A Journal of Choice Reading, SELECTED FROM FOREIGN CURRENT LITERATURE. SATURDAY, MARCH 10, 1866. VOL. I.] FRA GIACAMO. I. ALAS, Fra Giacamo, Too late!-but follow me; Hush draw the curtain, so! She is dead, quite dead, you see. And admired too, at confession. Her praying, fasting, confessing, I thought her too cold, and rated her Not fashioned for kissing and pressing, But first, if you please, your blessing! II. Wine? No? Come, come, you must! And quaff a cup, I trust, To the health of the saint up stairs? And I feel so weary and sad, You'll sit, Fra Giacamo? My friend! (and a friend I rank you For the sake of that saint,)-nay, nay! Here's the wine, -as you love me, stay!– 'Tis Montepulciano! - Thank you. III. Heigho! 'Tis now six summers Since I won that angel and married her: I was rich, not old, and carried her Off in the face of all comers. So fresh, yet so brimming with soul! A tenderer morsel, I swear, [No. 10. Never made the dull black coal No offence to the gray gaberdine: As the saints in your convent windows, So gentle, so meek, so discreet, She knew not what lust does or sin does. I'll confess, though, before we were one, I deemed her less saintly, and thought The blood in her veins had caught Some natural warmth from the sun. I was wrong, I was blind as a bat, Brute that I was, how I blundered! Though such a mistake as that Might have occurred as pat To ninety-nine men in a hundred. Yourself, for example? you've seen her? Spite her modest and pious demeanor, And the manners so nice and precise, Seemed there not color and light, Bright motion and appetite, That were scarcely consistent with ice? Externals implying, you see, - Internals less saintly than human? Pray speak, for between you and me You're not a bad judge of a woman! IV. -- A jest, but a jest!... Very true: She devoted herself to piety; Not that she seemed to scorn Or dislike her husband's society; But the claims of her soul superseded All that I asked for or needed, And her thoughts were afar away From the level of sinful clay, And she trembled if earthly matters Interfered with her aves and paters. Poor dove, she so fluttered in flying Above the dim vapors of hell Bent on self-sanctifying That she never thought of trying To save her husband as well. And while she was duly elected For place in the heavenly roll, I (brute that I was !) suspected Her manner of saving her soul. In her orthodox sweet simplicity, And dug my nails in my hand, What I'd guessed and could understand. Each word was a serpent's sting, But, wrapt in my gloomy gown, I sat, like a marble thing, As she told me all!- SIT DOWN! More wine, Fra Giacamo! One cup, So deep of the sweets of pleasure - VI. Sit still, Your death in such delicate sips; "T is not every monk ceases living With so pleasant a taste on his lips; But, lest Montepulciano unsurely should kiss, Take this! and this! and this! VII. Cover him over, Pietro, And bury him in the court below, You can be secret, lad, I know! And, hark you, then to the convent go, - And the monks say mass for your mistress' soul. ON A SONG IN "THE PRINCESS." "Ask me no more: the moon may draw the sea; The cloud may stoop from heaven and take the shape, "Ask me no more: what answer should I give? Yet, O my friend, I will not have thee die! "Ask me no more: thy fate and mine are sealed: A SONG ? surely a drama! If, instead of a song in three verses, we called it a drama in three acts, it would be nearer the truth; and indeed it might well form the motif of such a drama. Name the three acts Indifference, Hesitation, Submission, and let us see what they disclose to us. 99 66 They are addressed by a woman to a man, -a man who loves her most ardently, and to whom, after long resistance, she ultimately yields; and they describe the process of her mind in the unequal conflict. In the first - Indifference she is almost aggressive. "Ask me no more," she says, half angrily, as one wellnigh wearied out by his ceaseless importunities. "Ask me no more," - your entreaties are of as little concern to me as the moon to the ocean, as the cloud to the mountain, to which it has a casual and distant resemblance, but no real connection. "Ask me no more,” you are too fond," when have I given you either encouragement or return for these advances? Go, go, and "ask me no more." But the man, the lover who with all the instinct of real, faithful, heartfelt love, knows no obstacle, and will take no denial-still perseveres, still assures her of his devotion. And thus it comes to pass that in the next act she is softened and is become more merciful. She has allowed herself to notice his worn and haggard looks, and to recognize that she is the cause of them, and that if she relents, they will be removed. She still reiterates, "Ask me no more "; but with what an altered meaning! Her perplexity and uncertainty are evident. "Ask me no more," I pray you press me no longer, lest I be compelled to give you an answer which I do not yet wish to give. "Ask me no more: what answer should I give?" She is still almost vexed by his persistence, "I love not hollow cheek or faded eye." But then the blessed light and warmth break into her mind, and the first token of relenting appears. "Yet, O my friend," "my friend," mark that concession! "Yet, O my friend, I will not have thee die!" The thought of the loneliness which would beset her if this one man, this "friend," with whom she is still half angry, were to go where he could never come back; where he would really be forever lost to her; where all his delicate, thoughtful, scorned, unrequited acts were gone forever, this thought for the first time has found its