Графични страници
PDF файл
ePub

are persons who cannot like Claude, because he is not Salvator Rosa; some who cannot endure Rembrandt, and others who would not cross the street to see a Vandyke; one reader does not like the neatness of Junius, and another objects to the extravagance of Burke; and they are all right, if they expect to find in others what is only to be found in their favourite author or artist, but equally wrong if they mean to say, that each of those they would condemn by a narrow and arbitrary standard of taste, has not a peculiar and transcendant merit of his own. The question is not, whether you like a certain excellence, (it is your own fault if you do not,) but whether another possessed it in a very eminent degree. If he did not, who is there that possessed it in a greater-that ranks above him in that particular? Those who are accounted the best, are the best in their line. When we say that Rembrandt was a master of chiaro-scuro, for instance, we do not say that he joined to this the symmetry of the Greek statues, but we mean that we must go to him for the perfection of chiaro-scuro, and that a Greek statue has not chiaro-scuro. If any one objects to Junius's Letters, that they are a tissue of epigrams, we answer, Be it so; it is for that very reason that we admire them. Again, should any one find fault with Mr Burke's writings as a collection of rhapsodies, the proper answer always would be, Who is there that has written finer rhapsodies? I know an admirer of Don Quixote who can see no merit in Gil Blas, and an admirer of Gil Blas who could never read through Don Quixote. I myself have great pleasure in reading both these authors, and in that respect think I have an advantage over both these critics. It always struck me as a singular proof of good taste, good sense, and liberal thinking, in an old friend who had Paine's Rights of Man and

Burke's Reflections on the French Revolution, bound up in one volume, and who said, that, both together, they made a very good book. To agree with the greatest number of good judges, is to be in the right; and good judges are persons of natural sensibility and acquired knowledge.*

I apprehend that natural is of more importance than acquired sensibility.

On the other hand, it must be owned, there are critics whose praise is a libel, and whose recommendation of any work is enough to condemn it. Men of the greatest genius and originality are not always persons of the most liberal and unprejudiced taste; they have a strong bias to certain qualities themselves, are for reducing others to their own standard, and lie less open to the general impressions of things. This exclusive preference of their own peculiar excellencies to those of others, in writers whose merits have not been sufficiently understood or acknowledged by their contemporaries, chiefly because they were not common-place, may sometimes be seen mounting up to a degree of bigotry and intolerance, little short of insanity. There are some critics I have known who never allow an author any merit till all the world " cry out upon him," and others who never allow another any merit that any one can discover but themselves. So there are connoisseurs who spend their lives and waste their breath in extolling sublime passages in obscure writers, and lovers who choose their mistresses for their ugly faces. This is not taste, but affectation. What is popular is not necessarily vulgar; and that which we try to rescue from fatal obscurity, had in general much better remain in it. M. N.

[blocks in formation]

sometimes repined at the hardness of their lot, and, in short, by such whose lives were in general good, but in a moment of unguardedness, fell into deep sin, and especially allowed themselves peevishly to repine against the just awards of Providence. Thus, in the beautiful romance of Orfee and Heurodiis, quoted in the notes to the Lady of the Lake, Orfee

gan behold about all,

And seigh full liggand within the wall,
Of folk that thither were y-brought,
And thought dead, and ne were nought.
Some stood withoutten had,
And some none arme's n'ad,

And some through the body had wound,
And some lay wod y-bound,
And some armed on horse sate,
And some astrangled as they ate,
And some war in water adreint,
And some with fire all for-shreint.
Wives there lay on child-bed,
Some dead, and some awed;
And wonder fele there lay besides,
Right as they sleep, their undertides.
Each was thus in this warld y-nome,
With fairy thither y-come.

The numbers of the Unseelie Court were recruited, for this was the only one that paid teind to hell, by the abstraction of such persons as deservedly fell wounded in wicked war, of such as splenetically commended themselves to evil beings, and of unmarried mothers stolen from childbed. But by far the greater number of recruits, however, were obtained from amongst unbaptized infants"; and tender and affectionate parents never failed unceasingly to watch their offspring till it was sained with the holy name of God in baptism. This cruel superstition appears the legitimate offspring of the uncharitable judgment of papists concerning unbaptized children. To pronounce any of the names of the Deity never failed to dissolve a charm, or at least to prevent the fulfilment of the charmer's intentions. It is related of Sir Michael Scott of Balwearie, that, being once about to go on an expedition to France, he conjured up a fiend in the shape of a powerful black horse to bear him on his journey. While they were crossing the channel, Sir Michael's cunning steed asked his rider what it was that the auld wives of Embro said afore they gaed to bed. The sagacious magician immediately retorted, What is that to thee, Mount diablet an' flee. YOL. V.

