gion, in the holier recess of which the great Goddess assisted without contradicting our natural vision, and personally resided. Himself too he bade me reverence, enabled us to see far beyond the limits of the Valley as the consecrated minister of her rites. Awe-struck of Life: though our eye even thus assisted permitted by the name of Religion, I bowed before the priest, us only to behold a light and a glory, but what we and humbly and earnestly entreated him to conduct could not descry, save only that it was, and that it me into her presence. He assented. Offerings he took was most glorious. from me, with mystic sprinklings of water and with And now, with the rapid transition of a dream, I salt he purified, and with strange sufflations he ex- had overtaken and rejoined the more numerous party orcised me; and then led me through many a dark who had abruptly left us, indignant at the very name and winding alley, the dew-damps of which chilled of religion. They journeyed on, goading each other my flesh, and the hollow echoes under my feet, with remembrances of past oppressions, and never mingled, methought, with moanings, affrighted me. looking back, till in the eagerness to recede from the At length we entered a large hall, without window, Temple of Superstition, they had rounded the whole or spiracle, or lamp. The asylum and dormitory it circle of the valley. And lo! there faced us the seemed of perennial night-only that the walls were mouth of a vast cavern, at the base of a lofty and brought to the eye by a number of self-luminous almost perpendicular rock, the interior side of which, inscriptions in letters of a pale pulchral light, that unknown to them, and unsuspected, formed the exheld strange neutrality with the darkness, on the treme and backward wall of the Temple. An imverge of which it kept its rayless vigil. I could read patient crowd, we entered the vast and dusky cave them, methought; but though each one of the words which was the only perforation of the precipice. taken separately I seemed to understand, yet when I At the mouth of the cave sate two figures; the first, took them in sentences, they were riddles and in- by her dress and gestures, I knew to be SENSUALITY; comprehensible. As I stood meditating on these hard the second form, from the fierceness of his demeanor, sayings, my guide thus addressed me-Read and be- and the brutal scornfulness of his looks, declared lieve these are mysteries!-At the extremity of the himself to be the monster BLASPHEMY. He uttered vast hall the Goddess was placed. Her features, blend- big words, and yet ever and anon I observed that he ed with darkness, rose out to my view, terrible, yet turned pale at his own courage. We entered. Some vacant. I prostrated myself before her, and then remained in the opening of the cave, with the one or retired with my guide, soul-withered, and wondering, the other of its guardians. The rest, and I among and dissatisfied. them, pressed on, till we reached an ample chamber, that seemed the centre of the rock. The climate of the place was unnaturally cold.

:

As I re-entered the body of the temple, I heard a deep buzz as of discontent. A few whose eyes were bright, and either piercing or steady, and whose In the furthest distance of the chamber sate an ample foreheads, with the weighty bar, ridge-like, old dim-eyed man, poring with a microscope over above the eyebrows, bespoke observation followed the Torso of a statue which had neither basis, nor by meditative thought; and a much larger number, feet, nor head; but on its breast was carved NATURE! who were enraged by the severity and insolence of To this he continually applied his glass, and seemed the priests in exacting their offerings, had collected enraptured with the various inequalities which it in one tumultuous group, and with a confused outery rendered visible on the seemingly polished surface of this is the Temple of Superstition!" after much of the marble.-Yet evermore was this delight and contumely, and turmoil, and cruel maltreatment on triumph followed by expressions of hatred, and veall sides, rushed out of the pile: and I, methought, hement railings against a Being, who yet, he assured joined them. us, had no existence. This mystery suddenly recalled We speeded from the Temple with hasty steps, to me what I had read in the Holiest Recess of the and had now nearly gone round half the valley, temple of Superstition. The old man spoke in divers when we were addressed by a woman, tall beyond tongues, and continued to utter other and most strange the stature of mortals, and with a something more mysteries. Among the rest he talked much and vethan human in her countenance and mien, which yet hemently concerning an infinite series of causes and could by mortals be only felt, not conveyed by words effects, which he explained to be-a string of blind or intelligibly distinguished. Deep reflection, ani- men, the last of whom caught hold of the skirt mated by ardent feelings, was displayed in them: of the one before him, he of the next, and so on till and hope, without its uncertainty, and a something they were all out of sight: and that they all walked more than all these, which I understood not, but infallibly straight, without making one false step, which yet seemed to blend all these into a divine though all were alike blind. Methought I borrowed unity of expression. Her garments were white and courage from surprise, and asked him,-Who then is matronly, and of the simplest texture. We inquired at the head to guide them? He looked at me with her name. My name, she replied, is Religion. ineffable contempt, not unmixed with an angry susThe more numerous part of our company, affright-picion, and then replied, "No one. The string of ed by the very sound, and sore from recent impostures blind men went on for ever without any beginning. or sorceries, hurried onwards and examined no far- for although one blind man could not move without ther. A few of us, struck by the manifest opposition stumbling, yet infinite blindness supplied the want of of her form and manners to those of the living sight." I burst into laughter, which instantly turned to 'dol, whom we had so recently abjured, agreed to terror-for as he started forward in rage, I caught follow her, though with cautious circumspection. a glance of him from behind; and lo! I beheld a She led us to an eminence in the midst of the valley, monster biform and Janus-headed, in the hinder face from the top of which we could command the whole and shape of which I instantly recognized the dread plain, and observe the relation of the different parts countenance of SUPERSTITION—and in the terror I of each to the other, and of each to the whole, and awoke.

