stick them up in Lady C's tawdry gilt drawing-room. Here John smiled, as much as to say, "That would be foolish indeed." 5. And then I told how, when she came to die, her funeral was attended by a concourse of all the poor, and some of the gentry too, of the neighbourhood for many miles round, to show their respect for her memory, because she had been such a good and religious woman; so good indeed that she knew all the Psaltery by heart, ay, and a great part of the Testament besides. THOMAS BABINGTON, LORD MACAULAY. Born 1800-Died 1859. WESTMINSTER HALL-TRIAL OF WARREN HASTINGS. 1. The place was worthy of such a trial. It was the great hall of William Rufus, the hall which had resounded with acclamations at the inauguration of thirty kings, the hall which had witnessed the just sentence of Bacon and the just absolution of Somers,1 the hall where the eloquence of Strafford had for a moment awed and melted a victorious party inflamed with just resentment, the hall where Charles had confronted the High Court of Justice with the placid courage which has half redeemed his fame. 2. Neither military nor civil pomp was wanting. The avenues were lined with grenadiers. The peers, robed in gold and ermine, were marshalled by the heralds under Garter King-at-arms.2 The judges, in their vestments of state, attended to give advice on points of law. Near a hundred and seventy lords, three-fourths of the Upper House, as the Upper House then was, walked in solemn order from their usual place of assembling to the tribunal. The junior baron present led the way-George Eliott, Lord Heathfield, recently ennobled for his memorable defence of Gibraltar against the fleets and armies of France and Spain. The long procession was closed by the Duke of Norfolk, Earl-Marshal of the realm, by the great dignitaries, and by the brothers and sons of the king. Last of all came the Prince of Wales, conspicuous by his fine person and noble bearing. 3. The gray old walls were hung with scarlet. The long galleries 1 Somers, John, Lord (1652-1716), was Lord Chancellor in 1697. In 1701 he was charged with illegal practices, along with Lords Portland, Orford, and Halifax. The two Houses differed about his trial, and he was acquitted. 2 Garter King-at-arms, properly, Garter King-of-arms, the chief heraldic officer in England. were crowded by an audience such as has rarely excited the fears or the emulation of an orator. There were gathered together from all parts of a great, free, enlightened, and prosperous empire grace and female loveliness, wit and learning, the representatives of every science and of every art. There were seated round the queen the fair-haired young daughters of the House of Brunswick. There the ambassadors of great kings and commonwealths gazed with admiration on a spectacle which no other country in the world could present. There Siddons, in the prime of her majestic beauty, looked with emotion on a scene surpassing all the imitations of the stage. There the historian of the Roman Empire thought of the days when Cicero1 pleaded the cause of Sicily against Verres, and when, before a senate which still retained some show of freedom, Tacitus 2 thundered against the oppressor of Africa. There were seen side by side the greatest painter and the greatest scholar of the age. 4. The spectacle had allured Reynolds3 from that easel which has preserved to us the thoughtful foreheads of so many writers and statesmen, and the sweet smiles of so many noble matrons. It had induced Parr1 to suspend his labours in that dark and profound mine from which he had extracted a vast treasure of erudition, a treasure too often buried in the earth, too often paraded with injudicious and inelegant ostentation, but still precious, massive, and splendid. THOMAS CARLYLE. BURNS. The chief quality of Burns is the sincerity of him. So in his Poetry, so in his Life. The Song he sings is not of fantasticalities ;5 it is of a thing felt, really there; the prime merit of this, as of all in him, and of his Life generally, is truth. The Life of Burns is what we may call a great tragic sincerity. A sort of savage sincerity, not cruel, far from that; but wild, wrestling, naked with the truth of things. In that sense, there is something of the savage in all great men. 1 Cicero, the greatest of the Roman trait-painter (1723–1792). orators (106-43 B.C.). 2 Tacitus, a great Roman historian. 3 Reynolds, Sir Joshua, a famous por 4 Parr, Samuel, an eminent classical scholar (1746-1825). 5 Fantasticalities, unrealities. MY OWN FOUR WALLS. [Froude says of this :-"The only poem perhaps that Carlyle ever wrote which is really characteristic of him."] 1. The storm and wind is on the waste, Wild through the wind the huntsman calls, Home to my own four walls. 2. Black tossing clouds with scarce a glimmer 3. A home and wife I too have got, A hearth to blaze whate'er befalls; 4. King George has palaces of pride, And armëd grooms must ward those halls ; 5. Not all his men may sever this, It yields to friends', not monarchs' calls; 6. When fools or knaves do make a rout 7. The moorland house, though rude it be, May stand the brunt when prouder falls; "Twill screen my wife, my books, and me, All in my own four walls. 1 Cabals, secret societies. [CHAP. XXVIII.] GEORGE GORDON, LORD BYRON. Born 1788-Died 1824. LOCH-NA-GARR. 1. Away, ye gay landscapes, ye gardens of roses!, Round their white summits though elements war; 2. Ah! there my young footsteps in infancy wandered; Disclosed by the natives of dark Loch-na-Garr. 3."Shades of the dead! have I not heard your voices And rides on the wind, o'er his own Highland vale. Clouds there encircle the forms of my fathers; They dwell in the tempests of dark Loch-na-Garr. 4." Ill-starred, though brave, did no visions foreboding Victory crowned not your fall with applause: 5. Years have rolled on, Loch-na-Garr, since I left you, To one who has roved o'er the mountains afar: REMEMBRANCE. "Tis done!-I saw it in my dreams; Love, Hope, and Joy, alike adieu ! PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY. Born 1792-Died 1822. TO A SKYLARK. 1. Hail to thee, blithe spirit! That from heaven, or near it, In profuse strains of unpremeditated1 art. 2. Higher still, and higher, From the earth thou springest Like a cloud of fire; The blue deep thou wingest, And singing still dost soar, and soaring ever singest. 3. The pale purple even Melts around thy flight; 1 Unpremeditated, not thought of beforehand. |