CHAPTER I.—THREATENED.
‘No, my lord; I do not know him; nor, I think, does any one in the village. But during the few weeks that I have been at High Tor Churchtown, I have seen him very often indeed.’
The speaker was a young girl, of some twenty years at most. Her bearing was grave and modest, and her attire scrupulously plain; but there are cases in which sovereign beauty will assert herself, and Ethel Gray, the newly appointed school-mistress, was more than pretty. That slender form and faultless face, the dazzling purity of the complexion, and the lustre of the violet eyes, that contrasted so well with the wealth of dark hair simply braided back from the temples and twisted into a massive coil—these conferred beauty, if ever woman, since Eve's time, deserved to be called beautiful.
It was a bright balmy day in June, and through the large window of the school-room, now open, floated the scent of flowers and the hum of bees. Within the room, standing beside the teacher, were two gentlemen; while on each side of the table stood the children, their wondering eyes fixed upon the visitors. They well knew the kindly face of the gray-haired Earl of Wolverhampton, the elder of the two, whose park-gates were almost within sight of the school of which he was patron. But they had never before seen the shrewd rugged features of the middle-aged member of parliament, the Right Hon. Stephen Hammond, Under-secretary of State, by whom he was accompanied.
Ethel Gray's words had been uttered in reply to an inquiry from the Earl as to a swarthy man of sinister aspect and powerful build who was lounging near the low gate of the school-house garden.
‘That is not a face,’ said the Earl, thinking of quarter-sessions, tramps, gipsies, and poachers—‘which I am pleased to see here among my good people.—What is your opinion, Hammond, of the owner of it?’
‘I think that I had rather not meet him on a dark night,’ answered the Under-secretary with a smile. ‘But perhaps, after all, the man is only some sailor newly paid off; though he has a reckless unpleasant look in any case.’
Perceiving himself to be an object of attention to the occupants of the school-room window, the rough fellow who had been lingering at the gate now turned on his heel, and with an air half-defiant, half-abashed, slunk away.
Nor was it long before the old Earl and his guest, with an urbane word or two of leave-taking to the pretty teacher, quitted the school, and re-entered the carriage, which had been awaiting them in the leafy lane beyond. Lord Wolverhampton, as the horses' heads were turned towards High Tor, looked and felt pleased. He took an interest in the schools, as he did in every detail of his property; and he had been anxious for the Under-secretary's approbation concerning them. The Right Hon. Stephen Hammond had, in the course of the tour which he was hurriedly making through the country, visited many such places of education, probably with a view to Hansard and Blue-books; but he was frankly willing to give its meed of praise to that of which his noble host was the patron. And praise from Mr Hammond was worth the having.
The carriage rolled on between high banks crested with hazels and gay with wild-flowers, until at last it passed between the sturdy gateposts of blue Cornish granite, topped by the grim heraldic monsters which the De Veres had borne on their shields in battle for many a year before they had become possessed of the ancient barony of Harrogate or the modern earldom of Wolverhampton. It was a pretty park enough that of High Tor, with its huge sycamores and avenue of wych-elms, the fallow-deer feeding peacefully among the ancient hawthorn trees, the tinkling trout-stream, and the lofty crag that stood forth like a giant sentinel, as though to protect the mansion itself, surrounded by its gardens and shrubberies.
‘Those are fine beeches!’ observed Mr Hammond, pointing to a clump of silvan Titans that reared their canopy of leaves on a hill far away.
‘Ah!’ said the Earl, as a momentary shade passed across his face; ‘those are not on my land. They are on the other side of the ring-fence, and belong to Sir Sykes, at Carbery Chase.’
‘It was all one property once, I think?’ said Mr Hammond.
‘Yes; but that was a long time ago,’ rejoined the Earl; but he did not enlarge upon the subject, and the carriage rolled in silence along the well-kept road towards the house.
Meanwhile the man whose loitering near the school of High Tor had attracted some notice, had cleared the village, and was traversing one of those deep lanes, with high banks densely wooded, for which that southern county is famous. The nut boughs almost interlaced their slender branches over his head as he passed beneath their shadow, and the ferns grew so thickly that it was but here and there, in golden patches, that the broken sunbeams could filter through them. The wayfarer was, however, to judge from appearances, by no means one of those for whom the coy beauty of wild-flowers, or the soft greenery of the woodlands, or the carol of the birds, could have any peculiar attraction. He pushed on, not hurrying his pace, but moodily indifferent to the hundred pretty sights and sounds that vainly invited his attention.
