Oldalképek
PDF
ePub

grand and mighty is their essence; to realize | quite as ingenious and charming as philoit, the spirit of contemplation, and the recip-sophical. We may add that the same pure, ient mood of sympathy must be evoked; for even, unexaggerated and perspicuous style of it is not external but moral excitement that diction that we have recognized in his previis proposed; and we deem one of Haw-ous writing is maintained in this. thorne's most felicitous merits, that of so patiently educing artistic beauty and moral interest from life and nature, without the least sacrifice of intellectual dignity.

The healthy spring of life is typified in Phoebe so freshly as to magnetize the feelings as well as engage the perceptions of the reader; its intellectual phase finds expression in Holgrave, while the state of Clifford, when relieved of the nightmare that oppressed his sensitive temperament, the author justly compares to an Indian summer of the soul. Across the path of these beings of genuine flesh and blood, who constantly appeal to our most humane sympathies, or rather around their consciousness and history, flits the pale, mystic figure of Alice, whose invisible music and legendary fate overflow with a graceful and attractive superstition, yielding an Ariel-like melody to the more solemn and cheery strains of the whole composition. Among the apt though incidental touches of the picture, the idea of making the musicgrinder's monkey an epitome of avarice, the daguerreotype a test of latent character, and the love of the reformer Holgrave for the genially practical Phoebe win him to conservatism, strike us as remarkably natural, yet

As earth and sky appear to blend at the horizon, though we cannot define the point of contact, things seen and unseen, the actual and the spiritual, mind and matter, what is within and what is without our consciousness, have a line of union, and, like the color of the iris, are lost in each other. About this equator of life the genius of Hawthorne delights to hover as its appropriate sphere; whether indulging a vein of Spenserian allegory, Hogarth sketching, Goldsmith domesticity, or Godwin metaphysics, it is around the boundary of the possible that he most freely expatiates; the realities and the mysteries of life to his vision are scarcely ever apart; they act and react so as to yield dramatic hints or vistas of sentiment. Time broods with touching solemnity over his imagination; the function of conscience awes while it occupies his mind; the delicate and the profound in love, and the awful beauty of death transfuse his meditation; and these supernal he loves to link with terrestrial influences, to hallow a graphic description by a sacred association, or to brighten a commonplace occasion with the scintillations of humor-thus vivifying or chastening the light of common day"

[graphic]
[ocr errors]

As the season for out-of-door exercise ap- only a portion of continent." The writer, referproached, a sprightly writer in the London So- ring to scenes often witnessed in French public ciety describes the freedom of Parisian prome- squares and gardens, says, "Nowhere can be nades as contrasted with those of England, and found a pleasanter picture than a family group refers particularly to one "radical difference be- of that lively people so erroneously suffered to tween the rides, drives, and promenades of Lon- hold domestic ties in disregard." don and of Paris. Here, true British Brahmiens that we are, we preserve our caste even out of doors; there, both the world and the people THE Gentleman's Magazine gives an account choose the same spots for air and recreation. of a lecture recently delivered in England, to a Here, the upper classes keep aloof from the mid-numerous and attentive audience, composed of dle classes, and the middle classes from the hum- clergy and gentry, on Campanology, or the scible; there, marquis, millionnaire, merchant, ence of bell-ringing, deploring the utter want of shopkeeper, and currier mingle as naturally, knowledge and skill with which church bells are and sometimes as agreeably, as the ingredients rung, and demonstrating that "a great field of of a salad. Socially and personally, every Eng- science and amusement has here been unexlishman is a human island; every Frenchman is plored."

From Macmillian's Magazine.

THE STATE VAULT OF CHRIST CHURCH.

BY FRANCES POWER COBBE.

