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August, 1851, by Various
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Title: The International Monthly, Volume 4, No. 1, August, 1851
Author: Various
Release Date: May 16, 2011 [EBook #36124]
Language: English
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THE INTERNATIONAL MONTHLY MAGAZINE
Of Literature, Science, and Art.
VOLUME IV
AUGUST TO DECEMBER, 1851.
NEW-YORK:
STRINGER & TOWNSEND, 222 BROADWAY.
FOR SALE BY ALL BOOKSELLERS.
BY THE NUMBER, 25 CTS.; THE VOLUME, $1; THE YEAR, $3.
Transcriber's note: Contents for entire volume 4 in this text. However
this text contains only issue Vol. 4, No. 1. Minor typos have been
corrected and footnotes moved to the end of the article.
PREFACE TO THE FOURTH VOLUME.
The conclusion of the Fourth Volume of a periodical may be accepted as
a sign of its permanent establishment. The proprietors of the
INTERNATIONAL MAGAZINE have the satisfaction of believing that, while
there has been a steady increase of sales, ever since the publication
of the first number of this work, there has likewise been as regular
an augmentation of its interest, value, and adaptation to the wants of
the reading portion of our community. While essentially an Eclectic,
relying very much for success on a reproduction of judiciously
selected and fairly acknowledged Foreign Literature, it has contained
from month to month such an amount of New Articles as justified its
claim to consideration as an Original Miscellany. And in choosing from
European publications, articles to reprint or to translate for these
pages, care has been taken not only to avoid that vein of
licentiousness in morals, and skepticism in religion, which in so
lamentable a degree characterize a large portion of the popular
literature of this age, but also to extract from foreign periodicals
that American element with which the rising importance of our country
has caused so many of them to be infused; so that, notwithstanding the
fact that more than half the contents of the INTERNATIONAL are from
the minds of Europeans, the Magazine is essentially more _American_
than any other now published.
For the future, the publishers have made arrangements that will insure
very decided and desirable improvements, which will be more fully
disclosed in the first number of the ensuing volume; eminent original
writers will be added to our list of contributors; from Germany,
France, and Great Britain, we have increased our literary resources;
and more attention will be given to the pictorial illustration of such
subjects as may be advantageously treated in engravings. Among those
authors whose contributions have appeared in the INTERNATIONAL
hitherto, we may mention:
MISS FENIMORE COOPER,
MISS ALICE CAREY,
MRS. E. OAKES SMITH,
MRS. M. E. HEWITT,
MRS. ALICE B. NEAL,
BISHOP SPENCER,
HENRY AUSTIN LAYARD,
PARKE GODWIN,
JOHN R. THOMPSON,
W. C. RICHARDS,
W. GILMORE SIMMS,
BAYARD TAYLOR,
ROBERT HENRY STODDARD,
ALFRED B. STREET,
THOMAS EWBANK,
E. W. ELLSWORTH,
G. P. R. JAMES,
DR. JOHN W. FRANCIS,
MAUNSELL B. FIELD,
DR. STARBUCK MAYO,
JOHN E. WARREN,
A. OAKEY HALL,
HORACE GREELEY,
RICHARD B. KIMBALL,
THE AUTHOR OF "NILE NOTES,"
THE AUTHOR OF "HARRY FRANCO."
REV. J. C. RICHMOND,
REV. H. W. PARKER,
JAMES T. FIELDS,
R. S. CHILTON.
The foreign writers, from whom we have selected, need not be
enumerated; they embrace the principal living masters of literary art;
and we shall continue to avail ourselves of their new productions as
largely as justice to them and the advantage and pleasure of our
readers may seem to justify.
NEW-YORK, December 1, 1851.
CONTENTS:
VOLUME IV. AUGUST TO DECEMBER, 1851.
Alred.--_By Elmina W. Carey_, 27
Alexander, Last days of the Emperor.--_A. Dumas_, 233
America, as Abused by a German, 448
American Intercommunication, 461
American Literature, Studies of.--_Philarete Chasles_, 163
American and European Scenery Compared.--_By the late J. F. Cooper_, 625
Anacreon. Twentieth Ode of.--_By Mary E. Hewitt_, 20
Animal Magnetism. Christopher North on, 27
Ariadne.--_By William C. Bennett_, 315
Autumn Ballad, An.--_By W. A. Sutliffe_, 598
August Reverie.--_By A. Oakey Hall_, 477
Art Expression. 401
Arts among the Aztecs and Indians.--_By Thomas Ewbank._ (Ten
Engravings.) 307
_Arts, the Fine._--Monuments to Public Men in Europe and America,
130.--Mosaics for the Emperor of Russia, 130.--Tenarani, the Italian
Sculptor, 131.--Group by Herr Kiss, 131.--English and American
Portrait Painters, 131--Mr. Pyne's English Landscapes, 131.--Paintings
by British Officers in Canada, 131.--Ovation to Rauch at Berlin,
131.--Healy's Picture of Webster's Reply to Hayne,
131.--Newly-discovered Raphael, 131.--Daguerreotypes, 131.--Letter
from Hiram Powers, 279.--Monument to Wordsworth, 279.--Monument to
Weber, 279.--Works of Cornelius, 279.--Greenonga's Group for the
Capital, 279.--The Twelve Virgins of Raphael, 279.--Tributes by Greece
to her Benefactors, 279.--Paul Delaroche, 417.--Winterhalter,
417.--New Scriptures in the Crystal Palace, 417.--London Art-Union,
417.--American Art-Union. 417.--Powers's Eve, 417.--Leutze, 417.--The
London Art-Journal on the Engravings of the American Art-Union.
561.--The Philadelphia Art-Union, 561.--The Western Art-Union,
562.--Mr. Healy's Picture of Webster's Reply to Hayne, 562.--Mr.
Lentze's Washington Crossing the Delaware, 562--Illustrations of
Martin Luther, 562.--Lentze's Washington. 743.--Colossal Statue of
Washington at Munich, 703.--Kaulbach's Frescoes, 703.--Cadame's
Compositions of the Seasons, 703.--Portraits of Bishop White and
Daniel Webster, 703.
_Authors and Books._--The Story of Talns, and the Sardonic Laughter,
by Merehlen, 122.--A German Treatise on Free Trade, 122.--Curious
Medical Works in Germany, 122.--Weiseler on the Theatre,
122.--Woodcuts of celebrated Masters, 123.--Recent German Poetry,
123.--Venedy's Schleswig-Holstein in 1850, 123.--Souvenirs of Early
Germans, 123.--Gutzkow, Reimer, and Gubitz. 123.--Mundi's Macchiavelli
and the Course of European Policy, 123.--New German Novels,
124.--Baner's Documents respecting the Monastery of Arnsburg,
121.--Mss. of Peter Schlemil, 124.--Professor O. L. B. Wohl's Poetic
and Prosaic Home Treasury, 124.--German opinion of Miss Weber,
124.--Professor Zahn at Pompeii, 124.--Barthohl's History of German
Cities, 124.--Cornell on Feurebach, 125.--New Book of the Planets by
Ernst, 125.--Waldmeister's Bridal Tour, 125.--German version of George
Copyway's Book, 125.--German Survey of American Institutions,
125.--Russian Literature, 125.--Jewish Professors in Austria,
125.--Dumas's new Works, 125.--Madame Reybaud, 125.--New Volume of
Thier's History of the Empire, 125.--Mignet's Life of Mary Queen of
Scots, 126.--Cormenin on the Revision of the Constitution,
126.--Literary Episodes in the East, by Marcellus, 126.--Victor Hugo.
126.--Madame Bocarme, 126.--Signatures to Articles in the French
Journals, 126.--Arago's loss of sight, 126.--George Sand to Dumas,
127.--Vacherot on the Philosophical School of Alexandria, 127.--Mss.
of Rousseau, 127.--Unpublished works of Balzac, 127.--M. Nisard,
127.--M. Gautier, 127.--Guizot's History of Representative Government,
127.--Mademoiselle de Belle Isle, 127.--Rev. T. W. Shelton, in
Sharpe's Magazine, 127.--Rev. Charles Kingsley, author of Alton Locke,
127.--Bowring's Translation of Schiller, 128.--New English Poems,
128.--New Novel by Warren, 128.--Judge Woodbury's Works, 128.--The
North American Review, 128--Life of Judge Story, 123.--Contributions
to the History of the West, by Lyman C. Draper, 129.--The Dublin
University Magazine on Streets Frontenac, 129.--Mrs. Southworth in
England. 129.--Return of Mrs. Mowatt, 129.--Miss Beecher's new Work on
the Writings of Women, 129.--Ludwig Feuerback, 268.--August Kopish on
the Monument to Frederic the Great, 269.--The _Janus_ Review,
269.--Franz Kugler on the Theatre, 269.--Von Muller's History of the
Swiss Confederation, 269.--Memoir of Bretschneider, 269.--Dr. Worth,
269.--Herr Christern's Book Store, 269.--German Periodicals, 270.--The
Hungarian Refugees in Turkey, 270.--The Youth of Thorwaldsen,
270.--Old and New Songs and Fables for Children, 270.--Convention of
Sclavic Scholars, 270.--German Translation of Milton's Areopagitica,
270.--Eccentricities of German Medical Literature, 271.--German Poems,
271.--Shakspeare in Sweden, 271.--Neander's Lectures, 271.--George
Sand and her Husband, 271.--New work by Comte, 271.--Lamartine's New
History, 271.--Michelet's _Legendes de la Democratie_, 272.--Guizot's
History of Representative Government, 272.--Prudhon's Idea of
Revolution, 272.--Miss Martineau and her Master, 272.--Rumored
Discoveries of Greek MSS, 272.--Bunsen on the supposed MS. of Origen,
272.--New English Poems, 272.--Herodotus and the Discoveries of
Nineveh, 273.--Sir James Stephen's History of France, 273.--J. S.
Buckingham, 273.--Mrs. Jamieson, 273.--New Books of Travels, 273.--Dr.
Wilkinson and Henry James, 273.--New Novels, 273.--New Books on the
Apocalypse, 274.--Finchman on Ship Building, 274.--The Grenville
Papers, 274.--Sir W. Parish on Buenos Ayres, 274.--Works of Bishop
Whately, 274.--Macaulay's New Volumes, 274.--Poems of Edith May,
274.--Ware's European Capitals, 274.--New Romance by Thomas H. Shreve,
274.--More about American Reviews, 275.--Poem on Woman, by J. W.
Ward, 275.--Novellettes of Musicians, 275.--Dr. Huntington's Alban,
276.--Simms's Poetical Works, 276.--Dr. Tyng and Bickersteth,
276.--Mr. Putnam's forthcoming Souvenir Books, 276.--Kitto's Biblical
Cyclopedia, 276.--Episodes of Insect Life, 276.--History of Oneida
County, 276.--Mrs. Nichols's Poem's, 276.--New Translations of the
Bible, 277.--Sale of Dr. Jarvis's Library, 277.--Ik Marvell's New
Work, 277.--Mr. Longfellow's New Poem, 277.--Books on the Mechanic
Arts, 278.--Dr. Wainwright's Work on Egypt, 278.--Mr. Jefferson's MSS.
Work on Grammar, 278.--Dr. Williams on the Lord's Prayer, 278.--Works
of John Adams, 278.--Publications of James Munroe, 278.--German
Magazines, 403.--German Poets, 403, 405.--Freilegrath, 403.--New
edition of Brockhaus' Lexicon, 403.--German View of Lamartine,
403.--Prutz in a Novel, 403.--Stahl on Paris, 404.--Kohler on Ancient
Cameos, &c., 404.--Children's Picture Books, 404.--Latin Life of
Zumpt, 404.--New work by Robert Remak, 405.--The German Element in
English Language, 405.--Count Blumberg on the Higher Classes,
405.--Auerbach's German Evenings, 405.--Gailhabaud's Monuments of
Architecture, 405.--A Life Spent in Studying Thrushes, 405.--Gust's
Bibliotheca Biographia Lutherana, 405.--New work on Monarchy,
405.--New German Works on the Middle Ages, 406.--Konig and Gelzer on
Luther, 406.--The Bible and the Almanac, 406.--Austrian Biographical
Dictionary, 406.--New Book by Hans Andersen, 406--Zeise, the Danish
Novelist, 407.--Poems of Tegner, 407.--Bohemian Songs, 407.--Italian
Histories of To-day, 407.--Bible Plays by Wiese, 408.--Colins on
Socialism, 408.--Memoirs by Captain Laconte, 408.--Villemarque's
Breton Poems, 408.--Perrymond _vs._ Thiers, 408.--The French Orators,
408.--Histories of the Reformation in France, 408.--M. Guizot,
409.--Jules Janin, 409.--Montbeillard on Spinoza, 409.--Punishment of
a Socialist Dramatist, 409.--Marriage of "Bon Gaultier," 409.--Visits
to De Quincy and Burns's Sister, 410.--The "Baroness Von Beck,"
410.--Thackeray's New Novel, 410.--Literary Pensions in England,
410.--Tributes to James Montgomery, 410.--New editor of the
Westminster Review, 410.--New Lives of Mary, Queen of Scots,
411.--Publications of Moore & Co., of Cincinnati, 411.--Rivers of the
Bible, 411.--Mexican Documents collected by the Abbé Bourbourg,
412.--Mr. Schoolcraft and the Publishers, 412.--Mr. Simms's New
Tragedy, 412.--Dr. Albro's Life of Shepherd, the Puritan, 412.--New
Edition of Fielding, 413.--Theory of Human Progression, 413.--The Nile
Boat, 413.--Kitto's Bible Illustrations, 413.--Poore's Life of
Napoleon, 413.--Indications of the Creator, by George Taylor,
413.--Parkman's History of Pontiac, 413.--De Quiney's Works,
413.--Mrs. Judson, 413.--Hart's Female Prose Writers of America,
414.--Mrs. Lee's Memoirs of Buckminster, 415.--Rochefoucauld,
415.--Dr. Huntington and his Novels, Letters, and Life, 415.--New
Works in Press by the Harpers, 415.--By Redfield, do., 416.--New Work
by Dr. Boardman, 416.--Carl Immerman's Letters on the Theatre,
551.--Kohl's last book of Travels, 551.--L'Eco d'Italia,
551.--Narcissa Zwichowska, 551.--Baron Baerst on Cooking,
551.--Brinckle's-Butterfly Book, 552.--Stein's History of the Social
Movement in France, 552.--Dr. Schleiden's Work on Animalculæ,
552.--History of Education, by Kranse, 552.--Handbook of Catholic
Pulpit Eloquence, 552.--Popular Songs of Southern Russia,
552.--Hogarth's Works in Germany, 552.--Dr. Andree's Work on America,
553.--Studies of German Lore, 553.--Hase's New Prophets,
553.--Wanderings in Slavonia, 553.--A reply to the Countess
Hahn-Hahn's last book, 554.--A Review of Lamartine's Parasite History,
554.--Humboldt's Kosmos, 554.--History of Polish Literature,
554.--Russian Archaeology, 554.--Siegfried Weiss on German Trade
Policy, 554.--Periodicals in Asia, 554.--German Translation of
Hawthorne, 554.--The German Universities, 555.--New German Poems,
555.--Literary Statistics of Poland, 555.--Work on Russia by
Tegoborski, 555.--Ritter's History of Philosophy, 555.--De Flotte on
the Sovereignty of the People, 555.--Nineveh, 555.--New Series of
Eugene Sue's Mysteries of the People, 556.--Second Part of Michelet's
History of the French Revolution, 556.--Julian's History of Porcelain
Manufacture, 556.--Felix de Verneihl on the Cologne Cathedral,
556.--Andre Cochat on French Workingmen's Associations, 556.--New
edition of George Sand's Works, 556.--Letter from Alexander Dumas,
556.--Alfred de Musset, 557.--Translations of Comte's Philosophy,
557.--Jules Janin's new Romance, 557.--Ferdinand Hiller, 557.--James
T. Fields, 557.--New Histories of the Mexican War, 557.--Horace Mann
on the Sphere of Woman, 557.--General Morris not guilty of Plagiarism,
558.--Torrey's Translation of Neander, 558.--Translations of Dante,
559.--Alice Carey's Recollections of Our Neighborhood in the West,
559.--Modern Miracles, by Henry Ingalls, 559.--New Novel by Mr. James
and Mr. Field, 559.--History of the German Reformed Church,
559.--Professor Hackett's Commentary on the Acts, 559.--The Whale, by
Herman Melville, 559.--Mr. Herbert's work on Ancient Battles, &c.,
560.--Glances at Europe, by H. Greeley, 560.--Hungary and Kossuth,
560.--Richard B. Kimball, 560.--Mr. Judd's Margaret, 560.--Pendant to
Professor Creasy's _Decisive Battles of the World_,
693.--Correspondence respecting the Thirty Years' War, 693.--German
collection of English Songs, 693.--German Philologists, 693.--Weil's
History of the Califs, 693.--The Germans in Bohemia, 693.--Andree's
Work on America, 694.--Works on Spinoza, 694.--New Goethean
Literature, 694.--The British Empire in Europe, by Meidinger,
694.--The Play of the Resurrection, 694.--German History of French
Literature, 694.--New work on German Knighthood, &c., 694.--German
Romanee in the 18th Century, 695.--Madame Blaze de Bury's New Novel,
695.--Richter's History of the Evangelical German Churches,
695.--German Life of Sir Robert Peel, 695.--Zimmermann on the English
Revolution, 695.--History of Norway, 695.--Reguly, the Hungarian
Traveller, 695.--Political Notabililities of Hungary, 695.--Speeches,
&c., by King William of Prussia, 695.--Pictures from the North,
695.--History of the Swiss Confederation, 695.--Bem's System of
Chronology, by Miss Peabody, 695.--French Almanacs, 695.--M.
Croce-Spinelli's Work on Popular Government, 696.--Works by the Paris
Asiatic Society, 696.--Cæsar Daly on Parisian Architecture,
696.--Fignier's Modern Discoveries, 696.--The _Annuaire des Deux
Mondes_, 696.--Calvin's Inedited Letters, 697.--Lacretelle,
697.--Critical Studies of Socialism, 697.--Memoirs of Mademoiselle
Mars, 697.--The Institute of France, 697.--Grille on the War in La
Vendee, 697.--History of the Bourgeoisie of Paris, 697.--_Archives des
Missions Scientifiques_, &c., 697.--Travels in Africa, 698.--Spirit of
New Roman Catholic Literature, 698.--Garcin de Tassy on Mr.
Salisbury's Unpublished Arabic Documents, 699.--New Travels in
Palestine, 698.--The Abaddie Travellers, 699.--French, English, and
American Missionaries, as Scholars, 699.--The Westminster Review,
699.--A Grandson of Robert Burns, 699.--Friends in Council, &c., by
Mr. Helps, 699.--New English Announcements, 700.--New Dissenters'
College, 700.--Sir Charles Lyell and the "Free Thinkers," 700.--Prof.
Wilson, 700.--Miss Kirkland's Evening Book, 700.--Works by Mrs. Lee,
701.--Mr. Boyd's edition of Young's Night Thoughts, 702.--"Injustice
to the South," 702.--Splendid American Gift Books for 1852, 703.--New
American Works in Press, 703, &c. British Humorists.--_By W. M.
Thackeray_, 24
Boker, George II.--_By Bayard Taylor_. (Portrait.) 156
Bohemian Glass. (Six Engravings.) 291
Ballad of Sir John Franklin.--_By George H. Boker_, 473
Bryant, and his Works, William Cullen. (Portrait.) 588
Bull Fight at Ronda, 681
Calvin Colton, Rev., and his Works. (Portrait.) 1
Castle of Belvor: An Incident in the Life of Arago, 41
Count Monte-Leone. (Concluded), 42, 202, 327, 500
China, Our Phantom Ship, 67
Chest of Drawers.--_By an Attorney_, 73
Cicada, The.--_By H. J. Crate_, 164
Charlemagne, Times of.--_By Sir Francis Palgrave_, 169
Calhoun, Private Life of John C.--_By Miss M. Bates_, 173
Copenhagen, 238
Cooper, J. F., Portrait and View of his Residence, _Frontispiece_.
Cooke, Sketch of Philip Pendleton. (Portrait.) 300
Chamois Hunting, 344
Cleopatra's Needle, 367
Cheap Postage System, 370
Country Gentleman at Home.--_By C. A. Bristed_, 389
Cooper, Reminiscences of J. Fenimore.--_By Dr. Francis_, 458
Cooper, Public Honors to the Memory of Mr., 456
Chimes, The.--_By E. W. Ellsworth_, 487
Carlyle's Life of John Sterling, 599
Calcutta: Social, Industrial, Political, 611
Captain and the Negro, The, 646
Crebillon, the French Æschylus, 520
Dramatic Fragments.--_By R. H. Stoddard_, 17
Decorative Arts in America, 171
Deserted Mansion, 227
Dirge for an Infant--_By R. S. Chilton_, 487
Death in Youth.--_By H. W. Parker_, 598
Dutch Governors of Niew Amsterdam.--_By J. R. Brodhead_, 597
Drinking Experiences: A Temperance Lecture by "Nimrod," 621
_Deaths, Recent._--General Arbuckle, 139.--Mrs. Thomas Sheridan,
139.--Bishop Carlson, 139.--Sir J. E. Dalzell, 139.--Chevalier Parisot
de Guyrmont, 139.--General James Miller, 140.--General Uminski,
140.--Viscount Melville, 140.--Mr. Dyce Sombre, 140.--Bishop Medrano,
140.--The Earl of Shaftesbury, 141.--Mr. Thomas Wright Hill,
142.--Melchior Boisserée, 142.--Christian Tieck, the Sculptor,
142.--Rev. Stephen Olin, D.D., 282.--Baron de Leideni, 282.--Edward
Quillinan, 282.--Harriet Lee, 282.--Dr. Julius, 282.--Rev. Azariah
Smith, 282.--General Henry A. S. Dearborn, 283.--D. M. Mon, 228,
283.--General Sir Roger Sheafe, 283.--M. Daguerre, (Portrait),
283.--Rev. Dr. Lingard, (Portrait), 285.--Marshal Sebastian, 287.--J.
Fenimore Cooper, 428.--Rev. T. H. Gallaudet, 428.--Judge Beverly
Tucker, 428.--Levi Woodbury, 429.--General McClure, 429.--Lorenz
Ocken, 429.--Count Killmansegge, 430.--H. E. G. Paulus, 430.--Joseph
Rusiecki, 430.--John Gottfried Gruber, 430.--The Earl of Clare,
431.--Sir Henry Jardine, 431.--Mrs. Sherwood, 572.--Rev. James H.
Hotchkiss, 572.--General Henry Whitney, 572.--Commodore Warrington,
572.--Professor Kidd, 573.--The Earl of Donoughmore, 573.--William
Nicol, 574.--Mr. Freeman, the Missionary, 574.--James Richardson,
574.--William Willshire, 574.--J. R. Dubois, 575.--Gustav Carlin,
575.--Archibald Alexander, D. D., 705.--J. Kearney Rogers, M.D.,
705.--Rev. Wm. Croswell, D.D., 706.--Granville Sharpe Pattison, M.D.,
706.--Mr. Stephens, author of _The Manuscripts of Erdeley_, 706.--Mr.
Gutzlaff, the Missionary, 707.--Don Manuel Godoy, the Prince of the
Peace, 708.--George Baker, 708.--M. de Savigny, 708.--Archbishop
Wingard, 708.--Samuel Beaseley, author of _The Roué_, 708.--H. P.
Borrell, 708.--James Tyler, R. D., 708.--Emma Martin, 709.--Yar
Mohammed, 709.--Alexander Lee, 710.--Prince Frederick of Prussia, 710.
Exile's Sunset Song.--_By John R. Thompson_, 26
Egypt, The last Joseph in, 185
English in America.--_By the author of "Sam Slick,"_ 186
Egypt under Abbas Pasha,--_By Bayle St. John_, 259
Earthquake in Europe, The Last, 467
Fleischmann, Herr, on Life in America, 158
Fallen Genius.--_By Miss Alice Carey_, 288
Flying Artist, 398
Franklin, Inedited Letter of Dr., 472
Fragments from a New Volume of Poems.--_By Thomas L. Beddoes_, 550
French Flower Girl, The, 641
Fragments of a Poem.--_By H. W. Parker_, 189
Great Fair at Rochester. (Fifteen Engravings.) 438
Gold-Quartz and Society in California, 472
Greenwood.--_By Maunsell B. Field_, 476
Ghost Story of Normandy, 512
Gerard, and the Baron Munchausen, in Africa, M. Jules, 587
German Handbook of America, 598
Gondolettas: Two Songs.--_By Alice B. Neal_, 597
Hahn-Hahn, The Countess Ida, 17
History of a Rose, 117
Huntington, Dr., on Copyright, 308
Heroines of History: Laura.--_By Mary E. Hewitt_, 480
Habits of Frederick the Great, 528
Herman Melville's New Novel of "The Whale," 602
_Historical Review of the Month._--The United States: Elections, &c.,
567.--Foreign Relations, 567.--Mexico, 568.--South American States,
568.--Great Britain, 568.--France, Italy, Russia, &c., 569.--The East,
&c., 569.--The American Elections, 704.--Kossuth in England,
704.--Europe, and the East, 704.
Imaginary Conversations at Warsaw.--_By Walter Savage Landor_, 98
In the Harem.--_By R. H. Stoddard_, 164
Illustrations of Motives, 280
International Copyright, 386
Jules Janin and the Paris Feuilletonistes, 18
Jungle Recollection.--_By Captain Hardbargain_, 110
Jews in China, 264
Jefferson, Mr., on the Study of the Anglo-Saxon Language, 468
Landscapes, Swedish.--_By Hans Christian Andersen_, 20
London, Paris, and New-York, 100
Ladies' Fashions. (Illustrated.) 142, 288, 431, 575, 710
Latham, on the People of the Mosketo Kingdom, 471
My Novel: or, Varieties in English Life.--_By Sir E. Bulwer
Lytton_, 80, 243, 371, 534, 688
Moir, David Macbeth.--_By George Gilfillan_, 233
Music.--_By H. W. Parker_, 327
Meeting of the Vegetarians, 402
Newspaper Poets: Charles Weldon, 201
Nauvoo and Deseret: The Mormons. (Six Engravings.) 577
_Noctes Amicitiæ._--English Opinions of the "American Department" in
the Crystal Palace, 563.--Ridiculous Convention of Women, at
Worcester, 563.--Bloomerism in London, 563.--Defenders of the Catholic
Practices, 563.--Anecdote of Tom Cook, 563.--Capital Anecdote of
Charles XII, 564.--A Superfluous Amount of Name, 564.--G. P. R. James
in the Law Courts, 564.--Nursery Rhymes, 564.--The London Printers,
564.--The Japanese and French Civilization, 565.--Extraordinary
Suicides in Paris, 565, &c.
October.--_By Alice Carey_, 371
Obelisks of Egypt, 469
Old Man's Death, The.--_By Alice Carey_, 529
Ottoman History, The Three Eras of, 643
Parodies, A Chapter of, 23
Passages in the Life of a Dutch Poet, 65
Phantasy, A.--_By R. H. Stoddard_, 169
Paris, Reminiscences of, from 1817 to 1851, 182
Poulailler, the Robber, 216
Questions from a worn-out Lorgnette.--_By O. A. Hall_, 187
Reminiscence, A.--_By Alice Carey_, 360
Remarkable Prophecy, 474
Revolutions in Russia.--_By Alexander Dumas_, 616
Story Without A Name.--_By G. P. R. James, Esq._,
(Concluded), 28, 189, 316, 487, 604
Stuart of Dunleath, 119
Sailors, Institutions for, in New-York. (Six Engravings.) 145
Scenes in the Old Dominion (Six Engravings.) 151
Styles of Philosophies.--_By Rev. J. R. Morell_, 180
Shadow of Lucy Hutchinson, 239
Saxe, John G., and his Satires. (Portrait.) 289
Sandwich Islands To-Day. (Two Engravings.) 298
Shadow of Margery Paston, 363
Saint Escarpacio's Bones.--_From the French_, 483
Sonnets: Truth--The Future, 499
Sliding Scales of Despair, 592
Songs of the Cascade.--_By A. Oakey Hall_, 602
Spendthrift's Daughter: In Six Chapters, The, 664
_Scientific Discoveries and Proceedings of Learned Societies._--The
British Association, 137.--Asiatic Society, 137.--Paris Geographical
Society, 137.--Royal Society of Literature, 137.--Paris Academy of
Sciences, 138.--London Royal Institution, 138.--Berlin Academy of
Sciences, 138.--Improvements in Photographs, 138.--Colonel Rawlinson
on the last Discoveries of Nineveh and Babylon, 426.--New attempts to
discover Perpetual Motion, 426.--Document respecting the discovery of
Steam Navigation at Venice, 427.--English Athletes, compared with
Greek Statues, 427.--Discoveries at Memphis, 427.--Scientific
Conventions, 427.--The Russian Academy, 571.--Scientific Congress in
France, 571.--Paris Academy of Sciences, 571.--Ethnological Society,
571.
Trot on the Island.--_By C. Astor Bristed_, 54
To the Author of Eothen.--_By Barry Cornwall_, 315
The King and the Outlaw.--_By an Old Contributor_, 482
Verses.--_By R. H. Stoddard_, 22
Visit to the "Maid of Athens," 116
Visit to the late Dr. Lingard.--_By Rev. J. C. Richmond_, 172
Veneer, Fraser's Magazine on English, 306
Visit to the Aberdeen Comb-Works, 856
Vagaries of the Imagination, 638
Veiled Picture: A Traveller's Story, The, 648
Watering Places, A Glance at the. (Fifteen Engravings.) 4
Webster, Noah, LL. D. (Portrait and birthplace.) 12
Waterloo, Tricks on Travellers at, 164
Wives of Southey, Coleridge, and Lovell, 241
Wallace, William Ross. (Portrait.) 444
Windsor Castle and its Associations. (Two Engravings.) 585
THE INTERNATIONAL MAGAZINE
_Of Literature, Art, and Science._
Vol. IV. NEW-YORK, AUGUST 1, 1851. No. I.
REV. CALVIN COLTON.
[Illustration]
Mr. Colton is a man of very decided abilities, voluminous and various
in their manifestation, and assiduously cultivated during a long life,
in which he has never failed of the curiosity, ambition, and industry
of a learner. The untiring freshness and hopefulness of his spirit is
shown by his undertaking the study of the French language not more
than three or four years ago, and obtaining such a mastery of it as to
read with delight its most abstruse authors, and to preach in it with
fluency and even with eloquence. It is characteristic of him that he
is always earnest, and that he considers whatever he has to do worthy
of his best abilities, so that in writing of theology, economy,
polity, or manners, he arrays in order for each particular subject all
the forces of his understanding, and makes its discussion their
measure and illustration. He has been in an eminent degree devoted to
literature as a profession, and although he has produced works which
may be deemed unfortunate in design or defective in execution, it must
be admitted that he is entitled to a highly respectable position as a
thinker and as a writer, and that in opinion and in affairs he has
exercised a steady and large influence.
He was born in Long Meadow, Massachusetts, graduated at Yale College
in 1812, studied divinity at Andover, and in 1815 took orders in the
Presbyterian church. For several years he was settled in the village
of Batavia in western New-York, but his voice failing in 1826, he
became a contributor to several of the principal periodicals occupied
with religion and learning, and in the summer of 1831, after an
extended tour through the western states and territories, proceeded to
London, as a correspondent of the New-York Observer.
In England, he led a life of remarkable literary activity. In 1832 he
published a _Manual for Emigrants to America_, which had a large sale
among the middling classes; and _The History and Character of American
Revivals of Religion_, of which there were two or three editions. In
1833, in a volume entitled _The Americans, by an American in London_,
he replied, with an unanswerable display of facts, to the libels on
this country by British travellers and reviewers; and published _The
American Cottager_, a religious narrative. _A Tour of the American
Lakes and among the Indians of the North-West Territory_, in two
volumes, and _Church and State in America_, a vindication of the
religious character of the country and the voluntary principle for the
support of religion, in reply to the Bishop of London, who had
endeavored to show that the United States were going back to paganism
because the church was not here connected with the state.
Returning to New-York, in 1835, he published _Four Years in Great
Britain_, in two volumes, which were soon after reprinted, with some
additions, in a more popular form. In 1836 he gave to the public
anonymously, _Protestant Jesuitism_, a criticism of the constitution,
extreme opinion, and unwise action of many of the benevolent and
religious societies; and having taken orders in the Episcopal church,
_Thoughts on the Religious State of the Country, and Reasons for
preferring Episcopacy_, a work which was much read and the cause of
much critical observation in Great Britain as well as in the United
States.
From that time Mr. Colton has written very little on any subject
intimately connected with religion, but directing his attention to
public affairs, has been as conspicuous in the state as he was
previously in the church. In 1838 he published _Abolition a Sedition_,
and _Abolition and Colonization Contrasted_, in which he contended
with equal earnestness and ability that the entire subject of slavery
is beyond the limits of the proper action of the national government,
and that there is no justification of its discussion, except in the
states where slavery is established, or for the wise and really
philanthropic purpose of promoting African Colonization. In 1839 he
again took up the argument of our social relations with Great Britain,
in a work written in Philadelphia, but published in London, under the
title of _A Voice from America to England, By an American Gentleman_.
The plan was judicious: it was not so much to express opinions as to
state facts which should compel opinions in the adverse audience he
addressed. While mainly defensive, he was at the same time bravely
critical. He contended that in its constitution our government was
republican and not democratic, but that the extraordinary force of
public opinion among us has made it democratic in fact. A large
portion of the work was devoted to the several ecclesiastical polities
existing here, which he treated with singular freedom and originality,
so that the frequent impertinences of ignorant laymen and
obtrusively-meddling women, in the affairs of churches, rendering the
clerical profession humiliating and difficult to a person of manly
character and cultivation, were stated without any hesitation or
attempt at concealment. The entire performance is still attractive for
frequent sound observation upon institutions, judicious criticism of
manners, happy illustration, and good humor, and its opportune
appearance was advantageous to the best fame of the country.
In 1840 he made a more distinct and powerful impression than ever
before, by the publication of _The Crisis of the Country, American
Jacobinism_, and _One Presidential Term_, a series of tracts under the
name of "Junius," which were circulated in all the states by thousands
and hundreds of thousands, and were supposed to have had great
influence in the overthrow of the democratic administration. In 1842
he edited at Washington a paper called _The True Whig_, and in 1843
and 1844 he brought out a second series, embracing ten publications,
still more popular than the first, of the _Junius Tracts_.
In the autumn of the latter year, when the fortunes of the whig party
seemed to be entirely broken, when full half the nation felt a
personal grief for the defeat of a leader, added to the mortification
of political discomfiture, Mr. Colton determined to write the life of
the chief he had followed with unwavering admiration and unfaltering
activity. Casting aside all other cares, so that his every thought
might be given to the work until its completion, he set out for
Kentucky, where he was sure of the friendly assistance of Mr. Clay in
whatever concerned the investigation of facts. In November, 1844, he
reached Lexington, where Mr. Clay laid open to him the stores of his
correspondence, and the documentary history of his career. The work
was finished in the spring of 1846, and published in two large
octavos; and so great was the demand for it, that the first impression
of five thousand copies was sold in six months. It is unquestionably
an able performance, and from the circumstances under which it was
composed and the conclusiveness of some of its arguments it is
probable that it will always be regarded as a valuable portion of the
material for contemporary political history; but, it appears to me
very unequal in execution, and signally unfortunate in design, if
considered either as a biography or a history. For the subjective
rather than the chronological arrangement of the facts in it there is
however this defence, that it rendered the work much more easy of
citation, and therefore more valuable as a magazine for partisan
controversy. The influence it obtained may be illustrated by reference
to a single point: for a quarter of a century the staple of
declamation against Mr. Clay, the opposition which thrice cost him the
presidency, was his supposed bargain with John Quincy Adams; but since
the appearance of Mr. Colton's exposition of this subject any person
in an intelligent society would forfeit the consideration given to a
gentleman who should repeat the charge.
For several years the attention of Mr. Colton had been more and more
attracted to the literature and philosophy of political economy. In
1846 he printed his first work in which it is formally treated, _The
Rights of Labor_, in which he asserted, illustrated, and with
unanswerable logic vindicated the American doctrine of the privileges
and dignity of Industry; and in 1848 he gave to the world his last and
most important work, _Public Economy for the United States_. From the
formation of the first system of society the subjects embraced in this
production have employed the most powerful intellects of all nations.
But though illustrated by the liveliest genius and the profoundest
reflection, they have not until recently assumed even the forms of
science. We cannot tell what formulæ of economical truth passed from
existence in the lost books of Aristotle. The father of the
peripatetic philosophy undoubtedly brought to public economics the
severe method which enabled him to construct so much of the
everlasting science of which the history goes back to his times; but
whatever direction he gave to the subject, by the investigation of its
ultimate principles and their phenomena, his successors, and the
writers upon it since the revival of learning, have generally been
guided by empirical laws, which in an especial degree have obtained in
regard to the economy of commerce. Scarcely any of the literature or
reflection upon the subject has gone behind the bold hypotheses of
free trade theorists, which have been as unsubstantial as the fanciful
systems of the universe swept from existence by the demonstrations of
Newton. Not only have economical systems generally been made up of
unproven hypotheses, but they have rarely evinced any such clear
apprehension and constructive ability as are essential in the
formation and statement of principles; and down to the chaos of Mr.
Mills's last essay there is scarcely a volume on political economy
which rewards the wearied attention with any more than a vague
understanding of the shadowy design that existed in the author's
brain.
In the eminently original and scientific work of Mr. Colton we see
economy subjected to fundamental and ultimate methods of investigation
of which the results have a mathematical certainty. We have new facts,
new reasonings, new deductions; and if the paramount ideas are not
altogether original, they are discovered by original processes, and
their previous existence is but an illustration of the truth that the
instinctive perspicacity of the common mind often surpasses the
logical faculty in recognizing laws before they are discovered from
elements and relations. Mr. Colton has not rejected the title
"_political_ economy" because he proposed to enter a different field,
or because the subject and argument have no relation to politics, but
chiefly because the term has been so much abused in the rude agitation
of what are commonly called politics, that he does not think it
comports with the dignity of the theme; and the second part of his
title is adopted from a conviction that the economical principles of
states _are to be deduced from their separate experience and adapted
to their individual condition_. The task which he proposed to himself
is, the exhibition of the merits of the protective and free trade
systems as they apply to the United States. He expresses at the outset
his opinion that the settlement of the question is one of the most
desirable, and will be one of the most important results which remain
to be achieved in the progress of the country; and we can assure him
that the accomplishment of it will be rewarded by the best approval of
these times, and an enduring name. The second chapter of his work is a
statement of the new points which it embraces. By new points he does
not mean that all thus described are entirely original, though many of
them are so; but that on account of the importance of the places he
has assigned them as compared with those they occupy in other works of
the kind, they are entitled to be presented as new. Many of them
involve fundamental and pervading principles that have not hitherto
appeared in speculations on the subject, but which are destined to an
important influence in its discussion. Some of the most prominent are,
that public economy is the application of knowledge, derived from
experience, to given positions, interests and institutions, for the
increase of wealth; that it has never been reduced to a science, and
that the propositions of which it has been for the most part composed,
down to this time, are empirical; that protective duties in the United
States are not taxes, and that a protective system rescues the country
from a system of foreign taxation; that popular education is a
fundamental element of public economy; that freedom is a thing of
commercial value, and that the history of freedom for all time, shows
it to be identical with protection.
Recently the renewal of his voice has enabled Mr. Colton to devote
more attention to the favorite pursuit of his life, and he is a very
frequent preacher, in French or English. He resides in New-York.
A GLANCE AT THE WATERING PLACES.
[Illustration: THE YOUNG MARRIED GENTLEMAN WHO "COULD NOT POSSIBLY GO
TO THE SPRINGS."]
All the gay world of the cities, and even of the villages and country
homes, who can do so, by the first of August are "going," or "gone,"
as Mr. John Keese says of a last invoice, to the watering places, and
other summer resorts, which serve as fairs for the disposal of
valueless time and "remainders" of marriageable daughters. With the
crowds intent on speculation are a few invalids, a few students of
human nature, and the common proportion of mere lookers-on, who have
no purpose but to be amused. Times have changed, manners have changed,
since Paulding gave us his _Mirror for Travellers_, though Saratoga
still maintains the ascendency she was then acquiring, and for certain
inalienable natural advantages is likely to do so for a part at least
of every season.
New-York is the grand rendezvous: once settled in our hotels, the
splendid Astor, the comfortable American, the busy Irving, the gay
New-York, or the quiet Union Place or Clarendon, the stranger has
little desire to go further, until the last and imperative demands of
Fashion compel him to abandon the study of those noble institutions we
described in the last _International_, and to forego the observation
of those great public works in which the energy of our rich men has
flowered, or those appointments of Providence which render New-York a
rival of Dublin, Naples, or Constantinople, in scenic magnificence.
Many indeed who come from distant parts of the country, linger all
summer in the vicinity of the city, in the hottest days quitting
Broadway for a sail or drive, to the Bath House, Rockaway, Coney
Island, New Brighton, Long Branch, or Fort Hamilton, where they dine,
or perhaps stay over night. At Fort Hamilton, indeed, Mr. Clapp is apt
to keep those who venture into his hotel, with its luxurious tables,
pleasant rooms, cool breezes from the ocean, and fair sights in all
directions, for a much longer time; and every one of these places, in
the hot months, has attractions that would make a visitor at the Spas
of France, Germany, or Italy, could he wake in them, think he had
eluded the watchful guard St. Peter keeps at the gateway of another
retirement, to the which, it may be feared, the gay world has far less
anxiety to go.
[Illustration: FORT HAMILTON HOUSE, LONG ISLAND.]
[Illustration: PROPOSED SUMMER HOTEL AT THE HIGHLANDS OF NEVERSINK.]
Ascending the Hudson, from the social metropolis of this continent, to
which all "capitals" of states or nations, from Patagonia to
Greenland, are in some way subject and tributary, the traveller finds
the palace in which he rides, continually near embowered pavilions for
the public, and clusters of private residences, which but add to their
enjoyableness. Cozzens's Hotel at West Point, is perhaps as well
known as any house of the same class in the world, and its picturesque
situation, as well as the admirable manner in which it is kept, will
preserve for it a place in the list of favorite resorts. The Catskill
Mountain House, in the midst of grand and peculiar scenery, on the
verge of a rock two thousand and five hundred feet above the
Hudson--seen with its various fleets at a distance from the long
colonnade--is thronged even more than West Point. There are other
pleasant houses on the river, and many turn from its various points to
visit newer or less crowded places than Saratoga along the lines of
the western railroads, as Trenton Falls, Sharon Springs, or Avon, or
further still, the towns by the borders of the great lakes.
[Illustration: CATSKILL MOUNTAIN HOUSE.]
[Illustration: HOTEL AT TRENTON FALLS.]
Saratoga is now for several weeks the gayest scene of all. At the
United States Hotel, with its fine grounds, are the leaders of
fashion; at Congress Hall, with its clean and quiet rooms and
unsurpassed _cuisine_, are representatives of the substantial families
that have had grandfathers, and in the dozen or twenty smaller houses
about the village are "all sorts and conditions of men," and eke of
women. With drives, dinners, flirtations, drinking of drinks, and,
once in a long while, imbibitions of a little congress water, all goes
merry as a marriage bell--except with ladies of uncertain ages who are
disappointed of that blessed music--until the Grand Ball gives signal
for departure to other places.
[Illustration: SARATOGA SPRINGS.]
[Illustration]
[Illustration: THE NOTCH HOUSE, WHITE MOUNTAINS.]
From Saratoga parties go northward to Lake George, (for which region,
of the most romantic beauty, they should be prepared by a perusal of
Dudley Bean's admirable sketch of its revolutionary history;) and down
the Champlain toward Montreal, whence they return by way of the
Ontario and Niagara Falls (where our engraver Orr's _Pictorial Guide
Book_ is indispensable to the best enjoyment), or go through the
glorious hills of northern Vermont and New Hampshire to the White
Mountains. All the last grand region has been most truthfully and
effectively represented in a small folio volume of drawings from
nature, by Isaac Sprague, described by William Oakes, and published in
Boston by Crosby & Nichols. We commend the book to summer tourists.
[Illustration: NIAGARA FALLS.]
[Illustration: OCEAN HOUSE, NEWPORT.]
A considerable proportion of the guests who are at Saratoga in the
earlier part of the season, proceed to Newport in time for the Fancy
Ball which every year closes the campaign there. Newport increases in
attractions. Its historical associations, fine atmosphere, beautiful
position, and facilities for sea-bathing, fishing, sailing, riding,
and other amusements, are continually drawing to its neighborhood new
families, whose cottages add much to the beauty of the town, as they
themselves to the pleasantness of its society; and for transient
visitors no place in the world has better hotels or boarding-houses.
[Illustration]
[Illustration: WHITE SULPHUR SPRINGS, VIRGINIA.]
After the season closes at Newport, and from her Ocean House the last
unwilling traveller has taken his way, strewn with regrets, many
linger at the more quiet summer haunts scattered through New-England
and New-York, particularly at the rural and luxurious hotel of
Lebanon--a country palace which a king might covet--filled always with
good society; or go southward to the Virginia Springs, which have many
attractions peculiar to themselves, and with their unique pastimes,
their tournaments, field sports, &c., happily vary a summer's life
commenced at the more northern watering places.
[Illustration: COLUMBIA HALL, LEBANON SPRINGS.]
[Illustration: MOULTRIE HOUSE, SULLIVAN'S ISLAND, NEAR CHARLESTON.]
The South Carolinians have this year seceded from the northern
resorts, and those who do not go from Charleston to the up-country or
to Georgia, may well be content with Captain Payne's spacious and
splendid hotel on Sullivan's Island--the coolest and most agreeable
place by the seaside we have visited, north or south, for years. From
the south, and indeed from all parts of the country, parties go more
and more every year to the Mammoth Cave, (of which we have in store a
particular and profusely illustrated account), and up the great rivers
and lakes of the west, all along which, first-class hotels,
steamboats, &c., render travel as easy and delightful as on the old
summer routes in the middle and eastern states.
--Thus we have taken our readers--some of whom haply cannot this
season go by other ways--the circuit of the principal scenes of
enjoyment to which the denizens of the hot cities are intent to escape
through July, August, and September. If any have till this time
hesitated where to go, possibly we have aided them to an election:
certainly, we have led them cheaply along the fashionable tour.
[Illustration: MAMMOTH CAVE HOTEL.]
NOAH WEBSTER.
[Illustration]
The above portrait of the author of _The American Spelling-Book_, of
which there have been sold thirty millions of copies, and of the
_American Dictionary_, of which his publishers have hopes of selling
as great a number, is very life-like; it is from a painting by
Professor Morse, and the last time we saw the veteran scholar and
schoolmaster, he wore the very expression caught by that always
successful artist. Noah Webster's is the most universally familiar
name in our history; every body, from first to second childhood, from
end to end and side to side of the continent, knows it as well as his
own; and he who made it so famous was worthy of his reputation.
Noah Webster was born in Hartford, Connecticut, October 16th, 1758. He
was a descendant, in the fourth generation, of John Webster, one of
the first settlers of Hartford, and afterwards governor of the colony.
In 1774 he was admitted to Yale College. His studies were frequently
interrupted during the Revolution, and for a time he himself served as
a volunteer in the army, with his father and two brothers. He
graduated, with honor, in 1778, in the same class with Joel Barlow,
Oliver Wolcott, Uriah Tracy, and other distinguished men, and
immediately opened a school, residing meanwhile in the family of
Oliver Ellsworth, afterward chief justice of the United States. He
soon commenced the study of the law, and was admitted to the bar in
1781; but the poverty and unsettled state of the country prevented any
immediate success in the courts, and he resumed the business of
instruction in 1782, at Goshen, Orange county, New-York. It was here
that he began the preparation of books for the schools. He was led to
do so in despondency of success in his profession; but it changed the
course of his life. Having exhibited the rude sketch of his initial
effort to Mr. Madison (afterwards President), and Dr. Stanhope Smith,
Professor in Princeton college, he was encouraged by them to publish
the "First Part of a Grammatical Institute of the English Language."
The second and third parts of the series soon followed. A generation
has not passed since some of these books were occasionally seen in New
England. It may be that here and there a copy may still be lurking in
the garret of some ancient family, or on the dusty shelves of a
collector of antiquities. There is no more striking contrast than that
suggested by a comparison of Webster's "Third Part," as it was
familiarly styled, with the admirably printed school books now in
every family. Webster's were the first school books published in the
United States. In 1847 twenty-four million copies of the Spelling Book
had been sold, and for several years the demand for it has been at the
rate of a million a year.
Dr. Webster did not confine his attention to his own publications; but
having learned that a copy of Winthrop's Journal was in the
possession of Governor Trumbull, he caused it to be transcribed and
published at his own risk. In this way was given to the public one of
the most important memorials of our early history, and the first
example furnished of printing the documents, and other materials,
illustrative of our original experience. Mr. Webster was poor, and the
country had never yet evinced any disposition to encourage enterprises
of this sort; but he had always a confidence that it was safe to do
what was right and necessary, and therefore disregarded in this, as in
many other cases, the opinions of his friends that he would incur
inevitable loss.
The peace of 1783 involved the whole country in political agitation,
at certain points of which the calmest and wisest well nigh despaired
of the republic. At that time the influence of the pen was greater
than ever before. It seemed that the decision of principles which were
to last for centuries was dependent on the force of a single argument,
or the earnestness of one appeal. In this conflict the ambitious and
self-relying spirit of Mr. Webster led him to take an active part, and
from the peace till the close of Washington's administration, he was
an industrious and efficient writer. No period in the history of this
country was ever more critical; in none were so many principles
subjected to experiment, in none was discussion more able, exhausting,
and high-toned.
The first topic which engaged Mr. Webster's attention was the decision
of Congress to remunerate the army, then recently disbanded. This
measure was violently opposed in all parts of the country. Meetings
were held to organize resistance to the law, and two-thirds of the
towns of Connecticut were represented in a convention for this
purpose. Mr. Webster was then twenty-five years of age, but he
contributed to the leading paper of the state a series of essays,
signed HONORIUS, which induced a decisive change in the public
feeling; and he received for his important services the thanks of
Governor Trumbull. In the winter of 1784--5 he published a tract,
_Sketches of American Policy_, in which he advanced the doctrine, that
to meet the crisis and secure the prosperity of the whole country, a
government should be organized that would act, not upon the states,
but directly on the people, vesting in Congress full authority to
execute its own acts. A copy of this essay was presented by the author
to Washington, and it is believed that it contained the first distinct
proposal of the new constitution. About the same time, he exerted
himself successfully for what was then called an "International
Copyright" law between the several sovereign states; and at a later
period he spent a winter in Washington, to procure an extension of the
period for which a copyright might be enjoyed. In 1785, he prepared a
series of lectures on the English language, which he delivered in the
larger towns, and in 1789 published, under the title of _Dissertations
on the English Language_. In 1787-8, he spent the winter in
Philadelphia, as a teacher. The convention called to frame the new
constitution was in session during a part of the year, and after its
labors were completed, Mr. Webster undertook to recommend the result
to the then doubtful favor of the people. This he did in a tract,
entitled _An Examination of the Leading Principles of the Federal
Constitution_. In the next year he established in New-York _The
American Magazine_, but it was unsuccessful. In 1789 he opened a
law-office in Hartford, and his reputation, diligence, and abilities,
insured business and profits. He was now married to Miss Greenleaf, of
Boston, and enjoyed the advantage of one of the most brilliant
literary circles of the country, consisting of Joel Barlow, Lemuel
Hopkins, John Trumbull, and others who at that time were eminent for
their capacities.
But the political excitement of 1793, caused by the proclamation of
neutrality, disturbed his plans, and brought him again into the arena
of affairs. The sympathy for the new French republic, natural and
pardonable as it was, overran all limits of reason. The popularity and
influence of Washington were hardly sufficient for the repression of
disorder and violence, and an armed espousal of the cause of the
French. Mr. Webster was solicited to devote himself to the support of
the administration, and means were furnished for the establishment by
him of a daily paper in New-York. He accordingly commenced _The
Minerva_, and soon after, a semi-weekly, _The Herald_, which
ultimately received the names which they now retain, of _The
Commercial Advertiser_, and _The New-York Spectator_.
Another agitation soon followed, if possible, still more
alarming--that which grew out of Jay's Treaty with England. The
discussions to which this gave rise were earnest, often angry and
vituperative, but always able, enlisting the most accomplished men of
the country. In these discussions Mr. Webster was, as might have been
anticipated, remarkably active. A series of papers by him, under the
signature of CURTIUS, had an unquestionable influence on the whole
nation. They were extensively reprinted and afterwards collected in a
volume. Mr. Rufus King said to Mr. Jay, that they had done more than
any others to allay the popular opposition to the treaty. During these
conflicts, Mr. Webster often encountered as an antagonist the
celebrated William Cobbett, at that time conducting a journal in
Philadelphia, distinguished alike for ability and for unscrupulous
violence.
While Mr. Webster lived in New-York, the yellow fever prevailed in
this city and in Philadelphia, and he wrote a minute and comprehensive
_History of Pestilential Diseases_, in two volumes, which was
published in New-York and in London. It attracted much attention in
its time, and was referred to with interest during the subsequent
prevalence of the cholera. He also published in 1802 an able treatise
on _The Rights of Neutral Nations in time of War_, occasioned by the
interference of the French government with the shipping of the world,
and its seizure of American vessels, under the proclamation of a
blockade. He also published _Historical Notices of the Origin and
State of Banking Institutions and Insurance Offices_, a work of
authority and popularity.
In 1798 he removed to New Haven, but retained the direction of his
paper at New-York for several years. After disposing of his interest
in it he devoted the remainder of his life to literary pursuits.
His first work was a _Philosophical and Practical English Grammar_,
printed in 1807. It was in many respects original, acute, and
excellently fitted for the purposes of instruction. It was, however,
only one of the studies for his subsequent and far more important
performance. For more than twenty years he had been a close student of
the elements and sources of the English language; he had gradually, as
his various occupations permitted, accumulated and arranged materials
for its exposition, and he now felt himself at liberty to forego all
other pursuits and ambitions to devote himself for the remainder of
his life to the great labors which have made his name so honorably
eminent in the history of the intellectual advances of his country and
of the Saxon family. The preparation of a Dictionary, under any
circumstances, must be regarded as a very formidable task, involving
even for an enthusiast the most dry and wearying researches,
unenlivened by any of the pleasing excitements which vary the monotony
and relieve the tedium of ordinary literary pursuits. Mr. Webster from
the beginning had a just conception of the duties and difficulties
before him; he was assured that no superficial study or careless
execution would command or in any degree deserve approval, in one who
followed in the track of Johnson. He was not disposed to make the work
of that great man a basis for his own; to be simply an editor, whose
duties should be fulfilled by additions of the new words and new
definitions introduced in seventy years; he determined to make a new
and altogether original work; to study the English language in the
writings of its most distinguished authors, to inquire into its actual
usage in conversation and public discourse, not by loosely gathered
and ill arranged groups of synonymes, but by a clear and precise
statement of meanings, illustrated, whenever it should be necessary,
by various instances. In this work, Johnson had made a beginning; he
first conceived the plan of defining by descriptions, instead of
synonymes; and he had introduced into his larger dictionary quotations
from the best authors. But his work, valuable as it was, was
imperfect, even in regard to the words current in his time, and which
he succeeded in collecting. But, if Johnson had perfectly accomplished
his design, the lapse of seventy years of such extraordinary and
various activity in every department of human action and aspiration,
would have rendered a New Dictionary indispensable. New sciences and
arts had been discovered, which, in their manifold applications to
industry, had changed or wonderfully augmented the technology and
common speech of every class and description of workers. New
experiments had been made in governments; new institutions had been
introduced; literature had assumed new forms; and speculation, with
perfect freedom and gigantic force, had forged new weapons for its new
endeavors. The necessity for a new Dictionary of the English language,
indeed is, demonstrated in the simple fact that the first edition of
Webster's great work contained twelve thousand words not in Johnson;
the second, thirty thousand. This statement does not, however, give a
just impression of the difference between Johnson and Webster, or of
the actual labor which Webster performed. The new definitions, many of
which were fruits, not more of patient research than of nice
discrimination, the arrangement of these definitions, so as to exhibit
the history of words as it had been slowly developed, cost the author
an amount of toil which can with difficulty be measured. We hazard
little concerning the importance or difficulties of the work, when we
quote the remark of Coleridge, that the history of a word is often
more important than that of a campaign.
The etymology of the language, was a subject to which he devoted much
attention, and in which he made great advances. To qualify himself for
tracing the derivations of English words, he studied some twenty
languages, and wrote out a synopsis of the leading words of each, and
incorporated the chief results of this extraordinary investigation in
the very full and instructive statement of words of similar imports,
which in the larger Dictionary is prefixed to English words, and which
he prepared for the press also, as a separate work, of about half the
size of the _American Dictionary_, entitled "_A Synopsis of Words in
Twenty Languages_," which is still unpublished.
In 1812, he removed to Amherst, in Massachusetts, where he devoted ten
years entirely to these labors. He returned to New Haven in 1822; in
the following year he received from Yale College the degree of LL. D.,
and in the spring of 1824 he proceeded to Paris to consult in the
_Bibliothèque du Roi_ some works not accessible in this country, and
then went to England and passed eight months in the libraries of the
University of Cambridge.
Returning to America, he made arrangements for the publication of his
great work, and it finally appeared, near the end of 1826, in an
edition of twenty-five hundred copies, in two quarto volumes, which
were sold at twenty dollars per copy. An edition of three thousand
copies was soon after printed in England.
Dr. Webster was now seventy years of age, and he considered his
life-task accomplished; but habits of literary occupation had become
fixed and necessary, and after a few months he began to rewrite his
_History of the United States for Schools_. In 1840 he published a
second edition of the _Dictionary_, in two octavo volumes; in 1843, _A
Collection of Papers, on Political, Literary and Moral Subjects_,
selected from his various writings in early life; and in 1847 another
edition of the _American Dictionary_ appeared, after a thorough
revision of it by Professor Goodrich, of Yale College. In this edition
very large additions were made, amounting to a fifth of the whole
work. There were new words, and new definitions, when needed; careful
attention was bestowed on technical terms of science and art; and it
was made a general cyclopædia of knowledge. Yet by employing a finer
type, and adopting a close yet clear style of printing, the original
work, with all these copious additions, was brought within the compass
of a single quarto, which has been styled the finest specimen of
book-manufacture ever produced in America. A revised edition of the
abridgement was issued at the same time, and both volumes have had a
circulation which evinces the general appreciation of their value.
Several of the New England states, we believe, have furnished a copy
of the quarto Dictionary to every school district within their limits,
and the legislature of New-York, during its recent session, passed a
law for the distribution of some thousands of copies in the school
districts of this state also. Whatever may be said of the Dictionary
by Dr. WEBSTER, it will not be questioned by the disinterested scholar
that it is one of the most extraordinary and honorable monuments of
well-directed intellectual labor of which we have any account in the
histories of literature or learning. It is as great an advance from
the work of Dr. Johnson, as that was from the wretched vocabularies of
the English language which existed before his time; and so accurate
and exhausting has been the investigation which it displays that no
rival work is likely to take its place until sufficient time has
elapsed for the language itself to pass into a new condition.
[Illustration: THE BIRTHPLACE OF NOAH WEBSTER.]
Much has been said of Dr. Webster's innovations, but for the most
part, by persons altogether ignorant of the philosophy of languages in
general, as well as of the character and condition of the English
language. Dr. Webster attempted, and with eminent success, to reduce
the English language to order, and to subject it to the operation of
principles. The changes which he made, though in a few instances,
necessary for consistency, striking, are much less numerous than is
commonly supposed, and even to scholars, with whom the study of
languages is not a _specialité_, they would not be very apparent but
for the frequent attempts which are made to prejudice the public
against the work. An amusing illustration of this fact occurred a few
years ago, when, a concerted assault upon the Dictionary having been
made, and sustained for some time, a distinguished author who had a
new book in the press of the Harpers, was alarmed by intelligence that
they intended to adopt for it Webster's orthography. He wrote to
these publishers his apprehensions that the success of his
performance and his own good reputation could not fail of exceeding
injury, if their design should be executed, and begged them to adopt
some other work as a medium for the display of the Websterian
innovations. The Harpers replied that he might select his own
standard; they believed he had, perhaps unconsciously, followed
Webster in his _manuscript_, and that the several productions of his
which they had published in previous years had all been printed
according to Webster's Dictionary, which was the guide used in their
printing offices.
The incidents of Dr. Webster's life after the publication of the
second edition of his Dictionary, in 1840, were few and unimportant.
Indeed, with that effort he regarded his public life as brought to a
close. He passed through a serene old age, which was terminated by a
peaceful death, on the twenty-eighth of May, 1843, when he was in the
eighty-fifth year of his age.
DR. MERLE D'AUBIGNE AND THE ENGLISH CHURCH.
The celebrated German historian, Dr. MERLE D'AUBIGNE, is now in
England, and in consequence of certain proceedings growing out of his
occupation of an Episcopal pulpit recently, he has published a letter
to the Archbishop of Canterbury concerning the general subject of the
exclusion of continental Protestant ministers from the pulpits of
English churches. He is aware that, in consequence of the Act of
Uniformity, there are churches which cannot be opened to those
ministers, but he hopes that this law of exclusion will be repealed.
"It is no longer in harmony with the spirit and the wants of the
church in the age in which we live." The Calvinistic historian
expresses his conviction that the reëstablishment of the Annual
Convocation would not reform the Church. The Convocation has been for
more than a century deprived of its powers, and it is to Parliament
that the question now belongs. He says:
"Why should I not express to you, my lord, a desire which I
have long had in my heart? This desire is, that being
surrounded by ministers and members of the Church the most
enlightened and most devoted to God and to his word, you
should digest and present to Parliament a plan, not to
_effect_ (_sic_) a reform of the Church, but to _establish
the authority_ (_sic_) which should be charged with its
reform and government. It seems to me that the best way
would be to establish a body similar to that which governs
the Episcopal church of America, composed of three chambers,
that of the bishops, that of the presbyters, and that of the
members of the Church, the two latter being ordinarily
united in one. The Americans of the United States have
received so much from you (they have received every thing,
even their very existence), why should you not take
something from them? I am convinced that sooner or later a
reform _must_ take place in the government of the Church of
England: it is important that it should be done well. I
think that there would be some hope of its being
accomplished in a good sense, if it were done while you, my
lord, are Primate of the Church, and while Victoria is Queen
of England."
Every thing seems to tend to an entire revolution in the British
ecclesiastical system, and the coöperation of Dr. Merle and other
continental writers with those who are agitating the subject in
England--demanding the separation of the church from the state--makes
the prospect of such a separation more imminent than it has ever been
hitherto.
THE EXILE'S SUNSET SONG.
WRITTEN FOR THE INTERNATIONAL MAGAZINE
BY J. R. THOMPSON.
When from thy side, love,
In silence and gloom,
Half broken-hearted
Fate tore me away,
All humbled in pride, love,
I thought in my doom,
That Hope had departed
For ever and aye!
But Fate may not banish
From memory's store,
That blissful communion
Of years that are flown,
Nor make yet to vanish
The lustre which o'er
Our fond thoughts of union,
So tenderly shone.
And still o'er the ocean
My fancy takes flight,
Where oft I see gleaming
Thy figure afar;
And I think with emotion,
That sometimes at night,
We watch the same beaming
And tremulous star.
The sunsets so golden.
That stream round me here,
But call up thy shadow
The landscape between:
And when in the olden
Dim season so dear,
It tripped o'er the meadow
With step of a queen.
As the light of the moon, love,
Like snow softly falls,
And rests on the mountain,
And silvers the sea,
That midnight in June, love,
My mem'ry recalls,
When up to the fountain
I clambered with thee.
How sweetly the river
Reflected the ray
Of moon through the willows
Or sun o'er the hill:
Does the moonbeam there quiver,
The sunset there play,
Upon its gay billows
As splendidly still?
My spirit is weary--
An exile I grieve,
When morn's early voices
A glad song proclaim,
And the faint Miserere
Of nature at eve,
To me but rejoices
To murmer thy name.
Yet Hope, reappearing,
A vision unfolds,
Of rapture together
In joy's happy reign,
When love all endearing
The full eye beholds,
We'll walk o'er the heather
At sunset again.
RICHMOND, Va.
DRAMATIC FRAGMENTS.
WRITTEN FOR THE INTERNATIONAL MAGAZINE,
BY R. H. STODDARD.
THE GAME OF CHESS.
We played at chess, Bianca and myself,
One afternoon, but neither won the game,
Both absent-minded, thinking of our hearts
Moving the ivory pawns from black to white,
Shifted to little purpose round the board;
Sometimes we quite forgot it in a sigh
And then remembered it, and moved again;
Looking the while along the slopes beyond,
Barred by blue peaks, the fountain, and the grove
Where lovers sat in shadow, back again,
With sideway glances in each other's eyes;
Unknowingly I made a lucky move,
Whereby I checked my mate, and gained a queen;
My couch drew nearer hers, I took her hand--
A soft white hand that gave itself away--
Told o'er the simple story of my love,
In simplest phrases which are always best,
And prayed her if she loved me in return--
A fabled doubt--to give her heart to me;
And then, and there, above that game of chess,
Not finished yet, in maiden trustfulness,
She gave me, what I knew was mine, her heart!
FROM A PLAY.
Alas! I think of you the live-long day,
Plying my needle by the little stand,
And wish that we had never, never met,
Or I were dead, or you were married off,
Though that would kill me; I lay down my work,
And take the lute you gave me, but the strings
Have grown so tuneless that I cannot play;
I sing the favorite airs we used to sing,
The sweet old tunes we love, and weep aloud!
I sought forgetfulness, and tried to-day
To read a chapter in the Holy Book;
I could not see a line, I only read
The solemn sonnets that you sent to me:
Nor can I pray as I was wont to do,
For you come in between me and the Lord,
And when I strive to lift my soul above,
My wits are wandering, and I sob your name!
And nights, when I am lying on my bed,
(I hope such thoughts are not unmaidenly,)
I think of you, and fall asleep, and dream
I am your own, your wedded, happy wife,--
But that can never, never be on earth!
THE COUNTESS IDA HAHN-HAHN.
We gave in the last _International_ a short notice of "_Von Babylon
nach Jerusalem_" (A Journey from Babylon to Jerusalem), by Ida,
Countess of Hahn-Hahn, in which she declares her conversion to
Christianity and Catholicism. What the Germans themselves think of
this work may be gathered from the following brief review, which has
just fallen under our notice in the _Central Blatt_. The article is
curious, from the "intensely German" style and spirit in which it is
written, though we cannot very warmly commend either.
"The above-mentioned work," which contains an account of the
conversion of its celebrated authoress to the Catholic belief, says
the critic, "presents a sad picture of the complete decay and
dissolution of a _void subjectivity_ (a vacant mind).
"The writer falls a sacrifice to her exclusive, aristocratic position
in society. Without occupying any place in the world, won and
maintained by personal ability, and consequently without a
well-grounded moral standard, she wanders like a homeless being from
land to land, every where influenced, 'as far as it agreed with her
disposition,' by her momentary interests, and thus rendering apparent
the barrenness of her soul. But this had been developed at an early
period. 'That this feeling (that of joy) was occasionally accompanied
by the deepest discontent, appearing as an unearthly _ennui_--and that
over it swept the darkest melancholy, will be readily intelligible to
every one, for they are the twin sisters of the fortune of this
world.' 'And occasionally it was a kind of heroism, in that I sat
myself down, and--wrote a romance. Was it finished, I travelled--did I
return, I described the tour--was there a time when the book was
complete and circumstances did not permit of travelling, I took with
raging appetite to reading--and when I no longer wrote, no longer
travelled, and could no longer read for any determined
purpose--because I had none--I knew not what to do with my time. I
could not create illusions, and say to myself, Try this! try that!
perhaps the world hath yet somewhat hidden for thee--the call of
Knowledge is incessant. No, no! she hath nothing. Well--what then?
God? There stood the Word, the One, the Eternal.' Thereupon she reads
the greater and lesser catechisms of Luther, the creeds of the
evangelic reformed church, and the decrees and canons of the Council
of Trent. 'But only the Catholic church hath under roof and proof
brought her dogma-buildings to a tower, provided with the
lightning-rod of authority.' Thereupon she determines, 'I asked no
human being for explanation, information, or counsel--not even
myself.' Three months after, on the first day of January, 1850, she
wrote to the Cardinal Prince-Bishop of Breslau, to beg of him aid in
her entrance to the church.
"The moral vacancy displayed in these quotations corresponds with the
shallow manner and half romantic, half French style of the book.
Though the first part be written in a fresher and livelier style than
the second, there is still not to be found in the whole a single
well-determined and clearly-impressed thought, and whenever we imagine
that we have hit upon such a thing, straightway we find whirling forth
the dust-clouds of an obscure, phrase-laden, highly affected
sentimental feeling, which, without any real energy, stirs itself up
with repeated 'ohs!' and 'ahs!' and other forced sighs and artificial
aids. In place of such thoughts we find a shallow and occasionally
insupportably wearisome speech on the ideal of Catholicism, or 'the
heathenish abomination in art and literature, which, after the fall of
Byzantium was transported thence to Italy, and there received with
that love which impels sensuous mortals to joyfully draw into the
sphere of his life the new and glittering, because it promises fresh
and shining pleasures.'(!) In another place she speaks of the
reformers as 'miserable, narrow-minded heads, who should have chosen
other ground whereon to exercise their love of quarrelling;' while
the second half of her book is confined almost exclusively to the
democrats, and the events which took place from 1847 to 1849. In this
part the authoress displays the greatest want of intellect, and is
sadly wearisome; but her frivolity of manners and morals appears most
repulsive in her account of the Reformation. None of the
Catholics--not even Cochlæus himself--has so far degraded himself as
to interpret in such a vulgar manner the deeds of the reformers (more
particularly Luther's) as is here done by--a lady!
"If the Countess places at the conclusion of her work the words 'Soli
Deo Gloria,' this is merely in accordance with a Catholic custom, and
by no means meant in earnest, since the work is more particularly
adapted to flatter the vanity and self-conceit of its composer, who
cannot imagine why she should suffer the disgrace to belong to the
German nation. A vain, coquettish self-regard, an affected,
aristocratic-noble nonchalance, and a contradicting, heresy-accusing
confidence of judgment, meet us on every side, and render us
completely opposed to the pretence and moral vacancy of this book."
These are bitter words, and bitterly spoken, when thus applied to a
woman. The reader will in their perusal remember that the writer is
evidently influenced by a deep feeling against all that savors of
conservatism in politics, and shares in an unusual degree the popular
German feeling against _emancipiste Frauen_, or women who strive
against the bonds which the customs of society have imposed on the
sex,--a feeling, which, however creditable it may be when applied to
undue extravagances of manners or morals, should be carefully guarded
against when it threatens an unconditional restraint of every exertion
of feminine genius and talent.
JULES JANIN, AND THE PARIS FEUILLETONISTES.
Jules Janin, whose name, of so constant recurrence in the contemporary
history of light literature, artistic criticism, and _feuilleton_, is
the Prince Royal of the brilliant court of gifted, tasteful, witty and
_spirituel_ writers, who compose the body of Parisian
_feuilletonistes_. These are men who write, not because they have any
thing especial to say--for their peculiar function is to say nothing,
in a pointed and brilliant manner--but because they love leisure and
luxury, the opera, pictures, and beautiful ballet girls, and must
themselves make the golden lining to their purses, which they can do
by the very simple process of weaving the similar lining of their
brains into a _feuilleton_. They are often scholars, men of fine
cultivation and genius, whose tastes however are so imperious, and who
enjoy so much the ease thus facilely achieved, that they accomplish no
great work, win no lasting name. Of course the _feuilletonist_ proper
is to be distinguished from the author or novelist who publishes a
work in the _Feuilleton_, as Lamartine his _Confidences_, and Sue and
Dumas and George Sand, their romances. We propose now to follow
briefly the sparkling career of JULES JANIN as the type of the life,
character, and success of the _feuilletonistes_.
He came to Paris, a Jew: as Meyerbeer, Heine, Grisi, Rachel, and the
long luminous list of contemporary artists who have made fame in
Paris, are Jews. He supported himself by teaching--doing nothing, but
very conscious that he could do something--at all events he could
lecture upon the Syrian language, if for a week he could prepare
himself. Then he wrote in little theatrical papers, and received
twenty-five francs a month. But in 1830 he happily succeeded to his
present position in the _Journal des Debats_. He is now a rich man. He
gives splendid soirees in his saloons glittering with oriental luxury,
and artists and authors bow before him. Like Henry Heine, his
contemporary, whom he as much resembles in talent as in manner, he
declared now for the Republic and Freedom, now for the Church and
King, until his connection with the _Debats_ impressed upon him the
conservative seal. He since loudly declaims for public
morality--against the prostitution of the press; but his early works
were the most licentious of any that have swarmed from the fertile
French genius of social protestantism. His first novel, published in
1829, _The Dead Donkey and the Guillotined Woman_, is the history of a
prostitute, from the brothel, to the murder of her child, and her
execution, garnished with Byronic sentimentalities upon the
transitoriness of things temporal.
Jules Janin's next work was one of the most instructive illustrations
of the character of French romance at that period when literary
feeling and taste seemed to reach the artificial point that is
artistically achieved by the melo-dramas of Chatham-street and the
Strand. We record it as a literary curiosity, as the work of a "fast"
Frenchman, a Parisian Vivian Grey, on a small scale. It is called _The
Penitent_, and was published in 1830. It opens with a marriage. The
bride, who has been violently dancing, retires, overcome with sleep,
and the husband in his rage at her sleepiness smothers her. It is
nominally supposed that she has been stricken with apoplexy, but a
Jesuit, who meditates many mysteries, understands the whole matter,
yet observes the most discreet silence. The young man, who is somewhat
conscience-pricked, still persists in profligacy, until he is
overwhelmed by remorse, and rushes to the church to receive
absolution. He seeks a trusty confessor, and of course finds the old
Jesuit; but as he finds it difficult to obtain access to him, makes
the acquaintance of a girl, with whom the Jesuit has some kind of
relation, and in order to win her to his will, seduces her! Then comes
the Jesuit and begins to fulminate excommunications and damnations.
But the youth bursts into a passionate strain of repentance, and is
told by the old Jesuit, that the difficulty in his case, is a
religious one, that in fact the murder was "a circumstance" arising
from his irreligious state, and that by genuine repentance the matter
will be arranged. _Presto_: The youth repents and enters the church,
is made Bishop and proceeds through an endless course of fat capon and
Château Margaux to an edifying end!
The boldest efforts of young France and young Germany, are feeble by
the side of this extraordinary effort. His earlier tales, which are
somewhat in the style of Hoffmann, Jules Janin published in the year
1833, under the title of _Fantastic Tales_, and a series of works of
less size and importance followed, until the series of papers, half
fiction, half fact, which, in the novel form, treated a great variety
of historico-literary subjects. His last romance is the _Nun of
Toulouse_, written during the revolution of '48. It sparkles with the
same sprightly skepticism and spiritual coquetry that distinguished
his earlier works, yet he celebrates in it those beautiful times, the
"old times," in which the serenity of faith was never ruffled by
impertinent thought; and in his recent letters from the Great
Exhibition, he indulges in the same strain, and sighs for the
magnificence of the monarchy.
But his weekly contributions to the _Debats_, the rapid dashing review
of the dramatic novelties and incidents in a metropolis where alone a
living drama survives, and which he serves up garnished with the most
felicitous verbal graces and the most charming intellectual conceits,
every Monday morning--these are the flowers whence the brilliant Jules
Janin builds the honey hive of his reputation. He has decreed the
fashion of the _Feuilleton_, and the other Parisian critics flash and
snap and sparkle, as much like Jules Janin as possible. Their articles
are the streak of _light_ in the dimness of the preponderating
political literature of the week. They hold high holiday at the bottom
of the page, although the history of revolutions, and woes, and the
rumors of wars and impending millenniums may throw their sombre
shadows along the columns above. They raise their banner of a
butterfly's wing, emblazoned with _Vive la Bagatelle_, and march on to
the tournament of wit and beauty. They belong to France; their game is
the gambol of the exuberance of French genius. They are more than
witty, they are _spirituel_; and they have more than talent, they have
taste.
In a day of such rapid and facile printing as ours, this department of
literary labor was a necessity. Every man who has a conceit and can
write, may parade it before the world. In the mass of pleasant
common-place, what is _bizarre_ may supplant the symmetrically
beautiful. To seize therefore what every man saw, and with nimble
fingers to weave a transparent tissue of gorgeous words through which
every man's impressions of what he saw look large and graceful and
piquant--to sum up a vaudeville in a _bon mot_, and a ballet in a
voluptuous trope,--_voila! c'est fait_, you have the recipe of a
successful _feuilletoniste_. Hence, the influence of these writers,
upon _words_, has been remarkable. The French language, long so
precise, is now among the most dissolute of tongues. It reels through
the columns of a _feuilleton_, drunk and dim-eyed with expletives and
exaggerations and beatified adjectives, so that, fascinated with the
casket, you quite forget the jewel. The language of dramatic and
operatic criticism in Paris is now inexplicable to any one but an
_habitué_. If you should tell John Bull, who wishes to go to the
opera, that Alboni's singing is _pyramidale_, he would expect to see
the fair and fat contralto sharpened to a point at top,--but, I grant,
if you should call it "jolly" or "stunning," he would entirely
comprehend that you meant to express your admiration in superlatives.
I must not longer gossip as these gay gossips do, these fanciful
_feuilletonistes_, nor seek more deeply to draw the outline of these
rainbow bubbles upon the stream of the time, whether it flow turbid or
transparent. One cannot live upon sugar and nutmeg, or even upon
allspice. But our friends are a literary phenomenon not to be omitted,
and if you love the Muses, you will not omit to snuff the azure
incense offered weekly by the _feuilletonistes_.
Jules Janin shall show us out of this article as he ushered us in. The
Great Mogul of the _Feuilleton_ had purchased a carriage whose luxury,
and taste of appointment, and perfection of footman, was unsurpassed
in the Champs Elysée. But the gods are jealous and the
_feuilletonistes_ have thus the highest authority for jealousy. So, on
one evening when the exquisite equipage awaited its master at the
grand opera, a crowd of lesser critical luminaries gathered around it,
and both reviled and envied the fortunate owner. While they were thus
engaged, the great critic came out of the opera house and saw his
contemporaries engaged in longing and envious remark. Now tact is the
sublimest secret of success--and smilingly Jules Janin advanced
cheerily, greeted his friends cordially, and piled into the carriage
all of them who lived in his neighborhood.
They naturally reserved the seat of honor for the owner, but this
great General seizing the most inimical of all the party who lived in
a quarter of the city farthest from his own home, pushed him into the
vacant seat, ordered his coachman to set him down first, and then
humming the finale of the opera, lighted a cigar and sauntered
leisurely down the street. It was like Jules Janin to make his own
marriage the subject of a _Feuilleton_. In his case the man and the
_feuilletoniste_ are the same.
ODE XX. OF ANACREON.
TRANSLATED FROM THE FRENCH OF MADAME DACIER FOR THE INTERNATIONAL
MAGAZINE,
BY MARY E. HEWITT.
Niobé, maddened by her woes, of yore.
The gods in pity turned to marble fair;
And wretched Progné, doomed for evermore,
Changed to a swallow wings the upper air.
But ah! would Love, whom I, enslaved, obey,
By his sweet power transform me, I would be
The mirror in thy hand, if thus, alway,
Thy gentle eyes would fondly turn on me.
Or, I would be the perfume that reveals
Its fragrance 'mid the tresses of thy hair;
Or, that soft veil which o'er thy bosom steals,
And jealous, hides the ivory treasure there.
Or I would be the robe that round thee flows,
The zone that circles thee with fond caress;
The rivulet that with thy beauty glows,
And to its breast enclasps thy loveliness.
Or I were blest those envied pearls to be
That closely thus thy swan-white neck entwine;
Or e'en to be the sandal, pressed by thee,
Were, for thy lover, destiny divine.
SWEDISH LANDSCAPES: BY HERR ANDERSEN.
In the last _International_ we gave some characteristic historical
sketches from Hans Christian Andersen's latest and most delightful
book, the _Pictures of Sweden_; but the inspiration of nature is more
powerful with him than that of history, and he is never so felicitous
as when painting the scenery of his native country, though he has
certainly indulged, to a greater extent than a sober taste can
approve, in that passion for the fantastic and visionary, which has
been but too visibly manifested in some of his later and slighter
works. Our readers, however, shall judge for themselves. The forests
of Sweden and its rivers give the most noticeable features to its
landscape. This is how they appeared to Andersen--the forest first:
"We are a long way over the elv. We have left the
corn-fields behind, and have just come into the forest,
where we halt at that small inn which is ornamented over the
doors and windows with green branches for the midsummer
festival. The whole kitchen is hung round with branches of
birch and the berries of the mountain ash; the oat cakes
hang on long poles under the ceiling; the berries are
suspended above the head of the old woman who is just
scouring her brass kettle bright.
"The tap-room, where the peasants sit and carouse, is just
as finely hung round with green. Midsummer raises its leafy
arbor every where, yet it is most flush in the forest which
extends for miles around. Our road goes for miles through
that forest, without seeing a house, or the possibility of
meeting travellers, driving, riding, or walking. Come! The
ostler puts fresh horses to the carriage; come with us into
the large woody desert: we have a regular trodden way to
travel, the air is clear, here is summer's warmth and the
fragrance of birch and lime. It is an up-and-downhill road,
always bending, and so, ever changing, but yet always
forest-scenery--the close, thick forest. We pass small
lakes, which lie so still and deep, as if they concealed
night and sleep under their dark, glassy surfaces.
"We are now on a forest plain, where only charred stumps of
trees are to be seen; this long tract is black, burnt, and
deserted, not a bird flies over it. Tall, hanging birches
now greet us again; a squirrel springs playfully across the
road, and up into the tree; we cast our eyes searchingly
over the wood-grown mountain side, which slopes so far, far
forward, but not a trace of a house is to be seen: nowhere
does that bluish smoke-cloud rise, that shows us, here are
fellow-men. The sun shines warm; the flies dance around the
horses, settle on them, fly off again, and dance as though
it were to qualify themselves for resting and being still.
They perhaps think, 'Nothing is going on without us: there
is no life while we are doing nothing.' They think, as many
persons think, and do not remember that time's horses always
fly onward with us!
"How solitary is it here! so delightfully solitary! one is
so entirely alone with God and one's self. As the sunlight
streams forth over the earth, and over the extensive
solitary forests, so does God's Spirit stream over and into
mankind; ideas and thoughts unfold themselves--endless,
inexhaustible, as He is--as the magnet which apportions its
powers to the steel, and itself loses nothing thereby. As
our journey through the forest scenery here along the
extended solitary road, so, travelling on the great high
road of thought, ideas pass through our head. Strange, rich
caravans pass by from the works of poets, from the home of
memory, strange and novel; for capricious fancy gives birth
to them at the moment. There comes a procession of pious
children with waving flags and joyous songs; there come
dancing Menades, the blood's wild Bacchantes. The sun pours
down hot in the open forest; it is as if the Southern summer
had laid itself up here to rest in Scandinavian forest
solitude, and sought itself out a glade where it might lie
in the sun's hot beams and sleep; hence this stillness as if
it were night. Not a bird is heard to twitter, not a pine
tree moves. Of what does the Southern summer dream here in
the North, amongst pines and fragrant birches?
