Outre-mer : a pilgrimage beyond the sea

OUTRE-MER

A PILGRIMAGE

BEYOND THE SEA.

•• >'•

I have passed manye landes and manye yles and contrees, and cherched
manye fulle straunge places, and have ben in manye a fulle gode honourable
companye. Now I am comen home to reste. And thus recordynge the tyme
passed, I have fulfilled these thynges and putte hem wryten in this boke, as it
woulde come into my mynde.— SIR JOHN MAUNDEVILLE.

IN TWO VOLUMES.

VOL. I.

NEW-YORK :
PUBLISHED BY HARPER & BROTHERS,

NO. 82 CLIFF-STREET.

1835.

T) > ;
v>

[Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the year 1835, by
HARPER & BROTHERS, in the Clerk's Office of the Southern
District of New- York. ]

CONTENTS

OF

THE FIRST VOLUME.

The Epiatle Dedicatory 1

The Pilgrim of Outre-Mer 5

The Norman Diligence 11

The Golden Lion Inn at Rouen 21

Martin Franc and the Monk of St. Anthony 29

The Village of Auteuil 53

Jacqueline 69

The Sexagenarian 81

Pere La Chaise 91

The Valley of the Loire 107

The Trouveres 127

The Baptism of Fire 143

Coq-a-1'Ane 157

The Notary of Perigueux 171

The Journey into Spain 185

Spain 201

A Tailor's Drawer . 211

THE

EPISTLE DEDICATORY.

The cheerful breeze sets fair ; we fill our sail, .
And scud before it. When the critic starts,
And angrily unites his bags of wind,
Then we lay-to, and let the blast go by.

HSRDIS.

WORTHY AND GENTLE READER,
I dedicate this little book to thee with many
fears and misgivings of heart. Being a stranger
to thee, and having never administered to thy
wants nor to thy pleasures, I can ask nothing at
thy hands, saving the common courtesies of life.
Perchance, too, what I have written will be little
to thy taste ; — for it is little in accordance with
the stirring spirit of the present age. If so, I crave
thy forbearance for having thought, that even the

VOL. I. A

EPISTLE DEDICATORY.

busiest mind might not be a stranger to those
moments of repose, when the clock of time clicks
drowsily behind the door, and trifles become the
amusement of the wise and great.

Besides, what perils await the adventurous
author, who launches forth into the uncertain
current of public favour in so frail a bark as
this ! The very rocking of the tide may over
set him ; or peradventure some freebooting critic,
prowling about the great ocean of letters, may
descry his strange colours, — hail him through a
gray goose-quill, and perhaps sink him without
more ado. Indeed, the success of an unknown
author is as uncertain as the wind. " When
a book is first to appear in the world," says a
celebrated French writer, " one knows not whom
to consult to learn its destiny. The stars pre
side not over its nativity. Their influences have
no operation on it ; and the most confident as
trologers dare not foretell the diverse risks of
fortune it must run."

It is from such considerations, worthy reader,
that I would fain bespeak thy friendly offices at
the outset. But in asking these, I would not
forestall thy good opinion too far, lest in the
sequel I should disappoint thy kind wishes. I
ask only a welcome and God-speed ; hoping,

EPISTLE DEDICATORY. 3

that when thou hast read these pages, thou wilt
say to me, in the words of Nick Bottom, the
weaver, " I shall desire you of more acquaint
ance, good Master Cobweb."

Very sincerely thine,

THE AUTHOR.

THE

PILGRIM OF OUTRE-MER.

Si j'ai long terns et<§ en Romanic,
Et outre-mer fait mon pelerinage.

THIBAUT, Roi DE NAVARRK.

THE

PILGRIM OF OUTRE-MER,

I am a Palmer, as ye se,

Whiche of my lyfe muche part have spent,

In many a fayre and farre cuntrie,

As pilgrims do of good intent.

THE FOITR P's.

' LYSTENYTH, ye godely gentylmen, and all that
ben hereyn !' I am a pilgrim benighted on my
way, and crave a shelter till the storm is over, and
a seat by the fireside in this honourable company.
As a stranger I claim this courtesy at your hands ;
and will repay your hospitable welcome with tales
of the countries I have passed through in my pil
grimage.

This is a custom of the olden time. In the
days of chivalry and romance, every baron bold,
perched aloof in his feudal castle, welcomed the
stranger to his halls, and listened with delight to

8 THE PILGRIM OF OUTRE-MER.

the pilgrim's tale, and the song of the troubadour.
Both pilgrim and troubadour had their tales of
wonder from a distant land, embellished with the
magic of oriental exaggeration. Their salutation
was,

* Lordyng lysnith to my tale,
That is meryer than the nightingale.'

The soft luxuriance of the eastern clime bloomed
in the song of the bard ; and the wild and roman
tic tales of regions so far off as to be regarded as
almost a fairy land, were well suited to the childish
credulity of an age when what is now called the
old world was in its childhood. Those times have
passed away. The world has grown wiser and
less credulous ; and the tales which then delighted
delight no longer. But man has not changed his
nature. He still retains the same curiosity — the
same love of novelty — the same fondness for ro
mance, and tales by the chimney-corner — and the
same desire of wearing out the rainy day and the
long winter evening with the illusions of fancy,
and the fairy sketches of the poet's imagination.
It is as true now as ever, that

4 Off talys, and tryfulles, many man tellys ;
Sume byn trew, and sume byn ellis ;

THE PILGRIM OF OUTRE-MEH.

A man may dryfe forthe the day that long tyme dwellis
Wyth harpyng, and pipyng, and other mery spellis,
Wyth gle, and wyth game.'

The Pays d'Outre-Mer, or the Land beyond the
Sea, is a name by which the pilgrims and crusa
ders of old usually designated the Holy Land. I,
too, in a certain sense, have been a pilgrim of
Outre-Mer ; for to my youthful imagination the old
world was a kind of Holy Land, lying afar off
beyond the blue horizon of the ocean ; and when
its shores first rose upon my sight, looming through
the hazy atmosphere of the sea, my heart swelled
with the deep emotions of the pilgrim, when he
sees afar the spire which rises above the shrine of
his devotion.

In this my pilgrimage, " I have passed many
lands and countries, and searched many full
strange places." I have traversed France from
Normandy to Navarre ; smoked my pipe in a
Flemish inn; floated through Holland in a Trek-,
schuit ; trimmed my midnight lamp in a German
university ; wandered and mused amid the classic
scenes of Italy ; and listened to the gay guitar and
merry castanet on the borders of the blue Guadal-
quiver. The recollection of many of the scenes
I have passed through is still fresh in my mind ;

10 THE PILGRIM OF OUTRE-MER.

while the memory of others is fast fading away,
or is blotted out for ever. But now I will stay
the too busy hand of time, and call back the
shadowy past. Perchance the old and the wise
may accuse me of frivolity ; but I see in this fair
company the bright eye and listening ear of youth,
—an age less rigid in its censure and more willing
to be pleased. " To gentlewomen and their loves
is consecrated all the wooing language, allusions
to love-passions, and sweet embracements feigned
by the muse mongst hills and rivers ; whatsoever
tastes of description, battel, story, abstruse anti
quity, and law of the kingdome, to the more severe
critic. To the one, be contenting enjoyments of
their auspicious desires ; to the other, a happy
attendance of their chosen muses."*

And now, fair dames and courteous gentlemen,
give me attentive audience : —

' Lordyng lystnith to my tale,
That is meryer than the nightingale.'

* Selden's Prefatory Discourse to the notes in Drayton's Poly-
Olbion.

THE

NORMAN DILIGENCE,

THE

NORMAN DILIGENCE.

The French guides, otherwise called the postilians, have one
most diabolicall custome in their travelling upon the waves.
Diabolicall it may be well called ; for whensoever their horses
doe a little anger them, they will say in their fury, Allans^ diable,
— that is, Go, thou divel. This I know by mine own experience.

COBYAT'S CRUDITIES.

IT was early in the " leafy month of June" that
I travelled through the beautiful province of Nor
mandy. As France was the first foreign country
I visited, every thing wore an air of freshness and
novelty, which pleased my eye, and kept my fancy
constantly busy. Life was like a dream. It was
a luxury to breathe again the free air, after having
been so long cooped up at sea : and, like a long-
imprisoned bird let loose from its cage, my imagi-

VOL. I. B

14 THE NORMAN DILIGENCE.

nation revelled in the freshness and sunshine of the
morning landscape.

On every side, valley and hill were covered
with a carpet of soft velvet green. The birds
were singing merrily in the trees, and the land
scape wore that look of gayety so well described
in the quaint language of an old romance, making
the " sad, pensive, and aching heart to rejoice, and
to throw off mourning and sadness." Here and
there a cluster of chestnut-trees shaded a thatch-
roofed cottage, and little patches of vineyard were
scattered on the slope of the hills, mingling their
delicate green with the deep hues of the early
summer grain. The whole landscape had a fresh
breezy look. It was not hedged in from the high
ways, but lay open to the eye of the traveller, and
seemed to welcome him with open arms. I felt
less a stranger in the land ; and as my eye traced
the dusty road winding along through a rich culti
vated country, and skirted on either side with
blossomed fruit-trees, and occasionally caught
glimpses of a little farm-house resting in a green
hollow., and lapped in the bosom of plenty, I felt
that I was in a prosperous, hospitable, and happy
land.

I had taken my seat on top of the diligence,
in order to have a better view of the country. It

THE NORMAN DILIGENCE. 15

was one of those ponderous vehicles which totter
slowly along the paved roads of France, labouring
beneath a mountain of trunks and bales of all
descriptions; and, like the Trojan horse, bore a
groaning multitude within it. It was a curious
and cumbersome machine, resembling the bodies
of three coaches placed upon one carriage, with a
cabriolet on top for outside passengers. On the
panels of each door were painted the fleurs-de-lis
of France, and upon the side of the coach em
blazoned, in golden characters, " Exploitation
Generate des Messageries Royales des Diligences
pour le Havre, Rouen, et Paris."

It would be useless to describe the motley
groups that filled the four quarters of this little
world. There was the dusty tradesman, with
green coat and cotton umbrella ; the sallow inva
lid, in scull-cap and cloth shoes ; the priest in his
cassock ; the peasant in his frock, and a whole
family of squalling children. My fellow-travellers
on top were, a gay subaltern, with fierce mustache,
and a nut-brown village beauty of sweet sixteen.
The subaltern wore a military undress, ancl a little
blue cloth cap, in the shape of a cow-bell, trimmed
smartly with silver lace, and cocked on one side
of his head. The brunette was decked out with
a staid white Norman cap, nicely starched and

1ft THE NORMAN DILIGENCE.

plaited, and nearly three feet high, a rosary and
cross about her neck, a linsey-woolsey gown, and
wooden shoes.

The personage who seemed to rule this little
world with absolute sway was a short pursy man,
with a busy, self-satisfied air, and the sonorous title
of Monsieur le Conducteur. As insignia of office,
he wore a little round fur cap and fur-trimmed
jacket ; and carried in his hand a small leathern
port-folio, containing his way-bill. He sat with
us on top of the diligence, and with comic gravity
issued his mandates to the postillion below, like
some petty monarch speaking from his throne.
In every dingy village we thundered through, he
had a thousand commissions to execute and to re
ceive : a package to throw out on this side, and
another to take in on that ; a whisper for the land
lady at the inn ; a love-letter and a kiss for her
daughter ; and a wink or a snap of his fingers for
the chambermaid at the window. Then there
were so many questions to be asked and answered
while changing horses ! Everybody had a word
to say. It was Monsieur le Conducteur ! here ;
Monsieur le Conducteur ! there. He was in com
plete bustle ; till at length crying En route! he as
cended the dizzy height, and we lumbered away
in a cloud of dust.

THE NORMAN DILIGENCE. 17

But what most attracted my attention was the
grotesque appearance of the postillion and the
horses. He was a comical-looking little fellow,
already past the heyday of life, with a thin, sharp
countenance, to which the smoke of tobacco and
the fumes of wine had given the dusty look of
wrinkled parchment. He was equipped in a short
jacket of purple velvet, set off with a red collar,
and adorned with silken cord. Tight pantaloons
of bright yellow leather arrayed his pipe-stem
legs, which were swallowed up in a huge pair of
wooden boots, iron-fastened, and armed with long
rattling spurs. His shirt-collar was of vast dimen
sions, and between it and the broad brim of his
high, bell-crowned, varnished hat projected an
eel-skin queue, with a little tuft of frizzled hair, like
a powder-puff, at the end, bobbing up and down
with the motion of the rider, and scattering a white
cloud around him.

The horses which drew the diligence were
harnessed to it with ropes and leather, and in the
most uncouth manner imaginable. They were
five in number ; black, white, and gray — as
various in size as in colour. Their tails were
braided and tied up with wisps of straw ; and
when the postillion mounted and cracked his heavy
whip, off they started ; one pulling this way, an-
B 2

18 THE NORMAN DILIGENCE.

other that, — one on the gallop, another trotting,
and the rest dragging along at a scrambling pace,
between a trot and a walk. No sooner did the
vehicle get comfortably in motion, than the postil
lion, throwing the reins upon his horse's neck, and
drawing a flint and steel from one pocket and a
short-stemmed pipe from another, leisurely struck
fire, and began to smoke. Ever and anon some
part of the rope-harness would give way ; Mon
sieur le Conducteur from on high would thunder
forth an oath or two ; a head would be popped out
at every window ; half a dozen voices exclaim at
once, " What's the matter ?" and the postillion,
apostrophizing the diable as usual, thrust his long
whip into the leg of his boot, leisurely dismount,
and drawing a handful of packthread from his
pocket, quietly set himself to mend matters in the
best way possible.

In this manner we toiled slowly along the dusty
highway. Occasionally the scene was enlivened
by a group of peasants, driving before them a little
ass, laden with vegetables for a neighbouring
market. Then we would pass a solitary shepherd,
sitting by the road-side, with a shaggy dog at his
feet, guarding his flock, and making his scanty
meal on the contents of his wallet ; or perchance
a little peasant girl, in wooden shoes, leading a

THE NORMAN DILIGENCE. 1£

cow by a cord attached to her horns, to browse
along the side of the ditch. Then we would all
alight to ascend some formidable hill on foot, and
be escorted up by a clamorous group of sturdy
mendicants, — annoyed by the ceaseless importu
nity of worthless beggary, or moved to pity by
the palsied limbs of the aged, and the sightless
eyeballs of the blind.

Occasionally, too, the postillion drew up in front
of a dingy little cabaret, completely overshadowed
by wide-spreading trees. A lusty grape-vine
clambered up beside the door ; and a pine bough
was thrust out from a hole in the wall, by way of
tavern bush. Upon the front of the house was
generally inscribed in large black letters, " Ici ON

DONNE A BOIRE ET A MANGER ; ON LOGE A PIED ET

A CHEVAL ;" a sign which may be thus paraphrased
— " Good entertainment for man and beast ;" but
which was once translated by a foreigner, " Here
they give to eat and drink ; they lodge on foot and
on horseback !"

Thus one object of curiosity succeeded an
other ; hill, valley, stream, and woodland flitted
by me like the shifting scenes of a magic lantern,
and one train of thought gave place to another ;
till at length, in the after part of the day, we

20 THE NORMAN DILIGENCE.

entered the broad and shady avenue of fine old
trees which leads to the western gate of Rouen,
and a few moments afterward were lost in the
crowds and confusion of its narrow streets.

THE

GOLDEN LION INN,
AT ROUEN.

THE

GOLDEN LION INN.

Monsieur Vinot. Je veux absolument un Lion d'Or; parce
qu'on dit, Ou allez-vous 1 Au Lion d'Or ! — D'ou venez-vous 1
Du Lion d'Or !— Ou irons-nous ? Au Lion d'Or ! — Ou y a-t-il
de bon vin? Au Lion d'Or!

LA ROSE ROUGE.

THIS answer of Monsieur Vinot must have been
running in my head as the diligence stopped at
the Messagerie ; for when the porter, who took
my luggage, said, —

" Ou allez-vous, monsieur?"

I answered, without reflection (for be it said
with all the veracity of a traveller, at that time I
did not know there was a golden lion in the city),

" Au Lion d'Or."

And so to the Lion d'Or we went.

24 THE GOLDEN LION.

The hostess of the Golden Lion received me
with a courtesy and a smile, rang the house-bell
for a servant, and told him to take the gentle
man's things to number thirty-five. I followed
him up stairs. One — two — three — four — five —
six — seven ! Seven stories high — by Our Lady !
— I counted them every one ; and when I went
down to remonstrate, I counted them again ; so
that there was no possibility of a mistake. When
I asked for a lower room, the hostess told me the
house was full ; and when I spoke of going to
another hotel, she said she should be so very sorry,
so desolee, to have monsieur leave her, that I
marched up again to number thirty-five.

After finding all the fault I could with the
chamber, I ended, as is generally the case with
most men on such occasions, by being very well
pleased with it. The only thing I could possibly
complain of was my being lodged in the seventh
story, and in the immediate neighbourhood of a
gentleman who was learning to play the French
horn. But to remunerate me for these disadvan
tages, my window looked down into a market
place, and gave me a distant view of the towers
of the cathedral, and the ruins of the church and
abbey of St. Ouen.

When I had fully prepared myself for a ramble

THE GOLDEN LION. 25

through the city, it was already sundown; and
after the heat and dust of the day, the freshness of
the long evening twilight was delightful. When
I enter a new city, I cannot rest till I have satis
fied the first cravings of curiosity by rambling
through its streets. Nor can I endure a cicerone,
with his eternal " This way, sir." I never desire
to be led directly to an object worthy of a travel
ler's notice, but prefer a thousand times to find my
own way, and come upon it by surprise. This was
particularly the case at Rouen. It was the first
European city of importance that I visited. There
was an air of antiquity about the whole city that
breathed of the Middle Ages ; and so strong and
delightful was the impression that it made upon
my youthful imagination, that nothing which I
afterward saw could either equal or efface it. I
have since passed through that city, but I did not
stop. I was unwilling to destroy an impression
which, even at this distant day, is as fresh upon
my mind as if it were of yesterday.

With these delightful feelings I rambled on from
street to street, till at length, after threading a
narrow alley, I unexpectedly came out in front of
the magnificent cathedral. If it had suddenly risen
from the earth, the effect could not have been more
powerful and instantaneous. It completely over-

VOL. I. C

26 THE GOLDEN LION.

whelmed my imagination ; and I stood for a long
time motionless, and gazing entranced upon the
stupendous edifice. I had before seen no speci
men of Gothic architecture, save the remains of a
little church at Havre, and the massive towers be
fore me — the lofty windows of stained glass — the
low portal, with its receding arches and rude sta
tues — all produced upon my untravelled mind an
impression of awful sublimity. When I entered
the church, the impression was still more deep and
solemn. It was the hour of vespers. The re
ligious twilight of the place — the lamps that burned
on the distant altar — the kneeling crowd — the
tinkling bell — and the chant of the evening service
that rolled along the vaulted roof in broken and
repeated echoes — filled me with new and intense
emotions. When I gazed on the stupendous
architecture of the church — the huge columns that
the eye followed up till they were lost in the
gathering dusk of the arches above — the long and
shadowy aisles — the statues of saints and martyrs
that stood in every recess — the figures of armed
knights upon the tombs — the uncertain light that
stole through the painted windows of each little
chapel — and the form of the cowled and solitary
monk, kneeling at the shrine of his favourite saint,
or passing between the lofty columns of the church

THE GOLDEN LION. 27

— all I had read of, but had not seen — I was trans
ported back to the Dark Ages, and felt as I shall
never feel again.

On the following day I visited the remains of
an old palace, built by Edward the Third, now
occupied as the Palais de Justice, and the ruins
of the church and monastery of Saint Antoine.
I saw the hole in the tower where the ponderous
bell of the abbey fell through ; and took a peep at
the curious illuminated manuscript of Daniel d'Au-
bonne in the public library. The remainder of
the morning was spent in visiting the ruins of the
ancient Abbey of St. Ouen, which is now trans
formed into the Hotel de Ville^and in strolling
through its beautiful gardens, dreaming of the
present and the past, and given up to " a melan
choly of my own."

At the Table d'Hote of the Golden Lion, I fell
into conversation with an elderly gentleman, who
proved to be a great antiquarian, and thoroughly
read in all the forgotten lore of the city. As our
tastes were somewhat similar, we were soon upon
very friendly terms ; and after dinner we strolled
out to visit some remarkable localities, and took
the gloria together in the Chevalier Bayard.

When we returned to the Golden Lion, he
entertained me with many curious stories of the

28 THE GOLDEN LION.

spots we had been visiting. Among others, he
related the following singular adventure of a monk
of the Abbey of St. Antoine, which amused me so
much that I cannot refrain from presenting it to
my readers. I will not, however, vouch for the
truth of the story ; for that the antiquarian himself
would not do. He said he found it in an ancient
manuscript of the Middle Ages, in the archives of
the public library ; and I give it as it was told me,
without note or comment.

MARTIN FRANC

THE MONK OF SAINT ANTHONY.

[The outlines of the following tale were taken from a Norman
Fabliau of the thirteenth century, entitled Le Segretain Maine.
To judge by the numerous imitations of this story which still
exist in old Norman poetry, it seems to have been a prodigious
favourite in its day, and to have passed through as many hands
as did the body of Friar Gui. It probably had its origin in
" The Story of the Little Hunchback," a tale of the Arabian
Nights ; and in modern times has been imitated in the poetic tale
of " The Knight and the Friar," by George Colman. Unfortu
nately, I was not aware of this circumstance till after the first
publication of the following pages.]

I

MARTIN FRANC

THE MONK OF SAINT ANTHONY.

Seignor, oiez une merveille,
C'onques n'oistes sa pareille,
Que je vos vueil dire et center ;
Or metez cuer a 1'escouter.

Fabliau du Bouchier d? Abbeville.

Lystyn Lordyngs to my taler

And ye shall here of one story,
Is better than any wyne or ale,

That ever was made in this cuntry.

Ancient Metrical Romance.

IN times of old, there lived in the city of Rouen
a tradesman named Martin Franc, who, by a
series of misfortunes, had been reduced from opu
lence to poverty. But poverty, which generally
makes men humble and laborious, only served to
make him proud ami lazy ; and in proportion as
he grew poorer and poorer, lie grew also prouder

32 MARTIN JFRANC AND

and lazier. He contrived, however, to live along
from day to day, by now and then pawning a
silken robe of his wife, or selling a silver spoon, or
some other trifle saved from the wreck of his
better fortune ; and passed his time pleasantly
enough in loitering about the market-place, and
walking up and down on the sunny side of the
street.

The fair Marguerite, his w7ife, was celebrated
through the whole city for her beauty, her wit, and
her virtue. She was a brunette, with the blackest
eye, the whitest teeth, and the ripest nut-brown
cheek in all Normandy; her figure was tall and
stately, her hands and feet most delicately moulded,
and her swimming gait like the motion of a swan.
In happier days she had been the delight of the
richest tradesmen in the city, and the envy of the
fairest dames ; and when she became poor, her
fame was not a little increased by her cruelty to
several substantial b urghers, who, without con
sulting their wives, had generously offered to stand
between her husband and bankruptcy, and do all
in their power to raise a worthy and respectable
family.

The friends of Martin Franc, like the friends of
many a ruined man before and&ince, deserted him
in the day of adversity. Of all that had eaten his

THE MONK OF ST. ANTHONY. 38

dinners, and drunk his wine, and philandered with
his wife, none sought the narrow alley and humble
dwelling of the broken tradesman save one, and
that one was Friar Gui, the sacristan of the Abbey
of Saint Anthony. He was a little, jolly, red-faced
friar, with a leer in his eye, and rather a naughty
reputation for a man of his cloth ; but as he was a
kind of travelling gazette, and always brought the
latest news and gossip of the city, and besides
was the only person that condescended to visit
the house of Martin Franc, — in fine, for the want
of a better, he was considered in the light of a
friend.

In these constant assiduities, Friar Gui had his
secret motives, of which the single heart of Martin
Franc was entirely unsuspicious. The keener eye
of his wife, however, soon discovered two faces
under the hood. She observed that the friar
generally timed his visits so as to be at the house
when Martin Franc was not at home — that he
seemed to prefer the edge of the evening — and
that, as his visits became more frequent, he always
had some little apology ready, such as " being
obliged to pass that way, he could not go by the
door without just dropping in to see how the good
man Martin did." Occasionally, too, he ventured
to bring her some ghostly present — such as a pic-

34 MARTIN FRANC AND

ture of the Madonna and child, or one of those
little naked images which are hawked about the
streets at the nativity. Though the object of all
this was but too obvious, yet the fair Marguerite
persevered in misconstruing the friar's intentions,
and in dexterously turning aside any expressions
of gallantry that fell from his venerable lips. In
this way Friar Gui was for a long time kept, at
bay ; and Martin Franc preserved in the day of
poverty and distress that consolation of all this
world's afflictions — a friend. But, finally, things
came to such a pass that the honest tradesman
opened his eyes, and wondered he had been asleep
so long. Whereupon he was irreverent enough
to tweak the nose of Friar Gui, and then to thrust
him into the street by the shoulders.

Meanwhile the times grew worse and worse.
One family relic followed another, — the last silken
robe was pawned, — the last silver spoon sold ;
until at length poor Martin Franc was forced to
" drag the devil by the tail ;" in other words, beg
gary stared him full in the face. But the fair Mar
guerite did not even then despair. In those days
a belief in the immediate guardianship of the saints
was much more strong and prevalent than in these,
lewd and degenerate times : and as there seemed
no great probability of improving their condition

THE MONK OF ST. ANTHONY. 35

by any lucky change which could be brought about
by mere human agency, she determined to try
what could be done by intercession with the patron
saint of her husband. Accordingly she repaired
one evening to the Abbey of St. Anthony, to place
a votive candle and offer her prayer at the altar,
which stood in the little chapel dedicated to St.
Martin. - m

It was already sundown when she reached the
church, and the evening service of the Virgin had
commenced. A cloud of incense floated before the
altar of the Madonna, and the organ rolled its deep
melody along the dim arches of the church. Mar
guerite mingled with the kneeling crowd, and re
peated the responses in Latin, with as much devo
tion as the most learned clerk of the convent.
When the service was over, she repaired to the
chap£Kof St. Martin, and lighting her votive taper
at the silver lamp, which burned before his altar,
knelt down in a retired part of the chapel, and,
with tears in her eyes, besought the saint for aid
and protection. While she was thus engaged, the
church became gradually deserted, till she was
left, as she thought, alone. But in this she was
mistaken ; for when she arose to depart, the portly
figure of Friar Gui was standing close at her
elbow !

36 MARTIN FRANC AND

" A fair good evening to my lady Marguerite,"
said he, significantly. " St. Martin has heard your
prayer, and sent me to relieve your poverty."

" Then, by the Virgin !" replied she, " the good
saint is not very fastidious in the choice of his
messengers."

" Nay, good wife," answered the friar, not at
all abashed by this ungracious reply; "if the
tidings are good, what matters it who the mes
senger may be? And how does Martin Franc
these days ?"

" He is well, Sir Gui," replied Marguerite ; " and
were he present, I doubt not would thank you
heartily for the interest you still take in him and
his poor wife."

" He has done me wrong," continued the friar,
without seeming to notice the pointedness of Mar
guerite's reply. " But it is our duty to forgive our
enemies ; and so let the past be forgotten. I know
that he is in want. Here, take this to him, and tell
him I am still his friend."

So saying, he drew a small purse from the sleeve
of his habit, and proffered it to his companion. I
know not whether it were a suggestion of St.
Martin, but true it is, that the fair lady of Martin
Franc seemed to lend a more willing ear to the

THE MONK OF ST. ANTHONY. 37

earnest whispers of the friar. At length she
said, —

" Put up your purse ; to-day I can neither de
liver your gift nor your message. Martin Franc
has gone from home."

" Then keep it for yourself."

" Nay, Sir Monk," replied Marguerite, casting
down her eyes ; " I can take no bribes here in
the church, and in the very chapel of my husband's
patron saint. You shall bring it to me at my
house, an you will, Sir Gui."

The friar put up the purse, and the conversation
which followed was in a low and indistinct under
tone, audible only to the ears for which it was in
tended. At length the interview ceased ; and — 0
woman ! the last words that the virtuous Mar
guerite uttered, as she glided from the church
were — ,

" To/night ; — when the abbey-clock strikes
twelve ! — remember !"

It would be useless to relate how impatiently
the friar counted the hours and the quarters as
they chimed from the ancient tower of the abbey,
while he paced to and fro along the gloomy
cloister. At length the appointed hour approached ;
and just before the convent-bell sent forth its sum
mons to call the friars of St. Anthony to their mid-

VOL. I. — D

38 MARTIN FRANC AND

night devotions, a figure, with a cowl, stole out of
a postern gate, and passing silently along the de
serted streets, soon turned into the little alley
which led to the dwelling of Martin Franc. It
was none other than Friar Gui. He rapped softly
at the tradesman's door, and casting a look up and
down the street, as if to assure himself that his
motions were unobserved, slipped into the house.

"Has Martin Franc returned?" inquired he in
a whisper.

" No," answered the sweet voice of his wife ;
" he will not be back to-night."

" Then all good angels befriend us !" continued
the monk, endeavouring to take her hand.

" Not so, Sir Monk," said she, disengaging her
self. " You forget the conditions of our meet-
ing."

The friar paused a moment ; and then drawing
a heavy leathern purse from his girdle, he threw
it upon the table : at the same moment a footstep
was heard behind him, and a heavy blow from a
club threw him prostrate upon the floor. It came
from the strong arm of Martin Franc himself!

It is hardly necessary to say that his absence
was feigned. His wife had invented the story to
decoy the lewd monk, and thereby to keep her
husband from beggary, and to relieve herself, once

THE MONK OF ST. ANTHONY. ' 39

for all, from the importunities of a false friend.
At first Martin Franc would not listen to the
proposition ; but at length he yielded to the urgent
entreaties of his wife ; and the plan finally agreed
upon was, that Friar Gui, after leaving his purse
behind him, should be sent back to the convent
with a severer discipline than his shoulders had
ever received from any penitence of his own.

The affair, however, took a more serious turn
than was intended ; for when they tried to raise
the friar from the ground, — he was dead. The
blow aimed at his shoulders fell upon his shaven
crown ; and in the excitement of the moment
Martin Franc had dealt a heavier stroke than he
intended. Amid the grief and consternation
which followed this discovery, the quick imagina
tion of his wife suggested an expedient of safety.
A bunch of keys at the friar's girdle caught her
eye. Hastily unfastening the ring, she gave the
keys to her husband, exclaiming, —

" For the holy Virgin's sake, be quick ! One
of these keys unlocks the postern gate of the con
vent-garden. Carry the body thither, and leave it
among the trees !"

Martin Franc threw the dead body of the monk
across his shoulders, and with a heavy heart took
the way tPthe abbey. It was a clear starry night ;

40 MARTIN FRANC AND

and though the moon had not yet risen, her light
was in the sky, and came reflected down in a soft
twilight upon earth. Not a sound was heard
through all the long and solitary streets, save at
intervals the distant crowing of a cock, or the
melancholy hoot of an owl from the lofty tower of
the abbey. The silence weighed like an accusing
spirit upon the guilty conscience of Martin Franc.
He started at the sound of his own breathing, as
he panted under the heavy burden of the monk's
body ; and if, perchance, a bat flitted near him on
drowsy wings, he paused, and his heart beat audi
bly with terror: such cowards does conscience
make of even the most courageous. At length he
reached the garden-wall of the abbey, — opened
the postern gate with the key, and bearing the
monk into the garden, seated him upon a stone-
bench by the edge of the fountain, with his head
resting against a column, upon which was sculp
tured an image of the Madonna. He then re
placed the bunch of keys at the monk's girdle, and
returned home with hasty steps.

When the prior of the convent, to whom the
repeated delinquencies of Friar GUI were but too
well known, observed that he was again absent
from his post at midnight prayers, he waxed ex
ceedingly angry ; and no sooner weref^the duties

THE MONK OP ST. ANTHONY. 41

of the chapel finished, than he sent a~ monk in pur
suit of the truant sacristan, summoning him to
appear immediately at his cell. By chance it hap
pened that the monk chosen for this duty was a
bitter enemy of Friar Gui ; and very shrewdly
supposing that the sacristan had stolen out of the
garden gate on some midnight adventure, he took
that direction in pursuit. The moon was just
climbing the convent wall, and threw its silvery
light through the trees of the garden, and on the
sparkling waters of the fountain, that fell with a
soft lulling sound into the deep basin below. As
the monkpassed on his way, he stopped to quench
his thirst with a draught of the cool water, and
was turning to depart, when his eye caught the
motionless form of the sacristan, sitting erect in
the shadow of the stone column.

" How is this, Friar Gui ?" quoth the monk. " Is
this a place to be sleeping at midnight, when the
brotherhood are all in their dormitories ?"

Friar Gui made no answer.

" Up, up ! thou eternal sleeper, and do penance
for thy negligence. The prior calls for thee at his
cell !" continued the monk, growing angry, and
shaking the sacristan by the shoulder.

But still no answer.

D2

42 MARTIN FRANC AND

" Then, by Saint Anthony I'll wake thee ! So,
so ! Sir Gui !"

And saying this, he dealt the sacristan a heavy
box on the ear. The body bent slowly forward
from its erect position, and giving a headlong
plunge, sank with a heavy splash into the basin of
the fountain. The monk waited a few moments
in expectation of seeing Friar Gui rise dripping
from his cold bath ; but he waited in vain ; for he
lay motionless at the bottom of the basin — his eyes
open, and his ghastly face distorted by the rip
ples of the water. With a beating heart the monk
stooped down, and grasping the skirt of the sa
cristan's habit, at length succeeded in drawing him
from the water. All efforts, however, to resusci
tate him were unavailing. The monk was filled
with terror, not doubting that the friar had died
untimely by his hand ; and as the animosity be
tween them was no secret in the convent, he feared
that, when the deed was known, he should be
accused of wilful murder. He therefore looked
round for an expedient to relieve himself of the
dead body ; and the well-known character of the
sacristan soon suggested one. He determined to
carry the body to the house of the most noted
beauty of Rouen, and leave it on the door-step ;
so that all suspicion of the murder might fall upon

THE MONK OF ST. ANTHONY. 43

the shoulders of some jealous husband. The
beauty of Martin Franc's wife had penetrated
even the thick walls of the convent, and there was
not a friar in the whole Abbey of Saint Anthony
who had not done penance for his truant imagina
tion. Accordingly, the dead body of Friar Gui
was laid upon the monk's brawny shoulders, —
carried back to the house of Martin Franc, and
placed in an erect position against the door. The
monk knocked loud and long ; and then gliding
through a by-lane, stole back to the convent.

A troubled conscience would not suffer Martin
Franc apd^ his wife to close their eyes ; but they
lay awake lamenting the doleful events of the
night. The knock at the door sounded like a
death-knell in their ears. It still continued at
intervals, rap — rap — rap ! — with a dull low sound,
as if something heavy were swinging against
the panel ; for the wind had risen during the
night, and every angry gust that swept down the
alley swung the arms of the lifeless sacristan
against the door. At length Martin Franc mus
tered courage enough to dress himself and go
down, while his wife followed him with a lamp in
her hand ; but no sooner had he lifted the latch,
than the ponderous body of Friar Gui fell stark
and heavy into his arms.

44 MARTIN FRANC AND

"Jesu Maria !" exclaimed Marguerite, crossing
herself; " here is the monk again !"

" Yes, and dripping wet, as if he had just been
dragged out of the river !"

" O, we are betrayed — betrayed !" exclaimed
Marguerite, in agony.

" Then the devil himself has betrayed us," re
plied Martin Franc, disengaging himself from the
embrace of the sacristan ; " for I met not a living
being ; the whole city was as silent as the grave."

" Holy Saint Martin defend us !'' continued his
terrified wife. " Here, take this scapulary to
guard you from the evil one : and lose no time.
You must throw the body into the river, or we
are lost ! Holy Virgin ! How bright the moon
shines !"

Saying this, she threw round his neck a scapu
lary, with the figure of a cross on one end, and an
image of the Virgin on the other ; and Martin
Franc again took the dead friar upon his shoulders,
and with fearful misgivings departed on his dismal
errand. He kept as much as possible in the
shadow of the houses, and had nearly reached the
quay, when suddenly he thought he heard foot
steps behind him. He stopped to listen; it was
no mistake : they came along the pavement, tramp
— tramp ! and every step grew louder and nearer.

THE MONK OF ST. ANTHONY. 45

Martin Franc tried to quicken his pace, — but in
vain ; his knees smote together, and he staggered
against the wall. His hand relaxed its grasp, and
the monk slid from his back and stood ghastly and
straight beside him, supported by chance against
the shoulder of his bearer. At that moment a
man came round the corner, tottering beneath the
weight of a huge sack. As his head was bent
downwards, he did not perceive Martin Franc till
he was close upon him ; and when, on looking up,
he saw two figures standing motionless in the
shadow of the wall, he thought himself waylaid,
and, without waiting to be assaulted, dropped the
sack from his shoulders, and ran off at full speed.
The sack fell heavily on the pavement, and directly
at the feet of Martin Franc. In the fall the string
was broken ; and out came the bloody head — not
of a dead monk, as it first seemed to the excited
imagination of Martin Franc, but of a dead hog !
When the terror and surprise caused by this sin
gular event had a little subsided, an idea came into
the rnind of Martin Franc, very similar to what
would have come into the mind of almost any
person in similar circumstances. He took the hog
out of the sack, and putting the body of the monk
into its place, secured it well with the remnants of

46

MARTIN FRANC AND

the broken string, and then hurried homeward
with the hog upon his shoulders.

He was hardly out of sight when the man of
the sack returned, accompanied by two others^
They were surprised to find the sack still lying on
the ground, with no one near it, and began to jeer
the former bearer, telling him he had been fright
ened at his own shadow on the wall. Then one
of them took the sack upon his shoulders, without
the least suspicion of the change that had been
made in its contents, and all three disappeared.

Now it happened that the city of Rouen was at
that time infested by three street robbers, who
walked in darkness like the pestilence, and always
carried the plunder of their midnight marauding
to the Tete-de-Boeuf, a little tavern in one of the
darkest and narrowest lanes of the city. The
host of the Tete-de-Bosuf was privy to all their
schemes, and had an equal share in the profits of
their nightly excursions. He gave a helping hand,
too, by the length of his bills, and by plundering
the pockets of any chance traveller that was luck
less enough to sleep under his roof.

On the night of the disastrous adventure of
Friar Gui, this little marauding party had been
prowling about the city until a late hour, without
finding any thing to reward their labours. At

THE MONK OF ST. ANTHONY. 47

length, however, they chanced to spy a hog, hang
ing under a shed in a butcher's yard, in readiness
for the next day's market ; and as they were not
very fastidious in selecting their plunder, but on
the contrary rather addicted to taking whatever
they could lay their hands on, the hog was straight
way purloined, thrust into a large sack, and sent
to the Tete-de-Bosuf on the shoulders of one of
the party, while the other two continued their noc
turnal excursion. It was this person who had
been so terrified at the appearance of Martin
Franc and the dead monk ; and as this encounter
had interrupted any further operations of the party
— the dawn of day being now near at hand — they
all repaired to their gloomy den in the Tete-de-
Bceuf. The host was impatiently waiting their
return ; and, asking what plunder they had brought
with them, proceeded without delay to remove it
from the sack. The first thing that presented
itself, on untying the string, was the monk's hood.

" The devil take the devil !" cried the host, as
he opened the neck of the sack ; " what's this ?
Your hog has caught a cowl !"

" The poor devil has become disgusted with the
world, and turned monk !" said he who held the
light, a little surprised at seeing the head covered
with a coarse gray cloth.

48 MARTIN FRANC AND

" Sure enough he has," exclaimed another, start
ing back in dismay, as the shaven crown and
ghastly face of the friar appeared. "Holy St.
Benedict be with us ! It is a monk stark dead !"

" A dead monk, indeed !" said a third, with an
incredulous shake of the head ; " how could a
dead monk get into this sack ? No, no : there is
some diablerie in this. I have heard it said that
Satan can take any shape he pleases ; and you
may rely upon it this is Satan himself, who has
taken the shape of a monk to get us all hanged."

" Then we had better kill the devil than have
the devil kill us !" replied the host, crossing him
self; "and the sooner we do it the better; for it
is now daylight, and the people will soon be pass
ing in the street."

" So say I," rejoined the man of magic ; " and
my advice is, to take him to the butcher's yard,
and hang him up in the place where we found the
hog."

This proposition so pleased the others, that it
was executed without delay. They carried the
friar to the butcher's house, and passing a strong
cord round his neck, suspended him to a beam
in the shade, and there left him.

When the night was at length past, and day
light began to peep into the eastern windows of the

THE MONK OF ST. ANTHONY. 49

city, the butcher arose, and prepared himself for
market. He was casting up in his mind what the
hog would bring at his stall, when, looking up
ward — lo ! in its place he recognised the dead body
of Friar Gui.

"By St. Dennis !" quoth the butcher, "I always
feared that this friar would not die quietly in his
cell ; but 1 never thought I should find him hang
ing under my own roof. This must not be; it
will be said that I murdered him, and I shall pay
for it with my life. I must contrive some way to
get rid of him."

So saying, he called his man, and showing him
what had been done, asked him how he should dis
pose of the body, so that he might not be accused
of murder. The man, who was of a ready wit,
reflected a moment, and then answered —

" This is indeed a difficult matter ; but there is no
evil without its remedy. We will place the friar
on horseback — "

" What ! a dead man on horseback? — impossi
ble !" interrupted the butcher. «' Who ever heard
of a dead man on horseback !"

" Hear me out, and then judge. We must place
the body on horseback as well as we may, and
bind it fast with cords; and then set the horse loose
in the street, and pursue after him, crying out that

VOL. I. E

50 MARTIN FRANC AND

the monk has stolen the horse. Thus all who meet
him will strike him with their staves as he passes,
and it will be thought that he came to his death in
that way."

Though this seemed to the butcher rather a mad
project, yet, as no better one offered itself at the
moment, and there was no time for reflection, mad
as the project was they determined to put it into
execution. Accordingly the butcher's horse was
brought out, and tjie friar was bound upon his back,
and with much difficulty fixed in an upright posi
tion. The butcher then gave the horse a blow
upon the crupper with his staff, which set him
into a smart gallop down the street, and he and
his man joined in pursuit, crying —

" Stop thief! Stop thief! The friar has stolen
my horse !"

As it was now sunrise, the streets were full of
people, — peasants driving their goods to market,
and citizens going to their daily avocations. When
they saw the friar dashing at full speed down the
street, they joined in the cry of " Stop thief! — Stop
that horse !" and many who endeavoured to seize
the bridle, as the friar passed them at full speed,
were thrown upon the pavement, and trampled
under foot : others joined in the halloo ! and the
pursuit; but this only served to quicken the gallop

THE MONK OF ST. ANTHONY. 51

of the frightened steed, who dashed down one
street and up another like the wind, with two or
three mounted citizens clattering in full cry at his
heels. At length they reached the "market-place.
The people scattered right and left in dismay ; and
the steed and rider dashed onward, overthrowing
in their course men and women, and stalls, and
piles of merchandise, and sweeping away like a
whirlwind. Tramp — tramp — tramp ! they clat
tered on ; they had distanced all pursuit. They
reached the quay ; the wide pavement was cleared
at a bound — one more wild leap — and splash ! —
both hopse and rider sank into the rapid current
of the river — swept down ^the stream — and were
seen no more !

THE

VILLAGE OF AUTEU1L.

II n'est tel plaisir
Que d'estre a gesir
Parmy les beaux champs,
L'herbeverd choisir,
Et prendre bon temps.

MARTIAL D'AuvERGua.

THE

VILLAGE OF AUTEUIL.

THE sultry heat of summer always brings with
it, to the idler and the man of leisure, a longing
for the leafy shade and the green luxuriance of the
country. It is pleasant to interchange the din
of the city, the movement of the crowd, and the
gossip of society, with the silence of the hamlet,
the quiet seclusion of the grove, and the gossip of
a woodland brook. As is sung in the old ballad
of Robin Hood, —

In somer when the shawes be sheyn,

And leves be large and long,
Hit is full mery in feyre foreste,

To here the foulys song.
To se the dere draw to the dale

And leve the hilles hee,
And shadow hem in the leves grene,

Vnder the grene wode tre.

56 THE VILLAGE OF AUTETJIL.

It was a feeling of this kind that prompted me,
during my residence in the north of France, to pass
one of the summer months at Auteuil — the pleas-
antest of the many little villages that lie in the im
mediate vicinity of the metropolis. It is situated
on the outskirts of the Bois de Boulogne — a wood
of some extent, in whose green alleys the dusty
cit enjoys the luxury of an evening drive, and gen
tlemen meet in the morning to give each other-
satisfaction in the usual way. A cross-road, skirted
with green hedge-rows, and overshadowed by tall
poplars, leads you from the noisy highway of St.
Cloud and Versailles to the still retirement of this
suburban hamlet. On either side the eye discovers
old chateaux amid the trees, and green parks,
whose pleasant shades recall a thousand images of
La Fontaine, Racine, and Moliere ; and on an
eminence, overlooking the windings of the Seine,
and giving a beautiful though distant view of the
domes and gardens of Paris, rises the village of
Passy, long the residence of our countrymen
Franklin and Count Rumford.

I took up my abode at a Maison de Sante; not
that I was a valetudinarian, — but because I there
found some one to whom I could whisper, "How
sweet is solitude !" Behind the house was a garden
filled with fruit-trees of various kinds, and adorned

THE VILLAGE OF AUTEUIL. 57

with gravel-walks and green arbours, furnished
with tables and rustic seats, for the repose of the
invalid and the' sleep of the indolent. Here the
inmates of the rural hospital met on common
ground, to breathe the invigorating air of morning,
and while away the lazy noon or vacant evening
with tales of the sick chamber.

The establishment was kept by Dr. Dent-de-lion,
a1 "dried up little fellow, with red hair, a sandy com
plexion, and the physiognomy and gestures of a
monkey. His character corresponded to his out
ward lineaments; for he had all a monkey's busy
and curious-impertinence. Nevertheless, such as
he was, the village ^Esculapius strutted forth the
little great man of Auteuil. The peasants looked
up to him as to an oracle, — he contrived to be at
the head of every thing, and laid claim to the
credit of all public improvements in the village :
in fine, he was a great man on a small scale.

It was within the dingy walls of this little poten
tate's imperial palace that I chose my country
residence. I had a chamber in the second story,
with a solitary window, which looked upon the
street, and gave me a peep into a neighbour's
garden. This I esteemed a great privilege ; for,
as a stranger, I desired to see all that was passing
out of doors ; and the sight of green trees, though

58 THE VILLAGE OF AUTEUIL.

growing on another man's ground, is always a
blessing. Within doors — had I been disposed to
quarrel with my household gods — I might have
taken some objection to my neighbourhood ; for,
on one side of me was a consumptive patient,
whose graveyard cough drove me from my cham
ber by day; and on the other, an English colonel,
whose incoherent ravings, in the delirium of a
high and obstinate fever, often broke my slumbers
by night: but I found ample amends for these in
conveniences in the society of those who were so
little indisposed as hardly to know what ailed them,
and those who, in health themselves, had accom
panied a friend or relative to the shades of the
country in pursuit of it. To these I am indebted
for much courtesy ; and particularly to one who,
if these pages should ever meet her eye, will not,
I hope, be unwilling to accept this slight memorial
of a former friendship.

It was, however, to the Bois de Boulogne that I
looked for my principal recreation. There I took
my solitary walk, morning and evening ; or,
mounted on a little mouse-coloured donkey, paced
demurely along the woodland pathway. I had a
favourite seat beneath the shadow of a venerable
oak, one of the few hoary patriarchs of the wood
which had survived the bivouacs of the allied

THE VILLAGE OF AUTEUIL. 59

armies. It stood upon the brink of a little glassy
pool, whose tranquil bosom was the image of a
quiet and secluded life, and stretched its parental
arms over a rustic bench, that had been constructed
beneath it for the accommodation of the foot- trav
eller, or, perchance, some idle dreamer like my
self. It seemed to look round with a lordly air
upon its old hereditary domain, whose stillness
was no longer broken by the tap of the martial
drum, nor the discordant clang of arms ; and, as
the breeze whispered among its branches, it seemed
to be holding friendly colloquies with a few of its
venerable contemporaries, who stooped from the
opposite bank of the pool, nodding gravely now
and then, and ogling themselves with a sigh in the
mirror below.

In this quiet haunt of rural repose I used to sit
at noon, hear the birds sing, and " possess myself
in much quietness." Just at my feet lay the little
silver pool, with the sky and the woods painted in
its mimic vault, and occasionally the image of a
bird, or the soft watery outline of a cloud, floating
silently through its sunny hollows. The water-
lily spread its broad green leaves on the surface,
and rocked to sleep a little world of insect life in
its golden cradle. Sometimes a wandering leaf
came floating and wavering downward, and settled

60 THE VILLAGE OF AUTEtTIL.

on the water ; then a vagabond insect would
break the smooth surface into a thousand ripples,
or a green-coated frog slide from the bank, and
plump! dive headlong to the bottom.

I entered, too, with some enthusiasm, into all
the rural sports and merrimakes of the village.
The holydays were so many little eras of mirth
and good feeling ; for the French have that happy
and sunshine temperament — that merry-go-mad
character — which makes all their social meetings
scenes of enjoyment ^and hilarity. I made it a
point never to miss any of the Fetes Champetres,
or rural dances, at the wood of Boulogne ; though
I confess it sometimes gave me a momentary un
easiness to see my rustic throne beneath the oak
usurped by a noisy group of girls, the silence and
decorum of my imaginary realm broken by music
and laughter, and, in a word, my whole kingdom
turned topsyturvy, with romping, fiddling, and
dancing. But I am naturally, and from principle,
too, a lover of all those innocent amusements
which cheer the labourers' toil, and, as it were, put
their shoulders to the wheel of life, and help the
poor man along with his load of cares. Hence I
saw with no small delight the rustic swain astride
the wooden horse of the carrousel, and the village
maiden whirling round and round in its dizzy car ;

THE VILLAGE OF ATJTEUIL. 61

or took my stand on a rising ground that over
looked the dance, an idle spectator in a busy
throng. It was just where the village touched the
outward border of the wood. There a little area
had been levelled beneath the trees, surrounded
by a painted rail, with a row of benches inside.
The music was placed in a slight balcony, built
around the trunk of a large tree in the centre, and
the lamps, hanging from the branches above, gave
a gay, fantastic, and fairy look to the scene. How
often in such moments did I recall the lines of
Goldsmith, describing those " kinder skies," be
neath which " France displays her bright domain,"
and feel how true and masterly the sketch, —

Alike all ages ; dames of ancient days
Have led their children through the mirthful maze,
And the gay grandsire, skilled in gestic lore,
Has frisked beneath the burden of threescore.

Nor must I forget to mention the Fete Patron-
al6i — a kind of annual fair, which is held at mid
summer in honour of the patron saint of Auteuil.
Then the principal street of the village is filled
with booths of every description ; strolling players,
and rope-dancers, and jugglers, and giants, and
dwarfs, and wild beasts, and all kinds of wonderful
shows, excite the gaping curiosity of the throng ;

VOL. I. F

62 THE VILLAGE OP AUTEUIL.

and in dust, crowds, and confusion, the village
rivals the capital itself. Then the goodly dames ,
of Passy descend into the village of Auteuil ; then
the brewers of Billancourt and the tanners of
Sevres dance lustily under the greenwood tree ;
and then, too, the sturdy fishmongers of Bretigny
and Saint- Yon regale their fat wives with an airing
in a swing, and their customers with eels and craw
fish ; or, as is more poetically set forth in an old
Christmas carol, —

Vous eussiez vu venir tous ceux de Saint- Yon,
Et ceux de Bretigny apportant du poisson,
Les barbeaux et gardens, anguilles et carpettes
Etoient a bon marche"

Croyez,
A cette journee-Ia,

La, la,
Et aussi les perchettee.

I found another source of amusement in observ
ing the various personages that daily passed and
repassed beneath my window. The character
which most of all arrested my attention was a
poor blind fiddler, whom I first saw chanting a
doleful ballad at the door of a small tavern, near
the gate of the village. He wore a brown coat
out at elbows, the fragment of a velvet waistcoat,
and a pair of tight nankeens, so short as hardly to

THE VILLAGE OF AUTEUIL. 63

reach below his calves. A little foraging cap, that
had long since seen its best days, set off an open,
good-humoured countenance, bronzed by sun and
wind. He was led about by a brisk middle-aged
woman, in straw hat and wooden shoes ; and a
little bare-footed boy, with clear blue eyes, and
flaxen hair, held a tattered hat in his hand, in which
he collected eleemosynary sous. The old fellow
had a favourite song, which he used to sing with
great glee to a merry, joyous air, the burden of
which ran "chantons I1 amour et le plaisir!" — let
us sing of love and pleasure. I often thought it
would have been a good lesson for the crabbed
and discontented rich man to have heard this rem
nant of humanity, — poor, blind, and in rags, and
dependent upon casual charity for his daily bread,
singing, in so cheerful a voice, the charms of exist
ence, and, as it were, fiddling life away to a merry
tune.

