The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 08, No. 48, October, 1861

"Thus far both armies to Belinda yield,"

onward to the couplet,

  "And thrice they twitch'd the Diamond in her Ear,  Thrice she look'd back, and thrice the Foe drew near."

Besides this autographic addition, enhancing forever the value of this old copy of Pope's immortal poem, I find the following little note, in Lamb's clerkly chirography, addressed to

"Mr. Wainright, on Thursday.

"Dear Sir,

"The Wits (as Clare calls us) assemble at my cell (20 Russell Street, Cov. Gar.) this evening at 1/4 before 7. Cold meat at 9. Puns at–a little after. Mr. Cary wants to see you, to scold you. I hope you will not fail.

"Yours &c. &c. &c.

"C. LAMB."

There are two books in my friend's library which once belonged to the author of the "Elegy in a Country Churchyard." One of them is "A Voyage to and from the Island of Borneo, in the East Indies: printed for T. Warner at the Black Boy, and F. Batley at the Dove, in 1718." It has the name of T. Gray, written by himself, in the middle of the title-page, as was his custom always. Before Gray owned this book, it belonged to Mr. Antrobus, his uncle, who wrote many original notes in it. The volume has also this manuscript memorandum on one of the fly-leaves, signed by a well-known naturalist, now living in England:—

"August 28, 1851.

"This book has Gray's autograph on the title page, written in his usual neat hand. It has twice been my fate to witness the sale of Gray's most interesting collection of manuscripts and books, and at the last sale I purchased this volume. I present it to – as a little token of affectionate regard by her old friend, now in his 85th year."

Who will not be willing to admit the great good-luck of my friend in having such a donor for an acquaintance?

But one of the chief treasures in the library of which I write is Gray's copy of Milton's "Poems upon several occasions. Both English and Latin. Printed at the Blew Anchor next Mitre Court over against Fetter Lane in Fleet Street." When a boy at school, Gray owned and read this charming old volume, and he has printed his name, school-boy fashion, all over the title-page. Wherever there is a vacant space big enough to hold Thomas Gray, there it stands in faded ink, still fading as time rolls on. The Latin poems seem to have been most carefully conned by the youthful Etonian, and we know how much he esteemed them in after-life.

* * * * *

Scholarly Robert Southey once owned a book that now towers aloft in my friend's library. It is a princely copy of Ben Jonson, the Illustrious. Southey lent it, when he possessed the magnifico, to Coleridge, who has begemmed it all over with his fine pencillings. As Ben once handled the trowel, and did other honorable work as a bricklayer, Coleridge discourses with much golden gossip about the craft to which the great dramatist once belonged. The editor of this magazine would hardly thank me, if I filled ten of his pages with extracts from the rambling dissertations in S.T.C.'s handwriting which I find in this rare folio, but I could easily pick out that amount of readable matter from the margins. One manuscript anecdote, however, I must transcribe from the last leaf. I think Coleridge got the story from "The Seer."

"An Irish laborer laid a wager with another hod bearer that the latter could not carry him up the ladder to the top of a house in his hod, without letting him fall. The bet is accepted, and up they go. There is peril at every step. At the top of the ladder there is life and the loss of the wager,—death and success below! The highest point is reached in safety; the wagerer looks humbled and disappointed. 'Well,' said he, 'you have won; there is no doubt of that; worse luck to you another time; but at the third story I HAD HOPES.'"

* * * * *

In a quaint old edition of "The Spectator," which seems to have been through many sieges, and must have come to grief very early in its existence, if one may judge anything from the various names which are scrawled upon it in different years, reaching back almost to the date of its publication, I find this note in the handwriting of Addison, sticking fast on the reverse side of his portrait. It is addressed to Ambrose Philips, and there is no doubt that he went where he was bidden, and found the illustrious Joseph all ready to receive him at a well-furnished table.

"Tuesday Night.

"Sir,

"If you are at leisure for an hour, your company will be a great obligation to

"Yr. most humble sev't.

"J. Addison.

"Fountain Tavern."

That night at the "Fountain," perchance, they discussed that war of words which might then have been raging between the author of the "Pastorals" and Pope, moistening their clay with a frequency to which they were both somewhat notoriously inclined.

