a conjecture that superior beings are blest with a pobler Beneath his plantain's ancient shade, renew The simple transports that with freedom flew; The oral tale of elder time rehearse, And chant the rude, traditionary verse Oft up the stream of Time I turn my sail, With those, the loved companions of his youth, To view the fairy-haunts of long-lost lours, When life was luxury, and friendslıip truth. Ah! why should Virtue fear the frowns of Fate? What charms in Genius, and refines in Art; Hers what no wealth can buy, no power create! A little world of clear and cloudless day, Nor wrecked by storms, nor mouldered by decay; Whose constant vigils chase the chilling damp A world, with Memory's ceaseless sun-shine blest, Oblivion steals upon her vestal-lamp. The home of Happiness, an honest breast. The friends of Reason, and the guides of Youth, But most we mark the wonders of her reign, Whose language breathed the eloquence of Truth; Wlien Sleep has locked the senses in her chain. Whose life, beyond preceptive wisdom, taught When sober Judgment has his throne resigned, The in conduct, and the pure in thought; She smiles great the chaos of the mind; away These still exist, (22) by Thee to Fame consign'd, And, as warm Fancy's bright Elysium glows, Still speak and act, the models of mankind. From Her each image springs, each colour flows. From Thee sweet Hope her airy colouring draws; She is the sacred guest! the immortal friend! And Fancy's flights are subject to thy laws. Oft seen o'er sleeping Innocence to bend, From Thee that bosom-spring of rapture flows, In that dead hour of night to Silence given, Which only Virtue, tranquil Virtue, knows. Whispering seraphic visions of her heaven. When Joy's bright sun has shed his evening-ray, Whien the blithe son of Savoy, journeying round And Hope's delusive meteors cease to play; With humble wares and pipe of merry sound, When clouds on clouds the smiling prospect close, From his green vale and sheltered cabin hies, Still through the gloom thy star serenely glows: And scales the Alps to visit foreign skies ; Like yon fair orb, she gilds the brow of night Though far below the forked lightnings play, With the mild magic of reflected light. And at his feet the thunder dics away, The beauteous maid, wlio bids the world adicu, Oft, in the saddle rudely rocked to sleep, Oft of that world will'snatch a fond review; While his mule browses on the dizzy steep, Oft at the shrine neglect her beads, to trace With Memory's aid, he sits at home, and sees Some social scene, some dear, familiar face: His children sport bencath their native trees, And bends to hear their cherub-voices call, But can her smile with gloomy Madness dwell? To love and joy still tremblingly alive; Say, can she chase the horrors of his cell ? The whisper'd vow, the chaste caress prolong, Each fiery flight on Frenzy's wing restrain, Weave the light dance and swell the choral song; And mould the coinage of the fevered brain? With rapt ear drink the enchanting serenade, Pass but that grate, which scarce a gleam supplies, And, as it melts along the moonlight-glade, There in the dust the wreck of Genius lies! To each soft note return as soft a sigh, He, whose arresting hand divinely wrought And bless the youth that bids her slumbers fly. Each bold conception in the sphere of thought; But not till Time has calm'd the ruffled breast, And round, in colours of the rainbow, threw Are these fond dreams of happiness confest. Forms ever fair, creations ever new! Not till the rushing winds forget to rave, But, as he fondly snatched the wreath of Fame, Is Heaven's sweet smile reflected on the wave. The spectre Poverty unnerved his frame. From Guinea's coast pursue the lessening sail, Cold was her grasp, a withering scowl she wore; And catch the sounds that sadden every gale. And Hope's soft cnergies were felt no more. Tell, if thou canst, the sum of sorrows there; Yet still how sweet the soothings of his art! (23) Mark the fixed gaze, the wild and frenzied glare, From the rude wall what briglit ideas start! The racks of thought, and freezings of despair ! Even now he claims the amaranthine wreath, But pause not then-beyond