of all to each. She then gave us an optic glass which |

231

From a man turned of fifty, Catherine, I imagine, lovings, is the Love;——— expects a less confident answer.

Say another word, and we will call it downright heart-felt reverence for worth, not the less deep be affectation. cause divested of its solemnity by habit, by familiar

CATHERINE.

Well, Sir; you have said quite enough to make me despair of finding a “ John Anderson, my jo, John," to totter down the hill of life with.

ity, by mutual infirmities, and even by a feeling of guise of playful raillery, and the countless other modesty which will arise in delicate nunds, when infinitesimals of pleasurable thought and genial they are conscious of possessing the same or the feeling. correspondent excellence in their own characters. In short, there must be a mind, which, while it feels the beautiful and the excellent in the beloved as its own, and by right of love appropriates it, can call Goodness its Playfellow, and dares make sport of time and infirmity, while, in the person of a thousand-foldly endeared partner, we feel for aged VIRTUE than good women, but that what another would find the caressing fondness that belongs to the INNOCENCE in you, you may hope to find in another. But well. of childhood, and repeat the same attentions and tender courtesies as had been dictated by the same which would be more than an adequate reward for however, may that boon be rare, the possession of affection to the same object when attired in feminine loveliness or in manly beauty.

ELIZA.

What a soothing-what an elevating idea!

CATHERINE.

If it be not only an idea.

FRIEND.

FRIEND.

Not so! Good men are not, I trust, so much scarcer

the rarest virtue.

ELIZA.

Surely, he who has described it so beautifully, must have possessed it?

FRIEND.

If he were worthy to have possessed it, and had believingly anticipated and not found it, how bitter the disappointment!

(Then, after a pause of a few minutes).
ANSWER (ex improviso).

At all events, these qualities which I have enumerated, are rarely found united in a single individual. How much more rare must it be, that two such individuals should meet together in this wide world under circumstances that admit of their union as Yes, yes! that boon, life's richest treat, Husband and Wife! A person may be highly estima- He had, or fancied that he had; ble on the whole, nay, amiable as neighbor, friend, Say, 't was but in his own conceithousemate-in short, in all the concentric circles of attachment, save only the last and inmost; and yet Crown of his cup, and garnish of his dish! The fancy made him glad! from how many causes be estranged from the highest The boon, prefigured in his earliest wish! perfection in this! Pride, coldness or fastidiousness | The fair fulfilment of his poesy, of nature, worldly cares, an anxious or ambitious disposition, a passion for display, a sullen temper-one or the other-too often proves "the dead fly in the compost of spices," and any one is enough to unfit it for the precious balm of unction. For some mighty good sort of people, too, there is not seldom a sort of solemn saturnine, or, if you will, ursine vanity, that keeps itself alive by sucking the paws of its own selfimportance. And as this high sense, or rather sensation of their own value is, for the most part, grounded on negative qualities, so they have no better means of preserving the same but by negatives-that is, by not doing or saying any thing, that might be put down for fond, silly, or nonsensical,-or (to use their own phrase) by never forgetting themselves, which some of their acquaintance are uncharitable enough to think the most worthless object they could be employed in remembering.

