Imatges de pàgina
PDF
EPUB

and abroad everything was full of points and corners; when his sisters were married, and his parents died, Heyward shrunk into a still narrower circle, and learned to find his chief enjoyments in his own mind, with the society it conveyed him to. This, to his thinking, was very large; all the best books, a few pictures, the busts of Shakspere, Plato, and Bacon, up whose solemn foreheads it was his twilight luxury to watch the shadows slowly climb; shadows of volumes, papers, curtains, and of the branches outside the window, when the moon stole in. There he wrote calmly and at leisure, and cared little for publishing; he saw few persons, and became hermitlike in habits and in style of thought. His female relatives often remarked that it was all owing to Godfrey's bachelor life; if he were only, young as he was, to marry and settle down, he would, of course, take to a country life, and write no more fine nonsense that nobody could understand, however beautiful it sounded. Heyward had one or two literary friends and well-wishers who gave expression to a similar idea, while, at the same time, they expected the result to be different, inasmuch as it was their opinion he would then probably write better, and more human-like.

ments one by one, as some more strenuous feat is de-
manded. To gain a name, was for him to plant foot on
the clear space of the artist's freedom, when his appren-
ticeship is served, his wander-year over, and he has leave
merely to practise as a master; it was to become his own
patron ever afterwards, as the rich and noble became to
poets, in times when poets sang for the rich and noble.
It was not very long, therefore, before Heyward did
reach this point; he was still poor enough to be obliged
to go on working for the week, the month, and the
quarter; but he had begun to gain a name. He had
become, to a certain extent, known out of the private
circle, by the first production of his more treasured
moments which he had yet been enabled to make public.
The critics and the reviews were not sparing of their
praise, because amidst a certain classic grace and chaste-
ness, this composition seemed to hit the quaintly rich and
olden tone, which those censors of the literary republic
generally set up as an inaccessible strain of triumph over
youthful license. Heyward smiled inwardly, for he was
dissatisfied with his own effusion, and would rather have
struck some note from the undiscovered harmonies of
the future, such as begun ever and anon in the silent
midnight to startle and thrill himself: but it gave him a
position, with assurance of his power, and he looked up
to a more perfect standard than the comparison drawn be-
tween others and himself. To his mind he was not greater
or less than any singer of the past, but measured to a
beauty never yet attained by himself or them whom he
revered as elder brethren. Meanwhile he was intro-
duced to society, in which he now mixed freely, and with
pleasure; human weakness making its conventional
flatteries after all more agreeable to him than he would
have confessed.

In matters of personal feeling, Heyward had always been an idealist: every now and then the abstraction of grace and sweetness which floated before him, had been for a time embodied in some actual form, that soon yielded to experience, and left his spiritual idol only the more impossible to be realized. Now, however, he did meet with one who appeared to exemplify this excellence; beautiful as any poet's dream, pure, fresh,

However, if it be true, as Wordsworth remarks, that "Nature never did betray or forsake the heart that loved her," the same cannot be said of her sister, Fortune. A very short time after our young poet had been left his own master, with a certain moderate competency, one of those sudden turns in commercial affairs, to which persons even remotely connected with them are in the present day peculiarly liable, almost altogether deprived him of his means, in some way foreign to our purpose. All we require to say is, that Heyward found it necessary either to forfeit his independence, to forsake his whole life of golden visions, or to write for subsistence. He was advised in a friendly manner to betake himself to some profession, as that of literature had no name; it was both disrespectable as the sole calling of a man, and a bad staff to lean singly upon. But he had a deep conviction that the gold of thought and imagination was worthy to offer in exchange for bread, to those who had the one without the other, and was surely capable of this fruit-that the world should support its spiritual work-youthful, rare and delicate as Imogen, Miranda, or Viola; men. They were in a similar case, he thought, to mariners and religious pastors, miners and star-gazers, who, for its behoof, are cut off from earth; only it was needful that what it wanted should be done, and in a fashion suitable to the taste. In darkness, in solitude, and in suffering, accordingly, Heyward underwent a new discipline, while he strove at once to make use of the existing feelings and associations of men, and to preserve his own ideas; curiously enough, he felt the latter heightened, at the same time that the former became more possible to him; meaning was perfected by expression, and expression was re-acted upon by meaning. He struggled through against difficulty, animated now, not merely by the inward view of beauty, but by the outward object of doing good to all men; for, through necessity and work, he could well sympathize with the poor and the labouring, while, in order to be understood by all men, he must study the broad nature and characteristics of all. Writing for the universal people, he discovered, was the most arduous and most finished poetic art of wisdom, which the children of antiquity, brilliant as they were in their devotion to the beautiful, did not attain, because they had not sought it; in the hoary maturity of modern times the profoundest became the most simple, and the work of the oldest was to teach the youngest. Heyward, like his fellow-writers, had to produce food for the passing hour, to supply the literature of the day with matter that would probably be forgot with the occasion; but meanwhile, in every temporary shred of thought thus thrown off, he was confirming his strength, and training like the athlete of a gymnasium, who casts off his gar

