Kitabı oku: «Miscellaneous Pieces, in Prose», sayfa 6
Recorded Rhodalind! whose high renown
Who miss in books not luckily have read;
Or vex’d with living beauties of their own
Have shunn’d the wise records of lovers dead.
Descriptions of female beauty have engaged the powers of poets in every age, who have exhausted all nature for imagery to heighten their painting; yet the picture has ever been extremely faint and inadequate. Our poet judiciously confines his description of Rhodalind to the qualities of her mind, contenting himself with general praises, though in the high-flown gallantry of the times, of her personal charms.
Her looks like empire shew’d, great above pride;
Since pride ill counterfeits excessive height:
But Nature publish’d what she fain would hide,
Who for her deeds, not beauty, lov’d the light.
To make her lowly mind’s appearance less,
She us’d some outward greatness for disguise;
Esteem’d as pride the cloyst’ral lowliness,
And thought them proud who even the proud despise.
Oppressors big with pride, when she appear’d,
Blush’d, and believ’d their greatness counterfeit;
The lowly thought they them in vain had fear’d;
Found virtue harmless, and nought else so great.
Her mind (scarce to her feeble sex a-kin)
Did as her birth, her right to empire show;
Seem’d careless outward, when employ’d within;
Her speech, like lovers watch’d, was kind and low.
The court of Aribert could not want men of high rank and accomplishments to pay their devotions at such a shrine. Among these, “Oswald the great, and greater Gondibert” moved in the most exalted sphere of renown. These noble personages are characterized and contrasted with so masterly a hand, that it would be an injury not to transcribe the whole.
In courts, prince Oswald costly was and gay,
Finer than near vain kings their fav’rites are!
Outshin’d bright fav’rites on their nuptial day;
Yet were his eyes dark with ambitious care.
Duke Gondibert was still more gravely clad,
But yet his looks familiar were, and clear;
As if with ill to others never sad,
Nor tow’rds himself could others practise fear.
The Prince could, porpoise-like, in tempests play,
And in court storms on ship-wreck’d greatness feed;
Not frighted with their fate when cast away,
But to their glorious hazards durst succeed.
The Duke would lasting calms to courts assure,
As pleasant gardens we defend from winds;
For he who bus’ness would from storms procure,
Soon his affairs above his manage finds.
Oswald in throngs the abject people sought
With humble looks; who still too late will know
They are ambition’s quarry, and soon caught
When the aspiring eagle stoops so low.
The Duke did these by steady virtue gain;
Which they in action more than precept taste;
Deeds shew the good, and those who goodness feign
By such ev’n through their vizards are outfac’t.
Oswald in war was worthily renown’d;
Though gay in courts, coarsely in camps could live;
Judg’d danger soon, and first was in it found;
Could toil to gain what he with ease did give.
Yet toils and dangers through ambition lov’d,
Which does in war the name of virtue own:
But quits that name when from the war remov’d,
As rivers theirs when from their channels gone.
The Duke (as restless as his fame in war)
With martial toil could Oswald weary make,
And calmly do what he with rage did dare,
And give so much as he might deign to take.
Him as their founder cities did adore;
The court he knew to steer in storms of state;
In fields, a battle lost he could restore,
And after force the victors to their fate.
Of these great rivals, Gondibert was he whom the king had destined for his son-in-law, and the heir of his throne; and Rhodalind too, in the privacy of her own breast, had made the same choice. This is related in a manner little inferior to Shakespear’s famous description of concealed love.
Yet sadly it is sung, that she in shades,
Mildly as mourning doves, love’s sorrows felt;
Whilst in her secret tears, her freshness fades,
As roses silently in lymbecks melt.
Gondibert, however, though of a nature by no means unsusceptible of the tender passion, had not as yet felt it for a particular object; and Oswald, who stood forth as the public suitor to the princess, was incited by no other motive than ambition. Not Rhodalind herself (says the poet)
Could he affect, but shining in her throne.
