WINTHROP MACKWORTH PRAED.
(1802-1839.)
[LXIII.] THE RED FISHERMAN; OR, THE DEVIL'S DECOY.
Published in Knight's Annual.
The Abbot arose, and closed his book,
And donned his sandal shoon,
And wandered forth alone, to look
Upon the summer moon:
A starlight sky was o'er his head,
A quiet breeze around;
And the flowers a thrilling fragrance shed
And the waves a soothing sound:
It was not an hour, nor a scene, for aught
But love and calm delight;
Yet the holy man had a cloud of thought
On his wrinkled brow that night.
He gazed on the river that gurgled by,
But he thought not of the reeds
He clasped his gilded rosary,
But he did not tell the beads;
If he looked to the heaven, 'twas not to invoke
The Spirit that dwelleth there;
If he opened his lips, the words they spoke
Had never the tone of prayer.
A pious priest might the Abbot seem,
He had swayed the crozier well;
But what was the theme of the Abbot's dream,
The Abbot were loth to tell.
Companionless, for a mile or more,
He traced the windings of the shore.
Oh beauteous is that river still,
As it winds by many a sloping hill,
And many a dim o'erarching grove,
And many a flat and sunny cove,
And terraced lawns, whose bright arcades
The honeysuckle sweetly shades,
And rocks, whose very crags seem bowers,
So gay they are with grass and flowers!
But the Abbot was thinking of scenery
About as much, in sooth,
As a lover thinks of constancy,
Or an advocate of truth.
He did not mark how the skies in wrath
Grew dark above his head;
He did not mark how the mossy path
Grew damp beneath his tread;
And nearer he came, and still more near,
To a pool, in whose recess
The water had slept for many a year,
Unchanged and motionless;
From the river stream it spread away
The space of half a rood;
The surface had the hue of clay
And the scent of human blood;
The trees and the herbs that round it grew
Were venomous and foul,
And the birds that through the bushes flew
Were the vulture and the owl;
The water was as dark and rank
As ever a Company pumped,
And the perch that was netted and laid on the bank
Grew rotten while it jumped;
And bold was he who thither came
At midnight, man or boy,
For the place was cursed with an evil name,
And that name was "The Devil's Decoy"!
The Abbot was weary as abbot could be,
And he sat down to rest on the stump of a tree:
When suddenly rose a dismal tone,—
Was it a song, or was it a moan?—
"O ho! O ho!
Above,—below,—
Lightly and brightly they glide and go!
The hungry and keen on the top are leaping,
The lazy and fat in the depths are sleeping;
Fishing is fine when the pool is muddy,
Broiling is rich when the coals are ruddy!"—
In a monstrous fright, by the murky light,
He looked to the left and he looked to the right;
And what was the vision close before him
That flung such a sudden stupor o'er him?
'Twas a sight to make the hair uprise,
And the life-blood colder run:
The startled Priest struck both his thigh,
And the abbey clock struck one!
All alone, by the side of the pool,
A tall man sat on a three-legged stool,
Kicking his heels on the dewy sod,
And putting in order his reel and rod;
Red were the rags his shoulders wore,
And a high red cap on his head he bore;
His arms and his legs were long and bare;
And two or three locks of long red hair
Were tossing about his scraggy neck,
Like a tattered flag o'er a splitting wreck.
It might be time, or it might be trouble,
Had bent that stout back nearly double,
Sunk in their deep and hollow sockets
That blazing couple of Congreve rockets,
And shrunk and shrivelled that tawny skin,
Till it hardly covered the bones within.
The line the Abbot saw him throw
Had been fashioned and formed long ages ago,
And the hands that worked his foreign vest
Long ages ago had gone to their rest:
You would have sworn, as you looked on them,
He had fished in the flood with Ham and Shem!
There was turning of keys, and creaking of locks,
As he took forth a bait from his iron box.
Minnow or gentle, worm or fly,—
It seemed not such to the Abbot's eye;
Gaily it glittered with jewel and jem,
And its shape was the shape of a diadem.
It was fastened a gleaming hook about
By a chain within and a chain without;
The Fisherman gave it a kick and a spin,
And the water fizzed as it tumbled in!
