prowess, and the eagerness with which he embraces the advice of Mentes to sail to Pylos, and travel thence to Lacedemon, to enquire if Nestor or Menelaus can give him any tidings of his lot, gives assurance not only of a confiding and an affectionate, but of an adventurous and heroic spirit. He weeps to emulate Orestes, who had so nobly avenged his murdered Sire-and on the stranger suddenly vanishing, in awe and wonder he feels that his guest was a god, while heroic fire is more strongly kindled in his heart. Is not this a picture-in a few bold bright strokes-of the characteristic virtues of youth? What is wanting here that should have been seen in the son of Ulysses? But where is Penelope? Guess. Walking with her maids of honour on the beach, eyeing the sea for a sail, or blindly listening to the idle dash of waves? No-guess again. Sitting among the rocks, in some small secret glen, where twenty years ago she used to take an evening-walk with Ulysses? No. Wandering sad and slow in the woods once wont to echo to that hunter's horn, while she, fair as Diana, "A silvan huntress by his side, Not now. In her chamber weaving that famous web? That artifice has been detected, and the shuttle is still. Sunk in stupor there-or aimlessly employing her hands on embroidery in the listlessness of a long despair? Not far off the truth yet hardly are you Homer. She is in her chamber-but not in stupor nor despair-her senses are all wideawake-her ear has caught the measure wild of the aged harper-into her soul sinks the strain that sings of the return of the chiefs on the downfall of Troy! That mournful inspiration is more than she can bear the music is but an insupportable memory of her husband—a dirge for the dead. She fears not the face of the Suitors in their feasting-and appears before us in all the tenderness, the affection, and the dignity of a wife, a mother, and a queen. "The Prince the wooers sought, who, seated, hung In silent rapture as the minstrel sung, Sung the chiefs' sad return, when to and fro By Pallas' will, they sail'd from Troy's o'erthrow. Lone in her upper room, his chanted word: Down stepp'd, and where she moved, attendant came 666 Whose fame through Greece but echoes back my grief.' "My mother! why displeased?' the Prince rejoin'd, 'Leave to the bard free mastery of his mind. 'Tis not the minstrel, 'tis the will of Jove That breathes the inspiration from above Then blame not Phemius, whose recording lay Mourns their sad fate who steer'd from Troy their way. But many a Grecian strews the Trojan plain, Music-poetry-love-griefcomfort-repose of passion-and to the afflicted heaven-sent sleep not unvisited-let us hope-by soothing dreams! The song sung to the harp did of itself still the souls of the Suitors for though fit for murders, stratagems, and plots-they were high-born men-and had they fought at Ilium, not a few of them would have been heroes. A lawless and despotic life had not wholly quenched their hereditary fire-and the Ithacenses were by nature a noble race. Laertes had been a warrior in his youth-in his prime of manhood a king. But old age had subdued the regal spirit-and where and what is he now? In the palace, 'tis affectingly said, "he no more resides, But in his fields afar his misery hides, With one who serves his board, an aged dame, While sore fatigue comes o'er his toil worn frame, . When, from slow creeping through his vineyard rows, The old man seeks his dwelling's still repose." His wife, too, had died of "love and longings infinite," and the suitors had long had their sway. Dulichium, Samos, and Zacinthus sent their princes-accomplished men many of them-nor unworthy altogether of a widow's love. Fierce as fire, and as bright, is Antinous-and Eurymachus, with passion not less strong but more controllable, is a chief that might prevail on one less tender and true than Penelope to change the garments of grief for the saffron robe of joy. The devourers of that widow's house were not dancing bears, but leaping leopards-they knew how to fawn-and hoped to "hold her with their glittering eyes" till she became a prey. Descending in stately sorrow the flight of steps leading down to the great hall, in hushed admiration they beheld the Queen. No interruption is attempted of her pathetic address to the Bard -no insult, while she is present, to her Son. Their bad nature is rebuked and abashed by the Matron still beautiful in her fidelity to her godlike Lord-their better nature feels how "awful goodness is," "Virtue in her own shape how lovely,"-conjugal, maternal, and filial love have their hour of triumphand on the cheek of old Phemius bending over his silent harp, may be seen the heart-sprung tear. And is there any harshness-as has been often said-in the behaviour of Telemachus? None. His soul was elate. He had sought the Suitors, the moment after having held converse with a Divinity-and his Hope