Elizabeth was alone at last, that is, as much as a thought pursuing like a personality lets one be alone. When she crossed her room in the silence it was a relief to hear no voices, not to be obliged to answer when she had not listened and was afraid lest she should not answer rightly. Yet the events of the last few hours, the stray words as they seemed to her that she had heard, the faces that had been before her kept moving on before her now and repeating themselves faintly for a little time, just as one whose head is throbbing with some continued sound still hears it through all his pulses, even when he has gone out of reach of the reality. She seemed to be driving home with Lady Dacre's face full of tenderness opposite her. The sympathy had been almost too much for Elizabeth, her eyes had not met the compassionate glances. Sir Temple had conversed for three; he had been very kind, too, but the kindness hurt her, for she knew they pitied her.
Elizabeth had an humble way with her sometimes, and, as has been said, her own achievements seemed to her worthless. She had nothing of that blatant quality, vanity, which claims from others and by reason of its arrogance gets to be called pride; but her dignity strove above everything to be sufficient for itself. Such a spirit shrinks from claiming the appreciation it hungers for, shrinks back into itself, and passes for shyness, or humility, or anything but what it is, that supreme pride that seeks from the world its highest,the allegiance of love, in return for its own love of what is true and grand. Finding a denial in those it meets, it draws away in a silence that to people who rate assertion as power seems tameness, for its action is beyond them, like sights that need a telescope, or sounds out of reach of the ear. Pride like this has two possibilities. It is a Saint Christopher that will serve only the highest. That unfound, it grows bitter, and shrinks more and more into itself, and withers into hopelessness. But if it find the Highest and draw upon that love too great for change or failure, then all things have a new proportion, for grown up to the shelter of the eternities, human judgments dwindle, and human slights, however they may scar, cannot destroy.
The person Elizabeth seemed to see most clearly was Archdale in that one moment in which all his heart had been revealed. Yet it seemed to her that it was not of him that she was thinking most but of Katie's pain and anger. If she were to be separated from Stephen Archdale forever, what wonder that she was grieved with the woman who had done it? For Elizabeth knew that though Katie liked admiration, she loved Stephen. Elizabeth herself saw that he was superior, not only in appearance, but in mind, to any of the suitors with whom she confessed that in event of the worst it was possible that the girl might console herself.
But Elizabeth was by no means so far above thoughts of herself that any other woman's suffering was bringing to her face the look that came upon it as her pride and her fear forced her away from the belief she had determined to hold, into a horror lest all she dreaded was true, lest she was really the wife of the man who at the very lightest disliked her. She could not blame him for that, and it would not have been the worst thing, since she cared nothing about him; she had not fotgotten his look of scorn on that day of the wedding, it came back to her often; but what of that, she asked herself, since she returned it? But to-night there was more than this; to-night his heart had been shown, and Elizabeth had seen how she stood for misery to him, seen, too, another danger which she had never thought of before. This possibility, remote enough, would not be put out of sight now. It might happen that if there were proved to have been no marriage between herself and Stephen Archdale, the certainty of this would come too late to save Katie for him. Elizabeth turned wild at the sense of her own helplessness. "I am one too many in the world," she thought; she could not have spoken, all her will was concentrating into action. Night had overswept her; she forgot everything in her thought for the beings whom she saw were covered by the same cloud. She was to be always an ugly obstacle to the happiness of Katie and of a man she pitied. Whichever way she turned it seemed that there was no other chance for her. She would not go through the world one too many. On coming into the room she had put back the curtains for more air and had blown out the candles. She did not light them again; all that she was going to do she could see well enough to do by the stars and the long summer twilight. She sat down in the armchair beside her table, drew her dressing-case toward her, and opening it, unlocked one compartment with a tiny key found in another. The package so carefully locked away here was something that Mrs. Eveleigh in one of her nervous moods had given her to keep, lest some accident should happen. To be sure, she had given it under promise that no one should knowof it, for she had used it for only a little while for her complexion, she explained to Elizabeth, and might never want it again. But, on the other hand, she might. It had been a good deal of trouble to buy it; she did not want to run another gauntlet of questions. So the powder had lain in Elizabeth's dressing-case, unremembered even, until to-night. Now she took it out with a firm hand; there was no sign of shrinking or fear about her, not because she was incapable of it, for she had her terrors, though she showed them less than some women. But she was a soldier in the midst of battle whose only object is to dislodge the enemy; what it will cost is not counted. She waited a moment, then opened the paper so steadily that she spilled none of the powder in the dimness. She had no last words to say, nothing to leave; it would be understood. She spread out the paper a little more, still firmly, still so absorbed in the thought of escape as to have taken no account of the way. Then she bent her face over it and slowly drew nearer. Suddenly she raised her head; it seemed as if a voice had called her, a voice so clear, so still, so full of power that she waited submissive and wondering. In another moment she came to herself, the brave self that suffering had thrust away usurping its place by a wicked will. She drew a long breath as if waking from a horrible dream, and sat quiet for a while, her hands clenched and brought together. She shivered in the summer air. Suddenly she rose, took up the paper, and going to the window, tossed it out, scattering its contents. "It shall never tempt any one like this again," she said aloud.