the western wave, With scenes that glow, with images that breathe! Go, view the captive barter'd as a slave! And whence these scenes, these images, declare: Crush'd till his high, heroic spirit bleeds, Whence but from Her who triumphs o'er despair ? And from his nerveless frame indignantly recedes. Awake, arise! with grateful fervour fraught, Yet here, even here, with pleasures long resign'd. Go, spring the mine of elevating thought. Lo! MEMORY bursts the twilight of the mind. He, who, through Nature's various walk, surveys Her dear delusions soothe his sinking soul, The good and fair her faultless linc pourtrays ; When the rude scourge assumes its base control; Whose mind, profaned by no uphallowed guest, And o'er Futurity's blank page diffuse Culls from the crowd the purest and the best; The full reflection of her vivid hues. May range, at will, bright Fancy's golden clime, 'T is but to die, and then, to weep no more, Or, musing, mount where Science sits sublime, Then will he wake on Congo's distant shore; Or wake the Spirit of departed Time. When age 1 Who acts thus wisely, mark the moral Muse, | And, with a brother's warmth, a brother's smile, A blooming Eden in his life reviews! The stranger greets each native of his isle ; So rich the culture, though so small the space, So scenes of life, when present and confest, Its scanty limits he forgets to trace. Stamp but their bolder features on the breast; But the fond fool, when evening shades the sky, Yet not an image, when remotely viewed, Turns but to start, and gazes but to sigh! (24) However trivial, and however rude, The weary waste, that lengthened as he ran, But wins the heart, and wakes the social sigh, With claim of close affinity! Al! who can tell the triumphıs of the mind, But these pure joys the world can never know; By truth illumined, and by laste refined ? In gentler climes their silver currents flow. has quenched the eye, and closed the ear, Oft at the silent, shadowy close of day, Still nerved for action in her native sphere, When the hushed grove has sung its parting lay; Above, below, aerial murmurs swell, From hanging wood, brown leath, and busly dell! With giant-grasp fling back the folds of night, A thousand nameless rills, that shun the lighi, And snatch the faithless fugitive to light. Stealing soft music on the ear of night. So through the grove the impatient mother flies, So oft the finer movements of the soul, Each sunless glade, cach secret pathway tries ; That shun the sphere of Pleasure's gay control, Till the thin leaves the truant boy disclose, In the still shades of calm Seclusion rise, Long on the wood-moss stretched in sweet repose. And breathe their sweet, seraphic barmonics! Nor yet to pleasing objects are confined Once, and domestic annals tell the time, The silent feasts of the retlecting mind; (Preserved in Cumbria's rude, romantic clime) Danger and death a dread delight inspire, When Nature smiled, and o'er the landscape throw And the bald veteran glows with wonted fire, Her richest fragrance, and her brightest hue, When, richly bronzed by many a summer-sun, A blithe and blooming Forester explored He counts his scars, and tells wlial deeds were done. | Those loftier scenes Salvator's soul adored ; Go, with old Thames, view Chelsca's glorious pile; The rocky pass half-hung with shaggy wood, And ask the shattered hero, whence his smile? And the cleft oak flung boldly o’er the food; Go, view the splendid domes of Greenwich-Go, Nor shunned the track, unknown to human tread, And own what raptures from Reflection flow. That downward to the night of caverns led; Hail, noblest structures imaged in the wave! Some ancient cataract's descrted bed. A nation's grateful tribute to the borave. High on exulting wing the heathi-cock rose, (27) Hail, blest retreats from war and shipwreck, hail! And blew his shrill blast o'er perennial snows; That oft arrest the wondering stranger's sail. Ere the rapt youth, recoiling from the roar, Long have ye heard the narratives of age, Gazed on the tumbling tide of dread Lodoar; The battle's havoc, and the tempesi's rage; And through the rifted cliffs, that scaled the sky, Long have ye