hushed, impatiently, but not unkindly-his mother's fears. Now he felt himself a man-commissioned by heaven for a holy quest. He would fain that the Bard had prolonged his Lay for his inspiration too was from the will of Jove. Ulysses is not dead-he is but a wanderer-and that harp shall ring through all its chords congratulation on the King's return. His looks and his tones reconciled his mother's heart to all his words astonished, she obeyed the child whom till that hour she had commanded-and if her high heart was satisfied, who, after the lapse of three thousand years, shall be offended with her noble progeny for the first expansion of his pride in the consciousness of being about to enter on a destiny that ere another moon had waned was to be gloriously fulfilled in a shower of blood! See and hear him among the Suitors now-passive no more-but flashing far-sighted scorn. Their outrages break out again on the disappearance of Penelope-but he beards them all. "Banquet in peace - cease your brawls, listen to Phemius, 'this gifted minstrel's heaven-attempered song.' -To-morrow meet me in counciland I will dismiss you to your own homes-if thither you go not at my command, I warn you that vengeance is preparing against you in heaven-and that no hand will be outstretched to save you when its hour is come. You are all doomed to die!" They too are astonished—gnaw their mute lips-and are sore afraid. But there is not a coward among them-and they recover courage to jibe and jeer-yet are they tamedand their eloquence wants fire. An tinous himself, even in the war of words, is now no match for Telemachus. The fearless Youth, in the joy of hope, lies to his insulter. He believes his father will return-for he trusts to the "veil'd divinity," but he calls her by the feigned name of the feigned Taphian chief, and inly exulting, says, "My sire will return no more." The close of the scene is as perfect as its opening and its progress-and how delightful to us of these artificial and civilized days is the picture of the domestic life of the simple heroic age! "Now in sweet interchange of song and dance, In either hand a torch his step before. One great purpose nobly conceived changes the whole character, by shewing the whole of life under a new aspect. Say, rather, it brings out the character, and makes the man feel and know what he is, as he firmly plants his foot on the threshold of his own house, which a high destiny calls on him to leave, and to go forth in power on a career that must have a glorious end. Look on the Telemachus of the Morn of Hope. Is he not "attired With sudden brightness like a morn inspired?" Homer rejoices to look on himhe lavishes beauty on his head-but not from his own hands-the glory there is shed by Pallas. It is an emanation from the young hero's own awakened heart. So Ulysses looked-when, but a few years older, he set sail for Troy. How his nurse must have gazed on him going forth in the morning sun-Euryclea, whom his grandfather purchased when a virgin for twenty oxen, but respected her virginity from fear of his wife. She nursed, too, Ulysses -yet never loved she him so dearly as Telemachus, for love descends, and settles on its latest-its last object-soft as snow and sweet as light-accumulated and accumulating there till the eyes wax dim and the heart scarcely beats-at the last two sons of hers do we hear-and they are-Ulysses and Telemachus. Perhaps she once loved Laertes, when they were in their prime-she in the bloom of purchase-and from fear an unenjoyed handmaid that decked the nuptial couch. Both old now, and weak and miserable-but she the happier far, because repining not now very painfully even for Ulysses, and having no care-no love gasp of life. His nurse loved him more than did even his own mother; for his own mother was a Queen, and his nurse was a slave. Penelope had been lamenting for twenty years her absent, or her lost lord-and the stream of sorrow kept flowing on from the fountain of love, that needed not to be fed-inexhaustible in a woman's heart as the sea. There was an affection, holiest of the holy, which she could not trans--nothing to live for-but that bright fer but to the assured place of his lifeless rest. It had imagined a hundred graves for her Ulysses-it had been haunted far oftener by his ghost. But his ship too had often sailed through her dreams-and often had sleep laid her in her hero's bosom. The face-the form of her son had a thousand times troubled her-so like those of him who was not-or was somewhere, known but to the Ruler of the Skies. By fits and starts to her must her Telemachus have been all in all. But she had dignities to guard-and indignities to endure-and duties to perform-and suits to repel-and temptations to resist-and fears to banish -and hopes to bring from afar-and all because she was faithful to the husband of her youth-to him for whose sake she had covered