Had he blundered out, according to the devil's expectation, with the Lord's Prayer, Scott would that moment have been precipitated from the back of his infernal charger into the bottom of the sea, and the fiend, with all his brethren, would have been for ever released from the tyranny of their irresistible and imperious mas

ter.

No evil sprite could endure to be touched with any thing on which the holy name of God was written; and if a fiend commissioned for an evil purpose was commanded in the name of the Trinity by the person whom he was sent to afflict, to become his servant, and turn his powers against his sender, he was compelled to obey. A very curious passage in the romance of Richard Coeur de Lion turns entirely upon this notion. It is long, but perhaps its curiousness may excuse its length.

The Soldan of the Saracens lamenting the havock wherewith Richard is desolating his dominions, challenges him to single combat, but being well aware that he will never be able to overcome him by fair means, he has recourse to magic. He sends a messenger to the English monarch, to offer him a matchless steed to bear him in the approaching combat; one, compared with which,

Favel of Cypre, ne Lyard of price,

Are nought at need as that he is.-
For a thousand pound y- told
Should not that one be sold.
Richard gladly accepts the combat and
offered steed, and this intelligence be-
ing reported to the "rich Saudon,"
A noble clerk he sent for then,
A master negromancien,
That conjured, as I you tell,
Through the fiende's craft of hell,
Two strange fiendés of the air,
In likeness of two steeds fair,
Like both of hew and hair,
Never was there seen none slike
As they said that were there.
That one was a meré like.
The other a colt, a noble steed,
Where, were he in only need,
Was never king, ne knight so bold,
That when the dam neigh wold,
Should him hold against his will,
That he would not ren her till,
And kneel adown and suck his dam.
And thereby put his rider's life in the
hands of him who was mounted upon
the other steed.

C

Richard is warned by an angel of the nature of the charger which the Soldan was about to present to him, who commands him to

Ride

upon him in God's name,

and advises the king to

Furney a tree stiff and strong,
Though he be forty feet long,
And truss it overth wart his mane,
All that he meets shall have his bane
With that tree he shall down fell.

Withal giving him a spear-head of
steel so well tempered, that no mail,
however wrought, could resist its
point.

Richard receives the steed, obeys the angel's command, and stops up the horse's ears with wax. He then rather preposterously says,

-Be the apostles twelve,
Though thou be the devil himselve,
Thou shalt me serve at this need.
Now God for his namés seven,
That is one God in trinity,
In his name I command thee,
That thou serve me at will.

He shook his head, and stood full still.
To-morrow, as soon as it is light, the
two armies are arrayed for battle.
The Saracens mustering,

Of Saudons and of heathen kings,
above one hundred, the least of whom
led thirty thousand men to battle;
and their line extended no less than
ten miles, while the Christian leaders
did not exceed a dozen.

King Richard look'd, and gan to see
As snow liggés on the mountains
Beheld were hills and plains,
With hawberk bright and helmés clear,
Of trumpets and of taborere,
To hear the noise it was wonder,
As though the world, above and under,
Should fall..

The armies are impatient to engage.
Richard encourages his men, and, af-
ter setting his host in proper array,
he stands ready armed cap-a-pee for
the conflict.

The spear-head forgat he naught,
Upon his spear he wold it have
God's high name thereon was grave.

The King and the Soldan swear an
oath, that, if Richard should slay the

Soldan,

He was to go at his will
Into the city of Babyloyne,
And the kingdom of Macedoyne
He should have under his hand;

but, if the Soldan should conquer,
then

The Christian men should go
Out of that land for evermoe,

And Saracens should have their will in
wold.

Richard vaults upon his steed, and encounters the Soldan, whose chief hopes were reposed in his enchanted

mare.

Her crupper hang all full of bells,
Her poitrel and her arsoun
Three miles men might hear the soun',
The mere gan neigh, her bells to ring,
For great pride without leasing.
A broad fauchon to him he bare,

For he thought that he wold there
when his hourse had kneeled down
Have slain King Richard with treasoun,
As a colt that shoud souk,
And he was 'ware of that pouk.
His ears with wax were stopped fast,
Therefore he was nought aghast.

