The Project Gutenberg EBook of The International Monthly, Volume 4, No. 2,
September, 1851, by Various
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Title: The International Monthly, Volume 4, No. 2, September, 1851
Author: Various
Release Date: June 12, 2011 [EBook #36405]
Language: English
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THE INTERNATIONAL MAGAZINE
Of Literature, Art, and Science.
Vol. IV. NEW-YORK, SEPTEMBER 1, 1851. No. II.
INSTITUTIONS FOR SAILORS, IN NEW-YORK.
[Illustration: HEALTH-OFFICER BOARDING AN IMMIGRANT SHIP, QUARANTINE,
STATEN ISLAND.]
The maritime commerce of New-York has increased so rapidly that it has
continually outgrown the space appropriated for its accommodation, so
that the docks, wharves, warehouses, and landings, have been found
wholly inadequate to the reception of the business which has poured in
upon them. But the benevolent institutions of the "Empire City,"
designed to meliorate the condition of sea-faring men, have been fully
equal to the exigencies of this improvident class of laborers, and are
among the noblest and best conducted of the many charitable
institutions in this great and growing metropolis of the New World.
Commerce is the life and soul of New-York, and the most selfish
motives should lead to the establishment of suitable retreats and
hospitals for the benefit of the class of men without whose labors its
wheels could not revolve; but it is not to those who are most
benefited by the labors of seamen that they are indebted for the
existence of safe havens of retreat, where they may cast anchor in
repose, where they can no longer follow their dangerous and
storm-tost business. Seamen are the only class who have asylums
provided expressly for their use, either in sickness or old age. The
nation provides no hospital like that of Greenwich, where the tars who
are disabled in the public service find a home and an honorable
support, but it lays a capitation tax on all the seamen in the navy
for the creation of a fund, out of which the Naval Asylum, the
Wallabout Hospital, &c., for the disabled, invalid, and superannuated
of the navy have, at their own cost, not altogether disagreeable
homes. New-York, however, from the munificence of private individuals
and the creation of a fund from a tax on seamen, can boast of
excellent institutions for the ample and comfortable accommodation of
all the sick and infirm sailors who have earned a right of admission
by sailing from this port. In this respect there is no other city in
the world that can equal New-York.
The quarantine ground of the port of New-York, which is on the
north-eastern point of Staten Island, five and a half miles from the
Battery, is admirably located for the purposes of purification, and
liberally endowed with all the necessary means for the cure of the
sick and the prevention of the spread of disease. The ground
appropriated for the purposes of a lazaretto has a frontage on the bay
of about fourteen hundred feet, and extends back twelve hundred feet.
It is inclosed by a high brick wall, and includes suitable hospitals
for the accommodation of the sick, houses for the resident physician,
and offices for the numerous persons employed about the grounds. The
largest hospital, appropriated for fever patients, is that nearest the
water. It is constructed of brick, is three stories high, and one
hundred and thirty-six feet long by twenty-eight feet wide. The
building on the rising ground next above this is intended for
convalescents. It is built of brick, three stories high, fifty feet
long, and forty-five feet high, with two wings sixty-six by twenty-six
feet each. Higher up, beyond this, is the small-pox hospital, which
generally has the largest number of patients. It is but two stories,
eighty feet long and twenty-eight feet wide; like the other hospitals,
it is built of brick, and has open galleries on the outside, in front,
and rear. The quarantine hospitals, although forming no unimportant
part of the maritime institutions of New-York, do not properly come
under the head of those denominated benevolent, as they are merely
sanitary and for the purpose of preventing the spread of contagious
diseases.
[Illustration: THE SEAMEN'S RETREAT.]
The Seamen's Retreat is also on Staten Island, a mile below the
quarantine ground, built upon a natural terrace, about one hundred
feet above the water, and fronting the Narrows. The location is one of
exceeding beauty, being surrounded by sylvan scenery of unsurpassed
loveliness, and commanding a prospect of great extent, which embraces
the city, the shore of New Jersey, the Palisades, Long Island, and the
highlands of Neversink and Sandy Hook. The Hospital is a noble
building, constructed of rough granite, three stories high, and
surrounded by piazzas, upon which the patients may inhale the pure
air, and beguile their confinement by watching the ever-changing
panorama presented by the bay, with its countless ships and steamers.
The Retreat is intended solely for sick but not disabled seamen. It is
supported by a fund derived from a state capitation tax, levied upon
all seamen sailing from this port, and is the only establishment of
the kind in the United States, or, we believe, in the world. Seamen
are the only class who are compelled by the law of the state to
contribute to a fund to form a provision for them in case of sickness.
The income for the support of the Retreat is ample, and the most
liberal provision is allowed for all whose necessities compel them to
seek admission. On the grounds are houses for the residence of the
physician and keeper.
[Illustration: SAILOR'S SNUG HARBOR.]
This noble Charity is situated on the north side of Staten Island,
about three miles from the Quarantine, and commands a magnificent
view, with the city in the distance. It is surrounded with elegant
villas, pretty cottages, and well cultivated farms, and is in the
midst of the loveliest rural scenery that the neighborhood of New-York
can boast of. The grounds belonging to the institution comprise about
one hundred and sixty acres of land, which is inclosed by a handsome
iron fence that cost, a few years since, thirty-five thousand dollars.
The principal building is constructed of brick and faced with white
marble, with a marble portico. The corner-stone was laid in 1831, and
the institution opened for the reception of its inmates in 1833. The
centre building is sixty-five by one hundred feet, with two wings
fifty-one by one hundred feet, connected with the main building by
corridors. There are two handsome houses for the residences of the
governor of the institution, and the physician, and numerous offices
and outhouses.
This noble institution owes its existence to Captain James Randall,
who, in the year 1801, bequeathed a piece of land in the upper part of
the city, for the foundation of a retreat for worn-out seamen, who had
sailed from the port of New-York; it was called most appropriately the
SNUG HARBOR, and many a poor mariner has since found safe moorings
there, when no longer able to follow his perilous calling. The
benevolent-hearted sailor who founded this noble charity could hardly
have dreamed that the small property which he bequeathed for that
purpose, could ever increase to the magnificent sum which it is now
valued at. The income from the estate in the year 1806 was but a
little more than four thousand dollars; it is now thirty-seven
thousand dollars, and will be, next year, when the leases of the
property have to be renewed, at least sixty thousand dollars a year,
an income abundantly large to support even in luxurious comfort the
worn-out tars who may be compelled by misfortune to seek this
magnificent asylum. The trustees of the Snug Harbor are about to build
extensive additions to the present accommodations for it inmates, and
among the new buildings will be a hospital for the insane. There is no
chapel attached to the Snug Harbor, but there is a regular chaplain
who performs religious services every Sunday in the large hall in the
centre building.
In front of the principal edifice a plain monument of white marble has
been erected by the trustees in memory of Captain Randall, the founder
of the institution, which is chiefly remarkable for the omission, in
the inscription, of any information respecting the birth or death of
the person in whose honor it was erected.
[Illustration: THE SAILOR'S HOME.]
It is somewhat remarkable that New-York has originated every system
for bettering the temporal and spiritual condition of seamen, that now
exists, and furnished the models of the various institutions for the
benefit of sea-faring men which have been successfully copied in other
maritime cities of the new and the old world. It was here that the
first chapel was built for the exclusive use of sailors and their
families, the Mariner's chapel in Roosevelt-street; and it was here,
too, that the first Home was erected for the residence, while on
shore, of homeless sailors. The corner-stone of the Home in
Cherry-street was laid with appropriate ceremonies on the 14th of
October, 1841, just twenty-two years from the day on which the
corner-stone of the Mariner's chapel was laid in Roosevelt-street. The
building is a well constructed house of brick with a granite basement,
plain and substantial, without any pretensions to architectural
ornamentation. It is six stories high, fifty feet front, and one
hundred and sixty feet deep. It contains one hundred and thirty
sleeping-rooms, a dining-room one hundred by twenty-five feet, and a
spacious reading-room, in which are a well selected library, and a
museum of natural curiosities; there are also suitable apartments for
the overseer and officers. About five hundred boarders can be
accommodated in the Home, but it is not often filled. The Sailor's
Home was built by the Seaman's Friend Society, and is intended to
furnish sailors with a comfortable and orderly home, where they will
not be subject to the rapacities of unprincipled landlords, nor the
temptations which usually beset this useful but improvident class of
men when they are on shore.
[Illustration: U.S. MARINE HOSPITAL, BROOKLYN.]
The Marine Hospital at the Wallabout, Brooklyn, near the Navy Yard,
belongs to the government of the United States, and is intended for
the use of the sailors and officers of the navy, and none others. It
was built from a fund called the hospital fund, which is created by a
payment of twenty cents a month by all the officers and seamen of the
navy. The Hospital stands on high ground, on one of the healthiest and
pleasantest spots in the vicinity of New-York, commands a superb view
of the East River as it sweeps toward the Sound, and overlooks both
Brooklyn and New-York. The buildings constituting the Hospital are two
fine large airy edifices constructed of white marble, with galleries
and piazzas, and surrounded by well-kept grounds which abound with
choice fruit trees, and every requisite for the health and comfort of
the invalids. The patients remain there only while under treatment for
disease. Our government has no asylum for the support of the sailors
or soldiers who lose their health or limbs in its service, like the
hospitals of Greenwich and Chelsea, and, in this respect at least, we
are behind the government of Great Britain, which makes ample and
generous provision for all classes and grades of public servants.
As New-York was the first maritime city that built a chapel expressly
for seamen, so it was the first to build a floating church, for
although there had been previously in London and Liverpool old hulks
fitted up as chapels, and moored in the docks for the use of sailors,
there had never been an actual church edifice put afloat before the
FLOATING CHURCH OF OUR SAVIOUR, which now lies moored at the foot of
Pike-street, in the East River. This novel edifice was finished and
consecrated in February, 1844. It is under the charge of the Young
Men's Church Missionary Society of the City of New-York, by whom it
was built, and has been under the pastoral care of the Rev. B. C. C.
Parker, of the Episcopal church, from its consecration to the present
time. It is seventy feet long, and thirty feet wide, and will
comfortably seat five hundred persons. It has an end gallery, in which
is an organ. A beautiful baptismal font of white marble, in the shape
of a capstan, surmounted by a seashell, chiselled from the same block
with the shaft--the gift of St. Mark's church in the Bowery,
New-York--stands in front of the chancel rail. The top of the
communion-table is a marble slab, and the Ten Commandments are placed
on the panels on each side in the recess over it. An anchor in gold,
painted on the back-ground between these panels, rests upon the Bible
and prayer-book. The roof, at the apex, is twenty-six feet high, and
eleven feet at the eaves. The edifice is built on a broad deck,
seventy-six by thirty-six feet, covering two boats of eighty tons
each, placed ten feet apart. The spire contains a bell, and the top of
the flag-staff is about seventy feet from the deck. Divine service is
regularly performed on Sundays, commencing in the morning at half-past
ten, and in the afternoon at three o'clock. Both the boats on which
the edifice rests are well coppered, and protected from injury by
booms placed around them.
[Illustration: THE FLOATING CHURCH OF OUR SAVIOUR.]
A similar floating church has been built and moored near
Rector-street, in the North River, near which is another floating
chapel, formed of an old hulk, after the manner of the first floating
chapels in London. In addition to these houses of worship for seamen,
there is a large and handsome church for sailors near the "Home," in
Cherry-street, under the charge of the Baptists, and a small seamen's
chapel in Brooklyn, near the Catharine Ferry. To complete this system
of benevolent enterprises for the benefit of sailors, there is a
Seaman's Savings Bank in Wall-street, a very handsome structure of
brown free-stone, in the third story of which are the offices of the
Seaman's Friend Society.
In Franklin Square, which, at the time of Washington's last visit to
New-York, bore about the same relation to the heart of the city that
Union Square and Grammercy Park now do, being the Ultima Thule of
fashion, and the very focus of gentility and aristocracy, there is the
Sailor's Home for colored seamen, which has been most respectably
conducted on the principle of the "Home" in Cherry-street, and under
the supervision of, although not belonging to, the Seaman's Friend
Society. The Colored Home consists of two respectable three-story
brick buildings, and is next door to the old Walton House, which is
the last remnant of ante-revolutionary splendor remaining in the
commercial metropolis of the Union, which once abounded in stately old
mansions full of historical mementoes of the days when we acknowledged
to kingly authority.
The principle of compelling men, when they have means, to lay up a
trifle against the exigencies of a rainy day, has worked well, as we
have seen, when applied to the most improvident of all the laboring
classes, and we are not sure but the same principle applied to other
classes would not prove equally beneficial. If the law should require
every author, or merchant, or broker, or editor, to pay a monthly
stipend to provide houses of refuge for the needy of their class, it
would be only carrying out the principle of government which has been
applied to seamen, and might save many a poor wretch from committing
suicide to avoid the fate of a pauper.
[Illustration: A CUB OF THE BARN-YARD]
RURAL LIFE IN VIRGINIA: THE "SWALLOW BARN."
We remember no book of its class altogether more delightful than the
"Swallow Barn" of JOHN P. KENNEDY. In Irving's "Bracebridge Hall" we
have exquisite sketches of English homes, such sketches as could be
drawn only by that graceful and genial humorist, but Bracebridge Hall
is not in our own country, and we scarcely feel "at our own" in it, as
we do in every scene to which we are introduced by the author of
"Swallow Barn," the best painter of manners who has ever tried his
hand at their delineation in America. The love of nature, the fine
appreciation of a country life, the delicate and quiet humor, and
hearty joy in every one's enjoyment, which those who know Mr. Kennedy
personally will recognize as principal elements of his own character,
are reflected in the pages of the book, and with its other good
qualities make it one of the most charming compositions in the
literature of the present time.
Mr. Putnam in a few days will publish a new edition of "Swallow Barn,"
profusely illustrated by Mr. Strother, an artist who seems perfectly
at home in the Old Dominion, as if--which may be the case--all his
life had been spent there. Some of these we shall transfer to our own
pages, but first we copy in full Mr. Kennedy's "Word in Advance to the
Reader":
"Swallow Barn was written twenty years ago, and was
published in a small edition, which was soon exhausted. From
that date it has disappeared from the bookstores, being
carelessly consigned by the author to that oblivion which is
common to books and men--out of sight, out of mind. Upon a
recent reviewal of it, after an interval sufficiently long
to obliterate the partialities with which one is apt to
regard his own productions, I have thought it was worthy of
more attention than I had bestowed upon it, and was, at
least, entitled to the benefit of a second edition. In
truth, its republication has been so often advised by
friends, and its original reception was so prosperous, that
I have almost felt it to be a duty once more to set it
afloat upon the waters, for the behoof of that good-natured
company of idle readers who are always ready to embark on a
pleasure excursion in any light craft that offers. I have,
therefore, taken these volumes in hand, and given them a
somewhat critical revisal. Twenty years work sufficient
change upon the mind of an author to render him, perhaps
more than others, a fastidious critic of his own book. If
the physiologists are right, he is not the same person after
that lapse of time; and all that his present and former self
may claim in common, are those properties which belong to
his mental consciousness, of which his aspiration after fame
is one. The present self may, therefore, be expected to
examine more rigorously the work of that former and younger
person, for whom he is held responsible. This weighty
consideration will be sufficient to account for the few
differences which may be found between this and the first
edition. Some quaintness of the vocabulary has been got rid
of--some dialogue has been stript of its redundancy--some
few thoughts have been added--and others retrenched. I shall
be happy to think that the reader will agree with me that
these are improvements:--I mean the reader who may happen to
belong to that small and choice corps who read these volumes
long ago--a little troop of friends of both sexes, to whom I
have reason to be grateful for that modicum of good opinion
which cheered my first authorship. Health and joy to them
all--as many as are now alive! I owe them a thanksgiving for
their early benevolence.
"Swallow Barn exhibits a picture of country life in
Virginia, as it existed in the first quarter of the present
century. Between that period and the present day, time and
what is called "the progress," have made many innovations
there, as they have done every where else. The Old Dominion
is losing somewhat of the raciness of her once peculiar,
and--speaking in reference to the locality described in
these volumes--insulated cast of manners. The mellow, bland,
and sunny luxuriance of her home society--its good
fellowship, its hearty and constitutional
_companionableness_, the thriftless gayety of the people,
their dogged but amiable invincibility of opinion, and that
overflowing hospitality which knew no ebb--these traits,
though far from being impaired, are modified at the present
day by circumstances which have been gradually attaining a
marked influence over social life as well as political
relation. An observer cannot fail to note that the manners
of our country have been tending towards a uniformity which
is visibly effacing all local differences. The old states,
especially, are losing their original distinctive habits and
modes of life, and in the same degree, I fear, are losing
their exclusive American character. A traveller may detect
but few sectional or provincial varieties in the general
observances and customs of society, in comparison with what
were observable in the past generations, and the pride, or
rather the vanity, of the present day is leading us into a
very notable assimilation with foreign usages. The country
now apes the city in what is supposed to be the elegancies
of life, and the city is inclined to value and adopt the
fashions it is able to import across the Atlantic, and thus
the whole surface of society is exhibiting the traces of a
process by which it is likely to be rubbed down, in time, to
one level, and varnished with the same gloss. It may thus
finally arrive at a comfortable insipidity of character
which may not be willingly reckoned as altogether a due
compensation for the loss of that rough but pleasant flavor
which belonged to it in its earlier era. There is much good
sense in that opinion which ascribes a wholesome influence
to those homebred customs, which are said to strengthen
local attachments and expand them into love of country. What
belonged to us as characteristically American, seems already
to be dissolving into a mixture which affects us
unpleasantly as a plain and cosmopolitan substitute for the
old warmth and salient vivacity of our ancestors. We no
longer present in our pictures of domestic life so much as
an earnest lover of our nationality might desire of what
abroad is called the "red bird's wing"--something which
belongs to us and to no one else. The fruitfulness of modern
invention in the arts of life, the general fusion of thought
through the medium of an extra-territorial literature, which
from its easy domestication among us is scarcely regarded as
foreign, the convenience and comfort of European customs
which have been incorporated into our scheme of living,--all
these, aided and diffused by our extraordinary facilities of
travel and circulation, have made sad work, even in the
present generation, with those old _nationalisms_ that were
so agreeable to the contemplation of an admirer of the
picturesque in character and manners.
[Illustration: THE "SWALLOW BARN."]
"Looking myself somewhat hopelessly upon this onward gliding
of the stream, I am not willing to allow these sketches of
mine entirely to pass away. They have already begun to
assume the tints of a relic of the past, and may, in another
generation, become archæological, and sink into the chapter
of antiquities. Presenting, as I make bold to say, a
faithful picture of the people, the modes of life, and the
scenery of a region full of attraction, and exhibiting the
lights and shades of its society with the truthfulness of a
painter who has studied his subject on the spot, they may
reasonably claim their accuracy of delineation to be set off
as an extenuation for any want of skill or defect of finish
which a fair criticism may charge against the artist. Like
some sign-post painters, I profess to make a strong
likeness, even if it should be thought to be _hard_,--and
what better workmen might call a daub,--as to which I must
leave my reader to judge for himself when he has read this
book. The outward public award on this point was kind, and
bestowed quite as much praise as I could have desired--much
more than I expected--when the former edition appeared. But
"the progress" has brought out many competitors since that
day, and has, perhaps, rendered the public taste more
scrupulous. A book then was not so perilous an offering as
it is now in the great swarm of authorships. We run more
risk, just now, of being left alone--unread--untalked
of--though not, happily, unpuffed by newspapers, who are
favorites with the publisher, and owe him courtesies.
"I wish it to be noted that Swallow Barn is not a novel. I
confess this in advance, although I may lose by it. It was
begun on the plan of a series of detached sketches linked
together by the hooks and eyes of a traveller's notes; and
although the narrative does run into some by-paths of
personal adventure, it has still preserved its desultory,
sketchy character to the last. It is, therefore, utterly
unartistic in plot and structure, and may be described as
variously and interchangeably partaking of the complexion of
a book of travels, a diary, a collection of letters, a
drama, and a history,--and this, serial or compact, as the
reader may choose to compute it. Our old friend Polonius had
nearly hit it in his rigmarole of 'pastoral-comical,
tragical-comical-historical-pastoral'--which, saving 'the
tragical,' may well make up my schedule: and so I leave it
to the 'censure' of my new reader."
[Illustration: VIRGINIA MILL-BOYS RACING.]
Here the history of the book is admirably told. The work itself, so
full of truthful and effective pictures, offers numerous passages for
quotation, but though we have nothing better to give our readers, we
shall limit our extracts to a few scenes illustrated by Mr. Strother's
pencil. We present first the old barn itself.
"Beyond the bridge, at some distance, stands a prominent
object in the perspective of this picture,--the most
venerable appendage to the establishment--a huge barn with
an immense roof hanging almost to the ground, and thatched a
foot thick with sunburnt straw, which reaches below the
eaves in ragged flakes. It has a singularly drowsy and
decrepit aspect. The yard around it is strewed knee-deep
with litter, from the midst of which arises a long rack
resembling a chevaux de frise, which is ordinarily filled
with fodder. This is the customary lounge of half a score of
oxen and as many cows, who sustain an imperturbable
companionship with a sickly wagon, whose parched tongue and
drooping swingle-trees, as it stands in the sun, give it a
most forlorn and invalid character; whilst some sociable
carts under the sheds, with their shafts perched against the
walls, suggest the idea of a set of gossiping cronies taking
their ease in a tavern porch. Now and then a clownish
hobble-de-hoy colt, with long fetlocks and disordered mane,
and a thousand burs in his tail, stalks through this
company. But as it is forbidden ground to all his tribe, he
is likely very soon to encounter a shower of corn-cobs from
some of the negro men; upon which contingency he makes a
rapid retreat across the bars which imperfectly guard the
entrance to the yard, and with an uncouth display of his
heels bounds towards the brook, where he stops and looks
back with a saucy defiance; and after affecting to drink for
a moment, gallops away with a braggart whinny to the
fields."
The life led by the young negroes on the plantations of Virginia is
generally easy, and of course utterly free from the cares which beset
their youthful masters, compelled to pore over "miserable books."
"There is a numerous herd of little negroes about the
estate; and these sometimes afford us a new diversion. A few
mornings since we encountered a horde of them, who were
darting about the bushes like untamed monkeys. They are
afraid of me because I am a stranger, and take to their
heels as soon as they see me. If I ever chance to get near
enough to speak to one of them, he stares at me with a
suspicious gaze, and, after a moment, makes off at full
speed, very much frightened, towards the cabins at some
distance from the house. They are almost all clad in a long
coarse shirt which reaches below the knee, without any other
garment. But one of the group we met on the morning I speak
of, was oddly decked in a pair of ragged trowsers,
conspicuous for their ample dimensions in the seat. These
had evidently belonged to some grown-up person, but were cut
short in the legs to make them fit the wearer. A piece of
twine across the shoulder of this grotesque imp, served for
suspenders, and kept his habiliments from falling about his
feet. Ned ordered this crew to prepare for a foot-race, and
proposed a reward of a piece of money to the winner. They
were to run from a given point, about a hundred paces
distant, to the margin of the brook. Our whole suite of dogs
were in attendance, and seemed to understand our pastime. At
the word, away went the bevy, accompanied by every dog of
the pack, the negroes shouting and the dogs yelling in
unison. The shirts ran with prodigious speed, their speed
exposing their bare, black, and meager shanks to the scandal
of all beholders; and the strange baboon in trowsers
struggled close in their rear, with ludicrous earnestness,
holding up his redundant and troublesome apparel with his
hand. In a moment they reached the brook with unchecked
speed, and, as the banks were muddy, and the dogs had become
entangled with the racers in their path, two or three were
precipitated into the water. This only increased the
merriment, and they continued the contest in this new
element by floundering, kicking, and splashing about, like a
brood of ducks in their first descent upon a pool. These
young negroes have wonderfully flat noses, and the most
oddly disproportioned mouths, which were now opened to their
full dimensions, so as to display their white teeth in
striking contrast with their complexions. They are a strange
pack of antic and careless animals, and furnish the
liveliest picture that is to be found in nature of that race
of swart fairies, which, in the old time, were supposed to
play their pranks in the forest at moonlight. Ned stood by,
enjoying this scene like an amateur--encouraging the negroes
in their gambols, and hallooing to the dogs, that by a
kindred instinct entered tumultuously into the sport and
kept up the confusion. It was difficult to decide the
contest. So the money was thrown into the air, and as it
fell to ground, there was another rush, in which the hero of
the trowsers succeeded in getting the small coin from the
ground in his teeth, somewhat to the prejudice of his
finery.
[Illustration: DRILLING THE NEGRO BOYS.]
"Rip asserts a special pre-eminence over these young serfs,
and has drilled them into a kind of local militia. He
sometimes has them all marshalled in the yard, and
entertains us with a review. They have an old watering-pot
for a drum, and a dingy pocket handkerchief for a standard,
under which they are arrayed in military order, and parade
over the grounds with a riotous clamor."
[Illustration: TREADING OUT WHEAT.]
The farmers of Virginia are scarcely as far advanced in the
application of science as the more active-minded Yankees, and among
the ancient customs which still obtain among them is that of treading
out grain with cattle. At Swallow Barn the operation is described:
"Within the farm-yard a party of negroes were engaged in
treading out grain. About a dozen horses were kept at full
trot around a circle of some ten or fifteen paces diameter,
which was strewed with wheat in the sheaf. These were
managed by some five or six little blacks, who rode like
monkey caricaturists of the games of the circus, and who
mingled with the labors of the place that comic air of
deviltry which communicated to the whole employment
something of the complexion of a pastime."
We hope this edition of _Swallow Barn_ will be so well received that
the author will give us all his other works in the same attractive
style. _Horse-shoe Robinson_, _Rob of the Bowl_, _Quodlibet_, and all
the rest, except the _Life of Wirt_, are now out of print, and all
have been greeted on their first appearance with an approval that
should satisfy a more ambitious writer than Mr. Kennedy.
[Illustration]
GEORGE H. BOKER.
[Illustration]
Mr. Boker is one of the youngest of American authors. He is a native
of Philadelphia, and was born, we believe, in the year 1824. After the
usual preparatory studies in the city of his birth, he entered the
college at Princeton, New Jersey, of which he is a graduate. In
addition to the collegiate course, however, he devoted much time to
the study of Anglo-Saxon, and to the perusal of the early masters of
English literature, whose influence is discernible in all his earlier
poems. Soon after leaving college he made a visit to France and
England, but was obliged to return after having been but a short time
abroad, owing to the critical state of his health. He was at that time
suffering under a pulmonary disease which threatened to be fatal, but
all symptoms of which, fortunately, have since disappeared. On his
return he took up his residence in Philadelphia, which continues to be
his home. Three or four years since he was married to an accomplished
lady of that city.
Mr. Boker first appeared as an author at the commencement of the year
1848, when a volume of his poems, under the title of _The Lesson of
Life_, was published in Philadelphia. The publication of a volume was
no light ordeal to a young poet whose name was unknown, and who, we
believe, had never before seen himself in print. The lack of
self-observation and self-criticism, which can only be acquired when
the author's thoughts have taken the matter-of-fact garb of type,
would of itself be sufficient to obscure much real promise. In spite
of these disadvantages, the book contained much that gave the reader
the impression of a mind of genuine and original power. We remember
being puzzled at its seeming incongruity, the bold, mature, and
masculine character of its thought being so strikingly at variance
with its frequent crudities of expression. It seemed to us the work of
a man in the prime of life, whose poetic feeling had taken a sudden
growth, and moved somewhat unskilfully in the unaccustomed trammels of
words, rather than the first essay of a brain glowing with the fresh
inspiration of youth.
No one saw the author's imperfections sooner than himself; and before
the year had closed, his tragedy of _Calaynos_ was published--a work
so far in advance of what he had hitherto accomplished, so full, not
only of promise for the future, but of actual performance, that it
took his most confident friends by surprise. To write a five act
tragedy is also a bold undertaking; but there is an old French proverb
which, says, "if you would shoot lions, don't begin by aiming at
hares," and we believe there are fewer failures from attempting too
much than from being content with too little. The success of
_Calaynos_ showed that the author had not aimed beyond his reach. The
book attracted considerable attention, and its merits as a vigorous
and original play, were very generally recognized. Although written
with no view to its representation on the stage, it did not escape the
notice of actors and managers, and a copy happening to fall into the
hands of Mr. Phelps, a distinguished English tragedian, it was first
performed under his direction at the Theatre Royal, Saddler's Wells,
Mr. Phelps himself taking the part of Calaynos. Its success as an
acting play was most decided, and after keeping the stage at Saddler's
Wells twenty or thirty nights, it went the round of the provinces. It
has already been performed more than a hundred times in different
parts of Great Britain.
_Calaynos_ gives evidence of true dramatic genius. The characters are
distinct and clearly drawn, and their individualities carefully
preserved through all the movements of the plot, which is natural and
naturally developed. The passion on which the action hinges, is the
prejudice of blood between the Spanish and Moorish families of Spain.
The interest of the plot, while it never loses sight of the hero, is
shared in the first three acts by the other personages of the story,
but concentrates at the close on Calaynos, whose outbursts of love and
grief and revenge are drawn with striking power and eloquence. The
play is enlivened with many humorous passages, wherein the author
shows his mastery of this element, so necessary to the complete
dramatist.
Mr. Boker's next publication was the tragedy of _Anne Boleyn_, which
appeared in February, 1850. In this work he touched on more familiar
ground, and in some instances, in his treatment of historical
characters, came in conflict with the opinions or prejudices of the
critics. The necessity of adhering to history in the arrangement of
the plot and selection of the dramatis personæ, imposed some restraint
on the author's mind, and hence, while _Anne Boleyn_ exhibits a calmer
and more secure strength, and a riper artistic knowledge than
_Calaynos_, it lacks the fire and passionate fervor of some passages
of the latter. We should not forget, however, that the Thames has a
colder and sadder sun than the Guadalquiver. Objections have been made
to Mr. Boker's King Henry, especially to his complaint of the torments
of his conscience, and his moralizing over Norris's ingratitude. But
those who cavil at these points seem to forget that however vile and
heartless King Henry appears to them, he is a very different man to
himself. The author's idea--and it is true to human nature--evidently
is, that a criminal is not always guilty to his own mind. This marked
insensibility of King Henry to his own false and corrupt nature is a
subtle stroke of art.
The language of the tragedy is strong, terse, and full of point,
approaching the sturdy Saxon idiom of the early English dramatists. We
might quote many passages in support of our opinion, as, for instance,
the scene between the Queen and her brother, Lord Rochford; between
the Queen and King Henry; Wyatt and Rochford, and King Henry and Jane
Seymour. Two or three brief extracts we cannot avoid giving. Wyatt and
Rochford are in "The Safety," the thieves' quarter of London--the St.
Giles of that day. Wyatt speaks:
"I oft have thought the watchful eye of God
Upon this place ne'er rested; or that hell
Had raised so black a smoke of densest sin
That the All-Beautiful, appalled, shrunk back
From its fierce ugliness. I tell you, friend,
When the great treason, which shall surely come
To burst in shards law-bound society,
Gives the first shudder, ere it grinds to dust
Thrones, ranks, and fortunes, and most cunning law--
When the great temple of our social state
Staggers and throbs, and totters back to chaos--
Let men look here, here in this fiery mass
Of aged crime and primal ignorance,
For the hot heart of all the mystery!--
Here, on this howling sea, let fall the scourge,
Or pour the oil of mercy!
_Rochford._ Pour the oil--
In God's name, pour the blessed oil! The scourge,
Bloody and fierce, has fallen for ages past
Upon the foreward crests within its reach;
Yet made no more impression on the mass
Than Persia's whips upon the Hellespont!"
Wyatt's soliloquy on beholding Queen Anne led forth to execution is
full of a rare and subtle beauty, both of thought and expression:
"O Anne, Anne!
The world may banish all regard for thee,
Mewing thy fame in frigid chronicles,
But every memory that haunts my mind
Shall cluster round thee still. _I'll hide thy name
Under the coverture of even lines,
I'll hint it darkly in familiar songs_,
I'll mix each melancholy thought of thee
Through all my numbers: _so that heedless men
Shall hold my love for thee within their hearts,
Not knowing of the treasure_."
The last scene, preceding the death of Anne Boleyn, is simple and
almost homely in its entire want of poetic imagery; yet nothing could
be more profoundly touching, and--in the highest sense of the
word--tragic. The same tears which blur for us the lines of Browning's
_Blot on the 'Scutcheon_, and the last words of Shelley's _Beatrice
Cenci_, suffuse our eyes at this parting address of Anne Boleyn to her
maidens, beside her on the scaffold:
"And ye, my damsels,
Who whilst I lived did ever show yourselves
So diligent in service, and are now
To be here present in my latest hour
Of mortal agony--as in good times
Ye were most trustworthy, even so in this,
My miserable death, ye leave me not.
As a poor recompense for your rich love,
I pray you to take comfort for my loss--
And yet forget me not. To the king's grace,
And to the happier one whom you may serve
In place of me, be faithful as to me.
Learn from this scene, the triumph of my fate,
To hold your honors far above your lives.
When you are praying to the martyred Christ,
Remember me who, as my weakness could,
Faltered afar behind His shining steps,
And died for truth, forgiving all mankind.
The Lord have pity on my helpless soul!"
Since the publication of _Anne Boleyn_, Mr. Boker has written two
plays, _The Betrothal_, and _All the World a Mask_, both of which have
been produced on the stage in Philadelphia with the most entire
success. _Calaynos_ was also played for a number of nights, Mr.
Murdoch taking the principal part. _The Betrothal_ was performed in
New-York and Baltimore, with equal success. It is admirably adapted
for an acting play. The plot is not tragic, though the closing scenes
have a tragic air. The dialogue is more varied than in _Anne Boleyn_
or _Calaynos_--now sparkling and full of point, now pithy, shrewd, and
pregnant with worldly wisdom, and now tender, graceful, and poetic.
_All the World a Mask_ is a comedy of modern life. We have not seen it
represented, and it has not yet been published; yet no one familiar
with the fine healthy humor displayed in portions of _Calaynos_ and
_The Betrothal_ can doubt the author's ability to sustain himself
through a five-act comedy.
In addition to these plays, Mr. Boker has published from time to time,
in the literary magazines, lyrics and ballads that would of themselves
entitle him to rank among our most worthy poets. It is rare that a
dramatic author possesses lyric genius, and _vice versa_, yet the true
lyric inspiration is no less perceptible in Mr. Boker's _Song of the
Earth_ and _Vision of the Goblet_, than the true dramatic faculty in
his _Anne Boleyn_.
There is a fresh, manly strength in his poetry, which may sometimes
jar the melody a little, but never allows his verse to flag. The life
which informs it was inhaled in the open air; it is sincere and
earnest, and touched with that fine enthusiasm which is the
heart's-blood of lyric poetry. Take, for instance, this glorious
Bacchic, from the _Vision of the Goblet_:
"Joy! joy! with Bacchus and his satyr train,
In triumph throbs our merry Grecian earth;
Joy! joy! the golden time has come again,
A god shall bless the vine's illustrious birth!
Io, io, Bacche!
"O breezes, speed across the mellow lands,
And breathe his coming to the joyous vine;
Let all the vineyards wave their leafy hands
Upon the hills to greet this pomp divine!
Io, io, Bacche!
"O peaceful triumph, victory without tear,
Or human cry, or drop of conquered blood!
Save dew-beads bright, that on the vine appear,
The choral shouts, the trampled grape's red flood!
Io, io, Bacche!
"Shout, Hellas, shout! the lord of joy is come,
Bearing the mortal Lethe in his hands,
To wake the wailing lips of Sorrow dumb,
To bind sad Memory's eyes with rosy bands:
Io, io, Bacche!"
In the _Song of the Earth_, which shows a higher exercise of the
poetic faculty than any thing else Mr. Boker has written, he has
enriched the language with a new form of versification. Except in this
poem, we do not remember ever to have seen _dactylic_ blank verse
attempted in the English language. The majestic and resonant harmonies
of the measure are strikingly adapted to the poet's theme. The
concluding _Chorus of Stars_, rebuking the Earth for her pride as the
dwelling-place of the human soul, is a splendid effort of the
imagination. We know not where to find surpassed the sounding sweep of
the rhythm in the final lines:
"Heir of eternity, Mother of Souls,
Let not thy knowledge betray thee to folly!
