{"collection":"myth-cosmogony","full_text_available":true,"graph_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/api/page/gutenberg_42644/graph","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/page/gutenberg_42644","id":"gutenberg_42644","license":"Public Domain (US)","rights_basis":"gutenberg_metadata_copyright_false","source":"gutenberg","source_url":"https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/42644","summary":null,"tags":["Category: Essays, Letters & Speeches","Category: Mythology, Legends & Folklore","Pastoral poetry","Sicily (Italy)","Theocritus"],"text":"A JAR OF HONEY FROM MOUNT HYBLA\n\n\n\n\n A JAR OF HONEY FROM MOUNT HYBLA\n\n\n BY LEIGH HUNT\n\n\n _ILLUSTRATED BY RICHARD DOYLE_\n\n\n A NEW EDITION\n\n\n LONDON\n SMITH, ELDER, & CO., 15 WATERLOO PLACE\n 1883\n\n\n\n\n TO\n HORACE SMITH,\n WHO, THOUGH HE SUPPRESSES THE PASTORALS WHICH HE WROTE\n IN HIS YOUTH,\n WILL RETAIN AS LONG AS HE LIVES,\n A HEART OPEN TO EVERY NATURAL AND NOBLE IMPRESSION,\n THESE PAGES,\n WITHOUT HIS KNOWLEDGE, BUT CONFIDING IN HIS INDULGENCE,\n ARE INSCRIBED,\n BY HIS EVER GRATEFUL AND AFFECTIONATE FRIEND,\n LEIGH HUNT.\n\n\n\n\nCONTENTS.\n\n\n PAGE\n\n CHRISTMAS AND ITALY: OR, A PREFATORY ESSAY, SHOWING THE EXTREME\n FITNESS OF THIS BOOK FOR THE SEASON 1\n\n\n CHAPTER I. INTRODUCTORY.\n\n A BLUE JAR FROM SICILY, AND A BRASS JAR FROM THE \u201cARABIAN\n NIGHTS;\u201d AND WHAT CAME OUT OF EACH 25\n\n\n CHAPTER II. SICILY, AND ITS MYTHOLOGY.\n\n ISLAND OF SICILY, AND MOUNT \u00c6TNA.--STORIES OF TYPH\u0152US,\n POLYPHEMUS, SCYLLA AND CHARYBDIS, GLAUCUS AND SCYLLA, ALPHEUS\n AND ARETHUSA, THE SIRENS, AND THE RAPE OF PROSERPINE 34\n\n\n CHAPTER III. GLANCES AT ANCIENT SICILIAN HISTORY AND BIOGRAPHY.\n\n VICISSITUDES OF SICILIAN GOVERNMENT.--GLANCES AT PHALARIS,\n STESICHORUS, EMPEDOCLES, HIERO I., SIMONIDES, EPICHARMUS,\n DIONYSIUS I., DAMON AND PYTHIAS, DAMOCLES, DIONYSIUS II., DION,\n PLATO, AGATHOCLES, HANNIBAL, HIERO II., THEOCRITUS, ARCHIMEDES,\n MARCELLUS, VERRES; AND PARTICULARS RELATING TO GELLIAS 58\n\n\n CHAPTER IV. THEOCRITUS.\n\n PASTORAL POETRY.--SPECIMENS OF THE STRENGTH AND COMIC HUMOUR OF\n THEOCRITUS.--THE PRIZE-FIGHT BETWEEN POLLUX AND AMYCUS.--THE\n SYRACUSAN GOSSIPS 71\n\n\n CHAPTER V. THEOCRITUS.--(CONCLUDED.)\n\n SPECIMENS OF THE PATHOS AND PASTORAL OF THEOCRITUS.--THE CYCLOPS\n IN LOVE.--POETICAL FEELING AMONG UNEDUCATED CLASSES IN THE\n SOUTH.--PASSAGES FROM THEOCRITUS\u2019S FIRST IDYLL.--HIS\n VERSIFICATION AND MUSIC.--PASTORAL OF BION AND MOSCHUS 88\n\n\n CHAPTER VI. NORMAN TIMES--LEGEND OF KING ROBERT.\n\n HOW KING ROBERT OF SICILY WAS DISPOSSESSED OF HIS THRONE; AND\n WHO SAT UPON IT.--HIS WRATH, SUFFERINGS, AND REPENTANCE 107\n\n\n CHAPTER VII. ITALIAN AND ENGLISH PASTORAL.\n\n TASSO\u2019S ERMINIA AMONG THE SHEPHERDS, AND ODE ON THE GOLDEN\n AGE.--GUARINI\u2019S RETURN OF SPRING.--SHEPHERD\u2019S VISION OF THE\n HUNDRED MAIDENS IN SPENSER.--\u201cSAD SHEPHERD\u201d OF BEN JONSON 123\n\n\n CHAPTER VIII. ENGLISH PASTORAL--(CONTINUED); AND SCOTCH PASTORAL.\n\n FLETCHER\u2019S \u201cFAITHFUL SHEPHERDESS.\u201d--PROBABLE REASON OF ITS\n NON-SUCCESS.--\u201cCOMUS\u201d AND \u201cLYCIDAS.\u201d--DR. JOHNSON\u2019S \u201cWORLD.\u201d--\n BURNS AND ALLAN RAMSAY 147\n\n\n CHAPTER IX. ENGLISH PASTORAL.--(CONCLUDED.)\n\n PASTORALS OF WILLIAM BROWNE.--PASTORAL MEN: CERVANTES,\n BOCCACCIO, CHAUCER, COWLEY, THOMSON, SHENSTONE, ETC. 162\n\n\n CHAPTER X. RETURN TO SICILY AND MOUNT \u00c6TNA.\n\n SUBJECT OF MOUNT \u00c6TNA RESUMED:--ITS BEAUTIES--ITS HORRORS--\n REASON WHY PEOPLE ENDURE THEM.--LOVE-STORY OF AN EARTHQUAKE 177\n\n\n CHAPTER XI. BEES.\n\n THE BEAUTIFUL NEVER TO BE THANKED TOO MUCH, OR TO BE\n SUFFICIENTLY EXPRESSED.--BEES AND THEIR ELEGANCE.--THEIR ADVICE\n TO AN ITALIAN POET.--WAXEN TAPERS.--A BEE DRAMA.--MASSACRES OF\n DRONES.--HUMAN PROGRESSION 198\n\n\n CHAPTER XII. MISCELLANEOUS FEELINGS RESPECTING SICILY, ITS MUSIC,\n ITS RELIGION, AND ITS MODERN POETRY.\n\n DANTE\u2019S EVENING.--AVE MARIA OF BYRON.--THE SICILIAN VESPERS.--\n NOTHING \u201cINFERNAL\u201d IN NATURE.--SICILIAN MARINER\u2019S HYMN.--\n INVOCATION FROM COLERIDGE.--PAGAN AND ROMAN CATHOLIC WORSHIP.--\n LATIN AND ITALIAN COUPLET.--WINTER\u2019S \u201cRATTO DI PROSERPINA.\u201d--A\n HINT ON ITALIAN AIRS.--BELLINI, MELI, THE MODERN THEOCRITUS 211\n\n\n\n\nOVERFLOWINGS OF THE JAR.\n\n\n PAGE\n\n THE JOURNEY TO THE FEAST (FROM THEOCRITUS) 237\n\n ELEGY ON THE DEATH OF BION (FROM MOSCHUS) 243\n\n THE SHIP OF HIERO 248\n\n SERENADES IN SICILY AND NAPLES 250\n\n SICILIAN BANDITTI IN THE YEAR 1770 255\n\n GOOD-NATURED HOSPITALITY, AND FACETIOUS IGNORANT OLD GENTLEMAN 260\n\n SPECIMEN OF HIGHER SOCIETY 261\n\n POETICAL TURN OF THE SICILIANS 263\n\n A MEETING OF ENGLISH AND SICILIAN DISHES ON CHRISTMAS-DAY 265\n\n\n\n\nLIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS\n\nDESIGNED AND DRAWN ON WOOD BY RICHARD DOYLE\n\n\n PAGE\n\n A JAR OF HONEY FROM MOUNT HYBLA (_Frontispiece_)\n\n THE FISHERMAN AND THE GENIE 25\n\n SICULO-SARACENIC JAR 33\n\n THE SIRENS AND ULYSSES 34\n\n THE RAPE OF PROSERPINE 53\n\n PRESIDING DEITY OF HYBLA, FROM A SICILIAN COIN 57\n\n INFANT PLATO AND THE BEES 58\n\n FAIRY AND BEE 70\n\n SHEPHERDESS AND FLOCK 71\n\n THEOCRITUS, FROM THE RECEIVED PORTRAIT OF HIM 87\n\n POLYPHEMUS 88\n\n SICILIAN PEASANT 106\n\n KING ROBERT AND THE ANGEL 107\n\n KING ROBERT, FROM A SICILIAN COIN 122\n\n SIR CALIDORE 123\n\n TASSO 146\n\n ELVES AND SQUIRRELS 147\n\n SHEPHERD AND DOG 161\n\n ENGLISH PASTORAL 162\n\n CHAUCER 176\n\n MOUNT \u00c6TNA 177\n\n CHARLES OF ANJOU, KING OF SICILY 197\n\n SICILIAN BEE-HIVES 198\n\n ENGLISH BEE-HIVES 210\n\n SICILIAN VESPERS 211\n\n MELI, FROM A MEDALLION 235\n\n\n\n\n[Illustration]\n\n\nCHRISTMAS AND ITALY; OR A PREFATORY ESSAY, SHOWING THE EXTREME FITNESS OF\nTHIS BOOK FOR THE SEASON.\n\n\nIn one of the volumes of that celebrated French publication, the _Almanach\ndes Gourmands_, which sounds the depth of the merit of soups, and decides\non the distracting claims of the most affinitive relishes, there is a\nfrontispiece presenting to the respectful eyes of the reader a \u201cJury of\nTasters.\u201d They form a board of elderly gentlemen with the most thoughtful\nfaces, and are in the act of chewing each his mouthful, and profoundly\nruminating on its pretensions. Having seen but this single volume of the\nwork, and that only for a short time (which we mention with becoming\nregret), we are not qualified to report its verdicts; but one of them made\nan impression on us not to be forgotten. It ran as follows:--\u201cWith this\nsauce a man might eat his father.\u201d\n\nNow, far are we, in the most ambitious moments of our honey-making, from\naspiring at a judgment upon us like that;--sad evidence of the excesses of\nimagination into which the most serious intellects may be transported, in\nconsequence of giving way to their appetites. One of the especial parts of\nour vocation is to draw sweet out of bitter; and the only association of\nideas which these unfilial sages brought to our mind, was that of an\nequally searching, but far nobler set of judges, who, when this our Honey\nfirst made its appearance at the periodical table of Mr. Ainsworth, and\nwas thence diffused over the country, exclaimed from all quarters, after\nthe most benignant meditation, \u201cWith this sauce a man might swallow some\nof the bitterest morsels of life.\u201d \u201cThis is the condiment to sweeten every\nman\u2019s daily bread.\u201d \u201cThere is the right Christian aroma in the sacrificial\npart of the offering of these dulcitudes.\u201d\n\nWe blush, of course, with the requisite modesty in repeating these\napprovals; and, indeed, should blush a great deal more if we thought that\nthe contents of our Jar (as far as they originate with ourselves) had any\nmerit beyond such as might easily be competed with by thousands\nthroughout the land, upon the strength of their own thoughts and\ngood-will, assisted by a little reading and cheerfulness; but the truth\nis, that our friends in Cornhill, having purchased the stock in\nconsequence of those approvals, and thinking it worth their while, after\nit had been clarified and augmented, to put it into elegant vehicles of\ntheir own, and so qualify it to be made into Christmas presents, we are\ndesirous to show how fit it is for that purpose; nay, how emphatically it\nwould have been so considered in the \u201cgood old Christmas times.\u201d\n\nIt is true, that besides the good old Christmas times, there are such\nthings as good new Christmas times; and in respect to the great object of\nboth, we are heartily of opinion that the latter far surpass the former,\nand that no literary fare for the season ever came up to the substantial\nas well as exquisite food set forth for us in the pages of _Chimes_ and\n_Christmas Carols_. They are nectar and ambrosia for the spirit in the\nhumblest shapes of the flesh. They are the sermons of the morning rescued\nfrom the dead letter of mere assent and custom, reproduced with all the\nallurements of wit and pathos, and made contributory to the greatest\npractical workings of the time. And the time has no greater glory than the\nfact of the conversion of satire itself to a beneficent spirit, which\n(with a few occasional deviations, that must be pardoned for habit\u2019s\nsake) it obviously and largely possesses, and which it will complete ere\nlong, by an impartiality towards every rank and description of men.\n\nThese exceptions to our claims being admitted, we shall grow bold on the\nstrength of our candour; and aver, that our Jar of Honey is eminently\nsuited to almost all other old Christmas associations (of an unvulgar\norder), while at the same time it does not omit, if it does not\nprominently put forth, this modern one of the right Christian spirit; as\nindeed, by the favour of the critics, has already been noticed. Christmas\namusements of old were a mixture of poetry, piety, revelry, superstition,\nstory-telling, and masquing, particularly Pagan and Arcadian masquing; and\nhere you have them all. But they were not confined to these. At no time\ndoes talk run freer on all subjects than at Christmas, because at no time\nare the animal spirits set more at liberty; and hence no topic is baulked\nif it come uppermost, any more than it is in these pages. And as to the\nforeign part of our title, when Shakspeare wrote his _Winter\u2019s Tale_ (and\na Winter\u2019s Tale was emphatically a Christmas Tale) he laid the scene of it\nin the same country as that of our little Jar. Shakspeare\u2019s Christmas Tale\nis a Sicilian tale, and it presents the same mixture as we do, of old\nSicilian story and English pastoral. To be exclusively English was never\nthe contemplation of any Christmas talk. No later than the other day,\nColeridge wrote a play in professed imitation of the _Winter\u2019s Tale_. He\ncalls it \u201cZapolya, a _Christmas_ Tale,\u201d and the scene is laid in Illyria;\nwhich, by the way, is that of Shakspeare\u2019s _Twelfth-Night_, another play\nof the season, for Twelfth-Night is included in Christmas. Indeed, if you\nwould banish foreign matters from Christmas, you must banish Christmas\nitself. You must sweep away mince-pies, with their currants from Greece,\ntheir cloves and mace from the Spice Islands, and their peel of lemon from\n_Sicily_. You must abolish your plum-pudding, with its raisins from\nMalaga, your boar\u2019s head from Germany, chestnuts from Spain and France,\noranges from Portugal, wines every one of them, except British, all your\nhot pickles, all your teas and coffees, your very twelfth-cake with its\nsugar: nay, even the name of the season, to say nothing of things too\nreverend to be specified. You would not have a mahogany table to dine\nupon. Sixpence would not be left you to buy a cigar, nor a cigar to be\nbought; and if you wished to console yourself with singing a carol, ten to\none but the tune would be taken out of your mouth, being found to belong\nto Pergolese or Palestrina, or some other Italian inventor of the phrases\nof melody.\n\nItalian! Why, Italy will be talked about this Christmas at half the\ntables in England, with the Pope and Mr. Cobden at its head; and we think\nwe see our little Blue Jar the more valued accordingly. Mr. Cobden has\nreturned from Italy, brimful, as such a man ought to be, of its beauties\nand merits. He himself will talk plentifully about it; and others will\ntalk, because he has talked already. The Duke of Devonshire has been in\nItaly. Lord John has an Envoy in Italy. Every reigning circle of private\nand public life has had its representative visitor in that country.\nEverybody, indeed, may be said to visit it every day in the newspapers, to\nsee how the Pope and Reform are going on; poor Sicily has been in trouble\nwith its \u201cCaptain Romeo\u201d (strange link of times past and present); and Mr.\nCobden has the magnanimity to express his regret that he had not made\nhimself a master, when he was young, of the language of the beautiful\npeninsula.\n\nNow, one of the great objects of the present writer, for many years past,\nhas been to lure his readers into the love of other languages,\nparticularly of this most beautiful of them all. It is for this reason he\nhas scarcely ever quoted the most trivial expression from any one of them\nwithout giving a version of it; knowing well, how many intelligent men\nthere are who would enjoy the original, if they knew it, far better than\nmany an accidental scholar, and who are therefore willing to have the\nleast glimpse of it afforded them. It has been well said, that \u201cmankind\nwill cease to quarrel with one another, when they understand one another.\u201d\nMr. Cobden, in his entertaining and instructive speech at the Manchester\nAthen\u00e6um, has told us how he was struck with this conviction during his\ntour. But he arrived at it before, by the intuition of a happy nature.\nWhy, for his own delight, does he not make himself a master of the\nlanguage he so admires? He is a reader by the fireside; and one hour\u2019s\nreading, _per diem_, would render such a man more intimate with it in the\ncourse of a year than nine-tenths of its masters in England. But perhaps\nhe is such. At all events, he may have become acquainted with it\nsufficiently for enjoyment; as much, for instance, as ourselves; more so,\nif he speaks it; for though we read, well enough, most of the languages\nthat we translate, we can speak them no better than just to make our way\nthrough Italy and France. We mention this, partly that we may not seem to\nknow more than we do, and partly to encourage others to learn. A little\nhearty love is better in this, as in all other cases, than a heap of\nindifferent knowledge. We are ashamed to say, that we know less of Greek,\nin one sense of the word, than we did when young, and are obliged to look\nout more words in the dictionary; for to a dictionary we are still forced\nto resort, though we love the language next to Italian, and hold it in\nhigher admiration. But then we know our ignorance better than we did at\nthat time; are more aware of beauties to be enjoyed, and nice meanings to\nbe discovered; and the consequence is, that whenever we undertake to\ntranslate a passage from Greek, we take our love on one side of us, and\nour dictionary on the other, and before we set about it, make a point of\nsifting every possible meaning and root of meaning, not excepting those in\nwords the most familiar to us, in order that not an atom of the writer\u2019s\nintention may be missed. We do not say, of course, that we always succeed\nin detecting it; but it is not for want of painstaking.\n\n The labour we delight in, physicks pain.\n\nNow by a like respect for the good old maxim of \u201cslow and sure,\u201d and by\ndint of doing a little, or even a very little, every day, there is no\nlover of poetry and beauty who in the course of a few months might not be\nas deep as a bee in some of the sweetest flowers of other languages; and\nit is for readers of this sort that we have not only translated and\ncommented on Greek and other passages in the book before us, but in some\ninstances given intimations of the spirit in which we have studied\nthem;--being anxious to allure to the study such as can find time for it,\nand to give some little taste of their exquisiteness to those who cannot.\nFor all sorts of benefits lie in a knowledge of languages, both to men out\nof the world and men in it;--all additions to the stock of profit and\npleasure,--to the certainty of knowing (as the phrase is) \u201cwhat to be at\u201d\non occasions where profitable information is required; of not losing any\nadvantage, either of relative or of positive gain; of growing superior to\ndebasing fears and to ignorant and inhuman assumptions; and above all, of\nassisting the great cause of the advancement and mutual intercourse of all\nmen, which shall put an end to narrow-minded ideas of profit and loss, and\nopen up that moral, and intellectual, and cordial as well as commercial\nFree Trade, without which we should remain little better for ever than a\nparcel of ill-taught children, willing, if not able, to cheat one another\nin corners. But all this cannot be done, unless knowledge and taste go\nhand-in-hand; or, in other words, unless we learn to perceive the finally\npleasurable, as well as the intermediately profitable; otherwise, when we\ncome to the end of our gain, we shall be but at the beginning of a sense\nof our unfitness to enjoy it; and this, too, after missing a thousand\ngraces by the way. Supposing health, for instance, and other favourable\ncircumstances to have been on a par, which of any two men in the age of\nShakspeare was the more capable of enjoying the whole round of his\nChristmas holidays,--he who had plenty of money to disburse for them, but\nno taste for their plays and pageants beyond what was shared by everybody\nwho had eyes and ears; or he who understood all the beauties of their\nimagery and their allusions; who saw their colours with the eye of a\npainter, and heard their words with the apprehension of a poet; to whom\nthe music was not a mere prettiness to patronise, or movement to beat time\nto, but an interweaving of shapes of grace and circles of harmony; to whom\ngods indeed descended from heaven, and nymphs brought back ages of gold;\nto whom terror itself was but a passing phase of the operation of good;\nand by, as well as for, whom, some justice, however small, was thus done\nto that magnificence of sight and suggestiveness with which heaven has\nadorned the universe, and that tendency to hope the best of all things\nwhich no seeming contradiction can do away? To feel thus is not only to be\nable to endure the perplexities presented to the mind by Christmas itself,\nits poor, and its polemics, but to pass the \u201cflaming bounds\u201d of telescope\nand microscope, and repose in serenities beyond the finite.\n\nWe have been led into an unexpected strain of enthusiasm and exaltation;\nbut this is as natural to the season as a church-organ, or as the memory\nof the Sermon on the Mount. Christmas sees fair play to all reasonable\nmoods of mind, the cheerful being predominant, as the height of reason.\nAfter church comes an interval, and after the interval dinner, which is a\nmixture of the serious and the lively; solid as to the beef and pudding,\nbut light as regards the laughter and the whipped syllabub. Then ensue\npastimes for a succession of days, including Twelfth-Day, with reading of\nbooks in the morning, and cards and conversation at night; the young\nchiefly being the players at the once courtly games of forfeits and \u201cBob,\u201d\nand the old the performers at whist and the wine-bottle. Our modern\nChristmas entertainments will not bear comparison for vigour of enjoyment\nwith those of our ancestors before Cromwell\u2019s time, either out of doors or\nin. They have never recovered the blow given them by the invidious\nheaviness of the Puritans. But to make amends, we have refined on some of\ntheir pleasures; have multiplied others, as in the case of the theatres;\nand we possess an overflow of their own favourite reading, such as their\npoets might have envied us. Rare manuscripts have been set free in popular\neditions; we read the stories which our ancestors used to tell, with\nthousands of new novels to boot; Christmas alone brings with it a shower\nof gorgeous and sometimes admirable publications, as if flowers came\npouring down with its snow; and in fine, beloved reader, here is our (and\nyour) Jar of Honey, full of the sweet Paganism that was dear to the\nShakspeares and Miltons, of the Pastoral which they loved also, of the\nright Christmas adventures of _King Robert of Sicily_, (which they perused\nunder another title in the _Gesta Romanorum_,) of all sorts of good\nItalianate things, (then, as now, looked upon with wonderful curiosity and\nrespect;) and finally, if loving wishes deceive us not, a sample and\nprelibation of that quintessential extract of the spirit of Christianity\nitself, the effect of which is to take away all doubt respecting the\ncelestial balsam, and to make men wonder how they came to mistake for it\nanything containing the least taste of the fiery, the bitter, or the sour.\n\nIf the great and good Pope now reigning (for such he seems to be, in spite\nof some official drawbacks) has goodness enough to feel the wish, and\ncould ever find greatness enough in him to dare to venture the act, of\nsummoning a new Council of the Church, that should set on its altar this\npure and unadulterated attraction of all hearts, instead of the unseemly\nmanufactures of Councils of Trent and Priests of St. Januarius, he would\ngive St. Peter\u2019s its only final chance of continuing to be the throne of\nthe Christian world, and of flourishing under the sweet and only desirable\nblossom, that shall have done some day for ever with its thorns.\n\nBut to return from these altitudes. The story of King Robert, we beg\nleave to say, is an especial delight of our soul, and gave us some\nexquisite moments in the writing. How came Shakspeare to let such a\nsubject escape him? or Beaumont and Fletcher? or Decker? or any of the\ngreat and loving spirits that abounded in that romantic age? It was extant\nin manuscript; it abounded, under another name, in print; it presented the\nmost striking dramatic points; extremes of passion were in the characters;\npride and its punishment were in it; humility and its reward; a court, a\nchapel, an angel; pomp, music, satire, buffoonery, sublimity, tears. O\nFate! give us a dozen years more life, and a lift in our faculties,\nimmense; and let us try still if even our own verses cannot do something\nwith it.\n\nThere is not, we will venture to say, a single portion of our Jar, which\ndoes not contain appropriate reading for Christmas.\n\nThe first chapter concerns the _Arabian Nights_; and every little boy\nknows that the _Arabian Nights_ are reading for all seasons, particularly\nholidays.\n\nThe second chapter is full of the Fairy Tales of Antiquity; things which\npeople used to relate round their fires during the ancient Saturnalia,\njust as our ancestors used to do at Christmas, and as boys read them\nstill. And the Saturnalia were not only, to the ancients, what the\nChristmas holidays are to us, but the veritable parents and progenitors\nof those holidays, as every antiquary knows. It is doubtful whether\nMacrobius, who wrote a _Saturnalia_, or Christmas Holiday Book, of his\ntime, was a Pagan or a Christian; but, at all events, his book is full of\nevery kind of miscellaneous reading and gossiping, from Scipio\u2019s Dream\ndown to a scandalous anecdote and a disputed passage in Virgil. Such was\nthe pastime, he tells us, at that season, of the best-informed circles at\nRome.\n\nOur third chapter contains, among other Saturnalian subjects, the story of\nthe truly Christmas-like personage, Gellias, one of the wittiest and most\nhospitable of entertainers, a noble-hearted merchant-prince, who kept\nseven hundred gallons of wine in his house, and was famous for making his\nworkmen happy.\n\nOur fourth and fifth chapters, besides some Saturnalian stories, include\nan account of an ancient holiday, full of gossip, and show, and leafy\nboughs, together with a vast deal of Pastoral,--a summer recollection, to\nwhich Christmas has always been fond of reverting, at least in books and\namong the poets; probably on the principle of extremes meeting, and by a\nhappy rule of contraries. It is observable how fond we are at Christmas of\nwhat our forefathers used to call \u201cgreens,\u201d that is to say, boughs and\nflowers and everything which can force the summer, as it were, to remain\nwith us by our firesides.\n\nThe sixth chapter is our beloved subject, the story of King Robert\naforesaid.\n\nThe seventh brings us, through Italian Pastoral, to the Christmas poetical\nentertainments of our ancestors.\n\nIn the eighth and ninth we are in the Old English Poetical Works. In the\ntenth at Mount \u00c6tna with its stories. In the eleventh with the Bees. In\nthe twelfth with the musical services of the Church, with cheerful pieties\nof all sorts, and with the jovial Sicilian poet, Meli, one of the most\nuniversal of men.\n\nSome persons have fancied that our book would be too learned! The most\nunlearned of such readers as we hope to possess will see what a notion\nthis is, and to what plain English all our Greek and Latin has turned. We\nhave the greatest contempt for learning, merely so called; together with\nthe greatest respect for it when it sees through the dead letter of time\nand words into the spirit that concerns all ages and all descriptions of\nmen. Every clever unlearned man in England, rich and poor, if we had the\nmagic to do it, should be gifted to-morrow with all the learning that\nwould adorn and endear his commerce to him, his agriculture, and the\npoorest flower-pot at his window. It would satisfy the longings that are\nborn with such a man, and are natural to his powers; and would enable him,\nwhile he no longer envied such right parliamentary quoters of Virgil as\nthe Minister, or Macaulay, or Sir Robert, or Brougham, or Lord Ellesmere,\nor Lord Morpeth, or Fox, to laugh at such educated ignoramuses as A, B,\nand C, who, though the classics were beaten into their heads at school,\nhave no more real taste for what they quote, than the wall has for the\npictures that are hung upon it with nail and hammer.\n\nSpirit is everything, and letter is nothing; except inasmuch as it is a\nvehicle for spirit. \u201cThe letter killeth, but the spirit giveth life.\u201d A\nlearned quotation is as ridiculous in some people\u2019s mouths as a flower\nwould be stuck in the mouth of a barber\u2019s block. What would the best\nclaret be to one that could not perceive the odour of it? or the nicest of\nmince-pies, or college-puddings, to a mouth that had no taste? We are but\ndull ourselves in such matters (the more\u2019s the pity), and would fain\nshare, when at table, the nicest discernments of sharp and sweet,\npossessed by the luckier palates around us; but we should only laugh at\nthe poor devil of a pretender, who, with nothing but a palate of silver,\nand no taste at all, should affect to emulate the _Almanach des\nGourmands_, and give his opinion of the contending sauces.\n\nMay we take, by the way, a Saturnalian liberty, and ask Members of\nParliament why they quote no language but Latin, and in Latin no writers\nbut Virgil and Horace? We believe there is an occasional venture on\nLucretius, and perhaps on Juvenal. Also, two passages from Ovid, one in\npraise of the Fine Arts, and another about preferring wrong pursuits to\nright perceptions. But French has lately been thought worthy of\ncultivation, even at public schools; almost every man of rank speaks it,\nand Italian is an ordinary accomplishment. Ariosto, Berni, and others,\nwould supply an admirable crop of new parliamentary quotations; or, if\nthere was a fear of the delicacy of the pronunciation, what hinders us\nfrom being refreshed with something from Moli\u00e8re, La Fontaine, Pascal, or\na hundred other wits and thinkers among our gallant neighbours? New paths\nof quotation are due to railroads and Free Trade. There would be a sort of\nextension of Parliament itself into Paris and Rome, if we occasionally\nspoke the languages of those illustrious cities. France and Italy would be\npleased; books benefited; politics smoothed; intercourse gladdened and\nenlarged. Even a bit of Greek might be ventured upon, if short and sweet;\nand Mr. Hume feel relieved in hearing (on the authority of the philosophic\nHesiod) that \u201chalf\u201d was \u201cbetter than the whole\u201d (\u03c0\u03bb\u03ad\u03bf\u03bd \u1f25\u03bc\u03b9\u03c3\u03c5 \u03c0\u03b1\u03bd\u03c4\u03cc\u03c2).\n\nThe reverend maxim we have quoted respecting spirit and letter reminds us\nof a little Christmas story which has never been in print, and which, in\naccordance with the season, we shall take this opportunity of relating.\nIt was brought to our recollection by meeting with the following exquisite\npassage from Bacon:--\n\n \u201cAs those wines which flow from the first treading of the grape are\n sweeter and better than those forced out by the press, which gives\n them the roughness of the husk and the stone, so are those doctrines\n best and sweetest which flow from _a gentle crush_ of the Scriptures,\n and are not wrung into controversies and commonplaces.\u201d\n\nThat metaphor of the \u201chusk\u201d is one that has haunted us (so to speak), in\nconnexion with the subject here alluded to, for half our lives; not\nsuggested, we beg leave to say, by the great philosopher--(qualified\nthough he be to suggest hundreds of things to us beyond our powers of\norigination)--but by the greater force of the necessity of admitting evil\nand reconciling it to good. And in that point of view the husk we allude\nto is nobler than Bacon\u2019s, or at least, than what seems to have been in\nhis construction of the word; for we took it in the light of a necessary\nenclosure and safeguard of a future bud. But to drop this collateral\nreminiscence, and come to our story. It is entitled\n\n THE ELIXIR AND THE VIALS.\n\n Once on a time there was a dispute respecting the possession of a\n certain elixir, called by some Flower of Thorn, by others Spirit of\n Lily, by others Spirit of Love, and by others various other names not\n necessary to mention, but agreed by all to produce the most wonderful\n effects on the mind, of peace and benevolence. The parties who laid\n claim to the glory and emoluments of this possession, said it was kept\n in a particular kind of vial distinguishable from every other, and\n belonging exclusively to one single proprietor; and each claimant\n declared, nay swore, that he was that one. Indeed, it was remarkable,\n that for persons valuing themselves on the possession of an essence,\n or spirit, producing such gentle effects, they were, most of them,\n wonderfully given to swearing, not hesitating to use the most\n extraordinary oaths, both in assertion of their own claims, and in\n condemnation of those of the rest. One of these gentlemen, holding up\n his vial, which was a very pretty thing to look at, exclaimed that\n every man might be,----nay, was----(we do not like to repeat the\n word), who did not see plainly that that was the only spirit. Another\n uttered the very same threats, though he held up a vial of a totally\n different appearance. The case was the same with a third, a fourth,\n and a fifth, nay, with a fiftieth. There was nothing to be seen but a\n flourishing of vials, and nothing to be heard but a storm of voices.\n At length, from words (as might be expected of such words) they\n proceeded to blows; and what was very astonishing, they were so moved\n and provoked out of their wits as to convert their respective vials\n into weapons of offence, and so absolutely endeavour to fight it out\n with the fragile materials.\n\n The consequences may be guessed. Not only were heads broken, but the\n vials also; and not only did the spirit in the vials evaporate, but by\n the fury of the combatants, both before and after the breakage, it\n became manifest that no such thing as a spirit producing the effects\n they pretended, had been in the vials at all.\n\n The scene ended with the laughter of the spectators; and worse\n consequences might have ensued, but for the appearance of a third set\n of persons bringing forward another vial. It was totally unlike all\n the former, except in one part of it; and this part, which was of the\n real crystal which the others only pretended to be, was said to\n contain, and did absolutely contain, the veritable peace-making\n elixir, as was proved by a very simple but incontrovertible\n circumstance; namely, the peace-making itself. The proprietors neither\n swore, nor threatened, nor fought, nor tried to identify the vial with\n its contents. They proved the effect of those contents upon themselves\n by the friendliest behaviour towards all parties present; and though\n they had a long and difficult task to induce their rivals to taste it,\n yet no sooner had they done so, than the whole place became a scene of\n the most enchanting reasonableness and serenity. Everybody embraced\n his neighbour with the kindest words, and the combatants themselves\n did not scruple to wonder how they could have missed perceiving the\n presence of an odour so sweet, so unadulterated, so unquestionable, so\n tranquillizing, and so divine.\n\nThis story is not so good as Robert of Sicily, or as one that we shall\nrelate presently; but it is not inferior to either in the conclusions that\nmay be drawn from it; and assuredly (except from the edification to be\ndrawn from scandals themselves) it is better than the histories of all the\ncontroversies that have agitated the schools of East and West. As to that\nof the Sicilian King, we are so fond of it that we cannot help taking the\nopportunity it affords us of thanking the young artist who has illustrated\nit, and who, after distinguishing himself with the public for his humour,\nhas shown in these pages so much promise of a more serious order. He has\nnot chosen to give his angel much bodily substance; perhaps the better to\nintimate the spiritual nature of the being, and give the more supernatural\nsolemnity to his departure. But nobody can doubt the solidity which\naccompanies the grace of King Robert; and the royal penitent has been\njudiciously reinvested with the garb of his rank, the moment he resumes\nhis personal identity. We must be allowed also to express our sense of\nthe Poussin-like figure of Polyphemus at page 88, with his lumpish but not\nungraceful shoulders (fit symbols of the heaviness of his mind); nor can\nwe omit noticing the truly pastoral grace and simplicity of the\nShepherdess at page 71, who is leading a flock full of nature and\nmovement; and we are particularly thankful for the fidelity with which the\nartist has transferred to paper the sensitive and benignant profile of the\nSicilian poet Meli, a cast of a medallion of whose likeness we have the\ngood fortune to possess. Mr. Doyle, throughout his drawings, has shown\ngreat attention to costume and other such proprieties; one of the\nevidences of that regard for truth, without which no art of any kind can\never come to perfection.\n\nWe shall conclude this article with a brief Christmas story to which there\nis an allusion in the one above mentioned, and which we hold to be worth,\nat least, some nine hundred and forty thousand sermons. It is entitled\n\n THE ELEVEN COMMANDMENTS.\n\n A certain bishop who lived some hundred years ago, and who was very\n unlike what is reported of her Majesty\u2019s new almoner; also very unlike\n the Christian bishops of old, before titles were invented for them;\n very unlike Fenelon too, who nevertheless had plenty of titles; very\n unlike St. Francis de Sales, who was for talking nothing but \u201croses;\u201d\n very unlike St. Vincent de Paul, who founded the Sisterhood of\n Charity; very unlike Rundle, who \u201chad a heart,\u201d and Berkeley, who had\n \u201cevery virtue under heaven,\u201d and that other exquisite bishop (we blush\n to have forgotten his name), who was grieved to find that he had a\n hundred pounds at his banker\u2019s when the season had been so bad for the\n poor;--this highly unresembling bishop, who, nevertheless, was like\n too many of his brethren,--that is to say, in times past (for there is\n no bishop, now, at least in any quarter of England, who is not\n remarkable for meekness, and does not make a point of turning his\n right cheek to be smitten, the moment you have smitten his\n left);--this unepiscopal, and yet not impossible bishop, we say, was\n once accosted, during a severe Christmas, by a Parson Adams kind of\n inferior clergyman, and told a long story of the wants of certain poor\n people, of whose cases his lordship was unaware. What the dialogue\n was, which led to the remark we are about to mention, the reporters of\n the circumstance do not appear to have ascertained; but it seems that,\n the representations growing stronger and stronger on one side, and the\n determination to pay no attention to them acquiring proportionate\n vigour on the other, the clergyman was moved to tell the bishop that\n his lordship did not understand his \u201celeven commandments.\u201d\n\n \u201cEleven commandments!\u201d cried the bishop; \u201cwhy, fellow, you are drunk.\n Who ever heard of an eleventh commandment? Depart, or you shall be put\n in the stocks.\u201d\n\n \u201cPut thine own pride and cruelty in the stocks,\u201d retorted the good\n priest, angered beyond his Christian patience, and preparing to return\n to the sufferers for whom he had pleaded in vain. \u201cI say there are\n _eleven_ commandments, _not_ ten, and that it were well for such\n flocks as you govern, if it were added, as it ought to be, to the\n others over the tables in church. Does your lordship remember--do you\n in fact know anything at all of Him who came on earth to do good to\n the poor and woeful, and who said, \u2018Behold, I give unto you a _new\n commandment_, LOVE ONE ANOTHER?\u2019\u201d\n\n[Illustration]\n\n\n\n\nA JAR OF HONEY FROM MOUNT HYBLA.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER I.\n\nINTRODUCTORY.\n\n A BLUE JAR FROM SICILY, AND A BRASS JAR FROM THE \u201cARABIAN NIGHTS;\u201d AND\n WHAT CAME OUT OF EACH.\n\n\n[Illustration]\n\nPassing one day by the shop of Messrs. Fortnum and Mason in Piccadilly, we\nbeheld in the window a little blue jar, labelled, \u201cSicilian Honey.\u201d--It\nwas a jar of very humble pretensions, if estimated according to its price\nin the market. Perhaps it might have been worth, as a piece of ware,\nabout threepence; and, contents and all, its price did not exceed\neighteenpence. People who condescend to look at nothing but what is\ncostly, and who, being worth a vast deal of money at their bankers\u2019, are\nnot aware that they are poor devils as men, would have infallibly despised\nit; or, at the very utmost, they would have associated it in their minds\nwith nothing but the confectioner or the store-room. On the other hand, it\nmight have reminded a Cavendish or a Gower of his Titians and Correggios;\nand a Rogers would surely have looked twice at it, for the sake of his\nStothard and his _Italy_. And the poet and the noble dukes would have been\nright, not only in the spirit of their recollections, but to the very\nletter; for the deep beautiful blue was the same identical blue, the\nresult of the same mineral, by which such an effect is retained in old\npictures; and the shape of the jar was as classical as that of many a vase\nfrom the antique. Antiquity, indeed, possessed an abundance of precisely\nsuch jars. Furthermore, when you held the jar in the sun, a spot of\ninsufferable radiance came in the middle of its cheek, like a very laugh\nof light. Then it contained honey--a thing which strikes the dullest\nimaginations with a sense of sweetness and the flowers; and in addition to\nthe word \u201choney\u201d outside, was the word \u201cSicilian\u201d--a very musical and\nmeminiscent word.\n\nNow in consequence of this word \u201cSicilian,\u201d by a certain magical process,\nnot unlike that of the seal of the mighty Solomon, which could put an\nenormous quantity of spirit into a wonderfully small vessel, the inside of\nour blue jar (for be sure we bought it) became enriched, beyond its honey,\nto an extent which would appear incredible to any readers but such as we\nhave the honour to address, doubtless the most intelligent of their race.\n\nTo introduce it, however, even to them, in a manner befitting their\njudgment, it is proper that we call to their recollection the history of a\nprevious jar of their acquaintance, to which the foregoing paragraph\ncontains an allusion.\n\nThey will be pleased to call to mind that eighteen hundred years after the\ndeath of Solomon, and during the reign of the King of the Black Isles, who\nwas (literally) half petrified by the conduct of his wife, a certain\nfisherman, after throwing his nets to no purpose, and beginning to be in\ndespair, succeeded in catching a jar of brass. The brass, to be sure,\nseemed the only valuable thing about the jar; but the fisherman thought he\ncould, at least, sell it for old metal. Finding, however, that it was very\nheavy, and furthermore closed with a seal, he wisely resolved to open it\nfirst, and see what could be got out of it.\n\nHe therefore took a knife--(we quote from Mr. Torrens\u2019s _Arabian Nights_,\nnot out of disregard for that other interesting version by our excellent\nfriend Mr. Lane, but we have lent his first volume, and Galland does not\ncontain the whole passage; he seems to have thought it would frighten the\nladies of his day)--the fisherman, therefore, \u201ctook a knife,\u201d says Mr.\nTorrens, and \u201cworked at the tin cover till he had separated it from the\njar; and he put it down by his side on the ground. Then he shook the jar,\nto tumble out whatever might be in it, and found in it not a thing. So he\nmarvelled with extreme amazement. But presently there came out of the jar\na vapour, and it rose up towards the heavens, and reached along the face\nof the earth; and after this, the vapour reached its height, and\ncondensed, and became compact, and waved tremulously, and became an Ufreet\n(evil spirit), his head in the clouds, and his foot on the soil, _his head\nlike a dome_, _his hand like a harrow_, his two legs like pillars, his\nmouth like a pit, _his teeth like large stones_, and his nostrils like\n_basins_, and his eyes were two lamps, _austere and louring_. Now, when\nthe fisherman _saw that Ufreet_, his muscles shivered, and his teeth\nchattered, _and his palate was dried up_, and he knew not where he was.\u201d\n\nThis, by the way, is a fine horrible picture, and very like an Ufreet; as\nanybody must know, who is intimate with that delicate generation. We are\nacquainted with nothing that beats it in its way, except the description\nof another in the _Bahar Danush_, who, while sleeping on the ground, draws\nthe pebbles towards him with his breath, and sends them back again as it\ngoes forth; though a little further on, in the _Arabian Nights_, is an\nUfreet of a most accomplished ugliness--namely, \u201c_the lord of all that is\ndetestable to look at_!\u201d What a jurisdiction! And the \u201clord\u201d too! Fancy a\nviscount of that description.\n\nThe fright and astonishment conceived by the fisherman at the taste thus\ngiven him of this highly concentrated spirit of _Jinn_ (for such is the\ngeneric Eastern term for the order to which the Ufreet belongs) were not,\nhowever, the only things he got out of his jar. An incarceration of\neighteen hundred years at the bottom of the ocean, under the seal of the\nmighty Solomon, had taught its prisoner a little more respect for that\nkind of detainder than he had been wont to exhibit; the fisherman exacted\nfrom him an oath of good treatment in the event of his being set free; and\nthe consequence was, that after the adventures of the coloured fish, of\nthe appearance of the lady out of the wall, and of the semi-petrifaction\nof the King of the Black Islands with his lonely voice, our piscatory\nfriend is put in possession of his majesty\u2019s throne. So here is an Ufreet\nas high as the clouds, fish that would have delighted Titian, (they were\nblue, white, yellow, and red,) a lady, full-dressed, issuing out of a\nkitchen wall, a king half-turned to stone by his wife, a throne given to a\nfisherman, and half-a-dozen other phenomena, _all resulting from one poor\nbrazen jar_, into which when the fisherman first looked, he saw nothing in\nit.\n\n A brass jar by the ocean\u2019s brim,\n A yellow brass jar was to him,\n And it was nothing more.\n\nNow we might have expected as little from our earthen jar, as the future\nmonarch did from his jar of metal, had not some circumstances in our life\nmade us acquainted with the philosophy and occult properties of jars; but\nsuch having been the case, no lover of the _Arabian Nights_ (which is\nanother term for a reader with a tendency to the universal) will be\nsurprised at the quantity and magnitude of the things that arose before\nour eyes out of the little blue jar in the window of Messrs. Fortnum and\nMason.\n\n\u201cSicilian Honey.