Изображения страниц
PDF
EPUB

Love, my free gift, 'tis that has caus'd my anguish :
Love without stain, dishonour, or design;
For her, the fair, the pearly-tooth'd, I languish;

Ah, woe is me! I may not call her mine.
Would that in some deep glen we two-we only-
Secluded dwelt, from all the world away;
With timid pleadings, in her bower so lonely,
I'd woo her fondly all the summer day.

Give me, my Mary, once thy lips' soft pressure;
But once and raise me to thyself from death:
Else bid them come my narrow grave to measure,
Where lurks the beetle the rank grass beneath.
From my thin cheek the hue of health has vanish'd;
My life's not life-my voice not voice, but air:
Joy, hope, the music of my spirit banish'd;
Love's slave I mourn, in bondage to despair.

This poem is very characteristic: the complaints it expresses are symptomatic of derangement; the loss of sleep and appetite; the failure of recollection and discernment, yet the consciousness of his state, the knowledge that his beloved was "she who wrought his harm;" the hopelessness of cure, unless the antidote should proceed from her, as did the bane; and then the touching allusion to his heart's memory, that would recognise her, though it forgot all else.

In the mad songs written by some persons, in the character of maniacs (such as Robert Herrick's "Mad Maid's Song,"

"Good-morrow to the day so fair," &c.,)

and even in Shakespeare's, if we may venture to say so, there is a studied wildness, an artificial incoherence. But in the lay of the real maniac, the evidences of his malady come out so simply, so unaffectedly, that we cannot but feel it is nature, not art. It reminds us of the anecdote of the actress who had formerly been celebrated as Ophelia, but who was obliged to leave the stage in consequence of mental derangement. Having accidentally learned that Hamlet was to be performed one night at a neighbouring theatre, she eluded her guardian, escaped from the house, and stealing to the place of performance, concealed herself till the mad scene; then springing on the stage before she could be anticipated, she went through her once favorite part with a truth and feeling that melted all the audience to tears;

never before had they witnessed so affecting, because so natural, an Ophelia. As the difference between the sane and the insane actress's representation of the distracted maiden, so is the difference between the song of a really frenzied poet and that of him who only assumes the character of a maniac at the moment of writing.

The song of Eamonn-na-chnoic, or Ned of the Hills, the celebrated freebooter, is given in O'Daly's book; but the version differs so much from that which we have been accustomed to hear, that we venture to give a translation from our own familiar Irish copy, because it is so much more characteristic of the outlaw. Ned of the Hills, properly Edmund O'Ryan, of the county Tipperary, sprung from an ancient and once wealthy family, the O'Ryans of Kilnelongurty, but ruined by the confiscations that followed the civil wars. To a well-born man thus rendered destitute, who could not dig, and was ashamed to beg, it often appeared that no alternative for existence remained but that of a freebooting career, which he persuaded himself into believing a just retribution-a spoiling of the spoilers. To this idea, and to the losses the outlaw had sustained by forfeiture, a strong allusion is made in the Irish song in our possession (said by tradition to have been written by Edmund O'Ryan himself), but which is not to be found in O'Daly's copy. The song, it will be observed, takes the form of a dialogue between the outlaw and his love; we have preserved the metre as nearly as we could:.

*He was born in the latter part of the 17th century.

THE SONG OF NED OF THE HILLS.
"Who calls me without? whose voice is so shrill?
Whose hand at my closed door is beating?"
"My pearl of delight, 'tis thy Ned of the Hill,

Whose heart longs to bear thee his greeting."
"Oh, friend of my soul! steal in here and hide,
Thou'rt drown'd in this pitiless weather;
Take thee dry garments, sit down at my side,

We'll watch through the long hours together."

"I gaze on the light in thy soft blue eye,
Dear girl of the ringletty tresses;

And my thoughts they urge me with thee to fly
To the wild wood's dewy recesses.

There the grass is most green, the birds most sweet,
On the yew-tree the cuckoo sits ever;
Deep in the hawthorns our fragrant retreat,

[ocr errors]

Where death could discover us never.

Long is the night, and my heart is devoid

Of warmth, as the wintry sun's gleaming:
I'm a plundered man, and my home's destroy'd;
But a deed I must do that's beseeming."
"Then with thee will I go, my faithful love!