way into her marble bosom, and it makes her tremble, it makes her hesitate, and the "Ask me no more" with which the verse concludes is more troubled and softer in its tone than that with which it begins. A new light has shone in upon her, and the moment of her conversion is at hand. For her lover, possessed by the divine inspiration of his love, will not, cannot, cease from his suit. He still presses her with that which is a necessity for them both; which, though they neither of them know it, is their Fate. He still "asks" her; and now comes the moment when with all her force, all her fancied panoply of | indifference, she can resist no longer. And this time again what a different meaning do the familiar words contain. "Ask me no more! Not because I will not grant, but because I can no longer refuse," because she sees how true is the instinct, how irresistible the fury, of real passion; because she is forced to admit how right as well as how powerful her lover has been in his obstinate perseverance; because she finds herself too feeble, and is compelled to give herself up to an influence which is too strong for her weak will to combat. And observe how readily and gracefully the concession is made, as all concessions should be, when the inevitable moment has arrived. "No more, dear love, for at a touch I yield." How wonderfully sweet is the "dear love," following on the "too fond," and the "friend," of the former verses! Even to this it has come, "No more, dear love, for at a touch I yield." "A touch," yes! not yet an embrace, but a touch, the touch of hand on hand, which at such a moment does more than match to fire a magazine. "No more," yes, "no more" now,- no more importunity, but also no more resistance, now, silence and fondness, and unutterable union of hands to hands, and lips to lips, and heart to heart, and being to being. When we turn from the inward to the outward, from the substance to the form of this exquisite poem, how truly and astonishingly beautiful it is! It would be difficult to find a more striking example amongst the many that meet us on every page of his works, of the singular power which Mr. Tennyson possesses of clothing beautiful sentiments in beautiful words, and thus fulfilling the definition which Coleridge gave of poetry, that it was "the best thoughts in the best language." The stanza in its mode of rhyme has a ring of "In Memoriam," which will prejudice no one against it, though the difference in the length of the lines and the addition of the short terminal line, are sufficient to make the resemblance but a distant one. I have already endeavored to bring out the moral force of the constant recurrence of the burthen, "Ask me no more." But its artistic worth, in reference to the sound alone, is hardly less; and the finish which it gives to each stanza, and the expression of its varying cadence as the phases of the drama alter, are beauties which may be felt, but can hardly be described. The music of the lines is throughout charming. It is not perhaps quite equal to the last stanza of the eighteenth canto of "Maud," beginning, "Is that enchanted moan only the swell Of the long waves that roll in yonder bay?" and containing the two most exquisite lines, — "To dreamful wastes where footless fancies dwell, Among the fragments of the golden day"; entirely composed of monosyllables. In the whole fifteen lines there are only six words of two syllables. This gives a great fulness to the lines; and I can find no other instance of it, to the same degree, in Mr. Tennyson's works. Secondly, it is most interesting and instructive to observe that whereas the passages just quoted, and others in the Laureate's works, which will occur to every reader, owe a great part of their charm to the alliteration with which they abound, and which makes both tongue and ear linger lovingly along their linked sweetness, that artifice is here used most sparingly. The last stanza, in its second and third lines, "I strove against the stream," and "the great river," alone affords any instance of it. In this Mr. Tennyson may be compared to the great musicians, who delighted to produce some of their finest effects with the scanty materials of quartet or trio, and to show that they could move their hearers as greatly with those imperfect means as with all the resources of the full orchestra; or to others - Mozart, for example who in the full orchestra itself persistently rejected certain instruments, with the help even of which other musicians in vain strive to reach his pinnacle of greatness. In considering, to conclude, the final impression which this masterly composition leaves on one's whole being ear, heart, intellect, imagination, memory I find myself continually tempted to compare it with some of the masterpieces of the musical art, some of the slow movements of Beethoven's symphonies, for example, which present the same astonishing combination of beauty of subject and beauty of general form with perfect delicacy of detail, the same consummate art with the same exquisite concealment of it, and which, like it, form a whole that satisfies both the intellect and the imagination, and, once known, haunts the memory forever. SPIRIT-RAPPING A HUNDRED AND FIFTY YEARS AGO. - I WISH in what follows to submit to some examination a tolerably well known, and certainly very remarkable story, the history of the spiritual manifestations which disturbed the Wesley family in the year 1716. Dr. Priestley has said with truth that no story of the kind is better authenticated than this, or has been better told. A very careful investigation of the facts was made by