Kitabı oku: «The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction. Volume 17, No. 493, June 11, 1831», sayfa 6

Public Journals

LINES ON THE VIEW FROM ST. LEONARD'S

BY THOMAS CAMPBELL

 
Hail to thy face and odours, glorious Sea!
'Twere thanklessness in me to bless thee not,
Great beauteous Being! in whose breath and smile
My heart beats calmer, and my very mind
Inhales salubrious thoughts. How welcomer
Thy murmurs than the murmurs of the world!
Though like the world thou fluctuatest, thy din
To me is peace—thy restlessness repose.
E'en gladly I exchange your spring-green lanes
With all the darling field-flowers in their prime,
And gardens haunted by the nightingale's
Long trills and gushing ecstacies of song
For these wild headlands and the sea mew's clang—
With thee beneath my window, pleasant Sea,
I long not to o'erlook Earth's fairest glades
And green savannahs—Earth has not a plain
So boundless or so beautiful as thine;
The eagle's vision cannot take it in.
The lightning's wing, too weak to sweep its space,
Sinks half way o'er it like a wearied bird;—
It is the mirror of the stars, where all
Their host within the concave firmament,
Gay marching to the music of the spheres,
Can see themselves at once—
 
 
Nor on the stage
Of rural landscape are their lights and shades
Of more harmonious dance and play than thine.
How vividly this moment brightens forth,
Between grey parallel and leaden breadths,
A belt of hues that stripes thee many a league,
Flush'd like the rainbow or the ringdove's neck,
And giving to the glancing sea-bird's wing
The semblance of a meteor.
 
 
Mighty Sea!
Cameleon-like thou changest, but there's love
In all thy change, and constant sympathy
With yonder Sky—thy mistress; from her brow
Thou tak'st thy moods and wear'st her colours on
Thy faithful bosom; morning's milky white,
Noon's sapphire, or the saffron glow of eve;
And all thy balmier hours' fair Element,
Have such divine complexion—crisped smiles,
Luxuriant heavings, and sweet whisperings,
That little is the wonder Love's own Queen
From thee of old was fabled to have sprung—
 
 
Creation's common! which no human power
Can parcel or inclose; the lordliest floods
And cataracts that the tiny hands of man
Can tame, conduct, or bound, are drops of dew
To thee that could'st subdue the Earth itself,
And brook'st commandment from the Heavens alone
For marshalling thy waves—
 
 
Yet, potent Sea!
How placidly thy moist lips speak e'en now
Along yon sparkling shingles. Who can be
So fanciless as to feel no gratitude
That power and grandeur can be so serene,
Soothing the home-bound navy's peaceful way.
And rocking e'en the fisher's little bark
As gently as a mother rocks her child?—
 
 
The inhabitants of other worlds behold
Our orb more lucid for thy spacious share
On earth's rotundity; and is he not
A blind worm in the dust, great Deep, the man
Who sees not, or who seeing has no joy,
In thy magnificence? What though thou art
Unconscious and material, thou canst reach
The inmost immaterial mind's recess,
And with thy tints and motion stir its chords
To music, like the light on Memnon's lyre!
 
 
The Spirit of the Universe in thee
Is visible; thou hast in thee the life—
The eternal, graceful, and majestic life—
Of nature, and the natural human heart
Is therefore bound to thee with holy love.
 
 
Earth has her gorgeous towns; the earth-circling sea
Has spires and mansions more amusive still—
Men's volant homes that measure liquid space
On wheel or wing. The chariot of the land,
With pain'd and panting steeds, and clouds of dust,
Has no sight-gladdening motion like these fair
Careerers with the foam beneath their bows,
Whose streaming ensigns charm the waves by day,
Whose carols and whose watch-bells cheer the night,
Moor'd as they cast the shadows of their masts
In long array, or hither flit and yond
Mysteriously with slow and crossing lights,
Like spirits on the darkness of the deep.
 
