Kitabı oku: «Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Vol. 66 No.406, August 1849», sayfa 15

BULLER.

Thank you, gentlemen. The Doctor is done brown.

NORTH.

 
"The paths of glory lead but to the grave!"
 

Methinks I could read you a homily on that Text.

BULLER.

To-morrow, sir, if you please. To-morrow is Sunday – and you may read it to us as we glide to Divine Service at Dalmally – two of us to the Established, and two of us to the Free Kirk.

NORTH.

Be it so. But you will not be displeased with me for quoting now, from heart-memory, a single sentence on the great line, from Beattie, and from Adam Fergusson. "It presents to the imagination a wide plain, where several roads appear, crowded with glittering multitudes, and issuing from different quarters, but drawing nearer and nearer as they advance, till they terminate in the dark and narrow house, where all their glories enter in succession, and disappear for ever."

SEWARD.

Thank you, sir. That is Beattie?

NORTH.

It is. Fergusson's memorable words are – "If from this we are disposed to collect any inference adverse to the pursuits of glory, it may be asked whither do the paths of ignominy lead? If to the grave also, then our choice of a life remains to be made on the grounds of its intrinsic value, without regard to an end which is common to every station of life we can lead, whether illustrious or obscure."

SEWARD.

Very fine. Who says it? Fergusson – who was he?

NORTH.

The best of you Englishers are intolerably ignorant about Scotland. Do you know the Reverend John Mitford?

SEWARD.

I do – and have for him the greatest respect.

NORTH.

So have I. He is one of our best Editors – as Pickering is one of our best Publishers of the Poets. But I am somewhat doubtful of the truthfulness of his remarks on the opening of the Elegy, in the Appendix to his excellent Life of Gray. "The Curfew 'toll' is not the appropriate word – it was not a slow bell tolling for the dead."

SEWARD.

True enough, not for the dead – but Gray then felt as if it were for the dying – and chose to say so – the parting day. Was it quick and "merry as a marriage-bell?" I can't think it – nor did Milton, "swinging slow with sullen roar." Gray was Il Penseroso. Prospero calls it the "solemn curfew." Toll is right.

NORTH.

But, says my friend Mitford, "there is another error, a confusion of time. The curfew tolls, and the ploughman returns from work. Now the ploughman returns two or three hours before the curfew rings; and 'the glimmering landscape' has 'long ceased to fade' before the curfew. The 'parting day' is also incorrect; the day had long finished. But if the word Curfew is taken simply for 'the Evening Bell,' then also is the time incorrect – and a knell is not tolled for the parting, but for the parted – 'and leaves the world to darkness and to me.' 'Now fades the glimmering landscape on the sight.' Here the incidents, instead of being progressive, fall back, and make the picture confused and inharmonious; especially as it appears soon after that it was not dark. For 'the moping owl does to the moon complain.'"

SEWARD.

Pardon me, sir, I cannot venture to answer all that – but if Mitford be right, Gray must be very wrong indeed. Let me see – give us it over again – sentence by sentence —

BULLER.

No – no – no. Once is enough – and enough is as good as a feast.

NORTH.

Talboys?

TALBOYS.

Since you have a great respect for Mr Mitford, sir, so have I. But hitherto I have been a stranger to his merits.

SEWARD.

The best of you Scottishers are intolerably ignorant about England.

TALBOYS.

In the first place, Mr North, when does the Curfew toll, or ring? – for hang me if I remember – or rather ever knew. And in the second place, when does the Evening Bell give tongue? – for hang me if I am much better informed as to his motions. Yet I should know something of the family of the Bells. Say —eight o'clock. Well. It is summer-time, I suppose; for you cannot believe that so dainty a person in health and habits, as the Poet Gray, would write an Elegy in a Country churchyard in winter, and well on towards night. True, that is a way of speaking; he did not write it with his crow-quill, in his neat hand, on his neat vellum, on the only horizontal tomb-stone. But in the Churchyard he assumes to sit – probably under a Plane-tree, for sake of the congenial Gloom. Season of the year ascertained – Summer – time of Curfew – eight – then I can find no fault with the Ploughman. He comes in well – either as an image or a man. He must have been an honest, hard-working fellow, and worth the highest wages going between the years 1745 and 1750. At what hour do ploughmen leave the stilts in Cambridgeshire? We must not say at six. Different hours in different counties, Buller.