"In the writings of the olden time, from the classic soil of
the South, are sagas of mighty fairies, who, in the skins of
swans, flew towards the North, to the Hyperboreans' land, to
the east of the north winds; up there, in the deep still
lakes, they bathed themselves, and acquired a renewed form.
We are in the forest by these deep lakes; we see swans in
flocks fly over us, and swim upon the rapid elv and on the
still waters...."
"Woodland solitude! what images dost thou not present to our
thoughts! Woodland solitude! through thy vaulted halls
people now pass in the summer time with cattle and domestic
utensils; children and old men go to the solitary pasture
where echo dwells, where the national song springs forth
with the wild mountain flower! Dost thou see the procession?
Paint it if thou canst! The broad wooden cart, laden high
with chests and barrels, with jars and with crockery. The
bright copper kettle and the tin dish shine in the sun. The
old grandmother sits at the top of the load, and holds her
spinning wheel, which complete the pyramid. The father
drives the horse, the mother carries the youngest child on
her back, sewed up in a skin, and the procession moves on
step by step. The cattle are driven by the half-grown
children; they have stuck a birch branch between one of the
cows' horns, but she does not appear to be proud of her
finery; she goes the same quiet pace as the others, and
lashes the saucy flies with her tail. If the night becomes
cold on this solitary pasture, there is fuel enough; here
the tree falls of itself from old age, and lies and rots.
"But take especial care of the fire--fear the fire-spirit in
the forest desert! He comes from the unextinguishable pile;
he comes from the thunder-cloud, riding on the blue
lightning's flame, which kindles the thick, dry moss of the
earth: trees and bushes are kindled; the flames run from
tree to tree, it is like a snow-storm of fire! the flames
leap to the tops of the trees. What a crackling and roaring,
as if it were the ocean in its course! The birds fly upward
in flocks, and fall down suffocated by the smoke; the
animals flee, or, encircled by the fire, are consumed in it!
Hear their cries and roars of agony! The howling of the wolf
and the bear, dost thou know it? A calm rainy day, and the
forest-plains themselves alone are able to confine the fiery
sea, and the burnt forest stands charred, with black trunks
and black stumps of trees, as we saw them here in the forest
by the broad high-road. On this road we continue to travel,
but it becomes worse and worse; it is, properly speaking, no
road at all, but it is about to become one. Large stones lie
half dug up, and we drive past them; large trees are cast
down, and obstruct our way, and therefore we must descend
from the carriage. The horses are taken out, and the
peasants help to lift and push the carriage forward over
ditches and opened paths. The sun now ceases to shine; some
few rain-drops fall, and now it is a steady rain. But how it
causes the birch to shed its fragrance! At a distance there
are huts erected of loose trunks of trees and fresh green
boughs, and in each there is a large fire burning. See where
the blue smoke curls through the green leafy roof; peasants
are within at work, hammering and forging; here they have
their meals. They are now laying a mine in order to blast a
rock, and the pine and birch emit a finer fragrance. It is
delightful in the forest."
So say we. It is delightful in the forest; not less so on the
torrent-river of Scandinavia:
"Before Homer sang, there were heroes; but they are not
known, no poet celebrated their fame. It is just so with the
beauties of nature; they must be brought into notice by
words and delineations, be brought before the eyes of the
multitude; get a sort of world's patent for what they are.
The elvs of the North have rushed and whirled along for
thousands of years in unknown beauty. The world's great
high-road does not take this direction; no steam-packet
conveys the traveller comfortably along the streams of the
Dal-elvs; fall on fall makes sluices indispensable and
invaluable. Schubert is, as yet, the only stranger who has
written about the magnificence and southern beauty of
Dalecarlia, and spoken of its greatness.
"Clear as the waves of the sea does the mighty elv stream in
endless windings through forest deserts and varying plains,
sometimes extending its deep bed, sometimes confining it,
reflecting the bending trees and the red-painted
block-houses of solitary towns, and sometimes rushing like a
cataract over immense blocks of rock.
"Miles apart from one another, out of the ridge of mountains
between Sweden and Norway, come the east and west Dal-elvs,
which first become confluent and have one bed above Balstad.
They have taken up rivers and lakes in their waters. Do but
visit this place! here are pictorial riches to be found: the
most picturesque landscapes, dizzyingly grand, smilingly
pastoral, idyllic; one is drawn onward up to the very source
of the elv, the bubbling well above Finman's hut; one feels
a desire to follow every branch of the stream that the river
takes in.
"The first mighty fall, Njupesker's Cataract, is seen by the
Norwegian frontier in Semasog. The mountain stream rushes
perpendicularly from the rock to a depth of seventy fathoms.
"We pause in the dark forest, where the elv seems to collect
within itself nature's whole deep gravity. The stream rolls
its clear waters over a porphyry soil, where the mill-wheel
is driven, and the gigantic porphyry bowls and sarcophagi
are polished.
"We follow the stream through Siljan's lake, where
superstition sees the water-sprite swim like the sea-horse,
with a mane of green seaweed; and where the aërial images
present visions of witchcraft in the warm summer day.
"We sail on the stream from Siljan's lake under the weeping
willows of the parsonage, where the swans assemble in
flocks; we glide along slowly with horses and carriages on
the great ferry-boat, away over the rapid current under
Balstad's picturesque shore. Here the elv widens and rolls
its billows majestically in a woodland landscape, as large
and extended as if it were in North America.
"We see the rushing, rapid stream under Avista's yellow clay
declivities; the yellow water falls, like fluid amber, in
picturesque cataracts before the copper works, where
rainbow-colored tongues of fire shoot themselves upwards,
and the hammer's blow on the copper-plates resound to the
monotonous, roaring rumble of the elv-fall."
And so on, past the famous fall down which the waters gush, ere they
lose themselves in the waters of the Baltic. One glimpse more ere they
reach their resting-place. We take them up as they are circling the
garden of a trim Swedish manor-house:
"The garden itself was a piece of enchantment. There stood
three transplanted beech trees, and they throve well. The
sharp north wind had rounded off the tops of the wild
chestnut trees of the avenue in a singular manner; they
looked as if they had been under the gardener's shears.
Golden yellow oranges hung in the conservatory; the splendid
Southern exotics had to-day got the windows half open, so
that the artificial warmth met the fresh, warm, sunny air of
the Northern summer.
"The branch of the Dal-elv which goes round the garden is
strewn with small islands, where beautiful hanging birches
and fir-trees grow in Scandinavian splendor. There are small
islands with green, silent groves; there are small islands
with rich grass, tall brakens, variegated bell flowers, and
cowslips. No Turkey carpet has fresher colors. The stream
between these islands and holmes is sometimes rapid, deep,
and clear; sometimes like a broad rivulet with silky green
rushes, water lilies, and brown feathered reeds; sometimes
it is a brook with a stony ground, and now it spreads itself
out in a large, still mill-dam.
"Here is a landscape in midsummer for the games of the
river-sprites, and the dancers of the elves and fairies!
There, in the lustre of the full moon, the dryads can tell
their tales, the water-sprites seize the golden harp, and
believe that one can be blessed, at least for one single
night, like this.
"On the other side of Ens Bruck is the main stream--the full
Dal-elv. Do you hear the monotonous rumble? It is not from
Elvkarleby Fall that it reaches hither; it is close by; it
is from Laa Foss in which lies Ash Island: the elv streams
and rushes over the leaping salmon.
"Let us sit here, between the fragments of rock by the
shore, in the red evening sunlight, which sheds a golden
lustre on the waters of the Dal-elv.
"Glorious river! But a few seconds' work hast thou to do in
the mills yonder, and thou rushest foaming on over
Elvkarleby's rocks, down into the deep bed of the river,
which leads thee to the Baltic--thy eternity."
We could fill half our number with passages just as beautiful; but
will leave the rest of the poet's landscapes till some American
publisher brings out the book. We must nevertheless quote one picture
of a different kind. "One touch of nature makes the whole world kin;"
and the sorrows of the palace and the cottage alike find their level
and their rest in the grave. The "Mute Book" speaks with a moving
eloquence to those who can read it aright:
"By the high-road into the forest there stood a solitary
farm-house. One way lay right through the farm-yard; the sun
shone; all the windows were open; there was life and bustle
within, but in the yard, in an arbor of flowering lilacs,
there stood an open coffin. The corpse had been placed out
here, and it was to be buried that forenoon. No one stood
by, and wept over that dead man; no one hung sorrowfully
over him. His face was covered with a white cloth, and under
his head there lay a large, thick book, every leaf of which
was a whole sheet of gray paper, and, between each, lay
withered flowers, deposited and forgotten,--a whole
herbarium, gathered in different places. He himself had
requested that it should be laid in the grave with him. A
chapter of his life was blended with every flower! 'Who is
that dead man?' we asked, and the answer was, 'The old
student from Upsala. They say he was once very clever; he
knew the learned languages, could sing and write verses too;
but then there was something that went wrong, and so he gave
both his thoughts and himself up to drinking spirits, and,
as his health suffered by it, he came out here into the
country, where they paid for his board and lodging. He was
as gentle as a child when the dark humor did not come over
him, for then he was strong, and ran about in the forest
like a hunted deer; but when we got him home, we persuaded
him to look into the book with the dry plants. Then he would
sit the whole day, and look at one plant, and then at
another, and many a time the tears ran down his cheeks. God
knows what he then thought! But he begged that he might have
the book with him in his coffin; and now it lies there, and
the lid will soon be fastened down, and then he will take
his peaceful rest in the grave!'
"They raised the winding sheet. There was peace in the face
of the dead. A sunbeam fell on it; a swallow, in its
arrow-flight, darted into the new-made arbor, and in its
flight circled twittering over the dead man's head.
"How strange it is!--we all assuredly know it--to take out
old letters from the days of one's youth, and read them: a
whole life, as it were, then rises up, with all its hopes
and all its troubles. How many of those with whom we, in
their time, lived so devotedly, are now even as the dead to
us, and yet they still live! But we have not thought of them
for many years--them whom we once thought we should always
cling to, and share our mutual joys and sorrows with!
"The withered oak-leaf in the book here, is a memorial of
the friend--the friend of his school days--the friend for
life. He fixed this leaf on the student's cap, in the
greenwood, when the vow of friendship was concluded for the
whole life. Where does he now live? The leaf is preserved;
friendship forgotten. Here is a foreign conservatory plant,
too fine for the gardens of the North. It looks as if there
still were fragrance in it. _She_ gave it to him--she, the
lady of that noble garden!
"Here is the marsh-lotus, which, he himself has plucked and
watered with salt tears--the marsh-lotus from the fresh
waters! And here is a nettle; what do its leaves say! What
did he think on plucking it?--on preserving it? Here are
lilies of the valley, from the woodland solitudes; here are
honeysuckles from the village ale-house flower-pot; and here
the bare, sharp blade of grass. The flowering lilac bends
its fresh, fragrant clusters over the dead man's head; the
swallow again flies past--'qui-vit! qui-vit!' Now the men
come with nails and hammer; the lid is placed over the
corpse, whose head rests on the 'Mute
Book'--preserved--forgotten!"
The book, to those who are not repelled by a certain quaintness of
manner from the enjoyment of a work of true genius, will form a
permanent and delightful addition to those pictures of many lands
which the enterprise and accomplishment of modern travellers is
creating for the delight of those whose range of locomotion is bounded
by the limits of their own country, or by the four walls of a sick
chamber.
Andersen has grown old in years, and with age he has increase of art,
but he was never younger in spirit, and his genius never blossomed
with more freshness and beauty.
VERSES
WRITTEN FOR THE INTERNATIONAL MAGAZINE,
BY R. H. STODDARD.
My desk is heaped with niceties
From tropic lands divine,
But this is braver far than all--
A flask of Chian wine!
Brim up my golden drinking-cup,
And reach a dish of fruit,
And then unlock my cabinet,
And hand me out my lute;
For when these luxuries have fed
And filled my brain with light,
I must compose a nuptial song,
To suit my bridal night!
A CHAPTER OF PARODIES.
Parodies have been much in vogue in almost every age; among the
Greeks, Latins, Germans, French, and English, it has been among the
commonest of literary pleasantries to turn verses into ridicule by
applying them to a purpose never dreamed of by their authors, or to
burlesque serious pieces by affecting to observe the same rhymes,
words, and cadences. The wicked arts of Charles the Second's time thus
made fun of the hymns of the Roundheads, and pious people have since
turned the tables by adapting to good uses the profane airs and
sensual songs of the opera house. Of the class of puns, parodies have
in the scale of art a much higher rank, and occasionally they furnish
specimens of genuine poetry. Among the best we have ever seen are a
considerable number attributed to Miss Phebe Carey, of Ohio; they are
rich in quaint and natural humor, and as a London critic describes
them, "wonderfully American." In its way, we have seen nothing better
than this reflex of Bayard Taylor's poem of "Manuela."
MARTHA HOPKINS.
A BALLAD OF INDIANA.
From the kitchen, Martha Hopkins, as she stood there making pies,
Southward looks along the turnpike, with her hand above her eyes;
Where along the distant hill-side, her yearling heifer feeds,
And a little grass is growing in a mighty sight of weeds.
All the air is full of noises, for there isn't any school,
And boys, with turned-up pantaloons, are wading in the pool;
Blithely frisk, unnumbered chickens cackling for they cannot laugh,
Where the airy summits brighten, nimbly leaps the little calf.
Gentle eyes of Martha Hopkins! tell me wherefore do ye gaze
On the ground that's being furrowed for the planting of the maize?
Tell me wherefore down the valley, ye have traced the turnpike's way,
Far beyond the cattle pasture, and the brick-yard with its clay?
Ah! the dog-wood tree may blossom, and the door-yard grass may shine,
With the tears of amber dropping from the washing on the line;
And the morning's breath of balsam, lightly brush her freckled cheek,--
Little recketh Martha Hopkins of the tales of spring they speak.
When the summer's burning solstice on the scanty harvest glowed,
She had watched a man on horseback riding down the turnpike road;
Many times she saw him turning, looking backward quite forlorn,
Till amid her tears she lost him, in the shadow of the barn.
Ere supper-time was over, he had passed the kiln of brick,
Crossed the rushing Yellow River and had forded quite a creek,
And his flat-boat load was taken, at the time for pork and beans,
With the traders of the Wabash, to the wharf at New Orleans.
Therefore watches Martha Hopkins--holding in her hands the pans,
When the sound of distant footsteps seems exactly like a man's;
Not a wind the stove-pipe rattles, nor a door behind her jars,
But she seems to hear the rattle of his letting down the bars.
Often sees she men on horseback, coming down the turnpike rough,
But they come not as John Jackson, she can see it well enough;
Well she knows the sober trotting of the sorrel horse he keeps,
As he jogs along at leisure with his head down like a sheep's.
She would know him 'mid a thousand, by his home-made coat and vest;
By his socks, which were blue woollen, such as farmers wear out west;
By the color of his trousers, and his saddle, which was spread
By a blanket which was taken for that purpose from the bed.
None like he the yoke of hickory, on the unbroke ox can throw,
None amid his father's corn-fields use like him the spade and hoe;
And at all the apple-cuttings, few indeed the men are seen,
That can dance with him the polka, touch with him the violin.
He has said to Martha Hopkins, and she thinks she hears him now,
For she knows as well as can be, that he meant to keep his vow,
When the buck-eye tree has blossomed, and your uncle plants his corn,
Shall the bells of Indiana usher in the wedding morn.
He has pictured his relations, each in Sunday hat and gown,
And he thinks he'll get a carriage, and they'll spend a day in town;
That their love will newly kindle, and what comfort it will give,
To sit down to the first breakfast, in the cabin where they'll live.
Tender eyes of Martha Hopkins! what has got you in such scrape,
'Tis a tear that falls to glitter on the ruffle of her cape,
Ah! the eye of love may brighten, to be certain what it sees,
One man looks much like another, when half hidden by the trees.
But her eager eyes rekindle, she forgets the pies and bread,
As she sees a man on horseback, round the corner of the shed.
Now tie on another apron, get the comb and smooth your hair,
'Tis the sorrel horse that gallops, 'tis John Jackson's self that's there!
Here is one scarcely less happy upon Mr. Willis's "Better Moments:"
WORSER MOMENTS.
That fellow's voice! how often steals
Its cadence o'er my lonely days!
Like something sent on wagon wheels,
Or packed in an unconscious chaise.
I might forget the words he said
When all the children fret and cry,
But when I get them off to bed,
His gentle tone comes stealing by--
And years of matrimony flee,
And leave me sitting on his knee.
The times he came to court a spell,
The tender things he said to me,
Make me remember mighty well
My hopes that he'd propose to me.
My face is uglier, and perhaps
Time and the comb have thinned my hair;
And plain and common are the caps,
And dresses that I have to wear--
But memory is ever yet
With all that fellow's flat'ries writ.
I have been out at milking-time
Beneath a dull and rainy sky,
When in the barn 'twas time to feed,
And calves were bawling lustily--
When scattered hay, and sheaves of oats,
And yellow corn-ears, sound and hard,
And all that makes the cattle pass
With wilder richness through the yard--
When all was hateful, then have I,
With friends who had to help me milk,
Talked of his wife most spitefully,
And how he kept her dressed in silk;
And when the cattle, running there,
Threw over me a shower of mud,
That fellow's voice came on the air,
Like the light chewing of the cud--
And resting near some spreckled cow,
The spirit of a woman's spite,
I've poured a low and fervent vow,
To make him, if I had the might,
Live all his life-time just as hard,
And milk his cows in such a yard.
I have been out to pick up wood
When night was stealing from the dawn,
Before the fire was burning good,
Or I had put the kettle on
The little stove--when babes were waking
With a low murmur in the beds,
And melody by fits was breaking
Above their little yellow heads--
And this when I was up perhaps
From a few short and troubled naps--
And when the sun sprang scorchingly
And freely up, and made us stifle,
And fell upon each hill and tree
The bullets from his subtle rifle--
I say a voice has thrilled me then,
Hard by that solemn pile of wood,
Or creeping from the silent glen,
Like something on the unfledged brood,
Hath stricken me, and I have pressed
Close in my arms my load of chips,
And pouring forth the hatefulest
Of words that ever passed my lips,
Have felt my woman's spirit rush
On me, as on that milking night,
And, yielding to the blessed gush
Of my ungovernable spite,
Have risen up, the wed, the old,
Scolding as hard as I could scold.
And in the same vein "The Annoyer," in which is imitated one of the
most delicate pieces of sentiment and fancy which Willis has given us:
THE ANNOYER.
"Common as light is love,
And its familiar voice wearies not ever."--SHELLEY.
Love knoweth every body's house,
And every human haunt,
And comes unbidden, every where,
Like people we don't want.
The turnpike roads and little creeks
Are written with love's words,
And you hear his voice like a thousand bricks
In the lowing of the herds.
He peeps into the teamster's heart,
From his Buena Vista's rim,
And the cracking whips of many men
Can never frighten him.
He'll come to his cart in the weary night,
When he's dreaming of his craft;
And he'll float to his eye in the morning light,
Like a man on a river raft.
He hears the sound of the cooper's adz,
And makes him too his dupe,
For he sighs in his ear from the shaving pile
As he hammers on the hoop.
The little girl, the beardless boy,
The men that walk or stand,
He will get them all in his mighty arms
Like the grasp of your very hand.
The shoemaker bangs above his bench,
And ponders his shining awl,
For love is under the lap-stone hid,
And a spell is on the wall.
It heaves the sole where he drives the pegs,
And speaks in every blow,
'Till the last is dropped from his crafty hand,
And his foot hangs bare below.
He blurs the prints which the shopmen sell,
And intrudes on the hatter's trade,
And profanes the hostler's stable-yard
In the shape of a chamber-maid.
In the darkest night, and the bright daylight,
Knowing that he can win,
In every home of good-looking folks
Will human love come in.
The next is from Poe's "Annabel Lee:"
SAMUEL BROWN.
It was many and many a year ago,
In a dwelling down in town,
That a fellow there lived whom you may know
By the name of Samuel Brown;
And this fellow he lived with no other thought
Than to our house to come down.
I was a child and he was a child,
In that dwelling down in town,
But we loved with a love that was more than love,
I and my Samuel Brown--
With a love that the ladies coveted,
Me and Samuel Brown.
And this was the reason that, long ago,
To that dwelling down in town,
A girl came out of her carriage, courting
My beautiful Samuel Brown;
So that her high-bred kinsman came
And bore away Samuel Brown,
And shut him up in a dwelling-house,
In a street quite up in town.
The ladies, not half so happy up there,
Went envying me and Brown;
Yes! that was the reason, (as all men know,
In this dwelling down in town,)
That the girl came out of the carriage by night
Coquetting and getting my Samuel Brown.
But our love is more artful by far than the love
Of those who are older than we--
Of many far wiser than we--
And neither the girls that are living above,
Nor the girls that are down in town,
Can ever discover my soul from the soul
Of the beautiful Samuel Brown.
For the morn never shines without bringing me lines
From my beautiful Samuel Brown;
And the night is never dark, but I sit in the park
With my beautiful Samuel Brown.
And often by day, I walk down in Broadway,
With my darling, my darling, my life, and my stay,
To our dwelling down in town,
To our house in the street down town.
The two poems that have been most parodied in this country are the
"Woodman spare that tree," of General Morris, and Poe's "Raven." There
have been an incredible number of burlesques of the former, and of the
latter we have seen a collection of seventeen, some of which are
scarcely less clever than the original performance.
THE BRITISH HUMORISTS: DESCRIBED
BY MR. THACKERAY.
In the last _International_, we gave sketches of the first and second
of the series of lectures Mr. Thackeray is now delivering in London, a
series which we may regard with more interest because it is to be
repeated in Boston, New-York, and other American cities. The subjects
of the lectures already noticed were SWIFT, CONGREVE, and ADDISON. The
third lecture was upon
SIR RICHARD STEELE.
"Having," says the _Times_, "to deal with a personage whose
character was any thing but perfection, Mr. Thackeray
started with a good-humored declamation against perfection
in general. A perfect man would be intolerable--he could not
laugh and he could not cry, neither could he hate nor even
love, for love itself implied an unjust preference of one
person over another, which was so far an imperfection. The
interest which a man takes in the progress of his own boy at
school, while he is indifferent about other boys who are
probably better and more clever, his choice that a death
should occur in his neighbor's house rather than in his own,
and various traits of a similar kind, are all so many
manifestations of selfishness, and therefore so many removes
from perfection.
"After this preface, Mr. Thackeray discoursed upon Steele's
career at school. At the Charter-house he distinguished
himself as a good-natured _mauvais sujet_--idle beyond the
average mark. By his scholastic acquisitions he gave little
satisfaction to his masters, and was flogged more frequently
than any boy in the school. Moreover, he was in debt to all
the vendors of juvenile delicacies in the neighborhood; and,
if any boy came to school with money to lend, Dick Steele
was certain to appear as the person to borrow. These facts,
given with much minuteness, were followed by an assertion on
the part of the lecturer that he had no authority for them
whatever. It was an admitted truth that 'the child is the
father of the man,' and on this principle he felt he had a
right, from his intimate knowledge of Captain Steele, to
deduce what sort of a personage Master Dicky Steele was
likely to be.
"This bit of mock biography gave the key-note to the entire
lecture. While Mr. Thackeray admitted that Steele was a far
less brilliant man than any who had formed the subjects of
the preceding discourses, and far less entitled to
admiration than Addison, he spoke of him in a tone of warmer
affection than he had displayed when talking of the great
Joseph. He dilated with unction on Steele's many follies and
vices--his strange medley of piety and debauchery, his
inordinate love of dress, his insensibility as to the duty
of meeting pecuniary obligations; he even read an
ill-natured description by John Dennis, remarking that it
was substantially true, but at the same time he constantly
kept before the minds of his hearers the kindliness of
Steele's heart. He did not call upon them to worship him as
a moral being or as a talent, aware that many others much
more deserved such honor, but he exhorted them to love him
as a friend: 'If Steele is not a friend, he is nothing.'
"The great number of letters which Steele wrote to his wife,
and which are still extant, furnished Mr. Thackeray with
much of the knowledge he possessed as to the character of
his hero. With these he could pursue him through every
variety of joy and sorrow, difficulty and triumph, and, as
they were evidently written for none but her to whom they
were addressed, he could be sure that the writer spoke from
his own heart. On the literary productions of Steele, Mr.
Thackeray dwelt very little, but he pointed out in them this
peculiarity, that the author showed a reverence for woman
unknown to his contemporaries. Swift hated women just as he
hated men; Congreve regarded them as so many fortresses to
be conquered by a superior general; even Addison sneered at
them with a gentle sneer; but Steele really spoke of them in
a tone of affectionate respect, and this gives a charm to
his comedies not to be found in more brilliant productions.
"Mr. Thackeray took occasion to illustrate by these extracts
the characteristic differences of Swift, Addison, and
Steele. He had already drawn a ludicrous picture of the
relative positions of Steele and Addison, remarking that the
latter had been through life to the former what a 'head boy'
is to an inferior boy at school. Now by Swift's poem on the
'Day of Judgment'--an extract from the _Spectator_,
containing Addison's reflections in Westminster Abbey--and a
passage from Steele, he showed how the subject of Death was
treated by the three writers. Swift's poem savagely treats
as fools all who pretend to know any thing beyond the grave,
including the teachers of the several sects. Addison's tone
was kinder, but, while he was benevolent in his skepticism,
he came to nearly the same result as the ferocious Dean.
Steele, on the other hand, was content to remember, as his
first grief, the death of his father, when he was five years
old, and the dignified sorrow of his mother.
"By way of an additional comical apology for the foibles of
Steele, Mr. Thackeray concluded his lecture by remarking on
the atrocities of the age when poor Dick lived,--an age when
young ladies, at dinner, actually put their knives into
their mouths. The social peculiarities of the period he
illustrated by a sort of summary of Swift's _Polite
Conversation_, which led up to an ironical praise of the
nineteenth century, as a century whose anomalies are
unknown."
The fourth lecture on the humorists was of Prior, Gay, and Pope, Mr.
Thackeray choosing to consider Pope, who was not a humorist, but a
wit, the greatest humorist of all:
MATHEW PRIOR.
"Prior he characterizes as the foremost of lucky wits,
abounding in good nature and acuteness. He loved--he
drank--he sang. Some verses at Cambridge first rendered him
an object of notice, and by the 'City Mouse and Country
Mouse,' which, jointly with Montague, he wrote against
Dryden, and which, Mr. Thackeray ironically asserted, all
his hearers knew, of course, by heart, he gained the post of
Secretary to the Embassy at the Hague, in accordance with
the usage then prevalent of rewarding a talent for correct
alcaics or biting epigrams with important diplomatic
appointments. However, his fortune was but transient, since
he fell with his patron Montague. As a poet, Mr. Thackeray
praised Prior highly, calling him the most charming of
English lyrists, and comparing him with Horace on one side
and Moore on the other. At the same time he referred to a
certain statement that Prior, after he had spent the evening
with the first men of the day, would retire to Long-acre to
smoke a pipe with two very intimate acquaintances--a soldier
and his wife--adding that many of his writings seemed to be
under the influence of his Long-acre friends."
JOHN GAY.
"Gay was pointed out as a remarkable instance of kindliness
and good humor, gaining the love even of the most savage
wits of the day, and incurring the hatred of none. The
ferocious giant Swift loved him as the Brobdignag loved
Gulliver, and was afraid to open the packet which contained
the tidings of his death. This kindliness is an especial
feature in Gay's writings, even in his _Beggars' Opera_, and
as Rubini was said to have, 'une larme dans la voix,' so was
there in all that Gay produced a tone of the gentlest
pathos. This peculiarity he illustrated by reading the well
known story of the two devoted lovers struck dead by
lightning. As for Gay's life, it was easy enough. He failed,
indeed, to make his fortune, but he led a comfortable
existence with his noble patrons the Duke and Duchess of
Queensbury, living like a little round French _abbé_, eating
and drinking well and growing more melancholy as he
increased in fat."
ALEXANDER POPE.
"For a guaranty of Pope's merits, Mr. Thackeray especially
referred to the _Rape of the Lock_ and the _Dunciad_. He
insisted on his claims to admiration as a great literary
artist, always bent on the perfection of his work and gladly
adopting the thoughts of others if they would serve to
complete his own. This peculiarity of carefulness was early
shown in the fact that Pope began by imitation. The five
happiest years of his life were devoted to the study of the
best authors, especially poets, and the intellectual
enjoyment was heightened by the feeling that genius was
throbbing in his heart and awakening within him dreams of
future glory. He too should sing--he too should love. Of
love, indeed, Pope did not make a great deal, and as his
addresses to Lady Wortley Montague were a failure, so was
his first amour a sham love for a sham mistress. A
particular pleasure in reading the works of Pope consists in
the fact that they bring the reader into the very best
company--a company whose manners are, to be sure, a little
stiff and stately, and whose voices are pitched somewhat
beyond the ordinary conversation key, but there is something
ennobling about them. _Apropos_ of this peculiarity, Mr.
Thackeray took occasion to dwell with great unction on the
advantages of high society, and said, for the benefit of any
young hearer who might be present, 'Young hearer, keep
company with your betters.' Addison, as we have seen, is Mr.
Thackeray's moral hero. He considers, however, that he has
one great blemish in his dislike of Alexander Pope. The
young poet was too conscious of his own powers to be a mere
attendant at the Court of King Joseph, and King Joseph did
not like this independence. The support given by the Addison
_clique_ to Tickell's translation of Homer might naturally
enough be construed by the Pope faction as proceeding from
an ungenerous wish to depreciate their chieftain's version,
and they might easily suppose that what was emulation in
Tickell was envy in Addison. The verses which Pope wrote on
this occasion and sent to Addison, had the satisfactory
effect that the great Joseph was civil ever afterwards. But
still Mr. Thackeray surmised that their sting was never
forgotten, and that the saintly Addison might be painted as
a Sebastian, with this one arrow sticking in him.
"The causes that led to the writing of the _Dunciad_ were
laid down, chiefly with a view of justifying the author,
though Mr. Thackeray admitted that Pope's arrows are so
sharp, and his slaughter so wholesale, that the reader's
sympathies are often enlisted on the side of the devoted
inhabitants of Grub-street. The vile jokes and libels that
were aimed against the illustrious poet, and the paltry
allusions to his personal defects, were brought forward as
sufficient motives; and the lecturer dwelt with admiration
on the personal courage which the "gallant little cripple"
displayed when the indignant dunces threatened him with
corporeal chastisement. At the same time, he declared it his
conviction that the _Dunciad_ had done the greatest possible
harm to the literary profession. Prior to its publication
there were great prizes for literary men in the shape of
government appointments and the like; but Pope, a lover of
high society--a man so refined that he kept thin while his
friends grew fat--hated the rank and file of literature, and
if there was one point in his assailants on which he dwelt
with savage partiality, it was their abject poverty. He it
was who brought the notion of a vile Grub-street before the
minds of the general public; he it was who created such
associations as author and rags--author and dirt--author and
gin. The occupation of authorship became ignoble through his
graphic descriptions of misery, and the literary profession
was for a long time destroyed.
"Pope's well known affection for his mother, on which Mr.
Thackeray feelingly expatiated, and the love which his
friends entertained for him, were introduced as a
sentimental relief in describing the character of a man
whose career Mr. Thackeray compared to that of a great
general, obtaining his end by a series of brilliant
conquests."
HOGARTH, SMOLLETT, AND FIELDING.
"In his fifth lecture," says the _Leader_, "Mr. Thackeray
dwelt at great length on Hogarth, and pointed out how much
of his success lay in the simple conventional morals of his
works; gave a graphic analysis of the _Marriage à la Mode_
and the _Idle and Industrious Apprentices_; and humorously
set forth Hogarth's pretensions to the sublime in historical
painting. Smollett was dismissed in a few pleasant
paragraphs. Fielding called out the hearty admiration of the
author of _Vanity Fair_; and amidst the panegyric there were
some admirable passages, notably one on the scorn and hatred
Richardson and Fielding unaffectedly felt for each other,
and the sincerity which may animate even the most
contemptuous criticism. The opinions Thackeray stamps with
his authority, we constantly find open to question; but it
is not as a Course of Criticism that these Lectures have
their inexpressible charm, and it would be possible for a
man to dissent _in toto_ from the views put forth, while at
the same time he held them to be among the most delightful
lectures he ever listened to."
STERNE AND GOLDSMITH.
In the sixth and last lecture of the course, Mr. Thackeray's
subjects were Sterne and Goldsmith. He stigmatized severely
all Sterne's relations with women, showed up the sham
sensibility which wept through his writings, dwelt on the
perilous thing it was to make a market of one's sorrows, and
sell the deepest experiences of one's life at so much per
volume, and wound up with an emphatic condemnation of the
pruriency of Sterne's writings, contrasting that pruriency
with the purity of Dickens. All the generosity, sweetness,
and improvidence of Goldsmith's Irish nature were earnestly
and genially presented.
This course of lectures has been described as "a review of the
humorists, by their master," but Mr. Thackeray is not a humorist--at
least humor is not his distinguishing quality; he is a cold satirist,
sneering at humanity, and in all his writings never exhibiting a spark
of the genial fire which should commend an author to the affections of
his readers. Gentlemen may be amused by him--he may be even
punctilious and sincere in the observance of all honorable
conduct--but judging him by his works, he is one of the last men
living whom any person with the instincts of a gentleman would admit
to his friendship. Some of his books are amazingly clever, but others,
as the _Kickleburys on the Rhine_, are but unredeemable vulgarity. He
has been taken up very much by the snobs--a class somewhat remarkable
for misapprehensions of their real relations--and we find the snobs of
this country as well as of England lauding the satirist as an enemy of
their own peculiar caste. This is a mistake: Mr. Thackeray has painted
to the life the sentimental snob, indeed, but he is himself a chief of
a different and far less endurable class in this division of the
race--_the snob cynical and supercilious_.
ALRED.
WRITTEN FOR THE INTERNATIONAL MAGAZINE,
BY ELMINA WALDO CAREY.
Do you remember, Alred dear,
The peach-tree's cool and ample shade,
Where first our hearts learned love and fear,
And vows of constancy were made?
The peach-tree stands there, now as then,
Its shadow just as dim and mild,
And over all the sacred glen
The vines of strawberries run wild.
Still all about the water's edge
Beds of green flags in beauty lie,
And, sloping towards the elder-hedge,
Are fields of graceful waving rye.
But, Alred dear, not by our feet
Will the round clover-heads be pressed,
For years must pass before we meet
In that dear valley of the west.
Sometimes my heart is filled with fear,
Yet if not, Alred, in that land,
'Tis bliss to know, in some bright sphere
You'll wait to take my trembling hand.
CHRISTOPHER NORTH ON ANIMAL MAGNETISM.
The July number of _Blackwood's Magazine_ has a long paper under the
title of _What is Mesmerism?_ in which the question is discussed with
ingenuity, apparent candor, and occasional eloquence. The editor,
however, does not altogether agree with his contributor, and adds to
the article the following postscript. Undoubtedly a large proportion
of the "professors of magnetism" are mere mountebanks, and the
pretenders to clairvoyance may in all cases probably be set down as
knaves, or as very ignorant or feeble-minded persons. Nevertheless, we
cannot quite agree with Professor Wilson in all his propositions:
WHAT IS MESMERISM?
"It must be admitted that our excellent correspondent has
set forth the claims of 'Adolphe' and 'Alexis,' and similar
interesting abstractions, to the powers of omnipresence and
omniscience, with great candor and becoming gravity. We are
sorry that we cannot follow what many of our readers may
consider so excellent an example. We have no faith in those
dear creatures without surnames: we have no faith in animal
magnetism, either in its lesser or in its larger
pretensions; but we have an unbounded faith in the
imbecility, infatuation, vanity, credulity, and knavery of
which human nature is capable. And we are of opinion that
there is not a single well-authenticated mesmeric phenomenon
which is not fully explicable by the operation of one or
more of these causes, or of the whole of them taken in
conjunction.
"The question in regard to mesmerism is two-fold: _first_,
how is the mesmeric prostration to be accounted for? and
_secondly_, how is it to be disposed of? It may be accounted
for, we conceive, by the natural tendencies just recited,
without its being necessary to postulate any new or unknown
agency; it may be disposed of by the influence of public
opinion, which would very soon put a stop to these pitiable
exhibitions, and very soon extinguish the magnetizer's power
and the patient's susceptibility, if it were but to visit
the performers with the contempt and reprobation they
deserve. A few words on each of these heads may not be out
of place, as a qualifying postscript to the foregoing
letter, which, in our opinion, treats the mesmeric
superstition with far too much indulgence.
"I. The existence of any physical force or fluid in man or
in nature, by which the mesmeric phenomena are induced, has
been distinctly disproved by every carefully conducted
experiment. _No person was ever magnetized when totally
unsuspicious of the operation of which he was the subject._
This is conclusive; because a physical agent, which never
does, _of itself_ and unheralded, produce any effect, is no
physical agent at all. Then, again, let certain persons be
prepared for the magnetic condition, and aware of what is
expected of them, and the effects are equally produced,
whether the intended influence be exerted or not. It seems
simply ridiculous to postulate an _odylic_ (we should like
to be favored with the derivation of this word) fluid to
account for phenomena which show themselves just as
conspicuously when no such fluid is or can be in operation.
"But it is argued by some of the advocates of mesmeric
influence, that their agent, though perhaps not physical, is
at any rate moral--that the will, or some spiritual energy
on the part of the mesmerist, is the power by which his
victims are entranced and rendered obedient to his bidding.
Here, too, all the well-authenticated cases establish a
totally different conclusion. They prove that the will or
spiritual power of the mesmerist has _of itself_ no
ascendency or control whatsoever over the body or mind of
his victim. Every well-guarded series of experiments has
exhibited the mesmerist and his patient at cross-purposes
with each other--the patient frequently doing those things
which the mesmerist was desirous he should not do, and not
doing those things which the operator was desirous he should
do. As for the buffoonery begotten by mesmerism on
phrenology, this exhibition can scarcely be expected to
provoke much astonishment, or credence, or comment, except
among professional artists themselves--
'Like Katterfelto, with their hair on end,
At their own wonders, _wondering for their bread_!'
"The true explanation of mesmerism is to be found, as we
have said, in the weakness or infatuation of human nature
itself. No other causes are at all necessary to account for
the mesmeric prostration. There is far more craziness, both
physical and moral, in man than he usually gives himself
credit for. The reservoir of human folly may be in a great
measure occult, but it is always full; and all that
silliness, whether of body or mind, at any time wants, is
_to get its cue_.
"These general remarks are of course more applicable to some
individuals than they are to others. In soft and weak
natures, where the nervous system is subject to cataleptic
seizures, mental and bodily prostration is frequently almost
the normal condition. Such of our readers as may have
frequented mesmeric exhibitions must have observed a kind of
_semi-humanity_ visible in the expression and demeanor of
most of the subjects whom the professional operators carry
about with them. These poor creatures are at all times ready
to imbibe the magnetic stupefaction, because it is only by
an effort that they are ever free from it. There is always
at work within them an occult tendency to
self-abandonment--an unintentional proclivity to
aberration, imitation, and deceit, which only requires a
signal to precipitate its morbid deposits. This
constitutional infirmity of body and of mind furnishes to
the mesmerist a basis for his operations, and is the source
of all the wonders which he works.
"It is only in the case of individuals who, without being
fatuous, are hovering on the verge of fatuity, that the
magnetic phenomena and the mesmeric prostration can be
admitted to be in any considerable degree real. Real to a
certain extent they may be; marvellous they certainly are
not. Imbecility of the nervous system, a ready abandonment
of the will, a facility in relinquishing every endowment
which makes man _human_--these intelligible causes, eked out
by a vanity and cunning which are always inherent in natures
of an inferior type, are quite sufficient to account for the
effects of the mesmeric manipulations on subjects of
peculiar softness and pliancy.
"In those persons of a better organized structure, who yield
themselves up to the mesmeric degradation, the physical
causes are less operative; but the moral causes are still
more influential. In all cases the prostration is
self-induced. But in the subjects of whom we have spoken, it
is mainly induced by physical depravity, although moral
frailties concur to bring about the condition. In persons of
a superior type, the condition is mainly due to moral
causes, although physical imbecility has some share in
facilitating the result. These people have much vanity, much
curiosity, and much credulity, together with a _weak_
imagination--that is to say, an imagination which is easily
excited by circumstances which would produce no effect upon
people of stronger imaginative powers. Their vanity shows
itself in the desire _to astonish others_, and get
themselves talked about. They think it rather creditable to
be susceptible subjects. It is a point in their favor! Their
credulity and curiosity take the form of a powerful wish _to
be astonished themselves_. Why should they be excluded from
a land of wonders which others are permitted to enter? The
first step is now taken. They are ready for the sacrifice,
which various motives concur to render agreeable. They
resign themselves passively, mind and body, into the hands
of the manipulator; and by his passes and grimaces, they are
cowed pleasurably, bullied delightfully, into _so much_ of
the condition which their inclinations are bent upon
attaining, as justifies them, they think, in laying claim to
the _whole_ condition, without bringing them under the
imputation of being downright impostors. _Downright_
impostors they unquestionably are not. We believe that their
condition is frequently, though to a very limited extent,
_real_. We must also consider, that, in a matter of this
kind, which is so deeply imbued with the ridiculous, a
mesmeric patient may, and doubtless often does, justify to
his own conscience a considerable deviation from the truth,
on the ground of waggery or hoaxing. Why should an audience,
which has the patience to put up with such spectacles, not
be fooled to the top of its bent?
"II. How, then, is the miserable nonsense to be disposed of?
It can only be put a stop to by the force of public opinion,
guided of course by reason and truth. Let it be announced
from all authoritative quarters that the magnetic
sensibility is only another name for an unsound condition of
the mental and bodily functions--that it may be always
accepted as an infallible index of the position which an
individual occupies in the scale of humanity--that its
manifestation (when real) invariably betokens a _physique_
and a _morale_ greatly below the average, and a character to
which no respect can be attached. Let this
announcement--which is the undoubted truth--be made by all
respectable organs of public opinion, and by all who are in
any way concerned in the diffusion of knowledge, or in the
instruction of the rising generation, and the magnetic
superstition will rapidly decline. Let this--the correct and
scientific explanation of the phenomena--be understood and
considered carefully by all young people of both sexes, and
the mesmeric ranks will be speedily thinned of their
recruits. Our young friends who may have been entrapped into
this infatuation by want of due consideration, will be wiser
for the future. If they allow themselves to be experimented
upon, they will at any rate take care not to disgrace
themselves by yielding to the follies to which they may be
solicited both from within and from without; and we are much
mistaken if, when they know what the penalty is, they will
abandon themselves to a disgusting condition which is
characteristic only of the most abject specimens of our
species."
A STORY WITHOUT A NAME.[1]
WRITTEN FOR THE INTERNATIONAL MONTHLY MAGAZINE,
BY G. P. R. JAMES, ESQ.
CHAPTER XXXIV.
John Ayliffe, as we may now once more very righteously call him, was
seated in the great hall of the old house of the Hastings family. Very
different indeed was the appearance of that large chamber now from
that which it had presented when Sir Philip Hastings was in
possession. All the old, solid, gloomy-looking furniture, which
formerly had given it an air of baronial dignity, and which Sir Philip
had guarded as preciously as if every antique chair and knotted table
had been an heir-loom, was now removed, and rich flaunting things of
gaudy colors substituted. Damask, and silk, and velvet, and gilt
ornaments in the style of France, were there in abundance, and had it
not been for the arches overhead, and the stone walls and narrow
windows around, the old hall might have passed for the saloon of some
newly-enriched financier of Paris.
The young man sat at table alone--not that he was by any means fond of
solitude, for on the contrary he would have fain filled his house with
company--but for some reason or another, which he could not divine, he
found the old country gentlemen in the neighborhood somewhat shy of
his society. His wealth, his ostentation, his luxury--for he had begun
his new career with tremendous vehemence--had no effect upon them.
They looked upon him as somewhat vulgar, and treated him with mere
cold, supercilious civility as an upstart. There was one gentleman of
good family, indeed, at some distance, who had hung a good deal about
courts, had withered and impoverished himself, and reduced both his
mind and his fortune in place-hunting, and who had a large family of
daughters, to whom the society of John Ayliffe was the more
acceptable, and who not unfrequently rode over and dined with
him--nay, took a bed at the Hall. But that day he had not been over,
and although upon the calculation of chances, one might have augured
two to one John Ayliffe would ultimately marry one of the daughters,
yet at this period he was not very much smitten with any of them, and
was contemplating seriously a visit to London, where he thought his
origin would be unknown, and his wealth would procure him every sort
of enjoyment.
Two servants were in the Hall, handing him the dishes. Well-cooked
viands were on the table, and rich wine. Every thing which John
Ayliffe in his sensual aspirations had anticipated from the possession
of riches was there--except happiness, and that was wanting. To sit
and feed, and feel one's self a scoundrel--to drink deep draughts,
were it of nectar, for the purpose of drowning the thought of our own
baseness--to lie upon the softest bed, and prop the head with the
downiest pillow, with the knowledge that all we possess is the fruit
of crime, can never give happiness--surely not, even to the most
depraved.
That eating and drinking, however, was now one of John Ayliffe's chief
resources--drinking especially. He did not actually get intoxicated
every night before he went to bed, but he always drank to a sufficient
excess to cloud his faculties, to obfuscate his mind. He rather liked
to feel himself in that sort of dizzy state where the outlines of all
objects become indistinct, and thought itself puts on the same hazy
aspect.
The servants had learned his habits already, and were very willing to
humor them; for they derived their own advantage therefrom. Thus, on
the present occasion, as soon as the meal was over, and the dishes
were removed, and the dessert put upon the table--a dessert consisting
principally of sweetmeats, for which he had a great fondness, with
stimulants to thirst. Added to these were two bottles of the most
potent wine in his cellar, with a store of clean glasses, and a jug of
water, destined to stand unmoved in the middle of the table.
After this process it was customary never to disturb him, till, with a
somewhat wavering step, he found his way up to his bedroom. But on the
night of which I am speaking, John Ayliffe had not finished his fourth
glass after dinner, and was in the unhappy stage, which, with some
men, precedes the exhilarating stage of drunkenness, when the butler
ventured to enter with a letter in his hand.
"I beg pardon for intruding, sir," he said, "but Mr. Cherrydew has
sent up a man on horseback from Hartwell with this letter, because
there is marked upon it, 'to be delivered with the greatest possible
haste.'"
"Curse him!" exclaimed John Ayliffe, "I wish he would obey the orders
I give him. Why the devil does he plague me with letters at this time
of night?--there, give it to me, and go away," and taking the letter
from the man's hand, he threw it down on the table beside him, as if
it were not his intention to read it that night. Probably, indeed, it
was not; for he muttered as he looked at the address, "She wants more
money, I dare say, to pay for some trash or another. How greedy these
women are. The parson preached the other day about the horse-leech's
daughter. By ---- I think I have got the horse-leech's mother!" and he
laughed stupidly, not perceiving that, the point of his sarcasm
touched himself.
He drank another glass of wine, and then looked at the letter again;
but at length, after yet another glass, curiosity got the better of
his moodiness, and he opened the epistle.
The first sight of the contents dispelled not only his indifference
but the effects of the wine he had taken, and he read the letter with
an eager and a haggard eye. The substance was as follows:
"MY DEAREST BOY:
"All is lost and discovered. I can but write you a very short account
of the things that have been happening here, for I am under what these
people call the surveillance of the police. I have got a few minutes,
however, and I will pay the maid secretly to give this to the post.
Never was such a time as I have had this morning. Four men have been
here, and among them Atkinson, who lived just down below at the
cottage with the gray shutters. He knew me in a minute, and told
everybody who I was. But that is not the worst of it, for they have
got a commissioner of police with him--a terrible looking man, who
took as much snuff as Mr. Jenkins, the justice of peace. They had got
all sorts of information in England about me, and you, and every body,
and they came to me to give them more, and cross-questioned me in a
terrible manner; and that ugly old Commissioner, in his black coat and
great wig, took my keys, and opened all the drawers and places. What
could I do to stop them? So they got all your letters to me; because I
could not bear to burn my dear boy's letters, and that letter from old
Sir John to my poor father, which I once showed you. So when they got
all these, there was no use of trying to conceal it any more, and,
besides, they might have sent me to the Bastile or the Tower of
London. So every thing has come out, and the best thing you can do is
to take whatever money you have got, or can get, and run away as fast
as possible, and come over here and take me away. One of them was as
fine a man as ever I saw, and quite gentleman, though very severe.
"Pray, my dear John, don't lose a moment's time, but run away before
they catch you; for they know every thing now, depend upon it, and
nothing will stop them from hanging you or sending you to the colonies
that you can do; for they have got all the proofs, and I could see by
their faces that they wanted nothing more; and if they do, my heart
will be quite broken, that is, if they hang you or send you to the
colonies, where you will have to work like a slave, and a man standing
over you with a whip, beating your bare back very likely. So run away,
and come to your afflicted mother."
She did not seem to have been quite sure what name to sign, for she
first put "Brown," but then changed the word to "Hastings," and then
again to "Ayliffe." There were two or three postscripts, but they were
of no great importance, and John Ayliffe did not take the trouble of
reading them. The terms he bestowed upon his mother--not in the
secrecy of his heart, but aloud and fiercely--were any thing but
filial, and his burst of rage lasted full five minutes before it was
succeeded by the natural fear and trepidation which the intelligence
he had received might well excite. Then, however, his terror became
extreme. The color, usually high, and now heightened both by rage and
wine, left his cheeks, and, as he read over some parts of his mother's
letter again, he trembled violently.
"She has told all," he repeated to himself, "she has told all--and
most likely has added from his own fancy. They have got all my letters
too, which the fool did not burn. What did I say, I wonder? Too
much--too much, I am sure. Heaven and earth, what will come of it!
Would to God I had not listened to that rascal Shanks! Where should I
go now for advice? It must not be to him. He would only betray and
ruin me--make me the scape-goat--pretend that I had deceived him, I
dare say. Oh, he is a precious villain, and Mrs. Hazleton knows that
too well to trust him even with a pitiful mortgage--Mrs. Hazleton--I
will go to her. She is always kind to me, and she is devilish clever
too--knows a good deal more than Shanks if she did but understand the
law--I will go to her--she will tell me how to manage."
No time was to be lost. Ride as hard as he could it would take him
more than an hour to reach Mrs. Hazleton's house, and it was already
late. He ordered a horse to be saddled instantly, ran to his bedroom,
drew on his boots, and then, descending to the hall, stood swearing at
the slowness of the groom till the sound of hoofs made him run to the
door. In a moment he was in the saddle and away, much to the
astonishment of the servants, who puzzled themselves a little as to
what intelligence their young master could have received, and then
proceeded to console themselves according to the laws and ordinances
of the servants' hall in such cases made and provided. The wine he had
left upon the table disappeared with great celerity, and the butler,
who was a man of precision, arrayed a good number of small silver
articles and valuable trinkets in such a way as to be packed up and
removed with great facility and secrecy.
In the meanwhile John Ayliffe rode on at a furious pace, avoiding a
road which would have led him close by Mr. Shanks's dwelling, and
reached Mrs. Hazleton's door about nine o'clock.
That lady was sitting in a small room behind the drawing-room, which I
have already mentioned, where John Ayliffe was announced once more as
Sir John Hastings. But Mrs. Hazleton, in personal appearance at least,
was much changed since she was first introduced to the reader. She was
still wonderfully handsome. She had still that indescribable air of
calm, high-bred dignity which we are often foolishly inclined to
ascribe to noble feelings and a high heart; but which--where it is not
an art, an acquirement--only indicates, I am inclined to believe, when
it has any moral reference at all, strength of character and great
self-reliance. But Mrs. Hazleton was older--looked older a good
deal--more so than the time which had passed would alone account for.
The passions of the last two or three years had worn her sadly, and
probably the struggle to conceal those passions had worn her as much.
Nevertheless, she had grown somewhat fat under their influence, and a
wrinkle here and there in the fair skin was contradicted by the
plumpness of her figure.
She rose with quiet, easy grace to meet her young guest, and held out
her hand to him, saying, "Really, my dear Sir John, you must not pay
me such late visits or I shall have scandal busying herself with my
good name."
But even as she spoke she perceived the traces of violent agitation
which had not yet departed from John Ayliffe's visage, and she added,
"What is the matter? Has any thing gone wrong?"
"Every thing is going to the devil, I believe," said John Ayliffe, as
soon as the servant had closed the door. "They have found out my
mother at St. Germain."
He paused there to see what effect this first intelligence would
produce, and it was very great; for Mrs. Hazleton well knew that upon
the concealment of his mother's existence had depended one of the
principal points in his suit against Sir Philip Hastings. What was
going on in her mind, however, appeared not in her countenance. She
paused in silence, indeed, for a moment or two, and then said in her
sweet musical voice, "Well, Sir John, is that all?"
"Enough too, dear Mrs. Hazleton!" replied the young man. "Why you
surely remember that it was judged absolutely necessary she should be
supposed dead--you yourself said, when we were talking of it, 'Send
her to France.' Don't you remember?"
"No I do not," answered Mrs. Hazleton, thoughtfully; "and if I did it
could only be intended to save the poor thing from all the torment of
being cross-examined in a court of justice."
"Ay, she has been cross-examined enough in France nevertheless," said
the young man bitterly, "and she has told every thing, Mrs.
Hazleton--all that she knew, and I dare say all that she guessed."
This news was somewhat more interesting than even the former; it
touched Mrs. Hazleton personally to a certain extent, for all that
Jane Ayliffe knew and all that she guessed might comprise a great deal
that Mrs. Hazleton would not have liked the world to know or guess
either. She retained all her presence of mind however, and replied
quite quietly "Really, Sir John, I cannot at all form a judgment of
these things, or give you either assistance or advice, as I am anxious
to do, unless you explain the whole matter fully and clearly. What has
your mother done which seems to have affected you so much? Let me hear
the whole details, then I can judge and speak with some show of
reason. But calm yourself, calm yourself, my dear sir. We often at the
first glance of any unpleasant intelligence take fright, and thinking
the danger ten times greater than it really is, run into worse dangers
in trying to avoid it. Let me hear all, I say, and then I will
consider what is to be done."
Now Mrs. Hazleton had already, from what she had just heard,
determined precisely and entirely what she would do. She had divined
in an instant that the artful game in which John Ayliffe had been
engaged, and in which she herself had taken a hand, was played out,
and that he was the loser; but it was a very important object with her
to ascertain if possible how far she herself had been compromised by
the revelations of Mrs. Ayliffe. This was the motive of her gentle
questions; for at heart she did not feel the least gentle.
On the other hand John Ayliffe was somewhat angry. All frightened
people are angry when they find others a great deal less frightened
than themselves. Drawing forth his mother's letter then, he thrust it
towards Mrs. Hazleton, almost rudely, saying, "Read that, madam, and
you'll soon see all the details that you could wish for."
Mrs. Hazleton did read it from end to end, postscript and all, and she
saw with infinite satisfaction and delight, that her own name was
never once mentioned in the whole course of that delectable epistle.
As she read that part of the letter, however, in which Mrs. Ayliffe
referred to the very handsome gentlemanly man who had been one of her
unwished for visitors, Mrs. Hazleton said within herself, "This is
Marlow; Marlow has done this!" and tenfold bitterness took possession
of her heart. She folded up the letter with neat propriety, however,
and handed it back to John Ayliffe, saying, in her very sweetest
tones, "Well, I do not think this so very bad as you seem to imagine.
They have found out that your mother is still living, and that is all.
They cannot make much of that."
"Not much of that!" exclaimed John Ayliffe, now nearly driven to
frenzy, "what if they convict me of perjury for swearing she was
dead?"
"Did you swear she was dead?" exclaimed Mrs. Hazleton with an
exceedingly well assumed look of profound astonishment.
"To be sure I did," he answered. "Why you proposed that she should be
sent away yourself, and Shanks drew out the affidavit."
A mingled look of consternation and indignation came into Mrs.
Hazleton's beautiful face; but before she could make any reply he went
on, thinking he had frightened her, which was in itself a satisfaction
and a sort of triumph.
"Ay, that you did," he said, "and not only that, but you advanced me
all the money to carry on the suit, and I am told that that is
punishable by law. Besides, you knew quite well of the leaf being torn
out of the register, so we are in the same basket I can tell you, Mrs.
Hazleton."
"Sir, you insult me," said the lady, rising with an air of imperious
dignity. "The charity which induced me to advance you different sums
of money, without knowing what they were to be applied to--and I can
prove that some of them were applied to very different purposes than a
suit at law--has been misunderstood, I see. Had I advanced them to
carry on this suit, they would have been paid to your and my lawyer,
not to yourself. Not a word more, if you please! You have mistaken my
character as well as my motives, if you suppose that I will suffer you
to remain here one moment after you have insulted me by the very
thought that I was any sharer in your nefarious transactions." She
spoke in a loud shrill tone, knowing that the servants were in the
hall hard by, and then she added, "Save me the pain, sir, of ordering
some of the men to put you out of the house by quitting it directly."
"Oh, yes, I will go, I will go," cried John Ayliffe, now quite
maddened, "I will go to the devil, and you too, madam," and he burst
out of the room, leaving the door open behind him.
"I can compassionate misfortune," cried Mrs. Hazleton, raising her
voice to the very highest pitch for the benefit of others, "but I will
have nothing to do with roguery and fraud," and as she heard his
horse's feet clatter over the terrace, she heartily wished he might
break his neck before he passed the park gates. How far she was
satisfied, and how far she was not, must be shown in another chapter.
CHAPTER XXXV.
John Ayliffe got out of the park gates quite safely, though he rode
down the slope covered with loose stones, as if he had no
consideration for his own neck or his horse's knees. He was in a state
of desperation, however, and feared little at that moment what became
of himself or any thing else. With fierce and angry eagerness he
revolved in his own mind the circumstances of his situation, the
conduct of Mrs. Hazleton, the folly, as he was pleased to term it, of
his mother, the crimes which he had himself committed, and he found no
place of refuge in all the dreary waste of thought. Every thing around
looked menacing and terrible, and the world within was all dark and
stormy.
He pushed his horse some way on the road which he had come, but
suddenly a new thought struck him. He resolved to seek advice and aid
from one whom he had previously determined to avoid. "I will go to
Shanks," he said to himself, "he at least is in the same basket with
myself. He must work with me, for if my mother has been fool enough to
keep my letters, I have been wise enough to keep his--perhaps
something may be done after all. If not, he shall go along with me,
and we will try if we cannot bring that woman in too. He can prove all
her sayings and doings." Thus thinking, he turned his horse's head
towards the lawyer's house, and rode as hard as he could go till he
reached it.
Mr. Shanks was enjoying life over a quiet comfortable bowl of punch in
a little room which looked much more tidy and comfortable, than it had
done twelve or eighteen months before. Mr. Shanks had been well paid.
Mr. Shanks had taken care of himself. No small portion of back rents
and costs had gone into the pockets of Mr. Shanks. Mr. Shanks was all
that he had ever desired to be, an opulent man. Moreover, he was one
of those happily constituted mortals who knew the true use of
wealth--to make it a means of enjoyment. He had no scruples of
conscience--not he. He little cared how the money came, so that it
found its way into his pocket. He was not a man to let his mind be
troubled by any unpleasant remembrances; for he had a maxim that every
man's duty was to do the very best he could for his client, and that
every man's first client was himself.
He heard a horse stop at his door, and having made up his mind to end
the night comfortably, to finish his punch and go to bed, he might
perhaps have been a little annoyed, had he not consoled himself with
the thought that the call must be upon business of importance, and he
had no idea of business of importance unconnected with that of a large
fee.
"To draw a will, I'll bet any money," said Mr. Shanks to himself; "it
is either old Sir Peter, dying of indigestion, and sent for me when
he's no longer able to speak, or John Ayliffe broken his neck leaping
over a five-barred gate--John Ayliffe, bless us all, Sir John Hastings
I should have said."
But the natural voice of John Ayliffe, asking for him in a loud
impatient tone, dispelled these visions of his fancy, and in another
moment the young man was in the room.
"Ah, Sir John, very glad to see you, very glad to see you," said Mr.
Shanks, shaking his visitor's hand, and knocking out the ashes of his
pipe upon the hob; "just come in pudding time, my dear sir--just in
time for a glass of punch--bring some more lemons and some sugar,
Betty. A glass of punch will do you good. It is rather cold to-night."
"As hot as h--l," answered John Ayliffe, sharply; "but I'll have the
punch notwithstanding," and he seated himself while the maid proceeded
to fulfil her master's orders.
Mr. Shanks evidently saw that something had gone wrong with his young
and distinguished client, but anticipating no evil, he was led to
consider whether it was any thing referring to a litter of puppies, a
favorite horse, a fire at the hall, a robbery, or a want of some more
ready money.
At length, however, the fresh lemons and sugar were brought, and the
door closed, before which time John Ayliffe had helped himself to
almost all the punch which he had found remaining in the bowl. It was
not much, but it was strong, and Mr. Shanks applied himself to the
preparation of some more medicine of the same sort. John Ayliffe
suffered him to finish before he said any thing to disturb him, not
from any abstract reverence for the office which Mr. Shanks was
fulfilling, or for love of the beverage he was brewing, but simply
because John Ayliffe began to find that he might as well consider his
course a little. Consideration seldom served him very much, and in the
present instance, after he had labored hard to find out the best way
of breaking the matter, his impetuosity as usual got the better of
him, and he thrust his mother's letter into Mr. Shanks's hand, out of
which as a preliminary he took the ladle and helped himself to another
glass of punch.
The consternation of Mr. Shanks, as he read Mrs. Ayliffe's letter,
stood out in strong opposition to Mrs. Hazleton's sweet calmness. He
was evidently as much terrified as his client; for Mr. Shanks did not
forget that he had written Mrs. Ayliffe two letters since she was
abroad, and as she had kept her son's epistles, Mr. Shanks argued that
it was very likely she had kept his also. Their contents, taken alone,
might amount to very little, but looked at in conjunction with other
circumstances might amount to a great deal.
True, Mr. Shanks had avoided, as far as he could, any discussions in
regard to the more delicate secrets of his profession in the presence
of Mrs. Ayliffe, of whose discretion he was not as firmly convinced as
he could have desired; but it was not always possible to do so,
especially when he had been obliged to seek John Ayliffe in haste at
her house; and now the memories of many long and dangerous
conversations which had occurred in her presence, spread themselves
out before his eyes in a regular row, like items on the leaves of a
ledger.
"Good God!" he cried, "what has she done?"
"Every thing she ought not to have done, of course!" replied John
Ayliffe, replenishing his glass, "but the question now is, Shanks,
what are we to do? That is the great question just now."
"It is indeed," answered Mr. Shanks, in great agitation; "this is very
awkward, very awkward indeed."
"I know that," answered John Ayliffe, laconically.
"Well but, sir, what is to be done?" asked Mr. Shanks, fidgeting
uneasily about the table.
"That is what I come to ask you, not to tell you," answered the young
man; "you see, Shanks, you and I are exactly in the same case, only I
have more to lose than you have. But whatever happens to me will
happen to you, depend upon it. I am not going to be the only one,
whatever Mrs. Hazleton may think."
Shanks caught at Mrs. Hazleton's name; "Ay, that's a good thought," he
said, "we had better go and consult her. Let us put our three heads
together, and we may beat them yet--perhaps."
"No use of going to her," answered John Ayliffe, bitterly; "I have
been to her, and she is a thorough vixen. She cried off having any
thing to do with me, and when I just told her quietly that she ought
to help me out of the scrape because she had a hand in getting me into
it, she flew at my throat like a terrier bitch with a litter of
puppies, barked me out of the house as if I had been a beggar, and
called me almost rogue and swindler in the hearing of her own
servants."
Mr. Shanks smiled--he could not refrain from smiling with a feeling of
admiration and respect, even in that moment of bitter apprehension, at
the decision, skill, and wisdom of Mrs. Hazleton's conduct. He
approved of her highly; but he perceived quite plainly that it would
not do for him to play the same game. A hope--a feeble hope--light
through a loop-hole, came in upon him in regard to the future,
suggested by Mrs. Hazleton's conduct. He thought that if he could but
clear away some difficulties, he too might throw all blame upon John
Ayliffe, and shovel the load of infamy from his own shoulders to those
of his client; but to effect this, it was not only necessary that he
should soothe John Ayliffe, but that he should provide for his safety
and escape. Recriminations he was aware were very dangerous things,
and that unless a man takes care that it shall not be in the power or
for the interest of a fellow rogue to say _tu quoque_, the effort to
place the burden on his shoulders only injures him without making our
own case a bit better. It was therefore requisite for his purposes
that he should deprive John Ayliffe of all interest or object in
criminating him; but foolish knaves are very often difficult to deal
with, and he knew his young client to be eminent in that class.
Wishing for a little time to consider, he took occasion to ask one or
two meaningless questions, without at all attending to the replies.
"When did this letter arrive here?" he inquired.
"This very night," answered John Ayliffe, "not three hours ago."
"Do you think she has really told all?" asked Mr. Shanks.
"All, and a great deal more," replied the young man.
"How long has she been at St. Germain?" said the lawyer.
"What the devil does that signify?" said John Ayliffe, growing
impatient.
"A great deal, a great deal," replied Mr. Shanks, sagely. "Take some
more punch. You see perhaps we can prove that you and I really thought
her dead at the time the affidavit was made."
"Devilish difficult that," said John Ayliffe, taking the punch. "She
wrote to me about some more money just at that time, and I was obliged
to answer her letter and send it, so that if they have got the letters
that won't pass."
"We'll try at least," said Mr. Shanks in a bolder tone.
"Ay, but in trying we may burn our fingers worse than ever," said the
young man. "I do not want to be tried for perjury and conspiracy, and
sent to the colonies with the palm of my hand burnt out, whatever you
may do, Shanks."
"No, no, that would never do," replied the lawyer. "The first thing to
be done, my dear Sir John, is to provide for your safety, and that can
only be done by your getting out of the way for a time. It is very
natural that a young gentleman of fortune like yourself should go to
travel, and not at all unlikely that he should do so without letting
any one know where he is for a few months. That will be the best plan
for you--you must go and travel. They can't well be on the look-out
for you yet, and you can get away quite safely to-morrow morning. You
need not say where you are going, and by that means you will save both
yourself and the property too; for they can't proceed against you in
any way when you are absent."
John Ayliffe was not sufficiently versed in the laws of the land to
perceive that Mr. Shanks was telling him a falsehood. "That's a good
thought," he said; "if I can live abroad and keep hold of the rents we
shall be safe enough."
"Certainly, certainly," said Mr. Shanks, "that is the only plan. Then
let them file their bills, or bring their actions or what not. They
cannot compel you to answer if you are not within the realm."
Mr. Shanks was calling him all the time, in his own mind, a
jolter-headed ass, but John Ayliffe did not perceive it, and replied
with a touch of good feeling, perhaps inspired by the punch, "But what
is to become of you, Shanks?"
"Oh, I will stay and face it out," replied the lawyer, "with a bold
front. If we do not peach of each other they cannot do much against
us. Mrs. Hazleton dare not commit us, for by so doing she would commit
herself; and your mother's story will not avail very much. As to the
letters, which is the worst part of the business, we must try and
explain those away; but clearly the first thing for you to do is to
get out of England as soon as possible. You can go and see your mother
secretly, and if you can but get her to prevaricate a little in her
testimony it will knock it all up."
"Oh, she'll prevaricate enough if they do but press her hard," said
John Ayliffe. "She gets so frightened at the least thing she does'nt
know what she says. But the worst of it is, Shanks, I have not got
money enough to go. I have not got above a hundred guineas in the
house."
Mr. Shanks paused and hesitated. It was a very great object with him
to get John Ayliffe out of the country, in order that he might say any
thing he liked of John Ayliffe when his back was turned, but it was
also a very great object with him to keep all the money he had got. He
did not like to part with one sixpence of it. After a few moments'
thought, however, he recollected that a thousand pounds' worth of
plate had come down from London for the young man within the last two
months, and he thought he might make a profitable arrangement.
"I have got three hundred pounds in the house," he said, "all in good
gold, but I can really hardly afford to part with it. However, rather
than injure you, Sir John, I will let you have it if you will give me
the custody of your plate till your return, just that I may have
something to show if any one presses me for money."
The predominant desire of John Ayliffe's mind, at that moment, was to
get out of England as fast as possible, and he was too much blinded by
fear and anxiety to perceive that the great desire of Mr. Shanks was
to get him out. But there was one impediment. The sum of four hundred
pounds thus placed at his command would, some years before, have
appeared the Indies to him, but now, with vastly expanded ideas with
regard to expense, it seemed a drop of water in the ocean. "Three
hundred pounds. Shanks," he said, "what's the use of three hundred
pounds? It would not keep me a month."
"God bless my soul!" said Mr. Shanks, horrified at such a notion, "why
it would keep me a whole year, and more too. Moreover, things are
cheaper there than they are here; and besides you have got all those
jewels, and knick-knacks, and things, which cost you at least a couple
of thousand pounds. They would sell for a great deal."
"Come, come, Shanks," said the young man, "you must make it five
hundred guineas. I know you've got them in your strong box here."
Shanks shook his head, and John Ayliffe added sullenly, "Then I'll
stay and fight it out too. I won't go and be a beggar in a foreign
land."
Shanks did not like the idea of his staying, and after some farther
discussion a compromise was effected. Mr. Shanks agreed to advance
four hundred pounds. John Ayliffe was to make over to him, as a
pledge, the whole of his plate, and not to object to a memorandum to
that effect being drawn up immediately, and dated a month before. The
young man was to set off the very next day, in the pleasant gray of
the morning, driving his own carriage and horses, which he was to sell
as soon as he got a convenient distance from his house, and Mr. Shanks
was to take the very best possible care of his interests during his
absence.
John Ayliffe's spirits rose at the conclusion of this transaction. He
calculated that with one thing or another he should have sufficient
money to last him a year, and that was quite as far as his thoughts or
expectations went. A long, long year! What does youth care for any
thing beyond a year? It seems the very end of life to pant in
expectation, and indeed, and in truth, it is very often too long for
fate.
"Next year I will"--Pause, young man! there is a deep pitfall in the
way. Between you and another year may be death. Next year thou wilt do
nothing--thou wilt be nothing.
His spirits rose. He put the money into his pocket, and, with more wit
than he thought, called it "light heaviness," and then he sat down and
smoked a pipe, while Mr. Shanks drew up the paper; and then he drank
punch, and made more, and drank that too, so that when the paper
giving Mr. Shanks a lien upon the silver was completed, and when a
dull neighbor had been called in to see him sign his name, it needed a
witness indeed to prove that that name was John Ayliffe's writing.
By this time he would very willingly have treated the company to a
song, so complete had been the change which punch and new prospects
had effected; but Mr. Shanks besought him to be quiet, hinting that
the neighbor, though as deaf as a post and blind as a mole, would
think him as the celebrated sow of the psalmist. Thereupon John
Ayliffe went forth and got his horse out of the stable, mounted upon
his back, and rode lolling at a sauntering pace through the end of
the town in which Mr. Shanks's house was situated. When he got more
into the country he began to trot, then let the horse fall into a walk
again, and then he beat him for going slow. Thus alternately
galloping, walking, and trotting, he rode on till he was two or three
hundred yards past the gates of what was called the Court, where the
family of Sir Philip Hastings now lived. It was rather a dark part of
the road, and there was something white in the hedge--some linen put
out to dry, or a milestone. John Ayliffe was going at a quick pace at
that moment, and the horse suddenly shied at this white
apparition--not only shied, but started, wheeled round, and ran back.
John Ayliffe kept his seat, notwithstanding his tipsiness, but he
struck the furious horse over the head, and pulled the rein violently.
The animal plunged--reared--the young man gave the rein a furious tug,
and over went the horse upon the road, with his driver under him.
CHAPTER XXXVI.
There was a man lay upon the road in the darkness of the night for
some five or six minutes, and a horse galloped away snorting, with a
broken bridle hanging at his head, on the way towards the park of Sir
Philip Hastings. Had any carriage come along, the man who was lying
there must have been run over; for the night was exceedingly dark, and
the road narrow. All was still and silent, however. No one was seen
moving--not a sound was heard except the distant clack of a water-mill
which lay further down the valley. There was a candle in a cottage
window at about a hundred yards' distance, which shot a dim and feeble
ray athwart the road, but shed no light on the spot where the man lay.
At the end of about six minutes, a sort of convulsive movement showed
that life was not yet extinct in his frame--a sort of heave of the
chest, and a sudden twitch of the arm; and a minute or two after, John
Ayliffe raised himself on his elbow, and put his hand to his head.
"Curse the brute," he said, in a wandering sort of way, "I wonder,
Shanks, you don't--damn it, where am I?--what's the matter? My side
and leg are cursed sore, and my head all running round."
He remained in the same position for a moment or two more, and then
got upon his feet; but the instant he did so he fell to the ground
again with a deep groan, exclaiming, "By ----, my leg's broken, and I
believe my ribs too. How the devil shall I get out of this scrape?
Here I may lie and die, without any body ever coming near me. That is
old Jenny Best's cottage, I believe. I wonder if I could make the old
canting wretch hear," and he raised his voice to shout, but the pain
was too great. His ribs were indeed broken, and pressing upon his
lungs, and all that he could do was to lie still and groan.
About a quarter of an hour after, however, a stout, middle-aged
man--rather, perhaps, in the decline of life--came by, carrying a
hand-basket, plodding at a slow and weary pace as if he had had a long
walk.
"Who's that? Is any one there?" said a feeble voice, as he approached;
and he ran up, exclaiming, "Gracious me, what is the matter? Are you
hurt, sir? What has happened?"
"Is that you, Best?" said the feeble voice of John Ayliffe, "my horse
has reared and fallen over with me. My leg is broken, and the bone
poking through, and my ribs are broken too, I think."
"Stay a minute, Sir John," said the good countryman, "and I'll get
help, and we'll carry you up to the Hall."
"No, no," answered John Ayliffe, who had now had time for thought,
"get a mattress, or a door, or something, and carry me into your
cottage. If your son is at home, he and you can carry me. Don't send
for strangers."
"I dare say he is at home, sir," replied the man. "He's a good lad,
sir, and comes home as soon as his work's done. I will go and see. I
won't be a minute."
He was as good as his word, and in less than a minute returned with
his son, bringing a lantern and a straw mattress.
Not without inflicting great pain, and drawing forth many a heavy
groan, the old man and the young one placed John Ayliffe on the
paliasse, and carried him into the cottage, where he was laid upon
young Best's bed in the back room. Good Jenny Best, as John Ayliffe
had called her--an excellent creature as ever lived--was all kindness
and attention, although to say truth the suffering man had not shown
any great kindness to her and hers in his days of prosperity. She was
eager to send off her son immediately for the surgeon, and did so in
the end; but to the surprise of the whole of the little cottage party,
it was not without a great deal of reluctance and hesitation that John
Ayliffe suffered this to be done. They showed him, however, that he
must die or lose his limb if surgical assistance was not immediately
procured, and he ultimately consented, but told the young man
repeatedly not to mention his name even to the surgeon on any account,
but simply to say that a gentleman had been thrown by his horse, and
brought into the cottage with his thigh broken. He cautioned father
and mother too not to mention the accident to any one till he was well
again, alluding vaguely to reasons that he had for wishing to conceal
it.
"But, Sir John," replied Best himself, "your horse will go home,
depend upon it, and your servants will not know where you are, and
there will be a fuss about you all over the country."
"Well, then, let them make a fuss," said John Ayliffe, impatiently. "I
don't care--I will not have it mentioned."
All this seemed very strange to the good man and his wife, but they
could only open their eyes and stare, without venturing farther to
oppose the wishes of their guest.
It seemed a very long time before the surgeon made his appearance, but
at length the sound of a horse's feet coming fast, could be
distinguished, and two minutes after the surgeon was in the room. He
was a very good man, though not the most skilful of his profession,
and he was really shocked and confounded when he saw the state of Sir
John Hastings, as he called him. Wanting confidence in himself, he
would fain have sent off immediately for farther assistance, but John
Ayliffe would not hear of such a thing, and the good man went to work
to set the broken limb as best he might, and relieve the anguish of
the sufferer. So severe, however, were the injuries which had been
received, that notwithstanding a strong constitution, as yet but
little impaired by debauchery, the patient was given over by the
surgeon in his own mind from the first. He remained with him, watching
him all night, which passed nearly without sleep on the part of John
Ayliffe; and in the course of the long waking hours he took an
opportunity of enjoining secrecy upon the surgeon as to the accident
which had happened to him, and the place where he was lying. Not less
surprised was the worthy man than the cottager and his wife had been
at the young gentleman's exceeding anxiety for concealment, and as his
licentious habits were no secret in the country round, they all
naturally concluded that the misfortune which had overtaken him had
occurred in the course of some adventure more dangerous and
disgraceful than usual.
Towards morning John Ayliffe fell into a sort of semi-sleep, restless
and perturbed, speaking often without reason having guidance of his
words, and uttering many things which, though disjointed and often
indistinct, showed the good man who had watched by him that the mind
was as much affected as the body. He woke confused and wandering about
eight o'clock, but speedily returned to consciousness of his
situation, and insisted, notwithstanding the pain he was suffering,
upon examining the money which was in his pockets to see that it was
all right. Vain precaution! He was never destined to need it more.
Shortly after the surgeon left him, but returned at night again to
watch by his bedside. The bodily symptoms which he now perceived would
have led him to believe that a cure was possible, but there was a deep
depression of mind, a heavy irritable sombreness, from the result of
which the surgeon augured much evil. He saw that there was some
terrible weight upon the young man's heart, but whether it was fear or
remorse or disappointment he could not tell, and more than once he
repeated to himself, "He wants a priest as much as a physician."
Again the surgeon would often argue with himself in regard to the
propriety of telling him the very dangerous state in which he was. "He
may at any time become delirious," he said, "and lose all power of
making those dispositions and arrangements which, I dare say, have
never been thought of in the time of health and prosperity. Then,
again, his house and all that it contains is left entirely in the
hands of servants--a bad set too, as ever existed, who are just as
likely to plunder and destroy as not; but on the other hand, if I tell
him it may only increase his dejection and cut off all hope of
recovery. Really I do not know what to do. Perhaps it would be better
to wait awhile, and if I should see more unfavorable symptoms and no
chance left, it will then be time enough to tell him his true
situation and prepare his mind for the result."
Another restless, feverish night passed, another troubled sleep
towards morning, and then John Ayliffe woke with a start, exclaiming,
"You did not tell them I was here--lying here unable to stir, unable
to move--I told you not, I told you not. By ----" and then he looked
round, and seeing none but the surgeon in the room, relapsed into
silence.
The surgeon felt his pulse, examined the bandages, and saw that a
considerable and unfavorable change had taken place; but yet he
hesitated. He was one of those men who shrink from the task of telling
unpleasant truths. He was of a gentle and a kindly disposition, which
even the necessary cruelties of surgery had not been able to harden.
"He may say what he likes," he said, "I must have some advice as to
how I should act. I will go and talk with the parson about the matter.
Though a little lacking in the knowledge of the world, yet Dixwell is
a good man and a sincere Christian. I will see him as I go home, but
make him promise secrecy in the first place, as this young baronet is
so terribly afraid of the unfortunate affair being known. He will die,
I am afraid, and that before very long, and I am sure he is not in a
fit state for death." With this resolution he said some soothing words
to his patient, gave him what he called a composing draught, and sent
for his horse from a neighboring farm-house, where he had lodged it
for the night. He then rode at a quiet, thoughtful pace to the
parsonage house at the gates of the park, and quickly walked in. Mr.
Dixwell was at breakfast, reading slowly one of the broad sheets of
the day as an especial treat, for they seldom found their way into his
quiet rectory; but he was very glad to see the surgeon, with whom he
often contrived to have a pleasant little chat in regard to the
affairs of the neighborhood.
"Ah, Mr. Short, very glad to see you, my good friend. How go things
in your part of the world? We are rather in a little bustle here,
though I think it is no great matter."
"What is it, Mr. Dixwell?" asked the surgeon.
"Only that wild young man, Sir John Hastings," said the clergyman,
"left his house suddenly on horseback the night before last, and has
never returned. But he is accustomed to do all manner of strange
things, and has often been out two or three nights before without any
one knowing where he was. The butler came down and spoke to me about
it, but I think there was a good deal of affectation in his alarm, for
when I asked him he owned his master had once been away for a whole
week."
"Has his horse come back?" asked the surgeon.
"Not that I know of," replied Mr. Dixwell. "I suppose the man would
have mentioned it if such had been the case. But what is going on at
Hartwell?"
"Nothing particular," said the surgeon, "only Mrs. Harrison brought to
bed of twins on Saturday night at twenty minutes past eleven. I think
all those Harrisons have twins--but I have something to talk to you
about, my good friend, a sort of case of conscience I want to put to
you. Only you must promise me profound secrecy."
Mr. Dixwell laughed--"What, under the seal of confession?" he said.
"Well, well, I am no papist, as you know, Short, but I'll promise and
do better than any papist does, keep my word when I have promised
without mental reservation."
"I know you will, my good friend," answered the surgeon, "and this is
no jesting matter, I can assure you. Now listen, my good friend,
listen. Not many evenings ago, I was sent for suddenly to attend a
young man who had met with an accident, a very terrible accident too.
He had a compound fracture of the thigh, three of his ribs broken, and
his head a good deal knocked about, but the cranium uninjured. I had
at first tolerable hope of his recovery; but he is getting much worse
and I fear that he will die."
"Well, you can't help that," said Mr. Dixwell, "men will die in spite
of all you can do, Short, just as they will sin in spite of all I can
say."
"Ay, there's the rub," said the surgeon. "I fear he has sinned a very
tolerably sufficient quantity, and I can see that there is something
or another weighing very heavy on his mind, which is even doing great
harm to his body."
"I will go and see him, I will go and see him," said Mr. Dixwell, "it
will do him good in all ways to unburden his conscience, and to hear
the comfortable words of the gospel."
"But the case is, Mr. Dixwell," said Short, "that he has positively
forbidden me to let any of his friends know where he lies, or to speak
of the accident to any one."
"Pooh, nonsense," said the clergyman, "if a man has fractured his
skull and you thought it fit to trepan him, would you ask him whether
he liked it or not? If the young man is near death, and his conscience
is burdened, I am the physician who should be sent for rather than
you."
"I fancy his conscience is burdened a good deal," said Mr. Short,
thoughtfully; "nay, I cannot help thinking that he was engaged in some
very bad act at the time this happened, both from his anxiety to
conceal from every body where he now lies, and from various words he
has dropped, sometimes in his sleep, sometimes when waking confused
and half delirious. What puzzles me is, whether I should tell him his
actual situation or not."
"Tell him, tell him by all means," said Mr. Dixwell, "why should you
not tell him?"
