Page images
PDF
EPUB

indifference that I might not provoke affectation. After a short silence, he stopped. I saw his eyes brighten, his lips quiver, and striking his foot on the ground, he stammered out, "How grand! how beautiful! how great is God!" From this moment his mental education began. His heart was opened to Nature's pure religion; and for evermore will he speak of her works with feeling as well as language, nor will the simplest wild-flower need a prompter. To study the effect of these scenes, upon different minds, would produce some curious metaphysical speculations. I know a gentleman, who, unable to express in words his wonder and delight, all at once burst forth into loud and uncontrollable song; and I heard of a young lady, while riding through a narrow pass, with the sight of a precipice from one carriage window, and a steep and rugged mountain's side from the other, who could not, for a long time, be roused from a state of apparent stupefaction; and afterwards, with the tears rolling down her cheeks, she told her alarmed companions, she was never so delighted in her life. But of all travellers none astonished me so much as a boy. I heard of him at two distant spots in the Highlands. I envy the dreams of that boy more than the realities of an emperor. At each time I had hopes of falling in with him, but was disappointed. They described him as a very fairfaced creature, walking alone, with a bundle under his arm, his shoes worn away to mere nothings, husbanding his little purse, his eyes exulting in all he saw, and when he took refreshment at an inn, he stood, with untired feet, upon the threshold, still gazing at the mighty hills. He said he was thirteen, that he had never seen the mountains in all his life before, and had set out to walk among them during his holidays. My child where was your skipping-rope, your game at cricket, your knuckle-down at taw? What! all forgotten, all your pastimes left behind, as they were nothing worth, that you might take your solitary wanderings, banqueting like an angel, amidst such scenes as these? And was there no little friend, no loving play-fellow, to bear you company? Or did you rather choose to hold a lonely converse with Nature, and that in her severest moods? Alas! my bright child, world may be cruel to you, pity you as an idiot, or start from you as a madman; or they may be, in their way, kind, as the humour of the day may suit, and bow down their heads, and call you glorious, wonderful!

the

Let a father bring his son hither, while he is yet young, before his pure nature is adulterated by his passions, or rather by the grosser passions of the world. Here will the intellect be nourished into strength, and the heart be touched to kindliness. Sometimes let him be left solitary in a wild spot, where no habitation, no trace of man is seen, as if the world were young as himself, and that a region where mortal foot had never before trod. There he will meditate on his being, in `wisdom far beyond his years. The feelings of childhood are without alloy they are neither mistrusted, confused, nor analyzed, and maintain as free a sway as they are freely welcomed. Let nothing disturb them; they are sacred. I would have them wrought upon almost to pain, that they may endure for ever. The fear that an early acquaintance with such scenes may divert the mind from industrious habits is founded in error. It is more likely to produce a contrary effect. A youthful and warm imagination must have something to build upon the safer course is to content it at once with realities; where these are denied, the chances are that it will rove in the ideal world, never satisfied, and

therefore always on the spring. Those idle visionaries, who continually brood over delightful impossibilities, and daily weave their romances for to-morrow, will be found, for the most part, among the tenants of a pent-up town. Whereas a mountaineer, never cursed with these distracting illusions, is remarkable for energy and perseverance. A father need not apprehend any danger from the most romantic valley in the world, even surpassing that of the Arabian Sinbad, only wanting the diamonds and the serpents.

It would be unfair to bring forward the names of celebrated men, either in confirmation of what is said, or in opposition to it. Genius is extraordinary, and can only be judged by its peers, or, as is frequently the case, it is "itself alone." No one felt the magic of mountain-scenery more than Rousseau, and his beloved Pays de Vaud was, perhaps, the foster-mother of his genius; but though he is called a visionary, he was not an idle one. He says, "Never did a level country, however beautiful it might be, seem beautiful in my eyes. I must have cataracts, rocks, fir-trees, dark forests, steep and rugged pathways, with precipices at my feet which make me shudder." There is a passage in his "Confessions" upon this subject, written with such enthusiasm, that the greatest enemies of the man must, as they read it, admire and delight in the boy Rousseau. Start not!-here is none of his philosophy.

