"MAN'S A KING, HIS THRONE IS DUTY,-(STERLING)

CARISBROOK CASTLE.

427

mind and body, threw up that duty; embraced the profession of letters;
visited France and Italy; and, still fiercely pursued by ill health, retired at
last to Ventnor, in the Isle of Wight, where the heavy calamity of losing
his wife and mother, within two months of each other, finally broke him
down. He expired on the 18th of September 1844. His epitaph might fitly
be taken from Carlyle's noble eulogium:* "True, above all, one may call
him; a man of perfect veracity in thought, word, and deed. Integrity to-
wards all men-nay, integrity had ripened with him into chivalrous gener-
osity; there was no guile or baseness anywhere found in him. A more
perfectly transparent soul I have never known."]

"EARTH, OF MAN THE BOUNTEOUS MOTHER, FEEDS HIM STILL WITH CORN AND WINE;

CARISBROOK CASTLE.

[Carisbrook Castle is situated on a considerable knoll, about one mile from Newport, in the Isle of Wight, Here Charles I. was imprisoned in 1647; and here his daughter, the Princess Elizabeth, died, September 8, 1650. "The castle," says Sterling, "is of large extent, tolerably preserved, and draped with a good deal of ivy. But the want of great height prevents it from bearing that look of indomitable command which, in some cases, makes an ancient fortress resemble the last of the Anakim, bidding defiance to the feebler race that crawl around its feet. The view from the top of the keep is pretty and cheerful, without any peculiar wildness or extreme beauty, beyond that of the slightly broken country, quiet and varied verdure, and happy-looking dwellings. I was shown the window through which Charles I. tried to escape. I threw my general impressions of the place into the following lines:"-]

HE WHO BEST WOULD AID A BROTHER, SHARES WITH HIM THese gifts divine."-STERLING.

THAT HOLDS the date of all oF US; WE ARE BORN WITH TRAVAIL AND STRONG CRYING,

436

66 A LITTLE SORROW, A LITTLE PLEASURE,

ALGERNON CHARLES SWINBURNE.

And the high gods took on hand

Fire, and the falling of tears;
And a measure of sliding sand

From under the feet of the years;
And froth and drift of the sea;

And dust of the labouring earth;
And bodies of things to be

In the houses of death and of birth;
And wrought with weeping and laughter,
And fashioned with loathing and love,

With life before and after, *

And death beneath and above,

For a day, and a night, and a morrow,
That his strength might endure for a span,
With travail and heavy sorrow,
The holy spirit of man.

From the winds of the north and the south

They gathered as unto strife;
They breathed upon his mouth,
They filled his body with life;
Eyesight and speech they wrought
For the veils of the soul therein, t
A time for labour and thought,

A time to serve and to sin;
They gave him light in his ways,
And love and a space for delight,
And beauty, and length of days,

And night, and sleep in the night.
His speech is a burning fire;
With his lips he travaileth;

* "Looking before and after."-Shelley.

"Speech was given to man to conceal his thoughts."-Attributed to Tallyrand; but a similar sentiment is found in Goldsmith.

FATE METES US FROM THE DUSTY MEASURE

AND FROM THE BIRTH-DAY TO THE DYING THE LIKENESS OF OUR LIFE IS THUS."-SWINBURNE.

"THIS IS SURE: MAN SINKS NOT BY A MORE UNMANLY VICE THAN IS THAT SIN

66 CIVIL AND MORAL LIBERTY ARE TWAIN."-HENRY TAYLOR.

THE DREAM.

437

In his heart is a blind desire;

In his eyes foreknowledge of death;
He weaves, and is clothed with derision;

Sows, and he shall not reap;
His life is a watch or a vision

Between a sleep and a sleep. *

[From "Atalanta in Calydon."]

Sir Henry Taylor.

[SIR HENRY TAYLOR was born early in the present century. His works
are:-"Isaac Comnenus," a drama, published in 1832; Philip van Arte-
velde," a drama, 1834; "Edwin the Fair," 1842; "The Virgin Widow,"
1850, "A Sicilian Summer," and "St. Clement's Eve," 1862.
His prose
writings include, "The Statesman,"
," "Notes from Life," and "Notes from
Books." As a poet he has not attained any wide popularity, but he is
known and admired by those best capable of appreciating genuine poetical
inspiration. His versification is vigorous, his style condensed, his imagina-
tion lofty, and his analysis of character acute and penetrating. His "Philip
van Artevelde" may justly be pronounced one of the finest dramatic poems
of the century; and the same felicity of diction and depth of thought are
to be found in "St. Clement's Eve." "Henry Taylor," says a recent
critic, "is terse in expressions; his thought finds the right word at once,
and does not exhaust its energy by a needless expansion. He is there-
fore never tedious."-St. Paul's Magazine, i., 706.