Then slipping down to the floor, she leaned her arms upon the windowsill and buried her face in them.
"God, forgive me," she cried. "It was Thy cross that I was casting off. But my life is in Thy guidance. I will take all the pain from Thy hand. Forgive me. Help me against my wicked pride. And in return for the misery I have brought, give me something good that I may do, some little favor. And yet—Thy will be done," she added brokenly, then trembled lest that Will should refuse the one request which seemed to promise any relief; trembled, but did not retract. "I will wait, I will trust," she said, and looked into the depths beyond the stars with no fear that her prayer would fall back into itself like a sound which, finding no home, returns weary, and robbed of its meaning and strength. She knew that the something which fell upon her was forgiveness too deep for words and an assurance of guidance. For the telephone is not new but as old as humanity and with a call in every man's consciousness. It summons him at times to leave what he is doing and listen. And when in some depth of need he sends a message, then, because no other ear than his may catch the answer given, is there for that reason none? The soul is like science; it cannot break through its boundaries and burst in upon the unknowable that surrounds its little realm of knowledge, but wherever it presses against these barriers they recede without being destroyed, and the adventurer, still in his own domain, brings back new treasures to the old life. The source of power is, we know, forever beyond us, but in going out toward that we enter the realm of power and are charged with it.
In the stillness that had fallen upon her Elizabeth rose softly, and made her preparations for the night.
Archdale came down early the next morning. He stood a few moments in the hall waiting for the appearance of the person he had come to meet. Ashe looked out into the garden, a picture seemed to rise before him, one that was not within his horizon at present. He seemed to be looking out into a garden as he had been that morning when, with his mother, Sir Temple and Lady Dacre, he had paid a visit to Madam Pepperell. Looking into this garden absently he had seen Elizabeth. Unaware of visitors in the house, she was going on with her occupation of gathering roses. Archdale the day before, wondering about her complicity with Edmonson's scheme had had this vision of her come between him and any belief in this. It came again that next morning as he was waiting to see Edmonson alone, and imagined his mind full only of what he had learned from him the day before. He remembered the expression of her face; he had never seen it gentle like this. She had been standing only a few rods distant with scarcely so much as her profile turned toward him. A cluster was in her left hand; in her right a stem just broken off, holding a rose and several buds. She was perfectly still, seeming to have forgotten to move, to be lost in reverie. She saw him no more than her roses; she was alone with her thoughts. There was a strength and a sadness in the delicate outline, especially in the mouth, which he had not seen before, perhaps, because he had never studied her profile. As he had thought of this expression while he had stood before the uncovered portrait, he had said to himself that certainly she had not been willingly concerned in helping forward another's misfortune. While he sat watching her he had been inclined to go to her, obeying his impulse rather than his judgment, which told him that even if he were in any way the cause of her sorrow, he could do nothing to help her. But Lady Dacre had spoken to him at the moment, and before he could answer her he had seen a servant go up to Elizabeth, and had perceived that she was coming into the house.
This morning also it was Lady Dacre's voice that broke in upon him. She was hurrying through the hall with eyes on the open door.
"Good morning," she said. "Has Madam Archdale gone into the garden yet? I told her I should be there first this morning, and now she has stolen a march upon me." Archdale was startled. Yes, his mother was in the garden, he saw her now. Was the other only a vision? "Will you follow, Temple?" cried her ladyship. Her husband, who had been coming down stairs as his wife spoke, greeted Archdale hastily and accepted her invitation, for some one else stood in the hall, having entered it, his observer supposed, from the library, for he had not seen him on the stairs. This other one was coming forward to his host when Sir Temple passed, and in another moment he stood face to face with Archdale.
"Good morning," he said with a bow. His expression had changed from the sneer it had worn as he stood in the shadow covertly watching Archdale's face. "Friends, is it not?" he added, and he smiled and held out his hand tentatively. His host hesitated in the least, then took it. He had been obliged to remind himself first that instinct was not an autocrat of one's manners. Edmonson perceived the hesitation, slight as it was, and the shadow in his heart sprang up and darkened his face for a moment. Then he gave a short laugh, and turned toward the sunshine. "That's right," he said; "let us part on good terms; it's luck, not I, that you find against you."
"It was about this very thing that I was waiting here to speak to you thismorning," returned Stephen. "I was going to beg you to remain until we can look into things a little; you, and my father, and I, you understand? It can be done more conveniently here than anywhere else,—and I trust I need not assure you that you are welcome. Of course, I don't pretend to like the turn of affairs."
"Not necessary," interposed the other, the covert impertinence under his frank smile making Archdale flush, and return haughtily:
"I was merely going to say that we must accept with the best grace possible the consequences of things that happened so long before our day."