To the lone haunted Dun* repairing ;
With thee through all Munster I'll gladly rove,
Though its size be the halff of Erin."

"Dear little Mora! though wedding with me
Will bring shame to the maid I cherish,
Yet ne'er shall they say I abandon thee;
In the ocean I'd rather perish.
Thou shalt be the tender bride of my heart,
For 'twould break to leave thee behind me:
But ah! when I think how loving thou art,

'Mid the poorest in Ireland I find me."

There are, in our Irish version, many touches characteristic of the outlaw, which are not in the Galic copy printed by O'Daly, such as the proposed watchfulness, as if to guard against surprise (in the first stanza)-the allusion to his wrongs, and the deed of befitting vengeance that he meditated; the faithful readiness of his mistress to leave her home and wander with him throughout Munster, even harbouring for security in places reputed to be haunted; the allusion to the reproach she would incur by becoming the wife of a bandit; and his own sensibility to his impoverished state, rendered more acute when he thought of that

love which he could but so ill requite. There is one "Edmund of the Hills," as from the Irish, by Lady Morgan (when Miss Owenson), from what original we know not: it has one or two ideas in common with ours and O'Daly's; but is simply a love song, without a single touch of distinctive character; and might as well be the lay of the most peaceable and orderly man in the community, even of a justice of the quorum himself, as of an outlaw.

The story of Edmund O'Ryan, or Ned of the Hills, is that of many of the Irish outlaws in the olden times. Scions of proud and honourable fami

'Literally, Dun na n-gealt, the Dun of the wild sylvan beings, or satyrs. There is a Gleann na n-gealt in Kerry.

Literally, "Munster, a province, and the half of Ireland;" alluding to the division of Ireland into two halves, between Con of the Hundred Battles, and Eugene More, alias Mogha Muadhat; the southern half, Munster, which then included Leinster, being called Leath Mogha, Mogh's half; the rest was Leath Choinn, Con's half.

upon

lies, beggared by confiscations, unskilled in any craft, art, or science that would procure them a maintenance among sober citizens; too proud to stoop to what they would call servile drudgery; too poor to be able to emigrate and "seek their fortunes" abroad; the brand of "caste them to mar and thwart their exertions at home; trained to field exercises, unerring marksmen, dashing riders, untiring runners, brave, athletic, hardy, the life of a freebooter in an unsettled country like Ireland suggested itself of course what else could be expected from them?-what else remained? What were ruined Roman Catholic gentlemen to do, when they could not get into some foreign military service? Poor, haughty, untaught to earn their bread, often prevented from trying to learn; sorely tried by natural heartburnings at seeing themselves driven destitute from the lands, the homes, nay, the very tombs of their fathers, to make room for strangers-then followed the train of reasoning by which they persuaded themselves of the justice, nay, almost the duty, of reprisals. The speech of Roderick Dhu ("Lady of the Lake," Canto 5), in defence of his datory habits, is as applicable to the condition and actuating motives of the gentlemen outlaws of Ireland, forced to fly to rocks and mountains, as if Scott had them in his mind when he wrote.* We seek not to justify their transgressions: to trace their causes, with a charitable allowance for human temptation and human frailty, is but to account for, not to justify. Well would it have been for society and for themselves, had these misguided men been able to apply the Christian precept-" In your patience possess ye your souls;" but the wild times of Ireland's commotions were not

pre

*These fertile plains, that soften'd vale,
Were once the birth-right of the Gacl;
The stranger came with iron hand,
And from our fathers rent the land.
Where dwell we now! see rudely swell
Crag over crag, and fell o'er fell.
Ask we this savage heath we tread,
For fattened steer, or household bread;
Ask we for flocks these shingles dry;
And well the mountain might reply,-
To you, as to your sires of yore,
Belong the target and claymore!
I give you shelter in my breast,
Your own good blades must win the rest.'

favourable to the growth of the Christian graces on any side; and we must recollect the prevalence of ideas of which we now can scarcely form a just estimate, and the state of education and of the community, so different from that to which we are accustomed.

