Imagens das páginas
PDF
ePub

their impression irresistible. Polite, affable, insinuating, sprightly, and capable of speaking and of writing with equal ease and dignity. Sudden, however, and violent in all her attachments; because she had been accustomed from her infancy to be treated as a queen. No stranger, on some occasions, to dissimulation; which, in that perfidious court where she received her education, was reckoned among the necessary arts of government. Not insensible of flattery, or unconscious of that pleasure, with which almost every woman beholds the influence of her own beauty. Formed with the qualities that we love, not with the talents that we admire, she was an agreeable woman rather than an illustrious queen. The vivacity of her spirit, not sufficiently tempered with sound judgment, and the warmth of her heart, which was not at all times under the restraint of discretion, betrayed her both into errors and into crimes. To say that she was always unfortunate, will not account for that long and almost uninterrupted succession of calamities which befel her; we must likewise add, that she was often imprudent. Her passion for Darnley was rash, youthful, and excessive; and though the sudden transition to the opposite extreme was the natural effect of her ill-requited love, and of his ingratitude, insolence, and brutality, yet neither these, nor Bothwell's artful addresses and important services, can justify her attachments to that nobleman. Even the manners of the age, licentious as they were, are no apology for this unhappy passion; nor can they induce us to look on that tragical and infamous scene which followed it with less abhorrence. Humanity will draw a veil over this part of her character, which it cannot approve, and may, `perhaps, prompt some to impute her actions to her situation more than to her disposition; and to lament the unhappiness of the former, rather than accuse the perverseness of the latter. Mary's sufferings exceed, both in degree and in duration, those tragical distresses which fancy has feigned to excite sorrow and commiseration; and while we survey them, we are apt altogether to forget her frailties; we think of her faults with less indignation, and approve of our tears, as if they were shed for a person who had attained much nearer to pure virtue. No man, says Brantome, ever beheld her person without admiration and love, or will read her history without sorrow. ROBERTSON.

PATHETIC EXTRACTS.

1.-REYNO AND ALPIN.

Calm is the noon
Over the green

Reyno. THE wind and rain are over. of day. The clouds are divided in heaven. hill flies the inconstant sun. Red, through the stony vale, comes down the stream of the hill.-Sweet are thy murmurs, O stream! but more sweet is the voice I hear.-It is the voice of Alpin, the son of song, mourning for the dead. -Bent is his head of age, and red his tearful eye.-Alpin, thou son of song, why alone on the silent hill? Why complainest thou as a blast in the wood-as a wave on the lonely shore ?

Alpin. My tears, O Reyno! are for the dead-my voice for the inhabitants of the grave. Tall thou art on the hill

But thou shalt fall like

-fair among the sons of the plain. Morar; and the mourner shall sit on thy tomb. The hills shall know thee no more. Thy bow shall lie in the hall unstrung.- -Thou wert swift, O Morar! as a roe on the hill-terrible as a meteor of fire.- -Thy wrath was as the storm-thy sword, in battle, as lightning in the field. Thy voice was like a stream after rain-like thunder on distant hills.- -Many fell by thy arm-they were consumed in the flames of thy wrath.- -But when thou didst return from war, how peaceful was thy brow! Thy face was like the sun after rain-like the moon in the silence of night-calm as the breast of the lake, when the loud wind is hushed into repose.-Narrow is thy dwelling nowdark the place of thine abode. With three steps I compass thy grave, O thou who wast so great before! Four stones, with their heads of moss, are the only memorial of thee. A tree, with scarce a leaf-long grass whistling in the windmark to the hunter's eye the grave of the mighty Morar.Morar, thou art low indeed! thou hast no mother to mourn thee; no maid with her tears of love; dead is she that brought thee forth; fallen is the daughter of Morglan!Who, on his staff, is this? who this, whose head is white with age, whose eyes are galled with tears, who quakes at every step?- -It is thy father, O Morar! the father of

no son but thee.Weep, thou father of Morar! weep;

Deep is the sleep of the
No more shall he hear thy
-When shall it be

but thy son heareth thee not. dead-low their pillow of dust. voice-no more awake at thy call.morn in the grave, to bid the slumberer awake?-Farewell! thou bravest of men! thou conqueror in the field; but the field shall see thee no more; nor the gloomy wood be lightened with the splendour of thy steel.— Thou hast left no son-but the song shall preserve thy name.

2.-ON MILITARY GLORY.

