AMIDST the scenes of war and violence, of alternate struggle and servitude unfolded in the Book of Judges, the picture of the pious Levite of Ramah, Zophim and his family, ís one of peculiar beauty. The wonderful deeds of the most extraordinary among the Jewish heroes, Samson, were ringing in the ears of the people; the feeble and irresolute Eli was judge and high-priest of Israel, and the sons whom he so criminally indulged were bringing destruction upon themselves and wrath upon the nation, when within the sacred precincts of the tabernacle was growing up the devoted child, the chosen prophet, the pious governor, whose administration was to restore dignity and peace to his country. Elkanah was a peaceable citizen of a town in Mount Ephraim, and a devout servant of Jehovah, as appears from the regularity with which he went up, at stated times, to worship and offer sacrifices. The ark and tabernacle were at Shiloh in the territory of Ephraim, the most powerful and least exposed of the provinces; and thither to the one place and the one altar consecrated by the presence of Divinity, was the true Israelite bound to to repair, whatever disorder might prevail in the ceremonies, or however unworthy might be the priests who ministered in the holy ordinances. The character of this exemplary citizen is finely drawn by a few touches in the Bible. He was devotedly attached to Hannah, who seems to have been his first wife. For Peninnah, the mother of his children, he had due respect, and showed it in giving to her and the children the customary portions at the appointed peace-offerings, on which it was usual for the offerer to feast with his family. To Hannah, the beloved, he rendered more than the wonted attention; a circumstance which did not escape the jealous observation of her rival. The patience and kindness with which Elkanah bears the arrogance and malevolence of Peninnah, exhibited in a way which must have wounded him most severely, since it embittered the life of one dearer than himself, the tenderness with which he remonstrates with Hannah upon her indulgence of a grief that disturbed their proper performance of religious ceremonies, assuring her of the unchangeable affection which ought to have consoled her for all disappointments-and the fidelity with which he aids her to fulfil her pledge to the Lord, mark him as a faithful husband and father, as well as a true-hearted Hebrew. We know not the motives with which he had married Peninnah; probably the desire of offspring, as in Abraham's case, had influenced him; but like him he had reason to repent a step involving injury to his own peace, and rendering his house, when his family was assembled, the scene of discord and suffering. On every occasion, and particularly when they went up to Shiloh, to join in the solemn acts enjoined by their religious law-the fortunate mother of sons and daughters, proud of her fertility, and rejoicing that her rival was denied the blessing of children, taunted and provoked Hannah. Peninnah is emphatically called "her adversary," for her conduct was prompted by the most cruel malevolence, and might have generated not only discontent, but envy and vindictive resentment in the mind of the gentle being so wantonly insulted. But Hannah's nature, it seems, was not one ready to apprehend and resent injury. She gave no reply to the taunts hurled against her-even at times when respect for the ordinances of the sanctuary should have checked a vaunting or insolent spirit; she uttered no murmur against the providence which seemed to have cut her off from the hope of being a mother in Israel; but she felt the reproach intensely and keenly, and poured out her sorrow in tears, being unable to eat of the sacrifices, or fearing to partake of them in a spirit of mournfulness. Hannah does not appear to have possessed any of the impatient temper manifested by Rachel under a similar affliction. She had strong feelings, but they were controlled by her respect for Elkanah's authority, and by her religious faith. On the occasion mentioned particularly, the insolence of her adversary, and the anguish caused by her provoking language, seem to have reached their climax. Then it was that Elkanah rebuked her gently, for the immoderate grief which was an offense to God, as well as uukindness to him. Hannah answered not, but rose up after the solemn feast; her soul was full of bitterness, her anguish no longer repressible; and she obeyed HANNAH. the native tendency of the spirit to pour out its woe to the Almighty Hearer of prayer. Let the waters of affliction overwhelm the soul-deep calling unto deep; let earthly help and hope disappear-and its cry ascends instinctively to heaven. Happy those, who, like Hannah, can pray in faith as well as fervently, and keep the vow made in the day of trouble ! Hannah stood within the tabernacle, and the pent-up sorrows of her bosom found vent first in a flood of tears, and then in earnest supplication before the Lord. She vowed a vow, that if a son were granted her, he should be consecrated to God, and devoted, all the days of his life, only to His service. Often might blessings importunately craved be found curses in reality; and the parent's heart be wrung by the ingratitude or the unworthiness of the child received as the dearest boon of Heaven. She who prayed now for a son, would secure his welfare both in this world and the next, as well as testify her gratitude for the gift, by