BULLER.

Go on – all's right, Talboys.

TALBOYS.

It is not too much to believe that Hodge did not grudge, occasionally, a half-hour over, to a good master. Then he had to stable his horses – Star and Smiler – rub them down – bed them – fill rack and manger – water them – make sure their noses were in the oats – lock the stable before the nags were stolen – and then, and not till then,

 
"The Ploughman homewards plods his weary way."
 

For he does not sleep on the Farm – he has a wife and small family – that is, a large family of smallish children – in the Hamlet, at least two miles off – and he does not walk for a wager of a flitch of bacon and barrel of beer – but for his accustomed rasher and a jug – and such endearments as will restore his weariness up to the proper pitch for a sound night's sleep. God bless him!

BULLER.

Shorn of your beams, Mr North, eclipsed.

TALBOYS.

The ploughman, then, does not return "two or three hours before the curfew rings." Nor has "the glimmering landscape long ceased to fade before the curfew." Nor is "the parting day incorrect." Nor "has the day long finished." Nor, when it may have finished, or may finish, can any man in the hamlet, during all that gradual subsiding of light and sound, take upon him to give any opinion at all.

NORTH.

My boy, Talboys.

TALBOYS.

"And leave the world to darkness and to me." Ay – into his hut goes the ploughman, and leaves the world and me to darkness – which is coming – but not yet come – the Poet knows it is coming – near at hand its coming glooms; and Darkness shows her divinity as she is preparing to mount her throne.

NORTH.

Nothing can be better.

TALBOYS.

"'Now fades the glimmering landscape on the sight.' Here the incident, instead of being progressive, falls back, and makes the picture confused and inharmonious." Confused and inharmonious! By no manner of means. Nothing of the sort. There is no retrogression – the day has been unwilling to die – cannot believe she is dying – and cannot think 'tis for her the curfew is tolling; but the Poet feels it is even so; the glimmering and the fading, beautiful as they are, are sure symptoms – she is dying into Evening, and Evening will soon be the dying into Night; but to the Poet's eye how beautiful the transmutations! Nor knows he that the Moon has arisen, till, at the voice of the nightbird, he looks up the ivied church-tower, and there she is, whether full, waning, or crescent, there are not data for the Astronomer to declare.

NORTH.

My friend Mr Mitford says of the line, "No more shall rouse them from their lowly bed" – That "here the epithet lowly, as applied to bed, occasions an ambiguity, as to whether the Poet means the bed on which they sleep, or the grave in which they are laid;" and he adds, "there can be no greater fault in composition than a doubtful meaning."

TALBOYS.

There cannot be a more touching beauty. Lowly applies to both. From their lowly bed in their lowly dwellings among the quick, those joyous sounds used to awaken them; from their lowly bed in their lowly dwellings among the dead, those joyous sounds will awaken them never more: but a sound will awaken them when He comes to judge both the quick and the dead; and for them there is Christian hope – from

 
"Many a holy text around them strewed
That teach the rustic moralist to die."
 

NORTH.

 
"Their furrow oft the stubborn glebe hath broke;
How jocund did they drive their team afield!
How bowed the woods beneath their sturdy stroke!"
 

This stanza – says Mr Mitford – "is made up of various pieces inlaid. 'Stubborn glebe' is from Gay; 'drive afield' from Milton; 'sturdy stroke' from Spenser. Such is too much the system of Gray's composition, and therefore such the cause of his imperfections. Purity of language, accuracy of thought, and even similarity of rhyme, all give way to the introduction of certain poetical expressions; in fact, the beautiful jewel, when brought, does not fit into the new setting, or socket. Such is the difference between the flower stuck into the ground and those that grow from it." Talboys?

BULLER.

Why not – Buller?

TALBOYS.

I give way to the gentleman.

BULLER.

Not for worlds would I take the word out of any man's mouth.

TALBOYS.