In person the stranger was, as has been mentioned, powerfully built, and still active and vigorous, although his crisp dark hair was grizzled by age or hardship. His keen restless eyes, sullen mouth, and lowering looks, were scarcely calculated to inspire confidence. His sunburnt face had evidently known the heat of a fiercer sun than that of Britain; and near the corner of the mouth there was a dull white scar, half-hidden by the clustering beard. Mr Hammond's conjecture as to the seafaring character of the man was perhaps warranted by his attire, which was of a coarse blue pilot-cloth, such as is worn not by sailors only, but by many dwellers on the coast, whose calling leads them to associate with mariners; and as regarded his bearing, he might as easily have been taken for an Australian digger or Cornish miner as for a seaman.
Such as he was, Ethel Gray was right in saying that this man's darkling face had been very frequently to be seen in the village of High Tor during the few weeks of her residence there. Who he was or whence he came, no one knew. But he did nothing illegal in loitering about the trim straggling street; and as our modern system does not encourage rural Dogberries to meddle with suspected ‘vagrom men,’ he was left practically unmolested as he lounged to and fro, talking little, but listening much in the tap-room of the village ale-house, where the rustics recognised in him the merit of one who carried spare silver in his pocket, and would invest a little of it in eleemosynary pots of beer. Himself not over-communicative, he seemed to have an aptitude for making others talk; and if to learn the politics of the parish was his desire, he certainly ought to have become tolerably well versed in them.
The swarthy slouching fellow trudged on, indifferent to the pale blush of the wild-roses, to the scent of the violets, or to the fresh clear song of the blackbird. He was thinking, thinking deeply, perceptibly indeed, had any one been there to watch him, for the veins and muscles of his beetling brows swelled and rose frowningly, as they do with some men while racking their brains. Presently he emerged into a broader and drier road than the moist shady lane which he had traversed, and saw before him the lodge-gates of a park, the stone piers of which were surmounted by a pair of couchant greyhounds in marble. One of the side-gates stood always open, since there exists an ancient right of way through Carbery Chase; and unchallenged, the stranger passed through the gateway and entered the demesne. It was a fair scene on which he looked. The golden sunshine fell, as if lovingly, on the rustling beech-trees and spreading oaks, the ferny dells and grassy uplands, the ancient trees of the grand avenue, and the bold blue swell of Dartmoor rising bleakly to the northward.
Full in front, seen through a vista of lofty elms, was the great house, rising stately in its fair proportions; mullion and ogive, and gable and turret, and every detail, to the very vanes that flashed and glittered on roof and tower, looking very much as they must have looked when Queen Elizabeth deigned to shew her skill as an archeress, to the detriment of the dappled deer in the wide park beyond. The silver-plumaged swans yet rode the tranquil waters of the mere, the burnished pheasants exhibited their gaudy feathers on the sunny bank beneath the fir-spinny, and the peacocks swept their gorgeous trains along the stone terrace that skirted the house, as when Tudor royalty had been feasted there.
It is seldom in England that two mansions of pretensions equal to High Tor and Carbery Court lie so near together. But in point of splendour there could be no comparison between the two. The grand Elizabethan house, justly described in the red-bound county guide-book as ‘a magnificent place, now the seat of Sir Sykes Denzil, Bart.,’ far surpassed in size and in symmetry the smaller and older dwelling of Sir Sykes's noble neighbour. No one would have credited the sunburnt stranger with any great share of artistic taste or architectural interest, yet he stood still at an angle of the road whence he could command an uninterrupted view of Carbery Court, and shading his eyes with his broad hand, gazed at it with an intentness that was not a little remarkable. ‘A tidy crib!’ he muttered at last. ‘No wonder if a chap would run a bit of risk, and pitch overboard any ballast in the way of scruples, to be owner of such a place as that. And yet’——
He snapped his fingers contemptuously as he spoke, but nevertheless broke off abruptly in his soliloquy, and drawing out from the breast-pocket of his rough coat a leathern tobacco-pouch and a short clay pipe, filled and lighted the latter, and leaning against the huge bole of an elm-tree, smoked for some time in silence. But if his outspoken self-communings had come to an end, it would seem that the train of thought which had suggested them had sustained no interruption, to judge by the stealthy glances which he cast now and again towards the grand mansion, flanked as it was by all the appliances of wealth—park and lake and gardens, home-farm and stabling, pheasantry, and paddocks where thoroughbred colts disported themselves during the brief period of liberty that precedes the education of such equine aristocrats.
