he was transferred to Chartres. Having been delivered through the intercession of his friends, but still fearing a second imprisonment, he took refuge, first with Margaret of Navarre, the King's sister, and afterwards at Ferrara, with Renée, Duchess of that city, and daughter of Louis XII. To these events of his life he refers in some verses addressed to those through whose kindness he had obtained his freedom. J'euz à Paris prison fort inhumaine: A Chartres fuz doucement encloué: Maintenant vois, ou mon plaisir me maine; C'est bien et mal. Dieu soit de tout loné. "At Paris my prison was a cruel one; in my confinement at Chartres I had milder usage. Now I go where my pleasure leads me. It is good and evil. God be praised for all." At Ferrara, he contracted a friendship with Calvin, and is said to have embraced the opinions of that reformer. But at the solicitation of Paul III. the Duke of Ferrara determined on banishing all the wits and learned men, who were suspected of heresy, out of his territories; and the Duchess prevailed on the King of France to allow Marot to return to his court, and to restore him to favour, on condition of his again becoming a dutiful son to the Church. Against the charge of dissension he thus defends himself: Point ne suis Lutheriste, Ne Zuinglien, et moins Anabaptiste : Je suis celuy, qui prens plaisir, et peine A Monsieur Bouchart, Docteur en Theologie. "I am neither Lutheran nor Zuinglian; and still less an Anabaptist: I am of God by his Son Jesus Christ. I am one that have written many a poem; from none of which a single line can be adduced contrary to the divine law. I am one whose delight and whose labour it is to exalt my Saviour and his all-gracious Mother. The best proof of this may be found in my writings." From his verses to the King, written during his residence at Ferrara, it appears that he thought himself in danger of being put to the stake as a heretic. The arguments which he uses to defend himself on account of having prohibited books in his possession, are much the same as Milton has since urged on a similar subject in his Areopagitica. On his return to France in 1536, he employed himself in translating some of the Psalms into French metre, from the version of Vatable, the royal professor of Hebrew, which gave so much scandal to the doctors of the Sorbonne, that they induced the King to prevent him from continuing his work. Still however he persisted in delivering his sentiments on religion with such freedom as to keep alive the resentment of his enemies; and he at last found it necessary to remove to Geneva. Here he was accused of having committed some gross irregularities of conduct, of which I am willing to believe him innocent. He then retired to Turin, and died in poverty at the age of sixty. TRADITIONAL LITERATURE. No. XII. MILES COLVINE, THE CUMBERLAND MARINER. William Glen was our captain's name, On the English side of the sea of Solway lies a long line of flat and unelevated coast, where the seafowl find refuge from the gun of the fowler, and which, save the headland and the deep sea, presents but one object of attraction, namely, the cottage of Miles Colvine, the Cumberland mariner. The owner of this rude dwelling, once a seaman, a soldier, a scholar, and a gentleman, was shipwrecked on the coast about thirty years ago, and was the only living soul that escaped from the fatal storm. The vessel was from a foreign land, and something mysterious always hung over her fate and the destiny of her crew. The conduct of Miles Colvine was less likely to remove than confirm suspicion. He heard all enquiries concerning the ship and the crew in perfect tranquillity and silence, and once only he deigned to answer, when a shepherd asked, " was it the blood of beasts I saw upon the deck?"—"No, it was the blood of men." From this time forward, no farther intercourse was courted by the peasantry, and he was allowed to construct a small hut, fence it round with a wall of loose stone, and occupy it, without any molestation. He seemed anxious to shun all intercourse with human beings, and sought and found his subsistence in the sea; for it was the common remark of the Allan bay fishermen that no man dipped a hook, or wetted a net, between Skinverness and Saint Bees, with greater skill and success. In this solitude, exposed to every storm that swept the beach from sea or land, amid much seeming wretchedness and privation, he resided during a summer and autumn: winter, a season of Old Ballad. great severity on an unsheltered coast, was expected either to destroy or drive him from his abode, but he braved every storm, and resisted all offers of food or raiment. The first winter of his abode was one of prodigious storm and infinite hardship. The snow lay long and deep on the ground, the ice was thick on lake and pool, and the Solway presented one continual scene of commotion and distress. The shore was covered with the wrecks of ships, the eddies choaked with drowned men, and the sea itself so rough and boisterous that the fishermen suspended their customary labours, and sat with their families at the hearth-fire, listening