Imágenes de páginas
PDF
EPUB
[blocks in formation]

the way,

And tempt the blithe spirit still onward to stray,
Itself its own home;-far away! far away!
The butterflies flutter in pairs round the bower,
The humble-bee sings in each bell of each flower;
The bee hums of heather and breeze-wooing hill,
And forgets in the sunshine his toil and his skill;
The birds carol gladly-the lark mounts on high;
The swallows on wing make their tune to the eye,
And as birds of good omen, that summer loves
well,

Ever wheeling weave ever some magical spell. The hunt is abroad-hark! the horn sounds its note,

And seems to invite us to regions remote.
The horse in the meadow is stirred by the sound,
And neighing impatient o'erleaps the low mound:
Then proud in his speed o'er the champaign he
bounds,

To the whoop of the huntsman and tongue of the

hounds.

Then stay not within, for on such a blest day We can never quit home, while with Nature we stray far away! far away!

This is delightful, especially as coming from Coleridge; and, indeed, all the great man's child-poems are lovely of their kind -not quite so precious a kind as Blake's or Shelley's, but filling its worthy place in the catalogue of lovely things. Is it not, then, noticeable that all these men whom we have been quoting-Blake, Wordsworth, Coleridge, Shelley-men who virtually revolutionized literature, loved to fix their eyes on the dawn of life, with all its undeveloped issues and vague evanescent meanings?

try and philosophy of the business, it behoved gentle Tom Hood to chronicle its comicality, which he did delightfully in his "Parental ode to my son, aged three years and five months :"

Thou pretty opening rose, (Go to your mother, child, to wipe your nose!) Balmy and breathing music like the south, (He really brings my heart into my mouth.) Fresh as the morn, and brilliant as its star,— (I wish that window had an iron bar!) Bold as the hawk; yet gentle as the dove,(I tell you what, my love,

I can not write unless he's sent above.)
But there is another and deeper glimpse,
in Hood's noblest vein, to be found in
such pictures as that of the little schoolboy
reading the "Death of Abel" in the play-
ground, and listening to the frightful
"dream" of Eugene Aram; in the deli-
cious lines commencing

I remember, I remember,
The house where I was born;

And generally among the pure serious pieces of this great and only half-appreciated English master.

In England, we must look for poems of this kind among the works of the great singers; but if we go to Scotland, we shall find a lyric in every cottage and a song for every cradle. The lowly Scotch are a home-loving and child-loving people; and express themselves almost instinctively in song. The fields, the highways, and the woods swarm with humble poets. Greatest, perhaps, of all Scotchmen who have written about children is a poet almost unknown in England, but crowned long ago as the laureate of the nursery in a thousand Scottish homes. His name is William Miller, and he is still living. Before hearing another word on the score of his literary pretensions, read the following, and confess that it would be hard anywhere to find its peer:

THE WONDERFU' WEAN.

Our wean's the most wonderfu' wean e'er I saw;
It would tak' me a lang summer day to tell a'
His pranks, frae the morning till night shuts his
When he sleeps like a peerie 'tween father and
e'e,

[blocks in formation]

Wat gars the winds blow? and whar frae comes the rain?

He's a perfect divert,-he's a wonderfu' wean. Or wha was the first bodie's father? and wha

When they had given mankind the poe- Made the very first snaw-shower that ever did fa'?

And wha made the first bird that sang on a tree?
And the water that swims a' the ships in the sea?

But after I've told him, as weel as I ken,
Again he begins wi' his wha? and his when?
And he looks aye sae watchfu' the while I ex-
plain,-

He's as auld as the hills,-he's an auld-farrant

wean.

And folk wha hae skill o' the lumps on the head, Hint there's mae ways than toiling o' winning ane's bread;

How he'll be a rich man, and hae men to work for him;

Wi' a kyte like a bailie's, shug, shugging afore him;

Wi' a face like the moon, sober, sonsy, and douce, And a back, for its breadth, like the side of a house.

'T weel I'm unco ta'en up wi't, they mak' a' sae plain ;

He's just a town's talk—a by-ordinar wean.

