On this page

• Text (2)

  Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.

  • 

    '_5EC™^ER 2185^] THE LEiDER. 1145 —^ ' ~...

  • 

    A SCHOLAR'S LIFE. Literary Remains of He...

• Transcript

  • Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.

    Additionally, when viewing full transcripts, extracted text may not be in the same order as the original document.

    The House Op Baby. The House Of' Raby; O...

    * *> —heartily glad , —to have in some way helped the fulfilment of your desire !—Remember , love , you have an heir—one who will uphold the family name and honour . 1 know it , I am sure of it ! One child may be a source of pain to you ; the other -will bring nothing but joy and noble pride to your heart ! But , —listen to me , dear one , — if it were otherwise , if you , Frank , and Arundel were all to become madmen—idiotsdo you think / should shrink from you—cease to love you—regret that you were my husband and my children ? No !—You are mine , I am yours ! I care not what you are ; be you madman—slave—traitor—villain—all that the world holds vilest , Hove you , I am your wife , and not even your remorse should drive me from you . Remorse I Remorse for what you have done to me ? Ah ! Coine to the heart that loves you ; there is no pulsation there that is not caused by lov « for you and the children—fear for you—hope for you ! Do not talk of regret for the past ! There is nothing to regret . — " I ought to have been warned ' . "—say you ?—I thank my God that I was not warned ! - Had I been warned , I should not have been yours ; for I did not know what love meant till after I was your wife . I thank God I was not warned ; or I might have shrunk from being yours , because you were stricken by Him ! ' "

    Lady Carleton dies . The following extract describes an interview , in lon g after years , between Lord Carleton and hit Jiht love , Margaret Hastings , who liad refused him in her youth on principle . She has struggled nobly , her life long , with her feelings , her reward is the usual one , —she is supposed to be without feeling . None but a woman could have realised the full suffering of the scene we quote . Miss Hastings is death-stricken when it takes place . He is speaking of his late wiie : — * ' She knew of our early girl and boy attachment , and gave me credit for my taste —and for my constancy , too . " And he smiled . " that the feeling has quite

    gone , I can speak to you openly on the subject—You , with your quiet , passionless nature , will scarcely credit it , perhaps , but my love for you , or , rather , for my own imagination of you , as a girl , lasted till after my marriage . —What absurd mistakes about character we make when we are boys !—I used to think you were of a passionate , loving nature—that your Heart controlled your intellect , and would force it to minister to its demands . In short , I fancied you were what I found Caroline to be . —It was long before I read your true character in your conduct . A noble , lofty character , —loving work and science for their own . sakes , and for the sake of the general good—as unselfish in your universal benevolence as Caroline in her particular affection . She used to say that you were the most unselfish person she tnew ! There is

    " no on « on earth , except my boys , for whom I entertain so strong an affection as for you , Margaret ! I respect and reverence you for your intellect and your steady adherence to principle . I am bound to you by gratitude as a father —by the memory of my early love—although it vas-. mistaken , and you never loved me , as I once fancied . —You , with your calm nature , discovered your error soon enough not to suffer much from it . ^ - " Was it not so , my friend ?" " I never deceived myself on that point ! " she replied , faintly : —finding that he waited for an answer . " No matter ! Whether you were loving or loveless in those past days , you and I cau never be wholly indifferent to each other , Margaret !" " Never !—neither here nor beyond the gravel" she said quickly , and as if the words were forced from her . Lord Carleton ' s manner became warmer .

    " Go d bless you , my friend!—There was something like affection in those words something which makes me hope you will let me add to your happiness by enabling you to exercise your benevolence in a larger sphere than , you have hitherto done . — Something that makes me almost sure my Caroline's wish was prophetic , and that you will consent to become the second Lady Carletoii—rule my household—be a mother to my boys—and the best and wisest friend to one who tells you candidly that he has no love to give . Will you be my wife , now , Margaret ? You refused me once , twice , thrice . We were young then , and we loved—at least , / loved . —We are growing old now!—Shall we grow old together , Margaret ? " , He had taken her hand . She returned the pressure of Ins , and looked at him with a strange expression . " What is this ?—You arc ill?—I have been thoughtless to enter on this matter now !—Let me lead you to the house ! " he said , -with alarm .