"This philosophy is delightful on your lips. As for myself, I shall not find that acceptance of the situation makes any demand for philosophical endurance."
He tossed his head a little as he ended in amusement at having finished his opponent at the same time as his speech.
"Perhaps that is well," returned Archdale quietly. "Then it is settled that you stay a few days longer with us?" he added.
"Thank you. I shall be happy to do so. When you need me, I am at your service; for you will find that I have proofs enough to be satisfactory. I have not considered that my unsupported word would be taken as sufficient guarantee in a case like this, where, you know, incredulity is so desirable."
"Yes, Master Edmonson, I confess, where incredulity is so desirable. Well, then, after breakfast I shall be obliged to trouble you."
"Thank you," answered Edmonson, marching off immediately. "I think Lady Dacre is in need of my services. She is struggling with a rose that has climbed up out of her reach, and her husband has disappeared altogether; he is probably assisting Madam Archdale. These husbands are not in the right place, you see." With which Parthian arrow he disappeared, and was soon filling Lady Dacre's hands with her coveted treasures.
Archdale watched him a few moments noticing his easy movements and his air of assurance.
"Impudent fellow," he muttered, setting his teeth, "to speak to an Archdale in that style. I can't believe him. I shall have Allston examine his proofs; he has a hawk's eye for flaws. But there's the likeness. Yes, his story may be true; but the man has the making of a knave in him, if the work is not done already."
It was almost dinner time. Elizabeth had been out sailing with Madam Archdale, Colonel Pepperell, and Sir Temple, and Lady Dacre. They were in the Colonel's boat; and Madam Pepperell, who had been detained, had sent her young guest to represent her. But Edmonson had gone off with his host to Colonel Archdale's, and Bulchester had mysteriously disappeared soon afterward. Elizabeth suspected that he had gone to pay a visit to Katie and had found her so fascinating that he could not tear himself from her society, or that he had wandered off somewhere by himself to dwell upon her perfections. "Poor simpleton!" she said to herself in the revulsion from her fears of the night before. At all events, the result was the same; there were only three at Seascape to accept the Colonel's invitation to go sailing.
It was always a refreshment to Elizabeth to be with Sir Temple and Lady Dacre; that morning it was even better than being alone; they were the only ones purely spectators in the drama of struggle and suffering going on underthe courtesies that were its scenic accompaniments. When they talked and jested it was out of happy hearts, at least so far as the things about them were concerned, and for this reason the strain was taken from her in their presence. She had only to be gay enough, and there was no need of watching her words lest they should be misconstrued. If she had been asked why anything that she said or did was liable to be misconstrued, she could not have told. This was her feeling, but she did not see her way; no flash of the electric storm that the blackness foreboded had yet shown her where she stood; but the elemental conditions affected her.
The boat on its return had landed Madam Archdale and her guests on the pebbly beach at Seascape, not far from the house. They had said farewell and sauntered up the path toward it and disappeared. The boat was about putting out again when a man came running up to the Colonel, and begged him to wait to speak with the Captain of a schooner standing out about half a mile. The Captain had come ashore on purpose to see him and was a little way down the beach now hurrying toward him. The business was urgent.
"Go back without me," the Colonel said. "I may be kept here for some time." But Elizabeth had had enough of sailing for that day; she was already on shore and said that she would rather walk home. As Pepperell left her with an apology she walked on a few rods, and stopped to speak to a fisherman cleaning his boat. She had seen him at the house and had heard that he had lost his child the week before. As she turned from him she went on slowly until she came to where a boulder towered over her head and seemed to bar her progress except along the shore. She knew the zigzag way that wound about its base and led her into the straight path again which would take her across the grounds of Seascape and bring her into the road not far from Colonel Pepperell's home. But before she had time to enter this way, voices on the other side of the boulder startled her. Her first thought was that Lady Dacre and her husband had come back. But she perceived that the tones were Bulchester's. She stood still an instant, wishing that she could reach the road without being obliged to talk to him or any one, she felt so little like it. But there was no hope of that. There was a rough seat cut in the stone on the other side; the views landward and seaward were delightful; the great elm near by shaded the place, and Bulchester had probably ensconced himself there with somebody else. She must go by, and if they even joined her, it was no matter. She made a movement forward, when Edrnonson's voice with a ring that she had never heard in it came to her ears. Yet it was not his tones, but his words, that made her cower and stand motionless with startled eyes and parted lips, until, slowly, as wonder grew into disgust, her face crimsoned from brow to throat and drooped, as if to hide from itself. Was this the way that men spoke of women, with sneers, with scoffing? In all her innocent life she had never looked even through bars at the world that such expressions revealed, dimly enough to her veiled in her simplicity.
The Puritan spirit of her country, that although it sometimes put bands on the freeman, chained the brute in human nature in his dungeon, lest his breath in the land should breed death, had been in such accord with her own fair womanhood that she had not realized that all the world was not as safe as her own home, as safe, though not as happy. Yet the sneer that Edmonson hadspoken seemed to him so slight, so much a matter of course, that it was forgotten as soon as uttered; it was merely his way of looking at a world unknown to his listener. She did not know of what woman it was that he had dared to speak with such contempt; probably of some one she had never seen. It was not at the stranger alone; it was through her at all women that the mire of suspicion had been thrown.