"Never did I possess such activity of thought, never was I so sensible of my being, so full of the enjoyment of life, so much myself, if I may dare use the expression, as when I have travelled alone and on foot. There is something in walking which animates and enlightens my ideas while I remain still, I am scarce capable of thought; my body must be set in motion if I would rouse my intellect. My gaze upon the country, the succession of pleasing views, the open air, my keen appetite, the flow of health which walking earns for me, the ease of a country-inn, my distance from all that can make me feel my dependance, from all that reminds me of my situation, all this disentangles my soul, gives me a daring grasp of thought, throws me, as it were, into the immensity of created things, where I combine, select, appropriate them to myself, without restraint and without fear. The whole of Nature is at my control; my heart, wandering from object to object, unites, identifies itself to those which are congenial to it, is surrounded by enchanting illusions, is intoxicated with delicious sentiments. If, to fix them for awhile, I take pleasure in describing them to myself, what boldness of pencil, what freshness of colour, what energy of expression do I give them! This is all to be found, they tell me, in my works, though written towards the decline of life. Oh! if they had seen those of my early youth, those which I made during my walks, those which I composed, but which I never wrote! Why, you will ask, why not write them? And why, I answer, should I write them? Why deprive me of the actual charm of enjoyment, in order to let others know that I have been happy? What were your readers to me, your public, what the whole world, whilst I was soaring in the Heavens? Besides, was I to carry a supply of pens and paper? Had I considered these matters, nothing would have entered my mind. I foresaw not that I should have ideas; they came at their will, not at mine. They came not, or they came in crowds; they overwhelmed me with their number and their strength.

Ten volumes a day would not have contained them! Where was the time to write them? On my arrival I thought of nothing but a good dinner; and at my departure, of nothing but a good walk. I felt that a new paradise awaited me at the door, and I hastened to enjoy it."

The eloquent Rousseau! And this is not mere eloquence; it is truth, a matter of fact,-I know it. I! And who am I? Not one indeed who can share the transports of his imagination, but an humble plodding man, a common-place fellow, who had the foresight to carry with him pens and paper, and the wilful industry to write a sketch of all he saw and all he felt. Ah! how unlike Rousseau!

The poet Keats walked in the Highlands, not with the joyousness, the rapture of the young Rousseau, but in that hallowed pleasure of the soul, which, in its fulness, is a-kin to pain. The following extract of a poem, not published in his works, proves his intensity of feeling, even to the dread of madness. It was written while on his journey, soon after his pilgrimage to the birth-place of Burns, not for the gaze of the world, but as a record for himself of the temper of his mind at the time. It is a sure index to the more serious traits in his character; but Keats, neither in writing nor in speaking, could affect a sentiment,his gentle spirit knew not how to counterfeit. I leave it, without comment on its beauties, to the reader,-and to his melancholy, as he thinks upon so young a poet dying of a broken heart.

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

SOUTH AMERICAN PATRIOT'S SONG*.

Translated from the original Spanish, printed at Buenos Ayres, 1818.

'Tis the voice of a Nation waking

From her long, long sleep, to be free-
"Tis the sound of the fetters breaking
At the watchword "Liberty!"
The laurel-leaves hang o'er her,
The gallant victor's prize:
And see how low before her,
In the dust, the lion lies!
Chorus.-Eternal glory crown us!
Eternal laurels bloom,

To deck our heads with honour,
Or flourish o'er our tomb.

On the steps of the heroes treading
See the god of the fight at hand!
The light of his glory shedding
On his own devoted band.
Our Incas tombs before ye
Upheave to meet your tread,
As if that tramp of glory
Had roused the sleeping dead.
Chorus.-Eternal, &c.