THE cathedral of Christ Church in Dublin is probably nearly the ugliest specimen of Gothic architecture in existence. The impressions, gorgeous or sublime, which I have enjoyed under the arches of Cologne or Winchester,

"Of loveliest Milan, or the Sepulchre, So dark and solemn, where the Christ was laid," were utterly wanting in this mouldering old pile, huge, shapeless, and desolate. Part of the building claims to be coeval with the Danish sea-kings of Dublin, but of architectural beauty or merit of any kind there is entire dearth. Sordid whitewash, dampstained and dust-begrimed, covers the walls; and blank, dank, dark, and cold spreads the forlorn and useless nave, where the shattered statue of Strongbow lies on his altar-tomb,a desolate conqueror, forgotten and alone.

Into this disheartening place some researches of a genealogical kind guided my steps a few years ago. It was my desire to discover whether a certain Archbishop of Dublin, dead a century since, had been buried in the cathedral, and, in such case, what record of the event could be discovered.

-monu

The well-disposed sacristan aided me to the best of his abilities to examine all the monuments through the building,ments whose paucity made the task a tiring one, and then announced to me he could help me no more. There was but one chance remaining. The prelate might have been deposited in the state vault under the chancel, without any tomb or tablet having been erected to his memory above-ground. His coffin might, possibly, he discovered; but then, of course, I could not (so thought the sacristan) undertake the disagreeable task of descending into this vault and examining the various coffin-plates to find the one I desired. It did not seem so clear to me that this was impossible. The search was one I was anxious to accomplish satisfactorily; and it needed, apparently, only a little strain upon the nerves to do so. I asked the man whether he would accompany me to the vault; and, as he consented, after a little hesitation, we were soon in the crypts of the cathedral, prepared with candles for our gloomy task.

If the upper part of the building was desolate, these crypts beneath it were a thou

sand times more so. The low arches rising
out of the earthen floor extended in all direc-
tions in long dark vaults, down which our
lights, of course, penetrated but a little way,
leaving the gloom beyond unexplored. Above
there had been the roar of the streets and the
glare of the summer sun. Here the darkness
and stillness were so absolute that the sacris-
tan's little son, who had followed us thus far,
exclaimed, in a suppressed voice of awe,—
"How silent it is here!

"Ay, my boy," said his father, "this is the place of silence. Those we are going to visit are the silent indeed."

and

The child looked wistfully at the man, stole back to the sunshine, and we passed on without him to a low door in an archway, which the sacristan opened with ponderous keys, a mockery, it seemed to me, of the peaceful prisoners within.

Of the size of that chamber of death I cannot speak. It did not seem very large, and the stone roof bent down low overhead; but it was full, quite full. All around the walls double and treble tiers of coffins were piled up to the height of several feet,-lengthways, crossways, upright; and in the centre space stood several large coffins, on tressels, evidently of more recent date than the rest. One of those nearest the outer door was of handsome crimson velvet, and in the darkness I had rested against it to regain a little of the composure which the first sight of the vault had disturbed.

L

"That is the coffin of poor Archbishop "said the sacristan.

I started; for the good old man had once been near me in life, when, as a child, I had been at sea on a stormy night, and had stolen up on deck above. He had made me sit beside him and share his warm cloak, and I had afterwards learned to connect his name with that kindly shelter given to an unknown child. Now he was beside me again-poor old man!-but had no warmth to offer more.

The single candle borne by my guide glimmered feebly in the thick air of the vault, and it was some time before we could estimate where there was any probability of finding a coffin of the age of the one we sought. There were some, as I have said, quite recent, and others evidently of great age. The oaken lids had been broken or were removed, and within lay something, vaguely defined, one did not dare to look at too closely. Others,

[graphic]

again, might have belonged to the last cen-
tury; and among these the sacristan com-
menced his search. I confess I did not watch
his search with any great interest. The ob-
ject which had brought me there, and many
other things beside, seemed too small to be
regarded in that place, where the one only
great event of human existence was commem-
orated. The sight of the dead was at all times
to me the source of an awe which amounted
to physical pain, like a stone-cold hand laid
on the heart; and in going down into the
vault I had not been sorry to accept the occa-
sion for overcoming such feelings. But even
they were forgotten when actually there.
There was no disgust-no terror-only the one
clear idea brought out into the foreground of
thought till it filled the whole horizon,-
"DEATH!"