I was one morning called to my window by the
sound of rustic music. I looked out, and beheld
a procession of villagers advancing along the road,
attired in gay dresses,, and marching merrily on
in the direction of the church. I soon perceived
that it was a marriage festival. The procession
was led by a long orang-outang of a man, in a

64 THE VILLAGE OF AUTEUIL.

straw hat and .white dimity bob-coat, playing on
an asthmatic clarionet, from which he contrived
to blow unearthly sounds, ever and anon squeak
ing off at right angles from his tune, and winding
up with a grand flourish on the guttural notes.
Behind him, led by his little boy, came the blind
fiddler, his honest features glowing with all the
hilarity of a rustic bridal, and, as he stumbled along,
sawing away upon his fiddle till he made all crack
again. Then came the happy bridegroom, dressed
in his Sunday suit of blue, with a large nosegay
in his button-hole, and close beside him his blush
ing bride, with downcast eyes, clad in a white
robe and slippers, and wearing a wreath of white
roses in her hair. The friends and relatives
brought up the procession ; and a troop of village
urchins came shouting along in the rear, scram
bling among themselves for the largess of sous and
sugar-plums that now and then issued in large
handfuls from the pockets of a lean man in black,
who seemed to officiate as master of ceremonies
on the occasion. I gazed on the procession till it
was out of sight; and when the last wheeze of the
clarionet died upon my ear, I could not help think
ing how happy were they who were thus to dwell
together in the peaceful bosom of their native vil-

THE VILLAGE OF AUTEUIL. 65

lage, far from the gilded misery and the pestilential
vices of the town.

On the evening of the same day, I was sitting by
the window, enjoying the freshness of the air and
the beauty and stillness of the hour, when I heard
the distant and solemn hymn of the Catholic burial-
service, at first so faint and indistinct that it
seemed an illusion. It rose mournfully on the
hush of evening — died gradually away — then
ceased. Then it rose again, nearer and more dis
tinct, and soon after a funeral procession appeared,
and passed directly beneath my window. It was
led by a priest, bearing the banner of the church,
and followed by two boys, holding long flambeaux
in their hands. Next came a double file of priests
in white surplices, with a missal in one hand and a
lighted wax taper in the other, chanting the funeral
dirge at intervals, — now pausing, and then again
taking up the mournful burden of their lamenta
tion, accompanied by others, who played upon a
rude kind of horn, with a dismal and wailing sound.
Then followed various symbols of the church, and
the bier borne on the shoulders of four men. The
coffin was covered with a black velvet pall, and a
chaplet of white flowers lay upon it, indicating that
the deceased was unmarried. A few of the vil
lagers came behind, clad in mourning robes, and

66 THE VILLAGE OF AUTEUIL.

bearing lighted tapers. The procession passed
slowly along the same street that in the morning
had been thronged by the gay bridal company. A
melancholy train of thought forced itself home
upon my mind. The joys and sorrows of this
world are so strikingly mingled ! Our mirth and
grief are brought so mournfully in contact ! We
laugh while others weep, — and others rejoice when
we are sad ! The light heart and the heavy walk
side by side, and go about together ! Beneath the
same roof are spread the wedding feast and the
funeral pall ! The bridal song mingles with the
burial hymn ! One goes to the marriage bed,
another to the grave ; and all is mutable, uncer
tain, and transitory.

It is with sensations of pure delight that I recur
to the brief period of my existence which was
passed in the peaceful shades of Auteuil. There
is one kind of wisdom which we learn from the
world, and another kind which can be acquired in
solitude only. In cities we study those around us ;
but in the retirement of the country we learn to
know ourselves. The voice within us is more
distinctly audible in the stillness of the place ; and
the gentler affections of our nature spring up more
freshly in its tranquillity and sunshine,— nurtured

THE VILLAGE OF AUTEUIL. 67

by the healthy principle which we inhale with the
pure air, and invigorated by the genial influences
which descend into the heart from the quiet of the
sylvan solitude around, and the soft serenity of
the sky above.

JACQUELINE.

JACQUELINE.

Death lies on her, like an untimely frost
Upon the sweetest flower of all the field.

SHAKSPEARB.

" DEAR mother, is it not the bell I hear ?"

" Yes, my child ; the bell for morning prayers.
It is Sunday to-day."

" I had forgotten it. But now all days are alike
to me. Hark ! it sounds again — louder — louder.
Open the window, for I love the sound. There ;
the sunshine and the fresh morning air revive me.
And the church-bell — oh, mother — it reminds me
of the holy Sabbath mornings by the Loire — so
calm, so hushed, so beautiful ! Now give me my
prayer-book, and draw the curtain back that I may
see the green trees and the church spire. I feel
better to-day, dear mother."

It was a bright, cloudless morning in August.
The dew still glistened on the trees ; and a slight

72 JACQUELINE.

breeze wafted to the sick chamber of Jacqueline
the song of the birds, the rustle of the leaves, and
the solemn chime of the church-bells. She had
been raised up in bed, and reclining upon the
pillow, was gazing wistfully upon the quiet scene
without. Her mother gave her the prayer-book,
and then turned away to hide a tear that^ stole
down her cheek.

At length the bells ceased. Jacqueline crossed
herself, kissed a pearl crucifix that hung around
her neck, and opened the silver clasps of her missal.
For a time she seemed wholly absorbed in her
devotions. Her lips moved, but no sound was
audible. At intervals the solemn voice of the
priest was heard at a distance, and then the con
fused responses of the congregation, dying away
in inarticulate murmurs. Ere long the thrilling
chant of the Catholic service broke upon the ear.
At first it was low, solemn, and indistinct ; then
it became more earnest and entreating, as if inter
ceding, and imploring pardon for sin ; and then
arose louder and louder, full, harmonious, majes-.
tic, as it wafted the song of praise to heaven, and
suddenly ceased. Then the sweet tones of the
organ were heard, — trembling, thrilling, and rising
higher and higher, and filling the whole air with
their rich melodious music. What exquisite ac-

JACQUELINE. 73

cords ! — what noble harmonies ! — what touching
pathos ! The soul of the sick girl seemed to
kindle into more ardent devotion, and to be rapt
away to heaven in the full harmonious chorus, as
it swelled onward, Doubling and redoubling, and
rolling upward in a full burst of rapturous devo
tion ! Then all was hushed again. Once more
the low sound of the bell smote the air, and an
nounced the elevation of the host. The invalid
seemed entranced in prayer. Her book had fallen
beside her, — her hands were clasped, — her eyes
closed, — her soul retired within its secret cham
bers. Then a more triumphant peal of bells
arose. The tears gushed from her closed and
swollen lids ; her cheek was flushed ; she opened
her dark eyes, and fixed them with an expression
of deep adoration and penitence upon an image of
the Saviour on the cross, which hung at the foot
of her bed, and her lips again moved in prayer.
Her countenance expressed the deepest resigna
tion. She seemed to ask only that she might die
in peace, and go to the bosom of her Redeemer.

The mother was kneeling by the window, with
her face concealed in the folds of the curtain. She
arose, and going to the bedside of her child, threw
her arms around her and burst into tears.

" My dear mother, I shall not live long ; I feel

VOL. I. G

74 JACQUELINE.

it here. This piercing pain — at times it seizes me,
and I cannot — cannot breathe."

" My child, you will be better soon."
" Yes, mother, I shall be better soon. All tears,
and pain, and sorrow will be jover. The hymn of
adoration and entreaty I have just heard, I shall
never hear again on earth. Next Sabbath, mother,
kneel again by that window as to-day. I shall
not be here, upon this bed of pain and sickness ;
but when you hear the solemn hymn of worship,
and the beseeching tones that wing the spirit up
to God, think, mother, that I am there, — with my
sweet sister who has gone before us, — kneeling at
our Saviour's feet, and happy — oh, how happy!"

The afflicted mother made no reply, — her heart
was too full to speak.

" You remember, mother, how calmly Amie
died. Poor child, she was so young and beautiful !
I always pray that I may die as she did. I do not
fear death as I did before she was taken from us.
But oh — this pain — this cruel pain — it seems to
draw my mind back from heaven. When it
leaves me I shall die in peace."

" My poor child ! God's holy will be done !"
The invalid soon sank into a quiet slumber. The
excitement was over, and exhausted nature sought
relief in sleep.

JACQUELINE.

The persons between whom this scene passed
were a widow and her sick daughter, from the
neighbourhood of Tours. They had left the banks
of the Loire to consult the more experienced phy
sicians of the metropolis, and had been directed to
the Maison de Sante at Auteuil for the benefit of
the pure air. But all in vain. The health of the
suffering but uncomplaining patient grew worse
and worse, and it soon became evident that the
closing scene was drawing near.

Of this Jacqueline herself seemed conscious ;
and towards evening she expressed a wish to re
ceive the last sacraments of the church. A priest
was sent for ; and ere long the tinkling of a little
bell in the street announced his approach. He
bore in his hand a silver vase containing the con
secrated wafer, and a small vessel filled with the
holy oil of the extreme unction hung from his neck.
Before him walked a boy carrying a little bell,
whose sound announced the passing of these sym
bols of the Catholic faith. In the rear, a few of
the villagers, bearing lighted wax tapers, formed
a short and melancholy procession. They soon
entered the sick chamber, and the glimmer of the
tapers mingled with the red light of the setting
sun, that shot -his farewell rays through the open
windows The vessel of oil, and the vase contain-

JACQUELINE.

ing the consecrated wafer, were placed upon the
table in front of a crucifix that hung upon the wall,
and all present, excepting the priest, threw them
selves upon their knees. The priest then ap
proached the bed of the dying girl, and said, in a
slow and solemn tone, —

" The King of kings and Lord of lords has
passed thy threshold. Is thy spirit ready to re
ceive him ?"

" It is, father."

" Hast thou confessed thy sins ?"

" Holy father, no."

"Confess thyself, then, that thy sins may be for
given, and thy name recorded in the book of life."

And turning to the kneeling crowd around, he
waved his hand for them to retire, and was left
alone with the sick girl. He seated himself beside
her pillow, and the subdued whisper of the con
fession mingled with the murmur of the evening
air, which lifted the heavy folds of the curtains,
and stole in upon the holy scene. Poor Jacque
line had few sins to confess, — a secret thought or
two towards the pleasures and delights of the
world, — a wish to live, unuttered,but which to the
eye of her self-accusing spirit seemed to resist the
wise providence of God ; — no more. The confes
sion of a meek and lowly heart is soon made,

JACQUELINE. 77

The door was again opened ; the attendants
entered, and knelt around the bed, and the priest
proceeded, —

" And now prepare thyself to receive with con
trite heart the body of our blessed Lord and Re
deemer. Dost thou believe that our Lord Jesus
Christ was conceived by the Holy Spirit, and born
of the Virgin Mary ?"

" I believe."

And all present joined in the solemn response —

« I believe."

" Dost thou believe that the Father is God, that
the son is God, and that the Holy Spirit is God, —
three persons and one God ?"

" I believe."

" Dost thou believe that the Son is seated on the
right-hand of the Majesty on high, whence he shall
come to judge the quick and the dead?"

" I believe."

" Dost thou believe that by the holy sacraments
of the church thy sins are forgiven thee, and that
thus thou art made worthy of eternal life ?"

" I believe."

" Dost thou pardon, with all thy heart, all who
have offended thee in thought, word, or deed 1"

" I pardon them."

«' And dost thou ask pardon of God and thy

78 JACQUELINE*

neighbour for all offences thou hast committed
against them, either in thought, word, or deed ?"

"I do!"

" Then repeat after me ; O Lord Jesus, I am not
worthy, nor do I merit, that thy divine Majesty
should enter this poor tenement of clay; but ac
cording to thy holy promises be my sins forgiven,
and my soul washed white from all transgres
sion."

Then taking a consecrated wafer from the vase,
he placed it between the lips of the dying girl, and
while the assistant sounded the little silver bell,
said, —

" Corpus Domini nostri Jesu Christi custodial
animam tuam in vitam eternam"

And the kneeling crowd smote their breasts and
responded in one solemn voice, —

" Amen !"

The priest then took from the silver box on the
table a little golden rod, and dipping it in holy oil,
anointed the invalid upon the hands, feet, and
breast, in the form of the cross. When these cere
monies were completed, the priest and his attend
ants retired, leaving the mother alone with her
dying child, who, from the exhaustion caused by
the preceding scene, sank into a death-like sleep.

JACQUELINE. 7#

' Between two worlds life hovered like a star,
'Twixt night and morn upon the horizon's verge.'

The long twilight of the summer evening stole
on ; the shadows deepened without, and the night-
lamp glimmered feebly in the sick chamber ; but
still she slept. She was lying with her hands
clasped upon her breast, — her pallid cheek resting
upon the pillow, and her bloodless lips apart, but
motionless and silent as the sleep of death. Not a
breath interrupted the silence of her slumber.
Not a movement of the heavy and sunken eyelid—
not a trembling of the lip — not a shadow on the
marble brow told when the spirit took its flight,
It passed to a better world than this.

' There's a perpetual spring, — perpetual youth ;
No joint-benumbing cold, nor scorching heat,.
Famine nor age have any being there,'

THE

SEXAGENARIAN,

A SKETCH OF CHARACTER.

THE

SEXAGENARIAN.

Do you set down your name in the scroll of youth, that are
written down old, with all the characters of age 1 Have you not
a moist eye 7 a dry hand ? a yellow cheek 1 a white beard ? a
decreasing leg?

SHAKSPEARE.

THERE he goes— in his long russet surtout —
sweeping down yonder gravel-walk beneath the
trees, like a yellow leaf in autumn, wafted along
by a fitful gust of wind. Now he pauses ; — now
seems to be whirled round in an eddy, — and now
rustles and brushes onward again. He is talking
to himself in anunder-toneasusual, — and flourishes
a pinch of snuff between his fore-finger and his
thumb, — ever and anon drumming on the cover of
his box by way of emphasis, with a sound like the
tap of a woodpecker. He always takes a morning

84 THE SEXAGENARIAN.

walk in the garden, — in fact, I may say he passes
a greater part of the day there, either strolling up
and down the gravel-walks, or sitting on a rustic
bench in one of the leafy arbours. He always
wears that same dress, too ; at least, I have never
seen him in any other; — a bell-crowned hat — a
frilled bosom, and white dimity vest, soiled with
snuff — light nankeen smalls, — and, over all, that
long and flowing surtout of russet-brown Circas
sian, hanging in wrinkles round his slender body,
and toying with his thin rakish legs. Such is his
constant garb, morning and evening ; and it gives
him a cool and breezy look, even in the heat of a
noonday in August.

The personage sketched in the preceding para
graph is Monsieur d'Argentville, a sexagenarian,
with whom I became acquainted during my resi
dence at the Maison de Sante of Auteuil. I found
him there, and left him there. Nobody knew when
he came — he had been there from time imme
morial, — nor when he was going away — for he
himself did not know, — nor what ailed him — for
though he was always complaining, yet he grew
neither better nor worse— never consulted the phy
sician, and ate voraciously three times a day. At.
table he was rather peevish, troubled his neigh
bours with his elbows, and uttered the monosyl-

THE SEXAGENARIAN. 85

IMepish! rather oftener than good-breeding and
a due deference to the opinions of others seemed
to justify. As soon as he seated himself at table,
he breathed into his tumbler, and wiped it out with
a napkin ; then wiped his plate, his spoon, his knife
and fork in succession, and each with great care.
After this he placed the napkin undertis chin, by
way of bib and tucker ; and these preparations
being completed, gave full swing to an appetite
which was not inappropriately denominated, by
one of our guests, unefaim canine.

The old gentleman's weak side was an affecta
tion of youth and gallantry. Though " written
down old, with all the characters of age," yet at
times he seemed to think himself in the heyday
of life ; and the assiduous court he paid to a fair
countess, who was passing the summer at the
Maison de Sante, was the source of no little mer
riment to all but himself. He loved, too, to recall
the golden age of his amours ; and-would discourse
with prolix eloquence, and a faint twinkle in his
watery eye, of his bonnes fortunes in times of old,
and the rigours that many a fair dame had suffered
on his account. Indeed, his chief pride seemed to
be, to make his hearers believe that he had been a
dangerous man in his youth, and was not yet quite
safe.

VOL. I. H

86 THE SEXAGENARIAN.

As I also was a peripatetic of the garden, we
encountered each other at every turn. At first
our conversation was limited to the usual saluta
tions of the day ; but ere long our casual acquaint
ance ripened into a kind of intimacy. Step by
step I won my way, — first into his society, — then
into his snuff-box, — and then into his heart. He
was a great talker, and he found in me what he
found in no other inmate of the house — a good
listener, who never interrupted his long stories,
nor contradicted his opinions. So he talked down
one alley and up another, — from breakfast till
dinner — from dinner till midnight — at all times
and in all places, when he could catch me by the
button, till at last he had confided to my ear all the
important and unimportant events of a life of sixty
years.

Monsieur d'Argentville was a shoot from a
wealthy family of Nantes. Just before the Revo
lution he went up to Paris to study law at the
University ; and, like many other wealthy scholars
of his age, was soon involved in the intrigues and
dissipation of the metropolis. He first established
himself in the Rue de 1'Universite ; but a roguish
pair of eyes, at an opposite window, soon drove
from the field such heavy tacticians as Hugues
Doneau and Gui Coquille. A flirtation was com-

THE SEXAGENARIAN. 87

menced in due form ; and a flag of truce, offering
to capitulate, was sent in the shape of a billet-
doux. In the mean time he regularly amused his
leisure hours by blowing kisses across the street
with an old pair of bellows. One afternoon, as
he was occupied in this way, a tall gentleman with
whiskers stepped into the room, just as he had
charged the bellows to the muzzle. He muttered
something about an explanation — his sister — mar
riage — and the satisfaction of a gentleman ! Per
haps there is no situation in life so awkward to a
man of real sensibility as that of being awed into
matrimony or a duel by the whiskers of a tall
brother. There was but one alternative ; and the
next morning a placard at the window of the
Bachelor of Love, with the words "Furnished
Apartment to let," showed that the former occu
pant had found it convenient to change lodgings.

He next appeared in the Chaussee-d'Antin, where
he assiduously prepared himself for future exigen
cies by a course of daily lessons in the use of the
small-sword. He soon after quarrelled with his
best friend, about a little actress on the Boulevard,
and had the satisfaction of being jilted, and then
run through the body at the Bois de Boulogne,
This gave him new eclat in the fashionable world,
and consequently he pursued pleasure with a

88 THE SEXAGENARIAN.

keener relish than ever. He next had the grande
passion, and narrowly escaped marrying an heir
ess of great expectations, and a countless number
of chateaux. Just before the catastrophe, how
ever, he had the good fortune to discover that the
lady's expectations were limited to his own pocket,
and that as for her chateaux, they were all Char-
teaux en Espagne.

About this time his father died ; and the hopeful
son was hardly well established in his inheritance,
when the Revolution broke out. Unfortunately,
he was a firm upholder of the divine right of kings,
and had the honour of being among the first of the
proscribed. He narrowly escaped the guillotine
by jumping on board a vessel bound for America,
and arrived at Boston with only a few francs in his
pocket ; but as he knew how to accommodate him
self to circumstances, he continued to live along
by teaching fencing and French, and keeping a
dancing-school and a milliner.

At the restoration of the Bourbons he returned
to France ; and from that time to the day of our
acquaintance had been engaged in a series of vexa
tious lawsuits, in the hope of recovering a portion
of his property, which had been intrusted to a
friend for safe keeping, at the commencement of
the Revolution. His friend, however, denied all

THE SEXAGENARIAN. 89

knowledge of the transaction, and the assignment
was very difficult to prove. Twelve years of un
successful litigation had completely soured the old
gentleman's temper, and made him peevish and
misanthropic ; and he had come to Auteliil merely
to escape the noise of the city, and to brace his
shattered nerves with pure air and quiet amuse
ments. There he idled the time away, sauntering
about the garden of the Maison de Santt, talking
to himself, when he could get no other listener, and
occasionally reinforcing his misanthropy with a
dose of the Maxims of La Rochefoucauld, or a
visit to the scene of his duel in the Bois de Bologne.
Poor Monsieur d'Argentville ! What a miser
able life he led, — or rather dragged on from day
to day ! A petulant, broken-down old man, who
had outlived his fortune, and his friends, and his
hopes, — yea) every thing but the sting of bad
passions and the recollection of a life ill-spent !
Whether he still walks the earth, or slumbers in
its bosom, I know not ; but a lively recollection of
him will always mingle with my reminiscences of
Auteuil.

H 2

PE RE LA C HAISE,

FERE LA CHAISE.

Our fathers find their graves in our short memories, and sadly
tell us how we may be buried in our survivors.

Oblivion is not to be hired. The greater part must be content
to be as though they had not been, to be found in the register of
God, not in the record of man.

SIR THOMAS BROWN'S Urn Burial.

THE cemetery of Pere la Chaise is the West
minster Abbey of Paris. Both are the dwellings
of the dead ; but in one they repose in green alleys
and beneath the open sky, in the other their rest
ing-place is in the shadowy aisle, and beneath the
dim arches of an ancient abbey. One is a temple
of nature ; the other a temple of art. In one, the
soft melancholy of the scene is rendered still more
touching by the warble of birds and the shade of
trees, and the grave receives the gentle visit of the

94 PERE LA CHAISE.

sunshine and the shower : in the other, no sound
but the passing foot-fall breaks the silence of the
place ; the twilight steals in through high and
dusky windows ; and the damps of the gloomy
vault lie heavy on the heart, and leave their stain
upon the mouldering tracery of the tomb.

Pere la Chaise stands just beyond the Barritre
cPAulney, on a hill-side, looking towards the city.
Numerous gravel-walks, winding through shady
avenues and between marble monuments, lead up
from the principal entrance to a chapel on the
summit. There is hardly a grave that has not its
little enclosure planted with shrubbery; and a thick
mass of foliage half conceals each funeral stone.
The sighing of the wind, as the branches rise and
fall upon it, — the occasional note of a bird among
the trees, and the shifting of light and shade upon
the tombs beneath, have a soothing effect upon the
mind ; and I doubt whether any one can enter that
enclosure, where repose the dust and ashes of so
many great and good men, without feeling the
religion of the place steal over him, and seeing
something of the dark and gloomy expression pass
off from the stern countenance of death.

It was near the close of a bright summer after
noon, that I visited this celebrated spot for the first
time. The first object that arrested my attention

PERE LA CHAISE. 95

on entering was a monument in the form of a
small Gothic chapel, which stands near the en
trance, in the avenue leading to the right-hand.
On the marble couch within are stretched two
figures carved in stone, and dressed in the antique
garb of the Middle Ages. It is the tomb of Abe-
lard and Heloi'se. The history of these unfortunate
lovers is too well known to need recapitulation ;
but perhaps it is not so well known how often their
ashes were disturbed in the slumber of the grave.
Abelard died in the monastery of Saint Marcel,
and was buried in the vaults of the church. His
body was afterward removed to the convent of
the Paraclet, at the request of Heloi'se, and at her
death her body was deposited in the same tomb.
Three centuries they reposed together ; after
which they wrere separated to different sides of the
church, to calm the delicate scruples of the lady-
abbess of the convent. More than a century
afterward, they were again united in the same
tomb ; and when at length the Paraclet was de
stroyed, their mouldering remains were transported
to the church of Nogent-sur-Seine. They were
next deposited in an ancient cloister at Paris ; and
now repose near the gateway of the cemetery of
Pere la Chaise. What a singular destiny was
theirs ! that after a life of such passionate and dis-

96 PERE LA CHAISE.

astrous love — such sorrows, and tears, and peni
tence — their very dust should not be suffered to
rest quietly in the grave ! — that their death should
so much resemble their life in its changes and vicis
situdes — its partings and its meetings — its inqui
etudes and its persecutions ! — that mistaken zeal
should follow them down to the very tomb, — as if
earthly passion could glimmer, like a funeral lamp,
amid the damps of the charnel-house, and " even
in their ashes burn their wonted fires !"

As I gazed on the sculptured forms before me,
and the little chapel, whose Gothic roof seemed to
protect their marble sleep, my busy memory swung
back the dark portals of the past, and the picture
of their sad and eventful lives came up before me
in the gloomy distance. What a lesson for those
who are endowed with the fatal gift of genius !
It would seem, indeed, that He who " tempers the
wind to the shorn lamb," tempers also his chastise
ments to the errors and infirmities of a weak and
simple mind, — while the transgressions of him
upon whose nature are more strongly marked the
intellectual attributes of the Deity are followed,
even upon earth, by severer tokens of the Divine
displeasure. He who sins in the darkness of a
benighted intellect sees not so clearly through the
shadows that surround him the countenance of an

PERE LA CHAISE. 97

offended God ; but he who sins in the broad noon
day of a clear and radiant mind, when at length
the delirium of sensual passion has subsided, and
the cloud flits away from before the sun, trembles
beneath the searching eye of that accusing power,
which is strong in the strength of a godlike intel
lect. Thus the mind and the heart are closely
linked together, and the errors of genius bear with
them their own chastisement, even upon earth.
The history of Abelard and Heloi'se is an illustra
tion of this truth. But at length they sleep well.
Their -lives are like a tale that is told ; their errors
are " folded up like a book ;" and what mortal
hand shall break the seal that death has set upon
them!

Leaving this interesting tomb behind me, I took
a pathway to the left, which conducted me up the
hill-side. I soon found myself in the deep shade
of heavy foliage, where the branches of the yew
and willow mingled, interwoven with the tendrils
and blossoms of the honeysuckle. I now stood in
the most populous part of this city of tombs.
Every step awakened a new train of thrilling
recollections ; for at every step my eye caught
the name of some one whose glory had exalted
the character of his native land, and resounded
across the waters of the Atlantic. Philosophers,

VOL. I. — I

PERE LA CHAISE.

historians, musicians, warriors, and poets slept side
by side around me ; some beneath the gorgeous
monument, and some beneath the simple head
stone. There were the graves of Fourcroi and
Haiiy ; of Ginguene and Volney ; of Gretry and
Mehul ; of Ney, and Foy, and Massena ; of La
Fontaine, and Moliere, and Chenier, and Delille,
and Parny. But the political intrigue, the dream
of science, the historical research, the ravishing
harmony of sound, the tried courage, the inspira
tion of the lyre, — where are they ? With the liv
ing, and not with the dead ! The right hand has
lost its cunning in the grave ; but the soul, whose
high volitions it obeyed, still lives to reproduce
itself in ages yet to come.

Among these graves of genius I observed here
and there a splendid monument, which had- been
raised by the pride of family over the dust of men
who could lay no claim either to the gratitude or
remembrance of posterity. Their presence seemed
like an intrusion into the sanctuary of genius.
What had wealth to do there ! Why should it
crowd the dust of the great! That was no
thoroughfare of business,— no mart of gain!
There were no costly banquets there ; no silken
garments, nor gaudy liveries, nor obsequious at
tendants ! " What servants," says Jeremy Taylor,

PERE LA CHAISE. 99

"shall we have to wait upon us in the grave?
What friends to visit us ? What officious people
to cleanse away the moist and unwholesome cloud
reflected upon our faces from the sides of the
weeping vaults, which are the longest weepers for
our funerals ?" Material wealth gives a factitious
superiority to the living, but the treasures of intel
lect give a real superiority to the dead ; and the
rich man, who would not deign to walk the street
with the starving and penniless man of genius,
deems it an honour, when death has redeemed the
fame of the neglected, to have his own ashes laid
beside him, and to claim with him the silent com
panionship of the grave.

I continued my walk through the numerous
winding paths, as chance or curiosity directed me.
Now I was lost in a little green hollow, overhung
with thick-leaved shrubbery, and then came out
upon an elevation, from which, through an opening
in the trees, the eye caught glimpses of the city,
and the little esplanade, at the foot of the hill,
where the poor lie buried. There poverty hires
its grave, and takes but a short lease of the narrow
house. At the end of a few months, or at most of
a few years, the tenant is dislodged to give place
to another, and he in turn to a third. " Who,"
says Sir Thomas Browne, " knows the fate of his

100 PERE LA CHAISE.

bones, or how often he is to be buried ? who hath
the oracle of his ashes, or whither they are to be
scattered ?"

Yet, even in that neglected corner, the hand of
affection had been busy in decorating the hired
house. Most of the graves were surrounded with
a slight wooden paling, to secure them from the
passing footstep : there was hardly one so de
serted as not to be marked with its little wooden
cross, and decorated with a garland of flowers ;
and here and there I could perceive a solitary
mourner, clothed in black, stooping to plant a
shrub on the grave, or sitting in motionless sorrow
beside it.

As I passed on, amid the shadowy avenues of the
cemetery, I could not help comparing my own im
pressions with those which others have felt when
walking alone among the dwellings of the dead.
Are then the sculptured urn and storied monu
ment nothing more than symbols of family pride ?
Is all I see around me a memorial of the living
more than of the dead ? — an empty show of
sorrow, which thus . vaunts itself in mournful
pageant and funeral parade ? Is it indeed true, as
some have said, that the simple wild-flower, which
springs spontaneously upon the grave, and the
rose, which the hand of affection plants there, are

PERE LA CHAISE. 101

fitter objects wherewith to adorn the narrow house ?
No ! I feel that it is not so ! Let the good and
the great be honoured even in the grave. Let the
sculptured marble direct our footsteps to the scene
of their long sleep ; let the chiselled epitaph repeat
their names, and tell us where repose the nobly
good and wise ! It is not true that all are equal
in the grave. There is no equality even there.
The mere handful of dust and ashes — the mere
distinction of prince and beggar — of a rich wind
ing-sheet and a shroudless burial — of a solitary
grave and a family vault — were this all — then, in
deed, it would be true that death is a common
leveller. Such paltry distinctions as those of
wealth and poverty are soon levelled by the spade
and mattock ; the damp breath of the grave blots
them out for ever. But there are other distinc
tions which even the mace of death cannot level
or obliterate. Can it break down the distinction
of virtue and vice ? Can it confound the good
with the bad ? the noble with the base ? all that is
truly great, and pure, and godlike, with all that is
scorned, and sinful, and degraded? No! Then
death is not a common -leveller ! Are all alike be
loved in death and honoured in their burial ? Is
that ground holy where the bloody hand of the
murderer sleeps from crime ? Does every grave
i 2

102 PERE LA CHAISE.

awaken the same emotions in our hearts ? and do
the footsteps of the stranger pause as long beside
each funeral-stone ? No.! Then all are not equal
in the grave ! And as long as the good and evil
deeds of men live after them, so long will there be
distinctions even in the grave. The superiority
of one over another is in the nobler and better
emotions which it excites ; in its more fervent
admonitions to virtue ; in the livelier recollection
which it awakens of the good and the great, whose
bodies are crumbling to dust beneath our feet !

If, then, there are distinctions in the grave, surely
it is not unwise to designate them by the external
marks of honour. These outward appliances and
memorials of respect, — the mournful urn — the
sculptured bust — the epitaph eloquent in praise, —
cannot indeed create these distinctions, but they
serve to mark them. It is only when pride or
wealth builds them to honour the slave of mam
mon or the slave of appetite, when the voice from
the grave rebukes the false and pompous epitaph,
and the dust and ashes of the tomb seem strug
gling to maintain the superiority of mere worldly
rank, and to carry into the grave the baubles of
earthly vanity, — it is then, and then only, that we
feel how utterly worthless are all the devices of
sculpture, and the empty pomp of monumental
brass 1

PERE LA CHAISE. 103

After rambling leisurely about for some time,
reading the inscriptions on the various monuments
which attracted my curiosity, and giving way to
the different reflections they suggested, I sat down
to rest myself on a sunken tombstone. A winding
gravel-walk, overshaded by an avenue of trees,
and lined on both sides with richly-sculptured
monuments, had gradually conducted me to the
summit of the hill, upon whose slope the cemetery
stands. Beneath me in the distance, and dim-dis
covered through the misty and smoky atmosphere
of evening, rose the countless roofs and spires of
the city. Beyond, throwing his level rays athwart
the dusky landscape, sank the broad red sun. The
distant murmur of the city rose upon my ear ;
and the toll of the evening bell came up, mingled
with the rattle of the paved street and the con
fused sounds of labour. What an hour for medi
tation ! What a contrast between the metropolis
of the living and the metropolis of the dead ! I
could not help calling to my mind that allegory of
mortality, written by a hand which has been many
a long year cold : —

Earth goeth upon earth as man upon mould,

Like as earth upon earth never go should,

Earth goeth upon earth as glistening gold,

And yet shall earth unto earth rather than he would.

104 PERE LA CHAISE*

Lo, earth on earth, consider thou may,
How earth cometh to earth naked alway,
Why shall earth upon earth go stout or gay,
Since earth out of earth shall pass in poor array.*

* I subjoin this relic of old English verse entire, and in its
antiquated language, for those of my readers who may have an
antiquarian taste. It is copied from a book whose title I have
forgotten, and of which I have but a single leaf, containing the
poem. In describing the antiquities of the church of Stratford-
upon-Avon, the writer gives the following account of a very old
painting upon the wall, and of the poem which served as its
motto. The painting is no longer visible, having been effaced in
repairing the church.

" Against the west wall of the nave, on the south side of the
arch, was painted the martyrdom of Thomas-a-Becket, while
kneeling at the altar of St. Benedict in Canterbury cathedral ;
below this was the figure of an angel, probably St. Michael, sup
porting a long scroll, upon which were seven stanzas in old Eng
lish, being an allegory of mortality : —

Erthe oute of Erthe ys wondurly wroght
Erth hath gotyn uppon erth a dygnyte of noght
Erth ypon erth hath sett all hys thowht
How erth apon erth may be hey browght

Erth upon erth wold be a kyng
But how that erth gott to erth he thyngkys nothyng
When erth byddys erth hys rentys whom bryng
Then schall erth apon erth have a hard ptyng

Erth apon erth vvynnys castellys and towrys
Then seth erth unto erth thys ys all owrys
When erth apon erth hath bylde hys bowrys
Then schall erth for erth suffur many hard schowrys

PERE LA CHAISE. 105

Before I left the graveyard the shades of even
ing had fallen, and the objects around me grown
dim and indistinct. As I passed the gateway I
turned to take a parting look. I could distinguish
only the chapel on the summit of the hill, and here
and there a lofty obelisk of snow-white marble,
rising from the black and heavy mass of foliage

Erth goth apon erth as man apon mowld

Lyke as erth apon erth never goo schold

Erth goth apon erth as gelsteryng gold

And yet schall erth unto erth rather than he wold

Why that erth loveth erth wondur me thynke
Or why that erth wold for erth other swett or swynke
When erth apon erth ys broght wt.yn the brynke
Then schall erth apon erth have a fowll stynke

Lo erth on erth consedur thow may
How erth comyth to erth nakyd all way
Why schall erth apon erth goo stowte or gay
Seth erth owt of erth schall passe yn poor aray

I counsill erth apon erth that ys wondurly wrogt
The whyl yt. erth ys apon erth to tome hys thowht
And pray to god upon erth yt. all erth wroght
That all crystyn soullys to ye. blys may be broght

" Beneath were two men, holding a scroll over a body wrapped
in a winding-sheet, and covered with some emblems of mortality,
&c,"

106 PERE LA CHAISE.

around, and pointing upward to the gleam of the
departed sun, that still lingered in the sky, and
mingled with the soft starlight of a summer
evening.

THE

VALLEY OF THE LOIRE.

THE

VALLEY OF THE LOIRE.

Je ne con§ois qu'une maniere de voyager plus agre"able que
d'aller a cheval ; c'est d'aller a pied. On part a son moment, on
s'arr^te a sa volonte, on fait tant et si peu d'exercise qu'on veut.

Quand on ne veut qu'arriver, on peut courir en chaise de poste ;
mais quand on veut voyager, il faut aller a pied.

ROUSSEAU.

IN the melancholy month of October, I made a
foot excursion along the banks of the Loire, from
Orleans to Tours. This luxuriant region is justly
called the garden of France. From Orleans to
Blois the whole valley of the Loire is one con
tinued vineyard. The bright green foliage of the
vine spreads, like the undulations of the sea, over
all the landscape, with here and there a silver flash
of the river — a sequestered hamlet — or the towers

VOL. I. — K

110 THE VALLEY OF THE LOIRE.

of an old chateau to enliven and variegate the
scene.

The vintage had already commenced. The
peasantry were busy in the fields, — the song that
cheered their labour was on the breeze, and the
heavy wagon tottered by laden with the clusters
of the vine. Every thing around me wore that
happy look which makes the heart glad. In the
morning I arose with the lark ; and at night I slept
where sunset overtook me. The healthy exercise
of foot travelling, — the pure, bracing air of autumn,
and the cheerful aspect of the whole landscape
about me, gave fresh elasticity to a mind not over
burdened with care, and made me forget, not only
the fatigue of walking, but also the consciousness
of being alone.

My first day's journey brought me at evening to
a village, whose name I have forgotten, situated
about eight leagues from Orleans. It is a small,
obscure hamlet, not mentioned in the guide-book,
and stands upon the precipitous banks of a deep
ravine, through which a noisy brook leaps down
to turn the ponderous wheel of a thatch-roofed
mill. The village inn stands upon the highway;
but the village itself is not visible to the traveller
as he passes. It is completely hidden in the lap of
a wooded valley, and so imbowered in trees that

THE VALLEY OF THE LOIRE. Ill

not a roof nor a chimney peeps out to betray its
hiding-place. It is like the nest. of a ground-swal
low, which the passing footstep almost treads upon,
and yet it is not seen. I passed by without sus
pecting that a village was near; and the little inn
had a look so uninviting that I did not even
enter it.

After proceeding a mile or two farther, I per
ceived, upon my left, a village spire rising over
the vineyards. Towards this I directed my foot
steps ; but it seemed to recede as I advanced, and
at last quite disappeared. It was evidently many
miles distant ; and as the path I followed descended
from the highway, it had gradually sunk beneath
a swell of the vine-clad landscape. I now found
myself in the midst of an extensive vineyard. It
was just sunset ; and the last golden rays lingered
on the rich and mellow scenery around me. The
peasantry were still busy at their task ; and the
occasional bark of a dog, and the distant sound of
an evening bell, gave fresh romance to the scene.
The reality of many a day-dream of childhood, —
of many a poetic revery of youth, was before me.
I stood at sunset amid the luxuriant vineyards of
France !

The first person I met was a poor old woman,

112 THE VALLEY OF THE LOIRE.

a little bowed down with age, gathering grapes
into a large basket. She was dressed like th«
poorest class of peasantry, and pursued her solitary
task alone, heedless of the cheerful gossip and the
merry laugh which came from a band of more
youthful vintagers at a short distance from her.
She was so intently engaged in her work that she
did not perceive my approach until I bade her
good evening. On hearing my voice, she looked
up from her labour, and returned the salutation :
and on my asking her if there were a tavern or a
farm-house in the neighbourhood where I could
pass the night, she showed me the pathway through
the vineyard that led to the village, and then added,
with a look of curiosity —

" You must be a stranger, sir, in these parts."
" Yes ; my home is very far from here."
"How far?"

" More than a thousand leagues."
The old woman looked incredulous.
" I came from a distant land beyond the sea."
" More than a thousand leagues !" at length re
peated she ; " and why have you come so far from
home ?"

" To travel : — to see how you live in this
country."

THE VALLEY OF THE LOIRE. 113

" Have you no relations in your own ?"

" Yes ; I have both brothers and sisters, a
father and — "

"And a mother?"

" Thank Heaven, I have."

"And did you leave her!"

Here the. old woman gave me a piercing look
of reproof; shook her head mournfully, and, with
a deep sigh, as if some painful recollection had
been awakened in her bosom, turned again to her
solitary task. I felt rebuked ; for there is some
thing almost prophetic in the admonitions of the
old. The eye of age looks meekly into my heart !
the voice of age echoes mournfully through it ! the
hoary head and palsied hand of age plead irre
sistibly for its sympathies ! I venerate old age ;
and I love not the man who can look without emo
tion upon the sundown of life, when the dusk of
evening begins to gather over the watery eye, and
the shadows of twilight grow broader and deeper
upon the understanding !

I pursued the pathway which led towards the
village, and the next person I encountered was an
old man stretched lazily beneath the vines upon a
little strip of turf, at a point where four paths met,
forming a crossway in the vineyard. He was clad
in a coarse garb of gray, with a pair of long gaiters

K2

114 THE VALLEY OF THE LOIRE.

or spatterdashes. Beside him lay a blue cloth cap,
a staff, and an old weather-beaten knapsack. I
saw at once that he was a foot traveller like my
self, and therefore without more ado entered into
conversation with him. From his language, and
the peculiar manner in which he now and then
wiped his upper lip with the back of his hand, as
if in search of the mustache which was no longer
there, I judged that he had been a soldier. In this
opinion I was not mistaken. He had served under
Napoleon, and had followed the imperial eagle
across the Alps, and the Pyrenees, and the burning
sands of Egypt. Like every meille moustache, he
spake with enthusiasm of the Little Corporal, and
cursed the English, the Germans, the Spanish, and
every other race on earth, except .the great nation
—his own.

" I like," said he, " after a long day's march, to
lie down in this way upon the grass, and enjoy the
cool of the evening. It reminds me of the bivou
acs of other days, and of old friends who are now
up there."

Here he pointed with his finger to the sky.

" They have reached the last etape before me, in
the long march. But I shall go soon. We shall
all meet again at the last roll-call. A soldier has

THE VALLEY OF THE LOIRE. 115

a heart, and can feel like other men. Sacre nom
de ! There's a tear I"

He wiped it away with his sleeve.

Here our colloquy was interrupted by the ap
proach of a group of vintagers, who were return
ing homeward from their labour. To this party I
joined myself, and invited the old soldier to do the
same ; but he shook his head.

" I thank you ; my pathway lies in a different
direction."

" But there is no other village near, and the sun
has already set."

" No matter. I am used to sleeping on the
ground. Good-night."

I left the old man to his meditations, and walked
on in company with the vintagers. Following a
well-trodden pathway through the vineyards, we
soon descended the valley's slope, and I suddenly
found myself in the bosom of one of those little
hamlets, from which the labourer rises to his toil
as the skylark to his song. My companions wished
me a good-night, as each entered his own thatch-
roofed cottage, and a little girl led me out to the
very inn which an hour or two before I Had dis
dained to enter.

When I awoke in the morning, a brilliant au
tumnal sun was shining in at my window. The

116 THE VALLEY OF THE LOIRE.

merry song of birds mingled sweetly with the
sound of rustling leaves and the gurgle of the
brook. The vintagers were going forth to their
toil ; the wine-press was busy in the shade, and
the clatter of the mill kept time to the miller's
song. I loitered about the village with a feeling
of calm delight. I was unwilling to leave the
seclusion of this sequestered hamlet ; but at length,
with reluctant step, I took the cross-road through
the vineyard, and in a moment the little village
had sunk again, as if by enchantment, into the
bosom of the earth.

I breakfasted at the town of Mer ; and leaving

' o

the high-road to Blois on the right, passed down to
the banks of the Loire, through a long broad
avenue of poplars and sycamores. I crossed the
river in a boat, and in the after part of the day I
found myself before the high and massive walls of
the chateau of Chambord. This chateau is one of
the finest specimens of the ancient Gothic castle
to be found in Europe. The little river Cosson
fills its deep and ample moat, and above it the
huge towers and heavy battlements rise in stern and
solemn grandeur, moss-grown with age, and black
ened by the storms of three centuries. Within,
all is mournful and deserted. The grass has over
grown the pavement of the courtyard, and the

THE VALLEY OF THE LOIRE. 117

rude sculpture upon the walls is broken and de
faced. From the courtyard I entered the central
tower, and ascending the principal staircase, went
out upon the battlements. I seemed to have
stepped back into the precincts of the feudal ages ;
and as I passed along through echoing corridors,
and vast deserted halls, stripped of their furniture,
and mouldering silently away, the distant past
came back upon me ; and the times when the
clang of arms, and the tramp of mail-clad men,
and the sounds of music, and revelry, and was
sail, echoed along those high-vaulted and solitary
chambers !

My third day's journey brought me to the
ancient city of Blois, the chief town of the depart
ment of Loire-et-Cher. This city is celebrated
for the purity with which even the lower classes
of its inhabitants speak their native tongue. It
rises precipitously from the northern bank of the
Loire; and many of its streets are so steep as to
be almost impassable for carriages. On the brow
of the hill, overlooking the roofs of the city, and
commanding a fine view of the Loire and its
noble bridge, and the surrounding country sprinkled
with cottages and country-seats, runs an ample
terrace, planted with trees, and laid out as a public
walk. The view from this terrace is one of the

118 THE VALLEY OF THE LOIRE.

most beautiful in France. But what most strikes the
eye of the traveller at Bloisis an old, though still un
finished, chateau. Its huge parapets of hewn stone
stand upon either side of the street; but they have
walled up the wide gateway, from which the colossal
drawbridge was to have sprung high in air, con
necting together the main towers of the chateau,
and the two hills upon whose slope its foundations
stand. The aspect of this vast pile is gloomy and
desolate. It seems as if the strong hand of the
builder had been arrested in the midst of his task
by the stronger hand of death ; and the unfinished
fabric stands a lasting monument both of the power
and weakness of man — of his vast desires — his
sanguine hopes — his ambitious purposes — and of
the unlooked-for conclusion, where all these desires,
and hopes, and purposes are so often arrested.
There is also at Blois another ancient chateau, to
which some historic interest is attached, as being
the scene of the massacre of the Duke of Guise.

On the following day I left Blois for Amboise ; and
after walking several leagues along the dusty high
way, crossed the river in a boat to the little village
of Moines, which lies amid luxuriant vineyards
upon the southern bank of the Loire. From Moines
to Amboise the road is truly delightful. The rich
lowland scenery, by the margin of the river, is ver-

THE VALLEY OF THE LOIRE. 119

dant even in October ; and occasionally the land
scape is diversified with the picturesque cottages
of the vintagers, cut in the rock along the road
side, and overhung by the thick foliage of the vines
above them.

At Amboise I took a cross-road, which led me
to the romantic borders of the Cher and the chateau
of Chernanceau. This beautiful chateau, as well
as that of Chambord, was built by the gay and mu
nificent Francis I. One is a specimen of strong
and massive architecture — a dwelling for a war
rior ; but the other is of a lighter and more grace
ful construction, and was destined for those soft
languishments of passion with which the fascinating
Diane de Poitiers had filled the bosom of that
voluptuous monarch.

The chateau of Chernanceau is built upon arches
across the river Cher, whose waters are made to
supply the deep moat at each extremity. There
is a spacious courtyard in front, from which a
drawbridge conducts to the outer hall of the cha
teau. There the armour of Francis I. still hangs
upon the wall, — his shield, and helm, and lance, — as
if the chivalrous but dissolute prince had just ex
changed them for the silken robes of the drawing-
room. From this hall a door opens into a long
gallery, extending the whole length of the building

120 THE VALLEY OF THE LOIRE.

across the Cher. The walls of the gallery are
hung with the faded portraits of the long line of the
descendants of Hugh Capet ; and the windows
looking up and down the stream command a fine
reach of pleasant river scenery. This is said to
be the only chateau in France in which the ancient
furniture of its original age is preserved. In one
part of the building, you are shown the bed-cham
ber of Diane de Poitiers, with its antique chairs
covered with faded damask and embroidery, her
bed, and a portrait of the royal favourite hanging
over the mantel-piece. In another you see the
apartment of the infamous Catherine de Medici ;
a venerable arm-chair and an autograph letter of
Henry IV. ; and in an old laboratory, among
broken crucibles, and neckless retorts, and drums,
and trumpets, and skins of wild beasts, and other
ancient lumber of various kinds, are to be seen the
bed-posts of Francis I. Doubtless the naked walls
and the vast solitary chambers of an old and deso
late chateau inspire a feeling of greater solemnity
and awe ; but when the antique furniture of the
olden time remains, — the faded tapestry on. the
walls, and the arm-chair by the fireside, — the effect
upon the mind is more magical and delightful.
The old inhabitants of the place, long gathered to
their fathers, though living still in history, seem to

THE VALLEY OF THE LOIRE. 121

have left their halls for the chase or the tourna
ment ; and as the heavy door swings upon its re
luctant hinge, one almost expects to see the gallant
princes and courtly dames enter those halls again,
and sweep in stately procession along the silent
corridors.

Rapt in such fancies as these, and gazing on
the beauties of this noble chateau, and the soft
scenery around it, I lingered, unwilling to depart,
till the rays of the setting sun, streaming through
the dusty windows, admonished me that the day
was drawing rapidly to a close. I sallied forth
from the southern gate of the chateau, — and cross
ing the broken drawbridge, pursued a pathway
along the bank of the river, still gazing back upon
those towering walls, now bathed in the rich glow
of sunset, till a turn in the road and a clump of
woodland at length shut them out from my sight.

A short time after candle-lighting, I reached the
little tavern of the Boule d'Or, a few leagues from
Tours, where I passed the night. The following
morning was lowering and sad. A veil of mist
hung over the landscape, and ever and anon a
heavy shower burst from the overburdened clouds,
that were driving by before a high and piercing
wind. This unpropitious state of the weather
detained me until noon, when a cabriolet for

VOL. I. L

122 THE VALLEY OF THE LOIRE.

Tours drove up ; and taking a seat within it, I
left the hostess of the Boule d'Or in the middle of
a long story about a rich countess, who always
alighted there when she passed that way. We
drove leisurely along through a beautiful country,
till at length we came to the brow of a steep hill,
which commands a fine view of the city of Tours
and its delightful environs. But the scene was
shrouded by the heavy drifting mist, through
which I could trace but indistinctly the graceful
sweep of the Loire, and the spires and roofs of
the city far below me.

The city of Tours and the delicious plain in
which it lies have been too often described by
other travellers, to render a new description, from
so listless a pen as mine, either necessary or desi
rable. After a sojourn of two cloudy and melan
choly days, I set out on my return to Paris, by the
way of Vendome and Chartres. I stopped a few
hours at the former place, to examine the ruins of
a chateau built by Jeanne d'Ablret, mother of
Henry the Fourth. It stands upon the summit of
a high and precipitous hill, and almost overhangs
the town beneath. The French Revolution has
completed the ruin that time had already begun ;
and nothing now remains but a broken and crum
bling bastion, and here and there a solitary tower

THE VALLEY OF THE LOIRE. 123

dropping slowly to decay. In one of these is the
grave of Jeanne d'Albret. A marble entablature
in the wall above contains the inscription, which
is nearly effaced, though enough still remains to
tell the curious traveller that there lies buried the
mother of the " Bon Henri." To this is added a
prayer that the repose of the dead may be re
spected, — a prayer which has been shamefully
disregarded.

Here ended my foot excursion. The object of
my journey was accomplished ; and, delighted with
this short ramble through the Valley of the Loire,
I took my seat in the diligence for Paris, and on
the following day was again swallowed up in the
crowds of the metropolis, like a drop in the bosom
of the sea.

THE

ANCIENT LYRIC POETRY

OF THE

NORTH OF FRANCE.

THE TROUVERES.

Quant recommence et revient biaux estez,

Que foille et flor resplendit par boschage,
Que li froiz tanz de 1'hyver est passez,
Et cil oisel chantent en lor langage,
Lors chanterai
Et envoisiez serai
De cuer verai. — JAQUES DE CHISON.

THE literature of France is peculiarly rich in
poetry of the olden time. We can trace up the
stream of song until it is lost in the deepening
shadows of the Middle Ages. Even there it is
not a shallow tinkling rill; but it comes like a
mountain stream, rushing and sounding onward
through the enchanted regions of romance, and
mingles its voice with the tramp of steeds and the
brazen sound of arms.

The glorious reign of Charlemagne,* at the

* The following amusing description of this Restorer of Let-

128 THE TROUVERES.

close of the eighth and the commencement of the
ninth century, seems to have breathed a spirit of
literature as well as of chivalry throughout all
France. The monarch established schools and
academies in different parts of his realm, and took
delight in the society and conversation of learned
men. It is amusing to see with what evident self-
satisfaction some of the magi whom he gathered
around him speak of their exertions in widening
the sphere of human knowledge, and pouring in

ters, as his biographers call him, is taken from the fabulous
Chronicle of John Turpin, chap. xx.

" The emperor was of a ruddy complexion, with brown hair ; of
a well-made, handsome form, but a stern visage. His height was
about eight of his own feet, which were very long. He was of a
strong, robust make ; his legs and thighs very stout, and his
sinews firm. His face was thirteen inches long; his beard a
palm ; his nose half a palm ; his forehead a foot over. His lion-
like eyes flashed fire like carbuncles ; his eyebrows were half a
palm over. When he was angry, it was a terror to look upon
him. He required eight spans for his girdle, besides what hung
loose. He ate sparingly of bread ; but a whole quarter of Iamb,
two fowls, a goose, or a large portion of pork; a peacock, a
crane, or a whole hare. He drank moderately of wine arid water.
He was so strong, that he could at a single blow cleave asunder
an armed soldier on horseback, from the head to the waist, and
the horse likewise. He easily vaulted over four horses harnessed
together ; and could raise an armed man from the ground to his
head, as he stood erect upon his hand."

