FOOTNOTES:

"Carmine Dî Superi placantur, carmine Manes!"

A swelling and musical close to an anthem. What shall we admire most, then? The variety of the Praise? The ethical wisdom? The genuine love in the selection of the grounds? Or the exquisite skill of the artificer? The "craft of the delicate spirit," who, veiled in humility, has gradually, and as if insensibly, scaled to a station from which he looks upon Monarchs—but from which should they aspire to strike him down, they offend, in violating his right, the majesty of the assembled Gods? In inditing the unhappy passage about the Poet's sole end being to please, I think that Dugald Stewart was beguiled by a prevalent misconception amongst those who have taught the Philosophy of the Fine Arts. The degrading influences are his own. No doubt the Poet draws his poetical being from Pleasure—the great ancestress of his tribe—gentis origo. He worships Pleasure according to the primeval fashion of ancestor-worship. But what is his impulse to compose, tosing? O hear from all the Great Poets since the world began, their answer. They sing because a Spirit is in them. They sing because the muse bids. She pours in thoughts and words; and along with thoughts and words flows in the musical Will. With them it is like the Sybil when invaded by Apollo. The real Poet sings, moved from without or from within. If from without—some fore-shaped or self-shaped subject; if from within, some passion, or some impassioned thought of his own has so deeply and strongly affected him, that he is impelled to seek relief of the burthening emotions and ideas in uttering them. This is the primary cause, and the natural origin of Song. And you may call this, if you choose, an intending of pleasure; but beware how you draw degrading inferences from this first recognition and admission of pleasure. If you weigh the psychological fact, you must look backwards to the attitude of mind which produced the work, and not forwards to the attitude which the work produces. Of the intellective, the moral, the imaginative, the pathetic powers that gave birth to the Iliad—or to the Prometheus Vinctus—to the Knight's Tale—to the Legend of Holiness—to Lear or Othello—or to the Paradise Lost! Who does not instantly feel that he has been summoned to conceive and to contemplate all that is mighty, august, affecting, or terrible in our souls? That he looks into the caverned abyss where the Spirits of Power walk? Even as when, by the side of Anchises, Æneas beholds in pre-existence the assemblage of his kingly descendants, whom their day and the upper air will call to rule the nations with sovereignty, to impose the conditions of peace, to spare the vanquished, and with war to bring down the proud.Lear!The minstrels chanted an ancient rude lay—the infant stage brought a rude drama—to Shakspeare. But long before Minstrel or Theatre—had mother, or grandam, or nurse told to the weeping or shuddering, to the burning or auguring Child, that relique of old memory, that domestic tragedy of the antique British throne—the story attracting and torturing of the Father-king who divided his heart and his realm to the two serpents, who cast out from heart and realm the Dove of his blood—till Time unveiled Truth and Love.Then and therewas the seed, the slowly-springing, laid in the deep and kindly soil. From that hour dates the Lear of Shakspeare. Why repeat things that we all know, and have a thousand times said? Because they must be reasserted explicitly, as often as they are implicitly gainsayed; and is it not gainsaying them to affirm that the Poet singsto please, when indeed he sings because this Infinite of knowledges—this accumulation of experiences—this world of sensibilities and sympathies, of affections, passions, emotions, desires of his own and of other men's, inspires him, and will form itself in words? But he looks towards his hoped Auditors with a more direct selfish desire or design. He must have from them the meed of all glorious deeds—the wreath of all glorious doers—Fame. Let Grateful Mankind applaud the Benefactors of Mankind. Ay, he loves life. He would fain live beyond this world, wide as it is, of his own particular bosom—he would live in the bosoms of his contemporaries, and in the bosoms of the generations that are to follow for evermore. Proud as privileged, he asks his due—Recognition. And who that has the ability to render will choose or dare to withhold the tribute?Fame! the nectarean cup—the ambrosial fruit—that confersImmortality! The last best gift that mortals affect to bestow on their fellow-mortals. He who, at some great crisis, achieves a deed which the world shall feel, and whereof the world shall ring—dilates, in consciousness, to comprehend those whom his act shall reach, and those to whom it shall resound. Remember Lord Nelson at Trafalgar—in the moment ere the first gun fires, the word signalled to the awaiting host throughout the Fleet—"England expects." In an instant, the twenty-five millions of compatriot islanders, as if wafted by the winds from their distant homes, arethere—spectators of the Fight that yet sleeps, at the next instant to wake, convulsing sea and air—spectators to every single combatant, of his individual heroism. What did that late conqueror of ancient Egypt and what did his fiery warriors understand, when going into battle he said to them—"Forty Centuries look down on you from the summit of yonder Pyramids?" These plains, for four thousand years, have belonged to History. See to it, that the page which you are about adding shall be, for your part, luminous with glory and victory, not

"Black with dishonour, and foul with retreat."

