The "how when my Lord sent down to St. James's to see why the Duke of York came not, and Mr. Povy, who went, returned, my Lord Chancellor did ask, not how the Princes or the Dukes do, as other people do, but 'How do the children?' which methought was mighty great, and like a great man." truth is, that men of deep observation, exquisite sensibility, and highly cultivated minds, which all tend to make them desire to be on a level with what is common in humanity, contract after long intercourse with the world, not through humility, but through the clearness of intellectual vision, a distaste for most other kinds of company but that of the young, or, if you will, the foolish, and of those who retain a young heart. They grow weary of your superior men, of your clever men, of talented men, of your men of great information, who so often seem to deserve the old epithet of devoi, of philosophic men, of practical men, of contemplative men, of benevolent men, ay, and of some grave and reverent men too. They find in children, as in those who become like them from each of these classes, being led to this conformity by religion or by genius, a new, fresh world, that revives and contents their spirit, which had need of being revived and contented. Robinson, in his Personal Recollections of his tour with Wordsworth, says, "In the amphitheatre at Nismes, I observed his eyes fixed in a direction where there was the least to be seen; and, walking that way, I beheld two young children at play with flowers, and overheard him say to himself, 'Oh! you darlings, I wish I could put you in my pocket, and carry you to Rydal Mount.'" Rollin describes his own master at the university of Paris, as spending the last years of his life at Compiègne, consecrating himself entirely to the service of the children of the town, having almost every day some one or other of them at his table, giving clothes and prizes to many of them, and acting, he says, in that respect, like Gerson, the chancellor of the same university, whose latest works were composed for children, and who made himself master of a poor school at Lyons, as if to fulfil the object of his own treatise, “De Parvulis ad Christum trahendis." "Some persons," said the chancellor in that little work, "blame me for this; they allege the disparity of my manners and those of boys; they allege the dignity of my office that demands greater things; they blame the place and the time, and they fear that so unusual a thing may lead to my being calumniated; but to them I answer, it is true my manners are not those of boys, but if I can benefit them I ought to make my manners like theirs, and lower myself more and more, for 'Non bene conveniunt nec eadem sede morantur If there be not love, of what use will be my instruction? Therefore, I must lay aside majesty, and make myself little to the little. Christ did not intend to give us a trifling lesson, when He called to Him the children, embraced them, placed his hands on them, and blessed them. O pious Jesus! who after this will be ashamed to be humble to little ones? and elate with his greatness and his science, who will dare to slight the littleness, ignorance, or weakness of the young? Truly, the example of Christ is more than that humble humanity, so praised by the philosophers in Socrates, who did not blush after public cares to be seen playing with little boys, and riding on a cane. Oh! if our censorious Catos had seen that, how they would have laughed him to scorn! Christ, who sat alone in a common way with the Samaritan woman, detests the pride of those who will not open their mouths till they have a grand audience. Besides, I deny that, in coming to the assistance of children, I am derogating from the office of chancellor, in letting myself down irrationally, even though I should be seen playing with them *." In Lyons, therefore, did he continue during the last four years of his life, to pass his time when not with children in complete solitude, so that he dwelt like a hermit in the midst of the people. But with children he would consort, while many said "ad quid perditio hæc ?" With them he found a sweet refreshment, a peace which God imparted, and a leisure that was not unprofitable. The day before his death, feeling that it was near, he called the boys together, who were as usual in the church for mass, and having closed the door, standing in the midst of them, he desired that they should * De Parvulis ad Christ. trahend. say with him this prayer in French, "Dieu, mon créateur, ayez pitié de vostre pauvre serviteur, Jéan Gerson." Men, no doubt, can bear a good deal in the way of intellectual disgust; they will haunt for a long time the assemblies of the