Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine — Volume 54, No. 333, July 1843

CANTO THE THIRD

digito male pertinaci.—Hor.

Shade39 of Boileau! (who told in deathless lays A choral pulpit's military praise,) Thou, too, that dared'st a cloister'd warfare sing, And dip thy bucket in Castalia's spring! Forgive, blest bards, if, with unequal fire, I feebly strike the imitative lyre; Though strong to celebrate no vulgar fray, Since P——t and conquest swell the exulting lay. Not link'd, alas in friendship's sacred band, With hands fast lock'd the furious parsons stand; Each grasps the whip with unrelenting might— The whip, the cause and guerdon of the fight— But either warrior spends his strength in vain, And panting draws his lengthen'd breath with pain, Till now the Dean, with throat extended wide, And faltering shout, for speedy succour cried To40 them who in yon grateful cell repose, Where Greenland odours feast the stranger's nose— "Scouts, porters, shoe-blacks, whatsoe'er your trade, All, all, attend, your master's fist to aid!" They heard his voice, and, trembling at the sound, The half-breech'd legions swarm'd like moths around; But, ah! the half-breech'd legions, call'd in vain, Dismay'd and useless, fill'd the cumber'd plain; And while for servile aid the Doctor calls, By41 P——t subverted, prone to earth he sprawls. E'en42 then were heard, so Brazenose students sing, The grass-plot chains in boding notes to ring; E'en then we mark'd, where, gleaming through the night, Aerial crosses shed a lurid light. Those wrestlers, too, whom naked we behold Through many a summer's night and winter's cold, Now changed appear'd, his pristine languor fled, Expiring Abel raised his sinking head, While with fix'd eyes his murderer seemed to stand, The bone half dropping from his nerveless hand. So, when of old, as Latian records tell, At Pompey's base the laurel'd despot fell, Reviving freedom mock'd her sinking foe, And demons shriek'd as Brutus dealt the blow. His trencher-bonnet tumbling from his crown, Subdued by Bernard, sunk the Doctor down; But yet, though breathless on the hostile plain, The whip he could not seize he snapt in twain— "Where now, base themester,"—P——t exulting said, And waved the rattling fragments o'er his head— "Where now thy threats? Yet learn from me to know How glorious 'tis to spare a fallen foe. Uncudgel'd, rise—yet hear my high command— Hence43 to thy room! or dread thy conqueror's hand." His44 hair all gravel, and all green his clothes, In doleful dumps the downcast Doctor rose, Then slunk unpitied from the hated plain, And inly groaning sought his couch again; Yet, as he went, he backward cast his view, And bade his ancient power a last adieu. So, when some sturdy swain through miry roads A grunting porker to the market goads, With twisted neck, splash'd hide, and progress slow, Oft backward looks the swine, and half disdains to go. "Ah me! how fallen," with choaking sobs he said, And sunk exhausted on his welcome bed; "Ere yet my shame, wide-circling through the town, Spreads from the strong contagion of the gown, Oh! be it mine, unknowing and unknown, With45 deans deceased, to sleep beneath the stone." As tearful thus, and half convulsed with spite, He lengthen'd out with plaints the livelong night, At that still hour of night, when dreams are oft'nest true, A well-known spectre rose before his view, As in some lake, when hush'd in every breeze, The bending ape his form reflected sees,46 Such and so like the Doctor's angel shone, And by his gait the guardian sprite was known, Benignly bending o'er his aching head— "Sleep, Henry, sleep, my best beloved," he said,47 "Soft dreams of bliss shall soothe thy midnight hour; Connubial transport and collegiate power. Fly fast, ye months, till Henry shall receive The joys a bride and benefice can give. But first to sanction thy prophetic name, In yon tall pile a doctor's honours claim;48 E'en now methinks the awe-struck crowd behold Thy powder'd caxon and thy cane of gold. E'en now—but hark! the chimney sparrows sing, St Mary's chimes their early matins ring— I go—but thou——through many a festive night Collegiate bards shall chant thy luckless fight— Though many a jest shall spread the table round, And many a bowl to B——r——d's health be crown'd— O'er juniors still maintain thy dread command, Still boast, my son, thy cross-compelling hand.49 Adieu!"—His shadowy robes the phantom spread, And o'er the Doctor drowsy influence shed; Scared at the sound, far off his terrors flew, And love and hope once more his curtains drew.

