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And lo ! there gleams upon a spacious lawn 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 , bhie threads of smoke , O ' erlookmg all , a parsonage of white . I hear the smithy ' s hammer , stroke on stroke ; A steed is at the door ; the rustics talk , Proad of the notice of the gaitered groom ; A . shallow river breaks o ' er shallow falls . Beside the ancient sluice that turns the mill The lusty miller bawls ; Tiie parson listens in his garden- walk . The red-cloaked , woman pauses on the hill . This is a place you say , exempt from ill , 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 ruins red-cheeked Moll , Indifferent as a lord to her despair . The broken barrow hates 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 plucked 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 ; Skimmed milk-white orchards , walls and mossy trees One sheet of blossom ; flew through living rocks , Adown whose maimed and patient faces , tears Trickle for ever ; plunged in howling gloom 5 Burst into blinding day ; afar was seen The river gleaming against a wall of rain , A moment and no more ; for suddenly Upflew the envious and earthen banks , And shut all out , until the engiue slacked . Amid the fiery forges and the smoke - I reached the warehouse . i We have too many references to the sea , the stars , and the larks ; but we liave few of those extravagances whieh in A Life-Drama gave critics the easy victory of ridicule . Pine passages and fine separate lines abound , from the Miltonic With the invariable and dread advance Of midnight ' s starry armies , must we set Our foolish wandering hours ; to the Shakspearean simplicity and pregnancy of The'right hand 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 opo A mingled fount of sweet and hitter tears , No summer ' s heat can dry , 110 winter ' s cold Lock up in ice . When music grieves , the past Returns in tears . . How very beautiful is this , especially the opening line : — The past is vert / tender at ray heart ; Full , as the memory of an ancient friend When once again we stand beside his grave . Raking amongst old papers thrown in haste . ' . Mid useless lumber , unawares I came On a forgotten poem of my youth . I went asido and read each faded pago Warm with dead passion , sweet with buried Junes , Wiled with the light of suns that are no more . I stood like one who finds a golden tress Given by loving hands no more on earth , And atarts , beholding how tho dust of yoars , Which , dims all else , has never touched its light . In the address to Glasgow how finely is it said : — City ! I am truo son of thine ; Ne ' or dwelt I whore great mornings sliina Around the bleating pens ; Ne'er by tho rivulota I strayed , And ne ' er upon my childhood weighed The silence of the glens . Instead of shores whoro ocean bents , I hoar tho abb and flow of streets . We have been di pping very much tit random among tho pages of this volume ; and are content to rest ouv verdict on the evidence of tho passages aacuiced , because , although they might have been greatly multiplied , no poetical reader requires more than a specimen or two to assure him of intrinsic excellence . In parting from Alexander Smith , we have but one critical remark to offer , namely , tlmt when next ho writes ho should beatow wore thought and care upon , the groundwork of his poem , And instead of writing poetry about incidents and characters , write poems which will vividly present them to our imaginations aud our hearts .
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AN IRISH MEMBER IN ROME . Rome ; Its Jinles and Institutions . By John Francis 3 Iaguire , 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 , un profaned except by the lurking villany of a few disordered malcontents . In the palace there is glory 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 mig ht set down as a fool every human bein " , who , from 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 oik circumstance to qualify the effect of Air . Maguire ' s ecstatic rhapsody . Th < author is not a credible witness . He is obviously incapable of hearing witb
his ears , or seeing with his eyes , or learning with his understanding . His head swims in the roseate illusion ; he 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 anj we have 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 spu-it of a beatified nun , except , indeed , when he has to fli-nw 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 Avonder , all admiration ; but we wish he had confined himself to a pei-sonal narrative , instead of losing his way in the biography of' 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 . Magutre is capable . Referring to the events of 1848 * he 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 hoodod 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 every 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 Pelliciajo , the priest of Santa Maria sopra Minerva . It was said that fourteen were found luilf-buried in the convent garden ; but it is certain that , having information of these assassinations , the Government sent its ofiicers to save the prisoners who remained alive , and thut 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 spots 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 chad 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 alia imprecations rose on every side ; eyes Hashed and daggers gleamed ; furious hands wore thrust forth to clutch the innocent victims of popular rage . " At them ! at them !"— " Kill , kill !"— " They arc Jesuits ! " —were the cries with which tho sanguinary mob lashed itaolf into frenzy ; and , on the Bridge
of Saint Angelo , tho wretched victims were literally torn to pieces by bloodthirsty savages—an immense multitude being spectators of the tragedy f To this public butchery might bo added a long list of atrocious murders at Rome , Ancona , SinigagHn , Bologna , and throughout the Papal States . This is an example of Mr . Maguire ' s historical method , and it is worthy of him . But we purdon 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 honourable men , do wo not also discover Mr . Maguire struggling with the English language in a desperate endeavour to " express his veneration for the character of his master tho Pono p That ficure , clad in a white cloth soutane , with a capo and belt ' of
the same colour , ' and wearing a wide-brim mud , crimson hut , adorned with a gold cord , is the cynosure of his dreams , the morning star of his memory , on the Pincian Hill . Therefore , when he visits an hospital , it seems to him irradiated by the piety of the Vatican ; as to tho prisons , their inmates are happier than those of cottages in England ; the foundling hospitals are guarantees against infanticide . With what fervour docs Mr . Maguiro enforce this point : — , Shame and despair are fearful prompters to a weak woman , who hoara , 111 her anguish , tho fiery hiss of tho world ' s scorn , and boholda its mocking linger pointing nor out aa a lost ono . And mimy a tender and gontlo woman , whoso soft white hand never before inflicted injury on o living thing , hus , in a moment of mental ngony and moral bewilderment , clutched , with a g ™ !* of » ouzy , tho neck of hor infant , and orushed out its little life in tho mad hopo of hiding ono orlrao by tho couumsalon of u
As to lunatics , Roman idiocy appears almost preferable to Iiriigljah sanity ; but Mr . Mnguiro may bo allowed to have a strong opinion 011 Unit suojoct From tho Bethlehems ho went to the female prisona , ami rooordw ixow the nuns of the Termini compelled nil the ladies under thoir churgo to strip one fine morning , u »< l olotho themselves in penitential "{ " ^"" v ^ fcJ"J reaches tho condemned colls , ho draws an intorosting sketch of the iuacau brotherhood , which undertakes to console orinuimls dopmod to tue :- ~
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No . ms , . Aiffflgw 29 , . 18 & 7 Q " T H JB DEADER . 835
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Citation
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Leader (1850-1860), Aug. 29, 1857, page 835, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse2.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2207/page/19/
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