Chapter V: Front Matter (5)

Along the way we saw, in different places, the “camping out” so common among the team-drivers of the West, and I was reminded strikingly of scenes I had read of in gipsy life. The groups gathered around their fires—the fire-light shining and flickering upon the trees—the large wagons, with their white, covered tops, which at a little distance looked almost like tents in the moonlight, and the cattle in the background, formed altogether a picturesque scene. It is said that teams often go in this manner from the Mississippi to the lake and return, without their drivers seeking any other lodgings than such as they can find within or beneath their wagons. They select places for the night encampment where wood and water can be readily obtained, and turn out their cattle to crop the grass around them.

Janesville, the county town of Rock county, is already a place of very considerable business, although it is but little more than nine years since its site was the hunting-ground of the Pottawattomies and Winnebagoes. The town was originally built on the eastern side of the river, beneath and along the side of the bluff which there terminates Rock prairie on the west; but within two years past streets have been laid out in the oak openings on the western side of the river, and many buildings erected upon them. There is a stone academy on the western side of the river, which is also occupied for the present as a chapel for the services of the Episcopal denomination. A very fine, large flouring-mill is also in process of erection on the western side of the river. The court-house stands upon the brow of the bluff, on the eastern side of the river, and near the centre of the village, and commands a fine and extensive view. Rock river is a much purer and quicker stream than many of the rivers of the West. Rock prairie is many miles in extent—it is skirted by oak openings, and has some groves of timber dotted through it. The soil of the prairie is very dark and rich, and looks as though it might bear cultivation for ages without wearing out. Rock county possesses great agricultural resources, and has settled very rapidly for an inland district. The tide of foreign emigration that sets so strongly to the West, has brought many emigrants to this county. Many from the cold and sterile land of Norway have found homes upon its rich soil. In the deed-books, in the county register’s office, are recorded many names that sound strangely to American ears. The foreign vote told heavily upon the last elections in the territory, and its weight was given on the side that usually receives the foreign vote every where in our country.

Beloit, in the lower part of the county, near the Illinois line, is said to have grown still more rapidly than Janesville, and there are also several other villages growing up in different parts of Rock county. This is a broad and rich and beautiful country, but to one whose life has been passed in the mountain-bounded valley of the Susquehanna, the absence of any high points of view detracts from its beauty. The autumnal burning of the prairies has passed. It is a magnificent sight in the night time, to see a belt of flame stretching along for miles, until in the distance it seems lost upon the very verge of the horizon.

* * * * *

=A MIDNIGHT FANTASY.=

=BY WILLIAM ALBERT SUTLIFFE.=

Lighting the lonely taper of a thought—
Lone and forlorn, solely entranced I sit,
While night, in silence deeper dipt for aye,
Hushes to midnight in a weirdish calm.
I may not muse the low abasing earth
That ever yearn beyond its sensual coil—
Nor all the stars, th’ ambitions stars sublime,
Sprinkling the liquid blue on witching nights—
But in the hazy precincts of a dream,
Soft-pacing, like a shade, erring I roam.
Go to, go to, ye winds with wasting moan,
And chase the shadows through the woody aisles,
And gild the sleep-drunk earth with slender beam,
Ye stars that watch the undulating sea!
While dimly I, with memory’s torch alight,
And fancy’s shifting prism, chase my will,
My own dear will, incessant through and through
The antique halls of the Past’s dusky dome.

And now the glimmering of a friendly face
Grows haze-like through the gloom; and now a burst
Of hateful passion in my childish soul;
And now a coterie of friends enring
My heart with sunshine, lighting up the dim
For many a dream-land rood.

But soon a shape
Comes brightening on and on into a face
Of serious loveliness and graceful form,
With eyes lit up in sweet expectancy,
And slanted earthward so to veil their joy:—
My sister at her bridal, know’t is she!

And then again, drooped as with hidden wo,
As one doth bide a threatened stormy shock,
And, trembling ever, yet affirmed and strong,
Doth linger till its coming; her I see,
Clinging with tendrils of enhanced love
To one pale image ever at her side
Until the cloud shall drop its deathly store.

A rainy burial on a sullen day,
When all the heaven showers its hoarded gloom,
Melts in and out the vision as I dream,
And the wild strangeness of the pale farewell—
And scattered sobs unclosing all the heart—
Blend darkly with the varying of my thought;
Till the starred midnight and the homeless wind
Thrill in upon the sense with light and sound,
Bringing me back from visions unto tears.