THE TROUVERES. 129

light upon the darkness of their age. " For
some," says Alcuin, the director of the school of
St. Martin de Tours, " I cause the honey of the
Holy Scriptures to flow ; I intoxicate others with
the old wine of ancient history ; these I nourish
with the fruits of grammar, gathered by my own
hands ; and those I enlighten by pointing out to
them the stars, like lamps attached by the vaulted
ceiling of a great palace !"

Besides this classic erudition of the schools, the
age had also its popular literature. Those who
were untaught in scholastic wisdom were learned
in traditionary lore, for they had their ballads, in
which were described the valour and achievements
of the early kings of the Franks. These ballads,
of which a collection was made by order of Charle
magne, animated the rude soldier as he rushed to
battle, and were sung in the midnight bivouacs of
the camp. "Perhaps it is not too much to say,"
observes the literary historian Schlegel, " that we
have still in our possession, if not the original lan
guage and form, at least the substance, of many of
those ancient poems which were collected by the
orders of that prince ; — I refer to the Nibelungen
Lied, and the collection which goes by the name
oftheHeldenbuch."

When at length the old Tudesque language,

130

THE TROUVERES.

which was the court language of Charlemagne,
had given place to the Langue d'Oil, the northern
dialect of the French romance, these ancient bal
lads passed from the memories of the descendants
of the Franks, and were succeeded by the romances
of Charlemagne and his Twelve Peers, — of Row
land, and Olivir, and the other Paladins who died
at Roncesvalles. Robert Wace, a Norman Trou-
vere of the twelfth century, says in one of his
poems, that a minstrel named Taillefer, mounted
on a swift horse, went in front of the Norman
army at the battle of Hastings, singing these
ancient poems.

These chansons de geste, or old historic romances
of France, are epic in their character, though, with
out doubt, they were written to be chanted to the
sound of an instrument. To what period many of
them belong, in their present form, has never yet
been fully determined; and should it finally be
proved by philological research that they can
claim no higher antiquity than the twelfth or thir^
teenth century, still there can be little doubt that
in their original form many of them reached far
back into the ninth or tenth. The long prevalent
theory that the romances of the* Twelve Peers of
France all originated in the fabulous chronicle of
Charlemagne and Rowland, written by the Arch-

THE TROUVERES. 181

bishop Turpin in the twelfth century, if not as
yet generally exploded, is nevertheless fast losing
ground.

To the twelfth and thirteenth centuries also be
long most of the Fabliaux, or metrical tales of the
Trou veres. Many of these compositions are re
markable for the inventive talent they display, but
as poems they have, generally speaking, little
merit, and at times exhibit such a want of refine
ment, such open and gross obscenity, as to be highly
offensive.

It is a remarkable circumstance in the literary
history of France, that while her antiquarians and
scholars have devoted themselves to collecting and
illustrating the poetry of the Troubadours, the
early lyric poets of the south, that of the Trou-
veres, or Troubadours of the north, has been
almost entirely neglected. By a singular fatality,
too, what little time and attention have hitherto
been bestowed upon the fathers of French poetry
have been so directed as to save from oblivion little
of the most valuable portions of their writings,
while the more tedious and worthless parts have
been brought forth to the public eye, as if to deaden
curiosity, and put an end to further research. The
ancient historic romances of the land have, for the
most part, been left to slumber on unnoticed ;

132 THE TROUVERES.

while the obscene and tiresome Fabliaux have
been ushered into the world as fair specimens of
the ancient poetry of France. This has created
unjust prejudices in the minds of many against the
literature of the olden time, and has led them to
regard it as nothing more than a confused mass of
coarse and vulgar fictions, adapted to a rude and
inelegant state of society.

Of late, however, a more discerning judgment
has been brought to the difficult task of ancient re
search ; and in consequence of this the long-estab
lished prejudices against the crumbling monuments
of the national literature of France during the
middle ages is fast disappearing. Several learned
men are engaged in rescuing from oblivion the
ancient poetic romances of Charlemagne and the
Twelve Peers of France, and their labours seem
destined to throw new light, not only upon the state
of literature, but upon the state of society during
the twelfth and thirteenth centuries.

Among the voluminous remains of Troubadour
literature, little else has yet been discovered save
poems of a lyric character. The lyre of the Trou
badour seems to have responded to the impulse of
momentary feelings only, — to the touch of local
and transitory circumstances. His song was a
sudden burst of excited feeling : — it ceased when

THE TROUVERES. 133

the passion was subdued, or rather when its first
feverish excitement passed away : and as the live
liest feelings are the most transitory, the songs
which imbodied them are short, but full of spirit
and energy. On the other hand, the great mass of
the poetry of the Trouveres is of a narrative or
epic character. The genius of the north seems
always to have delighted in romantic fiction ; and
whether we attribute the origin of modern romance
to the Arabians or to the Scandinavians, this at
least is certain, that there existed marvellous tales
in the northern languages, and from these, in part
at least, the Trouveres imbibed the spirit of narra
tive poetry. There are no traces of lyric compo
sitions among their writings, till about the com
mencement of the thirteenth century ; and it seems
probable that the spirit of song- writing was imbibed
from the Troubadours of the south.

Unfortunately the neglect which has so long at
tended the old historic and heroic romances of the
north of France has also befallen in some degree
its early lyric poetry. Little has yet been done to
discover and bring forth its riches ; and doubtless
many a sweet little ballad and melancholy com
plaint lies buried in the dust of the thirteenth cen
tury. It is not however my object, in this paper,
to give an historical sketch of this ancient and

VOL. I. M

134 THE TROUVERES.

almost forgotten poetry, but simply to bring for
ward a few specimens which shall exhibit its most
striking and obvious characteristics.

In these examples it would be in vain to look for
high-wrought expression suited to the prevailing
taste of the present day. Their most striking
peculiarity, and perhaps their greatest merit, con
sists in the simple and direct expression of feeling
which they contain. This feeling, too, is one
which breathes the languor of that submissive
homage which was paid to beauty in the days of
chivalry ; and I am aware that in this age of mas
culine and matter-of-fact thinking, the love con
ceits of a more poetic state of society are gener
ally looked upon as extremely trivial and puerile.
Nevertheless I shall venture to present one or two
of these simple ballads, which, by recalling the dis
tant age wherein they were composed, may per-
ad venture please by the power of contrast.

I have just remarked that one of the greatest
beauties of these ancient ditties is naivete of
thought and simplicity of expression. These I
shall endeavour to preserve as far as possible in
the translation, though I am fully conscious how
much the sparkling beauty of an original loses in
being filtered through the idioms of a foreign lan
guage.

THE TROUVERES. 135

The favourite theme of the ancient lyric poets
of the north of France is the wayward passion of
love. They all delight to sing les douces dolors et
li mat plaisant de fine amor. With such feelings
the beauties of the opening spring are naturally
associated. Almost every love ditty of the old
poets commences with some such exordium as
this : " When the snows of winter have passed
away, when the soft and gentle spring returns, and
the flower and leaf shoot in the groves, and the
little birds warble to their mates in their own
sweet language, — then will I sing my lady-love !"

Another favourite introduction to these little
rhapsodies of romantic passion is the approach of
morning and its sweet-voiced herald the lark. The
minstrel's song to his lady-love frequently com
mences with an allusion to the hour, —

' When the rose-bud opes its een,

And the blue-bells droop and die,
And upon the leaves so green
Sparkling dew-drops lie.'

The following is at once the simplest and pret
tiest piece of this kind which I have met with
among the early lyric poets of the north of France.
It is taken from an anonymous poem, entitled
4< The Paradise of Love." A lover, having passed

J36 THE TROUVERES.

the tf live-long night in tears, as he was wont," goes
forth to beguile his sorrows with the fragrance and
beauty of morning. The carol of the vaulting sky
lark salutes his ear, and to this merry musician he
makes his complaint.

Hark! hark!

Pretty lark !

Little heedest them my pain !
But if to these longing arms
Pitying Love would yield the charms

Of the fair

With smiling air,
Blithe would beat my heart again.

Hark! hark!

Pretty lark !

Little heedest thou my pain !
Love may force me still to bear,
While he lists, consuming care,

But in anguish

Though I languish,
Faithful shall my heart remain.

Hark! hark!

Pretty lark !

Little heedest thou my pain !
Then cease, Love, to torment me so ;.
But rather than all thoughts forego

Of the fair

With flaxen hair,
Give me back her frowns again*

THE TROUVERES. 137

Hark! hark!
Pretty lark !
Little heedest thou my pain !

Besides the " woful ballad made to his mistress'
eyebrow," the early lyric poet frequently indulges
in more calmly analyzing the philosophy of love,
or in questioning the object and destination of a
sigh. Occasionally these quaint conceits are pret
tily expressed, and the little song flutters through
the page like a butterfly. The following is an
example : —

And whither goest thou, gentle sigh,

Breathed so softly in my ear?

Say, dost thou bear his fate severe
To Love's poor martyr doomed to die ?
Come, tell me quickly, — do not lie ;

What secret message bringest thou here!
And whither goest thou, gentle sigh,

Breathed so softly in my ear ]

May Heaven conduct thee to thy will,

And safely speed thee on thy way ;

This only I would humbly pray —
Pierce deep — but, oh ! forbear to kill.
And whither goest thou, gentle sigh,

Breathed so softly in my ear ?

The ancient lyric poets of France are generally
spoken of as a class, and their beauties and defects
M2

138 THE TROUVERES-.

referred to them collectively, and not individually.
In truth, there are few characteristic marks by
which any individual author can be singled out and
ranked above the rest. The lyric poets of the
thirteenth and fourteenth centuries stand upon
nearly the same level. But in the fifteenth century
there were two who surpassed all their contem
poraries in the beauty and delicacy of their senti
ments ;. and in the sweetness of their diction, and
the structure of their verse, stand far in advance
of the age in which they lived. These are Charles
d'Orleans and Clotilde de Surville.

Charles Duke of Orleans, the father of Louis
the Twelfth, and uncle of Francis the First, was
born in 1391. In the general tenour of his life,
the peculiar character of his mind, and his talent
for poetry, there is a striking resemblance between
this noble poet and James the First of Scotland,
his contemporary. Both were remarkable for
learning and refinement ; both passed a great por
tion of their lives in sorrow and imprisonment ;
and both cheered the solitude of their prison walls
with the charms of poetry. Charles d'Orleans
was taken prisoner at the battle of Agincourt in
1415, and carried into England, where he remained
twenty-five years in captivity. It was there that
he composed the greater part of his poetry. In

THE TROUVERES. 139

1440 he returned to France, where he died, in
1467.

The poems of this writer exhibit a singular
delicacy of thought and sweetness of expression.
The following little Renouveaux, or songs on the
return of spring, are full of delicacy and beauty,

Now Time throws off his cloak again
Of ermin'd frost, and wind, and rain,
And clothes him in the embroidery
Of glittering sun and clear blue sky.
With beast and bird the forest rings.
Each in his jargon cries or sings :
And Time throws off his cloak again
Of ermin'd frost, and wind, and rain.

River, and fount, and tinkling brook

Wear in their dainty livery

Drops of silver jewelry ;
In new-made suit they merry look ;

And Time throws off his cloak again

Of ermin'd frost, and wind, and rain.

The second upon the same subject presents a
still more agreeable picture of the departure of
winter and the sweet return of spring.

Gentle spring! — in sunshine clad,

Well dost thou thy power display t
For winter maketh the light heart sad,

And thou, — thou makest the sad heart gay*

140 THE TROU VERES.

He sees thee — and calls to his gloomy train
The sleet, and the snow, and the wind, and the rain ;
And they shrink away — and they flee in fear,
When thy merry step draws near.

Winter giveth the fields and the trees so old

Their beards of icicles and snow ;
And the rain, it raineth so fast and cold,

We must cower over the embers low ;
And, snugly housed from the wind and weather,
Mope like birds that are changing feather.
But the storm retires, and the sky grows clear,
. When thy merry step draws near.

Winter maketh the sun in the gloomy sky
Wrap him round in a mantle of cloud ;

But, Heaven be praised, thy step is nigh ;
Thou tearest away the mournful shroud,

And the earth looks bright — and winter surly,

Who has toiled for naught but late and early,

Is banished afar by the new-born year,

When thy merry step draws near.

The only person of that age who can dispute the
laurel with Charles cTOrleans is Clotilde de Sur-
ville. This sweet poetess was born in the Bas-
Vivarais, in the year 1405. Her style is singularly
elegant and correct ; and the reader who will take
the trouble to decipher her rude provincial orthog
raphy will find her writings full of quiet beauty.
The following sweet lines, which breathe the very

THE TROUVERES. 141

soul of maternal tenderness, are part of a little
poem to her first-born.

Sweet babe ! true portrait of thy father's face,
Sleep on the bosom that thy lips have press'd !

Sleep, little one ; and closely, gently place
Thy drowsy eyelid on thy mother's breast.

Upon that tender eye, my little friend,

Soft sleep shall come that cometh not to me !

I watch to see thee, nourish thee, defend —
'Tis sweet to watch for thee — alone for thee.

His arms fall down ; sleep sits upon his brow ;

His eye is closed ; he sleeps — how still and calm !
Wore not his cheek the apple's ruddy glow,

Would you not say he slept on death's cold arm 1

Awake, my boy ! — I tremble with affright !

Awake, and chase this fatal thought ! — unclose
Thine eye but for one moment on the light !

Even at the price of thine give me repose !

Sweet error ! — he but slept — I breathe again —
Come, gentle dreams, the hour of sleep beguile !

Oh ! when shall he for whom I sigh in vain
Beside me watch to see thy waking smile 1

But upon this theme I have written enough* —
perhaps too much.

142 THE TROUVERES.

' This may be poetry for aught I know,'

Says an old worthy friend of mine, while leaning
Over my shoulder as I write, ' although
I can't exactly comprehend itsjneaning.'

I have touched upon the subject before me in a
brief and desultory manner, and have purposely
leftmy remarks unencumbered by learned reference
and far-sought erudition ; for these are ornaments
which would ill become so trivial a pen as this
wherewith I write, though, perchance, the want of
them will render my essay unsatisfactory to the
scholar and the critic. • But I am imboldened thus
to skim with a light wing over this poetic lore of
the past, by the reflection that the greater part of
my readers belong not to that grave and serious
class who love the deep wisdom which lies in
quoting from a quaint forgotten tome, and are
ready on all occasions to say, " Commend me to
the owl."

THE

BAPTISM OF FIRE,

A LEAF FROM HISTORY.

THE

BAPTISM OF FIRE.

The more you mow us down, the thicker we rise ; the Chris
tian blood you spill is like the seed you sow, — it springs from the
earth again and fructifies the more. — TERTULLIAN.

As day was drawing to a close, and the rays of
the setting sun climbed slowly up the dungeon
wall, the prisoner sat and read in a tome with silver
clasps. He was a man in the vigour of his days,
with a pale and noble countenance, that wore less
the marks of worldly care than of high and holy
thought. His temples were already bald ; but a
thick and curling beard bespoke the strength of
manhood, and his eye, dark, full, and eloquent,
beamed with all the enthusiasm of a martyr.

The book before him was a volume of the early
Christian Fathers. He was reading the Apologetic
of the eloquent Tertullian, the oldest and ablest

VOL. I. N

146 THE BAPTISM OF FIRE.

writer of the Latin Church. At times he paused,
and raised his eyes to heaven as if in prayer, and
then read on again in silence. At length a pas
sage seemed to touch his inmost soul. He read
aloud : —

" Give us, then, what names you please : from
the instruments of cruelty you torture us by, call
us Sarmenticians and Semaxians, because you
fasten us to trunks of trees, and stick us about with
fagots to set us on fire ; yet let me tell you, when
we are thus begirt and dressed about with fire we
are then in our most illustrious apparel. These
are our victorious palms and robes of glory ; and
mounted on our funeral pile, we look upon our
selves in our triumphal chariot. No wonder, then,
such passive heroes please not those they vanquish
with such conquering sufferings. And therefore
we pass for men of despair, and violently bent
upon our own destruction. However, that which
you are pleased to call madness and despair in us
are the very actions which, under virtue's stand
ard, lift up your sons of fame and glory, and em
blazon them to future ages."

He arose and paced the dungeon to and fro,
with folded arms and a firm step. His thoughts
held communion with eternity.

" Father which art in heaven !" he exclaimed,

THE BAPTISM OF FIRE. 147

" give me strength to die like those holy men of
old, who scorned to purchase life at the expense of
truth. That truth has made me free ; and though
condemned on earth, I know that I am absolved in
heaven !"

He again seated himself at his table, and read
in that tome with silver clasps.

This solitary prisoner was Anne DuBourg: a
man who feared not man ; once a merciful judge
in that august tribunal upon whose voice hung the
life and death of those who were persecuted for
conscience' sake, he was now himself an accused
— a convicted heretic, condemned to the baptism
of fire, because he would not unrighteously con
demn others. He had dared to plead the cause
of suffering humanity before that dread tribunal,
and in the presence of the king himself to declare,
that it was an offence to the majesty of God to
shed man's blood in his name. Six weary months
—from June to December — he had lain a prisoner
in that dungeon, from which a death by fire was
soon to set him free. Such was the clemency of
Henry the Second !

As the prisoner read, his eyes were filled with
tears. He still gazed upon the printed page, but
it was a blank before his eyes. His thoughts were

148 THE BAPTISM OF FIRE.

far away amid the scenes of his childhood, amid
the green valleys of Riom and the Golden Moun
tains of Auvergne. Some simple word had called
up the vision of the past. He was a child again.
He was playing with the pebbles of the brook, —
he was shouting to the echo of the hills, — he was
praying at his mother's knee, with his little hands
clasped in hers.

This dream of childhood was broken by the
grating of bolts and bars, as the jailer opened his
prison door. A moment afterward, his former col
league De Harley stood at his side.

" Thou here !" exclaimed the prisoner, surprised
at the visit. " Thou in the dungeon of a heretic !
On what errand hast thou come ?"

" On an errand of mercy," replied De Harley.
" I come to tell thee — "

0 That the hour of my death draws near ?"

41 That thou mayst still be saved."

*•' Yes ; if I will bear false witness against my
God — barter heaven for earth — an eternity for a
few brief days of worldly existence. Lost, thou
shouldst say — lost, not saved 1"

" No ! saved !" cried De Harley with warmth ;
" saved from a death of shame and an eternity of
wo ! Renounce this false doctrine — this abomi-

THE BAPTISM OF FIRE. 149

nable heresy — and return again to the bosom of the
church which thou dost rend with strife and dis-
sention."

" God judge between thee and me, which has
embraced the truth."

" His hand already smites thee."

" It has fallen more heavily upon those who so
unjustly persecute me. Where is the king? — he
who said that with his own eyes he would behold
me perish at the stake? — he to whom the un
daunted Du Faur cried, like Elijah to Ahab, 'It is
thou who troublest Israel !' — Where is the king?
Called through a sudden and violent death to the
judgment-seat of heaven ! — Where is Minard, the
persecutor of the just ? Slain by the hand of an
assassin! It was not without reason that I said
to him, when standing before my accusers, 'Trem
ble ! believe the word of one who is about to ap
pear before God ; thou likewise shalt stand there
soon, — -thou that sheddest the blood of the children
of peace.' He has gone to his account before me,"

" And that menace has hastened thine own con
demnation. Minard was slain by the Huguenots,
and it is whispered that thou wert js^ivy to his
death."

" This at least might have been spared a dying
man !" replied the prisoner, much agitated by so

N2

150 THE BAPTISM OF FIRE.

unjust and so unexpected an accusation. "As I
hope for mercy hereafter, I am innocent of the
blood of this man, and of all knowledge of so foul
a crime. But, tell me, hast thou come here only
to imbitter my last hours with such an accusation
as this ? If so, I pray thee, leave me. My mo
ments are precious. I would be alone."

" I came to offer thee life, freedom, and happi
ness."

M Life — freedom — happiness ! At the price thou
hast set upon them, I scorn them all ! Had the
apostles and martyrs of the early Christian church
listened to such paltry bribes as these, where were
now the faith in which we trust ? These holy men
of old shall answer for me. Hear what Justin
Martyr says in his earnest appeal to Antonine the
Pious, in behalf of the Christians, who in his day
were unjustly loaded with public odium and
oppression."

He opened the volume before him and read : —

"I could wish you would take this also into
consideration, that what we say is really for your
own good ; for it is in our power at any time to
escape your torments by denying the faith, when
you question us about it : but we scorn to pur
chase life at the expense of a lie ; for our souls are
winged with a desire of a life of eternal duration

THE BAPTISM OF FIRE. 151

and purity, of an immediate conversation with
God the father and maker of all things. We are
in haste to be confessing and finishing our faith ;
being fully persuaded that we shall arrive at this
blessed state, if we approve ourselves to God by
our works, and by our obedience express our pas
sion for that divine life which is never interrupted
by any clashing evil."

The Catholic and the Huguenot reasoned long
and earnestly together ; but they reasoned in vain.
Each was firm in his belief; and they parted to
meet no more on earth.

On the following day Du Bourg was summoned
before his judges to receive his final sentence. He
heard it unmoved, and with a prayer to God that
he would pardon those who had condemned him
according to their consciences. He then addressed
his judges in an oration full of power and elo
quence. It closed with these words : —

" And now, ye judges, if, indeed, you hold the
sword of God as ministers of his wrath, to take
vengeance upon those who do evil, beware, I
charge you, beware how you condemn us. Con
sider well what evil we have done ; and before all
things, decide whether it be just that we should
listen unto you rather than unto God. Are you
so drunken with the wine-cup of the great sorceress

152 THE BAPTISM OF FIRE.

that you drink poison for nourishment ? Are you
not those who make the people sin by turning them
away from the service of God ? And if you re
gard more the opinion of men than that of Heaven,
in what esteem are you held by other nations, and
principalities, and powers, for the martyrdoms you
have caused in obedience to this blood-stained
Phalaris ? God grant, thou cruel tyrant, that by
thy miserable death thou mayst put an end to our
groans !

" Why weep ye ? What means this delay 1
Your hearts are heavy within you — your con
sciences are haunted by the judgment of God.
And thus it is that the condemned rejoice in the
fires you have kindled, and think they never live
better than in the midst of consuming flames.
Torments affright them not — insults enfeeble them
not ; their honour is redeemed by death, — he that
dies is the conqueror, a«d the conquered he that
mourns.

" No ! whatever snares are spread for us, what
ever suffering we endure, you cannot separate us
from the love of Christ. Strike, then — slay — grind
us to powder ! Those that die in the Lord shall
live again ; we shall all be raised together. Con
demn me as you will — I am a Christian ; yes, I
am a Christian, and am ready to die for the

THE BAPTISM OF FIRE. 153

glory of our Lord — for the truth of the Evange
lists.

"Quench, then, your fires! Let the wicked
abandon his way, and return unto the Lord, and
he will have compassion on him. Live — be happy
— and meditate on God, ye judges ! As for me, I
go rejoicing to my death. What wait ye for?
Lead me to the scaffold 1"

They bound the prisoner's hands, and leading
him forth from the council-chamber, placed him
upon the cart that was to bear him to the Place
de Greve. Before and behind marched a guard
of five hundred soldiers ; for Du Bourg was be
loved by the people, and a popular tumult was
apprehended. The day was overcast and sad ;
and ever and anon the sound of the tolling bell
mingled its dismal clang with the solemn notes of
the funeral march. They soon reached the place
of execution, which was already filled with a
dense and silent crowd. In the centre stood the
gallows, with a pile of fagots beneath it, and the
hangman with a burning torch in his hand. But
this funeral apparel inspired no terror in the heart
of Du Bourg. A look of triumph beamed from
his eye, and his countenance shone like that of an
angel. With his own hands he divested himself
of his outer garments, and gazing round upon

154 THE BAPTISM OF FIRE.

the breathless and sympathizing crowd, ex
claimed, —

" My friends, I come not hither as a thief or a
murderer ; but it is for the Gospel's sake !"

A cord was then fastened round his waist, and
he was drawn up into the air. At the same mo
ment the burning torch of the executioner was
applied to the fagots beneath, and the thick vol
umes of smoke concealed the martyr from the
horror-stricken crowd. One stifled groan arose
from all that vast multitude, like the moan of the
sea, and all was hushed again ; save the crackling
of the fagots, and at intervals the funeral knell,
that smote the very soul. The quivering flames
darted upward and around ; and an agonizing cry
broke from the murky cloud, —

" My God ! my God ! forsake me not, that I
forsake not thee !"

The wind lifted the reddening smoke like a veil,
and the form of the martyr was seen to fall into
the fire beneath, that glowed like a furnace seven
times heated. In a moment it rose again, its gar
ments all in flame ; and again the faint, half-smo
thered cry of agony was heard, —

" My God ! my God ! forsake me not, that I
forsake not thee !"

Once more the quivering body descended into

THE BAPTISM OF FIRE. 155

the flames ; and once more it was lifted into the
air, a blackened, burning cinder. Again and again
this fiendish mockery of baptism was repeated ;
till the martyr, with a despairing, suffocating
voice, exclaimed, —

" O God ! I cannot die !"

The chief executioner came forward, and, either
in mercy to the dying man or through fear of the
populace, threw a noose over his neck, and stran
gled the almost lifeless victim. At the same mo
ment the cord which held the body was loosened,
and it fell into the fire to rise no more. And thus
was consummated the martyrdom of the Baptism
of Fire.

COQ-A-L'ANE.

VOL. I.-

COQ-A-L'ANE.

My brain, methinks, is like an hour-glass,
Wherein my imaginations run like sands,
Filling up time ; but then are turn'd, and turn'd,
So that I know not what to stay upon,
And less to put in art.

BEN JONSOK.

A. RAINY and gloomy winter was just drawing to
its close, when I left Paris for the south of France.
We started at sunrise ; and as we passed along
the solitary streets of the vast and silent me
tropolis, drowsily one by one its clanging horologes
chimed the hour of six. Beyond the city gates the
wide landscape was covered with a silvery net
work of frost ; a wreath of vapour overhung the
windings of the Seine ; and every twig and shrub,
with its sheath of crystal, flashed in the level rays
of the rising sun. The sharp frosty air seemed to

160 COQ-A-L'ANE.

quicken the sluggish blood of the old postillion and
his horses, — a fresh team stood ready in harness at
each stage ; and notwithstanding the slippery
pavement of the causeway, the long and tedious
climbing the hill-side upward, and the equally
long and tedious descent with chained wheels and
the drag, — just after nightfall the lumbering vehicle
of Vincent Caillard stopped at the gateway of the
Three Emperors, in the famous city of Orleans.

I cannot pride myself much upon being a good
travelling-companion, for the rocking of a coach
always lulls me into forgetfulness of the present ;
and no sooner does the hollow monotonous rum
bling of the wheels reach my ear, than, like my
friend Nick Bottom, " I have an exposition of sleep
come upon me." It is not, however, the deep
sonorous slumber of a labourer, " stuffed with dis
tressful bread," but a kind of day-dream, wherein
the creations of fancy seem realities, and the real
world, which swims dizzily before the half-shut,
drowsy eye, becomes mingled with the imaginary
world within. This is doubtless a very great
failing in a traveller ; and I confess, with all
humility, that at times the line of demarcation be
tween truth and fiction is rendered thereby so in
definite and indistinct that I cannot always deter
mine, with unerring certainty, whether an event

COQ-A-L'ANE. 161

really happened to me, or whether I only
dreamed it.

On this account I shall not attempt a detailed
description of my journey from Paris to Bordeaux.
I was travelling like a bird of passage ; and five
weary days and four weary nights I was on the
way. The diligence stopped only to change
horses, and for the travellers to take their meals ;
and by night I slept with my head under my wing
in a snug corner of the coach.

Strange as it may appear to some of my readers,
this night-travelling is at times far from being dis
agreeable ; nay, if the country is flat and uninter
esting, and you are favoured with a moon, it may
be very pleasant. As the night advances the con
versation around you gradually dies away, and is
imperceptibly given up to some garrulous traveller
who finds himself belated in the midst of a long
story ; and when at length he puts out his feelers
in the form of a question, discovers, by the silence
around him, that the breathless attention of his
audience is owing to their being asleep. All is
now silent. You let down the window of the car
riage, and the fresh night-air cools your flushed
and burning cheek. The landscape, though in
reality dull and uninteresting, seems beautiful as it
floats by in the soft moonshine. Every ruined
o 2

162 COQ-A-L'ANE.

hovel is changed by the magic of night to a trim
cottage, every straggling and dilapidated hamlet
becomes as beautiful as those we read of in poetry
and romance. Over the lowland hangs a silver
mist; over the hills peep the twinkling stars.
The keen night-air is a spur to the postillion and
his horses. In the words of the old German
ballad, —

' Halloo ! halloo ! away they goy

Unheeding wet or dry,
And horse and rider snort and blow,

And sparkling pebbles fly.
And all on which the moon doth shine

Behind them flees afar,
And backward sped, scuds overhead,

The sky and every star.'

Anon you stop at the relay. The drowsy ostler
crawls out of the stable-yard ; a few gruff words
and strange oaths pass between him and the pos
tillion — then there is a coarse joke in patois, of
which you understand the ribaldry only, and which
is followed by a husky laugh, a sound between a
hiss and a growl ; — and then you are off again in
a crack. Occasionally a way-traveller is uncaged,
and a new comer takes the vacant perch at your
elbow. Meanwhile your busy fancy speculates
upon all these things, and you fall asleep amid its

GOQ-A-L'ANE. 163

thousand vagaries. Soon you wake again, and snuff
the morning air. It was but a moment, and yet the
night is gone. The gray of twilight steals into the
window, and gives a ghastly look to the counte
nances of the sleeping group around you. One sits
bolt upright in a corner, offending none, and stiff
and motionless as an Egyptian mummy ; another
sits equally straight and immoveable, but snores
like a priest ; the head of a third is dangling over
his shoulder, and the tassel of his nightcap tickles
his neighbour's ear ; a fourth has lost his hat, — his
wig is awry, and his under-lip hangs lolling about
like an idiot's. The whole scene is a living carica
ture of man, presenting human nature in some of
the grotesque attitudes she assumes, when that
pragmatical schoolmaster, propriety, has fallen
asleep in his chair, and the unruly members of his
charge are freed from the thraldom of the rod.

On leaving Orleans, instead of following the
great western mail-route through Tours, Poitiers,
and Angouleme, and thence on to Bordeaux, I
struck across the centre provinces of the Indre,
the Haute-Vienne, and the Dordogne, passing
through the provincial capitals of Chateauroux,
Limoges, and Perigueux. South of the Loire the
country assumes a more mountainous aspect, and
the landscape is broken by long sweeping hills

164 COQ-A-I/ANE.

and fertile valleys. Many a fair scene invites the
traveller's foot to pause ; and his eye roves with
delight over the picturesque landscape of the
valley of the Creuse, and the beautiful highland
scenery near Perigueux. There are also many
objects of art and antiquity which arrest his atten
tion : Argentin boasts its Roman amphitheatre,
and the ruins of an old castle built by King Pepin ;
at Chalus the tower beneath which Richard Coeur-
de-Lion was slain is still pointed out to the curious
traveller; and Perigueux is full of crumbling monu
ments of the Middle Ages.

Scenes like these, and the constant chatter of
my fellow-travellers, served to enliven the tedium
of a long and fatiguing journey. The French are
pre-eminently a talking people ; and every new
object afforded a topic for light and animated dis
cussion. The affairs of church and state were,
however, the themes oftenest touched upon. The
bill for the suppression of the liberty of the press
was then under discussion in the Chamber of
Peers, and excited the most lively interest through
the whole kingdom. Of course it was a subject
not likely to be forgotten in the stage-coach.

" Ah ! mon Dieu !" said a brisk little man, with
snow-white hair and a blazing red face, at the
same time drawing up his shoulders to a level

COQ-A-LANE.

with his ears ; " the ministry are determined to
carry their point at all events. They mean to
break down the liberty of the press, cost what it
will."

" If they succeed," added the person who sat
opposite, " we may thank the Jesuits for it. It is
all their work. They rule the mind of our imbe
cile monarch, and it is their miserable policy to
keep the people in darkness."

" No doubt of that," rejoined the first speaker.
" Why, no longer ago than yesterday I read in the
Figaro that a printer had been prosecuted for pub
lishing the moral lessons of the Evangelists without
the miracles."

" Is it possible !" said I. " And are the people
so stupid as thus patiently to offer their shoulders
to the pack-saddle ?"

" Most certainly not ! We shall have another
revolution."

" If history speaks true, you have had revolu
tions enough during the last century or two, to
satisfy the most mercurial nation on earth. You
have hardly been quiet a moment since the day of
the Barricades and the memorable war of the
pots-de-chambre in the times of the Grand Conde."

" You are pleased to speak lightly of our revo
lutions, sir," rejoined the politician, growing warm.

166 COQ-A-L'ANE.

" You must, however, confess that each successive
one has brought us nearer to our object. Old
institutions, whose foundations lie deep in the pre
judices of a great nation, are not to be toppled
down by the springing of a single mine. You
must confess, too, that our national character is
much improved since the days you speak of. The
youth of the present century are not so frivolous
as those of the last. They have no longer that
unbounded levity and light-heartedness so gener
ally ascribed to them. -From this circumstance
we have every thing to hope. Our revolutions,
likewise, must necessarily change their character,
and secure to us more solid advantages than here
tofore."

" Luck makes pluck, as the Germans say. You
go on bravely; but it gives me pain to see religion
and the church so disregarded."

"Superstition and the church, you mean, sir,'*
said the gray-headed man. " Why, sir, the church
is nothing nowadays but a tumble-down dilapi
dated tower for rooks and daws, and such silly
birds to build their nests in !"

It was now very evident that I had unearthed a
radical ; and there is no knowing when his harangue
would have ended, had not his voice been drowned

COQ-A-I/ANE. 167

by the noise of the wheels as we entered the paved
street of the city of Limoges.

A breakfast of boiled capon stuffed with truffles,
and accompanied by a pate de Perigueux, a dish
well-known to French gourmands, restored us all
to good-humour. While we were at breakfast, a
personage stalked into the room, whose strange
appearance arrested my attention, and gave subject
for future conversation to our party. He was a
tall thin figure, armed with a long whip, brass
spurs, and black whiskers. He wore a bell-
crowned varnished hat, a blue frock-coat with
standing collar, a red waistcoat, a pair of yellow
leather breeches, and boots that reached to the
knees. I at first took him for a postillion, or a
private courier ; but, upon inquiry, I found that he
was only the son of a notary public, and that he
dressed in this strange fashion to please his own
fancy.

As soon as we were comfortably seated in the
diligence, I made some remark on the singular
costume of the personage whom I had just seen at
the tavern.

" These things are so common with us," said the
politician, " that we hardly notice them."

" What you want in liberty of speech, then, you
make up in liberty of dress ?"

168 COQ-A-L'ANE.

" Yes ; in this, at least, we are a free people,"

" I had not been long in France, before I dis
covered that a man may dress as he pleases, with
out being stared at. The most opposite styles of
dress seem to be in vogue at the same moment.
No strange garment nor desperate hat excites
either ridicule or surprise. French fashions are
known and imitated all the world over."

" Very true, indeed," said a little man in goslin
green. " We give fashions to all other nations."

" Fashions !" said the politician with a kind of
growl — " fashions ! Yes, sir, and some of us are
simple enough to boast of it, as if we were a nation
of tailors."

Here the little man in goslin green pulled up the
horns of his cotton dicky.

" I recollect," said I, " that your Madame de
Pompadour in one of her letters says something to
this effect — ' We furnish our enemies with hair
dressers, ribands, and fashions ; and they furnish us
with laws.'"

" That is not the only silly thing she said in her
lifetime. Ah ! sir, these Pompadours, and Main-
tenons, and Montespans were the authors of much
wo to France. Their follies and extravagances
exhausted the public treasury, and made the nation
poor. They built palaces, and covered themselves

COQ-A-L'ANE. 169

with jewels, and ate from golden plate ; while the
people who toiled for them had hardly a crust to
keep their own children from starvation ! And
yet they preach to us the divine right of kings 1"

My radical had got upon his high horse again ;
and I know not whither it would have carried him,
had not a thin man with a black seedy coat, who
sat at his elbow, at that moment crossed his path,
by one of those abrupt and sudden transitions which
leave you aghast at the strange association of ideas
in the speaker's mind.

" Apropos de bottes !" exclaimed he, " speaking
of boots, and notaries public, and such matters —
excuse me for interrupting you, sir — a little story
has just popped into my head which may amuse
the company; and as I am not very fond of politi
cal discussions — no offence, sir — I will tell it, for
the sake of changing the conversation."

Whereupon, without further preamble or apol
ogy, he proceeded to tell his story in, as nearly as
may be, the following words.

VOL. I. P

THE

NOTARY OF PERIGUEUX.

THE

NOTARY OF PERIGUEUX.

Do not trust thy body with a physician. He'll make thy fool
ish bones go without flesh in a fortnight, and thy soul walk with
out a body a sennight after. — SHIRLET.

You must know, gentlemen, that there lived
some years ago, in the city of Perigueux, an honest
Notary Public, the descendant of a very ancient
and broken-down family, and the occupant of one
of those old weather-beaten tenements which re
mind you of the times of your great-grandfather.
He was a man of an unoffending, sheepish dispo
sition ; the father of a family, though not the head
of it, — for in that family " the hen over-crowed the
cock," and the neighbours, when they spake of the
Notary, shrugged their shoulders and exclaimed,
" Poor fellow ! his spurs want sharpening." In
p 2

174 THE NOTARY OF PERIGUETJX*

fine — you understand me, gentlemen — he was a
hen-pecked man.

Well, finding no peace at home, he sought it
elsewhere, as was very natural for him to do ; and
at length discovered a place of rest, far beyond
the cares and clamours of domestic life. This
was a little cafe estaminet, a short way out of the
city, whither he repaired every evening to smoke
his pipe, drink sugar-water, and play his favourite
game of domino. There he met the boon com
panions he most loved ; heard all the floating chit
chat of the day ; laughed when he was in merry
mood ; found consolation when he was sad ; and
at all times gave vent to his opinions without fear
of being snubbed short by a flat contradiction.

Now, the Notary's bosom friend was a dealer
in claret and cognac, who lived about a league
from the city, and always passed his evenings at
the estaminet. He was a gross, corpulent fellow,
raised from a full-blooded Gascon breed, and sired
by a comic actor of some reputation in his way.
He was remarkable for nothing but his good-
humour, his love of cards, and a strong propensity
to test the quality of his own liquors by comparing
them with those sold at other places.

As evil communications corrupt good manners,
the bad practices of the wine-dealer won inseasi-

THE NOTARY OF PERIGUEUX. 175

bly upon the worthy Notary ; and before he was
aware of it, he found himself weaned from domino
and sugar-water, and addicted to piquet and
spiced wine. Indeed, it not unfrequently hap
pened, that after a long session at the estaminet,
the two friends grew so urbane that they would
waste a full half-hour at the door in friendly dispute
which should conduct the other home.

Though this course of life agreed well enough
with the sluggish phlegmatic temperament of the
wine-dealer, it soon began to play ^jbqp^ygyjifltaft.
with the more sensitive organization of the Notary,
and finally put his nervous system completely out
of tune. He lost his appetite, became gaunt and
haggard, and could get no sleep. Legions of blue-
devils haunted him by day, and by night strange
faces peeped through his bed-curtains and the
nightmare snorted in his ear. The worse he grew,
the more he smoked and tippled ; and the more he
smoked and tippled — why, as a matter of course,
the worse he grew. His wife alternately stormed
— remonstrated — entreated ; but all in vain. She
made the house too hot for him — he retreated to
the tavern ; she broke his long-stemmed pipes upon
the andirons — he substituted a short-stemmed one,
which, for safe keeping, he carried in his waistcoat
pocket.

176 THE NOTARY OF PERIGUEUX.

Thus the unhappy Notary ran gradually down
at the heel. What with his bad habits and his
domestic grievances, he became completely hipped.
He imagined that he was going to die ; and suf
fered in quick succession all the diseases that ever
beset mortal man. Every shooting pain was an
alarming symptom — every uneasy feeling after
dinner a sure prognostic of some mortal disease.
In vain did his friends endeavour to reason, and
then to laugh him out of his strange whims ; for
when did ever jest or reason cure a sick imagina
tion ? His only answer was, " Do let me alone ; I
know better than you what ails me."

Well, gentlemen, things were in this state, when
one afternoon in December, as he sat moping in
his office, wrapped in an overcoat, with a cap on
his head and his feet thrust into a pair of furred
slippers, a cabriolet stopped at the door, and a
loud knocking without aroused him from his gloomy
revery. It was a message from his friend the
wine-dealer, who had been suddenly attacked the
night before with a violent fever, and, growing
worse and worse, had now sent in the greatest
haste for the Notary to draw up his last will and
testament. The case was urgent, and admitted
neither excuse nor delay ; and the Notary, tying
a handkerchief round his face, and buttoning up

THE NOTARY OF PERIGUEUX. 177

to the chin, jumped into the cabriolet, and suffered
himself, though not without some dismal presenti
ments and misgivings of heart, to be driven to the
wine-dealer's house.

When he arrived, he found every thing in the
greatest confusion. On entering the house, he ran
against the apothecary, who was coming down
stairs, with a face as long as your arm, and a phar
maceutical instrument somewhat longer ; and a
few steps farther he met the housekeeper — for the
wine-dealer was an old bachelor — running up and
down, and wringing her hands, for fear that the
good man should die without making his will. He
soon reached the chamber of his sick friend, and
found him tossing about under a huge pile of bed
clothes, in a paroxysm of fever, calling aloud for a
draught of cold water. The Notary shook his
head ; he thought this a fatal symptom ; for ten
years back the wine-dealer had been suffering
under a species of hydrophobia, which seemed
suddenly to have left him.

When the sick man saw who stood by his bed
side, he stretched out his hand and exclaimed —

" Ah ! my dear friend ! have you come at last?
You see it is all over with me. You have arrived
just in time to draw up that — that passport of
mine. Ah, grand diable! how hot it is here!

178 THE NOTARY OF PERIGUEUX.

Water — water — water ! Will nobody give me a
drop of cold water V9

As the case was an urgent one, the Notary made
no delay in getting his papers in readiness ; and
in a short time the last will and testament of the
wine-dealer was drawn up in due form, the Notary
guiding the sick man's hand as he scrawled his
signature at the bottom.

As the evening wore away, the wine-dealer
grew worse and worse, and at length became
delirious, mingling in his incoherent ravings the
phrases of the Credo and Paternoster with the
shibboleth of the dram-shop and the card-table.

" Take care ! take care ! There, now — Credo
in — pop ! ting-a-ling-ling ! give me some of that.
Cent-e-dize ! Why, you old publican, this wine is
poisoned — I know your tricks ! Sanctam eccle-
siam Catholicam. Well, well, we shall see. Im
becile ! To have a tierce-major and a seven of
hearts, and discard the seven. By St. Anthony,
capot ! You are lurched — Ha ! ha ! I told you
so. I knew very welt — there — there — don't
interrupt me — Carnis resurrectionem et vitam
eternam /"

With these words upon his lips, the poor wine-
dealer expired. Meanwhile the Notary sat cower
ing over the fire, aghast at the fearful scene that

THE NOTARY OP PERIGUEUX. 179

was passing before him, and now and then striving
to keep up his courage by a glass of cognac.
Already his fears were on the alert ; and the idea
of contagion flitted to and fro through his mind.
In order to quiet these thoughts of evil import, he
lighted his pipe, and began to prepare for return
ing home. At that moment the apothecary turned
round to him and said —

" Dreadful sickly time, this ! The disorder
seems to be spreading."

" What disorder ?" exclaimed the Notary, with
a movement of surprise.

" Two died yesterday, and three to-day," con
tinued the apothecary, without answering the ques
tion. " Very sickly time, sir — very."

" But what disorder is it ? What disease has
carried off my friend here so suddenly ?"

" What disease ? Why, scarlet fever, to be
sure."

" And is it contagious ?"

" Certainly !"

" Then I am a dead man !" exclaimed the No
tary, putting his pipe into his waistcoat-pocket,
and beginning to walk up and down the room in
despair. "I am a dead man ! Now don't de
ceive me — don't, will you ? What — what are the
symptoms ?"

180 THE NOTARY OF PERIGUEUX.

" A sharp burning pain in the right side," said
the apothecary.

" Oh, what a fool I was to come here ! Take
me home — take me home, and let me die in the
bosom of my family!"

In vain did the housekeeper and the apothecary
strive to pacify him ; — he was not a man to be rea
soned with ; he answered that he knew his own
constitution better than they did, and insisted upon
going home without delay. Unfortunately, the
vehicle he came in had returned to the city ; and
the whole neighbourhood was abed and asleep.
What was to be done ? Nothing in the world but
to take the apothecary's horse, which stood hitched
at the door, patiently waiting his master's will.

Well, gentlemen, as there was no remedy, our
Notary mounted this raw-boned steed, and set forth
upon his homeward journey. The night was cold
and gusty, and the wind set right in his teeth.
Overhead the leaden clouds were beating to and
fro, and through them the newly-risen moon seemed
to be tossing and drifting along like a cock-boat in
the surf; now swallowed up in a huge billow of
cloud, and now lifted upon its bosom, and dashed
with silvery spray. The trees by the road-side
groaned with a sound of evil omen, and before
him lay three mortal miles, beset with a thousand

THE NOTARY OF PERIGUEUX. 181

imaginary perils:' Obedient to the whip and spur,
the steed Je'aped forward by fits and starts, now
dashing away in a tremendous gallop, and now
relaxing into a long hard trot; while the rider,
filled with symptoms of disease and dire presenti
ments of death, urged him on, as if he were fleeing
before the pestilence.

In this way, by dint of whistling and shouting,
and beating right and left, one mile of the fatal
three was safely passed. The apprehensions of
the Notary had so far subsided that he even suf
fered the poor horse to walk up-hill ; but these
apprehensions were suddenly revived again with
tenfold violence by a sharp pain in the right side,
which seemed to pierce him like a needle.

" It is upon me at last !" groaned the fear-
stricken man. "Heaven be merciful to me, the
greatest of sinners ! And must I die in a ditch
after all ? He ! get up — get up !"

And away went horse and rider at full speed —
hurry-scurry — up-hill and down— panting and
blowing like all possessed. At every leap, the
pain in the rider's side seemed to increase. At
first it was a little point like the prick of a needle
— then it spread to the size of a half-franc piece —
then covered a place as large as the palm of your
hand. It gained upon him fast. The poor man

VOL. I. Q

182 THE NOTARY OF PERIGUEUX.

groaned aloud in agony ; faster and faster sped
the horse over the frozen ground— farther and
farther spread the pain over his side. To com
plete the dismal picture, the storm commenced,—
snow mingled with rain. But snow, and rain, and
cold were naught to him ; for though his arms and
legs were frozen to icicles, he felt it not ; the fatal
symptom was upon him ; he was doomed to die —
not of cold, but of scarlet fever !

At length, he knew not how, more dead than
alive he reached the gate of the city. A band of
ill-bred dogs, that were serenading at a corner of
the street, seeing the Notary dash by, joined in
the hue and cry, and ran barking and yelping at
his heels. It was now late at night, and only here
and there a solitary lamp twinkled from an upper
story. But on went the Notary, down this street
and up that, till at last he reached his own door.
There was a light in his wife's bedchamber. The
good woman came to the window, alarmed at
such a knocking, and howling, and clattering at
her door so late at night ; and the Notary was too
deeply absorbed in his own sorrows to observe
that the lamp cast the shadow of two heads on the
window-curtain.

"Let me in! let me in! Quick! quick!'* he

THE NOTARY OF PERIGUEUX. 183

exclaimed, almost breathless from terror and
fatigue.

" Who are you, that come to disturb a lone
woman at this hour of the night ?" cried a sharp
voice from above. " Begone about your business,
and let quiet people sleep."

" Oh, diable, diable ! Come down and let me in !
I am your husband. Don't you know my voice ?
Quick, I beseech you ; for I am dying here in the
street !"

After a few moments of delay and a few more
words of parley, the door was opened, and the
Ngtary stalked into his domicil pale and haggard
in aspect, and as stiff and straight as a ghost.
Cased from head to heel in an armour of ice, as
the glare of the lamp fell upon him he looked like
a knight-errant mailed in steel. But in one place
his armour was broken. On his right side was a
circular spot, as large as the crown of your hat,
and about as black !

" My dear wife !" he exclaimed, with more ten
derness than he had exhibited for many years,
" reach me a chair. My hours are numbered. I
am a dead man !"

Alarmed at these exclamations, his wife stripped
off his overcoat. Something fell from beneath it,
and was dashed to pieces on the hearth. It was

184 THE NOTARY OF PERIGUEUX.

the Notary's pipe ! He placed his hand upon his
side, and, lo ! it was bare to the skin ! Coat, waist
coat, and linen were burnt through and through,
and there was a blister on his side as large over as
your head !

The mystery was soon explained, symptom and
all. The Notary had put his pipe into his pocket
without knocking out the ashes ! And so my story
ends.

" Is that all ?" asked the radical, when the story
teller had finished.

" That is all."

" Well, what does your story go to prove ?
What bearing has it on the great interests of
man?"

" That is more than I can tell. All I know is
that the story is true."

" And did he die ?" said the nice little man in
gosling green.

" Yes ; he died afterward," replied the story
teller, rather annoyed by the question.

"And what did he die of ?" continued gosling
green, following him up.

" What did he die of?" winking to the rest of
the company; " why, he died — of a sudden !"

THE

JOURNEY INTO SPAIN.

THE

JOURNEY INTO SPAIN.

A 1'issue de 1'yver que le joly temps de primavere commence,
et qu'on voit arbres verdoyer, fleurs espanouir, et qu'on oil les
oisillons chanter en toute joie et doulceur, tant que les verts bo-
cages retentissent de leurs sons et que coeurs tristes pensifs y
dolens s'en esjouissent, sYmeuvent a delaisser deuil et toute tris-
tesse, et se parforcent a valoir mieux.

La Plaisanle Histoire de Guerin de Monglave.

SOFT-BREATHING Spring ! how many pleasant
thoughts, how many delightful recollections does
thy name awaken in the mind of a traveller !
Whether he has followed thee by the banks of the
Loire or the -Guadalquiver, or traced thy footsteps
slowly climbing the sunny slope of Alp or Apen-
nine, the thought of thee shall summon up sweet
visions of the past, and thy golden sunshine and

188 THE JOURNEY INTO SPAIN.

soft vapory atmosphere become a portion of his
day-dreams and of him. Sweet images of thee,
and scenes that have oft inspired the poet's song,
shall mingle in his recollections of the past. The
shooting of the tender leaf—the sweetness and
elasticity of the air — the blue sky, and the fleet-
drifting cloud, and the flocks of wild fowl wheeling
in long-drawn phalanx through the air, and scream
ing from their dizzy height — all these shall pass
like a dream before his imagination, —

' And gently o'er his memory come at times
A glimpse of joys that had their birth in thee,
Like a brief strain of some forgotten tune.'

It was at the opening of this delightful season of
the year that I passed through the south of France,
and took the road of St. Jean de Luz for the Spanish
frontier. I left Bordeaux amid all the noise and
gayety of the last scene of Carnival. The streets
and public walks of the city were full of merry
groups in masks, — at every corner crowds were
listening to the discordant music of the wandering
ballad-singer ; and grotesque figures mounted on
high stilts, and dressed in the garb of the peasants
of the Landes of Gascony, were stalking up and
down like so many long-legged cranes; others
were amusing themselves with the tricks and

THE JOURNEY INTO SPAIN. 189

grimaces of little monkeys, disguised like little
men, bowing to the ladies, and figuring away in
red coats and ruffles ; and here and there a band
of chimney-sweeps were staring in stupid wonder
at the miracles of a showman's box. In a word,
all was so full of mirth and merrimake that even
beggary seemed to have forgotten that it was
wretched, and gloried in the ragged masquerade
of one poor holyday.

To this scene of noise and gayety succeeded
the silence and solitude of the Landes of Gascony.
The road from Bordeaux to Bayonne winds along
through immense pine forests and sandy plains,
spotted here and there with a dingy little hovel,
and the silence is interrupted only by the dismal
hollow roar of the wind among the melancholy
and majestic pines. Occasionally, however, the
way is enlivened by a market-town or a strag
gling village ; and I still recollect the feelings
of delight which I experienced when, just after
sunset, we passed through the romantic town of
Roquefort, built upon the sides of the green valley
of the Douze, which has scooped out a verdant
hollow for it to nestle in, amid those barren tracts
of sand.