    " Stay!—one moment !—it will keep off one moment 3 " — she spoke in a gasping , broken voice , and with a strong effort to master some physical pang . — " Listen ! you do not know me !—my life !—you are wrong ! all wrong !—Frederick ! Be your wife ?—not the wife of your love—the head housekeeper—care for your sons—your ¦ wards—talk with you when you arc in the inood—I would even degrade myself to servo you thus—because—ah ! God ! he has not known it!—But there is another obstacle now !—Again , I cannot be your wife !" »? What ia this ? Calm yourself , my dear Friend ! Margaret ! What is the matter ? " he exclaimed , much alarmed at her excited manner . —" Say , in one word , what obstacle there is . " " Another time—I—I . " and overcome with acute pain , she fell back insensible . Lord Carloton carried her across the lawn to the house , and laid her on a sofa , in the first room ho came to . — Seeing no one about , he rang the bell violently , and gazed with mingled pity and wonder at tho emaciated form he remembered so well adorned with all the graces of youth and tho imagination of a lover . —There was nothing there , now , that ho could cull beautiful .

    " Ah I if she liad lived in tho affections instead of in tho intellect , " he thought , " she would have been beautiful and umiablo , now ! Surely her life has been a mistake !—What di < l she mean just now ?—Mot know her ?—How can I bo wrong ?" We could multiply extracts , and wo are sorry we have not space for one , as striking and us tumble as any wo cun remember in the range of trngedy . But wo wish , before wo are compelled to leave the book , to ' present tho X'Cudcr with some specimens of a less sorrowful cast , —some of tho deep thoughts and happy expressions with which , its jm ^ es abound : — Genius ia never selfish ; that it ) , in tho bad sense of thut word . The egotism of genius ia apirituul , not sensual ; divine , not worldly . Poor Palissy ! Though his department of art was not very high , ho had rail goniiiH . Do you think he did not feel for the wife nnd children who wuntcd food , while ho broke up tho furniture to feed hia furnace ? 1 will not exculputo him by saying itwun for them ho toiled and suffered privation—thut for tliom he purnuud Win experiments into tho very Cuvo of Despair — lighted only by tho hope of Hcfcntillo truth . It ; avhh not for tltoin , primarily —not for uny human interest that he toiled , and thought , and starved Juh frail bodily tenement , it wus for the sake of trutfi—of tho dlaaowtrg he had to initko . Ho folt that aa mi imperial duty culling him onward , and hodurud nut dinobey it » voice .

    We honour tho following maxim : — 'And if your friend should disappoint your expectntioiiH , and , in some important act of Hfo , do tlio tiling which his connuioimi did not approve ? If l » o hImmuu bo led by passion to set , at naught . Ins moral princijiUt , would your friundrthip coubo ? " J asked that question onrnenUy , for , to any thu truth , it luis oftun puK / . lod mo . Without any hoHltution , in a culm clour v <» ico , as If her mind were long Hcttlad on that point , « ho replied , " If it CQuldcQa . no thwi , I should bu convinced thut It hud

    never been a real friendship . Forsake my friend because he erred ! I should as soon think of forsaking his bedside because he had the small-pox . " Here is another charming little bit : — " But if I had had the making of my own faults , I would have erred on the safe side j so that other people should suffer from them instead of myself . .... It ia the judgment of little minds I fear , not that of great ones ; and whenever I make a fool of myself , I hope it may be before a wise person—like Miss Hastings . " How true the following is , and how unlike the commonplace notion on the subject : — " You speak as if you really believed in that heresy of half-developed mijads , that merely to be young , i . e . half-developed , is the highest , happiest state of the human being . —I have seen nothing so very desirable in my own youth , or in the youth of all those I love most , that I should mourn its loss . It seems the season for suffering , to all minds not contented with mediocrity and the amenities of commonplace . " We must conclude with the following sketch . To us it is full of the best and bravest philosophy : —

    The small delicate hands are folded in her lap ; the mouth is firmly closed , and the corners have a painful expression ; the eyes look out straight before her ; they are still and calm , with an uncommon mixture of keen intelligence and gentie resignation . They look as if she had knowa a bitter sorrow , and finding that it could not be remedied had submitted to it- There is no eifort of a false philosophy in her aspect no determination to seem or to be cheerful—no wilful blindness to the truth . She was evidently very unhappy , but it is quite as evident that she could bear to be unhappy without any affectation of trying to believe that it was a good thing , if she would but think so . She was born before the modern system of Epicurean stoicism came into vogue ; and not affecting to have the enlarged vision of a superhuman

    being-, did not believe in her heart that what she felt to be a strong , enduring evil , was but happiness in disguise . She had no notion that she would be fulfilling God ' s will by trying to explain and argue it away into a sort of sublimated spiritual pleasure . If she thought anything about the matter , it was just this : —that when God sent an affliction upon her , he meant that she should be afflicted . She had a healthy moral nature , but a very poor talent for metaph ysical speculation . Though in the countess ' s latest portrait there was much sorrow , there was no remorse no self-upbraiding . You felt that she had not been the cause of her own grief—that whatever it was it came from without , and not from within . There was nothing of self in the sadness—no self-absorption—no self-tormenting . This gave her countenance its dignified calmness and resignation .