My friend rides hard her hobby for choice editions, and she hunts with a will whenever a good old copy of a well-beloved author is up for pursuit. She is not a fop in binding, but she must have appropriate dresses for her favorites. She knows what

"Adds a precious seeing to the eye"

as well as Hayday himself, and never lets her folios shiver when they ought to be warm. Moreover, she reads her books, and, like the scholar in Chaucer, would rather have

           "At her beddès head  A twenty bokes, clothed in black and red,  Of Aristotle and his philosophy,  Than robes rich, or fiddle, or psaltrie."

I found her not long ago deep in a volume of "Mr. Welsted's Poems"; and as that author is not particularly lively or inviting to a modern reader, I begged to know why he was thus honored. "I was trying," said she, "to learn, if possible, why Dicky Steele should have made his daughter a birth-day gift of these poems. This copy I found on a stall in Fleet Street many years ago, and it has in Sir Richard's handwriting this inscription on one of the fly-leaves:—

"ELIZABETH STEELE      Her Book  Giv'n by Her Father           RICHARD STEELE  March 20th, 1723

"Running my eye over the pieces, I find a poem in praise of 'Apple-Pye,' and one of the passages in it is marked, as if to call the attention of young Eliza to something worthy her notice. These are the lines the young lady is charged to remember:—

  "'Dear Nelly, learn with Care the Pastry-Art,  And mind the easy Precepts I impart:  Draw out your Dough elaborately thin.  And cease not to fatigue your Rolling-Pin:  Of Eggs and Butter see you mix enough;  For then the Paste will swell into a Puff,  Which will in crumpling Sounds your Praise report,  And eat, as Housewives speak, exceeding short.'"

Who was Abou Ben Adhem? Was his existence merely in the poet's brain, or did he walk this planet somewhere,—and when? In a copy of the "Bibliothèque Orientale," which once belonged to the author of that exquisite little gem of poesy beginning with a wish that Abou's tribe might increase, I find (the leaf is lovingly turned down and otherwise noted) the following account of the forever famous dreamer.

"Adhem was the name of a Doctor celebrated for Mussulman traditions. He was the contemporary of Aamarsch, another relater of traditions of the first class. Adhem had a son noted for his doctrine and his piety. The Mussulmans place him among the number of their Saints who have done miracles. He was named Abou-Ishak-Ben-Adhem. It is said he was distinguished for his piety from his earliest youth, and that he joined the Sofis, or the Religious sect in Mecca, under the direction of Fodhail. He went from there to Damas, where he died in the year 166 of the Hegira. He undertook, it is said, to make a pilgrimage from Mecca, and to pass through the desert alone and without provisions, making a thousand genuflexions for every mile of the way. It is added that he was twelve years in making this journey, during which he was often tempted and alarmed by Demons. The Khalife Haroun Raschid, making the same pilgrimage, met him upon the way and inquired after his welfare; the Sofi answered him with an Arabian quatrain, of which this is the meaning:—

"'We mend the rags of this worldly robe with the pieces of the robe of

Religion, which we tear apart for this end;

"'And we do our work so thoroughly that nothing remains of the latter,

"'And the garment we mend escapes out of our hands.

"'Happy is the servant who has chosen God for his master, and who employs his present good only to acquire those which he awaits.'

"It is related also of Abou, that he saw in a dream an Angel who wrote, and that having demanded what he was doing, the Angel answered, 'I write the names of those who love God sincerely, those who perform Malek-Ben-Dinár, Thaber-al-Benáni, Aioud-al-Sakhtiáni, etc.' Then said he to the Angel, 'Am I not placed among these?' 'No,' replied the Angel. 'Ah, well,' said he, 'write me, then, I pray you, for love of these, as the friend of all who love the Lord.' It is added, that the same Angel revealed to him soon after that he had received an order from God to place him at the head of all the rest. This is the same Abou who said that he preferred Hell with the will of God to Paradise without it; or, as another writer relates it: 'I love Hell, if I am doing the will of God, better than the enjoyments of Paradise and disobedience.'"

* * * * *

With books printed by "B. Franklin, Philadelphia," my friend's library is richly stored. One of them is "The Charter of Privileges, granted by William Penn Esq: to the Inhabitants of Pennsylvania and Territories." "PRINTED AND SOLD BY B. FRANKLIN" looks odd enough on the dingy title-page of this old volume, and the contents are full of interest. Rough days were those when "Jehu Curtis" was "Speaker of the House," and put his name to such documents as this:—

"And Be it Further Enacted by the authority aforesaid, That if any Person shall wilfully or premeditately be guilty of Blasphemy, and shall thereof be legally convicted, the Person so offending shall, for every such Offence, be set in the Pillory for the space of Two Hours, and be branded on his or her Foreshead with the letter B, and be publickly whipt, on his or her bare Back, with Thirty nine Lashes well laid on."

