Billeder på siden
PDF
ePub

"Doth cherish in some corner of his heart

“Some thought that makes that heart a sanctuary
"For pilgrim dreams in midnight-hour to visit,
"And weep and worship there.
"—And such thou wert to me-and thou art

lost.

"What was a father? could a father's love

"Compare with mine?" in want, and war, and peril,

Things that would thrill the hearer's blood to
tell of,

My heart grew human when I thought of thee
Imogine would have shuddered for my danger-
Imagine would have bound my leechless wounds
Imogine would have sought my nameless corse,
And known it well-and she was wedded-wed-

ded--

-Was there no name in hell's dark catalogue
To brand thee with, but mine immortal foe's-

And did I 'scape from war, and want, and famine,
To perish by the falsehood of a woman ▸

Imo. Oh spare me, Bertram; oh preserve thy-
self.

Ber. A despot's vengeance, a false country's

curses,

The spurn of menials whom this hand had fed
In my heart's steeled pride I shook them off,
As the bayed lion from his hurtless hide

Shakes his pursuer's darts---across their path-
One dart alone took aim, thy hand did bard it.

Bertram extorts a promise from Imogine to meet him under the castle wails, and yield him an hour's intercourse. The appointment is kept, and in a wretched moment the stain of guilt is added to the sorrows of the unhappy wife. Immediately after the parting, Bertram hears that Lord Aldobrand had received a commission from his sovereign to hunt down the outlawed Bertram. From this moment he forms an inexorable determination to murder (for whatever gloss is given to the act, in reference to the manner, place, and time of doing it, no other name could. properly describe it) his devoted enemy. His horrid purpose is declared to the wretched wife, whose pitiable and mad despair, on being unable to move him from his purpose, is certainly a most distressing picture of female anguish. The murder is committed; and

Imo. He did not hear my father's cry---Oh all that succeeds is the utter misery,

heaven--

Nor food, nor fire, nor raiment, and his child
Knelt madly to the hungry walls for succour
Eer her wrought brain could bear the horrid
thought,

Or wed with him---or--see thy father perish.
Ber. Thou tremblest lest I curse thec; tremble

not

Though thou hast made me, woman, very wretched

Though thou hast made me---but I will not curse

thee

Hear the last prayer of Bertram's broken heart,
That heart which thou hast broken, not his
foes!

Of thy rank wishes the full scope be on thee---
May pomp and pride shout in thine addered path
Till thou shalt feel and sicken at their hollow

ness--

May he thou'st wed, be kind and generous to thee,
Till thy wrung heart, stabb'd by his noble fond

madness, and death of Imogine, and the death of the Count by his own hands.

That there is much deep distress in rable force in the expression of feeling the story of this tragedy, very consideand passion, and both vigour and beauty in the imagery and diction, we are very ready to admit; but in dignity, propriety, consistency, and contrast, in the finer movements of virtuous tenderness, the delicacies of female sensibility, the conflict of struggling emotions, heroical elevation of sentiment, and moral sublimity of action, this play is extremely deficient. The hero is that same mischievous compound of attractiveness and turpitude, of love and crime, of chivalry and brutality, which in the poems of Lord Byron and his imitators has been too long successful in captivating weak fancies and outraging moral truth. Let but your hero be well-favoured, wo-begone, mysterious, desperately brave, and, above (Bertram, p. 25---30. all, desperately in love, and the inter* At the next meeting of this luckless est of the female reader is too apt to be pair, which is at the convent of St. secured in his behalf, however bloody, *Anselm, after much painful conflict, dark, and revengeful, however hostile

ness,

Writhe in detesting consciousness of falsehood---
May thy babe's smile speak daggers to that mo-

ther

Who cannot love the father of her child,
And in the bright blaze of the festal hall,
When vassals kneel, and kindred smile around

thee,

May ruined Bertram's pledge hiss in thine

ear

[blocks in formation]

towards God and man, he may display fatigue of a journey. All this he rehimself in his principles and actions. The solves, and the deed is done, without whole theory and secret of this poeti- any tender visitings of nature, and with cal philosophy is amusingly detailed in less compunction or conflict in his bothe epilogue to the piece, from which, som than Milton's devil expressed on small as is our general esteem for these the eve of destroying the felicity of literary performances, we must, for the Paradise. And yet, says the epilogue, sake of the profound ethical maxims it in apology for all this, contains, exhibit an extract to the reader.