* * * * *

=SPORTING ADVENTURES IN INDIA.=

=FROM THE M. S. OF A HIGHLAND OFFICER.=

Mount Aboo, to the north of Guzerat, is one of the most interesting spots in the world, and also one of the pleasantest in the great eastern peninsula. It rears its giant form amongst a group of mountains which are surrounded on nearly all sides by the sultry plains peculiar to that part of India. These latter are so perfectly hot, that it has become a proverbial expression that there is only a sheet of brown paper between Deesa and the infernal regions; and really the gently undulating sandy expanse, destitute during the dry season of every thing like vegetation, save a stunted milk or thorn bush here and there, presents no bad resemblance to an uneven sheet of brown paper. Strange is the alteration about the beginning of June; the rains set in, and after the second day a tinge of green may be observed mingling with the dusky brown; a week elapses, and all is a smiling meadow. Not less extraordinary is the change in the rivers: at one time they are dry sandy channels; at another, torrents from a hundred yards to half a mile broad, full to the brim, and sweeping buffaloes, deer, sheep, cattle, trees, fragments of houses, and sometimes even human bodies, hurry headlong in their course toward the rhun of Cutch, (at that time a gulf,) where they and their victims are alike swallowed up in the ocean. A ride of fifty miles through a country principally jungle takes one from Deesa to the foot of Mount Aboo; but a traveler’s bungalow is built at Goondree, as a kind of half-way house for those who do not relish the idea of a fifty mile morning gallop. At Apadra, a mile from the foot of the mountain, is another traveler’s bungalow, and a village wherein reside the people whose business it is to transport baggage, and even individuals, to the top; for the path is such that a horse has quite enough to do to scramble up the rugged ascent, while to a wheel carriage of any description it is perfectly impossible. All burdens are therefore carried up by Coolies; when not too heavy they are borne upon the head, while the more weighty are slung upon poles by two or more men, as the case may be. Individuals, whom laziness or illness debar from using, or rather abusing, the muscles of their legs and backs to a degree necessary to replace them on the summit, are carried by four men, on a rude seat swung by ropes between two poles which rest on the bearers’ shoulders; and, as the path leads along the very edge of frightful precipices, it is certainly a position well calculated to test a man’s nerves, though I never heard of any accident occurring. The usual complement of bearers to each chair is eight, four being at work and four at rest. But one fat friend of mine they refused to have any thing to do with, unless he employed twelve, and after the first trial, unless he took sixteen; which to his intense disgust he was compelled to do, for he was not fond of parting with his money. Various and very interesting are the views obtained as the traveler is borne along in his ascent. Often after passing through some dense jungle (the whole hill-side being wooded, and infested with tigers and other _feræ naturæ_,) he finds himself on the verge of some precipitous and dark ravine, or catches a glimpse of the almost boundless jungle and plain which stretches away beyond his ken, far, far below him. An active and hardy race are the men that convey one up to the mountain brow; yet their forms, thin and meagre, give no promise to the eye, of their immense endurance. Patiently they toil on, the sweat oozing from every pore, and mingling in streams with cocoa-nut oil adown their dark half-naked bodies, as with an occasional “Hough! hough!!” when the ascent is steeper than usual, they hump their shoulders and steadily continue their painful task. The flavor of the creatures is nothing sweet; and as I was blessed with a pair of sturdy legs, after the first visit I always made use of them to attain the summit. When once past the gate, as two projecting rocks which narrow the path near the top are termed, a glorious sight, or rather succession of sights, meets the eye. At about five thousand feet above the plain an irregular and hilly table-land of some six miles in diameter occurs. By a table-land, however, I do not mean to convey the idea of any level space, for there is scarcely five hundred yards of continuous level to be found in the whole tract, but rather a species of main top to the entire mass, from whence many hills of various heights take their rise, the larger of these forming the different peaks of the mountain as seen from the plains below. Ravines and glens of varied description seam this top or table-land in every direction; small streams flow through the rugged fissures or grassy glades, and here and there cultivation is carried on with tolerable success. One feels, on arriving at this elevation, a greater freedom of breathing, a more bracing air, and altogether a renewal of the elasticity of the frame, sadly shaken and out of repair from the hot winds and fevered climate of the sultry plains beneath. But one of the chief attractions is the beautiful lake of pure cool water, which lies embosomed among these hills. It is about half a mile long, by a third of that distance in breadth, and was formed many hundred years ago, by damming up a marshy hollow with solid masonry and banks of earth (called a Bund in that country.) The stream which runs through it escapes, in its downward course, through a small ravine on the main side of the mountain. It is a most lovely spot, surrounded by grassy hills, gently swelling from the water’s edge, with here and there a mighty black rock rearing its rugged head in stern and solemn majesty. The hills are covered with fine large trees, or sometimes thickets of wood and jungle, and the white houses of the different European residents, or whiter tents of occasional visitors, give a pleasing and social effect to the park-like scenery. From the foot of some of the hills which descend to the water’s edge the earth has crumbled away, leaving here and there a scarped, gravelly perpendicular fall of twenty or thirty feet into the water, which beneath these small precipices is generally very deep.