* * * * *

But I am rambling on too far and too fast for to-day. Here is one more book, however, that I must say a word about, as it lies open on my knee, the gift of PUIR ROBBIE BURNS to a female friend,—his own poems,—the edition which gave him "so much real happiness to see in print." Laid in this copy of his works is a sad letter, in the poet's handwriting, which perhaps has never been printed. Addressed to Captain Hamilton, Dumfries, it is in itself a touching record of dear Robin's poverty, and a' that.

"SIR,

"It is needless to attempt an apology for my remissness to you in money matters; my conduct is beyond all excuse.—Literally, Sir, I had it not. The Distressful state of commerce at this town has this year taken from my otherwise scanty income no less than £20.—That part of my salary depends upon the Imposts, and they are no more for one year. I inclose you three guineas; and shall soon settle all with you. I shall not mention your goodness to me; it is beyond my power to describe either the feelings of my wounded soul at not being able to pay you as I ought; or the grateful respect with which I have the honor to be

"Sir, Your deeply obliged humble servant,

"ROBT. BURNS.

"Dumfries, Jany. 29, 1795."

And so I walk out of my friend's leafy paradise this July afternoon, thinking of the bard who in all his songs and sorrows made

       "rustic life and poverty  Grow beautiful beneath his touch,"

and whose mission it was

"To weigh the inborn worth of man."

THE NAME IN THE BARK

  The self of so long ago,  And the self I struggle to know,  I sometimes think we are two,—or are we shadows of one?  To-day the shadow I am  Comes back in the sweet summer calm  To trace where the earlier shadow flitted awhile in the sun.  Once more in the dewy morn  I trod through the whispering corn,  Cool to my fevered cheek soft breezy kisses were blown;  The ribboned and tasselled grass  Leaned over the flattering glass,  And the sunny waters trilled the same low musical tone.  To the gray old birch I came,  Where I whittled my school-boy name:  The nimble squirrel once more ran skippingly over the rail,  The blackbirds down among  The alders noisily sung,  And under the blackberry-brier whistled the serious quail.  I came, remembering well  How my little shadow fell,  As I painfully reached and wrote to leave to the future a sign:  There, stooping a little, I found  A half-healed, curious wound,  An ancient scar in the bark, but no initial of mine!  Then the wise old boughs overhead  Took counsel together, and said,—  And the buzz of their leafy lips like a murmur of prophecy passed,—  "He is busily carving a name  In the tough old wrinkles of fame;  But, cut he as deep as he may, the lines will close over at last!"  Sadly I pondered awhile,  Then I lifted my soul with a smile,  And I said,—"Not cheerful men, but anxious children are we,  Still hurting ourselves with the knife,  As we toil at the letters of life,  Just marring a little the rind, never piercing the heart of the tree."  And now by the rivulet's brink  I leisurely saunter, and think  How idle this strife will appear when circling ages have run,  If then the real I am  Descend from the heavenly calm,  To trace where the shadow I seem once flitted awhile in the sun.

AGNES OF SORRENTO

CHAPTER XII. PERPLEXITIES

Agnes returned from the confessional with more sadness than her simple life had ever known before. The agitation of her confessor, the tremulous eagerness of his words, the alternations of severity and tenderness in his manner to her, all struck her only as indications of the very grave danger in which she was placed, and the awfulness of the sin and condemnation which oppressed the soul of one for whom she was conscious of a deep and strange interest.

She had the undoubting, uninquiring reverence which a Christianly educated child of those times might entertain for the visible head of the Christian Church, all whose doings were to be regarded with an awful veneration which never even raised a question.

That the Papal throne was now filled by a man who had bought his election with the wages of iniquity, and dispensed its powers and offices with sole reference to the aggrandizement of a family proverbial for brutality and obscenity, was a fact well known to the reasoning and enlightened orders of society at this time; but it did not penetrate into those lowly valleys where the sheep of the Lord humbly pastured, innocently unconscious of the frauds and violence by which their dearest interests were bought and sold.