Gray took "stubborn glebe" from Gay. Why from Gay? It has been familiar in men's mouths from the introduction of agriculture into this Island. May not a Saxon gentleman say "drive their teams afield" without charge of theft from Milton, who said "drove afield." Who first said "Gee-ho, Dobbin?" Was Spenser the first – the only man before Milton – who used "sturdy stroke?" and has nobody used it since Gray?

BULLER.

You could give a "sturdy stroke" yourself, Talboys. What's your weight?

TALBOYS.

Gray's style is sometimes too composite – you yourself, sir, would not deny it is so – but Mr Mitford's instances here are absurd, and the charge founded on them false. Gray seldom, if ever – say never, "sacrifices purity of language, and accuracy of thought," for the sake of introducing certain poetical expressions. "All give way" is a gross exaggeration. The beautiful words of the brethren, with which his loving memory was stored, came up in the hour of imagination, and took their place among the words as beautiful of his own congenial inspirations; the flowers he transplanted from poetry "languished not, grew dim, nor died;" for he had taken them up gently by the roots, and with some of the old mould adhering to their tendrils, and, true florist as he was, had prepared for them a richest soil in his own garden, which he held from nature, and which the sun and the dew of nature nourished, and will nourish for ever.

BULLER.

That face is not pleasant, sir. Nothing so disfigures a face as envy. Old Poets at last grow ugly all – but you, sir, are a Philosopher – and on your benign countenance 'twas but a passing cloud. There – you are as beautiful as ever – how comely in critical old age! Any farther fault to find with our friend Mitford?

NORTH.

 
"On some fond breast the parting soul relies,
Some pious drops the closing eye requires,
Even from the tomb the voice of nature cries,
Even in our ashes live their wonted fires."
 

"'Pious drops' is from Ovid – piæ lachrymæ; 'closing eye' is from Pope – 'voice of nature' from the Anthologia, and the last line from Chaucer – 'Yet on our ashes cold is fire yreken.' From so many quarries are the stones brought to form this elaborate Mosaic pavement." I say, for "piæ lachrymæ" all honour to Ovid – for "pious drops" all honour to Gray. "Closing eye" is not from Pope's Elegy; "voice of nature" is not from the Anthologia, but from Nature herself; Chaucer's line may have suggested Gray's, but the reader of Chaucer knows that Gray's has a tender and profound meaning which is not in Chaucer's at all – and he knows, too, that Mr Mitford is not a reader of Chaucer – for were he, he could not have written "ashes" for "ashen." There were no quarries – there is no Mosaic. Mosaic pavement! Worse, if possible – more ostentatiously pedantic – even than stuck in flowers, jewels, settings, and sockets.

TALBOYS.

The Stanza is sacred to sorrow.

NORTH.

"From this Stanza," quoth Mitford, "the style of the composition drops into a lower key; the language is plainer, and is not in harmony with the splendid and elaborate diction of the former part." This objection is disposed of by what I said some minutes ago —

BULLER.

Half an hour ago – on Grayishness.

NORTH.

And I have only this farther to say, gentlemen, that though the language is plainer – yet it is solemn; nor is it unpoetical – for the hoary-headed swain was moved as he spake; the style, if it drop into a lower key, is accordant with that higher key on which the music was pitched that has not yet left our hearing. An Elegy is not an Ode – the close should be mournful as the opening – with loftier strain between – and it is so; and whatever we might have to say of the Epitaph – its final lines are "awful" – as every man must have felt them to be – whether thought on in our own lonely night-room – in the Churchyard of Grantchester, where it is said Gray mused the Elegy – or by that Burial-ground in Inishail – or here afloat in the joyous sunshine for an hour privileged to be happy in a world of grief.

BULLER.

Let's change the subject, sir. May I ask what author you have in your other hand?

NORTH.

Alison on Taste.

BULLER.

You don't say so! I thought you quoted from memory.

NORTH.

So I did; but I have dog-eared a page or two.

BULLER.

I see no books lying about in the Pavilion – only Newspapers – and Magazines – and Reviews – and trash of that kind —

NORTH.

Without which, you, my good fellow, could not live a week.

BULLER.

