Chapter IV: Book EIGHT: A Mysterious Visitor (3)

After two and a half years of travel he returned to England. His
father died during the next fall, after wasting his fortune. Gray
began the study of law, but had not the means to finish the course.
He began to devote his time to writing, left London, where he had
spent the winter, and went with his mother to visit an uncle who
lived in a country hamlet called Stoke Poges. In this quiet village
he wrote his “Ode on the Spring,” “Ode on a Distant Prospect of
Eton College,” and began the “Elegy Written in a Country
Church-Yard.”

The “Elegy” is one of the most celebrated poems ever written. It
was begun when Gray was twenty-six years old, but he did not
finish it until eight years later. Its fame spread over the world,
and it still holds its rank as the most perfect of English poems.

The poet lived at Cambridge, where he devoted his time to study.
The “Elegy” and a later work, “The Bard,” placed him at the head of
English poets. He was offered the office of poet laureate, which he
refused.

In 1768 Gray accepted the chair of Modern History and Languages at
Cambridge.

The last years of the poet’s life were spent very quietly. He
avoided society and was rarely seen in public. He died in London in
1771.

THE Curfew tolls the knell of parting day,
The lowing herd wind slowly o’er the lea,
The plowman homeward plods his weary way,
And leaves the world to darkness and to me.

Now fades the glimmering landscape on the sight,
And all the air a solemn stillness holds,
Save where the beetle wheels his droning flight,
And drowsy tinklings lull the distant folds;

Save that from yonder ivy-mantled tow’r
The moping owl does to the moon complain
Of such, as wand’ring near her secret bow’r,
Molest her ancient solitary reign.

Beneath those rugged elms, that yew-tree’s shade,
Where heaves the turf in many a mould’ring heap,
Each in his narrow cell forever laid,
The rude Forefathers of the hamlet sleep.

The breezy call of incense-breathing Morn,
The swallow twitt’ring from the straw-built shed,
The cock’s shrill clarion, or the echoing horn,
No more shall rouse them from their lowly bed.

For them no more the blazing hearth shall burn,
Or busy housewife ply her evening care:
No children run to lisp their sire’s return,
Or climb his knees the envied kiss to share.

Oft did the harvest to their sickle yield,
Their furrow oft the stubborn glebe has broke;
How jocund did they drive their team afield!
How bow’d the woods beneath their sturdy stroke!

Let not Ambition mock their useful toil,
Their homely joys, and destiny obscure;
Nor Grandeur hear with a disdainful smile,
The short and simple annals of the poor.

The boast of heraldry, the pomp of pow’r,
And all that beauty, all that wealth e’er gave,
Awaits alike th’ inevitable hour.
The paths of glory lead but to the grave.

Nor you, ye Proud, impute to These the fault,
If Mem’ry o’er their Tomb no Trophies raise,
Where thro’ the long-drawn isle and fretted vault
The pealing anthem swells the note of praise.

Can storied urn or animated bust
Back to its mansion call the fleeting breath?
Can Honor’s voice provoke the silent dust,
Or Flatt’ry soothe the dull cold ear of Death?

Perhaps in this neglected spot is laid
Some heart once pregnant with celestial fire;
Hands, that the rod of empire might have sway’d,
Or wak’d to ecstasy the living lyre.

But Knowledge to their eyes her ample page
Rich with the spoils of time did ne’er unroll;
Chill Penury repress’d their noble rage,
And froze the genial current of the soul.

Full many a gem of purest ray serene,
The dark unfathom’d caves of ocean bear:
Full many a flower is born to blush unseen,
And waste its sweetness on the desert air.

Some village-Hampden, that with dauntless breast
The little Tyrant of his fields withstood;
Some mute inglorious Milton here may rest,
Some Cromwell guiltless of his country’s blood.

Th’ applause of list’ning senates to command,
The threats of pain and ruin to despise,
To scatter plenty o’er a smiling land,
And read their hist’ry in a nation’s eyes,

Their lot forbade: nor circumscrib’d alone
Their growing virtues, but their crimes confin’d;
Forbade to wade through slaughter to a throne,
And shut the gates of mercy on mankind,

The struggling pangs of conscious truth to hide,
To quench the blushes of ingenuous shame,
Or heap the shrine of Luxury and Pride
With incense kindled at the Muse’s flame.

Far from the madding crowd’s ignoble strife,
Their sober wishes never learn’d to stray;
Along the cool sequester’d vale of life
They kept the noiseless tenor of their way.

Yet ev’n these bones from insult to protect
Some frail memorial still erected nigh,
With uncouth rhymes and shapeless sculpture deck’d,
Implores the passing tribute of a sigh.

Their name, their years, spelt by th’ unletter’d muse,
The place of fame and elegy supply:
And many a holy text around she strews,
That teach the rustic moralist to die.

For who to dumb Forgetfulness a prey,
This pleasing anxious being e’er resign’d,
Left the warm precincts of the cheerful day,
Nor cast one longing ling’ring look behind?

On some fond breast the parting soul relies,
Some pious drops the closing eye requires;
Ev’n from the tomb the voice of Nature cries,
Ev’n in our Ashes live their wonted Fires.

For thee, who mindful of th’ unhonor’d Dead
Dost in these lines their artless tale relate;
If chance, by lonely contemplation led,
Some kindred Spirit shall inquire thy fate,

Haply some hoary-headed Swain may say,
‘Oft have we seen him at the peep of dawn
‘Brushing with hasty steps the dews away
‘To meet the sun upon the upland lawn.