The Christian faith we now hold, who boast our enlightened Protestantism, has been transmitted to us through the hearts and hands of such,—who, while princes wrangled with Pope, and Pope with princes, knew nothing of it all, but, in lowly ways of prayer and patient labor, were one with us of modern times in the great central belief of the Christian heart, "Worthy is the Lamb that was slain."

As Agnes came slowly up the path towards the little garden, she was conscious of a burden and weariness of spirit she had never known before. She passed the little moist grotto, which in former times she never failed to visit to see if there were any new-blown cyclamen, without giving it even a thought. A crimson spray of gladiolus leaned from the rock and seemed softly to kiss her cheek, yet she regarded it not; and once stopping and gazing abstractedly upward on the flower-tapestried walls of the gorge, as they rose in wreath and garland and festoon above her, she felt as if the brilliant yellow of the broom and the crimson of the gillyflowers, and all the fluttering, nodding armies of brightness that were dancing in the sunlight, were too gay for such a world as this, where mortal sins and sorrows made such havoc with all that seemed brightest and best, and she longed to fly away and be at rest.

Just then she heard the cheerful voice of her uncle in the little garden above, as he was singing at his painting. The words were those of that old Latin hymn of Saint Bernard, which, in its English dress, has thrilled many a Methodist class-meeting and many a Puritan conference, telling, in the welcome they meet in each Christian soul, that there is a unity in Christ's Church which is not outward,—a secret, invisible bond, by which, under warring names and badges of opposition, His true followers have yet been one in Him, even though they discerned it not.

  "Jesu dulcis memoria,  Dans vera cordi gaudia:  Sed super mel et omnia  Ejus dulcis praesentia.  "Nil canitur suavius,  Nil auditur jocundius,  Nil cogitatur dulcius,  Quam Jesus Dei Filius.  "Jesu, spes poenitentibus,  Quam pius es petentibus,  Quam bonus te quaerentibus,  Sed quis invenientibus!  Nec lingua valet dicere,  Nec littera exprimere:  Expertus potest credere  Quid sit Jesum diligere."4

The old monk sang with all his heart; and his voice, which had been a fine one in its day, had still that power which comes from the expression of deep feeling. One often hears this peculiarity in the voices of persons of genius and sensibility, even when destitute of any real critical merit. They seem to be so interfused with the emotions of the soul, that they strike upon the heart almost like the living touch of a spirit.

Agnes was soothed in listening to him. The Latin words, the sentiment of which had been traditional in the Church from time immemorial, had to her a sacred fragrance and odor; they were words apart from all common usage, a sacramental language, never heard but in moments of devotion and aspiration,—and they stilled the child's heart in its tossings and tempest, as when of old the Jesus they spake of walked forth on the stormy sea.

"Yes, He gave His life for us!" she said; "He is ever reigning for us!

  "'Jesu dulcissime, e throno gloriae  Ovem deperditam venisti quaerere!  Jesu suavissime, pastor fidissime,  Ad te O trahe me, ut semper sequar te!'"5

"What, my little one!" said the monk, looking over the wall; "I thought

I heard angels singing. Is it not a beautiful morning?"

"Dear uncle, it is," said Agnes. "And I have been so glad to hear your beautiful hymn!—it comforted me."

"Comforted you, little heart? What a word is that! When you get as far along on your journey as your old uncle, then you may talk of comfort. But who thinks of comforting birds or butterflies or young lambs?"

"Ah, dear uncle, I am not so very happy," said Agnes, the tears starting into her eyes.

"Not happy?" said the monk, looking up from his drawing. "Pray, what's the matter now? Has a bee stung your finger? or have you lost your nosegay over a rock? or what dreadful affliction has come upon you?—hey, my little heart?"

Agnes sat down on the corner of the marble fountain, and, covering her face with her apron, sobbed as if her heart would break.

"What has that old priest been saying to her in the confession?" said Father Antonio to himself. "I dare say he cannot understand her. She is as pure as a dew-drop on a cobweb, and as delicate; and these priests, half of them don't know how to handle the Lord's lambs.—Come now, little Agnes," he said, with a coaxing tone, "what is its trouble?—tell its old uncle,—there's a dear!"

"Ah, uncle, I can't!" said Agnes, between her sobs.

"Can't tell its uncle!—there's a pretty go! Perhaps you will tell grandmamma?"

