dallying with death, that his heart is hastening to a kind of "Botany Bay," that Happiness is going out at the back-door and Misery jumping in at the window, and yet he is so completely deluded that he smiles at the prospect before him. These remarks apply to that class of widows only, who are young and beautiful. A second class, who have passed the age when Love's witchery hangs around them, are still more dangerous. But I will let Tennyson describe both classes. Of Lady Psyche he says, "she herself Erect behind a desk of satin-wood, A quick brunette, well-moulded, falcon-eyed, In shining draperies, headed like a star, A beautiful and a dangerous creature certainly, and as might be expected, the destined conqueror of the Prince's companion, Cyril. The evidence of this appears afterward in a very naive confession of the suffering youth: "I learnt more from her in a flash Than if my brainpan were an empty hull And every Muse tumbled a science in." "With me, Sir, enter'd in the bigger boy, Turn we now to Lady Blanche, the representative of the second class of widows, who, having passed the age when marriage is either proper or possible, console themselves in their loneliness by making others miserable; occupy their leisure in making and marring matches; become stern, morose and tyrannical. The Poet has these lines by way of describing Lady Blanche: "only Lady Blanche, A double-rouged and treble-wrinkled dame In act to spring." By another circumstance Tennyson still further distinguishes these separate classes of widows. Lady Psyche early discovered the fact that the betrothed lover of her mistress and his two companions were in their midst, disguised as females, and at first determined to inform the Princess of the stratagem, and give up the masqueraders to the severe penalty of death, but the earnest entreaties of the intruders prevailed. Said Florian to his sister, 66 Are you that Psyche, Florian asked, to whom And sobbed, and you sobbed with it, and the blood That was fawn's blood, not brother's, yet you wept." This earnest and pathetic appeal overcame all her scruples; she looked slily and lovingly at Cyril and-kept the secret. Not so however with Lady Blanche. She had too much of the virago and the vixen, and too little of the woman in her composition to be deterred from what she called duty, by any motives of pity or compassion. An appeal to her selfishness alone prevents her from an instant disclosure, which is finally brought about by the carlessness of Cyril, who, during a morning walk, in the presence of all the ladies, mastered by the influence of a jolly dram, "begins To troll a careless, careless tavern-catch Of Moll and Meg, and strange experiences You O! Cyril, Cyril, 'twas wrong, very wrong to get fuddled. should have drank less, man, or not at all, for the wine-bottle is a very bad counselor in moments of danger. See the result of getting drunk, Cyril; ladies insulted, your prospects suddenly blighted, your friends involved in a common misfortune with yourself. Think of it, my fine fellow, and sign the temperance pledge. By the way, we have a great many Cyrils in college-as numerous as the bubbles on their own wine-cups, and with cheeks quite as red. Don't be disturbed, gentlemen. I shall not mention your names nor yet read you a temperance lecture; but I will say one thing. If you must drink, do so as quietly as possible. Grave citizens do not like to be disturbed by " a sound of revelry by night," and fair ladies do not like a breath redolent of wine. "Vive la compagnie," and " landlord fill your glasses," are very good songs in their place, but not exactly appropriate to an evening party or a prayer-meeting. Anacreon's banquet songs and Bacchanalian poems are certainly very beautiful; Tom Moore's festal lyrics are full of liveliness and grace, and our own Hoffman has written at least one drinking song which is brim full of sparkling poetry. I will admit then, reader, if you please, that there is poetry in the wine-cup, in the pranks of "Bacchus ever fair and ever young." But if a spree at night is poetical, a headache next morning is real; if a guilty revel one day is etical, disgrace and dishonor on the morrow are real, if insult and outrage by starlight is poetical, a sheriff and a prison by daylight are real, and the less you have to do with this kind of poetry, dear reader, the better. And now that I have given vent to my ill-humor, I will return once more to "The Princess." po One of the most perfect scenes in the Poem is the conversation between the angry Princess and her despairing but high-souled lover. Ida had received a threatening letter from the Prince's father and she perused it in silence, "till over brow And cheek and bosom brake the wrathful bloom As of some fire against a stormy cloud, When the wild peasant rights himself, and the rick Flames, and his anger reddens in the heavens." The Prince confronts her in her rage with the simple story of his love, pleading that, and that alone, as the excuse for his unwelcome visit, and defending himself with a frank and honest eloquence which would have moved any heart, less wrapped in its own ambitious schemes, less perverted by evil counsels. "My nurse would tell me of you, I babbled for you as babies for the moon, Came in long breezes, rapt from the inmost south, And blown to the inmost north; at eve and dawn With Ida, Ida, Ida, rang the woods; The leader wildswan in among the stars Would clang it, and lapt in wreaths of glowworm light The mellow breaker murmured Ida." And how did Ida respond to this appeal, before which the hearts of our modern dames would have melted like wax before the fire? She stood the same tall, angry Goddess, amid "Rainbow robes, and gems and gem-like eyes, And gold and golden heads," and, turning to her trembling and terrified maidens, bade them fear not the threatening message which she had just received, and