‘There at the foot of yonder nodding beech
‘That wreathes its old fantastic roots so high,
‘His listless length at noontide would he stretch,
‘And pore upon the brook that babbles by.

‘Hard by yon wood, now smiling as in scorn,
‘Mutt’ring his wayward fancies he would rove,
‘Now drooping, woeful wan, like one forlorn,
‘Or craz’d with care, or cross’d in hopeless love.

‘One morn I miss’d him on the custom’d hill,
‘Along the heath and near his fav’rite tree;
‘Another came; nor yet beside the rill,
‘Nor up the lawn, nor at the wood was he;

‘The next with dirges due in sad array
‘Slow thro’ the church-way path we saw him borne.
‘Approach and read (for thou can’st read) the lay,
‘Grav’d on the stone beneath yon aged thorn.’

_THE EPITAPH._

_Here rests his head upon the lap of Earth_
_A Youth to Fortune and to Fame unknown._
_Fair Science frown’d not on his humble birth,_
_And Melancholy mark’d him for her own._

_Large was his bounty, and his soul sincere,_
_Heav’n did a recompense as largely send:_
_He gave to Mis’ry all he had, a tear,_
_He gain’d from Heav’n (t’was all he wish’d) a friend._

_No farther seek his merits to disclose,_
_Or draw his frailties from their dread abode,_
_(There they alike in trembling hope repose,)_
_The bosom of his Father and his God._

BELSHAZZAR’S FEAST.

BELSHAZZAR the king made a great feast to a thousand of his lords, and drank wine before the thousand. Belshazzar, while he tasted the wine, commanded to bring the golden and silver vessels, which his father Nebuchadnezzar had taken out of the temple which was in Jerusalem; that the king and his princes and his wives might drink therein.

Then they brought the golden vessels that were taken out of the temple of the house of God, which was at Jerusalem; and the king, his princes and his wives, drank in them.

They drank wine, and praised the gods of gold, and of silver, of brass, of iron, of wood, and of stone.

In the same hour came forth fingers of a man’s hand, and wrote over against the candlestick upon the plaster of the wall of the king’s palace: and the king saw the part of the hand that wrote.

Then the king’s countenance was changed, and his thoughts troubled him, so that the joints of his loins were loosed, and his knees smote one against another. The king cried aloud to bring in the astrologers, the Chaldeans, and the soothsayers. And the king spake and said to the wise men of Babylon: “Whosoever shall read this writing, and show me the interpretation thereof, shall be clothed with scarlet, and have a chain of gold about his neck, and shall be the third ruler in the kingdom.”

Then came in all the king’s wise men: but they could not read the writing, nor make known to the king the interpretation thereof.

Then was King Belshazzar greatly troubled, and his countenance was changed in him, and his lords were astonished.

Now the queen, by reason of the words of the king and his lords, came into the banquet house: and the queen spake and said: “O king, live for ever: let not thy thoughts trouble thee, nor let thy countenance be changed:

“There is a man in thy kingdom in whom is the spirit of the holy gods; and in the days of thy father light and understanding and wisdom, like the wisdom of the gods, was found in him; whom the king Nebuchadnezzar thy father, the king, I say, thy father, made him master of the magicians, astrologers, Chaldeans, and soothsayers;

“Forasmuch as an excellent spirit, and knowledge, and understanding, interpreting of dreams, and showing of hard sentences, and dissolving of doubts, were found in the same Daniel, whom the king named Belteshazzar: now let Daniel be called, and he will show the interpretation.”

Then was Daniel brought in before the king. And the king spake and said unto Daniel: “Art thou that Daniel, which art of the children of the captivity of Judah, whom the king, my father, brought out of Jewry?

“I have even heard of thee, that the spirit of the gods is in thee, and that light and understanding and excellent wisdom is found in thee.

“And now the wise men, the astrologers, have been brought in before me, that they should read this writing, and make known unto me the interpretation thereof: but they could not show the interpretation of the thing:

“And I have heard of thee, that thou canst make interpretations, and dissolve doubts: now if thou canst read the writing, and make known to me the interpretation thereof, thou shalt be clothed with scarlet, and have a chain of gold about thy neck, and shalt be the third ruler in the kingdom.”

Then Daniel answered and said before the king: “Let thy gifts be to thyself, and give thy rewards to another; yet I will read the writing unto the king, and make known to him the interpretation.

“O thou king, the most high God gave Nebuchadnezzar thy father a kingdom, and majesty, and glory, and honor:

“And for the majesty that he gave him, all people, nations, and languages trembled and feared before him: whom he would he slew, and whom he would he kept alive; and whom he would he set up, and whom he would he put down.

“But when his heart was lifted up, and his mind hardened in pride, he was deposed from his kingly throne, and they took his glory from him:

“And he was driven from the sons of men; and his heart was made like the beasts, and his dwelling was with the wild asses: they fed him with grass like oxen, and his body was wet with the dew of heaven; till he knew that the most high God ruled in the kingdom of men, and that he appointeth over it whomsoever he will.

“And thou his son, O Belshazzar, hast not humbled thine heart, though thou knewest all this;

“But hast lifted up thyself against the Lord of heaven; and they have brought the vessels of his house before thee, and thou and thy lords and thy wives, have drunk wine in them; and thou hast praised the gods of silver, and gold, of brass, iron, wood, and stone, which see not, nor hear, nor know: and the God in whose hand thy breath is, and whose are all thy ways, hast thou not glorified:

“Then was the part of the hand sent from him; and this writing was written.

