OLD AGE. A lonely hamlet, with its house of prayer, And, by their side, a child that seems to pray, We leave weak childhood's morn of smiles and tears, Who longs from out this vale of tears to be, Pilgrim of life! what though thy locks be gray, Though friends have dropped like brown leaves from the tree, And hopes be dead that once bloomed fresh and fair; Though all alone on earth thou seem'st to be, No one so poor as with thy grief to share; Lift up thine eyes in faith to Him that bledThe cloud is past-thy solitude has fled. A few more steps-thy weary feet at last, With joy, shall tread that gorgeous sunny shore, Where, nestled safe, the withering simoom blast Of pangs and cares shall beat on thee no moreNo more along our earth a wanderer driven, Thy panting breast has found a home in heaven. JAMES MACDONALD. THE LUTIST AND THE NIGHTINGALE. [John Ford, born in Devonshire, 1586; died about 1640; a poet and dramatist. When seventeen years old he entered the Middle Temple, London, as a barrister; and three years after, published a poem entitled "Fame's Memorial," an elegy in honour of the deceased Earl of Devonshire. It is as a dramatist that he is remembered. His plays were published between the years 1629 and 1639, but they had been previously produced on the stage. The tragedy of the "Brother and Sister" contains many fine passages of poetry; but the subject renders it unsuitable for popular reading. In conjunction with Dekker, he dramatized the story of the "Witch of Edmonton." The following extract is from the play of the "Lover's Melancholly," played at the Blackfriars and Globe Theatres, Nov. 24, 1628, and VOL. L of which Gifford says-"It has much of the grace and sweetness which distinguish the genius of Ford." He wrote eleven plays and part of five others. Seven of them were destroyed or lost ] Passing from Italy to Greece, the tales To Thessaly I came, and living private, This youth, this fair-faced youth, upon his lute Nature's best skilled musician, undertakes The challenge; and for every several strain The well-shaped youth could touch, she sang him down. Some time thus spent, the young man grew at last Whom art had never taught clefs, moods, or notes, Upon his instrument he plays so swiftly, So many voluntaries, and so quick, That there was curiosity and cunning, Meeting in one full centre of delight. The bird (ordain'd to be Music's first martyr) strove to imitate These several sounds; which when her warbling throat 4 FRIENDS. backwardness to share your disgrace-by their acknowledgment of your errors out of candour, and suppression of your good qualities out of envy-by their not contradicting, or by their joining in the cry against you, lest they too should become objects of the same abuse-by their playing the game into your adversaries' hands, by always letting their imaginations take part with their cowardice, their vanity, and selfishness against you; and thus realizing or hastening all the ill consequences they affect to deplore, by spreading abroad that very spirit of distrust, obloquy, and hatred, which they predict will be excited against you! I like real good-nature and good-will better than I do any offers of patronage, or plausible The two rarest things to be met with are goodsense and good-nature. For one man who judges right, there are twenty who can say good things; as there are numbers who will serve you or do friendly actions, for one who really wishes you well. It has been said, and often repeated, that "mere good-nature is a fool:" but I think that the dearth of sound sense, for the most part, proceeds from the want of a real unaffected interest in things, except as they react upon ourselves or from a neglect of the maxim of that good old philanthropist who said, "Nihil humani a me alienum puto." The narrowness of the heart warps the understand-rules for my conduct in life. I may suspect the ing, and makes us weigh objects in the scales of our self-love, instead of those of truth and justice. We consider not the merits of the case, or what is due to others, but the manner in which our own credit or consequence will be affected; and adapt our opinions and conduct to the last of these rather than to the first. The judgment is seldom wrong where the feelings are right; and they generally are so, provided they are warm and sincere. He who intends others well, is likely to advise them for the best: he who has any cause at heart, seldom ruins it by his imprudence. Those who play the public or their friends slippery tricks, have in secret no objection to betray them. One finds out the folly and malice of mankind by the impertinence of friends-by their professions of service and tenders of advice-by their fears for your reputation and anticipations of what the world may say of you; by which means they suggest objections to your enemies, and at the same time absolve themselves from the task of justifying your errors, by having warned you of the consequences-by the care with which they tell you ill-news, and conceal