learned, and penetrate to the halls of magnates; but, even though they do not arrive at the conclusions of the Duc de Saint-Simon, who said of something similar, that this was "se montrer à soi-même pied à pied le néant du monde,” and that "c'est se convaincre du rien de tout," it will often happen in the end that they will tire of both, and feel an absolute need of those fresh fountains of innocent intelligence and simple overflowing affection, which are yielded by the mind and heart of common unsophisticated youth. Even while the delusions of life are at their full, these sources of pure happiness will often be appreciated. Minucius Felix speaks of the sacrifice one makes in leaving the society of children, who are but learning to express themselves grammatically," annis adhuc innocentibus, et adhuc dimidiata verba tententibus, loquelam ipso offensantis linguæ fragmine dulciorem." Men, of course, will hurry away to the forum and the senate, to the court, to the camp, to the scenes of dissipation or of commercial industry; that home the virtuous speak of they will fly from: "Impell'd with steps unceasing to pursue Some fleeting good, that mocks them with the view; but when they have rolled about, toiled like pilgrims round this globe of earth, wearied with care, and after vainly affecting the way to Olympus, overworn with age, there is a spot, however far or long left behind them, remembered in the heart's deepest core, "A spot which vainly they have sought to find, A spot to real happiness consign'd; Where their worn soul, each wandering hope at rest, a spot to which if return to it be denied them, they will look to, as Adam looked back on Paradise-the Children's Bower. But enough of this. The prelude is ended; and now me thinks, lying under the shade of a wide-spreading beech, I feel playing round my temples the breeze "That gave soft music from Armida's bowers, Mingled with fragrance from her rarest flowers." We have come to the spot I spoke of, the spot selected by the children, "Where nested is an arbour, overwove By many a summer's silent fingering; If you would rather hear its description from a learned poet, using terms not quite consonant with the language of this place, you may take it from Spenser, where he says, "And in the thickest covert in that shade, There was a pleasant arbour, not by art, That neither Phoebus' beams could through them throng, The spot may, in fact, be any where; for, like the school of the palace with the old Carlovingian, this academy of our little happy kings is migratory; it may be held between rocks or a few twisted stumps of trees; 66 'Among leaves, which whispered what they could not say ;" or at the end of a fair garden, or ἐν σπέσσι γλαφυροίσι, or in a boat, or on great stones, as on a turret's top, or in a meadow near the shore, a pleasant shore where a sweet clime is breathed from a land of fragrance, quietness, and shrubs and flowers, full of calm joy every where. The child has a Virgilian love for beautiful spots; the taste of a wren for all sweet leafy shelter. He cries continually, at least, in the vernacular, 66 O qui me gelidis in vallibus Hæmi * Keats. Come, sing me "The Glades of Windsor:" "Oh! fond is remembrance of time long departed; Come, sit by my side, and the days I'll recall, When the present was bright to the young and true-hearted, Alas for some, that such memories should already raise a pang! But nature will out in spite of us; and now, perhaps, we cannot see even that picture representing a party of young people seated and lying on the grass to take refreshment, on some holiday, without a tear starting down as we thread our way through the crowded gallery. "O reader! I am here the simplest voice, And all my knowledge is that joy is gone." But though "monuments themselves memorials need," my object in this book, as I said in the beginning, is to fix, as photographic artists say, and in a certain sense perpetuate the joy; to catch the fugitive graces of the place, not as singular, or more deserving of record than in other instances, but as nearer to the writer, and to transfer them to a comparatively enduring tablet; that what is sung, looked, uttered, whispered here may remain, in some sort, a possession like those golden and silver images that Vulcan made, ̓Αθανάτους ὄντας καὶ ἀγήρως ἤματα πάντα, or like those smiling images on the Grecian urn, addressing which, when he congratulates them for their perpetuity, the poet says, "Fair child, beneath the trees, thou canst not leave Thy song, nor ever can those trees be bare. Ah! happy, happy boughs! that cannot shed Your leaves, nor ever bid the spring adieu : For ever piping songs for ever new t." * Mackay. † Keats. |