I ne'er can forget sic a laugh as I gat,
To see him put on father's waistcoat and hat;
Then the lang-leggit boots gaed sae far ower his
knees,

The tap loops wi' his fingers he grippit wi' ease. Then he march'd thro' the house, he march'd but, he march'd ben,

Like ower mony mae o' our great little men, That I leugh clean outright, for I couldna contain,

He was sic a conceit-sic an ancient-like wean.

But 'mid a' his daffin' sic kindness he shows, That he's dear to my heart as the dew to the rose ; And the unclouded hinnie-beam aye in his e'e Mak's him every day dearer and dearer to me! Though fortune be saucy and dorty and dour, And gloom through her fingers like hills through a shower,

When bodies hae got ae bit bairn o' their ain, How he cheers up their hearts,-he's the wonderfu' wean!

This poem is only one of many by the same lowly author, all as exquisite in literary workmanship as delightful in their quaint affectionate insight. "Wee Willie Winkie" is another perfect gem. In some we have the most delicate touches of nature, as in the poem called " Hairst," or Autumn:

Come, hairst-time, then, unto my bairn,
Drest in thy gayest gear,
Wi' saft and winnowing winds to cool
The gloaming of the year!

In others we find the oddest turns of humor, as in "Cockie-leerie-la," where the farm-yard cock gets his apotheosis as "a country gentleman who leads a thrifty life," whose "step is firm and even," his "bearing bold," as if he said, "I'll never be a slave," and who, if he had a "pair of specks on his nose," and a dickie," or

[ocr errors]

shirt-front, on his neck, would look uncommonly like "Doctor Drawblood," of village notoriety. But mark the moral, old boys as well as young

So hain wi' care each sair-won plack, and honest pride will fill

Your purse wi' gear,-e'en far-off friends will bring grist to your mill;

And if, when grown to be a man, your name's without a flaw,

Then-rax your neck and tune your pipes toCockie-leerie-la.

William Miller may not be recognized by the great world; but he is at any rate certain of his immortality. Other poets have written admirably in the same vein; but his is the master-touch, as unmistakable in its humble way as the coloring of a Titian or the magic " smudge" of a Turner.

Since Wordsworth and the rest, a whole school of child-poetry has arisen; we do not hear of poetry written for children to read, which is quite another thing, but of poetry more or less connected with childlife. In one of Tennyson's finest Idyls, that of "Dora," a child is the mysterious agent curing human wrong and misinterpretation; and child-life is the subject of many of the same writer's best lyrics. Browning even has unbent in the same direction, and given us, besides many more serious pieces such as the profound little vignette called " Protus," his immortal

Piper of Hamelin." It would be impossible to enumerate, much less to quote, all the writers who have followed suit. But in any chronicle of this sort, honor should be paid to the anonymous author of "Lilliput Levee,"-one of the most pleasant little volumes of pot-pourri in our language. In other quarters, childish subjects have been carried to the verge of namby-pamby, and we have had a great deal of sickly twaddle-chiefly by ladies. The infantine manner is very offensive when persisted in beyond a certain point.

Here must cease our very imperfect sketch of a most interesting subject. Surely we have shown unmistakably that those poets have ever been the greatest whose hearts have been in tune with all innocent loveliness; and that where among the poetry of any epoch we do not see a Child's Face peeping out somewhere or other, we may safely conclude that the society and the poetry of the said epoch were in a low and miserable condition.

[merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][ocr errors]

He uttered but his name,
And at his bidding came
Two warring centuries to wait
Upon his pleasure as their fate;
He set, with steadfast mien,
His judgment-seat between ;
Then like a vision passed, and wore
His life out on that narrow shore,
A mark for boundless spite,
And pity infinite,

For hate as deep as Hell,
And love invincible.

As whelm the waters dread

The shipwrecked swimmer's head,

While ever and anon his eye

Strains upward in his agony,

And sweeps the pitiless main
For distant shores in vain,-

So slowly o'er that sinking soul
Did the full flood of memories roll!
Oft on the eternal pages,
Wherein to after-ages
He strove his tale to tell,
The listless fingers fell.

