an apparently hopeless passion. They form a love history, mysterious and obscure, which we shall not attempt to penetrate. It is enough to add, that (which might be premised as impossible) they do not raise Shakspeare to a higher rank than he before attained that perhaps, we idolize his fame less, where we are admitted (too freely) into certain secrets of his personal history, and it must also be confessed that he has dallied with the muse in these offerings, at her shrine rather than put forth his Samson strength, in lofty triumph. On no one occasion does he attempt to reach a higher pitch, than was attained by the general attempts in the same form of poetry. It is true even the lightest trifles are impressed with a nameless spirit from his exuberant genius and subtle individuality. It is true his phrases, his expressive language, are eminently Shaksperian. Yet are they comparatively wasted on trivial themes, or levelled to a moderate key note of passion. They contain none of the deep contemplativeness of Wordsworth, or the spirited yet condensed power of Milton. We speak thus of these productions in comparison with similar attempts of other great poets; and, more especially in comparison with the other works of Shakspeare-his dramas, the richest legacy ever bequeathed to mankind, by a single individual. For any other bard, it would be praise enough to have equalled the least valuable works of Shakspeare, and these sonnets would make the reputation of almost any one else. The two finest occur in one of his plays; that on Study, beginning, Study is like heaven's glorious sun," and that more tender passage of self-expostulation and apology, for which we must make room. 66 Did not the heavenly rhetoric of thine eye, His picture of his mistress forms a fair pendant to the above, and should not therefore be omitted. Fair is my love, but not as fair as fickle, She burnt with love, as straw with fire flameth, Passing over the slight effusions of forgotten versifiers our list brings us next to Drummond of Hawthornden, the best representative of the Scottish muse before Allan Ramsay's time, and the friend of Ben Jonson. The record of their famous conversations has been made public of late years, through the researches of one of the Antiquarian Societies. Like all of the early sonnetteers, who copied their master Petrarch in this, as in other respects, Drummond had his mistress for a muse-but the specimen we shall present of his sonnets, addressed to Sleep, and discovers a close reis one of a more general description. It is semblance to the verses of Sidney and Shakspeare, before quoted. Sleep, silence' child, sweet father of soft rest, This poet is distinguished for a sweet and elegant pathetic vein; his line is "most musical, most melancholy." He writes thus of his prevalent manner, in a sonnet on his Lute : What art thou but a harbinger of woe? Thy pleasing notes be pleasing notes no more, But orphan's wailings to the fainting ear, Each stroke a sigh, each sound draws forth a tear, For which be silent as in words before: Or if that any hand to touch thee deign, For this lugubrious coloring, he accounts, by the absence of " that dear voice," which did thy sounds approve, Which wont in such harmonious strains to flow, Milton is the last great name we shall presume to invoke on the present occasion. In a future paper we may bring down our examples to contemporary poets; but we shall stop with Milton for the present. He is the second sonnet writer in English; we place Wordsworth at the head. Some half dozen of Milton's (he wrote altogether only fourteen, we believe) are unequalled. But though * Every true student of human nature, can attest the fidelity of this portrait; if a man of close observation and varied experience, out of his own history. A somewhat similar tale to be read in the "Modern Pygmalion" of a late brilliant critic and metaphysician. our great living poet rarely rises as high as Milton, yet his copiousness and unmatched volubility of expression combine to give him the precedence. Shakspeare we place out of comparison, since he attempted no sonnets of the reflective kind. Few of Wordsworth's bear any mention of love, and where they do speak of it, it is a holy thing, not the libertine passion of courtly versifiers. Milton's grandest sonnets, each of them a small epic in itself, have been sufficiently noticed, but there is one less referred to, that we think deserves the more regard, from its personal nature, referring to himself with a certain sublime self-consideration and Grecian enthusiasm, that bespeak the builder of the loftiest of epics. is no less important that the idea be completely filled out; a meagre sketch being equally faulty with a superfluous abundance of thoughts. The restriction to just fourteen lines is an obstacle of itself to the prosecution of a genial poetic design. Rapt in his visions of beauty, the poet must still not stray beyond this fixed limit, which appears arbitrary enough. Yet these very restrictions tend to compactness and symmetrical beauty. To a cultivated ear the music of a fine sonnet