Chapter VI: Conclusion (1)

Such are some of the prophetic voices about America, differing in character and importance, but all having one augury, and opening one vista, illimitable in extent and vastness. Farewell to the idea of Montesquieu, that a republic can exist only in a small territory.

Ancient prophecy foretold another world beyond the ocean, which in the mind of Christopher Columbus was nothing less than the Orient with its inexhaustible treasures. Then came the succession of prophets, who discerned the future of this continent, beginning with that rare genius, Sir Thomas Browne, who, in the reign of Charles II., while the settlements were in their infancy, predicted their growth in power and civilization; and then that rarest character, Bishop Berkeley, who, in the reign of George I., while the settlements were still feeble and undeveloped, heralded a Western empire as "Time's noblest offspring."

These voices are general. Others more precise followed. Turgot, the philosopher and minister, saw in youth, with the vision of genius, that all colonies must at their maturity drop from the parent stem, like ripe fruit. John Adams, one of the chiefs of our own history, in a youth illumined as that of Turgot, saw the predominance of the Colonies in population and power followed by the transfer of empire to America; then the glory of Independence and its joyous celebration by grateful generations; then the triumph of our language; and, finally, the establishment of our republican institutions over all North America. Then came the Abbé Galiani, the Neapolitan Frenchman, who, writing from Naples while our struggle was still undecided, gayly predicts the total downfall of Europe, the transmigration to America, and the consummation of the greatest revolution of the globe by establishing the reign of America over Europe. There is also Adam Smith, the illustrious philosopher, who quietly carries the seat of government across the Atlantic. Meanwhile Pownall, once a Colonial Governor and then a member of Parliament, in successive works of great detail, foreshadows independence, naval supremacy, commercial prosperity, immigration from the Old World, and a new national life, destined to supersede the systems of Europe and arouse the "curses" of royal ministers. Hartley, also a member of Parliament, and the British negotiator who signed the definitive treaty of Independence, bravely announces in Parliament that the New World is before the Colonists, and that liberty is theirs; and afterwards, as diplomatist, instructs his government that, through the attraction of our public lands, immigration will be quickened beyond precedent and the national debt cease to be a burden. D'Aranda, the Spanish statesman and diplomatist, predicts to his king that the United States, though born a "pygmy," will soon be a "colossus," under whose influence Spain will lose all her American possessions except only Cuba and Porto Rico. Burns, the truthful poet, looks forward a hundred years, and beholds our people rejoicing in the centenary of their independence. Fox, the liberal statesman, foresees the increasing might and various relations of the United States, so that a blow aimed at them must have a rebound as destructive as itself. Canning, the brilliant orator, in a much-admired flight of eloquence, discerns the New World, with its republics just called into being, redressing the balance of the old. Cobden, whose fame will be second only to that of Adam Smith among all in this catalogue, calmly predicts the separation of Canada from the mother country by peaceable means. Alaman, the Mexican statesman and historian, announces that Mexico, which has already known so many successive races, will hereafter be ruled by yet another people, who will take the place of the present possessors; and with these prophetic words, he draws a pall over his country.

All these various voices, of different times and countries, mingle and intertwine in representing the great future of our Republic, which from small beginnings has already become great. It was at first only a grain of mustard-seed, "which is, indeed, the least of all seeds; but when it is grown, it is the greatest among herbs and becomes a tree, so that the birds of the air come and lodge in the branches thereof." Better still, it was only a little leaven, but it is fast leavening the whole continent. Nearly all who have prophesied speak of "America" or "North America," and not of any limited circle, colony, or state. It was so, at the beginning, with Sir Thomas Browne, and especially with Berkeley. During our Revolution the Colonies, struggling for independence, were always described by this continental designation. They were already "America," or "North America," thus incidentally foreshadowing that coming time when the whole continent, with all its various States, shall be a Plural Unit, with one Constitution, one Liberty, and one Destiny. The theme was also taken up by the poet, and popularized in the often quoted lines:--

"No pent-up Utica contracts your powers,
But the whole boundless continent is yours."[97]

Such grandeur may justly excite anxiety rather than pride, for duties are in corresponding proportion. There is occasion for humility also, as the individual considers his own insignificance in the transcendent mass. The tiny polyp, in its unconscious life, builds the everlasting coral; each citizen is little more than the industrious insect. The result is accomplished by continuous and combined exertion. Millions of citizens, working in obedience to nature, can accomplish anything. Of course, war is an instrumentality which a true civilization disowns. Here some of our prophets have erred. Sir Thomas Browne was so much overshadowed by his own age, that his vision was darkened by "great armies," and even "hostile and piratical attacks" on Europe. It was natural that D'Aranda, schooled in worldly affairs, should imagine the new-born power ready to seize the Spanish possessions. Among our own countrymen, Jefferson looked to war for the extension of dominion. The Floridas, he says on one occasion, "are ours on the first moment of war, and until a war they are of no particular necessity to us."[98] Happily they were acquired in another way. Then again, while declaring that no constitution was ever before so calculated as ours for extensive empire and self-government, and insisting upon Canada as a component part, he calmly says that "this would be, of course, in the first war."[99] Afterwards, while confessing a longing for Cuba, "as the most interesting addition that could ever be made to our system of States," he says that "he is sensible this can never be obtained, even with her own consent, without war."[100] Thus at each stage is the baptism of blood. In much better mood the good Bishop recognized empire as moving gently in the pathway of light. All this is much clearer now than when he prophesied. It is easy to see that empire obtained by force is unrepublican, and offensive to that first principle of our Union according to which all just government stands only on the consent of the governed. Our country needs no such ally as war. Its destiny is mightier than war. Through peace it will have everything. This is our talisman. Give us peace, and population will increase beyond all experience; resources of all kinds will multiply infinitely; arts will embellish the land with immortal beauty; the name of Republic will be exalted, until every neighbor, yielding to irresistible attraction, will seek a new life in becoming a part of the great whole; and the national example will be more puissant than army or navy for the conquest of the world.