Suppose that he had said, "Forty Centuriesto comegaze upon you." The Pyramids seem likely to hold their own in such a reckoning. Perhaps the stretch of time is too long for the imagination of the Gallic Soldier. But surely, so speaking, he had spoken more from his heart and less from his imagination; forhemeditated the ages to come, not the ages gone by. To leave a name that shall sound, for good or for ill, loud-echoing from century to century—a name to be heard, when Cæsar, and Alexander, and Hannibal are commemorated—a name insubmergible by the waves of time—inextinguishable by the mists of oblivion—thathe desired, andthathas he not won? Horace has hung his name too in imagination on the structures of the Cheopses. But how different is the

"Exegi monumentum ære perennius,Regalique situ Pyramidum altius"

of the Poet! Horace indeed was already safe in pronouncing Homer immortal, with all the heroes upon whom he had conferred the gift. A thousand years! And the portentous strain, with all its Gods and Goddesses, and Kings and Queens, and Men and Women—fresh, bright, vivid, and fragrant, warm and yet reverberating from the Harp—as if theplectrumof the sublime Bard were but that moment withdrawn from the strings—as if the breast that first poured the strain were yet throbbing with quicker emotion—stirred by the pulsating chords and by the words which itself chanted. Horace might well understand the immortality of the Poet. That he claimed it, and judiciously, for himself—he who sung so differently, the sweet, the sprightly, some loftier notes too—but afar from Homer—suggests a reflection upon the nature of durability. The works were born of Love; and by Love they live, for in them the Love lives.Spirat adhuc amor.Those Egyptian, star-contemplating, and star-contemplated Edifices, quarried from the Rock, stand; integral parts of the Planet, immovable—immutable. That is one manner of enduring. Sound is awakened. For an instant it flits through the air and ceases, extinct in silence. Add Love, and you have informed sound with duration—another manner of enduring. The mountain of piled rocks and a touch on the air are become rivals in duration, and we say they will last for ever.

Printed by William Blackwood & Sons, Edinburgh.