[ocr errors]

she was more to Heyward, she was the object of a real and particular passion such as he had not felt before. The flush and ecstacy of love coloured then all he wrote; in the strong exclusiveness of that enthralling sentiment, the poet was for the time lost to art and men, he gained intensity but he lost in breadth; in truth the whirl, the restlessness, and expectation of love, which the poets of sentiment contrive to keep up apparently to the last, are unfavourable to any noble and enlarged conception of humanity or art. A great and terrible, but magnificent sound of exultation announces the victory of imagination over love, the masculine thought over the feminine emotion; which, indeed, heralds the peaceful renewal of their life, in their mutual child, world-conspicuous art. The lady of Heyward's adoration was flattered by the attentions of a poet rising into fame; the name and its romance caught her woman's vanity, and she smiled upon him till he deluded himself with the belief of being loved in return, although she understood no more of the character so entitled, than did the summer roses by the wall of the birds' voice to which they seemed quietly listening like the beautiful cars of Nature. The girl's father was a rich and proud man; but if Heyward thought of this at all, he reckoned himself in both respects on an equality with whomsoever the earth held; if there was love in the case, then probably it was a wise instinct of society to have so arranged that the poor in worldly goods should marry the rich; and not gold be heaped upon the gold. He made known his love, and preferred his suit, without consciousness of presumption, nor did she seem to regard it as such; the girl blushed, smiled,

whispered, like other maidens who are not averse to be told the secret they have guessed, by one whom they at least look up to. And so the affair went on, with all the usual little dalliances of lovers, till the parents, who had never looked for such unheard-of daring in a fortuneless young man that had written a book, politely bowed off from the honour of his acquaintance. Heyward did steal one more chance interview with his mistress; she was pale and in tears, but sensible of duty and prudence for the meanwhile; and in his estimation, if she loved him, or had a heart, she should have then at least vowed her truth till death. He would not say this, but he departed in mighty scorn of himself, of her, and of all the world, in bitterness and mistrust towards the rules and feelings of all that human system for whose benefit he had hitherto been devoted. This stroke smote into dust the living hope, the warm and personal reality that had begun to people the vacant distance for him; he was like a solitary in some desert isle of the ocean, who has dreamed of a lovely companion, woman, sylph, or mermaid, with all her train of happy gifts, but awakes alone to hear the waters beating on the sea-beach, and gaze at the blank horizon. In that final impassioned interview he had seen into the heart of her he had loved, and had suddenly perceived its shallow nature; the last words, he felt were an irrevocable adieu. Like Dante, when the heavenly form of Beatrice stepped to meet him from the clouds, and the ancient Virgil, with his laurelled head, had led him through hell and purgatory,-first his memory showed him unutterable pangs and sorest discipline, then the pure ideal again beckoned him up to everlasting heights, while it reproached him with neglecting it for "a slight girl,"—and he returned to earth with visions in his spirit too glorious to express, or almost to believe. He set himself once more to his vocation with a sense of its august and holy claims, patiently and severely; philanthropic in speculation, but with his former indifference to actual human fellowship returned, in shape of an utter disgust at society. Often, indeed, in the quiet midnight, when the lamp waned and the shadows darkened the mute, tranquil faces of Plato, and Shakspere, and Bacon, those great penates of the student, till their foreheads frowned while their lips appeared to smile,-would the poet look up in his chamber and feel weary, then trim the lamp and write again.