from you any flattering circumstance-by their dread of your engaging in any creditable at tempt, and mortification if you succeed-by the difficulties and hindrances they throw in your way-by their satisfaction when you happen to make a slip or get into a scrape, and their determination to tie your hands behind you, lest you should get out of it-by their panic-terrors at your entering into a vindication of yourself, lest in the course of it you should call upon them for a certificate to your character by their lukewarmness in defending, by their readiness in betraying you-by the high standard by which they try you, and to which you can hardly ever come up by their forwardness to partake your triumphs, by their soundness of the last, and I may not be quite sure of the motives of the first. People complain of ingratitude for benefits, and of the neglect of wholesome advice. In the first place, we pay little attention to advice, because we are seldom thought of in it. The person who gives it either contents himself to lay down (ex cathedra) certain vague, general maxims, and "wise saws," which we knew before; or, instead of considering what we ought to do, recommends what he himself would do. He merely substitutes his own will, caprice, and prejudices for ours, and expects us to be guided by them. Instead of changing places with us (to see what is best to be done in the given circumstances), he insists on our looking at the question from his point of view, and acting in such a manner as to please him. This is not at all reasonable; for one man's meat, according to the old adage, is another man's poison. And it is not strange, that starting from such opposite premises, we should seldom jump in a conclusion, and that the art of giving and taking advice is little better than a game at cross-purposes. I have observed that those who are the most inclined to assist others are the least forward or peremptory with their advice; for having our interest really at heart, they consider what can, rather than what cannot be done, and aid our views and endeavour to avert ill consequences by moderating our impatience and allaying irritations, instead of thwarting our main design, which only tends to make us more extravagant and violent than ever. In the second place, benefits are often conferred out of ostentation or pride, rather than from true regard; and the person obliged is too apt to perceive this. People who are fond of appearing in the light of patrons will perhaps go through fire and water to serve you, who yet would be sorry to find you no longer wanted their assistance, and whose friendship | tension or difference of taste to admit of mutual cools and their good-will slackens, as you are sympathy and respect; but a woman's vanity relieved by their active zeal from the necessity is interested in making the object of her choice of being further beholden to it. Compassion the god of her idolatry; and in the intercourse and generosity are their favourite virtues; and with that sex, there is the finest balance and they countenance you, as you afford them op- reflection of opposite and answering excellences portunities for exercising them. The instant imaginable! It is in the highest spirit of the you can go alone, or can stand upon your own religion of love in the female breast, that Lord ground, you are discarded as unfit for their Byron has put that beautiful apostrophe into purpose. the mouth of Anah, in speaking of her angellover (alas! are not the sons of men too, when they are deified in the hearts of women, only "a little lower than the angels?") This is something more than mere good-nature or humanity. A thoroughly good-natured man, a real friend, is one who is pleased at our goodfortune, as well as prompt to seize every occasion of relieving our distress. We apportion our gratitude accordingly. We are thankful for good-will rather than for services, for the motive than the quantum of favour received— a kind word or look is never forgotten, while we cancel prouder and weightier obligations; and those who esteem us or evince a partiality to us are those whom we still consider as our best friends. Nay, so strong is this feeling, that we extend it even to those counterfeits in friendship, flatterers and sycophants. Our selflove, rather than our self-interest, is the masterkey to our affections. There are different modes of obligation, and different avenues to our gratitude and favour. A man may lend his countenance who will not part with his money, and open his mind to us who will not draw out his purse. How many ways are there in which our peace may be assailed, besides actual want! How many comforts do we stand in need of, besides meat and drink and clothing! Is it nothing to "administer to a mind diseased"-to heal a wounded spirit? After all other difficulties are removed, we still want some one to bear with our infirmities, to impart our confidence to, to encourage us in our hobbies (nay, to get up and ride behind us), and to like us with all our