Chapter XII: Part II (3)

“One of the first notices of The Sceptic appeared in the _Edinburgh Monthly Magazine_; and there is something in its tone so far more valuable than ordinary praise, and at the same time so prophetic of the happy influence her writings were one day to exercise, that the introduction of the concluding paragraph may not be unwelcome to the readers of this little memorial. After quoting from the poem, the reviewer thus proceeds,--‘These extracts must, we think, convey to every reader a favourable impression of the talents of their author, and of the admirable purposes to which her high gifts are directed. It is the great defect, as we imagine, of some of the most popular writers of the day, that they are not sufficiently attentive to the moral dignity of their performances; it is the deep, and will be the lasting reproach of others, that in this point of view they have wantonly sought and realised the most profound literary abasement. With the promise of talents not inferior to any, and far superior to most of them, the author before us is not only free from every stain, but breathes all moral beauty and loveliness; and it will be a memorable coincidence if the era of a woman’s sway in literature shall become coeval with the return of its moral purity and elevation.’ From suffrages such as these, Mrs Hemans derived not merely present gratification, but encouragement and cheer for her onward course. It was still dearer to her to receive the assurances, with which it often fell to her lot to be blessed, of having, in the exercise of the talents intrusted to her, administered balm to the feelings of the sorrowful, or taught the desponding where to look for comfort. In a letter written at this time to a valued friend, recently visited by one of the heaviest of human calamities--the loss of an exemplary mother--she thus describes her own appreciation of such heart-tributes:--‘It is inexpressibly gratifying to me to know, that you should find any thing I have written at all adapted to your present feelings, and that The Sceptic should have been one of the last books upon which the eyes, now opened upon brighter scenes, were cast. Perhaps, when your mind is sufficiently composed, you will inform me which were the passages distinguished by the approbation of that pure and pious mind: they will be far more highly valued by me than any thing I have ever written.’--_Ibid._ pp. 334-4.

“It is pleasing to record the following tribute from Mrs Hannah More, in a letter to a friend who had sent her a copy of The Sceptic. ‘I cannot refuse myself the gratification of saying, that I entertain a very high opinion of Mrs Hemans’s superior genius and refined taste. I rank her, as a poet, very high, and I have seen no work on the subject of her _Modern Greece_ which evinces more just views, or more delicate perceptions of the fine and the beautiful. I am glad she has employed her powerful pen, in this new instance, on a subject so worthy of it; and, anticipating the future by the past, I promise myself no small pleasure in the perusal, and trust it will not only confer pleasure, but benefit.’”--_Ibid._

[137] Dr Luxmoore, Bishop of St Asaph.

[138] “He is patient, because He is eternal.”--St Augustine.

[139] “Then ye shall appoint you cities, to be cities of refuge for you; that the slayer may flee thither which killeth any person at unawares.--And they shall be unto you cities of refuge from the avenger.”--_Numbers_, chap. xxxv.

[140] “Every man in the chambers of his imagery.”--_Ezekiel_, chap. viii.

[141] “Thou hast drunken the dregs of the cup of trembling, and wrung them out.”--_Isaiah_, chap. li.

[142] “And behold the Lord passed by, and a great and strong wind rent the mountains, and brake in pieces the rocks before the Lord; but the Lord was not in the wind: and after the wind an earthquake; but the Lord was not in the earthquake: and after the earthquake a fire; but the Lord was not in the fire: and after the fire a still small voice.”--_Kings_, book i. chap. 19.

[143] The Princess Charlotte.

[144] “And set up a sign of fire.”--_Jeremiah_, chap. vi.

[What follows is worthy of being here recorded. Thirteen years after the publication of the Sceptic, and when the author, towards the termination of her earthly career, was residing with her family in Dublin, a circumstance occurred by which Mrs Hemans was greatly affected and impressed. A stranger one day called at her house, and begged earnestly to see her. She was then just recovering from one of her frequent illnesses, and was obliged to decline the visits of all but her immediate friends. The applicant was therefore told that she was unable to receive him; but he persisted in entreating for a few minutes’ audience, with such urgent importunity that at last the point was conceded. The moment he was admitted, the gentleman (for such his manner and appearance declared him to be) explained, in words and tones of the deepest feeling, that the object of his visit was to acknowledge a debt of obligation which he could not rest satisfied without avowing--that to her he owed, in the first instance, that faith and those hopes which were now more precious to him than life itself; for that it was by reading her poem of The Sceptic he had been first awakened from the miserable delusions of infidelity, and induced to “search the Scriptures.” Having poured forth his thanks and benedictions in an uncontrollable gush of emotion, this strange but interesting visitant took his departure, leaving her overwhelmed with a mingled sense of joyful gratitude and wondering humility.--_Memoir_, p. 255-6.]

CRITICAL EXTRACTS FROM REVIEWS.

_North American Review._--“In 1820 Mrs Hemans published The Sceptic, a poem of great merit for its style and its sentiments, of which we shall give a rapid sketch. She considers the influence of unbelief on the affections and gentler part of our nature, and, after pursuing the picture of the misery consequent on doubt, shows the relief that may be found in the thoughts that have their source in immortality. Glancing at pleasure as the only resort of the sceptic, she turns to the sterner tasks of life:--

‘E’en youth’s brief hours
Survive the beauty of their loveliest flowers;
The soul’s pure flame the breath of storms must fan,
And pain and sorrow claim their nursling--Man.’

