Imagens das páginas
PDF
ePub

my thought like?" On the first night of his meeting Edwin, the latter is travel-stained and poorly clad, which moves the king to this original metaphorical remark:

[ocr errors]

"Thou art a new found jewel, and to-morrow

We'll have thee newly set."

He therefore sends to his guest a rich suit of clothes, and goes up in the morning with this greeting:

"So, so, the grub

Has cracked to a rare butterfly."

Edwin demands the hand of his daughter, and is told that it is his whenever

"The wayward fowl, Prosperity,

Roosts in thy boughs."

"The bow of Edwin's spirit is relaxed."

In the religion of the Saviour, truth is not speculative, but practical, or, as our author has it,

"Truth lives not like an unbroke, skittish colt ;

But in contentment, like the paddocked steed,
May saddled be and used."

The sunlight makes rosy the lake that lies

"Deep in the wrinkled armpit of the hill."

English history, says Paulinus, has been like a stream untraversed and flowing through empty wildernesses;

"But Christ this day hath been upon it launched,

Like to a golden barge with burnished oars,

Whose progress makes the lonely waters blush."

In the middle of the sixty-ninth page is this comparison, which probably has some meaning: :

"The messenger has gone with angry heart,
And like a cobwebbed banner, from its nook,
Where it has hung for ages, taken down,

And streaming in the wind, the king cries, 'War!'”

We could easily find scores of such instances, but we have transcribed more than enough to show that this poem contains much imagery that is redundant, inserted as an adornment of that from which it would not naturally grow, or employed for its own sake, and often not very well worth employing.

He has a habit, too, when he hits upon a figure that is at once good and new, of using it till the reader is sorry for his poverty and displeased at his pertinacity. The simile of the huddled sheep is not so striking the third time as the first, and is recognizable at each appearance, though once the sheep are all wethers. A lichened rock is another of his properties; and even the well-fancied Redwald, the man of a tropical luxuriance of flowers of speech, does not disdain to repeat any figure that strikes him as being a good thing. Two or three times a cloud on a height is touched into rain by the sunbeams, once the shower is livid, and once it is dusty. Our poet is not in this piece so hydropathical as in the Life Drama: there is not rain in every page; but in vapor, and mist, and vaporous spaces, and misty clouds, and vaporous substance we are continually bathed.

Some of the minor poets of the day, sharing Mr. Smith's faults, have yet the power of breathing through their mimic world a sort of enchanted atmosphere, in which common objects, though they lose their natural seeming, have yet bestowed upon them a compensating charm. This faculty is frequently seen to work in the happy selection of a subject, perhaps by means of an allusion, a captivating gentleness of sentiment, some hints which, stimulating the reader's imagination, enables the writer to work with it as with his own. The result may not be the highest poetry; it may be but indolent dreaming in comparison with the higher activities of the world of song; but it is at least evidence of a delicate susceptibility to poetic impressions, and it forms part of the poetical character of all the great masters, at least in English poetry.

In this poor attempt to define what is perhaps indefinable, we may possibly be aided if the reader will recall the mood of mind in which he is left by parts in one or two of Shakespeare's plays, by Milton's L'Allegro, by some of Keats's lesser poems, by Tennyson's Mariana and Lady of Shalott, by the more successful imitators of these two last-mentioned authors, as, for instance, some of Mr. Dobell's shorter pieces, and one or two of Owen Meredith's more judicious selections. In this fine magic Mr. Smith is entirely unlearned. His wealth, after all, is not in his invention, his thought, his passion, his originality of conception, but in his mere outward adornments. Like the wardrobe of a Monomotapan chief, strip him of the ornaments which he wears with sometimes more and sometimes less good taste, and he is left naked and bare.

His poems will be read once on account of their author's factitious

reputation, and for the sake of the new pictures which are presented to the fancy; but they will never obtain or repay a second perusal ; and it is not for long, we imagine, that they will be honored with one reading, for the mind does not twice turn for pleasure to the same mere prettinesses and conceits, nor does one age deign to be indebted to another for wares so easily manufactured.

The volume contains, besides Edwin of Deira, two short pieces that are of no importance to Mr. Smith's reputation. The one is called "Torquil and Oona," the other is entitled "Blaavin," and is only noticeable for the skill with which in the different parts the cadence is varied from liveliness to solemnity while the metre remains the same.

THE STATES-GENERAL OF 1484.*

Or this celebrated gathering of Frenchmen, clergy, nobles, and ignobles, all must have heard, since it has been proclaimed by the cannon's mouth, said cannon being Masselin, the canon of the cathedral church of Rouen (which, paradoxical as it may seem, is still in good repair).

