"Places accursed, where, if a man remain, "He'll see the things which strike him to the brain "And there they made me on my paddle lean, "And look at them for hours;-accursed scene! "When they would glide to that smooth eddy-space, "Then bid me leap and join them in the place; "And at my groans each little villain sprite "Enjoy'd my pains and vanish'd in delight. "In one fierce summer-day, when my poor brain "Was burning hot, and cruel was my pain, "Then came this father-foe, and there he stood "With his two boys again upon the flood: There was more mischief in their eyes, more glee, "In their pale faces when they glared at me: (1) "Still did they force me on the oar to rest, "And when they saw me fainting and oppress'd, 66 He, with his hand, the old man, scoop'd the flood, "And there came flame about him mix'd with blood; "He bade me stoop and look upon the place, "Then flung the hot-red liquor in my face; Burning it blazed, and then I roar'd for pain, "I thought the demons would have turn'd my brain. "Still there they stood, and forced me to behold "A place of horrors - they can not be told — (1) ["Continuò templum, et violati numinis aras," &c. "sudden before his eyes, The violated fane and altar rise; Juv. Sat. xiii. And (what disturbs him most) that injured shade, In more than mortal majesty array'd, Frowns on the wretch, alarms his treacherous rest, And wrings the dreadful secret from his breast."— GIFFORD.] "Where the flood open'd, there I heard the shriek no earthly tongue can speak : "Of tortured guilt “All days alike! for ever!' did they say, "And unremitted torments every day' "Yes, so they said "-But here he ceased, and gazed On all around, affrighten'd and amazed; And still he tried to speak, and look'd in dread 66 Again they come," and mutter'd as he died. (1) (1) The character of Grimes, his obduracy and apparent want of feeling, his gloomy kind of misanthropy, the progress of his madness, and the horrors of his imagination, I must leave to the judgment and observation of my readers. The mind here exhibited is one untouched by pity, unstung by remorse, and uncorrected by shame: yet is this hardihood of temper and spirit broken by want, disease, solitude, and disappointment; and he becomes the victim of a distempered and horror-stricken fancy. It is evident, therefore, that no feeble vision, no half-visible ghost, not the momentary glance of an unbodied being, nor the half-audible voice of an invisible one, would be created by the continual workings of distress on a mind so depraved and flinty. The ruffian of Mr. Scott has a mind of this nature: he has no shame or remorse: but the corrosion of hopeless want, the wasting of unabating disease, and the gloom of unvaried solitude, will have their effect on every nature; and the harder that nature is, and the longer time required to work upon it, so much the more strong and indelible is the impression. This is all the reason I am able to give, why a man of feeling so dull should yet become insane, and why the visions of his distempered brain should be of so horrible a nature. was a sordid soul, Such as does murder for a meed; Because his conscience, sear'd and foul, Feels not the import of his deed; One whose brute-feeling ne'er aspires Beyond his own more brute desires. - MARMION. THE BOROUGH. LETTER XXIII. PRISONS. Pœna autem vehemens ac multò sævior illis, Quas et Cæditius gravis invenit aut Rhadamanthus, Nocte dieque suum gestare in pectore testem. -Juv. Sat. xiii. (1) Think my former state a happy dream, From which awaked, the truth of what we are Shows us but this, I am sworn brother now Will keep a league till death. Richard II. (1) ["Trust me, no tortures which the poets feign, He feels, who, night and day, devoid of rest, GIFFORD.] |