But then the sceptic has no relief in memory; for memory recalls no joys but such as were transitory, and known to be such; and as for hope--

‘She, who like heaven’s own sunbeam, smiles for all,
Will she speak comfort?--Thou hast shorn her plume,
That might have raised thee far above the tomb,
And hush’d the only voice whose angel-tone
Soothes when all melodies of joy are flown.’

“The poet then asks, if an infidel dare love; and, having no home for his thoughts in a better world, nurse such feelings as delight to enshrine themselves in the breast of a parent. She addresses him on the insecurity of an attachment to a vain idol, from which death may at any time divide him ‘_for ever_.’... For relief the infidel is referred to the Christian religion, in a strain which unites the fervour of devotion with poetic sensibility.... The poem proceeds to depict, in a forcible manner, the unfortunate state of a mind which acquires every kind of knowledge but that which gives salvation; and, having gained possession of the secrets of all ages, and communed with the majestic minds that shine along the pathway of time, neglects nothing but eternity. Such a one, in the season of suffering, finds relief in suicide, and escapes to death as to an eternal rest. The thought of death recurs to the mind of the poet, and calls forth a fervent prayer for the divine presence and support in the hour of dissolution; for the hour, when the soul is brought to the mysterious verge of another life, is an ‘awful one.’... This is followed by an allusion to the strong love of life which belongs to human nature, and the instinctive apprehension with which the parting mind muses on its future condition, and asks of itself mystic questions, that it cannot solve. But through the influence of religion--

‘He whom the busy world shall miss no more
Than morn one dewdrop from her countless store,
Earth’s most neglected child, with trusting heart,
Call’d to the hope of glory, shall depart.’

“After some lines expressing the spirit of English patriotism, in a manner with which foreigners can only be pleased, the poem closes with the picture of a mother teaching her child the first lessons of religion, by holding up the divine example of the Saviour.

“We have been led into a longer notice of this poem, for it illustrates the character of Mrs Hemans’s manner. We perceive in it a loftiness of purpose, an earnestness of thought, sometimes made more interesting by a tinge of melancholy, a depth of religious feeling, a mind alive to all the interests, gratifications, and sorrows of social life.”--Professor Norton.

_Edinburgh Monthly Review._--“We have on more than one occasion expressed the very high opinion which we entertain of the talents of this lady; and it is gratifying to find that she gives us no reason to retract or modify in any degree the applause already bestowed, and that every fresh exhibition of her powers enhances and confirms her claims upon our admiration. Mrs Hemans is indeed but in the infancy of her poetical career; but it is an infancy of unrivalled beauty, and of very high promise. Not but that she has already performed more than has often been sufficient to win for other candidates no mean place in the roll of fame, but because what she has already done shrinks, when compared with what we consider to be her own great capacity, to mere incipient excellence--the intimation rather than the fulfilment of the high destiny of her genius.

... “The verses of Mrs Hemans appear the spontaneous offspring of intense and noble feeling, governed by a clear understanding, and fashioned into elegance by an exquisite delicacy and precision of taste. With more than the force of many of her masculine competitors, she never ceases to be strictly _feminine_ in the whole current of her thought and feeling, nor approaches by any chance the verge of that free and intrepid course of speculation, of which the boldness is more conspicuous than the wisdom, but into which some of the most remarkable among the female literati of our times have freely and fearlessly plunged. She has, in the poem before us, made choice of a subject of which it would have been very difficult to have reconciled the treatment, in the hands of some female authors, to the delicacy which belongs to the sex, and the tenderness and enthusiasm which form its finest characteristics. A coarse and chilling cento of the exploded fancies of modern scepticism, done into rhyme by the hand of a woman, would have been doubly disgusting, by the revival of absurdities long consigned to oblivion, and by the revolting exhibition of a female mind shorn of all its attractions, and wrapt in darkness and defiance. But Mrs Hemans has chosen the better and the nobler cause, and, while she has left in the poem before us every trace of vigorous intellect of which the subject admitted, and has far transcended in energy of thought the prosing pioneers of unbelief, she has sustained throughout a tone of warm and confiding piety, and has thus proved that the humility of hope and of faith has in it none of the weakness with which it has been charged by the arrogance of impiety, but owns a divine and mysterious vigour residing under the very aspect of gentleness and devotion.”