His cause was powerfully pleaded with the princess by his sister Gartha, with whom we are next brought acquainted. A bold, full, majestic beauty; and a corresponding mind, high, restless, and aspiring, are her distinguishing features. The prince and duke were urged on to ambitious pursuits by their respective armies, which, just returned from conquest, lay encamped, the one at Brescia, and the other at Bergamo. That of Gondibert was composed of hardy youth whom he had selected from his father’s camp, and educated in martial discipline under his own inspection. Temperance, chastity, vigilance, humanity, and all the high virtues of chivalry, remarkably distinguish these young soldiers from those of later times. Beauty, indeed, commanded no less regard amongst them than in a modern camp; but it was an object of passion, and not of appetite; and was the powerful engine in their education which inspired them with noble and exalted sentiments. This is an idea on which our author, true to the principles of chivalry, very frequently enlarges, and always with peculiar force and dignity. In the present instance it is thus finely expressed:
But, though the Duke taught rigid discipline,
He let them beauty thus at distance know;
As priests discover some more sacred shrine,
Which none must touch, yet all to it may bow.
When thus, as suitors, mourning virgins pass
Thro’ their clean camp, themselves in form they draw,
That they with martial reverence may grace
Beauty, the stranger, which they seldom saw.
They vayl’d their ensigns as it by did move,
Whilst inward, as from native conscience, all
Worship’d the poet’s darling godhead, Love;
Which grave philosophers did Nature call.
Indeed, the influence of this passion in its purest and most exalted state during the course of education, is a subject that might, perhaps, shine as much in the hands of a moralist as of a poet.
The soldiers of Oswald were his father’s brave veterans, in whose arms he had been bred. The story thus opened, and our attention awakened to the expectation of important events, the first canto is closed.
The second canto introduces us to a solemn annual hunting, held by Duke Gondibert in commemoration of a great victory gained on this day by his grandsire. His train was adorned by many gallant and noble persons, the friends of his family, and commanders in his army. The hunting, which is described with much poetical spirit, terminates in a combat. As Gondibert and his party are returning weary homeward, an ancient ranger hastily brings the tidings that Oswald, who had lain in ambush with a body of chosen horse, is advancing upon them. The Duke, rejecting all counsels of flight, prepares to receive his foes; and with an account of their principal leaders, and the order of their march, the canto concludes.
A parley between the chiefs now succeeds, in which the character of each is well preserved. Oswald warmly accuses his rival for usurping his claims on the princess and the kingdom. Gondibert defends himself with temper, and disavows all ambitious designs. The other disdains accommodation; and the conference ends in a generous agreement to decide their differences in single fight.
When every thing is prepared for the combat, Hubert, the brother of Oswald, steps forth with a general challenge to the opposite party. This is instantly accepted, and serves for a prelude to so many others, that a general engagement seems likely to ensue; when Oswald reproves their disobedient ardour: and, upon Hubert’s insisting to share his fate from the rights of brotherhood, it is at length decided that three persons of each party should enter the lists along with their generals. The duel then comes on, in the fourth canto; in which Oswald, Hubert, Paradine and Dargonet, are severally matched with Gondibert; Hurgonil, the lover of Orna, the Duke’s sister; and Arnold and Hugo, generous rivals in Laura. Descriptions of battle are so frequent in epic poetry, that scarcely any circumstances of variety are left to diversify them. Homer and his imitators have attempted novelty in the multiplicity of their combats by every possible variation of weapon, posture, and wound. They considered the human body with anatomical nicety; and dwelt with a savage pleasure upon every idea of pain and horror that studied butchery could excite. I shall leave it to the professed admirers of antiquity to determine under what head of poetical beauty such objects are to be ranged. The terrible is certainly a principal source of the sublime; but a slaughter-house or a surgery would not seem proper studies for a poet. D’avenant has drawn little from them. His battles are rendered interesting chiefly by the character and situation of the combatants. When Arnold, the favoured lover of Laura, is slain by Paradine, Hugo, who had overthrown his antagonist, springs to avenge his rival, with these truly gallant expressions:
Vain conqueror, said Hugo then, return!