FOOTNOTES:

[1] Seneca, Medea, Act II. v. 371.

[2] Humboldt, _Examen critique de la Géographie_, Tome I. pp. 101, 162. See also Humboldt, _Kosmos_, Vol. II. pp. 516, 556, 557, 645.

[3] Strabo, Lib. I. p. 65; Lib. II. p. 118.

[4] Pulci, _Morgante Maggiore_, Canto XXV. st. 229, 230.

[5] Prescott, Ferdinand and Isabella, Vol. II. pp. 117, 118.

[6] Leigh Hunt, Stories from the Italian Poets, p. 171.

[7] Browne, Works, Pickering's edition. Vol. IV. p. 81.

[8] Johnson, Life of Sir Thomas Browne.

[9] Browne, Works, Vol. IV. pp. 232, 233.

[10] Browne, Works, Vol. IV. p. 236.

[11] Ibid.

[12] Ibid., p. 231, note.

[13] Berkeley, Works, Vol. I., Life prefixed, p. 53.

[14] Ibid., p. 53.

[15] Berkeley. Works, Vol. II. p. 443.

[16] Ibid., Vol. I., Life prefixed, p. 15.

[17] Grahame, History of the United States, Vol. IV. pp. 136, 448.

[18] Galt, Life of West, Vol. I. pp. 116, 117.

[19] John Adams, Works Vol. IX. pp. 597-599.

[20] Burnaby, Travels, p. 115.

[21] Ibid., Preface, p. 21.

[22] Turgot, _Oeuvres_, Tome II. p. 66. See also Condorcet, _Oeuvres_, Tome IV., _Vie de Turgot_; Louis Blanc, _Histoire de la Révolution Française_, Tome I. pp. 527-533.

[23] John Adams, Works, Vol. I. p. 23. See also Vol. IX. pp. 591, 592.

[24] Ibid., Vol. I. pp. 24, 25.

[25] John Adams, Works, Vol. I. pp. 230, 232.

[26] Ibid., Vol. VII. p. 227.

[27] Ibid., p. 250.

[28] John Adams, Works, Vol. IX. p. 510.

[29] Keith Johnston, Physical Atlas p. 114.

[30] John Adams, Works, Vol. VIII. p. 322.

[31] Ibid. p. 33.

[32] John Adams, Works, Vol. IV. p. 293.

[33] _Biographie Universelle_ of Michaud; also of Didot; Louis Blanc, _Histoire de la Révolution Française_, Tome I. pp. 390, 545-551.

[34] Galiani, Correspondence, Tome II. p. 221. See also Grimm, Correspondence, Tome IX. p. 282.

[35] Galiani, Tome II. p. 203; Grimm, Tome IX. p. 285.

[36] Galiani, Tome II. p. 275.

[37] Galiani, TOME II. p. 275.

[38] Smith, Wealth of Nations, Book IV. cap. 7, part 3.

[39] Hildreth, History of the United States, Vol. II. p. 476.

[40] John Adams, Works, Vol. X. p. 241.

[41] Pownall, Administration of the Colonies, Appendix, P. 7.

[42] Pownall, Administration of the Colonies, Appendix, p. 6.

[43] Ibid., p. 9.

[44] Pownall, Colonies, pp. 9, 10, 164.

[45] Pownall, Administration of the Colonies, p. 165.

[46] Ibid., p. 164.

[47] Parliamentary History, Vol. XIX. pp. 527, 528. See also p. 1137.

[48] Pownall, Memorial to the Sovereigns of Europe, pp. 4, 5.

[49] Ibid., p. 43.

[50] Ibid., p. 56.

[51] Ibid., p. 69.

[52] Pownall. Memorial to the Sovereigns of Europe, pp. 74, 77.

[53] Ibid., p. 82.

[54] Ibid., p. 83.

[55] Ibid., p. 85.

[56] Ibid., p. 87.

[57] Pownall, Memorial to the Sovereigns of Europe, pp. 80, 97.

[58] Ibid., p. 78.

[59] Ibid., p. 93.

[60] Ibid., p. 91.

[61] Franklin, Works, Vol. IX. p. 491.

[62] John Adams, Works, Vol. VIII. p. 179.

[63] Pownall, Memorial to the Sovereigns of America, pp. 5, 6.

[64] Pownall, Memorial to the Sovereigns of Europe, p. 83.

[65] Pownall, Memorial to the Sovereigns of America, p. 55.

[66] John Adams, Works, Vol. IX. p. 517.

[67] Ibid., Vol. III. p. 137.

[68] Ibid., Vol. VIII. p. 54.

[69] Ibid., Vol. III. p. 363.

[70] Ibid., Vol. VII. p. 226.

[71] Parliamentary History, Vol. XVIII. p. 553.

[72] Parliamentary History, Vol. XVIII. p. 556.

[73] Ibid., p. 846.

[74] Parliamentary History, Vol. XVIII. p. 1050.