_Quarterly Review._--“Her last two publications are works of a higher stamp; works, indeed, of which no living poet need to be ashamed. The first of them is entitled The Sceptic, and is devoted, as our readers will easily anticipate, to advocating the cause of religion. Undoubtedly the poem must have owed its being to the circumstances of the times--to a laudable indignation at the course which literature in many departments seemed lately to be taking in this country, and at the doctrines disseminated with industry, principally (but by no means exclusively, as has been falsely supposed) among the lower orders. Mrs Hemans, however, does not attempt to reason learnedly or laboriously in verse; few poems, ostensibly philosophical or didactic, have ever been of use, except to display the ingenuity and talent of the writers. People are not often taught a science or an art in poetry, and much less will an infidel be converted by a theological treatise in verse. But the argument of The Sceptic is one of irresistible force to confirm a wavering mind; it is simply resting the truth of religion on the necessity of it--on the utter misery and helplessness of man without it. This argument is in itself available for all the purposes of poetry: it appeals to the imagination and passions of man; it is capable of interesting all our affectionate hopes and charities, of acting upon all our natural fears. Mrs Hemans has gone through this range with great feeling and ability; and when she comes to the mind which has clothed itself in its own strength, and relying proudly on that alone in the hour of affliction, has sunk into distraction in the contest, she rises into a strain of moral poetry not often surpassed:--

‘Oh, what is nature’s strength? The vacant eye,
By mind deserted, hath a dread reply,’ etc.”]

SUPERSTITION AND REVELATION,

AN UNFINISHED POEM.

I.

Beings of brighter worlds! that rise at times
As phantoms with ideal beauty fraught,
In those brief visions of celestial climes
Which pass like sunbeams o’er the realms of thought,
Dwell ye around us?--are ye hovering nigh,
Throned on the cloud, or buoyant in the air?
And in deep solitudes, where human eye
Can trace no step, Immortals! are ye there?
Oh! who can tell?--what power, but Death alone,
Can lift the mystic veil that shades the world unknown?

II.

But Earth hath seen the days, ere yet the flowers
Of Eden wither’d, when reveal’d ye shone
In all your brightness midst those holy bowers--
Holy, but not unfading, as your own!
While He, the child of that primeval soil,
With you its paths in high communion trode,
His glory yet undimm’d by guilt or toil,
And beaming in the image of his God,
And his pure spirit glowing from the sky,
Exulting in its light, a spark of Deity.

III.

Then, haply, mortal and celestial lays,
Mingling their tones, from nature’s temple rose,
When nought but that majestic song of praise
Broke on the sanctity of night’s repose,
With music since unheard: and man might trace
By stream and vale, in deep embow’ring shade,
Devotion’s first and loveliest dwelling-place,
The footsteps of th’ Omnipotent, who made
That spot a shrine, where youthful nature cast
Her consecrated wealth, rejoicing as He pass’d.

IV.

Short were those days, and soon, O sons of Heaven!
Your aspect changed for man. In that dread hour,
When from his paradise the alien driven
Beheld your forms in angry splendour tower,
Guarding the clime where he no more might dwell
With meteor-swords: he saw the living flame,
And his first cry of misery was--“Farewell!”
His heart’s first anguish, exile: he became
A pilgrim on the earth, whose children’s lot
Is still for happier lands to pine--and reach them not.

V.

Where now the chosen bowers that once beheld
Delight and Love their first bright sabbath keep?
From all its founts the world of waters swell’d,
And wrapt them in the mantle of the deep!
For He, to whom the elements are slaves,
In wrath unchain’d the oceans of the cloud,
And heaved the abyss beneath, till waves on waves
Folded creation in their mighty shroud;
Then left the earth a solitude, o’erspread
With its own awful weeks--a desert of the dead.

VI.

But onward flow’d life’s busy course again,
And rolling ages with them bore away--
As to be lost amidst the boundless main,
Rich orient streams their golden sands convey--
The hallow’d lore of old--the guiding light
Left by tradition to the sons of earth,
And the blest memory of each sacred rite
Known in the region of their father’s birth,
When in each breeze around his fair abode
Whisper’d a seraph’s voice, or lived the breath of God.

VII.

Who hath not seen, what time the orb of day,
Cinctured with glory, seeks the ocean’s breast,
A thousand clouds all glowing in his ray,
Catching brief splendour from the purple west?
So round thy parting steps, fair Truth! awhile
With borrow’d hues unnumber’d phantoms shone;
And Superstition, from thy lingering smile,
Caught a faint glow of beauty not her own,
Blending her rites with thine--while yet afar
Thine eye’s last radiance beam’d, a slow-receding star.

VIII.

Yet still one stream was pure--one sever’d shrine
Was fed with holier fire, by chosen hands;
And sounds, and dreams, and impulses divine,
Were in the dwellings of the patriarch bands.
There still the father to his child bequeath’d
The sacred torch of never-dying flame;
There still Devotion’s suppliant accents breathed
The One adored and everlasting Name;
And angel guests would linger and repose
Where those primeval tents amid their palm-trees rose.

IX.

But far o’er earth the apostate wanderers bore
Their alien rites. For them, by fount or shade,
Nor voice, nor vision, holy as of yore,
In thrilling whispers to the soul convey’d
High inspiration: yet in every clime,
Those sons of doubt and error fondly sought
With beings, in their essence more sublime,
To hold communion of mysterious thought;
On some dread power in trembling hope to lean,
And hear in every wind the accents of th’ Unseen.

X.

