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    1144 THE LEADER. [No. 349, Saturday,

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    PRESCOTT ON THE RETIREMENT OF CHARLES V....

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    Aukora Leigh. Aurora Leigh. By Elizabeth...

    The BtUl house seemed to shriek itself alive , And shudder through its passag « 3 . and stairs . With slam of doors and clash of bells . —I sprang , I stood up in the middle of the room , And there confronted at my chamber-door , A white face , —shivering , ineffectual lips . ' Come , come , ' they tried to utter , and I went ; As if a ghost had drawn me at the point Of a fiery finger through the uneven dart , I-went-with reeling footsteps down the stair , Kor asked a question . There she sate , my aunt ,- — Bolt upright in the chair beside her bed , W-hose pillow had no dint I she bad used no bed For that night's sleeping . . yet slept veil . My God , The dumb derision of that grey , peaked face Concluded something grave against the sun , Which filled the chamber with its July hurst When Susan drew the curtains , ignorant '¦' . ;' Of who sate open-eyed behind her . There , She sate . . it sate . . we said 'she' yesterday . . And held a letter with unbroken , seal , As Susan gave it to her hand last night : All night she had held it . If its news referred To duchies or to dunghills , not an inch She'd badge , ' twas obvious , for such worthless odds : Nor , though the stars \ rere suns , and overburned Their spheric limitations , swallowing up Like wax the azure spaces , could they force Those open eyes to wink once . What last sight Had left them blank and flat so , —drawing out The facility of vision from the roots , A 3 nothing more , worth seeing , remained behind ? Were those the eyes that watched me , worried me ? That dogged me up and down the hours and days , A beaten , breathless , miserable soul ? And did I pray , a half-hour back , but so , To escape the burden of those eyes . . those eyes ? Sleep late' I said . — Why now , indeed , they sleep . God answers sharp and sudden on some prayers , And thrusts the thing we have prayed for in our face , A gauntlet with a gift in't . Every wish Is like a prayer . . .. " with God . I had my wish ,- — To read and meditate the thing I would , To fashion all ray life upon my thought , And marry , or not marry . Henceforth , none Could disapprove me , vex me , hamper me . ... " . Fall ground-room , in this desert newly made , For Babylon or Balbec , —whea the breath , Just choked with sand , returns , for building towns ! . The letter held unopened in the hand of the corpse was a , gift from Romney ^ Leigh of thirty thousand pounds—given of course that it might be inherited by Aurora , who was a beggar . But she refuses to accept the gift . The scene between them Is so unnatural in tone , though true enough in conception , that should these lines meet Mrs . Browning ' s eye , we urgently "beg her to reconsider tie scene , with a view to expression only , and see if she pannot remove the levities , irrelevancieay and unrealities , which produce an impression on us precisely similar to that produced by scenes in unreal novels . Aurora may refuse the gift , but not in those terms , and preserve our sympathy . Aurora then becomes a poetess , lives in London , and is celebrated . Romn « y turns more resolutely to social schemes ; founds a phalanstery , and to signalize before the world his disapproval of all social distinctions , is about to marry a ' distressed needlewoman whom he found at the hospital , a . nd has since befriended . We pass over the episode of Marian ' s life— -wonderfully -told—but uncommonly like what we have often read before—and arrive at the wedding : — Half St . Giles in frieze WaB bidden to meet St . James in cloth of gold , And , after contract at the altar , pass To eat a marriage-feast on Hampstead Heath . Of course the people came in uncompelled , Lame , blind , and worse—sick , sorrowful , and worse , The humours of the peccant social wound All pressed out , pomed out -upon Pimlico , Exasperating the unaccustomed air " With hideous interfusion : you'd suppose A finished generation , dead of plague , Swept outward from their graves into the aun , The moil of death upon them . What a sight J A holiday of miserable men la sadder than a burial-day of kings . They clogged the streets , they oozed into the church In « dark , slow stream , like blood . To see that aight , The noble ladies stood up in their pews , Some pale for fear , a few as red for hate , Some simply curious , some just insolent , And some in wondering scorn , — What next ? what next ?' These crushed their delicate rose-lips from the smile That misbecame th « m in a holy place , . ¦ With broidered hems of perfumed handkerchiefs ; Those passed the salts with confidence of eyes And . simultaneous shiver of moire" silk ; While all the aisles , alive and black with heads , Cradled slowly toward the altar from the street , Ab bruised snakes crawl and hiss out of a hole With shuddering involutions , swaying slow Irom right to left , and then , from left to right , In pants an * pauses . Wha . t an ugly crest Of facea rose upon you everywhere

