The fust sp.i.s.symen has been going the round of all the papers, as real, reglar poatry. Those wickid critix! they must have been laffing in their sleafs when they quoted it. Malody, suckling round and uppards from the bows, like a happy soul released, hangs in the air, and from invizable plumes shakes sweetness down. Mighty fine, truly! but let mortial man tell the meannink of the pa.s.sidge. Is it MUSICKLE sweetniss that Malody shakes down from its plumes--its wings, that is, or tail--or some pekewliar scent that proceeds from happy souls released, and which they shake down from the trees when they are suckling round and uppards? IS this poatry, Barnet? Lay your hand on your busm, and speak out boldly: Is it poatry, or sheer windy humbugg, that sounds a little melojous, and won"t bear the commanest test of comman sence?
In pa.s.sidge number 2, the same bisniss is going on, though in a more comprehensable way: the air, the leaves, the otion, are fild with emocean at Capting Norman"s happiness. Pore Nature is dragged in to partisapate in his joys, just as she has been befor. Once in a poem, this universle simfithy is very well; but once is enuff, my dear Barnet: and that once should be in some great suckmstans, surely,--such as the meeting of Adam and Eve, in "Paradice Lost," or Jewpeter and Jewno, in Hoamer, where there seems, as it were, a reasn for it. But sea-captings should not be eternly spowting and invoking G.o.ds, hevns, starrs, angels, and other silestial influences. We can all do it, Barnet; nothing in life is esier. I can compare my livry b.u.t.tons to the stars, or the clouds of my backopipe to the dark vollums that ishew from Mount Hetna; or I can say that angels are looking down from them, and the tobacco silf, like a happy sole released, is circling round and upwards, and shaking sweetness down. All this is as esy as drink; but it"s not poatry, Barnet, nor natural. People, when their mothers reckonize them, don"t howl about the suck.u.mambient air, and paws to think of the happy leaves a-rustling--at least, one mistrusts them if they do. Take another instans out of your own play. Capting Norman (with his eternil SLACK-JAW!) meets the gal of his art:--
"Look up, look up, my Violet--weeping? fie!
And trembling too--yet leaning on my breast.
In truth, thou art too soft for such rude shelter.
Look up! I come to woo thee to the seas, My sailor"s bride! Hast thou no voice but blushes?
Nay--From those roses let me, like the bee, Drag forth the secret sweetness!
VIOLET.
"Oh what thoughts Were kept for SPEECH when we once more should meet, Now blotted from the PAGE; and all I feel Is--THOU art with me!"
Very right, Miss Violet--the scentiment is natral, aff.e.c.kshnit, pleasing, simple (it might have been in more grammaticle languidge, and no harm done); but never mind, the feeling is pritty; and I can fancy, my dear Barnet, a pritty, smiling, weeping la.s.s, looking up in a man"s face and saying it. But the capting!--oh, this capting!--this windy, spouting captain, with his prittinesses, and conseated apollogies for the hardness of his busm, and his old, stale, vapid simalies, and his wishes to be a bee! Pish! Men don"t make love in this finniking way. It"s the part of a sentymentle, poeticle taylor, not a galliant gentleman, in command of one of her Madjisty"s vessels of war.
Look at the remaining extrac, honored Barnet, and acknollidge that Capting Norman is eturnly repeating himself, with his endless jabber about stars and angels. Look at the neat grammaticle twist of Lady Arundel"s spitch, too, who, in the corse of three lines, has made her son a prince, a lion, with a sword and coronal, and a star. Why jumble and sheak up metafors in this way? Barnet, one simily is quite enuff in the best of sentenses (and I preshume I kneedn"t tell you that it"s as well to have it LIKE, when you are about it). Take my advise, honrabble sir--listen to a humble footmin: it"s genrally best in poatry to understand puffickly what you mean yourself, and to ingspress your meaning clearly afterwoods--in the simpler words the better, praps. You may, for instans, call a coronet a coronal (an "ancestral coronal," p.
74) if you like, as you might call a hat a "swart sombrero," "a glossy four-and-nine," "a silken helm, to storm impermeable, and lightsome as the breezy gossamer;" but, in the long run, it"s as well to call it a hat. It IS a hat; and that name is quite as poetticle as another. I think it"s Playto, or els Harrystottle, who observes that what we call a rose by any other name would smell as sweet. Confess, now, dear Barnet, don"t you long to call it a Polyanthus?
I never see a play more carelessly written. In such a hurry you seem to have bean, that you have actially in some sentences forgot to put in the sence. What is this, for instance?--
"This thrice precious one Smiled to my eyes--drew being from my breast-- Slept in my arms;--the very tears I shed Above my treasures were to men and angels Alike such holy sweetness!"