known Reflection's genial ray Derwent's clear mirror (28) charmed his dazzled eye. Gild the calm close of Valour's various day. Each osier isle, in verted on the wave, Time's sombrous touches soon correct the piece, Through morn's grey mist its melting colours gave; Mellow cach tint, and bid each discord ccase : And, o'er the cygnet's haunt, the mantling grove Its emerald arch with wild luxuriance wove. Light as the breeze that brushed the orient dew, And day's last sunshine slept along the shore, When lo, a path the smile of welcome wore. Imbowering slirubs with verdure veil'd the sky, And on the musk-rose shed a deeper dye; Save when a bright and momentary gleam Glanced from the white foam of some shelter'd strcam. Still to the musing pilgrim points the place, O'er the still lake the hell of evening toll’d, Her sainted spirit most delights to trace? And on the moor the shepherd penn'd his fold; Thus, with the manly glow of honest pride, And on the green hill's side the meteor play'd ; O’er his dead son the gallant Ormond sigh’d. (26) When, hark! a voice sung sweetly through the shade. Thus, through the gloom of Shenstone's fairy-gro It ceased-yet still in Florio's fancy sung, Maria's urn still breathes the voice of love. Still on each note his captive spirit hung; As the stern grandeur of a Gothic tower Till o'er the mead a cool, scquester'd grot Awes us less deeply in its morning-hour, From its rich roof a sparry lustre shot. Than wlien the shades of Time serenely falt A crystal water crossed the pebbled floor, On every broken arch and ivied wall; And on the front these simple lines it bore: The tender images we love to trace, Hence away, nor dare intrude! Steal from each year a melancholy grace! In this secret, shadowy cell And as the sparks of social love expand, Musing Memory loves to dwell, As the learl opens in a foreign land ; With her sister Solitude. а Far from the busy world she flies, Their shifting sail dropt gently from the cove, To taste that peace the world denies. Down by St Herbert's consecrated grove; (29) Entranced she sits; from youth to age, Whence erst the chanted hymn, the tapered rite Reviewing Life's eventful page; Amused the fisher's solitary night: And noting, ere they fade away, And still the mitred window, richly wreathed, The little lines of yesterday. A sacred calm through the brown foliage breathed. Florio had gained a rude and rocky seat, The wild deer, starting through the silent glade, When lo, the Genius of this still retreat! With fearful gaze their various course survey'd. Fair was her form- but who can hope to trace High hung in air the hoary coat reclined, The pensive softness of her angel-face ? His streaming beard the sport of every wind; Can Virgil's verse, can Raphael's touch impart And, while the coot her jet-wing loved to lave, Those finer features of the feeling heart, Rock'd on the bosom of the sleepless wave; Those tend'rer tints that shun the careless eye, The eagle rush'd from Skiddaw's purple crest, And in the world's contagious climate die? A cloud still brooding o'er her giant-nest. She left the cave, nor mark'd the stranger there; And now the moon had dimmed with dewy ray The few fine flushes of departing day. O'er the wide water's deep serene she hung, And her broad lights on every mountain flung : What pure and white-winged agents of the sky, When lo! a sudden blast the vessel blew, (30) Who rule the springs of sacred sympathy, And to the surge consign'd the little crew. Inform congenial spirits when they meet? All, all escaped—but ere the lover bore Sweet is their office, as their natures sweet! His faint and faded Julia to the shore, Her sense had fled !