Knowledge is proud, self-sufficient, and lone,
Trusting, unguided, its steps in the darkness.
Thine is the wisdom that mankind may win,
Gleaned in the pathway between joy and sorrow;
Ours is the wisdom that hallows the child
Fresh from the touch of his awful Creator,
Dropped like a star on thy shadowy realm,
Falling in splendor, but falling to darken.
Ours is the simple religion of Faith,
Trusting alone in the God who o'errules us;
Thine are the complex misgivings of Doubt,
Wrested to form by imperious Reason.
_Knowledge is restless, imperfect, and sad;
Faith is serene, and completed, and joyful._
Bow in humility, bow thy proud forehead,
Circle thy form with a mantle of clouds,
_Hide from the glittering cohorts of evening,
Wheeling in purity, singing in chorus:
Howl in the depths of thy lone, barren mountains,
Restlessly moan on the deserts of ocean,
Wail o'er thy fall in the desolate forests,
Lost star of Paradise, straying alone!_"
In the flush of youth, fortunate in all the relations of life, and
with a fame already secured, there is perhaps no American author to
whom the future promises more than to Mr. Boker. He has that faithful
reverence for his art which makes harmless the breath of praise, more
dangerous to the poet than that of censure, and there are yet many
years before him ere his mind attains its full scope and stature. That
all these promises may be fulfilled, to his own honor and that of
American literature, is the earnest hope of
BAYARD TAYLOR.
HERR FLEISCHMANN
ON THE INDUSTRIAL AND SOCIAL LIFE OF THE AMERICANS.
In the careful watch we keep of French, German, and other foreign
literatures, for what will instruct or entertain the readers of the
_International_, we are always sharp-sighted for any thing said of us
or our institutions, whether it be in sympathy or in antipathy. So,
for a recent number, we translated from the _Revue des Deux Mondes_ a
very clever paper on our American Female Poets, and on other occasions
have reviewed or done into English a great many compositions which
evinced the feeling of continental Europe in regard to our character
and movements. We shall continue in this habit, as there is scarcely
any thing ever more amusing than "what the world says" of our
concerns, even when it is in the least amiable temper.
Among the most interesting works published of late months in Germany,
is FLEISCHMANN'S _Erwerbszweige der Vereinigten Staaten
Nord-America's_, (or Branches of Industry in the United States.) The
reader who anticipates from this title a mere mass of statistics
relative to the industrial condition of our own country will find
himself agreeably disappointed. Statistics are indeed there--lists of
figures and relative annual arrays of products, sufficient to satisfy
any one that Mr. Fleischmann has turned the several years during which
he was connected with the Patent Office at Washington to good account.
But in addition to this there is a mass of information and
observation, which, though nearly connected with the subject, was yet
hardly to be expected. It is doubtful whether the social and domestic
peculiarities of others or of ourselves be most attractive, but to
those who prefer the latter, and who have lived as many do under the
impression that our own habits and ways of life present little that is
marked or distinctive, this work will be found not only interesting,
but even amusing. For among those practising branches of industry, he
not only includes blacksmiths, coopers, architects, planters, and
pin-makers, but also clergymen, actors, circus-riders, model-artists,
midwives, and boarding-house keepers! The main object of the work
being to inform his countrymen who propose emigration, of the true
state of the most available branches of industry in this country, and
prevent on their part undue anticipation or disappointment, even these
items cannot be deemed out of place. Cherishing an enthusiastic
admiration of our country, and better informed in all probability in
the branches of which he treats than any foreigner who has before
ventured upon the subject, it is not astonishing that he should have
produced a work which not only fully answers the object intended, but
in a faithful translation would doubtless be extensively read by our
own countrymen.
The reader will find in this book many _little_ traits of our domestic
life, which, commonplace though they be, are not unattractive when
thus reflected back on us, mirror-like, from another land. Take for
example the following account of confectioners:
"All men are more or less fond of sweet food and dainties,
and the wealthier a people may be, and consequently in more
fit condition to add such luxuries to the necessaries of
life, the greater will be its consumption of sugar. If we
compare the sugar consumption of England with that of
Germany, we find the first consumes a far greater quantity
per head than the latter.
"And in this respect the Americans are in no wise behind the
English, since they not only at least twice a day drink
either tea or coffee, which they abundantly sweeten,
enjoying therewith vast quantities of preserved fruits, and
every variety of cakes, but they have universally a
remarkable appetite for sweets, which from childhood up is
nourished with all sorts of confectionery. And this appetite
is very generally retained even to an advanced age, so that
all the _cents_ of the children, and many of the dollars of
those more advanced in life, go to the _candy-shops_ and
_confectioneries_. Add to this the numerous balls,
marriages, and other festive occasions, particularly the
parties in private houses, at which pyramids, temples, and
other architectural and artistic works, founded on rocks of
candied sugar, and bonsbons, are never wanting, we can
readily imagine that in this country the confectioner's
trade is a flourishing and brilliant business.
"The Americans are, as is well known, universally a
remarkably hospitable people, not only frequently
entertaining guests in their homes, but also holding it as
an established point of _bon ton_, to give one or two
parties annually, to which _all_ their friends are invited.
The evening is then spent with music and dancing, concluded
with an extremely elegant (_hochst elegant_) supper, at
which the gentlemen wisely stick to the more substantial
viands and champagne, but where abundance of sugar-work for
the ladies is never wanting.
"And since no family will be surpassed by another, the most
incredible extravagance not infrequently results from this
unfortunate spirit of rivalry. Confectionery is often
brought for a certain party expressly from France, fresh
fruits from the West Indies, and the stairways and rooms are
adorned with the most exquisite flowers which Europe can
yield, while the guests are served on costly porcelain and
massive plate. In a word, the greatest imaginable expense is
lavished on these festive occasions, which prevail in every
class of society, and in none--be their degree what it
may--are sugared sweets wanting: the poorer confining
themselves, it is true, to such dainties as are the
production of the country, excepting indeed a few bottles of
champagne, which latter is absolutely indispensable.
"I have deemed it necessary to touch upon these
extravagances of American life, that I might show that while
on the one hand an expert confectioner may readily find
employment during the season, on the other that mere skill
and industry are by no means sufficient of themselves to
support an establishment grounded on credit.
"Nearly all the small shopkeepers, fruit-dealers, and
bar-keepers, sell candy and sugar-cakes, which they either
prepare themselves or obtain from confectioners who not only
carry on a wholesale business, _but even send large
quantities of their products to the country dealers_. In
Philadelphia, warm cakes are carried about for sale in the
streets,[1] the bearers thereof announcing their presence by
the sound of a bell. French confectioners have already done
much in this country toward improving the public taste, and
excellent _bonsbons à la francaise_ are now actually
manufactured here, though we must admit that in the country
there is a great consumption of confectionery and cakes by
no means of a very good quality. In these regions a taste
for '_horses_' (which are of cake greatly resembling
gingerbread and made in the form of a horse) universally
predominates, and not only children but even adults select
these as a favorite dainty. It is no unusual spectacle to
behold in the northern states an entire court--judge, jury,
and lawyers--regaling themselves during an important trial
on horse-cakes!"
Whether Herr Fleischmann received this legal anecdote on hearsay, or
whether his German soul was actually startled by stumbling upon such
an extraordinary legal spectacle, we will not here inquire. In Germany
the favorite dainty in this line is a _pretzel_, or carnival cake, in
the form of a two-headed serpent, which antiquaries declare to be of
oriental origin, and to conceal divers horrific mysteries of deeply
metaphysical import. From the solemnity of tone with which Herr
Fleischmann imparts this horse-cake story, we are half inclined to
suspect that he inferred that a great ethical mystery, in some way
connected with the administration of justice in America, might thus be
conveyed.
Under the head of spirit distilleries our author enters into a _naïf_
and enthusiastic defence of good brandy, but still highly approves of
the American custom of substituting coffee for grog in merchant
vessels, on which he remarks that it is not allowed to soldiers or
sailors to bring spirits into the forts or ships. "But they are so
extravagantly fond of liquor as to invent every imaginable method of
evading the regulation. I have been told," he says, "by persons of the
highest credibility that during the night whisky is not unfrequently
brought to the vicinity of military stations, and that the sentinels,
after filling the barrels of their muskets therewith, bring it into
the 'watch-room,' and divide the _loading_ with their comrades."
After remarking the melancholy fact, which the strictest examination
would, we fear confirm, in a still higher degree, that the
sewing-girls employed in our umbrella factories, tailor
establishments, &c., are very inadequately paid, he makes a statement
which is, however, glaringly false, that among these poor girls
corruption of manners prevails to a degree unknown in any country of
Europe, save indeed "merry England." Without being familiar with such
statistics, we are on the contrary firmly convinced that though
females in these employments are _not_ so well paid even as in
Germany, there is no country on the face of the earth--most certainly
not in Bavaria, Austria, or Prussia, where the standard of morals is
in this respect so high as in our own. There are a thousand
correlative facts in the state of society in our country which confirm
our assertion. This opinion of our author's is, however, slightly at
variance, as far as appearance is concerned, with a part of the
following good advice to the more beautiful portion of his fair young
countrywomen, who propose repairing to this country for the sake of
catching husbands:
"And I deem this a fit place to give them a warning, which I
have before often repeated, namely, that these lovely
beings, when they forsake their homes, also leave behind
them their fantastic national dress. In this country long
dresses are worn--and not merely frocks which barely reach
the knee, as is usual in several parts of Germany. The same
may be applied to their head-dresses, which are not
unfrequently so eccentric as to give their wearers the
appearance of having escaped from a lunatic asylum. On which
account, I beg my _ladies_, or any women who design
emigrating to this land of equality, to buy themselves
French bonnets,[2] or a similar style of head covering, but
in no instance to run bareheaded about the streets, which is
here remarkably unpopular, since neither widow, wife, nor
maiden, ever appears in the public way without hat or
bonnet. And I moreover beg of them, on their first arrival
in the populous cities, to restrain their manifestations of
affection to the house, where walls are the only witnesses,
_and not to permit their lovers, fiancées, or husbands, to
clasp them about the waist, and lead them in this close
embrace about the streets_, since this would be for
Americans a scandalous spectacle. I will not assert that the
American is incapable of tender feeling, but he at least
observes decency in the public streets, and _apropos_ of
this, I would further remark, that in this country the wife
or maiden invariably walks by the side of her male
companion, and never follows after him in _Indian
file_--that is, like geese returning from pasture."
In his chapter on hat-makers, we are informed that neither French,
Germans, nor English, can in this country compete with the Americans
in the manufacture of hats; and that he was informed by a very
intelligent manufacturer that the work of Germans by no means suited
our market, and further, that within a few years past the use of caps
has increased at least two thirds, though these are by no means so
well adapted to carry papers, &c., as hats, in which Americans are
accustomed to convey their archives.
Of boarding-houses:
"These extremely convenient establishments, in which
lodging, food, and all things requisite, are provided, may
be found in all the cities in the United States; but we
first learn to duly appreciate their value, when, on
returning to Germany, we find ourselves obliged either to
lodge in a hotel, or for a short stay in a place hire and
perhaps furnish rooms for ourselves.
"These communistic institutions, where one person or family
takes care of several, give the _boarder_ all the
conveniences of a hotel, united to the advantages of
dwelling in a private family. He has opportunities of
entering such society as is adapted to his habits and
tastes, in addition to which he has what may be termed a
_chez soi_--he feels that he is 'in house.'[3]
"Such boarding-houses are generally kept by widows or old
maids, and even ladies of the highest families take refuge
in this branch of industry, to maintain respectably
themselves and families.
"Fashionable houses of this sort are splendidly furnished,
and supplied with excellent dishes and attendance. In these
the price is naturally high, since for a room, without fuel,
from six to twelve dollars a week is generally paid. Rooms
in the upper part of the house are of course cheaper. The
parlor is common to all the persons in the house--they meet
there, before and after meals, pass the evening with
reading, music, &c., receive visits, and live in all
respects as if at home.
"The Americans are of a very accommodating
disposition--particularly the men, who, from a regard for
the lady of the house, are easily contented. The ladies, on
the contrary, very frequently indulge in little feuds,
produced by the _ennui_ resulting from a want of domestic
employment, and living in common; but all are on the whole
very circumspect, are careful to live _in Christian love and
unity_ with one another, and never offend external
propriety.
"It is not requisite in America to take a license from the
police to establish a boarding-house, unless a bar-room be
therewith connected. The person undertaking such an
enterprise rents a house, makes it known in newspapers or
among friends, or simply placards on the door
'Boarding'--and the establishment is opened without further
ceremony. Particular introductions and recommendations are
requisite to be received in a boarding-house of higher
rank."
There is even yet a lingering prejudice prevailing in this country in
favor of certain musical instruments of European manufacture, which
this work is well adapted to dissipate, since the author appears to be
in this particular an excellent judge. Take for example his chapter on
pianos:
"The favorite musical instrument of the American ladies is
the piano, and in every family with the slightest
pretensions to education or refinement a piano may certainly
be found, upon which, of an evening, the young 'Miss' plays
to her parents the pieces which she has learned, or
accompanies them with her voice. If the stranger will walk
of an evening through the streets of an American city, he
can hear in almost every house a piano and the song of
youthful voices, often very agreeable, though the latter are
not unfrequently wanting in proper culture. Many of these
amateurs have beyond doubt remarkable talent, and would in
their art attain to a high degree of perfection if they had
better opportunities to hear the best music, to study more
industriously, and practice more than they do, but their
domestic audiences are unfortunately easily pleased, in
consequence of which their knowledge seldom extends beyond
well known opera pieces and favorite popular airs.
"A few years since, pianos were generally imported from
Germany, England, and France, but it was soon found that
their construction and material were by no means adapted to
withstand the changes of the American climate; and it was
also found that the enormous profit cleared by the
importers, might quite as well be retained in this country,
and there are consequently, at present, in Boston, New-York,
Philadelphia, and even Baltimore, excellent and extensive
'piano forte manufactories,' in which every portion of these
instruments is constructed. For this purpose the best
varieties of wood known are used, such as mahogany and
rosewood, which, however, in America are obtainable at cheap
rates. The cases are of the most solid construction
possible, and the legs massive, (by which especially the
firmest duration is insured) all constructed of the
above-mentioned material, which is quickly and accurately
cut into the requisite form by a machine.... By means of
these and other improvements, but particularly by means of
the material, are the American pianos not only far more
durable than the imported, but also infinitely less subject
to loss of tone.
"The American pianos are invariably of a table form, in
order to adapt them to small rooms. Their tone is sweet and
rich, and has been pronounced clear, full and pleasing, by
the best European performers. The pianos of Stottart
(Stoddard) and Nunns, in New-York, of Laud and Mayer, in
Philadelphia, and especially of Chickering, in Boston, enjoy
a high reputation. This latter enterprising individual
spares no expense to secure the best improvements, and apply
them to his instruments. Other excellent manufactories also
abound, among which are many German proprietors, who,
however, all follow the American style of construction.
"Previous to the year 1847, about sixty-four patents for
improvements in pianos were taken out.... The average price
of a splendid 'Chickering,' of 7-1/2 octaves, is from $350
to $400. I have purchased of Stoddard in New-York an
excellent and handsome instrument for $250; since which time
(A. D. 1848) the price for the same has sunk fifty dollars.
Instruments of a lighter construction may be bought for one
hundred and fifty dollars; nor will it be long ere the best
pianos may be had for a price ranging from $180 to $200.
There are in America men whose exclusive business it is to
tune pianos, for which they generally receive one dollar....
"While on the subject of music, I may be permitted to speak
of an outcast class of minstrels, namely, the harp girls;
who, after having wandered through Germany, or even England,
or having been turned out of the same, find their way to the
United States. Especially in New Orleans are they at home,
and there sing, in the coffee-houses and bar-rooms, most
blackguard (_zotenhaften lieder_) songs, in the English
language, learned either _at home or in England_--partly to
the delight and partly to the disgust of the mixed companies
there assembled. Germany can in truth take but little pride
in such representatives of her nationality. She is already
too little appreciated in America to render it necessary
that such females should still further degrade her--females,
for whom the American (who invariably holds in high respect
the sex) entertains an unconquerable disgust. Apropos of
those, I may mention the so-called 'broom girls,' who sell a
sort of little brooms or fly-brushes, singing therewith
fearful songs; and finally, the innumerable organ and
tambourine players, who frequently have with them a child
which dances like an ape to the sound of their horrible
music."
From the practical and common-sense-like manner in which the subject
is treated, the following chapter on boarding-schools will probably
prove interesting to every American reader:
"Would not any one imagine that a nation like the German,
which is universally recognized as the best educated and
most erudite, which has written and effected so much for the
cause of education, would naturally be the one to supply the
world with accomplished teachers? Is there in the civilized
world another nation where so many men have made it the
entire business of a life, passed in the most zealous and
deeply grounded studies of all languages, living and dead,
or who have so fully succeeded in teaching even foreigners
their own language? Certainly not. 'Whence comes it then,'
any one may reasonably inquire, 'that these learned men, who
appear to be, in every respect, so peculiarly adapted to
teach, have not long since conducted the education of the
whole world? Or why is it, that in North America at least,
where a widely spread German element throws open so vast a
field to their exertions, they have not the direction of
every private school?'
"Incomprehensible as this may appear at a first glance, it
is still explicable in a few words. The American seeks, for
the education of his children, _practical men, who are not
only adapted to and skilled in their vocation, but also
familiar with the world--its progress and requirements_--men
not only capable of teaching their pupils the rules of
grammar and syntax, but who are also qualified to impart the
peculiarities and precepts of life in the world at
large--men of prepossessing manner and appearance, and whose
habits are adapted to the requirements of refined society.
This it is, in a few words, that the American requires. And
now, I ask--how many old and young teachers are there in
Germany thus qualified?
"I here speak, of course, in a general way; for I well know
that there are in Germany many teachers and learned men, who
could more than fulfil all of these requirements of the
American parent, but their number is unfortunately limited;
and I deem it important that I speak freely and fully on
this subject, since many a learned German, whose
acquirements and scientific knowledge would insure him an
independent and respectable station at home, nevertheless
frequently finds himself compelled by the pressure of
circumstances to seek America, in the hope of there opening
a school, or at least finding employment as teacher, and
there too frequently, in addition to the bitterest
disappointment, discovers too late that he is fit for no
other practical employment which will yield him his daily
bread.
"As a proof, however, that most of these so called
pedagogues must in America be necessarily deceived in their
expectations, I take the liberty of adding yet a few words.
"The American requires before all, as far as the moral
qualifications of the teacher are concerned, a firm
religious tendency--a requirement for which the scion of
'Young Germany,' fresh from his university career, has but
little taste; since his recollections of that life are yet
too fresh upon him to admit of a willing submission to such
rules,--and I advise any one who proposes to follow such a
course to become a farmer's man, rather than a hypocrite or
sham-saint....
"If we proceed in our examination of private schools in
America, we find that the majority are for the education of
girls. Upon which the question arises--Are German ladies
generally adapted to the superintendence of such
establishments?--a question which I must either answer with
No, or modify with the admission that if there be any
schools managed by German ladies, I am ignorant of their
existence. The cause for the negative being essentially the
same as with the male scholars.
"No man can better appreciate the worth of German women than
myself. I acknowledge perfectly their virtues and
excellencies--their domestic sphere is their world,
inhabited by their children and ruled by their husbands,
whose faithful, true-hearted, modest, obedient companions
they are. To be independent and free is not in their nature;
they are not so adapted either by origin or manner of life;
nor does their education embrace any thing cosmopolitan.
Born and brought up in a province, or court city, they have
never cast a glance beyond its limits or boundaries, or
those of the nearest town, and all that lies beyond is to
them unknown and uninteresting. Thus they generally lead,
according to ancient custom, (_nach altem brauch_) an
almost vegetable life; and nothing save the dictates of
fashion can ever disturb in the slightest degree the
equanimity of their quiet souls. They do not in the least
interest themselves in the progress of industry, literature,
science, or politics, even in Germany--much less for that of
foreign countries; but are content with learning in which
section of the place they inhabit this or that necessary
article may be best or most cheaply purchased; what late
foreign romance is current in the circulating library; and
what are the latest changes in bonnets, caps, chemisettes,
or dresses, in the kingdom of fashion--whose sovereign they
all obey. In politics they rest under the perpetual
conviction that all goes on in the old way, and pass their
leisure hours in coteries and parties, where knittings
exclude all _spirituelle_ entertainment. In the lower grades
of the middle class, they grow up with an unchangeable
feeling of social inferiority, and shudder at every free
glance into life, as if guilty of unheard of arrogance and
presumption.
"And how is it possible that a woman who has grown up in
such social relations should, despite the fullest possession
of all imaginable virtues and acquirements, be capable of
teaching high-minded and independent girls? The American
maiden regards most household employments as work requiring
but little intelligence, and for which even negroes are as
well qualified. She believes that she can better occupy the
time necessary to the acquisition of subordinate
acquirements, and prefers reading, music, and art, to
knitting stockings, and similar soul-killing business. She
recognizes, moreover, no distinction in rank, but strives to
acquire as many accomplishments and as refined manners as
any other person. In short, she strives to become _a lady_,
and regards it as no extraordinary assumption, particularly
when education or natural advantages adapt her thereto, to
consider herself quite as good as any other woman in the
republic. Nor does she forget that the time will come when,
as mother, the first development of her child's mind will
become a duty, and she remembers also that he will be a
republican whose sphere of action is without limit, if his
ability correspond only to the effort. Moreover, the
American maidens are materially very _wide awake_, (_sehr
auf gewecht_,) particularly in the large cities, where they
enjoy excellent opportunities for instruction, and are
proportionally highly educated.
"The American woman or girl highly esteems the _elegant_ and
_noble_, striving ever to form herself after this pattern,
on which account French female teachers are universally
preferred, even when very imperfectly qualified. The
revolutions in France have driven forth many well educated
persons to America, who have been compelled to seek by
teaching a livelihood. Louis Philippe himself was once among
the number. In addition to the fact that no nation surpasses
the French in personal accomplishments, they have for
Americans the further recommendation that their nation has
played an important part in modern history. The American is
impressed in favor of France, because she aided him in
freeing his country from the yoke of England; and this
inclination manifests itself continually in language.
"And when the American boy glances over his school-books, he
sees France represented in pictures as the _polite_ nation,
and reads in history that she aided his country in the war
of freedom, and that Lafayette was the _friend_ of
Washington; while the same work represents the German as a
merely agricultural race, portrayed in the caricature of an
Altenburger peasant and his wife, in their fantastic
national dress. From the same book he also learns that a
German prince sold his subjects for so many pounds per head
to aid England to subdue his country. Such contrasts cannot
but awake in the child's mind deeply-rooted prejudices, far
from favorable to the German race.
"And since there has been for years an emigration to America
of Germans who were very generally poor and
uneducated--people speaking a revolting dialect, employed in
the lowest offices, and not unfrequently much resembling the
pictures in the geographies, the prejudice formed in early
youth has been thus strengthened, that the Germans are a
rough, uncultivated race, industrious and domestic, it is
true, but yet very little improved by civilization--of all
which the native Pennsylvania Germans afford unfortunately
striking examples. The well-educated American, of course,
knows better how to appreciate the true value of the
Germans; he is aware of the value of their contributions to
literature, science, art, and music; only in politics, and
in the practical application of knowledge, he places (and
not without justice) but little confidence in them.
"But the personal appearance and bearing of many Germans,
who are in themselves truly worthy of respect, often induce
the well-educated and refined American to place in the back
ground their otherwise estimable qualities. There is often
something rough and harsh about the German, and his domestic
habits are not invariably in unison with his erudition and
excellent education, but frequently destroy the good
impression which the latter might produce; moreover, their
'_geselliges Leben_,' (social jovial life) as Germans term
it, with its accompaniments of pipe and mug, are in the
highest degree revolting to an American. And further, it is
taken ill of the German that he considers that regard for
the sex, entertained by the American, as carried somewhat
too far, and allows himself to form on this point a too
hasty, and not seldom unfavorable judgment, without seeking
to examine more accurately this domestic characteristic.
Many Germans find it impossible to enter into the spirit of
American life, customs, and manners, while on religious
subjects it appears impossible for either to adopt the same
views: so that there is apparently almost no point in common
between them."
After stating that many educated Germans might succeed as teachers in
this country, could they dispense with national peculiarities, and a
description of the manner of establishing schools, in which he pays a
high compliment to the general appearance of such institutions in our
country, he adds:
"The superintendent of such an establishment must entirely
renounce all visits to bar-rooms and coffee-houses. He must
learn to impart to his system of instruction the elements of
novelty and attractiveness, and especially learn to make
friends of the children. It is utterly impossible in this
country to manage a school by the mere force of power and
authority, and the teacher attempting this, soon experiences
a revolution by which indeed he is not exactly _driven
forth_, but left _alone_ on his _cathedra_."
With this extract we close, regretting that we have been obliged to
leave untranslated many more practical and not less interesting items.
We consider the entire work as the best possible answer which can be
given to the question, '_Why has America done so little for England's
fair?_' No one who contemplates in it the immense range of our
manufactories--our incredible combinations of excellence and
cheapness, and the almost superhuman rapidity of our progress in every
branch of industrial and social life, will entertain for an instant
the slightest regret that we have not done more to increase the
profits of John Bull's raree-show.
FOOTNOTES:
[1] Muffins?--_International._
[2] _Pariser-tracht_--French dress--is the epithet usually applied in
Germany to our ordinary style of costume, in contradistinction to the
_Bauern-tracht_, or peasant's costume, which is so frequently seen among
German immigrants.
[3] _Zu hause_--at house, at home. In this sentence the reader finds a
striking exemplification of the saying, that neither in French nor German
is there a word for _home_.
IN THE HAREM.
WRITTEN FOR THE INTERNATIONAL MAGAZINE
BY R. H. STODDARD.
The scent of burning sandal-wood
Perfumes the air in vain;
A sweeter odor fills my sense,
A fiercer fire my brain!
O press your burning lips to mine!--
For mine will never part,
Until my heart has rifled all
The sweetness of your heart!
The lutes are playing on the lawn,
The moon is shining bright,
But we like stars are melting now
In clouds of soft delight!
TO THE CICADA.
WRITTEN FOR THE INTERNATIONAL MAGAZINE
BY H. J. CRATE.
Cicada sits upon a sprig,
And makes his song resound;
For he is happy when a twig
Lifts him above the ground.
And so am I, when lifted up
On hopes delusive wing;
I laugh, and quaff the flowing cup,
I love, I write, I sing!
Should clouds or cares obscure our sky,
And all be gloom around,
My merry little friend and I
Soon tumble to the ground.
TRICKS ON TRAVELLERS AT WATERLOO.
M. Leon Gozlan, one of the most esteemed magazinists in France, has
lately paid a flying visit to the scene of his country's most glorious
disasters, Waterloo, and has given a characteristic account of what he
saw and heard there. We quote a part of it, in which he describes a
knavish practice of which great numbers are every year made victims.
M. Gozlan has just passed through the Brussels _faubourg_ Louisa, and
is oppressed with most melancholy reflections, when his coachman
addresses him--
"Sir," exclaimed my conductor, suddenly interrupting my
meditations, "excuse me if I am troublesome, but before
arriving at Mont-Saint-Jean I wish to warn you of a knavish
trade you have probably never heard of at Paris."
"A knavish trade unknown at Paris?" I replied,
incredulously; "that is rather surprising. But come, tell me
what is this new species of industry."
"You can easily suppose," pursued my loquacious coachman,
"that after the battle of Waterloo there remained on the
field a large quantity of cannon-balls, buttons, small brass
eagles, and broken weapons. Well, for the last thirty-four
years, the country people have been carrying on a famous
business in these articles."
"It seems to me, however, my friend," I observed, "that a
sale continued for so long a period, must have left very
little to be disposed of at present."
"True, sir; and this is precisely what I would guard you
against. Those who obtain a subsistence by such means,
purchase the goods new at a manufactory, in shares, and then
bury in different parts of the field, and for a wide space
around, pieces of imperial brass eagles, thousands of metal
buttons, and heaps of iron balls. This crop is allowed to
rest in the earth until summer, for few strangers visit
Waterloo in winter; and when the fine weather arrives, they
dig up their relics, to which a sojourn of eight months in a
damp soil gives an appearance of age, deceiving the keenest
observer, and awakening the admiration of pilgrims."
"But this is a shameful deceit."
"True again, sir; but the country is very poor about here;
and after all, perhaps," added the philosophic driver, "no
great harm is done. This year the harvest of brass eagles
has been very fair."
We entered the forest of Soignies by a narrow and naturally
covered alley, the two sides crowned with the most luxuriant
foliage. Poplars, elms, and plane-trees appeared to be
striving which should attain the highest elevation. One
peculiarity I could not avoid remarking in the midst of this
solemn and beautiful abode of nature, and that was the
perfect stillness prevailing around. The air itself seemed
without palpitation, and during a ride of nearly two hours
through this sylvan gallery, not even the note of a bird
broke on the solitude. A forest without feathered songsters
appeared unnatural, and the only possible reason that could
be imagined for such a circumstance might be, that since the
formidable day of Waterloo, they had quitted these shades,
never to return, frightened away by the roar of the cannon
and the dismal noise of war. What melancholy is impressed
upon the beautiful forest of Soignies! I cannot overcome the
idea, that since Providence destined it should become the
mute spectator of the great event in its vicinity, it has
retained the mysterious memory in the folding of its leaves
and the depths of its shades. Destiny designs the theatre
for grand actions. An army of one hundred thousand men
perished there. Such was the irrevocable decree.
"Do you think," I inquired of the coachman, wishing to
change the current of my thoughts, "there are persons so
unscrupulous as to speculate on the curiosity of tourists to
Waterloo in the manner you have described?"
"Ah, sir," he replied, "I have not told you half the tricks
they practice on the credulous. It would indeed fatigue you
if I mentioned all of them, but if you will permit me, I
will relate an instance I witnessed myself one day. I was
conducting from Waterloo to Brussels a French artist and a
Prussian tourist. The Prussian supported on his knee some
object very carefully enveloped in a handkerchief, and which
he seemed to value greatly. When we had arrived about midway
on the road, he inquired of the Frenchman whether he had
brought away with him any souvenir of his pilgrimage to
Waterloo.
"'In good faith no,' replied the other; and yet I was on the
point of making a certain acquisition, but the exorbitant
price demanded prevented me: one hundred francs, besides the
trouble of carrying off such an article.'
"'What could it have been?' demanded the Prussian,
curiously.
"'You must not feel offended if I tell you,' returned the
artist; 'it was the skull of a Prussian colonel, a
magnificent one! And what rendered it more valuable, it was
pierced by three holes, made by the balls of Waterloo. One
was in the forehead, the others were through the temples. I
should have had no objection to secure this, if I could have
afforded it, and have had a lamp made of the skull of a
Prussian officer killed by the French. And you, sir?' he
continued, looking at the packet carried by his
fellow-traveller, 'pray what luck have you had?'
"'I,' replied the Prussian, with an uneasy movement, and
looking greatly confused, 'I am astonished at the wonderful
resemblance of what has happened to both of us, for I
purchased this morning the skull of a French colonel killed
by a Prussian at Waterloo.'
"'You, sir?'
"'Y--e--s,' stammered the Prussian, 'and I thought of having
it made into a cup to drink the health of Blucher at each
anniversary of our victory.'
"'And is the skull pierced by three bullets?' demanded the
Frenchman, his suspicions becoming awakened.
"With a look of consternation the Prussian hastily unrolled
the handkerchief, and examined the contents. The skull bore
the same marks indicated by his travelling companion! It was
the identical relic that was French when offered to an
Englishman or Prussian, and had become Prussian or English
when offered to a Frenchman.
"This, sir," added Jehu, smacking his whip, "you will admit,
is worse than selling false brass buttons and the Emperor's
eagles."
STUDIES OF AMERICAN LITERATURE,
BY PHILARÈTE CHASLES.
We have frequently been interested by the clever contributions of M.
PHILARÈTE CHASLES to the _Revue des Deux Mondes_. They are chiefly on
English and American literature, and among them are specimens of acute
and genial criticism. M. Chasles has just published in Paris a
collection of these papers, and we translate for _The International_ a
reviewal of it which appears in a late number of the French journal,
the _Illustration_. Says the writer, M. Hipolyte Babou:
Books are becoming scarce. To be sure, volume upon volume is published
every day, but a book that is a book is a _rara avis_, and if any one
should inquire whose fault it is, we reply that it is the fault of the
press, constantly requiring the first-fruits of a writer's
meditations. The journalist has displaced the author. The fugitive
page rules the great world of literature. Wit, talent, genius,
science, have not time to consolidate their thoughts, before they are
disseminated. They are like the folds of the birchen bark, thrown off
as soon as formed, to give place to new ones. And these in their turn
fall, and are scattered. But, when we wish it, we can collect our
literary leaves. How many handsome volumes are made up of weekly and
monthly pages! The binder runs his needle through a collection, and
the book is made.
What kind of book? Ah, truly, it is not the venerable work of past
days, which took ten years to print and bring to perfection,
establishing at once a literary fame. It is simply a series of
articles written by steam, printed by steam, and some bright morning
bound up under a common title. But what is the story and the
attraction of such works? Bless you! there is no story. The attraction
is in the style (when there is any) and in the variety of subjects,
which generally produces a variety of impressions.
For an ordinary reader, to whom continued attention produces headache,
there is nothing more agreeable than those album-pages, or fragments
of mosaic. Thinking and serious minds turn rather towards works of
consecutive reflection, or whose details contribute to the beauty of
some whole. Variety is the wind to the weather-cock; and unity is the
inflexible pivot which every weather-cock requires to keep it from
being blown away. Thoughtful minds prefer unity above every thing. And
yet they are only heavier weather-cocks, which turn round with a
grating.
Nervous and discursive reader! logical and phlegmatic reader! here is
a book which will suit you both. M. Philarète Chasles has just
published expressly for you his _Studies upon the Literature and
Manners of the Anglo-Americans in the Nineteenth Century_. It is a
work by compartments, any of them interesting to the superficial
reader, and forming at the same time a perfect whole.
Under the influence of a spirit of order, which professors by their
vocation are very apt to possess in an eminent degree, the author has
composed his work, not of articles written for journals, but by
detailing articles a work whose plan he had before considered. The
general design, to which he is obedient, is clearly developed, page by
page, in his curious studies upon the Anglo-Americans.
It is a vile term--that of Anglo-American--a pedantic term--and rather
surprising from the pen of Chasles. For, professor as he is, he
despises pedantry as the plague. There is nothing doctoral in his
literary costume; and if he has any pretension, it resembles in no
particular the grave assumptions of the cathedrants of the university.
It would be a mortification to him to belong to the school of the
Sorbonne. He is a member of the free family of the College of France,
where individual genius has triumphed more than once over the sterile
routine of tradition.
Before filling the chair of professor, the author of _Etudes_ had
written much in journals and reviews. He writes still, and is always
welcome to the public. For, it may be remarked without malice, he has
always had a larger audience of readers than of listeners. And that it
is so is rather complimentary than otherwise. How is it, indeed, that
the intellectual humorist succeeds better as an author than as a
teacher? What does he need to insure, if he wishes it, the
enthusiastic admiration of the young public whom he instructs? Has he
not at command those vivid flashings of the imagination which, by an
electric sympathy, might bring down about him thunders of applause? Is
he fearful that his gesture and his voice would not become his
thought? Does he disdain to have recourse, hap-hazard, to the little
artifices of eloquence? It is very easy to gain popularity by a
juggle, when it cannot be done by the force of true oratory. Be
enthusiastic of your merits. Mingle with the swellings of poetry a
certain dogmatism of opinion--call to your aid assurance, impudence,
and all the insipidities of the _style printanier_--fire, as it were,
pistol-shots into the audience, and continue the fire by a brilliant
musketry of little fulminating phrases--the victory is yours, unless
you are essentially an ass. For youth--verdant youth--will always be
carried away by the expression, true or false, of feeling.
M. Philarète Chasles is said to want in some degree that great
constituent of humanity--passion. He is one of those refined and
delicate writers who employ all their genius to ridicule the mind, and
all their reason to drive to shipwreck upon the beautiful waters of
poesie the most charming flotillas of the imagination. He belongs to
the breed of sharp raillers, whose skepticism points an epigram. In a
word, there is no reverse side for his admiration on any question--a
habit of judging quite common among many writers, genuine and
charlatan.