\u201d--We had no sooner read those words, than Theocritus rose\nbefore us, with all his poetry.\n\nThen Sicily arose--the whole island--particularly Mount \u00c6tna. Then Mount\nHybla, with its bees.\n\nThen Rucellai (the Italian poet of the bees) and his predecessor Virgil,\nand Acis and Galatea, and Polyphemus, a pagan Ufreet, but mild--mitigated\nby love, as Theocritus has painted him.\n\nThen the _Odyssey_, with the giant in his fiercer days, before he had sown\nhis wild rocks; and the Sirens; and Scylla and Charybdis; and Ovid; and\nAlpheus and Arethusa; and Proserpina, and the Vale of Enna--names, which\nbring before us whatever is blue in skies, and beautiful in flowers or in\nfiction.\n\nThen Pindar, and Plato; and Archimedes (who made enchantments real), and\nCicero (who discovered his tomb), and the Arabs with their architecture,\nand the Normans with their gentlemen who were to found a sovereignty, and\nthe beautiful story of King Robert and the Angel, and the Sicilian Vespers\n(horribly so called), and the true Sicilian Vespers, the gentle \u201c_Ave\nMaria_,\u201d closing every evening, as it does still, in peace instead of\nblood, and ascending from blue seas into blue heavens out of white-sailed\nboats.\n\nItem, Bellini, and his Neapolitan neighbour Paesiello.\n\nItem, the modern Theocritus, not undeservedly so called; to wit, the Abate\nGiovanni Meli, possibly of Grecian stock himself--for his name is the\nGreek as well as Sicilian for honey.\n\nThen, every other sort of pastoral poetry, Italian and English, and\nScotch--Tasso, and Guarini, and Fletcher, and Jonson, and William Brown,\nand Pope, and Allan Ramsay.\n\nItem, earthquakes, vines, convents, palm-trees, mulberries, pomegranates,\naloes, citrons, rocks, gardens, banditti, pirates, furnaces under the sea,\nthe most romantic landscapes and vegetation above it, guitars, lovers,\nserenades, and the never-to-be-too-often-mentioned blue skies and blue\nwaters, whose azure (on the concentrating Solomon-seal principle) appeared\nto be specially represented by our little blue jar.\n\nLastly, the sweetness, the melancholy, the birth, the life, the death, the\nfugitive evil, the constant good, the threatening \u00c6tna making every moment\nof life precious, and the moment of life so precious, and breathing such a\npure atmosphere, as to enable fear itself to laugh at, nay, to love the\nthreatening \u00c6tna, and play with it as with a great planetary lion to which\nit has become used.\n\nFrom all this heap of things, or any portion of them, or anything which\nthey may suggest, we propose, as from so many different flowers, to\nfurnish our Jar of Honey, careless whether the flower be sweet or bitter,\nprovided the result (with the help of his good-will) be not un-sweet to\nthe reader. For honey itself is not gathered from sweet flowers only;\nneither can much of it be eaten without a qualification of its dulcitude\nwith some plainer food. It can hardly be supposed to be as sweet to the\nbees themselves, as it is to us. Evil is so made to wait upon good in this\nworld--to quicken it by alarm, to brighten it by contrast, and render it\nsympathetic by suffering--that although there is quite enough\nsuperabundance of it to incite us to its diminution (Nature herself\nimpelling us to do so), yet tears have their delight, as well as laughter;\nand laughter itself is admonished by tears and pain not to be too\nexcessive. Laughter has occasioned death:--tears have saved more than\nlife. The readers, therefore, will not suppose that we intend (supposing\neven that we were able) to _cloy_ them with sweets. We hope that they will\noccasionally look very grave over their honey. We should not be\ndisconcerted, if some bright eyes even shed tears over it.\n\n[Illustration]\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER II.\n\nSICILY, AND ITS MYTHOLOGY.\n\n ISLAND OF SICILY, AND MOUNT \u00c6TNA.--STORIES OF TYPH\u0152US, POLYPHEMUS,\n SCYLLA AND CHARYBDIS, GLAUCUS AND SCYLLA, ALPHEUS AND ARETHUSA, THE\n SIRENS, AND THE RAPE OF PROSERPINE.\n\n\n[Illustration]\n\nAs it is good to have a plan and system in everything, whatever may be the\nmiscellaneousness of its nature, we shall treat of our subjects in\nchronological order, beginning with the mythological times of Sicily, and\nending with its latest modern poet.\n\nSicily is an island in the Mediterranean Sea, at the foot of Italy, about\nhalf the size of England, and inhabited by a population a fifth less than\nthat of London. Its shape is so regularly three-cornered, that Triangle or\nTriple-point (Trinacria) was one of its ancient names. Mount \u00c6tna stands\non the east, in one of these angles. The coast is very rocky and romantic;\nthe interior is a combination of rugged mountains and the loveliest\nplains; and the soil is so fertile in corn as well as other productions,\nthat Sicily has been called the granary of Europe. The inhabitants are\nbadly governed, and there is great poverty among them; but movements have\ntaken place of late years that indicate advancement; and the Sicilians,\nmeantime, have all those helps to endurance (perhaps too many) which\nresult from sprightliness of character, united with complexional\nindolence. They are good-natured but irritable; have more independence of\nspirit than their neighbours the Neapolitans; and are still a pastoral\npeople as of old, making the most of their valleys and their Mount \u00c6tna;\nnot by activity, but by pipe and song, and superstition.\n\nWith this link of their newest and their oldest history we shall begin our\nSicilian memories from the beginning.\n\nDid \u00c6tna exist before the human race? Was it, for ages, a great lonely\nearth-monster, sitting by the sea with his rugged woody shoulders and\nghastly crown; now silent and quiet for centuries, like a basking giant;\nnow roaring to the antediluvian skies; vomiting forth fire and smoke;\ndrivelling with lava; then silent again as before; alternately destroying\nand nourishing the transitory races of analogous gigantic creatures,\nmammoths, and mastodons, which preceded nobler humanity? Was it produced\nall at once by some tremendous burst of earth and ocean?--some convulsion,\nof which the like has never since been known,--perhaps with all Sicily\nhanging at its root: or did it grow, like other earthly productions, by\nits own energies and the accumulations of time? In whatever way it\noriginated, and however the huge wonder may have behaved itself at any\nperiod, quietly or tremendously, nobody can doubt that the creature is a\nbenevolent creature,--one of the securities of the peaceful and profitable\nexistence of the far greater and more mysterious creature rolling in the\nshape of an orb round the sun in midst of its countless like, and carrying\nus all along with it in our respective busy inattentions. We do not\npresume to inquire how the necessity for any such evil mode of good arose.\nSuffice for us, that the evil itself works to a good purpose; that the\nearth, apparently, could not exist without it; that Nature has adorned it\nwith beauty which is another good, with fertility which is another, with\ngrandeur which is another, elevating the mind; and that if human beings\nprefer risking its neighbourhood with all its occasional calamities, to\ngoing and living elsewhere, those calamities are not of its own willing,\nnor of any unavoidable necessity, nor perhaps will exist always. Suppose\n\u00c6tna should some day again be left to its solitude, and people resolve to\nbe burnt and buried alive no longer? What a pilgrimage would the mountain\nbe then! What a thought for the poet and the philosopher! What a visit for\nthose who take delight in the borders of fear and terror, and who would\nlove to interrogate Nature the more for the loneliness of her sanctuary!\n\nThe first modes of organized life which make their appearance in these\nremotest ages of Sicily, are of course fabulous modes,--fabulous, but like\nall fables, symbolical of truth; and what is better than mere truth, of\ntruths poetical. The mythic portion of the history of Sicily is like its\nregion--small, rich, lovely, and terrible. It may be said to consist\nwholly of the stories of Typh\u0153us, of Polyphemus and the Cyclopes, of\nScylla and Charybdis, of the Sirens, of the Rape of Proserpine, of Alpheus\nand Arethusa, of Acis and Galatea--names, which have become music in the\nears of mankind.\n\nWhat! is Typh\u0153us a musical name? and Polyphemus and the Cyclopes? Yes, of\nthe grander sort organ-like; the bass for the treble of the Sirens; the\ngloom and terror, along which floats away, through vine and almond, the\nlovely murmur of Alpheus and Arethusa.\n\nWe shall not explain away these beautiful fables into allegory, physics,\nor any other kind of ungrateful and half-witted prose. They may have had\nthe dullest sources, for aught we know to the contrary, as beautiful\nstreams may have their fountains in the dullest places, or delightful\nchildren unaccountably issue from the dullest progenitors; but there they\nwere of old, in Sicily; and here they are among us to this day; in poets\u2019\nbooks; in painters\u2019 colours; among the delights of every cultivated mind;\ntrue as anything else that is known by its effects; spiritual creatures,\nliving and breathing in the enchanted regions of the imagination. The\npoets took them in hand from infancy, and made them the real and immortal\nthings they are. We shall not deny their analogy with beautiful or grand\noperations in Nature, as long as the mystery and poetry of those\noperations are kept in mind. Typh\u0153us, or Typhon, for instance, may, if the\netymologist pleases, be the _Tifoon_, or Dreadful Wind, of the Eastern\nseas; or he may be the _smoking_ of Mount \u00c6tna (from \u03c4\u03cd\u03c6\u03c9 to smoke); or he\nmay comprehend both meanings in one word, derived from some primitive\nroot; for as long as his cause remains a secret, and his effect is\npoetical, so long the spirit of the mystery may be embodied as imagination\npleases. Suffice for us, that the thing is there, somehow. All that we\nobject to in the natural or supernatural historians of such persons, is\ntheir stopping at mechanical and prosaical causes, and thinking they\nsettle anything.\n\nThis said personage Typh\u0153us is, it must be owned, a tremendous fellow to\nbegin stories with of beautiful Sicily; to put at the head of creations\ncontaining so much loveliness. He was a monster of monsters, brought\nforward by Earth as a last desperate resource in the quarrel of her Giants\nwith the Gods. His stature reached the sky; he had a hundred dragons\u2019\nheads, vomiting flames; and when it pleased him to express his\ndissatisfaction, there issued from these heads the roaring and shrieking\nof a hundred different animals! Jupiter had as hard a task to conquer him\nas Amadis had with the Endriago.[1] A good report of the fight is to be\nfound in Hesiod. Heaven trembled, and earth groaned, and ocean flashed\nwith a ghastly radiance, as they lightened and thundered at one another.\nThe king of the gods at length collected all his deity for one tremendous\neffort, and leaping upon his antagonist with his whole armoury of\nthunders, made his foaming mouth hiss in the blaze; the mountain hollows\nflashed fainter where he lay smitten; the rocks dropped about him like\nmelted lead; and Jupiter tore up the whole island of Sicily, and flung it\nupon him, by way of detainer for ever. One promontory acted as a presser\non one hand; another on another; a third on his legs; and the crater of\nMount \u00c6tna was left him for a spiracle. There he lay in the time of Ovid,\nmaking the cities tremble as he turned; and there he lies still, for all\nthat Brydone, or Smyth, or even Monsieur Gourbillon has proved to the\ncontrary; though scepticism has attained to such a pitch in that quarter,\nthat the only danger in earthquakes is now attributed to people\u2019s not\nbeing quick enough with displaying the veil of Saint Agatha.\n\nCompared with this cloud-capped enormity, our old friend Polyphemus\n(_Many-voice_), the ogre or Fee-Faw-Fum of antiquity, becomes a human\nbeing. He and his one-eyed Cyclopes (_Round-eyes_), are the primitive\ninhabitants of Sicily, before men ploughed and reaped. They kept sheep and\ngoats, and had an eye to business in the cannibal line; though what it was\nthat gave them their name, is not determined; nor is it necessary to\ntrouble the reader with the controversies on that point. Very huge fellows\nthey were, beating Brobdingnagians to nothing. Homer describes Polyphemus\nas looking like a \u201cwoody hill.\u201d He kept Ulysses and his companions in his\ncave to eat them, just as his Oriental counterpart did Sinbad, or as the\ngiants of our childhood proposed to feast on Jack; and when Ulysses put\nout the eye of roaring _Many-voice_ with a firebrand, and got off to sea,\nthe blind monster sent some rocks after the ship, which remain stuck on\nthe coast to this day.\n\nAnd yet, by the magic of love and sympathy, even Polyphemus has been\nrendered pathetic. Theocritus made him so with his poetry; and Handel did\nas much for him in his musical version of the story, especially in those\nexquisite caressing passages between Acis and Galatea, (\u201cThe flocks shall\nleave the mountains,\u201d &c.,) which might fill the most amiable rival with\ntorment. Acis (_Acuteness_) and Galatea (_Milky_)--(we like this\nfairy-tale restitution of the meanings of ancient names, the example of\nwhich was at first set, we believe, by Mr. Keightley)--forgot themselves,\nhowever, too far, when they made love before the very eyes of the\nrival;--not the only instance, we fear, of similar provocation given by\nthe vanity of happy lovers. We regret this ill-breeding the more on\naccount of the monster\u2019s hopelessness; and considering the little patience\nthat was to be expected of him, almost pardon the rock which he sent on\ntheir ecstatic heads.\n\nGay\u2019s verses on this occasion would not have been unworthy of\nTheocritus:--\n\n ACIS AND GALATEA. [_Duet._]\n\n The flocks shall leave the mountains,\n The woods the turtle-dove,\n The nymphs forsake the fountains,\n Ere I forsake my love.\n\n\n POLYPHEMUS. [_Solo._]\n\n Torture! fury! rage! despair!\n I cannot, cannot, cannot bear.\n\n\n ACIS AND GALATEA.\n\n Not showers to larks so pleasing,\n Nor sunshine to the bee;\n Not sleep to toil so easing,\n As those dear smiles to me.\n\n\n POLYPHEMUS HURLS THE ROCK.\n\n Fly swift, thou massy ruin, fly:\n Die, presumptuous Acis, die.\n\nScylla and Charybdis, or Scylla and Glaucus rather, is a far more\nappalling story of jealousy. Scylla properly belongs to the opposite coast\nof Naples; but as she and her fellow-monster Charybdis are usually named\ntogether, and the latter tenanted the Sicilian coast, and the strait\nbetween them was very narrow, she is not to be omitted in Sicilian fable.\nCharybdis (quasi Chalybdis, _Hiding_? though some derive it from two\nwords signifying to \u201cgape\u201d and \u201cabsorb\u201d) was a personage of a very unique\nsort, to wit, a female freebooter; who, having stolen the oxen of\nHercules, was condemned to be a whirlpool, and suck ships into its gulf.\nNevertheless she was a horror not to be compared with Scylla, though the\nlatter was thought less dangerous. Mr. Keightley has so well told this\nstory out of Homer, that we must repeat it in his words:--\n\n\u201cHaving escaped the Sirens, and shunned the Wandering Rocks, which Circe\ntold him lay beyond the mead of these songsters, Odysseus (Ulysses) came\nto the terrific Scylla and Charybdis, between which the goddess had\ninformed him his course lay. She said he would come to two lofty cliffs\nopposite each other, between which he must pass. One of these cliffs\ntowers to such a height, that its summit is for ever enveloped in clouds;\nand no man, even if he had twenty hands and as many feet, could ascend it.\nIn the middle of this cliff, she says, is a cave facing the west, but so\nhigh, that a man in a ship passing under it could not shoot up to it with\na bow. In this den dwells Scylla (_Bitch_), whose voice sounds like that\nof a young whelp: she had twelve feet _and six long necks, with a terrific\nhead, and three rows of close-set teeth on each_. Evermore she _stretches\nout these necks_ and catches the porpoises, sea-dogs, and other large\nanimals of the sea, which swim by, and out of every ship that passes\n_each mouth takes a man_.\n\n\u201cThe opposite rock, the goddess informs him, is much lower, for a man\ncould shoot over it. A wild fig-tree grows on it, stretching his branches\ndown to the water: but beneath, \u2018divine Charybdis\u2019 three times each day\nabsorbs and regorges the dark water. It is much more dangerous, she adds,\nto pass Charybdis than Scylla.\n\n\u201cAs Odysseus sailed by, Scylla took _six of his crew_; and when, after he\nhad lost his ship and companions, he was carried by wind and wave, as he\nfloated on a part of the wreck, between the monsters, the mast by which he\nsupported himself was sucked in by Charybdis. He held by the fig-tree,\ntill it was thrown out again, and resumed his voyage.\u201d--_Mythology of\nAncient Greece and Italy._ Sec. edit., p. 271.\n\nIt has been thought by some, that by the word Scylla is meant the bitch of\nthe sea-dog, or seal--a creature often found on this coast. Be this as it\nmay (and the seal having a more human look than the dog, might suggest a\nmore frightful image, to say nothing of its being more appropriate to the\nwater), who was Scylla? and how came she to be this tremendous monster?\nFrom the jealousy of Circe. Scylla was originally a beautiful maiden, fond\nof the company of the sea-nymphs; and Glaucus (_Sea-green_), a god of the\nsea, was in love with her. She did not like him; and Glaucus applied to\nCirce for help, from her skill in magic. Circe fell in love with the\nlover, and being enraged with the attractions that made him refuse her,\npoisoned the water in which Scylla bathed. The result was the conversion\nof the beauty\u2019s lower limbs into a set of barking dogs. The dogs became\npart of her; and when in her horror she thought to drive them back, she\nfound herself \u201chauling\u201d them along--one creature, says Ovid, hauling many:\n\n Quos fugit, attrahit una.--_Metam._ xiv. v. 63.\n\nThis is very dreadful. Yet Homer\u2019s creature is more so. Scylla\u2019s\nproceedings, in the _Odyssey_, exactly resemble the accounts which\nmariners have given of a huge sea-polypus--a cousin of the kraken, or\nsea-serpent--who thrusts its gigantic feelers over the deck of an\nunsuspecting ship, and carries off seamen. There is a picture of it in one\nof the editions of Buffon. But the dog-like barking, and the terrific head\nand teeth, to which the imagination gives something of a human aspect,\nleave the advantage of the horrible still on the side of the poet.\n\nAn old English poet, Lodge, at a time when our earliest dramatists, who\nwere university men, had set the example of a love of classical fable,\nwrote a poem on _Glaucus and Scylla_, in which there are passages of the\nloveliest beauty; though it was spoilt, as a whole, with conceits. In\ndescribing the nymph\u2019s yellow hair, he makes use of a Sicilian image, very\nfit for our Blue Jar:--\n\n Her hair, not truss\u2019d, but scatter\u2019d on her brow,\n Surpassing Hybla\u2019s honey.\n\nWe are to suppose it lying in sunny flakes. Lodge, though he was an Oxford\nman, or perhaps for that reason, has curiously mixed up Paganism and\nChristianity in Glaucus\u2019s complaint of his mistress: but the second verse\nis fine, and the last truly lover-like and touching:--\n\n Alas, sweet nymphs, my godhead\u2019s all in vain;\n For why? _this breast includes immortal pain_.\n\n Scylla hath eyes, but two sweet eyes hath Scylla;\n Scylla hath hands, fair hands, but coy in touching:\n Scylla in wit surpasseth grave Sibylla:\n\n(This is the Sibyl of \u00c6neas)\n\n Scylla hath words, but words well-stored with grutching;\n Scylla, a saint in look, no saint in scorning,\n _Look saint-like, Scylla, lest I die with mourning_.\n\nThe modulation and antithetical turn of these verses will remind the\nreader not only of Lodge\u2019s friends, Peele and Greene, who had both a fine\near for music, but of Shakspeare\u2019s first production, _Venus and Adonis_,\nin which he exhibited that fondness for classical fable which never\nforsook him. It is remarkable indeed, that the old English poets, and\nthose true successors of theirs whom we have seen in our own time, have\nbeen almost more Greek in this respect than the Greeks themselves. Spenser\nwas half made up of it; Milton could not help introducing it in _Paradise\nLost_; and it was rescued from the degradation it underwent in the French\nschool of poetry, with its cant about the \u201cPaphian bower,\u201d and its\nidentifications of Venus and Chloe, by the inspired Muse of Keats. The\nyoung English poet has told the present story in his _Endymion_, though\nnot in his best manner, except where he speaks of Circe; of the\ninflictions of whose sorcery he gives a scene of the finest and most\nappalling description:--\n\n _A sight too fearful for the feel of fear._--\n In thicket hid--\n\n(It is Glaucus who is speaking, and whom the poet represents as having\nbeen beguiled into Circe\u2019s love)--\n\n In thicket hid I curs\u2019d _the haggard scene_--\n The banquet of my arms, my arbour queen,\n Seated upon an uptorn forest root,\n And all around her shapes, wizard and brute,\n _Laughing and wailing_, grovelling, serpenting.\n _Fierce, wan,\n And tyrannizing was the lady\u2019s look_,\n As over them a gnarled staff she shook.\n\nThe look of a sorceress, full of bad passions, was never painted more\nstrongly than in the meeting of those epithets, \u201cwan and tyrannizing;\u201d\nand the word \u201clady\u201d makes the fierceness more shocking.\n\nBut Keats had not the heart to make the love-part of the story end\nunhappily, much less to endure the brutification of the lovely limbs of\nScylla. He revived her to be put into a Lovers\u2019 Elysium. So, in telling\nthe story of Alpheus and Arethusa, he will not let Arethusa reject Alpheus\nwillingly. He makes her lament the necessity as one of the train of Diana;\nand leaves us to conclude that the lovers became happy. It would hardly be\nnecessary to tell any reader (only it is as pleasant to repeat these\nstories, as it is to hear beautiful old airs) that Alpheus was a river-god\nof Greece, who fell in love with the wood-nymph Arethuse; and that the\nlatter, praying for help to Diana, was converted into a stream, and\npursued under land and _sea_ by the other enamoured water, as far as the\nisland of Sicily, where the streams became united. The strangeness of the\nadventure, and the beauty of the names, have made everybody in love with\nthe story. All the world knows how \u201cdivine Alpheus,\u201d as Milton says--\n\n Stole under seas to meet his Arethuse;\n\nor rather they all knew the _fact_; but the _how_, or manner of it, was a\npuzzle, till Keats related the adventure as it was witnessed by Endymion\nin a grotto under the sea. The lover of the Moon suddenly heard strange\ndistant echoes, which seemed--\n\n The ghosts, the dying swells\n Of noises far away--hist!--Hereupon\n He kept an anxious ear. The humming tone\n Came louder; and behold! there, as he lay,\n On either side out-gush\u2019d, with misty spray,\n A copious spring; and both together dash\u2019d\n Swift, mad, fantastic round the rocks, and lash\u2019d\n Among the conchs and shells of the lofty grot,\n Leaving a trickling dew.\n\n(These are the two living streams, one in pursuit of the other.)\n\n At last they shot\n Down from the ceiling\u2019s height, pouring a noise\n As of some breathless racers, whose hopes poise\n Upon the last few steps, and with spent force\n Along the ground they took a winding course.\n Endymion follow\u2019d, for it seem\u2019d that one\n Ever pursued, the other strove to shun.\n\nAfter a while, he hears a whispering dialogue, in which the female voice\nshows plainly enough, that the speaker would stay if she might; but\nsuddenly the severe face of Diana is before her, and in an instant\n\n Fell\n Those two sad streams adown a fearful dell;\n\nand Endymion puts up a prayer for their escape.\n\nWhen the writer of the present book was in Italy, he saw on a mantelpiece\na card inscribed, _Le Marquis de Retuse_. This was the Frenchified\ndenomination of a Sicilian nobleman, who, strangely combining Greek and\nGothic in his title, was no less a personage than the _Marquis of\nArethusa_! He was proprietor of the spot where the fountain exists under\nits old name, though, according to travellers, deplorably altered; for it\nhas become, says one of them, the public \u201cwashtub!\u201d It is the Syracusan\nlaundry. Divers, he informs us, are the jokes cracked on the \u201cnymphs\u201d that\nnow attend it. Some critics are of opinion, that such were the \u201conly\nnymphs\u201d that ever existed; and they are very merry over the fallen\ncondition of the once exquisite Arethusa. Poor devils! taking pains to\nvulgarize their perceptions, and diminish the amount of grace and joy. As\nif Arethusa, like themselves, were at the mercy of a homely association;\nor all that had been written about her was no better than their own\naccount with the laundress! They flatter themselves. They leave her just\nwhere she was--everywhere, and immortal. It may not be very pleasant to\nlook for a poetic fountain, and find a laundry; but the imagination is a\npoor one indeed, which is to be overwhelmed by it. The nymphs of minds\nlike these could never have been very different from laundresses, if the\ntruth were known; or, at the utmost, of little higher stock than such as\nlaundresses and milliners are the making of.\n\nThere are two things, we confess, about the _Sirens_, that perplex us. In\nthe first place, we never found anything particularly attractive in the\nsongs attributed to them, not even by Homer; and secondly, we are too much\nin the secret of their deformity. We know that they were ghastly monsters,\nbird-harpies with women\u2019s heads, and surrounded with human bones; and the\nconsequence is, we can never find them in the least degree enticing. It is\nto no purpose that they combine stringed with wind instruments, and a\nvoice crowning all. One of them may call herself _Fair-Goddess_\n(Leucothea), and another _Fine-voice_ (Ligeia), and the third\n_Maiden-face_ (Parthenope). We know all about them, and are not to be\ntaken in. It would require a dream as horrible as Coleridge\u2019s _Pains of\nSleep_ to bring our antipathy into any communication with them--to make us\nwalk in our sleep towards their quarter:--\n\n Desire with loathing strangely mix\u2019d,\n On wild and hateful objects fix\u2019d;\n Fantastic passions, maddening brawl,\n And shame and terror over all.\n\nWhen the modern poets turned the Sirens into mermaids, they vastly\nimproved the breed. A woman, we grant, who is half a fish, is not a\ndesideratum; but she is better than a great human-faced bird hopping\nabout; and besides, the conformation of the creatures being thus altered,\nwe are not so sure they will do us harm, especially as the poets treat\nthem with comparative respect, sometimes even with tenderness. The names\nabove mentioned acquire a double elegance in the adjurations of the Spirit\nin _Comus_:--\n\n By Thetis\u2019 tinsel-slipper\u2019d feet,\n And the songs of Sirens sweet,\n By dead Parthenope\u2019s dear tomb,\n And fair Ligeia\u2019s golden comb,\n Wherewith she sits on diamond rocks,\n _Sleeking her soft alluring locks_.\n\nThese alluring locks come home to us. We have seen such at our elbows, and\ncan hear the comb passing through them.\n\nSpenser increased the number of the Sirens to five, and expressly\ndesignated them as mermaids:--\n\n And now they nigh approached to the stead\n Whereas those mermaids dwelt. It was a still\n _And calmy bay_, on th\u2019 one side sheltered\n _With the broad shadow of an hoary hill_;\n On th\u2019 other side an high rock towered still,\n That \u2019twixt them both a pleasant port they made,\n And did like an half theatre fulfil.\n There those five sisters had continual trade,\n _And used to bathe themselves in that deceiptful shade_.\n --_Fairy Queen_, book ii. canto 12.\n\nThis line is so soft and gently drawn out, and the place so sweet and\nnatural, that when Sirens like these begin to sing, we really feel in\ndanger. We do not wonder that the poet\u2019s hero desired his boatman to\n\n Row easily,\n And let him hear some part of their rare melody.\n\n[Illustration]\n\nWe have kept the most beautiful of the Sicilian mythic stories to conclude\nwith: for such, doubtless, is the _Rape of Proserpine_. It is full of the\nmost striking contrasts of grandeur and beauty. Both heaven and hell are\nin it--the freshest vernal airs, with the depths of Tartarus; and the\nhearts of a mother and daughter beat through all. It is a tale at once of\nthe wildest preternaturalism and the most familiar domestic tenderness.\nThe daughter of Ceres is gathering flowers, with other damsels of her own\nage, in the Vale of Enna, intent upon nothing but seeing who shall get\nthe finest. Suddenly, in the midst of the violets and jonquils, there is\nan earthquake: a noise is heard like the coming of a thousand chariots;\nthe earth bursts open; and a rapid, majestic figure appears, like a\nswarthy Jupiter, who, sweeping by Proserpine, whirls her away with him\ninto his car, and prepares to rush down through another opening. Of all\nher attendants, the nymph Cyane alone has the courage to bid him stop, and\nask him why he dares take away the daughter of Ceres. He makes no answer,\nbut, knitting his brows like thunderbolts, smites the fountain over which\nshe presided with his iron mace, and dashes down through it with his prey.\nIt is the King of Hell himself, tired of celibacy, and resolved to have\nthe fairest creature on earth for his wife.\n\nThe cries of Proserpine become fainter as the earth closes over them; but\nthey have been heard by Ceres herself, who comes, with all the speed of a\ndivine being, to see what is the matter. She can discern nothing; the\ntranquillity of the scene is restored; Cyane has melted away in tears. The\ngoddess seeks everywhere in vain. She travels by day and by night, lit by\ntwo flaming pines from Mount \u00c6tna. At length she learns who has got her\nchild; and, by the intervention of Jupiter, Proserpine is allowed to come\nto earth and see her. The mother and daughter are half drowned in tears,\nhalf absorbed in delight, and Jupiter would prevent their separation, but\nis not able; for Proserpine has eaten of a fatal fruit, compulsory of her\ncontinuance with Pluto; and all that can be done, is to stipulate for her\nbeing half a year with her mother, on condition of her being a good wife\nduring the other half. Ceres makes a virtue of the necessity, seeing that\nher daughter is married to the brother of Jove; and Proserpine is content\nto divide the throne of Tartarus, and walk in gardens of her own,\nsplendid, though subterraneous.\n\nThe ancient poets made these gardens consist of all the flowers which she\nhad been accustomed to gather in Sicily; but modern imagination, which\n(with leave be it said) is still finer than theirs, and sees beauty beyond\nits ordinary manifestation in the fitness of things, and in the balance of\ngood and evil, has told us, through the inspired medium of Spenser, that\nthe garden was such a garden as might have been expected from \u201cthe\ngrandeur of the glooms\u201d in those lower regions:--\n\n There mournful cypress grew in greatest store,\n And trees of bitter gall, and ebon sad,\n Deep-sleeping poppy, and black hellebore,\n Cold coloquintida, and tetra _mad_,\n Mortal samnitis, and cicuta bad,\n With which the unjust Athenians made to die\n Wise Socrates, who thereof quaffing glad\n _Pour\u2019d out his life and last philosophy_\n To the fair Critias, his dearest belamy.\n The Garden of Pros\u00e8rpina this hight;\n And in the midst thereof _a silver seat_,\n With a thick arbour goodly overdight,\n In which she often used from open heat\n Herself to shroud, and pleasures to entreat;\n Next thereunto did grow a goodly tree,\n With branches broad dispread, and body great,\n Clothed with leaves, that none the fruit might see,\n And loaden all with fruit as thick as it might be.\n\n Their fruit were golden apples, glistering bright.\n --_Fairy Queen_, book ii. canto 7.\n\nHere we see, that Proserpine enjoyed herself in the lower regions, though\namong flowers of a different kind from those to which she had been\naccustomed. She became used to the place, and found pleasures even in\nTartarus. And reasonably. First, because she needed them; and in the\nsecond place, because she knew there was good as well as evil there, and\nthat the evil itself contained good. The hemlock was \u201cbad,\u201d inasmuch as it\nkilled Socrates, but it was good, also, for many a medicinal cup.\n\u201cDeep-sleeping poppy\u201d was a very kindly fellow, if properly treated; and\nall the flowers, after their kind, were full of beauty. Flowers cannot\nhelp being beautiful. Then there was the Silver Seat and the Golden Tree;\nand it is manifest, that the summer sun used to come there through some\nunknown ravine, to say nothing of Wordsworth\u2019s\n\n Calm pleasures and majestic pains.\n\nWe do not, to be sure, see what good Tantalus\u2019s eternal thirst could have\nbeen to him, or the everlasting wheel to Ixion; but, probably, on coming\nup to those gentlemen, we should have found they were visions, put there\nto make us \u201csnatch a fearful joy\u201d at thinking we were not among them in\n_propri\u00e2 person\u00e2_.\n\nAnd so we take leave of the beautiful ancient fables of Sicily, having\nfound honey for our Jar even in the fields of Pluto.\n\n[Illustration]\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER III.\n\nGLANCES AT ANCIENT SICILIAN HISTORY AND BIOGRAPHY.\n\n VICISSITUDES OF SICILIAN GOVERNMENT.--GLANCES AT PHALARIS,\n STESICHORUS, EMPEDOCLES, HIERO I., SIMONIDES, EPICHARMUS, DIONYSIUS\n I., DAMON AND PYTHIAS, DAMOCLES, DIONYSIUS II., DION, PLATO,\n AGATHOCLES, HANNIBAL, HIERO II., THEOCRITUS, ARCHIMEDES, MARCELLUS,\n VERRES; AND PARTICULARS RELATING TO GELLIAS.\n\n\n[Illustration]\n\nSicily being one of those small, beautiful, and abundant countries which\nexcite the cupidity of larger ones, has had as many foreign masters as the\npoor Princess of Babylon in Boccaccio, who, on her way to be married to\nthe King of Colchos, fell into the hands of nine husbands. First, in all\nprobability, came subjugators from the Italian continent; then Ph\u0153nicians,\nor commercial invaders; then, undoubtedly, Greeks; then Carthaginians;\nthen Romans, Goths, Saracens, Normans, Germans, Frenchmen, Spaniards,\nGallo-Spaniards, Frenchmen again, Gallo-Spaniards again; and in the\npossession of these last it remains. Under the Greeks, its cities grew\ninto powerful independent states. Syracuse was once twenty-two miles in\ncircumference. The most prominent names in the ancient history of Sicily\nare touched upon in the following list.\n\nPhalaris, tyrant of Agrigentum, who roasted people in a brazen bull, in\nwhich he was ultimately made to roar himself. That is to say, if the bull\nbe true. For the reign of this prince was at so remote a period, and the\nexcitement of exaggeration is so tempting, that the sight of the bull in\nafter times proves no more than was proved by the brazen wolf of Romulus\nand Remus. The age of Phalaris was that of the Prophet Daniel.\n\nStesichorus, a majestic lyrical poet, in one of whose fragments is to be\nfound the beautiful fiction of the Golden Boat of the Sun. The Sun-God\nsails in it, invisibly, round the Northern Sea in the night-time, so as\nto be ready to re-appear in the East in the morning.\n\nEmpedocles, the Pythagorean philosopher. He is accused of leaping into\n\u00c6tna, in the hope of being supernaturally missed, and so taken for a\ngod--a project betrayed by the ejection of one of his brazen sandals. But\na philosopher may perish by a volcano, as Pliny did, without giving envy a\nright to make him a laughing-stock.\n\nHiero the First, of Syracuse; a bad prince, but a possessor of good horses\nand charioteers; for whose victories in the Olympic games his name has\nbecome celebrated by means of Pindar. Hiero is the great name in the\nRacing Calendar of antiquity.\n\nSimonides, the elegiac poet. He was a native of Ceos, but lived much, and\ndied in Sicily, where he was a great favourite. His repeated delays and\nfinal answer to Hiero, when desired to give a definition of the Deity,\nhave been deservedly celebrated, and are a lesson to presumption for all\ntime. He first requested a day to consider; then two more days; then\ndoubled and redoubled the number; till the king, demanding the reason of\nthis conduct, was told by the poet that \u201cthe longer he considered the\nquestion, the more impossible he found it to answer.\u201d\n\nEpicharmus, the supposed founder of comedy. He was a great philosopher as\nwell as poet, and furnished no little matter to Plato. He died at ninety,\nsome say at ninety-seven, a longevity attributable to the moderation of\nhis way of life, and the serenity of his temper. He says in one of his\nfragments:--\n\n A darling and a grace is Peace of Mind;\n She lives next door to Temperance.\n\nDionysius, tyrant of Syracuse (the Elder). He wrote bad verses; slept in a\nbed with a trench round it and a drawbridge; and, for fear of a barber,\nburnt away his beard with hot walnut-shells. What a razor! Dionysius had\nabilities enough to become the more hateful for his capricious and\ndetestable qualities. Probably he had a spice of madness in him, which\npower exasperated. Ariosto has turned him to fine account in his\npersonification of Suspicion.\n\nDamon and Pythias, the famous friends. One of them became surety to\nDionysius for the other\u2019s appearance at the scaffold, and was not\ndisappointed. Dionysius begged to be admitted a third in the\npartnership!--the most ridiculous thing, perhaps, that even the tyrant\never did.\n\nDamocles, the courtly gentleman, who pronounced Dionysius the happiest man\non earth. He was treated by his master to a \u201cproof of the pudding\u201d which\ntyrants eat. He sat crowned at the head of a luxurious banquet, in the\nmidst of odours, music, and homage; and saw, suspended by a hair over his\nhead, a naked sword. This, it must be confessed, was a happy thought of\nthe royal poet--a practical epigram of the very finest point.\n\nDionysius, tyrant of Syracuse (the Younger), who, on his ejection from the\nthrone, is said to have become a schoolmaster at Corinth; \u201cin order,\u201d says\nCicero, \u201cthat he might still be a scourger somehow.\u201d\n\nDion, his relation, and Timoleon of Corinth, the great but unhappy\nfratricide; both of whom advanced the liberties of Syracuse.\n\nPlato; who visited both the Dionysiuses, to induce them to become\nphilosophers! He might as well have asked tigers in a sheepfold to prefer\na dish of green pease.\n\nAgathocles the Potter, tyrant of the whole island; who piqued himself on\noutdoing the cruelties of Phalaris. His objection to the brazen bull was,\nthat you could not see the face of the person tortured; so he invented a\nhollow iron man with an open visor, in order that he might contemplate the\nface of the occupant, while heating over a slow fire. But let us hope the\nstory is not true; for, though things as horrible have taken place in the\nworld, the wicked themselves have been calumniated.\n\nHannibal, during the Punic wars. You see him, at this period of time,\nlooming in the distance over every other object, and standing in Sicily\nlike a great visiting giant. He is accounted, we believe, on military\nauthority, the greatest captain that ever lived. So different is success\nin art from prosperity in fortune.\n\nHiero the Second, of Syracuse. A prudent and popular ally of the Romans.\nHe showed no great favour to Theocritus. He built a huge toy-ship, in\nwhich were gardens, a wrestling-ground, rooms full of pictures and\nstatues, floors with subjects from Homer painted in mosaic, and eight\nfortified towers! We should like to know what Tom Bowling would have said\nto it. When it was completed, it was found that there was no harbour in\nSicily fit to receive it; so the king sent it as a present to Ptolemy\nPhiladelphus of Egypt.\n\nTheocritus, the great pastoral and miscellaneous poet, for pastoral was\nnot his only, or his highest excellence. Circumstances appear to have made\na present of _him_ also, as well as the ship, to King Ptolemy; for Hiero\nneglected, and Philadelphus patronised him.\n\nArchimedes, kinsman of Hiero. His wonderful mechanical inventions are\namong the daily instruments of utility all over the world. The Romans were\nobliged to suspend their operations against Syracuse, solely by the terror\nhe occasioned them with his cranes that lifted their ships, and his\nglasses that burnt them. When the city was taken, orders were given to\nspare the great man, and bring him before the Roman general, that he might\nbe duly honoured; but a stupid soldier unwittingly despatched him,\nprovoked at having been requested to wait while the philosopher finished a\nproblem. The problem part of the story is not very likely. Sir Isaac\nNewton carried abstraction far enough, when he forgot that he had eaten\nhis dinner, or when he used a lady\u2019s finger for a tobacco-stopper; but an\nengineer forgetting his own city while it was being taken by storm and\nhowling about his ears, seems a little too hard a sample of it.\n\nMarcellus, the Roman general on this occasion. His eyes are said to have\nfilled with tears at the thought of all that was going to happen to the\nconquered city. He was the first successful opposer of Hannibal. When\nreproached for carrying off paintings and other works of art from Sicily,\nhe said he did it to refine the minds of his countrymen. His tears render\nevery anecdote of him precious to posterity.\n\nVerres, one of the governors of Sicily while it was a Roman\nprovince;--infamous for the tyranny and effrontery of his extortions, even\nif but half of what Cicero said of him was true: for we must confess that\nwe seldom believe more of what is told us by that illustrious talker;\nespecially as he warns us against himself, by contradicting in one passage\nwhat he says in another. _Vide_ his recommendations of people in his\nletters, and his discommendations of them in other letters, privately sent\nat the same time. Also, his vituperations and panegyrics of the same\nindividuals concerned in the civil wars, just as it suited him to condemn\nor to court them; to say nothing of his divorces and weddings for\ninterest\u2019s sake. We have said the more of him in this place because he\ntoo, at one time, held the office of governor in Sicily, where he\ndiscovered the tomb of Archimedes--a memorial, alas! forgotten by the\nphilosopher\u2019s countrymen in less than a century and a half after his\ndeath! They wanted to \u201cstand out\u201d Cicero, that there was no such thing.\nHowever, they had not forgotten Theocritus. The greatest mechanical movers\nof the earth affect the imagination less than they ought to do, and the\nheart not at all. The lever and the screw, as the steam-engine will,\nbecome homely commonplaces; whereas love and song, and the beauties of\nNature, are sought with transport, like holidays after business.\n\nThe names thus enumerated (for little or no interest attends the Goth and\nVandal portion of the history of this island), may be said to point to all\nthe characters of any importance in Sicilian antiquity, one only\nexcepted. This individual we have kept to the last, though he was little\nmore than a private person, and is not at all famous. But we have a\nspecial regard for him; far more indeed, than for most of those who have\nbeen mentioned; and we think that such of our readers as are not already\nacquainted with him, will have one too; for he was of that tip-top class\nof human beings called _Good Fellows_, and a very prince of the race. What\nrenders him a still better fellow than he might otherwise have been, and\ndoubles his heroical qualities in discerning eyes, is, that he was but an\ninsignificant little body to look at, and not very well shaped;--a\nmannikin, in short, that Sir Godfrey Kneller\u2019s nephew, the slave-trader,\nwho rated the painter and his friend Pope at less than \u201cten guineas\u2019\u201d\nworth \u201cthe pair,\u201d would probably not have valued at more than two pounds\nfive.\n\nThe name of this great unknown was Gellias, and you must search into\nby-corners, even of Sicilian history, to find anything about him; but he\nwas just the man for our Jar;--sweet as the honey that Samson found in the\njaws of the lion.\n\nGellias was the richest man in the rich city of Agrigentum. The\nAgrigentines, according to a saying of their countryman Empedocles, were\nfamous for \u201cbuilding as if they were to live for ever, and feasting as if\nthey were to die next day.\u201d But they were as good-natured and hospitable\nas they were festive; and Gellias, in accordance with the superiority of\nhis circumstances, was the most good-natured and hospitable of them all.