The Spirit of the Age! The Age should be ashamed of herself for living from hand to mouth on Periodical Literature. The old Lady should indeed, sir. If the Pensive Public conceits herself to be the Thinking World —

NORTH.

Let us help to make her so. I have a decent little Library of some three hundred select volumes in the Van – my Plate-chest – and a few dozens of choice wines for my friends – of Champagne, which you, Buller, call small beer —

BULLER.

I retracted and apologised. Is that the key of the Van at your watch-chain?

NORTH.

It is. So many hundred people about the Encampment – sometimes among them suspicious strangers in paletots in search of the picturesque, and perhaps the pecuniary – that it is well to intrust the key to my own body-guard. It does not weigh an ounce. And that lock is not to be picked by the ghost of Huffey White.

SEWARD.

But of the volume in hand, sir?

NORTH.

"In that fine passage in the Second Book of the Georgics," says Mr Alison, "in which Virgil celebrates the praises of his native country, after these fine lines —

 
'Hic ver assiduum, atque alienis mensibus æstas;
Bis gravidæ pecudes, bis pomis utilis arbos.
At rabidæ tigres absunt, et sæva leonum
Semina: nec miseros fallunt aconita legentes:
Nec rapit immensos orbes per humum, neque tanto
Squameus in spiram tractu se colligit anguis.'
 

There is no reader whose enthusiasm is not checked by the cold and prosaic line which follows, —

 
'Adde tot egregias urbes, operumque laborem.'
 

The tameness and vulgarity of the transition dissipates at once the emotion we had shared with the Poet, and reduces him, in our opinion, to the level of a mere describer."

SEWARD.

Cold and prosaic line! Tameness and vulgarity! I am struck mute.

NORTH.

I have no doubt that Mr Alison distressed himself with "Adde." It is a word from a merchant's counting-house, reckoning up his gains. And so much the better. Virgil is making out the balance-sheet of Italy – he is inventorying her wealth. Mr Alison would have every word away from reality. Not so the Poet. Every now and then, they – the Poets – amuse themselves with dipping their pencils into the real, the common, the everyday, the homely. By so doing they arrest belief, which above everything they desire to hold fast. I should not wonder if you might catch Spenser at it, even. Shakspeare is full of it. There is nothing else prosaic in the passage; and if Virgil had had the bad taste to say "Ecce" instead of "Adde," I suppose no fault would have been found.

SEWARD.

But what can Mr Alison mean by the charge of tameness and vulgarity?

NORTH.

I have told you, sir.

SEWARD.

You have not, sir.

NORTH.

I have, sir.

SEWARD.

Yes – yes – yes. "Adde" is vulgar! I cannot think so.

NORTH.

The Cities of Italy, and the "operum labor," always have been and are an admiration. The words "Egregias urbes" suggest the general stateliness and wealth – "operumque laborem," the particular buildings – Temples, Basilicas, Theatres, and Great Works of the lower Utility. A summary and most vivid expression of a land possessed by intelligent, civilised, active, spirited, vigorous, tasteful inhabitants – also an eminent adorning of the land.

SEWARD.

Lucretius says, that in spring the Cities are in flower – or on flower – or a flower – with children. And Lucan, at the beginning of the Pharsalia, describes the Ancient or Greek Cities desolate. They were fond and proud of their "tot egregiæ urbes" as the Modern Italians are – and with good reason.

NORTH.

How judiciously the Critics stop short of the lines that would overthrow their criterion always! The present case is an extraordinary example. Had Mr Alison looked to the lines immediately following, he would not have objected to that One. For is very beautiful – brings the whole under the domain of Poetry, by singular Picturesqueness, and by gathering the whole past history of Italy up – fetching it in with a word —antiquos.

 
"Tot congesta manu præruptis oppida saxis,
Fluminaque antiquos subter labentia muros"
 

SEWARD.