But this is not saying that the author of _Etudes_ does not feel
deeply the irresistible attraction of the beau ideal; or that we are
treating of one of those representatives of pompous and stupid
criticism, who are so justly despised by the poets. Certainly not. On
the contrary, M. Chasles combines a vigorous hate of ornate folly and
vulgarity with a profound disgust towards tame or extravagant
conventionalism. The academic style has no fascination for him. He
likes elbow-room in the discussion of art, and if he finds himself
confined by the close-fitting coat of the professor, he rips it
asunder, stretching out his arms in a fit of restlessness. A
protective literature regards him among its most resolute adversaries.
No custom-houses in literature for him, and particularly no excisemen,
who, under pretext of contraband, drive their brutal gauge-rods into
the free productions of human intelligence.
M. Philarète Chasles is a literary disciple of Cobden. He would not
only lower the barriers between province and province, but wholly
abolish them between nation and nation. His imagination carries him as
a balloon beyond the tops of custom-houses; and after visiting the
shores of England and America, he returns to France with some curious
samples of foreign literature. By this come-and-go policy of
importation and exportation, he has created, or at least developed, a
noble spirit of commerce, which may be termed international criticism.
This commerce is particularly useful for us who are always ready to
proclaim ourselves in every thing and to every one the first nation of
the globe. It is an auspicious time therefore to become acquainted
with the weaknesses of our character without losing its force. The
glory of the past obliges us to think of the glory of the future,
which can be easily lost to us if ambition does not come in time to
animate our courage. To deny that there are rivals is no way to
conquer them. It is a great deal better to study them attentively, and
to consider beforehand the perils of the combat. We are indeed the
heroes of genius, but if we misapprehend the tactics, we say it
frankly, we shall be beaten.
The author of the _Etudes_ wishes to spare us such a humiliation, by
telling us of the enemy as he is; and in this sense his work is truly
patriotic, and cannot be unacceptable to any.
Many writers have instituted a relation between us and the Latins and
Greeks. M. Chasles thinks that to remember the glorious dead of the
south is to engender contempt for the living. It is not then towards
the south that he directs his attention. The Saxon race, beyond the
British Sea and the Atlantic, preoccupies him. The nations in
progress are those most hopeful for new and immortal productions of
the muse. The rest of the world is given to an incurable imitation.
And M. Chasles is right in bringing us into the presence of the
English and the Americans. He is sufficiently conversant with their
language to fulfil the delicate functions of interpreter.
I know writers who, on account of studying foreign literature, so bear
the imprints of it in their works, that one would say in reading them,
that he had before him French translations of Italian or German, or
English, or Spanish. The literary temperament of M. Chasles, however,
is not changed, notwithstanding his migrations. The author of _Etudes_
thinks in French, writes in French, and what is more, in French
inherited from a Gaul. He preserves in his mind the brightness of his
native sky, whether he wanders in the fogs of London, or is becoming a
victim of ennui among the vapors of New-York. His pen seems to strike
out sparks as he writes. He is active and bold, strong and light,
independent and courteous. Nothing stops him. He runs oftener than he
walks, and leaps over an obstacle that he may not lose time in going
round it. Indeed, every thing is accomplished well by the intelligence
that judges as it travels. Reflection itself is rapid, and logic
hastens the step and smooths the way. A light and tripping foot
belongs especially to criticism. If it raises a little brilliant dust
in the road, it is no matter, it soon falls again. M. Chasles has no
taste for old truths; he prefers much some kind of paradox which is
now a truth and now a lie. It is for this reason that foreigners
reproach him with being superficial. Very well! let him be so. He is a
true Frenchman, for he touches only the flower of ideas, and, for a
Frenchman, the flower and the surface are all one.
It is not just, however, to regard this reproach as wholly merited,
although (originating beyond the British Sea) it is reproduced among
us by those would-be grave men who are dull writers. M. Chasles often
allies lightness of expression with great profundity of thought. His
style cuts as a blade of steel. He has eloquence, gayety, irony,
caprice, and all in a perfect measure. No style resembles less the
childish dashes of persons of wit, and who possess nothing else--who
play the mountebank by a hundred tricks to astonish the gaping
crowd--a light style, if you please, but empty as it is light.
The _Etudes_ of M. Chasles are not of that superficial character
adopted by many. The admiration of ninnies is not his desire. The
object that he pursues continues ever a serious one, although a
thousand graces ornament the way. He has vivacity without losing
precision--two characteristics of good writing seldom found together.
If he indulges in digressions, they are not perceptible until the
reappearance of his subject shows us how gracefully he has departed
from it. He passes rapidly over what is known, while with an especial
care he dwells on what is unknown. Thus, in the history of American
literature he does not amuse himself long with the popular names of
Fenimore Cooper and Franklin. What could he say new respecting these
two great ornaments of American science and literature? His instinct
of observation and criticism suggested to him the works less known of
Gouverneur Morris and Hermann Melville. Between these two writers, of
whom one was the contemporary of Washington, and the other still
living in some corner of Massachusetts, are ranged according to their
date the productions of the writers of the great American nation.
Gouverneur Morris was of a noble spirit. His _Mémoires_ represent to
us, with a full and attractive fidelity, the opinion which the young
and tranquil republic of the United States entertained at the close of
the eighteenth century, of the men and the events of our French
Revolution. He was far from misunderstanding the abuses of our ancient
society, but he deplored that it was necessary for violence to abolish
them. A sensible and polished observer, he criticised them without
passion, and with a benevolent irony. Let us hear him tell of a
conversation he had, at Madame de la Suze's, with one of the most
brilliant leaders of the gay world that had just perished. In a few
lines, he presents an admirable sketch of the personage:
'The rest of our party were playing at cards, and quite
absorbed in the game, when M. de Boufflers, in want of
something better to do, spoke to me of America. The
carelessness with which he heard me proved that he did not
pay the least attention to what he had asked me.
--"But how could you defend your country from invasion
without fleets and armies?"
"Nothing could be more difficult," replied Morris, "than to
subjugate a nation composed of kings, and who, if looked
upon contemptuously, would respond: '_I am a man; are you
any thing more?_'"
"Very well," said M. de Boufflers. "But how would you like
it, if I should say to one of those citizen-kings: Monsieur,
the king, make me a pair of boots!"
"My compatriot," said Morris, "would not hesitate to reply:
'With great pleasure, sir. It is my duty and my vocation to
make boots, and I could wish that every one would do his
duty in this world."'
M. de Boufflers looked up to the ceiling as if in search of a solution
of this enigma, and Morris contemplated him, as much surprised as if,
in the forests of the New World, he had heard a humming-bird reason of
the affairs of the Republic. And it was thus with all that class of
men--the same elegance--the same luxury--the same prattle--the same
heedlessness. All these courtiers of the last hour resembled precisely
M. de Boufflers. The same day, indeed, of the taking of the Bastile,
Morris traced two lines upon the tablettes:
"It is very well that the court should appear to believe
that all is tranquil; but to-morrow, perhaps, when the
citadelle is in flames, they will agree that there has been
some noise in Paris."
Some time before, the grave and gentle American had met Madame de
Staël at Madame de Tesse's; the daughter of Necker conversed with him
in another style than that of M. de Boufflers. However, quite serious
as Corinne certainly was, the dignity of the compatriot of Washington
surprised and diverted her.
"Monsieur," she said, after a moment's conversation, "you
have a very imposing air."
"I know it, Madame," replied Morris.
The English literature constantly serves M. Chasles, to bring into
relief the character of American literature. And thus, he opposes the
peaceful inspirations of the work-girls of Lowell with the passionate
dithyrambics of Ebenezer Elliott, the blacksmith of Sheffield--a
chapter full of just remarks upon what Chasles calls the poetry of
vengeance.
The girls of Lowell--the Lucindas, the Alleghanias, the Tancredas, the
Velledas--who, after a day's labor, pass into the street in silken
dresses, with gold watches shining at their zone, and their beautiful
faces shaded by parasols--those Massachusetts weavers, who have even
instituted an academy among themselves--do not in their innocent
verses, invoke the vengeful muses. They know nothing of that terrible
Nemesis, with cheeks hollow and ghastly, armed hands, and eyes red
with poverty and weeping, to whom the poor workers of British
factories send up the cry of famine and despair. If the female
operatives of Lowell read the work of M. Philarète Chasles, they will
find there an encouragement to cultivate the smiling thoughts of
poetry. He, no more than George Sand, notwithstanding her sympathies
for the working classes, either loves or encourages the irritable
singers of social sufferings.
"What," he exclaims, "has become of the glorious Apollo of
the Greek? Where is the sunny ideal of the hellenistic
heavens? Where the sacred sorrows of Christian perfection?
Poetry is no more a garden of roses; it is a wild field of
thorns, wherein he who walks leaves tracks of blood. At the
entrance of this Parnassus stands Poverty, whom Virgil
places _in faucibus orci_. Her complaints are in the midst
of curses. She holds in her hand a skull, with strings of
iron, and she sweeps them as a lyre with golden chords.
Behind her are Crabbe, the Juvenal of the hospitals;
Ebenezer Elliott, the singer of hunger; Cooper, the poet of
suicide, and the author of _Ernest_, followed by a miserable
train of children, whom manufacturers have famished, and
young women whom excessive labor has demoralized and
prostituted in the morning of their life. Mournful choir, to
which these poets worthily respond."
It is not very pleasant, to be sure, for a reader to pass from some
agreeable representation to a frightful array of evils. The spectacle
but too true of social infirmities troubles the sleep of the happy,
and awakes with a start the drowsy hate of the unhappy. But there is
no reason why he who suffers, should not utter his complaint. The
Bible itself is not a stranger to vehement protestations against the
apparent injustice of destiny. When Job arose from the ashes, surely
it was not to sing to the passers-by some touching idylle in the style
of Ruth and Naomi. He accused heaven and life, he cursed his friends,
and his mother, without troubling himself to know whether his sorrows
reached the lovers' palm-groves, or disturbed the wooings of the
daughters of Idumea. The Sheffield blacksmith, among flaming furnaces,
cannot sing the voluptuous sweets of existence. He strikes the anvil
with a ring, and exclaims in a rough voice, amid smoke and fire:
"Accursed be the muse of necessity and suffering! Who wishes
her acquaintance? The poor, so despised! Write not their
frightful history. Pride and vanity despise your labors. Who
is he, I pray you, that artizan who uses the pen? What right
has he to do so? Absurd rhymer, let him retire and pare his
nails--and renounce a species of industry for which he was
never made. You are accustomed only to oaths, and you are
only a rough worker in poetry."
M. Chasles does not deny the right of artizans to employ the pen.
Ignoble or noble--a serf or a lord--whether he is called Burns, or
Chasles of Orleans--whether he is a porter, a laborer, or even a
drunkard, from the moment that there is seen upon his brow the radiant
sign of genius, he is known. To wonder that an artizan is a poet, is
to think it marvellous that beauty should bloom upon the cheek of a
village maid. The gift is natural, and not acquired; and the mechanic
who writes either prose or poetry must be judged with as much severity
as if he were a king. It is not astonishing, therefore, that the
author of the _Etudes_ judges severely the blacksmith of Sheffield.
But the latter seems to have anticipated the severity of the critic,
when he says with an accent of the most mournful bitterness:
"Do not read me, ye who love elegance and grace. Alight not,
ye butterflies, among thorns--nor upon rocks burning in the
sun and beaten by the rains--you may tarnish the gauze of
your beautiful wings. But you who honor truth, follow me. I
will bring you wild flowers, gathered from the precipice,
amid howling tempests."
While we inhale the perfume of the _flowers of the heath_, we can
honor truth, without being _foolish flies_, and without renouncing the
love of the _elegant and graceful_. Not less did M. Chasles write to
the _Journal des Débats_, a little before the revolution, in those
generous words which we are happy to see again in his book:
"It is for you, politicians, to find a remedy for the evils
of society. The interests of the masses are in your
hands--those who have not enough to eat, and too much work.
The verses of famished workmen, which we cannot sing, we
weep over. The muse of Cooper, of Elliott, and of Crabbe,
is not a muse, but a fury. You are reminded, that in
accumulating wealth in one direction, you are increasing
poverty in another; and that the poverty which complains at
first avenges itself afterward."
I do not know whether these words were prophetic, but I see in them a
noble sentiment, unfortunately too rare among those who love elegance
and grace. Let us be elegant, if we can; gracious, if we know how.
But, besides those desirable qualities of the old French society, let
us show in the light of heaven that living active charity which only
can strengthen by purifying the existence of the new order of society.
The grandchildren of Boufflers, we expose ourselves no more to
ridicule in saying: "Monsieur le roi, faite-moi une paire de
souliers." The king will make the shoes if it is his vocation. The
grandchildren of Boufflers should do their duty--that is to say:
contribute with all their mind to find out, according to the
expression of Chasles, efficacious remedies for social evils. When
workmen are more happy, they will write less poetry, or at least they
will write more calmly. See the American spinners of Lowell. Ah!
Lucinda or Tancreda has never lifted up her voice to heaven with the
despair of Elliott. An amorous complaint suffices her; a sonnet, or a
love-sigh, breathed by the light of the stars, consoles her for the
labors of the day. American society works first; when it has conquered
an independence, it sings. All Americans do not accept the saying of
one of their journalists: "Political and practical life is sufficient
for man. Imagination is a peril--arts a misfortune." So far from
proscribing the arts and imagination, Cooper, Irving, Audubon, and
many others are among those who have magnified the literature of their
country. But the greater part, with that fruitful wisdom which
characterizes them, applaud the advice of Channing:
"I made a resolution of presenting a gift to my country in
the form of an epic. But I had prudence enough to postpone
it until I should have a fortune. I then commenced to make
my business known, after which I retired into solitude with
my imagination."
In Europe it is just the contrary. We ask the imagination to make our
business known, and we retire into solitude with our fortune or our
poverty. Which course avails the more for our glory? Which for our
repose?
The conclusion of the work of M. Chasles is, that our literature, our
manners, our nationality even, will some day disappear before the
rising glory of the great Western Republic, but I can declare without
emotion that I have no fear of my country. America offers us examples;
we also have some to offer her. The future of the United States is
developed day by day in a manner that astonishes Europe. But
notwithstanding the _patriotes de clocher_, and French _humanitaires_
who suppress the very word native country, I believe in the higher
destinies of France.
A PHANTASY.
WRITTEN FOR THE INTERNATIONAL MAGAZINE
BY R. H. STODDARD.
"Tears, idle tears, I know not what they mean."
The light of the summer noon
Bursts in a flood through the blind;
But few are the rays of joy
That shine in my darkened mind.
My heart is stirred to a storm,
And its passions intense and proud
Feed on themselves, like fires
Pent in a thunder-cloud!
I think of the days of youth,
And the fountains of love defiled,
Till I hide my face in my hands,
And weep like a little child!
THE TIMES OF CHARLEMAGNE.
Sir Francis Palgrave's _History of Normandy and of England_, of which
the first volume has just appeared in London, is unquestionably a very
important work, illustrating a period of which comparatively little
has been known, and of which a knowledge is eminently necessary to the
student of British institutions and manners. The subject has been
partially handled by French authors--by Thierry, Guizot, Michelet, and
in a desultory manner by M. Barante--but not one of these has shown
the very intimate relation that exists between the history of Normandy
and of England. That intermixture of the histories of the countries
may indeed be inferred from old English works, such as Camden,
Fortescue, Hale, Britton, Bracton, Fleta, Spelman, Somner, Chief Baron
Gilbert, Daines Barrington, and others, and from labors of Bede,
William of Malmesbury, Geoffry of Monmouth, and all the older
chroniclers. But not one of these writers, in all their varied labors,
has undertaken to show how the histories of the two countries act and
re-act on each other, or how, represented in the popular mind by the
epithets Norman and Saxon, French and English, they have been for a
thousand years or more running against each other a perpetual race of
rivalry and emulation. A worthy Picard lawyer indeed, of the name of
Gaillard, who abandoned the law for literature about a century ago,
wrote a work called _The Rivalry between France and England_, in
eleven volumes; but who, in 1851, unless specially dedicated to
historical studies, would read a French history on the subject of the
rivalry between the two nations, written between 1771 and 1777,
especially when it extends to eleven volumes? Independently of this,
any French history on such subject is sure to be tinged with
prejudice, passion, and vanity. It is true that the judicious Sharon
Turner, in his _History of the Anglo-Saxons_, Henry Wheaton, in his
_History of the Northmen_, and M. Capefigue, give us more or less
insight into Norman history; but none of these authors attempt to show
the general relations of mediæval history, or that absolute need of
uniting Norman to English history, which it is the chief aim of Sir
Francis Palgrave to demonstrate. As deputy keeper of the public
records of England, this learned historian has had the best possible
opportunities of investigation, and he tells us in his preface that
he has devoted to the work a full quarter of a century.
The style of Sir Francis Palgrave is generally heavy, and his work
will therefore be more prized by students than by the mere lovers of
literature. His manner and spirit and the character of his performance
may be most satisfactorily exhibited in a few specimen paragraphs,
however, and we proceed to quote, first, from an introductory
dissertation, some remarks on the arts, architecture, and civilization
of Rome. He says:
"Roman taste gave the fashion to the garment, Roman skill
the models for the instruments of war. We have been told to
seek in the forests of Germany the origin of the feudal
system and the conception of the Gothic aisle. We shall
discover neither there. Architecture is the costume of
society, and throughout European Christendom that costume
was patterned from Rome. Unapt and unskilful pupils, she
taught the Ostrogothic workman to plan the palace of
Theodoric; the Frank, to decorate the hall of Charlemagne;
the Lombard, to vault the duomo; the Norman, to design the
cathedral. Above all, Rome imparted to our European
civilization her luxury, her grandeur, her richness, her
splendor, her exaltation of human reason, her spirit of free
inquiry, her ready mutability, her unwearied activity, her
expansive and devouring energy, her hardness of heart, her
intellectual pride, her fierceness, her insatiate cruelty,
that unrelenting cruelty which expels all other races out of
the very pale of humanity; whilst our direction of thought,
our literature, our languages, concur in uniting the
dominions, kingdoms, states, principalities, and powers,
composing our civilized commonwealth in the Old Continent
and the New, with the terrible people through whom that
civilized commonwealth wields the thunderbolts of the
dreadful monarchy, diverse from all others which preceded
amongst mankind."
The following is our author's view of the real and the ideal
Charlemagne:--
"It seems Charlemagne's fate that he should always be in
danger of shading into a mythic monarch--not a man of flesh
and blood, but a personified theory. Turpin's Carolus
Magnus, the Charlemagne of Roncesvalles; Ariosto's _Sacra
Corona_, surrounded by Palatines and Doze-Piers, are
scarcely more unlike the real rough, tough, shaggy, old
monarch, than the conventional portraitures by which his
real features have been supplanted.
"It is an insuperable source of fallacy in human observation
as well as in human judgment, that we never can sufficiently
disjoin our own individuality from our estimates of moral
nature. Admiring ourselves in others, we ascribe to those
whom we love or admire the qualities we value in ourselves.
We each see the landscape through our own stripe of the
rainbow. A favorite hero by long-established prescription,
few historical characters have been more disguised by fond
adornment than Charlemagne. Each generation or school has
endeavored to exhibit him as a normal model of excellence:
Courtly Mezeray invests the son of Pepin with the taste of
Louis Quatorze; the polished Abbé Velly bestows upon the
Frankish emperor the abstract perfection of a dramatic hero;
Boulainvilliers, the champion of the noblesse, worships the
founder of hereditary feudality; Mably discovers in the
capitulars the maxims of popular liberty; Montesquieu, the
perfect philosophy of legislation. But, generally speaking,
Charlemagne's historical aspect is derived from his
patronage of literature. This notion of his literary
character colors his political character, so that in the
assumption of the imperial authority, we are fain to
consider him as a true romanticist--such as in our own days
we have seen upon the throne--seeking to appease hungry
desires by playing with poetic fancies, to satisfy hard
nature with pleasant words, to give substance and body to a
dream.
"All these prestiges will vanish if we render to Charlemagne
his well deserved encomium:--he was a great warrior, a great
statesman, fitted for his own age. It is a very ambiguous
praise to say that a man is in advance of his age; if so, he
is out of his place; he lives in a foreign country. Equally
so, if he lives in the past. No innovator so bold, so
reckless, and so crude, as he who makes the attempt (which
never succeeds) to effect a resurrection of antiquity."
The practical character of Charlemagne is thus sketched:--
"We may put by the book, and study Charlemagne's
achievements on the borders of the Rhine; better than in the
book may the traveller see Charlemagne's genuine character
pictured upon the lovely unfolding landscape: the huge
domminsters, the fortresses of religion; the yellow sunny
rocks studded with the vine; the mulberry and the peach,
ripening in the ruddy orchards; the succulent potherbs and
worts which stock the Bauer's garden,--these are the
monuments and memorials of Charlemagne's mind. The first
health pledged when the flask is opened at Johannisberg
should be the monarchs name who gave the song-inspiring
vintage. Charlemagne's superiority and ability consisted
chiefly in seeking and seizing the immediate advantages,
whatever they might be which he could confer upon others or
obtain for himself. He was a man of forethought, ready
contrivance, and useful talent. He would employ every
expedient, grasp every opportunity, and provide for each day
as it was passing by.
"The educational movement resulting from Charlemagne's
genius was practical. Two main objects had he therein upon
his conscience and his mind. The first, was the support of
the Christian Faith; his seven liberal sciences circled
round theology, the centre of the intellectual system. No
argument was needed as to the obligation of uniting sacred
and secular learning, because the idea of disuniting them
never was entertained. His other object in patronizing
learning and instruction was the benefit of the State. He
sought to train good men of business; judges well qualified,
ready penmen in his chancery; and this sage desire expanded
into a wide instructional field. Charlemagne's exertions for
promoting the study of the Greek language--his Greek
professorships at Osnaburgh or Saltzburgh--have been
praised, doubted, discussed, as something very paradoxical;
whereas, his motives were plain, and his machinery simple.
Greek was, to all intents and purposes, the current language
of an opulent and powerful nation, required for the
transaction of public affairs. A close parallel,
necessitated by the same causes, exists in the capital of
Charlemagne's successors. The Oriental Academy at Vienna is
constituted to afford a supply of individuals qualified for
the diplomatic intercourse, arising out of the vicinity and
relations of the Austrian and Ottoman dominions, without any
reference to the promotion of philology. We find the same at
home. If the Persian language be taught at Haileybury, it is
to fit the future Writer of his Indian office. He may study
Ferduzi or Hafiz, if he pleases, but the cultivation of
literature is not the intent with which the learning is
bestowed."
Here is the manner in which Sir Francis Palgrave contrasts and
compares the two emperors, Charlemagne and Napoleon:--
"Napoleon sought the creation of an anti-christian imperial
pontificate--the caliphate of positive civilization; his
aspiration was the establishment of absolute dominion,
corporeal and intellectual; mastery over body and soul;
faith respected only as an influential and venerable
delusion; the aiding powers of religion accepted until she
should be chilled out, and the unfed flame expire, and
positive philosophy complete her task of emancipating the
matured intellect from the remaining swathing bands which
had been needful during the infancy of human society. And
the theories of Charlemagne and Napoleon, though
irreconcileably antagonistic, in their conception, would,
were either fully developed, become identical in their
result, notwithstanding their contrarieties. They start in
opposite directions, but, circling round their courses,
would--were it permitted that they should persevere
continuously and consistently--meet at the same point of
convergence, and attain the same end.
"Moreover, the territorial empires of Napoleon and
Charlemagne had their organically fatal characteristics in
common. Each founder attempted to accomplish political
impossibilities--to conjoin communities unsusceptible of
amalgamation; to harmonize the discordant elements which
could only be kept together by external force, whilst their
internal forces sprung them asunder--a unity without
internal union. But even as the wonderful agencies revealed
to modern chemistry effect, in a short hour, the progresses
which nature silently elaborates during a long growth of
time, so in like manner did the energies of civilization
effect in three years that dissolution for which, in the
analogous precedent, seven generations were required."
THE DECORATIVE ARTS IN AMERICA.
The growth of the fine arts, commonly so called, in this country, has
been a fruitful subject of congratulatory observation in the last
dozen years. The opera in that time has gained a permanent home here,
and our sculptors and painters have gone out into the old fields of
art, and claimed equality with their masters--an equality which Italy,
Germany, France, and even England, slowly and reluctantly in some
cases, but in the presence of the works of Powers, Crawford,
Greenough, Leutze, and others, have, at length, confessed. In
painting, as everybody knows, with few exceptions our best works have
never been seen abroad, and the advance of design here is therefore to
be studied only in our own exhibitions, hung with the productions of
Durand, Huntington, Eliott, and the crowd of young painters coming
forward every season to claim the approval of the people. The general
taste keeps pace with every achievement. We hear that the Art-Union
was never visited so much as this year; and private galleries, and
those of every dealer in works of art, are thronged. The existence in
our principal cities, under the control of men of cultivation, of
stores for the sale of works in the fine arts, is a fact eminently
significant. That of Williams & Stevens, in Broadway, for example,
could be sustained only by a community in which there is a refinement
of taste such as a few years ago could be found only in limited
circles in this country. Beginning with efforts to introduce the
finest forms and combinations in looking-glass and picture frames, the
proprietors of this establishment have made it a great market-house
for artists, and the display upon its walls and in its windows is
frequently more attractive to the connoisseur than the exhibitions of
the Academies or the Art-Unions. And it is astonishing how many of the
best works of the European engravers--works which may justly be called
copies of the master-pieces of contemporary foreign art--are sold
here, to adorn houses from which the tawdry ornaments in vogue a few
years ago have been discarded. The same observations may be made in
regard to furniture. The graceful styles and high finish to be seen at
many of our stores, and in our recently furnished houses, illustrate a
progress in elegance, luxury, and taste, not dreamed of by the last
generation. And in all these things it is observable that the advance
is in cheapness as well as in beauty. In this respect indeed we have
scarcely kept pace with the French and English, but the cost at which
a man of taste and a little tact can now furnish a house, so that it
shall illustrate not only his own refinement but the condition of the
best civilization of the time, is astonishingly small, compared with
what it was a few years ago. The fine engraving, with its appropriate
frame, to be bought for thirty dollars, is to be much preferred before
the portrait or indeed before any painting whatever that is
purchasable for a hundred dollars; and though silver is unquestionably
silver, the imitation table furniture, of the most classical shapes,
that is sold now for a fifth of the cost of the coinable metal, looks
quite as well upon a salver. The arts by which beauty is made familiar
in the homes of all classes of people are of all arts most deserving
of encouragement, and it is among the happiest of omens that they are
receiving so much attention--far more attention now than they have
ever before received in America. We shall hereafter attempt a more
particular exhibition of this subject.
A VISIT TO THE LATE DR. JOHN LINGARD.
WRITTEN FOR THE INTERNATIONAL MONTHLY MAGAZINE
BY REV. J. C. RICHMOND.
Noticing in the journals some brief but very just remarks upon the
character of the eminent Roman Catholic historian of England, who died
July 17th, at the good old age of more than four-score years, I am
induced to think that an account of a visit which I had the honor to
make this celebrated scholar, may not be altogether without interest
for your readers.
March 12, 1850, having a leisure day at Lancaster, and having already
visited John of Gaunt's castle, in company with several of those
genial spirits who afford me an unusually delightful social
remembrance of the dingy buildings and narrow crooked streets of that
famous old town, one of them happened to mention the name of Dr.
Lingard. I instantly inquired after him with interest, and, observing
my enthusiasm, Mr. T. J---- proposed a drive to his residence at
Hornby, a village some twelve or thirteen miles distant. I of course
gladly acceded to the proposal, and we were soon on our way, with a
fleet horse, over the absolutely perfect English turnpike road--for
the roads in England are always passable, and not "_improved_," like
some of those around New-York, in so continued a manner as to be
useless.
After a fine rural drive, crossing the river Loon, and through
Lonsdale, we came within sight of an old church and castle. I took the
church to be that of the historian, but found, to my surprise, that
the famous old sage was placed in entire seclusion, and ministered to
a very few, and those very poor, sheep, in a little chapel, or room,
under his own roof. In this remote and by no means picturesque
village, at an antiquated house, we knocked, and were told by the aged
domestic that the venerable historian had been very feeble of late,
and had gone out, on this fine day in the spring, for a walk. After
many inquiries among the villagers, by whom he was as well known as
beloved, I proposed to take the line of the new railway, and, after
quite a walk, met a feeble old man, with a scholar's face, a bright
twinkling black eye, supporting his steps on a staff, and wrapped up
with all the care which an aged and faithful housekeeper could bestow
upon a long-tried and most indulgent master. I pronounced his name,
and gave him my own; stated that I was a presbyter in the holy (though
not Roman) Catholic church, that I had long admired his integrity and
faithfulness as an historian, and that it was by no means the least of
my happy days in England that I was now permitted to speak to him face
to face. The kind and gentle old man seemed truly astonished that any
one who had come so far, and seen so much, should care for seeing
_him_, and rewarded my enthusiasm with a hearty grasp of the hand that
had wielded so admired a pen. We then walked on together towards his
house, and you will not blame me for saying, that I was proud to offer
the support of my arm to this fine octogenarian, who had not suffered
the spirit of the priest to becloud the candor of the historian. We
conversed with the greatest freedom upon our points of difference, and
he repeated to me, personally, _his entire disbelief in the fable of
the nag's head ordination_. He seemed to be only _historically_ aware
of a disruption between us, for the benevolence of his heart would
acknowledge no actual difference.
I cannot refrain from quoting a somewhat amusing illustration of his
infinite and childlike simplicity of character, combined with an utter
ignorance of those rudiments of modern science which would be much
more familiar to our district school-boys than to many men educated in
those classic homes of ancient learning, the English universities.
Some posts had been set in the ground, and were bound together, for
strength, by iron wires; and the venerable sage said, "I suppose this
is the Electric Telegraph." I was obliged to insist with a kind of
explanatory and playful pertinacity, that this supposition must be
incorrect, because electricity could not be conducted, unless the
wires were at least continued _through_ the thick posts, instead of
being wound _around_ them. At his house, we found the study not very
well supplied with books, for the aged scholar had now almost ceased
to peruse these. At my request he wrote out very slowly, but in a
wonderfully distinct hand for eighty, his own name and the date, "John
Lingard, Hornby, March 12, 1850;" and voluntarily added a Latin
punning inscription, which he had made the evening before, which he
humorously proposed to have engraved upon the new Menai bridge. In
this he had spoken of the _builder of the bridge_, the celebrated
Stephens, as _Pontifex Maximus_. I need not say that I shall preserve
these papers among the most precious of my English mementos. I was
sorry I could have no hopes that the branch which he gave me from the
tree that he had transplanted with his own hands from the battle-field
of Cannæ to the quiet of his garden at Hornby, would ever flourish in
America. After many hospitable invitations, which other engagements
obliged us to decline, and many modest expressions of the gratitude
which he seemed deeply to feel for the pains that I had taken to come
so far to visit him, we bade farewell to the candid priest, who began,
as he told me, an essay to defend his Church against the aspersions of
Hume, and had ended by producing a voluminous as well as luminous
history.
[For another part of this magazine we have compiled a more full and
accurate account of the life of the deceased scholar than has hitherto
appeared in this country. See _Recent Deaths_, _post_, 285-6.]
PRIVATE LIFE OF JOHN C. CALHOUN.
ADDRESSED TO HER BROTHER, AND COMMUNICATED TO THE INTERNATIONAL
MAGAZINE,
BY MISS M. BATES.
The funeral rites of the lamented Calhoun have been performed. So
deeply has the mournful pageant impressed me, so vividly have memories
of the past been recalled, that I am incapable of thinking or writing
on any other theme. My heart prompts me to garner up my recollections
of this illustrious statesman. I can better preserve these invaluable
memories by committing them to paper, and as you enjoyed but one brief
interview with Mr. Calhoun, these pages shall be addressed to you.
An eloquent member of the House of Representatives, from your state,
has compared this southern luminary to that remarkable constellation
the Southern Cross. A few years since, in sailing to a West Indian
island, I had a perilous voyage, but have ever felt that the sight of
that Southern Cross, which had long haunted my imagination, almost
repaid me for its excitement and suffering. And thus do I regard an
acquaintance with this intellectual star as one great compensation for
a separation from my early home. It would have been a loss not to have
seen that poetic group, which greets the traveller as he sails
southward, but how much greater the loss, never to have beheld that
unique luminary which has set to rise no more upon our visible
horizon.
Mr. Calhoun's public character is so well known to you that I shall
speak of him principally in his private relations, and shall refer to
his opinions only as expressed in conversation--for it was in the
repose of his happy home, in the tranquillity of domestic life, and in
the freedom of social intercourse, that I knew him.
While the clarion-notes of his fame resound among the distant hills
and valleys of our land, while those who in political strife crossed
lances with this champion of the south nobly acknowledge his valor and
his honor, while Carolina chants a requiem for her departed dead, may
not one who knows his moral elevation, and who has witnessed his
domestic virtues, have the consolation of adding an unaffected tribute
to his memory? While his devoted constituents, with impressive symbols
and mournful pageants, perform funereal rites, erect for him the
costly marble, weave for him the brilliant chaplet, be it mine to
scatter over his honored tomb simple but ever green leaflets. While in
glowing colors the orator portrays him on his peerless career in the
political arena, be it mine to delineate the daily beauty of his life.
In Mr. Calhoun were united the simple habits of the Spartan lawgiver,
the inflexible principles of the Roman senator, the courteous bearing
and indulgent kindness of the American host, husband, and father. This
was indeed a rare union. Life with him was solemn and earnest, and yet
all about him was cheerful. I never heard him utter a jest; there was
an unvarying dignity and gravity in his manner; and yet the playful
child regarded him fearlessly and lovingly. Few men indulge their
families in as free, confidential, and familiar intercourse as did
this great statesman. Indeed, to those who had an opportunity of
observing him in his own house, it was evident that his cheerful and
happy home had attractions for him superior to those which any other
place could offer. Here was a retreat from the cares, the observation,
and the homage of the world. In few homes could the transient visitor
feel more at ease than did the guest at Fort Hill. Those who knew Mr.
Calhoun only by his senatorial speeches may suppose that his heart and
mind were all engrossed in the nation's councils, but there were
moments when his courtesy, his minute kindnesses, made you forget the
statesman. The choicest fruits were selected for his guest; and I
remember seeing him at his daughter's wedding take the ornaments from
a cake and send them to a little child. Many such graceful attentions,
offered in an unostentatious manner to all about him, illustrated the
kindness and noble simplicity of his nature. His family could not but
exult in his intellectual greatness, his rare endowments, and his
lofty career, yet they seemed to lose sight of all these in their love
for him. I had once the pleasure of travelling with his eldest son,
who related to me many interesting facts and traits of his life. He
said he had never heard him speak impatiently to any member of his
family. He mentioned that as he was leaving that morning for his home
in Alabama, a younger brother said, "Come soon again, and see us,
brother A----, for do you not see that father is growing old, and is
not father the dearest, best old man in the world!"
Like Cincinnatus, he enjoyed rural life and occupation. It was his
habit, when at home, to go over his grounds every day. I remember his
returning one morning from a walk about his plantation, delighted with
the fine specimens of corn and rice which he brought in for us to
admire. That morning--the trifling incident shows his consideration
and kindness of feeling, as well as his tact and power of
adaptation--seeing an article of needlework in the hands of sister
A----, who was then a stranger there, he examined it, spoke of the
beauty of the coloring, the variety of the shade, and by thus showing
an interest in her, at once made her at ease in his presence.
His eldest daughter always accompanied him to Washington, and in the
absence of his wife, who was often detained by family cares at Fort
Hill, this daughter was his solace amid arduous duties, and his
confidant in perplexing cases. Like the gifted De Staël, she loved her
father with enthusiastic devotion. Richly endowed by nature, improved
by constant companionship with the great man, her mind was in harmony
with his, and he took pleasure in counselling with her. She said, "Of
course, I do not understand as he does, for I am comparatively a
stranger to the world, yet he likes my unsophisticated opinion, and I
frankly tell him my views on any subject about which he inquires of
me."