is not the least pleasing adjunct to this form of verse; nor should we overlook the advantage gained to the thought itself by such an harmonious yet concise utterance of it. Like those minor forms of prose writing, the Letter and the Essay, the Sonnet is happy When the assault was intended on the city, in an unlimited range of subject and variety Captain, or colonel, or knight in arms, Whose chance on these defenceless doors may seize, If deed of honor did thee ever please, Guard them, and him within protect from harms. For the present we shall omit any further researches into the history of the sonnets, or extracts from our elder poets; but we have a few words to say of the Sonnet before we conclude. The Sonnet is perhaps the most artificial form of poetry, and in consequence the most difficult to execute with spirit. The chief difficulty appears to lie, in preserving the unity and integrity of the single thought or sentiment which it is intended to express and convey. It is essential that the idea be not departed from, though various shades of meaning may be introduced with effect. It of style, of war or feeling, amorous, philo- do we enlarge upon this theme, when we Scorn not the Sonnet; Critic, you have frowned, BURNING OF THE TOWER. O TOWER OF LONDON! not the lurid flame Time hallows not the guilty; and thy name, DURING my residence in England, I became acquainted with a young Scotchman by the name of Boswell. He was one of the deluded men who followed Sir Gregor MacGregor to his empire in the marshes of the Musquito Shore; for a grand name they called it Poyais. I am not going to mount the high horse of romance, and will therefore observe that he was not of high birth, as most of the characters in modern stories are sure to be. He was no relation to Dr. Johnson's Boswell, nor to the Boswells of Auchinleck, with its unfortunate Sir Alexander, nor, as some have pretended, to the Bouncewells of Canting Corner, famous preachers in the time of Charles I.; but was in truth nothing more than the son of a small grazier in Lanarkshire. Yet, though born in humble life, Robin Boswell was not without the visions of future glory, which, quite as often, where the liberty to hope greatly is the birthright of all, visit the pillow of the lowborn as of the noble and far-descended. He was in truth a. romantic being, and built a larger number of these mansions without underpinnings, called "castles in the clouds," than Don Quixote relieved distressed damsels. How many a sweet vision of beauty and loveliness, merit and daring, were dispelled by the very unpoetical call from his father to fold the sheep. The latter being a plain, practical, every-day man, cared little for the aversions of the son, and the consequence was, that Robin ran away, and enlisted as a volunteer in Sir Gregor's expedition, with a promise of becoming Earl de Bayou des Centipedes, or Count de Riviere des Caymanas in the Caciquery of Poyais. I shall not enter into the details of his passage to the theatre of his anticipated exploits and glories. Finding, on his disembarkation at Angustura, that he had been made the dupe of an adventurer, as weak and drivelling, as unprincipled and wicked, he left Poyais, and proceeded to the city of Montezuma. His journal, until he reached that metropolis, exhibits nothing worth remarking upon; but soon after his arrival, an incident occurred which bade fair to involve him in serious consequences. This was nothing less than falling in love with the beautiful daughter of the ex-Conde Tobasco; a prominent member of that singularly disinterested band of Mexican nobles, who, in the effervescence of patriotic zeal, threw away their fortunes, from motives as rational as those which induced Don Quixote to liberate the galley-slaves. My readers are undoubtedly aware of the many obstacles which exist in Old Spain to the intercourse, otherwise than by stealth, of the sexes amongst the higher orders; but they may require to be told that it is perfect freedom, boundless license, compared with that imposed upon the Patrician order in New Spain, and, indeed, throughout Spanish America. In the former, intercourse, regulated indeed by absurd caprices, and always liable to be terminated on the wildest and most unreasonable suspicions, is still, in some sort, permitted; in the latter country, the sexes seldom see each other till marriage takes place. They are less together than in any Christian land with which I am acquainted; less, perhaps, than in Mahommedan countries. Nevertheless, spite of manners and customs, and spies and duennas, and bolts and bars, and all that sort of thing, the enterprising son of the Lanarkshire grazier, found opportunities to whisper soft things, "all alone by the light of the moon," in the ears of the fair Mexican, who so far forgot her parentage, and the blood of all her line's Castilian lords, as to confess her love to its delighted object, and to promise to fly with him to, judging from his present prospects, something less than a cottage. Love is not famous for foresight; the phrase in low life, "we shall get along well