THE DYING ROSE.

‘Le crime faite la honte, et non pas l’échafaud.’

To-morrow, at eight, I am to be tried.”

On the morning of the 17th, she was led before her judges. She was dressed with care, and had never looked more lovely. Her bearing was so imposing and dignified, that the spectators and the judges seemed to stand arraigned before her. She interrupted the first witness, by declaring that it was she who had killed Marat.

“Who inspired you with so much hatred against him?” asked the president.

“I needed not the hatred of others, I had enough of my own,” she energetically replied. “Besides, we do not execute well that which we have not ourselves conceived.”

“What, then, did you hate in Marat?”

“His crimes.”

“Do you think that you have assassinated all the Marats?”

“No; but now that he is dead, the rest may fear.”

She answered other questions with equal firmness and laconism. Her project, she declared, had been formed since the 31st of May. “She had killed one man to save a hundred thousand. She was a republican long before the Revolution, and had never failed in energy.”

“What do you understand by energy?” asked the president.

“That feeling,” she replied, “which induces us to cast aside selfish considerations, and sacrifice ourselves for our country.”

Fouquier Tinville here observed, alluding to the sure blow she had given, that she must be well practiced in crime.

“The monster takes me for an assassin!” she exclaimed, in a tone thrilling with indignation.

This closed the debates, and her defender rose. It was not Doulcet de Pontecoulant—who had not received her letter—but Chauveau de la Garde, chosen by the president. Charlotte gave him an anxious look, as though she feared he might seek to save her at the expense of honor. He spoke, and she perceived that her apprehensions were unfounded. Without excusing her crime or attributing it to insanity, he pleaded for the fervor of her conviction; which he had the courage to call sublime. The appeal proved unavailing. Charlotte Corday was condemned. Without deigning to answer the president, who asked her if she had aught to object to the penalty of death being carried out against her, she rose, and walking up to her defender, thanked him gracefully.

“These gentlemen,” said she, pointing to the judges, “have just informed me that the whole of my property is confiscated. I owe something in the prison: as a proof of my friendship and esteem, I request you to pay this little debt.”

On returning to the conciergerie, she found an artist, named Hauer, waiting for her, to finish her portrait, which he had begun at the tribunal. They conversed freely together, until the executioner, carrying the red chemise destined for assassins, and the scissors with which he was to cut her hair off, made his appearance.

“What, so soon?” exclaimed Charlotte Corday, slightly turning pale; but rallying her courage, she resumed her composure, and presented a lock of her hair to M. Hauer, as the only reward in her power to offer. A priest came to offer her his ministry. She thanked him and the persons by whom he had been sent, but declined his spiritual aid. The executioner cut her hair, bound her hands, and threw the red chemise over her. M. Hauer was struck with the almost unearthly loveliness which the crimson hue of this garment imparted to the ill-fated maiden. “This toilet of death, though performed by rude hands, leads to immortality,” said Charlotte, with a smile.

A heavy storm broke forth as the car of the condemned left the conciergerie for the Place de la Revolution. An immense crowd lined every street through which Charlotte Corday passed. Hootings and execrations at first rose on her path; but as her pure and serene beauty dawned on the multitude, as the exquisite loveliness of her countenance, and the sculptural beauty of her figure became more fully revealed, pity and admiration superseded every other feeling. Her bearing was so admirably calm and dignified, as to rouse sympathy in the breasts of those who detested not only her crime, but the cause for which it had been committed. Many men of every party took off their hats and bowed as the cart passed before them. Amongst those who waited its approach, was a young German, named Adam Luz, who stood at the entrance of the Rue Sainte Honore, and followed Charlotte to the scaffold. He gazed on the lovely and heroic maiden with all the enthusiasm of his imaginative race. A love, unexampled perhaps in the history of the human heart, took possession of his soul. Not one wandering look of “those beautiful eyes, which revealed a soul as intrepid as it was tender,” escaped him. Every earthly grace so soon to perish in death, every trace of the lofty and immortal spirit, filled him with bitter and intoxicating emotions unknown till then. “To die for her; to be struck by the same hand; to feel in death the same cold axe which had severed the angelic head of Charlotte; to be united to her in heroism, freedom, love, and death, was now the only hope and desire of his heart.”

Unconscious of the passionate love she had awakened, Charlotte now stood near the guillotine. She turned pale on first beholding it, but soon resumed her serenity. A deep blush suffused her face when the executioner removed the handkerchief that covered her neck and shoulders, but she calmly laid her head upon the block. The executioner touched a spring, and the axe came down. One of Samson’s assistants immediately stepped forward, and holding up the lifeless head to the gaze of the crowd, struck it on either cheek. The brutal act only excited a feeling of horror; and it is said that—as though even in death her indignant spirit protested against this outrage—an angry and crimson flush passed over the features of Charlotte Corday.

A few days after her execution, Adam Luz published a pamphlet, in which he enthusiastically praised her deed, and proposed that a statue with the inscription, “Greater than Brutus,” should be erected to her memory on the spot where she had perished. He was arrested and thrown into prison. On entering the Abbaye, he passionately exclaimed, “I am going to die for her!” His wish was fulfilled ere long.

Strange, feverish times were those which could rouse a gentle and lovely maiden to avenge freedom by such a deadly deed; which could waken in a human heart a love whose thoughts were not of life or earthly bliss, but of the grave and the scaffold. Let the times, then, explain those natures, where so much evil and heroism are blended, that man cannot mark the limits between both. Whatever judgment may be passed upon her, the character of Charlotte Corday was certainly not cast in an ordinary mould. It is a striking and noble trait, that to the last she did not repent: never was error more sincere. If she could have repented, she would never have become guilty.

Her deed created an extraordinary impression throughout France. On hearing of it, a beautiful royalist lady fell down on her knees, and invoked “Saint Charlotte Corday.” The republican Madame Roland calls her a heroine worthy of a better age. The poet, Andre Chenier—who, before a year had elapsed, followed her on the scaffold—sang her heroism in a soul-stirring strain.