CHARLES EDWARD AT VERSAILLES

ON THE ANNIVERSARY OF CULLODEN Take away that star and garter—hide them from my loathing sight, Neither king nor prince shall tempt me from my lonely room this night; Fitting for the throneless exile is the atmosphere of pall, And the gusty winds that shiver 'neath the tapestry on the wall. When the taper faintly dwindles like the pulse within the vein, That to gay and merry measure ne'er may hope to bound again, Let the shadows gather round me while I sit in silence here, Broken-hearted, as an orphan watching by his father's bier. Let me hold my still communion far from every earthly sound— Day of penance—day of passion—ever, as the year comes round. Fatal day whereon the latest die was cast for me and mine— Cruel day, that quell'd the fortunes of the hapless Stuart line! Phantom-like, as in a mirror, rise the griesly scenes of death— There before me, in its wildness, stretches bare Culloden's heath— There the broken clans are scatter'd, gaunt as wolves, and famine-eyed— Hunger gnawing at their vitals—hope abandon'd—all but pride— Pride—and that supreme devotion which the Southron never knew, And the hatred, deeply rankling, 'gainst the Hanoverian crew. Oh, my God! are these the remnants—these the wrecks of the array, That around the royal standard gather'd on the glorious day, When, in deep Glenfinnart's valley, thousands, on their bended knees, Saw once more that stately banner waving in the northern breeze, When the noble Tullibardine stood beneath its weltering fold, With the ruddy lion ramping in the field of treasured gold! When the mighty heart of Scotland, all too big to slumber more, Burst in wrath and exultation, like a huge volcano's roar! There they stand, the batter'd columns, underneath the murky sky, In the hush of desperation, not to conquer but to die. Hark! the bagpipe's fitful wailing—not the pibroch loud and shrill, That, with hope of bloody banquet, lured the ravens from the hill— But a dirge both low and solemn, fit for ears of dying men, Marshall'd for their latest battle, never more to fight again. Madness—madness! Why this shrinking? Were we less inured to war When our reapers swept the harvest from the field of red Dunbar? Fetch my horse, and blow the trumpet!—Call the riders of Fitz-James, Let Lord Lewis bring the muster!—Valiant chiefs of mighty names— Trusty Keppoch! stout Glengarry! gallant Gordon! wise Lochiel! Bid the clansmen charge together, fast, and fell, and firm as steel. Elcho, never look so gloomy! What avails a sadden'd brow? Heart, man—heart! we need it sorely—never half so much as now. Had we but a thousand troopers—had we but a thousand more!—— Noble Perth, I hear them coming!—Hark! the English cannons' roar. God! how awful sounds that volley, bellowing through the mist and rain! Was not that the Highland slogan? Let me hear that shout again! Oh, for prophet eyes to witness how the desperate battle goes! Cumberland! I would not fear thee, could my Camerons see their foe. Sound, I say, the charge at venture—t'is not naked steel we fear; Better perish in the mêlée than be shot like driven deer! Hold! the mist begins to scatter. There in front 'tis rent asunder, And the cloudy battery crumbles underneath the deafening thunder; There I see the scarlet gleaming! Now, Macdonald—now or never!— Woe is me, the clans are broken! Father, thou art lost for ever! Chief and vassal, lord and yeoman, there they lie in heaps together, Smitten by the deadly volley, rolled in blood upon the heather; And the Hanoverian horsemen, fiercely riding to and fro, Deal their murderous strokes at random.