“And this is the writing that was written:--

MENE, MENE, TEKEL, UPHARSIN.

This is the interpretation of the thing:--

MENE;

God hath NUMBERED thy kingdom,
And finished it.

TEKEL;

Thou art WEIGHED in the balances,
And art found wanting.

PERES;

Thy kingdom is DIVIDED,
And given to the Medes and Persians.”

Then commanded Belshazzar, and they clothed Daniel with scarlet and put a chain of gold about his neck, and made a proclamation concerning him, that he should be the third ruler in the kingdom.

In that night was Belshazzar, the king of the Chaldeans, slain.

And Darius, the Median, took the kingdom, being about threescore and two years old.

_From “The Bible,” Book of Daniel, Chap. V._

THE BATTLE OF QUEBEC.

FRANCIS PARKMAN.

FRANCIS PARKMAN was born in Boston in 1823. He was graduated from
Harvard College when he was twenty-one. He visited Europe and on
his return went on a tour in the far West, across the prairies and
among the Rocky Mountains. He became well acquainted with the
Indians, sharing their camps and hunting buffaloes with them. His
book, “The California and Oregon Trail,” contains a vivid account
of his explorations. This book was followed by “The History of the
Conspiracy of Pontiac” and a novel called “Vassal Morton.”

Mr. Parkman devoted a number of years to writing histories of the
attempts of the French and English to settle North America. His
qualities as a writer were of a high order. His style is marked by
uncommon vigor. His pages are alive with thrilling adventure,
brilliant description, and romantic episodes. He has left no room
for a competitor in the same field. Mr. Parkman died in 1893.

THE eventful night of the 12th was clear and calm, with no light but that of the stars. Within two hours before daybreak thirty boats, crowded with sixteen hundred soldiers, cast off from the vessels and floated downward, in perfect order, with the current of the ebb tide. To the boundless joy of the army, Wolfe’s malady had abated, and he was able to command in person. His ruined health, the gloomy prospects of the siege, and the disaster at Montmorenci had oppressed him with the deepest melancholy, but never impaired for a moment the promptness of his decisions or the impetuous energy of his action. He sat in the stern of one of the boats, pale and weak, but borne up to a calm height of resolution. Every order had been given, every arrangement made, and it only remained to face the issue. The ebbing tide sufficed to bear the boats along, and nothing broke the silence of the night but the gurgling of the river and the low voice of Wolfe, as he repeated to the officers about him the stanzas of Gray’s “Elegy in a Country Churchyard,” which had recently appeared and which he had just received from England. Perhaps, as he uttered those strangely appropriate words,--

“The paths of glory lead but to the grave,”

the shadows of his own approaching fate stole with mournful prophecy across his mind. “Gentlemen,” he said as he closed his recital, “I would rather have written those lines than take Quebec to-morrow.”

As they approached the landing-place, the boats edged closer in towards the northern shore, and the woody precipices rose high on their left, like a wall of undistinguished blackness.

They reached the landing-place in safety--an indentation in the shore about a league above the city, and now bearing the name of Wolfe’s Cove. Here a narrow path led up the face of the heights, and a French guard was posted at the top to defend the pass. By the force of the current the foremost boats, including that which carried Wolfe himself, were borne a little below the spot. The general was one of the first on shore.

Meanwhile the vessels had dropped downward with the current, and anchored opposite the landing-place. The remaining troops were disembarked, and, with the dawn of day, the whole were brought in safety to the shore.

The sun rose, and, from the ramparts of Quebec, the astonished people saw the Plains of Abraham glittering with arms, and the dark-red lines of the English forming in array of battle. Breathless messengers had borne the evil tidings to Montcalm, and far and near his wide-extended camp resounded with the rolling of alarm drums and the din of startled preparation. He, too, had his struggles and his sorrows. The civil power had thwarted him; famine, discontent, and disaffection were rife among his soldiers; and no small portion of the Canadian militia had dispersed from sheer starvation. In spite of all, he had trusted to hold out till the winter frosts should drive the invaders from before the town, when, on that disastrous morning, the news of their successful temerity fell like a cannon shot upon his ear. Still he assumed a tone of confidence. “They have got to the weak side of us at last,” he is reported to have said, “and we must crush them with our numbers.”

At a little before ten the English could see that Montcalm was preparing to advance, and in a few moments all his troops appeared in rapid motion. They came on in three divisions, shouting, after the manner of their nation, and firing heavily as soon as they came within range. In the British ranks not a trigger was pulled, not a soldier stirred; and their ominous composure seemed to damp the spirits of the assailants. It was not till the French were within forty yards that the fatal word was given, and the British muskets blazed forth at once in one crashing explosion. Like a ship at full career, arrested with sudden ruin on a sunken rock, the ranks of Montcalm staggered, shivered, and broke before that wasting storm of lead. The smoke, rolling along the field, for a moment shut out the view; but when the white wreaths were scattered on the wind, a wretched spectacle was disclosed; men and officers tumbled in heaps, battalions resolved into a mob, order and obedience gone; and when the British muskets were leveled for a second volley, the masses of the militia were seen to cower and shrink with uncontrollable panic. For a few minutes the French regulars stood their ground, returning a sharp and not ineffectual fire. But now, echoing cheer on cheer, redoubling volley on volley, trampling the dying and the dead, and driving the fugitives in crowds, the British troops advanced and swept the field before them. The ardor of the men burst all restraint. They broke into a run and with unsparing slaughter chased the flying multitude to the gates of Quebec. Foremost of all, the light-footed Highlanders dashed along in furious pursuit, hewing down the Frenchmen with their broadswords, and slaying many in the very ditch of the fortifications. Never was victory more quick or more decisive; yet the triumph of the victors was mingled with sadness as the tidings went from rank to rank that Wolfe had fallen.