From the bowels of the earth,
Strange and varied sounds had birth;
Now the battle's bursting peal,
Neigh of steed, and clang of steel;
Now an old man's hollow groan
Echoed from the dungeon stone;
Now the weak and wailing cry
Of a stripling's agony!—
Cold by this was the midnight air;
But the Abbot's blood ran colder,
When he saw a gasping knight lie there,
With a gash beneath his clotted hair,
And a hump upon his shoulder.
And the loyal churchman strove in vain
To mutter a Pater Noster;
For he who writhed in mortal pain
Was camped that night on Bosworth plain—
The cruel Duke of Glo'ster!
There was turning of keys, and creaking of locks,
As he took forth a bait from his iron box.
It was a haunch of princely size,
Filling with fragrance earth and skies.
The corpulent Abbot knew full well
The swelling form, and the steaming smell;
Never a monk that wore a hood
Could better have guessed the very wood
Where the noble hart had stood at bay,
Weary and wounded, at close of day.
Sounded then the noisy glee
Of a revelling company,—
Sprightly story, wicked jest,
Rated servant, greeted guest,
Flow of wine, and flight of cork,
Stroke of knife, and thrust of fork:
But, where'er the board was spread,
Grace, I ween, was never said!—
Pulling and tugging the Fisherman sat;
And the Priest was ready to vomit,
When he hauled out a gentleman, fine and fat,
With a belly as big as a brimming vat,
And a nose as red as a comet.
"A capital stew," the Fisherman said,
"With cinnamon and sherry!"
And the Abbot turned away his head,
For his brother was lying before him dead,
The Mayor of St. Edmund's Bury!
There was turning of keys, and creaking of locks,
As he took forth a bait from his iron box.
It was a bundle of beautiful things,—
A peacock's tail and a butterfly's wings,
A scarlet slipper, an auburn curl,
A mantle of silk, and a bracelet of pearl,
And a packet of letters, from whose sweet fold
Such a stream of delicate odours rolled,
That the Abbot fell on his face, and fainted,
And deemed his spirit was half-way sainted.
Sounds seemed dropping from the skies,
Stifled whispers, smothered sighs,
And the breath of vernal gales,
And the voice of nightingales:
But the nightingales were mute,
Envious, when an unseen lute
Shaped the music of its chords
Into passion's thrilling words:
"Smile, Lady, smile!—I will not set
Upon my brow the coronet,
Till thou wilt gather roses white
To wear around its gems of light.
Smile, Lady, smile!—I will not see
Rivers and Hastings bend the knee,
Till those bewitching lips of thine
Will bid me rise in bliss from mine.
Smile, Lady, smile!—for who would win
A loveless throne through guilt and sin?
Or who would reign o'er vale and hill,
If woman's heart were rebel still?"
One jerk, and there a lady lay,
A lady wondrous fair;
But the rose of her lip had faded away,
And her cheek was as white and as cold as clay,
And torn was her raven hair.
"Ah ha!" said the Fisher, in merry guise,
"Her gallant was hooked before;"
And the Abbot heaved some piteous sighs,
For oft he had blessed those deep blue eyes,
The eyes of Mistress Shore!
There was turning of keys, and creaking of locks,
As he took forth a bait from his iron box.
Many the cunning sportsman tried,
Many he flung with a frown aside;
A minstrel's harp, and a miser's chest,
A hermit's cowl, and a baron's crest,
Jewels of lustre, robes of price,
Tomes of heresy, loaded dice,
And golden cups of the brightest wine
That ever was pressed from the Burgundy vine.
There was a perfume of sulphur and nitre
As he came at last to a bishop's mitre!
From top to toe the Abbot shook,
As the Fisherman armed his golden hook,
And awfully were his features wrought
By some dark dream or wakened thought.
Look how the fearful felon gazes
On the scaffold his country's vengeance raises,
When the lips are cracked and the jaws are dry
With the thirst which only in death shall die:
Mark the mariner's frenzied frown
As the swaling wherry settles down,
When peril has numbed the sense and will
Though the hand and the foot may struggle still:
Wilder far was the Abbot's glance,
Deeper far was the Abbot's trance:
Fixed as a monument, still as air,
He bent no knee, and he breathed no prayer
But he signed—he knew not why or how—
The sign of the Cross on his clammy brow.
There was turning of keys, and creaking of locks,
As he stalked away with his iron box.
"O ho! O ho!
The cock doth crow;
It is time for the Fisher to rise and go.