In the name of all the angels that ever you invoked--Raphael, Gabriel, Uriel, Zadkiel, Azrael--what does this "holy sweetness" mean? We"re not spinxes to read such durk conandrums. If you knew my state sins I came upon this pa.s.sidg--I"ve neither slep nor eton; I"ve neglected my pantry; I"ve been wandring from house to house with this riddl in my hand, and n.o.body can understand it. All Mr. Frazier"s men are wild, looking gloomy at one another, and asking what this may be. All the c.u.mtributors have been spoak to. The Doctor, who knows every languitch, has tried and giv"n up; we"ve sent to Docteur Pettigruel, who reads horyglifics a deal ezier than my way of spellin"--no anser. Quick! quick with a fifth edition, honored Barnet, and set us at rest! While your about it, please, too, to igsplain the two last lines:--
"His merry bark with England"s flag to crown her."
See what dellexy of igspreshn, "a flag to crown her!"
"His merry bark with England"s flag to crown her, Fame for my hopes, and woman in my cares."
Likewise the following:--
"Girl, beware, THE LOVE THAT TRIFLES ROUND THE CHARMS IT GILDS OFT RUINS WHILE IT SHINES."
Igsplane this, men and angels! I"ve tried every way; backards, forards, and in all sorts of trancepositions, as thus:--
The love that ruins round the charms it shines, Gilds while it trifles oft;
Or,
The charm that gilds around the love it ruins, Oft trifles while it shines;
Or,
The ruins that love gilds and shines around, Oft trifles where it charms;
Or,
Love, while it charms, shines round, and ruins oft, The trifles that it gilds;
Or,
The love that trifles, gilds and ruins oft, While round the charms it shines.
All which are as sensable as the fust pa.s.sidge.
And with this I"ll alow my friend Smith, who has been silent all this time, to say a few words. He has not written near so much as me (being an infearor genus, betwigst ourselves), but he says he never had such mortial difficklty with anything as with the dixcripshn of the plott of your pease. Here his letter:--
To CH-RL-S F-TZR-Y PL-NT-G-N-T Y-LL-WPL-SH, ESQ., &c. &c.
30th Nov. 1839.
MY DEAR AND HONORED SIR,--I have the pleasure of laying before you the following description of the plot, and a few remarks upon the style of the piece called "The Sea Captain."
Five-and-twenty years back, a certain Lord Arundel had a daughter, heiress of his estates and property; a poor cousin, Sir Maurice Beevor (being next in succession); and a page, Arthur Le Mesnil by name.
The daughter took a fancy for the page, and the young persons were married unknown to his lordship.
Three days before her confinement (thinking, no doubt, that period favorable for travelling), the young couple had agreed to run away together, and had reached a chapel near on the sea-coast, from which they were to embark, when Lord Arundel abruptly put a stop to their proceedings by causing one Gaussen, a pirate, to murder the page.
His daughter was carried back to Arundel House, and, in three days, gave birth to a son. Whether his lordship knew of this birth I cannot say; the infant, however, was never acknowledged, but carried by Sir Maurice Beevor to a priest, Onslow by name, who educated the lad and kept him for twelve years in profound ignorance of his birth. The boy went by the name of Norman.
Lady Arundel meanwhile married again, again became a widow, but had a second son, who was the acknowledged heir, and called Lord Ashdale. Old Lord Arundel died, and her ladyship became countess in her own right.
When Norman was about twelve years of age, his mother, who wished to "WAFT young Arthur to a distant land," had him sent on board ship. Who should the captain of the ship be but Gaussen, who received a smart bribe from Sir Maurice Beevor to kill the lad. Accordingly, Gaussen tied him to a plank, and pitched him overboard.
About thirteen years after these circ.u.mstances, Violet, an orphan niece of Lady Arundel"s second husband, came to pa.s.s a few weeks with her ladyship. She had just come from a sea-voyage, and had been saved from a wicked Algerine by an English sea captain. This sea captain was no other than Norman, who had been picked up off his plank, and fell in love with, and was loved by, Miss Violet.
A short time after Violet"s arrival at her aunt"s the captain came to pay her a visit, his ship anchoring off the coast, near Lady Arundel"s residence. By a singular coincidence, that rogue Gaussen"s ship anch.o.r.ed in the harbor too. Gaussen at once knew his man, for he had "tracked"
him, (after drowning him,) and he informed Sir Maurice Beevor that young Norman was alive.