Nature and Art, Note Book of an Irish Barrister.-No. IV. Judge Perrin; No. V. the Hon Michael Parliamentary Portraits, by the Author of the "Great Metropolis," Patriot Bonnivard, the, in the Dungeons of Chillon, PAGE. 1 13, 72, 135, 267, 355 262 254 275 82, 156, 212 389 61, 319 176 207 232, 384 90 290 190 297 161 24 311 79 395 266 29, 195, 263 282 144 121 236 39 THE METROPOLITAN. No. LXXXI. FOR JANUARY, 1838. NATURE AND ART. BY MRS. C. GORE. terrors of the storm, which vary their unspeakable extent of prospect. A thousand intermediary changes are hourly, momentarily, perceptible. Not a cloud sailing across the sunny sky,-and ocean skies teem with those humid exhalations,--but casts a correspondent shadow on the surface of the waters, darkening their blue to purple, or changing their glossy green to the tinges of the dying dolphin. The "seachanges" of a marine view are in fact so infinitely multiplied by the effects of wind and weather, tide and time, that from the first gleam of morning to the last of evening twilight, 'too wonderful a succession of beauties presents itself to the observant eye, for the commemoration of pen or pencil. On the coast of Lancashire, within distant view of the ruins of Furness Abbey, lies a small territory, an island or peninsula, according to the ebb or flow of the tides that lave its flat and unfruitful shores. At noon, perhaps, the traveller beholds it an islet, moored, as it were, under the protection of the main land; isolated and cheerless, containing-in the midst of the forty acres of arid land which centuries of cultivation have barely redeemed from barrenness-a single dwelling; a small farm, the rosemary bushes of whose gardenenclosures form the nearest approach to a tree discernible in the place. But a few But independently of its fine prospects hours later the dreariness of Hailisle, (or of the open sea, the farm of Helisle comHelisle, as it is pronounced by the fisher-manded a coast-view of unusual interest. men of the coast,) is in some degree re. lieved by the reappearance of the hard smooth sands, a quarter of a mile in extent, connecting it with the Lancashire coast. It now assumes the aspect of a rude nook of earth, ribbed from the neighboring farms by the firm compact terrace which affords a delightful and exhilarating walk to the inmates of that solitary abode. Viewed from the house, however, the scene assumed a totally different appearance. Persons accustomed to the rich garniture of inland landscape, with its con trasting features of hill, dale, or mountain, -river, lake, or torrent,-verdant pasture or golden plain,-are apt to tax a marine prospect with monotony. But ask the abiders by the great deep whether they ever experience the sense of satiety arising from sameness of object? It is not alone the vast transition from the smooth surface of the summer sea to the boiling, seething fury of the mighty ocean laboring with the VOL. V. 1 Though immediately adjoining the spot the shore presented only a gravelly bank, yet at the distance of half a mile along its windings, commences the beautiful mountainous ridge, shelving to the sands of Furness from the lofty heights diversifying the district of the Lakes. From these, with their changeful mists or clear prominence against the sky, Helisle borrows another source of endless variety; and while the dainty tourist might pronounce this region of gulls and curlews, remote from city, town, or even village, the most desolate fragment of a sufficiently desolate country, the dwellers on the spot found in its exciting breezes and varying tides as attractive a play of features as brightened the serene countenance of solitude. ever Yet the inmates of the secluded house were people who had seen the stir and tumult of the world; had sat and even presided at good men's feasts; having retired "We shall starve-we and these helpless ones must starve!" was Warnford's desponding ejaculation, on the night when Lord Lovell's silent rejection of his daughter's last petition satisfied them that all expectation of succor from his mercy was at an end. "Our debts in this place nearly equal the small remnant of my means. to the precarious shelter of that comfort- dwindled away. At thirty he was the less abode neither from disgust at the gid- father of two children, a girl and boy, with diness of the crowd, nor a milder frame of barely the means of maintenance for his self-denying philosophy. They came there single self. all but penniless;-they still abided there, miserably poor. But though Master Warnford's wife was saluted by her humble neighbors of the coast as "Mistress" or "Dame," she had claim to the right honorable title of "the Lady Anne," being daughter to the Earl of Lovell, one of the proudest peers of England; by whom, on her rash marriage at sixteen with the I have no friends, no kinsmen, no inteyounger son of one of Cromwell's upstart generals, she had been cast off and renounced for evermore. The earl, by whose undue domestic severity the ear of his daughter was first inclined towards the first lovesuit tendered to her