The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction. Volume 17, No. 481, March 19, 1831
TekstWhat will the scoffers and scorners, the haters of good works, say to the sacred truths—the soft-breathing simplicity—of this extract. How painful then is it to turn to the idle speculations and feverish fancies of their philosophical unbelief.
Dr. Dibdin has supplied the sketches of the Reverend Authors and the Notes. One of the latter on a passage in the Sermon, Scripture Difficulties Vindicated, by the Rev. C. Benson, relates to a noble, but lamentably sceptical, poet.
We have looked through the second volume, which contains twenty-three Sermons, and notice this beautiful passage from a Sermon by Dr. Townson:
"And, to take up once more the comparison of life to a voyage, in like manner it fares with those, who have steadily and religiously pursued the course which heaven pointed out to them. We shall sometimes find, by their conversation towards the end of their days, that they are filled with hope, and peace, and joy; which, like those refreshing gales and reviving odours to the seaman, are breathed forth from Paradise upon their souls; and give them to understand with certainty, that God is bringing them unto their desired haven."
(Note by the Editor.) The poetical spirit of this paragraph is not less remarkable, than its discriminative piety. It seems probable, that Dr. Townson had in view the fine passage of Milton:
And of pure, now purer air,
Meets his approach; and to the heart inspires
Vernal delight and joy:
now gentle gales,
Fanning their odoriferous wings dispense
Native perfumes, and whisper whence they stole
Those balmy spoils. As when to them who sail
Beyond the Cape of Hope, and now are past
Mozambic, off at sea north-east winds blow
Sabean odours, from the spicy shore
Of Araby the bless'd; with such delay
Well pleas'd, they slack their course; and many a league
Cheer'd with the grateful smell old Ocean smiles:
So entertain'd those odorous sweets
Paradise Lost, iv. 152.
Another passage, scarcely less poetical, and, in moral beauty, far superior, affords a still more striking coincidence:
The merchant, who towards spicy regions sails,
Smells their perfume far off, in adverse gales;
With blasts which thus against the faithful blow,
Fresh odorous breathings of God's goodness flow.
Bp. Ken. Works, i. 494.
It is an interesting proof of the fertility of Dr. Townson's mental resources, that in the original manuscript, he has left behind, on a separate leaf, an equally fine illustration; to be occasionally substituted for that which has called forth these remarks. It were injustice to withhold it from the reader:
"In this situation, the devout Christian may be compared to a traveller journeying towards some fair city, in which he has beforehand established a good correspondence. He has climbed the hill that stands next to it; and, though the distance still forbids him to take a distinct survey of it, yet the prospect of its towers and buildings rising before him, of its spires and pinnacles glittering in the air, and of peace and pleasantness in its borders, revives his heart. The consideration of his past perils and fatigues now gives him pleasure. He is thankful to a gracious Providence, that has led him almost through them, and brought him to a point, whence he has a downward and direct way to a place of rest and abode; in which he will meet with a cordial reception, and be delighted with new scenes of beauty, magnificence, and wonder. With such satisfaction doth faith fill the heart of the religious pilgrim and stranger, when he has nearly travelled through the changes and chances of this mortal life, and feels himself approaching to the heavenly Jerusalem, the abiding city."
The accomplished author, himself, like Milton, a traveller, here blends his own observation of foreign lands, with his recollections of our great poet:—
As when a scout
Through dark and desert ways with peril gone
All night, at last by break of cheerful dawn,
Obtains the brow of some high-climbing hill,
Which to his eye discovers unaware
The goodly prospect of some foreign land
First seen, or some renown'd metropolis,
With glitt'ring spires and pinnacles adorn'd,
Which now the rising sun gilds with his beams.
Paradise Lost, iii. 543.
The Sunday Library, it should be added, is printed in correspondent style with the Cabinet Cyclopaedia, and each volume has a finely engraved Frontispiece Portrait.
VENETIAN HISTORY
The Family Library Editor has judiciously enough filled his 20th volume with "Sketches" from the History of Venice. Another volume is promised, the present extending from the settlement of the Veneti in Italy to the year 1406. The intention is stated to be, "to present in detail some of the most striking incidents of the History of this great Republic, connecting them with each other by a brief and rapid survey of minor events;" for which purpose the Editor has freely taxed Sismondi and the late Count Daru. The result is one of the most enchanting volumes of historiettes that has ever fallen into our hands; illustrating, to be sure, numberless dark points, or "damned spots" of human history; "much of atrocious guilt, of oppression, cruelty, fraud, treachery, baseness, and ingratitude;" yet the very heinousness of these characteristics carries on and keeps up the intense interest of the volume.
