of the lake to behold the contest; and I heard the mirth of their tongues and the sound of their curling-stones as I sat at my hearth fire. One of the foremost was Benjie Spedlands." The unhappy mother had proceeded thus far, when the demented youth, who till now had lain silent and motionless by the side of the lake, uttered a groan, and starting suddenly to his feet, came and stood beside us. He shed back his long and moistened locks from a burning and bewildered brow, and looking stedfastly in her face, for a moment, said, Rachel, dost thou know me?' She answered only with a flood of tears, and a wave of her hand to be gone. Know me! aye, how can ye but know me since for me that deadly water opened its lips, and swallowed thy darling up. If ye have a tongue to curse, and a heart to scorn mescorn me then, and curse me; and let me be seen no more on this blessed earth. For the light of day is misery to me, and the cloud of night is full of sorrow and trouble. My reason departs, and I go and sojourn with the beasts of the field-it returns, and I fly from the face of man; but wherever I go, I hear the death-shriek of eight sweet youths in my ear, and the curses of mothers' lips on my name.' Young man,' she said, I shall not curse thee, though thy folly has made me childless; nor shall I scorn thee, for I may not scorn the image of Him above; but go from my presence, and herd with the brutes that perish, or stay among men, and seek to soothe thy smitten conscience by holy converse, and by sincere repentance.' Repentance!' he said, with a wildness of eye that made me start- of what have I to repent? Did I make that deep lake, and cast thy son, and the sons of seven others, bound into its bosom? Repentance belongs to him who does a deed of evil-sorrow is his who witlessly brings misfortunes on others; and such mishap was mine. Hearken, and ye shall judge.' And he sat down by the side of the lake; and taking up eight smooth stones in his hand, dropped them one by one into the water; then turning round to us, he said: Even as the waters have closed over those eight pebbles, so did I see them close over eight sweet children. The ice crashed, and the children yelled; and as they sunk, one of them, even thy son, put forth his hand, and seizing me by the foot, said: Oh! Benjie, save me-save me ;' but the love of life was too strong in me, for I saw the deep, the fathomless water; and far below I beheld the walls of the old tower, and I thought on those doomed yearly to perish in this haunted lake, and I sought to free my foot from the hand of the innocent youth. But he held me fast, and looking in my face, said, Oh! Benjie, save me, save me!' And I thought how I had wiled him away from his mother's threshold, and carried him and his seven companions to the middle of the lake, with the promise of showing him the haunted towers and courts of the drowned castle; but the fears for my own life were too strong; so putting down my hand, I freed my foot, and, escaping over the ice, left him to sink with his seven companions. Brief, brief was his struggle-a crash of the faithless ice -a plunge in the fathomless water, and a sharp shrill shriek of youthful agony, and all was over for him-but for me-broken slumbers, and a burning brain, and a vision that will not pass from me, of eight fair creatures drowning.' Oh! Ere he had concluded, the unhappy mother had leaped to her feet, had stretched forth her hands over him, and, with every feature dilated with agony, gathered up her strength to curse and to confound him. wretched and contemptible creature,' she said, were I a man as I am but a feeble woman, I would tread thee as dust aneath my feet, for thou art unworthy to live. God gave thee his own form, and gave thee hands to save, not to destroy his fairest handiworks; but what heart, save thine, could have resisted a cry for mercy from one so fair and so innocent? Depart from my presence-crawlfor thou art unworthy to walk like man-crawl as the reptiles do, and let the hills cover thee, or the deeps devour thee; for who can wish thy base existence prolonged. The mother is unblest that bare thee, and hapless is he who owns thy name. Hereafter shall men scorn to count kindred with thee. Thou hast no brother to feel a brother's shame, no sister to feel for thee a sister's sorrow -no kinsman to mourn for the reproach of kindred blood. Cursed be she who would bear for thee the sacred name of wife. Seven sons would I behold-and I saw one,-wae's me! -dragged from the bottom of that fatal lake; see them borne over my threshold with their long hanks of fair hair wetting the pavement, as the lovely locks of my sweet boy did; and stretch their lily limbs in linen which my own hands had spun for their bridal