OSSIAN,

"But

"You will grant me, however," interposed Tiberius, "that there are refined and sensible delights, in their nature proper for the gratification of a monarch, which are always sure to give rational enjoyment without the danger of disgusting by repetition ?"-"As for instance," says Belisarius." The love of glory, for instance," replied the young man.what sort of glory ?"-" Why, of all the various classes of glory, renown in arms must hold the foremost place.”"Very well; that is your position; and do you think the pleasure that springs from conquest has a sincere and lasting charm in it? Alas! when millions are stretched in mangled heaps upon the field of battle, can the mind in that situation taste of joy? I can make allowance for those who have met danger in all its shapes; they may be permitted to congratulate themselves, that they have escaped with their lives; but in the case of a king born with sensibility of heart, the day that spills a deluge of human blood, and bids the tears of natural affection flow in rivers round the land, that cannot be a day of true enjoyment. I have more than once traversed over a field of battle; I would have been glad to have seen a Nero in my place; the tears of humanity must have burst from him. I know there are princes who take the pleasure of a campaign, as they do that of hunting, and who send forth their people to the fray, as they let slip their dogs; but the rage of conquest is like the unrelenting temper of avarice, which torments itself, and is to the last insatiable. A province has been invaded; it has been subdued; it lies contiguous to another not yet attempted; desire begins to kindle; invasion happens after invasion; ambition irri

tates itself to new projects, till at length comes a reverse of fortune, which exceeds, in the mortification it brings, all the pride and joy of former victories. But to give things every flattering appearance, let us suppose a train of uninterrupted success: yet, even in that case, the conqueror pushes forward, like another Alexander, to the limits of the world, and then, like him, remeasures back his course, fatigued with triumphs, a burden to himself and mankind, at a loss what to do with the immense tracts which he has depopulated, and melancholy with the reflection that an acre of his conquests would suffice to maintain him, and a little pit-hole to hide his remains from the world. In my youth I saw the sepulchre of Cyrus; a stone bore this inscription: I am Cyrus, he who subdued the Persian empire. Friend, whoever thou art, or wherever thy native country, envy me not the scanty space that covers my clay-cold ashes.'-A'as! said I, turning aside from the mournful epitaph, is it worth while to be a conqueror ?"

*

Tiberius interrupted him with astonishment: "Can these be the sentiments of Belisarius ?"" Yes, young man, thus thinks Belisarius: he is able to decide upon the subject. Of all the plagues which the pride of man has engendered, rage of conquest is the most destructive."

the

[blocks in formation]

AND this, said he, putting the remains of a crust into his wallet and this should have been thy portion, said he, hadst thou been alive to have shared it with me. I thought by the accent, it had been an apostrophe to the child; but it was to his ass, and to the very ass we had seen dead on the road, which had occasioned La Fleur's misadventure. The man seemed to lament it much; and it instantly brought into my mind Sancho's lamentation for his; but he did it with more true touches of nature.

The mourner was sitting upon a stone bench at the door, with the ass's pannel and its bridle on one side, which he took up from time to time-then laid them down-looked at them, and shook his head. He then took his crust of bread out of his wallet again, as if to eat it; held it some

time in his hand then laid it upon the bit of his ass's bridle looked wistfully at the little arrangement he had made and then gave a sigh.

The simplicity of his grief drew numbers about him, and La Fleur among the rest, while the horses were getting ready; as I continued sitting in the post-chaise, I could see and hear over their heads.

He said he had come last from Spain, where he had been from the furthest borders of Franconia; and had got so far on his return home, when his ass died. Every one seemed desirous to know, what business could have taken so old and poor a man so far a journey from his own home.

It had pleased Heaven, he said, to bless him with three sons, the finest lads in all Germany; but having in one week lost two of them by the small-pox, and the youngest falling ill of the same distemper, he was afraid of being bereft of them all, and made a vow, if Heaven would not take him from him also, he would go in gratitude to St Lago in Spain.

When the mourner got thus far in his story, he stopped to pay nature her tribute-and wept bitterly.

He said Heaven had accepted the conditions; and that he had set out from his cottage with this poor creature, who had been a patient partner of his journey-that it had eaten the same bread with him all the way, and was unto him as a friend.

Every body who stood about, heard the poor fellow with concern-La Fleur offered him money-The mourner said he did not want it-it was not the value of the ass-but the loss of him.-The ass, he said, he was assured loved him and upon this told them a long story of a mischance upon their passage over the Pyrenean mountains, which had separated them from each other three days; during which time the ass had sought him as much as he had sought the ass, and that neither had scarce eaten or drunk till they met.

Thou hast one comfort, friend, said I, at least, in the loss of thy poor beast; I am sure thou hast been a merciful master to him.Alas! said the mourner, I thought so, when he was alive-but now he is dead, I think otherwise,-I fear the weight of myself and my afflictions together have been too

« AnteriorContinuar »