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TSro^B88. AHG^8T^165^.] THE LEADER, 835
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AN IRISH MEMBER IN ROME. Rome ; Its Rule...
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Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.
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Citt Poems. City Poems. By Alexander Smi...
. Jted lo ! there gleams upon a spacious Jawn An earl's marine retreat . A little footpath quivers up the height , And what a vision , for a townsman ' s sight ! A village ^ peeping from its orchard ' s bloom , With lowly roofs of thatch , bine threads of smoke , O ' ertooking all , a parsonage of white . I hear the smithy ' s * hammer , stroke on stroke ; A steed is at the door ; the rustics talk , Proird of the notice of the gaitered . groom ; A shallow river breaks o ' er shallow falls . Beside the ancient sluice that turns the mill Thqlasty miller bawls ; TJb « parson listens in his garden-walk , The red-cloaked woman pauses on the hill . This is a place you say , exempt from HI , A paradise , where , all the loitering day , Enamoured pigeons coo upon the roof , Where children ever play . — Alas ! Time ' s webs are rotten , warp and woof ; Rotten his cloth of gold , his coarsest wear : Here , black-eyed Richard rains red-cheeked Moll , Indifferent as a lord to her despair . The broken barrow bates the prosperous dray ; And , for a padded pew in which to pray , The grocer sells his soul . What a novel and truthful line is that which shows the rustic Lothario as heartless as a lord ! Here is another bit of actual life seen through the poet ' s eyes : — I plrtcked my flowers before the dawn . I heard A loud bell ringing on the dewy pier , And went on board . Away the vessel sped , Leaving a foamy track upon the sea , A smoky trail in air . We touched , half-way , A melancholy town , that sat and pined . _ . 'Mong weedy docks and quays . Thence went the train ; It shook the sunny suburbs with a scream ; Skfmmed milk-white orchards , walls and mossy trees One sheet of blossom ; flew through living rocks , Adovm whose maimed arid patient faces , tears Trickle for ever ; plunged ia howling gloom ; Burst into blinding day ; afar was seen The river gleaming against a wall of rain , A moment and no more ; for suddenly TTpflew the envious and earthen banks , And nhat all out , until the engine slacked . Amid the fiery forges and the smoke I reached the warehouse . We have too many references to the sea , the stars , and the larks ; but we have few of those extravagances which in A Life-Drama gave critics the easy victory of ridicule . Fine passages and fine separate lines abound , from the Miltonic . With the invariable and dread advance Of midnight ' s starrj' armies , must we set Our foolish wandering hours ; to the Shakspearean simplicity and pregnancy of The right band learns its cunning , and the feet That tread upon the rough ways of the world Grow mercifully callous . Sometimes the old thought almost impresses us as new by the words it utters : — Love , unreturned , Hath gracious uses ; the keen pang departs , The sweetness never . Sorrow ' s touch doth ope A mingled fount of sweet and bitter tears , No summer ' s heat can dry , no winter ' s cold Lock up in ice . When music grieves , the 2 > ast Returns in tears . How very , beautiful is this , especially the opening line : — The past is very tender at my heart ; Full , as the memory of an ancient friend When onco again we stand beside his grave . Raking amongst old papers thrown in hasto 'Mid useless lumber , unawares I came On a forgotten poem of my youth . X went aside and read each faded page Warm with doad passion , sweet with buried Junes , Filled with the light of suns that am no more . I stood like one who finds a golden tross Given by loving hands no more on earth , And starts , beholding how the dust of years , Which dims all else , has never touched its light . In the address to Glasgow how finely is it said : — City ! I am true son of thino ; Ne ' er dwelt I where great mornings shine . Around the bleating pens ; Ne ' er by thejrivulets I strayed , And ne ' er upon my childhood weighed The silence of the glona . Instead of shores where ocean beats , I hoar the ebb and flow of streets . We hare been dipping yory much nfc random among the pages of this volume , and are content to rest our verdict on the evidence of the passages ™! * i' becflu s ° » although tliey might have been greatly multiplied , no poetical reader requires more than a specimen or two to assure him of inwinsic excellence . la parting from Alexander Smith we have but one onwcal remark to offer , namely , that when next ho writes he should bestow " ore thought and care upon the groundwork of his poem , and instead of wntmg poetry about incidents and characters , write poems which will vividly present them to our imaginations and © ur hearts .
Tsro^B88. Ahg^8t^165^.] The Leader, 835
TSro ^ B 88 . AHG ^ 8 T ^ 165 ^ . ] THE LEADER , 835
An Irish Member In Rome. Rome ; Its Rule...