Yes! we have need to bid our hopes repose
On some protecting influence: here confined,
Life hath no healing balm for mortal woes,
Earth is too narrow for th’ immortal mind.
Our spirits burn to mingle with the day,
As exiles panting for their native coast,
Yet lured by every wild-flower from their way,
And shrinking from the gulf that must be cross’d.
Death hovers round us: in the zephyr’s sigh,
As in the storm, he comes--and lo! Eternity!

XI.

As one left lonely on the desert sands
Of burning Afric, where, without a guide,
He gazes as the pathless waste expands--
Around, beyond, interminably wide;
While the red haze, presaging the Simoom,
Obscures the fierce resplendence of the sky,
Or suns of blasting light perchance illume
The glistening Serab[145] which illudes his eye:
Such was the wanderer Man, in ages flown,
Kneeling in doubt and fear before the dread Unknown.

XII.

His thoughts explored the past--and where were they,
The chiefs of men, the mighty ones gone by?
He turn’d--a boundless void before him lay,
Wrapp’d in the shadows of futurity.
How knew the child of Nature that the flame
He felt within him struggling to ascend,
Should perish not with that terrestrial frame
Doom’d with the earth on which it moved, to blend?
How, when affliction bade his spirit bleed,
If ’twere a Father’s love or Tyrant’s wrath decreed?

XIII.

Oh! marvel not if then he sought to trace
In all sublimities of sight and sound,
In rushing winds that wander through all space,
Or midst deep woods, with holy gloom embrown’d,
The oracles of Fate! or if the train
Of floating forms that throng the world of sleep,
And sounds that vibrate on the slumberer’s brain,
When mortal voices rest in stillness deep,
Were deem’d mysterious revelations, sent
From viewless powers, the lords of each dread element.

XIV.

Was not wild Nature, in that elder-time,
Clothed with a deeper power?--earth’s wandering race,
Exploring realms of solitude sublime,
Not as _we_ see, beheld her awful face!
Art had not tamed the mighty scenes which met
Their searching eyes; unpeopled kingdoms lay
In savage pomp before them--all was yet
Silent and vast, but not as in decay;
And the bright daystar, from his burning throne,
Look’d o’er a thousand shores, untrodden, voiceless, lone.

XV.

The forests in their dark luxuriance waved,
With all their swell of strange Æolian sound;
The fearful deep, sole region ne’er enslaved,
Heaved, in its pomp of terror, darkly round.
Then, brooding o’er the images, imprest
By forms of grandeur thronging on his eye,
And faint traditions, guarded in his breast,
Midst dim remembrances of infancy,
Man shaped unearthly presences, in dreams,
Peopling each wilder haunt of mountains, groves, and streams.

XVI.

Then bled the victim--then in every shade
Of rock or turf arose the votive shrine;
Fear bow’d before the phantoms she portray’d,
And Nature teem’d with many a mystic sign.
Meteors, and storms, and thunders! ye whose course
E’en yet is awful to th’ enlighten’d eye,
As, wildly rushing from your secret source,
Your sounding chariot sweeps the realms on high,
Then o’er the earth prophetic gloom ye cast,
And the wide nations gazed, and trembled as ye pass’d.

XVII.

But you, ye stars! in distant glory burning,
Nurtured with flame, bright altars of the sky!
To whose far climes the spirit, vainly turning,
Would pierce the secrets of infinity--
To you the heart, bereft of other light,
Its first deep homage paid, on Eastern plains,
Where Day hath terrors, but majestic Night,
Calm in her pomp, magnificently reigns,
Cloudless and silent, circled with the race
Of some unnumber’d orbs, that light the depths of space.

XVIII.

Shine on! and brightly plead for erring thought,
Whose wing, unaided in its course, explored
The wide creation, and beholding nought
Like your eternal beauty, then adored
Its living splendours; deeming them inform’d
By natures temper’d with a holier fire--
Pure beings, with ethereal effluence warm’d,
Who to the source of spirit might aspire,
And mortal prayers benignantly convey
To some presiding Power, more awful far than they.

XIX.

Guides o’er the desert and the deep! to you
The seaman turn’d, rejoicing at the helm,
When from the regions of empyreal blue
Ye pour’d soft radiance o’er the ocean-realm;
To you the dweller of the plains address’d
Vain prayers, that call’d the clouds and dews your own;
To you the shepherd, on the mountain’s crest,
Kindled the fires that far through midnight shone,
As earth would light up all her hills, to vie
With your immortal host, and image back the sky.

XX.

Hail to the queen of heaven! her silvery crown
Serenely wearing, o’er her high domain
She walks in brightness, looking cloudless down,
As if to smile on her terrestrial reign.
Earth should be hush’d in slumber--but the night
Calls forth her worshippers; the feast is spread,
On hoary Lebanon’s umbrageous height
The shrine is raised, the rich libation shed
To her, whose beams illume those cedar-shades
Faintly as Nature’s light the ’wilder’d soul pervades.

XXI.

But when _thine_ orb, all earth’s rich hues restoring,
Came forth, O sun! in majesty supreme,
Still, from thy pure exhaustless fountain, pouring
Beauty and life in each triumphant beam,
Through thine own East what joyous rites prevail’d!
What choral songs re-echo’d! while thy fire
Shone o’er its thousand altars, and exhaled
The precious incense of each odorous pyre,
Heap’d with the richest balms of spicy vales,
And aromatic woods that scent the Arabian gales.