On leaving Bayonne the scene assumes a char
acter of greater beauty and sublimity. To the

190 THE JOURNEY INTO SPAIN.

vast forests of the Landes of Gascony succeeds a
scene of picturesque beauty, delightful to the trav
eller's eye. Before him rise the snowy Pyrenees,
— a long line of undulating hills, —

' Bounded afar by peak aspiring bold,
Like giant capped with helm of burnished gold.'

To the left, as far as the eye can reach, stretch the
delicious valleys of the Nive and Adour, and to
the right the sea flashes along the pebbly margin
of its silver beach, forming a thousand little bays
and inlets, or comes tumbling in among the cliffs
of a rock-bound coast, and beats against its
massive barriers with a distant, hollow, continual
roar.

Should these pages meet the eye of any solitary
traveller who is journeying into Spain by the road
I here speak of, I would advise him to travel from
Bayonne to Saint Jean de Luz on horseback. At
the gate of Bayonne he will find a steed ready
caparisoned for him, with a dark-eyed Basque girl
for his companion and guide, who is to sit beside
him upon the same horse. This style of travelling
is, I believe, peculiar to the Basque provinces ; at
all events I have seen it nowhere else. The saddle
is constructed with a large frame-work extending
on each side, and covered with cushions ; and the

THE JOURNEY INTO SPAIN. 191

traveller and his guide, being placed on the oppo
site extremities, serve as a balance to each other.
We overtook many travellers mounted in this way,
and I could not help thinking it a mode of travel
ling far preferable to being cooped up in a dili
gence. The Basque girls are generally beautiful ;
and there was one of these merry guides we met
upon the road to Bidart, whose image haunts me
still. She had large and expressive black eyes,
teeth like pearls, a rich and sunburnt complexion,
and hair of a glossy blackness, parted on the fore
head, and falling down behind in a large braid, so
long as almost to touch the ground with the little
riband that confined it at the end. She wore the
common dress of the peasantry of the south of
France, and a large gipsy straw hat was thrown
back over her shoulder, and confined by a riband
about her neck. There was hardly a dusty trav
eller in the coach who did not envy her companion
the seat he occupied beside her.

Just at nightfall we entered the town of Saint
Jean de Luz, and dashed down its narrow streets
at full gallop. The little madcap postillion cracked
his knotted whip incessantly, and the sound echoed
back from the high dingy walls like the report
of a pistol. The coach-wheels nearly touched the
houses on each side of us ; the idlers in the street

192 THE JOURNEY INTO SPAIN.

jumped right and left to save themselves ; window-
shutters flew open in all directions ; a thousand
heads popped out from cellar and upper story;
" Sacr-r-re matin!" shouted the postillion, — and we
rattled on like an earthquake.

Saint Jean de Luz is a smoky little fishing-
town, situated on the low grounds at the mouth of
the Nivelle, and a bridge connects it with the fau
bourg of Sibourne, which stands on the opposite
bank of the river. I had no time, however, to
note the peculiarities of the place, for I was
whirled out of it with the same speed and confu
sion with which I had been whirled in, and I can
only recollect the sweep of the road across the
Nivelle — the church of Sibourne by the water's
edge — the narrow streets — the smoky-looking
houses, with red window-shutters, and "a very
ancient and fish-like smell."

I passed by moonlight the little river Bidasoa,
which forms the boundary between France and
Spain ; and when the morning broke found myself
far up among the mountains of San Salvador, the
most westerly links of the great Pyrenean chain.
The mountains around me were neither rugged
nor precipitous, but they rose one above another
in a long majestic swell, and the trace of the
ploughshare was occasionally visible to their sum-

THE JOURNEY INTO SPAIN. 193

mits. They seemed entirely destitute of forest-
scenery ; and as the season of vegetation had not
yet commenced, their huge outlines lay black, and
barren, and desolate against the sky. But it was
a glorious morning, and the sun rose up into a
cloudless heaven, and poured a flood of gorgeous
splendour over the mountain landscape, as if
proud of the realm he shone upon. The scene
was enlivened by the dashing of a swollen moun
tain-brook, whose course we followed for miles
down the valley, as it leaped onward to its journey's
end, now breaking into a white cascade, and now
foaming and chafing beneath a rustic bridge. Now
and then we rode through a dilapidated town, with
a group of idlers at every corner, wrapped in
tattered brown cloaks, and smoking their little
paper cigars in the sun ; then would succeed a
desolate tract of country, cheered only by the tinkle
of a mule-bell, or the song of a muleteer ; then we
would meet a solitary traveller mounted on horse
back, and wrapped in the ample folds of his cloak,
with a gun hanging at the pommel of his saddle.
Occasionally, too, among the bleak inhospitable
hills, we passed a rude little chapel, with a cluster
of ruined cottages around it ; and whenever our
carriage stopped at the relay, or loitered slowly
up the hill-side, a crowd of children would gather

VOL. I. R

194 THE JOURNEY INTO SPAIN.

around us, with little images and crucifixes for sale,
curiously ornamented with ribands and little bits
of tawdry finery.

A day's journey from the frontier brought us to
Vitoria, where the diligence stopped for the night.
I spent the scanty remnant of daylight in rambling
about the streets of the city, with no other guide
but the whim of the moment. Now I plunged
down a dark and narrow alley, — now emerged
into a wide street, or a spacious market-place, and
now aroused the drowsy echoes of a church or
cloister with the sound of my intruding footsteps.
But descriptions of churches and public squares
are dull and tedious matters for those readers who
are in search of amusement, and not of instruction ;
and if any one has accompanied me thus far on
my fatiguing journey towards the Spanish capital,
I will readily excuse him from the toil of an evening
ramble through the streets of Vitoria.

On the following morning we left Vitoria long
before daybreak, and during our forenoon's journey
the postillion drew up at a relay, on the southern
slope of the Sierra de San Lorenzo, in the province
of Old Castile. The house was an old dilapidated
tenement, built of rough stone, and coarsely plas
tered upon the outside. The tiled roof had long
been the sport of wind and rain, the motley coat

THE JOURNEY INTO SPAIN. 195

of plaster was broken and time-worn, and the whole
building sadly out of repair; though the fanciful
mouldings under the eaves, and the curiously
carved wood- work that supported the little balcony
over the principal entrance, spoke of better days
gone by. The whole building reminded me of a
dilapidated Spanish Don, down at the heel and out
at elbows, but with here and there a remnant of
former magnificence peeping through the loop
holes of his tattered cloak.

A wide gateway ushered the traveller into the
interior of the building, and conducted him to a
low-roofed apartment, paved with round stones,
and serving both as a courtyard and a stable.
It seemed to be a neutral ground for man and
beast, — a little republic, where horse and rider
had common privileges, and mule and muleteer
lay cheek by jowl. In one corner a poor jackass
was patiently devouring a bundle of musty straw,
— in another its master lay sound asleep with his
saddle-cloth for a pillow ; here a group of mule
teers were quarrelling over a pack of dirty cards,
— and there the village barber, with a self-important
air, stood laving the alcalde's chin from the helmet
of Mambrino. On the wall a little taper glimmered
feebly before an image of St. Anthony; directly
opposite these a leathern wine-bottle hung by the

196 THE JOURNEY INTO SPAIN.

neck from a pair of ox-horns ; and the pavement
below was covered with a curious medley of
boxes, and bags, and cloaks, and pack-saddles,
and sacks of grain, and skins of wine, and all kinds
of lumber.

A small door upon the right led us into the inn-
kitchen. It was a room about ten feet square, and
literally all chimney ; for the hearth was in the
centre of the floor, and the walls sloped upward
in the form of a long tapering pyramid, with an
opening at the top for the escape of the smoke.
Quite round this little room ran a row of benches,
upon which sat one or two grave personages
smoking paper cigars. Upon the hearth blazed a
handful of fagots, whose bright flame danced
merrily among a motley congregation of pots and
kettles, and a long wreath of smoke wound lazily
up through the huge tunnel of the roof above.
The walls were black with soot, and ornamented
with sundry legs of bacon and festoons of sau
sages ; and as there were no windows in this dingy
abode, the only light which cheered the darkness
within came flickering from the fire upon the
hearth, and the smoky sunbeams that peeped down
the long-necked chimney.

I had not been long seated by the fire, when the
(inkling of mule-bells, the clatter of hoofs, and the

THE JOURNEY INTO SPAIN. 197

hoarse voice of a muleteer in the outer apartment^
announced the arrival of new guests. A few
moments afterward the kitchen-door opened, and
a person entered, whose appearance strongly ar
rested my attention. It was a tall athletic figure,
with the majestic carriage of a grandee, and a
dark, sunburnt countenance, that indicated an age
of about fifty years. His dress was singular, and
such as I had not before seen. He wore a round
hat with wide flapping brim, from beneath which
his long black hair hung in curls upon his shoul
ders ; a leather jerkin, with cloth sleeves, de
scended to his hips ; around his waist was closely
buckled a leather belt, with a cartouch-box on
one side ; a pair of Marmeluke pantaloons of
black serge hung in ample folds to the knees,
around which they were closely gathered by em
broidered garters of blue silk ; and black broad
cloth leggins, buttoned close to the calves, and
strapped over a pair of brown leather shoes, com
pleted the singular dress of the stranger. He
doffed his hat as he entered, and saluting the com
pany with a " Dios guarde d Ustedes, caballeros"
(God guard you, gentlemen), took a seat by the
fire, and entered into conversation with those
around him.

As my curiosity was not a little excited by the

198 THE JOUHNEY INTO SPAIN.

peculiar dress of this person, I inquired of a
travelling companion, who sat at my elbow, who
and what this new comer was. From him I
learned that he was a muleteer of the Maragateria,
— a name given to a cluster of small towns which
lie in the mountainous country between Astorga
and Yillafranca, in the western corner of the king
dom of Leon.

" Nearly every province in Spain," said he,
" has its peculiar costume, as you will see when
you have advanced farther into our country. For
instance, the Catalonians wear crimson caps, hang
ing down upon the shoulder like a sack ; wide
pantaloons of green velvet, long enough in the
waistband to cover the whole breast ; and a little
strip of a jacket, made of the same material, and
so short as to bring the pocket directly under the
armpit. The Valencians, on the contrary, go
almost naked : a linen shirt, white linen trousers,
reaching no lower than the knees, and a pair of
coarse leather sandals complete their simple garb ;
it is only in mid- winter that they indulge in the
luxury of a jacket. The most beautiful and ex
pensive costume, however, is that of Andalusia:
it consists of a velvet jacket, faced with rich and
various-coloured embroidery, and covered with
tassels and silken cord ; a vest of some gay colour ;

THE JOURNEY INTO SPAIN. 199

a silken handkerchief round the neck, and a crim
son sash round the waist ; breeches that button
down each side ; gaiters and shoes of white lea
ther, and a handkerchief of bright-coloured silk
wound round the head like a turban, and sur
mounted by a velvet cap or a little round hat, with
a wide band, and an abundance of silken loops
and tassels. The Old Castilians are more grave
in their attire: they wear a leather breastplate
instead of a jacket, breeches and leggins, and a
montera cap. This fellow is a Maragato ; and
in the villages of the Maragateria the costume
varies a little from the rest of Leon and Castile."

"If he is indeed a Maragato," said I, jestingly,
" who knows but he may be a descendant of the
muleteer who behaved so naughtily at Cacabelos,
as related in the second chapter of the veracious
history of Gil Bias de Santillana !"

" i Quien sabe ?" was the reply. " Notwith
standing the pride which even the meanest Cas-
tilian feels in counting over a long line of good-for-
nothing ancestors, the science of genealogy has
become of late a very intricate study in Spain."

Here our conversation was cut short by the
mayoral of the diligence, who came to tell us that
the mules were waiting; and before many hours
rhad elapsed we were scrambling through the

200 THE JOURNEY INTO SPAIN.

square of the ancient city of Burgos. On the
morrow we crossed the river Duero and the Guar-
darama Mountains, and early in the afternoon
entered the " Heroica Villa" of Madrid, by the
Puerta de Fuencarral.

SPAIN.

SPAIN.

Santiago y cierra Espana !

Spanish War-cry.

IT is a beautiful morning in June ; — so beautiful
that I almost fancy myself in Spain. The tes-
selated shadow of the honey-suckle lies motionless
upon my floor, as if it were a figure in the carpet,
and through the open window comes the fragrance
of the wild-brier and the mock-orange, reminding
me of that soft sunny clime where the very air is
laden, like the bee, with sweetness, and the south
wind

1 Comes over gardens, and the flowers
That kissed it are betrayed.'

The birds are carolling in the trees, and their
shadows flit across the window as they dart to
and fro in the sunshine, while the murmur of the

204 SPAIN.

bee, the cooing of doves from the eaves, and the
whirring of a little humming-bird that has its nest
in the honey-suckle, send up a sound of joy to meet
the rising sun. How like the climate of the south !
How like a summer morning in Spain !

My recollections of Spain are of the most lively
and delightful kind. The character of the soil and
of its inhabitants — the stormy mountains and free
spirits of the north, — the prodigal luxuriance and
gay voluptuousness of the south, — the history and
traditions of the past, resembling more the fables
of romance than the solemn chronicle of events, —
a soft and yet majestic language that falls like
martial music on the ear, and a literature rich in
the attractive lore of poetry and fiction, — these,
but not these alone, are my reminiscences of Spain.
With these I recall the thousand little circum
stances and enjoyments which always give a
colouring to our recollections of the past ; the
clear sky — the pure, balmy air — the delicious fruits
and flowers — the wild-fig and the aloe — the palm-
tree and the olive by the wayside, — all, all that
makes existence so joyous, and renders the sons
and daughters of that clime the children of impulse
and sensation.

As I write these words a shade of sadness
steals over me. When I think what that glorious

SPAIN. 205

land might be, and what it is — what Nature in
tended it should be, and what man has made it —
my very heart sinks within me. My mind in
stinctively reverts from the degradation of the
present to the glory of the past ; or, looking for
ward with strong misgivings, but with yet stronger
hopes, interrogates the future.

The burnished armour of the Cid stands in the
archives of the royal museum of Madrid, and
there, too, is seen the armour of Ferdinand and
Isabel, of Guzman the Good and Gonzalo de Cor
dova, and of other early champions of Spain;
but what hand shall now wield the sword of
the Campeador, or lift up the banner of Leon
and Castile ? The ruins of Christian castle and
Moorish alcazar still look forth from the hills of
Spain ; but where, O where is the spirit of free
dom that once fired the children of the Goth?
Where is the spirit of Bernardo del Carpio, and
Perez de Vargas, and Alonzo deAguilar? Shall
it for ever sleep ? Shall it never again beat high
in the hearts of their degenerate sons ? Shall the
descendants of Pelayo bow for ever beneath an
iron yoke, " like cattle whose despair is dumb ?"

The dust of the Cid lies mingling with the dust
of Old Castile ; but his spirit is not buried with his
ashes. It sleeps, but is not dead. The day will

VOL. I. S

206

come when the foot of the tyrant shall be shaken
from the neck of Spain ; when a brave and gener
ous people, though now ignorant, degraded, and
much abused, shall " know their rights, and know
ing dare maintain." But I am no political seer —
I will dwell no longer on this theme.

Of the national character of Spain I have
brought away this impression : that its prominent
traits are, a generous pride of birth, a superstitious
devotion to the dogmas of the church, and an
innate dignity, which exhibits itself even in the
common and every-day employments of life. Cas-
tilian pride is proverbial. A beggar wraps his
tattered cloak around him with all the dignity of
a Roman senator ; and a muleteer bestrides his
beast of burden with the air of a grandee.

I have thought, too, that there was a tinge of
sadness in the Spanish character. The national
music of the land is remarkable for its melancholy
tone ; and at times the voice of a peasant, singing
amid the silence and solitude of the mountains,
falls upon the ear like a funeral chant. Even a
Spanish holyday wears a look of sadness, — a cir
cumstance which some writers attribute to the
cruel and overbearing spirit of the municipal
laws. " On the greatest festivals," says Sovei-
lanos, '* instead of that boisterous merriment and

SPAIN. 207

noise which should bespeak the joy of the inhabit
ants, there reigns throughout the streets and mar
ket-places a slothful inactivity, a gloomy stillness^
which cannot be remarked without mingled emo
tions of surprise and pity. The few persons who
leave their houses seem to be driven from them
by listlessness, and dragged as far as the threshold,
the market, or the church-door ; there, muffled in
their cloaks, leaning against some corner, seated
on some bench, or lounging to and fro, without
object, aim, or purpose, they pass their hours, their
whole evenings, withoutmirth, recreation, orarnuse-
ment. When you add to this picture the dreari
ness and filth of the villages, the poor and slovenly
dress of the inhabitants, the gloominess and silence
of their air, the laziness, the want of concert and
union so striking everywhere, who but would be
astonished, who but would be afflicted by so
mournful a phenomenon? This is not, indeed,
the place to expose the errors which conspire to
produce it ; but whatever those errors may be,
one point is clear — that they are all to be found in-
the laws !"*

Of the same serious, sombre character is the

* Informs dado a la Real Academia de Historia sobro luegos
Espectaculos, y Diversiones Publieas.

208 SPAIN.

favourite national sport, — the bull-fight. It is a
barbarous amusement, but of all others the most
exciting, the most spirit-stirring; and in Spain,
none so popular. " If Rome lived content with
bread and arms," says the author I have just
quoted, in a spirited little discourse entitled Pan
y Toros, " Madrid lives content with bread and
bulls."

Shall I describe a Spanish bull-fight ? No. It
has been so often and so well described by other
pens that mine shall not undertake it, though it is
a tempting theme. I cannot, however, refuse my
self the pleasure of quoting here a few lines from
one of the old Spanish ballads upon this subject.
It is entitled " The Bull-fight of Ganzul." The de
scription of the bull, which is contained in the pas
sage I here extract, is drawn with a master's hand.
It is a paraphrase — not a translation — by Mr.
Lockhart.

From Guadiana comes he not, he comes not from Xenil,
From Guadalarif of the plain, nor Barves of the hill ;
But where from out the forest burst Xarama's waters clear,
Beneath the oak-trees was he nursed, this proud and stately
steer.

Dark is his hide on either side, but the blood within doth boil,
And the dun hide glows, as if on fire, as he paws to the turmoil.
His eyes are jet, and they are set in crystal rings of snow ;
But now they stare with one red glare of brass upon the foe.

SPAIN. 209

Upon the forehead of the bull the horns stand close and near,
From out the broad and wrinkled scull like daggers they appear ;
His neck is massy, like the trunk of some old knotted tree,
Whereon the monster's shaggy mane, like billows curl'd, ye see.

His legs are short, his hams are thick, his hoofs are black as

night,

Like a strong flail he holds his tail in fierceness of his might ;
Like something molten out of iron, or hewn from forth the rock,
Harpado of Xarama stands, to bide the Alcayde's shock.

Now stops the drum, — close, close they come ; thrice meet and

thrice give back ;

The white foam of Harpado lies on the charger's breast of black ;
The white foam of the charger on Harpado's front of dun —
Once more advance upon his lance— -once more, thou fearless

one !

There are various circumstances closely con
nected with the train of thought I have here
touched upon ; but I forbear to mention them, for
fear of drawing out this introductory chapter to
too great a length. Some of them will naturally
find a place hereafter. Meanwhile let us turn the
leaf to a new chapter, and to subjects of a livelier
nature.

s 2

TAILOR'S DRAWER.

TAILOR'S DRAWER,

Nedyls, threde, thymbell, shers,
and all suche knackes.

THE FOUR P's.

L

A TAILOR'S drawer, quotha ?

Yes; a tailor's drawer. Sooth to say, it is
rather a quaint rubric for a chapter in the pilgrim's
breviary ; albeit it well befits the motley character
of the following pages. It is a title which the
Spaniards give to a desultory discourse, wherein
various and discordant themes are touched upon,
and which is crammed full of little shreds and
patches of erudition ; and certainly it is not inap
propriate to a chapter whose contents are of every
shape and hue, and " do no more adhere and keep
pace together than the hundredth psalm to the
tune of Green Sleeves."

214

II.

It is recorded in the Adventures of Gil Bias de
Santillana,that when this renowned personage first
visited the city of Madrid, he took lodgings at the
house of Mateo Melandez, in the Puerta del Sol.
In choosing a place of abode in the Spanish court, I
followed, as far as practicable, this illustrious ex
ample ; but, as the kind-hearted Mateo had been
long gathered to his fathers, I was content to take
up my residence in the hired house of Valentin
Gonzalez, at the foot of the Calle de la Montera.
My apartments were in the third story, above the
dust, though not beyond the rattle, of the street ;
and my balconies looked down into the Puerta del
Sol, the heart of Madrid, through which circulates
the living current of its population at least once
every twenty-four hours.

The Puerta del Sol is a public square, from
which diverge the five principal streets of the me
tropolis. It is the great rendezvous of grave and
gay — of priest and layman — of gentle and sim
ple — the mart of business and of gossip — the place
where the creditor seeks his debtor, where the
lawyer seeks his client, where the stranger seeks
amusement, where the friend seeks his friend, and

215

the foe his foe ; where the idler seeks the sun in
winter, and the shade in summer, and the busy
body seeks the daily news, and picks up the crumbs
of gossip to fly away with them in his beak to the
terbilia of Dona Paquita !

Tell me, ye who have sojourned in foreign lands,
and know in what bubbles a traveller's happiness
consists, — is it not a blessing to have your window
overlook a scene like this ?

III.

There — take that chair upon the balcony, and
let us look down upon the busy scene beneath us.
What a continued roar the crowded thoroughfare
sends up ! Though three stories high, we can
hardly hear the sound of our own voices ! The
London cries are whispers when compared with
the cries of Madrid.

See — yonder stalks a gigantic peasant of New
Castile, with a montera cap, brown jacket and
breeches, and coarse blue stockings, forcing his
way through the crowd, and leading a donkey
laden with charcoal, whose sonorous bray is in
unison with the harsh voice of his master. Close
at his elbow goes a rosy-cheeked damsel, selling
calico. She is an Asturian from the mountains of

216

Santander. How do you know? By her short
yellow petticoats — her blue boddice — her coral
necklace and earrings. Through the middle of
the square struts a peasant of Old Castile, with his
yellow leather jerkin strapped round his waist —
his brown leggins and his blue garters — driving
before him a flock of gabbling turkeys, and crying,
at the top of his voice, " Pao, pao, pavitos, paos !"
Next comes a Valencian, with his loose linen
trousers and sandal shoon, holding a huge sack of
watermelons upon his shoulder with his left hand,
and with his right balancing high in air a specimen
of his luscious fruit, upon which is perched a little
pyramid of the crimson pulp, while he tempts the
passers-by with " A cala, y calando ; una sandia
vendo-o-o. Si esto es sangre !" — (By the slice —
come and try it — watermelon for sale. This is
the real blood !) His companion near him has a
pair of scales thrown over his shoulder, and holds
both arms full of muskmelons. He chimes into
the harmonious ditty with " Melo — melo-o-o—
meloncitos ; aqui esta el azucar !" — (Melons,
melons ; here is the real sugar !) Behind them
creeps a slow-moving Asturian, in heavy wooden
shoes, crying watercresses, and a peasant woman
from the Guardarama Mountains, with a montera
cocked up in front, and a blue kerchief tied under

217

her chin, swings in each hand a bunch of live
chickens— that hang by the claws head down
wards, fluttering, scratching, crowing with all
their might, while the good woman tries to drown
their voices in the discordant cry of " i Quien me
compra un gallo — un par de gallinas?" — (Who
bays a cock — a brace of hens — who buys ?) That
tall fellow in blue, with a pot of flowers upon his
shoulder, is a wag, beyond all dispute. See how
cunningly he cocks his eye up at us, and cries, " Si
yo tuviera balcon !" — (If I only had a balcony !)

What next 1 A Manchego with a sack of oil
under his arm ; a Gallego with a huge water-jar
upon his shoulders ; an Italian pedler with images
of saints and madonnas ; a razor-grinder With his
wheel ; a mender of pots and kettles, making
music, as he goes, with a shovel and a frying-pan ;
and, in fine, a noisy, patch-work, ever-changing
crowd, whose discordant cries mingle with the
rumbling of wheels, the clatter of hoofs, and the
clang of church-bells ; and make the Puerta del
Sol, at certain hours of the day, like a street in
Babylon the Great.

IV.

Chiton ! A beautiful girl, with flaxen hair, blue

VOL. I. T

218 A TAILOR'S DRAWEE.

eyes, and the form of a fairy in a midsummer
night's dream, has just stepped out on the balcony
beneath us! See how coquettishly she crosses
her arms upon the balcony, — thrusts her dainty
little foot through the bars, and plays with her
slipper. She is an Andalusian, from Malaga.
Her brother is a bold dragoon, and wears a long
sword ; so beware ! and " Jet not the creaking of
shoes and the rustling of silks betray thy poor
heart to woman." Her mother is a dowdy lady,
" fat and forty ;" eats garlic in her sallad, and
smokes cigars. But mind ! that is a secret ; I tell
it to you in confidence.

V.

The following little love-ditty I translate from
the Spanish. It is as delicate as a dew-drop.

She is a maid of artless grace,
Gentle in form, and fair of face.

Tell me, thou ancient mariner,

That sailest on the sea,
If ship, or sail, or evening star

Be half so fair as she !

Tell me, thou gallant cavalier,

Whose shining arms I see,
If steed, or sword, or battle-field

Be half so fair as she !

219

Tell me, thou swain, that guard'st thy flock

Beneath the shadowy tree,
If flock, or vale, or mountain-ridge

Be half so fair as she !

VI.

A miller has just passed by, covered with flour
from head to foot, and perched upon the tip end of
a little donkey, crying " Arre borrico ;" and at
every cry swinging a cudgel in his hand, and giv
ing the ribs of the poor beast what in the vulgar
dialect is called a cachiporrazo. I could not help
laughing, though I felt provoked with the fellow
for his cruelty. The truth is, I have great esteem
for a jackass. His meekness, and patience, and
long-suffering are very amiable qualities, and, con
sidering his situation, worthy of all praise. In
Spain, a donkey plays as conspicuous a part as a
priest or a village alcalde. There would be no
getting along without him. And yet, who so
beaten and abused as he ?

VII.

Here comes a gay gallant, with white kid
gloves, a quizzing-glass, a black cane, with a
white ivory apple, and a little hat, cocked pertly

220

on one side of his head. He is an exquisite fop,
and a great lady's man. You will always find
him on the Prado at sunset, when the crowd and
dust are thickest, ogling through his glass, flour
ishing his cane, and humming between his teeth
some favourite air of the Semiramis, or the Barber
of Seville. He is a great amateur, and patron of
the Italian Opera — beats time with his cane — nods
his head, and cries bravo ! — and fancies himself in
love with the Prim a Donna. The height of his
ambition is to be thought the gay Lothario, — the
gallant Don Cortejo of his little sphere. He is a
poet withal, and daily besieges the heart of the
cruel Dona Inez with sonnets and madrigals. She
turns a deaf ear to his song, and is inexorable : —

Mas que no sea mas piadosa
A dos escudos en prosa,
No puede ser.

VIII.

What a contrast between this personage and
the sallow, emaciated being who is now crossing
the street ! It is a barefooted Carmelite — a monk
of an austere order — wasted by midnight vigils
and long penance. Abstinence is written in that
pale cheek, and the bowed head and downcast eye

221

are in accordance with the meek profession of a
mendicant brotherhood.

What is this world to thee, thou man of peni
tence and prayer ? What hast thou to do with
all this busy, turbulent scene about thee, — with
all the noise, and gayety, and splendour of this
thronged city? Nothing. The wide world gives
thee nothing save thy daily crust — thy crucifix —
thy convent-cell — thy pallet of straw ! Pilgrim
of heaven ! thou hast no home on earth. Thou
art journeying onward to " a house not made with
hands ;" and, like the first apostles of thy faith, thou
takest neither gold, nor silver, nor brass, nor scrip
for thy journey. Thou hast shut thy heart to the
endearments of earthly love — thy shoulder beareth
not the burden with thy fellow man — in all this
vast crowd thou hast no friends, no hopes, no
sympathies. Thou standest aloof from man, — and
art thou nearer God? I know not. Thy mo
tives — thy intentions — thy desires are registered
in heaven. I am thy fellow man, — and not thy
judge.

" Who is the greater ?" says the German
moralist ; " the wise man who lifts himself above
the storms of time, and from aloof looks down upon
them, and yet takes no part therein, or he who
from the height of quiet and repose throws him-

T2

222

self boldly into the battle-tumult of the world ?
Glorious is it, when the eagle through the beat
ing tempest flies into the bright blue heaven up
ward ; but far more glorious when, poising in the
blue sky over the black storm-abyss, he plunges
downward to his aerie on the cliff, where cower
his unfledged brood and tremble."

IX.

Sultry grows the day and breathless ! The
lately crowded street is silent and deserted — hardly
a footfall — hardly here and there a solitary figure,
stealing along in the narrow strip of shade beneath
the eaves ! Silent, too, and deserted is the Puerta
del Sol ; so silent that even at this distance the splash
ing of its fountain is distinctly audible — so deserted
that not a living thing is visible there save the
outstretched and athletic form of a Gallician water-
carrier, who lies asleep upon the pavement in the
cool shadow of the fountain ! There is not air
enough to stir the leaves of the jasmine upon the
balcony, or break the thin column of smoke that
issues from the cigar of Don Diego, master of the
noble Spanish tongue, y hombre de muchos din-
golondangos. He sits bolt upright between the
window and the door, with the collar of his snuff-

A TAILOR'S DRAWER. 223

coloured frock thrown back upon his shoulders,
and his toes turned out like a dancing-master,
poring over the Diario de Madrid, to learn how
high the thermometer rose yesterday — what patron
saint has a festival to-day — and at what hour to
morrow the " King of Spain, Jerusalem, and the
Canary Islands" will take his departure for the
gardens of Aranjuez.

You have a proverb in your language, Don
Diego, which says —

Despues de comer

Ni un sobrescrito leer ;

— after dinner read not even the superscription of
a letter. I shall obey, and indulge in the exquisite
luxury of a siesta. I confess that I love this after-
dinner nap. If I have a gift — a vocation for any
thing, it is for sleeping. A child might envy me,
I sleep so calmly; and from my heart I can say
with honest Sancho, " Blessed be the man that first
invented sleep 1" In a sultry clime, too, where
the noontide heat unmans you, and the cool starry
night seems made for any thing but slumber, I am
willing to .barter an hour or two of intense day
light for an hour or two of tranquil, lovely, dewy
night !

Therefore, Don Diego, hasta la vista!

224

X.

It is evening, the day is gone ; fast gather and
deepen the shades of twilight ! In the words of a
German allegory, " The babbling day has touched
the hem of night's garment, and, weary and still,
drops asleep in her bosom."

The city awakens from its slumber. The con
vent-bells ring solemnly and slow. The streets
are thronged again. Once more I hear the shrill
cry — the rattling wheel — the murmur of the crowd.
The blast of a trumpet sounds from the Puerta del
Sol ; then the tap of a drum — a mounted guard
opens the way— the crowd doff their hats, and the
king sweeps by in a gilded coach drawn by six
horses, and followed by a long train of uncouth
antiquated vehicles drawn by mules.

The living tide now sets towards the Prado, and
the beautiful gardens of the Retiro. Beautiful are
they at thffc magic hour. Beautiful — with the
almond-tree in blossom — with the broad green
leaves of the sycamore and the chestnut — with the
fragrance of the orange and the lemon — with the
beauty of a thousand flowers — with the soothing
calm and the dewy freshness of evening.

225

XL

I love to linger on the Prado till the crowd is
gone and the night far advanced. There musing
and alone I sit, and listen to the lulling fall of
waters in their marble fountains, and watch the
moon as it rises over the gardens of the Retiro,
brighter than a northern sun. The beautiful
scene lies half in shadow, half in light,— almost a
fairy land. Occasionally the sound of a guitar, or
a distant voice, breaks in upon my revery. Then
the form of a monk, from the neighbouring con
vent, sweeps by me like a shadow, and disappears
in the gloom of the leafy avenues ; and far away
from the streets of the city comes the voice of the
watchman telling the midnight hour.

Lovely art thou, O Night, beneath the skies of
Spain. Day, panting with heat, and laden with
a thousand cares, toils onward like a beast of
burden ; but Night, calm, silent, holyiP^ight is a
ministering angel that cools with its dewy breath
the toil-heated brow ; and, like the Roman sister
hood, stoops down to bathe the pilgrim's feet.
How' grateful is the starry twilight ! How grate
ful the gentle radiance of the moon ! How grateful

226 A TAILOR'S DRAWER.

the delicious coolness of "the omnipresent and
deep-breathing air !" Lovely art thou, O Night,
beneath the skies of Spain !

END OF VOL. I.

OUTRE-MER;

A PILGRIMAGE

BEYOND THE SEA.

I have passed manye landes and manye yles and contftees, and cherched
manye fulle straunge places, and have ben in manye a ftill gode honourable
companye. Now I am comen home to reste. And thus recordynge the time
passed, I have fulfilled these thynges and putte hem wryten in this boke, as it
woulde come into roymynde.— SIR JOHN MAUNDEVILLK.

IN TWO VOLUMES.

VOL. II.

NEW-YORK :
PUBLISHED BY HARPER & BROTHERS,

NO. 82 CLIFF-STREET.

1835.

[Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the year 1835, by
HARPER & BROTHERS, in the Clerk's Office of the Southern
District of New-York.]

CONTENTS

OP

THE SECOND VOLUME.

PAGE

Ancient Spanish Ballads 1

The Village of El Pardillo 27

The Moral and Devotional Poetry of Spain 45

Coplas de Manrique . . , 79

The Pilgrim's Breviary 101

The Journey into Italy 133

Rome in Midsummer 149

The Village of La Riccia 173

Note-book 193

The Defence of Poetry 203

The Pilgrim's Salutation 243

Colophon 249

ANCIENT SPANISH BALLADS.

VOL. II. A

ANCIENT SPANISH BALLADS.

" I iove a ballad but even too well, if it be doleful matter mer
rily set down, or a very pleasant thing indeed, and sung lament
ably." WINTER'S TALK.

How universal is the love of poetry ! Every
nation has its popular songs, the offspring of a
credulous simplicity and an unschooled fancy.
The peasant of the north, as he sits by the even
ing fire, sings the traditionary ballad to his chil
dren, —

' Nor wants he gleeful tales, while round
The nut-brown bowl doth trot.'

The peasant of the south, as he lies at noon in the
shade of the sycamore, or sits by his door in the
evening twilight, sings his amorous lay, and list
lessly

4 On hollow quills of oaten straw,
He pipeth melody.'

ANCIENT SPANISH BALLADS.

The muleteer of Spain carols with the early lark,
amid the stormy mountains of his native land.
The vintager of Sicily has his evening hymn ; the
fisherman of Naples his boat-song ; the gondolier
of Venice his midnight serenade. The goatherd
of Switzerland and the Tyrol — the Carpathian
boor — the Scotch Highlander — the English plough-
boy, singing as he drives his team a-field, —
peasant— serf — slave — all, all have their ballads
and traditionary songs. Music is the universal
language of mankind, — poetry their universal
pastime and delight.

The ancient ballads of Spain hold a prominent
rank in her literary history. Their number is
truly astonishing, and may well startle the most
enthusiastic lover of popular song. The Ro-
mancero General* contains upwards of a thou
sand ; and though upon many of these may justly
be bestowed the encomium which honest Izaak
Walton pronounces upon the old English ballad
of the Passionate Shepherd, — "old-fashioned poe
try, but choicely good," — yet, as a whole, they are.
perhaps, more remarkable for their number than
for their beauty. Every great historic event,
every marvellous tradition has its popular ballad.

* Romancero General, en que se contiene todos los Romances
que andan impresos. 4to. Madrid, 1004.

ANCIENT SPANISH BALLADS. 5

Don Roderick, Bernardo del Carpio, and the Cid
Campeador are not more the heroes of ancient
chronicle than of ancient song ; and the imaginary
champions of Christendom, the twelve peers "of
Charlemagne, have found an historian in the wan
dering ballad-singer no less authentic than the
good Archbishop Turpin.

Most of these ancient ballads had their origin
during the dominion of the Moors in Spain.
Many of them, doubtless, are nearly as old as the
events they celebrate ; though in their present
form the greater part belong to the fourteenth
century. The language in which they are now
preserved indicates no higher antiquity: but who
shall say how long they had been handed down by
tradition, ere they were taken from the lips of the
wandering minstrel, and recorded in a more perma
nent form ?

The seven centuries of the Moorish sovereignty
in Spain are the heroic ages of her history and her
poetry. What the warrior achieved with his
sword the minstrel published in his song. The
character of those ages is seen in the character of
their literature. History casts its shadow far into
the land of song : indeed, the most prominent
characteristic of the ancient Spanish ballads is
their warlike spirit ; they shadow forth the ma-

A2

ANCIENT SPANISH BALLADS.

jestic lineaments of the warlike ages ; and through
every line breathes a high and peculiar tone of
chivalrous feeling. It is not the piping sound of
peace, but a blast, — a loud, long blast from the
war-horn, —

' A trump with a stern breath
Which is cleped the trump of death.'

And with this mingles the voice of lamentation, —
the requiem for the slain, with a melancholy sweet
ness I—
Rio Verde, Rio Verde !

Many a corpse is bathed in thee,

Both of Moors and eke of Christians,

Slain with swords most cruelly.

And thy pure and cn^stal waters

Dappled are with crimson gore ;
For between the Moors and Christians

Long has been the fight and sore.

Dukes and counts fell bleeding near thee,
Lords of high renown were slain

Perished many a brave hidalgo
Of the noblemen of Spain.

Another prominent characteristic of these an
cient ballads is their energetic and beautiful sim
plicity. A great historic event is described in the
fewest possible words : there is no ornament, no

ANCIENT SPANISH BALLADS. 7

artifice. The poet's intention was to narrate, not
to embellish. It is truly wonderful to observe
what force, and beauty, and dramatic power is
given to the old romances by this single circum
stance. When Bernardo del Carpio leads forth his
valiant Leonese against the hosts of Charlemagne,
he animates their courage by alluding to their
battles with the Moors, and exclaims, " Shall the
lions that have bathed their paws in Libyan gore
now crouch before the Frank ?" — When he enters
the palace of the treacherous Alfonso, to upbraid
him for a broken promise, and the king orders him
to be arrested for contumely, he lays his hand upon
his sword and cries, " Let no one stir ! I am Ber
nardo ; and my sword is not subject even to kings !"
— When the Count Alarcos prepares to put to
death his own wife at the king's command, she sub
mits patiently to her fate, asks time to say a prayer,
and then exclaims, " Now bring me my infant boy,
that I may give him suck, as my last farewell !"
Is there in all the writings of Homer an incident
more touching or more true to nature ?

The ancient Spanish ballads naturally divide
themselves into three classes : — the Historic, the
Romantic, and the Moorish. It must be confessed,
however, that the line of demarcation between
these three classes is not well defined ; for many

ANCIENT SPANISH BALLADS.

of the Moorish ballads are historic, and many
others occupy a kind of debatable ground between
the historic and the romantic. I have adopted this
classification for the sake of its convenience, and
shall now make a few hasty observations upon
each class, and illustrate my remarks by specimens
of the ballads.

The historic ballads are those which recount the
noble deeds of the early heroes of Spain : of Ber
nardo del Carpio, the Cid, Martin Pelaez, Garcia
Perez de Vargas, Alonso de Aguilar, and many
others whose names stand conspicuous in Spanish
history. Indeed, these ballads may themselves be
regarded in the light of historic documents ; they
are portraits of long-departed ages, and if at times
their features are exaggerated and coloured with
too bold a contrast of light and shade, yet the free
and spirited touches of a master's hand are recog
nised in all. They are instinct, too, with the
spirit of Castillian pride, with the high and daunt
less spirit of liberty that burned so bright of old
in the heart of the brave hidalgo. Take, for ex
ample, the ballad of the Five Farthings. King
Alfonso VIII., having exhausted his treasury in
war, wishes to lay a tax of five farthings upon each
of the Castillian hidalgos, in order to defray the
expenses of a journey from Burgos to Cuenca.

ANCIENT SPANISH BALLADS. 9

This proposition of the king was met with disdain
by the noblemen who had been assembled on the
occasion : —

Don Nuiio, Count of Lara

In anger and in pride,
Forgot all reverence for the king,

And thus in wrath replied : —

Our noble ancestors, quoth he,

Ne'er such a tribute paid ;
Nor shall the king receive of us

What they have once gainsaid.

The base-born soul who deems it just

May here with thee remain ;
But follow me, ye cavaliers,

Ye noblemen of Spain.

Forth they followed the noble count,

They marched to Glera's plain ;
Out of three thousand gallant knights

Did only three remain.

They tied the tribute to their spears,

They raised it in the air,
And they sent to tell their lord the king

That his tax was ready there.

He may send and take by force, said they,

This paltry sum of gold ;
But the goodly gift of liberty

Cannot be bought and sold.

10 ANCIENT SPANISH BALLADS.

The same gallant spirit breathes through all the
historic ballads ; but, perhaps, most fervently in
those which relate to Bernardo del Carpio. How
spirit-stirring are all the speeches which the ballad-
writers have put into the mouth of this valiant
hero ! " Ours is the blood of the Goth," says he to
King Alfonso ; " sweet to us is liberty, and bond
age odious !" — " The king may give his castles
to the Frank, but not his vassals ; for kings them
selves hold no dominion over the free-will !" He
and his followers had rather die freemen than live-
slaves ! If these are the common watch- words of
liberty at the present day, they were no less so
among the high-born and high-souled Spaniards
of the eighth century.

One of the finest of the historic ballads is that
which describes Bernardo's march to Roncesvalles,
He sallies forth " with three thousand Leonese and
more," to protect the glory and freedom of his
native land. From all sides the peasantry of the
land flock to the hero's standard:—

The peasant leaves his plough a-fiekl,

The reaper leaves his hook,
And from his hand the shepherd-boy

Lets fall the pastoral crook.

ANCIENT SPANISH BALLADS. 11

The young set up a shout of joy,

The old forget their years,
The feeble man grows stout of heart,

No more the craven fears.

All rush to Bernard's standard,
• And on liberty they call ;
They cannot brook to wear the yoke
When threatened by the Gaul.

Free were we born, 'tis thus they cry,

And willingly pay we
The duty that we owe our king,

By the divine decree.

But God forbid that we obey

The laws of foreign knaves,
Tarnish the glory of our sires,

And make our children slaves.

Our hearts have not so craven grown,

So bloodless all our veins,
So vigourless bur brawny arms,

As to submit to chains.

Has the audacious Frank, forsooth,

Subdued these seas and lands ?
Shall he a bloodless victory have ?

No ; not while we have hands.

He shall learn that the gallant Leonese

Can bravely fight and fall :
But that they know not how to yield ; —

They are Castillians all.

12 ANCIENT SPANISH BALLADS.

Was it for this the Roman power

Of old was made to yield
Unto Numantia's valiant hosts,

On many a bloody field ]

Shall the bold lions, that have bathed

Their paws in Libyan gore,
Crouch basely to a feebler foe,

And dare the strife no more 1

Let the false king sell town and tower,

But not his vassals free,
For to subdue the free-born soul,

No royal power hath he !

These short specimens will suffice to show the
spirit of the old heroic ballads of Spain ; the Ro
mances del Cid and those that rehearse the gallant
achievements of many other champions brave, and
stalwart knights of old, I must leave unnoticed, and
pass to another field of chivalry and song.

The next class of the ancient Spanish ballads
is the romantic, including those which relate to the
Twelve Peers of Charlemagne and other imaginary
heroes of the days of chivalry. There is an exag
geration in the prowess of these heroes of romance
which is in accordance with the warmth of a
Spanish imagination ; and the ballads which cele
brate their achievements still go from mouth to
mouth among the peasantry of Spain, and are

ANCIENT SPANISH BALLADS. 13

hawked about the streets by the blind ballad-
monger.

Among the romantic ballads, those of the Twelve
Peers stand pre-eminent ; not so much for their
poetic merit as for the fame of their heroes. In
them are sung the valiant knights, whose history
is written more at large in the prose romances of
chivalry, — Orlando, and Oliver, and Montesinos,
and Durandarte, and the Marquis of Mantua, and
the other paladins, que en una mesa comian pan,
These ballads are of different length and various
degrees of merit. Of some a few lines only re
main ; they are evidently fragments of larger
works : while others, on the contrary, aspire to
the length and dignity of epic poems ; — witness the
ballads of the Conde de Irlos and the Marques de
Mantua, each of .which consists of nearly a thou
sand long and sonorous hexameters.

Among these ballads of the Twelve Peers there
are many of great beauty ; others possess little
merit, and are wanting in vigour and conciseness.
From the structure of the versification, I should
rank them among the oldest of the Spanish ballads.
They are all monrhythmic, with full consonant
rhymes.

To the romantic ballads belong also a great

VOL. II. B

14 ANCIENT SPANISH BALLADS.

number which recount the deeds ofless celebrated
heroes ; but none so curious among them all as
that of Vergilios. Like the old French romance-
writers of the middle ages, the early Spanish poets
introduce the Mantuan bard as a knight of chivalry.
The ballad informs us that a certain king kept him
imprisoned seven years, for what old Brantome
would call outrecuy dance with a certain Dona Isa
bel. But being at mass on Sunday, the recollection
of Virgil comes suddenly into his mind when he
ought to be attending to the priest ; and turning to
his knights, he asks them what has become of Virgil.
One of them replies, " Your highness has him im
prisoned in your dungeons ? to which the king
makes answer with the greatest coolness, by tell
ing them that the dinner is waiting, and that after
they have dined they will pay Virgil a visit in his
prison. Then up and spake the queen like a true
heroine : quoth she, " I will not dine without him;"
and straightway they all repair to the prison, where
they find the incarcerated knight engaged in the
pleasant pastime of combing his hair and arranging
his beard. He tells the king very coolly that on
that very day he has been a prisoner seven years :
to this the king replies, " Hush, hush, Virgil ; it
takes three more to make ten." — "Sire," says

ANCIENT SPANISH BALLADS. 15

Virgil with the same philosophical composure, "if
your highness so ordains, I will pass my whole life
here." — " As a reward for your patience you shall
dine with me to-day," says the king. — " My coat
is torn," says Virgil ; " I am not in trim to make
a leg." But this difficulty is removed by the
promise of a new suit from the king ; and they go
to dinner. Virgil delights both knights and dam
sels, but most of all Dona Isabel. The archbishop
is called in ; they are married forthwith, and the
ballad closes like a scene in some old play: "He
takes her by the hand, and leads her to the
garden."

Such is this curious ballad.

I now turn to one of the most beautiful of these
ancient Spanish poems ; — it is the Romance del
Conde Alarcos ; a ballad full of interest and of
touching pathos. The story is briefly this. The
Count Alarcos, after being secretly betrothed to
the Infanta Solisa, forsakes her and weds another
lady. Many years afterward the princess, sitting
alone, as she was wont, and bemoaning her for
saken lot, resolves to tell the cause of her secret
sorrow to the king her father ; and after confess
ing her clandestine love for Count Alarcos, de
mands the death of the countess, to heal her

16 ANCIENT SPANISH BALLADS.

wounded honour. Her story awakens the wrath
of the king ; he acknowledges the justness of her
demand, seeks an interview with the count, and
sets the case before him in so strong a light, that
finally he wrings from him a promise to put his
wife to death with his own hand. The count
returns homeward a grief-stricken man, weep
ing the sad destiny of his wife, and saying within
himself, " How shall I look upon her smile of joy
when she comes forth to meet me !" The countess
welcomes his return with affectionate tenderness ;
but he is heavy at heart and disconsolate. He sits
down to supper with his children around him, but
the food is untasted ; he hides his face in his hands
and weeps. At length they retire to their chamber,
In the language of Mr. Lockhart's* translation, —

They came together to the bower, where they were used to rest,
None with them but the little babe that was upon the breast ;
The count had barr'd the chamber doors, they ne'er were barrM

till then—
11 Unhappy lady," he began, " and I most lost of men !"

* Ancient Spanish Ballads, Historical and Romantic. By J.
G. Lockhart. These are beautiful poems, but poor translations,
They do not sufficiently preserve the austere simplicity of their
originals, except, perhaps, in the single instance before us. Hero
the translation is much more literal than in the rest of Mr. Lock-
hart's specimens.

ANCIENT SPANISH BALLADS. 17

" Now speak not so, my noble lord, my husband, and my life ;

Unhappy never can she be that is Alarcos' wife !"

" Alas ! unhappy lady, 'tis but little that you know,

For in that very word you've said is gather'd all your wo.

" Long since I loved a lady, long since I oaths did plight
To be that lady's husband, to love her day and night :
Her father is our lord the king, to him the thing is known,
And now — that I the news should bring ! — she claims me for
her own.

" Alas ! my love, alas ! my life, the right is on their side ;

Ere I had seen your face, sweet wife, she w&3 betrothed my

bride :
But, — oh ! that I should speak the word, — since in her place

you lie,
It is the bidding of our lord that you this night should die."

" Are these the wages of my love, so lowly and so leal 1
O, kill me not, thou noble count, when at thy foot I kneel !
But send me to my father's house, where once I dwelt in glee,
There will I live a lone chaste life, and rear my children three."

" It may not be — mine oath is strong — ere dawn of day you

die."

" O, well 'tis seen how all alone upon the earth am I : —
My father is an old frail man, my mother's in her grave,
And dead is stout Don Garcia — alas ! my brother brave !

" 'Twas at this coward king's command they slew my brother

dear,

And now I'm helpless in the land ! — it is not death I fear,
But loth, loth am I to depart, and leave my children so ; —
Now let me lay them to my heart, and kiss them ere I go."

18 ANCIENT SPANISH BALLADS.

" Kiss him that lies upon thy breast, — the rest thou mayst not

see."

" I fain would say an Ave." — " Then say it speedily."
She knelt her down upon her knee — " O, Lord ! behold mf

case ;
Judge not my deeds, but look on me in pity and great grace.'*

When she had made her orison, up from her knees she rose, —
" Be kind, Alarcos, to our babes, and pray for my repose ;
And now give me my boy once more, upon my breast to hold,
That he may drink one farewell drink before my breast Ue
cold."

" Why would you waken the poor child 1 you see he is asleep y
Prepare, dear wife, there is no time, the dawn begins to peep."
" Now, hear me, Count Alarcos ! I give thee pardon free ;
I pardon thee for the love's sake wherewith I've loved thee.

" But they have not my pardon, — the king and his proud

daughter ;

The curse of God be on them, for this unchristian slaughter !
I charge them with my dying breath, ere thirty days be gone,
To meet me in the realm of death, and at God's awful
throne!"

The count then strangles her with a scarf, and
the ballad concludes with the fulfilment of the
dying lady's prayer, in the death of the king and
the Infanta within twenty days of her own.

Few, I think, will be disposed to question the
beauty of this ancient ballad, though the refined and
cultivated taste of many may revolt from the seem-

ANCIENT SPANISHBALLADS. 19

ingly unnatural incident upon which it is founded.
It must be recollected that this is a scene taken
from a barbarous age, when the life of even the
most cherished and beloved was held of little value
in comparison with a chivalrous but false and
exaggerated point of honour. It must be borne in
mind, also, that notwithstanding the boasted liberty
of the Castillian hidalgos, and their frequent rebel
lions against the crown, a deep reverence for the
divine right of kings, and a consequent disposition
to obey the mandates of the throne, at almost any
sacrifice, has always been one of the most promi
nent traits of the Spanish character. When taken
in connexion with these circumstances, the story
of this old ballad ceases to be so grossly improb
able as it seems at first sight ; and, indeed, becomes
an illustration of national character. In all proba
bility the story of the Conde Alarcos had some
foundation in fact.*

The third class of the ancient Spanish ballads
is the Moorish. Here we enter a new world,
more gorgeous and more dazzling than that of
Gothic chronicle and tradition. The stern spirits

* This exaggerated reverence for the person and prerogatives
of the king has furnished the ground-work of some of the best
dramas in the Spanish language ; as, for example, La Estrella de
Sevilla, by Lope de Vega, and Del Rey Abajo Ninguno, by
Francisco de Roias.

20 ANCIENT SPANISH BALLADS.

of Bernardo, the Cid, and Mudarra have passed
away; the mail-clad forms of Guarinos, Orlando,
and Durandarte are not here ; the scene is changed :
it is the bridal of Andalla ; the bull-fight of Ganzul.
The sunshine of Andalusia glances upon the marble
halls of Granada, and green are the banks of the
Xenil and the Darro. A band of Moorish knights
gayly arrayed in gambesons of crimson silk, with
scarfs of blue and jewelled tahalies, sweep like the
wind through the square of Vivarambla. They
ride to the Tournament of Reeds ; the Moorish
maiden leads from the balcony; bright eyes glisten
from many a lattice ; and the victorious knight
receives the prize of valour from the hand of her
whose beauty is like the star-lit night : these are the
Xarifas, the Celindas, and Lindaraxas, — the An-
dallas, Ganzules, and Abenzaydes of Moorish song.