Fair luck to the Abbot, fair luck to the shrine!
He hath gnawed in twain my choicest line;
Let him swim to the north, let him swim to the south,
The Abbot will carry my hook in his mouth!"
The Abbot had preached for many years
With as clear articulation
As ever was heard in the House of Peers
Against Emancipation;
His words had made battalions quake,
Had roused the zeal of martyrs,
Had kept the Court an hour awake
And the King himself three quarters:
But ever from that hour, 'tis said,
He stammered and he stuttered
As if an axe went through his head
With every word he uttered.
He stuttered o'er blessing, he stuttered o'er ban,
He stuttered, drunk or dry;
And none but he and the Fisherman
Could tell the reason why!
[LXIV.] MAD—QUITE MAD.
Originally published in the Morning Post for 1834; afterwards included in his Essays.
Great wits are sure to madness near allied.—Dryden.
It has frequently been observed that genius and madness are nearly allied; that very great talents are seldom found unaccompanied by a touch of insanity, and that there are few Bedlamites who will not, upon a close examination, display symptoms of a powerful, though ruined intellect. According to this hypothesis, the flowers of Parnassus must be blended with the drugs of Anticyra; and the man who feels himself to be in possession of very brilliant wits may conclude that he is within an ace of running out of them. Whether this be true or false, we are not at present disposed to contradict the assertion. What we wish to notice is the pains which many young men take to qualify themselves for Bedlam, by hiding a good, sober, gentlemanlike understanding beneath an assumption of thoughtlessness and whim. It is the received opinion among many that a man's talents and abilities are to be rated by the quantity of nonsense he utters per diem, and the number of follies he runs into per annum. Against this idea we must enter our protest; if we concede that every real genius is more or less a madman, we must not be supposed to allow that every sham madman is more or less a genius.
In the days of our ancestors, the hot-blooded youth who threw away his fortune at twenty-one, his character at twenty-two, and his life at twenty-three, was termed "a good fellow", "an honest fellow", "nobody's enemy but his own". In our time the name is altered; and the fashionable who squanders his father's estate, or murders his best friend—who breaks his wife's heart at the gaming-table, and his own neck at a steeple-chase—escapes the sentence which morality would pass upon him, by the plea of lunacy. "He was a rascal," says Common-Sense. "True," says the World; "but he was mad, you know—quite mad."
We were lately in company with a knot of young men who were discussing the character and fortunes of one of their own body, who was, it seems, distinguished for his proficiency in the art of madness. "Harry," said a young sprig of nobility, "have you heard that Charles is in the King's Bench?" "I heard it this morning," drawled the Exquisite; "how distressing! I have not been so hurt since poor Angelica (his bay mare) broke down. Poor Charles has been too flighty." "His wings will be clipped for the future!" observed young Caustic. "He has been very imprudent," said young Candour.
I inquired of whom they were speaking. "Don't you know Charles Gally?" said the Exquisite, endeavouring to turn in his collar. "Not know Charles Gally?" he repeated, with an expression of pity. "He is the best fellow breathing; only lives to laugh and make others laugh: drinks his two bottles with any man, and rides the finest mare I ever saw—next to my Angelica. Not know Charles Gally? Why, everybody knows him! He is so amusing! Ha! ha! And tells such admirable stories! Ha! ha! Often have they kept me awake"—a yawn—"when nothing else could." "Poor fellow!" said his lordship; "I understand he's done for ten thousand!" "I never believe more than half what the world says," observed Candour. "He that has not a farthing," said Caustic, "cares little whether he owes ten thousand or five." "Thank Heaven!" said Candour, "that will never be the case with Charles: he has a fine estate in Leicestershire." "Mortgaged for half its value," said his lordship. "A large personal property!" "All gone in annuity bills," said the Exquisite. "A rich uncle upwards of fourscore!" "He'll cut him off with a shilling," said Caustic.