XXII.

Yet not with Saba’s fragrant wealth alone,
Balsam and myrrh, the votive pile was strew’d;
For the dark children of the burning zone
Drew frenzy from thy fervours, and bedew’d
With their own blood thy shrine; while that wild scene,
Haply with pitying eye, thine angel view’d,
And though with glory mantled, and severe
In his own fulness of beatitude,
Yet mourn’d for those whose spirits from thy ray
Caught not one transient spark of intellectual day.

XXIII.

But earth had deeper stains. Ethereal powers!
Benignant seraphs! wont to leave the skies,
And hold high converse, midst his native bowers,
With the once glorious son of Paradise,
Look’d ye from heaven in sadness! were your strains
Of choral praise suspended in dismay,
When the polluted shrine of Syria’s plains
With clouds of incense dimm’d the blaze of day?
Or did ye veil indignantly your eyes.
While demons hail’d the pomp of human sacrifice?

XXIV.

And well the powers of evil might rejoice,
When rose from Tophet’s vale the exulting cry,
And, deaf to Nature’s supplicating voice,
The frantic mother bore her child to die!
Around her vainly clung his feeble hands
With sacred instinct: love hath lost its sway,
While ruthless zeal the sacrifice demands,
And the fires blaze, impatient for their prey.
Let not his shrieks reveal the dreadful tale!
Well may the drum’s loud peal o’erpower an infant’s wail?

XXV.

A voice of sorrow! not from thence it rose;
’Twas not the childless mother. Syrian maids,
Where with red wave the mountain streamlet flows,
Keep tearful vigil in their native shades.
With dirge and plaint the cedar-groves resound,
Each rock’s deep echo for Adonis mourns:
Weep for the dead! Away! the lost is found--
To life and love the buried god returns!
Then wakes the timbrel--then the forests ring,
And shouts of frenzied joy are on each breeze’s wing!

XXVI.

But fill’d with holier joy the Persian stood,
In silent reverence, on the mountain’s brow,
At early dayspring, while the expanding flood
Of radiance burst around, above, below--
Bright, boundless as eternity: he gazed
Till his full soul, imbibing heaven, o’erflow’d
In worship of th’ Invisible, and praised
In thee, O Sun! the symbol and abode
Of life, and power, and excellence--the throne
Where dwelt the Unapproach’d, resplendently alone.[146]

XXVII.

What if his thoughts, with erring fondness, gave
Mysterious sanctity to things which wear
Th’ Eternal’s impress?--if the living wave,
The circling heavens, the free and boundless air--
If the pure founts of everlasting flame,
Deep in his country’s hallow’d vales enshrined,
And the bright stars maintain’d a silent claim
To love and homage from his awe-struck mind?
Still with his spirit dwelt a lofty dream
Of uncreated Power, far, far o’er these supreme.

XXVIII.

And with that faith was conquest. He whose name
To Judah’s harp of prophecy had rung--
He, of whose yet unborn and distant fame
The mighty voice of Inspiration sung,
He came, the victor Cyrus! As he pass’d,
Thrones to his footstep rock’d, and monarchs lay
Suppliant and clothed with dust; while nations cast
Their ancient idols down before _his_ way,
Who in majestic march, from shore to shore,
The quenchless flame revered by Persia’s children bore.

[145] _Serab_, mirage.

[146] At an earlier stage in the composition of this poem, the following stanza was here inserted:--

“Nor rose the Magian’s hymn, sublimely swelling
In full-toned homage to the source of flame,
From fabric rear’d by man, the gorgeous dwelling
Of such bright idol-forms as art could frame.
Be rear’d no temple, bade no walls contain
The breath of incense or the voice of prayer;
But made the boundless universe his fane,
The rocks his altar-stone--adoring there
The Being whose Omnipotence pervades
All deserts and all depths, and hallows loneliest shades.”

[In the spring of 1820, Mrs Hemans first made the acquaintance of one who became afterwards a zealous and valuable friend, revered in life, and sincerely mourned in death--Bishop Heber, then Rector of Hodnet, and a frequent visitor at Bodryddan, the residence of his father-in-law, the late Dean of St Asaph, from whom also, during an intercourse of many years, Mrs Hemans at all times received much kindness and courtesy. Mr Reginald Heber was the first eminent literary character with whom she had ever familiarly associated; and she therefore entered with a peculiar freshness of feeling in to the delight inspired by his conversational powers, enhanced as they were by that gentle benignity of manner, so often the characteristic of minds of the very highest order. In a letter to a friend on this occasion, she thus describes her enjoyment:--“I am more delighted with Mr Heber than I can possibly tell you; his conversation is quite rich with anecdote, and every subject on which he speaks had been, you would imagine, the whole study of his life. In short, his society has made much the same sort of impression on my mind that the first perusal of _Ivanhoe_ did; and was something so perfectly new to me, that I can hardly talk of any thing else. I had a very long conversation with him on the subject of _the_ poem, which he read aloud, and commented upon as he proceeded. His manner was so entirely that of a friend, that I felt perfectly at ease, and did not hesitate to express all my own ideas and opinions on the subject, even where they did not exactly coincide with his own.”

