No More Learning

KIARTAN BIDS FAREWELL TO GUDRUN
From The Lovers of Gudrun '
O PASSED away
Yule-tide at Herdholt, cold day following day,
Till spring was gone, and Gudrun had not failed
To win both many days where joy prevailed,
And many a pang of fear; till so it fell
That in the summer whereof now we tell,
Upon a day in blithe mood Kiartan came
To Bathstead not as one who looks for blame,
And Bodli with him, sad-eyed, silent, dull,
Noted of Gudrun, who no less was full
Of merry talk,-yea, more than her wont was.
But as the hours toward eventide did pass,
Said Kiartan:
"Love, make we the most of bliss,
For though, indeed, not the last day this is
Whereon we twain shall meet in such a wise,
Yet shalt thou see me soon in fighting guise,
And hear the horns blow up our Loth to go;
For in White-River- »
"Is it even so,"
She broke in, "that these feet abide behind?
Men call me hard, but thou hast known me kind;
Men call me fair-my body give I thee;
Men call me dainty- let the rough salt sea
Deal with me as it will, so thou be near!
Let me share glory with thee, and take fear
That thy heart throws aside! "
Hand joined to hand,
As one who prays, and trembling, did she stand
With parted lips, and pale and weary-faced.
But up and down the hall-floor Bodli paced


## p. 10358 (#182) ##########################################

10358
WILLIAM MORRIS
With clanking sword, and brows set in a frown,
And scarce less pale than she. The sun low down
Shone through the narrow windows of the hall,
And on the gold upon her dress did fall,
And gilt her slim clasped hands.
There Kiartan stood
Gazing upon her in strange wavering mood,
Now longing sore to clasp her to his heart,
And pray her, too, that they might ne'er depart,
Now well-nigh ready to say such a word
As cutteth love across as with a sword;
So fought love in him with the craving vain
The love of all the wondering world to gain,
Though such he named it not. And so at last
His eyes upon the pavement did he cast,
And knit his brow as though some word to say:
Then fell her outstretched hands; she cried,
“Nay, nay!
Thou need'st not speak: I will not ask thee twice
To take a gift, a good gift, and be wise;
I know my heart, thou know'st it not: farewell,-
Maybe that other tales the Skalds shall tell
Than of thy great deeds. "
Still her face was pale,
As with a sound betwixt a sigh and wail
She brushed by Bodli, who aghast did stand
With open mouth and vainly stretched-out hand;
But Kiartan followed her a step or two,
Then stayed, bewildered by his sudden woe;
But even therewith, as nigh the door she was,
She turned back suddenly, and straight did pass,
Trembling all over, to his side, and said
With streaming eyes:-
"Let not my words be weighed
As man's words are! O fair love, go forth
And come thou back again,-made no more worth
Unto this heart, but worthier it may be
run
To the dull world, thy worth that cannot see.
Go forth, and let the rumor of thee ru
Through every land that is beneath the sun;
For know I not, indeed, that everything
Thou winnest at the hands of lord or king,
Is surely mine, as thou art mine at last ? »
Then round about his neck her arms she cast,


## p. 10359 (#183) ##########################################

WILLIAM MORRIS
10359
$
And wept right sore: and, touched with love and shame,
Must Kiartan offer to leave hope of fame,
And noble life; but 'midst her tears she smiled,—
"Go forth, my love, and be thou not beguiled
By woman's tears, I spake but as a fool;
We of the north wrap not our men in wool,
Lest they should die at last: nay, be not moved
To think that thou a faint-heart fool hast loved! "
---
For now his tears fell too; he said, "My sweet,
Ere the ship sails we yet again shall meet
To say farewell, a little while; and then,
When I come back to hold my place 'mid men,
With honor won for thee-how fair it is
To think on now, the sweetness and the bliss! "
Some little words she said no pen can write,
Upon his face she laid her fingers white,
And 'midst of kisses with his hair did play;
Then, smiling through her tears, she went away.
Nor heeded Bodli aught.
Men say the twain,
Kiartan and Gudrun, never met again
In loving wise; that each to each no more
Their eyes looked kind on this side death's dark shore;
That 'midst their tangled life they must forget,
Till they were dead, that ere their lips had met.


## p. 10360 (#184) ##########################################

10360
MOSCHUS
(THIRD CENTURY B. C. )
F MOSCHUS it is commonly said that he was the friend or dis-
ciple of the Alexandrian grammarian, Aristarchus. In this
fact we may possibly find the keynote of his poetic manner,
and a just estimate of his value. For his poems are completely
wrought-out work, marked now and then by a rare felicity of expres-
sion. They are what would naturally be produced by the educated
man of poetic feeling, whose eye and ear had been trained by the
rules and literary conventions of the greatest critic of his time.
The writer of the 'Elegy on Bion' asserts that he was Bion's
pupil; and that while the master left his goods to others, his song he
left to him. This relationship would make Moschus- to whom the
elegy is commonly assigned — a younger contemporary of both The-
ocritus and Bion, who flourished about B. C. 275. Although a native
of Syracuse, he is said to have lived much at Alexandria.
To him is also commonly ascribed the authorship of 'Love the
Runaway,' a poem of exquisite grace after the manner of Anacreon,
in which Cypris sketches her runaway boy, and offers a reward to
the one who will bring him back. Three other idyls and a few slight
pieces are also supposed to be his.
But the fame of Moschus rests upon the lament for Bion. It is
a poem of only one hundred and thirty-three lines, but withal most
elaborate, delicate, clear, and luxuriant in its imagery. All nature
laments Bion's death; and this very exuberance and poetic excess
have led critics to think the poem forced and affected, as Dr. John-
son pronounced Lycidas' to be. But considering that this very
element of appeal to nature is in the heart of us all at times of
great grief, when the imagination is awakened and the judgment
often passive,- with this consideration, such elegies are more natural,
direct, and simple. Sorrow, which acts physiologically as a stimulus
to nerve action, brings out the inconsistency of human nature, and
shows that inconsistency to be real consistency. We must abandon
ourselves to the writer's attitude of mind in order to apprehend it.
It is in the ebb of grief that the poetic impulse comes, not in its
full tide and freshness. "To publish a sorrow," says Lowell,
"is in some sort to advertise its unreality; for I have observed in
my intercourse with the afflicted that the deepest grief instinctively
. . .


