THE ESSAYS OF SHIRLEY.*
A GREAT many clever essays have been written and disappeared, and been buried in old magazines—nay, some magazines them- selves have run a brief career, and some have sunk into decrepi- tude--since the Essays of Shirley lent attraction to a periodical which has lived a life of very varying fortune, giving forth, per- haps, more wayward gleams of genius and certainly more opaque reflections of mediocrity in its day, than has fallen to the lot of many of our contemporaries. The brilliant, but fitful and frag- mentary, art of which these productions are so admirable a development, belongs essentially to society in its most highly cultured conditions. It is scarcely strong enough to stand alone, to push its own way in the world, to elbow the crowd which, getting closer and more eager every day, struggles and jostles along every avenue that leads to what is poetically called the temple of Fame. It wants a brighter and more tranquil atmo- sphere, a less fiery conflict of opposition. It does not bring fortune or fame, as work much less perfect sometimes may succeed in doing. It is one of the arts which is paid chiefly in kind, in the recognition which is leas noisy than applause, in the silent pleasure with which we find again one of those guides, who are less guide than companion, in the flowery, not thorny ways of literature. In this fashion the grace- • Essays in 1t077Iartle and Studies from Life. By John Skelton. Edinburgh : W. Blackwood and Sons.
ful writer who has gained an entrance into many of the most delightful corners of our memory under the name of " Shirley," is scarcely second to any in his generation. When he comes down. out of those pleasant valleys and pathways bordered with classic asphodel, and writing himself "John Skelton," discourses upon the Poor-laws, or clears out the encumbered by-ways of history, his work is that of an expert, whom his fellow-workmen of all classes take pleasure to see a rceurre, handling his tools with a precision which delights the trade. But these maturer toils are in the day's work, and do not stir us with the same delightful souvenir of early morning and youthful leisure, and all the dews of promise which made Shirley's company across the heather, or by the silvery trembling of the sea, one of the most delicate of pleasures. The youthful essayist now-a-days is neither so manly,
nor so modest ; and there could not be a better lesson for the, student of super-dainty art or social betrayal, than to contrast the personal gossip, the studio — or rather palette — prattle, the disquisitions upon Dr. Jenkinson's little peculiarities, or Mr.
Burue Jones's everlasting principles, which are the fashion of the time—with the fresh air and wholesome landscapes, the natural lights and tender shadows, the kindly humour and sympathetic manliness of the young essayist of twenty years ago. It is not, after all, a very long period, yet enough to change the form of production in literature, as in other things.
The new series of the Essays of S1irky now given to the public, are of dates varying from 1854 to a very recent period, and con-
sist not of critical and historical studies, like some already issued, but of what the author calls Essays in Romance and Studies front Life. The former class includes a powerful and vivid sketch, called " The Passion of Martin Holdfast," two or three studies of fisher-life and manners on the northern coasts of Scotland, and a story of love and punishment from the lagoons of Venice, which, though the earliest, is perhaps the best arranged and compacted of all. The author has chosen his title well, for it would be in- appropriate to assume for these imaginative sketches—the discur- siveness and freedom of which are among their chief charms—the character of tales. They are almost invariably tragic in the thread of story, which links together many beautiful descriptions and graceful bits of dialogue, flashing from grave to gay, from humour to poetry, with just that wayward uncertainty and un- expectedness which give to every record of intellectual com- panionship its greatest charm. The wild and sudden passion of a rustic gentleman, bred in the seclusion of the country, for an accomplished siren out of the fashionable world, is a subject not unknown to fiction ; but barring the sudden tragedy of the conclusion, which is too overwhelming and com- plete for art, the story is treated with a fresh, original force, fer- vour, and energy, which give it an individual and distinct place among all the strains that are based on this nwtif. "Martin Holdfast" reminds us here and there of "Maud," that miracle of poetical workmanship ; and there is here and there a touch of in- dignant passion and sorrow in which the hero of the essayist scarcely falls below him of the poet. The story of "Catarina in Venice" is scarcely more original in its plot, if it can be called a plot ; but the fresh freedom of youth, in its strong, though slight, current of story, and the glowing sense of a new, vivid world, in which its incidents are transacted, give it force and interest.
