CHAP. VI.

WOMAN.

OH WOMAN! in our hours of ease,
Uncertain, coy, and hard to please,
And variable as the shade

By the light, quivering aspen made:
When pain and sickness cloud the brow,
A ministering angel thou.1

Oh SEX! still sweet, or bitter to extreme,
Gloomy as night, or bright as morning beam;
No fiend may with a female's fraud compare,
No angel's purity like woman's fair;

To save or damn, for bliss or ruin given,

Who has thee feels a hell, or finds a heaven!2

Les femmes sont extrêmes: elles sont meilleures, ou pires que les hommes.3

Heal my unquiet mind, and tune my soul:
Oh! charm me with the music of thy voice:
I'm ne'er so bless'd as when I hear thy vows,
And listen to the language of thy heart;

To hear thee speak might calm a madman's frenzy,
Till, by attention, he forgot his sorrows.*

In pleasure, and in pain, alike, I find
My face turn tenderly to womankind;

1 Marmion.
3 La Bruyère.

2 Chaucer (New Version, ii. 33.) 4 The Orphan.

But then they must be truly women, not
Shes by the courtesy of a petticoat.

*

*

Kind, candid, simple, yet of sterling sense,

And of a golden age for innocence.1

He (Pope) felt the want of that sort of reciprocal tenderness and confidence in a female, to whom he might freely communicate his thoughts, and on whom, in sickness and infirmity, he could rely.2

Tant il est vrai que ce que nous attache le plus aux femmes est moins la débauche, qu'un certain agrément de vivre auprès d'elles.

But mother sure he has that's such a mate
No man can boast, nor boastful tongue relate,
Though fancy, to give semblance of her face,
From all her sex should cull each separate grace;
To speak her soul should rob from every saint,
Low yet were praise, and all description faint.4

Sans les femmes les deux extrémités de la vie seroient sans secours, et le milieu sans plaisirs.5

Such as I am, she loved me, prayed for me, looked at me with pleasure, reared me from the little feeble, unsightly infant that crawled to her knee.

The deep, strong, deathless love within a mother's breast, quickened by the fears and sympathies of the Christian. Her thoughts will follow you over

1 Byron (the Choice in "The Liberal ").

2 Loves of the Poets.

4 Chaucer (New Version, ii. 86.)

3 Rousseau.

5 Rousseau.

the world of waters, they will be with you in the stillness of evening, in the deep silence of midnight, in the glad brightness of morning. How many wishes will be breathed! how many prayers offered up for you!1

Never did I know a person of either sex with more virtues or fewer infirmities; the only one she had, which was the neglect of her own affairs, arising wholly from the goodness of her temper.

So great then was her loss, not only to me, but to all who have any regard for every perfection that human nature can possess.2

His affection to his mother was always one of the strongest feelings of his heart. With that selfdenying devotion to the happiness of others which was his distinguished quality through life, he deprived himself of every indulgence that he might devote to her his hard-earned pittance; and, in after-days of comparative affluence, he delighted in surrounding her with every comfort.3

Je crois là voir, encore, cette bonne vieille, le charmant naturel! la douce et riante gaieté !4 Il sentait quelque charme dans ces soins données à la vieillesse."

Come

past help.

weep with me -past hope-past cure

6

1 Reference mislaid.

2 See (vol. xv. 504.) a beautiful letter by Swift, on that bitter and

irreparable loss a mother's death.

3 Mem. of Sir T. S. Raffles, 31. 6 Romeo and Juliet.

4 Marmontel.

5 Corinne.

Is it, at last, then so? Is she then dead?

What! dead at last

quite

- quite, for ever, dead?

I do not weep!—the springs of tears are dry'd.1

He resorted many times to gaze, with feelings that no words can express, upon the form of her who had bore him, and who, tenderly as she had ever watched for his advantage and pleasure, could now show to him no tokens of recognition, could neither hear his voice, nor answer to his passionate apostrophes and laments.

Parents we can have but once.

Sleep, that "knits up the ravelled sleeve of care," refused its peace to his weary lids; and he remained, his eyes opened wide upon the cold, blank darkness, reflecting upon the change that had taken place in his destiny.

You must bear with me,

Pray now, forget and forgive: I am old and foolish.2

Be your tears wet? Yes, faith. I pray you, weep not:
If you have poison for me, I will drink it.3

O! she is gone for ever!

I know when one is dead, and when one lives;
She's dead as earth :-lend me a looking-glass,
If that her breath will mist or stain the stone,
Why-then she lives.4

And thou no breath at all? O, thou wilt come no more,

Never, never, never, never, never!

Pray you undo this button :- Thank you, Sir.

1 Congreve (Mourning Bride, A. 5.)

3 Ibid.

2 King Lear.

4 Ibid.

Do you see this?-Look on her-look-her lips;
Look there, look there!

[LEAR dies.]1

But to her closing eyes, for all were there,
Nothing was wanting; and, through many a year,
We shall remember, with a fond delight,

The words so precious which we heard that night.2

She slept in peace,- say rather, soar'd to heaven.
She pass'd away

So sweetly from the world, as if her clay
Lay only down to slumber :-then forbear
To let on her blest ashes fall a tear;

Or, if thou art too much woman, softly weep,
Lest grief disturb the silence of her sleep.3

I have now, he pathetically remarks, lost my barrier between me and death. God grant I may live to be as well prepared for it as I confidently believe her to have been! If the way to Heaven be through piety, truth, justice and charity, she is there.4

The king received this fatal news (the death of the queen-mother) after the battle of Kolin, and at a moment when fortune seemed most to have declared against the Prussians. the Prussians. He was deeply affected at it, having always venerated and adored this princess as a tender mother, whose virtues and great qualities caused the admiration of those who

1 King Lear.

2 Rogers (Human Life).

3 On Venetia Stanley, a beautiful creature of her day, who was found dead on her couch; her hand supporting her head in the attitude of sleep.

4 Swift (On the Death of his Mother, i. 111.) (Scott's ed.)