Then comes the sound of the silver clarion and
the roll of the Moorish atabal, down from the snowy
pass of the Sierra Nevada and across the gardens
of the Vega. Alhama has fallen: wo is me, Al-
hama ! The Christian is at the gates of Granada ;
the banner of the cross floats from the towers of
the Alhambra ! and these, too, are themes for
the minstrel, — themes sung alike by Moor and
Spaniard.

Among the Moorish ballads are included, not
only those which were originally composed in

ANCIENT SPANISH BALLADS. 21

Arabic, but all which relate to the manners, cus
toms, and history of the Moors in Spain. In most
of them the influence of an oriental taste is clearly
visible ; their spirit is more refined and effeminate
than that of the historic and romantic ballads, in
which no trace of such an influence is perceptible.
The spirit of the Cid is stern, unbending, steel-clad ;
his hand grasps his sword Tizona ; his heel wounds
the flank of his steed Babieca.

La mano aprieta a Tizona,
Y el talon fiere a Babieca.

But the spirit of Arbolan the Moor, though reso
lute in camps, is effeminate in courts ; he is a dia
mond among cimiters, yet graceful in the dance ; —

Diamante entre los alfanges
Gracioso en baylar las zambras.

The ancient ballads are stamped with the character
of their heroes. I could give abundant illustrations
of this, but it is not necessary.

Among the most spirited of the Moorish ballads
are those which are interwoven in the History of
the Civil Wars of Granada. The following, en
titled " A very mournful Ballad on the Siege and
Conquest of Albania," is very beautiful ; and such
was the effect it produced upon the Moors that it
was forbidden, on pain of death, to sing it within

ANCIENT SPANISH BALLADS,

the walls of Granada. The translation, which is
executed with great skill and fidelity, is from the
pen of Lord Byron: —

The Moorish king rides up and down,
Through Granada's royal town ;
From Elvira's gates to those
Of Bivarambla on he goes.
Wo is me, Alhama!,

Letters to the monarch tell
How Alhama's city fell ;
In the fire his scroll he threw,
And the messenger he slew.
Wo is me, Alhama !

He quits his mule, and mounts his horse,
And through the street directs his course ;
Through the street of Zacatin
To the Alhambra spurring in.
Wo is me, Alhama !

When the Alhambra's walls he gain'd,
On the moment he orclain'd
That the trumpet straight should sound
With the silver clarion round.
Wo is rne, Alhama !

And when the hollow drums of war
Beat the loud alarm afar,
That the Moors of town and plain
Might answer to the martial strain,
Wo is me, Alhama !

ANCIENT SPANISH BALLADS. 23

Then the Moors, by this aware,
That bloody Mars recall'd them there,
One by one, and two by two,
To a mighty squadron grew.
Wo is me, Alhama !

Out then spake an aged Moor
In these words the king before, —
" Wherefore call on us, oh king*?
What may mean this gathering?"
Wo is me, Alhama !

" Friends ! ye have, alas ! to know
Of a most disastrous blow ;
That the Christians, stern and bold,
Have obtain'd Albania's hold."
Wo is me, Alhama !

Out then spake old Alfaqui,
With his beard so white to see, —
" Good king, thou art justly served ;
Good king, this thou hast deserved.
Wo is me, Alhama !

" By thee were slain, in evil hour,
The Abencerrage, Granada's flower ;
And strangers were received by thee
Of Cordova the chivalry.
Wo is me, Alhama !

" And for this, oh king ! is sent
On thee a double chastisement ;
Thee and thine, thy crown and realm,
One last wreck shall overwhelm.
Wo is me, Alhama !

24 ANCIENT SPANISH BALLADS.

" He who holds no laws in awe,
He must perish by the law ;
And Granada must be won,
And thyself with her undone."
Wo is me, Alhama !

Fire flash'd from out the old Moor's ey«e ;
The monarch's wrath began to rise,
Because he answer'd, and because
He spake exceeding well of laws.
Wo is me, Alhama !

" There is no law to say such things
As may disgust the ear of kings !"
Thus, snorting with his choler, said
The Moorish king, and doom'd him dead.
Wo is me, Alhama !

Such are the ancient ballads of Spain ; poems
which, like the Gothic cathedrals of the middle ages,
have outlived the names of their builders. They are
the handiwork of wandering, homeless minstrels.
who for their daily bread thus "built the lofty
rhyme ;" and whose names, like their dust and
ashes, have long, long been wrapped in a shroud.
" These poets," says an anonymous writer, " have
left behind them no trace to which the imagination
can attach itself; they have 'died and made no
sign/ We pass from the infancy of Spanish poetry
to the age of Charles, through a long vista of
monuments without inscriptions, as the traveller
approaches the noise and bustle of modern Rome

ANCIENT SPANISH BALLADS. 25

through the lines of silent and unknown tombs that
border the Appian Way."

Before closing this essay, I must allude to the
unfavourable opinion which the learned Dr. Southey
has expressed concerning the merit of these old
Spanish ballads. In his preface to the Chronicle
of the Cid he says, " The heroic ballads of the
Spaniards have been overrated in this country ;
they are infinitely and every way inferior to our
own ; there are some spirited ones in the Guerras
Civiles de Granada, from which the rest have been
estimated; but excepting these, I know none of
any value among the many hundreds which I have
perused." On this field I am willing to do battle,
though it be with a veteran knight who bears en
chanted arms, and whose sword, like that of Martin
Antolinez, "illumines all the field." That the old
Spanish ballads may have been overrated, and that
as a whole they are inferior to the English, I con
cede ; that many of the hundred ballads of the
Cid are wanting in interest, and that many of those
of the Twelve Peers of France are languid, and
drawn out beyond the patience of the most patient
reader, I concede ; I willingly confess, also, that
among them all I have found none that can rival
in graphic power the short but wonderful ballad
of Sir Patrick Spence, wherein the mariner sees

VOL. II. — C

26 ANCIENT SPANISH BALLADS.

" the new moon with the old moon in her arm," or
the more modern one of the Battle of Agincourt,
by Michael Drayton, beginning, —

Fair stood the wind for France,
As we our sails advance,
Nor now to prove our chance

Longer will tarry ;
But putting to the main,
At Caux, the mouth of Seine,
With all his martial train

Landed King Harry.

All this I readily concede ; but that the old Spanish
ballads are infinitely and every way inferior to the
English, and that among them all there are none of
any value, save a few which celebrate the civil
wars of Granada, — this I deny. I think the March
of Bernardo del Carpio is equal to Chevy Chase ;
and that the ballad of the Conde Alarcos, in sim
plicity and pathos, has no peer in all English bal
ladry — it is superior to Edem o' Gordon. In proof
of this opinion, I confidently appeal to the ballads
themselves, — nay, even to the short specimens that
have been given in this essay.

But a truce to criticism. Already, methinks, I
hear the voice of a drowsy and prosaic herald pro
claiming, in the language of Don Quixote to the
puppet-player, " Make an end, Master Peter ; for
it grows toward supper-time, and I have some
symptoms of hunger upon me."

THE

VILLAGE OF EL PARDILLO,

THE

VILLAGE OF EL PARDILLO.

" When the lawyer is swallowed up with business, and the
statesman is preventing or contriving plots, then we sit on cow
slip banks, hear the birds sing, and possess ourselves in as much
quietness as these silent silver streams we now see glide so
quietly by us," IZAAK WALTON,

In that delicious season when the coy and ca
pricious maidenhood of spring is swelling into the
warmer, riper, and more voluptuous womanhood
of summer, I left Madrid for the village of El Par-
dillo. I had already seen enough of the villages
of the north of Spain to know that for the most
part they have few charms to entice one from the
city ; but I was curious to see the peasantry of the
land in their native homes, — to see how far the
shepherds of Castile resemble those who sigh and
sing in the pastoral romance of Montemayor and
Gaspar Gil Polo*

c 2

30 THE VILLAGE OF EL PARDILLO.

I love the city and its busy hum ; I love that
glad excitement of the crowd, which makes the
pulse beat quick, — the freedom from restraint, —
the absence of those curious eyes and idle tongues
which persecute you in villages and provincial
towns. I love the country, too, in its season ; and
there is no scene over which my eye roves with
more delight than the face of a summer landscape
dimpled with soft sunny hollows, and smiling in
all the freshness and luxuriance of June. There
is no book in which I read sweeter lessons of vir
tue, or find the beauty of a quiet life more legibly
recorded. My heart drinks in the tranquillity of
the scene ; and I never hear the sweet warble of
a bird from its native wood without a silent wish
that such a cheerful voice and peaceful shade \vere
mine. There is a beautiful moral feeling con
nected with every thing in rural life, which is not
dreamed of in the philosophy of the city: the voice
of the brook and the language of the winds and
woods are no poetic fiction. What an impressive
lesson is there in the opening bud of spring ! What
an eloquent homily in the fall of the autumnal leaf!
How well does the song of a passing bird repre
sent the glad but transitory days of youth ! and in
the hollow tree and hooting owl what a melan
choly image of the decay and imbecility of old

THE VILLAGE OF EL PARDILLO. 31

age ! In the beautiful language of an English
poet,—

Your voiceless lips, O flowers, are living preachers,
Each cup a pulpit, — every leaf a book,
Supplying to my fancy numerous teachers,
From loneliest nook.

'Neath cloistered boughs each floral bell that swingeth,
And tolls its perfume on the passing air,
Makes Sabbath in the fields, and ever ringeth
A call to prayer ;

Not to the domes where crumbling arch and column
Attest the feebleness of mortal hand,
But to that fane most catholic and solemn
Which God hath planned ;

To that cathedral, boundless as our wonder,
Whose quenchless lamps the sun and moon supply,
Its choir the winds and waves, — its organ thunder,
Its dome the sky.

There, amid solitude and shade, I wander
Through the green isles, and, stretched upon the sod,
Awed by the silence, reverently ponder
The ways of God.

But the traveller who journeys through the
northern provinces of Spain will look in vain for
the charms of rural scenery in the villages he
passes. Instead of trim cottages, and gardens, and
the grateful shade of trees, he will see a cluster of
stone hovels roofed with red tiles and basking in

32 THE VILLAGE OF EL PARDILLO.

the hot sun, without a single tree to lend him shade
or shelter ; and instead of green meadows and
woodlands vocal with the song of birds, he will find
bleak and rugged mountains and vast extended
plains that stretch away beyond his ken.

It was my good fortune, however, to find, not
many leagues from the metropolis, a village which
could boast the shadow of a few trees. El Pardillo
is situated on the southern slope of the Guardarama
Mountains, just where the last broken spurs of the
sierra stretch forward into the vast table-land of
New Castile. The village itself, like most other
Castilian villages, is only a cluster of weather-
stained and dilapidated houses, huddled together
without beauty or regularity; but the scenery
around it is picturesque, — a mingling of hill and
dale, sprinkled with patches of cultivated land and
clumps of forest trees ; and in the background the
blue vapory outline of the Guardarama Mountains
melting into the sky.

In this quiet place I sojourned for a season, ac
companied by the publican Don Valentin and his
fair daughter Florencia. We took up our abode
in the cottage of a peasant named Lucas, an honest
tiller of the soil, simple and good-natured ; or, in
the more emphatic language of Don Valentin, un
hombre muy infeliz, y sin malicia ninguna. Not
so his wife Martina ; she was a Tartar, and so

THE VILLAGE OF EL PARDILLO. 33

mettlesome withal, that poor Lucas skulked dog
gedly about his own premises, with his head down,
and his tail between his legs.

In this little village my occupations were few
and simple. My morning's walk was to the Cross
of Espalmado, a large wooden crucifix in the fields ;
the day was passed with books, or with any idle
companion I was lucky enough to catch by the
button and bribe with a cigar into a long story, or a
little village gossip ; and I whiled away the evening
in peeping round among the cottagers, studying
the beautiful landscape that spread before me, and
watching the occasional gathering of a storm
about the blue peaks of the Guardarama Moun
tains. My favourite haunt was a secluded spot in
a little woodland valley, through which a crystal
brook ran brawling along its pebbly channel : there,
stretched in the shadow of a tree, I often passed
the hours of noontide heat, now reading the magic
numbers of Garcilaso, and anon listening to the
song of the nightingale overhead ; or watching the
toil of a patient ant as he rolled his stone, like
Sisyphus, up-hill, or the flight of a bee darting from
flower to flower, and " hiding his murmurs in the
rose."

Blame me not, thou studious moralist, — blame
me not unheard for this idle dreaming ; such mo-

34 THE VILLAGE OF EL PARDILLO.

merits are not wholly thrown away. In the lan
guage of Goethe, " I lie down in the grass near a
faffing brook, and close to the earth a thousand
varieties of grasses become perceptible. When I
listen to the hum of the little world between the
stubble, and see the countless indescribable forms
of insects, I feel the presence of the Almighty who
has created us, — the breath of the All-benevolent
who supports us in perpetual enjoyment."

The village church, too, was a spot around which
I occasionally lingered of an evening when in pen
sive or melancholy mood : and here, gentle reader,
thy imagination will straightway conjure up a scene
of ideal beauty, — a village church with decent
white-washed walls, and modest spire just peeping
forth from a clump of trees ! — no ; I will not de
ceive thee : the church of El Pardillo resembles
not this picture of thy well-tutored fancy; it is a
gloomy little edifice, standing upon the outskirts of
the village, and built of dark and unhewn stone,
with a spire like a sugar-loaf. There is no grass-
plot in front, but a little esplanade beaten hard by
the footsteps of the church-going peasantry. The
tombstone of one of the patriarchs of the village
serves as a door-step, and a single solitary tree
throws its friendly shade upon the portals of the
little sanctuary.

THE VILLAGE OF EL PARDILLO. 35

One evening, as I loitered around this spot, the
sound of an organ and the chant of youthful
voices from within struck my ear; the church-
door was ajar, and I entered. There stood the
priest surrounded by a group of children, who
were chanting a hymn to the Virgin : —

Ave, Regina coslorum,
Ave, Domina angelorum.

There is something exceedingly thrilling in the
voices of children singing : though their music be
unskilful, yet it finds its way to the heart with
wonderful celerity. Voices of cherubs are they,
for they breathe of paradise ; clear liquid tones
that flow from pure lips and innocent hearts like
the sweetest notes of a flute, or the falling of water
from a fountain ! When the chant was finished,
the priest opened a little book which he held in his
hand, and began, with a voice as solemn as a funeral
bell, to question this class of roguish little catechu
mens, whom he was initiating into the mysterious
doctrines of the mother church. Some of the
questions and answers were so curious that I can
not refrain from repeating them here ; and should
any one doubt their authenticity, he will find them
in the Spanish catechisms.

36 THE VILLAGE OF EL PARDILLO.

"In what consists the mystery of the Holy
Trinity?"

** In one God, who is three persons ; and three
persons, who are but one God."

" But tell me, — three human persons, are they
not three men ?"

" Yes, father."

" Then why are not three divine persons three
Gods?"

" Because three human persons have three hu
man natures ; but the three divine persons have
only one divine nature."

" Can you explain this by an example?"

" Yes, father ; as a tree which has three branches
is still but one tree, since all the three branches
spring from one trunk, so the three divine persons
are but one God, because they all have the same
divine nature."

" Where were these three divine persons before
the heavens and the earth were created ?"

" In themselves."

" Which of them was made man ?"

"The Son."

0 And after the Son was made man was he still
God ?"

" Yes, father ; for in becoming man he did not

THE VILLAGE OF EL PARDILLO. 37

cease to be God, any more than a man when he
becomes a monk ceases to be a man."
" How was the Son of God made flesh."
" He was born of the most holy Virgin Mary."
" And can we still call her a Virgin ?"
" Yes, father : for as a ray of the sun may pass
through a pane of glass, and the glass remain un
broken, so the Virgin Mary, after the birth of her
son, was a pure and holy virgin as before."*
" Who died to save and redeem us ?"
" The Son of God : as man, and not as God."
* How could he suffer and die as man only, being
both God and man, and yet but one person ?"

" As in a heated bar of iron upon which water
is thrown, the heat only is affected and not the
iron, so the Son of God suffered in his human
nature and not in his divine."

* This illustration was also made use of during the dark
ages. Pierre de Corbiac, a troubadour of the thirteenth century,
thus introduces it in a poem entitled Prayer to the Virgin : —

Doruna, verges pur' e fina
Ans que fos 1' enfantamens
Et apres tot eissamens,
De vos trais sa earn humana
Jhesu Christ nostre salvaire ;
Si com ses trencamens faire
Intra'l bel rais quan solelha
Per la fenestra veirina.
VOL. II. — D

38 THE VILLAGE OF EL PARDILLO.

" And when the spirit was separated from his
most precious body, whither did the spirit go ?"

" To limbo, to glorify the souls of the holy
fathers."

« And the body ?"

" It was carried to the grave."

" Did the divinity remain united with the spirit
or with the body ?"

" With both. As a soldier when he unsheaths
his sword remains united both with the sword and
the sheath, though they are separated from each
other, so did the divinity remain united both with
the Spirit and body of Christ, though the spirit
was separated and removed from the body."

I did not quarrel with the priest for having been
born and educated in a different faith from mine ;
but as I left the church and sauntered slowly home
ward, I could not help asking myself, in a whisper,
Why perplex the spirit of a child with these meta
physical subtleties, these dark, mysterious specu
lations, which man in all his pride of intellect can
not fathom nor explain ?

I must not forget, in this place, to make honour
able mention of the little great men of El Pardillo.
And first in order comes the Priest, the bell-wether
of the flock : he was a short, portly man, serious
in manner and of grave and reverend presence ;

THE VILLAGE OF EL PARDILLO. 39

though at the same time there was a dash of the
joliy-fat- friar about him ; and on hearing a good
joke or a sly inuendo, a smile would gleam in his
eye, and play over his round face like the light of a
glow-worm. His housekeeper was a brisk, smi
ling little woman, on the shady side of thirty, and
a cousin of his to boot. Whenever she was men
tioned, Don Valentin looked wise, as if this cousin-
ship were apocryphal ; but he said nothing, — not
he: what right had he to be peeping into other
people's business, when he had only one eye to
look after his own withal ? Next in rank to the
Dominie was the Alcalde, justice of the peace and
quorum ; a most potent, grave, and reverend per
sonage, with a long beak of a nose, and a pouch
under his chin, like a pelican"; he was a man of few
words, but great in authority ; and his importance
was vastly increased in the village by a pair of
double-barrelled spectacles, so contrived that when
bent over his desk and deeply buried in his musty
papers, he could look up and see what was going
on around him without moving his head, whereby
he got the reputation of seeing twice as much as
other people. There was the village Surgeon,
too, a tall man with a varnished hat and a starved
dog; he had studied at the university of Sala
manca, and was pompous and pedantic, ever and

40 THE VILLAGE OF EL PARDILLO.

anon quoting some thread-bare maxim from the
Greek philosophers, and embellishing it with a
commentary of his own : then there was the gray-
headed Sacristan, who rang the church-bell, played
on the organ, and was learned in tombstone lore ;
a Politician, who talked me to death about taxes,
liberty, and the days of the constitution ; and a
Notary Public, a poor man with a large family, who
would make a paper-cigar last half an hour, and
who kept up his respectability in the village by
keeping a horse.

Beneath the protecting shade of these great men
full many an inhabitant of El Pardillo was born
and buried. The village continued to flourish, a
quiet, happy place, though all unknown to fame.
The inhabitants were orderly and industrious,
went regularly to mass and confession, kept every
saint's day in the calendar, and devoutly hung
Judas once a year — in effigy : on Sundays and all
other holydays, when mass was over, the time was
devoted to sports and recreation ; and the day
passed off in social visiting and athletic exercises,
such as running, leaping, wrestling, pitching quoits,
and heaving the bar. When evening came, the
merry sound of the guitar summoned to the dance ;
then every nook and alley poured forth its youth
ful company, — light of heart and heel, and decked

THE VILLAGE OF EL PARDILLO. 41

out in all the holyday finery of flowers, and ribands,
and crimson sashes. A group gathered before the
cottage-door ; the signal was given, and away
whirled the merry dancers to the wild music of
voice and guitar, and the measured beat of castanet
and tambarine.

I love these rural dances, — from my heart I love
them. This world at best is so full of care and
sorrow, — the life of a poor man is so stained with
the sweat of his brow, — there is so much toil, and
struggling, and anguish, and disappointment here
below, that I gaze with delight on a scene where
all these are laid aside and forgotten, and the heart
of the toil-worn peasant seems to throw off its load,
and to leap to the sound of music so merrily,- —

' beneath soft eve's consenting star,

Fandango twirls his jocund castanet.'

Not many miles from the village of El Pardillo
stands the ruined castle of Villa Franca, an ancient
stronghold of the Moors of the fifteenth century.
It is built upon the summit of a hill of easy ascent
upon one side, but precipitous and inaccessible on
the other. The front presents a large square tower,
constituting the main part of the castle ; on one
side of which an arched gate-way leads to a spa
cious court-yard within, surrounded by battle-

D2

42 THE VILLAGE OF EL PARDILLO.

ments. The corner towers are circular, with
beetling turrets ; and here and there, apart from the
main body of the castle, stand several circular
basements, whose towers have fallen and moul
dered into dust. From the balcony in the square
tower, the eye embraces the level landscape for
leagues and leagues around ; and beneath, in the
depth of the valley, lies a beautiful grove, alive
with the song of the nightingale. The whole castle
is in ruin, and occupied only as a hunting-lodge,
being inhabited by a solitary tenant, who has
charge of the adjacent domain.

One holyday, when mass was said and the whole
village was let loose to play, we made a pilgrim
age to the ruins of this old Moorish alcazar. Our
cavalcade was as motley as that of old, — the
pilgrims " that toward Canterbury wolden ride ;"
for we had the priest, and the doctor of physic,
and the man of laws, and a wife of Bath, and many
more whom I must leave unsung. Merrily flew
the hours and fast ; and sitting after dinner in the
gloomy hall of that old castle, many a tale was
told, and many a legend and tradition of the past
conjured up to satisfy the curiosity of the present.

Most of these tales were about the Moors who
built the castle, and the treasures they had buried
beneath it. Then the priest told the story of a

THE VILLAGE OF EL PARDILLO. 43

lawyer who sold himself to the devil for a pot of
money, and was burnt by the holy Inquisition
therefor. In his confession he told how he had
learned from a Jew the secret of raising the devil ;
how he went to the castle at midnight with a book
which the Jew gave him, and to make the charm
sure, carried with him a loadstone, six nails from
the coffin of a child of three years, six tapers of
rosewax, made by a child of four years, the skin
and blood of a young kid, an iron fork, with which
the kid had been killed, a few hazel-rods, a flask
of high-proof brandy, and some lignum-vitae char
coal to make a fire. When he read in the book,
the devil appeared in the shape of a man dressed
in flesh-coloured clothes, with long nails and large
fiery eyes, and he signed an agreement with him,
written in blood, promising never to go to mass,
and to give him his soul at the end of eight years ;
in return for this he was to have a million of
dollars in good money, which the devil was to
bring to him the next night ; but when the next
night came, and the lawyer had conjured from his
book, instead of the devil there appeared — who do
you think ? — the alcalde with half the village at
his heels, and the poor lawyer was handed over
to the Inquisition, and burnt for dealing in the
black art.

44 THE VILLAGE OF EL PARDILLO.

I intended to repeat here some of the many tales
that were told ; but, upon reflection, they seem too
frivolous, and must therefore give place to a
more serious theme.

THE MORAL AND DEVOTIONAL
POETRY OF SPAIN.

THE MORAL AND DEVOTIONAL
POETRY OF SPAIN.

" Heaven's dove, when highest he flies,
Flies with thy heavenly wings." — CRASHAW.

THERE is hardly a chapter in literary history
more strongly marked with the peculiarities of
national character than that which contains the
moral and devotional poetry of Spain. It would
naturally be expected, that in this department of
literature all the fervency and depth of national
feeling would be exhibited. But still, as the spirit
of morality and devotion is the same, wherever it
exists, — as the enthusiasm of virtue and religion is
everywhere essentially the same feeling, though
modified in its degree and in its action by a variety
of physical causes and local circumstances, — and
as the subject of the didactic verse and the
spiritual canticle cannot be materially changed by
the change of nation and climate, it might at the
first glance seem quite as natural to expect that
the moral and devotional poetry of Christian

48 THE MORAL AND DEVOTIONAL

countries would never be very strongly marked
with national peculiarities : in other words, we
should expect it to correspond to the warmth or
coldness of national feeling, for it is the external
and visible expression of this feeling ; but not to
the distinctions of national character, because its
nature and object being everywhere the same,
these distinctions become swallowed up in one
universal Christian character.

In moral poetry this is doubtless true. The
great principles of Christian morality being eternal
and invariable, the verse which imbodies and rep
resents them must, from this very circumstance,
be the same in its spirit through all Christian lands.
The same, however, is not necessarily true of
devotional or religious poetry. There, the lan
guage of poetry is something more than the visi
ble image of a devotional spirit. It is also an ex
pression of religious faith ; shadowing forth, with
greater or less distinctness, its various creeds and
doctrines. As these are different in different
nations, the spirit that breathes in religious song,
and the letter that gives utterance to the doctrine
of faith, will not be universally the same. Thus
Catholic nations sing the praises of the Virgin
Mary in language in which nations of the Protest
ant faith do not unite ; and among Protestants

POETRY OF SPAIN. 49

themselves, the difference of interpretations, and
the consequent belief or disbelief of certain doc
trines, give a various spirit and expression to re
ligious poetry. And yet, in all, the devotional
feeling — the heavenward volition is the same.

So far, then, as peculiarities of religious faith
exercise an influence upon intellectual habits, and
thus become a part of national character, just so
far will the devotional or religious poetry of a
country exhibit the characteristic peculiarities,
resulting from this influence of faith, and its assim
ilation with the national mind. Now Spain is by
preeminence the Catholic land of Christendom.
Most of her historic recollections are more or
less intimately associated with the triumphs of the
Christian faith ; and many of her warriors — of her
best and bravest — were martyrs in the holy
cause, perishing in that war of centuries, which
was carried on within her own territories be
tween the crescent of Mahomet and the cross of
Christ. Indeed, the whole tissue of her history is
interwoven with miraculous tradition. The in
tervention of her patron saint has saved her
honour in more than one dangerous pass ; and the
war-shout of " Santiago, y cierra Espafia !" has
worked like a charm upon the wavering spirit of
the soldier. A reliance on the guardian ministry

VOL. II. E

50 THE MORAL AND DEVOTIONAL

of the saints pervades the whole people, and
devotional offerings for signal preservation in
times of danger and distress cover the conse
crated walls of churches. An enthusiasm of re
ligious feeling, and of external ritual observances,
prevails throughout the land. But more particu
larly is the name of the Virgin honoured and
adored. Ave Maria is the salutation of peace at
the friendly threshold, and the God-speed to the
wayfarer. It is the evening orison when the toils
of day are done ; and at midnight it echoes along
the solitary street in the voice of the watchman's
cry.

These and similar peculiarities of religious
faith are breathing and moving through a large
portion of the devotional poetry of Spain. It is
not only instinct with religious feeling, but incor
porated with " the substance of things not seen."
Not only are the poet's lips touched with a coal
from the altar, but his spirit is folded in the cloud
of incense that rises before the shrines of the
Virgin Mother, and the glorious company of the
saints and martyrs. His soul is not wholly swal
lowed up in the contemplation of the sublime at
tributes of the Eternal Mind ; but with its lamp
trimmed and burning, it goeth out to meet the

POETRY OF SPAIN. 51

bridegroom, as if he were coming in a bodily
presence.

The history of the devotional poetry of Spain
commences with the legendary lore of Maestro
Gonzalvo de Berceo, a secular priest, whose life
was passed in the cloisters of a Benedictine con
vent, and amid the shadows of the thirteenth cen
tury. The name of Berceo stands foremost on
the catalogue of Spanish poets, for the author of
the Poem of the Cid is unknown. The old
patriarch of Spanish poetry has left a monument
of his existence in upwards of thirteen thousand
alexandrines, celebrating the lives and miracles
of saints, and the Virgin, as he found them written
in the Latin chronicles and dusty legends of his
monastery. In imbodying these in rude verse in
roman paladino, or the old Spanish romance
tongue, intelligible to the common people, Fray
Gonzalvo seems to have passed his life. His
writings are just such as we should expect from
the pen of a monk of the thirteenth century. They
are more ghostly than poetical ; and throughout,
unction holds the place of inspiration. Accord
ingly, they illustrate very fully the preceding re
marks ; and the more so, inasmuch as they are
written with the most ample and childish credulity*

52 THE MORAL AND DEVOTIONAL

and the utmost singleness of faith touching the
events and miracles described.

The following extract is taken from one of
Berceo's poems, entitled " Vida de San Millan."
It is a description of the miraculous appearance
of Santiago and San Millan, mounted on snow-
white steeds, and fighting for the cause of Chris
tendom, at the battle of Simancas in the Campo de
Toro.

And when the kings were in the field, — their squadrons in array,
With lance in rest they onward pressed to mingle in the fray ;
But soon upon the Christians fell a terror of their foes, —
These were a numerous army, — a little handful those.

And while the Christian people stood in this uncertainty,
Upward towards heaven they turned their eyes, and fixed their

thoughts on high ;

And there two persons they beheld, all beautiful and bright,
Even than the pure new-fallen snow their garments were more

white.

They rode upon two horses more white than crystal sheen,
And arms they bore such as before no mortal man had seen ^
The one, he held a crosier, — a pontiff's mitre wore ;
The other held a crucifix, — such man ne'er saw before.

Their faces were angelical, celestial forms had they, —

And downward through the fields of air they urged their rapid

way.

They looked upon the Moorish host with fierce and angry look,
And in their hands, with dire portent, their naked sabres shook.

POETRY OF SPAIN. 53

The Christian host, beholding this, straightway take heart again ;
They fall upon their bended knees, all resting on the plain,
And each one with his clenched fist to smite his breast begins,
And promises to God on high he will forsake his sins.

And when the heavenly knights drew near unto the battle ground,
They dashed among the Moors and dealt unerring blows around ;
Such deadly havoc there they made the foremost ranks along,
A panic terror spread unto the hindmost of the throng.

Together with these two good knights, the champions of the sky,
The Christians rallied and began to smite full sore and high ;
The Moors raised up their voices and by the Koran swore,
That in their lives such deadly fray they ne'er had seen before.

Down went the misbelievers, — fast sped the bloody fight, —
Some ghastly and dismembered lay, and some half-dead with

fright :

Full sorely they repented that to the field they came,
For they saw that from the battle they should retreat with

shame.

Another thing befell them, — they dreamed not of such woes, —
The very arrows that the Moors shot from their twanging bows
Turned back against them in their flight and wounded them full

sore,
And every blow they dealt the foe was paid in drops of gore.

* * * * * *

Now he that bore the crosier, and the papal crown had on,
Was the glorified Apostle, the brother of Saint John ;
And he that held the crucifix, and wore the monkish hood,
Was the holy San Millan of Cogolla's neighbourhood.

Berceo's longest poem is entitled " Miraclos de

E2

54 THE MORAL AND DEVOTIONAL

JVuestra Senora," Miracles of Our Lady. It con
sists of nearly four thousand lines, and contains
the description of twenty-five miracles. -It is a
complete homily on the homage and devotion due
to the glorious Virgin, Madre de Jhu Xto, Mother
of Jesus Christ ; but it is written in a low and
vulgar style, strikingly at variance with the ele
vated character of the subject. Thus, in the
twentieth miracle, we have the account of a monk
who became intoxicated in a wine-cellar. Having
lain on the floor till the vesper-bell aroused him,
he staggers off towards the church in most melan
choly plight. The Evil One besets him on the
way, assuming the various shapes of a bull, a dog,
and a lion; but from all these perils he is miracu
lously saved by the timely intervention of the
Virgin, who, finding him still too much intoxicated
to make his way to bed, kindly takes him by the
hand, leads him to his pallet, covers him with a
blanket and a counterpane, smooths his pillow, and,
after making the sign of the cross over him, tells
him to rest quietly, for sleep will do him good.

To a certain class of minds, there may be some
thing interesting and even affecting in descriptions
which represent the spirit of a departed saint as
thus assuming a corporeal shape, in order to assist
and console human nature even in its baser in-

POETRY OF SPAIN. 55

firmities ; but it ought also to be considered, how
much such descriptions tend to strip religion of
its peculiar sanctity, to bring it down from its
heavenly abode, not merely to dwell among men,
but, like an imprisoned culprit, to be chained to the
derelict of principle, manacled with the base desire
and earthly passion, and forced to do the menial
offices of a slave. In descriptions of this kind, as
in the representations of our Saviour, and of sainted
spirits in a human shape execution must of neces
sity fall far short of the conception. The handi
work cannot equal the glorious archetype which
is visible only to the mental eye. Painting and
sculpture are not adequate to the task of imbody-
ing in a permanent shape the glorious visions, the
radiant forms, the glimpses of heaven, which fill
the imagination, when purified and exalted by
devotion. The hand of man unconsciously in
scribes upon all his works the sentence of imper
fection, which the finger of the invisible hand wrote
upon the wall of the Assyrian monarch. From
this it would seem to be not only a natural but a
necessary conclusion, that all the descriptions of
poetry which borrow any thing, either directly or
indirectly, from these bodily and imperfect repre
sentations, must partake of their imperfection, and
assume a more earthly and material character than

56 THE MORAL AND DEVOTIONAL

those which come glowing and burning from the
more spiritualized perceptions of the internal sense.
It is very far from my intention to utter any
sweeping denunciation against the divine arts of
painting and sculpture, as employed in the exhi
bition of scriptural scenes and personages. These
I esteem meet ornaments for the house of God :
though, as I have already said, their execution
cannot equal the high conceptions of an ardent
imagination, yet whenever the hand of a master
is visible, — when the marble almost moves be
fore you, and the painting starts into life from the
canvass, — the effect upon an enlightened mind will
generally, if not universally, be to quicken its sensi
bilities and excite to more ardent devotion, by
carrying the thoughts beyond-the representations
of bodily suffering, to the contemplation of the
intenser mental agony — the moral sublimity ex
hibited by the martyr. The impressions produced,
however, will not be the same in all minds ; they
will necessarily vary according to the prevailing
temper and complexion of the mind which receives
them. As there is no sound where there is no ear
to receive the impulses and vibrations of the air,
so is there no moral impression — no voice of in
struction from all the works of nature, and all the
imitations of art — unless there be within the soul

POETRY OF SPAIN.

57

itself a capacity for hearing the voice and receiving
the moral impulse. The cause exists eternally and
universally; but the effect is produced only when
and where the cause has room to act, and just in
proportion as it has room to act. Hence the vari
ous moral impressions, and the several degrees of
the same moral impression which an object may
produce in different minds. These impressions
will vary in kind and in degree according to the
acuteness and the cultivation of the internal moral
sense. And thus the representations spoken of
above might exercise a very favourable influence
upon an enlightened and well-regulated mind, and
at the same time a very unfavourable influence
upon an unenlightened and superstitious one. And
the reason is obvious. An enlightened mind be
holds all things in their just proportions, and re
ceives from them the true impressions they are
calculated to convey. It is not hoodwinked, — it
is not shut up in a gloomy prison till it thinks the
walls of its own dungeon the limits of the universe,
and the reach of its own chain the outer verge of
all intelligence : but it walks abroad ; the sunshine
and the air pour in to enlighten and expand it ;
the various works of nature are its ministering
angels ; the glad recipient of light and wisdom,
it develops new powers and acquires increased

58 THE MORAL AND DEVOTIONAL

capacities, and thus, rendering itself less subject to
error, assumes a nearer similitude to the Eternal
Mind. But not so the dark and superstitious mind.
It is filled with its own antique and mouldy furni
ture, — the moth-eaten tome, — the gloomy tapestry,
— the dusty curtain. The straggling sunbeam
from without streams through the stained window,
and as it enters assumes the colours of the painted
glass ; while the half-extinguished fire within, now
smouldering in its ashes, and now shooting forth a
quivering flame, casts fantastic shadows through
the chambers of the soul. Within the spirit sits,
lost in its own abstractions. The voice of nature
from without is hardly audible ; her beauties are
unseen, or seen only in shadowy forms, through a
coloured medium, and with a strained and distorted
vision. The invigorating air does not enter that
mysterious chamber ; it visits not that lonely in
mate, who, breathing only a close, exhausted atmo
sphere, exhibits in the languid frame and feverish
pulse the marks of lingering, incurable disease.
The picture is not too strongly sketched : such is
the contrast between the free and the superstitious
mind. Upon the latter, which has little power
over its ideas, — to generalize them — to place them
in their proper light and position — to reason upon,
to discriminate, to judge them in detail, and thus

POETRY OF SPAIN. 59

to arrive at just conclusions ; but, on the contrary,
receives every crude and inadequate impression
as it first presents itself, and treasures it up as an
ultimate fact, — upon such a mind, \ve think that
representations of Scripture-scenes, like those
mentioned above, exercise an unfavourable in
fluence. Such a mind cannot rightly estimate —
it cannot feel the work of a master ; and a miser
able daub, or a still more miserable caricature carved
in wood, will serve only to increase the burden
which weighs the spirit down to earth. Thus, in
the unenlightened mind, these representations have
a tendency to sensualize and desecrate the char
acter of holy things. Being brought constantly
before the eye, and represented in a real and pal
pable form to the external senses, they lose, by being
made too familiar, that peculiar sanctity with which
the mind naturally invests the unearthly and in
visible.

It is curious to observe *he influence of the cir
cumstances just referred to upon the devotional
poetry of Spain.* Sometimes it exhibits itself

* The following beautiful little hymn in Latin, written by the
celebrated Francisco Xavier, the friend and companion of Loyola,
and from his zeal in the eastern missions surnamed the Apostle
of the Indias, would hardly have originated in any mind, but that

60 THE MORAL AND DEVOTIONAL

directly and fully, at others more indirectly and
incidentally, but always with sufficient clearness

of one familiar with the representations of which I have spoken

above.

1 0 Deus ! ego amo te :

Nee amo te, ut salves me,
Aut quia non amantes te
^Eterno punis igne.

* Tu, tu, mi Jesu, totum me
Amplexus es in cruce.
Tulisti clavos, lanceam,
Multamque ignominiam :
Innumeros dolores
Sudores et angores,
Ac mortem : et tuec propter me
Ac pro me peccatore.

' Cur igitur non amem te
O Jesu amantissime 1
Non ut in coelo salves me,
Aut ne aeternum damnes me,
Nee proemii ullius spe :
Sed sicut t-i amasti me,
Sic amo et amabo te :
Solum quia rex meus es,
Et solum quia Deus es.
Amen.'

' 0 God ! my spirit loves but thee,
Not that in heaven its home may be,
Nor that the souls which love not thee
Shall groan in fire eternally.

POETRY OF SPAIN. 61

to indicate its origin. Sometimes it destroys the
beauty of a poem by a miserable conceit ; at others
it gives it the character of a beautiful allegory.*

* But thou on the accursed tree
In mercy hast embraced me.
For me the cruel nails, the spear,
The ignominious scoff didst bear,
Countless, unutterable woes, —
The bloody sweat, — death's pangs and throes,- —
These thou didst bear, all these for me,
A sinner and estranged from thee.

' And wherefore no affection show,
Jesus, to thee that lov'st me so ?
Not that in heaven my home may be,
Not lest I die eternally, —
Nor from the hopes of joys above me :
But even as thyself didst love me,
So love I, and will ever love thee :
Solely because my King art thou,
My God for ever more as now.*

Amen.'

* I recollect but few instances of this kind of figurative poetry
in our language. There is, however, one of most exquisite beauty
and pathos, far surpassing any thing I have seen of the kind in
Spanish. It is a passage from Cowper.

* I was a stricken deer, that left the herd
Long since : with many an arrow deep infixt
My panting side was charged, when I withdrew
To seek a tranquil death in distant shades.
VOL. II. P

62 THE MORAL AND DEVOTIONAL

The following sonnets will serve as illustrations.
They are from the hand of the wonderful Lope de
Vega :—

Shepherd! that with thine amorous sylvan song
Hast broken the slumber that encompassed me, —
That madest thy crook from the accursed tree,
On which thy powerful arms were stretched so long,

Lead me to mercy's ever-flowing fountains,
For thou my shepherd, guard, and guide shalt be,
I will obey thy voice, and wait to see
Thy feet all beautiful upon the mountains.

Hear, Shepherd ! — thou that for thy flock art dying,
O wash away these scarlet sins, for thou
Rejoicest at the contrite sinner's vow.

O wait ! — to thee my weary soul is crying, —
Wait for me ! — yet why ask it, when I see,
With feet nailed to the cross, thou art waiting still for me ?

Lord, what am I, that with unceasing care
Thou didst seek after me, — that thou didst wait,
Wet with unhealthy dews, before my gate,
And pass the gloomy nights of winter there1?

O strange delusion ! — that I did not greet
Thy bless'd approach, and O, to Heaven how lost,
If my ingratitude's unkindly frost
Has chilled the bleeding wounds upon thy feet.

There was I found by one, who had himself
Been hurt by archers : in his side he bore,
And in his hands and feet, the cruel scars.
With gentle force soliciting the darts,
He drew them forth, and healed, and bade me live.'

POETRY OF SPAIN. O«S

How oft my guardian angel gently cried,
Soul, from thy casement look without and see
How he persists to knock and wait for thee !

And, oh ! how often to that voice of sorrow,
To-morrow we will open, I replied,
And when the morrow came, I answer'd still, to-morrow.

The most remarkable portion of the devotional
poetry of the Spaniards is to be found in their
sacred dramas, their Vidas de Santos and Autos
Sacramentales. These had their origin in the
mysteries and moralities of the dark ages ; and are
indeed monstrous creations of the imagination.
The Vidas de Santos, or Lives of Saints, are repre
sentations of their miracles, and of the wonderful
traditions concerning them. The Autos Sacra
mentales have particular reference to the Eucharist
and the ceremonies of the Corpus Christi. In these
theatrical pieces are introduced upon the stage, not
only angels and saints, but God, the Saviour, the
Virgin Mary; and, in strange juxtaposition with
these, devils, peasants, and kings ; in fine, they
contain the strangest medley of characters, real
and allegorical, which the imagination can con
ceive. As if this were not enough, in the midst of
what was intended as a solemn religious celebra.
tion, scenes of low buffoonery are often introduced.

The most remarkable of the Autos which I have

64 THE MORAL AND DEVOTIONAL

read is La Devotion de la Cruz, The Devotion of
the Cross. It is one of the most celebrated of
Calderon's sacred dramas, and will serve as an ex
ample of that class of writing. As it will throw
much light upon this part of the subject, I shall give
a brief analysis of it, by way of illustration to rny
foregoing remarks. The piece commences by a
dialogue between Lisardo, the son of Curcio, a de
cayed nobleman, and Eusebio, the hero of the play
and lover of Julia, Lisardo's sister. Though the
father's extravagance has wasted his estates, Li
sardo is deeply offended that Eusebio should aspire
to an alliance with the family, and draws him into
a secluded place in order to settle their dispute
with the sword. Here the scene opens, and in the
course of the dialogue which precedes the combat,
Eusebio relates that he was born at the foot of a
cross, which stood in a rugged and desert part of
those mountains ; that the virtue of this cross pre
served him from the wild beasts ; that, being found
by a peasant three days after his birth, he was
carried to a neighbouring village, and there re
ceived the name of Eusebio of the Cross ; that,
being thrown by his nurse into a well, he was
heard to laugh, and was found floating upon the
top of the water, with his hands placed upon his
mouth in the form of a cross ; that the house in

POETRY OF SPAIN. 65

which he dwelt being consumed by fire, he escaped
unharmed amid the flames, and it was found to be
Corpus Christi day ; and, in fine, after relating
many other similar miracles, worked by the power
of the cross, at whose foot he was born, he says
that he bears its image miraculously stamped upon
his breast. After this they fight, and Lisardo falls
mortally wounded. In the next scene, Eusebio
has an interview with Julia, at her father's house ;
they are interrupted, and Eusebio conceals him
self; Curcio enters, and informs Julia that he has
determined to send her that day to a convent, that
she may take the veil, para ser de Cristo esposa.
While they are conversing, the dead body of Li
sardo is brought in by peasants, and Eusebio is de
clared to be the murderer. The scene closes by
the escape of Eusebio. The second act, or Jor
nada, discovers Eusebio as the leader of a band of
robbers. They fire upon a traveller, who proves
to be a priest, named Alberto, and who is seeking
a spot in those solitudes wherein to establish a
hermitage. The shot is prevented from taking
effect by a book, which the pious old man carries
in his bosom, and which he says is a " treatise on
the true origin of the divine and heavenly tree, on
which, dying with courage and fortitude, Christ
triumphed over death ; in fine, the book is called

F2

66 THE MORAL AND DEVOTIONAL

the Miracles of the Cross." They suffer the priest
to depart unharmed, who in consequence promises
Eusebio that he shall not die without confession,
but that wherever he may be, if he but call upon
his name, he will hasten to absolve him. In the
mean time, Julia retires to a convent, and Curcio
goes with an armed force in pursuit of Eusebio,
who has resolved to gain admittance to Julia's con
vent. He scales the walls of the convent by night,
and silently gropes his way along the corridor.
Julia is discovered sleeping in her cell, with a
taper beside her. He is, however, deterred from
executing his malicious designs, by discovering
upon her breast the form of a cross, similar to that
which he bears upon his own, and " Heaven would
not suffer him, though so great an offender, to lose
his respect for the cross." To be brief, he leaps
from the convent-walls and escapes to the moun
tains. Julia, counting her honour lost, having
offended God, como 6. Dios, y como d esposa, in de
spair pursues him, — descends the ladder from the
convent-wall, and when she again seeks to return
to her cell, finds the ladder has been removed. In
her despair, she accuses Heaven of having with
drawn its clemency, and vows to perform such
deeds of wickedness as shall terrify both heaven
and hell.

POETRY OF SPAIN. 67

The third Jornada transports the scene back to
the mountains. Julia, disguised in man's apparel,
"with her face concealed, is brought to Eusebio by
a party of the banditti. She challenges him to
single combat ; and he accepts the challenge, on
condition that his antagonist shall declare who he
is. Julia discovers herself; and relates several
horrid murders she has committed since leaving
the convent. Their interview is here interrupted
by the entrance of banditti, who inform Eusebio
that Curcio, with an armed force, from all the
neighbouring villages, is approaching. The attack
commences. Eusebio and Curcio meet, but a
secret and mysterious sympathy prevents them
from fighting; and a great number of peasants,
coming in at this moment, rush upon Eusebio in a
body, and he is thrown down a precipice. There
Curcio discovers him, expiring with his numerous
wounds. The denouement of the piece commences.
Curcio, moved by compassion, examines a wound
inEusebio's breast, discovers the mark of the cross,
and thereby recognises him to be his son. Eusebio
expires, calling on the name of Alberto, who
shortly after enters, as if lost in those mountains.
A voice from the dead body of Eusebio calls his
name. I shall here transcribe a part of the scene.

68 THE MORAL AND DEVOTIONAL

Eusebio. Alberto !

Alberto. Hark !— what breath

Of fearful voice is this,

Which uttering my name

Sounds in my ears ?
Eus. Alberto !

Alb. Again it doth pronounce

My name : methinks the voice

Came from this side : I will

Approach.
Eus. Alberto !
Alb. Hist ! more near it sounds.

Thou voice, that ridest swift

The wind, and utterest my name»

Who art thou 1
Eus. I am Eusebio.

Come, good Alberto, this way come,

Where sepulchred I lie ;

Approach, and raise these branches :

Fear not.
Alb. I do not fear.

[Discovers the body.

Now I behold thee.

Speak, in God's holy name,

What wouldst thou with me ]
Eus. In his name,

My faith, Alberto, called thee,

That previous to my death

Thou hearest my confession.

Long since I should have died,

For this stiff corpse resigned

The disembodied soul ;

POETRY OF SPAIN. 69

But the strong mace of death
Smote only, and dissevered not
The spirit and the flesh. [Rises.
Come, then, Alberto, that I may
Confess my sins, for oh ! they are
More than the sands beside the sea,
Or motes that fill the sunbeam.
So much with Heaven avails
Devotion to the Cross.

Eusebio then retires to confess himself to Alberto;
and Curcio afterward relates, that when the vener
able saint had given him absolution, his body again
fell dead at his feet. Julia discovers herself, over
whelmed with the thoughts of her incestuous pas
sion for Eusebio and her other crimes, and as Cur
cio, in a transport of indignation, endeavours to kill
her, she seizes a cross which stands over Eusebio's
grave, and with it ascends to heaven, while Alberto
shouts gran milagro, and the curtain falls.

Thus far have I spoken of the devotional poetry
of Spain as modified by the peculiarities of reli
gious faith and practice. Considered apart from
the dogmas of a creed, and as the expression of
those pure and elevated feelings of religion which
are not the prerogative of any one sect or denomi
nation, but the common privilege of all, it possesses
strong claims to our admiration and praise. I
know of nothing in any modern tongue so beauti-

70 THE MORAL AND DEVOTIONAL

ful as some of its finest passages. The thought
springs heavenward from the soul, — the language
comes burning from the lip. The imagination of
the poet seems spiritualized ; with nothing of earth,
and all of heaven — a heaven, like that of his own
native clime, without a cloud, or a vapour of earth,
to obscure its brightness. His voice, speaking the
harmonious accents of that noble tongue, seems to
flow from the lips of an angel, — melodious to the
ear and to the internal sense, — breathing those

* Effectual whispers, whose still voice
The soul itself more feels than hears.'

The following sonnets of Francisco de Aldana,
a writer remarkable for the beauty of his concep
tions and the harmony of his verse, are illustrations
of this remark. In what glowing language he
describes the aspirations of the soul for its paternal
heaven, — its celestial home ! how beautifully he
portrays in a few lines the strong desire, the ardent
longing of the exiled and imprisoned spirit, to wing
its flight away and be at rest ! The strain bears
our thoughts upward with it ; it transports us to
the heavenly country ; it whispers to the soul, —
higher, immortal spirit ! higher !

POETRY OF SPAIN. 71

Clear fount of light ! my native land on high,
Bright with a glory that shall never fade !
Mansion of truth ! without a veil or shade,
Thy holy quiet meets the spirit's eye.

There dwells the soul in its ethereal essence,
Gasping no longer for life's feeble breath ;
But, sentinelled in heaven, its glorious presence
With pitying eye beholds, yet fears not death.
Beloved country ! banished from thy shore,
A stranger in this prison-house of clay,
The exiled spirit weeps and sighs for thee !

Heavenward the bright perfections I adore
Direct, and the sure promise cheers the way,
That whither love aspires, there shall my dwelling be.

0 Lord ! that seest from yon starry height
Centred in one the future and the past,
Fashioned in thine own image, see how fast
The world obscures in me what once was bright !

Eternal sun ! the warmth which thou hast given
To cheer life's flowery April fast decays,
Yet in the hoary winter of my days,
For ever green shall be my trust in Heaven.

Celestial King ! O let thy presence pass
Before my spirit, and an image fair
Shall meet that look of mercy from on high,

As the reflected image in a glass
Doth meet the look of him who seeks it there,
And owes its being to the gazer's eye.

The prevailing characteristics of Spanish devo
tional poetry are warmth of imagination, and depth

72 THE MORAL AND DEVOTIONAL

and sincerity of feeling. The conception is always
striking and original, and, when not degraded by
dogmas, and the poor, puerile conceits arising from
them, beautiful and sublime. This results from
the frame and temperament of the mind, and is a
general characteristic of the Spanish poets, not
only in this department of song, but in all the
others. The very ardour of imagination which,
exercised upon minor themes, leads them into ex-
. travagance and hyperbole, when left to act in a
higher and wider sphere conducts them nearer and
nearer to perfection. When imagination spreads
its wings in the bright regions of devotional song
— in the pure empyrean— judgment should direct
its course, but there is no danger of its soaring too
high. The heavenly land still lies beyond its
utmost flight. There are heights it cannot reach ;
there are fields of air which tire its wing; there is
a splendour which dazzles its vision ; — for there
is a glory, " which eye hath not seen, nor ear
heard, nor hath it entered into the heart of man to
conceive."

