Imagens das páginas
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"In my literary pursuits, I fear I shall be obliged to look out for a regular amanuensis. I sometimes retain a piece of poetry several weeks in my memory, from actual dread of writing it down.

“How sorry I was, not to see your friend Neukomm! We were playing at cross-purposes the whole time of his stay in Dublin; but I did hear his organ-playing, and glorious it was-a mingling of many powers. I sent, too, for the volume you recommended to me the Saturday Evening:-surely it is a noble work, so rich in the thoughts that create thoughts. I am so glad you liked my little summer-breathing song.' I

"The Summer's Call." This faculty for realising images of the distant and the beautiful, amidst outward circumstances of apparently the most adverse influence, is thus gracefully illustrated by Washington Irving in the "Royal Poet" of his Sketchbook: "Some minds corrode and grow inactive under the loss of personal liberty; others grow morbid and irritable; but it is the nature of the poet to become tender and imaginative in the loneliness of confinement. He banquets upon the honey of his own thoughts, and, like the captive bird, pours forth his soul in melody.

'Have you not seen the nightingale,

A pilgrim cooped into a cage,

How doth she chant her wonted tale,

In that her lonely hermitage?

Even there her charming melody doth prove,

That all her boughs are trees, her cage a grove.'
ROGER L'ESTRANGE.

Indeed, it is the divine attribute of the imagination, that it is irrepressible, unconfinable; and that when the real world is shut out, it can create a world for itself, and with a necromantic power can conjure up glorious shapes and forms, and irradiate the gloom of the dungeon. Such was the world of pomp and pageant that lived round Tasso in his dismal cell at Ferrara, when he con

assure you it quite consoled me for the want of natural objects of beauty around, to heap up their remembered images in one wild strain.”

The mention of Neukomm's magnificent organ-playing brings to remembrance one great enjoyment of Mrs. Hemans's residence in Dublin - the exquisite "Music of St. Patrick's," of which she has recorded her impressions in the little poem so entitled. Its effect is, indeed, such as, once heard, can never be forgotten. If ever earthly music can be satisfying, it must surely be such as this, bringing home to our bosoms the solemn beauty of our own holy liturgy, with all its precious and endeared associations, in tones that make the heart swell with ecstasy, and the eyes overflow with unbidden tears. There was one anthem, frequently heard within those ancient walls, which Mrs. Hemans used to speak of with peculiar enthusiasm that from the 3d Psalm

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are they increased that trouble me!" mate skill exhibited in the adaptation of sound to sense in this noble composition, is, in truth, most admirable. The symphony to the 5th verse "I laid me down and slept"-with its soft, dreamy vibrations, gentle as the hovering of an angel's wing- the utter abandon, the melting into slumber- implied by the half-whispered words, that come breathing as from a world of spirits, almost "steep the senses in forgetful

ceived the splendid scenes of his Jerusalem; and we may consider The King's Quair, composed by James of Scotland during his captivity at Windsor, as another of those beautiful breakings forth of the soul from the restraint and gloom of the prisonhouse."

ness;" when a sudden outbreak, as it were, of life and light, bursts forth with the glad announcement, "I awaked, for the Lord sustained me;" and then the old sombre arches ring with an almost overpowering peal of triumph, bearing to Heaven's gate the exulting chorus of the 6th and 8th verses.

The spring of 1833 brought somewhat of "healing on its wings," to the gentle invalid, after all the distressing fluctuations of the winter. "I am sure," she wrote, "you will have real pleasure in hearing that 1 begin to feel something like symptoms of reviving health; perseverance in the quiescent system, which seems almost essential to my life, is producing, by slow degrees, the desired effect. You must not think that it is my own fault if this system is ever departed from. I desire nothing but a still, calm, meditative life; but this is exactly what my position, obliged as I am to breast a stormy world alone,' most precludes me from. Hence, I truly believe, and from no original disorder of constitution, arises all that I have to bear of sickness and nervous agitation. Certainly, before this last and severest attack, I had gone through enough of annoyance, and even personal fatigue, to try a far more robust frame. Imagine three removals, and those Irish removals, for me, between October and January. Each was unavoidable; but I am now, I trust, settled with people of more civilized habits, and think myself likely to remain here quietly.' How difficult it is, amidst these weary, heart-wearing, narrow cares, to keep bright and pure the immortal spark

1 This expectation was fully realized. The house to which she had now removed (No. 20, Dawson Street,) was destined to be her last earthly home.

within! Yet I strive above all things to be true in this, and turn with even deeper and more unswerving love to the holy Spirit-land,' and guard it, with more and more of watchful care, from the intrusion of all that is heartless and worldly."

There was, indeed, no fear that she would ever become "heartless or worldly." No part of her character was more remarkable than her placid indifference to those trifling annoyances, about which the unoccupied and the narrow-minded are for ever "disquieting themselves in vain." She would often quote the words of Madame l'Espinasse-"Un grand chagrin tue tout le reste." "You know it is part of my philosophy," she once wrote, in allusion to some such every-day troubles, "not to let these kind of things prey upon my peace. Indeed, I believe, deep sorrows, such as have been my lot through life, have not only a tendency to elevate, but in some respects to calm the spirit; at least they so fill it, as to prevent the intrusion of little fretting cares. I have an ample share of these too, but they shall not fret me.'

It is scarcely necessary to dwell more emphatically than has been already done, on another strong trait in her nature-her unfeigned dislike to every thing approaching invidious personality—to gossip, literary or otherwise, in any shape, however modified or disguised. Most warmly did she echo the sentiment of Mr. Wordsworth

"I am not one who much or oft delight

To season my fireside with personal talk
Of friends who live within an easy walk,
Of neighbours, daily, weekly in my sight."

The following passage from Madame de Staël's Allemagne might, with perfect truth, have been applied to her, exemplifying, as it does, the natural kindliness (resulting from real superiority) which is, or ought to be, the unfailing attribute of genius, and which may perhaps be considered as a counter-balancing prerogative for that vain, quenchless yearning for sympathy which is but too often its penalty. "Il y a quelquefois de la méchanceté dans les gens d'esprit ; mais le génie est presque toujours plein de bonté. La méchanceté vient non pas de ce qu'on a trop d'esprit, mais de ce qu'on n'a pas assez. Si l'on pouvait parler des ides, on laisserait en paix les personnes; si l'on se croyait assuré de l'emporter sur les autres par ses talens naturels, on ne chercherait pas à niveler le parterre sur lequel on veut dominer. Il y a des médiocrités d'âmes deguisées en esprit piquant et malicieux; mais la vraie supériorité est rayonnante de bons sentimens comme de hautes pensées.”

"Do not be surprised at these pencilled characters,” wrote Mrs. Hemans to a friend, after a long silence. "I am obliged to write in a reclining posture, and can only accomplish it by these means, without much suffering. I pass a great deal of my time lying on the sofa, and composing my sacred pieces, in which I do hope you will recognise the growth of a more healthful and sustained power of mind, which I trust is springing up within me, even from the elements of deepest suffering. I fear it will be some time before I shall have completed a volume, as, notwithstanding all the retirement in which I live, I have, I think, more claims upon my time and thoughts than ever;

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