He struck the fiend that under him yede,
And gave the Saudon dint of dead-
With the speer that Richard heeld

He bare him through and under the shield.
None of his arms might last,
Bridle and poitrel all to brest.
The mere to the ground gan go.
His girth and his stirrups also
Maugre him he garr'd him stoop
Backward over his mere's croupe,
The feet toward the firmament,
Behind the Saudon the spear outwent.
He let him lie upon the green,
He prick'd the fiend with his spores keen,
In the name of the Holy Ghost,
He drives into the heathen host,
And all so soon as he was come
He brake asunder the sheltrum,
For all that e'er before him stode
Horse and man to the earth yode,
Twenty foot on every side
Whom that he overraught that tide
Of life ne was their warrant none.
Throughout he made his horse to gone
As bees swarmen in the hives.
The Christian men in afterdrives
Striken thorough that down ligs
Through the middle and the rigs-
Six he slew of heathen kings
To tell the soothe in all things.
In the gest, as we find,
That moe than sixty thousind
Of empty steeds abouten yode
Up to their fetlocks in blood.

The battle was finished only with the
day. The Christians lost three hun-
dred men. At last,

They kneel'd, and thanked God of Heaven,
Worship'd him and his names seven.

Nothing gave fairies and evil spirits such power over the inhabitants

of Middle Earth, as the indulgence of peevish repinings. If a parent or guardian, in a fit of spleen against his child or infant ward, cursed it, wishing it dead, or off this earth, it was, except the curser immediately repented, and prayed God to forgive his sin and protect the child, suddenly snatched to Fairy Land. If the child was baptized, then it became a member of the Seelie Court, and still had a chance of salvation, but if it had the misfortune to be unbaptized, it was seized by the wicked wights, and could not possibly be saved except it were won. But horrible were the consequences should an adult, in a paroxysm of impious rage, commend himself to the devil. It is related of a woman in the parish of Douglas, that having been held by her master to go and build the oats, which they were inning, upon the carts, she refused to obey. He somewhat roughly commanded her to go, when, flying into a fit of ungovernable fury, "fould fiend fa' me," said she, " gin I do't." At last, however, she went and built the cart-loads as ordered, Twilight had become very grey, and the people were about to stop their inning, the woman having just finished the last cart-load of sheaves, when a huge black cloud came sweeping through middle air, and stooping down in its passage for a moment, enveloped the top of the cart-load where stood the woman cowering to the sheaves with terror. Its flight was interrupted for an instant. The servants looked up to the corn, but the woman was not there, but they heard her voice shriek ing in agony, accompanied by fiendish gaffaws, as the thick cloud in its progress passed through the Winderawood. The servants now ran home in consternation, and as soon as tomorrow's sun had risen, examined the course of the cloud, which they traced by the grass and shrubs having the appearance of being skathed with lightning. The trees of the wood were blasted, and burnt, on which were stuck the sottered legs and thighs of the woman; her body, with the entrails, wound from tree to tree, was found about the middle of the wood; the tongue, with part of the throat adhering to it, was got dangling from a

529.

Scorched, See our last Number, p.

branch on the opposite side of the wood, and on the top of a fir tree, skathed almost to charcoal, was stuck the ghastly head, with the eyes hanging down its cheeks.

[ocr errors]

No tract of the elfin character is better known than its vindictiveness. No person ever cursed the Seely Court and prospered. Their power was believed to be dreadful. Ruin overtook the worldly circumstances of the hapless wight who, in an evil hour, spoke unguardedly of those haughty beings, and a lingering disease attacked his constitution, which carried him, after witnessing the total wreck of his affairs, into an untimely grave. In especial, they never failed to pour out the full cup of their vengeance upon the bare heads of those infatuated husbandmen who dared to violate their peculiar greens, or to tear up with the plough those beautiful circlets consecrated to their moonlight revels. For, according to the popular rhyme,

He wha tills the fairy green,
Nae luck again sall hae,
An' he wha spills the fairy ring

Betide him him want an' wae,
For weirdless days an' weary nichts

Are his till his deean' day.
Within my own remembrance, the
fairy ring on the Blackhill, alluded
to in the ballad, was fresh and fair, a
beautiful verdant circlet, composed of
short thick grass in the midst of
stunted heather. The late farmer, a
young man, and a brisk improver,
extending cultivation over the heath
wherein this ring was, took it into
his head to invade the fairies proper-
ty, and, contrary to the remonstrances
of his neighbours, ploughed up the
ring. The peasants who relate his
conduct shake their heads, and add,
with a significant tone of voice, that
in half a year a consumption carried
him to his grave.