It was my good fortune to witness an amusing scene near one of these places. Lying under the shade of a tree one fine morning, and smoking the pipe of meditation as I gazed on the calm lake stretching beneath my feet, I was suddenly startled by a thundering roar not a hundred paces from me. I looked up, and saw that it proceeded from a magnificent Bramahinee bull: he was evidently in a desperate fury, and tore up the turf with head and horn in grand style, making the surrounding hills echo with his hollow bellowing—“_Reboant sylvaque et magnus Olympus_,” as old Virgil has it. He was the champion in the lists; nor was his challenge long unanswered. Soon a roar, as deep and as full of rage as his own, was heard in the distance. Nearer and louder it came; and out of an adjoining thicket rushed another bull, brother-like, equal at all points, and a worthy antagonist for such a hero. For a second or so each stood proudly at gaze, surveying each other; then down went their heads, and they met with a shock that seemed to me the very image of a knightly joust. Well matched they were, and it was evident the combat would be a desperate one. Save where a shade of black appeared on the curled forehead and on the tuft of the tail, both were milk white, and both carried, of course, the large hump—that epicurean dish—peculiar to the breed; while their ponderous dewlaps, wide-spreading horns, and gallant bearing, produced a grand effect. There I lay regarding this strife with the most intense interest, but without the least alarm; for, even supposing they had ventured to resent my intrusion on their tilting ground, my double-barrelled gun, without which I rarely stirred, would soon have taught them good manners. Round and round they drove one another, till the grass was beaten down and the bushes torn up in all directions; but neither gave way until the fate of war brought one with his back to the lake on the slope of the hill which verged to the water. Here position told: his enemy, equal in strength, and being on the higher ground, began to prevail, and to force him backward. Bravely he battled, but in vain: still he only yielded to main force; and with foreheads joined as if soldered to each other, he retreated step by step toward the edge of that treacherous precipice noticed above. I scarcely ventured to breathe as the pair arrived within a foot of the trap, of which they were totally unconscious. Here a more strenuous resistance from the lowermost hero called forth a more vigorous above from the uppermost, when suddenly (I’ve no doubt to his utter astonishment) his enemy receded and vanished from his view; while he, unable to check himself, lunged furiously forward, and following his adversary, tumbled headlong into the lake below—“_Præceps fertur in hostem_.” With breathless excitement I rushed to the brink, anxious to see this marvelous catastrophe brought to a close. In a few seconds both emerged from the bottom, puffing like grampuses, and at once made the best of their way to the shore, giving vent to many a fearful bellow. It was evident that the surprise and the plunge had banished all warlike thoughts, for on reaching terra firma they started off at full gallop in opposite directions, with their tails streaming in the air, and making the woods and valleys ring with their panic-stricken roarings.

The green and fresh appearance of the grass and foliage at Aboo was remarkably pleasant: even during the hottest weather dews and morning mists were not uncommon; and though by nine or ten o’clock the sun asserted his power, and caused all vapor to disperse, yet he shone forth with a benign aspect, and did not inflict that “knock-me-down” heat experienced in the plains below. Through the glens and over the hill-sides I used to wander through the live-long day, and each ramble brought me to new scenes of beauty, and made me more and more regret that the talent of the painter was not mine. How exceedingly lovely are the Dillwara temples! Situated on the bank of a small stream which flows through a well-cultivated valley, and bounded on each side by wooded hills, the exterior alone is imposing and beautiful; but the interior is a wonder, the grandeur and magnificence of which are far beyond my powers of description. One enters a large quadrangular court, in the centre of which is the shrine and porch of the deity Parsualt (I think that is the right name.) The shrine and porch are oval in shape, and about one-fourth of the quadrangle is taken up by the former, which is a building admitting no light save from the porch door. A _silver key_ opened this door to us, (although unbelievers,) and we were honored with a sight of the deity sitting cross-legged, in white marble, with a lamp or two burning before him, and a great many tawdry ornaments hanging about his domicile. But the porch is the most magnificent work of art. Under the same dome with the shrine, a succession of arches, instead of the walls, is continued round the oval: these arches are of the lightest form imaginable, often serpentine, worked and carved with every sort of device, and all made of the purest white marble: the pillars supporting them are light and tall, and also of white marble, with figures of men and women about two feet high, playing and singing and dancing: these are grotesquely carved in compartments, and in such high relief that one can insert the hand between them and the pillars. The roof, too, is wonderful: the most minute flowers, the most delicate tracery, are all carved exquisitely in white marble; a thousand different objects are also represented, but it would be impossible to enumerate all. Round the quadrangle runs a veranda supported by a double row of white marble pillars placed at equal distances (about eight feet) from each other, and thus dividing the veranda into a number of imaginary squares between each four pillars; each square has its roof and its cornice round the lower edge of the roof, while the roofs are of every indescribable pattern, and two are seldom found alike; the cornices are covered with men and animals in all situations, hunting, battling, dancing, the whole executed in white marble; sometimes the roof will ascend gradually, narrowing with most elaborate and deep carving to a height of many feet, then the same carving after the same fashion is continued down again, till it looks like a beautiful stalactite depending from the centre of the roof. A second court of the same kind is also shown, and I think a third, but my memory will not allow me to be sure of this last point. This description I have given, though imperfect, will do for all. I must not, however, forget to mention the curious room in which a large figure of a royal personage on horseback, and some twenty or thirty figures of elephants, about five feet high, stand fully equipped with howdahs and trappings, the whole of which are carved most beautifully in solid white marble, and so minutely that even the very strands of the ropes are executed with the utmost fidelity. In fact, the whole thing is so wonderfully beautiful that I despair of doing more than conveying a faint idea of it. These temples are said to be some 800 or 900 years old, and are held in great sanctity as a place of pilgrimage. At a certain season of the year, thousands flock thither, and the Brahmins make a pretty decent thing out of the pious but deluded devotees. I have often wished that they were rooted out, and that I were made governor of Aboo, with the temple for my palace, and the top of the mountain for my park.