Instead of laurel, which the victor wears,
Go gather cypress for thy brother’s urn,
And learn of me to water it with tears.
Thy brother lost his life attempting mine;
Which cannot for Lord Arnold’s loss suffice:
I must revenge, unlucky Paradine!
The blood his death will draw from Laura’s eyes.
We rivals were in Laura; but, tho’ she
My griefs derided, his with sighs approv’d,
Yet I, in love’s exact integrity,
Must take thy life for killing him she lov’d.
His generosity, however, was fatal both to his foe and himself.
Hubert, disabled by a wound in his arm, is dishonoured by receiving his life from his conqueror; upon which occasion the poet thus beautifully apostrophises:
O Honour, frail as life, thy fellow flower!
Cherish’d, and watch’d, and hum’rously esteem’d,
Then worn for short adornments of an hour;
And is, when lost, no more than life redeem’d.
The two chiefs are still left closely engaging; and when Hurgonil approaches to assist his lord, he is warmly commanded to retire. At length, after many mutual wounds, Oswald falls.
The death of the Prince at the same time takes off all restraint from his party, and incites them to revenge. Led by the wounded Hubert, old Vasco, and Borgio, they attack the hunters, who, besides the fatigue of the chace, are represented as somewhat inferior in number. A furious battle, the subject of the fifth canto, now ensues. Gondibert shines forth in all the splendor of a hero. By his prowess his friends are rescued, and the opposite leaders overthrown in various separate encounters; and by his military skill the brave veterans of Oswald are defeated. The whole description of the battle is warm and animated.
In Gondibert’s generous lamentation over the fallen, every heart must sympathize with the following pathetic tribute to the rival lovers:
Brave Arnold and his rival strait remove,
Where Laura shall bestrew their hallow’d ground;
Protectors both, and ornaments of love;
This said, his eyes out wept his widest wound.
Tell her now these, love’s faithful saints, are gone,
The beauty they ador’d she ought to hide;
for vainly will love’s miracles be shewn,
Since lover’s faith with these brave rivals dy’d.
Say little Hugo never more shall mourn,
In noble numbers, her unkind disdain;
Who now, not seeing beauty, feels no scorn;
And wanting pleasure, is exempt from pain.
When she with flowers Lord Arnold’s grave shall strew,
And hears why Hugo’s life was thrown away,
She on that rival’s hearse will drop a few,
Which merits all that April gives to May.
The Duke now draws off his remaining friends towards Bergamo: but on the journey, overcome by fatigue and loss of blood, he falls into a deadly swoon. His attendants, amidst their anxiety and confusion upon this event, are surprised, in the sixth canto, with the approach of a squadron of horse. This, however, proves to be a friendly body, led by old Ulfin, who, after recovering the Duke by a cordial, declares himself to have been a page to his grandsire, and gives a noble relation of the character and exploits of his great master. The rumour of Oswald’s attack brought him to the relief of Gondibert; and we have a description, which will be thought too much bordering upon the ludicrous, of the strange confusion among his maimed veterans, who in their haste had seized upon each other’s artificial limbs. This unsightly troop, with the deficiencies of hands, arms, legs and eyes, can scarcely, with all the poet’s art, be rendered a respectable object. Such instances of faulty judgment are frequent in the writings of an age which was characterized by vigour of imagination rather than correctness of taste. Ulfin leads the Duke to the house of the sage Astragon, where, with the approach of night, the canto and the first book conclude.
In the beginning of the second book, the poet carries us with Hurgonil and Tybalt and their noble dead, to Verona. The distant turrets first appearing, and then the great objects opening, one by one; the river, the palace, the temple, and the amphitheatre of Flaminius, form a landscape truly noble and picturesque. The view of the temple gives occasion to one of those elevated religious sentiments which dignify this poem.
