"Cursed be he that moves my bones," says Shakspeare's epitaph, furnishing our Laureate with the keynote of a justly indignant protest: "For now the poet can not die, agery; but if he had held to the first-hundreds of small men are ready to principles of art, discipline and hard work, avow themselves able to narrate the tale as firmly as Thorvaldsen did, and had of his life; for of all vulgar fallacies there kept his rare moral perception intact, al- is none more current than that biograbeit clarified and chilled, he would still phy is a very easy branch of art. A dead have been Keats, the high-minded man man's sister or friend, or even the clergyof genius. man of the district, is accepted at once in the capacity of story-teller. It is enough to have known the deceased slightly, or to know his friends, and to possess a small literary faculty. And the result of this? Weaknesses are paraded as symptoms of strength, a man of genius is represented as a performing automaton, and readers, thoroughly bewildered, become impressed with a painful conviction that their hero is very common clay after all. The profound inner nature of the man is entirely lost sight of, and his motives are thoroughly misunderstood. This is more especially the case with biographies written by relations; and the cause is clear, if we acknowledge the painful truth that, in ordinary life, our most intimate ties are most frequently born and nourished by our weaknesses, and not our strength. It is often the case that those who have been closest to the deceased understand him least, from no fault of their own, but because they are too near to take a general and liberal view of his character. Nor leave his music as of old, But round him, ere he scarce be cold, Begins the scandal and the cry: "Proclaim the faults he would not show; Break lock and seal; betray the trust; Keep nothing sacred; 'tis but just The many-headed beast should know.'" Poet, painter, sculptor, have suffered far, far too much in this way; and strong enough stress has not been laid upon the sin committed by the literary resurrectionmen. An artist's private life is not public property. And should not be exhumed, except in very particular instances. Certainly, few biographers set to work with the deliberate intention of lowering the character of the person whose doings they describe; but it is the silly bunglers, with good intentions, that do the most harm. They misrepresent the facts, because they can not understand the men. Some artists, of course, are public men such as he who created Captain Gulliver, and broke at least two hearts; and men there are who, like Byron, parade their persons before the eyes of the ignorant. But what have we gained by listening to a word-war concerning Shelley's connection with Harriet Westbrook? Nothing but pain, since the tale of that boyish marriage and parting, has not the remotest bearing on the manly intellect that animated a new Prometheus, and made Beatrice Cenci vibrate again in flesh and blood. Of course, it is in vain to protest against the public hunger for biographies of men of genius. The Monster will be curious, luckless as its curiosity generally proves. Well, the public can gain nothing but good if the writers of its biographies be competent and reverentminded but how many such writers have written books of the kind? When a great man dies, poet, painter, sculptor : The sooner that the public perceives the odious cruelty of bad biography, the better for the living and the dead. ' Let him who would portray a great or good man in his habit as he lived, first measure carefully his own qualifications for the task, bearing in mind the sacredness of his office, and having in view the punishment which should await a blundering iconoclast. If he succeed, if he heighten our appreciation and purify our affection for a memory which we love, let him receive every honor that Literature can con.. fer upon him. If he fail, let there be no mercy for him-no mercy, in the name of those who slumber too deeply to be awakened by the slanderer. Our literary lares and penates are too scanty and too holy to be destroyed without a protest. Keep them lofty, keep them pure; permit the gentle hand to put a halo of fresh dignity and loveliness around them; but suffer no monkey to play his pranks in that inner chamber where they are enshrined! ROBERT BUCHANAN. Bentley's Miscellany. THE FOREST-BROTHER. A BRETON LEGEND BY LOUISA STUART COSTELLO. [Varieties of this subject occur in almost every language, and the story of a return from the dead is popular