\nHis magnificence resembled that of a Barmecide. Slaves were stationed at\nthe gates of his noble mansion to invite strangers to enter. His cellar\nhad three hundred reservoirs cut in the solid rock, each containing seven\nhundred gallons of wine at their service. One day five hundred horsemen\nhalted at his door, who had been overtaken by a storm. He lodged and\nentertained them all; and, by way of dry clothes, made each man a present\nof a new tunic and robe.\n\nHis wit appears to have been as ready as it was pungent. He was sent\nambassador on some occasion to the people of Centauripa, a place at the\nfoot of Mount \u00c6tna. When he rose in the assembly to address them, his poor\nlittle figure made so ridiculous a contrast with his mission, that they\nburst into fits of laughter. Gellias waited his time, and then requested\nthem not to be astonished;--\u201cfor,\u201d said he, \u201cit is the custom with\nAgrigentum to suit the ambassador to his locality; to send noble-looking\npersons to great cities, and insignificant ones to the insignificant.\u201d\n\nThe combined magnanimity and address of this sarcasm are not to be\nsurpassed. Ambassadors are privileged people; but they have not always\nbeen spared by irritated multitudes; yet our hero did not hesitate to turn\nthe ridicule of the Centauripans on themselves. He \u201cshowed up\u201d the\nsmallness of their pretensions, both as a community and as observers. He\ndid not blink the fact of his own bodily insignificance--too sore a point\nwith little people in general, notwithstanding the fact that many of the\ngreatest spirits of the world have resided in frames as petty. He made it\nthe very ground for exposing the still smaller pretensions of the souls\nand understandings of his deriders. Or, supposing that he said it with a\ngood-humoured smile,--with an air of rebuke to their better sense,--still\nthe address was as great, and the magnanimity as candid. He not only took\nthe \u201cbull by the horns,\u201d but turned it with his mighty little hands into a\nweapon of triumph. Such a man, insignificant as his general exterior may\nhave been, must, after all, have had something fine in some part of\nit--something great in some part of its expression; probably fine eyes,\nand a smile full of benignity.\n\nGellias proved that his soul was of the noblest order, not only by a\nprincely life, but by the heroical nature of his death. Agrigentum lay on\nthe coast opposite Carthage. It had been a flourishing place, partly by\nreason of its commerce with that city; but was at last insulted by it and\nsubdued. Most of the inhabitants fled. Among those who remained was\nGellias. He fancied that his great wealth, and his renown for hospitality,\nwould procure him decent treatment. Finding, however, that the least to be\nexpected of the enemy was captivity, he set fire to a temple into which he\nhad conveyed his wealth, and perished with it in the flames; thus, says\nStolberg, at once preventing \u201cthe profanation of the place, the enriching\nof the foe, and the disgrace of slavery.\u201d\n\nThere ought to be a book devoted to the history of those whose reputations\nhave not received their due. It would make a curious volume. It would be\nold in the materials, novel in the interest, and of equal delight and use.\nIt is a startling reflection, that while men, such as this Gellias, must\nbe dug up from the by-ways of history, its high-road is three-parts full\nof people who would never have been heard of, but for accidents of time\nand place. Take, for instance, the majority of the Roman emperors, of\nthose of Germany, of the turbulent old French noblesse, and indeed of\nthree-fourths, perhaps nine-tenths, of historical names all over the\nworld. The reflection, nevertheless, suggests one of a more consolatory\nkind, namely, that genius and great qualities are not the only things to\nbe considered in this world;--that commonplace also has its right to be\nheard; common affections and common wants;--ay, the more in the latter\ncase, because they are common. The worst of it is, that commonplace in\npower is not fond of allowing this right to its brother commonplace out of\nit. The progress of knowledge, however, tends to a greater impartiality;\nand the consideration of this fact must be the honey, meantime, to many a\nbitter thought.\n\n[Illustration]\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER IV.\n\nTHEOCRITUS.\n\n PASTORAL POETRY.--SPECIMENS OF THE STRENGTH AND COMIC HUMOUR OF\n THEOCRITUS--THE PRIZE-FIGHT BETWEEN POLLUX AND AMYCUS--THE SYRACUSAN\n GOSSIPS.\n\n\n[Illustration]\n\nPastoral poetry is supposed to have originated in Sicily, at one and the\nsame time with comedy. At all events, it was perfected there. Comedy is\nunderstood to have been suggested by the licence with which it was the\ncustom for peasants to rail at passengers, and at one another, during the\njollity of the vintage; and pastoral poetry was at first nothing but the\nmore rustical part of comedy. Its great master, Theocritus, arose during a\nperiod of refinement; and being a man of a universal genius, with a\nparticular regard for the country, perfected this homelier kind of\npastoral, and at the same time anticipated all the others. His single\nscenes are the germ of the pastoral drama. He is as clownish as Gay, as\ndomestic as Allan Ramsay, as elegant as Virgil and Tasso, and (with the\nallowance for the difference between ancient and modern imagination) as\npoetical as Fletcher; and in passion he beats them all. In no other\npastoral poetry is there anything to equal his _Polyphemus_.\n\nThe world has long been sensible of this superiority. But, in one respect,\neven the world has not yet done justice to Theocritus. The world, indeed,\ntakes a long time, or must have a twofold blow given it as manifest and\nsustained as Shakspeare\u2019s to entertain two ideas at once respecting\nanybody. It has been said of wit, that it indisposes people to admit a\nserious claim on the part of its possessor; and pastoral poetry subjects a\nman to the like injustice, by reason of its humble modes of life, and its\ngentle scenery. People suppose that he can handle nothing stronger than a\ncrook. They should read Theocritus\u2019s account of Hercules slaying the lion,\nor of the \u201cstand-up fight,\u201d the regular and tremendous \u201cset-to,\u201d between\nPollux and Amycus. The best Moulsey-Hurst business was a feather to it.\nTheocritus was a son of \u00c6tna--all peace and luxuriance in ordinary, all\nfire and wasting fury when he chose it. He was a genius equally potent and\nuniversal; and it is a thousand pities that unknown circumstances in his\nlife hindered him from completing the gigantic fragments, which seem to\nhave been portions of some intended great work on the deeds of Hercules,\nperhaps on the Argonautic Expedition. He has given us Hercules and the\nSerpents, Hercules and Hylas, Hercules and the Lion, and the pugilistical\ncontest of the demigod\u2019s kinsman with a barbarian; and the epithalamium of\ntheir relation Helen may have been designed as a portion of the same\nmultifarious poem--an anticipation of the romance of modern times, and of\nthe glory of Ariosto. What a loss![2]\n\nIn the poem on the _Prize-fight_ (for such is really the subject, the\nprize being the vanquished man), Pollux, the demigod, one of the sons of\nLeda by Jupiter, goes to shore from the ship Argo, with his brother\nCastor, to get some water. They arrive at a beautiful fountain in a wood,\nby the side of which is sitting a huge overbearing-looking fellow (\u1f00\u03bd\u1f74\u03c1\n\u1f51\u03c0\u03ad\u03c1\u03bf\u03c0\u03bb\u03bf\u03c2, man presuming on his strength), who returns their salutation\nwith insolence. The following, without any great violence to the letter of\nthe ancient dialogue, may be taken as a sample of its spirit. The ruffian\nis addressed by Pollux:--\n\n THE PRIZE-FIGHT BETWEEN POLLUX AND AMYCUS.\n\n POLLUX. Good day, friend. What sort of people, pray, live hereabouts?\n\n RUFFIAN. I see no good day when I see strangers.\n\n P. Don\u2019t be disturbed. We are honest people who ask the question, and\n come of an honest stock.\n\n R. I\u2019m not disturbed at all, and don\u2019t require to learn it from such\n as you.\n\n P. You\u2019re an ill-mannered, insolent clown.\n\n R. I\u2019m such as you see me. I never came meddling with you in your\n country.\n\n P. (_good-humouredly._) Come and meddle, and we\u2019ll help you to a\n little hospitality to take home with you.\n\n R. Keep it to yourselves: I neither give nor take.\n\n P. (_smiling._) Well, my good friend, may we have a taste of your\n spring?\n\n R. Ask your throats when they\u2019re dry.\n\n P. Come, what\u2019s your demand for it? What are we to pay?\n\n R. Hands up, and man against man.\n\n P. What, a fight; or is it to be a kicking-match?\n\n R. A fight; and I would advise you to look about you.\n\n P. I do, and can\u2019t even see my antagonist.\n\n R. Here he sits. You\u2019ll find me no woman, I can tell you.\n\n P. Good; and what are we to fight for? What\u2019s the prize?\n\n R. Submission. If you win, I\u2019m to be at your service; and if I win,\n you\u2019re to be at mine.\n\n P. Why, those are the terms of cocks upon dunghills.\n\n R. Cocks or lions, those are my terms, and you\u2019ll have the water on no\n other.\n\nWith these words, Amycus (for it was he--a son of Neptune--and the\ngreatest pugilist but one, then known in the world) blew a blast on a\nshell, and a multitude of long-haired Bebrycians (his countrymen) came\npouring in about the plane-tree, under which he had been sitting. Castor\nwent and called his brother shipmates out of the Argo, and the combatants,\nputting on their gauntlets, faced one another, and set to.\n\n\nROUND THE FIRST.\n\nThe contest began by trying to see which of the two should get the sun in\nhis rear. Pollux obtained this advantage over the big man by dint of his\nwit (for though a demigod himself, he was less in bulk). The giant,\nfinding the sun full on his face, pushed forward in a rage; and striking\nout further than he intended, laid himself open to a blow on the chin.\nThis enraged him the more; and pushing still forward, he hung in a manner\nover his enemy, thinking with his huge body to bear him down. His people\nencouraged the project with a great shout; and the Argonauts, not to be\nbehindhand, gave their champion another; for, in truth, they were not\nwithout apprehensions as to the result, seeing how enormous the body was.\nBut the son of Jove slipped hither and thither, lacerating him all the\nwhile with double quick blows, and thus repulsing the endeavour. Amycus\nwas compelled fairly to hold himself up as well as he could, for he was\ndrunk with blows, and so he stood, vomiting blood. The noise of voices\narose on all sides from the spectators, for his face was a mass of ulcers;\nand it was so swollen that you could hardly see his eyes. The son of Jove\nkept him still in a state of confusion, forcing him to waste his strength\nand spirits by striking out hither and thither to no purpose. At last, on\nseeing him about to lose his senses, he planted a final blow on the top of\nhis nose, betwixt the eyebrows, and the giant fell at his length on the\ngrass, with his face upwards.\n\n\nROUND THE SECOND.\n\nAmycus rose on recovering his senses, and the fight was renewed with\ndouble fury. The dull-witted giant thought to knock the life out of his\nantagonist speedily, by striking heavily at his chest; but, by this\nproceeding, he again laid his face open, and the invincible Pollux\ndisfigured and made it a heap of filth with unseemly blows. The flesh,\nwhich had before been so puffed up, now seemed to subside and melt away;\nthe whole huge creature seemed to become little, while the less one\nassumed a greater aspect, and looked fresher for his toil.\n\n\u201cSay, Muse, for thou knowest,\u201d how it was that the son of Jove finally\novercame \u201cthe _gluttonous_\u201d[3] giant.\n\n\u201cThinking to do something great, the big Bebrycian,\u201d leaning out of the\nright line, caught in his left hand the left hand of his adversary, and\nbringing forth from his side his own huge right one, aimed a blow, which,\nhad it struck where it intended, would have done mischief; but the son of\nJove stooped from under it, and emerging, gave his enemy such a blow on\nthe left temple as made it spout with blood. He assisted the blow,\ndirectly, with another on the mouth, given by the hand which the giant had\nlet drop; and crashing his teeth with the weight of it, followed it with a\ngeneral clatter on the face, which mashed it a second time, and rendered\nresistance hopeless. Heavily fell Amycus to the ground, having no more\nheart, and raising his hands as he fell, in sign of throwing up the\ncontest.\n\n But nothing unbefitting thy worthiness, didst thou inflict, O\n _pugilist_ Polydeuctes, on the conquered. Only he made him take a\n great oath--calling on his father Neptune out of the sea to witness\n it--that never more would he do anything grievous to those who sought\n his hospitality.\n\nIt appears to us, reader, and we think it will appear to thee, that even\nthis _prosification_ of a fine bit of poetry will afford no disgraceful\nevidence of the strength and muscle of the gentle shepherd Theocritus. The\nmanner of the concluding passage is quite in the taste of the chivalrous\npoets of Italy; and forces us to repeat our regret, that the Sicilian left\nno larger work, to be put at the head of their romances. The _Odyssey_,\nindeed, is their leader in some respects; but to the grandeur, the wild\nfictions, and the domestic tenderness of the _Odyssey_, Theocritus would\nhave added the gaiety and good-natured satire of Pulci and Ariosto.\n\nHere follows a specimen (such as it is, and as far as we can pretend to\nrepresent the original) of the comic and domestic painting of Theocritus.\nIt is a poem on the _Rites of Adonis_; or rather, on a couple of gossips,\nmaking holiday to enjoy the festival that formed a part of the rites.\nAdonis, the favourite of Venus, slain by the boar, and permitted by\nJupiter to return to life every half-year and enjoy her company, was\nannually commemorated by the heathen world for the space of two days, the\nfirst of which was passed in mourning for his death, and the second, in\nfeasting and merriment for his coming to life. Arsinoe, the consort of the\npoet\u2019s patron, Ptolemy Philadelphus, celebrated these rites in the\nEgyptian capital, Alexandria; and Theocritus, in order to praise his royal\nfriends, and at the same time give a picture of his countrywomen,\nintroduces two women who were born in Syracuse and settled in Alexandria,\nmaking holiday on the occasion, and going to see the show. The show was\nthat of the second day, and principally consisted of an image of Adonis\nlaid in a bower of leaves and tapestry, and served with all the luxuries\nof the season, particularly flowers in pots. He was attended by flying\nCupids, and eulogized by singers in hymns, much in the manner of saints\nand angels in a modern Catholic festival; and on the following morning,\nthe image, with its flowers, was taken in procession to the sea-side, and\ncommitted to the waters on its way to the other world. The whole\nproceeding is intimated in the poem, by means of verses put into the mouth\nof the public singer, the Grisi or Malibran of the day; but the chief\nportion of it is assigned to the humours of the two gossips, who are\nprecisely such as would be drawn at this moment on a similar occasion in\nany crowded city. This truth to nature, which is the constant charm of\nTheocritus (making it, as he does, artistical also with wit and poetry),\nthe reader will recognise at once in the talk about the husband, the\nendeavours to mystify the little boy, the chatter and bustle in the crowd,\nand the gaping expressions of delight and amazement at the spectacle. The\nopening of the poem lets us into a household scene, described with all the\nnicety and archness of Chaucer.\n\n\nTHE SYRACUSAN GOSSIPS; OR, THE FEAST OF ADONIS.\n\n GORGO, }\n } _The Gossips._\n PRAXINOE,}\n EUNOE, _servant of Praxinoe_.\n PHRYGIA, _her housemaid_.\n _Little Boy, her Son._\n _Old Woman._\n _Two Men._\n\n SCENE--_Alexandria in Egypt._\n\n GORGO. (_at her friend\u2019s door._) Praxinoe within?\n EUNOE. Why, Gorgo, dear,\n How late you are! Yes, she\u2019s within.\n PRAX. (_appearing._) What, no!\n And so you\u2019re come at last! A seat here, Eunoe;\n And set a cushion.\n EUNOE. There is one.\n PRAX. Sit down.\n GORGO. Oh, what a thing\u2019s a spirit! Do you know,\n I\u2019ve scarcely got alive to you, Praxinoe?\n There\u2019s such a crowd--such heaps of carriages,\n And horses, and fine soldiers, all full dress\u2019d;\n And then you live such an immense way off!\n PRAX. Why, \u2019twas _his_ shabby doing. He would take\n This hole that he calls house, at the world\u2019s end.\n \u2019Twas all to spite me, and to part us two.\n GORGO. (_speaking lower._) Don\u2019t talk so of your husband, there\u2019s a\n dear,\n Before the little one. See how he looks at you.\n PRAX. (_to the little boy._) There, don\u2019t look grave, child; cheer up,\n Zopy, sweet;\n It isn\u2019t your papa we\u2019re talking of.\n GORGO. (_aside._) He thinks it is, though.\n PRAX. Oh no--nice papa!\n (_To_ GORGO.) Well, this strange body once (let us say _once_,\n And then he won\u2019t know who we\u2019re telling of),\n Going to buy some washes and saltpetre,\n Comes bringing salt! the great big simpleton!\n GORGO. And there\u2019s my precious ninny, Dioclede:\n He gave for five old ragged fleeces, yesterday,\n Ten drachmas!--for mere dirt! trash upon trash!\n But come; put on your things; button away,\n Or we shall miss the show. It\u2019s the king\u2019s own;\n And I am told the queen has made of it\n A wonderful fine thing.\n PRAX. Ay, luck has luck.\n Well, tell us all about it; for we hear\n Nothing in this vile place.\n GORGO. We haven\u2019t time.\n Workers can\u2019t throw away their holidays.\n PRAX. Some water, Eunoe; and then, my fine one,\n To take your rest again. Puss loves good lying.\n Come; move, girl, move; some water--water first.\n Look how she brings it! Now, then;--hold, hold, careless;\n Not quite so fast; you\u2019re wetting all my gown.\n There; that\u2019ll do. Now, please the gods, I\u2019m washed.\n The key of the great chest--where\u2019s that? Go fetch it.\n [_Exit_ EUNOE.\n GORGO. Praxinoe, that gown with the full skirts\n Becomes you mightily. What did it cost you?\n PRAX. Oh, don\u2019t remind me of it. More than one\n Or two good minas, besides time and trouble.\n GORGO. All which you had forgotten.\n PRAX. Ah, ha! True;\n That\u2019s good. You\u2019re quite right.\n _Re-enter_ EUNOE.\n Come; my cloak, my cloak;\n And parasol. There--help it on now, properly.\n (_To the little boy._) Child, child, you cannot go. The horse will bite\n it;\n The Horrid Woman\u2019s coming. Well, well, simpleton,\n Cry, if you will; but you must not get lamed.\n Come, Gorgo.--Phrygia, take the child, and play with him;\n And call the dog indoors, and lock the gate. [_They go out._\n Powers, what a crowd! how shall we get along?\n Why, they\u2019re like ants! countless! innumerable!\n Well, Ptolemy, you\u2019ve done fine things, that\u2019s certain,\n Since the gods took your father. No one now-a-days\n Does harm to trav\u2019llers as they used to do,\n After the Egyptian fashion, lying in wait,--\n Masters of nothing but detestable tricks;\n And all alike,--a set of cheats and brawlers.\n Gorgo, sweet friend, what will become of us?\n Here are the king\u2019s horse-guards! Pray, my good man,\n Don\u2019t tread upon us so. See the bay horse!\n Look how it rears! It\u2019s like a great mad dog.\n How you stand, Eunoe! It will throw him certainly!\n How lucky that I left the child at home!\n GORGO. Courage, Praxinoe; they have pass\u2019d us now;\n They\u2019ve gone into the court-yard.\n PRAX. Good! I breathe again.\n I never could abide in all my life\n A horse and a cold snake.\n GORGO (_addressing an old woman_). From court, mother?\n OLD WOMAN. Yes, child.\n GORGO. Pray, is it easy to get in?\n OLD WOMAN. The Greeks got into Troy. Everything\u2019s done\n By trying. [_Exit_ OLD WOMAN.\n GORGO. Bless us! How she bustles off!\n Why, the old woman\u2019s quite oracular.\n But women must know everything; ev\u2019n what Juno\n Wore on her wedding-day. See now, Praxinoe,\n How the gate\u2019s crowded.\n PRAX. Frightfully indeed.\n Give me your hand, dear Gorgo; and do you\n Hold fast of Eutychis\u2019s, Eunoe.\n Don\u2019t let her go; don\u2019t stir an inch; and so\n We\u2019ll all squeeze in together. Stick close now.\n Oh me! oh me! my veil\u2019s torn right in two!\n Do take care, my good man, and mind my cloak.\n MAN. \u2019Twas not my fault; but I\u2019ll take care.\n PRAX. What heaps!\n They drive like pigs!\n MAN. Courage, old girl! all\u2019s safe.\n PRAX. Blessings upon you, sir, now and for ever,\n For taking care of us--A good, kind soul.\n How Eunoe squeezes us! Do, child, make way\n For your own self. There; now, we\u2019ve all got in,\n As the man said, when he was put in prison.\n GORGO. Praxinoe, do look there! What lovely tapestry!\n How fine and showy! One would think the gods did it.\n PRAX. Holy Minerva! how those artists work!\n How they do paint their pictures to the life!\n The figures stand so like, and move so like!\n They\u2019re quite alive, not work\u2019d. Well, certainly,\n Man\u2019s a wise creature. See now--only look--\n See--lying on the silver couch, all budding,\n With the young down about his face! Adonis!\n Charming Adonis--charming ev\u2019n in Acheron!\n SECOND MAN. Do hold your tongues there; chatter, chatter, chatter.\n The turtles stun one with their yawning gabble.\n GORGO. Hey-day! Whence comes the man? What is\u2019t to you,\n If we do chatter? Speak where you\u2019ve a right.\n You\u2019re not the master here. And as for that,\n Our people are from Corinth, like Bellerophon.\n Our tongue\u2019s Peloponnesiac; and we hope\n It\u2019s lawful for the Dorians to speak Doric!\n PRAX. We\u2019ve but one master, by the Honey-sweet![4]\n And don\u2019t fear you, nor all your empty blows.\n GORGO. Hush, hush, Praxinoe!--there\u2019s the Grecian girl,\n A most amazing creature, going to sing\n About Adonis; she that sings so well\n The song of Sperchis: she\u2019ll sing something fine,\n I warrant.--See how sweetly she prepares!\n\n THE SONG.\n\n O Lady, who dost take delight\n In Golgos and the Erycian height,\n And in the Idalian dell,\n Venus, ever amiable;\n Lo, the long-expected Hours,\n Slowest of the blessed powers,\n Yet who bring us something ever,\n Ceasing their soft dancing never,\n Bring thee back thy beauteous one\n From perennial Acheron.\n Thou, they say, from earth hast given\n Berenice place in heaven,\n Dropping to her woman\u2019s heart\n Ambrosia; and for this kind part,\n Berenice\u2019s daughter--she\n That\u2019s Helen-like--Arsinoe,\n O thou many-named and shrin\u2019d,\n Is to thy Adonis kind.\n He has all the fruits that now\n Hang upon the timely bough:\n He has green young garden-plots,\n Basketed in silver pots;\n Syrian scents in alabaster,\n And whate\u2019er a curious taster\n Could desire, that women make\n With oil or honey, of meal cake;\n And all shapes of beast or bird,\n In the woods by huntsman stirr\u2019d;\n And a bower to shade his state\n Heap\u2019d with dill, an amber weight;\n And about him Cupids flying,\n Like young nightingales, that--trying\n Their new wings--go half afraid,\n Here and there, within the shade.\n See the gold! The ebony see!\n And the eagles in ivory,\n Bearing the young Trojan up\n To be filler of Jove\u2019s cup;\n And the tapestry\u2019s purple heap,\n Softer than the feel of sleep;\n Artists, contradict who can,\n Samian or Milesian.\n But another couch there is\n For Adonis, close to his;\n Venus has it, and with joy\n Clasps again her blooming boy\n With a kiss that feels no fret,\n For his lips are downy yet.\n Happy with her love be she;\n But to-morrow morn will we,\n With our locks and garments flowing\n And our bosoms gently showing,\n Come and take him, in a throng,\n To the sea-shore, with this song:--\n Go, belov\u2019d Adonis, go\n Year by year thus to and fro;\n Only privileged demigod;\n There was no such open road\n For Atrides; nor the great\n Ajax, chief infuriate;\n Nor for Hector, noblest once\n Of his mother\u2019s twenty sons;\n Nor Patroclus, nor the boy\n That returned from taken Troy;\n Nor those older buried bones,\n Lapiths and Deucalions;\n Nor Pelopians, and their boldest;\n Nor Pelasgians, Greece\u2019s oldest.\n Bless us then, Adonis dear,\n And bring us joy another year;\n Dearly hast thou come again,\n And dearly shalt be welcomed then.\n\n GORGO. Well; if that\u2019s not a clever creature, trust me!\n Lord! what a quantity of things she knows!\n And what a charming voice!--\u2019Tis time to go, though,\n For there\u2019s my husband hasn\u2019t had his dinner,\n And you\u2019d best come across him when he wants it!\n Good-by, Adonis, darling. Come again.\n\n[Illustration]\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER V.\n\nTHEOCRITUS.--CONCLUDED.\n\n SPECIMENS OF THE PATHOS AND PASTORAL OF THEOCRITUS.--THE CYCLOPS IN\n LOVE.--POETICAL FEELING AMONG UNEDUCATED CLASSES IN THE\n SOUTH.--PASSAGES FROM THEOCRITUS\u2019S FIRST IDYLL.--HIS VERSIFICATION AND\n MUSIC.--PASTORAL OF BION AND MOSCHUS.\n\n\n[Illustration]\n\nHaving seen the force and comic humour of Theocritus, let us now, if we\ncan, give something of a taste of his pathos, and conclude with him as the\nPrince of Pastoral. We shall find the one leading to the other, or rather\nidentified with it, for Polyphemus was himself a shepherd, and all his\nimagery and associations are drawn from pastoral life. Our English, it is\nto be borne in mind, is not the Greek. The poet must have all the benefit\nof that admission. But at any rate we have done our best not to spoil the\noriginal with such artificial modes of speech as destroy all pathos; and\nfeeling has a common language everywhere, which he who is thoroughly moved\nby it, can never wholly misrepresent.\n\nThe story is that of Polyphemus under the circumstances alluded to in our\nsecond chapter. It is addressed to the poet\u2019s friend Nicias, and is the\nearliest evidence of that particular personal regard for the medical\nprofession, which is so observable in the history of men of letters; for\nNicias was a physician.\n\n THE CYCLOPS IN LOVE.\n\n There is no other medicine against love,\n My Nicias, (so at least it seems to me,)\n Either to cure it or to calm, but song.\n That, that indeed is balmy to men\u2019s minds,\n And sweet; but \u2019tis a balm rare to be found;\n Though not by you, my friend, who are at once\n Physician, and belov\u2019d by all the Nine.\n\n It was by this the Cyclops liv\u2019d among us,\n I mean that ancient shepherd, Polypheme,\n Who lov\u2019d the sea-nymph, when he budded first\n About the lips and curling temples;--lov\u2019d,\n Not in the little present-making style,\n With baskets of new fruit and pots of roses,\n But with consuming passion. Many a time\n Would his flocks go home by themselves at eve,\n Leaving him wasting by the dark sea-shore;\n And sunrise would behold him wasting still.\n Yet ev\u2019n a love like his found balm in verse,\n For he would sit, and look along the sea,\n And from his rock pipe to some strain like this:--\n\n \u201cO my white love, my Galatea, why\n Avoid me thus? O whiter than the curd,\n Gentler than any lamb, fuller of play\n Than kids, yet bitterer than the bright young grape,\n You come sometimes, when sweet sleep holds me fast;\n You break away, when sweet sleep lets me loose;\n Gone, like a lamb at sight of the grey wolf.\n\n \u201cSweet, I began to love you, when you first\n Came with my mother to the mountain side\n To gather hyacinths. I show\u2019d the way;\n And then, and afterwards, and to this hour,\n I could not cease to love you; you, who care\n Nothing about my love--Great Jove! no, nothing.\n\n \u201cFair one, I know why you avoid me thus:\n It is because one rugged eyebrow spreads\n Across my forehead, solitary and huge,\n Shading this eye forlorn. My nose, too, presses\n Flat tow\u2019rds my lip. And yet, such as I am,\n I feed a thousand sheep; and from them drink\n Excellent milk; and never want for cheese\n In summer, nor in autumn, nor dead winter,\n Dairies I have, so full. I can play, too,\n Upon the pipe, so as no Cyclops can,\n Singing, sweet apple mine, of you and me,\n Often till midnight. And I keep for you\n Four bears\u2019 whelps, and eleven fawns with collars:\n Come to me then, for you shall have them all.\n Let the sea rake on the dull shore. Your nights\n Would be far sweeter here, well hous\u2019d with me.\n The place is beautiful with laurel-trees,\n With cypresses, with ivy, and the vine,\n The dulcet vine: and here, too, is a stream,\n Heavenly to drink, the water is so cold.\n The woody \u00c6tna sends it down to me\n Out of her pure white snows. Who could have this,\n And choose to live in the wild salt-sea waves?\n Perhaps, when I am talking of my trees,\n You think me ruder than the trunks? more rough;\n More rugged-bodied? Ah, they keep me warm;\n They blaze upon my hearth; yet, I could lose\n Warmth, life, and all, and burn in the same fire,\n Rather than dwell beside it without you.\n Nay, I could burn the eye from out my head,\n Though nothing else be dearer.\n\n \u201cOh, poor me!\n Alas! that I was born a finless body,\n And cannot dive to you, and kiss your hand;\n Or, if you grudg\u2019d me that, bring you white lilies,\n And the fresh poppy with its thin red leaves.\n And yet not so; for poppies grow in summer,\n Lilies in spring; and so I could not, both.\n But should some coaster, sweetest, in his ship\n Come here to see me, I would learn to swim;\n And then I might find out what joy there is\n In living, as you do, in the dark deeps.\n \u201cO Galatea, that you would but come;\n And having come, forget, as I do now,\n Here where I sat me, to go home again!\n You should keep sheep with me, and milk the dams,\n And press the cheese from the sharp-tasted curd.\n It is my mother that\u2019s to blame. She never\n Told you one kind, endearing thing of me,\n Though she has seen me wasting day by day.\n My very head and feet, for wretchedness,\n Throb--and so let \u2019em; for I too am wretched.\n O Cyclops, Cyclops, where are thy poor senses?\n Go to thy basket-making; get their supper\n For the young lambs. \u2019Twere wiser in thee, far.\n Prize what thou hast, and let the lost sheep go.\n Perhaps thou\u2019lt find another Galatea,\n Another, and a lovelier; for at night\n Many girls call to me to come and play,\n And when they find me list\u2019ning, they all giggle\n So that e\u2019en I seem counted somebody.\u201d\n\n Thus Polyphemus medicined his love\n With pipe and song; and found it ease him more\n Than all the balms he might have bought with gold.\n\nWhat say you, reader? Is not the monster touching? Do we not accord with\nhis self-pity? feel for his throbbing pulse and his hopeless humility, and\nwish it were possible for a beauty to love a shepherd with one eye?--For\nthe poet, observe, with great address, has said nothing about the giant.\nHe has sunk the man-mountain. We may rate him at what equivocal measure we\nplease, and consider him a respectable prim\u00e6val sort of pastoral Orson. It\nappears to us, that there is no truer pathos of its kind in the whole\ncircle of poetry than the passages about the sheep and wolf, the throbbing\npulses just mentioned, and the lover\u2019s humble attempt to get a little\nconsolation of vanity out of the equivocal interest taken in him by the\n\u201cgiggling\u201d damsels at the foot of his hill. The word \u201cgiggle,\u201d which is\nthe literal translation of the Greek word, and singularly like it in the\nmain sound, would have been thought very bold by a conventional poet. Not\nso thought the poet whose truth to nature has made him immortal.\n\nWe are to fancy the Sicilian girls on a summer night (all the world is out\nof door there on summer nights) calling to Polyphemus up the mountain.\nThey live at the foot of it--of \u00c6tna. They have heard him stirring in the\ntrees. The stir ceases. They know he is listening; and in the silence of\nthe glen below, he hears them laughing at his attention. Such scenes take\nplace all over the world, where there is any summer, Britain included. We\ndoubt whether Virgil or Tasso would have ventured upon the word. But\nAriosto would. Homer and Shakspeare would. So would Dante. So would\nCatullus, a very Greek man. And it would surely not have been avoided by\nthe author of the _Gentle Shepherd_, whose perception of homely truth puts\nhim on a par in this respect with the greatest truth poetical.\n\nThis love-story of Polyphemus is pastoral poetry in its highest passionate\ncondition. Of pastoral, in the sense in which it is generally understood,\na briefer or better specimen cannot be given than in the opening passages\nof our poet\u2019s volume. You are in the circle of pastoral at once, and in\none of its loveliest spots. You are in the open air under pine-trees by\nfountain-heads, in company with two born poets, goatherd and shepherd\nthough they be; poets such as Burns and Allan Ramsay might have been, had\nthey been born in Sicily.\n\nA word, before we proceed, in respect to that interfusion of eloquent and\ntherefore sometimes elegant expression which has been charged on one of\nthe most natural of poets as an affectation, but which, as _he_ treats it,\nis only in unison with the popular genius of the south. In Virgil it\nbecame a rhetorical mistake; an artificial flower stuck in the ground. In\nTheocritus it was the growth of the soil; myrtle and almond springing by\nthe wayside.\n\nPoetical expression in humble life is to be found all over the south. In\nthe instances of Burns, Ramsay, and others, the north also has seen it.\nIndeed, it is not a little remarkable, that Scotland, which is more\nnorthern than England, and possesses not even a nightingale, has had more\nof it than its southern neighbour. What that is owing to, is a question;\nperhaps to the very restrictions of John Knox and his fellows, and\nNature\u2019s happy tendency to counteract them. Or it may have originated in\nthe wild and uncertain habits of highlanders and borderers. Certainly, the\nScotch have shown a more genial and impulsive spirit in their songs and\ndances than the English. We have nothing among us like the Highland Fling,\nor the reel of Tullochgorum, or the songs of _Gaberlunzie Men_, _Jolly\nBeggars_, and _The gude man he cam\u2019 hame at e\u2019en_. But extremes meet; and\nthe Scotch, in their hardihood, their very poverty, and occasional\ntriumphs over it in fits of excess, appear to have been driven by a jovial\ndesperation into the vivacities inspired by the sunshine of the south. Yet\nthe Irish are a still greater puzzle in this respect; for they are poorer;\ntheir land is in the English latitude; and nevertheless the poetical\nfeeling is far more common and more eloquent among them, than with either\nof their neighbours. Their fertility of fancy and readiness of expression\nrender them, in fact, very like a southern people; and, if a doubt, alas!\ndid not arise that misfortune itself was their inspirer by sharpening\ntheir sensibility, would give an almost laughable corroboration to their\nclaims of a Milesian descent. Now, the Italian peasantry to this day,\nparticularly the Tuscan, exhibit, as they always did, a like poetical\nfancy, but with more elegance; and so, we doubt not, did those of Greece\nand Sicily. The latter, in modern times, have been checked in their\nfaculties by unfavourable government; but in the time of Theocritus, the\nsubjects of the overflowingly rich cities of Syracuse and Agrigentum must\nhave been as willing and able to pour out all they felt, as so many\nwell-fed thrushes and blackbirds; and anybody at all acquainted with the\nless rich, but not ill-governed, Tuscan peasantry, knows well with how\nmuch eloquence, and even refinement, it is possible for people in humble\nlife to express themselves, when the language is favourable, and\ncircumstances not otherwise. Mr. Stewart Rose has given some amusing\ninstances in his _Letters from the North of Italy_. Asking a Florentine\nservant if he understood some directions given him, the man said, \u201cYes,\nfor he always spoke in relief\u201d (\u201cChe parlava sempre scolpito\u201d). Nothing\ncould be better expressed than this. Another time, his good-natured\nmaster, inquiring if he was comfortable on the coach-box, the servant\nanswered that he was very well off; for \u201chere,\u201d said he, \u201cone springs it\u201d\n(\u201cche qu\u00ec si molleggia\u201d). The verb was coined for the occasion from the\nnoun _molla_, a spring. Another man being asked the way to a particular\nhouse, told him to go straight forwards to the end of the street, and it\nwould \u201ctumble on his head.\u201d This is very Irish. An Italian acquaintance of\nMr. Rose was passing through a street in Florence at serenade time, when\nhe beheld a dog looking up at a female of his species in a balcony, and\nat the same time scratching his ribs. One of the Florentine populace, who\nhappened to be passing, stopped, and cried out, \u201cHe is in love, and\nplaying the guitar, serenading the fair one\u201d (\u201c\u00c8 innamorato; suona la\nchitarra; f\u00e0 la cucchiata alla bella\u201d). A Roman laquais de place (but he\nis a more sophisticate authority) once asked the same writer, on seeing\nhim look at a wild-flower in the fields, whether it was the signor\u2019s\n\u201cpleasure that he should cull it?\u201d (\u201cCommanda che lo carpa?\u201d) For our\npoetical word \u201ccull,\u201d though its meaning is different, may represent the\nunvernacular elegance of _carpa_, pluck. The laquais de place, it seems,\n\u201ctalked like a cardinal.\u201d We have ourselves, however, heard a coachman\u2019s\nwife, who was a Roman, pour forth a stream of elegant language that\nastonished us.\n\nA neighbour of ours, near Fiesole, a fine old Tuscan peasant, who was\nclipping a hedge, said to us one day, as we exchanged salutation with him,\n\u201cI am trimming the bush\u2019s beard\u201d (\u201cF\u00f2 la barba al bosco\u201d). But a\nFlorentine female servant, who had the child of an acquaintance in her\narms, and who, like the generality of her countrywomen, was perfectly\nunaffected, carried the aristocratic refinement of her style higher,\nperhaps, than any of the persons mentioned. Some remarks being made\nrespecting the countenances of her master\u2019s children, she asked us whether\nthe one in her arms did not form an exception; whether, in fact, we did\nnot think that it had \u201ca kind of plebeian look\u201d (\u201cun certo aspetto\nplebeo\u201d).\n\nSo much for the ability of the humbler orders to speak with force and\ndelicacy, when sensibility gives them the power of expression, and animal\nspirits the courage to use it.\n\n\nPASSAGES FROM THE FIRST IDYLL OF THEOCRITUS.\n\nIn Theocritus\u2019s opening poem, the time of day is a hot noon, and a\nshepherd and goatherd appear to have been piping under their respective\ntrees, we suppose at a reasonable distance. The shepherd goes towards the\ngoatherd, who seems to stop playing; and on approaching him commences the\ndialogue by observing, that there is something extremely pleasant in the\nwhisper of the pine under which he is sitting, but not less so was the\nsomething he was playing just now on his pipe. He declares that he is the\nnext best player after Pan himself; and that if Pan were to have a ram for\nhis prize, the ewe would of necessity fall to the goatherd.\n\n Sweet sings the rustling of your pine to-day\n Over the fountain-heads; and no less sweet\n Upon the pipe play you.\n\nThe Greek word for rustling, or rather whispering--_psithurisma_--is much\nadmired. \u201cWhispering\u201d is hardly strong enough, and not so long drawn out.\nThere is the continuous whisper in _psithurisma_. The goatherd returns the\ncompliment by telling the shepherd that his singing during such hot\nweather (for we must always keep in mind the accessories implied by good\npoets) is sweeter than the flowing abundance of the waterfall out of the\nrock. The two verses in which this is expressed are a favourite quotation,\non account of the imitative beauty of the second sentence. We know not\nwhether they would equally please every critical ear, for \u201cdoctors,\u201d even\nof music, \u201cdiffer.\u201d Much of the divine writing of Beethoven seems to have\nbeen as appalling at first to the orchestral world, as olives are to most\npalates; and there is a passage in Mozart which to this day is a\nchoke-pear to the scientific, albeit they acknowledge that he intended it\nto be written as it stands. For our parts, we have great faith in the\nultra-delights perceptible in the enormities of Beethoven, Mozart, and\nolives; and suspect there is more music in the very hissing and clatter in\nthe sentence in Theocritus, to say nothing of its obvious rush and\nleaping, than has been quite perceived by every scholar who has praised\nit. It is a pity that all musical people do not read Greek; for they\ndeserve to do so; which is what cannot be said of all scholars. Perhaps\nsome of them would be glad to see the passage, even in English\ncharacters. We remember, before we knew any others, the delight we used\nto take in the Greek quotations, thus printed in the novels of Smollett\nand Fielding, and shall make no further apology for a like bit of\ntypography. We shall first give the measure of the original verse in\ncorresponding English hexameters. The English language does not take\nkindly to the measure. The hexameter is too salient and cantering for it.\nBut once and away the anomaly may be tolerated, especially for\nillustration\u2019s sake. The passage in English words may run thus:--\n\n Swe\u00e8ter, O sh\u00e8pherd, thy s\u00ecnging is, th\u00e0n the son\u00f2rous\n G\u00f9sh from ab\u00f2ve of the w\u00e0terfall o\u00f9t of the r\u00f2ck-stone.\n\nThere is no imitative attempt of another sort in this version. It is given\nsimply to show a general likeness to the measure. The sound of the\noriginal, as everybody will discern, is much more to the purpose, though\njudges will differ perhaps as to whether it is more effective in softness\nor in strength, in leap or in volume. We are obliged to adapt the\nspelling, in one or two instances, to the necessities of the\npronunciation. The literal Greek order of the words would, in English,\nbe:--\n\n Sweeter, O shepherd, the thy song, than the sonorous\n That (or yonder) from the rock-stone much flows from above water.\n\n H\u00e0dion o poiman to te\u00f2n melos \u00e8 to kat\u00e0ches\n Teen appo tas p\u00e8tras katal\u00e8ibetai h\u00e8upsothen h\u00e8udor.\n\n_Katal\u00e8ibetai_ (much, or strongly, or abundantly, flows), with the accent\non the diphthong _ei_, is certainly a fine strenuous word, at once strong\nand liquid, and appreciable by any ear. And _h\u00e8upsothen h\u00e8udor_ (from\nabove water), with its two successive _u_\u2019s, will be equally admitted, we\nthink, to express the constant _yearning_ rush of the water from inside\nthe well.\n\nThe goatherd promises the shepherd, if he will sing to him, the gift of a\nhuge wine-cup, adorned with figures. The following exquisite picture is\namong them. We give it in the version of Mr. M. J. Chapman, a living\nwriter, not unworthy his venerable namesake, and by far the best\ntranslator of Theocritus that has appeared:--\n\n \u1f1c\u03bd\u03c4\u03bf\u03c3\u03b8\u03b5\u03bd \u03b4\u1f72 \u03b3\u03c5\u03bd\u1f70, &c.\n\n With flowing robe, and Lydian head-dress on,\n Within, a woman to the life is done--\n An exquisite design! On either side\n Two men with flowing locks each other chide,\n By turns contending for the woman\u2019s love;\n But not a whit her mind their pleadings move:\n One while she gives to this a glance and smile,\n And turns and smiles on that another while.\n\nTo the apparently formidable objection made by some critics, that no\nartist could make a woman look on two people one after the other, Mr.\nChapman happily answers:--\u201cTheocritus described an image that was before\nhis mind\u2019s eye, and for so doing he needs no defence; but the\nmatter-of-fact critic may be able, perhaps, to obtain an approximation to\nthe idea, by considering attentively the print of \u2018Garrick divided between\nTragedy and Comedy.\u2019\u201d[5]\n\nThis picture is followed by one of an old able-bodied fisherman at his\nlabours, with the muscles of his neck swelling like those of a strong\nyoung man; and to this succeeds a third, as good as that of the\nCoquette--some will think better. It is a boy so intent upon making a\ntrap, that he is not aware of the presence of two foxes, one of whom is\nmeditating to abduct his breakfast.\n\n A little boy sits by the thorn-edge trim,\n To watch the grapes--two foxes watching _him_;\n\n(The version of this line is original in the turn of it, and very happy.)\n\n One through the ranges of the vine proceeds,\n And on the hanging vintage slily feeds;\n The other plots and vows his scrip to search,\n And for his breakfast leave him in the lurch.