oh, most happy day! if it ever arrive for me, let my days and hours concentrate themselves in that moment! and, to prolong it, let the sun forget his accustomed course!"

[56] He was born in 1475.

[57] The first sonnet of the collection; that commencing with the celebrated proposition--

"_Non ha l'ottimo artista alcun concetto._"

[58]

"Dal mortale al divin non vanno gli occhi
Che sono infermi." * * * *

[59]

"Veggendo ne tuo' occhi il Paradiso,
Per ritornar la dove io t'amai pria,
Ricorro ardendo sotto le tue ciglia."

[60]

"Non so se e' _l'immaginata luce_
Del suo primo Fattor che l'alma sente,
O se dalla memoria. * * *
Alcuna altra bella nel cor traluce,
* * * * * * *
_Del tuo primiero stato il raggio ardente_
Di se lasciando un non so che cocente." * * *

[61]

"La buona coscienza che l'uom franchigia,
Sotto l'usbergo di sentirsi pura."--_Dante._

[62] "To what am I reserved?" writes Angelo in another piece. "To live long? that terrifies me. The shortest life is yet too long for the recompense obtained in serving with devotion."

[63] "Ahi, che null altro che pianto al mondo dura!"--_Petrarca._

[64] "_Ogni altro ben val men ch'una mia doglia!_"

[65]

* * * * "Chi t'ama con fede
Si leva a Dio, e fa dolce la morte."

THINGS IN GENERAL.

A GOSSIPING LETTER FROM THE SEASIDE TO CHRISTOPHER NORTH, ESQ. BY AN OLD CONTRIBUTOR.

------
Near ----, England,
_October 1846_.

MY DEAR CHRISTOPHER,--Where am I? What am I doing? Why have I forgotten you and Maga? Bless us! what a pother!--Give a man time, my revered friend, to answer: I have _not_ forgotten either you or Maga; I am at the seaside; and I am doing, as well as I can, _nothing_. There are your testy questions answered: and as to divers objurgatory observations of your's, I shall not attempt to reply to them--regarding them as the results of some gout-twinges which have, I fear, a little quickened and heated the temper of that "old man eloquent," who, when in good health, plays but one part--that of a caressing father towards his children; for as such Christopher North has ever (as far as I know) regarded his contributors. "Why don't you _review_ something or other? There's ----, an impudent knave!--has just sent me his ----: you will find it pleasant to flagellate him, or ----, a Cockney coxcomb! And if you be not in that humour, there are several excellent, and one or two admirable works, which have appeared within the last eighteen months, and which really have as strong a claim on Maga as she has on her truant sons,--and you, among the rest, have repeatedly promised to take one, at least, in hand. If you be not in the critical vein--do, for heaven's sake, turn your hand to something else--you have lain fallow long enough!--With one of the many articles which you have so often told me that you were 'seriously thinking of' on ----, or ----, or ----, &c., &c., &c.; and if _that_ won't do--why, rather than do _nothing_, set to work for an hour or two on a couple of mornings, and write me a gossiping sort of letter--such as I can print--such as you have once before done, and I printed,--on Things in General. Surely the last few months have witnessed events which must have set you, and all observant men, thinking, and thinking very earnestly. Set to work, be it only in a simple, natural, easy way--care not you, as I care not, how discursively--a little touch of modest egotism, even, I will forgive on this occasion, if you find that--" Here, dear Christopher, I recalcitrate, and decline printing the rest of the sentence; but as to "_Things in General_"--I am somewhat smitten with the suggestion. 'Tis a taking title--a roomy subject, in which one can flit about from gay to grave, from lively to severe, according to the humour of the moment; and since you really do not dislike the idea of an old contributor's gossip on men and things, given you in his own way, I shall forthwith begin to pour out my little thoughts as unreservedly as if you and I were sitting together alone here. _Here_; but where? As I said before, at the seaside; at my favourite resort--where (eschewing "Watering-places" with lively disgust) I have spent many a happy autumn. When I first found it out, I thought that the _lines_ had indeed _fallen_ to me in _pleasant places_, and I still think so; but were I to tell the public, through your pages, of this green spot, I suspect that by this time next year the sweet solitude and primitive simplicity of the scene around me would have vanished: greedy speculating builders, tempting the proprietors of the soil, would run up in all directions vile, pert, vulgar, brick-built, slate-roofed, Quakerish-looking abominations, exactly as a once lovely nook in the Isle of Wight--Ventnor to wit--has become a mere assemblage of eyesores, a mass of _un_favourable eruptions, so to speak--Bah! I once used to look forward to the Isle of Wight with springy satisfaction. Why, the infatuated inhabitants were lately talking of having a railroad in the island!!