An honourable exception to the false principles that actuated so many unfortunate persons, is found in Christopher Fleming, twentieth Lord Slane. At the time of the battle of the Boyne, he was but a minor; he took no part in the civil wars, but he extended the hospitality of his roof, for one night, to James II., whom he had been taught to regard as his lawful sovereign, and who had been the friend of his family. For such venial transgression, this harmless offender, and unrebelling "rebel," forfeited all he possessed, even his title. With a

heavy heart this disinherited and distitled stripling must have passed through the gate that shut him out for ever from that lovely vale, watered by the Boyne, where stood the castle that, from the twelfth century, had never lacked a Fleming for its lord, and where the tomb of his mother still exists, amid the ruins of St. Ere's hermitage. But he wreaked no vengeance on society; he warred not with the laws that he might have considered as warring with him-he submitted to their authority, and became a good servant of the English crown. In 1707, Queen Anne granted him a pension of £500 a-year "for his military services:" and in consideration of his youth, at the period of the confiscation, he was restored in blood, but not to the lands and title of his fathers, from which he was barred by a former act of the Irish Parliament. As indemnity, he was created Viscount Longford, in 1713. Thus guided by well-regulated senti

Pent in this fortress of the north,
Think'st thou we will not sally forth,
To spoil the spoiler as we may,
And from the robber rend the prey?
Ay, by my soul!-while on yon plain
The Saxon rears one shock of grain:
While, of ten thousand herds, there strays
But one along yon river's maze-
The Gael, of plain and river heir,
Shall with strong hand redeem his share.
Where live the mountain chiefs who hold
That plundering lowland field and fold,
Is aught but retribution true?
Seek other cause 'gainst Roderick Dhu."

ments, he won his way to distinction by those martial qualities which others perverted to a wretched career of brigandage.*

But though that particular genus of outlaws of which we speak has passed away, the influence their carcer exercised over the minds of the peasantry has not, even yet, died out. To that influence we may clearly trace the general sympathy of the lower class (especially in the south and west) for offenders, and their anxiety to screen them from justice. When a forfeited and ruined gentleman had become a freebooter, all the compassionate feelings of a naturally warm-hearted and romantic people were enlisted in his favour. They saw in him the representative of a family to whom they had ever looked up with affection and respect (for the Irish peasant always observed the Oriental, nay Scriptural rule of reverence to superiors; he could not degrade himself to the coarse bluster of the low English bully, who sets his arms a-kimbo at a gentleman with, "I'm as good as yourself any day"); they saw one who had been reared in affluence a fallen man, worse than a beggar, because more sensitive to privations; then would they recount the former glories of the race "that_had lived among them for ages, and always kept the warm house and the open hand," and descant on the perfections and the wrongs of their heir, "turned out for a stranger, and forced to shelter among the woods and rocks, and to starve, or help himself by the strong hand." So, respecting his birth, pitying his adversity, admiring his bravery, abetting his wild deeds, and aiding him to baffle pursuit, they clung to the man of fallen fortunes (on such the genteel world turns its back) with a kind of feudal loyalty; amid all their own poverty gold could not bribe them to betray the head consecrated in their eyes by misfortune. Res est sacra miser, said a Roman sage; but the axiom was never so true anywhere as among the Irish peasants in the old troubles.

The feats of the outlaws, and the

songs composed on them, were handed down by tradition to posterity; and around their graves the peasantry still gather in groups after mass, or after a funeral, to talk of the old times. Thus they do round a tomb in the rural churchyard of Syddan (Meath), emblazoned with arinorial bearings, now much defaced, but still bearing an inscription to the purport, that "This monument was erected by Gerald Fleminge, son of Patrick Fleminge and Mary Hussey, in memorial of his grandfather; and his uncles, James and Patrick Fleminge, of Syddan ; and for himself and his posterity, 1687." These Fleminges sprang from the same stock as the Flemings, Barons of Slane, and forfeited in the civil wars. The "uncles," James and Patrick Fleminge, became celebrated freebooters, and are still remembered and lamented

as

"the poor gentlemen that were forced to turn highwaymen."