To obtain a general idea of the vast importance (self-importance) of this convention, we must remember that for sixteen years there had no such thing been seen in France; and the last time it appeared, in 1468, it, degenerated into a series of lectures on the exsection of limbs, burning fevers, and hemorrhages, to say nothing of dissertations on the salt-tax and other matters of chemical taxonomy. The nation had buried their king (joyfully, and at public expense), and were looking at thirteen years of the next generation with French politeness, that is, with low bows and smiling countenances. France was a great nation! France was a grand country! France raised the best olives and the sweetest grapes, and France was a great kingdom! This is as general survey of the state of the civilized world at this period which French spectacles permit us to make, and we may return to our subject of the States-General of 1484.

* An assembly of the representatives of France to arrange all difficulties between king and people, and in which all the kinks of the former were to be settled.

In the episcopal palace of Tours, for many days previous to the inauguration of the assembly, workmen (Tiers État) had been engaged in the construction of a platform of gigantic proportions, occupying at least two thirds of the hall. We might pause here to compare this platform with those of modern politicians, but time will not permit.

Beyond this stage rose the tiers of benches for the deputies, and by a strange anomaly the highest tiers were appropriated to the lowest tiers (the Tiers État). The walls were hung with blue, which may account for the blue looks of the king's councillors. Such were the mere external paraphernalia for the imposing spectacle; and it may be remarked, that they did credit to the committee of arrangements, that is, sunk them in debt.

Early on the morning of the first day, all the available population of Tours collected in groups in the street leading from the river to the cathedral; for, as Tours was on the Loire, its inhabitants claimed their lawful privilege of grouping. The young king was hurried along by his fat guardian through the pressing crowds of his admiring subjects, much to the amusement of all but the guardian, and at last the royal party arrived at the side door of the cathedral (the front door was reserved for

?)

That I may not receive undue credit for many particulars which Mr. Stephen has omitted in his valuable history, which is the basis of this account, I would explain, that, among the many reports made of the proceedings, I possess the only phonographic one in existence.

On the enormously extended platform of which I have spoken sat the king. His chief delight was to play coach, and accordingly we are told that he held the reins of power. Our reporter also declares that his councillors stood him in stead, that is, were "hors du combat." Behind him, seated in single file, were two cardinals, allegorically representing the king's two cardinal sins (lying and stealing). Then came six ecclesiastical peers, and behind these six princes of the blood, representing six lay peers,* and twenty nobles of the highest rank acted as footmen to this long coach. Beside the king stood a constable to preserve order, and this seems to be the first appearance of the prototype of our modern pogy found in any ancient French assembly. This magnificent pageant occupied nearly the

* I am in doubt as to the orthography of this word, since some commentators insist that it should be written lap-ears. — ED.

whole stage, as the French has it, "voiture publique,” — public voter; but in an obscure corner sat the great theologian Cirey, with his serious countenance, and his friend Rev. John D. Villiers by his side, D. la Sonze, professor of humanities to his suzerain Charles, Denys D. Bar, the astronomer hired to calculate the risings and settings of the assembly, and John Meschineau, a poetical advertiser.

After all these august personages had taken their positions, the deputies were admitted. Such was their astonishment and terror at what they saw, that they "at once resolved themselves into six bureaus, or more probably chests of drawers, since six bureaus could hardly have contained two hundred and forty-six Frenchmen. As soon as they were quietly (?) established in these receptacles, the Chancellor of France opened the sessions (which is the French term for drawers), that the deputies might the better hear what he had to say.

I can only convey a faint idea of his long and eloquent address, which opened in the usual spread-lily style. He declared that France was the greatest nation he ever chanced to be chancellor of, and shook the finger of scorn at his English neighbors, when he should have shaken the hand of friendship with them. He then called the young king many hard names, such as "Salomonlepacifique," a proceeding wholly irreconcilable with French politeness. That the deputies might trust his other assertions, he declared "that the king would not put his royal hands into their pockets," and had entirely given up his pickpocket propensions. Further, the king would not ask them for money unless he wanted it, and was always glad to see any of them at his house, 10 Rue du Palais; last, though not least, he would not raise his taille without their consent.

66

[ocr errors]

At the conclusion of this very satisfactory speech, the six bureaus 'prepared cahiers of grievances," which is the French idiom for "made a tremendous racket." When the constable had restored order, the clergy were called upon for a speech, and they made the following requests:

That the liberties of the Gallican Church, with which Louis XI. had taken liberties, should be restored, and that the Pragmatic Sanction of Bruges (which was in the eyes of the clergy a sanctified Code) should likewise be renewed. To this the king replied, that what they wanted they already had, so how could they want it? And if they did not have what they did want, and what the people did want them to have, he wanted them to stop wanting in such a wanton manner.

« AnteriorContinuar »