This to soothe heaven the bloody Clephes built;
As if heaven’s king so soft and easy were,
So meanly hous’d in heaven, and kind to guilt,
That he would be a tyrant’s tenant here.
We have then a lively description of a city morning; with the various and uncertain rumours of the late event, among the people. The rest of the canto is employed in a debate, rather tedious, though intermixed with fine sentiments, concerning the propriety of granting funeral rites to those who had perished in the quarrel.
The progress of the fatal news is traced in the next canto. Aribert appears sitting in council in all the regal dignity. Tybalt relates the story. The king, in a majestic speech, complains of the toils and cares of empire, and predicts the baneful consequences likely to ensue. A more interesting scene is then disclosed, in which Tybalt declares the melancholy events of the combat to Rhodalind and the other ladies of the court. Great art is shewn in the delicate ambiguity by which they are prepared to receive the tidings. Laura is overpowered by her loss; and, calling on Arnold’s name, is conveyed away by her female attendants. This tender scene of sorrow is finely contrasted by the abrupt entrance of Gartha, in all the wild pomp of mingled rage and grief.
No sooner was the pity’d Laura gone,
But Oswald’s sister, Gartha the renown’d,
Enters as if the world was overthrown,
Or in the tears of the afflicted drown’d.
Unconquer’d as her beauty was her mind,
Which wanted not a spark of Oswald’s fire;
Ambition lov’d, but ne’er to love was kind;
Vex’d thrones did more than quiet shades desire.
Her garments now in loose neglect she wore,
As suited to her wild dishevell’d hair.
In the fury of her passion she breaks out into execrations against the innocent.
Blasted be all your beauties, Rhodalind!
Till you a shame and terror be to sight;
Unwing’d be Love, and slow as he is blind,
Who with your looks poison’d my brother’s sight!
At length she mounts her chariot, and flies with the wings of revenge to the veteran camp at Brescia. The terror impressed on the people by her hasty departure is imaged with great sublimity.
She seem’d their city’s Genius as she pass’d,
Who, by their sins expell’d, would ne’er return.
The third canto brings us to Brescia, where Hubert’s arrival with the dead body of Oswald excites every emotion of surprize, grief and fury in the breasts of the brave veterans. They spend the night in this storm of contending passions; and at day-break assemble round the tent of Hubert, who by a noble harangue gives additional fire to their revenge. They instantly arm, and demand to be led to Bergamo; when Gartha arrives. She turns their vengeance against the court, where she represents the triumph of Gondibert’s faction, and the dishonour cast upon their own. The rage discovered in her countenance, overpowering the symptoms of grief, is painted with amazing grandeur in the following simile:
The Sun did thus to threat’ned nature show
His anger red, whilst guilt look’d pale in all,
When clouds of floods did hang about his brow;
And then shrunk back to let that anger fall.
This tempest is, however, allayed in the next canto by the arrival of the wife Hermegild; who, though grown aged in war and politics, is possessed with a youthful passion for Gartha. He solemnly binds his services to their party, for the reward of Gartha’s love; but persuades them to submit to more cautious and pacific measures. Gartha returns with him to the court; and the funeral of Oswald with Roman rites, “Which yet the world’s last law had not forbid,” is described in the remaining part of the canto.
From scenes of rage and tumult the poet then leads us to the quiet shades of philosophy in the house of Astragon. This change is not better calculated for the reader’s relief, than for a display of the richness and elevation of the writer’s mind. That the friend of Hobbes should despise the learned lumber of the schools will not be thought extraordinary; but that he should distinctly mark out such plans of acquiring knowledge as have since been pursued with the greatest success, may well be deemed a remarkable proof of high and comprehensive genius. In Astragon’s domain is a retired building, upon which is written in large letters, GREAT NATURE’S OFFICE. Here sit certain venerable sages, stiled Nature’s Registers, busied in recording what is brought them by a throng called their Intelligencers. These men are diversly employed in exploring the haunts of beasts, of birds, and of fishes, and collecting observations of their manners, their prey, their increase, and every circumstance of their œconomy. Near this place is NATURE’S NURSERY, stocked with every species of plants, of which the several properties and virtues are diligently examined. Is it not striking to find, in the house of Astragon so exact a model of the school of Linnæus?