sheets, even as I stretched my own blessed child,-rather than be the mother of such a wretch as thou!" From this fearful malediction, the delirious youth sought not to escape; he threw himself with his face to the earth, spread out his hands on the turf, and renewed his sobbings and his moans, while the sorrowful mother returned to a cheerless home and an empty fireside. Such was her fearful dream; and such was its slow, but sure and unhappy fulfilment. She did not long survive the desolation of her house. Her footsteps were too frequent by the lake, and by the grave of her husband and child, for the peace of her spirit; she faded, and sank away; and now the churchyard grass grows green and long above her. Old people stop by her grave, and relate with a low voice, and many a sigh, her sad and remarkable story. But grass will never grow over the body of Benjie Spedlands. He was shunned by the old, and loathed by the young; and the selfish cruelty of his nature met with the singular punishment of a mental alienation, dead to all other feeling, save that of agony for the death of the eight children. He wandered into all lonesome places, and sought to escape from the company of all living things. His favourite seat was on a little hill top, which overlooks the head of the Ladye's Lowe. There he sat watching the water, with an intensity of gaze which nothing could interrupt. Sometimes he was observed to descend with the swiftness of a bird in its flight, and dash into the lake, and snatch and struggle in the water like one saving a creature from drowning. One winter evening, a twelvemonth from the day of the fatal catastrophe on the lake, he was seen to run round its bank like one in agony, stretching out his hands, and shouting to something he imagined he saw in the water. The night grew dark and stormy-the sleet fell, and thick hail came, and the winds augmented. Still his voice was heard at times far shriller than the tempest-old men shuddered at the sound—about midnight it ceased, and was never heard more. His hat was found floating by the side of the water, but he was never more seen nor heard of-his death-lights, glimmering for a season on the lake, told to many that he had found, perhaps sought, a grave in the deepest part of the Ladye's Lowe. SONNET. TO NATURE. THOU Spirit of Creation, breathing still O'er each wing'd year unwearied Time doth bring ; Thou warmth, call'd Nature, whose mysterious skill Returns in glory to renew the spring, Awakening beauty in its wild extremes, As the earth quickens at thy wondrous power ;Hovering around us, like to pleasant dreams, With sudden visits of each leaf and flower ;Thou mighty Presence-thou all cheering Sun, That gilt Care's desart when the world begun ;— Thou still remain'st, the poetry of life, The warmth that cherishes eternity; A joy that triumphs o'er the world's rude strife,A Hope that pictures wha he next may be. LETTER FROM JANUS WEATHERCOCK, ESQ. Janus Weathercock (Esquire, God wot) is alive! We have received a right merry epistle from him, which we readily print, because it is so pleasantly impertinent, and so ridiculously critical. If any of our contributors should recognise his allusions to them, which his use of their occasional signatures may assist, we-wish him well! Worshipful master! I have a great deal of, I cannot Sir, or Gentlemen.-I have not been a contributor to your invaluable miscellany (as "Constant Readers" have it) for a long time, and I doubt not but that your profits have been in correspondence with my leisure. The fact is, you have got a deal too good for me and my sentimentalities; and I should never have troubled your compositor more if I had not fancied that you would also shoot ahead of the heavy-sailing public. From your last Lion's Head, (p. 303) I learnt that other folks are willing to serve you as the Caliph Omar did the Alexandrian library, and render the London less full of literature. Now, dear invisibilities, I would just hint, that my claims to be employed in this sort of service are more legitimate; and, as a single proof in point, I shall simply adduce the well-established fact, that my hair-triggers will snuff a candle at twenty paces. Apply your organs of self-curativeness to this extremely perspicuous line of reasoning, and you will grant the Rob Roy justice of my demands. This being arranged amicably, allow me to ask if you have properly considered the legitimate (an exceeding good word, as Justice Shallow says of accommodate) nature (by which I imply the customary and accustomed nature) of Magazines? This must at first strike you as an odd question for the end of the fifth volume; but a little thought will develope its pertinence. The vital aim of a Review was, and is staringly