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Read Ebook: Ajas: Szomorujáték by Sophocles BCE BCE Csiky Gergely Translator
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MRS. BARBAULD 1 MARIA EDGEWORTH 51 MRS. OPIE 149 JANE AUSTEN 197
A BOOK OF SIBYLS.
'The first poetess I can recollect is Mrs. Barbauld, with whose works I became acquainted--before those of any other author, male or female--when I was learning to spell words of one syllable in her story-books for children.' So says Hazlitt in his lectures on living poets. He goes on to call her a very pretty poetess, strewing flowers of poesy as she goes.
The writer must needs, from the same point of view as Hazlitt, look upon Mrs. Barbauld with a special interest, having also first learnt to read out of her little yellow books, of which the syllables rise up one by one again with a remembrance of the hand patiently pointing to each in turn; all this recalled and revived after a lifetime by the sight of a rusty iron gateway, behind which Mrs. Barbauld once lived, of some old letters closely covered with a wavery writing, of a wide prospect that she once delighted to look upon. Mrs. Barbauld, who loved to share her pleasures, used to bring her friends to see the great view from the Hampstead hill-top, and thus records their impressions:--
'I dragged Mrs. A. up as I did you, my dear, to our Prospect Walk, from whence we have so extensive a view.
'Yes,' said she, 'it is a very fine view indeed for a flat country.'
'While, on the other hand, Mrs. B. gave us such a dismal account of the precipices, mountains, and deserts she encountered, that you would have thought she had been on the wildest part of the Alps.'
The old Hampstead highroad, starting from the plain, winds its way resolutely up the steep, and brings you past red-brick houses and walled-in gardens to this noble outlook; to the heath, with its fresh, inspiriting breezes, its lovely distances of far-off waters and gorsy hollows. At whatever season, at whatever hour you come, you are pretty sure to find one or two votaries--poets like Mrs. Barbauld, or commonplace people such as her friends--watching before this great altar of nature; whether by early morning rays, or in the blazing sunset, or when the evening veils and mists with stars come falling, while the lights of London shine far away in the valley. Years after Mrs. Barbauld wrote, one man, pre-eminent amongst poets, used to stand upon this hill-top, and lo! as Turner gazed, a whole generation gazed with him. For him Italy gleamed from behind the crimson stems of the fir-trees; the spirit of loveliest mythology floated upon the clouds, upon the many changing tints of the plains; and, as the painter watched the lights upon the distant hills, they sank into his soul, and he painted them down for us, and poured his dreams into our awakening hearts.
He was one of that race of giants, mighty men of humble heart, who have looked from Hampstead and Highgate Hills. Here Wordsworth trod; here sang Keats's nightingale; here mused Coleridge; and here came Carlyle, only yesterday, tramping wearily, in search of some sign of his old companions. Here, too, stood kind Walter Scott, under the elms of the Judges' Walk, and perhaps Joanna Baillie was by his side, coming out from her pretty old house beyond the trees. Besides all these, were a whole company of lesser stars following and surrounding the brighter planets--muses, memoirs, critics, poets, nymphs, authoresses--coming to drink tea and to admire the pleasant suburban beauties of this modern Parnassus. A record of many of their names is still to be found, appropriately enough, in the catalogue of the little Hampstead library which still exists, which was founded at a time when the very hands that wrote the books may have placed the old volumes upon the shelves. Present readers can study them at their leisure, to the clanking of the horses' feet in the courtyard outside, and the splashing of buckets. A few newspapers lie on the table--stray sheets of to-day that have fluttered up the hill, bringing news of this bustling now into a past serenity. The librarian sits stitching quietly in a window. An old lady comes in to read the news; but she has forgotten her spectacles, and soon goes away. Here, instead of asking for 'Vice Vers?,' or Ouida's last novel, you instinctively mention 'Plays of the Passions,' Miss Burney's 'Evelina,' or some such novels; and Mrs. Barbauld's works are also in their place. When I asked for them, two pretty old Quaker volumes were put into my hands, with shabby grey bindings, with fine paper and broad margins, such as Mr. Ruskin would approve. Of all the inhabitants of this bookshelf Mrs. Barbauld is one of the most appropriate. It is but a few minutes' walk from the library in Heath Street to the old corner house in Church Row where she lived for a time, near a hundred years ago, and all round about are the scenes of much of her life, of her friendships and interests. Here lived her friends and neighbours; here to Church Row came her pupils and admirers, and, later still, to the pretty old house on Rosslyn Hill. As for Church Row, as most people know, it is an avenue of Dutch red-faced houses, leading demurely to the old church tower, that stands guarding its graves in the flowery churchyard. As we came up the quiet place, the sweet windy drone of the organ swelled across the blossoms of the spring, which were lighting up every shabby corner and hillside garden. Through this pleasant confusion of past and present, of spring-time scattering blossoms upon the graves, of old ivy walks and iron bars imprisoning past memories, with fragrant fumes of lilac and of elder, one could picture to oneself, as in a waking dream, two figures advancing from the corner house with the ivy walls--distinct, sedate--passing under the old doorway. I could almost see the lady, carefully dressed in many fine muslin folds and frills with hooped silk skirts, indeed, but slight and graceful in her quick advance, with blue eyes, with delicate sharp features, and a dazzling skin. As for the gentleman, I pictured him a dapper figure, with dark eyes, dressed in black, as befitted a minister even of dissenting views. The lady came forward, looking amused by my scrutiny, somewhat shy I thought--was she going to speak? And by the same token it seemed to me the gentleman was about to interrupt her. But Margaret, my young companion, laughed and opened an umbrella, or a cock crew, or some door banged, and the fleeting visions of fancy disappeared.
'I think you are mistaken, papa,' says a little voice from the opposite side of the table.
'Why so, my child?' says the Doctor.
'Because in the chapter I read to you this morning, in the Testament, it is said that "there is more joy in heaven over one sinner that repenteth than over ninety and nine just persons that need no repentance."'
Besides her English Testament and her early reading, th
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