"Simply because I think that it will depress his mind still more,"
replied the surgeon, "and that may tend to deprive him even of the
very small chance that exists of recovery."
"The soul is of more value than the body," replied the clergyman,
earnestly; "if he be the man you depict, my friend, he should have as
much time as possible to prepare--he should have time to repent--ay,
and to atone. Tell him by all means, or let me know where he is to be
found, and I will tell him."
"That I must not do," said Mr. Short, "for I am under a sort of
promise not to tell; but if you really think that I ought to tell him
myself, I will go back and do it."
"If I really think!" exclaimed Mr. Dixwell, "I have not the slightest
doubt of it. It is your bounden duty if you be a Christian. Not only
tell him, my good friend, but urge him strongly to send for some
minister of religion. Though friends may fail him, and he may not wish
to see them--though all worldly supports may give way beneath him, and
he may find no strengthening--though all earthly hopes may pass away,
and give him no mortal cheer, the gospel of Christ can never fail to
support, and strengthen, and comfort, and elevate. The sooner he knows
that his tenement of clay is falling to the dust of which it was
raised, the better will be his readiness to quit it, and it is wise,
most wise, to shake ourselves free altogether from the dust and
crumbling ruins of this temporal state, ere they fall upon our heads
and bear us down to the same destruction as themselves."
"Well, well, I will go back and tell him," said Mr. Short, and bidding
the good rector adieu, he once more mounted his horse and rode away.
Now Mr. Dixwell was an excellent good man, but he was not without
certain foibles, especially those that sometimes accompany
considerable simplicity of character. "I will see which way he takes,"
said Mr. Dixwell, "and go and visit the young man myself if I can find
him out;" and accordingly he marched up stairs to his bedroom, which
commanded a somewhat extensive prospect of the country, and traced
the surgeon, as he trotted slowly and thoughtfully along. He could not
actually see the cottage of the Bests, but he perceived that the
surgeon there passed over the brow of the hill, and after waiting for
several minutes, he did not catch any horseman rising upon the
opposite slope over which the road was continued. Now there was no
cross road in the hollow and only three houses, and therefore Mr.
Dixwell naturally concluded that to one of those three houses the
surgeon had gone.
In the mean while, Mr. Short rode on unconscious that his movements
were observed, and meditating with a troubled mind upon the best means
of conveying the terrible intelligence he had to communicate. He did
not like the task at all; but yet he resolved to perform it manfully,
and dismounting at the cottage door, he went in again. There was
nobody within but the sick man and good old Jenny Best. The old woman
was at the moment in the outer room, and when she saw the surgeon she
shook her head, and said in a low voice, "Ah, dear, I am glad you have
come back again, sir, he does not seem right at all."
"Who's that?" said the voice of John Ayliffe; and going in, Mr. Short
closed the doors between the two rooms.
"There, don't shut that door," said John Ayliffe, "it is so infernally
close--I don't feel at all well, Mr. Short--I don't know what's the
matter with me. It's just as if I had got no heart. I think a glass of
brandy would do me good."
"It would kill you," said the surgeon.
"Well," said the young man, "I'm not sure that would not be best for
me--come," he continued sharply, "tell me how long I am to lie here on
my back?"
"That I cannot tell, Sir John," replied the surgeon, "but at all
events, supposing that you do recover, and that every thing goes well,
you could not hope to move for two or three months."
"Supposing I was to recover!" repeated John Ayliffe in a low tone, as
if the idea of approaching death had then, for the first time, struck
him as something real and tangible, and not a mere name. He paused
silently for an instant, and then asked almost fiercely, "what brought
you back?"
"Why, Sir John, I thought it might be better for us to have a little
conversation," said the surgeon. "I can't help being afraid, Sir John,
that you may have a great number of things to settle, and that not
anticipating such a very severe accident, your affairs may want a good
deal of arranging. Now the event of all sickness is uncertain, and an
accident such as this especially. It is my duty to inform you," he
continued, rising in resolution and energy as he proceeded, "that your
case is by no means free from danger--very great danger indeed."
"Do you mean to say that I am dying?" asked John Ayliffe, in a hoarse
voice.
"No, no, not exactly dying," said the surgeon, putting his hand upon
his pulse, "not dying I trust just yet, but--"
"But I shall die, you mean?" cried the other.
"I think it not at all improbable," answered the surgeon, gravely,
"that the case may have a fatal result."
"Curse fatal results," cried John Ayliffe, giving way to a burst of
fury; "why the devil do you come back to tell me such things and make
me wretched? If I am to die, why can't you let me die quietly and know
nothing about it?"
"Why, Sir John, I thought that you might have many matters to settle,"
answered the surgeon somewhat irritated, "and that your temporal and
your spiritual welfare also required you should know your real
situation."
"Spiritual d----d nonsense!" exclaimed John Ayliffe, furiously; "I
dare say it's all by your folly and stupidity that I am likely to die
at all. Why I hear of men breaking their legs and their ribs every day
and being none the worse for it."
"Why, Sir John, if you do not like my advice you need not have it,"
answered the surgeon; "I earnestly wished to send for other
assistance, and you would not let me."
"There, go away, go away and leave me," said John Ayliffe; but as the
surgeon took up his hat and walked towards the door, he added, "come
again at night. You shall be well paid for it, never fear."
Mr. Short made no reply, but walked out of the room.
CHAPTER XXXVII.
Solitude and silence, and bitter thought are great tamers of the human
heart. "As ye sow, so shall ye reap," says the Apostle, and John
Ayliffe was now forced to put in the sickle. Death was before his
eyes, looming large and dark and terrible, like the rock of adamant in
the fairy tale, against which the bark of the adventurous mariner was
sure to be dashed. Death for the first time presented itself to his
mind in all its grim reality. Previously it had seemed with him a
thing hardly worth considering--inevitable--appointed to all men--to
every thing that lives and breathes--no more to man than to the sheep,
or the ox, or any other of the beasts that perish. He had contemplated
it merely as death--as the extinction of being--as the goal of a
career--as the end of a chase where one might lie down and rest, and
forget the labor and the clamor and the trouble of the course. He had
never in thought looked beyond the boundary--he had hardly asked
himself if there was aught beyond. He had satisfied himself by saying,
as so many men do, "Every man must die some time or another," and had
never asked his own heart, "What is it to die?"
But now death presented itself under a new aspect; cold and stern,
relentless and mysterious, saying in a low solemn tone, "I am the
guide. Follow me there. Whither I lead thou knowest not, nor seest
what shall befall thee. The earth-worm and the mole fret but the
earthly garment of the man; the flesh, and the bones, and the beauty
go down to dust, and ashes, and corruption. The man comes with me to a
land undeclared--to a presence infinitely awful--to judgment and to
fate; for on this side of the dark portal through which I am the
guide, there is no such thing as fate. It lies beyond the grave, and
thither thou must come without delay."
He had heard of immortality, but he had never thought of it. He had
been told of another world, but he had never rightly believed in it.
The thought of a just judge, and of an eternal doom, had been
presented to him in many shapes, but he had never received it; and he
had lived and acted, and thought and felt, as if there were neither
eternity, nor judgment, nor punishment. But in that dread hour the
deep-rooted, inexplicable conviction of a God and immortality,
implanted in the hearts of all men, and only crushed down in the
breasts of any by the dust of vanity and the lumber of the world, rose
up and bore its fruits according to the soil. They were all bitter. If
there were another life, a judgment, an eternity of weal or woe, what
was to be his fate? How should he meet the terrors of the
judgment-seat--he who had never prayed from boyhood--he who through
life had never sought God--he who had done in every act something that
conscience reproved, and that religion forbade?
Every moment as he lay there and thought, the terrors of the vast
unbounded future grew greater and more awful. The contemplation almost
drove him to frenzy, and he actually made an effort to rise from his
bed, but fell back again with a deep groan. The sound caught the ear
of good Jenny Best, and running in she asked if he wanted any thing.
"Stay with me, stay with me," said the unhappy young man, "I cannot
bear this--it is very terrible--I am dying, Mrs. Best, I am dying."
Mrs. Best shook her head with a melancholy look; but whether from
blunted feelings, from the hard and painful life which they endured,
or from a sense that there is to be compensation somewhere, and that
any change must be for the better, or cannot be much worse than the
life of this earth, or from want of active imagination, the poorer and
less educated classes I have generally remarked view death and all its
accessories with less of awe, if not of dread, than those who have
been surrounded by luxuries, and perhaps have used every effort to
keep the contemplation of the last dread scene afar, till it is
actually forced upon their notice. Her words were homely, and though
intended to comfort did not give much consolation to the dying man.
"Ah well, sir, it is very sad," she said, "to die so young; though
every one must die sooner or later, and it makes but little difference
whether it be now or then. Life is not so long to look back at, sir,
as to look forward to, and when one dies young one is spared many a
thing. I recollect my poor eldest son who is gone, when he lay dying
just like you in that very bed, and I was taking on sadly, he said to
me, 'Mother don't cry so. It's just as well for me to go now when I've
not done much mischief or suffered much sorrow.' He was as good a
young man as ever lived; and so Mr. Dixwell said; for the parson used
to come and see him every day, and that was a great comfort and
consolation to the poor boy."
"Was it?" said John Ayliffe, thoughtfully. "How long did he know he
was dying?"
"Not much above a week, sir," said Mrs. Best; "for till Mr. Dixwell
told him, he always thought he would get better. We knew it a long
time however, for he had been in a decline a year, and his father had
been laying by money for the funeral three months before he died. So
when it was all over we put him by quite comfortable."
"Put him by!" said John Ayliffe.
"Yes, sir, we buried him, I mean," answered Mrs. Best. "That's our way
of talking. But Mr. Dixwell had been to see him long before. He knew
that he was dying, and he wouldn't tell him as long as there was any
hope; for he said it was not necessary--that he had never seen any one
better prepared to meet his Maker than poor Robert, and that it was no
use to disturb him about the matter till it came very near."
"Ah, Dixwell is a wise man and a good man," said John Ayliffe. "I
should very much like to see him."
"I can run for him in a minute sir," said Dame Best, but John Ayliffe
replied, in a faint voice, "No, no, don't, don't on any account."
In the mean while, the very person of whom they were speaking had
descended from the up-stairs room, finished his breakfast in order to
give the surgeon time to fulfil his errand, and then putting on his
three-cornered hat had walked out to ascertain at what house Mr. Short
had stopped. The first place at which he inquired was the farm-house
at which the good surgeon had stabled his horse on the preceding
night. Entering by the kitchen door, he found the good woman of the
place bustling about amongst pots and pans and maidservants, and other
utensils, and though she received him with much reverence, she did not
for a moment cease her work.
"Well, Dame," he said, "I hope you're all well here."
"Quite well, your reverence--Betty, empty that pail."
"Why, I've seen Mr. Short come down here," said the parson, "and I
thought somebody might be ill."
"Very kind, your reverence--mind you don't spill it.--No, it warn't
here. It's some young man down at Jenny Best's, who's baddish, I
fancy, for the Doctor stabled his horse here last night."
"I am glad to hear none of you are ill," said Mr. Dixwell, and bidding
her good morning, he walked away straight to the cottage where John
Ayliffe lay. There was no one in the outer room, and the good
clergyman, privileged by his cloth, walked straight on into the room
beyond, and stood by the bedside of the dying man before any one was
aware of his presence.
Mr. Dixwell was not so much surprised to see there on that bed of
death the face of him he called Sir John Hastings, as might be
supposed. The character which the surgeon had given of his patient,
the mysterious absence of the young man from the Hall, and the very
circumstance of his unwillingness to have his name and the place where
he was lying known, had all lent a suspicion of the truth. John
Ayliffe's eyes were shut at the moment he entered, and he seemed
dozing, though in truth sleep was far away. But the little movement of
Mr. Dixwell towards his bedside, and of Mrs. Best giving place for the
clergyman to sit down, caused him to open his eyes, and his first
exclamation was, "Ah, Dixwell! so that damned fellow Short has
betrayed me, and told when I ordered him not."
"Swear not at all," said Mr. Dixwell. "Short has not betrayed you, Sir
John. I came here by accident, merely hearing there was a young man
lying ill here, but without knowing actually that it was you, although
your absence from home has caused considerable uneasiness. I am very
sorry to see you in such a state. How did all this happen?"
"I will not tell you, nor answer a single word," replied John Ayliffe,
"unless you promise not to say a word of my being here to any one. I
know you will keep your word if you say so, and Jenny Best too--won't
you, Jenny?--but I doubt that fellow Short."
"You need not doubt him, Sir John," said the clergyman; "for he is
very discreet. As for me, I will promise, and will keep my word; for I
see not what good it could be to reveal it to any body if you dislike
it. You will be more tenderly nursed here, I am sure, than you would
be by unprincipled, dissolute servants, and since your poor mother's
death--"
John Ayliffe groaned heavily, and the clergyman stopped. The next
moment, however, the young man said, "Then you do promise, do you?"
"I do," replied Mr. Dixwell. "I will not at all reveal the facts
without your consent."
"Well, then, sit down, and let us be alone together for a bit," said
John Ayliffe, and Mrs. Best quietly quitted the room and shut the
door.
John Ayliffe turned his languid eyes anxiously upon the clergyman,
saying, "I think I am dying, Mr. Dixwell."
He would fain have had a contradiction or even a ray of earthly hope;
but he got none; for it was evident to the eyes of Mr. Dixwell,
accustomed as he had been for many years to attend by the bed of
sickness and see the last spark of life go out, that John Ayliffe was
a dying man--that he might live hours, nay days; but that the
irrevocable summons had been given, that he was within the shadow of
the arch, and must pass through!
"I am afraid you are, Sir John," he replied, "but I trust that God
will still afford you time to make preparation for the great change
about to take place, and by his grace I will help you to the utmost in
my power."
John Ayliffe was silent, and closed his eyes again. Nor was he the
first to speak; for after having waited for several minutes, Mr.
Dixwell resumed, saying in a grave but kindly tone, "I am afraid, Sir
John, you have not hitherto given much thought to the subject which is
now so sadly fixed upon you. We must make haste, my good sir; we must
not lose a moment."
"Then do you think I am going to die so soon?" asked the young man
with a look of horror; for it cost him a hard and terrible struggle to
bring his mind to grasp the thought of death being inevitable and nigh
at hand. He could hardly conceive it--he could hardly believe it--that
he who had so lately been full of life and health, who had been
scheming schemes, and laying out plans, and had looked upon futurity
as a certain possession--that he was to die in a few short hours; but
whenever the wilful heart would have rebelled against the sentence,
and struggle to resist it, sensations which he had never felt before,
told him in a voice not to be mistaken, "It must be so!"
"No one can tell," replied Mr. Dixwell, "how soon it may be, or how
long God may spare you; but one thing is certain, Sir John, that years
with you have now dwindled down into days, and that days may very
likely be shortened to hours. But had you still years to live, I
should say the same thing, that no time is to be lost; too much has
been lost already."
John Ayliffe did not comprehend him in the least. He could not grasp
the idea as yet of a whole life being made a preparation for death,
and looked vacantly in the clergyman's face, utterly confounded at the
thought.
Mr. Dixwell had a very difficult task before him--one of the most
difficult he had ever undertaken; for he had not only to arouse the
conscience, but to awaken the intellect to things importing all to the
soul's salvation, which had never been either felt or believed, or
comprehended before. At first too, there was the natural repugnance
and resistance of a wilful, selfish, over-indulged heart to receive
painful or terrible truths, and even when the obstacle was overcome,
the young man's utter ignorance of religion and want of moral feeling
proved another almost insurmountable. He found that the only access to
John Ayliffe's heart was by the road of terror, and without scruple he
painted in stern and fearful colors the awful state of the impenitent
spirit called suddenly into the presence of its God. With an unpitying
hand he stripped away all self-delusions from the young man's mind and
laid his condition before him, and his future state in all their dark
and terrible reality.
This is not intended for what is called a religious book, and
therefore I must pass over the arguments he used, and the course he
proceeded in. Suffice it that he labored earnestly for two hours to
awaken something like repentance in the bosom of John Ayliffe, and he
succeeded in the end better than the beginning had promised. When
thoroughly convinced of the moral danger of his situation, John
Ayliffe began to listen more eagerly, to reply more humbly, and to
seek earnestly for some consolation beyond the earth. His depression
and despair, as terrible truths became known to him were just in
proportion to his careless boldness and audacity while he had remained
in wilful ignorance, and as soon as Mr. Dixwell saw that all the
clinging to earthly expectations was gone--that every frail support of
mortal thoughts was taken away, he began to give him gleams of hope
from another world, and had the satisfaction of finding that the
doubts and terrors which remained arose from the consciousness of his
own sins and crimes, the heavy load of which he felt for the first
time. He told him that repentance was never too late--he showed, him
that Christ himself had stamped that great truth with a mark that
could not be mistaken in his pardon of the dying thief upon the cross,
and while he exhorted him to examine himself strictly, and to make
sure that what he felt was real repentance, and not the mere fear of
death which so many mistake for it in their last hours, he assured him
that if he could feel certain of that fact, and trust in his Saviour,
he might comfort himself and rest in good hope. That done, he resolved
to leave the young man to himself for a few hours that he might
meditate and try the great question he had propounded with his own
heart. He called in Mistress Best, however, and told her that if
during his absence Sir John wished her to read to him, it would be a
great kindness to read certain passages of Scripture which he pointed
out in the house Bible. The good woman very willingly undertook the
task, and shortly after the clergyman was gone John Ayliffe applied to
hear the words of that book against which he had previously shut his
ears. He found comfort and consolation and guidance therein; for Mr.
Dixwell, who, on the one subject which had been the study of his life
was wise as well as learned, had selected judiciously such passages as
tend to inspire hope without diminishing penitence.
FOOTNOTES:
[1] Continued from page 488, vol. iii.
THE CASTLE OF BELVER.
AN INCIDENT IN THE LIFE OF ARAGO.
The castle of Belver is the state prison of the island of Majorca. The
Rev. Henry Christmas, F.R.S., has just published in London three
volumes entitled _The Shores and Islands of the Mediterranean_, in
which he gives the following account of the confinement within its
walls of the illustrious Arago:
"Charged by the Emperor Napoleon with the admeasurement of
the meridian, Arago was in 1808 in Majorca, and occupying a
cottage on the mountain called Clot de Galatzo, when the
news came to the island of the recent events at Madrid, and
the carrying away of the king. The populace of Palma, never
very favorably disposed towards the French, and altogether
incapable of comprehending either the merits or the mission
of Arago, easily mistook the great astronomer for a
political spy, and exasperated at the insult offered to
their king and country, determined to take a signal
vengeance on the only Frenchman within their power. They
took their way in great numbers towards the mountain on
which Arago had taken up his abode, fortified in their
belief of his evil designs by the fact that he frequently
made fires on the mountain-side, and which they took for
signals to an imaginary French fleet just about to land an
army for the reduction of the island.
"The mountain rises just above the coast on which Don Jaime
the Conqueror made his descent, and thus it will seem that
the islanders were not destitute of some grounds for the
suspicions which they entertained, nor without some
palliating circumstances in the outrage which they
contemplated. It was, however, happily only a design, for M.
Arago, warned in time, left his mountain, and directed his
steps towards Palma. The person who advertised him of his
peril was a man named Damian, the pilot of the brig placed
by the Spanish Government at the disposal of the
philosopher. Himself a Majorcan, he was taken into the
counsel of the plotters, and was thus enabled to save the
life of his master.
"Dressed in the clothes of a common seaman, with which
Damian had provided him, he met on his way the mob, who were
bent on his destruction, and who stopped him to inquire
about that _maldito gabacho_, of whom they meant to rid the
island. As he spoke the language of the country fluently, he
gave them that kind of information which was most desirable
both to him and to them, and as soon as he arrived at Palma,
he made his way to the Spanish brig; but the captain, Don
Manual de Vacaro, a Catalonian, (his name ought to be known,
to his disgrace, as well as that of Damian to his credit,)
absolutely refused to take the astronomer to Barcelona,
alleging that he was at Palma for a specific purpose, and
could not leave without orders from his Government. When
Arago pointed out the danger which threatened his life, and
of which the captain was as well aware as himself, the
latter coolly pointed out a chest, in which he proposed
that M. Arago should take refuge. To this Arago replied by
measuring the chest, and showing that there was not room for
him in the inside. The next day a frantic mob was assembled
on the shore, and it became clear that it was their
intention to board the brig. Alarmed now for himself as well
as for his colleague, Don Manual assured Arago that he would
not answer for his life, and recommended him to constitute
himself a prisoner in the castle of Belver, offering to
conduct him hither in one of the ship's boats. Seeing what
kind of a man, as well as what kind of a mob, he had to do
with, Arago accepted the proposal, and just arrived time
enough to hear the castle gates closed against his furious
pursuers. It seems that all the motions of those on board
were watched from the shore, and as soon as the boat was
seen to depart, and to take the direction of Belver, the
populace poured forth, towards the castle, and had not Arago
been a little in advance, his life would have been
sacrificed.... He was there as a prisoner two months.
"During that time he was told, and he seems to have believed
the report, that the monks in the island had attempted to
bribe the soldiers to poison him, but that the latter would
not consent. It is likely enough that monks, considered as
monks, would think it rather meritorious than otherwise to
destroy a Frenchman, and a free-thinker, but it would be
less probable of Majorcan monks than of any other, and
poisoning is not the custom of the island. At the same time
the very vehement feeling of the people against him, might
put it into the minds of the monks to use monastic arts, and
there is an additional probability given to the notion by
the conduct of the Captain-general, who, after two months of
captivity, sent a message to the prisoner that he would do
well to make his escape, and that if he did, it would be
winked at. Arago took this excellent advice, sent for M.
Rodriguez, who had been appointed by the Spanish Government
to aid him in his scientific labors, and by his aid opened a
communication with Damian. This worthy man procured a
fishing-boat, and took him to Algiers, not daring to land
him in France or Spain, and absolutely refusing very large
offers made to him for that purpose."
THE COUNT MONTE-LEONE: OR, THE SPY IN SOCIETY.[2]
TRANSLATED FOR THE INTERNATIONAL MONTHLY MAGAZINE FROM THE FRENCH OF
M. DE ST. GEORGES.
XVI.--MADEMOISELLE CREPINEAU'S LOVER.
About the end of May, 1819, on one of those bright sunny days which
bring out the blossoms of the lilac, make invalids strong, and young
girls healthy, the Duchess of Palma was sitting in the garden of her
hotel, in the same place and under the same tree in which we saw her
take refuge, to conceal her sorrow and tears, a few months before, on
the evening of the brilliant festival when all the principal
personages of our story met. A general languor and oppression with
complete weakness, the ordinary consequences of her unhappy attempt to
commit suicide, had ensued. The deep distress which gnawed at her
heart added moral to physical tortures. The Duke of Palma at last
perceived the deep indifference of La Felina towards him, and without
divining the cause, said that having married without love, all his
cares and tenderness had not sufficed to win her heart. He therefore
said, that he should be a fool to devote himself any longer to her,
and to consecrate his life to a woman to whom, notwithstanding the
prejudices of the world, he had given his title and name, without
having, as yet, received the most trifling acknowledgment in return!
Yet young, immensely rich, volatile and handsome, it was probable that
the Duke would not look in vain for some one to console him for the
severity of his Duchess. Like many other persons in Paris, the Duke
lived _en garçon_ with two houses, two establishments, and, morally
speaking, two wives. His second wife was a celebrated _danseuse_ of
the Royal Academy of Music, Mlle. G., known as a very agreeably thin
woman, and arms rather larger than the true academic
proportions--which, however, enabled her to entwine her partner, with
an _undulous grace_ that highly excited the old _habitués_ of the
opera. The reign of Louis XVIII. was also emphatically the reign of
the _danseuses_. Princes, marshals, generals, and nobles, selected
their mistresses in the _seraglio_ of the opera. The reign of these
ladies was, however, almost _emphyteotic_, that is to say, permanent,
and often resulted in the consecration of illegitimate pleasures. MM.
de Lauraguais, de Conti, de Letoriers, and others, would have laughed
at this. The external life of the Duke was full of attention to the
Duchess, with whom he dined regularly. He never, however, breakfasted
at the embassy, nor was he there except at his regular receptions. The
pious people who had been so shocked at his marriage, took care to say
that the Duchess's conduct was the sole cause of her husband's
misbehavior. There was nothing, though, in the world to sustain this;
for no one had the slightest idea of the secret _liaison_ of
Monte-Leone and the embassadress. That was a transient affair, and the
shores of the _Lago di Como_ alone had been witnesses of it. Some
excuse, however, was indispensably necessary for him.
La Felina, as isolated as ever, then sat in a beautiful garden which
overlooked the _Champs Elysées_, on the morning we have described. Her
face was pale and wearied, and her eyes red from want of sleep. With
her head resting on her chest, she seemed a prey to the greatest
sorrow. Just then they came to tell her of the visit of Taddeo Rovero.
"At last," said she, gladly, "I will know all."
Taddeo was close behind the servant who had announced him. He could
not repress his surprise, when he saw how changed the Duchess was. The
latter saw it and said, "You did not expect, signor, to see an old and
ugly woman instead of her you once thought, so beautiful. I have,
however, suffered a great deal during the three months you have been
away. Without meaning to reproach you, let me say it is three months
since I saw you."
"Ah! Signora, to me you may assume any guise you please; for neither
my eyes, nor heart, distinguish any alteration."
"So much the better," said the Duchess with a smile, "for you are
perhaps the only person who think me as beautiful as once was. It is
something to be thought beautiful when we are not. What, though, is
come over you? Why have you been so long in Italy?"
"Alas! Signora, bad inducements took me from Paris and from yourself."
"All they say, then, is true?" said the Duchess, making Taddeo sit by
her; "the Marquise de Maulear has lost her husband? She is a widow?"
said she, sadly, and with an effort.
"The Marquis died three months since at Rome," said Taddeo.
"It is terrible," said the ambassadress, "public rumor said so--I,
though, live so much alone that I know nothing more. Excuse me, if I
inquire into family secrets--were it not for the interest I entertain
for your sister and yourself, I would not do so--"
"The death of the Marquis," said Taddeo, "is really a family secret.
There is no reason, however, why you should not know it. I am aware to
whom I confide it, and have no hesitation in doing so. My story will
be brief. The Marquis and I set out for Rome three months ago, to
receive the estate of my uncle, Cardinal Felippo Justiniani. We met
with many difficulties, but eventually received it. The total was a
million of francs, in bonds of the principal bankers of Rome. The half
of this sum was paid in cash. I was in mourning, and did not go into
society. Besides," added Taddeo, looking tenderly at La Felina, "I had
left my heart in Paris--and society and the Carnival pleasures had no
charms for me. The Marquis seemed more anxious for amusement than
propriety permitted. A few days after having received the half of our
inheritance, of which the Marquis had possession, I was surprised to
hear that he had not returned home at night. I did not, however, dare
to question him; for I thought that he had been tempted by some
pleasure party and might be unwilling to answer me. I pretended not to
be aware that he was away. For several successive nights this
occurred, and at last I ventured to speak to him, telling him what
danger he exposed himself to, by straying thus in the streets of Rome.
'I am well armed,' said he, 'and can protect myself against robbers.'
Day after day the Marquis seemed more and more engaged. He avoided me,
and scarcely ever returned home. One day he was absent. Afraid lest he
might have been attacked in the night, I went to the French minister's
and caused a minute search to be made--and learned that my
brother-in-law had put an end to his own life. He had been enticed by
some of his French friends into a gaming house, which foreign
speculators had obtained leave to open during the Carnival, and had
there lost the five hundred thousand francs which belonged to his
wife. In his despair he had drowned himself in the Tiber."
"This is terrible," said the Duchess, "are you sure this is so?"
"Too sure," said Taddeo, "for not long after, the discovery of the
body put all beyond doubt. These, Signora, are the facts of the case;
though to save the Marquise's honor we attribute his death to a
natural cause."
"I thank you, Signor, for your confidence; especially since it gives
me a right to pity the sister you love so well, yet more--and also to
console you for the death of M. de Maulear. But when did you return?"
"A few days ago. I was forced to remain yet longer in Rome to get
possession of the remnant of the Cardinal's fortune. My mother also
came to Rome to tell Aminta of her misfortune."
"How cruelly the young _Marquise_ must suffer," said the Duchess; "how
she must need compassion and care!"
"She will have ours; and her father-in-law, overcoming his own sorrow,
is as tender and fond of her as ever."
"Then," said the Duchess, concealing a distress she could not lay
aside, "she yet has true and excellent friends--the Count Monte-Leone,
for instance, who was so fond of her--"
"The Count," said Taddeo, looking strangely at the Duchess, who did
not meet his glance, "was received a few days ago by the Marquise."
"He will make up for lost time," said La Felina, bitterly, "for now,
or perhaps some day, his old hopes may again arise, and perhaps be
realized."
Taddeo understood why she spoke thus. For a long time his forbearance
had been pushed to extremities, and this passion of the Duchess for
his friend had given rise to new tortures, too severe to repress the
idea of vengeance. He was cruel and barbarous; but he had too severely
suffered from La Felina. By a violent course, also, he perhaps wished
to crush the love which tortured him.
He remarked: "Even though I afflict you, I must say your fancy is
likely enough to be realized. The Count possesses rank and a spotless
reputation--for without the latter--"
"With but the latter," said the Duchess, "he could not enter our
family."
"Certainly, the Count prepares the Marquise for a future courtship by
very constant visits now."
"He comes every day to the Hotel to see the Prince and myself. My
sister loves to hear him speak of Italy, of which you know he talks so
well."
La Felina could bear no more. She gave her hand to Taddeo, and with a
voice trembling with emotion said: "For the present, adieu! You owe me
some compensation for your long absence, and if the lonely life I
lead does not afflict you, if you are not too much afraid of an
anchorite, come to see me, and you will find me always glad to see
you."
Taddeo kissed her hand and left her, almost repenting in his generous
mind that he had spoken as he did. He was fully avenged, for the
Duchess's grief was so great that she felt her heart grow chilled, her
limbs stiffen, and her eyes close. Her conversation with Taddeo soon
returned to her mind, and she uttered a cry of agony. Her _femme de
chambre_ bore her to the Hotel. When alone in her room she said to
herself: "He swore to me that he would never be her lover. She may now
be his wife. Ah!" continued she, "with cruel and sombre fury, it would
have been better for both of us had he let me die."
"Tell him who waits to come," said she to the servant.
The woman left, and soon after came in with a man whom the Duchess
made sit beside her. The woman left the room. We will leave the
Duchess with the stranger and go to No. 13 _rue de Babylonne_, where
one month after we shall find Mlle. Celestine Crepineau, a prey to the
tenderest emotions. We must say for about two months the heart of that
lady had been speaking. This lady's heart, like that of old
thorough-bred horses, of whom we read every once in a while, had a
return of ardor, and laid aside all its ascetic devotion to become
intense living and burning, as it had been in youth. This was the sure
premonition of old age. If anything could justify this resurrection,
it is what we are about to tell.
A new star shone in _la rue de Babylonne_. A beautiful stranger
calling himself a Spaniard, a statement made probable by his dark
complexion, sun-burnt brow, black hair, and brilliant eyes,
established himself in a modest garret of No. 12, just opposite the
house of the _hangman_, now occupied by Matheus. The charming Spaniard
had no decided profession. His dress was that of an artisan in his
Sunday best: and his velvet vest covered a prominent and Herculean
_torso_. He was tall; and walked squarely on his large feet; a
circumstance which made Mlle. Crepineau think him majestic. He said he
was a bear-hunter from the Pyrenees, who had been forced to expatriate
himself because _in a duel he had wounded the governor of his
province_. It may be imagined that so rare a profession excited much
admiration among the natives of _la rue Babylonne_, especially as the
famous Nimrod passed his time at the door of No. 12, under the pretext
that he was accustomed to the pure mountain air, and that he did not
wish any of the neighbors anxious to make inquiries about his terrible
profession, to have the trouble of asking for him. At one of these
hall-door entertainments one summer night, the handsome Nuñez saw and
captivated Mlle. Celestine Crepineau. Do not let any one fancy the
modest girl had given any encouragement to the stranger. They had
restricted themselves to glances, _double entendres_, and the
countless amiable pioneers of the army of Cupid. Mlle. Crepineau saw
the stranger come every day to assist her in opening the heavy door of
No. 13. Nuñez took charge of the watering pot of which the
commissaries are so fond, and dispersed an agreeable freshness in
front of the house during the warm hours of the day, to protect, he
said, the color and complexion of his mistress. Often Mlle.
Celestine's nerves were refreshed by a delicate perfume which strayed
through the bars of her lodge, and on inquiry saw a sprig of some
sweet and odorous plant which had been placed there by the Spaniard.
At last Mlle. Crepineau gave him permission to visit her. This was an
important favor, and was the passage of the rubicon. By doing so,
Celestine placed her reputation in the power of her evil-disposed
neighbors. She was, however, in love. "Besides," said she, with noble
pride, "my conscience sustains me, and envy will fall abashed before
the sacred torch of hymen." This _respectable_ phrase was the last
remnant of the romances of Ducray-Dumenil, the first books Celestine
ever read when she was cook of the advocate her god-father.
But this interesting love passion was suddenly brought to a close by a
very painful circumstance for the vanity of the young lady. Whether
Mlle. Crepineau had laced herself more tightly even than usual, or
that in aspirations after sylphic grace, she had been rather too
active when Señor Nuñez was by--she was seized one fine day with a
pain in the small of her back, translatable only by the word
rheumatism--a constant attendant of her delicate organization. A
forced construction was put on the pain--which became a cold or a
strain, but she had, in spite of the effort to get rid of it by an
_euphonism_, to go to bed. Then the devotion of the Spaniard became
heroic. He was unwilling that Mlle. Celestine should intrust any one
else with her daily occupation, and undertook to replace her in the
menage of Doctor Matheus. The proposition did not awaken much of the
doctor's gratitude; and though he accepted the substitute, he promised
to watch him very closely. One morning the doctor was forced to leave
very suddenly, just as the Spaniard was cleaning and dusting the
consultation room. Matheus had been sent for by the Duke d'Harcourt,
and apprehending some new indisposition of his young patient, Von
Apsberg, for the first time left the Señor Nuñez in his room.
For a few moments, the Spaniard continued his occupation. When,
however, he saw the doctor leave, and from the window saw him turn
down the _rue de Bac_, he said, "Now what I have so long sought for is
in my grasp." Looking on every side of the room, lifting up the
papers, opening the portfolios and examining the furniture, he
discovered a secret drawer in a bureau, within which he found a key.
"Here," said he, "is the key of the laboratory--of the mysterious room
in which I shall find all I need. This is it," said he, looking
anxiously at the key, "I know it by its shape." Hurrying to the third
floor of the house, he paused at the door. His hand trembled--the key
entered--turned--the wards moved, and the stranger entered the
laboratory.
The table which, when we paid our first visit to Matheus, was covered
with maps, pamphlets, etc., now had nothing on it. "All is locked up,"
said the man. "I have bad luck." He soon, however, aroused himself,
and taking a ball of wax from his pocket, and pointing to a massive
secretary, said, "There they are--there are their plans and papers,
their lists and names." Approaching the secretary again, he took an
exact impression of the lock, and also made a copy of the key of the
laboratory. He then uttered a cry of joy. "I have them all," said he.
"I am their master, and not one of the accursed Carbonari can escape
me." He then left the room as expeditiously as he had entered, went to
the first story, replaced the key where he had found it in the secret
drawer, and hurried to find Mlle. Celestine Crepineau, who had become
very uneasy about her lover.
XVIII. RUIN.
A few days after the pretended bear-hunter, the handsome Spaniard,
adored by the amiable Mlle. Crepineau, had gone stealthily into the
studio of Dr. Matheus to obtain possession of the secrets of the
Carbonari, our three friends Taddeo Rovero, Von Apsberg, and the
Vicomte d'Harcourt, were at the Count's hotel. The house of
Monte-Leone was in Verneuil street. It was small, mysterious, and
recherché. The court-yard was of modest size, with turf in the centre,
and sanded walks around it. The steps had a balcony at the top and
several marble vases, from which grew geraniums in summer and heath in
the winter. It was a regular bachelor's house, having every thing
demanded by the exigencies of a tenant of that condition. It had all
the broad, tall, low, narrow, visible, and invisible doors, for
troublesome cases and exits, for the actors and actresses of the every
day drama of the life of a young, rich, and independent man. No love
drama was ever performed, though, on this theatre. One of another and
more brilliant kind was being prepared. He gave a dinner to young men,
a regular one, without a single woman. Men alone were welcomed by the
noble Amphytrion. The house was furnished as luxuriously as possible,
for only recently have people conceived the happy idea of making
dining-rooms comfortable. Of this our fathers were entirely ignorant.
Once people eat much or little, well or badly; they breakfasted,
dined, or took tea--that was all. They sat on straw or hair chairs;
they were warmed by bad stoves, the smell of which was intolerable;
the feet rested on marble blocks, bright, but cold as ice. Such was
the gastronomical trilogy of Parisians. The large hotels, and even the
smaller establishments of our renowned libertines had a more splendid
refectory, which, however, was not more favorable to the comfort of
the guests. The dark and rich tapestries which hung on the walls, the
marble on the floor, the pictures, though by Boucher or Watteau, were
artistic and costly, but nothing less than the eyes of La Guimard, the
lips of Sophie Arnould, those of La Maupin or La Duthé, could warm
those cold arenas, where Bernis, Larenaudie, Fronsac, Bouret, and
Beaujon sacrificed to Comus in the company of the Loves. Now all is
changed. Not only gastronomy, but the art of living well has been
discovered not to exist alone in wines and cookery, and it has become
a proverb, that "beans in china are better than truffles in
earthenware." In 1819 Count Monte-Leone had a presentiment of our
taste in 1848, and he was therefore spoken of as a foreign sybarite,
whose extravagant tastes never would be imitated. Though people
blamed, they envied, and _tried to imitate_.
The dining-room of the Count, therefore, glittered with lights, and
around a table filled with the rarest glass, from which was exhaled
the perfume of a dinner fit for Lucullus, were about a dozen men, some
of whom, Matheus, Taddeo, and d'Harcourt, we know already. The others,
of whom we will hereafter speak more fully, were famous Carbonari, the
founders of the French order, General A...., the banker H...., Count
de Ch...., the merchant Ober, the _Avocat_ C...., and the illustrious
Professor C.... Two of these gentlemen had come from Italy, and
brought to Monte-Leone new orders from the central Venta of Naples,
and also curious details about the progress or rather maturity of
Carbonarism in the Two Sicilies and the neighboring countries. It had
however been by common consent determined among the guests that none
of the grave secrets of the order should be revealed at their joyous
repast--that political questions should be postponed to more serious
conferences: not that the members were not satisfied of the prudence
of each other, but inquisitive ears hovered around this table, and
with the exception of those of the prudent old Giacomo none could be
trusted. There was especial reason for this, as vague rumors had for
some time made the Carbonari distrustful. It was said that the
Minister of Police had placed Count Monte-Leone under the strictest
surveillance in consequence of his previous history. The objects of
this dinner, which beyond doubt was subjected to some particular
notice, was to prove that all the persons assembled were men of
pleasure, and not agents of discord or conspirators.
"To our host," said d'Harcourt, filling his glass, "to his loves and
conquests!"
"You will get drunk," said one of the guests, "if you drink to all of
his conquests."
"All calumny," said Matheus. "The conversion of St. Augustine is no
miracle since that of Monte-Leone. The gallant Italian is now a fresh
anchorite, avoiding the pomps of Satan and the opera in this
_Thebais_. With his friends he atones for past errors."
"The fact is, no one knows any thing about the Count's amours," said
one of the guests.
"Well, then," said another, "that for one in society, as Monte-Leone
is, he makes bad use of his eyes. The very mention of his Neapolitan
adventures would turn the heads of ten Parisian women."
"You are wrong, my dear B....," said the Count. "The women of Paris
are not so headlong as you think. They reason with their hearts, and
pay attention to convenances without regard to inclination. Besides,
the man they love occupies only the second place in their hearts.
_They_ come first and _he_ afterwards. Often, too, the toilette
occupies the second place with amusements and pleasures. They prefer
the attention of one to the love of all. _Liasons_ in France are
elegant, _recherché_, and refined. They never violate good taste, and
even in their despair French women are charming. They quarrel behind a
fan, tear a bouquet to pieces, and shred the lace of a handkerchief.
They weep, and stop soon enough not to stain the eyes, and when they
have fainting-fits, are very careful not to disturb their curls. Great
suffering just stops short of a nervous attack, and fury never breaks
either china bracelets or jewelry, though it is merciless on lovers'
miniatures. Three months after, if the offended lady meet the
gentleman in a drawing-room, she will ask the person next her, 'Pray
tell me who that gentleman is, I think I have seen him somewhere.' In
Spain and Italy they avenge themselves, and do not pardon men who are
inconstant until they too are false. Woe to him whose love is the
first to end. He henceforth has but the storm and the thunder-bolt.
Hatred and vengeance--the first is found in France--women in Italy
kill. I tell you your countrywomen are not romantic, and suffer
themselves to be led astray only after due reflection."
"Well, for my own part," said d'Harcourt to Monte-Leone, "I know a
woman who adores you in secret, who never speaks of you without
blushing, who looks down when your name is mentioned, and who looks up
when she sees you."
Taddeo looked at the Vicomte with surprise. Two names occurred to him,
that of the Duchess, and yet of another person. Monte-Leone, like
Taddeo, was afraid that the young fool, whose greatest virtue was not
temperance, would be indiscreet.
"Gentlemen," said he, "the Vicomte is about to be stupid. In the name
of our friendship I beg him to be silent."
"Bah, bah!" said d'Harcourt, becoming yet more excited, and draining
his glass of champagne, _in vino veritas_. "The proof of what I say is
that Monte-Leone is afraid. I shall name the victim of the passion he
has inspired. I wish to reinstate him in your eyes, for he has
represented himself as deserted and abandoned by the fair sex, when
one of the fairest adores him, and would sacrifice name and rank for
him."
"Vicomte," said Monte-Leone, enraged and rising, "do not make me
forget my intimacy with you of five years' duration."
"You will not forget it--you will like me all the better for what I am
about to say. Besides it is nothing but humanity. You would not let
the poor woman die when you can save her?"
"Again I ask you to stop," said Monte-Leone.
"You are too late," said the Vicomte, taking another glass of wine. "I
drink to the Attala, the Ariana, the Psyche of our illustrious host,
to a charming widow we all admire, to _Madame de Bruneval_."
One shout of joy burst from all. Monte-Leone felt a burden of trouble
lifted from him, and Taddeo breathed more freely.
"Gentlemen," said Monte-Leone, resuming his _sangfroid_, "I protest
that I was not aware of the happiness with which I am menaced. Though
I do justice to the precious qualities of Mme. de Bruneval--to her
lofty virtue, with which all of you are familiar--I should be afraid
of following in the footsteps of the illustrious dead. Since, however,
the widow has been spoken of, I will propose a toast to the speedy
cure of her heart, provided I am not expected to become its surgeon."
All drank; and amid the sound of their laughter, Giacomo entered, and
on a salver handed the Count a letter. "It is from Naples," said he;
and having opened, he read it. As he did so he grew pale.
"Any bad news?" said Matheus.
"No," said Monte-Leone, with an effort to restrain himself; "no, my
friends"--taking advantage of the temporary absence of the servants,
who had placed the dessert on the table, and who then retired, as is
the custom in all well regulated households--"No bad news to our
cause. This letter is on private business. I have another toast," said
he, in a lower tone. "To the brethren who are my guests to-day!"
"To the absent!" said Taddeo.
"Well, well," said Dr. Matheus, looking uneasily around; "let us have
done with toasts. As a doctor, I may speak. Too many of this kind may
endanger _our lives_," added he, emphasizing the last words. "Let us
enjoy the pleasures heaven has granted us. Our first masters in good
cheer, the Greeks and Romans, surrounded their tables with flowers and
crowned their cups with roses. Let us laugh, then, my friends, at
fools, intriguers, and apostates. Let us laugh at each other, and
especially at unreasonable d'Harcourt, who can drown his own mind in a
single bottle of champagne, and which makes him about as sensible as a
fly."
The sallies and follies of after dinner followed this pompous harangue
of Matheus. Had any one witnessed this scene, they would have fancied
the actors a party of young mousquetaires of the regency, rather than
conspirators who aspired to convulse the world. When the guests of
Monte-Leone were gone, and only d'Harcourt, Matheus, and Taddeo
remained, the Count took his dispatch out of his bosom, and bade the
latter read it. It was as follows:
"NAPLES, September 10, 1819.
"COUNT:--I am sorry to inform you that the banker Antonio
Lamberti, to whom you had confided your fortune, and with
whom you bade me deposit the price of your palace, sold for
six hundred thousand francs, has failed, and fled with all
your fortune.
"Your respectful attorney,
"GUISEPPE FARNUCCI."
The three friends embraced Monte-Leone, and Von Apsberg said, "You
knew this, yet could share our gayety. Did you not say yourself
laughter is as necessary for digestion as it is to the heart?"
"I fulfilled my duties of host to the letter. I needed all my courage,
though, having lost more than my fortune--my happiness. The morning's
papers will announce the failure of Antonio Lamberti, and all Paris
will know of the ruin of the brilliant Count Monte-Leone."
With fortune, the Count had also lost the hope of happiness. The
widowhood of the Marquise de Maulear had revived all his hopes, as La
Felina had foreseen, and his rank and title enabled him again to
aspire to Aminta's hand. All this prospect his misfortune annihilated.
What had he to offer now to Aminta? The name, the eclat of which he
could sustain no longer--an existence endangered by a political plot,
the triumph of which was far from certain--sumptuous tastes, which he
would not be permitted to gratify--privations, especially cruel as
they would follow closely on luxury and opulence, of which he had, so
to say, built himself a temple.
Ten months had passed by since the Marquis's death, and the grief of
his widow had been most sincere. Though Aminta had never entertained a
very profound love for her husband, she had been much attached to him
from a reason common enough: she was strong and he unusually weak.
When, therefore, a terrible vice had seized on him, and sought, as it
were, to wrest him from her arms, not a reproach had been uttered by
Aminta against the sacrifice of her money and his neglect to an
ignoble propensity. She forgave the gamester who was faithful to her,
and had wept over him when she would have had no tears for the
unfaithful husband. This soul so full of love was not slumbering in
the arms of marriage. The energetical character which Aminta had often
exhibited would, had it found traits of manhood properly expanded in
her husband, have possibly modified her feelings, if he had possessed
that burning imagination, that secret imagination which creates deep
love, and for which too she seemed to have been created. She might
have said this. She was too chaste to do so. Yet sometimes, in her
long and dreamy solitudes, an image rose before her, especially when
her husband was away. She dreamed of an exalted love, full of ardor
and devotion, indomitable courage, sacrifice of life to duty, a noble
and generous soul, which divined her own, and linked itself to it. All
this assumed the form of the man she had rejected, of whom she had
been afraid, and for her ingratitude to whom she now blushed.
The Count had been received by Aminta, in the early months of her
widowhood, but he had refrained, from respectful motives, to allude to
his feelings. His visits to the Marquise were short and ceremonious,
feeling that love should not be veiled by the crape of mourning. Like
the Prince de Maulear, and all Paris in fact, Aminta had heard of the
Count's misfortune, and the blow made a deep impression on her. The
absence of the Count became prolonged. He had not visited her since
his misfortune, and she could not but feel a deep interest for him to
whom fate reserved such severe trials. One evening, when she was more
melancholy than usual, and sat in the saloon with her head leaning on
her hand, and dreaming over the incidents of her life in which
Monte-Leone had figured, she thought without remorse of scenes it had
been once her duty to forget. A stifled sigh escaped from her bosom,
and a kind of moan near her induced her to shake off her reverie. She
saw Scorpione lying at her feet as he used to, and looking fixedly and
sadly at her.
Tonio, whom, like the children of Sorrento, we have often called
Scorpione, after having wandered along the sea-shore at the time of
Aminta's marriage, had been found exhausted on the sands, and been
taken to Signora Rovero, on the very day that Aminta set out for
France. Since then, vegetating rather than living with the mother of
Aminta, Signora Rovero was unwilling to trust her daughter's preserver
to servants, when she heard of the death of her son-in-law. Signora
Rovero had such delicate health as to be unable to bear the climate of
Paris, and had six months before returned to Italy; but Tonio was
unwilling to leave her, and yielding to his mute prayers, Aminta had
consented for him to remain, for his sufferings to save her had made a
deep impression on her. Tonio was in fact but the shadow of himself,
the soul alone seeming to support him. Even his soul was changed.
Fearful and timid when with Aminta, the passion the unfortunate boy
had once experienced for her became humble and respectful submission.
His very mind became extinct; and the only glimmerings of it now
seemed to be a kind of instinctive sympathy with his mistress. He
smiled when the Marquise did, and that was but rarely. He wept when
tears hung on her eyelids. When he looked as we have described at
Aminta, her sadness was perfectly mirrored on his face. Scorpione was,
in fact, less than man, and more than a brute--he was an idiot.
"You suffer, because I suffer," said Aminta.
He replied, "Yes."
By one of those ideas which take possession of the time, but which it
shrinks to confess, she said in a weak and almost tender voice to the
idiot, as children do to toys, "If I were happy, would you be?"
Scorpione looked fixedly at her, as if trying to understand her; and
she added, "If any one loved me, and I loved him also, would you wish
me to be happy?" blushing as she spoke.
Heavy tears rolled down his cheeks, and he said, taking Aminta's hand,
"Yes."
"Poor child!" said she, with tears also, "once he loved me for his own
sake--now he loves me for my own."
"Yes," said the idiot, hiding his face with his hands.
Just then the Prince de Maulear was announced.
XVIII. THE KING.
The Prince adored his daughter-in-law, and with tears in his eyes he
besought Signora Rovero not to take her from him. "Remember," said he,
"that I am old, and have but a few years more to live before I reach
the end of my journey, to which the death of my unfortunate son has
brought me years nearer. Do not, Signora, deprive me of the only being
I love on earth. Make this sacrifice to Rovero's friend. In his name I
ask you to do so. Have a little patience with the old man, and let
Aminta close his eyes. I will soon restore her to you."
The mother made this sacrifice to the broken-hearted father, who
almost on his knees besought her to give him her daughter to replace
his lost son. In his suffering the Prince seemed to become doubly fond
of the young woman. Her own father could not have been more anxious to
spare her pain and to satisfy her least desires.
"She is my Antigone," said he, proudly, to all who met him leaning on
the Marquise's arm. "I am, though, happier than Oedipus, for I can
look at and admire her."
"When the Prince came into the drawing-room of his daughter he seemed
excited. The Marquise bade Scorpione leave her, and the idiot crawled
rather than walked to the door, through which he disappeared; not,
however, until he had cast one glance on the young woman, as if to
become satisfied that her features expressed neither menace nor anger.
"Good and kind as ever," said the Prince to Aminta; "you certainly
appear to advantage with that hideous and deformed being. No one but a
person generous as you are would keep so awful a being by you."
"To do so, father, I need only appeal to memory, and that will aid me.
I cannot forget that I am indebted to him for my life, and above all,
for the boon of being loved by you."
"Certainly," said the Prince, "I know all that; but you might take
care of and watch over him, and make his life pleasant, without
keeping him ever before you. I, who am not at all timid, assure you
that I never see him without apprehension at your feet, hugging the
fire like a serpent to quicken the icy blood in his veins."
"I will send him away if you wish me to."
"I wish you to do as you please. That you know well enough, my child.
Keep the Scorpione, as you sometimes call him, and nurse up any
horrible monster you please besides, and I will think it charming, or
at least will not reproach you. My dear child, I have few amusements
for you, and now your life must be sad indeed."
"No, no! dear father, I do not complain. The hotel is only sad when
you are not here."
"Alas!" said the Prince, "there can be found but little interest in
one as old as I am, and so unhappy too. Listen to me, Aminta, it is
cruel to make children die before their parents. It reverses the order
of nature to see the flower wither while the parent stem is green. I
spoke to you of fate, because I was unwilling to mention God. Grief
makes us pious. I dare not object to your decrees."
"Have you not yet a daughter?" said Aminta, passing her arm around the
Prince's neck; "have you not a daughter who loves you?"
"Yes, yes, _my daughter_." The Prince laid an emphasis on the last
word. "You are now my only child, and I wish to secure your happiness;
and for that purpose will consecrate to you the remnant of my life.
Yet I do not know what to do."
The young woman blushed--for perhaps she could have made a suggestion.
The Prince, though, did not remark it, and continued:
"Our life is sadder even than it was. The friends of this world are
like bees who hover only around flowers when they bloom, and scorn
those which begin to wither. They avoid this house--"
"All friends do not act thus," said Aminta, concealing her emotion;
"one of them, one who pleases you most, whom you love, Signor
Monte-Leone, often comes hither to see you alone--"
"To see me?" said the Prince, looking shrewdly at his daughter-in-law;
"perhaps he comes to see you. Since, however, his misfortune, the
Count never comes near us. Perhaps he judges us incorrectly. He may
have fancied the loss of fortune involved the sacrifice of our
friendship. It is a bad judgment, and I say it with regret, of a bad
heart."
"Ah father," said Aminta, "the Count must have had another reason to
keep him away."
"Certainly," said M. de Maulear, "but these reasons have not kept him
from seeing me. During the last fortnight, I have been ten times to
his house. I am, however, glad he has acted thus, for his conduct will
diminish my sorrow at his departure--"
"His departure?" said Aminta, unable to restrain an expression of
surprise.
"His departure for Italy," said the Prince; "he was ordered this
morning, by the French government, to leave France within twenty-four
hours."
"And why?" said Aminta.
"He is accused," said Maulear, "of being concerned in some conspiracy
contrary to the safety of the country."
"Ah, my God!" said the young woman, "then he is exiled and expelled
from the kingdom."
"Decidedly; and he is forbidden ever to return."
Aminta, as she heard these words, felt as if her heart would burst.
The Prince saw her agitation.
"What is the matter my child?" said he. "Why are you so sad?"
"Nothing, nothing, but a nervous attack, to which I am used."
Maulear looked at the Marquise for a few moments, and then said: "My
child, there is no true love without confidence. My love gives me
sacred rights over you. Do not be afraid to confide in me. Let not
even the memory of the departed restrain you. You are twenty years of
age; and your life has not approached its end. I am now about to tell
you what I have often intended to: your happiness is the main object
of my life, and never forget that, whatever may be your name, I shall
always look on you as a daughter!"
Aminta threw herself into the Prince's arms and hid there her tears of
gratitude and her blushes. De Maulear took his beautiful
daughter-in-law on his knee, as he would have taken a child, and then
lifting up Aminta's head with exquisite kindness, said: "Does he love
you?"
"He did before I was married," said the young woman, looking down.
"And since then?"
"He has never spoken of love."
"He should not have done so," said the Prince; "often, though, the
eyes say such things; and his, probably, are not inexpressive."
Aminta did not reply.
"All is clear," said the Prince; "the Count avoids us from a sentiment
of delicacy which does him honor. He has no longer reason to hope,
being ruined, for what, when rich, he would have given his life and
fortune."
"He will go," said Aminta faintly.
"He will not, he shall not go. This conspiracy is, after all, only one
of the phantoms ever arising before a terrified government. If the
really revolutionary mind of Count Monte-Leone has involved him, I
will promise to make him listen to reason, especially if you will aid
me--as for this order to leave so abruptly, I hope my arm is long
enough to interpose."
"What then will you do?" asked Aminta, anxiously.
"_Parbleu!_ I will go to the King himself--not to the ministers, but
to the KING--to GOD, not to the saints. Mind, for the proverb's sake
alone I apply that word to those gentry. The King is an old friend, a
brother in exile. I never asked a favor of him, though he has often
asked me to do so. We will see if he will refuse me."
"But," said Aminta, "time is short."
"Then," said the Prince, "to-morrow morning I will go to the
Tuileries, and we will see what the minister will say when he hears
Louis XVIII. say, _I will!_"
"Think you he will say so?"
"He must," said the Prince, kissing her; "for you and I say, _we
will_. What a woman wills----To-morrow you shall have good news." He
went away....
At that time the appearance of the Tuileries was very imposing. To the
forms of the empire had succeeded the more luxurious and aristocratic
ones of the restoration.
The stern military garb of the Imperial Guard, and of the Dragoons of
the Empress, was replaced by the brilliant uniforms of the King's
body-guards, of the _hundred Swiss_, an old name now replaced by the
almost grotesque appellation of the _Gardes à pied ordinaires du corps
du roi_, a species of giants, commanded by the Count of Tisseuil, a
person only about four feet high, but an excellent soldier for all
that. Then came the Swiss, the Royal guard, and on days of public
ceremonies, the _Gardes de la Manche_, whose duty had special relation
to the religious ceremonies of the chapel of the palace. The reception
rooms, the great gallery, the hall of the marshals, glittered with
embroidered dresses, _cordons_, collars and orders of every kind, both
French and foreign. There were the stars of the empire--those of the
monarchy--Russian, English, Austrian, Italian--the stars of all
Europe. A large portion of the continent was in Paris. This portion
was the most brilliant of all; for having tasted of Parisian
refinement it was not at all anxious to return home. His majesty
Louis XVIII., dressed in blue and wearing the royal cordon of the
Saint Esprit, with his hair _a l'oisseu-royal_, and his legs hidden in
broad pantaloons, which concealed their size, with his feet in shoes
of buckskin, and pleasant and agreeable as ever, had been rolled by
his footman from the room where he breakfasted, to his study. MM. de
Blacas, d'Escars, and de Damas, his gentlemen in waiting, and many
courtiers, had followed his majesty's chair to the very door of his
study, where they paused. Then the human horses, who dragged the
chair, having turned him around _on his own pivot_, bore him into the
recesses of the room. The object of the manoeuvre we have described
was to place the King vis-a-vis to his courtiers, to whom he bowed
graciously. This was a signal for them to leave. The doors then closed
with not a little noise, and this was all the public knew of royal
life. Private matters, interviews with the ministers, audiences, had
particular modes of entrance leading to the King's rooms and office.
The latter was the sanctuary of royal thought, where great and petty
acts were consummated, and where many confessions and audiences had
been heard and given. There this literary King, better educated than
half of his academy, had made commentaries on many learned Latins,
especially on Horace. The King appropriated several hours of every day
to study. To derange the distribution of this time, to take him from
Juvenal, Tacitus, or Cicero, to discuss a plan of Villèle or Angles,
was almost high treason. One person alone dared to do this, and this
person was above law. The reason was, he was more powerful than the
King, having even majesty in subjection. The name of this man was
Father Elysée. It was his business to keep the King alive. This was,
as will be seen, a very important matter.
This man went into the King's room without notice, and without even
tapping at his door. He did so, by virtue of the sovereign power of
the patient over the invalid--by virtue of science over suffering
humanity. The King, however, sometimes used to say, when Elysée made a
very _brusque_ entrance: "_I only wish one thing, that disease may not
break in on me brusquely as you do_."
As a fine and acute courtier, as an old slouth-hound of the palace
with a keen scent, the Prince de Maulear went to Father Elysée for the
purpose of obtaining a speedy audience.
"Is it you?" said the King, behind whom opened a door looking into the
reception room.
"Yes," said the doctor, "I wish your majesty would not pay too much
attention to your Latin and study. Nothing injures the digestive
organs like study, especially after meals. Mind and matter then
contend, and the body is almost always overcome."
"If I had to do only with my old friends, Horace and Petronius," said
the King, "my digestion would be all right. Unfortunately I have found
a few modern subjects well calculated to annoy Master Gaster--for the
vermin of Juvenal and Persius would be honey of Hymethus compared with
the bile of the books I speak of--"
The King pointed out to the doctor a few open pamphlets which lay
about the table.
"_Norman Letters. The Man in the Grey Coat_--MINERVA," said the
doctor, looking at them; "who dared to bring these books hither?"
"My majesty dared. I am as good a doctor as you are, but I have more
patients. I have a whole nation to cure, and to administer a tonic we
must at least be aware of the debility. Look hither," said the King,
"here is an antidote to poison. _The Conservative_, edited by the most
learned doctors of the political faculty--by de Chateaubriand, de
Bonald, de Villèle, Fiévée. Castelbajac, and a certain Abbé de
Lamennais, an eloquent, sharp, and able man, I am sure, who has,
though, one fault, he is a greater royalist than his King."
"And may I venture to ask your majesty how the works of Etienne, Jay,
Jony and company, came hither?"
"Smuggled in," said Louis XVIII., with a smile; "F----, one of my
_valets de chambre_, whom I have placed at the head of what I call my
secret ministry, brings them to me. The fellow has taste. He said to
me the other day: '_I have something devilish good here. The
scoundrels do not spare your majesty_.' But," continued the King, "no
man can be great to his valet or his physician, and I will therefore
confess that the works of these liberal gentlemen trouble my digestion
not a little, and I wish my good friend the Duke d'Escars to bring me
back that _purée de cailles truffées_, of which he is the inventor. He
is the Prince of Gourmands."
"Then," said Père Elysée, glad to be able thus to pass to the
principal object of his visit, "I am just in time to amuse your
majesty, and to announce the visit of one of your best friends--the
Prince de Maulear."
"Just in time," said the King; "he is a gentleman of the old school,
and has chosen _for fifty years_ to be such. He yet believes in a King
of France, fully, perhaps more fully, than he does in God. He is a
true enemy of the Jacobins and Revolutionists. Tell him to come in,
doctor, and we will be able to bear up against the attacks of the
authors of those books."
The doctor soon brought the Prince de Maulear, and then left.
"Come in, my dear Prince," said the King; "you do not spoil your
friends, and I see you too rarely, as I see others too frequently, to
be able to forget you."
Kings, however unpleasant they may be, have this analogy with the sun,
all come to warm themselves by his rays.
"I thank your majesty for your kind reception."
"You were my friend and shared my exile."
"It was a sad season," said the Prince, sitting on the chair the King
pushed towards him.
"Not so, Prince; then we had no cares and no enemies, above all we had
no court. We were independent, calm, and happy."
"Perhaps you had health, but you had no crown."
"Think you that a great misfortune?"
"Perhaps not to your majesty, but it was to France."
"How? Does our friend the Prince de Maulear, contrary to every
expectation, become a flatterer in his old age? In what part of the
Tuileries did he contract that disease? Listen, my dear de Maulear.
You as well as I know that _love of France_ is but a word. Once in
France, people loved the King--now, though, France above all other
things loves itself. This love is, if you please, egotistical, but
after all it is the only real positive good in this selfish age. Mind
I speak only of the owners, and therefore conservatives of the
kingdom. The other portion of the kingdom, anxious at any risk to
acquire, estimates the country cheaply. A few faithful hearts who
welcomed me as a Messiah expected for twenty years, true and noble
believers, looked on my return as the realization of their long and
secret hopes. To the majority of my people the Bourbon lily has been
only the olive-branch of peace purchased by twenty years of war. This
peace I would not have brought back by the bayonets of the Austrians
and Russians. But God, Buonaparte, and the Allies, so willed it. You
see, my dear Prince, that I am not mistaken in relation to my
subjects' love, and that the gems of a crown do not conceal its
thorns."
"The King," said M. de Maulear, "at least deigns to reckon me among
the faithful subjects of whom he spoke just now?"
"Yes, yes," said the King, "among the most faithful and most
disinterested. When I came back, there was established a very
partition of offices and places, or honors, titles, crosses and stars,
in which you took no part. Now you know you are one of those to whom I
could refuse nothing."
"Well," said the Prince, "your majesty gives me courage to make one
request, to obtain which I come hither."
"Bah!" said the King, "speak out my old friend, if the matter depends
on me--"
"Cannot the King do any thing?" said the Prince.
"The King can do very little," said Louis XVIII.
"When your majesty says 'I will--'"
"Others say, 'We will not.'"
"Who will dare to use such language?"
"The true Kings of France--the ministers--for they are responsible
while I am not. To tell the fact, though, I have credit with them and
will use it--"
"Yet the King is King," said the Prince.
"Ah, Prince!" said Louis XVIII, "I see plainly enough that you do not
read my books. What could you say worse to an author? Open the charter
and look--here it is: '_He reigns, but does not govern_.' This is my
Bible, my code--and I can accuse no one but myself, if I do sigh
sometimes. For all this emanates from me, and was conceived and
written by my own hand. Unfortunately," said he, with bitterness, "in
France every thing is interpreted literally."
"The favor I ask your majesty to grant me will I hope be within your
reserved powers. Count Monte-Leone, a noble Neapolitan of my
acquaintance, has been accused, beyond doubt unjustly, of political
plots, and been abruptly ordered to leave France. I come to ask the
king to remit this mortification."
"Ah, ah!" said Louis XVIII, gravely, "an anarchist. This is serious,
very serious. Perhaps the safety of the monarchy depends on this, as
the _Timid_[3] say. My dear brother retails a conspiracy a day to me;
perhaps, after all, he is not far wrong. I will see, Prince. I will
examine and consult a very important personage, without whom I cannot
act."
"Will his Majesty," said the usher, who had just arrived, "receive the
prime minister?"
"Exactly," said the King, "that is the person of whom I spoke."
"Go in there," said the King to the Prince, pointing to the
waiting-room. "You shall have my, or rather his, answer, in a quarter
of an hour. The result though will be the same."
The Prince obeyed, and his excellency the prime minister was received.
XIX. A REVELATION.
The audience the King gave his prime minister lasted nearly an hour.
M. de Maulear began to grow impatient at his long delay, when the
usher came to tell him the King waited for him....
When the Prince entered, Louis XVIII. had a smile on his lips. A
skilful observer of countenances would however have remarked a shade
of malice.
"You are then very fond of Count Monte-Leone?" said the King to the
Prince, again telling him to be seated.
"Very, Sire," said the Prince. "Signor Monte-Leone is really a
nobleman, with old blood, a kind heart, brilliant mind, and elegant
manners. One of a race now rare. If your Majesty would but permit me
to present him to you--"
"No, no," said the King; "I had rather not. Besides," continued he,
"with his reputation as a dreamer and a revolutionist, as an enemy of
our cousin Fernando of Naples--"
"The Count is in the way of conversion, Sire; and if the important
person to whom your Majesty yields will suffer us to keep the Count in
Paris, I am sure we will soon be able to restore him to favor."
"The _important person_," said Louis, with a smile, "was very much
inclined to send your dear friend to his own country. New information
in relation to this honorable and loyal noble," continued the King,
"has completely changed the intentions entertained in relation to
him."
"Indeed," said the Prince, with delight; "and will your Majesty deign
to tell me what this information is?"
"No, no, my dear friend. This is strictly a political question, which
cannot be divulged. One thing is certain, the Italian is no longer our
enemy, but is devoted to us. He is a lamb in a lion's hide. Not only
will we keep him in France, but will grant him immunity for all he may
do in future and has done as yet. Thus you see," said the King, "I
have done more than you asked."
"Such kindness," said the Prince, "overwhelms me with pleasure and
gratitude."
"Ah, Prince," said the King, ironically, "how you love your friends!
Yet distrust your heart in relation to these Italians. They are
cunning, and sometimes treacherous, but always mild and winning, so as
to lead astray our French honesty. They do not wear at their belt
their most dangerous stiletto, but have another between their jaws
which is often poisoned. God keep me from saying this of your dear
Count. I would not hurt him at all, but on the other hand wish him to
be well received and to be honored every where. This advice, however,
I wish you to consider general, and not with reference to any
particular case."
"Count Monte-Leone," continued the Prince, "is worthy of your
Majesty's kindest wishes. He has only the noble qualities of his
nation, energy, enthusiasm, and courage. His is an exalted mind, which
a cruel family sorrow may for a time have led astray, but I will
answer for him as I would for myself."
"Ah," said the King, "that is indeed saying much."
"Not enough for his merit. I would be proud if I resembled him."
At this the King could not repress his laughter, and the Prince looked
at him with surprise, and almost with anger. The King soon resumed.
"Excuse me, Prince, but you exhibited so extravagant an anxiety--no,
no, virtuous as Monte-Leone may be, I like you as you are. Do not
therefore envy his devotion, great as that may be to us. I like yours
best."
"I will then tell the Count," said the Prince, "the favor your Majesty
has deigned to grant him."
"No, no--not I. With affairs of that kind I have nothing to do. I
leave that honor to the minister. Adieu, Prince," said he, "and come
soon to see me again. Then ask something of me which may be worth
granting." The Prince bowed respectfully, and left.
"Excellent man," said Louis XVIII., as he left. "He would have been
surprised had I told him.... That Italian has bewitched him...."
On the evening before the day on which this scene took place, a man
wrote in his office by the light of a shaded lamp, which made every
thing but half visible. It was ten o'clock. A door opened, and an
officer of one of the courts appeared. M. H...., the chief of the
political police of whom we have already spoken, lifted up his head.
"What is the matter? and who is now come to interrupt me?" said he,
with marked ill-humor.
The officer who had come in, and who was a _Huissier_, said, "'The
Stranger,' and as Monsieur receives him always--"
"Let him come in," said M. H...., eagerly. "You were right to announce
him."
The person whom we have previously seen with a mask at the house of M.
H...., entered, and looked carefully around to see that he was with
the Chief of Police alone. Many months had passed, and all we have
described had taken place. For since then, we have gone, like a sound
logician, backwards, in order to expose our _data_ distinctly before
we proceed to define their consequences. Now the first appearance of
the masked man in the cabinet of M. H.... coincided with the painful
scene in which Taddeo Rovero had crushed the hopes of the Duchess of
Palma by revealing to her the probability of the marriage of
Monte-Leone and Aminta.
"Monsieur," said the stranger to M. H...., "have I kept my promise?"
"Yes," said H....
"Have I unfolded the plot of Carbonarism?"
"You have satisfied me of the existence of the French Venta, and of
their identity with those of Italy and Spain. We have written to the
police of those nations, and all was discovered to be exact, so that
in a few days the governments of those countries will have acted."
"Have I named you the chief Carbonari in Paris?"
"You have."
"Have I given you their secret notes and books?"
"In relation to that, I am but partially satisfied, but I do not need
the copies but the documents themselves, in the handwriting of their
authors."
"You will have them--but there is an Italian proverb, _Chi va piano,
va sano! e chi va sano, va lontano_. I told you the fruit was not yet
ripe. I think, however, the time is approaching to gather it, and in a
month I will--"
"But," said H...., "does not this delay endanger all? May they not
act, while we pause?"
"Do you wish to know by your own observation who are the
conspirators?" said the stranger.
"I do," said H....
"Do you wish to see--to hear them?"
"Yes, and to arrest them."
"Not yet--it is too soon. While your fowlers entrapped a few
fledgelings the rest of the covey would escape."
"How can I see and hear them?"
"I alone can enable you to do so, or rather not I, but the person
whose agent I am."
"And when?" said M. H...., impatiently.
"In three days. It is, however, first necessary to repair a grave
error which endangers all our hopes."
"What fault?"
"The Minister of the Interior," continued the man, "has ordered three
foreigners, a German, a Spaniard, and an Italian, to leave France.
Those persons are Dr. Spellman of Berlin, the Duke D.... of Madrid,
and Count Monte-Leone of Naples."
"True," said M. H.... "This is at the request of the ministers of
those three nations."
"Well," said the mysterious man, "it must be at once revoked."
"Why?"
"Because, if one of these men leave Paris, you have nothing to expect
from me."
"What say you?" asked H...., with surprise.
"I am," said the stranger, in a low tone, "as I told you, the agent of
one of those strangers. In his name alone I can tell you what you are
so anxious to know--without him I can do nothing. The elevated
position of this man, his rank, his connection with Carbonarism,
enable him to hear and know all. Without him I am reduced to silence
and inertness; for I repeat to you, that he is the thought of which I
am the action. Destroy him, and the other is valueless, and you return
to ignorance--become especially dangerous as the time approaches for
the mine to explode beneath your feet and those of the French
monarchy."
"Why not name that man? why does he not name himself?"
"Because he wishes to preserve his reputation--because he would rather
die than avow his services."
"Ah, indeed!" said H.... "The matter is difficult. The minister will
not revoke these orders: for, while one of the men ceases to be an
enemy of the country, the other two yet are."
"More than two--twenty of the most powerful, and two hundred thousand
others to follow them."
"But what interest," asked M. H...., who hoped to arrive by a round
about way at a discovery of the one of the three, the presence of whom
was so necessary at Paris. "What reason can your _patron_ have to
serve us, if he asks for neither gold, place, nor favor?"
"A far deeper interest than any of them. That I can confide to
you--revenge."
"On whom?"
"His associates--ungrateful men, who have humiliated him in his
self-esteem."
"How?"
"That is my secret and his."
"Well," said H...., "I can understand that. Hatred and revenge make as
many informers as cupidity. Our criminal archives prove that."
"Well, to the purpose."
"All three will leave Paris to-morrow."
"Then with one of them will go the safety of France. His name must be
a mystery. Revoke the orders, so that our man may remain, unless you
prefer by their departure to break the only thread to guide you in
this inextricable labyrinth."
"But you are here," said H...., unable to repress his anger, and
wearied of the bravado and menaces of the man. "What can be obtained
neither by money nor by persuasion, is often to be had by rigor."
"Very well, Monsieur," said the stranger. "I forgot I was in a country
of treason, and you forget that you swore to use neither violence nor
trickery. You can act as you please. I will however tell you what will
be the result of your investigations. I am an humble man, and belong
to my employer as the body does to the soul, as the hand does to the
arm. It will be useless to follow me, for I have no objection to tell
you whither I go. You may inquire into my past life; that will be
vain, for I will tell you all. You may inquire into my resources, but
you will lose your time, for I will satisfy you myself. There,
however, you will lose your guide--all else will be a mystery to you,
my relations with this man being of such a nature that God alone knows
them. They can be penetrated only by my consent."
"Listen to me," said M. H...., changing his tone: "I was wrong--I was
wrong to menace you, for I am weak, and you are strong. I have
nothing, and you have every thing. I have only control of a few people
whom I suspect, unauthenticated documents, and mere suspicions. In a
time when party spirit runs as high as it does now, after the too
frequent mistakes of our police, we must act on facts and evidence. I
see that I need you. My power, however, gives way to that of another,
and the minister alone can revoke the order of expulsion. Perhaps I
may be able to cause him to revoke it, but I must enforce that demand
by a serious motive, and must satisfy him of the necessity of
resisting the demands of the allied sovereigns, and of keeping two
dangerous men in Paris as the price of one useful one. I now
understand the meaning of the mystery which surrounds your patron,
and to prevent suspicion there must be three pardons. Give me then an
argument which cannot be contradicted. Give me the name which you now
keep secret. You know that I have kept my first oath with you, and I
swear the minister alone shall be informed of the secret."
As he listened to M. H..., the stranger thought profoundly. He then
seemed to adopt an energetic resolution, and uttered these strange
words--"True, the higher the eminence from which a body falls, the
more crushing the blow."
"What do you say?" said H...
"That your idea is correct, and changes my plan. When I came hither, I
thought your will alone could correct the mistake which has been made.
I now see it cannot, and have made up my mind. Sit there," said he to
H...., who was astonished at his unceremonious tone, "sit there." He
pointed out an arm-chair before the desk.
"What do you want now?" said H....
"What the favor you have asked from me authorizes me to demand. An
arm," said he, "the blows of which cannot be parried. I wish you to
sign me a letter of mark or a pass, as you please to call it, which
permits those whom you employ to pass without disturbance."
"Beautiful!" said M. H...., with a smile; "now I understand you."
He wrote: "I recognize as a member of my police, employed by me,
Monsieur...." He paused, and looked anxiously at the stranger. The
latter leaned towards the Chief of Police, and in so low a tone that
H.... could scarcely hear him, uttered a name which made the latter
drop his pen. He however rallied himself, and wrote down the name.
This document he afterwards authenticated by the seal of the police,
and gave to the stranger.
"This is well," said the latter, as he received it. "Now be quick, for
time presses, and the three persons will in a few hours have left
Paris."...
When the man had left, and was alone, an atrocious smile appeared on
his lips. This smile, however, was interrupted by an acute pain in his
left arm. Then taking the paper which H.... had given him, he placed
it on the wound, and said, "This is a cure for a wound I thought
incurable--for steel and poison."
FOOTNOTES:
[2] Continued from page 504, vol. iii.
[3] At this time one or the ultra-royalist factions, called _Les
Timides_.
From Fraser's Magazine.
A TROT ON THE ISLAND.
BY CHARLES ASTOR BRISTED.
Ashburner did leave Oldport, after all, before the end of the season,
being persuaded to accompany a countryman and schoolmate of his (whom
he had last seen two years before in Connaught, and who now happened
to pass a day at Oldport, on his way Canada-ward from the south) in a
trip to the White Mountains of New-Hampshire; though his American
acquaintances, especially the ladies, tried hard to dissuade him from
starting before the grand fancy ball, with which the season
terminated, assuring him that most of "our set" would come back, if
only for that one night, and that it would be a very splendid affair,
and so forth. Nature had more charms for him than art, and he went
away to New Hampshire, making an appointment with Benson by letter to
meet him at Ravenswood early in September. But a traveller cannot make
sure of his movements a fortnight ahead. On his return from the White
Mountains, Ashburner had his pocket picked at a railway station (these
little incidents of highly civilized life are beginning to happen now
and then in America. The inhabitants repudiate any native agency
therein, and attribute them all to the swell-mob emigrants from
England), and, in consequence, was obliged to retrace his steps as far
as New-York to visit his banker. Almost the first person he ran
against in the street was Harry Benson.
"This _is_ an unexpected pleasure!" exclaimed the New-Yorker. "I never
thought to see you here, and you, I presume didn't expect to see me."
Ashburner explained his mishap. "Well, I meant to go straight over to
Ravenswood after the ball, but we had to come home--all of us this
time--on business. Lots of French furniture arrived for our town
house. Mrs. B. couldn't rest till she had seen it all herself, and had
it properly arranged. So here have I been five days, fussing, and
paying, and swearing (legally, you understand, not profanely) at the
custom-house, and then 'hazing'--what you call slanging upholsterers;
and now that the work is all over, I mean to take a little play, and
am just going over to see Lady Suffolk and Trustee trot on the island.
Come along. It's a beautiful drive of eight miles, and I have a
top-wagon. It is to meet me at the Park in a quarter of an hour."
Ashburner assented. "I want to buy some cigars; you have no objection
to accompany me a moment."
So they turned down one of the cross-streets running out of the lower
part of Broadway (which, it may be here mentioned, for the benefit of
English readers and writers, is not called _the_ Broadway), and
entered a store five or six stories high, with two or three different
firms on each floor; and Benson led the way up something between a
ladder and a staircase into a small office, with "Bleecker Brothers"
dimly visible on a tin plate over the door. Three-fourths of the
apartment were filled up with all manner of inviting samples, every
wine, liquor, and liqueur under the sun, in every variety of bottle or
vial, thick with the dust of years, or open for immediate tasting; and
through the dingy panes of a half glass door a multitudinous array of
bottles might be seen loading the numerous shelves of a large
store-room beyond. In a small clearing at one corner, where a small
desk was kept in countenance by a small table, and three or four old
chairs, with a background of shelves groaning under the choicest
brands of the fragrant weed, sat the presiding deities of the
place--the two little Bleeckers--the dark brother of thirty-five, and
the light brother of twenty, like two sketches of the same man in
chalk and charcoal; both elegantly dressed--white trousers, patent
leather shoes, exuberant cravats, massive chains, and all the usual
paraphernalia of young New-York--altogether looking as much in place
as a couple of butterflies in an ant-hill.
"Good morning, gentlemen," said Benson. "Here's our friend Ashburner,"
and he pushed forward the Englishman. The brothers rose, laid down the
morning journals over which they had been lounging, and welcomed the
stranger to their place of business. "What's the news this morning?"
"Nothing at all, I believe," replied the elder. "South Carolina has
been threatening to dissolve the Union again--and that's no news.
Stay, did you see this about Bishop Hughes and Sam Thunderbolt, the
Native American member of Congress from Pennsylvania?"
"I haven't seen even a newspaper for the last three days."
"Well, '+ John of New-York,'--_cross John_, as your brother Carl used
to call him--was in the same rail-car with Thunderbolt, coming from
Philadelphia to New-York; and the Congressman didn't know who he was,
but probably suspected he was a priest."
"Yes, you can generally tell a priest by his looks. Even an
intelligent horse will do that. Once I was riding with one of our
bishops near Boston, and his nag shied suddenly at a man in a
broad-brimmed hat. Says the right reverend (we don't call 'em 'my
lord' in this country, you know, Ashburner), 'I shouldn't wonder if
that was a Romish priest;' and we looked again, and it was. There was
a Protestant horse for you! What a treasure he would have been to an
Orangeman!"
"So Thunderbolt began to abuse the Roman Catholics generally, and the
priests particularly, and that brawling bigot Johnny Hughes most
particularly. Hughes, who is a wary man, polite and self-possessed,
sat through it all without saying a word; till another gentleman in
the car asked Thunderbolt if he knew who that was opposite him. He
didn't know. 'It's Bishop Hughes,' says the other, in a half whisper.
'Are you Bishop Hughes?' exclaims the native, quite off his guard.
'They call me so,' answered the other, with a quiet smile, expecting
to enjoy the humiliating confusion of his denouncer; and the other
passengers shared in the expectation, and were prepared for a titter
at Thunderbolt's expense. But instead of attempting any apology, or
showing any further embarrassment, he pulled out an eyeglass, and
after looking at the Jesuit through it for some time, thus announced
the result of his inspection--'Oh, you are, are you? Well, you're just
the kind of looking loafer I should have expected Johnny Hughes to
be.'"
"I don't believe Hughes was much disconcerted either," said the elder
brother; "he doesn't lose his balance easily. I never heard of his
being put out but once, and that was when Governor Bouck met him. He
was a jolly old Dutchman, Mr. Ashburner, who used to go about
electioneering, and asking every man he came across--how he was, and
how his wife and family were. When Bishop Hughes was introduced to
him, they thought the governor would know enough to vary the usual
question a little; but he didn't, and asked after the Romish bishop's
wife and family with all possible innocence; and Hughes, for once in
his life, was nonplussed what to answer."
"Ah, but you haven't told the end of that," put in Benson. "When the
governor's friends tried to explain to him the mistake he had made,
and the category the Romish ecclesiastics were in, he said, 'O yas, I
see, I should have asked after de children only, and said nossing
about de woman.' As you say, Hughes generally has his wits about him,
no doubt. He played our custom-house a trick that they will not forget
in a hurry. Soon after General Harrison and the Whigs came in, and
Curtis was made collector of our port, there arrived a great lot of
what the French call _articles de religion_, robes, crucifixes, and
various ornaments, for Hughes' cathedral. Now these were all French
goods, and subject to duty, and a notification to that effect was sent
to the proper quarter. Down comes Hughes in a great rage. 'Mr. Curtis,
Mr. Curtis, we never had to do this before. Your predecessor, Mr.