obvious; viz. to furnish a little compendious way to the Stagyrite's chair, for those who lack the ability or the will (which is pretty much the same thing in effect) to * Ford. travel the regular rutty road. The invention took wonderfully, for now any given laudably-ambitious Mister Stagg might make certain of six penn'orth of critical acumen, which he could disburse by judgmatical pinches to an admiring circle of ladies and gentlemen, who had not seen the last ** Review. But the composers of this "literature made easy for the meanest capacities," have shown themselves shortsighted, for having succeeded in subverting all genuine existing literature, and rendered the ground nearly impracticable to the immediate future, they find their prospects assimilated to those of Epirian Pyrrhus, in his concluding engagements with the Romans. The public, at the expense of many half-crowns, has wormed out the secret of their fight, and is rapidly throwing off the trammels of its alarmed tutors; which is as much as to say in King's English (which Sir Walter Scott cannot write) that any lady within the boundary of gentility (coloured red in Mogg's map) or out of it perhaps, can dissert on the merits or demerits of the aforesaid Sir W.'s last novel, with as good emphasis, and better matter than any given peevish little Editor of a Review. But this is nothing to the purpose, I believe; yet let it go for a huge parenthesis, in which article I ding old Chapman, our noble English Homer. Where was I? Oh! ah! "nature of Magazines." Yes! well, I leave you to ponder over my query, satisfied that I have awaken ed you to a very weighty and necessary preliminary to improvement: yet before I put your's faithfully, &c. to this scrawl, (in the postscript to The good old plan, Wordsworth. which you will find a list of pretty books for sofas and sofa-tables) I cannot help forcing a word of advice. Don't act over again the fable of the Old Man and his Ass. You have entered a bold speculation in attempting to establish a real literary Magazine. Towards such a plan, no encouragement could be expected from the largest class of magazine readers, as magazines were originally got up; you had no recipes for the tooth-ache, no charades, no disinterested letters by Agricola (" with a wood-cut,") on the new propelling shafts, no paper on an ancient Highland knee-buckle, no drunken songs, no paltry French romances, and no scandal. You had to work your way into a new society, somewhat difficult of access at first, but whose ultimate acquaintance would repay all endeavours to obtain it; inasmuch as there only could your worthy matter be worthily entertained and censured. This introduction is accomplished; and, to spread the connexion still wider, it is only necessary that you should not be wanting to yourselves; therefore rouse up bravely in the warm spring time, and advance your outposts still higher up the mount of green-flowering Helicon.* Clap Elia on the back for such a series of good behaviour. Flog your strong horse,† "Lyddal-cross," up to the mark of Allan-a-Maut, or the King of the Peak, which will be a good swinging trot, like a gallop. Be so obliging as to ask our Idler by the green sea, wherefore he gave up the fourteen syllable measure (which becomes him so well) in the Hymn to Ceres-remind him, too, that we have never had a satis factory specimen of an English Æschylus or Euripides; and that some good things might be picked out of Quintus Calaber and Nonnus-besides those already included in Mr. Elton's tasteful specimens. Mr. Living British Dramatists requires a pinch of snuff, § high dried, judging from his last; but a parody on obscure inanity must be inane. The original, as my friend S***** says, is sufficiently satirical on itself. Entreat the lively observant Edward Herbert to keep out of bad company: the influences of Drurylane green-room had an awful effect on the conclusion of his last, as he himself seemed awar.. || Give us some good serious poetry (if to be had any where:-why is the harp of Coleridge mute?) and contrast it with some such smart bubbles of wit as "Please to ring the belle." And now by what obliquity does the ablest scholar ** of the day confine his attention entirely to the French Early Poets. Is not the exquisite, the still uncomprehended, Petrarch worthy of his close yet classic English? Why not alternate a noble canzone of Francesco with a sunny bird-like burst of music by Alayn Chartier, or Pierre Ronsard? And now I am interrogative, let your German Linguist look about him t† and be industrious. Are the stores of Goethe the all-grasping, and Wieland the witty, and Franz-Horn, and Tieck, and De la Motte Fouquè, exhausted? Are all these variously excelling authors become so well known here