Between himself and his younger daughter there was a peculiar and most
tender union. As by the state of her health she was deprived of many
enjoyments, her indulgent parents endeavored to compensate for every
loss by their affection and devotion. As reading was her favorite
occupation, she was allowed to go to the letter-bag when it came from
the office, and select the papers she preferred. On one occasion, she
had taken two papers, containing news of importance, which her father
was anxious to see, but he would allow no one to disturb her until she
had finished their perusal.
In his social as well as in his domestic relations he was
irreproachable. No shadow rested on his pure fame, no blot on his
escutcheon. In his business transactions he was punctual and
scrupulously exact. He was honorable as well as honest. Young men who
were reared in his vicinity, with their eyes ever on him, say that in
all respects, in small as well as in great things, his conduct was so
exemplary that he might well be esteemed a model.
His profound love for his own family, his cordial interest in his
friends, his kindness and justice in every transaction, were not small
virtues in such a personage.
He was anti-Byronic. I never heard him ridicule or satirize a human
being. Indeed, he might have been thought deficient in a sense of the
ludicrous, had he not by the unvarying propriety of his own conduct
proved his exquisite perception of its opposites. When he differed in
opinion from those with whom he conversed, he seemed to endeavor by a
respectful manner, to compensate for the disagreement. He employed
reason rather than contradiction, and so earnestly would he urge an
opinion and so fully present an argument, that his opponent could not
avoid feeling complimented rather than mortified. He paid a tribute to
the understandings of others by the force of his own reasoning, and by
his readiness to admit every argument which he could, although
advanced in opposition to one he himself had just expressed.
On one occasion I declined taking a glass of wine at his table. He
kindly said, "I think you carry that a little too far. It is well to
give up every thing intoxicating, but not these light wines." I
replied that wine was renounced by many, for the sake of consistency,
and for the benefit of those who could not afford wine. He
acknowledged the correctness of the principle, adding, "I do not know
how temperance societies can take any other ground," and then defined
his views of temperance, entered on a course of interesting argument,
and stated facts and statistics. Of course, were all men like Mr.
Calhoun temperance societies would be superfluous. Perhaps he could
not be aware of the temptations which assail many men--he was so
purely intellectual, so free from self-indulgence. Materiality with
him was held subject to his higher nature. He did not even indulge
himself in a cigar. Few spent as little time and exhausted as little
energy in mere amusements. Domestic and social enjoyments were his
pleasures--kind and benevolent acts were his recreations.
He always seemed willing to converse on any subject which was
interesting to those about him. Returning one evening from Fort Hill,
I remarked to a friend, "I have never been more convinced of Mr.
Calhoun's genius than to-day, while he talked to us of a flower." His
versatile conversation evinced his universal knowledge, his quick
perception, and his faculty of adaptation. A shower one day compelled
him to take shelter in the shed of a blacksmith, who was charmed by
his familiar conversation and the knowledge he exhibited of the
mechanic arts. A naval officer was once asked, after a visit to Fort
Hill, how he liked Mr. Calhoun. "Not at all," says he--"I never like a
man who knows more about my profession than I do myself." A clergyman
wished to converse with him on subjects of a religious nature, and
after the interview remarked that he was astonished to find him better
informed than himself on those very points wherein he had expected to
give him information. I have understood that Mr. Calhoun avoided an
expression of opinion with regard to different sects and creeds, or
what is called religious controversy; and once, when urged to give his
views in relation to a disputed point, he replied, "That is a subject
to which I have never given my attention."
Mr. Calhoun was unostentatious and ever averse to display. He did not
appear to talk for the sake of exhibition, but from the overflowing of
his earnest nature. Whether in the Senate or in conversation with a
single listener, his language was choice, his style fervid, his manner
impressive. Never can I forget his gentle earnestness when endeavoring
to explain his views on some controverted subject, and observing that
my mind could hardly keep pace with his rapid reasoning, he would
occasionally pause and say, in his kind manner, "Do you see?"
He did not seek to know the opinion of others with regard to himself.
Anonymous letters he never read, and his daughters and nieces often
snatched from the flames letters of adulation as well as censure which
he had not read. Although he respected the opinions of his
fellow-men, he did not seek office or worldly honor. A few years
since, one to whom he ever spoke freely, remarked to him that some
believed that he was making efforts to obtain the presidency. At that
moment he had taken off his glasses, and was wiping them, and thus he
replied: "M----, I think when a man is too old to see clearly through
his glasses, he is too old to think of the presidency." And recently
he said to her, "They may impute what motives they please to me, but I
do not seek office." So much did he respect his country, that he might
have been gratified by the free gift of the people; so much did he
love his country, that he might have rejoiced at an opportunity to
serve it, but would he have swerved one iota from his convictions to
secure a kingdom? Who that knew him believes it?
It has been said by that brilliant satirist Horace Walpole, that every
man has his price. I never did believe so evil a thing; I have been
too conversant with the great and good to believe this libel; and I
doubt not there are others beside Mr. Calhoun who value truth and
honor above all price or office.
Highly as our great statesman regarded appreciation, yet he could
endure to be misrepresented. While his glorious eye would light with
more brilliant lustre at the greeting of friendship or the earnest
expression of confidence, he rose superior to abuse or censure. I
believe it was ever thus while in health. The last winter, dying in
the Senate chamber, his feeble frame could ill repel the piercing
shafts of his antagonists. The ebbing currents in his pulses were
accelerated. He could not desert his post, though the contest raged
fiercely, but his great soul was wounded. He loved his country, he
loved the Union, and it was a great grief to him in his last hours to
be misunderstood and misrepresented. Still, he was consoled by the
thought that in the end he would be appreciated. Some one remarked to
him that he was a very unpopular man. He replied, "I am, among
politicians, but not among the people, and you will know this when I
am dead."
Though Mr. Calhoun acknowledged, in his own winning way, the
involuntary tributes of friendship and admiration, he courteously
declined, whenever he could with propriety, public testimonies of
homage which were offered to him. His wife shared with him this
unostentatious spirit, preferring the voice of friendship to the
acclamations of the multitude. I have heard some of his family say
that they coveted nothing, not even the presidency, for him. They,
with many of us who knew him, felt that even the first gift of a great
nation could not add one gem to his crown--that crown of genius and
virtue, whose glorious beauty no mortal power could illumine with new
effulgence.
His sincerity was perfect. What he thought he said. He was no
diplomatist. Some of his theories might seem paradoxical, but a
paradox is not necessarily a contradiction. He has been accused of
inconsistency. Those who thus accuse him do him grievous wrong.
Nothing is more inconsistent than to persist in a uniform belief when
changing circumstances demand its modification. How absurd to preserve
a law which in the progress of society has become null and obsolete!
for instance, granting to a criminal "the benefit of clergy."
"Nothing," says a distinguished English writer, "is so revolutionary
as to attempt to keep all things fixed, when, by the very laws of
nature, all things are perpetually changing. Nothing is more arrogant
than for a fallible being to refuse to open his mind to conviction."
When Mr. Calhoun altered his opinion, consistency itself required the
change.
However some of his political sentiments might have differed from
those of many of the great and good of the age, he was sincere in
them, and believed what he asserted with all the earnestness of an
enthusiastic nature, with all the faith of a close and independent
thinker, and with all the confidence of one who draws his conclusions
from general principles and not from individual facts. Time will test
the truth of his convictions. It has been said that he was sectional
in his feelings, but surely his heart was large enough to embrace the
whole country. It has often been said that he wished to sever the
Union, but he loved the Union, nor could he brook the thought of
disunion if by any means unity could be preserved. Because he foresaw
and frankly said that certain effects must result from certain causes,
does this prove that he desired these effects? In his very last speech
he speaks of disunion as a "great disaster." But he was not a man to
cry "peace, peace, when there was no peace." Although like Cassandra
he might not be believed, he would raise his warning voice; he was not
a man to hide himself when a hydra had sprung up which threatened to
devastate our fair and fertile land from its northern borders to its
southern shores. And while he called on the south for union, did he
not warn the conservative party at the north that this monster was not
to be tampered with? And did he not call on them to unite, and arise
in their strength, and destroy it?
And how could he, with his wise philosophy, his knowledge of human
nature, and universal benevolence, view with indifference that
unreflecting and wild (or should I not say _savage_) philanthropy,
which in order to sustain abstract principles loses sight of the
happiness and welfare of every class of human beings? How often did he
entreat that discussion on those subjects, beyond the right of
legislation, should be prevented, that angry words and ungenerous
recrimination should cease! Did he not foresee that such discussions
would serve to develop every element of evil in all the sections of
the country--a country with such capacities for good? Did he unwisely
fear that the ancient fable of Cadmus would be realized--that
dragon-teeth, recklessly scattered, would spring up armed? And did he
not know that the southern heart could not remain insensible to
reproach and aggression?
"Non obtusa adeo gestamus pectora Poeni:
Nec tam aversus equos Tyria Sol jungit, ab urbe."
And, ah, how earnestly did he plead for peace, and truth, and justice!
As far as I understood him, he wished to benefit by his policy in
affairs both the south and the north. I remember, in speaking to me of
free trade, he expressed the opinion that the course he recommended
would benefit the north as well as the south. This he did not merely
assert, but sustained with frequent argument. In his conversation
there was a remarkable blending of fact and theory, of a knowledge of
the past and an insight into the future.
Mr. Calhoun was a philanthropist in the most liberal sense of the
word. He desired for man the utmost happiness, the greatest good, and
the highest elevation. If he differed from lovers of the race in other
parts of the world, with regard to the means of obtaining these
results, it was not because he failed to study the subject; not
because he lacked opportunities of observation and of obtaining facts;
nor because he indulged in selfish prejudices. From every quarter he
gleaned accessible information, and with conscientious earnestness he
brought his wonderful powers of generalization to bear on the subject
of human happiness and advancement--his pure unselfish heart aiding
his powerful mind.
The good of the least of God's creatures was not beneath his regard;
but he did not believe that the least was equal to the greatest; he
did not think the happiness or elevation of any class could be secured
by a sentiment so unphilosophical. The attempt to reduce all to a
level, to put all minds in uniform, to give all the same employment,
he viewed as chimerical. He said that in every civilized society there
must be division of labor, and he believed the slaves at the south
more happy, more free from suffering and crime, than any corresponding
class in any country. He had no aristocratic pride, but he desired for
himself and others the highest possible elevation. He respected the
artisan, the mechanic, and agriculturist, and considered each of these
occupations as affording scope for native talent. He believed the
African to be most happy and useful under the guidance of an
Anglo-Saxon; he is averse to hard labor and responsible effort; he
likes personal service, and identifies himself with those he serves.
Mr. Calhoun spoke of the great inconsistency of English denunciations
of American slavery, and said that to every man, woman, and child in
England, two hundred and fifty persons were tributary. Although
colonial possessions and individual possessions are by many regarded
as different, he considered them involved in the same general
principle. In considering the rights of man the great question is not,
Has a master a right to hold a slave? but, Has one human being a right
to hold another subordinate? The rights of man may be invaded, and the
idol Liberty cast down, by those who are loudest in their
philanthropic denunciations respecting slavery. Is there as much
cruelty in holding slaves, even under the most unfavorable
circumstances, as in selling into bondage a whole nation?[4] Let the
brave chiefs of the Rohillas answer from the battle-field. Let cries
reply from the burning cities of Rohilcund. Let the princesses of Oude
speak from their prisons.
Close observation, prompted by a kindly heart, had brought Mr. Calhoun
to the opinion that the Africans in this country were happier in
existing circumstances than they would be in any other; that they were
improving in their condition, and that any attempt to change it, at
least at present, would not only be an evil to the country but fraught
with suffering to them. A state of freedom, so called, would be to
them a state of care and disaster. To abolish slavery now would be to
abolish the slave. The race would share the doom of the Indians.
Although here nominally slaves, as a general thing they enjoy more
freedom than any where else; for is not that freedom, where one is
happiest and best, and where there is a correspondence between the
situation and the desires, the condition and the capacities? May we
not say with the angel Abdiel:
"Unjustly thou depravest it with the name
Of servitude, to serve whom God ordains,
Or Nature. God and Nature bid the same,
When he who rules is worthiest, and excels
Them whom he governs. This is servitude,
To serve the unwise."
Mr. Calhoun found the local attachment of the slaves so strong, their
relation to their owners so satisfying to their natures, and the
southern climate so congenial to them, that he did not believe any
change of place or state would benefit them.
These, as nearly as I can recollect, were his opinions on the subject
of slavery, and were expressed to me in several conversations.
Sentiments similar to these are entertained by many high-minded and
benevolent slave-holders. That this institution, like every other, is
liable to abuse, is admitted, but every planter must answer, not for
the institution--for which he is no more accountable than for the fall
of Adam--but for his individual discharge of duty. If, through his
selfishness, or indolence, or false indulgence, or severity, his
servants suffer, then to his Master in heaven he must give account.
But those who obey the divine mandate, "Give unto your servants that
which is just and equal," need not fear. In the endeavor to perform
their duty in the responsible sphere in which they were placed by no
act of their own, they can repose even in the midst of the wild storm
which threatens devastation to our fertile land; they can look away
from the judgment of the world, nor will they, even if all the powers
of earth bid them, adopt a policy which will ruin themselves, their
children, and the dependent race in their midst; they will not cast a
people they are bound to protect on the tender mercies of the cruel.
In their conservative measures they are, and must be, supported at the
north, by men of liberal and philosophical minds, of extended views,
and benevolent hearts. But I have said far more on this subject than I
intended, and will add only that those who do not, from personal
observation, know this institution in its best estate, cannot easily
understand the softened features it often wears, nor the high virtues
exhibited by the master, and the confiding, dependent attachment of
the servant. Often is the southern planter as a patriarch in olden
times. Those who are striving to sever his household know not what
they do.
Well may we who live in these troubled times exclaim with Madame
Roland, the martyr of the false principles of her murderers, "O
Liberté! O Liberté! que de crimes on commet en ton nom!" This she
said, turning to the statue of liberty beside the scaffold. Liberty
unrestrained degenerates into license. There may be political freedom
without social liberty. Says Lamartine, speaking of the inhabitants of
Malta, "Ils sont esclaves de la loi immuable de la force que Dieu leur
fait; nous sommes esclaves des lois variables et capricieuses que nous
nous faisons."
A few years' residence on this soil might teach even a Wilberforce to
turn in his philanthropy to other and wider fields of action.
Of Mr. Calhoun's character as a master much might be said, for all who
knew him admit that it was exemplary. But we need not multiply
examples to prove his unaffected goodness, and I will repeat only a
circumstance or two, which, by way of illustrating some subjects
discussed, he incidentally mentioned to me. One related to a free
negro, formerly a slave in Carolina, but then living in one of our
northern cities, who came to him in Washington, begging him to
intercede for his return to Carolina. He represented his condition as
deplorable, said that he could not support himself and family by his
trade, (he was a shoemaker,) and that not being able to obtain
sufficient food or fuel in that cold climate, they were almost frozen.
"When I told him," said Mr. Calhoun, "that I would do all I could for
him, he seized both my hands in his and expressed fervent gratitude."
At another time, speaking of a family whom his son designed to take to
Alabama, he told me that the mother of the family came to him and said
she would prefer to stay with her master and mistress on the
plantation, even if all her children went with master A. Mr. Calhoun
added, "I could not think of her remaining without either of her
children; and as she chose to stay, we retained her youngest son, a
boy of twelve years."
Mr. Calhoun required very little of any one, doing more for others
than he asked of them. He seemed to act upon the principle that the
strong should bear the burthens of the weak. In sickness he feared to
give trouble, and unless his friends insisted, would have little done
for him. "Energetic as he was," said a near relative, "he would lie
patiently all day, asking for nothing." His sensibility was of the
most unselfish nature. Some months before his death, and after he left
Fort Hill the last time, he said he felt that death was near, much
nearer than he was willing to have his family know, and added that he
wished to give all the time he could spare from public duty to
preparation for death. While suffering from increasing illness at
Washington, still, as he hoped to return again to his family, he was
unwilling, though they anxiously awaited his summons, that they should
be alarmed, saying he could not bear to see their grief. No doubt his
conscientious spirit felt that his country at that critical moment
demanded his best energies, and that he should be unnerved by the
presence of his nearest friends; and loving his own family as he did,
and so beloved as he was by them, he serenely awaited the approach of
the king of Terrors, and suffered his last sorrow far from his home,
cheered only by one watcher from his household.
There was a beautiful adaptation in his bearing--a just appreciation
of what was due to others, and a nice sense of propriety. I have had
opportunities to compare his manners with those of other great men.
His kind and unaffected interest was expressed in a way peculiarly
dignified and refined. Some men appear to think they atone for a low
estimate of our sex by flattery. Not so with Mr. Calhoun. He paid the
highest compliment which could be paid to woman, by recognizing in her
a soul--a soul capable of understanding and appreciating. Of his
desire for her improvement and elevation he gave substantial proofs.
Although Fort Hill was five miles from the female academy he never
suffered an examination to pass without honoring it with his presence.
He came not for the sake of form, but he exhibited an interest in the
exercises, and was heard to comment upon them afterwards in a manner
which showed that he had given them attention. He never reminded you
that his hours were more precious than yours. The question may be
asked how could he, amid his great and stern duties, find time for
attention to those things from which so many men excuse themselves on
the plea of business. But he wasted no time, and by gathering up its
fragments, he had enough and to spare. I have before said that his
kind acts were his recreations.
Were I asked wherein lay the charm which won the hearts of all who
came within his circle, I could not at once reply. It was perhaps his
perfect _abandon_, his sincerity, his confidential manner, his
childlike simplicity, in union with his majestic intelligence, and his
self-renunciation--the crowning virtue of his life: these imparted the
vivid enjoyment and the delightful repose which his friends felt in
his presence. It was often not so much what he said as his manner of
saying it, that was so impressive. Never can I forget an incident
which occurred at the time when a war with England, on account of
Oregon, seemed impending. He arrived in Charleston during the
excitement on that subject. He was asked in the drawing-room if he
thought there would be a war. He waived an answer, saying that for
some time he had been absent from home and had received no official
documents; but as he passed with us from the drawing-room to the
street door, he said to me in his rapid, earnest manner, "I anticipate
a severe seven months' campaign. I have never known our country in
such a state." War has a terror for me, and I said, "Oh, Mr. Calhoun,
do not let a war arise. Do all you can to prevent it." He replied, "I
will do all, in honor, I can do," and paused. A thousand thoughts
seemed to pass over his face, his soul was in his eyes, and bending a
little forward, as if bowed by a sense of his responsibility and
insufficiency, he added, speaking slowly and with emphasis and with
the deepest solemnity, as if questioning with himself, "_But what can
one man do?_" I see him now. No painting or sculpture could remind me
so truly of him as does my faithful memory. But I will not dwell on
the subject, for I fear I can never by words convey to the mind of
another the impression which I received of his sincerity, and of his
devotion to his country and to the cause of humanity. How he redeemed
his pledge to do all that he, in honor, could do, his efforts in the
settlement of the Oregon question truly show. When next I saw him I
told him how much I was delighted with his Oregon speech. In his
kindest manner he replied, "I am glad I can say any thing to please
you."
The last time I saw Mr. Calhoun, you, my brother, were with me. You
remember that his kind wife took us to his room, and that you remarked
the cheerfulness and affability with which he received us, although
his feeble health had obliged him to refuse almost every one that day.
We shall see him no more, but his memory will linger with us.
To you I would commend him as an example. Read his letter to a young
law-student. As you are so soon to enter the profession of law, such a
model as Mr. Calhoun may be studied with advantage. While I would
never wish any one to lose his own individuality, or to descend to
imitation, I believe that one gifted mind leaves its impress on
another; while I would not deify or canonize a mortal, I would render
homage to one who united such moral attainments to so rare a
combination of intellectual gifts; while it is degrading to ourselves
and injurious to others to lavish unmerited and extravagant praise, it
is a loss not to appreciate a character like his, for it ennobles our
own nature to contemplate the true and the beautiful.
Although it is said that our country is in danger from its ideas of
equality, and its want of reverence and esteem for age, and wisdom,
and office, and talents, and attainments, and virtues--and this
feature of the American character is so strongly impressed that Mar
Yohannah, the Nestorian bishop, said in my presence, in his peculiar
English, "Yes, I know this nation glory in its republicanism, but I am
afraid it will become republican to God"--yet it is a cheering omen
when a man like Mr. Calhoun is so beloved and reverenced. I think
every one who was favored with a personal acquaintance with him will
admit that I have not been guilty of exaggeration, and "will delight
to do him honor."
The question naturally arises, to what are we to ascribe the formation
of such a character? There must have been causes for such effects.
Whence came his temperance, his self-denial, his incorruptible
integrity, his fidelity in every duty, his love for mankind, his
indefatigable efforts for the good of others, and his superiority to
those things which the natural heart most craves? Mr. Calhoun's
childhood was spent among the glorious works of nature, and was
sheltered from the temptations which abound in promiscuous society. He
was the son of pious parents, and by them he was taught the Bible, and
from that source undoubtedly his native gifts were perfected. I have
understood that from early life he was an advocate for the doctrines
of the Bible, as understood by orthodox Christians. I have been told
by relatives of his who were on the most intimate terms with him, that
for some time before his death his mind had seemed to be much occupied
with religious subjects, and that he too often expressed confidence in
the providence of God to leave any doubt as to his trust in Him. An
eminent clergyman, now deceased, said in conversation with another,
that he had often conversed with Mr. Calhoun on the subject of
religion, and had no doubt as to his piety. I have remarked his
reverential air in church, and have known him apparently much
disturbed by any inattention in others. He never united with any
church, and it is my opinion, formed not without some reason, that he
was prevented, not by disregard to any Christian ordinances, but from
personal and conscientious scruples with respect to his
qualifications. He was a man who weighed every thing with mathematical
precision.
Although open as day on topics of general interest, he was reserved in
respect to himself. I do not recollect ever to have heard him speak
egotistically, for his mind seemed always engrossed by some great
thought, and he appears, even at the close of life, to lose all
personal solicitudes in his anxiety for his country. In one of his
last letters he says, "But I must close. This may be my last
communication to you. My end is probably near, perhaps very near.
Before I reach it, I have but one serious wish to gratify--it is to
see my country quieted under some arrangement (alas, I know not what!)
that will be satisfactory to all and safe to the south." His country's
peace, and quietness, and safety, he did not see; he perished in the
storm; and there are many who knew and loved him who cherish the hope
that he is removed to a higher sphere of action--that his noble spirit
has meekly entered into the presence of its author, and that in the
starry courts above he will receive an inheritance "incorruptible,
undefiled, and that fadeth not away."
When I saw the elaborate preparations which were made here in
Charleston for his funeral, knowing his simple tastes and habits, and
his benevolence, I was at first pained, and I thought he would not
have sanctioned so much display. I feared too that solemnity would be
lost in pageantry. But it was not so. There was nothing to jar upon
the feelings of the most sensitive. All was in perfect and mournful
harmony. Silently and reverently his sorrowing countrymen bore his
remains from the steamer where they had reposed, under a canopy
wearing its thirty stars, and when the hearse, so funereal with
mournful drapery and sable plumes, entered the grounds of the citadel,
deep silence brooded over the vast multitude; noiselessly were heads
uncovered, banners dropped--not a sound but that of the tramp of
horses was heard; statue-like was that phalanx, with every eye
uplifted, to the sacred sarcophagus. If there was too much of show, it
was redeemed by the spirit that prompted it: the symbols, significant
and expressive, as they were, faintly shadowed forth the deep and
universal grief; the mournful pageantry, the tolling bell, the muffled
drum, the closed and shrouded stores and houses, gave external signs
of wo, but more impressive and affecting was the peaceful sadness
which brooded over the metropolis while it awaited the relics of the
patriot, and the deep silence which pervaded the vast procession that
followed to the City Hall, the subdued bearing of the crowd who
resorted thither, and the solemnity expressed on every face--for these
told that the great heart of the city and commonwealth wept in hushed
and sincere sorrow over "the mighty fallen in the midst of the
battle."
One day and night the illustrious dead reposed in state in the draped
and darkened Hall. An entrance was formed by the arching palmetto,
that classic tree, under whose branches Dudon the crusader was placed,
when slain in Palestine. On that tree--"altissima palma"--his comrades
placed his trophies. With a spirit as sad as that of the crusaders
when under the verdant foliage of the palm they mourned the noble
Dudon, did those who loved our champion pass beneath that arch, dark
with funereal gloom. The sarcophagus was within a magnificent
catafalque; the canopy rested on Corinthian columns; the bier was
apparently supported by six urns, while three pearl-colored eagles
surmounted the canopy, holding in their beaks the swinging crape.
Invisible lamps cast moonlight beams over the radiated upper surface
of the canopy. Through the day numbers resorted to this hallowed spot,
and at night vigils were held where the dead reposed. When morning
came the chosen guards carried the remains of the great leader to the
church. The funeral car was not allowed to bear these sacred remains
to the tomb, but they were borne by sons of the state, with uncovered
heads. Well might those who saw all these things feel that Carolina
would never be wanting to herself. The body was placed upon the bier,
surrounded by significant offerings, pure flowers and laurel-wreaths.
A velvet pall, revealing in silver lines the arms of the state, the
palmetto, covered the sarcophagus. Above it was a coronet woven of
laurel-leaves, like that which crowned Tasso. Then, in that church,
where columns, arches, and galleries were shrouded in the drapery of
wo, the funeral rites were performed--the mighty dead was placed in
his narrow tomb.
Peerless statesman, illustrious counsellor, devoted patriot, generous
friend, indulgent husband and father, thy humble, noble heart is still
in death; thy life was yielded up at the post of duty; thou hast
perished like a sentinel on guard, a watchman in his tower. "Thou wast
slain in thy high places." Clouds gathered thick and fast about thy
country's horizon, and even thy eagle eye failed in its mournful gaze
to penetrate the gloom which hides its future from mortal eye. Thy
work is finished--peacefully rest with thine own! Thy memory is
enshrined in the hearts of those for whom thy heart ceased its
beating. Thy grave is with us--
"Yet spirit immortal, the tomb cannot bind thee,
For like thine own eagle that soared to the sun,
Thou springest from bondage, and leavest behind thee
A name which before thee few mortals have won."
In reviewing the character of Mr. Calhoun, we find a rare combination
of mental and moral qualities--a union of contrasts. He had genius
with common sense, the power of generalization with the habit of
abstraction, rapidity of thought with application and industry. His
mind was suggestive and logical, imaginative and practical. His noble
ideal was embodied in his daily life. He was at once discursive and
profound; he could soar like the eagle, or hover on unwearied wings
around a minute circle. He meekly bore his lofty endowments; his
childlike simplicity imparted a charm to his transcendent intellect;
he united dignity with humility, sincerity with courtesy, decision
with gentleness, stern inflexibility with winning urbanity, and keen
sensibility with perfect self-command. He was indulgent to others,
denying to himself; he was energetic in health, and patient in
sickness; he combined strict temperance with social habits; he was
reserved in communicating his personal feelings, but his heart was
open on subjects of general interest; he prized the regard of his
fellow-beings, but was superior to worldly pomps and flatteries; he
honored his peers, but was not swayed by their opinions. Equal to the
greatest, he did not despise the least of men. He did not neglect one
duty to perform another. In the Senate he was altogether a senator, in
private and domestic life he was as though he had never entered the
halls of the nation, and had never borne an illustrious part in the
councils of his country.
FOOTNOTES:
[4] _Vide_ Macaulay's article on Warren Hastings, in the Edinburgh Review.
STYLES OF PHILOSOPHIES.
WRITTEN FOR THE INTERNATIONAL MONTHLY MAGAZINE
BY REV. J. R. MORELL,
Translator of Fourier "On the Passions," &c.
The history of literatures, like that of nations, has presented its
varieties as well as its curiosities, and both alike furnish similar
though not identical features.
1st. Families and clans are traceable equally in each development, and
the movements both of literatures and races have displayed a
corresponding monotony and eccentricity, convergence and divergence,
in proportion as they have progressed along the beaten track of
opinion or performed outpost duty as the corps of guides.
2d. Not only is this family likeness obvious in the general
characteristics of ethnography and authorship, but the laws of lineage
and the hereditary transmission of qualities are as strongly marked in
one case as in the other. Letters as well as races have their
hereditary sceptres and coronets; but whereas, in the latter case the
fleshly heir of the great of other days may chance to be unworthy of
his sires, the spiritual sonship of the patrician writer is
stereotyped upon each line and lineament of his nature.
3d. Nor is the connection between words and peoples confined to a law
of analogy running through them both, but they have reacted upon and
moulded each other in a manner curious to relate, and races and
letters have mutually made and unmade each other.
4th. The Indo-Germanic people have left monuments of their sinewy
energy in the psycho-physical characteristics of affiliated races and
tongues, and individual family likenesses may be readily traced
between groups of thinkers and dreamers on the banks of the Ganges, in
the Academy, and at Weimar. Again the mystical semitic world, groaning
beneath the weight of an overwrought ideal, and lacking the ballast of
science and patient thought, has ever and anon given birth to
prodigies and monsters of cabalistic or Gnostic extravagance.
5th. To follow the currents of peoples and tongues, the great
subdivisions of the Teutonic and Romance tribes and literatures, their
virtues and vices have stamped its present physical and moral
character on the face of modern Europe. The Teutonic, representing
strength and depth in word and work, has been the stronghold of
emancipation in life and thought, yet tinctured with the savageness
and chaos of unpolished and disordered nature. The Romance, fettered
by the rhythm of Latinity, has yet possessed that voluptuous wealth of
the ideal and that graceful tracery of thought and wit which have been
denied to the other. The antagonism of the Catholic and Protestant
mind is the result of this contrast, which has, moreover, been
pictured in the tertian fevers of French revolution and in the
mystical skepticism of modern Germany.
As certain races, so also certain families of writers, have in thought
transcended the bounds of the existing and actual, and thrown out from
their brain an ideal past, present, or future, beyond the horizon, and
free from the flaws of their experience. Thus, whilst the followers of
Tao-tse were in China seeking for the drug of immortality, the Greek
and Roman poets and historians were dreaming of a golden age that cast
its radiance over the past, or of that fabled Atlantis and those sweet
Islands of the Blest in the far west--dreams and fables that have been
somewhat justified by modern discovery. Again sacred voices mingled
with these aspirations, and the semitic bards and seers pronounced in
their oracles an Eden for the past and a millenium for the future of
man.
Nor were these views confined to the old world, for the followers of
Columbus found, among the cannibals of the gulf, the traditions of a
fountain of eternal youth, and later travellers were regaled with
gorgeous stories of El Dorado and his empire--traditions and stories
that seemed to point, however obscurely, to the Sitzbath and
Californian riches.
There has likewise been a class of writers broad-cast through the
nations who have sought to mend the present and make the future by
holding the mirror to contemporaneous deformity, or painting the
perspective of an earthly elysium with the rainbow tints of hope.
Negatively or positively, directly or indirectly, these men had, in
common, faith in the regeneration of humanity. Utopias are the
familiar homes of such minds, either because they have a cast in their
eyes, or because they are more clairvoyants than the vulgar herd. In
the spring-time of our race, a Plato reflected on the poetical
extravagancies of his day, and refracted the rays of golden fancy in
the enchanted land of his Republic. The Hebrew seers in like manner,
whilst they apply no measured castigations to the money-changers who
converted the temple of God into a den of thieves, love to soar in
sublimest rhapsody above the valley of dry bones and the shadow of
death cast around them, and to indulge in visions of a vernal future,
when earth should smile in the sunshine of infinite love, when the
wolf should dwell with the lamb and the leopard lie down with the kid,
and a little child should lead them. Affiliated members of this
extensive and venerable company of cynics and seers have ever and anon
in the current of ages lifted a frowning brow above the troubled
waters round about them, and with the same breath that swept like a
tempest over the wintry waste, their cradle and their home, have given
utterance to strains of harmony that told of summer skies to come.
Tracing the tides of the children of men in their eccentric ebbings
and floodings, a little crew of rovers may be ever seen ploughing the
world of waters, true to their principle of keeping aloof from the
gulf-stream. Europe has been the chief nursery of these rovers, whose
voices, though few and far between, have risen above the storms of
evil passions howling about them, and have echoed through the ages.
Thus a Rabelais could laugh the knell of monkery, and with his stentor
voice, rich booming from the classic world of Nature, that had slept
during the dark ages, could crack the babel of spiritual usurpation,
and restore the balance of power between the seen and the unseen. A
Cervantes in like manner could, in the fulness of time, inflict
death-wounds with a stroke of his pen on a superannuated chivalry, and
thus, by negatively giving a _coup de grâce_ to the past, pave the way
for an age of prose. Later in the day a Swift appears, in the heart of
a rotten age, himself infected with the leprosy, yet he smites the
idols of his time, of Stuart progeny, Lust and Lucre, and converts his
fables into a house of correction for a nation's vices. The Tale of a
Tub contains a stream of lustral water, and Gulliver is no mean adept
at the photographic art. The Dean hath taught us how the "positive"
fictions of a madman's brain may indirectly be a school to the nations
at all times and in all seasons.
Poesy has mixed its plaintive strains in the lamentations and oracles
of insane or inspired reformers, and the aberration or illumination of
a kindred spirit breaks forth in the wizard words of a prophet or a
bard. Some favored scions of the royal priesthood and chosen
generation of whom we speak seem to mingle these various and
heterogeneous ingredients, the cynic's lash with the seer's lamp,
mathematical squares and compasses with the conjurations of the
diviner. Their proportions, both harmonious and deformed, bespeak
their consanguinity with an extensive family, whose branches are
scattered through broad lands, and are not confined to a single
variety of the human race, though the quality and quantity of their
_esprit de corps_ may be especially predicated of the Caucasian race.
There are sovereign natures that bespeak the choice blood of rival and
remote races mingling in their veins, and which may claim kinsmanship
in opposite and conflicting clans of teachers. We have Indo-Germanic
minds, whose massive substance is relieved by the arabesque of the
Semitic style of thought, and which, though stamped with the
characteristic mould of their parentage, fling aside much of its
speciality, and stand forth as magnates in the universal aristocracy
of humanity.
An example of a rich nature cast in this mould has been presented of
late years in France, in the person of Charles Fourier. Though
indelibly French, he is still more human, and though Teutonic elements
enter largely as component parts of his frame, and the Romance genius
has cast its sunshine tints over his canvas, yet has he bravely shaken
off the chains of generic and specific modes of thought and sight, and
the priestly hieroglyphs and geometry of Egypt are seen to blend with
Persian dualism and the prophetic wand of Hebrew seers in his pages.
Nay, the mantle of Mohammed might seem to have fallen on his capacious
shoulders, to judge from the strangely glorious flights of his fancy,
and the tangible solids of his elysium. Thus the nations would appear
to have converged towards and centred in this brain, and to have
dropped in their pearls or their paste, as the case might be.
Exaggerating the mathematical precision of French thought, it is yet
tempered in a manner somewhat uncommon, by the most wholesale
picture-writing on which man ever yet ventured. The flaming
double-edged critic's sword is sometimes changed in his hands, after a
manner wonderful to relate, into an Esculapian staff, which farther
suffers a frequent conversion into Mercurian caduceus and Bacchanile
Thyrsus, and at another time assumes the proportions of Midas's wand.
Never was such a many-faced Janus seen in the flesh as this man, who
exceeds Proteus and Hindoo avatars in multiplicity combined with
unity.
The bitter laugh still curls our lips, elicited by his merciless
satire, when the tears of pity come coursing down our cheeks, as he
touches with magic finger the most godlike fibres of the soul.
Luxuriance, bordering on levity, follows fast a sense of justice and
of truth, that might have put a Brutus and an Aristides to the blush.
National contrasts, harmonies, and deformities, all seem reflected in
this representative man.
Yet it would be a very partial view that represented Fourier as
nothing better than an expletive particle added to the genealogical
list of idea-mongers, or a mosaic of valuable relics in earth's
cabinet of curiosities. Though his pen inflicts wounds both broad and
deep, yet a balm is ever at hand. Not satisfied with performing
amputations for the good of the body corporate, he is a professor of
the healing art, and affects to have discovered an elixir that shall
wipe away all tears, by causing pain and sorrow to flee away. I do not
profess to judge of the merits of the case, but one feature
distinguishes Fourier from critics, reformers, and prophets, who are
gathered to their fathers. He is a _scientific_ explorer, and the
plans that he has designed for the future structure of humanity, from
the high order of architecture and mechanics which they exhibit,
discriminate him from the vulgar herd as an originator, and place him
in the category either of eminent scientific adventurers or inventors.