Saw ye the Tyrant shedding
The blood of the pure and free?
Heard ye his footstep treading
On thy golden sands, Potosè?
his red eye watching

Saw ye

As the ravenous beast his prey?
And the strong arm fiercely snatching
The flower of our land away?
Chorus.-Eternal, &c.

Argentines! by the pride of our nation,
By the hopes and joys of the free,
We will hurl the proud from his station,
And bring down the haughty knee.
Even now our banners streaming
Where fell the conquer'd foe,
In the summer sun, bright gleaming,
Your march of glory shew.
Chorus.-Eternal, &c.

Hark! o'er the wide waves sounding,
Columbia Columbia! thy name,
While from pole to pole rebounding,
"Columbia!" the nations proclaim.

Thy glorious throne is planting
Over oppression's grave;

And a thousand tongues are chanting
"Health to the free and brave."

Chorus.-Eternal, &c.

E. T.

Several of the original stanzas of the above song are omitted, as containing chiefly a bare enumeration of towns and provinces in any way signalized during the contest. The music adapted to it is extremely beautiful and animated, and the translator regrets it has never yet been published in England.

ALL HALLOW EVE IN IRELAND.

In the hinder end of harvest upon All Hallow ene
Quhen our "gude nichbours rydis (now gif I reid richt)
Some bucklit on a benwood and some on a benc,
Ay trottand into troupes fra the twilicht.

KING JAMES VI.

SOME years ago, I had the pleasure of passing an All Hallow Eve at the house of a substantial farmer in the vicinity of the town of Sligo. I had been wandering the whole day about the beautiful and romantic glen of Knock-na-ree, and entered the hospitable abode of my worthy Milesian friend just as the dim twilight was melting into the dark gloom of an autumnal evening.

A sparkling turf-fire enlivened the hearth, and a number of the neighbouring young rustics were mingled with the ruddy children of mine host about the room; while the elder folks encircled the glittering blaze, or crouched beneath the immense chimney that jutted far out into the room. Large pieces of hung beef and rusty bacon adorned the walls, a spinning-wheel was turned up under the ladder which ascended to the loft, the white wooden piggins and well-scoured trenchers were placed in meet array on the well-filled shelves, and the huge dresser proudly exhibited its store of shining pewter to the admiring eyes of the youthful peasants. A door, which stood ajar in one corner, purposely betrayed the treasures of "the best room;" a double chest of drawers, a polished oaken table, and several antique and quaintly-figured chairs reflected the beams of the burning turf, and faintly illumined the sacred apartment.

The buxom good wife, arrayed in a striped linsey-wolsey gown, was regaling her friends with merry lamb's-wool, while her lively children and their young guests indulged in the usual superstitions and quaint customs of All Hallow Eve. Three of the eldest lasses were lurking in a dark corner busily employed in kneading a cake with their left thumbs. Not a sound escaped from their clenched lips; the work proceeded in mute solemnity; a single word would have broken the charm, and destroyed their ardent hopes of beholding their future husbands in their dreams after having partaken of the mystic dumb-cake.

While this work was going on silently in the corner, a group of sturdy boys in the centre of the floor were indulging in all the uproar of boisterous merriment at the glorious game of snap-apple. A burning candle was affixed to one end of a short skewer, and a ripe ruddycheeked apple stuck at the other. The skewer was suspended by its middle with a piece of strong cord from the dusky ceiling, and being gently put in motion, the eager boys thronged tumultuously forward to catch the delicious apple in their mouths as it performed its swinging evolutions. Many a furzy head was set in a blaze, and many loud laughs and chirruping exclamations emanated from the merry group before the prize was carried off. Several young girls were roasting pairs of matrimonial apples on the hearth. One they dignified with the lordly title of "The Baron," and the other was supposed to be his lady-wife. And truly it was a bitter satire on the married state.

The fairies.

[merged small][ocr errors][ocr errors]
« ՆախորդըՇարունակել »