The History of Henry Esmond, Esq., a Colonel in the Service of Her Majesty Queen Anne by - (top 100 books to read .txt) 📕

turn. To the thick woods the woolly flocks retreat, And mixed with bellowing herds confusedly bleat. Their trembling lords the common shade partake, And cries of infants found in every brake. The listening soldier fixed in sorrow stands, Loth to obey his leader's just commands. The leader grieves, by generous pity swayed, To see his just commands so well obeyed;”

by this time wine and friendship had brought poor Dick to a perfectly maudlin state, and he hiccupped out the last line with a tenderness that set one of his auditors a-laughing.

“I admire the license of your poets,” says Esmond to Mr. Addison. (Dick, after reading of the verses, was fain to go off, insisting on kissing his two dear friends before his departure, and reeling away with his periwig over his eyes.) “I admire your art: the murder of the campaign is done to military music, like a battle at the opera, and the virgins shriek in harmony, as our victorious grenadiers march into their villages. Do you know what a scene it was?”—(by this time, perhaps, the wine had warmed Mr. Esmond's head too,)—“what a triumph you are celebrating? what scenes of shame and horror were enacted, over which the commander's genius presided, as calm as though he didn't belong to our sphere? You talk of the 'listening soldier fixed in sorrow,' the 'leader's grief swayed by generous pity;' to my belief the leader cared no more for bleating flocks than he did for infants' cries, and many of our ruffians butchered one or the other with equal alacrity. I was ashamed of my trade when I saw those horrors perpetrated, which came under every man's eyes. You hew out of your polished verses a stately image of smiling victory; I tell you 'tis an uncouth, distorted, savage idol; hideous, bloody, and barbarous. The rites performed before it are shocking to think of. You great poets should show it as it is—ugly and horrible, not beautiful and serene. Oh, sir, had you made the campaign, believe me, you never would have sung it so.”

During this little outbreak, Mr. Addison was listening, smoking out of his long pipe, and smiling very placidly. “What would you have?” says he. “In our polished days, and according to the rules of art, 'tis impossible that the Muse should depict tortures or begrime her hands with the horrors of war. These are indicated rather than described; as in the Greek tragedies, that, I dare say, you have read (and sure there can be no more elegant specimens of composition), Agamemnon is slain, or Medea's children destroyed, away from the scene;—the chorus occupying the stage and singing of the action to pathetic music. Something of this I attempt, my dear sir, in my humble way: 'tis a panegyric I mean to write, and not a satire. Were I to sing as you would have me, the town would tear the poet in pieces, and burn his book by the hands of the common hangman. Do you not use tobacco? Of all the weeds grown on earth, sure the nicotian is the most soothing and salutary. We must paint our great Duke,” Mr. Addison went on, “not as a man, which no doubt he is, with weaknesses like the rest of us, but as a hero. 'Tis in a triumph, not a battle, that your humble servant is riding his sleek Pegasus. We college poets trot, you know, on very easy nags; it hath been, time out of mind, part of the poet's profession to celebrate the actions of heroes in verse, and to sing the deeds which you men of war perform. I must follow the rules of my art, and the composition of such a strain as this must be harmonious and majestic, not familiar, or too near the vulgar truth. Si parva licet: if Virgil could invoke the divine Augustus, a humbler poet from the banks of the Isis may celebrate a victory and a conqueror of our own nation, in whose triumphs every Briton has a share, and whose glory and genius contributes to every citizen's individual honor. When hath there been, since our Henrys' and Edwards' days, such a great feat of arms as that from which you yourself have brought away marks of distinction? If 'tis in my power to sing that song worthily, I will do so, and be thankful to my Muse. If I fail as a poet, as a Briton at least I will show my loyalty, and fling up my cap and huzzah for the conqueror:—

“'Rheni pacator et Istri Omnis in hoc uno variis discordia cessit Ordinibus; laetatur eques, plauditque senator, Votaque patricio certant plebeia favori.'”

“There were as brave men on that field,” says Mr. Esmond (who never could be made to love the Duke of Marlborough, nor to forget those stories which he used to hear in his youth regarding that great chiefs selfishness and treachery)—“there were men at Blenheim as good as the leader, whom neither knights nor senators applauded, nor voices plebeian or patrician favored, and who lie there forgotten, under the clods. What poet is there to sing them?”

“To sing the gallant souls of heroes sent to Hades!” says Mr. Addison, with a smile. “Would you celebrate them all? If I may venture to question anything in such an admirable work, the catalogue of the ships in Homer hath always appeared to me as somewhat wearisome; what had the poem been, supposing the writer had chronicled the names of captains, lieutenants, rank and file? One of the greatest of a great man's qualities is success; 'tis the result of all the others; 'tis a latent power in him which compels the favor of the gods, and subjugates fortune. Of all his gifts I admire that one in the great Marlborough. To be brave? every man is brave. But in being victorious, as he is, I fancy there is something divine. In presence of the occasion, the great soul of the leader shines out, and the god is confessed. Death itself respects him, and passes by him to lay others low. War and carnage flee before him to ravage other parts of the field, as Hector from before the divine Achilles. You say he hath no pity; no more have the gods, who are above it, and superhuman. The fainting battle gathers strength at his aspect; and, wherever he rides, victory charges with him.”

A couple of days after, when Mr. Esmond revisited his poetic friend, he found this thought, struck out in the fervor of conversation, improved and shaped into those famous lines, which are in truth the noblest in the poem of the “Campaign.” As the two gentlemen sat engaged in talk, Mr. Addison solacing himself with his customary pipe, the little maid-servant that waited on his lodging came up, preceding a gentleman in fine laced clothes, that had evidently been figuring at Court or a great man's levee. The courtier coughed a little at the smoke of the pipe, and looked round the room curiously, which was shabby enough, as was the owner in his worn, snuff-colored suit and plain tie-wig.

“How goes on the magnum opus, Mr. Addison?” says the Court gentleman on looking down at the papers that were on the table.

“We were but now over it,” says Addison (the greatest courtier in the land could not have a more splendid politeness, or greater dignity of manner). “Here is the plan,” says he, “on the table: hac ibat Simois, here ran the little river Nebel: hic est Sigeia tellus, here are Tallard's quarters, at the bowl of this pipe, at the attack of which Captain Esmond was present. I have the honor to introduce him to Mr. Boyle; and Mr. Esmond was but now depicting aliquo proelia mixta mero, when you came in.” In truth, the two gentlemen had been so engaged when the visitor arrived, and Addison, in his smiling way, speaking of Mr. Webb, colonel of Esmond's regiment (who commanded a brigade in the action, and greatly distinguished himself there), was lamenting that he could find never a