I quitted Babylon, now nearly eleven weeks ago, for this said sweet mysterious solitude. London I dearly, dearly love--except during the months of August, September, and October, when it goes to sleep, and lies utterly torpid. When I quitted it very early in August, London life was, as it were, at dead-low water-mark. I was myself somewhat jaded with a year's severe exertion in my lawful calling, (what that may be, it concerns none of your readers to know,) and my family also were in want of change of air and scene; so that, when the day of departure had arrived, we were in the highest possible spirits. _Our_ house would--we reflected--within a few hours put on the dismal, dismantled appearance which almost every other house in the street had presented for several weeks, and we, whirling away to ----; but first of all it occurred to me to lay in a stock of our good friend Lee's port and sherry, (for where were we to get drinkable wine at ----?)--ditto, in respect of six pounds of real tea--not _quasi_ tea, _i.e._, raisin-stalks and sloe-leaves--three bottles of whisky; four of Anchovy sauce; and four of Reading or Harvey's sauce; two pounds of mustard, and some cayenne and curry-powder: having an eye, in respect of this last, to--hot crab! a delicious affair! Arrangements these which we are resolved always to make hereafter, having repeatedly experienced the inconvenience of not doing so. Having packed up every thing, and given special orders for the _Times_ to be provided daily, and the _Spectator_ weekly, away we go--myself, wife, three hostages to fortune, and three other persons, and--bless him!--Tickler; Timothy Tickler--that sagacious, quaint, affectionate, ugly-beautiful Skye terrier, which found its way to me from you, my revered friend--and is now lying gracefully near me, pretending--the little rogue--to be asleep; but really watching the wasps buzzing round him, and every now and then snapping at them furiously, unconscious of the probable consequences of his success,--that,

"If 'twere _done_, when 'tis done,
_Then_--'twere well it were done quickly!"

By what railway we went, I care not to say--beyond this, that it belongs to one of that exceedingly select class, the well-conducted railways; and we were brought to the end of that portion of our journey--whether one hundred, two hundred, or two hundred and fifty, or three hundred miles, signifies nothing--safely and punctually arriving two minutes earlier than our appointed time. Then, by means of steam-boats, cars, and otherwise, _taliter processum est_, that about eight o'clock in the evening we reached this place, which, in the brilliant moonlight, looked even more beautiful than I had ever seen it. Near us on our left--that is, within a few hundred feet--was the placid silvery sea, "its moist lips kissing the shore," as Thomas Campbell expressed it; and while supper was preparing, we went to the shore to enjoy its loveliness. Not a breath of wind was stirring--scarce a cloud interfered with the moon's serene effulgence. Lofty cliffs stretched on either side of us as we faced the sea, casting a kindly gloom over part of the shore; and on turning towards the land, we beheld nothing but solemn groves of trees, and one sweet cottage peeping modestly from among them, as it were a pearl glistening half-hid between the folds of green velvet, about half-way up the fissure in the cliffs by which we had descended. Two or three fishing-boats were moored under the cliff, and against one of them was leaning the fisherman, not far from his snugly-sheltered hut, pleasantly puffing at his pipe. Near him lay extended on the shingle, grisly even in death, a monster--viz. a shark, the victim of the patience, pluck, and tact, which had been exhibited that afternoon by the fisherman and his son, who had captured the marine fiend in the bay, at less than two miles' distance from the shore. 'Twas nine feet in length, wanting one inch;--and _its_ teeth made your teeth chatter to look at them. Tickler inspected him narrowly, having first cautiously ascertained by his nose that all was right, and then exclaimed, "Bow, wow, wow!"--thus showing that even as a live ass is better than a dead lion, so a live terrier was better than a dead shark. [As I find that several of these hideous creatures have been lately captured here, _quaere_ the propriety of bathing, as I had intended, from a boat, a little way of from the land? Hem!] The only visible occupants of those solitary sands at that moment were myself, my wife and children, the fisherman, Tickler, and the dead shark. I remained standing alone for a few moments after my companions had turned their steps towards our cottage, eager for supper, and gazed upon the sequestered loveliness around me with a sense of luxury. What a contrast this to the scene of exciting London life in which I had happened to bear a part on the preceding evening! The following verses of Lord Rosscommon happened to occur to me, and chimed in completely with the tone of my feelings:--