in all countries; the famous ballad of Lenor being perhaps the most se, as the best told. The date of this is early in the middle ages, as the chivalric devotion of the knight proves.] I. THE fairest maids of gentle race When eighteen years were flown. The good old lord was dead and gone, Left to her stepdame's care. Pity it was to see the child Mourning and weeping sore, Seated, so lovely and so mild! Beside the manor-door Gazing for ever on the wave, With hope that would not fail, For that one comfort that might saveHer foster-brother's sail. Watching afar the deep wide sea, "Hence from my path-rise up, I say! To fetch the cattle go I feed thee not to sit all day In winter's snow she broke her sleep She sent her to the fairies' cave Whose horse was drinking there. "Good eve," the courteous warrior said: "Tell me, are you betroth'd fair maid ?" And she, at once confused and shy, "I can not answer," made reply. "Speak to my question, yes or no?" "Gentle knight, I am not so." "Then, maiden, take this ring of gold, My squire was kill'd this fatal day: The sword was sharp that pierced me through! "But in three weeks and three days' space I shall be healed: bid her provide, For gaily to the Manor-place I shall arrive to fetch my bride." Then Gwennola ran home with speed, II. One, two, three weeks had fled awayWhy does the young knight still delay? "You would be wed?-nor shall refuse The man I name, 'tis my decree.” "Forgive me, stepmother, I choose My foster-brother, none but he. "He gave this wedding-ring of gold, His promise he will not forget; Gaily and soon you will behold My husband come to fetch me yet." "Be silent! out upon thy ring! Answer me not, or thou shalt find This staff, which I shall use, can bring A minion to her proper mind. "Say'st thou yes, or say'st thou no, Job Alloadec, you straight shall wed." "Jobik! oh, the dire disgrace! Ah! my own sweet mother dear, "Weep without, if thou must weep, "Twas at that time the country round "Pray for the soul, each Christian wight, To-morrow, at the close of day, III. "You have left the feast in haste!" "Yet too slowly for my taste; Not half the revels yet are done, And the evening scarce begun. "But no more could I contain Pity for the sweet bride's pain, And disgust that cowherd's face "Weeping all around her stood, "In the church this morning all "The louder rang the music clear "Placed at the board when supper came, IV. Now at the Manor shines no light, "Who knocks?-what accents do I hear ?" "Nola, thy foster-brother dear." "Ha! is it true? thou dear one, tellThou Nola-whom I love so well!" Yes, 'tis Nola. At a bound On his steed as white as snow "How well we ride, how quick we scour— "Hold me well and clasp me strong, We shall reach her home ere long." The owls sail'd shrieking and afraid, The wild beasts hid them in the shade, Scared at the fearful din they made! "Thy arms how bright, thy horse how fleet! "Hold me, sister, clasp me well, "Alas! how chill the hand I hold, Thy hair is damp, thy heart is cold; I fear the night air is too chill? "Hold me, sister, clasp me still! We are close-and dost thou hear Scarce he spoke, the courser proud They have reached a flow'ry isle, There springs a fountain clear and blue- London Quarterly Review. LIFE AND OPINIONS OF WALTER NEVER did church bells ring in a more eventful year, than that which was heralded by the midnight peel of December 31st, 1774. Before the New Year was three weeks old, Lord North, yielding reluctantly to the obstinacy of George III., had announced that the government intended to proceed to extremities with the American colonies. In spite of Burke's magnificent defence of the colonies eight months before, in spite of Lord Chatham's eloquent protest then just delivered, the ministry had determined to violate the first principle of constitutional government, that taxation and representation should go together. By sixty-eight votes against eighteen, the House of Lords had decided to force the rebellious subjects of the king into obedience. While Benjamin Franklin was sitting entranced by the eloquence of the great peer, and was listening with sorrow to the ministerial statement, which he knew full well was the announcement of a long and bloody war, George Washington had just presided over a meeting of the men of Fair *1. The Works of WALTER SAVAGE LANDOR. In Two Volumes. London: Moxon. 1846. 2. The lust Fruit off an Old Tree. BY WALTER SAVAGE LANDOR. London: Moxon. 1853. 3. Dry Sticks Fagoted. By WALTER SAVAGE LANDOR. Edinburgh: Nichol. 1858. 