than which no sort of life appertaining to a stool can be more disagreeable, we should imagine—to the head which it is about to come in contact with. We doubt whether Mr Patmore’s, or rather Sir Hubert’s, chairs and tables ever acquired such a vigorous and unpleasant vitality as that. What may have happened to the “stools” after Mabel was married to Sir Hubert, we cannot take it upon us to say. At any rate, we prefer the Scotch poet’s description, as somewhat the more pithy, and graphic, and intelligible of the two. The coincidence, however, is remarkable.
After Sir Hubert has retired to his farm, the state of his feelings is described in the following stanzas. We suspect that the metaphysical acumen of Boccacio himself would have been a good deal puzzled to unravel the meaning of some of them.
“He gather’d consolation,
As before, where best he might:
But though there was the difference
That he now could claim a right
To grieve as much as pleased him,
It was six years, since his sight
“Had fed on Mabel’s features;
So that Hubert scarcely knew
What traits to give the vision
Which should fill his eyes with dew:—
For she must needs, by that time,
Have become another, who,
“In girlhood’s triple glory,
(For a higher third outflows
Whenever Promise marries
With Completion,) troubled those
That saw, with trouble sweeter
Than the sweetest of repose.
“It, therefore, was the business
Of his thoughts to try to trace
The probable fulfilment
Of her former soul and face,—
From buds deducing blossoms.
For, although an easy space
“Led from the farm of Hubert
To where Mabel’s castle stood,
Closed in, a league on all sides.
With wall’d parks and wealthy wood,
No chance glimpse could be look’d for,
So recluse her widowhood.
“Hence seasons past, and Hubert
Earn’d his bread, but leisure spent
In loved dissatisfaction,
Which he made his element
Of choice, as much as, till then,
He had sought it in content.”
If the verses above would have baffled the sagacity of the father of Italian literature, what would he have thought of the following, in which the interview between Sir Hubert and Mabel is described, when the lady comes to negotiate with him about the hawk? She accosts him, “Sir Hubert!” and then there is presented to our imaginations such a picture of female loveliness, as (thank Heaven!) can only be done justice to in the language which is employed for the occasion.
“‘Sir Hubert!’—and, that instant,
Mabel saw the fresh light flush
Out of her rosy shoulders,
And perceived her sweet blood hush
About her, till, all over,
There shone forth a sumptuous blush—