[75] Parliamentary History, Vol. XVIII. p. 1356.

[76] Parliamentary History, Vol. XIX. pp. 259, 260.

[77] Ibid., p. 315.

[78] Ibid., p. 904.

[79] Ibid., p. 1190.

[80] Franklin, Works, Vol. VIII. p. 194.

[81] Franklin, Works, Vol. IX. p. 350.

[82] John Adams, Works, Vol. III. p. 379.

[83] Jay, Life of John Jay, Vol. I. p. 140; Vol. II. p. 101

[84] Alaman, _Disertaciones sobre la Historia de la Republica Megicana_, Tomo III. pp. 351, 352.

[85] Alaman, _Disertaciones_, Tomo III. p. 333.

[86] Burnaby, Travels in North America, Preface, p. 10.

[87] John Adams, Works, Vol. VII p. 484

[88] John Adams, Works, Vol. III. p. 234.

[89] Currie, Life and Works of Burns, p. 266, Grahame, History of United States, Vol. IV. p. 462.

[90] Parliamentary History, Vol. XXXI. p. 627.

[91] Annual Message to Congress of 2d December, 1823.

[92] Rush, Memoranda of Residence at London, Vol. II. p. 458: Wheaton, Elements of International Law, pp. 97-112, Dana's note.

[93] Stapleton, Life of Canning, Vol. II. pp. 46, 47.

[94] Canning, Speeches, Vol. VI. pp. 108, 109.

[95] In the original text of Alaman this is printed in large capitals, and it is explained in a note as said by Lucan in his Pharsalia, with regard to Pompey.

[96] Alaman, _Historia_, Tomo V. pp. 954, 955.

[97] By Jonathan M. Sewall, in an epilogue to Addison's tragedy of "Cato," written in 1778 for the Bow Street Theatre, Portsmouth, N. H.

[98] Jefferson's Works, Vol. V. p. 444.

[99] Jefferson's Works, Vol. V. p. 444.

[100] Ibid., Vol. VII. p. 316. See also pp. 288, 299.

SUNSHINE AND PETRARCH.

Near my summer home there is a little cove or landing by the bay, where nothing larger than a boat can ever anchor. I sit above it now, upon the steep bank, knee-deep in buttercups, and amid grass so lush and green that it seems to ripple and flow instead of waving. Below lies a tiny beach, strewn with a few bits of driftwood and some purple shells, and so sheltered by projecting walls that its wavelets plash but lightly. A little farther out, the sea breaks more roughly over submerged rocks, and the waves lift themselves, ere breaking, in an indescribable way, as if each gave a glimpse through a translucent window, beyond which all ocean's depths might be clearly seen. On the right side of my retreat a high wall limits the view, while on the left the crumbling parapet of Fort Greene stands out into the foreground, its grassy scarp so relieved against the blue water, that each inward-bound schooner seems to sail into a cave of grass. In the middle distance is a white lighthouse, and beyond lie the round tower of old Fort Louis and the soft low hills of Conanicut.

Behind me an oriole chirrups in triumph amid the birch-trees which wave around the house of the haunted window; before me a kingfisher pauses and waits, and a darting blackbird shows the scarlet on his wings. From the mossy and water-worn stones of the fort the bright-eyed rats peep out, or, emerging, swim along the beach, with a motion made graceful, as is all motion, by contact with the water. Sloops and schooners constantly come and go, careening in the wind, and their white sails taking, if remote enough, a vague blue mantle from the delicate air. Sailboats glide in the distance,--each a mere white wing of canvas,--or coming nearer, and glancing suddenly into the cove, are put as suddenly on the other tack, and almost in an instant seem far away. There is to-day such a live sparkle on the water, such a luminous freshness on the grass, that it seems, as is so often the case in early June, as if all history were a dream, and the whole earth were but the creation of a summer's day.

If Petrarch still knows and feels the consummate beauty of these earthly things, it may seem to him some repayment for the sorrows of a lifetime that one reader, after all this lapse of years, should choose his sonnets to match this grass, these blossoms, and the soft lapse of these blue waves. Yet any longer or more continuous poem would be out of place to-day. I fancy that this narrow cove prescribes the proper limits of a sonnet; and when I count the lines of ripple within yonder projecting wall, there proves to be room for just fourteen. Nature meets our whims with such little fitnesses. The words which build these delicate structures are as soft and fine and close-textured as the sands upon this tiny beach, and their monotone, if such it be, is the monotone of the neighboring ocean. Is it not possible, by bringing such a book into the open air, to separate it from the grimness of commentators, and bring it back to life and light and Italy? The beautiful earth is the same as when this poetry and passion were new; there is the same sunlight, the same blue water and green grass; yonder pleasure-boat might bear, for aught we know, the friends and lovers of five centuries ago; Petrarch and Laura might be there, with Boccaccio and Fiammetta as comrades, and with Chaucer as their stranger guest. It bears, at any rate, if I know its voyagers, eyes as lustrous, voices as sweet. With the world thus young, beauty eternal, fancy free, why should these delicious Italian pages exist but to be tortured into grammatical examples? Is there no reward to be imagined for a delightful book that can match Browning's fantastic burial of a tedious one? When it has sufficiently basked in sunshine, and been cooled in pure salt air, when it has bathed in heaped clover, and been scented, page by page, with melilot, cannot its beauty once more blossom, and its buried loves revive?