charms, resented with harshness the rash step his harshness had brought about; and though, for five years after their marriage, the Warnfords entertained no doubt of his eventual pardon, they were at length forced reluctantly to admit that all hope was lost of Lord Lovell's secession from his oath to behold his daughter's face no more. They now felt that they should have dealt more sparingly with the small patrimony derived by Warnford from his deceased parents, which was all but dis sipated in the belief that, after a certain period of estrangement, the earl would recal his daughter to his favor, and restore her to her rights upon his inheritance. But this expectation was extinguished. A staunch adherent of the House of Stuart, to whose haughty and obdurate despotism the frailties of his own nature bore considerable affinity, the Earl of Lovell had in his time been exposed to insult and injury at the hands of the Roundheads; and his narrow spirit took delight in revenging on the son and grandchildren of General Warnford the long-smarting wounds of his self-love; regardless that in the veins of the latter was flowing the blood of progenitors whom he worshipped with all the paltry adulation of family pride. Rejecting every overture of reconciliation from his daughter, he left her letters of entreaty unanswered, and at length returned them unopened; till Warnford, who, at thirty years of age, had progressed from the romantic youth into a disappointed, gloomy, helpless, hopeless man, insisted that she should humiliate herself and him no more by the renewal of these unavailing solicit ations. rest to push me forward in the world. Though the slightest word from Lord Lovell's lips would, without diminishing by a doit the property he prizes so dearly, secure me from the king's government the occasion to work out my independence and bestow an education on our children, we must sink still lower in the scale of misery-must work-must want and perhaps work and want in vain. Perhaps, with our best efforts, these babes may sink under their privations; and you, my patient, suffering wife, prove unable to confront the hardships we have no longer hope to overcome. Would-would that I had died, ere I persuaded you to desert your prosperous and bright career, for the cheerless home of an obscure and poverty-stricken man!" "Have you courage to say this?" faltered his wife, who sat rocking with one foot the cradle of their elder child, and holding in her arms the noble infant she had just hushed off to sleep upon her bosom, "when you know that my sole solace in my troubles is the belief that life would have been worthless in your eyes unshared by the wife and children who are weighing you down to poverty !" "And so it would!" cried Warnford, with rapid utterance. "You have been, you are, you ever will be-the crown and glory of my days. The sight of these children and their tender caresses would be as a foretaste of heaven, but for the anxieties for their future welfare darkening my soul. But to know that, grievous as are the straits to which my rashness has reduced you, they must become a thousand-fold more cruel, distracts my very reason. You, so tenderly rearedso cared for, that your foot fell upon velvet, and not a breath was suffered to blow on your fragile youth-you to labor-you to need the common necessaries of life!-0 why was I tempted to do this thing, and how shall I abide the sight of your wretch From the period of their imprudent marriage, the young people had inhabited aedness ?" small house in the little capital of the "Cheer up, Warnford!" cried the kindcounty-palatinate, of which Warnford's hearted being, whose nature was a nature mother was a native; and there, in at- of love, sparing one hand from her little tempting to secure to the lovely Lady charge to extend it to the ready caress of Anne, whom he had allured, while a stu- her husband. "If this be all, cheer up!— dent of Oxford, from her father's stately You know me only as the thriftless, gidmansion in the neighborhood of the uni- dy girl-the dainty, tender womanversity, some portion of the comforts of henceforward you shall see me the stirher luxurious home, his substance had ring matron-the careful housewife. Love And, lo! thus cheered and comforted, there was hope by the desolate fireside of the necessitous man. But this was not all. Words of solace were not the only offering of the good and tender wife. She had words of counsel, too, for his ear, which, after much debate, tended to a happy issue. would be a pitiful thing did it suggest no | save love and duty-love that makes duty higher proof of its strength than honeyed light, and duty that sobers and consecrates words and idle fondling, such as I have, the sportiveness of love. Low as we are perhaps, wearied you withal. But it has in life, I am happy; be happy too, and noa power and courage of its own! Trust thing will be left me to desire." me, it has a power and courage of its own! -a power to act, a courage to bear, which constitute a yet more intimate portion of its happiness. Had we been