I can form no conjecture as to the meaning of Mr Alison's objections. He quotes a few fine lines from the "Praise of Italy," and then one line which he calls prosaic, and would have us to hold up our hands in wonder at the lame and impotent conclusion – at the sudden transformation of Virgil the poet into Virgil the most prosaic of Prosers. You have said enough already, sir, to prove that he is in error even on his own showing; – but how can this fragmentary – this piecemeal mode of quotation – so common among critics of the lower school, and so unworthy of those of the higher – have found favour with Mr Alison, one of the most candid and most enlightened of men? Some accidental prejudice from mere carelessness – but, once formed, retained in spite of the fine and true Taste which, unfettered, would have felt the fallacy, and vindicated his admired Virgil.

NORTH.

The "Laudes" – to which the Poet is brought by the preceding bold, sweeping, winged, and poetical strain about the indigenous vines of Italy – have two-fold root – Trees and the glory of Lands. Virgil kindles on the double suggestion – the trees of Italy compared to the trees of other regions. They are the trees of primary human service and gladness – Oil and Wine. For see at once the deep, sound natural ground in human wants – the bounty of Nature – of Mother Earth – "whatever Earth, all-bearing Mother, yields" – to her human children. That is the gate of entrance; but not prosaically – but two gate-posts of a most poetical mythus-fed husbandman. For we have Jason's fire-mouthed Bulls ploughing, and Cadmus-sown teeth of the dragon springing up in armed men. Then comes, instead, mild, benign, Man-loving Italy – "gravidæ fruges" – the heavy-eared corn – or rather big-teeming – the juice of Bacchus – the Olives, and the "broad herds of Cattle." Note – ye Virgilians – the Corn of Book First – the Oil and Wine of Book Second – and the Cattle of Book Third – for the sustaining Thought – the organic life of his Work moves in his heart.

BULLER.

And the Fourth – Bees – honey – and honey-makers are like Milkers – in a way small Milch-cows.

NORTH.

They are. Once a-foot – or a-wing – he hurries and rushes along, all through the "Laudes." The majestic victim-Bull of the Clitumnus – the incipient Spring – the double Summer —the absence of all envenomed and deadly broods – tigers – lions – aconite – serpents. This is Nature's Favour. Then Man's Works– cities and forts – (rock-fortresses) – the great lakes of Northern Italy – showing Man again in their vast edifications. Then Nature in veins of metals precious or useful – then Nature in her production of Man – the Marsi – the Sabellian youth – the Ligurian inured to labour – and the Volscian darters – then single mighty shapes and powers of Man – Romans – the Decii, the Marii, the Camilli,

 
"Scipiadas duros bello, et te, maxime Cæsar."
 

The King of Men – the Lord of the Earth – the pacificator of the distracted Empire – which, to a Roman, is as much as to say the World. Then – hail Saturnian Land! Mother of Corn! Saturnian, because golden Saturn had reigned there – Mother, I suppose the rather because in his time corn sprung unsown —sine semine– She gave it from out of her own loving and cherishing bosom. To Thee, Italy, sing I my Ascræan or Hesiodic song. The Works and Days – the Greek Georgics are his avowed prototype – rude prototype to magnificence – like the Arab of the Desert transplanted to rear his empire of dazzling and picturesque civilisation in the Pyrenean Peninsula.

BULLER.

Take breath, sir. Virgil said well —

 
"Adde tot egregias urbes operumque laborem."
 

SEWARD.

Allow me one other word. Virgil – in the vivid lines quoted with admiration by Mr Alison – lauds his beloved Italy for the absence of wild beasts and serpents – and he magnifies the whole race of serpents by his picture of One – the Serpent King – yet with subjects all equal in size to himself in our imagination. The Serpent is in the Poetry, but he is not in Italy. Is this a false artifice of composition – a vain ornament? Oh, no! He describes the Saturnian Land – the mother of corn and of men – bounteous, benign, golden, maternal Italy. The negation has the plenitude of life, which the fabulous absence of noxious reptiles has for the sacred Island of Ierne.

BULLER.

Erin-go-bragh!

SEWARD.

Suddenly he sees another vision – not of what is absent but present; and then comes the line arraigned and condemned – followed by lines as great —

 
"Adde tot egregias urbes, operumque laborem,
Tot congesta manu præruptis oppida saxis,
Fluminaque antiquos subter labentia muros."
 