\n\n Meanwhile he twines, and to a rush fits well\n A locust-trap, with stalks of asphodel;\n And twines away with such absorbing glee,\n Of scrip or vines he never thinks, not he!\n CHAPMAN, p. 8.\n\nIn the pastorals of Bion we know nothing of prominent interest, though he\nis eloquent and worth reading. But in those of Moschus there is a passage\nwhich has found an echo in all bosoms, like the sigh that answers a wind\nover a churchyard. It is in the Elegy on Bion\u2019s death:--\n\n \u0391\u1f34, \u03b1\u1f36, \u03c4\u03b1\u1f76 \u03bc\u03b1\u03bb\u03ac\u03c7\u03b1\u03b9 \u03bc\u03ad\u03bd \u1f10\u03c0\u1f70\u03bd \u03ba\u03b1\u03c4\u1f70 \u03ba\u1fb6\u03c0\u03bf\u03bd \u1f40\u03bb\u03ce\u03bd\u03c4\u03b1\u03b9,\n \u1f2c \u03c4\u1f70 \u03c7\u03bb\u03c9\u03c1\u1f70 \u03c3\u03ad\u03bb\u03b9\u03bd\u03b1, \u03c4\u1f78 \u03c4\u2019 \u03b5\u1f54\u03b8\u03b1\u03bb\u03b5\u03c2 \u03bf\u1f56\u03bb\u03bf\u03bd \u1f04\u03bd\u03b7\u03b8\u03bf\u03bd,\n \u038e\u03c3\u03c4\u03b5\u03c1\u03bf\u03bd \u03b1\u1f56 \u03b6\u03ce\u03bf\u03bd\u03c4\u03b9, \u03ba\u03b1\u1f76 \u03b5\u1f30\u03c3 \u1f14\u03c4\u03bf\u03c2 \u1f04\u03bb\u03bb\u03bf \u03c6\u03cd\u03bf\u03bd\u03c4\u03b9\u00b7\n \u1f0c\u03bc\u03bc\u03b5\u03c2 \u03b4\u2019 \u1f41\u03b9 \u03bc\u03b5\u03b3\u03ac\u03bb\u03bf\u03b9, \u03ba\u03b1\u1f76 \u03ba\u03b1\u03c1\u03c4\u03ad\u03c1\u03bf\u03b9, \u1f20 \u03c3\u03cc\u03c6\u03bf\u03b9 \u1f04\u03bd\u03b4\u03c1\u03b5\u03c2,\n \u1f49\u03c0\u03c0\u03cc\u03c4\u03b5 \u03c0\u03c1\u1fb6\u03c4\u03b1 \u03b8\u03ac\u03bd\u03c9\u03bc\u03b5\u03c2, \u1f00\u03bd\u03b1\u03ba\u03cc\u03bf\u03b9 \u1f14\u03bd \u03c7\u03b8\u03bf\u03bd\u1f76 \u03ba\u03bf\u1fd6\u03bb\u03b1,\n \u0395\u1f54\u03b4\u03bf\u03bc\u03b5\u03c2 \u03b5\u1f50 \u03bc\u03ac\u03bb\u03b1 \u03bc\u03b1\u03ba\u03c1\u1f78\u03bd, \u1f00\u03c4\u03ad\u03c1\u03bc\u03bf\u03bd\u03b1, \u03bd\u03ae\u03b3\u03c1\u03b5\u03c4\u03bf\u03bd \u1f55\u03c0\u03bd\u03bf\u03bd.\n _Idyll_ iii. v. 104.\n\n Alas! when mallows in the garden die,\n Green parsley, or the crisp luxuriant dill,\n They live again, and flower another year;\n But we, how great soe\u2019er, or strong, or wise,\n When once _we_ die, sleep, in the senseless earth,\n A long, an endless, unawakeable sleep.\n\nThe beautiful original of these verses, every word so natural and sincere,\nso well placed, and the whole so affecting, may stand by the side of any\npoetry, even that of the passage in the Book of Job too well known to most\nof us. But we confess that after such Greek verses as these, and the fresh\nflowers of Theocritus, we never have the heart to quote the artificial\nones of Virgil, critically accomplished as they are. They are the pattern\nof too many others which brought the word Pastoral into disrepute; and it\nis not pleasant to be forced to object to a great name.\n\nVirgil, however, appears to have been very fond of the country; and after\nhe was settled in Rome, longed for it, like Horace, with a feeling which\nproduced some of his most admired passages; things which other\nmetropolitan poets and tired court gentlemen have delighted to translate.\nSuch are the _Delights of a Country Life_, versified out of the _Georgics_\nby Cowley, Sir William Temple, Dryden, and others, lines of which remain\nfor ever in the memory.\n\n Oh happy (_if his happiness he knows_)\n The country swain, &c.\n\nHe has no great riches, or visitors, or cares, &c., but his life\n\n Does with substantial blessedness abound,\n _And the soft wings of peace cover him round_.\n\nThat is Cowley, who betters his original.\n\n In life\u2019s cool vale let my low scene be laid;\n _Cover me, gods! with Tempe\u2019s thickest shade_.\n\nSo again of the shepherd:--\n\n --In th\u2019 evening of a fair sunny day,\n With joy he sees his flocks and kids to play,\n And loaded kine about his cottage stand,\n Inviting with known sound the milker\u2019s hand;\n And when from wholesome labour he doth come,\n With wishes to be there, and wish\u2019d for home,\n _He meets at door the softest human blisses,\n His chaste wife\u2019s welcome, and dear children\u2019s kisses_.\n\nOf a similar kind is Cowley\u2019s translation of Claudian\u2019s _Old Man of\nVerona_:--\n\n Happy the man who his whole time doth bound\n Within th\u2019 enclosure of his little ground.--\n Him no false distant lights, by fortune set,\n Could ever into foolish wanderings get;--\n No change of consuls marks to him the year:\n The change of seasons is his calendar:\n The cold and heat winter and summer shows;\n Autumn by fruits, and spring by flow\u2019rs, he knows:--\n A neighb\u2019ring wood born with himself he sees,\n _And loves his old contemporary trees_.\n\nThe most original bit of Pastoral in Virgil (if it be his) is to be found\nin a poem of doubtful authority called the _Gnat_ (Culex), which has been\nbeautifully translated by Spenser. It is a true picture, combining the\nelegance of Claude with the minuteness of the Flemish painters:--\n\n The fiery sun was mounted now on height\n Up to the heavenly towers, and shot each where\n Out of his golden charet glistering light;\n And fayre Aurora, with her rosie haire,\n The hatefull darkness now had put to flight;\n When as the shepherd, seeing day appeare,\n His little goats gan drive out of their stalls,\n To feede abroad, where pasture best befalls.\n\n To an high mountain\u2019s top he with them went,\n Where thickest grasse did cloath the open hills:\n They, now amongst the woods and thicketts ment,\n Now in the vallies wandring at their wills,\n Spread themselves farre abroad through each descent;\n Some on the soft green grasse feeding their fills;\n Some, clambering through the hollow cliffes on hy,\n Nibble the bushie shrubs which growe thereby.\n\n Others the utmost boughs of trees doe crop,\n And brouze the woodbine twigges that freshly bud;\n This with full bit doth catch the utmost top\n Of some soft willow or new-growen stud;\n That with sharpe teeth the bramble leaves doth lop,\n And chaw the tender prickles in her cud;\n The whiles another high doth overlooke\n Her own like image in a cristall brook.\n\nThis is picturesque and charming. Yet Virgil, though a country-loving, and\nalso an agricultural poet, would have been nothing as a pastoral poet\nwithout Theocritus, and, as it was, he spoiled him. We shall see in what\nmanner, when we come to speak of Pope.\n\n[Illustration]\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER VI.\n\nNORMAN TIMES--LEGEND OF KING ROBERT.\n\n HOW KING ROBERT OF SICILY WAS DISPOSSESSED OF HIS THRONE; AND WHO SAT\n UPON IT.--HIS WRATH, SUFFERINGS, AND REPENTANCE.\n\n\n[Illustration]\n\nIn the glance at the ancient history of Sicily in our third chapter, we\nhave seen that the Greek and Roman sway was succeeded by that of the\nSaracens. They were masters of the island for the space of two hundred\nyears, but have left no memorials, with the exception of a building or\ntwo, and traces of Arabic in the Sicilian tongue. The island was then\nconquered by a handful of Norman gentlemen, who had obtained possession of\nNaples, and whose history would be romantic enough to be worth repeating,\nif it were anything but a succession of wars. Their wonderful ascendency,\nand no less extraordinary personal prowess, are supposed by some, not\nwithout reason, to have given rise to much of the gigantic fable of the\nOrlandos and other peers of Charlemagne, who were all Frenchmen.\n\nAs an old ruin, therefore, standing in some spot surrounded by\narchitecture of different orders, will sometimes be found to be the sole\nrepresentative of a former age, we shall make the good old legend of King\nRobert, in this our Sicilian and Pastoral Sketch-book, stand for the whole\nNorman portion of its chronology. It is not military, except in the\n_brusque_ self-sufficiency with which the character of King Robert sets\nout; but it is emphatically what we understand by Gothic; which, in modern\nparlance, implies the character of the interval between ancient and modern\ntimes. The Greek Sicilian poets, could they have foreseen it, would have\nloved it; and their successors, the pastoral writers of modern times, of\nwhom we have afterwards to speak, unquestionably did so, whenever they met\nwith it among their old reading. Shakspeare would have made a divine play\nof it, for it is very dramatic. Fancy what he would have done with the\nangel, and the court fool, and the pathos! Oh, that we had had but time to\ntry even to dramatize it ourselves.\n\nWho King Robert of Sicily may have been, in common earthly\nhistory--whether intended to shadow forth one of the aforesaid Norman\nchieftains who obtained possession of that island, or one of the various\ndukes who contend for the honour of being called Robert the Devil, or\nwhether he was Robert of Anjou, hight Robert the Wise, the friend of\nPetrarch and Boccaccio, and father of the calumniated Joanna--we must\nleave to antiquaries to determine. Suffice to say, that in history\nangelical, and in the depths of one of the very finest kinds of truth, he\nwas King Robert of Sicily, brother of Pope Urban, and of the Emperor\n_Valemond_. A like story has been told of the Emperor _Jovinian_ (whoever\nthat prince may have been); and we shall not dispute that something of the\nkind may have occurred to him also; since very strange things happen to\nthe most haughty of princes, if we did but know their whole lives; not\nexcepting their being taken for fools by their people. We shall avail\nourselves of any light which the histories of the king and the emperor may\nserve to throw on each other.\n\nWriters, then, inform us, that King Robert of Sicily, brother of Pope\nUrban and of the Emperor Valemond, was a prince of great courage and\nrenown, but of a temper so proud and impatient, that he did not choose to\nbend his knee to Heaven itself, but would sit twirling his beard, and\nlooking with something worse than indifference round about him, during the\ngravest services of the church.\n\nOne day, while he was present at vespers on the eve of St. John, his\nattention was excited to some words in the Magnificat, in consequence of a\nsudden dropping of the choristers\u2019 voices. The words were these.\n\u201c_Deposuit potentes de sede, et exaltavit humiles._\u201d (\u201cHe hath put down\nthe mighty from their seat, and hath exalted the humble.\u201d) Being far too\ngreat and warlike a prince to know anything about Latin, he asked a\nchaplain near him the meaning of these words; and being told what it was,\nobserved, that such expressions were no better than an old song, since men\nlike himself were not so easily put down, much less supplanted by poor\ncreatures whom people call \u201chumble.\u201d\n\nThe chaplain, doubtless out of pure astonishment and horror, made no\nreply; and his majesty, partly from the heat of the weather, and partly to\nrelieve himself from the rest of the service, fell asleep.\n\nAfter some lapse of time, the royal \u201csitter in the seat of the scornful,\u201d\nowing, as he thought, to the sound of the organ, but in reality to a great\ndroning fly in his ear, woke up in more than his usual state of\nimpatience; and he was preparing to vent it, when, to his astonishment, he\nperceived the church empty. Every soul was gone, excepting a deaf old\nwoman who was turning up the cushions. He addressed her to no purpose; he\nspoke louder and louder, and was proceeding, as well as rage and amaze\nwould let him, to try if he could walk out of the church without a dozen\nlords before him, when, suddenly catching a sight of his face, the old\nwoman uttered a cry of \u201cThieves!\u201d and shuffling away, closed the door\nbehind her.\n\nKing Robert looked at the door in silence, then round about him at the\nempty church, then at himself. His cloak of ermine was gone. The coronet\nwas taken from his cap. The very jewels from his fingers. \u201cThieves,\nverily!\u201d thought the king, turning white from shame and rage. \u201cHere is\nconspiracy--rebellion! This is that sanctified traitor, the duke. Horses\nshall tear them all to pieces. What, ho, there! Open the door for the\nking!\u201d\n\n\u201cFor the constable, you mean,\u201d said a voice through the key-hole. \u201cYou\u2019re\na pretty fellow!\u201d\n\nThe king said nothing.\n\n\u201cThinking to escape, in the king\u2019s name,\u201d said the voice, \u201cafter hiding to\nplunder his closet. We\u2019ve got you.\u201d\n\nStill the king said nothing.\n\nThe sexton could not refrain from another jibe at his prisoner:\n\n\u201c_I_ see you there,\u201d said he, \u201cby the big lamp, grinning like a rat in a\ntrap. How do you like your bacon?\u201d\n\nNow, whether King Robert was of the blood of that Norman chief who felled\nhis enemy\u2019s horse with a blow of his fist, we know not; but certain it is,\nthat the only answer he made the sexton was by dashing his enormous foot\nagainst the door, and bursting it open in his teeth. The sexton, who felt\nas if a house had given him a blow in the face, fainted away; and the\nking, as far as his sense of dignity allowed him, hurried to his palace,\nwhich was close by.\n\n\u201cWell,\u201d said the porter, \u201cwhat do _you_ want?\u201d\n\n\u201cStand aside, fellow!\u201d roared the king, pushing back the door with the\nsame gigantic foot.\n\n\u201cGo to the devil!\u201d said the porter, who was a stout fellow too, and pushed\nthe king back before he expected resistance. The king, however, was too\nmuch for him. He felled him to the ground; and half strode, half rushed\ninto the palace, followed by the exasperated janitor.\n\n\u201cSeize him!\u201d cried the porter.\n\n\u201cOn your lives!\u201d cried the king. \u201cLook at me, fellow:--who am I?\u201d\n\n\u201cA mad beast and fool; that\u2019s what you are,\u201d cried the porter; \u201cand you\u2019re\na dead man for coming drunk into the palace, and hitting the king\u2019s\nservants. Hold him fast.\u201d\n\nIn came the guards, with an officer at their head, who was going to visit\nhis mistress, and had been dressing his curls at a looking-glass. He had\nthe looking-glass in his hand.\n\n\u201cCaptain Francavilla,\u201d said the king, \u201cis the world run mad? or what is\nit? Do your rebels pretend not even to know me? Go before me, sir, to my\nrooms.\u201d And as he spoke, the king shook off his assailants, as a lion does\ncurs, and moved onwards.\n\nCaptain Francavilla put his finger gently before the king to stop him; and\nthen looking with a sort of staring indifference in his face, said in a\nvery mincing tone, \u201cSome madman.\u201d\n\nKing Robert tore the looking-glass from the captain\u2019s hand, and looked\nhimself in the face. _It was not his own face._ It was another man\u2019s face,\nvery hot and vulgar; and had something in it at once melancholy and\nridiculous.\n\n\u201cBy the living God!\u201d exclaimed Robert, \u201chere is witchcraft! I am changed.\u201d\nAnd, for the first time in his life, a sensation of fear came upon him,\nbut nothing so great as the rage and fury that remained. All the world\nbelieved in witchcraft, as well as King Robert; but they had still more\ncertain proofs of the existence of drunkenness and madness. The royal\nhousehold had seen the king come forth from church as usual; and they were\nready to split their sides for laughter at the figment of this raving\nimpostor, pretending to be his majesty _changed_!\n\n\u201cBring him in--bring him in!\u201d now exclaimed other voices, the news having\ngot to the royal apartments; \u201cthe king wants to see him.\u201d\n\nKing Robert was brought in; and there, amidst roars of laughter (for\ncourts were not quite such well-bred places then as they are now), he\nfound himself face to face with _another King Robert_, seated on his\nthrone, and as like his former self as he himself was unlike, but with\nmore dignity.\n\n\u201cHideous impostor!\u201d exclaimed Robert, rushing forward to tear him down.\n\nThe court, at the word \u201chideous,\u201d roared with greater laughter than\nbefore; for the king, in spite of his pride, was at all times a handsome\nman; and there was a strong feeling at present, that he had never in his\nlife looked so well.\n\nRobert, when half way to the throne, felt as if a palsy had smitten him.\nHe stopped, and essayed to vent his rage, but could not speak.\n\nThe figure on the throne looked him steadily in the face. Robert thought\nit was a wizard, but hated far more than he feared it; for he was of great\ncourage.\n\nIt was an Angel.\n\nBut the Angel was not going to disclose himself yet, nor for a long time.\nMeanwhile, he behaved, on the occasion, very much like a man; we mean,\nlike a man of ordinary feelings and resentments, though still mixed with a\ndignity beyond what had been before observed in the Sicilian monarch. Some\nof the courtiers attributed it to a sort of royal instinct of contrast,\nexcited by the claims of the impostor; but others (by the Angel\u2019s\ncontrivance) had seen him, as he came out of the church, halt suddenly,\nwith an abashed and altered visage, before the shrine of St. Thomas, as if\nsupernaturally struck with some visitation from Heaven for his pride and\nunbelief. The rumour flew about on the instant, and was confirmed by an\norder given from the throne, the moment the Angel seated himself upon it,\nfor a gift of hitherto unheard-of amount to the shrine itself.\n\n\u201cSince thou art royal-mad,\u201d said the new sovereign, \u201cand in truth a very\nking of idiots, thou shalt be crowned and sceptred with a cap and bauble,\nand be my fool.\u201d\n\nRobert was still tongue-tied. He tried in vain to speak--to roar out his\ndisgust and defiance; and half mad, indeed, with the inability, pointed\nwith his quivering finger to the inside of his mouth, as if in apology to\nthe beholders for not doing it. Fresh shouts of laughter made his brain\nseem to reel within him.\n\n\u201cFetch the cap and bauble,\u201d said the sovereign, \u201cand let the King of Fools\nhave his coronation.\u201d\n\nRobert felt that he must submit to what he thought the power of the devil.\nHe began even to have glimpses of a real though hesitating sense of the\nadvantage of securing friendship on the side of Heaven. But rage and\nindignation were uppermost; and while the attendants were shaving his\nhead, fixing the cap, and jeeringly dignifying him with the\nbauble-sceptre, he was racking his brain for schemes of vengeance. What\nexasperated him most of all, next to the shaving, was to observe, that\nthose who had flattered him most when a king, were the loudest in their\ncontempt, now that he was the court-zany. One pompous lord in particular,\nwith a high and ridiculous voice, which continued to laugh when all the\nrest had done, and produced fresh peals by the continuance, was so\nexcessively provoking, that Robert, who felt his vocal and muscular powers\nrestored to him as if for the occasion, could not help shaking his fist at\nthe grinning slave, and crying out, \u201cThou beast, Terranova!\u201d which, in all\nbut the person so addressed, only produced additional merriment. At\nlength, the king ordered the fool to be taken away, in order to sup with\nthe dogs. Robert was stupefied; but he found himself hungry against his\nwill, and gnawed the bones which had been chucked away by his nobles.\n\nThe proud King Robert of Sicily lived in this way for two years, always\nraging in his mind, always sullen in his manners, and subjected to every\nindignity which his quondam favourites could heap on him, without the\npower to resent it. For the new monarch seemed unjust to him only. He had\nall the humiliations, without any of the privileges, of the cap and bells,\nand was the dullest fool ever heard of. All the notice the king took of\nhim consisted in his asking, now and then, in full court, when everything\nwas silent, \u201cWell, fool, art thou still a king?\u201d Robert, for some weeks,\nloudly answered that he was; but, finding that the answer was but a signal\nfor a roar of laughter, he converted his speech into the silent dignity of\na haughty and royal attitude; till, observing that the laughter was\ngreater at this dumb show, he ingeniously adopted a manner which expressed\nneither defiance nor acquiescence, and the Angel for some time let him\nalone.\n\nMeantime, everybody but the unhappy Robert blessed the new, or, as they\nsupposed him, the altered king: for everything in the mode of government\nwas changed. Taxes were light; the poor had plenty; work was reasonable;\nthe nobles themselves were expected to work after their fashion--to study,\nto watch zealously over the interests of their tenants, to travel, to\nbring home new books and innocent luxuries. Half the day throughout Sicily\nwas given to industry, and half to healthy and intellectual enjoyment; and\nthe inhabitants became at once the manliest and tenderest, the gayest and\nmost studious people in the world. Wherever the king went, he was loaded\nwith benedictions; and the fool heard them, and began to wonder _what the\ndevil_ the devil had to do with appearances so extraordinary. And thus,\nfor the space of time we have mentioned, he lived wondering, and sullen,\nand hating, and hated, and despised.\n\nAt the expiration of these two years, or nearly so, the king announced his\nintention of paying a visit to his brother the Pope and his brother the\nEmperor, the latter agreeing to come to Rome for the purpose. He went\naccordingly with a great train, clad in the most magnificent garments, all\nbut the fool, who was arrayed in fox-tails, and put side by side with an\nape, dressed like himself. The people poured out of their houses, and\nfields, and vineyards, all struggling to get a sight of the king\u2019s face,\nand to bless it; the ladies strewing flowers, and the peasants\u2019 wives\nholding up their rosy children, which last sight seemed particularly to\ndelight the sovereign. The fool, bewildered, came after the court pages,\nby the side of his ape, exciting shouts of laughter; though some persons\nwere a little astonished to think how a monarch so kind and considerate to\nall the rest of the world, should be so hard upon a sorry fool. But it was\ntold them, that this fool was the most perverse and insolent of men\ntowards the prince himself; and then, although their wonder hardly ceased,\nit was full of indignation against the unhappy wretch, and he was loaded\nwith every kind of scorn and abuse. The proud King Robert seemed the only\nblot and disgrace upon the island.\n\nThe fool had still a hope, that when his Holiness the Pope saw him, the\nmagician\u2019s arts would be at an end; for though he had had no religion at\nall, properly speaking, he had retained something even of a superstitious\nfaith in the highest worldly form of it. The good Pope, however, beheld\nhim without the least recognition; so did the Emperor; and when he saw\nthem both gazing with unfeigned admiration at the exalted beauty of his\nformer altered self, and not with the old faces of pretended good-will and\nsecret dislike, a sense of awe and humility, for the first time, fell\ngently upon him. Instead of getting as far as possible from his companion\nthe ape, he approached him closer and closer, partly that he might shroud\nhimself under the very shadow of his insignificance, partly from a\nfeeling of absolute sympathy, and a desire to possess, if not one friend\nin the world, at least one associate who was not an enemy.\n\nIt happened that day, that it was the same day on which, two years ago,\nRobert had scorned the words in the Magnificat. Vespers were performed\nbefore the sovereigns: the music and the soft voices fell softer as they\ncame to the words; and Robert again heard, with far different feelings,\n\u201cHe hath put down the mighty from their seat, and exalted the humble.\u201d\nTears gushed into his eyes, and, to the astonishment of the court, the\nlate brutal fool was seen with his hands clasped upon his bosom in prayer,\nand the water pouring down his face in floods of penitence. Holier\nfeelings than usual had pervaded all hearts that day. The king\u2019s favourite\nchaplain had preached from the text which declares charity to be greater\nthan faith or hope. The Emperor began to think mankind really his\nbrothers. The Pope wished that some new council of the church would\nauthorise him to set up, instead of the Jewish Ten Commandments, and in\nmore glorious letters, the new, _eleventh_, or great Christian\ncommandment,--\u201cBehold I give unto you a _new_ commandment, LOVE ONE\nANOTHER.\u201d In short, Rome felt that day like angel-governed Sicily.\n\nWhen the service was over, the unknown King Robert\u2019s behaviour was\nreported to the unsuspected King-Angel, who had seen it but said nothing.\nThe sacred interloper announced his intention of giving the fool his\ndischarge; and he sent for him accordingly, having first dismissed every\nother person. King Robert came in his fool\u2019s cap and bells, and stood\nhumbly at a distance before the strange great charitable unknown, looking\non the floor and blushing. He had the ape by the hand, who had long\ncourted his good-will, and who, having now obtained it, clung to his human\nfriend in a way that, to a Roman, might have seemed ridiculous, but to the\nAngel, was affecting.\n\n\u201cArt thou still a king?\u201d said the Angel, putting the old question, but\nwithout the word \u201cfool.\u201d\n\n\u201cI am a fool,\u201d said King Robert, \u201cand no king.\u201d\n\n\u201cWhat wouldst thou, Robert?\u201d returned the Angel, in a mild voice.\n\nKing Robert trembled from head to foot, and said, \u201cEven what thou wouldst,\nO mighty and good stranger, whom I know not how to name,--hardly to look\nat!\u201d\n\nThe stranger laid his hand on the shoulder of King Robert, who felt an\ninexpressible calm suddenly diffuse itself over his being. He knelt down,\nand clasped his hands to thank him.\n\n\u201cNot to me,\u201d interrupted the Angel, in a grave, but sweet voice; and\nkneeling down by the side of Robert, he said, as if in church, \u201cLet us\npray.\u201d\n\nKing Robert prayed, and the Angel prayed, and after a few moments, the\nking looked up, and the Angel was gone; and then the king knew that it was\nan Angel indeed.\n\nAnd his own likeness returned to King Robert, but never an atom of his\npride; and after a blessed reign, he died, disclosing this history to his\nweeping nobles, and requesting that it might be recorded in the Sicilian\nAnnals.\n\n[Illustration: King Robert]\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER VII\n\nITALIAN AND ENGLISH PASTORAL.\n\n TASSO\u2019S ERMINIA AMONG THE SHEPHERDS, AND ODE ON THE GOLDEN\n AGE.--GUARINI\u2019S RETURN OF SPRING.--SHEPHERD\u2019S VISION OF THE HUNDRED\n MAIDENS IN SPENSER.--SAD SHEPHERD OF BEN JONSON.\n\n\n[Illustration]\n\nThe best pastoral is often written when the author least intends it. A\ncompleter feeling of the country and of a shepherd\u2019s life is given us in a\nsingle passage of the _Jerusalem Delivered_, where Erminia finds herself\namong a set of peaceful villagers, than in the whole _Aminta_--beautiful,\ntoo, as the latter is in many respects, and containing the divine ode on\nthe Golden Age, the crown of all pastoral aspiration. That, indeed,\ncarries everything, even truth itself, before it; saving the truth of\nman\u2019s longing after a state of happiness compatible with his desires. The\nfirst line of it, the most beautiful of sighs, is familiar as a proverb in\nthe lips of Italy, and of the lovers of Italy:--\n\n O bella et\u00e0 de l\u2019oro!\n Non gi\u00e0 perch\u00e8 di latte\n Sen corse il fiume, e still\u00f2 mele il bosco;\n Non perch\u00e8 i frutti loro\n Dier da l\u2019 aratro intatte\n Le terre, e i serpi errar senz\u2019 ira o tosco;\n Non perch\u00e8 nuvol fosco\n Non spieg\u00f2 allor suo velo,\n Ma in primavera eterna\n Ch\u2019 ora s\u2019 accende, e verna,\n Rise di luce e di sereno il cielo,\n N\u00e8 port\u00f2 peregrino\n O guerra o merce a gli altrui lidi il pino.\n\n Ma sol perch\u00e8 quel vano\n Nome senza soggetto,\n Quell\u2019 idolo d\u2019 errori, idol d\u2019 inganno,\n Quel che dal volgo insano\n Onor poscia f\u00f9 detto,\n Che di nostra natura il feo tiranno,\n Non mischiava il suo affanno\n Fra le liete dolcezze\n De l\u2019 amoroso gregge;\n N\u00e8 fu sua dura legge\n Nota a quell\u2019 alme in libertate avvezze:\n Ma legge aurea e felice,\n Che natura scolp\u00ec,--s\u2019 ei piace, ei lice.\n\n O lovely age of gold!\n Not that the rivers roll\u2019d\n With milk, or that the woods wept honey-dew;\n Not that the ready ground\n Produced without a wound,\n Or the mild serpent had no tooth that slew;\n Not that a cloudless blue\n For ever was in sight,\n Or that the heaven, which burns\n And now is cold by turns,\n Look\u2019d out in glad and everlasting light;\n No, nor that even the insolent ships from far\n Brought war to no new lands, nor riches worse than war.\n\n But solely that that vain\n And breath-invented pain,\n That idol of mistake, that worshipp\u2019d cheat,\n That Honour--since so call\u2019d\n By vulgar minds appall\u2019d,\n Play\u2019d not the tyrant with our nature yet.\n It had not come to fret\n The sweet and happy fold\n Of gentle human-kind;\n Nor did its hard law bind\n Souls nursed in freedom; but that law of gold,\n That glad and golden law, all free, all fitted,\n Which nature\u2019s own hand wrote--What pleases, is permitted.\n\nGuarini, who wrote his _Pastor Fido_ in emulation of the _Aminta_,\nundertook to show that these regrets were immoral, and agreeably to an\nItalian fashion, made at once a grave rebuke and a literal rhyming parody\nof the original, in an ode beginning with the same words, and repeating\nmost of them! His version of \u201cWhat pleases, is permitted,\u201d is \u201cTake\npleasure, if permitted!\u201d as if Tasso did not know all about that side of\nthe question, and was not prepared to be quite as considerate in his moral\nconduct and his discountenance of rakes and seducers as Guarini: whose\npoem, after all, incurred charges of licence and temptation, from which\nthat of his prototype was free;--an old conventional story! All which\nTasso did, was to put into the mouths of his shepherds, themselves an\nideal people, a wish which is felt by the whole world--namely, that duty\nand inclination could be more reconciled to innocence than they are; and\nthe world has shown that it agreed with his honest sighs, and not with the\npick-thank commonplaces of his reprover; for it has treasured his\nbeautiful ode in its memory, and forgotten its insulting echo.\n\nNevertheless, there are fine things in Guarini, and such as the world has\nconsented to remember, though not of this all-affecting sort. One of these\nis the address to the woods, beginning--\n\n Care selve beate,\n E voi, solinghi e taciturni orrori,\n Di riposo e di pace alberghi veri:--\n\nan exordium, which somebody (was it Mrs. Katherine Phillips, the\n\u201cmatchless Orinda\u201d?) has well translated:--\n\n Dear happy groves, and you, the dark retreat\n Of silent horror, rest\u2019s eternal seat.\n\nWe are sorry we cannot recollect any more. It expresses the wish, which so\nmany have felt, to live in retirement, and be devoted to the beauties of\nnature. Another passage, more generally known, turns also upon a very\ngeneral feeling of regret--that of seeing spring-time reappear,\nunaccompanied with the joys we have lost. Guarini was safer in following\nhis original into these sincere corners of the heart, than when he\nattempted to refute him with a boy\u2019s copy-book. The passage is very\nbeautiful, and no less popular:--\n\n O Primavera, giovent\u00f9 de l\u2019 anno,\n Bella madre de\u2019 fiori,\n D\u2019 erbe novelle e di novelli amori,\n Tu torni ben; ma teco\n Non tornano i sereni\n E fortunati di de le mie gioje:\n Tu torni ben, tu torni,\n Ma teco altro non torna\n Che del perduto mio caro tesoro\n La rimembranza misera e dolente:\n Tu quella sei, tu quella,\n Ch\u2019 era pur dianzi si vezzosa e bella;\n Ma non son io gi\u00e0 quel ch\u2019un tempo fui,\n S\u00ec caro a gli occhi altrui.\n _Pastor Fido_, atto iii. sc. i.\n\n O Spring, thou youthful beauty of the year,\n Mother of flowers, bringer of warbling quires,\n Of all sweet new green things and new desires,\n Thou, Spring, returnest; but, alas! with thee\n No more return to me\n The calm and happy days these eyes were used to see.\n Thou, thou returnest, thou,\n But with thee returns now\n Nought else but dread remembrance of the pleasure\n I took in my lost treasure.\n Thou still, thou still, art the same blithe, sweet thing\n Thou ever wast, O Spring;\n But I, in whose weak orbs these tears arise,\n Am what I was no more, dear to another\u2019s eyes.\n\nThe repetitions in this beautiful lament,\n\n Tu torni ben, tu torni, &c.,\n\nare particularly affecting. Perhaps the tone of them was caught from\nAriosto:--\n\n Non son, non sono io quel che paio in viso:\n Quel ch\u2019era Orlando, \u00e8 morto, ed \u00e8 sotterra.\n _Furioso_, canto xxiii. st. 128.\n\n No more, no more am I what I appear:\n He that Orlando was, is dead and gone.\n\nIt is no critical violence at any time to pass from the Italian schools of\npoetry to those of our own country. They have always been closely\nconnected, at least on the side of England, for the others knew little of\ntheir Northern admirers--men in whom Ariosto and Tasso would have\ndelighted. Our language, till of late years, was not so widely spread as\nthe Italian.\n\nOur earliest pastoral poet of any name is Spenser; and a great name he is,\nthough he was not a great pastoral poet. He was deeply intimate both with\nGreek and Italian pastoral; but in admiring Theocritus, and hoping to\nrival his natural language, he unwisely attempted to engraft the sweet\nfruit of the south on the rudest crab-apple of northern rusticity. Hence,\nin his only pastoral professing to be such, entitled the _Shepherd\u2019s\nCalendar_, he has almost entirely failed. There are some touching lines in\nthe story of the _Fox and Kid_, and a beautiful paraphrase of that of\n_Cupid and the Fowler_, from Bion; but in truth, with all his love of the\nwoods and fields, for which he had a poet\u2019s passion, and never could be\nwithout, Spenser was not qualified to excel as a purely pastoral writer.\nHe was too learned for it, too full of the writers before him, and could\nnot dispense with their chivalry and mythology. His words were Greek\nrather than English; or if English, they were the English of a former\ntime. When Venus and the Graces were not there, he saw enchantresses and\nknights-errant. He always had visions, as Milton had, either of Jove or\nProserpine, or of\n\n _Faery damsels met in forests wide_\n By knights of Logres and of Lyones,\n L\u00e0ncelot, or P\u00e8lleas, or Pellen\u00f2re.\n\nBut this elevated him to the high ideal of the subject; and no man could\nhave written so fine a pastoral as he, of the classical or romantic sort,\nhad he set his luxuriant wits to it, instead of attempting to get up an\nuncouth dance with the \u201cclouted shoon\u201d of Hobbinol and Davie. He could\nhave beaten Ben Jonson, Fletcher, and all. Under picturesque influences,\nhe never failed to add beauty to beauty. In the original of the passage we\nhave alluded to, which he imitated from Bion, (the story of _Cupid and the\nFowler_,) Bion merely makes the young fowler take Cupid in the trees for a\nbird, and endeavour to ensnare him; ending with a pretty admonition, from\nan old master of the craft, not to persevere in his attempt, seeing that\nthe bird in question was a very dangerous bird, and would come to him soon\nenough by-and-by of his own accord. In Spenser, Cupid has wings coloured\nlike a peacock\u2019s train; and after flashing out beautifully from the\nbushes to a tree, the little god leaps from bough to bough, and playfully\ncatches the stones thrown at him in his hand. All the introductory\ndetails, too, which are full of truth, are Spenser\u2019s:--\n\n At length within the yvie todde\n (There shrowded was the little god)\n I heard a busie bustling;\n I bent my bolt against the bush,\n _Listning if anie thing did rush_,\n But then heard no more rustling.\n Tho, peeping close into the thicke,\n Might see the moving of some quicke,\n Whose shape appear\u00e8d not;\n But were it faerie, feend, or snake,\n My courage yearn\u2019d it to awake,\n And manfully thereat shotte:\n _With that sprang forth a naked swayne,\n With spotted winges like peacock\u2019s trayne,\n And, laughing, lope to a tree;\n His gylden quiver at his back;\n And silver bowe, which was but slacke,\n Which lightly he bent at me_:\n That seeing, I leveld againe,\n And shot at him with might and mayne,\n As thick as it had hayled:\n So long I shott, that all was spent;\n The pumie-stones I hastily hent,\n And threw; but nought avayled:\n He was so nimble and so wight,\n _From bough to bough he lepp\u00e8d light,\n And oft the pumies latch\u00e8d_.\n --_Shepherd\u2019s Calendar_, March, v. 67.\n\n_Latched_, is _caught_; and _pumies_, and _pumie-stones_, are\n_pumice_-stones, a very light mineral. The fowler is considerate, and\nwould not break the bird\u2019s head. This passage is one of the least obsolete\nin its style of all the _Shepherd\u2019s Calendar_; yet what a pity to see it\ndeformed with words requiring explanation, such as _latched_ for _caught_,\n_tho_ for _then_, _lope_ for _leaped_, &c. With the like needless\nperversity, forgetful of his elevated calling, Spenser, in his pastoral\ncharacter, delights to designate himself as \u201cColin Clout,\u201d as though he\nwere nothing better than a patch in the very heels of clodhopping. And\nyet, under this name, he sees the Nymphs and Graces dancing round his\nshepherdess upon Mount Acidale! The passage, otherwise, is one of his most\nelegant pieces of invention; and with the Grecian topography, may be said\nto exhibit the very highest region and crown of the pastoral side of\nParnassus. Sir Calidore, the Knight of Courtesy (for thus does he mix up\nthe classical and romantic grounds; but no matter for that, since they are\nboth in the regions of imagination), hears a noise of music and dancing as\nhe is approaching the top of Mount Acidale. Upon looking amongst the\ntrees, when he reaches it, he sees a shepherd piping to his love, in the\nmidst of\n\n _An hundred naked maidens, lily-white_,\n All rang\u00e8d in a ring, and dancing in delight.\n\nBut we must not lose the description of the place itself:--\n\n It was an hill, plaiste in an open plaine,\n That round about is border\u2019d with a wood\n Of matchless hight, that seem\u2019d th\u2019 earth to disdaine,\n In which all trees of honour stately stood,\n And did all winter as in summer bud,\n Spredding pavillions for the birds to bowre,\n Which in their lower braunches sang aloud;\n And in their tops the soring hawk did towre,\n _Sitting like king of foules in majesty and powre_:\n\n And at the foote thereof a gentle flud\n His silver waves did softly tumble down,\n Unmar\u2019d with ragged mosse or filthy mud;\n Ne mote wild beastes, ne mote the ruder clowne,\n Thereto approach; ne filth mote therein drowne:\n _But Nymphs and Faeries by the bancks did sit\n In the wood\u2019s shade, which did the waters crowne,\n Keeping all noysome things away from it,\n And to the water\u2019s fall tuning their accents fit_.\n\n And on the top thereof a spacious plaine\n Did spred itselfe, to serve to all delight,\n Either to daunce, when they to daunce would faine\n Or else to course about their bases light;\n Ne ought there wanted, which for pleasure might\n Desir\u00e8d be, or thence to banish bale;\n So pleasantly the hill with equall hight\n Did seem to overlooke the lowly vale;\n Therefore it rightly cleep\u00e8d was Mount Acidale.[6]\n\n They say that Venus, when she did dispose\n Herselfe to pleasaunce, us\u00e8d to resort\n Unto this place, and therein to repose\n And rest herself, as in a gladsome port;\n Or with the Graces, there to play and sport;\n That even her own Cytheron, though in it\n She us\u00e8d most to keep her royall court,\n And in her soveraine majesty to sit,\n She, in regard thereof, refusde and thought unfit.\n\n Unto this place when as the elfin knight\n Approacht, him seem\u00e8d that the merry sound\n Of a shrill pipe he playing heard on hight,\n And many feete fast thumping th\u2019 hollow ground,\n That through the woods their echo did rebound.\n He hither drew, to weete what mote it be:\n There he a troupe of ladies dauncing found\n Full merrily, and making gladfull glee,\n And in the midst a shepherd piping he did see.\n\n He durst not enter into th\u2019 open greene,\n For dread of them unawares to be descryde,\n For breaking of their daunce, if he were seene;\n But in the covert of the wood did byde,\n Beholding all, yet of them unespyde:\n There he did see, that pleased much his sight,\n That even he himself his eyes envyde,\n _An hundred naked maidens, lilly white,\n All raung\u00e8d in a ring and dauncing in delight_.\n\nIn the middle of this orb of fair creatures, the beauty of which there is\nnothing of the sort to equal, (unless it be those circles of lily-white\nstamens which, with such exquisite mystery, adorn the commonest\nflower-cups--so profuse of her poetry is Nature!), Sir Calidore sees\n\u201cthree other ladies,\u201d both dancing and singing--to wit, the Graces; and in\nthe midst of \u201cthose same three\u201d was yet another lady, or rather \u201cdamsel\u201d\n(for she was of rustic origin), crowned with a garland of roses, and so\nbeautiful, that she was the very gem of the ring, and \u201cgraced\u201d the Graces\nthemselves. The hundred nymphs, as they danced, threw flowers upon her;\nthe Graces endowed her with the gifts which she reflected upon them,\nenhanced; and a shepherd sat piping to them all.\n\nNever, surely, was such deification of a \u201ccountry lass;\u201d and well might\nthe poet hail his spectacle in a rapture of self-complacency, and\nencourage his pipe to play on:--\n\n _Pype, jolly shepheard! pype thou now apace\n Unto thy love_, that made thee low to lout.\n\n(He has raised her from the condition to which he stooped to obtain her.)\n\n Thy love is present there with thee in place--\n\n(That is, in the midst of his poetry and his fame.)\n\n Thy love is there advaunst _to be another Grace_.\n\nBut a mishap is on the heels of this vision, connected with our author\u2019s\nprofessed attempts at pastoral; for so we have little doubt it is, though\nthe commentators have given it another meaning. Sir Calidore, envying his\neyes a sight which so \u201cenriched\u201d them, left the covert through which he\nlooked, and went towards it:--\n\n But soone as he appear\u00e8d to their view,\n They vanisht all away, out of his sight,\n And cleane were gone, which way he never knew,\n All save the shepherd; who, for fell despight\n Of that displeasure, broke his bag-pipe quight,\n And made great mone for that unhappy turne;\n But Calidore, though no less sorry wight\n For that mishap, yet seeing him to mourne,\n Drew neare, that he the truth of all by him might learne.\n\nSir Calidore, the Knight of Courtesy, is understood to be Sir Philip\nSidney, who, in his _Defence of Poesy_, had objected to the style of the\n_Shepherd\u2019s Calendar_; and as his word was taken for law in matters of\ntaste, and the criticism was probably fatal to the poet\u2019s continuance in\nthat style (for at all events he dropped it), we have scarcely a doubt\nthat Spenser alludes to the fact of his giving up pastoral writing in\nconsequence. He breaks his pipe; not, it seems (like most authors, when\nthey give way to critics), without much secret vexation--nay, \u201ca fell\ndespight,\u201d as he calls it; candidly, if not a little maliciously, owning\nthe whole extent of his feelings on the subject to his illustrious\ncritic, who had since become his friend. It was a disadvantage which his\npride could not feel itself easy with, till it had set it to rights. The\nfollowing is the passage in Sidney\u2019s essay:--\n\n The _Shepherd\u2019s Kalander_ hath much poetry in his eclogues, indeed\n worthy the reading, if I be not deceived. That same framing of his\n style to an old rustic language, I dare not allow; since neither\n Theocritus in Greek, Virgil in Latin, nor Sannazarro in Italian, did\n affect it.\n\nHe means that Theocritus and the others wrote in the language of their\ntimes, and that to be obsolete is not to be natural. Spenser, it is to be\nobserved, expressly designates himself in this episode as Colin Clout,\nwhich is the title he assumed as the author of the _Shepherd\u2019s Calendar_;\na \u201ccountry lassie\u201d is his goddess in that work; and it seems far more\nlikely that under this identity of appellation he should complain, in one\npoem, of the discouragement given to another, than simply shadow forth (as\nthe commentators think) the circumstance of Sir Philip Sidney\u2019s having\ndrawn him from the country to the court. In what consisted the abrupt\nintervention of a proceeding like that? What particular vision did it\ndissipate? Or how could he pretend any right of soreness in his tone of\ncomplaint about it? And he is very sore indeed at the knight\u2019s\ninterruption, notwithstanding his courtesy. Tell me, says Calidore--\n\n Tell me what mote these dainty damsels be,\n Which here with thee do make their pleasant playes:\n Right happy thou, that mayst them freely see;\n But why, when I them saw, fled they away from me?