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the neighbours would now and then cultivate for her. It was but a few days before the time at which these circumstances were told me, that she was gathering some vegetables for her repast, when she heard the cottage door which faced the garden suddenly open. A stranger came out, and seemed to be looking eagerly and wildly around. He was dressed in seamen's clothes, was emaciated and ghastly pale, and bore the air of one broken by sickness and hardships. He saw her, and hastened toward her, but his steps were faint and faltering; he sank on his knees before her, and sobbed like a child. The poor woman gazed upon him with a vacant and wandering eye ,,Oh my dear, dear mother! don't you know your son? your poor boy George?" It was indeed the wreck of her once noble 25 lad; who, shattered by wounds, by sickness and foreign imprisonment, had, at length, dragged his wasted limbs homeward, to repose among the scenes of his childhood.

I will not attempt to detail the particulars of such a meeting, where joy and sorrow were so completely blended: still he was alive! he was come home! he might yet live to comfort and cherish her old age! Nature, however, was exhausted in him; and if anything had been wanting to finish the work of fate, the desolation of his native cottage would have been sufficient. He stretched himself on the pallet on which his widowed mother had passed many a sleepless night, and he never rose from it again.

The villagers, when they heard that George Somers had returned, crowded to see him, offering every comfort and assistance that their humble means afforded. He was too weak, however, to talk he could only look his thanks. His mother was his constant attendant; and he seemed unwilling to be helped by any other hand.

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There is something in sickness that breaks down the pride of manhood; that softens the heart, and brings it back to the feelings of infancy. Who that has languished, even in advanced life, in sickness and despondency; who that has pined on a weary bed in the neglect and loneliness of a foreign land; but 26 has thought on the mother,,that looked on his childhood," that

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26) who... but has thought lat. quis est quin meminerit = wer hat nicht gedacht; man beachte die Ellipse von is nach who und den Gebrauch von but bei fragenden Hauptsätzen, denen die Voraussetzung einer negativen Antwort zu Grunde liegt: vergl. Mätzner, Engl. Gr. III, p. 489 sqq.

smoothed his pillow, and administered to his helplessness? Oh! there is an enduring tenderness in the love of a mother to a son, that transcends all other affections of the heart. It is neither to be chilled by selfishness, nor daunted by danger, nor weakened by worthlessness, nor stifled by ingratitude. She will sacrifice 27 every comfort to his convenience; she will surrender every pleasure to his enjoyment; she will glory in his fame, and exult in his prosperity; and if adversity overtake him, he will be the dearer to her through misfortune; and if disgrace settle upon his name, she will still love and cherish him in spite of his disgrace; and if all the world beside cast him off, she will be all the world to him.

Poor George Somers had known what it was to be in sickness, and none to soothe lonely and in prison, and none to visit him 28. He could not endure his mother from 29 his sight: if she moved away, his eye would follow her. She would sit for hours by his bed, watching him as he slept. Sometimes he would start from a feverish dream, and look anxiously up until he saw her venerable form bending over him; when 30 he would take her hand, lay it on his bosom, and fall asleep with the tranquillity of a child. In this way he died.

My first impulse on hearing this humble tale of affliction, was to visit the cottage of the mourner, and administer pecuniary assistance, and, if possible, comfort. I found, however, on inquiry, that the good feelings of the villagers had prompted them to do every thing that the case admitted; and as the poor know best how to console each other's sorrows, I did not venture to intrude.

The next Sunday I was at the village church; when 30, to my surprise, I saw the poor old woman tottering down the aisle to her accustomed seat on the steps of the altar.

She had made an effort to put on something like mourning for her son; and nothing could be more touching than this struggle between pious affection and utter poverty: a black riband or so a faded black handkerchief, and one or two

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27 spr. in to sacrifice das c der Endung wie sanftes s.

28) vergl. das Gleichniss vom jüngsten Gericht Matth., cap. 25, 31-46, wo es v. 43 heisst: I was sick and in prison, and ye visited

me not.

29) from zur Bezeichnung räumlicher Entfernung, des Entfernt seins fern von; vergl. Shaksp., Henry VI., Part II, Act III, Scene 2: From thy sight, I should be raging mad.

80) Zu when vergl. S. 117, Anm. 19.

more such humble 31 attempts to express by outward signs that grief which passes show 2. When I looked round upon the storied monuments, the stately hatchments, the cold marble pomp, with which grandeur mourned magnificently over departed pride, and turned to this poor widow, bowed down by age and sorrow at the altar of her God, and offering up the prayers and praises of a pious, though a broken heart, I felt that this living monument of real grief was worth them all.

I related her story to some of the wealthy members of the congregation, and they were moved by it. They exerted themselves to render her situation more comfortable, and to lighten 33 her afflictions. It was, however, but smoothing a few steps to the grave. In the course of a Sunday or two after, she was missed from her usual seat at church; and before I left the neighbourhood, I heard, with a feeling of satisfaction, that she had quietly breathed her last, and had gone to rejoin those she loved, in that world where sorrow is never known, and friends are never parted.

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92) grief which passes show deutsch etwa: Schmerz, welcher grösser ist, als dass er sich äusserlich kundgeben liesse. Vergl Hamlet, Act I, Scene 2:

Seems, Madam! nay, it is; I know not seems:
"T is not alone my inky cloak, good mother,
Nor customary suits of solemn black,
Nor windy suspiration of forc'd breath,
No, not the fruitful river in the eye,
Nor the dejected haviour of the visage

Together with all forms, modes, shows of grief,
That can denote me truly: these, indeed, seem,
For they are actions that a man might play;
But I have that within which passeth show,
These (viz. are) but the trappings and the suits of woe.