"Let us hope he may reform," sighed the Hypocrite; "and sell the pack," added the Nobleman; "and marry," continued the Dandy. "Pshaw!" cried the Satirist, "he will never get rid of his habits, his hounds, or his horns." "But he has an excellent heart," said Candour. "Excellent," repeated his lordship unthinkingly. "Excellent," lisped the Fop effeminately. "Excellent," exclaimed the Wit ironically. We took this opportunity to ask by what means so excellent a heart and so bright a genius had contrived to plunge him into these disasters. "He was my friend," replied his lordship, "and a man of large property; but he was mad—quite mad. I remember his leaping a lame pony over a stone wall, simply because Sir Marmaduke bet him a dozen that he broke his neck in the attempt; and sending a bullet through a poor pedlar's pack because Bob Darrell said the piece wouldn't carry so far." "Upon another occasion," began the Exquisite, in his turn, "he jumped into a horse-pond after dinner, in order to prove it was not six feet deep; and overturned a bottle of eau-de-cologne in Lady Emilia's face, to convince me that she was not painted. Poor fellow! The first experiment cost him a dress, and the second an heiress." "I have heard," resumed the Nobleman, "that he lost his election for —— by lampooning the mayor; and was dismissed from his place in the Treasury for challenging Lord C——." "The last accounts I heard of him," said Caustic, "told me that Lady Tarrel had forbid him her house for driving a sucking-pig into her drawing-room; and that young Hawthorn had run him through for boasting of favours from his sister!" "These gentlemen are really too severe," remarked young Candour to us. "Not a jot," we said to ourselves.
"This will be a terrible blow for his sister," said a young man who had been listening in silence. "A fine girl—a very fine girl," said the Exquisite. "And a fine fortune," said the Nobleman; "the mines of Peru are nothing to her." "Nothing at all," observed the Sneerer; "she has no property there. But I would not have you caught, Harry; her income was good, but is dipped, horribly dipped. Guineas melt very fast when the cards are put by them." "I was not aware Maria was a gambler," said the young man, much alarmed. "Her brother is, sir," replied his informant. The querist looked sorry, but yet relieved. We could see that he was not quite disinterested in his inquiries. "However," resumed the young Cynic, "his profusion has at least obtained him many noble and wealthy friends." He glanced at his hearers, and went on: "No one that knew him will hear of his distresses without being forward to relieve them. He will find interest for his money in the hearts of his friends." Nobility took snuff; Foppery played with his watch-chain; Hypocrisy looked grave. There was long silence. We ventured to regret the misuse of natural talents, which, if properly directed, might have rendered their possessor useful to the interests of society and celebrated in the records of his country. Everyone stared, as if we were talking Hebrew. "Very true," said his lordship, "he enjoys great talents. No man is a nicer judge of horseflesh. He beats me at billiards, and Harry at picquet; he's a dead shot at a button, and can drive his curricle-wheels over a brace of sovereigns." "Radicalism," says Caustic, looking round for a laugh. "He is a great amateur of pictures," observed the Exquisite, "and is allowed to be quite a connoisseur in beauty; but there," simpering, "everyone must claim the privilege of judging for themselves." "Upon my word," said Candour, "you allow poor Charles too little. I have no doubt he has great courage—though, to be sure, there was a whisper that young Hawthorn found him rather shy; and I am convinced he is very generous, though I must confess that I have it from good authority that his younger brother was refused the loan of a hundred when Charles had pigeoned that fool of a nabob but the evening before. I would stake my existence that he is a man of unshaken honour—though, when he eased Lieutenant Hardy of his pay, there certainly was an awkward story about the transaction, which was never properly cleared up. I hope that when matters are properly investigated he will be liberated from all his embarrassments; though I am sorry to be compelled to believe that he has been spending double the amount of his income annually. But I trust that all will be adjusted. I have no doubt upon the subject." "Nor I," said Caustic. "We shall miss him prodigiously at the Club," said the Dandy, with a slight shake of the head. "What a bore!" replied the Nobleman, with a long yawn. We could hardly venture to express compassion for a character so despicable. Our auditors, however, entertained very different opinions of right and wrong! "Poor fellow! he was much to be pitied: had done some very foolish things—to say the truth was a sad scoundrel—but then he was always so mad." And having come unanimously to this decision, the conclave dispersed.
Charles gave an additional proof of his madness within a week after this discussion by swallowing laudanum. The verdict of the coroner's inquest confirmed the judgment of his four friends. For our own parts we must pause before we give in to so dangerous a doctrine. Here is a man who has outraged the laws of honour, the ties of relationship, and the duties of religion: he appears before us in the triple character of a libertine, a swindler, and a suicide. Yet his follies, his vices, his crimes, are all palliated or even applauded by this specious façon de parler—"He was mad—quite mad!"