## p. 10361 (#185) ##########################################

MOSCHUS
10361
hides its face with its hands and is silent. Depend upon it,
Petrarch [loved] his sonnets better than Laura, who was indeed but
his poetical stalking-horse. After you shall have once heard that
muffled rattle of the clods on the coffin-lid of an irreparable loss,
you will grow acquainted with a pathos that will make all elegies.
hateful; "—if not hateful, certainly inadequate for expression of the
deeper grief of life.
The undoubted model for this idyl of Moschus was Bion's lament
for Adonis, which is quoted under the article on Bion. Like that
exquisite poem, Moschus's threnody is an outburst over the eternal
mystery of death. Death means to us the loss of the departed one
from our affectionate association. And above all, with true Greek
feeling there is felt the loss to him of all that sweet life held,-the
piping by the waters, the care of his flock, the soft airs of bucolic
Sicily. The song is a touching lamentation upon the giving up of
joyous life, and going down to "the senseless earth" and the shades
of Orcus.
THE LAMENTATION FOR BION
MOA
Μ
The remains of Moschus have been edited by H. L. Ahrens in
'Reliquiæ Bucolicorum Græcorum' (1861), and also by Brunck, Bois-
sonade, and others. They have been turned into English by Fawkes
(Chalmers's English Poets) and also by Messrs. Polwhele, Chapman,
and Banks.
•
OAN with me, moan, ye woods and Dorian waters,
And weep, ye rivers, the delightful Bion;
And more than ever now, O hyacinth, show
Your written sorrows: the sweet singer's dead.
Raise, raise the dirge, Muses of Sicily.
Ye nightingales, that mourn in the thick leaves,
Tell the Sicilian streams of Arethuse,
Bion the shepherd's dead; and that with him
Melody's dead, and gone the Dorian song.
Ye plants, now stand in tears; murmur, ye graves;
Ye flowers, sigh forth your odors with sad buds;
Flush deep, ye roses and anemones;
Raise, raise the dirge, Muses of Sicily.
Weep on the waters, ye Strymonian swans,
And utter forth a melancholy song,
Tender as his whose voice was like your own;
And say to the Eagrian girls, and say


## p. 10362 (#186) ##########################################

10362
MOSCHUS
To all the nymphs haunting in Bistany,
The Doric Orpheus is departed from us.
Raise, raise the dirge, Muses of Sicily.
No longer pipes he to the charmèd herds,
No longer sits under the lonely oaks
And sings; but to the ears of Pluto now
Tunes his Lethean verse: and so the hills
Are voiceless; and the cows that follow still
Beside the bulls, low and will not be fed.
Raise, raise the dirge, Muses of Sicily.
Apollo, Bion, wept thy sudden fate;
The Satyrs too, and the Priapuses
Dark-veiled, and for that song of thine the Pans
Groaned; and the fountain-nymphs within the woods
Mourned for thee, melting into tearful waters;
Echo too mourned among the rocks that she
Must hush, and imitate thy lips no longer;
Trees and the flowers put off their loveliness;
Milk flows not as 'twas used; and in the hive
The honey molders,- for there is no need,
Now that thy honey's gone, to look for more.
Raise, raise the dirge, Muses of Sicily.
Not so the dolphins mourned by the salt sea,
Not so the nightingale among the rocks,
Not so the swallow over the far downs,
Not so Ceyx called for his Halcyone,
Not so in the eastern valleys Memnon's bird
Screamed o'er his sepulchre for the Morning's son,
As all have mourned for the departed Bion.
Raise, raise the dirge, Muses of Sicily.
Ye nightingales and swallows, every one
Whom he once charmed and taught to sing at will,
Plain to each other midst the green tree boughs,
With other birds o'erhead. Mourn too, ye doves.
Raise, raise the dirge, Muses of Sicily.
Who now shall play thy pipe, O most desired one!
Who lay his lip against thy reeds? who dare it?
For still they breathe of thee and of thy mouth,
And Echo comes to seek her voices there.
Pan's be they, and even he shall fear perhaps
To sound them, lest he be not first hereafter.


## p. 10363 (#187) ##########################################

MOSCHUS
10363
Raise, raise the dirge, Muses of Sicily.
And Galatea weeps, who loved to hear thee,
Sitting beside thee on the calm sea-shore:
For thou didst play far better than the Cyclops,
And him the fair one shunned: but thee, but thee,
She used to look at sweetly from the water;
But now, forgetful of the deep, she sits
On the lone sands, and feeds thy herd for thee.
Raise, raise the dirge, Muses of Sicily.
The Muses' gifts all died with thee, O shepherd:
Men's admiration, and sweet woman's kisses.
The Loves about thy sepulchre weep sadly;
For Venus loved thee, much more than the kiss
With which of late she kissed Adonis, dying.
Thou too, O Meles, sweetest voiced of rivers,
Thou too hast undergone a second grief;
For Homer first, that sweet mouth of Calliope,
Was taken from hee; and they say thou mourned'st
For thy great son with many-sobbing streams,
Filling the far-seen ocean with a voice.
And now again thou weepest for a son,
Melting away in misery. Both of them
Were favorites of the fountain-nymphs: one drank
The Pegasean fount, and one his cup
Filled out of Arethuse; the former sang
The bright Tyndarid lass, and the great son
Of Thetis, and Atrides Menelaus;
But he, the other, not of wars or tears
Told us, but intermixed the pipe he played
With songs of herds, and as he sung he fed them;
And he made pipes, and milked the gentle heifer,
And taught us how to kiss, and cherished love
Within his bosom, and was worthy of Venus.
Raise, raise the dirge, Muses of Sicily.
Every renownèd city and every town
Mourns for thee, Bion: Ascra weeps thee more
Than her own Hesiod; the Boeotian woods
Ask not for Pindar so, nor patriot Lesbos
For her Alcæus; nor the Ægean isle
Her poet; nor does Paros so wish back
Archilochus; and Mitylene now,
Instead of Sappho's verses, rings with thine.
All the sweet pastoral poets weep for thee :-
-