When his young heart first yearn'd for sympathy.

ELIZA (in answer to a whisper from CATHERINE). To a hair! He must have sate for it himself. Save me from such folks! But they are out of the question.

FRIEND.

But e'en the meteor offspring of the brain
Faith asks her daily bread,
Unnourish'd wane!
And Fancy must be fed!
Now so it chanced-from wet or dry,
It boots not how-I know not why-
She miss'd her wonted food: and quickly
Poor Fancy stagger'd and grew sickly.
Then came a restless state, 't wixt yea ar va
His faith was fix'd, his heart all ebb and w
Or like a bark, in some half-shelter'd bay
Above its anchor driving to and fro.

That boon, which but to have possess'd
In a belief, gave life a zest
Uncertain both what it had been,
And what it was-an evergreen
And if by error lost, or luck;
Which some insidious blight had struck,
Or annual flower, which past its blow
No vernal spell shall e'er revive;
Uncertain, and afraid to know,

True! but the same effect is produced in thousands by the too general insensibility to a very important truth; this, namely, that the MISERY of human life is Doubts toss'd him to and fro; made up of large masses, each separated from the Hope keeping Love, Love Hope alive, other by certain intervals. One year, the death of a Like babes bewilder'd in a snow, child; years after, a failure in trade; after another That cling and huddle from the cold longer or shorter interval, a daughter may have In hollow tree or ruin'd fold.

married unhappily;-in all but the singularly un

fortunate, the integral parts that compose the sum Those sparkling colors, once his boast,
total of the unhappiness of a man's life, are easily Fading, one by one away,

counted, and distinctly remembered. The HAPPINESS Thin and hueless as a ghost,
of life, on the contrary, is made up of minute frac- Poor Fancy on her sick-bed lay,
tions-the little, soon-forgotten charities of a kiss, a Ill at distance, worse when near,
smile, a kind look, a heartfelt compliment in the dis-Telling her dreams to jealous Fear'

Where was it then, the sociable sprite
That crown'd the Poet's cup and deck'd his dish!
Poor shadow cast from an unsteady wish,
Itself a substance by no other right
But that it intercepted Reason's light;

It dimm'd his eye, it darken'd on his brow,
A peevish mood, a tedious time, I trow!
Thank Heaven! 'tis not so now.

O bliss of blissful hours!

The boon of Heaven's decreeing,
While yet in Eden's bowers

Dwelt the First Husband and his sinless Mate!
The one sweet plant which, piteous Heaven agreeing,
They bore with them through Eden's closing gate!
Of life's gay summer-tide the sovran Rose!
Late autumn's Amaranth, that more fragrant blows
When Passion's flowers all fall or fade;
If this were ever his, in outward being,
Or but his own true love's projected shade,
Now, that at length by certain proof he knows,
That whether real or magic show,
Whate'er it was, it is no longer so;
Though heart be lonesome, Hope laid low,
Yet, Lady! deem him not unblest :
The certainty that struck Hope dead,
Hath left Contentment in her stead:
And that is next to best!

THE GARDEN OF BOCCACCIO.

Of late, in one of those most weary hours,
When life seems emptied of all genial powers,
A dreary mood, which he who ne'er has known
May bless his happy lot, I sate alone;
And, from the numbing spell to win relief,
Call'd on the past for thought of glee or grief.
In vain bereft alike of grief and glee,
I sate and cower'd o'er my own vacancy!
And as I watch'd the dull continuous ache,
Which, all else slumb'ring, seem'd alone to wake;
O Friend! long wont to notice yet conceal,
And soothe by silence what words cannot heal,
I but half saw that quiet hand of thine
Place on my desk this exquisite design,
Boccaccio's Garden and its faëry,

The love, the joyaunce, and the gallantry!
An Idyll, with Boccaccio's spirit warm,
Framed in the silent poesy of form.
Like flocks adown a newly-bained steep
Emerging from a mist: or like a stream
Of music soft that not dispels the sleep,

