GRAY'S ALCAIC ODE.
Circumstances enable me to give a reply, which I believe will be found correct, to the inquiry of "C.B." in p. 382. of your 24th Number, "Whether Gray's celebrated Latin Ode is actually to be found entered at the Grande Chartreuse?" The fact is, that the French Revolution—that whirlwind which swept from the earth all that came within its reach and seemed elevated enough to offer opposition—spared not the poor monks of the Chartreuse. A rabble from Grenoble and other places, attacked the monastery; burnt, plundered, or destroyed their books, papers, and property, and dispersed the inmates; while the buildings were left standing, not from motives of respect, but because they would have been troublesome and laborious to pull down, and were not sufficiently combustible to burn.
In travelling on the Continent with a friend, during the summer of 1817, we made a pilgrimage to the Grande Chartreuse, reaching it from the side of the Echelles. It was an interesting moment; for at that very time the scattered remains of the society had collected together, and were just come again to take possession of and reinhabit their old abode. And being their jour de spaciment, the whole society was before us, as they returned from their little pilgrimage up the mountain, where they had been visiting St. Bruno's chapel and spring; and it was impossible not to think with respect of the self-devotion of these men, who, after having for many years partaken (in a greater or less degree) of the habits and comforts of a civilised life, had thus voluntarily withdrawn themselves once more to their stern yet beautiful solitude (truly, as Gray calls it, a locus severus), there to practise the severities of their order, without, it may be supposed, any possessions or means, except what they were themselves enabled to throw into a common stock; for nearly the whole of their property had been seized by the government during the Revolution, and was still held by it.
Our conversation was almost wholly with two of the fathers (they use the prefix Dom), whose names I forget, and have mislaid my memorandum of them. One of these had been in England, when driven out; and was there protected by the Weld family in Dorsetshire, of whom he spoke in terms of sincere gratitude and respect. The other told us that he was a native of Chambery, and had done no more than cross the mountains to get home. On asking him for Gray's Ode, he shook his head, saying, the Revolution had robbed them of that, and every thing else; but repeated the first line of it, so that there was no mistake as to the object of my inquiry. From what occurred afterwards, it appears, however, to be questionable whether he knew more than the first line; for I was informed that later English travellers had been attempting, from a laudable desire of diffusing information, to write out the whole in the present Album of the Chartreuse, by contributing a line or stanza, as their recollection served; but that, after all, this pic-nic composition was not exactly what Gray wrote. Of course, had our friend the Dom known how to supply the deficiencies, he would have done it.
There is a translation of the Ode by James Hay Beattie, son of the professor and poet, printed amongst his poems, which is much less known than its merits deserve. And I would beg to suggest to such of your readers as may in the course of their travels visit this monastery, that books (need I say proper ones?) would be a most acceptable present to the library; also, that there is a regular Album kept, in which those who, in this age of "talent" and "intelligence," consider themselves able to write better lines than Gray's, are at liberty to do so if they please.
A very happy conjecture appeared in the European Magazine some time between 1804 and 1808, as to the conclusion of the stanzas to Mr. Beattie. The corner of the paper on which they had been written as torn off; and Mr. Mason supplies what is deficient in the following manner, the words added by him being printed in Italics:—
"Enough for me, if to some feeling breast
My lines a secret sympathy impart;
And as their pleasing influence flows confest,
A sign of soft reflection heave the heart."
This, it will be seen, is prosaic enough; but the correspondent of the E. Mag. supposes the lines to have ended differently; and that the poet, in some peculiar fit of modesty, tore off the name. His version is this:—
"Enough for me, if to some feeling breast,
My lines a secret sympathy convey;
And as their pleasing influence is imprest,
A sigh of soft reflection heave for Gray."
One word upon another poet, Byron v. Tacitus, in p. 390. of your 24th Number. There can be no doubt that the noble writer had this passage of Tacitus in his mind, when he committed the couplet in question to paper; but, in all probability, he considered it so well known as not to need acknowledgment. Others have alluded to it in the same way. The late Rev. W. Crowe, B.C.L., of New College, Oxford, and public orator of that University, in some lines recited by his son at the installation of Lord Grenville, has the following:—
"And when he bids the din of war to cease,
He calls the silent desolation—peace."
I wonder where Lord Byron stole stanzas 1, 2, 3, 4, of the second canto of The Bride of Abydos; to say nothing of some more splendid passages in the first and second cantos of Childe Harold?
W. (1.)