Abbildungen der Seite
PDF
EPUB

"The same may be said of everything that is acknowledged to be good"-of education, of charity, of pleasure, etc. Education, for instance, is a good thing; give a small portion, and the gift is gooda larger, and it is better, while its value increases in the ratio of its approach to completeness. Impelled by such views, we have felt ourselves called upon to plead for the thorough education of as many as can receive it for the partial education of those who cannot.

CLERK WILLIAM'S PILGRIMAGE.

[ocr errors]

A LAY OF MODERN ROME.

(Edited with Notes by JOHN HOWDEN, Esq.)

—ερεὶν Οτι μετὰ τὸ γενέσθαι με εκεῖ δεῖ με καὶ ΡΩΜΗΝ 87.
ΠΡΑΞ. ΤΩΝ ̓ΑΠΟΣΤ. Κεφ. ιθ'. 21.

Terrarum dea, gentiumque, ROMA,
Cui par est nihil, et nihil secundum.-MARTIAL
Kennst Du das Land wo die Citronen blühn?
Von dunkelm Laub die Gold-orangen glühn;
Ein sanfter Wind vom blauen Hinimel weht,
Die Myrte still und hoch die Lorbeer steht.-GOETHE.
Relic of nobler days and noblest arts.-BYRON.

(CLESK WILLIAM having vowed a pilgrimage to Rome,] COME hither, Willy Ferguson,

An' stand beside my knee,

The while I rhyme a pleasant rhyme

O' Italie to thee.

Now our gude clerk, Clerk William,
A solemn vow hath ta'en,
That he will mak' a pilgrimage
To Rome an' back again.

[His departure is sorely bewailed by his servitors,]

An' sair, sair hae his servitors

Bewail'd their maister dear, And aften wud ilk strive to hide,

In vain, the starting tear.

Was nane o' a' his servitors

But wud hae left his hame
To face, in gude Clerk William's place,
The dangers o' the faem.

[Who keep assiduous watch for his return.]
There be twice two chosen servitors
That keep Clerk William's bower;
Lang, lang they'll wait his coming,
By battlement an' tower;

An' lang they'll watch the thundering car
An' track the steed o' flame;
But mony a day maun come and gae
Ere our gude clerk come hame.

[In the meantime, their master having arrived in Italy,
praiseth the "bonny shaws" of Tay, and the "sunny
vines" of Provence,]

"Oh, dear to me the bonny shaws

That deck the banks o' Tay; Pleasant to me the sunny vines

O' Provence far away;

An' dark an' drear the deadly fens
That border on the sea,

That laves wi' its waves

The shores o' Italie!

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

[He rejoiceth greatly as he draweth near the city,]

"But I hear, aboon the City's hum,

Her chimes swell loud an' clear, An' I see, through the thin morning mist, Her thousand spires appear; An' every glance at her lichts up, Though wan an' worn she be, The desert places o' the heart, The shades o' memorie.

[Generously forbeareth to curse her for sorceries,] "Proud Wreck o' Time! now age an' crime, An' crime yet mair than age, Hae writ thy doom, in lines o' gloom, Upon thy brow's braid page; Not mine to brand wi' deeper shame That dim, dishonour'd brow— Thou wert a Queen, an' pitying tears Should best beseem thee now.

[And apostrophiseth her, with Byron,* as Mother of Nations!]

"Cauld as Iana's ice the heart

That wudna warm to thee!
Lone Mother o' the Nations,*

Though chang'd an' dim thou be,
A pilgrim, frae an alien land,
An' o' an alien race,

Where seer an' sage hae stood wud stand
An' gaze upon thy face!"

[From the Tarpeian Rock he espieth, or fancieth he can espy the Sabine Farm,]

Now frae the hill Tarpeian,
Wi' fanes on ilka hand,
Clerk William gazeth eastward

O'er a' the Sabine land;

On forests bricht wi' fading leaves,
On hills o' misty blue,

An' on the gather'd gold o' sheaves
That by the Anio grew.

[Which awaketh in him memories pleasant to the soul.] It may be he had linger'd

By mony a fairer scene,
For he had look'd on mony a land,

An' lang a wanderer been;
But nane that could sae wake again
Those memories o' langsyne,
Which round the heart, like ivy-wreaths
Round storied ruins, twine.

It waketh in him memories

O' boyhood's happy years, Ere grief hath wrung the heart wi' pain, Or dimm'd the eye wi' tears; When bending o'er that pleasant page, Those sweet Horatian lays, He dreamed away the golden hours O' the lang, lang simmer days.