She could not go forward now, and while she stood trying to grow calm through her indignation and seeing that she must go home by the other road, which would take her quite a distance out of her way, scraps of the conversation that fell upon her ears found lodgment in her mind. The two seemed to be talking of some man now. Then all at once she heard Bulchester say:
"It's the oddity that takes you;"—she had lost what went before—"that will soon wear off. But I'm glad enough you're not as wise as I, to prefer the other. What makes you so sure, though, that he has secured your—?" In some movement she lost the last word and the answer, unless it were merely a significant exclamation of belief. "You wouldn't stand upon the chances of change though," resumed Bulchester, "I know you well enough. But, according to you, there's the insuperable obstacle."
Edmonson laughed contemptuously.
"Insuperable?" he answered. "Stray shots have taken off more superfluous kings and men than the world knows of. And just now, with this prospect of war before the country, something is sure to happen,—to happen, Bulchester; luck has a passion for me, and after all her caprices, she is coming to—."
Elizabeth lost the rest of the sentence. She was already on her way home by the other road, treading softly while on the beach, lest the pebbles should betray her footsteps. When she was well out of hearing she stopped a moment to take breath. She stood looking out upon the expanse of ocean before her as if her sight could reach to the unknown world beyond it.
"Last night," she said, "I thought the worst had come to me. I was wrong."
2(return)Copyright, 1884, by Frances C. Sparhawk.
It is a pleasure to throw back the door,And view the relics of departed hours;To brush the cobwebs from the ancient lore,And turn again the book of withered flowers.Within the dusty chambers of the past,Old pictures hang upon the crumbling walls;Dim shadowy forms are in the twilight cast,And many a dance is whirling through the halls.There are bright fires blazing on the hearth,The merry shout falls on the ear again;And little footsteps patter down the path,Just like the coming of the summer rain.I hear the music of the rippling rill,The dews of morn are sprinkled on my cheek;While down the valley and upon the hillThe laughing echoes play their hide-and-seek.I roam the meadow where the violets grow,I watch the shadows o'er the mountain creep;I bathe my feet where sparkling fountains flow,Or bow my head on moss-grown rocks to sleep.I hear the bell ring out the passing hour,I hear its music o 'er the valleys flung;O, what a preacher is that time-worn tower,Reading great sermons with its iron tongue!The old church clock, forever swinging slow,With moving hands at morning and at even,Points to the sleepers in the yard below,Then lifts them upward to the distant heaven.How will such memories o' er the spirit stray,Of hopes and joys, of sorrows and of tears;They are the tomb-stones time will ne'er decay,Although the moss will gather with the years.
It is a pleasure to throw back the door,And view the relics of departed hours;To brush the cobwebs from the ancient lore,And turn again the book of withered flowers.Within the dusty chambers of the past,Old pictures hang upon the crumbling walls;Dim shadowy forms are in the twilight cast,And many a dance is whirling through the halls.There are bright fires blazing on the hearth,The merry shout falls on the ear again;And little footsteps patter down the path,Just like the coming of the summer rain.I hear the music of the rippling rill,The dews of morn are sprinkled on my cheek;While down the valley and upon the hillThe laughing echoes play their hide-and-seek.I roam the meadow where the violets grow,I watch the shadows o'er the mountain creep;I bathe my feet where sparkling fountains flow,Or bow my head on moss-grown rocks to sleep.I hear the bell ring out the passing hour,I hear its music o 'er the valleys flung;O, what a preacher is that time-worn tower,Reading great sermons with its iron tongue!The old church clock, forever swinging slow,With moving hands at morning and at even,Points to the sleepers in the yard below,Then lifts them upward to the distant heaven.How will such memories o' er the spirit stray,Of hopes and joys, of sorrows and of tears;They are the tomb-stones time will ne'er decay,Although the moss will gather with the years.
It is a pleasure to throw back the door,
And view the relics of departed hours;
To brush the cobwebs from the ancient lore,
And turn again the book of withered flowers.
Within the dusty chambers of the past,
Old pictures hang upon the crumbling walls;
Dim shadowy forms are in the twilight cast,
And many a dance is whirling through the halls.
There are bright fires blazing on the hearth,
The merry shout falls on the ear again;
And little footsteps patter down the path,
Just like the coming of the summer rain.
I hear the music of the rippling rill,
The dews of morn are sprinkled on my cheek;
While down the valley and upon the hill
The laughing echoes play their hide-and-seek.
I roam the meadow where the violets grow,
I watch the shadows o'er the mountain creep;
I bathe my feet where sparkling fountains flow,
Or bow my head on moss-grown rocks to sleep.