The Ghau-Muk, pronounced Gyemook, or cow’s-mouth, is another sweet spot on the mountain-side; it is a small marble spout, carved in the form of a cow’s head, through which a stream of pure, cold water flows into a square tank: it is a sacred spot to Fakeers and Brahmins, who resort there in great numbers; but its refreshing waters and the cool shade of the magnificent trees that surround it are far better recommendations to the tired wayfarer, and give him fresh courage to ascend the steep staircase of steps leading from it to the mountain-top.

One morning rather early, F. and his friend K., while lying in their tent on Mount Aboo, were aroused from sleep by the solemn tones of the Kitmutgar, or butler, announcing news, which, as a matter of course, meant game. Out of bed both sprang simultaneously, and soon discovered from the Shikaree that a panther had been somehow entrapped in a neighboring village, and that the natives wished the sahibs (_Anglicé_ gentlemen) to come with their guns and kill it. Clothes being thrown on, and guns prepared without loss of time, out they sallied into the raw air of the morning (it was not yet light,) and followed the native guide. A smart walk of four or five miles across the mountain top brought them to a little village, or collection of huts, clustered upon the edge of a steep bank, which formed one side of a very narrow rocky valley. Here an Indian hubbub of no ordinary character was going on; but as we approached, respect for the sahibs soon silenced it. All was now explained: a fierce and huge panther had for some time been the terror of the village; sheep, goats, calves, and an occasional piccaninny, had been carried off by the remorseless brute. By accident, the door of a goat-house, which contained about 18 goats, had been left open during the previous night, and the owner, hearing an uproar, rose to shut it, and only then discovered that he had also shut in the panther among his defenseless flock: on making this discovery, he lost no time in coming to demand the sahib’s assistance. F. and K. held a council of war, as to the best mode of action: the goat-house was a round wall of rough stones about three feet high, from the top of which a thatched roof rose to a point in the centre, at about six feet in height above the wall-plate; the rude building had no window, and only the one door, which was so low as only to be entered in a stooping or rather crawling position. At first it was resolved to throw open the door, and shoot the brute as he bolted; but this plan was rejected for several reasons: the natives were crowding round on every side, the place was uneven and rocky, and if in his bolt they had the bad luck to miss him, there was a chance of not getting another shot at him; or, if they did, of hitting one of the natives, who would have run in all directions as soon as the panther appeared. At last, F., with more boldness than discretion, decided to try and shoot him from above: the thatch, however, was too old and rotten to bear his weight, and so a “charpoy” or frame of wood, with cords interlaced across it (used as a bedstead), was procured and laid upon the thatch, and upon it mounted F. and an old gray-headed Shikaree of the village, more like a monkey than a man, whose charge it was to open a hole for F. to shoot through; this he accomplished with so much good will, but unfortunately with so little adroitness, that in a second or two the already ragged thatch had a hole close to F.’s head, not only quite large enough to shoot through, but also large enough for the panther to make his escape. A sudden execration caused him to desist; but in spite of the large hole, F. could discern nothing in the dark interior, but distinctly heard the angry purring of the enraged savage, and the flapping of his tail against the ground, which is a sure prelude to a charge. F.’s thoughts were not altogether comfortable as he lay on the thatch, the infuriated and invisible brute being within a short spring of him, and having, no doubt, a clear view of his head and shoulders against the rising light. All of a sudden, the glare of the panther’s eyes showed like two coals of fire; to level between them was the work of an instant, but lying on his right side F. was forced to bring the gun to the left shoulder, and as his finger pressed the trigger, he found that from habit he was closing the left eye; rectifying, however, his mistake at once, the explosion followed, and the pest of the village fell dead with a brace of bullets in his brain. It was found that he had killed 11 of the goats, but had not eaten any part of them; so that he seems to have slaughtered them from mere wantonness and the love of destruction. He measured over seven feet from the nose to the tip of the tail, and was a very fine male specimen of his kind. It is needless to say that the two friends returned to breakfast well satisfied with their morning’s work.

