God has received his sacrifice for sin, And all are ransom'd who partake therein : As signs by faith received from Heaven attest. Ye, who believe, depart, repentant, shriven and blest." Thus it has been through every age and clime-said the Preacher-and thus he illustrates the awful meaning, "in each tradition solemnly enshrined." "Ere shepherds hail'd the choir in heaven descried, Or kings to Bethlehem traced their starry guide: Alike, where Egypt raised gigantic piles, Where Greece with Dorian porches graced her isles, Or Sion's courts enclosed the holiest dome : Where reign'd the God whose service thrills these towers; Of white-robed priests and warriors horsed in stone, "And thus it was through every clime and age. But why? but whence? Interrogate the sage ! Whence these opinions? Man's? Who first conceived, Opinions, man's self-interest so restricts, Pity abhors, and reason contradicts? Confess! each source, each origin, ye trace, Is lost in high primordials of our race: Devolved from fountains far beyond our reach, 558 State Trials. Which marks a mould and temper well combined Curved o'er a wall of strong and pearly teeth- "Folds of white linen plaited round her eyes." This line gives a dreadful hint; and her few words are incoherent, as she is led up along the lane of the throng, and takes her stance behind a chain. Compare this with the celebrated picture of Constance in the penitential aisle. "When thus her face was given to view, " before him, evoked so vividly by his own strong imagination, could have suffered the very life and soul of it all to escape, at the time when his own feelings, one would have thought, must have been at the utmost pitch of inten sity-how he could have all at once so cooled them down, as to give permission to his fancy to play with an image so poor and passionless! The passage is not well writtenthere is no exquisite choice of words. "That, but her breathing did not fail," is very awkward-" and of her bosom, warranted," still more so-" That neither sense nor pulse she lacks," is painfully prosaic-and though poetic passion indulges in repetition, not in such repetition as "although so pallid was her hue," "so calm and The last pale," " so pale, so fair." line is in itself good-but how much better had it been without the previous "pallid," and " calm," and "pale!" Had it imaged Constance as she stood there-flesh and blood, about to be buried alive in stone and mortar-and we had not been reminded that there was such a substance as wax in the world! Byron says in one of his letters :— "I sent for Marmion, because it occurred to me there might be a resemblance between part of Parisina, and a similar scene in the second canto of Marmion. I fear there is, though I never thought of it before. I wish you would ask Mr Gifford whether I ought to say any thing upon it. I had completed the story on the passage from Gibbon, which indeed leads to a like scene naturally, without a thought of the kind; but it comes upon me not very comfortably." Byron's obliga tions-in his poetry-to Scott are innumerable and great-as Mr Lockhart has boldly said in the Life-and it needed not "to come upon him not very comfortably," nor was there the least occasion in the world for him to apply to Mr Gifford. The scene in Parisina is, beyond all doubt, imitated, with his Lordship's usual skill, from that in Marmion-inimitable though that is said to be; and is faulty and imperfect. "She stood, I said, all pale and still, It was a thing to see, not hear! admirable; but why" that fair lid," and not "those fair lids ?" You may think that a trifling question, but a good writer never departs from the natural language of men without a sufficient reason. "Eyes unmoved,' "sweet eyelids," "orbs of deepest blue," "that fair lid," "human eyes," should not have occurred within so short a compass. "It was a thing to see not hear," is a most unhappy and ungrammatical plagiarism from Christabelle." A sight to dream if not to tell;" and those who saw, it did surprise," is true Sternhold, and no mistake. And why it did surprise" them "that such drops could fall from human eyes," does surprise us; for human eyes were made for weeping, as human hearts for suffering, and the biggest drop that the law of gravitation will let gather there, is but a transient token of the endless misery welling up in a region visible but to God. "The imperfect note" is insufferable as of one essaying not to speak but to sing ; and the two closing lines, though taken on the rough, forcible, are far from being what they ought to be-and if poetry be, as Coleridge called it, "the best words in the best places," they are not poetry; for what kind of collocation of words is "in that low hollow groan gushing in the tone?" Turn back then from these celebrated, pictures by two of the great masters, to that of Anne Ayliffe by an artist as yet almost unknown, Nicholas Thirning Moile, and tell us if you do not think it equal to either of them in conception-in execution superior? But the trial is about to begin. "Be silent," cries the apparitor, "and hear! And Phillip of La Trappe, press not so near! Thy hood had better hide those streamy cheeks. Peace, ho attend! His Grace the Primate speaks!" The Primate, we find in Weaver, who follows Godwin, at the age of two-and-twenty years was consecrated Bishop of Ely, "which he laudablie governed-considering the greennesse of his age-the space of fourteene years, three weeks, and eighteene days. In which time he was Lord Chancellour of England; from Ely he was translated to Yorke; leaving for an implement at his house of Ely, a wonderfull, sumptuous, and costly table, adorned with gold and precious NO. CCLXXXVIII, VOL. XLVI. stones, which belonged first to the King of Spaine, and was sold to this Bishop by the Black Prince, for three hundred merks. Hee also bestowed the building of the