Or lent a lustre to the earnest scan

Of manhood, musing what and whence is man
Wild strain of Scalds, that in the sea-worn caves
Rehearsed their war-spell to the winds and waves
Or fateful hymn of those prophetic maids,
That call'd on Hertha in deep forest glades;
Or minstrel lay, that cheer'd the baron's feast;
Or rhyme of city pomp, of monk and priest,
Judge, mayor, and many a guild in long array,
To high-church pacing on the great saint's day.
And many a verse which to myself I sang,
That woke the tear, yet stole away the pang,
Of hopes which in lamenting I renew'd.
And last, a matron now, of sober mien,
Yet radiant still and with no earthly sheen,
Whom as a faery child my childhood woo'd
Even in my dawn of thought-Philosophy.
Though then unconscious of herself, pardie,
She bore no other name than Poesy;

And, like a gift from heaven, in lifeful glee,
That had but newly left a mother's knee,
Prattled and play'd with bird and flower, and stone.
As if with elfin playfellows well known,
And life reveal'd to innocence alone.

Thanks, gentle artist! now I can descry
Thy fair creation with a mastering eye,
And all awake! And now in fix'd gaze stand,
Now wander through the Eden of thy hand;
Praise the green arches, on the fountain clear
See fragment shadows of the crossing deer,
And with that serviceable nymph I stoop,
The crystal from its restless pool to scoop.
I see no longer! I myself am there,
Sit on the ground-sward, and the banquet share.
"Tis I, that sweep that lute's love-echoing strings,
And gaze upon the maid who gazing sings:
Or pause and listen to the tinkling bells
From the high tower, and think that there she dwells
With old Boccaccio's soul I stand possest,
And breathe an air like life, that swells my chest.

The brightness of the world, O thou once free,
And always fair, rare land of courtesy !
O, Florence! with the Tuscan fields and hills!
And famous Arno fed with all their rills;
Thou brightest star of star-bright Italy!
Rich, ornate, populous, all treasures thine,
The golden corn, the olive, and the vine.
Fair cities, gallant mansions, castles old,
And forests, where beside his leafy hold
The sullen boar hath heard the distant horn,
And whets his tusks against the gnarled thorn,
Palladian palace with its storied halls;
Fountains, where Love lies listening to their falls

But casts in happier moulds the slumberer's dream, Gardens, where flings the bridge its airy span,

Gazed by an idle eye with silent might
The picture stole upon my inward sight.
A tremulous warmth crept gradual o'er my chest,
As though an infant's finger touch'd my breast.
And one by one (I know not whence) were brought
All spirits of power that most had stirr'd my thought.
In selfless boyhood, on a new world tost
Of wonder, and in its own fancies lost;
Or charm'd my youth, that kindled from above,
Loved ere it loved, and sought a form for love;

And Nature makes her happy home with man;
Where many a gorgeous flower is duly fed
With its own rill, on its own spangled bed,
And wreathes the marble urn, or leans its head,
A mimic mourner, that with veil withdrawn
Weeps liquid gems, the presents of the dawn,
Thine all delights, and every muse is thine:
And more than all, the embrace and intertwine
Of all with all in gay and twinkling dance'
'Mid gods of Greece and warriors of romance

See! Boccace sits, unfolding on his knees
The new-found roll of old Mæonides;*
But from his mantle's fold, and near the heart,
Peers Ovid's Holy Book of Love's sweet smart!†

O all-enjoying and all-blending sage,
Long be it mine to con thy mazy page,

Where, half conceal'd, the eye of fancy views

of poetry, to observe, that in the attempt to adapt the Greek metres to the English language, we must begin by substituting quality of sound for quantity—that is, accentuated or comparatively emphasized syllables, for what, in the Greek and Latin verse, are named long, and of which the prosodial mark is; and vice versa, unaccentuated syllables for short, marked ˇ. Now the hexameter verse consists of two sorts of feet,

Fauns, nymphs, and winged saints, all gracious to thy the spondee, composed of two long syllables, and the

muse!

