His sire, while yet a hardier race Of numerous sons were Wycliffe's grace, On Wilfrid set contemptuous brand, For feeble heart and forceless hand; But a fond mother's care and joy Were centred in her sickly boy. No touch of childhood's frolic mood Show'd the elastic spring of blood; Hour after hour he loved to pore On Shakspeare's rich and varied lore, But turn'd from martial scenes and light, From Falstaff's feast and Percy's fight, To ponder Jaques' moral strain,
And muse with Hamlet, wise in vain; And weep himself to soft repose O'er gentle Desdemona's woes.
In youth he sought not pleasures found By youth in horse, and hawk, and hound, But loved the quiet joys that wake By lonely stream and silent lake; In Deepdale's solitude to lie,
Where all is cliff and copse and sky; To climb Catcastle's dizzy peak, Or lone Pendragon's mound to seek.2
"while yet around him stood
A numerous race of hardier mood."] 2 ["And oft the craggy cliff he loved to climb, When all in mist the world below was lost,
Such was his wont; and there his dream Soar'd on some wild fantastic theme Of faithful love, or ceaseless spring, Till Contemplation's wearied wing The enthusiast could no more sustain, And sad he sunk to earth again.
He loved as many a lay can tell, Preserved in Stanmore's lonely dell; For his was minstrel's skill, he caught The art unteachable, untaught;
He loved his soul did nature frame For love, and fancy nursed the flame; Vainly he loved-for seldom swain Of such soft mould is loved again; Silent he loved-in every gaze Was passion,1 friendship in his phrase. So mused his life away-till died His brethren all, their father's pride. Wilfrid is now the only heir Of all his stratagems and care, And destined, darkling, to pursue Ambition's maze by Oswald's clue.2
What dreadful pleasure! there to stand sublime, Like shipwreckt mariner on desert coast."
1 [MS." Was love, but friendship in his phrase."]
2 ["The prototype of Wilfred may perhaps be found in Beattie's Edwin; but in some essential respects it is made
Wilfrid must love and woo Matilda, heir of Rokeby's knight. To love her was an easy hest, The secret empress of his breast; To woo her was a harder task To one that durst not hope or ask. Yet-all Matilda could, she gave In pity to her gentle slave; Friendship, esteem, and fair regard, And praise, the poet's best reward! She read the tales his taste approved, And sung the lays he framed or loved ; Yet, loath to nurse the fatal flame
Of hopeless love in friendship's name.
more true to nature than that which probably served for its original. The possibility may perhaps be questioned (its great improbability is unquestionable) of such excessive refinement, such overstrained, and even morbid sensibility, as are portrayed in the character of Edwin, existing in so rude a state of society as that which Beattie has represented,-but these qualities, even when found in the most advanced and polished stages of life, are rarely, very rarely, united with a robust and healthy frame of body. In both these particulars, the character of Wilfrid is exempt from the objections to which we think that of the Minstrel liable. At the period of the Civil Wars, in the higher orders of society, intellectual refinement had advanced to a degree sufficient to give probability to its existence. The remainder of our argument will be best explained by the beautiful lines of the poet," (stanza xxv. and xxvi.)- Critical Review.]
1 [MS." And first must Wilfrid woo," &c.]
In kind caprice she oft withdrew The favouring glance to friendship due,1 Then grieved to see her victim's pain, And gave the dangerous smiles again.
So did the suit of Wilfrid stand,
When war's loud summons waked the land.
Three banners, floating o'er the Tees, The woe-foreboding peasant sees; In concert oft they braved of old The bordering Scot's incursion bold: Frowning defiance in their pride,2 Their vassals now and lords divide. From his fair hall on Greta banks, The Knight of Rokeby led his ranks, To aid the valiant northern Earls, Who drew the sword for royal Charles. Mortham, by marriage near allied,- His sister had been Rokeby's bride, Though long before the civil fray, In peaceful grave the lady lay,— Philip of Mortham raised his band, And march'd at Fairfax's command; While Wycliffe, bound by many a train Of kindred art with wily Vane,
1 [MS." The fuel fond her favour threw."]
[MS." Now frowning dark on different side, Their vassals and their lords divide."]
Less prompt to brave the bloody field, Made Barnard's battlements his shield, Secured them with his Lunedale powers, And for the Commons held the towers.
The lovely heir of Rokeby's Knight Waits in his halls the event of fight; For England's war rever'd the claim Of every unprotected name, And spared, amid its fiercest rage, Childhood and womanhood and age. But Wilfrid, son to Rokeby's foe,2 Must the dear privilege forego, By Greta's side, in evening gray, To steal upon Matilda's way, Striving, with fond hypocrisy, For careless step and vacant eye; Calming each anxious look and glance, To give the meeting all to chance, Or framing as a fair excuse, The book, the pencil, or the muse;
1 [MS.-"Dame Alice and Matilda bright, Daughter and wife of Rokeby's Knight, Wait in his halls," &c.]
2 [MS." But Wilfrid, when the strife arose, And Rokeby and his son were foes,
Was doom'd each privilege to lose,
Of kindred friendship and the muse."]
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