dedicating him to the Lord. As she stood and prayed-her whole heart absorbed in the earnestness of her petition-her lips moving, but with no audible voice-unmindful or unconscious of observation, there was one who looked upon and condemned her. The high-priest Eli, seated by the post in the temple or tabernacle, had marked her entrance and her movements, and mistaking the evidence of strong emotion, taxed her with drunkenness. Here again are shown the mildness and humility of Hannah, in the courteous and respectful manner in which she replied, evincing no anger at the injurious imputation cast upon her. It was nothing strange, perhaps, in those days, when the temple of the Most High was profaned by licentious excess, when the very priests "lorded it over God's heritage," and desecrated his sacrifice with abominations, for the inebriate to venture into the sanctuary; nor had the reproof of the high-priest, in most cases, much effect. Hannah not only testified no indignation, but, in declaring her innocence and the sorrow that had brought her thither an humble supplicant, did not explain the cause of her distress. It lay between her and her Maker; in Him alone she trusted for relief, and she sought no human sympathy nor intervention in making known her complaint to the God of Israel. Eli acknowledged his mistake; and, without knowing what had been her petition, added his blessing and prayer that it might be granted. Having" poured out her soul before the Lord," Hannah goes her way, no longer oppressed with sadness, and able, with a cheerful countenance, to bear her part in the stated worship. The son she asked is given, and she calls him by a name 13 that perpetuates her memory of the obligation. She does not go up to the yearly sacrifice till the time comes when she may perform her vow, and give him up finally to the sanctuary. Elkanah approves her determination. "Do," he says, "what seemeth thee good; only the Lord establish his word." His zeal for the honor of Jehovah, and confidence that He would do all things well, rendered him willing to yield up his own judgment even in disposing of his child. How signally was the devotion rewarded! A scene of deep interest and pathos is presented in the final restitution of the gift or loan for which Hannah had prayed in the sanctuary. Leading her boy, and having with her the offerings for sacrifice and thank-offering customary for those who came to pay a tribute of gratitude and joy, she appears once more in the presence of the high-priest. No longer bowed down with distress, she is so changed by the cheerfulness of her countenance and deportment, that she is not recognized by Eli. Her heart is overflowing with thankful happiness; she remembers not his unkind reproof, but, greeting him eagerly, declares herself the same woman who stood by him praying; that she has been made happy by a gracious answer to her petition, and that she is come to render up God's due, by giving her son to his service. How must the touching piety of this mother, with the innocence of the child who stood ready to be thus devoted, have struck the soul of Eli-so lamentably deficient in his own domestic management-so unhappy in the misconduct of his sons! It was hard for those affectionate parents to separate themselves from their only son, in his tender childhood, while his presence was most dear to them, but harder would it have been to see the working in him of the curse that follows disobedience ! Again Hannah prayed; but this time not in humiliation and anguish. Then, her voice was not heard, but her prayer struggled upward from her heart; now her words are uttered aloud, and her love and gratitude poured out in the sacred and sublime hymn, at the close of which is a mysterious prophecy of the greatness of the Messiah. She returns to Ramah, with Elkanah, leaving Samuel to minister before the Lord, but continues from year to year to visit him, and bring him little tokens of her maternal fondness, when she comes up with Elkanah to attend the sacrifice. She was blessed, amidst the cares of a numerous family, in watching the growth of this cherished son in wisdom and piety. Her trust was remembered in the grace which made the child "in favor both with the Lord, and also with men." The child, destined, after Moses, to be the first 14 MOTHERWELL AND HIS POEMS. eminent and acknowledged prophet in Israel, continued to serve in the sanctuary, under the direction of the high-priest. While slumbering at night in the area of the tabernacle, a mysterious voice calls him by name; the call being repeated so frequently that the aged Eli became convinced that some new revelation was to be made. It was an affecting scene, when, on the morning after the vision, the guileless child stood in the presence of the infirm high-priest, who had been to him as a father, for whom affectionate respect had grown with his growth, and adjured by the great name of Jehovah, delivered the awful message. Strange, that the first words of prophecy from the lips of one so young should be fraught with such terror, and stranger still that they should denounce unrelenting vengeance upon the house of the priest who had protected the early years of Samuel, and hoped, perhaps, to find comfort in him for the wickedness of those of his own blood! The fame of Samuel extended as he grew, and his word came to all Israel," till he assumed his appointed place as head of the state. Thus was distinguished honor put