    From that crammed mass I you did not usually See faces like them in . the open day : They hide in cellars , not to make you mad As Romney Leigh is . —Faces!—O my God , We call those , faces ? Men ' s and women's . . ay , And children ' s;—babies , hanging like a rag Forgotten on their mother ' s neck , —poor mouths , Wiped clean of mother ' smilk by mother ' s blow , Before they are taught her cuTsing . Faces ! . . "phew , Well call them vices festering to despairs , Or sorrows petrifying to vices ; not A finger-touch of God left whole on them ; All ruined , "lost—the countenance worn out As the garments , the will dissolute as the acts , : The passions loose and draggling in the dirt To trip the foot up at the first free step !— - Those , faces ! 'twas as if you had stirred up hell To heave its lowest dreg-fiends uppermost In fiery swirls of slime , —such strangled fronts , Such obdurate jaws were thrown up constantly , To twit you with your race , corrupt your blood , And grind to devilish colours ally our dreams Henceforth , . . though , haply , you should drop asleep By clink of silver waters , in a muse On Raffaera mild Madonna of the Bird . But the bride never comes . The machinations of a lovely devil—Lady Waldemar—have frustrated this match—Marian disappears . Time passes . Aurora grows more and more famous , and is to be met in London draw ingrooms : — ¦ ' ¦ ' ¦" . • . ¦ . " ¦ ' ¦ ¦ ¦ ' •¦ ¦ . '¦ ' . ' ¦ ¦ ' It always makes me sad to go abroad ; \ And now I'm sadder that I went to-night Ainong the lights and talkers at Lord Howe ' s . His wife is gracious , with her glossy braids , And even voice , and gorgeous eyeballs , calm As her oth « r jewels . If she's somewhat cold , Who wonders , when her blood has stood so long In the ducil reservoir she calls her line By no means arrogantly ? she ' s not proud ; Not prouder than the swan is of the lake : -He ' has always ' swum . in ;— 'tis her element , And so she takes it with a natural grace , Ignoring tadpoles . She just knows , perhaps , There are men , move , on without outriders , ' Which isn't her fault . Ah , to watch her face , When good Lord Howe expounds his theories Of social justice and equality—. 'Ti 3 curious , what a tender , tolerant bend Her neck takes : for she loves him , likes his talk , ' Such clever talk—that dear , odd Algernon !' She listens on , exactly as if he talked . ' . : ' Some Scandinavian myth of Lemures , Too pretty to dispute , and too absurd . What novelist has better sketched an . English beauty , one not overwise ^ Again : — ¦ ' .. ' . . ¦ ' . ¦ ¦ . ¦ ' . ¦ " V . ¦"''¦ . ¦ ' . ' . '•¦ ... ¦¦ . ¦¦ .. . ¦ ¦¦ ' ¦ ¦ : "¦"'¦ ' . How lovely One I loved not , looked to-night ! She ' s very pretty , Lady Waldemar . Her maid must use both hands to twist that coil Of tresses , then be careful lest tlic rich Bronze rounds should slip : —she missed , though , a grey hair , A single one , —I saw it ; otherwise The woman looked immortal . How they told Those alabaster shoulders and bare breasts , On which the pearls , drowned out of sight in milk , . Were lost , excepting for the ruby-clasp !¦ . --. They split the amaranth velvet bodice down To the waist , or nearly , with the audacious press Of full-breathed beauty . If the heart within Were half as white !—but , if it were , perhaps The breast were closer covered , and the sight Less aspectablc , by half , too . " Our limits are already exceeded ; we must therefore merely add , in a sentence or so , that Aurora hearing a . rumour of Romriey ' s intended marriago with Lady Waldemar , quits England for Italy . In l ' aris slie meets with Marian—and very beautiful 13 the story Marian tells , and the emotions she expresses—but we cannot linger over them . The two women go to Italy , with Marian ' s child , Romney comes there too , blind , dispirited , having hft « Leigh Hall burnt to the ground by the very wretches he was sacrificing himself to benefit , and now with full consciousness of his failure as a social reformer , hears from Aurora that she too is conscious of failure , since with all her success in Art , she has failed in life , he is not happy . The two lovers then finally understand each other , and " live happy all the rest of their days . " Next week we shall resume our notice .

    1144 The Leader. [No. 349, Saturday,

    1144 THE LEADER . [ No . 349 , Saturday ,

    Prescott On The Retirement Of Charles V....

    PRESCOTT ON THE RETIREMENT OF CHARLES V . HUtory of the Reign of Charles the Fifth , liy William Robertson , D . D . With an Account of the Emperor ' s Life after Iris Abdication , by William H . Prescott-. 2 vols . Routledge . Da . Robertson devoted six or seven pages of his history to an account ot the retirement of Cliarles "V . Those few pages are full of error . Nor -was it possible that Dr . Robertson should have been more accurate or copious . He could not have been more accurate without consulting the sealed archive of Simancas , and he could not have been more copious without trusting to the illiterate monkish chroniclers . Several years ago , however , the c « stodian of the Simancas records , dissatisfied with the historical views that had been published concerning the latter days of Charles , prepared for t & c press a volume of authentic materials , derived from , the correspondence 01 the emperor and liis household . He died before publishing the wor » i which passed into the hands of his brother . That gentleman s « t so nigi ft price upon the manuscript , that it remained for n long time without a purchaser . At length the French Government bought it for tlie Archim

• Citation
  • Leader (1850-1860), Nov. 29, 1856, page 16, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse-os.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/cld_29111856/page/16/