We are next led to the CABINET OF DEATH; a receptacle for skeletons and anatomical curiosities of every kind: and from thence, by a pleasing analogy, to the library, or, as it is termed, the MONUMENT OF BANISH’D MINDS. The feelings of his guests on entering this room are thus described:
Where, when they thought they saw in well-sought books
Th’ assembled souls of all that men held wise,
It bred such awful rev’rence in their looks
As if they saw the bury’d writers rise.
The poet then goes through a particular survey of the authors, distinguished into their several periods, countries, and professions; in which he exhibits a great extent of learning, and, much more to his honour, a sound and liberal judgment of what is truly valuable in learning. Of this, his account of the polemic divines will be thought no unfavourable specimen.
About this sacred little book did stand
Unwieldy volumes, and in number great;
And long it was since any reader’s hand
Had reached them from their unfrequented seat.
For a deep dust (which time does softly shed,
Where only time does come) their covers bear;
On which grave spiders streets of webs had spread,
Subtle, and slight, as the grave writers were.
In these heaven’s holy fire does vainly burn,
Nor warms, nor lights, but is in sparkles spent;
Where froward authors with disputes have torn
The garment seamless as the firmament.
If the subjects of this canto appear more noble and elevated than those which usually employ the episodes of heroic poetry, that of the ensuing one must strike with still superior dignity. Having acquainted us with the philosophy of his admired sage, the poet now, by a beautiful kind of allegory, instructs us in his religion. Astragon had dedicated three temples, to PRAYER, to PENITENCE, and to PRAISE. The Temple of Prayer is described as a building quite plain, open, and without bells; since nothing should tempt or summon to an office to which our own wants invite us. The duty of Penitence being a severity unpleasing to nature, its temple is contrived, by its solemn and uncommon appearance, to catch the sense. It is a vast building of black marble, hung with black, and furnished with that “dim religious light” which poets have so finely employed to excite kindred ideas of gloom and melancholy: but none, I think, have painted it with such strength of colouring as our author:
Black curtains hide the glass; whilst from on high
A winking lamp still threatens all the room,
As if the lazy flame just now would die:
Such will the sun’s last light appear at doom.
A tolling bell calls to the temple; and every other circumstance belonging to it is imagined with great propriety and beauty.
But the poet’s greatest exertions are reserved for his favourite temple of Praise. A general shout of joy is the summons to it. The building, in its materials and architecture, is gay and splendid beyond the most sumptuous palace. The front is adorned with figures of all kinds of musical instruments; all, as he most beautifully expresses it,
That joy did e’er invent, or breath inspir’d,
Or flying fingers touch’d into a voice.
The statues without, the pictures within, the decorations, and the choir of worshippers, are all suited with nice judgment, and described with genuine poetry. This distinguished canto concludes with these noble stanzas, the sum and moral, as it were, of the whole.
Praise is devotion fit for mighty minds;
The diff’ring world’s agreeing sacrifice;
Where heaven divided faiths united finds:
But prayer in various discord upward flies.
For Prayer the ocean is, where diversly
Men steer their course, each to a sev’ral coast;
Where all our interests so discordant be
That half beg winds by which the rest are lost.
By penitence when we ourselves forsake,
’Tis but in wise design on piteous heav’n;
In praise we nobly give what God may take,
And are without a beggar’s blush forgiv’n.
Its utmost force, like powder’s, is unknown;
And tho’ weak kings excess of Praise may fear,
Yet when ’tis here, like powder, dangerous grown,
Heav’n’s vault receives what would the palace tear.
