Chapter II (3)

"It was late, and I looked forth on the tranquil scene from my
window. The moonbeams played upon the distant hilltops, but the
lower masses slept as yet in shadow; again the pale light
caught the waters of the Tweed, the lapse of whose streams fell
faintly on the ear, like the murmuring of a sea-shell. In front
rose up the mouldering abbey, deep in shadow; its pinnacles,
and buttresses, and light tracery, but dimly seen in the solemn
mass. A faint light twinkled for a space among the tomb-stones,
soon it was extinct, and two figures passed off in the shadow,
who had been digging a grave even at that late hour. As the
night advanced, a change began to take place. Clouds heaved up
over the horizon; the wind was heard in murmurs; the rack
hurried athwart the moon; and utter darkness fell upon river,
mountain, and haugh. Then the gust swelled louder, and the
storm struck fierce and sudden against the casement. But as the
morrow dawned, though rain-drops still hung upon the leaf, the
clouds sailed away, the sun broke forth, and all was fair and
tranquil."--P. 97.

The fisherman was sent for express, and his general garb and fly-bedizened hat, are soon portrayed; while the "waxing" of the Tweed, and how the Eildon Hills were of old cloven by the art of grammarye, conclude the fourth chapter, and bring us only to the hundredth page.

The ensuing section of the work opens with some general observations on the scenery of that now noted district of the south of Scotland, blended with the graceful expression of those melancholy remembrances, we doubt not deeply felt, which must ever cast a dark shadow over the minds of the surviving associates of the Great Minstrel. Alas! where can we turn ourselves without being reminded of the transitory nature of this our low estate, of its dissevered ties, its buried hopes, and lost affections! How many bitter endurances, reflected from the bosom of the past, are ever mingling with all those ongoings of human life and action which we call enjoyments! How mixed in their effects are even the natural glories of this our fair creation! What golden sunset casts not its far-beaming splendour, not only on the great mountains and the glittering sea, but also breaks, as if in mockery, into ghastly chambers where the desolation of death, "the wages of sin," is miserably brooding! And yet how solemnizing, how elevating in their influences, are all the highest beauties both of art and nature, notwithstanding the awe, approaching to fearfulness, with which they not seldom affect our spirits. The veneration with which we gaze even on insensate walls which once formed the loved abode of genius and virtue, is a natural tribute to a noble nature, and flows from one of the purest and most sustaining sources of emotion by which our humanity is distinguished. It almost looks as if, in accordance with the Platonic philosophy, there remained to man, from an original and more lofty state of existence, some dim remembrance of perfection.

"This inborn and implanted recollection of the godlike," says Schlegel, "remains ever dark and mysterious; for man is surrounded by the sensible world, which being in itself changeable and imperfect, encircles him with images of imperfection, changeableness, corruption, and error, and thus casts perpetual obscurity over that light which is within him. Wherever, in the sensible and natural world, he perceives any thing which bears a resemblance to the attributes of the God-head, which can serve as a symbol of a high perfection, the old recollections of his soul are awakened and refreshed. The love of the beautiful fills and animates the soul of the beholder with an awe and reverence which belong not to the beautiful itself--at least not to any sensible manifestation of it--but to that unseen original of which material beauty is the type. From this admiration, this new-awakened recollection, and this instantaneous inspiration, spring all higher knowledge and truth. These are not the product of cold, leisurely, and voluntary reflection, but occupy at once a station far superior to what either thought, or art, or speculation, can attain; and enter into our inmost souls with the power and presence of a gift from the divinity."

Mr Scrope's first visit to the Tweed was made before the "Ariosto of the North" had sung those undying strains which have since added so much associated interest to the finely varied courses of that fair river. But many fond lovers of nature, then as now,

"Though wanting the accomplishment of verse,"

were well acquainted with all its unrecorded beauties.

"What stranger," asks our author, "just emerging from the
angular enclosures of the south, scored and subdued by tillage,
would not feel his heart expand at the first sight of the
heathy mountains, swelling out into vast proportions, over
which man had no dominion? At the dawn of day he sees, perhaps,
the mist ascending slowly up the dusky river, taking its
departure to some distant undefined region; below the mountain
range his sight rests upon a deep and narrow glen, gloomy with
woods, shelving down to its centre. What is hid in that
mysterious mass the eye may not visit; but a sound comes down
from afar, as of the rushing and din of waters. It is the voice
of the Tweed, as it bursts from the melancholy hills, and comes
rejoicing down the sunny vale, taking its free course through
the haugh, and glittering amongst sylvan bowers--swelling out
at times fair and ample, and again contracted into gorges and
sounding cataracts--lost for a space in its mazes behind a
jutting brae, and re-appearing in dashes of light through bolls
of trees opposed to it in shadow.