upon the piety of his parents, and the wise nurture in which he grew. Elkanah and Hannah were blessed, not in his greatness, but in his pre-eminent usefulness. MOTHERWELL AND HIS POEMS. AN able writer of the present day has attempted to prove the superiority of modern over ancient painting; but the like hypothesis has never been sustained in regard to the sister art--Poetry. The divinity of poetry is shown in her unchange. ableness. She has no part either in social progress or social decline. The songs that charmed the rude ear of Greece, when bloodshed was a religious duty both of gods and men, are still the dearest music of the refined and Christian world. The ballads of our half-civilized ancestors, written when the language was as untutored as the men, are still the text-books of study, the "well undefiled" of inspiration. The reason no doubt is, that in earlier conditions of society, more direct, and therefore more powerful, appeals are made to the natural feelings, which are the true stuff of poetry. As we advance in luxury, these may be overlaid with artificial refinements, and new schools may give form and method to conventional distinctions; but we never wholly forget our first loves, and never fail to reward with our smiles or tears those who strike the chord of nature. It has not been sufficiently noted that those epochs which imitate, as it were, the distractions of ruder times by civil war or other convulsions, have always been the most fertile in poetry; and that the Muse, even of the modern world, has sounded her loftiest notes amid public calamities or the clash of arms. There are always spirits, however, that have a leaning, irrespective of epochs and conditions of society, towards the simplicity and directness of old times; and when this is accom panied by a deep love of external nature, and the power of interpreting her forms and voices to the hearts of others, the result is true poetry. Of such spirits was WILLIAM MOTHERWELL, & name to which if criticism cannot award a higher place than in the first rank of minor poets, is yet peculiarly worthy of our affection and regard. Without entering upon anything like a critical estimate of his genius or his productions, we think it will be a refreshing reminiscence to recall to the reader's mind and heart an outline of his life and character. William Motherwell was born in Glasgow in 1797, but received his earlier education in Edinburgh; and there, while attending one of those humbler schools where boys and girls sat together on the same form, his poetical sympathies already began to develop themselves. His school companion, playmate and friend, was a little girl called Jeanie Morrison, whom he never met again after their parting at the age of eleven. At fourteen, however, this girl still haunted him, and he tried to express in rude rhymes the gush of tenderness with which he turned to her gentle image. In later years the effort was resumed, and crowned by the production of a poem which no man of the most ordinary sensibility can read without a swelling heart and a moistened eye. In this exquisite lyric the little girl has evidently grown a woman in the expansion of the heart which contained her; and he wonders, with all the anxiety of a lover, whether he is as closely twined in the thoughts of the phantom of memory as she has been in his : MOTHERWELL AND HIS POEMS. 15 **I marvel, Jeanie Morrison, Gin I hae been to thee As closely twined wi' earliest thochts, Oh tell me gin their music fills Thine ear as it does mine? Oh say gin e'er your heart grows grit I've wandered east, I've wandered west, But in my wanderings, far or near, Ye never were forgot. The fount that first burst frae this heart Still travels on its way; And channels deeper as it rins The luve o' life's young day." Motherwell's education was completed at the grammar school of Paisley, where he appears to have gone through the then curriculum of Scotland, inflicted upon all boys, without the slightest regard to their own tastes or destination in afterlife-namely, five years of Latin, with the superaddition of Greek in the fifth year. At the age of fifteen he was placed in the office of the sheriffclerk of Paisley, and after some years' service was appointed sheriff-clerk depute, which situation he retained with credit till the close of 1829. During this period he made some attempts to supply the defects in his education; and he collected a considerable number of volumes, chiefly in poetry and historical romance. In 1819 he edited the "Harp of Renfrewshire," a selection of songs and other poetical pieces, with some originals, and an introduction and notes; but it was not till 1827 that the work appeared on which his literary reputation mainly rests-the "Minstrelsy, Ancient and Modern." This work attracted considerable attention, and led to a correspondence with Sir Walter Scott on the subject of the curious old ballad of Gil Morrice. In 1828 Motherwell commenced the Paisley Magazine, and about the same time became the editor of the Paisley Advertiser; but in 1830 he accepted the editorship of the Glasgow Courier, which he retained till his death, five years later. With some contributions to the periodicals, a little volume of "Poems, Narrative and Lyrical," a joint edition with James Hogg of the works of Burns, which he did not live to complete, and his official struggles as a partisan of the expiring Tory party, this interval is filled up; and on the