\n\n _Not I so happy_, answered then that swaine,\n _As thou unhappy_, which them thence did chase,\n Whom by no meanes thou canst recall againe.\n\nHe could not look back with comfort upon having been forced to give up his\npastoral visions.\n\nBut to return to our subject. The all-including genius of Shakspeare has\ngiven the finest intimations of pastoral writing in some of the masques\nintroduced in his plays, and in his plays themselves; if indeed _As You\nLike It_ might not equally as well be called a pastoral play as a comedy;\nthough, to be sure, the duke and his followers do not willingly take to\nthe woods, with the exception of the \u201csad shepherd\u201d Jacques; and this is a\ngreat drawback on the pleasures of the occasion, which ought to breathe as\nfreely as the air and the wild roses. Rosalind, however, is a very bud of\nthe pastoral ideal, peeping out of her forest jerkin. Again, in the\n_Winter\u2019s Tale_, where the good housewife is recorded, who has \u201cher face\no\u2019 fire\u201d with attending to the guests, and \u201cmy sister,\u201d who has the\npurchase of the eatables, \u201clays it on\u201d (as her brother the clown says) in\nthe article of rice, there is the truest pastoral of both kinds, the ideal\nand the homely:--\n\n SHEPHERD. Fie, daughter! When my old wife liv\u2019d, upon\n This day she was both pantler, butler, cook,--\n Both dame and servant; _welcomed all, serv\u2019d all;\n Would sing her song, and dance her turn; now here,\n At upper end o\u2019 the table, now i\u2019 the middle;\n On his shoulder, and his; her face o\u2019 fire\n With labour; and the thing she took to quench it,\n She would to each one sip_.\n\nWhat a poet, and what a painter! Now a Raphael, or Michael Angelo; now a\nJan Steen or a Teniers. Here also is Autolycus, the most exquisite of\nimpudent vagabonds, better even than the _Brass_ of Sir John Vanbrugh;\nselling his love ballads, so without indecency, \u201cwhich is strange,\u201d and\nanother ballad of a singing _Fish_, with \u201cfive justices\u2019 hands to it,\u201d to\nvouch for its veracity. But, above all, here is Perdita:--\n\n The prettiest low-born lass that ever\n Ran on the green sward.\n No shepherdess, but Flora,\n Peering in April\u2019s front.\n\nPerdita, also, though supposed to be a shepherdess born, is a _Sicilian_\nprincess, and makes our BLUE JAR glisten again in the midst of its native\nsun and flowers.\n\n O Pros\u00e8rpina!\n For the flowers now that, frighted, thou let\u2019st fall\n From Dis\u2019s waggon!--\n\n(\u201cWaggon,\u201d be it observed, was as much a word of respect in those days as\n\u201cchariot\u201d is now.)\n\n Daffodils\n That come before the swallow dares, _and take\n The winds of March with beauty; violets, dim,\n But sweeter than the lids of Juno\u2019s eyes_,\n Or Cytherea\u2019s breath;\n bold oxlips, and\n The crown-imperial; lilies of all kinds,\n The flower-de-luce being one. O, these I lack\n To make you garlands of; and, my sweet friend,\n [_Turning to her lover._\n To strew him o\u2019er and o\u2019er.\n FLORIZEL. What! like a corse?\n PERDITA. No: like a bank, for love to lie and play on.\n Not like a corse; or if,--not to be buried,\n But quick, and in mine arms.\n\nShelley has called a woman \u201cone of Shakspeare\u2019s women,\u201d implying by that\ndesignation all that can be suggested of grace and sweetness. They were\n\u201cvery subtle,\u201d as Mr. Wordsworth said of the French ladies. Not that they\nwere French ladies, or English either; but Nature\u2019s and refinement\u2019s best\npossible gentlewomen all over the world. Tullia d\u2019Aragona, the Italian\npoetess, who made all her suitors love one another instead of quarrel,\nmust have been a Shakspeare woman. Gaspara Stampa was another; and we\nshould take the authoress of _Auld Robin Gray_ for one.\n\n Sidney\u2019s sister, Pembroke\u2019s mother,\n\nand Lucy, Countess of Bedford, must have been such. So was Mrs. Brooke,\nwho wrote _Emily Montague_; and probably Madame Riccoboni; and certainly\nmy Lady Winchelsea, who worshipped friendship, and green retreats, and her\nhusband;--terrible people all, to look upon, if the very sweetness of\ntheir virtue did not enable us to bear it.\n\nBen Jonson left an unfinished dramatic pastoral, entitled the _Sad\nShepherd_. It is a story of Robin Hood, in connection with a shepherd who\nhas gone melancholy mad for the supposed death of his mistress--a lucky\ncharacter for the exalted wilfulness of the author\u2019s style. The lover\nopens the play with the following elegant extravagance:--\n\n \u00c6GLAMOUR. Here she was wont to go! and here! and here!\n Just where those daisies, pinks, and violets grow:\n _The world may find the spring by following her_.\n\nThis is a truly lover-like fancy; and the various, impulsive, and flowery\nversification is perfect. Ben Jonson can never leave out his learning. The\nlost mistress must be compared, in the impossible lightness of her step,\nwith Virgil\u2019s Camilla, who ran over the tops of corn:--\n\n For other print her airy steps ne\u2019er left;\n Her treading would not bend a blade of grass,\n Or shake the downy blow-ball from his stalk.\n\nWhat unsubstantial womanhood! How different from the bride of Bedreddin\nHassan!\n\n \u201cUp, up in haste!\u201d the young man cries:\n Ah! slender waist! she cannot rise\n For heavy hips, that say, \u201cSit still,\u201d\n And make her linger \u2019gainst her will.\n --TORRENS\u2019S _Arabian Nights_.\n\nThe best passage in the _Sad Shepherd_ is a description of a witch and her\nhabits--a subject which every way suited the arbitrary and sullen side of\nthe poet\u2019s notions of power. It also enabled him to show his reading, as\nhe takes care to let us know, by means of one of the bystanders:--\n\n ALKEN. Know ye the witch\u2019s dell?\n SCATHLOCK. No more than I do know the ways of hell.\n ALKEN. Within a gloomy dimble she doth dwell,\n Down in a pit, o\u2019ergrown with brakes and briers,\n _Close by the ruins of a shaken abbey,\n Torn with an earthquake down unto the ground,\n \u2019Mongst graves and grots, near an old charnel-house_,\n Where you shall find her sitting in her form,\n As fearful and mel\u00e0ncholic as that\n She is about with caterpillars\u2019 kells\n And knotty cobwebs, rounded in with spells.\n Thence she steals forth to revel in the fogs\n And _rotten mists_ upon the fens and bogs,\n _Down to the drown\u00e8d lands of Lincolnshire_;\n To make ewes cast their lambs, swine eat their farrow,\n The housewife\u2019s tun not work, nor the milk churn!\n _Writhe children\u2019s wrists_, and suck their breath in sleep,\n Get vials of their blood; and where the sea\n Casts up its slimy ooze, search for a weed\n To open locks with, and to rivet charms,\n Planted about her in the wicked feat\n Of all her mischiefs, which are manifold.\n JOHN. I wonder such a story could be told\n Of her dire deeds.\n GEORGE. I thought a witch\u2019s banks\n Had enclosed nothing but the merry pranks\n Of some old woman.\n SCARLET. Yes, her malice more.\n SCATHLOCK. As it would quickly appear had we the store\n Of his collects.\n GEORGE. Ay, this good learned man\n Can speak her rightly.\n SCARLET. He knows her shifts and haunts.\n ALKEN. And all her wiles and turns. The venom\u2019d plants\n Wherewith she kills; where the sad mandrake grows,\n Whose groans are dreadful; the dead-numbing nightshade,\n The stupifying hemlock, adder\u2019s tongue,\n And martagan; the shrieks of luckless owls\n We hear, and croaking night-crows in the air;\n _Green-bellied snakes_, blue fire-drakes in the sky,\n _And giddy flitter-mice with leather wings_,\n And scaly beetles _with their habergeons,\n That make a humming murmur as they fly_.\n There, in the stocks of trees, _white faies do dwell,\n And span-long elves that dance about a pool\n With each a little changeling in their arms_!\n And airy spirits play with falling stars,\n And mount the sphere of fire to kiss the moon,\n While she sits reading (by the glow-worm\u2019s light,\n Of rotten wood, _o\u2019er which the worm hath crept_)\n The baneful schedule of her nocent charms.\n\nThe idea of \u201cspan-long elves\u201d who dance about a pool, carrying each a\nstolen infant, that must be bigger than themselves, is a very capital and\nfantastic horror.\n\nOld burly and strong-sensation-loving Ben (as his friend Chapman, or Mr.\nBentham, might have called him) could show, however, a great deal of\ndelicacy when he had a mind to it. He could turn his bluster into a zephyr\nthat inspired the young genius of Milton. Some of his court masques are\npastoral; and the following is the style in which he receives the king and\nqueen. Maia (the goddess of May) says--\n\n If all the pleasures were distill\u2019d\n Of _every_ flower in _every_ field--\n\n(This kind of return of words was not common then, as he has since made\nit)\n\n And all that Hybla\u2019s hives do yield,\n Were into one broad mazer fill\u2019d;\n If thereto added all the gums\n And spice that from Panchaia comes,\n The odours that Hydaspes lends,\n Or Ph\u0153nix proves before she ends;\n If all the air my Flora drew,\n Or spirit that Zephyr ever blew,\n Were put therein; _and all the dew\n That ever rosy morning knew_;\n Yet all, diffused upon this bower,\n _To make one sweet detaining hour_,\n Were much too little for the grace\n And honour you vouchsafe the place.\n\nIn the masque of _Oberon_, Silenus bids his Satyrs rouse up a couple of\nsleeping Sylvans, who ought to have been keeping watch; \u201cat which,\u201d says\nthe poet\u2019s direction, \u201cthe Satyrs fell suddenly into this\ncatch\u201d--Musicians know it well:--\n\n _Buz_, quoth the blue fly;\n _Hum_, quoth the bee;\n _Buz and hum they cry,\n And so do we_.\n In his _ear_, in his _nose_,\n _Thus_, do you see! [_They tickle them._\n _He_ eat _the dormouse_,\n Else it was _he_.\n\nIt is impossible that anything could better express than this, either the\nwild and practical joking of the Satyrs, or the action of the thing\ndescribed, or the quaintness and fitness of the images, or the melody and\neven the harmony, the _intercourse_, of the musical words, one with\nanother. None but a boon companion with a very musical ear could have\nwritten it. It was not for nothing that Ben lived in the time of the fine\nold English composers, Bull and Ford; or partook his canary with his\n\u201clov\u2019d Alphonso,\u201d as he calls him,--the Signor Ferrabosco.\n\nWe have not yet done with this delightful portion of our subject. Fletcher\nand Milton await us still; together with the pastoral poet, William\nBrowne; and a few other poets, who, though they wrote no pastorals, were\npastoral men.\n\n[Illustration]\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER VIII.\n\nENGLISH PASTORAL--(CONTINUED); AND SCOTCH PASTORAL.\n\n FLETCHER\u2019S \u201cFAITHFUL SHEPHERDESS.\u201d--PROBABLE REASON OF ITS\n NON-SUCCESS.--\u201cCOMUS\u201d AND \u201cLYCIDAS.\u201d--DR. JOHNSON\u2019S \u201cWORLD.\u201d--BURNS\n AND ALLAN RAMSAY.\n\n\n[Illustration]\n\nThe title and story of the _Sad Shepherd_ of Ben Jonson, in combination\nwith those of the _Faithful Shepherd_ (_Pastor Fido_) of Guarini, appear\nto have suggested to Fletcher his _Faithful Shepherdess_. This is\nundoubtedly the chief pastoral play in our language, though, with all its\nbeauties, we can hardly think it ought to have been such, considering\nwhat Shakspeare and Spenser have shown that they could have done in this\nArcadian region. The illustrious author, exquisite poet as he was, and son\nof a bishop to boot, had the misfortune, with his friend Beaumont, to be\nwhat is called a \u201cman upon town;\u201d which polluted his sense of enjoyment\nand rendered him but imperfectly in earnest, even when he most wished to\nbe so. Hence his subserviency to the taste of those painful gentlemen\ncalled men of pleasure, and his piecing out his better sentiments with\nexaggeration. Hence the revolting character, in this play, of a \u201cWanton\nShepherdess,\u201d which is an offence to the very voluptuousness it secretly\nintended to interest; and hence the opposite offence of the character of\nthe \u201cFaithful Shepherdess\u201d herself, who is ostentatiously made such a\nparagon of chastity, and values herself so excessively on the self-denial,\nthat the virtue itself is compromised, and you can see that the author had\nvery little faith in it. And we have little doubt that this was the cause\nwhy the play was damned (for such is the startling fact), and not the\nignorance of the audience, to which Beaumont and Ben Jonson indignantly\nattributed it. The audience could not reconcile such painful, and, as it\nmust have appeared to them, such hypocritical contradictions: and very\ndistressing to the author must it have been to find, that he had himself\ncontributed to create that sceptical tone of mind in the public respecting\nboth himself and the female sex, which refused to take him at his word\nwhen he was for putting on a graver face, and claiming their ultra-belief\nin all that he chose to assume. The \u201cFaithful Shepherdess\u201d is a young\nwidow, who is always talking of devoting herself to her husband\u2019s memory;\nand her lover Thenot is so _passionately_ enamoured of her, that he says\nif she were to give up the devotion, his passion would be lost. He\n_entreats_ her at once to \u201chear him\u201d and to \u201c_deny_!\u201d This child\u2019s play is\nwhat the audience could not tolerate. It was a pity; for there are\npassages in the _Faithful Shepherdess_ as lovely as poet could write. We\nare never tired of hearing--\n\n How the pale Ph\u0153be, hunting in a grove,\n First saw the boy Endymion, from whose eyes\n She took eternal fire that never dies;\n _How she convey\u2019d him softly in a sleep,\n His temples bound with poppy, to the steep\n Head of old Latmos, where she stoops each night,\n Gilding the mountain with her brother\u2019s light,\n To kiss her sweetest_.\n\nSo of the dessert gathered by the Satyr for the nymph Syrinx:--\n\n Here be grapes, whose lusty blood\n Is the learned poet\u2019s good;\n Sweeter yet did never crown\n The head of Bacchus; nuts more brown\n Than the squirrel\u2019s teeth that crack them;\n Deign, oh, fairest fair, to take them.\n _For these black-eyed Driope\n Hath oftentimes commanded me\n With my clasp\u00e8d knee to climb_:\n See how well _the lusty time\n Hath decked their rising cheeks in red_,\n Such as on your lips is spread.\n Here be berries for a queen,\n _Some be red, some be green;\n These are of that luscious meat,\n The great god Pan himself doth eat_;\n All these, and what the woods can yield,\n The hanging mountain or the field,\n I freely offer, and ere long\n Will bring you more, more sweet and strong;\n Till then humbly leave I take,\n _Lest the great Pan do awake,\n That sleeping lies in a deep glade\n Under a broad beech\u2019s shade_.\n I must go, I must run,\n _Swifter than the fiery sun_.\n\nSee also the love made by the river-god at the end of the third Act, which\nwe have not room to quote; and the Satyr\u2019s account of dawn, which opens\nwith the four most exquisite lines perhaps in the whole play:--\n\n See, the day begins to break,\n _And the light shoots like a streak\n Of subtle fire.--The wind blows cold,\n While the morning doth unfold._\n\nWho has not felt this mingled charmingness and chilliness (we do not use\nthe words for the sake of the alliteration) at the first opening of the\nmorning! Yet none but the finest poets venture upon thus combining\npleasure with something that might be thought a drawback. But it is truth;\nand it is truth in which the beauty surmounts the pain; and therefore they\ngive it. And how simple and straightforward is every word! There are no\nartificial tricks of composition here. The words are not suggested to the\ntruth by the author, but to the author by the truth. We feel the wind\nblowing as simply as it does in nature; so that if the reader be\nartificially trained, and does not bring a feeling for truth with him\nanalogous to that of the poet, the very simplicity is in danger of losing\nhim the perception of the beauty. And yet there is art as well as nature\nin the verses; for art in the poet must perfect what nature does by her\nown art. Observe, for instance, the sudden and strong emphasis on the word\n_shoots_, and the variety of tone and modulation in the whole passage,\nwith the judicious exceptions of the two _o_\u2019s in the \u201cwind blows cold,\u201d\nwhich have the solemn continuous sound of what it describes: also, the\ncorresponding ones in \u201cdoth unfold,\u201d which maintain the like continuity of\nthe growing daylight. And exquisite, surely, is the dilatory and golden\nsound of the word \u201cmorning\u201d between them:\n\n The wind blows cold,\n While the _mor_-ning doth unfold.\n\nMilton\u2019s _Comus_, though not equal throughout to the _Faithful\nShepherdess_ in descriptive judgment (for it talks of \u201cgroves of myrrh and\ncinnamon\u201d on the banks of a British river), is altogether a finer poem,\nand a far better recommendation of chastity. Indeed, it might rather have\nbeen called _Castitas_ than _Comus_; for _Comus_ has little justice done\nto his powers of temptation. Perhaps Fletcher\u2019s failure in recommending\nchastity suggested the hope of surpassing him to Milton. His emulation of\nparticular passages in the _Faithful Shepherdess_, particularly on that\nsubject, has been noticed by the commentators. But _Comus_ is a mask, not\na pastoral. It can hardly even be called a pastoral mask; for the shepherd\nis the least person in it; and though the Italians identify the pastoral\nwith the sylvan drama, or fable transacted in the woods, which are the\nscene of action in _Comus_, the reader feels that the woods have really\nalmost as little to do with it as the fields;--that the moral, in fact, is\nall in all; which is the reason why nobody takes very heartily to the\nsubject, especially as Milton acts in morals like a kind of solemn\npartisan, and does not run, like Shakspeare, the whole circle of humanity\nin arguing his question.\n\nMilton\u2019s only real pastoral (with the exception of the country part of the\n_Allegro_) is his allegorical monody on the death of his friend King,--the\n_Lycidas_; and a beautiful one it is, though Dr. Johnson, in his one-sided\nmisapplication of a right principle, laughed at grief which departs from\nthe ordinary phases of life, and which talks of nymphs and river-gods, and\n\u201csatyrs with cloven heel.\u201d \u201cGrief,\u201d he said, \u201cdoes not talk of such\nthings;\u201d to which Warton said very truly, \u201cBut Poetry does;\u201d and he might\nhave added (still more literally than he puts it), that Grief does so too,\nwhen it is the grief of one young poet mourning for another. Johnson says\nthat Milton and his friend were not \u201cnursed on the same hill,\u201d as\nrepresented in _Lycidas_; and that they did not \u201cfeed the same flock,\u201d &c.\nBut they were, and they did. They were nursed on the same hill of Arcady,\nand fed the same flock of the ideal pastoral life; and very grievous it\nwas for them to be torn asunder, to be deprived by death of their mutual\ndelight in Theocritus, and Virgil, and Spenser, the beloved haunts of\ntheir minds, things which it has agonized friends and poets to be torn\naway from, both before and since the time of Milton, however little they\nmay have been cared for by dear, good, dictatorial, purblind, un-ideal\nDr. Johnson, whose world, though it was a wit\u2019s and a sage\u2019s world too,\nwas not the universal and still sager world of the poet, but made up\n(exclusively) of the Strand, hypochondria, charity, bigotry, wit,\nargument, and a good dinner;--a pretty region, but not the green as _well_\nas smoky world of Nature and Shakspeare.\n\nFault has been found also with the intermixture of theology in _Lycidas_;\nbut it is to be defended on the same ground--namely, that Milton\u2019s young\nfriend studied theology with him as well as poetry; and hence the\npropriety of introducing the pilot of the Galilean lake.\n\nOne ought to be grateful for it, if only for its giving the poet occasion\nto dismiss the solemn vision, and encourage, in those lovely verses, the\nbeautiful fictions of Paganism and Theocritus to come back:--\n\n Return, Alph\u00e8us; the dread voice is past\n That shrunk thy streams; return, _Sicilian Muse_,\n And call the vales, and bid them hither cast\n Their bells and flowerets of a thousand hues.\n _Ye valleys low, where the mild whispers use\n Of shades, and wanton winds, and gushing brooks_,\n On whose fresh lap the swart-star sparely looks,\n Throw hither all your quaint-enamell\u2019d eyes\n That on the green turf _suck the honied showers_,\n And purple all the ground with vernal flowers.\n Bring the rathe primrose that forsaken dies,\n The tufted crow-toe, and pale jessamine,\n The white pink, and the pansy, _freak\u2019d_ with jet,\n The glowing violet,\n The musk-rose, and the well-attired woodbine,\n With cowslips wan, that hang the pensive head,\n And every flower that sad embroidery wears;\n Bid amaranthus all his beauty shed,\n _And daffodillies fill their cups with tears_,\n To strew the laureat herse where Lycid lies.\n\n * * * * *\n\n Thus sang the swain to the oaks and rills,\n _While the still morn went out with sandals grey_.\n\nThese are the chief pastoral writers in the language of the ideal class.\nPope professed to be a classical pastoral writer, and split, accordingly,\non the hard rock of Latin imitation. Even Gay\u2019s burlesque pastoral was\nbetter, for it went to the real fields for its imagery; and Phillips would\nhave surpassed both, if he had not been affected. His verses from\nCopenhagen, describing a northern winter, are fresh from Nature.\n\nAllan Ramsay is the prince of the homely pastoral drama. Burns wrote in\nthis class of poetry at no such length as Ramsay; but he was pastoral\npoetry itself, in the shape of an actual, glorious peasant, vigorous as if\nHomer had written him, and tender as generous strength, or as memories of\nthe grave. Ramsay and he have helped Scotland for ever to take pride in\nits heather, and its braes, and its bonny rivers, and be ashamed of no\nbeauty or honest truth, in high estate or in low;--an incalculable\nblessing. Ramsay, to be sure, with all his genius, and though he wrote an\nentire and excellent dramatic pastoral, in five legitimate acts, is but a\nsmall part of Burns;--is but a field in a corner compared with the whole\nScots pastoral region. He has none of Burns\u2019s pathos; none of his\ngrandeur; none of his burning energy; none of his craving after universal\ngood. How universal is Burns! What mirth in his cups! What softness in his\ntears! What sympathy in his very satire! What manhood in everything! If\nTheocritus, the inventor of a loving and affecting Polyphemus, could have\nforeseen the verses on the _Mouse_ and the _Daisy_ turned up with plough,\nthe _Tam o\u2019 Shanter, O Willie brew\u2019d a peck o\u2019 maut, Ye banks and braes o\u2019\nbonnie Doon_, &c., (not to mention a hundred others, which have less to do\nwith our subject,) tears of admiration would have rushed into his eyes.\n\nNevertheless Allan Ramsay is not only entitled to the designation we have\ngiven him, but in some respects is the best pastoral writer in the world.\nThere are, in truth, two sorts of genuine pastoral--the high ideal of\nFletcher and Milton, which is justly to be considered the more\npoetical,--and the homely ideal, as set forth by Allan Ramsay and some of\nthe Idyls of Theocritus, and which gives us such feelings of nature and\npassion as poetical rustics not only can, but have entertained, and\neloquently described. And we think the _Gentle Shepherd_, \u201cin some\nrespects,\u201d the best pastoral that ever was written, not because it has\nanything, in a poetical point of view, to compare with Fletcher and\nMilton, but because there is, upon the whole, more faith and more love in\nit, and because the kind of idealized truth which it undertakes to\nrepresent, is delivered in a more corresponding and satisfactory form than\nin any other entire pastoral drama. In fact, the _Gentle Shepherd_ has no\nalloy whatsoever to its pretensions, _such as they are_--no failure in\nplot, language, or character--nothing answering to the coldness and\nirrelevances of _Comus_, nor to the offensive and untrue violations of\ndecorum in the \u201cWanton Shepherdess\u201d of Fletcher\u2019s pastoral, and the\npedantic and ostentatious chastity of his Faithful one. It is a pure,\nhealthy, natural, and (of its kind) perfect plant, sprung out of an\nunluxuriant but not ungenial soil; not hung with the beauty and fragrance\nof the productions of the higher regions of Parnassus; not waited upon by\nspirits and enchanted music; a dog-rose, if you will; say rather, a rose\nin a cottage-garden, dabbled with the morning dew, and plucked by an\nhonest lover to give to his mistress.\n\nAllan Ramsay\u2019s poem is not only a probable and pleasing story, containing\ncharming pictures, much knowledge of life, and a good deal of quiet\nhumour, but in some respects it may be called classical, if by classical\nis meant ease, precision, and unsuperfluousness of style. Ramsay\u2019s diction\nis singularly straightforward, seldom needing the assistance of\ninversions; and he rarely says anything for the purpose of \u201cfilling\nup;\u201d--two freedoms from defect the reverse of vulgar and commonplace; nay,\nthe reverse of a great deal of what pretends to be fine writing, and is\nreceived as such. We confess we never tire of dipping into it, \u201con and\noff,\u201d any more than into Fletcher, or Milton, or into Theocritus himself,\nwho, for the union of something higher with true pastoral, is unrivalled\nin short pieces. The _Gentle Shepherd_ is not a forest, nor a\nmountainside, nor Arcady; but it is a field full of daisies, with a brook\nin it, and a cottage \u201cat the sunny end;\u201d and this we take to be no mean\nthing, either in the real or the ideal world. Our Jar of Honey may well\nlie for a few moments among its heather, albeit filled from Hybla. There\nare bees, \u201clook you,\u201d in Habbie\u2019s How. Theocritus and Allan shake hands\nover a shepherd\u2019s pipe. Take the beginning of Scene ii. Act i., both for\ndescription and dialogue:--\n\n A flowrie howm between twa verdant braes,\n Where lassies use to wash and spread their claes;\n _A trottin\u2019 birnie wimplin\u2019 through the ground,\n Its channel pebbles shining smooth and round_.\n Here view _twa barefoot beauties_, clean and clear,\n First please your eye, next gratify your ear,\n While Jenny _what she wishes discommends_,\n And Meg, with better sense, true love defends.\n\n JENNY. Come, Meg, lets fa\u2019 to work upon this green,\n This shining day will bleach our linen clean:\n The waters clear, the lift unclouded blue,\n Will make them _like a lily wet wi\u2019 dew_.\n\n PEGGY. Gae far\u2019er up the burn to Habbie\u2019s How,\n Where a\u2019 the sweets o\u2019 spring and simmer grow;\n _There \u2019tween twa birks, out ower a little lin,\n The water fa\u2019s, and maks a singin\u2019 din;\n A pool breast-deep, beneath as clear as glass,\n Kisses, wi\u2019 easy whirls, the bordering grass_.\n We\u2019ll end our washing while the morning\u2019s cool,\n And when the day grows het, we\u2019ll to the pool,\n There wash oursells; \u2019tis healthfu\u2019 now in May,\n And sweetly cauler on sae warm a day.\n\nThis is an out-door picture. Here is an indoor one quite as good--nay,\nbetter:--\n\n _While Peggy laces up her bosom fair,\n With a blue snood Jenny binds up her hair_;\n Glaud by his morning ingle takes a beek;\n _The rising sun shines motty through the reek;\n A pipe his mouth, the lasses please his een,\n And now and then his joke maun intervene_.\n\nWe would quote, if we could--only it might not look so proper, when\nisolated--the whole song at the close of Act the Second. The first line\nof it alone is worth all Pope\u2019s pastorals put together, and (we were going\nto add) half of those of Virgil; but we reverence too much the great\nfollower of the Greeks, and true lover of the country. There is more\nsentiment, and equal nature, in the song at the end of Act the Fourth.\nPeggy is taking leave of her lover, who is going abroad:--\n\n At setting day and rising morn,\n Wi\u2019 saul that still shall love thee,\n I\u2019ll ask o\u2019 Heaven thy safe return,\n Wi\u2019 a\u2019 that can improve thee.\n I\u2019ll visit aft the birkin bush,\n Where first thou kindly tauld me\n Sweet tales of love, _and hid my blush,\n Whilst round thou didst infald me_.\n\n To a\u2019 our haunts I will repair,\n To greenwood, shaw, or fountain;\n Or where the summer day I\u2019d share\n Wi\u2019 thee upon yon mountain.\n There will I tell the trees and flowers\n Frae thoughts unfeign\u2019d and tender,\n _By vows_ you\u2019re mine, _by love_ is yours\n A heart that cannot wander.\n\nThe charming and (so to speak) natural flattery of the loving delicacy of\nthis distinction--\n\n _By vows_ you\u2019re mine, _by love_ is yours,\n\nwas never surpassed by a passion the most refined. It reminds us of a like\npassage in the anonymous words (Shakspeare might have written them) of\nthe fine old English madrigal by Ford, \u201cSince first I saw your face.\u201d\nPerhaps Ford himself wrote them; for the author of that music had\nsentiment enough in him for anything. The passage we allude to is--\n\n What, I that _loved_, and you that _liked_,\n Shall _we_ begin to wrangle?\n\nThe highest refinement of the heart, though too rare in most classes, is\nluckily to be found in all; and hence it is, that certain meetings of\nextremes in lovers of different ranks in life are not always to be\nattributed either to a failure of taste on the one side, or unsuitable\npretensions on the other. Scottish dukes have been known to meet with real\nGentle-Shepherd heroines; and everybody knows the story of a lowly\nCountess of Exeter, who was too sensitive to survive the disclosure of the\nrank to which her lover had raised her.\n\n[Illustration]\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER IX.\n\nENGLISH PASTORAL.--(CONCLUDED.)\n\n PASTORALS OF WILLIAM BROWNE.--PASTORAL\n MEN:--CERVANTES--BOCCACCIO--CHAUCER--COWLEY--THOMSON--SHENSTONE, ETC.\n\n\n[Illustration]\n\nThe only undramatic pastorals in the language worth mention are those of\nBrowne, a young poet, who wrote in the beginning of the reign of James the\nFirst. He won the praises of Drayton and Ben Jonson, and may remind the\nreader of some of the earlier poems of Keats. He was a real poet, with a\ngreat love of external nature, and much delicacy and generosity of\nsentiment; and had his judgment been matured, would now have been as much\nadmired by the many as he is regarded by the few. His verses are of such\nunequal merit, that it is difficult to select any long passage, or\nscarcely, indeed, any short one, that does not contain matter unworthy of\nhim; yet in all may be discerned promise, in many sweetness and beauty, in\nsome grandeur; and there is nobody who loves poets of the Spenser school,\nbut will have a considerable bit of lurking affection, in the green places\nof his heart, for William Browne, and lament that he did not live to\nbecome famous. Much of his _Britannia\u2019s Pastorals_, as he called them, was\nwritten before he was twenty. They were collected into a body of English\nverse, for the first time, by Anderson; but Davies published an edition in\nthree volumes duodecimo; they have been lately reprinted in two; and the\nlover of poetry and field-walks, who is not always in a mood for higher\nstimulants, and who can recognise beauty in a hedge-row elm as well as a\nforest, may reckon himself lucky in being able to put one of them in his\npocket. The pastorals consist of a story with a number of episodes, none\nof which, or story either, can we ever remember; so we will say nothing\nmore about them. The names of the persons hum in our ears, and we have\nsome conception of two or three of the incidents; but the scenes in which\nthey take place, the landscapes, the pastoral images, the idealised\ncountry manners, these are what we are thinking of while the story is\ngoing on; just as a man should be hearing some local history while going\nover meadows and stiles, and glancing all the while about him instead of\npaying it attention. We shall, therefore, devote this article to passages\nmarked with our pen; as the same man might go over the ground afterwards\nin other company, and say, \u201cThere is the church I spoke of, in the\ntrees\u201d--\u201cYonder is the passage I mentioned, into the wood\u201d--\u201cHere the ivy\nfull of the singing-birds.\u201d We may, perhaps, overrate Browne, out of\naffection for the things he likes to speak of; but sometimes his powers\nare not to be mistaken. He calls Cephalus, whom Aurora loved, him\n\n _Whose name was worn\n Within the bosom of the blushing morn._\n\nMusic is\n\n The soul of art, _best loved when love is by_.\n\nRaleigh, spoken of under the character of a shepherd, is a swain\n\n _Whom all the Graces kissed_;\n\nand Pan, a god that\n\n With gentle nymphs in forests high\n _Kissed out the sweet time of his infancy_.\n\nThat is very beautiful. Warton, in his _History of Poetry_, has expressed\nhis admiration of a \u201ccharm\u201d in Browne\u2019s _Inner Temple Masque_, in which,\ndown by the banks of Lethe, dewdrops are said to be for ever hanging\n\n On the _limber grass_,\n Poppy and mandragoras;\n\nand Lethe is described as flowing\n\n Without coil,\n _Softly, like a stream of oil_.\n\nThe fourth eclogue of his _Shepherd\u2019s Pipe_ is thought, not improbably, to\nhave been in the recollection of Milton, when he wrote _Lycidas_. Like\nthat poem, it is an elegy on the death of a friend. The line marked in the\nfollowing quatrain might have appeared in _Lycidas_, without any injury to\nit. It is, indeed, very Miltonic:--\n\n In deepest passions of my grief-swol\u2019n breast,\n Sweet soul! this only comfort seizeth me,\n That so few years should make thee so much blest,\n _And give such wings to reach eternity_.\n\nIn this poem is a description of autumn, in which the different metres are\nunfortunately but ill-assorted:--they look like bits of elegies begun on\ndifferent plans; but the third line of the first quatrain is well felt;\nthe fourth not unworthy of it; the watery meadows are capitally painted;\nand the closing stanza is like an affecting one taken out of some old\nEnglish ballad:--\n\n Autumn it was, when droop\u2019d the sweetest flowers,\n And rivers, swollen with pride, o\u2019erlook\u2019d the banks;\n _Poor grew the day of summer\u2019s golden hours_,\n And void of sap stood Ida\u2019s cedar ranks.\n\n The pleasant meadows _sadly lay\n In chill and cooling sweats\n By rising fountains_, or as they\n Fear\u2019d winter\u2019s wasteful threats.\n\n Against the broad-spread oaks\n Each wind in fury bears;\n _Yet fell their leaves not half so fast\n As did the shepherd\u2019s tears_.\n\nThe feeling of analogy between the oak, with its scattered leaves, and the\nnaturally strong man shedding tears for sorrow, is in the best imaginative\ntaste. Had Browne written all thus, he would have found plenty of\ncommentators. The _Shepherd\u2019s Pipe_ was a somewhat later production than\nthe other pastorals; and had he lived he would probably have surpassed all\nthat his youth produced. Unfortunately, his mind never appears to have\noutgrown a certain juvenile ambition of ingenious thoughts and conceits;\nand it is these that render it so difficult to make any long quotation\nfrom his works. The sixth line in the following is very obscure, perhaps\ncorrupted. But the rest has great liveliness and nature:--\n\n Look as a lover, with a lingering kiss,\n About to part with the best half that\u2019s his;\n Fain would he stay, but that he fears to do it,\n And curseth time for so fast hastening to it;\n Now takes his leave, and yet begins anew\n To make less vows than are esteem\u2019d true;\n Then says he must be gone, and then doth find\n Something he should have spoke that\u2019s out of mind;\n And whilst he stands _to look for\u2019t in her eyes,\n Their sad sweet glance so ties his faculties_\n To think from what he parts, that he is now\n As far from leaving her, or knowing how,\n As when he came; begins his former strain,\n To kiss, to vow, and take his leave again;\n Then turns, comes back, sighs, parts, and yet doth go,\n Apt to retire, and loth to leave her so;--\n Brave stream, so part I from thy flowery bank.\n\nBrowne is fond of drawing his similes from real, and even homely life, and\noften seems to introduce them for the purpose of giving that kind of\nvariety to a pastoral, otherwise ideal; for though the title of his poem\nis British, and the scene also, it is in other respects Arcadian and\nPagan. The effect is somewhat jarring; and yet it is impossible to quarrel\nwith the particular descriptions:--\n\n As children on a play-day leave the schools,\n And gladly run into the swimming pools;\n Or in the thickets, all with nettles stung,\n Rush to despoil some sweet thrush of her young;\n Or with their hats for fish lade in a brook\n Withouten pain; but when the morn doth look\n Out of the eastern gates, a snail would faster\n Glide to the schools, than they unto their master;\n So when before I sung the songs of birds, &c.\n\nThe following is a complete picture:--\n\n --As a nimble squirrel from the wood,\n Ranging the hedges for his filbert food,\n Sits partly on a bough, his brown nuts cracking,\n And from the shell the sweet white kernel taking,\n Till, with their crooks and bags, a sort of boys\n To share with him, come with so great a noise,\n That he is forced to leave a nut nigh broke,\n And for his life leap to a neighbour oak,\n Thence to a beech, thence to a row of ashes,\n Whilst through the quagmires and red water plashes\n The boys run dabbling through thick and thin;\n One tears his hose, another breaks his shin;\n This, torn and tattered, hath with much ado\n Got to the briers, and that hath lost his shoe;\n This dropt his band, that headlong falls for haste,\n _Another cries behind for being last_;\n With sticks and stones, and many a sounding hollow,\n The little pool with no small sport they follow,\n Whilst he from tree to tree, from spray to spray\n Gets to the wood, and hides him in his dray;\n Such shift made Riot, ere he could get up, &c.\n\nHere is another picture, still homelier, but equally complete, and as\nrobust in its full-grown strength as the other is light and boyish:--\n\n As when a smith and\u2019s man (lame Vulcan\u2019s fellows),\n Called from the anvil or the puffing bellows\n To clap a well-wrought shoe, for more than pay,\n Upon a stubborn nag of Galloway,\n Or unback\u2019d jennet, or a Flanders mare,\n That at the forge stands snuffing of the air;\n _The swarthy smith spits in his buck-horn fist_,\n And bids his men bring out the five-fold twist,\n His shackles, shacklocks, hampers, gyves, and chains,\n His link\u00e8d bolts; and with no little pains\n These make him fast; and lest all these should faulter,\n Unto a post, with some six-doubled halter,\n He binds his head; yet all are of the least\n To curb the fury of the headstrong beast;\n When, if a carrier\u2019s jade be brought unto him,\n His man can hold his foot while he can shoe him;\n Remorse was so enforced to bind him stronger.\n\nThis is a Dutch picture, or one that Mr. Crabbe might have admired. The\nfollowing might have adorned the pages of Spenser himself. The ascension\nof the fogs and mists, and the cessation of all noise, are in a true--nay,\nin a high spirit of grandeur; and the very delicacy of the conclusion adds\nto it. The sense of hushing solemnity is drawn to the finest point:--\n\n Now great Hyperion left his golden throne,\n That on the dancing waves in glory shone;\n For whose declining on the western shore\n The oriental hills black mantles wore;\n And thence apace the gentle twilight fled,\n That had from hideous caverns usher\u00e8d\n All-drowsy Night; who in a car of jet,\n By steeds of iron-grey (which mainly sweat\n Moist drops on all the world) drawn through the sky,\n The helps of darkness waited orderly.\n First, thick clouds rose from all the liquid plains;\n Then mists from marishes, and grounds whose veins\n Were conduit-pipes to many a crystal spring;\n From standing pools and fens were following\n Unhealthy fogs; each river, every rill,\n Sent up their vapours to attend her will.\n These pitchy curtains drew \u2019twixt earth and heaven,\n And as Night\u2019s chariot through the air was driven,\n _Clamour grew dumb; unheard was shepherd\u2019s song,\n And silence girt the woods_: no warbling tongue\n Talk\u2019d to the echo; satyrs broke their dance,\n And all the upper world lay in a trance;\n Only the curling streams soft chidings kept:\n _And little gales, that from the green leaf swept\n Dry summer\u2019s dust, in fearful whisp\u2019ring stirr\u2019d\n As loth to waken any singing bird_.\n\nBrowne was a Devonshire man, and is supposed to have died at Ottery St.\nMary, the birthplace of Coleridge. He was not unworthy to have been the\ncountryman of that exquisite observer of Nature, himself a pastoral man,\nthough he wrote no pastorals; for Coleridge not only preferred a country\nto a town life, but his mind as well as his body (when it was not with\nPlato and the schoolmen) delighted to live in woody places, \u201cenfolding,\u201d\nas he beautifully says,\n\n Sunny spots of greenery.\n\nAnd how many other great and good men have there not been, with whom the\nhumblest lover of Arcady may, in this respect, claim fellowship?--men,\nnevertheless, fond of town also, and of the most active and busy life,\nwhen it was their duty to enter it. The most universal genius must of\nnecessity include the green districts of the world in his circle,\notherwise he would not run it a third part round. Shakspeare himself,\nprosperous manager as he was, retired to his native place before he was\nold. Do we think that, with all his sociality, his chief companions there\nwere such as a country town afforded? Depend upon it, they were the trees,\nand the fields, and his daughter Susanna. Be assured, that no gentleman of\nthe place was seen so often pacing the banks of the Avon, sitting on the\nstiles in the meadows, looking with the thrush at the sunset, or finding\n\n Books in the running brooks,\n Sermons in stones, and good in everything.\n\nCervantes, the Shakspeare of Spain, (for if his poetry answered but to one\nsmall portion of Shakspeare, his prose made up the rest,) proclaims his\ntruly pastoral heart, notwithstanding his satire, not only in his\n_Galatea_, but in a hundred passages of _Don Quixote_, particularly the\nepisodes. He delighted equally in knowledge of the world and the most\nideal poetic life. It is easy to see, by the stories of _Marcella_ and\n_Leandra_, that this great writer wanted little to have become a Quixote\nhimself, in the Arcadian line! Nothing but the extremest good sense\nsupplied him a proper balance in this respect for his extreme romance.\n\nBoccaccio was another of these great child-like minds, whose knowledge of\nthe world is ignorantly confounded with a devotion to it. See, in his\n_Admetus_, and _Theseid_, and _Genealogia Deorum_, &c., and in the\n_Decameron_ itself, how he revels in groves and gardens; and how, when he\nbegins making a list of trees, he cannot leave off. Doubtless, he had been\nof a more sensual temperament than Cervantes; but his faith remained\nunshaken in the highest things. His veins might have contained an excess\nof the genial; but so did his heart. When the priest threatened him in\nadvanced life with the displeasure of Heaven, he was shocked and alarmed,\nand obliged to go to Petrarch for comfort.\n\nChaucer was a courtier, and a companion of princes; nay, a reformer also,\nand a stirrer out in the world. He understood that world, too, thoroughly,\nin the ordinary sense of such understanding; yet, as he was a true great\npoet in everything, so in nothing more was he so than in loving the\ncountry, and the trees and fields. It is as hard to get him out of a grove\nas his friend Boccaccio; and he tells us, that, in May, he would often go\nout into the meadows to \u201cabide\u201d there, solely in order to \u201clook upon the\ndaisy.\u201d Milton seems to have made a point of never living in a house that\nhad not a garden to it.\n\nA certain amount of trusting goodness, surviving twice the worldly\nknowledge possessed by those who take scorn for superiority, is the\ngeneral characteristic of men of this stamp, whether of the highest order\nof that stamp or not. Cowley, Thomson, and Shenstone were such men.\nShenstone was deficient in animal spirits, and condescended to be vexed\nwhen people did not come to see his retirement; but few men had an acuter\ndiscernment of the weak points of others and the general mistakes of\nmankind, as anybody may see by his _Essays_; and yet in those _Essays_ he\ntells us, that he never passed a town or village, without regretting that\nhe could not make the acquaintance of some of the good people that lived\nthere. Thomson\u2019s whole poetry may be said to be pastoral, and everybody\nknows what a good fellow he was; how beloved by his friends; how social,\nand yet how sequestered; and how he preferred a house but a floor high at\nRichmond (for that which is now shown as his, was then a ground-floor\nonly), to one of more imposing dimensions amidst\n\n The smoke and stir of this dim spot,\n Which men call _London_.