66

"This was brought over from France," said the sacristan, long years ago, by a French nobleman. They say it was at the time of the French Revolution. He kept it with him till he died, and then he ordered it to be buried with him in his coffin. No one knows anything more of it, or remembers the name of the nobleman; but each sacristan receives it when he undertakes his office here, and transmits it safely to his successor. See! it is a beautiful mass of rough silver, not tarnished in the least!"

No; it was not tarnished! Those tinsel coronets and mitres and crests were all soiled and rusted; but the SILVER HEART, the fitting casket and type of human love, was unhurt by the mouldering decay of the sepulchre. I should vainly strive to describe the happy revulsion of feeling which the sight of that heart caused in me. I had been reading the lesson of the paltriness and misery of mortal pride and ambition in those pompous titles graven on the rotting coffin-lids in the vault, till it seemed as if the whole summary of our history was " Ashes to ashes, dust to dust "

"A life of nothings-nothing worth,

The man labored on while I stood pondering. Coffin after coffin he had looked over, examining the names upon the plates. They had all belonged to men of rank, usually such as held some temporary high office and had died in the city away from their ancestral mausoleums. One was surmounted by a ducal coronet, another by that of an earl. Then came mitres of bishops and archbishops. From that first nothing ere our birth, As the dust lay thick over all, the sacristan To that last nothing under earth." had recourse to the expedient of pouring a drop or two from his candle on each plate LovE. The love of which that heart was the But here was a lesson of another kind,and rubbing it till the inscription became memorial was not of the things which rust legible. Then, with doubtful voice, he spelled and perish in the grave. Honor and power out, "The most noble the Marquis of ! "" all ended in the vault of death; their owners 66 His Grace the Lord Primate!" "The Right Honorable the Lord Chief Justice brought them just so far, and then left them

on their coffin-lids. But love had not ended when the faithful friend who had cherished

" and so on, and so on. On some of the plates were coats-of-arms well known to its memorial through exile and bereavement me; on others names which had been familiar from childhood, whose portraits had hung his long-hoarded treasure by his side. There was laid low in that sepulchral chamber, with round the walls of my home. Those pompous titles, deciphered now with a farthing Life here below was not all transitory and was a Beyond for Love, though not for Pride. candle in their dim vaults-those dust-en

grained armorial bearings-those miserable tarnished coronets and mitres-no language can tell how pitiful they seemed.

At length the sacristan paused. If the coffin we sought was anywhere, it was buried under a pile of others, which could not have been moved without dreadful disclosures. We had been nearly an hour in the vault, and I begged him to desist from further search and come away. Before doing so, however, he looked round for a few moments, and approached a coffin whose lid was broken off, and within which some poor remnants of mortality lay visible under the yellow winding-sheet and the dust accumulated over it. Out of this the man lifted carefully a singular object. It was a large heart of solid silver, and within it when shaken, might be heard a faint sound, proving, doubtless, that it enclosed another which once had beaten in a human breast.

vain, with hopes and passions ending in the disgrace and ruin of the grave-a chain of "yesterdays"

"Which have but lighted kings The way to dusty death "

There was somewhat therein which might survive and endure forever; somewhat beside the divine aspirations of religion; somewhat purely human and yet susceptible of immortality; somewhat which would not be laid by like the coronets and crests and mitres in the grave.

I took the silver heart reverently from the sacristan, and as I held it in my hands, I thought, "Perchance that love which once made the little handful of dust herein to kindle and throb is at this very hour a living love in heaven, filling with the joy of the immortals two glorified souls in the paradise of God."

[graphic]

From The Spectator.

THE NEW DRIFT OF ENGLISH OPINION.