In the heat of the action, as he advanced at the head of the grenadiers of Louisburg, a bullet shattered his wrist; but he wrapped his handkerchief about the wound and showed no sign of pain. A moment more and a ball pierced his side. Still he pressed forward, waving his sword and cheering his soldiers to the attack, when a third shot lodged deep within his breast. He paused, reeled, and, staggering to one side, fell to the earth. Brown, a lieutenant of the grenadiers, Henderson, a volunteer, an officer of artillery, and a private soldier raised him together in their arms, and, bearing him to the rear, laid him softly on the grass. They asked him if he would have a surgeon; but he shook his head and answered that all was over with him. His eyes closed with the torpor of approaching death, and those around sustained his fainting form. Yet they could not withhold their gaze from the wild turmoil before them and the charging ranks of their companions rushing through fire and smoke. “See how they run!” one of the officers exclaimed as the French fled in confusion before the leveled bayonets. “Who run?” demanded Wolfe, opening his eyes, like a man aroused from sleep. “The enemy, sir,” was the reply; “they give way everywhere.” “Then,” said the dying general, “tell Colonel Burton to march Webb’s regiment down to Charles River, to cut off their retreat from the bridge. Now, God be praised! I will die in peace,” he murmured; and, turning on his side, he calmly breathed his last.

_From “Montcalm and Wolfe.”_

THE STARLING.

LAURENCE STERNE.

LAURENCE STERNE, an English novelist, was born in Ireland in 1713.

He was the son of an English officer, and the first ten years of
his life were spent in traveling about with his father’s regiment.
He then entered a school near Halifax, where he studied for eight
or nine years, and completed his education at the University of
Cambridge.

Mr. Sterne became a clergyman of the Church of England, but devoted
a large portion of his time to the writing of fiction. He died in
London in 1768.

AND as for the Bastille, the terror is in the word. Make the most of it you can, said I to myself, the Bastille is but another word for a tower, and a tower is but another word for a house you can’t get out of. Mercy on the gouty! for they are in it twice a year. But with nine _livres_ a day, and pen and ink and paper and patience, albeit a man can’t get out, he may do very well within, at least for a month or six weeks, at the end of which, if he is a harmless fellow, his innocence appears and he comes out a better and wiser man than he went in.

I had some occasion--I forget what--to step into the courtyard, as I settled this account, and remember I walked downstairs in no small triumph with the conceit of my reasoning. “Beshrew the _somber_ pencil!” said I vauntingly; “for I envy not its power, which paints the evils of life with so hard and deadly a coloring. The mind sits terrified at the objects she has magnified herself and blackened. Reduce them to their proper size and hue, she overlooks them. ’Tis true,” said I, correcting the proposition, “the Bastille is not an evil to be despised. But strip it of its towers, fill up the fosse, unbarricade the doors, call it simply a confinement, and suppose ’tis some tyrant of a distemper, and not of a man, which holds you in it, the evil vanishes and you bear the other half without complaint.”

I was interrupted in the heyday of this soliloquy with a voice which I took to be that of a child, which complained it could not get out. I looked up and down the passage, and, seeing neither man, woman, nor child, I went out without further attention.

In my return back through the passage, I heard the same words repeated twice over; and, looking up, I saw it was a starling, hung in a little cage. “I can’t get out--I can’t get out,” said the starling.

I stood looking at the bird; and to every person who came through the passage it ran fluttering to the side towards which they approached it, with the same lamentation of its captivity. “I can’t get out,” said the starling. “God help thee!” said I; “but I’ll let thee out, cost what it will.” So I turned about the cage to get the door. It was twisted and double twisted so fast with wire there was no getting it open without pulling the cage to pieces. I took both hands to it.

The bird flew to the place where I was attempting his deliverance, and, thrusting his head through the trellis, pressed his breast against it, as if impatient. “I fear, poor creature,” said I, “I cannot set thee at liberty.” “No,” said the starling; “I can’t get out--I can’t get out.”

I never had my affections more tenderly awakened, nor do I remember an incident in my life where the dissipated spirits to which my reason had been a bubble were so suddenly called home. Mechanical as the notes were, yet so true in tune to nature were they chanted, that in one moment they overthrew all my systematic reasonings upon the Bastille; and I heavily walked upstairs, unsaying every word I had said in going down them.

“Disguise thyself as thou wilt, still, Slavery,” said I, “still thou art a bitter draught; and though thousands in all ages have been made to drink of thee, thou art no less bitter on that account. ’Tis thou, thrice sweet and gracious goddess,”--addressing myself to Liberty,--“whom all, in public or in private, worship, whose taste is grateful, and ever will be so, till Nature herself shall change. No _tint_ of words can spot thy snowy mantle, nor chymic power turn thy scepter into iron. With thee to smile upon him as he eats his crust, the swain is happier than his monarch, from whose court thou art exiled. Gracious Heaven!” cried I, kneeling down upon the last step but one in my ascent, “grant me but health, thou great Bestower of it, and give me but this fair goddess as my companion, and shower down thy miters, if it seem good unto thy divine providence, upon those heads which are aching for them.”

The bird in his cage pursued me into my room. I sat down close by my table, and, leaning my head upon my hand, I began to figure to myself the miseries of confinement. I was in a right frame for it, and so I gave full scope to my imagination.