The last thought will be termed, in this cold age, a conceit; and so may every thing that distinguishes wit and poetry from plain sense and prose.
The wonders of the house of Astragon are not yet exhausted.
To Astragon heaven for succession gave
One only pledge, and Birtha was her name.
This maid, her father’s humble disciple and assistant, educated in the bosom of rural simplicity, is rendered a more charming object than even the renowned Rhodalind upon her throne.
Courts she ne’er saw, yet courts could have undone
With untaught looks and an unpractis’d heart;
Her nets the most prepar’d could never shun,
For Nature spread them in the scorn of Art.
But I check my desire of copying more from this exquisitely pleasing picture. My intention is to excite curiosity, not to gratify it. I hope I have already done enough for that purpose; and since the rest of this unfinished story may be comprized in a short compass, I shall proceed, with but few interruptions, to conclude a paper already swelled to an unexpected bulk.
That the unpractised Birtha should entertain an unresisted passion for the noblest of his sex; and that Gondibert, whose want of ambition alone had secured him from the charms of Rhodalind, should bow to those of his lovely hostess and handmaid, will be thought a very natural turn in the story; upon which, however, the reader may foresee the most interesting events depending. The progress of their love, though scarcely known to themselves, is soon discovered by the sage Astragon. This is expressed by the poet with a very fine turn of a common thought.
When all these symptoms he observ’d, he knows,
From Alga, which is rooted deep in seas,
To the high Cedar that on mountains grows,
No sov’reign herb is found for their disease.
The remainder of this poem, consisting of a third book, written during the author’s imprisonment, is composed of several detached scenes, in which the main plot lies ripening for future action. Rivals are raised to Birtha. Flattering advances from the court, and more open declarations of love from Rhodalind, are in vain employed to assail the constancy of Gondibert. Various conflicts of passion arise, and interesting situations, well imagined, and painted in lively colours. Much is given, as in the former parts, to the introduction of elevated sentiment; with one example of which I shall finish my quotations. Several well-born youths are placed about the person of Gondibert as his pages, whose education consists of the following great lessons from their lord:
But with the early sun he rose, and taught
These youths by growing Virtue to grow great,
Shew’d greatness is without it blindly sought,
A desperate charge which ends in base retreat.
He taught them shame, the sudden sense of ill;
Shame, nature’s hasty conscience, which forbids
Weak inclination ere it grows to will,
Or stays rash will before it grows to deeds.
He taught them Honour, Virtue’s bashfulness;
A fort so yieldless that it fears to treat;
Like power it grows to nothing, growing less;
Honour, the moral conscience of the great.
He taught them Kindness; soul’s civility,
In which, nor courts, nor cities have a part;
For theirs is fashion, this from falshood free,
Where love and pleasure know no lust nor art.
And Love he taught; the soul’s stol’n visit made
Tho’ froward age watch hard, and law forbid;
Her walks no spy has trac’d, nor mountain staid;
Her friendship’s cause is as the loadstone hid.
He taught them love of Toil; Toil which does keep
Obstructions from the mind, and quench the blood;
Ease but belongs to us like sleep, and sleep,
Like opium, is our med’cine, not our food.
The plot is at length involved in so many intricate and apparently unsurmountable difficulties, that it is scarce possible to conceive a satisfactory termination. Perhaps the poet was sensible of a want of power to extricate himself, and chose thus to submit to a voluntary bankruptcy of invention, rather than hazard his reputation by going further. In his postscript, indeed, he excuses himself on account of sickness and approaching dissolution. However disappointed we may be by his abrupt departure from scenes which he has filled with confusion, we ought not to forget the pleasures already received from them. “If (says he to his reader, with more than the spirit of a dying man) thou art one of those who has been warmed with poetic fire, I reverence thee as my judge.” From such a judicature, this NOBLE FRAGMENT, would, I doubt not, acquire for him what the critic laments his having lost, “the possession of that true and permanent glory of which his large soul appears to have been full2.”