I hear the bell ring out the passing hour,
I hear its music o 'er the valleys flung;
O, what a preacher is that time-worn tower,
Reading great sermons with its iron tongue!
The old church clock, forever swinging slow,
With moving hands at morning and at even,
Points to the sleepers in the yard below,
Then lifts them upward to the distant heaven.
How will such memories o' er the spirit stray,
Of hopes and joys, of sorrows and of tears;
They are the tomb-stones time will ne'er decay,
Although the moss will gather with the years.
Our Saxon ancestors when they conquered England, were rude, barbarous, and cruel. The gods of their worship were bloodthirsty and revengeful. Odin, their chief divinity, in his celestial hall drank ale from the skulls of his enemies. In the year 596, the Monk Augustine, or Austin, was sent by Pope Gregory to attempt their conversion to Christianity. He and his associates were so successful that on one occasion ten thousand converts were baptized in one day. Of course their conversion was external and nominal. They still clung to their old superstitions and customs. But with the new religion came new ideas.
Manuscripts were circulated; monasteries and schools were founded, and learning was somewhat diffused. The Saxon language is marked by three several epochs:
1st. From the irruption of the Saxons into Britain, A.D. 449, to the invasion of the Danes, including a period of 330 years.
2d. The Danish-Saxon period, continuing to the Norman conquest, A.D. 1066.
3d. The Norman-Saxon era, running down to the close of Henry II's reign. Of the first period, but a single specimen remains, and that a quotation by King Alfred; of the 2d period, numerous specimens both in verse and prose are extant; with the last period, the annals of English poetry commence.
The three dialects of these three literary epochs illustrate fully the changes which the old Saxon tongue underwent during the five centuries of its growth into the modern English.
Learning was chiefly confined to the church, during the dark ages; of course, the great lights of Saxon England were prelates, except Alfred, and most of them wrote in Latin.
The venerable Bede (born 673, died 735), as he is styled, who wrote in the eighth century, was a profoundly learned man for those times. His writings embrace all topics then included in the knowledge of the schools or the Church. His works were published at Cologne, in 1612, in eight folio volumes. Another of the ornaments of this century was Alcuin, librarian and pupil of Egbert, Archbishop of York. He enjoyed a European reputation; was invited to France, by Charlemangne, to superintend his own studies; and was thought by some to have been the founder of the University of Paris. He was contemporary with Bede, was acquainted with the Greek, Latin, and Hebrew, languages and composed treatises on music, logic, rhetoric, astronomy and grammar; besides lives of saints, commentaries on the Bible, homiles, epistles and verses.
From the age of these authors learning declined till Alfred appeared. "At my accession to the throne," he remarks, "all knowledge and learning were extinguished in the Englsh nation, insomuch, that there were very few to the south of the Humber who understood the common prayers of the Church, or were capable of translating a single sentence of Latin into English; but to the north of the Thames, I cannot recollect so much as one who could do this." King Alfred was an eminent lover and promotor of learning. His works in the Saxon tongue, both original and translated, were numerous and valuable. His gloryas a scholar is not eclipsed by his fame as a legislator. In both respects he has no peer in England's line of Kings. He is reputed to have been the founder of the University of Oxford, as well as the originator of the "Trial by Jury." He died A.D. 900 or 901.
John Scot, or Johannes Scotus Engena, flourished during Alfred's reign, was a lecturer at Oxford, and the founder or chief prompter of scholastic divinity. The earliest specimen of the Anglo-Saxon language extant is the Lord's prayer, translated from the Greek by Ealdfride, Bishop of Sindisfarne, or Holy Island, about the year 700:
"UrinFaderthicarthin heofnas;Ourfatherwhichartin heaven;sicgehalgudthinnoma;behallowedthyname;to cymeththinryc;to comethykingdom:sicthinwillasueis in heofnas&in eorthe;bethywillsois in heavenandin earth;urinhlafofirwistlicselus to daig;ourloafsuper-excellentgiveus to day;and forgefeus scyldaurna;and forgiveus debtsours;suewe forgefanscyldgumurum;sowe forgivendebts ofours;and noinleadusigincustnung;and notleadusintotemptation;ahgefrigusichfrom ifle.butfreeus eachfrom evil.
The new Danish irruptions again arrested the progress of learning, and ignorance and misery, as is usual, followed in the train of war. Alfred had restored learning and promoted the arts of peace. But his successors failed to sustain the institutions he planted. He is said to have shone with the lustre of the brightest day of summer amidst the gloom of a long, dark, and stormy, winter. Before the Norman conquest the Anglo-Saxon tongue fell into disrepute; and French teachers and French manners were affected by the high-born.
During the reign of Edward, the Confessor, it ceased to be cultivated; and after the Conqueror, it became more barbarous and vulgar, as it was then the sign of servility, and the badge of an enslaved race.
