Imatges de pàgina
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Jar. Ha! who gave thee power

To call me to account? Where is my father?
Know I myself? Mean'st thou the pale old man,
With venerable silver locks? Then mark you,
Him have I sung to sleep, and he sleeps now-
Sleeps, sleeps! Yet many times he moves himself,
Then turns again to rest. Closes once more
His heavy eyelids, and, with some faint murmurs,
Sinks into slumber. But no more of this,
Bertha, art thou deluding me? Come now,
Let us from hence away! Why shake thy head
As if in cold denial? Perjur'd girl,
Ungrateful! Is it thus that thou rewardest
My faithful love, and all that I have done?
Whate'er on earth was to my soul most dear,
This world or heaven, I do renounce that I
May call thee mine. If thou could'st know the
sufferings,

The pains of hell that gnaw my heart in sunder,
Could'st thou but know the torment of a conscience
Deep stained, like mine, in blood, thou would'st be
milder,

Nor thus deny me now!

An. Begone! Away!

Jar. What I? begone! No never without thee! We go together; and if even thy father

Himself withheld thee, with that ghastly wound,
Whose bloody lips wide-yawning call me murderer,
Thou should'st not from my arms escape.
An. Begone!

Jar. No, No! I tell thee no!

(There is a noise heard of a door thrown violently open.) An. Listen! they come!

Jar. So be it then! Life, Bertha, at thy side, Or death. But still, together we remain ? (Another door opens.) An. Fly, fly, ere yet it is too late!

Jar. My Bertha!

Come hither, love!

An. Thy Bertha I am not!

I am the Ancestress of this fallen house!
Thou child of sin, I am thy sinful mother!

Jar. Those are my Bertha's cheeks, her form her bosom!

Thou shalt with me! Here passion rages still,
And pleasure waves me onward!

An. See then here

The bridal ornaments I have prepared!

She now tears the black cover from the raised platform, and the real Bertha appears lying dead in her coffin. Upon which Jaromir starts back with horror, and exclaims, Woe! woe!" but almost instantly recovering himself, he believes the whole to be a delusion.

Jar. Deceitful birth of hell! In vain!I leave thee not! Those are my Bertha's features, With her my place must be !

In pronouncing the two last lines, he runs after the Ancestress, who

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There is one remark only which we cannot forbear making ere we conclude our sketch of this most beautiful and soul-subduing tragedy. It is a tale of incestuous love-but it is the only tale of that kind which was ever presented, either in a dramatic or in any other form, without wounding the ear of the hearer, or the eye of the spectator. There is one tragedy, indeed, (the Mirra of Alfieri,) founded on the same species of interest, which is in one respect no less pure-but those who remember the structure of that magnificent tragedy, will be at no loss to see the reason for the preference we have given to the Ancestress. The love of the brother and the sister is love conceived in ignorance-love, which not to have been conceived between such personages so situated, would have appeared an absurdity, or rather an impossibility to such a poet as Grillpar

zer.

It is a love, pure and ethereal, unconsciously, as it were, melted away into heavenly purity-by that very

law of heaven that forbids the union of the unhappy, but, in so far as their love is conceived, the not guilty lovers. It seems as if we felt the mysterious breath of nature, playing coolly and calmly over their burning brows-not extinguishing the passion, but purging all dross from the flame. We know, indeed, and feel that the disappointment of such a passion is a thing not to be survived by creatures so young

so ardent so entirely living in their love. But the death which we foresee, comes before us not in the shape of a punishment, but of a pre-determined expiation of guilt long since punished on her that committed it, -demanding no pardon for those that die that it may be forgotten. We see Jaromir laid upon the virgin hearse of Bertha without a shudder-with a calm and acquiescing reverence for the horror that has laid him there. Such indeed is the entire mastery of his love in his breast, and in the fable of the poet, that the other, the yet darker, because completed, horror-the parricide-is almost forgotten in its contemtemplation. The tears of Jaromir have wiped out all his other guilt; when he dies we regard him as dying only for his love.

The creation of the character of Bertha is another thing, in praise of which too much could not be said; but we believe we might safely leave that to the imagination and the hearts of our readers. What beautiful use is made of the resemblance between her and the guilty spectre motherhow that resemblance subdues all feelings of horror for the sins of the departed, into sympathy with the sufferings of those that tread in life before us-how it raises also, into a mysterious sublimity, those living lineaments which might otherwise have expressed only the mild tenderness and mild ardour of young and hoping love. The horror which we feel for the shroud of the one, (when the unhappy youth mistakes her for his mistress), is soon communicated to the bridal garland of the other-and we revolt, with an instinctive tremour, from the idea of that very love which excites, at the same moment, our admiration, and our reverence, and our sympathy.