The political influence of that deed may be estimated by the exclamation of Vergniaud: “She kills us, but she teaches us how to die!” It was so. The assassination of Marat exasperated all his fanatic partisans against the Girondists. Almost divine honors were paid to his memory; forms of prayer were addressed to him; altars were erected to his honor, and numberless victims sent to the scaffold as a peace-offering to his manes. On the wreck of his popularity rose the far more dangerous power of Robespierre; a new impulse was given to the Reign of Terror. Such was the “peace” which the erring and heroic Charlotte Corday won for France.

[12]Lamartine.

[12]

Lamartine.

THE DYING ROSE.

———

BY MRS. E. J. EAMES.

———

TheQueen of the Flowers sat on her throne,But the rosy gems from her crown were falling—A paleness was over her beauty thrown,For she heard the death-spirit on her calling!Lowly she bent her royal head,And mourned in tones of plaintive sweetnessThat mortals should call her the fading rose—The rose of early, perishing fleetness!“Ungrateful man! do I not makeMy span of life, though short, delicious?And yield you rich perfumes after death?But there is no bound to human wishesI see all my sister flow’rets fade,In their blighted beauty around me lying;Yet only ofme’tis sung, and said—Alas! for the rose—so early dying!”“Be not displeased with us, loveliest one”—Said a fair young maiden standing by her—“ ’Tis not that thy race is so swiftly run,But we wish that thy destiny were higher:We see all the flowers around us die—And deem it their fate; butthee, their sovereign,We would give a lovelier home on high,With sister spirits around thee hov’ring!“Then call not that thankless, which is in truthThe prompting of tender and true affection;And pardon the sorrow, with which our youthSees ever in thee but a sad reflection!For all the beauty and joy of our life—All the loves and the hopes we so fondly cherish,We liken tothee—and when they fadeWe say—‘Like the Rose, how soon they perish!’ ”

TheQueen of the Flowers sat on her throne,

But the rosy gems from her crown were falling—

A paleness was over her beauty thrown,

For she heard the death-spirit on her calling!

Lowly she bent her royal head,

And mourned in tones of plaintive sweetness

That mortals should call her the fading rose—

The rose of early, perishing fleetness!

“Ungrateful man! do I not makeMy span of life, though short, delicious?And yield you rich perfumes after death?But there is no bound to human wishesI see all my sister flow’rets fade,In their blighted beauty around me lying;Yet only ofme’tis sung, and said—Alas! for the rose—so early dying!”

“Ungrateful man! do I not make

My span of life, though short, delicious?

And yield you rich perfumes after death?

But there is no bound to human wishes

I see all my sister flow’rets fade,

In their blighted beauty around me lying;

Yet only ofme’tis sung, and said—

Alas! for the rose—so early dying!”

“Be not displeased with us, loveliest one”—Said a fair young maiden standing by her—“ ’Tis not that thy race is so swiftly run,But we wish that thy destiny were higher:We see all the flowers around us die—And deem it their fate; butthee, their sovereign,We would give a lovelier home on high,With sister spirits around thee hov’ring!

“Be not displeased with us, loveliest one”—

Said a fair young maiden standing by her—

“ ’Tis not that thy race is so swiftly run,

But we wish that thy destiny were higher:

We see all the flowers around us die—

And deem it their fate; butthee, their sovereign,

We would give a lovelier home on high,

With sister spirits around thee hov’ring!

“Then call not that thankless, which is in truthThe prompting of tender and true affection;And pardon the sorrow, with which our youthSees ever in thee but a sad reflection!For all the beauty and joy of our life—All the loves and the hopes we so fondly cherish,We liken tothee—and when they fadeWe say—‘Like the Rose, how soon they perish!’ ”

“Then call not that thankless, which is in truth

The prompting of tender and true affection;

And pardon the sorrow, with which our youth

Sees ever in thee but a sad reflection!

For all the beauty and joy of our life—

All the loves and the hopes we so fondly cherish,

We liken tothee—and when they fade

We say—‘Like the Rose, how soon they perish!’ ”

LOVE’S MESSENGER.

A Favorite Song.

COMPOSED BY

MATTHIAS KELLER.

WORDS FROM THE GERMAN.

Published by permission of Lee & Walker, 162 Chestnut Street,Publishers and Importers of Music and Musical Instruments.

Published by permission of Lee & Walker, 162 Chestnut Street,

Publishers and Importers of Music and Musical Instruments.

My love is no writer,Nor truly am I,Or often a letter should bear her my

My love is no writer,

Nor truly am I,

Or often a letter should bear her my

sigh;A promise most tender I gave to my love.I would her rememberWhere e’er I should roveI would her rememberWhere e’er I should rove.

sigh;

A promise most tender I gave to my love.

I would her remember

Where e’er I should rove

I would her remember

Where e’er I should rove.

II.Could I write her a letter,What joy would be mine,But, alas! ’tis a pleasureThat I must resign;For love’s messenger onlyA ring I can take,And kiss it most fondlyFor her own sweet sake.

II.

Could I write her a letter,What joy would be mine,But, alas! ’tis a pleasureThat I must resign;For love’s messenger onlyA ring I can take,And kiss it most fondlyFor her own sweet sake.

Could I write her a letter,

What joy would be mine,

But, alas! ’tis a pleasure

That I must resign;

For love’s messenger only

A ring I can take,

And kiss it most fondly

For her own sweet sake.

REVIEW OF NEW BOOKS.

The Golden Legend. By Henry Wordsworth Longfellow. Boston: Ticknor, Read & Fields. 1 vol. 16mo.