A stray policeman passing by would probably have set down the swarthy stranger as an intending burglar taking a distant survey of the scene of his projected operations; but the mixture of emotions which the man's callous face expressed was of by far too complex a character to be summed up in so commonplace a fashion. There was covetousness to be sure, and perhaps a spice of malignity; but what appeared to predominate was a species of cynical enjoyment of the thinker's own cunning, not unusual with crafty but uneducated persons, who see themselves on the brink of success. Whatever might be the nature of the man's meditations, they were presently cut short by the sound of hoofs on the smooth road near him, as a gentleman riding slowly from the lodge-gates towards the house came in sight.
As the rider approached him, the man, who had been leaning against the tree, started, and with an impatient gesture, knocked the ashes out of his exhausted pipe; then jerking down his hat over his brows with the air of one whose instinct or purpose it is to shun observation, he strode off, striking into a side-road which led towards another gate of the park, by which entrance could be made from the northward. Some minutes of brisk walking brought him to the verge of the park, whence he emerged into a wild and broken district of imperfectly cultivated country lying at the foot of the Dartmoor uplands, that rolled away in front of him to the edge of the horizon.
For some half a mile beyond the park-wall, the well-tilled fields, the fences in good repair, and the trim aspect of the few dwellings that studded the country, differed in no respect from such fields and fences, such farms and cottages as lay between High Tor and Carbery. But when the pedestrian reached a guide-post the pointing finger of which was inscribed with the words, ‘To Nomansland, Dedman's Hollow, and Dartmoor,’ he began to see before him evidences that he had left behind him the carefully managed Carbery property, and had entered on a barren region skirting the Royal Forest, and inhabited by a race of squatters who wrested with difficulty a bare subsistence from the sterile soil.
Passing on amid the ragged hedges, the lean cattle, squalid children, and tumble-down hovels of this unattractive population, but acknowledging twice or thrice a half-sullen nod or growl of recognition on the part of some male member of the community who stood whistling or chewing a straw at gate or gap, the wayfarer at last reached a spot where, at the junction of four narrow lanes, stood a dilapidated house of entertainment, its thatched roof stained and broken, and with not a few of the panes in its unwashed windows rudely replaced by boards or sackcloth. An inscription in faded letters over the low-browed doorway had reference to a license to retail beer and spirits for consumption on the premises, and tobacco; while a board nailed to a dead tree hard by bore, in thin black characters, the name of The Traveller's Rest. And into The Traveller's Rest the stranger dived, with all the air of one who feels himself at home.
[CURLING.]
When a black frost seals up the ground, and ice covers our ponds and lochs, among the amusements then open to those north of the Tweed there is none more healthful and exhilarating than the game of curling, the mode of playing at which we shall presently explain for the benefit of our non-initiated readers. This ‘manly Scottish exercise,’ as the old poet Pennycuick calls it, is, as we once before hinted, the worthiest rival of golf in Scotland. Alas, however, it fights this battle under immense disadvantages; the good old times seem to have passed away, when for weeks on end,
O'er burn and loch the warlock Frost
A crystal brig would lay,
and good ice might be confidently counted on for a long time. But being a pastime solely depending upon ice, and good ice, for its existence, this only makes the ardent votaries of the game the more eager to take every advantage of such fleeting chances as the variable winters of our day send them. Night has often been added to day, when the interest in a great match has been more intense than the frost, and the ice has shewn any signs of passing away.
It is always a trial for a curler to see a sheet of ice unoccupied; and when, on a Sunday, the ‘crystal brig’ on some fine loch lies smooth and keen, who has not seen hopeful enthusiasts taking a glance at the virgin expanse, with expression of countenance impossible to misunderstand! The marvel is that the strong temptation is so universally resisted, and that no effect has followed the example set by that Bishop of Orkney two centuries ago, whose ‘process,’ says Baillie in his Letters, ‘came before us; he was a curler on the Sabbath-day.’