## p. 10364 (#188) ##########################################

10364
MOSCHUS
Sicelidas the Samian; Lycidas,
Who used to look so happy; and at Cos,
Philetas; and at Syracuse, Theocritus,
All in their several dialects; and I,
I too, no stranger to the pastoral song,
Sing thee a dirge Ausonian, such as thou
Taughtest thy scholars, honoring us as all
Heirs of the Dorian Muse. Thou didst bequeath
Thy store to others, but to me thy song.
Raise, raise the dirge, Muses of Sicily.
Alas! when mallows in the garden die,
Green parsley, or the crisp luxuriant dill,
They live again, and flower another year;
But we, how great soe'er, or strong, or wise,
When once we die, sleep in the senseless earth
A long, an endless, unawakable sleep.
Thou too in earth must be laid silently;
But the nymphs please to let the frog sing on;
Nor envy I, for what he sings is worthless.
Raise, raise the dirge, Muses of Sicily.
There came, O Bion, poison to thy mouth;
Thou didst feel poison; how could it approach
Those lips of thine, and not be turned to sweet!
Who could be so delightless as to mix it,
Or bid be mixed, and turn him from thy song!
Raise, raise the dirge, Muses of Sicily.
But justice reaches all; and thus, meanwhile,
I weep thy fate. And would I could descend
Like Orpheus to the shades, or like Ulysses,
Or Hercules before him: I would go
To Pluto's house, and see if you sang there,
And hark to what you sang. Play to Proserpina
Something Sicilian, some delightful pastoral;
For she once played on the Sicilian shores,
The shores of Etna, and sang Dorian songs,
And so thou wouldst be honored; and as Orpheus
For his sweet harping had his love again,
She would restore thee to our mountains, Bion.
Oh, had I but the power, I, I would do it!
Translation of Leigh Hunt.
-


## p. 10365 (#189) ##########################################

10365
WILLIAM MOTHERWELL
(1797-1835)
HE short life of William Motherwell was involved in much
that was uncongenial to his nature and obstructive to his
talent; else his sensibility and imagination, and his lyric
gift, might have found fuller expression. Several of his Scotch bal-
lads are unexcelled for sweetness and pathos. The reflective poems
show exquisite delicacy of feeling. The Battle Flag of Sigurd,'
'The Sword Chant of Thorstein Raudi,' ring with manliness. The
collection as a whole shows a wide range
of poetic power.
His other noteworthy work, Minstrelsy,
Ancient and Modern' (1827), displays
taste and critical ability. The essay upon
ancient minstrelsy with which he prefaced
the collection attracted the admiring atten-
tion of Sir Walter Scott, and remains an
authority upon the subject.
But the gifted Scotchman, who was born
in Glasgow in 1797, hid under his outward
reserve a sensitively artistic nature, that
suffered from contact with the practicalities
of life. Much of his childhood was passed
in Edinburgh, where he spent happy days.
roaming about the old town; and where, in Mr. Lennie's private
school, he met the pretty Jeanie Morrison of his famous ballad. He
was a dreamy, unstudious lad, with little taste for science or the
classics, although passionately fond of imaginative literature.
At fifteen he was placed to study law in the office of the sheriff-
clerk of Paisley, where he was made in time deputy sheriff-clerk,
and principal clerk of the county of Renfrew. But he was always
inclined toward a literary career; and beginning very young to
contribute poems and sketches to various periodicals, he gradually
drifted into journalism, with which he was still connected at the time
of his death in 1835. A man peculiarly alive to outside impressions,
he was thus for years subjected to the unpoetic details of editorial
work; and this, acting upon his constitutional inertia, made the poetic
creation of which he was capable especially difficult.

WILLIAM MOTHERWELL


## p. 10366 (#190) ##########################################

10366
WILLIAM MOTHERWELL
WHEN I BENEATH THE cold, reD EARTH AM SLEEPING
HEN I beneath the cold, red earth am sleeping,
Life's fever o'er,
Will there for me be any bright eye weeping
That I'm no more?
WHEN
Will there be any heart still memory keeping
Of heretofore?
When the great winds, through leafless forests rushing,
Like full hearts break;
When the swollen streams, o'er crag and gully gushing,
Sad music make,-
Will there be one, whose heart despair is crushing,
Mourn for my sake?
When the bright sun upon that spot is shining
With purest ray,
And the small flowers, their buds and blossoms twining
Burst through that clay,-
Will there be one still on that spot repining
Lost hopes all day?
When the night shadows, with the ample sweeping
Of her dark pall,
The world and all its manifold creation sleeping,
The great and small,-
Will there be one, even at that dread hour, weeping
For me- - for all?
When no star twinkles with its eye of glory,
On that low mound,
And wintry storms have with their ruins hoary
Its loneness crowned,-
Will there be then one versed in misery's story
Pacing it round ?
It may be so,- but this is selfish sorrow
To ask such meed;
A weakness and a wickedness to borrow
From hearts that bleed,
The wailings of to-day, for what to-morrow
Shall never need.
――――
Lay me then gently in my narrow dwelling,
Thou gentle heart:


## p. 10367 (#191) ##########################################

WILLIAM MOTHERWELL
10367
And though thy bosom should with grief be swelling,
Let no tear start;
It were in vain,- for Time hath long been knelling,
"Sad one, depart! "
JEANIE MORRISON
I
'VE wandered east, I've wandered west,
Through mony a weary way;
But never, never can forget
The luve o' life's young day!
The fire that's blawn on Beltane e'en
May weel be black gin Yule;
But blacker fa' awaits the heart
Where first fond luve grows cule.
O dear, dear Jeanie Morrison,
The thochts o' bygane years
Still fling their shadows ower my path,
And blind my een wi' tears:
They blind my een wi' saut, saut tears,
And sair and sick I pine,
As memory idly summons up
The blithe blinks o' langsyne.
'Twas then we luvit ilk ither weel,
'Twas then we twa did part;
Sweet time-sad time! twa bairns at scule-
Twa bairns and but ae heart!
'Twas then we sat on ae laigh bink,
To leir ilk ither lear;
And tones and looks and smiles were shed,
Remembered evermair.
I wonder, Jennie, aften yet,
When sitting on that bink,
Cheek touchin' cheek, loof locked in loof,
What our wee heads could think.
When baith bent doun ower ae braid page,
Wi' ae buik on our knee,
Thy lips were on thy lesson, but
My lesson was in thee.
Oh, mind ye how we hung our heads.
How cheeks brent red wi' shame,


## p. 10368 (#192) ##########################################

10368
WILLIAM MOTHERWELL
Whene'er the scule-weans laughin' said
We cleeked thegither hame?
And mind ye o' the Saturdays,
(The scule then skail't at noon,)
When we ran off to speel the braes,-
The broomy braes o' June?
My head rins round and round about,
My heart flows like a sea,
As ane by ane the thochts rush back
O' scule-time and o' thee.
O mornin' life! O mornin' luve!
O lichtsome days and lang,
When hinnied hopes around our hearts
Like simmer blossoms sprang!
Oh, mind ye, luve, how aft we left
The deavin' dinsome toun,
To wander by the green burnside,
And hear its waters croon?
The simmer leaves hung ower our heads,
The flowers burst round our feet,
And in the gloamin' o' the wood
The throssil whusslit sweet;
The throssil whusslit in the wood,
The burn sang to the trees,
And we with Nature's heart in tune,
Concerted harmonies;
And on the knowe abune the burn,
For hours thegither sat
In the silentness o' joy, till baith
Wi' very gladness grat.
Ay, ay, dear Jeanie Morrison,
Tears trinkled doun your cheek
Like dew-beads on a rose, yet nane
Had ony power to speak!
That was a time, a blessed time,
When hearts were fresh and young
When freely gushed all feelings forth,
Unsyllabled, unsung!
I marvel, Jeanie Morrison,
Gin I hae been to thee


## p. 10369 (#193) ##########################################

WILLIAM MOTHERWELL
10369
XVIII-649
As closely twined wi' earliest thochts,
As ye hae been to me?
Oh, tell me gin their music fills
Thine ear as it does mine!
Oh, say gin e'er your heart grows grit
Wi' dreamings o' langsyne?
I've wandered east, I've wandered west,
I've borne a weary lot;
But in my wanderings, far or near,
Ye never were forgot.
The fount that first burst frae this heart
Still travels on its way;
And channels deeper, as it rins,
The luve o' life's young day.
O dear, dear Jeanie Morrison,
Since we were sindered young,
I've never seen your face, nor heard
The music o' your tongue;
But I could hug all wretchedness,
And happy could I dee,
Did I but ken your heart still dreamed
O' bygane days and me!
MY HEID IS LIKE TO REND, WILLIE
MY
Y HEID is like to rend, Willie,
My heart is like to break;
I'm wearin' aff my feet, Willie
I'm dyin' for your sake!
Oh, lay your cheek to mine, Willie,
Your hand on my briest-bane;
Oh, say ye'll think on me, Willie,
When I am deid and gane!
It's vain to comfort me, Willie,-
Sair grief maun ha'e its will;
But let me rest upon your briest,
To sab and greet my fill.
Let me sit on your knee, Willie,
Let me shed by your hair,
And look into the face, Willie,
I never sall see mair!


## p. 10370 (#194) ##########################################

10370
WILLIAM MOTHERWELL
I'm sittin' on your knee, Willie,
For the last time in my life,—
A puir heart-broken thing, Willie,
A mither, yet nae wife.
Ay, press your hand upon my heart,
And press it mair and mair,
Or it will burst the silken twine,
Sae strang is its despair.
Oh, wae's me for the hour, Willie,
When we thegither met;
Oh, wae's me for the time, Willie,
That our first tryst was set!
Oh, wae's me for the loanin' green
Where we were wont to gae,-
And wae's me for the destinie
That gart me luve thee sae!
―――
Oh, dinna mind my words, Willie,
I downa seek to blame,—
But oh, it's hard to live, Willie,
And dree a warld's shame!
Het tears are hailin' ower your cheek,
And hailin' ower your chin:
Why weep ye sae for worthlessness,
For sorrow, and for sin ?
I'm weary o' this warld, Willie,
And sick wi' a' I see;
I canna live as I hae lived,
Or be as I should be.
But fauld unto your heart, Willie,
The heart that still is thine,
And kiss ance mair the white, white cheek,
Ye said was red langsyne.
A stoun' gaes through my heid, Willie,
A sair stoun' through my heart;
Oh, haud me up and let me kiss
Thy brow ere we twa pairt.
Anither, and anither yet!
How fast my life-strings break!
Fareweel! fareweel! through yon kirk-yard
Step lichtly for my sake!