poured fierce sarcasm upon the disaffected, terming them "The drunkard's football, laughing-stocks of Time, But fit to flaunt, to dress, to dance, to thrum, Verily, the Princess had a tongue of her own and her lover must have been a bold man to have persevered in his suit after such an exhibition of temper as this. Of all the phenomena of Nature, the most common and the most to be dreaded, is a scolding wife. Such a woman is a porcupine, a chestnut-burr, "a rosebush set about with little willful thorns," a bomb shell always on the point of explosion. Like "fulminating silver," the simple touch of a rougher substance evolves her angry energy. The "hammer of her tongue" is moved by water from an unfailing source the fountain of her own ill-humor. A flake of mud on her parlor carpet, a chair displaced, a curtain disordered, the tongs moved from a prim perpendicular, a sly glance at a handsome cousin, and the gathering clouds burst in a tempest of reproach, abuse, and bitter sarcasm. Wo to the man with such a wife! wo unto him, I say, for he stands upon a mine which may destroy him in a moment; he lives in the midst of an explosive atmosphere, which a single spark will kindle into a flame. Socrates had a scolding wife, and the poor old philosopher committed suicide: Pentheus braved the anger of the frenzied Bacchantes, and forfeited his life: "Orpheus of the golden lyre" perished by the maddened violence of the Thracian women: Acteon roused the pride and hatred of Diana, and was torn to pieces by his dogs: Orion fell under the displeasure of the same virago-goddess, and paid for his temerity with his life. Petruchio tamed his shrewish wife only by the most daring and desperate measures: Macbeth was goaded to guilt and infamy by the reproaches and sneers of his ambitious Queen: Byron offended his once loved partner, and passed the rest of his life in hopeless exile: Napoleon deserted the beautiful Josephine, and from that hour his star moved from the zenith to the horizon: Christina of Sweden became enraged with her lover, and caused him to be murdered almost in her presence: Lord Darnley excited the animosity of his royal wife, Mary of Scotland, and perished amid the ruins of his dwelling, blown up with gunpowder. Shall I prolong the dreadful catalogue, dear reader, or are you already satisfied of the terrible energy which springs from the heart of an angry woman? Have I dissipated the sunny rays of romance with which you have ever surrounded the fair sex, or will it take another flood of dark and dreadful history to extinguish the deceitful radiance. Believe me, Shakspeare told the truth when he said, "frailty, thy name is woman.' Virgil was honest when he wrote "femina semper mutabile et variabile :" Congreve never hit reality more perfectly than when he said "Heav'n hath no rage like love to hatred turned, Nor Hell a fury like a woman scorned;" and Tennyson has nowhere copied nature more perfectly than in the scene where Ida threatens her lover with instant death. And now that I have returned to "The Princess," though by a somewhat singular and circuitous route, I will once more pay my homage to her Majesty. Dear reader, I am approaching a dangerous theme-the reconciliation and blissful union of the lovers, with which the Poet's story closes. In a scene like this I am out of my natural element; wading in the crystal stream of love far beyond my depth. Pardon me, my more experienced reader, if in these last paragraphs I display a woful ignorance of my subject; pity me, fair lady, if I prove myself but a tyro in the art, of which you are a perfect mistress. Upon knowledge, history, experience, I can no longer rely: Fancy, dear Fancy! come to my assistance ! "It was evening"-as Demosthenls very beautifully expresses it in the crowning specimen of his eloquence-it was evening, and Ida watched by the side of her wounded lover. The dim light of a single lamp shone upon the antique ornaments of the room, and made the paintings on the walls seem more dark and mysterious than ever. Two hearts in that lone chamber throbbed with unnatural violence; the pulse-beats of the one quickened by fever and delirum; the throbbings of the other by the resistless influence of Love. The proud Princess had become the kind and loving woman: through the dim aisles of the past her memory wandered like a shadow, and sad were the tidings which it brought. It told of a false ambition suddenly crushed; of a proud heart deadened to the nobler impulses of our nature; it whispered, of arrogance-hatred-folly-almost crime. She looked upon the unconscious sleeper before her, and the heart asserted its supremacy; "the dew Dwelt in her eyes, and softer all her shape And rounder show'd." In that quiet hour of tears and repentance; in the dimness of that silent room the wounded sleeper partially regains his consciousness; his "faint eyes" open, and beholding the fair form by his side, he murmurs in the feeble accents of a reviving invalid, "If you be, what I think you, some sweet dream, I would but ask you to fulfill yourself: But if you be that Ida whom I knew, I ask you nothing: only, if a dream, Sweet dream, be perfect. I shall die to-night. Stoop down and seem to kiss me ere I die." This was a mere stratagem. The Prince told a deliberate lie, as men in such circumstances sometimes will. He did not expect to die; he was in no danger of dying; and he couldn't have been hired to die; yet for the sake of a kiss-" one little kiss"-he told a—a fib. Ida blushed of course, but alas! she did more, "She turned; she paused; She stoop'd; and with a great shock of the heart Their mouths met!" Fire and fury! sledge-hammers and pile-drivers! but really I dare not pursue the subject farther. Your imagination, dear reader, must do the work from which my pen instinctively shrinks. The sighs and tears, the vows and protestations which followed the enactment of this |