As early as the year 652, the Anglo-Saxons were accustomed to send their youth to French monasteries to be educated. In succeeding centuries the court and nobility were intimately allied to the magnates of France; and the adoption of French manners was deemed an accomplishment. The conquerors commanded the laws to be administered in French. Children at school were forbidden to read their native language, and the English name became a term of reproach. An old writer in the eleventh century says: "Children in scole, agenst the usage and manir of all other nations, beeth compelled for to leve hire own langage, and for to construe his lessons and thynges in Frenche, and so they haveth sethe Normans came first into England." The Saxon was spoken by the peasants, in the country, yet not without an intermixture of French; the courtly language was French with some vestiges of the vernacular Saxon.
The Conqueror's army was composed of the flower of the Norman nobility. They brought with them the taste, the arts, and the refinements, they had acquired in France. European schools and scholars had been greatly benefitted by studying Latin versions of Greek philosophers from the Arabic. Many learned men of the laity also became teachers, and the Church no longer enjoyed a monopoly of letters. They travelled into Spain to attend the Arabic schools.
It is a remarkable fact that Greek learning should have travelled through Bagdad to reach Europe.
The Arabs were as fond of letters as of war. In the eighth century, when they overran the Asiatic provinces, they found many Greek books which they read with eagerness. They translated such as best pleased them into Arabic. Greek poetry they rejected because it was polytheistic. Of Greek history they made no use, because it recorded events prior to the advent of their prophet. The politics of Greece and its eloquence were not congenial to their despotic notions, and so they passed them by. Grecian ethics were suspended by the Koran, hence Plato was overlooked. Mathematics, metaphysics, logic, and medicine, accorded with their tastes. Hence they translated and studied Aristotle, Galen, and Hippocrates, and illustrated them with voluminous commentaries. These works stimulated native authors to write new treatises. The Arabs, therefore, became distinguished for their skill in logic, medicine, mathematics, and kindred studies. They founded universities during the eighth century in the cities of Spain and Africa. Charlemagne commanded their books to be translated into Latin; thus Aristotle entered Europe through Asia by the double door of the Arabic and Latin tongues, and, by long prescription, still holds his place in European schools.
Charlemagne founded the universities of Bononia, Pavia, Paris, and Osnaburg, in Hanover. These became centres for propagating the new sciences. The Normans, too, shared in the general progress of learning, and carried with them their attainments into England. The wild imagination of the Saracens kindled a love of romantic fiction, wherever their influence was felt. The crusades made the Europeans intimately acquainted with the literature of the Arabs. Says Marton, who maintains that romantic fiction originated in Arabia, in his "History of English Poetry," "Amid the gloom of superstition, in an age of the grossest ignorance and credulity, a taste for the wonders of oriental fiction was introduced by the Arabians into Europe, many countries of which were already seasoned to a reception of its extravagancies by means of the poetry of the Gothic scalds, who, perhaps, originally derived their ideas from the same fruitful region of invention.
"These fictions coinciding with the reigning manners, and perpetually kept up and improved in the tales of troubadours and minstrels, seem to have centred about the eleventh century in the ideal histories of Turpin and Geoffrey of Monmouth, which record the suppositious achievements of Charlemagne and King Arthur, where they formed the groundwork of that species of narrative called romance. And from these beginnings or causes, afterwards enlarged and enriched by kindred fancies fetched from the crusades, that singular and capricious mode of imagination arose, which at length composed the marvellous machineries of the more sublime Italian poets, and of their disciple Spenser." The theory which traces romantic fiction to the Arabs is but partially true. The entire literature of that age was monstrous, full of the most absurd and extravagant fancies. History was fabulous; poetry mendacious and philosophy erroneous. Theology abounded in pious frauds. Monks and minstrels vied with each other in the invention of lying legends to adorn the lives of heroes and saints. All classes of the community shared in the general delusion, and the supernatural seemed more credible than the natural. In tracing the progress of learning, in England, I propose, during the remainder of the present paper todiscuss one inconsiderable yetimportantelement of modern civilization, which is often entirely overlooked. I refer to "Lyric Poetry."
The lyre is one of the oldest of musical instruments. Its invention is ascribed to a god. Its Saxon name is harp. It was the favorite instrument of the ancient Hebrews, as well as of the Greeks. The Saxons, Britons and Danes regarded it with veneration, and protected by legal enactments those who played upon it. Their persons were esteemed inviolable and secured from injuries by heavy penalities. By the laws of Wales, slaves were forbidden to practice upon it; and no creditor could seize the harp of his debtor. That minstrels were a privileged class is manifested from king Alfred's penetrating the Danish camp (878) disguised as a harper. Sixty years after a Danish king visited King Athelstan's camp in the same disguise. It was also said of Aldhelm, one of the leading scholars of the eighth century: "He was an excellent harper, a most eloquent Saxon and Latin poet, a most expert chanter, or a singer, a doctor egregius, and admirably versed in scriptures and liberal sciences." The minstrel was a regular and stated officer of the Anglo-Saxon kings. Poetry is always the earliest form of literature; song the earliest form of poetry. The Muse adapts her lessons to the nation's infancy and adds the charm of melody to verse. No nation is destitute of lyric poetry. Even the North American Indians have their war songs, though their individual worship of their gods has prevented the creation of any national poetry for associated worship. The Scandinavians have but one term for the poet and the singer. The Northernscaldinvented and recited his own songs and epics. In other countries the poet and minstrel performed separate duties. "The Minstrels," says Bishop Percy, "were an order of men in the Middle Ages who subsisted by the arts of poetry and music, and sang to the harp verses composed by themselves and others. They appear to have accompanied their songs with mimicry and action. They are called in Latin of the dayhistriones,MimiandScurræ. Such arts rendered them exceedingly popular in this and in neighboring countries, where no high scene of festivity was esteemed complete that was not set off with the exercise of their talents; and where so long as the spirit of chivalry existed, they were protected and caressed, because their songs tended to do honor to the ruling passion of the times, and to encourage and foment a martial spirit."