faults. True friendship is self-love at second-hand; where, as in a flattering mirror, we may see our virtues magnified and our errors softened, and where we may fancy our opinion of ourselves confirmed by an impartial and faithful witness. He (of all the world) creeps the closest in our bosoms, into our favour and esteem, who thinks of us most nearly as we do of ourselves. Such a one is indeed the pattern of a friend, another selfand our gratitude for the blessing is as sincere, as it is hollow in most other cases! This is one reason why entire friendship is scarcely to be found, except in love. There is a hardness and severity in our judgments of one another; the spirit of competition also intervenes, unless where there is too great an inequality of pre "And when I think that his immortal wings Shall one day hover o'er the sepulchre Of the poor child of clay, that so adored him, As he adored the Highest, death becomes Less terrible!" This is a dangerous string, which I ought never to touch upon; but the shattered cords vibrate of themselves! Few things tend more to alienate friendship than a want of punctuality in our engagements. I have known the breach of a promise to dine or sup break up more than one intimacy. A disappointment of this kind rankles in the mind-it cuts up our pleasures (those rare events in human life, which ought not to be wantonly sported with!)—it not only deprives us of the expected gratification, but it renders us unfit for, and out of humour with, every other; it makes us think our society not worth having, which is not the way to make us delighted with our own thoughts; it lessens our self-esteem, and destroys our confidence in others; and having leisure on our hands (by being thus left alone) and sufficient provocation withal, we employ it in ripping up the faults of the acquaintance who has played us this slippery trick, and in forming resolutions to pick a quarrel with him the very first opportunity we can find. I myself once declined an invitation to meet Talma, who was an admirer of Shakspeare, and who idolized Bonaparte, to keep an appointment with a person who had forgot it! One great art of women who pretend to manage their husbands and keep them to themselves, is to contrive some excuse for breaking their engagements with friends for whom they entertain any respect, or who are likely to have any influence over them. There is, however, a class of persons who have a particular satisfaction in falsifying your expectations of pleasure in their society, who make appointments for no other ostensible purpose than not to keep them; who think their ill-behaviour gives them an air of superiority over you, instead of placing them at your mercy; and who, in fact, in all their overtures of condescending kindness towards you, treat you exactly as if there was no such person in the world. Friendship is with them a monodrama, in which they play the principal and sole part. They must needs be very imposing or amusing characters to surround themselves with a circle of friends, who find that they are to be mere ciphers. The egotism would in such instances be offensive and intolerable, if its very excess did not render it entertaining. Some individuals carry this hard, unprincipled, reckless unconsciousness of everything but themselves and their own purposes to such a pitch, that they may be compared to automata, whom you never expect to consult your feelings or alter their movements out of complaisance to others. They are wound up to a certain point by an internal machinery which you do not very well comprehend; but if they perform their accustomed evolutions so as to excite your wonder or laughter, it is all very well, you do not quarrel with them, but look on at the pantomime of friendship while it lasts or is agreeable. Only one other reflection occurs to me on this subject. I used to think better of the world than I do. I thought its great fault, its original sin, was barbarous ignorance and want, which would be cured by the diffusion of civilization and letters. But I find (or fancy I do) that as selfishness is the vice of unlettered periods and nations, envy is the bane of more refined and intellectual ones. Vanity springs out of the grave of sordid self-interest. Men were formerly ready to cut one another's throats about the gross means of subsistence, and now they are ready to do it about reputation. The worst is, you are no better off if you fail than if you succeed. You are despised if you do not excel others, and hated if you do. Abuse or praise equally weans your friends from you. We cannot bear eminence in our own department or pursuit, and think it an impertinence in any other. Instead of being delighted with the proofs of excellence and the admiration paid to it, we are mortified with it, thrive only by the defeat of others, and live on the carcass of mangled reputation. By being tried by an ideal standard of vanity and affectation, real objects and common people become odious or insipid. Instead of being