The miserable ghostlike face of the universe, described in the very first speech of this unfortunate maiden, prepares us to look on all around her and us as wrapped in snow and ice. Life seems all like the forest on which she gazes-dreary-frozen--benumbed -black-trod only by footsteps of guilt and misery-echoing only the shouts of blood-shed, revenge, and death. Even amidst all the beautiful feelings called out by Bertha's confession of her love to her father, the predominating darkness of her destiny hangs out distinct and visible. The vision she sees in the mirror is an omen that cannot be mistaken. True

from the beginning do we feel to be the words of Borotin. My poor, poor child, you have been born for sorrow. The composure of expectation with which the old man throughout contemplates the coming extinction of his hopes and his house-the calmness with which he meets even the poniard blow of his son-his dying words so full, not of forgiveness, but of something that supersedes and excels all forgiveness;-all things, in son, in daughter, and in father, partake of the same universal tinge of foreseen misery not to be contended with, not to be averted, claiming and receiving only a desperate meekness and a terrible resignation.

But the Ancestress herself is one of the characters of the piece, and surely she is no less admirably conceived and preserved than any of the others. This is not a subject for speaking about ; but every thing in the words and gestures of this wandering spectre bespeaks the utmost perfection and entireness of imagination. Whenever she appears, the atmosphere around the living creatures among whom she walks is changed-her breath stops theirs, and chills their blood with the damp and icy vapours of the tomb. The words she speaks are few-" Whether go you, Bertha ?"-" HOME," and truly that HOME was desolate enough; but she points to it with her waving finger, in assurance, that in its desolation she shall soon have rich companionship. There is not a more holy, nor a more awful thought than that of the unity created and nourished among those of the same blood, and never was this thought brought before us in more appropriate and mysterious power, than in the tragedy of the Borotins. The pictures that moulder upon their walls, the green and time-worn forms sculptured over the resting-places of departed knights and ladies-all seem to be imbued with a sort of dim" lifein-death;"-it seems as if even their decay were not to move beyond its commencement until the last fragments of the line had been swept into the same vault-and all the long series of ancestry and progeny been shut up together within "those ponderous and marble jaws," there to mingle forever in repose the blood and dust that had so often been bequeathed and inherited. It is thus that the axe is at last laid to the root of the blighted oak-and that all the Borotins are gathered to their fathers.

THE RADICAL'S SATURDAY-NIGHT.

Or all the poems of Burns, the Cot-
tar's Saturday-Night is universally felt
to be the most beautiful and interest-
ing. That picture of domestic peace
and purity was drawn by the poet
when his own soul was peaceful and
pure; and accordingly, there sleeps
over it a calm and untroubled light,
through which the virtues, the wis-
dom, and happiness of lowly life shine
forth in sublime simplicity. We know
that this delightful poem was composed
at the plough, and that Burns cheered
his kind and noble heart during the
toil by which he supported his fa-
ther's household, with the strains that
brought vividly before it images of all
the most sacred things by which that
household was blessed. It is not pos-
sible to imagine any spectacle more
glorious to a country, than that of
such a peasant so employed. Poor,
but unrepining-toiling, but not over-
borne-almost a boy in years, but a
man in strength, patience, endurance,
and heroism-unconscious in his sim-
plicity of his own greatness-blind to
the destiny, at once so dark and so
bright, that was awaiting him-and
yet, we may well suppose, not unvisit-
ed by high and aspiring thoughts
there walked that peasant behind his
plough, whom his country, through
all future generations, will honour
as the poet and benefactor of her
people. This poem was composed in
his heart beneath the sunshine and the
clouds; and when the hours of bodily
toil and mental inspiration were gone
by, (and with Burns they were the
same), he returned at nightfall to his
father's house, and sat down reverently
in presence of the grey hairs which he
kept sacred from the ashes of poverty
and affliction. The poem, therefore,
is one of sustained and almost perfect
beauty; for every morning he brought
to it a heart fresh with joyfulness and
virtue, while the intervals of compo-
sition were thus filled with all the
thoughts, feelings, and images that his
genius has rendered immortal. The
subject was a happy one-happy be-
yond what could have been the lot of any
poet born in any other country. For,
in Scotland alone, and I say so with a
due sense of the virtues of England,
does there exist among the peasantry
a union of knowledge, morality, and
religion, so universal, and so intense,