to the sounding of the surge, and relating tales of maritime disaster and shipwreck. But on Miles Colvine the severe and continued storm seemed to have no influence. He ranged the shore, collecting for his fire the wrecks of ships; he committed his nets and hooks to the sea with his usual skill; and having found a drifted boat, which belonged to some unfortunate vessel, he obtained command over the element most congenial to his heart, and wandered about on the bosom of the waters noon and night, more like a troubled spirit than a human being. When the severity of winter had passed away, and sea-birds laid their eggs in the sand, the mariner remitted his excursions at sea, and commenced a labour which surprised many. The sea shore, or that portion of the coast which lies between the margin of the sea and the cultivated land, a region of shells, and drift sand, and pebbles, has ever been regarded as a kind of common, and the right of suspending nets, hawling boats a ground, and constructing huts for the summer residence of the fishermen, has never been disputed by the natural lord of those thriftless domains. It was on this debateable ground, between the barren sea and the cultivated field, that the mariner fixed his abode; but it soon appeared that he wished to extend his possessions, and augment his household accommodation. He constructed a larger and more substantial house, with equal attention to durability and neatness; he fenced off the sea by a barrier of large stones, and scattered around his dwelling a few of the common flowers which love to blossom near the sea breeze. The smoke of his chimney, and the unremitting clank of his hammer finishing the interior accommodations, were seen and heard from afar. When all this was concluded he launched his boat and took to the sea again, and became known from the Mull of Galloway to the foot of Annan-water. I remember the first time that ever I saw him was in the market-place of Dumfries: his beard seemed of more than a year's growth, his clothes, once rich and fine, were darned and patched, and over the whole he wore a kind of boat-cloak, which, fastened round his neck, descended nigh the ground; but all this penury could not conceal the step and air of other and better days. He seldom looked in the face of any one; man he seemed to regard with an eye of scorn, and even deadly hatred; but on women he looked with softness and regard, and when he happened to meet a mother and child he gazed on them with something of settled sorrow and affection. He once made a full stop, and gazed on a beautiful girl of four or five years old, who was gathering primroses on the margin of the Nith; the child, alarmed at his uncouth appearance, shrieked and fell in its fright into the deep stream; the mariner made but one spring from the bank into the river, saved the child, replaced it in its mother's bosom, and resumed his journey, apparently unconscious that he had done aught remarkable. Ever after this the children of Dumfries pursued him with the hue and cry," Eh! come and see the wild bearded man, who saved Mary Lawson." On another occasion, I was hunting on the Scottish mountain of Criffel, and having reached its summit I sat down to look around on the fine prospect of sea and land below me, and take some refreshment. At a little distance I saw somewhat like the figure of a human being, bedded in the heath, and lying looking on the Solway from a projecting rock, so still and motionless that he seemed dead. I went near: it was Miles Colvine; he seemed unconscious of my approach, and, looking stedfastly on the sea, remained fixed, and muttering, as long as I continued on the mountain. Indeed, wherever he went he talked more like a man holding communion with his own mind, than one sharing his thoughts with others, and the general purport of such imperfect sentences as could be heard was that he had vowed many men should perish for some irreparable wrong they had offered to a lady. Sometimes he spoke of the lady as his wife, or his love, and the men he had doomed to destruction as the lawless crew of his own vessel. At other times he addressed his seamen as spirits, whom he had sent to be tortured for wrongs done in the body, and his lady as an angel that still visited his daily dreams and his nightly visions. Through the whole the cry of revenge, and the sense of deep injury, were heard and understood by all. When Miles Colvine had fairly finished his new residence, and the flowers and fruits had returned to field and tree, he was observed to launch his boat: this was a common occurrence, but a small lair of sheepskins, a jar of water, and some dried fish, called kippered-salmon by the Scotch, looked like preparation for a long journey. The journey was be gun, for he was seen scudding away southward, by the light of the stars, and no more was seen or heard of him for some time. Day after day his door continued shut, his chimney ceased to smoke, and his nets hung unemployed. At length the revenue cutter from Saint Bees arrived at Allanbay, to land a cargo of fine Hollands which the officers had taken from an Irish smuggler, between