Sir Henry Taylor has recently received the honour of knighthood, in ac-
knowledgment of his long and useful official services.]

OF PRODIGALITY: MAN FINDS NOT MORE DISHONOUR THAN IN DEBT."-TAYLOR.

THE DREAM.

[The French have invaded Flanders, and Philip van Artevelde, at the head of the Flemish forces, prepares to resist their advance. The night before the great battle (in which he perished) he is disturbed by a vision of his dead wife, under circumstances which he describes to the lady of his later love, Elena, an Italian beauty.]

*"Our little life is rounded with a sleep."-SHAKESPEARE,

66 LIFE HATH FOR ME A PURPOSE AND A DRIFT."-TAYLOR.

"MORN, THAT LOOK'ST SO GRIM AND GRAY, TELL ME TRULY, TELL ME TRULY,

438

Artev.

"WHAT MAKES A HERO? AN HEROIC MIND,—(TAYLOR)

SIR HENRY TAYLOR.

What took you from your bed ere break of day?
Where have you been? I know you're vexed with

something.

Tell me, now, what has happened.

Be at rest.

No accident, save of the world within ;
Occurrences of thought; 'tis nothing more.
Elena. It is of such that love most needs to know.
The loud transactions of the outlying world
Tell to your masculine friends: tell me your thoughts.
Artev. They stumbled in the dusk 'twixt night and day.
I dreamed distressfully, and waking knew
How an old sorrow had stolen upon my sleep,
Molesting midnight and that short repose
Which industry had earned, so to stir up
About my heart remembrances of pain
Least sleeping when I sleep, least sleeping then
When reason and the voluntary powers
That turn and govern thought are laid to rest.
Those powers by this nocturnal inroad wild
Surprised and broken, vainly I essayed
To rally, and the mind, unsubjugate,
Took its direction from a driftless dream.
Then passed I forth.

Elena.

You stole away so softly
I knew it not, and wondered when I woke.
Artev. The gibbous moon was in a wan decline,
And all was silent as a sick man's chamber.
Mixing its small beginnings with the dregs
Of the pale moonshine and a few faint stars,
The cold uncomfortable daylight dawned;
And the white tents, topping a low ground-fog,
Showed like a fleet becalmed. I wandered far,
Till reaching to the bridge I sate me down

EXPRESSED IN ACTION, IN ENDURANCE PROVED."-TAYLOR.

"WHAT WILT THOU BE ERE MID-DAY?

WHO CAN SAY, WHO CAN SAY?"-TAYLOR.

"THE FAIREST FLOWER THAT E'ER WAS BORN OF EARTH WERE BETTER CROPT THAN CANKERED."-TAYLOR.

66

Elena.

ART COMMENDS NOT COUNTERPARTS AND COPIES,-(TAYLOR)

How should it make me smile? What followed, say,

After your meditations on the bridge?
Artev. I'll tell it, but I bid you not believe it,

For I am scarce so credulous myself

As to believe that was which my eyes saw

A visual not an actual existence.

Elena. What was it like? Wore it a human likeness?
Artev. That such existences there are, I know;

For whether by the corporal organ framed,
Or painted by a brainish fantasy

Upon the inner sense, not once nor twice,
But sundry times, have I beheld such things
Since my tenth year, and most in this last past.

Elena. What was it you beheld?

Artev.

Elena.

To-day!

Last night—

This morning-when you sate upon the bridge.

Artev. 'Twas a fantastic sight.

Elena.

What sort of sight?

Artev. [After a pause.] Once in my sad and philosophic youth-

For very philosophic in my dawn

BUT FROM OUR LIFE A NOBLER LIFE WOULD SHAPE."-TAYLOR.

"HAPPY THEY WHO WALK BY FAITH, AND IN THE DARK BY THINGS UNSEEN SUPPORTED."-TAYLOR.