To

must for her own interests restrain the ambition of Russia. France could not again conquer Europe with a greater and equally warIr is impossible to exaggerate, it is diffi- like nation lying between her and every cult even to realize fully, the changes which country save Spain, and no power occupying this Danish war is producing in English ideas Central Europe could tolerate Russian dominon foreign politics. Beside the revolution it ion over the mouths of the Danube. is working in mere political sentiment, the allow France to rule Italy would be to shut doubt it creates as to the executive force of herself out from the southern seas; to allow the strongest public opinion, the renewed Russia to hold the mouths of the Danube belief in the superior efficacy of armaments would be to place her own throat in the over arguments, the lamentable inclination to grasp of a mighty foe. The dream of the support every expression of feeling by armed thinkers who devise the policy of the next force, the unhealthy distrust of every species generation was to make Germany one under of influence not directly based on bayonets, the Hohenzollerns, and interpose the Hapsthe war is compelling the governing class to burgs as Emperors of the Danube between reconsider questions of positive policy. It is Russia and Western Asia. That was not not only the general merit of a system of the object of politicians, but it was becomnon-interference which is now under discus-ing the ideal of politicians, and that ideal sion, but the special merit of non-interfer- has been destroyed. The datum assumed ence with the German desire for unity,-not throughout the speculation has been shown only the abstract use of maintaining the bal- to be false. Germany, so far from an inert, ance of power, but the immediate use of re- or peaceful, or conservative, or even fairstraining the territorial expansion of France. For the past fifty years two ideas have been rooted in the minds of the English governing class, so rooted that any assault on them would at any moment have produced an European war, that the unity of Germany was, if feasible, a change in the interest of the whole world, and that any advance of France to the Rhine was to be resisted by force. At any moment during that long period a German effort for unity would have been welcomed in England with a pleasure little short of that with which we watched the policy of Cavour; at any moment a menace of France against the left bank of the Rhine would have been the signal for a summons to arms. Both points were considered by both the great parties, and by the middle as well as the aristocratic class, as beyond the reach of discussion, and they would have armed in defence of either as readily as ever they armed to protect the neutrality of Constantinople. The invasion of Denmark has on both points compelled them to reconsider their decision, and on both the new opinion is, though in different degrees, unfavorable to Germany.

The union of Germany under the Hohenzollerns would not, it is now sufficiently clear, be regarded with favor in Great Britain. Always viewed by a few with distrust, that unity was regarded by the many with longing favor as a visible security for peace. Peace, they said, is threatened mainly by the restlessness of France and the permanent ambition of Russia; let Germany be but united, and France must perforce be still, and Russia expand, if at all, on the Asiatic side. The great homogeneous_well-armed empire will be too strong for France, and

dealing power, has proved herself as restless as France, as ambitious as Russia, dangerous, not only to the development, but to the existence of the smaller States around. United only for an instant, she has employed her momentary advantage to subjugate a neighboring nation, and Europe cannot contemplate without dismay the course which a united Germany, with a homogeneous population of forty millions, ruled by the house which is now treading down at once Denmark and internal liberty, might be tempted to commence, the absorption of Denmark, Poland, and Hungary, the conquest of the Danubian provinces, the invasion of Italy, the fierce struggle with France for the repossession of Alsace. Germany united under a military organization and possessed of a fleet might be nearer universal dominion than France ever was, for she is not oppressed by the distance of her foes,-would undoubtedly commence wars to which those of the Revolution were transitory and feeble. Napoleon had to act upon Europe from one of its farther extremities; a German Napoleon would have borders within five hundred miles of every capital in Europe except Rome. The aggression on Denmark has aroused politicians to the perception of facts always existing, but hitherto unnoticed, and the unity of Germany is fast becoming as unpleasant a prospect to Great Britain as it has long been to France.

