Page:Notes and Queries - Series 9 - Volume 2.djvu/29

 9 th S. II. JULY 9, '98.]

NOTES AND QUERIES.

21

LONDON, SATVEDAY, JULY 0, 189S.

CONTENTS. -No. 28.

NOTES: 'The Student of St. Bees,' 21 Danteiana, 23 ' Historical English Dictionary ' Ross and Hose Cruci fixion in Yorkshire, 25 Hocktide Customs Lochwinaoch "Tit-tat-to" Caxon : Caxin, 26.

QUERIES : " Horse-Marine"" Bally," 26" The drench ing of a swan" Thackeray's Latin Titles of Picture: Wanted The Lieutenancy of Montgomeryshire " Jack

.1WGI11D IAS VI laUDtVIlG AilG i/UIVC t'l .1.1*1 IV D \_?11IJ JNVI^ I 1 111

Flanders, 27 Kubens and Raphael Vincent Megga Colin Tampon Rev. W. Daunton Sheridan and Dundas " Flam," 28 Vanity Fair Nationality Dr. G. Lloyd "Jeremiad," 29.

REPLIBS : Era in Monkish Chronology, 29 Books pub- lished early in the Century St. Thomas a Becket, 31 " Harrow "" Horse-sense "" Hop-picker," 32 James I. and the Preachers" Table de Communion " Weight ol Books Scott on Grimm's 'Popular Stories ' Boswell's ' Johnson,' 33 Bibliography of the Rye House Plot "Fond" Cope and Mitre, 34 Hands without Hair Cornwall or England ? Burns and Coleridge ' Alonzo the Brave ' " Minister of the Word of God" Three Impossible Things-Oldest Parish Register Autographs, 35 "Nice fellows" "Cross" vice "Kris," 36 Goethe's 'Mason-Lodge' Miserere Carvings "A chalk on the door," 37 Hongkong : Kiao-Chou, 38.

NOTK8 ON BOOKS : ' Dictionary of National Biography ' Stokes's 'William Stokes 'Reviews and Magazines Cassell's ' Gazetteer,' Part LVIII.

Notices to Correspondents.

' THE STUDENT OF ST. BEES.'

THE late Mr. James Payn, who attained distinction as a novelist and humourist, made his early bid for fame as a poet. In the volume of ' Poems ' which appeared in 1853 he has a metrical narrative of an incident of which he had read the record in the American edition of De Quincey's works. The story of 'The Student of St. Bees' is a very striking one, and is thus told by Mr. Payn in pp. 149-55 of his now rare 'Poems' (Cambridge, Macmillan & Co., 1853, 8vo. pp. 192) :

THE STUDENT OF ST. BEES. See De Quincey's ' Literary Reminiscences,' vol. ii.

p. 93, &c. (American edition). He knows not grief, the grief that sheds no tear, Who hath not laid some oliss within its bier ; The song-bird, captive born, could not so sing Had he but guess d the wonders of that wing That, now down-droop'd and shorn of half its pride, 'Twixt earth and star did never midway glide Through the warm waveless air, nor far behind Leave the loud anger of the autumn wind, Nor poise above the lake's unheaving breast, 'Midst the twin heavens, in as perfect rest. The swart mechanic, wed to whirring wheels, Born in trade-thunder (so God grants it), feels No pining for Dame Nature ; all unknown To his dazed ears the mystic mountain-tone That breaks and rolls and dies a monarch's death On the far summits ; if the summer breath

Of our great mother oool his sweating brow One day in seven if the streamlet's now Lave his worn limbs between its branched banks On God's great day, to God let him give thanks ! But had he caught the perfect glory-flame That halos round Dame Nature, were he tame To drive the spinning rings, a watchful slave Of wood and rope and iron, to his graye ? To barter that mist-curtain, fold on fold Up the hill-side majestically roll'd From wooded base to crown, for hissing steam ? The fire that floods the crags, for the pale gleam From out the furnace-grate ?

Set thoughts like these In judgment on the Student of St. Bees.

A disregarded unit in the sum Of gross humanity, amidst the hum Of the hiv'd city an unheeded voice, Condemn'd to murky dungeons without choice, With Tare and Tret for jailors to the end, Him some proud devil prick' d their hearts to send To college ; oft, alas ! tlie one green space In a long desert life, a painless place Whose memory years of pain cannot efface ; A spring-time that can never lose its leaf ; A summer-noon that knows nor sunset's grief, Nor morning's restless hope, content to dwell For aye within that light it loves so well ; Ah, cruelty to build the prison gate So fair when all within is desolate ! Ah, freedom, falsely free ! as some poor bird, Forgetful of its tether, when is heard The far-off sorrow of its mother's song, With joyful heart and memories that throng With pleasant woods and waters, forward springs A little space to feel its fetter'd wings ; So Youth, too often, some short years is free, And takes all life for love and liberty ; Is suffer'd to dream sweetly ere he wakes On manhood's threshold, and the morning breaks But gloomily, and the dark day wears on So cold and strange he would that it were done, And never falls the time to dream again Those dreams, nor think upon them without pain. Alas, for the poor student of St. Bees ! Enampur'd at first sight with brooks and trees And silver murmur of the moonlit seas ; Divorced from scenes the fairest eye can meet, By so much space as makes the meeting sweet To a true lover ; mountain tops as nigh To the pure dwellers in the tender sky As unto us, who spiritually seem Thereat partakers of their bliss supreme ; Fair lakes, meet rivals of the blessed lana Beyond the sun ; and vales whereon the hand 3f the Creator might have paused to dwell 3u that He saw so good and made so well : Leisure for these fair sights, that fitly used More fruitful is than study, but abused, Vtost hateful sloth ; for who indifferent-eyed, And with pall'd senses, not as to a bride Approaches Nature, but to spend an hour [n dalliance with his new-found paramour, Sets careless foot upon the crystal source Whence he would drink, and fouls the water course As well might he expect the poet's soul To break on his, who gives his scanty dole )f off and on observance to the page (Vhen lighter joys are lacking to engage lis roving heart ; as well might he who pays )bsequious deference to Sabbath days