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Civil Wars. In Verse, By the Rev. FREDERICK

ART. III.-Reginald Vere, a Tale of the
With Notes historical and illustrative.
WOODS MANT, B.A., Author of the Rubi, Oxford: J. H,
Parker.

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IN the year 1682 was printed at Dublin a remarkable book, with a remarkable title. The title is, "Foxes and Firebrands." The object of the book itself is to prove, by well-authenticated evidence, that, from the time when Queen Elizabeth was excommunicated by the Pope, down to its date of publication, the Jesuits and Friars of various orders had, under the disguise of dissenting preachers, been labouring to promote separation from the Church of England, as the most effectual means of introducing Romanism. The book is not very skilfully put together, and the style not very clear, not always grammatical. And perhaps the writer lays himself open to the charge of credulity, being, together with almost all the rest of the nation at the time, an undoubting believer in the Popish plot, professedly revealed by Titus Oates; and being also persuaded that the attainder of Lord Strafford, the execution of Abp. Laud, and the death of Charles I., were all brought about by the machinations of the Romanists. Still it brings forward several striking facts, supported by evidence apparently incontrovertible1. Several of these facts, and the evidence by which they are supported are given, or alluded to, in the notes to the poem, which stands at the head of our article, the subject of which almost seems to have been suggested by "Foxes and Firebrands."

Of the poem itself, perhaps, the leading characteristics are

1 One of these anecdotes derives additional interest from its connexion with Hammond, certainly one of the holiest and most learned men that this Church has ever produced, one of her ablest and most successful defenders.

"Anno 1656, the Reverend Divine Doctor Henry Hammond, being one day in the next shop to John Crookes, and there reading the works of St. Ambrose, a redcoat casually came in and looked over this divine's shoulder, and there read the Latin as perfect as himself, which caused the doctor to admire that a red-coat should attain to that learning: then speaking unto him, he demanded how he came to that science? The red-coat replied, By the Holy Spirit; the doctor hereupon replied, I will try thee farther, and so called for a Greek author, which the redcoat not only read, but construed. The doctor, to try him further, called for the Hebrew Bible, and so for several other books, in which the red-coat was very expert. At last, the doctor recollecting with himself, called for a Welsh Bible, and said, If thou beest inspired, read me this book, and construe it; but the redcoat being at last catch'd, replied, I have given thee satisfaction enough, I will not satisfie thee further, for thou wilt not believe though an angel came from heaven."

vigour and compression; the latter sometimes carried so far, as to occasion a degree of obscurity. Mr. Mant has great command of the language of poetry, and his adaptation of the variety of metres, which he employs, to the immediate subject, is generally managed with great felicity. Perhaps we were still more struck by this felicitous change of rhythm and cadence in his former very beautiful poem, the "Rubi." In the structure of his lines he is more attentive to vividness and strength, than to smoothness of versification, and sometimes the reader does not immediately fall in to the often changing rhythm of the composition. We are not about to forestall the interest of the reader, by unfolding the general plot of the poem, or by anticipating the incidents which mark its progress, but it may not be amiss to give a brief outline of its opening.

Reginald Vere, it appears, has recently lost his mother, by whom he had been tenderly and carefully educated, and from whom he had imbibed a strong sense of religion, and a deep heartfelt attachment to the doctrines and discipline of the Church of England. A little before the battle of Lansdown, he is suddenly recalled by his father, Lord Staunton, from the gallant army of the west, led on to victory by the Marquis of Hertford, and required forthwith to give up the command of the three hundred retainers of the family, whom he had hitherto led in support of the royal cause, The Lord of Staunton Vere is represented as a selfish, proud, overbearing sensualist, professing great attachment to "Church and king," but with a limited intellect, and governed by self-will, knowing nothing of the principles on which such attachment ought to be founded. His ear has been gained by two Jesuits, Napper and Commin, disguised,-Commin as a soldier, and Napper as a Puritanical preacher, the intrusive rector of the adjoining parish of Compton. These men have contrived to instil into Lord Staunton's mind a conviction, that the attachment of Reginald Vere to the ritual of the Church, especially his attendance at daily prayer, is an indication of a leaning to Popery, and have mixed up with this impression some dark suspicions of his loyalty to the king, and of his filial duty to himself. The insidious but successful arts of these two practised deceivers give occasion to the following stanzas on slander, which furnish an instance of the vigour and compression which we have spoken of, as characterizing the poem. In fact, the compression here is such, that the substance of a long sermon on slander seems to be compressed in these two pages.

"Oh, slander! thou malignant art!

True test of the corrupted heart!

Thou coward hater's coward tool!
The brave may foil the brave man's brand,
The prudent shun the midnight hand.
The slanderer's tongue what care can rule,
When on its victim's name it brings
The asp-like venom of its stings?
The skilful leech may soon allay
The wounds received in open fray ;
Remorse may stay the felon's knife,
And spare the cowering victim's life;
Remorse or leech's skill in vain
To assuage the slanderers ceaseless pain;
No time the injury can bound,
The poison festers in the wound.