Oft, as the lazy day
Died silently away,

Earthward the flashing eye subdued,
And with enfolded arms he stood,
While o'er his thought was cast
The shadow of the past;
Again the tented squadrons sprang
To arms, again the ramparts rang;
Surged the bright ranks again,
And wave of mounted men,
And to the word of flame
The instant answer came.

Well might the spirit die

In such an agony;
But, strong to succor, from above
Came down a messenger of love,
Raised him from his despair
To breathe a purer air,
And set his feet upon the way

Where Hope's fair flowerets bloom for aye-
To those eternal plains,

Rich in unmeasured gains,
Where man's brief glories fade
In silence and in shade.

Oh, fair and healing Faith,
Triumphant over Death,

Write thou among thy victories
That loftier majesty than his

Ne'er bent in humbled pride
To Christ the crucified:

Let not the light or mocking word
Be near the wearied ashes heard;
The Lord of weal and woe,
Who raises and lays low,
A living glory shed
Around the desolate bed!

Chambers's Journal.

A FRENCH IMPOSTOR.

THE following extraordinary case of successful imposture, although it occurred upwards of one hundred and seventy years ago, is sufficient to show not only how easily the unthinking portion of mankind may be induced to believe statements of the most preposterous character, and how readily they lend their support to claims which bear on their surface the marks of invalidity and falsehood, but also that men of acknowledged talent, whose whole lives have been passed in sifting and weighing evidence, may be duped by a clever, cool scoundrel who is in possession of a retentive memory, and an unlimited stock of audacity and perseverance.

In most instances of criminal impersonation, an extraordinary resemblance between the genuine and soi-disant individual has first suggested and then supported the fraud; but in the case of Pierre Mêge, the hero, if he may be called such, of the following story, no such likeness existed. It would be difficult to find two persons more dissimilar in face, form, character, and education than the noble and cultivated Sieur de Rougon and the ungainly and ignorant French soldier who undertook to act his part. Yet the impostor, in one court of law, gained his case, and entered upon the full enjoyment of the property, in the face of evidence which declared that the person he claimed to be was dead and buried.

Scipion le Brun de Castellane, lord of Caille and Rougon, was married, in the year 1655, to Mademoiselle Judith le Gouche. Both were Calvinists, and the husband was one of the most earnest members of that sect. Their place of residence was Manosque, a town in Provence; and their family consisted of five children-three boys and two girls. The two younger sons died at an early age, but the elder brother survived until he was thirty-two. The baptismal register of the Calvinists having been lost upon the Re

vocation of the Edict of Nantes, the date of Isaac's birth could not be verified from this source; but any doubts on this point were set at rest by an entry in the journal of M. Bourdin, his grandfather, with whom Monsieur de Caille and his wife resided. This entry proves Isaac's birth to have taken place on the 19th November, 1664. In 1679, Madame de Caille died, and, by her will, she made her surviving son Isaac her heir, and gave her daughters legacies; leaving, however, a life-interest in the whole of her property to her husband, who determined to give his now only son an education suited to the position he was destined ultimately to fill.

On the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes in 1685, the family were obliged to leave France, and settled at Lausanne, in Switzerland, canton of Berne. Here one of the daughters died in 1686, and the grandfather in 1690. In the year 1689, a law was passed in France giving to their nearest Catholic relatives the property of those Calvinists who were fugitives from the kingdom on account of their religion. Monsieur de Caille remained faithful, and preferred sacrificing his estate to abjuring his creed. His property was claimed by Madame Anne le Gouche, the sister of Madame de Caille, and the wife of M. Rolland, Avocat-général to the Supreme Court of Dauphiné. It was, however, ultimately decided that the estate should be divided. Property producing an annual rental of twelve thousand francs fell to a Madame Tardivi, another relative; whilst Madame Rolland's share brought in a rental of only two thousand five hundred francs.

Monsieur de Caille's eldest son, who was known as Monsieur de Rougon, appears to have been of very studious habits, and devoted himself to the study of literature and science. Indeed, severe application was supposed to have greatly

« AnteriorContinuar »