Hoyt, always let our articles of religion in free of duty.' 'Can't
help what my predecessor, Mr. Hoyt, used to do,' says Curtis; 'the law
is so and so, as I understand it, and these articles are subject to
duty. If you like, you may pay the duties under protest, and bring a
suit against Uncle Sam[4] to recover the money.' (You see, the Loco
Focos had always favored the Romish priests to get the Irish vote. The
Whigs didn't in those days--it was before our side had been corrupted
by Seward, and such miserable demagogues; and Curtis wasn't sorry to
see his political opponent the Bishop in a tight place.) After Hughes
had blustered awhile, and found it did no good, he tried the other
tack, and began to expostulate. 'Is there no way at all, Mr. Curtis,'
says he, 'by which these articles may be passed, free of duty?' 'None
at all,' says the other, 'unless'--and he paused, hardly knowing
whether it would do to hint at such a thing, even in jest--'unless,
bishop, you are willing to swear that these are _tools of your
trade_.' 'And sure they are that!' quoth Hughes, snapping him up,
'bring on your book;' and he had the goods sworn through in less than
no time, before Curtis could recover himself."
"Not a bad hit," said the Englishman. "Tools of his trade! So they
were, sure enough; but one would not have expected him to own it so
coolly."
"Unless there was something to be got by it," continued Benson. "Now
this is true--every word of it, though it _has_ been in the
newspapers; and the way I came to find it out was this. One day I saw
in the advertising columns of the _Blunder and Bluster_, a circular
from the _Secretary of the Treasury_, stating that 'crucifixes,
whether of silver or copper, images, silk and velvet vestments, and
theological books, did not come under the head of _tools of trade_,
but were subject to duty.' It was a funny looking notice, and there
was evidently something behind it; so I took the trouble to inquire,
and found that the cause of the order was this clever stroke of
Hughes. Going to the trot to-day?"
The younger brother was going, and it was near the time when he
expected his wagon. Dicky wasn't. He had given up trots ten years
ago--thought them low.
"Give me a few cigars before we go," said Benson. "What have you here
that's first rate? Carbagal, Firmezas, Antiguëdad. H--m. I'll take a
dozen Firmezas, and you may send me the rest of the box."
"Don't you want some champagne--veritable Cordon Bleu--only fourteen
dollars a dozen, and a discount if you take six cases?"
"And if you wish to secure some tall Lafitte, we bought some odd
bottles at old Van Zandt's sale the other day. You remember drinking
that wine at Wilson's last summer?"
Benson remembered it perfectly, and would take the Lafitte by all
means. "Put that down, Mr. Snipes;" and for the first time, Ashburner
was aware of the clerk--a very young gentleman, who appeared from
behind the desk, and booked the order at it. "And how about the
champagne?"
"_J'y penserai._ Time to go. _Vamos._" And Benson carried off his
friend.
"You were a little taken aback, weren't you?" he asked, as they went
in quest of the wagon. "When you saw these men figuring in the German
cotillion, and helping to lead the fashion at Oldport, you hardly
expected to encounter them in such a place. Well, now, let me tell you
something that will astonish you yet more. So far from its being
against these brothers in society that they are, what you would call
in plain English a superior order of grocers, it is positively in
their favor; that is to say, they are more respected, better received,
and stand a better chance of marrying well, than if they did nothing.
They might do nothing if they chose. They had enough to live very well
on _en garçon_. The Bleeckers are of our best known and most
thoroughly respectable families. The sons had no taste for books; they
have a very good taste for wine and cigars, and have undertaken what
they are best fit for. It's better than being nominal lawyers?"
"Pecuniarily, no doubt; but is it as good for the whole development of
the man? Was it you, or your friend Harrison, who instanced Richard
Bleecker as a man who had made no progress in any thing manly for
fifteen years?"
"That is the fault of his natural disposition, which would not be
bettered by his making believe to be a professional man, or being an
avowedly idle one. He is frivolous and ornamental for a part of his
time--during the rest, he has his business to occupy him. If he had
not that, he would spend all his time in elegant idleness, and know no
more than he does now. His pursuits bring him in money, which will be
a comfort to his wife and family when he marries--though, to be sure,
he is rather ancient for that; a single man at thirty-five is with us
a confirmed old bachelor. But his brother is in a fair way to form a
nice establishment."
"Now tell me another thing. Suppose the Bleeckers had chosen to become
jewellers, or merchant tailors--they might be good judges of either
business, and make money by it--how would that affect their position?"
"Unfavorably, I confess," replied Benson. "But we Gothamites have so
thorough a respect for, and appreciation of, good wine and cigars,
that the importation of them is considered particularly laudable."
Any further discussion was stopped by their arrival at that dreary
triangular square (_more hibernico loqui_) called the Park, where
Benson's wagon awaited him--not the red-wheeled one; this vehicle was
of a uniform dark green, furnished with a top (a desirable appendage
when the thermometer stands 85° in the shade,) and lined throughout
with drab. The ponies were carefully enveloped to the very tips of
their ears in white fly-nets. As the groom saw Benson approaching, he
put himself and the top through a series of queer evolutions, which
ended in the latter being lowered--a very necessary operation, to
allow any one to get in with comfort; and after Benson and Ashburner
were in, he put it up again with some ado, and then went his way, the
concern only holding two. Then Benson turned the wagon round by
backing and locking, and making it undergo a series of contortions as
if he wanted to double it up into itself, and run over himself with
his own wheels, and drove to the Fulton Ferry; for to arrive at the
Centreville Course on Long Island--familiarly designated as _the_
island--you first pass through Brooklyn, that trans-Hudsonian suburb
of New York, which thirty years ago was a miserable little village,
and now contains upwards of ninety thousand inhabitants.
"And how did the ball go off?" asked Ashburner, as they rolled up the
main avenue of Brooklyn, at the slowest possible trot, according to
the well known rule, always to take a fast horse easy over pavement.
On board the ferry-boat there had not been much conversation, the
horses being so worried by the flies as to require all Benson's
attention.
"Oh, it was rather a _fiasco_, but we had some fun. Some predicted
that the fashionables would come back, but they didn't, except a few
of the young men; and all of our set that were there threatened to go
out of costume; but then we recollected that would have been a very
Irish way of serving out Mr. Grabster, as by the established
regulation in such cases, we should have had to pay double for
tickets; so most of us took sailors' or firemen's dresses--the
cheapest and commonest disguises we could get; and the ladies made
some trivial addition to their ordinary ball-dresses--a wreath or a
few extra flowers--and called themselves brides, or Floras, and so on.
And some of the crack Bostonians blasphemed the expense, and went in
plain clothes. So we had the consolation of making fun of all the
outsiders, and their attempts at costume--such supernumeraries as most
of them were! And none of the _comme-il-faut_ people would serve on
the committee, so Grabster had nobody to get up the room in proper
style, and it looked like a 'Ripton' ball-room; and _The Sewer_
reporters were there, in all their glory. The Irishman had borrowed or
stolen a uniform somewhere, and the Frenchman was appropriately
arrayed in red as a devil, and he went about taking notes of all the
people's dresses, especially the ladies'; and as our ladies were not
in costume, he thought he must have something to do with them, and so
presented some of them with bouquets, which they wouldn't take, of
course; and the young men trod on his toes and elbowed him off till he
swore he would put them all in his paper. And we danced away,
notwithstanding _The Sewer_ and all its works. Tom Edwards was
accoutred as Mose the fireman, and Sumner had an old French
_débardeur_ dress of his, just the thing for the occasion, only his
shoes were too big; and after tripping up himself and his partner four
times, he kicked them off clean into the orchestra, and fearfully
aggravated the fiddlers; and he took it as coolly as he does every
thing--put on a pair of ordinary boots, and was polking away again in
five minutes. And we kept it up till two in the morning, polka
chiefly, with a sprinkling of _deuxtemps_, and then had a very bad
supper, and some very bad wine, of Mr. Grabster's providing--genuine
New Jersey champagne. How we looked after the dancing! Sumner's
_débardeur_ shirt might have been wrung out, it was so wet; and Mrs.
Harrison--she had got herself up as Undine--was dripping enough for
half-a-dozen water-nymphs; and Miss Friskin had a shiny green silk
dress; we had been polking together, and my white waistcoat, and
pants, and cravat, were all stained green, as if I had been playing
with a gigantic butterfly. And then after supper, when there was no
one but our German cotillion set left, and just as we had put the
chairs in order, the musicians struck work, and would not play any
more (you know what an impracticable, conceited, obstinate brute a
third-rate German musician is), saying they were only bound to play
just so long; so I gave them a good slanging in their own tongue (I
know German enough to blow up a man, and a fine strong language it is
for the purpose); and White swore it was too bad, and Edwards tried to
make them a conciliatory speech--only he was too tipsy to talk
straight; and Sumner offered them fifty dollars to go on playing.
Thereupon, up and spake the big bass-viol,--'We ton't want your money;
we want to be dreated like chentlemens;' and then Frank lost his
temper. 'I'll treat you,' says he; and with that he delivered right
and left into the bass-viol, and knocked him through his own
instrument; and then some one knocked Sumner over the head with a
trombone;--then we all set to, and gave the musicians their change (we
owed them a little before, for it wasn't the first time they had been
saucy to us,) and we thrashed them essentially, and comminuted a few
of their instruments. And half-a-dozen of the Irish waiters came out,
with their sleeves rolled up, to fight for the honor of the house, and
protect Mr. Grabster's property--meaning the musicians, I
suppose;--and Haralson of Alabama, one of your regular
six-feet-two-in-his-stockings South Western men, who had come North to
learn the polka, and become civilized--Haralson pulled out a Bowie and
swore he would whistle them up if they didn't make themselves scarce.
By Jove! you should have seen the Paddies scud! And I caught _The
Sewer_ reporter (the Irish one) in the _mêlée_, and let him have a
kick that landed him in the middle of the floor, telling him he might
put that into his next letter, and afterwards go to a place worse even
than _The Sewer_ office. Then, after all the enemy were fairly routed,
we adjourned to my parlor. I had some good champagne of my own, and a
_pâté_ or two, and some Firmezas, and we held a jolly revel till four
o'clock, and then the ladies retired, and we quiet married men did the
same, and the boys went to fight the tiger, and Edwards lost 1400
dollars, and some of them took to running foot-races for a bet on the
post-road. Haralson outran all the rest--and his senses too--and was
found next evening about five miles up the road with no coat or hat,
and one stocking off and the other stocking on, like my son John in
the nursery rhyme, and his watch and purse gone. And _The Sewer_ and
_Inexpressible_ said that it was the most brilliant ball that had
occurred within the memory of the oldest inhabitants. And that's a
pretty fair synopsis of the whole proceedings."
By this time they were off the pavement,--a change very sensible and
desirable to man and horse, for an American pavement is something
beyond imagination or description, and must be experienced to be
understood. The ponies, without waiting for the word, went off on
their long steady stroke at three-quarters speed, and though the day
was warm and the road heavy, stepped over the first three miles in
twelve minutes, as Benson took care to show Ashburner by his watch.
They challenged wagon after wagon, but no one seemed inclined to race
at this stage of the proceedings, and they glided quietly by every
thing. Only once was heard the sound of competing feet, when a black
pacer swept up, with two tall wheels behind him, and a man
mysteriously balanced between them. "After the sulky is manners," said
Harry, slackening his speed, and giving the pacer a wide berth; and
the man on the wheels whizzed by like a mammoth insect, and was soon
lost to view amid a cloud of dust.
And now they arrived at a tavern where the owners of "fast crabs" were
wont to repose, to water their horses, and brandy-and-water
themselves. The former operation is performed very sparingly, the
supply of liquid afforded to the animals consisting merely of a
spongeful passed through their mouths; the latter is usually conducted
on more liberal principles. But as our friends felt no immediate
desire to liquor, Benson amused himself while the horses rested by
putting down his top, for the sky had slightly clouded over,--a
favorable circumstance, he remarked, for the trot. Just as he was
starting his ponies, with a chirrup, a tandem developed itself from
under the shed, and its driver greeted him with a friendly nod.
"Good afternoon, Mr. Losing," quoth Harry, raising his whip-hand in
answer to the salute; then, _sotto voce_ to Ashburner, "a Long-Island
fancy man: lots of money, and no end of fast horses."
Mr. Losing had a thin hatchety face, and a very yellow complexion,
with hair and beard to match. He wore a yellow straw-hat, and a
yellowish-gray summer paletot, with yellowish-brown linen trousers.
His light gig (of the kind technically called a double-sulky) was
painted a dingy yellow-ochre; the horses were duns, the fly-nets drab,
and what little harness there was, retained the original law-calf
color of its leather; in short, the whole concern had a general
pervading air of dun, which but for the known wealth of its owner
might have been suggestive of unpleasant Joe-Millerisms. The only
exception was his companion, a gay horse-dealer and jockey, who acted
as amateur groom on this occasion. Mr. Van Eyck had sufficient
diversity of color in his dress to relieve the monotony of a whole
landscape,--blue coat and gilt buttons, lilac waistcoat and ditto, red
cravat and red-striped check shirt, white hat and trousers. His
apparel might have been a second-hand suit of Bird Simpson's. As the
gig came out close at the wheels of the wagon, the two whips
interchanged glances, as much as to say, "Here's at you!" and "Come
on!" and Losing tightened his reins; then, as his leader ranged up
alongside Benson's horses, the latter drew up his lines also, and the
teams went off together.
A good team race is more exciting to both the lookers-on and the
performers than any contest of single horses; there is twice as much
noise, twice as much skill in driving, and apparently greater speed,
though in reality less. Neither had started at the top of their gait,
but they kept gradually and proportionally crowding the pace, till
they were going about seventeen miles an hour, and at that rate they
kept for the first half-mile exactly in the same relative position as
they had started. No one spoke a word; the close contact of horses in
double harness excites them so, that they require checking rather than
encouragement; but Benson with a rein in his hand was feeling every
inch of his ponies, and watching every inch of the road. Losing sat
like a statue, and his horses seemed to go of themselves. Then, as the
ground began to rise, Losing drew gradually ahead, or rather Benson's
team came back to him; still it was inch by inch; in the next quarter
the wheeler instead of the leader was alongside the other team, and
that was all Losing had gained. Then Harry, with some management, got
both reins into one hand, and lifted his nags a little with the whip.
At the same time Losing altered his hold for the first time, and shook
up his horses. There was a corresponding increase of speed in both
parties, which kept them in the same respective position, and so they
struggled on for a little while longer, till just before the road
descended again, Benson made another effort to recover his lost
ground. In so doing, he imprudently loosened his hold too much, and
his off horse went up.
The moment Firefly lost his feet Benson threw his whole weight upon
the horses, and hauled them across the road, close in behind Losing's
gig, the break having lost him just a length, so that when they struck
into their trot again they were at the Long-Islander's wheel. Down the
hill they went, faster than ever; the wagon could not gain an inch on
the gig, or the gig shake the wagon off. But Losing had manifestly the
best of it, as all his dust went into the face of Benson and
Ashburner, enveloping and powdering them and their equipage
completely. Their only consolation was, that they were bestowing a
similar one on every wagon that they passed. As both teams were
footing their very best, Benson's only chance of getting by was in
case one of the tandems should happen to break, a chance which he
kept ready to take advantage of. By and by the leader went up, but
Losing, who had his horses under perfect command, let him run a little
way, and caught him again into his trot without losing any thing.
Nevertheless Benson, who had seen the break, made a push to go by, and
with a great shout crowded his team up to the wheeler, but there they
broke,--this time both horses,--and before he could bring them down he
was two lengths in the rear. Then Losing drew on one side, and
slackened his speed, and Benson also pulled up almost to a walk.
"His double sulky is lighter than my wagon," said Harry, "even without
the top, and the top makes fifty pounds difference. The machine is
built a little heavier than the average, purposely because it rides
easier, and shakes the horses less when there are inequalities in the
road, so that besides being pleasanter to go in, a team can take it
along about as fast as any thing lighter for a short brush, but when
the horses are so nearly equal, and you have some miles to go on a
heavy road, the extra weight tells. However, it is no disgrace to be
beaten by Losing, any way, for his horses are his study and
_specialité_. Every fortnight the bolts and screws of his wagon are
re-arranged; his collars fit like gloves; he has a particular kind of
watering-pot made on purpose to water his horses' legs. Every trifle
is rigorously attended to. You ought to visit his, or some other
sporting man's stable here, just to note the difference between that
sort of thing with us and with you. Instead of hunters and
steeple-chasers, you will see fine trotters together that can all beat
2´ 50´´."
The road happened just then to be pretty clear, so they proceeded
leisurely for some miles further, till just as they were quitting the
turnpike for a lane which led to the course, the rattle of wheels and
the shouts of drivers came up behind them. Benson, not disposed to
swallow any more of other people's dust if he could help it, waked up
his horses at once, and they clattered along the lane, up hill and
down, and over a railroad track, and past numerous wagons, at a faster
rate than ever. "_Do_ get out of the way!" shouted Henry to one
primitive gentleman, with a very tired horse, who was occupying
exactly the centre of the road. "You go to ----." The individual
addressed was probably about to say something very bad, when Benson,
who was a moral man, and had the strongest wheels, cut short any
possible profanity for the moment by driving slap into him, and
knocking him into the ditch, with the loss of a spoke or two. This
collision hardly delayed their speed an instant; and though some of
the pursuers were evidently gaining, no one overhauled them for
three-quarters of a mile, at the end of which Starlight and Firefly
swept proudly up to the course, with a long train in their rear.
All the vicinity of the Centreville Course--not the stables and sheds
merely, but the lanes leading to it, the open ground about it, the
whole adjacent country, one might almost say--was covered with wagons
stowed together as closely as cattle in a market. If it had been
raining wagons and trotters the night before just over the place, like
showers of frogs that country editors short of copy fill a column
with, or if they had grown up there ready harnessed, there could not
have been a more plentiful supply. Wagons, wagons, wagons everywhere,
of all weights, from a hundred and eighty pounds to four hundred, with
here and there a sulky for variety--horses of all styles, colors, and
merits--no sign of a servant or groom of any kind, but a number of
boys, mostly blackies, about one to every ten horses, who earned a few
shillings by looking after the animals, and watching the carpets,
sheets, and fly-nets. The only other movables, the long-handled
short-lashed whips, were invariably carried off by their proprietors.
Whips and umbrellas are common property in America; they are an
exception to the ordinary law of _meum_ and _tuum_, and strictly
subject to socialist rules. Woe to the owner of either who lets his
property go one second out of his sight!
"Now then, Snowball!" quoth Benson, as a young gentleman of color
rushed up on the full grin, stimulated to extra activity by the
recollection of the past and the vision of prospective
"quarters,"--"take care of the fliers, and don't let any one steal
their tails! I ought to tell you," he continued to Ashburner, leading
the way towards the big, dilapidated,[5] unpainted, barn-like
structure, which appeared to be the rear of the grandstand, "you won't
find any gentlemen here--that is, not above half-a-dozen at most."
"I was just wondering whether we should see any ladies."
Benson pointed over his left shoulder; and they planked their dollar
a-piece at the entrance.
Ashburner's first impression, when fairly inside, was that he had
never seen such a collection of disreputable looking characters in
broad daylight, and under the open sky. All up the rough broad steps,
that were used indifferently to sit or stand upon; all around the
oyster and liquor stands, that filled the recess under the steps; all
over the ground between the stand and the track, was a throng of low,
shabby, dirty men, different in their ages, sizes, and professions;
for some were farmers, some country tavern-keepers, some city ditto,
some horse-dealers, some gamblers, and some loafers in general; but
alike in their slang and "rowdy" aspect. There is something peculiarly
disagreeable in an American crowd, from the fact that no class has
any distinctive dress. The gentleman and the working-man, or the
"loafer," wear clothes of the same kind, only in one case they are new
and clean, in the other, old and dirty. The ragged dress-coats and
crownless beavers of the Irish peasants have long been the admiration
of travellers; now, elevate these second-hand garments a stage or two
in the scale of preservation--let the coats be not ragged, but shabby,
worn in seam, and greasy in collar; the hats whole, but napless at
edge, and bent in brim; supply them with old trousers of the last
fashion but six, and you have the general costume of a crowd like the
present. But ordinary collections of the [Greek: oi polloi] are
relieved by the very superior appearance of the women; pretty in their
youth, lady-like and stylish even when prematurely faded, always
dressed respectably, and frequently dressed in good taste, they form a
startling relief and contrast to their cavaliers; and not only the
stranger, but the native gentleman, is continually surprised at the
difference, and says to himself, "Where in the world could such nice
women pick up those snobs?" Here, where there is not a woman within a
mile (unless that suspicious carriage in the corner contains some gay
friends of Tom Edwards'), the congregated male loaferism of these
people, without even a decent looking dog among them, is enough to
make a man button his pockets instinctively.
Amid this wilderness of vagabonds may be seen grouped together at the
further corner of the stand the representatives of the gentlemanly
interest, numbering, as Benson had predicted, about half-a-dozen.
Losing, with his yellow blouse and moustache to match; Tom Edwards, in
a white hat and trousers, and black velvet coat; Harrison, slovenly in
his attire, and looking almost as coarse as any of the rowdies about,
till he raises his head, and shows his intelligent eyes; Bleecker, who
had just arrived; and a few specimens of Young New-York like him.
Benson carries his friend that way, and introduces him in due form to
the Long Islander, who receives him with an elaborate bow. Ashburner
offers a cigar to Losing, who accepts the weed with a nod of
acknowledgment (for he rarely opens his mouth except to put something
into it, or to make a bet), and offers one of his in return, which
Ashburner trying, excoriates his lips at the first whiff, and is
obliged to throw it away after the third, for Charley Losing has
strong tastes, will rather drink brandy than wine, any day, and smokes
tobacco that would knock an ordinary man down.
The stranger glances his eye over the scene of action. A barouche and
four does not differ more from a trotting wagon, or a blood courser
from a Canadian pacer, than an English race-course from an American
"track." It is an ellipse of hard ground, like a good and smooth piece
of road, with some variations of ascent and descent. The distance
round is calculated at a mile, according to the scope of turning
requisite for a horse before a sulky--that being the most usual form
of trotting; for a saddle-horse that has the pole,[6] it comes
practically to a little less; for a harness-horse (especially if to a
wagon) with an outside place, to a little, or sometimes a good deal
more. Around the inclosure, within the track (which looks as if it
were trying hard to grow grass and couldn't), a few wagons, which
obtained entrance by special favor, are walking about; they belong to
the few men who have brought their grooms with them. Harrison's pet
trotter is there, a magnificent long-tailed bay, as big as a
carriage-horse, equal to 2´ 50´´ on the road before that wagon, and
worth fifteen hundred dollars, it is said. Just inside the track, and
opposite the main stand outside, is a little shanty of a judge's
stand, and marshalled in front of it are half a dozen notorious
pugilists, and similar characters, who, doubtless on the good old
principle of "set a thief," &c., are enrolled for the occasion as
special constables, with very special and formidable white bludgeons
to keep order, and precise suits of black cloth to augment their
dignity.
"To come off at three o'clock," said the handbills. It is now
thirty-five minutes past three, and no signs of beginning. An American
horse and an American woman always keep you waiting an hour at least.
One of the judges comes forward, and raps on the front of the stand
with a primitive bit of wood resembling a broken boot-jack. "Bring out
your horses!" People look towards the yard on the left. Here is one of
them just led out; they pull off his sheets, his driver climbs up into
the little seat behind him. He comes down part of the stand at a
moderate gait. Hurrah for old Twenty-miles-an-hour! Trustee! Trustee!
The old chestnut is half-blood; but you would never guess it from his
personal appearance, so chunky, and thick-limbed, and sober-looking is
he. His action is uneven, and seemingly laborious; you would not think
him capable of covering _one_ mile in three minutes, much less of
performing twenty at the same rate. No wonder he hobbles a little
behind, for his back sinews are swelled, and his legs scarred and
disfigured--the traces of injuries received in his youth, when a cart
ran into him, and cut him almost to pieces. Veterinary surgeons, who
delight in such relics, will show you pieces of sinew taken from him
after the accident. That was six or seven years ago: since then he has
solved a problem for the trotting world.
"There," says Benson, with a little touch of triumph, "is the only
horse in the world that ever trotted twenty miles in an hour. I saw
it done myself. He was driven nearly two miles before he started, to
warm him up, and make him limber. When the word was given, he made a
skip, and though his driver, not the same that he has now, caught him
before he was fairly off his feet, he was more than three minutes
doing the first mile, which looked well for the backers of time; but
as the old fellow went on, he did every mile better than the
preceding, and the last in the best time of all, winning with nearly
half a minute to spare."
"Has the experiment been often tried?"
"Not more than two or three times, I believe; and the horses who
attempted it broke down in the eighteenth or nineteenth mile.
Nevertheless, I think that within the last twelve years we have had
two or three horses beside Trustee who could have accomplished the
feat; but as such a horse is worth two thousand dollars and upwards, a
heavy bet would be required to tempt a man to risk killing or ruining
his animal; and our sporting men, though they bet frequently, are not
in the habit of betting largely. That is one reason why it has not
been tried oftener; and I am inclined to think that there is another
and a better motive. The owner of a splendid horse does not like to
risk his life; and it is a risk of life to attempt to trot him twenty
miles an hour."
Pit, pat! pit, pat! The old mare is coming down to the score. A very
ordinary looking animal in repose, the magnificence of her action
converts her into a beauty when moving. How evenly her feet rise and
fall, regularly as a machine, though she is nearly at the top of her
speed! She carries her head down, and her neck stretched out, and from
the tip of her nose to the end of her long white tail, that streams
out in the breeze made by her own progress, you might draw a straight
line, so true and right forward does she travel. Perched over her
tail, between those two tall, slender wheels, sits her owner, David
Bryan, the only man that ever handles her, in something like a jockey
costume, blue velvet jacket and cap to match, and his white hair,
whiter than his horse's tail, streaming in the wind--a respectable and
almost venerable looking man; but a hard boy for all that, say the
knowing ones. Great applause from the Long Island men, who swear by
"the Lady," and are always ready to "stake their pile" on her, for her
owner is a Long-Islander, and she is a Suffolk county, Long-Island
mare. Some eight years ago Lady Suffolk was bought out of a baker's
cart for 112 dollars, and since then she has won for "Dave" upwards of
30,000 dollars. That is what the possessor of a fast trotter most
prides himself on--to have bought the animal for a song on the
strength of his own eye for his points, and then developed him into a
"flier." When a colt is bred from a trotting stallion, put into
training at three or four years old, and sold the first time for a
high price, if he turns out well there is no particular wonder or
merit in it; if he does not, the disappointment is extreme.
Ah, here comes Pelham at last--a clean little bay, stepping roundly,
and lifting his legs well; you might call it a perfect action, if we
had not just seen Lady Suffolk go by--but _so_ wicked about the head
and eyes! Behind the little horse sits a big Irishman, in his shirt
sleeves; and they are hauling away at each other, pull Pat, pull
Pelham, as if the man wanted to jerk the horse's head off, and the
horse to draw the man's arms out. You see the driver is holding by
little loops fastened to the reins, to prevent his grasp from
slipping. Pelham is a young horse for a trotter, say seven years old,
and has already done the fastest mile ever made in harness; but his
temper is terribly uncertain, and to-day he seems to be in a
particularly bad humor.
Trustee, who requires much warming up, goes all round the track,
increasing his speed as he goes, till he has reached pretty nearly his
limit. Pelham also completes the circuit, but more leisurely. The Lady
trots about a quarter of a mile, then walks a little, and then brushes
back. Her returning is even faster and prettier than her going. "2´
33´´," says Losing, speaking for the first time, as she crosses the
score (the line in front of the judge's stand). His eye is such that,
given the horse and the track, he can tell the pace at a glance within
half a second.
The gentry about are beginning to bet on their respective favorites,
and some upon time--trifling amounts generally--five, ten, or twenty
dollars; and there is much pulling out, and counting, and depositing
of greasy notes. Bang! goes the broken boot-jack again. This time it
is not "Bring _out_ your horses!" but "Bring _up_ your horses!"--a
requisition which the drivers comply with by turning _away_ from the
stand. This is to get a start, a _flying start_ being the rule, which
obviously favors the backers of time, and is, in some respects, fairer
to the horses, but is very apt to create confusion and delay,
especially when three or four horses are entered. So it happens in the
present instance: half way up the quarter, the horses turn, not all
together, but just as they happen to be; and off they go, some slower
and some faster, trying to fall into line as they approach the score.
"Come back!" It's no go, this time; Pelham has broken up, and is
spreading himself all over the track. Trustee, too, is a length or
more behind the gray mare, and evidently in no hurry. They all go
back, the mare last, as she was half-way down the other quarter before
the recall was understood.
"What a beauty she is!" says Harry. "And she has the pole too."
"Will you bet two to three on her against the field?" asks Edwards,
who knew very well that Trustee is the favorite. Benson declines.
"Then will you go on time? Will you bet on 7´ 42´´, or that they don't
beat 7´ 47´´" (three mile heats, you will recollect, reader). No,
Harry won't bet at all; so Edwards turns to Losing. "Will you bet
three to five in hundreds on the Lady?" Losing will. They neither
plank the money, nor book the bet, but the thing is understood.
Pelham's driver has begged the judges to give the word, even if he is
two lengths behind; he would rather do that than have his horse
worried by false starts. So this time, perhaps, they will get off. Not
yet! Bryan's mare breaks up just before they come to the score.
Harrison hints that he broke her on purpose, because Trustee was
likely to have about a neck advantage of him in the start. "Of course
they never go the first time," says Benson, "and very seldom the
second."
"I saw nine false starts once, at Harlaem," says Bleecker, "where
there were but three horses. Better luck next time."
It is better luck. Pelham lays in the rear full two lengths, but
Trustee and the mare come up nose and nose to the score, going at a
great pace. "Go!" At the word Trustee breaks. "Bah! take him away!
Where's Brydges?" The superior skill of his former driver, is
painfully remembered by the horse's friends. But he soon recovers, and
catches his trot about two lengths behind the mare, and as much in
advance of Pelham; for the little bay is going very badly, seems to
have no trot in him, and his driver dares not hurry him. In these
respective positions they complete the first quarter.
As they approach the half mile, the distance renders their movements
indistinct, and their speed, positive or relative, difficult to
determine. You can only make out their position. Pelham continues to
lose, and Trustee has gained a little; but the gray mare keeps the
lead gallantly.
"I like a trot," says Benson, "because you can watch the horses so
long. In a race they go by like a flash, once and again, and it's all
over."
In the next quarter they are almost lost to view, and then they appear
again coming home, and you begin once more to appreciate the rate at
which they are coming. Still it is not the very best pace; the Lady is
taking it rather easy, as if conscious of having it all her own way;
and her driver looks as careless and comfortable as if he were only
taking her out to exercise, when she glides past the stand.
"2´ 35´´," says Losing. He doesn't need to look at his watch; but
there is great comparing of stop-watches among the other men for the
time of the first mile. Hardly half a length behind is Trustee; he has
been gradually creeping up without any signs of being hurried, and,
clumsily as he goes, gets over the ground without heating himself.
"John Case knows what he's about, after all," Edwards observes, "He
takes his time, and so does the old horse; wait another round, and, at
the third mile, they'll be _there_."
"But where's Pelham? Is he lost? No, there he comes; and, Castor and
Pollux, what a burst! Something has waked him up after the other
horses have passed the stand, and while he is yet four or five lengths
from it. There's a brush for you! Did you ever see a horse foot it
so?--as if all the ideas of running that he may ever have had in his
life were arrested, and fastened down into his trot. How he is closing
up the gap! If he can hold to that stroke he will be ahead of the
field before the first quarter of this second mile is out. A mighty
clamor arises, shouts from his enemies, who want to break him, cheers
from his injudicious friends. There, he has lapped Trustee--he has
passed him; tearing at the bit harder than ever, he closes with Lady
Suffolk. Bryan does not begin to thrash his mare yet, he only shows
the whip over her; but yells like a madman at her, and at Pelham,
whose driver holds on to him as a drowning man holds on to a rope.
They are going side by side at a terrific pace. It can't last; one of
them must go up. The bay horse does go up just at the quarter pole,
having made that quarter, Benson says, in the remarkably short time of
thirty-six seconds and a half."
Pelham's driver can't jerk him across the track; by doing so, he would
foul Trustee, who is just behind; so he has to let the chestnut go by,
and then sets himself to work to bring down his unruly animal; no easy
matter--for Pelham, frightened by the shouting, and excited by the
noise of the wheels, plunges about in a manner that threatens to spill
or break down the sulky; and twice, after being brought almost to a
full stop, goes off again on a canter. Good bye, little horse! there's
no more chance for you. By this time, the Lady is nearly a quarter of
a mile ahead, and going faster than ever. Somehow or other, Trustee
has increased his speed too, and is just where he was, a short
half-length behind her. The way in which he hangs on to the mare
begins to frighten the Long-Islanders a little, but they comfort
themselves with the hope that she has something left, and can let out
some spare foot in the third mile, or whenever it may be necessary.
Some forty seconds more elapse; a period of time that goes like a
flash when you are training your own flier, or "brushing" on the road,
but seems long enough when you are waiting for horses to come round,
and then they appear once more coming home. The mare is still leading,
with her beautiful, steady, unfaltering stroke; but she is by no means
so fresh-looking as when she started; many a dark line of sweat marks
her white hide. Close behind her comes Trustee; the half-length gap
has disappeared, and his nose is ready to touch Bryan's jacket. There
is hardly a wet hair discernible on him; he goes perfectly at his
ease, and seems to be in hand. "He has her now," is the general
exclamation, "and can pass her when he pleases." As the mare crosses
the score, (in 2´ 34´´, according to Edwards's stop-watch,) Bryan
"looks over his left shoulder," like the knights in old ballads, and
becomes aware for the first time that the horse at his wheel is not
Pelham, as he had supposed, but Trustee.
The old fellow is another man. His air of careless security has
changed to one of intense excitement. Slash! slash! slash! falls the
long whip, with half a dozen frantic cuts and an appropriate garnish
of yells. Almost any other trotter would go off in a run at one such
salute, to say nothing of five or six; but the old mare, who "has no
break in her," merely understands them as gentle intimations to go
faster--and she does go faster. How her legs double up, and what a
rush she has made! There is a gap of three lengths between her and
Trustee. He never hurries himself, but goes on steadily as ever. See,
as he passes, how he straddles behind like an old cow, and yet how
dexterously he paddles himself along, as it were, with one hind foot.
What a mixture of ugliness and efficiency his action is! At the first
quarter the Lady has come back to him. Three times during this, the
last and decisive mile, is the performance repeated. You may hear
Bryan's voice and whip completely across the course, as he hurries his
mare away from the pursuer; but each succeeding time the temporary gap
is shorter and sooner closed.
Now they are coming down the straight stretch home. The mare leads
yet. Case appears to be talking to his horse, and encouraging him; if
it is so, you cannot hear him, for the tremendous row Lady Suffolk's
driver is making. She had the pole at starting, has kept it
throughout, and Trustee must pass her on the outside. This
circumstance is her only hope of winning. All her owner's exertions,
and all the encouraging shouts of her friends, which she now hears
greeting her from the stand, cannot enable her to shake off Trustee,
but if she can only maintain her lead for six or seven lengths more,
it is enough. The chestnut is directly in her rear; every blow gets a
little more out of her. Half the short interval to the goal is passed,
when Trustee diverges from his straight course, and shows his head
along side Bryan's wheel. Catching his horse short, Case puts his whip
upon him for the first time, shakes him up with a great shout, and
crowds him past the mare, winning the heat by a length.
The little bay was so far behind at the end of the second mile, that
no one took any notice of him, and he was supposed to have dropped out
somewhere on the road. His position, however, was much improved on the
third mile; still, as there was a strong probability of his being shut
out, the judges dispatched one of their number to the distance-post
with a flag; a very proper proceeding, only they thought of it rather
late, for the judge arrived there only just before Pelham, and also
just before Trustee crossed the score; in fact, the three events were
all but simultaneous; the judge dropped the flag in Pelham's face, and
Pelham in return nearly ran over the judge. This episode attracted no
attention at the time of its occurrence, all eyes being directed to
the leading horses; but now it affords materials for a nice little
row, Pelham's driver protesting violently against the distance. There
is much thronging, and vociferating, and swearing about the judge's
stand, into which our burly Irishman endeavors to force his way. One
of the specials favors him with a rap on the head, that would astonish
a hippopotamus. Pat doesn't seem to mind it, but he understands it
well enough (the argument is just suited to his capacity), and remains
tolerably quiet. Finally, it is proclaimed that "Trustee wins the heat
in 7´ 45´´, and Pelham is distanced."
"Best three miles ever made in harness," says Harrison, "except when
Dutchman did it in 7´ 41´´."
Edwards doubts the fact, and they bet about it, and will write to the
_Spirit of the Times_ (the American _Bell's Life_).
Ashburner and Benson descended from the stand. The horses, panting and
pouring with sweat, are rubbed and scraped by their attendants, three
or four to each. Then they are clothed, and walked up and down
quietly. They have a rest of nominally half-an-hour, and practically
at least forty minutes. Some of the crowd are eating oysters, more
drinking brandy and water, and a still greater number "loafing" about
without any particular employment. There are two or three
thimble-riggers on the ground, but they seem to be in a barren county;
nobody there is green enough for them; the very small boys take sights
at them. There is a tradition that Edwards once in his younger days
tried his fortune with them. He looked so dandified, green, and
innocent, that they let him win five dollars the first time, and then,
on the rigger's proposing to bet a hundred, his supposed victim
applied the finger of scorn to the nose of derision, and strutted off
with his V.,[7] to the great amusement of the bystanders. Tom is very
proud of this story, and likes to tell it himself. That, and his
paying a French actress with a check when he had nothing at his
banker's, are two of the great exploits of his life.
"This _is_ rather a low assemblage, certainly," says Ashburner, after
he has contemplated it from several points of view, and observed a
great many different points of character. "Do they ever have races
here?"
"Yes, every spring and fall, here, or on the Union Course adjoining.
They are rather more decently attended, but not over respectable, much
less fashionable. At the South, it is different; there ladies go, and
the club races are some of the most marked features of their city
life. I recollect when I was a boy, that these trotting matches were
nice things, and gentlemen used to enter their own horses; but
gradually they have gone down hill to what they are now, and the names
of the best trotters are associated with the hardest characters and
the most disreputable species of balls."
"And when they race, do the horses run on ground like _this_?" asked
Ashburner, stamping on the track, which was as hard as Macadam.
"Precisely on this, and run four-mile heats, too, and five of them
sometimes."
"_Five_ four-mile heats on ground like this?" The Englishman looked
incredulous.
"Exactly. It has happened that each of three has won a heat, and then
there was one dead heat. You will remember, though, that we run old
horses, not colts. There is no extra weight for age; they begin at
four or five years old, and go on till twelve or fourteen."
"But they must be very liable to accidents, going on such hard soil."
"Yes, they do break their legs sometimes, but not often. Our horses
are tougher than yours."
As they stroll about, Benson points out several celebrated fliers that
have gained admission inside of the stand, but prefer remaining
outside the track; some pretty well worn-out and _emeriti_ like
Ripton, an old rival of Lady Suffolk (the mare has outlasted most of
her early contemporaries), some in their prime, like the trotting
stallion, Black Hawk, beautifully formed as any blood-horse, but
singularly marked, being white-stockinged all round to the knee.
"There," says Harry, "is a fellow that belies the old horse-dealer's
rhyme:
'Four white legs and a white nose,
Take him away, and throw him to the crows.'"
Time is up, and they return to the stand. Edwards is bantering
Losing, and asks him if he will repeat his bet on this heat. He will
fast enough, and double it on the final result. Edwards wants nothing
better.
This time, for a wonder, the horses got off at the first start, and a
tremendous pace they make, altogether too much for Trustee, who is
carried off his feet in the first half-quarter, and the Lady goes
ahead three, four, five lengths, and has taken the pole before he can
recover. Bryan continues to crowd the pace. The mare comes round to
the score in 2´ 33´´, leading by four lengths, and her driver
threshing her already. "She can't stand it," say the knowing ones;
"she must drop out soon." But she doesn't drop out in the second mile
at least, for at the end of that, she is still three lengths in
advance, and Trustee does not appear so fresh as he did last heat. The
Long-Islanders are exultant, and the sporting men look shy. When they
come home in the last quarter, the chestnut has only taken one length
out of the gap; nevertheless, he goes for the outside, and makes the
best rush he can. It's no use. He can't get near her; breaks up again,
and crosses the score a long way behind. Much manifestation of
boisterous joy among the farmers. Edwards looks sold, and something
like a smile passes over Losing's unimpassioned countenance. It is
plain sailing for the judges this time. "Lady Suffolk has the heat in
7' 49´´," and there is no mistake or dispute about it.
Another long pause. Eight minutes' sport and three quarters of an hour
intermission among such a company begins to be rather dull work. All
the topics of interest afforded by the place have been exhausted.
Harrison and Benson begin to talk stocks and investments; the
juveniles are comparing their watering place experiences during the
summer. Ashburner says nothing, and smokes an indefinite number of
cigars; Losing says rather less, and smokes more. Edwards has
disappeared; gone, possibly, to talk to the doubtful carriages. It is
growing dark before they are ready for the third and decisive heat.
One false start, and at the second trial they are off. The mare has
the inside, in right of having won the preceding heat. She crowds the
pace from the start, as usual; but Trustee is better handled this
time, and does not break. Case allows the Lady to lead him by three
lengths, and keeps his horse at a steady gait, in quiet pursuit of
her. For two miles their positions are unaltered; Bryan's friends
cheer him vociferously every time as he comes round; he replies by a
flourish of his long whip and additional shouts to his mare. In the
third mile, Trustee begins to creep up, and in the third quarter of
it, just before he gets out of sight from the stand, is only a length
and a half behind. When they appear again, there are plenty of anxious
lookers-out; and men like our friend Edwards, who have a thousand or
more at stake on the result, cannot altogether restrain their
emotions. Here they come close enough together! Trustee has lapped the
mare on the outside; his head is opposite the front rim of her wheel.
Bryan shouts and whips like one possessed; Case's small voice is also
lifted up to encourage Trustee. The chestnut is gaining, but only inch
by inch, and they are nearly home. Now Case has lifted him with the
whip, and he makes a rush and is at her shoulder. Now he will have
her. Oh, dear, he has gone up! Hurrah for the old gray! Stay! Case has
caught him beautifully; he is on his trot again opposite her wheel.
One desperate effort on the part of man and horse, and Trustee shoots
by the mare; but not till after she has crossed the score. Lady
Suffolk is quite done up; she could not go another quarter; but she
has held out long enough to win the heat and the money.
And now, as it was somewhere in the neighborhood of seven, and neither
Ashburner nor Benson had eaten any thing since eight in the morning,
they began to feel very much inclined for dinner, or supper, or
something of the sort; and the team travelled back quite as fast as it
was safe to go by twilight; a little faster, the Englishman might have
thought, if he had not been so hungry. Then, after crossing the
Brooklyn ferry, Benson announced his intention of putting up his
horses for the night at a livery stable, and himself at Ashburner's
hotel, as it was still a long drive for that time of night to
Devilshoof; which being agreed upon, they next dived into an oyster
cellar, of which there are about two to a block all along Broadway,
and ordered an unlimited supply of the agreeable shellfish,
broiled;--_oyster chops_, Ashburner used to call them; and the term
gives a stranger a pretty good idea of what these large oysters look
like, cooked as they are with crumbs, exactly in the style of a
_cotelette panée_. And they make very nice eating, too; only they
promote thirst and induce the consumption of numerous glasses of
champagne or brandy and water, as the case may be. Whether this be an
objection to them or not, is matter of opinion. Then having adjourned
to Ashburner's apartment in the fifth story of the Manhattan hotel (it
was a room with an alcove, French fashion), and smoked numerous
Firmezas there, the Englishman turned in for the night; and Benson,
who had no notion of paying for a bed when he could get a sofa for
nothing, disposed himself at full length upon Ashburner's, without
taking off any thing except his hat, and was fast asleep in less time
than it would take _The Sewer_ to tell a lie.
FOOTNOTES:
[4] The United States government, (U. S.)
[5] A very critical friend wants to know if the term _dilapidated_
can, with strict propriety, be applied to a _wooden_ building.
[6] A horse will "go the pole" in such a time, means that he will go
in double harness. A horse "has the pole," means that he has drawn the
place nearest the inside boundary fence of the track.
[7] A five-dollar bill is so called from the designation in Roman
numerals upon it.
From Chamber's Edinburgh Journal.
PASSAGES IN THE LIFE OF A DUTCH POET.
The name of Wilhelm Bilderdyk is scarcely known beyond the boundaries
of his own country; and yet those who are conversant with the Dutch
language place him in a very high rank as a poet. The publication of
his first poem, _Elicus_, formed quite an era in the history of Dutch
literature. It was speedily followed by a faithful and spirited
translation of the _Oedipus_ of Sophocles, and versions of other
Greek writers. Besides his imaginative pursuits, he engaged with ardor
in the study of geology, and almost rivalled Cuvier in his
acquaintance with natural history. War and invasion, however,
interrupted the labors of Bilderdyk. He quitted Holland, travelled
through Germany, crossed over to England, and finally spent some time
amongst the Scottish Highlands, where he employed himself in
translating Ossian's poems into Dutch verse. He then went to the
principality of Brunswick, and there composed a very extraordinary
work, _The Maladies of Wise Men_, a poem whose mild, lofty sublimity,
unearthly interest, and grasp of gloomy thought, entitle it to rank
with the Inferno of Dante.
Bilderdyk at length was able to return to his country. Louis Napoleon,
who then reigned at the Hague, chose him as his instructor in the
Dutch language, and named him president of the second class in the
Institute of Amsterdam. About this time he married a beautiful and
clever girl, named Wilhelmina; and for several years they enjoyed
together as perfect happiness as this world can give--she occupied in
domestic and maternal duties, and he adding to his fame and fortune by
the publication of several works. But at length death visited their
dwelling, and removed within a brief space three lovely children.
Their loss was commemorated in two poems--_Winter Flowers_, and _The
Farewell_. Not long afterwards, public misfortune came to aggravate
his private sorrows. Louis Napoleon left Holland, and Bilderdyk took
refuge at Groningen, where he stayed for some time, and then,
rejecting a liberal offer of employment made him by William of Orange,
he set out for France, accompanied by his wife.
When they entered the diligence, they found it occupied but by one
person, a young female of mild and engaging appearance. No sooner did
the heavy machine begin to move than she began to scream, and
testified the most absurd degree of terror. Public carriages then were
certainly far inferior, both in safety and accommodation, to those of
modern times; yet the probable amount of danger to be apprehended did
not by any means justify the excessive apprehension manifested by the
fair traveller. On arriving at Brussels, the lady was so much overcome
that she announced her intention of stopping some days in that city to
recruit her strength before venturing again to encounter the perils of
a diligence; and taking leave of Bilderdyk and his wife, she
gratefully thanked the latter for the kind attention she had shown her
during the journey. The two Hollanders proceeded on their way to
Paris, laughing heartily from time to time at the foolish cowardice of
a woman who saw a precipice in every rut, and a certain overturn in
every jolt of the wheels.
Arrived at their journey's end, the travellers took up their abode in
a humble dwelling in the Rue Richelieu, and commenced with the utmost
delight visiting all the wonderful things in Paris. Bilderdyk soon
found himself completely in his element. He breakfasted with Cuvier at
the Jardin des Plantes, passed his afternoon at the Bibliothèque
Richelieu, dined in the Faubourg St. Germain with Dr. Alibert, and
finished the evening at the play or the opera. One day he and his wife
were given excellent places for witnessing the ascent in a balloon of
a young woman, Mme. Blanchard, whose reckless courage enabled her to
undertake aërial voyages, despite the sad fate which befell Pilastre
de Rosiers, her own husband, and several other aëronauts. Our
Hollanders amused themselves for some time with watching the process
of inflating the balloon, and following with their eyes the course of
the tiny messenger-balloons sent up to ascertain the direction of the
upper currents of wind. At length all is ready, the band strikes up a
lively air, and Mme. Blanchard, dressed in white and crowned with
roses, appears, holding a small gay flag in her hand. With the most
graceful composure she placed herself in the boat, the cords were
loosed, and the courageous adventuress, borne rapidly upwards in her
perilous vehicle, soon appeared like a dark spot in the sky.
When he returned to his lodging, Bilderdyk composed a poem in honor of
the brave woman who adventured her life so boldly, rivalling the free
birds of heaven in her flight, and beholding the stars face to face.
Next morning he hastened to get his production printed, and without
considering that Mme. Blanchard most likely did not understand Dutch,
he repaired to her lodgings with a copy of the poem in his hand,
intending to ask permission to present it to her. He was courteously
invited to enter the drawing-room, and there, to his great amazement,
he found himself _tête-à-tête_ with the silly, frightened lady, whose
nervous tremors in the Brussels diligence had afforded so much
amusement to him and his wife. Surprised and disconcerted, he was
beginning to apologize, when the lady interrupted him.
"Monsieur," she said, "you are not mistaken. I am Mme. Blanchard. You
see how possible it is for the same person to be cowardly in a coach,
and courageous in a balloon."
A good deal of conversation ensued, the poem was timidly offered, and
graciously accepted; and the fair aëronaut accepted an invitation to
dine that day with Bilderdyk and his wife. In the course of the
evening Mme. Blanchard related to them some curious circumstances in
her life. Her mother kept a humble wayside inn near La Rochelle, while
her father worked in the fields. One day a balloon descended near
their door, and out of it was taken a man, severely but not
dangerously bruised. Her parents received him with the utmost
hospitality, and supplied him with all the comforts they could give.
He had no money wherewith to repay them, but as he was about to
depart, he remarked that the mistress of the house was very near her
confinement, and he said: "Listen, and mark my words. Fortune cannot
always desert me. In sixteen years, if alive, I will return hither. If
the child who will soon be born to you should be a boy, I will then
adopt him; if a girl, I will marry her!"
The worthy peasants laughed heartily at this strange method of paying
a bill; and although they allowed their guest to depart, they
certainly built very little on his promise. The aëronaut, however,
kept his word, and at the end of sixteen years re-appeared at the inn,
then inhabited by only a fair young girl, very lately left an orphan.
She willingly accepted Jean Pierre Blanchard as a husband, and for a
short time they lived happily together; but during an ascent which he
made in Holland, he was seized with apoplexy, and fell to the ground
from a height of sixty feet. The unhappy aëronaut was not killed on
the spot, but lingered for some time in frightful torture, carefully
and fondly attended by his wife, whom at length he left a young and
penniless widow.
Marie Madeleine Blanchard, despite her natural timidity, resolved to
adopt her husband's perilous profession. Pride and necessity combined
do wonders; and not only did she succeed in maintaining perfect
composure while in the air, but she also displayed wonderful presence
of mind during the time of danger. On one occasion she ascended in her
balloon from Nantes, intending to come down at about four leagues from
that town, in what she believed to be a large meadow. While rapidly
descending, the cordage of the balloon became entangled in the
branches of a tree, and she found herself suspended over a vast green
marsh, whose treacherous mud would infallibly ingulf her. Drawn to the
spot by her cries, several peasants came to her assistance, and with
considerable difficulty and danger succeeded in placing her on terra
firma.
On the day following the one on which she dined with M. and Mme.
Bilderdyk, Mme. Blanchard left Paris, promising her two friends, as
she bade them farewell, that she would soon return. Time passed on,
however, and they heard nothing of her. They were preparing to return
to Holland, when some of Bilderdyk's countrymen residing in Paris
resolved to give him a banquet on the eve of his departure.
The entertainment took place at a celebrated restaurant, situated at
the angle formed by the Rue Cauchat and the Rue de Provence. While
enjoying themselves at table, the guests suddenly perceived the
windows darkened by the passing of some large black object. With one
accord they rose and ran out: a woman lay on the pavement, pale,
crushed, and dead. Bilderdyk gave a cry--it was Mme. Blanchard! In
what a guise to meet her again! Encouraged by the constant impunity of
her perilous ascensions, the unhappy aëronaut (the word I believe has
no feminine), finding a formidable rival in Mlle. Garnerin, resolved
to surpass her in daring by augmenting the risk of her aërial voyages.
For this purpose she lighted up her balloon car with colored lamps,
and carried with her a supply of fireworks. On the sixth of July,
1819, she rose from amid a vast concourse of spectators. The balloon
caught in one of the trees in the Champs-Elysées, but without
regarding the augury, Mme. Blanchard threw out ballast, and as she
rose rapidly in the air she spilled a quantity of lighting spirits of
wine, and then sent off rockets and Roman candles. Suddenly, with
horror, the mass of upturned eyes beheld the balloon take fire. One
piercing shriek from above mingled with the affrighted cries of the
crowd below, and then some object was seen to detach itself from the
fiery globe. As it came near the earth, it was recognized as the body
of the ill-fated Mme. Blanchard.
Weeping and trembling, Bilderdyk aided in raising the disfigured
corpse, and wrapped it up in the net-work of the balloon, which the
hands still grasped firmly. The shock, acting on his excitable
temperament, threw him into a dangerous illness, from which, however,
he recovered, and returned to his native country. There he published
an admirable treatise, "The Theory of Vegetable Organization," and a
poem entitled, "The Destruction of the Primeval World." A French
critic has placed this latter work in the same rank with "Paradise
Lost," and says: "Old Milton has nothing finer, more energetic, or
more vast, in his immortal work." An English critic, however, would
probably scarcely concur in this judgment.
Bilderdyk died in the town of Haarlem on the 18th of December, 1831.
From Household Words.
OUR PHANTOM SHIP: CHINA.
Since a typhoon occurs not much oftener than once in about three
years, it would be odd if we should sail immediately into one; but we
are fairly in the China seas, which are the typhoon's own peculiar
sporting ground, and it is desperately sultry, and those clouds are
full of night and lightning, to say nothing of a fitful gale and angry
sea. Look out! There is the coast of China. Now for a telescope to see
the barren, dingy hills, with clay and granite peeping out, with a few
miserable trees and stunted firs. That is our first sight of the
flowery land, and we shall not get another yet, for the spray begins
to blind us; it is quite as much as we can do to see each other. Now
the wind howls and tears the water up, as if it would extract the
great waves by their roots, like so many of old Ocean's teeth; but he
kicks sadly at the operation. We are driven by the wild blast that
snaps our voices short off at the lips and carries them away; no words
are audible. We are among a mass of spars and men wild as the storm on
drifting broken junks; a vessel founders in our sight, and we are
cast, with dead and living, upon half a dozen wrecks entangled in a
mass, upon the shore of Hong Kong;--ourselves safe, of course, for we
have left at home whatever could be bruised upon the journey. How many
houses have been blown away like hats, how many rivers have been
driven back to swell canals and flood the fields, (whose harvest has
been prematurely cropped on the first warning of the typhoon's
intended visit,) we decline investigating. The evening sky is very
wild, and we were all last night under the typhoon at sea; to-night we
are in the new town of Victoria, and will be phantom bed-fellows to
any Chinaman who has been eating pork for supper. The Chinese are very
fond of pork, or any thing that causes oiliness in man. A lean man
forfeits something in their estimation; for they say, "He must have
foolishness; why has he wanted wisdom to eat more?"
Hong Kong was one of the upshots of our cannonading in the pure and
holy Chinese war; and as for the new town of Victoria, we shall walk
out of it at once, for we have not travelled all this way to look at
Englishmen. The island itself is eight or ten miles long, and
sometimes two or sometimes six miles broad. It is the model of a grand
mountain region on a scale of two inches to the foot. There are crags,
ravines, wild torrents, fern-covered hills; but the highest mountain
does not rise two thousand feet.--We stand upon it now. Quite contrary
to usual experience, we found, in coming up, the richest flowers at
the greatest elevation. The heat and dryness of the air below, where
the sun's rays are reflected from bare surfaces, is said to be
oppressive, and perhaps the flowers down there want a pleasant shade.
From our elevation we can see few patches of cultivation, but leaping
down the rocks are many picturesque cascades. Hong Kong is christened
from its own waters, its name signifying in Chinese "the Island of
Fragrant Streams." There is a goat upon the nearest rock; but look
beyond. On one side is the bay, with shipping, and behind us the broad
expanse of the ocean; and before us is the sea, studded as far as our
eyes can reach with mountainous islands, among which we must sail to
reach Canton. Now we float onward in the Phantom, and among these
islands our sharp eyes discover craft that have more hands on board
than usually man an honest vessel. In the holes and corners of the
islands pirates lurk to prey upon the traffic of Canton. We pass Macao
on our way into the Canton river. Portugal was a nation of quality
once, with a strong constitution, and in those days, once upon a time,
wrecked Portuguese gained leave to dry a cargo on the Island of Macao.
They erected sheds a little stronger than were necessary for that
temporary purpose; in fact, they turned the accident to good account,
and established here an infant settlement, which soon grew to maintain
itself, and sent money home occasionally to assist its mother. Twice
the Emperor of China offered to make Macao an emporium for European
trade; the Portuguese preferred to be exclusive. So the settlement
fell sick, and since the English made Hong Kong a place of active
trade, very few people trouble themselves to inquire whether Macao be
dead yet, or only dying. The Portuguese town has a mournful aspect,
marked as it is by strong lines of character that indicate departed
power.
Still sailing among islands, mountainous and barren, we soon reach the
Bocca Tigris, or mouth of the Canton river, guarded now with very
formidable forts. The Chinese, since their war with England, have been
profiting by sore experience. If their gunnery be as completely mended
as their fortifications, another war with them would not be quite so
much like an attack of grown men upon children. The poor Chinese, in
that war, were indefatigable in the endeavor to keep up appearances.
Steam ships were scarcely worth attention--they had "plenty all the
same inside:" and when the first encounter, near the spot on which we
are now sailing, between junks and men-of-war, had exhibited the
tragedy, in flesh and bone, of John Bull in a China-shop, the Chinese
Symonds, at Ningpo, was ordered to build ships exactly like the
British. He could not execute the order, and played, therefore,
executioner upon himself. Cannon were next ordered, that should be
large enough to destroy a ship at one burst. They were made, and the
first monster tried, immediately burst and killed its three
attendants; nobody could be induced to fire the others. One morning, a
British fleet was very much surprised to see the shore look formidable
with a line of cannon mouths. The telescope, which had formed no part
of the Chinese calculations, discovered them to be a row of earthern
pots. Forts, in the same way, often turned out to be dummies made of
matting, with the portholes painted; and sometimes real cannon, mere
three pounders, had their fronts turned to the sea, plugged with
blocks of wood, cut and so painted as to resemble the mouths of
thirty-two pounders shotted. However, we have passed real strong forts
and veritable heavy cannon, to get through the Bocca Tigris. Nothing
is barren now; the river widens, and looks like an inland sea; the
flat land near the shores is richly cultivated; rice is there and upon
the islands, all protected with embankments to admit or exclude the
flood in its due season, or provided with wheels for raising water
where the land is too high to be flooded in a simpler manner. The
embankments, too, yield plantain crops. The water on each side is gay
with water lilies, which are cultivated for their roots. Banyan and
fig-trees, cypress, orange, water-pines, and weeping willows, grow
beside the stream, with other trees; but China is not to be called a
richly timbered country; most of its districts are deficient in large
trees. There is the Whampoa Pagoda; there are more pagodas, towers,
joss-houses; here are the European factories, and here are boats,
boats, boats, literally, hundreds of thousands of boats--the sea-going
junk, gorgeous with griffins, and with proverbs, and with painted
eyes; the flower boat; boats of all shapes, and sizes, down to the
barber's boat, which barely holds the barber and his razor. There is a
city on the water, and the dwellers in these boats, who whether men or
women, dive and swim so naturally that they may all be fishes,
curiously claim their kindred with the earth. On every boat, a little
soil and a few flowers, are as essential as the little joss-house and
the little joss. Canals flow from the river through Canton; every
where, over the mud, upon the water side are wooden houses built on
piles. But here we will not go ashore; the suburbs of Canton are full
of thieves, and little boys who shout _fan-qui_ (foreign devil) after
all barbarians, and we should not be welcome in the city; so we will
not go where we shall not be welcome. After floating up and down the
streets and lanes of water made between the boats upon the Canton
river, pleased with the strange music, the gongs, and the incessant
chattering of women, (Chinese women are pre-eminent as chatterers,) we
sail away. We do not wait even till night to wonder at the scene by
lantern light; but returning by the way we came, repass the rice
fields, the water lilies, and the forts, the islands, and Macao, and
Hong Kong, and have again before us the expanse of ocean. Canton lies
within the tropic; sugar-cane grown in its vicinity yields brown sugar
and candy; but our lump sugar is a luxury to which the Chinese have
not yet attained. Canton lying within the tropic, we shall change our
climate on the journey northward. An empire that engrosses nearly a
tenth part of the globe, and includes the largest population gathered
under any single government, will have many climates in its eighteen
provinces. Now we are sailing swiftly northward by a barren rocky
coast, with sometimes hills of sand, and sometimes cultivated patches,
and, except for the pagodas on the highest elevations, we might fancy
we were off the coast of Scotland.
Five ports are open to our trade upon the coast of China; one of
these, Canton, we have merely looked at, and the next, Amoy, we pass
unvisited in sailing up between the mainland and Formosa. Amoy
produces the best Chinese sailors, and it is in this port that the
native junks have most experience of foreign trade; it is a dirty,
densely-peopled town, too distant from the tea and silk regions to be
of prominent importance to the Europeans. As soon as we have passed
through the Formosa channel, we direct our course towards the river
Min, and steering safely among rocks and sand-banks, among which is a
rock cleft into five pyramids, regarded with a sort of worship by the
sailors, we float up the river to the third of the five cities,
Foo-chow-foo. The river varies in width, sometimes a mile across,
where it is flowing between plains, sometimes confined between the
hills; a hilly country is about us, with some mountains nearly twice
as high as those up which we clambered at Hong-Kong. We pass, after a
few miles' sail, the little town and fort of Mingan; we sail among
pagodas and temples, near which the priests plant dark spreading
fig-trees, terraced hills, yielding earth-nuts and sweet potatoes; we
see cultivation carried up some mountain sides beyond two thousand
feet, and barren mountains, granite rocks, islands, and villages; here
and there more wooded tracts than usually belong to a Chinese
landscape, rills of water and cascades that tumble down into the Min.
We have sailed up the river twenty miles, and here is Foo-chow-foo. We
have met on our way a good many junks, having wood lashed to their
sides; and here we see acres of wood (chiefly pine) afloat before the
suburbs, for here wood is a main article of trade. We pass under the
bridge Wanshow ("myriads of ages"), which connects the suburbs on each
bank; it is a bridge of granite slabs, supported upon fifty pillars of
strong masonry, the whole about two thousand feet in length. The
suburbs happen just now to be flooded, and the large Tartar population
here delights in mobbing a barbarian. This inhospitable character
repels men, while the floods and rapids of the river and its
tributaries, causes an uncertainty of transit, tend also to keep
European traders out of Foo-chow-foo. True, the bohea tea hills are in
the vicinity, but their bohea tea has not a first-rate character, and
the great seat of the tea trade is yet farther north. The city walls
are eight or nine miles in circumference; but we will not enter their
gates for all Chinese cities have a close resemblance to each other;
it is enough to visit one, and we can do better than visit this. We
sail back to the sea again, and there resume our northward voyage. We
have seen part of the mountainous or hilly half of China; farther
north, between the two great rivers, and beyond them to the famous
Wall, is a great plain studded in parts with lakes or swamps, and very
fertile.
Far westward, we might journey to the high central table-land of Asia,
where there are extensive levels; but the seaward provinces are the
most fertile; and as for the Chinese themselves, they are in all
places very much alike--in body as in character. But sailing in our
ship, and talking of those plains, we may naturally recall to our
minds those ancient days when the Chinese, civilised then as now,
guided their chariots across a pathless level on the land by the same
instrument that guides our ship across a pathless level on the water.
The coast by which we sail is studded with islands, and to reach
Ningpo, the fourth of the five ports, we pass between the mainland and
the island of Chusan. The water here is quite hemmed in with islands
forming the Chusan Archipelago. Chusan is like a piece of the Scotch
Highlands, twenty miles long, and ten or twelve broad, with rich
vegetation added. Forty miles' sail from Chusan brings us to Ningpo.
Amongst the numerous islands past which we have floated, we should
have found, on many, characters not quite Chinese. One island, visited
for water by one of our ships, was said to be an Eden for its
innocence. Crime was unknown among the islanders: and at a grave look
or a slight tap with a fan, the wrong-doer invariably desisted from
his evil course. The simplicity of the natives here consisted in the
fact, that they expected credit for the character they gave
themselves. On another island, the natives entertained snug notions of
a warm bed in the winter. Their bed was a stone trough; in winter they
spread at the bottom of this trough hot embers, and over these a large
stone, over that their bedding, and then tucked themselves comfortably
in.
Ningpo, with its bridge of boats and Chinese shipping and pagodas, has
a picturesque appearance from the river. It is large, populous, and
wealthy; a place to which the merchant may retire to spend his gains,
more than a port for active and hard working commerce. That is the
reason why we will not land at Ningpo. Where, then, shall we land? If
you have no objection, at Shangae, the fifth and most important,
although not the largest, of these ports. But sea life is monotonous,
and therefore we will take five minutes' diversion ashore, after we
have sailed some twenty miles up this canal. Here we will land under
an avenue of pines, and walk up to a Buddhist temple. We are in the
centre of the green-tea district.
The priests, belonging, for a wonder, to a simple-minded class,
receive us, of course hospitably. The stranger is at all times welcome
to a lodging, and to his portion of the Buddhist vegetable dinner.
These priests are like some of our monks in mendicancy charity, and
superstition. In the pagodas they always have a meal prepared for the
arrival of a hungry traveller. But hungry we are not; and we came
hither to see the tea-plantations; these we now seek out. They are
small farms upon the lower slopes of hills; the soil is rich; it must
be rich, or the tea-plant would not long endure the frequent stripping
of its leaves, which usage does of course sooner or later kill it.
Each plant is at a distance of about four feet from its neighbors, and
the plantations look like little shrubberies. The small proprietors
inhabit wretched-looking cabins, in which each of them has fixed a
flue and coppers for the drying of his tea. In the appearance of the
people there is nothing wretched; old men sit at their doors like
patriarchs, expecting and receiving reverence; young men, balancing
bales across their shoulders, travel out, and some return with strings
of copper money; the chief tea-harvest is over, and the merchants have
come down now to the little inns about the district, that each
husbandman may offer them his produce. There are three tea-making
seasons. The first is in the middle of April, just before the rains,
when the first leaves of spring are plucked; these make the choicest
tea, but their removal tries the vigor of the plant. Then come the
rains; the tea-plant pushes out new leaves, and already in May the
plantation is again dark with foliage; that is the season of the
second, the great gathering. A later gathering of coarse leaves yields
an inferior tea, scarcely worth exporting. It should be understood
that although black and green tea are both made from the same kind of
leaf, there really are two tea-plants. The plant cultivated at Canton
for black tea, and known in our gardens as _Thea Bohea_, differs from
the _Thea viridis_, which yields the harvest here. The Canton plant,
however, is not cultivated in the North; on the Bohea hills
themselves, speaking botanically, there grows no Bohea tea; the plant
there, also, is the _Thea viridis_. The difference between our green
and black tea is produced entirely in the making. Green tea is more
quickly and lightly dried, so that it contains more of the virtues of
the leaf. Black tea is dried more slowly; exposed, while moist, on
mats, when it ferments a little, and then subjected in drying to a
greater heat, which makes it blacker in its color. The bright bloom on
our green tea is added with a dye, to suit the gross taste of
barbarians. The black tea will keep better, being better dried. There
is a kind of tea called Hyson Pekoe made from the first young buds
which keeps ill, being very little fired, but when good it is
extremely costly. As for our names of teas,--of the first delicate
harvest, the black tea is called Pekoe, and the green, Young Hyson;
Hyson being the corruption of Chinese words, that mean "flourishing
spring." The produce of the main or second harvest yields, in green
tea, Hyson; out of which are picked the leaves that prove to be best
rolled for Gunpowder, or as the Chinese call it, pearl-tea. Souchong
("small or scarce sort") is the best black tea of the second crop,
followed by Congou (koong-foo, "assiduity"). Twankay is imported
largely, a green tea from older leaves, which European retailers
employ for mixing with the finer kinds. Bohea, named from the hills we
talked of, is the lowest quality of black tea, though good Bohea is
better than a middling quality of Congou. The botanical _Thea Bohea_
comes into our pots, with refuse Congou, as Canton Bohea. At Canton,
however, Young Hyson and Gunpowder are manufactured out of these
leaves, chopped and painted; and this branch of the fine arts is
carried on extensively in Chinese manufactories established there. As
the tea-merchants go out to collect their produce of the little
farmers; so the mercers in the Nankeen districts leave their cities
for the purchase, in the same way, of home-woven cloth. It is the same
in the silk districts. If we look now into a larger Chinese farm on
our way back to the Phantom, we shall find the tenants on a larger
scale supplying their own wants, and making profit of the surplus. On
such a farm we shall find also familiar friends, fowls, ducks, geese,
pigs, goats, and dogs, bullocks, and buffaloes; indoors there will be
a best parlor in the shape of a Hall of Ancestors, containing
household gods and an ancestral picture, before which is a table or
altar with its offerings. There is the head of the family, who built a
room for each son as he married, and left each son to add other rooms
as they were necessary, till a colony arose under the common roof
about the common hall, in which rules, as a high priest and patriarch,
the living ancestor. Respect for the past is the whole essence of
Chinese religion and morality. The oldest emperors were fountain-heads
of wisdom, and he who imitates the oldest doctrine is the wisest man.
The tombs of ancestors are visited with pious care; respect and
worship is their due. This had at all times been the Chinese
principle, to which Confucius added the influence of a good man's
support. No nation has been trained into this feeling so completely as
the Chinese, and as long as they saw nothing beyond themselves, and
were taught to look down upon barbarians out of the heights of their
own ignorance concerning them, they were contented to stand still. But
the Chinese are a people sharply stimulated by the love of gain; they
despised what they had not seen, yet it is evident that they have not
been slow to profit by experience of European arts. An emigrant
Chinese became acquainted with a Prussian blue manufactory, secretly
observed the process of the manufacture, took his secret home, and
China now makes at home all the Prussian blue which was before
imported. The Chinese emigrant is active, shrewd. In Batavia he
ko-toos to the Dutch, and lets his tail down dutifully. In Singapore
he readily assumes a freer spirit, keeps his tail curled, and walks
upright among the Englishmen.
We are now sailing towards Shangae, no very long way northward from
Ningpo, to the last of the five ports we came out to visit. It is not
necessary to return to the Yellow Sea, for all this part of China is
so freely intersected with canals that we may sail to Shangae among
farms and rice-grounds. While among the farmers, we may call to mind
that the great lord of the Chinese manor is the Emperor, to whom this
ground immediately belongs, and who receives as rent for it a tenth of
all the produce. A large part of this tenth is paid in kind. The
Emperor is the great father also; his whole care of his enormous
family distinctly assumes the paternal form, and embodies a good deal
of the maxim, that to spare the rod will spoil the child. To govern is
expressed in Chinese by the symbols of bamboo and strike; and the
bamboo does, in the way of striking a vast deal of business. The
central legislation is as a rule beneficent, and based upon an earnest
desire to do good; for the father is answerable for the welfare of his
children. National calamities have, at all times, been ascribed by the
Chinese directly to their Emperors; who must by personal humiliation
appease the anger of the gods. So large a household as this father has
to care for requires many stewards, mandarins, and others; all these
officers of state are those sons who have proved themselves to be the
wisest, on examination into their attainments. A grand system of
education pervades China; and, above the first school, to which all
are sent, there is a series of four examinations, through which every
Chinese may graduate if he will study. Not to pass the first is to be
vile, and the highest degrees qualify for all the offices of state;
but Chinese education means, after reading and writing, and moral
precepts of Confucius, little beside a knowledge of Chinese ancient
history and literature. The Emperor, belonging to a Tartar dynasty,
bestows an equal patronage on Tartars and Chinese. The officers
throughout the provinces are, as a further precaution, obliged to
serve in places distant from their own connections, in order that no
private feelings may destroy their power to be just. They are scantily
paid, however; and, as a Chinese likes profit with his honor, the
minor officials drive a trade in bribery, which often nullifies the
central edicts, and which very directly helped to bring about the
Opium war. The Emperor himself is, of course, too sublime a person to
be often seen; the Son of Heaven, he robes himself in the imperial
yellow, because that is the hue of the sun's jacket; but, once a year,
in enforcement of a main principle of the Chinese political
economy--Honor to Agriculture--he drives the plough before a state
procession; and the grain sown in those imperial furrows is afterwards
bought up by courtiers, at a most flattering price.
Where are we now?--we have shot out upon a grand expanse of water,
like an inland sea. An horizon of water is before us--we cannot see
the other bank of the Yang-tse-Kiang, the "child of the ocean," the
great river of China; the greatest river in the old world, and
surpassed only by two on the whole globe. Here, eighty miles above the
sea, it is eight miles in breadth, and sixty feet deep, flowing five
miles an hour; and far up, off the walls of Nankin, its breadth is
three thousand six hundred feet, and its depth twenty-two fathoms, at
a distance of fifty paces from either shore. Well, this is something
like a river; from its source to its mouth, in a straight line, the
distance is one thousand seven hundred and ninety-six miles; and the
windings nearly double its real length, making three thousand three
hundred and thirty-six English miles; of which two thousand, from the
mouth upwards, are said to be quite free from all obstruction. At its
mouth it is, comparatively, shallow; much of this vast body of water
is diverted from its course and carried through the country in canals.
We are not far, now, from the great canal which cuts across this river
and the Hoang-Ho, another grand stream farther northward, with a
course of two thousand six hundred and thirty miles. Between the
Yang-tse-Kiang and Hoang-Ho the country is so flat that, if we may
judge by the scene from the mast-head of the Phantom, not a hillock
breaks the level waste of fertile land. In ancient times this country
was subjected to desolating floods, which, in fact, caused the removal
of the capital. The canal system was commenced, then, as a means of
drainage, by a wise man, who was made an emperor for his sagacity. Now
the canals serve the purposes of commerce, and agriculture also, since
water, in abundance, is essential for the irrigation of the
rice-fields. We are sailing up the Shangae river, a tributary of the
Yang-tse-Kiang; this river, at Shangae, we perceive is about as broad
as the Thames at London Bridge; for we are at Shangae. We sail through
a water-gate into the centre of the town, and land beside a fleet of
junks, into which heaps of rice are being shot; these are grain junks
sent from Pekin to receive part of the imperial tribute.
Narrow, dirty streets, low houses, brilliant open shops, painted with
red and gold. Here is a fragrant fruit-shop, where a poor Chinese is
buying an iced slice of pine-apple for less money than a farthing.
Here is the chandler's, gay with candles of the tallow-tree coated
with colored wax. The chandler deals in puffs; and what an un-English
appeal is this from the candle-maker on behalf of his wares--"Late at
night in the snow gallery they study the books." Study the books! Yes;
through the crowd of Chinese, in their picturesque familiar dresses,
look at that man, with books upon a tray, who dives into house after
house. He lends books on hire to the poor people and servants. Who is
the puffer here? "We issue and sell Hong Chow tobacco, the name and
fame of which has galloped to the north of Kechow; and the flavor has
pervaded Keangnan in the south." Here we have "Famous teas from every
province;" and you see boiling water handy in the shop, wherewith the
customer may test his purchases. Here, on the other side of this
triumphal arch, we peep through a gateway hung with lanterns into a
small paved paradise with gold fish, (China is the home of gold fish),
and exotics, and trellis-work, and vines, and singing birds; that is a
mercer's shop, affecting style in China as in England, only in another
way. We will walk through the paradise into a grand apartment hung
with lanterns, decorated also with gilded tickets, inscribed "Pekin
satins and Canton crapes," "Hang-chow reeled silks," and so on. Here a
courtly Chinese, skilled in the lubrication of a customer, produces
the rich heavy silks for which his country is renowned, the velvets or
the satins you desire, and shaves you skilfully. Talking of shaving,
and we run against a barber as we come out of the silk shop. He
carries a fire on his head, with water always boiling; on a pole over
his shoulder he balances his water, basin, towels, razors. Will you be
shaved like a Chinese? he picks you out a reasonably quiet doorway,
shaves your head, cleans your ears, tickles your eyes, and cracks your
joints in a twinkling. Where heads are shaved, the wipings of the
razors are extensive; they are all bought up, and employed as manure.
The Chinese have so many mouths to feed, that they can afford to lose
nothing that will fertilize the ground. Instead of writing on their
walls "Commit no nuisance," they place jars, and invite or even pay
the pilgrim.
The long tail that the barber leaves is to the Chinese his sign of
manhood. Beards do not form a feature of Mongolian faces; a few stray
coarse hairs are all they get, with their square face, high cheek
bones, slanting eyes, and long dark hair upon the head. A plump body,
long ears, and a long tail, are the respectabilities of a Chinese. The
tail is magnified by working in false hair, and it generally ends with
silk. There is a man using his tail to thrash a pig along; and one
traveler records that he has seen a Chinese servant use the same
instrument for polishing a table. It is, of course, the thing to pull
at in a street fight. Here is a phrenologist, with a large figure of a
human head mapped into regions, inviting Chinese bumpkins to submit to
him their bumps. Here is a dentist showing his teeth. Here--we must
stop here--with a gong for drum, but raised on the true pedestal, with
a man inside, who knows the veritable squeak, are Punch and Judy, all
alive. This is their native land. "Pun-tse," the Chinese call our
friend, because he is a little puppet, after all--Puntse meaning in
Chinese, "the son of an inch." Here is the very Chinese bridge that we
have learned by heart along with the pagoda, from a willow-patterned
soup-plate; steps up, steps down, and a set of Chinese lanterns. Here
is a temple, flaming with red paint. Let us go in. Images, votive
candles burning on an altar, and a woman on her face wrestling in
prayer. After praying in a sort of agony for a few minutes, she has
stopped to take a bit of stick, round on one side, for she purposes
therewith to toss up and see whether her prayer is granted. Tails! She
loses! She is wrestling on her knees again--praying, doubtless, for a
"bull child." Girls are undesirable, because they are of no use except
for what they fetch in marriage gifts, and to fetch much they must be
good-looking. Poor woman--tails again! Never mind, she must persevere,
and she will get heads presently. Here comes a grave man, who prays
for half a minute, and pulls out one from a jar of scrolls. Having
examined it, he takes one of the little books that hang against the
wall, looks happy, and departs. He has been drawing lots to see
whether the issue of some undertaking will be fortunate. Poor
woman--tails again! We cannot stop for the result; but I have no doubt
that if she persevere she will get heads up presently. Here is a man
in the street with a whole bamboo kitchen on his head, nine feet long,
by six broad, uttering all manner of good things. The poor fellow who
drove the pig stops in the street to dine. What a Soyer that fellow
is, with his herbs, and his peppers, and his magic stove, and what a
magnificent stew he gives the pig driver! Do you know, I doubt whether
the Chinese are fools. What place have we here steaming like a boiler?
This, sir, is one of the public bath establishments, where a warm
bath, towels, and a dressing closet are at the service of the pig
driver after his dinner, for five _le_--less than a farthing. There,
too, his wife may go and obtain boiling water for the day's tea, which
is to that poor Chinaman his beer, and pay for it but a single _le_.
It would cost far more to boil it for herself; fuel is dear, and
except for cooking or for manufactures, is not used in China. There
are neither grates nor stoves in any Chinese parlor. The continent of
Asia, and with it China, has a climate of extremes, great summer heat
and an excessive winter cold; so that even at Canton, within the
tropic, snow falls. But the Chinaman warms not his toes at a fire; he
accommodates his comfortable costume to the climate; puts on more
clothes as the cold makes itself felt, and takes some off again if he
should feel too warm. That building on the walls is the temple of
Spring, to which ladies repair to dress their hair with flowers when
the first buds open. This handsome structure is the temple of
Confucius. Yonder is the hall of United Benevolence, which supports a
free hospital, a foundling hospital, and makes other provision for the
poor. The Chinese charities are supported generously; the Chinese are
a liberal and kindly race. Here is a shoemaker's shop, with a huge
boot hung over the door, and an inscription which might not suit
lovers of a good fit, "All here are measured by one rule." "When
favored by merchants who bestow their regards on us, please to notice
our sign of the Double Phoenix on a board as a mark; then it will be
all right." These signs are in common use on shops in China as they
were formerly in England. In this shop there is a wild fellow, who is
beating a gong fearfully, and who has rubbed himself with stinking
filth, that he may be the greater nuisance. This is his way of
extorting charity. That shopkeeper, not having compounded with the
king of the beggars for immunity from customers of this kind, seldom
lives a day without being compelled to pay as he is now paying for a
little peace. The beggar takes his nuisance then into another shop.
This is a vast improvement upon our street fiddle and organ practice.
There is a pawnbroker's three-per-cent. per month shop. Here is a
tea-house, surrounded with huge vases for rain-water which is kept to
acquire virtue by age--of course imaginary virtue--for the making of
celestial tea. In that house there is the oven for hatching eggs.
Gateways are fitted at the end of the wide streets, locked at night to
restrain thieves; and in the first house through the gateway here a
girl is screaming dreadfully. Very likely it is a case of sore feet.
The small feet of the Chinese women--about three inches long--are
essential, for without them a girl cannot get a husband; as a wife,
she is her husband's obedient, humble servant, but as a spinster she
is her parents' plague. The operation on the feet takes place when the
girl is seven or eight years old. A young naval surgeon, in his walks,
heard screams (like those) proceeding from a cottage, and went in; he
found a little girl in bed, with her feet bandaged; he removed the
bandage, found the feet of course bent, and ulcerated. He dressed the
wounds, and warned the mother. Passing, another day, he found the
child still suffering torment, and in a hectic fever. He again removed
the bandages, and warned the mother that her child's life would be
sacrificed if she continued with the process. The next time he went by
he saw a little coffin at the door.
The tea-gardens are in the centre of the town; we will go thither and
rest. We might have dined with a hospitable townsman, where we could
have been present at a theatrical entertainment, in which the Chinese
delight like children. But a dinner in this country is a work of many
hours; the list is very long of things that we should have to touch or
eat. Chinese eat almost any thing; their carte includes birds' nests,
delicate meal-fed puppies, sea-slugs, sharks' fins and tails, frogs,
snails, worms, lizards, tortoises, and water-snakes, with many things
that we should better understand, and a great many disguised
vegetables. A Chinese dinner is so tediously long that we escape it
altogether. Milk is not used; it is thought improper to take it from
the calves; and meat plays no very large part of the Chinese diet.
During our late war it was seriously stated, by several advisers of
the Emperor, that to forbid the English tea and rhubarb would go a
great way to destroy the nation; "for it is well known that the
barbarians feed grossly on the flesh of animals, by which their bodies
are so bound and obstructed," that rhubarb and warm tea were necessary
to be taken, daily, as correctives. Now we are in the tea-gardens, and
have passed through a happy crowd, sipping tea, smoking, eating melon
pips, walking or looking at the jugglers. Into a fairy-like house of
bamboo, perched over water, we ascend. Here is an elegant apartment,
which we claim as private. We recline, and take our cups of tea; the
cups that have been used are wiped, not washed; for washing, say the
people here, would spoil their capacity for preserving the pure flavor
of this delicate young Hyson; upon a spoonful of which, placed in the
cup, hot water is now poured. Opium pipes, bring us! Ha! a hollow
cane, closed at one end, with a mouthpiece at the other; near the
centre is the bowl, of ample size, but with an outward opening no
bigger than a pin's head. We recline luxuriously--looking down on the
gay colors of the Chinese crowd, we take our long stilettos, prick off
a little pill of opium from its ivory reservoir, and burn it,
dexterously, in the spirit lamp; then twist it, judiciously, about the
pin's head orifice. Three whiffs, and it is out, and we are more than
half deprived of active consciousness. Let us repeat the operation.