## p. 10371 (#195) ##########################################

WILLIAM MOTHERWELL
10371
The lav'rock in the lift, Willie,
That lilts far ower our heid,
Will sing the morn as merrilie
Abune the clay-cauld deid;
And this green turf we're sittin' on,
Wi' dew-draps' shimmerin' sheen,
Will hap the heart that luvit thee
As warld has seldom seen.
But oh, remember me, Willie,
On land where'er ye be,-
And oh, think on the leal, leal heart,
That ne'er luvit ane but thee!
And oh, think on the cauld, cauld mools
That file my yellow hair,-
That kiss the cheek and kiss the chin
Ye never sall kiss mair!
MAY MORN SONG
THE
HE grass is wet with shining dews,
Their silver bells hang on each tree,
While opening flower and bursting bud
Breathe incense forth unceasingly;
The mavis pipes in greenwood shaw,
The throstle glads the spreading thorn,
And cheerily the blithesome lark
Salutes the rosy face of morn.
'Tis early prime:
And hark! hark! hark!
His merry chime
Chirrups the lark;
Chirrup! chirrup! he heralds in
The jolly sun with matin hymn.
Come, come, my love! and May-dews shake
In pailfuls from each drooping bough;
They'll give fresh lustre to the bloom
That breaks upon thy young cheek now.
O'er hill and dale, o'er waste and wood,
Aurora's smiles are streaming free;
With earth it seems brave holiday,
In heaven it looks high jubilee.


## p. 10372 (#196) ##########################################

10372
WILLIAM MOTHERWELL
And it is right,
For mark, love, mark!
How bathed in light
Chirrups the lark;
Chirrup! chirrup! he upward flies,
Like holy thoughts to cloudless skies.
They lack all heart who cannot feel
The voice of heaven within them thrill,
In summer morn, when mounting high
This merry minstrel sings his fill.
Now let us seek yon bosky dell
Where brightest wild-flowers choose to be,
And where its clear stream murmurs on,
Meet type of our love's purity.
No witness there,
And o'er us, hark!
High in the air
Chirrups the lark;
Chirrup! chirrup! away soars he,
Bearing to heaven my vows to thee!


## p. 10372 (#197) ##########################################



## p. 10372 (#198) ##########################################


Co
1
Jus
J. L. MOTLEY.
KIMA
piado


## p. 10372 (#199) ##########################################

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## p. 10372 (#200) ##########################################


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JL MOTLEY
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වි


## p. 10373 (#201) ##########################################

10373
JOHN LOTHROP MOTLEY
(1814-1877)
BY JOHN FRANKLIN JAMESON
RESCOTT, in the preface to his 'Philip the Second,' dated in
1855, after speaking of the revolt of the Netherlands as an
An episode in his narrative well deserving to be made the theme
of an independent work, adds with characteristic generosity: "It is
gratifying to learn that before long such a history may be expected
from the pen of our accomplished countryman Mr. J. Lothrop Motley.
No one acquainted with the fine powers of mind possessed by this
scholar, and the earnestness with which he has devoted himself to
his task, can doubt that he will do full justice to his important but
difficult subject. " Aside from what these kindly words toward a pos-
sible rival reveal of the lovable Prescott, they show us plainly that
in 1855, when Motley was forty-one years old, his brilliant talents still
remained unknown save to a relatively small circle. Froude, review-
ing the Dutch Republic' a year later, said: "Of Mr. Motley's ante-
cedents we know nothing. If he has previously appeared before the
public, his reputation has not crossed the Atlantic. " But if Motley
came suddenly and somewhat late to his high fame as a historian,
there had never been room for doubting his unusual gifts, nor his
vocation to literature; he had had, however, a long period of uncer-
tainty and experiment, touching the stops of various quills until at
last he struck his true note. Born in Dorchester, Massachusetts, (now
a part of Boston,) on April 15th, 1814, he had a good inheritance of
mental qualities. His father, a Boston merchant of North-of-Ireland
descent, was a handsome, genial, and witty man, with a taste for let-
ters; his mother, a woman of singular beauty and charm, was the
descendant of several Puritan clergymen, who had enjoyed literary
repute in colonial and post-Revolutionary Boston. He was a hand-
some, genial, and straightforward boy, imaginative and impetuous,
fond of reading though not of hard study. The most important part
of his school life was spent at Round Hill, Northampton, where
Joseph G. Cogswell and George Bancroft had established a famous
school, and conducted it after a manner likely to give a quick-minded
boy, along with his preparation for college, a taste for European lit-
erature and culture.


## p. 10374 (#202) ##########################################

10374
JOHN LOTHROP MOTLEY
From Round Hill Motley went to Harvard College, and was grad-
uated there in 1831. Wendell Phillips and Thomas G. Appleton were
his classmates. He did not win academic distinction, and appeared
to lack application and industry, being indeed only a boy when he
completed his course. But he was exceedingly clever; and his class-
mates were not surprised when later he became famous, though they
were surprised that his fame was won in a branch of literature in-
volving so much laborious drudgery. His first appearance in print
was a translation from the German, which came out in a little col-
lege magazine. But he did not often contribute to the college publi-
cations, and indeed kept somewhat apart from most of his classmates,
partly from shyness perhaps, partly from youthful pride. A few
months after his graduation he went to Germany. To go to a Ger-
man university to continue one's studies was not then a common
thing among American young men; but Bancroft and others at Cam-
bridge had lately given an impulse in that direction. Motley thoroughly
enjoyed his two years of life at Göttingen and Berlin. He followed
lectures in the civil law chiefly; but was by no means wholly en-
grossed in study, as may be guessed from the fact that one of his
most intimate companions at both places was the youthful Bismarck.
A year of travel in Germany, Austria, Italy, France, and England
followed; and in the autumn of 1835 Motley returned to Boston,
and resumed the study of the law. In March 1837 he married Mary
Benjamin, sister of Park Benjamin; a lovely woman, who for thirty-
seven years was a constant source of happiness to him.
Motley's legal studies had never so preoccupied his mind as to
turn it away from the love of literature and from literary ambitions.
Two years after his marriage he made his first venture in the literary
world, publishing a novel entitled 'Morton's Hope, or the Memoirs
of a Young Provincial,' of which the scene is the America of Revo-
lutionary times. The book was wholly unsuccessful. Indeed, it had
the gravest defects of plan and general form. Yet it had a certain
distinction of style, and contained, among its loosely woven scenes,
not a few passages of sufficient merit to justify those friends who
still prophesied final success in spite of an unpromising beginning.
Like many another first novel, Morton's Hope' is manifestly in
part autobiographic. It reveals to us a young man of brilliant gifts,
a strong appetite for reading, a marked inclination toward history,
a mind somewhat self-centred, an impetuous temperament, and an
intense but vague and unfixed ambition for literary distinction.
For a time, Motley's ambition was not even confined to literature
exclusively; he dallied with diplomacy and politics. In 1841, when
the Whigs for the first time had a chance at the federal offices, a
new minister was sent out to St. Petersburg, and Motley went with
·