The first line grasps in one handful all the mighty, fair, wealthy Cities of Italy – the second all the rock-cresting Forts of Italy – from the Alpine head to the sea-washed foot of the Peninsula. The collective One Thought of the Human Might and Glory of Italy – as it appears on the countenance of the Land – or visible in its utmost concentration in the girdled Towns and Cities of Men.

BULLER.

"Adde" then is right, Seward. On that North and you are at one.

NORTH.

Yes, it is right, and any other word would be wrong. Adde! Note the sharpness, Buller, of the significance – the vivacity of the short open sound. Fling it out – ring it out – sing it out. Look at the very repetition of the powerful "TOT" – "tot egregias" – "tot congesta" – witnessing by one of the first and commonest rules in the grammar of rhetoric – whether Virgil speaks in prose or in fire.

BULLER.

In fire.

NORTH.

Mr Alison then goes on to say, "that the effect of the following nervous and beautiful lines, in the conclusion of the same Book, is nearly destroyed by a similar defect. After these lines,

 
"Hanc olim veteres vitam coluêre Sabini,
Hanc Remus et Frater; sic fortis Etruria crevit,
Scilicet et rerum facta est pulcherrima Roma;"
 

We little expect the following spiritless conclusion: —

 
"Septemque una sibi muro circumdedit arces."
 

SEWARD.

Oh! why does Mr Alison call that line spiritless?

NORTH.

He gives no reason – assured by his own dissatisfaction, that he has but to quote it, and leave it in its own naked impotence.

SEWARD.

I hope you do not think it spiritless, sir.

NORTH.

I think it contains the concentrated essence of spirit and of power. Let any one think of Rome, piled up in greatness, and grandeur, and glory – and a Wall round about – and in a moment his imagination is filled. What sort of a Wall? A garden wall to keep out orchard thieves – or a modern wall of a French or Italian town to keep out wine and meat, that they may come in at the gate and pay toll? I trow not. But a Wall against the World armed and assailing! Remember that Virgil saw Rome – and that his hearers did – and that in his eyes and theirs she was Empress of the inhabited Earth. She held and called herself such – it was written in her face and on her forehead. The visible, tangible splendour and magnificence meant this, or they meant nothing. The stone and lime said this – and Virgil's line says it, sedately and in plain, simple phrase, which yet is a Climax.

SEWARD.

As the dreaded Semiramis was flesh and blood – corporeal – made of the four elements – yet her soul and her empiry spake out of her – so spake they from the Face of Rome.

NORTH.

Ay, Seward – put these two things together – the Aspect that speaks Domination of the World, and the Wall that girds her with strength impregnable – and what more could you possibly demand from her Great Poet?

SEWARD.

Arx is a Citadel – we may say an Acropolis. Athens had one Arx – so had Corinth. One Arx is enough to one Queenly City. But this Queen, within her one Wall, has enclosed Seven Arces – as if she were Seven Queens.

NORTH.

Well said, Seward. The Seven Hills appeared – and to this day do – to characterise the Supremacy of Rome. The Seven-Hilled City! You seem to have said everything – the Seven Hills are as a seven-pillared Throne – and all that is in one line – given by Virgil. Delete it – no not for a thousand gold crowns.

BULLER.

Not for the Pigot Diamond – not for the Sea of Light.

NORTH.

Imagine Romulus tracing the circuit on which the walls were to rise of his little Rome – the walls ominously lustrated with a brother's blood. War after war humbles neighbouring town after town, till the seas that bathe, and the mountains that guard Italy, enclose the confederated Republic. It is a step – a beginning. East and West, North and South, flies the Eagle, dipping its beak in the blood of battle-fields. Where it swoops, there fanning away the pride, and fame, and freedom of nations, with the wafture of its wings. Kingdoms and Empires that were, are no more than Provinces; till the haughty Roman, stretching out the fact to the limits of his ambitious desires, can with some plausibility deceive himself, and call the edges of the Earth the boundaries of his unmeasured Dominion.

SEWARD.

"O Italy! Italy! would Thou wert stronger or less beautiful!" – was the mournful apostrophe of an Italian Poet, who saw, in the latter ages, his refined but enervated countrymen trampled under the foot of a more martial people from far beyond the Alps.