    '_5ec™^Er 2185^] The Leider. 1145 —^ ' ~...

    '_ 5 EC ™^ ER 2185 ^] THE LEiDER . 1145 —^ ' ~ " ¦ '— - ¦ ¦ — — ¦ ¦— ¦ - —— - — _ - ' . , - . - . _

    A Scholar's Life. Literary Remains Of He...

    A SCHOLAR'S LIFE . Literary Remains of Henry Fynes Clinton , If . A . Edited by the Rev . C . J . Fynes Clinton , M . A . v Longman . The days when great scholars made great reputations seem to be gone by . In our time the sage who occupies himself with , the nineteenth century is the sage whom the nineteenth century honours . The eminent men whom we talk most about , and know most about now , are men who have all more or less directly addressed themselves to the popular wants , tastes , and feelings of the present age . In the sixteenth century , the author of the Fasti Hellenici and the Fasti Romani would have been a man of European fame—even in the eighteenth , his reputation -would have been a notable one in his own country—but in the nineteenth , while deservedly honoured within the small circle of great scholars , in the large outer world of readers and thinkers iu general the very name of Henry Fynes Clinton is probably unknown .

    And yet , from an autobiography which records the life o { a good man and tie studies of a consummate scholar , there is surely an interest to be derived , and a lesson of some sort to be learnt usefully by everybody . Although we of the unlearned majority cannot pretend to judge technically of the labours of the great scholar , we may at least try to gain what we can of pleasure mid profit from the history of his life , as written by himself , and modestly and delicately given to the reading world by the brother who has survived him . Mr . Henry Fynes Clinton was born in the county of Nottingham , in the year 1781 . He was first educated at Sputhwell School , where he learnt much , and was then removed to Westminster , where he acquix-od a little

    Greek , and " added nothing" to his " stock of Latin authors" —the usual result of that wonderful " public school system , " which is held to have produced our greatest men , and which , next to the House of Lords and the Habeas Corpus Act , is one of the national institutions which every patriotic Englishman reverences most fondly . From Westminster Mr . ItyneB Clinton removed to Christ Church College , Oxford , where he resided for nearly eight years . His fondness for classical reading , and his ambition to collect a classical library , became developed as soon as ho entered on a university life . Ho began to rend diligently , if not deeply—won the first Bachelor ' s Prize—superintended conscientiously and usefully the studies of private pupils—and reached his twenty-fifth year , contemplating no other future tuun an academical lift , which was to ond in his taking orders .

    A very unexpected , and , in a pecuniary point of view , n very fortunate , change was , however , to take place in hia prospects . A distant maternal relative—one Mr . Gardiner—fixed on Mr . Fynos Clintou as heir to his property , stipulating beforehand that the young scholar should not tuko orders . Che object of this condition was to make Mr . Fynes Clinton " a country gentleman , capable of secular pursuits' '—of what particular nature wo arc not informed . If Mr . Gunliuer expected hia heir to keep a pack of hounds , preserve game , imprison poachers , speechify tit elections , givu toasts at agricultural dinners , and so forth , his heir disappointed him . Xlio young man reigned tho idea of beiii" a clergyman , but he would not resign tho

    ambition to become u great scholar . Ho went on with his reading at Oxford , took Uh Master of Arts degree , begun writing a tragedy called Solyman , and went deeper and deeper down into the mine of ancient learning , when ho was abruptly summoned back to tho surface-world and tho businoHH of the paswing day , by another unexpected change in his prospects . He was not to have a fortune left him on thiti ocuiiuiou—ho wan only to be made n member of Parliuinent . Ho had juat tiinu to feel astonished—and then he wuh elected member for Aldborough . This was in tho year 1 BO <) , when troublesome Radicals , who would speak out nluinly , were put into priHon , and a paternal ariatocruoy took all the

• Citation
  • Leader (1850-1860), Dec. 2, 1854, page 17, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse-os.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/cld_02121854/page/17/