210 EDMUND BURKE.—GOETHE. the other hand, regarded his father as one of the first, if not the first, character in modern history. For this son the old man had enlarged, and made more worthily commodious, his house at Beaconsfield; for this son he was contented to look forward to the honour of elevation to the peerage. Suddenly his son was snatched away from him, and the old man, bowed and broken, felt all the truth of that great saying of his, in its fulness, "What shadows we are! What shadows we pursue! "" He never could bear afterwards to look towards Beaconsfield Church, where his son was interred. The writs were made out for his peerage, but he gratefully and affectingly declined the honour the king would have conferred upon him; he did not desire it for himself, and he, for whom he would have received it with pleasure, was gone. Once or twice he roused himself; and in his "Letter to a Noble Lord," upon the attacks which were made upon him for his vehement opposition to the principles of the French Revolution, he speaks with perhaps all the wit and splendour of his best days; but he says, "I have nothing to hope or fear in this world; the storm has gone over me, and I lie like one of those old oaks which the late hurricane scattered about me. I am stripped of my honours; I am torn up by the roots." He speaks of "the sorrows of a desolate old " and referring to the attacks made upon him, says, "I am alone; I have none to 'meet my enemies in the gate;' I greatly deceive myself if, in this hard season of life, I would give a peck of refuse wheat for all that is called fame and honour in the world." This is, however, a better story than that we have told already of Chesterfield and his son: here was no breaking of confidence, nothing to loosen the strong links of affection; the worst that could be done was done by death, and, in such instances, the heart bleeds, but hope and faith in future reunions are strengthened. And this ought to be the true compensation for tears shed over all retreating pleasures; we have only purchased too dearly when the things we have purchased do not receive the smile of "the hope that maketh not ashamed," and "the faith which is the substance of the things hoped for." man; Probably our readers have seen some strange lyrical verses of Goethe, which, even in a translation, are very musical and effective, entitled "Vanitas" : "I've set my heart upon nothing, you see, Hurrah! And so the world goes well with me, Hurrah! And who has a mind to be fellow of mine, Why, let him take hold, and drain this wine, These mouldy lees of wine." And then the old Epicurean poet sings in separate verses how he had set his heart upon wealth, women, travel, fame, and had got the worth of it in each of these exercises of the affections; and then, in his last verse, breaks out again,— This is a very appropriate lyric from the same pen which had said— albeit in satire" Having drunk the wine, let us eat the glass." But we fear it is a fair representation of the whole philosophy of the great Goethe. What a fruitful text this proverb, "Vanitas vanitatum!" Vanity of vanities. "I must leave all that!" What a number of topics collateral to this train of thought we have not touched! how we might spend pages more in recalling names, once immense in their significance, all forgotten now! "How few," says Jeremy Taylor, "have heard of the name of Veneatapadino Ragium." He was the mighty king of Narsinga. An old woman in a village in the West of England was told one day that the King of Prussia was dead; it was the great Frederick. "The old woman," says Dr. Southey, who tells the story, "lifted up her eyes, and said, 'Is 'a—is 'a! The Lord ha' mercy! Well, well! the King o' Prussia. And who's he?'"" The question might be asked of many a name very famous indeed in its day, "Who's he?", And there is a text for a notable sermon! "Who's he?" Dr. Johnson tells a story of a man who was standing in an inn kitchen, with his back to the fire. He said to a man standing next to him, "Do you know, sir, who I am?" "No, sir, I have not that advantage." "Sir," said the man, "I am the great Twalmley, who invented the flood-gate iron." Alas! it is all the same the great Twalmley, Frederick the Great, and Veneatapadino Ragium. In a tender vein, says Edmund Spenser: “Look back, who list, upon the former ages, There is a story told of a certain old Lippo Topi, who he was we know not, only that when he was dying, making and reading his will to his survivors, he bequeathed certain immense sums of money to various persons and purposes. He was pressed to tell where these immense sums were to be found; but he only replied, "Qui sta il punto." "There's the point." The droll practical joke of this odd person suggests itself here. What is the point of all these musings and meditations and anecdotes of the disappointed pleasure-seekers and vanished eminences? Can it be that man is more evanescent than his works? Is it not that 212 "IN WHICH TWO LIGHTS ARE PUT OUT." immortal eyes look out upon all these fading phantoms, straining with immortal longings for that which answers to the imperishable within, and reminding us of some of the fine words of the great old Norwich physician, "There is nothing strictly immortal but immortality"? "Life is a pure flame, and we live by an invisible sun within us, for man is a noble animal, splendid in ashes, and pompous in the grave; solemnizing nativities and deaths with equal lustre, nor omitting ceremonies of bravery in the infamy of his nature." And then he gives that exquisite and oftenquoted passage, "To be nameless in worthy deeds exceeds an infamous history. The Canaanitish woman lives more happily without a name than Herodias with one; and who had not rather be the good thief than Pilate?" That great satirist, Thackeray, in his powerful work "Vanity Fair," has a chapter,-which is not only one of the most pathetic pieces of writing in our language, but a most striking lay sermon,-entitled, "In which Two Lights are Put Out." They are the lights of life of the poor old unsuccessful man, old Joseph Sedley; and Mr. Osborne, the man of large successes and amazing wealth. The poor old man, dying, meditating on his helpless condition; no chance of any revenge against Fortune, which had got the better of him; no name nor money to bequeath; a spent out, bootless life of defeat and disappointment; but still closing humbly, forgivingly, prayerfully, hopefully; and passing away, thinking, "To-morrow, success or failure won't matter much; and the sun will rise, and all the myriads of mankind go to their work or their pleasure as usual; but I shall be out of the turmoil." And old Osborne, on the other hand, leaving, indeed, all his wealth to his