第5章
Patrick's pulled out the Spectator newspaper, containing the well-known passage regarding Sir Roger's death. "I bought it but now in 'Wellington Street,'" he said; "the newsboys were howling all down the Strand.""What a miracle is Genius--Genius, the Divine and Beautiful," said a gentleman leaning against the same fireplace with the deformed cavalier in iron-gray, and addressing that individual, who was in fact Mr. Alexander Pope. "What a marvellous gift is this, and royal privilege of Art! To make the Ideal more credible than the Actual: to enchain our hearts, to command our hopes, our regrets, our tears, for a mere brain-born Emanation: to invest with life the Incorporeal, and to glamour the cloudy into substance,--these are the lofty privileges of the Poet, if I have read poesy aright; and I am as familiar with the sounds that rang from Homer's lyre, as with the strains which celebrate the loss of Belinda's lovely locks"--(Mr. Pope blushed and bowed, highly delighted)--"these, Isay, sir, are the privileges of the Poet--the Poietes--the Maker--he moves the world, and asks no lever; if he cannot charm death into life, as Orpheus feigned to do, he can create Beauty out of Nought, and defy Death by rendering Thought Eternal. Ho! Jemmy, another flask of Nantz."And the boy--for he who addressed the most brilliant company of wits in Europe was little more--emptied the contents of the brandy-flask into a silver flagon, and quaffed it gayly to the health of the company assembled. 'Twas the third he had taken during the sitting. Presently, and with a graceful salute to the Society, he quitted the coffee-house, and was seen cantering on a magnificent Arab past the National Gallery.
"Who is yon spark in blue and silver? He beats Joe Addison himself, in drinking,, and pious Joe is the greatest toper in the three kingdoms," Dick Steele said, good-naturedly.
"His paper in the Spectator beats thy best, Dick, thou sluggard,"the Right Honorable Mr. Addison exclaimed. "He is the author of that famous No. 996, for which you have all been giving me the credit.""The rascal foiled me at capping verses," Dean Swift said, "and won a tenpenny piece of me, plague take him!""He has suggested an emendation in my 'Homer,' which proves him a delicate scholar," Mr. Pope exclaimed.
"He knows more of the French king than any man I have met with; and we must have an eye upon him," said Lord Bolingbroke, then Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, and beckoning a suspicious-looking person who was drinking at a side-table, whispered to him something.
Meantime who was he? where was he, this youth who had struck all the wits of London with admiration? His galloping charger had returned to the City; his splendid court-suit was doffed for the citizen's gabardine and grocer's humble apron.
George de Barnwell was in Chepe--in Chepe, at the feet of Martha Millwood.
VOL III.
THE CONDEMNED CELL.
"Quid me mollibus implicas lacertis, my Elinor? Nay," George added, a faint smile illumining his wan but noble features, "why speak to thee in the accents of the Roman poet, which thou comprehendest not? Bright One, there be other things in Life, in Nature, in this Inscrutable Labyrinth, this Heart on which thou leanest, which are equally unintelligible to thee! Yes, my pretty one, what is the Unintelligible but the Ideal? what is the Ideal but the Beautiful? what the Beautiful but the Eternal? And the Spirit of Man that would commune with these is like Him who wanders by the thina poluphloisboio thalasses, and shrinks awe-struck before that Azure Mystery."Emily's eyes filled with fresh-gushing dew. "Speak on, speak ever thus, my George," she exclaimed. Barnwell's chains rattled as the confiding girl clung to him. Even Snoggin, the turnkey appointed to sit with the Prisoner, was affected by his noble and appropriate language, and also burst into tears.
"You weep, my Snoggin," the Boy said; "and why? Hath Life been so charming to me that I should wish to retain it? hath Pleasure no after-Weariness? Ambition no Deception; Wealth no Care; and Glory no Mockery? Psha! I am sick of Success, palled of Pleasure, weary of Wine and Wit, and--nay, start not, my Adelaide--and Woman. Ifling away all these things as the Toys of Boyhood. Life is the Soul's Nursery. I am a Man, and pine for the Illimitable! Mark you me! Has the Morrow any terrors for me, think ye? Did Socrates falter at his poison? Did Seneca blench in his bath? Did Brutus shirk the sword when his great stake was lost? Did even weak Cleopatra shrink from the Serpent's fatal nip? And why should I?
My great Hazard hath been played, and I pay my forfeit. Lie sheathed in my heart, thou flashing Blade! Welcome to my Bosom, thou faithful Serpent; I hug thee, peace-bearing Image of the Eternal! Ha, the hemlock cup! Fill high, boy, for my soul is thirsty for the Infinite! Get ready the bath, friends; prepare me for the feast To-morrow--bathe my limbs in odors, and put ointment in my hair.""Has for a bath," Snoggin interposed, "they're not to be 'ad in this ward of the prison; but I dussay Hemmy will git you a little hoil for your 'air."The Prisoned One laughed loud and merrily. "My guardian understands me not, pretty one--and thou? what sayest thou? From those dear lips methinks--plura sunt oscula quam sententiae--I kiss away thy tears, dove!--they will flow apace when I am gone, then they will dry, and presently these fair eyes will shine on another, as they have beamed on poor George Barnwell. Yet wilt thou not all forget him, sweet one. He was an honest fellow, and had a kindly heart for all the world said--""That, that he had," cried the gaoler and the girl in voices gurgling with emotion. And you who read! you unconvicted Convict--you murderer, though haply you have slain no one--you Felon in posse if not in esse--deal gently with one who has used the Opportunity that has failed thee--and believe that the Truthful and the Beautiful bloom sometimes in the dock and the convict's tawny Gabardine!
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