"Hail, sacred Solitude! from this calm bay
I view the world's tempestuous sea;
And with wise pride despise
All those senseless vanities:
With pity moved for others, cast away,
On rocks of hopes and fears I see them toss'd,
On rocks of folly and of vice I see them lost:
Since the prevailing malice of the great
Unhappy men, or adverse fate
Sunk deep into the gulfs of an afflicted state:
But more, far more, a numberless prodigious train,
Whilst virtue counts them, but, alas, in vain.
Fly from her kind embracing arms,
Deaf to her fondest call, blind to her greatest charms,
And sunk in pleasures and in brutish ease,
They in their shipwrecked state themselves obdurate please.

* * * * *

Here may I always, on this downy grass,
Unknown, unseen, my easy moments pass,
Till, with a gentle force, victorious Death
My solitude invade,
And stopping for a while my breath,
With ease convey me to a better shade!"

But a sharpened appetite for supper called me away, and I quickly followed my companions, casting a last glance around, and suppressing a faint sigh, fraught with the reflection, "All this--_Deo volente_--will be ours for nearly three months." Why _does_ one so often sigh on such an occasion?

You may conceive how we enjoyed our supper to the utmost, and then all of us retired to our respective apartments, which were so brilliantly lit by the moon, as to make our candles pale their ineffectual fires. I stood for a long time gazing at the beautiful scenery visible from my little dressing-room window, and then retired to rest, grateful to the Almighty for our being allowed the prospect of another of these periodical intervals of relaxation and enjoyment. To me they get more precious every year; _they do_, decidedly. But why? Let me, however, return to this question by-and-by: 'tis one which, with kindred subjects, has much occupied my thoughts this autumn, in many a long, solitary stroll over the hills, and along the seashore.