## p. 10375 (#203) ##########################################

JOHN LOTHROP MOTLEY
10375
him as secretary of legation. He remained there less than three
months, and then abandoned the diplomatic career and returned to
Boston, his books, and his dearly loved family. In the campaign of
1844 he made some political speeches, and in 1849 he was a member
of the Legislature of Massachusetts. But he derived little satisfaction
from his connection with politics, and felt a passionate disgust with
the rule of the politicians.
A second novel, 'Merry Mount,' published in 1849, was of much
more merit than the first; and showed a liveliness of imagination and
a power of description that gave promise of success near at hand,
if not to be attained in precisely this direction. The field of work
for which he was best fitted had already been made manifest to the
writer and his friends by the striking excellences of certain historical
essays which he had of late contributed to American magazines,
especially an essay on Peter the Great in the North American Review
for October 1845. By the next year his mind was already possessed
with one great historical subject, that of the revolt of the Nether-
lands from Spain, the subject which he has forever associated with
his name. "It was not," he afterward wrote, "that I cared about
writing a history, but that I felt an inevitable impulse to write one
particular history. " Hearing that Prescott was preparing a history of
Philip II. , he thought of abandoning the ground; but Prescott gener-
ously encouraged him. After three or four years of serious study,
Motley concluded that no satisfactory work of the kind he planned
could be written save upon the basis laid by thorough researches in
Europe, especially in European archives. Accordingly in 1851 he went
to Europe with his wife and family, there to labor at his absorbing
task, and as it proved, there to spend most of his remaining days.
Destroying what he had already written, Motley immersed himself
for nearly three years in the libraries and archives of Dresden, The
Hague, and Brussels, and so produced the three volumes of the 'Rise
of the Dutch Republic. ' The great Murray declined the book; and
it was published in England at the author's expense by Chapman &
Hall, and in New York by Harper & Brothers, in April 1856. Its
success was immediate, and for the production of an almost unknown
author, prodigious. Nearly all the reviews, both British and Ameri-
can, praised it in most flattering terms. The author had written to
his father that he should be surprised if a hundred copies of the
English edition had been sold at the end of a year; in point of fact
the number sold within a year was seventeen thousand.
The theme of that famous book is the revolt of the Dutch, and
the struggle by which they won their independence from Spain. Its
narrative opens with the abdication of Charles V. in 1555, and closes
with the assassination of William of Orange in 1584. It relates the


## p. 10376 (#204) ##########################################

10376
JOHN LOTHROP MOTLEY
story of Spanish misgovernment, tyranny, and religious persecution
under Philip II. : the uprising of the provinces, both northern and
southern, against the cruelty of the Duke of Alva; the efforts of
the Prince of Orange to keep the provinces united and to maintain
the war; the heroic sieges of Haarlem and Leyden; the wars and nego-
tiations by which, under the guidance of a great statesman, the seven
northern Dutch provinces raised themselves from the condition of
dependents upon a foreign despot into that of an independent and
permanent republic. No wonder that the theme took possession of
Motley's imagination with haunting power; for the story is an inspir-
ing and stirring one even in the pages of the sober annalists whom
he succeeded and superseded, or in the formal documents upon which
his work was based. It appealed moreover to higher qualities than
his imagination. It is plain that the main source of his interest in
the story is a generous love of liberty, and the warm sympathy of an
ardent and noble nature with all exhibitions of individual and national
heroism.
It is this enthusiasm and warmth of feeling which have given the
'Dutch Republic,' to most minds, its chief charm; which have done
more than anything else to make it, in the estimation of the world
at large, one of the most interesting historical books ever written in
any language. But it has also many elements of technical perfection.
It is written with great care. Many of the sentences are exquisite in
felicity and finish. The style is dignified, yet rich with the evidences
of literary cultivation and fertile fancy. The larger matters of com-
position are managed with taste and power. Rarely has any historian
in the whole history of literature so united laborious scholarship with
dramatic intensity. His pages abound in vivid descriptions, and in
narrations instinct with life and force and movement. Through all
runs that current of generous ardor which makes the work essentially
an epic, having William of Orange as its hero, and fraught, like the
'Eneid,' with the fortunes of a noble nation. No doubt this epic
sweep interfered with the due consideration of many important and
interesting elements in Dutch history. The historians of that gener-
ation were mostly political and not constitutional. Prescott confessed
that he hated "hunting latent, barren antiquities. " Though Motley's
early legal studies had made him more apt in these constitutional
inquiries, so essential in Dutch history, his predilection was always
rather toward the history of men than toward the history of institu-
tions. Neither did Motley entirely escape those dangers of partial-
ity which beset the dramatic historian. Under his hands William
of Orange, a character undeniably heróic, became almost faultless;
while Philip and those Netherlanders who continued to adhere to
him were treated with somewhat less than justice. But much was