survivors, but dying as he had lived, the same hard, proud millionaire. And then, contrasting the last with the first, this great master of most biting wit and pathetic tenderness breaks forth: "Yes; I think that will be the better ending of the two. Suppose you are particularly rich and wellto-do, and say on that last day, 'I am very rich; I am tolerably wellknown; I have lived all my life in the best society, and, thank Heaven, come of a most respectable family; I have served my country and my king with honour; I was in Parliament for several years, where, I may say, my speeches were listened to, and pretty well received; I don't owe any man a shilling; on the contrary, I lent my old college friend, Jack Lazarus, fifty pounds, for which my executors won't press him. I leave my daughters with ten thousand pounds a-piece-very good portions for girls; I bequeath my plate and furniture, my house in Baker Street, with a handsome jointure, to my widow for her life; and my landed property, besides money in the funds and my cellar of well-selected wines in Baker Street, to my son; I leave twenty pounds a year to my valet; and I defy any man, after I am gone, to find anything against my character.' Or, suppose, on the other hand, your swan sings quite a different sort of dirge, and you say, 'I am a poor, blighted, disappointed old fellow; and I have made an utter failure through life; SIR WALTER SCOTT.-THOMAS LYNCH. 213 I was not endowed either with brains or with good fortune, and confess that I have made a hundred mistakes and blunders; I own to have forgotten my duty many a time; I can't pay what I owe; on my last bed I lie, utterly helpless and humble; and I pray forgiveness for my weakness, and throw myself, with a contrite heart, at the feet of the Divine mercy!' Which of these two speeches, think you, would be the best oration for your own funeral? Old Sedley made the last, and, in that humble frame of mind, holding by the hand of his daughter, life and disappointment and vanity sunk away from under him.” Very suggestive indeed this, of the true end of our remarks, if the cherished pictures of the mind are the hints of what are to be our companions in immortality. "Blessed are they," says the sweet old German proverb, "who have their home-sickness, for verily they shall go home." And thus it is that there have been many, most eminent in fame and affection, who have found the abiding when dreams and possessions have been dissolving. How affecting must it have been to hear, some time before his death, the great Sir Walter Scott saying, "The grave the last sleep? No; it is the last and final wakening!' And then, while dying, deriving pleasure from hearing his little grandchild repeating some of Dr. Watts's hymns by his chair, asking Lockhart, his son, to read to him. “And when I asked him from what book," says Lockhart, "he said, 'Need you ask? There is but one.' I chose the fourteenth chapter of St. John's gospel. He listened with mild devotion, and said, when I had done, 'Well, this is a great comfort. I have followed you distinctly; and I feel as if I were to be myself again."" Innumerable other instances press upon our recollection; but we have conducted our remarks to the point where we find an antidote to Mazarin's despair, "Il faut quitter tout cela," "I must leave all that." Sir Walter was leaving "all that" —an incomparably finer and prouder "all" than that of the avaricious statesman; but the immortal longings were stirring through the decrepit and decaying frame of the great and beloved poet; and, touched by the music of the words of our Lord, he said, "he felt as if he were to be himself again." This is the blossoming of the almond-tree, and the travelling through the cold Arctic seas of death to see the midnight sun. Nor is it inappropriate here to quote the last words which fell from the lips of Thomas Lynch, that rich and fertile but unappreciated genius, the author of some of our most beautiful hymns-" Now I am going to begin to live!" But Thackeray's parable of the Extinction of the Two Lights calls to our memory another, which we find in a volume from Germany. 214 VISIONS ROUND A DEATH-BED. The Parable of Ten-and-One. A man was lying at the point of death. The world was vanishing away from him like a vapour. At last the great question occurred to him, "Whither will you go when you have departed hence?" And with this a restless agitation seized him. He was at the point of death; in its last great agonies. But around his bed stood ten terrible forms; stiff, cold, implacable. They were the ten commandments of God. And they lifted up their voices against him. The first said, "Unhappy man, how many gods have you not worshipped in the world, and in your sinful heart?" Another, "How often, and in how many ways, have you not taken God's name in vain?” A third, "How often have you not broken the day of rest for yourself and others?" A fourth, "How often have you not defied God in those things in which you owed obedience and reverence?" A fifth, "How often have you not offended your brother, and trodden compassion under foot?" And so on, one after the other. All the ten with one voice cried, "Woe over him!" But the dying man writhed in agony on his bed, and could give them no answer. He must have felt that he was utterly lost. At last he stammered out in despair: "Will nothing induce you to leave my bed, ye fearful accusers, that I may die in peace?" And they answered, "Only on one condition will we go. When we ten have left, one will come in our place, and to Him you must unconditionally, with heart and soul, belong for all eternity. Do you agree to this?" The wretched man pondered. It seemed to him terrible; his heart throbbed as if at the last beat. At length he answered,Well, go then, and let the One come; I would rather have to do with one than ten !" Scarcely had he uttered these words than the dark accusers vanished, and in their place stood a radiant form-it was the figure of Mercy—noble and gentle, the express image of Mercy. The wretched man fixed his glazed eyes on the form. Though dying, he felt a new life within him. Suddenly, his baptism, and the long-forgotten lessons of childhood, came into his thoughts, which his pious mother had taught him when he was a little child; he thought about God-who is love-and about sinners who could be saved. In an instant it all seemed so plain and so real, as if it had never been out of his thoughts. And he knew whose the form was. Then a hallowed smile lightened up his face; involuntarily he stretched out his arms, and cried with a last effort, "Yes, I will belong to Thee, body and soul, to all eternity! Lord, have mercy on me-receive my spirit!" And his spirit fled. He had departed in peace. |