They were the legitimate successors of the bards and scalds of early times whose art was considered divine and their songs worthy of regal patronage. They were the historians, genealogists, poets, and musicians, of the land. The word minstrel is derived from the Latinminister, a servant, because they were classed among the King's attendants. An earlier Saxon name for this class of performers was "Gleeman," in rude English, a Jogeler or Jocular; Latin, "Joculator." The word "glee" is from the Saxon "gligg," meaning music; and the meaning now attached to that word shows how intimately associated were pleasure and music in the national mind. The harp was the most ancient of Saxon musical instruments. It continued in use for a thousand years. It was well known in the time of Chaucer. HisFrerecould play upon it and sing to it; the merry "wife of Bath" had frequently danced to it in her youth. It was an ordinary accompaniment of revels and tavern festivals. It continued in use till the reign of Elizabeth. InDr. Percy's "Reliques of ancient English poetry" he speaks of the minstrels as an order of men in the Middle Ages, highly honored, retained and pensioned by kings, lavishly rewarded by nobles, and kindly entertained by the common people.3Ritson in his "Ancient Songs" admits that such an "order" of singers existed in France, but never in England; that individuals wandered up and down the country chanting romances and singing songs or ballads to the harp or fiddle; but that they never enjoyed the respect of the high born or received favors from them. The church evidently looked upon them with disfavor, as the enemies of sobriety and the promoters of revelry and mirth. In the sixteenth century they lost all credit and were classed, in penal enactments, with "rogues and vagabonds." One reason of the decline of minstrelsy was the introduction of printing and the advance of learning: that which might afford amusement and pleasure when sung to the harp, lost its point and spirit when read in retirement from the printed page. Their composition would not bear criticism. Besides, the market had become overstocked with these musical wares; as the religious houses had with homilies and saintly legends. The consideration bestowed on the early minstrels "enticed into their ranks idle vagabonds," according to the act of Edward I, who went about the country under color of minstrelsy; men who cared more about the supper than the song; who for base lucre divorced the arts of writing and reciting and stole other men's thunder. Their social degeneracy may be traced in the dictionary. The chanter of the "gests" of kings,gesta ducum regumque, dwindled into a gesticulator, a jester: the honored jogelar of Provence, into a mountebank; the jockie, a doggrel ballad-monger.
Beggars they are by one consent,And rogues by act of Parliament.
Beggars they are by one consent,And rogues by act of Parliament.
Beggars they are by one consent,
And rogues by act of Parliament.
What a fall was there from their former high estate and reverence. The earliest minstrels of the Norman courts, doubtless, came from France, where their rank was almost regal.
Froissart, describing a Christmas festival given by Comte de Foix in the fourteenth century, says:
"There were many Mynstrels as well of hys own as of strangers, and eache of them dyd their devoyres in their facalties. The same day the Earl of Foix gave to Hauralds and Minstrelles the sum of 500 franks, and gave to the Duke of Tonrayns Mynstreles gouns of cloth of gold furred with ermyne valued at 200 franks."
The courts of kings swarmed with these merry singers in the Dark Ages, and such sums were expended upon them, that they often drained the royal treasuries. In William's army there was a brave warrior named Taillefer, who was as renowned for minstrelsy as for arms. Like Tyrtæus and Alemon, in Sparta, he inspired his comrades with courage by his martial strains, and actually led the van in the fight against the English, chanting the praises of Charlemagne, and Roland. Richard Cœur de Lion was a distinguished patron of minstrels as well as "the mirror of chivalry." He was sought out in his prison in Austria by a faithful harper who made himself known by singing a French song under the window of the castle in which the king was confined. Blondel was the harper's name. The French song translated reads thus:
"Your beauty, lady fair,None views without delight;But still so cold an airNo passion can excite.Yet still I patient seeWhile all are shun'd like me.No nymph my heart can woundIf favor she divide,And smiles on all aroundUnwilling to decide;I'd rather hatred bear,Than love with others share."