\n\nCowley was a partisan, a courtier, a diplomatist; nay, a satirist, and an\nadmirable one, too. See his _Cutter of Coleman Street_, the gaiety and\nsharpness of which no one suspects who thinks of him only in the ordinary\npeacefulness of his reputation; though, doubtless, he would have been the\nfirst man to do a practical kindness to any of the Puritans whom he\nlaughed at. His friends the Cavaliers thought he laughed at themselves, in\nthis very comedy; so much more did he gird hypocrisy and pretension in\ngeneral than in the particular: but Charles the Second said of him after\nhis death, that he had \u201cnot left a better man behind him in England.\u201d His\npartisanship, his politics, his clever satire, his once admired\n\u201cmetaphysical\u201d poetry, as Johnson calls it, nobody any longer cares about;\nbut still, as Pope said,\n\n We love the language of his heart.\n\nHe has become a sort of poetical representative of all the love that\nexisted of groves and gardens in those days--of parterres, and orchards,\nand stately old houses; but above all, of the cottage; a taste for which,\nas a gentleman\u2019s residence, seems to have originated with him, or at least\nbeen first avowed by him; for we can trace it no farther back. \u201cA small\nhouse and a large garden\u201d was his aspiration; and he obtained it.\nSomebody, unfortunately, has got our Cowley\u2019s _Essays_--we don\u2019t reproach\nhim, for it is a book to keep a good while; but they contain a delightful\npassage on this subject, which should have been quoted. Take, however, an\nextract or two from the verses belonging to those _Essays_. They will\nconclude this part of our subject well:\n\n Hail, old patrician trees, so great and good!\n Hail, ye plebeian underwood!\n Where the poetic birds rejoice,\n And for their quiet nests and plenteous food,\n Pay with their grateful voice.\n\n Here let me, careless and unthoughtful lying,\n Hear the soft winds above me flying,\n With all their wanton boughs dispute,\n And the more tuneful birds to both replying,\n Nor be myself, too, mute.\n\n _Ah! wretched and too solitary he,\n Who loves not his own company!\n He\u2019ll feel the weight of it many a day,\n Unless he call in sin or vanity,\n To help to bear \u2019t away._\n\n * * * * *\n\n When Epicurus to the world had taught\n That Pleasure was the Chiefest Good,\n (_And was, perhaps, i\u2019 th\u2019 right, if rightly understood_,)\n His life he to his doctrine brought,\n And in a garden\u2019s shade that sovereign pleasure sought.\n\n * * * * *\n\n Where does the wisdom and the power divine\n In a more bright and sweet reflection shine--\n Where do we finer strokes and colours see\n _Of the Creator\u2019s real poetry_,\n Than when we with attention look\n Upon the third day\u2019s volume of the book?\n If we could open and _intend_ our eye,\n We all, like Moses, should espy,\n _Ev\u2019n in a bush, the radiant Deity_.\n\n * * * * *\n\n Methinks I see great Diocletian walk\n In the Salonian garden\u2019s noble shade,\n Which by his own imperial hands was made.\n I see him smile, methinks, as he does talk\n With the ambassadors, who come in vain\n _To entice him to a throne again_.\n\n \u201cIf I, my friends,\u201d said he, \u201cshould to you show\n All the delights which in these gardens grow,\n _\u2019Tis likelier much that you should with me stay,\n Than \u2019tis that you should carry me away_;\n And trust me not, my friends, if every day\n I walk not here with more delight,\n Than ever, after the most happy fight,\n In triumph to the capitol I rode,\n _To thank the gods, and to be thought, myself, almost a god_.\u201d\n\nA noble line that--long and stately as the triumph which it speaks of. Yet\nthe Emperor and the Poet agreed in preferring a walk down an alley of\nroses. There was nothing so much calculated to rebuke or bewilder them\nthere, as in the faces of their fellow-creatures, even after the \u201chappiest\nfight.\u201d\n\n[Illustration]\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER X.\n\nRETURN TO SICILY AND MOUNT \u00c6TNA.\n\n SUBJECT OF MOUNT \u00c6TNA RESUMED:--ITS BEAUTIES--ITS HORRORS--REASON WHY\n PEOPLE ENDURE THEM.--LOVE-STORY OF AN EARTHQUAKE.\n\n\n[Illustration]\n\nIn now emphatically returning to Sicily, though we have never been\nentirely absent from it, while discussing the pastoral poets of other\ncountries, we shall round our subject properly by finishing the circle\nwhere we began it; and in order to render our plan as complete as\npossible, we have not been without a sense of chronological order. In\nresuming, therefore, the subject of \u00c6tna, we proceed to regard the\nmountain in relation to the impression it makes on modern times and\nexisting inhabitants.\n\nThe reader is aware that our Jar was not intended to be associated with\nnothing but sweets. Bees, it was observed, extract honey from the\nbitterest as well as sweetest flowers; and we only stipulated, as they do,\nfor a sweet result;--for something, which by the fact of its being\ndeducible from bitterness, shows the tendency of Nature to that dulcet\nend, and gives a lesson to her creature man to take thought and warning,\nand do as much for himself. In truth, were man heartily to do so, and\nleave off asking Nature to superintend everything for him, and take the\ntrouble off his hands, which it seems a manifest condition of things that\nshe should not (man looking very like an experiment to see how far he can\ndevelop the energies of which he is composed, and prove himself worthy of\ncontinuance), how are we to know that he would not get rid of all such\nevils as do not appear to be necessary to his well-being, and, in the\nlanguage of the great Eastern poet, make \u201cthe morning stars sing for\njoy?\u201d--sing for joy, that another heaven is added to their list. Mount\n\u00c6tna, for instance, which is one of the safety-valves of the globe, does\nnot _force_ people to live within the sphere of its operations. Why,\ntherefore, should they? Why do not the inhabitants of Catania and other\nplaces migrate, as nations have done from the face of an enemy or famine,\nand plant themselves elsewhere? When the convulsion comes, and destruction\nhovers over them, the saints are implored as the gods were of old, and\neverything is referred to the ordinances of Heaven. But the saints might\nanswer, \u201cWhy do you continue to live here, in the teeth of these repeated\nwarnings? Why cannot the earth have safety-valves, but you must needs\nplant yourselves right in the way of them, as infants may do with\nsteam-engines?\u201d This is the honey that might be extracted from the bitter\npast. On the other hand, if this be idle speculation, and the reason of\nthe thing be on the side of continuing to implore the saints and perishing\nin earthquakes, then Nature, who is always determined to have no evil\nunmixed, suggests topics of consolation from the greater amount of good;\nfrom the far longer duration of the periods of serenity and joy around the\nmountain, compared with those of convulsion; and from all those images of\nbeauty and abundance, which produce another honey against the bitterness\nof what cannot be altered. The bee himself, like the nightingale and the\ndove, and other beautiful creatures, is an inhabitant of \u00c6tna. The fires\nof the mountain help to produce some of his sweetest thyme. The energetic\nlittle, warmth-loving, honey-making, armed, threatening, murmuring,\nbitter-sweet, and useful creature, seems like one of the particles of the\nmountain, gifted with wings. We might as well have brought our honey from\nMount \u00c6tna as Mount Hybla, and very likely it actually came thence; only\nthe latter, like Mount Hymettus, is identified with the word, and its\nsupposed district still famous for the product. In fact (though the name\nseems to be no longer retained anywhere) there were several Hyblas of old,\none of them at the foot of \u00c6tna; so that our Jar may come from both\nplaces. The word, which is older than Greek, was probably Ph\u0153nician, from\na root signifying mellifluence; unless it originated in the sound of the\nbubbling of brooks, of the neighbourhood of which bees are fond.\n\nWe cannot quit Mount \u00c6tna without saying something more of it, especially\nas it has lately been in action, not without hints of its operation as far\nas Scotland, where there have been many shocks of earthquake. Everybody\nknows that \u00c6tna is the greatest volcano in Europe, some twenty miles in\nascent from Catania, and with a circumference for its base of between\neighty and ninety. All the climates of the world are there, except those\nof the African desert. At the foot are the palms and aloes of the tropics,\nwith the corn, wine, and oil of Italy. The latter continue for fourteen or\nfifteen miles of ascent. Then come the chestnuts of Spain, then the\nbeeches of England, then the firs of Norway--the whole forest-belt being\nfive or six miles in ascent, interspersed with park-like scenery, and the\nmost magnificent pastures. Singing-birds, and flocks and herds are there,\nwith abundance of game. The remainder, a thousand feet high, is a naked\npeak, covered for the greater part of the year with snow, but often hot to\nthe feet in the midst of it, toilsome to ascend, and terminating in the\ngreat crater, miles in circumference, fuming and blind with smoke--the\nlargest of several others. The whole mountain, with an enormous chasm in\nits side four or five miles broad, stands in the midst of six-and-thirty\nsubject mountains, \u201ceach a Vesuvius,\u201d generated by its awful parent.\nHorror and loveliness prevail throughout it, alternately, or together. You\nlook from mountain to mountain, over tremendous depths, to the most\nbeautiful woody scenery. The lowest region is a paradise, betraying black\ngrounds of lava, and beds of ashes, which remind you to what it is liable.\nThe top is a ghastly white peak, shivering with cold, though it is a mouth\nfor fire, but lovely at a distance in the light of the moon at night, and\npresenting a view from it by day, especially at sunrise, which baffles\ndescription with ecstasy. Count Stolberg, a German poet, who beheld this\nspectacle in the year 1792, when the mountain was in action, says, that by\nthe dawning light of the day he saw nothing round about him but snow and\nblack ashes, vast masses of lava, and a smoking crater, together with a\nhuge bed of clouds, the darkening extremities of which the eye could not\nclearly distinguish either from the mountains or the sea, \u201c_till the\nmajestic sun rose in fire, and reduced every object to order_.--Chaos\nseemed to unfold itself, where no four-footed beast, no bird, interrupted\nthe solemn silence of the formless void:\n\n Wo sie keinen Todten begruben, und keiner erstehen wird,\n\nas Klopstock says of the ice-encircled pole:\n\n No dead are buried there; nor any there will rise.\n\n\u201c\u00c6tna cast his black shades,\u201d continues he, \u201cover the grey dawn of the\nwestern atmosphere; while round him stood his sons, but far beneath, yet\nvolcanic mountains all, in number six-and-thirty, each a Vesuvius. To the\nnorth, the east, and the south, Sicily lay at our feet, with its hills,\nand rivers, and lakes, and cities. In the low deep, the clouds, tinged\nwith purple, were dispersed and vanished from the presence of the golden\nsun; while their shades flying before the west wind, were scattered over\nthe landscape far and wide.\u201d[7]\n\nMr. Hughes\u2019s description is minuter, yet still more effective. \u201cAt\nlength,\u201d says he, \u201cfaint streaks of light, shooting athwart the horizon,\nwhich became brighter and brighter, announced the approach of the great\nluminary; and when he sprang up in his majesty, supported on a throne of\nradiant clouds, that fine scriptural image of the giant rejoicing to run\nhis course, flashed across my mind. As he ascended in the sky, the\nmountain tops began to stream with golden light, and new beauties\nsuccessively developed themselves, until day dawned upon the Catanian\nplains. Sicily then lay expanded like a map beneath our eyes, presenting a\nvery curious effect; nearly all its mountains could be descried, with the\nmany cities that surmount their summits; more than half its coasts, with\ntheir bays, indentations, towns, and promontories, could be traced, as\nwell as the entire course of rivers, sparkling like silver bands that\nencircle the valleys and the plains. Add to this the rich tints of so\ndelightful an atmosphere; add the dark blue tract of sea rolling its\nmysterious waves, as it were, into infinite space; add that spirit of\nantiquity which lingers in these charming scenes, infusing a soul into\nthe features of nature, as expression lights up a beautiful countenance;\nand where will you find a scene to rival that which is viewed from\n\u00c6tna?\u201d[8]\n\nCompare this spectacle with one of the great eruptions, and the agonising\ndays that precede it. Smoke and earthquake commence them. The days are\ndarkened; the nights are sleepless and horrible, and seem ten times as\nlong as usual. People rush to the churches in prayer, or crowd the\ndoorways (which are thought the safest places), or remain out of doors in\nboats or carriages. Religious processions move in terror through the\nstreets. Sometimes the air is blackened with a powder, sometimes with\nashes, which fall and gather everywhere, such as Pompeii was buried with.\nLightnings play about \u00c6tna; the sea rises against the dark atmosphere, in\nghastly white billows; dreadful noises succeed, accompanied with thunder,\nlike batteries of artillery; the earth rocks; landslips take place down\nthe hill-sides, carrying whole fields and homesteads into other men\u2019s\ngrounds; cities are overthrown, burying shrieking thousands. At length,\nthe mountain bursts out in flame and lava, perhaps in forty or fifty\nplaces at once, the principal crater throwing out hot glowing stones,\nwhich have been known to be carried eighteen miles, and the frightful\nmineral torrent running forth in streams of fiery red, pouring down into\nthe plains, climbing over walls, effacing estates, and rushing into and\nusurping part of the bed of the sea. A river of lava has been known to be\nfifty feet deep, and four miles broad.[9] Fancy such a stream coming\ntowards London, as wide as from Marylebone to Mile End! By degrees, the\nlava thickens into a black and rustling semi-liquid, rather pushed along\nthan flowing; though its heat has been found lingering after a lapse of\neight years. When the survivors of all these horrors gather breath, and\nlook back upon time and place, they find houses and families abolished,\nand have to begin, as it were, their stunned existence anew.\n\nYet they build again over these earthquakes. They inhabit and delight in\nthis mountain. Catania, the city at its foot, which has been several times\ndemolished, is one of the gayest in Italy.\n\nHow is this?\n\nThe reason is, that all pain, generally speaking, is destined to be short\nand fugitive, compared with the duration of a greater amount of\npleasure;--that the souls which perish in the convulsion, were partakers\nof that pleasure for the greater part of their lives, perhaps the gayest\nof the gay city;--that all of them were born there, or connected with\nit;--that it is inconvenient, perhaps without government aid impossible,\nto remove, and commence business elsewhere;--that they do not think the\ncatastrophe likely to recur soon, perhaps not in the course of their\nlives;--nay, that possibly there may be something of a gambling\nexcitement,--of the stimulus of a mixture of hope and fear,--in thus\nliving on the borders of life and death--of this great snap-dragon bowl of\nEurope--especially surrounded as they are with the old familiar scenes,\nand breathing a joyous atmosphere. But undoubtedly the chief reasons are\nnecessity, real or supposed, and the natural tendency of mankind to make\nthe best of their position and turn their thoughts from sadness. So the\nCatanian goes to his dinner, and builds a new ball-room _out of the lava_!\n\nPerhaps the most touching of all the consolations to be met with in the\nhistory of these catastrophes, is the testimony they bear to the maternal\naffections. The men who perish from the overthrow of houses are said to be\ngenerally found in attitudes of resistance:--the women are bent double\nover their children. The great vindication of evil is, that (constituted\nas we are) we could not know so much joy, nor manifest so much virtue\nwithout it; and certainly, in instances like these, it fetches out, under\ncircumstances of the extremest weakness, the most beautiful strength of\nthe human heart. Still, such wholesale trials of it do not appear to be\ndemanded by any unavoidable necessity. The fact forces itself upon the\nmind, that human beings need not continue to live in such places, and that\nthe geological well-being of the globe does not demand it. As to animals\nof the inferior creation, who are destroyed at these times, assuredly they\nknow almost as little about it till the last moment, as the lamb who licks\nthe hand of his slayer; and as soon as the mountain is cleared, the larks\nand nightingales are again singing, and the bees enjoying the flowers in\nits most awful ravines.\n\nFor months, for years, sometimes for a hundred years and more, perhaps for\nmany hundreds, this tremendous phenomenon is quiet. Homer does not seem to\nhave heard of its burning. The volcano first makes its appearance in\nPindar. Theocritus knew its capabilities well; yet he speaks of it as\nnothing but a seat of pastoral felicity. His Polyphemus contrasts its\nserenity with the dangers of the sea; and another of his shepherds, in\nanswer to an observation about fathers and mothers, says to a shepherd of\nthe plains, that \u00c6tna is _his_ mother, and that he is as rich in sheep and\ngoats as the latter fancies himself to be during dreams. The first\nrecorded eruption of \u00c6tna was in the time of Empedocles, about five\nhundred years before Christ; and from that time to the year 1819\ninclusive, a French writer has calculated that there have been\nseventy-two others _mentioned_.[10] We cannot say how many more have\nensued. The one that not long ago took place was harmless, we believe, as\nfar as lives were concerned, except to some rash persons who were too\nanxious to see the effect of the lava upon a pool of water. The pool\nturned into steam, and scalded them. Slight eruptions are little regarded,\nand indeed are little dangerous compared with what precedes them. The\nworst peril is the earthquake. The lava, though an ugly customer, can be\nsafelier treated with. Even slight earthquakes are not much heeded, after\nthe first alarm. Mr. Vaughan, an English traveller in the year 1810, says,\nthat upon his going into the town of Messina, after a slight shock, from\nhis country-lodging, and approaching the carriages in which some ladies\nwere sitting in expectation of another, he said to one of them, an\nacquaintance of his, \u201cIs it not shocking?\u201d \u201cIt is indeed very shocking,\u201d\nsaid the lady. \u201c_You were not at the Opera?_\u201d[11] Humboldt speaks of a\nyoung lady in South America, who was so accustomed to these visitations,\nthat she thought the topic vulgar. She expressed a wish that people would\nleave off talking about \u201cthese nasty earthquakes.\u201d\n\nIf you tell a Sicilian that there are no earthquakes in England, he\nacknowledges, of course, the merit of their absence, but smiles to think\nthat you can suppose it a compensation for the want of vines and olives.\nThe following amusing conversation took place in an inn, between the\nEnglish traveller just mentioned and a priest and his landlady, at\nCaltagirone. The priest, \u201cafter many apologies for the liberty he was\ntaking,\u201d says Mr. Vaughan, \u201cbegged to converse with me upon the subject of\nEngland, which the people of these parts were very anxious to hear about,\nas the opportunity of inquiring so seldom occurred; and, by the time I had\ndined, I observed a dozen people collected round the door, with their eyes\nand mouths open, to hear the examination.\n\n\u201c\u2018And pray, Signor, is it true what we are told, that you have no olives\nin England?\u2019[12]\n\n\u201c\u2018Yes, perfectly true.\u2019\n\n\u201c\u2018_Cospetto!_ how so?\u2019\n\n\u201c\u2018_Cospettone!_\u2019[13] said the lady.\n\n\u201c\u2018Our climate is not propitious to the growth of the olive.\u2019\n\n\u201c\u2018But then, Signor, for oranges!\u2019\n\n\u201c\u2018We have no oranges neither.\u2019\n\n\u201c\u2018_Poveretto!_\u2019 said the landlady, with a tone of compassion; which is a\nsort of fondling diminutive of \u2018_Povero_,\u2019 \u2018Poor creature,\u2019 or as you\nwould say to your child, \u2018Poor little fellow!\u2019\n\n\u201c\u2018But how is that possible, Signor?\u2019 said the priest. \u2018Have you no fruit\nin your country?\u2019\n\n\u201c\u2018We have very fine fruit; but our winters are severe, and not genial\nenough for the orange-tree.\u2019\n\n\u201c\u2018That is just what they told me,\u2019 said the lady, \u2018at Palermo, that\nEngland is all snow, and a great many stones.\u2019\n\n\u201c\u2018But then, Signor, we have heard, what we can scarcely believe, that you\nhave not any wine?\u2019\n\n\u201c\u2018It is perfectly true. We have vines that bear fruit; but the sun in our\nclimate is not sufficiently strong, which must be boiling, as it is here,\nto produce any wine.\u2019\n\n\u201c\u2018Then, Jesu Maria! how the deuce do you do?\u2019\n\n\u201cI told them that, notwithstanding, we got on pretty well; that we had\nsome decent sort of mutton, and very tolerable-looking beef; that our\npoultry was thought eatable, and our bread pretty good; that, instead of\nwine, we had a thing they call ale, which our people, here and there,\nseemed to relish exceedingly; and that, by the help of these articles, a\ngood _constitution_, and the blessing of God, our men were as hardy, and\nas loyal and brave, and our women as accomplished, and virtuous, and\nhandsome, as any other people, I believed, under heaven.\n\n\u201c\u2018Besides, Mr. Abbate, I beg leave to ask you, what cloth is your coat\nof?\u2019\n\n\u201c\u2018_Cospetto!_ it is English!\u2019 with an air of importance.\n\n\u201c\u2018And your hat?\u2019\n\n\u201c\u2018Why, that\u2019s English.\u2019\n\n\u201c\u2018And this lady\u2019s gown, and her bonnet and ribbons?\u2019\n\n\u201c\u2018Why, they are English.\u2019\n\n\u201c\u2018All English. Then you see how it is: we send you, in exchange for what\nwe don\u2019t grow, half the comforts and conveniences you enjoy in your\nisland. Besides, _padrona mia gentile_ (my agreeable landlady), we can\nnever regret that we don\u2019t grow these articles, since it ensures us an\nintercourse with a nation we esteem!\u2019\n\n\u201c\u2018_Viva!_\u2019 (\u2018Long life to you\u2019), said the landlady, and \u2018_Bravo!_\u2019 said\nthe priest; and between _bravo_ and _viva_, the best friends in the world,\nI escaped to my lettiga (litter).\u201d[14]\n\nWe must close this article with a love-story, in connexion with the\ndreadful earthquake of 1783, which destroyed Messina, and swept into the\nsea, _in one moment_, nearly three thousand persons on the opposite coast\nof Scylla, together with their prince.[15] The reader may believe as much\nof the love as he pleases, but the extraordinary circumstance on which it\nturns is only one of a multitude of phenomena, all true and marvellous.\n\nGiuseppe, a young vine-grower in a village at the foot of the mountains\nlooking towards Messina, was in love with Maria, the daughter of the\nrichest bee-master of the place; and his affection, to the great\ndispleasure of the father, was returned. The old man, though he had\nencouraged him at first, wished her to marry a young profligate in the\ncity, because the latter was richer and of a higher stock; but the girl\nhad a great deal of good sense as well as feeling; and the father was\npuzzled how to separate them, the families having been long acquainted. He\ndid everything in his power to render the visits of the lover\nuncomfortable to both parties; but as they saw through his object, and\nlove can endure a great deal, he at length thought himself compelled to\nmake use of insult. Contriving, therefore, one day to proceed from one\nmortifying word to another, he took upon him, as if in right of offence,\nto anticipate his daughter\u2019s attention to the parting guest, and show him\nout of the door himself, adding a broad hint that it might be as well if\nhe did not return very soon.\n\n\u201cPerhaps, Signor Antonio,\u201d said the youth, piqued at last to say something\nharsh himself, \u201cyou do not wish the son of your old friend to return at\nall?\u201d\n\n\u201cPerhaps not,\u201d said the bee-master.\n\n\u201cWhat,\u201d said the poor lad, losing all the courage of his anger in the\nterrible thought of his never having any more of those beautiful lettings\nout of the door by Maria,--\u201cwhat! do you mean to say I may not hope to be\ninvited again, even by yourself?--that you yourself will never again\ninvite me, or come to see me?\u201d\n\n\u201cOh, we shall all come, of course, to the great Signor Giuseppe,\u201d said the\nold man, looking scornful,--\u201call cap in hand.\u201d\n\n\u201cNay, nay,\u201d returned Giuseppe, in a tone of propitiation; \u201cI\u2019ll wait till\nyou do me the favour to look in some morning, in the old way, and have a\nchat about the French; and perhaps,\u201d added he, blushing, \u201cyou will then\nbring Maria with you, as you used to do; and I won\u2019t attempt to see her\ntill then.\u201d\n\n\u201cOh, we\u2019ll all come of course,\u201d said Antonio, impatiently; \u201ccat, dog, and\nall; and when we _do_,\u201d added he, in a very significant tone, \u201cyou may\ncome again yourself.\u201d\n\nGiuseppe tried to laugh at this jest, and thus still propitiate him; but\nthe old man hastening to shut the door, angrily cried, \u201cAy, cat, dog, and\nall, and the cottage besides, with Maria\u2019s dowry along with it; and then\nyou may come again, _and not till then_.\u201d And so saying, he banged the\ndoor, and giving a furious look at poor Maria, went into another room to\nscrawl a note to the young citizen.\n\nThe young citizen came in vain, and Antonio grew sulkier and angrier every\nday, till at last he turned his bitter jest into a vow; exclaiming with an\noath, that Giuseppe should never have his daughter, till he (the father),\ndaughter, dog, cat, cottage, bee-hives, and all, with her dowry of\nalmond-trees to boot, set out some fine morning to beg the young\nvine-dresser to accept them.\n\nPoor Maria grew thin and pale, and Giuseppe looked little better, turning\nall his wonted jests into sighs, and often interrupting his work to sit\nand look towards the said almond-trees, which formed a beautiful clump on\nan ascent upon the other side of the glen, sheltering the best of\nAntonio\u2019s bee-hives, and composing a pretty dowry for the pretty Maria,\nwhich the father longed to see in possession of the flashy young citizen.\n\nOne morning, after a very sultry night, as the poor youth sat endeavouring\nto catch a glimpse of her in this direction, he observed that the clouds\ngathered in a very unusual manner over the country, and then hung low in\nthe air, heavy and immovable. Towards Messina the sky looked so red, that\nat first he thought the city on fire, till an unusual heat affecting him,\nand a smell of sulphur arising, and the little river at his feet assuming\na tinge of a muddy ash-colour, he knew that some convulsion of the earth\nwas at hand. His first impulse was a wish to cross the ford, and, with\nmixed anguish and delight, to find himself again in the cottage of\nAntonio, giving the father and daughter all the help in his power. A\ntremendous burst of thunder and lightning startled him for a moment; but\nhe was proceeding to cross, when his ears tingled, his head turned giddy,\nand while the earth heaved beneath his feet, he saw the opposite side of\nthe glen lifted up with a horrible deafening noise, and then the cottage\nitself, with all around it, cast, as he thought, to the ground, and buried\nfor ever. The sturdy youth, for the first time in his life, fainted away.\nWhen his senses returned, he found himself pitched back into his own\npremises, but not injured, the blow having been broken by the vines.\n\nBut on looking in horror towards the site of the cottage up the hill, what\ndid he see there? or rather, what did he _not_ see there? And what _did_\nhe see, forming a new mound, furlongs down the side of the hill, almost at\nthe bottom of the glen, and in his own homestead?\n\nAntonio\u2019s cottage:--Antonio\u2019s cottage, with the almond-trees, and the\nbee-hives, and the very cat and dog, and the old man himself, and the\ndaughter (both senseless), all come, as if, in the father\u2019s words, to beg\nhim to accept them! Such awful pleasantries, so to speak, sometimes take\nplace in the middle of Nature\u2019s deepest tragedies, and such exquisite good\nmay spring out of evil.\n\nFor it was so in the end, if not in the intention. The old man (who,\ntogether with his daughter, had only been stunned by terror) was\nsuperstitiously frightened by the dreadful circumstance, if not\naffectionately moved by the attentions of the son of his old friend, and\nthe delight and religious transport of his child. Besides, though the\ncottage and the almond-trees, and the bee-hives, had all come miraculously\nsafe down the hill (a phenomenon which has frequently occurred in these\nextraordinary _landslips_), the flower-gardens, on which his bees fed,\nwere almost all destroyed; his property was lessened, his pride lowered;\nand when the convulsion was well over, and the guitars were again playing\nin the valley, he consented to become the inmate, for life, of the\ncottage of the enchanted couple.\n\nHe could never attain, however, to the innate delicacy of his child, and\nhe would sometimes, with a petulant sigh, intimate at table what a pity it\nwas that she had not married the rich and high-feeding citizen. At such\ntimes as these, Maria would gather one of her husband\u2019s feet between her\nown under the table, and with a squeeze of it that repaid him tenfold for\nthe mortification, would steal a look at him which said, \u201cI possess all\nwhich it is possible for me to desire.\u201d\n\n[Illustration]\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XI.\n\nBEES.\n\n THE BEAUTIFUL NEVER TO BE THANKED TOO MUCH, OR TO BE SUFFICIENTLY\n EXPRESSED.--BEES AND THEIR ELEGANCE.--THEIR ADVICE TO AN ITALIAN\n POET.--WAXEN TAPERS.--A BEE DRAMA.--MASSACRES OF DRONES.--HUMAN\n PROGRESSION.\n\n\n[Illustration]\n\nIt would be ungrateful and impossible, in the course of so sweet and\ngenerous a theme as our Jar of Honey has furnished us with, not to devote\na portion of it to the cause of all its sweetness--the Bee. We are not\ngoing, however, to repeat more common-place in its eulogy than we can\nhelp. The grounds of the admiration of nature are without end; and as to\nthose matters of fact or science which appear to be settled--nay, even\nmost settled--some new theory is coming up every day, in these\nextraordinary times, to compel us to think the points over again, and\ndoubt whether we are quite so knowing as we supposed. Not only are\nbee-masters disputing the discoveries of Huber respecting the operations\nof the hive, but searchers into nature seem almost prepared to re-open the\nold question respecting the equivocal generation of the bee, and set the\nelectrical experiments of Mr. Cross at issue with the conclusions of Redi.\n\nHow this may turn out, we know not; but sure we are, that it will be a\nlong time indeed before the praise and glory of the bee can have exhausted\nits vocabulary--before people cry out to authors, \u201cSay no more; you have\nsaid too much already of its wonderfulness--too much of the sweetness and\nbeauty of its productions.\u201d Too much, we are of opinion, cannot be said of\nany marvel in nature, unless it be trivial or false. The old prosaical\ncharge against hyperbolical praises of the beautiful, we hold to be\nnaught. Ask a lover, and he will say, and say truly, that no human terms\ncan do justice to the sweetness in his mistress\u2019s eyes--to the virgin\nbloom on her cheek. If words could equal them, Nature would hardly be our\nsuperior. Hear what is said on the point by Marlowe:--\n\n If all the pens that ever poets held\n Had fed the feelings of their masters\u2019 thoughts,\n And every sweetness that inspired their hearts,\n Their minds, and muses on admired themes;\n If all the heavenly quintessence they \u2019stil\n From their immortal flowers of poesy,\n Wherein, as in a mirror, we perceive\n The highest reaches of a human wit:\n If these had made one poem\u2019s period,\n And all combined in beauty\u2019s worthiness,\n Yet should there hover in their restless heads\n One thought, one grace, one wonder, at the least,\n Which into words no virtue can digest.\n\nDid any one ever sufficiently admire the _entire elegance_ of the habits\nand pursuits of bees? their extraction of nothing but the quintessence of\nthe flowers; their preference of those that have the finest and least\nadulterated odour; their avoidance of everything squalid (so unlike\nflies); their eager ejection or exclusion of it from the hive, as in the\ninstance of carcases of intruders, which, if they cannot drag away, they\ncover up and entomb; their love of clean, quiet, and delicate\nneighbourhoods, thymy places with brooks; their singularly clean\nmanagement of so liquid and adhesive a thing as honey, from which they\nissue forth to their work as if they had had nothing to do with it; their\ncombination with honey-making of the elegant manufacture of wax, of which\nthey make their apartments, and which is used by mankind for none but\npatrician or other choice purposes; their orderly policy; their delight in\nsunshine; their attention to one another; their apparent indifference to\neverything purely regarding themselves, apart from the common good? A\nwriter of elegant Italian verse, who recast the book of Virgil on Bees,\nhas taken occasion of their supposed dislike of places abounding in\n_echoes_, to begin his poem with a pretty conceit. He was one of the first\nof his countrymen who ventured to dispense with rhyme; and he makes the\nbees themselves send him a deputation, on purpose to admonish him not to\nuse it:--\n\n Mentre era per cantare i vostri doni\n Con alte rime, o verginette caste,\n Vaghe angelette de le erbose rive,\n Preso dal sonno in sul spuntar de l\u2019 alba,\n M\u2019 apparve un coro de la vostra gente,\n E da la lingua onde s\u2019 accoglie il mele,\n Sciolsono in chiara voce este parole:--\n \u201cO spirto amico, che dopo mill\u2019 anni\n E cinquecento rinnovar ti piace\n E le nostre fatiche e i nostri studi,\n Fuggi le rime e \u2019l rimbombar sonoro.\n\n \u201cTu sai pur che l\u2019 immagin de la voce,\n Che risponde dai sassi ov\u2019 Eco alberga,\n Sempre nimica f\u00f9 del nostro regno:\n Non sai tu ch\u2019 ella f\u00f9 conversa in pietra,\n E f\u00f9 inventrice de le prime rime?\n E dei saper, ch\u2019 ove abita costei,\n Null\u2019 ape abitar pu\u00f2 per l\u2019 importuno\n Ed imperfetto suo parlar loquace.\u201d\n\n Cosi diss\u2019 egli: poi tra labbro e labbro\n Mi pose un favo di soave mele,\n E lieto se n\u2019 and\u00f2 volando al cielo.\n Ond\u2019 io, da tal divinit\u00e0 spirato,\n Non temer\u00f2 cantare i vostri onori\n Con verso Etrusco da le rime sciolto.\n\n E canter\u00f2, come il soave mele,\n Celeste don, sopra i fioretti e l\u2019 erba\n L\u2019 aere distilla liquido e sereno;\n E come l\u2019 api industriose e caste\n L\u2019 adunino, e con studio e con ingegno\n Dappoi compongan le odorate cere,\n Per onorar l\u2019 immagine di Dio;--\n Spettacoli ed effetti vaghi e rari,\n Di maraviglie pieni e di bellezze.\n --_Le Api_ del RUCELLAI.\n\n While bent on singing your delightful gifts\n In lofty rhyme, O little virgins chaste,\n Sweet little angels of the flowery brooks,\n Sleep seized me on the golden point of morn,\n And I beheld a choir of your small people,\n Who, with the tongue with which they take the honey,\n Buzz\u2019d forth in the clear air these earnest words:--\n \u201cO friendly soul, that after the long lapse\n Of thrice five hundred years, dost please thee sing\n Our toils and art, shun--shun, we pray thee, rhyme:\n Shun rhyme, and its rebounding noise. Full well\n Thou know\u2019st, that the invisible voice which sits\n Answering to calls in rocks, Echo by name,\n Was hostile to us ever; and thou know\u2019st--\n Or dost thou not?--that she, who was herself\n Turn\u2019d to a hollow rock, first found out rhyme.\n Learn further then, that wheresoe\u2019er she dwells,\n No bee can dwell, for very hate and dread\n Of her importunate and idle babble.\u201d\n\n Such were the words that issued from that choir;\n Then \u2019twixt my lips they put some honey drops,\n And so in gladness took their flight aloft.\n Whence I, with such divinity made strong,\n Doubt not, O bees, to sing your race renown\u2019d\n In Tuscan verse, freed from the clangs of rhyme.\n Yea, I will sing how the celestial boon,\n Honey, by some sweet mystery of the dew,\n Is born of air in bosoms of the flowers,\n Liquid, serene; and how the diligent bees\n Collect it, working further with such art,\n That odorous tapers thence deck holy shrines.\n O sights, and O effects, lovely and strange!\n Full of the marvellous and the beautiful!\n --_The Bees_ of RUCELLAI.\n\nThe reader need not be told, that the tapers here alluded to are those\nwhich adorn Catholic altars. Rucellai was a kinsman of Pope Leo the Tenth\nand his successor Clement; and his first mode of bespeaking favour for his\nbees was by associating them with the offices of the church. Beautiful are\nthose tapers, without doubt; and well might the poet express his\nadmiration at their being the result of the work of the little unconscious\ninsect, who compounded the material. So, in every wealthy house in\nEngland, every evening, where lamps do not take its place, the same\nbeautiful substance is lit up for the inmates to sit by, at their\noccupations of reading, or music, or discourse. The bee is there, with her\nodorous ministry. In the morning, she has probably been at the\nbreakfast-table. In the morning, she is honey; in the evening, the waxen\ntaper; in the summer noon, a voice in the garden, or the window; in the\nwinter, and at all other times, a meeter of us in books. She talks Greek\nto us in Sophocles and Theocritus; Virgil\u2019s very best Latin, in his\n_Georgics_; we have just heard her in Italian; and besides all her\ncharming associations with the poets in general, one of the Elizabethan\nmen has made a whole play out of her,--a play in which the whole _dramatis\nperson\u00e6_ are bees! And a very sweet performance it is according to Charles\nLamb, who was not lavish of his praise. It was written by Thomas Day, one\nof the fellows of Massinger and Decker, and is called the _Parliament of\nBees_. Lamb has given extracts from it in his _Specimens of the Dramatic\nPoets_, and says in a note:--\n\n \u201cThe doings,\n The births, the wars, the wooings\n\nof these pretty winged creatures are, with continued liveliness,\nportrayed, throughout the whole of this curious old drama, in words which\nbees would talk with, could they talk; the very air seems replete with\nhumming and buzzing melodies while we read them. Surely bees were never so\nbe-rhymed before.\u201d (Vol. ii., Moxon\u2019s latest edition, p. 130.) Would to\nheaven that a horrid, heavy-headed monster called Hepatitis--who has been\nhindering us from having our way of late in the most unseasonable manner,\nand is at this minute clawing our side and shoulder for our disrespect of\nhim--would have allowed us to go to the British Museum, and read the whole\nplay for ourselves. We might have been able to give the reader some\npleasant tastes of it, besides those to be met with in Mr. Lamb\u2019s book.\nThe following is a specimen. Klania, a female bee, is talking of her\nlovers:--\n\n Philon, a Bee\n Well skill\u2019d in verse and amorous poetry,\n As we have sate at work, _both on one rose_,[16]\n Has humm\u2019d sweet canzons, both in verse and prose,\n Which I ne\u2019er minded. Astrophel, a Bee\n (Although not so poetical as he),\n Yet in his full invention quick and ripe,\n In summer evenings on his well-tuned pipe,\n _Upon a woodbine blossom in the sun_,\n (Our hive being clean swept and our day\u2019s work done--)\n Would play us twenty several tunes; yet I\n Nor minded Astrophel, nor his melody.\n Then there\u2019s Amniter, for whose love fair Leade\n (That pretty Bee) flies up and down the mead\n _With rivers in her eyes_--without deserving,\n Sent me trim acorn bowls of his own carving,\n To drink May-dews and mead in. Yet none of these,\n My hive-born playfellows and fellow Bees,\n Could I affect, until this strange Bee came.\n\nIt is pretty clear, however, from this passage, that Mr. Lamb\u2019s usual\nexquisite judgment was seduced by the little loves and graces of these\nunexpected _dramatis person\u00e6_; for this is certainly not the way in which\nbees would talk. It is all human language, and unbeelike pursuits. \u201cRivers\nin her eyes\u201d is beautifully said, but bees do not shed tears. They are no\ncarvers of bowls; and we have no reason to believe that they know anything\nof music and poetry. The bee\n\n Who, at her flowery work doth sing,\n\nsings like the cicada of Anacreon, with her wings. To talk as bees would\ntalk we must divest ourselves of flesh and blood, and develop ideas\nmodified by an untried mode of being, and by unhuman organs. We must talk\nas if we had membranaceous wings, a proboscis, and no knowledge of tears\nand smiles; and, as to our loves, they would be confined to the queen and\nthe drones--and very unloving and unpoetical work they would make of it.\nThe rest of us would know nothing about it. We should love nothing but the\nflowers, the brooks, our two elegant manufactures of wax and honey, and\nthe whole community at large--being very patriotic, but not at all\namorous--more like tasteful Amazons than damsels of Arcadia; ladies with\nswords by their sides, and not to be _hummed_ by the beau-ideals of Mr.\nThomas Day.\n\nThese same formidable weapons of the bees, their stings, remind us of the\nonly drawback on the pleasures of thinking about them--their massacres of\nthe drones. Every year those gentlemen have to pay for their idle and\nluxurious lives by one great pang of abolition. They are all stung and\nswept away into nothingness! Truly a circumstance to \u201cgive us pause,\u201d and\nperplex us with our wax and honey. It seems, however, to be the result of\nan irresistible impulse--some desperate necessity of state, for want of\nbetter knowledge, or more available powers. We are to suppose them doing\nit unwillingly, with a horror of the task proportioned to the very haste\nand fury in which they perform it; as though they wished to get it off\ntheir hands as fast as possible, terrified and agonised at the terror and\nagony which they inflict. Why they leave this tremendous flaw in their\npolity--why they govern for the most part so well, and yet have this ugly\nwork to do in order to make all right at the year\u2019s end, is a question\nwhich human beings may discuss, when nations have come to years of\ndiscretion; when they have grown wise enough, by the help of railroads and\nmutual benefits, to dispense with cuffing one another like a parcel of\nschoolboys. Mankind have not yet outlived their own massacres and\nrevolutions long enough to have a right to be astonished at the massacres\nof the bees. What they ought to be astonished at, is their own notion of\nthe beehive as a pattern of government, with this tremendous flaw in it\nstaring them in the face. But we believe they have now become sensible of\nthe awkwardness of the analogy. Assuredly we should find no Archbishop of\nCanterbury now-a-days arguing in the style of his predecessor, in the play\nof _Henry the Fifth_:--\n\n So work the honey bees;\n Creatures, that, by a rule in nature, teach\n The art of order to a peopled kingdom.\n They have a king, and officers of sorts:\n Where some, like magistrates, correct at home;\n Others, like merchants, venture trade abroad;\n Others, like soldiers, arm\u00e8d in their stings,\n Make boot upon the summer\u2019s velvet buds;\n Which pillage they, with merry march, bring home\n To the tent-royal of their emperor;\n Who, busied in his majesty, surveys\n _The singing masons building roofs of gold_;\n The civil citizens kneading up the honey;\n The poor mechanic porters crowding in\n Their heavy burdens at his narrow gate;\n The sad-eyed justice, with his surly hum,\n Delivering o\u2019er to executors pale\n The lazy yawning drone.