— Ah my God! where am I now? Will that baleful vision never vanish from my aching sight? Must those scenes and sounds of terror haunt me still by day and night? Yea, the earth hath no oblivion for the noblest chance it gave, None, save in its latest refuge—seek it only in the grave. Love may die, and hatred slumber, and their memory will decay, As the water'd garden recks not of the drought of yesterday; But the dream of power once broken, what shall give repose again? What shall charm the serpent-furies coil'd around the maddening brain? What kind draught can nature offer strong enough to lull their sting? Better to be born a peasant than to live an exiled king! Oh, these years of bitter anguish!—What is life to such as me, With my very heart as palsied as a wasted cripple's knee! Suppliant-like for alms depending on a false and foreign court, Jostled by the flouting nobles, half their pity, half their sport. Forced to hold a place in pageant, like a royal prize of war Walking with dejected features close behind his victor's car, Styled an equal—deem'd a servant—fed with hopes of future gain— Worse by far is fancied freedom than the captive's clanking chain! Could I change this gilded bondage even for the massy tower Whence King James beheld his lady sitting in the castle bower— Birds around her sweetly singing, fluttering on the kindled spray, And the comely garden glowing in the light of rosy May. Love descended to the window—Love removed the bolt and bar— Love was warder to the lovers from the dawn to even-star. Wherefore, Love, didst thou betray me? Where is now the tender glance? Where the meaning looks once lavish'd by the dark-eyed Maid of France? Where the words of hope she whisper'd, when around my neck she threw That same scarf of broider'd tissue, bade me wear it and be true— Bade me send it as a token when my banner waved once more On the castled Keep of London, where my fathers' waved before? And I went and did not conquer—but I brought it back again— Brought it back from storm and battle—brought it back without stain; And once more I knelt before her, and I laid it at her feet, Saying, "Wilt thou own it, Princess? There at least is no defeat!" Scornfully she look'd upon me with a measured eye and cold— Scornfully she view'd the token, though her fingers wrought the gold, And she answer'd, faintly flushing, "Hast thou kept it, then, so long? Worthy matter for a minstrel to be told in knightly song! Worthy of a bold Provençal, pacing through the peaceful plain, Singing of his lady's favour, boasting of her silken chain, Yet scarce worthy of a warrior sent to wrestle for a crown. Is this all that thou hast brought me from thy field of high renown? Is this all the trophy carried from the lands where thou hast been? It was broider'd by a Princess, can'st thou give it to a Queen?" Woman's love is writ in water! Woman's faith is traced in sand! Backwards—backwards let me wander to the noble northern land; Let me feel the breezes blowing fresh along the mountain side; Let me see the purple heather, let me hear the thundering tide, Be it hoarse as Corrievreckan spouting when the storm is high— Give me but one hour of Scotland—let me see it ere I die! Oh, my heart is sick and heavy—southern gales are not for me; Though the glens are white with winter, place me there, and set me free; Give me back my trusty comrades—give me back my Highland maid— Nowhere beats the heart so kindly as beneath the tartan plaid! Flora! when thou wert beside me, in the wilds of far Kintail— When the cavern gave us shelter from the blinding sleet and hail— When we lurk'd within the thicket, and, beneath the waning moon, Saw the sentry's bayonet glimmer, heard him chant his listless tune— When the howling storm o'ertook us drifting down the island's lee, And our crazy bark was whirling like a nutshell on the sea— When the nights were dark and dreary, and amidst the fern we lay Faint and foodless, sore with travel, longing for the streaks of day; When thou wert an angel to me, watching my exhausted sleep— Never didst thou hear me murmur—couldst thou see how now I weep! Bitter tears and sobs of anguish, unavailing though they be. Oh the brave—the brave and noble—who have died in vain for me! W.E.A.