-Exhausted by the storm, Florio, with fearful joy, pursued the maid, A fatal trance hung o'er her pallid form; Till through a vista's moonlight-chequered shade, Her closing eye a trembling lustre fired; Where the bat circled, and the rooks reposed, 'T was life's last spark-it flutter'd and expired! (Their wars suspended, and their councils closed) The father strew'd his white hairs in the wind, An antique mansion burst in awful state, Call’d on his child—nor lingered long behind : A rich vine clustering round the Gothic gate. And Florio lived to see the willow wave, Nor paused he there. The master of the scene With many an evening-whisper, o'er their grave. Saw his light step imprint the dewy green ; Yes, Florio lived—and, still of each possessid, And, slow-advancing, hailed him as his guest, The father cherish'd, and the maid caress'd ! Won by the honest warmth his looks expressed. For ever would the fond enthusiast rove, He wore the rustic manners of a 'Squire; With Julia's spirit, through the shadowy grove; Age had not quenched one spark of manly fire; Gaze with delight on every scene she plann'd, But giant Gout had bound him in her chain, Kiss every flow'ret planted by her hand. And his heart panted for the chase in vain. Ah! still he traced her steps along the glade, Yet here Remembrance, sweetly-soothing Power! When hazy hues and glimmering lights betray'd Winged with delight Confinement's lingering hour. Half-viewless forms ; still listen’d as the brecze The fox's brush still emulous to wear, Heaved its deep sobs among the aged trees; He scoured the county in his elbow-chair ; And at each pause her melting accents caught, And, with view-balloo, roused the dreaming hound, In sweet delirium of romantic thought! That rung, by starts, his deep-toned music round. Dear was the grot that shunned the blaze of day; Long by the paddock's humble pale confined, She gave its spars to shoot a trembling ray. His aged lunters coursed the viewless wind : The spring, that bubbled from its inmost cell, And each, with glowing energy pourtray'd, Murmurd of Julia's virtues as it fell; The far famed triumphs of the field display'd; And o'er the dripping moss, the fretted stone, Usurped the canvas of the crowded hall, In Florio's ear breathed language not its own, And chased a line of heroes from the wall. Her charm around the enchantress MEMORY threw, There slept the horn each jocund echo knew, A charm that soothes the mind, and sweetens too! And many a smile and many a story drew! But is Her magic only felt below? High o'er the hearth his forest-trophies hung, Say, through what brighter realms she bids it flow; And their fantastic branches wildly flung. To what pure beings, in a nobler sphere, (31) How would he dwell on the vast antlers there! She yields delight but faintly imaged here : These dashed the wave, those fanned the mountain-air. All that till now their rapt researches knew; All, as they frowned, unwritten records bore Not called in slow succession to review, Of gallant feats and festivals of yore. But, as a landscape meets the eye of day, But why the tale prolong ?—His only child, At once presented to their glad survey ! His darling Julia on the stranger smiled. Each scene of bliss reveal'd, since chaos fled, Her little arts a fretful sire to please, And dawning light its dazzling glories spread; Her gentle gaiety, and native ease Each chain of wonders that sublimely glow'd. Had won his soul; and rapturous Fancy shed Since first Creation's choral anthem flow'd; Iler golden lights, and tints of rosy red. Each ready flight, at Mercy's call divine, But ah! few days had pass'd, ere the bright vision fled! To distant worlds that undiscover'd shine; When evening tinged the lake's ethereal blue, Full on her tablet flings its living rays, And licr deep shades irregularly threw; And all, combined, with blest effulgence blaze. There thy bright train, immortal Friendship, soar ; Note 2, page 3, col. 1. No more to part, to mingle tears no more! Awake but one, and lo, what myriads rise ! And, as the softening hand of Time endears When a traveller, who was surveying the ruins of The joys and sorrows of our infant-years, Rome, expressed a desire to possess some relic of its So there the soul, released from human strife, ancient grandeur, Poussin, who attended him, stooped Smiles at the little cares and ills of life; down, and gathering up a handful of earth shining with Its lights and shades, its sunshine and its showers; small grains of porphyry, «Take this home,» said he, As at a dream that charm'd her vacant hours ! • for your cabinet ; and say boldly, Questa è Roma Oft may the spirits of the dead