Wilmington journal. [volume] (Wilmington, N.C.) 1844-1895, 1858-11-05
PLAYS and the Puritans.

The following is taken from one of the spirited essays
Of the Rev. CHARLES KINGSLEY. The Philadelphia
Bulletin abiding to the paper from which the extract
is made observes: Certainly the Puritans were right
in condemning stage icentious beyond parallel, ana
certainly Mr.. Kingsley is profound and true as wen aS
poouent when he thus defends the Purltans.
THE POETRY OF THE PURITANs-Was there no
noery in the Purans because they wrote no poetry
We do not now the unwritten Tragedy OF the pat
tepsam and the charge but simply idyilc poetry and
nuet home dreams love poetry OF the heart and the
hearth and the beauties of everyday human life Take
the most commonplace of them. Was Zeal-fOr Truth
Tborpshv, of Thoresby Rise in Deeping Fen, because
his father had thought fit to give him an ugly and silly
being six feet high? Were his shoulders the less broad
for t. his cheek the less ruddy for it? He wore his
6axen hair the length that every one now wears
theirs instead of letting it hang half way to his waist IN
essence and curs but was he the less true Viking
SON. boldhearted his searoving ancestors, who won
the Danelagh by Canute's sde and settled there on
TbOresby Rise grow wheat and breed horses genera
ton succeeding generation in the old moated grange
He carried Bible in his ackboOts; but did that pre-
vent him. as Oliver rode past him with anapprOvng smile
on Naseby field thinking himself very handsome fel
low with his moustache and imperial, and bright red
coat and curass well polished in spite Of many dint
he safe his fathers great black horse gracefully and
firmly any longooked and essenced cavalier in front
of him. did it prevent him thinking too for moment
with throb of the heart that sweet cousin Patience,
far far away at home could she but him. might have
the same opinion of him he had OF himself? Was he
the worse for the thought? He certainly not the
worse for checking it the next instant with manly shame
for letting such carnal vanites rise in his heart while
he was doing the Lords work in the teeth of death
and hell but was there poetry in him five minutes af
ter as the long raper swung round his head redder and
redder at every sweep? We befooed by names Call
him Crusader instead Of ROundhead and he seems at
once (grantng him On y sincerity, which he had, and
that of right awful kind complete knight Grant
as watched and prayed putting his spurs in
fantastic Gothic chapel beneath STORED windows richly
Digit Was there no poetry in either half an hour at
forwards he lay bleeding across the corpse of his gal
liant horse waiting for his turn with the surgeon and
tumble for his Bible In his boot and he tried to tune
pasm and thought of cousin Patience and his mother
and they would hear at least that he had played the man
Israel that day. and resisted unto Blood striving against
sin and the man of sin?
And was there no poetry in him, too, as he came
Wearled along IhOresbydyke, the quiet autumn eve,
home to the house Of his toreathers and saw aar off
the knot of tall poplarS rising off the broad misty fiat
and the great ADELE tossing its sheets of silver in the
dying gusts and knew that they stood before his fathers
door? Who tell all the pretty child memories which
fitted across his brain at that sight and made him for
get that he a wounded cripple?
Fair Patience, too though she was Puritan, yet
did not her cheeks fush her eye grow dim, like any
other girls, she aar the red coat like sliding
spark OF fire. coming slowly along the straight fen bank
and fled up stairs into her chamber to pray, half that it
might be, half that it mig ht not be he? Was there
happy storm of human tears and human laughter when
he entered the courtyard gate? Did not the old dog
lick his Puritan hand as lovingly if it had been
Cavaliers? Did not lads and lasses out shouting
Did not the old yeoman father hug him. weep him.
hold him at arms length, and hug him again, as heartily
any other John Bull, though the next moment
he called all to kneel down and thank Him who had
sent his boy home again. after bestOWing him the
grace to bind kings in chains and mobiles with links Of
rOn and contend to death for the faith delivered to the
saints?
And did not ZeaIor- Truth look about as wistfully
for Patience as any other would have DONE longing
to see her. yet not daring to ask for her? And when
she came down at last was she less lovely in his eyes be-
cause she came not Haunting with bare BOSOM in taw
dry nery and paint but shrouded close in Golf and pin
ner hiding from all the world beauty which there
STILL but meant for alone and that only if God
wiled in Gods good time? And was there no fatering
of their voices light in their eyes, trembling pres
Of their hands, which said more and was more, ay
and more beautiful in the sight of Him who made them,
than all Herrick's Deanemes, Walters Sacharrissas,
ames darts, pOses, love knots anagrams and the rest
of the inSincere cant of the court? What if Zeaor
Truth had strung two rhymes together in his life
when it whispered to ITSELF My love- my dove, my
deied is but one than if he had filled pages with SON.
nets about Venuses and Cupds ovesck shepherds and
aerial nymphs ??
Health of New Orleans.
NEW ORLEANS, November 2.-On Monday LIST inst.
there ~ deaths from yellow fever There frost
On Monday morning in the suburbs of New Orleans.