enough," supplying the full stock of antenuptial precaution and preparation. They named the night for the elopement, and provided the assistants and confidants; the lady's, that convenient promoter and indispensable appendage of a Spanish intrigue, a crafty and obsequious waiting maid; the gentleman's, a mestizo, following the desperate trade of a contrabandista, in English, a smuggler. The latter was not of a calling to inspire confidence; and yet instances of fidelity and good faith are not uncommon with men of this class. Dirk Haitterack, murderer and arch-fiend as he was, accounted to his owners for the last stiver." Men who disregard all law but that of their own licentious will, are very apt to entertain a code, some of the provisions of which, shame the lex scripta of regularly ruled states. 66 The night fixed for the elopement arrived ; and Pedro, the contrabandista, repaired to the lodgings of the enamored Caledonian. Knowing better than his employer the difficulty of stealing a Mexican heiress, he brought with him a bandallero; a fellow of enormous size, and ruffian-like aspect, with "We have," answered the Caledonian. "As a priest of the Holy Catholic Church, and as a good member of the Mexican state, I require to be informed of the name, station, family and fortune of the bridegroom. I should be wanting in my duty to both God and my country, if I omitted to ascertain the true character of all, who, under such suspicious circumstances, wish to partake of the holy sacrament of marriage." a complexion little lighter than those Indians, who figure in the vegetable markets of the city of Mexico. He was indeed a formidable looking fellow. His coal-black whiskers were as large as those preserved in the cathedral church of Saragossa, as belonging to St. Thomas the Apostle; and his eyebrows of the same color and magnitude, shadowed eyes as fierce as those of a tiger. Altogether, Carlo looked and moved a most appalling personage. Nevertheless, Carlo the Swarthy, might be Carlo the Honest. It is not always that a savage appearance denotes a savage temper, nor a mild one a corresponding disposition. Commodus and Caracalla were feminine and delicate in their features; and the monster Nero, whilst he sat fiddling to the flames which were devouring the Eternal City, might, from his mild,aughter of the house of Tobasco, going to sweet, beautiful face, have been taken for a kind angel sent down to arrest their progress. Armed in the prevailing style of Mexican equipment, each with a pair of heavy horse pistols, a short sword and dagger, the latter unhappily the most frequently and fatally used, the principal and his two aids found themselves, just as the great clock in the church of St. Mary Magdalen was tolling twelve, beside a little wicket in the inner gardens of the Tobasco palace. The reader will undoubtedly demand how they gained so facile an admittance at the outer gate. I know not, nor was the lover prepared for so easy an introduction into those high-walled and triply-barricadoed gardens; but the contrabandista produced keys to the various gates, as promptly as if he were the authentic porter. A dim taper, burning in a low window in the eastern side of the palace, acquainted them with the apartment occupied by the fair Leonora. No scaling of walls, or wrenching off of rusty bolts, was necessary, however; the lovely girl, enveloped in that wicked disguise, a Spanish cloak, soon made her appearance; and in less than twenty minutes, the nuptial party stood at the door of the little church of St. Pedro, in the extreme northern verge of the city. "If this be stealing a Spanish lady," thought our hero, "it is by no means so hazardous a business as I had supposed it." 66 A slight blow at a small side-door, which led to the sacristy, aroused the keeper, who conducted them into the chapel. At the altar stood a venerable man whose garb bespoke his functions, though it was the immediate observation of the shrewd Scotchman, that his eye was lighted up by a fire, holy or otherwise, as might best suit the beholder to regard it. Viewing the lovers for a moment, with an impatience evidently kept under with difficulty, he said: "You are come hither to be joined in the holy bands of matrimony? "Well," said the youth, "to avoid a long talk, may be to small purpose, I will answer all your questions. I am Robin Boswell, a Scotchman from Lanarkshire, low-born, and as poor as a kirk mouse." 