"Oh, no, no, no! not for the world!" said Agnes, sobbing still more bitterly.

"Why, really, little heart of mine, this is getting serious," said the monk; "let your old uncle try to help you."

"It isn't for myself," said Agnes, endeavoring to check her feelings,—"it is not for myself,—it is for another,—for a soul lost. Ah, my Jesus, have mercy!"

"A soul lost? Our Mother forbid!" said the monk, crossing himself.

"Lost in this Christian land, so overflowing with the beauty of the

Lord?—lost out of this fair sheepfold of Paradise?"

"Yes, lost," said Agnes, despairingly,—"and if somebody do not save him, lost forever; and it is a brave and noble soul, too,—like one of the angels that fell."

"Who is it, dear?—tell me about it," said the monk. "I am one of the shepherds whose place it is to go after that which is lost, even till I find it."

"Dear uncle, you remember the youth who suddenly appeared to us in the moonlight here a few evenings ago?"

"Ah, indeed!" said the monk,—"what of him?"

"Father Francesco has told me dreadful things of him this morning."

"What things?"

"Uncle, he is excommunicated by our Holy Father the Pope."

Father Antonio, as a member of one of the most enlightened and cultivated religious orders of the times, and as an intimate companion and disciple of Savonarola, had a full understanding of the character of the reigning Pope, and therefore had his own private opinion of how much his excommunication was likely to be worth in the invisible world. He knew that the same doom had been threatened towards his saintly master, for opposing and exposing the scandalous vices which disgraced the high places of the Church; so that, on the whole, when he heard that this young man was excommunicated, so far from being impressed with horror towards him, he conceived the idea that he might be a particularly honest fellow and good Christian. But then he did not hold it wise to disturb the faith of the simple-hearted by revealing to them the truth about the head of the Church on earth.

While the disorders in those elevated regions filled the minds of the intelligent classes with apprehension and alarm, they held it unwise to disturb the trustful simplicity of the lower orders, whose faith in Christianity itself they supposed might thus be shaken. In fact, they were themselves somewhat puzzled how to reconcile the patent and manifest fact, that the actual incumbent of the Holy See was not under the guidance of any spirit, unless it were a diabolical one, with the theory which supposed an infallible guidance of the Holy Spirit to attend as a matter of course on that position. Some of the boldest of them did not hesitate to declare that the Holy City had suffered a foul invasion, and that a false usurper reigned in her sacred palaces in place of the Father of Christendom. The greater part did as people now do with the mysteries and discrepancies of a faith which on the whole they revere: they turned their attention from the vexed question, and sighed and longed for better days.

Father Antonio did not, therefore, tell Agnes that the announcement which had filled her with such distress was far less conclusive with himself of the ill desert of the individual to whom it related.

"My little heart," he answered, gravely, "did you learn the sin for which this young man was excommunicated?"

"Ah, me! my dear uncle, I fear he is an infidel,—an unbeliever. Indeed, now I remember it, he confessed as much to me the other day."

"Where did he tell you this?"

"You remember, my uncle, when you were sent for to the dying man? When you were gone, I kneeled down to pray for his soul; and when I rose from prayer, this young cavalier was sitting right here, on this end of the fountain. He was looking fixedly at me, with such sad eyes, so full of longing and pain, that it was quite piteous; and he spoke to me so sadly, I could not but pity him."

"What did he say to you, child?"

"Ah, father, he said that he was all alone in the world, without friends, and utterly desolate, with no one to love him; but worse than that, he said he had lost his faith, that he could not believe."

"What did you say to him?"

"Uncle, I tried, as a poor girl might, to do him some good. I prayed him to confess and take the sacrament; but he looked almost fierce when I said so. And yet I cannot but think, after all, that he has not lost all grace, because he begged me so earnestly to pray for him; he said his prayers could do no good, and wanted mine. And then I began to tell him about you, dear uncle, and how you came from that blessed convent in Florence, and about your master Savonarola; and that seemed to interest him, for he looked quite excited, and spoke the name over, as if it were one he had heard before. I wanted to urge him to come and open his case to you; and I think perhaps I might have succeeded, but that just then you and grandmamma came up the path; and when I heard you coming, I begged him to go, because you know grandmamma would be very angry, if she knew that I had given speech to a man, even for a few moments; she thinks men are so dreadful."