The poem here alluded to was the one entitled _Superstition_ and _Revelation_, which Mrs Hemans had commenced some time before, and which was intended to embrace a very extensive range of subject. Her original design will be best given in her own words, from a letter to her friend Miss Park:--“I have been thinking a good deal of the plan we discussed together, of a poem on national superstitions. ‘Our thoughts are linked by many a hidden chain,’ and in the course of my lucubrations on this subject, an idea occurred to me, which I hope you will not think me too presumptuous in wishing to realise. Might not a poem of some extent and importance, if the execution were at all equal to the design, be produced, from contrasting the spirit and tenets of Paganism with those of Christianity? It would contain, of course, much classical allusion; and all the graceful and sportive fictions of ancient Greece and Italy, as well as the superstitions of more barbarous climes, might be introduced to prove how little consolation they could convey in the hour of affliction--or hope, in that of death. Many scenes from history might be portrayed in illustration of this idea; and the certainty of a future state, and of the immortality of the soul, which we derive from revelation, are surely subjects for poetry of the highest class. Descriptions of those regions which are still strangers to the blessings of our religion, such as the greatest part of Africa, India, &c., might contain much that is poetical; but the subject is almost boundless, and I think of it till I am startled by its magnitude.”

Mr Heber approved highly of the plan of the work, and gave her every encouragement to proceed in it; supplying her with many admirable suggestions, both as to the illustrations which might be introduced with the happiest effect, and the sources from whence the requisite information would best be derived. But the great labour and research necessary to the development of a plan which included the superstitions of every age and country, from the earliest of all idolatries--the adoration of the sun, moon, and host of heaven, alluded to in the book of Job--to the still existing rites of the Hindoos--would have demanded a course of study too engrossing to be compatible with the many other claims, both domestic and literary, which daily pressed more and more upon the author’s time. The work was, therefore, laid aside; and the fragment now first published is all that remains of it, though the project was never distinctly abandoned.]

ITALIAN LITERATURE.[147]

THE BASVIGLIANA OF MONTI.

FROM SISMONDI’s “LITTERATURE DU MIDI.”

[147] “About this time (1820) Mrs Hemans was an occasional contributor to the _Edinburgh Monthly Magazine_, then conducted by the Rev. Robert Morehead, whose liberal courtesy in the discharge of his editorial office associated many agreeable recollections with the period of this literary intercourse. Several of her poems appeared in the above-mentioned periodical, as also a series of papers on foreign literature, which, with very few exceptions, were the only prose compositions she ever gave to the world; and indeed to these papers such a distinctive appellation is perhaps scarcely applicable, as the prose writing may be considered subordinate to the poetical translations, which it is used to introduce.”--_Memoir_, p. 41.

Vincenzo Monti, a native of Ferrara, is acknowledged, by the unanimous consent of the Italians, as the greatest of their living poets. Irritable, impassioned, variable to excess, he is always actuated by the impulse of the moment. Whatever he feels is felt with the most enthusiastic vehemence. He sees the objects of his thoughts--they are present, and clothed with life--before him, and a flexible and harmonious language is always at his command to paint them with the richest colouring. Persuaded that poetry is only another species of painting, he makes the art of the poet consist in rendering apparent, to the eyes of all, the pictures created by his imagination for himself; and he permits not a verse to escape him which does not contain an image. Deeply impressed by the study of Dante, he has restored to the character of Italian poetry those severe and exalted beauties by which it was distinguished at its birth; and he proceeds from one picture to another with a grandeur and dignity peculiar to himself. It is extraordinary that, with something so lofty in his manner and style of writing, the heart of so impassioned a character should not be regulated by principles of greater consistency. In many other poets, this defect might pass unobserved: but circumstances have thrown the fullest light upon the versatility of Monti, and his glory as a poet is attached to works which display him in continual opposition to himself. Writing in the midst of the various Italian revolutions, he has constantly chosen political subjects for his compositions, and he has successively celebrated opposite parties in proportion to their success. Let us suppose, in his justification, that he composes as an improvisatore, and that his feelings, becoming highly excited by the given theme, he seizes the political ideas it suggests, however foreign they may be to his individual sentiments.[148] In these political poems--the object and purport of which are so different--the invention and manner are, perhaps, but too similar. The _Basvigliana_, or poem on the death of Basville, is the most celebrated; but, since its appearance, it has been discovered that Monti, who always imitated Dante, has now also very frequently imitated himself.

Hugh Basville was the French Envoy who was put to death at Rome by the people, for attempting, at the beginning of the Revolution, to excite a sedition against the Pontifical government. Monti, who was then the poet of the Pope, as he has since been of the Republic, supposes that, at the moment of Basville’s death, he is saved by a sudden repentance, from the condemnation which his philosophical principles had merited. But, as a punishment for his guilt, and a substitute for the pains of purgatory, he is condemned by Divine Justice to traverse France until the crimes of that country have received their due chastisement, and doomed to contemplate the misfortunes and reverses to which he has contributed by assisting to extend the progress of the Revolution.