Venice, indeed, is more the heroine of the tale than Caterina, the young singer, whose brilliant and fantastic career drops suddenly into so strange a complication of tragedy. Here is an account of a frolic in which a gay party terminates—a union of boyish noise and high spirits with poetic fancy, which will give a very good idea of " Shirley's " earliest method :—
" We went out on the balcony. Wo heard the plash of the water below our feet, and a hundred church-bells answer each other through the mist. Tho grey ghost of the morning lay along the northern sky over Cadore. It was two o'clock. Lot us see the Duomo,' cried Catarina, suddenly clapping her hands. ' Let us go,' we all echoed. Wo were excited, and all entered readily into the whim Our gondolas wore lying at the door, and waking our men, who wore lying in a heap fast asleep, in the bottom of the most commodious, we bore down the Canal for the Piazza. Catarina was in high spirits. In her white hood, she was the most charming nun the moonlight over looked on. Her eyes sparkled with glee at the frolic on which we were bent, and at length she burst into an Io 'man of victory. It was the fierce Osmanli chant of Mehemet, which, in the opera, is chanted to the menacing music of barbaric cymbals. We joined in the chorus, gondoliers and the rest of us, and from among the hoarse male voices rose, like the spring of a crystal fountain, rejoicing, triumphant, the liquid notes of the great singer. The infidel is at the gates, and the senators of the Republic are a bed, con- cluded Sedley, in a sort of Runic chant. ' We will hang the banner of the Moslem on the vanes of St.Mark. We must humour her,' ho whis- pered to me as we landed at the stairs of the Piazzetta, ' but it is more than likely we shall spend the morning with the Austrian police. We
are in for a row, you may be sure ; but here goes.' However, wo met no one. Two or three sleepy gondoliers raised their heads as wo passed them, from out the forest of gondolas which were moored at the stairs; and between us and the Lido the painted sails of a few fishing craft, bearing up from Chioggia, were dimly visible. But the groat square was silent as the valley of death."
These visionary fragments of romance are, we think, more successful than the homelier tales of " Elsie" and "Nancy," not- withstanding the perfection of all the details in the latter, the freshness of reality in the fisher cottages, the passion of sea and storm, and wild poetry of the moor and mountains, which make these national studies so life-like and true. But the charm of the landscape and all its attendant lights, which seizes upon the writer, claiming something more than the place of a background in his picture, and the delightful flow of his own thoughts, which are caught and drawn out into a hundred links of melodious disquisition by every turn of fancy, interfere with the steadier self- denying work of character-painting. The personages of each little drama appear to us less in their own right than through the glow in the eyes of their maker—which, however, suffices to carry the reader to the end, with almost as much satisfaction as if he had been vehemently interested in them, instead of only charmed by the voice in which their story is told, and kept in a perpetual state of rapt curiosity as to what new prospect of hills and seas may burst upon him round the next corner, or new train of fanciful reflection carry him off to the limits of the skies.
We cannot but feel a little grudge, however, that so much of a delightful volume should be taken up by the obscure polemics of the " Passage in the Ministry of the Reverend Stephen Iloldfast," which is too local and special to interest much, even the reader who knows what it is about—and not beautiful enough to beguile the alto- gether ignorant into the thorny paths of ecclesiastical controversy. Mr. Skelton's genius is essentially freeborn, not to say lawless, and resents the attempt to put it in such galling harness. It is, per- haps, impossible for any man, being a Scotsman, to escape the temptation of dabbling in theology one way or other, but he is bound to resist it, as he resists the Devil, knowing that however it may appear " an angel beautiful and bright," it is unquestion- ably a fiend bent upon his destruction. Whenever he is beguiled by the hostile attraction of a " church court " or religous "libel," let him fly to the moors and the wilds among which he is so much more at home, and to which we follow him with so much greater pleasure. In the only one of these papers which professes to be the production not of young Shirley, always ready for a frolic, but of a staid and experienced author, with public duties and family ties, "A Word for Winter," we have a record of an escapade which is entirely characteristic and delightful, and shows our old, discursive, and brilliant companion to have eyes as clear and a style as fresh and vivid as in his earliest fervour. "One November evening," he says, " returning from the city "- but don't suppose, dear reader, this means the