and so solemn, as to constitute National Character-to hallow and sublime that NIGHT, which feels, as it were, the influence of the approaching SABBATH, and to render it a weekly festival, held both in mirthful gladsomeness, and in pious composure of heart. It is the spirit of religion that makes the Cottar's Saturday-Night at once delightful and awful to our imagination, and fit subject for the very highest of all poetry. We know, that on that night the Bible is opened in ten thousand dwellings—and that the voice of psalms and of prayer is heard deep down in the glens, and high up on the hills of Scotland. On that night I will not say that the hardships and wants of lowly life are all forgotten by those whose lot it is to endure themfor strong and tenacious must needs be the memory of the poor; but I will say, that if their hardships and wants are not then forgotten, so neither are their enjoyments and their blessings; that in the calm confidence which the humble feel when on their knees before God and their Redeemer, fear and sorrow minister unto piety, that it is sufficient for their gratitude, that while their blessings are so great, their miseries are not far greater

and that human life, with all its inevitable woes, seems yet, to the contented cottar, a scene never wholly deserted by the sunshine of a gracious Heaven. Truly may it be said, that in Scotland, the last night of every week" divides the year, and lifts the soul to Heaven." Well is the Sabbath-morn preceded by a night in which happiness prepares the heart for devotion.

The picture which Burns has drawn of that hallowed scene, is felt by every one who has a human heart-but they alone can see all its beauty, who have visited the firesides of the Scottish peasantry, and joined in their family-worship. They who have done so, see in the poem nothing but the simple truthtruth so purified, refined, and elevated by devotion, as to become the highest poetry. Many a Saturday night has the writer of this joined in that simple service: more than once, when death had just visited the cottage-but at all times, whether those of joy or affliction-there was the same solemn resignation to the divine will

the same unquestioning, humble, wise, submission-the same perfect peace, and even lofty happiness-nor did he ever see one shudder, nor hear one sob that seemed to signify despair.

Then kneeling down to Heaven's Eternal King The saint, the father, and the husband prays; Hope springs exulting on triumphant wing, That thus they all shall meet in future days. There ever bask in uncreated rays, No more to sigh, or shed the bitter tear; Together hymning their Creator's praise, In such society, yet still more dear, While circling time moves round in an eternal

sphere."

The last time that I witnessed and partook of such happiness as this, was one serene and beautiful moon-light night, during last fine harvest. I had been roaming all day among the magnificent woods that overshadow the Clyde immediately above and below Bothwell Castle, near which I had passed some of my early years—and at the fall of the evening, I entered a cottage which I had often visited when a boy, and of which the master was even at that time a gray-headed patriarch. I found the old man still alive, and sitting in his arm-chair by the fire-side the same venerable image that he was nearly twenty years ago, only his locks if possible more perfectly and purely white, his cheeks somewhat more wan, and his eyes almost as dim as those of blindness itself. His daughter, who had been the beauty of the parish when I was at school, was now a meek and gentlematron, and carried an infant in her arms; while other children, with eyes and features like their mother's, were cheerfully occupied on the floor, half in business and half in play. When I had made myself known to the father and his daughter, it is needless to say with what warmth of hospitality I was welcomed. The old man rose from his seat as soon as I told my name; and it was then that I saw in his tottering steps, that the hand of time had touched him, more heavily than at first sight I had supposed. After I had narrated the simple story of my own life, I learnt that of theirs that nothing had happened to them since I came to bid them farewell on that summer-morning I left school, except that the old man's daughter had been married (as I saw) to the lover of her youth-and that six children had been born-of whom two, and the mother mentioned it, with a low voice, but without tears, had been taken to their Maker. The husband afterwards came in-and before our simple even

ing meal was over, I felt as if I had been for years an inmate of the happy and innocent family.

The old man then said to me, with a kind voice, that he hoped I had not forgotten, in the life I had led in foreign countries, the religious observances of the peasantry of my native land. And, as he was speaking, his grand-daughter, a beautiful girl of about sixteen years, brought the "big ha' bible" and laid it gently upon his knees. "My eyes are not so good," said the pious patriarch, " as when you and your school-companions used to come to visit us of old, but there is still light enough left in them whereby to read the word of God." Nothing could be more affecting than the tremulous voice of the old man, whose gray hairs were so soon to be laid in the earth, as he read, amidst the profoundest silence, that chapter of the New Testament that records the crucifixion.

was

And afterwards when the psalm sung-those same feeble and almost mournful tones were beyond measure touching, as they blended with the small pipes of the children, and the sweet melody of the female voices. During the prayer that followed, I could not help looking around on the kneeling family-and I saw close to the white locks of him whose race was nearly run, the bright and golden head of his little favourite grandson, who, during almost the whole evening, had been sitting on his grandfather's knee. The love of God seemed to descend alike on infancy and old age. The purity of the one allied itself to the piety of the other-and the prayer of him who was just leaving life seemed to bring a blessing on the head of him who was but just entering upon it.— When we all arose together from the prayer, a solemn hush prevailed for a few minutes over the room, till our hearts, by degrees, returned to the thoughts that had previously possessed them and our conversation, though somewhat more grave than before, recurred to the ordinary topics and business of life.

