95 A SEA-SIDE REVERIE. BY THE AUTHOR OF "ITALY,” OLD, hoary Ocean! I have stood at night, And watched thee darkly heaving through the gloom, Were touched by Sin's key, but thrown back by Fate*, The anarch Chance, and Chaos' endless wars; Thou, like the angels from the infernal pit, Didst raise thy voices to the unanswering stars! Oh, in the stillness of that solemn hour, When ancient Night and Silence hold their power, I saw Ulysses stand by the sea-cliff; His eyes turned tearful toward his home+; his skiff, And his dark pilgrimage to be begun! Low bowed the godlike man to the salt Sea, † Πόντον ἐπ ̓ ἀτρύγετον δερκέσκετο δάκρυα λείβων. Nothing can be more simple than the mere circumstance of Ulysses putting off in his boat. But, when the stars of heaven are named, and, as it were, embodied with his fortunes, and watch He watched the stars above him glide through space; A single, solitary man! - alone On the salt, boundless, and eternal Deep! His eye was fixed upon the Polar Star, Though it might be through shipwreck, and through storm. Of Virtue fleeing from the realm of sense : Strong in the nerve of holier Innocence ! ing over him on the dark sea, where he is alone - and, when an intelligence is felt between themthe mere stated circumstances assume a character of the sublime, without any collateral aids of language. The genius of Homer is most proved by this his power to draw from the simplest sources the grandest effects. I recall the original passage to the scholar, with Pope's excellent translation for the unclassical reader. THE MONTHLY CHRONICLE. NOTES UPON NEW BOOKS. As various, O reader! as the leaves of the forest, as the petals of flowers, as the shapes and shadows of the clouds, as the vanities of men, and the joys of the visible universe, are the Books that solicit thy faculty of attention. Here is a book of logic: it will make thee cunning of fence in dialectics; but, unless thou shalt have gathered solid materials for thought, thou shalt be rendered no more puissant of speech by this treatise than thou shalt be rendered strong by feints of dexterity, or wise by grey hairs. Here is a volume of golden verse- what boots it to thee unless thy sympathies be true and hearty, and thy nature be full of love and a divine relish of beauty? Here is a book of history; chapters of the world's travail, of demi-gods and craftsmen, states and policies, mighty structures and crumbling ruins — it is an almanac of experiences, vast, grand, and overwhelming, to be consulted backwards for the guidance of the future, and making such demands upon thine intelligence that thou must be the wisest of men if thy plummet canst sound its depths. Here is a book of voyages and discoveries: within its pages we have new modes and customs, new races delineated, untrodden lands explored, and novelties as marvellous as the singing trees and talking waters of the fairy tale; but the panorama makes us dissatisfied with our opportunities, carries away our imagination into remote scenes only to make us grieve over our walled-in spot of earth, and, crushing many pre-conceived notions and blindfolded theories, diminishes the sentiment of contentment whereby we made our prison-bounds a sort of world of pleasant deceptions and self-flattering prejudices. Here is a novel, so called a pretended picture of life, a mere masque of conceits and follies: let it pass; it is poor brainless work, only fit for the Minerva of Cockaigne, and the worshipful company of cheesemongers. Endless are the varieties of books; and in proportion as they enlarge our knowledge, or suggest new game to be hunted down by our mental energies, they ruffle and disturb us; and unless we are zealous in the chase, and come off victorious to the full extent of our powers, the chances are a thousand to one-an English seventy-four to a squadron of Chinese junks that in the much-neglected item of happiness we shall be no gainers in the end. Now this is not an argument against books, or against the reading of books. It is only intended as a hint towards the art of acquiring the right method of understanding books. To master any book perfectly, is to learn something entire as far as it goes; but to read swimmingly and with dizzy indistinctness a multitude of publications, is merely a mechanical operation by which the head may be put into the turmoil of information without being a jot the better informed. The idleness of a mind that ponders vainly over many books, drawing nothing from them but lethargic influences, resembles the condition of the man who is said to have had the ague, but was too lazy to shake. Fortunately there are some books that make us happier and wiser whether we choose it or not-books framed out of such temperate and healthful delights, that we become unconsciously invigorated by the perusal of them; just as we feel a fresh glow of life when we sweep the summits of mountains, or plunge into the depths of green valleys or greener woods. Such are the books that treat of the out-of-door world, that exalt nature above art and its pretences, and that awaken the truest of all sympathies, the most refreshing and universal. What manner of man is he who is incapable of appreciating nature more or less? Let us gaze upon this monster miracle. All his senses are extinct. He has no eyes to see the verdure no ears to hear the voices of the birds-no scent to catch the perfume of the flowers no touch to discriminate the fine surfaces of the earth-born velvets and satins no taste to relish the fruits of a thousand climates. Nor can he have limbs to move abroad in the sunlight, nor hands to pluck the prodigal blossoms, nor brow to be assuaged by the caressing winds, nor any of the faculties of thought or imagination. Moreover, this inconceivable Thing must be lifeless, and incapable of respiration; and the air to him is vacancy, as the colours of the sky and the myriad-tinted leaves are darkness, If there be one who cannot enjoy nature through some inlet, who lacks the grace of feeling her in his 'soul, such a one must he be-a blank, breathless mass! But there is no such Accident in the creation. Nature, as old Chaucer hath it, Nature, the vicare of the Almightie Lord! is an almoner of universal bounties that flow freely to all mankind, glorified alike in the wastes of Arabia Petræa, and in the luscious gardens of Stamboul. The poets understood this matter with a thorough relish of its inward gushing springs of delight; and whatever fantasies may have otherwise darkened their councils, upon this theme there is a common assent amongst them, Hear Father Chaucer celebrating the song of the nightingale sitting "in a fresh grene laurer tree," "That gaue so passing a delicious smell, That as me thought I surely rauished was Was for to be, and no ferther passe As for that day, and on the soțe grasse I sat me downe; for as for mine entent, The birds' song was more convenient. "And more pleasaunt to me by manifold, Than meat or drinke, or any other thing; The wholesome sauours eke so comforting Even the obstreperous Skelton, when he describes the heroine of "The Boke of Philip Sparow," is forced to go to Nature for images wherewith to represent her charms, item by item. "The Indy saphyre blewe, Her beauty to augment Dame Nature hath her lente Hawes, the anchorite, apostrophises nature in his own crabbed but zealous way after the following fashion, the lumbering jargon having the direct impress of the gloomy enthusiasm of a monkish age: "The right hye power, Nature naturyng "God gave great vertue to the planets all, And specially unto depured Phœbus, And how exquisitely the unfortunate Surrey pourtrays the season of Spring in the following lines! - Surrey, whose execution was one of the manifold crimes of that bloated sensualist and fiendish tyrant Henry VIII.: "The soote season, that bud and blome forth brings, With grene hath clad the hill, and eke the vale: The nightingale with fethers new she sings: The turtle to her mate hath told her tale: Somer is come, for every spray now springs: The hart hath hong his old hed on the pale; The buck in brake his winter coate he flings; Tusser, the practical husbandman and the pious poet, who reasons with equal success upon the arts of tillage and the shortness of life, thinks there is no joy of higher price than the joy of the harvest and the smiling fields. "Thus think I best, As friend doth guest, With hand in hand to lead thee forth To Ceres' camp, there to behold A thousand things, as richly worth But of all descriptions take that of the " Seasons," by Spenser, where we have the whole circle of the year in its various influences brought out before us like a procession. |