5 BEAUMONT AND FLETCHER.
I have not mentioned the name of the old Quaker in my story; but I will preserve it in these pages because the story is to his honour. It was Joshua Dickson. If Quakers have (and certainly they have) the quality which is called modest assurance in a superlative degree that distinguishes them from any other class of men, (it is of the men only that I speak) they are the only sect, who as a sect, cultivate the sense of conscience. This was not a case of conscience, but of strong feeling assuming that character under a tendency to madness.
When Lord Harcourt about the same time removed the village of Nuneham, an old widow Barbara Wyat by name, earnestly intreated that she might be allowed to remain in her old habitation. The request which it would have been most unfeeling to refuse, was granted; she ended her days there, and then the cottage was pulled down: but a tree which grew beside it, and which she had planted in her youth, is still shown on the terrace at Nuneham, and called by her name. Near it is placed the following Inscription by that amiable man the Laureate Whitehead. Like all his serious poems it may be read with pleasure and profit,—though the affecting circumstance which gives the anecdote its highest interest is related only in a note.
This Tree was planted by a female hand,
In the gay dawn of rustic beauty's glow;
And fast beside it did her cottage stand,
When age had clothed the matron's head with snow.
To her long used to nature's simple ways,
This single spot was happiness compleat;
Her tree could shield her from the noontide blaze
And from the tempest screen her little seat.
Here with her Colin oft the faithful maid,
Had led the dance, the envious youths among,
Here when his aged bones in earth were laid,
The patient matron turned her wheel and sung.
She felt her loss, yet felt it as she ought,
Nor dared 'gainst Nature's general law exclaim,
But checkt her tears and to her children taught
That well known truth their lot would be the same.
The Thames before her flowed, his farther shores
She ne'er explored, contented with her own;
And distant Oxford, tho' she saw its towers,
To her ambition was a world unknown.
Did dreadful tales the clowns from market bear
Of kings and tumults and the courtier train,
She coldly listened with unheeding ear,
And good Queen Anne, for aught she cared, might reign.
The sun her day, the seasons marked her year,
She toiled, she slept, from care, from envy free;
For what had she to hope, or what to fear,
Blest with her cottage, and her favourite Tree.
Hear this ye Great, whose proud possessions spread
O'er earth's rich surface to no space confined!
Ye learn'd in arts, in men, in manners read,
Who boast as wide an empire o'er the mind,
With reverence visit her august domain;
To her unlettered memory bow the knee;
She found that happiness you seek in vain,
Blest with a cottage, and a single Tree.6
6 The Classical reader will be aware that the Author of these lines had Claudian's “Old Man of Verona” in his mind's eye, as Claudian had Virgil's “Corycian Old Man.”—Georg. iv. 127.
Mason would have produced a better inscription upon this subject, in the same strain; Southey in a different one, Crabbe would have treated it with more strength, Bowles with a finer feeling, so would his kinswoman and namesake Caroline, than whom no author or authoress has ever written more touchingly, either in prose or verse. Wordsworth would have made a picture from it worthy of a place in the great Gallery of his Recluse. But Whitehead's is a remarkable poem, considering that it was produced during what has been not unjustly called the neap tide of English poetry: and the reader who should be less pleased with it than offended by its faults, may have cause to suspect that his refinement has injured his feelings in a greater degree than it has improved his taste.
CHAPTER CCXXXIII.
THE PETTY GERMAN PRINCES EXCELLENT PATRONS OF LITERATURE AND LEARNED MEN.—THE DUKE OF SAXE WEIMAR.—QUOTATION FROM BP. HACKET.—AN OPINION OF THE EXCELLENT MR. BOYLE.—A TENET OF THE DEAN OF CHALON, PIERRE DE ST. JULIEN,—AND A VERITABLE PLANTAGENET.