AN IRISH MEMBER IN ROME . Rome ; Its Rules and Institutions . By John Francis Maguire , M . P . Longman and Co . A . scarlet tinge suffuses Mr . Maguire ' s panoramic picture , of Rome . Not a single shadow crosses the luminous perspective . The Pope , is represented as an Apocalyptic elder * seated upon a throne of gold , with myriads of an angelic people harping hymns of gratitude to the incarnation of Catholic Christian virtue . The Papal States form a paradise , unprofaned except by the lurking villany of a few disordered malcontents . In the palace there is <» lory sobered by meekness , in the city proud and peaceful freedom , in . the hospital all charity and grace , even in the prison affection and joy . To read—and believe—this book , we might set down as a fool every human bein < rwhofrom this time forth , does not bend his whole heart upon the
, , prospect of gaining a foretaste of heaven by naturalizing himself in Rome , and living in the sweet light of the Italian Llama ' s eye . But there is one circumstance to qualify the effect of Mr . Maguire ' s ecstatic rhapsody . The author is not a credible witness . He is obviously incapable of hearing with , his ears , or seeing with his eyest or learning with his understanding . His head swims in the roseate illusion ; be had a delirious vision on the Appian Way he has eaten ashes among the Columbaria , and he comes home to publish a hollow , hysterical volume , which contains sillier ravings than any we hare met with for a considerable time . Not that the Irish member of Parliament is addicted to the use of bad language . On the contrary ,
he writes in the spirit of a beatified nun , except , indeed ,, when he has to ffin « -a clot of invective at some name honoured in Italy ; but his account of the Papal dominions suggests very strongly the idea of a simple savage describing the marvels of . England . He is all wonder , all admiration ; but we wish he had confined himself to a personal narrative , instead of losing his way in the biography of 4 our Pius . ' . Since this part of the work is mere commonplace rhodomontade , we shall point only to one passage , simply to show of what gross distortion of facts a writer as slavish as Mr . Maguire is capable . Referring to the events of 1848 , lie is impudent enough to say that profane rites were celebrated by the triumvirs in the metropolitan church . We then meet with the following passage : —
The short-lived Roman Republic was not unfruitful of monsters , some of whom , for savagery and bloodthirstiness , would not have suffered by comparison with the most ferocious ' Reds' of the Reign of Terror , in the first French Revolution . Amongst those who earned for themselves an infamous notoriety was Lambianchi , who appeared to have had a special mission—namely , to hunt down and kill all kinds of
ecclesiastics . - . On this we shall only remark that it is a disgrace to the writer . If he knows how false it is , we need not go far for a qualifying epithet ; if he does not , he has been , imposed upon by some hooded beggar of Rome , and writes recklessly from sheer ignorance . In either case the statement is unpardonable . But it is not the worst in his book . Periodical butcheries of unarmed and helpless men , he says , took place in Rome during the reign of the Republic . This is utterly and notoriously false ; but the spirit of malicious misrepresentation or servile panegyric degrades evei-y chapter in the volume : — - The names of the victims are not accurately known ; but amongst those who thus fell by the hand of this monster , was another Dominican , Father PeUieiajo , the priest of Santa Maria sopra Minerva . It was said that fourteen were found half-buried iu the convent garden ; but it is certain that , having information of these assassinations , the Government sent its officers to save the prisoners who remained alive , and that twelve were rescued in spite of the resistance of the executioners . Those who were
thus rescued were either priests or monks . A still bloodier tragedy was enacted in the noonday , on one of the most public spota in Rome , and in the presence of a considerable multitude . Two unfortunate men . had been seized , and were conducted into Rome in the midst of a threatening mob . They were clad as vine-dressers , but the cry was raised that they were Jesuits 1 To be a Jesuit , was to be an enemy of the Republic , and to bo an enemy of the Republic was to deserve death . Shouts and imprecations rose on every side ; eyes . flashed and daeeers eleamed ; furious hands were thrust forth to clutch the innocent victims of popular rage . "At them ! at them !"— " Kill , kill !"— " They are Jesuits ! " —were the cries with which the sanguinary mob lashed itself iuto frenzy ; and , on the Bridge of Saint Angelo , the wretched victims were literally torn to pieces by bloodthirsty savages—an immense multitude being spectators of the tragedy I list of atrocious murders at
To this public butchery might be added a long Rome , Ancona , Sinigaglia , Bologna , and throughout the Papal States . This is an example of Mr . Maguire ' s historical method , and it is worthy of him . But we pardon something to his credulous simplicity . He got his * facts' where ho got his opinions , from monasteries and nunneries ; and when wo find a tissue of libels against honour-able men , do we not also discover Mr . Mii"uire struggling with the English language in a deaperate endeavour to express his veneration for the character of his master the Pope ? That figure , clad in a white cloth soutane , with a cape and belt ' the same colour , ' and wearing a wide-brimmed , crimson hat , adorned with n . rrnhl cord , is the cynosure of his dreams , the morning star of his memory ,
on the Pincian Hill . Therefore , when ho visits an hospital , it seems to him irradiated by the piety of the Vatican ; as to the prisons , their inmates are hapnier than those of cottages in England ; the foundling hospitals are guarantees ngainst infanticide . With what fervour does Mr . Maguire enforce this point ;— . Shame and dospqir are fearful prompters to a weak woman , who hoars , in her anciush , the fiery hiss of the world ' s scorn , and beholds its mocking finger pointing her out na a lost one . And many a tender and gentle woman , whoso soft white hand nevor before inflicted injury on a living thing , has , in a moment of mental ngony and moral bewilderment , clutched , with » grasp of fronzy , the nock of her inlant , and crushed out its little life in the mad hope of hiding ouo crime by the commission of u
A » to lunatics , Roman idiocy appears almost preferable to English sanity ; but Mr . Muguiro may bo allowed to have a strong opinion on that subject . From the BetUleUcms ho wont to the female prisonn . ^ md records how the nuns of the 'Jtoriuini compelled ail the ladies under their charge tortrvono Hno mowing , and clothe themselves in pomten ml u " ^ » ; . "t "? reaches the condemned cells , ho draws aa . interesting » Uo * k ° J >» ° Xu 3 cau Brotherhood , which undertakes to console criminals doomed to aio . —
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Citation
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Leader (1850-1860), Aug. 29, 1857, page 19, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse2.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/cld_29081857/page/19/
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