Читать книгу: «The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction. Volume 20, No. 566, September 15, 1832», страница 3

Our escape has been mavellous, for Napoleon's plan was to penetrate to Bruxelles, and to surprise the Duke and his staff at the ball, when surrounded by the British belles; for he had his spies to report even the hour of our pastimes, and he reckoned upon a rise of the Belgians in his favour. For three days and nights we expected the enemy to enter; treachery reigned around us, and false reports augmented our alarms, as we knew the terrible numbers of the French forces. It was Bulow and his corps that protected us from that calamity. On the Saturday we took refuge within the city, from the scenes of horror before our villa. Baggage-wagons of the different regiments advancing—the rough chariots of agriculture, with the dead and the dying, disputing for the road—officers on horseback wounded! I spoke to one: 'twas Colonel C–, of the Scotch brigade; he replied with his wonted urbanity to my inquiries—gave me his hand—"I am shot through the body—adieu for ever!" He left me petrified with horror, and I saw him no more! One hour afterwards I sent to his apartment—the gallant veteran had expired as they lifted him from his horse!

I could not abandon the Baroness and her children in such an hour; but I must ever gratefully recollect the kind offers of asylum made to me by my Belgian acquaintance, and for months, they said, had the battle been lost. It is truly pitiable to see the wounded arriving on foot; a musket reversed, or the ramrod, serving for a staff of support to the mutilated frame, the unhappy soldier trailing along his wearied limbs, and perhaps leading a more severely-wounded comrade, whose discoloured visages declare their extreme suffering;—their uniforms either hanging in shreds, or totally despoiled of them by those marauders who ravage a field of battle in merciless avidity of plunder and murder. These brave fellows, these steady warriors, so redoubtable a few hours since, are now sunk into the helplessness of infancy, the feebleness of woman, over whom man arrogates a power that may not be disputed, but whose solacing influence in the hour of tribulation and sickness they are willing to claim.

The Belgian females are in full activity, acting with noble benevolence. They are running from door to door begging linen, and entreating that it may be scraped for lint; others beg matrasses.

TRIBUTES TO GENIUS

The Cuts represent unostentatious yet affectionate tributes to three of the most illustrious names in literature and art: DANTE, and PETRARCH, the celebrated Italian poets; and CANOVA, whose labours have all the freshness and finish of yesterday's chisel. Lord Byron, whose enthusiasm breathes and lives in words that "can never die," has enshrined these memorials in the masterpiece of his genius. Associating Dante and Petrarch with Boccaccio, he asks:

 
But where repose the all Etruscan three—
Dante and Petrarch, and scarce less than they,
The Bard of Prose, creative spirit! he
Of the Hundred Tales of Love—where did they lay
Their tones, distinguish'd from our common clay
In death as life? Are they resolved to dust,
And have their country's marbles naught to say?
Could not their quarries furnish forth one bust?
Did they not to her breast their filial earth entrust?¹⁰
 

Dante was born at Florence in the year 1261. He fought in two battles, and was fourteen times ambassador, and once prior of the republic. Through one fatal error, he fell a victim to party persecution, which ended in irrevocable banishment. His last resting-place was Ravenna, where the persecution of his only patron is said to have caused the poet's death. What an affecting record of gratitude! His last days at Ravenna are thus referred to by an accomplished tourist:¹¹

"Under the kind protection of Guido Novello da Polenta, here Dante found an asylum from the malevolence of his enemies, and here he ended a life embittered with many sorrows, as he has pathetically told to posterity, 'after having gone about like a mendicant; wandering over almost every part to which our language extends; showing against my will the wound with which fortune has smitten me, and which is so often imputed to his ill-deserving, on whom it is inflicted.' The precise time of his death is not accurately ascertained; but, it was either in July or September of the year 1321. His friend in adversity, Guido da Polenta, mourned his loss, and testified his sorrow and respect by a sumptuous funeral, and, it is said, intended to have erected a monument to his memory; but, the following year, contending factions deprived him of the sovereignty which he had held for more than half a century; and he, in his turn, like the great poet whom he had protected, died in exile. I believe, however, that the tomb, with an inscription purporting to have been written by Dante himself, of which I have here given an outline, was erected at the time of his decease: and, that his portrait, in bas-relief, was afterwards added by Bernardo Bembo, in the year 1483, who, at that time was a Senator and Podestà of the Venetian republic."

Byron truly sings:

 
Ungrateful Florence! Dante sleeps afar,
Like Scipio, buried by the upbraiding shore;
Thy factions, in their worse than civil war,
Proscribed the bard whose name for evermore
Their children's children would in vain adore
With the remorse of ages.
There is a tomb in Arquà; rear'd in air,
Pillar'd in their sarcophagus, repose
The bones of Laura's lover.
 