An angel of heaven conducts Basville from province to province, that he may behold the desolation of his lovely country. He then conveys him to Paris, and makes him witness the sufferings and death of Louis XVI., and afterwards shows him the Allied armies prepared to burst upon France, and avenge the blood of her king. The poem concludes before the issue of the contest is known. It is divided into four cantos of three hundred lines each, and written in _terza rima_, like the poem of Dante. Not only many expressions, epithets, and lines are borrowed from the Divine Comedy, but the invention itself is similar. An angel conducts Basville through the suffering world; and this faithful guide, who consoles and supports the _spectator-hero_ of the poem, acts precisely the same part which is performed by Virgil in Dante. Basville himself thinks, feels, and suffers, exactly as Dante would have done. Monti has not preserved any traces of his revolutionary character--he describes him as feeling more pity than remorse--and he seems to forget, in thus identifying himself with his hero, that he has at first represented Basville, and perhaps without foundation, as an infidel and a ferocious revolutionist. The _Basvigliana_ is, perhaps, more remarkable than any other poem for the majesty of its verse, the sublimity of its expression, and the richness of its colouring. In the first canto the spirit of Basville thus takes leave of the body:--

“Sleep, O beloved companion of my woes,
Rest thou in deep and undisturb’d repose;
Till at the last great day, from slumber’s bed,
Heaven’s trumpet-summons shall awake the dead.

“Be the earth light upon thee, mild the shower,
And soft the breeze’s wing, till that dread hour;
Nor let the wanderer passing o’er thee, breathe
Words of keen insult to the dust beneath.

“Sleep thou in peace! Beyond the funeral pyre,
There live no flames of vengeance or of ire;
And midst high hearts I leave thee, on a shore
Where mercy’s home hath been from days of yore.”

Thus to its earthly form the spirit cried,
Then turn’d to follow its celestial guide;
But with a downcast mien, a pensive sigh,
A lingering step, and oft reverted eye--
As when a child’s reluctant feet obey
Its mother’s voice, and slowly leave its play.

Night o’er the earth her dewy veil had cast,
When from th’ Eternal City’s towers they pass’d,
And rising in their flight, on that proud dome,
Whose walls enshrine the guardian saint of Rome,
Lo! where a cherub-form sublimely tower’d,
But dreadful in his glory! Sternly lower’d
Wrath in his kingly aspect. One he seem’d
Of the bright seven, whose dazzling splendour beam’d
On high amidst the burning lamps of heaven,
Seen in the dread, o’erwhelming visions given
To the rapt seer of Patmos. Wheels of fire
Seem’d his fierce eyes, all kindling in their ire;
And his loose tresses, floating as he stood,
A comet’s glare, presaging woe and blood.
He waved his sword--its red, terrific light
With fearful radiance tinged the clouds of night;
While his left hand sustain’d a shield so vast,
Far o’er the Vatican beneath was cast
Its broad, protecting shadow. As the plume
Of the strong eagle spreads in sheltering gloom
O’er its young brood, as yet untaught to soar;
And while, all trembling at the whirlwind’s roar,
Each humbler bird shrinks cowering in its nest,
Beneath that wing of power, and ample breast,
They sleep unheeding; while the storm on high
Breaks not their calm and proud security.

In the second canto, Basville enters Paris with his angelic guide, at the moment preceding the execution of Louis XVI.

The air was heavy, and the brooding skies
Look’d fraught with omens, as to harmonise
With his pale aspect. Through the forest round
Not a leaf whisper’d--and the only sound
That broke the stillness was a streamlet’s moan
Murmuring amidst the rocks with plaintive tone,
As if a storm within the woodland bowers
Were gathering. On they moved--and lo! the towers
Of a far city! Nearer now they drew;
And all reveal’d, expanding on their view,
The Babylon, the scene of crimes and woes--
Paris, the guilty, the devoted, rose!