I was going to begin with the millions of my fellow-creatures born to no inheritance but slavery; but finding, however affecting the picture was, that I could not bring it near me, and that the multitude of sad groups in it did but distract me, I took a single captive, and, having first shut him up in his dungeon, I then looked through the twilight of his grated door to take his picture.

I beheld his body half wasted away with long expectation and confinement, and felt what kind of sickness of the heart it was which arises from hope deferred. Upon looking nearer, I saw him pale and feverish. In thirty years the western breeze had not once fanned his blood. He had seen no sun, no moon in all that time, nor had the voice of friend or kinsman breathed through his lattice. His children!--

But here my heart began to bleed, and I was forced to go on with another part of the portrait.

He was sitting upon the ground, upon a little straw, in the farthest corner of his dungeon, which was alternately his chair and bed. A little calendar of small sticks was laid at the head, notched all over with the dismal days and nights he had passed there. He had one of these little sticks in his hand, and with a rusty nail he was etching another day of misery to add to the heap. As I darkened the little light he had, he lifted up a hopeless eye towards the door, then cast it down, shook his head, and went on with his work of affliction. I heard his chains upon his legs as he turned his body to lay his little stick upon the bundle. He gave a deep sigh. I saw the iron enter into his soul. I burst into tears. I could not sustain the picture of confinement which my fancy had drawn.

_From “The Sentimental Journey.”_

THE BELFRY PIGEON.

NATHANIEL PARKER WILLIS.

NATHANIEL PARKER Willis was born in Portland, Me., in 1807, and
died near Cornwall-on-the-Hudson, N.Y., in 1867. His father was an
editor and founded “The Youth’s Companion.” His sister was an
authoress who wrote under the name of “Fanny Fern.”

Nathaniel was graduated at Yale College, and wrote poems and
literary essays during his college course. He spent several years
in traveling about Europe, and wrote a series of letters for the
newspapers during this time.

Mr. Willis published a number of poems, books of travel, and
novels. He possessed great natural gifts and there is much beauty
in his prose and verse.

ON the cross-beam, under the Old South bell,
The nest of a pigeon is builded well.
In summer and winter that bird is there,
Out and in with the morning air;
I love to see him track the street,
With his wary eye and active feet;
And I often watch him as he springs,
Circling the steeple with easy wings,
Till across the dial his shadow has passed,
And the belfry edge is gained at last.
’Tis a bird I love, with its brooding note,
And the trembling throb in its mottled throat;
There’s a human look in its swelling breast,
And the gentle curve of its lowly crest;
And I often stop with the fear I feel--
He runs so close to the rapid wheel.
Whatever is rung on that noisy bell--
Chime of the hour, or funeral knell--
The dove in the belfry must hear it well.
When the tongue swings out to the midnight moon,
When the sexton cheerily rings for noon,
When the clock strikes clear at morning light,
When the child is waked with “nine at night,”
When the chimes play soft in the Sabbath air,
Filling the spirit with tones of prayer,--
Whatever tale in the bell is heard,
He broods on his folded feet unstirred,
Or, rising half in his rounded nest,
He takes the time to smooth his breast,
Then drops again, with filméd eyes,
And sleeps as the last vibration dies.
Sweet bird, I would that I could be
A hermit in the crowd like thee!
With wings to fly to wood and glen,
Thy lot, like mine, is cast with men;
And daily, with unwilling feet,
I tread, like thee, the crowded street;
But unlike me, when day is o’er,
Thou canst dismiss the world and soar,
Or, at a half-felt wish for rest,
Canst smooth the feathers on thy breast,
And drop, forgetful, to thy nest.

LADY UNA AND THE LION.

EDMUND SPENSER.

EDMUND SPENSER was a famous English, poet who lived in the time of
Queen Elizabeth. He was born in London in 1553 and received his
education at Cambridge, where he was a sizar. There is a mulberry
tree which Spenser is said to have planted still standing in the
garden of the college.

His early boyhood was passed in London, with frequent visits among
the glens of northern England.

Spenser left Cambridge when he was twenty-four years old, and spent
several years with his relations in the north of England. On his
return to London, he published a series of twelve poems named after
the months, and called “The Shephearde’s Calender.” This gained him
a name as the first poet of the day. The next summer he went to
Ireland as secretary to Lord Grey.

Several years later he was awarded the Castle of Kilcolman for his
services. Here he was visited by Sir Walter Raleigh. Spenser had
written three books of “The Faerie Queene,” his greatest poem, and
Raleigh listened to them as the two poets sat beneath the alder
trees beside the River Mulla, which flowed through the castle
grounds. Raleigh was delighted with the poem, and persuaded Spenser
to accompany him to England, where he was presented to the Queen.

The first three books of “The Faerie Queene” were dedicated to
Queen Elizabeth. It was the first great allegorical poem that
England had produced, and it has never lost its power.

Spenser possessed a wonderful imagination, and had but to close his
eyes and he was in an enchanted land.

“The Faerie Queene” is the story of noble knights fighting against
wrong, and a beautiful lady rescued from danger. Only six books of
the twelve which Spenser planned were published.

The last years of Spenser’s life were filled with sadness. During a
rebellion his castle was burnt, and he and his family fled to
England.

He died in London in 1599, at the age of forty-six, and was buried
in Westminster Abbey.