\n\nAlas! in Beedom, the archbishop himself, inasmuch as he was no\nwax-chandler, would have been accounted one of these same lazy, yawning\ndrones, and delivered over to the secular arm. Bees do not teach men, nor\nought they. We have some higher things among us, even than wax and honey;\nand though we have our flaws, too, in the art of government, and do not\nyet know exactly what to do with them, we hope we shall find out. Will the\nbees ever do that? Do they also hope it? Do they sit pondering, when the\nmassacre is over, and think it but a bungling way of bringing their\naccounts right? Man, in his self-love, laughs at such a fancy. He is of\nopinion that no creature can think, or make progression, but himself. What\nright he has, from his little experience, to come to such conclusions, we\nknow not; but he must allow, that we know as little of the conclusions of\nthe bees. All we feel certain of is, that with bees, as with men, the good\nof existence outweighs the evil; that evil itself is but a rough working\ntowards good; and that if good can ultimately be better without it, there\nis a thing called hope, which says it may be possible. We take our planet\nto be very young, and our love of progression to be one of the proofs of\nit; and when we think of the good, and beauty, and love, and pleasure, and\ngenerosity, and nobleness of mind and imagination, in which this green and\nglorious world is abundant, we cannot but conclude that the love of\nprogression is to make it still more glorious, and add it to the number of\nthose older stars, which are probably resting from their labours, and have\nbecome heavens.\n\n[Illustration]\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XII.\n\nMISCELLANEOUS FEELINGS RESPECTING SICILY, ITS MUSIC, ITS RELIGION, AND ITS\nMODERN POETRY.\n\n DANTE\u2019S EVENING.--AVE MARIA OF BYRON.--THE SICILIAN VESPERS.--NOTHING\n \u201cINFERNAL\u201d IN NATURE.--SICILIAN MARINER\u2019S HYMN.--INVOCATION FROM\n COLERIDGE.--PAGAN AND ROMAN CATHOLIC WORSHIP.--LATIN AND ITALIAN\n COUPLET.--WINTER\u2019S \u201cRATTO DI PROSERPINA.\u201d--A HINT ON ITALIAN\n AIRS.--BELLINI.--MELI, THE MODERN THEOCRITUS.\n\n\n[Illustration]\n\nTime flies, and friends must part. In closing our Blue Jar, a rosy light\nseems to come over it, at once beautiful and melancholy; for terminations\nare farewells, and farewells remind us of evenings, and of the divine\nlines of the poet:--\n\n Era gi\u00e0 l\u2019 ora, che volge \u2019l desio\n A\u2019 naviganti, e intenerisce \u2019l cuore\n Lo d\u00ec ch\u2019 an detto a\u2019 dolci amici A Dio:\n E che lo nuovo peregrin d\u2019 amore\n Punge, se ode squilla di lontano,\n Che paia \u2019l giorno pianger che si muore.\n\n \u2019Twas now the hour, when love of home melts through\n Men\u2019s hearts at sea, and longing thoughts portray\n The moment when they bade sweet friends adieu;\n And the new pilgrim now, on his lone way,\n Thrills as he hears the distant vesper bell,\n That seems to mourn for the expiring day.\n\nDivine, indeed, are those lines of Dante. Why didn\u2019t he write all such,\ninstead of employing two volumes out of three, to show us how much less he\ncared to be divine than infernal? Was it absolutely necessary for him to\nhave so much black ground for his diamonds?\n\nAnd another poet who took to the black, or rather the burlesque, side of\nthings, how could he write so beautifully on the same theme, and resist\ngiving us whole poems as tender and confiding, to assist in making the\nworld happy? The stanza respecting the Ave Maria is surely the best in\n_Don Juan_:--\n\n Ave Maria! blessed be the hour!\n The time, the clime, the spot where I so oft\n Have felt the moment in its fullest power\n _Sink o\u2019er the earth_, so beautiful and soft,\n While swung the deep bell in the distant tower,\n Or the faint dying day-hymn stole aloft,\n And not a breath _crept through the rosy air_,\n And yet the forest leaves _seemed stirr\u2019d with prayer_.\n\nNot, we beg leave to say, that we are Roman Catholic, either in our creed\nor our form of worship; though we should be not a little inclined to\nbecome such, did the creed contain nothing harsher or less just than the\nadoration of maternity. We have been taught to be too catholic in the true\nsense of the word (Universal) to wish for any ultimate form of\nChristianity, except that which shall drop all the perplexing thorns\nthrough which it has grown, and let the odour of its flower be recognised\nin its spotless force without one infernal embitterment.\n\nBut it will be said that there are infernal embitterments even in the\nsweetest forms of things, whether we will have them or no--massacres in\nbee-hives, Dantes among the greatest poets, _Sicilian_ Vespers. Think of\nthose, it will be said. Think of the horrible massacre known by the name\nof the \u201cSicilian Vespers.\u201d Think of the day in your honeyed, Hybl\u00e6an\nisland, when the same hour which\n\n Sinks o\u2019er the earth, so beautiful and soft,\n\nwith not a breath in its rosy air, and with the leaves of its trees moving\nas if they were lips of adoring silence, was the signal for an\nindiscriminate slaughter of men, women, and children; ay, babes at the\nbreast, and mothers innocent as the object of vesper worship. Was there\nnothing infernal in that? Is there nothing hellish, and of everlasting\nembitterment in the recollection?\n\nNo. And again a loud and happy No, of everlasting sweetness.\n\nThe infernal and the everlasting bitter imply the same things. There is\nnothing infernal that has a limit; therefore there is nothing infernal in\nnature. Look round, and show it if you can. Nature will have no unlimited\npain. The sufferer swoons, or dies, or endures; but the limit comes. Death\nitself is but the dissolution of compounds that have either been\ndisordered or worn out, and therefore cannot continue pleasantly to\nco-exist. Horrible was this Sicilian massacre; horrible and mad; one of\nthe wildest reactions against wickedness in human history. The French\nmasters of the island had grown mad with power and debauchery, and the\nislanders grew mad with revenge. It was the story in little of the French\nRevolution; not the Revolution of the Three Days, truly deserving the\ntitle of Glorious for its Christian forbearance; but the old, untaught,\ndelirious, Robespierre Revolution. Dreadful is it to think of the vesper\nbell ringing to that soft worship of the mother of Jesus, and then of\nthousands of daggers, at the signal, leaping out of the bosoms of the\nworshippers, and plunging into the heart of every foreigner present, man,\nwoman, and child. But there came an end; soon to the body; sooner or\nlater, to the mind. The dead were buried; the French government in the\nisland was expelled, and a better brought in. The evil perished, good came\nout of it; and myriads of vespers have taken place since then, but not one\nlike that. Yes, myriads of vespers--a vesper every day, ever since--from\nthe year 1282 to this present 1848,--all gentle, all secure from the like\nmisery, all more or less worthy of the beautiful description of the poet.\nIf the massacre called the Sicilian Vespers had been infernal, it would\nhave been going on now! and nature has not made such hellish enormities\npossible. The only durability to which she tends is a happy one. Her\nshortest lives (generally speaking) are her least healthy; her greatest\nlongevities are those of healthy serenity. Supposing the earth to be\nanimated (as some have thought it), we cannot conceive it to be unhappy,\nrolling, as it has done for ages, round the sun, with a swiftness like the\nblood in the veins of childhood. Eternity of existence is inconceivable\non any ground of analogy, except as identical with healthy prevalence; and\nhealthy prevalence, with sensation, is inconceivable apart from sensations\nof pleasure.\n\nGone long ago are the bad Sicilian Vespers; but the good Sicilian Vespers,\nthe beautiful Sicilian music, the beautiful Sicilian poetry, these remain;\nand, as if in sweet scorn of the catastrophe, they are particularly famous\nfor their gentleness. To be told that a Sicilian air is about to be sung,\nis to be prepared to hear something especially sweet and soft. Every\nProtestant as well as Roman Catholic lover of music knows the _Sicilian\nMariner\u2019s Hymn_; and is a Catholic, if not a Roman worshipper, while he\nsings it. Fancy it rising at a distance out of the white-sailed boat in\nthe darkling blue waters, when the sun has just gone down, and the rock on\nthe woody promontory above the chapel, whose bell gave the notice, is\ntouched with rose-colour. Nay, fancy you forget all this, and think only\nof the honest simple mariners singing this hymn, at the moment when their\nwives and children are repeating the spirit of it on shore, and all Italy\nis doing the same:\n\n O sanctissima, O purissima,\n Dulcis Virgo Maria!\n Mater amata, intemerata,\n Ora pro nobis!\n\n O most holy, O most spotless,\n Mary, Virgin glorious!\n Mother dearest, maiden clearest--\n Oh, we pray thee, pray for us.\n\nThe sweetest of English poets could not resist echoing this kind of\nevening music in a strain of his own; but though he did it in the course\nof an invocation, it is rather a description than a prayer. It is,\nhowever, very Sicilian:--\n\nINVOCATION.\n\n _Sung behind the scenes in Coleridge\u2019s tragedy of \u201cRemorse;\u201d to be\n accompanied, says the poet, by \u201csoft music from an instrument of glass\n or steel.\u201d_\n\n Hear, sweet spirit--hear the spell!\n Lest a blacker charm compel;\n So shall the midnight breezes swell\n _With thy deep long-lingering knell_;\n\n(Observe the various yet bell-like intonation of that last verse, and the\nanalogous feeling in the repetition of the rhyme.)\n\n _And at evening evermore,\n In a chapel on the shore_,\n Shall the chanters, _sad and saintly_,\n Yellow tapers burning faintly,\n Doleful masses chant for thee,\n _Miserere, Domine_!\n\n Hark! the cadence dies away\n On the yellow moonlight sea:\n The boatmen rest their oars, and say,\n _Miserere, Domine_!\n\nThe tapers are yellow in the chapel, and the moonlight yellow out of\ndoors--one of those sympathies of colour which are often finer than\ncontrast.\n\nColeridge was so fond of sweet sounds, that he makes one of the characters\nin this play exclaim,--\n\n If the bad spirit retain\u2019d his angel\u2019s voice,\n Hell scarce were hell.\n\nThe Pagans of old were of the same opinion, for they made Pluto break his\ninexorable laws at the sound of the harp of Orpheus, his eyes, in spite of\nthemselves, being forced to shed \u201c_iron_ tears,\u201d as Milton finely calls\nthem. The notes, as the poet says,\n\n _Drew_ iron tears down Pluto\u2019s cheek,\n And made Hell grant what Love did seek.\n\n\u201cThe grim king of the ghosts\u201d would not have shed them if he could have\nhelped it. So Moschus, in his _Elegy on the Death of Bion_, expresses his\nopinion that if his deceased friend would sing a pastoral to the Queen of\nPluto, \u201csomething _Sicilian_\u201d as he emphatically calls it (\u03a3\u03b9\u03ba\u1f72\u03bb\u03b9\u03ba\u03cc\u03bd \u03c4\u03b9),\nshe could not have the heart to deny his return to earth. One should like\nto know the hymns which the Pagans actually sung to Proserpina and her\nmother Ceres, and how far they coincided, perhaps in some instances were\nidentical, with strains now sung in the Catholic churches. Some of the\noldest chants are supposed to be of Greek origin; and indeed it would be\nmarvellous if _all_ the ancient music had been swept away, considering how\nmany ceremonies, vestments, odours, processions, churches themselves, and,\nto say the truth, opinions, were retained by the new creed from the\nold--wisely in many instances, most curiously in all. Very naturally, too;\nfor the knees are the same knees with which all human beings kneel, Pagan\nor Christian; and the sky is the same to which they look up, whether\ninhabited by saints or goddesses. Nor is there anything \u201cblasphemous\u201d (as\nzealous Protestants are too quick to assert) in the Roman Catholic\ntendency to use the same kind of language towards the one, as was held and\nhymned towards the other; for blasphemy signifies what is injurious to the\ncharacter of the divinity, and nothing is injurious to it except the\nattribution of injustice and cruelty. If theological opinions, of whatever\ncreed, offended in nothing worse than an excess of zeal towards the beauty\nof the maternal character, or in behalf of the supposition that the\nspirits of the good and pious interested themselves in our welfare, the\nhuman heart would be little disposed to quarrel with them, in times even\nmore enlightened than the present. There is a couplet extant in Italy,\nremarkable for being both Italian and Latin. It might have been addressed\nby a Pagan of the Lower Roman Empire, to the goddess Proserpina, when\n_she_ was the guardian angel of Sicily, or to the Virgin Mary, by a modern\nRoman Catholic; and we find nothing horrible in this. On the contrary, it\nseems to fuse the two eras gently and tenderly together, by the same\naffecting link of human want and natural devotion. This is the couplet:--\n\n In mare irato, in subita procella,\n Invoco te, nostra benigna stella.\n\n In sudden storms, and when the billows blind,\n Thee I invoke, star sweet to human kind!\n\nWhen we spoke, in a former chapter, of the beautiful Sicilian story of\nProserpina, we forgot (a very ungrateful piece of forgetfulness) to add,\nthat one of the loveliest tributes ever paid to it by genius, is the\n_Ratto di Proserpina_--Winter\u2019s opera so called. There is every charm of\nthe subject in it,--the awfulness of the greater gods, the genial\nmaternity of Ceres, the tender memory of her daughter, the cordial\nre-assurances given her by Mercury, the golden-age dances of the\nshepherds. What smile of encouragement ever surpassed that of the strain\non the words _Cerere torner\u00e0_, in the divine trio, _Mi lasci, O madre\namata_? What passionate mixture of delight and melancholy, the\nworld-famous duet of _Vaghi colli_? Why does not some publisher make an\n_Elegant Extracts_ of such music from composers that will survive all\nfashion, and have comments written upon them, like those on poets? What\nwould we not give to see such an edition of the finest airs of all the\ngreat inventive melodists, the Pergoleses and Paisiellos and their\nsatellites, and all the inventive harmonists too, the Bachs, Corellis, and\nBeethovens, each with _variorum_ notes from the best critics, and loving\nindications of the beauties of particular passages? Publications of this\nkind are yet wanting, to the honour, and glory, and thorough household\ncompanionship of the art of music: and it is a pity somebody does not take\nthe opportunity of setting about them, when there are critics, both in and\nout of the profession, qualified to do them justice.[17]\n\nWe cannot close our Jar better than with a taste of \u201cthe modern\nTheocritus,\u201d Giovanni Meli, who deserves his title, and whose very name,\nas we said before, signifies honey. _Meli_ is honey, both in modern\nSicilian and in ancient Greek; and the poet may be a descendant of the\nGreek possessors of the island; nay (to carry the fancy out), possibly of\nTheocritus himself! Who is to prove, on the beautiful negative principle,\nthat he was not?\n\nMeli was an abbate at Palermo, a doctor of medicine, public professor of\nchemistry in the University there, and member of several academies. So are\nhis titles set forth in the edition of his poems in seven volumes, which\nwe have had the pleasure, since these chapters were first written, of\npicking up at a book-stall in Holborn. They are not very pastoral-sounding\ntitles; yet the more knowledge the better, even for the shepherd; and the\nshepherd-poet turns it all to account, just as chemistry itself improves\nthe field and the flowers. One of the friends whom Theocritus himself has\nimmortalised, was a physician. We have it on the authority of a gentleman\nwho knew the Abbate Meli, that he was as good a man as he was a charming\npoet. He seemed to live only (he says) to do good and to give pleasure:\nand he was as much beloved by the poor, as his company was in request\namong the prosperous. To say that Meli was to be of the party, was to give\nan evening assembly of friends its highest zest. His virtues were anything\nbut narrow. He was temperate, but not ascetic. He balked no genial\ninspiration; was a modern Anacreon as well as Theocritus; evinced a\nliberal turn of mind in every respect, without offence; and could write\nhymns full of natural piety, as well as drinking and love songs. He was\nalso a deeply read man, and a solid thinker. One of his longest poems is a\nbanter upon the various assumptions of philosophy respecting the system of\nthe world. Heartily do we wish it were in our power to give as good an\naccount of the poems as of their titles; but though they have a glossary\nfor the benefit of \u201cthe Italians,\u201d we cannot yet boast such a knowledge of\nthem as qualifies us to say much in evidence, beyond their general merits.\nThese we can discern well enough, like glimmerings of nymphs and flocks\namong the trees; and very like Theocritus indeed is his genius; very true\nto nature and to manners, impulsive in its style, not afraid of\ncolloquialisms and homely traits, but with an air of grace over all, and\nthe right happy aroma of the subtle and the suggestive. The moment you\nopen his first eclogue, you meet with a picture truly Theocritan. A\nherdsman asks a shepherdess if she has seen a cow of his which is missing,\nand he thus accosts her:--\n\n O Pasturedda, di li trizzi ad unna,\n Chi fai pinnata di la manu manca,\n Pri\u2019 un t\u2019 appighiari ssa facciuzza biunna.\n\n\u201cO shepherdess with the waving locks, who make a penthouse over your eyes\nwith your left hand, for fear of embrowning your pretty face,\u201d &c.\n\nMeli was poor, till, doubtless, he thought himself rich on receiving a\nsmall pension from the late King Ferdinand; for which (says the author of\nan interesting article on the \u201cDialects and Literature of Southern Italy,\u201d\nin the _British Quarterly Review_) \u201cthe poet expressed his gratitude in\nrespectful, but not adulatory terms.\u201d\n\nThe dialect of Sicily is remarkable for preferring close sounds to broad\nones. It converts the Tuscan _l_\u2019s into _d_\u2019s, and its _e_\u2019s and _o_\u2019s\ninto _i_\u2019s and _u_\u2019s. Thus, \u201cbella\u201d becomes _bedda_; \u201cpadre,\u201d _patri_;\n\u201cmare,\u201d _mari_; \u201csono,\u201d _sunnu_; \u201ccolorito,\u201d _culuritu_, &c. This is\nreversing the state of things in the days of Theocritus, when the Dorian\ninhabitants of Sicily were accused of doing nothing when they spoke but\n\u201cyawn\u201d and \u201cgabble.\u201d[18] But it is attributed to the Arabs, when they were\nmasters of the island. It has, probably, been injurious to the cause of\nmusic, and hindered the Sicilians from producing as many fine composers as\ntheir Neapolitan neighbours. Thus much, lest the reader should start at\nthe strange, though pretty, look of Meli\u2019s Italian, the poet having\nwisely chosen to speak in the tongue of those, from whose natures and\nhomes he copied.\n\nThe reader will see at once this leading difference between the Italian\nlanguage and the Sicilian form of it, in the following opening stanzas of\none of Meli\u2019s canzonets, accompanied by a Tuscan version from the pen of\nProfessor Rosini:--\n\n Sti silenzii, sta virdura, Questa ombrifera verdura,\n Sti muntagni, sti vallati, Queste tacite vallate,\n L\u2019 ha criatu la Natura L\u2019 ha create la Natura\n Pri li cori innamurati. Sol per l\u2019 alme innamorate.\n\n Lu susurra di li frunni, Il susurro delle fronde,\n Di li sciumi lu lamentu, Del rio garrulo il lamento,\n L\u2019 aria, l\u2019 ecu chi rispunni, L\u2019 aria, l\u2019 eco che risponde,\n Tuttu spira sentimentu. Tutto spira sentimento.\n\n \u201cThese quiet and green places, these mountains and valleys, were\n created by Nature on purpose for loving hearts.\n\n \u201cThe whispering of the leaves, the murmuring of the waters, the\n falling and rising of the wind--everything inspires the innermost\n feelings.\u201d\n\nSo, in the beginning of Eclogue the Second, a countryman, who seems\nfatigued, accosts another who is sitting at his door, and asks him whether\nhis dogs are gentle, and he may venture to come in. The good householder\nbegs him to stand a minute or two on the rock-stone, and he will call the\ndogs off. \u201cCome here, Scamper,\u201d says he, \u201c_thumping the ground there with\nyour tail_. Quiet, Wasp, quiet! Down, Lion! Now you can come in, and rest\nyourself; and I hope you\u2019ll stop and take something. I have a new cheese\nat your service, and a piping hot loaf, just out of the oven, made of\ncapital bread,\u201d &c.\n\nThe graphic animation of this exordium, particularly the passage we have\nmarked in Italics, is quite in the spirit of Theocritus. But we are\nobliged to stop short in it for want of understanding the next sentence.\n\nTheocritus could satirize a king. In the following passage in his _Winter\nIdyll_, Meli is perhaps covertly sticking his sly pen into a monk. A good\nold grand-sire is proposing to have what we should now call a Christmas\ndinner; and he consults his family as to what shall be the principal\ndish--what meat he shall kill:--\n\n Ora \u00e8 lu tempu,\n Ch\u2019unu di li domestici animali\n Mora pri nui; ma mi dirriti: quali?\n Lu voi, la vacca, l\u2019_asinu_, la crapa\n S\u00f9 stati sempri a parti tuttu l\u2019annu\n Di li nostri travagghi; e na gran parti\n Duvemu an iddi di li nostri beni;\n Vi pari, chi sarria riconoscenza\n Digna di nui, na tali ricompenza?\n\n Ma lu porcu? lu porcu \u00e8 statu chiddu,\n Chi a li travagghi d\u2019 autri ed a li nostri\n E statu un ozziusu spettaturi;\n Anzi abbusannu di li nostri curi;\n Mai s\u2019 \u00e8 dignatu scotiri lu ciancu\n Da lu fangusu lettu, a proprii pedi\n Aspittannu lu cibbu, e cu arroganza\n Nui sgrida di l\u2019 insolita tardanza.\n Chistu, chi nun conusci di la vita,\n Chi li suli vantaggi, e all\u2019 autri lassa\n Li vuccuni chi\u00f9 amari, comu tutti\n Fussimu nati pri li soi piaciri;\n Chi immersu tra la vili sua pigrizzia\n Stirannusi da l\u2019 unu e l\u2019 autru latu\n Di li suduri d\u2019 autru s\u2019 \u00e8 ingrassatu;\n Si: chistu mora, e ingrassi a nui: lu porcu,\n Lu vili, lu putruni--\n Si: l\u2019 ingrassatu a costu d\u2019 autru, mora.\n\n Lettu gi\u00e0 lu prucessu; e proferuta,\n Fra lu comuni applausu e la gioja,\n La fatali sintenza; attapanciatu,\n Strascinatu, attacatu, stramazzatu\n F\u00f9 lu porcu a l\u2019 istanti; un gran cuteddu\n Sprofundannusi dintra di la gula,\n Ci ricerca lu cori, e ci disciogghi\n Lu gruppu di la vita: orrendi grida,\n Gemiti strepitusi, aria ed oricchi\n Sfardanu e a li vicini, e a li luntani,\n Ed anchi fannu sentiri a li stiddi\n La grata nova di lu gran maceddu.\n Saziu gi\u00e0 di la straggi lu cuteddu\n Apri niscennu, spaziusa strata\n A lu sangu, ed a l\u2019 anima purcina;\n L\u2019 unu cadennu dintra lu tineddu,\n Prometti sangunazzi; e l\u2019 autra scappa,\n E si disperdi in aria tra li venti,\n O com\u2019 \u00e8 fama, passa ad abitari\n Dintru lu corpu di un riccuni avaru,\n Giacch\u00ec nun potti in terra ritruvari\n Chi\u00f9 vili e schiufusu munnizzaru.\n\n\u201cThe bull, cow, _donkey_, and goat have all shared in the labours of the\nyear, and assisted to keep us; so that to slaughter one of those would\nhardly be grateful. But the pig! What think you of the pig? _He_ has been\nnothing but a lazy spectator--a fellow living on those labours; nay, an\nabuser of the care we take to keep him; for he scorns to stir from his\nmuddy bed, expects his food to be laid at his feet, and even has the\narrogance to cry out against us if we are not in a hurry. Nothing of life\nknows he but its luxuries; he leaves all his cares to us, as if we were\nborn for nothing else but to heap him with enjoyments. Plunged in the\nvilest indolence, he contents himself with turning from one side to the\nother, and growing fat with the sweat of our brows. Oh, he must die by all\nmeans, and fatten us in our turn. The hog--the vile wretch--the\npoltroon--the corpulent selfish rascal--Death to him!\n\n\u201cNo sooner said than done. The sentence is carried by acclamation. The pig\nis grappled with, dragged along, tied and bound, slain utterly, through\nand through. The huge knife, profoundly plunged into that gullet of his,\ngoes to his heart amid horrid shrieks and dinning lamentations, which bear\nthe news of the great deed to friends afar off, and to the very stars in\nheaven. Blood and soul, in a flood ample as the way made for them, follow\nthe withdrawing blade,--_l\u2019 anima purcina_, the spirit of pork; the blood\ninto a hogshead, promising black puddings; the soul, either into the\npassing winds, or, as others think, into the body of some greedy chuff of\na millionaire, that vilest and most repulsive of muck-worms.\u201d\n\nMeli\u2019s first volume consists entirely of bucolics; the second of odes,\nsonnets, and canzonets; the third chiefly of verses in the manner of\nBerni, of satires, and dithyrambics; the fourth is occupied with a long\nBernesque poem, called the _Fairy Galanta_, seemingly full of national as\nwell as critical matters; the fifth and sixth with another on Don Quixote;\nand the seventh with elegies and fables. By this the reader may judge of\nthe diversity of his genius, and its tendency to the sprightly; with\nwhich, however, a fund of thinking is always mixed up. He was evidently\nforced to conceal a great deal of deep thought and indignant sympathy in\nthe garb of a jester. He did this, however, so well, expressed so much\nhorror at the French revolution, and showed himself such a friend of all\nwho had anything good in them, that in a country notorious for its\narbitrary government, he was in favour with the court and aristocracy; and\nthe circumstance, upon the whole, does them credit. Princes in Sicily are\nas common as country squires in England; but they have beautiful titles,\nand it is pleasant to read the list of his subscribers. Among them, here\nand there, is the name of an Englishman ludicrously set forth. Thus we\nhave _Sua Altezza Reale_, &c., to wit:--\n\n His Royal Highness Prince Don Leopoldo Borbone--A hundred copies.\n\n His Excellency the Signor Prince della Trabia--Ten copies.\n\n Her Excellency the Signora Princess della Trabia.\n\n The Most Illustrious Signor Marquis Cardillo--A hundred copies.\n\n _Mister Becker_ (probably Baker)--Two copies.\n\n My Lord the Great Chamberlain Don Gasparo Leone.\n\n The Most Illustrious Signor Duke di Campobello.\n\n Don Francesco Orlando.\n\n Don Antonino Sirretta.\n\n Don Giuseppe _Benthilley_ (probably Mr. Joseph Bentley).\n\n Don Giuseppe Romano.\n\n Lieutenant-Colonel Don Filippo Cellano.\n\n The Most Illustrious Marquis della Gran Montagna.\n\n Don Antonino Lucchese Pepoli.\n\n Her Excellency the Signora Princess of Pandolfina. (What a noble\n word!)\n\n The Most Illustrious Marquis of Altavilla.\n\n Her Excellency the Signora Princess of Patern\u00f2.\n\n Her Excellency the Signora Duchess della Grazia.\n\n Don Mich\u00e8le _Beaumont_.\n\n His Excellency the Reverend Lord Gravina, Bishop of Flaviopolis.\n\n The Most Illustrious Count Don Giuseppe de Monroy, of the Princes of\n Pandolfina.\n\n His Excellency the Signor Prince of Villafranca.\n\n The Most Illustrious Prince of Villadorata.\n\n The Most Illustrious Don Vincenzo Jacona di Catania, Baron of\n Castellana.\n\nBut we shall never have done playing this beautiful tune of a\nnomenclature.\n\nThe most agreeable specimen of Meli remains to be given. It is done to our\nhand by the reviewer before mentioned; and is done so well, that we are\nspared the difficulty of attempting it after him. We therefore give it in\nhis own prose version. It luckily happens to be one that furnishes direct\ncomparison with Meli\u2019s prototype, and with the Latin and English followers\nof that original. Most readers of Pope will recollect a passage in which\nhe describes a coquettish girl, who attracts her lover\u2019s attention while\npretending not to do so. But see how the natural thoughts originally\nsuggested by Theocritus are subjected to the artificial manner. The\nprincipal idea you have, is not of the things, but of the words, and of\ntheir classical construction:--\n\n STREPHON. Me gentle _Delia_ beckons _from the plain_,\n Then, hid in shades, _eludes_ her eager _swain_;\n But _feigns a laugh_, to see me search around,\n And by that laugh _the willing fair_ is found.\n\n DAPHNIS. The sprightly _Sylvia_ trips along the green:\n She _runs_, but hopes she _does not run_ unseen:\n While a kind glance at her pursuer flies,\n _How much at variance are her feet and eyes_!\n --POPE\u2019S _Pastorals_.\n\nVery epigrammatic that, and as unlike pastoral as the ball-rooms could\ndesire! It was a horrible spoiling of Virgil:--\n\n Malo me Galatea petit, lasciva puella,\n Et fugit ad salices, et se cupit ante videri.\n --_Eclog._ iii. v. 64.\n\nThus translated by Dryden:--\n\n My Phillis me with pelted apples plies;\n Then tripping to the woods the wanton hies,\n And wishes to be seen before she flies.\n\nThe Latin poet, too, in the flight of the damsel, added a charming idea to\nthe one suggested by Theocritus; if, indeed, the Greek did not give the\nfirst hint of it himself--\n\n \u0392\u03ac\u03bb\u03bb\u03b5\u03b9 \u03ba\u03b1\u1f76 \u03bc\u03b1\u03bb\u03bf\u03af\u03c3\u03b9 \u03c4\u1f78\u03bd \u03b1\u1f30\u03c0\u03cc\u03bb\u03bf\u03bd \u1f01 \u039a\u03bb\u03b5\u03ac\u03c1\u03b9\u03c3\u03c4\u03b1,\n \u03a4\u1f70\u03c2 \u03b1\u1f37\u03b3\u03b1\u03c2 \u03c0\u03b1\u03c1\u03ad\u03bb\u03b5\u03c5\u03bd\u03c4\u03b1, \u03ba\u03b1\u03b9 \u1f01\u03b4\u1f7a \u03c4\u03b9 \u03c0\u03bf\u03c0\u03c0\u03c5\u03bb\u03b9\u03ac\u03b4\u03b5\u03b9.\n --_Idyll_ v., v. 88.\n\nLiterally, \u201cClearista pelts the goatherd with apples, as he goes by with\nhis goats, and then hums something sweet.\u201d\n\nThe goatherd here does not seem to stop. It is not certain that he and the\ndamsel are acquainted; though he wishes to imply that she loves him. In\ncase they are intimate, we are to suppose that she intends him to imagine\nher saying something very pleasant, though he is too far off to hear it;\nbut in the other case, Virgil probably understood her to pretend that she\nhad not pelted the apples at all; for which reason she falls to humming a\ntune, with an air of innocent indifference.\n\nBe this as it may, nobody will deny the truly natural and Theocritan style\nin which the modern Sicilian has enlarged upon the old suggestion.\n\n\u201cMeli,\u201d says the reviewer, \u201cintroduces a group of fishing-girls,\nchattering and joking, and telling of their loves, in the absence of their\nparents. Their very names, Pidda, Lidda, and Ridda, sound congenial to\ntheir condition. To an invitation to go and romp on the sands, Lidda\nprudishly replies that she is afraid of meeting some rude swain. Ridda\nalso tells a story of having seen a fisherman concealed behind the rocks,\nwho addresses her in an amorous song, which frightened her out of her\nsenses. But Pidda, who is the eldest of the three, loses patience at this\naffected simplicity, and exclaims--\n\n Eh via--muzzica cc\u00e2 stu jiditeddu;\n E vaja franca, ca nni canuscemu;\n Avemu tutti lu \u2019nnamurateddu.\n\nLiterally,--\u2018Come, poor innocents, bite my little finger; but let that\npass; we know each other, and that each of us has her sweetheart.\u2019\n\n\u201cLidda, at last, casts off her shyness, and sings the following pretty\nditty--\n\n Quannu a Culicchia jeu vogghiu parrari,\n Ca spissu spissu mi veni lu sfilu,\n A la finestra mi mettu a filari;\n Quann\u2019 iddu passa, poi rumpu lu filu;\n Cadi lu fusu; ed eu mettu a gridari,\n \u2018Gnuri, pri carit\u00e0 proitimilu.\u2019\n Iddu lu pigghia; mi metti a guardari;\n Jeu mi nni vaju suppilu suppilu.\n\n \u201cWhen I wish to speak to my sweetheart, which occurs pretty often, I\n seat myself at the window to spin; and when he is passing underneath,\n I manage to break the thread; the spindle falls (out of the window),\n and I cry out, dolefully, \u2018Oh, friend, be so kind as to pick it up for\n me!\u2019 He does so, and looks at me, when I feel out of my wits for joy.\u201d\n\nWe shall not close our Jar with anything less good than this. There are\nstill, indeed, divers good things of ancient Sicilian poetry--one or two\nin particular--which we are wrong not to have given the English reader\nsome taste of (as far as we could), while writing our chapters on them;\nand also some passages from modern travellers, which, as illustrating\nother points of our subject, we think would have been found welcome by\nthe reader. These, therefore, we have put by themselves in the following\npages, under a title which shows them to have been part of our stock; and\nso, submitting them to his judgment, conclude by wishing both him and his\nall the good things in the world.\n\n[Illustration]\n\n\n\n\nOVERFLOWINGS OF THE JAR.\n\n\nTHE JOURNEY TO THE FEAST.\n\n(FROM THEOCRITUS.)\n\nThis, instead of an \u201coverflowing,\u201d ought to have been a constituent part\nof the Jar, because it supplies what has been wanting to complete our\nspecimens of Theocritus; namely, a sample of the happiest and most\nenjoying portion of his genius. The original is one of his finest\nproductions. The chief part of it relates what befell him on his way to a\nfriend\u2019s house out of town, to join a party at harvest-home. He overtakes\na brother poet, who, in respect to his condition in life, might have been\nto Theocritus what a Burns from the plough might have been to a\n\u201cgentleman,\u201d had any such rival poet existed in Burns\u2019 time. This inspired\nrustic, who (with the propriety noticed in our remarks on the subject)\nspeaks as well as the gentleman himself, is represented as reciting a poem\nof his composition, to beguile the way. Theocritus, in return, recites a\ncomposition of his own; and the whole piece concludes with a description\nof the luxurious orchard nest which awaited our author on his arrival at\nthe house he was going to:--\n\n Once on a time myself and E\u00f9critus\n Went out of town, taking Amyntas with us,\n To join a feast of Ceres, that was given\n By Phrasid\u00e0mus and Ant\u00ecgenes,\n Sons of Lyc\u00f2peus, and descended too\n (If that is anything) from Clitias,\n Ay, and from Calcon, who with his strong foot\n Dug from the rock the fount there, at Burinna,\n Where you perceive such a thick bower of elms\n And poplars, making quite a roof o\u2019erhead.\n\n We had not got half way, nor yet discern\u2019d\n The tomb of Brasilas, when we overtook,\n Travelling along, a favourite of the Muse,--\n A goatherd, of the name of Lycidas;\n And goatherd well he seem\u2019d; for on his shoulders\n Hung a right simple goatskin, hairy and thick,\n Smelling as if \u2019twas new; about his body\n Was an old jerkin, tied with platted straw;\n And in his hand he bore a crooked stick\n Made of wild olive. Placidly he turned,\n A little smile parting his kindly lips,\n And with a genial eye accosting me,\n Said, \u201cAh, Theocritus! and where go you\n At noon, when all the lizards are asleep,\n And not a lark but sobers? Is\u2019t a feast\n You\u2019re making haste to, or some vintager\u2019s,\n That thus you dash the pebbles with your sandals?\u201d\n\n \u201cLycidas,\u201d answered I, \u201cthe world, my friend,\n Shepherds, reapers, and all, count you a poet\n Of the first pastoral order,--which delights me:\n Nevertheless, I hope you see another.\n It _is_ a feast we\u2019re going to. Some friends\n Keep one to-day to holy Mother Earth,\n For gratitude, their garners are so full.\n But come;--as we are going the same way,\n And love the same good pastime, let\u2019s indulge\n Each other\u2019s vein a little; for my lips\n Breathe also of the Muse; and people call me\n Greatest of living song;--a praise, however,\n Of which I am not credulous,--no, by Earth;\n For there\u2019s Philetas, and our Samian too,\n Whom I no more pretend to have surpass\u2019d,\n Than frogs the grasshoppers.\u201d\n\n Well;--we agreed;\n And Lycidas, with one of his sweet smiles,\n Said, \u201cYou must let me give you, when we finish,\n This olive-stick, for you have proved yourself\n A scion truly from the stock of Jove.\n I also hate the builder that pretends\n To rival mountain-tops, and just as much\n Those dunghill cocks that tear their throats in vain\n With trying to outcrow Homer himself!\n But come, let us begin, Theocritus.--\n Well,--I\u2019ll be first then. Tell me if you like\n This little piece, friend, which I hammered out\n The other day as I was pacing \u00c6tna.\u201d\n\nLycidas here commences his recitation of the following verses, which are\nin honour of a friend who has gone abroad, and include the Legend of\nComatas:--\n\n \u201cAgeanax, if he forgets me not\n His faithful friend, shall safely cross the seas\n To Mitylene, both when the south wind,\n Warned by the westering Kids,[19] adds wet to wet,\n And when Orion dips his sparkling feet.\n Let halcyons smooth the billows, and make still\n The west wind and the fiercer east, which stirs\n The lowest sea-weeds;--halcyons, of all birds\n Dear to the blue-eyed Nymphs, and fed by them.\n Let all things favour the kind voyager,\n And land him safely;--and that day, will I,\n Wearing a crown of roses or white violets,\n Quaff by my fireside Pteleatic wine;\n And some one shall dress beans; and I will have\n A noble couch, to lie at ease upon,\n Heaped up of asphodel and yielding herbs;\n And there I\u2019ll drink in a divine repose,\n Calling to mind Ageanax, and drain\n With clinging lips the goblet to the dregs:\n And there shall be two shepherds to play to me\n Upon the pipe; and Tityrus, standing by,\n Shall sing how Daphnis was in love with Xenia,\n And used to walk the Mountain, while the oaks\n Moaned to him on the banks of Himera;\n And how he melted in his love away,\n Like snows on Athos, or on Rhodope,\n Or H\u00e6mus, or the farthest Caucasus;--\n And Tityrus shall sing also, how of old\n The goatherd by his cruel lord was bound,\n And left to die in a great chest; and how\n The busy bees, up coming from the meadows\n To the sweet cedar, fed him with soft flowers,\n Because the Muse had filled his mouth with nectar.\n Yes, all those sweets were thine, blessed Comatas\n And thou wast put into the chest, and fed\n By the blithe bees, and passed a pleasant time.\n Would that in my time also thou wert living,\n That we might keep our flocks upon the Mountain,\n And I might hear thy voice, while thou shouldst lie\n Under the oak-trees or the pines, and modulate\n Thy pipe deliciously, divine Comatas.\u201d\n\n Here ended he his song, and thus in turn\n I took up mine:--\u201cDear Lycidas, the Nymphs\n Have taught me also, while I kept my flocks,\n Excellent subjects; and the best of all\n I\u2019ll tell you now, since you are dear to them.\u201d\n\nTheocritus here commences his recitation in turn, the subject of which is\nan unsuccessful passion of his friend Aratus, supposed to be the\ncontemporary poet of that name, author of the _Ph\u00e6nomena_:--\n\n \u201c--\u2019Twas on the unlucky side the Loves sneezed to me,\n For I love Myrto, as the goats love spring,\n But to no purpose. Meanwhile too, Aratus,\n My best of friends, becomes in love with Pholoe.\n Aristis has long known it,--good Aristis,\n To whom Apollo\u2019s self would not disdain\n To play his harp from his own golden seat.--\n O Pan, who gained by lot the lovely grounds\n Of Homole,--Oh, send her to his arms,\n Her, or another girl as beautiful!\n Oh, do but so, and the Arcadian youth\n Shall scourge thee not with squills, when they have miss\u2019d\n Their hunted game:--but if thou dost it not,\n Thou shalt be flayed, and sent to sleep in straw:\n In mountains and by rivers of the north\n Mid winter shalt thou pass; and then in summer\n Be changed to utmost \u00c6thiopia, there\n To tend thy flocks under the Blemyan rock,\n Where thou canst see not Nile.[20]--But you, ye Loves,\n With your sweet apple cheeks, leave the moist nooks\n Of Hyetis and Byblis and fly up\n To Venus\u2019s own heaven, and thence, ah thence,\n Shoot with your arrows for me this desir\u2019d one,\n Shoot,--since she pities not my friend and guest.\n Riper is she than the moist pear; and yet\n The women say to her, \u2018Alas, alas,\n Your flower will wither, Pholoe, on the stalk!\u2019\n Come then, Aratus; let us lie no more\n At these proud doors, nor wear our feet with journeys;\n But let another, if he chooses, start\n With sleepless eyes to hear the crowing cock;\n And leave such labours to the wrestler Molon.\n Care we for nought but comfort: let us seek\n Some ancient dame, who, muttering o\u2019er a charm,\n Shall keep away from us all things unkindly.\u201d\n\n I ended; and with one of his old smiles,\n He gave me his poetic gift, the olive-stick;\n And turning to the left, struck off for Pyxa.\n We then went on to Phrasidamus\u2019s,--\n Eucritus, I, and the good little Amyntas,--\n And gladly rested upon deep thick couches\n Of lentisk, and of vine-leaves freshly cut.\n Above our heads a throng of elms and poplars\n Kept stirring; and from out a cave o\u2019 the Nymphs\n A sacred runnel, pouring forth, ran gurgling.\n Hot in the greenest leaves, labour\u2019d away\n Those chatterers the cicadas; the sad tree-frog\n Kept his good distance in the thorny bush;\n The larks and linnets sang; the stock-dove mourned;\n And round the fountain spun the yellow bees:\n All things smelt rich of summer, rich of autumn:\n Pears were about our feet, and by our side\n Apples on apples roll\u2019d; the boughs bent down\n To the very earth with loads of damson plums;\n And from the casks of wine of four years old,\n We broke the corking pitch.--O ye who keep\n Parnassus\u2019 top, ye Nymphs of Castaly,\n Did ever Chiron, in the rocky cave\n Of Pholos, set such goblets before Hercules?\n Did ever that old shepherd of Anapus,\n Great Polyphemus, who could throw the rocks,\n Compose such nectar to go dance withal,--\n As on that day ye broached for us, O Nymphs,\n Before the altar of Earth\u2019s generous Mother?\n Oh, may I riot in her heaps again\n With a great winnow; while she stands and smiles,\n Holding, in either hand, poppies and wheat.\n\n\nELEGY ON THE DEATH OF BION.\n\n(FROM MOSCHUS.)\n\nThe chief characteristic both of this Sicilian poet Moschus and his friend\nBion was a tender and elegant sweetness. We have endeavoured to modulate\nour version accordingly.\n\nThis is the pastoral poetry of books, as distinguished from that of real\nlife; yet it has a real echo in the minds of those who can pass from one\nregion to the other; nor is it wanting in some touches exquisitely human,\nas we have seen in the famous passage already quoted from the Elegy\nrespecting the (supposed) difference between the transitory nature of man\nand the rejuvenescence of flowers:--\n\n Moan with me, moan, ye woods and Dorian waters,\n And weep, ye rivers, the delightful Bion;\n Ye plants, now stand in tears; murmur, ye groves;\n Ye flowers, sigh forth your odours with sad buds;\n Flush deep, ye roses and anemones;\n And more than ever now, O hyacinth, show\n Your written sorrows;[21]--the sweet singer\u2019s dead.\n\n Raise, raise the dirge, Muses of Sicily.\n Ye nightingales, that mourn in the thick leaves,\n Tell the Sicilian streams of Arethuse,\n Bion the shepherd\u2019s dead; and that with him\n Melody\u2019s dead, and gone the Dorian song.\n\n Raise, raise the dirge, Muses of Sicily.\n Weep on the waters, ye Strymonian swans,\n And utter forth a melancholy song,\n Tender as his whose voice was like your own;\n And say to the \u0152agrian girls, and say\n To all the nymphs haunting in Bistony,\n The Doric Orpheus is departed from us.\n\n Raise, raise the dirge, Muses of Sicily.\n No longer pipes he to the charmed herds,\n No longer sits under the lonely oaks,\n And sings; but to the ears of Pluto now\n Tunes his Lethean verse; and so the hills\n Are voiceless; and the cows that follow still\n Beside the bulls, low and will not be fed.\n\n Raise, raise the dirge, Muses of Sicily.\n Apollo, Bion, wept thy sudden fate:\n The Satyrs too, and the Priapuses\n Dark-veiled, and for that song of thine the Pans,\n Groan\u2019d; and the fountain-nymphs within the woods\n Mourn\u2019d for thee, melting into tearful waters;\n Echo too mourn\u2019d among the rocks that she\n Must hush--and imitate thy lips no longer;\n Trees and the flowers put off their loveliness;\n Milk flows not as \u2019twas used; and in the hive\n The honey moulders,--for there is no need,\n Now that thy honey\u2019s gone, to look for more.\n\n Raise, raise the dirge, Muses of Sicily.\n Not so the dolphins mourn\u2019d by the salt sea,\n Not so the nightingale among the rocks,\n Not so the swallow over the far downs,\n Not so Ceyx called for his Halcyone,\n Not so in the eastern valleys Memnon\u2019s bird\n Scream\u2019d o\u2019er his sepulchre for the Morning\u2019s son,\n As all have mourned for the departed Bion.\n\n Raise, raise the dirge, Muses of Sicily.\n Ye nightingales and swallows every one\n Whom he once charm\u2019d and taught to sing at will\n Plain to each other midst the green tree boughs\n With other birds o\u2019erhead. Mourn too, ye doves.