in England?' I should guess not, as the Jonathans say. Or, again, my jolly Almain Rutter! have you not Arndt, and Caroline * Janus is getting critical. "The bad bit is coming, your honour," as Miss Edgeworth's postillion says. Mr. Weathercock lays about him handsomely, but, like the Irish duellist, he often hits the wrong man. + We have no horse, "nor ass neither," among our contributors. Unfortunately for Mr. Weathercock's metaphor, the author of the Tales of Lyddal cross is a very slight gentleman in delicate health. Qu. Rambler? § Mr. Living Dramatists does not take snuff. Janus has certainly done for himself in the good opinion of Mr. Herbert, as he considers it the liveliest paper he has ever written; and has already quarreled with two of his best friends, who took the liberty to think otherwise. * We do not know how to apply this advice, for we have several ablest scholars. Pierre Ronsard is, however, at the Pit Door of our Magazine, and is only prevented from entering by seeing "Pit full." 十七 66 Looking about," is not the way to be industrious. VOL. V. yours. JANUS WEATHERCOCK. de la Motte Fouquè, and Luise lucky!) so Heaven bless you and Brachman? very pleasant and fanciful people! Look to it, good master Wigginwagginhausen! Apropos. Who is that fellow with the Batavian, broad-bottom, tobacco-scented name-Wankin, Wynken, Stinking Brooms (as it has been said that Elia called him one day), who takes liberties with my appellation and style? Some broken picture-cleaner, or hackney drawing-master, I take it; though I recollect some one whispering that it was my Lord Stafford's dilettante porter. Is that correct? At all events, make a clear Magazine of him; for the Fine Arts of England will never carry double; by which phrase I insinuate my intention of taking up all that sort of thing, for the benefit of London, and without the definite article. "The post is just going out," (how PS. Haven't room for my postscript after all. Ready next month. Amazing thievery at Cosway's sale! Heard all about it, I suppose: one lady stopped on the staircase with two thousand pounds worth of prints in her pocket! "Pon my life it's true, what'll you lay it's a lie?"Fond of statues ? Go see Giovanni di Medicis, by Michel, at Day'sworth a day's journey! A'nt that good? hey? But! gad! I think you're all statues yourselves, or the Mercandotti would have thawed you into an article § in praise of her Titanianesque (don't blunder it into Titianesque) foot. A pretty sum the education of that girl has cost my Lord F****! NOTICES OF THE FINE ARTS. EXHIBITION OF THE SOCIETY OF PAINTERS IN WATER COLOURS. THE Society of Painters in Water Colours has commenced its annual exhibition under favourable auspices. The private view was most respectably attended, and on the very first day a considerable portion of the more interesting pictures were marked as sold. The collection is neither large nor glaring, but, altogether, it was to us exceedingly interesting. There is no affectation, no extravagance; with one or two exceptions, there is no substitution of tawdry mannerism for simplicity and nature, but by far the greater number of pictures exhibit a gratifying combination of the high qualities of genuine art. Mr. Cristall has not contributed so many as on some former occasions, but among the few subjects which bear his signature we observed two or three rich classical adaptations of scenery and figures. Barret has furnished some delightful compositions and views; his colouring and execution are admirable, and if one or two of his co-exhibitors were absent, we should say that among all the rest he was facile princeps. His Richmond Hill is a felicitous combination of luxuriance and distinctness; and his Afternoon and Evening are admirable illustrations of poetic feeling. Copley Fielding has, as usual, been successfully diligent; his flat-scenery, of which he has several representations, is excellently managed; the view of Romney Marsh pleased us uncommonly. Cox is respectable. Wild and Cattermole have some good architectural drawings, and Miss Byrne has some elegant groupes of flowers and fruit. Varley's Destruction of Tyre is but little to our liking. Robson, with considerable talent, has not made so much improvement as we had anticipated ; he is in some danger of getting feeble and mannered. Some of the most attractive paintings in the collection are from the indefatigable "Mercy on us! We hope," as Mrs. Malaprop says, "you are not like Cerberus, three gentlemen at once!" Mr. Janus seems disposed not only to take up "all that sort of thing," but every thing in the world." See English Correspondence in general. § Let Janus go himself, and be thawed into an article, as he has undertaken "all that sort of thing." |