NOUGHT is there under heaven’s wide hallowness
That moves more dear compassiön of mind,[a]
Than beauty brought t’ unworthy wretchedness
Through envy’s snares, or fortune’s freaks unkind.
I, whether lately through her brightness blind,
Or through allegiance and fast feälty,
Which I do owe unto all womankind,
Feel my heart pierced with so great agony,
When such I see, that all for pity I could die.

And now it is empassionèd so deep,
For fairest Una’s sake, of whom I sing,
That my frail eyes these lines with tears do steep,
To think how she through guileful handëling,[b]
Though true as touch, though daughter of a king,
Though fair as ever living wight was fair,
Though nor in word nor deed ill meriting,
Is from her Knight divorcèd in despair,
And her due loves derived to that vile Witch’s share.[c]

Yet she, most faithful Lady all this while,
Forsaken, woeful, solitary maid,
Far from all people’s press, as in exile,
In wilderness and wasteful deserts stray’d
To seek her Knight; who, subtilly betray’d
Through that late vision which th’ Enchanter wrought,
Had her abandon’d: she, of nought affray’d,
Through woods and wasteness wide him daily sought;
Yet wishèd tidings none of him unto her brought.

One day, nigh weary of the irksome way,
From her unhasty beast she did alight;
And on the grass her dainty limbs did lay
In secret shadow, far from all men’s sight;
From her fair head her fillet she undight,[d]
And laid her stole aside: her angel’s face,
As the great eye of heaven, shinèd bright,
And made a sunshine in the shady place:
Did never mortal eye behold such heavenly grace.

It fortunèd, out of the thickest wood
A ramping lion rushèd suddenly,
Hunting full greedy after savage blood:
Soon as the royal Virgin he did spy,
With gaping mouth at her ran greedily,
To have at once devour’d her tender corse;
But to the prey when as he drew more nigh,
His bloody rage assuagèd with remorse,
And, with the sight amazed, forgat his furious force.

Instead thereof, he kiss’d her weary feet,
And lick’d her lily hands with fawning tongue,
As he her wrongèd innocence did weet.
O, how can beauty master the most strong,
And simple truth subdue avenging wrong!
Whose yielded pride and proud submissiön,
Still dreading death, when she had markèd long,
Her heart ’gan melt in great compassiön;
And drizzling tears did shed for pure affectiön.

“The lion, lord of every beast in field,”
Quoth she, “his princely puissance doth abate,
And mighty proud to humble weak does yield,
Forgetful of the hungry rage which late
Him prick’d, in pity of my sad estate:--
But he, my lion, and my noble lord,
How does he find in cruel heart to hate
Her that him loved, and ever most adored
As the god of my life? why hath he me abhorr’d?”

Redounding tears did choke th’ end of her plaint,
Which softly echo’d from the neighbor wood;
And, sad to see her sorrowful constraint,
The kingly beast upon her gazing stood;
With pity calm’d, down fell his angry mood.
At last, in close heart shutting up her pain,
Arose the Virgin born of heavenly brood,
And to her snowy palfrey got again,
To seek her strayèd Champion if she might attain.

The lion would not leave her desolate,
But with her went along, as a strong guard
Of her chaste person, and a faithful mate
Of her sad troubles and misfortunes hard:
Still, when she slept, he kept both watch and ward;
And, when she waked, he waited diligent,
With humble service to her will prepared:
From her fair eyes he took commandëment,
And ever by her looks conceivèd her intent.

_From “The Faerie Queene.”_

Una is the heroine of the first Book of Spenser’s “Faerie Queene.”
She appears to have been intended, at least in part, as a poetical
impersonation of Truth. At all events, she is one of the sweetest
and loveliest visions that ever issued from a poet’s brain.

[a] l. 2. In Spenser’s time the endings _sion_, _tion_, as also
_cian_, and various others, were often used as two syllables.

[b] l. 13. That is, _handling_, in the sense of _treatment_. Here, again, we have a relic of ancient usage. So, too, in _commandement_, in the last stanza of this piece. And in many other like words the old poets often make two syllables where we now make but one.

[c] l. 18. An old witch named Duessa, painted and dressed up into a false show of beauty, and dealing in magic arts. She had lied and cheated the red-cross Knight, the hero of the story, out of his faith in Una and beguiled him with her mighty spells.

[d] l. 32. _undight_, took off. l. 33. _stole_, a long, loose garment reaching to the feet. l. 48. _weet_, understand. l. 64. _Redounding_, flowing.

PURITY OF CHARACTER.

OVER the plum and apricot there may be seen a bloom and beauty more exquisite than the fruit itself--a soft delicate flush that overspreads its blushing cheek. Now, if you strike your hand over that, and it is once gone, it is gone forever; for it never grows but once.

The flower that hangs in the morning impearled with dew, arrayed with jewels, once shake it so that the beads roll off, and you may sprinkle water over it as you please, yet it can never be made again what it was when the dew fell lightly upon it from heaven.

On a frosty morning you may see the panes of glass covered with landscapes, mountains, lakes, and trees, blended in a beautiful fantastic picture. Now lay your hand upon the glass, and by the scratch of your fingers, or by the warmth of the palm, all the delicate tracery will be immediately obliterated.

So in youth there is a purity of character which when once touched and defiled can never be restored--a fringe more delicate than frost-work, and which, when torn and broken, will never be reëmbroidered.

When a young man leaves his father’s house, with the blessing of his mother’s tears still wet upon his forehead, if he once loses that early purity of character, it is a loss he can never make whole again.

DELIGHTS OF READING.

SIR JOHN LUBBOCK.