No game promotes sociality more than curling; none unites on one common platform the different classes of society better than it does.
The tenant and his jolly laird,
The pastor and his flock,
join in the game without patronage on one side or any loss of respect on the other. Harmony and friendly feeling prevail; and if, on the ice as elsewhere, all men are not equal, it is because a quick eye, a sound head, and a steady hand make now the shepherd, now the laird, ‘king o' a' the core.’
Though so eminently a Scottish game, evidence goes to prove that the pastime was brought to us from the continent not very long ago—three hundred years or so. Some ultra-patriotic curlers claim for it indeed a native origin, or at least one lost in the mists of antiquity, citing a passage in Ossian to prove that the Fingalian heroes beguiled their winters with the game, because in one passage it is said ‘Swaran bends at the stone of might;’ but this notwithstanding, it is quite clear that, as in the case of golf, we are indebted to outsiders for the first rough sketches of the ‘roaring game.’ The technical language of the game is all of Low Country origin, and it is supposed to have been introduced into this country by the Flemish emigrants who settled in Scotland about the end of the fifteenth century. No mention of it is made by any writer for long after this; but it must have been well known in 1607, for Camden, in his Britannia, published in that year, says that in the little island of Copinsha, near the Orkneys, ‘are to be found in great plenty excellent stones for the game called curling.’
At this time and for long after, the game appears to have been merely a rough kind of quoiting on ice; indeed for a great part of the last century its common name in this country was Kuting. The stones of that day, rough undressed blocks—so different from the polished missiles now used—had no handle, but merely a kind of hollow or niche for the finger and thumb, and were evidently intended to be thrown for at least part of the course. Since these days, great strides have been taken in the improvement of the game; now it is highly scientific, and with its many delicate strokes, its ‘wicks,’ calculations of angles, of force, and of bias, it may without presumption be called the billiards of ice. In some places, however, the old game with its primitive implements, usually flattish stones from the bed of the nearest stream, still holds its place under the name of ‘channelling.’
In the bead-roll of curling are no such mighty names as those that golf boasts of; our winter game has not got mixed up with historic events and personages, as the older pastime has; but what her devotees lack in greatness is made up by the intense affection shewn by them in all ages for their favourite sport. It appears to have been a great game with poets. Allan Ramsay and Burns allude to it, and a host of minor bards have sung its praises at varying lengths, but with uniform appreciation of its excellences. One of the most eloquent passages in Christopher North's Winter Rhapsody deplores the failing popularity of the game in his later days; for like many other good things, curling has had its ups and downs in this world. In some few districts where it once flourished for a time, the interest in the game has died out; but of later years the establishment of so many clubs has given a new impetus to the game, which now prospers in its season beyond all former experience. The south-western districts of Scotland were long the chosen home of curling, and the players of Lanark and Dumfriesshire were specially renowned for their great skill in the art; but now it has spread over the whole country, and the grand matches of the Royal Caledonian Curling Club witness the friendly rivalry of worthy foemen from Maidenkirk to John o' Groat's, and excite the enthusiasm of branch clubs south of the Tweed, and even across the Atlantic.
At Edinburgh, perhaps as much as at any other place, has the game prospered within the last century, though in one point the game has lost a recognition it once had, if we believe the old tradition that, about a hundred and fifty years ago, the Town-Council used to go to the ice in all the pomp and circumstance that it now reserves for the Commissioner's procession, with a band playing ‘appropriate airs’ before it, which discoursed sweet music while the fathers of the city gave an hour or two to the game. The citizens then played on the Nor' Loch, a sheet of water which in those days divided the Old Town from the New; when it was drained they went to the ponds at Canonmills, and subsequently to Duddingston Loch, where arose the Duddingston Curling Club, instituted in 1795, which has done great things in infusing a new spirit into the game. Among its members have been many fine curlers and good fellows, famed in other fields than this; and even if the Club had done nothing beyond giving us the capital songs of Sir Alexander Boswell, Miller, and many others, it would have still deserved well of its country.
Of late years, however, there has arisen a mightier than it—the Royal Caledonian Curling Club—now forty years old, which numbers among its members most curlers of note, both at home and abroad; and to which are affiliated all the local societies, who once a year, when the weather permits, send their chosen champions to contend at the grand match held under the auspices of the Royal Club.