The readers of this charming poem, whatever may be their judgment of its merits as compared with “The Spanish Student” and “Evangeline,” will be compelled to acknowledge its originality of plan, and the new impression it conveys of the author’s genius. Whatever it may be, it is most assuredly no repetition of any of his former works, for the mark it leaves upon the imagination is essentially novel. The poem is a succession of highly colored pictures of life in the middle ages; and though the fortunes of Prince Henry and Elsie give a certain unity to the whole, it is a unity that admits of more variety than “Evangeline”—a variety which, though purchased at some expense of interest in the story, produces a more pleasing impression in the end. Though the poem has not the continuous richness and warmth of fancy, diction, and melody which commonly distinguish Longfellow’s writings, it is by no means deficient in those qualities, and has scenes and passages on which his imagination has expended the full pomp of its luxurious images and subtle melodies. Though filled with vivid pictures of the middle ages, the poem can hardly be called picturesque, for the picturesque implies not succession but combination; and “The Golden Legend” is a succession of pictures, not a combination of many into one. The picturesque, as defined by Coleridge, is the “union, harmonious melting-down and fusion of the different in kind and the disparate in degree” and it is in this meaning of the word that Coleridge denies the quality to Spenser, thereby much puzzling even Hallam, who could not conceive why a poem so full of pictures as the Faery Queene, was not in an eminent degree picturesque.

The volume opens with a scene representing the spire of the Strasburg Cathedral, and Lucifer with the Powers of the Air, trying to tear down the cross. This scene has a quaint sublimity which prepares the mind for the strangeness of the representations of religion which follow; for Longfellow, in his pictures of Catholicism, presents it, not in its abstract doctrines, but in its concrete life—presents it as it really existed in institutions, customs, and men, during the middle ages. This idea must be perceived at the commencement, or else the reader, judging not merely as a modern Protestant, but as a modern Catholic, will condemn the poem at once as irreverently extravagant and bizarre. The next scene introduces Prince Henry, sitting alone in his castle, tormented with baffled aspiration and weariness of life—a sort of Faust, but a Faust of sentiment rather than a Faust of intellect. In a beautiful soliloquy, the prince mourns over the graves of his departed hopes, loves, and aspirations, in a style very different from the sharp, short, electric curses on the deceptions of life, which leap from the lips of Goethe’s hero. We give a short extract, which is a poem in itself:

They come, the shapes of joy and wo,The airy crowds of long-ago,The dreams and fancies known of yore,That have been and shall be no more.They change the cloisters of the nightInto a garden of delight;They make the dark and dreary hoursOpen and blossom into flowers!I would not sleep, I love to beAgain in their fair company;But ere my lips can bid them stay,They pass and vanish quite away.

They come, the shapes of joy and wo,

The airy crowds of long-ago,

The dreams and fancies known of yore,

That have been and shall be no more.

They change the cloisters of the night

Into a garden of delight;

They make the dark and dreary hours

Open and blossom into flowers!

I would not sleep, I love to be

Again in their fair company;

But ere my lips can bid them stay,

They pass and vanish quite away.

Just as the prince, in his hunger for rest, has asserted

Sweeter the undisturbed and deepTranquillity of endless sleep,

Sweeter the undisturbed and deep

Tranquillity of endless sleep,

Lucifer appears, in his accustomed dress as a traveling physician, and accompanied by his usual sign, a flash of lightning. He taunts and cajoles his victim into drinking what he is pleased to call his water of life. The immediate effect of this Satanic liquid is like that which the cordial of the foul hag communicates to the Faust of Goethe:

It is like a draught of fire!Through every veinI feel againThe fever of youth, the soft desire;A rapture that is almost painThrobs in my heart and fills my brain!O joy! O joy! I feelThe band of steelThat so long and heavily has pressedUpon my breastUplifted, and the maledictionOf my afflictionIs taken from me, and my weary breastAt length finds rest.

It is like a draught of fire!

Through every vein

I feel again

The fever of youth, the soft desire;

A rapture that is almost pain

Throbs in my heart and fills my brain!

O joy! O joy! I feel

The band of steel

That so long and heavily has pressed

Upon my breast

Uplifted, and the malediction

Of my affliction

Is taken from me, and my weary breast

At length finds rest.

We are next transferred as spectators to the courtyard of the castle, and a most beautiful scene occurs between Hubert, Prince Henry’s seneschal, and Walter, the Minnesinger, a capital embodiment of the knightly poet of the middle ages. The prince, it seems, has relapsed from the glory of his exaltation, has become more soul-sick than ever, has fallen under the malediction of the church; and has gone forth into disgrace and banishment. We give the concluding passage of this scene, where Walter speaks of the “beings of the wind” that attend the poet, and, leaning over the parapet of the castle, describes the landscape:

Walter.I would a moment here remain.But you, good Hubert, go before,Fill me a goblet of May-drink,As aromatic as the MayFrom which it steals the breath away,And which he loved so well of yore;It is of him that I would think.You shall attend me, when I call,In the ancestral banquet-hall.Unseen companions, guests of air,You cannot wait on, will be there;They taste not food, they drink not wine,But their soft eyes look into mine,And their lips speak to me, and allThe vast and shadowy banquet-hallIs full of looks and words divine!Leaning over the parapet.The day is done; and slowly from the sceneThe stooping sun upgathers his spent shafts,And puts them back into his golden quiver!Below me in the valley, deep and greenAs goblets are, from which in thirsty draughtsWe drink its wine, the swift and mantling riverFlows on triumphant through these lovely regionsEtched with the shadows of its sombre margent,And soft, reflected clouds of gold and argent!Yes, there it flows, for ever, broad and still,As when the vanguard of the Roman legionsFirst saw it from the top of yonder hill!How beautiful it is! Fresh fields of wheat;Vineyard and town, and tower with fluttering flag,The consecrated chapel on the crag,And the white hamlet gathered round its base,Like Mary sitting at her Saviour’s feet,And looking up at his beloved face!O friend! O best of friends! Thy absence moreThan the impending night darkens the landscape o’er!

Walter.I would a moment here remain.

But you, good Hubert, go before,

Fill me a goblet of May-drink,

As aromatic as the May

From which it steals the breath away,

And which he loved so well of yore;

It is of him that I would think.

You shall attend me, when I call,

In the ancestral banquet-hall.

Unseen companions, guests of air,

You cannot wait on, will be there;

They taste not food, they drink not wine,

But their soft eyes look into mine,

And their lips speak to me, and all

The vast and shadowy banquet-hall

Is full of looks and words divine!

Leaning over the parapet.