BOOKS are to mankind what memory is to the individual. They contain the history of our race, the discoveries we have made, the accumulated knowledge and experience of ages; they picture for us the marvels and beauties of nature; help us in our difficulties, comfort us in sorrow and in suffering, change hours of weariness into moments of delight, store our minds with ideas, fill them with good and happy thoughts, and lift us out of and above ourselves.

There is an Oriental story of two men: one was a king, who every night dreamt he was a beggar; the other was a beggar, who every night dreamt he was a prince and lived in a palace. I am not sure that the king had very much the best of it. Imagination is sometimes more vivid than reality. But, however this may be, when we read we may not only (if we wish it) be kings and live in palaces, but, what is far better, we may transport ourselves to the mountains or the seashore, and visit the most beautiful parts of the earth, without fatigue, inconvenience, or expense.

Many of those who have had, as we say, all that this world can give, have yet told us they owed much of their purest happiness to books. Ascham, in “The Schoolmaster,” tells a touching story of his last visit to Lady Jane Grey. He found her sitting in an oriel window reading Plato’s beautiful account of the death of Socrates. Her father and mother were hunting in the park, the hounds were in full cry and their voices came in through the open window. He expressed his surprise that she had not joined them. But, said she, “I wist that all their pleasure in the park is but a shadow to the pleasure I find in Plato.”

Macaulay had wealth and fame, rank and power, and yet he tells us in his biography that he owed the happiest hours of his life to books. In a charming letter to a little girl he says: “Thank you for your very pretty letter. I am always glad to make my little girl happy, and nothing pleases me so much as to see that she likes books, for when she is as old as I am she will find that they are better than all the tarts and cakes, toys and plays, and sights in the world. If any one would make me the greatest king that ever lived, with palaces and gardens and fine dinners, and wines and coaches, and beautiful clothes, and hundreds of servants, on condition that I should not read books, I would not be a king. I would rather be a poor man in a garret with plenty of books than a king who did not love reading.”

Books, indeed, endow us with a whole enchanted palace of thoughts. There is a wider prospect, says Jean Paul Richter, from Parnassus than from the throne. In one way they give us an even more vivid idea than the actual reality, just as reflections are often more beautiful than real nature. All mirrors, says George MacDonald, “are magic mirrors. The commonest room is a room in a poem when I look in the glass.”

English literature is the birthright and inheritance of the English race. We have produced and are producing some of the greatest of poets, of philosophers, of men of science. No race can boast a brighter, purer, or nobler literature--richer than our commerce, more powerful than our arms. It is the true pride and glory of our country, and for it we cannot be too thankful.

Precious and priceless are the blessings which the books scatter around our daily paths. We walk, in imagination, with the noblest spirits, through the most sublime and enchanting regions,--regions which, to all that is lovely in the forms and colors of earth,

“Add the gleam,
The light that never was on sea or land,
The consecration and the poet’s dream.”

Without stirring from our firesides we may roam to the most remote regions of the earth, or soar into realms where Spenser’s shapes of unearthly beauty flock to meet us, where Milton’s angels peal in our ears the choral hymns of Paradise. Science, art, literature, philosophy,--all that man has thought, all that man has done,--the experience that has been bought with the sufferings of a hundred generations,--all are garnered up for us in the world of books.

_From “The Use of Life.”_

BREAK, BREAK, BREAK.

ALFRED TENNYSON.

For a sketch of the life of Tennyson, see Book V, page 102.

BREAK, break, break,
On thy cold gray stones, O Sea!
And I would that my tongue could utter
The thoughts that arise in me.

O well for the fisherman’s boy
That he shouts with his sister at play!
O well for the sailor lad
That he sings in his boat on the bay!

And the stately ships go on
To their haven under the hill:
But O for the touch of a vanished hand,
And the sound of a voice that is still!

Break, break, break,
At the foot of thy crags, O Sea!
But the tender grace of a day that is dead
Will never come back to me.

WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE.

WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE was born in the year 1564, at Stratford-on-Avon, in England. Queen Elizabeth was on the throne then, and it was one of the most brilliant periods in all English history. The poems and plays that Shakespeare wrote are the greatest in the English language, and one cannot appreciate the best there is in literature unless he has studied them. It is strange that no one thought, in the time that he lived, of writing his history, so that we might know as much about him and his boyhood as we do of most other great men.

Stratford is in the heart of England, and the stream of Avon winds through a beautiful country. There were two famous old castles near by, which had been peopled by knights in armor, and out of whose great stone gateways they had ridden to battle.

We are sure that Shakespeare loved to listen to the tales of these old battles, for in later years he based several of his great historical plays upon them.

One of these plays is called “Richard III.,” and part of the scenes are laid in the old Warwick Castle, near his home. He tells how the young son of the Duke of Clarence was kept a prisoner in one of the great gloomy towers, by the wicked Duke of Gloucester, who afterward became King Richard III.; and the play ends with the Battle of Bosworth Field, where King Richard is slain.

We know that Shakespeare was fond of the woods and the fields, for his plays are filled with charming descriptions of their beauty. The forest of Arden was near Stratford, and its streams and woods filled him with such delight that when he became a man he made them forever famous by writing a play called “As You Like It,” the most beautiful scenes of which are laid in this forest.

He liked to imagine that fairies dwelt in the Arden woods, and though he could not see them in their frolics, he could picture them in his brain. When he saw the grass and flowers wet with dew, it pleased him to think that this had been a task set by the Queen of the Fairies in the night for her tiny subjects. So in his play, “A Midsummer Night’s Dream,” he makes a fairy say:--

“Over hill, over dale,
Thorough brush, thorough brier,

* * * * *

I do wander everywhere,
Swifter than the moony sphere;
And I serve the Fairy Queen.”