Practised smokers will go on for hours; a few whiffs are enough for
us. Another languid gaze at the pagodas, and the flowers, and the
water, and the Chinamen; now some more opium to smoke!
The Phantom finding us intoxicated, like a good servant may have
brought us home; for, certainly, we are at home.
From "Reminiscences of an Attorney" in Chambers's Edinburgh
Miscellany.
THE CHEST OF DRAWERS.
I am about to relate a rather curious piece of domestic history, some
of the incidents of which, revealed at the time of their occurrence in
law reports, may be in the remembrance of many readers. It occurred in
one of the midland counties, and at a place which I shall call Watley;
the names of the chief actors who figured in it must also, to spare
their modesty or their blushes, be changed; and should one of those
persons, spite of these precautions, apprehend unpleasant recognition,
he will be able to console himself with the reflection, that all I
state beyond that which may be gathered from the records of the law
courts will be generally ascribed to the fancy or invention of the
writer. And it is as well, perhaps, that it should be so.
Caleb Jennings, a shoemender, or cobbler, occupied, some twelve or
thirteen years ago, a stall at Watley, which, according to the
traditions of the place, had been hereditary in his family for several
generations. He may also be said to have flourished there, after the
manner of cobblers; for this, it must be remembered, was in the good
old times, before the gutta-percha revolution had carried ruin and
dismay into the stalls--those of cobblers--which in considerable
numbers existed throughout the kingdom. Like all his fraternity whom I
have ever fallen in with or heard of, Caleb was a sturdy Radical of
the Major Cartwright and Henry Hunt school; and being withal
industrious, tolerably skilful, not inordinately prone to the
observance of Saint Mondays, possessed, moreover, of a
neatly-furnished sleeping and eating apartment in the house of which
the projecting first-floor, supported on stone pillars, overshadowed
his humble work-place, he vaunted himself to be as really rich as an
estated squire, and far more independent.
There was some truth in this boast, as the case which procured us the
honor of Mr. Jennings's acquaintance sufficiently proved. We were
employed to bring an action against a wealthy gentleman of the
vicinity of Watley for a brutal and unprovoked assault he had
committed, when in a state of partial inebriety, upon a respectable
London tradesman who had visited the place on business. On the day of
trial our witness appeared to have become suddenly afflicted with an
almost total loss of memory; and we were only saved from an adverse
verdict by the plain, straight-forward evidence of Caleb, upon whose
sturdy nature the various arts which soften or neutralize hostile
evidence had been tried in vain. Mr. Flint, who personally
superintended the case, took quite a liking to the man; and it thus
happened that we were called upon some time afterwards to aid the said
Caleb in extricating himself from the extraordinary and perplexing
difficulty in which he suddenly and unwittingly found himself
involved.
The projecting first floor of the house beneath which the humble
workshop of Caleb Jennings modestly disclosed itself, had been
occupied for many years by an ailing and somewhat aged gentleman of
the name of Lisle. This Mr. Ambrose Lisle was a native of Watley, and
had been a prosperous merchant of the city of London. Since his
return, after about twenty years' absence, he had shut himself up in
almost total seclusion, nourishing a cynical bitterness and acrimony
of temper which gradually withered up the sources of health and life,
till at length it became as visible to himself as it had for some time
been to others, that the oil of existence was expended, burnt up, and
that but a few weak flickers more, and the ailing man's plaints and
griefs would be hushed in the dark silence of the grave.
Mr. Lisle had no relatives in Watley, and the only individual with
whom he was on terms of personal intimacy was Mr. Peter Sowerby, an
attorney of the place, who had for many years transacted all his
business. This man visited Mr. Lisle most evenings, played at chess
with him, and gradually acquired an influence over his client which
that weak gentleman had once or twice feebly but vainly endeavoured to
shake off. To this clever attorney, it was rumored, Mr. Lisle had
bequeathed all his wealth.
This piece of information had been put in circulation by Caleb
Jennings, who was a sort of humble favorite of Mr. Lisle's, or, at all
events, was regarded by the misanthrope with less dislike than he
manifested toward others. Caleb cultivated a few flowers in a little
plot of ground at the back of the house, and Mr. Lisle would sometimes
accept a rose or a bunch of violets from him. Other slight
services--especially since the recent death of his old and garrulous
woman-servant, Esther May, who had accompanied him from London, and
with whom Mr. Jennings had always been upon terms of gossiping
intimacy--had led to certain familiarities of intercourse; and it thus
happened that the inquisitive shoemender became partially acquainted
with the history of the wrongs and griefs which preyed upon, and
shortened the life of, the prematurely-aged man.
The substance of this everyday, common-place story, as related to us
by Jennings, and subsequently enlarged and colored from other sources,
may be very briefly told.
Ambrose Lisle, in consequence of an accident which occurred in his
infancy, was slightly deformed. His right shoulder--as I understood,
for I never saw him--grew out, giving an ungraceful and somewhat
comical twist to his figure, which, in female eyes--youthful ones at
least--sadly marred the effect of his intelligent and handsome
countenance. This personal defect rendered him shy and awkward in the
presence of women of his own class of society; and he had attained the
ripe age of thirty-seven years, and was a rich and prosperous man,
before he gave the slightest token of an inclination towards
matrimony. About a twelvemonth previous to that period of his life,
the deaths--quickly following each other--of a Mr. and Mrs. Stevens
threw their eldest daughter, Lucy, upon Mr. Lisle's hands. Mr. Lisle
had been left an orphan at a very early age, and Mrs. Stevens--his
aunt, and then a maiden lady--had, in accordance with his father's
will, taken charge of himself and brother till they severally attained
their majority. Long, however, before that she married Mr. Stevens, by
whom she had two children--Lucy and Emily. Her husband, whom she
survived but two months, died insolvent; and in obedience to the dying
wishes of his aunt, for whom he appears to have felt the tenderest
esteem, he took the eldest of her orphan children into his home,
intending to regard and provide for her as his own adopted child and
heiress. Emily, the other sister found refuge in the house of a still
more distant relative than himself.
The Stevenses had gone to live at a remote part of England--Yorkshire,
I believe--and it thus fell out, that till his cousin Lucy arrived at
her new home he had not seen her for more than ten years. The pale,
and somewhat plain child, as he had esteemed her, he was startled to
find had become a charming woman; and her naturally gay and joyous
temperament, quick talents, and fresh young beauty, rapidly acquired
an overwhelming influence over him. Strenuously but vainly he
struggled against the growing infatuation--argued, reasoned with
himself--passed in review the insurmountable objections to such a
union, the difference of age--he leading towards thirty-seven, she
barely twenty-one; he crooked, deformed, of reserved, taciturn
temper--she full of young life, and grace and beauty. It was useless;
and nearly a year had passed in the bootless struggle when Lucy
Stevens, who had vainly striven to blind herself to the nature of the
emotions by which her cousin and guardian was animated towards her,
intimated a wish to accept her sister Emily's invitation to pass two
or three months with her. This brought the affair to a crisis. Buoying
himself up with the illusions which people in such an unreasonable
frame of mind create for themselves, he suddenly entered the
sitting-room set apart for her private use, with the desperate purpose
of making his beautiful cousin a formal offer of his hand. She was not
in the apartment, but her opened writing-desk, and a partly-finished
letter lying on it, showed that she had been recently there, and would
probably soon return. Mr. Lisle took two or three agitated turns about
the room, one of which brought him close to the writing-desk, and his
glance involuntarily fell upon the unfinished letter. Had a deadly
serpent leaped suddenly upon his throat, the shock could not have been
greater. At the head of the sheet of paper was a clever pen-and-ink
sketch of Lucy Stevens and himself; he, kneeling to her in a lovelorn
ludicrous attitude, and she laughing immoderately at his lachrymose
and pitiful aspect and speech. The letter was addressed to her sister
Emily; and the enraged lover saw not only that his supposed secret was
fully known, but that he himself was mocked, laughed at for his doting
folly. At least this was his interpretation of the words which swam
before his eyes. At the instant Lucy returned, and a torrent of
imprecation burst from the furious man, in which wounded self-love,
rageful pride, and long pent-up passion, found utterance in wild and
bitter words. Half an hour afterwards Lucy Stevens had left the
merchant's house--for ever, as it proved. She, indeed, on arriving at
her sister's, sent a letter supplicating forgiveness at the
thoughtless, and, as he deemed it, insulting sketch, intended only for
Emily's eye; but he replied merely by a note written by one of his
clerks, informing Miss Stevens that Mr. Lisle declined any further
correspondence with her.
The ire of the angered and vindictive man had, however, begun sensibly
to abate, and old thoughts, memories, duties, suggested partly by the
blank which Lucy's absence made in his house, partly by remembrance of
the solemn promise he had made her mother, were strongly reviving in
his mind, when he read the announcement of her marriage in a
provincial journal, directed to him, as he believed, in the bride's
handwriting; but this was an error, her sister having sent the
newspaper. Mr. Lisle also construed this into a deliberate mockery and
insult, and from that hour strove to banish all images and thoughts
connected with his cousin from his heart and memory.
He unfortunately adopted the very worst course possible for effecting
this object. Had he remained amid the buzz and tumult of active life,
a mere sentimental disappointment, such as thousands of us have
sustained and afterwards forgotten, would, there can be little doubt,
have soon ceased to afflict him. He chose to retire from business,
visited Watley, and habits of miserliness growing rapidly upon his
cankered mind, never afterwards removed from the lodgings he had hired
on first arriving there. Thus madly hugging to himself sharp-pointed
memories which a sensible man would have speedily cast off and
forgotten, the sour misanthrope passed a useless, cheerless, weary
existence, to which death must have been a welcome relief.
Matters were in this state with the morose and aged man--aged mentally
and corporeally, although his years were but fifty-eight--when Mr.
Flint made Mr. Jennings's acquaintance. Another month or so had passed
away when Caleb's attention was one day about noon claimed by a young
man dressed in mourning, accompanied by a female similarly attired,
and from their resemblance to each other he conjectured brother and
sister. The stranger wished to know if that was the house in which Mr.
Ambrose Lisle resided. Jennings said it was; and with civil alacrity
left his stall and rang the front-door bell. The summons was answered
by the landlady's servant, who, since Esther May's death, had waited
on the first-floor lodger; and the visitors were invited to go
up-stairs. Caleb, much wondering who they might be, returned to his
stall, and thence passed into his eating and sleeping room just below
Mr. Lisle's apartments. He was in the act of taking a pipe from the
mantel-shelf in order to the more deliberate and satisfactory
cogitation on such an unusual event, when he was startled by a loud
shout, or scream rather, from above. The quivering and excited voice
was that of Mr. Lisle, and the outcry was immediately followed by an
explosion of unintelligible exclamations from several persons. Caleb
was up stairs in an instant, and found himself in the midst of a
strangely-perplexing and distracted scene. Mr. Lisle, pale as his
shirt, shaking in every limb, and his eyes on fire with passion, was
hurling forth a torrent of vituperation and reproach at the young
woman, whom he evidently mistook for some one else; whilst she,
extremely terrified, and unable to stand but for the assistance of her
companion, was tendering a letter in her outstretched hand, and
uttering broken sentences, which her own agitation and the fury of Mr.
Lisle's invectives rendered totally incomprehensible. At last the
fierce old man struck the letter from her hand, and with frantic rage
ordered both the strangers to leave the room. Caleb urged them, to
comply, and accompanied them down stairs. When they reached the
street, he observed a woman on the other side of the way, dressed in
mourning, and much older apparently--though he could not well see her
face through the thick veil she wore--than she who had thrown Mr.
Lisle into such an agony of rage, apparently waiting for them. To her
the young people immediately hastened, and after a brief conference
the three turned up the street, and Mr. Jennings saw no more of them.
A quarter of an hour afterwards the house-servant informed Caleb that
Mr. Lisle had retired to bed, and although still in great agitation,
and, as she feared, seriously indisposed, would not permit Dr. Clarke
to be sent for. So sudden and violent a hurricane in the usually dull
and drowsy atmosphere in which Jennings lived, excited and disturbed
him greatly: the hours, however, flew past without bringing any relief
to his curiosity, and evening was falling, when a peculiar knocking on
the floor overhead announced that Mr. Lisle desired his presence. That
gentleman was sitting up in bed, and in the growing darkness his face
could not be very distinctly seen; but Caleb instantly observed a
vivid and unusual light in the old man's eyes. The letter so strangely
delivered was lying open before him; and unless the shoemender was
greatly mistaken, there were stains of recent tears upon Mr. Lisle's
furrowed and hollow cheeks. The voice, too, it struck Caleb, though
eager, was gentle and wavering. "It was a mistake, Jennings," he said;
"I was mad for the moment. Are they gone?" he added in a yet more
subdued and gentle tone. Caleb informed him of what he had seen; and
as he did so, the strange light in the old man's eyes seemed to quiver
and sparkle with a yet intenser emotion than before. Presently he
shaded them with his hand, and remained several minutes silent. He
then said with a firmer voice: "I shall be glad if you will step to
Mr. Sowerby, and tell him I am too unwell to see him this evening. But
be sure to say nothing else," he eagerly added, as Caleb turned away
in compliance with his request; "and when you come back, let me see
you again."
When Jennings returned, he found to his great surprise Mr. Lisle up
and nearly dressed; and his astonishment increased a hundred-fold upon
hearing that gentleman say, in a quick but perfectly collected and
decided manner, that he should set off for London by the mail-train.
"For London--and by night!" exclaimed Caleb, scarcely sure that he
heard aright.
"Yes--yes, I shall not be observed in the dark," sharply rejoined Mr.
Lisle; "and you, Caleb, must keep my secret from every body,
especially from Sowerby. I shall be here in time to see him to-morrow
night, and he will be none the wiser." This was said with a slight
chuckle; and as soon as his simple preparations were complete, Mr.
Lisle, well wrapped up, and his face almost hidden by shawls, locked
his door, and assisted by Jennings, stole furtively down stairs, and
reached unrecognized the railway station just in time for the train.
It was quite dark the next evening when Mr. Lisle returned; and so
well had he managed, that Mr. Sowerby, who paid his usual visit about
half an hour afterwards, had evidently heard nothing of the suspicious
absence of his esteemed client from Watley. The old man exulted over
the success of his deception to Caleb the next morning, but dropped no
hint as to the object of his sudden journey.
Three days passed without the occurrence of any incident tending to
the enlightenment of Mr. Jennings upon these mysterious events, which,
however, he plainly saw had lamentably shaken the long-since failing
man. On the afternoon of the fourth day, Mr. Lisle walked, or rather
tottered, into Caleb's stall, and seated himself on the only vacant
stool it contained. His manner was confused, and frequently
purposeless, and there was an anxious, flurried expression in his face
which Jennings did not at all like. He remained silent for some time,
with the exception of partially inaudible snatches of comment or
questionings, apparently addressed to himself. At last he said: "I
shall take a longer journey to-morrow, Caleb--much longer: let me
see--where did I say? Ah, yes! to Glasgow; to be sure to Glasgow!"
"To Glasgow, and to-morrow!" exclaimed the astounded cobbler.
"No, no--not Glasgow; they have removed," feebly rejoined Mr. Lisle.
"But Lucy has written it down for me. True--true; and to-morrow I
shall set out."
The strange expression of Mr. Lisle's face became momentarily more
strongly marked, and Jennings, greatly alarmed, said: "You are ill,
Mr. Lisle; let me run for Dr. Clarke."
"No--no," he murmured, at the same time striving to rise from his
seat, which he could only accomplish by Caleb's assistance, and so
supported, he staggered indoors. "I shall be better to-morrow," he
said faintly, and then slowly added: "To-morrow, and to-morrow, and
to-morrow! Ah me! Yes, as I said, to-morrow, I"----He paused abruptly,
and they gained his apartment. He seated himself, and then Jennings,
at his mute solicitations, assisted him to bed.
He lay some time with his eyes closed; and Caleb could feel--for Mr.
Lisle held him firmly by the hand, as if to prevent his going away--a
convulsive shudder pass over his frame. At last he slowly opened his
eyes, and Caleb saw that he was indeed about to depart upon the long
journey from which there is no return. The lips of the dying man
worked inarticulately for some moments; and then, with a mighty
effort, as it seemed, he said, whilst his trembling hand pointed
feebly to a bureau chest of drawers that stood in the room:
"There--there for Lucy; there, the secret place is"----Some inaudible
words followed, and then, after a still mightier struggle than before,
he gasped out: "No word--no word--to--to Sowerby--for her--Lucy."
More was said, but undistinguishable by mortal ear; and after gazing
with an expression of indescribable anxiety in the scared face of his
awestruck listener, the wearied eyes slowly reclosed--the deep silence
flowed past; then the convulsive shudder came again, and he was dead!
Caleb Jennings tremblingly summoned the house-servant and the
landlady, and was still confusedly pondering the broken sentences
uttered by the dying man, when Mr. Sowerby hurriedly arrived. The
attorney's first care was to assume the direction of affairs, and to
place seals upon every article containing or likely to contain any
thing of value belonging to the deceased. This done, he went away to
give directions for the funeral, which took place a few days
afterwards; and it was then formally announced that Mr. Sowerby
succeeded by will to the large property of Ambrose Lisle; under trust,
however, for the family, if any, of Robert Lisle, the deceased's
brother, who had gone when very young to India, and had not been heard
of for many years--a condition which did not at all mar the joy of the
crafty lawyer, he having long since instituted private inquiries,
which perfectly satisfied him that the said Robert Lisle had died,
unmarried, at Calcutta.
Mr. Jennings was in a state of great dubiety and consternation.
Sowerby had emptied the chest of drawers of every valuable it
contained; and unless he had missed the secret receptacle Mr. Lisle
had spoken of, the deceased's intentions, whatever they might have
been, were clearly defeated. And if he had _not_ discovered it, how
could he, Jennings, get at the drawers to examine them? A fortunate
chance brought some relief to his perplexities. Ambrose Lisle's
furniture was advertised to be sold by auction, and Caleb resolved to
purchase the bureau chest of drawers at almost any price, although to
do so would oblige him to break into his rent-money, then nearly due.
The day of sale came, and the important lot in its turn was put up. In
one of the drawers there were a number of loose newspapers, and other
valueless scraps; and Caleb, with a sly grin, asked the auctioneer if
he sold the article with all its contents. "Oh yes," said Sowerby, who
was watching the sale; "the buyer may have all it contains over his
bargain, and much good may it do him." A laugh followed the attorney's
sneering remark, and the biddings went on. "I want it," observed
Caleb, "because it just fits a recess like this one in my room
underneath." This he said to quiet a suspicion he thought he saw
gathering upon the attorney's brow. It was finally knocked down to
Caleb at £5, 10s., a sum considerably beyond its real value; and he
had to borrow a sovereign in order to clear his speculative purchase.
This done, he carried off his prize, and as soon as the closing of the
house for the night secured him from interruption, he set eagerly to
work in search of the secret drawer. A long and patient examination
was richly rewarded. Behind one of the small drawers of the
_secrétaire_ portion of the piece of furniture was another small one,
curiously concealed, which contained Bank-of-England notes to the
amount of £200, tied up with a letter, upon the back of which was
written, in the deceased's handwriting, "To take with me." The letter
which Caleb, although he read print with facility, had much difficulty
in making out, was that which Mr. Lisle had struck from the young
woman's hand a few weeks before, and proved to be a very affecting
appeal from Lucy Stevens, now Lucy Warner, and a widow, with two
grown-up children. Her husband had died in insolvent circumstances,
and she and her sister Emily, who was still single, were endeavoring
to carry on a school at Bristol, which promised to be sufficiently
prosperous if the sum of about £150 could be raised, to save the
furniture from her deceased husband's creditors. The claim was
pressing, for Mr. Warner had been dead nearly a year, and Mr. Lisle
being the only relative Mrs. Warner had in the world, she had ventured
to entreat his assistance for her mother's sake. There could be no
moral doubt, therefore, that this money was intended for Mrs. Warner's
relief; and early in the morning Mr. Caleb Jennings dressed himself in
his Sunday's suit, and with a brief announcement to his landlady that
he was about to leave Watley for a day or two on a visit to a friend,
set off for the railway station. He had not proceeded far when a
difficulty struck him: the bank-notes were all twenties; and were he
to change a twenty-pound note at the station, where he was well known,
great would be the tattle and wonderment, if nothing worse, that would
ensue. So Caleb tried his credit again, borrowed sufficient for his
journey to London, and there changed one of the notes.
He soon reached Bristol, and blessed was the relief which the sum of
money he brought afforded Mrs. Warner. She expressed much sorrow for
the death of Mr. Lisle, and great gratitude to Caleb. The worthy man
accepted with some reluctance one of the notes, or at least as much as
remained of that which he had changed; and after exchanging promises
with the widow and her relatives to keep the matter secret, departed
homewards. The young woman, Mrs. Warner's daughter, who had brought
the letter to Watley, was, Caleb noticed, the very image of her
mother, or rather of what her mother must have been when young. This
remarkable resemblance it was, no doubt, which had for the moment so
confounded and agitated Mr. Lisle.
Nothing occurred for about a fortnight after Caleb's return to
disquiet him, and he had begun to feel tolerably sure that his
discovery of the notes would remain unsuspected, when, one afternoon,
the sudden and impetuous entrance of Mr. Sowerby into his stall caused
him to jump up from his seat with surprise and alarm. The attorney's
face was deathly white, his eyes glared like a wild beast's, and his
whole appearance exhibited uncontrollable agitation. "A word with you,
Mr. Jennings," he gasped--"a word in private, and at once!" Caleb, in
scarcely less consternation than his visitor, led the way into his
inner room, and closed the door.
"Restore--give back," screamed the attorney, vainly struggling to
dissemble the agitation which convulsed him--"that--that which you
have purloined from the chest of drawers!"
The hot blood rushed to Caleb's face and temples; the wild vehemence
and suddenness of the demand confounded him; and certain previous dim
suspicions that the law might not only pronounce what he had done
illegal, but possibly felonious, returned upon him with terrible
force, and he quite lost his presence of mind.
"I can't--I can't," he stammered. "It's gone--given away"----
"Gone!" shouted, or more correctly howled, Sowerby, at the same time
flying at Caleb's throat as if he would throttle him. "Gone--given
away! You lie--you want to drive a bargain with
me--dog!--liar!--rascal!--thief!"
This was a species of attack which Jennings was at no loss how to
meet. He shook the attorney roughly off, and hurled him, in the midst
of his vituperation, to the further end of the room.
They then stood glaring at each other in silence, till the attorney,
mastering himself as well as he could, essayed another and more
rational mode of attaining his purpose.
"Come, come, Jennings," he said, "don't be a fool. Let us understand
each other. I have just discovered a paper, a memorandum of what you
have found in the drawers, and to obtain which you bought them. I
don't care for the money--keep it; only give me the
papers--documents."
"Papers--documents!" ejaculated Caleb in unfeigned surprise.
"Yes--yes; of use to me only. You, I remember, cannot read writing;
but they are of great consequence to me--to me only, I tell you."
"You can't mean Mrs. Warner's letter?"
"No--no; curse the letter! You are playing with a tiger! Keep the
money, I tell you; but give up the papers--documents--or I'll
transport you!" shouted Sowerby with reviving fury.
Caleb, thoroughly bewildered, could only mechanically ejaculate that
he had no papers or documents.
The rage of the attorney when he found he could extract nothing from
Jennings was frightful. He literally foamed with passion, uttered the
wildest threats; and then suddenly changing his key, offered the
astounded cobbler one--two--three thousand pounds--any sum he chose to
name--for the papers--documents! This scene of alternate violence and
cajolery lasted nearly an hour; and then Sowerby rushed from the
house, as if pursued by the furies, and leaving his auditor in a state
of thorough bewilderment and dismay. It occurred to Caleb, as soon as
his mind had settled into something like order, that there might be
another secret drawer; and the recollection of Mr. Lisle's journey to
London returned suggestively to him. Another long and eager search,
however, proved fruitless; and the suspicion was given up, or, more
correctly, weakened.
As soon as it was light the next morning, Mr. Sowerby was again with
him. He was more guarded now, and was at length convinced that
Jennings had no paper or document to give up. "It was only some
important memoranda," observed the attorney carelessly, "that would
save me a world of trouble in a lawsuit I shall have to bring against
some heavy debtors to Mr. Lisle's estate; but I must do as well as I
can without them. Good morning." Just as he reached the door, a sudden
thought appeared to strike him. He stopped and said: "By the way,
Jennings, in the hurry of business I forgot that Mr. Lisle had told me
the chest of drawers you bought, and a few other articles, were family
relics which he wished to be given to certain parties he named. The
other things I have got: and you, I presume, will let me have the
drawers for--say a pound profit on your bargain?"
Caleb was not the acutest man in the world; but this sudden
proposition, carelessly as it was made, suggested curious thoughts.
"No," he answered; "I shall not part with it. I shall keep it as a
memorial of Mr. Lisle."
Sowerby's face assumed, as Caleb spoke, a ferocious expression. "Shall
you?" said he. "Then, be sure, my fine fellow, that you shall also
have something to remember me by as long as you live!"
He then went away, and a few days afterwards Caleb was served with a
writ for the recovery of the two hundred pounds.
The affair made a great noise in the place; and Caleb's conduct being
very generally approved, a subscription was set on foot to defray the
cost of defending the action--one Hayling, a rival attorney to
Sowerby, having asserted that the words used by the proprietor of the
chest of drawers at the sale barred his claim to the money found in
them. This wise gentleman was intrusted with the defence; and,
strange to say, the jury, a common one--spite of the direction of the
judge, returned a verdict for the defendant, upon the ground that
Sowerby's jocular or sneering remark amounted to a serious, valid
leave and license to sell two hundred pounds for five pounds ten
shillings!
Sowerby obtained, as a matter of course, a rule for a new trial; and a
fresh action was brought. All at once Hayling refused to go on,
alleging deficiency of funds. He told Jennings that in his opinion it
would be better that he should give in to Sowerby's whim, who only
wanted the drawers in order to comply with the testator's wishes.
"Besides," remarked Hayling in conclusion, "he is sure to get the
article, you know, when it comes to be sold under a writ of _fi. fa._"
A few days after this conversation, it was ascertained that Hayling
was to succeed to Sowerby's business, the latter gentleman being about
to retire upon the fortune bequeathed him by Mr. Lisle.
At last Caleb, driven nearly out of his senses, though still doggedly
obstinate, by the harassing perplexities in which he found himself,
thought of applying to us.
"A very curious affair, upon my word," remarked Mr. Flint, as soon as
Caleb had unburdened himself of the story of his woes and cares; "and
in my opinion by no means explainable by Sowerby's anxiety to fulfil
the testator's wishes. He cannot expect to get two hundred pence out
of you; and Mrs. Warner, you say, is equally unable to pay. Very odd
indeed. Perhaps if we could get time, something might turn up."
With this view Flint looked over the papers Caleb had brought, and
found the declaration was in _trover_--a manifest error--the notes
never admittedly having been in Sowerby's actual possession. We
accordingly demurred to the form of action, and the proceedings were
set aside. This, however, proved of no ultimate benefit: Sowerby
persevered, and a fresh action was instituted against the unhappy
shoemender. So utterly overcrowed and disconsolate was poor Caleb,
that, he determined to give up the drawers, which was all Sowerby even
now required, and so wash his hands of the unfortunate business.
Previous, however, to this being done, it was determined that another
thorough and scientific examination of the mysterious piece of
furniture should be made; and for this purpose, Mr. Flint obtained a
workman skilled in the mysteries of secret contrivances, from the desk
and dressing-case establishment in King-street, Holborn, and proceeded
with him to Watley.
The man performed his task with great care and skill: every depth and
width was gauged and measured, in order to ascertain if there were any
false bottoms or backs; and the workman finally pronounced that there
was no concealed receptacle in the article.
"I am sure there is," persisted Flint, whom disappointment as usual
rendered but the more obstinate; "and so is Sowerby; and he knows,
too, that it is so cunningly contrived as to be undiscoverable, except
by a person in the secret, which he no doubt at first imagined Caleb
to be. I'll tell you what we will do: you have the necessary tools
with you. Split the confounded chest of drawers into shreds: I'll be
answerable for the consequences."
This was done carefully and methodically, but for some time without
result. At length the large drawer next the floor had to be knocked to
pieces; and as it fell apart, one section of the bottom, which, like
all the others, was divided into two compartments, dropped asunder,
and discovered a parchment laid flat between the two thin leaves,
which, when pressed together in the grooves of the drawer, presented
precisely the same appearance as the rest. Flint snatched up the
parchment, and his eager eye scarcely rested an instant on the
writing, when a shout of triumph burst from him. It was the last will
and testament of Ambrose Lisle, dated August 21, 1838--the day of his
last hurried visit to London. It revoked the former will, and
bequeathed the whole of his property, in equal portions, to his
cousins Lucy Warner and Emily Stevens, with succession to their
children; but with reservation of one-half to his brother Robert or
children, should he be alive, or have left offspring.
Great, it may be supposed, was the jubilation of Caleb Jennings at
this discovery; and all Watley, by his agency, was in a marvelously
short space of time in a very similar state of excitement. It was very
late that night when he reached his bed; and how he got there at all,
and what precisely had happened, except, indeed, that he had somewhere
picked up a splitting headache, was, for some time after he awoke the
next morn, very confusedly remembered.
Mr. Flint, upon reflection, was by no means so exultant as the worthy
shoemender. The odd mode of packing away a deed of such importance,
with no assignable motive for doing so, except the needless awe with
which Sowerby was said to have inspired his feeble-spirited client,
together with what Caleb had said of the shattered state of the
deceased's mind after the interview with Mrs. Warner's daughter,
suggested fears that Sowerby might dispute, and perhaps successfully,
the validity of this last will. My excellent partner, however,
determined, as was his wont, to put a bold face on the matter; and
first clearly settling in his own mind what he should and what he
should _not_ say, he waited upon Mr. Sowerby. The news had preceded
him, and he was at once surprised and delighted to find that the
nervous, crestfallen attorney was quite unaware of the advantages of
his position. On condition of not being called to account for the
moneys he had received and expended, about £1200, he destroyed the
former will in Mr. Flint's presence, and gave up at once all the
deceased's papers. From these we learned that Mr. Lisle had written a
letter to Mrs. Warner, stating what he had done, where the will would
be found, and that only herself and Jennings would know the secret.
From infirmity of purpose, or from having subsequently determined on a
personal interview, the letter was not posted; and Sowerby
subsequently discovered it, together with a memorandum of the numbers
of the bank-notes found by Caleb in the secret drawer--the eccentric
gentleman appears to have had quite a mania for such hiding-places--of
a writing-desk.
The affair was thus happily terminated: Mrs. Warner, her children, and
sister, were enriched, and Caleb Jennings was set up in a good way of
business in his native place, where he still flourishes. Over the
centre of his shop there is a large nondescript sign, surmounted by a
golden boot, which, upon close inspection, is found to bear some
resemblance to a huge bureau chest of drawers, all the circumstances
connected with which may be heard, for the asking, and in much fuller
detail than I have given, from the lips of the owner of the
establishment, by any lady or gentleman who will take the trouble of a
journey to Watley for that purpose.
MY NOVEL:
OR, VARIETIES IN ENGLISH LIFE,[8]
BY PISISTRATUS CAXTON.
BOOK VI.--INITIAL CHAPTER.
"Life," said my father, in his most dogmatical tone, "is a certain
quantity in time, which may be regarded in two ways--first, as life
_Integral_; second, as life _Fractional_. Life integral is that
complete whole, expressive of a certain value, large or small, which
each man possesses in himself. Life fractional is that same whole
seized upon and invaded by other people, and subdivided amongst them.
They who get a large slice of it say, 'a very valuable life
this!'--those who get but a small handful say, 'so, so, nothing very
great!'--those who get none of it in the scramble exclaim, 'Good for
nothing!'"
"I don't understand a word you are saying," growled Captain Roland.
My father surveyed his brother with compassion--"I will make it all
clear even to your understanding. When I sit down by myself in my
study, having carefully locked the door on all of you, alone with my
books and thoughts, I am in full possession of my integral life. I am
_totus, teres, atque rotundus_--a whole human being--equivalent in
value we will say, for the sake of illustration, to a fixed round
sum--£100, for example. But when I come forth into the common
apartment, each of those to whom I am of any worth whatsoever puts his
fingers into the bag that contains me and takes out of me what he
wants. Kitty requires me to pay a bill; Pisistratus to save him the
time and trouble of looking into a score or two of books; the children
to tell them stories; or play at hide-and-seek; the carp for
breadcrumbs; and so on throughout the circle to which I have
incautiously given myself up for plunder and subdivision. The £100
which I represented in my study is now parcelled out; I am worth £40
or £50 to Kitty, £20 to Pisistratus, and perhaps 30_s._ to the carp.
This is life fractional. And I cease to be an integral till once more
returning to my study, and again closing the door on all existence but
my own. Meanwhile, it is perfectly clear that, to those who, whether I
am in the study or whether I am in the common sitting-room, get
nothing at all out of me, I am not worth a farthing. It must be wholly
indifferent to a native of Kamschatka whether Austin Caxton be or be
not rased out of the great account-book of human beings."
"Hence," continued my father--"hence it follows that the more
fractional a life be--_id est_, the greater the number of persons
among whom it can be subdivided--why, the more there are to say, 'a
very valuable life that!' Thus, the leader of a political party, a
conqueror, a king, an author who is amusing hundreds or thousands, or
millions, has a greater number of persons whom his worth interests and
affects than a Saint Simon Stylites could have when he perched himself
at the top of a column; although, regarded each in himself, Saint
Simon, in his grand mortification of flesh, in the idea that he
thereby pleased his Divine Benefactor, might represent a larger sum of
moral value _per se_ than Bonaparte or Voltaire."
_Pisistratus._--"Perfectly clear, sir, but I don't see what it has to
do with My Novel."
_Mr. Caxton._--"Every thing. Your novel, if it is to be a full and
comprehensive survey of the '_Quicquid agunt homines_', (which it
ought to be, considering the length and breadth to which I foresee,
from the slow development of your story, you meditate extending and
expanding it,) will embrace the two views of existence, the integral
and the fractional. You have shown us the former in Leonard, when he
is sitting in his mother's cottage, or resting from his work by the
little fount in Riccabocca's garden. And in harmony with that view of
his life, you have surrounded him with comparative integrals, only
subdivided by the tender hands of their immediate families and
neighbors--your Squires and Parsons, your Italian exile and his
Jemima. With all these, life is more or less the life natural, and
this is always more or less the life integral. Then comes the life
artificial, which is always more or less the life fractional. In the
life natural, wherein we are swayed but by our own native impulses and
desires, subservient only to the great silent law of virtue, (which
has pervaded the universe since it swung out of chaos,) a man is of
worth from what he is in himself--Newton was as worthy before the
apple fell from the tree as when all Europe applauded the discoverer
of the principle of gravity. But in the life artificial we are only of
worth in as much as we affect others. And, relative to that life,
Newton rose in value more than a million per cent. when down fell the
apple from which ultimately sprang up his discovery. In order to keep
civilization going, and spread over the world the light of human
intellect, we have certain desires within us, ever swelling beyond the
ease and independence which belong to us as integrals. Cold man as
Newton might be, (he once took a lady's hand in his own, Kitty, and
used her forefinger for his tobacco-stopper; great philosopher!)--cold
as he might be, he was yet moved into giving his discoveries to the
world, and that from motives very little differing in their quality
from the motives that make Dr. Squills communicate articles to the
Phrenological Journal upon the skulls of Bushmen and wombats. For it
is the _property of light to travel_. When a man has light in him,
forth it must go. But the first passage of genius from its integral
state (in which it has been reposing on its own wealth) into the
fractional, is usually through a hard and vulgar pathway. It leaves
behind it the reveries of solitude--that self-contemplating rest which
may be called the Visionary, and enters suddenly into the state that
may be called the Positive and Actual. There, it sees the operation of
money on the outer life--sees all the ruder and commoner springs of
action--sees ambition without nobleness--love without romance--is
bustled about, and ordered, and trampled, and cowed--in short, it
passes an apprenticeship with some Richard Avenel, and does not yet
detect what good and what grandeur, what addition even to the true
poetry of the social universe, fractional existences like Richard
Avenel's bestow; for the pillars that support society are like those
of the court of the Hebrew Tabernacle--they are of brass, it is true,
but they are filleted with silver. From such intermediate state genius
is expelled, and driven on in its way, and would have been so in this
case, had Mrs. Fairfield (who is but the representative of the homely
natural affections, strongest ever in true genius--for light is warm)
never crushed Mr. Avenel's moss rose on her sisterly bosom. Now, forth
from this passage and defile of transition into the larger world, must
genius go on, working out its natural destiny amidst things and forms
the most artificial. Passions that move and influence the world are at
work around it. Often lost sight of itself, its very absence is a
silent contrast to the agencies present. Merged and vanished for a
while amidst the practical world, yet we ourselves feel all the while
that it is _there_--is at work amidst the workings around it. This
practical world that effaces it rose out of some genius that has gone
before; and so each man of genius, though we never come across him, as
his operations proceed, in places remote from our thoroughfares, is
yet influencing the practical world that ignores him, for ever and
ever. That is GENIUS! We can't describe it in books--we can only hint
and suggest it, by the accessaries which we artfully heap about it.
The entrance of a true probationer into the terrible ordeal of
practical life is like that into the miraculous cavern, by which,
legend informs us, St. Patrick converted Ireland."
_Blanche._--"What is that legend? I never heard of it."
_Mr. Caxton._--"My dear, you will find it in a thin folio at the right
on entering my study, written by Thomas Messingham, and called
'Florilegium Insulæ Sanctorum,' &c. The account therein is confirmed
by the relation of an honest soldier, one Louis Ennius, who had
actually entered the cavern. In short, the truth of the legend is
undeniable, unless you mean to say, which I can't for a moment
suppose, that Louis Ennius was a liar. Thus it runs:--St. Patrick,
finding that the Irish pagans were incredulous as to his pathetic
assurances of the pains and torments destined to those who did not
expiate their sins in this world, prayed for a miracle to convince
them. His prayer was heard; and a certain cavern, so small that a man
could not stand up therein at his ease, was suddenly converted into a
Purgatory, comprehending tortures sufficient to convince the most
incredulous. One unacquainted with human nature might conjecture that
few would be disposed to venture voluntarily into such a place; on the
contrary, pilgrims came in crowds. Now, all who entered from vain
curiosity, or with souls unprepared, perished miserably; but those who
entered with deep and earnest faith, conscious of their faults, and if
bold, yet humble, not only came out safe and sound, but purified, as
if from the waters of a second baptism. See Savage and Johnson at
night in Fleet-street, and who shall doubt the truth of St. Patrick's
Purgatory?" Therewith my father sighed--closed his Lucian, which had
lain open on the table, and would read nothing but "good books" for
the rest of the evening.
CHAPTER II.
On their escape from the prison to which Mr. Avenel had condemned
them, Leonard and his mother found their way to a small public-house
that lay at a little distance from the town, and on the outskirts of
the high-road. With his arm round his mother's waist, Leonard
supported her steps and soothed her excitement. In fact the poor
woman's nerves were greatly shaken, and she felt an uneasy remorse at
the injury her intrusion had inflicted on the young man's worldly
prospects. As the shrewd reader has guessed already, that infamous
Tinker was the prime agent of evil in this critical turn in the
affairs of his quondam customer. For, on his return to his haunts
around Hazeldean and the Casino, the Tinker had hastened to apprise
Mrs. Fairfield of his interview with Leonard, and on finding that she
was not aware that the boy was under the roof of his uncle, the
pestilent vagabond (perhaps from spite against Mr. Avenel, or perhaps
from that pure love of mischief by which metaphysical critics explain
the character of Iago, and which certainly formed a main element in
the idiosyncrasy of Mr. Sprott) had so impressed on the widow's mind
the haughty demeanor of the uncle and the refined costume of the
nephew, that Mrs. Fairfield had been seized with a bitter and
insupportable jealousy. There was an intention to rob her of her
boy!--he was to be made too fine for her. His silence was now
accounted for. This sort of jealousy, always more or less a feminine
quality, is often very strong amongst the poor; and it was the more
strong in Mrs. Fairfield, because, lone woman as she was, the boy was
all in all to her. And though she was reconciled to the loss of his
presence, nothing could reconcile her to the thought that his
affections should be weaned from her. Moreover, there were in her mind
certain impressions, of the justice of which the reader may better
judge hereafter, as to the gratitude, more than ordinarily filial,
which Leonard owed to her. In short, she did not like, as she phrased
it, "to be shaken off;" and after a sleepless night she resolved to
judge for herself, much moved thereto by the malicious suggestions to
that effect made by Mr. Sprott, who mightily enjoyed the idea of
mortifying the gentleman by whom he had been so disrespectfully
threatened with the treadmill. The widow felt angry with Parson Dale,
and with the Riccaboccas; she thought they were in the plot against
her; she communicated, therefore, her intention to none--and off she
set, performing the journey partly on the top of the coach, partly on
foot. No wonder that she was dusty, poor woman.
"And, oh, boy!" said she, half sobbing, "when I got through the lodge
gates, came on the lawn, and saw all that power o' fine folk--I said
to myself, says I--(for I felt fritted)--I'll just have a look at him
and go back. But ah, Lenny, when I saw thee, looking so handsome--and
when thee turned and cried 'Mother!' my heart was just ready to leap
out o' my mouth--and so I could not help hugging thee, if I had died
for it. And thou wert so kind, that I forgot all Mr. Sprott had said
about Dick's pride, or thought he had just told a fib about that, as
he had wanted me to believe a fib about thee. Then Dick came up--and I
had not seen him for so many years--and we come o' the same father and
mother; and so--and so"--the widow's sobs here fairly choked her.
"Ah," she said, after giving vent to her passion, and throwing her
arms round Leonard's neck, as they sat in the little sanded parlor of
the public-house--"Ah, and I've brought thee to this. Go back, go
back, boy, and never mind me."
With some difficulty Leonard pacified poor Mrs. Fairfield, and got her
to retire to bed; for she was indeed thoroughly exhausted. He then
stepped forth into the road, musingly. All the stars were out; and
Youth, in its troubles, instinctively looks up to the stars. Folding
his arms, Leonard gazed on the heavens, and his lips murmured.
From this trance, for so it might be called, he was awakened by a
voice in a decidedly London accent; and, turning hastily round, saw
Mr. Avenel's very gentlemanlike butler. Leonard's first idea was that
his uncle had repented, and sent in search of him. But the butler
seemed as much surprised at the rencontre as himself; that personage,
indeed, the fatigues of the day being over, was accompanying one of
Mr. Gunter's waiters to the public-house, (at which the latter had
secured his lodging,) having discovered an old friend in the waiter,
and proposing to regale himself with a cheerful glass, and--_that_ of
course--abuse of his present sitivation.
"Mr. Fairfield!" exclaimed the butler, while the waiter walked
discreetly on.
Leonard looked, and said nothing. The butler began to think that some
apology was due for leaving his plate and his pantry, and that he
might as well secure Leonard's propitiatory influence with his
master--
"Please, sir," said he, touching his hat, "I was just a-showing Mr.
Giles the way to the Blue Bells, where he puts up for the night. I
hope my master will not be offended. If you are a-going back, sir,
would you kindly mention it?"
"I am not going back, Jarvis," answered Leonard, after a pause; "I am
leaving Mr. Avenel's house, to accompany my mother; rather suddenly. I
should be very much obliged to you if you would bring some things of
mine to me at the Blue Bells. I will give you the list, if you will
step back with me to the inn."
Without waiting for a reply, Leonard then turned towards the inn, and
made his humble inventory: item, the clothes he had brought with him
from the Casino; item, the knapsack that had contained them; item, a
few books, ditto; item, Dr. Riccabocca's watch; item, sundry MSS., on
which the young student now built all his hopes of fame and fortune.
This list he put into Mr. Jarvis's hand.
"Sir," said the butler, twirling the paper between his finger and
thumb, "you are not a-going for long, I hope;" and as he thought of
the scene on the lawn, the report of which had vaguely reached his
ears, he looked on the face of the young man, who had always been
"civil spoken to him," with as much, curiosity and as much compassion
as so apathetic and princely a personage could experience in matters
affecting a family less aristocratic than he had hitherto condescended
to serve.
"Yes," said Leonard, simply and briefly; "and your master will no
doubt excuse you for rendering me this service."
Mr. Jarvis postponed for the present his glass and chat with the
waiter, and went back at once to Mr. Avenel. That gentleman, still
seated in his library, had not been aware of the butler's absence; and
when Mr. Jarvis entered and told him that he had met Mr. Fairfield,
and, communicating the commission with which he was intrusted, asked
leave to execute it, Mr. Avenel felt the man's inquisitive eye was on
him, and conceived new wrath against Leonard for a new humiliation to
his pride. It was awkward to give no explanation of his nephew's
departure, still more awkward to explain.
After a short pause, Mr. Avenel said sullenly, "My nephew is going
away on business for some time--do what he tells you;" and then turned
his back, and lighted his cigar.
"That beast of a boy," said he, soliloquizing, "either means this as
an affront, or an overture; if an affront, he is, indeed, well got rid
of; if an overture, he will soon make a more respectful and proper
one. After all, I can't have too little of relations till I have
fairly secured Mrs. McCatchly. An Honorable! I wonder if that makes me
an Honorable too? This cursed Debrett contains no practical
information on these points."
The next morning, the clothes and the watch with which Mr. Avenel had
presented Leonard were returned, with a note meant to express
gratitude, but certainly written with very little knowledge of the
world, and so full of that somewhat over-resentful pride which had in
earlier life made Leonard fly from Hazeldean, and refuse all apology
to Randal, that it is not to be wondered at that Mr. Avenel's last
remorseful feelings evaporated in ire. "I hope he will starve!" said
the uncle, vindictively.
CHAPTER III.
"Listen to me, my dear mother," said Leonard the next morning, as with
his knapsack on his shoulder and Mrs. Fairfield on his arm, he walked
along the high road; "I do assure you, from my heart, that I do not
regret the loss of favors which I see plainly would have crushed out
of me the very sense of independence. But do not fear for me; I have
education and energy--I shall do well for myself, trust me. No; I
cannot, it is true, go back to our cottage--I cannot be a gardener
again. Don't ask me--I should be discontented, miserable. But I will
go up to London! That's the place to make a fortune and a name: I will
make both. O yes, trust me, I will. You shall soon be proud of your
Leonard; and then we will always live together--always! Don't cry."
"But what can you do in London--such a big place, Lenny?"
"What! Every year does not some lad leave our village, and go and seek
his fortune, taking with him but health and strong hands? I have
these, and I have more: I have brains, and thoughts, and hopes,
that--again I say, No, no--never fear for me!"
The boy threw back his head proudly; there was something sublime in
his young trust in the future.
"Well--but you will write to Mr. Dale, or to me? I will get Mr. Dale,
or the good Mounseer (now I knew they were not agin me) to read your
letters."
"I will, indeed!"
"And, boy, you have nothing in your pockets. We have paid Dick; these,
at least, are my own, after paying the coach fare." And she would
thrust a sovereign and some shillings into Leonard's waistcoat pocket.
After some resistance, he was forced to consent.
"And there's a sixpence with a hole in it. Don't part with that,
Lenny; it will bring thee good luck."
Thus talking, they gained the inn where the three roads met, and from
which a coach went direct to the Casino. And here, without entering
the inn, they sat on the green sward by the hedge-row, waiting the
arrival of the coach. Mrs. Fairfield was much subdued in spirits, and
there was evidently on her mind something uneasy--some struggle with
her conscience. She not only upbraided herself for her rash visit; but
she kept talking of her dead Mark. And what would he say of her, if he
could see her in heaven?
"It was so selfish in me, Lenny."
"Pooh, pooh! Has not a mother a right to her child?"
"Ay, ay, ay!" cried Mrs. Fairfield: "I do love you as a child--my own
child. But if I was not your mother, after all, Lenny, and cost you
all this--oh, what would you say of me then?"
"Not my own mother!" said Leonard, laughing, as he kissed her. "Well,
I don't know what I should say then differently from what I say
now--that you who brought me up, and nursed and cherished me, had a
right to my home and my heart, wherever I was."
"Bless thee!" cried Mrs. Fairfield, as she pressed him to her heart.
"But it weighs here--it weighs"--she said, starting up.
At that instant the coach appeared, and Leonard ran forward to inquire
if there was an outside place. Then there was a short bustle while the
horses were being changed; and Mrs. Fairfield was lifted up to the
roof of the vehicle. So all future private conversation between her
and Leonard ceased. But as the coach whirled away, and she waved her
hand to the boy, who stood on the road-side gazing after her, she
still murmured--"It weighs here--it weighs!"----
CHAPTER IV.
Leonard walked sturdily on in the high-road to the Great City. The day
was calm and sunlit, but with a gentle breeze from gray hills at the
distance; and with each mile that he passed, his step seemed to grow
more firm, and his front more elate. Oh! it is such joy in youth to be
alone with one's day dreams. And youth feels so glorious a vigor in
the sense of its own strength, though the world be before and--against
it! Removed from that chilling counting-house--from the imperious will
of a patron and master--all friendless, but all independent--the young
adventurer felt a new being--felt his grand nature as Man. And on the
Man rushed the genius long interdicted--and thrust aside--rushing
back, with the first breath of adversity to console--no! the Man
needed not consolation,--to kindle, to animate, to rejoice! If there
is a being in the world worthy of our envy, after we have grown wise
philosophers of the fireside, it is not the palled voluptuary, nor the
care-worn statesman, nor even the great prince of arts and letters,
already crowned with the laurel, whose leaves are as fit for poison as
for garlands; it is the young child of adventure and hope. Ay, and the
emptier his purse, ten to one but the richer his heart, and the wider
the domains which his fancy enjoys as he goes on with kingly step to
the Future.
Not till towards the evening did our adventurer slacken his pace, and
think of rest and refreshment. There, then, lay before him, on either
side the road, those wide patches of uninclosed land, which in England
often denote the entrance to a village. Presently one or two neat
cottages came in sight--then a small farm-house, with its yard and
barns. And some way farther yet, he saw the sign swinging before an
inn of some pretensions--the sort of inn often found on a long stage
between two great towns, commonly called "The Half-way House." But the
inn stood back from the road, having its own separate sward in front,
whereon were a great beech tree (from which the sign extended) and a
rustic arbor--so that, to gain the inn, the coaches that stopped there
took a sweep from the main thoroughfare. Between our pedestrian and
the inn there stood naked and alone, on the common land, a church; our
ancestors never would have chosen that site for it; therefore it was a
modern church--modern Gothic--handsome to an eye not versed in the
attributes of ecclesiastical architecture--very barbarous to an eye
that was. Somehow or other the church looked cold and raw and
uninviting. It looked a church for show--much too big for the
scattered hamlet--and void of all the venerable associations which
give their peculiar and unspeakable atmosphere of piety to the
churches in which succeeding generations have knelt and worshipped.
Leonard paused and surveyed the edifice with an unlearned but poetical
gaze--it dissatisfied him. And he was yet pondering why, when a young
girl passed slowly before him, her eyes fixed on the ground, opened
the little gate that led into the churchyard, and vanished. He did not
see the child's face; but there was something in her movements so
utterly listless, forlorn, and sad, that his heart was touched. What
did she there? He approached the low wall with a noiseless step, and
looked over it wistfully.
There, by a grave evidently quite recent, with no wooden tomb nor
tombstone like the rest, the little girl had thrown herself, and she
was sobbing loud and passionately. Leonard opened the gate, and
approached her with a soft step. Mingled with her sobs, he heard
broken sentences, wild and vain, as all human sorrowings over graves
must be.
"Father!--oh, father! do you not really hear me? I am so lone--so
lone! Take me to you--take me!" And she buried her face in the deep
grass.
"Poor child!" said Leonard, in a half whisper--"he is not there. Look
above!"
The girl did not heed him--he put his arm round her waist gently--she
made a gesture of impatience and anger, but she would not turn her
face--and she clung to the grave with her hands.
After clear sunny days the dews fall more heavily; and now, as the sun
set, the herbage was bathed in a vaporous haze--a dim mist rose
around. The young man seated himself beside her, and tried to draw the
child to his breast. Then she turned eagerly, indignantly, and pushed
him aside with jealous arms. He profaned the grave! He understood her
with his deep poet heart, and rose. There was a pause.
Leonard was the first to break it.
"Come to your home with me, my child, and we will talk of _him_ by the
way."
"Him! Who are you? You did not know him?" said the girl, still with
anger. "Go away--why do you disturb me? I do no one harm. Go--go!"
"You do yourself harm, and that will grieve him if he sees you yonder!
Come!"
The child looked at him through her blinding tears, and his face
softened and soothed her.
"Go!" she said very plaintively, and in subdued accents. "I will but
stay a minute more. I--I have so much to say yet."
Leonard left the churchyard, and waited without; and in a short time
the child came forth, waved him aside as he approached her, and
hurried away. He followed her at a distance, and saw her disappear
within the inn.
CHAPTER V.
"Hip--hip--Hurrah!" Such was the sound that greeted our young
traveller as he reached the inn door--a sound joyous in itself, but
sadly out of harmony with the feelings which the child's sobbing on
the tombless grave had left at his heart. The sound came from within,
and was followed by thumps and stamps, and the jingle of glasses. A
strong odor of tobacco was wafted to his olfactory sense. He hesitated
a moment at the threshold. Before him on benches under the beech-tree
and within the arbor, were grouped sundry athletic forms with "pipes
in the liberal air." The landlady, as she passed across the passage to
the tap-room, caught sight of his form at the doorway, and came
forward. Leonard still stood irresolute. He would have gone on his
way, but for the child; she had interested him strongly.
"You seem full, ma'am," said he. "Can I have accommodation for the
night?"
"Why, indeed, sir," said the landlady, civilly, "I can give you a
bedroom, but I don't know where to put you meanwhile. The two parlors
and the tap-room and the kitchen are all chokeful. There has been a
great cattle-fair in the neighborhood, and I suppose we have as many
as fifty farmers and drovers stopping here."
"As to that, ma'am, I can sit in the bedroom you are kind enough to
give me; and if it does not cause you too much trouble to let me have
some tea there, I should be glad; but I can wait your leisure. Do not
put yourself out of the way for me."
The landlady was touched by a consideration she was not much
habituated to receive from her bluff customers.
"You speak very handsome, sir, and we will do our best to serve you,
if you will excuse all faults. This way, sir." Leonard lowered his
knapsack, stepped in the passage, with some difficulty forced his way
through a knot of sturdy giants in top-boots or leathern gaiters who
were swarming in and out the tap-room, and followed his hostess up
stairs to a little bedroom at the top of the house.
"It is small, sir, and high," said the hostess apologetically. "But
there be four gentlemen farmers that have come a great distance, and
all the first floor is engaged; you will be more out of the noise
here."
"Nothing can suit me better. But, stay--pardon me;" and Leonard,
glancing at the garb of the hostess, observed she was not in mourning.
"A little girl whom I saw in the churchyard yonder, weeping very
bitterly--is she a relation of yours? Poor child, she seems to have
deeper feelings than are common at her age."
"Ah, sir," said the landlady, putting the corner of her apron to her
eyes, "it is a very sad story--I don't know what to do. Her father was
taken ill on his way to Lunnun, and stopped here, and has been buried
four days. And the poor little girl seems to have no relations--and
where is she to go? Laryer Jones says we must pass her to Marybone
parish, where her father lived last; and what's to become of her then?
My heart bleeds to think on it." Here then rose such an uproar from
below, that it was evident some quarrel had broken out; and the
hostess, recalled to her duties, hastened to carry thither her
propitiatory influences.
Leonard seated himself pensively by the little lattice. Here was some
one more alone in the world than he. And she, poor orphan, had no
stout man's heart to grapple with fate, and no golden manuscripts that
were to be as the "Open Sesame" to the treasures of Aladdin. By-and-by
the hostess brought him up a tray with tea and other refreshments, and
Leonard resumed his inquiries. "No relatives?" said he; "surely the
child must have some kinsfolk in London? Did her father leave no
directions, or was he in possession of his faculties?"
"Yes, sir; he was quite reasonable-like to the last. And I asked him
if he had not any thing on his mind, and he said, 'I have.' And I
said, 'Your little girl, sir?' And he answered, 'Yes, ma'am;' and
laying his head on his pillow, he wept very quietly. I could not say
more myself, for it set me off to see him cry so meekly; but my
husband is harder nor I, and he said, 'Cheer up, Mr. Digby; had not
you better write to your friends?'"
"'Friends!' said the gentleman, in such a voice! 'Friends I have but
one, and I am going to Him! I cannot take her there!' Then he seemed
suddenly to recollect hisself, and called for his clothes, and
rummaged in the pockets as if looking for some address, and could not
find it. He seemed a forgetful kind of gentleman, and his hands were
what I call _helpless_ hands, sir! And then he gasped out,
'Stop--stop! I never had the address. Write to Lord Les--,' something
like Lord Lester--but we could not make out the name. Indeed he did
not finish it, for there was a rush of blood to his lips; and though
he seemed sensible when he recovered, (and knew us and his little girl
too, till he went off smiling,) he never spoke word more."
"Poor man," said Leonard, wiping his eyes. "But his little girl surely
remembers the name that he did not finish?"
"No. She says, he must have meant a gentleman whom they had met in the
Park not long ago, who was very kind to her father, and was Lord
something; but she don't remember the name, for she never saw him
before or since, and her father talked very little about any one
lately, but thought he should find some kind friends at Screwstown,
and travelled down there with her from Lunnon. But she supposes he was
disappointed, for he went out, came back, and merely told her to put
up the things, as they must go back to Lunnon. And on his way there
he--died. Hush what's that? I hope she did not overhear us. No, we
were talking low. She has the next room to your'n, sir. I thought I
heard her sobbing. Hush!"
"In the next room? I hear nothing. Well, with your leave, I will speak
to her before I quit you. And had her father no money with him?"
"Yes, a few sovereigns, sir; they paid for his funeral, and there is a
little left still, enough to take her to town; for my husband said,
says he, 'Hannah, the widow _gave_ her mite, and we must not _take_
the orphans;' and my husband is a hard man, too, sir. Bless him!"
"Let me take your hand, ma'am. God reward you both."
"La, sir!--why, even Dr. Dosewell said, rather grumpily though, 'Never
mind my bill; but don't call me up at six o'clock in the morning
again, without knowing a little more about people.' And I never afore
knew Dr. Dosewell go without his bill being paid. He said it was a
trick o' the other Doctor to spite him."
"What other Doctor?"
"Oh, a very good gentleman, who got out with Mr. Digby when he was
taken ill, and stayed till the next morning; and our Doctor says his
name is Morgan, and he lives in--Lunnon, and is a homy--something."
"Homicide," suggested Leonard ignorantly.
"Ah--homicide; something like that, only a deal longer and worse. But
he left some of the tiniest little balls you ever see, sir, to give
the child; but, bless you, they did her no good--how should they?"
"Tiny balls, oh--homoeopathist--I understand. And the Doctor was
kind to her; perhaps he may help her. Have you written to him?"
"But we don't know his address, and Lunnon is a vast place, sir."
"I am going to London, and will find it out."
"Ah, sir, you seem very kind; and sin' she must go to Lunnon, (for
what can we do with her here?--she's too genteel for service,) I wish
she was going with you."
"With me?" said Leonard startled; "with me! Well, why not?"
"I am sure she comes of good blood, sir. You would have known her
father was quite the gentleman, only to see him die, sir. He went off
so kind and civil like, as if he was ashamed to give so much
trouble--quite a gentleman, if ever there was one. And so are you,
sir, I'm sure," said the landlady, curtseying; "I know what gentlefolk
be. I've been a housekeeper, in the first of families in this very
shire, sir, though I can't say I've served in Lunnon; and so, as
gentlefolks know each other, I've no doubt you could find out her
relations. Dear--dear! Coming, coming!"
Here there were loud cries for the hostess, and she hurried away. The
farmers and drovers were beginning to depart, and their bills were to
be made out and paid. Leonard saw his hostess no more that night. The
last hip-hip-hurrah, was heard; some toast, perhaps, to the health of
the county members;--and the chamber of woe, beside Leonard's, rattled
with the shout. By-and-by silence gradually succeeded the various
dissonant sounds below. The carts and gigs rolled away; the clatter of
hoofs on the road ceased; there was then a dumb dull sound as of
locking-up, and low humming voices below and footsteps mounting the
stairs to bed, with now and then a drunken hiccup or maudlin laugh, as
some conquered votary of Bacchus was fairly carried up to his
domicile.
All, then, at last was silent, just as the clock from the church
sounded the stroke of eleven.
Leonard, meanwhile, had been looking over his MSS. There was first a
project for an improvement on the steam-engine--a project that had
long lain in his mind, begun with the first knowledge of mechanics
that he had gleaned from his purchases of the Tinker. He put that
aside now--it required too great an effort of the reasoning faculty to
re-examine. He glanced less hastily over a collection of essays on
various subjects, some that he thought indifferent, some that he
thought good. He then lingered over a collection of verses, written in
his best hand with loving care--verses first inspired by his perusal
of Nora's melancholy memorials. These verses were as a diary of his
heart and his fancy--those deep unwitnessed struggles which the
boyhood of all more thoughtful natures has passed in its bright yet
murky storm of the cloud and the lightning flash; though but few boys
pause to record the crisis from which slowly emerges Man. And these
first, desultory grapplings with the fugitive airy images that flit
through the dim chambers of the brain, had become with each effort
more sustained and vigorous, till the phantoms were spelled, the
flying ones arrested, the immaterial seized, and clothed with Form.
Gazing on his last effort, Leonard felt that there at length spoke
forth a Poet. It was a work which, though as yet but half completed,
came from a strong hand; not that shadow trembling on unsteady waters,
which is but the pale reflex and imitation of some bright mind,
sphered out of reach and afar; but an original substance--a life--a
thing of the _Creative_ Faculty--breathing back already the breath it
had received. This work had paused during Leonard's residence with Mr.
Avenel, or had only now and then, in stealth, and at night, received a
rare touch. Now, as with a fresh eye, he re-perused it; and with that
strange, innocent admiration, not of self--(for a man's work is not,
alas! himself--it is the beatified and idealized essence, extracted he
knows not how from his own human elements of clay)--admiration known
but to poets--their purest delight, often their sole reward. And then,
with a warmer and more earthly beat of his full heart, he rushed in
fancy to the Great City, where all rivers of Fame meet, but not to be
merged and lost--sallying forth again, individualized and separate, to
flow through that one vast thought of God which we call THE WORLD.
He put up his papers; and opened his window, as was his ordinary
custom, before he retired to rest--for he had many odd habits; and he
loved to look out into the night when he prayed. His soul seemed to
escape from the body--to mount on the air--to gain more rapid access
to the far Throne in the Infinite--when his breath went forth among
the winds, and his eyes rested fixed on the stars, of Heaven.
So the boy prayed silently; and after his prayer he was about
lingeringly to close the lattice, when he heard distinctly sobs close
at hand. He paused, and held his breath; then gently looked out; the
casement next his own was also open. Some one was also at watch by
that casement--perhaps also praying. He listened yet more attentively,
and caught, soft and low, the words. "Father--father--do you hear me
_now_?"
CHAPTER VI.
Leonard opened his door and stole towards that of the room adjoining;
for his first natural impulse had been to enter and console. But when
his touch was on the handle, he drew back. Child, though the mourner
was, her sorrows were rendered yet more sacred from intrusion by her
sex. Something, he knew not what, in his young ignorance, withheld him
from the threshold. To have crossed it then would have seemed to him
profanation. So he returned, and for hours yet he occasionally heard
the sobs, till they died away, and childhood wept itself to sleep.
But the next morning, when he heard his neighbor astir, he knocked
gently at her door: there was no answer. He entered softly, and saw
her seated very listlessly in the centre of the room--as if it had no
familiar nook or corner as the rooms of home have--her hands drooping
on her lap, and her eyes gazing desolately on the floor. Then he
approached and spoke to her.
Helen was very subdued, and very silent. Her tears seemed dried up;
and it was long before she gave sign or token that she heeded him. At
length, however, he gradually succeeded in rousing her interest; and
the first symptom of his success was in the quiver of her lip, and the
overflow of the downcast eyes.
By little and little he wormed himself into her confidence; and she
told him, in broken whispers, her simple story. But what moved him the
most was, that, beyond her sense of loneliness, she did not seem to
feel her own unprotected state. She mourned the object she had nursed,
and heeded, and cherished; for she had been rather the protectress
than the protected to the helpless dead. He could not gain from her
any more satisfactory information than the landlady had already
imparted, as to her friends and prospects; but she permitted him
passively to look among the effects her father had left--save only
that if his hand touched something that seemed to her associations
especially holy, she waved him back, or drew it quickly away. There
were many bills receipted in the name of Captain Digby--old yellow
faded music-scores for the flute--extracts of Parts from Prompt
Books--gay parts of lively comedies, in which heroes have so noble a
contempt for money--fit heroes for a Sheridan and a Farquhar; close by
these were several pawnbroker's tickets; and, not arrayed smoothly,
but crumpled up, as if with an indignant nervous clutch of the old
helpless hands, some two or three letters. He asked Helen's permission
to glance at these, for they might give a clue to friends. Helen gave
the permission by a silent bend of the head. The letters, however,
were but short and freezing answers from what appeared to be distant
connections or former friends, or persons to whom the deceased had
applied for some situation. They were all very disheartening in their
tone. Leonard next endeavored to refresh Helen's memory as to the name
of the nobleman which had been last on her father's lips, but there he
failed wholly. For it may be remembered that Lord L'Estrange, when he
pressed his loan on Mr. Digby, and subsequently told that gentleman to
address him at Mr. Egerton's, had, from a natural delicacy, sent the
child on, that she might not hear the charity bestowed on the father;
and Helen said truly, that Mr. Digby had sunk into a habitual silence
on all his affairs latterly. She might have heard her father mention
the name, but she had not treasured it up; all she could say was, that
she should know the stranger again if she met him, and his dog too.
Seeing that the child had grown calm, Leonard was then going to leave
the room, in order to confer with the hostess, when she rose suddenly,
though noiselessly, and put her little hand in his, as if to detain
him. She did not say a word--the action said all--said "Do not desert
me." And Leonard's heart rushed to his lips, and he answered to the
action as he bent down and kissed her cheek, "Orphan, will you go with
me? We have one Father yet to both of us, and He will guide us on
earth. I am fatherless like you." She raised her eyes to his--looked
at him long--and then leant her head confidingly on his strong young
shoulder.
CHAPTER VII.
At noon that same day, the young man and the child were on their road
to London. The host had at first a little demurred at trusting Helen
to so young a companion, but Leonard, in his happy ignorance, had
talked so sanguinely of finding out this lord, or some adequate
protection for the child, and in so grand a strain, though with all
sincerity, had spoken of his own great prospects in the metropolis (he
did not say what they were!) that had it been the craftiest imposter,
he could not have more taken in the rustic host. And while the
landlady still cherished the illusive fancy that all gentlefolks must
know each other in London, as they did in a county, the landlord
believed, at least, that a young man, so respectably dressed, although
but a foot-traveller--who talked in so confident a tone, and who was
so willing to undertake what might be rather a burdensome charge,
unless he saw how to rid himself of it--would be sure to have friends,
older and wiser than himself, who could judge what could best be done
for the orphan.
And what was the host to do with her? Better this volunteered escort,
at least, than vaguely passing her on from parish to parish, and
leaving her friendless at last in the streets of London. Helen, too,
smiled for the first time on being asked her wishes, and again put her
hand in Leonard's. In short, so it was settled.
The little girl made up a bundle of the things she most prized or
needed. Leonard did not feel the additional load, as he slung it to
his knapsack. The rest of the luggage was to be sent to London as soon
as Leonard wrote, (which he promised to do soon,) and gave an address.
Helen paid her last visit to the churchyard; and she joined her
companion as he stood on the road, without the solemn precincts. And
now they had gone on some hours, and when he asked if she was tired,
she still answered "No." But Leonard was merciful, and made their
day's journey short; and it took them some days to reach London. By
the long lonely way, they grew so intimate, at the end of the second
day they called each other brother and sister; and Leonard, to his
delight, found that as her grief, with the bodily movement and the
change of scene, subsided from its first intenseness and its
insensibility to other impressions, she developed a quickness of
comprehension far beyond her years. Poor child! _that_ had been forced
upon her by Necessity. And she understood him in his spiritual
consolations,--half poetical, half religious; and she listened to his
own tale, and the story of his self-education and solitary
struggles--those, too, she understood. But when he burst out with his
enthusiasm, his glorious hopes, his confidence in the fate before
them, then she would shake her head very quietly and very sadly. Did
she comprehend _them_? Alas! perhaps too well. She knew more as to
real life than he did. Leonard was at first their joint treasurer, but
before the second day was over, Helen seemed to discover that he was
too lavish; and she told him so, with a prudent grave look, putting
her hand on his arm, as he was about to enter an inn to dine; and the
gravity would have been comic, but that the eyes through their
moisture were so meek and grateful. She felt he was about to incur
that ruinous extravagance on her account. Somehow or other, the purse
found its way into her keeping, and then she looked proud, and in her
natural element.
Ah! what happy meals under her care were provided: so much more
enjoyable than in dull, sanded inn parlors, swarming with flies, and
reeking with stale tobacco. She would leave him at the entrance of a
village, bound forward, and cater, and return with a little basket and
a pretty blue jug--which she had bought on the road--the last filled
with new milk, the first with new bread and some special dainty in
radishes or water-cresses. And she had such a talent for finding out
the prettiest spot whereon to halt and dine: sometimes in the heart of
a wood--so still, it was like a forest in fairy tales, the hare
stealing through the alleys, or the squirrel peeping at them from the
boughs; sometimes by a little brawling stream, with the fishes seen
under the clear wave, and shooting round the crumbs thrown to them.
They made an Arcadia of the dull road up to their dread
Thermopylæ--the war against the million that waited them on the other
side of their pass through Tempe.
"Shall we be as happy when we are _great_?" said Leonard, in his grand
simplicity.
Helen sighed, and the wise little head was shaken.
CHAPTER VIII.
At last they came within easy reach of London; but Leonard had
resolved not to enter the metropolis fatigued and exhausted, as a
wanderer needing refuge, but fresh and elate, as a conqueror coming in
triumph to take possession of the capital. Therefore they halted early
in the evening of the day preceding this imperial entry, about six
miles from the metropolis, in the neighborhood of Ealing, (for by that
route lay their way.) They were not tired on arriving at their inn.
The weather was singularly lovely, with that combination of softness
and brilliancy which is only known to the rare true summer days of
England: all below so green, above so blue--days of which we have
about six in the year, and recall vaguely when we read of Robin Hood
and maid Marian, of Damsel and Knight, in Spenser's golden Summer
Song, or of Jacques, dropped under the oak tree, watching the deer
amidst the dells of Ardennes. So, after a little pause in their inn,
they strolled forth, not for travel, but pleasure, towards the cool of
sunset, passing by the grounds that once belonged to the Duke of Kent,
and catching a glimpse of the shrubs and lawns of that beautiful
domain through the lodge-gates; then they crossed into some fields,
and came to a little rivulet called the Brent. Helen had been more sad
that day than on any during their journey. Perhaps, because, on
approaching London, the memory of her father became more vivid;
perhaps from her precocious knowledge of life, and her foreboding of
what was to befall them, children that they both were. But Leonard was
selfish that day; he could not be influenced by his companion's
sorrow, he was so full of his own sense of being, and he already
caught from the atmosphere the fever that belongs to anxious capitals.
"Sit here, sister," said he imperiously, throwing himself under the
shade of a pollard tree that overhung the winding brook, "sit here and
talk."
He flung off his hat, tossed back his rich curls, and sprinkled his
brow from the stream that eddied round the roots of the tree that
bulged out, bald and gnarled, from the bank, and delved into the waves
below. Helen quietly obeyed him, and nestled close to his side.
"And so this London is very vast?--VERY?" he repeated inquisitively.
"Very," answered Helen, as abstractedly she plucked the cowslips near
her, and let them fall into the running waters. "See how the flowers
are carried down the stream! They are lost now. London is to us what
the river is to the flowers--very vast--very strong;" and she added,
after a pause, "very cruel!"
"Cruel! Ah, it _has_ been so to you; but _now_!--now I will take care
of you!" he smiled triumphantly; and his smile was beautiful both in
its pride and its kindness. It is astonishing how Leonard had altered
since he had left his uncle's. He was both younger and older; for the
sense of genius, when it snaps its shackles, makes us both older and
wiser as to the world it soars to--younger and blinder as to the world
it springs from.
"And it is not a very handsome city either, you say?"
"Very ugly, indeed," said Helen, with some fervor; "at least all I
have seen of it."
"But there must be parts that are prettier than others? You say there
are parks; why should not we lodge near them, and look upon the green
trees?"
"That would be nice," said Helen, almost joyously; "but--" and here
the head was shaken--"there are no lodgings for us except in courts
and alleys."
"Why?"
"Why?" echoed Helen, with a smile, and she held up the purse.
"Pooh! always that horrid purse; as if, too, we were not going to fill
it. Did I not tell you the story of Fortunio? Well, at all events, we
will go first to the neighborhood where you last lived, and learn
there all we can; and then the day after to-morrow, I will see this
Dr. Morgan, and find out the Lord--"
The tears startled to Helen's soft eyes. "You want to get rid of me
soon, brother."
"I! ah, I feel so happy to have you with me, it seems to me as if I
had pined for you all my life, and you had come at last; for I never
had brother, nor sister, nor any one to love, that was not older than
myself, except--"
"Except the young lady you told me of," said Helen, turning away her
face; for children are very jealous.
"Yes, I loved her, love her still. But that was different," said
Leonard, with a heightened color. "I could never have talked to her as
to you, to you I open my whole heart; you are my little Muse, Helen, I
confess to you my wild whims and fancies as frankly as if I were
writing poetry." As he said this, a step was heard, and a shadow fell
over the stream. A belated angler appeared on the margin, drawing his
line impatiently across the water, as if to worry some dozing fish
into a bite before it finally settled itself for the night. Absorbed
in his occupation, the angler did not observe the young persons on the
sward under the tree, and he halted there, close upon them.
"Curse that perch!" said he aloud.
"Take care, sir," cried Leonard; for the man, in stepping back, nearly
trod upon Helen.
The angler turned. "What's the matter? Hist! you have frightened my
perch. Keep still, can't you?"
Helen drew herself out of the way, and Leonard remained motionless. He
remembered Jackeymo, and felt a sympathy for the angler.
"It is the most extraordinary perch, that!" muttered the stranger,
soliloquizing. "It has the devil's own luck. It must have been born
with a silver spoon in its mouth, that damned perch! I shall never
catch it--never! Ha!--no--only a weed. I give it up." With this, he
indignantly jerked his rod from the water, and began to disjoint it.
While leisurely engaged in this occupation, he turned to Leonard.
"Humph! are you intimately acquainted with this stream, sir?"
"No," answered Leonard. "I never saw it before."
_Angler_, (solemnly.)--"Then, young man, take my advice, and do not
give way to its fascinations. Sir, I am a martyr to this stream; it
has been the Dalilah of my existence."
_Leonard_, (interested, the last sentence seemed to him
poetical.)--"The Dalilah! sir, the Dalilah!"
_Angler._--"The Dalilah. Young man, listen, and be warned by example.
When I was about your age, I first came to this stream to fish. Sir,
on that fatal day, about 3 P.M., I hooked up a fish--such a big one,
it must have weighed a pound and a half. Sir, it was that length;" and
the angler put finger to wrist. "And just when I had got it nearly
ashore, by the very place where you are sitting, on that shelving
bank, young man, the line broke, and the perch twisted himself among
those roots, and--caco dæmon that he was--ran off, hook and all. Well,
that fish haunted me; never before had I seen such a fish. Minnows I
had caught in the Thames and elsewhere, also gudgeons, and
occasionally a dace. But a fish like that--a PERCH--all his fins up
like the sails of a man-of-war--a monster perch--a whale of a
perch!--No, never till then had I known what leviathans lie hid within
the deeps. I could not sleep till I had returned; and again, sir,--I
caught that perch. And this time I pulled him fairly out of the water.
He escaped; and how did he escape? Sir, he left his eye behind him on
the hook. Years, long years, have passed since then; but never shall I
forget the agony of that moment."
_Leonard._--"To the perch, sir?"
_Angler._--"Perch! agony to him! He enjoyed it:--agony to me. I gazed
on that eye, and the eye looked as sly and as wicked as if it was
laughing in my face. Well, sir, I had heard that there is no better
bait for a perch than a perch's eye. I adjusted that eye on the hook,
and dropped in the line gently. The water was unusually clear; in two
minutes I saw that perch return. He approached the hook; he recognized
his eye--frisked his tail--made a plunge--and, as I live, carried off
the eye, safe and sound; and I saw him digesting it by the side of
that water-lily. The mocking fiend! Seven times since that day, in the
course of a varied and eventful life, have I caught that perch, and
seven times has that perch escaped."
_Leonard_, (astonished.)--"It can't be the same perch; perches are
very tender fish--a hook inside of it, and an eye hooked out of it--no
perch could withstand such havoc in its constitution."
_Angler_, (with an appearance of awe.)--"It does seem supernatural.
But it _is_ that perch; for harkye, sir, there is ONLY ONE perch in
the whole brook! All the years I have fished here, I have never caught
another perch here; and this solitary inmate of the watery element I
know by sight better than I know my own lost father. For each time
that I have raised it out of the water, its profile has been turned to
me, and I have seen, with a shudder, that it has had only--One Eye! It
is a most mysterious and a most diabolical phenomenon that perch! It
has been the ruin of my prospects in life. I was offered a situation
in Jamaica; I could not go, with that perch left here in triumph. I
might afterwards have had an appointment in India, but I could not put
the ocean between myself and that perch: thus have I fritted away my
existence in the fatal metropolis of my native land. And once a-week,
from February to December, I come hither--Good Heavens! if I should
catch the perch at last, the occupation of my existence will be gone."
Leonard gazed curiously at the angler, as the last thus mournfully
concluded. The ornate turn of his periods did not suit with his
costume. He looked woefully threadbare and shabby--a genteel sort of
shabbiness too--shabbiness in black. There was humor in the corners of
his lip; and his hands, though they did not seem very clean--indeed
his occupation was not friendly to such niceties--were those of a man
who had not known manual labor. His face was pale and puffed, but the
tip of his nose was red. He did not seem as if the watery element was
as familiar to himself as to his Dalilah--the perch.
"Such is life!" recommenced the angler in a moralizing tone, as he
slid his rod into its canvas case. "If a man knew what it was to fish
all one's life in a stream that has only one perch!--to catch that one
perch nine times in all, and nine times to see it fall back into the
water, plump;--if man knew what it was--why, then"--Here the angler
looked over his shoulder full at Leonard--"why, then, young sir, he
would know what human life is to vain ambition. Good evening."
Away he went, treading over the daisies and king cups. Helen's eyes
followed him wistfully.
"What a strange person!" said Leonard, laughing.
"I think he is a very wise one," murmured Helen; and she came close up
to Leonard, and took his hand in both hers, as if she felt already
that he was in need of the Comforter--the line broke, and the perch
lost!
CHAPTER IX.
At noon the next day, London stole upon them, through a gloomy, thick,
oppressive atmosphere. For where is it that we can say London _bursts_
on the sight? It stole on them through one of its fairest and most
gracious avenues of approach--by the stately gardens of
Kensington--along the side of Hyde Park, and so on towards Cumberland
Gate.
Leonard was not the least struck. And yet, with a little money, and a
very little taste, it would be easy to render this entrance to London
as grand and imposing as that to Paris from the _Champs Elysées_. As
they came near the Edgeware Road, Helen took her new brother by the
hand and guided him. For she knew all that neighborhood, and she was
acquainted with a lodging near that occupied by her father (to _that_
lodging itself she could not have gone for the world), where they
might be housed cheaply.
But just then the sky, so dull and overcast since morning, seemed one
mass of black cloud. There suddenly came on a violent storm of rain.
The boy and girl took refuge in a covered mews, in a street running
out of the Edgeware Road. The shelter soon became crowded; the two
young pilgrims crept close to the wall, apart from the rest;
Leonard's arm round Helen's waist, sheltering her from the rain that
the strong wind contending with it beat in through the passage.
Presently a young gentleman, of better mien and dress than the other
refugees, entered, not hastily, but rather with a slow and proud step,
as if, though he deigned to take shelter, he scorned to run to it. He
glanced somewhat haughtily at the assembled group--passed on through
the midst of it--came near Leonard--took off his hat, and shook the
rain from its brim. His head thus uncovered, left all his features
exposed; and the village youth recognized, at the first glance, his
old victorious assailant on the green at Hazeldean.
Yet Randal Leslie was altered. His dark cheek was as thin as in
boyhood, and even yet more wasted by intense study and night vigils;
but the expression of his face was at once more refined and manly, and
there was a steady concentrated light in his large eye, like that of
one who has been in the habit of bringing all his thoughts to one
point. He looked older than he was. He was dressed simply in black, a
color which became him; and altogether his aspect and figure were not
showy indeed, but distinguished. He looked, to the common eye, a
gentleman; and to the more observant, a scholar.
Helter-skelter!--pell-mell! the group in the passage--now pressed each
on each--now scattered on all sides--making way--rushing down the
mews--against the walls--as a fiery horse darted under shelter; the
rider, a young man, with a very handsome face, and dressed with that
peculiar care which we commonly call dandyism, cried out, good
humoredly,--"Don't be afraid; the horse shan't hurt any of you--a
thousand pardons--so ho! so ho!" He patted the horse, and it stood as
still as a statue, filling up the centre of the passage. The groups
resettled--Randal approached the rider.
"Frank Hazeldean!"
"Ah--is it indeed Randal Leslie!"
Frank was off his horse in a moment, and the bridle was consigned to
the care of a slim 'prentice-boy holding a bundle.
"My dear fellow, how glad I am to see you. How lucky it was that I
should turn in here. Not like me either, for I don't much care for a
ducking. Staying in town, Randal?"
"Yes, at your uncle's, Mr. Egerton. I have left Oxford."
"For good?"
"For good."
"But you have not taken your degree, I think? We Etonians all
considered you booked for a double first. Oh! we have been so proud of
you--you carried off all the prizes."
"Not all; but some, certainly. Mr. Egerton offered me my choice--to
stay for my degree, or to enter at once into the Foreign Office. I
preferred the ends to the means. For, after all, what good are
academical honors but as the entrance to life? To enter now is to save
a step in a long way, Frank."
"Ah! you were always ambitious, and you will make a great figure, I am
sure."
"Perhaps so--if I work for it. Knowledge is power."
Leonard started.
"And you," resumed Randal, looking with some curious attention at his
old schoolfellow. "You never came to Oxford. I did hear you were going
into the army."