4. The Literary Life and Correspondence of the Countess of Blessington. By R. R. MADDEN. Vol. II. London: Newby, 1855. fax County, Virginia; and had formed erate Republic, with slavery for its "coran association to defend their religion, ner-stone." As we write, he who was laws, and rights. The days were fast laid in his cradle during the first year of hastening to that bloody and terrible the war of American Independence, has drama in many acts, which began on but a few days been laid in the grave, in Lexington Common at dawn of April this the fourth year of the war of Amer19th, 1775, and did not close until the ican Secession. Between the cradle that sun went down over Waterloo, on June rocked, and the grave in which now 18th, 1815. But, as yet, few men in sleeps, Walter Savage Landor, there lies England had the dimmest foresight of a history of countless revolutions, of the the events that were before them. A week rise and fall of kingdoms and governafter Chatham's memorable speech, James ments in every quarter of the world, of Boswell wrote to Johnson as follows: . the most astonishing national progress "I am ashamed to say I have read and that the world has ever seen, of the most thought little on the subject of America. bloody wars that history has known. I will be much obliged to you if you will When Landor was born, the first Napodirect me where I shall find the best in- leon had not been heard of. Yet Landor formation of what is to be said on both lived to see the son of the third Napolesides. The imperfect hints which now float in my mind, tend rather to the for- of Orsini. At Landor's birth, the loathon, and to offer a pension to the widow mation of an opinion, that our government has been precipitant and severe in the resolu- some corpse of Louis XV. had but a few tion taken against the Bostonians. Well do weeks been placed in the royal sepulchre you know that I have no kindness for that at St. Denis, amid the jeers of the popurace. But nations or bodies of men should, lace; and the new king was but a youth as well as individuals, have a fair trial, and of one-and-twenty, though five years not be condemned on character alone. Have wedded to the beautiful Marie Antoiwe not express contracts with our colonies, nette. Wellington, Napoleon, Robespierre, were children of five years old. Pitt was an under-graduate at Cambridge. It was on the eve of the most stirring epoch of modern times that Landor saw the light; and he had passed his fortyty first year, before England had emerged from that tremendous struggle on which she was then about to enter. which afford a more certain foundation of judgment, than general political speculations on the mutual rights of states and their provinces or colonies? Pray let me know immediately what to read, and I shall diligently endeavor to gather for you any thing that I can find. Is Burke's speech on American tax ation published by himself? Is it authentic? I remember to have heard you say that you had never considered East Indian affairs, though surely they are of much importance to Great Britain. Under the recollection of this, I shelter myself from the reproach of igno rance about American affairs." To this letter Johnson did not reply directly, but published his pamphlet, Tuxation no Tyranny, in which he took the extremest Georgian view of the rebellion, and urged "an insulted nation to pour out its vengeance." It was while Boswell's letter was on its way through the post from Edinburgh to London, that there was born in the town of Warwick an infant, who lived to see the revolted colonies grow up into a colossal empire; and the descendants of Washington and Franklin, ninety years after the commencement of their own War of Independence, engaged in repressing the attempt of one portion of those colonies to establish their sepaarate independence as a new Confed The literary times were not so stirring. It was not till more than twenty-five years later that the two rival schools of poetry arose, and that the modern essay and critique had its birth in the pages of the two quarterlies. Johnson was indeed playing the autocrat of the supper table. Goldsmith had died only nine months before, bewept by the beggars of Brick Court. Mason was editing his departed friend Gray's works. Beattie had just brought out the second part of his Minstrel. Poor Cowper had not yet written his best poetry. Fergusson, the "Laureate of Edinburgh," had just drunk himself to madness and to death, and had been buried in Canongate church-yard. "Junius" had but lately ceased to write the letters which were the terror of political