In the first bitter mood, prompted by this and other slights and neglects to the office of the ideal artist, as he thought then, Heyward had thrown off a sharply caustic attack upon the prejudices, the cant, the hypocrisies, and wrongs of society. Through a wildly fanciful and picturesque form, half graphic, half allegorical, he had there poured forth the collected scorn and irony of intense feeling mastered, however, by dignity. The poet was still the spoiled child in a pet, rather than the man able to make suffering bring forth knowledge, light, and triumph for others and himself; there was in it nothwithstanding, a high love reversed, noble indignation and reproach. His name was attached, that he might, as it were, turn all men against him, and lose at least their false kindness, with that condescending, subscribing sort of patronage which the public, as well as the individual, pay to literature. As a keener stroke to social injustice, it was announced that the profits of this work-he expected them to be small indeed-should go to the funds of a new "society for the improvement and protection of females;" but to his astonishment, it was bought by everybody, praised by critics, and another edition called for. The public were delighted, and the poet had made a hit that added more to his fame, and would have brought more emolument than all he had written besides. He was already ashamed of his act, of the mood that gave it birth, and of the laudation which filled him with contempt so deep as to become pity; and then in truth he saw the need for him and his fellow-workers to teach not

by satirical invective, but through direct utterance of the good and fair which should be aimed at.

It was at this point of Heyward's intellectual history, while deeply meditating on some higher step, perplexed in thought, and painfully struggling betwixt memory and loftier faith, that he received an invitation from his younger and favourite sister to visit her at her home in a distant city. There was a secret yearning in his mind for the sympathy of some one who, like Maria, went back to the same associations, could at least talk over the same old things, and had a sweet, frank, sisterly womanliness of instinct, if not a refined intellect. He found little Maria, however, engrossed with her children and household concerns; her husband was a clever enterprising commercialist, well-bred, but with no sentiment about him, and measuring all things by what they would make. His character and his wife's had grown together, and it was pleasant enough to witness their domestic harmony; but there was a formal state diffused over their ample establishment as precise as that of a nobleman's, the trammels of which Heyward recoiled from being confined in by accepting their kindly-meant hospitality. He took lodgings in the suburbs at a little distance, and after the day's occupation sauntered along thither of an evening to drop in upon their circle, pleased at being regarded in their large drawing-rooms and grounds as a sort of privileged wandering spirit, whom nobody expected to say much; while he amused himself with the children or a stray book. When there were any strangers there, indeed, Heyward generally retreated, or walked into the garden; if he remained, his curious, shy, almost awkward manner, his absence, and the utterly commonplace insipidity of his replies to the fine literary remarks of elderly blue-stockings, educated young ladies, or pedantic gentlemen, made him be universally voted a bore.