the two brothers Samuel and John Wesley, and the result has been to preserve for us the account of the matter, given at the time by almost every one who could speak of what had occurred from personal knowledge. The elder brother Samuel was at the time an usher in Westminster School. When he heard of the alarm of his family at the mysterious visitant, who went in the household by the name of Jeffery, he put to his mother some very sensible questions as to the possibility of or to the Bugle Song from "The Princess," or to that imposture; and he desired that she and his father other idyl from the same, "Myriads of rivulets hurrying through the lawn, The moan of doves in immemorial elms, And murmuring of innumerable bees." But then these are indeed pre-eminent instances even of Mr. Tennyson's pre-eminently melodious verse, and, being less dramatic, they are able to be softer and smoother in their flow. Two things I venture to remark in the structure of the verse of this poem. First, that it is almost and each of his sisters should separately write to him a particular account of all that had taken place. We have still the letters written in compliance with his request. We have also notes, in the form of a diary, kept by Wesley the father; we have memoranda of the results of John Wesley's inquiries from the servants, and other members of the family; and, finally, a narrative founded on these documents, drawn up by John Wesley, and published by him in the Arminian Magazine. All these documents seem to be written with the most perfect good faith; and none of the writers exhibit the smallest doubt as to the supernatural origin of the disturbances which troubled them. The story acquires a historical interest from the mere fact that this belief in its miraculous character was firmly entertained by one who had such an influence as John Wesley on the course of religious thought in England. It cannot be doubted that his mode of thinking on such matters must have been permanently affected by the fact that at an early part of his life occurrences took place under his own father's roof of which it seemed impossible to give any explanation by natural causes. Thenceforward he felt that to deny the possibility of miracle was to contradict his own experience. As Isaac Taylor has it, a "right of way" for the supernatural was made through his mind, so that no tale of the marvellous could be refused leave to pass where Jeffery had passed before. the ordinary course of things, outside our sphere of being, were by some fortuitous conjuncture of circumstances brought into such a position as to be capable of exerting influence on our material world? And in such a case there is not the least reason to suppose that of necessity this influence would be exerted wisely or intelligently. We know not how many orders of beings there may be in the spiritual world. There may perhaps be some more intelligent than man; but there may be others with no more intellect than apes or pigs. What forbids us, then, to think of Jeffery as a semi-idiotic spirit, brought by some chance into a position in which he became capable of acting on our world, but in whose acts we need no more look for design or purpose than in the pranks of a monkey? The experience of recent times has made us acquainted with many facts which confirm the low estimate formed by Taylor of the intellectual capaAs might be expected, Wesley's Methodist biog-cities of certain spiritual beings. But in the case of raphers agree with him in referring the disturbances these modern spirits, among the conditions which at Epworth Parsonage to a supernatural origin.must be satisfied before they can gain power to Dr. Priestley, though unable to offer any satisfactory operate on our material world, the presence of a explanation of the facts, had argued that the sup-medium has been observed to be essential. I believe position of miracle was excluded by the childish and purposeless character of the pranks which had disquieted the Wesley family; these being of such a nature that it seemed absurd to imagine a Divine interference to produce them. He gave it as the most plausible conjecture that the servants, assisted by some of the neighbors, had amused themselves with these tricks from mere love of mischief. But to this it was replied that the notion that the servants were in fault had been suggested to Mrs. Wesley by her son Samuel; that she had in reply given good and satisfactory reasons for acquitting them of any attempt at imposture; that no object could be assigned to be gained by any one in terrifying the family; and, on the other hand, that it is hard to explain why these tricks, if begun in sport, should have been suddenly discontinued when at the height of their success, or why the secret should never have leaked out from any of the parties concerned in them. Fi-it as much as I can, and yet retaining all the words nally, it was said Priestley's hypothesis was one which could commend itself to no one, who was not forced on it, as he was, by his materialism, it being necessary for him to devise some means to save his theory from the absolute confutation it received by a demonstrated interference from the spirit world. that "Jeffery" was not exempt from the same law, and that there is no difficulty in naming the medium of whose instrumentality he availed himself. I am, however, a little at a loss how to bring the conviction which I feel home to the mind of my reader. What I should like would be simply to ask him to read over the original documents. For the true solution of the mystery appears to me to lie so plainly on the face of