EARLY GREEK ROMANCES—THE ETHIOPICS OF HELIODORUS

"It is not in Provence, (Provincia Romanorum,) as is commonly said from the derivation of the name—nor yet in Spain, as many suppose, that we are to look for the fatherland of those amusing compositions called Romances, which are so eminently useful in these days as affording a resource and occupation to ladies and gentlemen who have nothing to do. It is in distant and far different climes to our own, and in the remote antiquity of long vanished ages:—it is among the people of the East, the Arabs, the Egyptians, the Persians, and the Syrians, that the germ and origin is to be found of this species of fictitious narrative, for which the peculiar genius and poetical temperament of those nations particularly adapt them, and in which they delight to a degree scarcely to be credited. For even their ordinary discourse is interspersed with figurative expressions; and their maxims of theology and philosophy, and above all, of morals and political science, are invariably couched under the guise of allegory or parable. I need not stay to enlarge upon the universal veneration paid throughout the East to the fables of Bidpai or Pilpay, and to Lokman, who is (as may easily be shown) the Esop of the Greeks:—and it is well known that the story of Isfendiyar, and of the daring deeds of the Persian hero Rustan, in love and war,50 are to this day more popular in those regions than the tales of Hercules, Roland, or Amadis de Gaul, ever were with us. And so decidedly is Asia the parent of these fictions, that we shall find on examination, that nearly all those who in early times distinguished themselves as writers of what are now called romances, were of oriental birth or extraction. Clearchus, a pupil of Aristotle, and the first who attempted any thing of the sort in the Greek language, was a native of Soli in Cilicia:—Jamblichus was a Syrian, as were also Heliodorus and Lucian, the former being of Emessa, the latter of Samosata:—Achilles Tatius was an Alexandrian; and the rule will be found to hold good in other instances, with scarcely a single exception."

Such is the doctrine laid down (at somewhat greater length than we have rendered it) by the learned Huetius, in his treatise De Origine Fabularum Romanensium; and from the general principle therein propounded, we are certainly by no means inclined to dissent. But while fully admitting that it is to the vivid fancy and picturesque imagination of the Orientals that we owe the origin of all those popular legends which have penetrated, under various changes of costume, into every corner of Europe,51 as well as those more gorgeous creations which appear, interwoven with the ruder creations of the northern nations, to have furnished the groundwork of the fabliaux and lais of the chivalry of the middle ages:—we still hold that the invention of the romance of ordinary life, in which the interest of the story depends upon occurrences in some measure within the bounds of probability, and in which the heroes and heroines are neither invested with superhuman qualities, nor extricated from their difficulties by supernatural means, must be ascribed to a more European state of society than that which produced those tales of wonder, which are commonly considered as characteristic of the climes of the East. Even the authors enumerated by the learned bishop of Avranches himself, in the passage above quoted, were all denizens of the Greek cities of Asia Minor, Syria, and Egypt, and consequently, in all probability, Greeks by descent; and though the scene of their works is frequently laid in Asia, the costumes and characters introduced are almost invariably on the Greek model. These writers, therefore, may fairly be considered as constituting a distinct class from those more strictly Oriental, not only in birth, but in language and ideas; and as being, in fact, the legitimate forerunners of that portentous crowd of modern novelists, whose myriad productions seem destined (as the Persians believe of the misshapen progeny of Gog and Magog, confined within the brazen wall of Iskender,) to over-run the world of literature in these latter days.

At the head of this early school of romantic writers, in point of merit as of time, (for the writings of Lucian can scarcely be considered as regular romances; and the "Babylonica" of Jamblichus, and the "Dinias and Dercyllis" of Antonius Diogenes, are known to us only by the abstract of them preserved in Photius,) we may, without hesitation, place Heliodorus, the author of the "Ethiopics," "whose writings"—says Huetius—"the subsequent novelists of those ages constantly proposed to themselves as a model for imitation; and as truly may they all be said to have drunk of the waters of this fountain, as all the poets did of the Homeric spring." To so servile an extent, indeed, was this imitation carried, that while both the incidents and characters in the "Clitophon and Leucippe" of Achilles Tatius, a work which, in point of literary merit, stands next to that of Heliodorus, are, in many passages, almost a reproduction, with different names and localities,52 of those in the "Ethiopics," the last-named has again had his copyists in the "Hysminias and Hysmine" of Eustathius or Eumathius, and the "Dosicles and Rhodanthe" of Theodorus Prodromus, the latter of whom was a monk of the twelfth century. In these productions of the lower empire, the extravagance of the language, the improbability of the plot, and the wearisome dullness of the details, are worthy of each other; and are only varied occasionally by a little gross indelicacy, from which, indeed, none but Heliodorus is wholly exempt. Yet, "as in the lowest deep there is a lower still," so even Theodorus Prodromus has found an humble imitator in Nicetas Eugenianus, than whose romance of "Charicles and Drosilla" it must be allowed that the force of nonsense "can no further go." Besides this descending scale of plagiarism, which we have followed down to its lowest anti-climax, we should mention, for the sake of making our catalogue complete, the "Pastorals, or Daphnis and Chloe" of Longus—a work in itself of no particular merits or demerits as a literary composition, but noted for its unparalleled depravity, and further remarkable as the first of the class of pastoral romances, which were almost as rife in Europe during the middle ages as novels of fashionable life are, for the sins of this generation, at the present day. There only remain to be enumerated the three precious farragos entitled "The Ephesiacs, or Habrocomas and Anthia"—"the Babylonics"—and "the Cypriacs"—said to be from the pen of three different Xenophons, of whose history nothing, not even the age in which any of them lived, can be satisfactorily made out—though the uniformity of stupid extravagance, not less than the similarity of name, would lead à priori to the conclusion that one luckless wight must have been the author of all three. From this list of the Byzantine romances, (in which we are not sure that one or two may not after all have been omitted,) it will be seen that Heliodorus had a tolerably numerous progeny, even in his own language, to answer for; though we fear we must concur in the sweeping censure of a Quarterly Reviewer, (vol. x. p. 301,) who condemns then en masse, with the single exception of the "Ethiopics" of the last-named author, as "a few tiresome stories, absolutely void of taste, invention, or interest; without influence even upon the declining literature of their own age, and in all probability quite unknown to the real forerunners of Richardson, Fielding, and Rousseau."