"I am in the Guards," said Frank, trying hard not to look too
conceited as he made that acknowledgment. "The Governor pished a
little, and would rather I had come to live with him in the old hall,
and take to farming. Time enough for that--eh? By Jove, Randall, how
pleasant a thing is life in London? Do you go to Almack's to-night?"
"No; Wednesday is a holiday in the House! There is a great
parliamentary dinner at Mr. Egerton's. He is in the Cabinet now, you
know; but you don't see much of your uncle, I think."
"Our sets are different," said the young gentleman, in a tone of voice
worthy of Brummell. "All those parliamentary fellows are devilish
dull. The rain's over. I don't know whether the Governor would like me
to call at Grosvenor Square; but, pray come and see me; here's my card
to remind you; you must dine at our mess. Such nice fellows. What day
will you fix?"
"I will call and let you know. Don't you find it rather expensive in
the Guards? I remember that you thought the Governor, as you call him,
used to chafe a little when you wrote for more pocket-money; and the
only time I ever remember to have seen you with tears in your eyes,
was when Mr. Hazeldean, in sending you £5, reminded you that his
estates were not entailed--were at his own disposal, and they should
never go to an extravagant spendthrift. It was not a pleasant threat,
that, Frank."
"Oh!" cried the young man, coloring deeply, "It was not the threat
that pained me, it was that my father could think so meanly of me as
to fancy that--well--well, but those were schoolboy days. And my
father was always more generous than I deserved. We must see a good
deal of each other, Randal. How good-natured you were at Eton, making
my longs and shorts for me; I shall never forget it. Do call soon."
Frank swung himself into his saddle, and rewarded the slim youth with
half-a-crown; a largess four times more ample than his father would
have deemed sufficient. A jerk of the reins and a touch of the
heel--off bounded the fiery horse and the gay young rider. Randal
mused; and as the rain had now ceased, the passengers under shelter
dispersed and went their way. Only Randal, Leonard, and Helen remained
behind. Then, as Randal, still musing, lifted his eyes, they fell full
upon Leonard's face. He started, passed his hand quickly over his
brow--looked again, hard and piercingly; and the change in his pale
cheek to a shade still paler--a quick compression and nervous gnawing
of his lip--showed that he too had recognized an old foe. Then his
glance ran over Leonard's dress, which was somewhat dust-stained, but
far above the class amongst which the peasant was born. Randal raised
his brows in surprise, and with a smile slightly supercilious--the
smile stung Leonard; and with a slow step Randal left the passage, and
took his way towards Grosvenor Square. The Entrance of Ambition was
clear to _him_.
Then the little girl once more took Leonard by the hand, and led him
through rows of humble, obscure, dreary streets. It seemed almost like
an allegory personified, as the sad, silent child led on the penniless
and low-born adventurer of genius by the squalid shops, and through
the winding lanes, which grew meaner and meaner, till both their forms
vanished from the view.
CHAPTER X.
"But do come; change your dress, return and dine with me; you will
have just time, Harley. You will meet the most eminent men of our
party; surely they are worth your study, philosopher that you affect
to be."
Thus said Audley Egerton to Lord L'Estrange, with whom he had been
riding (after the toils of his office.) The two gentlemen were in
Audley's library. Mr. Egerton, as usual, buttoned up, seated in his
chair, in the erect posture of a man who scorns "inglorious ease."
Harley, as usual, thrown at length on a sofa, his long hair in
careless curls, his neckcloth loose, his habiliments flowing--_simplex
munditiis_, indeed--his grace all his own; seemingly negligent, never
slovenly; at ease every where and with every one, even with Mr. Audley
Egerton, who chilled or awed the ease out of most people.
"Nay, my dear Audley, forgive me. But your eminent men are all men of
one idea, and that not a diverting one--politics! politics! politics!
The storm in the saucer."
"But what is your life, Harley?--the saucer without the storm?"
"Do you know, that's very well said, Audley? I did not think you had
so much liveliness of repartee. Life--life! it is insipid, it is
shallow. No launching Argosies in the saucer. Audley, I have the
oddest fancy--"
"_That_ of course," said Audley drily; "you never have any other. What
is the new one?"
_Harley_, (with great gravity.)--"Do you believe in Mesmerism?"
_Audley._--"Certainly not."
_Harley._--"If it were in the power of an animal magnetizer to get me
out of my own skin into somebody else's! _That's_ my fancy! I am so
tired of myself--so tired! I have run through all my ideas--know every
one of them by heart; when some pretentious imposter of an idea perks
itself up and says, 'Look at me, I'm a new acquaintance'--I just give
it a nod, and say, 'Not at all, you have only got a new coat on; you
are the same old wretch that has bored me these last twenty years; get
away.' But if one could be in a new skin! if I could be for half an
hour your tall porter, or one of your eminent matter-of-fact men, I
should then really travel into a new world.[9] Every man's brain must
be a world in itself, eh? If I could but make a parochial settlement
even in yours, Audley--run over all your thoughts and sensations. Upon
my life, I'll go and talk to that French mesmerizer about it."
_Audley_, (who does not seem to like the notion of having his thoughts
and sensations rummaged even by his friend, and even in
fancy.)--"Pooh, pooh, pooh! Do talk like a man of sense."
_Harley._--"Man of sense! Where shall I find a model! I don't know a
man of sense!--never met such a creature. Don't believe it ever
existed. At one time I thought Socrates must have been a man of
sense;--a delusion; he would stand gazing into the air, and talking to
his Genius from sunrise to sunset. Is that like a man of sense? Poor
Audley, how puzzled he looks! Well, I'll try and talk sense to oblige
you. And first, (here Harley raised himself on his elbow)--first, is
it true, as I have heard vaguely, that you are paying court to the
sister of that infamous Italian traitor?"
"Madame di Negra? No; I am not paying _court_ to her," answered Audley
with a cold smile. "But she is very handsome; she is very clever; she
is useful to me--I need not say how or why; that belongs to my
_métier_ as politician. But, I think, if you will take my advice, or
get your friend to take it, I could obtain from her brother, through
my influence with her, some liberal concessions to your exile. She is
very anxious to know where he is."
"You have not told her?"
"No; I promised you I would keep that secret."
"Be sure you do; it is only for some mischief, some snare, that she
could desire such information. Concessions! pooh! This is no question
of concessions, but of rights."
"I think you should leave your friend to judge of that."
"Well, I will write to him. Meanwhile, beware of this woman. I have
heard much of her abroad, and she has the character of her brother for
duplicity and--"
"Beauty," interrupted Audley, turning the conversation with practised
adroitness. "I am told that the Count is one of the handsomest men in
Europe, much handsomer than his sister still, though nearly twice her
age. Tut--tut--Harley! fear not for me. I am proof against all
feminine attractions. This heart is dead."
"Nay, nay; it is not for you to speak thus--leave that to me. But even
_I_ will not say it. The heart never dies. And you; what have you
lost?--a wife; true: an excellent noble-hearted woman. But was it love
that you felt for her? Enviable man, have you ever loved?"
"Perhaps not, Harley," said Audley, with a sombre aspect, and in
dejected accents; "very few men ever have loved, at least as you mean
by the word. But there are other passions than love that kill the
heart, and reduce us to mechanism."
While Egerton spoke, Harley turned aside, and his breast heaved. There
was a short silence. Audley was the first to break it.
"Speaking of my lost wife, I am sorry that you do not approve what I
have done for her young kinsman, Randal Leslie."
_Harley_, (recovering himself with an effort.)--"Is it true kindness
to bid him exchange manly independence for the protection of an
official patron?"
_Audley._--"I did not bid him. I gave him his choice. At his age I
should have chosen as he has done."
_Harley._--"I trust not; I think better of you. But answer me one
question frankly, and then I will ask another. Do you mean to make
this young man your heir?"
_Audley_, (with a slight embarrassment.)--"Heir, pooh! I am young
still. I may live as long as he--time enough to think of that."
_Harley._--"Then now to my second question. Have you told this youth
plainly that he may look to you for influence, but not for wealth?"
_Audley_, (firmly.)--"I think I have; but I shall repeat it more
emphatically."
_Harley._--"Then I am satisfied as to your conduct, but not as to his.
For he has too acute an intellect not to know what it is to forfeit
independence; and, depend upon it, he has made his calculations, and
would throw you into the bargain in any balance that he could strike
in his favor. You go by your experience in judging men--I by my
instincts. Nature warns us as it does the inferior animals--only we
are too conceited, we bipeds, to heed her. My instincts of soldier and
gentleman recoil from the old young man. He has the soul of the
Jesuit. I see it in his eye--I hear it in the tread of his foot;
_volto sciolto_, he has not; _i pensieri stretti_ he has. Hist! I hear
now his step in the hall. I should know it from a thousand. That's his
very touch on the handle of the door."
Randal Leslie entered. Harley--who, despite his disregard for forms
and his dislike to Randal, was too high-bred not to be polite to his
junior in age or inferior in rank--rose and bowed. But his bright
piercing eyes did not soften as they caught and bore down the deeper
and more latent fire in Randal's. Harley then did not resume his seat,
but moved to the mantel-piece, and leant against it.
_Randal._--"I have fulfilled your commissions, Mr. Egerton. I went
first to Maida Hill, and saw Mr. Burley. I gave him the check, but he
said it was too much, and he should return half to the banker; he will
write the article as you suggested. I then--"
_Audley._--"Enough, Randal. We will not fatigue Lord L'Estrange with
these little details of a life that displeases him--the life
political."
_Harley._--"But _these_ details do not displease me--they reconcile me
to my own life. Go on, pray, Mr. Leslie."
Randal had too much tact to need the cautioning glance of Mr. Egerton.
He did not continue, but said, with a soft voice, "Do you think, Lord
L'Estrange, that the contemplation of the mode of life pursued by
others _can_ reconcile a man to his own, if he had before thought it
needed a reconciler?"
Harley looked pleased, for the question was ironical; and, if there
was a thing in the world he abhorred, it was flattery.
"Recollect your Lucretius, Mr. Leslie, _Suave mare_, &c., 'pleasant
from the cliff to see the mariners tossed on the ocean.' Faith, I
think that sight reconciles one to the cliff--though, before, one
might have been teased by the splash from the spray, and deafened by
the scream of the sea-gulls. But I leave you, Audley. Strange that I
have heard no more of my soldier. Remember I have your promise when I
come to claim it. Good-bye, Mr. Leslie, I hope that Mr. Burley's
article will be worth the--check."
Lord L'Estrange mounted his horse, which was still at the door, and
rode through the Park. But he was no longer now unknown by sight. Bows
and nods saluted him on every side.
"Alas, I am found out, then," said he to himself. "That terrible
Duchess of Knaresborough, too--I must fly my country." He pushed his
horse into a canter, and was soon out of the Park. As he dismounted at
his father's sequestered house, you would have hardly supposed him the
same whimsical, fantastic, but deep and subtle humorist that delighted
in perplexing the material Audley. For his expressive face was
unutterably serious. But the moment he came into the presence of his
parents, the countenance was again lighted and cheerful. It brightened
the whole room like sunshine.
CHAPTER XI.
"Mr. Leslie," said Egerton, when Harley had left the library, "you did
not act with your usual discretion in touching upon matters connected
with politics in the presence of a third party."
"I feel that already, sir. My excuse is, that I held Lord L'Estrange
to be your most intimate friend."
"A public man, Mr. Leslie, would ill serve his country if he were not
especially reserved towards his private friends,--when they do not
belong to his party."
"But, pardon me my ignorance: Lord Lansmere is so well known to be one
of your supporters that I fancied his son must share his sentiments,
and be in your confidence."
Egerton's brows slightly contracted, and gave a stern expression to a
countenance always firm and decided. He however answered in a mild
tone.
"At the entrance into political life, Mr. Leslie, there is nothing in
which a young man of your talents should be more on his guard than
thinking for himself. He will nearly always think wrong. And I believe
that is one reason why young men of talent disappoint their friends,
and--remain so long out of office."
A haughty flush passed over Randal's brow, and faded away quickly. He
bowed in silence.
Egerton resumed, as if in explanation, and even in kindly apology--
"Look at Lord L'Estrange himself. What young man could come into life
with brighter auspices? Rank, wealth, high animal spirits, (a great
advantage those same spirits, Mr. Leslie,) courage, self-possession,
scholarship as brilliant perhaps as your own; and now see how his life
is wasted! Why! He always thought fit to think for himself. He could
never be broken into harness, and never will be. The state coach, Mr.
Leslie, requires that all the horses should pull together."
"With submission, sir," answered Randal, "I should think that there
were other reasons why Lord L'Estrange, whatever be his talents--and
indeed of these you must be an adequate judge--would never do any
thing in public life."
"Ay, and what?" said Egerton, quickly.
"First," said Randal, shrewdly, "private life has done too much for
him. What could public life give to one who needs nothing? Born at the
top of the social ladder, why should he put himself voluntarily at the
last step, for the sake of climbing up again! And secondly, Lord
L'Estrange seems to me a man in whose organization _sentiment_ usurps
too large a share for practical existence."
"You have a keen eye," said Audley, with some admiration; "keen for
one so young. Poor Harley!"
Mr. Egerton's last words were said to himself. He resumed quickly--
"There is something on my mind, my young friend. Let us be frank with
each other. I placed before you fairly the advantages and
disadvantages of the choice I gave you. To take your degree with such
honors as no doubt you would have won, to obtain your fellowship, to
go to the bar, with those credentials in favor of your talents--this
was one career. To come at once into public life, to profit by my
experience, avail yourself of my interest, to take the chances of or
fall with a party--this was another. You chose the last. But, in so
doing, there was a consideration which might weigh with you; and on
which, in stating your reasons for your option, you were silent."
"What's that, sir?"
"You might have counted on my fortune should the chances of party fail
you;--speak--and without shame if so; it would be natural in a young
man, who comes from the elder branch of the house whose heiress was my
wife."
"You wound me, Mr. Egerton," said Randal, turning away.
Mr. Egerton's cold glance followed Randal's movement; the face was hid
from the glance--it rested on the figure, which is often as
self-betraying as the countenance itself. Randal baffled Mr. Egerton's
penetration--the young man's emotion might be honest pride, and pained
and generous feeling; or it might be something else. Egerton continued
slowly.
"Once for all then, distinctly and emphatically, I say--never count
upon that; count upon all else that I can do for you, and forgive me,
when I advise harshly or censure coldly; ascribe this to my interest
in your career. Moreover, before decision becomes irrevocable, I wish
you to know practically all that is disagreeable or even humiliating
in the first subordinate steps of him who, without wealth or station,
would rise in public life. I will not consider your choice settled,
till the end of a year at least--your name will be kept on the college
books till then; if, on experience, you should prefer to return to
Oxford, and pursue the slower but surer path to independence and
distinction, you can. And now give me your hand, Mr. Leslie, in sign
that you forgive my bluntness;--it is time to dress."
Randal, with his face still averted, extended his hand. Mr. Egerton
held it a moment, then dropping it, left the room. Randal turned as
the door closed. And there was in his dark face a power of sinister
passion, that justified all Harley's warnings. His lips moved, but not
audibly; then, as if struck by a sudden thought, he followed Egerton
into the Hall.
"Sir," said he, "I forgot to say that on returning from Maida Hill, I
took shelter from the rain under a covered passage, and there I met
unexpectedly with your nephew, Frank Hazeldean."
"Ah!" said Egerton indifferently, "a fine young man; in the Guards. It
is a pity that my brother has such antiquated political notions; he
should put his son into parliament, and under my guidance; I could
push him. Well, and what said Frank?"
"He invited me to call on him. I remember that you once rather
cautioned me against too intimate an acquaintance with those who have
not got their fortune to make."
"Because they are idle, and idleness is contagious. Right--better not
be intimate with a young Guardsman."
"Then you would not have me call on him, sir? We were rather friends
at Eton; and if I wholly reject his overtures, might he not think that
you--"
"I!" interrupted Egerton. "Ah, true; my brother might think I bore him
a grudge; absurd. Call then, and ask the young man here. Yet still, I
do not advise intimacy."
Egerton turned into his dressing-room. "Sir," said his valet, who was
in waiting, "Mr. Levy is here--he says, by appointment; and Mr.
Grinders is also just come from the country."
"Tell Mr. Grinders to come in first," said Egerton, seating himself.
"You need not wait; I can dress without you. Tell Mr. Levy I will see
him in five minutes."
Mr. Grinders was steward to Audley Egerton.
Mr. Levy was a handsome man, who wore a camelia in his
button-hole--drove, in his cabriolet, a high stepping horse that had
cost £200: was well known to young men of fashion, and considered by
their fathers a very dangerous acquaintance.
CHAPTER XII.
As the company assembled in the drawing-rooms, Mr. Egerton introduced
Randal Leslie to his eminent friends in a way that greatly contrasted
the distant and admonitory manner which he had exhibited to him in
private. The presentation was made with that cordiality, and that
gracious respect by which those who are in station command notice for
those who have their station yet to win.
"My dear Lord, let me introduce to you a kinsman of my late wife's (in
a whisper)--the heir to the elder branch of her family. Stranmore,
this is Mr. Leslie, of whom I spoke to you. You, who were so
distinguished at Oxford, will not like him the worse for the prizes he
gained there. Duke, let me present to you, Mr. Leslie. The duchess is
angry with me for deserting her balls; I shall hope to make my peace,
by providing myself with a younger and livelier substitute. Ah, Mr.
Howard, here is a young gentleman just fresh from Oxford, who will
tell us all about the new sect springing up there. He has not wasted
his time on billiards and horses."
Leslie was received with all that charming courtesy which is the _To
Kalon_ of an aristocracy.
After dinner, conversation settled on politics. Randal listened with
attention and in silence, till Egerton drew him gently out; just
enough, and no more--just enough to make his intelligence evident,
without subjecting him to the charge of laying down the law. Egerton
knew how to draw out young men--a difficult art. It was one reason why
he was so peculiarly popular with the more rising members of his
party.
The party broke up early.
"We are in time for Almack's," said Egerton, glancing at the clock,
"and I have a voucher for you; come."
Randal followed his patron into the carriage. By the way, Egerton thus
addressed him--
"I shall introduce you to the principal leaders of society; know them
and study them; I do not advise you to attempt to do more--that is, to
attempt to become the fashion. It is a very expensive ambition; some
men it helps, most men it ruins. On the whole, you have better cards
in your hands. Dance or not, as it pleases you--don't flirt. If you
flirt, people will inquire into your fortune--an inquiry that will do
you little good; and flirting entangles a young man into marrying.
That would never do. Here we are."
In two minutes more they were in the great ball-room, and Randal's
eyes were dazzled with the lights, the diamonds, the blaze of beauty.
Audley presented him in quick succession to some dozen ladies, and
then disappeared amidst the crowd. Randal was not at a loss; he was
without shyness; or if he had that disabling infirmity, he concealed
it. He answered the languid questions put to him, with a certain
spirit that kept up talk, and left a favorable impression of his
agreeable qualities. But the lady with whom he got on the best, was
one who had no daughters out, a handsome and witty woman of the
world--Lady Frederick Coniers.
"It is your first ball at Almack's, then, Mr. Leslie?"
"My first."
"And you have not secured a partner? Shall I find you one? What do you
think of that pretty girl in pink?"
"I see her--but I cannot _think_ of her."
"You are rather, perhaps, like a diplomatist in a new court, and your
first object is to know who is who."
"I confess that on beginning to study the history of my own day, I
should like to distinguish the portraits that illustrate the memoir."
"Give me your arm, then, and we will come into the next room. We shall
see the different _notabilités_ enter one by one, and observe without
being observed. This is the least I can do for a friend of Mr.
Egerton's."
"Mr. Egerton, then," said Randal,--(as they threaded their way through
the space without the rope that protected the dancers)--"Mr. Egerton
has had the good fortune to win your esteem, even for his friends,
however obscure?"
"Why, to say truth, I think no one whom Mr. Egerton calls his friend
need long remain obscure, if he has the ambition to be otherwise. For
Mr. Egerton holds it a maxim never to forget a friend, nor a service."
"Ah, indeed!" said Randal, surprised.
"And, therefore," continued Lady Frederick, "as he passes through
life, friends gather round him. He will rise even higher yet.
Gratitude, Mr. Leslie, is a very good policy."
"Hem," muttered Mr. Leslie.
They had now gained the room where tea and bread and butter were the
homely refreshments to the _habitués_ of what at that day was the most
exclusive assembly in London. They ensconced themselves in a corner by
a window, and Lady Frederick performed her task of cicerone with
lively ease, accompanying each notice of the various persons who
passed panoramically before them with sketch and anecdote, sometimes
good-natured, generally satirical, always graphic and amusing.
By-and-by Frank Hazeldean, having on his arm a young lady of haughty
air, and with high though delicate features, came to the tea-table.
"The last new Guardsman," said Lady Frederick; "very handsome, and not
yet quite spoiled. But he has got into a dangerous set."
_Randal._--"The young lady with him is handsome enough to be
dangerous."
_Lady Frederick_, (laughing.)--"No danger for him there,--as yet at
least. Lady Mary (the duke of Knaresborough's daughter) is only in her
second. The first year, nothing under an earl; the second, nothing
under a baron. It will be full four years before she comes down to a
commoner. Mr. Hazeldean's danger is of another kind. He lives much
with men who are not exactly _mauvais ton_, but certainly not of the
best taste. Yet he is very young; he may extricate himself--leaving
half his fortune behind him. What, he nods to you! You know him?"
"Very well; he is nephew to Mr. Egerton."
"Indeed! I did not know that. Hazeldean is a new name in London. I
heard his father was a plain country gentleman, of good fortune, but
not that he was related to Mr. Egerton."
"Half-brother."
"Will Mr. Egerton pay the young gentleman's debts? He has no sons
himself."
_Randal._--"Mr. Egerton's fortune comes from his wife, from my
family--from a Leslie, not from a Hazeldean."
Lady Frederick turned sharply, looked at Randal's countenance with
more attention than she had yet vouchsafed to it, and tried to talk of
the Leslies. Randal was very short there.
An hour afterwards, Randal, who had not danced, was still in the
refreshment room, but Lady Frederick had long quitted him. He was
talking with some old Etonians who had recognized him, when there
entered a lady of very remarkable appearance, and a murmur passed
through the room as she appeared.
She might be three or four and twenty. She was dressed in black
velvet, which contrasted with the alabaster whiteness of her throat
and the clear paleness of her complexion, while it set off the
diamonds with which she was profusely covered. Her hair was of the
deepest jet, and worn simply braided. Her eyes, too, were dark and
brilliant, her features regular and striking; but their expression,
when in repose, was not prepossessing to such as love modesty and
softness in the looks of woman. But when she spoke and smiled, there
was so much spirit and vivacity in the countenance, so much
fascination in the smile, that all which might before have marred the
effect of her beauty, strangely and suddenly disappeared.
"Who is that very handsome woman?" asked Randal.
"An Italian--a Marchesa something," said one of the Etonians.
"Di Negra," suggested another, who had been abroad; "she is a widow;
her husband was of the great Genoese family of Negra--a younger branch
of it."
Several men now gathered thickly around the fair Italian. A few ladies
of the highest rank spoke to her, but with a more distant courtesy
than ladies of high rank usually show to foreigners of such quality as
Madame di Negra. Ladies of a rank less elevated seemed rather shy of
her;--that might be from jealousy. As Randall gazed at the Marchesa
with more admiration than any woman, perhaps, had before excited in
him, he heard a voice near him say--
"Oh, Madame di Negra is resolved to settle amongst us, and marry an
Englishman."
"If she can find one sufficiently courageous," returned a female
voice.
"Well, she is trying hard for Egerton, and he has courage enough for
any thing."
The female voice replied with a laugh, "Mr. Egerton knows the world
too well, and has resisted too many temptations, to be--"
"Hush!--there he is."
Egerton came into the room with his usual firm step and erect mien.
Randal observed that a quick glance was exchanged between him and the
Marchesa; but the Minister passed her by with a bow.
Still Randal watched, and, ten minutes afterwards, Egerton and the
Marchesa were seated apart in the very same convenient nook that
Randal and Lady Frederick had occupied an hour or so before.
"Is this the reason why Mr. Egerton so insultingly warns me against
counting on his fortune?" muttered Randal. "Does he mean to marry
again?"
Unjust suspicion!--for, at that moment these were the words that
Audley Egerton was dropping forth from his lips of bronze--
"Nay, dear Madam, do not ascribe to my frank admiration more gallantry
that it merits. Your conversation charms me, your beauty delights me;
your society is as a holiday that I look forward to in the fatigues of
my life. But I have done with love, and I shall never marry again."
"You almost pique me into trying to win, in order to reject you," said
the Italian, with a flash from her bright eyes.
"I defy even you," answered Audley, with his cold hard smile. "But to
return to the point: You have more influence at least over this subtle
Ambassador; and the secret we speak of I rely on you to obtain me. Ah,
Madam, let us rest friends. You see I have conquered the unjust
prejudice against you; you are received and _fêted_ every where, as
becomes your birth and your attractions. Rely on me ever, as I on you.
But I shall excite too much envy if I stay here longer, and am vain
enough to think that I may injure you if I provoke the gossip of the
ill-natured. As the avowed friend, I can serve you--as the supposed
lover, No--" Audley rose, as he said this, and, standing by the chair,
added carelessly, "Apropos, the sum you do me the honor to borrow will
be paid to your bankers to-morrow."
"A thousand thanks!--my brother will hasten to repay you."
Audley bowed. "Your brother, I hope, will repay me in person, not
before. When does he come?"
"Oh, he has again postponed his visit _to_ London; he is so much
needed in Vienna. But while we are talking of him, allow me to ask if
Lord L'Estrange is indeed still so bitter against that poor brother of
mine?"
"Still the same!"
"It is shameful," cried the Italian with warmth; "what has my brother
ever done to him, that he should intrigue against the Count in his own
court?"
"Intrigue! I think you wrong Lord L'Estrange; he but represented what
he believed to be the truth, in defence of a ruined exile."
"And you will not tell me where that exile is, or if his daughter
still lives?"
"My dear Marchesa, I have called you friend, therefore, I will not aid
L'Estrange to injure you or yours. But I call L'Estrange a friend
also; and I cannot violate the trust that--" Audley stopped short, and
bit his lip. "You understand me," he resumed, with a genial smile, and
took his leave.
The Italian's brows met as her eye followed him; then, as she too
rose, that eye encountered Randal's. Each surveyed the other--each
felt a certain strange fascination--a sympathy--not of affection, but
of intellect.
"That young man has the eye of an Italian," said the Marchesa to
herself; and as she passed by him into the ball-room, she turned and
smiled.
FOOTNOTES:
[8] Continued from page 557, vol. iii.
[9] If, at the date in which Lord L'Estrange held this conversation
with Mr. Egerton, Alfred de Musset had written his comedies, we should
suspect that his lordship had plagiarized from one of them the
whimsical idea that he here vents upon Audley. In repeating it, the
author at least cannot escape from the charge of obligation to a
writer whose humor, at least, is sufficiently opulent to justify the
loan.
From the London Examiner.
IMAGINARY CONVERSATION AT WARSAW.
NICHOLAS AND NESSELRODE.
BY WALTER SAVAGE LANDOR.
_Nicholas._--God fights for us visibly. You look grave, Nesselrode! is
it not so? Speak, and plainly.
_Nesselrode._--Sire, in my humble opinion, God never fights at all.
_Nicholas._--Surely he fought for Israel, when he was invoked by
prayer.
_Nesselrode._--Sire, I am no theologian; and I fancy I must be a bad
geographer, since I never knew of a nation which was not Israel when
it had a mind to shed blood and to pray. To fight is an exertion, is
violence; the Deity in His omnipotence needs none. He has devils and
men always in readiness for fighting; and they are the instruments of
their own punishment for their past misdeeds.
_Nicholas._--The chariots of God are numbered by thousands in the
volumes of the Psalmist.
_Nesselrode._--No psalmist, or engineer, or commissary, or
arithmetician, could enumerate the beasts that are harnessed to them,
or the fiends that urge them on.
_Nicholas._--Nesselrode! you grow more and more serious.
_Nesselrode._--Age, sire, even without wisdom, makes men serious
whether they are inclined or not. I could hardly have been so long
conversant in the affairs of mankind (all which in all quarters your
majesty superintends and directs) without much cause for seriousness.
_Nicholas._--I feel the consciousness of Supreme Power, but I also
feel the necessity of subordinate help.
_Nesselrode._--Your majesty is the first monarch, since the earlier
Cæsars of Imperial Rome, who could control, directly or indirectly,
every country in our hemisphere, and thereby in both.
_Nicholas._--There are some who do not see this.
_Nesselrode._--There were some, and they indeed the most acute and
politic of mankind, who could not see the power of the Macedonian king
until he showed his full height upon the towers of Cheronoea. There
are some at this moment in England who disregard the admonitions of
the most wary and experienced general of modern times, and listen in
preference to babblers holding forth on economy and peace from
slippery sacks of cotton and wool.
_Nicholas._--Hush! hush! these are our men; what should we do without
them? A single one of them in the parliament or town-hall is worth to
me a regiment of cuirassiers. These are the true bullets with conical
heads which carry far and sure. Hush! hush!
_Nesselrode._--They do not hear us: they do not hear Wellington: they
would not hear Nelson were he living.
_Nicholas._--No other man that ever lived, having the same power in
his hands, would have endured with the same equanimity as Wellington,
the indignities he suffered in Portugal; superseded in the hour of
victory by two generals, one upon another, like marsh frogs; people of
no experience, no ability. He might have become king of Portugal by
compromise, and have added Gallicia and Biscay.
_Nesselrode._--The English, out of parliament, are delicate and
fastidious. He would have thought it dishonorable to profit by the
indignation of his army in the field, and of his countrymen at home.
Certainty that Bonaparte would attempt to violate any engagement with
him might never enter into the computation; for Bonaparte could less
easily drive him again out of Portugal than he could drive the usurper
out of Spain. We ourselves should have assisted him actively; so would
the Americans; for every naval power would be prompt at diminishing
the preponderance of the English. Practicability was here with
Wellington; but, endowed with it a keener and a longer foresight than
any of his contemporaries, he held in prospective the glory that
awaited him, and felt conscious that to be the greatest man in England
is somewhat more than to be the greatest in Portugal. He is
universally called _the_ duke; to the extinction or absorption of that
dignity over all the surface of the earth: in Portugal he could only
be called king of Portugal.
_Nicholas._--Faith! that is little: it was not overmuch even before
the last accession. I admire his judgment and moderation. The English
are abstinent: they rein in their horses where the French make them
fret and curvett. It displeases me to think it possible that a subject
should ever become a sovran. We were angry with the Duke of Sudermania
for raising a Frenchman to that dignity in Sweden, although we were
willing that Gustavus, for offences and affronts to our family, should
be chastized, and even expelled. Here was a bad precedent. Fortunately
the boldest soldiers dismount from their chargers at some distance
from the throne. What withholds them?
_Nesselrode._--Spells are made of words. The word _service_ among the
military has great latent negative power. All modern nations, even the
free, employ it.
_Nicholas._--An excellent word indeed! It shows the superiority of
modern languages over ancient; Christian ideas over pagan; living
similitudes of God over bronze and marble. What an escape had England
from her folly, perversity, and injustice! Her admirals had the same
wrongs to avenge: her fleets would have anchored in Ferrol and Coruna;
thousands of volunteers from every part of both islands would have
assembled round the same standard; and both Indies would have bowed
before the conqueror. Who knows but that Spain herself might have
turned to the same quarter, from the idiocy of Ferdinand, the
immorality of Joseph, and the perfidy of Napoleon?
_Nesselrode._--England seems to invite and incite, not only her
colonies, but her commanders, to insurrection. Nelson was treated even
more ignominiously than Wellington. A man equal in abilities and in
energy to either met with every affront from the East India Company.
After two such victories in succession as the Duke himself declared
before the Lords that he had never known or read of, he was removed
from the command of his army, and a general by whose rashness it was
decimated was raised to the peerage. If Wellington could with safety
have seized the supreme power in Portugal, Napier could with greater
have accomplished it in India. The distance from home was farther; the
army more confident; the allies more numerous, more unanimous. One
avenger of _their_ wrongs would have found a million avengers of
_his_. Affghanistan, Cabul, and Scinde, would have united their
acclamations on the Ganges: songs of triumph, succeeded by songs of
peace, would have been chanted at Delhi, and have re-echoed at
Samarcand.
_Nicholas._--I am desirous that Persia and India should pour their
treasures into my dominions. The English are so credulous as to
believe that I intend, or could accomplish, the conquest of Hindostan.
I want only the commerce; and I hope to share it with the Americans;
not I indeed, but my successors. The possession of California has
opened the Pacific and the Indian seas to the Americans, who must,
within the life-time of some now born, predominate in both. Supposing
that emigrants to the amount of only a quarter of a million settle in
the United States every year, within a century from the present day,
their population must exceed three hundred millions. It will not
extend from pole to pole, only because there will be room enough
without it.
_Nesselrode._--Religious wars, the most sanguinary of any, are stifled
in the fields of agriculture; creeds are thrown overboard by commerce.
_Nicholas._--Theological questions come at last to be decided by the
broadsword; and the best artillery brings forward the best arguments.
Montecuculi and Wallenstein were irrefragable doctors. Saint Peter was
commanded to put up his sword; but the ear was cut off first.
_Nesselrode._--The blessed saint's escape from capital punishment,
after this violence, is among the greatest of miracles. Perhaps there
may be a perplexity in the text. Had he committed so great a crime
against a person so highly protected as one in the high-priest's
household, he never would have lived long enough to be crucified at
Rome, but would have carried his cross up to Calvary three days after
the offence. The laws of no country would tolerate it.
_Nicholas._--How did he ever get to Rome at all? He must have been
conveyed by an angel, or have slipt on a sudden into a railroad train,
purposely and for the nonce provided. There is a controversy at the
present hour about his delegated authority, and it appears to be next
to certain that he never was in the capital of the west. It is my
interest to find it decided in the negative. Successors to the
emperors of the east, who sanctioned and appointed the earliest popes,
as the bishops of Rome are denominated, I may again at my own good
time claim the privilege and prerogative. The cardinals and their
subordinates are extending their claws in all directions: we must
throw these crabs upon their backs again.
_Nesselrode._--Some among the Italians, and chiefly among the Romans,
are venturing to express an opinion that there would be less of false
religion, and more of true, if no priest of any description were left
upon earth.
_Nicholas._--Horrible! unless are exempted those of the venerable
Greek church. All others worship graven images: we stick to pictures.
_Nesselrode._--One scholar mentioned, not without an air of derision,
that a picture had descended from heaven recently on the coast of
Italy.
_Nicholas._--Framed? varnisht? under glass? on panel? on canvas? What
like?
_Nesselrode._--The Virgin Mary, whatever made of.
_Nicholas._--She must be ours then. She missed her road: she never
would have taken her place among stocks and stones and blind
worshipers. Easterly winds must have blown her toward a pestilential
city, where at every street-corner is very significantly inscribed its
true name at full length, _Immondezzaio_. But I hope I am guilty of no
profaneness or infidelity when I express a doubt if every picture of
the Blessed Virgin is sentient; most are; perhaps not every one. If
they want her in England, as they seem to do, let them have her ...
unless it is the one that rolls the eyes: in that case I must claim
her: she is too precious by half for papist or tractarian. I must
order immediately these matters. No reasonable doubt can be
entertained that I am the visible head of Christ's church. Theologians
may be consulted in regard to St. Peter, and may discover a manuscript
at Novgorod, stating his martyrdom there, and proving his will and
signature.
_Nesselrode._--Theologians may find perhaps in the _Revelations_ some
Beast foreshadowing your Majesty.
_Nicholas._--How? sir! how?
_Nesselrode._--Emperors and kings, we are taught, are designated as
great beasts in the Holy Scriptures ... (_Aside_) ... and elsewhere.
SECOND CONVERSATION.
_Nicholas._--We have disposed of our brother, his Prussian Majesty,
who appeared to be imprest by the apprehension that a portion of his
dominions was in jeopardy.
_Nesselrode._--Possibly the scales of Europe are yet to be adjusted.
_Nicholas._--When the winds blow high they must waver. Against the
danger of contingencies, and in readiness to place my finger on the
edge of one or other, it is my intention to spend in future a good
part of my time at Warsaw, that city being so nearly central in my
dominions. Good Nesselrode! there should have been a poet near you to
celebrate the arching of your eyebrows. They suddenly dropt down again
under the horizontal line of your Emperor's. Nobody ever stared in my
presence; but I really do think you were upon the verge of it when I
inadvertently said _dominions_ instead of _dependencies_. Well, well:
dependencies are dominions; and of all dominions they require the
least trouble.
_Nesselrode._--Your Majesty has found no difficulty with any,
excepting the Circassians.
_Nicholas._--The Circassians are the Normans of Asia; equally brave,
more generous, more chivalrous. I am no admirer of military trinkets;
but I have been surprised at the beauty of their chain-armor, the
temper of their swords, the richness of hilt, and the gracefulness of
baldric.
_Nesselrode._--It is a pity they are not Christians and subjects of
your Majesty.
_Nicholas._--If they would become my subjects, I would let them, as I
have let other Mahometans, become Christians at their leisure. We must
brigade them before baptism.
_Nesselrode._--It is singular that this necessity never struck those
religious men who are holding peace conferences in various parts of
Europe.
_Nicholas._--One of them, I remember, tried to persuade the people of
England that if the bankers of London would negotiate no loan with me
I could carry on no war.
_Nesselrode._--Wonderful! how ignorant are monied men of money
matters. Your Majesty was graciously pleased to listen to my advice
when hostilities seemed inevitable. I was desirous of raising the
largest loan possible, that none should be forthcoming to the urgency
of others. At that very moment your Majesty had in your coffers more
than sufficient for the additional expenditure of three campaigns.
Well may your Majesty smile at this computation, and at the blindness
that suggested it. For never will your Majesty send an army into any
part of Europe which shall not maintain itself there by its own
prowess. Your cavalry will seize all the provisions that are not
stored up within the fortresses; and in every army those are to be
found who for a few thousand roubles are ready to blow up their
ammunition-wagons. We know by name almost every discontented man in
Europe.
_Nicholas._--To obtain this information, my yearly expenses do not
exceed the revenues of half a dozen English bishops. Every
_table-d'hôte_ on the continent, you tell me, has one daily guest sent
by me. Ladies in the higher circles have taken my presents and
compliments, part in diamonds and part in smiles. An emperor's smiles
are as valuable to them as theirs are to a cornet of dragoons. Spare
nothing in the boudoir and you spare much in the field.
_Nesselrode._--Such appears to have been the invariable policy of the
Empress Catharine, now with God.
_Nicholas._--My father of glorious memory was less observant of it. He
had prejudices and dislikes; he expected to find every body a
gentleman, even kings and ministers. If they were so, how could he
have hoped to sway them? and how to turn them from the strait road
into his?
_Nesselrode._--Your Majesty is far above the influence of antipathies;
but I have often heard your Majesty express your hatred, and sometimes
your contempt, of Bonaparte.
_Nicholas._--I hated him for his insolence, and I despised him alike
for his cowardice and falsehood. Shame is the surest criterion of
humanity. When one is wanting, the other is. The beasts never indicate
shame in a state of nature; in society some of them acquire it;
Bonaparte not. He neither blushed at repudiating a modest woman, nor
at supplanting her by an immodest one. Holding a pistol to the
father's ear, he ordered him to dismount from his carriage; to deliver
up his ring, his watch, his chain, his seal, his knee-buckle;
stripping off galloon from trouser, and presently trouser too: caught,
pinioned, sentenced, he fell on both knees in the mud, and implored
this poor creature's intercession to save him from the hangman. He
neither blushed at the robbery of a crown nor at the fabrication of
twenty. He was equally ungrateful in public life and in private. He
banished Barras, who promoted and protected him: he calumniated the
French admiral, whose fleet for his own safety he detained on the
shores of Egypt, and the English admiral who defeated him in Syria
with a tenth of his force. Baffled as he often was, and at last
fatally, and admirably as in many circumstances he knew how to be a
general, never in any did he know how to be a gentleman. He was fond
of displaying the picklock keys whereby he found entrance into our
cabinets, and of twitching the ears of his accomplices.
_Nesselrode._--Certainly he was less as an emperor than as a soldier.
_Nicholas._--Great generals may commit grievous and disastrous
mistakes, but never utterly ruinous. Charles V., Gustavus Adolphus,
Peter the Great, Frederic of Prussia, Prince Eugene, Marlborough,
William, Wellington, kept their winnings, and never hazarded the last
crown-piece. Bonaparte, when he had swept the tables, cried _double or
quits_.
_Nesselrode._--The wheel of Fortune is apt to make men giddier, the
higher it rises and the quicklier it turns: sometimes it drops them on
a barren rock, and sometimes on a treadmill. The nephew is more
prudent than the uncle.
_Nicholas._--You were extremely wise, my dear Nesselrode, in
suggesting our idea to the French President, and in persuading him to
acknowledge in the face of the world that he had been justly
imprisoned by Louis Philippe for attempting to subvert the existing
powers. Frenchmen are taught by this declaration what they may expect
for a similar crime against his own pretensions. We will show our
impartiality by an equal countenance and favor toward all parties. In
different directions all are working out the design of God, and
producing unity of empire "on earth as it is in heaven." Until this
consummation there can never be universal or indeed any lasting peace.
_Nesselrode._--This, lying far remote, I await your Majesty's commands
for what is now before us. Your Majesty was graciously pleased to
express your satisfaction at the manner in which I executed them in
regard to the President of the French Republic.
_Nicholas._--Republic indeed! I have ordered it to be a crime in
France to utter this odious name. President forsooth! we have directed
him hitherto; let him now keep his way. Our object was to stifle the
spirit of freedom: we tossed the handkerchief to him, and he found the
chloroform. Every thing is going on in Europe exactly as I desire; we
must throw nothing in the way to shake the machine off the rail. It is
running at full speed where no whistle can stop it. Every prince is
exasperating his subjects, and exhausting his treasury in order to
keep them under due control. What nation on the continent, mine
excepted, can maintain for two years longer its present war
establishment? And without this engine of coercion what prince can be
the master of his people? England is tranquil at home; can she
continue so when a foreigner would place a tiara over her crown,
telling her who shall teach and what shall be taught. Principally,
that where masses are not said for departed souls, better it would be
that there were no souls at all, since they certainly must be damned.
The school which doubts it is denounced as godless.
_Nesselrode._--England, sire, is indeed tranquil at home; but that
home is a narrow one, and extends not across the Irish channel. Every
colony is dissatisfied and disturbed. No faith has been kept with any
of them by the secretary now in office. At the Cape of Good Hope,
innumerable nations, warlike and well-armed, have risen up
simultaneously against her; and, to say nothing of the massacres in
Ceylon, your Majesty well knows what atrocities her Commissioner has
long exercised in the Seven Isles. England looks on and applauds,
taking a hearty draught of Lethe at every sound of the scourge.
_Nicholas._--Nesselrode! You seem indignant. I see only the cheerful
sparks of a fire at which our dinner is to be dressed; we shall soon
sit down to it; Greece must not call me away until I rise from the
dessert; I will then take my coffee at Constantinople. The crescent
ere long will become the full harvest-moon. Our reapers have already
the sickles in their hands.
_Nesselrode._--England may grumble.
_Nicholas._--So she will. She is as ready now to grumble as she
formerly was to fight. She grumbles too early; she fights too late.
Extraordinary men are the English. They raise the hustings higher than
the throne; and, to make amends, being resolved to build a new palace,
they push it under an old bridge. The Cardinal, in his way to the
Abbey, may in part disrobe at it. Noble vestry-room! where many
habiliments are changed. Capacious dovecote! where carrier-pigeons and
fantails and croppers, intermingled with the more ordinary, bill and
coo, ruffle and smoothen their feathers, and bend their versicolor
necks to the same corn.
From Bentley's Miscellany for July.
LONDON, PARIS, AND NEW-YORK.
Standing in the City Hall, New-York, and drawing from that point a
circle whose radius shall be three miles, we embrace a population of
three-quarters of a million. We say this at the outset, by way of
securing respect for our theme.
New-York is a mere Jonah's gourd or Jack the Giant-killer's beanstalk
compared with London. London was London when St. Paul was a prisoner
in Rome, ten years before the destruction of Jerusalem. Sixteen
hundred years afterwards, when New-York was but just named, London
lost some seventy thousand inhabitants by the plague, and more than
thirteen thousand houses by the Great Fire, and hardly missed them.
Before this period, however, the little Dutch town of Niew Amsterdam,
called by the aborigines Manahatta, or Manhattan, had commenced a
dozing existence, under the government of Walter the Doubter and Peter
the Headstrong, celebrated by that great chronicler, Diedrich
Knickerbocker. Some consider this a mythic period, and class the
legends of Wilhelmus Van Kieft's wisdom, and Peter Stuyvesant's valor,
with the stories of Romulus and Remus, and the Horatii and Curiatii.
But to cast any doubt upon a historian like Knickerbocker--the Grote
of colonial history--at once minute and philosophical, just and
enthusiastic--is surely unwise. His picture of the portly burghers of
Niew Amsterdam, their habits and manners, pursuits, politics, and
laws, is verified by the impress left on their descendants. All the
foreign floods that have swept over the city have not been able to
wash out the footsteps of the original settlers; and Walter the
Doubter and Peter the Headstrong still figure, it is said, in the
Assembly of the City Fathers, though the voluminous nether
habiliments, which characterized them of old, have dwindled to the
modern pantaloon.
Casting our eyes backward for a moment, let us imagine the condition
of things before English innovation had interfered with the quiet
current of Dutch ideas in the metropolis of the West. "The modern
spectator," says our historian, "who wanders through the streets of
this populous city, can scarcely form an idea of their appearance in
the primitive days of the Doubter. The grass grew quietly in the
highways; bleating sheep and frolicksome calves sported about that
verdant ridge where now the Broadway loungers take their morning
stroll. The cunning fox and ravenous wolf skulked in the woods where
now are to be seen the dens of the righteous fraternity of
money-brokers. The houses of the higher class were generally
constructed of wood, excepting the gable end, which was of small black
and yellow Dutch bricks, and always faced the street. The house was
always furnished with abundance of large doors, and small windows on
every floor; the date of its erection was curiously designated by iron
figures on the front, and on the top of the roof was perched a fierce
weathercock, to let the family know which way the wind blew. The front
door was never opened, except on marriages, funerals, New Year's days,
the festival of St. Nicholas, or some such great occasion * * *. A
passion for cleanliness was the leading principle in domestic economy.
The whole house was constantly in a state of inundation, under the
discipline of mops and brooms, and scrubbing-brushes; and the good
housewives of that day were a kind of amphibious animal, delighting
exceedingly to be dabbling in water; insomuch, that many of them grew
to have webbed fingers like a duck. In those happy days a
well-regulated family always rose with the dawn, dined at eleven, and
went to bed at sundown. Fashionable parties were confined to the
higher class, or _noblesse_; that is to say, such as kept their own
cows or drove their own wagons. The company commonly assembled at
three o'clock, and went away about six; unless it was winter-time,
when the fashionable hours were a little earlier, that the ladies
might get home before dark. At these tea-parties the utmost propriety
and dignity of deportment prevailed. No flirting or coquetting; no
gambling of old ladies, nor chattering and romping of young ones; no
self-satisfied strutting of wealthy gentlemen with their brains in
their pockets," &c.
Speaking further of the ladies, Mr. Knickerbocker says: "Their hair,
untortured by the abominations of art, was scrupulously pomatumed back
from their foreheads with a candle, and covered with a little cap of
quilted calico. Their petticoats of linsey-woolsey, were striped with
a variety of gorgeous dyes, and all of their own manufacture. These
were the honest days, in which every woman stayed at home, read the
Bible, and wore pockets, and that too of a goodly size, fashioned with
patch-work of many curious devices, and ostentatiously worn on the
outside. Every good housewife made the clothes of her husband and
family," &c.
Such and so homely was the germ of the present goodly town that sits,
like a queen, throned between two mighty streams, with a magnificent
bay at her feet. Marks of her Dutch origin were numerous a few years
since, and are still to be found, though sparely. Of the national
customs enumerated and described by the veracious Diedrich, we find at
the present day but few. The last of the gable-fronted houses, with
curious steps in the brickwork on the sides of the peak, disappeared
some years since. Calves never frisk in Broadway now, though they
sometimes pass through it tied in carts, in defiance of humanity and
decency. The year of building is no longer written in iron on the
fronts of the houses, for
"Panting Time toils after us in vain,"
and chronology is out of date. Large doors have now large windows to
keep them company, and weather-cocks are rendered unnecessary by the
arrival of vessels from some part of the earth with every wind that
blows. The front door is now opened to every body but the master of
the house, who goes out of it in the morning not to see it again till
evening. The practice of daily inundation is now nearly limited to the
street, since Kidderminster, Brussels, and Wilton, conspire to cover
every inch of floor; but the annual house-cleaning is still in full
vogue, and no amount of slop, discomfort, destruction, and
self-sacrifice, is considered too great in the accomplishment of this
civic festival. As to rising with the dawn, the citizen of to-day
considers breakfast-time daybreak; and the dinner-hour is as various
as the fluctuations of business and pleasure. "Fashionable society"
has, at present, no very decided limits, as few of the inhabitants
keep a cow, and many of the highest pretenders to _bon ton_ do not
drive their own wagons--getting home before dark! New-York ladies make
a point of getting home before light; and if they assemble at three
o'clock it is for a _déjeûner_, or a _matinée dansante_. As for Mr.
Knickerbocker's further characterization of the genteel manners of the
olden time, it would be unhandsome in us to pursue our
counter-picture; but this we will say, in mere justice, and all joking
aside, that there are no gambling ladies in New-York, either young or
old.
Thinking of New-York in her early life, we were about to say that from
1614 to 1674 she was a mere shuttlecock between the Dutch and English;
but the recollection that neither of the contending parties ever
tossed her towards the other, spoiled our figure, and we find her more
like the unfortunate baby whom it took all Solomon's wisdom to save
from utter destruction between rival mothers. The Dutch certainly had
the prior claim; but that circumstance, though something in a case of
maternity, seems far from conclusive in the matter of adoption. The
little Dutch city had accumulated a thousand inhabitants, and wrenched
from the home government leave to govern itself, by the aid of a
schout, burgomasters, and schepens, when King Charles II., of pious
memory, coolly gave a grant of the entire province to his brother
James, Duke of York, who forthwith proved his right (that of the
strongest), and put an English governor in place of Peter Stuyvesant,
called by Knickerbocker, "a tough, valiant, sturdy, weather-beaten,
mettlesome, obstinate, leathern-sided, lion-hearted, generous-spirited
old governor," who nearly burst with rage when obliged to sign the
capitulation, and who finished by dying of sheer mortification on
hearing that the combined English and French fleets had beaten the
Dutch under De Ruyter. Nine years after, the tables were turned, and
Dutch rule once more brought in sour-krout and oly-koeks; but, in
1674, New-York became English by treaty, and so remained until
November, 1783.
Since that epoch, although growth and prosperity have been the general
rule, yet the island city has had her ups and downs, by means of fire,
pestilence, war, embargo, mobs, &c., quite enough to stimulate the
energy of her sons and ripen the wisdom of her councils. In 1825, the
completion of the Erie Canal, which united the Atlantic with the great
lakes, gave a prodigious impulse to trade. In 1832 came the cholera,
threatening utter desolation; and in 1835 a fire, which consumed
property worth twenty millions of dollars. Yet, in 1842, the Great
Aqueduct was finished, at a cost of thirteen million dollars. Thus
much premised, let us look at New-York of to-day.
"She has no time
To looken backe, her eyne be fixed before."
In describing American towns, if we would make our picture a likeness,
we must
"Catch, ere she change, the Cynthia of the minute."
The New-York of 1851 resembles her of fifty years ago scarcely more
than the West End of London resembles Birmingham or Bristol. In 1800,
one might easily believe the old story, that the streets were
originally laid out by the cows, as they went out to pasture and
returned at evening. Streets running in all sorts of curves crossed
each other at all conceivable angles, making a maze without a plan,
through which strangers needed to drop beans, like the children in the
fairy-tale, to avoid being wholly lost. Fortunately, the city is not
very wide, so that Broadway, which always ran lengthwise through the
centre, has served as a tolerable clue from the beginning. Great
sacrifices have been made for the sake of regularity, and there is now
a tolerable degree of it, even in the old, or south part of the city,
cross streets running from Broadway to either river with an approach
to parallelism. In the early time, the town presented no bad
resemblance in shape to the phenomenon called a "mackerel sky,"
Broadway representing the spine, and the streets running to either
river the ribs, while northward and southward was a tapering off; on
the south, where the Battery juts into the bay, and on the north,
where the uppermost houses gradually narrowed till Broadway came to an
end, with few buildings on either side of it. But in these later days,
when Knickerbocker limits no longer confine the heterogeneous
thousands that have pushed the old race from their stools, sixteen
great avenues, each a hundred feet wide, run parallel with Broadway
and the rivers, cut at right angles by wide streets, lined with costly
dwellings, churches, schools, and other edifices. As is usual in great
commercial towns, the lowest portion of the population haunt the
neighborhood of the wharfs; and, in New-York, the eastern side of the
city in particular attracts this class. But, perhaps, no city of the
size has fewer streets of squalid poverty, although the encouragement
given to immigration is such that there must necessarily be great
numbers of wretched immigrants who have neither the will nor the power
to live by honest industry. It is in truth for this class of persons
that hospitals and penitentiaries are here built, foreigners supplying
at least nine-tenths of the inmates of those institutions in New-York.
As to clean and healthy streets, the upper and newer part of the city
has, of course, the advantage. It is laid out with special attention
to drainage, for which the ridged shape of the ground affords great
facility; the island on which New-York is built being highest in the
middle, and sloping off, east and west, towards the Hudson and East
Rivers.
Manhattan island is about fourteen miles long, with an average breadth
of one mile and a half, the greatest width being two and a half miles.
At the southerly point of the island, where the Hudson unites with the
strait called the East River, lies one of the finest harbors in the
world, affording anchorage for ships of the largest size, and
surrounded by cultivated land and elegant residences. Several
fortified islands diversify this bay, and numerous forts occupy the
points and headlands on either side. The general appearance of the bay
is that of great beauty, of the milder sort. The shores are rather
low, but finely wooded, and the approach to the city from the ocean
very striking. The battery, a promenade covered with fine old trees,
offers a rural front, but the forests of masts stretching far up
either river attract the stranger's attention much more forcibly. The
_coup d'oeil_ is here magnificent. Brooklyn, on Long Island, a large
city, whose white columned streets gleam along the heights, giving a
palatial grandeur to the view, is just opposite New-York, on the
south-east, and divided from it by so narrow a strait that it appears
more truly to be a part of it than the Surrey side of the Thames to
belong to London, although the rush of commerce forbids bridges. On
the west side, the banks of the Hudson are lined with towns, an
outcrop of the central metropolis.
Entering the city from any quarter, we are sure to find ourselves in
Broadway, long the pride of the inhabitants, though its glories are
rather traditional than actual, as compared with the greatest
thoroughfares of commerce in older cities. It extends, eighty feet in
width, two miles and a half in a straight line, northward from the
Battery; and then, making a slight deflection at Union Park, runs on,
_ad infinitum_, though it is at present but sparely built after
another mile or so. Nearly all the best shops in the retail trade are
in this street, some of them comparable to the richest of London and
Paris, and the whole affording means for every device of elegant
decoration and boundless expenditure. Residences here are
comparatively few, especially in the lower part, the din of business
and the ceaseless thunder of omnibuses having driven far away every
family that has the liberty of choice. Many churches still exist in
Broadway, which, on Sunday, is as quiet as any other street. Other
architectural decorations there are few. The City Hall, a costly
building of white marble, too long and low to make a dignified
appearance, but standing in a well-wooded park, of some eleven or
twelve acres in extent, has a certain beauty, especially when seen
gleaming through the spray of a fountain, which sends up a tall jet at
some distance in front of the building. Farther on is a hospital, of
rather ancient date for this western world--built in 1775, and now
surrounded by venerable trees, and clothed in the richest ivy. After
this, scarcely a break in the line of dazzling shops, until we reach
the vicinity of Union Square, a pretty oval park, with a noble
fountain in the midst, and lofty and handsome houses all round,
situated on perhaps the highest ground on this part of the island.
Half a mile beyond is Madison Square, a green expanse, about which
wealthy citizens are now building elegant residences of brown
freestone, with some attempt at architectural display. Near this,
still northward, is the lower or distributing reservoir of the Croton
Aqueduct, standing on high ground, and looking something like a
fortress--no great ornament, perhaps, but an object of much interest.
Fifth Avenue, on the west of Broadway, stretching north from
Washington Square--an inclosure of about ten acres, well planted with
elms and maples--it is the Belgravia of New-York--in the estimation of
those who inhabit it; a paradise of marble, upholstery and cabinet
work, at least; not much dignified, as yet, by works of high art,
though the region boasts a few specimens, ancient and modern; but in
luxury and extravagance emulating the repudiated aristocracy of the
old world. This is, and is to be, a street of palaces and churches
throughout its whole extent, always provided that the changeful
current of Fashion do not set in some other direction too soon,
carrying with it all the _millionaires_ that are yet to arise within
the century. In that event, the costly mansions of Fifth Avenue will
inevitably become hotels and boarding-houses,--a reverse which so many
grandly intended houses of elder New-York have already experienced.
The distinction of East and West is marked in New-York as in London,
though for different reasons. In London, the prevalence of westerly
winds drives the surge waves of coal-smoke eastward, blackening every
thing; in New-York the western part of the town is cleaner, because
newer and built on a better plan. Broadway is the dividing line; and
it is a violent strain upon one's standing in fashionable life to live
eastward of it, below Union Square, even in the most expensive style.
But the eastward world has its own great thoroughfare, wider than
Broadway, though not as long, running nearly parallel with the main
artery of the grander world. The Bowery--so called when it was the
high road leading through the public farms or _Boweries_--is a sort of
exaggerated Bishopsgate-street and Shoreditch united; more trades and
callings, more articles offered for sale in the open air, more noise,
more people, and at least as much natural, undisguised, vulgar life. A
railway for horse-carriages passes through it, and hundreds of
omnibuses and stage coaches, not to speak of carts and country wagons
without number. A "rowdy" theatre or two, a hay-market, great
clothing-shops, and livery-stables, a riding-school, an anatomical
museum--such are its ornaments. Not a church countenances its entire
length, nor any other public building aiming at elegance or dignity.
The goods displayed in the windows are of a secondary quality, at
best; and the people who throng the pavements are people who want
second-rate articles. Yet the Bowery is worth walking through by a
stranger, little as it is known or valued by the native citizen, whose
lot has been cast in choicer neighborhood. The common pulse of
humanity beats audibly and visibly there, wrapped in no cloak of
convention or pseudo-refinement. The fundamental business of life is
carried on there as being confessedly the main business; not, as in
Broadway, as if it were a thing to be huddled into a corner to make
way for the carved-work and gilding, the drapery and color of the
great panorama. There is another reason why the Bowery has a claim on
our attention. Strange as it may seem, it is from the people who haunt
the Bowery that the United States take their character abroad.
Foreigners insist upon considering the "Bowery b'hoys,"--a class at
once an enigma and a terror to the greater portion of their
fellow-citizens,--as distinctive specimens of Americanism, much to the
horror of their more fastidious countrymen. This we think a great
mistake, though truly there are worse people in the world than the
"Bowery b'hoys," who are noted for a sort of _bonhomie_, in the midst
of all their coarseness.
As to parks and public promenades, New-York is lamentably
deficient--the whole space thus appropriated being hardly more than
eighty acres, for the refreshment of a population which will soon
cease to be counted by hundreds of thousands. "Eight million dollars
worth of land," say the city fathers, "is as much as we can afford!"
The penurious estimate which has resulted in this miserable deficiency
has been long and ably combated by patriotic and clear-headed
citizens, but their influence has as yet proved wholly unavailing.
Public meetings have been now and then held, with a view of exciting a
general interest in this important matter, but they invariably end in
fruitless resolutions. The island still affords good sites for public
gardens, but there is scarce a gleam of hope that any of them will be
reserved. The few breathing spaces that now exist, are thronged, and
by the very people who most need them--children and laboring people.
The vicinity of the fountains is full of loiterers, quietly watching
the play of the bright water, and growing, we may hope, milder and
better by the gentle influence. At certain hours of the day whole
troops of merry children, with their attendants, make the walks alive
and resounding. The hoop, the ball, the velocipede, the skipping-rope,
rejoice the grass and sunshine, and the eyes of the thoughtful
spectator, who sees health in every bounding motion, and hears joy in
every tiny shout. It is strange that the citizens do not, one and all,
cry aloud for the easy and happy open-air extension of their too often
crowded homes. London is the world's example in this thing.
A park suited to riding and driving is especially needed because of
the wretched pavement which still disgraces the greater portion of
New-York. The first thing that strikes an American returning from
Europe is the inferiority of the pavements of the Atlantic cities; and
New-York, in particular, is, in this respect, hardly a whit before the
far-famed corduroy roads of the wild West. In 1846 a great improvement
was begun, called, after the inventor, the Russ pavement, and thus far
seeming to meet all the difficulties of the case, including the severe
frosts and sudden changes of the climate. The plan is, however, so
expensive that it will probably be long before it is fully adopted. It
requires square blocks of stone, about ten inches in depth, laid
diagonally with the wheel-track, and resting on a substructure of
concrete, which again rests upon a foundation of granite chips, the
whole forming a consolidated mass, eighteen inches thick, so arranged
as to be lifted in sections to afford access to the gas and water
pipes. This has been largely tried in Broadway, and has stood the test
for six years.
Foreigners are apt to complain, not only, as they justly may, of the
bad pavements of New-York, but, somewhat unreasonably, of the
obstructions in the street, caused by incessant building, laying
pipes, &c. They say, "Will the city never be finished?" Not very soon,
we think. It is difficult to do in fifty years the work of five
hundred, without a good deal of bustle and inconvenience. Rapid growth
in population and wealth necessitates continual improvement in
accommodation. We may, indeed, be allowed to fret a little, when the
street is for weeks or months encumbered by the building materials of
a merchant, who sees fit to pull down a very good house in order to
erect one that shall cost a quarter of a million, merely because his
neighbor has contrived to outshine him in that particular. But when
sewers and gas, and Croton water, are in question, we must not
grumble. These great public blessings are spreading into every
quarter, carrying health and decency with them. The great sewers are
arched canals of hard brick, from three to nine feet in diameter, and
laid in mortar in the most durable manner. Above them are the
gas-pipes, an immense net-work; and nearly on a level with these last
are the huge veins and arteries, by means of which the Croton supplies
life and health to the inhabitants, once half-poisoned by water which
shared every salt that enters into the subsoil of a great city.
Analysis shows the Croton water to be of great purity--holding in
solution the salts of lime and magnesia in proportions hardly
appreciable, only about two and eight-tenths of a grain to the gallon.
The river springs from granitic hills, and flows through a clear
upland region, free from marsh, and covered with grazing farms.
When the Aqueduct was undertaken, New-York numbered but two hundred
and eighty thousand inhabitants, so that the supply provided was a
magnificent gift to the future. The work was completed within five
years, years of great commercial difficulty; and what is more
remarkable, the whole cost came _within_ the estimate of the chief
engineer. The abundance of water may be guessed from the fact that two
of the city fountains throw away more water than would suffice for the
consumption of a large city. The solidity of the structure is such
that none but slight repair can be needed for centuries to come.[10]
This great work was opened, with appropriate ceremonies, and a
splendid civic festival, on the 14th of October, 1842. The British
consul, in accepting the invitation of the Common Council, to assist
at this festival, justly remarked, "Tyrants have left monuments which
call for admiration, but no similar work of a free people, for
magnitude and utility, equals this great enterprise." Public feeling
was very warm on this occasion. Of the procession of the trades, &c.,
which was three hours passing a given point, an enthusiastic citizen
declared in print, that he "watched and scrutinized it closely, and
could discover neither a drunkard nor a fool from first to last." It
might be a difficult matter to decide on the moral and intellectual
condition of the individuals composing such a procession, but we may
concede that drunkards and fools are not the persons most likely to
join in rejoicing for the introduction of pure water without stint or
measure.
The great Aqueduct is forty-one miles in length, commencing with a dam
across the Croton river, six miles above its mouth. This raises the
water one hundred and sixty-six feet above tide level, forming a lake
or reservoir of four hundred acres in extent, containing five hundred
million gallons, above the level that would allow the Aqueduct to
discharge thirty-five million gallons per day. From the Croton Dam to
Harlem River, something less than thirty-three miles, the Aqueduct is
an uninterrupted conduit of hydraulic masonry, of stone and brick; the
greatest interior width, seven feet five inches; the greatest height,
eight feet five inches; the floor an inverted arch. The commissioners
and chief engineers passed through its whole length on foot, as soon
as it was completed; and, when the water was admitted, traversed it
again in a boat built for the purpose. It crosses the Harlem River by
a bridge of stone, fourteen hundred and fifty feet long, and one
hundred and fourteen feet above high-water mark. At the Receiving
Reservoir forty miles from the Dam, the masonry gives place to iron
pipes, through which the water is conveyed two miles further, to the
distributing reservoir, from which point it runs, by means of several
hundred miles of pipes, to every corner of the city. On the line of
the Aqueduct are one hundred and fourteen culverts, and sixteen
tunnels, and ventilators occur at the distance of one mile apart
throughout the route. The Receiving Reservoir covers thirty-five
acres, and contains one hundred and fifty million imperial gallons.
The Distributing Reservoir has walls forty-nine feet in height, and
contains twenty million gallons. The supply to each citizen is at
present almost unlimited, and afforded at a very moderate annual
rate. The managers complain to the Common Council of the enormous
waste during the summer, when "sixty imperial gallons each twenty-four
hours to every inhabitant," are delivered. But even at this enormous
rate the quantity is ample, and it can be increased at will by new
reservoirs. No decent house is now constructed without a bath, an
advantage to the health and comfort of the city, hardly to be
over-rated. Fountains adorn almost all the public places of any
importance, and although in few instances as yet dignified by
sculpture, these tastes and glimpses of Nature are in themselves
invaluable, offering to the people at large a continual reminder of
beauty, tranquillity, and innocent pleasure in the open air. There
remains yet to be added those public vats for the use of poor women in
washing, that may be found in so many European towns.
The facilities afforded by this abundance of water for the
extinguishment of fires, are such as can hardly be over-rated. We have
no space for details on this point, nor does it need. It will easily
appear that, with an unlimited supply of water, and plenty of
fire-plugs, a few moments suffice to bring into action whatever is
needed in case of conflagration--a glorious contrast to the tardy
succor of former days, when water was laboriously pumped from the
rivers on either side the city, and conveyed by means of hose to the
scene of danger. The perfection of the London Fire Brigade is yet to
be accomplished for New-York; but promptness, or rather zeal of
service, distinguishes the corps of firemen, who make their business a
passion, and the perfection of their instruments their pride and
glory. They receive no remuneration except exemption from military and
jury duty.
After these few words on the supply of pure and life-preserving water,
we may turn, by no very violent transition, to the facilities extended
by New-York to her children in the matter of education,--a point on
which she is naturally and justly somewhat vainglorious. The number of
public, and absolutely free schools, is one hundred and ninety-nine;
embracing fifteen schools for the instruction of colored children.
More than one hundred thousand scholars attend in the course of the
year; though the average for each day is something less than forty
thousand. All is gratuitous at these schools--instruction, books,
stationery, washing-apparatus, fuel, &c. Besides these, there are
fifteen evening schools, for those who cannot avail themselves of the
other public schools, and whose only leisure time is after the close
of the labors of the day. The ages of the scholars in these schools
vary from twelve to forty-five years.
This magnificent offer of instruction by the city to her children is
confined to no class, country, sect, nor fortune. Every child, without
exception, is received, taught, and furnished with all the requisites
for a good school education. Not content with this, a free academy for
the classics, modern languages, natural sciences, and drawing, was
established in 1848, with fourteen professors, and proper appliances,
including a handsome and commodious building. This academy receives
male pupils from the common schools, after due examination; and
retains them for a four years' course, or longer, if desirable. It is
contemplated to establish a free high school for females, on a
corresponding plan.
It is not to be supposed that the benefit of the public school system
is shared only by the necessitous. The children of respectable
citizens, of the plainer sort, make up a large part of the attendance.
It is computed that only about twenty thousand children of both sexes
are found in private schools. There are many free schools of private
charity, some of which receive by law a certain share of public money,
as the school of the House of Refuge, various orphan asylums, &c.,
including, in all, about three thousand five hundred children. The
Roman Catholics have some free schools of their own, but most Roman
Catholic children are educated at the public schools. The prodigious
amount of immigration (on the day on which we write, we happen to know
that the number of steerage passengers arrived in the city is
seventeen hundred and seventy-nine, and, on another, within a week,
three thousand)--makes this provision for education doubly important;
since a large portion of the hordes thus emptied on these hospitable
shores are entirely unable to pay any thing for the instruction of
their children.
This fact gives added lustre to the no less munificent provision by
the city for the gratuitous care of the sick and indigent--a care
almost monopolized by foreigners, because comparatively few Americans
are in a condition to need it. All accidental cases are provided for
at the New-York Hospital; the attendant physicians and surgeons of
which, selected from the most eminent of the profession, give their
services without pecuniary remuneration. A branch of this institution
is the Bloomingdale Asylum for the Insane. The New-York Dispensary
provides some thirty thousand patients annually with advice,
medicines, and vaccination, gratis. The Almshouse Department maintains
five establishments, which, together, support about seven thousand
persons, and afford weekly aid to some three thousand others. The
Nursery Branch of this department maintains and instructs more than a
thousand children of paupers and convicts. The Institution for the
care of deaf mutes has about two hundred and fifty pupils, of whom one
hundred and sixty are supported at the expense of the State. The
Asylum for the Blind, originally established by a few members of the
Society of Friends, has about one hundred and fifty pupils. Besides
these, private charity has opened refuges for almost every form of
human misery and destitution, so that it may safely be said that no
one of any age, sex, nation, or character _need_ suffer, in New York,
for lack of Christian kindness in its ordinary manifestations. Among
these beneficent offers of relief and aid, we may mention one in
particular, whose worth is not as fully appreciated by the public as
that of some others, though none is more needed. The Prison
Association takes care of the interests of accused persons, whose
poverty and ignorance make them the easy prey of the designing and
heartless; attends to them while in prison, and after their release,
holds out the helping hand, and provides relief, occupation, and
countenance for all those who are willing to reform. A house with
matrons is provided for discharged female convicts, who are instructed
and initiated into various modes of employment until they have had
time to prove themselves fit to be recommended to places. The success
of this most benign and difficult charity has been very encouraging.
It would be vain to attempt, in this desultory sketch, any account of
the means of morals and religion in New-York. In these respects she
differs but little from English commercial towns. The number of places
of worship is something under three hundred, and each form of
religious benevolence has its appropriate society, as elsewhere.
Sabbath Schools are very popular, and attended by the children of the
first citizens. An immense number of persons are associated as Sons
and Daughters of Temperance, who present a strong front against that
vice which turns the wise man into a fool. But as there is nothing
distinctive in these and similar associations, we pass them by. A
puritan tone of manners prevails; that is to say, with the mass of the
well-to-do citizens, puritan manners are the beau-ideal of propriety
and safety. Yet New-York is fast assuming a cosmopolitan tone which
will make it difficult, before very long, to speak of any particular
style of manners as prevailing. Representatives of every nation, and
tongue, and kindred, and people, meeting on a footing of perfect
equality of political advantages, must in time produce a social state,
differing in some important particulars from any that the world has
yet seen. The population of New-York will, at the past rate of
increase, be in ten years greater than that of Paris, and in thirty
equal to that of London. How can one speculate on a social state
formed under such circumstances? The present aspect of what claims to
be New-York society is certainly rather anomalous.
An exceptional American--John Quincy Adams--in some patriotic speech,
mentioned, among other occasions of thankfulness to Heaven, that
excellent gift, "a heritable habitation;" but there is nothing which
the prosperous citizen of New-York so much despises. If he read
Ruskin, he thinks the man benighted when he utters such sentiments as
these: "There must be a strange dissolution of natural affection; a
strange unthankfulness for all that homes have given and parents
taught; a strange consciousness that we have been unfaithful to our
father's honor, or that our lives are not such as would make our
dwellings sacred to our children, when each man would fain build to
himself, and build for the little revolution of his own life only * *
* *. Our God is a household god, as well as a heavenly one. He has an
altar in every man's dwelling; let men look to it when they rend it
lightly, and pour out its ashes!"
If ever there were any substantial tenements of stone and brick on
which might well be written the motto "Passing away!" it is those of
the great commercial metropolis of the western world. The material
substance is enduring enough to last many generations; their soul is a
thing of the moment. After it has inhabited its proud apartments, and
looked out of its beautiful windows for a few years, it departs, to
return no more for ever, and its deserted home becomes at once the
receptacle of a soul of lower grade, and its destiny is to pass down,
and down, and down, in the scale, as time wears on, and "improvement"
sanctifies new regions. One might suppose the pleasure and pride of
building would be quite killed by the idea that as soon as one's head
is laid in the dust, all the achievements of taste, all the devices of
ingenious affection, all the personality, in short, of one's dwelling
would be turned out to the gaze and comment of the curious world now
so carefully shut out; exposed, depreciated, contemned, and sold to
the highest bidder, under circumstances of inevitable degradation. But
the ruling spirit of the New World progress seems to reconcile even
the reflective to these things. They shrug their shoulders, and say it
cannot be helped! Truly, these seem the days "when every man's aim is
to be in some more elevated sphere than his natural one, and every
man's past life is his habitual scorn; when men build in the hope of
leaving the places they have built, and live in the hope of forgetting
the years they have lived; when the comfort, the peace, and the
religion of home have ceased to be felt." In these particulars,
however, the severity of the New World is in a state of transition.
Under circumstances so novel, it is not to be wondered at that no
leisure has yet been found for the complete harmonization of the
social theory in all its parts.
Whether the universal and incessant subdivision of estates will ever
be found to allow the addition of the charm of poetic associations to
the possession of wealth is a question not yet determined. When all
passes under the hammer, what becomes of heir-looms, and whatever
else in which family life and interest are bound up? And why should
splendor prepare for perpetuity when that which supports it is to be
shared among half a dozen or a dozen descendants? Will a rich man be
likely to collect works of art under the consciousness that, when
"cutting up" time comes, not one of his children will probably be rich
enough to retain possession of these treasures that bring no tangible
income? Truly, republicans ought to be philosophers, caring only for
things of highest moment, and capable of saying to all others--"Get ye
behind me!"
But the denizens of New-York Belgravia are not philosophers, at least
not philosophers of this stamp. Content with the good things of
to-day, they leave the morrow to take care of itself; and many of them
live in a style which, even to those who have seen European splendor,
seems no less than superb. Their dwellings are unsurpassed in
convenience of arrangement and luxury of appliance; their
entertainments are of regal magnificence, so far as regal magnificence
is purchasable; and for dress and equipage they pour out money like
water. In cultivation and accomplishments, they are of course very
unequal; for, in a country where the great field of competition has a
thousand gates, all opened wide to all comers, and moneyed magnates
come from every class in society, and bring with them, to the new
sphere, just what of a strictly personal kind they possessed in the
old. He that was refined is refined still, and he that was sordid is
sordid still. If the gentleman enjoys the power of indulging his
tastes, and choosing his pursuits, so does the vulgarian; and,
unhappily, no Belgravia, English or American, has yet been found
capable of inspiring its inmates with dignified tastes or elevated
aims. There is no permanent nucleus of elegant society in New-York; no
reservoir of indisputable social grace, from which succeeding sets and
advancing circles can draw rules and imbibe tastes. There is not, even
at any one time, an acknowledged first circle, to whose standard
others are willing to refer. This being so, the most incongruous
manners often encounter in the social arena; and it is only in very
limited association that any appreciable degree of congeniality is
expected. Wealth always fraternizes with wealth to a certain extent.
The maxim announced here on a certain public occasion, that "the
possession of wealth is always to be received as evidence of the
possession of merit of some kind," is conscientiously acted upon; but
beyond this, social affinity is very limited as yet. Conversation has
no recognized place among accomplishments, and of course only a
doubtful one among pleasures. Coteries are unknown, and the continual
shifting of circles precludes the pleasure of long-ripened
intellectual intercourse. Many there are who regret this state of
things in a society in which there is in reality so great a share of
general good feeling; but they are found not among the rich, who
possess some of the means of remedying the evil, but among those who,
removed from the temptations which riches, suddenly acquired, array
against intellectual pleasures, lack, on the other hand, the means of
uniting with those pleasures, the _agrémens_ which are at the command
of easy fortune. In Paris, intellect and cultivation can draw together
those who value them, even though the place of meeting be a shabby
house in the suburbs; in New-York it is not yet so, nor could it be
expected. No social _posé_ has yet been attained; and each is too much
absorbed in making good his general claims to consideration, to have
leisure for the calmer enjoyments that might be snatched during the
contest. Ostentation is, as yet, too prominent in the entertainments
of the rich; and the not rich, with republican pride, will rather
renounce the pleasures and advantages of society than receive company
in an inexpensive way. Even public amusements are not fashionable.
Large numbers, it is true, attend them, but not of the fashionable
classes. The Opera, alone, has a sort of popularity with these, but it
is as an elegant lounger, and a chance of distinction from the vulgar.
A low-priced opera, like those of the Continent, with music as the
main object, and magnificent costume put out of the question by
twilight houses, is yet to be tried in New-York. In the opinion of
some, this is one day to be the touchstone of American musical taste.
A passion for popular music the Americans certainly have. The Negro
Melodists, numerous as they are, draw throngs every night; and their
music, whether gay or sad, has all the charm that could be desired for
the popular heart. But the people of any pretensions enjoy this kind
of music, as it were by stealth, not considering that the pleasure it
gives is in fact a test of its excellence. Many of the negro airs are
worthy of symphonies and accompaniments by Beethoven or Schubert, but
until they have been endorsed by science the New-Yorker would rather
not be caught enjoying them.
If we should venture to suggest what it is that New-York society most
lacks, we should say Courage--courage to enjoy and make the most of
individual tastes and feelings. The spirit of imitation robs social
life of all that is picturesque and poetical. Living for the eyes of
our neighbors is stupefying and belittling. It gives an air of
hollowness and tinsel to our homes, stealing even from the heartiness
of affection, and sapping the disinterestedness of friendship. It
tends to the general impoverishment of home-life, the privacy of which
is the soil of originality and the nursery of accomplishments. It is
hardly consistent with the pursuit of literature or art for its own
sake, since a desire to do what others do, and avoid what others
contemn, excludes private and independent choice, except where the
natural bias is irresistibly strong. There is, in truth, very little
relish for home accomplishments in New-York. Music is too much a thing
of exhibition, and drawing is scarcely practised at all. Two or three
of the modern languages are taught at every fashionable school; but
the use of these is seldom kept up in after life, even by reading. No
people are so poorly furnished with foreign tongues as the Americans,
and New-York forms no exception to the general remark.
We shall not venture to touch that most sensitive of all topics,
native art, on which no opinion can be expressed with safety, Suffice
it to say, that New-York has a National Academy of Design; the nucleus
of a free gallery; an Art-Union, largely patronized; an Artists'
Association, with a gallery of its own; and various exhibitions of
European pictures. Lessing's Martyrdom of Huss has been for some time
exhibiting in a collection of paintings of the Düsseldorf school.
Statuary is as yet comparatively rare; for, although American art has
sprung at once to high excellence in this direction, the sculptors
generally reside abroad, for the sake of superior advantages for
execution. The present year sees the _début_ of a young sculptor of
New-York, named Palmer, who has just finished a work of great promise,
for this spring's exhibition of the National Academy, an exhibition
most cheering to the friends of American art, from its marked
superiority in many respects to any that have gone before it. A
Home-Book of Beauty is in progress, for which a young English artist,
son of the celebrated Martin, is making the portraits. This promises
to be very popular, since the reputation of American female beauty is
world-wide.
These slight notices of New-York as she is, are intended rather to
give foreign visitors a hint what _not_ to expect, than to serve as
any thing deserving the name of a description of one of the commercial
centres of the world. It is quite possible to come to New-York with
such letters of introduction as shall open to the stranger society as
intelligent and well-bred as any in Europe; but as this is composed of
people who never run after notabilities as such, it is often unknown
and unsuspected by the visitor from abroad, who, consequently, returns
home with such broad views as we have been attempting, quite satisfied
that there is nothing more worth seeking. It is noticeable that the
most favorable accounts of American manners have been given by the
best-bred and highest-born foreign travellers; while disparagement and
abuse have been the retaliation of those who have, to their surprise,
found the Americans quite capable of distinguishing between snobs and
gentlemen. The intelligent traveller must know how to take New-York
for what she is, and he will not undervalue her for not being what she
is not. She is a magnificent city--a city of unexampled growth and
energy; of the noblest public works, of unbounded charity, of a most
intelligent providence in the instruction of her children, of fearless
liberality in the reception and treatment of foreigners, and of a
growing interest in all the arts which adorn and harmonize society.
Those who visit her prepared to find these traits will not be
disappointed; those who will accept nothing in an American city of
yesterday but the tranquil and delicate tone of an assured
civilization, should not come westward. Yet in real, essential
civilization, that city cannot be far behindhand, in which the duties
of a street police are almost nominal, and where every ill that can
afflict humanity is cared for gratuitously, and in the most humane
spirit. Justly proud of these proofs of her preparation for the
outward gloss of manners which is all in all to the superficial
observer, New-York can well afford to invite the scrutiny of the
intelligent citizen of the world.
As we began our little sketch with some Knickerbocker reminiscences,
so we feel bound, before we close, to say a word or two of the traces
that still remain of the honored origin of much of the wealth and
respectability of New-York. Whatever we may allow for our English
superstructure, we cannot forget that the Dutch foundation was most
excellent. "The Batavians," says Tacitus, "are distinguished among the
neighboring nations for their valor;" and in the seventeenth century
the countrymen of Van Tromp and De Ruyter had not degenerated from
their Batavian ancestors; and in the gentler qualities of peace,
industry, perseverance, energy, honesty, and enterprise, the
States-General were surpassed by no European community. For their
notions of law, we may consult Grotius; for their taste for art, the
exquisite works which constitute a school of their own. The Dutch
masters of New-York were people of high tone and character, and to
this day there lingers a flavor of nobility and dignity about the very
names of Van Rensselaer, Van Cortlandt, Van Zandt, Brinkerhoff,
Stuyvesant, Rutgers, Schermerhorn, &c., represented by families who
still retain much of their ancient wealth, and a great deal of their
ancient aristocratic feeling. Many jokes have been founded upon the
unwillingness of these lords of the soil to be disturbed; one of the
best of which is Washington Irving's story of Wolfert Webber, who
thought he must inevitably die in the almshouse, because the
Corporation ruined his cabbage-garden by running a street through it.