NORTH.

Good Manners giving a vital energy and efficacy to good Laws – in these few words, gentlemen, may be comprised the needful constituents of National Happiness and Prosperity – the foremost conditions.

TALBOYS.

Ay – ay – sir. For good Laws without good Manners are an empty breath – whilst good Manners ask the protecting and preserving succour of good Laws. But the good Manners are of the first necessity, for they naturally produce the good Laws.

NORTH.

What does history show, Talboys, but nations risen up to flourish in wealth, power, and greatness, that with corrupted and luxurious manners have again sunk from their pre-eminence; whilst another purer and simpler people has in turn grown mighty, and taken their room in the world's eye – some hardy, simple, frugal race, perhaps, whom the seeming disfavour of nature constrains to assiduous labour, and who maintain in the lap of their mountains their independence and their pure and happy homes.

TALBOYS.

The Luxury – the invading Goth and Hun – the dismembering – and new States uprisen upon the ruins of the World's fallen Empire. There is one line in Collins' Ode to Freedom– Mr North – which I doubt if I understand.

NORTH.

Which?

TALBOYS.

 
"No, Freedom, no – I will not tell
How Rome before thy weeping face
Pushed by a wild and artless race
From off its wide, ambitious base,
With heaviest sound a giant-statue fell —
What time the northern Sons of Spoil awoke,
And all the blended work of strength and grace,
With many a rude repeated stroke,
And many a barbarous yell, to thousand fragments broke."
 

NORTH.

Which?

TALBOYS.

"How Rome before thy weeping face."

NORTH.

Freedom wept at Rome's overthrow – though she had long been Freedom's enemy – and though her destroyers were Freedom's children – and "Spoil's Sons" – for how could Freedom look unmoved at the wreck "of all that blended work of strength and grace" – though raised by slaves at the beck of Tyrants? It was not always so.

BULLER.

Let me, Apollo-like, my dear sir, pinch your ear, and admonish you to return to the point from which, in discursive gyrations, you and Seward have been —

NORTH.

Like an Eagle giving an Eaglet lessons how to fly —

BULLER.

You promised solemnly, sir, not to mention Eagles this evening.

NORTH.

I did not, sir.

BULLER.

But, then, Seward is no Eaglet – he is, and long has been, a full-fledged bird, and can fly as well's yourself, sir.

NORTH.

There you're right. But then, making a discursive gyration round a point is not leaving it – and there you're wrong. Silly folk – not you, Buller, for you are a strong-minded, strong-bodied man – say "keep to the point" – knowing that if you quit it one inch, you will from their range of vision disappear – and then they comfort themselves by charging you with having melted among the clouds.

BULLER.

I was afraid, my dear sir, that having got your Eaglet on your back – or your Eaglet having got old Aquila on his – you would sail away with him – or he with you – "to prey in distant isles."

NORTH.

You promised solemnly, sir, not to mention Eagles this evening.

BULLER.

I did not, sir. But don't let us quarrel.

SEWARD.

What does Virgil mean, sir, by "Rerum," in the line which Mr Alison thinks should have concluded the strain —

 
"Scilicet et rerum facta est pulcherrima Roma."
 

NORTH.

"Rerum" – what does he mean by "Rerum?" Let me perpend. Why, Seward, the legitimate meaning of Res here is a State – a Commonwealth. "The fairest of Powers – then – of Polities – of States."

SEWARD.

Is that all the word means here?

NORTH.

Why, methinks we must explain. Observe, then, Seward, that Rome is the Town, as England the Island. Thus "England has become the fairest among the Kingdoms of the Earth." This is equivalent, good English; and the only satisfactory and literal translation of the Latin verse. But here, the Physical and the Political are identified, – that is, England. England is the name at once of the Island – of so much earth limited out on the surface of the terraqueous globe – and of what besides? Of the Inhabitants? Yes; but of the Inhabitants (as the King never dies) perpetuated from generation to generation. Moreover, of this immortal inhabitation, further made one by blood and speech, laws, manners, and everything that makes a people. In short, England, properly the name of the land, is intended to be, at the same time, the name of the Nation.