Emboldened by such influences, at least let me translate a sonnet, and see if anything is left after the sweet Italian syllables are gone. Before this continent was discovered, before English literature existed, when Chaucer was a child, these words were written. Yet they are to-day as fresh and perfect as these laburnum-blossoms that droop above my head. And as the variable and uncertain air comes freighted with clover-scent from yonder field, so floats through these long centuries, a breath of fragrance, the memory of Laura.

SONNET 129.

"_Lieti fiori e felici._"

O joyous, blossoming, ever-blessed flowers!
'Mid which my queen her gracious footstep sets;
O plain, that keep'st her words for amulets
And hold'st her memory in thy leafy bowers!
O trees, with earliest green of spring-time hours,
And spring-time's pale and tender violets!
O grove so dark, the proud sun only lets
His blithe rays gild the outskirts of your towers!
O pleasant country-side! O purest stream,
That mirrorest her sweet face, her eyes so clear,
And of their living light can catch the beam!
I envy you her haunts so close and dear.
There is no rock so senseless but I deem
It burns with passion that to mine is near.

Goethe compared translators to carriers, who convey good wine to market, though it gets unaccountably watered by the way. The more one praises a poem, the more absurd becomes one's position, perhaps, in trying to translate it. If it is so perfect,--is the natural inquiry,--why not let it alone? It is a doubtful blessing to the human race, that the instinct of translation still prevails, stronger than reason; and after one has once yielded to it, then each untranslated favorite is like the trees round a backwoodsman's clearing, each of which stands, a silent defiance, until he has cut it down. Let us try the axe again. This is to Laura singing.

SONNET 134.

"_Quando Amor i begli occhi a terra, inclina._"

When Love doth those sweet eyes to earth incline,
And weaves those wandering notes into a sigh
Soft as his touch, and leads a minstrelsy
Clear-voiced and pure, angelic and divine,
He makes sweet havoc in this heart of mine,
And to my thoughts brings transformation high,
So that I say, "My time has come to die,
If fate so blest a death for me design."
But to my soul thus steeped in joy the sound
Brings such a wish to keep that present heaven,
It holds my spirit back to earth as well.
And thus I live; and thus is loosed and wound
The thread of life which unto me was given
By this sole Siren who with us doth dwell.

As I look across the bay, there is seen resting over all the hills, and even upon every distant sail, an enchanted veil of palest blue, that seems woven out of the very souls of happy days,--a bridal veil, with which the sunshine weds this soft landscape in summer. Such and so indescribable is the atmospheric film that hangs over these poems of Petrarch's; there is a delicate haze about the words, that vanishes when you touch them, and reappears as you recede. How it clings, for instance, around this sonnet!

SONNET 191.

"_Aura che quelle chiome._"

Sweet air, that circlest round those radiant tresses,
And floatest mingled with them, fold on fold,
Deliciously, and scatterest that fine gold,
Then twinest it again, my heart's dear jesses,
Thou lingerest on those eyes, whose beauty presses
Stings in my heart that all its life exhaust,
Till I go wandering round my treasure lost,
Like some scared creature whom the night distresses.
I seem to find her now, and now perceive
How far away she is; now rise, now fall;
Now what I wish, now what is true, believe.
O happy air! since joys enrich thee all,
Rest thee; and thou, O stream too bright to grieve!
Why can I not float with thee at thy call?

The airiest and most fugitive among Petrarch's love-poems, so far as I know,--showing least of that desperate earnestness which he has somehow imparted to almost all,--is this little ode or madrigal. It is interesting to see, from this, that he could be almost conventional and courtly in moments when he held Laura farthest aloof; and when it is compared with the depths of solemn emotion in his later sonnets, it seems like the soft glistening of young birch-leaves against a background of pines.

CANZONE XXIII.

"_Nova angeletta sovra l'ale accorta._"

A new-born angel, with her wings extended,
Came floating from the skies to this fair shore,
Where, fate-controlled, I wandered with my sorrows.
She saw me there, alone and unbefriended.
She wove a silken net, and threw it o'er
The turf, whose greenness all the pathway borrows.
Then was I captured; nor could fears arise,
Such sweet seduction glimmered from her eyes.

The following, on the other hand, seems to me one of the Shakespearian sonnets; the successive phrases set sail, one by one, like a yacht squadron; each spreads its graceful wings and glides away. It is hard to handle this white canvas without soiling. Macgregor, in the only version of this sonnet which I have seen, abandons all attempt at rhyme; but to follow the strict order of the original in this respect is a part of the pleasant problem which one cannot bear to leave out. And there seems a kind of deity who presides over this union of languages, and who sometimes silently lays the words in order, after all one's own poor attempts have failed.

SONNET 128.

"_O passi sparsi; o pensier vaghi e pronti._"

O wandering steps! O vague and busy dreams!
O changeless memory! O fierce desire!
O passion strong! heart weak with its own fire;
O eyes of mine! not eyes, but living streams;
O laurel boughs! whose lovely garland seems
The sole reward that glory's deeds require;
O haunted life! delusion sweet and dire,
That all my days from slothful rest redeems;
O beauteous face! where Love has treasured well
His whip and spur, the sluggish heart to move
At his least will; nor can it find relief.
O souls of love and passion! if ye dwell
Yet on this earth, and ye, great Shades of Love!
Linger, and see my passion and my grief.

