Page images
PDF
EPUB
[graphic][ocr errors][subsumed][merged small][ocr errors][ocr errors]
[graphic]
[ocr errors]

r of Troy,
11 nike a dastard I should skulk apart
From battle. Nor to this my own free mind
Prompts me; for I was train'd from earliest years
To a brave spirit; and have learn'd to fight
Still in the Trojan van, and still maintain
My country's mighty honor and my own.
I know too well, and in my heart and soul

I feel the deep conviction, that a time

Will come when sacred Troy shall be no more, But Priam and his people be destroy'd From off the face of earth. The after-woo JUNE, 1844.

runu agam these gentle words: Noblest of women! do not grieve me thus; Against concurring Fate no mortal man Can send me to the grave; and this I say, That none who once has breath'd the breath of life, Coward or brave, can hope to shun his fate; But hie thee to thy mansion, that thy works, The loom and distaff, may engage thy thoughts. Go task thy maidens. War must be the care, And mine the chief, of every man of Troy."

The noble Hector said, and raised from earth His horse-hair-crested helm. With homeward step His dear wife parted from him, and turn'd back Her eyes, the fast tears trickling down her cheek.

[graphic][merged small][merged small]
[merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][ocr errors]

PARTING OF HECTOR AND ANDROMACHE.

Forth

Sprang Hector from the mansion, and trod back
His footsteps through the stately rows of streets.
Crossing the spacious city, he now reach'd
The Scaan gates; through them his passage lay
Forth to the field. But then his high-dower'd wife
Came running on his steps; Andromache,
Eetion's daughter; who in woody tracts
Of Hypoplacian Thebes once stretch'd his sway
O'er the Cilicians. So his daughter lived,
The bride of Hector with the brazen helm ;
Who now came running on his steps; while close
The handmaid follow'd her, and at her breast
The babe, as yet a tender innocent,
Darling of Hector, fair as any star,
Whom Hector nam'd Scamandrius;
Astyanax; since Hector was alone
Their city's safeguard. He, on their approach,
Casting a look upon his infant boy,
Silently smiled. Andromache, all bathed
In tears, stood by; and, clinging to his hand,
Address'd him: "Noble husband! thy great heart
Will sure destroy thee. Thou no pity hast
For this thy infant son and wretched me,
Whom thou wilt leave a widow. For the Greeks
Will slay thee soon with overpowering charge
Of numbers. It were better far that I,

they of Troy,

Once reft of thee, should sink within the grave.
I have no other comfort when thy life
Has yielded to its destiny; but grief
Must be my portion. Father have I none,
Nor mother.

*

*

Thou, Hector, art my father! thou to me
Art mother, brother, all my joy of life,
My husband! Come, be merciful, remain
Here in this turret; make not this child
An orphan, nor a widow of thy wife.
Command the Trojan army to a halt
At the wild fig-tree, where the city lies
Most easy of ascent, and most exposed
The rampart to assault. Already thrice
The bravest of their warriors have essay'd
To force the wall; the famed Idomeneus.
And either Ajax, and brave Diomed,

And Atreus' sons: whether some skilful seer
Have prophesied before them, or their minds
Have prompted them spontaneous to the act."
At these her words the lofty Hector shook
His party-color'd horse-hair plume, and spoke :
"Believe it, oh my wife! these same sad thoughts
Have touch'd me nearly; but I also fear
The Trojans and the women fair of Troy,
If like a dastard I should skulk apart
From battle. Nor to this my own free mind
Prompts me; for I was train'd from earliest years
To a brave spirit; and have learn'd to fight
Still in the Trojan van, and still maintain
My country's mighty honor and my own.
I know too well, and in my heart and soul

I feel the deep conviction, that a time

Will come when sacred Troy shall be no more,
But Priam and his people be destroy'd
From off the face of earth. The after-woe

JUNE, 1844.

10

Of these my countrymen afflicts me not;
No, nor the grief of Hecuba's despair,
Nor kingly Priam's, nor the woeful lot
Of brethren, brave and many, who shall fall
Beneath their foes, as thine, Andromache!
When some stern Grecian with his mail of brass
Shall lead thee in thy tears away, and snatch
The light of freedom from thee: when, detain'd
At Argos, thou shalt weave the color'd web
Task'd by another, or shalt waters bear
From fountains of Hyperia, sore averse
And faint, yet yielding to the hard control
That lays the burthen on thee. Haply then
Some passer, looking on thy tears, may cry :

This was the wife of Hector, who was once
Chief warrior of the Trojans when they fought
With their fam❜d horses round the walls of Troy.'
So will he say: and thou wilt grieve afresh
At loss of him who might have warded off
Thy day of slavery. But may earth have heap'd
The hill upon my corse ere of thy cries
My ear be conscious, or my soul perceive
The leading of thy sad captivity."

So spake the noble Hector; and with hands Outstretch'd bent forward to embrace his child. The babe against the damsel's broad-zoned breast Lean'd backward, clinging with a cry, disturb'd At his loved father's aspect, and in fear Of the keen brass that glared upon his gaze, And horse-hair sweeping crest that nodded fierce Upon the helmet's cone. The father dear And honor'd mother to each other laugh'd; Instant the noble Hector from his head Lifted the casque, and plac'd it on the ground, Far-beaming where it stood; then kiss'd his boy, And dandled in his arms; imploring thus Jove, and the other Deities of heaven: "Hear, Jupiter, and every God on high! Grant this may come to pass! that he, my son, May shine among the Trojans in renown And strength as I myself, and reign o'er Troy In valor: that of him it may be said

By one who sees him coming from the field,
Truly the son transcends the father's deeds!'