Then the fairy tells its companion it must hasten away to its task:--

“I must go seek some dewdrops here
And hang a pearl in every cowslip’s ear.”

Shakespeare must have been in the forest of Arden often in the summer mornings and seen the dewdrops clinging to the cowslips and glistening in the sunlight like pearls.

The exact day that Shakespeare was born is not certain, but it was about the 23d of April, and many men who have made a study of the poet’s life accept that as his birthday. The house in which he was born is still standing, although it has, of course, undergone many changes in the last three hundred years.

During the early boyhood of the poet, his father, John Shakespeare, was a prosperous tradesman. He was a wool dealer and farmer. When Shakespeare was four years old his father became high-bailiff, or mayor of the town.

The future dramatist was sent to the village school at about the age of seven. He could already read, having learned his letters at home from a very queer primer. It was called the “horn-book,” because it was made of a single printed leaf, set in a frame of wood like our slates, and covered with a thin plate of horn.

The boy remained at school only about six years. His father had failed in many enterprises, and it is probable he needed his son to help him in his work. Just what Shakespeare learned at school we do not know, but his writings show some knowledge of Greek and Latin, for these languages were taught in the schools at that time.

It is certain that Shakespeare’s education went on after he left school. That is, he learned something from everything he saw about him and from all that he read. Even the trees in the forest and the streams in the meadows taught him lessons about nature. And this idea he expresses in his own beautiful way in the play “As You Like It,” when he makes the banished Duke in the forest of Arden say:--

“And this our life, exempt from public haunt,
Finds tongues in trees, books in the running brooks,
Sermons in stones, and good in everything.”

It is quite probable that John Shakespeare unconsciously decided the career of his son, for it was while he was mayor of Stratford that plays were first presented there, and the players must have obtained his consent in order to give their performances.

We can also learn from his writings what games Shakespeare was fond of, or, at least, what sports the boys of his time took delight in. In Shakespeare’s “Comedy of Errors” he refers to the game of football, and in the historical play of “Julius Cæsar,” there is a fine description of a swimming match between Cæsar and Cassius. Cassius tells the story to Brutus of how Cæsar challenged him to leap into the river Tiber, armed as they were for battle:--

“Cæsar said to me, ‘Darest thou, Cassius, now
Leap in with me into this angry flood,
And swim to yonder point?’ Upon the word,
Accoutered as I was, I plunged in
And bade him follow; so, indeed, he did.
The torrent roar’d and we did buffet it
With lusty sinews, throwing it aside
And stemming it with hearts of controversy.”

Cassius then tells how Cæsar’s strength gave out and he cried for help, and how Cassius brought him safe to land.

Other sports of Shakespeare’s day were archery, wrestling, hunting, and falconry, where a bird called a falcon was let loose into the air to pursue its prey.

When Shakespeare was in his nineteenth year he married Anne Hathaway, and a few years later he set out to seek his fortune in London.

He had played some small parts on the stage at Stratford, and it is not surprising that we soon find him among the players in London, filling such trifling parts as were offered to him, and even, some accounts say, holding horses at the stage door to help support himself and his family.

His leisure time was spent in study. “Plutarch’s Lives” furnished him with material for his plays of “Julius Cæsar,” “Antony and Cleopatra,” and parts, at least, of others.

He was a great student of the Bible, so much so that a learned bishop who made a study of his plays found that Shakespeare in all his writings had in five hundred and fifty different places either quoted from the Scriptures or referred to them.

Shakespeare rose to fame rapidly. He was associated in the building of a new theater called the Globe, where his plays were acted before thousands. Then the Blackfriars Theater was built, and these two houses divided the honor of producing his plays.

He gathered up the history of England, the grandeur of its courts, the beauty of its woods and fields, and the deeds of its people, and told of it all in such masterful dramas that his name leads all other English writers.

The last few years of his life were spent at Stratford-on-Avon, where he had become a large land-owner. He died in the year 1616, at the age of fifty-two.

Nearly every great English writer and poet ever since has referred, in some way or other, to the plays of Shakespeare. The speeches of our statesmen owe much of their strength and beauty to the influence of his writings. It has been said that “Shakespeare is like a great primeval forest, whence timber shall be cut and used as long as winds blow and leaves are green.”

THE THREE CASKETS.

[ABRIDGED.]

WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE.

_Belmont. A Room in Portia’s House. Three Caskets of Gold, Silver, and Lead on Table._

Portia, a beautiful and accomplished heiress, is sought in marriage
by a large number of suitors, whose fate is to be determined by the
choice they make of one of three caskets--gold, silver, and base
lead.

The following are the comments of three of the suitors--the Prince
of Morocco, the Prince of Arragon, and Bassanio:--

_Enter Portia, with the Prince of Morocco._

PORTIA.

Now make your choice.

MOROCCO.

The first, of gold, which this inscription bears,--

_Who chooseth me shall gain what many men desire;_

The second, silver, which this promise carries,--

_Who chooseth me shall get as much as he deserves._

This third, dull lead, with warning all as blunt,--

_Who chooseth me must give and hazard all he hath._--

How shall I know if I do choose the right?

PORTIA.

The one of them contains my picture, Prince:
If you choose that, then I am yours withal.

MOROCCO.

Some god direct my judgment! Let me see;
I will survey th’ inscriptions back again.
What says this leaden casket?