"Enough for Imogine the tears ye gave her;
I come to say one word in Bertram's favour-
Bertram! ye cry, a ruthless blood-stain'd rover!
He was
-but also was the truest lover:
And, faith! like cases that we daily view,
Ali might have prosper'd had the fair been true.
Man, while he loves, is never quite deprav'd,
And woman's triumph, is a lover sav'd.
The branded wretch, whose callous feelings

46

court

Crime for his glory, and disgrace for sport;
If in his breast love claims the smallest part,
If still he values one fond female heart,
From that one seed, that ling'ring spark, may

grow

con

"Bertram! ye cry, a ruthless blood-stain'd rover!

He was but also was the truest lover!

[ocr errors]

We will present to our readers the scene which takes place between the lovers after that act of shame by which the mother, wife, and woman, were for ever lost.

Enter BERTRAM.

"It is a crime in me to look on thee-
But in whate'er I do there now crime-
Yet wretched thought still struggles for thy
safety-

Fly, while my lips without a crime may warn

thee

Would thou hadst never come, or sooner parted.
Oh God-he heeds me not:

Why comest thou thus?" what is thy fearful busi

ness?

I know thou comest for evil, but its purport
I ask my heart in vain."

Ber. Guess it, and spare me." (a long pause,
during which she gazes at him.)
Canst thou not read it in my face?
Mixt shades of evil thought are darkening

"Imo. I dare not;

there;

But what my fears do indistinctly guess
Would blast me to behold-(turns away, a
pause)"

Ber. Dost thou not hear it in my very silence? "That which no voice can tell, doth tell itself. Imo. My harassed thought hath not one point of fear,

Save that

Pride's noblest flow'r, and virtue's purest glow: Let but that heart-dear female lead with care To honour's path, and cheer his progress there, And proud, though haply sad regret occurs At all his guilt, think all his virtue hers." (Epilogue, p. 81. The cardinal crime on which the story turns is the fatal act of infidelity committed under the walls of the castle of Aldobrand. And this crime is proposed and assented to by the contract. ing parties, in a manner as little sistent with common modesty in woman, and common generosity in man, as can well be imagined. But if that which ought most to soften a man towards the sufferings of a woman be the consciousness that he himself has been the cause of it, then is this Bertram one of the worst specimens of a man and a soldier that we have yet encountered in the course of our experience. After crop- "I will arouse the castle, rouse the dead, ping this fair flower, be treads it under To save my husband; villain, murderer, monfoot, and scatters in the dust its blasted Dare the bayed lioness, but fly from me. beauty. With ruthless delight, and demoniac malice, he spurns the soft and melting prayers in her husband's behalf, whom he resolves to murder in his own mansion, in the presence or hearing of his wife and child, and, as it seems, while he rests on his couch after the He'll curse thee with his pardon.

must not think."
Ber. (throwing his dagger "on the ground”)
Show me the chamber where thy husband lies,
Speak thou for me,-
The morning must not see us both alive.
Imo. (screaming and struggling with him)
Ah! horror! horror! off-withstand me
not,

[blocks in formation]

"And would his death-fixed eye be terrible "As its ray bent in love on her that wronged him? "And would his dying groan affright thine ear "Like words of peace spoke to thy guilt-in vain? "Imo. I care not, I am reckless, let me perish. "Ber. No, thou must live amidst a hissing world,

"A thing that mothers warn their daughters from, "A thing the menials that do tend thee scorn. "Whom when the good do name, they tell their beads,

“And when the wicked think of, they do triumph; "Canst thou encounter this?

"Wouldst have him butchered by their ruffian hands

"That wait my bidding?

"Imo (falling on the ground)-Fell and ho

rible

"I'm sealed, shut down in ransomless perdition. "Ber. Fear not, my vengeance will not yield

its prey.

"He shall fall nobly, by my hand shall fall-
" But still and dark the summons of his fate,
"So winds the coiled serpent round his victim.
Ill as the lady Imogine was used

"Imo. I must encounter it-I have deserved it; by her sanguinary and brutal lover, we

"Begone, or my next cry shall wake the dead. "Ber. Hear me.