An' now he looks upon the land
That gave the poet birth;
He hears the sobbing o' the breeze
That sweeps the parched earth;
He sees the tangled watercourse
Flow onward clear an' cool,

The sword grass wave beside the brook,
The bulrush in the pool.

[Then beginneth he to moralise on the "fair humanities of old Religion,"]

"Fell, flood, an' field-a' else is changed,
A' changed since Time was young;
The Poet's name is there unknown,
The Poet's sangs unsung;

An' now that Time's grown auld an' gray,
They haunt the land no more—

The Dryad an' the Oread

That trod its glades o' yore.

[On Echo,]

"Oh, never more shall shepherd boy, By haunted thicket, pine

To look, sweet Daughter o' the Voice, Upon thy form divine;

And never more to longing ears,

By cove or mountain pass, Shall phantom voices stir the leaves, Or whisper in the grass!

[And on the Islands of the Blessed.]

"Oh, never more shall hero tread, Beneath the blushing west,

Those shadowy isles, where weary souls Find never-ending rest

Lone Isles o' Bliss, where mighty seers

An' the strong true hearts of old By simmer hill or shady rill Untiring converse hold!

[Then reverteth he to Horace,]

"No, never more!-We yearn, O Bard, For regions lovelier far

Than the loveliest o' the myriad isles
That gem the ocean are;
For beings other far than those

Which, in thy budding youth,
Met thee by dell, as poets tell,

An' kissed thee mouth to mouth.

[Who sleeps not, he assureth us, at Lucretilis,] "The mountain torrent, as of old, By fair Licenza leaps, O'er fair Licenza's cottage homes Still frown the Sabine steeps; An' still by fair Licenza

Stands thy dear native home, Far o'er the drear Campagna That girds the walls o' Rome.

The author mistakes. Byron's language is, "Lone Mother of dead Empires." In this we can see a perfect meaning; but we confess our inability to see as much in the line before us.

[blocks in formation]

"TIS SWEET THE FACE

TIS sweet the face of heaven to view
In all its sun-bright grace;

But sweeter far, and fairer too,

Is lovely woman's face.

[Of the Rape of the Sabines, o the murder of Servius,]

"Up yonder steep the Ramnes
Their shrieking prizes bore;

Down yonder path, lang deem'd accurs'd
By wives an' maids o' yore,
Through crowds o' pallid faces
An' pools o' blood and mire
Fierce Tullia urged her frantic steeds
O'er her still-bleeding sire.

[Of Lucretia and Horatius,]

"Where was it that the famous spouse
O' Collatine lay dying?

Her grave perchance were yon rude mound
Round which the winds are sighing;
An' haply where yon ruins peep

The rushing flood from under,
Stout Cocles stayed while axe an' blade
Hewed plank and pier asunder.

[And Scævola, and the Tarquins,]
"Where was it that the Roman's hand
Seeth'd in the Tuscan's fire?
Where camped the Umbrian Lucumos,
The Tarquins, son and sire,
What time the yellow Tiber

Ran red wi' purple foam,
An' noon an' night the storm o' fight
Raved round the walls o' Rome?

[And Virginia, and the Triumph.] "There, through Rome's stately Forum, Adown the Sacred Street,

Trickled the young Virginia's blood

To Claudius' cursed feet;

And there, through Rome's proud Forum,
An' by the Sacred Grove,

Slow streamed the March o' Triumph
To Capitolian Jove.

[And concludeth by again apostrophising Rome as Mother
of Nations.]

"Hail, Mother o' the Nations!

All-hail thy hill-tops seven!
Hail to thy Dome that hangs in air,
An' thy spires that seek the heaven!
This day, amid thy ruins gray,

A priest o' alien race,

O' alien creed, o' alien land,
By Tiber's fair and storied strand,
Where seer an' sage hae stood, wud stand
An' gaze upon thy face."

OF HEAVEN TO VIEW.

The stars are beautiful indeed,
The glory of the skies;
But far more beautiful, we plead,
Are lovely woman's eyes.

An allusion, we presume, to the Egyptian lions on the staircase of the Capitol.

It is evident from this, as well as other passages in the "Pilgrimage," that the writer's acquaint

ance with Mr Macaulay's magnificent poems is not slight.

THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE AS AN EXPONENT OF

THOUGHT.

HAIL native Language, that by sinews weak

Did'st move my first endeavouring tongue to speak;
And madest imperfect words with childish trips
Half unpronounced, slide through my infant lips;
Driving dumb Silence from the portal door,
Where he had mutely sat two years before!
Here I salute thee.-Milton.

