young Prince of Wales in the privations and sufferings of the humbler classes. In 1827 she was married to the Hon. George Chapple Norton, but the union was dissolved in 1840, under circumstances peculiarly painful for the lady. The persecution to which at that time she was subjected, has lent a tinge of melancholy and bitterness to most of her later poetry. Mrs. Norton has written a number of ballads, which are highly popular, particularly Love not! (from the Sorrows of Rosalie), My Childhood's Home, I remember thy Voice, and We have been Friends together. LOVE NOT! Love not! Love not! ye hapless sons of clay, Hope's gayest wreaths are made of earthly, flow'rs; Ere they have blossom'd for a few short hours. Love not! Love not! the thing you love may die, Beam on its grave, as once upon its birth. Love not! Love not! the thing you love may change Love not! Love not! oh, warning vainly said! In all her trials, in good report as in bad report, Mrs. Norton found a firm friend in the Duchess of Sutherland, to whom she addressed the following elegant lines: Thou, then, when cowards lied away my name, And scoffed to see me feebly stem the tide; When some were kind on whom I had no claim, And some forsook on whom my love relied, And some, who might have battled for my sake Stood off in doubt to see what turn the world would take. Thou gav'st me that the poor do give the poor, Who changed not with the gloom of varying years, And blunted Slander's dart with their indignant scorn. Like Byron, Mrs. Norton felt a genuine admiration and warm friendship for the banker-poet Rogers, the author of the Pleasures of Memory, and one of the few who remained faithful to her grandfather in sickness and adversity. Rogers's unwavering fidelity to Sheridan, after that unfortunate genius had been abandoned by his former patron, the Prince Regent (afterwards George IV.), is touchingly referred to by Mrs. Norton: And when at length he laid his dying head On the hard rest of his neglected bed, He found (though few or none around him came Faithful at least the friend he had not served: It was this desertion of Sheridan, in poverty and disease, by his royal patron that suggested to Thomas Moore the ingenious but acrimonious simile : In the woods of the north there are insects that prey On the brain of the elk, till his very last sigh; O Genius, thy patrons, more cruel than they, First feed on thy brains, and then leave thee to die! In the prose-writings of Mrs. Norton, we find the same covert but continual allusions to the wrongs of her wedded life as in her poetry. Her three-volume novel, Stuart of Dunleath, gives us an interesting but sombre picture of social life, the prevailing gloom of which is hardly relieved by occasional flashes of sarcastic humour. In Lost and Saved, the tone is equally sad, and the incidents, till we reach the last two chapters, of the most harrowing description. The heroine, Beatrice Brooke, deceived by a false marriage, becomes the victim of a designing and heartless man; her former friends desert her, refusing to believe in her innocence; she sinks into the most wretched poverty, and contemplates suicide, but is finally saved. These incidents give Mrs. Norton occasion to make some observations on self-murder, so striking and original that we are tempted to deviate so far from the plan of the present work as to reproduce them here: On the fascination of suicide volumes might be written, but all reasoning on that mystery resolves itself into the fact, too little noticed, that it is rather a physical than a mental temptation. A man does not debate on self-murder; or if he does, he for that time avoids the act. It is not the Hamlet who stands with folded arms, arguing the "To be or not to be", who is most in danger of seeking his quietus with a bare bodkin. It is he who has to endure a sensation of helpless weariness in the soul, analogous to the helpless weariness sometimes felt in the body. A man no more says, "I will endure so much, and then I will commit suicide," than he says, "I will walk so many miles, and then I shall be so exhausted, I shall fling myself upon the earth and rest." But in his walk he suddenly pauses and says, "I can no more," like a soldier on a march he cannot make. And so the soul, taxed beyond the powers given, feels suddenly, it "can no more," and drops from the battle-field of life to the rest of death! After life's fitful fever, he sleeps well is the sort of language which the great master of German literature puts into the mouth of Wallenstein, when lamenting his young and passionate friend, Max Piccolomini. The idea that predominates even in the very freshness of the great sorrow that is crushing the heart of the tormented hero is the peace attained by the sharer of his troubled victories and warlike struggles: the silence that for ever surrounds him: a silence in which "no evilboding hour can knell again!" Having spoken of Mrs. Norton's sarcastic humour, we believe it will not be out of place to quote the following specimen from one of her novels. The vain and selfish elderly Marchioness of Updown, while daily expecting the news of her aged uncle's death, learns that one of her nephews has suddenly died, and being greatly perplexed to know what sort of mourning she should order, writes to request the opinion of her sister Eudocia, who, by the way, is the defunct nephew's mother-in-law: I wish you would write and tell me about uncle Caerlaverock when we may expect his death. I suppose, one mourning will do for both; at least, I can't conceive why there should be any difference, as one is a nephew and the other an uncle, but perhaps an uncle is deepest. But to be sure, your puzzle will be, that though he's only a nephew, he married Sara; but then, that won't rule my mourning, you know. I do hate mourning altogether; and they've got dyes now that all come off. I'm sure I had to wash my hands twenty times a-day the last time I was in black, and I hate it. Do you think, whatever you do, that I need put on any crape? Madame Troisballons thinks lace will do just as well, and she has covered my dress with a new sort of lace, all worked in little round black beads, which I thought looked extremely well; and indeed, it was the first thing for a long time that has put me in spirits. I wish, Eudocia, you would try and pick me up some of that heavy black Genoese lace, like the Maltese, only finer. You say you don't like executing my commissions, because I never repay you, but that is really only because you never ask me when I have got any money. Miss Cook. The popular poetess, Miss Eliza Cook, is a native of London, and was born in 1818. When twenty years of age she published a volume, with the title, Melaia and other poems. After contributing for a time to several magazines, she began a periodical, in 1849, called Eliza Cook's Journal, which was very successful. Miss Cook's poetry, while quite original, has at one and the same time something of the character of Miss Landon's verses, without their melancholy, and something of Mrs. Hemans's warmth of feeling, tempered by reflexion. Her subjects she generally finds in home and the domestic circle, and she dwells with a fond but quiet enthusiasm on such themes as Old Songs, Christmas, and My old Arm-Chair. Her lines, Love on! in reply to Mrs. Norton's Love not! have been set to music by Mr. John Blockley. We quote three of her shorter poems: CHRISTMAS. Once again, once again, Christmas wreaths are twining; Once again, once again, Mistletoe is shining. Time is marching through the land, He speaketh in the clanging bells, God speed the tidings that he tells - Gladly welcome shall he be, Silver threads upon our heads For once again, once again, Christmas logs should beacon back Spirits that have dwelt apart, Bring olive in your hand and heart, Breathe a name above the cup, Though few and short the flashes are Then once again, once again, "Goodwill and peace" shall never cease To be a wise man's carol. All, all we love!-a health to those! |