FOOTNOTES:[1]Modern State Trials: Revised and Illustrated, with Essays and Notes. ByWilliam C. Townsend, Esq., M.A., Q.C., Recorder of Macclesfield. In 2 vols. 8vo. Longman & Co. 1850.[2]Lord Campbell has made considerable use of Mr Townsend's collection, and publicly acknowledged his obligations, in hisLives of the Lord Chancellors and Lord Chief-Justices. It is not impossible that we may, before long, present our readers with an extended examination of these two important works of the new Lord Chief-Justice of the Queen's Bench.[3]Introduction, vol. i., p. 7, 8.[4]Introduction, p. ix.[5]Townsend, vol. i. pp. 1, 2.[6]4 Black. Com., pp. 81-2.[7]Townsend, vol i., p. 54.[8]Ibid. vol. i., p. 45.[9]"I thoughthe was crying," said one of the witnesses!—p. 23.[10]Stat. 7 Anne, c. 21, § 11.[11]Townsend, vol. i. p. 71.[12]Hall's Pleas of the Crown, part I., c. 14.[13]Townsend, p. 95.[14]1 Townsend, pp. 99-100; and see the argument reported at length in Reginav.Frost, 9 Carr and Payne, 165-187. Of these fifteen Judges, only six are still on the Bench—Barons Parke, Alderson, Rolfe; and Justices Patteson, Coleridge, and Maule—nine having disappeared during the last ten years. It will be observed that the three chiefs of the Courts were of one way of thinking, viz. that therehadbeen a good delivery of the list of witnesses, in point of law.[15]9 Carr and Payne, pp. 175-176.[16]Souvenirs de la Vie Militaire en Afrique.ParM. Pierre de Castellane. Paris: 1850.[17]To ask theamanis to implore mercy; to give it is to grant pardon.[18]In Africa, during the great heat, thesecabansor short cloaks are often worn, to keep off the rays of the sun.[19]The Arabs called General Changarnier theChangarli, theChangarlo.Changaris an Arab word, signifying to quell or crush.Ma changarch alina; do not strike me down—do not crush me.[20]Sons of Turks by Arab women.[21]This missionary, originally a Jew, had become a Calvinist at Bâle, then had joined the Church of England, and had finally turned missionary, in consideration of a handsome recompence. He drove a great trade in Bibles, which he sold to the Tunis shopkeepers. The leaves of the sacred volume served to envelope Mussulman butter and soap. The Caïd's book, published at Carlsruhe, made a noise, was prohibited, and, thanks to the prohibition, had immense success.—Note by M. de Castellane.[22]Blackwood's Magazine, Vol. LXV., p. 20.[23]A band of irregular horsemen.[24]The Arab term for men of high family.[25]The description of this peculiar phenomenon of the Indian Ocean, as given by Captain Collins, surprised us as much as the reality seems to have done him. However, on consulting a seafaring old gentleman of much experience in all parts of the world, we are informed that such an appearance is periodically to be met with for some distance between the Laccadive and Maldive islands, as he had reason to know. The old Dutch Captain Stavorinus also furnishes an account substantially similar, having particularly attended to the cause of it in his voyage to the East Indies: it reaches also to some of the south-eastern islands at a great distance from India, near Java—or at all events appears there. In the Atlantic, Humboldt says there is a part of the sea always milky, although very deep, in about 57º W. longitude, and the parallel of the island of Dominica. Of the same nature, probably, are the immense olive-green spaces and stripes seen in blue water by Captain Scoresby and others, toward the ice of the north polar regions.The pale sea alluded to is supposed either to move from the shores of Arabia Felix, and the gulfs in that coast, or, by some, to arise from sulphureous marine exhalations—appearing to rot the bottoms of vessels, and to frighten the fish. Both at the Laccadives and near Java it is seen twice a-year, often with a heavy rolling of the sea and bad weather. The first time, at the new moon in June, it is called by the Dutch the "little white-water;" again, at the new moon in August, the great "wit-water;" by English seamen, generally, the milk-sea, or the "blink."[26]The zodiacal light, seen at sunrise and sunset.[27]Histoire des Ducs de Guise.ParRéné de Bouillé, ancien Ministre Plénipotentiaire. Volume II. Paris: 1849.[28]So styled by the Huguenots. Historians have adopted the designation. It consisted of Guise, Montmorency, and the Marshal of St André, and was a sort of prelude to the League.[29]Discours de la Bataille de Dreux, dieté parFrançois de Lorraine.[30]Thus stated by M. de Bouillé. Other writers have called the total force of the Protestants two thousand seven hundred horse and foot.[31]Other writers have said that he had alreadydoneso, or at least that he was seated under a tree, a recognised prisoner, when he was shot. M. de Bouillé's account leaves a sort of loop-hole, to infer that Montesquiou might have been hardly aware that Condé was a prisoner. Such an inference, however, he probably does not intend to be drawn, and, in either case, it is contrary to historical fact.[32]The following couplet, from Oudin's MS. history of the house of Guise, may serve as a specimen of the partisan ditties composed on this occasion:—"L'an mil cinq cens soixante neuf,Entre Jarnac et Chasteauneuf,Fut porté mort sur une asnesse,Ce grand ennemy de la Messe."

[1]Modern State Trials: Revised and Illustrated, with Essays and Notes. ByWilliam C. Townsend, Esq., M.A., Q.C., Recorder of Macclesfield. In 2 vols. 8vo. Longman & Co. 1850.

[2]Lord Campbell has made considerable use of Mr Townsend's collection, and publicly acknowledged his obligations, in hisLives of the Lord Chancellors and Lord Chief-Justices. It is not impossible that we may, before long, present our readers with an extended examination of these two important works of the new Lord Chief-Justice of the Queen's Bench.

[3]Introduction, vol. i., p. 7, 8.

[4]Introduction, p. ix.

[5]Townsend, vol. i. pp. 1, 2.

[6]4 Black. Com., pp. 81-2.

[7]Townsend, vol i., p. 54.

[8]Ibid. vol. i., p. 45.

[9]"I thoughthe was crying," said one of the witnesses!—p. 23.

[10]Stat. 7 Anne, c. 21, § 11.

[11]Townsend, vol. i. p. 71.

[12]Hall's Pleas of the Crown, part I., c. 14.

[13]Townsend, p. 95.

[14]1 Townsend, pp. 99-100; and see the argument reported at length in Reginav.Frost, 9 Carr and Payne, 165-187. Of these fifteen Judges, only six are still on the Bench—Barons Parke, Alderson, Rolfe; and Justices Patteson, Coleridge, and Maule—nine having disappeared during the last ten years. It will be observed that the three chiefs of the Courts were of one way of thinking, viz. that therehadbeen a good delivery of the list of witnesses, in point of law.

[15]9 Carr and Payne, pp. 175-176.

[16]Souvenirs de la Vie Militaire en Afrique.ParM. Pierre de Castellane. Paris: 1850.

[17]To ask theamanis to implore mercy; to give it is to grant pardon.

[18]In Africa, during the great heat, thesecabansor short cloaks are often worn, to keep off the rays of the sun.