Daring and caution shake hands at every page, and seem exhausted by
his pen. The Archimedian lever found a resting-place in his brain, and
sundry of his thoughts seem not inapt to upheave the world.
If Laplace deserves credit as the creator of a Mechanique Celeste,
Fourier has equal claims to gratitude as the first and only propounder
of a rigidly scientific system of mental mechanics. Though Pythagoras
might smile complacently at his harmonies and sacred numbers, and
Plato clap his hands on seeing so worthy a disciple of his Republic,
yet the fiery Frenchman is but too apt to run counter to the past, and
give a slap in the face to the wisdom of the fore-world. Though hope
and faith ever brighten his pages, we could wish at times for a larger
infusion of charity, to neutralize the gall in which his pen was
dipped. Yet he nobly vindicates his claim as a reformer by the lash he
applies with no measured hand to injustice, falseness, and hypocrisy,
under whatever guise they may appear.
REMINISCENCES OF PARIS, FROM 1817 TO 1848.
On the original publication of this work, in German, at Berlin, we
gave in the _International_ some account of it; and we avail ourselves
of the notice in the _Athenæum_ of an English translation of it which
has just appeared in London, to give some of its best passages. In the
capital of a nation which, above all others, has been wont to project
its gravest interests into the circles of fashion and gayety, the
period included between 1817 and 1848 must have been rich indeed in
matter for observation of all kinds, by the foreigner admitted to its
saloons. With Waterloo at one end of the line, and the overthrow of
Louis Philippe at the other, what a world of change lies
between!--what unexpected turns of fortune, each throwing some new
tint on the chameleon-play of social existence! We may not expect a
lady's eye to see more than its outward features. But these alone, in
such a scene and period, are themselves enough to give some permanent
historical value, as well as a present attraction to the survey, if
only taken with common feminine intelligence.
It is true that the retrospect is not actually so rich as the above
dates would imply.--Connected notices of what might be seen in
Parisian circles do not extend beyond the first seven years of the
period in question. Afterwards, there is nearly a total hiatus, except
in the two departments of music and painting--anecdotes of which are
continued almost to the close of the Orleans dynasty. Of the persons
and events which otherwise filled the scene from 1828 downwards, the
_Reminiscences_ are wholly silent, or only introduce one or two
figures by anticipation while dwelling on the period of the
Restoration. The volume ends, indeed, with a story, in which some of
the very latest exhibitions of somnambulism serve to introduce a
Spanish romance, founded, it may be, on a basis of fact, but evidently
dressed up for effect by one not well enough acquainted with the Spain
of this century to give to the composition a probable air. But here
the display in the Parisian saloon is merely an occasional overture to
the melo-drama that follows; and we learn next to nothing of the new
faces and new fashions which the writer may have seen during the
second half of the term included in her title. What is now published,
therefore, can only be taken as a fragment--destined, perhaps, to be
further completed at some future time.
The work appears anonymously; and it might be uncourteous to pry into
the condition of the writer, beyond what it has pleased herself to
reveal. This is to the effect that she came to Paris, unmarried, and
hardly out of her teens, from some part of Germany, in the second year
of the Restoration, and, at first, was chiefly conversant with the
circles of the _haute finance_. We afterwards hear of her marriage, of
journeyings and absences, and see her in contact with various circles,
but, above all, with painters and musicians; intimate also with
Henriette, the daughter of the celebrated Jewish philosopher,
Mendelssohn. She left Paris, she further says, before the explosion of
1848. More of her personal history she does not tell--and we shall not
take the liberty of guessing.
Her notes are penned without any attempt at order; and make no
pretence to dive far beneath the surface of what she saw in the world.
They contain such light, lady-like reflections as one may fancy taken
down without effort from the kaleidoscope of Paris life, in its balls,
_soirées_, and promenades; and such anecdotes of notable things and
persons as were current in ordinary company--many of which are well
known, having been already reported by others. Here and there a
graphic trait, or a remark above the level of commonplace, gives token
of more lively intelligence, but the general character of the
reminiscence is merely gossipping--just on the ordinary level of such
observations and ideas as prevail in the common talk of the saloons.
It is only when she touches on the fine arts, especially on music,
that the lady displays decidedly clever notions of her own. Gleanings
of this easy kind, from any lesser field than Paris, might hardly have
been worth preserving; here, the abundance of matter is so great, that
even the most careless hand returns from that strange harvest with
some gatherings of value.
Among these we shall dip here and there, without attempting more order
in selection than the author herself has observed in arranging her
notes. Each may be read by and for itself without any disadvantage
whatever.
In no respect, perhaps, does the Paris of to-day differ more from that
of thirty years since than in the article of domestic comfort. After
praising Madame Thuret, one of the financial _lionnes_ of the
Restoration, for her attention to neatness, the lady adds:--
In Paris generally there was a marked contrast to this; as
well as to the Parisian cleanliness of present times. In
those days, even the dwellings of people of competent means,
there was not a trace of comfort. I have a lively
recollection of what happened when one of the younger
partners of M. Thuret gave a ball soon after his marriage.
Although the youth was rich, and had married a wealthy young
lady, the young couple, according to the Parisian custom of
the time, lived with their parents; who, rich as they were,
desiring to be richer still, had let out their splendid
hotel up to the fourth story. In this fourth story the whole
family lived together. After the Parisian finery, I was not
less struck with the Parisian filth of those days; and, in
truth, I should vainly try to paint my amazement on finding
myself compelled, while ascending the staircase, which was
actually plastered with dirt, to hold up my dress as high as
possible in order to appear tolerably clean in the
ball-room.
But if modern Paris has improved in this respect, it has, on the other
hand, we are told, lost far more in the chapter of manners. The
generation born during the first Revolution still preserved some of
the older style of social bearing; but, in the present descendants, we
may now vainly seek for any of the graces that once gave to France her
European credit for politeness.
The French, after lording it over the capitals of Europe for so many
years, were impatient to the last degree of the retribution which the
allied armies brought to their own doors in 1816. Even a returning
_émigré_ could not restrain his rage on finding that--
foreigners held the fortresses, and that he had to submit
his passport for a _vise_ to Prussian, Russian, or English
authorities; and he lost all command of himself at the idea
of the prostration of the _grande gloire Française_.... The
same wrath at the occupation of France by foreign troops--an
occupation which lasted for hardly three years--whereas the
French had ravaged Germany for full twenty, from the siege
of Mentz to the battle of Leipsic, was then felt in Paris by
all classes. Every little theatre on the Boulevards played
some piece referring to it in all the _refrains_ urging the
foreigners to be off at once; all the print-shops were full
of caricatures of the English and Russians. The German
soldiers, by-the-by, were, without exception, called
Prussians. At that time there was less hatred expressed
towards the Russians; in the theatres even the people would
point with curiosity to Lostopchin, the author of the
conflagration at Moscow. The hatred of the Russians grew
much more decided under Nicholas. Alexander, on the
contrary, was personally popular. Strictly speaking, the
Prussians were detested; while the English, on the contrary,
served as a perpetual butt for ridicule and wit. Their
language, gestures, dress, afforded a complete series of
dramas and caricatures.
This soreness of France under a very light application of her own
Continental system, brings to mind an anecdote from the papers of the
time, which is worth preserving:--
When the Prussian army entered Paris, one of its officers
made particular interest to be quartered in a certain hotel
in the Faubourg St Germain, the residence of a widow lady of
rank. On taking possession of his billet, the Colonel at
once haughtily refused the apartments offered him; and,
after a survey of the premises, insisted on having the best
suite on the first floor, then occupied by the lady of the
house herself. She protested and entreated in vain--the
Colonel was harsh and peremptory,--the lady had to abandon
her sitting-room, boudoir, and bed-room, and content herself
with the chambers intended for the officer. From these,
however, she was as rudely dislodged on the next day, the
Colonel demanding them for his orderly, and the lady had at
last to creep into a servant's garret. This was not all. On
first taking possession of his rooms the officer had
summoned the _maitre d'hotel_, and commanded a rich dinner
of twelve covers for the entertainment of a party of his
comrades. They came--the cellar had to yield its choicest
wines; the house was filled with bacchanalian uproar. The
orgy was repeated both on the next day and on the next
following. On the morning afterwards the officer presented
himself before the lady of the house. "You are perhaps
somewhat annoyed by my proceedings in your hotel?"
"Certainly," was the reply, "I think I have cause to
complain of the manner in which the law of the strongest has
been used here, in defiance of the commonest regard due to
my sex and age. I have been roughly expelled from every
habitable room in my own house, and thrust into a garret; my
servants have been maltreated; with my plate and provisions
and the best of my cellar, you have forced them to wait on
the riotous feasting of your comrades. I have appealed to
your generosity, to your courtesy, but in vain. I protest
against such conduct. It is unworthy of a soldier." "Madam,"
replied the Prussian, "what you say is perfectly true. Such
conduct is brutal and unbecoming. I have the honor to inform
you that what you have justly complained of for the last
three days is but a faint copy of the manner in which your
son daily behaved himself in my mother's house in Berlin
_for more than six months_ after the Battle of Jena. From me
you shall have no further annoyance. I shall now retire to
an inn. The hotel is entirely at your own disposal." The
lady blushed, and was silent.
We can hardly choose amiss among the portrait sketches. Here is the
Princess of Chimay, once celebrated as the fair Spanish Cabarus--or
Madame Tallien of the "18th Brumaire." After giving up a name which
she had no legal right to bear, she married the Count Caraman before
he succeeded to a princely title. In 1818, this heroine--
was some forty years old. Her age was partly open to
positive proof, as in '94 she was known to have just reached
her twentieth year--it was partly shown by a fulness of
person, rather tending to corpulence, which betrayed the
retreat of her younger bloom; but still you would rarely
find another beauty so well preserved, or a general
appearance equally imposing. Tall, full, gorgeous, she
reminded you of the historical beauties of antiquity. Such a
figure you might imagine as an Ariadne, Dido, or Cleopatra.
With a perfect bust, arms, and shoulders; white as an
animated statue, regular features, beaming eyes, pearly
teeth, hair raven black--hearing, speech, motion, still
ravishingly perfect. Her costume, too, had a certain Grecian
character.
Among the painters, Gérard was the lady's chosen intimate. When she
first knew him, he had already been long famous and rich; but he seems
to have taken pleasure in recalling the struggles of his early career.
It was, in many respects, a strange one:--
His father was a Frenchman, who belonged to the domestic
establishment of the Cardinal de Bernis, then ambassador at
Rome. His mother, whose name was Tortoni, was the daughter
of a plain Roman citizen. In 1782, Gérard's parents, with
their three boys, of whom François, the eldest, was now
twelve, returned to France, where the father died in 1789. A
year afterwards the widow went back with her children to her
own country, but had to return to France once more, for the
preservation of a small income important in her narrow
circumstances. On this occasion, besides her sons, she came
back with her little brother Tortoni and his infant sister,
some years younger than her eldest son François. Thus there
was in the house an aunt younger than her nephew.
The family found it hard enough to live at all in Paris: and when
François's great talent for drawing revealed itself, the household
means were further pinched to provide him with paper and pencils.
Under all obstacles, however, his powers soon grew evident: he got at
last an introduction to David, and became his pupil:--
Gérard was created the perfect opposite, both physically and
morally, of David. David was tall, with distorted features,
rough, furious, cruel. Gérard was small, with a pleasing,
regular physiognomy, delicate, soft, generous.... He would
often tell how he was forced in those days (during the reign
of terror) to deceive his master David, in order to preserve
his own life. David, who in his zeal for reforming the world
had become one of the most active members of the Committee
of Safety, was incessantly busied in providing that bloody
tribunal with familiars. Every one belonging to him, who
desired his own preservation, was forced either to adopt
republicanism in David's sense, or to evade it by some kind
of deception. Gérard, although in perfect health, escaped
the honor designed him by feigning sickness; and went about
in public on crutches, which, however, he threw down the
instant he knew himself safe from observation. Gérard's
mother had died in 1792. Her brother, the painter's uncle,
now a grown youth, took up the queer fancy of showing the
Parisians the excellent manner in which the Romans are
skilled in making confectioner's ices. The success of the
_Café Tortoni_, on the _Boulevard des Italiens_, has now
been for some fifty years known to all Europe. One of the
children (Gérard) was dead, the youngest provided for
elsewhere; and thus, after his mother's death, the young
painter of two-and-twenty was left alone with his aunt,
Mlle. Tortoni, who was but two years his junior. She became
his wife. When relating the above, she would add, with
_naïveté_, "At that time my nephew was in a manner forced to
marry me, unless he chose to turn me out into the street. We
were poor, but contented. Gérard's talent, as yet little
known, and destitute of suitable means for its exercise,
supported us, however, barely; and I continued to sew, darn,
cook, carry water, and cut wood for our little household, as
I had been wont to do before, when assisting his mother, my
sister. In those days there was no marrying in the church,
no priest, no banns. A few days after the death of my
sister, we appeared in our poor work-a-day clothes, before
the _maire_. He joined our hands, and then we became a
couple."
Some months were passed in this obscure poverty, until calmer times
prevailed in Paris. Isabey had somehow become aware of the young
painter's talent, and now urged him to exhibit a picture at the first
Exhibition. Gérard produced the sketch of his _Bélisaire_;[5] but
declared he had no means to paint it on a grand scale. Isabey hereupon
assisted him; and, after the picture was finished and exhibited with
success, procured him a purchaser, at the price of 100 Louis d'or.
"On the receipt of this sum," Madame Gérard went on, "we
were nearly losing our wits for joy. We were ravished, like
mere children, by the glitter of the shining gold, which we
kept again and again rolling through our fingers. We, who
until now could not even afford to buy a common candlestick,
so that we had to cut a hole in our poor wooden table to
stick the rushlight in,--we now had a hundred louis!" By
degrees Gérard advanced to a high European name; but those
only who knew him personally could have any idea of his
amiable, refined nature, of his pleasant conversation, of
the various acquirements and highly intellectual
peculiarities of this eminent man, who took up with equal
clearness many of the most dissimilar sciences. You forgot
time with him, or gladly gave him up the whole night, as he
seldom made his appearance in company at his own house
before ten.
Before leaving the grim figure of the old Revolution for more modern
sketches, we must correct the lady's statement of its victims, in
which she quite exceeds the utmost latitude of feminine gossip. "_Two
millions of heads_" she assigns as the food of the devouring
guillotine--a number transcendent, even for lady rhetoric. It is some
_five hundred_ times more than the largest estimate of those even who
have done their best to aggravate the tale of its horrors. The
Convention, when grown Anti-Jacobin, and anxious, of course, to
justify its destruction of Robespierre and his fellows, it published
lists of the sufferers, could not bring the number of the guillotined
up to a full _two_ thousand. Montgaillard, who complains that the
returns were incomplete, may be taken as the author of the most
extreme calculation on this subject: he does not get beyond a total of
_four_ thousand victims, including those who perished by _fusillades_
and _noyades_. Even an anonymous lady cannot be suffered to pass with
such a terrific exaggeration unquestioned. In 1823, she was present at
an opening of the Chambers by "Louis the Desired," now grown fatter,
it seems, than was desirable for such an operation. Indeed--
he could no longer walk; on this account the session was
held in the Louvre; and the manner in which he suddenly
pushed out on his low rolling chair, from beneath a curtain,
which was quickly drawn back, as it is done on the stage,
and as rapidly closed again, had an effect at once painful
and ludicrous. Both these feelings were increased by the
shrill piping treble which came squeaking forth from this
unlucky corpulent body.... His brother, the Comte d'Artois,
afterwards Charles the Tenth, was tall and thin, and had
retained to his advanced age that habit of shuffling about
with his legs, which teachers and governors had vainly tried
to cure him of while young. He could not keep his body still
for a single instant. His protruded head, his mouth always
open, would of themselves have seemed to indicate mere
stupidity rather than cunning, had not this impression been
contradicted, partly by the vivacity of his eyes, and partly
by his too notorious habit of intriguing. This idiotic air
of poking forward the head, with the mouth always open--but
aggravated by quite lifeless and almost totally closed
eyes--was apparent in a still higher degree in his eldest
son, the Duke of Angoulême. In the face of his wife there
were still visible some traces, if not of a former beauty,
at least of something characteristic and noble. In spite of
her withered, lean figure, her gait was firm and majestic;
but the terrorists of the Revolution had heaped misery of
every kind in double and three-fold measure on this unhappy
daughter of Louis the Sixteenth, and their cannibal severity
had broken her heart for ever.... The Duchess of Berri, a
Neapolitan princess, wife of the youngest son of the Count
d'Artois, was young, but had been ill-treated by nature in
her outward appearance. She was short, thin, with hair
blonde almost to whiteness, and a kind of reddish fairness
of complexion. In her irregular features, in her eyes which
all but squinted, no kind of expression could be
detected--not even that of frivolity, which she was accused
of.... To both these ladies the rigorously-prescribed
court-dress, as worn in open day, without candlelight, was
very unbecoming. It consisted of a short white satin dress,
called _jupe_, which means a dress without a train; the
front breadth richly embroidered with gold, with a cut-out
body, and short sleeves, leaving the neck and arms
bare,--the effect of which was absolutely pitiable on the
superannuated, yellow, and withered Duchess of Angoulême.
Around the waist a golden ceinture held up a colored velvet
skirt, with an enormous train, but no body. In front, this
kind of outer dress, called _manteau de cour_, was open, and
trimmed all round with broad lace. The head was decorated,
or rather disfigured, by a thick upright plume of tall white
ostrich feathers, to which were attached behind two long
ends of blonde lace, called _barbes_, which hung down the
back. On the forehead a closely-fitting jewelled diadem was
worn, and diamond ornaments on the neck and arms, according
to the usual fashion.
From such court scarecrows let us turn to keep a last corner for a
figure of more modern and genial appearance--though this, too, was
saddening, and is now, like the rest, grown a mere shadow. The lady
saw much of the musician Chopin after 1832, and speaks of him with
warm affection, and with a fine feeling of his genius:--
He was a delicate, graceful figure, in the highest degree
attractive--the whole man a mere breath--rather a spiritual
than a bodily substance,--all harmony, like his playing. His
way of speaking, too, was like the character of his
art--soft, fluctuating, murmuring. The son of a French
father and of a Polish mother, in him the Romance and
Sclavonic dialects were combined, as it were, in one perfect
harmony. He seemed, indeed, hardly to touch the piano; you
might have fancied he would do quite as well without as with
the instrument: you thought no more of the mechanism,--but
listened to flute-like murmurs, and dreamed of hearing
Æolian harps stirred by the ethereal breathings of the wind;
and with all this--in his whole wide sphere of talents given
to him alone--always obliging, modest, unexacting! He was no
pianoforte player of the modern sort: he had fashioned his
art quite alone in his own way, and it was something
indescribable. In private rooms as well as in concerts, he
would steal quietly, unaffectedly, to the piano; was content
with any kind of seat; showed at once, by his simple dress
and natural demeanor, that he abhorred every kind of grimace
and quackery; and began, without any prelude, his
performance. How feeling it was--how full of soul!... When I
first knew him, though far from strong, he still enjoyed
good health; he was very gay, even satirical, but always
with moderation and good taste. He possessed an
inconceivable comic gift of mimicry, and in private circles
of friends he diffused the utmost cheerfulness both by his
genius and his good spirits.... Hallé has now the best
tradition of his manner.
We pause, not for want of matter, but for want of room. Besides its
lively sketches, the book contains some materials of a tragic
interest--to which we may return.
FOOTNOTES:
[5] It is now, or was not long since, at Munich, in the Leuchtenburg
Gallery.
THE LAST JOSEPH IN EGYPT.
A writer in the July number of _Bentley's Miscellany_ describes some
official experiences in Egypt during the reign of Mehemet Ali, and
among various curious incidents has the following of Boghos Bey, the
prime minister of the Pacha, who then played a no inconsiderable part
on the stage of European diplomacy, more particularly as relating to
the, at that period, all-engrossing "Eastern Question."
"By birth an Armenian, in early life Boghos Bey was dragoman or
interpreter to Mr. Wherry, then English consul at Smyrna; but he gave
up that appointment, to accompany, in a similar capacity, the Turkish
army, which, during the occupation of Egypt by the French, was sent to
co-operate at Alexandria with Sir Ralph Abercrombie's British force.
At the close of the war, on the expulsion of the French, he remained
in Egypt, where he attached himself to the rising fortunes of Mehemet
Ali, with whom he successively occupied the post of interpreter,
secretary, and finally that of prime minister, when his master--from
the Albanian adventurer--became the self-elected successor of the
Pharaohs and Ptolomies.
"On one occasion, Boghos having got into disgrace, Mehemet Ali ordered
his prime minister to be placed in a sack and thrown into the Nile. It
was supposed that this cruel sentence had been duly carried into
effect. However, the British consul in Egypt at that time, managed to
get something else smuggled into the sack, whilst he smuggled old
Boghos into his own residence, where the latter long remained
concealed, until, on one occasion, the financial accounts got so
entangled, that Mehemet Ali expressed to the British consul his regret
that Boghos Bey was no longer there to unravel the complicated web of
difficulties in which he found himself entangled: whereupon old Boghos
was produced, pardoned, reinstated in his office, acquired more
influence than ever, and was, at the time referred to, the very
'Joseph' of the land."
THE ENGLISH IN AMERICA: BY THE AUTHOR OF "SAM SLICK."
Mr. Justice Haliburton obtained some notoriety and a certain degree of
popularity by his broad caricatures of common life in New England.
These books did not display very eminent ability even for the rather
low and mean field in which the author found congenial occupation, but
the old jokes transplanted into our republican soil had a seeming
freshness in the eyes of buyers of cheap books, and they were
profitable to paper-makers and printers, until the patience of the
public could tolerate no more of their monotonous vulgarity. Judge
Haliburton has since essayed a more serious vein, and being wholly
without originality, has fallen into the old track of depreciation,
sneering, and vituperation, in the expectation that any form of attack
upon the people of the United States would sell, at least in England.
The unfortunate gentleman was mistaken, as the following very kind
reviewal of his book, which we transfer to _The International_ from
_The Athenæum_ of July 26, will show.
"THE ENGLISH IN AMERICA. _By the Author of 'Sam Slick,' &c._
This is a vulgar and violent political pamphlet, which will
fill no small part of the admirers of 'Sam Slick' with alarm
and astonishment. The 'English in America' are in these two
volumes set forth principally as a parcel of uncouth,
disingenuous, and repulsive Puritans, who emigrated to
America in the early part of the seventeenth century for the
sake of an easier indulgence in disloyalty and schism.
Confining himself almost wholly to the events which took
place in the colony of Massachusetts, Judge Haliburton has
thought it worth while to write a book, half declamation and
half treatise, against Democracy and Dissent,--which seem to
him to be the two giant evils that oppress mankind. It is no
part of our function to discuss the abstract merits of
either of these questions; but it is perfectly within our
province to point out the errors and faults of those writers
who imagine that they can serve a party purpose by making a
convenient and derogatory use of literature.
"In the first place, then, we say that the volumes before us
are essentially unfair. The 'English in America' have not
really and truly been _such_ English as are there
described,--nor has their career been such as is there
narrated,--nor generally are the actual facts of the case
logically and impartially stated in these volumes. Judge
Haliburton colors and distorts almost every event and
circumstance to which he refers; and there is a coarseness
and rancor in the manner in which he speaks of nearly all
persons and parties who differ from him in opinion, which
has surprised and shocked us. There was no occasion whatever
for all this vehemence. In the first place, the facts
connected with the early history of the British settlements
in America are too well known to permit any attempt at
systematic and unscrupulous disparagement of the early
Puritan colonists to be in any important degree successful.
In the next place, the questions which Judge Haliburton
professes to consider have been for all practical purposes
discussed and decided long ago. In the last place, we are
quite sure that no writer on questions of colonial policy
could more effectually cut himself off from all sympathy and
influence than by the adoption of an excited and menacing
tone.
"We find in the introductory chapter to these volumes a
statement to the effect that one of the chief objects in
writing them has been to inform Englishmen that Democracy
did not appear for the first time in America during the War
of Independence; and that the peculiar form of religion that
prevailed at an early period in the New England States
exerted a very powerful influence over their politics and
modes of government. Surely there is nothing new in all
this. There is no great discovery here which required for
its introduction the expenditure of so much labor and
vehemence. We had imagined that the great orations of Burke
on Conciliation with America had exhausted long ago not only
all the facts but most of the philosophy which is contained
in the general view now revived by the author of 'Sam
Slick.' There are a sentence or two in one of the most
famous passages of perhaps the greatest of these orations
which seem to anticipate the present volumes most
completely. 'All Protestantism,' said Burke more than
seventy years ago, 'even the most cold and passive, is a
sort of dissent. But the religion most prevalent in our
northern colonies is a refinement on the principle of
resistance; it is the dissidence of dissent, and the
Protestantism of the Protestant religion. This religion,
under a variety of denominations, agreeing in nothing but in
the communication of the spirit of liberty, is predominant
in most of the northern provinces; where the Church of
England, notwithstanding its legal rights, is in reality no
more than a sort of private sect, not composing, most
probably, the tenth of the people. The colonists left
England when this spirit was high, and in the emigrants was
the highest of all; and even that stream of foreigners which
has been constantly flowing into these colonies has for the
greatest part been composed of dissenters from the
establishments of their several countries, and have brought
with them a temper and character far from alien to that of
the people with whom they mixed.' The speech of Burke in
which these sentences occur ought surely to have passed for
something in the estimation of Judge Haliburton before he
committed himself to the task of writing this book.
"We are quite sensible that as far as the mere composition
is concerned there is very great merit in its publication.
The style is vigorous and lively--and not unfrequently the
animation rises into eloquence. The narrative parts of the
volumes are in general exceedingly well written; and we must
not omit to say, that during those short intervals when the
author permits himself to lose sight of his extreme opinions
he rarely fails to delight the reader with a page or two
distinguished by acute observation and good sense.
"Still, the faults of the book are of the most serious kind.
It is incomplete in plan: for it is neither a regular
narrative, nor a treatise, nor a commentary, nor a history,
nor an article for a review--but something of all five. As
we have said, it is written in a tone highly excited and
partial; and it has the misfortune to appear before the
world as the exponent of seemingly a new, but in reality of
an old and familiar, doctrine, by employing examples and
reasonings of which very few people indeed will not be able
to detect at once either the sophistry or the
incompleteness.
"We forbear to enter into any general discussion on the
well-worn topics of the Pilgrim Fathers and the Puritan
settlements. The verdict of an impartial age has been long
ago pronounced on these questions: and we may well deplore
the unsound judgment of any writer of the deserved eminence
of Judge Haliburton who gratuitously brings upon himself an
imputation of outrageous eccentricity by attempting to
unsettle, on his own single authority, conclusions so well
and so long established....
"There is a great deal said in these volumes in
disparagement of the early New Englanders. They are
stigmatized as turbulent, schismatic, dishonest,
revolutionary, bigoted, cruel, and so on. These are old
charges, which have been several times placed in their true
light; and it is needless again to undertake a defence and
to enter into explanations which are familiar to most
educated persons. We are not the indiscriminate admirers of
the policy pursued by the first colonists of Massachusetts
Bay; but the course which they adopted, the communities
which they built up, and the form of liberty which they
introduced into the New World can be adequately understood
only when surveyed from a comprehensive and impartial point
of view. It is at best a shallow criticism which contents
itself with the discovery that the settlers were religious
zealots, and had no particular respect for either kings or
bishops.
... "We close these volumes. We regret that the author has
been so ill-advised as to publish them at all. They are well
written, as we have said--and in some respects possess great
merit; but truth compels us to add, that they are very
unworthy of the author and of the great questions they
profess to elucidate and discuss."
A FEW QUESTIONS FROM A WORN-OUT LORGNETTE.
WRITTEN FOR THE INTERNATIONAL MAGAZINE
BY A. OAKEY HALL.
I trust I am not _now_ impertinent, however much so I may have been
heretofore. I have seen and observed a great deal. My observations
have engendered experiences. My experiences have some point to them.
And altogether, I think I am entitled to ask a few questions of those
whom I have sometimes overlooked, but now address myself to most
immediately. I am proud to say that I never belonged to but one
mistress. I was of too much value to be exchanged, lost, lightly
parted with, or--I feel prouder as I say it--_sold_. Moreover, I was a
_gage d'amour_. That fascinating Dr. ----!
But though curious, I will be discreet. This sole mistress of mine
gave me plenty to do. Many thanks to her for it, since it has given me
an insight into much that is wonderful. I am certain she preferred
opera to the drama. I saw more of the stage at the first, and more of
the audience at the last. I have found much in both to puzzle me. Some
things I have solved. As for that which remains, I had hoped to
determine for myself, but an unlucky fall from a nail has spoiled my
sight. I have been now two months imprisoned in an _escrutoire_.
Others must answer my questions.
In the first place, I want to know why theatres and opera houses have
such curious odors when empty? I have often perceived this fact when
our carriage came announced the last of all. And why are the lights
turned out when the audience have half-way reached the front doors?
What becomes of the bills which are left behind? Do the rag-pickers
ever break in? Where do the musicians go to through that little door
in the stage? And why does the kettle drummer always glance around the
house upon entering with such an air of satisfaction? As if any one
cared for _him_! Why does the leader always stop to take a pinch of
snuff, while the audience are breathing in their boots and gaiters to
catch the first note of the new opera? Why does the fat man with the
violoncello always saw upon two strings, and leave the two in the
middle to such a contemptuous silence and exile? Why do the
front-bench people get up ten minutes before the performances are
over, and rush from the house as if the floor was on fire, while the
galleries make twice as much noise by crying "hush!" and always stay
to hear the speech (if there is any), although they have not paid as
much by half as they who ran away? Why does the lover, rushing upon
the stage to the embrace of his mistress, stop half way to bow to the
ladies in the boxes? And why doesn't the aforesaid mistress box his
ears for his impoliteness? And why did she say, just before he came,
"Here comes my Alonzo! Hark! I hear his step," when every door upon
the stage was shut, and nothing was heard but the confused trampling
behind her, which might have been the galloping of donkeys? And why
did this same lady wait for him by the side of a rosewood table,
covered with satin damask, and ornamented with a Wellington
inkstand--and she dressed in a robe of shot-silk, with laces and
feathers--while he was dressed as a valiant knight of the sixteenth
century should be? And now I think of it, why did _Mr. Anderson_, in
the play of "Gisippus," visit the Roman centurion in a brick house,
entered through a mahogany door, with a brass plate upon it? Why do
the peasantry of Europe always dress with the most expensive ribbons
about their legs and arms when they come out to dance at the wedding,
or to drink from pewter mugs to the health of the bride? And why do
they stand like mutes at a funeral, whilst two people in their midst
are plotting some horrible murder? Why do the Italian banditti wear
such steeple-crowned hats when they creep through small holes, or
kneel for concealment behind rocks which only cover their foreheads?
Why do the soldiers in _Fra Diavolo_ stand and sing, "We must away,
'tis duty calls," while they sit at a table drinking punch, and seem
in no more hurry to go than if they were paid for drinking? Why do the
chamois-hunters in "Amilie" continue so urgent about going to the
mountains away, after the prey, before the dawning of the day, when it
is evident from the very nature of things that they couldn't be spared
for such a severe service on any contingency?
Why does the lover always sing tenor in an opera? What connection is
there between villany and a bass voice? What's the necessity of a
_prima donna_ singing towards the ceiling when she addresses a chorus
behind her? By what right does the head man in the chorus do all the
gesticulating, while his fellows stand like militia-men? Who ever saw
an excited basso bid a "minion away," without trying to throw his fist
behind him? Why does Ernani's mistress wear such splendid diamonds,
and not sell them to give him release from persecution? I have seen a
sentimental young lady swear to share the poverty and disgrace of her
lover, when she was fool enough to lay aside most precious jewels and
dresses, which would have purchased affluence, and then robe herself
in calico! Now, why did he permit _that_?
Why do stage heroines venture out into the woods in November in white
silk dresses? Are there never any snakes about? And why are theatrical
forests always green in the middle of winter? What kind of
thermometers do managers have? Why is it that three or four stout men,
with loaded pistols, allow themselves to be beaten off the stage by a
slim man with a small stick? In my opinion--and I don't care who hears
it--Richard the Third (whom I understand to be a natural son of one
Shakespeare) was a great numskull to allow Richmond to beat him with
the two dozen lanky-looking scoundrels who come in during the last
scene!
Why do the fairies shake so convulsively when they soar through the
air over the stage? Are stage-fairies all over the world such unequal
highflyers? Who made gaiter-boots for Juno and her attendant
goddesses, in the many classical plays I have witnessed? Did the
Egyptians and Persians know how to make cotton-cloth a yard wide--I
have measured their costumes too often behind the footlights not to
know the exact measurement.
Why do people always cough in the theatre after a severe storm of
thunder and lightning, and hold their handkerchiefs to their noses at
such times? Why does the moon, in every opera wherein she condescends
to show herself, stand still for half an hour immediately over a
chimney? What is the necessity of a man dying for love, and singing
himself to death like a swan, when he has strength enough of body and
mind to pick up three or four pounds of _bouquets_? And why does he
give them up to the spasmodic lady in white muslin, whom he has been
abusing for half an hour, and declaring, in most emphatic terms, that
they part from that time forward for ever? What wonderful
hair-invigorator do some actors use in order to grow themselves a fine
pair of bushy whiskers in fifteen minutes? How is it possible for a
noble lord to have travelled over thousands of miles, to have
encountered unheard-of perils, in order to return and marry the
miller's maid, and yet to preserve, through years of absence, the same
trousers, vest, coat, and hat, in which he first won her affections?
Mentioning hats, why does the rich landholder, in modern comedy,
sometimes go without a hat, when all his servants talk to him with
_their_ hats upon their heads? Is there any forcible, necessary, or
(to put it stronger) _absolute_, connection between a queen in
distress and large quantities of pearls strung about the hair?
These are but a twentieth part of the inquiries which crowd into my
questioning-box. I know they are disjointed,--as I soon shall be. But
I will see what can be done for me, as things here stand, before I
venture to again pile "whys" upon "wherefores."
FRAGMENTS:
FROM "THE STORY OF A SOUL," AN UNPUBLISHED POEM, WRITTEN FOR THE
INTERNATIONAL MAGAZINE
BY H. W. PARKER.
A TOUR DE FORCE.
I felt myself alone--alone as one
Who leapt in joy from starry rock to rock
Across creations stream, and joyed to know
Himself alone in starry solitudes,
Communing with his soul and God; and clomb
The heights of glory, there amazed to see
The wilderness of worlds, and feel the want
Of other hearts to share excess of bliss.
Alone!--it startled me with such a fear--
A daring fear, as only spirits can have.
At once I would be every where--on all
The peopled globes where'er myself had been;
My lonely being would I spread through all.
I thought, with the velocity of thought
Which disembodied souls alone may know--
I thought, I willed, myself in thousand places
In quick and successive instants, quick as one;
And so around again, and still around,
Without an interval. Soon as a flash,
A thousand selves were scattered o'er the deep
Of distant space; and, urging on my soul,
Around and on, with energy immortal,
And swifter still, at last I seemed to grow
Ubiquitous--a multipresence dread,
A loneliness enlarged, more awful yet--
Until, in thought's extreme rapidity,
The distant selves were blended into one,
And space was gone! The universe was lost
In me--in nothingness.
Soon it returned
And stood resplendent; space again became
A mode of thought, as thought resumed its calm,
And motion ceased with will. I found myself
Far off in outer coasts of light....
MEMORY.
.... The vision changed; for still
The cherub Fancy sports beyond the grave,
Led by the hand of Reason. Once again,
My memory rose, a painted canvas, framed
In golden mouldings of immortal joy.
But now the perfect copy of a life,
With all the colors glorified, began
To melt in slow dissolving views of truth.
From out the crowded scene of mortal deeds,
A group enraged, colossal in its shapes:
Self--a dead giant, hideous and deformed,
Lay, slain with lightning, while, upon his head,
Stood holy Love, her eyes upturned to Heaven,
Her hands extended o'er the kneeling forms
Of Faith and Hope....