The immense plains which stretch from the foot of Mount Aboo are occasionally broken by low, detached, and rocky hills, covered with dense jungle, that clothes the country for many miles round: several rivers also meander through the expanse, fed either by periodical rains, or by unfailing springs from the mountain range. In this wild country, W— and A—, two young officers, had determined to pause for a day or two during their journey from Aboo to Deesa, and endeavor to obtain some sport among the numerous _feræ naturæ_ with which that district abounded. Our two sportsmen had no tent nor any great camp-equipage with them; a covered bullock-cart formed their house and bed; a couple of steady ponies (horses were useless in such a country) their cavallada; and some three or four servants, with the two shikarees, their retinue. Free and happy is such a life! They hunted when they pleased, ate when they pleased, and slept when they pleased; and, above all, no bugle called them to the dull routine of morning parade. The time of the year was not favorable to woodland shooting; for, after the rains, the grass and seeds grow to such a length as to render parts of the jungle impassable, and the foliage of the trees is so thick as to obstruct the view for any distance; while water being plentiful in every direction, it is useless to attempt night-shooting at the animals coming to drink. The sport was therefore but indifferent: and on the second day, after a morning and forenoon spent in poking their noses into a number of dark, tigerish-looking places, without any satisfactory result, although much “sign” was observed, they halted for tiffin on the banks of a small shallow stream, with a canopy of magnificent wild fig-trees spread over their heads. Whilst the servants were unpacking the scanty stock of provisions, one of the shikarees approached, and, having made his salaam, begged to inform the sahibs that if they so pleased, he and his brother shikaree would provide them some fresh fish for their tiffin. As there were no implements generally used in that sport among the party, the two friends were curious to see how this was to be effected, and the required permission was at once given, with an “All right, old fellow!—thank you, fire away!” The two shikarees, rolling up the sleeves of their upper garments, now entered the stream, the bottom of which was gravelly and hard; and, drawing their swords, stood one a little above the other on different sides of the channel, the water reaching to about their knees. Three or four of the villagers, who had joined the party as guides, now entered the water higher up, and forming a line across the stream, commenced wading down toward the shikarees, the two outermost feeling with their feet under each bank as they proceeded. Shortly the frightened fish began to swim down past the shikarees, who—as they passed—dexterously, with a sweep of their sharp swords, severed them in two, seldom missing their aim; while the two halves of each fish at once floated on the surface, and were thrown on the bank by a couple of men stationed in rear of the swordsmen. W— and A— followed down the river in a state of the greatest excitement at the novel sport; and were only prevented from jumping into the water to share it, by the fact of their nether limbs being closely encased in leathern gaiters. Eight or ten large fish had been taken, and the _chasse_ had wandered some two or three hundred yards from the spot where the sahibs had left their guns, when suddenly a shriek was heard from one of the men who searched the bank with their feet: he was seen to fall back in the water; and a huge serpent, uncoiling himself from his cool lair, and raising his head above the surface, took his course down the centre of the stream, lashing the water into a foam, while the villagers fled in every direction. Not so the gallant shikarees: closing together as the monster approached, they cut at him vigorously and severely wounded him. A terrible tussle now ensued: turning upon his assailants with open mouth, the snake attempted to seize one of them; but was repelled by a shower of blows and several fresh wounds. He then once more sought safety in flight, but was pursued by his active enemies; and, being disabled by a well-directed cut, that broke his spine, was dragged to land amid the shouts of all present. The sahibs had, indeed, charged into the river to help the shikarees; but their guns being left behind, their knives were of little use in such a _melée_, and the victory belonged solely to the two swordsmen. The snake proved to be a very large rock snake (a species allied to the boa), and measured nearly fourteen feet in length; while the thickest part of his body was as large as a stout man’s thigh. W— and A— made an attempt to preserve the skin; but the numerous wounds, the heat and closeness of the weather, and the want of arsenical soap, rendered their efforts unavailing.

* * * * *

=SONNET.—PEACE.=

Benign thy sacred influence, golden Peace!
Even desert lands beneath thy magic sway
Would smile once more. Fields, fruitful, now repay
The reaper for his toil, by rich increase;
War’s captive but beholds thee, and his chain,
As by some charm, dissolves, to set him free;
Homes, erewhile silent, desolate, by thee
Made glad, with joyous notes resound again—
Soft is the feeling thy calm visit spreads
O’er every breast! Science and Art awake;
Now Commerce open all her ports doth make,
While Safety with her angel footsteps treads—
Nor battlements nor walls shall cities know,
When, like a mighty stream, thou over earth shalt flow.

* * * * *

=SOMETHING NEW ABOUT BYRON.=

=BY AELDRIC.=

Can aught that is new be said of Byron? Can aught that is new be written to sink him lower beneath the scorn of wisdom, in the ignominy of moral littleness; aught that is new, to lift him higher before the gaze of romance, within the fane of mystic and Satanic beauty: aught that is new, to evolve before the magisterial aspect of philosophy the tangled mass of passion, hate, sentiment and poetic conception, that so long has awed the semi-wise into ecstatic contemplation, and charmed the semi-foolish into vain, insipid emulation? Can any thing new that can tend to open to the view of the world Lord Byron’s utter earthliness be written, since all that has been denounced in holy horror from the pulpit; warned against from the paternal fire-side; lisped stealthily with the flush of maiden shame, or hymned in the Psalteria of poetasters, whose highest praise but evokes the wise man’s judgment in condemnation? The subject would appear exhausted; for few subjects, and no man, have elicited so much commentary, and of such divers kinds. No youthful aspirant after literary distinction essays his hand upon the world’s wide folio, but, in some moment of pleasurable pain, dips his pen into the horn of Byronic inspiration: there has been no critic, from the “Scotch Reviewers” down to our day, but has reduced to some fantastic analysis the sparkling effusions of the “English Bard.” Much, much has been written; yet to me it seems that concerning this extraordinary man something more need still be written. Never, I think, has the peculiar quality of his poetry been thoroughly analyzed, and the simplicity of its charm, the nature of its singularity been clearly precipitated. Never, I think, has the character of the man been fully delineated, and his double littleness held up to view. This task I assume. Never, I think, has his success and renown been shown attributable to the intrinsic merits of his productions, and traceable to the judgment of the good and the wise among learned men. Be this task for others: and until it be done I will now cease to say that such a task were futile.