## p. 10377 (#205) ##########################################

JOHN LOTHROP MOTLEY
10377
forgiven, and rightly, to one who had endowed literature with a book
so interesting and so brilliant,- so full of life and color that it
seemed to have caught something from the canvases of Rubens and
Rembrandt.
In
Uncertain as to the reception of a large book by an unknown
author, Motley had paused after the completion of the manuscript of
the Dutch Republic,' had spent a year with his family in Switzer-
land, and another in Italy, and had made a brief visit to Boston.
the summer of 1857 he returned to Europe, and began the preparation
of a work continuing the history of the Netherlands from the date
of William's death. From that time the history of the Netherlands
widens into a broader stream, constantly associated with that of sev-
eral other countries. Motley was obliged to make more extensive re-
searches, delving in the archives of London, Paris, Brussels, and The
Hague. He was in London during the London seasons of 1858, 1859,
and 1860; a famous author now, fêted everywhere, and everywhere
enjoying with genial appreciation the best of English society. In the
two intervening winters, in Rome and in England, he wrote the first
two volumes of the History of the United Netherlands from the
Death of William the Silent,' which in 1860 were published by Mur-
ray and by Harper. A few months before, the author had received
from the University of Oxford the honorary degree of D. C. L.
The two volumes now published dealt with the history of five
years only, but they were years of the greatest moment to the young
republic. In 1584 the mainstay of the Dutch had been taken from
them; and Philip's general, the Prince of Parma, was soon to recover
both Ghent and Antwerp. By 1589 the great Armada had been de-
stroyed, the chief of dangers had been removed, and the republic,
with Henry of Navarre on the throne of France, was assured of inde-
pendent existence. During these critical years the relations of the
Dutch with England were so close, that to describe duly the diplo-
matic intercourse, the governor-generalship of Leicester, and the alli-
ance in defense against the Armada, Motley was obliged to become
almost as much the historian of England as of the Netherlands.
Measured by the technical standards of the scholar, the tale was
more difficult than that which had preceded it, and the achievement
more distinguished. But Motley felt the lack of a hero; and the new
volumes could not, from the nature of the case, possess the epic
quality in the same form which had marked the Dutch Republic. '
No doubt the book has been less widely read than its predecessor.
Yet the epic quality was present nevertheless; and the story of a
brave nation conquering for itself an equal place among the kingdoms
of the world was inspiring to the reader and deeply instructive to
the writer.
1


## p. 10378 (#206) ##########################################

10378
JOHN LOTHROP MOTLEY
Immediately there came an opportunity for Motley's inborn love.
of liberty, and that appreciation of heroic national action which his
recent work had brought him, to expend themselves on the objects of
real and present life. At the beginning of the American Civil War,
stirred deeply by the prevalent misunderstanding and want of sym-
pathy in England, he wrote to the London Times an elaborate letter,
afterward signally influential as a pamphlet, explaining clearly and
comprehensively the character of the American Union, and the real
causes of the war. Unable to remain away from his country in such
a crisis, he returned to the United States, but was presently sent by
Mr. Lincoln as minister to Austria. Here he made it his chief occu-
pation to promote in Europe a right knowledge of American condi-
tions and of the aims of the Union party at home, and to awaken
and sustain European sympathy. In the two delightful volumes of
his 'Correspondence' (published in 1889) nothing is more interesting,
nothing contributes more to the reader's high appreciation of the
man, than the series of letters written from Vienna during war-time.
They show us a gifted and noble American passing through that
transformation which came over many another of his countrymen,
through the heart-straining experiences of those wonderful days. He
who not many years before had looked upon the public affairs of his
country with fastidious scorn, as the prey of low-minded politicians,
was now warmed into ardent and even flaming patriotism by the
peril of the Union, the struggle and the victory.
Official life in Vienna did not often leave much leisure for histor-
ical composition; but in 1867 Motley saw through the press the two
volumes which concluded his History of the United Netherlands. '
They continued the narrative at a more rapid rate than had seemed
appropriate to the critical years previously treated, and brought it
down to the conclusion of the Twelve Years' Truce between the
Netherlands and Spain, arranged in 1609. Twenty years of Dutch
history-war against Spain, negotiation with France and England
were embraced in these two volumes. With Elizabeth and Philip II.
giving place to James I. and Philip III. , these years were not so
interesting nor so important as those which had preceded; but Mot-
ley's eloquence, and his extraordinary skill in presentation, prevented
new volumes from seeming inferior to the old. Moreover, to an
imaginative American mind, a new element of interest was added
as the young republic began to be a naval power, and, prosperous
and energetic, launched out into brilliant projects of commerce and
colonial expansion in the remote regions of the East and of the New
World.
-
Meanwhile, however, Motley's official connection with his own
country had ceased. Some one wrote to President Johnson a letter


## p. 10379 (#207) ##########################################

JOHN LOTHROP MOTLEY
10379
slandering Motley. Though the letter might well have passed un-
noticed, Secretary Seward requested explanations. Motley, sensitive
and impulsive, accompanied his denials of the slanders with the ten-
der of his resignation. It was accepted; and he left the diplomatic
service with an acute sense of the indignity. Returning to America
in 1868, he was, by the favor of President Grant and of Senator Sum-
ner, appointed in 1869 to the high post of minister to Great Britain.
A year later he was asked to resign, and refusing to do so, was
recalled. A biographical sketch in a book of literature is doubtless
not the place in which to discuss the merits or demerits of political
actions of recent times, still warmly debated. It has been said on
the one side that the minister had departed from his instructions
in the important matter of the Alabama claims, to a degree that im-
paired his usefulness to his government; on the other side, that the
action of President Grant and Secretary Fish was but an angry move
in their quarrel with Senator Sumner. What is certain is, that to
the high-spirited minister, wholly unconscious of any but the most
faithful and patriotic service, this second blow was crushing. Indeed,
it may be said to have been ultimately fatal.
The plan which Motley had had in mind while writing the 'His-
tory of the United Netherlands' had been to continue that narrative
through the period of the Twelve Years' Truce, and then to widen
it into a history of the Thirty Years' War, or of the war so called in
Germany, and the thirty remaining years of warfare between the
Dutch and Spain, both ending with the peace of Westphalia in 1648.
The only part of this extensive plan which he succeeded in carrying
out was that relating to the period of the truce. Throughout those
twelve years the leading matter of Dutch history is the contest be-
tween John van Oldenbarneveld and Count Maurice of Nassau. Not
neglecting other aspects of the time, the death of Henry IV. , the
struggle over Jülich and Cleves, the preparation for the Thirty Years'
War,- Motley gave to the two volumes which he published in 1874
a biographical form, and the title of 'The Life and Death of John of
Barneveld. ' Thorough and conscientious, interesting and valuable
as the book is, it is not to be denied that it takes sides with Olden-
barneveld, and that it is written with less freshness and brilliancy
than the earlier volumes. His proud and sensitive spirit had received
a lacerating wound, and his health had begun to fail. At the end of
this year his dearly loved wife was taken from him. He wrote no
more; and on May 29th, 1877. he died near Dorchester in England.
It is a familiar thought that history must be written over again
for the uses of each new generation. The present world of histori-
ans, critics, and readers is attentive to many things which in Motley's
time were less valued. It has grown more strenuous in insisting
upon perfect objectivity in the treatment of international and civil
----