93 to lighten (v. light leicht) = erleichtern.

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,,A tavern is the rendezvous, the exchange, the staple of good fellows. I have heard my greatgrandfather tell, how his great-grandfather should? say, that it was an old proverb when his greatgreat-grandfather was a child, 'that it was a good wind that blew a man to the wine"."

Mother Bombies.

Ir is a pious custom, in some Catholic countries, to honour the memory of saints by votive lights burnt before their pictures. The popularity of a saint, therefore, may be known by the number of these offerings. One, perhaps, is left to moulder in the darkness of his little chapel; another may have a solitary lamp to throw its blinking rays athwart his effigy; while the whole blaze of adoration is lavished at the shrine of some beatified father of renown. The wealthy devotee brings his huge luminary of wax the eager zealot his seven-branched candlestick; and even the mendicant pilgrim is by no means satisfied that sufficient light is thrown upon the deceased, unless he hang up his little lamp of smoking oil. The consequence is, that in the eagerness to enlighten, they are often apt to obscure; and

1) vergl. Shakspere's Henry IV., Part I, Act I, Scene 2; Act II, Scene 4; Henry IV., Part II, Act II, Scene 1; Act II, Scene 2.

2) shall u. should zum Ausdrucke dessen, was zu geschehen pflegt, wobei die in der Natur der Person oder Sache liegende Thätigkeit angedeutet wird, vergl. Addison: You shall sometimes know that the mistress and the maid shall quarrel... and at last the lady shall be pacified to turn her out of doors, and give her a very good word to any body else. Im neueren Englisch sind will und would gebräuchlich.

3) Mother Bombie, Drama von John Lyly (vergl. S. 1, Aom. 3), geschrieben im J. 1594. Zu dem Ausdruck,,that it was a good wind that blew a man to the wine" vergl. Shakspere, Henry IV, Part II, Act V, Scene 3, wo auf die Frage Falstaffs: What wind blew you hither, Pistol? der letztere antwortet: Not the ill wind that blows no man to good. In moderner Gestalt lautet das Sprichwort: which blows to no man good.

4) zéalot (fr. zélote, lat. zelotes, gr. Sylwrns v. Šñλos), aber zēal Eiferer; hier nicht im tadelnden Sinne, wie sonst meistens, gebraucht. 5) lamp of smoking oil = dampfende Oellampe.

6) they i. e. the wealthy devotee, the eager zealot, the mendicant pilgrim.

I have occasionally seen an unlucky saint almost smoked out of countenance' by the officiousness of his followers.

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In like manner has it fared with the immortal Shakspeare. Every writer considers it his bounden duty to light up some portion of his character or works, and to rescue some merit from oblivion. The commentator, opulent in words, produces vast tomes of dissertations; the common herd of editors send up mists of obscurity from their notes at the bottom of each page; and every casual scribbler brings his farthing rushlight of eulogy or research, to swell the cloud of incense and of smoke.

As I honour all established usages of my brethren of the quill, I thought it but proper to contribute my mite of homage to the memory of the illustrious bard. I was for some time, however, sorely puzzled in what way I should discharge this duty. I found myself anticipated in every attempt at a new reading: every doubtful line had been explained a dozen different ways, and perplexed beyond the reach of elucidation; and as to fine passages, they had all been amply praised by previous admirers; nay, so completely had the bard, of late, been overlarded with panegyric by a great German critic1o, that it was difficult now to find even a fault that had not been argued into a beauty 11.

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7) Aus der Bedeutung von out of ausserhalb ergibt sich eine Reihe von Ausdrucksweisen, die in der Vorstellung der Ausschliessung aus der Sphäre des beigegebenen Substantivbegriffs übereinkommen; daher die häufigen Verbindungen mit meist abstracten Substantiven, wie in out of spirits, order, favour, fashion etc.; to smoke one out of countenance Jemd. durch Rauch aus der Contenance (ausser Fassung) bringen; in familiärer Sprache etwa: ausräuchern. 8) Das Particip bounden ist in beschränkterem Sinne (= limited, appointed, beholden to verpflichtet) noch im Gebrauch, also bounden duty Pflicht, zu der sich Jem. verbunden fühlt, heilige Pflicht. 9) reading = Lesart.

=

10) Irving meint wahrscheinlich August Wilhelm von Schlegel (1767-1845), welcher 1797-1810 sechszehn Dramen Shaksperes meisterhaft übersetzte und in seinen Vorlesungen über dramatische Kunst und Literatur (Heidelberg 1805-1811, 3 Bde.) die hohe Bedeutung des grossen Briten gebührend ins Licht setzte. Möglicherweise denkt er an Johann Ludwig Tieck (1773-1853), der seit 1817 an einem grossen Werk über Shakspere arbeitete, das nie druckfertig geworden und nur aus einigen Bruchstücken bekannt ist. Ferner gab er, von seiner Tochter und Graf Baudissin unterstützt, die Ergänzung und Vervollständigung der Schlegelschen Shakspereübersetzung und unter dem Titel,,Shakespeares Vorschule" (Dresden 1823— 1829, 2 Bde.) eine Reihe älterer englischer Dramen heraus.

11) a fault that had not been argued into a beauty wörtl. ein Fehler, der nicht zu einer Schönheit bewiesen, durch Beweis gemacht worden Irving, The Sketch Book.

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