The day is done; and slowly from the sceneThe stooping sun upgathers his spent shafts,And puts them back into his golden quiver!Below me in the valley, deep and greenAs goblets are, from which in thirsty draughtsWe drink its wine, the swift and mantling riverFlows on triumphant through these lovely regionsEtched with the shadows of its sombre margent,And soft, reflected clouds of gold and argent!Yes, there it flows, for ever, broad and still,As when the vanguard of the Roman legionsFirst saw it from the top of yonder hill!How beautiful it is! Fresh fields of wheat;Vineyard and town, and tower with fluttering flag,The consecrated chapel on the crag,And the white hamlet gathered round its base,Like Mary sitting at her Saviour’s feet,And looking up at his beloved face!O friend! O best of friends! Thy absence moreThan the impending night darkens the landscape o’er!

The day is done; and slowly from the scene

The stooping sun upgathers his spent shafts,

And puts them back into his golden quiver!

Below me in the valley, deep and green

As goblets are, from which in thirsty draughts

We drink its wine, the swift and mantling river

Flows on triumphant through these lovely regions

Etched with the shadows of its sombre margent,

And soft, reflected clouds of gold and argent!

Yes, there it flows, for ever, broad and still,

As when the vanguard of the Roman legions

First saw it from the top of yonder hill!

How beautiful it is! Fresh fields of wheat;

Vineyard and town, and tower with fluttering flag,

The consecrated chapel on the crag,

And the white hamlet gathered round its base,

Like Mary sitting at her Saviour’s feet,

And looking up at his beloved face!

O friend! O best of friends! Thy absence more

Than the impending night darkens the landscape o’er!

The next three scenes are exquisite in conception and execution. Prince Henry has found refuge

In the Odenwald.Some of his tenants unappalledBy fear of death or priestly word—A holy family that makeEach meal a supper of the Lord—Have him beneath their watch and ward.For love of him, and Jesus’ sake!

In the Odenwald.

Some of his tenants unappalled

By fear of death or priestly word—

A holy family that make

Each meal a supper of the Lord—

Have him beneath their watch and ward.

For love of him, and Jesus’ sake!

The pictures which follow of Gottlieb, his wife Ursula, and Elsie, his daughter, the heroine of the poem, are beautiful and touching representations of the sturdy honesty and sublime simplicity of faith, which distinguished the religious German peasant-family of the old time. A legend of the Monk Felix, which Prince Henry reads, while Elsie is gathering flowers for him and for St. Cecelia, is truly “golden.” We cannot resist the temptation to quote a portion of it.

One morning, all alone,Out of his convent of gray stone,Into the forest older, darker, grayer,His lips moving as if in prayer,His head sunken upon his breastAs in a dream of rest,Walked the Monk Felix. All aboutThe brood, sweet sunshine lay without,Filling the summer air;And within the woodlands as he trod,The twilight was like the Truce of GodWith worldly wo and care;Under him lay the golden moss;And above him the boughs of hemlock-treesWaved, and made the sign of the cross,And whispered their Benedicites;And from the groundRose an odor sweet and fragrantOf the wild-flowers and the vagrantVines that wandered,Seeking the sunshine, round and round.These he heeded not, but ponderedOn the volume in his hand,A volume of Saint Augustine,Wherein he read of the unseen,Splendors of God’s great townIn the unknown land,And, with his eyes cast downIn humility, he said:“I believe, O God,What herein I have read,But alas! I do not understand!”And lo! he heardThe sudden singing of a bird,A snow-white bird, that from a cloudDropped down,And among the branches brownSat singingSo sweet, and clear, and loud,It seemed a thousand harp-strings ringing.And the Monk Felix closed his book,And long, long,With rapturous look,He listened to the song,And hardly breathed or stirred,Until he saw, as in a vision,The land Elysian,And in the heavenly city heardAngelic feetFall on the golden flagging of the street.And he would fainHave caught the wondrous bird,But strove in vain;For it flew away, away,Far over hill and dell,And instead of its sweet singingHe heard the convent bellSuddenly in the silence ringingFor the service of noonday.And he retracedHis pathway homeward sadly and in haste.

One morning, all alone,

Out of his convent of gray stone,

Into the forest older, darker, grayer,

His lips moving as if in prayer,

His head sunken upon his breast

As in a dream of rest,

Walked the Monk Felix. All about

The brood, sweet sunshine lay without,

Filling the summer air;

And within the woodlands as he trod,

The twilight was like the Truce of God

With worldly wo and care;

Under him lay the golden moss;

And above him the boughs of hemlock-trees

Waved, and made the sign of the cross,

And whispered their Benedicites;

And from the ground

Rose an odor sweet and fragrant

Of the wild-flowers and the vagrant

Vines that wandered,

Seeking the sunshine, round and round.

These he heeded not, but ponderedOn the volume in his hand,A volume of Saint Augustine,Wherein he read of the unseen,Splendors of God’s great townIn the unknown land,And, with his eyes cast downIn humility, he said:“I believe, O God,What herein I have read,But alas! I do not understand!”

These he heeded not, but pondered

On the volume in his hand,

A volume of Saint Augustine,

Wherein he read of the unseen,

Splendors of God’s great town

In the unknown land,

And, with his eyes cast down

In humility, he said:

“I believe, O God,

What herein I have read,

But alas! I do not understand!”

And lo! he heardThe sudden singing of a bird,A snow-white bird, that from a cloudDropped down,And among the branches brownSat singingSo sweet, and clear, and loud,It seemed a thousand harp-strings ringing.And the Monk Felix closed his book,And long, long,With rapturous look,He listened to the song,And hardly breathed or stirred,Until he saw, as in a vision,The land Elysian,And in the heavenly city heardAngelic feetFall on the golden flagging of the street.And he would fainHave caught the wondrous bird,But strove in vain;For it flew away, away,Far over hill and dell,And instead of its sweet singingHe heard the convent bellSuddenly in the silence ringingFor the service of noonday.And he retracedHis pathway homeward sadly and in haste.