culprits. Chatterton's untimely death had lately made manifest, what had before been more than suspected, that "Rowley's" poems were forgeries. Thirteen days before Landor's birth, Sheridan had brought out the Rivals at Covent Garden. But the subjects of greatest interest at that time were the dispute respecting the authenticity of "Ossian's" poems, and Lord Monboddo's attempt (in which he forestalled some modern philosophers) to prove that man was a developed monkey. One really great and permanent work there was which appeared about this time. A year after Landor's birth, Edward Gibbon brought out the first volume of his Decline and Fall, and everybody was reading it, from the don in the University to the fine lady in the boudoir. But on January 30th, 1775, the men who, at the close of the last and the beginning of the present century, enriched our literature, were either in the school-room or nursery, or were yet unborn. Crabbe was the only one who had attained to man's estate. Rogers was twelve years old, Wordsworth five, Walter Scott four, Coleridge three, Southey one. Lamb was born eleven days after Landor, Campbell two years and a half, Moore four years, while Byron was Landor's junior by fourteen years, and Shelley by seventeen. Burns was sixteen years older than Landor, but he had not yet begun to win for Scottish bards an imperishable renown; nor had Gifford begun to win for English reviewers an unenviable name. How far away this time and these men seem now! The youngest of them died forty-two years before Landor. Lamb, who was born before Landor's monthly nurse had resigned her charge, was laid to rest in Edmonton churchyard thirty years before Landor breathed his last in a bye street under the walls of Florence. Byron died forty years before Landor; and the man who remembers the shock of grief which thrilled England at his sad and sudden death, can not be much less than fifty years old. Yet Landor, as we have seen, was fourteen years Byron's senior. Some few of Landor's associates outlived their three score years and ten; and it is but nine years since Samuel Rogers slept his last sleep at the patriarchal age of ninety-two. But of all of them there is none save Wordsworth who has written during the past twenty years, while it is not twenty months since Landor was writing tersest NEW SERIES-Vol. II., No. 3. English and purest Latin. But, after all, that which will most clearly convey the idea of Landor's longevity is the fact that he was the contomporary of both Paoli and Garibaldi, of both George Washington and "Stonewall" Jackson; that he saw the first installed lieutenant-general of his native Corsica, the second enter Naples in triumph, the third presiding at that meeting at Fairfax, of which we have spoken, and the fourth dying at Chancellorsville, within a few miles of the same place. There is no doubt that the circumstances of Landor's position tended to this longevity. A literary man who has enough of this world's goods to make him indifferent on the matter of copyright, is likely to survive his collegue who is compelled by poverty to serve the publishers and the public. The first may choose his own path, and walk at his own pace. The second has to toil in haste on roads that are wearisome and fatiguing. Rogers, the banker poet, and Landor, the country gentleman, lived to be nonagenarians; and the liberality of the Calverts and the Beaumonts kept Wordsworth from want, and enabled him to lengthen out his screne and tranquil life to his eighty-first year. On the other hand Goldsmith's career was no doubt shortened by his bondage to Griffiths in the early part of it; Scott worked himself into a paralysis in endeavoring to pay his creditors; Burns's fate was still more hapless. Kirke White and Keats were cut off in their spring-time by the frosty winds of poverty. Certainly Rogers's poetry would never have brought him in a sufficient income, and he did wisely to stick to the banking, and to his luxurious bachelor's quarters in St. James's Place. Wordsworth's admirers were audience fit, no doubt, but too few to have enabled him to dream for thirty years on the banks of Rydal Water. Neither Landor's Latin, nor his English, would have furnished him with the money that he spent in buying pictures of every school, from Fra Angelico to J. M. W. Turner. We have not dwelt upon the length of Landor's career because of any particpation in the popular admiration of longevity for its own sake. As a rule, the statesmanship of the politician, the writings of the man of letters, the theology 20 |