 
There is a magnet-like attraction in
These waters to the imaginative power,
That links the viewless with the visible,
And pictures things unseen. To realms beyond
Yon highway of the world my fancy flies,
When by her tall and triple mast we know
Some noble voyager that has to woo
The trade-winds, and to stem the ecliptic surge.
The coral groves—the shores of conch and pearl,
Where she will cast her anchor, and reflect
Her cabin-window lights on warmer waves,
And under planets brighter than our own:
The nights of palmy isles, that she will see
Lit boundless by the fire fly—all the smells
Of tropic fruits that will regale her—all
The pomp of nature, and the inspiriting
Varieties of life she has to greet,
Come swarming o'er the meditative mind.
 
 
True, to the dream of Fancy, Ocean has
His darker hints; but where's the element
That chequers not its usefulness to man
With casual terror? Scathes not earth sometimes
Her children with Tartarean fires, or shakes
Their shrieking cities, and, with one last clang
Or hells for their own ruin, strews them flat
As riddled ashes—silent as the grave.
Walks not Contagion on the Air itself?
I should—old Ocean's Saturnalian days
And roaring nights of revelry and sport
With wreck and human woe—be loth to sing;
For they are few, and all their ills weigh light
Against his sacred usefulness, that bids
Our pensile globe revolve in purer air.
Here Morn and Eve with blushing thanks receive
Their fresh'ning dews, gay fluttering breezes cool
Their wings to fan the brow of fever'd climes,
And here the Spring dips down her emerald urn
For showers to glad the earth.
 
 
Old Ocean was
Infinity of ages ere we breathed
Existence—and he will be beautiful
When all the living world that sees him now
Shall roll unconscious dust around the sun.
Quelling from age to age the vital throb
In human hearts, Death shall not subjugate
The pulse that swells in his stupendous breast,
Or interdict his minstrelsy to sound
In thund'ring concert with the quiring winds;
But long as Man to parent Nature owns
Instinctive homage, and in times beyond
The power of thought to reach, bard after bard
Shall sing thy glory, BEATIFIC SEA!
 

Metropolitan.³

THE LATE MR. ABERNETHY

Mr. Abernethy, although amiable and good-natured, with strong feelings, possessed an irritable temper, which made him very petulant and impatient at times with his patients and medical men who applied to him for his opinion and advice on cases. When one of the latter asked him once, whether he did not think that some plan which he suggested would answer, the only reply he could obtain was, "Ay, ay, put a little salt on a bird's tail, and you'll be sure to catch him." When consulted on a case by the ordinary medical attendant, he would frequently pace the room to and fro with his hands in his breeches' pockets, and whistle all the time, and not say a word, but to tell the practitioner to go home and read his book. "Read my book" was a very frequent reply to his patients also; and he could seldom be prevailed upon to prescribe or give an opinion, if the case was one which appeared to depend upon improper dieting. A country farmer, of immense weight, came from a distance to consult him, and having given an account of his daily meals, which showed no small degree of addiction to animal food, Mr. Abernethy said, "Go away, sir, I won't attempt to prescribe for such a hog."