And lo! he heard

The sudden singing of a bird,

A snow-white bird, that from a cloud

Dropped down,

And among the branches brown

Sat singing

So sweet, and clear, and loud,

It seemed a thousand harp-strings ringing.

And the Monk Felix closed his book,

And long, long,

With rapturous look,

He listened to the song,

And hardly breathed or stirred,

Until he saw, as in a vision,

The land Elysian,

And in the heavenly city heard

Angelic feet

Fall on the golden flagging of the street.

And he would fain

Have caught the wondrous bird,

But strove in vain;

For it flew away, away,

Far over hill and dell,

And instead of its sweet singing

He heard the convent bell

Suddenly in the silence ringing

For the service of noonday.

And he retraced

His pathway homeward sadly and in haste.

When the monk returns to the convent, every thing is changed. He finds himself a stranger among the brotherhood.

“Forty years,” said a Friar,“Have I been PriorOf this convent in the wood;But for that spaceNever have I beheld thy face.”

“Forty years,” said a Friar,

“Have I been Prior

Of this convent in the wood;

But for that space

Never have I beheld thy face.”

At last the oldest recluse of the cloister recollects his name as that of a monk, who, a hundred years before, had left the convent, and never returned.

And they knew, at last,That such had been the powerOf that celestial, immortal song,A hundred years had passed,And had not seemed so longAs a single hour!

And they knew, at last,

That such had been the power

Of that celestial, immortal song,

A hundred years had passed,

And had not seemed so long

As a single hour!

Elsie learns that the malady of the prince will never be cured unless by a miracle, or unless (which some Benedicts would pronounce equally miraculous) a maiden should offer her life for his, and die in his stead. She immediately expresses her desire to save the prince at this sacrifice; and to the exclamation of her mother, that she knows not what death is, she answers with a burst of religious fervor almost celestial:

’Tis the cessation of our breath.Silent and motionless we lie;And no one knoweth more than this.I saw our little Gertrude die;She left off breathing, and no moreI smoothed the pillow beneath her head.She was more beautiful than before.Like violets faded were her eyes;By this we knew that she was dead.Through the open window looked the skiesInto the chamber where she lay,And the wind was like the sound of wings,As if angels came to bear her away.Ah! when I saw and felt these things,I found it difficult to stay;I longed to die as she had died,And go forth with her, side by side.The Saints are dead, the Martyrs dead,And Mary, and our Lord; and IWould follow in humilityThe way by them illumined!

’Tis the cessation of our breath.

Silent and motionless we lie;

And no one knoweth more than this.

I saw our little Gertrude die;

She left off breathing, and no more

I smoothed the pillow beneath her head.

She was more beautiful than before.

Like violets faded were her eyes;

By this we knew that she was dead.

Through the open window looked the skies

Into the chamber where she lay,

And the wind was like the sound of wings,

As if angels came to bear her away.

Ah! when I saw and felt these things,

I found it difficult to stay;

I longed to die as she had died,

And go forth with her, side by side.

The Saints are dead, the Martyrs dead,

And Mary, and our Lord; and I

Would follow in humility

The way by them illumined!

Prince Henry, uncertain whether he shall selfishly avail himself of this sacrifice, goes to take counsel of the priest. Lucifer, however, in the absence of the regular clergy, has seated himself in the confessional, and, preaching the gospel of expediency, convinces Henry that he can accept the maiden’s offer. She is to go with him to Salerno to die; and before they start she exacts a promise from him that he shall not endeavor to turn her from her purpose, and does it in words

That fall from her lipsLike roses from the lips of angels; and angelsMight stoop to pick them up!

That fall from her lips

Like roses from the lips of angels; and angels

Might stoop to pick them up!

A large portion of the rest of the poem is devoted to representations of the cities, towns, forests through which they pass on their way to Salerno, the cloisters and convents where they stop, and the many-colored and multiform life with which they come slightly in contact or collision. The thread of the story is here spun very fine, and we almost lose memory of the hero and heroine, while rapt in the gorgeous pictures of medieval superstition, manners and character, with which the page is crowded. It is evident that the story itself is too slight for the bulk of the book, and that the majority of the scenes, vivid and delightful as they are in themselves, have not that vital connection with the chief characters and leading event which is demanded in a work of art. And yet, if the reader sharply scrutinizes the whole impression which the poem leaves on his imagination, he will, perhaps, discover that there is a fine thread of union connecting the various parts, and that the incidents and scenery of the journey have not that merely mechanical juxtaposition which characterizes the events and scenes recorded in a tourist’s journal. The prince and Elsie are felt when they are not seen; and we do not know but that the poem may awake the admiration of future critics for the singular refinement of the imaginative power, by which the seemingly heterogeneous parts of the work are subtly organized into a homogeneous whole, by the connection of the profound Catholic sentiment of Elsie with the other expressions, grotesque and besotted, of the operation of the same faith. But such refinements are foreign to our purpose here. It is sufficient to say that the prince and Elsie appear at least on the edges of all the incidents which are so vividly presented. At the conclusion, the prince repents just as Elsie is on the point of being immolated, and then finds that his health recovers more rapidly on the prospect that she will live for him, instead of die for him. They are accordingly married. The account of the return to the cottage of Gottlieb and the castle of the prince, is very beautiful. Elsie is, perhaps, Longfellow’s finest creation, representing a woman so perfectly good, that her principles have become instincts. The devil that appears in the book, though sufficiently Satanic to frighten some sensitive readers, is rather a languid Lucifer, as compared with Milton’s or Goethe’s.

Among the many curiosities of the poem is a play, ingeniously imitated, in form and spirit, from those monstrosities of the early drama, the Miracle Plays. The fourth part is devoted to a convent in the Black Forest, and the soliloquy of Friar Claus, in the wine-cellar—of Friar Pacificus, transcribing and illuminating MSS.—of the Abbot Ernestus, pacing among the cloisters—and the convivial scene in the rectory—are fine descriptions of cloistered life, true both to the ideas and facts of the time. The passionate confession of the Abbess Irmingard to Elsie, is in Longfellow’s most powerful style, and has a fire and fierceness of outright and downright passion, not common to his representations of emotion. All of these would afford many choice passages for quotation; we have but room, however, for Friar Cuthbert’s sermon, delivered in front of the Strasburg Cathedral, on Easter Day. This, with a quaint audacity of its own, elbows out even its betters in verse and sentiment, and vehemently claims the right to be cited:

Friar Cuthbert,gesticulating and cracking a postilion’s whip.