To the intrinsic merits of Lord Byron’s poetry much, very much, of his success was due, and that chiefly to a peculiarity which I will hereafter point out; but not to them was due the gigantic temple of his popularity and fame. His mere poetic fame stands, and ever will stand, upon a poet’s solid basis—Genius: but this overgrown temple of popularity was built of the sparkling gems of romance, gathered on earthly shores, and piled into the brilliant structure more by the fired imaginations of the world of builders—the public—than according to the commanding _dixit_ of the architect himself. Byron sketched not more than the outlines of his fame; he foresaw not distinctly more: but, like a cunning and artful woman who shrouds from gaze the distincter outlines of her form, and but assumes a posture, bares but a mere glance of voluptuousness to the pregnant imagination, he blazoned forth his youth and noble birth, the world’s hatred for him, and his hatred for the world; advertised that he had loved, deeply, ardently loved, and would not love again; boasted that he had been “sore given to revel and ungodly glee;” and then departed from Albion’s chill and murky twilight to sunny and classic climes, sated with the world, and the world with him. With a brilliant yet devilish poetic allurement he pictured his proud and noble self a victim to genius and tortured sensibilities, basking in the light of Spain’s bright skies, and the smiles of Spain’s loveliest daughters; bound ere long to the fairest of all lands, to the land of love, and art, and song, and scene, and highest classic fame; thence to the almost dreamy ruins of Grecian temples, of Grecian beauty and Grecian greatness; wandering alone, with “sandal shoon and scallop shell,” through the world, but not of it, through an etherealized path aloof from vulgar souls; eyeing afar repose amid the lofty grandeur of eternal snows which crown the downy verdure of the Alpine valleys, and trickle forever their glittering coolness into the lakes below. Thus far he bared to the world’s morbid imagination, craving incessantly for spicy food, then wrapped himself within the folds of his own romance: the world’s imagination did the rest.

Bulwer, in his “Life of Lord Byron,” says:—“Childe Harold succeeded more than I think the merits of the first two cantos deserved; and not only was the success extraordinary, but of a description most likely to please. It was not the poem that was admired only; it was the poet about whom an interest was excited. The fictitious hero of the tale, between whom and the writer of it, we must confess, there was some kind of resemblance, was considered at once as an accurate portrait of the mysterious young noble, who had just returned from the lands of romance and song which he had been describing. If Lord Byron had been known in the world before his travels, the world would have viewed both himself and his travels differently; but though a peer of England, he was unknown to English society.” A veil of mystery and singularity and romance being about him and the strange hero of his tale, and so he enjoyed the privilege of drawing upon his own imagination for the character in which the public should view him, and he created a fictitious and hellish light through which to be viewed; fictitious, ay, in most all save intentional malignity; I say intentional, for his morality was so far dead, that he would not have scrupled to become any one of his heroes in act, could such a complex of incident and circumstance become possible in a real bodily existence.

The more distinctly and substantially the author, if he be a man of originality and genius, be brought before the public gaze, the better will he be appreciated; the more will he be even overrated, by the public. It is creating a body for the dwelling of the poetic soul: the picture is more graphic. For the constant association of the creator with his ideal beauty, encircles him with a never-fading halo; and in those moments when our mind is too inert to rise to the contemplation of his ecstatic thought, it can gaze habitually and languidly upon the other partner of the firm, and tacitly credit him with a glory whose effulgence is acknowledged, still, at the time, but dimly seen. This intimacy with him, which could not exist otherwise, introduces him more familiarly into the society of our affective facilities, and the acquaintanceship improves and ripens. But when the garments by which we know him, are woven of originality, and beauty, and romance, and noble name and birth, and the soft velvet of our own sympathy for sorrow and misfortune; and we have to enter the enchanted fields of far-off lands, to snuff the perfume of southern vines and flowering figs, amid bright vistas at olden grandeur and modern voluptuousness, to enjoy communion; the heart expands, and the brain glows beneath the warmth of overpowering imagination: the individual, composed of humanity and its poetry, as body and soul, is enshrined in veneration a household god, among the contemplative affections. Such was Byron, there was he known, and so was he enshrined. Thus do I take leave of my assertion that, although to the intrinsic merits of Lord Byron’s poetry, much, very much was due, still, not to them was due the gigantic temple of his popularity and fame.

That much of Byron’s popularity was due to the intrinsic merits of his productions, may not seem strange. Had they possessed the same characteristic, the same singularity, and been far less brilliant they would have elicited immense admiration. Still, there is no mystery in this. No other poet, perhaps, ancient or modern, ever possessed the same happy blending of southern exuberance and vividness, with the deep-inspired, psychological mysticism of the north. Apart then from his originality, which is every poet’s inheritance, and a good command of words, this blending is, in its extraordinary degree, the chief among Lord Byron’s claims to merit; together with the—certainly in him unique and only too apparent—dash of Satanic leaven that raised unceasingly the frothy acid. Dante, perhaps, of all the southern poets, possessed most of the spiritualism that breathes in dark Druidical forests; but his heavy philosophy weighs down the mind, and it staggers along in pursuit of that sublime spiritualism, that is to most intellects, after all, but an _ignis fatuus_. From Byron’s poetic palace, from time to time, bursts forth, like a Bacchanalian, a round of untamed music, that revels nakedly in perfect abandonment: now leaping by long and rapid strides o’er chords of melody, towering up, up, up, through the vasty dome; new groaning through the double bass of trembling passion. Anon there unrolls a resplendent transparency of southern hues, that, at times, dart boldly into the endless fantasies of the kaleidoscope; again melt into blending prismata, or swimming circles unconceived of but through the distorted iris of a compressed eye-ball. At times, too, one strays through vast and sounding halls that reëcho but the wandering footsteps of a moody mind alone there by chance. At times, too, in some silent, sombre, far-distant recess, mid withe-bound, faggoty columns of Gothic mould, whose lofty branches are hung with ivy cold and mistletoe-bough, there glows suspended the blue ethereal flame of northern superstition, in a floorless chamber from whose mystic depths go forth the sinewy phantoms of the house of Woden. Anon there bursts an unearthly sound and glare that shakes and illumines the whole vast structure; and one almost hears the deliberate laugh of diabolic glee.