MUSIC.
Nor were the splendors silent all. To spirits
'Tis ever one to see, to hear, to feel--
The music of the spheres is therefore truth,
And, now, no more I heard the noise confused
Of humming stars and murmuring moons, in tones
Discordant; but as in the focal point
Of whispering rooms, so here I found at last
The centre where the perfect chords combine--
Where the full harmonies of rolling worlds
Are poring evermore in billowy seas
Of sounds, that break in thundered syllables
Unutterable to men. A naked soul
Within the central court of space, to me
The trill of myriad stars, the heavy boom
Of giant suns that slowly came and went,
The whistlings, sweet and far, of lesser orbs,
And the low thunder of more distant deeps,
Ever commingling, grew to eloquence
No mortal brain may bear. The universe
Had found a voice....
HEAVEN.
"Look to thy God." I flamed at Him with will intense,
And soon a sea of light and love arose
And bathed my soul, and filled the empty space
With overflowing glory. All was heaven;
And all the joy, the splendor, I had known
In space, to this was but the prelude harsh
Of brazen instruments, before the song
Of some incarnate seraph, breathes and rolls
A flood of fulness o'er a tranced world.
Enough to say, whate'er we wish of scene,
Society, occupation, pleasure--
Whenever wished, is ours; and this is Heaven;
This is the prize of earthly self-denial.
Freedom, the boundless freedom of the pure--
This the reward of holy self-restraint.
A STORY WITHOUT A NAME.[6]
WRITTEN FOR THE INTERNATIONAL MONTHLY MAGAZINE
BY G. P. R. JAMES, ESQ.
CHAPTER XXXVIII.
We must now turn once more to Sir Philip Hastings as he sat in his
lonely room in prison. Books had been allowed him, paper, pen, and
ink, and all that could aid to pass the time; but Sir Philip had
matter for study in his own mind, and the books had remained unopened
for several days. Hour after hour, since his interview with Secretary
Vernon, and day after day he had paced that room to and fro, till the
sound of his incessant footfall was a burthen to those below. His hair
had grown very white, the wrinkles on his brow had deepened and become
many, and his head was bowed as if age had pressed it down. As he
walked, his eye beneath his shaggy eyebrow was generally bent upon the
floor, but when any accidental circumstance caused him to raise it--a
distant sound from without, or some thought passing through his own
mind--there was that curious gleam in it which I have mentioned when
describing him in boyhood, but now heightened and rendered somewhat
more wild and mysterious. At those moments the expression of his eyes
amounted almost to fierceness, and yet there was something grand, and
fixed, and calm about the brow which seemed to contradict the
impatient, irritable look.
At the moment I now speak of there was an open letter on the table,
written in his daughter's hand, and after having walked up and down
for more than one hour, he sat down as if to answer it. We must look
over his shoulder and see what he writes, as it may in some degree
tend to show the state of his mind, although it was never sent.
"MY CHILD" (it was so he addressed the dear girl who had once been the
joy of his heart): "The news which has been communicated to you by
Marlow has been communicated also to me, but has given small relief.
The world is a prison, and it is not very satisfactory to leave one
dungeon to go into a larger.
"Nevertheless, I am desirous of returning to my own house. Your mother
is very ill, with nobody to attend upon her but yourself--at least no
kindred. This situation does not please me. Can I be satisfied that
she will be well and properly cared for? Will a daughter who has
betrayed her father show more piety towards a mother? Who is there
that man can trust?"
He was going on in the same strain, and his thoughts becoming more
excited, his language more stern and bitter every moment, when
suddenly he paused, read over the lines he had written with a
gleaming eye, and then bent his head, and fell into thought. No one
can tell, no pen can describe the bitter agony of his heart at that
moment. Had he yielded to the impulse--had he spoken ever so
vehemently and fiercely, it would have been happier for him and for
all. But men will see without knowing it in passing through the world,
conventional notions which they adopt as principles. They fancy them
original thoughts, springing from their own convictions, when in
reality they are bents--biases given to their minds by the minds of
other men. The result is very frequently painful, even where the
tendency of the views received is good. Thus a shrub forced out of its
natural direction may take a more graceful or beautiful form, but
there is ever a danger that the flow of the sap may be stopped, or
some of the branches injured by the process.
"No," said Sir Philip Hastings, at length, with a false sense of
dignity thus acquired, "no, it is beneath me to reproach her. Punish
her I might, and perhaps I ought; for the deed itself is an offence to
society and to human nature more than to me. To punish her would have
been a duty, even if my own heart's blood had flowed at the same time,
in those ancient days of purer laws and higher principles; but I will
not reproach without punishing. I will be silent. I will say nothing.
I will leave her to her own conscience," and tearing the letter he had
commenced to atoms, he resumed his bitter walk about the room.
It is a terrible and dangerous thing to go on pondering for long
solitary hours on any one subject of deep interest. It is dangerous
even in the open air, under the broad, ever-varying sky, with the
birds upon the bough, and the breeze amongst the trees, and a thousand
objects in bright nature to breathe harmonies to the human heart. It
is dangerous in the midst of crowds and gay scenes of active life so
to shut the spirit up with one solitary idea, which, like the fabled
dragon's egg, is hatched into a monster by long looking at it. But
within the walls of a prison, with nothing to divert the attention,
with nothing to solicit or compel the mind even occasionally to seek
some other course, with no object in external nature, with the
companionship of no fellow being, to appeal to our senses or to awake
our sympathies, the result is almost invariable. An innocent man--a
man who has no one strong passion, or dark, all-absorbing subject of
contemplation, but who seeks for and receives every mode of relief
from the monotony of life that circumstances can afford, may endure
perfect solitude for years and live sane, but whoever condemns a
criminal--a man loaded with a great offence--to solitary confinement,
condemns him to insanity--a punishment far more cruel than death or
the rack. Hour after hour again, day after day, Sir Philip Hastings
continued to beat the floor of the prison with untiring feet. At the
end of the third day, however, he received formal notice that he would
be brought into court on the following morning, that the indictment
against him would be read, and that the attorney-general would enter a
_nolle prosequi_. Some of these forms were perhaps unnecessary, but it
was the object of the government at that time to make as strong an
impression on the public mind as possible without any unnecessary
effusion of blood.
The effect upon the mind of Sir Philip Hastings, however, was not
salutary. The presence of the judges, the crowd in the court, the act
of standing in the prisoners' dock, even the brief speech of the
lawyer commending the lenity and moderation of government, while he
moved the recording of the _nolle prosequi_, all irritated and excited
the prisoner. His irritation was shown in his own peculiar way,
however; a smile, bitter and contemptuous curled his lip. His eye
seemed to search out those who gazed at him most and stare them down,
and when he was at length set at liberty, he turned away from the dock
and walked out of the court without saying a word to any one. The
governor of the jail followed him, asking civilly if he would not
return to his house for a moment, take some refreshment, and arrange
for the removal of his baggage. It seemed as if Sir Philip answered at
all with a great effort; but in the end he replied laconically, "No, I
will send."
Two hours after he did send, and towards evening set out in a hired
carriage for his own house. He slept a night upon the road, and the
following day reached the Court towards evening. By that time,
however, a strange change had come over him. Pursuing the course of
those thoughts which I have faintly displayed, he had waged war with
his own mind--he had struggled to banish all traces of anger and
indignation from his thoughts--in short, fearing from the sensations
experienced within, that he would do or say something contrary to the
rigid rule he had imposed upon himself, he had striven to lay out a
scheme of conduct which would guard against such a result. The end of
this self-tutoring was satisfactory to him. He had fancied he had
conquered himself, but he was very much mistaken. It was only the
outer man he had subdued, but not the inner.
When the carriage drew up at his own door, and Sir Philip alighted,
Emily flew out to meet him. She threw her arms around his neck and
kissed his cheek, and her heart beat with joy and affection.
For an instant Sir Philip remained grave and stern, did not repel her,
but did not return her embrace. The next instant, however, his whole
manner changed. A sort of cunning double-meaning look came into his
eyes. He smiled, which was very unusual with him, assumed a sort of
sportiveness, which was not natural, called her "dainty Mistress
Emily," and asked after the health of "his good wife."
His coldness and his sternness might not have shocked Emily at all,
but his apparent levity pained and struck her with terror. A cold sort
of shudder passed over her, and unclasping her arms from his neck, she
replied, "I grieve to say mamma is very ill, and although the news of
your safety cheered her much, she has since made no progress, but
rather fallen back."
"Doubtless the news cheered you too very much, my sweet lady," said
Sir Philip in an affected tone, and without waiting for reply, he
walked on and ascended to his wife's room.
Emily returned to the drawing-room and fell into one of her profound
fits of meditation; but this time they were all sad and tending to
sadness. There Sir Philip found her when he came down an hour after.
She had not moved, she had not ordered lights, although the sun was
down and the twilight somewhat murky. She did not move when he
entered, but remained with her head leaning on her hand, and her eyes
fixed on the table near which she sat. Sir Philip gazed at her
gloomily, and said to himself, "Her heart smites her. Ha, ha,
beautiful deceitful thing. Have you put the canker worm in your own
bosom? Great crimes deserve great punishments. God of heaven! keep me
from such thoughts. No, no, I will never avenge myself on the plea of
avenging society. My own cause must not mingle with such
vindications."
"Emily," he said in a loud voice, which startled her suddenly from her
reverie, "Emily, your mother is very ill."
"Worse? worse?" cried Emily with a look of eager alarm; "I will fly to
her at once. Oh, sir, send for the surgeon."
"Stay," said Sir Philip, "she is no worse than when you left her,
except insomuch as a dying person becomes much worse every minute.
Your mother wishes much to see Mrs. Hazleton, who has not been with
her for two days, she says. Sit down and write that lady a note asking
her to come here to-morrow, and I will send it by a groom."
Emily obeyed, though with infinite reluctance; for she had remarked
that the visits of Mrs. Hazleton always left her mother neither
improved in temper nor in health.
The groom was dispatched, and returned with a reply from Mrs. Hazleton
to the effect that she would be there early on the following day.
During his absence, Sir Philip had been but little with his daughter.
Hardly had the note been written when he retired to his own small
room, and there remained shut up during the greater part of the
evening. Emily quietly stole into her mother's room soon after her
father left her, fearing not a little that Lady Hastings might have
remarked the strange change which had come upon her husband during his
absence. But such was not the case. She found her mother calmer and
gentler than she had been during the last week or ten days. Her
husband's liberation, and the certainty that all charge against him
was at an end, had afforded her great satisfaction; and although she
was still evidently very ill, yet she conversed cheerfully with her
daughter for nearly an hour.
"As I found you had not told your father the hopes that Mr. Marlow
held out when he went away, I spoke to him on the subject," she said.
"He is a strange cynic, my good husband, and seemed to care very
little about the matter. He doubt's Marlow's success too, I think, but
all that he said was, that if it pleased me, that was enough for him.
Mrs. Hazleton will be delighted to hear the news."
Emily doubted the fact, but she did not express her doubt, merely
telling her mother she had written to Mrs. Hazleton, and that the
servant had been sent with the note.
"She has not been over for two days," said Lady Hastings. "I cannot
think what has kept her away."
"Some accidental circumstance, I dare say," said Emily, "but there can
be no doubt she will be here to-morrow early."
They neither of them knew that on the preceding night but one Mrs.
Hazleton had received a visit from John Ayliffe, which,
notwithstanding all her self-command and assumed indifference, had
disturbed her greatly.
Mrs. Hazleton nevertheless was, as Emily anticipated, very early at
the house of Sir Philip Hastings. She first made a point of seeing
that gentleman himself; and though her manner was, as usual, calm and
lady-like, yet every word and every look expressed the greatest
satisfaction at seeing him once more in his home and at liberty. To
Emily also she was all tenderness and sweetness; but Emily, on her
part, shrunk from her with a feeling of dread and suspicion that she
could not repress, and hardly could conceal. She had not indeed read
any of the papers which Marlow had left with her, for he had not told
her to read them; but he had directed her thoughts aright, and had led
her to conclusions in regard to Mrs. Hazleton which were very painful,
but no less just.
That lady remarked a change in Emily's manner--she had seen something
of it before;--but it now struck her more forcibly, and though she
took no notice of it whatever, it was not a thing to be forgotten or
forgiven; for to those who are engaged in doing ill there cannot be a
greater offence than to be suspected, and Mrs. Hazleton was convinced
that Emily did suspect her.
After a brief interview with father and daughter, their fair guest
glided quietly up to the room of Lady Hastings, and seated herself by
her bed-side. She took the sick lady's hand in hers--that white,
emaciated hand, once so beautiful and rosy-tipped, and said how
delighted she was to see her looking a great deal better.
"Do you think so really?" said Lady Hastings; "I feel dreadfully weak
and exhausted, dear Mrs. Hazleton, and sometimes think I shall never
recover."
"Oh don't say so," replied Mrs. Hazleton; "your husband's return has
evidently done you great good: the chief part of your malady has been
mental. Anxiety of mind is often the cause of severe sickness, which
passes away as soon as it is removed. One great source of uneasiness
is now gone, and the only other that remains--I mean this unfortunate
engagement of dear Emily to Mr. Marlow--may doubtless, with a little
firmness and decision upon your part, be remedied also."
Mrs. Hazleton was very skillful in forcing the subject with which she
wished to deal, into a conversation to which it had no reference; and
having thus introduced the topic on which she loved to dwell, she went
on to handle it with her usual skill, suggesting every thing that
could irritate the invalid against Marlow, and render the idea of his
marriage with Emily obnoxious in her eyes.
Even when Lady Hastings, moved by some feelings of gratitude and
satisfaction by the intelligence of Marlow's efforts to recover her
husband's property, communicated the hopes she entertained to her
visitor, Mrs. Hazleton contrived to turn the very expectations to
Marlow's disadvantage, saying, "If such should indeed be the result,
this engagement will be still more unfortunate. With such vast
property as dear Emily will then possess, with her beauty, with her
accomplishments, with her graces, the hand of a prince would be hardly
too much to expect for her; and to see her throw herself away upon a
mere country gentleman--a Mr. Marlow--all very well in his way, but a
nobody, is indeed sad; and I would certainly prevent it, if I were
you, while I had power."
"But how can I prevent it?" asked Lady Hastings; "my husband and Emily
are both resolute in such things. I have no power, dear Mrs.
Hastings."
"You are mistaken, my sweet friend," replied her companion; "the power
will indeed soon go from you if these hopes which have been held out
do not prove fallacious. You are mistress of this house--of this very
fine property. If I understand rightly, neither your husband nor your
daughter have at present any thing but what they derive from you. This
position may soon be altered if your husband be reinstated in the
Hastings estates."
"But you would not, Mrs. Hazleton, surely you would not have me use
such power ungenerously?" said Lady Hastings.
Mrs. Hazleton saw that she had gone a little too far--or rather
perhaps that she had suggested that which was repugnant to the
character of her hearer's mind; for in regard to money matters no one
was ever more generous or careless of self than Lady Hastings. What
was her's was her husband's and her child's--she knew no
difference--she made no distinction.
It took Mrs. Hazleton some time to undo what she had done, but she
found the means at length. She touched the weak point, the failing of
character. A little stratagem, a slight device to win her own way by
an indirect method, was quite within the limits of Lady Hastings'
principles; and after dwelling some time upon a recapitulation of all
the objections against the marriage with Marlow, which could suggest
themselves to an ambitious mind, she quietly and in an easy suggestive
tone, sketched out a plan, which both to herself and her hearer,
seemed certain of success.
Lady Hastings caught at the plan eagerly, and determined to follow it
in all the details, which will be seen hereafter.
CHAPTER XXXIX.
"I feel very ill indeed this morning," said Lady Hastings, addressing
her maid about eleven o'clock. "I feel as if I were dying. Call my
husband and my daughter to me."
"Lord, my lady," said the maid, "had I not better send for the doctor
too? You do not look as if you were dying at all. You look a good deal
better, I think, my lady."
"Do I?" said Lady Hastings in a hesitating tone. But she did not want
the doctor to be sent for immediately, and repeated her order to call
her husband and her daughter.
Emily was with her in an instant, but Sir Philip Hastings was some
where absent in the grounds, and nearly half an hour elapsed before he
was found. When he entered he gazed in his wife's face with some
surprise--more surprise indeed than alarm; for he knew that she was
nervous and hypondriacal, and as the maid had said, she did not look
as if she were dying at all. There was no sharpening of the
features--no falling in of the temples--none of that pale ashy color,
or rather that leaden grayness, which precedes dissolution. He sat
down, however, by her bed-side, gazing at her with an inquiring look,
while Emily stood on the other side of the bed, and the maid at the
end; and after speaking a few kind but somewhat rambling words, he was
sending for some restoratives, saying "I think, my dear, you alarm
yourself without cause."
"I do not indeed, Philip," replied Lady Hastings. "I am sure I shall
die, and that before very long--but do not send for any thing. I would
rather not take it. It will do me more good a great deal to speak what
I have upon my mind--what is weighing me down--what is killing me."
"I am sorry to hear there is any thing," said Sir Philip, whose
thoughts, intensely busy with other things, were not yet fully
recalled to the scene before him.
"Oh, Philip, how can you say so?" said Lady Hastings, "when you know
there is. You need not go," she continued, speaking to the maid, who
was drawing back as if to quit the room, "I wish to speak to my
husband and my daughter before some one who will remember what I say."
Sir Philip however quietly rose, opened the door, and motioned to the
girl to quit the room, for such public exhibitions were quite contrary
to his notions of domestic economy. "Now, my dear," he said, "what is
it you wish to tell me? If there be any thing that you wish done, I
will do it if it is in my power."
"It is in your power, Philip," replied Lady Hastings; "you know and
Emily knows quite well that her engagement to Mr. Marlow was against
my consent, and I must say the greatest shock I ever received in my
life. I have never been well since, and every day I see more and more
reason to object. It is in the power of either of you, or both, to
relieve my mind in this respect--to break off this unhappy engagement,
and at least to let me die in peace, with the thought that my daughter
has not cast herself away. It is in your power, Philip, to--"
"Stay a moment," said her husband, "it is not in my power."
"Why, are you not her father?" asked Lady Hastings, interrupting him.
"Are you not her lawful guardian? Have you not the disposal of her
hand?"
"It is not in my power," repeated Sir Philip coldly, "to break my
plighted word, to violate my honor, or to live under a load of shame
and dishonor."
"Why in such a matter as this," said Lady Hastings, "there is no such
disgrace. You can very well say you have thought better of it."
"In which case I should tell a lie," said Sir Philip dryly.
"It is a thing done every day," argued Lady Hastings.
"I am not a man to do any thing because there are others who do it
every day," answered her husband. "Men lie, and cheat, and swindle,
and steal, and betray their friends, and relations, and parents, but I
can find no reason therein for doing the same. It is not in my power,
I repeat. I cannot be a scoundrel, whatever other men may be, and
violate my plighted word, or withdraw from my most solemn engagements.
Moreover, when Marlow heard of the misfortunes which have befallen us,
and learned that Emily would not have one-fourth part of that which
she had at one time a right to expect, he showed no inclination to
withdraw from his word, even when there was a good excuse, and I will
never withdraw from mine, so help me God."
Thus speaking he turned his eyes towards the ground again and fell
into a deep reverie.
While this conversation had been passing, Emily had sunk upon her
knees, trembling in every limb, and hid her face in the coverings of
the bed. To her, Lady Hastings now turned. Whether it was that remorse
and some degree of shame affected her, when she saw the terrible
agitation of her child, I cannot tell, but she paused for a moment as
if in hesitation.
She spoke at length, saying "Emily, my child, to you I must appeal, as
your father is so obdurate."
Emily made no answer, however, but remained weeping, and Lady Hastings
becoming somewhat irritated, went on in a sharper tone. "What! will
not my own child listen to the voice of a dying mother?" she asked
rather petulantly than sorrowfully, although she tried hard to make
her tone gravely reproachful; "will she not pay any attention to her
mother's last request?
"Oh, my mother," answered Emily, raising her head, and speaking more
vehemently than was customary with her, "ask me any thing that is
just; ask me any thing that is reasonable; but do not ask me to do
what is wrong and what is unjust. I have made a promise--do not ask me
to break it. There is no circumstance changed which could give even an
excuse for such a breach of faith. Marlow has only shown himself more
true, more faithful, more sincere. Should I be more false, more
faithless, more ungenerous than he thought me? Oh no! it is
impossible--quite impossible," and she hid her streaming eyes in the
bed-clothes again, clasping her hands tightly together over her
forehead.
Her father, with his arms crossed upon his chest, had kept his eyes
fixed upon her while she spoke with a look of doubt and inquiry. Well
might he doubt--well might he doubt his own suspicions. There was a
truth, a candor, a straightforwardness, in that glowing face which
gave the contradiction, plain and clear, to every foul, dishonest
charge which had been fabricated against his child. It was impossible
in fact that she could have so spoken and so looked, unless she had so
felt. The best actress that ever lived could not have performed that
part. There would have been something too much or too little,
something approaching the exaggerated or the tame. With Emily there
was nothing. What she said seemed but the sudden outburst of her
heart, pressed for a reply; and as soon as it was spoken she sunk down
again in silence, weeping bitterly under the conflict of two strong
but equally amiable feelings.
For a moment the sight seemed to rouse Sir Philip Hastings. "She
should not, if she would," he said; "voluntarily, and knowing what she
did, she consented to the promise I have made, and she neither can nor
shall retract. To Marlow, indeed, I may have a few words to say, and
he shall once more have the opportunity of acting as he pleases; but
Emily is bound as well as myself, and by that bond we must abide."
"What have you to say to Marlow?" asked Lady Hastings in a tone of
commonplace curiosity, which did not at all indicate a sense of that
terrible situation in which she assumed she was placed.
"That matters not," answered Sir Philip. "It will rest between him and
me at his return. How he may act I know not--what he may think I know
not; but he shall be a partaker of my thoughts and the master of his
own actions. Do not let us pursue this painful subject further. If you
feel yourself ill, my love, let us send for further medical help. I do
hope and believe that you are not so ill as you imagine; but if you
are so there is more need that the physician should be here, and that
we should quit topics too painful for discussion, where discussion is
altogether useless."
"Well, then, mark me," said Lady Hastings with an air of assumed
melancholy dignity, which being quite unnatural to her, bordered
somewhat on the burlesque; "mark me, Philip--mark me, Emily! your
wife, your mother, makes it her last dying request--her last dying
injunction, that you break off this marriage. You may or you may not
give me the consolation on this sick bed of knowing that my request
will be complied with; but I do not think that either of you will be
careless, will be remorseless enough to carry out this engagement
after I am gone. I will not threaten, Emily--I will not even attempt
to take away from you the wealth for which this young man doubtless
seeks you--I will not attempt to deter you by bequeathing you my curse
if you do not comply with my injunctions; but I tell you, if you do
not make me this promise before I die, you have embittered your
mother's last moments, and--"
"Oh, forbear, forbear," cried Emily, starting up. "For God's sake,
dear mother, forbear," and clasping her hands wildly over her eyes,
she rushed frantically out of the room.
Sir Philip Hastings remained for nearly half an hour longer, and then
descended the stairs and passed through the drawing-room. Emily was
seated there with her handkerchief upon her eyes, and her whole frame
heaving from the agonized sobs which rose from her bosom. Sir Philip
paused and gazed at her for a moment or two, but Emily did not say a
word, and seemed indeed totally unconscious of his presence. Some
movements of compassion, some feeling of sympathy, some doubts of his
preconceptions might pass through the bosom of Sir Philip Hastings;
but the dark seeds of suspicion had been sown in his bosom--had
germinated, grown up, and strengthened--had received confirmation
strong and strange, and he murmured to himself as he stood and gazed
at her, "Is it anger or sorrow? Is it passion or pain? All this is
strange enough. I do not understand it. Her resolution is taken, and
taken rightly. Why should she grieve? Why should she be thus moved,
when she knows she is doing that which is just, and honest, and
faithful?"
He measured a cloud by an ell wand. He gauged her heart, her
sensibilities, her mind, by the rigid metre of his own, and he found
that the one could not comprehend the other. Turning hastily away
after he had finished his contemplation, without proffering one word
of consolation or support, he walked away into his library, and
ringing a bell, ordered his horse to be saddled directly. While that
was being done, he wrote a hasty note to Mr. Short, the surgeon, and
when the horse was brought round gave it to a groom to deliver. Then
mounting on horseback, he rode away at a quick pace, without having
taken any further notice of his daughter.
Emily remained for about half an hour after his departure, exactly in
the same position in which he had left her. She noticed nothing that
was passing around her; she heard not a horse stop at the door; and
when her own maid entered the room and said,--"Doctor Short has come,
ma'am, and is with my lady. Sir Philip sent Peter for him; but Peter
luckily met him just down beyond the park gates;" Emily hardly seemed
to hear her.
A few minutes after, Mr. Short descended quietly from the room of Lady
Hastings, and looked into the drawing-room as he passed. Seeing the
beautiful girl seated there in that attitude of despondency, he
approached her quietly, saying, "Do not, my dear mistress Emily,
suffer yourself to be alarmed without cause. I see no reason for the
least apprehension. My good lady, your mother is nervous and excited,
but there are no very dangerous symptoms about her--certainly none
that should cause immediate alarm; and I think upon the whole, that
the disease is more mental than corporeal."
Emily had raised her eyes when he had just begun to speak, and she
shook her head mournfully at his last, words, saying, "I can do
nothing to remedy it, Mr. Short--I would at any personal sacrifice,
but this involves more--I can do nothing."
"But I have done my best," said Mr. Short with a kindly smile; for he
was an old and confidential friend of the whole family, and upon Emily
herself had attended from her childhood, during all the little
sicknesses of early life. "I asked your excellent mother what had so
much excited her, and she told me all that has passed this morning. I
think, my dear young lady, I have quieted her a good deal."
"How? how?" exclaimed Emily eagerly. "Oh tell me how, Mr. Short, and I
will bless you!"
The good old surgeon seated himself beside her and took her hand in
his. "I have only time to speak two words," he said, "but I think they
will give you comfort. Your mother explained to me that there had been
a little discussion this morning when she thought herself
dying--though that was all nonsense--and it must have been very
painful to you, my dear Mistress Emily. She told me what it was about
too, and seemed half sorry already for what she had said. So, as I
guessed how matters went--for I know that the dear lady is fond of
titles and rank, and all that, and saw she had a great deal mistaken
Mr. Marlow's position--I just ventured to tell her that he is the heir
of the old Earl of Launceston--that is to say, if the Earl does not
marry again, and he is seventy-three, with a wife still living. She
had never heard any thing about it, and it seemed to comfort her
amazingly. Nevertheless she is in a sad nervous state, and somewhat
weak. I do not altogether like that cough she has either; and so, my
dear young lady, I will send her over a draught to-night, of which you
must give her a tablespoonful every three hours. Give it to her with
your own hands; for it is rather strong, and servants are apt to make
mistakes. But I think if you go to her now, you will find her in a
very different humor from that which she was in this morning. Good
bye, good bye. Don't be cast down, Mistress Emily. All will go well
yet."
CHAPTER XL.
From the house of Sir Philip Hastings Mr. Short rode quickly on to the
cottage of Mistress Best, which he had visited once before in the
morning. The case of John Ayliffe, however, was becoming more and more
urgent every moment, and at each visit the surgeon saw a change in the
countenance of the young man which indicated that a greater change
still was coming. He had had a choice of evils to deal with; for
during the first day after the accident there had been so much fever
that he had feared to give any thing to sustain the young man's
strength. But long indulgence in stimulating liquors had had its usual
effect in weakening the powers of the constitution, and rendering it
liable to give way suddenly even where the corporeal powers seemed at
their height. Wine had become to John Ayliffe what water is to most
men, and he could not bear up without it. Exhaustion had succeeded
rapidly to the temporary excitement of fever, and mortification had
begun to show itself on the injured limb. Wine had become necessary,
and it was administered in frequent and large doses; but as a
stimulant it had lost its effect upon the unhappy young man, and when
the surgeon returned to the cottage on this occasion, he saw not only
that all hope was at an end, but that the end could not be very far
distant.
Good Mr. Dixwell was seated by John Ayliffe's side, and looked up to
the surgeon with an anxious eye. Mr. Short felt his patient's pulse
with a very grave face. It was rapid, but exceedingly feeble--went on
for twenty or thirty beats as fast as it could go--then stopped
altogether for an instant or two, and then began to beat again as
quickly as before.
Mr. Short poured out a tumbler full of port wine, raised John Ayliffe
a little, and made him drink it down. After a few minutes he felt his
pulse again, and found it somewhat stronger. The sick man looked
earnestly in his face as if he wished to ask some question; but he
remained silent for several minutes.
At length he said, "Tell me the truth, Short. Am not I dying?"
The surgeon hesitated, but Mr. Dixwell raised his eyes, saying, "Tell
him the truth, tell him the truth, my good friend. He is better
prepared to bear it than he was yesterday."
"I fear you are sinking, Sir John," said the surgeon.
"I do not feel so much pain in my leg," said the young man.
"That is because mortification has set in," replied Mr. Short.
"Then there is no hope," said John Ayliffe.
The surgeon was silent; and after a moment John Ayliffe said, "God's
will be done."
Mr. Dixwell pressed his hand kindly with tears in his eyes; for they
were the Christian words he had longed to hear, but hardly hoped for.
There was a long and somewhat sad pause, and then the dying man once
more turned his look upon the surgeon, asking, "How long do you think
it will be?"
"Three or four hours," replied Mr. Short. "By stimulants, as long as
you can take them, it may be protracted a little longer, but not
much."
"Every moment is of consequence," said the clergyman. "There is much
preparation still needful--much to be acknowledged and repented
of--much to be atoned for. What can be done, my good friend to
protract the time?"
"Give small quantities of wine very frequently," answered the surgeon,
"and perhaps some aqua vitæ--but very little--very little, or you may
hurry the catastrophe."
"Well, well," said John Ayliffe, "you can come again, but perhaps by
that time I shall be gone. You will find money enough in my pockets,
Short, to pay your bill--there is plenty there, and mind you send the
rest to my mother."
The surgeon stared, and said to himself, "he is wandering;" but John
Ayliffe immediately added, "Don't let that rascal Shanks have it, but
send it to my mother;" and saying "Very well, Sir John," he took his
leave and departed.
"And now, my dear young friend," said Mr. Dixwell, the moment the
surgeon was gone, "there is no time to be lost. You have the power of
making full atonement for the great offence you have committed to one
of your fellow creatures. If you sincerely repent, as I trust you do,
Christ has made atonement for your offences towards God. But you must
show your penitence by letting your last acts in this life be just and
right. Let me go to Sir Philip Hastings."
"I would rather see his daughter, or his wife," said John Ayliffe: "he
is so stern, and hard, and gloomy. He will never speak comfort or
forgiveness."
"You are mistaken--I can assure you, you are mistaken," answered the
clergyman. "I will take upon me to promise that he shall not say one
hard word, and grant you full forgiveness."
"Well, well," said the young man, "if it must be he, so be it--but
mind to have pen and ink to write it all down--that pen won't write.
You know you tried it this morning."
"I will bring one with me," said Mr. Dixwell, rising eager to be gone
on his good errand; but John Ayliffe stopped him, saying, "Stay,
stay--remember you are not to tell him any thing about it till he is
quite away from his own house. I don't choose to have all the people
talking of it, and perhaps coming down to stare at me."
Mr. Dixwell was willing to make any terms in order to have what he
wished accomplished, and giving Mrs. Best directions to let the
patient have some port wine every half hour, he hurried away to the
Court.
On inquiring for Sir Philip, the servant said that his master had
ridden out.
"Do you know where he is gone, and how long he will be absent?" asked
Mr. Dixwell.
"He is gone, I believe, to call at Doctor Juke's, to consult about my
lady," replied the man; "and as that is hard upon twenty miles, he
can't be back for two or three hours."
"That is most unfortunate," exclaimed the clergyman. "Is your lady
up?"
The servant replied in the negative, adding the information that she
was very ill.
"Then I must see Mistress Emily," said Mr. Dixwell, walking into the
house. "Call her to me as quickly as you can."
The man obeyed, and Emily was with the clergyman in a few moments,
while the servant remained in the hall looking out through the open
door.
After remaining in conversation with Mr. Dixwell for a few minutes,
Emily hurried back to her room, and came down again dressed for
walking. She and Mr. Dixwell went out together, and the servant saw
them take their way down the road in the direction of Jenny Best's
cottage: but when they had gone a couple of hundred yards, the
clergyman turned off towards his own house, walking at a very quick
pace, while Emily proceeded slowly on her way.
When at a short distance from the cottage, the beautiful girl stopped,
and waited till she was rejoined by Mr. Dixwell, who came up very
soon, out of breath at the quickness of his pace. "I have ordered the
wine down directly," he said, "and I trust we shall be able to keep
him up till he has told his story his own way. Now, my dear young
lady, follow me;" and walking on he entered the cottage.
Emily was a good deal agitated. Every memory connected with John
Ayliffe was painful to her. It seemed as if nothing but misfortune,
sorrow, and anxiety, had attended her ever since she first saw him,
and all connected themselves more or less with him. The strange sort
of mysterious feeling of sympathy which she had experienced when first
she beheld him, and which had seemed explained to her when she learned
their near relationship, had given place day by day to stronger and
stronger personal dislike, and she could not now even come to visit
him on his death-bed with the clergyman without feeling a mixture of
repugnance and dread which she struggled with not very successfully.
They passed, however, through the outer into the inner room where
Mistress Best was sitting with the dying man, reading to him the New
Testament. But as soon as Mr. Dixwell, who had led the way, entered,
the good woman stopped, and John Ayliffe turned his head faintly
towards the door.
"Ah, this is very kind of you," he said when he saw Emily, "I can tell
you all better than any one else."
"Sir Philip is absent," said Mr. Dixwell, "and will not be home for
several hours."
"Hours!" repeated John Ayliffe. "My time is reduced to minutes!"
Emily approached quietly, and Mrs. Best quitted the room and shut the
door. Mr. Dixwell drew the table nearer to the bed, spread some
writing paper which he had brought with him upon it, and dipped a pen
in the ink, as a hint that no time was to be lost in proceeding.
"Well, well," said John Ayliffe with a sigh, "I won't delay, though it
is very hard to have to tell such a story. Mistress Emily, I have done
you and your family great wrong and great harm, and I am very, very
sorry for it, especially for what I have done against you."
"Then I forgive you from all my heart," cried Emily, who had been
inexpressibly shocked at the terrible change which the young man's
appearance presented. She had never seen death, nor was aware of the
terrible shadow which the dark banner of the great Conqueror often
casts before it.
"Thank you, thank you," replied John Ayliffe; "but you must not
suppose, Mistress Emily, that all the evil I have done was out of my
own head. Others prompted me to a great deal; although I was ready
enough to follow their guidance, I must confess. The two principal
persons were Shanks the lawyer, and Mrs. Hazleton--Oh, that woman is,
I believe, the devil incarnate."
"Hush, hush," said Mr. Dixwell, "I cannot put such words as those
down, nor should you speak them. You had better begin in order too,
and tell all from the commencement, but calmly and in a Christian
spirit, remembering that this is your own confession, and not an
accusation of others."
"Well, I will try," said the young man faintly, lifting his hand from
the bed-clothes, as if to put it to his head in the act of thought.
But he was too weak, and he fell back again, and fixing his eyes on a
spot in the wall opposite the foot of the bed, he continued in a sort
of dreamy commemorative way as follows: "I loved you--yes, I loved you
very much--I feel it now more than ever--I loved you more than you
ever knew--more than I myself knew then. (Emily bent her head and hid
her eyes with her hands.) It was not," he proceeded to say, "that you
were more beautiful than any of the rest--although that was true
too--but there was somehow a look about you, an air when you moved, a
manner when you spoke, that made it seem as if you were of a different
race from the rest--something higher, brighter, better, and as if your
nobler nature shone out like a gleam on all you did--I cannot help
thinking that if you could have loved me in return, mine would have
been a different fate, a different end, a different and brighter hope
even now--"
"You are wandering from the subject, my friend," said Mr. Dixwell.
"Time is short."
"I am not altogether wandering," said John Ayliffe, "but I feel faint.