What ho! good people! do you not hear?Dashing along at the top of his speed,Booted and spurred, on his jaded steed,A courier comes with words of cheer.Courier! what is the news, I pray?“Christ is arisen!” Whence come you? “From court.”Then I do not believe it; you say it in sport.Cracks his whip again.Ah, here comes another riding this way;We soon shall know what he has to say.Courier! what are the tidings to-day?“Christ is arisen!” Whence come you? “From town.”Then I do not believe it; away with you, clown.Cracks his whip more violently.And here comes a third, who is spurring amain;What news do you bring, with your loose-hanging rein,Your spurs wet with blood, and your bridle with foam?“Christ is arisen!” Whence come you! “From Rome.”Ah, now I believe. He is risen, indeed.Ride on with the news, at the top of your speed!Great applause among the crowd.To come back to my text! When the news was first spreadThat Christ was arisen indeed from the dead,Very great was the joy of theangels in heaven;And as great the dispute as to who should carryThe tidings thereof to the Virgin Mary,Pierced to the heart with sorrows seven.Old Father Adam was first to propose,As being the author of all our woes;But he was refused, for fear, said they,He would stop to eat apples on the way!Abel came next, but petitioned in vain,Because he might meet with his brother Cain!Noah, too, was refused, lest his weakness for wineShould delay him at every tavern-sign;And John the Baptist could not get a vote,On account of his old-fashioned, camel’s-hair coat;And the Penitent Thief, who died on the cross,Was reminded that all his bones were broken!Till at last, when each in turn had spoken,The company being still at a loss,The Angel, who rolled away the stone,Was sent to the sepulchre, all alone,And filled with glory that gloomy prison,And said to the Virgin, “The Lord has arisen!”

What ho! good people! do you not hear?

Dashing along at the top of his speed,

Booted and spurred, on his jaded steed,

A courier comes with words of cheer.

Courier! what is the news, I pray?

“Christ is arisen!” Whence come you? “From court.”

Then I do not believe it; you say it in sport.

Cracks his whip again.

Ah, here comes another riding this way;We soon shall know what he has to say.Courier! what are the tidings to-day?“Christ is arisen!” Whence come you? “From town.”Then I do not believe it; away with you, clown.

Ah, here comes another riding this way;

We soon shall know what he has to say.

Courier! what are the tidings to-day?

“Christ is arisen!” Whence come you? “From town.”

Then I do not believe it; away with you, clown.

Cracks his whip more violently.

And here comes a third, who is spurring amain;What news do you bring, with your loose-hanging rein,Your spurs wet with blood, and your bridle with foam?“Christ is arisen!” Whence come you! “From Rome.”Ah, now I believe. He is risen, indeed.Ride on with the news, at the top of your speed!

And here comes a third, who is spurring amain;

What news do you bring, with your loose-hanging rein,

Your spurs wet with blood, and your bridle with foam?

“Christ is arisen!” Whence come you! “From Rome.”

Ah, now I believe. He is risen, indeed.

Ride on with the news, at the top of your speed!

Great applause among the crowd.

To come back to my text! When the news was first spreadThat Christ was arisen indeed from the dead,Very great was the joy of theangels in heaven;And as great the dispute as to who should carryThe tidings thereof to the Virgin Mary,Pierced to the heart with sorrows seven.Old Father Adam was first to propose,As being the author of all our woes;But he was refused, for fear, said they,He would stop to eat apples on the way!Abel came next, but petitioned in vain,Because he might meet with his brother Cain!Noah, too, was refused, lest his weakness for wineShould delay him at every tavern-sign;And John the Baptist could not get a vote,On account of his old-fashioned, camel’s-hair coat;And the Penitent Thief, who died on the cross,Was reminded that all his bones were broken!Till at last, when each in turn had spoken,The company being still at a loss,The Angel, who rolled away the stone,Was sent to the sepulchre, all alone,And filled with glory that gloomy prison,And said to the Virgin, “The Lord has arisen!”

To come back to my text! When the news was first spread

That Christ was arisen indeed from the dead,

Very great was the joy of theangels in heaven;

And as great the dispute as to who should carry

The tidings thereof to the Virgin Mary,

Pierced to the heart with sorrows seven.

Old Father Adam was first to propose,

As being the author of all our woes;

But he was refused, for fear, said they,

He would stop to eat apples on the way!

Abel came next, but petitioned in vain,

Because he might meet with his brother Cain!

Noah, too, was refused, lest his weakness for wine

Should delay him at every tavern-sign;

And John the Baptist could not get a vote,

On account of his old-fashioned, camel’s-hair coat;

And the Penitent Thief, who died on the cross,

Was reminded that all his bones were broken!

Till at last, when each in turn had spoken,

The company being still at a loss,

The Angel, who rolled away the stone,

Was sent to the sepulchre, all alone,

And filled with glory that gloomy prison,

And said to the Virgin, “The Lord has arisen!”

We think we have sufficiently quoted from this delightful volume to give our readers an idea of its poetical merit. But no analysis or quotation can do justice to the wealth of knowledge it evinces of the middle ages, and to the various scholarship it displays. Longfellow, with a true poetic insight and power of assimilation, has given us here the life and spirit as well as the form of a by-gone age, so that the reader of the poem can obtain more of the substance of knowledge from its pictured page than from history itself. The work is not only one of uncommon poetical excellence, but it is a triumph over difficulties inherent in the subject, and over the subjective limitations of the author’s own mind. It is broader if not higher than any thing he has previously written, promises to be more permanently popular, and has the great merit of increasing in the reader’s estimation with a second or even a third perusal.

Miscellanies. By the Rev. James Martineau. Boston: Crosby & Nichols. 1 vol. 12mo.

