Tea at Trianon: "Meek Child of Sorrow"

John Wilson Croker on Marie-Antoinette

"We have followed the history of Marie Antoinette with the greatest diligence and scrupulosity. We have lived in those times. We have talked with some of her friends and some of her enemies; we have read, certainly not all, but hundreds of the libels written against her; and we have, in short, examined her life with– if we may be allowed to say so of ourselves– something of the accuracy of contemporaries, the diligence of inquirers, and the impartiality of historians, all combined; and we feel it our duty to declare, in as a solemn a manner as literature admits of, our well-matured opinion that every reproach against the morals of the queen was a gross calumny– that she was, as we have said, one of the purest of human beings."

~from History of the Guillotine by John Wilson Croker, 1844

Edmund Burke on Marie-Antoinette

"It is now sixteen or seventeen years since I saw the queen of France, then dauphiness, at Versailles; and surely there never lighted on this orb, which she hardly seemed to touch, a more delightful vision. I saw her just above the horizon, decorating and cheering the elevated sphere she had just begun to move in, glittering like a morning star full of life and splendor and joy. Oh, what a revolution....Little did I dream that I should have lived to see such disasters fall upon her, in a nation of gallant men, in a nation of men of honor and of cavaliers! I thought ten thousand swords must have leaped from their scabbards, to avenge even a look which threatened her with insult. But the age of chivalry is gone; that of sophisters, economists, and calculators has succeeded...."

~Edmund Burke, October 1790

Saturday, November 1, 2014

"Meek Child of Sorrow"

From Reading Treasure:

Sir Herbert Croft (1 November 1751 - 26 April 1816) was an English-born author who was best known for his proposed English dictionary and his popular novel, 'Love and Madness, a Story too true, in a series of letters between Parties whose names could perhaps be mentioned were they less known or less lamented.' Although Croft's proposed dictionary never got off the ground, his novel--which many people thought was a real collection of letters--was fairly successful.

In 1814, Croft composed and published the following 'Consolotary verses' to Madame, the duchesse d'Angouleme, who had been newly restored to France with the rest of her family. The verses were published after May 30th, 1814, the signing of the Treaty of Paris. Croft dedicated these verses to George III, the prince regent of England, as a "small mark of gratitude for the favours conferred ... through a long series of year.' What these favours are, exactly, is unknown.

The complete versions can be read for free on Google Books. I've transcribed a small excerpt below.

Meek child of sorrow, whose still-wearied eyes
Stream over such unusual miseries!
Lov'd, royal Lady, whom, we, all, confess
Virtue has mark'd, ev'n more than wretchedness!
I don't deny the sources of your grief;
But let a stranger try to lend relief.
Stranger! yet Hartwell's bow'rs and allies know
You do not term the British muses so.

'Twas there the muse of Young consol'd your mind;
And made it, if more sad, still more resign'd:
There Thomson prov'd how each kind season fills
The world with charms, that balance life's worst ills:
There Rogers taught your tender soul to see
The pleasures, sadly sweet, of memory;
Which, sometimes, in a visionary trance,
Hurried your rapt thoughts back to your lov'd France.
(Read more.)