But perhaps the greatest charm of the devo
tional poets of Spain is their sincerity. Most of
them were ecclesiastics, — men who had in sober
truth renounced the realities of this life for the
hopes and promises of another. We are not to

POETRY OF SPAIN. 73

suppose that all who take holy orders are saints ;
but we should be still further from believing that
all are hypocrites. It would be even more absurd
to suppose that none are sincere in their profes
sions, than that all are. 'Besides, with whatever
feelings a man may enter the monastic life, there
is something in its discipline and privations which
has a tendency to wean the mind from earth, and
to fix it upon heaven. Doubtless many have seem
ingly renounced the world from motives of worldly
aggrandizement; and others have renounced it
because it has renounced them. The former have
carried with them to the cloister their earthly am
bition, and the latter their dark misanthropy ; and
though many have daily kissed the cross and yet
grown hoary in iniquity, and shrived their souls
that they might sin more gayly on, — yet solitude
works miracles in the heart, and many who enter
the cloister from worldly motives find it a school
wrherein the soul may be trained to more holy pur
poses and desires. There is not half the corrup
tion and hypocrisy within the convent's walls that
the church bears the shame of hiding in its bosom.
Hermits may be holy men, though knaves have
sometimes been hermits. Were they all hypo
crites, who of old for their souls' sake exposed their
naked bodies to the burning sun of Syria ? Were

VOL. II. — O

74 THE MORAL AND DEVOTIONAL

they, who wandered houseless in the solitudes of
Engaddi? Were they, who dwelt beneath the
palm-trees by the Red Sea ? Oh, no ! They were
ignorant, — they were deluded, — they were fanatic,
but they were not hypocrites ; if there be any
sincerity in human professions and human actions,
they were not hypocrites. During the middle
ages there was corruption in the church, — foul,
shameful corruption ; and now also hypocrisy may
scourge itself in feigned repentance, and ambition
hide its face beneath a hood ; yet all is not there
fore rottenness that wears a cowl ! Many a pure
spirit, through heavenly-mindedness and an ardent
though mistaken zeal, has fled from the temptations
of the world to seek in solitude and self-com
munion a closer walk with God. And not in vain.
They have found the peace they sought. They
have felt, indeed, what many profess to feel, but
do not feel, — that they are strangers and sojourners
here, travellers who are bound for their home in a
far country. It is this feeling which we speak of
as giving a peculiar charm to the devotional poetry
of Spain. We compare its spirit with the spirit
which its authors have exhibited in their lives.
They speak of having given up the world, and it
is no poetical hyperbole ; they speak of longing to
be free from the weakness of the flesh, that they

POETRY OF SPAIN.

75

may commence their conversation in heaven, and
we feel that they had already begun it in lives of
penitence, meditation, and prayer.

With regard to the moral poetry of Spain, I need
not be prolix in my remarks. In common with
the devotional, it possesses the glow and fervour of
Spanish feeling, and so far exhibits the national
character. At the same time, as I have already
had occasion to observe, the principles of Christian
morality being everywhere the same throughout
Christendom, moral poetry must everywhere dis
play to a great extent a common and homogeneous
character. The only variety it exhibits will be
found, I apprehend, to consist, not in the general
tenour of the thought, but in the tone of feeling
and consequent warmth of language in which the
thought is expressed. In all Christian countries,
the prevailing thought is the perishable nature of
earthly possessions, and that kind of contempla
tive and philosophic content so well expressed by
Francisco de Rioja, in one of his moral epistles —
a little nook among my household gods, a book and
friend, and light slumbers, that neither cares nor
creditors disturb — these are enough for me : —

Un angulo me basta entre mis lares,
un libro y un amigo, un sueno breve
que no perturben deudas ni pesares.

76 THE MORAL AND DEVOTIONAL

I shall not, therefore, attempt to show wherein
the moral poetry of Spain exhibits the lights and
shades of national character ; but shall close my
essay here, in order to give place to one of the
most beautiful poems, of which Spanish literature
can boast.

Don Jorge Manrique, the author of the following
poem, flourished in the last half of the fifteenth
century. It is a remarkable fact, that nearly all
the Spanish poets of any eminence have been
soldiers ; and that most of them have died either
upon the field of battle or in the cloister. Jorge
Manrique followed the profession of arms, and
fought beneath his father's banner. He died on
the field of battle. Mariana, in his History of
Spain, makes honourable mention of him, as being
present at the siege of Ucles ; and speaks of him
as " a youth of estimable qualities, who in this war
gave brilliant proofs of his valour. He died young ;
and was thus cut off from exercising and exhibiting
to the world his many virtues, and the light of his
genius, which was already known to fame." He
was mortally wounded in a skirmish near Caiia-
vete, in the year 1479.

The name of Rodrigo Manrique, the father of

POETRY OF SPAIN. 77

the poet, Conde de Paredes and Maestre de San
tiago, is well-known in Spanish history and song.
He died in 1476 ; according to Mariana, in the
town of Ucles ; but according to the poem of his
son, in Ocana. It was his death that called forth
the poem upon which rests the literary reputation
of the younger Manrique. In the language of his
historian, "Don Jorge Manrique, in an elegant
ode, full of poetic beauties, and the rich embellish
ments of genius and high moral reflections, mourned
the death of his father as with a funeral hymn."
This praise is not exaggerated. The poem is a
model in its kind. Its conception is solemn and
beautiful; and, in accordance with it, the style
moves on — calm, dignified, and majestic.

G 2

COPLAS

DON JORGE MANRIQUE.

STANZAS,

COMPOSED BY DDK JORGE MANRIQUE ON THE DEATH OP Hf8
FATHER DON RODRIGO.

I.

O LET the soul her slumbers break,
Let thought be quickened, and awake,

Awake to see

How soon this life is past and gone,
And death comes softly stealing on,

How silently !

Swiftly our pleasures glide away,
Our hearts recall the distant day

With many sighs ;
The moments that are speeding fast
We heed not, but the past — the past —

More highly prize.

II.

Onward its course the present keeps, —
Onward the constant current sweeps,

Till life is done ;—
And did we judge of time aright,
The past and future in their flight

Would be as one.
Let no one fondly dream again
That Hope and all her shadowy train

COPLAS DE MANRIQUE.

Will not decay ;

Fleeting as were the dreams of old,
Remembered like a tale that's told,

They pass away.

III.

Our lives are rivers, gliding free
To that unfathomed, boundless sea,

The silent grave !
Thither all earthly pomp and boast
Roll, to be swallowed up and lost

In one dark wave.
Thither the mighty torrents stray,
Thither the brook pursues its way,

And tinkling rill ; —
There all are equal. Side by side
The poor man and the son of pride

Lie calm and still.

IV.

I will not here invoke the throng
Of orators and sons of song,

The deathless few ;
Fiction entices and deceives,
And, sprinkled o'er her fragrant leaves,

Lies poisonous dew.
To One alone my thoughts arise,
The Eternal Truth,— the Good and Wise,

To Him I cry,

Who shared on earth our common lot,
But the world comprehended not

His deity.

COPLAS DE MANRIQUE. 83

V.

This world is but the rugged road
Which leads us to the bright abode

Of peace above ;

So let us choose that narrow way
Which leads no traveller's foot astray

From realms of love.
Our cradle is the starting-place,
In life we run the onward race,

And reach the goal,
When in the mansions of the blest
Death leaves to its eternal rest

The weary soul.

VI.

Did we but use it as we ought,
This world would school each wandering thought

To its high state.

Faith wings the soul beyond the sky,
Up to that better world on high,

For which we wait.
Yes — the glad messenger of love,
To guide us to our home above,

The Saviour came ;
Born amid mortal cares and fears,
He suffered in this vale of tears

A death of shame.

VII.

Behold of what delusive worth
The bubbles we pursue on earth,

84 COPLAS DE MANRIQTJE.

The shapes we chase
Amid a world of treachery !
They vanish ere death shuts the eye,

And leave no trace.

Time steals them from us, — chances strange,
Disastrous accident, — and change

That comes to all ; —
Even in the most exalted state
Relentless sweeps the stroke of fate ;

The strongest falU .,...

VIII.

Tell me, — the charms that lovers seek,
In the clear eye and blushing cheek,

The hues that play
O'er rosy lip and brow of snow, —
When hoary age approaches slow,

Ah, where are they ?
The cunning skill, the curious arts,
The glorious strength that youth imparts

In life's first stage ;
These shall become a heavy weight
When time swings wide his outward gate

To weary age.

IX.

The noble blood of Gothic name,
Heroes emblazoned high to fame

In long array ;

How, in the onward course of time,
The landmarks of that race sublime

Were swept away *

COPLAS DE MANRIQUE.

Some, the degraded slaves of lust,
Prostrate and trampled in the dust,

Shall rise no more ;
Others by guilt and crime maintain
The^escutcheon, that without a stain

Their fathers bore.

X.

Wealth and the high estates of pride,
With what untimely speed they glide,

How soon depart !
Bid not the shadowy phantoms stay,
The vassals of a mistress they

Of fickle heart.

These gifts in fortune's hands are found ;
Her swift revolving wheel turns round,

And they are gone ! *
No rest the inconstant goddess knows,
But changing, and without repose,

Still hurries on.

XL;

Even could the hand of avarice" save
Its gilded baubles till the grave

Reclaimed its prey ;
Let none on such poor hopes rely,
Life, like an empty dream, flits by,

And where are they ?
Earthly desires and sensual lust
Are passions springing from the dust, —
VOL. II. — II

85

86 COPLAS DE MANRIQTJE.

They fade and die ;
But in the life beyond the tomb
They seal the immortal spirit's doom

Eternally !

XII.

The pleasures and delights which mask
In treacherous smiles life's serious task,

What are they all
But the fleet coursers of the chase,
And death an ambush in the race

In which we fall 1

No foe, no dangerous pass we heed,
Brook no delay, — but onward speed

With loosened rein ;
And when the fatal snare is near,
We strive to check our mad career,

But strive in vain.

XIII.

Could we new charms to age impart,
And fashion with a cunning art

The human face,

As we can clothe the soul with light,
And make the glorious spirit bright

With heavenly grace, —
How busily each passing hour
Should we exert that magic power I

What ardour show,
To deck the sensual slave of sin,
Yet leave the freeborn soul within

In weeds of wo !

€OPLAS DE MANRIQUE. 87

XIV.

Monarchs, the powerful and the strong,
Famous in history and in song

Of olden time,

Saw, by the stern decrees of fate,
Their kingdoms lost, and desolate

Their race sublime.

Who is the champion 1 who the strong 1
Pontiff and priest, and sceptred throng 1

On these shall fall
As heavily the hand of death,
As when it stays the shepherd's breath

Beside his stall.

XV.

I speak not of the Trojan name,
Neither its glory nor its shame

Has met our eyes ;

Nor of Rome's great and glorious dead,
Though we ha-ve heard so oft and read

Their histories.
Little avails it now to know
Of ages passed so long ago,

Nor how they rolled ;
Our theme shall be of yesterday,
Which to oblivion sweeps away

Like days of old.

;xvi.

Where is the King Don Juan ? Where
Each royal prince and noble heir

88 COPLAS DE MANRIQUE.

Of Arragon 1

Where are the courtly gallantries 1
The deeds of love and high emprise

In battle done 1

Tournay and joust, that charmed the eye,
And scarf, and gorgeous panoply,

And nodding plume ;
What were they but a pageant scene 1
What but the garlands gay and green

That deck the tomb 1

XVII.

r

Where are the high-born dames, and where
Their gay attire, and jewelled hair,

And odours sweet 1

Where are the gentle knights, that came
To kneel, and breathe love's ardent flame

Low at their feet 7
Where is the song of Troubadour 1
Where are the lute and gay tambour

They loved of yore 1
Where is the mazy dance of old,
The flowing robes inwrought with gold

The dancers wore 1

XVIII.

And he who next the sceptre swayed,
Henry, whose royal court displayed

Such power and pride ;
O, in what winning smiles arrayed,
The world its various pleasures laid
His throne beside !

COPLAS DE MANRIQUE. 89

But oh ! how false and full of guile,
That world, which wore so soft a smile

But to betray 1

She that had been his friend before,
Now from the fated monarch tore

Her charms away.

XIX.

The countless gifts, — the stately walls, —
The royal palaces, and halls

All filled with gold ;
Plate with armorial bearings wrought,
Chambers with ample treasures fraught

Of wealth untold ;

The noble steeds, and harness bright,
And gallant lord, and stalwart knight,

In rich array, —

Where shall we seek them now ? Alas !
Like the bright dew-drops on the grass

They passed away.

XX.

His brother, too, whose factious zeal
Usurped the sceptre of Castile,

Unskilled to reign ;
What a gay, brilliant court had he,
When all the flower of chivalry

Was in his train !

But he was mortal ; and the breath
That flamed from the hot forge of death,
H2

80 COPLAS DE MANRIQUE.

Blasted his years ;
Eternal Providence ! by thee
The flame of earthly majesty

Was quenched in tears !

XXI.

Spain's haughty Constable, — the great
And gallant Master, — cruel fate

Stripped him of all.
Breathe not a whisper of his pride, —
He on the gloomy scaffold died,

Ignoble fall !

The countless treasures of his care,
Hamlets and villas green and fair,

His mighty power, —
What were they all but grief and shame,
Tears and a broken heart, — when came

The parting hour !

XXII.

His other brothers proud and high,
Masters, who in prosperity

Might rival kings ;
Who made the bravest and the best
The bondsmen of their high behest,

Their underlings ;
What was their prosperous estate,
When high exalted and elate

With power and pride 1
What, but a transient gleam of light,
A flame, which, glaring at its height,

Grew dim and died.

COPLAS DE MANRIQUE. 91

XXIII.

<

So many a duke of royal name,
Marquis and count of spotless fame,

And baron brave,

That might the sword of empire wield,
All these, O Death, hast thou concealed

In the dark grave !
Their deeds of mercy and of arms,
In peaceful days, or war's alarms,

When thou dost show,
O Death, thy stern and angry face,
One stroke of thy all-powerful mace

Can overthrow.

XXIV.

Unnumbered hosts that threaten nigh,
Pennon and standard flaunting high,

And flag displayed,
High battlements intrenched around,
Bastion, and moated wall, and mound,

And palisade,

And covered trench, secure and deep,
All these cannot one victim keep,

0 Death, from thee,
When thou dost battle in thy wrath,
And thy strong shafts pursue their path

Unerringly.

XXV.

0 World ! so few the years we live,
Would that the life which thou dost give

92 COPLAS DE MANRIQUE.

Were life indeed !
But O, thy sorrows fall so fast,
Our happiest hour is when at last

The soul is freed.

Our days are covered o'er with grief,
And sorrows neither few nor brief

Veil all in gloom ;
Left desolate of real good,
Within this cheerless solitude

No pleasures bloom.

XXVI.

Thy pilgrimage begins in tears,
And ends in bitter doubts 'and fears,

Or dark despair ;
Midway so many toils appear,
That he who lingers longest here

Knows most of care.

Thy goods are bought with many a groan,
By the hot sweat of toil alone,

And weary hearts ;
Fleet-footed is the approach of wo,
But with a lingering step and slow,

Its form departs.

XXVII.

And he, the good man's shield and shade,
To whom all hearts their homage paid,

As virtue's son, —

Roderick Manrique, — he whose name
Is written on the scroll of fame
Spain's champion ;

COPLAS DE MANRIQUE. 93

His signal deeds and prowess high
Demand no pompous eulogy, —

Ye saw his deeds !

Why should their praise inverse be sung]
The name that dwells on every tongue

No minstrel needs.

XXVIII.

To friends a friend ; — how kind to all
The vassals of this ancient hall

And feudal fief!

To foes how stern a foe was he !
And to the valiant and the free

How brave a chief!
What prudence wilh the old and wise ;
What grace in youthful gayeties ;

In all how sage !
Benignant to the serf and slave,
He showed the base and falsely brave

A lion's rage.

XXIX.

His was Octavian's prosperous star,
The rush of Caesar's conquering car

At battle's call ;

His Scipio's virtue ; his the skill
And the indomitable will

> Of Hannibal.
His was a Trajan's goodness, — his
A Titus' noble charities,

94 COPLAS DE MANRIQUE.

And righteous laws ;
His the Archsean's arm ; the might
Of Tully to maintain the right

In truth's just cause.

XXX.

The clemency of Antonine,
Aurelius' countenance divine,

Firm, gentle, still ;
The eloquence of Adrian,
And Theododus' love to man,

And generous will.
In tented field and bloody fray,
An Alexander's vigorous sway,

And stern command ;
The faith of Constantino ; ay, more,
The fervent love Camillus bore

His native land.

XXXI.

He left no well-filled treasury, —
He heaped no pile of riches high,

Nor massive plate ;

He fought the Moors, — and in their fall,
Villa, and tower, and castled wall

Were his estate.

Upon the hard-fought battle-ground,
Brave steeds and gallant riders found

A common grave ;

And there the warrior' s hand did gain,
The rents and the long vassal train

The conquered gave.

COPLAS DE MANRIQUE. 95

XXXII.

And if of old his halls displayed
The honoured and exalted grade

His worth had gained,
So in the dark, disastrous hour,
Brothers and bondsmen of his power

His rank sustained.
After high deeds, not left untold,
In the stern warfare, which of old

'Twas his to share,

Such noble leagues he made — that more
And fairer regions than before,

His guerdon were.

XXXIII.

These are the records, half effaced,
Which with the hand of youth he traced

On history's page ;
But with fresh victories he drew
Each fading character anew

In his old age.

By his unrivalled skill, — by great
And veteran service to the state,

By worth adored ;
He stood, in his high dignity,
The proudest knighi of chivalry,

Knight of the sword.

XXXIV.

He found his villas and domains
Beneath a tyrant's galling chains

96 COPLAS DE MANRIQUE.

And cruel power ;
But, by fierce battle and blockade,
Soon his own banner was displayed

From every tower.
By the tried valour of his hand
His monarch and his native land

Were nobly served : —
Let Portugal repeat the story,
And proud Castile, who shared the glory

His arms deserved.

XXXV.

And when so oft for weal or wo
His life upon one fatal throw

Had been laid down,
When he had served, with patriot zeal*
Beneath the banner of Castile,

His sovereign's crown,
And done such deeds of valour strong,
That neither history nor song

Can count them all,
Then to Ocaiia's castled rock,
Death at his portal came to knock,

With sudden call, —

XXXVI.

Saying, " Good cavalier, prepare
To leave this world of toil and care

With joyful mien ;
Let thy strong heart of" steel this day
Put on its armour for the fray, —

The closing scene.

COPLAS DE MANRIQIJE. 97

Since thou hast been in battle-strife
So prodigal of health and life

For earthly fame,
Let virtue nerve thy heart again,
Which on the last stern battle-plain

Repeats thy name.

XXXVII.

" Think not the struggle that draws near
Too terrible for man, — nor fear

To meet the foe ;
Nor let thy noble spirit grieve,
Its life of glorious fame to leave

On earth below.
A life of honour and of worth
Has no eternity on earth, —

'Tis but a name ;
And yet its glory far exceeds
That base and sensual life, which leads

To want and shame.

XXXVIII.

" The eternal life beyond the sky
Wealth cannot purchase, nor the high

And proud estate ;

The soul in dalliance laid, — the spirit
Corrupt with sin shall not inherit

A joy so great.

But the good monk in cloistered cell
Shall gain it by his book and bell,
VOL. II. 1

98 COPLAS DE MANRIQUE.

His prayers and tears ;
And the brave knight, whose arm endures
Fierce battle, and against the Moors

His standard rears.

XXXIX.

" And thou, brave knight, whose hand has poured
The life-blood of the Pagan horde

O'er all the land,

In heaven shalt thou receive at length
The guerdon of thine earthly strength

And dauntless hand.
Cheered onward by this promise sure,
Strong in the faith entire and pure

Thou dost profess ;
Depart, — thy hope is certainty, —
The third— the better life on high

Shalt thou possess."

XL.

" O death, no more, no more delay ;
My spirit longs to flee away,

And be at rest ;

The will of heaven my will shall be, —
I bow to the divine decree,

To God's behest.
My soul is ready to depart,
No thought rebels, the obedient heart

Breathes forth no sigh ;
The wish on earth to linger still
Were vain, when 'tis Ood's sovereign will

That we shall die.

COPLAS DB MANRIQUE. 99

XLI.

" 0 Thou, that for our sins didst take
A human form, and humbly make

Thy home on earth ;
Thou, that to thy divinity
A human nature didst ally

By mortal birth, —
And in that form didst suffer here,
Torment, and agony, and fear,

So patiently ;

By thy redeeming grace alone,
And not for merits of my own,

O pardon me !"

XLII.

As thus the dying warrior prayed,
Without one gathering mist or shade

Upon his mind ;
Encircled by his family,
Watched by affection's gentle eye,

So soft and kind ;

His soul to Him who gave it rose ;

God lead it to its long repose,

Its glorious rest !

And though the warrior's sun has set,
Its light shall linger round us yet,

Bright, radiant, blest.

THE

PILGRIM'S BREVIARY.

THE

PILGRIM'S BREVIARY.

" If thou vouehsafe to read this treatise, it shall seem no other
wise to thee than the way to an ordinary traveller, — sometimes
fair, sometime foul ; here champaign, there enclosed ; barren in
one place, better soyle in another ; by woods, groves, hills, dales,
plains, I shall lead thee."

BURTON'S Anatomic of Melancholy.

THE glittering spires and cupolas of Madrid
have sunk behind me. Again and again I have
turned to take a parting look, till at length the last
trace of the city has disappeared, and I gaze only
upon the sky above it.

And now the sultry day is passed ; the freshen
ing twilight falls, and the moon and the evening
star are in the sky. This river is the Zarama.
This noble avenue of trees leads to Aranjuez.
Already its lamps begin to twinkle in the distance.
The hoofs of our weary mules clatter upon the

104

wooden bridge ; the public square opens before
us ; yonder, in the moonlight, gleam the walls of
the royal palace, and near it, with a rushing sound,
fall the waters of the Tagus.

We have now entered the vast and melancholy
plains of La Mancha, — a land to which the genius
of Cervantes has given a vulgo-classic fame.
Here are the wind-mills as of old ; every village
has its Master Nicholas, — every venta its Mari-
tornes. Wondrous strong are the spells of fiction !
A few years pass away, and history becomes
romance, and romance, history. To the peasantry
of Spain, Don Quixote and his Squire are historic
personages. They believe that such characters
once existed ; and wo betide the luckless wight
who unwarily takes the name of Dulcinea upon
his lips within a league of El Toboso. The trav
eller, too, yields himself to the delusion ; and as
he traverses the arid plains of La Mancha, pauses
with willing credulity to trace the footsteps of the
mad Hidalgo, with his " velvet breeches on a holy-
day, and slippers of the same." The high-road
from Aranjucz to Cordova crosses and re-crosses
the knight-errant's path. Between Manzanares

105

and Valdepenas stands the inn where he was
dubbed a knight ; to the westward lies the scene
of his tournament with the barber, to the south
ward the Venta de Cardenas, where he met Mari-
tornes and the princess Micomicona, — and just
beyond rises the Sierra Morena, where he did
penance, like the knights of olden time.

For my own part, I confess that there are sea
sons when I am willing to be the dupe of my imagi
nation ; and if this harmless folly but- lends its
wings to a dull -paced hour, I am even ready to
believe a fairy tale.

On the fourth day of our journey we dined at
Manzanares, in an old and sombre-looking inn,
which, I think, some centuries back, must have
been the dwelling of a grandee. A wide gate
way admitted us into the inn yard, which was a
paved court, in the centre of the edifice, sur
rounded by a colonnade, and open to the sky above.
Beneath this colonnade we were shaved by the
village barber, a supple, smooth-faced Figaro, with
a brazen laver and a gray montera cap. There,
too, we dined in the open air, with bread as white
as snow, and the rich, red wine of Valdepenas ;

106 THE PILGRIM'S BREVIARY.

and there, in the listlessness of after dinner, smoked
the sleep-inviting cigar, while in the court-yard
before us the muleteers danced a fandango with
the maids of the inn, to the loud music which three
blind musicians drew from a violin, a guitar, and
a clarionet. When this scene was over, and the
blind men had groped their way out of the yard, I
fell into a delicious slumber, from which I was
soon awakened by music of another kind. It was
a clear youthful voice, singing a national song to
the sound of a guitar. I opened my eyes, and
near me stood a tall, graceful figure, leaning
against one of the pillars of the colonnade, in the
attitude of a serenader. His dress was that of a
Spanish student. He wore a black gown and
cassock, a pair of shoes made of an ex-pair of
boots, and a hat in the shape of a half-moon, with
the handle of a wooden spoon sticking out on one
side like a cockade. When he had finished his
song, we invited him to the remnant of a Vich sau
sage, a bottle of Valdepenas, bread at his own dis
cretion, and a pure Havana cigar. The stranger
made a leg, and accepted these signs of good com
pany with the easy air of a man who is accustomed
to earn his livelihood by hook or by crook ; and
as the wine was of that stark and generous kind
which readily " ascends one into the brain," our

107

gentleman with the half-moon hat grew garrulous
and full of anecdote, and soon told us his own
story, beginning with his birth and parentage, like
the people in Gil Bias.

" I am the son of a barber," quoth he ; " and
first saw the light some twenty years ago, in the
great city of Madrid. At a very early age, I was
taught to do something for myself, and began my
career of gain by carrying a slow-match in the
Prado, for the gentlemen to light their cigars with,
and catching the wax that dropped from the friars'
tapers at funerals and other religious processions.

"At school I was noisy and unruly; and was
finally expelled for hooking the master's son with
a pair of ox-horns, which I had tied to my head,
in order to personate the bull in a mock bull-fight.
Soon after this my father died, and I went to live
with my maternal uncle, a curate in Fuencarral.
He was a man of learning, and resolved that I
should be like him. He set his heart upon making
a physician of me ; and to this end taught me
Latin and Greek.

" In due time I was sent to the university of
Alcala. Here a new world opened before me.
What novelty — what variety — what excitement !
But, alas ! three months were hardly gone, when
news came that my worthy uncle had passed to a

108

better world. I was now left to shift for myself.
I was penniless, and lived as I could, not as I
would. I became a sopista, a soup-eater — a
knight of the wooden spoon. I see you do not
understand me. In other words, then, I became
one of that respectable body of charity scholars
who go armed with their wooden spoons to eat
the allowance of eleemosynary soup, which is
daily served out to them at the gate of the con
vents. I had no longer house nor home. But
necessity is the mother of invention. I became a
hanger-on of those who were more fortunate than
myself; studied in other people's books, — slept in
other people's beds, and breakfasted at other peo
ple's expense. This course of life has been de
moralizing, but it has quickened my wits to a won
derful degree.

" Did you ever read the life of the Gran Tacano,
by Quevedo ? In the first book you have a faith
ful picture of life in a Spanish university. What
was true in his day is true in ours. O Alcala !
Alcala ! if your walls had tongues as well as ears,
what tales could they repeat ! What midnight
frolics ! what madcap revelries ! what scenes of
merriment and mischief! How merry is a stu
dent's life, and yet how changeable ! Alternate
feasting and fasting, — alternate Lent and Carnival,

109

— alternate want and extravagance ! Care given
to the winds, — no thought beyond the passing
hour ; yesterday, forgotten, — to-morrow, a word
in an unknown tongue !

" Did you ever hear of raising the dead ? Not
literally, — but such as the student raised, when he
dug for the soul of the licentiate Pedro Garcias,
at the fountain between Penafiel and Salamanca, —
money. No ? Well, it is done after this wise.
Gambling, you know,-is our great national vice ;
and then gamblers are so dishonest ! Now, our
game is to cheat the cheater. We go at night to
some noted gaming-house, — five or six of us in a
body. We stand around the table, watch those
that are at play, and occasionally put in a trifle
ourselves to avoid suspicion. At length the favour
able moment arrives. Some eager player ven-
tnres a large stake. • I stand behind his chair. He
wins. As quick as thought I stretch my arm over
his shoulder and seize the glittering prize, saying
very coolly, * I have won at last.' My gentleman
turns round in a passion, and I meet his indignant
glance with a look of surprise. He storms, and I
expostulate ; he menaces, I heed his menaces no
more than the buzzing of a fly that has burnt his
wings in my lamp. He calls the whole table to
witness ; but the whole table is busy, each with

VOL. II. K

110

his own gain or loss, and there stand my comrades,
all loudly asserting that the stake was mine.
What can he do ? there was a mistake ; he swal
lows the affront as best he may, and we bear away
the booty. This we call raising the dead. You
say it is disgraceful — dishonest. Our maxim is^
that all is fair among sharpers. Bailar al son que
se toca, — dance to any tune that is fiddled. Be
sides, as I said before, poverty is demoralizing.
One loses the nice distinctions of right and wrong,
of meum and tuum.

" Thus merrily pass the hours of term-time.
When the summer vacations come round, I sling
my guitar over my shoulder, and with a light heart,
and a lighter pocket, scour the country, like a stroll
ing piper or a mendicant friar. Like the indus
trious ant, in summer I provide for winter ; for in
vacation we have time for reflection, and make the
great discovery, that there is a portion of time
called the future. I pick up a trifle here and a
trifle there, in all the towns and villages through
which I pass, and before the end of my tour I find
myself quite rich — for the son of a barber. This
we call the vida tunantesca, — a rag-tag-and-bobtail
sort of life. And yet the vocation is as honest as
that of a begging Franciscan. Why not ?

" And now, gentlemen, having dined at your ex-

THE PILGRIM'S BREVIARY. Ill

pense, with your leave I will put this loaf of bread
and the remains of this excellent Vich sausage into
my pocket, and thanking you for your kind hospi
tality, bid you a good afternoon. God be with you,
gentlemen P*

In general, the aspect of La Mancha is desolate
and sad. Around you lies a parched and sunburnt
plain, which, like the ocean, has no limits but the
sky ; and straight before you, for many a weary
league, runs the dusty and level road, without the
shade of a single tree. The villages you pass
through are poverty-stricken and half-depopulated :
and the squalid inhabitants wpar a look of misery

that makes the heart ache. Every league or two
the ruins of a post-house, or a roofless cottage,
with shattered windows and blackened walls, tells
a sad tale of the last war. It was there that a
little band of peasantry made a desperate stand
against the French, and perished by the bullet, the
sword, or the bayonet. The lapse of many years
has not changed the scene, nor repaired the bat
tered wall ; and at almost every step the traveller
may pause and exclaim : —

112

" Here was the camp, the watch-flame, and the host ;
Here the bold peasant storm'd the dragon's nest."

From Valdepenas southward the country wears
a more lively and picturesque aspect. The land
scape breaks into hill and valley, covered with
vineyards and olive-fields ; and before you, rise the
dark ridges of the Sierra Morena, lifting their
sullen fronts into a heaven all gladness and sun
shine. Ere long you enter the wild mountain-pass
of Despena-Perros. A sudden turn in the road
brings you to a stone column, surmounted by an
iron cross, marking the boundary line between La
Mancha and Andalusia. Upon one side of this
column is carved a sorry-looking face, not unlike
the death's heads which grin at you from the tomb
stones of a country ehnrr.hyard. Over it is
written this inscription: — "Ec VERDADERO RE-

TRATO DE LA SANTA CARA DEL DlOS DE XAEN ;"

The true portrait of the holy countenance of the
God of Xaen ! I was so much struck with this
strange superscription that I stopped to copy it.

" Do you really believe that this is what it pre
tends to be ?" said I to a muleteer, who was watch
ing my movements.

" I don't know," replied he, shrugging his brawny
shoulders ; " they say it is."

" Who says it is ?"

THE PILGRIM'S BREVIARY. 113

" The priest,— the Padre Cura."

" I supposed so. And how was this portrait

taken ?"

He could not tell. The Padre Cura knew all
about it.

When I joined my companions, who were a
little in advance of me with the carriage, I got the
mystery explained. The Spanish church boasts
of three portraits of our Saviour, miraculously
preserved upon the folds of a napkin, with which
he wiped the sweat from his brow, on the day of
the crucifixion. One of these is at Toledo, and
another in the kingdom of Xaen. I have forgotten
at what place the third is preserved.

Is this, indeed, the nineteenth century ?

The impression which this monument of super
stition made upon my mind was soon effaced by
the magnificent scene which now burst upon me.
The road winds up the mountain-side with gradual
ascent ; wild, shapeless, gigantic crags overhang
it upon the right, and upon the left the wary foot
starts back from the brink of a fearful chasm,
hundreds of feet in depth. Its sides are black with
ragged pines, and rocks that have toppled down

K2

114 THE PILGRIM'S BREVIARY.

from above ; and at the bottom, scarcely visible,
wind the silvery waters of a little stream, a tribu
tary of the Guadalquivir. The road skirts the
ravine for miles, — now climbing the barren rock,
and now sliding gently downward into shadowy
hollows, and crossing some rustic bridge, thrown
over a wild mountain brook.

At length the scene changed. We stood upon
the southern slope of the Sierra, and looked down
upon the broad, luxuriant valleys of Andalusia,
bathed in the gorgeous splendour of a southern
sunset. The landscape had already assumed the
" burnished livery" of autumn ; but the air I
breathed was the soft and balmy breath of spring,
— the eternal spring of Andalusia.

If ever you should be fortunate enough to visit
this part of Spain, stop for the night at the village
of La Carolina. It is indeed a model for all
villages, — with its broad streets, its neat, white
houses, its spacious market-place, surrounded with
a colonnade, and its public walk, ornamented with
.fountains, and set out with luxuriant trees. I doubt
whether all Spain can show a village more beauti
ful than this.

115

The approach to Cordova from the east is
enchanting. The sun was just rising as we crossed
the Guadalquivir, and drew near to the city ; and
alighting from the carriage, I pursued my way on
foot, the better to enjoy the scene, and the pure
morning air. The dew still glistened on every
leaf and spray ; for the burning sun had not yet
climbed the tall hedge-row of wild fig-tree and
aloes which skirts the road-side. The highway
wound along through gardens, orchards, and vine
yards, and here and there above me towered the
glorious palm in all its leafy magnificence. On
my right, a swelling mountain-ridge, covered with
verdure, and sprinkled with little white hermitages,
looked forth towards the rising sun ; and on the
left, in a long graceful curve, swept the bright
waters of the Guadalquivir, pursuing their silent
journey through a verdant reach of soft lowland
landscape. There, amid all the luxuriance of this
sunny clime, arises the ancient city of Cordova,
though stripped, alas ! of its former magnificence.
All that reminds you of the past is the crumbling
wall of the city, and a Saracen mosque, now
changed to a Christian cathedral. The stranger,
who is familiar with the history of the Moorish
dominion in Spain, pauses with a sigh, and asks

116

himself, Is this the imperial city of Alhakam the
Just, and Abdoulrahman the Magnificent ?

This, then, is Seville, that " pleasant city, famous
for oranges and women." After all I have heard
of its beauty, I am disappointed in finding it so far
less beautiful than my imagination had painted it.
The wise saw —

Quien no ha visto Sevilla,
No ha visto maravilla, —

he who has not seen Seville has seen no marvel—is
an Andalusian gasconade. Under correction be it
said, he who has seen Seville has seen no marvel.
This, however, is the judgment of a traveller weary
and way-worn with a journey of twelve successive
days in a carriage drawn by mules ; and I am
well aware how much our opinions of men and
things are coloured by these trivial ills. A sad
spirit is like a rainy day; its mists and shadows
darken the brightest sky, and clothe the fairest
landscape in gloom.

I am, too, a disappointed man in another respect.
I have come all the way from Madrid to Seville
without being robbed ! And this, too, when I

117

journeyed at a snail's pace, and had bought a
watch iarge enough for the clock of a village
church, for the express purpose of having it vio
lently torn from me by a fierce-whiskered high
wayman, with his blunderbuss and his "boca dbajo,
ladrones!" If I print this in a book, I am undone.
What ! travel in Spain and not be robbed ! To
be sure, I came very near it more than once.
Almost every village we passed through had its
tale to tell of atrocities committed in the neigh
bourhood. In one place, the stage-coach had been
stopped and plundered ; in another, a man had
been murdered and thrown into the river ; here
and -there a rude wooden cross and a shapeless
pile of stones marked the spot where some unwary
traveller had met his fate; and at night, seated
around the blazing hearth of the inn-kitchen, my
fellow-traveller would converse in a mysterious
under tone of the dangers we were to pass through
on the morrow. But the morrow came and went,
and, alas ! neither salteador, foot-pad, nor ratero
moved a finger. At one place, we were a day too
late ; at another, a day too early.

I am now at the Fonda de los Americanos. My
chamber-door opens upon a gallery, beneath which
is a little court paved with marble, having a foun
tain in the centre. As I write, I can just distin-

118 THE PILGRIM'S BREVIARY.

guish the tinkling of its tiny jet, falling into the
circular basin, with a murmur so gentle that it
scarcely breaks the silence of the night. At day-
dawn I start for Cadiz, promising myself a pleasant
sail down the Guadalquivir. All I shall be able to
say of Seville is what I have written above, —
that it is " a pleasant city, famous for oranges and

I am at length in Cadiz. I came across the bay
yesterday morning in an open boat from Santa
Maria, and have established myself in very pleas
ant rooms, which look out upon the Plaza de San
Antonio, the public square of the city. The morn
ing sun awakes me, and at evening the sea-breeze
comes in at my window. At night the square is
lighted by lamps, suspended from the trees, and
thronged with a brilliant crowd of. the young and

gay-
Cadiz is beautiful almost beyond imagination.

The cities of our dreams are not more enchanting.
It lies like a delicate sea-shell upon the brink of the
ocean, so wondrous fair that it seems not formed
for man. In sooth, the Paphian queen, born of the
feathery sea-foam, dwells there. It is the city of
beauty and of love.

119

The women of Cadiz are world-renowned for
their loveliness. Surely earth has none more daz
zling than a daughter of that bright, burning
clime. What a voluptuous form ! what a dainty
foot ! what dignity ! what matchless grace !

" What eyes — what lips — what every thing about her !
How like a swan she swims her pace, and bears
Her silver breasts !"

The Gaditana is not ignorant of her charms.
She knows full well the necromancy of a smile.
You see it in the flourish of her fan, — a magic
wand, whose spell is powerful ; you see it in her
steady gaze ; the elastic step,

" The veil,

Thrown back a moment with the glancing hand,
While the o'erpowering eye, fhat turns you pale,
Flashes into the heart."

When I am grown old arid gray, and sit by the
fireside wrapped in flannels, if, in a listless mo
ment, recalling what is now the present, but will
then be the distant and almost forgotten past, I
turn over the leaves of this journal till my watery
eye falls upon the page I have just written, I shall
smile at the enthusiasm with which I have sketched
this portrait. And where will then be the bright

120

forms that now glance before me, like*the heavenly
creations of a dream ? All gone — all gone ! Or
if perchance a few still linger upon earth, the silver
cord will be loosed,— they will be bowed with age
and sorrow, saying their pater-nosters with a
tremulous voice.

Old age is a Pharisee ; for he makes broad his
phylacteries, and wears them upon his brow, in
scribed with prayer, but in the " crooked auto
graph" of a palsied hand. " I see with pain," says
a French female writer, " that there is nothing
durable upon earth. We bring into the world a
fair face, and lo! in less than thirty years it is
covered with wrinkles ; after which a woman is
no longer good for any thing." A most appalling
thought !

Were I to translate these sombre reflections into
choice Castilian, and read them to the bright-eyed
houri who is now leaning over the balcony oppo
site, she would laugh, and laughing say, " Cuando
el demonio es viejo, se mete fraile."

The devotion paid at the shrine of the Virgin is
one of the most prominent and characteristic fea
tures of the Catholic religion. In Spain it is one

THE PILGRIM'S BREVIARY. 121

of its most attractive features. In the southern
provinces, in Granada and in Andalusia, which the
inhabitants call La tierra de Maria Santisima, — the
land of the most holy Mary, this adoration is most
ardent and enthusiastic. ' There is one of its • out
ward observances which struck me as peculiarly
beautiful and impressive. I refer to the Ave Ma
ria, an evening service of the Virgin. Just as the
evening twilight commences, the bell tolls to
prayer. In a moment, throughout the crowded
city, the hum of business is hushed, the thronged
streets are still ; the gay multitudes that crowd the
public walks stand motionless ; the angry dispute
ceases ; the laugh of merriment dies away ; life
seems for a moment to be arrested in its career,
and to stand still. The multitude uncover their
heads, and, with the sign of the cross, whisper
their 'evening prayer to the Virgin. Then the
bells ring a merrier peal ; the crowds move again
in the streets, and the rush and turmoil of business
recommence. I have always listened with feelings
of solemn pleasure to the bell that sounded forth
the Ave Maria. As it announced the close of day,
it seemed also to call the soul from its worldly
occupations to repose and devotion. There is
something beautiful in thus measuring the march
of time. The hour, too, naturally brings the heart

VOL. II. L

122 THE PILGRIM'S BREVIARY.

into unison with the feelings and sentiments of de
votion. The close of the day, — the shodows of
evening, — the calm of twilight, — inspire a feeling
of tranquillity ; and though I may differ from the
Catholic in regard to the object of his supplication,
yet it seems to me a beautiful and appropriate
solemnity, that at the close of each daily epoch of
life, which, if it have not been fruitful in incidents
to ourselves, has, nevertheless, been so to many of
the great human family, — the voice of a whole
people, and of the whole world, should go up to
Heaven in praise, and supplication, and thank
fulness.

The Moorish king rides up and down,
Through Granada's royal town ;
From Elvira's gates to those
Of Bivarambla on he goes.
Wo is me, Alhama !

Thus commences one of the fine old Spanish
ballads, commemorating the downfall of the city
of Alhama, where we have stopped to rest our
horses on their fatiguing march from Velez- Malaga
to Granada. Alhama was one of the last strong
holds of the Moslem power in Spain. Its fall

THE PILGRIM'S BREVIARY. 123

opened the way for the Christian army across the
Sierra Nevada, and spread consternation and
despair through the city of Granada. The de
scription in the old ballad is highly graphic and
beautiful ; and its beauty is well preserved in the
spirited English translation by Lord Byron.

As we crossed the Sierra Nevada, the snowy
mountains that look down upon the luxuriant Vega
of Granada, we overtook a solitary rider, who was
singing a wild national song, to cheer the loneliness
of his journey. He was an athletic man, and rode
a spirited horse of the Arab breed. A black bear
skin jacket covered his broad shoulders, and around
his waist was wound the crimson faja, so univer
sally worn by the Spanish peasantry. His velvet
breeches reached below his knee, just meeting a
pair of leather gaiters of elegant workmanship. A
gay silken handkerchief was tied round his head,
and over this he wore the little round Andalusian
hat, decked out with a profusion of tassels of silk
and bugles of silver. The steed he mounted was
dressed no less gayly than his rider. There was a
silver star upon his forehead, and a bright-coloured

124

THE PILGRIM S BREVIARY.

woollen tassel between his ears : a blanket striped
with blue and red covered the saddle, and even
the Moorish stirrups were ornamented with brass
studs.

This personage was a contrabandista, — a smug
gler between Granada and the sea-port of Velez-
Malaga. The song he sung was one of the popular
ballads of the country. I will here transcribe the
original as a specimen of its kind. Its only merit
is simplicity, and a certain grace which belongs to
its provincial phrase alogy, and which would be
wholly lost in a translation.

Yo que soy contrabandista,

Y campo por mi respeto,

A todos los desafio,

Porque a naide tengo mieo.

i Ay, jaleo ! ; Muchachas, jaleo !

I Quien me compra jilo negro ]

My caballo esta cansao,
Y yo me marcho corriendo.
Anda, caballito mio,
Caballo mio carato ;
Anda, que viene la ronda,
Y se mueve el tiroteo.
j Ay, jaleo ! ; Ay, ay, jaleo !
I Ay, jaleo, que nos cortan !
Sacame de aqueste aprieto

125

Mi caballo ya no corre,
Ya mi caballo par6.
Todo para en este mundo,
Tambien he de parar yo.
j Ay, jaleo ! ; Muchachas, jaleo !
I Quien me compra jilo negro1?

The air to which these words are sung is wild
and high ; and the prolonged and mournful cadence
gives it the sound of a funeral wail, or a cry for
help. To have its full effect upon the mind, it
should be heard by night, in some wild mountain-
pass, and from a distance. Then the harsh tones
come softened to the ear, and in unison with the
hour and the scene, produce a pleasing melan
choly.

The contrabandista accompanied us to Granada.
The sun had already set when we entered the
Vega, — those luxuriant meadows which stretch
away to the south and west of the city, league
after league of rich, unbroken verdure. It was
Saturday night : and as the gathering twilight fell
around us, and one by one the lamps of the city
twinkled in the distance, suddenly kindling here
and there, as the stars start to their places in the
evening sky, — a loud peal of bells rang forth its
glad welcome to the day of rest, over the meadows

126

to the distant hills, " swinging slow, with solemn

Is this reality and not a dream ? Am I, indeed,
in Granada ? Am I indeed within the walls of that
earthly paradise of the Moorish kings ? How my
spirit is stirred within me ! How my heart is
lifted up ! How my thoughts are rapt away in the
visions of other days !

Ave Maria purisima ! It is midnight. The
bell has tolled the hour from the watch-tower of
the Alhambra ; and the silent street echoes only to
the watchman's cry, Ave Maria purisima ! I am
alone in my chamber — sleepless — spell-bound by
the genius of the place — entranced by the beauty
of the star-lit night. As I gaze from my window,
a sudden radiance brightens in the east. It is the
moon, rising behind the Alhambra. I can faintly
discern the dusky and indistinct outline of a mas
sive tower, standing amid the uncertain twilight,
like a gigantic shadow. It changes with the rising
moon, as a palace in the clouds, and other towers
and battlements arise — every moment more dis
tinct — more palpable, till now they stand between

127

me and the sky, with a sharp outline, distant, and
yet so near, that I seem to sit within their shadow.
Majestic spirit of the night, I recognise thee !
Thou hast conjured up this glorious vision for thy
votary. Thou hast baptized me with thy baptism.
Thou hast nourished my soul with fervent thoughts
and holy aspirations, and ardent longings after
the beautiful and the true. Majestic spirit of the
past, I recognise thee ! Thou hast bid the shadow
go back for me upon the dial- plate of time. Thou
hast taught me to read in thee the present and the
future — a revelation of man's destiny on earth.
Thou hast taught me to see in thee the principle
that unfolds itself from century to century in the
progress of our race, — the germ, in whose bosom
lie unfolded the bud, the leaf, the tree. Genera
tions perish, like the leaves of the forest, passing
away when their mission is completed ; but at
each succeeding spring, broader and higher spreads
the human mind unto its perfect stature, unto the
fulfilment of its destiny, unto the perfection of its
nature. And in these high revelations, thou hast
taught me more, — thou hast taught me to feel that
I, too, weak, humble, and unknown — feeble of
purpose and irresolute of good, have also my mis
sion to accomplish upon earth — like the falling
leaf, like the passing wind — like the drop of rain.

128

0 glorious thought ! that lifts me above the power
of time and chance, and tells me that I cannot
pass away, and leave no mark of my existence.

1 may not know the purpose of my being — the
end for which an all-wise Providence created me
as I am, and placed me where I am; but I do
know — for in such things faith is knowledge — that
my being has a purpose in the omniscience of my
Creator, and that all my actions tend to the com
pletion, to the full accomplishment of that pur
pose. Is this fatality ? No. I feel that I am free,
though an infinite and invisible power overrules
me. Man proposes and God disposes. This is
one of the many mysteries in our being which
human reason cannot find out by searching.

Yonder towers, that stand so huge and massive
in the midnight air, the work of human hands that
have long since forgotten their cunning in the grave,
and once the home of human beings immortal as
ourselves, and filled like us with hopes and fears,
and powers of good and ill, — are lasting memorials
of their builders ; inanimate material forms, yet
living with the impress of a creative mind. These
are landmarks of other times. Thus from the dis
tant past the history of the human race is tele
graphed from generation to generation, through
the present to all succeeding ages. These are

THE PILGRIM'S BREVIARY. 129

manifestations of the human mind at a remote
period of its history, and among a people who
came from another clime, — the children of the
desert. Their mission is accomplished, and they
are gone ; yet leaving behind them a thousand
records of themselves and of their ministry, not as
yet fully manifest, but " seen through a glass
darkly," dimly shadowed forth in the language, and
character, and manners, and history of the nation,
that was by turns the conquered and the conquer
ing. The Goth sat at the Arab's feet ; and athwart
the cloud and storm of war, streamed the light of
oriental learning upon the western world,

* As when the autumnal sun,
Through travelling rain and mist,
Shines on the evening hills.'

This morning I visited the Alhambra ; an en
chanted palace, whose exquisite beauty baffles the
power of language to describe. Its outlines may
b edrawn, — its halls and galleries, its court-yards
and its fountains numbered ; but what skilful limner
shall portray in words its curious architecture, the
grotesque ornaments, the quaint devices, the rich
tracery of the walls, the ceilings inlaid with pearl

130

and tortoise-shell ? What language paint the
magic hues of light and shade, the shimmer of the
sunbeam as it falls upon the marble pavement, and
the brilliant pannels inlaid with many-coloured
stones ? Vague recollections fill my mind , — im ages
dazzling but undefined, like the memory of a gor
geous dream. They crowd my brain confusedly,
but they will not stay ; they change and mingle,
like the tremulous sunshine on the wave, till
imagination itself is dazzled — bewildered — over
powered !

What most arrests the stranger's foot within the
walls of the Alhambra, is the refinement of luxury
which he sees at every step. He lingers in the
deserted bath, — he pauses to gaze upon the now
vacant saloon, where stretched upon his gilded
couch the effeminate monarch of the East was
wooed to sleep by softly-breathing music. What
more delightful than this secluded garden, green
with the leaf of the myrtle and the orange, and
freshened with the gush of fountains, beside whose
basin the nightingale still woos the blushing rose ?
What more fanciful — more exquisite — more like
a creation of oriental magic, than the lofty towTer
of the Tocador, — its airy sculpture resembling
the fretwork of wintry frost, and its windows over
looking the romantic valley of the Darro ; and the

THE PILGRIM'S BREVIARY. 131

city, with its gardens, domes, and spires, far, far
below ? Cool through this lattice comes the sum
mer wind, from the icy summits of the Sierra Ne
vada. Softly in yonder fountain falls the crystal
water, dripping from its alabaster vase with never-
ceasing sound ! On every side comes up the fra
grance of a thousand flowers, the murmur of innu
merable leaves ; and overhead is a sky where not
a vapour floats, — as soft, and blue, and radiant as
the eye of childhood !

Such is the Alhambra of Granada ; a fortress —
a palace — an earthly paradise ; a ruin, wonderful
in its fallen greatness.

THE

JOURNEY INTO ITALY.

VOL. II.

THE

JOURNEY INTO ITALY.

What I catch is at present only sketch-ways, as it were ; but I
prepare myself betimes for the Italian journey.

GOETHE'S Faust.

ON the afternoon of the fifteenth of December,
in the year of grace one thousand eight hundred
and twenty-seven, I left Marseilles for Genoa,
taking the sea-shore road through Toulon, Dra-
guignan, and Nice. This journey is written in my
memory with a sunbeam. We were a company
whom chance had thrown together, — different in
ages, humours, and pursuits, — and yet so merrily
the days went by, in sunshine, wind, or rain, that
methinks some lucky star must have ruled the
hour that brought us five so auspiciously together.
But where are now that merry company ? One
sleeps in his youthful grave ; two sit in their father
land, and " coin their brain for their daily bread ;"

136 THE JOURNEY INTO ITALY.

and the others — where are they ? If still among
the living, I beg them to remember in their prayers
the humble historian of their journey from Mar
seilles to Genoa.

At Toulon we took a private carriage, in order
to pursue our journey more leisurely and more at
ease. I well remember the strange, outlandish
vehicle, and our vetturino Joseph, with his blouse,
his short-stemmed pipe, his limping gait, his com
ical phiz, and the lowland dialect his mother taught
him at Avignon. Every scene and incident of the
journey is now before me as if written in a book.
The sunny landscapes of the Var, — the peasant
girls, with their broad-brimmed hats of straw,—
the inn at Draguignan, with its painting of a lady
on horseback, underwritten in French and Eng
lish, " Une jeune dame a la promenade — a young
ladi taking a walk,"— the mouldering arches of the
Roman aqueducts at Frejus, standing in the dim
twilight of morning like shadowy apparitions of
the past, — the wooden bridge across the Var, —
the glorious amphitheatre of hills, that half-encircle
Nice, — the midnight scene at the village inn of Mo
naco, — the magnificent scenery of the Col de
Tende, with its mountain-road, overhanging the
sea at a dizzy height, and its long dark passages
cut through the solid rock, — the tumbling mountain-

THE JOURNEY INTO ITALY. 137

torrent, and the fortress of Saorgio, perched on a
jutting spur of the Alps ; these, and a thousand
varied scenes and landscapes of this journey, rise
before me as if still visible to the eye of sense, and
not of memory only. And yet I will not venture
upon a minute description of them. I have not
colours bright enough for such landscapes ; and
besides, even the most determined lovers of the
picturesque grow weary of long descriptions ;
though, as the French guide-book says of these
scenes, " Tout cela fait sans doute un spectacle
admirable."

On the tenth day of our journey we reached
Genoa, the city of palaces — the superb city. The
writer of an old book, called " Time's Store
house," thus poetically describes its situation.
" This cittie is most proudly built upon the sea-
coast and the downefall of the Appenines, at the
foot of a mountaine ; even as if she were de
scended downe the mount, and come to repose
herselfe uppon a plaine."

It was Christmas eve — a glorious night! I
stood at midnight on the wide terrace of our hotel,
which overlooks the sea, and gazing on the tiny

M2

138 THE JOURNEY INTO ITALY.

and crisping waves that broke in pearly light be
neath the moon, sent back my wandering thoughts
far over the sea, to a distant home. The jangling
music of church-bells aroused me from my dream.
It was the sound of jubilee at the approaching
festival of the nativity, and summoned alike the
pious devotee, the curious stranger, and the gallant
cicisbeo to the church of the Annunziata.