Mr. Martineau has long been known to a numerous class of readers in this country as an eloquent preacher and essayist. The present volume is composed of philosophical essays, selected from his contributions to the Westminster and Prospective Reviews, and is edited by the Rev. Thomas S. King, of Boston, himself one of the most eloquent and accomplished of New England clergymen. Mr. Martineau’s sermons have been repeatedly reprinted, but this volume of Miscellanies conveys an impression of the independence and fertility of his mind and the reach of his acquisitions, which his sermons, with all their peculiar merit, would never give. It evinces not only an interest in all the social and religious problems which puzzle the present age, but a grasp of scholarship extending far back over the philosophies and literatures of other times and nations. The bent of his nature, however, is toward mental hospitality to the radical opinions of the day, and new thoughts, new hopes, even new paradoxes, are ever welcomed by his heart and disposition when his cool head doubts, discusses, demurs, and withholds its assenting judgment. He seems to have more sympathy for reformers than their productions, as his rich and various culture enables him to detect one-sidedness or superficiality in many a plan of amelioration, the spirit of which he approves. Both, however, in politics and religion he would be classed with the extremely “liberal” party; and though the conservative elements of his mind are, to a discriminating reader, visible in almost every page of the present volume, the author appears all the while desirous to share the glorious unpopularity of a class of thinkers with whom he but imperfectly sympathizes rather than to indicate his points of disagreement with their schemes and systems. He has a deep mental disgust for the moral timidity and intellectual feebleness which characterize so many of the fashionable and conventional thinkers on politics and theology, and is perhaps from this cause too apt to overlook defects in heretical systems in his admiration of the courage of the heretics. In his own words, “it is a dishonorable characteristic of the present age, that on its most marked intellectual tendencies is impressed a character ofFEAR. While its great practical agitations exhibit a progress toward some positive and attainable good, all its conspicuous movements of thought seem to be retreats from some apprehended evil. The open plain of meditation, over which, in simpler times, earnest men might range with devout and unmolested hope, bristles all over with directions showing which way we arenotto go. Turn where we may we see warnings to beware of some sophist’s pitfall, or devil’s ditch, or fool’s paradise, or atheist’s desert.”

This “despair of truth,” this intellectual cowardice, is more offensive to Mr. Martineau than unbelief itself. He describes the class of thinkers he most dislikes in one sentence of beautiful sharpness. “Checked and frightened,” he says, “at the entrance of every path on which they venture, theyspend their strength in standing still; or devise ingenious proofs, that, in a world where periodicity is the only progress, retrogradation is the discreetest method of advance.” His whole volume is therefore a protest against the practice, common both in England and the United States, of erecting in the republic of thought a despotism of dullness and timidity, by which independent investigation is to be allowed only so far as it results in fortifying accredited systems, and a bounty is put on that worst form of disbelief, infidelity to the laws of thought, the monitions of conscience, and the beckonings of new and inspiring truths. But while he is properly angry at such noodleism as this, which, if unlashed and unrebuked, would reduce men of thought into a corporation of intellectual Jerry Sneaks, he does not appear to us properly to distinguish between that independence which seeks truth and that independence which is merely a blustering egotism, and ostentatious exhibition of the commonplaces of error. His discrimination is not always of that sort which detects through the verbal disguises of moral energy the unmistakable features of moral pertness. The charlatans of dignity and convention have provoked a corresponding clique of charlatans, who revel in the bravadoes of license and anarchy; and it is no part of a wise man’s duty to allow his disgust of one form of nonsense to tempt him into championship of another form, because it happens to be on the opposite extreme.

The defect of Mr. Martineau’s nature appears to be the dominion of the reflective portion of his nature over all its other powers. He is emphatically a thinker, but a thinker on subjects so allied to sentiment and passion, that some action should be combined with it, in order that the mind shall receive no morbid taint, be not “sicklied o’er” by a thought that broadens into unpractical comprehension. The fertility of his mind in thoughts is altogether out of proportion to the vigor of his nature, and though intellectually brave he is not intellectually robust. Hence a lack of muscle and nerve in his most beautiful paragraphs; hence the absence of electric force and condensed energy of expression in his finest statements; hence a certain sadness and languor in the atmosphere spread over his writings, the breathing of which does not invigorate the mind so much as it enlarges its view. He communicates thoughts, but he does not always communicate the inspiration to think.

Although these drawbacks prevent us from ranking him, as a writer, in the highest class—for a writer of the highest class impresses his readers by the force of his character as much as by the affluence of his conceptions and the beauties of his style—still Mr. Martineau ranks high among contemporary prose writers for the sweetness, clearness, pliancy and unity of his style, his happy felicities of imagery, his unostentatious intellectual honesty, and his command of all the rhetorical aids of metaphor, sarcasm and figurative illustration. His style is also strictly vital, the exact expression of his nature as well as opinions; but its melody is flute-like rather than clarion-like; is so consistently ornate and so tuned on one key, that commonplaces and originalities are equally clad in the same superb uniform, and move to the music of the same slow march; and the sad earnestness and languor, which we have mentioned as characterizing his will, steal mysteriously out from his exquisite periods, and pass into the reader’s mind like an invisible essence. Almost every professor of rhetoric would say that Mr. Martineau is a better writer than the Bishop of Exeter, a church dignitary for whom Mr. Martineau’s liberal mind has a natural antipathy. Mr. Martineau has evidently a larger command of words and images, more taste, more toleration, more intellectual conscientiousness and comprehension, a better metaphysician, a more trustworthy thinker, with less mosaic work in his logic, and less casuistry in his ethics. But behind all the Bishop of Exeter’s sentences is a great, brawny, hard-fisted, pugilistic, arrogantman, daring, confident, indomitable, with as much will as reason, and with all his opinions so thoroughly penetrated with the life-blood of his character that they have all the force of bigotry and prejudice. He is equally unreasonable and uncreative as a thinker, but his unreason has a vigor that Mr. Martineau’s reason lacks. Wielding with his strong arm some piece of medieval bigotry, he goes crashing on from sentence to sentence, angrily pummeling and buffeting his opponents—a theological “ugly customer,” who, when the rush of his coming is heard afar off, makes the adversaries he is approaching glance instinctively to the direction—“look out for the engine when the bell rings!” Mr. Martineau’s large understanding would be benefited by some of the Bishop’s will; and one is driven to the conclusion, that, a man of purely independent thought, who abides in conceptions of his own, entirely apart from authority, must be a genius of the first order to escape from that weakness of will which distinguishes the most adventurous of Mr. Martineau’s abstract and uninvigorating speculations.