[19]The Arabs called General Changarnier theChangarli, theChangarlo.Changaris an Arab word, signifying to quell or crush.Ma changarch alina; do not strike me down—do not crush me.

[20]Sons of Turks by Arab women.

[21]This missionary, originally a Jew, had become a Calvinist at Bâle, then had joined the Church of England, and had finally turned missionary, in consideration of a handsome recompence. He drove a great trade in Bibles, which he sold to the Tunis shopkeepers. The leaves of the sacred volume served to envelope Mussulman butter and soap. The Caïd's book, published at Carlsruhe, made a noise, was prohibited, and, thanks to the prohibition, had immense success.—Note by M. de Castellane.

[22]Blackwood's Magazine, Vol. LXV., p. 20.

[23]A band of irregular horsemen.

[24]The Arab term for men of high family.

[25]The description of this peculiar phenomenon of the Indian Ocean, as given by Captain Collins, surprised us as much as the reality seems to have done him. However, on consulting a seafaring old gentleman of much experience in all parts of the world, we are informed that such an appearance is periodically to be met with for some distance between the Laccadive and Maldive islands, as he had reason to know. The old Dutch Captain Stavorinus also furnishes an account substantially similar, having particularly attended to the cause of it in his voyage to the East Indies: it reaches also to some of the south-eastern islands at a great distance from India, near Java—or at all events appears there. In the Atlantic, Humboldt says there is a part of the sea always milky, although very deep, in about 57º W. longitude, and the parallel of the island of Dominica. Of the same nature, probably, are the immense olive-green spaces and stripes seen in blue water by Captain Scoresby and others, toward the ice of the north polar regions.The pale sea alluded to is supposed either to move from the shores of Arabia Felix, and the gulfs in that coast, or, by some, to arise from sulphureous marine exhalations—appearing to rot the bottoms of vessels, and to frighten the fish. Both at the Laccadives and near Java it is seen twice a-year, often with a heavy rolling of the sea and bad weather. The first time, at the new moon in June, it is called by the Dutch the "little white-water;" again, at the new moon in August, the great "wit-water;" by English seamen, generally, the milk-sea, or the "blink."

The pale sea alluded to is supposed either to move from the shores of Arabia Felix, and the gulfs in that coast, or, by some, to arise from sulphureous marine exhalations—appearing to rot the bottoms of vessels, and to frighten the fish. Both at the Laccadives and near Java it is seen twice a-year, often with a heavy rolling of the sea and bad weather. The first time, at the new moon in June, it is called by the Dutch the "little white-water;" again, at the new moon in August, the great "wit-water;" by English seamen, generally, the milk-sea, or the "blink."

[26]The zodiacal light, seen at sunrise and sunset.

[27]Histoire des Ducs de Guise.ParRéné de Bouillé, ancien Ministre Plénipotentiaire. Volume II. Paris: 1849.

[28]So styled by the Huguenots. Historians have adopted the designation. It consisted of Guise, Montmorency, and the Marshal of St André, and was a sort of prelude to the League.

[29]Discours de la Bataille de Dreux, dieté parFrançois de Lorraine.

[30]Thus stated by M. de Bouillé. Other writers have called the total force of the Protestants two thousand seven hundred horse and foot.

[31]Other writers have said that he had alreadydoneso, or at least that he was seated under a tree, a recognised prisoner, when he was shot. M. de Bouillé's account leaves a sort of loop-hole, to infer that Montesquiou might have been hardly aware that Condé was a prisoner. Such an inference, however, he probably does not intend to be drawn, and, in either case, it is contrary to historical fact.

[32]The following couplet, from Oudin's MS. history of the house of Guise, may serve as a specimen of the partisan ditties composed on this occasion:—"L'an mil cinq cens soixante neuf,Entre Jarnac et Chasteauneuf,Fut porté mort sur une asnesse,Ce grand ennemy de la Messe."

[32]The following couplet, from Oudin's MS. history of the house of Guise, may serve as a specimen of the partisan ditties composed on this occasion:—

"L'an mil cinq cens soixante neuf,Entre Jarnac et Chasteauneuf,Fut porté mort sur une asnesse,Ce grand ennemy de la Messe."

Transcriber's Notes:Punctuation and spelling were made consistent when a predominant preference was found in this book; otherwise they were not changed.Simple typographical and spelling errors were corrected.PP.373,415&456added missing footnote anchors.

Transcriber's Notes:

Punctuation and spelling were made consistent when a predominant preference was found in this book; otherwise they were not changed.

Simple typographical and spelling errors were corrected.

PP.373,415&456added missing footnote anchors.

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