Give me some more wine." When he had got it, he continued thus: "I
found you could not love me--I said in my heart that you would not
love me; and my love turned into hate--at least I thought so--and I
determined you should rue the day that you had refused me. Long before
that, however, Shanks the lawyer had put it into my head that I could
take your father's property and title from him, and I resolved some
day to try, little knowing all that it would lead me into step by
step. I had heard my mother say a hundred times that she had been as
good as married to your uncle who was drowned, and that if right had
been done I ought to have had the property. So I set to work with
Shanks to see what could be done. Sometimes he led, sometimes I led;
for he was a coward, and wanted to do all by cunning, and I was bold
enough, and thought every thing was to be done by daring. We had both
of us got dipped so deep in there was no going back. I tore one leaf
out of the parish register myself, to make it seem that your
grandfather had caused the record of my mother's marriage to be
destroyed--but that was no marriage at all--they never were
married--and that's the truth. I did a great number of other very evil
things, and then suddenly Mrs. Hazleton came in to help us; and
whenever there was any thing particularly shrewd and keen to be
devised, especially if there was a spice of malice in it towards Sir
Philip or yourself, Mrs. Hazleton planned it for us--not telling us
exactly to do this thing or that, but asking if it could not be done,
or if it would be very wrong to do it. But I'll tell you them all in
order--all that we did."
He went on to relate a great many particulars with which the reader is
already acquainted. He told the whole villainous schemes which had
been concocted between himself, the attorney, and Mrs. Hazleton, and
which had been in part, or as a whole, executed to the ruin of Sir
Philip Hastings' fortune and peace. The good clergyman took down his
words with a rapid hand, as he spoke, though it was somewhat
difficult; for the voice became more and more faint and low.
"There is no use in trying now," said John Ayliffe in conclusion,
"when I am going before God who has seen and known it all. There is no
use in trying to conceal any thing. I was as ready to do evil as they
were to prompt me, and I did it with a willing heart, though sometimes
I was a little frightened at what I was doing, especially in the night
when I could not sleep. I am sorry enough for it now--I repent from my
whole heart; and now tell me--tell me, can you forgive me?"
"As far as I am concerned, I forgive you entirely," said Emily, with
the tears in her eyes, "and I trust that your repentance will be fully
accepted. As to my father, I am sure that he will forgive you also,
and I think I may take upon myself to say, that he will either come or
send to you this night to express his forgiveness."
"No, no, no," said the young man with a great effort. "He must not
come--he must not send. I have made the atonement that he (pointing to
Mr. Dixwell) required, and I have but one favor to ask. Pray, pray
grant it to me. It is but this. That you will not tell any one of this
confession so long as I am still living. He has got it all down. It
can't be needed for a few hours, and in a few, a very few, I shall be
gone. Mr. Dixwell will tell you when it is all over. Then tell what
you like; but I would rather not die with more shame upon my head if I
can help it."
The good clergyman was about to reason with him upon the differences
between healthful shame, and real shame, and false shame, but Emily
gently interposed, saying, "It does not matter, my dear sir; a few
hours can make no difference."
Then rising, she once more repeated the words of forgiveness, and
added, "I will now go and pray for you, my poor cousin--I will pray
that your repentance may be sincere and true--that it may be accepted
for Christ's sake, and that God may comfort you and support you even
at the very last."
Mr. Dixwell rose too, and telling John Ayliffe that he would return in
a few minutes, accompanied Emily back towards her house. They parted,
however, at the gates of the garden; and while Emily threaded her way
through innumerable gravelled walks, the clergyman went back to the
cottage, and once more resumed his place by the side of the dying man.
CHAPTER XLI.
Sir Philip Hastings returned to his own house earlier than had been
expected, bringing with him the physician he had gone to seek, and
whom--contrary to the ordinary course of events--he had found at once.
They both went up to Lady Hastings's room where the physician,
according to the usual practice of medical men in consultation,
approved of all that his predecessor had done, yet ordered some
insignificant changes in the medicines in order to prove that he had
not come there for nothing. He took the same view of the case that Mr.
Short had taken, declaring that there was no immediate danger; but at
the same time he inquired particularly how that lady rested in the
night, whether she started in her sleep, was long watchful, and
whether she breathed freely during slumber.
The maid's account was not very distinct in regard to several of these
points; but she acknowledged that it was her young lady who usually
sat up with Lady Hastings till three or four o'clock in the morning.
Sir Philip immediately directed Emily to be summoned, but the maid
informed him she had gone out about an hour and a half before, and had
not then returned.
When the physician took his leave and departed, Sir Philip summoned
the butler to his presence, and inquired, with an eager yet gloomy
tone, if he knew where Mistress Emily had gone.
"I really do not, Sir Philip," replied the man. "She went out with Mr.
Dixwell, but they parted a little way down the road, and my young lady
went on as if she were going to farmer Wallop's or Jenny Best's."
At the latter name Sir Philip started as if a serpent had stung him,
and he waved to the man to quit the room. As soon as he was alone he
commenced pacing up and down in more agitation than he usually
displayed, and once or twice words broke from him which gave some
indications of what was passing in his mind.
"Too clear, too clear," he said, and then after a pause exclaimed,
holding up his hands; "so young, and so deceitful! Marlow must be told
of this, and then must act as he thinks fit--it were better she were
dead--far better! What is the cold, dull corruption of the grave, the
mere rotting of the flesh, and the mouldering of the bones, to this
corruption of the spirit, this foul dissolution of the whole moral
nature?"
He then began to pace up and down more vehemently than before, fixing
his eyes upon the ground, and seeming to think profoundly, with a
quivering lip and knitted brow. "Hard, hard task for a father," he
said--"God of heaven that I should ever dream of such a thing!--yet it
might be a duty. What can Marlow be doing during this long unexplained
absence? France--can he have discovered all this and quitted her,
seeking, in charity, to make the breach as little painful as possible?
Perhaps, after all," he continued, after a few moments' thought, "the
man may have been mistaken when he told me that he believed that this
young scoundrel was lying ill of a fall at this woman's cottage; yet
at the best it was bad enough to quit a sick mother's bed-side for
long hours, when I too was absent. Can she have done it to show her
spleen at this foolish opposition to her marriage?"
There is no character so difficult to deal with--there is none which
is such a constant hell to its possessor--as that of a moody man. Sir
Philip had been moody, as I have endeavored to show, from his very
earliest years; but all the evils of that sort of disposition had
increased upon him rapidly during the latter part of his life.
Unaware, like all the rest of mankind, of the faults of his own
character, he had rather encouraged than struggled against its many
great defects. Because he was stern and harsh, he fancied himself
just, and forgot that it is not enough for justice to judge rightly of
that which is placed clearly and truly before it, and did not
remember, or at all events apply the principle, that an accurate
search for truth, and an unprejudiced suspension of opinion till truth
has been obtained, are necessary steps to justice. Suspicion--always a
part and parcel of the character of the moody man--had of late years
obtained a strong hold upon him, and unfortunately it had so happened
that event after event had occurred to turn his suspicion against his
own guiltless child. The very lights and shades of her character,
which he could in no degree comprehend, from his own nature being
destitute of all such impulsiveness, had not only puzzled him, but
laid the foundation of doubts. Then the little incident which I have
related in a preceding part of this work, regarding the Italian
singing-master--Emily's resolute but unexplained determination to take
no more lessons from that man, had set his moody mind to ponder and to
doubt still more. The too successful schemes and suggestions of Mrs.
Hazleton had given point and vigor to his suspicions, and the betrayal
of his private conversation to the government had seemed a climax to
the whole, so that he almost believed his fair sweet child a fiend
concealed beneath the form of an angel.
It was in vain that he asked himself, What could be her motives? He
had an answer ready, that her motives had always been a mystery to
him, even in her lightest acts. "There are some people," he thought,
"who act without motives--in whom the devil himself seems to have
implanted an impulse to do evil without any cause or object, for the
mere pleasure of doing wrong."
On the present occasion he had accidentally heard from the farmer, who
was the next neighbor of Jenny Best, that he was quite certain Sir
John Hastings, as he called him, was lying ill from a fall at that
good woman's cottage. His horse had been found at a great distance on
a wild common, with the bridle broken, and every appearance of having
fallen over in rearing. Blood and other marks of an accident had been
discovered on the road. Mr. Short, the surgeon, was seen to pay
several visits every day to the old woman's house, and yet maintained
the most profound secrecy in regard to his patient. The farmer argued
that the surgeon would not be so attentive unless that patient was a
person of some importance, and it was clear he was not one of Jenny
Best's own family, for every member of it had been well and active
after the surgeon's visits had been commenced.
All these considerations, together with the absence of John Ayliffe
from his residence, had led the good farmer to a right conclusion, and
he had stated the fact broadly to Sir Philip Hastings.
Sir Philip, on his part, had made no particular inquiries, for the
very name of John Ayliffe was hateful to him; but when he heard that
his daughter had gone forth alone to that very cottage, and had
remained there for a considerable time in the same place with the man
whom he abhorred, and remembered that the tale which had been boldly
put forth of her having visited him in secret, the very blood, as it
flowed through his heart, seemed turned into fire, and his brain
reeled with anguish and indignation.
Presently the hall door was heard to open, and there was a light step
in the passage. Sir Philip darted forth from his room, and met his
daughter coming in with a sad and anxious face, and as he thought with
traces of tears upon her eyelids.
"Where have you been?" asked her father in a stern low tone.
"I have been to Jenny Best's down the lane, my father," replied Emily,
startled by his look and manner, but still speaking the plain truth,
as she always did. "Is my mother worse?"
Without a word of reply Sir Philip turned away into his room again and
closed the door.
Alarmed by her father's demeanor, Emily hurried up at once to Lady
Hastings's room, but found her certainly more cheerful and apparently
better.
The assurance given by the physician that there was no immediate
danger, nor any very unfavorable symptom, had been in a certain degree
a relief to Lady Hastings herself; for, although she had undoubtedly
been acting a part when in the morning she had declared herself dying,
yet, as very often happens with those who deceive, she had so far
partially deceived herself as to believe that she was in reality very
ill. She was surprised at Emily's sudden appearance and alarmed look,
but her daughter did not think it right to tell her the strange
demeanor of Sir Philip, but sitting down as calmly as she could by her
mother's side, talked to her for several minutes on indifferent
subjects. It was evident to Emily that, although her father's tone was
so harsh, her mother viewed her more kindly than in the morning, and
the information which had been given her by the surgeon accounted for
the change. The conduct of Sir Philip, however, seemed not to be
explained, and Emily could hardly prevent herself from falling into
one of those reveries which have often been mentioned before. She
struggled against the tendency, however, for some time, till at length
she was relieved by the announcement that Mistress Hazleton was below,
but when Lady Hastings gave her maid directions to bring her friend
up, Emily could refrain no longer from uttering at least one word of
warning.
"Give me two minutes more, dear mamma," she said, in a low voice. "I
have something very particular to say to you--let Mrs. Hazleton wait
but for two minutes."
"Well," said Lady Hastings, languidly; and then turning to the maid
she added, "Tell dear Mrs. Hazleton that I will receive her in five
minutes, and when I ring my bell, bring her up."
As soon as the maid had retired Emily sank upon her knees by her
mother's bed-side, and kissed her hand, saying, "I have one great
favor to ask, dear mother, and I beseech you to grant it."
"Well, my child," answered Lady Hastings, thinking she was going to
petition for a recall of her injunction against the marriage with
Marlow, "I have but one object in life, my dear Emily, and that is
your happiness. I am willing to make any sacrifice of personal
feelings for that object. What is it you desire?"
"It is merely this," replied Emily, "that you would not put any trust
or confidence whatever in Mrs. Hazleton. That you would doubt her
representations, and confide nothing to her, for a short time at
least."
Lady Hastings looked perfectly aghast. "What do yon mean, Emily?" she
said. "What can you mean? Put no trust in Mrs. Hazleton, my oldest and
dearest friend?"
"She is not your friend," replied Emily, earnestly, "nor my friend,
nor my father's friend, but the enemy of every one in this house. I
have long had doubts--Marlow changed those doubts into suspicions,
and this day I have accidentally received proof positive of her cruel
machinations against my father, yourself, and me. This justifies me in
speaking as I now do, otherwise I should have remained silent still."
"But explain, explain, my child," said Lady Hastings. "What has she
done? What are these proofs you talk of? I cannot comprehend at all
unless you explain."
"There would be no time, even if I were not bound by a promise,"
replied Emily; "but all I ask is that you suspend all trust and
confidence in Mrs. Hazleton for one short day--perhaps it may be
sooner; but I promise you that at the end of that time, if not before,
good Mr. Dixwell shall explain every thing to you, and place in your
hands a paper which will render all Mrs. Hazleton's conduct for the
last two years perfectly clear and distinct."
"But do tell me something, at least, Emily," urged her mother. "I hate
to wait in suspense. You used to be very fond of Mrs. Hazleton and she
of you. When did these suspicions of her first begin, and how?"
"Do you not remember a visit I made to her some time ago," replied
Emily, "when I remained with her for several days? Then I first
learned to doubt her. She then plotted and contrived to induce me to
do what would have been the most repugnant to your feelings and my
father's, as well as to my own. But moreover she came into my room one
night walking in her sleep, and all her bitter hatred showed itself
then."
"Good gracious! What did she say? What did she do?" exclaimed Lady
Hastings, now thoroughly forgetting herself in the curiosity Emily's
words excited.
Her daughter related all that had occurred on the occasion of Mrs.
Hazleton's sleeping visit to her room, and repeated her words as
nearly as she could recollect them.
"But why, my dearest child, did you not tell us all this before?"
asked Lady Hastings.
"Because the words were spoken in sleep," answered Emily, "and excited
at the time but a vague doubt. Sleep is full of delusions; and though
I thought the dream must be a strange one which could prompt such
feelings, yet still it might all be a troublous dream. It was not till
afterwards, when I saw cause to believe that Mrs. Hazleton wished to
influence me in a way which I thought wrong, that I began to suspect
the words that had come unconsciously from the depths of her secret
heart. Since then suspicion has increased every day, and now has
ripened into certainty. I tell you, dear mother, that good Mr.
Dixwell, whom you know and can trust, has the information as well as
myself. But we are both bound to be silent as to the particulars for
some hours more. I could not let Mrs. Hazleton be with you again,
however--remembering, as I do, that seldom has she crossed this
threshold or we crossed hers, without some evil befalling us--and not
say as much as I have said, to give you the only hint in my power of
facts which, if you knew them fully, you could judge of much better
than myself. Believe me, dear mother, that as soon as I am
permitted--and a very few hours will set me free--I will fly at once
to tell you all, and leave you and my father to decide and act as your
own good judgment shall direct."
"You had better tell me first, Emily," replied Lady Hastings; "a woman
can always best understand the secrets of a woman's heart. I wish you
had not made any promise of secrecy; but as you have, so it must be.
Has Marlow had any share in this discovery?" she added, with some
slight jealousy of his influence over her daughter's mind.
"Not in the least with that which I have made to-day," replied Emily;
"but I need not at all conceal from you that he has long suspected
Mrs. Hazleton of evil feelings and evil acts towards our whole family;
and that he believes that he has discovered almost to a certainty that
Mrs. Hazleton aided greatly in all the wrong and injury that has been
done my father. The object of his going to France was solely to trace
out the whole threads of the intrigue, and he went, not doubting in
the least that he should succeed in restoring to my parents all that
has been unjustly taken from them. That such a restoration must take
place, I now know; but what he has learned or what he has done I
cannot tell you, for I am not aware. I am sure, however, that if he
brings all he hopes about, it will be his greatest joy to have aided
to right you even in a small degree."
"I do believe he is a very excellent and amiable young man," said Lady
Hastings thoughtfully.
She seemed as if she were on the point of saying something farther on
the subject of Marlow's merits; but then checked herself, and added,
"But now indeed, Emily, I think I ought to send for Mrs. Hazleton."
"But you promise me, dear mother," urged Emily eagerly, "that you will
put no faith in any thing she tells you, and will not confide in her
in any way till you have heard the whole?"
"That I certainly will take care to avoid, my dear," replied Lady
Hastings. "After what you have told me, it would be madness to put any
confidence in her--especially when a few short hours will reveal all.
You are sure, Emily, that it will not be longer!"
"Perfectly certain, my dear mother," answered her daughter. "I would
not have promised to refrain from speaking, had I not been certain
that the time for such painful concealment must be very short."
"Well, then, my dear child, ring the bell," said Lady Hastings. "I
will be very guarded merely on your assurances, for I am sure that you
are always candid and sincere whatever your poor father may think."
Emily rung the bell, and retired to her own room, repeating
mournfully to herself, "whatever my poor father may think!--Well,
well," she added, "the time will soon come when he will be undeceived,
and do his child justice. Alas, that it should ever have been
otherwise!"
She found relief in tears; and while she wept in solitude Lady
Hastings prepared to receive Mrs. Hazleton with cold dignity. She had
fully resolved when Emily left her to be as silent as possible in
regard to every thing that had occurred that day, not to allude
directly or indirectly to the warning which had been given her, and to
leave Mrs. Hazleton to attribute her unwonted reserve to caprice or
any thing else she pleased. But the resolutions of Lady Hastings were
very fragile commodities when she fell into the hands of artful people
who knew her character, and one was then approaching not easily
frustrated in her designs.
FOOTNOTES:
[6] Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1850, by G. P. R.
James, in the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the United States for
the Southern District of New-York.
Continued from page 41.
NEWSPAPER POETS: CHARLES WELDON.
Some of the best poetry in America makes its appearance in the
newspapers, without pretension, and often without the names of its
authors. It is enough for them to write, and publish, whoever will may
take the fame. This indifference to public opinion does not arise from
any want of autorial vanity perhaps, but in most cases from that
modesty which an acquaintance with and self-measurement by the best
standards never fails to produce in sincere lovers of art.
Recently a series of noticeable poems has from time to time appeared
in the _Tribune_, without any name or clue to their authorship except
the enigmatical initials O. O. They are by Mr. Charles Weldon; he is
still a young man, and the poems below, we have been told, are the
first that he wrote. Their niceties of rhythm in many cases would
reflect credit on the recognized masters of the poetic art. In this
respect they are remarkable; but perhaps their greatest charm is a
certain kind of subtle but masculine thought. They embody what most
men feel, but lack words to express; strange facts of impression and
consciousness, half-formed philosophies, and those glimpses of truth
which are revealed to the mind in certain moods, as stray rays of the
moon on a cloudy night. In this respect they resemble the best pieces
of Emerson, who seems to be a favorite with Mr. Weldon. In others they
remind us of the simplicity of "In Memoriam." By this we intend a
compliment rather than a charge of imitation. Mr. Weldon's thoughts
are too peculiar to come from any one but himself, and too original to
be cast in other moulds. We shall watch his progress with interest,
and are mistaken if he does not do something worthy to be long
remembered.
Mysterious interpreter,
Dear Aid that God has given to me!
Instruct me, for I meanly err;
Inform me, for I dimly see.
I know thee not: How can I know?--
I sought thee long, and lately found,
Wearing the sable weeds of wo,
A figure cast upon the ground.
_Thou_ wert that figure. Face to face
We have not stood: I dare not see
Thy features. We did once embrace,
And all my being went to thee.
Henceforward never more apart
We wander. All thy steps are mine.
Thou hast my brain: thou hast my heart:
Thou hast my soul. And I am thine.
...*...*...*...*
The Sun has his appointed place,
He never rests, and never tires;
And ever in serenest space
Burn the celestial, upper fires.
They shine into the soul of man--
Good works of God, but not the best--
And he adores them as he can,
Cherishing a supremer guest.
He does not know the alphabet
Of angel-language, who aspires
Against the sky his tube to set,
And spell them into worlds, those fires.
...*...*...*...*
The Petrel, bird of storms, is found
Five hundred leagues from any ground:
He dwells upon the ocean-wave;
He screams above the sailor's grave.
How many tens of centuries
Ere mankind built their theories,
Skimming the foamy tracks of whales,
Did he outride the stoutest gales,
Upon three thousand miles of sea
From land to land perpetually
Rolling; and not a wave could stay,
From day to night, from night to day,
Without an anthem? Where are gone
The anthem, and the sea-bird's moan?
Where is the splendor of the morn
That rose on seas, ere man was born?
Where are the roses of the years,
Ere Mother Eve knew mother's cares?
Where is the clang of Tubal-Cain's
First brass, and where are Jubal's strains?
Where is the rainbow Noah saw
And heard a law, or thought a law?
The rainbow fades, the beauty lives;
The creature falls, the race survives.
...*...*...*...*
They tell us that the brain is mind,
Or the mind enters through the brain,
Even as light that is confined
And colored by the window pane.
The act is fashioned by the head,
And thus man does or cannot do;
Through the red glass the light is red.
Through the blue glass the light is blue.
They do not urge their world-machine
To sounder progress, nor explain
The difficulties that were seen
And felt before--pray what _is_ brain?
All undiscoverable, how
Can they resolve the Whence or Why
Man grew to being in the Now,
Or what is his Futurity.
...*...*...*...*
Down the world's steep, dread abysmal,
Icy as Spitzbergen's coast,
Through the night hours, long and dismal,
Ghost is calling unto ghost;
Crushed is every fairer promise,
And the good is taken from us;
Sorrow adds to former sorrow,
And, with every new to-morrow,
Some expected joy is lost.
But I will not shrink nor murmur.
Though a spectre leads me on;
Now I set my footsteps firmer,
Face me now, thou skeleton!
Trance me with thy fleshless eyeholes--
But I move to other viols
Than the rattling of thy bones,
As we tread the crazy stones,
For I see the risen sun.
With my face behind my shadow
Thrown before the risen sun,
Life I follow o'er the meadow,
And an angel thrusts me on.
Every little flower below me
Seems to see me, seems to know me;
Every bird and cloud above me
Seems (or do I dream?) to love me,
While the Angel thrusts me on.
Where the turf is softest, greenest,
Does that Angel thrust me on;
Where the landscape lies serenest
In the journey of the sun.
I shall pass through golden portals
With him, to the wise Immortals,
And behold the saints and sages
Who outshone their several ages,
For an Angel thrust them on.
...*...*...*...*
The poem of the Universe
Nor rhythm has, nor rhyme;
Some god recites the wondrous song,
A stanza at a time.
Great deeds he is foredoomed to do,
With Freedom's flag unfurled,
Who hears the echo of that song,
As it goes down the world.
Great words he is compelled to speak,
Who understands the song;
He rises up like fifty men--
Fifty good men and strong.
A stanza for each century!
Now, heed it, all who can,
Who hears it, he, and only he,
Is the elected man.
...*...*...*...*
The frost upon the window pane
Makes crystal pictures in the night;
The Earth, old mother, wears again
Her garment of the shining white.
We fly across the frozen snow
With bounding blood that will not pause.
Oh Heaven! we are far below--
Oh Earth! above thee, with thy laws.
The happy horses toss their bells;
The sleigh goes on into the far
And far away. (A whisper tells
Of flight to where the angels are.)
Glide forward. As a star that slips
Through space, we know a large desire;
And though our steeds are urged by whips,
We haste as they were urged by fire.
Dash forward, Let us know no rest--
But on, and on, and ever on,
Until the palace of the West
We enter, with the sinking sun.
And forward still, until the East
Releases the aspiring day;
And forward till the hours have ceased,
Oh Earth! now art thou far away.
...*...*...*...*
The mountains truly have a glorious roughness;
I do not hear the pyramids are smooth;
The ocean grandly foams into abruptness;
Does God peal thunder down a well-oiled groove?
Thou, with a poet's roughness, friend, would'st quarrel;
Staggering o'er the ridges of ploughed speech,
You move uneasily. Well, the apparel
Of verse is trivial. Try the sense to reach.
THE COUNT MONTE-LEONE: OR, THE SPY IN SOCIETY.[7]
TRANSLATED FOR THE INTERNATIONAL MONTHLY MAGAZINE FROM THE FRENCH OF
H. DE ST. GEORGES.
XX.--THE GOOD AND THE BAD ANGEL.
The Count of Monte-Leone was cast down on receiving from the minister
an order to leave France. So many interests bound him to his country;
not that he cherished still the hope of being loved by Aminta, and of
one day giving her his name. His ruin had dissipated all his bright
dreams of future happiness. But he resided in the same place as the
marquise; he breathed the same air that she breathed. To live near her
thus, without seeing her, without telling her of that love which
consumed his soul, was indeed cruel--it was a bitter sorrow to him
every hour and every moment. But to remove himself from her and France
was to die. And then, his political work--that work, his life and
glory--that work which he loved because it avenged him of kings in
avenging his father, the victim of a king--in which he believed he saw
the regeneration of the world--that great work, in fine, of which the
confidence of almost all the _Ventes_ of Europe rendered him in some
way the master and arbiter--it was necessary to renounce at the very
moment of accomplishment. He must abandon his associates, his
brothers, who relied in the hour of danger on his devotion and energy,
and on the firm and bold will with which he had often controlled
chance, and by which he had produced safety from apparent shipwreck.
Had the Count been denounced? was the plan for the completion of which
he and his friends toiled known? He told Taddeo, Von Apsbery, and
d'Harcourt, of the order he had received, and they had consulted about
it. Their plans, as it will be seen, though difficult, were
susceptible of penetration. The house of the false Matheus as yet
appeared unsuspected, and that was a great point. It was the holy ark
in which were deposited the archives of the association, and the names
of the agents, and if it were violated, all was lost. The expulsion
from France of the Count might be the signal of the persecutions about
to be begun against Carbonarism. At once, by means of a spontaneity
which was one of the characteristics of the association, all the
_Vente_ of Paris were informed of the measures adopted against Count
Monte-Leone. The mighty serpent then coiled up its innumerable rings
and then its federal union apparently ceased in the whole capital. The
orders were transmitted, received, and executed the very night after
the decree of the minister had been signified to Monte-Leone. The
friends during the night could not fancy why the order had been given.
Monte-Leone seemed, as it were, struck by a new idea and said:
"Perhaps it has no political motive, but has been dictated by private
vengeance." He then paused, for he saw Taddeo's eyes fixed on him. He
continued--"I have a few hours left to ascertain it, and will do so,
not for my own sake, for whatever motive it may have, it will not
trouble me less, but for your sake, my friends, who will remain here
to defend the breach and to receive the enemy's attack."
It was then resolved that up to the time of Monte-Leone's departure,
he should not again visit Matheus's house, nor receive the adieus of
his friends even at his hotel. All this took place on the night after
the interview of the stranger and M. H----, and on the day Louis
XVIII. received the visit of the Prince de Maulear. In relation to
private revenge the Count could think of no one except the beautiful
and passionate Duchess of Palma, who had loved him so devotedly that
she wished even to die for him. This passionate woman he had driven to
despair. For some time, though, calmness and resignation seemed to
occupy her once desolate heart. The Count rarely visited her, but
occasionally went to her hotel. Every time he did so, he found her
more reasonable and calm. The Duchess evidently avoided all allusion
to their old relations. She inquired calmly after his affairs, his
pleasures, and his friends. When her mind recurred to the past, as a
skiff drifts towards the river it has left, an effort of will was
required again to push it into the wide stream of worldliness and
indifference. The Count, however, was a delicate and acute observer,
and sounded the abyss of her mind through the flowers which grew
across its brink. The Count then went to his hotel at the _Champs
Elysées_, to clear up his suspicions, and to ascertain if his
expulsion had not been caused by the Duchess of Palma. Monte-Leone was
ushered in and found her with a few visitors. The features of the
Duchess evidently became flushed at the sound of Monte-Leone's name.
This, however, was but a flash of light in the dark, and the pale and
beautiful face of La Felina soon became cold and passionless. "I
expected you, Signor," said she, "when I learned from the Duke the
unpleasant event which has occurred. I did not think you would leave
the city without seeing me."
"Signora," said the Count, "you were right. But you are mistaken in
calling the terrible blow, the almost humiliating attack to which I
have been subjected, a disagreeable event."
"Certainly," said La Felina, "it is a catastrophe, and I can
understand how severe it must be. We will talk of it by and by,
however, when we are _alone_."
The last words of the Duchess were a dismissal to those in the room,
and a few moments after they left. When the ambassadress had seen the
last visitor leave, she rang the bell by her side. A footman came, to
whom she said, "Remember I am at home to no one, not even to the Duke,
if he take it into his head to ask for me. Now," said she to the
Count, who was surprised at the precautions she had taken, "we are now
alone, and can talk together safely. You tell me you are ordered to
leave France?"
"At once, without the assignment of any reason."
"Have you not seen the Minister and asked an explanation?"
"I did not think it dignified to do so. Besides, my legal protector in
France, the Duke of Palma, the Neapolitan ambassador, alone can defend
me. I am, too, unwilling to ask justice, even, far less a favor, from
his excellency."
"You are right," said the Duchess. "You would not have been
successful, for at the instance of the Duke himself have you been
ordered away."
The reply of the Duchess was clear and precise. The Count had every
reason to suspect she had participated in the affair, but wished to be
sure of it.
"And has not the Duchess discovered why the Duke has done so?"
"Certainly," said La Felina. "The Duke has little confidence in me,
not deigning to initiate me in the mysteries of diplomacy. This is not
the case, though, with the secretaries. Now," said she kindly, "you
must know that nothing which relates to you is uninteresting and I
therefore sought to discover why such a stern course had been
adopted."
"Indeed."
"Your Neapolitan enemies, or perhaps your _friends_, have caused this.
The court of Naples had, by means of the Duke of Palma, pointed you
out to that of France as maintaining communications with Italy, which
endangered the peace of the country. You are accused of being engaged
in a plot to control from Paris the insurrectionary movements of the
two Sicilies. You may," said she, "be innocent of those crimes, but
you have left terrible recollections behind you in Naples, and your
name will long continue a standard of revolt and sedition."
"The court of Naples," said the Count, "does me honor by believing me
thus powerful and formidable. I do not see, however, the use of
bringing so dangerous a person to Italy."
The Duchess said, "At home, it will be able to watch you more closely
than at a distance. I trust, however, we will be able to defeat their
plans and keep you here."
"What say you?" said the Count.
"I say that I am willing to abandon many schemes, but will not be
diverted from being useful to you--from defending you against your
enemies--nor cease to be what I once was, a secret providence, an Ægis
against danger. You know I learned this long ago, and am happy to be
again able to assume the part."
The Count did not know what to think, and his face expressed doubt and
incredulity.
"Well, well," said she bitterly, "you suspect, you doubt me, and do
not think me generous enough to return good for evil. So be it; judge
me by my actions rather than my words. The former will soon convince
you of my devotion."
"What devotion, Signora, do you speak of?" said the Count with
curiosity.
"Plainly speaking, of the most sublime of all devotion--of making you
happy at the expense of myself. I wish to retain you here in France,
where the happiness of which I speak exists, to keep you by her who
loves you and by whom you are loved."
"What say you?" said the Count, "would you do so?"
"I will try," said Felina. "I have been forced to adopt strange and
extreme means," added she, with a smile. "You know serious cases
require violent remedies, and I had no choice."
"Felina," said the Count, with emotion, "I have just committed an
offence against you, for which I blush, and which my frankness alone
can excuse. When you were busy in my behalf I fancied you the cause of
my troubles."
"That is very natural, and I am not at all surprised," said the
Duchess. "People in this world are not apt to repay evil with good. I,
however, do not wish to appear to you to be better than I am. Perhaps
I am less deserving than you think. Time, it is said, cures the
greatest mortifications, and dissipates the deepest passions. Three
months ago I did not think it possible that I could have acted thus on
your behalf. Then I was but a poor despised woman, passionate and
deserted. Now I am your friend, sincere and devoted."
"You are an angel," said the Count, with a deep transport of
gratitude.
"An angel," said the Duchess. "Then there are only good angels. But,"
continued she, as if she were unwilling to suffer the Count to think
on what she had said, "let us descend from heaven, where you give me
so excellent a resting place, to earth. Speak to me of your plans and
of her you love."
"Of her I love!" said the Count, with hesitation.
"Certainly; have not all your old hopes returned? Has not the death of
the Marquis revived your old passion?"
"Felina," said the Count, "should I talk to you of such matters?"
"Why not? am I not the first to mention them? You must, from my
_sang-froid_, see that I can now listen to your confessions and hear
all your tender sentiments. The French proverb says: _'Il n'y a que le
premier pas qui coute_;'[8] I have already taken that. Treat me as a
sister, but as a sister you love, and let me at least have the
satisfaction of knowing that my self-denial has made you happy."
"Happy!" said the Count, relapsing into sad thoughts, "may I always be
happy, as you seem to wish me! I do not know that I may not hope some
day for her to share my fate. She once refused my hand. I do not know
but that her heart at last listens to mine; but that which Count
Monte-Leone, amid all his luxury, once could offer, the poor and
exiled Italian does not now propose."
"Really," said Felina, "I am predestined to make you happy. By a
single word I am about to dissipate the clouds around you, and light
up your brow and heart with joy."
"That is impossible," said the Count. "I henceforth have nothing, and
have lost even hope."
"The present," said the Duchess, "is less sombre than you think it.
You are yet rich, almost as you ever were."
The features of the Count expressed the greatest astonishment.
"Listen to me," said the Duchess. "Yesterday one of my Neapolitan
friends came to see me. He spoke of you, and I did not conceal the
interest with which you had inspired me. He told me he had a
confidential letter for Count Monte-Leone from his banker, Antonio
Lamberti. The man is not so bad as he is thought to be; for, forced to
give way before the burden of his obligations, he only pretended to
fail. United by friendship, and especially by political opinions, with
you, he has saved your fortune, and will send you the income until he
can arrange his affairs and send you the capital."
"Can this be true?" said the Count, beside himself.
"All this can be effected only on certain conditions, that you will
answer the letter of Lamberti, which now should be at your hotel."
Monte-Leone could not repress his joy. "Rich," said he; "yet rich!
Fortune has now its value for _her_ sake."
Scarcely had he uttered the last word when the face of the Duchess
changed its expression. Her eyes glared with madness, and a mortal
pallor covered her face.
"Excuse me," said the Count, as he saw this change. This was however
but a flash, and by her powerful self-control Mme. de Palma became
calm and smiling. She said "convalescents sometimes have relapses.
Time is indispensable for a radical cure. The storm has passed, and
the old nature reappears but for a moment, and gives place to the new
but true friend, who rejoices with you at your unanticipated good
fortune. It will secure your happiness."
"My friend," added she, reaching out her hand to Monte-Leone, "you
must be impatient to ascertain if what I have said is true. Go home,
and you will find my prediction correct."
"Felina," said the Count, "if your hopes are not realized, if you be
not again my good star, I shall not be less grateful to you."
"Gratitude is cold, indeed," said Felina. "I ask your friendship."
"It is all yours," said the Count.
"Well, go now," said the Duchess, with a smile.
She was right, for when he reached his hotel, his old and faithful
Giacomo, who, since his master's misfortune, had discharged his
servants, and now performed all his functions, with the addition of
those of valet, factotum, and cook, was busy with preparations for the
departure of Monte-Leone. The old man gave him a letter, saying that
it had been brought during his absence. The Count opened it, and read
as follows:
"COUNT MONTE-LEONE: You will lose nothing by Antonio Lamberti. He is
not a person to destroy one of our great association. You will find
within a check for fifty thousand livres, drawn in your favor by one
of the first houses in Naples, on the house of Casimer Périer of
Paris. This is the interest at five per cent. on the million deposited
by you with Antonio Lamberti. Every year the same sum will be paid
down, and before six months you will receive security for your
principal. One condition only is interposed on the return of your
fortune. This is indispensable--that you maintain the most profound
secrecy in relation to your new resources, and attribute them to any
other than the real cause. The least indiscretion on your part will
awake attention in relation to means employed to save from the wreck
of Antonio Lamberti your own fortune."
This letter was signed, _A Brother of the Venta of Castel-à-Mare_.
Count Monte-Leone, though master of himself in adversity, could not
repress his joy as he read this saving letter. As he had said at the
house of La Felina, it was not for himself but for another that he
rejoiced at this return of prosperity.
"A fine time, indeed, to be laughing," said Giacomo, ill-tempered as
possible, "when we are being driven from the country as if we were
spotted with plague. Only think, a Monte-Leone expelled, when his
ancestor, Andrea Monte-Leone, Viceroy of Sicily, received royal honors
in every town he passed through. You, however, have no shame. No,
Signor," added he, as he saw Monte-Leone smiling. "Had I been in your
place, I would have picked a quarrel and killed the damned minister
who has forced us to resume our wandering gipsy life. Besides we are
ruined gipsies. At my age to begin my wanderings, to be badly lodged,
badly fed, like the servant of a pedler. If I were only twenty I would
undertake a game of dagger-play with my minister."