Grant him to slay his enemy, and bear

The bloody trophy back and glad the heart
Of this his mother!" So he said, and placed
The babe within his own beloved's arms:
She softly laid him on her balmy breast,
Smiling through tears. The husband at that sight
Melted in pity; with his hand he smooth'd
Her cheek, and spoke again these gentle words:
"Noblest of women! do not grieve me thus;
Against concurring Fate no mortal man
Can send me to the grave; and this I say,
That none who once has breath'd the breath of life,
Coward or brave, can hope to shun his fate;
But hie thee to thy mansion, that thy works,
The loom and distaff, may engage thy thoughts.
Go task thy maidens. War must be the care,
And mine the chief, of every man of Troy."

The noble Hector said, and raised from earth
His horse-hair-crested helm. With homeward step
His dear wife parted from him, and turn'd back
Her eyes, the fast tears trickling down her cheek.

PENNY POSTAGE AND THE POST OFFICE.

From the British Foreign Review.

1. Report from the Select Committee on Postage, together with the Minutes of Evidence, Appendix, and Index. Ordered by the House of Commons to be printed, Aug. 14th, 1843.

[child in the kingdom enjoys a practical freedom of correspondence, next in value to the liberty of speech, but the act is attended with the necessary incompleteness of his plan, whereby it can be shown that the public treasury is mulcted of an immense revenue, and the public despoiled of innumerable con

veniences.

[ocr errors]

2. The State and Prospects of Penny Post- Reduction of postage, uniformity of charge, age, as developed in the Evidence taken be- prepayment and use of stamps, were doubtfore the Postage Committee of 1843, with less essential features of Mr. Hill's plan, but incidental remarks on the Testimony of the they were far from being the whole from Post-Office Authorities, and an Appendix first to last Mr. Hill has professed that they of Correspondence. By ROWLAND HILL. formed but a portion of it. Increased speed London: Charles Knight and Co., 1844. in the delivery of letters, greater facilities for WHEN the bill on Penny Postage was un- their despatch, simplification in the operader discussion in the House of Lords, the tions of the Post-Office, were parts, though Duke of Wellington bore testimony to the less novel and less obvious, no less necessary. superior merits of Mr. Rowland Hill's plan" Reduction, increased convenience and ecoover any other. Though opposed to the re-nomy," as Sir Thomas Wilde observed, duction of postage, as inopportune at that were all to be taken together," and he proparticular time, his Grace advised the passing ceeded to say that the removal of Mr. Hill of that bill on the express ground that it ena- showed that the plan was intended to be bled the Government to carry out Mr. Hill's given up. "The dismissal of Mr. Hill was plan. The Treasury, he argued, have al- the knell of the plan." Almost with the ready sufficient powers to reduce postage to voice of a prophet, Mr. Matthew Hill foreany extent they please, and they are evidently told three years and a half ago,—before his not very scrupulous about the matter;-they brother entered the service of the Treasury, may give up the whole postage revenue with--that the very parts of the plan now left out asking their lordships' leave, they can untouched were those surrounded with the do this mischief, but they cannot give effect greatest difficulties of execution. He said,— to Mr. Hill's plan without new powers; he therefore recommended the passing of the "The reduction of postage and the modes of bill, because it conferred those powers. Prepayment are no doubt the principal features "For," to use the Duke's own words, "I am of your plan; but you lay great stress, and very properly in my opinion, on increasing the fadisposed to admit that the plan called Mr. cilities for transmitting letters; and this part of Rowland Hill's plan is, if it were adopted ex-the reform will, I apprehend, cause you more actly as was proposed, of all the plans that which is most likely to be successful." But the Duke's sound opinion, which is recorded in Hansard of the 5th of August, 1839, does not seem to have had much weight with any member of the administration to which his Grace belongs. It is set at nought by the prime minister, passed over by the Chancellor of the Exchequer, ridiculed by the Postmaster-General, and scorned by every one of his officers, from the secretary to the letter- Four years ago we argued for the adoption carrier. All are in league, not only to pre- of the Penny Postage, and a few months vent the adoption of Mr. Hill's plan exactly brought about the desired event. as was proposed, but even half of Mr. Hill's now to advocate its completion, and with an plan. It is hardly necessary to say that they equal confidence as to the result of our laare working to retard its success, and to ful-bors, though the advent may not be quite so fil their official predictions of its failure.

Bad it is for Mr. Hill, worse for the revenue, still worse for the good and convenience of the public, that the Duke's opinion should have failed to weigh with his fellowministers. The dismissal of Mr. Hill is not merely unjust to an individual through whose exertions almost every man, woman, and

labor of detail than that which more strikes the public eye. In this department you will be left to contend with the Post-Office almost unaided. It will be very easy to raise plausible objections to be supposed to be competent judges, either in your measures, of which ministers can hardly respect of technical information or of leisure for inquiry."

The prediction has been only too well fulfilled.

soon at hand as before.

Before we proceed to describe the portions of the plan remaining incomplete, something should be said of what has been carried into execution and of the results. A Select Committee of the House of Commons, on the motion of Sir Thomas Wilde, was appointed in the last session of parliament, to inquire

« PreviousContinue »