66

The peasantry, when once they had been accustomed to sympathise with men under ban, and to support and abet them, continued to cherish the inclination, though the objects of their interest had become degraded from the romantic outlaw (now extinct) to the vulgar ruflian, the mere robber and murderer; wanting the power of just discrimination, they classed all alike, as poor fellows in trouble." The feeling which originally sprung from virtues, from fidelity, generosity, and respect, has tended downwards to utter degradation-such is the danger of hostility, under almost any circumstances, to established and recognised authority. Like some plants-whose root is medicinal, but whose flowers are offensive, or whose berries are poisonousthe sentiment which at its birth was respectable, in its maturity has become

vicious.

We seem to have rambled away from the "Poets of Munster" in particular, to the bandits of Ireland in general; but the text from which our gloss has extended was furnished by one, who, celebrating his own wild life in soug, combined the characters of the outlaw and the poet, Edmund O'Ryan.

His lordship dying, about 1728, without male issue, the style and title of Fleming, Viscount Longford, became extinct.

AGNES SOREL AND HER COTEMPORARIES.

Ar the commencement of the fifteenth century, the long contests between the rival houses of Lorraine and Bar seemed likely to be terminated by the extinction of both families. The sole representative of the latter house was the Cardinal of Bar, an aged prelate; while the destinies of Lorraine hung on the life of a feeble infant, daughter of its chivalrous duke, Charles, and his exalted consort, Margaret of Bavaria.

The little Isabelle, on whose frail existence so much depended, was tended, cherished, almost idolised, by her future subjects, as well as by her fond parents. As she grew in years and bodily vigour, the faculties of her precocious mind were developed under the judicious care of her wise mother and gifted father. Charles of Lorraine was the most accomplished prince of his day. He had proved himself a brave and skilful warrior in his campaigns in Germany and Hungary. He had commanded the forces of the Teutonic Knights in Prussia, and had been the main stay of the Hungarian monarch in his war with the Turks. The Duke of Lorraine was no less skilled in the arts of peace. A poet of no mean excellence, his refined and liberal mind, his elegant tastes, and his graceful and winning manners, are praised by the historiographers of his own time, who ever found a welcome at his hospitable

court.

Under these beneficent influences the little Isabelle passed her childhood and early girlhood, not quite companionless, for her playmate from the cradle-to whom she was ever fondly attached was the fair and gentle Agnès Sorel, whose singular adventures we are about to narrate.

The "Demoiselle de Fromenteau," as she was styled, though of very inferior rank to her friend, could scarcely be regarded as a dependant. Her father, the Seigneur de Saint Gérand, was attached to the service of the Count de Clermont; and his little Agnès was tended and educated by the Duke and Duchess of Lorraine with the same care as their own daughter. In many traits of character the girls

resembled each other. Agnès, who was the elder by one year, was remarkable for her gentleness and winning sweetness of deportment. Isabelle had more vivacity, and greater brilliancy. They were both beautiful, but the same distinction might be observed in the style of their personal charms. Isabelle, though without the shadow of vanity, pride, or hauteur, "looked every inch a queen;" the noble blood of the great Charlemagne flowed in her veins, and the high-born lady, destined to command, was apparent in every movement and gesture. Agnès has been likened to the "Madonna" of Raffaelle. Her fair and slender form, her large, soft, pleading eyes, bespoke a soul gentle, timid, and trusting. Yet Agnès was not a weak or insipid character. The most accomplished woman of her day-the most delightful converser-so much so, that even at that epoch, so fruitful in illustrious ladies, she was looked on as a prodigy-she owed her great and enduring influence more to her mental qualities than to her personal attractions. She fascinated all who came within her sphere; and occupying, though she afterwards did, a most anomalous and questionable position, she never made a personal enemy, but gained and retained the affectionate good-will of those who, we should naturally suppose, would have regarded her elevation to power and influence with envious and indignant feelings.

The aged Cardinal of Bar, feeling himself on the verge of the grave, anxiously desired to terminate, by a marriage between Isabelle and his grand-nephew René, the strife which had for generations been waged_between the houses of Bar and Lorraine. The young prince, destined for this alliance, was the second son of Louis of Anjou and Yolande of Arragon, whose mother had been a princess of the house of Bar. The Cardinal had adopted and educated René, with the design of making him his heir, and had spared no pains to perfect him in those arts and exercises befitting his high rank and future

« ПредыдущаяПродолжить »