Let us now see how the game is played; and first we shall give what is perhaps the earliest description of the game on record, that given by Pennant in his Tour in 1792. ‘Of all the sports of these parts,’ he says, ‘that of curling is the favourite, and one unknown in England. It is an amusement of the winter, and played on the ice by sliding from one mark to another great stones of from forty to seventy pounds weight, of a hemispherical form, with an iron or wooden handle at the top. The object of the player is to lay his stone as near the mark as possible, to guard that of his partner, which had been well laid before, or to strike his antagonist's.’
The game is played on a carefully chosen piece of ice called the ‘rink,’ which should be forty-two yards long, unless special circumstances—such as thaw and consequently ‘dull’ ice—require it to be shortened. This piece of ice should be as level, smooth, and free from cracks as possible; there is usually a trifling bias, which however to the skilled curler rather adds interest to the game, as it calls forth additional science in the play.
When the rink is chosen, a little mark is made at each end; this is called the ‘tee;’ and near that point stands, in his turn, each player, whose object is to hurl or slide his stones to the opposite end, by a swinging motion of the arm. Each player also endeavours to place his stones nearer the tee than those of his opponents. In this respect curling is precisely similar in principle to the well-known game of bowls. Round the tees are scratched several concentric circles or ‘broughs,’ a foot or so apart from each other, by which means the distance at which stones are lying from the goal is seen at a glance at any time during the continuance of the ‘end.’ In the normally long rink, a scratch called the hog-score—usually made wavy, to distinguish it from any accidental crack—is drawn across the line of play near each end, eight yards from the tee; and any stones that have not had impetus enough imparted to them to carry them over this line are ‘hogs,’ and are put off the ice as useless for that end. A common number of players in one rink is eight—four against four; but in some places more play on one side, and in others less, according to circumstances. As a general rule each man plays two stones. The game is counted by points; and each stone of a side closer than their antagonists' nearest, is a point which scores towards the game. It will be observed that ‘tees,’ ‘broughs,’ and ‘hog-scores’ are in duplicate, for as in quoits and bowls, ends are changed after each round.
As in bowls so in curling, the office of ‘skip’ of each side is usually given to the best player; and on his tact and judgment, besides knowledge of the exact amount of confidence he can place on the skill of each of his followers depends much of the success of his side. His chief duty is to stand at the tee for the purpose of directing and advising the play of each of his fellows, always playing last himself, that the critical shot on which perhaps victory or defeat hangs, may be in the best possible hands. Thus, in a rink of four players a side, the skips stand directors until their third men have played both their stones; upon which they proceed to the other end and play theirs.
The course of a game is generally something like this, though in no sport are there greater variations, or more circumstances calling forth all that judgment, skill, and experience only can teach. The ‘lead’ or first player's object is simple: he tries to ‘draw’ his shot—that is, to play his stone up the ice towards the end where stands his skip directing, so that the stone may lie if possible within the rings; and if he is a skilful player, his stone rests say a few feet short of the tee. The lead of the opposite side probably does as nearly the same, or with a little more force applied he perhaps knocks out his opponent's stone and lies in its place. Each of the leads having played two stones, the turn of the second player now comes. If an opposing stone lies near the tee, this player tries to change places with it by driving it away; but if a stone of his own side is next the tee, his play will be to ‘guard’ it—that is, to lay his own stone in a direct line before it, so that the enemy may be less likely to dislodge it. As the game proceeds it gets more intricate—the stones round the tee may have been so placed that the ‘winner’ is perfectly guarded from direct attack. Then is the time for the display of science: an experienced player by a cunning twist of the wrist may make his stone curl so as to carry it past the one that is supposed to guard the winning stone; or he may hit a stone near the winner in an oblique direction, and so cannon off it on to the winning stone and knock it away. This last is called ‘wicking,’ and is exactly a stroke of the same kind so necessary in billiards.
And so the game goes on—a game of give and take; but as Græme says, who can
Follow the experienced player
Through all the mysteries of his art, or teach
The undisciplined how to wick, to guard,
Or ride full out the stone that blocks the pass!