I wish I could do justice to my cottage and its lovely locality. Yet why should I try to set your's and your readers' teeth on edge? You have some lovely nooks on your Scottish coast; but you cannot beat this. We are about three hundred yards from the sea, of which our windows, on one side, command a full view; while from all the others are visible dark, high, steep downs, at so short a distance, that methinks, at this moment, I can hear the faint--the very faint--tinkle of a sheep-bell, proceeding from some of the little white tufts moving upon them. I am now writing to you towards the middle of this stormy October. Its winds have so much thinned the leaves of the huge elms which stand towards the south-eastern parts of our house, that I can now, from my study-window, distinctly see the church--very small, and very ancient--which, when first we came, the thick foliage rendered totally invisible from this point. My window looks directly upon the aforesaid downs, which at present appear somewhat gloomy and desolate. Yet have they a certain air of the wild picturesque, the effect of which is heightened by the howling winds, which are sweeping down over them to us, moaning and groaning through the trees, and round the gables of our house, (the aspect of the sky being, at the same time, bleak and threatening.) How it enhances my sense of snugness in the small antique, thoroughly wind-and-weather tight room in which I am writing! A little to my left is a vast natural hollow in the downs, from which springs a sort of little hanging wood or copse, the mottled variegated hues of which have a beautiful effect. Between me and the downs are small clumps of trees--abrupt little declivities, thickly lined with shrubs, all touched with the bronze tinting of the far-advanced autumn--two or three intensely-green fields, in the nearest of which are browsing the two cows belonging to the parsonage--which is, by the way, quite invisible from any part of my house, though at only a hundred yards' or two distance. Oh! 'tis a model--a love of a parsonage!--buried among lofty trees, richly adorned with myrtles, laurel, and clematis--the well-trimmed greensward immediately surrounding the long, low, thatched house, which combines rural elegance, simplicity, and comfort in its disposition--is bordered by spreading hydrangeas, dahlias, fuschias, mignionette, and roses--ay, roses, even yet in full bloom! Its occupant is my friend, a dignitary of the church, a scholar, a gentleman, and "given to hospitality;" but I will say nothing more on this head, lest, peradventure, I should offend his modesty, and disclose my locality. My own house is more than sufficient for my family; 'tis a small gentleman's cottage, delightfully situate, and containing every convenience, (especially for a _symposium_,) and surrounded by a luxuriant garden. Along one side of the house, and commanding an extensive and varied sea and land view, runs a little terrace of "soft, smooth-shaven green," made for a meditative man to pace up and down, as I have done some thousand times--by noonday sunlight, by midnight moonshine--buried in reverie, or charmed by contemplating the scenery around, disturbed by no sound save the caw! caw! caw! from the parsonage rookery, the _sough_ of the wind among the trees, and, latterly, the sullen echoes of the sea thundering on the shore. Ah! what an inexpressibly beautiful aspect is just given to the scene by that transient gleam of saddening sunlight!

I can really give no account of my time for the last eleven weeks, which have slipped away almost unperceivedly--one day so like another, that scarce any thing can be recorded of one which would not be applicable to every other. Breakfast over, (crabs, lobster, or prawns, and honey indigenous, the constant racy accessaries,) all the intermediate time between that hour and dinner, (for I am no lunch-eater,) six P.M., is spent in sauntering along the shore, poking among the rocks, strolling over the clefts, and clambering up and wandering about the downs; and occasionally in pilgrimages to distant and pretty little farm-houses, (in quest of their products for our table,) generally accompanied by Tickler, always by a book, sometimes with my wife and children; but most frequently _alone_, chewing the cud of sweet and bitter fancies, and always avoiding, of set purpose, any other company (even were it here to be had) in my rambles, than as is aforesaid. 'Tis ecstacy to me to sit alone on a rock in a sequestered part of the shore, especially when the tide is high, and equally whether it be rough or smooth, or calm or stormy weather: for as to this last, I have discovered a friendly nook in the rocks, big enough to hold me only, and deep enough to give me shelter from the wind and rain, except when they beat right in upon me. You may laugh, perhaps, but in this retreat I have spent many an entire day--_i.e._ from ten A.M. to six P.M., sometimes pacing to and fro on the sands, near my hole, generally bathing about mid-day, taking with me always the _Times_ newspaper, (which I generally got from the old postman, whom I met on my way down to the sands,) the current number of _Maga_, or some favourite volume, being also frequent companions. I must acknowledge, however, that the first was my special luxury, to which I daily addressed myself with all the eager relish of a dog with a fresh bone in an unfrequented place--and whom I conceive to be, so circumstanced, in a state paradisiacal;--for, indeed, to such a pass are matters come, that no man whom I know of can miss his newspaper without a restless, uncomfortable feeling of having slipped a day behind the world. Surely I may here, in passing, say a word or two about NEWSPAPERS?

And coming from one who, as you know, never had any thing to do with newspapers, except as having been an eager and regular reader of them for more than twenty years, I hope my testimony is worth having, when I express my opinion that our newspaper press is a very great honour to Great Britain, as well negatively in its abstinence from myriads of tempting but objectionable topics, as well as positively in the varied ability, the energy, accuracy, and amazing promptitude displayed in dealing with the ever-changing and often-perplexing affairs of the world. Inestimably precious is the unshackled freedom of these wondrous organs of public opinion: infringe, though never so slightly, and but for a moment, upon that independence, and you wound our LIBERTY in the very apple of the eye.