Blackwood's Magazine/Volume 1/Issue 2/Shakespeare Club of Alloa

SHAKESPEARE CLUB OF ALLOA.

MR EDITOR,

Your readers must have remarked in the newspapers, for some years bygone, accounts of an yearly festival in memory of Shakespeare, held at a place called Alloa, situated, I believe, somewhere on the banks of the Forth; a town which I think I have once or twice heard mentioned, though on what account I do not at present recollect, if it was not in consequence of this very club, or a famous steam boat, on a new plan, that was there constructed.

Curious to learn how the anniversary of Shakespeare first came to be celebrated in such a remote corner of our country, I have made every inquiry I could anent it, in order to lay the account before your readers; but to very little purpose. I have been told that this poetic union had its origin about sixteen years ago, and was first set on foot in opposition to a Musical Club—(it must be an extraordinary place this Alloa)—which was established there at the same time. The latter, however, like its own enchanting strains, died away, and has left no trace behind; but the poetical brotherhood continued stedfast, flourished, gained ground, and promises to be permanent. The members have a hall, a library, and a store of wines, spirits, &c. To this store or cellar every one of them has a key, and is at liberty to treat his friends from it to any extent he pleases without check or control. There is something extremely liberal and unreserved in this, and were we members of this club, we would certainly prefer this privilege to any literary one that can possibly be attached to it.

The festival this year, I am told, lasted eight days complete; and my informer assures me, that (saving on the 23d, the anniversary of their patron's birth) during all that time every man of them went sober to his bed. I believe the gentlemen thought so, which was much the same as if it had really been the case. Their principal amusements are songs, recitations, literary toasts, and eulogiums; and the meeting, it appears, was greatly enlivened this year by the attendance of a Mr Stevenson, a young professional singer, whose powers of voice promise the highest excellence yet attained in Scottish song. I have likewise been so far fortunate as to procure the sole copy of a poetical address delivered by the President, on his health being drank, which gives a better definition of the club than any thing I could possibly have obtained. It would surely be a great treat to your readers, could you procure some of their eulughtms literally as delivered, that we might see what kind of ideas the people of that outlandish place entertain about poets and poetry in general. The following appears to be somewhat in the style of the Poet Laureate.

Brethren, know you the import of this meeting?
This festival, in which from year to year
We feel a deeper interest?—List to me.
I have a word to say—one kindly meant
As a remembrancer of days gone by,
And bond of future time—Here have we met
These many fleeting years; each in his place;
Have seen the self same friendly faces greet us
With kindred joy, and that gray bust of him,
Our patron bard, with flowers and laurels crowned.
There is a charm in this—a something blent
With the best genial feelings of the heart;
Each one will own it. Turn we to the past:
Survey th' events and changes that have been
In lands and nations round us, since we first
Joined in poetic unity. That view
Is fraught with tints so grand, so wonderful,
That Time's old annals, though engraved with steel,
And cast in blood, no parallel unfold—
In these we had our share—we took a part
With arm, but more with heart. With sullen eye
We saw the vessels waning from our port;
Our native Forth, that wont to be a scene
Of speckled beauty with the shifting sail,
The veering pennon, and the creaking barge,
Deep-loaded to the wale, with fraughtage rich,
Heaved on in glassy silence,—tide on tide,
And wave on wave lashed idly on our strand.
Sore altered were the times!—We bore it all,
Determined, by our country and our King
To stand, whate'er the issue.—When the scene
Look'd more than usual dark—when empires fell
Prostrate as by enchantment—and the threat
Of stern invasion sounded in our ears,
We looked up to the Ochils—and our minds
Dwelt on the impervious Grampian glens beyond,
As on a last retreat—for we had sworn
That Bancho's old unalienable line
Should there find shelter—'mid a land and race
By man ne'er conquered, should a sore extreme
Urge the expedient.—In this hall the while
Constant we met—weekly and yearly met,
And in the pages of our Bard revered,
Our canonized Shakespeare, learned to scan
And estimate the sanguine springs that moved
The world's commotion.—There we saw defined
The workings of ambition—the deceit
Of courts and conclaves—traced the latent source
Of human crimes and human miseries:
His is the Book of Nature!—Now the days
Of tumult are o'erpast.—Our crested helms
In heaps lie piled—our broad Hungarian blades,
Which erst with martial sound on stirrup rung,
Cumbering the thigh, or gleaming in the air
Like bending meteors—like a canopy
Of trembling silver:—all are laid aside!
Piled in the armoury, rusting in the sheath!
There let them lie.—O! may the gloomy fiend
Of home commotion never force the hands
Of Brethren to resume them! Times indeed
Are changed with us!—The sailor's song is hushed,
Pale discontent sits on the Labourer's brow;
Blest be the Ruler's heart who condescends
Some slight indulgence at this trying hour,
Nor like the Prince of Israel, who despised
The old men's counsel, threats a heavier yoke.
Changes must happen—but in silence still
We wait the issue, with a firm resolve
To cherish order. In our manual there—
Our bond of union broadly is defined
The mob's enormities; for reason, faith,
Nor prudence govern there.—All this, when viewed
With retrospective glance, gives to this day,
And to this social bond, no common share
Of interest and regard. Nay, more, my friends,
Ourselves are changed in feature and in frame
Since first we met.—Then light of heart we were,
Ardent and full of hope, and wedded all
To the aspirings of the heaven-born muse.
But years have altered us!—Sedateness now
Is settled on each brow.—Friends have departed,
And families sprung around us.—Thus our joys,
Our loves, and feelings, like ourselves, are changed,
Softened to sadness—mellowed to a calm

Which youth and passion ruffle may no more!
How different all our views, our hopes, and fears,
From those we knew on that auspicious day
We took the name we bear—the greatest name
The world e'er listed.—Kingdoms may decay,
And Empires totter, change succeed to change,
But here no change presents—uncoped with still
Stands our immortal Shakespeare—he whose birth
This day we celebrate.—O! be this day
For ever sacred to his memory—
And long may we, my Brethren, though divided
To the four winds of heaven, meet again,
Happy and free, on this returning day.
And when the spare and silvery locks of age
Wave o'er the wrinkled brow and faded eye,
Memento of a change that is to be;
May we survey this day and all behind
Without regret, and to the future look
With calm composure and unshaken hope.
No 5, Devon Street, May 1817.