 
They keep his dust in Arquà, where he died;
The mountain-village where his latter days
Went down the vale of years; and 'tis their pride—
An honest pride—and let it be their praise,
To offer to the passing stranger's gaze
His mansion and his sepulchre, both plain
And simply venerable, such as raise
A feeling more accordant with his strain
Than if a pyramid form'd his monumental fame.¹²
 

"The tomb is in the churchyard at Arquà. Petrarch is laid, for he cannot be said to be buried, in a sarchophagus of red marble, raised on four pilasters on an elevated base, and preserved from an association with meaner tombs. The revolutions of centuries have spared these sequestered valleys, and the only violence that has been offered to the ashes of Petrarch was prompted, not by hate, but veneration. An attempt was made to rob the sarcophagus of its treasure, and one of the arms was stolen by a Florentine through a rent which is still visible."¹³

The third Memorial is a red porphyry Vase containing the heart of Canova. It is placed in the great hall of the Academy of Arts at Venice, beneath the magnificent picture of the Assumption of the Virgin, by Titian. The vase is ornamented with ormoulu, and bears the inscription Cor magni Canovae, in raised gold letters. M. Duppa describes it as "a vase fit for a drawing-room, not grand, nor lugubrious: it is surmounted with a capsule of a poppy, which is a great improvement on a skull and cross bones."

Canova was not only the greatest sculptor of his own but of any age. Byron says—

 
Such as the great of yore, Canova is to-day.
 

He was, in great part, self-taught. In one of his early letters, he says, "I laboured for a mere pittance, but it was sufficient. It was the fruit of my own resolution; and, as I then flattered myself, the foretaste of more honourable rewards—for I never thought of wealth." He wrought for four years in a small ground cell in a monastery. From his great mind originated the founding of the study of art upon the study of nature. His enthusiasm was perfectly delightful: he made it a rule never to pass a day without making some progress, or to retire to rest till he had produced some design. His brother sculptors, hackneyed in the trammels of assumed principles, for a time ridiculed his works, till, at length, in the year 1800, his merits hecame fully recognised; from which time till his death, in 1822, he stood unrivalled amidst the honours of an admiring world.

THE PUBLIC JOURNALS

THE HOME OF LOVE

 
"They sin who tell us Love can die.
With Life all other Passions fly,
All others are but Vanity;—
 
 
"But Love is indestructible.
Its holy flame for ever burneth,
From Heaven it came, to Heaven returneth;
Too oft on earth a troubled guest,
At times deceived, at times oppressed,
It here is tried and purified,
And hath in Heaven its perfect rest."
 

—SOUTHEY.

 
Thou movest in visions, Love!—Around thy way,
E'en through this World's rough path and changeful day,
For ever floats a gleam,
Not from the realms of Moonlight or the Morn,
But thine own Soul's illumined chambers born—
The colouring of a dream!
 
 
Love, shall I read thy dream?—Oh! is it not
All of some sheltering, wood-embosomed spot—
A Bower for thee and thine?
Yes! lone and lonely is that Home; yet there
Something of Heaven in the transparent air
Makes every flower divine.
 
 
Something that mellows and that glorifies
Bends o'er it ever from the tender skies,
As o'er some Blessed Isle;
E'en like the soft and spiritual glow,
Kindling rich woods, whereon th' ethereal bow
Sleeps lovingly awhile.
 
 
The very whispers of the Wind have there
A flute-like harmony, that seems to bear
Greeting from some bright shore,
Where none have said Farewell!—where no decay
Lends the faint crimson to the dying day;
Where the Storm's might is o'er.
 
 
And there thou dreamest of Elysian rest,
In the deep sanctuary of one true breast
Hidden from earthly ill:
There wouldst thou watch the homeward step, whose sound
Wakening all Nature to sweet echoes round,
Thine inmost soul can thrill.
 
 
There by the hearth should many a glorious page,
From mind to mind th' immortal heritage,
For thee its treasures pour;
Or Music's voice at vesper hours be heard,
Or dearer interchange of playful word,
Affection's household lore.
 
 
And the rich unison of mingled prayer,
The melody of hearts in heavenly air,
Thence duly should arise;
Lifting th' eternal hope, th' adoring breath,
Of Spirits, not to be disjoined by Death,
Up to the starry skies.
 
 
There, dost thou well believe, no storm should come
To mar the stillness of that Angel-Home;—
There should thy slumbers be
Weighed down with honey-dew, serenely blessed,
Like theirs who first in Eden's Grove took rest
Under some balmy tree.
 
 
Love, Love! thou passionate in Joy and Woe!
And canst thou hope for cloudless peace below—
Here, where bright things must die?
Oh, thou! that wildly worshipping, dost shed
On the frail altar of a mortal head
Gifts of infinity!
 
 
Thou must be still a trembler, fearful Love!
Danger seems gathering from beneath, above,
Still round thy precious things;—
Thy stately Pine-tree, or thy gracious Rose,
In their sweet shade can yield thee no repose,
Here, where the blight hath wings.
 
 
And, as a flower with some fine sense imbued
To shrink before the wind's vicissitude,
So in thy prescient breast
Are lyre-strings quivering with prophetic thrill
To the low footstep of each coming ill;—
Oh! canst Thou dream of rest?
 
 
Bear up thy dream! thou Mighty and thou Weak
Heart, strong as Death, yet as a reed to break,
As a flame, tempest swayed!
He that sits calm on High is yet the source
Whence thy Soul's current hath its troubled course,
He that great Deep hath made!
 
 
Will He not pity?—He, whose searching eye
Reads all the secrets of thine agony?—
Oh! pray to be forgiven
Thy fond idolatry, thy blind excess,
And seek with Him that Bower of Blessedness—
Love! thy sole Home is Heaven!
 

New Monthly Magazine.