\n\n Raise, raise the dirge, Muses of Sicily.\n Who now shall play thy pipe, O most desir\u2019d one!\n Who lay his lip against thy reeds? who dare it?\n For still they breathe of thee and of thy mouth,\n And Echo comes to seek her voices there.\n Pan\u2019s be they; and ev\u2019n he shall fear perhaps\n To sound them, lest he be not first hereafter.\n\n Raise, raise the dirge, Muses of Sicily.\n And Galatea weeps, who loved to hear thee,\n Sitting beside thee on the calm sea-shore;\n For thou didst play far better than the Cyclops,\n And him the fair one shunn\u2019d: but thee, but thee,\n She used to look at sweetly from the water.\n But now forgetful of the deep, she sits\n On the lone sands, and feeds thy herd for thee.\n\n Raise, raise the dirge, Muses of Sicily.\n The Muse\u2019s gifts all died with thee, O shepherd,\n Men\u2019s admiration, and sweet women\u2019s kisses.\n The Loves about thy sepulchre weep sadly,\n For Venus loved thee, much more than the kiss\n With which of late she kiss\u2019d Adonis, dying.\n Thou too, O Meles, sweetest-voiced of rivers,\n Thou too hast undergone a second grief;\n For Homer first, that sweet mouth of Calliope,\n Was taken from thee; and they say thou mournedst\n For thy great son with many-sobbing streams,\n Filling the far-seen ocean with a voice.\n And now, again, thou weepest for a son,\n Melting away in misery. Both of them\n Were favourites of the fountain-nymphs; one drank\n The Pegasean fount, and one his cup\n Fill\u2019d out of Arethuse; the former sang\n The bright Tyndarid lass, and the great son\n Of Thetis, and Atrides Menelaus;\n But he, the other, not of wars or tears\n Told us, but intermix\u2019d the pipe he play\u2019d\n With songs of herds, and as he sung he fed them;\n And he made pipes, and milk\u2019d the gentle heifer,\n And taught us how to kiss, and cherish\u2019d love\n Within his bosom, and was worthy of Venus.\n\n Raise, raise the dirge, Muses of Sicily.\n Every renowned city and every town\n Mourns for thee, Bion;--Ascra weeps thee more\n Than her own Hesiod; the B\u0153otian woods\n Ask not for Pindar so; nor patriot Lesbos\n For her Alc\u00e6us; nor th\u2019 \u00c6gean isle\n Her poet; nor does Paros so wish back\n Archilochus; and Mitylene now,\n Instead of Sappho\u2019s verses, rings with thine.\n All the sweet pastoral poets weep for thee,--\n Sicelidas the Samian; Lycidas,\n Who used to look so happy; and at Cos,\n Philetas; and at Syracuse, Theocritus;\n All in their several dialects: and I,\n I too, no stranger to the pastoral song,\n Sing thee a dirge Ausonian, such as thou\n Taughtest thy scholars, honouring us as all\n Heirs of the Dorian Muse. Thou didst bequeath\n Thy store to others, but to me thy song.\n\n Raise, raise the dirge, Muses of Sicily.\n Alas, when mallows in the garden die,\n Green parsley, or the crisp luxuriant dill,\n They live again, and flower another year;\n But we, how great soe\u2019er, or strong, or wise,\n When once we die, sleep in the senseless earth\n A long, an endless, unawakeable sleep.\n Thou too in earth must be laid silently:\n But the nymphs please to let the frog sing on;\n Nor envy I, for what he sings is worthless.\n\n Raise, raise the dirge, Muses of Sicily.\n There came, O Bion, poison to thy mouth,\n Thou didst feel poison; how could it approach\n Those lips of thine, and not be turn\u2019d to sweet!\n Who could be so delightless as to mix it,\n Or bid be mix\u2019d, and turn him from thy song!\n\n Raise, raise the dirge, Muses of Sicily.\n But justice reaches all;--and thus, meanwhile,\n I weep thy fate. And would I could descend\n Like Orpheus to the shades, or like Ulysses,\n Or Hercules before him: I would go\n To Pluto\u2019s house, and see if you sang there,\n And hark to what you sang. Play to Pros\u00e8rpina\n Something Sicilian, some delightful pastoral,\n For she once play\u2019d on the Sicilian shores,\n The shores of \u00c6tna, and sang Dorian songs,\n And so thou wouldst be honour\u2019d; and as Orpheus\n For his sweet harping, had his love again,\n She would restore thee to our mountains, Bion.\n Oh, had I but the power, I, I would do it.\n\n\nTHE SHIP OF HIERO.\n\n\u201cWe find an ample but interesting description, in Athen\u00e6us, of a\nmagnificent and prodigious galley, that had twenty benches of rowers,\ncontained an extraordinary number of persons, and was not only provided\nwith dreadful means of assault, but with all that could delight the mind,\nand charm the sense. Baths of bronze and of Taurominian marble, stables, a\ngymnasium, small gardens planted with various trees and watered by pipes,\nthe twining vine and ivy, a library, and a sun-dial, were all in this\ngalley. It had three decks; the second of which was inlaid with variegated\nmosaic-work, containing the whole history of Homer\u2019s _Iliad_. Every\nnecessary for repose by night, and banqueting by day, was provided with a\nregal luxury.\n\n\u201cAs much timber was brought from the forest of \u00c6tna, for the building of\nthis galley, as would have sufficed for sixty ordinary galleys. It had\nthree masts; and, on the upper deck, it was fortified round with a wall,\nand eight towers like a citadel. Each of the towers contained four\ncombatants, completely armed, and two archers. Within, the towers were\nprovided with missiles and stones, and on the walls stood a kind of\nartillery-machine, invented by Archimedes, which threw stones of three\nhundred-weight, and a lance twelve ells in length, to the distance of a\nstadium, or six hundred feet.\n\n\u201cEach side of the wall was provided with sixty young men, well armed; and\nthere were shooters even in the mast-cages.[22] Round the upper deck was\nan iron rim; where there were machines placed which would act immediately\nagainst an enemy\u2019s ship, hold it fast, and draw it to the galley. A tree\nsufficiently large for the mainmast was long sought for in vain, till a\nhog-driver found one in _Brettia_, or _Bruttium_, the present South\nCalabria. The lower deck could be pumped by a single man, with the aid of\na machine which the Greeks called \u03ba\u03bf\u03c7\u03bb\u03af\u03bf\u03bd, the Latins _cochlea_, and which\nwe, after its inventor, name the screw of Archimedes.\n\n\u201cWhen the wonderful work was completed, it was discovered that some of the\nhavens of Hiero would not contain it, and that in others it was not safe.\nHiero therefore sent the galley to King Ptolemy (Ptolom\u00e6us Philadelphus,\nI suppose), as a present, to Alexandria.\n\n\u201cYou will pardon me this borrowed but abbreviated description, taken from\nAthen\u00e6us, as it appears to me not only interesting in itself, but usefully\ninstructive to those who have formed no just idea of the mechanics of the\nancients. To such persons, I recommend the chapter in Athen\u00e6us which\ncontains this description, as well as others, in which greater ships of\nthe Ptolemies are described; and of one which was built by Ptolom\u00e6us\nPhilopater, that, rowers and warriors included, could contain seven\nthousand men.\u201d--STOLBERG\u2019S _Travels through Germany, Switzerland, Italy,\nand Sicily_ (translated by HOLCROFT), vol. iv. p. 177.\n\n\nSERENADES IN SICILY AND NAPLES.\n\n\u201cWe reached Alcamo in the evening; a well-built town, that contains above\n8,000 inhabitants. It was built in the year 828, on the fruitful hill\n_Bonifacio_, by the Saracen _Adalcamo_, or _Halcamo_, who came from\nAfrica; but its site was removed by the Emperor Frederick the Second to\nthe plain in which it now stands.\n\n\u201cAlcamo boasts of having produced famous men; and, among others, _Ciullo\ndel Camo_, who is generally called _Vincentio di Alcamo_. He was the\ncontemporary of Frederick the Second, and is supposed by some to be the\nfirst who wrote poetry in the Italian language; at least, he was one of\nthe first Italian poets. As it was Sunday, we were not surprised to see a\ngreat part of the inhabitants tumultuously crowding the streets, for this\nis a custom through all Italy. They begin on the Saturday evening, after\nthe labour of the week is over, to collect in the market-places and\nstreets. He who should be unacquainted with their manners, would imagine\nthat some extraordinary event or insurrection had caused them to assemble;\nfor they usually speak all together, with loud voices, rapid articulation,\nand animated gestures. In the midst of their violent contentions, you\nevery moment expect they will seize each other by the throat, and are\nagreeably surprised to hear them end in a loud laugh.\n\n\u201cThus it was at Alcamo, where the streets seemed to be in an uproar till\nafter midnight, when singing and music began; yet, as early as three in\nthe morning, the people were going about, crying aloud the bread and meat,\nwhich they sold to the workmen that were preparing for their labour in the\nfields. The Sicilians, like the Italians, need but little sleep, and\nwillingly part with that little for any diversion; hence the custom of\nserenading ever has and ever will prevail. Horace, in the ninth ode of his\nfirst book, speaks of the serenades of his days. He has been, hitherto,\nmisinterpreted by some commentators; and, although the manners of the\nsouth of Italy and of Sicily might have pointed out what the poet intended\nto describe, yet I should probably still have misunderstood him, if a\nlucky accident had not informed me of the true meaning of the verse.\n\n\u201cA volume of the _Gazette Litt\u00e9raire de l\u2019Europe_ fell into my hands at\nNaples, a journal which gave extracts from the commentator, Abbate\nGaliana, a writer who died some years ago at Naples, a man of\nunderstanding, and famous for his numerous works. I do not believe that\nthe whole of his commentary has yet been made public.\n\n\u201cThe ode of which I am speaking begins--\n\n \u2018Vides ut alta stet nive candidum\n Soracte.\u2019\n --HORACE, 1. i. Od. 9.\n\n \u2018Behold Soracte\u2019s airy height,\n Made heavy with a weight of snow.\u2019\n --FRANCIS.\n\n\u201cThe verses\n\n \u2018Lenesque sub noctem susurri\n Composita repetantur hora.\u2019\n\n \u2018An assignation sweetly made,\n With gentle whispers in the dark.\u2019\n --FRANCIS.\n\nhave generally been understood as if the poet spoke of social friends who\nmet together in the evening. But why should they speak in whispers? And\nwhy at an appointed hour? Is not the unexpected visit of a friend often\nthe most pleasant?\n\n\u201cOthers came nearer to the meaning, without attaining it. They supposed\nthe poet had spoken of two lovers conversing together. Let us hear our\nacute Neapolitan.\n\n\u201c\u2018These _lenes susurri_,\u2019 says Galiana, \u2018are not the soft whispers of two\nlovers; they are serenades. To elucidate my meaning, it will be necessary\nfor me to enlarge a little on the manners of the ancient Romans--manners\nwhich are still preserved in the lower parts of Italy, Spain, and the\nEast. Love, that ever powerful, but ever hypocritical passion, suffers\nitself to be fettered and constrained as long as it can endure; but when\nit gathers sufficient strength, it breaks its chains and recovers its\nfreedom. In Spain and Italy, where the climate will permit, the lover\ndeclares his passion in the street and at the windows. In France and\nGermany, where the winds are more rude, love is obliged to open the door,\nand tell his tale by the fire-side. In the country of Horace, the door was\nimpassable and the house considered as sacred, particularly if it\ncontained a young maiden that was marriageable.\n\n\u201c\u2018But let us not deceive ourselves: neither Arab nor Turk first introduced\nthe jealousy of the seraglio to Greece and Asia. The custom is much older;\nit is attached to the soil, it still exists in Italy, or rather did exist,\ntill, at the end of the last century, French manners prevailed all over\nItaly. In the south, however, this ancient custom still remains in full\nforce;[23] the doors there are yet impassable to lovers. Watched as they\nare in Turkey, the girls spend a great part of their time at the window,\nespecially by night, listening to the songs which the lovers sing in a low\nvoice, that they may not disturb the neighbourhood. The maiden conceals\nthe light of her chamber, and her lover only knows that she is present by\nher soft whispers which he hears from the balcony. I have a thousand times\nwitnessed the scenes which Horace describes. On a sudden the girl is\nsilent, and returns no more answers to the discourse of her lover, who,\nbeing in the dark, knows not whether she still listens or is gone. He\nspeaks again, again waits to hear, and at last receiving no reply, is\npersuaded that his beloved is retired to rest; or that, frightened by a\nnoise in her mother\u2019s chamber, she has thrown herself under the\nbed-clothes and counterfeited sleep.\n\n\u201c\u2018These accidents of fright are so common that the lover is not astonished\nif he be suddenly left in the middle of his nightly colloquy. Dejected, he\nputs his mandoline in its case, and is about to be gone, when, in an\ninstant, his young mistress, who had retired to a corner of her chamber,\ngives a loud laugh to inform him that she still listens, and that she had\nonly been sportively playing him a trick. Overjoyed, enraptured, he\nreturns, and again begins his amorous endless tale.\n\n\u201c\u2018This agrees with the description of Horace:--\n\n \u201cNunc et latentis proditor intimo\n Gratus puell\u00e6 risus ab angulo:\n Pignusque dereptum lacertis,\n Aut digito male pertinaci.\u201d\n\n \u201cThe laugh that from the corner flies,\n The sportive fair one shall betray;\n Then boldly snatch the joyful prize,\n A ring or bracelet tear away:\n While she, not too severely coy,\n Struggling shall yield the willing toy.\u201d\n --FRANCIS.\n\n\u201c\u2018In the last two lines, Horace gives us a picture of what happens at a\nhouse door. In Italy the young girls are permitted to step to the door for\na moment, especially at the beginning of night. The lover is careful to\npass and repass, that he may catch the instant in which he may remind his\nmistress of the hour of their nightly meetings, press her to observe her\npromise, and endeavour to obtain a token. The last is generally no more\nthan a pretext that he may squeeze her hand, and take a ring from her\nfinger which is weakly defended.\u2019\n\n\u201cThus far Galiana, and I have no difficulty in admitting that the two last\nlines explain what actually happens. The girl has played tricks with and\nlaughed at her lover; and, being inclined to be reconciled, runs down to\nthe house door. She quarrels with him only for the pleasure of making it\nup. Our vetturino, a lively young man, who has several times travelled\nover all Sicily, was not so weary by riding in the heat, but that he\nwillingly touched the strings of his instrument nightly before many a\nwindow.\u201d--STOLBERG\u2019S _Travels_, vol. iii. p. 447.\n\n\nSICILIAN BANDITTI IN THE YEAR 1770.\n\n\u201cWe are just returned from the prince\u2019s\u201d (the Prince of Villafranca).[24]\n\u201cHe received us politely, but with a good deal of state. He offered us the\nuse of his carriages, as there are none to be hired; and, in the usual\nstyle, begged to know in what he could be of service to us. We told him\n(with an apology for our abrupt departure) that we were obliged to set off\nto-morrow, and begged his protection on our journey. He replied that he\nwould immediately give orders for guards to attend us, that should be\nanswerable for everything; that we need give ourselves no further trouble;\nthat whatever number of mules we had occasion for should be ready at the\ndoor of the inn, at any hour we should think proper to appoint. He added\nthat we might entirely rely on these guards, who were people of the most\ndetermined resolution, as well as of the most approved confidence, and\nwould not fail to chastise on the spot any person that should presume to\nimpose upon us.\n\n\u201cNow, who do you think these trusty and well-beloved guards are composed\nof? Why, of the most daring and most hardened villains, perhaps, that are\nto be met with upon earth, who, in any other country, would have been\nbroken upon the wheel, or hung in chains, but are here publicly protected,\nand universally feared and respected. It was this part of the police of\nSicily that I was afraid to give you an account of. However, I have now\nconversed with the prince\u2019s people on the subject, and they have confirmed\nevery circumstance that Mr. Maestre made me acquainted with.\n\n\u201cHe told me, that in this east part of the island, called Val Demoni, from\nthe devils that are supposed to inhabit Mount \u00c6tna, it has ever been found\naltogether impracticable to extirpate the banditti; there being\nnumberless caverns and subterraneous passages around that mountain, where\nno troops could possibly pursue them. That, besides, as they are known to\nbe perfectly determined and resolute, never failing to take a dreadful\nrevenge on all who have offended them, the Prince of Villafranca has\nembraced it, not only as the safest, but likewise as the wisest and most\npolitical scheme, to become their declared patron and protector. And such\nof them as think proper to leave their mountains and forests, though\nperhaps only for a time, are sure to meet with good encouragement, and a\ncertain protection in his service, where they enjoy the most unbounded\nconfidence, which, in no instance, they have ever yet been found to make\nan improper or a dishonest use of. They are clothed in the prince\u2019s\nlivery, yellow and green, with silver lace, and wear likewise a badge of\ntheir honourable order, which entitles them to universal fear and respect\nfrom the people.\n\n\u201cI have just been interrupted by an upper servant of the prince\u2019s, who,\nboth by his looks and language, seems to be of the same worthy fraternity.\nHe tells us, that he has ordered our muleteers, at their peril, to be\nready by daybreak; but that we need not go till we think proper: for it is\ntheir business to attend on _nostre eccellenze_. He says he has likewise\nordered two of the most desperate fellows in the whole island to accompany\nus; adding, in a sort of whisper, that we need be under no apprehension,\nfor that if any person should presume to impose upon us a single\nbaiocc,[25] they would certainly put him to death. I gave him an\nounce,[26] which I knew was what he expected, on which he redoubled his\nbows, and his eccellenzas, and declared we were the most _honorabili\nSignori_ he had ever met with, and that, if we pleased, he himself should\nhave the honour of attending us, and would chastise any person that should\ndare to take the wall of us, or injure us in the most minute trifle. We\nthanked him for his zeal, showing him we had swords of our own. On which,\nbowing respectfully, he retired.\n\n\u201cI can now, with more assurance, give you some account of the conversation\nI had with Signor Maestre, who seems to be a very intelligent man, and has\nresided here for these great many years.\n\n\u201cHe says that in some circumstances these banditti are the most\nrespectable people of the island; and have by much the highest and most\nromantic notions of what they call their point of honour. That, however\ncriminal they may be with regard to society in general, yet, with respect\nto one another, and to every person to whom they have once professed it,\nthey have ever maintained the most unshaken fidelity. The magistrates have\noften been obliged to protect them, and pay them court, as they are known\nto be perfectly determined and desperate, and so extremely vindictive,\nthat they will certainly put any person to death that has ever given them\njust cause of provocation. On the other hand, it never was known that any\nperson who had put himself under their protection, and showed that he had\nconfidence in them, had cause to repent of it, or was injured by any of\nthem, in the most minute trifle; but on the contrary, they will protect\nhim from impositions of every kind, and scorn to go halves with the\nlandlord, like most other conductors and travelling servants; and will\ndefend him with their lives, if there is occasion: that those of their\nnumber who have thus enlisted themselves in the service of society, are\nknown and respected by the other banditti all over the island; and the\npersons of those they accompany are ever held sacred. For these reasons,\nmost travellers choose to hire a couple of them from town to town; and may\nthus travel over the whole island in safety. To illustrate their character\nthe more, he added two stories, which happened but a few days ago, and are\nstill in everybody\u2019s mouth.\n\n\u201cA number of people were found digging in a place where some treasure was\nsupposed to have been hid during the plague. As this has been forbid\nunder the most severe penalties, they were immediately carried to prison,\nand expected to have been treated without mercy; but, luckily for the\nothers, one of these heroes happened to be of the number. He immediately\nwrote to the Prince of Villafranca, and made use of such powerful\narguments in their favour, that they were all immediately set at liberty.\n\n\u201cThis will serve to show their consequence with the civil power. The other\nstory will give you a strong idea of their barbarous ferocity, and the\nhorrid mixture of stubborn vice and virtue (if I may call it by that name)\nthat seems to direct their actions. I should have mentioned, that they\nhave a practice of borrowing money from the country people, who never dare\nrefuse them; and if they promise to pay it, they have ever been found\npunctual and exact, both as to the time and the sum; and would much rather\nrob and murder an innocent person, than fail of payment on the day\nappointed. And this they have often been obliged to do, only in order, as\nthey say, to fulfil their engagements, and to save their honour.\n\n\u201cIt happened within this fortnight that the brother of one of these heroic\nbanditti having occasion for money, and not knowing how to procure it,\ndetermined to make use of his brother\u2019s name and authority, an artifice\nwhich he thought could not easily be discovered; accordingly he went to a\ncountry priest, and told him his brother had occasion for twenty ducats,\nwhich he desired he would immediately lend him. The priest assured him\nthat he had not so large a sum, but that if he would return in a few days\nit should be ready for him. The other replied that he was afraid to return\nto his brother with this answer, and desired that he would by all means\ntake care to keep out of his way--at least till such time as he had\npacified him, otherwise he could not be answerable for the consequences.\nAs bad fortune would have it, the very next day the priest and the robber\nmet in a narrow road; the former fell a-trembling as the latter\napproached, and at last dropped on his knees to beg for mercy. The robber,\nastonished at this behaviour, desired to know the cause of it. The\ntrembling priest answered, \u2018Il denaro, il denaro. The money--the money;\nbut send your brother to-morrow, and you shall have it.\u2019 The haughty\nrobber assured him that he disdained taking money of a poor priest;\nadding, that if any of his brothers had been low enough to make such a\ndemand, he himself was ready to advance the sum. The priest acquainted him\nwith the visit he had received the preceding night from his brother, by\nhis order, assuring him, that if he had been master of the sum, he should\nimmediately have supplied it. \u2018Well,\u2019 says the robber, \u2018I will now\nconvince you whether my brother or I are most to be believed; you shall go\nwith me to his house, which is but a few miles distant.\u2019 On their arrival\nbefore the door the robber called on his brother, who, never suspecting\nthe discovery, immediately came to the balcony; but on perceiving the\npriest he began to make excuses for his conduct. The robber told him there\nwas no excuse to be made, that he only desired to know the fact, if he had\ngone to borrow money of that priest in his name or not? On his owning it,\nthe robber with deliberate coolness lifted his blunderbuss to his shoulder\nand shot him dead, and turning to the astonished priest, \u2018You will now be\npersuaded,\u2019 said he, \u2018that I had no intention of robbing you at least.\u2019\n\n\u201cYou may now judge how happy we must be in company of our guards. I don\u2019t\nknow but this very hero may be one of them.\u201d--BRYDONE\u2019S _Tour through\nSicily and Malta_, vol. i. (first edition), p. 67.\n\n\nGOOD-NATURED HOSPITALITY, AND FACETIOUS IGNORANT OLD GENTLEMAN.\n\n(CHRISTMAS DAY, 1777.)\n\n\u201cHaving spent the best part of the day in examining, measuring, and\ndrawing this noble building, I hastened back to Calatafimi, as eager for\nrefreshment as I had been in the morning for antiquities. I found the best\nfare provided for me the place could afford; the lodging, however, was\nold, crazy, and cold, but the owners so civil and attentive that it was\nimpossible to complain of any inconveniences; the master of the house was\na notary, and his wife one of the prettiest women I had yet seen in\nSicily. I was afterwards distressed beyond measure to learn that they had\nnot suffered my man to pay for the least thing, and had sitten up all\nnight to accommodate us with beds. To enliven the evening conversation\nthey invited the principal people of the town with their wives, who were\nvery free and sociable; this rather surprised me, as many travellers, and\nthose very modern ones, tell us that the Sicilians are so jealous and\nsevere to their wives that they never suffer them to come into the company\nof strangers, much less to join in conversation with them. I suspect these\npersons have copied authors who wrote in times when such mistrust reigned\nmore than it does at present, or have formed general inductions from\npartial evidence. There seems to be very little constraint laid upon the\nintercourse of the two sexes among the nobility at Palermo, and none among\nmy visitors at Calatafimi, people of a lower class; the observation,\ntherefore, does not hold good in every instance. The assembly was very\nattentive to all my words and motions, that they might anticipate my\nwishes and save me trouble; but their civility was of an unpolished kind.\nI was frequently the subject of their discourse, and those that knew\nanything about me, either from the archbishop\u2019s letter or from my\nservants, communicated their knowledge aloud to every new-comer, as if I\nwere deaf or did not understand their language. An old gentleman, the wit\nof the circle, put many questions to me, and in return acquainted me with\nthe politics and scandal of the town. He was possessed of great\ncheerfulness and native humour, but so totally ignorant of every thing and\nplace beyond the limits of Sicily, that I never could make him comprehend\nwhere England is situated, or how circumstanced with regard to its\ncolonies, of which he has learned something from the gazettes. Finding my\nanswers to his questions were incapable of conveying instruction, I gave\nmyself no farther trouble, but suffered him without interruption to smoke\nhis pipe, and in the intervals of his puffing to run on in a long string\nof stories, confounding times, names, places, and persons, in so\nridiculous a manner, that the most inflexible features must have been\nbetrayed into a smile: fortunately he took my laugh for a compliment, and\njoined very heartily in it.\u201d--SWINBURNE\u2019S _Travels in the Two Sicilies_,\nvol. iii p. 357.\n\n\nSPECIMEN OF HIGHER SOCIETY.\n\n\u201cWild honey is found in great abundance in these woods\u201d (between Terranova\nand Calatagerone), \u201cbut the inhabitants have also hives near their houses;\nits flavour is delicious, and has been celebrated from the remotest\nantiquity, for Hybla was situated in the centre of this country. Men may\ndegenerate, may forget the arts by which they acquired renown;\nmanufactures may fail, and commodities be debased; but the sweets of the\nwild-flowers of the wilderness, the industry and natural mechanics of the\nbee, will continue without change or derogation. From the quality of soil,\nand the want of water, this upper part of the province must always have\nhad a great deal of waste land.\n\n\u201cThe corn wore the most promising appearance: the fallow land seemed to be\nexcellent soil. Twenty-three pair of oxen were ploughing together within a\nsquare of thirty acres.\n\n\u201cBeyond the town we entered a very fine tract of vineyards, which improved\nas we gradually approached the mountains of Calatagerone.\n\n\u201cCalatagerone, a royal city, containing about 17,000 inhabitants, living\nby agriculture and the making of potter\u2019s ware, is twenty miles from the\nsea, and situated on the summit of a very high, insulated hill, embosomed\nin thick groves of cypresses; the road to it, though paved, is very steep,\ndifficult, and dangerous for anything but a mule or an ass. I was\nconducted to the college of the late Jesuits; and as the house was\ncompletely stripped of furniture, full of dirt and cobwebs, I apprehended\nmy night\u2019s lodgings would be but indifferent. The servant belonging to the\ngentleman who has the management of this forfeited estate, and to whom I\nhad brought a letter requesting a lodging in the college, perceiving the\ndifficulties we lay under in making our settlement, ran home, and returned\nin a short time with a polite invitation to his master\u2019s house. There was\nno refusing such an offer, though I was far from expecting anything beyond\na comfortable apartment and homely fare in a family settled among the\ninland mountains of Sicily; but, to my great surprise, I found the house\nof the Baron of Rosabia large, convenient, and fitted up in a modern taste\nwith furniture that would be deemed elegant in any capital city in Europe.\nEverything suited this outward show, attendance, table, plate, and\nequipage. The baron and his lady having both travelled and seen a great\ndeal of the world, had returned to settle in their native city, where they\nassured me I might find many families equally improved by an acquaintance\nwith the manners of foreign countries, or at least a frequentation of the\nbest company in their own metropolis. Nothing could be more easy and\npolite than their address and conversation, and my astonishment was hourly\nincreasing during my whole stay. After I had refreshed myself with a short\nbut excellent meal, they took me out in a very handsome coach. It was a\nsingular circumstance to meet a string of carriages full of well-dressed\nladies and gentlemen on the summit of a mountain which no vehicle can\nascend, unless it be previously taken to pieces and placed upon the back\nof mules. We seemed to be seated among the clouds. As the vast expanse of\nthe hills and vales grew dim with the evening vapours, our parading\nresembled the amusements of the heathen gods in some poems and pictures,\ndriving about Olympus, and looking down at the mortals below.\n\n\u201cThe hour of airing being expired, which consisted of six turns of about\nhalf a mile each, a numerous assembly was formed at the baron\u2019s house; the\nmanners of the company were extremely polished, and the French language\nfamiliar to the greatest part of it. When the card-tables were removed, a\nhandsome supper, dressed by a French cook, was served up, with excellent\nforeign and Sicilian wines; the conversation took a lively turn, and was\nwell supported till midnight, when we all retired to rest. Calatagerone\nhas several houses that live in the same elegant style, and its\ninhabitants have the reputation of being the politest people in the\nisland.\u201d--SWINBURNE\u2019S _Travels_, vol. iii. p. 337.\n\n\nPOETICAL TURN OF THE SICILIANS.\n\n\u201cNext to the lava-labours of \u00c6tna, nothing has struck me more in this\nbeautiful island than the poetical turn of the people. _Theocritus_ was\nthe father of Idylls; and _Virgil_ is always appealing to the \u2018Sicelides\nMus\u00e6.\u2019 I suspect the experience detailed in his _Georgics_, his most\nperfect work, was most mainly drawn from hence. The words \u2018Calabri\nrapu\u00eare\u2019 in the epitaph attributed to him for his own tomb, whether they\nwere really his or no, prove, by inference, that he was close opposite\nthis coast at the most observant period of life; and no doubt he crossed\nover. _Dante_ allows that the first Italian effusions in playful satire\nwere termed \u2018Siciliani.\u2019 Even _Petrarch_ savours of Trinacria. The speech\nof the inhabitants is to this day rather poetical than prosaic, abounding\nin lively images and picturesque modes of expression. The studied cringing\nso common in Naples is rare here: during a stay of six weeks in the\nisland, I have only twice heard the title \u2018Cellenza,\u2019 which is\neverlastingly ringing in your ears in the metropolis. Their similitudes\nare endless, and sometimes very striking. In Florence you will hear \u2018Bello\ncome il campanile\u2019 (\u2018as handsome as the belfry,\u2019--built by Giotto): but\nhere, if a lady is fair, she is \u2018una candela di cera\u2019 (\u2018a wax taper\u2019); if\ntoo languid, \u2018ha un viso come un pesce bollito\u2019 (\u2018has a face like a boiled\nfish\u2019); gentlemen who sit sluggishly on their mules instead of springing\noff to aid the weaker sex up the hill, are designated as \u2018pezzi di lava\u2019\n(\u2018lumps of lava\u2019). If a little girl has anything remarkable about her, \u2018E\nmolto simpatica, una cosa particolare\u2019 (\u2018She is very sympathetic;--a\nspecial sort of thing\u2019). \u2018Buscar qualche cosa\u2019 (\u2018to look for something\u2019),\nI am sorry to say, has here, as in Ischia, the double meaning, either to\nearn a carline or steal it, as the case may be. Their humour is never\nricher than when shown in describing their own peculiarities of\ncharacter.\u201d--_Notes from a Journal kept in Italy and Sicily_, _by_ J. F.\nFRANCIS, B.A.\n\n\nA MEETING OF ENGLISH AND SICILIAN DISHES ON CHRISTMAS DAY.\n\n\u201cWe paid a visit to Messina a week ago, where we had the pleasure of being\nwind-bound on Christmas day. In merry England on Christmas day people eat\nroast beef and plum-pudding, turkeys and mince-pies. You may eat most of\nthese here also, but the special dish in honour of the \u2018Nativit\u00e0\u2019 is\n_capitoni_, enormous eels, stewed in a rich sauce. Indeed there was an\nunusual supply, for a shipload of them, intended for the Naples market,\ncould not leave port in time owing to the gale, and thus the speculator, a\nsea-captain, was fain to get rid of them in Messina at half-price. Now I\ncan only say they are very good; but we took the precaution of having\nanother string to our bow, in shape of a respectable roast joint of beef,\nand a real, good, English-looking plum-pudding. After that it is very hard\nif we are left for the year of grace \u2018eighteen forty-six\u2019 without\nVictoria\u2019s bonny face in our purse.\u201d--FRANCIS\u2019 _Notes_, p. 240.\n\n\nTHE END.\n\n LONDON: PRINTED BY\n SPOTTISWOODE AND CO., NEW-STREET SQUARE\n AND PARLIAMENT STREET\n\n\n\n\nFOOTNOTES:\n\n[1] See that beautiful book, _Amadis of Gaul_, vol. i. chap. 12, in the\nadmirable translation by Southey.\n\n[2] There have been writers who concluded that Theocritus did not write\nsome of these poems, _because_ the style of them differed from that of his\npastorals. \u201cAs though\u201d (says Mr. Chapman, his best translator) \u201cthe same\npoet could not possibly excel in different styles.\u201d But this is the way\nthe opinions we have alluded to come up. A writer\u2019s powers are turned\nagainst himself, and his very property is to be denied him, because\ncritics of this kind have brains for nothing but one species of\nhandicraft. It is lucky for the human being in the abstract, that he is\ngifted with tears and smiles; otherwise one or the other of those natural\npossessions would assuredly have been called in question. In fact, the\nmarvel is, not that genius should deal in both, but that it should ever\nshow itself incapable of either. Exclusive gravity and exclusive levity\nare alike a solecism, as far as regards the common source of emotion,\nwhich is sensitiveness to impressions.\n\n[3] \u2019\u0391\u03b4\u03b7\u03c6\u03ac\u03b3\u03bf\u03bd--_Literally_, insatiably eating, voracious; one who has\nnever _had enough_. Observe how the same instinctive phraseology is used\nby strong sensations all over the world. The \u201cFancy\u201d pugilistic, and fancy\npoetical, like differently bred relations, thus find themselves, to their\nastonishment, of the same family; so the like metaphors of \u201cflashing one\u2019s\nivories\u201d (for suddenly showing the teeth), \u201ctapping the claret,\u201d and other\njovial escapes from vulgarity into elegance.\n\n[4] An epithet applied by the Sicilians to Proserpine.\n\n[5] _The Greek Pastoral Poets, Theocritus, Bion, and Moschus, done into\nEnglish by M. J. Chapman, M.A., of Trinity College, Cambridge_, pp. 7,\n331.--We like the good faith of Mr. Chapman\u2019s \u201cdone into English.\u201d\n\n[6] Perhaps from a Greek root, expressing carelessness or quiet.\n\n[7] _Travels through Germany, Switzerland, Italy, &c._ Translated by\nHolcroft, vol. iv. p. 298.\n\n[8] Quoted in Evans\u2019s _Classic and Connoisseur in Italy and Sicily_, vol.\nii. p. 358.\n\n[9] Swinburne\u2019s _Travels in the Two Sicilies_, vol. iv. p. 148.\n\n[10] _Voyage Critique \u00e0 l\u2019\u00c6tna_, tom. i. p. 529.\n\n[11] Vide the Letters appended to a _View of the Present State of Italy_,\ntranslated from the Italian, by Thomas Wright Vaughan, Esq., p. 70.\n\n[12] \u201cOlives and bread form the principal part of the food of the lower\nclasses in Sicily, and oil is a necessary of life.\u201d\n\n[13] \u201cAbout equivalent to \u2018zounds\u2019 and \u2018gadzooks.\u2019\u201d\n\n[14] _View of Italy_, ut supra, p. 79.\n\n[15] It is calculated that 40,000 souls perished in this convulsion. In\nthe greatest of all the Sicilian earthquakes, that of 1693, the earth\nshook but four minutes, and overthrew almost all the towns on the eastern\nside of the island.\n\n[16] \u201cPrettily pilfered,\u201d says Lamb, \u201cfrom the sweet passage in the\n_Midsummer Night\u2019s Dream_, where Helena recounts to Hermia their\nschool-days\u2019 friendship:--\n\n \u2018We, Hermia, like two artificial gods,\n Created with our needles both one flower,\n Both on one sampler, sitting on one cushion.\u2019\u201d\n\n[17] Why does not Mr. Edward Holmes do it? or Mr. Chorley? We have heard\nthat M. Berlioz has some such work in hand, with a translation of which\nhis friends are to favour the public. Such a production, if copious, might\nform an epoch in the critical history of the art. We hope a time will come\nwhen music will be as freely quoted in books as poetry is.\n\n[18] See a pleasant allusion to this charge by Theocritus himself, at page\n84 of the present book, where Praxinoe disburses a quantity of _a_\u2019s.\n\n[19] The constellation so called.\n\n[20] This sample, strange as it may appear, of the familiarity which\nbreeds contempt, even towards objects of worship, and which Theocritus\nmust have smiled while he was describing, has not been confined to\nPaganism.\n\n[21] Alluding to the letters AI, which simply signifies \u201cAlas,\u201d and which\nare to be found (so to speak) in the dark lines or specks observable in\nthe petals of the Turk\u2019s-cap Lily; which Professor Martyn has shown to be\nthe true hyacinth of the ancients.\n\n[22] Similar perhaps to the Top, or Round-top, of a man-of-war.--_Note by\nthe Translator._\n\n[23] \u201cThis extreme restraint originates in a mistrust of women, and the\nill opinion which prevails of the sex. A prudent and chaste education\nhonours and ennobles the fair, who are most injuriously debased by\noriental confinement. The German and English women are the most virtuous\nof their sex. Nowhere are unmarried women so innocent, or the married so\nhappy. Nowhere are wives so honoured, and so full of worth, as among the\nGermans and the English. Neither have our women that cold reserve which is\nfrequently the lot of an Englishwoman. What Galiana says of the hypocrisy\nof love is in part explained by the text, and in part must be understood\nonly of this passion in the South.\u201d\n\n[24] Probably the one mentioned in the list of Meli\u2019s subscribers.\n\n[25] A small coin.\n\n[26] About eleven shillings.\n\n\n\n\nSMITH, ELDER, & CO.\u2019S POPULAR LIBRARY.\n\n_Fcp. 8vo. Limp Cloth._\n\n\nBy the Sisters BRONT\u00cb.\n\n_2s. 6d. each._\n\n JANE EYRE. By Charlotte Bront\u00eb.\n\n SHIRLEY. By Charlotte Bront\u00eb.\n\n VILLETTE. By Charlotte Bront\u00eb.\n\n THE TENANT OF WILDFELL HALL. By Anne Bront\u00eb.\n\n WUTHERING HEIGHTS. By Emily Bront\u00eb. AGNES GREY. By Anne Bront\u00eb. With\n Preface and Memoir of the Sisters, by Charlotte Bront\u00eb.\n\n THE PROFESSOR. By Charlotte Bront\u00eb. To which are added the Poems of\n Charlotte, Emily, and Anne Bront\u00eb.\n\nBy Mrs. GASKELL.\n\n_2s. 6d. each._\n\n RUTH.\n\n SYLVIA\u2019S LOVERS.\n\n WIVES AND DAUGHTERS.\n\n MARY BARTON.\n\n NORTH AND SOUTH.\n\n LIFE OF CHARLOTTE BRONT\u00cb.\n\n MY LADY LUDLOW, AND OTHER TALES included in \u2018ROUND THE SOFA.\u2019\n\nBy LEIGH HUNT.\n\n_2s. 6d. each._\n\n IMAGINATION AND FANCY; or, Selections from the English Poets.\n\n THE TOWN: Its Memorable Characters and Events. Illustrated.\n\n AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF LEIGH HUNT.\n\n MEN, WOMEN, AND BOOKS; a Selection of Sketches, Essays, and Critical\n Memoirs.\n\n WIT AND HUMOUR: Selected from the English Poets.\n\n A JAR OF HONEY FROM MOUNT HYBLA; or, Sweets from Sicily in Particular;\n and Pastoral Poetry in General.\n\n TABLE TALK. To which are added IMAGINARY CONVERSATIONS OF POPE AND\n SWIFT.\n\n_Uniform with the above, 2s. 6d. each._\n\n THE SMALL HOUSE AT ALLINGTON. By Anthony Trollope.\n\n THE CLAVERINGS. By Anthony Trollope.\n\n FRAMLEY PARSONAGE. By Anthony Trollope.\n\n ROMOLA. By George Eliot.\n\n BELOW THE SURFACE. By Sir A. H. Elton, Bart.\n\n TRANSFORMATION. By Nathaniel Hawthorne.\n\n DEERBROOK. By Harriet Martineau.\n\n HOUSEHOLD EDUCATION. By Harriet Martineau.\n\n AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF LUTFULLAH.\n\n LECTURES ON THE ENGLISH HUMOURISTS OF THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. By W. M.\n Thackeray.\n\n THE FOUR GEORGES. With Illustrations by the Author. By W. M.\n Thackeray.\n\n PAUL THE POPE AND PAUL THE FRIAR. By T. A. Trollope.\n\n THE ROSE-GARDEN. By the Author of \u2018Unawares.\u2019\n\n CHRONICLES OF DUSTYPORE. A Tale of Modern Anglo-Indian Society. By the\n Author of \u2018Wheat and Tares.\u2019\n\n IN THE SILVER AGE. By Holme Lee.\n\n\n_Pictorial Covers, price Two Shillings each._\n\nBy WILKIE COLLINS.\n\n NO NAME.\n\n AFTER DARK.\n\n ARMADALE.\n\n\u2042 _The above may also be had in Limp Cloth, price 2s. 6d. each._\n\nBy the Author of \u2018JOHN HALIFAX, GENTLEMAN.\u2019\n\n ROMANTIC TALES.\n\n DOMESTIC STORIES.\n\nBy HOLME LEE.\n\n AGAINST WIND AND TIDE.\n\n SYLVAN HOLT\u2019S DAUGHTER.\n\n KATHIE BRANDE.\n\n WARP AND WOOF.\n\n ANNIS WARLEIGH\u2019S FORTUNES.\n\n THE WORTLEBANK DIARY.\n\n BASIL GODFREY\u2019S CAPRICE.\n\n MAUDE TALBOT.\n\n COUNTRY STORIES.\n\n KATHERINE\u2019S TRIAL.\n\n MR. WYNYARD\u2019S WARD.\n\n THE BEAUTIFUL MISS BARRINGTON.\n\nBy Captain GRONOW.\n\n RECOLLECTIONS AND ANECDOTES OF THE CAMP, THE COURT, AND THE CLUBS.\n\n ANECDOTES OF CELEBRITIES OF LONDON AND PARIS. To which are added LAST\n RECOLLECTIONS OF THE CAMP, THE COURT, AND THE CLUBS.\n\n_Uniform with the above._\n\n GRASP YOUR NETTLE. By E. Lynn Linton.\n\n AGNES OF SORRENTO. By Mrs. H. B. Stowe.\n\n TALES OF THE COLONIES; or, Adventures of an Emigrant. By C. Rowcroft.\n\n LAVINIA. By the Author of \u2018Dr. Antonio\u2019 and \u2018Lorenzo Benoni.\u2019\n\n THE MOORS AND THE FENS. By Mrs. J. H. Riddell.\n\n HESTER KIRTON. By Katharine S. Macquoid.\n\n BY THE SEA. By Katharine S. Macquoid.\n\n THE H\u00d4TEL DU PETIT ST. JEAN.\n\n VERA. By the Author of \u2018The H\u00f4tel du Petit St. Jean.\u2019\n\n IN THAT STATE OF LIFE. By Hamilton A\u00efd\u00e9.\n\n MORALS AND MYSTERIES. By Hamilton A\u00efd\u00e9.\n\n MR. AND MRS. FAULCONBRIDGE. By Hamilton A\u00efd\u00e9.\n\n SIX MONTHS HENCE. By the Author of \u2018Behind the Veil,\u2019 &c.\n\n THE STORY OF THE PL\u00c9BISCITE. By MM. Erckmann-Chatrian.\n\n THE CONSCRIPT and WATERLOO. By MM. Erckmann-Chatrian. In one volume.\n\n GABRIEL DENVER. By Oliver Madox Brown.\n\n TAKE CARE WHOM YOU TRUST. By Compton Reade.\n\n PEARL AND EMERALD. By R. E. Francillon.\n\n ISEULTE. By the Author of \u2018The H\u00f4tel du Petit St. Jean.\u2019\n\n PENRUDDOCKE. By Hamilton A\u00efd\u00e9.\n\n A GARDEN OF WOMEN. By Sarah Tytler.\n\n BRIGADIER FREDERIC. By MM. Erckmann-Chatrian.\n\n MOLLY BAWN. By the Author of \u2018Phyllis,\u2019 &c.\n\n MATRIMONY. By W. E. Norris.\n\n PHYLLIS. By the Author of \u2018Molly Bawn,\u2019 &c.\n\n MADEMOISELLE DE MERSAC. By W. E. Norris.\n\nLondon: SMITH, ELDER, & CO., 15 Waterloo Place.","title":"A Jar of Honey from Mount Hybla","tradition":"myth-cosmogony","translated_text":null,"word_count":60168}