But they make excellent citizens, and their aversion to change has
been but a much needed balance to the wild go-ahead restlessness of
the full-blooded Yankee, who sees nothing but the future. The Dutch
have customs, and, of course, manners; while the tendency of modern
New-York life is adverse to both. The citizen of to-day cannot help
looking on the Dutch spirit as "slow," but he has an instinctive
respect for it, notwithstanding.
One single Dutch custom still maintains its ground triumphantly, in
spite of the hurry of business, the selfishness of the commercial
spirit, and the efforts of a few paltry fashionists, who would fain
put down every thing in which a suspicion of heartiness can be
detected. It is the custom of making New Year visits on the first day
of January, when every lady is at home, and every gentleman goes the
rounds of his entire acquaintance; flying in and flying out, it is
true, but still with an expression of good-will and friendly feeling
that is invaluable in a community where daily life is so much under
the control of that cabalistic word--business. Ladies are in high
party-trim, and refreshments of various kinds are offered; but the
main point and recognized meaning of the whole is the interchange of
friendly greetings.
No one, not to the manor born, can estimate the glow of feeling that
characterizes these flying visits. "As iron sharpeneth iron, so doth
the countenance of a man his friend." The mere looking into each
other's faces is good for human creatures; and when the sincere even
though transient light of kindly feeling beams from the eyes that thus
encounter, something is done against egotism, haughty disregard and
blank oblivion. Many a coolness dies on New Year's Day, under a
battery of smiles; many a hard thought is shamed away by the good
wishes of the season. Old friends, who are inevitably separated most
of the time, thus meet at least once a year, for the enthusiasm of the
hour is potent enough to make the valetudinarian forsake his easy
chair, and the cripple his crutches. Visiting hours are extended so as
to include all the hours from ten in the morning until ten at night,
and, in order to make the most of these, the gentlemen take carriages
and scour the streets at the true American pace, so as to lose as
little time as possible on the way. If a storm occur, it is considered
quite a public misfortune, since it lessens, though it never
altogether prevents the fulfilment of the annual ceremony. It is true
that both ladies and gentlemen are death-weary when bed-time comes,
but that for once a year is no great evil. It is true that some young
men will take more whisky-punch, or champagne, than is becoming; but
for one who does this, there are many who decline "all that can
intoxicate," except smiles and kind words. In some houses the blinds
are closed, the gas lighted, and a band of music in attendance; and
each batch of visitors inveigled into polkas, or kedowas, for which
the lady of the house has taken care to provide partners. But this is
considered a degeneracy, and voted _mauvais ton_ by those who
understand the thing. To "throw a perfume o'er the violet," bespeaks
the French _coiffeur_ or the _parvenu_; the simplicity of the ancient
Dutch custom of New Year visits is its dignity and glory. Long may it
live unspotted by vulgar fashion! Well were it for the island city if
she had kept a loving hold on many another quaint festivity of her
ancestors on the other side of the water. Her prosperity would be none
the worse of a respectful reference to the good things of the past.
FOOTNOTES:
[10] Among the causes of decay in the Roman aqueducts, was the strong
concretion formed on the bottom and sides by matter deposited by the
water. No such deposit is made by the water of the Croton.
From Fraser's Magazine.
A JUNGLE RECOLLECTION.
BY CAPTAIN HARDBARGAIN.
The hot season of 1849 was peculiarly oppressive, and the irksome
garrison duty at Cherootabad, in the south of India, had for many
months been unusually severe. The colonel of my regiment, the
brigadier, and the general, having successively acceded to my
application for three weeks' leave, and that welcome fact having been
duly notified in orders, it was not long before I found myself on the
Coimbatore road, snugly packed guns and all, in a country
bullock-cart, lying at full length on a matress, with a thick layer of
straw spread under it.
All my preparations had been made beforehand; relays of bullocks were
posted for me at convenient intervals, and I arrived at Goodaloor, a
distance of a hundred and ten miles, in rather more than forty-eight
hours.
Goodaloor is a quiet little village, about eleven miles from
Coimbatore;--but don't suppose I was going to spend my precious three
weeks there.
After breakfasting at the traveller's bungalow, we started off again.
The bungalow is on the right hand side of the road; and when we had
proceeded about two hundred yards, the bullock-cart turned into the
fields to the left, and got along how it could across country, towards
some low rocky hills, which ran parallel, and at about three miles
distance from the Coimbatore road.
After about two miles of this work, sometimes over fallow ground,
sometimes through fields of growing grain, (taking awful liberties
with the loose hedges of cut brambles, which, however, we had the
conscience to build up again as we passed them,) sometimes over broken
stony ground, and once or twice lumbering heavily through a rocky
watercourse, we at last found ourselves on the grassy margin of a
pretty little stream. Fifty yards beyond it, under the shade of a fine
mango-tree, my little tent was already pitched; in five minutes I lay
stretched on my bed, listening with ravished ears to the glorious
accounts of my old Shikaree, who had just come in, hot and tired, from
the jungle. He had much to tell,--how since he had been out, three
days, he had tracked the tiger every morning up and down a certain
nullah; how the brindled monster had been seen by different shepherds;
and what was still more satisfactory, how he had but yesterday killed
a cow near the spot where the hut had been built. It was now
midday;--how to spend the long hours till sunset?
After making the tired man draw innumerable sketch-maps in the sand,
with reiterated descriptions of the hut, &c., I allowed the poor
wretch to go to his dinner; and in anticipation of a weary night's
watch, I squeezed my eyes together and tried to sleep.
The sun begins to acquire his evening slant, and I joyfully leave my
bed to prepare for my nocturnal expedition. The cook is boiling fowl
and potatoes; they are ready; and now he pours his clear strong coffee
into the three soda-water bottles by his side; everything is ready, in
the little basket, not forgetting a bottle of good beer. Now then
commences the pleasing task of carefully loading our battery.
Come, big "Sam Nock," king of two-ouncers, what is to be the fate of
these two great plumbs that you are now to swallow? Am I to cut them
out of the tiger's ribs to-morrow?--or are they idly to be fired away
into the trunk of a tree, or drawn again?
All loaded, and pony saddled, let us start: the two white cows and
their calves; the matress and blanket rolled up and carried on a
Cooly's head: Shikaree, horsekeeper, and a village man with the three
guns, while I myself bring up the rear. Over a few ploughed fields,
and past that large banian-tree, the jungle begins.
What is this black thing? and what are those people doing? That
hideous black image is the jungle god, and to him the villagers look
for protection for their flocks.
How they stare at the man dressed in his mud-colored clothes, who has
come so far, and sacrifices sleep and comfort, to sit and watch at
night for the evil genius of their jungles. Children are held up to
look at him--at the English jungle-wallah, who drinks brandy as they
drink milk, and who is on his way to the deepest fastnesses of the
wooded waste, to watch for the tiger alone--a man who laughs at gods
and devils--a devil himself. The Shikaree, who had been earnestly
engaged in conversation with the oldest looking man of the group, now
ran up and informed me that the Gooroo had given him to understand
that the Sahib would certainly kill the tiger this night, and that it
was expected that he would subscribe fifteen rupees to the god, in the
event of the prediction proving true. Come, we have no time for
talking. Hurry on, cows and guns, hurry on! through the silent jungle,
along the narrow path. How much farther yet. Not more than a quarter
of a mile; we are close to it. And now the people who know the
whereabouts stop and look smilingly on one another, and then at the
Sahib, whose practised eye has but just discovered the well-built
ambush.
In a small clump of low jungle, on the sloping bank of a broad, sandy
watercourse, the casual passer-by would not have perceived a snug and
tolerably strong little hut,--the white ends of the small branches
that were laid over it, and the mixture of foliage, alone revealing
the fact to the observant eye of a practised woodman. No praise could
be too strong to bestow on the faithful Shikaree; had I chosen the
spot myself, after a week's survey of the country, it could not have
been more happily selected. The watercourse wound its way through the
thickest and most _tigerish_ section of the jungle, and had its origin
at the very foot of the hills, where tigers were continually seen by
the woodcutters and shepherds. There was little or no water within
many miles, except the few gallons in a basin of rock, which I could
almost reach from my little bower; and, to crown all, there were the
broad, deep _puggs_ of a tiger, up and down the nullah, in the dry
sand, near the water's edge, of all ages, from the week, perhaps, up
to the unmistakable fresh puggs of last night.
Let us get off the pony, and have a look at the hut. Pulling a few dry
branches on one side, the small hurdle-door at the back is exposed to
view, hardly big enough to admit a large dog; down on your knees and
crawl in. Five feet long, four feet wide, and four feet high in the
centre, is the extent of the little palace; a platform, a foot from
the ground, occupies the whole extent to within a foot of the front
end facing the bed of the watercourse. On this platform the matress is
laid, and some big coats and the blankets make a very comfortable
pillow. Remove that little screen of leaves, and you look through a
window, ten inches square, that commands a view fifty paces up and
down the sandy nullah. Sitting on the end of the bed-place, just
behind the window, with your feet on the ground, nothing can be more
comfortable; and when tired, you only have to draw up your legs, and
curl yourself on the matress to enjoy a short nap, if your prudence
cannot conquer sleep. Into this hut which I have endeavored to
describe, did I now crawl; the matress was arranged, the handsome and
carefully loaded battery was next handed in, and each gun placed ready
for action; the cold fowl and bottle of Bass were in the mean while
disposed of, and the soda-water bottles of cold coffee were stowed
away in cunning corners.
The sun is resting on the hill-tops, and will soon disappear behind
them; the peafowl and jungle-cock are noisily challenging amongst
themselves, and the latest party of woodcutters have just passed by,
showing, by their brisk pace and loud talking, that they consider it
high time for prudent men to quit the jungle.
To the deeply-rooted stump of a young tree on the opposite bank, one
of the white cows has been made fast by a double cord passed twice
round her horns. Nothing remains to be done; the little door is
fastened behind me, the prickly acacia boughs are piled up against it
on the outside, and my people are anxious to be off. The old Shikaree
makes his appearance in the nullah, and wishing me success through the
window, asks if "all is right?" "Every thing; get home as fast as you
can: if you should hear three shots in succession before dark, come
back for me,--otherwise, bring the pony at six to-morrow morning,--and
a cup of hot coffee, tell the cook."
They are gone; I still hear them every now and then, as they shout to
one another, and as the pony is scrambling through some loose stones
in the bed of a [missing words/letters] through which the road lies.
The poor cow, too, listens with dismay to the retreating footsteps of
the party, and has already made some furious plunges to free herself
and rejoin the rest of the kine, who have been driven off, nothing
loth, towards home. Watch her: how intently she stares along the path
by which the people have deserted her. Were it not for the occasional
stamp of her fore leg, or the impatient side-toss of the head, to keep
off the swarming flies, she might be carved out of marble. And now a
fearful and anxious gaze up the bed of the nullah, and into the thick
fringe of Mimoso, one ear pricked and the other back alternately, show
that _instinct_ has already whispered the warning of impending danger.
Another plunge to get loose, and a searching gaze up the path; see her
sides heave. Now comes what we want--that deep low! it echoes again
among the hills: another, and another. Poor wretch! you are hastening
your doom; far or near the tiger hears you--under rock or thicket,
where he has lain since morning sheltered from the scorching sun, his
ears flutter as if they were tickled every time he hears that music:
his huge green eyes, heretofore half-closed, are now wide open, and,
alas! poor cow, gaze truly enough in thy direction; but he has not
stirred yet, and nobody can say in which direction giant death will
yet stalk forth.
Which ever of my readers who has never had to wait in solitude, in a
strange room of a strange house, has not indulged in that idle
speculative curiosity peculiar to such a situation, gazing on the
pictures, and counting perhaps tables and chairs with an absurd
earnestness of purpose,--will not understand how I spent the first
half hour of my solitude; how I idly counted the stakes that formed
the framework of the hut, or watched with interest the artful tactics
of another Shikaree, in the shape of a slippery-looking green lizard,
who was cautiously "stalking" the insects among the rafters.
The cow, tired with struggling and plunging, appears to have become
tolerably resigned to her situation, and has lain down, her ears,
however, in continual motion, and the jaw sometimes suddenly arrested,
while in the act of chewing the cud, to listen, as some slight noise
in the thicket attracts her attention. Gracious! what is that down the
nullah to the left? A peacock only. How my heart beat at first! what a
splendid train the fellow has. Here he comes, evidently for the water;
and now his seraglio,--one, two, four, five, buff-breasted,
modest-looking little quakeresses. What a contrast to his splendid
blue and gold! All to the water--dive in your bills and toss back your
heads with blinking eyes, as you quaff the delicious fluid; little do
you dream that there is a gun within five paces, although you are
quite safe. But stop! here are antics. The old boy is happy, and up
goes his tail, to the admiration of his hens, and the extreme
wonderment of the cow, who with open eyes is staring with all her
might at the glories of the expanded fan; and now slowly goes he round
and round, like a solemn Jack o' the Green, his spindle shanks looking
disreputably thin in the waning light.
They quit the water-side, and disappear; and I can hear their heavy
wings as they one after another mount a tall tree for the night.
The moon is up--all nature still; the cow, again on her legs, is
restless, and evidently frightened. Oh! reader, even if you have the
soul of a Shikaree, I despair of being able to convey in words a tithe
of the sensations of that solitary vigil: a night like that is to be
enjoyed but seldom--a red-letter day in one's existence.
Where is the man who has never experienced the poetic influence of a
moonlit scene! Fancy, then, such a one as here described; a crescent
of low hills--craggy, steep, and thickly wooded--around you on three
sides, and above them, again, at twenty miles' distance, the clear
blue outline of the Neilgherry Hills; in your front the silver-sand
bed of the dry watercourse divides the thick and sombre jungle with a
stream of light, till you lose it in the deep shadows at the foot of
the hills,--all quiet, all still, all bathed in the light of the moon,
yourself the only man for miles to come; a solitary watcher, your only
companion the poor cow, who, full of fears and suspicions at every
leaf-fall, reminds you that a terrible struggle is about to take place
within a few feet of your bed, and that there will be noise and
confusion, when you must be cool and collected. Your little kennel
would not be strong enough to resist a determined charge, and you are
alone, if three good guns are not true friends.
Let me, good reader, give way to the pleasures of memory,--let me
fancy myself back again, seated in my dear little hut, full of hope
and expectation, now drinking the ice-cold coffee from one of the
soda-water bottles, re-corking it, and placing it slowly and
noiselessly in its corner. Hark to the single ring of a silver bell,
and its echo among the hills! a spotted deer--why does she call? has
she seen any thing? Again, and again, and answered from a long
distance! 'Tis very odd, that when one should be most wakeful, there
should be always an inclination to sleep. A raw nip of aqua-vitæ, and
a little of the same rubbed round the eyes, nostrils and behind the
ears, make us wakeful again.
Oh! that I could express sounds on paper as music is written in notes.
No, reader, you must do as I have done--you must be placed in a
similar situation, to hear and enjoy the terrible roar of a hungry
tiger--not from afar off and listened for, but close at hand and
unexpected. It was like an electric shock;--a moment ago, I was dozing
off, and the cow, long since lain down, appeared asleep; that one roar
had not died away among the hills when she had scrambled on her legs,
and stood with elevated head, stiffened limbs, tail raised, and breath
suspended, staring full of terror in the direction of the sound. As
for the biped, with less noise and even more alacrity, he had grasped
his "Sam Nock," whose polished barrels just rested on the lower ledge
of the little peephole; perhaps his eyes were as round as saucers, and
heart beating fast and strong.
Now for the struggle;--pray heaven that I am cool and calm, and do not
fire in a hurry, for one shot will either lose or secure my
well-earned prize.
There he is again! evidently in that rugged, stony watercourse which
runs parallel, and about two hundred yards behind the hut. But what is
that? Yes, lightning: two flashes in quick succession, and a cold
stream of air is rustling through the half-withered leaves of my
ambush. Taking a look to the rear through an accidental opening among
the leaves, it was plain that a storm, or, as it would be called at
sea, a squall, was brewing. An arch of black cloud was approaching
from the westward, and the rain descending, gave it the appearance of
a huge black comb, the teeth reaching to the earth. The moon, half
obscured, showed a white mist as far as the rain had reached. Then was
heard in the puffs of air the hissing of the distant but approaching
down-pour: more lightning--then some large heavy drops plashed on the
roof, and it was raining cats and dogs.
How the scene was changed! Half-an-hour ago, solemn, and still, and
wild, as nature rested, unpolluted, undefaced, unmarked by
man--sleeping in the light of the moon, all was tranquillity; the
civilized man lost his idiosyncrasy in its contemplation--forgot
nation, pursuits, creed,--he felt that he was Nature's child, and
adored the God of Nature.
But the beautiful was now exchanged for the sublime, when that scene
appeared lit up suddenly and awfully by lightning, which now
momentarily exchanged a sheet of intensely dazzling blue light, with a
darkness horrible to endure--a light which showed the many streams of
water, which now appeared like ribbons over the smooth slabs of rock
that lay on the slope of the hills, and gave a microscopic accuracy of
outline to every object,--exchanged as suddenly for a darkness which
for the moment might be supposed the darkness of extinction--of utter
annihilation,--while the crash of thunder overhead rolled over the
echoes of the hills, "I am the Lord thy God."
The hut, made in a hurry, was not thatched (as it might have been),
and the half-dried foliage which covered it collected drops only to
pour down continuous streams from the stem of every twig.
So much for sitting up for tigers! will most of my readers exclaim,
and laugh at the monomaniac who would subject himself to such misery;
but the thorough-bred Shikaree is game and stanch to the backbone, and
will not be stopped by a night's wetting. For myself, I can only say
in extenuation, that I was born on the 12th of August.
A heavy and continuous down-pour soon showed its effects, and although
I had lots of big coats, and was not altogether unprepared for such an
emergency, an hour had not elapsed before I was obliged to confess
myself tolerably wet through. The matress just collected the water and
made a good hip-bath, for there was no other seat. The nullah,
heretofore as I have described, was now a turbid stream of red water,
which falling over a slab of rock into the small basin before
mentioned, kept up an unceasing din. Tired and disgusted, I rolled a
doubled blanket, although saturated with water, tight round me, and
was soon warm and asleep. About two o'clock in the morning the clouds
broke and the rain ceased; the boiling stream ran down to half its
size, and a concert of thousands of frogs, bass, tenor, and treble,
kept up a monotonous croaking enough to wake the dead.
The moon appeared again, and I attacked both cold coffee and brandy,
and made myself as comfortable as possible under existing
circumstances--to wit, wringing the water out of my jacket and cap,
and putting them on again warm and comparatively dry. The cow even
shook herself, and appeared glad of the change of weather, and I had
no doubt that she would go back with me to the tent in the morning to
gladden the eyes of her young calf and all good Hindoos. The nullah
had run dry again, and even the infernal frogs, as if despairing of
more rain, had ceased their din: damp and sleepy, with arms folded and
eyes sometimes open, but often shut, I kept an indifferent watch, when
the cow struggling on her legs and a choking groan brought me to my
senses! There they were! No dream! A huge tiger holding her just
behind the ears, shaking her like a fighting dog! By the doubtful
light of a watery moon did I calmly and noiselessly run out the muzzle
of my single J. Lang rifle.
I saw him, without quitting his grip of the cow's neck, leap over her
back more than once--she sank to the earth, and he lifted her up
again: at the first opportunity I pulled trigger--snick! The rifle was
withdrawn, and big Sam Nock felt grateful to the touch. Left
barrel--snick! Right barrel--snick, bang!
Whether hanging fire is an excuse or not, the tiger relinquished his
hold, and in one bound was out of sight. The cow staggered for two or
three seconds, fell with a heavy groan, and ceased to move. Tiger
gone!--cow dead!--was it a dream? Killed the cow within five paces and
gone away scathless.
For a long time I felt benumbed; I had missed many near shots, even
many at tigers, and some like this at night, but never before under
such favorable circumstances. Why, I almost dreaded the morning, when
my Shikaree and people would come and find the cow killed, and I
should have in fairness to account for the rest. The first streak of
daylight did shortly appear, and every familiar sound of awaking
nature succeeded each other, from the receding hooting of the huge
horned owl, to the noisy crowing of the jungle cock and the call of
the peafowl. The sun got up, and soon I heard, first doubtfully and
then distinctively, the approach of my people. A sudden start, and
stop, when they came in full view of the slaughtered cow; and then, a
look up and down the nullah, as if they had not seen all. The reader
must spare me the recollection of a scene that vexes me even at this
distance of time, as if it had occurred but yesterday. The next
half-hour was spent sitting on the carcass of the cow, staring at the
enormous and deeply indented prints of the tiger's feet, and looking
with sorrow and vexation and some compunction at the poor little calf
which had been driven back to its mother, neither to see her alive nor
her death avenged.
It was quite evident that the tiger had not been hit, for there was
neither hair nor blood to be seen, and one or two small branches in
the jungle beyond the cow showed, either by being cut down or barked,
that the ball had passed over the mark. So on the pony and back to the
tent to sleep or sulk out the next twelve hours.
Somehow or other that pony, generally so clever and pleasant, was
inclined to kick his toes against every stone, and be perverse all the
way home; at any rate I fancied so, and am ashamed to say that I gave
him the spur, or jerked the curb rein on the slightest pretence. My
people, like all Indians, read the case thoroughly, and trudged along
without hazarding a remark on any subject. We passed under the
identical banian-tree and by the disgusting little black image
described in the commencement of the story, and never did I feel more
indignant against all idolatry, or more inclined to smash a Hindoo
god. We also had to pass a small jungle village, and, as if on
purpose, it appeared that every man, woman, and child were posted to
have a good look. Several of them who knew some of my party, asked a
hurried question, and I could hear, though I would not look, that the
answer was given--"Had a shot, but missed." "Yes," said I to myself,
"quite true--why should I be angry?" "Here goes the man that missed an
animal as big as a bullock at ten paces,--more power to his elbow!"
The tent gained, I was soon lying on my back on the bed kicking out my
heels, calling for breakfast, and appearing to be very hungry, or very
sleepy, or very any thing but what I was--mortified and disgusted.
Breakfast over, my good old Shikaree was sent for, and the whole
affair gone over again. The rain, the unexpected time of night, and
above all, the two first shots _snicking_, and the third hanging fire
being considered, we two being judge and jury, it was decided that not
the slightest blame attached to the defendant, who was too well known
as a very fine shot to regard a mistake of this kind; and, moreover,
that as it was certain that the tiger was not hurt, but only
frightened, there was strong reason for hoping that he would return at
nightfall to the carcass. Men were therefore sent out to watch that
the place should not in any way be disturbed, or the dead cow touched
or moved, and I resigned myself to a pleasant sleep. I awoke about
three in the afternoon; the guns had, thanks to a good Shikaree, been
washed, dried, and slightly oiled, and were all laid on the table,
looking as if a month of rain would not make them miss fire. A bath,
clean clothes, guns loaded, pony saddled--and once more off to try my
luck.
The pony was active and cheerful, and even the beastly image under the
banian-tree did not look so grim. On our arrival at the ground, the
half-wild fellows who had watched all day, dropped down from their
trees, and reported that nothing had happened during the day, and that
the place had been undisturbed. A few vultures appeared about midday
and settled on the carcass, but had been driven off; further they had
nothing to say.
They were referred to the tent for payment for their day's work, and,
in due course, took their departure with my people.
Once more left alone!--this time quite alone, for my poor companion of
last night lay stiff and stark in the position I saw her fall, when
the tiger relinquished his hold.
Alarmed by the already slightly smelling carrion, or finding water
elsewhere, left by the down-pour of last night, no peaceful or other
living thing paid me a visit, if I except some few crows, who with
heavy wings swept past, or perched on neighboring trees, cawing, and
winking their eyes, and peering cautiously and inquisitively at the
dead cow. Only one among the crew hovered and lighted on the dead
beast's head; but although he made several picks at the lips and eyes,
opening and shutting his wings the while on his strong, sleek,
wiry-looking body, and cawing lustily, nobody heeded him; so,
appearing to be alarmed at being solus in the scene, he took his
departure.
Night succeeded day, and the moon, in unclouded beauty, made the dark
jungle a fairy scene. There was but one drawback; the cow lay dead,
the tiger had been fired at, and experience whispered, 'the
opportunity has gone by.'
By-and-by a jackal passed, like a shadow among the bushes, so
small-looking, so much the color of all around, that it remained a
doubt; more of these passed to and fro, and then a bolder ventured on
the plain sand, and up to the rump of the dead beast, took two or
three hard tugging bites, and was gone. As the night grew later, they
became less fearful, and half-a-dozen of them together were tugging
and tearing, till breaking the entrails, the gas escaped in a loud
rumbling, which dispersed my friends among the bushes in a moment; but
they were almost immediately back, and the confidence with which they
went to work, convinced me that my hope was hopeless.
It must have been eleven o'clock when my ears caught the echo among
the rocks, and then the distant roar--nearer--nearer--nearer; and--oh,
joy!--answered. Tiger and tigress!--above all hope!--coming to
recompense me for hundreds of night-watchings--to balance a long
account of weary nights in the silent jungle, in platforms on trees,
in huts of leaf and bramble, and in damp pits on the water's edge--all
bootless;--coming--coming--nearer, and nearer.
Music nor words, dear reader, can stand me in any stead to convey the
sound to you; the first note like the trumpet of a peacock, and the
rest the deepest toned thunder. Stones and gravel rattled just behind
the hut on the path by which we came and went, and a heavy stey passed
and descended the slope into the nullah. I heard the sand crunching
under his weight before I dared look. A little peep. Oh, heavens!
looming in the moonlight, there he stood, long, sleek as satin, and
lashing his tail--he stood stationary, smelling the slaughtered cow.
No longer the cautious, creeping tiger, I felt how awful a brute he
was to offend. I remembered how he had worried a strong cow in half a
minute, and that with his weight alone my poor rickety little citadel
would fall to pieces. As if the excitement of the moment was
insufficient, the monster, gazing down the dry watercourse, caught
sight of his companion, who, advancing up the bed of the nullah, stood
irresolutely about twenty yards off. A terrific growl from him,
answered not loud but deeply, and I was the strange and unsuspected
witness to a catawauling which defies description--a monstrous
burlesque on those concerts of tigers in miniature which are
occasionally got up, on a cold, clear night, in some of the squares in
London, when all the cats for half a mile around get by some queer
accident into one area.
Whether it is an axiom among tigers that possession is nine points of
the law, or the other monster was the weaker vessel, I know not, but I
soon perceived that as _my_ friend made more noise, the other became
more subdued, and finally left the field, and retired growling among
the bushes. The bully, who was evidently the male, after smelling at
the head, came round the carcass, making a sort of complacent
purring--"humming a kind of animal song," and to it he went tooth and
nail. As he stood with his two fore feet on the haunch, while he
tugged and tore out a beef-steak, I once more grasped old "Sam Nock,"
and ran the muzzle out of the little port. The white linen band marked
a line behind his shoulders, and rather low, but, from the continued
motion of his body, it was some moments before eye and finger agreed
to pull trigger--bang! A shower of sand rattled on the dry leaves, and
a roar of rage and pain satisfied me, even before the white smoke
which hung in the still air had cleared away, to show the huge monster
writhing and plunging where he had fallen. Either directed by the
fire, or by some slight noise made in the agitation of the moment, he
saw me, and with a hideous yell, scrambled up: the roaring thunder of
his voice filled the valley, and the echoes among the hills answered
it, with the hootings of tribes of monkeys, who, scared out of sleep,
sought the highest branches, at the sound of the well-known voice of
the tyrant of the jungle. I immediately perceived, to my great joy,
that his hind-quarters were paralyzed and useless, and that all danger
was out of the question. He sank down again on his elbows, and as he
rested his now powerless limbs, I saw the blood welling out of a wound
in the loins, as it shone in the moonlight, and trickled off his
sleek-painted hide, like globules of quicksilver. As I looked into his
countenance, I saw all the devil alive there. The will remained--the
power only had gone. It was a sight never to be forgotten. With head
raised to the full stretch of his neck, he glared at me with an
expression of such malignity, that it almost made one quail. I thought
of the native superstition of singing off the whiskers of the
newly-killed tiger to lay his spirit, and no longer wondered at it.
With ears back, and mouth bleeding, he growled and roared in fitful
uncertainty, as if he were trying, but unable, to measure the extent
of the force that had laid him low.
Motionless myself, provocation ceased, and without further attempt to
get on his legs, he continued to gaze on me; when I slowly lowered my
head to the sight, and again pulled trigger. This time, true to the
mark, the ball entered just above the breast-bone, and the smoke
cleared off with his death groan. There he lay, foot to foot with his
victim of last night, motionless--dead. My first impulse was to tear
down the door behind, and get a thorough view of his proportions; but
remembering that his companion, the tigress, had only vanished a short
time ago close to the scene of action, I thought it as well to remain
where I was; so, enlarging the windows with my hands, I took a long
look, and then jovially attacked the coffee and brandy bottles,
without reference to noise, and fell back on the mattress to sleep, or
to think the night's work over. "At last, I have got him: his skin
will be pegged out to-morrow, drying before the tent door." When my
people came in the morning, they found me seated on the dead tiger.
Coolies were sent for to carry the beast, and I gave the pony his
reins all the way back to the tent.
After breakfast, the sound of tomtoms and barbarous music greeted our
ears; for the Gooroo and half the little village had turned out, and
were bringing in the tiger like an Irish funeral. I had a chair
brought out, and under the shade of a fine tree superintended the
skinning of the tiger; and as I had had no sleep for the last two
nights, I determined to make holiday. Dined at half-past six, and had
a bottle of _Frederick Giesler_, and the fumes of his glorious
champagne inspired me: "The first rainy day, I will put last night's
adventure on paper, and send it home to my old friend Regina."
From Bentley's Miscellany.
A VISIT TO THE "MAID OF ATHENS."
BY MRS. BUXTON WHALLEY.
"_Buon giorno, signora! Vi è veramente una bella città! Mà, dov' è la
Fenice?_" Such was the morning salutation of the Venetian captain in
command of the Austrian Loyd steamer which had conveyed us up the Gulf
of Corinth, as he pointed derisively to a collection of huts about a
stone's throw from the shore, and wondered what could induce any one,
voluntarily, to abandon his "sea Cybele" for such as these! So few
were they in number, and so small in size, that they had hitherto
eluded our notice; nevertheless, they constituted, insignificant as
they appeared, the town of Lutraki. The captain's interruption,
awakening us from a dream of "Gods and god-like men," was as
disagreeable as all such interruptions must be, alike indicating
ignorance, and that want of sympathy, which is its natural result. But
to the English traveller, who now scarcely dares to hope to find a
spot left on Europe where he may look on Nature, unseared by
cockneyfied sights and sounds, it ought not to form a very serious
subject for complaint. To such an one, sick of Italian cities, where
his countrymen assemble but to parade their _ennui_ and their vices,
as of German steamboats, on the decks of which they listlessly throng,
dividing their glances pretty equally between castles and cutlets--a
rock and a _ragout_--how invigorating is the first sight of Greece, in
all its primitive and majestically tranquil simplicity! And what a
strangely felicitous epithet does that seem of "voiceless" bestowed by
Byron on those shores where nothing is heard, save occasionally the
plaintive cry of a sea-gull, and the very gentlest murmur from the
waves. There, may be observed in perfection the truth of
Chateaubriand's remark, that, "_le paysage n'est creé que par le
soleil; c' est la lumière qui fait le paysage_."
However, our present purpose is to narrate a short episode in modern
Athenian life, rather than to dwell on scenes with which genius even
can but imperfectly familiarize the world, either by pen or pencil.
Near the solitary palm-tree, which grows in the middle of the highway
affecting to communicate[11] between Athens and the Piræus, a
polygonal structure has been built, which is entered through a dark,
narrow passage leading from the road in front to a yard at its rear. A
ladder fixed against the wall forms the usual mode of ingress to a
very small room, which on a certain carnival night, not long ago, was
crowded by hats, cloaks, and Greeks, both male and female; the former
busily occupied in smoking, the latter in concocting some
indescribable liquid intended as a light refreshment to wearied
dancers. For the Maid of Athens--the quondam Mariana Macri--the actual
Mrs. Black, was about to give a ball. From the before-mentioned small
entrance-room the guests passed into the principal saloon, exactly
coinciding in its strange shape with the exterior of the house. At the
upper end an open door revealed a bed, on which shortly afterwards the
orchestra, consisting of two fiddlers, took up their position, with
knees protruding into the ball-room.
Every thing was of the rudest, the most unadorned, and Robinson
Crusoe-like, description. At the first glance it became evident that
the "geraniums and Grecian balms," which an enthusiastic traveller
once endeavored to magnify into "waving aromatic plants," had long ago
withered from the hostess's possession, never to be replaced. But she,
the fairest flower of all, with her two sisters, still retain no
inconsiderable remnants of beauty; which is the more remarkable in a
country where good looks vanish, and age arrives, so speedily. Indeed,
good looks at all are rare among the continental Greek women; the
celebrated beauties being usually islanders, and chiefly Hydriotes.
Mrs. Black was attired in her coquettish native costume, consisting of
a red fez, profusely ornamented with gold embroidery, placed on one
side of the head; a long flowing silk petticoat, and a close-fitting,
dark velvet jacket. A similar dress was worn by her sister, Madame
Pittakis, the wife of the celebrated antiquary, and _guardian of the
Acropolis_; in virtue of which magnificent title he receives two
drachmæ (about 1_s._ 7_d._) per head for admission to the Parthenon.
The third Grace, being a widow, was dressed entirely in black. The
company comprised a motley assemblage in Frank, and the varying
provincial Greek costumes, diversified here and there by personages in
King Otho's uniform. But the dancers of the _beau sexe_ were extremely
few, and, to say the least of them, very indifferent performers.
However, what they needed in skill and energy, was amply made up by
the vivacity of their graceful and vainglorious lords; who, despite
the clouds of dust from the dirty floor, and equally dirty shoes,
continued an almost ceaseless round of their national dance, the
Romaïka, only pausing at intervals to recruit their strength with
glasses of burning rakee, the beverage most in demand. Those bowls of
Samian wine which figure so charmingly in poetry, form, alas! but
sorry items in prosaic matter-of-fact repasts; and one feels, indeed,
disposed to dash them any where _but_ down one's throat. Of the
dancers, one of the most active was Mrs. Black's son, a handsome
youth, apparently about eighteen years of age; together with her
husband, who, from being a Norfolk farmer, is now elevated to the
somewhat anomalous position of English Professor at the Athenian
University. The fair Mariana herself is quiet and retiring; and
seemingly little anxious to profit by the factitious interest with
which Byron's transient admiration continues to invest her; for, in
reply that night to a blundering Englishman's point blank queries
concerning the poet, she answered, "_Non mi ricordo più di lui_."
Soon after midnight the guests departed, at the imminent hazard of
breaking their necks, either down Mrs. Black's ladder, or in the
numerous holes that intervened between her residence and their
respective abodes. But we could not help thinking, that, uncouth as
had been the entertainment, it was more in accordance with the social
position of a people whose Ministers are not always competent to read
or write, and whose legislators occasionally enforce their political
arguments by flinging their shoes in the faces of the opposition, than
the exotic civilization of the gaudy little court, presided over by
that loveliest of royal ladies, Queen Amalia.
FOOTNOTES:
[11] At the period of which I write, this road, although the principal
approach to the capital, was impassable, and passengers pursued,
instead, a devious and uncertain track through corn-fields, ditches,
and the rocky bed of the Cyphissus.
From the French of Eugene de Mirecourt,
THE HISTORY OF A ROSE
The gallery parallel to the course of the Seine, and which joins the
Palace of the Tuileries to the Louvre, was designed by Philibert de
l'Orme, and finished towards the end of 1663. On the 15th of January,
1664, Louis the Fourteenth descended into the vast greenhouses, where
his gardener, Le Nôtre, had collected from all parts of the world the
rarest and most beautiful plants and flowers.
The air was soft and balmy as that of spring-time in the south. At the
right of the great monarch stood Colbert, silently revolving gigantic
projects of state; at the left was Lauzun, that ambitious courtier,
who, not possessing sufficient tact to discern royal hatred under the
mask of court favor, was afterwards destined to expiate, at Pignerol,
the crime of being more amiable and handsomer than the king.
"Messieurs," said Louis, showing to his companions a long and
richly-laden avenue of orange trees, "are not these a noble present
from our ancient enemy, Philip the Fourth, now our father-in-law? He
has rifled his own gardens to deck the Tuileries; and the Infanta, we
hope, when walking beneath these trees, will cease to regret the shade
of the Escurial."
"Sire," said Colbert gravely, "the Queen mourns a much greater
loss--that of your majesty's affections."
"_Parbleu!_" exclaimed Lauzun, gayly; "in order to lose any thing, one
must first have possessed it. Now, if I don't mistake,--"
"Silence! M. le Duc. M. de Colbert, my marriage was the work of
Mazarin--quite sufficient to guarantee that the _heart_ was not
consulted."
The minister bowed, without replying.
"As to you, M. de Lauzun," continued the king, "beware, henceforward,
how you forget that Maria Theresa is Queen of France, and that the
nature of our feelings towards her is not to be made a subject of
discussion."
"Sire, forgive my--"
"Enough!" interrupted Louis, approaching a man, who, unmindful of the
king's presence, had taken off his coat, in order the more easily to
prune a tall flowering shrub.
This was the celebrated gardener, Le Nôtre. Absorbed in some
unpleasant train of thought, he had not heeded the approach of
visitors, and continued to mutter and grumble to himself, while
diligently using the pruning-knife.
"What! out of humor?" asked Louis.
Without resuming his coat, the gardener cried eagerly--"Sire, justice!
This morning, the Queen Dowager's maids of honor came hither, and, in
spite of my remonstrances, did an infinity of mischief. See this
American magnolia, the only one your Majesty possesses. Well, Sire,
they cut off its finest blossoms: neither oranges nor roses could
escape them. Happily I succeeded in hiding from them my favorite
child--my beautiful rose-tree, which I have nursed with so much care,
and which will live for fifty years, provided care be taken not to
allow it to produce more than one rose in the season." Then pointing
to the plant of which he spoke, Le Nôtre continued: "'Tis the
hundred-leaved rose, Sire! Hitherto I have saved it from pillage; but
I protest, if such conduct can be renewed.
"Come, come!" interposed the monarch, "we must not be too hard on
young girls. They are like butterflies, and love flowers."
"_Morbleu!_ Sire, butterflies don't break boughs, and eat oranges!"
Louis deigned to smile at this repartee. "Tell us," he said, "who were
the culprits?"
"All the ladies, Sire! Yet, no. I am wrong. There was one young
creature, as fresh and lovely as this very rose, who did not imitate
her companions. The poor child even tried to comfort me, while the
others were tearing my flowers: they called her Louise."
"It was Mademoiselle de la Vallière," said Lauzun, "the young person
whom your Majesty remarked yesterday in attendance on Madame
Henriette."
"She shall have her reward," said Louis. "Let Mademoiselle de la
Vallière be the only maid of honor invited to the ball to be given
here to-night."
"A ball! Ah, my poor flowers!" cried Le Nôtre, clasping his hands in
despair.
Colbert ventured to remind his Majesty that he had promised to give an
audience that evening to two architects, Claude Perrault and Liberal
Bruant; of whom, the first was to bring designs for the Observatory;
the second, a plan for the Hôtel des Invalides.
"Receive these gentlemen yourself," replied the king; "while we are
dancing, M. de Colbert will labor for our glory; posterity will never
be the wiser! Only, in order to decorate these bare walls, have the
goodness to send to the manufactory of the Gobelins, which you have
just established, for some of the beautiful tapestry you praise so
highly."
Accordingly, to the utter despair of Le Nôtre, the ball took place in
the greenhouses, metamorphosed, as if by magic, into a vast gallery,
illumined by a thousand lustres, sparkling amid flowers and precious
stones. Each fragrant orange-tree bore wax-lights amid its branches,
and many lovely faces gleamed amongst the flowery thickets; while
bright eyes watched the footsteps of the mighty master of the revel.
The cutting north-east wind blew outside; poor wretches shivered on
the pavement; but what did that matter while the court danced and
laughed amid trees and flowers, and breathed the soft sweet summer
air?
Maria Theresa did not mingle in the scene. Timid and retiring, the
young Queen fled from the noisy gayety of the court, and usually
remained with her aunt, the Queen Mother. On this occasion, therefore,
the ball was presided over by Madame Henriette, and by Olympia
Mancini, Countess of Soissons. The gentle La Vallière kept, modestly,
in the background, until espied by the King, beneath the magnolia,
which her companions had so recklessly despoiled of its flowers, and
which had cost them exclusion from the _fête_.
The next moment the hand of Louise trembled in that of her sovereign;
for Louis the Fourteenth had chosen the maid of honor for his partner
in the dance. At the close of the evening, Le Nôtre, who had received
private orders, brought forward his favorite rose-tree, transplanted
into a richly-gilded vase. The poor man looked like a criminal
approaching the place of execution. He laid the flower on a raised
step near the throne; and on the front of its vase every one read the
words which had formerly set Olympus in a flame--"To the most
beautiful!"
Many rival belles grew pale when they heard the Duc de Lauzun ordered
by Louis to convey the precious rose-tree into the apartment of
Mademoiselle de la Vallière. But Le Nôtre rejoiced, for the fair one
gave him leave to come each day and attend to the welfare of his
beloved flower.
The rose-tree soon became to the favorite a mysterious talisman by
which she estimated the constancy of Louis the Fourteenth. She watched
with anxiety all its changes of vegetation, trembling at the fall of a
leaf, and weeping whenever a new bud failed to replace a withered
blossom. Louise had yielded her erring heart to the dreams of love,
not to the visions of ambition. "Tender, and ashamed of being so," as
Madame de Sevigné has described her, the young girl mourned for her
fault at the foot of the altar. Remorse punished her for her
happiness; and more than once has the priest, who read first mass at
the chapel of Versailles, turned at the sound of stifled sobs
proceeding from the royal recess, and seen there a closely-veiled
kneeling figure.
The fallen angel still remembered heaven.
Thus passed ten years. At their end, the rose-tree might be seen
placed on a magnificent stand in the Palace of St. Germain; but
despite of Le Nôtre's constant care, the flower bent sadly on its
blighted stem. Near it the Duchess de la Vallière (for so she had just
been created) was weeping bitterly. Her most intimate friend,
Françoise Athenaïs de Montemar, Comtesse de Montespan, entered, and
exclaimed, "What, weeping, Louise! Has not the King just given you the
_tabouret_ as a fresh proof of his love?"
Without replying, La Vallière pointed to her rose.
"What an absurd superstition!" cried Madame de Montespan, seating
herself near her friend. "'Tis really childish to fancy that the
affections of a Monarch should follow the destiny of a flower. Come,
child," she continued, playfully slapping the fair mourner's hands
with her fan, "you know you are always adorable, and why should you
not be always adored!"
"Because another has had the art to supplant me."
Athenaïs bit her lip. Louise had at length discovered that her
pretended friend was seeking to undermine her. On the previous
evening the King had conversed for a long time with Madame de
Montespan in the Queen's apartments. He had greatly enjoyed her clever
mimicry of certain court personages; and when La Vallière had ventured
to reproach him tenderly, he had replied--
"Louise, you are silly; your rose-tree speaks untruly when it
calumniates me."
None but Athenaïs, to whom alone it had been confided, could have
betrayed the secret. And now, at the entrance of her rival, la
Vallière hastened to dry up her tears, but not so speedily as to
prevent the other from perceiving them. Her feigned caresses, and
ill-disguised tone of triumph, provoked Louise to let her see that she
discerned her treachery. But Athenaïs pretended not to feel the shaft.
"Supplant you, dear Louise!" she said in a tone of surprise; "it would
be difficult to do that, I should think, when the King is wholly
devoted to you!"
Rising with a careless air, she approached the rose-tree, drew from
her glove an almost invisible phial, and, with a rapid gesture, poured
on its footstalk the corrosive liquid which the tiny flask contained.
This was the third time that Madame de Montespan had practised this
unworthy manoeuvre, unknown to the sorrowful favorite, who, as her
insidious rival well knew, would believe the infidelity of the King,
only on the testimony of his precious gift.
Next morning, Le Nôtre found the rose-tree quite dead. The poor old
man loved it as if it had been his child, and his eyes were filled
with tears as he carried it to its mistress.
Then Louise felt, indeed, that no hope remained. Pale and trembling,
she took a pair of scissors, cut off the withered blossom, and placed
it under a crystal vase. Afterwards she prayed to Heaven for strength
to fulfil the resolution she had made.
The age of Louis the Fourteenth passed away, with its glory and with
its crimes. France had now reached that disastrous epoch, when famine
and pestilence mowed down the peaceful inhabitants, and Marlborough
and Prince Eugene cut the royal army to pieces on the frontiers.
One day, the death-bell tolled from a convent tower in the Rue St.
Jacques, and two long files of female Carmelites bore, to her last
dwelling, one of the sisters of their strict and silent order. When
the last offices were finished, and all the nuns had retired to their
cells, an old man came and knelt beside the quiet grave. His trembling
hand raised a crystal vase which had been placed on the stone; he took
from beneath it a withered rose, which he pressed to his lips, and
murmured, in a voice broken by sobs:--
"Poor heart! Poor flower!"
The old man was Le Nôtre; and the Carmelite nun, buried that morning,
was _Sister Louise de la Miséricorde_, formerly Duchesse de la
Vallière.
From the London Times.
THE STORY OF STUART OF DUNLEATH.[12]
The story is truthful, plaintive, and full of beauty. At a very early
age Eleanor Raymond loses her father, who has held a high appointment
in India, and news of his death is brought while she is still a child
to her mother's house in England. The bearer of the sad intelligence
is David Stuart, of Dunleath, the penniless representative of a ruined
Scottish house. David had been secretary to Sir John Raymond, whose
eyes he had closed, and he comes to the widow recommended to her
sisterly love, and the appointed guardian of her youthful daughter.
Lady Raymond, it must be added, had been previously married, and is
the mother of a burly sailor, promoted by Sir John's interest, and at
sea at the time of his stepfather's death. We need not stay to dwell
upon the feeble helplessness, physical and mental, of her Ladyship, or
to contrast it with the overbearing disposition of her son, whose
strong attachment to his mother is the redeeming feature of his
character. The young ex-secretary and present guardian proceeds to the
fulfilment of his duty, as it seems, with a conscientious mind. His
ward is an heiress, and will be surrounded with trials of many kinds.
She is fair to behold, ingenuous, trustful, is neglected by her
surviving parent,--less from want of affection than from lack of
interest--who, then, so suited for monitor and instructor both, as the
highly-disciplined and well-informed Stuart himself? David has been a
great traveller, has read much, and observed more. His intellect is
commanding, and he is noble in form. He notes the quickness of his
ward, is captivated by her girlish enthusiasm and untiring zeal. He
will engage no masters when he can teach so accurately himself. She
requires no instructors but the master from whom she learns so
willingly and so well. Perilous devotion of a teacher (it may be of
twenty) with so fond a pupil, though her years number but ten! What
man of twenty-eight ever thought himself old in the presence of a
maiden of eighteen? What girl of eighteen ever deemed herself too
young to be wooed and won by a man of twenty-eight? For eight years
guardian and ward live under one roof, partaking of the same
influences, the same pleasures, the same daily occupations, and
divided from all around them by the superiority of their own minds and
the congeniality of their pursuits. Pity the poor country girl in
constant presence of that cultivated intellect, fine understanding,
and beaming countenance, never weary of smiling on her life. What
wonder that as the flower expands in beauty it gradually unfolds to
blissful consciousness? Eleanor secretly loves her guardian, and
glories in the passion. He is poor, but she is rich beyond her wishes,
did her wishes comprehend aught else but the desire to make him
happy. Dunleath has passed from David Stuart's family. Eleanor has
listened a thousand times to her guardian's fond regrets for his lost
inheritance, and to the descriptions of that once happy home, the
memory of which Stuart carries about with him to darken his best and
brightest hours. What privilege to restore the coveted possession to
its natural owner, and to enrich herself by parting with the gift!
What happiness for the wife of David Stuart to bring back the smile to
his cheek, and to purchase a joy for him for ever! Sweet dreamer! She
dreams on, until reality begins. Her education ends. She goes at the
instance of her mother and half-brother to London. She takes up her
abode with a friend of her guardian's, the Lady Margaret Fordyce, and
enters upon London life. Lady Margaret is a widow, young, benevolent,
and beautiful. The fame of Eleanor's wealth is soon known to
fortune-hunters, and suitors crowd about her. One, Sir Stephen
Penrhyn, a coarse, sensual, and brutal personage, captivated by her
beauty, and sufficiently wealthy himself, proposes in proper form.
Godfrey, the half-brother, explains to David Stuart that Eleanor's
family approve the match, and require his formal consent to the union.
Stuart sends for Eleanor. He points out to her the advantages of the
marriage and the wishes of her friends. The child trembles. She cannot
marry, she hurriedly says, a man whom she does not love, and moreover
she has seen another whom she prefers. Stuart has only one question to
ask. "Is that other rich?" "He has no more," replies Eleanor, "than my
father bequeathed to you." Stuart's heart beats guiltily as she speaks
of her father's bounty, and, with a meaning which the girl fails to
interpret, he anxiously bids her mention the favored man's name. The
effort is too intense--her heart is nigh to bursting--she faints, and
her mother enters her apartment to find her senseless in the arms of
her tutor. The last object Eleanor beholds from her window that night,
is David Stuart, looking up, with folded arms, to her room.
She rises the next morning to find that Stuart has suddenly quitted
the house, having left a sealed letter for her perusal. She reads it.
The whole brilliant fabric of her girlhood tumbles down to earth long
before she reaches its close. David Stuart loves her not. He is
ignorant of her strong affection. He has dissipated her whole vast
fortune. With the hope of realizing a sum sufficient to win back
Dunleath, he has been tempted to speculations which have beggared his
confiding ward. He recommends marriage with Sir Stephen Penrhyn, and
takes leave of her for ever, for he has resolved upon self-murder. He
asks her to approach the adjacent river on some day of peace and
sunshine hereafter--the river which they have so often visited
together in sunshine before--to breathe out forgiveness for him there,
if she will, and then to forget him. A search is made near the spot
indicated. A torn handkerchief hangs on one of the leafless branches;
the river is dragged, but the body is not found. Eleanor knows David
Stuart is dead, and the knowledge gives color and shape to her
remaining days.
Ruin has overtaken the family of Eleanor Raymond, but Sir Stephen
Penrhyn is still content with his bargain. He proposed for the person,
not for the fortune of Eleanor, and he will take her, beggared as she
is. Eleanor's mother needs a home. To give her a sanctuary, Eleanor
consents to become Lady Penrhyn. What blessing can attend the union?
She gives birth to twins, one a sickly boy, the other ruddy, strong,
and full of health. They grow up to become the mother's last and best
consolation, and then she loses both by a violent death at one and the
same moment. Sir Stephen has a remedy for parental sorrow, which but
increases the great woe of Eleanor. What need to refer to it? Eleanor
passes the lodge gate on her estate one day to be made aware of her
husband's gross infidelity, and to behold living evidences of his
guilt. Is her cup of sorrow full? Not yet. She utters no complaint,
but bears her yoke of suffering meekly and resignedly, waiting
patiently and beseechingly, rather than with murmurs, for the hour of
dismissal. Light, however, is to gleam upon the checkered path before
the journey closes. Another eight years may have elapsed since David
Stuart took his last leave of Eleanor, and a stranger presents himself
with unexpected news. Sir Stephen is from home, and a traveller has
arrived at his house, with a letter from a distant country. Wondrous
disclosure! Stuart lives! Mercifully saved on the night on which he
attempted suicide, he proceeded to America, where by dint of years of
steady exertion and co-operation with the authors of his former great
calamity he contrived to re-establish the affairs of the bankrupt
house with which he had connected himself, and to recover the whole of
Eleanor's sacrificed patrimony. The bearer of the letter, Mr. Stuart's
confidential agent, is authorized to restore her fortune, and to
communicate all particulars respecting his past history. Oh, to see
the man who had lately seen him living and safe in far off America!
She hurries to meet him, and grasps the hand of--David Stuart. When
Sir Stephen comes home, at Mr. Stuart's earnest request and against
the wish of Eleanor, the guardian is introduced as Mr. Lindsay.
"Nothing," he says, "is to be gained by self-betrayal," the more
especially as he intends shortly to return to his adopted home. But
before Stuart can make up his mind to departure, he is made aware,
first of a circumstance which it is much to be wondered has never
occurred to him before, viz.: the former perfect uncalculating
devotion of his ward; and then of the more poignant fact that misery,
suffering, insult, and cruelty had attended her whole married life.
Intolerable injury reaches its height! Sir Stephen brings his bastards
into his house, and commands his wife to show them respect. Wild with
sorrow and indignation, she is advised by Stuart of Dunleath to leave
her home, to go to London, to seek a lawyer of eminence, and to sue
for a divorce. That obtained, _then_ will come, after much delay, that
"happier future," of which the counsellor dares not trust himself to
speak. The resolve is taken, the journey is made. But time brings
reflection, and reflection, reason. It is not her husband's sin that
took her from his roof, but the visionary sin of her own love; it was
"the desire to swear at the altar of God to be true to David Stuart
till death, that prompted her to plan her breaking of her first vow."
She will not undo that vow to indulge her own undying love. Still
urged by David Stuart to the act, she resists the great temptation,
and retires meekly into solitude, to pay the full penalty of her
submission to the call of virtue. To return to the pollution of her
husband's house is not to be thought of. To partake of sin with David
Stuart is a suggestion not more to be tolerated in her pure and
agitated soul.
One other drop, and the cup is full indeed. We have spoken of Lady
Margaret Fordyce, but we have thought it unnecessary to mingle the
history of that admirable person with the main current of our
narrative. Lady Margaret, as we have said, is an old friend of Mr.
David Stuart. She has taken a sisterly interest in the career of
Eleanor, but has never ascertained from her the secret of her early
and pure affection for her guardian. Inheriting a goodly fortune, the
first care of Lady Margaret is to purchase the estate of Dunleath. She
is not long mistress of it before the recovered property is in the
hands of the man who, in his youth, became a criminal in order to
possess it. David Stuart marries Lady Margaret Fordyce. Eleanor
receives the intelligence while she is languishing abroad under the
care of her foster-brother and his wife. The news goes silently to her
heart as a lancet might travel thither, giving no external indication
of the mortal wound inflicted. But the blood flows unseen within, and
life stops, as it needs must, from the cruel laceration. Eleanor
dies--still without a murmur. She had borne daily outrage from her
husband, and confined the knowledge of her wrongs to her own bosom.
She owed her sufferings to the first great fault of her guardian, yet
she would never listen to one unkind word against his memory when she
deemed him lost, and her love for him suffered no tarnish at any time
for his offence. Shall she complain now that he is happy, and is
master of Dunleath? She dies indeed broken-hearted, but good, gentle,
uncomplaining, and forgiving, to the last.
The characters that move in the various scenes that make up this
melancholy play are sketched out with a skilful and well disciplined
hand, and are creditable to the authoress's creative powers. Great
knowledge of human nature is indicated throughout the work. There is
nothing overdrawn; the plot is natural, and the style fluent and
poetical.
A word or two are necessary before we close, with reference to one
remarkable phenomenon in connection with a leading personage in the
drama. By a singular coincidence, not only Mrs. Norton, but every
person in the book, is in perfect ignorance of a fact that is present
to our mind almost from the first page to the last. David Stuart, of
Dunleath, we grieve to say, is not only a very selfish gentleman, but
a most accomplished rascal, yet not a human creature, but the reader
and ourselves, has the least idea of it. Just look at him! Appointed
the guardian of a helpless girl, he makes away with her fortune in a
fruitless endeavor to enrich himself. He hears from the maiden's own
lips that her heart is irrevocably bestowed upon a man whom she
adores, yet he coolly recommends her to form an alliance with a brute
for whom she cares nothing at all, in order that she may recover the
wealth of which he, the adviser, has deliberately robbed her.
Returning to England, and taking up his residence with the husband of
his ward, he places the poor girl in a cruelly false position, and all
but blasts her reputation, by compelling her to keep a secret, the
communicating which could at the worst only occasion him a very
trifling inconvenience. Quitting the husband's house, and learning
quite soon enough for the lady's happiness that he had been the object
of Eleanor's early choice, he advises an action for divorce, promising
his hand in the event of a triumphant verdict. Finding the wife more
honest than himself, he smothers his affection and looks elsewhere for
crumbs of comfort. He finds them at the table of Lady Margaret
Fordyce, whom he condescendingly weds, because, we are compelled to
suppose, she has Dunleath to throw into the bargain. That Stuart is
unnaturally described we will not say; but that Mrs. Norton should be
so profoundly ignorant of his faults--should take such pains to hold
him up as a high-minded gentleman--that Lady Margaret should imagine
him a paragon of perfection and positively adore him--that her
brother, the Duke of Lanark, should be "fond of him,"--and that an
incalculable amount of respect and love should be thrown away by all
parties concerned upon so worthless an object is, we must confess,
somewhat disgusting in an age when even the highest merit fails too
often of securing its deserts. One good action alone saves David
Stuart from utter detestation. He recovered and restored the fortune
of Eleanor Raymond--but many a transported forger has been capable of
heroism as lofty, with incitements to honesty about as pure.
FOOTNOTES:
[12] _Stuart of Dunleath_: by Mrs. Norton. New-York, Harpers, 1851.
_Authors and Books._
The student of classic mythology, who loves with Hammer Purgstall and
Kreutzer to dive into the oriental depths of ancient myths, will
welcome the recent appearance of a work by LUDWIG MERCKLIN, entitled
_Die Talos-Sage, und das Sardonische Lachen_. The story of Talus, and
the Sardonic Laughter--a contribution to the history of Grecian legend
and art--St. Petersburg and Leipsic, 1851. In this work we learn that
the Cretan Talus was beyond doubt the Phoenician sun-god, and that
he was identical with the Athenian of the same name. The Cretan Talus,
according to the mythological account, was a brazen image, which
Vulcan gave to Minos, or Jupiter to Europa. He defended the island by
heating himself in the fire and embracing his enemies. More literal
commentators have attempted to prove that Talus was a brazen statue or
beacon, like the Colossus of Rhodes, placed by the Phoenicians on
the Cretan promontory. The Athenian Talus, inventor of the compass and
saw, was slain by his uncle Dædalus, who was envious of his talent.
The gods changed him to a partridge. After identifying the twain,
Mercklin attempts to prove that the elements of this myth are to be
sought in the ancient dogmas of lustration, and that they may be still
further referred to the worship of Apollo. In connection with this
Talus legend, he closely scrutinizes the account of the so called
Sardonic laughter, and its relation to the same religious rites. "In
conclusion, he discusses those ancient works of art which illustrate
this subject, namely, the medals of Phaistos and the celebrated vase
of Ruvo, of which he gives a new, and on the whole certainly correct
account." In connection with this work we may notice another which
appeared in April, entitled _Bellerophon_, by HERMAN ALEX. FISCHER.
From the subject we infer that this Fischer is identical with
_Vischer_ who published three years ago one of the best _Æsthetics_ on
philosophies of art, ever written even in Germany. We are told in a
short notice, that the author attempts, by a study of the myth of
Bellerophon and those works of art relating to it, including the
etymological signification of the name, to establish the identity of
Bellerophon with the sun-god. [Greek: Phontês] is by him derived or
varied from [Greek: Thantês] and [Greek: Bellero], explained as
identical with [Greek: Helios], [Greek: elê], [Greek: selas], and
[Greek: selênê].
* * * * *
Some anonymous scribbler in Berlin has recently put forth a treatise
on free trade, entitled _Tempus omnia revelat_: of which a reviewer,
in conjecturing the cause of its publication, remarks, that "as it
treats generally of every thing else besides free trade, it is
probable that the Free Trade Union have not deemed it worth while to
hear him through."
* * * * *
Among the more recent curiosities of German medical literature, we
find that JOS. HEINRICH BEISEN of Quedlinburg, has written a work on
homoepathy as applicable to the diseases of swine. J. HOPPE of
Magdeburg, has set forth another, entitled _Linen and cotton Garments
considered in a medical light_, which is highly recommended by a
competent judge. C. GEROLD, of Vienna, publishes for the Count (and
physician--we know not which is the more honorable title)--VON
FEUCHTERSLEBEN, a singular book, entitled _Zur Diätetik der Seele,
Valere aude!_ which is not, however, as one might infer from the
title, a theory of the method whereby the health of the soul itself
may be preserved; but the art of regulating our physical well being by
a correct management and strengthening of our mental powers. Count
Feuchtersleben had already attained a reputation as a writer, and the
work referred to, though in many particulars superficial, is not
without merit. Last and least, Dr. GIDEON BRECHER, hospital physician
at Pressnitz, publishes through Asher & Co., in Berlin, an octavo on
_Transcendental Magic, and the supernatural methods of curing Disease,
as given in the Talmud_, in which he enters largely into Theo-Dæmon
and Angelology; as well as dreams, visions, biblical seraphims, cosmic
and magic influences of the soul, with a scattering fire of amulets,
spells and charms. We congratulate the medical faculty on this
important addition to the literature of the healing art.
* * * * *
No department of ancient art is more interesting, or indeed more
necessary to the student, than that relating to theatres and other
aids to the practical illustration of dramatic art. No characteristic
of modern continental life, is so striking to the traveller as the
earnestness with which the opera is discussed by all classes, and its
powerful influence upon social life in nearly every relation. But even
the earnest attention which is directed at the present day in Naples
or Vienna to some new incarnation of the all governing spirit of
amusement, is nothing when compared with the same as it existed among
the ancients, to whom it was literally _life_. '_Panem et
circenses_'--bread and the public games--with these the Roman citizen
of the later empire, like the modern lazzarone, with his maccaroni and
San Carlino, could dream away life and be happy. Mindful of the
importance of this branch of ancient art in its manifold relations,
FRIED. WIESELER has recently set forth a book,[13] declared by
competent authority to be the best in the world on this subject. He
has chosen judiciously from the immense mass of material extant; and
according to the prescribed limits conveyed all the information
possible. "The first part of the work embraces a series of well
executed plans and outlines of ancient theatres, of different
countries and ages, with every requisite detail, followed by
engravings and descriptions of every particular pertaining to the
representation of plays. This is succeeded by an admirable collection
of masks, scenes, figures and costumes, illustrative not only of the
ancient drama, but also of its subdivisions of comedy, tragedy, the
satyr-drama and the Italian phylace, with singing and music. The
illustrations are admirably accurate--more particularly the colored
plates of the Cyrenæan wall paintings, and the mosaics of the Vatican,
by which the rare and costly work of MILLI is rendered unnecessary."
More than one eminent German authority speaks in terms of high praise,
of the accuracy and unwearied erudition which characterize the
accompanying test.
* * * * *
The second and third parts of the _Holzschnitte Derühmter Meister_, or
woodcuts of celebrated masters, have made their appearance,
containing, 1st. smaller woodcuts by Hans Holbein the younger (A. D.,
1498-1554), being selections from the Dance of Death, and the
Peasants' and Children's Alphabets; 2d. a large engraving after
Michael Wohlzemuth (1434-1519), being the Glorification of Christ, and
a Madonna and child of Hans Bürkmayer's; also, from the Dutch school,
after Dirk de Bray (ob. 1680), a portrait of the artist's father, and
the celebrated engraving of Rembrandt's, known as the philosopher with
the hour-glass. For the information of artists we mention that these
copies are executed with exquisite accuracy, and that the work, though
gotten up in every particular in the most elegant manner, is afforded
at a very moderate price.
* * * * *
Recent German poetry offers little for remark. TELLKAMPF has published
a poem in hexameters in the style of Goethe's Hermann and Dorothea,
founded upon an incident in the battle of Leipsic, called _Irmengard_.
It has passed into a second edition. EMIL LEONHARD, a poet not
unknown, has written a poem upon Bürger, whose wild life had already
furnished Müller subject for a romance and Mosenthal for a drama, and
which is too unpleasant to be made attractive even by the poetic
talent of Leonhard. We note, however an interesting work, entitled
_Prussia's Mirror of Honor_, a collection of Prussian national songs,
from the earliest period to the year 1840. They have much allusion to
old Fritz, and are interesting as an indication of the popular
feeling, which is always expressed in such songs, toward that national
hero.
* * * * *
An interesting contribution to contemporary history is I. VENEDY'S
_Schleswig-Holstein in 1850_. A diary.
* * * * *
HERMAN FRITSCHE, of Leipsig, has recently published a work by one
SOHNLAND SCHUBAUER, entitled _Consecrated souvenirs of the virtues of
our earliest ancestors: Collected with the aid of a Philologist_. This
book we are told contains (though we should never have inferred it
from the title), a collection and explanation of old German proper
names, both masculine and feminine. The author in his preface gives it
as his opinion that since the introduction of Christianity "a dreadful
thousand-year-long night has brooded over Germany, and that the best
method of dissipating this darkness, would be to revive the old German
proper names!" "The poet discovers the sanctity of these primitive
German names in the holy star-night, and he will, the higher these
rise to the ideal, find in them a full accord with holy nature." His
principal sources are the verbal assertions of Dr. ALEX. VOLLMER: for
example in page 1st, where he questions whether "ANNO" signifies a
year, and decides that it is originally German, from _an_, _un_ and
_unst_; to which add a G, whence results _Gunst_, meaning good
fortune, success, or favor!--a bit of ingenuity which reminds us of
several scraps of Horne Tooke's comic philology, as well as the
glove-maker's motto, _Kunst macht Gunst_--skill makes (or wins)
success. Dr. Vollmer is an amiable and hard-working scholar of immense
erudition, and possessed of a boundless enthusiasm on the subject of
early German and Gothic dialects. We regret that his learning should
be lent to the support of such singular vagaries.
* * * * *
CARL GUTZKOW, who seemed by his first literary failure, the _Walley_,
in 1835, to have sunk irretrievably, but has since risen to a
brilliant eminence by the publication of _Uriel Akasta_, the _Zopf und
Schwert_, and other writings, has recently put forth another, noticed
as the _Ritter von Geiste_. G. REIMER at Berlin, has published the
first volume of a second edition of BÖCKH'S inestimable work, _Die
Staatshaushaltung der Athener_--the political economy of the
Athenians. Prof. ANT. GUBITZ, the celebrated wood engraver, publisher
of an annual comic almanac, and in fact the father of all the popular
German illustrated almanacs of the present day, has written and
published three dramas, entitled _The Emperor Henry and his Sons_,
_Sophonisba_, and _Johann der Ziegler_.
* * * * *
_Macchiavelli und der Gang der Europäischen Politik_ (Macchiavelli,
and the Course of European Policy), by THEODORE MUNDT, is the last
discussion of the political system of the "Regent of the Devil." The
doctrines of _The Prince_ Herr Mundt supposes have influenced the late
reactionary events in Germany, and he thinks that work will again be
the favorite text-book of despots. His exposition of the character and
doctrines of Machiavelli, and his influence on European policy, is an
interesting historical study.
The German press is no less prolific of novels than that of England
and America. We observe the last month _Stories and Pictures from the
Bohemian Forest_, by JOSEPH RANK, a romance of provincial life, not
without interest; _The Children of God_, by MAX RING, a story of the
court of Augustus the Strong, and of the origin of the sect of the
Herrnhutters. Its sketches of character are called sprightly and
successful. _The Castle of Ronceaux_, from an old manuscript, is an
episode from the history of the Huguenot war. A piquant title is that
of Madame IDA VON DURINGSFELD'S book, _A Pension_ (boarding-house)
_upon the Lake of Geneva, two Romances in one house_, which recalls
the stories of the Countess Hahn-Hahn before she ceased writing
pleasant tales for us, and began histories of religious experience.
But with less talent, the present author has more knowledge of men.
The book is _sent la Politique_ a little too much. But German ladies
who write books love to say a word in them about every thing.
_A Pilgrim and his Companions_ is still another romance, by LORENZO
DIEFFENBACH, not of a religions tone, as the title suggests, but
purely political. It is a story of the German "March-Days," the days
of Revolution. The author is bold and large in thought, but the want
of sharp outline in his characters indicates the poor or unpractised
artist. _The Oath_ is the appropriately melodramatic title of a
romance of the Venetian Inquisition, by DAVID. It is well written,
simple and natural. Remarkable qualities with so passionate a theme.
* * * * *
LUDWIG BAUER has published through G. Jonghaus of Darmstadt, a work
which reminds us of the _Chronica Jocelini de Brakelonda_, being the
_Urkundenbuch des Klosters Arnsburg in d. Wetterau_, containing as yet
unprinted documents of the twelfth, thirteenth, fourteenth and
fifteenth centuries, relating to the history of the monastery. We are
happy to observe that notwithstanding the check given to general
literature by the recent political troubles in Germany, this
department of mediæval antiquity is rapidly advancing. When we
remember the immense amount of material as yet unavailable which is
still requisite to form an accurate history of the middle ages, with
_reliable_ accounts of its varied literature and customs, or when we
reflect on the spoil and devastation which every day brings to the
ancient hoard, we should feel grateful to those untiring antiquaries,
who thus rescue a few literary gems from the flood of time.
* * * * *
The _Manuscripts of Peter Schlemil_, naturally awakens attention, but
proves to be an extravaganza of LOUIS BECHSTEIN, humorous and
intelligent withal. But the humor is not intelligible, and the
intelligence is not humorous, says a sharp reviewer.
* * * * *
PROF. O. L. B. WOLFF, well known to every amateur German scholar in
this country and England, as the publisher of the celebrated
_Poetischer und Prosaischer Hausschatz_, or Poetic and Prosaic Home
Treasury, has edited and published by Otto Wigand of Leipsic, that
singular romance of _Caspar von Grimmelshausen_, first printed in
1669, which is, as a picture of German social life during the period
of the thirty years' war, extremely interesting. We need, however,
hardly caution our lady readers against its perusal. Its title is as
follows: _Der abenteuerliche Simplicius Simplicissimus_. The
adventurous Simplicius Simplicissimus. That is the true, copious, and
very remarkable biography of an odd, wonderful and singular man,
STERNFELS VON FUCHSHEIM, how he passed his youth in Spessart, of his
varied and remarkable destinies in the thirty years' war, and of the
numerous sufferings, sorrows and dangers which he experienced, with
his ultimate good fortune.
* * * * *
A German critic, who of course belongs to the conservative party,
writing under date of June 16, says of Miss HELEN WEBER, the inventor
of the hybrid costume which _Punch_ satirizes as an _American_
absurdity, that "except in a certain disregard of public decencies
there is nothing by which to distinguish her from the mass of vulgar
women of the middling classes; she is about thirty-five years of age,
and appears to be willing to do or say any thing that may be required
for the attraction of observation; from her writings, throw out what
is stolen or compiled, and there is nothing left to evince even a
mediocrity of talent." This is less favorable than an account we
published in an early number of the _International_ (vol. i. 463), but
it may be quite as just.
* * * * *
When Professor ZAHN sojourned in Naples, he took an active part in the
excavations of Pompeii--studies which eventually led to the
publication of his meritorious work on this subject. At the same time
he faithfully reported the progress of these operations to old Goethe.
The poet's replies to these communications on the ancient paintings of
Pompeii, its theatres, and other buildings, were replete with those
sparks of genius he exhibited on every occasion. This rather
voluminous correspondence, long laid up at Naples, has been lately
discovered, and will be published by Professor Zahn.
* * * * *
_Geschichte der Deutschen Stadte und des Deutschen Burgerthums_
(History of the Cities of Germany, and of German Citizenship), by F.
W. BARTHOLD, is the first of a series of painstaking and exhausting
books of German historical materiel, in course of publication by
Weizel, of Leipsic. The style of treatment resembles that adopted in
_The Pictorial History of England_, which will make the work easy of
reference.
* * * * *
DR. CORNILL publishes a dissertation upon Louis Feuerbach and his
position toward the religion and philosophy of the present time. The
author finds in every thing the famous professor does a farther
religious development. But it is very doubtful if Feurbach has
advanced at all since his memorable essay in the Halle _Book of the
Year_, upon the relation of philosophy to theology. Since then he has
only varied this theme, and his last work, upon the transcendental
thesis _Man is what he eats_, in which the worthy Professor with
Teutonic energy seeks to seduce the immorality of the age from the
potato disease, the German critics declare to be totally devoid of
that bold and thoughtful spirit which formerly fought so well for the
emancipation of the understanding from its long scholastic thraldom.
* * * * *
A most mystical and metaphysical treatise is that of ERNST, _A new
Book of the Planets, or Mikro and Makrokosmos_. It sings with
Klopstock of the souls of the stars. It speculates with Jacob Böhme,
with Retif de la Bretonne, with the Rabbins, and other mighty mystics,
upon the origin of thought. The essential difference in speculative
science between ether and thought, the unity of matter and spirit, the
eternity and evanescence of matter, the thoughts, feelings, and
sensations of God, and the final explication of the trinity. All this
and more. In fine, says a German critic, it is a very jocose book,
strongly to be commended for the consolation of political prisoners.
* * * * *
WALDMEISTER'S _Bridal-Tour_, a story of the Rhine, Wine, and Travel,
is the pleasant and appropriate title of the last book of OTTO
ROQUETTE. It is the story of a spring tour along the Rhine. The fire
of its wine, the golden gleam of its vineyards, the faint, penetrant
delicacy of the grape-blossom, the luring look of the Love-Lei, the
mystery of ruins, the distant baying of the wild huntsman's
pack,--they all breathe, and bloom, and sound through the little book.
It is a genuine song of spring. The poet is young,--he feels, dreams,
and sings--what needs poet more?
* * * * *
A German version of Copway the Indian's work is announced under the
title of _Kah-ge-ga-gah-bouh, Hauptling d'Ojibway Nation: Die Ojibway
Eroberung_: Translated from the English, by N. ADLER, and published at
Frankfort-on-the-Main. This we presume is an after-shot from the Peace
Convention.
* * * * *
Among the new books announced in Germany we see _The Institutions of
the United States, and their Lessons of American Experience to
Europe_. It appears to be anonymous. One or two other German works on
this country we shall notice particularly in our next number.
* * * * *
Russian literature is gradually made accessible to the general student
by German and French translations, and we shall soon begin to learn
more of the mysterious despotism that towers like a fateful cloud
along the eastern horizon of Europe, in its influence upon social and
artistic life. The publisher Brockhaus of Leipsic has recently issued
a collection in three volumes of the Russian novelists. Yet, whether
from the want of tact in the selection or from the absence of
characteristic qualities in the tales themselves, the authors are
weakest in their delineation of popular life and manners, in this
resembling fine society in Russia, which ignores _Russianism_, and
believes in Parisian manners, language, and life, every thing but
Parisian politics. Among the authors whose works are quoted we note
ALEXANDER PUSHKIN, the pride of Russian literature, born in 1799, and
died in a duel in 1837. HELENA HAHN, born in 1815, who, married at
sixteen to a soldier, travelled through a large part of Russia, and
died in 1832. Her novels were first published after her death, but
seem to be not of the highest merit. ALEXANDER HERZEN, born in 1812,
has zealously studied Hegel, and written a series of humorous tales,
the best of which is called _Taras Bulwa_. Since 1847 he has been a
wanderer, pursued as a democrat, and now proposes to visit the United
States.
* * * * *
The Emperor of Austria has appointed AARON WOLFGANG MESSELEY, a Jew,
Professor of Criminal Law at the University of Prague. M. Messeley had
long filled the chair of the Hebrew Language and Literature in the
same University. The numbers of Jews now attached as professors to the
different universities and educational establishments in the Austrian
states is seventeen; of whom fifteen were named by the late Emperor,
and two by the present.
* * * * *
ALEXANDER DUMAS, who, as a simple story writer is perhaps deserving of
the highest place in the temple of letters--whose _Three Guardsmen_,
with its several continuations, making some twenty volumes, is the
most entertaining, and in certain characteristics the best sustained
novel written in our days,--announces in Paris a new tale, _Un Drame
de '93_, and he occupies the _feuilleton_ of the _Presse_ every week
with another, _Ange Pitou_, of which the scene and time are also
France during the first revolution.
* * * * *
MADAME CHARLES REYBAUD, authoress of _The Cadet de Calobriéres_, has
just published another story, _Faustine_, wherein provincial life in
France is daguerreotyped.
* * * * *
Among the announcements in Paris we notice one of the tenth volume of
THIERS'S _Histoire du Consulat_. The eleventh volume is also said to
be nearly ready.
* * * * *
M. MIGNET has nearly completed his _Life and Times of Mary, Queen of
Scots_, the third work on the subject produced in France within a year
and a half. Mignet, however, is the most eminent person who has ever
essayed this service, and he has had some peculiar and important
advantages. He has made use of the collection of letters published by
Prince Labanoff; of researches made in the State Paper Office of
England by Mr. Tytler, and of other unpublished documents which he has
himself collected, in order to form more correct opinions with regard
to some of the darkest and most controverted events in the queen's
life. These documents, chiefly from the archives of Spain, (to which
M. Mignet was enabled to obtain access only at the express request of
the French Government,) are of much importance, for they bring to
light the negotiations carried on with Philip II. for the deliverance
of Mary from her imprisonment--a part of her history to which previous
biographers have paid little attention.
* * * * *
In the political literature of France a new pamphlet by CORMENIN is
remarkable. It is entitled _Revision_, and its substance is this:
Having recounted the history of the Republican Charter, elaborated
during many months by men especially delegated to the work, and by a
suffrage really universal, debated long and earnestly in the
committee, amended by the eighteen delegates of the assembly, reviewed
by the commission, deliberated by the chamber, discussed by the
press,--M. Cormenin establishes that this constitution, so elaborately
matured, if it has nothing which promises eternal duration, yet
satisfies all the conditions essential to present permanence, and will
well lead the nation to that moment, when, personal passion being
somewhat allayed, it may be wisely and conscientiously reviewed. This
is the pith of the pamphlet. It appeals to no passions, and justifies
no excess, and is a notable and intelligent effort at the resolution
of the question.
* * * * *
M. DE MARCELLUS, an old French ambassador, has published two volumes
entitled _Literary Episodes in the East_. His oriental travel dates
back as far as 1818, but the beautiful vision has pursued him ever
since, and he knew no better way to lay it than by painting it, and
making it real. The volume opens with a confession that all travel and
all scenery have only reminded him most strongly of his eastern
experiences, and that now, chilled with age, and hoping nothing of the
future, he has especial pleasure in recurring to the past. It is a
series of colloquial, familiar sketches and anecdotes, and will
doubtless be a pleasant companion for the eastern tour. M. de
Marcellus will follow this work with _A Collection of Popular Songs in
Greece_.
* * * * *
VICTOR HUGO, who has always been opposed to the punishment of death,
and whose _Last Days of Condemned_, one of his most powerful fictions,
had a large influence every where against the death penalty, was
lately before the Court of Assizes in Paris as an advocate in behalf
of his son, who was on trial for publishing an article calculated to
bring into disrespect the administrators of the law. The veteran poet
was allowed to deliver an elaborate and characteristic harangue in
defence of the article. He tasked himself for his most brilliant
antithetical rhetoric, denouncing the scaffold, and the legislation of
death. The son, however, was convicted, and sentenced to a fine of
five hundred francs and imprisonment for six months.
Victor Hugo has published a volume containing twelve speeches
delivered on various occasions while he has been a _representant du
peuple_. They are on the Bonaparte family, the punishment of death,
universal suffrage, the liberty of the press, the affairs of Rome,
&c., and are all written with the author's customary fine rhetoric;
indeed in thought and style they are among his best performances.
* * * * *
MADAME BOCARME, who probably was a party to the late murder of her
brother, for which her husband the Count de Bocarme is to be executed,
was an intimate friend of Balzac. The great novelist dedicated one of
his works to her, and another of them was written in the Château de
Bitremont. Balzac, while on a visit to the château, was taken to see a
farmer, and, as usual, interested himself so much in the cattle, that
after an hour's conversation he was amused to find that, the farmer
had taken him, H. de Balzac, the brilliant Parisian, for a cattle
dealer! The forthcoming memoirs of Balzac will perhaps contain
something about this woman, who seems to have won for herself the
execration of all France.
* * * * *
The Paris correspondent of the _Literary Gazette_ affirms that, on the
whole, the French press has gained by the regulation requiring
signatures to original articles. The abler class of contributors have
profited greatly, as they have obtained a position in popular esteem,
and consequently a claim on their employers, which years of anonymous
drudgery would not have secured. Nor have readers, it is remarked, any
cause to complain; for "men, remembering that 'those who live to
please must please to live,' take far greater pains with the articles
to which they have to attach their names, than to those which are
unsigned."
* * * * *
M. ARAGO, the great astronomer, who is passing the summer at the
mineral springs of Vichy, is nearly blind, and probably will entirely
lose his sight. His brother, who is likewise a man of extraordinary
abilities, has been blind many years.
* * * * *
GEORGE SAND dedicates her last performance to DUMAS, "because," she
says, "I wish to protest against the tendency that may be attributed
to me of regarding the absence of action as a systematic reaction
against the school of which you are the chief. Far from me such a
blasphemy against movement and life! I am too fond of your works; I
read them and listen to them with too much attention and emotion; I am
too much an artist in feeling to wish the slightest lessening of your
triumphs. Many believe that artists are necessarily jealous of each
other. I pity those who believe it, pity them for having so little of
the artist as not to understand that the idea of assassinating our
rivals would be that of our own suicide."
* * * * *
_A Critical History of the Philosophical School of Alexandria_ is the
title of a work of serious philosophical claims, by M. VACHEROT. He
had already published two volumes analyzing and developing the
doctrines of the Alexandrian philosophy. In the present volume he has
traced its influence upon the subsequent schools, passing in review
Plotinus and his successors. The scope of the work invites and permits
a discussion of the profoundest problems that now agitate the world of
thought, and M. Vacherot has the credit of acquitting himself
adequately and admirably of his task.
* * * * *
ROUSSEAU, on his death, left several papers to his friend Moulton, and
the heirs of that person, in 1794, caused them to be deposited in the
public library of Neufchatel, in Switzerland. There they have remained
unknown until a few weeks since, when M. Bovet, of that town, examined
them, and found that they embraced an essay entitled _Avant-propos et
Preface a mes Confessions_, which has just been printed. Of course it
will appear with all future editions of the Confessions.
* * * * *
BALZAC, besides his _Memoirs_, which are soon to appear in Paris, it
is now stated left two other works, one a romance called _Les
Paysans_, finished only a short time before his death, the other a
collection of confidential letters to a lady, in which, it is said, he
took pleasure in laying bare the secrets of his heart, and his real
opinion of men and things.
* * * * *
M. NISARD was a few weeks ago received into the _Academie Française_.
He succeeds the late M. Feletz, and has written a history of French
literature, a book of _études_ on the Latin poets, and superintended a
translation of all the Latin writers.
* * * * *
M. GAUTIER, formerly a deputy from the Gironde, a peer of France,
Minister of Finance, and sub-governor of the Bank of France, has
published a volume _On the Causes which disturb Order in France, and
the means of Reëstablishing it_.
* * * * *
GUIZOT is about to publish the _Histoire des Origines du Gouvernement
Représentatif_. This is a new work, being the revised issue of his
lectures from 1820 to 1822, which have never yet been printed, except
in the imperfect _comptes rendus_ of the _Journal des Cours Public_.
* * * * *
_Le Drame de '93_, by ALEXANDRE DUMAS, turns out to be a narrative of
the Revolution, in his rapid dramatic style.