descend Antica., Note 3, page 3, col. 1. The church-yard yews round which his fathers sleep. To hail the spot where first their friendship crew, Every man, like Gulliver in Lilliput, is fastened to And heaven and nature open'd to their view ! some spot of earth, by the thousand small threads which Oft, when he trims his cheerful hearth, and sees habit and association are continually, stealing over him. A smiling circle emulous to please; Of these, perhaps, one of the strongest is here alluded to. There may these gentle guests delight to dwell, When the Canadian Indians were once solicited to And bless the scene they loved in life so well! emigrate, • What!, they replied, • shall we say to Oh thou! with whom my heart was wont to share the bones of our fathers, Arise, and go with us into a From Reason's dawn each pleasure and each care; foreign land ? With whom, alas! I fondly hoped to know The humble walks of happiness below; Note 4, page 3, col. 1. So, when he breathed his firm yet fond adieu, See Cook's first voyage, book i, chap. 16. Another very affecting instance of local attachment Correct my views, and elevate my soul; is related of his fellow-countryman Potaveri, who came Grant me thy peace and purity of mind, to Europe with M. de Bougainville.-See les Jardins, Devout yet cheerful, active yet resignd; chant ii. Grant me, like thee, whose heart knew no disguise, Note 5, page 3, col. 2. Whose blameless wishes never aimed to rise, So Scotia's Queen, etc. To meet the changes Time and Chance present, Elle se leve sur son lict, et se met à contempler la With modest dignity and calm content. France encore, et tant qu'elle peut. --BRANTÔME. Note 6, page 3, col. 2. Thus kindred objects kindred thoughts inspire. A mingled gleam of hope and triumph shed; To an accidental association may be ascribed some of What to thy soul its glad assurance gave, the noblest efforts of human genius. The Historian of Its hope in (reath, its triumph o'er the grave ? the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire first conThe sweet Remembrance of unblemislı'd youth, ceived his design among the ruins of the Capitol; and The still inspiring voice of Innocence and Truth! to the tones of a Welsh harp are we indebted for the Hail, Memory, hail! in thy exhaustless mine Bard of Gray. Note 7, page 3, col. 2. llence home-felt pleasure, etc. Thy pleasures most we feel, when most alone; The only pleasures we can call our own. Who can sufficiently admire the affectionate attachLighter than air, Hope's summer-visions die, ment of Plutarch, who thus concludes his enumeration If but a fleeting cloud obscure the sky; of the advantages of a great city to men of letters? « As If but a beam of sober Reason play, to myself, I live in a little town; and I chuse to live thiere, lest it should become still less.»-Vit. Dem. Lo, Fancy's fairy frost-work mells away! But can the wiles of Art, the grasp of Power, Note S, page 3, col. 2. For this young Foscari, etc. He was suspected of murder, and at Venice suspicion And gild those pure and perfect realms of rest, is good evidence. Neither the interest of the Doge, his Where Virtue triumphs, and her sons are bles!! father, nor the intrepidity of conscious innocence, which he exhibited in the dungeon and on the rack, could procure his acquittal. He was banished to the island of NOTES. Candia for life. But here his resolution failed him. At such a dis tance from home he could not live ; and, as it was a Note 1, page 2, col. 2. criminal offence to solicit the intercession of any fol'p springs, at every step, to claim a tear, reign prince, in a fit of despair he addressed a letter to I came to the place of my birth, and cried, « The the Duke of Milan, and entrusted it to a wretch whose friends of my Youth, where are they ?»— And an echo persidy, he knew, would occasion liis being remanded answered, * Where are they?»-From an Arabic JS. a prisoner to Venice. Note chateau at Richelieu, lic sacrificed its symmetry to preAnd hence the charm historic scenes impart: serve the room in which he was born.