Indeed, in all declamations about the advantages of strict individualism in matters of faith and speculation, there is not the right emphasis laid on the distinction between abstract and concrete ideas. A faith which rests on some union of authority with reason, which is connected with institutions, which combines the principle of obedience with that of liberty, may be narrow but it is sure to be strong, and if not distinguished by reach of thought will compensate for that deficiency by force of character. Mr. Martineau’s tendency is to the abstract, the impalpable, the unrealized in speculation, and spends much of his strength in supporting himself at the elevation of his thought. But as his thinking is not on the level of his character, he insensibly exalts opinion over life, and is more inclined to tolerate the excesses of unbridled and unreasonable egotism, than the prejudices of pious humility. As a thinker his mind demands breadth and largeness of view, and we hardly think he could be satisfied with a saint who was not something of a philosopher. But while he has a literary advantage over his adversaries, they have a personal advantage over him. In courage, even, there can be little doubt that the Bishop of Exeter is his superior, for all the coarser human elements which enter into courage Mr. Martineau lacks. Mr. Martineau has the courage to deny in his Review any proposition which any established church might proclaim; but he could not have assailed the Archbishop of Canterbury, and bearded Lord Campbell, like the bishop. The difference in the case is, that the bishop battled for a positive institution around which for years his affections and passions had clustered; while Mr. Martineau has no such inspiration to support the abstract conclusions of his intellect.

The subjects of the essays in this volume are Dr. Priestley, Dr. Arnold, Church and State, Theodore Parker’s Discourses of Religion, Phases of Faith, The Church of England, and the Battle of the Churches. Of these we have been particularly impressed with the analysis of the mental character of Priestley, the review of Mr. Parker, and the articles relating to the English Church. The essay on Dr. Arnold has something of the some merit which distinguishes that on Dr. Priestley; it is acute in the examination of principles but dull in the perception of character. Mr. Martineau is always strong in the explication of ideas and the statement and analysis of systems, but he constantly overlooks men in his attention to the opinions they champion and represent. The dramatic element not only does not exist in his mind, but he hardly accepts it as a possibility of the human intellect; and therefore he always fails in viewing ideas in connection with the individuality or nationality in which they have their root, and is accordingly often unintentionally intolerant to persons from his want of insight into the individual conditions of their intellectual activity. But we gladly hasten from these criticisms on his limitations to some examples of his peculiar merits as a writer. In speaking of Dr. Priestley’s intellectual processes as a scientific explorer and discoverer, he shrewdly remarks: “He was the ample collector of materials for discovery rather than the final discoverer himself; a sign of approaching order rather than the producer of order himself. We remember an amusing German play, designed as a satire upon the philosophy of atheism, in which Adam walks across the stage, going to be created; and, though a paradox, it may be said that truth, as it passed through Dr. Priestley’s mind, was going to be created.” In referring to the purely independent action of Dr. Priestley’s mind in the formation of his opinions, our analyst gives a fine statement of the real sources of most men’s “positive” knowledge and doctrines. “It would be difficult,” he says, “to select from the benefactors of mankind one who was less acted upon by his age; whose convictions were more independent of sympathy; in the whole circle of whose opinions you can set down so little to the prejudgments of education, to the attractions of friendship, to the perverse love of opposition, to the contagion of prevailing taste, or to any of the irregular moral causes which, independently of evidence, determine the course of human belief.” Again, how fine is his statement of the indestructibility of Christian faith: “Amid the vicissitudes of intellect, worship retains its stability; and the truth, which, it would seem, cannot be proved, is unaffected by an infinite series of refutations. How evident that it has its ultimate seat, not in the mutable judgments of the understanding, but in the native sentiments of Conscience and the inexhaustible aspirations of Affection! The Supreme certainly must needs be too true to be proved: and the highest perfection can appear doubtful only to sensualism and sin.”

“The Battle of the Churches,” the most exquisite in thought and style of all the essays in the volume, and well-known to most readers for its clear statement of the hold which Romanism has upon the affections of mankind, contains many examples of the fine irony and bland sarcasm which enter into the more stimulating ingredients of Mr. Martineau’s softly flowing diction. His statement of Comte’s Law of Progression, as followed by his view of the complicated theological discussions which now divide England into furious parties, is most demurely comical. “In 1822,” he commences, “a French philosopher discovered the grand law of human progression, revealed it to applauding Paris, brought the history of all civilized nations to pronounce it infallible, and computed from it the future course of European society. The mind of man, we are assured by Auguste Comte, passes by invariable necessity through three stages of development: the state of religion, or fiction; of metaphysics, or abstract thought; of science, or positive knowledge. No change in this order, no return upon its steps, is possible; the shadow cannot retreat upon the dial, or the man return to the nature of the child. Every one who is not behind the age will tell you, that he has outlived the theology of his infancy and the philosophy of his youth, to settle down on a physical belief in the ripeness of his powers. And so, too, the world, passing from myth to metaphysics, and from metaphysics to induction, begins with the Bible and ends with the ‘Cours de Philosophie Positive.’ To the schools of the prophets succeeds ‘L’Ecole Polytechnique;’ and our intellect, having surmounted the meridians of God and the Soul, culminates in the apprehension of material nature. Henceforth the problems so intensely attractive to speculation, and so variously answered by faith, retire from the field of thought. They have an interest, as in some sense the autobiography of an adolescent world: but they were never to return in living action upon the earth.”

We can only, in conclusion, recommend to our readers an examination of this volume, and to its editor a continuation of his well-rewarded labors in Mr. Martineau’s mine.

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