Yonder flies a kingfisher, and pauses, fluttering like a butterfly in the air, then dives toward a fish, and, failing, perches on the projecting wall. Doves from neighboring dove-cotes alight on the parapet of the fort, fearless of the quiet cattle who find there a breezy pasture. These doves, in taking flight, do not rise from the ground at once, but, edging themselves closer to the brink, with a caution almost ludicrous in such airy things, trust themselves upon the breeze with a shy little hop, and at the next moment are securely on the wing.

How the abundant sunlight inundates everything! The great clumps of grass and clover are imbedded in it to the roots; it flows in among their stalks, like water; the lilac-bushes bask in it eagerly; the topmost leaves of the birches are burnished. A vessel sails by with plash and roar, and all the white spray along her keel is sparkling with sunlight. Yet there is sorrow in the world, and it reached Petrarch even before Laura died,--when it reached her. This exquisite sonnet shows it:--

SONNET 123.

"_I' vidi in terra angelici costumi._"

I once beheld on earth celestial graces,
And heavenly beauties scarce to mortals known,
Whose memory lends nor joy nor grief alone,
But all things else bewilders and effaces.
I saw how tears had left their weary traces
Within those eyes that once like sunbeams shone,
I heard those lips breathe low and plaintive moan,
Whose spell might once have taught the hills their places.
Love, wisdom, courage, tenderness, and truth,
Made in their mourning strains more high and dear
Than ever, wove sweet sounds for mortal ear;
And Heaven seemed listening in such saddest ruth
The very leaves upon the boughs to soothe,
Such passionate sweetness filled the atmosphere.

These sonnets are in Petrarch's earlier manner; but the death of Laura brought a change. Look at yonder schooner coming down the bay, straight toward us; she is hauled close to the wind, her jib is white in the sunlight, her larger sails are touched with the same snowy lustre, and all the swelling canvas is rounded into such lines of beauty as nothing else in the world--not even the perfect outlines of the human form--can give. Now she comes up into the wind, and goes about with a strong flapping of the sails, which smites our ears at a half-mile's distance; and she then glides off on the other tack, showing us the shadowed side of her sails, until she reaches the distant zone of haze. So change the sonnets after Laura's death, growing shadowy as they recede, until the very last seems to merge itself in the blue distance.

SONNET 251.

"_Gli occhi di ch' io parlai._"

Those eyes, 'neath which my passionate rapture rose,
The arms, hands, feet, the beauty that erewhile
Could my own soul from its own self beguile,
And in a separate world of dreams enclose,
The hair's bright tresses, full of golden glows,
And the soft lightning of the angelic smile
Which changed this earth to some celestial isle,
Are now but dust, poor dust, that nothing knows.
And yet I live! Myself I grieve and scorn,
Left dark without the light I loved in vain,
Adrift in tempest on a bark forlorn;
Dead is the source of all my amorous strain,
Dry is the channel of my thoughts outworn,
And my sad harp can sound but notes of pain.

"And yet I live!" What immeasurable distances of time and thought are implied in the self-recovery of those words. Shakespeare might have taken from them his "Since Cleopatra died,"--the only passage in literature which has in it the same wide spaces of emotion. There is a vastness of transition in each, which, if recited by Fanny Kemble, would take one's breath away.

The next sonnet seems to me the most stately and concentrated of the whole volume. It is the sublimity of all hopelessness, destined to deliverance, but unable to foresee it.

SONNET 253.

"_Soleasi nel mio cor._"

She ruled in beauty o'er this heart of mine,
A noble lady in a humble home,
And now her time for heavenly bliss has come,
'Tis I am mortal proved, and she divine.
The soul that all its blessings must resign,
And love whose light no more on earth finds room
Might rend the rocks with pity for their doom,
Yet none their sorrows can in words enshrine;
They weep within my heart; and ears are deaf
Save mine alone, and I am crushed with care,
And naught remains to me save mournful breath.
Assuredly but dust and shade we are,
Assuredly desire is blind and brief,
Assuredly its hope but ends in death.

In the next he has risen to that dream which is more than earth's realities.

Sonnet 261

"_Levommi il mio pensiero._"

Dreams bore my fancy to that region where
She dwells whom here I seek, but cannot see.
'Mid those who in the loftiest heaven be
I looked on her, less haughty and more fair.
She touched my hand, she said "Within this sphere,
If hope deceive not, thou shall dwell with me:
I filled thy life with war's wild agony;
Mine own day closed ere evening could appear.
My bliss no human brain can understand;
I wait for thee alone, and that fair veil
Of beauty thou dost love shall wear again."
Why was she silent then, why dropped my hand
Ere those delicious tones could quite avail
To bid my mortal soul in heaven remain?

In the next sonnet visions multiply upon visions. Would that one could transfer into English the delicious way in which the sweet Italian rhymes recur and surround and seem to embrace each other, and are woven and unwoven and interwoven, like the heavenly hosts that gathered around Laura!

SONNET 302.

"_Cli angeli cletti._"

The holy angels and the spirits blest,
Celestial bands, upon that day serene
When first my love went by in heavenly mien,
Came thronging, wondering at the gracious guest.
"What light is here, in what new beauty drest?"
They said among themselves; "for none has seen
Within this age come wandering such a queen
From darkened earth into immortal rest."
And she, contented with her new-found bliss,
Ranks with the purest in that upper sphere,
Yet ever and anon looks back on this,
To watch for me, as if for me she stayed.
So strive my thoughts, lest that high path I miss.
I hear her call, and must not be delayed.