We select for extract the "tragical tragedy" of Marino Faliero—not so much for its novelty to the reader, as for correcting an erroneous view into which the license of poetry may have led him:—
The name of Marino Faliero is familiar to English ears; but the reader who borrows his conception of the Doge of Venice from the modern drama in our language which purports to relate his story, will wander as far from historic truth as from nature and probability. The Chronicle of Sanuto, which the poet has avowed to be his basis, presents no trace of that false, overwrought, and unintelligible passion which, in the tragedy, is palmed upon us for nice sensitiveness to injured honour. We are told, indeed, that the angry old man had once so far indulged his choleric humour as to fell to the ground a somewhat tardy bishop during the celebration of a holy solemnity. We hear of a fiery temper, accustomed to command, elated by success, and in which, on the confession of Petrarch, who was personally well informed regarding it, valour predominated over prudence. These are the unsettled elements upon which the Tempter best loves to work; but the insanity and extravagance with which we must charge Faliero, if we suppose his attempt to overthrow the government of which he was chief, arose solely from an outrageous desire of revenge for a petty insult, are entirely gratuitous, and belong altogether to the poet. Madness of another kind, however, that of ambition, is clearly ascribable to him; and, if we take this as our key, much of the obscurity attendant upon a catastrophe which has been imperfectly and inadequately developed will be cleared away; we shall obtain a character little indeed awakening our sympathy, but yet not wholly at variance with our judgment; and although we may be astonished at, and recoil from the motives which prompted his crime, they will not be altogether of a class which sets our comprehension at defiance.6
At a banquet, which it was customary for the doge to celebrate in his palace, after the bull-hunt, on the Carnival Thursday, a squabble had arisen from some too pressing familiarity offered by one of the young gallants of the court to his mistress. Michele Steno, a gentleman of poor estate, was enamoured of a lady in attendance upon the dogaressa; and, presuming upon her favour, he was guilty of some freedom which led the doge to order his exclusion.—This command appears to have been executed with more than necessary violence; and the youth, fired by the indignity which disgraced him in the eyes of his mistress, sought revenge by assailing Faliero in that point in which he conceived him to be most vulnerable. He wrote on the doge's chair, in the council chamber, a few words reflecting upon the dogaressa: "Marino Faliero, husband of the lovely wife; he keeps, but others kiss her."7 The offence was traced to its author; it was pitiful and unmanly; yet it scarcely deserved heavier punishment than that which the XL adjudged to it—namely, that Steno should be imprisoned for two months, and afterwards banished from the state for a year. But, to the morbid and excited spirit of Faliero, the petty affront of this rash youth appeared heightened to a state crime; and the lenient sentence with which his treason (for so he considered it) had been visited, was an aggravation of every former indignity offered to the chief magistrate by the oligarchy which affected to control him. Steno, he said, should have been ignominiously hanged, or at least condemned to perpetual exile.
On the day after the sentence, while the doge was yet hot in indignation, an event occurred which seems to have confirmed the chronicler whose steps we are following, in his belief in the doctrine of necessity. "Now it was fated," he tells us, "that my Lord Duke Marino was to have his head cut off. And as it is necessary, when any effect is to be brought about, that the cause of that effect must happen, it therefore came to pass"—that Bertuccio Israello, Admiral of the Arsenal,8 a person apparently of no less impetuous passions than the doge himself, and who is described as possessed also of egregious cunning, approached him to seek reparation for an outrage. A noble had dishonoured him by a blow; and it was vain to ask redress for this affront from any but the highest personage in the state. Faliero, brooding over his own imagined wrongs, disclaimed that title, and gladly seized occasion to descant on his personal insignificance. "What wouldst thou have me do for thee?" was his answer: "Think upon the shameful gibe which hath been written concerning me, and think on the manner in which they have punished that ribald Michele Steno, who wrote it; and see how the Council of XL respect our person!" Upon this, the admiral returned—"My Lord Duke, if you would wish to make yourself a prince, and cut all those cuckoldy gentlemen to pieces, I have the heart, if you do but help me, to make you prince of all the state, and then you may punish them all." Hearing this, the duke said—"How can such a matter be brought about?" and so they discoursed thereon.