her face with her veil-and to whom she had said in a sweet low voice, when her father Icarius asked her would she go or stay-"I go to Ithaca, Ulysses, with Thee!" But Euryclea was-as you know-a mere aged slave. She may have had some swineherd groom for a husband-half a century ago -and a swarm of children; but we hear nothing of them-only of Boy climbing up to manhood, and now standing majestically as on a hill-top between her and the sky. She the slave belonged to him, Prince Telemachus; but he belonged to her, Nurse Euryclea; and now that he is about to sail in search of his Father, it is to her he confides the secretfor in that still, simple, sworn heart of hers he knows it will lie buried beneath a weight of wishes for his safe return, nor be confided even to the air, that might repeat the whisper, if one word of it were joined with the name of her Telemachus even in her prayers. Twelve days is a long time to keep a secret-in fear and trembling too; but Euryclea kept it-and would have kept it against all instruments of torture angrily seeking to tug it out of her heart. Her trustful silence was proof alike against fear and joy. Think for a moment-but no more now-of her discovery of the scar and whose feet they were that it was at last given her in that bath to embrace! But here is Telemachus walking to the Council in the light-as we said-of the Morn of Hope: "Ulysses' son, when first Aurora spread Round him celestial glory Pallas cast. Awed to mute wonder through the admiring throng Then 'mid the yielding elders pass'd alone, Nothing can be more finely illustrative of the character in the first book shewn to belong to Telemachus, than his whole conduct during the council that is held in the second-yet his speeches-as they are reported by Homer-have not escaped criticism. It was-certainly-an admirable first appearance. Till now no council had been called in Ithaca since the departure of Ulysses. It must have been rather a formidable thing for so young a person to rise up and arraign the Suitors before the peers. Telemachus does not rise till old Ægyptius asks by whom the council had been summoned; and then he indeed does rise, and majestically, and answers-" Behold him who convened the council-I am he!" We have heard it said by an apostate Tory, now fallen from Whig into Radical, that his speech has no bones. But no speech had ever a more pithy spine. Only its spine is straight-and the speech it self clothed with flesh-and-blood life. Bones are only observable in distortion or the rickets-but deformity is seldom strength-abrupt, awkward, angular osseous projections do not constitute a speech, but a skeleton. What had he to prove? Nothing. They knew all it was possible he could have to say-but he was desirous to ascertain if theythe peers-were insensible to shame ble father, who once governed them all, even as a father his children; he speaks of the imminent ruin of his house, and of his mother's persecution by the Suitors, which he calls a more alarming ill" than the loss of his father; for were the palace freed, and the island under law, he might, without offence to nature, weep for Ulysses no more, and be indeed happy as a king. We say so -not Telemachus. But there has been a conspiracy among critics to accuse and convict the young prince of selfishness, and want or weakness of natural affection—and as a painful proof of their charge, they point to this passage of which the good sense, say we, is as conspicuous as the right feeling-and altogether worthy the heir-apparent. There is no exaggeration of any grief or grievance, and he speaks fervently the simple truth. He had never seen his father. His feelings were those of love, and honour, and reverence, and awe, towards a being whom his heart and imagination created and called Father created, if we may say so, of attributes furnished to fancy by all the voices of the Isle that sighed for Ulysses. Yet him fain would he seek over land and sea-and for his sake was he now sounding the souls of the Peers in Council to ascertain if any generous sentiments slept there, that might be awakened by his return, and rise up to the rescue. Cowper here is very Homeric-far more so than Sotheby. "Resent, yourselves, this outrage; dread the blame Which else ye must incur from every state Around us, and the anger of the gods, Lest they impute these impious deeds to you. I next adjure you by Olympic Jove, By Themis, who convenes and who dissolves All councils, that ye interpose, my friends! To check them, and afford to my distress A solitary and a silent home. But if Ulysses, my illustrious sire, Whose wrongs ye purpose to avenge on me, Then aid them openly; for better far, My revenue; ye should compensate soon My sufferings at your hands; for my complaints Nor cease till I were satisfied for all; But now, conniving at the wrong, ye pierce He spoke impassion'd, and to earth cast down |