"Thus it holds its fitful course. The stranger might wander in
the quiet vale, and far below the blue summits he might see the
shaggy flock grouped upon some sunny knoll, or struggling among
the scattered birch-trees, and lower down on the haugh, his eye
perchance might rest awhile on some cattle standing on a tongue
of land by the margin of the river, with their dark and rich
brown forms opposed to the brightness of the waters. All these
outward pictures he might see and feel; but he would see no
farther: the lore had not spread its witchery over the
scene--the legends slept in oblivion. The stark moss-trooper,
and the clanking stride of the warrior, had not again started
into life; nor had the light blazed gloriously in the sepulchre
of the wizard with the mighty book. The slogan swelled not anew
upon the gale, sounding, through the glens and over the misty
mountains; nor had the minstrel's harp made music in the
stately halls of Newark, or beside the lonely braes of Yarrow.

"Since that time I have seen the Cottage of Abbotsford, with
the rustic porch, lying peacefully on the haugh between the
lone hills, and have listened to the wild rush of the Tweed as
it hurried beneath it. As time progressed, and as hopes arose,
I have seen that cottage converted into a picturesque mansion,
with every luxury and comfort attached to it, and have partaken
of its hospitality; the unproductive hills I have viewed
covered with thriving plantations, and the whole aspect of the
country civilized, without losing its romantic character. But,
amidst all these revolutions, I have never perceived any change
in the mind of him who made them,--'the choice and master
spirit of the age.' There he dwelt in the hearts of the people,
diffusing life and happiness around him; he made a home beside
the border river, in a country and a nation that have derived
benefit from his presence, and consequence from his genius.
From his chamber he looked out upon the grey ruins of the
Abbey, and the sun which set in splendour beneath the Eildon
Hills. Like that sun, his course has been run; and, though
disastrous clouds came across him in his career, he went down
in unfading glory.

"These golden hours, alas! have long passed away; but often
have I visions of the sylvan valley, and its glittering waters,
with dreams of social intercourse. Abbotsford, Mertoun,
Chiefswood, Huntly-Burn, Allerley--when shall I forget ye?"--P.
102.

How many share these sad and vain regrets! The very voice of the living waters, which once glittered so rejoicingly through the green pastures, or reflected in their still expanse the lichen-covered crag or varied woodland, seems now to utter an "_illoetabile murmur_," while

"A trouble not of clouds or weeping rain,
Nor of the setting sun's pathetic light,
Engender'd, hangs o'er Eildon's triple height."

On the 21st of September 1832, Sir Walter Scott breathed his last, in the presence of all his children. "It was a beautiful day," we have been elsewhere told, "so warm that every window was wide open, and so perfectly still, that the sound of all others most delicious to his ear, the gentle ripple of the Tweed over its pebbles, was distinctly audible as we knelt around the bed, and his eldest son kissed and closed his eyes. No sculptor ever modelled a more majestic image of repose."[17]

[Footnote 17: The Life of Sir Walter Scott, Bart., by his literary executor.]

We must here unwillingly conclude our account of Mr Scrope's volume, although we have scarcely even entered on many of its most important portions. Bait fishing for salmon, and the darker, though torch-illumined, mysteries of the leister, occupy the terminal chapters. A careful study of the whole will amply repay the angler, the naturalist, the artist, and the general admirer of the inexhaustible beauties of rural scenery--nowhere witnessed or enjoyed to such advantage as by the side of a first-rate river.

* * * * *

THE WHIPPIAD, A SATIRICAL POEM.

BY REGINALD HEBER, BISHOP OF CALCUTTA.