These odes and sonnets are all but parts of one vast symphony, leading us through a passion strengthened by years and only purified by death, until at last the graceful lay becomes an anthem and a _Nunc dimittis_. In the closing sonnets he withdraws from the world, and they seem like a voice from a cloister, growing more and move solemn till the door is closed. This is one of the very last:--

SONNET 309.

"_Dicemi spesso il mio fidato speglio._"

Oft by my faithful mirror I am told,
And by my mind outworn and altered brow,
My earthly powers impaired and weakened now,--
"Deceive thyself no more, for thou art old!"
Who strives with Nature's laws is over-bold,
And Time to his commandments bids us bow.
Like fire which waves have quenched, I calmly vow
In life's long dream no more my sense to fold.
And while I think, our swift existence flies,
And none can live again earth's brief career,--
Then in my deepest heart the voice replies
Of one who now has left this mortal sphere,
But walked alone through earthly destinies,
And of all women is to fame most dear.

How true this was! Who can wonder that women prize beauty, and are intoxicated by their own fascinations, when these fragile gifts are yet strong enough to outlast all the memories of statesmanship and war? Next to the immortality of genius is that which genius may confer upon the object of its love. Laura, while she lived, was simply one of a hundred or a thousand beautiful and gracious Italian women; she had her little loves and aversions, joys and griefs; she cared dutifully for her household, and embroidered the veil which Petrarch loved; her memory appeared as fleeting and unsubstantial as that woven tissue. After five centuries we find that no armor of that iron age was so enduring. The kings whom she honored, the popes whom she revered, are dust, and their memory is dust, while literature is still fragrant with her name. An impression which has endured so long is ineffaceable; it is an earthly immortality.

"Time is the chariot of all ages to carry men away, and beauty cannot bribe this charioteer." Thus wrote Petrarch in his Latin essays; but his love had access to a treasury more potent, and for Laura the chariot stayed.

CANADIAN WOODS AND WATERS.

The monotony so characteristic generally of the woodlands of Upper Canada is mitigated, to a great extent, by the pleasant waters with which many of the tracts of that country are intersected. Away back from the great lakes, chains of smaller lakes glisten in the bosom of the immense forest. Rivers take their course from these, narrow at first, but noisy, rushing along by sparse settlements and lonely Indian camps to their junction with the big lakes, where mills, and factories, and ships, and human dross in general, soon pollute with unclean contact their fair waters. Many of the early settlers of these regions were of a stamp far different from that of the rough pioneers by whom new settlements have generally been opened in the United States and their territories. Here and there throughout Upper Canada there are communities--some of them progressive, if not actually flourishing, others yet in a backward state--which were founded by men whose early lives had been passed amid the highest refinements of Old World civilization. Among these, retired officers of the army and navy were very frequently to be met with. They were generally married men, with incomes wretchedly inadequate to the support of themselves and their families on the "European plan." Land in Canada was to be acquired in fee for a mere song, and it was something for the cadet of a landed family to become the squire of a thousand acres upon some remote Canadian lake or river, even although six hundred of his acres might be nothing but cedar swamp. The native British keenness for the pursuit of wild creatures had much to do with the choice of locality by the adventurers, who generally set up their log-houses in districts where game and fish were to be had in abundance. Communication by road, until within the last twenty years or so, was so imperfect in many of these tracts, that but little intercourse existed between one settlement and another. On this account agricultural operations were very limited, being confined, generally, to the raising of sufficient grain for family use. In these communities somebody was always found to build a mill; and as the gentleman settlers themselves were not above doing carpenter and blacksmith work, no matter how bunglingly, things were made to look shapely enough in the course of time, and thus were founded villages, some of which have since expanded into towns of considerable size and local importance.

Strangely grotesque, with their half-civilization, were these places in their earlier days. Characters which would not have been out of place at a _bal masqué_ were frequently to be met with in all of them. Blanket coats in winter, adorned with beaded epaulets, scarlet woollen stockings pulled up over the legs to fend off the snow, and Indian moccasons, were considered quite the proper thing. Once, as I was travelling by sleigh in a comparatively settled part of the country, a young man, who was driving rapidly in the opposite direction, pulled up to greet my companion, with whom he was acquainted. He was coming to the town, from his residence in the heart of the woods, thirty or forty miles from where we met him, and certainly I was astonished--being then newly arrived in the country--at the extreme slenderness of the outfit of one who was bound to do the "man about town" for a few days, and that in midwinter too. He was in his shirt-sleeves, having no coat with him whatever. His black velvet waistcoat, now foxy and threadbare with much use, might once have been a _chef-d'oevre_ from the hand of some London tailor whose gossip was of Guardsmen and their measurement. The rest of his costume consisted of a pair of buckskin breeches fastened at the knee with pearl buttons, heavy woollen stockings, and pegged boots,--the latter indebted for their lustre more to the rind of pork than to the blacking-brush. Singularly incongruous with this get-up was the kid-gloved hand with which he removed the black pipe from his mouth; nor was his straw hat exactly the sort of head-dress that one might have expected to meet with during a Canadian sleigh-ride. But it was only when he rose to his feet on the little rough sleigh, three feet by two, on which he had been sitting, that the full splendor of his wardrobe became revealed to us; for then he threw around his shoulders a magnificent cloak, made, I think, of some kind of Siberian fur, and which, folded up, had served him for a cushion on his journey. I frequently afterwards met this exquisite of the backwoods, wrapped in that showy mantle, walking in the streets of the little wooden town, where his appearance, so strange to me, did not seem to excite any particular comment. In those parts, men would often come into the towns, in winter, dressed in blanket coats, with the rather inappropriate accompaniment of white duck trousers and straw hats. Residents did not appear to see anything eccentric in this; but in the mind of a stranger a sense of the ludicrous was naturally excited by it.