## p. 10380 (#208) ##########################################

10380
JOHN LOTHROP MOTLEY
conflicts. Where forty years ago, in all countries, history was chiefly
the work of men more or less engaged in public affairs, or at least
the offspring of political minds, it now in all countries, whether for
good or for ill, springs mainly from professors or from minds pro-
fessorial. Its fashions change. But it is difficult to imagine that
any changes of fashion can seriously diminish either Motley's general
popularity or the force of his appeal to cultivated minds. His books,
while nowise lacking in most of the highest qualities of scholarship,
are also literature,- eloquent, glowing, and powerful,— and have, one
must think, that permanent value which belongs to every finished
product of fine art.
ходим
سمم
THE ABDICATION OF CHARLES V. OF SPAIN
From The Rise of the Dutch Republic. ' Copyright 1855, by John Lothrop
Motley. Reprinted by permission of Harper & Brothers
ON
N THE twenty-fifth day of October, 1555, the estates of the
Netherlands were assembled in the great hall of the palace
at Brussels. They had been summoned to be the wit-
nesses and the guarantees of the abdication which Charles V. had
long before resolved upon, and which he was that day to execute.
The Emperor, like many potentates before and since, was fond
of great political spectacles. He knew their influence upon the
masses of mankind. Although plain even to, shabbiness in his
own costume, and usually attired in black, no one ever under-
stood better than he how to arrange such exhibitions in a strik-
ing and artistic style. We have seen the theatrical and imposing
manner in which he quelled the insurrection at Ghent, and nearly
crushed the life forever out of that vigorous and turbulent little
commonwealth. The closing scene of his long and energetic
reign he had now arranged with profound study, and with an
accurate knowledge of the manner in which the requisite effects
were to be produced. The termination of his own career, the
opening of his beloved Philip's, were to be dramatized in a man-
ner worthy the august characters of the actors, and the import-
ance of the great stage where they played their parts. The eyes
of the whole world were directed upon that day towards Brussels;


## p. 10381 (#209) ##########################################

JOHN LOTHROP MOTLEY
10381
for an imperial abdication was an event which had not, in the
sixteenth century, been staled by custom.
The gay capital of Brabant of that province which rejoiced
in the liberal constitution known by the cheerful title of the
"joyful entrance was worthy to be the scene of the imposing
show. Brussels had been a city for more than five centuries,
and at that day numbered about one hundred thousand inhabit-
ants. Its walls, six miles in circumference, were already two
hundred years old. Unlike most Netherland cities, lying usually
upon extensive plains, it was built along the sides of an abrupt
promontory. A wide expanse of living verdure-cultivated gar-
dens, shady groves, fertile cornfields-flowed round it like a
sea. The foot of the town was washed by the little river
Senne, while the irregular but picturesque streets rose up the
steep sides of the hill like the semicircles and stairways of an
amphitheatre. Nearly in the heart of the place rose the auda-
cious and exquisitely embroidered tower of the town-house, three
hundred and sixty-six feet in height; a miracle of needlework in
stone, rivaling in its intricate carving the cobweb tracery of that
lace which has for centuries been synonymous with the city, and
rearing itself above a façade of profusely decorated and brocaded
architecture. The crest of the elevation was crowned by the
towers of the old ducal palace of Brabant, with its extensive
and thickly wooded park on the left, and by the stately mansions
of Orange, Egmont, Aremberg, Culemburg, and other Flemish
grandees, on the right. The great forest of Soignies, dotted with
monasteries and convents, swarming with every variety of game,
whither the citizens made their summer pilgrimages, and where
the nobles chased the wild boar and the stag, extended to within
a quarter of a mile of the city walls. The population, as thrifty,
as intelligent, as prosperous as that of any city in Europe, was
divided into fifty-two guilds of artisans, among which the most
important were the armorers, whose suits of mail would turn a
musket-ball; the gardeners, upon whose gentler creations incred-
ible sums were annually lavished; and the tapestry-workers,
whose gorgeous fabrics were the wonder of the world. Seven
principal churches, of which the most striking was that of St.
Gudule, with its twin towers, its charming façade, and its mag-
nificently painted windows, adorned the upper part of the city.
The number seven was a magic number in Brussels; and was
supposed at that epoch- during which astronomy was in its
――


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10382
JOHN LOTHROP MOTLEY
infancy and astrology in its prime-to denote the seven plan-
ets which governed all things terrestrial by their aspects and
influences. Seven noble families, springing from seven ancient
castles, supplied the stock from which the seven senators were
selected who composed the upper council of the city. There
were seven great squares, seven city gates; and upon the occas-
ion of the present ceremony, it was observed by the lovers of
wonderful coincidences that seven crowned heads would be con-
gregated under a single roof in the liberty-loving city.
The palace where the states-general were upon this occasion
convened had been the residence of the Dukes of Brabant since
the days of John the Second, who had built it about the year
1300.