"Imo. No parley, tempter; fiend, avaunt.

“Ber. Thy son.— (She stands stupified.) Go, take him trembling in thy hand of shame, "A victim to the shrine of public scorn-"Poor boy! his sire's worst foe might pity him, "Albeit his mother will not

* Banished from noble halls, and knightly con

verse,

"Devouring his young heart in loneliness "With bitter thought-my mother was-a wretch.

Imo. (falling at his feet) "I am a wretch,

but who hath made me so ?

“I'm writhing like a worm beneath thy spurn." Have pity on me, I have had much wrong.

Ber. My heart is as the steel within thy grasp. "Imo. (still kneeling) Thou hast cast me down from light,

"From my high sphere of purity and peace, "Where once I walked in mine uprightness,

blessed

[blocks in formation]

thee

"I plead but with my agonies and tears-" Kind, gentle Bertram, my beloved Bertram, For thou wert gentle once, and once beloved, Have mercy on me-Oh, thou couldst not think it-(looking up, and seeing no relenting in his face, she starts up wildly)

By heaven" and all its host," he shall not perish. Ber. "By hell and all its host," he shall not live.

"This is no transient flash of fugitive passion"His death hath been my life for years of misery "Which else I had not lived

"Upon that thought, and not on food, I fed;
"Upon that thought, and not on sleep, I rested
"I come to do the deed that must be done--
"Nor thou, nor sheltering angels could prevent
me."

Imo. "But man shall, miscreant"-help!
Ber. Thou callest in vain-

The armed vassals all are far from succour

"Following St. Anselm's votarists to the con

vent-"

band of blood are darkening in their all

cannot say that her own character is such as to entitle her to much respect. The author has endeavoured in a very lame manner to support her constancy by the pretext, not a very new one, and in the present instance clumsily enough inserted, of a starving parent whose life was saved by the sacrifice; and after this first sacrifice to convenience or exigency, not unlike those which, in the coarse arrangements of ordinary life, parents are apt to require of their daughters, and daughters are apt very cheerfully to submit to, she makes another voluntary sacrifice of her honour, her husband, and her child, to another sort of convenience or exigency which is created by the urgency of nature or the stress of passion. The events are of ordinary occurrence and of ephemeral frequency in vicious society; and though the author has raised them to and describing them, and the vivacious tragic dignity by his manner of telling touches of a very glowing pencil, yet the real substratum of the tale is one of those turbulent triumphs of passion over duty, which mar the peace of families and make the practicers in Doctors' Commons.

[ocr errors][merged small]

in it as the murders of Radcliffe High- tender object of the love of both its way, the saintly Prior meets the bloody Bertram with this exclamation: Prior. This majesty of guilt doth awe my spi

rit--

Is it the embodied fiend who tempted him
Sublime in guilt?"

Never was a murderer of a man in

power let off so well. He walks abroad

parents, stands pretty much without defence, even at the bar of that tribunal where love holds its partial sessions.

'On the stage there should be no tampering with the Majesty of Heaven. Neither appeals, or addresses, nor prayers, nor invocations to the King of kings, nor images taken from his revealed word, or from his providences,

a chartered ruffian; and he who but a little before had been proclaimed as an outlaw, and his life declared to be for- or his attributes, can be decorously or feited, is left, after the assassination of the greatest and most honourable man in the country, to hold a long parley with monks and friars, and at last to die at his own leisure, and in his own manner. What occasioned the fall of Count Bertram and his banishment is not disclosed, but we are at liberty to suppose it was rebellious and treasonable conduct. The Prior, who seems to have known him well, alludes to the similarity of his case to that of the "star-bright apostate;" and the main ground of his implacable hostility to Lord Aldobrand is the patriotic office with which he is invested of preventing him, if possible, from infesting the coast as a marauder, and chasing him out of the woods wherein he and his banditti were secreting themselves. It does not appear that Aldobrand had vowed his destruction, but on the contrary the Prior thus advises him,

"Flee to the castle of St. Aldobrand, His power may give thee safety."

safely introduced on the stage, or adopted for the purposes of mere poetical effect, or pretended situations. Objects of such tremendous reality are not the proper appendages of fiction. They were intended only for hallowed uses, and not for entertainment or ornament. Upon these grounds it seems to us to be a practice that cannot be justified by any prescriptive usage of the drama, to blend the pure idea of Heaven and Heaven's King with the corrupt display of human passions, and representations of earthly turmoils and disbefore us as peculiarly deserving of tractions. We do not mark the play censure in this respect; but the passage which follows has given us the opportunity of boldly declaring ourselves lose by it in the opinions of the more on this subject, whatever credit we may

liberal critics of these times.