them, that I am surprised that it should have escaped, as far as I know, all who have printed any remarks on the story. I know, however, that it must be expected that very few indeed of my readers will take the trouble to refer to any documents which I do not here lay before them; and yet it seems unreasonable to print what is to be found in so popular a book as Southey's Life of Wesley. I must endeavor, therefore, to state the main facts of the story, compressing in the original letters which seem to throw any light upon the mystery. The extracts with which I commence are from John Wesley's narrative, above referred to. This narrative, however, having been drawn up some years after the event, appears, on comparison with the letters written at the time, not to relate the facts in strict chronological order. "On December 2, 1716, while Robert Brown, my father's servant, was sitting with one of the maids, a little before ten at night, in the dining-room which opened into the garden, they both heard one knocking at the door. Robert rose and opened it, but could see nobody. Quickly it knocked again and groaned. 'It is Mr. Turpin,' said Robert; he has the stone, and thrice, the knocking being twice or thrice repeated; but uses to groan so.' He opened the door again twice or Southey, in his life of Wesley, declares that it may be safely asserted that many of the circumstances cannot be explained by the supposition of imposture, neither by any legerdemain, nor by ventriloquism, nor by any secret of acoustics; and in answer to Priestley's demand, what purpose can be imagined to have been served by such a miracle? contents himself with replying, that perhaps it was purpose enough if thereby some sceptics are forced to admit that there are more things "in heaven and earth than are dreamt of in their philosophy." still seeing nothing, and being a little startled, they rose and went up to bed. When Robert came to the top of the Isaac Taylor also is disposed to believe in a super-garret stairs he saw a hand-mill, which lay at a little natural, though not in a miraculous, origin of the distance, whirled about very swiftly. When he related spiritual manifestations in question. He reminds us this, he said: Naught vexed me but that it was empty. that we must distinguish between what is merely I thought, if it had been but full of malt, he might have extraordinary and what is miraculous. It is said to ground his heart out for me.' When he was in bed he have happened (or conceivably may have happened) heard, as it were, the gobbling of a turkey-cock close to that a real Arabian locust has alighted in Hyde the bedside; and soon after, the sound of one stumPark. And, however wonderful it might be that there: he had left them below. The next day he and bling over his shoes and boots; but there were none the winds should have borne the creature so far out the maid related these things to the other maid, who of its ordinary track, we should never dream of call-laughed heartily, and said, 'What a couple of fools are ing the circumstance miraculous. Why, then, should you! I defy anything to fright me.' After churning it be thought miraculous if some spiritual being, in in the evening, she put the butter in the tray; and had no sooner carried it into the dairy than she heard a knocking on the shelf where several puncheons of milk stood, first above the shelf, then below. She took the candle, and searched both above and below; but being able to find nothing, threw down butter, tray, and all, and ran away for her life. The next evening, between five and six o'clock, my sister Molly, being then about twenty years of age, sitting in the dining-room reading, heard as if it were the door that led into the hall open, and a person walking in that seemed to have a silk night-gown rustling and trailing along. It seemed to walk round her, then to the door, then round again, but she could see nothing. She thought, It signifies nothing to run away, for whatever it is, it can run faster than me.' So she rose, put her book under her arm, and walked slowly away. After supper she was sitting with my sister Suky (about a year older than her) in one of the chambers, and telling her what had happened; she made quite light of it, telling her, 'I wonder you are so easily frightened; I would fain see what would frighten me. Presently a knocking began under the table. She took the candle and looked, but could find nothing. Then the iron casement began to clatter, and the lid of a warming-pan. Next the latch of the door moved up and down without ceasing. She started up, leaped into the bed without undressing, pulled the bedclothes over her head, and never ventured to look up till next morning. A night or two after, my sister Hetty, a year younger than my sister Molly, was waiting, as usual, between nine and ten, to take away my father's candle, when she heard one coming down the garret stairs, walking slowly by her, then going down the best stairs, then up the back stairs, and up the garret stairs; and at every step it seemed the house shook from top to bottom. Just then my father knocked. She went in, took his candle, and got to bed as fast as possible. In the morning she told this to my eldest sister, who told her, 'You know I believe none of these things. Pray let me take away the candle to-night, and I will find out the trick.' She accordingly took my sister Hetty's place, and had no sooner taken away the candle than she heard a noise below. She hastened down stairs to the hall, where the noise was, but it was then in the kitchen. She ran into the kitchen, where it was drumming on the inside of