But the elves cannot in justice be accused of ingratitude; if they were revengeful to those who invaded their privileges, they were proportionally kind to such as respected their rights, and left their haunts inviolate. We have the same standard authority for this, that we have for their vindictive spirit.

He wha gaes by the fairy green,
Nae dule nor pine sall see,
An' he wha cleans the fairy ring
An easy death sall dee.

ANECDOTES, HISTORICAL, LITERARY,

[ocr errors]

AND MISCELLANEOUS.

No. IV.

Monteith of Salmonet.-This Scottish gentleman wrote in French, and his works are now little known. In the entertaining Memoirs of the Abbé Marrolles, written by himself, there are some scattered notices.

A. D. 1641. "Sometime after, having gone to pay a visit to a lord of the court, I was so happy as to meet M. de Salmonet." Here Goujet the editor adds in a note, "Robert de Mentet de Salmonet, praised by Desmarets in one of his Latin letters." "He was an excellent person, for whom we are indebted to Scotland. He quite gained my affections by his agreeable and mild appearance, and by the excellent things he dropped in conversation; and we have since often visited each other with much friendship. This valuable man, who writes in our language like a born Frenchman, joins politeness with great learning, but his fortune has always been crossed, and being attached to the Cardinal de Retz, then coadjutor of the see of Paris, he has encountered nothing but misfortunes. Yet never was there a wiser man, or more respectful towards legitimate authority, or more disinterested. He has compossed the History of the Recent Troubles in England, and we also have from his pen a Remonstrance to the King of Great Britain, which may be classed among the most elegant productions in our language."

Goujet adds in a note, that the Remonstrance appeared anonymously, Paris, 1652, small folio, pp. 72, and is sanctioned by the approbation of Gondy, the then coadjutor of the archbishop, (Vol. I. p. 244,) that is, the Cardinal de Retz.

Again, 1652. "M. de Salmonet, one of the most considerable persons for learning and piety found in the house of the Cardinal de Retz, when imprisoned at Vincennes, was received in my abbey of Baugerais, in Touraine, where I kept him for fifteen months without bearing him company, which my occupations at Paris prevented. But being master of my house during that time, he used it as freely as myself, and received many visits of my relations, and of the chief mobility of the country, who showed

him singular regard, without forgetting the fathers of the Chartreux of Liget, distant only two leagues, from whom he derived much consolation." I. 367.

Again, speaking of the Cardinal de Retz, Vol. III. p. 346. He ap proved, by a singular public eulogy, the humble remonstrance of Salmonet to Charles II. King of Great Britain, in the year 1652, when he was only archbishop at Corinth, and coadjutor at Paris.' And in the list of those who presented their works to the Abbé Marolles, p. 360, we find "Robert de Mentet de Salmonet, a Scotishman of great erudition and singular probity, has my thanks for his Histories of Scotland, England, and Montrose, and for his Humble Remonstrance to the King of Great Britain in 1652.”

[ocr errors]

Burnet, or Burnath, professor at Montauban.-His System of Ethics, or Moral Philosophy, was published after his death, at Leyden, in 1649, a thick volume of 1058 pages, exclusive of dedication, index, &c. very neatly printed in small octavo: Gilbert Burnathi, Scotobrit. in Academia Montalbanensi, Philosophia Professoris Ethica Dissertationes," &c. Being designed for the instruction of collegians, most of the copies have perished, and the book is of great rarity. It is one of the clearest and best systems ever arranged, and written in a pure concise easy style, no where tinctured with pedantry or fanaticism.

Montauban was a Protestant place, famous for the siege by Louis XIII. Burnath, in one or two passages, refutes the opinion of the Papista. It is not generally known that the most learned and moderate portion of the Protestant clergy in France, during the reign of Louis XIII., was from Scotland. There is an Historia Da norum, extra Daniam, but we want an Historia Scotorum, extra Scotiam.

Florence Wilson.-In the French translation of Alciat's Emblems, Lyons, 1549, 8vo, (and also in the edition 1563, 8vo,) there is a curious dedication by the translator Aneau. "To the Most Illustrious Prince James Earl of Arran in Scotland, son of the Most Noble Prince James Duke of Chastel le Heraut, Prince Gover

« ПредишнаНапред »