Contrasts were ever to be observed among the striking features of these queer settlements. In one very remote township of which I have memories, there dwelt a family whose eccentricities of costume and manner of life entitle them to some brief record here. A retired officer of the army, with a large troop of well-grown sons and daughters, had built himself a log-house in this dreary wilderness, the roads leading to which were impassable for four months in the year. The girls of this family were of a beauty that may truthfully be described as magnificent. No painter that I know of ever gave to the world a Diana on canvas at all comparable in beauty of face and form to the eldest of these. The family, although English, had been brought up, I think, in the Greek Archipelago, with the language and dialects of which they were familiar. At home these young wood-nymphs always went barefooted in summer. Their costume, whether in the woods or when they visited the more advanced settlements, was of the Oriental style. Ahead of Mrs. Bloomer, whose note of reform had not yet ruffled the sweeping skirts of the period, they walked fearlessly abroad in loose trousers, fastened at the ankle. Close-fitting bodices, with narrow skirts falling a little below the knee, completed their costume, and the luxuriant masses of their golden-brown hair fell in natural curls to their shoulders from beneath their wide-brimmed straw hats. It was strange thus to find a leaf from "Eothen" amid the black-ash swamps and rickety "corduroy" causeways of one of the dreariest districts of Canada.

In the social life of these places, where rough hospitality is often curiously mingled with a strain of former luxury, incidents of a humorous character will sometimes attract the notice of the visitor. I remember being told by an acquaintance about a visit once made by him to the family of an English gentleman, who had settled upon a small clearing in the depth of the forest. The young men of the family were engaged in burning brushwood when my informant arrived, and he, anxious to win their approbation, set to work with a will, and toiled with them until the distant horn announced that dinner-time had arrived. Ablution became necessary before the visitor, who by this time was as black as a charcoal-burner, could venture to greet the ladies of the household, and pails of water were accordingly furnished hard by the gable end of the house. There was no towel visible, however, and the visitor, with his hands and face dripping from recent immersion, was pained to see that some difficulty had arisen out of his request for one. Then, with sudden impulse, one of the young men went away, and returned in a minute or two with a long and richly embroidered scarf, the golden web interwoven with which, as well as the deep lace border, stamped it as a tissue of price. Assured by the young men that this brocade was inured to duty as the regular family towel, the visitor made use of it as such. The texture of it, as he told me, was not pleasant to the face, and it abraded a good deal of the skin from his nose. It went the rounds after he had used it, and the party adjourned to the dinner-table, where some remark was made as to the non-appearance of the daughter of the house. Presently that young lady entered, however, and took her place at the dinner-table. She had evidently bestowed some extra care upon her toilet in honor of the guest from beyond the "timber limits"; but what chiefly attracted his notice in her costume was a curious, gold-embroidered scarf, with deep lace edges, the folds of which, although artfully cast, revealed here and there the smudges of soiled hands. Indeed, my informant--who was a little given to exaggeration, perhaps--used to aver that he recognized upon the mystic garment, just at the point where it was crossed upon the bosom of the lovely sylvan damsel, a portion of the cuticle of his own Roman nose.

In another of these settlements,--it was remote, then, though now it has a great line of railway running through it,--things used to be carried to an extreme just the opposite of that above noticed. It was a little English colony, several of the members of which were persons of tolerably good means, with influential family connections at home. Engaged, mostly, in agricultural pursuits, they could chop down trees, and drive oxen, and plough, and mow, as well as any lout in the country round, and some of them built their own houses and made furniture for them. They had been swells, though, before they became "hawbucks," and they brought some of their standard manners and customs with them. It was considered proper in this community to dine at the fashionable hour of six, when every person was expected to be precise in the matter of costume,--the ladies _décolletées_ to the admissible extent, and the gentlemen in black dress-coats and white "chokers." The necessity of supporting the position suggested by this attempt at style, though, induced extravagance. Many of the swells became bankrupt. Their farms passed into more homespun hands. Their black dress-coats have long since become rusty and out of the mode, and the mortiferous whiskey of the country now tantalizes such of them as it has not killed with melancholy remembrances of the Burgundy that was.

The simple faith and primitive arrangements that existed in some of these clearings before the advent of the iron horse were peculiarities that never failed to impress visitors from far-off cities and settlements of older growth. Bolts and bars were the last things that a settler would think about, when fitting up his house. A man would leave his rifle in the canoe, upon the river's bank, for days together, without the least misgiving as to its being spirited away. Rust would not touch it, the climate of Western Canada being singularly free from moisture; and the roving Indians who traversed these woods were dependent in a great measure upon the white man, and had learned to look upon his property with respect. Looking over one of my note-books, I recall the picture of a deserted old shanty that stood in a meadow by the margin of a bright and swift river. The gentleman who had formerly occupied this weather-stained hut had built himself a larger and more ambitious mansion upon the opposite bank of the stream. For some time after he had moved into this, the interior of the house remained in an unfinished state, and he had no accommodation for his books. Of these he had a choice collection, and they were left in their large wooden cases, for two years or so, on the upper floor of the old shanty, the doors of which had already parted from their hinges, and the windows yielded to the autumnal blasts. To this most curious of circulating libraries the owner accorded free access to the few neighbors who occupied the clearings around. Many a time I have swung myself up by the crazy ladder that led to the attic where the books were; and in summer I would often sit there for hours, reading Cooper's novels, which had then an attraction enhanced by the circumstances and place. In winter I would take books away. If it was the season for wild ducks I would have a gun beside me, to get a shot at them from the attic window as they flew along the course of the stream. So lonely was the hut, that the mink would often haunt it in search of such small plunder as attracts his kind; and once I encountered upon the threshold of it a milk-snake about five feet long, which disappeared through the chinks of the flooring before I could administer to it the _coup de grâce_ by which man feels it to be his stern duty to cut short the serpentine career.