The change is as great in the matter of the Rhine. Why, respectable Englishmen are beginning to ask, should we abstain from hearty alliance with France for fear lest Germany should lose the Rhine? That is the secret dread which has hitherto baffled all attempts at re-cementing the entente cordiale, and it is

[graphic]
[ocr errors]

passing away. Why should we, in fear lest | ideas, as in all ideas born of a reaction, and
one restless power should be aggrandized, we rather think there is. We have to re-
suffer another equally restless and far more member the gain which the Rhenish prov-
widely separated from ourselves in political inces may bring to France in the addition, not
objects to aggrandize herself at will? If merely of broad acres and well-filled cities,
Germany begins a career of conquest, Ger- but of a race whose action is sure to cor-
many is not less dangerous than France, rect the greatest of French abberrations, to
her presence at Rotterdam would be as men- strengthen the weakest points in the French
acing as a French fleet at Antwerp. Let national character. We have to remember
her defend the Rhine, if she can, without as- the stimulus which every fresh acquisition
sistance from us. The probability is that has always proved to France; the thirst for
she can; but if she cannot, what interest is new conquests which every annexation has
it of ours? That Belgium should be neutral always seemed to inspire. With France on
is indeed our interest, because with Napo- the Rhine, Belgium perhaps would be only
leon at Antwerp we should have a great and as weak as before; but the French thirst for
possibly a hostile marine posted on two sides Belgium, for the completion of her natural
of us instead of one. The pistols would be frontier, would be indefinitely increased.
presented at once at hip and heart. But the But it is in this direction, toward this new
French possession of Sarrelouis, or of all reading of the "balance of power," that the
trans-Rhenan Bavaria, or even of the Rhine current of ideas is drifting, and alike in its
from Sarrelouis up to Cologne, would not be direction and in its force the tide is full of
in any direct sense a menace to Great Britain. menace for Germany. The primary restraint
France would possess more acres, but acres upon France has for years been the convic-
are not strength; and ten per cent. more tion that if she sprang on the Rhine, Eng-
people, but that is not more than the addi- land would attack her in flank, and that con-
tion we acquire every twenty years by mere viction is passing away. Germany has to
natural increment. There is no new mari- defend herself without a fleet against a mighty
time position acquired, no change in com- maritime power, instead of being defended
That
merce, little serious addition to the strength by a fleet greater than that of her foe.
France can even now put forth. That addi- single change will cost her more than all she
tional force, moreover, instead of being a de- can gain in Denmark, and unless we griev-
duction from an inert or peaceful power ously misread the signs of the times, that
bound to ourselves by sympathy and tradi- change has already occurred. Let it but
tion, is a deduction from a highly aggressive once become visible to Europe, and retribu-
power capable of the most dangerous spasms tion for the great wrong Germany has re-
of emotion, full of the bitterest enmity toward solved to commit will not long be delayed.
ourselves, pressing toward ends which we all Even if England, forgetful alike of her char-
of all parties hold in the utmost abhorrence. acter and her traditions, her interest in pro-
Why, for the sake of a change so small, throw tecting small powers and her greater interest
away an alliance which may in the next surge in maintaining her promises, even though
of German opinion be absolutely necessary unwritten, should suffer Denmark to perish,
for the protection of Europe and freedom still Napoleon rules for a German war sixty
against a movement fatal to both? French millions of subjects. It is not to enable a
conquest, bad as it may be, at least leaves German fleet to ride supreme in the Baltic
civilization untouched; German conquest ex- that Russia will attack France, and with
poses the conquered to lives such as are now Russia and England quiescent, Germany dis-
led by the people of Galicia and Venetia; to united, half-organized, and ruled by men
the possibility of statutes such as the one with less than the average capacity of man-
just passed in Mecklenburg enabling the kind, is threatened by the ablest ruler alive,
seigneur to inflict on every man and woman who with a word can set in motion a million
on his estate twenty-five stripes at discretion. of men whom Germany has never defeated,
Let us accept the alliance of France without
territorial stipulations, and remedy the im-
mediate wrong before us without worrying
as to the penalty to fall on a power which
has proved itself as aggressive as ever France
has been.

There may be some exaggeration in these

and two fleets of which the smaller is greater than the one which one German power controls. Germany is great, but war à l'outrance with France and Italy, Sweden and Hungary, is an undertaking too great even for German strength.

« ElőzőTovább »