prosperous-world-seekers, pleasure hunters, wasters of the gawds and luxuries of life-sweet protestations and tender embraces had been the utmost proof in my power that never have I repented the act Lady Anne persuaded him to quit Lansuggested by the wantonness of girlish caster, to renounce the intercourse of preference. My reason now confirms my those of their own degree-people who choice. The blessing of God decrees that loved them no jot the better for attempts the vows so lightsomely sworn can now to maintain a position in life ruinous to be renewed with all the solemnity of wo- their narrow fortunes. After much seek`manly truth; and to that first sweet pro-ing, they found notice at an attorney's ofmise to love and honor, in sickness and in health, to take for richer, for poorer, for better for worse,-I superadd a pledge that, knowing the poorer, and having experience of the worse, I would still bear all, and more also, for your sake." Warnford made no reply. He was laboring, with a strong man's effort, to restrain the tears that would have fain burst from the inmost recesses of his heart. He was too proud to weep in her presence-too agonized to speak. "You think, perhaps," added Lady Anne, in a lower voice," that this fortitude will not abide; that poverty is a gnawing thing which devours the strongest courage. Try me! I have the consciousness of a stronger mind—a yet more enduring patience. I defy the cares or wants of life to do more than bow down my body to death;-they shall neither tire my submission nor exhaust my tenderness for you and those whom you have given me !" : fice of a vacancy at the miserable farm of Helisle and nearly the remainder of Warnford's heritage was expended in the necessary outlay for lease, stock, and plenishing. Having settled themselves thus, at the extremity of civilization, they resigned all pretence to gentleness of condition, the pomps of life; worked hard, fared hard; and after two years buffeting between necessity and the lingering influence of their early breeding, found their refinement of nature and sentiment worn down to the exigencies of their condition. Algernon Warnford held the plough which was to procure bread for his children, while Mistress Warnford tended the two lean milch-kine; which afforded their chief subsistence. The unfruitful soil was such as to tax the utmost efforts of the inexperienced husbandman. The peasant's boy and girl hired to assist the labors of the distressed family, gave only trouble by their ignorance. But in the sequel, perseverHe was about to answer, when pres- ance prevailed. Though he who, as a sing his hand fervently with the soft slen- gentleman, had been a bad scholar, proved der fingers in which it was still enveloped, as a farmer an indifferently agriculturist, she added, "One word more!-I have a the effort of being up early and late, toiling condition to affix to my devotedness.—I through summer's sun and winter's frost, must have you cheer your spirits for my overcame, as providence hath promised, sake-I must have you up and bestir your- the stubborn curse of nature; and at the self-I must have you persevere to a good close of five years of heavy labor, the end! I will labor cheerfully, but you must Warnfords were not only able to maintain be my help-mate and companion. I will their elder children, and a younger-an oppose a cheerful face to sorrow, but ocean pearl, born in the briny solitude of Heyours must no longer wear a frown. We lisle--but had amassed great store of wealth are not utterly deserted of Heaven-we ―a press full of linen, spun under their have youth and health; and for how many roof-several articles of household furniof the creatures of God do these form a ture, the product of their united ingenuity sufficient provision! Such fair and pro--and, above all, a stout coble-boat, which, mising children are not vouchsafed to us with the aid of an able builder from Whitein vain. They are given us as pledges of haven, who passed a couple of summer better days-they are given us as en- months domiciled with them at the farm, couragement to bear and to forbear-Warnford had launched with great cerethey are given as an incitement to our ef- mony from the stocks, and christened and forts, and a comfort to our cares. For painted with the auspicious name of "The them, dearest, and for me, look to the Lady Anne of Helisle." It may be doubtbrighter side of things. If I do not forgeted whether the Earl of Lovell, who was my father, I have at least forgotten my now officiating in his frivolous old age as father's house; nay, I have forgotten all, Lord Chamberlain to his most gracious 4 Nature and Art. Majesty, had in the interim achieved any | enjoyment from the revealed phenomena effort half so gratifying. of nature, which afforded the recreation of their uneventful lives. But the children had no books-no instructors; and, engrossed by the homely industry indispensable to their support, their parents could do little in that task of unremitting preceptorship indispensable to drive the young and volatile through the thorny