the screen. When she went round, it was drumming on the outside; and so always on the side opposite to her. Then she heard a knocking at the back kitchen door. She ran to it, unlocked it softly, and, when the knocking was repeated, suddenly opened it; but nothing was to be seen. As soon as she had shut it the knocking began again; she opened it again, but could see nothing. When she went to shut the door, it was violently thrust against her; she let it fly open, but nothing appeared. She went again to shut it, and it was again thrust against her; but she set her knee and her shoulder to the door, forced it to, and turned the key. Then the knocking began again; but she let it go on, and went up to bed. However, from that time she was thoroughly convinced that there was no imposture in the affair. The next morning, my sister telling my mother what had hap pened, she said, 'If I hear anything myself, I shall know how to judge.' Soon after she begged her to come into the nursery. She did, and heard in the corner of the room, as it were, the violent rocking of a cradle; but no cradle had been there for some years. She was convinced it was preternatural, and earnestly prayed it might not disturb her in her own chamber at the hours of retirement; and it never did. She now thought it proper to tell my father, but he was extremely angry, and said: Suky, I am ashamed of you. These boys and girls fright one another, but you are a woman of sense, and should know better. Let me hear of it no more." At six in the evening he had family prayer as usual. When he began the prayer for the king, a knocking began all round the room, and a thundering knock attended the Amen. The same was heard from this time every morning and evening while the prayer for the king was repeated. As both my father and mother are now at rest, and incapable of being pained thereby, I think it my duty to furnish the serious reader with a key to the circumstance. The year before King William died, my father observed my mother did not say Amen to the prayer for the king. He vowed he never would cohabit with her till she did. He then took his horse and rode away, nor did she hear anything of him for a twelvemonth. He then came back, and lived with her as before. But I fear his vow was not forgotten before God." It appears from the letters that Mr. Wesley was not told of the noises until the 21st of December, that is to say, about three weeks after the first disturbance. It appears also that the family had been in considerable alarm because he had been so long without hearing the noises, it being the common opinion that such sounds are not audible to the individual to whom they forebode evil. Mrs. Wesley's account of the first appearance to Mr. Wesley is as follows: "We all heard it but your father, and I was not willing he should be informed of it, lest he should fancy it was against his own death, which, indeed, we all apprehended. But when it began to be so troublesome, both day and night, that few or none of the family durst be alone, I resolved to tell him of it, being minded he should speak to it. At first he would not believe but somebody did it to alarm us; but the night after, as soon as he was in bed, it knocked loudly nine times, just by his bedside. He rose and went to see if he could find out what it was, but could see nothing. Afterwards he heard it as the rest. One night it made such a noise in the room over our heads, as if several people were walking, then ran up and down stairs, and was so outrageous, that we thought the children would be frightened: so your father and I rose, and went down in the dark to light a candle. Just as we came to the bottom of the broad stairs, having hold of each other, on my side there seemed as if somebody had emptied a bag of money at my feet; and on his, as if all the bottles under the stairs (which were many) had been dashed in a thousand pieces. We passed through the hall into the kitchen, and got a candle, and went to see the children, whom we found asleep." could have wrought the disturbance, Mrs. Wesley In answer to the question whether the servants writes: "We had both man and maid new last Martinmas, yet I do not believe either of them occasioned the disturbance, both for the reason above mentioned, and because they were more affrighted than anybody else. Besides, we have often heard the noises when they were in the room by us; and the maid particularly was in such a panic, that she was almost incapable of all business, nor durst even go from one room to another, or stay by herself a minute after it began to be dark. The man Robert Brown, whom you well know, was most visited by it lying in the garret, and has often been frightened down barefoot, and almost naked, not daring to stay alone to put on his clothes; nor do I think, if he had power, he would be guilty of such villany. When the walking was heard in the garret, Robert was in bed in the next room, in a sleep so sound that he never heard your father and me walk up and down, though we walked not softly I am sure. All the family has heard it together, in the same room, at the same time, particularly at family prayers. It always seemed to all present in the same place at the same time, though often before any could say, 'It is here,' it would remove to another place. "All the family as well as Robin were asleep when your father and I went down stairs, nor did they wake in the nursery when we held the candle close by them, only we observed that Hetty trembled exceedingly in her sleep, as she always did before the noise awaked her. It commonly was nearer her than the rest, which she |