-Mém. de Mlle de Whatever withdraws us from the power of our Montpensier, i, 27. An attachment of this nature is generally the cha- ance with the world cannot always extinguish it. • To a friend, - says John Duke of Buckinghain, - i the plain of Marathon, or whose piety would sand times better in all respects." —See his Letter to the not grow warmer among the ruins of lona.-Jounson. D. of Sh. This is the language of the heart; and will remind Note 10, page 3, col. 2. the reader of that good-humoured remark in one of And watch and weep in Eloisa's cell. Pope's letters --I should hardly care to have an old The Paraclete, founded by Abelard, in Champagne. post pulled up, that I remembered ever since I was a child. Note 11, page 3, col. 2. Nor did the Poet feel the charm more forcibly than 'T was ever thus. As now at Virgil's tomb. liis Editor. See Hurd's Life of Warburton, 51, 99. Vows and pilgrimages are not peculiar to the religious The Author of Telemachus has illustrated this subenthusiast. Silius Italicus performed annual ceremo-ject, with equal fancy and feeling, in the story of Alibée, nies on the mountain of Posilipo; and it was there that Persan. Boccaccio, quasi da un divino estro inspirato, resolved Note 16, page 4, col. 1. Why great Navarre, etc. That amiable and accomplished monarch, Henry the Fourth of France, made an excursion from his camp, When Cicero was quæstor in Sicily, he discovered the during the long siege of Laon, to dine at a house in the tomb of Archimedes by its mathematical inscription.- forest of Folambray; where he had often been regaled, Tusc. Quæst. v. 3. when a boy, with fruit, milk, and new chcese; and in revisiting which he promised himself great pleasure.Note 13, page 3, col. 2. Mém. de Sully. Note 17, page 4, col. 1. When Diocletian's self-corrected mind. Diocletian retired into his native province, and there tears over the bow of Ulysses.--Od. xxi, 55. amused himself with building, planting, and gardening. Note 14, page 3, col. 2. His answer to Maximian is deservedly celebrated. He If chance be hears the song so sweetly wild. was solicited by that restless old man to re-assume the The celebrated Ranz des Vaches; cet air si chéri des reins of government, and the Imperial purple. He reSuisses qu'il fut défendu sous peine de mort de le jouer ving, « that if he could show Maximian the cabbages jected the temptation with a smile of pity, calmly obserdans leurs troupes, parce qu'il faisoit fondre en larmes, which he had planted with his own hands at Salona, fie déserter ou mourir ceux qui l'entendoient, tant il exci- should no longer be urged to relinquish the enjoyment toit en cux l'ardeat désir de revoir leur patrie. » ---Rous of happiness for the pursuit of power. ---GIBBON. Note 18, page 4, col. 1. Say, when contentious Charles renounced a ibrone. When the emperor Charles V, had exccuted his me- morable resolution, and had set out for the monastery And the Argive, in the heat of battle, of St Justus, he stopped a few days at Ghent, says his historian, to indulge that tender and pleasant melanDulces moriens reminiscitur Argos. choly, which arises in the mind of every man in the deNote 15, page 4, col. 2. cline of life, on visiting the place of his nativity, and Say why Vespasian loved bis Sabine farm. viewing the scenes and objects familiar to him in his This emperor, according to Suetonius, constantly early youth.— Robertson. passed the summer in a small villa near Reate, where Note 19, page 4, col. 1. he was born, and to which he would never add any Then did his borse the homeward track descry. embollishment, ne quid scilicet oculorum consuetudini The memory of the lorse forms the ground-work of deperiret.-Suer. in Vit. Vesp. cap. ii. a pleasing little romance of the twelfth century entitled, A similar instance occurs in the life of the venerable Lai du Palefroy vair..- See Frbliaux du XII siècle. Pertinax, as related by J. Capitolinus. Posteaquam in Ariosto likewise introduces it in a passage full of truth Liguriam venit, inulus agris cocmptis, tabernam pater and nature. When Bayardo meets Angelica in the forest, Va mansueto alla Donzella, Che in Albracca il serria gia di sua mano. Orlundu Furiuso, canto i. 75. |
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