Page images
PDF
EPUB

And tell him this too: if in midst of winter

To make black groves grow green; to still the thunder;
And cast out able flashes from mine eyes,
To beat the light'ning back into the skies,
Prove power to do it, I can make it good.
And tell him this too: if to lift the sea

Up to the stars, when all the winds are still,
And keep it calm when they are most enraged;
To make earth's driest palms sweat humorous springs;
To make fix'd rocks walk, and loose shadows stand;
To make the dead speak; midnight see the sun;
Mid-day turn midnight; to dissolve all laws

Of nature and of order-argue power
Able to work all, I can make all good;
And all this tell the king.

Byr. 'Tis more than strange,

To see you stand thus at the rapier's point
With one so kind and sure a friend as I.

Laf. Who cannot friend himself, is foe to any,
And to be fear'd of all, and that is it

Makes me so scorn'd: but make me what you can,
Never so wicked and so full of fiends,

I never yet was traitor to my friends.
The laws of friendship I have ever held
As my religion; and, for other laws,
He is a fool that keeps them with more care
Than they keep him, rich, safe, and popular.
For riches and for popular respects
Take them amongst ye, minions; but for safety
You shall not find the least flaw in mine arms,
To pierce or taint me. What will great men be
To please the king, and bear authority!

Byr. How fit a sort were this to hansel fortune!
And I will win it though I lose myself.
Though he prove harder than Egyptian marble,
I'll make him malleable as th' Ophir gold."

[Exit.

"The following speech of Henry is, I think, eminently wise, humane, and, as a poetical composition, truly beautiful. Roiseau has just described the attempts to seduce the duke."

Hen. It may be he dissembled, or, suppose

He be a little tainted: men whom virtue

Forms with the stuff of fortune, great and gracious,
Must needs partake with fortune in her humour
Of instability; and are like shafts

Grown crook'd with standing, which to rectify
Must twice as much be bow'd another way.
He that hath borne wounds for his worthy parts,
Must for his worst be borne with. We must fit
Our government to men, as men to it.

In old time, they that hunted savage beasts
Are said to clothe themselves in savage skins:

They that were fowlers, when they went on fowling,
Wore garments made with wings resembling fowls:
To bulls we must not shew ourselves in red,
Nor to the warlike elephant in white.

In all things govern'd, their infirmities

Must not be stirr'd, nor wrought on. Duke Byron
Flows with adust and melancholy choler,
And melancholy spirits are venomous,
Not to be touch'd but as they may be cured.
I therefore mean to make him change the air,
And send him further from those Spanish vapours,
That still bear fighting sulphur in their breasts,
To breathe awhile in temperate English air,
Whose lips are spiced with free and loyal counsels;
Where policies are not ruinous but saving;

Wisdom is simple, valour righteous,

Humane, and hating facts of brutish force,

And whose grave natures scorn the scoffs of France,
The empty compliments of Italy,

The any-way encroaching pride of Spain,
And love men modest, hearty, just, and plain."

"But," resumed Egeria, "it is not my intention to analyze the play; I shall therefore only read to you one or two of the similes.-The state of a man whose fortunes have shot beyond the foundation of his merits is thus magnificently compared :"

"As you may see a mighty promontory,
More digg'd and under-eaten than may warrant
A safe supportance to his hanging brows,
All passengers avoid him; shun all ground
That lies within his shadow, and bear still
A flying eye upon him; so great men,
Corrupted in their grounds, and building out
Too swelling fronts for their foundations,

When most they should be propp'd are most forsaken,
And men will rather thrust into the storms
Of better-grounded states, than take a shelter
Beneath their ruinous and fearful weight;
Yet they so oversee their faulty bases,
That they remain securer in conceit;

And that security doth worse presage

Their near destruction, than their eaten grounds."

"And I think the following description of a horse very spirited :-it is Byron's comparison of his own manner.”

"To whom I came, methought, with such a spirit
As you have seen a lusty courser shew,

That hath been long time at his manger tied,
High fed, alone, and when, his head-stall broken,
He runs his prison, like a trumpet neighs,

Cuts air in high curvets, and shakes his head;
With wanton stoopings 'twixt his forelegs, mocking
The heavy centre; spreads his flying crest,
Like to an ensign; hedge and ditches leaping,
Till in the fresh meat, at his natural food
He sees free fellows, and hath met them free."

"Henry's blessing upon his infant son is also a very fine passage, and much deserves to be better known."

"Hen. Have thy old father's angel for thy guide; Redoubled be his spirit in thy breast;

Who when this state ran, like a turbulent sea,
In civil hates and bloody enmity,

Their wraths and envies, like so many winds,
Settled and burst, and like the halcyon's birth,
Be thine to bring a calm upon the shore,
In which the eyes of war may ever sleep,
As overmatch'd with former massacres,
When guilty, mad noblesse fed on noblesse e;
All the sweet plenty of the realm exhausted:
When the naked merchant was pursued for spoil;
When the poor peasants frighted neediest thieves
With their bare leanness, nothing left on them
But meagre carcasses sustain'd with air,
Wandering like ghosts affrighted from their graves;
When, with the often and incessant sounds,

The very beasts knew the alarum-bell,

And, hearing it, ran bellowing to their home:
From which unchristian broils and homicides

Let the religious sword of justice free
Thee and thy kingdoms govern'd after me."

CHAP. V.

PERIODICAL LITERATURE.

ONE morning as the Bachelor's Wife, having no other household care, was reading the backs of his books, she paused before a goodly range of reviews and magazines, and said to him,

"I do not think it has been half considered by the world how much has been added to our pleasures by the invention of periodical publications. It has domesticated learning, deprived it of all its formality, put the shovel-hat, the square cap, the wig, the gown, and all those antique trappings and devices, which were wont to inspire so much wonder and awe, quite out of fashion. It has made gentlemen of authors, and authors of gentlemen. For this, as well as for its other singular merits, the Edinburgh Review stands pre-eminent. You cannot open a volume without finding some topic of science, or of erudition, treated in a much more popular and engaging form than it was ever done before."

In saying this she put forth her hand, and taking down the tenth volume, opened it, and read aloud the following excellent condensed account of the religious sentiments of the Turks.

MAHOMETANISM.

"The religion of the Turks is Mahometanism in its utmost purity, and in complete preservation from the

« PreviousContinue »