On one occasion, Heyward found a young lady in the family room with his sister, whom she introduced to him as Miss Elizabeth Wood, an old acquaintance. She had come to stay a few weeks with Maria, who had been her senior at school, and as usual in these cases they had kept up a gossiping correspondence, in which married experience was exchanged for country-town news, younglady sentiment, minute matter-of-fact, and important secrets. Heyward's chief remembrance of her was connected with annoyance from mischievous girlish tricks,with blushing furiously by himself at the giggling from the group of pink and blue frocks, sashes, curls, and fairy figures on the opposite side of a room,-but especially, with being once disdainfully refused by this very Miss Elizabeth Wood at a youthful party, when he ventured to ask her for a partner in a quadrille, and was plainly told the reason," he was so awkward." This little trifle seemed to him the early image of later bitterness, in which conventional association stared so coldly upon the true feelings of the human heart, and looked them down; save for scorn at his own folly, he would have wilfully mixed up her too with that morbid repugnance of his for the fair seemings and hollow unions of the world. The next impression was, how plain, comparatively, Elizabeth had grown, although her hair was still of the same rich light brown, and her figure he acknowledged could scarcely be better. She was lively, witty, fashionable, and used French words; there was a sort of half graceful affectation about her, but so evident an intelligence, that Heyward would have been involuntarily drawn out in course of conversation, except for the tone of levity that was, perhaps, intended to prevent its becoming confidential, and which jarred upon his inmost soul. Two or three times, on that and other occasions succeeding, he checked himself on the point of saying something from the heart,-"They are all alike!" he thought; and while the children, Maria, and her husband, called her familiarly, "Bessy," he took care

always to address the young lady formally as "Miss Wood."

One evening Heyward called, and was shown up into the drawing-room, where he heard the sound of the piano, and sat down unnoticed in a corner. The blinds were down, and the large apartment so obscure that he could not see who was there, until against a narrow space of one window that showed the western light dying far away in the sky, he perceived the white outline of a female dress. He remained still, for the sounds proceeding out of the shadow entranced his ear, hardly ever before much affected by music, with the exception of simple and well-known airs: but whether it was the mood he was in, fresh from meditating with profound, yet vague emotion, over the commencement of a story in which he meant to figure forth the life, the calling, and the destiny of the poet, or whether it brought to mind a thousand latent feelings otherwise concealed, the melody touched him to the heart. He recognised it-it was that composition animated by the very soul of pathos, "Rousseau's Dream," -but the hidden performer drew it forth in a way so different from ordinary, and it floated out so phantomlike and unaccountably beautiful, as to appear indeed the vision of some spirit far above the earth. Slow and solemn at first, it proceeded like the story of some majestic sorrow; a procession of robed and stately griefs, all differently arrayed, all pacing tranquilly as it were to the grave; in the midst arose a crowd of almost joyous variations, repeating and re-repeating the same ineffable tale; again flowed forth the same long-timing, liquid measure, like the horses of noble knights returning from a burial, with the riderless charger of some hero-companion led before. All the while, too, there seemed to be a distant, clear, angelic voice singing beyond: Heyward lay and listened, moved nigh to tears; but with the strain there appeared a mighty load to go away from his heart, he was consoled and soothed, and the poem he had been perplexed to begin, rose up, as it were, spontaneously before his imagination. The fair musician evidently felt in no common way the notes that escaped from her fingers; this twilight performance was without doubt a luxury from some cause or other deeply prized. Nothing but that patch of evening light fell in behind the instrument; but next out of the dusk issued the exquisite air of "Di Tanti Palpiti," like the silver tinkle of water, leaping in showers from a fountain and bubbling over, or the warble of an Italian nightingale in a moonlit poplar. Then followed the grand broad harmonies of a waltz, by Beethoven, more like a supernatural dialogue growing from a crowd and hubbub of mystic voices, than anything conceived from the ear of man. Who it was, and whether it was what critics might call good playing, Heyward did not know; but to mix in the routine of general conversation, or to exchange words with any one, after this, would have been impossible; and he stole silently out again in the midst of a gayer air, nor did he mention the incident next day.

Heyward could scarcely believe it to have been the lively Miss Wood, whose solitary vesper-thought she had thus surprised; nevertheless he could not help observing her thereafter with great interest. Though always gay and lively in company, she was once or twice so unwell as not to appear; Heyward saw that she was much paler than he remembered her as a girl, and at intervals, a pensive expression stole over her features when she was not speaking. The twilight musician he discovered was Miss Wood; any quiet evening, indeed, when he happened to call, he found she had vanished to the unoccupied drawing-room, and sat alone at the piano, where, however, he did not venture to intrude. One afternoon, when the rest of the family were out, Heyward was ushered into this apartment to wait till tea-time, and Miss Wood came in a little after. The conversation began, as usual, in a superficial, commonplace way; but