Stories innumerable are told of the delicate feats of aiming performed by enthusiasts of the game; and it is wonderful what skill is often shewn in the shots taken by good curlers with their unwieldy looking weapons; the narrow ‘ports’ or openings between two stones that they can make their missiles pass through, and the dexterity they shew in calculating the bias of the ice and the exact amount of angle necessary to make their cannons. This too, with stones thirty or forty pounds in weight!
Each player provides himself with a broom to sweep up the ice before a too lazy stone; and upon judicious sweeping much of the game depends. The shouts of ‘Soop! soop!’ that follow the signal of the skip; the excited gestures of the ‘capering combatants;’ the constant cries of victory or defeat after the frequent changes of fortune; the general exhilaration of spirits attending a healthy and exciting exercise in the bracing air of winter—all tend to make the scene an extraordinary one. Of course if, instead of the ordinary match or game among the members of a club, we are witnessing a ‘bonspiel’ or match between two rival clubs or parishes, the excitement is much intensified. Wraps put on by the careful goodwives' hands before the curlers left home are recklessly cast aside; brawny arms vigorously ply the besoms; strong lungs shout out encouragement; and the engrossed combatants await the issue of a shot in all the attitudes so cunningly portrayed in Sir George Harvey's well-known picture. Of course the point of most breathless interest is when perhaps one shot must decide the game. Hear how that inimitable curling song-writer, the Rev. Dr Duncan, describes that moment:
A moment's silence, still as death,
Pervades the anxious thrang, man,
Then sudden bursts the victors' shout,
Wi' hollos loud and lang, man;
Triumphant besoms wave in air,
And friendly banters fly, man;
Whilst, cold and hungry, to the inn
Wi' eager steps they hie, man;
where awaits them the true curlers' dinner of ‘beef and greens;’ to which simple viands the appetites, sharpened by the keen frost, do ample justice. And if a temperate tumbler of toddy is emptied, what then? A merry evening is spent; and however keen the contest has been, or strong the rivalry between closely matched parishes, we can always say with the old song:
They met baith merry in the morn,
At night they parted friends.
During these jovial evenings, ‘in words the fight renewed is fought again,’ and many stories of past curling are told—one of which we shall take an early opportunity of offering to our readers.
[MUSIC AND POETRY.]
Art in its different developments may be said to express one idea—beauty. As in different parts of the world different languages are spoken, which all express the same thoughts and feelings, though in different ways, so all the arts are but the various ways of expressing the one moving spirit, the one idea, which is beauty. Painting exhibits or expresses beauty of colour; Sculpture, beauty of form; Architecture, beauty of proportion; Music, beauty of harmony; Poetry, beauty of thought. Each is in some measure transferable to, or capable of part expression by, the others. Thus painting may exhibit the beauty of form as in sculpture, and architecture may combine the beauties both of painting and sculpture, while poetry can in some measure unite the properties of each art.
The various thoughts and feelings of humanity are capable of being expressed in art, in every branch of it. Joy and sorrow, triumph and despair, can be expressed alike faithfully by music, painting, or poetry. The pain that is never entirely absent from this painful earth, aches in sculpture, in verse, and in melody; the love that beats in the great heart of the universe, breathes from the canvas, the marble, and the minstrel. Two arts especially are so blended as to be almost synonymous—Music and Poetry. Poetry is inarticulate music, harmony is song without words. Poetry is perhaps the highest of all arts, because all the others appeal to the soul through the external senses; while poetry, without sound, without beauty either of form or colour, unites the power of all. Something of the earth is necessary to the production of the other arts; pigments, marbles, strings, instruments of various sorts are indispensable to all except poetry; therefore poetry is the divine art, for it comes direct from the soul. Exquisite word-painting describes a scene as vividly as any painting; perfect rhythm is the purest harmony, and all art is combined in a poem which depicts with the fidelity of painting, which is symmetrical with the perfect proportions of architecture, and which breathes the melody of music.
From the earliest ages, songs have been the heart-notes of nations; the simplest form of poetry, yet the most popular, because written directly from the heart to the heart. Heroic deeds were celebrated in song, love-stories were immortalised in song, ere there was a note of written music or a word of written verse. Thus the twin-sister arts music and poetry, in their infancy scarce distinguishable, passed on hand in hand; but with the lapse of years they grew more divided, their different features becoming more developed, until now, their triumphs have apparently raised a barrier between them, and people forget that they are twin; but the chord of sympathy is still there. The union is not less; it is only less visible, because more intricate. It is impossible briefly to state all the points where the sister-muses are at one; let us simply, by pointing out a few examples from the great masters of each, attempt to shew that music and poetry are still closely allied.