Lord Byron’s poetry is entirely a poetry of sentiment: there is no philosophy in it. After all, a man’s best study of the more intimate workings of the human heart, must find its materials within himself; and his productions will be moulded and colored by his principles; for it is they that supply the oil which feeds the habitual light in the chamber of the mind. When there exists no fixed principle, there exists no fixed light, no steady medium, no standard measure, then all is moral darkness, and vagaries, and dreamy riot. Now and then, it is true, solid thoughts and good may spring up from the mind’s fertility, but if they be not pretty, they are cast aside, and if they be pretty, they are doomed to association with ignobler ones, to be ranged indiscriminately with pretty thoughts and profane, upon the shelves of poetry. There is nothing in Byron’s poetry that can inspire any good. It is true there are good and noble sentiments woven in the mass; but it is so plain that only their beauty is turned toward us, to the entire neglect of intrinsic worth, that one cannot help associating them with the man, and they fade into vagaries. There are poets who, with vigorous and accustomed flight, transport us into more lofty realms of thought than Byron’s gaudy wing would dare aspire to lift us to. Such are Milton, and Dante, and Klopstock; men, before whose towering intellects Byron, like us, bowed down in astonishment and veneration. There are those, too, who have swept their harps to lays of richer melody; such is he, as we have just learned, the thrilling music of whose harp is o’er, for the hand that waked it moulders in the grave. Alas! Tom Moore, the glow of Oriental fire is extinguished forever in Britain; but thy memory shall endure, green as the green and lonely isle that gave thee birth; and the melting warmth of thy mellow melodies shall not grow cold forever! Such was Dryden, too, who, softly sweet in Lydian measures, could lull and soothe our soul to pleasures. Such at times was Collins; such was preëminently Petrarch; such, too, was the rollicking old Anacreon in his time. There are poets, too, who, with hard and honest hand, could lead us more at ease through the peasant’s humble door, and open to us freely there the gushing fount of simple love, and sincere and innocent and homely pleasure, and the sweet joys of peaceful rest. Such could Burns, and such could Florian. There are poets who, with measured tread, could lead us a more majestic walk upon classic terraces, and withdraw us further from the commonalities of life. Such is Homer, and Virgil, and Tasso, and Pope. There are poets of wiser and more practical philosophy, who could feel and appreciate the poetry of wisdom; like Schiller: and there are poets, too, like Ariosto, who could glide and curvet about his pen, performing strange feats of ideal legerdemain in a perfect gymnasium of poetry, from whom Byron, like almost all others, must turn away in helpless laughter. There is never a time when a mind at all appreciative of poetry, and unburthened of immediately oppressing cares, cannot seize upon some one of these styles, according to its passing humor, and enjoy it with infinite satisfaction, until its too unvaried strain becomes wearisome. How admired and popular, then, would be a poet, whose happy tone could blend these seemingly heterogeneous qualities in its _material_, and afford spicy food savory to every whim and phase of appetite! Such, in a great measure, is Horace, and hence, in a measure, his untiring popularity through all ages. Such was Shakspeare, who, though he did not possess the ultraism of Byron, was a thousand times more philosophical; and who, could he have exchanged conditions, accidental circumstances with Lord Byron, inherited his name and title, worn his garb of romance and his air of eccentricity among modern women who would but flatter it to a disease, had shone a luminous sun of poetry, whilst Byron but passed as a flashy meteor. Finally, such, too, was Byron, with this distinctive mark, that in him the _melange_ is more perceptible, continuous, never ceases; and hence, in a great measure, his popularity to the end of time. He was always thoughtful, observant, meditative, verbose, and often wrote great poems under the inspiration of the moment. He was equally at home in grave and gay, in lively and severe, in tender and morose, in grand, in trifling, in voluptuous. He stood equally at home in his listless boat upon the stilly lake naveled among the hills, soothed by the softer influences afloat on Nature’s bosom; and on the heaving deck amid torn ocean’s roar, loving the unearthly terrors. He stood equally at home amid the bowers of a sunny and sea-girt isle, his soul melting for the moment, into ecstasies of voluptuous love; and amid bare mountain pates and wintry pyramids of snow, amid rugged rocks, and clefts, and crags, that rend the mighty thunder as it speeds; communing, with blanched face and swelling mind, with the angry spirits of Storm and Solitude. He was equally at home when, dejected and melancholy, he “poured through the mellow horn his plaintive soul,” and sighed and mourned in loneliness, making maidens weep; and when, fired by the poisoned cup and “_carnal companie_,” he reveled in profanity, and, to hear his ribald jests, made maidens blush. So far, indeed, would his nature bear contrast, that, he would have been equally at home when, wasted by the heat of an Asiatic sun and withering Siroc, he might repose in coolness beneath the broken arch and temple, conjuring up grim shadows of old armies past away, contrasting the proud glory of learned and heroic Greece with the shame of the cowardly vassals whose careless song is e’en now beguiling his ear with its lightness; when he might wander without a care or elevating thought amid the cinnamon groves of the Cingalese, embodying all thought in beautiful, redolent materiality, scenting even an immortal Paradise in the ravishing sweetness of a perfumed atmosphere; as when, standing alone at midnight, in the deep darkness of a polar season, when the moon rides high, and the stars shone unclouded, when the dry icicles crackle in the breeze, and sparkle as they fall shivered into tiny diamonds, the solemn spirit of metaphysical contemplation thrills a low symphony of feeling and of awe that the melting rays of a southern sun could never reach.