somehow or other they gradually slid into talking of literature, a new poem that had appeared, and of poets in general. This time it was Heyward who spoke lightly, and in a half jocular strain, that more intensely betrayed his inward feeling, notwithstanding, of the lot marked out for the ideal writer, of his aim and duties. Their looks met once for a moment, while he went on thus, and the young lady smiled; Heyward found himself soon speaking more gravely, then he stopped abruptly, for he was thinking what very fine eyes Elizabeth Wood had after all, when there was a serious expression in them. In a short time she sat down, as if unconsciously, at the piano, her fingers wandered over the keys, and the sad solemn notes of "Rousseau's Dream" began to rise upon the silence, played even more exquisitely than before. While Heyward listened, he almost felt as if there were a strange, secret sympathy between them; perhaps, she saw farther into his nature, and understood his character better than he had thought; and to the egotism of a poet there is nothing so fascinating as the first notion of a woman's unexpressed sympathy. With every note of the music, this impression seemed to grow upon him; at the end, Heyward drew down the blinds, and entreated her to play it over again, while he retired to a sofa beyond. He observed, that at this little manoeuvre on his part, Elizabeth bent down her face closer over the instrument, but her hair and the shadow concealed its expression. Again and again, without a repetition of the request, the same piece was renewed, with the interspersion of "Di Tanti Palpiti" and Beethoven's waltz, at Heyward's request. When the rest of the family had returned, and the blinds were drawn up again, and other matters were going on, Heyward almost felt as if a curious kind of confidence were established between Elizabeth and himself. He was provoked at himself for the sense of pleasure he caught ever and anon recurring upon his fancy; he purposely stayed away for a day or two, and at his next visit, Elizabeth Wood was gone. His sister Maria, who plumed herself upon her acuteness in such matters, declared that Heyward looked blank at this intelligence, and tried to make it out that he was "in love with Bessy Wood;" but Heyward, who was none of those blushing and very conscious young gentlemen that would almost look confused at their grandmother's first name, contrived to appear so absolutely vacant, indifferent and dreamy, that his sister enquired if he saw anything very extraordinary in the sky. During the course of the evening, Heyward asked Maria to play "Rousseau's Dream," which she executed in brilliant style, with new variations, but to his intense dissatisfaction. His sister burst out laughing as she rose from the piano,"Oh, ho, Mr. Godfrey Ernest!" said she, "do you think I knew nothing of your sly little musical parties? I suppose I am not enough of "play-in-earnest" for a political gentleman like you, or Bessy Wood,-eh, Godfrey?"

"What in all the world are you talking of, Maria?" enquired Heyward, with an air of perplexed and afflicted innocence.

[ocr errors]

Oh, nonsense, don't play off your fine lack-a-daisical tricks on me!" said his sister, archiy,-" you transcendental people have your feelings, I suppose, as well as others, and I tell you, Godfrey, if you could be so much in Bessy Wood's society, and hear her play so often, without getting over head and ears in love with her-why-you're a wretch, that's all!"

"Ah, there it is now," said Heyward, coolly, "you're angry that I didn't propose to the young lady, Maria, my dear! I assure you though, I am not so fond of being refused as you may think?"

"Refused," said his sister, "why yes, after all, Godfrey, dear! I'm afraid there is no hope for you, poor fellow! There is, or was at least, another gentleman in the case, whom-"

"What?" said Godfrey, looking out at the clouds. "Never mind," said his sister, smiling, "I shan't tell you-so go, and get somebody else to play Rousseau's Dream' to you, if you like!"

[ocr errors]

It was not till some time afterwards, and by little and little, that Heyward learned from his sister how Bessy Wood had been engaged to a gentleman, with whom she had broken off finally because of some conduct on his part which she disapproved, and which, although he possessed a considerable fortune, had deprived him of her esteem and respect. Maria alone knew how she had suffered, and what it had cost Elizabeth Wood to conquer her lingering feelings of attachment, when she saw clearly he was unworthy of her: but Maria said, she thought "poor dear Bessy" had almost conquered them. The remarks which Heyward made upon this piece of information were nothing more than general; but it affected him beyond expression, when connected in his mind with her solitary evening amusements, and the "Music in the Shadow."