Carrickfergus and the Isle of Man. They had been terribly alarmed, they said, on their way, by the appearance, about the third watch of the night,of a visionary boat, navigated by a bearded fiend, which scudded with supernatural swiftness along the surface of the water. This tale, with all the variations which a poetical peasantry readily supply, found its way from cottage to hamlet, and from hamlet to hall. Old men shook their heads, and talked of the exploits of the great fiend by sea and land, and wished that good might happen to Old England from the visit of such a circumnavigator. Others, who were willing to believe that the apparition was Miles Colvine on a coasting voyage, seemed no less ready to confound the maritime recluse with an evil being, who had murdered a whole ship's crew, sunk their ship, and dwelt on the coast of "cannie Cumberland," for the express purpose of raising storms, shaking corn, and making unwedded mothers of half the fair damsels between Sarkfoot and Saint Bees. Several misfortunes of the latter kind, which happened about this time, confirmed this suspicion, and his departure from the coast was as welcome as rain to the farmer after a long drought. About a fortnight after this event, I happened to be on a moonlight excursion by water, as far as the ruined castle of Comlongan. I was accompanied by an idle friend or two, and, on our return, we allowed the receding tide to carry us along the Cumberland coast, till we came nearly opposite the cottage of Miles Colvine. As we directed our boat to the shelter of a small bank, I observed a light glimmering in the mariner's house, and landing and approaching closer, I saw plainly the shadows of two persons, one tall and manly, the other slim and sylphlike, passing and repassing on the wall. I soon obtained a fairer view. I saw the mariner himself, his dress once rude and sordid was replaced by one of the coarsest materials, but remarkably clean, his beard was removed, and his hair, once matted and wild, now hung orderly about his neck and temples. The natural colour was black, but snow-white locks now predominated; his look was hale, but sorrowful, and he seemed about forty years of age. The figure of the creature that accompanied him was much too tender and beautiful to last long in a situation so rude and unprotected as the cottage of a fisherman. It was a female, richly dressed, and of a beauty so exquisite, and a look so full of sweetness and grace, that the rude scene around was not wanted to exalt her above all other maidens I had ever seen. She glided about the cottage, arranging the various articles of furniture, and passing two white hands, out-rivalling the fairest creations of the sculptor, over the rude chairs and tables, and every moment giving a glance at the mariner, like one who took delight in pleasing him, and seemed to work for his sake. And he was pleased. I saw him smile, and no one had ever seen him smile before; he passed his hand over the long clustering tresses of the maiden; caused her to sit down beside him, and looked on her face, which outgrowing the child had not yet grown into woman, with a look of affection, and reverence, and joy. I was pondering on what I witnessed, and imagining an interview with the unhappy mariner and his beautiful child, for such his companion was, when I observed the latter take out a small musical instrument from a chest, and touching its well-ordered strings with a light and a ready hand, she played several of the simple and plaintive airs so common among the peasantry of the Scottish and English coasts. After a pause she resumed her instrument, and, to an air singu larly wild and melancholy, sang the following ballad, which relates to the story of her father's and mother's misfortunes; but the minstrel has observed a mystery in his narrative which excites suspicion rather than gratifies curiosity. O MARINER, O MARINER. O mariner, O mariner, When will our gallant men Make our cliffs and woodlands ring With their homeward hail agen; Full fifteen paced the stately deck, And fifteen stood below, And maidens waved them from the shore, Will they come bounding homeward, 2. O maid, the moon shines lovely down, And they may shine till doomsday comes, O'er his white forehead roll the waves, The wind sighs lowne and low, And the cry the sea-fowl uttereth So wail they on, I tell thee maid, Is worth all the souls who perish'd 3. O mariner, O mariner, It's whisper'd in the hall, And sung upon the mountain side That the waves which fill the measure Of that wide and fatal flood, Cannot cleanse the decks of thy good ship Or wash thy hands from blood; And sailors meet, and shake their heads, And ere they sunder say, God keep us from Miles Colvine, On the wide and watery way. 4. And up then spoke he, Miles Colvine, By all that's blessed on the earth, And by my sharp and stalwart blade That revel'd in their blood I could not spare them; for there came With a shriek of joy at every stroke 5. "O mariner, O mariner, There was a lovely dame Went down with thee unto the deep, His dark eyes like a thunder cloud And, oh, his bold and martial face |