In the dark mantle of a cloud array’d,
Viewless and hush’d, the angel and the shade
Enter’d that evil city. Onward pass’d
The heavenly being first, with brow o’ercast
And troubled mien, while in his glorious eyes
Tears had obscured the splendour of the skies.
Pale with dismay, the trembling spirit saw
That alter’d aspect, and, in breathless awe,
Mark’d the strange silence round. The deep-toned swell
Of life’s full tide was hush’d; the sacred bell,
The clamorous anvil, mute; all sounds were fled
Of labour or of mirth, and in their stead
Terror and stillness, boding signs of woe,
Inquiring glances, rumours whisper’d low,
Questions half-utter’d, jealous looks that keep
A fearful watch around, and sadness deep
That weighs upon the heart; and voices, heard
At intervals, in many a broken word--
Voices of mothers, trembling as they press’d
Th’ unconscious infant closer to their breast;
Voices of wives, with fond imploring cries,
And the wild eloquence of tears and sighs,
On their own thresholds striving to detain
Their fierce impatient lords; but weak and vain
Affection’s gentle bonds, in that dread hour
Of fate and fury--Love hath lost his power!
For evil spirits are abroad, the air
Breathes of their influence. Druid phantoms there,
Fired by that thirst for victims which of old
Raged in their bosoms fierce and uncontroll’d,
Rush, in ferocious transport, to survey
The deepest crime that e’er hath dimm’d the day.
Blood, human blood, hath stain’d their vests and hair,
On the winds tossing, with a sanguine glare,
Scattering red showers around them! Flaming brands
And serpent scourges in their restless hands
Are wildly shaken. Others lift on high
The steel, th’ envenom’d bowl; and, hurrying by,
With touch of fire contagious fury dart
Through human veins, fast kindling to the heart.
Then comes the rush of crowds! restrain’d no more,
Fast from each home the frenzied inmates pour;
From every heart affrighted mercy flies,
While her soft voice amidst the tumult dies.
Then the earth trembles, as from street to street
The tramp of steeds, the press of hastening feet,
The roll of wheels, all mingling in the breeze,
Come deepening onward, as the swell of seas
Heard at the dead of midnight; or the moan
Of distant tempests, or the hollow tone
Of the far thunder! Then what feelings press’d,
O wretched Basville! on thy guilty breast;
What pangs were thine, thus fated to behold
Death’s awful banner to the winds unfold!
To see the axe, the scaffold, raised on high--
The dark impatience of the murderer’s eye,
Eager for crime! And he, the great, the good,
Thy martyr-king, by men athirst for blood
Dragg’d to a felon’s death! Yet still his mien,
Midst that wild throng, is loftily serene;
And his step falters not. O hearts unmoved!
Where have you borne your monarch?--He who loved--
Loved you so well! Behold! the sun grows pale,
Shrouding his glory in a tearful veil;
The misty air is silent, as in dread,
And the dim sky with shadowy gloom o’erspread;
While saints and martyrs, spirits of the blest,
Look down, all weeping, from their bowers of rest.

* * * * *

In that dread moment, to the fatal pile
The regal victim came; and raised the while
His patient glance, with such an aspect high,
So firm, so calm, in holy majesty,
That e’en th’ assassins’ hearts a moment shook
Before the grandeur of that kingly look;
And a strange thrill of pity, half-renew’d,
Ran through the bosoms of the multitude.

* * * * *

Like Him, who, breathing mercy to the last,
Pray’d till the bitterness of death was past--
E’en for his murderers pray’d, in that dark hour
When his soul yielded to affliction’s power,
And the winds bore his dying cry abroad--
“Hast thou forsaken me, my God! my God?”--
E’en thus the monarch stood; his prayer arose,
Thus calling down forgiveness on his foes--
“To Thee my spirit I commend,” he cried;
“And my lost people, Father! be their guide!”

* * * * *

But the sharp steel descends--the blow is given,
And answer’d by a thunder-peal from heaven;
Earth, stain’d with blood, convulsive terrors owns,
And her kings tremble on their distant thrones!

[148] The observation of a French author (_Le Censeur du Dictionnaire des Girouettes_) on the general versatility of poets, seems so peculiarly appropriate to the character of Monti, that it might almost be supposed to have been written for the express purpose of such an application.--“Le cerveau d’un poète est d’une cire molle et flexible, où s’imprime naturellement tout ce qui le flatte, le séduit, et l’alimente. La muse du chant n’a pas de partie; c’est une étourdie sans conséquence, qui folâtre également et sur de riches gazons et sur d’arides bruyères. Un poète en délire chante indifféremment Titus et Thamask, Louis 12me et Cromwell, Christine de Suède et Stanchon la Vielleuse.”

THE ALCESTIS OF ALFIERI.

The _Alcestis_ of Alfieri is said to have been the last tragedy he composed, and is distinguished to a remarkable degree by that tenderness of which his former works present so few examples. It would appear as if the pure and exalted affection by which the impetuosity of his fiery spirit was ameliorated during the latter years of his life, had impressed its whole character on this work, as a record of that domestic happiness in whose bosom his heart at length found a resting-place. Most of his earlier writings bear witness to that “fever at the core,” that burning impatience of restraint, and those incessant and untameable aspirations after a wider sphere of action, by which his youth was consumed; but the poetry of _Alcestis_ must find its echo in every heart which has known the power of domestic ties, or felt the bitterness of their dissolution. The interest of the piece, however, though entirely domestic, is not for a moment allowed to languish; nor does the conjugal affection, which forms the mainspring of the action, ever degenerate into the pastoral insipidity of Metastasio. The character of Alcestis herself, with all its lofty fortitude, heroic affection, and subdued anguish, powerfully recalls to our imagination the calm and tempered majesty distinguishing the masterpieces of Greek sculpture, in which the expression of mental or bodily suffering is never allowed to transgress the limits of beauty and sublimity. The union of dignity and affliction impressing more than earthly grandeur on the countenance of Niobe, would be, perhaps, the best illustration of this analogy.

The following scene, in which Alcestis announces to Pheres, the father of Admetus, the terms upon which the oracle of Delphos has declared that his son may be restored, has seldom been surpassed by the author, even in his most celebrated productions. It is, however, to be feared that little of its beauty can be transfused into a translation, as the severity of a style so completely devoid of imagery, must render it dependent for many incommunicable attractions upon the melody of the original language.