66 "I need not inquire the name of the bride; I know her well," said the priest, dropping his hood. "Wretched girl! The only be united to a beggarly foreigner, in the obscure church of St. Pedro, accompanied by a lying waiting maid, and a ragged smuggler." "Holy mother!" exclaimed the terrified girl, falling upon her knees; "it is my father. Robert, it is my father. Join me, dear Robert, in my prayers, that he will grant our lives." "We never do that in Scotland till we have tried the temper of our swords," said the lover, resolutely. "And so it seems you are the count Tobasco. And who are you ? (to the bandallero.) Make me acquainted at once, with the various disguises assumed to deceive. I shame the boasted sagacity of my nation -a Scotchman." "I am my master's valet," answered the bandallero, throwing of his sable appendages of whiskers, eye-brows and moustaches. "And who are you, traitor?" to Pedro. "O, I am still Pedro the smuggler," replied he, laughing, as unconcernedly as if nothing had happened. "There is not much disguise about me, and I repel with disdain, the epithet traitor." "And now, sir, give me that sword," said the Count, fiercely. "Never," replied the bold Scot, "till I know what conditions are to be imposed upon me, nor until I receive a suitable guarantee for the kind treatment of this dear girl." "Then I will call those who will enforce an unconditional surrender." And calling thrice, the door of the vestibule opened, and a dozen armed men entered. Now what say you, rash man? does not the Conde Tobasco know how to protect the honor and dignity of his house from the assaults of foreign adventurers? It is my turn to laugh, Contrabandista." "It may soon be your Excellenza's turn to weep," said Pedro ; and he gave three careless blows with his heel upon the floor. "We'll soon see whose magic calls up the master spirit." The blow had scarcely yielded its last reverberation, when a hundred men, clothed in as many different styles of dress, and exhibiting the greatest possible variety of equipment - for instance, a sword with an elaborate gold hilt by the side of a musket, which would have been dear in Brummagem, at half a dozen shillings, entered and filled the church. The Conde's people seeing how much they were outnumbered, would have retreated to the chancel, but were prevented. "Ha, ha! you thought you had fooled a smuggler did you," exclaimed Pedro, with a hearty laugh, in which many of his tatterdemalions joined. "Be pleased to understand, that when you stole upon the lovers in the Orange bower, in the Tobasco gardens, and overheard their plan of elopement, I was your elbow. That when your scoundrel of valet, who shall yet swing for his many crimes, contrived with a confederate, the plan of surprisal, which has done so much to bring his master's wisdom into discredit, and to disqualify him for the post of chief rascal to a grandee, I overheard that also. Be assured that no part of your plan has escaped my knowledge. I even know in what cell of your spacious dungeons you would have immured this young man, whose only crime is love. He would have occupied the same dreadful cell, in which for seven dreary years, you confined your poor brother Juan. "In the name of the Holy Virgin, how did you learn all this?" demanded the astonished Conde, with horror depicted in his countenance. "You must be well acquainted with the secrets of the palace." "I should be, for I was born in it;" answered the other. whisper in the ear of the usurper of my wealth and title, that, ere this, the legitimate proprietor of both is in possession of his own again. And, now brother, it is my pleasure that you bestow my pretty niece on this brave young man, whose honesty and courage I have proved, even when himself was not aware of it.' "It must be as you say, I suppose," replied the other. "You have answered well; it must be as I say. Call Father Mark." Father Mark was called, and soon united the youthful pair. 66 And now, Leonardo," said Juan, "I will show you of what different stuff we are formed. Willed by my father, to inherit as his eldest son, the chief part of his fair possessions, you, by the aid of a set of the greatest wretches that ever disgraced humanity, contrived to incarcerate me for seven of the best years of my life in the dungeons of the palace, mine own by right and law. wealth you wasted in revolutionary plans, or in still more disreputable and unworthy uses; my name you dishonored by a well-contrived report, that I had perished in a loathsome intrigue. Be this my only revenge. You shall retire within twenty-four hours to the estate our father possessed at the Pass of St. Joseph, near the city of which prop My erty, together with ten thousand Mexicanoes, shall be yours, on condition that you turn an honest man and remain so. I will myself occupy the palace, and my private fortune shall be the dowry which my sweet little niece shall carry to her handsome husband." After this amicable adjustment of a family quarrel, they all returned to the Tobasco palace, and spent the night in feasting. The events predicted by Juan had actually taken place; the palace was tenanted by his retainers. Within ten days, Captain Boswell and his wife set out for Vera Cruz, and at that port embarked for England. Arrived safely, he purchased a beautiful villa, with extensive grounds in Cambridgeshire, and at the time I visited him, was so busy in improving them, that he had no time for anything, save to relate the foregoing Mexican adventure. SABBATH MORNING. "And when they looked, they saw that the stone was rolled away."— MARK xvi. 4. WHERE, where! shall mournful banners wave? What sight shall cloud man's face with gloom? Faith builds its promise on a grave! Hope plumes her pinions from a tomb. |