raised, all is prostituted, degraded, vile. Everything is reduced to this feverish, importunate, harassing state. I'm heartily sick of it, and I'm sure I have reason if any one has. HAZLITT. ODE TO LIBERTY. [Percy Bysshe Shelley, born at Field Place, Horsham, Sussex, August 4, 1792; drowned by the capsizing the Bay of Spezia, July, 1822. of his boat in the Mediterranean, between Leghorn and He was educated at Eton and Oxford. His first published compositions were two romances, Zastrozzi, and St. Irvyne, or the Rosicrucian. These were completed when he was only sixteen (1608) and were published anonymously; but Whilst they failed to obtain any measure of success. at Oxford he published a volume of poems entitled Posthumous Poems of my Aunt Margaret Nicholson. He next issued a pamphlet entitled A Defence of Atheism, on account of which he was, in March, 1811, expelled from the University. The poet, whatever he may have felt under his disgrace, consoled himself by writing Queen Mab; and in the same year he married, at Gretna Green, Harriet Westbrooke, the daughter of a retired hotelkeeper. The union appears to have been a most unhappy one, and three months after they had been formally remarried, Mrs. Shelley returned to her father, and Shelley Wollstonecraft, daughter of William Godwin, to whom left England for the Continent, accompanied by Mary he was subsequently married (1816) on the death of Mrs. Shelley. His chief poetical works were Queen Mab; The Revolt of Islam: Prometheus Unbound: and the Cenci. 1] A glorious people vibrated again From heart to heart, from tower to tower, o'er Spain, The lightning of the nations: Liberty, Scattering contagious fire into the sky, Gleamed. My Soul spurned the chains of its dismay, Till from its station in the heaven of fame The Sun and the serenest Moon sprang forth: The burning stars of the abyss were hurled Into the depths of heaven. The dadal earth, That island in the ocean of the world, 1 These and his other works are so well known that it is unnecessary to refer to them here; but it will be interesting to quote the estimates of his genius given by two potent critics. Prof. Wilson, Blackwood's Magazine, January, 1826, says: "He had many of the faculties of a great poet. He was, however, we verily believe it now, scarcely in his right mind." Lord Macaulay, Edinburgh Review, 1831, says: "He was not an author, but a bard. His poetry seems not to have been an art but an inspiration. Had he lived to the full age of man, he might not inprobably have given to the world some great work of the very highest rank in design and execution." Hung in its cloud of all sustaining air. But this divinest universe Was yet a chaos and a curse, For thou wert not: but power from worst producing worse, The spirit of the beasts was kindled there, And of the birds, and of the watery forms, And there was war among them, and despair Within them raging without truce or terms: The bosom of their violated nurse Groan'd, for beasts warr'd on beasts, and worms on worms, And men on men; each heart was as a hell of storms. Man, the imperial shape, then multiplied Of the Sun's throne: palace and pyramid, Was savage, cunning, blind, and rude, Into the shadow of her pinions wide, The nodding promontories, and blue isles, And cloud-like mountains, and dividuons waves On the unapprehensive wild. The vine, the corn, the olive mild, Grew savage yet, to human use unreconciled; And, like unfolded flowers beneath the sea, Like the man's thought dark in the infant's brain, Like aught that is which wraps what is to be. Art's deathless dreams lay veiled by many a vein Of Parian stone; and yet a speechless child, Verse murmured, and Philosophy did strain Her lidless eyes for thee; when o'er the Egean main Athens arose; a city such as vision Builds from the purple crags and silver towers Of battlemented cloud, as in derision Of kingliest masonry: the ocean-floors Pave it; the evening sky pavilions it; Its portals are inhabited By thunder zoned winds, each head Within its cloudy wings with sunfire garlanded, A divine work! Athens diviner yet Gleamed with its crest of columns, on the will Of man, as on a mount of diamond, set; For thou wert, and thine all-creative skill Peopled with forms that mock the eternal dead In marble immortality, that hill Which was thine earliest throne and latest oracle. Within the surface of Time's fleeting river It trembles, but it cannot pass away! Then Rome was, and from thy deep bosom fairest, Faint echoes of Ionian song; that tone A thousand years the Earth cried, Where art thou? On Saxon Alfred's olive-cinctured brow: Frowning o'er the tempestuous sea Of kings, and priests, and slaves, in tower-crowned majesty; That multitudinous anarchy did sweep, And burst around their walls, like idle foam, Whilst from the human spirit's deepest deep Strange melody with love and awe struck dumb Dissonant arms; and Art, which cannot die, With divine wand traced on our earthly home Fit imagery to pave heaven's everlasting dome. |