LANGUAGE is the embodiment of thought. In it thought sculptures itself in the most varied forms—from the plainly expressed sentence to the ornamented delineation of the most glowing conception. Nay more; with the brilliant constructive colouring of the imagination, it depicts to the eye the freshness and vividness of life. It is a quarry from which we may hew the forms of all kinds of thought. Painting, sculpture, and the kindred imitative arts, are but specific modes of expression, and are therefore more limited in their variety and range; but language is the divine expression that contains all other modes, for it contains all that is in man. It is a form plastic enough to receive, and vigorous enough to retain every impressive character the immortal mind is capable of. But living thought must animate, for thought is the soul that thrills it with expressive beauty. Thus language, the form of thought, can be said to exist only when thought sustains it with life.

Language, the form of thought, is controlled by the necessities of thought. The modifications of language are not the result of accident or arbitrary caprice, but are formed in obedience to the laws of thought.

Grammar and rhetoric are directly conversant with the forms or expressions of thought, and indirectly, with thought, the causes of those forms and their modifications.

The English grammar in common use has been conformed to the Latin, and this distorted form has been used for such a length of time, that there is little hope of restoring it to its former simplicity. By this Latinising of it we have rendered it much more difficult and unnatural than it is in reality. But the Classics are now finding their proper place, and it is to be hoped that ere long we shall begin the acquisition of a good English style of writing, with the study of a truly English grammar.

In moulding thought into the forms of language, we increase our power to think, at the same time that we are acquiring the art of expressing our thought.

This

Power of thought is developed by observation and reflection. Those who neglect this process, and indiscriminately store up in their memories the thoughts of others, can never properly use them. alone this digesting of the food of the mind, and consequent appropriation of vigour by the mental system, is what we would dignify with the title of power of thought. This is the true reason given to man and to no other earthly creature, but which man oftener abuses than uses to a rightful issue.

Suitable

Power to think is natural. We all think in degree. studies and practical training will carry us forward to an increasing degree of power, only limited by the term of our natural existence.

The art of expressing thought is reckoned difficult, because, being from its nature of slow and almost imperceptible development, we wish to annihilate the necessary stages, and wield the power at once. Nature limits us in this, as in all things. We cannot step on before her, else she is sure to pull us back, or knock us down by hurling one of her relentless laws at us. We might as well deem it difficult to grow physically in any of our bodily powers. In both, the laws of our constitution must be obeyed, if we wish to attain our end. What would we think of a person who, wishing to grow very fast, for that purpose kept continually cramming himself with food? Yet we have multitudes of mental crammers, who paralyse the action of nature, and crush the vital energy of the mind. The art of expressing thought is necessarily of slow development, and the development of the mind ought to be the basis and measure of its advancement.

As language is the expression of thought, the grammar of language. is an account of the expression of thought, comprehending its phenomena, and the causes which produce these. This account embraces, first, the individual nature of the words; and second, the relation words bear to one another. Under the first are comprehended their derivation, inflection, orthography and pronunciation; under the second, all the form of composition based upon necessity, usage or

taste.

From derivation we obtain a knowledge of the history of words -from inflection a knowledge of the changes they undergo when they are qualified by certain accessory ideas-from orthography, a knowledge of the correct mode of spelling words, and from pronunciation, a knowledge of the correct mode of pronouncing them.

The natural relations of thought are the necessary relations of language. Usage comprehends the idiom peculiar to a language, and taste the more elaborate compositions that address themselves not only to the reason, but to the imagination also.

It

The English language, it is well known, is not a native one. was imported from the north of Germany, from that tract of country extending along the seacoast, from Jutland to the Rhine.

The following is a statement of its successive importations:

First, A.D. 449.

The Jutes, under Hengist and Horsa, landed at Ebbsfleet, in the Isle of Thanet. They shortly after founded the kingdom of Kent. Second, A.D. 477. The Saxons, under Ella, landed in Sussex, and founded the kingdom of the South Saxons, or Sussex.

Third, A.D. 495. Another tribe of Saxons, under Cerdie, landed in Hampshire, and founded the kingdom of the West Saxons, or Wessex.

Fourth, A.D. 530. Certain Saxons landed in Essex.

Fifth. During the reign of Cerdie in Wessex, the Angles landed in Norfolk and Suffolk.

Sixth, A.D. 547. The Angles, under Ida, landed in the south-eastern counties of Scotland, between the Tweed and the Forth.

These successive importations gradually extended over a great part.

« ZurückWeiter »