It was not long after this that the young and rising author completed an imaginative work, entitled "Euthanasius," in which was portrayed the struggle of man as the poet in general, with doubt, difficulty, and sorrow, and the immortal victory of life and love through faithful action. It was dedicated to the "Musician in the Shadow," or to one who out of personal grief and inward contest, by the very lyrical sweetness of her own heart's instinct, had breathed consolatory emotion into the author's soul, animating his spirit, unconsciously to herself, with a loftier and more unselfish aim. There was a copy of this book sent from the poet's sister to Elizabeth Wood; and a week or two after, Maria ghowed Heyward a little rose-coloured, sweet-scented note, which, although meant for her alone, decided him upon going down soon to the country town, near which her father lived, and calling by the way. It was six months from this time, that on Hey ard's alluding to the musical evenings in Street, Bessy Wood whispered to him that she did not think she should play Rousseau's Dream," or any other favourite, with less feeling at least, as a poet's wife looking to the light through him, than as seated in the shadow of painful memory.

[ocr errors]

CHERBOURG.

during the three years I resided there, I was seldom able to lean upon my companion, from both my hands being usually so employed. The winters are mild; little frost, less snow, and myrtles and fig trees flourish without care. The fig-groves are curious, for the trees are really large trees, you walk as well as sit under their shade, and may see schoolboys on the branches picking the green and purple fruit, just as the children do in our apple orchards! but immediately near the city, no timber of any kind seems to thrive well. To the east of Cherbourg, however, near the pretty little village du Roule, (so called from a chalybeate spring there) those who love rural scenery will find much to gratify them. Sheltered by the Montagne du Roule, a green hill about three hundred feet high, the foliage is thick and luxuriant, and several simple maisonettes looking peaceful and smiling from their unpretending little gardens, give life to the natural beauty of the valley du Quincampoix. To me, accustomed from my youth to the sublimity of Scottish scenery, it sounded very ludicious to hear the French inhabitants describe gentle hills, wild rocks, and thick brushwood, as high mountains, fearful precipices, and sombre forests; but most surely you can scarcely view a sweeter picture than the banks of the Divette display. A clear, sparkling brook ripples merrily along, bordered by apple and cherry orchards, and is dotted here and there with old watermills, small hamlets, and tiny church spires, the gilded fanes glittering above the mass of green leaves in the sunshine; while as a back-ground rises the rocky eminence called la Fauconnière, all purple and yellow in the season with broom, heath, and furze blossoms. early spring, when bleak winds kept all our buds from blowing elsewhere, this happy valley was alive with bees and birds and sulphur butterflies. Primroses spangled every bank, peeping out from among the withered leaves in January; and, by the end of February, the wood anemone and blue wild hyacinth began to open their flowercups, and, the lower branches of the thorn and elm to exhibit symptoms of coming life. As the season advanced, the acacias, laburnums, lilacs, and fruit trees made the air on still dampish days, almost faint with perfume; one really might say of the Vallée du Quincampoix what Goldsmith did of his deserted village :

CHERBOURG is certainly a dull town, and with its coldlooking black, or blue roofed houses, and the absence of any striking object, does not at first sight impress strangers very favourably-those at least who approach it from the sea-for one arrives at a proper appreciation of the magnitude of the works which chiefly render it famous-more by reasoning upon the boldness of the conception, and the accurate excellence of the execution thus far, than by the mere coup d'œil they present. The town, seated at the extremity of a tongue of land, not leading to or from any other place, has rarely much going on in the way of gaiety or commercial bustle; it is, nevertheless, a very important place,--and being, from its situation, less commonly visited by the English than most towns on the coast of France, I hope a slight sketch of my own impressions, unencumbered by the scientific details which are always found in the guide books, may not be wholly uninteresting. The modern Cherbourg, for few traces of the ancient town remain, is built upon what was formerly a salt marsh, and there is little architectural beauty in any of the public buildings. The climate, in summer, is the most disagreeable possible, a sort of milder Edinburgh, quite as much wind, and more rain indeed the former so constantly blows, that the usual style in which a lady walks is holding her parasol in one hand and her bounet on with the other, and

