Equally musical, but full of the more personal sentiment of our century, is that lovely song, "A Shadow," beginning,
"What lack the valleys and mountains
That once were green and gay?"
Quite different in tone, full of ringing harmony, is the little poem of "Now?"
"Rise, for the day is passing,
And you lie dreaming on;
The others have buckled their armor,
And forth to the fight are gone.
A place in the ranks awaits you—
Each man has some part to play;
The Past and the Future are nothing
In the face of the stern To-day."
And so on, through four spirited verses. Something in these strikes the ear as peculiarly illustrative of the active pious spirit of her who wrote them, of the voice whose every tone was so dear, and of the smile whose arch intelligence conveyed the same expression of lively decision.
We must now bring our remarks to a close, having tried to indicate the different qualities of Miss Procter's verse. The permanent place which it will retain in English literature it is not for us to decide. She has had the power to strike the heart of her own generation by its simple pathos. That it is purely original of its kind can hardly be denied; but it is hard, if not impossible, so far to separate ourselves from the standard of our own generation as to judge where the limits of the special, and therefore the transient, elements of fame are passed. But we at least must not be wanting in gratitude to one of the sweetest singers of the day that was hers and our own.
From The Sixpenny Magazine.
THE ADVENTURE.
Sir Brian O'Brian McMurrough commenced life as possessor of a nominal rent-roll of twelve thousand pounds sterling per annum, although in reality, between mortgages, and rent-charges, and incumbrances of every possible shape and hue, probably five would represent the net sum received by the proprietor. Still, it was not the age of economical reflection, nor was the young baronet either a financier or a philosopher. He had been cradled in luxury, and bowed down to with slavish senility; he had been educated at Cambridge, and, one way or other, his bills there had been met, though not always pleasantly, by his father. He had travelled over Europe, Asia, and a good part of America, for four years, and at last a letter had caught him at Vienna, telling him that his father, Sir Patrick, had died suddenly, "full of years and honors," and that he was now the representative of one of "the oldest and best families in Ireland," and possessor of its splendid estates, etc. On his return home he was surrounded by troops of friends and hordes of sycophants, and for some years was far too much engaged in pleasure not to let business attend to itself. His fathers had lived "like kings," and he had too much the spirit of an Irish, gentleman to let prudence or economy come "between the wind and his nobility." He married, too, and chose for his wife a far-descended and beautiful pauper, with tastes to the full as reckless and extravagant as his own. This lady had brought him a daughter, who lived, and in four years after [{844}] a son, who had died a few hours after his birth, and whose death preceded that of his mother by a single day. After her death Sir Brian became more careless and reckless than ever. His spirits sank as his debts mounted; he saw from the first that ruin was inevitable; section after section of his splendid estates were put up for sale and swept away; until at last all that remained to him was a half-ruined building, called "The Black Abbey," which he sometimes used as a shooting and fishing lodge in happier days, and a tract of mountain land, wild, and for the most part sterile and unprofitable, and for part of which he paid rent. In the present gloomy temper of his soul, however, it suited his humor. The building stood halfway up a mountain, the base of which was almost washed by the waters of a broad lake, or lough, and from which it was only separated by a slip of meadow. The lake itself was several miles in extent, and at least three miles and a half broad immediately opposite the abbey, to which the only access from the mainland was by a skiff or boat, except you chose to travel several miles round so as to head the lake. It was a romantic but utterly desolate retreat, made still more so, if possible, by the sullen gloom which had now taken possession of the fallen man. He had secured some remnants of a once splendid library, and sometimes amused himself by teaching his daughter Eva, although there were weeks at one time when a restless and morose spirit beset him, and then with a gun in his hand he wandered idly through the mountains, or with a boy, named Paudreèn, took to his yacht, and was never to be seen on shore, sometimes sleeping on board, or bivouacking on some of the many small islands which dotted the loch.