city with a big C, which lies within the sound of Bow bells. It is an old, romantic town, where a shadowy castle thunders from the steeps, with an old Parliament-House under its shadow, and certain old imperial businesses, as of a nation, still going on between the hills and the Firth, but nothing very much besides—" returning," he says, "from the city, while the radiance of the winter sunset still lingered in the west, I heard the rapid beat of wings through the clear, frosty air overhead, and looking up, saw a wedge-like column of wildfowl bearing down upon the Pentland moors. It was all over with me from that hour. I knew there would be no rest for me thereafter till I had stalked a cock-grouse upon the stubble, or sent a brace of cartridges into a flock of pintails." And on this impulse he acted instantly, and thereafter follow such sketches of the moors and heather, of the glittering salt-sea margin, the rocks, the sea-birds, old sailors scarcely less salt than the sea, and old peasant-sportsmen scarcely less weather-beaten than the moor, as fill our veins with the wholesome tingling of frosty Highland air, and bring back many a recollection of winter pastimes, and mornings brilliant and calm with northern sunshine, or shrouded in poetic mist and cloud. These are the scenes in which Mr. Skelton is most at home. Ile loves the birds, and watches all their ways with the devotion of a naturalist, yet bags them, never- theless, with the enthusiasm of a sportsman. These two passions, indeed, though apparently somewhat contradictory, run into each other with great simplicity in most cases. " One forgets much in this world," says our essayist, with pious regret ; " early friends, first love, the Greek and Latin grammars, and many other good things
but the ecstasy one experiences over one's first black- cock is never forgotten." However, having indicated to the reader where he will find these landscapes, keen with sharp, sweet Highland air, and all the delights of the " birds " (poor birds !
small delight to them, the wild flutter of fright and flight that ends their lives among the heather, and gives the sportsman that moment of ecstacy), let us come back to the peaceful hollows under the hills of Braid, and show him how this keen sportsman can touch a peaceful landscape with all the varied tints of spring :—
" Though one is always more or less sorry when winter retires (!), the interests of the spring are so engrossing that there is little leisure for pensive regrets. No spring day passes without an excitement of its own. That wonderful awakening of the earth touches the imagination of the dullest clown, and drives those of us who are more excitable into strange ecstacies of happiness. After all, the sleep has not been unto death ! The first morning that I hear the cuckoo is, upon the whole, tho most memorable day of the year to me. There are some scattered plantations along the base of the Pentlands (above Dregborn) where this happiness has been more than once vouchsafed to me, and I have come to regard these tangled thickets with a sort of religious reverence, as the very temple and sanctuary of the Spirit of the spring. Then the spring flowers—violets, celandino, cowslips, periwinkle, tampion, wood- sorrel, saxifrage, primrose, hyacinth, woodroof, anemone—this vestal band, this sweet and fair procession of virginal flowers, is invested with a charm of simplicity and sacredness which is peculiar to the dawning year. And there are other young creatures who now begin to open their eyes and look abroad. Tiny rabbits venture out of their burrows. In that overhanging bush of icy a pair of young cushats have sat as solemn and still and motionless as sphinxes, ever since they were born. Ridiculous little morsels of owls tumble out of their nests, and blink woefully in the unfamiliar sunshine, while their parents scream at them dubiously from neighbouring branches. The starling is a blackbird who lost his tail on some remote Darwinian anniversary, and as they have come down upon us in groat force this year, their stumpy Soiree are to be seen and their shrill remonstrances are to be beard on every hand, to the detriment of the woodland music indeed, but to the multiplica- tion of the woodland gaiety."
Such are the notes that a naturalist may make " within a mile of Edinboro' toun," Mr. Skelton concludes. We trust he will make a great many more such notes, both of the nestlings in the spring cover, and the " cock-grouse sunning themselves on a hill," which give him a still keener rapture. So much fresh air and natural brightness seldom comes to us through the medium of print and paper. For these, and for the musings of errant fancy, free yet reverent, pensive, yet humorous, full of fun and full of thought, with which the name of Shirley is associated, the world has always audience enough,—an audience, too, which repays their light, yet sincere and tender philosophy, with that visionary friendship of minds unknown which is an author's privilege and reward.
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