There is a wonderful fascination in these grand old Canadian woods for sportsmen, whose wildest experiences of their craft, previous to their essay in it there, had been associated with stalking deer upon Highland mountains, or shooting grouse upon the moors. The solitude of woods is of a more impressive character, I think, than that of bare mountains,--in countries, at least, where one may expect to find traces of civilized man. From mountain peaks there is a wide range of view, in which some points of guidance to the traveller are usually visible. Wandering in the woods is much like groping one's way in the dark; and I know by experience how easy it is for an explorer not well accustomed to them to keep moving in circles, until, after hours of what he imagined to be a straight course, he finds himself back again at some wood-mark long since passed, instead of the place for which he was bound. There is something decidedly sensational in this, especially in winter, as anybody who has ever experienced it will allow. The sounds of the forest are impressive, too, while its stillness, at times almost absolute, is painful. In the mystery of its voices lies a good deal of the fascination of the wood. In the clear, frosty air of winter the cry of the great black woodpecker rings out like an elfin laugh, as he wings his curved way through the gray stems in quest of some skeleton tree. Explosions caused by the frost are heard among the branches of the trees. They are sometimes as loud as pistol-shots, and--as I can aver from my own observation--the deer, after they have become accustomed to them, will not bound away at the crack of a rifle, and the hunter will often get several shots at one herd, by keeping close in his ambush. But the slightest sound of a twig beneath his moccason, or the tinkle of the powder-flask against the muzzle of the rifle as he reloads, will send the herd crashing and flashing away. In the stillness of a summer evening there is something very weird in the cry of the loon, or great Northern diver, as it comes vibrating over the surface of a woodland lake. Where the woods are very thick and dark and lonely, the hooting of owls is commonly to be heard in the daytime. Once only--it was in early summer--I heard the wild turkey-cock utter his vehement call. I made my way in the direction whence the sound came, until I was stopped by a river, on the farther side of which I saw a magnificent "gobbler," strutting with drooped wings and expanded tail along the strip of greensward that lay between the water and the woods, while he issued, in very loud and imperious tones, his orders for the ladies of his seraglio to attend. This action, in the case of the domestic turkey, is always provocative of ridicule; but it was absolutely grand and striking as displayed by the large-feathered free bird, parading to and fro there upon the river-bank. I watched him for a while, expecting to see the hen-birds come, but they did not; and so the noble Mormon of the thickets furled his tail at last, and, tucking up his wings, strode moodily into the bush, as if to search for the truants.

To hunters who are accustomed to glide through the forest observantly and with caution, most interesting little scenes of animal life are sometimes revealed. One day, in the snow-time, as I was roaming the woods close by a Canadian river, after wild-turkeys, I noticed a flock of mergansers,--thereabouts usually called saw-billed ducks, or sheldrakes,--swimming in a small air-hole that had remained open in the frozen surface of the river. There were four or five ducks, and the pool might have been about ten feet by six in size. I watched them for some time, as they kept stemming the current, but without any intention of wasting ammunition upon them. My attention was attracted elsewhere for a moment, and I was surprised, on again looking towards them, to see a splendid red fox sitting at the upper edge of the little pool, where he could not have been more than a couple of yards from the nearest of the ducks. Presently he jumped up, and, running to the other end of the pool, stretched out a paw, as if to seize one of them; but they were too quick for him, placing themselves well beyond his reach with a few strokes of their paddles. He was far too cunning to plunge into the water and risk being carried under the ice by the current; and the ducks appeared to be quite aware of this, for they did not make any attempt to rise, nor indeed did they seem to be at all uneasy at the proximity of their natural enemy. It was exceedingly interesting, not to say amusing, to watch the many stratagems of the fox to get at them. Sometimes he would lie down upon the snow and lash about him with his bushy tail, whimpering in a querulous and imbecile manner at being thus outwitted by simple water-fowl. Then a new idea would take possession of him, and he would start up and run round and round the pool at a tremendous pace, probably to try and get a chance at the ducks by flurrying them; but they knew too much for Master Reynard, and always edged away from him just at the right moment. Tired at last of watching these manoeuvres, I "drew a bead" upon the fox; but my hands were numbed from keeping still so long, so that, instead of hitting him in a vital spot, as I had intended, I only broke one of his forelegs, and away he went into the woods on three paws with amazing speed, while the ducks rose into the air at the report of the rifle, and flew up the course of the river in search of lonelier water. I followed the track of the fox for a mile or more, but had to give up the chase at last. The snow was flecked with spots of blood where he ran; and although the fox is not usually an object of sympathy around Canadian borders, yet I regretted much that I had not missed this one altogether, instead of maiming him, after all the amusement he had just afforded me by his curious pranks. This little incident of fox and ducks might offer a good subject for the pencil of an animal painter, and I hereby present it either to Mr. W. H. Beard or to Mr. Hays,--whichever of them may first happen to glance over these pages.