The three great moving powers of humanity are Faith, Reason, Passion—the Soul, the Head, the Heart. Faith, reverence, worship, or by whatever name may be called that feeling in man which causes him to adore a being greater than himself, has been expressed in poetry by Milton; in music by Handel. Reason, the thoughts of the human mind, the gropings after a true philosophy, has been expressed in the poetry of Shelley, in the music of Mendelssohn. Passion—each varied emotion that throbs in the heart of man, is expressed in the poetry of Byron, in the music of Beethoven. Others might be cited, and resemblances carried to any extent between poets and musicians; but the above may suffice, being not merely fanciful definitions, but thorough truths, fully borne out in fact; not ideal but real.
There is first the poetry and music in which the feeling of worship, the element of religion, is prime agent. Milton can be fairly taken as the poet of reverence. Owing to the peculiar circumstances of his life and times, the great power of his verse is a cry against the follies and sins of a debased people, an earnest cry for more strength of purpose, more firmness of will. It all strives to exalt a Deity who was like to be forgotten by a nation steeped in the vices and frivolities of Cavalier times. Grand and impressive his verse flows on, a mighty flood, with the hidden strength which shews itself in calm still progress.
Like the full rich notes of the organ sound the words of Milton, as also the noble chords of Handel, whose music, like Milton's verse, is full of adoration. Strange that both in their later years were blind. Could it be that the closing of the eyes of the flesh opened the eyes of the soul to a clearer vision and a more real conception of the Deity? The majesty of God, the insignificance of man, the eternal triumph of good over evil, are their themes, and in the same tones are they uttered. Handel and Milton sound like one voice, now in tones of beseeching tenderness—Miserere Domine wailing forth the plaint of sorrow in accents piteous with the burden of woe; again with righteous indignation they witheringly scathe the enemies of the truth and the spirit of evil; and, in Gloria in Excelsis they unite in praising the power of the Deity above all names, the one spirit, the ‘I am’ of the universe.
From the earliest times until now, man has been trying to solve the riddle of existence, eagerly striving after a true philosophy which shall satisfactorily explain to his reason all the complex mechanism of his nature. The highest intellect has vainly striven to pierce the mysteries of time and eternity, until the torch of reason becomes only an ignis fatuus, leading to dangerous wilds, where there is no path. In poetry the pure reason of man has had few such brilliant exponents as Shelley. Gifted with daring imagination, his genius darted in its wild flight like the lightning from out the storm-cloud; far above the earth his spirit seemed to float, while he breathed forth his marvellous song and toyed with the clouds and the spirits of the spheres. Intellect was his god; he revelled in the beauty of Nature and in the mystic shadows of psychological dreams. His eager soul was ever yearning for a something undefined to satisfy the vague longings of a mind that will take nothing for granted, that cannot believe what it does not understand. Therefore the works of Shelley are admirable examples of the poetry of the intellect.
Mendelssohn is his counterpart in music; there is the same vivid imagination, the same perfection of harmony, the same wealth of melody in the works of both. His music displays a rich intellect and a brilliant fancy; in it there is mechanical perfection; there is all that knowledge and education can do; heart only is awanting. His cultured mind conjures up sweet sounds, delicate airy visions, grand solemn strains; but there is never a touch of passion in it all. Carefully polished into perfection, the intricacies of his music convey the idea that a vast amount of effort and labour has been bestowed on their production. But in this he differs from Shelley, for Shelley's song is free, spontaneous as a bird's, and in it there is the fire, the passion which Mendelssohn lacks.
Thus, though there are slight differences in the way in which the intellect is developed in the works of those two masters, yet they both exhibit, above all, the reason, the intellect of man in its highest state of culture. Rich, melodious, dreamy are they both; and each leaves on the listener the same impression as of wandering through a land of perfect loveliness, peopled by beautiful spirits, chanting music now full of exquisite fancies, and again uttering wild cries for that rest and peace which the intellect alone cannot give. A fairy world is that dream-land of Shelley and of Mendelssohn.