He was particular in not being disturbed during meals; and a gentleman having called after dinner, he went into the passage, put his hand upon the gentleman's shoulders, and turned him out of doors. He would never permit his patients to talk to him much, and often not at all: and he desired them to hold their tongues and listen to him, while he gave a sort of clinical lecture upon the subject of the consultation. A loquacious lady having called to consult him, he could not succeed in silencing her without resorting to the following expedient:—"Put out your tongue, madam." The lady complied. "Now keep it there till I have done talking." Another lady brought her daughter to him one day, but he refused to hear her or to prescribe, advising her to make the girl take exercise. When the guinea was put into his hand, he recalled the mother, and said, "Here, take the shilling back, and buy a skipping-rope for your daughter as you go along."—He kept his pills in a bag, and used to dole them out to his patients; and on doing so to a lady who stepped out of a coronetted carriage to consult him, she declared they made her sick, and she could never take a pill. "Not take a pill! what a fool you must be," was the courteous and conciliatory reply to the countess. When the late Duke of York consulted him, he stood whistling with his hands in his pockets; and the duke said, "I suppose you know who I am." The uncourtly reply was, "Suppose I do, what of that?" His pithy advice was, "Cut off the supplies, as the Duke of Wellington did in his campaigns, and the enemy will leave the citadel." When he was consulted for lameness following disease or accidents, he seldom either listened to the patient or made any inquiries, but would walk about the room, imitating the gait peculiar to different injuries, for the general instruction of the patient. A gentleman consulted him for an ulcerated throat, and, on asking him to look into it, he swore at him, and demanded how he dared to suppose that he would allow him to blow his stinking foul breath in his face! A gentleman who could not succeed in making Mr. Abernethy listen to a narration of his case, and having had a violent altercation with him on the subject, called next day, and as soon as he was admitted, he locked the door, and put the key into his pocket, and took out a loaded pistol. The professor, alarmed, asked if he meant to rob or murder him. The patient, however, said he merely wished him to listen to his case, which he had better submit to, or he would keep him a prisoner till he chose to relent. The patient and the surgeon afterwards became most friendly towards each other, although a great many oaths passed before peace was established between them.

This eccentricity of manner lasted through life, and lost Mr. Abernethy several thousands a year perhaps. But those who knew him were fully aware that it was characteristic of a little impatient feeling, which only required management; and the apothecaries who took patients to consult him, were in the habit of cautioning them against telling long stories of their complaints. An old lady, who was naturally inclined to be prosy, once sent for him, and began by saying that her complaints commenced when she was three years old, and wished him to listen to the detail of them from that early period. The professor, however, rose abruptly and left the house, telling the old lady to read his book, page so and so, and there she would find directions for old ladies to manage their health.

It must be confessed, Mr. Abernethy, although a gentleman in appearance, manner, and education, sometimes wanted that courtesy and worldly deportment which is considered so essential to the medical practitioner. He possessed none of the "suaviter in modo," but much of the eccentricity of a man of genius, which he undoubtedly was. His writings must always be read by the profession to which he belonged with advantage; although, in his great work upon his hobby, his theory is perhaps pushed to a greater extent than is admissible in practice.—His rules for dieting and general living should be read universally; for they are assuredly calculated to prolong life and secure health, although few perhaps would be disposed to comply with them rigidly. When some one observed to Mr. Abernethy himself, that he appeared to live much like other people, and by no means to be bound by his own rules, the professor replied, that he wished to act according to his own precepts, but he had "such a devil of an appetite," that he could not do so.

Mr. Abernethy had a great aversion to any hint being thrown out that he cured a patient of complaint. Whenever an observation to this effect was made, he would say, "I never cured any body." The meaning of this is perfectly obvious. His system was extremely wise and rational, although, as he expressed himself to ignorant persons, it was not calculated to excite confidence. He despised all the humbug of the profession, and its arts to deceive and mislead patients and their friends, and always told the plain truth without reserve. He knew that the term cure is inapplicable, and only fit to be used by quacks, who gain their livelihood by what they call cures, which they promise the patient to effect. Mr. Abernethy felt that nature was only to be seconded in her efforts, by an art which is derived from scientific principles and knowledge, and that it is not the physician or surgeon who cures, but nature, whom the practitioner assists by art. Weak-minded persons are apt to run after cures, and thus nostrums and quacks are in vogue, as if the living human system was as immutable in its properties as a piece of machinery, and could be remedied when it went wrong as the watchmaker repairs the watch with certainty, or the coachmaker mends the coach. No one appreciated more highly the value of medicine as a science than Mr. Abernethy; but he knew that it depended upon observation and a deep knowledge of the laws and phenomena of vital action, and that it was not a mere affair of guess and hazard in its application, nor of a certain tendency as to its effects.