"Here smiling spring her earliest visit paid,

In very

And parting summer's lingering blooms delayed." The distance is so trifling from Cherbourg, that one wonders one meets so few of les gens comme il faut wandering there, but our lively, pleasant, social, neighbours on the southern side of the channel, are not, il faut l'avouer, lovers of the country, except in words. In this direction many villages abound, and botanists and antiquarians may spend some pleasant weeks among them, collecting curious plants and searching for the Roman antiquities which are frequently found. Tombs, medals, masks, little silver figures of stags and horses, coins from Septimus Severus to Gallien have been discovered. The peasants had long been in the habit of digging up earthen pots full of what they called bad pennies, until one more enterprising than the rest boiled his pennies in vinegar and so found out that they were silver. Many British families took their rise from this neighbourhood. Bruces, Bertrams and Barnwells, Carterets, Chandoses and Neels. Talbots abound to this day, although no person of any distinction bears the appellation, and many familiar English names are not uncommon. the west of the town all appears arid and triste, you can see the point of La Hogue, where, as my dressmaker informed me, the French gained a small victory over the English, which would have been a great one had not the weather prevented them making it so. Some druidical monuments and the ruins of many a feudal castle are not far off. Briquebec, formerly belonging to the Bertrams is now a monastery for the Trappists, and the Scotch Bruces may muse upon their ancestors at the Château

Το

d'Adam, but Tourlaville is at once the least dilapidated and most unpleasantly interesting. The family of the Ravalets seemed to have transmitted cruelty and unnatural wickedness to their descendants, as other families are said to do the gout, insanity, or scrofula. One lord after another was the actor in, or hero of, some history of horror, such as one fancies can only be found in oldfashioned romances; but here, alas! the most dreadful ever imagined would be "ower true a tale," and more than one sleepless night have I passed after hearing them; I shall not, however, give any of these frightful details, for it does no good and can afford no pleasure to a rightly constituted mind, to hear how wicked men can be. The race is happily extinct, but their name is still held in detestation throughout the neighbourhood they sullied with their crimes. After the execution of the last-a brother and sister-the parents quitted the place, took another name, founded a Benedictine monastery, and died without heirs; and there stands the chateau, tenantless since the days of Henri IV., waiting till time destroys it; the fearful traditions attached to it having prevented its occupation by any one. When I first beheld it from an eminence, the evening sun was shining upon the windows, and as the distance prevented my seeing any of the devastations the years that had passed had caused, it looked like the happy, cheerful habitation of some quiet country family, who, far from the turmoils of the busy world, lived there in privacy and peace. Almost all old places have some record attached to them of bygone times, that fill the mind with uneasy sensations; and many true or false may be collected concerning the ruined remains in the vicinity of Cherbourg. At Briquebec they discovered, only a few years ago, several oubliettes in the walls, in which were human bones, and in one a silver gourd, with arms engraved upon it, "Yet Full of Wine!!!" No tale which the imagination can work up, relates a more sad story than simply mentioning this fact, and leaving the reader of the few words which tell it to his own thoughts. The breakwater was begun in 1784, and Louis XVI. took much interest in it; himself personally inspecting the covering of several cones; the first was sunk on the 6th of June, amid great rejoicings. Napoleon did a great deal for it, and intended to do more. Josephine gave a ball in one of the basins. Charles X. embarked there for England in 1831; Louis Philippe followed the steps of his predecessors, and of the good things La Republique has done is to vote a large sum towards its completion. This gigantic work will be, when finished, 10,000 French feet in length. L'Isle Palée, separated from the land by rocks 1,500 toises under water, renders entrance on this side impossible; defended as it is by eight forts or towers, which are formed in time of war by a line of fortifications. The bay is magnificent-ninety large ships can ride at anchor, protected upon the east, west and south, by natural ramparts, and by this enormous undertaking on the north. The French may indeed be proud of their performance, for we can never more burn the shipping and damage the town as we did in 1779, and by so doing gave rise to the splendid idea of this breakwater. Whilst I lived here, the poor Prince de Joinville came to take the command of that ugly "sabot flottant"-La Belle Poule, in all the flush of youth and hope, and all the happiness of feeling, that he had power to make his name remembered perhaps in after times. Alas! alas! how have the prospects of that fine, spirited young man been overcast! I agree with the honest English Jack Tar, who, seeing him managing a little boat on a rough sea at St. Leonard's, with much sailor-like dexterity, exclaimed "Well, the French be a pretty set of ninnyhammers to send such a chap as that 'ere adrift." Ay," answered his companion, "He's well named John Veal, for he's a right reg'lar son of John Bull."