I descended from the terrace, and groping my
way through one of the dark and narrow lanes
which intersect the city in all directions, soon
found myself in the Strada Nuova. The long
line of palaces lay half in shadow, half in light,
stretching before me in magical perspective, like
the long, vapoury opening of a cloud in the summer
sky. Following the various groups that were
passing onward towards the public square, I
entered the church, where midnight mass was to
be chanted. A dazzling blaze of light from the
high altar shone upon the red marble columns
which support the roof, and fell with a solemn
effect upon the kneeling crowd that filled the body
of the church. All beyond was in darkness ; and
from that darkness at intervals burst forth the deep
voice of the organ and the chanting of the choir,
filling the soul with solemnity and awe. And yet
among that prostrate crowd, how many had been

THE JOURNEY INTO ITALY. 139

drawn thither by unworthy motives, — motives
even more unworthy than mere idle curiosity !
How many sinful purposes arose in souls un-
purified, and mocked at the bended knee ! How
many a heart beat wild with earthly passion,
while the unconscious lip repeated the accus
tomed prayer ! Immortal spirit ! canst thou so
heedlessly resist the imploring voice that calls
thee from thine errors and pollutions? Is not the
long day long enough — is not the wide world wide
enough — has not society frivolity enough for thee,
that thou shouldst seek out this midnight hour —
this holy place — this solemn sacrifice — to add
irreverence to thy folly ?

In the shadow of a column stood a young man
wrapped in a military cloak, earnestly conversing
in a low whisper with a female figure, so veiled as
to hide her face from the eyes of all but her com
panion. At length they separated. The young
man continued leaning against the column, and the
girl, gliding silently along the dimly lighted aisle,
mingled with the crowd, and threw herself upon
her knees. Beware, poor girl ! thought I, lest thy
gentle nature prove thy undoing ! Perhaps, alas !
thou art already undone ! And I almost heard the
evil spirit whisper, as in the Faust, " How different

140 THE JOURNEY INTO ITALY.

was it with thee, Margaret, when still full of inno
cence, thou earnest to the aitar here, — out of the
well-worn little book lispedst prayers, half child-
sport, half God in the heart ! Margaret, where is
thy head ? What crime in thy heart !"

The city of Genoa is magnificent in parts, but
not as a whole. The houses are high, and the
streets in general so narrow that in many of them
you may almost step across from side to side.
They are built to receive the cool sea-breeze, and
shut out the burning sun. Only three of them—
if my memory serves me — are wide enough to
admit the passage of carriages ; and these three
form but one continuous street, — the street of
palaces. They are the Strada Nuova, the Strada
Novissima, and the Strada Balbi, which connect
the Piazza Amorosa with the Piazza dell' Annun-
ziata. These palaces, the Doria, the Durazzo, the
Ducal Palace, and others of less magnificence, —
with their vast halls, their marble staircases, vesti
bules, and terraces, and the aspect of splendour and
munificence they wear, — have given this commer
cial city the title of Genoa the Superb. And as if to
humble her pride, some envious rival, among the
Italian cities, has launched at her a biting sarcasm
in the well-known proverb, " Mare senza pesce,

THE JOURNEY INTO ITALY. J41

uomini senza fede, e donne senza vergogna :" — a
sea without fish — men without probity, and women
without modesty !

The road from Genoa to Lucca strongly resem
bles that from Nice to Genoa. It runs along the
sea-bord, now dipping to the water's edge, and
now climbing the zig-zag mountain-pass, with
toppling crags, and yawning chasms, and verdant
terraces of vines and olive-trees. Many a sublime
arid many a picturesque landscape catches the
traveller's eye, now almost weary with gazing;
and still brightly painted upon my mind lies a
a calm evening scene on the borders of the Gulf
of Spezzia, with its broad sheet of crystal water —
the blue-tinted hills that form its oval basin — the
crimson sky above, and its bright reflection, —

' Where it lay

Deep bosomed in the still and quiet bay,
The sea reflecting all that glowed above,
Till a new sky, softer but not so gay,
Arch'd in its bosom, trembled like a dove.*

142 THE JOURNEY INTO ITALY.

Pisa, the melancholy city, with its Leaning
Tower, its Campo Santo, its bronze-gated cathe
dral, and its gloomy palaces ; Florence, the fair,
with its magnificent Duomo, its gallery of ancient
art, its Venus, its gardens, its gay society, and its
delightful environs, — Fiesole, Camaldoli, Vallom-
brosa, and the luxuriant Val d'Arno : — these have
been so often and so beautifully described by
others, that I need not repeat the twice-told tale.

At Florence I took lodgings in a house which
fronts upon the Piazza Novella. In front of my
parlour windows was the venerable Gothic church
of Santa Maria Novella, in whose gloomy aisles
Boccaccio has placed the opening scene of his
Decamerone. There, when the plague was raging
in the city, one Tuesday morning, after mass, the
"seven ladies, young and fair," held council to
gether, and resolved to leave the infected city, and
flee to their rural villas in the environs, where they
might " hear the bird's sing, and see the green
hills, and the plains, and the fields covered with
grain and undulating like the sea, and trees of
species manifold."

In the Florentine museum is a representation in

THE JOURNEY INTO ITALY. 143

wax of some of the appalling scenes of the plague,
which desolated this city about the middle of the
fourteenth century, and which Boccaccio has de
scribed with such simplicity and power in the in
troduction of his Decamerone. It is the work of
a Sicilian artist, by the name of Zumbo. He must
have been a man of the most gloomy and saturnine
imagination, and more akin to the worm than most
of us, thus to have revelled night and day in the
hideous mysteries of death, corruption, and the
charnel-house. It is strange how this representa
tion haunts one. It is like a dream of the sepul
chre, with its loathsome corses, with " the blacken
ing, the swelling, the bursting of the trunk — the
worm, the rat, and the tarantula at work." You
breathe more freely as you step out into the open
air again ; and when the bright sunshine, and the
crowded, busy streets next meet your eye, you
are ready to ask, is this indeed a representation of
reality ? Can this pure air have been laden with
pestilence ? Can this gay city have ever been a
city of the plague ?

The work of the Sicilian artist is admirable as a
piece of art: the description of the Florentine prose-
poet equally admirable as a piece of eloquence.
"How many vast palaces," he exclaims, "how
many beautiful houses, how many noble dwellings,

144 THE JOURNEY INTO ITALY.

aforetime filled with lords and ladies, and trains
of servants, were now untenanted even by the
lowest menial ! How many memorable families,
how many ample heritages, how many renowned
possessions were left without an heir ! How many
valiant men, how many beautiful women, how
many gentle youths breakfasted in the morning
with their relatives, companions, and friends, and
when the evening came supped with their an
cestors in the other world !"

I met with an odd character at Florence, — a
complete humorist. He was an Englishman of
some forty years of age, with a round, good-
humoured countenance, and a nose that wore the
livery of good company. He was making the
grand tour through France and Italy, and home
again by the way of the Tyrol and the Rhine.
He travelled post, with a double-barrelled gun,
two pair of pistols, and a violin without a bow.
He had been in Rome without seeing St. Peter's,
— he did not care about it ; he had seen St. Paul's
in London. He had been in Naples without visit
ing Mount Vesuvius ; and did not go to Pompeii,
because " they told him it was hardly worth see-

THE JOURNEY INTO ITALY. 145

ing — nothing but a parcel of dark streets and old
walls." The principal object he seemed to have
in view was to complete the grand tour.

I afterward met with his counterpart in a coun
tryman of my own, who made it a point to see
every thing which was mentioned in the guide
books ; and boasted how much he could accom
plish in a day. He would despatch a city in an
incredibly short space of time. A Roman aque
duct, a Gothic cathedral, two or three modern
churches, and an ancient ruin or so were only a
breakfast for him. Nothing came amiss; not a
stone was left unturned. A city was like a Chi
nese picture to him — it had no perspective. Every
object seemed of equal magnitude and importance.
He saw them all ; they were all wonderful.

Life is short, and art is long ; yet spare me from
thus travelling with the speed of thought; and
trotting from daylight until dark, at the heels of a
cicerone, with an umbrella in one hand, and a guide
book and plan of the city in the other.

I copied the following singular inscription from
a tombstone in the Protestant cemetery at Leg
horn. It is the epitaph of a lady, written by her-

VOL. If. N

146 THE JOURNEY INTO ITALY.

self, and engraven upon her tomb at her own
request.

Under this stone lies the victim of sorrow.

Fly, wandering stranger, from her mouldering dust,

Lest the rude wind, conveying a particle thereof unto thed,

Should communicate that venom melancholy,

That has destroyed the strongest frame and liveliest spirit.

With joy of heart has she resigned her breath,

A living martyr to sensibility !

How inferior in true pathos is this inscription to
one I afterward saw in the cemetery of Bologna ; —

Lucrezia Picini
Implora eterna pace.

Lucretia Picini implores eternal peace !

From Florence to Rome I travelled with a vet-
turino, by the way of Siena. We were six days
upon the road, and like Peter Rugg in the story
book, were followed constantly by clouds and
rain. At times the sun, not all-forgetful of the
world, peeped from beneath his cowl of mist, and
kissed the swarthy face of his beloved land ; and
then, like an anchorite, withdrew again from earth,
and gave himself to heaven. Day after day the
mist and the rain were my fellow-travellers ;
and as I sat wrapped in the thick folds of my
Spanish cloak, and looked out upon the misty land-

THE JOURNEY INTO ITALY. .147

scape and the leaden sky, I was continually saying
to myself, Can this be Italy ? and smiling at the
untravelled credulity of those who, amid the
storms of a northern winter, give way to the illu
sions of fancy and dream of Italy as a sunny land,
where no wintry tempest beats, and where, even
in January, the pale invalid may go about without
his umbrella, his Belcher handkerchief, or his India-
rubber walk-in-the-waters.

Notwithstanding all this, with the help of a good
constitution and a thick pair of boots, I contrived
to see all that was to be seen upon the road. I
walked down the long hill-side at San Lorenzo,
and along the border of the Lake of Bolsena,
which, veiled in the driving mist, stretched like an
inland sea beyond my ken ; and through the sacred
forest of oak, held in superstitious reverence by
the peasant, and inviolate from his axe. I passed
a night at Montefiascone, renowned for a delicate
Muscat wine which bears the name of Est, and
made a midnight pilgrimage to the tomb of the
Bishop John Defoucris, who died a martyr to his
love of this wine of Montefiascone.

Propter nimium Est, Est,
Dominus meus mortuus est.

A marble slab in the pavement, worn by the foot-

148

THE JOURNEY INTO ITALY.

steps of pilgrims like myself, covers the dominie's
ashes. There is a rude figure carved upon it, at
whose feet I traced out the cabalistic words, "Est,
Est, Est." The remainder of the inscription was
illegible by the flickering light of the sexton's
lantern.

At Baccano I first caught sight of the dome of
Saint Peter's. We had entered the desolate Cam-
pagna ; we passed the Tomb of Nero,— we ap
proached the Eternal City ; but no sound of active
life — no thronging crowds — no hum of busy men
announced that we were near the gates of Rome.
All was silence, solitude, and desolation.

ROME IN MIDSUMMER.

if 2

ROME IN MIDSUMMER.

She who tamed the world seemed to tame herself at last, and
falling under her own weight grew to be a prey to Time, who with
his iron teeth consumes all bodies at last, making all things both
animate and inanimate, which have their being under that change
ling the Moon, to be subject unto corruption and desolation.

HOWELL'S Signorie of Venice.

THE masks and mummeries of Carnival are
over; the imposing ceremonies of Holy Week
have become a tale of the times of old ; the illu
mination of St. Peter's and the Girandola are no
longer the theme of gentle and simple ; and finally,
the barbarians of the North have retreated from
the gates of Rome, and left the Eternal City silent
and deserted. The cicerone stands at the corner
of the street with his hands in his pockets, — the
artist has shut himself up in his studio to muse
upon antiquity* — and the idle facchino lounges in
the market-place and plays at morra by the foun-

152 ROME IN MIDSUMMER.

tain. Midsummer has come ; and you may now
hire a palace for what, a few weeks ago, would
hardly have paid 'your night's lodging in its
garret.

I am still lingering in Rome — a student, not an
artist — and have taken lodgings in the Piazza Na-
vona, the very heart of the city, and one of the
largest and most magnificent squares of modern
Rome. It occupies the site of the ancient amphi
theatre of Alexander Severus ; and the churches,
palaces, and shops that now surround it, are built
upon the old foundations of the amphitheatre. At
each extremity of the square stands a fountain ;
the one with a simple jet of crystal water, the
other with a triton holding a dolphin by the tail.
In the centre rises a nobler work of art ; a foun
tain with a marble basin more than two hundred
feet in circumference. From the midst uprises a
huge rock, pierced with four grottoes, wherein sit
a rampant sea-horse and a lion couchant. On the
sides of the rock are four colossal statues, repre
senting the four principal rivers of the world ;
and from its summit, forty feet from the basin
below, shoots up an obelisk of red. granite, covered
with hieroglyphics, and fifty feet in height, — a relic
of the amphitheatre of Caracalla.

In this quarter of the city I have domiciliated

ROME IN MIDSUMMER. 153

myself, in a family of whose many kindnesses I
shall always retain the most lively and grateful
remembrance. My mornings are spent in visiting
the wonders of Rome ; in studying the miracles
of ancient and modern art, or in reading at the
public libraries. We breakfast at noon, and dine
at the aristocratic hour of eight in the evening.
The intermediate hours I devote to the acquisition
of the Italian language, — the idioma gentil sonante
e puro, — not from the lessons of a pragmatical
language-master, but in the delightful intercourse
of a pleasant family circle. After dinner comes
the conversazione, enlivened with exquisite music,
and the meeting of travellers, artists, and literary
men from every quarter of the globe. At mid
night, when the crowd is gone, I retire to my
chamber, and poring over the gloomy pages of
Dante, or " Bandello's laughing tale," protract my
nightly vigil till the morning star is in the sky.

Our parlour windows look out upon the square,
which circumstance is a source of infinite enjoy
ment to me. Directly in front, with its fantastic
belfries and swelling dome, rises the church of St.
Agnes ; and sitting by the open window I note the
busy scene below, enjoy the cool air of morning
and evening, and even feel the freshness of the

154 ROME IN MIDSUMMER.

fountain, as its waters leap in mimic cascades down
the sides of the rock.

The Piazza Navona is the chief market-place of
Rome ; and on market-days is filled with a noisy
crowd of the Roman populace, and the peasantry
from the neighbouring villages of Albano andFras-
cati. At such times the square presents an ani
mated . and curious scene. The gayly-decked
stalls, — the piles of fruits and vegetables, — the pyr
amids of flowers, — the various costumes of the
peasantry, — the constant movement of the vast fluc
tuating crowd, and the deafening clamour of their
discordant voices, that arise louder than the roar
of the loud ocean, — all this is better than a play to
me, and gives me amusement when naught else
has power to amuse.

Every Saturday afternoon in the sultry month
of August, this spacious square is converted into a
lake, by stopping the conduit-pipes which carry off
the water of the fountains. Coaches, landaus, and
vehicles of every description, axle-deep, drive to-
and-fro across the mimic lake ; a dense crowd
gathers around its margin, and a thousand tricks
excite the loud laughter of the idle populace,

ROME IN MIDSUMMER. 155

Here is a fellow groping with a stick after his sea
faring hat ; there another splashing in the water
in pursuit of a mischievous spaniel, that has swum
away with his shoe ; while from a neighbouring
balcony a noisy burst of military music fills the
air, and gives fresh animation to the scene of mirth.
This is one of the popular festivals of midsummer
in Rome, and the merriest of them all. It is a
kind of carnival unmasked ; and many a popular
bard, many a poeta di dozzina, invokes this day the
plebeian muse of the market-place to sing in high-
sounding rhyme, " II Lago di Piazza Navona."

I have before me one of these sublime effusions.
It describes the square — the crowd — the rattling
carriages — the lake — the fountain, raised by "the
superhuman genius of Bernini" — the lion — the sea
horse, and the triton grasping the dolphin's tail.
" Half the grand square," thus sings the poet,
" where Rome with food is satiate, was changed
into a lake, around whose margin stood the Roman
people, pleased with soft idleness and merry holy-
day, like birds upon the margin of a limpid brook.
Up and down drove car and chariot ; and the
women trembled for fear of the deep water ; though
merry were the young, and well I ween, had they
been borne away to unknown shores by the bull

156 ROME IN MIDSUMMER.

that bore away Europa, they would neither have
wept nor screamed !"

On the eastern slope of the Ta^iiculum, now
called, from its yellow sands, Montorio, or the
Golden Mountain, stands the fountain of Acqua
Paola, the largest and most abundant of the Roman
fountains. It is a small Jonic temple, with six
columns of reddish granite in front, a spacious hall
and chambers within, and a garden with a terrace
in the rear. Beneath the pavement, a torrent of
water from the ancient aqueducts of Trajan, and
from the lakes of Bracciano and Martignano, leaps
forth in three beautiful cascades, and from the over
flowing basin rushes down the hill-side to turn the
busy wheels of a dozen mills.

The key of this little fairy palace is in our hands,
and as often as once a week we pass the day there
amid the odour of its flowers, the rushing sound of
its waters, and the enchantments of poetry and
music. How pleasantly the sultry hours steal by !
Cool comes the summer wind from the Tiber's
mouth at Ostia. Above us is a sky without a
cloud ; beneath us the magnificent panorama of
Rome and the Campagna, bounded by the Abruzzi

ROME IN MIDSUMMER. 157

and the sea. Glorious scene ! one glance at thee
would move the dullest soul, — one glance can melt
the painter and the poet into tears !

In the immediate neighbourhood of the fountain
are many objects worthy of the stranger's notice.
A bow-shot down the hill- side towards the city,
stands the convent of San Pietro in Montorio ;
and in the cloister of this convent is a small. round
Doric tern pie, built upon the spot which an ancient
tradition points out as the scene of St. Peter's mar
tyrdom. In the opposite direction the roact leads
you over the shoulder of the hill, and out through
the city-gate to gardens and villas beyond. Pass
ing beneath a lofty arch of Trajan's aqueduct, an
ornamented gateway on the left admits you to the
Villa Pamfili-Doria, built on the western declivity
of the hill. This is the largest and most magnifi
cent of the numerous villas that crowd the imme
diate environs of Rome. Its spacious terraces, its
marble statues, its woodlands and green alleys, its
lake and waterfalls and fountains, give it an air of
courtly splendour and of rural beauty, which real
izes the beau ideal of a suburban villa.

This is our favourite resort when we have
passed the day at the fountain, and the afternoon
shadows begin to fall. There we sit on the broad
marble steps of the terrace, gaze upon the varied

VOL. U.-

158 ROME IN MIDSUMMER.

landscape stretching to the misty sea, or ramble
beneath the leafy dome of the woodland and along
the margin of the lake,

' And drop a pebble to see it sink
Down in those depths so calm and cool.'

O, did we but know when we are happy ; could
the restless, feverish, ambitious heart be still, but
for a moment still, and yield itself, without one
farther-aspiring throb, to its enjoyment — then were
I happy — yes, thrice happy ! But, no ; this flutter
ing, struggling, and imprisoned spirit beats the
bars of its golden cage — disdains the silken fetter :
it will not elos^ its eye and fold its wings ; as if
time were not swift enough, its swifter thoughts
outstrip his rapid flight, and onward, onward do
they w7ing their way to the distant mountains, to
the fleeting clouds of the future ; and yet I know,
that ere long, weary, and way-worn, and dis
appointed, they shall return to nestle in the bosom
of the past !

This day, also, I have passed at Acqua Paola.
From the garden terrace I watched the setting
sun, as, wrapt in golden vapour, he passed to other
climes. A friend from my native land was with
me : and as we spake of home, a liquid star stood
trembling like a drop of dew upon the closing eye-

ROME IN MIDSUMMER. 159

lid of the day. Which of us sketched these lines
with a pencil upon the cover of Julia's Corinna ?

Bright star ! whose soft, familiar ray,

In colder climes and gloomier skies,
I've watch'd so oft when closing day

Had ting'd the west with crimson dies ;
Perhaps, to-night, some friend I love

Beyond the deep, the distant sea,
Will gaze upon thy path above,

And give one lingering thought to me.

TORQUATI TASSO OSSA me JACENT — here lie
the bones of Torquato Tasso — is the simple in
scription upon the poet's tomb, in the church of
St. Onofrio. Many a pilgrimage is made to this
grave. Many a bard from distant lands comes to
visit the spot, — and as he paces the secluded
cloisters of the convent where the poet died, and
where his ashes rest, muses on the sad vicissitudes
of his life, and breathes an orison for the peace of
his soul. He sleeps midway between his cradle
at Sorrento and his dungeon at Ferrara.

The monastery of St. Onofrio stands on the
Janiculum, overlooking the Tiber and the city of
Rome ; and in the distance rise the towers of the
Roman Capitol, where, after long years of sickness 9
sorrow, and imprisonment, the laurel crown was

160 ROME IN MIDSUMMER.

prepared for the great epic poet of Italy. The
chamber in which Tasso died is still shown to the
curious traveller ; and the tree in the garden,
under whose shade he loved to sit. The feelings
of the dying man, as he reposed in this retire
ment, are not the vague conjectures of poetic
revery. He has himself recorded them in a letter
which he wrote to his friend Antonio Constantini,
a few days only before his dissolution. These are
his melancholy words : —

" What will my friend Antonio say when he-
hears the death of Tasso? Ere long, I think, the
news will reach him ; for I feel that the end of my
life is near ; being able to find no remedy for this
wearisome indisposition, which is superadded to
my customary infirmities, and by which, as by a
rapid torrent, I see myself swept away, without a
hand to save. It is no longer time to speak of my
unyielding destiny, not to say the ingratitude of
the world, which has longed even for the victory of
driving me a beggar to my grave : while I thought
that the glory which, in spite of those who will it
not, this age shall receive from my writings, was
not to leave me thus without reward. I have
come to this monastery of St. Onofrio, not only be
cause the air is commended by physicians, as more
salubrious than in any other part of Rome, but that

ROME IN MIDSUMMER. 161

I may, as it were, commence, in this high place, and
in the conversation of these devout fathers, my
conversation in heaven. Pray God for me ; and
be assured that as I have loved and honoured you
in this present life, so in that other and more real
life will I do for you all that belongs to charity un
feigned and true. And to the divine mercy I com
mend both you and myself."

The modern Romans are a very devout people.
The Princess Doria washes the pilgrim's feet in
Holy Week ; every evening, foul or fair, the whole
year round, there is a rosary sung before an image
of the Virgin, within a stone's throw of my window ;
and the young ladies write letters to St. Louis
Gonzaga, who in all paintings and scufpture is
represented as young and angelically beautiful. I
saw a large pile of these letters a few weeks ago
in Gonzaga's chapel, at the church of St. Ignatius.
They were lying at the foot of the altar, prettily
written on smooth paper, and tied with silken
ribands of various colours. Leaning over the
marble balustrade, I read the following super
scription 'upon one of them:— "All* Angelico
Giovane S. Luigi Gonzaga,— Paradiso."— To the
o2

162 ROME IN MIDSUMMER.

angelic youth St. Lewis Gonzaga, Paradise. A
soldier, with a musket, kept guard over this treas
ure ; and I had the audacity to ask him at what
hour the mail went out ; for which heretical im
pertinence he cocked his mustache at me with the
most savage look imaginable, as much as to say,
" Get thee gone :"—

Andate,
Niente pigliate,
E mai ritornate.

The modern Romans are likewise strongly
given to amusements of every description. Panem
et Circences, says the Latin satirist, when chiding
the degraded propensities of his countrymen ;
Panem et Circences — they are content with bread
and the sports of the circus. The same may be
said at the present day. Even in this hot weather,
when the shops are shut at noon, and the fat priests
waddle about the streets with fans in their hands,
the people crowd to the Mausoleum of Augustus,
to be choked with smoke of fireworks, and see de
formed and humpback dwarfs tumbled into the
dirt by the masked horns of young bullocks.
What a refined amusement for the inhabitants of
" pompous and holy Rome !"

ROME IN MIDSUMMER. 163

The Sirocco prevails to-day, — a hot wind from
the burning sands of Africa, that bathes its wings
in the sea, and comes laden with fogs and vapours
to the shores of Italy. It is oppressive and dis
piriting, and quite unmans one, like the dog-days
of the north. There is a scrap of an old English
song running in my mind, in which the poet calls
it a cool wind ; though ten to one I misquote.

" When the cool Sirocco blows,
And daws and pies, and rocks and crows
Sit and curse the wintry snows,
Then give me ale !"

I should think that stark English beer might
have a potent charm against the powers of the foul
fiend that rides this steaming, reeking wind. A
flask of Montefiascone, or a bottle of Lacrima
Christi does very well.

Beggars all, — beggars all ! The Papal city is
full of them ; and they hold you -by the button
through the whole calendar of saints. You cannot
choose but hear. I met an old woman yesterday,
who pierced my ear with this alluring petition : —

". Ah signora ! Qualche piccola cosa, per ca-
riota i Vi dirb la buona ventura : C'e una bella

164 ROME IN MIDSUMMER.

signorina, che vi ama molto ! Per i"i Sacro Sacra
mento ! Per la Madonna !"

Which being interpreted, is, " Ah, sir, a trifle, for
charity's sake ! I will tell your fortune for you.
There is a beautiful young lady who loves you
well ! For the Holy Sacrament— for the Madon
na's sake !"

Who could resist such an appeal ?

I made a laughable mistake this morning in giv
ing alms. A man stood on the shady side of the
street with his hat in his hand, and as I passed I
thought he gave me a piteous look, though he said
nothing. He had such a wo-begone face, and such
a threadbare coat, that I at once took him for one
of those mendicants who bear the title of " poveri
vergognosi," — bashful beggars ; persons whom
pinching want compels to receive the stranger's
charity, though pride restrains them from asking
it. Moved with compassion, I threw into the hat
the little I had to give ; when, instead of thanking
me with a blessing, my man of the threadbare coat
showered upon me the most sonorous maledictions
of his native tongue, and emptying his greasy hat
upon the pavement, drew it down over his ears
with both hands, and stalked away with all the
dignity of a Roman senator in the best days of the
republic, — to the infinite amusement of a green-

ROME IN MIDSUMMER. 165

grocer, who stood at his shop-door bursting with
laughter. No time was given me for an apology ;
but I resolved to be for the future more discrimi
nating in my charities, and not to take for a beggar
every poor gentleman who chose to stand in the
shade with his hat in his hand on a hot summer's
day.

There is an old fellow who hawks pious legends
and the lives of saints through the streets of Rome,
with a sharp cracked voice, that knows no. pause
nor division in the sentences it utters. I just heard
him cry at a breath : —

" La Vita di San Giuseppe quel fidel servitor di
Dio santo e maraviglioso mezzo bajocco. — The
Life of St. Joseph that faithful servant of God holy
and wonderful half a cent !"

This is the way with some people ; every thing
helter-skelter — heads and tails — prices current and
the lives of saints !

It has been a rainy day, — a day of gloom. The
church bells never rang in my ears with so melan
choly a sound ; and this afternoon I saw a mourn-

166 ROME IN MIDSUMMER.

ful scene, which still haunts my imagination. It
was the funeral of a monk. I was drawn to the
window by the solemn chant, as the procession
came from a neighbouring street and crossed the
square. First came a long train of priests, clad
in black, and bearing in their hands large waxen
tapers, which flared in every gust of wind, and
were now and then extinguished by the rain. The
bier followed, borne on the shoulders of four bare
footed Carmelites ; and upon it, ghastly and grim,
lay the body of the dead monk, clad in his long
gray kirtle, with the twisted cord about his waist.
Not even a shroud was thrown over him. His
head and feet were bare, and his hands were placed
upon his bosom, palm to palm, in the attitude of
prayer. His face was emaciated, and of a livid
hue ; his eyes unclosed ; and at every movement of
the bier his head nodded to-and-fro, with an un
earthly and hideous aspect. Behind walked the
monastic brotherhood, a long and melancholy pro
cession, with their cowls thrown back, and their
eyes cast upon the ground ; and last of all came a
man with a rough unpainted coffin upon his shoul
ders, closing the funeral train.

ROME IN MIDSUMMER. 167

Many of the priests, monks, monsignori, and
cardinals of Rome have a bad reputation, even
after deducting a tithe or so from the tales of
gossip. To some of them may be applied the
rhyming Latin distich, written for the monks of
old:—

0 Monachi
Vestri stomach!
Sunt amphora Bacchi ;
Vos estis,
Deus est testis,
Turpissima pestis.

The graphic description which Thomson gives
in his Castle of Indolence, would readily find an
impersonation among the Roman priesthood : —

Full oft by holy feet our ground was trod, —
Of clerks, good plenty here you mote espy ; —
A little, round, fat, oily man of God
Was one I chiefly marked among the fry ;
He had a roguish twinkle in his eye,
Which shone all glittering with ungodly dew,
When a tight damsel chanced to trippen by ; —
But when observed would shrink into his mew,
And straight would recollect his piety anew.

Yonder across the square goes a Minente of

168 ROME IN MIDSUMMER.

Trastavere ; a fellow who boasts the blood of the
old Romans in his veins. He is a plebeian exqui
site of the western bank of the Tiber, with a
swarthy face and the step of an emperor. He
wears a slouched hat, and blue velvet jacket and
breeches, and has enormous silver buckles in his
shoes. As he marches along, he sings a ditty in
his own vulgar dialect : —

Uno, due, e tre,
E lo Papa non e Re.

Now he stops to talk with a woman who sells
roasted chestnuts. What violent gestures ! what
expressive attitudes ! Head, hands, and feet are
all in motion — not a muscle is still ! It must be
some interesting subject that excites him so much,
and gives such energy to his gestures and his lan
guage. No ; he only wants to light his pipe !

It is now past midnight. The moon is full and
bright, and the shadows lie so dark and massive in
the street that they seem a part of the walls that
cast them. I have just returned from the Coliseum,
whose ruins are so marvellously beautiful by moon
light. No stranger at Rome omits this midnight

ROME IN MIDSUMMER. 169

visit ; for though there is something unpleasant in
having one's admiration forestalled, and being as
it were romantic aforethought, yet the charm is so
powerful, the scene so surpassingly beautiful and
sublime, — the hour, the silence, and the colossal
ruin have such a mastery over the soul, — that you
are disarmed when most upon your guard, and be
trayed into an enthusiasm which perhaps you had
silently resolved you would not feel.

On my way to the Coliseum, I crossed the
Capitoline hill, and descended into the Roman
Forum by the broad staircase that leads to the
triumphal arch of Septimius Severus. Close upon
my right-hand stood the three remaining columns
of the Temple of the Thunderer, and thebeautiful
Ionic portico of the Temple of Concord, — their
base in shadow, and the bright moonbeam striking
aslant upon the broken entablature above. Before
me rose the Phocian column — an isolated shaft,
like a thin vapour hanging in the air scarce visible ;
and far to the left the ruins of the Temple of An
tonio and Faustina, and the three colossal arches
of the Temple of Peace — dim, shadowy, indis
tinct — seemed to melt away and mingle with the
sky. I crossed the Forum to the foot of the Pala
tine, and ascending the Via Sacra, passed beneath
the Arch of Titus. From this point, I saw below

VOL. II. P

170 ROME IN MIDSUMMER.

me the gigantic outline of the Coliseum, like a cloud
resting upon the earth. As I descended the hill
side, it grew more broad and high — more definite
in its form, and yet more grand in its dimensions —
till from the vale in which it stands encompassed
by three of the Seven Hills of Rome — the Pala
tine, the Caslian, and the Esquiline — the majestic
ruin in all its solitary grandeur " swelled vast to
heaven."

A single sentinel was pacing to-and-fro beneath
the arched gateway, which leads to the interior,
and his measured footsteps were the only sound
that broke the breathless silence of the night.
What a contrast with the scene which that same
midnight hour presented, when, in Domitian's time,
the eager populace began to gather at the gates,
impatient for the morning sports ! Nor was the
contrast within less striking. Silence, and the
quiet moonbeams, and the broad, deep shadows
of the ruined wall ! Where were the senators of
Rome, her matrons, and her virgins ; where the
ferocious populace that rent the air with shouts,
when in the hundred holydays that marked the
dedication of this imperial slaughter-house, five
thousand wild beasts from the Lybian desertsand the
forests of Anatolia, made the arena sick with blood?
Where were the Christian martyrs, that died with

ROME IN MIDSUMMER. 171

prayers upon their lips, amid the jeers and impre
cations of their fellow-men ? Where the barbarian
gladiators, brought forth to the festival of blood,
and "butchered to make a Roman holydayf
The awful silence answered, They are mine !
The dust beneath me answered, They are mine 1
I crossed to the opposite extremity of the amphi
theatre. A lamp was burning in the little chapel,
which has been formed from what was once a den
for the wild beasts of the Roman festivals. Upon
the steps sat the old beadsman, the only tenant of
the Coliseum, who guides the stranger by night
through the long galleries of this vast pile of ruins.
I followed him up a narrow wooden staircase, and
entered one of the long and majestic corridors,
which in ancient times ran entirely round the
amphitheatre. Huge columns of solid mason-
work — that seem the labour of Titans — support
the flattened arches above : and though the iron
clamps are gone, which once fastened the hewn
stones together, yet the columns stand majestic
and unbroken, amid the ruin around them, and
seem to defy " the iron tooth of time." Through
the arches at the right, I could faintly discern the
ruins of the baths of Titus on the Esquiline ; and
from the left, through every chink and cranny of
the wall poured in the brilliant light of the full

172 ROME IN MIDSUMMER.

moon, casting gigantic shadows around me, and
diffusing a soft, silvery twilight through the long
arcades. At length I came to an open space
where the arches above had crumbled aw7ay>
leaving the pavement an unroofed terrace high in
air. From this point,! could see the whole interior
of the amphitheatre spread out beneath me, half
in shadow, half in light, with such a soft and in
definite outline that it seemed less an earthly
reality than a reflection in the bosom of a lake.
The figures of several persons below were just
perceptible, mingling grotesquely with their fore
shortened shadows. The sound of their voices
reached me in a whisper; and the cross that
stands in the centre of the arena looked like a
dagger thrust into the sand. I did not conjure up
the past, for the past had already become identified
with the present. It was before me in one of its
visible and most majestic forms. The arbitrary
distinctions of time, years, ages, centuries, were
annihilated. I was a citizen of Rome ! This was
the amphitheatre of Flavius Vespasian !

Mighty is the spirit of the past, amid the ruins
of the Eternal City !

THE

VILLAGE OF LA RICCIA.

p 2

THE

VILLAGE OF LA RICCIA.

" Egressum, magna me excepit Aricia Roma
Hospitio modico."

HORACE.

I PASSED the month of September at the village
of La Riccia, which stands upon the western de
clivity of the Albanian hills, looking towards Rome.
Its situation is one of the most beautiful which
Italy can boast. Like a mural crown it, encircles
the brow of a romantic hill, — woodlands of the
most luxuriant foliage whisper around it ; above it
rise the rugged summits of the Abruzzi, and be
neath lies the level floor of the Carnpagna, blotted
with ruined tombs, and marked with broken but
magnificent acqueducts that point the way to
Rome. The whole region is classic ground. The
Appian Way leads you from the gate of Rome to
the gate of La Riccia. On one hand you have
the Alban Lake, on the other the Lake of Nemi ;

176 THE VILLAGE OF LA RICCIA.

and the sylvan retreats around were once the
dwellings of Hippolytus and the nymph Egeria.

The town itself, however, is mean and dirty.
The only inhabitable part is near the northern
gate, where the two streets of the village meet.
There, face to face, upon a square terrace, paved
with large, flat stones, stand the Chigi palace
and the village church with a dome and portico.
There, too, stands the village inn, with its beds of
cool, elastic corn-husks, its little dormitories, six
feet square, and its spacious saloon, upon whose
walls the melancholy story of Hippolytus is told
in gorgeous frescoes. And there, too, at the union
of the streets, just peeping" through the gateway,
rises the wedge-shaped Casa Antonini, within
whose dusty chambers I passed the month of my
villeggiatura,in company with two much-esteemed
friends from the Old Dominion, — a fair daughter
of that generous clime, and her lord and master,
an artist, an enthusiast, and a man of " infinite
jest."

My daily occupations in this delightful spot were
such as an idle man usually whiles away his time
withal in such a rural residence. I read Italian
poetry — strolled in the Chigi park — rambled about
the wooded environs of the village — took an airing
jon a jackass — threw stones into the Alban Lake—

THE VILLAGE OF LA RICCIA. 177

and being seized at intervals with the artist-mania,
that came upon me like an intermittent fever,
sketched — or thought I did — the trunk of a hollow
tree, or the spire of a distant church, or a fountain
in the shade.

At such seasons the mind is " tickled with a
straw," and magnifies each trivial circumstance
into an event of some importance. I recollect one
morning, as I sat at breakfast in the village coffee
house, a large and beautiful spaniel came into the
room, and placing his head upon my knee looked
up into my face with a most piteous look, poor
dog ! as much as to say that he had not break
fasted. I gave him a morsel of bread, which he
swallowed without so much as moving his long,
silken ears ; and keeping his soft, beautiful eyes still
fixed upon mine, he thumped upon the floor with
his bushy tail, as if knocking for the waiter. He
was a very beautiful animal, and so gentle and
affectionate in his manner, that I asked the waiter
who his owner was.

" He has none now," said the boy.

" What !" said I, " so fine a dog without a
master ?"

" Ah, sir, he used to belong to Gasparoni, the
famous robber of the Abruzzi mountains, who mur
dered so many people, and was caught at last and

178 THE VILLAGE OF LA RICCIA.

sent to the galleys for life. There's his portrait on
the wall."

It hung directly in front of me ; a coarse print,
representing the dark, stern countenance of that
sinful man, a face that wore an expression of
savage ferocity and coarse sensuality. I had
heard his story told in the village ; the accustomed
tale of outrage, violence, and murder. And is it
possible, thought I, that this man of blood could
have chosen so kind and gentle a companion ?
What a rebuke must he have met in those large,
meek eyes, when he patted his favourite on the
head, and dappled his long ears with blood !
Heaven seems in mercy to have ordained, that
none— no, not even the most depraved — should be
left entirely to his evil nature, without one patient
monitor — a wife — a daughter — a fawning, meek-
eyed dog, whose silent supplicating look may
rebuke the man of sin ! If this mute, playful crea
ture, that licks the stranger's hand, were gifted
with the power of articulate speech, how many a
tale of midnight storm, and mountain-pass, and
lonely glen, would — but these reflections are com
monplace !

On another occasion I saw an overladen ass fall
on the steep and slippery pavement of the street.
He made violent but useless efforts to get upon

THE VILLAGE OF LA RICCIA. 179

his feet again, and his brutal driver — more brutal
than the suffering beast of burden — beat him un
mercifully with his heavy whip. Barbarian ! is it
not enough that you have laid upon your uncom
plaining servant a burden greater than he can
bear ? Must you scourge this unresisting slave,
because his strength has failed him in your hard
service? Does not that imploring look disarm
you? Does not — and here was another theme for
commonplace reflection !

Again. A little band of pilgrims, clad in white,
with staves, and scallop-shells, and sandal shoon,
have just passed through the village gate, wending
their toilsome way to the holy shrine of Loretto.
They wind along the brow of the hill with slow
and solemn pace, — just as they ought to do, to
agree with my notion of a pilgrimage, drawn from
novels. And now they disappear behind the hill ;
and hark ! they are singing a mournful hymn, like
Christian and Hopeful on their way to the Delect
able Mountains. How strange it seems to me,
that I should ever behold a scene like this ! a pil
grimage to Loretto ! Here was another outline
for the imagination to fill up.

But my chief delight was in sauntering along
the many woodland walks, which diverge in every
direction from the gates of La Riccia. One of

180 THE VILLAGE OF LA RICCIA.

these plunges down the steep declivity of the hill,
and threading its way through a most romantic
valley, leads to the shapeless tomb of the Horatii
and the pleasant village of Albano. Another con
ducts you over swelling uplands and through
wooded hollows to Genzano and the sequestered
Lake of Nerni, which lies in its deep crater like
the waters of a well, "all coiled into itself and
round, as sleeps the snake." A third, and the most
beautiful of all, runs in an undulating line along
the crest of the last and lowest ridge of the Alba
nian Hills, and leads to the borders of the Alban
Lake. In parts it hides itself in thick-leaved hol
lows, in parts climbs the open hill-side and over
looks the Campagna. Then it winds along the
brim of the deep, oval basin of the lake, to the
village of Castel Gandolfo, and thence onward to
Marino, Grotto-Ferrata, and Frascati.

That part of the road which looks down upon
the lake, passes through a magnificent gallery of
thick-irnbowering trees, whose dense and luxuriant
foliage completely shuts out the noonday sun,
forming

' A greensward wagon-way, that, like
Cathedral aisle, completely roofed with branches,
Runs through the gloomy wood from top to bottom,
And has at either end a Gothic door
Wide open.'

THE VILLAGE OF LA RICCIA. 181

This long, sylvan arcade is called the Galleria-
di-sopra, to distinguish it from the Galleria-di-
sotto, a similar, though less beautiful avenue, lead
ing from Castel Gandolfo to Albano, under the
brow of the hill. In this upper gallery, and almost
hidden amid its old and leafy trees, stands a Capu
chin convent, with a little esplanade in front, from
which the eye enjoys a beautiful view of the lake,
and the swelling hills beyond. It is a lovely spot,
— so lonely, cool, and still ; and was my favourite
and most frequented haunt.

Another pathway conducts you round the
southern shore of the Alban Lake, and after pass
ing the site of the ancient Alba Longa, and the
convent of Palazzuola, turns off to the right through
a luxuriant forest, and climbs the rugged precipice
of Rocca di Papa. Behind this village swells the
rounded peak of Monte Cavo, the highest pinnacle
of the Albanian Hills, rising three thousand feet
above the level of the sea. Upon its summit once
stood a Temple of Jupiter, and the triumphal
way, by which the Roman conquerors ascended
once a year in solemn procession to offer sacrifices,
still leads you up the side of the hill. But a con
vent has been built upon the ruins of the ancient
temple, and the disciples of Loyola are now the

VOL. II. — Q

182 THE VILLAGE OF LA RICCIA.

only conquerors that tread the pavement of the
triumphal- way.

The view from the windows of the convent is
vast and magnificent. Directly beneath you, the
sight plunges headlong into a gulf of dark-green
foliage — the Alban Lake seems so near, that you
can almost drop a pebble into it — and Nemi,
irnbosomed in a green and cup-like valley, lies like
a dew-drop in the hollow of a leaf. All around
you, upon every swell of the landscape, the white
walls of rural towns and villages peep from their
leafy coverts — Genzano, La Riccia, Castel Gan-
dolfo, and Albano ; and beyond spreads the flat
and desolate Campagna, with Rome in its centre,
and seamed by the silver thread of the Tiber, that
at Ostia, "with a pleasant stream, whirling in
rapid eddies, and yellow with much sand, rushes
forward into the sea." The scene of half the
Iliad is spread beneath you like a map ; and it
would- need volumes to describe each point that
arrests the eye in this magnificent panorama.

As I stood leaning over the balcony of the con
vent, giving myself up to those reflections which
the scene inspired, one of the brotherhood came
from a neighbouring cell, and entered into con
versation with me. He was an old man, with a

THE VILLAGE OF LA RICCIA. 183

hoary head and a trembling hand ; yet his voice
was musical and soft, and his eye still beamed with
the enthusiasm of youth.

" How wonderful," said he, " is the scene before
us ! I have been an inmate of these walls for thirty
years, and yet this prospect is as beautiful to my
eye as when I gazed upon it for the first time.
Not a day passes that I do not corne to this
window to behold and to admire. My heart is
still alive to the beauties of the scene, and to all
the classic associations it inspires."

" You have never, then, been whipped by an
angel for reading Cicero and Plautus, as St.
Jerome was V

" No," said the monk, with a smile. " From my
youth up I have been a disciple of Chrysostom,
who often slept with the comedies of Aristophanes
beneath his pillow : and yet, I confess, that the
classic associations of Roman history and fable are
not the most thrilling which this scene awakens in
my mind. Yonder is the bridge from which Con-
stantine beheld the miraculous cr/)ss of fire in the
sky ; and I can never forget that this convent is
built upon the ruins of a pagan temple. The town
of Ostia, which now lies before us on the sea-shore,
is renowned as the spot where the Trojan fugitive
first landed on the coast of Italy. But other asso-

184 THE VILLAGE OF LA RICCIA.

ciations than this have made the spot holy in my
sight. Marcus Minutius Felix, a Roman lawyer,
who flourished in the third century, a convert to
our blessed faith, and one of the purest writers of
the Latin church, here places the scene of his Octa-
vius. This work has probably never fallen into
your hands ; for you are too young to have pushed
your studies into the dusty tomes of the early
Christian fathers."

I replied that I had never so much as heard
the book mentioned before : and the monk con
tinued :—

"It is a Dialogue upon the vanity of Pagan
idolatry and the truth of the Christian religion, be
tween Cascilius, a heathen, and Octavius, a Chris
tian. The style is rich, flowing, and poetical ;
and if the author handles his weapons with less
power than a Tertullian, yet he exhibits equal
adroitness and more grace. He has rather the
studied elegance of the Roman lawyer than the
bold spirit of a Christian martyr. But the volume
is a treasure to me in my solitary hours, and I love
to sit here upon the balcony, and con its poetic
language and sweet imagery. You shall see the
volume ; I carry it in my bosom."

With these words the monk drew from the folds
of his gown a small volume richly embossed and

THE VILLAGE OF LA RICCIA. 185

clasped with silver; and turning over its well-
worn leaves, continued : —

" In the introduction, the author describes him
self as walking upon the sea-shore at Ostia, in
company with his friends Octavius and Csecilius.
Observe in what beautiful language he describes
the scene."

Here he read to me the following passage, which
I transcribe, not from memory, but from the book
itself.

" It was vacation-time, and that gave me a-loose
from my business at the bar ; for it was the season
after the summer's heat, when autumn promised
fair, and put on the face of temperate. We set
out, therefore, in the morning early, and as we
were walking upon the sea- shore, and a kindly
breeze fanned and refreshed our limbs, and the
yielding sand softly submitted to our feet, and
made it delicious travelling, Caecilius on a sudden
espied the statue of Serapis, and, according to the
vulgar mode of superstition, raised his hand to his
mouth, and paid his adoration if. kisses. Upon
which Octavius addressing himself to me, said, —
It is not well done, my brother Marcus, thus to
leave your inseparable companion in the depth of
vulgar darkness, and to suffer him, in so clear a
day, to stumble upon stones ; stones indeed of

186 THE VILLAGE OF LA RICCIA.

figure, and anointed with oil, and c.rowned ; but
stones, however, still they are ; for you cannot but
be sensible that your permitting so foul an error in
your friend redounds no less to your disgrace than
his. This discourse of his held us through half
the city ; and now we began to find ourselves upon
the free and open shore. There the gently wash
ing waves had spread the extremest sands into the
order of an artificial walk : and as the sea always
expresses some roughness in his looks, even when
the winds are still, although he did not roll in foam
and angry surges to the shore, yet were we much
delighted, as we walked upon the edges of the
water, to see the crisping, frizly waves glide in
snaky folds, one while playing against our feet,
and then again retiring and lost in the devouring
ocean. Softly, then, and calmly as the sea about
us, we travelled on, and kept upon the brim of
the gently declining shore, beguiling the way with
our stories."

Here the sound of the convent-bell interrupted
the reading of the monk, and closing the volume,
he re-placed it in his bosom, and bade me farewell,
with a parting injunction to read the Octavius of
Minutius Felix, as soon as I should return to
Rome.

During the summer months La Riccia is a

THE VILLAGE OF LA RICCIA. v 187

favourite resort of foreign artists, who are pur
suing their studies in the churches and galleries of
Rome. Tired of copying the works of art, they
go forth to copy the works of nature ; and you will
find them perched on their camp-stools at every
picturesque point of view, with white umbrellas to
shield them from the sun, arid paint-boxes upon
their knees, sketching with busy hands the smiling
features of the landscape. The peasantry, too, are
fine models for their study. The women of Gen-
zano are noted for their beauty, and almost every
village in the neighbourhood has something peculiar
in its costume.

The sultry day was closing, and I had reached,
in my accustomed evening's walk, the woodland
gallery that looks down upon the Alban Lake.
The setting sun seemed to melt away in the sky,
dissolving into a golden rain, that bathed the whole
Campagna with unearthly splendour ; while Rome
in the distance, half-hidden, half-revealed, lay float
ing like a mote in the broad and misty sunbeam.
The woodland walk before me seemed roofed with
gold and emerald ; and at intervals across its leafy
arches shot the level rays of the sun, kindling as
they passed, like the burning shaft of Acestes.
Beneath me the lake slept quietly. A blue, smoky
vapour floated around its overhanging cliffs ; the

188 THE VILLAGE OF LA RICCIA.

tapering cone of Monte Cavo hung reflected in the
water ; a little boat skimmed along its glassy sur
face, and I could even hear the sound of the labour
ing oar, so motionless and silent was the air
around me.

I soon reached the convent of Castel Gandolfo.
Upon one of the stone benches of the esplanade
sat a monk with a book in his hand. He saluted
me as I approached, and some trivial remarks upon
the scene before us led us into conversation. I
observed by his accent that he was not a native of
Italy, though, he spoke the Italian language with
great fluency. In this opinion I was confirmed by
his saying, that he should soon bid farewell to Italy
and return to his native lakes and mountains in the
north of Ireland. I then said to him in English, —

" How strange, that an Irishman and an Anglo-
American should be conversing together in Italian
upon the shores of Lake Albano !"

" It is strange," said he, with a smile ; " though
stranger things have happened. But I owe the
pleasure of this meeting to a circumstance which
changes that pleasure into pain. I have been de
tained here many weeks beyond the time I had
fixed for my departure, by the sickness of a friend,
who lies at the point of death within the walls of
this convent."

THE VILLAGE OF LA RICCIA. 189

"Is he, too, a Capuchin friar like yourself?"
"He is. We came together from our native
land, some six years ago, to study at the Jesuit
college in Rome. This summer we were to have
returned home again ; but I shall now make the
journey alone."

" Is there, then, no hope of his recovery?"
" None whatever," answered the monk, shaking
his head. " He has been brought to this convent
from Rome, for the benefit of a purer air ; but it
is only to die, and be buried near the borders of
this beautiful lake. He is a victim of consumption.
But come with me to his cell. He will feel it as a
kindness to have you visit him. Such a mark of
sympathy in a stranger will be grateful to him in
this foreign land, where friends are so few."

We entered the chapel together, and ascending
a flight of steps beside the altar, passed into the
cloisters of the convent. Another flight of steps
led us to the dormitories above, in one of which
the sick man lay. Here my guide left me for a
moment, and softly entered a neighbouring cell.
He soon returned and beckoned me to come in.
The room was dark and hot; for the window-
shutter had been closed to keep out the rays of the
sun, that in the after part of the day fell unob
structed upon the western wall of the convent.

190 THE VILLAGE OF LA RIG CIA.

In one corner of the little room, upon a pallet of
straw, lay the sick man, with his face towards the
wall. As I entered he raised himself upon his
elbow, and stretching out his hand to me, said, in
a faint voice,

" I am glad to see you. It is kind in you to
make me this visit."

Then speaking to his friend, he begged him to
open the window-shutter and let in the light and
air ; and as the bright sunbeam through the wreath
ing vapours of evening played upon the wall and
ceiling, he said, with a sigh : —

" How beautiful is an Italian sunset ! Its splen
dour is all around us, as if we stood in the horizon
itself and could touch the sky. And yet to a sick
man's feeble and distempered sight, it has a wan
and sickly hue. He turns away with an aching
heart from the splendour he cannot enjoy. The
cool air seems the only friendly thing that is left
for him."

As he spake, a deeper shade of sadness stole
over his pale countenance, sallow and attenuated
by long sickness. But it soon passed off; and as
the conversation changed to other topics, he grew
cheerful again. He spoke of his return to his
native land with childish delight. This hope had
not deserted him. It seemed never to have entered

THE VILLAGE OF LA RICCIA. 191

his mind that even this consolation would be denied
him, — that death would thwart even these fond
anticipations.

" I shall soon be well enough," said he, " to un
dertake the journey ; and oh, with what delight
shall I turn my back upon the Appenines ! We
shall cross the Alps into Switzerland, then go
down the Rhine to England, and soon, soon we
shall see the shores of the Emerald Isle, and once
more embrace father — mother — sisters ! By my
profession I have renounced the world, but not
those holy emotions of love, which are one of the
highest attributes of the soul, and which, though
sown in corruption here, shall hereafter be raised
in incorruption. No ; even he that died for us
upon the cross, in the last hour, in the unutterable
agony of death, was mindful of his mother; as if
to teach us that this holy love should be our last
worldly thought, the last point of earth from which
the soul should take its flight for heaven."