"Your beauty, lady fair,None views without delight;But still so cold an airNo passion can excite.Yet still I patient seeWhile all are shun'd like me.No nymph my heart can woundIf favor she divide,And smiles on all aroundUnwilling to decide;I'd rather hatred bear,Than love with others share."
"Your beauty, lady fair,
None views without delight;
But still so cold an air
No passion can excite.
Yet still I patient see
While all are shun'd like me.
No nymph my heart can wound
If favor she divide,
And smiles on all around
Unwilling to decide;
I'd rather hatred bear,
Than love with others share."
Edward I had a harper in his train, in his crusade to the Holy Land, who stood by his side in battle.
That same king in his conquest of Wales is said to have murdered all the bards that fell into his hands lest they should rouse the nation again to arms. Gray's poem, "The Bard," was written upon that theme. I will quote a few lines:
"Dear lost companions of my tuneful art,Dear as the light that visits these eyes,Dear as the ruddy drops that warm my heart,Ye died amidst your dying country's cries—No more I weep. They do not sleep.On yonder cliffs a griesly band,I see them sit; they linger yet,Avengers of their native land."
"Dear lost companions of my tuneful art,Dear as the light that visits these eyes,Dear as the ruddy drops that warm my heart,Ye died amidst your dying country's cries—No more I weep. They do not sleep.On yonder cliffs a griesly band,I see them sit; they linger yet,Avengers of their native land."
"Dear lost companions of my tuneful art,
Dear as the light that visits these eyes,
Dear as the ruddy drops that warm my heart,
Ye died amidst your dying country's cries—
No more I weep. They do not sleep.
On yonder cliffs a griesly band,
I see them sit; they linger yet,
Avengers of their native land."
That the minstrel was a privileged character in England down to the reign of Elizabeth is proved by history, by frequent allusions to them in the current literature of the times, and by the large body of songs, ballads, and metrical romances, still extant which are ascribed to them. They were essential to the complete education of a knight as tutors: for no accomplishment was more valued in the days of chivalry than the playing of the harp and the composition of songs in honor of the fair. Before the origin of printing they acted as publishers of the works of more renowned poets by public recitations of their works. The period of their greatest celebrity was about the middle of the fifteenth century. The minstrel chose his own subject and so long as he discoursed to warriors of heroes and enchanters, and to gay knights of true love and fair ladies, he would not want patient and gratified listeners.
The great sources of Gothic romance are a British History of Arthur and his wizzard, Merlin, by Walter, Archdeacon of Oxford, translated into Latin by Geoffrey of Monmouth; the history of Charlemagne and his twelve peers, forged by Turpin, a monk of the eighth century; the History of Troy, in two Latin works, which passed under the names of Dares Phrygius and Dictys Cretensis; and the History of Alexander the Great, originally written in Persic and translated into Greek by Simeon Seth, A.D. 1070, and again turned into Latin by Giraldus Cambrensis about the year 1200. These four works with variations, additions, and dilutions, formed the staple of romantic fiction in verse in the Dark Ages.
The minor songs and ballads which were called forth by passing events were usually amorous, sportive, gay, and often gross, yet suited to a rude age.
Ellis in his specimens of the early English poets has given us sketches of one hundred and sixty-one writers of songs from the year 1230 to 1650, after a careful search through this whole period for literary gems. The first edition of his work consisted almost entirely of love songs and sonnets; the revised edition has greater variety; but our circle of ideas is so enlarged, our habits are so different from those of by-gone centuries, that we look over this rare collection of old poems, rather to learn the manners of the people, than to enjoy the diction of their songs. We cannot doubt that this species of poetry excited an important influence when it was the staple of popular education and amusement.
A maxim is current among us which has been successively ascribed to many great thinkers, which shows the value usually set on compositions of this kind.It is this: "Let me make the songs of a people and I care not who makes their laws."
A ballad is a story in verse whose incidents awaken the sympathies and excite the passions of those who listen. The song is designed to express deep emotion, joy or sorrow, hope or fear and appeals directly to the feelings. Here, often, the singing is more than the sentiment; the tones of the chanter are often more touching than the thoughts of the Emperor. A national ode must have a national element in it; it must reflect the passions that burn in the people's breasts. Local topics, too, may call forth a general interest when they describe trials or triumphs which all may share. Says Carlyle: "In a peasant's death-bed there may be the fifth act of a tragedy. In the ballad which details the adventures and the fate of a partisan warrior or a love-lorn knight,—the foray of a border chieftain or the lawless bravery of a forrester; a Douglass, or a Robin Hood,—there may be the materials of a rich romance. Whatever be the subject of the song, high or low, sacred or secular, there is this peculiarity about it, it expresses essentially the popular spirit, the common sentiment, which the rudest breast may feel, yet which is not beneath the most cultivated. It is peculiarly the birth of the popular affections. It celebrates some event which the universal heart clings to, which, for joy or sorrow, awaken the memories of every mind." Hence we learn the history of a nation's heart from their songs as we learn their martial history from their armor.
The oldest song, set to music, which is now known is the following: