Page images
PDF
EPUB

The city had been leaving her foundation,
And seeking out another situation;
Or, that some enemy, with dreadful pow'r,
Was coming to besiege, and to devour.

Oh, foolish people, though I justly might
Authorize thus my muse to mock your flight,
And still to flout your follies: yet, compassion
Shall end it in a kind expostulation."

This is in the true plague-spirit, we are never so apt to laugh as when on the point of crying. A loud and unnatural burst of laughter was wanting to complete the horror of the scene. There are numerous passages more to our purpose. When the plague has regularly set in, and all are dying about him, Wither is excited to express his feelings even more poetically than any one who has yet been mentioned.

"To others, Death, no doubt, himself convey'd
In other forms, and other pageants play'd.
Whilst in her arms the mother thought she kept
Her infant safe; Death stole him when she slept.
Sometime he took the mother's life away,
And left the little babe to lye and play

With her cold breast, and childish game to make
About those eyes that never more shall wake.

Sometimes when friends were talking, he did force
The one to leave unfinisht his discourse.

Sometimes their morning meetings he hath thwarted,
Who thought not they for ever had been parted
The night before. And many a lovely bride
He hath defloured by the bridegroom's side.
At ev'ry hand lay one or other dying;
On ev'ry part were men and women crying;
One for a husband; for a friend another;
One for a sister, wife, or only brother:

Some children for their parents moan were making;
Some for the loss of servants care were taking;
Some parents for a child; and some again

For loss of all their children did complain.

The mother dared not to close her eyes,

Through fear, that while she sleeps, her baby dies.
Wives trusted not their husbands out of door,

Lest they might back again return no more.

And, in their absence, if they did but hear

One knock or call in haste, they quak'd through fear,

[blocks in formation]

That some unlucky messenger had brought
The news of those mischances they forethought.
And if, with care and grief o'er-tired, they slept,
They dream'd of ghosts and graves, and shriekt and wept."

Here is a picture from the life.

"But, when the morning came, it little shewed,
Save light, to see discomfortings renewed:
For, if I staid within, I heard relations

Of nought but dying pangs and lamentations.
If, in the streets, I did my footing set,
With many sad disasters there I met.
And objects of mortality and fear,
I saw in great abundance ev'ry where.

Here, one man stagger'd by, with visage pale;
There, lean'd another, grunting on a stall.
A third, half dead, lay gasping for his grave;
A fourth did out at window call and rave;
Yon came the bearers, sweating from the pit,
To fetch more bodies to replenish it.

A little further off, one sits and shows

The spots, which he Death's tokens doth suppose,
(E're such they be) and makes them so indeed."

Again, a similar one.

"This way, a stranger by his host expell'd,
That way, a servant, shut from where he dwell'd,
Came weakly stagg'ring forth, and, crush'd beneath
Diseases and unkindness, sought for death;
Which soon was found; and glad was he, they say,
Who for his death-bed gain'd a cock of hay.
At this cross path, were bearers fetching home
A neighbour, who in health did thither come:
Close by were others digging up the ground,
To hide a stranger whom they dead had found.
Before me, went with corpses many a one;
Behind, as many more did follow on.'

[ocr errors]

Burials, graves, and corpses, of course, are as conspicuous objects here as in all the rest.

"You scarce could make a little infant's bed

In all those plots, but you should pare a head,
An arm, a shoulder, or a leg away,

Of one or other who there buried lay.

One grave did often many scores enclose
Of men and women: and it may be those,
That could not in two parishes agree,
Now in one little room at quiet be.

Yon lay a heap of skulls; another there;
Here, half unburied, did a corpse appear.
Close by, you might have seen a brace of feet,
That had kickt off the rotten winding-sheet.
A little further saw we othersome,

Thrust out their arms for want of elbow room.
A lock of woman's hair; a dead man's face
Uncover'd; and a ghastly sight it was.
Oh! here, here view'd I what the glories be
Of pamper'd flesh here plainly did I see
How grim those beauties will ere long appear,
Which we so dote on, and so covet here.
Here was enough to cool the hottest flame
Of lawless lust. Here was enough to tame
The madd'st ambition. And all they that go
Unbetter'd from such objects, worse do grow."

Much of this poem is taken up with Wither's own contemplations during the plague, and more especially with arguments relative to his stay in the city or flight into the country. He determines, at length, upon the former, and appears to have shut himself up in a kind of solitary imprisonment.