66 Say, hast thou slandered? Dost repent?
Be this thy clinging punishment!
Thou wouldst recall the coward ill,
Thou wouldst thy crime confess;
Exert thine efforts, try thy skill
Thy victim to redress.

Retract thy words, re-write the tale :
Think'st thou thy rhetoric will prevail?
Will half of those, who heard the lie,
Hear thee retract the calumny?

Thy one tongue spoke, but it has spread
By hundred tongues the lie it bred;

And couldst thou speak with hundred tongues,
Thou couldst not clear thy victim's wrongs.

"Will half of those thou hast deceived
Renounce the tale they first received
Upon thy credit, and believed,

Nor deem some fresh deceit is meant ?

The slandered can't be innocent.

But thou prevailest; years glide on;

All good remembrances are gone,
But evil recollected stays;

And there will aye be room to raise

The evil tale of other days,

Long after the defence is dead,

To whisper "such and such" was said;
Death only sets thy victim free

From the old sore of calumny.

As the blood of the murdered returns not again,
As the sand of the desert sucks up the light rain,
As the snow of the winter-storm melts on the river

The good name of the slandered one sinks, and for ever.

"If thou hast hurt thy brother's fame,
If thou hast kill'd his honest name;
Taught by the warning, oh, beware!
Thou canst not now thy wrong repair;
This canst thou do, thy crime deplore,
And, taught by sorrow, sin no more."

In consequence of the suspicions thus artfully instilled, Reginald is most harshly treated by his father in a short interview, and then peremptorily ordered by "break of day" to carry a letter to Sir Ralph Hopton, announcing that the command of his retainers was taken from his son and transferred to Commin. With this order the noble leaders of the royalist army refuse to comply, and Reginald heads his men with distinction in the hardfought fight which followed. The battle of Lansdown is given in a most spirited and interesting manner. The Poem keeps close to the narrative of Clarendon, merely assuming the poetic licence of giving a name to the traitor, hitherto anonymous, by whose hand the two most calamitous events in the victorious army, the death of Sir Bevil Greenvil and the disabling of Sir Ralph Hopton, were brought about. As another instance of compression, we must be permitted to give a single stanza on the evils of war, even after a victory.

"The battle is over, now muster the host;

Bear gently the wounded and bury the slain.
Now reckon in blood what the conquest has cost,
Ere you boast of its glory, or count on its gain.
Sum up
the sad hearts and the desolate tears,
That the fatherless shed, by your conquest bereft ;
And number the hopeless, the wearisome, years

That the widow must toil for her charge that is left;
And number the groans of the wounded ones lying
Stiff, smarting, and cold on the fight's bloody scene;
And the agonized memories, that rush on the dying,
Of the life that will be, and the life that has been :
To whom, all unwean'd from earth's pleasures and sins,
Eternity opens, and judgment begins.

Then the balance be struck! then the heart may decide
The loss or the gain of war's misery or pride !"

This reminds us of the reported reply of the most illustrious and successful commander of modern times-whether truly reported we know not-to a lady, who remarked, "What a splendid thing must a victory be !" "Splendid! Madam; the most dreadful thing I know, except a defeat."

We cautiously abstain from marring the reader's interest in the story of the poem, by mentioning any of its stirring incidents,

but having given one or two specimens marked by force and vigour, we must beg permission to bring forward a very few passages of a softer and gentler character, which seem to be peculiarly in unison with the mind and deep feelings of the writer. We are persuaded that very many of our readers will sympathize with the following stanzas, when they have got over the somewhat encumbered rhythm, and perhaps awkward construction, of the first line.

"What is home? in the thoughts of awakening spring,
When the green buds burst, and the glad birds sing,
And the garden breatheth its honied scents,

And puts forth its sweetest blandishments,

And each flower looks up with clear bright eye

Into the face of the glowing sky,

And the buds, and the birds, and the bright flowers come
To the wanderer's dreams; but they are not home.

"For there lacketh the music of merry tongues,

That rang through the garden like fairy songs;
And there lacketh the patter of happy feet,
That filled the haunts of each loved retreat;
And there lacketh the glitter of laughing eyes,
And the joy of the young heart's gaities,
That gave to the scene its living soul,
The inward spirit that named the whole.
"Remove that charm, and in vain you come
From distant regions to seek for home;
Though it beareth the old familiar name,
And its scenes of beauty remain the same
With those of the well-remember'd spot
That memory cherish'd, that place is not
What our fancy shadow'd in years gone by,
When we spoke of the home of our infancy.

"Such is the change, in lapse of years,

That over every home appears;
And it is well the heart should know
That all such pleasures come and go;
Lest clothing any human tie

With thoughts of immortality,

We give to earthly things a love

That the soul owes to realms above,"

A similar tone of feeling, sensitively alive to all the best emotions of family and social attachments, and to all the innocent enjoyments of life, sobered and chastened by the solemn teaching of religion, pervades the whole of the poem.

We have almost exceeded the limits which we had proposed

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