He ceased to speak. His eyes were fastened
upon the sky with a fixed and steady gaze, though
all unconsciously, for his thoughts were far away
amid the scenes of his distant home. As I left his
cell he seemed sinking to sleep, and hardly noticed
my departure. The gloom of twilight had already
filled the cloisters ; the monks were chanting their

192 THE VILLAGE OF LA RICCIA.

evening hymn in the chapel, and one unbroken
shadow spread through the long " cathedral aisle"
of forest-trees which led me homeward. There,
in the silence of the hour, and amid the almost
sepulchral gloom of the woodland scene, I tried
to impress upon my careless heart the serious and
affecting lesson I had learned.

I saw the sick monk no more ; but a day or two
afterward I heard in the village that he had
departed — not for an earthly, but for a heavenly
home.

NOTE-BOOK.

VOL. II. — R

NOT E-B O O K.

*

Once more among the old gigantic hills,

With vapours clouded o'er,
The vales of Lombardy grow dim behind,

And rocks ascend before.
They beckon me — the giants — from afar,

They wing my footsteps on ;
Their helms of ice, their plumage of the pine,

Their cuirasses of stone.

OEHLENSCHLAEGER.

THE 'glorious autumn closed. From the Abruzzi
came the Zampognari, playing their rustic bag
pipes beneath the images of the Virgin in the
streets of Rome, and hailing with rude minstrelsy
the approach of merry Christmas. The shops
were full of dolls and gew-gaws for the Bifana,
who enacts in Italy the same merry interlude for
children that Santiclaus does in the north ; and

196

NOTE-BOOK.

travellers from colder climes began to fly south
ward, like sun-seeking swallows.

I left Rome for Venice, crossing the Appenines
by the wild gorge of Strettura, in a drenching
rain. At Fano we struck into the sands of the
Adriatic, and followed the sea-shore northward to
Rimini, where in the market-place stands a pedestal
of stone, from which, as an officious cicerone in
formed me, " Julius Csesar preached to his army,
before crossing the Rubicon." Other principal
points in my journey were Bologna, with its Campo
Santo, its gloomy arcades, and its sausages ; Fer-
rara, with its Ducal Palace and the dungeon of
Tasso ; Padua, the learned, with its sombre and
scholastic air, and its inhabitants " apt for pike or
pen."

I first saw Venice by moonlight, as we skimmed
by the island of St. George in a felucca, and
entered the Grand Canal. A thousand lamps glit
tered from the square of St. Mark, and along the
water's edge. Above rose the cloudy shapes of
spires, domes, and palaces, emerging from the sea ;
and occasionally the twinkling lamps of a gondola
darted across -the water like a shooting star, and

NOTE-BOOK. 197

suddenly disappeared, as if quenched in the wave^
There was something so unearthly in the scene —
so visionary and fairy-like — that I almost expected
to see the city float away like a cloud, and dissolve
into thin air.

Howell, in his Signorie of Venice, says, " It is
the water, wherein she lies like a swan's nest, that
doth both fence and feed her." Again ; " She
swims in wealth and wantonness, as well as she
doth in the waters ; she melts in softness and
sensuality, as much as any other whatsoever."
And still farther ; " Her streets are so neat and
evenly paved, that in the dead of winter one may
walk up and down in a pair of satin pantables and
crimson silk stockings, and not be dirtied." And
the old Italian proverb says, —

Venegia, Venegia,
Chi non ti vede non ti pregia;
Ma chi t' ha troppo veduto
Ti dispregia.

Venice, Venice, he that doth not see thee, doth not
prize thee ; but he that hath too much seen thee,
doth despise thee !

Should you ever want a gondolier at Venice to
sing you a passage from Tasso by moonlight, in
quire for Toni Toscan. He has a voice like a

198 NOTE-BOOK.

raven. I sketched his portrait in my note-book ;
and he wrote beneath it this inscription, —

Poeta Natural che Venizian,

Ch' el so nome xe un tal Toni Toscan.

The road from Venice to Trieste traverses a
vast tract of level land, with the Fruilian Moun
tains on the left, and the Adriatic on the right.
You pass through long avenues of trees, and the
road stretches in unbroken perspective before and
behind. Trieste is a busy commercial city, with
wide streets intersecting each other at right angles.
It is a mart for all nations. Greeks, Turks, Italians,
Germans, French, and English meet you at every
corner, and in every coffee-house ; and the ever-
changing variety of national countenance and cos
tume affords an amusing and instructive study for
a traveller.

Trieste to Vienna. Daybreak among the Carnic
Alps. Above and around me huge snow-covered
pinnacles, shapeless masses in the pale starlight —
till touched by the morning sunbeam, as by Ithu-

NOTE-BOOK. 199

riel's spear, they assumed their natural forms
and dimensions. A long, winding valley beneath,
sheeted with spotless snow. At my side a yawn
ing and rent chasm ; — a mountain brook — seen
now and then through the chinks of its icy bridge
— black and treacherous — and tinkling along its
frozen channel with a sound like a distant clanking
of chains.

Magnificent highland scenery between Graetz
and Vienna in the Steiermark. The wild moun
tain-pass from Meerzuschlag to Schottwien. A
castle built like an eagle's nest upon the top of a
perpendicular crag. A little hamlet at the base
of the mountain. A covered wagon, drawn by
twenty-one horses, slowly toiling up the slippery,
zig-zag road. A snow-storm. Reached Vienna
at midnight.

On the southern bank of the Danube, about six
teen miles above Vienna, stands the ancient castle
of Greifenstein, where — if the tale be true, though
many doubt and some deny it — Richard, the lion-
heart of England, was imprisoned, when returning
from the third crusade. It is built upon the summit
of a steep and rocky hill, that rises just far enough

200 NOTE-BOOK.

from the river's brink to leave a foothold for the
highway. At the base of the hill stands the vil
lage of Greifenstein, from which a winding path
way leads you to the old castle. You pass through
an arched gate into a narrow courtyard, and
thence onward to a large square tower. Near the
doorway, and deeply cut into the solid rock, upon
which the castle stands, is the form of a human
hand, so perfect that your own lies in it as in a
mould. And hence the name of Greifenstein. In
the square tower is Richard's prison, completely
isolated from the rest of the castle. A wooden
staircase leads you up on the outside to a light
balcony, running entirely round the tower, not far
below its turrets. From this balcony you enter
the prison, — a small square chamber, lighted by
two Gothic windows. The walls of the tower are
some five feet thick ; and in the pavement is a
trapdoor, opening into a dismal vault — a vast
dungeon, which occupies all the lower part of the
tower, quite down to its rocky foundations, and
which formerly had no entrance but the trapdoor
above. In one corner of the chamber stands a
large cage of oaken timber, in which the royal
prisoner is said to have been shut up : — the grossest
humbug that ever cheated the gaping curiosity of
a traveller.

NOTE-BOOK. 201

The balcony commands some fine and pic
turesque views. Beneath you winds the lordly
Danube, spreading its dark waters over a wide
tract of meadow-land, and forming numerous little
islands ; and all around, the landscape is bounded
by forest-covered hills, topped by the mouldering
turrets of a feudal castle, or the tapering spire of a
village church. The spot is well worth visiting,
though German antiquaries say that Richard was
not imprisoned there : this story being at best a
bold conjecture of what is possible, though not
probable.

From Vienna I passed northward, visiting
Prague, Dresden, and Leipsic, and then folding
my wings for a season in the scholastic shades of
Goettingen. Thence I passed through Cassel to
Frankfort on the Maine ; and thence to Mayence,
where I took the steamboat down the Rhine.
These several journeys I shall not describe, for as
many several reasons. First, — but no matter —
I prefer thus to stride across the earth like the
Saturnian in Micromegas, making but one step
from the Adriatic to the German Ocean. I leave
untold the wonders of the wondrous Rhine, a fasci-

202

NOTE-BOOK.

nating theme. Not even the beauties of the Vauts-
burg and the Bingenloch shall detain me. I hasten,
like the blue waters of that romantic river, to lose
myself in the sands of Holland.

THE

DEFENCE OF POETRY.

THE

DEFENCE OF POETRY.

I conjure you all that have the evil Tuck to read this ink-wast
ing toy of mine, even in the name of the nine muses^no more to
scorn the sacred mysteries of poesy ; no more to laugh at the
name of poets, as though they were next inheritors to fools ; no
more to jest at the reverend title of a rhymer.

Thus doing, your names shall flourish in the printers' shops ;
thus doing, you shall be of kin to many a poetical preface ; thus
doing you shall be most fair, most rich, most wise, most all ; you
shall dwell upon superlatives. — SIR PHILIP SIDNEY.

« GENTLE Sir Philip Sidney, thou knewest what
belonged to a scholar ; thou knewest what pains,
what toil, what travel, conduct to perfection ; well
couldest thou give every virtue hi? encouragement,
every art his due, every writer his desert, 'cause
none more virtuous, witty, or learned than thy
self."* This eulogium was bestowed upon one of

* Nash's Pierce Penniless.
VOL. II. — S

206 THE DEFENCE OF POETRY.

the most learned and illustrious men that adorned
the last half of the sixteenth century. Literary
history is full of his praises. He is spoken of as
the ripe scholar, the able statesman, " the soldier's,
scholar's, courtier's eye, tongue, sword," the man
" whose whole life was poetry put into action."
He and the Chevalier Bayard were the connecting
links between the ages of chivalry and our own.

No Englishm andean travel through Holland
without calling to mind the melancholy end of this
gifted man. He died from the wound of a musket-
shot, received under the walls of Zutphen, a town
in Guelderland, on the banks of the Issel. As he
was retiring from the field of battle, an incident
occurred, which well illustrates his chivalrous
spirit, and that goodness of heart which gained
him the appellation of the Gentle Sir Philip Sidney.
The circumstance has been made the subject of an
historical painting by West. It is thus related by
Lord Brooke : —

" The horse he rode upon was rather furiously
choleric than bravely proud, and so forced him to
forsake the field, but not his back, as the noblest
and fittest bier to carry a martial commander to
his grave. In which sad progress, passing along
by the rest of the army where his uncle the general
was, and being thirsty with excess of bleeding, he

THE DEFENCE OF POETRY. 207

called for drink, which was presently brought him ;
but, as he was putting the bottle to his mouth, he
saw a poor soldier carried along, who had eaten
his last at the same feast, ghastly casting up his
eyes at the bottle. Which Sir Philip perceiving,
took it from his head, before he drank, and deliv
ered it to the poor man, with these words : — * Thy
necessity is yet greater than mine.' "

The most celebrated productions of Sidney's
pen are the Arcadia and thebefence of Poetry.
The former was written during the authiifc retire
ment at Wilton, the residence of his sister, the
Countess of Pembroke. Though so much cele
brated in its day, it is now little known, and still
less read. Its very subject prevents it from being
popular at present; for now the pastoral reed
seems entirely thrown aside. The muses no longer
haunt the groves of Arcadia. The shepherd's
song, — the sound of oaten pipe, and the scenes of
pastoral loves and jealousies, are no becoming
themes for the spirit of the age.

' The intelligible forms of ancient poets
The fair humanities of old religion,
The Power, the Beauty, and the Majesty,
That had their haunts in dale, or piny mountain,
Or forest by slow stream, or pebbly spring,
Or chasms and watery depths ; all these have vanished.
They live no longer in the faith of reason.'

208 THE DEFENCE OF POETRY.

The Defence of Poetry is a work of rare merit
It is a golden little volume, which the scholar may
lay beneath his pillow, as Chrysostom did the
works of Aristophanes. It will be read with
delight by all who have a taste for the true beau
ties of poetry ; and may go far to remove the pre
judices of those who have not.

As nW"Apologie for Poetrie" has appeared
among us, it is to be hoped that Sir Philip Sidney's
Defence will be widely read and long remembered.
O that in our country it might be the harbinger of
as bright an intellectual day as it was in his own !
With us the spirit of the age is clamorous for
atility — for visible, tangible utility — for bare,
brawny, muscular utility. We would be roused
to action by the voice of the populace and the
sounds^f the crowded mart, and not " lulled asleep
in shady idleness with poet's pastimes." We are
swallowed up in schemes for gain, and engrossed
with contrivances for bodily enjoyments, as if this
particle of dust were immortal. — as if the soul
needed no aliment and the mind no raiment. We
glory in the extent of our territory, in our rapidly

THE DEFENCE OF POETRY. 209

increasing population, in our agricultural and our
commercial advantages. We boast of the magnifi
cence and beauty of our natural scenery — of the
various climates of our sky — the summers of our
northern regions — the salubrious winters of the
south, and of the various products of our soil, from
the pines of our northern highlands to the palm-
tree and aloes of our southern frontier. We boast
of the increase and extent of our physical strength,
the sound of populous cities,' breaking the silence
and solitude of our western territorie^-planta-
tions conquered from the forest, and gardens spring
ing up in the wilderness. Yet the true glory of a
nation consists, not in the extent of her territory,
the pomp of its forests, the majesty of its rivers, the
height of its mountains, and the beauty of its sky,
but in the extent of her mental power — the majesty
of her intellect — the height, and depth, and purity
of her moral nature. It consists, not in what nature
has given to the body, but in what nature and
education have given to the mind : — not in the
world around us, but in the world within us : — not
in the circumstances of fortune,*but in the attri
butes of the soul : — not in the corruptible, transi
tory, and perishable forms of matter, but in the
incorruptible, the permanent, the imperishable
s2

210 THE DEFENCE OF POETRY.

mind. True greatness is the greatness of the
mind : — the true glory of a nation is moral and
intellectual pre-eminence.

But still the main current of education runs in
the wide and not well-defined channel of imme
diate and practical utility. The main point is,
how to make the greatest progress in worldly
prosperity; how to advance most rapidly in the
career of gain. This, perhaps, is necessarily the
case to a certain extent in a country where every
man is 1^ght to rely upon his own exertions for a
livelihood, and is the artificer of his own fortune
and estate. But it ought not to be exclusively so.
We ought not, in the pursuit of wealth and worldly
honour, to forget those embellishments of the mind
and the heart which sweeten social intercourse
and improve the condition of society. And yet,
in the language of Dr. Paley, " Many of us are
brought up with this world set before us, and
nothing else. Whatever promotes this world's
prosperity is praised ; whatever hurts and ob
structs this world's prosperity is blamed ; and
there all praise and censure end. We see man
kind about us in motion and action, but all these
motions and actions directed to worldly objects.
We hear their conversation, but it is all the same
way. And this is what we see and hear from the

THE DEFENCE OF POETRY. 211

first. The views, which are continually placed
before our eyes, regard this life alone and its in
terests. Can it then be wondered at, that an early
worldly mindedness is bred in our hearts so strong
as to shut out heavenly mindedness entirely !"
And this, though not in so many words, yet in fact
and in its practical tendency, is the popular doctrine
of utility.

Now, under correction be it said, we are much
led astray by this word utility. There is hardly a
word in our language whose meaning i*so vague
and so often misunderstood and misapplied. We
too often limit its application to those acquisitions
and pursuits which are of immediate and visible
profit to ourselves and the community ; regarding
as comparatively or utterly useless many others
which, though more remote in their effects and
more imperceptible in their operation, are, not
withstanding, higher in their aim, wider in their
influence, more certain in their results, and more
intimately connected with the common weal. We
are too apt to think that nothing can be useful but
what is done with a noise at normday, and at the
corners of the streets ; as if action and utility were
synonymous, and it were not as useless to act with
out thinking, as it is to think without acting. But
the truth is, the word utility has a wider significa-

212 THE DEFENCE OF POETRY.

tion than this. It embraces in its proper definition
whatever contributes to our happiness ; and thus
includes many of those arts and sciences, many of
those secret studies and solitary avocations which
are generally regarded either as useless, or as ab
solutely injurious to society. Not he alone does
service to the state, whose wisdom guides her
councils at home, nor he whose voice asserts her
dignity abroad. A thousand little rills, springing
up in the retired walks of life, go to swell the rush
ing tide of national glory and prosperity : and who
ever in the solitude of his chamber, and by even a
single effort of his mind, has added to the intel
lectual pre-eminence of his country, has not lived
in vain, nor to himself alone. Does not the pen of
the historian perpetuate the fame of the hero and
the statesman? Do not their names live in the
song of the bard ? Do not the pencil and the chisel
touch the soul while they delight the eye? Does
not the spirit of the patriot and the sage, looking
from the painted canvass, or eloquent from the
marble lip, fill our hearts with veneration for all
that is great in intellect and godlike in virtue ?

If this be true, then are the ornamental arts of
life not merely ornamental, but at the same time
highly useful ; and poetry and the fine arts become
the instruction as well as the amusement of man-

THE DEFENCE OF POETRY. 213

kind. They will not till our lands, nor freight our
ships, nor fill our granaries and our coffers ; but
they will enrich Jhe heart, freight the understand
ing, and make up the garnered fulness of the mind.
And this I hold to be the true view of the subject.
Among the barbarous nations which, in the early
centuries of our era, overran the south of Europe,
the most contumelious epithet which could be ap
plied to a man was to call him a Roman. All the
corruption and degeneracy of the Western empire
were associated in the minds of the Gothic tribes
with a love of letters and the fine arts. So far did
this belief influence their practice, that they would
not suffer their children to be instructed in the
learning of the south. " Instruction in the sciences,"
said they, " tends to corrupt, enervate, and depress
the mind ; and he who has been accustomed to
tremble under the rod of a pedagogue will never
look on a sword or a spear with an undaunted
eye/' I apprehend that there are some, and in
deed not a few in our active community, who hold
the appellation of scholar and man of letters in as
little repute as did our Gothic ancestors that of Ro
man ; associating with it about the same ideas of
effeminacy and inefficiency. They think that the
learning of books is not wisdom ; that study unfits
a man for action ; that poetry and nonsense are

214 THE DEFENCE OP POETRY.

convertible terms ; that literature begets an effemi
nate and craven spirit ; in a word, that the dust
and cobwebs of a library are a kind of armour
which will not stand long against the hard knocks
of " the bone and muscle of the state," and the
"huge two-handed sway" of the stump orator.
Whenever intellect is called into action, they
\vould have the mind display a rough and natural
energy, — strength, straight-forward strength, un
tutored in the rules of art, and unadorned by ele
gant and courtly erudition. They want the stirring
voice of Demosthenes, accustomed to the roar of
the tempest and the dashing of the sea upon its
hollow-sounding shore, rather than the winning
eloquence of Phalereus, coming into the sun and
dust of the battle, not from the martial tent of the
soldier, but from the philosophic shades of Theo-
phrastus.

But against no branch of scholarship is the cry
so loud as against poetry, " the quintessence, or
rather the luxury of all learning." Its enemies
pretend that it is injurious both to the mind and
the heart ; that it incapacitates us for the severer
discipline of professional study; and that, by ex
citing the feelings and misdirecting the imagina
tion, it unfits us for the common duties of life, and
the intercourse of this matter-of-fact world. And

THE DEFENCE OP POETRY. 215

yet such men have lived as Homer, and Dante,
and Milton, — poets and scholars, whose minds
were bathed in song, and yet not weakened : men
who severally carried forward the spirit of their
age. who soared upward on the wings of poetry,
and yet were not unfitted to penetrate the deepest
recesses of the human soul, and search out the
hidden treasures of wisdom, and the secret springs
of thought, feeling, and action. None fought more
bravely at Marathon, Salamis, and Platasa than
did the poet ^Eschylus. Richard Coeur-de-Lion
was a poet ; but his boast was in his very song : —

Bon guerrier a 1'estendart
Trouvaretz le Roi Richard.

Ercilla and Garcilasso were poets ; but the great
epic of Spain was written in the soldier's tent and
on the field of battle; and the prince of Castilian
poets was slain in the assault of a castle in the
south of France. Cervantes lost an ami at the
battle of Lepanto, and Sir Philip Sidney was the
breathing reality of the poet's dream, a living and
glorious proof that poetry neither enervates the
mind nor unfits us for the practical duties of life.

Nor is it less true, that the legitimate tendency
of poetry is to exalt, rather than to debase, — to
purify, rather than to corrupt. Read the inspired

216 THE DEFENCE OF POETRY.

pages of the Hebrew prophets ; the eloquent aspi
rations of the Psalmist ! Where did ever the
spirit of devotion bear up the soul more stead
ily and loftily, than in the language of their
poetry ?* And where has poetry been more ex
alted, more spirit-stirring, more admirable, or more
beautiful, than when thus soaring upward on the
wings of sublime devotion, the darkness and sha
dows of earth beneath it, and from above the
brightness of an opened heaven pouring around
it ? It is true the poetic talent may be, for it has
been, most lamentably perverted. But when po
etry is thus perverted, — when it thus forgets its
native sky to grovel in what is base, sensual, and
depraved — though it may not have lost all its ori
ginal brightness, nor appear less than " the excess
of glory obscured," yet its birthright has been
sold, its strength has been blasted, and its spirit
wears " deep scars of thunder."

It does not, then, appear to be the necessary nor
the natural tendency of poetry to enervate the
mind, corrupt the heart, or incapacitate us for per
forming the private and public duties of life. On
the contrary, it maybe made, and should be made,

* ' Hearen's dove, when highest he flies,
Flies with thy heavenly wings.'

THE DEFENCE OF POETRY. 217

an instrument for improving the condition of so
ciety, and advancing the great purpose of human
happiness. Man must have his hours of medita
tion as well as of action. The unities of time are
not so well preserved in the great drama, but that
moments will occur when the stage must be left
vacant, and even the busiest actors pass behind
the scenes. There will be eddies in the stream of
life, though the main current sweeps steadily on
ward till " it pours in full cataract over the grave."
There are times when both mind and body are
worn down by the severity of daily toil ; when
the grasshopper is a burden ; and, thirsty with the
heat of labour, the spirit longs for the waters of
Shiloah, that go softly. At such seasons, both
mind and body should unbend themselves ; they
should be set free from the yoke of their customary
service, and thought take some other direction than
that of the beatui, dusty thoroughfare of business.
And there are times, i^o, when the divinity stirs
within us ; when the soul abstracts herself from
the world, and the slow and regular motions of
earthly business do not keep pace with the heaven-
directed mind. Then earth lets go her hold ; the
soul feels herself more akin to heaven ; and, soaring
upward, the denizen of her native sky, she " begins
to reason like herself, and to discourse in a strain

VOL. II.-

218 THE DEFENCE OF POETRY.

above mortality." Call, if you will, such thoughts
and feelings the dreams of the imagination ; yet
they are no unprofitable dreams. Such moments
of silence and meditation are often those of the
greatest utility to ourselves and others. Yes, we
would dream awhile that the spirit is not always
the bondman of the flesh ; that there is something
immortal in us ; something which amid the din of
life urges us to aspire after the attributes of a more
spiritual nature-. Let the cares and business of the
world sometimes sleep, for this sleep is the awa
kening of the soul.

To fill up these interludes of life with a song,
that shall sooth our worldly passions and inspire
us with a love of heaven and virtue, seems to be
the peculiar province of poetry.

"Now, therein, of all sciences," says Sir Philip
Sidney, " is our poet the monarch. For he doth
not only show the way, but giveth so sweet a pros
pect into the way as will entice any man to enter
into it ; nay, he doth, as if your journey should lie
through a fair vineyard, at the very first give you a
cluster of grapes, that full of that taste you may
long to pass farther. He beginneth not with ob
scure definitions, which must blur the margin with
interpretations, and load the memory with doubt
fulness ; but he cometh to you with words set in

THE DEFENCE OF POETRY. 219

delightful proportion, either accompanied with, or
prepared for, the well-enchanting skill of music ;
and with a tale, forsooth, he cometh unto you, with
a tale which holdeth children from play, and old
men from the chimney-corner; and, pretending no
more, doth intend the winning of the mind from
wickedness to virtue."

In fine, all the popular objections against poetry
may be, not only satisfactorily, but triumphantly
answered. They are all founded upon its abuse,
and not upon its natural and legitimate tendencies.
Indeed, popular judgment has seldom fallen into a
greater error than that of supposing that poetry
must necessarily, and from its very nature, convey
false and therefore injurious impressions. The
error lies in not discriminating between what is
true to nature and what is true to fact. From the
very nature of things, neither poetry nor any one
of the imitative arts can in itself be false. They
can be false no further than, by the imperfection of
human skill, they convey to our minds imperfect
and garbled views of what they represent. Hence !
a painting, or poetical description, may be true to
nature, and yet false in point of fact. The can
vass before you may represent a scene in which
every individual feature of the landscape shall be
true to nature ; the tree, the waterfall, the distant

220

THE DEFENCE OF POETRY.

mountain, — every object there shall be an exact
copy of an original, that has a real existence, and
yet the scene itself may be' absolutely false in point
of fact. Such a scene, with the features of the
landscape combined precisely in the way repre
sented, may exist nowhere but in the imagination
of the artist. The statue of the Venus de Medici
is the perfection of female beauty, and every indi
vidual feature had its living original ; still the statue
itself had no living archetype. It is true to nature,
but it is not true to fact. So with the stage. The
scene represented, the characters introduced, the
plot of the piece, and the action of the performers,
may all be conformable to nature, and yet not be
conformable to any pre-existing reality. The char
acters there personified may never have existed ;
the events represented may never have transpired.
And so, too, with poetry. The scenes and events
it describes, the characters and passions it por
trays, may all be natural though not real. Thus,
in a certain sense, fiction itself may be true, — true
to the nature of things, and consequently true in
the impressions it conveys. And hence the reason
why fiction has always been made so subservient
to the cause of truth.

Allowing, then, that poetry is nothing but fiction ;
that all it describes is false in point of fact ; stiH

THE DEFENCE OP POETRY. 221

its elements have a real existence, and the impres
sions we receive can be erroneous so far only as
the views presented to the mind are garbled and
false to nature. And this is a fault incident to the
artist, and not inherent in the art itself. So that
we may fairly conclude, from these considerations,
that the natural tendency of poetry is to give us
correct moral impressions, and thereby advance
the cause of truth and the improvement of society.

There is another very important view of the
subject, arising out of the origin and nature of
poetry, and its intimate connection with individual
character and the character of society.

The origin of poetry loses itself in the shades
of a remote and fabulous age, of which we have
only vague and uncertain traditions. Its fountain,
like that of the river of the desert, springs up in a
distant and unknown region, the theme of visionary
story, and the subject of curious speculation.
Doubtless, however, it originated amid the scenes
of pastoral life, and in the quiet and repose of a
golden age. There is something in the soft melan
choly of the groves which pervades the heart
and kindles .the imagination. Their retirement is
favourable to the musings of the poetic mind.
The trees that waved their leafy branches to the
summer wind, or heaved and groaned beneath the

T2

222 THE DEFENCE OF POETRY.

passing storm, — the shadow moving on the grass,
— the bubbling brook, — the insect skimming on its
surface, — the receding valley and the distant moun
tain, — these would be some of the elements of
pastoral song. Its subject would naturally be the
complaint of a shepherd and the charms of some
gentle shepherdess,

' A happy soul, that all the way
To Heaven hath a summer's day.'

It is natural, too, that the imagination, familiar with
the outward world, and connecting the idea of the
changing seasons and the spontaneous fruits of the
earth with the agency of some unknown power
that regulated and produced them, should suggest
the thought of presiding deities, propitious in the
smiling sky, and adverse in the storm. The foun
tain that gushed up as if to meet the thirsty lip
was made the dwelling of a nymph ; the grove
that lent its shelter and repose from the heat of
noon became the abode of dryads ; a god presided
over shepherds and their flocks, and a goddess
shook the yellow harvest from her lap. These
deities were propitiated by songs and festive rites.
And thus poetry added new charms to the simpli
city and repose of bucolic life, and the poet min-

THE DEFENCE OP POETRY. 223

gled in his verse the delights of rural ease and the
praise of the rural deities which bestowed them.

Such was poetry in those happy ages when,
camps and courts unknown, life was itself an
eclogue. But in later days it sang the achieve
ments of Grecian and Roman heroes, and pealed
in the war-song of the Gothic Scald. These early
essays were rude and unpolished. As nations ad
vanced in civilization and refinement, poetry ad
vanced with them. In each successive age it be
came the image of their thoughts and feelings, of
their manners, customs, and characters ; for poetry
is but the warm expression of the thoughts and
feelings of a people, and we speak of it as being
national when the character of a nation shines
visibly and distinctly through it.

Thus, for example, Castilian poetry is charac
terized by sounding expressions, and that pomp
and majesty so peculiar to Spanish manners and
character. On the other hand, English poetry
possesses in a high degree the charms of rural and
moral feeling ; it flows onward, like a woodland
stream, in which we see the reflection of the sylvan
landscape and of the heaven above us.

It is from this intimate connection of poetry with
the manners, customs, and characters of nations
that one of its highest uses is drawn. The im-

224 THE DEFENCE OF POETEY.

pressions produced by poetry upon national char
acter at any period are again re-produced, and
give a more pronounced and individual character
to the poetry of a subsequent period. And hence
it is that the poetry of a nation sometimes throws
so strong a light upon the page of its history, and
renders luminous those obscure passages which
often baffle the long-searching eye of studious eru
dition. In this view, poetry assumes new import
ance with all who search for historic truth. Be
sides, the view of the various fluctuations of the
human mind, as exhibited, not in history, but in the
poetry of successive epochs, is more interesting
and less liable to convey erroneous impressions
than any record of mere events. The great ad
vantage drawn from the study of history is, not to
treasure up in the mind a multitude of disconnected
facts, but from these facts to derive some conclu
sions, tending to illustrate the movements of the
general mind, the progress of society, the manners,
customs, and institutipns, the moral and intellectual
character of mankind in different nations, at dif
ferent times, and under the operation of different
circumstances. Historic facts are chiefly valuable
as exhibiting intellectual phenomena. And so far
as poetry exhibits these phenomena more perfectly
and distinctly than history does, so far is it superior

THE DEFENCE OF POETRY. 225

to history. The history of a nation is the external
symbol of its character ; from it we reason back
to the spirit of the age that fashioned its shadowy
outline. But poetry is the spirit of the age itself, —
imbodied in the forms of language, and speaking
in a voice that is audible to the external as well as
the internal sense. The one makes known the
impulses of the popular mind, through certain
events resulting from them ; the other displays the
more immediate presence of that mind, visible in
its action, and presaging those events. The one
is like the marks left by the thunder-storm, — the
blasted tree, — the purified atmosphere ; the other
like the flash from the bosom of the cloud, or the
voice of the tempest, announcing its approach.
The one is the track of the ocean on its shore ; the
other the continual movement and murmur of the
sea.

Besides, there are epochs which have no con
temporaneous history; but have left in their popu
lar poetry pretty ample materials for estimating
the character of the times. The events, indeed,
therein recorded, may be exaggerated facts, or
vague traditions, or inventions entirely apocryphal ;
yet they faithfully represent the spirit of the ages
which produced them ; they contain indirect allu
sions and incidental circumstances, too insignificant

226 THE DEFENCE OF POETRY.

in themselves to have been fictitious, and yet on
that very account the most important parts of the
poem, in an historical point of view. Such, for
example, are the Nibelungen Lied in Germany;
the Poema del Cid in Spain ; and the Songs of the
Troubadours in France. Hence poetry comes in
for a large share in that high eulogy which, in the
true spirit of the scholar, a celebrated German
critic has bestowed upon letters. " If we consider
literature in its widest sense, as the voice which
gives expression to human intellect, — as the aggre
gate mass of symbols, in which the spirit of an age,
or the character of a nation, is shadowed forth, then
indeed a great and various literature is, without
doubt, the most valuable possession of which any
nation can boast."*

From all these considerations, we are forced to
the conclusion that poetry is a subject of far greater
importance in itself, and in its bearing upon the
condition of society, than the majority of mankind
would be willing to allow. I heartily regret that
this opinion is not a more prevailing one in our
land. We give too little encouragement to works
of imagination and taste. The vocation of the
poet does not stand high enough in our esteem ;

* Schlegel. Lectures on the History of Literature.

THE DEFENCE OF POETRY. 227

we are too cold in admiration, too timid in praise.
The poetic lute and the high-sounding lyre are
much too often and too generally looked upon as
the baubles of effeminate minds, or bells and rattles
to please the ears of children. Is it a matter of
wonder, then, that our national literature has not
been more vigorous and luxuriant in its growth?

A national literature, in the widest signification
of the words, embraces every mental effort made
by the inhabitants of a country, through the me
dium of the press. Every book written by a citi
zen of a country belongs to its national literature.
But the term has also a more peculiar and appro
priate definition ; for when we say that the litera
ture of a country is national, we mean that it bears
upon it the stamp of national character. We refer
to those distinguishing features which literature
receives from the spirit of a nation, — from its
scenery and climate, its historic recollections, its
government, its various institutions, — from all
those national peculiarities which are the result of
no positive institutions ; and, in n word, from the
thousand external circumstances which either di
rectly or indirectly exert an influence upon the
literature of a nation, and give it a marked and
individual character, distinct from that of the litera
ture of other nations.

228 THE DEFENCE OF POETRY.

In order to be more easily understood in these
remarks, I will here offer a few illustrations of the
influence of external causes upon the character of
the mind, the peculiar habits of thodght and feeling,
and, consequently, the general complexion of lite
rary performances. From the causes enumerated
above, we select natural scenery and climate, as
being among the most obvious in their influence
upon the prevailing tenour of poetic composition.
Every one who is acquainted with the works of
the English poets must have noted that a moral
feeling and a certain rural quiet and repose are
among their most prominent characteristics. The
features of their native landscape are transferred
to the printed page, and as we read we hear the
warble of the skylark, the " hollow murmuring
wind, or silver rain." The shadow of the wood
land scene lends a pensive shadow to the ideal
world of poetry.

Why lure me from these pale retreats ?
Why rob me of these pensive sweets 1
Can music's voice, can beauty's eye,
Can painting's glowing hand supply
A charm so suited to my mind,
As blows this hollow gust of wind, —
As drops this little weeping rill,
Soft tinkling down the moss-grown hill,

THE DEFENCE OF POETRY. 229

While through the west, where sinks the crimson day,
Meek twilight slowly sails, and waves her banners gray 1 *

In the same richly poetic vein are the following
lines from Collins's Ode to Evening : —

Or if chill blustering winds, or driving rain,
Prevent my willing feet, be mine the hut

That from the mountain's side

Views wilds and swelling floods,

And hamlets brown, and dim-discover'd spires,
And hears their simple bell, and marks o'er all

Thy dewy fingers draw

The gradual dusky veil.

In connection with the concluding lines of these
two extracts, and as an illustration of the influence
of climate on the character of poetry, it is worthy
of remark, that the English poets excel those of
the south of Europe in their descriptions of morn
ing and evening. They dwell with long delight
and frequent repetition upon the brightening glory
of the hour, when "the northern wagoner has
set his sevenfold teme behind tho stedfast starre ;"
and upon the milder beauty of departing day,
when " the bright-haired sun sits in yon western
tent." What, for example, can be more descrip-

* Mason's Ode to a Friend.
VOL. II. U

230 THE DEFENCE OF POETRY.

tive of the vernal freshness of a morning in May9
than the often-quoted song in Cymbeline ? —

Hark ! hark ! the lark at heaven's gate sings,

And Phoebus 'gins arise,
His steeds to water at those springs

On chalic'd flowers that lies :
And winking Mary-buds begin

To ope their golden eyes ;
With every thing that pretty bin,

My lady sweet, arise ;
Arise, arise !

How full of poetic feeling and imagery is the
following description of the dawn of day, taken
from Fletcher's Faithful Shepherdess !—

See, the day begins to break,
And the light shoots like a streak
Of subtile fire, the wind blows cold,
While the morning doth unfold ;
Now the birds begin to rouse,
And the squirrel from the boughs
Leaps,, to get him nuts and fruit ;
The early lark, that erst was mute,
Carols to the rising day
Many a note and many a lay.

Still more remarkable than either of these ex
tracts, as a graphic description of morning, is the
following from Beattie's Minstrel : —

THE DEFENCE OF POETRY. 231

But who the melodies of morn can tell 1
The wild brook babbling down the mountain's side ;
The lowing herd ; the sheepfold's simple bell ;
The pipe of early shepherd dim descried
In the lone valley ; echoing far and wide
The clamorous horn along the cliffs above ;
The hollow murmur of the ocean tide ;
The hum of bees, and linnet's lay of love,
And the full choir that wakes the universal grove.

The cottage curs at early pilgrim bark ;
Crown'd with her pail, the tripping milkmaid sings ;
The whistling ploughman stalks afield ; and hark !
Down the rough slope the ponderous wagon rings ;
Through rustling corn the hare astonish'd springs ;
Slow tolls the village clock the drowsy hour ;
The partridge bursts away on whirring wings ;
Deep mourns the turtle in sequester'd bower ;
And shrill lark carols clear from her aerial tower.

Extracts of this kind I might multiply almost
without number. The same may be said of simi
lar ones, descriptive of the gradual approach of
evening and the close of day ; but I have already
quoted enough for my present purpose. Now, to
what peculiarities of natural scenery and climate
may we trace these manifold and beautiful descrip
tions, which, in their truth, delicacy, and poetic
colouring, surpass all the pictures of the kind in
Tasso, Guarini, Boscan, Garcilasso, and, in a word,
all the most celebrated poets of the south of

232 THE DEFENCE OF POETRY.

Europe? Doubtless, to the rural beauty which
pervades the English landscape, and to the long
morning and evening twilight of a northern
climate.

Still, with all this taste for the charms of rural
description and sylvan song, pastoral poetry has
never been much cultivated, nor much admired,
in England. The Arcadia of Sir Philip Sidney,
it is true, enjoyed a temporary celebrity, but this
was doubtless owing in a great measure to the
rank of its author ; and though the pastorals of
Pope are still read and praised, their reputation
belongs in part to their author's youth at the time
of their composition. Nor is this remarkable.
For though the love of rural ease is characteristic
of the English, yet the rigours of their climate
render their habits of pastoral life any thing but
delightful. In the mind of an Englishman, the
snowy fleece is more intimately associated with
the weaver's shuttle than with the shepherd's
crook. Horace Walpole has a humorous passage
in one of his letters, on the affectation of pastoral
habits in England. " In short," says he, " every
summer one lives in a state of mutiny and mur
mur, and I have found the reason ; it is because
we will affect to have a summer, and we have no
title to any such thing. Our poets learned their

THE DEFENCE OF POETRY. 233

trade of the Romans, and so adopted the terms of
their masters. They talk of shady groves, purling
streams, and cooling breezes ; and we get sore
throats and agues by attempting to realize these
visions. Master Damon writes a song, and in
vites Miss Chloe to enjoy the cool of the evening ;
and the deuse a bit have we of any such thing as
a cool evening. Zephyr is a north-east wind, that
makes Damon button up to the chin, and pinches
Chloe's nose till it is red and blue ; and they cry,
This is a bad summer ! — as if we ever had any
other. The best sun we have is made of New
castle coal, and I am determined never to reckon
upon any other." On the contrary, the poetry of
the Italians, the Spanish, and the Portuguese is
redolent of the charms of pastoral indolence and
enjoyment; for they inhabit countries in which
pastoral life is a reality, and not a fiction, — where
the winter's sun will almost make you seek the
shade, and the summer nights are mild and beauti
ful in the open air. The babbling brook and cool
ing breeze are luxuries in a southern clime, where
you

* See the sun set, sure he'll rise to-morrow,

Not through a misty morning twinkling, weak as

A drunken man's dead eye, in maudlin sorrow,
But with all heaven t' himself.'

284 THE DEFENCE OF POETKT.

A love of indolence and a warm imagination are
characteristic of the inhabitants of the South.
These are natural effects of a soft voluptuous cli
mate. It is there a luxury to let the body lie at
ease, stretched by a fountain in the lazy stillness of
a summer noon, and suffer the dreamy fancy to
lose itself in idle revery, and give a form to the
wind, and a spirit to the shadow and the leaf.
Hence the prevalence of personification, and the
exaggerations of figurative language, so character
istic of the poetry of southern nations. As an
illustration, take the following sonnet from the
Spanish — it is addressed to a mountain brook: —

Laugh of the mountain ! — lyre of bird and tree !

Mirror of morn, and garniture of fields !

The soul of April, that so gently yields
The rose and jasmine bloom, leaps wild in thee !

Although, where'er thy devious current strays
The lap of earth with gold and silver teemsr
To me thy clear proceeding brighter seems

Than golden sands, that charm each shepherd's gaze.

How without guile thy bosom, all transparent
As the pure crystal, lets the curious eye
Thy secrets scan, thy smooth round pebbles count f
How, without malice murmuring, glides thy current !
O sweet simplicity of days gone by !
Thou shunnest the haunts of manr to dwell in limpid fount I

THE DEFENCE OF POETRY. 235

I will pursue these considerations no longer.
What has already been said will illustrate, perhaps
superficially, but sufficiently for my present pur
pose, the influence of natural scenery and climate
upon the character of poetical composition. It will
at least show, that in speaking of this influence I
have not spoken at random and without a distinct
meaning. Similar and more copious illustrations
of the influence of various other external circum- "
stances on national literature might here be given.
But it is not my intention to go into details : they
will naturally suggest themselves to the mind of
every reflecting reader.

I could wish, then, that our native poets would
give a more national character to their writings.
In order to effect this, they have only to write
naturally, to write from their own feelings and im
pressions, from the influence of what they see
around them ; and not from any preconceived no
tions of what poetry ought to be, caught by read
ing many books and imitating many models. This
is peculiarly true in descriptions* of natural scenery.
In these, let us have no more skylarks and night
ingales. For us they warble in books alone. A
painter might as well introduce an elephant or a
rhinoceros in a New-England landscape. I would
not restrict a poet in the choice of his subjects, or

236 THE DEFENCE OF POETRY.

the scenes of his story ; but when he sings under
an American sky, and describes a native land
scape, let the description be graphic, as if it had
been seen, and not imagined. The figures and
imagery of poetry should be characteristic, as if
drawn from nature, and not from books. Of this
there are constantly recurring examples in the lan
guage of our North American Indians. We all
recollect the last words of Pushmataha, the Choc-
taw chief, who died at Washington a few years
ago. " I shall die, but you will return to your
brethren. As you go along the paths, you will see
the flowers and hear the birds ; but Pushmataha
will see them and hear them no more. When you
come to your home, they will ask you, Where is
Pushmataha ? and you will say to them, He is no
more. They will hear the tidings like the sound
of the fall of a mighty oak in the stillness of the
wood." More attention on the part of our writers
to these particulars would give a new and delight
ful expression to the face of our poetry. The
whole secret lies in Sidney's maxim, "Look in thy
heart and write." But the difficulty is, that instead
of coming forward as bold original thinkers, our
poets have imbibed the degenerate spirit of mod
ern English verse. They have hitherto been imi
tators either of decidedly bad, or of, at best, very

THE DEFENCE OF POETRY. 237

indifferent models. It has been the fashion to write
strong lines, — to aim at point and antithesis. This
has made them turgid and extravagant. Instead
of ideas, they give us merely the signs of ideas.
They erect a great bridge of words, pompous and
imposing, where there is hardly a drop of thought
to trickle beneath.* Is not he who thus apostroj
phizes the clouds, "Ye posters of the wakeless
air!" — almost as extravagant as the Spanish poet
who calls a star a " burning doubloon of the celes
tial bank ?"

This spirit of imitation has spread far and wide.
But a few years ago, what an aping of Lord Byron
exhibited itself throughout the country! It was
not an imitation of the brighter characteristics of
his intellect, but a mimicry of his sullen misan
thropy and irreligious gloom. I do not wish to
make a bugbear of Lord Byron's name, nor figura
tively to disturb his bones ; still I cannot but ex
press my belief, that no writer has done more to

* As Spenser says, in his " Tears of the Muses," —

Heaps of huge words uphoarded hideously,
With horrid sound, though having little sense,
They think to be chief praise of poetry ;
And thereby wanting true intelligence,
Have marr'd the face of goodly poesie,
And made a monster of their fantasie.

238 THE DEFENCE OF POETRY.

corrupt the literary taste, as well as the moral prin
ciple, of our country, than the author of Childe
Harold.* Minds that could not understand his
beauties, could imitate his great and glaring de
fects, — souls that could not fathom his depths
could grasp the straw and bubbles that floated
upon the agitated surface, until at length every
city, town, and village had its little Byron, its self-
tormenting scoffer at morality, its gloomy misan
thropist in song. Happily, this noxious influence
has been in some measure checked and counter-

* I here subjoin Lord Byron's own opinion of the poetica.
taste of the present age. It is from a letter in the second volume
of Moore's Life of Byron. " With regard to poetry in general,
I am convinced, the more I think of it, that he and all of us —
Scott, Southey, Wordsworth, Moore, Campbell, I — are all in the
wrong, one as much as another ; that we are upon a wrong revo
lutionary poetical system or systems, and from which none but
Rogers and Crabbe are free ; and that the present and next gene
rations will finally be of this opinion. I am the more confirmed
in this by having lately gone over some of our classics, particu
larly Pope, whom I tried in this way: — I took Moore's poems, and
my own, and some others, and went over them side by side with
Pope's ; and I was really astonished (I ought not to have been
so) and mortified at the ineffable distance, in point of sense, learn
ing, effect, and even imagination, passion, and invention, between
the Queen Anne's man and us of the lower empire. Depend
upon it, it is all Horace then, and Claudian now, among us ; and
if I had to begin again, I would mould myself accordingly."

THE DEFENCE OP POETRY. 239

acted by the writings of Wordsworth, whose pure
and gentle philosophy has been gradually gaining
the ascendency over the bold and visionary specu
lations of an unhealthy imagination. The sobriety,
and, if I may use the expression, the republican
simplicity of his poetry are in unison with our
moral and political doctrines. But even Words
worth, with all his simplicity of diction and exqui
site moral feeling, is a very unsafe model for imita
tion ; and it is worth while to observe how invari
ably those who have imitated him have fallen into
tedious mannerism. As the human mind is so con
stituted that all men receive to a greater or less
degree a complexion from those with whom they
are conversant, the writer who means to school
himself to poetic composition — we mean so far as
regards style arid diction — should be very careful
what authors he studies. He should leave the
present age, and go back to the olden time. He
should make, not the writings of an individual, but
the whole body of English classical literature, his
study. There is a strength of expression, a clear
ness, and force, arid raciness of thought in the elder
English poets, which we may look for in vain
among those who flourish in these days of verbi
age. Truly the degeneracy of modern poetry is
no school-boy declamation 1 The stream whose

240 THE DEFENCE OP POETRY.

fabled fountain gushes from the Grecian mount
flowed brightly through those ages, when the souls
of men stood forth in the rugged freedom of na
ture, and gave a wild and romantic character to
the ideal landscape. But in these practical days,
whose spirit has so unsparingly levelled to the
even surface of utility the bold irregularities of
human genius, and lopped off the luxuriance of
poetic feeling, which once lent its grateful shade
to the haunts of song, that stream has spread itself
into stagnant pools, which exhale an unhealthy at
mosphere, while the party-coloured bubbles that
glitter on its surface show the corruption from
which they spring.

Another circumstance which tends to give an
effeminate and unmanly character to our literature
is the precocity of our writers. Premature exhi
bitions of talent are an unstable foundation to build
a national literature upon. Roger Ascham, the
school-master of princes, and the prince of school
masters, has well said of precocious minds — " They
be like trees that showe forth faire blossoms and
broad leaves in spring-time, but bring out small
and not long-lasting fruit in harvest-time ; and
that only such as fall and rott before they be ripe,
and so never or seldome come to any good at all."
It is natural that the young should be enticed by

THE DEFENCE OF POETRY. 241

the wreaths of literary fame, whose hues are so
passing beautiful even to the more sober- sighted,
and whose flowers breathe around them such ex
quisite perfumes. Many are deceived into a mis
conception of their talents by the indiscreet and
indiscriminate praise of friends. They think them
selves destined to redeem the glory of their age
and country, — to shine as " bright particular stars ;"
but in reality their genius

1 Is like the glow-worm's light the apes so wonder'd at,
Which, when they gather'd sticks and laid upon 't,
And blew, — and blew, — turn'd tail and went out presently.'

I have sketched the portrait of modern poetry
in rather gloomy colours ; for I really think that
the greater part of what is published in this book-
writing age ought in justice to suffer the fate of the
children of Thetis, whose immortality was tried
by fire. I hope, however,' that ere long some one
of our more gifted bards will throw his fetters off,
and, relying on himself alone, fathom the recesses
of his own mind, and bring up rich pearls from
the secret depths of thought.

I will conclude these suggestions to our native
poets by quoting Ben Jonson's Ode to Himself,
which I address to each of them individually.

VOL. II. X

242

THE DEFENCE OF POETRY.

Where dost thou careless lie,

Buried in ease and sloth 1
Knowledge that sleeps doth die ;
And this securitie

It is the common moth
That eats on wits and arts, and quite destroyes them both.

Are all the Aonian springs

Dried up 1 lies Thespia waste ?
Doth Clarius' harp want strings,
That not a nymph now sings ?

Or droop they as disgrac't
To see their seats and bowers by chatt'ring pies defac't ?

If hence thy silence be,

As 'tis too just a cause,
Let this thought quicken thee, —
Minds that are great and free

Should not on fortune pause ;
Tis crowne enough to virtue still, her owne applause.

What though the greedy frie

Be taken with false baytes
Of worded balladrie,
And thinke it poesie 1

They die with their conceits,
And only pitious scorne upon their folly waites.

THE

PILGRIM'S SALUTATION.

THE

4

PILGRIM'S SALUTATION.

Ye who have traced the Pilgrim to the scene
Which is his last, if in your memories dwell
A thought which once was his, if on ye swell
A single recollection, not in vain
He wore his sandal-shoon and scallop-shell.

Child* Harold,

THESE, fair dames and courteous gentlemen, /
are some of the scenes and musings of my pil
grimage,! when I journeyed away from my kith
and kin | into the land of Outre-Mer. And yet /
amid these scenes and musin^s-f-amid all the
novelties of the old world, and the quick succession
of images that were continually calling my thoughts
away,jthere were always fond regrets and long
ings after the land of my birth, lurking in the
secret corners of my heart. When I stood by the
x 2

246

seashore, and listened to the melancholy and fami
liar roar of its waves, It seemed but a step from
the threshold of a foreign land to the fireside of
home ; and when I watched the out-bound sail,
fading over the water's edge, and losing itself in
the blue mists of the sea, my heart went with it,
and I turned away fancy-sick with the blessings
of home and the endearments of domestic love.

' I know not how — but in yon land of roses,

My heart was heavy still ;
I startled at the warbling nightingale,

The zephyr on the hill.
They said the stars shone with a softer gleam :

It seemed not so to me !
In vain a scene of beauty beamed around,

My thoughts were o'er the sea.'

At times I would sit at midnight in the solitude
of my chamber, and give way to the recollection
of distant friends. How delightful it is thus to
strengthen within us the golden threads that unite
our sympathies with the past ! to fill up, as it were,
the blanks of existence with the images of those
we love ! How sweet are these dreams of home
in a foreign land ! How calmly across life's
stormy sea blooms that little world of affection,
like those Hesperian isles where eternal summer
reigns, and the olive blossoms all the year round,

THE PILGRIM'S SALUTATION. 247

and honey distils from the hollow oak ! Truly,
the love of home is interwoven with all that is
pure, and deep, and lasting in earthly affection.
Let us wander where we may, the heart looks
back with secret longing to the paternal roof.
There the scattered rays of affection concentrate.
Time may enfeeble them — distance overshadow
them — and the storms of life obstruct them for a
season ; but they will at length break through the
cloud and storm, and glow, and burn, and brighten
around the peaceful threshold of homej^/'

And now, farewell ! I The storm is over, and
through the parting clouds the radiant sunshine
breaks upon my path. God's blessing upon you
for your hospitality. I fear I have -but poorly re
paid it by these tales of my pilgrimage ; and I bear
your kindness meekly, for I come not like Theudas
of old, " boasting myself to be somebody."

Farewell ! My prayer is, that I be not among
you as the stranger at the court of Busiris ; that
your God-speed be not a thrust that kills.

Pax vobiscum ! The pilgrjm's benison upon
this honourable company.

COLOPHON,

COLOPHON.

Heart, take thine ease, —
Men hard to please

Thou haply mightst offend ;
Though some speak ill
Of thee, some will

Say better ; — there's an end.

HEYLIN.

MY pilgrimage is finished. I have come home
to rest ; and recording the time passed, I have ful
filled these things, and written them in this book,
as it would come into my mind, — for the most part
when the duties of the day were over, and the
world around me was hushed jn sleep. The pen
wherewith I write most easily is a feather stolen
from the sable wing of night. Even now, as I re
cord these parting- words, it is long past midnight.
The morning watches have begun. And as I
write, the melancholy thought intrudes upon me —

252

COLOPHON.

To what end is all this toil ? Of what avail these
midnight vigils ? Dost thou covet fame ? Vain
dreamer ! A few brief days — and what will the
busy world know of thee ? Alas ! this little book
is but a bubble on the stream; and although it
may catch the sunshine for a moment, yet it will
soon float down the swift-rushing current, and be
seen no more !

THE END.

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