Still in thy garden let me watch their pranks,
And see in Dian's vest between the ranks

Of the trim vines, some maid that half believes
The vestal fires, of which her lover grieves,
With that sly satyr peering through the leaves!

MY BAPTISMAL BIRTH-DAY.

LINES COMPOSED ON A SICK BED, UNDER SEVERE
BODILY SUFFERING, ON MY SPIRITUAL BIRTH-DAY,
OCTOBER 28th.

Bow unto God in CHRIST- in Christ, my ALL!
What, that Earth boasts, were not lost cheaply, rather
Than forfeit that blest Name, by which we call
The HOLY ONE, the Almighty God, OUR FATHER?
FATHER! in Christ we live and Christ in Thee:
Eternal Thou, and everlasting We!

The Heir of Heaven, henceforth I dread not Death,
In Christ I live, in Christ I draw the breath
Of the true Life. Let Sea, and Earth, and Sky
Wage war against me: on my front I show
Their mighty Master's seal! In vain they try
To end my Life, who can but end its Woe.

Is that a Death-bed, where the CHRISTIAN lies?
Yes!-But not his: "Tis DEATH itself there dies.

FRAGMENTS

FROM THE WRECK OF MEMORY:

OR

PORTIONS OF POEMS COMPOSED IN EARLY MANHOOD.

NOTE-It may not be without use or interest to youthful, and especially to intelligent female readers

dactyl, composed of one long syllable followed by two
short. The following verse from the Psalms, is a rare
instance of a perfect hexameter (i. e. line of six feet)
in the English language:-
:-

Gōd came up with a | shōut: our | Lōrd with the sound of ā | trumpēt.

But so few are the truly spondaic words in our language, such as Egypt, ūprōar, tūrmōil, &c., that we are compelled to substitute, in most instances, the trochee, oră, i. e. such words as merry, lightly, &c. for the proper spondee. It need only be added, that in the hexameter the fifth foot must be a dactyl, and the sixth a spondee, or trochee. I will end this note with two hexameter lines, likewise from the Psalms. There is a river the | flowing where | ōf shall | gladden the city.

Hallelujah the | city of | Gōd Jēhōvăh! hăth | blést hĕr.j

I. HYMN TO THE EARTH.

EARTH! thou mother of numberless children, the nurse and the mother,

Hail! O Goddess, thrice hail! Blest be thou! and, blessing, I hymn thee!

Forth, ye sweet sounds! from my harp, and my voice shall float on your surges―

Soar thou aloft, O my soul! and bear up my song on thy pinions.

Travelling the vale with mine eyes-green meadows, and lake with green island,

Dark in its basin of rock, and the bare stream flowing in brightness,

Thrilled with thy beauty and love, in the wooded slope of the mountain,

Here, Great Mother, I lie, thy child with its head on thy bosom!

Playful the spirits of noon, that creep or rush through thy tresses:

Green-haired Goddess! refresh me; and hark! as they hurry or linger,

*Boccaccio claimed for himself the glory of having first in- Fill the pause of my harp, or sustain it with musical

troduced the works of Homer to his countrymen.

I know few more striking or more interesting proofs of the overwhelming influence which the study of the Greek and Roman classics exercised on the judgments, feelings, and imagisations of the literati of Europe at the commencement of the restoration of literature, than the passage in the Filocopo of Boccaccio; where the sage instructor, Rachen, as soon as the young prince and the beautiful girl Biancafiore had learned their letters, sets them to study the Holy Book, Ovid's Art of Love. Incommicio Racheo a mettere il suo officio in essecuziene con intera sollecitudine. E loro, in breve tempo, insegsato a cunoscer le lettere, fece legere il santo libro d' Ovvidio, nd quale il sommo poeta mostra, come i santi fuochi di Ve are si debbano ne freddi cuori occendere."

16

murmurs.

Into my being thou murmurest joy; and tenderest sadness

Shed'st thou, like dew, on my heart, till the joy and the heavenly gladness

Pour themselves forth from my heart in tears, and the hymns of thanksgiving.

Earth! thou mother of numberless children, the nurse and the mother,

Sister thou of the Stars, and beloved by the sun, the rejoicer!

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