In offering this little poem to the public, some few words, by way of explanation, are deemed necessary. Most of the circumstances alluded to in it will be familiar to Oxford readers of Bishop Heber's standing, but especially to those of his own college, Brazenose. The origin of the poem was simply this:--A young friend of his, B----d P----t, went to call upon him at Brazenose, and, without being aware of the heinous crime he was committing, cracked a four-horse whip in the quadrangle. This moved the ire of a certain doctor, a fellow and tutor, and at that time also dean of the college, commonly called _Dr Toe_ from a defect in one of his feet. The doctor had unfortunately made himself obnoxious to most of those of his own college, under-graduates as well as others, by his absurd conduct and regulations. On the following day Mr P----t cracked the whip in the quadrangle, when the doctor issued from his rooms in great wrath, and after remonstrating with Mr P----t, and endeavouring to take the whip from him, a scuffle ensued, in which the whip was broken, and the doctor overpowered and thrown down by the victorious P----t, who had fortunately taken his degree of Master of Arts. Heber, then an under-graduate of only a few terms' standing, wrote the first canto the same evening, and the intrinsic merit of the poem will recommend it to most readers. But it will be doubly interesting when considered as one of the _first_, if not the _very first_, of the poetical productions of that eminent and distinguished scholar. In it may be traced the dawnings of that genius which was afterwards to delight the world in an enlarged sphere of usefulness.

K.

CANTO FIRST.

Where whiten'd Cain the curse of heaven defies,[18]
And leaden slumber seals his brother's eyes,
Where o'er the porch in brazen splendour glows
The vast projection of the mystic nose,
Triumph erewhile of Bacon's fabled arts,[19]
Now well-hung symbol of the student's parts;
'Midst those unhallow'd walls and gloomy cells
Where every thing but Contemplation dwells,
Dire was the feud our sculptured Alfred saw,[20]
And thy grim-bearded bust, Erigena,
When scouts came flocking from the empty hall,
And porters trembled at the Doctor's call;
Ah! call'd in vain, with laugh supprest they stood
And bit their nails, a dirty-finger'd brood.
E'en Looker gloried in his master's plight,[21]
And John beheld, and chuckled at the sight.[22]
Genius of discord! thou whose murky flight
With iron pennons more obscured the night--
Thou, too, of British birth, who dost reside
In Syms's or in Goodwin's blushing tide,[23]
Say, spirit, say, for thy enlivening bowl
With fell ambition fired thy favourite's soul,
From what dread cause began the bloodless fray
Pregnant with shame, with laughter, and dismay?
Calm was the night, and all was sunk to rest,
Save Shawstone's party, and the Doctor's breast:
He saw with pain his ancient glory fled,
And thick oblivion gathering round his head.
Alas! no more his pupils crowding come,
To wait indignant in their tyrant's room,[24]
No more in hall the fluttering theme he tears,
Or lolling, picks his teeth at morning prayers;
Unmark'd, unfear'd, on dogs he vents his hate,
And spurns the terrier from his guarded gate.
But now to listless indolence a prey,
Stretch'd on his couch, he sad and darkling lay;
As not unlike in venom and in size,
Close in his hole the hungry spider lies.
"And oh!" he cries, "am I so powerless grown,
That I am fear'd by cooks and scouts alone?
Oh! for some nobler strife, some _senior_ foe,
To swell by his defeat the name of Toe!"
He spoke--the powers of mischief heard his cries,
And steep'd in sullen sleep his rheumy eyes.
He slept--but rested not, his guardian sprite
Rose to his view in visions of the night,
And thus, with many a tear and many a sigh,
He heard, or seem'd to hear, the mimic demon cry:--[25]
"Is this a time for distant strife to pray,
When all my power is melting fast away,
Like mists dissolving at the beams of day,
When masters dare their ancient rights resume,
And bold intruders fill the common room,
Whilst thou, poor wretch, forsaken, shunn'd by all,
Must pick thy commons in the empty hall?
Nay more! regardless of thy hours and thee,
They scorn the ancient, frugal hour of three.[26]
Good Heavens! at four their costly treat is spread,
And juniors lord it at the table's head;
See fellows' benches sleeveless striplings bear,[27]
Whilst Smith and Sutton from the canvass stare.[28]
Hear'st thou through all this consecrated ground,
The rattling thong's unwonted clangour sound?
Awake! arise! though many a danger lour,
By one bright deed to vindicate thy power."
He ceased; as loud the fatal whip resounds,
With throbbing heart the eager Doctor bounds.
So when some bear from Russia's clime convey'd,
Politer grown, has learnt the dancer's trade,
If weary with his toil perchance, he hears
His master's lash re-echoing in his ears,
Though loath, he lifts his paws, and bounds in air,
And hops and rages whilst the rabble stare.