So great was Byron’s versatility; and, yielding ever to the influence of the moment, so did he throw off at times the characteristic poetry of all climes, all people, and all moods: and, if there is no one kind in which he has not been surpassed; through his versatility and boldness his fame has not dimmed in the contrast. The characteristic of southern poetry is a materialising even of the spiritual; that of northern poetry, a spiritualizing, an etherealizing even of the material. Even the northern and southern tongues, though all springing from the same root, are modified and characterized by the tone and natural feeling which climate and association have diversified. In southern tongues, sounds seem such as those that the soul of music and of feeling might give vent to, as through the lips it passes to liberty away; in northern tongues sounds seem each as the soul of thought and feeling might mutter when their confined power is aroused to action within us. How different and characteristic are Lord Byron’s descriptions where, in one, describing the voluptuous Dudù, he says with true southern softness:

“She was not violently lively, but
Stole on your senses like a May-day breaking.”

Ekeing out the materialised comparison with redundant melody; and when, with stern northern contemplation he realises that

“There is a pleasure in the pathless woods,
There is a rapture on the lonely shore,
There is society where none intrudes
By the deep sea, and music in its roar.
I love not man the less, but Nature more,
From these our interviews, in which I steal
From all I may be, or have been before,
To mingle with the universe, and feel
What I can ne’er express, yet cannot all conceal.”

Is there not something still pent up here, still a cud for feeling, still something that the very sounds confine within us unmigratory; something, in the utterance of which we feel no relief of the burthen of feeling? Does it not seem that the southern laborer goes forth into the bright fields, and labors in imitation of Nature’s external beauties, singing his feeling away to the air; whilst the northern man bears his material to his home, and there revolves and fashions his productions from the depth and cunning of his dreamy mind? How warmed by the brightness and harmony of the external world must not Ariosto have been when, in the seventh canto of the “Orlando,” he portrays the exceeding beauty of Alcina, combining all that was most beautiful for eyes to look upon!

“Sotto due negri, e sottilissimi archi
Son due negri occhi, anzi due chiari soli,
Pietosi a riguardar, a mover parchi.”

And then,

“Sotto quel sta, quasi fra due vallette,
La bocca sparsa di natio cinabro;
Quivi due filze son di perle elette,
Che chiude ed apre un bello e dolce labro:
Quindi escon le cortesi parolette
Da render molie ogni corrozzo e scabro:
Quivi si forma quel soave riso,
Ch’ apre a sua porta in terra il paradiso.”

A perfect Paradise of material delights must have been Tasso’s garden of Armida, in the XV. Canto of the Jerusalem. Yet in these things does Byron so often approach to the rivalry of Tasso and Ariosto, both in his appreciation of sensual beauty, and in his grace of diction, that this alone, in many minds, would have stamped him as a great poet. Nevertheless, when other natures step in to judgment, they behold him at times glorying in the midst of an Alpine storm, exulting in the lightning, muttering, tone for tone, the loud crash of thunder; rejoicing and abroad upon the night like a fierce passion let loose, breathing life and soul and the voice of loud defiance, into the solid mountains.

“O night,
And storm and darkness, ye are wondrous strong,
Yet lovely in your strength, as is the light
Of a dark eye in woman! Far along
From peak to peak the rattling crags among,
Leaps the live thunder! Not from one lone cloud,
But every mountain now hath found a tongue,
And Jura answers from her misty shroud
Back to the joyous Alps who call on her aloud!

And this is in the night: most glorious night!
Thou wert not made for slumber!—let me be
A sharer in thy fierce and fair delight—
_A portion of the tempest and of thee_.
How the lit lake shines, a phosphoric sea,
And the big rain comes dancing to the earth!
And now again ’tis black—and now the glee
Of the loud hills shakes with its mountain mirth,
As if they did rejoice o’er a young earthquake’s birth.”

Heavens! what a terrible fascination in the fellow! Here is shown not only the weird psychology of the north, but another great illustration of Lord Byron’s humor; for what but a spirit racy of the lower regions, could invoke that loud and awful warring of the elements, that darting to and fro from crag to crag, of deadly thunderbolt, as a fair, congenial delight; and long to claim kindred with, and become a part of the destroying emissary?