* * * * *
M. PIERRE DUFOUR is publishing a work of great value entitled the
_History of Prostitution among all Nations and at all Times_.
* * * * *
A cheap edition of the chief writings on affairs, by EMILIE DE
GIRARDIN, is published in eleven volumes.
* * * * *
_Mademoiselle de Belle Isle_, written by Dumas for Mademoiselle
Mars--a sprightly, dissolute comedy, full of the life which animates
the _Mémoires_ of the time, and complicated in its construction with
the skill of a Lope de Vega--was translated in New-York a year or two
ago by Mrs. Fanny Kemble Butler, and brought out at the Astor Place
Opera House. Our theatre-going people, however, declined a piece so
broadly licentious, and it was soon withdrawn. We see that another
version of it has been made in London, and that it has been played
there very successfully.
* * * * *
The London editors lack something of the honesty of the Americans:
they never give credit for an article, but if making up an entire
number of a periodical from American sources, would permit their
readers to suppose it all original. _Sharpe's Magazine_ is
particularly addicted to this infirmity, and the July issue of it
contains our excellent friend the Rev. F. W. Shelton's paper on
_Boswell, the Biographer_, which appeared originally in _The
Knickerbocker_.
* * * * *
The REV. CHARLES KINGSLEY, Jr., rector of Eversley, best known to
American readers as the author of the Chartist novel of _Alton Locke_,
and _Yeast, a Problem_, has been an industrious writer. He is now
about fifty years of age, and besides the above works and a vast
number of papers in _Fraser's Magazine_, he has published _The
Christian Socialist(!)_, _Politics for the People_, _Village Sermons_,
and _The Saint's Tragedy_--in point of art the best of his
performances. We see by the English papers that he preached a sermon
lately in Fitzroy Square, London, on the "Gospel Message to the Poor."
It was so full of "socialistic" thoughts, and so severe on the richer
classes, that the rector of the church, when he had finished, arose in
his pew, and protested vehemently against its doctrines. The
congregation dispersed in great disorder.
We doubt whether any living Englishman is capable of surpassing Sir
Bulwer Lytton's version of the Ballads of Schiller, but Mr. EDGAR
ALFRED BOWRING, a son of the well-known Dr. Bowring who has published
translations from so many languages, has just published a volume
entitled _The Poems of Schiller complete, including all his early
Suppressed Pieces, attempted in English_. The word "complete"
expresses its difference from the many Schillers in English that have
previously appeared. An _Anthology_ edited by Schiller in 1782, when
he had just commenced his career, contains several poems which the
critics recognize as his. This remained unknown, however, except as a
literary curiosity, till a few months ago; and several of the poems
had been omitted in all the collections of Schiller's works. But the
republication of the _Anthology_ has brought to light the suppressed
poems (in number twenty-eight, comprising nearly twelve hundred
verses), and those are translated for the first time by Mr. Bowring,
whose versions are much commended.
* * * * *
Among the new books of English verse, some of the most noticeable are
_The Fair Island, in Six Cantos_, by EDMUND PEEL: in the Spenserian
measure, with passages of fair description; _Ballad Romances_, by R.
H. HORNE, author of "Orion," &c.--a book containing genuine poetry;
_The Reign of Avarice_, an allegorical satire, in four cantos;
_Philosophy in the Fens_, in the style of Peter Pindar; and _Marican_,
a Chilian tale, by HENRY INGLIS.
* * * * *
WARREN, the author of "Ten Thousand a Year," has just published a new
novel under the title of _The Lily and the Bee, a Romance of the
Crystal Palace_. The name savors of the huckster, and we shall look
for a more melancholy failure than his last previous performance.
* * * * *
MR. LEVI WOODBURY'S _Miscellaneous Writings, Addresses, and Judicial
Opinions_, will be published in four octavo volumes, by Little &
Brown, of Boston.
* * * * *
The _North American Review_ for the July quarter is in many respects
characteristic. Six months after every Review published in Great
Britain had had its paper on Southey, and when the subject is quite
worn out, the _North American_ furnishes us with a leading article
upon it, in which there is neither an original thought nor a new
combination of thoughts that are old. Colton's _Public Economy_ gives
a title to an article, in which the book is treated superciliously,
and some ideas by Henry C. Carey are presented as the original
speculations of the reviewer. It is deserving of remark that the _Past
and Present_, and more recent works of Mr. Carey, which among thinking
men throughout the world have commanded more attention than any other
writings in political philosophy during the last five years, have
never been even referred to in this periodical, which arrogates to
itself the leadership of American literature. The eighth article of
the number is on the Unity of the Human Race, and considering the
place it occupies in the _North American Review_, for July, 1851, it
is contemptible. It is based on five publications made in England
previous to 1847, and ignores all the research and discussion since
that time, notwithstanding the facts that the subject never was so
amply, so profoundly, or so luminously discussed as during the last
year--that the very writers referred to in the article have for the
chief part published their most important treatises upon it since
1847--that within six months its literature has received large
accessions in France, Germany, and Italy,--and that in _our own
country_, of whose intellectual advancement this Review is bound to
give some sort of an index, the four years since Latham's "Present
State and Recent Progress of Ethnological Philosophy" appeared, have
furnished important works by Albert Gallatin, Mr. Hale of the
Exploring Expedition, the Rev. Dr. Bachman, the Rev. Dr. Smyth, and
several others, all of which should have been considered in any new,
especially in any American _resume_ of the discussion. Johnston's
_Notes on North America_ is treated with a spleen excited by the
author's refusal to recognize the greatness assumed for certain
persons connected with Harvard College, and Mr. Bowen is weak enough
to say, or to permit a contributor to say, "we _understand_(!) Mr.
Johnston has a high reputation," &c. Pish! And what does the reader
suppose is the theme--the fresh, before unheard-of theme--of another
paper? what new star, in the heaven of mind, demanded most the
exploration and illustration of the _North American Review_, for this
July quarter, in 1851? The best guesser of riddles would not in fifty
years hit upon Mr. Gilfillan's book of rigmarole entitled _The Bards
of the Bible_, but this performance, which had been criticised in
every other quarterly, monthly, weekly, and daily, in the English
language, that would descend to it, crowds out the subjects of "great
pith and moment" upon which a periodical of such claims should have
spoken with wise authority.
Our own country is full of suggestive topics for thoughtful, earnest,
and learned men, and it is fit that the closet should send out its
instruction to calm the turbulence awakened by tempests from the
rostrum--that affairs should be subjected to the criticism of
experience, and that what is new in discovery, in opinion, or in
suggestion, should have quick and popular recognition and justice. We
need--we must have--for this purpose a powerful and really national
_Review_, to reflect and guide the life and aspirations of the
country.
* * * * *
We mentioned some time ago that Mr. WILLIAM W. STORY, a son of the
late Justice Story, was preparing for the press a life of his father,
and we now understand that the work will soon be ready, in two large
octavo volumes, to be published by Little & Brown. It will come too
late. Such a memoir would have been very well received any time within
a year after Judge Story's death: now the public mind is settled in an
unalterable conviction that Judge Story was an over-rated man, and a
consideration of the processes by which his fame was acquired is
likely for a long time to sink it below its just level. We but echo
the opinion of more than one eminent person connected with the very
school in which he was a teacher, as well as the common judgment of
the leading men of the profession in all the states, when we say that
Judge Story was not a great lawyer; two or three of his books were
good, but the rest were made for cash profits, and sold by means of
ingenious advertising. Now they will answer for the country courts,
and the inferior courts of the cities, where no opposing lawyer has
enough wit and knowledge to oppose Story against Story, but they are
no longer weighty authorities, and every term they are found to be of
declining influence. As a man of letters, Judge Story's rank will be
still lower. He has left nothing to carry his name into another age.
Yet he was a man of much professional learning, of taste, sagacity, an
extraordinary command of his resources, and a most amiable and
pleasing character, and his memoirs and correspondence, if fitly
presented, will constitute an attractive and valuable contribution to
the history of American society.
* * * * *
For several years it has been known to many students of our early
history, that Mr. LYMAN C. DRAPER was devoting his time and estate,
and faculties admirably trained for such pursuits, to the collection
of whatever materials still exist for the illustration of the lives of
the Western Pioneers. He has carefully explored all the valley of the
Mississippi, under the most favorable auspices--by his intelligence
and enthusiasm and large acquaintance with the most conspicuous
people, commended to every family which was the repository of special
traditions or of written documents--and he has succeeded in amassing a
collection of MS. letters, narratives, and other papers, and of
printed books, pamphlets, magazines, and journals, more extensive than
is possessed by many of the state historical societies, while in
character it is altogether and necessarily unique. He proposes soon to
publish his first work, _The Life and Times of General George Rogers
Clarke_, (whose papers have been long in his possession, and whose
surviving Indian fighters and other associates he has personally
visited), in two octavo volumes, to be followed by shorter historical
memoirs of Colonel Daniel Boone, General Simon Kenton, General John
Sevier of East Tennessee, General James Robertson, Captain Samuel
Brady, Colonel William Crawford, the Wetzells, &c., &c. The field of
his researches, it will be seen, embraces the entire sweep of the
Mississippi, every streamlet flowing into which has been crimsoned
with the blood of sanguinary conflicts, every sentinel mountain
looking down to whose waves has been a witness of more terrible and
strange vicissitudes and adventures than have been invented by all the
romancers.
* * * * *
The _Dublin University Magazine_ is not very kind in the matter of the
American poem of _Frontenac_, but suggests that as the author's name
is STREET, he cannot object to being "walked into."
* * * * *
MRS. SOUTHWORTH'S story of _Retribution_ is being republished in
_Reynolds's Miscellany_, edited by G. W. M. Reynolds, the novelist.
Those who are acquainted with the productions of Reynolds will perhaps
recognize the fitness of the association.
* * * * *
MRS. MOWATT, who has just returned from a professional residence in
England, we understand will soon give the public a collection of her
miscellaneous writings, prefaced by Mary Howitt. The authoress of _The
Fortune Hunter_, under various signatures, has been a very voluminous
as well as a very clever writer. She will in a few weeks appear at the
Broadway Theatre.
* * * * *
MISS BEECHER has published (through Phillips & Sampson of Boston), her
_True Remedy for the Wrongs of Women_, and the book is much below her
reputation. From a person of her character and unquestionable
abilities, we looked for a rebuke of those females who have unsexed
themselves, such a rebuke as should have brought to life all the
latent shame in their natures, and for ever prevented any renewals of
the melancholy displays they have made of an unfeminine passion for
notoriety. The "wrongs of woman," in the state of New-York at least,
are purely ideal; here woman has all the privileges and protections
compatible with her destined offices in a civilized society. She
undoubtedly has a share of the sufferings to which human nature is
subject, but has literally nothing to complain of at the hands of man
in the social organization. The individual wrongs of which she is the
victim, are for the most part penalties of individual indiscretions,
and the remedy for them is to be found in the education of woman for
her proper sphere and duties, such education as shall develope her
capacities for the relations of domestic life, most of all, for
maternity. Miss Beecher treats parties with respect who are entitled
to no respect, acknowledges evils which do not exist, and proposes for
the elevation of female character plans of very questionable
influence.
FOOTNOTES:
[13] WIESELER, FRIEDRICH. Theatergebäude und Denkmaler des
Buhnenwesens, beiden Gricchen und Römern. Göttingen, 1851. Vandenhoeik
und Ruprecht.
_The Fine Arts._
All Europe abounds in memorials of illustrious men, and in the present
time there is more than ever before a disposition manifested to
consecrate art to the honor of the benefactors of mankind, or to those
who have been most eminent for great qualities. From Munich, we learn
by the latest journals, that two colossal statues--those of Gustavus
Adolphus and of the Swedish poet Tegner--have just been cast at the
royal foundry of that capital, with complete success. Both were
modelled by Schwanthaler, and are destined for public places in the
city of Stockholm. In France, the inhabitants of Andelys have been
inaugurating a statue of Nicolas Poussin, with great ceremonial. On
the same day a statue to Poisson, an eminent mathematician, was
inaugurated with pomp, at his native place, Pithiviers, near Orleans.
A little before, one was erected to Froissart, the quaint old
chronicler of knightly deeds, at Valenciennes, where he was born.
Jeanne Hachette is about to have one at Beauvais; Gresset, the author
of '_Vert Vert_', at Amiens; and the village of Rollot, in Picardy,
has just caused to be placed in its public square a bust of the
translator into French of the _Thousand and One Nights_, Antony
Galland. He was sent by Colbert to the East on account of his great
knowledge of the Hebrew and other oriental languages, and on his
return published the Arabian Nights, and a treatise on the origin of
coffee.
There is, in fact, scarcely a Frenchman of real eminence in poetry,
literature, war, science, statesmanship, or the arts, who is not
honored with a statue, either in his birthplace, or in the town made
his own by adoption. Most of the statues are erected at the expense of
the respective localities; the good people thinking it a duty to
render every respect to their illustrious dead. And when they happen
to be too poor to incur much cost, they erect a fountain, or some
other useful work, which bears the great man's name. In the small and
poor village of Chatenay, near Paris, where Voltaire was born, you
see, for example, a small plaster bust of him, in an iron cage, and on
the parish pump the words "à Voltaire." And, as the _Literary Gazette_
has it, very justly, "the man who should scoff at this simple tribute
to genius would be an ass,--it is all that poor peasants can afford to
pay." The names of distinguished men are also frequently given by the
French to streets and squares. In Paris alone, Molière, Racine,
Corneille, Voltaire, Boileau, Montaigne, and I know not how many
others, together with men of science by the hundred, have streets
named after them: so have Chateaubriand and Béranger; so have even the
English Lord Byron and the Italian Rossini. The ships in the navy,
too, receive also the names of distinguished men, foreign as well as
native--there is a man-of-war named after Newton, and several public
works have the name of our own Franklin. But in the United States,
although we have sometimes named after soldiers and statesmen, we have
scarce any monuments, and no statues at all, except a few of men
distinguished in affairs. In Union Square, opposite the house in which
he lived, there should be a statue of the great Chancellor Kent; in
Richmond, one of Marshall, next to Washington, the greatest of
Virginians; in Northampton, one to Jonathan Edwards; in New Haven, one
to Timothy Dwight; before the Academy of Sciences in Philadelphia, one
to Franklin, one to Rittenhouse, and one to Alex. Wilson; at
Cambridge, one to Allston; in Boston, one to Bowditch; and in
New-York, memorials of some sort to Audubon, Gallatin, Hamilton, &c.
In the new park which is to be reserved in the upper part of the city,
we have an opportunity to commemorate the patriotism and misfortunes
of the first magistrate chosen by the people of New-York, the first
under whom municipal elections were held here, and the first martyr to
Liberty in the New World--Governor Leisler. LEISLER PARK sounds well,
and it has additional fitness from the fact, that the unfortunate
governor was once proprietor of a part of the grounds to be so
appropriated. If it shall not be called Leisler Park, there is another
illustrious New-Yorker, whose name appears to have been forgotten by
those who have given names to public places here,--Governor Colden,
who wrote the _History of the Five Nations_.
* * * * *
When the Emperor of Russia was at Rome, four or five years ago, he
engaged Barberi, the worker in mosaic, to undertake certain large
works, and with the instruction of six Russian students with a view to
the establishment of a great school of mosaic art in St. Petersburgh.
Since that time Barberi and his pupils have been occupied with works
for the imperial residence, the last of which, just completed,
consists of an octagonal mosaic pavement, from the ancient design of
the round hall in the Vatican Museum, with twenty-eight figures, a
colossal head of Medusa in the centre, and a variety of ornaments, all
inclosed in a brilliant wreath of fruits, flowers, and foliage. The
series already executed consist of four scenic masques, each of which
is valued at £5200 sterling. With these finished works Cavaliere
Barberi is about to forward to St. Petersburgh a number of vitreous
mosaic tablets of every shade and style of drawing and decoration, as
models for younger students.
* * * * *
TENERANI, the most eminent of contemporary Italian sculptors, has
finished a statue of Bolivar. The figure is standing, full draped, and
holding a laurel crown in the left hand. The pediment is ornamented
with three bas-reliefs, the three provinces, Peru, Bolivia, and
Colombia. Two statues, Justice and Liberality, symbols of the hero's
virtues, stand at the side of the monument, which will be erected in
the cathedral of Caraccas. It is a fine instance of the beauty and
delicate grace of Tenerani's treatment. The expressive head of "The
Liberator," with the high, arched brow, the large, soft, and sagacious
eyes, the sharply chiselled but agreeable features, beaming with
intellectual radiance, are happily conceived and exquisitely executed.
In the same kind we note an equestrian statue of Bernadotte by
TOGELBERG, a Swede resident in Rome. The horseman's mantle has fallen
aside, the staff of a commander is in his hand, and the able marshal,
"king that shall be," looks graciously down from his horse. In his
face there is the imperial force of military genius, with the genial
grace of sensibility. The horse is finely done.
* * * * *
STEINHAUSER'S statue of Hahnemann, the father of homoeopathy,
destined for Leipsic, is almost finished. The same artist has in hand
the Goethe monument, designed by Bettina von Arnim. The sketch serves
as the illuminated title-page to the second volume of the
correspondence with a child. She describes it as follows: "Goethe sits
upon a throne, within a semi-niche, his head reaches over the niche,
which is not closed above, but is cut away, and seems, half seen, like
the moon rising over the rim of a mountain. The mantle, tied round the
neck, falls back over the shoulders, and is brought forward again
under the arms into the lap. The left hand rests upon the lyre,
supported upon the left knee. The right hand, which holds my flowers,
is sunk negligently in the same way, and, forgetting fame, he holds
the laurel wreath, and looks toward heaven. The young Psyche stands
before him, as then I stood, raises herself upon tip-toe to touch the
strings of the lyre, which he permits, lost in inspiration."
The artist has appreciated this conception. He has represented Goethe
not as an old man, but as a man of ideal expression, holding indeed
the well-won laurel, but with the harp in hand, as if inspiration were
exhaustless.
* * * * *
HERR KISS'S group in bronze of an Amazon encountering a lion has been
purchased by the Prince of Prussia as a present for the Queen of
England. A copy of the same work in zinc has been purchased by a
gentleman from the United States for £2500. It is said that Kiss has
received a commission for two other copies for persons in the United
States.
* * * * *
The English critics complain that they have not any longer a great
portrait painter. This branch of art is declining, and the walls of
the Academy this year bear testimony to the fact. From the death of
Lawrence to the present time, now more than twenty years, it has been
gradually subsiding into the mere record of literal fact--ignoring
those great principles which made it once a means of historical
record. In America we have occasion for no such regrets. Elliot is
equal to any man in the world for a masculine and noble head, and
Hicks and several others would in any country or in any time command
the applause due to great masters.
* * * * *
For three years Mr. PYNE, the landscape painter, has been taking a
series of views in the lake counties of England. The pictures comprise
all the important objects in a tour through the country they
illustrate, treated under a variety of aspects, which renders the
collection valuable in an artistic point of view. A feeling for
atmospheric distance is one of Mr. Pyne's most important attributes,
and in representing wide reaching views of mountains and lakes he has
had full scope for his talent. The pictures are to be copied in a
series of colored lithographs, and published in a volume.
* * * * *
Among the pictures in the Royal Academy this season are several by
British army officers on foreign duty. By the Hon. Lieutenant Colonel
Percy there are, _A Study of Niagara from the under Horse-Shoe Fall,
The River St. Lawrence and Mouth of the Saguenay_, and a view on the
same river _Near the Chaudiere Bridge, Quebec_.
* * * * *
RAUCH, the sculptor, whose statue of Frederic the Great has just been
erected in Berlin, has been the object of an artistic ovation. The
Academy of Sciences gave a banquet in his honor, the king, royal
family, and ministers assisted, and Meyerbeer composed a _Cantata_ for
the occasion.
* * * * *
Mr. HEALY'S picture of Mr. Webster replying to Colonel Hayne is
completed, in Paris, and will be brought to New-York in the present
month (of August). It is twenty-eight feet long. The painter has
published proposals for engravings of it, at twenty dollars per copy.
* * * * *
An original painting by Raphael, _The Boar Hunt_, was destroyed in a
recent fire at Downhill House, the family seat of Sir Hervey Bruce, in
England.
* * * * *
The French and English journals mention several important improvements
of the daguerreotype, some of which are of the same character as Mr.
Hill's. Mr. Brady, of this city, has gone to London, to establish a
branch of his house in that city.
_Historical Review of the Month._
THE UNITED STATES.
On the 4th of July the corner stone of the Capitol extension at
Washington was laid, before the President of the United States, the
Cabinet, army and navy officers, and a very large assemblage of
citizens. Mr. Webster delivered on the occasion an address, in which
he pointed out with his customary eloquent clearness the extraordinary
advances of the country since General Washington, fifty-eight years
before, had performed there a similar duty, and for the advantage of
condensation and exactness he presented many important facts in the
form of a comparative table, as follows:
1793. 1851.
Number of States 15 31
Representatives and Senators in
Congress 135 295
Population of the U. States, 1850 3,929,328 23,267,498
Do. Boston, do. 18,038 136,871
Do. Baltimore, do. 13,503 169,054
Do. Philadelphia, do. 42,520 409,045
Do. New-York (city), do. 33,121 515,507
Do. Washington, do. ---- 40,075
Amount of receipts into Treasury, do. $5,720,624 $43,774,848
Am't of expenditures of U.S., do. 7,529,575 39,355,268
Amount of imports, do. 31,000,000 178,138,318
Do. Exports, do. 26,109,000 151,898,720
Do. Tonnage, do. 525,764 3,535,454
Area of the United States, do. 805,461 3,314,365
Rank and file of the army 5,110 10,000
Militia (enrolled), ---- 2,006,456
Navy of the United States (vessels), None 76
Do. Armament (ordinance), -- 2,012
Number of treaties and conventions
with foreign powers 9 90
Number of lighthouses and light-boats 7 372
Expenditures for do. $12,061 529,265
Area of the first capitol building in
square feet ---- 14,641
Do. present capitol (including extension) ---- 4-1/3 acres
Lines of railroads in miles ---- 8,500
Do. Telegraphs ---- 15,000
Number of post-offices 209 21,551
Number of miles of post route 5,642 178,671
Amount of revenue from post-offices $104,747 $5,552,971
Amount of expenditures in the
Post-Office Department 72,040 5,212,953
Number of miles of mail transportation ---- 46,541,423
Miles of railroad ---- 8,500
Public libraries 35 694
Number of volumes in do. 75,000 2,201,632
School libraries ---- 10,000
Number of volumes in do. ---- $2,000,000
The recent anniversary--being three quarters of a century from the
Declaration of Independence--was celebrated with unusual enthusiasm in
nearly all parts of the United States. One small party of
secessionists in a southern state chose the occasion for some farcical
expressions of treason, and members of another party, equally insane
or wicked, in the north, chose to violate the sacredness of the time
by avowing a disregard of the Constitution; but on the whole the
displays of feeling were such as to gratify a patriotic and hopeful
spirit. The new constitution of Maryland went into effect on that day,
and in obedience to one of its provisions all the persons confined in
its several prisons for debt were then released.
The correspondence between the British Minister and the Secretary of
State respecting the long-pending difficulties in Central America is
not yet concluded. It appears that Great Britain is ready to
relinquish her peculiar relations with the so-called Mosquito Kingdom,
and surrender her control over San Juan; but she refuses to make that
surrender to Nicaragua, which claims an unconditional right in the
case, and refuses to submit to any restrictions. There are other
territorial difficulties between Nicaragua, Costa Rica, and the other
states, which seem difficult of adjustment. On these subjects Sir
Henry Bulwer has addressed to the American Government a communication
urging its interference to produce an amicable settlement. Mr. Webster
has left Washington for a temporary residence in the country, and it
is probable that this correspondence will not be concluded until his
return, and the return of the British Minister from a contemplated
visit to London.
It is supposed that an extensive fraud has been committed against the
United States Government in the settlement of Mexican claims. The
person accused, a Dr. Gardner, received a large sum from the Mexican
Commission, but as is now stated, by fraudulent evidence. He is absent
in Europe, but the grand jury of Washington has found a bill against
him, and his brother and another party implicated in the transaction
have been held to bail for perjury.
The Tehuantepec Surveying Expedition has returned to New Orleans.
Surveys, which show the practicability of the railroad route, are
complete. A few parties have been left on the ground to survey a line
for the construction of a carriage road. The Coatzacoatlcos River is
reported navigable, for twenty-five miles above its mouth, for ships
drawing eleven feet of water. The climate is believed to be healthy.
The Mexican government having evinced some unfriendliness to the
Tehuantepec project, the interference of the United States has been
solicited, but declined. The balance of the fourth installment of the
Mexican Indemnity, under the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, was paid at
the U.S. Treasury on the 28th of June--amounting to $1,815,400. The
whole amount of the installment is $3,360,000. The Court Martial
convened at Washington on the 23d June, for the trial of General
Talcott, chief of the ordnance department, has closed its labors by
the conviction of the accused of all the charges preferred against
him, and his dismissal from the service. The charges were: a violation
of the 132d article of the regulations for the government of the
Ordnance Department; wilful disobedience of orders and instructions
from the Secretary of War in relation to a contract for supplies; and
conduct unbecoming an officer and a gentleman, among other things, in
making a declaration which was positively and wilfully false, and
intended to deceive the Secretary of War.
Preparations for the next presidential canvass are being commenced in
many of the States. General Scott has received the nomination of two
state conventions--that of Ohio, and that of Pennsylvania--besides
having been nominated at public meetings in Delaware, Indiana, and
other places. Mr. Woodbury has been nominated in New Hampshire, and
meetings of various degrees of importance have expressed preferences
for other candidates in various parts of the country. The crops of
all sorts are represented as being in a very prosperous condition
throughout all sections: of wheat and potatoes more abundant than ever
before, and of cotton and rice very much better than the drought in
the early part of the season promised. The Extra Session of the
New-York legislature adjourned on the 11th of July, after passing
several important bills. That for the enlargement of the Erie Canal is
a measure of great moment to the industry and commerce of the state.
It provides for the complete enlargement of the Erie Canal within four
years, thus securing the immense business which would else seek other
avenues to the seaboard, and endowing the state with a large revenue
independent of taxes. Chief Justice Bronson, whose political relations
give to his opinions in this case a peculiar value, has published an
elaborate vindication of the bill's constitutionality. The legislature
of New Hampshire adjourned on the 5th of July. The legislature of
Connecticut has also adjourned, having elected no Senator in the place
of Mr. Baldwin. Resolutions approving of the Compromise Measures,
_including the Fugitive Slave Law_, passed the House by a vote of 113
to 35, but in the Senate they were indefinitely postponed. The
Virginia Reform Convention struck out the section of the Constitution
prohibiting the legislature from passing a law to allow the
emancipation of slaves, and inserted a provision that an emancipated
slave remaining in the state over twelve months shall be sold. The
legislature is allowed to impose restrictions on the owners of slaves
who are disposed to emancipate, but the section giving the legislature
power to remove free negroes from the state is stricken out. The
murderers of the Cosden family, in Kent Co., Maryland, are sentenced
to be hung on the first Friday of the present month.
From California we have intelligence to the 15th of June. San
Francisco and Stockton seem to have almost entirely recovered from the
effects of the late conflagrations; the burnt districts were being
restored with a rapidity surpassing all previous examples of
Californian energy, and business, far from being prostrated, had
resumed its former activity. The accounts from the mines continued to
be encouraging, the yield of gold not having been diminished by the
unusual dryness of the winter. The Indian Commissioners have met with
great success in their work of pacification, although there were
rumors of skirmishes in the northern part of the state. A man named
Jennings was lately seized at San Francisco while attempting to escape
with a bag of stolen money, and was, after being arrested and tried by
a self-constituted Vigilance Committee, condemned, brought out into
the plaza, and publicly hung in the presence of a large crowd. A crime
so monstrous may well startle the world. If the persons composing the
Vigilance Committee have respectable positions in society, this fact
but increases the infamy of the transaction, and gives it a more fatal
influence. Every member of the committee, consenting to its action,
should be deemed guilty of murder, and punished as a murderer, though
the magistracy of California should have to invoke for its support in
enforcing the laws the whole force of the nation. There is no safety,
nor true liberty, where there is not obedience; and it had been better
that all the thieves in California in half a century escaped
punishment than that one should be punished in this manner.
In the Mormon territory of Utah ground was broken for the Great Salt
Lake and Mountain Railway on the 1st of May. When this enterprise is
completed, preparations will be more vigorously prosecuted for the
erection of the Temple. The condition of affairs in the new
settlements is represented as encouraging.
The tide of emigration continues to flow into Texas from European
ports. Milam District, on the Upper Brazos, seems at present to be the
favorite point for the colonists. The new town of Kent has lately been
erected at Kimball's Bend, and under the auspices of Captain Sir
Edward Belcher, R.N., made up of hardy English and Scotch settlers.
With the payment of its debt insured by the ten millions received from
the United States, Texas must become one of the most flourishing
states of the Union.
MEXICO.
Recent advices from Mexico lead to apprehensions that the unquiet and
unsettled state of affairs may result in open attempts at a revolution
in the government, and an effort by the partisans of General Santa
Anna to recall him from exile, and place him at the head of the
administration. It is understood that the President has abandoned the
liberal party and allied himself with the clergy. A vigorous newspaper
war is waged against the priests. The Mexican congress is engaged in
devising ways and means to raise the necessary revenue to carry on the
government. The proposition to impose an additional tax of eight per
cent on all foreign merchandise imported into the Republic, has been
adopted by the Chamber of Deputies.
BRITISH AMERICA.
The subject of the clergy reserves, which for a quarter of a century
has almost been constantly debated in Upper Canada, has lately been
agitated with unprecedented earnestness and bitterness. The popular
and English party advocate the appropriation of the funds thus
accruing to purposes of general education. The Board of Trade of
Toronto has passed a vote of censure upon the Council, for having
memorialized the government to impose differential duties against
American manufactures. The census returns for 1850 give the population
of Canada at nearly 800,000. The proceeds of clergy reserve sales,
during the year, were $220,428. In the Legislative Assembly, a series
of resolutions has been moved for the repeal of the union between
Upper and Lower Canada. Efforts are being made to construct a railroad
from Halifax to Hamilton, where it is to join the Great Western road,
constituting a continuous line from Halifax to Detroit.
WEST INDIES.
We have dates of Port-au-Prince to the 30th of June. The coronation of
the Emperor Soulouque will take place very soon. Should no bishop
arrive from Rome, the Emperor may create a native bishop. At the
coronation, a general amnesty is expected for all political exiles,
whose return to Hayti will be beneficial, for among them are men of
wealth and intelligence. The affairs of the country have assumed a
more pacific aspect. Immediately after the recent proclamation of the
Emperor to the Dominicans, several agents were sent to different
points on the frontier, to induce the enemy to enter on amicable
relations. With a single exception, these missions were successful,
and a number of Dominicans were expected in Port-au-Prince, for
purposes of trade. The universal desire of the Haytian people, as well
as of the government, is said to be that the dispute may be honorably
settled. The Emperor, however, has not relinquished the idea of
effecting a reannexation of the territory of Dominica to Hayti. The
excessive issues of Treasury bonds and paper currency are proving
prejudicial to the true interests of the country. The number of
negroes brought to Cuba from the coast of Africa, during the past
fourteen months, is 14,500. Very heavy rains have fallen in the
interior and in the neighborhood of Manzanilla.
SOUTH AMERICA.
In the number of the _Christian Review_ for the July quarter is a very
comprehensive, intelligible, and apparently perfectly correct survey
of the condition of the South American states, to which we refer
readers who would possess more minute information on the subject than
can be embraced in this summary.
The condition of PERU appears favorable for the maintenance of peace
and order. The laws relating to elections, municipal governments, and
other topics connected with the internal affairs of the country, have
been considered by Congress, in accordance with the recommendation of
the President. The election of Gen. Vivanca, the unsuccessful
candidate for the Presidency, as representative in Congress, has been
pronounced invalid, on account of his not holding the rights of
citizenship. The change of ministry was received with satisfaction in
all the departments, except Arequipa, which continued in a state of
disturbance. The Governor's proclamation, requiring that all arms
should be surrendered to the government, was the occasion of a fresh
outbreak. Arequipa was thrown into a state of siege: the streets were
filled with barricades: trenches were constructed at all the avenues
to the city: and every obstacle opposed to the entrance of the troops
which were encamped in the vicinity. Gen. Vivanca, whose party have
caused these disturbances, is in prison at Lima; but whether he is
personally implicated is uncertain.
The Government of BOLIVIA has issued the plan of a new Constitution,
proposing among other measures, the preservation of the Roman Catholic
religion as the religion of the state, the maintenance of amicable
relations with American and European states, the liberty of the press,
the independence of the judicial authority, the freedom of opinion on
political subjects, and the protection of foreigners in the exercise
of commercial pursuits. A National Convention has been convoked for
the 16th of July. The number of deputies was to be 53.
An insurrection has taken place in New-Grenada--the two southern
provinces, Pasto and Tuquerres, having united in an attempt to
overthrow the government, with the aid and encouragement of Ecuador.
The President at once dispatched a military force to the scene of the
revolt, but at the last advices it had not succeeded in its object,
though two or three engagements had taken place. The government has
issued proposals for a loan of $400,000 in specie, and unless this is
effected soon, recourse must be had to forced contributions to defray
the expenses of the war. Congress has abolished slavery, requiring
only certain payments to the masters. No disturbance had arisen from
the measure.
GREAT BRITAIN.
In the British Parliament important reforms in the Chancery system are
still under discussion, and Lord Brougham is as ardent a reformer as
he was thirty years ago. The census of Great Britain, taken on the
31st of March last, is a remarkable document. It shows that the small
cluster of the British isles contains a larger population than the
whole of this republic, exclusive of its slaves. The metropolis
numbers upwards of two millions and a quarter, and added to its
denizens during the last ten years about as many souls as New-York now
reckons within its limits. But a more extraordinary and altogether
different result appears in Ireland. It seems that the population of
Ireland is at this moment very little more than six millions and a
half. It is absolutely less than it was in 1821, and more than two
millions short of the number that would have been reached in the
natural order of things, but for the extraordinary occurrences of the
last ten years. So startling a fact will of course become the subject
of the closest inquiries.
The Anti-Papal Bill finally passed the House of Commons, by a large
majority, on the 4th of July. It had previously been amended on the
motion of Sir F. Thesiger, and in spite of the opposition of the
ministers, so as to be much more than the Government had designed.
These amendments make provisions of the bill extend to all Papal bulls
and rescripts, impose a penalty of one hundred pounds upon any who
obtain or publish them, and make it the right of any individual to sue
for the recovery of the fine. The law is stringent, and in America
would be both impolitic and unnecessary. But there is no doubt that
the Lords will adopt the bill, and that it will become the law of the
land. The state of the Church and its abuses have been presented in
the Commons by Mr. Horsman, Sir B. Hall, and Lord Blandford, who
brought up various facts, and contended that a bishop need not have
better pay than a prime minister, that the funds of the establishment
were enough to support an efficient clergy and leave something for
national schools, and that the Church does not supply the spiritual
wants of the people. Such discussions must finally result in the
overthrow of the establishment. Some excitement is caused by an appeal
addressed to the Italians by the authorities at Rome asking for aid to
Roman Catholic missions in London, in which "this great work is most
earnestly recommended to the charity of Italian believers, and to the
zeal of the bishops of Italy." Archbishop Minucci, of Florence, has
also called on the people of his diocese for aid in constructing an
Italian church in London, where "the spiritual wants of the faithful"
may be cared for, and announcing _an indulgence of one hundred days_
for those who shall contribute for this object.
An attempt has been made to prevent the adulteration of coffee with
chicory. It was thought possible to do this by means of a government
inspection, but the motion failed. The Exhibition is still prosperous.
The gross receipts already amount to a million and a half of dollars.
The number of troops in Ireland has, in consequence of the quiet and
improved condition of that country, been reduced from about 26,000 to
the present strength of 18,000 men. The decrees of the Thurles synod,
condemning the Queen's colleges, as institutions "dangerous to faith
and morals," have been sanctioned by the Pope, without any change or
qualifications. Some slight alterations have been made in the statutes
of the synod, respecting matters of ecclesiastical discipline in the
various dioceses; but those which refer to the colleges have been
approved without any modification. The _Cork Constitution_ says,
"There is a great diminution in the number of emigrants proceeding to
America. Only four or five vessels are now at the quays preparing to
leave. It is with difficulty the requisite number of emigrants can be
made up, many preferring to go by Liverpool."
Nearly a hundred Hungarian refugees had arrived at Southampton, from
Constantinople. Lord John Russell has intimated that the Government
will defray the expense of their passage to New-York, and of their
subsistence during the time they may remain in Southampton, waiting
arrangements for this purpose. Amongst the refugees is the
distinguished Hungarian Lieut. General Loisar Messaros.
Preparations for another _Peace Congress_ have been made on a large
scale. In one important particular the London Congress will be
distinguished above all others; and that is, in the greater breadth of
representative character which it will acquire; for associated bodies
who have never hitherto manifested a direct interest in the peace
question are preparing to send delegates on this occasion.
The official returns of the _shipwrecks of the United Kingdom_ during
the past year, show that the average is nearly two a day; and the
amount, thus far, four vessels only propelled by steam, and six
hundred and sixty-eight sailing vessels of every description. The
difference in the number of steam and sailing vessels afloat is far
from the proportion of disasters. Navigation by steam is thus
demonstrated to be much the safest.
The 4th of July was celebrated in London with appropriate honors by
the American residents and others. Mr. George Peabody issued cards of
invitation to meet the United States Minister and Mrs. Lawrence at a
fête which he was to give in the evening, and about seven or eight
hundred persons were present, including the American families in
London, and a large proportion of the nobility and public persons in
England, by whom the idea was received with the greatest satisfaction.
The Duke of Wellington, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, the Lord
Mayor, the Duke of Valencia, the Count and Countess Pulzki, Lord
Glenelg, Viscount Canning, Miss Burdett Coutts, the American Ministers
to London, St. Petersburg, and Brussels, and a great number of other
eminent persons attended, besides Catharine Hayes, Lablache, Gardoni,
and Cruvelli, who sang during the evening, and were received with more
than usual applause. The affair was one of the grandest of the season.
FRANCE.
In France the chief events of importance are connected with the
project for the revision of the Constitution. After a long struggle
the subject was given to a committee, at the head of which was De
Tocqueville. His report, as presented to the committee on the 4th of
July, had not at the last dates received when this sheet goes to
press, come before the public in an authentic form; but it is
understood that it treats of three principal points. In the first
place, M. de Tocqueville enters boldly into the question between the
republicans and monarchists. He examines with skill the pretensions of
the republic to Divine right put forward in the Commission itself by
General Cavaignac, and sustained by him with impassioned energy and an
accent of conviction which astonished the members. M. de Tocqueville
denies this pretended Divine right, and maintains that of the nation
to choose the form of government that may best suit it--a right which
is absolute, superior, and indisputable. Secondly, he is said to
oppose, by anticipation, any species of amendment which would have the
effect of confining the next Constituent Assembly within any limits,
or force on it the obligation of revising the constitution for the
sole end of ameliorating and consolidating them, and to maintain that
the Constituent Assembly should be invested with a general and
unlimited mission, in order that it may act in the plenitude of a
really constituent power; and thirdly, he is described as expressing
hopes that the Assembly will adopt the proposition accepted by the
majority of the commission; that a constituent assembly will be
chosen; that the constitution will be revised or remodelled; and in
such case that all will consider it their duty to conform to it; that
if the proposition of revision be not admitted, the constitution of
1848 shall remain as the supreme and sovereign law for all; that the
only alternative will be to maintain, until the term of a new period
of three years, the provisional form of the actual government--it
being of course understood, that, in such case, each person will feel
it his duty to conform to the constitution, and to abstain from every
act which would be tantamount to its violation. It is added that M. de
Tocqueville developes this proposition in such a manner as to oppose
_all unconstitutional candidateships_; that is, of the actual
President, the Prince de Joinville, and Ledru Rollin. The friends of
Louis Napoleon have favored the revision, in the hope that by it they
might prolong his term. Several speeches lately made by the president
have given a more favorable impression than that which he made at
Dijon. One at Poitiers, on the occasion of the opening of a railroad,
has given satisfaction to moderate men of all parties, who believe it
honest.
A bill to interdict clubs has been again adopted without any attempt
at alteration. General Aupick is announced as the new ambassador to
Spain. Count Colonna Walewski, an illegitimate son of the Emperor
Napoleon, has reached the highest round of the diplomatic ladder by
being sent as ambassador to the Court of St. James. The _Pays_
announces that the question of Abd-el-Kader's captivity is on the
point of receiving a satisfactory solution. The committee charged to
examine the bill for the ratification of the treaties of La Plata is
disposed to propose simply the ratification of those treaties. At
Charente, recently, thirty-two adult Roman Catholics of both sexes, in
the presence of a numerous congregation, in the Protestant church,
publicly abjured the Roman Catholic and embraced the Protestant faith.
A measure introduced by M. de St. Beuve in the National Assembly for a
commercial reform, by modifying the present restrictive tariff, so as
to accomplish a gradual approach to free trade, had been rejected by a
majority of 428 to 199. M. Thiers on this occasion made a great speech
against free trade, which is much criticised by the English press. The
London _Times_ calls Thiers the evil genius of France.
The most recent commercial letters received from various parts of
France represent affairs as somewhat recovering from the gloomy
appearance they wore some days since. The manufacturers have received
numerous orders for the great fair of Beaucaire, which will be held in
July. The Bank of France has announced a dividend of fifty-five francs
per share for the first half year of 1851.
ITALY.
On the evening of the 7th of May, the Count Piero Guicciardini, the
descendant of the great historian, had met in a private house in
Florence six persons whose names are given in a decree, and before the
party broke up, Count Guicciardini read and expounded a chapter of the
Gospel of St. John. At ten o'clock the house was entered by eight
gendarmes; a perquisition began, in the style now customary in
Tuscany; the depositions of the party assembled were taken down; and
as it was fully proved by such depositions that a chapter of the Bible
had been read by Count Guicciardini, the whole of the seven offenders
were straightway led to the police delegation of Santa Maria Novella,
where their arrest was signed by the delegate, and a little after
midnight they were lodged in the Bargello, or public prison. For ten
days Count Guicciardini and his companions were kept in confinement
and subjected to repeated examinations, and finally the sentence of
forced residence in different parts of the Tuscan Maremme was passed
on each of the accused. This illustration of the liberality of the
Roman Catholic Church--though in perfect keeping with its perpetual
policy--has produced a profound sensation. It might have escaped
without much observation but for the eminence of the parties, and the
claims made lately in England, that the Roman Catholic authorities
were as tolerant as they asked that others should be to them, in all
matters of personal rights.
The French military commandant in Rome has been exercising his
authority with great, but probably requisite severity. Two Roman
soldiers have been tried by French court martial, and executed for
riotous conduct, and seven others have been doomed to the same fate.
The Pope also has been threatened with expulsion from the Quirinal
Palace, which the above-mentioned authority thought at one time would
be essential as a military post. So far, the weak-minded holder of St.
Peter's keys has not suffered the mortification of a second forced
retreat, although, between his military guardians of France and
Austria and his own discontented subjects, his position is scarcely an
enviable one. The three young Englishmen arrested at Leghorn yet
remain imprisoned; but their real names do not appear.
GERMANY.
The military authorities of Austria give as much offence in Germany as
the French in Rome. At Hamburg, several citizens have been killed in a
fray with the Austrian soldiers, begun by the insolence of the latter.
In Hesse Cassel, the Government has been compelled to grant immunities
to the Roman Catholic clergy, scarcely compatible with the
institutions of a Protestant country, under the compulsion of Austrian
bayonets.
The Göttingen Professors have decided that the Government of Electoral
Hesse was not required by the Constitution to procure the assent of
the Chambers to the levy of taxes last year; this is the point on
which the revolutionary manifestations turned. We have not the
Constitution at hand, and cannot apprehend the grounds of this
decision, but it is singular that all the magistrates and people of
the country, who ought to have known something of their constitution,
should have unanimously held a different opinion. The Prussian
government have withdrawn the summons for the assembling of the
provincial diets, no doubt on account of the universal condemnation
excited by it. A decided schism has of late manifested itself in the
commercial policy advocated by North and South Germany. Whilst the
attempt to procure higher protective duties in the Zollverein has
continually been defeated by the liberal principals supported by
Prussia. South Germany, on the other hand, has come forward openly
with the intention to assert an independent line of action.
SPAIN.
Accounts from Madrid of the 2d July, state that M. Jose Sanchez Ocana,
director general of the public treasury, has been appointed under
secretary of state of the finance department, in the place of M.
Bordia, director general of the customs. M. Rudulfo, inspector of the
finances at Madrid, succeeded M. Ocana in the direction of the public
treasury. France, by her diplomatic agents at Madrid, strives to
influence the Spanish government in regard to a more active repression
of the slave trade in its colonies. Mr. Schoelcher adverted to the
passage of the recent speech of the Emperor of Brazil, touching the
abolition of the traffic, as meant simply to please England--"like all
other speeches from thrones, in which the design is to give a sort of
satisfaction to the foreign powers with whom friendly relations are
desirable." The amendment was rejected by 339 nays to 230 ayes.
RUSSIA.
Letters from Posen allude to an ukase which had appeared, compelling
all individuals throughout Russia and Poland to sell to the
government, within a specified period, whatever uncoined silver they
might have in their possession. An indemnity in paper money was
authorized to be given on behalf of the treasury. A body of Belgian
weavers and dyers has been engaged to go to St. Petersburg to set up
their trade. In Circassia the Russian army has met with a serious
defeat; in a battle where it had 25,000 men engaged, it lost 5,000.
AUSTRIA AND TURKEY.
The Emperor has appointed Count Rechburg Internuncio at the court of
Constantinople. Accounts from Comorn state that violent shocks of an
earthquake were felt there on the 1st. The shocks were accompanied by
violent claps of thunder. The clocks in all the church towers struck;
scarcely a single house remained uninjured; numerous chimneys fell in,
and the furniture and utensils in the rooms were overthrown and
broken. Many accidents had occurred, but providentially, not any of a
fatal nature are yet known.
_Scientific Discoveries and Proceedings of Learned Societies._
The BRITISH ASSOCIATION met this year on the second of July, at
Ipswich. Among those present we notice the names of Prince Albert, the
Prince of Canino, the Duke of Argyle, the Earl of Rosse, the Earl of
Enniskillen, the Earl of Sheffield, Lord Monteagle, Lord
Londesborough, Lord Stradbroke, Lord Rendlesham, Lord Abercorn, Lord
Alfred Paget, Lord Wrottesley, the Bishop of Oxford, Sir Charles
Lemon, Sir Roderick Murchison, Sir Charles Lyell, Sir Henry de la
Beche, Sir Edward Cust, Sir William Jardine, Sir William Middleton,
Sir W. J. Hooker, Sir J. T. Boileau, Professors Airy, Asa Gray,
Harvey, Sedgwick, Henslow, Owen, Sylvester, Forbes, Bell, Anstead,
Phillips, and Faraday, Dr. Lyon Playfair, Dr. Hooker, and many eminent
scientific men.
* * * * *
At a recent meeting of the ASIATIC SOCIETY in London, a report of the
Oriental Translation Committee mentioned the printing of the second
volume of the _Travels of Evliva Effendi_, of the fifth volume of
_Haji Khalfæ Lexicon_, and of the _Makamat_ of Hariri. The Committee
had received from Col. Rawlinson the offer of a translation of the
valuable and rare geographical work of Yakút, which it accepted, and
is about to proceed with the printing of the third and concluding
volume of M. Garcin de Tassy's _Histoire de la Littérature Hindoui et
Hindoustani_, including a Memoir on Hindústani Songs, with numerous
translations. The Report concluded with noticing the presentation of
William the Fourth's gold medal to Prof. H. H. Wilson, in
acknowledgment of his services to Oriental literature generally, and
especially in testimony of the merits of his translation of the
_Vishnu Purana_.
The annual Report of the Council gave some notice of the progress of
Babylonian and Assyrian decipherment as carried out by Colonel
Rawlinson, and now in the course of communication to the world by the
Society. The Babylonian version of the great Behistún inscription was
exhibited on the table; and, in allusion to it, the Report contained a
concise _résumé_ of what had been done from the information of Colonel
Rawlinson himself, who is of opinion that the inscriptions read extend
over a period of 1,000 years--from B.C. 2000 to 1000; that he has
ascertained the religion of the ancient Assyrians and Babylonians to
have been strictly Astral or Sabæan; and as he finds among the gods
the names of Belus, Ninus and Semiramis, he thinks that the dynasties
given by the Greeks were, in fact, lists of mythological names. The
geography of Western Asia as it was 4,000 years ago appears to be
clearly made out. Col. Rawlinson finds a king of Cadytis, or
Jerusalem, named Kanun, a tributary of the king who built the palace
of Khursabad, warring with a Pharaoh of Egypt, and defeating his
armies on the south frontier of Palestine. The Meshec and Tubal of
Scripture were dwelling in North Syria, the Hittites held the centre
of the province, and the commercial cities of Tyre and Sidon and Gaza
and Acre flourished on the coasts. And so well does Colonel Rawlinson
find the geography made out, that he is of opinion he can identify
every province and city named in the inscriptions.
* * * * *
The last Bulletin of the GEOGRAPHICAL SOCIETY of Paris, opens with an
appeal to the governments of Europe and America, for the adoption of a
Common First Meridian. The author, M. Sedillor, is a high authority in
geographical science, and would trace an imaginary line in the midst
of the Ocean; designate it by some "systematic term," acceptable to
all, and bring, thus, Europe and the new world into a community of
views and interests apart from all national prejudices or pretension.
The appeal followed by a letter of M. Jomard on the same subject, and
another from the traveller Antony D'Abbadie, who prefers Mont Blanc,
or Jerusalem--"against which the Christians of America can have no
objection." Among the contents of the Bulletin, is a notice of Lieut.
Com. MacArthur's report, eighteenth December, 1850, to Professor
Bache, which has been translated entire for the _Hydrographical
Annals_, a periodical work. Mr. Squier's Observations on the Route of
the Proposed Canal across the Isthmus of Nicaragua, are also
translated. There is a paper of some compass, on the various projects
and undertakings for a communication between the Oceans and a like one
on the services rendered to geography by the French and British
missionaries. Those of the German and American, who have not been less
zealous, will be duly credited and recorded, when materials can be
obtained for the purpose.
* * * * *
At the meeting for the 22nd May, of the ROYAL SOCIETY OF LITERATURE,
in London, a very interesting Greek MS. was exhibited. It is owned by
a Mr. Arden, who purchased it of an Arab near Thebes. It is nearly
four yards long, divided into pages or columns containing twenty-eight
lines, the length of which exceeds six inches, and the breadth two
inches; the whole is written in a large and clear hand, with great
accuracy, since few corrections or interpolations are visible.
Although it is difficult to assign to it the actual age, still there
seems to be every reason to conjecture that it is of the commencement
of the present era--or indeed, which is by no means improbable, that
it was written a century or two before the birth of Christ. The
delicacy of the texture of the papyrus will afford a strong
presumption in favor of the latter period; for it is well known to
Egyptologists that a coarseness and inferiority of papyrus indicate a
more recent date. The first portion of the MS. is much broken, and
presents many gaps and fragments; the end of it bears the title of an
Apology, or Defence of Lycophron. The second, or larger portion of the
MS., is much more perfect, as it contains only here and there an
hiatus, which will probably be easily restored; at its termination we
are informed that it is a Defence of the accusation of Euxenippus
against Polyeuctus. The author of these orations will, in all
likelihood, prove to be the great Athenian orator Hyperides, whose
works have been long lost. Indeed, this appears to be almost certain,
since some of the Greek lexicographers mention a speech of Hyperides
'for Lycophron,' and another 'against Polyeuctus concerning the
accusation.' But who Lycophron was, and what was the nature of the
defence for him, remain to be more amply detailed. The subject of
this second oration, however, appears to be known,--for Polyeuctus,
the Athenian orator, was accused, with Demosthenes, of receiving a
bribe from Harpalus. Moreover, the fragments of a papyrus MS. procured
a few years ago at Egyptian Thebes by Dr. Harris, lately ably edited
by Mr. Babington, at Cambridge, and proved to be parts of the oration
of Hyperides against Demosthenes, are so exceedingly similar, both in
handwriting and the papyrus, to the present MS. belonging to Mr.
Arden, that it is not improbable but that they may have been copied by
the same Greek scribe and may originally have formed one entire MS.
roll of the orations of Hyperides. A careful examination and
comparison of these interesting MSS. will, after a time, decide these
questions.
* * * * *
At a late sitting of the _Paris Academy of Medicine_, M. ORFILA, the
celebrated toxicologist, read a paper on _Nicotine_--the poison used
in the Bocarme murder. It is the essential principle of tobacco.
Virginia tobacco yields the largest proportion of _nicotine_; from
twenty pounds, were extracted four hundred _grammes_ of the poison; a
gramme is equal to 15·444 grains troy. The Maryland leaf affords about
a third of that quantity. Nicotine is nearly as powerful and rapid as
prussic acid with the animal economy. Five or six drops applied to the
tongue of a dog, killed in ten minutes. The progress which medical
jurisconsults have made recently, is so great, that poisoning by
morphine, strychnine, prussic acid, and other vegetable substances,
hitherto regarded as inaccessible to our means of investigation, may
now be detected and recognized in the most incontestable manner. M.
Ortila, in closing his notice, says: "After these results of judicial
medical investigation, the public need be under no apprehension. No
doubt intelligent and clever criminals, with a view to thwart the
surgeons, will sometimes have recourse to very active poisons little
known by the mass, and difficult of detection, but science is on the
alert, and soon overcomes all difficulty; penetrating into the utmost
depths of our organs, it brings out the proof of the crime, and
furnishes one of the greatest pieces of evidence against the guilty."
* * * * *
In the LONDON ROYAL INSTITUTION, May 23, M. Ebelman, of the Sèvres
works, near Paris, being present with various specimens of the
minerals which he has produced artificially,--Mr. Faraday stated the
process and results generally. The process consists in employing a
solvent, which shall first dissolve the mineral or its constituents;
and shall further, either on its removal or on a diminution of its
dissolving powers, permit the mineral to aggregate in a crystaline
condition. Such solvents are boracic acid, borax, phosphate of soda,
phosphoric acid, &c.:--the one chiefly employed by M. Ebelman is
boracic acid. By putting together certain proportions of alumina and
magnesia, with a little oxide of crome or other coloring matter, and
fused boracic acid into a fit vessel, and inclosing that in another,
so that the whole could be exposed to the high heat of a porcelain or
other furnace, the materials became dissolved in the boracic acid; and
then as the heat was continued the boracic acid evaporated, and the
fixed materials were found combined and crystallized, and presenting
new specimens of spinel. In this way crystals having the same form,
hardness, color, specific gravity, composition, and effect on light as
the true ruby, the cymophane, and other mineral bodies were prepared,
and were in fact identical with them. Chromates were made, the emerald
and corundum crystalized, the peridot formed, and many combinations as
yet unknown to mineralogists produced.
* * * * *
At a meeting of the BERLIN ACADEMY OF SCIENCES, held on May 31 last,
the venerable Alexander von Humboldt made an interesting communication
upon some observations of singular _movements of fixed stars_. It
seems that at Trieste, January 17, 1851, between 7 and 8 o'clock P.M.,
before the rising of the moon, when the star Sirius was not far from
the horizon, it was seen to perform a remarkable series of eccentric
movements. It rose and sank, moved left and right, and sometimes
seemed to move in a curved line. The observers were Mr. Keune, a
student in the upper class of the gymnasium, and Mr. Thugutt, a
saddler, both certified to be reliable persons. The family of the
latter also beheld the phenomena, Mr. Keune, with his head leaned
immovably against a wall, saw Sirius rise in a right line above the
roof of a neighboring house, and immediately again sink out of sight
behind it, and then again appear. Its motions were so considerable
that for some time the beholders thought it was a lantern suspended by
a kite. It also varied in brilliancy, growing alternately brighter and
fainter, and now and then being for moments quite invisible, though
the sky was perfectly clear. As far as it is known, this phenomenon
has been remarked but twice before, once in 1799 from the Peak of
Teneriffe by Von Humboldt himself, and again nearly fifty years later,
by a well-informed and careful observer, Prince Adalbert, of Prussia.
* * * * *
"In the great Exhibition," the _Athenæum_ says, "Daguerreotypes are
largely displayed by the French,--as might have been expected, that
country being proud of the discovery: but the examples exhibited by
the Americans surpass in general beauty of effect any which we have
examined from other countries. This has been attributed to difference
in the character of the solar light as modified by atmospheric
conditions; we are not, however, disposed to believe that to be the
case. We have certain indications that an increased intensity of light
is not of any advantage, but rather the contrary, for the production
of daguerreotypes; the luminous rays appearing to act as balancing
powers against the chemical rays. Now, this being the case, we know of
no physical cause by which the superiority can be explained,--and we
are quite disposed to be sufficiently honest to admit that the mode of
manipulation has more to do with the result than any atmospheric
influences. However this may be, the character of the daguerreotypes
executed in America is very remarkable. There are a fulness of tone
and an artistic modulation of light and shadow which in England we do
not obtain. The striking contrasts of white and black are shown
decidedly enough in the British examples exhibited in the
gallery,--but here there are coldness and hardness of outline. Within
the shadow of the eagle and the striped banner we find no lights too
white and no shadows too dark: they dissolve, as in Nature, one into
the other in the most harmonious and truthful manner,--and the result
is, more perfect pictures. The Hyalotypes or glass pictures are of a
remarkable character. They are but a modification of the processes of
Mr. Talbot and of M. Evrard as applied to glass; but the idea of
copying Nature on this material,--and, having obtained a fixed picture
of the shadowed image, of magnifying it by means of the magic lantern,
and thus producing a truthful representation of the original,--is
certainly due to the artist of Philadelphia. Many beautiful views of
the Smithsonian Institute, of the Custom-house at Philadelphia, and of
churches in several cities in the United States, show the minuteness
of the detail which can be obtained by the use of the albuminized
glass. Amongst the professed improvements Mr. Beard exhibits some
enamelled daguerreotypes, in which the permanence of the picture is
secured by a lacquer."
* * * * *
In the ROYAL GEOGRAPHICAL SOCIETY, in London, the President,
regretting the undignified controversies respecting the rise and
course of the Nile which had taken place, unhesitatingly expressed his
conviction that no European traveller, from Bruce downwards, had yet
seen the source of the true White Nile. Concerning this, we may still
exclaim "_Ignotum, plus notus, Nile, per ortum._"
* * * * *
Experiments with chloroform as a propelling power, in the place of
steam, are now making in the port of L'Orient; and there is reason to
hope, from the success which has already attended them, that they will
result in causing a considerable saving to be effected in cost and in
space.
* * * * *
THE GEOLOGICAL SOCIETY OF FRANCE will hold its annual meeting this
year at Dijon. The Congress will commence on the 14th of September.
_Recent Deaths._
GENERAL M. ARBUCKLE, U.S.A., died on the 11th of June, at Fort Smith.
He was about 75 years of age, and had been nearly fifty years in the
army, and twenty on the Arkansas frontier. At the time of his death,
he was commander of the 7th Military Department of the United States
Army, and had held that station for several years, and was peculiarly
calculated for the office, being thoroughly acquainted with the
Indians, and Indian character, he always had their confidence, and by
that means, kept up and maintained friendly relations with them on
behalf of the United States. The St. Louis _Republican_ remarks that,
"as a man, Gen. ARBUCKLE was honest and humane, loved and respected by
every person with whom he had intercourse. No one pursued a more
straight-forward course in all transactions. He was strictly
economical in expenditures for the Government. His whole mind was
engrossed with the present expedition of the 5th Infantry to the
Brazos, and on the frontier of Texas, and he gave orders and
directions for conducting, it as long as he was able to converse."
* * * * *
The CHEVALIER PARISOT DE GUYMONT, who belonged to the family of
Lavalette, the illustrious Grand Master of the Order of Malta, of
which the chevalier was one of the few surviving knights, has just
died in the convent of St. Jean de Catane, in Sicily, to which the
directing chapter of that celebrated order had retired. He
distinguished himself in the expedition which the last grand master
sent against Algiers towards the end of the eighteenth century; and
General Bonaparte, when he took possession of Malta, demanded to see
M. de Guymont, and received him with marked distinction. He was in the
seventy-seventh year of his age.
* * * * *
SIR J. GRAHAM DALZELL, BART., died on the seventeenth of June in
Edinburgh, aged seventy-seven years. He was president of the Society
for promoting Useful Arts in Scotland, vice-president of the African
institute of Paris, and author of several works on science and
history, and of various articles in the 'Encyclopædia Britannica.
* * * * *
The widow of THOMAS SHERIDAN, died in London on the ninth of June. She
was the author of _Carwell_, a very striking story illustrating the
inequalities of punishment in the laws against forgery. In a later
novel, _Aims and Ends_, the same feminine and truthful spirit showed
itself in lighter scenes of social life, observing keenly, and
satirizing kindly. Mrs. Sheridan wrote always with ease,
unaffectedness, and good-breeding, her books every where giving
evidence of the place she might have taken in society if she had not
rather desired to refrain from mingling with it, and keep herself
comparatively unknown. After her husband's early death she had devoted
herself in retirement to the education of her orphan children; when
she re-appeared in society it seemed to be solely for the sake of her
daughters, on whose marriages she again withdrew from it; and to none
of her writings did she ever attach her name. Into the private sphere
where her virtues freely displayed themselves, and her patient yet
energetic life was spent, it is not permitted us to enter; but we
could not pass without this brief record what we know to have been a
life as much marked by earnestness, energy, and self-sacrifice, as by
those qualities of wit and genius which are for ever associated with
the name of Sheridan. Three daughters survive her, and one son--Lady
Dufferin, the Hon. Mrs. Norton, Lady Seymour, and Mr. Brinsley
Sheridan, the member of Parliament for Shaftesbury.
* * * * *
From Stockholm we hear of the death of Mr. ANDRE CARLSSON, Bishop of
Calmar, and author of numerous and important works on philology,
theology and jurisprudence. He occupied at one time the chair of Greek
language and literature at the University of Lund, and was, say the
Swedish papers, in his place in the Diet, a champion of religious
liberty and parliamentary reform. He has died at the great age of 94.
* * * * *
Poland has lost a writer of distinction, chiefly on geographical
subjects, in the person of Count STANISLAUS PLATER. He had long been
eminent both in society and in literature.
* * * * *
GENERAL JAMES MILLER died in Temple, New-Hampshire, on the 7th of
July, of paralysis, aged 76 years. He was born in Peterboro, N. H.,
and bred to the profession of the law. In 1810 he entered the Army,
and served with distinction throughout the last war with Great
Britain. He rose rapidly from the rank of captain to that of major
general. He was present at Tippecanoe, under Gen. Harrison, but was
prevented by sickness from taking part in the battle. He rendered
eminent services in the battles of Chippeway, Bridgewater, and Lundy's
Lane, making himself conspicuous by his courageous and intrepid
conduct. It was at the last named battle that he is said to have
uttered the renowned declaration, "I'll try, sir," when asked if he
could storm an important and nearly impregnable position of the enemy.
Gen. Miller was subsequently made Governor of the Territory of
Arkansas. Afterwards he was collector of the port of Salem, which post
he resigned in 1840. He is the "old soldier collector" referred to in
the introduction to Hawthorne's _Scarlet Letter_.
* * * * *
The celebrated Polish General UMINSKI died at Wiesbaden on the 16th of
June. He was one of the most prominent actors in the last Polish
Revolution, but for several years had lived in great retirement at
Wiesbaden. He was born in the year 1780, in the Grand Duchy of Posen.
As early as 1794 he commenced his military career, as a volunteer
under Kosciusko. When the Poles were summoned to new efforts for
freedom by Dombrowski, in 1806, Uminski was among the first to take up
arms. He formed a Polish Guard of Honor for Napoleon, fought at
Dantzick, received a wound at Dirschau, where he was taken prisoner
and sentenced to death by a Prussian Court Martial. His sentence was
not executed, however, as Napoleon threatened reprisals. In the war
against Austria he commanded Dombrowski's advanced guard, was made
Colonel, and formed the 10th. hussar-regiment, which signalized itself
at Masaisk, in 1812, and at whose head he was the first to enter
Moscow. In the retreat, he saved the life of Poniatowski. At the
battle of Leipsic, where he acted as Brigadier General, he was again
wounded and taken prisoner. After the dissolution of the national army
of Poland, he entered into the Polish-Russian service but soon
obtained his discharge, and lived in retirement in Posen, though
without intermitting his efforts for the freedom of Poland. In the
year 1821 he helped to found a patriotic union, was arrested after
accession of Nicholas I, and in the year 1826 sentenced to six years'
imprisonment in the fortress of Glogau. Escaping from this in 1831, he
went to Warsaw, and took part as a common soldier in the battle of
Wawre. The next day he was made General of Division. On the 25th of
February he beat Diebitsch at Grodno, and distinguished himself in
several other battles. Outlawed and hung in effigy at Kosen, he found
an asylum in France. The remainder of his subsequent life he passed in
Wiesbaden. Uminski was also known as a writer on military affairs.
Those who knew him in the latter years of his exile, are loud in their
praises of the sweetness, benevolence, and dignity of his character.
He will be remembered for his devotion to Polish liberty, and the
people, who in future times shall struggle for the same boon, will
gain new encouragement from his glorious example.
* * * * *
VISCOUNT MELVILLE died on the tenth of June. He was in his eightieth
year, having been born in 1771. In 1809, he (then the Right Honorable
Robert Dundas), was President of the Board of Trade under the Perceval
administration. He succeeded his father in 1811, and, in 1812, when
Lord Liverpool assumed the reins, he became first Lord of the
Admiralty, which office he held during that long administration which
ceased in April, 1827, by the death of the Premier. Mr. Canning having
been called to power, Lord Melville retired with the majority of his
former colleagues, which caused some surprise at the time, as he was
favorable to the claims of the Catholics, which was understood to
constitute the bond of the new administration. The Canning
administration had a brief career, and that of Lord Goderich, the
present Earl of Ripon, which attempted to carry on affairs after the
death of Canning, was still more brief. On the Duke of Wellington
becoming Prime Minister, early in 1822, Lord Melville resumed his
former office, the First Lord of the Admiralty, and continued until
the breaking up of the Tory Administration, and the advent of the
Reform Ministry of Earl Grey, in November, 1830. He then ended his
official career, but for several years attended occasionally in the
House of Lords, but he chiefly resided at the family seat.
* * * * *
Mr. DYCE SOMBRE died in London, July 1. His history is very generally
known. He was understood to be the son of a German adventurer in
India, of the name of Summer, who espoused the late Begum Oomroo. All
manner of wild and scandalous stories are afloat as to the life of
this woman and the death of her husband. After her death, Mr. Dyce
Sombre came to Europe, and first made himself remarkable, in Italy, by
the extraordinary black marble monument which he caused to be executed
and sent to India in memory of his benefactress. His arrival in
England, with a reputation of almost fabulous wealth, attracted much
notice. He became one of the fêted lions of the season, and ultimately
married, in 1840, Mary Anne, daughter of the Earl St. Vincent. A
separation soon took place, and the legal proceedings consequent on
this ill-starred marriage, followed by those adopted for the purpose
of establishing Mr. Dyce Sombre's lunacy--were long matters of public
talk and universal notoriety. His attempt to enter public life was
seconded by the "worthy and enlightened" electors of Sudbury, who sent
him to Parliament, from whence he was speedily ejected on
petition--the borough being soon afterwards disfranchised. For the
last few years Mr. Sombre has resided on the Continent, to escape the
effects of the decision of the Court of Chancery in his case--a
decision against which he had come over to petition when he was seized
with his fatal illness. In consequence of his death in a state of
lunacy, his money in the funds, railway shares, and other property, of
the annual value of £11,000, will become divisible between Captain
Troup and General Soldoli, the husbands of his two sisters, who are
next of kin. An additional sum, producing £4,000 a year, will also
fall to their families on the death of Mrs. Dyce Sombre.
* * * * *
BISHOP MEDANO, of Buenos Ayres, died in the second week of April. He
was 83 years old.
* * * * *
The EARL OF SHAFTESBURY, one of the most notable of the members of the
House of Lords, died at his country residence in Dorsetshire, on the
2d of June, aged eighty-four years. Though neither an orator nor a
statesman, he was one of the most remarkable personages of the age in
which he lived. His position as a public servant was quite peculiar;
and his character, though it could not be called eccentric, had little
in common with the world around him. CROPLY ASHLEY COOPER, was the
second son of the fourth Lord Shaftesbury. That Lord Shaftesbury who
became Chancellor in the reign of Charles II. was the first peer in
the Cooper family, and under the title of Lord Ashley was a member of
the Cabinet well known by the name of "the Cabal" To him we are
indebted for the Habeas Corpus Act, at least for being its chief
promoter; and he is likewise entitled to the gratitude of posterity
for having introduced a measure to render the Judges independent of
the crown. The third Earl--grandson of the first--was the celebrated
author of the _Characteristics_. The fourth was his son; the fifth and
sixth Earls were his grandsons; the former of these dying without male
issue in 1811, the earldom devolved on the deceased, who was born in
London on the 21st of December, 1768. From Winchester, where he was
contemporaneous with Sidney Smith, and Archbishop Howley, he in due
course went to Christchurch, where he passed his time as most young
men of rank do at college, and graduated with quite as much credit as
was then usually attained by the son of an Earl; after which he made
those excursions on the continent of Europe that our ancestors were
accustomed to call "the grand tour;" and all these operations he
brought to a close before he had completed his twenty-second year. His
next step was to get into Parliament, and a seat in the House of
Commons was obtained for him in the usual way by family influence,
Dorchester having had the advantage of calling him its member from the
thirtieth of January, 1790, for a period exceeding twenty-one years.
This was pretty good experience in the more active branch of the
Legislature, though the body that elected him was of that small and
quiet order of constituencies that do not greatly overburden their
members with the labors of representation. Mr. Cropley Ashley Cooper
had, therefore, had a long apprenticeship to political life, when, by
the death of his elder brother, on the fourteenth of May, 1811, he
succeeded to the peerage as sixth Earl of Shaftesbury.
The Earl was nearly forty years of age when, upon the death of Fox,
the Tories recovered their long possession of office, and among their
good deeds may be reckoned their appointment of Lord Shaftesbury, then
Mr. Cooper, to the office of Clerk of the Ordnance. To the duties of
his department he applied himself with marvellous zeal, and it was
always his own opinion that he there first acquired those habits of
industry and method which rendered him one of the most efficient
members of the Upper House. When, on the death of his elder brother,
he reached the dignity of the peerage, he thought it necessary to
resign the clerkship of the Ordnance, though his private fortune was
scarcely sufficient for a man encumbered with an earldom and a large
family. He took his seat as a peer in June, 1811, and it was not until
November, 1814, that he became permanently the Chairman of Committees;
the duties of which place were well done for nearly forty years by
"old" Lord Shaftesbury, who was never old when business pressed.
Strong common sense, knowledge of the statute law, and above all,
uncompromising impartiality, made him an autocrat in his department.
When once he heard a case, and deliberately pronounced judgment,
submission almost invariably followed. A man of the largest experience
as a Parliamentary agent has been heard to say that he remembered only
one case in which the House reversed a decision of Lord Shaftesbury;
and on that occasion it became necessary to prevail on the Duke of
Wellington to speak in order to overcome the "old Earl." It would not
be easy to cite many instances of men who have taken as active part in
the business of a deliberative assembly after the age of 75; but the
labors of Lord Shaftesbury were continued beyond that of fourscore. To
all outward seeming he was nearly as efficient at one period of his
life as at another. By the time he had reached the age of
fifty,--which was about half-way through the fifteen years that Lord
Liverpool's Ministry held the government,--Lord Shaftesbury's
knowledge of his duties as chairman to the Lords was complete, and
then he appeared to settle down in life with the air, the habits, the
modes of thought and action, natural to old age. Although there are
few men now alive whose experience would enable them to contrast his
performance of official duties with the manner in which they were
discharged by his predecessor, yet, even in the absence of any thing
like _data_, there seems to be a general impression that the House of
Lords never could have had a more efficient chairman. He was certainly
a man of undignified presence, of indistinct and hurried speech, of
hasty and brusque manner, the last person whom a superficial observer
would think of placing in the chair of the greatest senate that the
world has ever seen; yet it cannot be said that their lordships were
ever wrong in their repeated elections of Lord Shaftesbury; for in the
formal business of committees he rarely allowed them to make a
mistake, while he was prompt as well as safe in devising the most
convenient mode of carrying any principle into practical effect. He
was no theorist; there was nothing of the speculative philosopher in
the constitution of his mind; and he therefore readily gained credit
for being what he really was, an excellent man of business. It is well
known that the Lords, sitting in committee, are less prone to run riot
than the other House; still it required no small ability to keep them
always in the right path, as was the happy practice of Lord
Shaftesbury. In dealing with minute distinctions and mere verbal
emendations, a deliberative assembly occasionally loses its way, and
members sometimes ask, "What is it we are about?" This was a question
which Lord Shaftesbury usually answered with great promptitude and
perspicuity, rarely failing to put the questions before their
Lordships in an unmistakable form. Another valuable quality of Lord
Shaftesbury as a chairman consisted in his impatience of prosy,
unprofitable talk, of which, doubtless, there is comparatively little
in the Upper House; but even that little he labored to make less by
occasionally reviving attention to the exact points at issue, and
sometimes, by an excusable manoeuvre, shutting out opportunity for
useless discussion. When he sat on the woolsack as speaker, in the
absence of the Lord Chancellor, he deported himself after the manner
of Chancellors; but when he got into his proper element at the table
of the house, nothing could be more rapid than his evolutions; no
hesitation, no dubiety, nor would he allow any one else to pause or
doubt. Often has he been heard to say, in no very gentle tones, "Give
me in that clause _now_;"--"That's enough;"--"It will do very well as
it is;"--"If you have anything further to propose, move at
once;"--"Get through the bill now, and bring up that on the third
reading." He always made their Lordships feel that, come what might,
it was their duty to "get through the bill;" and so expeditious was
the old Earl, that he would get out of the chair, bring up his report,
and move the House into another committee in the short time that
sufficed for the Chancellor to transfer himself from the woolsack to
the Treasury bench and back again.
* * * * *
Mr. THOMAS WRIGHT HILL, eminent in England for some of the most
important improvements that have been made in the means of education
during this century, died on the 9th of June, at the age of
eighty-eight. Hazelwood School, near Birmingham, established by Mr.
Hill, was the most successful, as it was the first large experiment as
to the practicability of governing boys by other principles than that
of terror, of extending the range of scholastic acquirements beyond a
superficial knowledge of the learned languages, and of making the
acquisition of sound knowledge not only a duty but a delight. The
views of Mr. Hill were set forth in _Plans for the Government and
Liberal Instruction of Boys in large numbers, drawn from Experience_,
first published in 1823; and a very elaborate paper in the _Edinburgh
Review_ of Jan. 1825, brought the system into general notice.
* * * * *
The _London Builder_ contains a brief notice of MELCHIOR BOISSERÉE,
brother to Sulpize Boisserée, whose death is much regretted throughout
Germany. It was so far back as the year 1804, that three young men,
citizens of Cologne, conceived the idea of collecting and
resuscitating the mediæval art-relics of the Rhine-lands. But what
was, probably, but contemplated as a provincial undertaking, soon
attracted the eyes of Europe, and became a great fact of modern
art-history. When, about 1808, Sulpize Boisserée determined to devote
himself entirely to the work on the Cologne Cathedral, Melchior and
his brother Bertram continued the research and collection of ancient
paintings. But already in 1810, the old pictures had outgrown the
scanty spaces appropriable to them at Cologne. They were transferred
first to Heidelberg, and in 1819 the three brothers migrated with them
to Stuttgardt, where the king afforded room to this unique gathering
of mediæval art. It was Melchior who chiefly attended to the
restoration of the pictures, and enriched the collection during his
travels in the Netherlands, in 1812 and 1813. Having found some of the
pictures of Hemling and Memling, it was he who first attracted notice
to these excellent, hitherto hardly known artists. In 1827 the
collection was sold to Ludwig of Bavaria, and as the Pinakotheka
(where they were to be placed) was not ready, the pictures were
conveyed to Schleissheim. In this retirement, Melchior Boisserée
devoted his whole attention to the art of glass painting, which at
that time was nigh considered as lost. If now such great things are
accomplished at Munich in this department of Art, it was Melchior
(conjointly with his brother Bertram) who paved the way by this
collection of old specimens, seen with astonishment by travellers from
the whole of Europe. When Bertram had died (about 1830), Melchior
joined his brother Sulpize at Bonn, where Melchior, in the prosecution
of his favored Art-studies, concluded his life in serene quiet and
contentment.
* * * * *
In the death of CHRISTIAN TIECK, German sculpture has lost one of its
most illustrious ornaments, a man of rare intelligence, of long
experience, and of profound artistic cultivation. He was born in
Berlin, on the 14th of August, 1776, and early destined for a
sculptor. The poetic genius and rare qualities of his brother Lewis
Tieck, the poet, his elder by three years, and the graceful artistic
and literary accomplishments of a sister, afterward the Baroness
Knooring, inspired the young sculptor with the warmest interest in the
then young and hopeful German literature and art. This taste he never
lost. Perhaps no artist, so distinguished as an artist, was ever so
devoted to various study, to the last moment of his life.
In 1797, he went to Paris as Royal Pensioner, and although a sculptor,
entered David's studio, and in the year 1800 took the prize for
sculpture. In 1801 he returned to Berlin, and his distinguished talent
was acknowledged. Goethe immediately summoned him to Weimar, and
employed him in the adorning of the Ducal palace, and in the moulding
of a series of busts. Of this latter an idealized head of Goethe and
of the philologist Frederic August Wolf, are the best. The young Tieck
continued in the closest correspondence with his brother, who was then
pursuing his poetical studies at Jena and Dresden, and they went with
Rumohr to Italy, in the year 1805, and there by his beautiful busts,
won the friendship of William Von Humboldt, a man of the most delicate
and accurate artistic taste, as well as of the noblest character and
intellectual ability. Madame de Staël invited Tieck to execute
sculptures at Coppet, for the Neckar family, and in 1809 the Prince
Royal of Bavaria, Louis, selected Tieck to mould the busts for the
projected Walhalla. He did them, and in 1812 passed into Switzerland.
He lived in Zurich, where Rauch was then engaged upon his noble work,
the reclining statue of Queen Louisa, now at Charlottenburg, and a
warm friendship was formed between the sculptors. In 1819 he returned
to Berlin, was elected into the Senate of the Academy, and appointed
Professor by the Grand Duke of Weimar. He then quietly devoted himself
to his art, and Berlin is beautiful with Tieck's sculptures. Named, in
1830 director of the Gallery of Sculpture, he did not relax his
artistic activity, and after a long illness he died gently in the
spring of his year, in the seventy-fifth year of his age.
His elder brother Lewis, the most deservedly famous of the living
illustrations of German literature, the only worthy translator of
Shakspeare, the most genial friend, the most single-hearted of poets,
whom the King honors and who loved Novalis--now seventy-eight years
old, awaits in continued and patiently endured illness the gentle
guiding of death to his best friend and brother.
_Ladies' Summer Fashions._
[Illustration]
The strong and superb stuffs of winter are quite superseded by ball
dresses, at the various watering places. The _élégantes_ seek
_toilettes_ which, without being rich, are remarkable for lightness
and tasteful patterns. We commend a white mousseline dress, with three
flounces, simply hemmed; a long sash of ribbon of colored taffeta;
natural flowers in the hair and on the front of the dress; a dress of
colored taffeta, white or straw ground, or blue or pink ground; these
stuffs are striped, or running and small patterns, or great branches
with detached bouquets. Barèges are also much worn, with white ground
sprinkled with little rose-buds; silk barège, with wreaths of flowers,
are newer. The shape of the bodies of evening dresses has not
undergone much change. _Berthes_ are still worn, forming a point in
front, only varying in the disposition of the ornaments, interspersed
with small ribbons or lace and mousseline. Natural flowers will be
worn for headdresses and bouquets. Walking dresses are much in vogue
of barèges and mousseline, the body skirted, open in front, and lower
down than in winter. We must mention a new dress, named _Albanaise_,
made of barège. It is of several shades, but the most _recherché_ are
_gris poussière_, or dust gray. Five dull silk stripes begin from the
bottom of the dress; then an intervening space and four other stripes;
another space and, to finish, three more stripes ending right in the
belt, always diminishing in size. We have also seen a jaconet dress,
embroidered _à l'Anglaise_ as an apron to the waist; the body
embroidered at the edge flat, as well as in the skirts and sleeves;
and three knots of blue taffeta fastened the bodice. For the country,
dresses of Chinese nankeen and Persian jaconet are worn; and to
protect from the sun, a kind of hood, of similar stuff. There are a
great many black lace _schales_, embroidered muslins, printed barège,
square or long, with cashmere patterns.
The scarf _mantelet_ is also much in fashion, and the article which
permits of the most frequent change; a point scarcely perceptible in
the middle of the back makes it still more graceful. It is made in all
shades, but the most _comme-il-faut_ are black; it is more suitable,
and sets off the freshness of the dress. It is trimmed with lace,
fringe, or net, covered with small velvet dots. We have seen some
quite covered with common embroidery; others embroidered with
arabesques intermingled with braid and silk, and black jet.
For the seaside there are also worn many _mantelets_, which remind us
of the winter by their shape; but the materials are somewhat lighter,
chiefly of thin summer cloth, or felt of gray shades.
The _Promenade Dress_, on the preceding page, is of a rich plain
chocolate-colored silk, made perfectly simple. Pardessus of a
damson-colored brocaded silk, the lower part of which, as well as the
large sleeves, being decorated with a magnificent double fringe, the
under and deepest being of black, and the upper composed of long silk
tassels, put at equal distances. Leghorn bonnet, trimmed with pink
silk, cut the width of a broad ribbon, and pinked at the edge; the
interior having a fulling of the pink silk encircling the face, with
brides to match.
Coarse straw _chapeaux_, though principally intended for the country,
are employed, though not much, for morning _neglige_, in town, and
will be very much in request for the watering-places; they are of the
_capote_ form, in open-work, and lined with taffeta, of one of the
colors of the ribbon that trims them. The ribbon is always plaided,
and the most fashionable has a great variety of colors; the knots are
large, and formed of several _coques_, divided in the middle by a
torsade of ribbons; some are decorated with ribbons only, but small
flowers and foliage may be employed to trim the interior of the brim.
Fancy _chapeaux_ are composed of bands of _paille dentelle_,
alternating with rose-colored taffeta _biais_, &c. Rice straw is also
employed a good deal for fancy _chapeaux_ that are formed of more than
one material.
The following figures are copied from Parisian fashion plates for
1811. The shortness of the frocks should certainly satisfy the most
extreme innovators of the present time.
[Illustration: LADIES' FASHIONS IN PARIS FORTY YEARS AGO.]
End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The International Monthly, Volume 4,
No. 1, August, 1851, by Various
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