first of November, 1835, William Motherwell, at the early age of thirty-eight, was suddenly called away by a shock of apoplexy in the very midst of the conflict of life. Such is the brief and commonplace history of the man that of the poet must be read in his works; and there we find the portraiture of a being as strangely different as it is possible to conceive from a provincial sheriff-clerk or a newspaper editor. Motherwell had a deep and holy love for external nature. To his ear the forest wind and the murmur of the river were laden with the voices of spirits, and it was not the mere ghosts of memory that rose upon the darkness of the night. Conjoined, however, with these wild imaginings, there were the home-thoughts, the heart-yearnings, the social, friendly, family sympathies, which serve as a balance for the extravagances of fancy, and chain the dreamer to his true place upon the earth. Although involved for so many years in the strife of faction, and waging on his part a bitter and desperate party war, Motherwell, we are told, when he was called from the world, left behind him not one personal enemy. It may readily be supposed that the fancy which made itself a home in the supernatural world, turned away from the refinements and the philosophy of contemporary writers, to dwell with the old balladists of his country. These he has not imitated in style and manner-he has identified his spirit with theirs; and no other modern writer we recollect has been so happy in that directness of effort, characteristic of the olden time, which unlocks by a single touch the fountain of sympathy. This is alluded to in an elegant criticism by Professor Wilson which appeared in 1833: “All his perceptions are clear, for all his senses are sound; he has fine and strong sensibilities, and a powerful intellect. He has been led by the natural bent of his genius to the old haunts of inspiration—the woods and glens of his native country-and his ears delight to drink the music of her old songs. Many a beautiful ballad has blended its pensive and plaintive pathos with his day-dreams, and while reading some of his happiest effusions, we feel 'The ancient spirit is not dead Old times, we say, are breathing there' His style is simple, but in its tenderest movements, masculine: he strikes a few bold knocks at the door of the heart, which is instantly opened by the master or mistress of the house, or by son or daughter, and the welcome visitor at once becomes one of the family." In 1882 appeared the first edition of Motherwell's poems, and fourteen years later the second, with many additional pieces. In this interval two editions were published in this country, and since that period several editions have been issued. It is probable that Motherwell enjoys a higher reputation here than at home. A third English edition has recently appeared, enriched with many additions from the author's manuscripts, "He courted me in parlor, and he courted me in ha', He courted me by Bothwell banks, amang the flowers sae sma', He courted me wi' pearlins, wi' ribbons, and wi' rings, We hied thegither to the fair, I rade ahint my joe, I fand his heart leap up and doun, while mine beat faint and low; He turned his rosy cheek about, and then, ere I could trow, And aye he waled the loanings lang, till we drew near the town, When I could hear the kimmers say- There rides a comelie loun!' I turned wi' pride, and keeked at him, but no as to be seen, And thought how dowie I wad feel gin he made love to Jean! But soon the manly chiel, aff hand, thus frankly said to me, Meg, either tak me to yoursel, or set me fairly free!' To Glasgow Green I linked wi' him, to see the ferlies there, He birled his penny wi' the best-what noble could do mair? But e'er ae fit he'd tak me hame, he cries- Meg, tell me As a contrast, we may take the following, affording a fair specimen of the masculine character of his style: THE KNIGHT'S REQUIEM. "They have waked the knight so meikle of might The stout and the true lay stretched in view, And the voice was still that like trumpet shrill And the deadly hand, whose battle brand Was laid at rest on the manly breast With book, and bell, and waxen light, ter HIS POEMS. Whose limbs may rest with worms unblest In the damp and silent clay! With a heavy cheer they upraised his bier, The trumpets blew a last adieu To the good knight's martial soul. And before the shrine of St. James the divine, Of men who had seldom wept, And to hear the deep groan of each mail-clad one With many a groan, they placed that stone To arm and fight amain, Their brother's mate again!" We can close our inadequate sketch in no betway than by quoting two stanzas from one of the poems of the older editions: I AM NOT SAD. "I am not sad, though sadness seem I cherished once a foolish dream- To feel 'twas right to bow To fate's decree, and this my doom- I grieve not, though a tear may fill Old thoughts will rise, do what we will, An idle gush, And all is hush, The fount is soon run dry; And cheerly now I meet my doomThe darkness of a nameless tomb. In these verses Motherwell foretold what has hitherto been a truth. He was buried in the Necropolis of Glasgow, and the spot is undistinguished even by a headstone bearing his initials! A considerable sum of money was raised by subscription among the friends of the deceased poet; but it was no more than enough to succor those whom Motherwell had been obliged to leave to the charity of his friends. |