A work thus excepted, by common consent, from the general reprobation is which all its compeers are involved, must deserve some notice from its negative, if not from its positive merits; and the particulars which have been preserved of its literary history are also somewhat curious. Even in these days, when almost every other individual is a novelist, either in esse or in embryo, the announcement of a love-story from the pen of a bishop would create what is called "a considerable sensation"—though perhaps it would hardly draw down on the author such condign and summary punishment as was inflicted by the straitlaced Kirk of Scotland, less than a century ago, on one of her ministers, for the high crime and misdemeanour of having indited "a stage play, called the Tragedy of Douglas."53 Yet not only the "Ethiopics," but the best known of its successors, the "Clitophon and Leucippe" of Achilles Tatius, are both universally asserted to have been juvenile productions of ecclesiastics who afterwards attained the episcopal dignity: and the former, if we may credit the Ecclesiastical History of Nicephorus, fared not much better at the hands of the Provincial Synod of Thessaly than did the "Tragedy of Douglas" at those of the Scottish Presbyteries. Hear what saith the historian: "This Heliodorus, bishop of Trica, had in his youth written certain love-stories called the "Ethiopics," which are highly popular even at the present day, though they are now better known by the title of 'Chariclea'"—(the name of the heroine)—"and it was by reason thereof that he lost his see. For, inasmuch as very many of the youth were drawn into peril of sin by the perusal of these amorous tales, it was determined by the provincial synod that either these books, which kindled the fire of love, should themselves be consumed by fire, or that the author should be deposed from his episcopal functions—and this choice being propounded to him, he preferred resigning his bishopric to suppressing his writings."—(Niceph. Hist. Ecclesiast. lib. xii. c. 34.)54 Heliodorus, according to the same authority, was the first Thessalian bishop who had insisted on the married clergy putting away their wives, which may probably have tended to make him unpopular: but the story of his deposition, it should be observed, rests solely on the statement of Nicephorus, and is discredited by Bayle and Huet, who argue that the silence of Socrates (Ecclesiast. Hist. v. chap. 22.) in the passage where he expressly assigns the authorship of the "Ethiopics" to the Bishop Heliodorus, more than counterbalances the unsupported assertion of Nicephorus—"an author," says Huet, "of more credulity than judgment." If Heliodorus were, indeed, as has been generally supposed, the same to whom several of the Epistles of St Jerome were addressed, this circumstance would supply an additional argument against the probability of his having incurred the censures of the church: but whatever the testimony of Nicephorus may be worth on this point, his mention of the work affords undeniable proof of its long continued popularity, as his Ecclesiastical History was written about A.D. 900, and Heliodorus lived under the reign of the sons of Theodosius, or fully five hundred years earlier. Enough, however, has been said of him in his capacity of a bishop—and we shall proceed to consider him in that of an author, by which he is far better known than by episcopacy.