Page:Notes and Queries - Series 9 - Volume 2.djvu/30

 NOTES AND QUERIES. D>* s, n.

Without their spirit, keeps religion here And business there and conscience anywhere, So that those three shall never interfere, Expect such inefficient search to find His Maker and the Sabbath of the mind. Books, the clear mirrors of men's secret lives, Undimm'd by rumour's breath, where the soul

rives

Its icy fetters custom, creedless form, And the world's judgment stills the bigot's storm, Makes pointless the fool's sneer, and e'en doth take The dull, vain ears of common sense, that shake Through all their length with, "Though we lived

next door

We never knew this famous man before." With the great minds of old the student dwelt, The high pulsations of whose hearts are felt Through each man's being ; they whose life spans

mark

The epochs of all time ; ah, cold and dark If close those fountains must and nature's too ! Who tears the eagle from his skies to mew Him with the daws and vultures, hooded-eyed ? " Is there no way but this," the student cried, " And must I leave thee, Nature, my sweet bride, And books, my friends immortal, both behind ? Lose having loved, and having seen be blind ? There was a time when, through the glaring street, Unconscious of the stars, these eyes could meet The city-harlots with licentious gaze, And watch the chariots' whirl (that men say raise Their haughty occupants but the wheel's height From that dread sisterhood) with envious sight, And push my lone way through the godless crowd Round Mammon's shrines, as smileless and knit-

brow'd :

But now trade hungers for my life again, Old vice seems crime, old pleasures weary pain, Old worship baseness ; could I part the brain From new-found heart and spirit this might be : I cannot ; free for once, for ever free ! "

These erring thoughts the falser for their truth, And fouler since so fair yet claim our ruth For his sad fate, who on the mountain side That fronts the sunset by his own hand died ; His books lay by him not, alas ! that one That saith, " With patience let thy race be run ! " The poison' d chalice drain'd ; and his mild eyes Fix'd to the last on those misconstrued skies That made him love, but loving made not wise.

Mr. Payn has himself narrated the story oi his introduction to De Quincey, and of his courteous and cordial reception by the Opium Eater. When De Quincey revised his writing: for the 'Selections, Grave and Gay,' issuec by Hogg, he made a complimentary allusion to Payn's poem. The narrative he gives in the following manner :

" Sometimes, also, the mountainous solitudes have been made the scenes of remarkable suicides In particular, there was a case, a little before '. came into the country, of a studious and meditative young boy, who found no pleasure but in books am the search after knowledge. He languished with a sort of despairing nympholepsy after intellectua

Eleasures for which he felt too well assured tha is term of allotted time, the short period of year through which his relatives had been willing t< support him at St. Bees, was rapidly drawing to an

nd. In fact, it was just at hand: and he was ternly required to take a long farewell of the poets nd geometricians, for whose sublime contem- lations he hungered and thirsted. One week was o have transferred him to some huxtering concern, fhich not in any spirit of pride he ever affected to .espise, but which in utter alienation of heart he oathed ; as one whom nature, and his own diligent ultivation of the opportunities recently opened to lim for a brief season, had dedicated to a far dif- erent service. He mused revolved his situation n his own mind computed his power to liberate limself from the bondage of dependency calculated he chances of his ever obtaining this liberation, rom change in the position of his family, or revolu- ion in his own fortunes and, finally, attempted jonjecturally to determine the amount of effect which his new and illiberal employments might lave upon his own mind in weaning him from his present elevated tasks, and unfitting him for their anjoyment in distant years, when circumstances might again place it in his power to indulge them. These meditations were in part communicated to a riend, and in part, also, the result to which they Brought him. That this result was gloomy, his 'riend knew ; but not, as in the end it appeared, .hat it was despairing. Such, however, it was ; and, accordingly, having satisfied himself that the chances of a happier destiny were for him slight or none, and having, by a last fruitless effort, ascer- tained that there was no hope whatever oi molli- r ying his relatives, or of obtaining a year's delay of lis sentence, he walked quietly up to the cloudy wildernesses within Blencathara ; read his ^Eschy- us (read, perhaps, those very scenes of the ' Prome- Caucasus, and below the awful summits, untrod by man, of the ancient Elborus) ; read him for the last time ; for the last time fathomed the abyss-like subtleties of his favourite geometrician, the mighty Apollonius ; for the last time retraced some parts of the narrative, so simple in its natural grandeur, composed by that imperial captain, the most majestic man of ancient history
 * heus' that pass amidst the wild valleys of the

The foremost man of all this world- Julius the dictator, the eldest of the Caesars. These three authors ^Eschvlus, Apollonius, and Csesar he studied until the daylight waned, and the stars began to appear. Then he made a little pile of the three volumes, that served him for a pillow ; took a dose, such as he had heard would be sufficient, of laudanum; laid his head upon the monuments which he himself seemed in fancy to have raised to the three mighty spirits ; and with his face up- turned to the heavens and the stars, slipped quietly away into a sleep upon which no morning ever dawned. The laudanum whether it were fror., the effect of the open air, or from some peculiarity of temperament had not produced sickness in the first stage of its action, nor convulsions in the last. But from the serenity of his countenance, and from the tranquil maintenance of his original supine position for his head was still pillowed upon the three intellectual Titans, Greek and Roman, and his eyes were still directed towards the stars it would appear that he had died placidly, and with- out a struggle. In this way the imprudent boy, who, like Chatterton, would not wait for the change that a day might bring, obtained the liberty he sought. I describe him as doing whatsoever he had described himself in his last conversations as