"Imo. Aye, heaven and earth do cry, impos.
sible.

The shuddering angels round the eternal throne
Veiling themselves in glory, shriek impossible,
But hell doth know it true.'

So that upon the whole there seems to be a want of a sufficient provocation 'We take our leave of Christabel and to the horrid crime which Bertram com- Bertram, but not without adverting, as mitted, except a tendency by nature in justice we ought, to the great disto acts of blood and cruelty be suppo- parity between these productions in sed to have pre-existed in his mind, the merits of the compositions. The and to have prepared the way to the poem which has been denominated villany which followed. And when wild and singularly original and beauall this is properly weighed, the despe- tiful," is, in our judgment, a weak and rate love towards such a restless ill-dis- singularly nonsensical and affected perposed person in the mind of a gentle formance; but the play of Bertram is lady, unsubdued by a union with a kind a production of undoubted genius. The and noble husband, distinguished by descriptive as well as the pathetic force public fidelity and private worth, the of many passages is admirable, and the fruit of which union was a child, the rhythm and cadence of the verse is

musical, lofty, and full of tragic pomp. lent itself to the trickery of Lord Byron's cast of characters, and employed itself in presenting virtue and vice in such delusive colours, and unappropriate forms.'

As the reader has observed, we have many serious objections to the piece, and we cannot but greatly regret that a mind like that of its author should have

ART. 4. Airs of Palestine, a Poem. By John Pierpont, Esq. Baltimore. B. Eddes.

SOON after the discovery of America, citizens, to names that would adorn the and when little was known of it, with annals of any age or nation; and in certainty, but its existence, a theory point of general information, intelliwas started, by some of the philosophers gence, ingenuity, and enterprise, we of the old world, highly derogatory to dread comparison with none. the importance of their new acquisition; It is true we have produced but few -which was no less than that this authors;-yet fewer bad ones, in proContinent was a sort of after-creation, portion, than is generally the case. As when nature was in her dotage; and we do not often see any but the more that in all her efforts in this hemisphere, approved works that appear abroad, we she betrayed manifest indications of imbecility. A notion so suited to flatter European pride readily obtained; and as more pains are usually taken to circulate calumny than to refute it, the belief may possibly yet prevail where it was propagated.

The philosophers, however, happened, for once, to be mistaken, the fact being directly the reverse of the hypo⚫ theses. The aspect of nature is both grander and more beautiful in America, -her mien is more majestic, her features are more varied and more lovely, her disposition is kinder, and her products are more liberal and diversified, than in any other quarter of the globe; --and whatever grade, in the scale of intellect, may be assigned to the aborigines, we can now boast a race of men who are able to vindicate their claims to the prerogative of talent.

are led to judge of the remainder by
these specimens. From fallacious pre-
mises, it is not wonderful that we should
draw a false conclusion. Probably not
one work in ten, that is published in
Great Britain, survives the first edition,
and scarcely one in ten of this decima-
tion ever reaches this country.
have little idea of the number of volumes
that fall daily still-born from the press
in the British metropolis.

We

But still, we are reproached because we have produced so few authors,-let their merits be as they may. We suspect that the old leaven of the original error in regard to this country is at the bottom of this argument, which is urged by cavillers. The reason of this alleged, and admitted .deficiency, is perfectly obvious, and in no degree impeaches our capacity. Books are the manufacture of the mind;-and precisely the We have no reason to blush at the same reason which has led us to rely character of our countrymen. We can on foreign skill and industry for many point, in the catalogue of our illustrious other fabrics, has induced us to import

A

« ForrigeFortsæt »