"So long the solitary nights did last,

That I had leisure my accounts to cast;
And think upon, and over-think those things,
Which darkness, loneliness, and sorrow brings

To their consideration, who do know

From whence they came, and whither they must go.
My chamber entertain'd me all alone,

And in the rooms adjoining lodged none.

Yet, through the darksome silent night, did fly

Sometime an uncouth noise; sometime a cry;

And sometime mournful callings pierc'd my room,

Which came, I neither knew from whence, nor whom.

And oft, betwixt awaking and asleep,

Their voices who did talk, or pray, or weep,

Unto my list'ning ears a passage found,

And troubled me, by their uncertain sound.”

His morning was not much to be preferred to his night.

"No sooner wak'd I, but twice twenty knells,
And many sadly-sounding passing-bells,
Did greet mine ear, and by their heavy tolls,
To me gave notice, that some early souls
Departed whilst I slept: that other some
Were drawing onward to their longest home;
And, seemingly, presag'd that many a one

Should bid the world good night, ere it were noon."

The poet, however, is far from repining, and, like a true enthusiast, glories in his resolution. He thus expresses his satisfaction at remaining to record the suffering of the city, and thanks the Almighty for his preservation in the midst of danger.

"Oh! God, how great a blessing, then, didst thou
Confer upon me! And what grace allow!
Oh! what am I, and what my parentage?
That thou, of all the children of this age,
Didst chuse out me, so highly to prefer,
As of thy acts, to be a register?

And give me fortitude and resolution
To stay, and view thy judgement's execution;
That I should live to see thy angel here,
Ev'n in his greatest dreadfulness appear?
That when a thousand fell before my face,
And at my right hand, in as little space,
Ten thousand more, I should be still protected
From that contagious blast, which them infected!
That, when of arrows thou didst shoot a flight
So thick by day, and such a storm by night
Of poison'd shafts; I, then, should walk among
The sharpest of them; and yet pass along
Unharm'd? And that I should behold the path
Which thou dost pace in thy hot burning wrath,
Yet not consume to ashes."

Thus far had we advanced in this review, when we cast a glance on the heap of blotted papers which had already accumulated before us. The ghost of all our good resolutions about short articles, variety, &c. &c. struck us with horror. "A plague upon the plague," we exclaimed. It used to be reckoned a rapid disorder, but us (we hope not our readers also) it keeps in lingering torments-we fear we shall be thought to have it periodically, and that, like the tertian ague, the Plague will recur in every third number. Not so. In the next number, or the next but

one," the Plague" shall positively die. But it would be unpardonable to rake up the ashes of the excellent M. Bertram, for a hasty gaze at the end of an article, and the glorious bishop of Marseilles, Henry de Belzune, must be treated ceremoniously and with reverence. If, too, we should drop the curtain over this great tragedy at this moment, we should eternally close a book, which ought to be looked into again before its leaves for ever lose the light. We are certain that the Britain's Remembrancer never will be opened again; when we came to the FINIS, we suggested to the little fat volume, that it should now take leave of mortal readers; for there was something within us (whether sleep, or fatigue, or what not) which instinctively revealed, that this book would be a sealed book for all future ages.

ART. II.-The History of the famous Preacher Friar Gerund de Campazas, otherwise Gerund Zotes. Translated from the Spanish, 2 vols. T. Davies. London, 1772.

We partly meditate the surprising our readers with certain indiscretions-witty, humorous, or jocose,-" pleasant, but wrong:"-Should we do this, however, and aberrate from the serious track of Reviewers, it must be at another season,perhaps in the warm July weather, when our fancy is heated and the air is clear, and we can both see our way through the humours of the multitude, and handle them with becoming spirit. It is not in these cold days of March, when the sharp winds are abroad, blowing even the critics (the sturdiest of the wit tribe) home to their chimney corners, that we shall undertake the task. But, let the mild May open her blossoms, and June tinge the roses, and July bring forth the red peeping strawberries-and then, with the golden air about us, and the bright blue roof to look at, we may try what we can do. Then, indeed, we may luxuriate in witty indolence, and tell our readers gaily all we know of the gay and gallant spirits that have gone before us. We assure them, that there is a fine host, a dazzling array; and it will be hard indeed if we cannot catch a little of the lustre which will envelope us. There is the Senor Miguel de Cervantes; the historian of Gil Blas ("Blas of Santillane," the reader recollects him); the renowned Philibert de Grammont; and the wittiest of historians, the Count Antony Hamilton: there is the famous author (and true father, we understand) of Mr. Thomas Jones, "a foundling;'

« PreviousContinue »