[ocr errors]

Cherbourg, though a sea port and a garrison town is a

very orderly, quiet place. It contains above 20,000 inhabitants, and is a place de guerre of the first class. Even at the fair of St. Anne, I never heard any quarrelling, or saw intoxication, or any thing disagreeable, but there is a singular custom preserved from time immemorial, which I imagine can only be seen at this annual fête, and to me it is very disgusting: viz., to eat mutton five minutes after you have heard the bleat of the sheep which furnishes it. Charcoal fires are made in holes dug in the ground, and several persons are employed to kill, skin, cut up, and broil the steaks; the expertness of all the operators is incredible, and except the killing, upon which I turned my back, I saw the whole process, which occupied seven and a half minutes. Tents are erected round this temporary kitchen and slaughter house, and I was told no mutton was ever tasted so good or so tender. Ornaments from Brittany are sold at St. Anne's, made of bits of looking glass which glitter in the sun, and have a more dazzling effect than any mock diamonds I ever saw. The fair is held close to the sea shore; the little boats filled with the peasant women, in their high, fan-shaped caps, gold crosses, and ear-rings, and gay colours, laughing loud, and chattering cheerfully; make it a very lively pleasing scene, although there is no rural beauty about the spot. You now hear the patois in perfection when they address each other without restraint, for in their intercourse with their superiors, and with strangers, a French is spoken which is at least sufficiently intelligible. Some friends of mine occupied a prettily situated cottage, freshly prepared and painted, containing six rooms and a garret, a lodge with two good apartments, a stable, and large productive garden, for which they paid just £14 per annum. They are a kind-hearted, friendly people these bons Cherbourgeois, and, although they have little reason to be partial to the English, we received from several of them marks of disinterested kindness too romantic to be easily credited, for which I shall never cease to be grateful; and, of all the coast towns in France I have visited, Cherbourg is decidedly that where the least imposition is practised.

PROCRASTINATION.

Shun delays, they breed remorse;

Take thy time while time is lent thee; Creeping snails have weakest force;

Fly thy fault lest thou repent thee; Good is best when soonest wrought; Lingering labours come to nought. Hoist up sail while gale doth last;

Tide and wind wait no man's pleasure; Seek not time when time is past;

Sober speed is wisdom's leisure;
Afterwits are dearly bought,
Let thy forewit guide thy thought.

Lessons for Little Ones.

THE LITTLE HOLLANDER. MANY years ago there lived a man and his wife in the town of Haarlem, in Holland. The man was a sluicekeeper, that is to say, his business was to open and shut the sluices. I must tell my young readers the meaning of this. Holland is a country filled with canals, dykes and rivers: if these waters were not restrained by embankments, the country would be constantly overflowed, and the health and comfort of the inhabitants seriously injured. In many parts, the waters are contained in long deep basins; and, at equal distances, strong oaken gates are placed in which are openings called sluices. By means of a sort of movable panel, these can be raised or shut down at pleasure, and the person who minds them

« AnteriorContinua »