ways of learning. Nor was the ornamental department wholy neglected. Warnford had retouched and whitewashed, within and without, the plaster walls of the little dwelling, had contrived a rude carpet of sheepskins for the portion of the hall or kitchen specially habited by his wife, and had even planted the spot of ground beneath her window Walter and Helena accordingly wanderwith hedges of fragrant rosemary, which, as its name denoteth, rejoices in the dew ed all day long about the featureless fields of the sea; for the sea-spray reached it of the islet, without a shrub or bush to fix there. On winter nights the humbleness their attention, or a field-flower to enliven of the one-storied mansion was its sole the saline herbage. Hand in hand they security against the tremendous storm-watched by the shore till the receding tide bursts of the Irish channel; and often, left clear to their eager feet those sparkwhen signals of distress boomed from the ling sands, to which every ebb of the waoffing, Mistress Warnford would start ters afforded hazard or novelty; purple seafrom her pillow, and with a prayer of in- shells, lightly embedded there, the curious tercession for the souls in peril, bless the pebble, the stranded weed, detached from roof that gave such comfortable shelter to the podded vegetation clinging to the sunken rocks; the living jellies of the sea-anethe helpless ones whom her soul loved. In fine weather, she and her children- mone or star-fish, or some shelly outcast more especially her son Walter-often ac-flung by the waves on the shore to crawl companied Warnford when his day's la- its awkward way back again to a more bors were done, in an evening sail, coast- congenial element. The white gulls would ing those beautiful shores. Or she would stand unheeding, while the two little ones follow him to the mainland, when business went wandering up and down; or the curcarried him to market at Dalton or Ramp-lew dip its wing into the wave within reach side, for a kindly visit to the wives of one or two small farmers, with whom they maintained interchange of good-will, borrowing or lending, nursing or claiming tendance in sickness, exchanging a basket of fish for a brood of early chickens, or a measure of rapeseed or yarn, for faggotwood or turf. It was one of the sacrifices exacted of Warnford's pride by his more nobly constituted wife, that he should stoop in all things to his altered condition, and live, and let live, with those among whom Providence had appointed their career. of their little hands; so gentle were their But when Walter attained the age of hardihood, and at ten years old, delighted to unmoor the cable from its chain, and having set the sail, steer boldly along the that they shore towards Furness, having compelled his sister to bear him company, might encounter together the chastisement of their disobedience, Mistress Warnford felt that the boy's spirit was breaking bounds. He had none of the usual occupations of youth to exhaust his elasticity of limb and muscle-no pony to ride-no tree to climb-no companion to overcome in wrestling, quoits, or other athletic exfor-ercises. He had no associate but his sister Helena; for a sort of innate arrogance kept him aloof from the herdsman employ"Marry-the boy and girl were so ed in the out-door labors of the farm. At sprightly, yet so jaunty and well-spoken length, having escaped one day from home withal," that the old people hailed the com- to the fair at Dalton, and tarried away till ing of the young mother, (with her large the tide had flowed, and ebbed and flowed loving eyes beaming tenderness on the again, distracting his mother with apprefair child, the young Lucy, that still linger-hensions lest, finding himself belated, he ed in her arms, from fondling more than helplessness,) as a festival in their life of labor. There was old Hal Hobbs and his dame, cotters on the Condish estates, which extend along the coast by Furness, who thought the month a long one in which Mistress Warnford, or her good man, got to bring Watty and Leeny to taste their honey, or garden berries. should attempt to wade through the channel of the flowing waters when nearly breast-high as she had often known him But as years drew on, the mother, as by do before-she resolved, when she claspnature appointed, began to outweigh the ed the truant once more in her arms, (afwife in the bosom of Lord Lovell's daughter having dared the passage in a crazy ter. She had borne cheerfully with her lot for herself, and for her husband; she could not be so easily contented for her children. Her mind, and that of Warnford, had been formed by early education; and though no leisure or opportunity was left them now for indulgence of scholarship, they knew enough to derive double tub of a boat, long condemned as unseaworthy by the fishermen of Ramside,) to make some attempt at rescuing her son from a state of life, where the energies of his arrogant nature were thus afflictingly doomed to run to waste. A letter was accordingly indited to the Earl of Lovell by his daughter; pretend |