great gatehouse of Ely-house in Houlborne: during his abode at Yorke, which was about eight years, he bestowed much in building upon divers of his houses, and unto the church. Besides many rich ornaments, he gave two great basons of silver and gilt, two great censers, two other basons of silver, and two 2 N cravetts; he gave to the vicars a silver cup of great weight, and a massive bowl of silver to the canons. From Yorke he was removed hither to Canterbury, and here he sate one month above seventeen years. In which time, at the west end of his church, he built a faire spire steeple, called to this day Arundell steeple, and bestowed a tunable ring of five bells on the same, which he dedicated to the Holy Trinity, to the blessed Virgin Mary, to the angel Gabriel, to Saint Blase, and the fifth to St John the Evangelist. This much he effected; howsoever hee was no sooner warm in his seate, than that he, with his brother, the Earl of Arundell, were condemned of high treason, his brother executed, and he banished the kingdom, and so lived in exilement the space of near two yerrs, until the first of the raigne of Henry Fourth. This worthy prelate died of a swelling in his tongue, which made him unable to eate, drink, or speake for a time before his death, which happened February 20, anno 1413." In Fox's History of the Martyrs, the Archbishop appears in a different light. "After the decease or martyrdom of these who were executed in the month of January A.D. 1414, in the next month, and in the same year, God took away the great enemy of his word, and rebel to his king, Thomas Arundel, Archbishop of Canterbury, whose death followed after the execution of these good men, by the marvellous stroke of God, so suddenly, may seem somewhat to declare their innocency, and that he was also one great procurer of their death, in that God would not suffer him longer to live, striking him immediately with death." And here we may notice, that we have within an hour been reading in Fox's Martyrs, "the Examination of William Thorpe, penned with his own hand," of which the Martyrologist says well," Next comes the history of Master William Thorpe, a valiant warrior under the triumphal banner of Christ, with the process of his examination before Thomas Arundel, Archbishop of Canterbury. In his examination (A. D. 1407) thou shalt have, good reader, both to learn and to marvel. To learn, in that thou shalt hear truth discoursed and discussed, with the contrary reasons of the adversary dissolved. To marvel, for thou shalt behold large, in this man, the marvellous force and strength of the Lord's might, Spirit, and grace, working and fighting in his soldiers, and also speaking in their mouths according to the word of his promise." The author of the Poem before us, has well studied the character of the Archbishop's mind, exhibited in that "Examination"-worked most effectively upon the materials he found there-and not with ingenuity only, but with genius, transferred the spirit of the persecutor from a real to a fictitious case, of the persecuted from that of William Thorpe, the Protestant Christian, who was indeed given to the fire, to that of Anne Ayliffe, who knew not how to choose between the Cross and the Crescent, and perishes only before our imagination, in these flames. "Peace, ho attend! His Grace the Primate speaks!" And the haughty Churchman speaks well-yea even as if he were a humble Christian. Who shall say that he is not sincere in hatred of heresy, and would fain persuade the heretic to adopt the only crced by which she may save her soul alive? To show her how wicked is her own creed and how wild, would be a fruitless task with her-to him and the brethren a painful one-nay, might haply "taint some less instructed breast" with her unhallowed and sinful delusions. Enough that she has confessed her tenets, and that Holy Church condemns them-therefore the mother of souls must rescue this erring child as from a fascinating serpt from a slippery cliff and a gulf of fire. Oh! that the poor, dear, infatuated, lost creature would but recant and repent, and how blessed an office would it be for that servant of the Lord of mercy as well as judgment, to save her soul from perdition, and her body from the flames! For, hear how like a disciple of Jesus the Primate says "Taken,-I call to witness you, whose aid To purify her soul, convince, and save. "What rests? All human labours know their span: God's and the King's. For having crown'd his brows And purge his realm of schism and unbelief. To save this miscreant, miserable maid, Whom Hell has hardened thus, and Heaven betray'd ; What saith Anne Ayliffe to an appeal so kind, considerate, charitable, Christian? She says not a word-for the Evil one is busy within her—and she smiles. "Smiles, wretched girl, beseem her ill," cries the Primate, shocked at the blindness-not of her bodily eyes-for these he had extinguished-but of her soul; for it he would fain enlighten with gospel truth And on its sightless eyeballs pour the day." But tolerance must end somewhereand is near its end. The gates of hell are yawning to receive her. "Penance and pardon still are in thy choice." "Behold the Book of Life! abjure thy sin, And haste, dear child, to write thy name therein; Thine shall be all rewards a heaven possest, And all this earth retains to make thee blest." say-pointing to the bandage, can What blessing-she might haply earth now retain for her? Hush-say not-think not so-for the good Bishop, "Lord Primate of the realm, Lord Legate of the Pope," has ready for her a holy retreat, where she may enjoy earthly peace and commune with heaven. "In Netley Abbey-on the neighbouring isle Whose murmurs, borne on sunny winds, disport O'er hills so fair, o'er terraces so sweet, The sea comes twice each day to kiss their feet:- The mill's far cataract, and the sea boys' cheer, |