I need not narrate that conversation, for it was interesting to me, chiefly from its kindness, its calmness, and the wisdom of its innocence. I had many questions, too, to ask about the families I had known in my youth, all of which were answered with plea

sure and a sort of pride by those who were delighted to hear that I had not forgotten the humble friends of other days; and thus the hours stole away till it was midnight before the son-inlaw shewed me into my bed-chamber, a room as neatly furnished as if it had been in the great city, and kept for the accommodation of the few visitors that, whether of kin, or strangers like myself, came in the course of a year to this secluded dwelling.

I lay for some hours awake, reflecting, with the purest delight, on the happiness, the worth, and the piety, of the little family that by this time were all lying around me in sleep. No doubt, thought I, they have their frailties and also their griefs, but that life is enviable which contains, within itself, so many evenings like the one I have now witnessed. So long as there is a bible in every cottage in Scotland, and the dust is not suffered to lie upon it, the people will be good, and wise, and happy. With thoughts such as these, I at last gently fell away into sleep.

Í have heard of people who never were conscious of having dreamedfor myself I never sleep but I dream, yet after all my dreams, I have been able to discover few of the causes by which they are produced or modified. This night, however, I had a dream that rose out of the impressions which that family worship had left on my sleeping mind. But though all these impressions were calm, peaceful, and blessed, yet was the dream itself which they occasioned distorted, hideous, and ghastly, as if hell itself were suddenly to glare out through a vision of heaven.

I fancied that I had lost my way on a wide moor during a night of storms, and at last came upon a solitary hut, into which I entered for shelter. With that distressful feeling so common in dreams, I knew not whence I had come, or whither I was journeying; a sense of unsupportable weariness was all I knew of life. Soon as I entered the cottage, I felt as if I had been there before, though every thing seemed wofully and ruefully to have been changed. The wet, stained, clammy, and naked walls breathed over the room the cold air of discomfort and desertion-the few articles of furniture were fitted for the mean, vile, and miserable dwelling -and the flickering light from a small

VOL. VI.

oil-lamp on the clay-floor, by which the wretchedness around was visible, at times seemed to expire utterly, as the gusts of wind blew through the broken panes of a window. half closed up with rags and with straw. I felt over my whole body the shivering tremor of that superstitious fear that strikes the heart in dark, wild, and solitary places, and that congeals one's very life-blood, as it assails us when reason is enchained by sleep. In this ghastly loneliness I heard a long, deep, broken groan; and as I looked intensely into the gloom, an old man seemed sitting before me, by the dead ashes of a scanty fire, with long locks, whiter than the snow, and cheeks as sunken and as wan as if he had risen from his grave. Can this ghost, thought I in dim perplexity, be he whom I have often seen kneeling in prayer among his family, and whose reverend countenance felt, not many nights ago, the cheerful light of that happiest fireside? What dreadful thing has happened to him, or to me? I strove to speak to the old man in his loneliness, but the words were all frozen in my breast, and I stood convulsed in the dumbness of agonizing passion. But the reality deepened and closed in upon me, and the corpse rising up, stood close to my side, and I heard a voice, "Oh! Scotland! Scotland! hast thou forgotten thy God!" At these words I was at once transformed into a being of my dream, and knew what had befallen my country. Throne and altar had been overturned, and the land was free. But I was wandering, methought, through that stormy midnight, dogged at the heels by persecution and murder; and the old patriarch, whom from boyhood I had loved and honoured, stood before me, involved too in some dark and incomprehensible misery. "The earth, is it not wild," quoth the vision, "now that we know there is no God." "Our faith will yet return to us!" "No! my young friend! the wind roars loudly; and hark! the flooded Clyde! That is the swing of the woods! Are not their voices terrible, now that there is no God? But look, look at these withered hands! and at these hoary hairs-they will fall down into the mould; and what then are the ninety years that I have walked over the earth; and why should a shadow have had such sweet and awful thoughts, since there is no God!"

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