Ever nearer to human nature is the music of the heart, the one thing in the universe that changes not. Intellect with the advancing ages advances and changes; religions vary in different lands; but although languages, manners, everything be different, the heart of man remains the same: ‘One touch of nature makes the whole world kin.’ Difference of language or of creed is no barrier to the appreciation of Shakspeare, of Mozart, of Raphael. True genius speaks to human nature from the depths of an intensest sympathy, a melody, a thought, which no boundary-line can limit, no distinction of race retard.
How is it that the sublimest music and the most entrancing verse are the results of sorrow? How is it that ‘sweetness is wrung out of pain, as the juice is crushed away from the cane?’ Out of the fire comes the purified gold, and out of the furnace of trial and pain and sorrow, comes that perfect sympathy which lies at the root of genius. Pain develops faculties which would otherwise lie dormant, and thus out of much suffering grew the deathless song of Byron and the immortal music of Beethoven. Nursed by neglect, fostered by contempt, grew their soul-children into a life which triumphed over the scorn which had slighted their infancy—beautiful soul-children, that shall live for ever in the eternal youth of genius. So long as the heart of humanity shall continue to throb, so long shall continue Byron's verse and Beethoven's harmonies. The heart, with its passionate longings, its hope and despair, its delight and its utter weariness, is embodied in the works of both. Strains of infinite tenderness and burning notes of passionate intensity, go to the heart of the listener with that strange undefinable power—that thrill, which is the charm of Beethoven's music. That composer once remarked that ‘music should strike fire from the heart of man, and bring tears from the eyes of woman.’ His music has accomplished both. The works of other musicians may delight or astonish; Weber's sweet notes have a home in many hearts, and Mozart's versatile genius has given to dramatic music its highest expression; but we venture to say that none exercises that marvellous fascination, none weaves the spell of enchantment which dwells in the burning notes of the master musician.
And in Byron's poetry there is the same indescribable attraction, because there is the same power. At present it is the fashion to sneer at his magnificent genius, to humble it ever the lower, the higher is raised the present school, who write of vague shadowy beings, and are strangely destitute of genuine life or passion. The conventional society of the present time is most fittingly mirrored in the conventional poetry of the day. Anything like tender emotion is carefully concealed. In the poetry of Byron there is no straining after effect, no halting for a word or a metaphor; on, ever on flows the song in a resistless tide. His poetry, like that of Burns, his equally gifted brother, is not made; it breathes, it burns; and is a genuine creation. In Byron's poetry love and hate are no mere affectations; they are genuinely depicted, and meant; while sorrow is touched with the tender cadence of a real grief. There beats in all his verse a true throbbing heart, with all the inconsistencies of temperament which belong to human nature. There is the secret of his power, the magic of his verse, which must live so long as hearts shall beat to the tune of love, and there are sorrows in this world of unrest.
The universality of this heart-music is easily understood, even though the intellect of man be ever changing; and each new science in its turn alter the aspect of affairs; each new philosophy seem to overthrow the previous schools. As knowledge becomes more extended, materialism wages a sterner battle against idealism, and a ‘reason’ that must comprehend all the mysteries of existence, that must apply the crucible to everything, bids fair to abolish ‘heart’ altogether, as an antiquated emotion; and yet throughout all ages to come, the one touch of nature will still make ‘the whole world kin.’
Unaffected in the main by religion or education, we see the same feelings, with all their varying moods, in the inhabitants of the sunniest climes or of the lands of winter snows. Thus is the heart of man ever the same. True genius speaks to that heart; hence it is universal, and can never die. The language of Homer is now esteemed dead, but is the Iliad dead? The land of Dante has been steeped in a long sleep, but has the Inferno been forgotten? The birthplace of Michael Angelo is disputed, but none disputes the power of his imperishable marbles.
Bright in the beauty of eternal youth, live the song-notes of genius whether in verse or music; age cannot mar the freshness of their charm; time cannot lessen the power of their fascination. Empires are overthrown, victories lost and won, kingdoms once in the first rank are fallen behind, and young nations are spurring on to the front; the world, ever in a turmoil, is a perpetual kaleidoscope of change; but through the clang of battle these voices sound triumphant, and still to the weary and the suffering they whisper peace and comfort.
[THE BELL-RINGER.]
IN FOUR CHAPTERS.