"That is very fine, Giacomo," said Monte-Leone, "but the dagger is not
the fashion in France. As for your apprehensions of the future, you
may get rid of them by leaving me."
The wrath of the old man disappeared at these words of his master, and
great tears streamed down his furrowed cheeks.
"Leave you! I leave you, when you are lost and ruined, Count?" said
the good man. "Your father would not have spoken thus to me."
"Come, come, old boy, you know well enough I cannot get on without
you. If you did not scold me every day, if you did not bark
everlastingly at me, like those old servants to whom age gives
impunity--if I did not hear every morning and night your magisterial
reprimands, I would have fancied I missed some luxury. Be easy,
however, Giacomo. You saw me happy just now because my sky began to
grow bright, because our fortune is about to change, because we are
nearer good fortune than you thought."
Full of these happy ideas, and anxious to take advantage of the few
hours yet under his control, in case his departure should be enforced,
the Count went to the hotel of the Prince. His heart beat violently
when he was shown into the saloon of the Marquise, and he was glad
that her not being in the room enabled him to repress his agitation.
Aminta came in soon after. When Monte-Leone was announced, she felt
almost as he had done.
She spoke first, but with a voice full of agitation. "We had almost
despaired of seeing you, Count, for the Prince told me you were about
to go. You have however neglected us for so long a time that we knew
not whether we might expect you to bid us adieu."
The fact was, that since the news of his ruin the Count had not called
to see Aminta. He felt that every interview made his departure more
painful and the wreck of his hopes more terrible.
"Madame," said he, without replying immediately to her kind reproach,
"you are not mistaken, for an exile comes to bid you farewell. That
exile, however, will bear away a perpetual memory of your kindness."
"You will see _our_ country," said the Marquise, with an effort.
"I shall see my country, but not that which made it dear to me."
"You will find many friends there," said the Marquise, becoming more
and more troubled.
"Friends are like swallows, Signora, they love the summer, but leave
when winter comes."
"You must have thought the Prince and myself were like them," said
Aminta, "and that winter was come. You have not been for a long time
to see us."
"Ah, Signora, had I known--had I guessed--such a sympathy would have
made me wish for misfortune."
"No, Count, not so. It should, however, aid you to bear it."
"There are misfortunes," said the Count, "which often disturb the
strongest mind and destroy the greatest courage."
"Ah, Signor, should the loss of a fortune cause such regret?"
"But what if the loss of fortune," continued the Count, "involved that
of the only blessing dreamed of--if this loss deprived you even of the
right to be happy--then, Signora, do you understand, what would be the
effect of such a loss?"
The future fate of the Count was thus exhibited to Aminta. She saw at
once that this noble and energetic man, born to command, must be
proscribed, wandering, and wretched. The idea was too much for her
heart, already crushed by the idea of a separation which became every
moment more painful to her, and she therefore formed in her mind a
generous resolution.
"Signor," said she, "there are hearts which are attracted rather than
alienated by misfortune, and sentiments which they would conceal from
the happy, they confess to those who suffer."
Monte-Leone, perfectly overcome, fell at the Marquise's feet. He was
about to confess the unexpected good fortune which had befallen him.
He, however, forgot all, and covered the hand which the Marquise
abandoned to him with kisses. The Prince de Maulear entered, and
appeared surprised but not offended by what he saw. "Do not disturb
yourself, dear Count,--I know the meaning of all that, and expected
it. But if, however, you are making an exhibition of your despair and
misery, you have lost your time; for you will not go. The King places
a high estimate on you, and will not forget you. He told me so."
XXI.--THE SECRET PANEL.
Three hours after the revelation made to M. H---- by his mysterious
visitor in the cabinet of the chief of the political police, a man
about fifty years of age rang at the door of a room on the second
story of a furnished house in Jacob-street. He looked like a
substantial citizen with a property of fifty thousand francs--or an
income of 2,500 francs at five per cent. The mulberry frock of this
man, over a vest of yellow silk, spotted with snuff, and a cravat of
white mousseline, with gloves of sea-green, and pantaloons of brown
cloth twisted like a cork-screw around his legs, an ivory-headed cane,
and all the _et cetera_, might appropriately belong to a shopkeeper,
retired from business, living in some _thebaide_ of the streets
d'Enfer or Vaugirard, and sustaining their intellects by the leaders
of "The White Flag" of Martainville, and by witnessing once a year
some chef-d'oeuvre of Picard at the Odeon.
We will make no conjectures about the social position of this
gentleman,--he will hereafter explain himself. Almost before the bell
he rang had ceased to sound, the door was opened by another person.
The latter was tall, dark and athletic, so that we would really have
taken him for the lover of Mlle. Celestine Crepineau, had he worn the
magnificent moustache and voluminous whiskers of the bear-hunter,
which the lady admired so much. His costume, too, was different from
that of the Spaniard. He wore a blue frock over his chest, at the
bottom hole of which was a bit of red ribbon, not a little discolored.
"Ah! M. Morisseau," said the inmate of the room, "you are welcome, but
late. The dinner is cold. And," added he in a low tone, "the dinner of
_a brigand of the Loire_, as they call such fragments of the imperial
guard as myself, must be hot, it being too small to eat in any other
way."
"I think it always excellent, Monsieur _Rhinoceros_," said Morisseau.
"Permit me," said the brigand of the Loire,--for so the man called
himself--"My name is not Rhinoceros. A certain African animal has that
beautiful name, as I have often told you during the many games of
_dominoes_ we have played together at the _Café Lemblin_, whither you
are attracted by my company. My name is _Rinoccio--Paolo Rinoccio_,
born in Corsica, as my foreign accent tells you. I am the countryman
of _him_." He made a military salute. "I served ten years beneath the
Eagles. You, too, adore our Emperor. Each Buonapartist has a hand for
his brother," continued he, shaking that of Morisseau. "Already
thinking alike, eight days ago, over M. Lemblin's cognac, we swore
eternal friendship. You, therefore, deigned to visit the warrior in
his tent, in Jacob-street, to share the bread and soup of the soldier,
and drink to the return of _him_ of Austerlitz."
"M. Rhinoceros,--no, no, Rhino,--damn the name," said the Corsican's
guest, "it is indeed an honor for me to sit at the table of so brave a
man--for that reason, I accepted your invitation."
"Sit down, then, and let us drink to the health of the little
corporal."
As he spoke he filled two glasses and emptied his own. M. Morisseau
simply moistened his lips. "The Emperor," he said, on receiving his
part of the soup, "the Emperor, M. Rhino, was my god."
"And that of France," said the Corsican.
"He was my god and my best customer; I had the honor to be his
furrier."
"His what?"
"His furrier. I furnished his majesty's robes--not only his own, but
those of all the kings he made. You know the Emperor used to make a
king a year, and he used to insist that all his brothers and friends
should reign only in my robes. I had the honor, therefore, of wrapping
up the august forms of Kings Louis, Joseph, Jerome, Bernadotte and
Murat, without particularizing the sovereign princes, grand dukes, and
grand judges, who to please _him_ dealt with me."
"To _his_ health," said the Corsican, and he emptied the second glass.
"You never served, Monsieur Morisseau?"
"Yes," said the furrier, "I marched beneath the imperial eagles. I
belonged to the glorious army of the _Sambre_ and _Meuse_. I even now
suffer in my _femur_."
"From a ball?"
"No, from the rheumatism, contracted during a forced march during the
winter of '93. Having been surprised during the night by the enemy, I
had not time to dress myself comfortably, and was compelled to march
fifteen leagues barefooted, and in my drawers. That, by the bye, was
the usual uniform of our army. Those who were best dressed only wore
shoes and pantaloons. To dress thus, though, something more than our
pay was necessary, which we never got."
"You were then discharged?"
"Yes, for my rheumatism became very severe. But for it I might now be
a general. I asked a pension as having been wounded in service. It
was, however, refused me--a great injustice."
"The soup is gone. It is a very indigestible food, and we must
therefore attack the enemy in his strong-holds. Two glasses of vin de
Beaume will settle him."
"But," said Morisseau, as he saw his host filling up his glass, "my
head is very weak, and I have not gotten drunk since I left the
service."
"So be it, dear Morisseau. I will go for the second service, which the
restorateur leaves in the kitchen. Excuse my having no servant, but
two old soldiers like us can do without attendants."
Rinoccio went into the next room. When Morisseau was alone he took a
little vial from his pocket, opened it, and poured a few drops into
the Corsican's glass, the third portion of the contents of which he
had swallowed. Scarcely had he replaced the vial when the Corsican
entered, having a plate on which were two large pork chops, with a
gravy of _cornichons_. "The second entry will make a man drink like a
fish," said the Corsican.
"Let us drink, then," said Morisseau, knocking his glass against his
host's.
"Let us drink," said the latter; and Morisseau's eyes glared as he saw
him bear the glass to his lips. His joy, however, was short. "Let us
drink something better than this," said the Corsican, who, as he
spoke, threw away the contents of his glass. "I have some champagne
given me by my General, one of the old guard, and I shall never find a
more suitable occasion to uncork it." He took from a shelf near the
table a long wire-fastened bottle, covered with a venerable dust.
Morisseau was not yet in despair, for he relied for an opportunity to
use his vial on the third service. Paolo dexterously uncorked the
bottle, and poured out a glass of perfumed wine to the imperial
furrier, who, when he had knocked his glass against the Corsican's,
drank it down, while the latter, just when he got it to his mouth, saw
a fragment of cork on its brim. He took it out with his knife, lifted
up the glass, and said: "To the Emperor. May he whom the enemies call
the Corsican Ogre, soon eat up the Prussians, Austrians, and beggarly
Cossacks. May he cut them into cat's-meat. May he cut off the _ailles
de Pigeon_ of all the _Voltigeurs de Louis XVI._ restored by the
Bourbons. May he--"
Rinoccio paused in his speech, for his guest looked pale and
disturbed, and seemed about to go to sleep.
"_Per Bacco!_" said M. Morisseau, at once speaking the purest Italian,
"what did that devil give me to drink?"
"Probably," said the Corsican, in the same tongue, "what you would
have given me, had I not taken care to empty in the fireplace the
glass into which you had poured some narcotic or other."
"Christ!" said the furrier, "the beggar saw me!"
"Perfectly, Signor Pignana."
"He knows me," said the false furrier, attempting to rise.
The Corsican, however, pushed him back, and Pignana sank stupidly on
his seat.
"Curse you, Stenio, you shall pay for this!..."
"Ah, ah," said the Corsican, "so two played at the same game. Funny!
and we were both good actors. I do not ask you," continued he,
ironically, "why you came hither, and why you consented to share my
frugal meal, for I know already, and will tell you. You met me in
Paris, my presence annoyed you and your friends, and I know why. You
watched and pursued me to find where I lived, and you succeeded. You
joined me at the Café Lemblin, and we neither seemed to recognize each
other. I asked you to dine, and you accepted my invitation, for with
the drug you have you intended to put me to sleep, and expected then
to be able to examine all my plans. You would have failed, Signor
Pignana, for I do not live in this house. I took this room only for
your especial benefit, and intend to give it up to-morrow. Do not,
therefore, be disturbed, my good fellow; but go to sleep, and digest
your dinner."
"But I will not go to sleep," said Signor Pignana, attempting again to
rise, "I will not go to sleep here, in the house of a man I think
capable of any thing."
"Not exactly that," said the Corsican, "but I am capable of much."
"What do you wish to do with me?" said Pignana, articulating with
great pain, for his tongue began to grow heavy and his ideas confused.
"That you must not know; but do not be afraid, your life and health
being dear to me. I would not deprive the Carbonari of so skilful an
agent, who is so daring and prudent as you are. Lest, however, you
should be uneasy and your sleep be troubled, I will tell you what I
mean, and you will yourself admire my plan."
Half stupid with sleep and terror, Pignana glared at Stenio Salvatori.
"Here," said he, lifting up Pignana from the floor and placing him on
a kind of sofa, "lie there, and then you can both sleep better and
hear me more at your ease. You will for twelve hours have the most
pleasant dreams imaginable. A glass will make you sleep twelve
hours--a bottle for eternity." Pignana made a gesture expressive of
the greatest terror. "Do not be so uneasy," said Stenio, "and remember
you have had only a glass. To-morrow, at six o'clock, you will wake
up, with a slight headache, but in other respects perfectly well. Then
the master of the house will come to ask after you. If you are
generous, you will give him something to drink your health. Otherwise
you will thank him and go, for all has been paid for. You see I do
things genteelly, and know how to receive my friends. You will then
leave this house, and go about your usual business, and will never
mention this matter."
"Eh? who will prevent me?" muttered Pignana.
"Oh, you will take care not to do so. For if you own that you have
been duped, your confederates will think you a fool, and dismiss you
without wages. Now this would be bad--just on the eve of their
success. If you tell them how long you have slept, they will think you
an idiot, for I never saw any one take to champagne so kindly as you
did just now, my dear Pignana. Now, adieu, for I must go. Be still,"
said he, pushing Pignana down with all his strength. "No, no, do not
take the trouble to go with me--you are too kind. Go to sleep, go to
sleep, go to sleep, my dear fellow." He left the room, and sleep took
possession of its prey. Pignana felt his ideas grow gradually more
confused, and his real life pass away. A few minutes after Stenio's
departure, M. Pignana was sound asleep. Stenio then slowly opened the
door of the room, and glided like a shadow over the floor to the
sleeper, into whose pockets he placed his hand. "Nothing here--not
here. The devil, can it be that it is not about him!" A smile of
triumph, however, soon appeared on his lips, for he had found what he
wanted. He discovered a kind of pocket in the waistcoat of the false
tradesman, and felt in it. "Here it is!" said he. Pignana moved.
Stenio paused, and then took from the sleeper's pocket a door-key. He
then left, and did not return....
While the events recorded above were transpiring, about eight o'clock
on the evening, in Jacob-street, Mlle. Celestine Crepineau waited as
Desdemona might have done for Othello, singing the melancholy romance
of "The Willow." This was to console her for the prolonged absence of
the bear-hunter, who had not been during the whole day in her lodge.
The finger of Celestine furtively wiped away the tears which dripped
down her long aquiline nose. Hope now and then arose in her heart, but
that hope was betrayed. A man with a stern voice asked for Dr.
Matheus, and went to his room. Seven times hope was enkindled in her
heart only to be disappointed. She became angry, and as she could not
confess to that passion in relation to the bear-hunter, and must have
some pretext, she vented her temper on the Doctor's visitors. "How
soon will this be over?" said she. "All Paris has come this evening to
see my handsome lodger. What brings all these _savans_ hither? They
will keep me awake until late hours, and then Mr. Nuñez will say
maliciously in the morning, 'Your eyes, Mlle. Celestine, are very
heavy this morning. What have you been dreaming?' Then he will take
liberties altogether inconvenient to a person of my sex."
The seven blows on the knocker had announced the union of eight
persons, including Von Apsberg, in the ground-floor parlor, the
apartment through which the unfortunate Pignana used to go and come.
Two of the Doctor's friends were d'Harcourt and Taddeo Rovero. The
others we will tell by and by.
"Gentlemen," said Von Apsberg, when they were in council, "our meeting
should, as usual, be presided over by Count Monte-Leone. Since,
however, the order of expulsion, of which he was notified and which
almost immediately was revoked, for some unknown reason, it seemed
best that he should not be present. Monte-Leone is the head of the
great brotherhood of Carbonarism. We therefore propose to render a
succinct account of its situation in Europe, and particularly in
France. Its position is peculiar, and we cannot deny that its
existence is threatened on all sides. Secret and shrewd spies have
penetrated in Germany the secret labors of our three societies, _The
Tugenbund_ at Berlin, _The Burschenschaft_ and _The Teutonia_ at
Vienna and Leipsic. Their chiefs, Johan and Plischer, have been
arrested."
"Death to spies!" said Matheus's seven hearers.
"This is not all," continued Matheus. "The plans of Count Labisbel
have failed in Spain, and the Italian _vente_ have been discovered by
a shrewd police. The prisons of Naples, Venice, and Milan are already
filled with our brethren."
There was consternation on every face.
"We are assured," said Matheus, "that the informations on which these
arrests have been made have come from Paris. Now, this information
could only have been obtained from our secret papers, as we alone in
France correspond with the supreme venta of Europe. To these papers
none have access but four brothers, Monte-Leone, Rovero, d'Harcourt,
and myself. We inform you of these facts in obedience to our articles
of association, that you may place us four on trial."
These words were uttered with deep excitement. The three persons
present of the four mentioned by Von Apsberg sat still, and the others
rose.
"On my honor and conscience," said General A----, "I declare that such
an idea is unworthy of you and us." The banker F----, Count de Ch----,
a Peer of France, Ober the merchant, the lawyer B----, and professor
C----, said the same. They then gave their hands affectionately to the
three friends, who acknowledged their salute.
"Let the denunciation come whence it may, our brothers yet are victims
of it. They suffer for us," said Taddeo, "and we will act for them."
"Yes," said Von Apsberg, "we will act, and decidedly, for time presses
us, and we must anticipate our enemies unless we would be anticipated.
Let all opinions centre, then, without hesitation, on the one
principle which is the basis and keystone of Carbonarism, viz., '_That
might is not right--that the kings of Europe reign either by virtue of
a convention or by virtue of arms. The Bourbons in France reign by
virtue of the allied sovereigns. We therefore declare that the
Carbonari have associated to restore to all the nations of the
continent, and to France especially, the free exercise of the right to
choose the government which suits them best. We all swear to maintain
this principle!_"
"We swear," said the Carbonari.
"Gentlemen," said Von Apsberg, "the time of action will be fixed by
Count Monte-Leone at a meeting to take place January 25th, 1820, in
the masonic lodge of _The Friends of Truth_. Until then let each one
individually contribute to do all he can towards the reconstruction of
our new edifice from the ruins of the old."
"I take charge of the army," said General A----, "the regiments in
garrison at Befort are ours, and the others will follow their
example."
"I take charge of the colleges," said professor C----.
The lawyer B---- said, "We have many friends in the bar."
Count Ch---- said, "And in the chamber of peers."
The banker F---- added, "There will be no scarcity of money."
The last who spoke was the merchant Ober, who said, "The influence of
trade is on our side."
Von Apsberg said, "We will not meet again till the twenty-fifth of
January, 1820. The supreme _vente_, composed of the Count, Rovero, the
Viscount, and myself, will communicate only with the five central
_ventas_ of Paris, the representative of which you are. Be active,
then, in the _ventas_ which depend on you, members of which are
ignorant of your identity. Make yourself known to but one member of
each venta, and communicate with Count Monte-Leone only in that
brilliant society to which the high position of him and of yourselves
gives access, and where the government will least suspect the
existence of treason. Confide the rolls of our ventas, and of our new
associates to him alone, for it is his duty to deposit them among our
archives. Now, brethren of right and duty, confide alone in
Monte-Leone, the soul of honor and of prudence. To all others, silence
or death."
"Silence or death," repeated his seven associates, and their voices
sounded like the chorus of a solemn hymn....
A few minutes after the room was deserted. The Carbonari had gone, and
Matheus returned to his laboratory. The door of the library was then
opened gently, and two men were seen concealed behind the secret
panel. They were H----, the chief of the political police, and the
bear-hunter, the brigand of the Loire, or Stenio Salvatori.
"I have them," said M. H----.
"Not yet," said Stenio, "but thanks to our associate, Count
Monte-Leone, by whose aid I have brought you hither...."
The door was shut without noise....
The next day, when he awoke, Pignana found the key of the room in his
pocket.
BOOK II.
PART II.--I. CLOUDS IN THE HORIZON.
A month had rolled by since the Carbonari had met at the house of Von
Apsberg. They were as prudent as possible. There was no meeting of the
members of this vast society, yet such were the advantages of its
mechanism, that communication and intercourse was never interrupted
for a day. All action emanated from the high _venta_, which was known
only to the presidents of the seven central ventas, through whom its
instructions were communicated by means of _agents_ to the secondary
ventas; a few men where thus enabled to discipline ten thousand. Count
Monte-Leone was the soul of all this enterprise, and on him all the
threads of this huge net united. The Count, the invisible providence
of this invisible world, alone could give it external life and utter
the _fiat lux_ of eternity. More pleasant and delightful ideas had
possession of the Count. The future occupied him with a force and
intensity he thought most contradictory to his political duties. Since
Aminta had unveiled her heart to him, she had, as it were, returned to
her usual bearing. The life of Monte-Leone, though, was entirely
changed. The happiness he had long desired was about to dawn on him.
In a few months he would be the husband of that Aminta he had so much
loved and so regretted. The Count was received almost as a son by the
Prince, and as a husband by Aminta. Taddeo looked on him entirely as a
brother, and began to realize the happiest dream of his life--the
marriage he had so desired. Gladly availing himself of the liberty
accorded him, of coming familiarly to the hotel of the Prince de
Maulear, the Count was perfectly happy. He passed the whole day there,
and when night came mingled most unwillingly with society. The order
of expulsion which he had received, and which had been so mysteriously
revoked, added to the interest which had been entertained for him by
all Paris. The opposition was especially attentive to him, for he was
esteemed a decided enemy of the French Government, and of all
monarchies. This ostracism which he had escaped, attracted the
attention to him, for which the people of Paris were already prepared,
by the history of his Neapolitan adventures. In 1850 he would have
been called the lion of the day, and the greatest curiosity would have
been paid to all his adventures. So great was the attention excited by
the account of Monte-Leone's loss of fortune, that people were
surprised to see him resume his usual mode of life, keep possession of
his hotel, indulge in the same expenses of carriages, attendants, etc.
He altered nothing, not even the luxury of his house, from what had
been its condition before the papers and he himself had announced that
the failure of Lamberti made him entirely poor, and forced him to sell
his diamonds and other personal property to be able to live, as
cheaply as possible.
The Count, who had been forced to conceal the manner in which his
property had been restored, told his friends, Taddeo, d'Harcourt and
Von Apsberg, that certain important funds had been recovered from the
general wreck; and they, delighted with his good fortune, did not fail
to congratulate him. The world was more curious; the enemies of the
Count especially, who were ultra-monarchists, were numerous, active,
and malicious. They wrote to Naples, and ascertained that the ruin of
Monte-Leone was total, acquiring also certainty that he had no funds
in any European bank, and no property. They therefore made an outcry
of astonishment when they saw all the external appearance of opulence
in the possession of one they knew without the means of so splendid
and imposing an establishment. The Count knew nothing of this, and
continued his old life. It is, all know, true that rumors of this kind
reach their object last of all, when they are calculated to be
injurious.
One of the dominant ideas which actuated us in the preparation of this
history, we can here dwell upon, and we ask leave to do so briefly.
There exists in French society, polished and elegant as it is, a
hideous monster known to all, though no one disturbs it. Its ravages
are great; almost incalculable. It saps reputations, poisons,
dishonors, and defiles the splendor of the most estimable fame. This
minotaurus, which devours so many innocent persons, is especially
fearful, because its blows are terrible. It presents itself under the
mildest and gentlest forms, and is received every where in the city.
We find it in our rooms, in the interior of our families, in the
palaces of the opulent, and the garrets of the poor. It has no name,
being a mere figure of speech, a very word. It is composed of but one
phrase, and is called--THEY SAY. "Do you know such a one?" is often
asked, and the person is pointed out.
"_No_; but they say his morals are very bad. He has had strange
adventures, and his family is very unhappy."
"Are you sure?"
"No, I know nothing about it. But they say so."
"This young woman, so beautiful, so brilliant, so much admired--Do you
know her?"
"No. _They say_ that it is not difficult to please her, and that more
than one has done so."
"But she appears so decent, so reserved."
"Certainly; but _they say_----"
"Do not trust that gentleman who has such credit and is thought so
rich. Be on your guard--"
"Bah! his fortune is immense: see what an establishment he has."
"Yes! But _they say_ he is very much involved."
"Do you know the fact?"
"Not I. _They say_ though--"
This _they say_ is heard in every relation of life. It is deadly
mortal, and not to be grasped. It goes hither and thither, strikes and
kills manly honor, female virtue, without either sex being ever
conscious of the injury done. Each as he reads these lines will
remember cases illustrating the truth of what we say. The Count
suffered from the influence of the evil we mention; and as all were
ignorant whence his fortune came, each one adopted a thousand
conjectures and suspicions, which, as is always the case, were most
malicious. This is the way of the world. Now the consequences of this
_they say_ are plain. By its means they had dared to attack a
reputation which hitherto had been considered unassailable. This _they
say_ came in the end. The Marquise de Maulear was the only person who
knew whence came the resources of Monte-Leone; and after he had
confided to her, the charming woman had said, "It was very wrong in
you not to tell me previously of your good fortune. For instance, when
I thought you a fugitive and ruined, I suffered you to read my heart.
Had you told me this before, you would not have seen within it."
"Do not make me regret my misery which procured me such exquisite
pleasure as knowing that you loved me."
In the long and pleasant conversations of the Count and Marquise, he
was frequently embarrassed in relation to the duties imposed on him as
chief of the _Carbonari_. Aminta never dared to speak to him in
relation to that subject, though she was more anxious about it. On
this point alone the Count was impenetrable, avoiding with care all
that related to his political plans, and giving the Marquise no
information about them.
One day Aminta, the Prince de Maulear, the Countess of Grandmesnil,
and Taddeo, were in the drawing-room. The Countess did not love the
young Marquise, whom she looked on as the indirect cause of her
nephew's death. Neither did she love the Count, whose attentions to
Aminta were by no means to her taste. The old lady was aware of
Monte-Leone's opinions, and lost no opportunity to open all her
batteries on liberals, jacobins and foreigners, who sought to make
France the receptacle of the trouble and contests of which it had
already drank so deeply. The Countess said--
"You know the news, brother?" The Prince de Maulear was then playing a
game of chess with Monte-Leone. "We have now, thank God and M. Angles,
one miserable Jacobin the less to deal with."
"Check to your king!" said the Prince to Monte-Leone.
"To be sure," said she, following out the tenor of her own thoughts,
"it would be check to the King, if the opinions of those persons were
to triumph. M. Angles, however, watches over them and us."
For an instant the Count neglected his game. He as well as Taddeo
heard what she had said, and both seemed anxious to hear her out.
"May I venture to inquire, Countess," said the Count, holding his
piece in his hand, and hesitating to place it on the board, "who is
the terrible Jacobin from whom the world is delivered?"
"One of the most dangerous alive, Count," said the old lady, with an
air of triumph. "The man, it is said, had his connections established
through the whole army."
"Check to your king," said the Prince, who was weary of the delay.
"True," said the Count, with visible abstraction; and he played his
game so badly that the Prince won it without difficulty. The latter
said:
"Check-mate--victory--victory!"
"Yes, brother," said the Countess, "a great victory. For the Jacobin
is a general. General B----, one of those vile Buonapartists, to whom,
at a time like this, a regiment should never have been trusted."
The Count and Taddeo grew pale when they heard the General's name. He
was one of the seven chiefs of ventas at the house of Von Apsberg.
"Why was the General arrested?" said the Prince.
"Oh, some plot. The Jacobins and Buonapartists are always at that
business. The details are not yet known. It is certain, however, that
he was arrested this morning at his hotel. I heard so at the Duchess
de Feltre's, whom I visited to-day."
"Strange!" said the Prince; "on the day before yesterday he gave a
ball. Were you not there, Count?" said he to Monte-Leone.
"Yes," said the Count; "I was one of the last to leave. It was then
two o'clock in the morning."
"At noon his generalship was in the Conciergerie. A bad business for
him, for the government has decided to use the greatest severity
against all conspirators. Happily, the police is very expert, and it
is said of every three conspirators one is a spy. A thing very
satisfactory to society, but decidedly unfortunate for the plotters."
"I think," said the Count, indignantly, "that the conspirators are
calumniated. They are bound by such oaths, and are so devoted to their
opinions, that there can be but few traitors among them."
"My dear Count," said the Prince, "the spirit of Monte-Leone of Castle
del Uovo is yet visible, and you do not seem to have recovered from
your old disease. When you speak of conspirators you seem to defend
your friends. I hope, however, for your sake, and for the sake of
those who love you," said he, pointing to Aminta, "that you have
renounced for ever your old enterprises. His Majesty, Louis XVIII.,
the other day spoke highly of you, relying much on your devotion, and
he cannot have to do with an ingrate."
"Ah!" said Taddeo, with stupefaction, as he looked at his associate,
"the King of France relies on the devotion of Monte-Leone!"
"I know not why," said the Count, not a little moved by this _brevet_
of royalism. "I confess, though, that I shall be surprised to give any
chagrin or uneasiness to my friends."
These words were in a manner wrung from the Count by the paleness and
agitation of Aminta since the commencement of the conversation. This
new declaration increased Taddeo's surprise.
"Well, well," said the Prince, "there is pardon for every sin. We
know, and we look on you as a wandering sheep returned to the fold.
See, however, what are the consequences of a bad reputation. An
insurrection breaks out in Italy, and you are at once thought to be
its accomplice in France. You are about to be expelled from the
country and treated as an enemy, when we acquire a certainty. What do
I say? when the King of France and his ministers swear by you alone!"
This series of praises in relation to his royalty evidently increased
the bad humor of the Count, as well as the astonishment of Taddeo.
Monte-Leone was about to reply, even though he destroyed his influence
with the Prince and Marquise. He was about to repel the fanciful
compliments to his loyalty, when the Countess of Grandmesnil folded up
her work. This was the usual signal for dispersion, and all were about
to leave, when the Marquise said to Monte-Leone, "Count, will you
remain here a few moments? I wish to speak to you of the charity in
which you were kind enough to unite with me."
The Count went anxiously to Aminta's side.
The Prince said, with a smile, "No one ever refuses to speak with a
pretty woman. That is even the weak side of our ministers. Talk,
then, with my daughter-in-law, and neither the Countess nor I will
trouble you." He then took the Countess's arm, and led her from the
room. Taddeo remained, for his interest with the Count was too grave
to permit him to leave thus. Aminta said but a few words to
Monte-Leone. The deep emotion of the young woman, however, gave them a
serious character. "Listen," said she. "I do not know what is about to
happen, but your agitation, and that of Taddeo, when the Countess
spoke of General B----, did not escape me. A painful presentiment
assures me that you are involved in some secret plot, and that new
dangers menace you. In the name of all that is dear to you, in the
name of your love to me, I conjure you to abandon those ideas, or I
shall die of terror and despair." She then, without speaking a word
more, kissed her brother, and retired. The Count stood as if he were
struck with a thunderbolt. Taddeo took his hand, and said, "Come,
come," wresting the Count from the painful thoughts Aminta had called
up. "Come, the arrest of General B---- may ruin all." They entered
Monte-Leone's carriage, and drove to the Duke d'Harcourt. They hoped
to find the Vicomte, and take him to Matheus, for the opinion of each
of the four was necessary in considering the best means of warding off
the peril which menaced the association. D'Harcourt was in, but
Monte-Leone and Taddeo had not expected the spectacle which awaited
them. The Vicomte had one of those sudden attacks, forerunners of the
cruel disease which had devastated his family. The pleasures of the
winter, in which the imprudent young man madly indulged, and perhaps
also the cares and anxieties of his political relations, the nocturnal
ventas he was often obliged to attend, had severely shaken his already
feeble health, and caused a cough, every utterance of which sounded to
his father like a funeral knell. The Count and Taddeo found him in
bed. Von Apsberg was by his side, and opposite the doctor was the
charming Marie, glancing alternately from the doctor to the patient.
The Duke leaned on the fireplace, and gently scolded René for his
folly and imprudence. The arrival of the two friends produced a
cessation to this, but the Duke continued: "Come, gentlemen, and
assist me to produce some effect on your friend; for, unassisted, even
I cannot. Tell him that such an exposure of his life, in folly and
dissipation, is a double crime, when his health is so dear to an old
man who has no other son." Tears came into the Duke's eyes as he
spoke, which Marie kissed away.
"Now, René," said she, "you see how unhappy you make us all. Promise,
then, to be more reasonable."
"Father," said René, giving the Duke his hand, "I will promise you to
do the impossible thing, to be prudent. Besides, you have a powerful
auxiliary in my friend Monte-Leone, who has committed not a few
follies in his time. He has however begun a new life, and will soon be
entirely converted by Hymen."
"What," said Marie, "is the Count about to be married?"
"Mademoiselle," said the Count, "your brother is indiscreet, and you
can never take half that he says as literal."
"Then," said Marie, "you are in love--that is about the half of his
statement." And Marie blushed.
Von Apsberg said, as he remarked the embarrassment of the young girl,
"Our patient needs the warmth and mildness of the south. Magnetism
with the Vicomte will be powerless, and he must avoid cold and
dampness. He must also be prudent, and that is the greatest
difficulty. I however rely on his promise and his devotion to us.
Adieu, Messieurs," said he, bowing to Taddeo and Monte-Leone. "Do not
make him talk, or suffer him to sit up too long." The Duke left,
accompanied by Marie, whose last look seemed to recommend her brother
to the doctor. Perhaps, though, this glance had another signification,
for the eyes of young women mean a great deal. As soon as the four
associates were alone, the Count told Matheus of the arrest.
Von Apsberg thought: "The General cannot be in danger. Only one
evidence of his participation could have been found, and that
Monte-Leone gave me on the day before yesterday. I am sure I placed it
in the secret drawer of my laboratory, the key of which I alone keep."
"What proof do you mean?" asked d'Harcourt, whose memory was troubled
by illness.
"A proof," said Monte-Leone, "which would be overwhelming in the case
of the General and a number of our brethren--the roll of the venta
over which he presides. This roll he has signed. He gave it to me at
two in the morning of the day before yesterday, and I gave it to Von
Apsberg on the next day."
"Then it matters not. Though the General has been arrested, the
mystery of ventas has not been penetrated. I am assured that skilful
and incessant espionage hovers around us, and the time for action
should be no longer delayed."
"But," said the Count, to whom this idea recalled what the Marquise
had said, "we should not raise a flag we cannot defend. The forces the
General controlled are indispensable to our success."
"To replace soldiers," said Von Apsberg, "we shall have opinion on our
side. Our various ventas will be valiant soldiers, and will be
encouraged when they see themselves so much more numerous than they
expect."
"Do not let us be hasty," said Monte-Leone. "The six chiefs of the
principal ventas, like the brave General, must give me the lists of
ventas, and only when we are sure of their number will we act."
His three friends then adopted Monte-Leone's opinion, and they
separated, mutually recommending prudence to each other. There
remained, however, a species of surprise, and an injurious impression
in relation to Monte-Leone's hesitation. He had usually been the most
decided of the four.
When Von Apsberg returned home, he went to his laboratory, and opened
the bureau in which the papers of the association were kept. He
satisfied himself that the lists of the various ventas were safe. He
breathed freely and slept soundly, without any trouble on account of
the arrest of the General. On the next day, however, a letter, hastily
written with a pencil, was brought him by a man who at once
disappeared. It was from General A----, and was as follows:
"The list of our associates, certified by myself, is in the possession
of the prefect of police. I saw it myself, and I am ruined."
Von Apsberg uttered a cry of terror. He was utterly confounded.
II.--THEY SAY.
The arrest of General A---- produced a double effect in Paris. The
city began to have confidence in the vigilant police, which sought for
and arrested the enemies of order every where and in every rank, while
the chiefs of the great association of Carbonarism trembled when they
saw the government on the track of their plans and projects. They then
asked on all sides what could have been the motive of the
incarceration of the General, and how they had discovered the
criminal, or rather the criminals, for the principal associates of the
_venta_ over which the General presided, were arrested after their
chief. Still other arrests were subsequently made. Nothing, however,
transpired, either in relation to the offence of which the General was
accused, or the secret means by which the police had acquired
information of them. The police acted prudently and with great skill,
for the General and his associates were but a small part of an immense
plot. Time and secret service alone would give the government a clue
to follow all the secret labyrinths of this vast plot, which menaced
France and Europe. A conspiracy and military plot was talked of, and
the trial of the affair was understood to be postponed until time
should throw more light on the matter. The authorities were not in a
hurry, they needed other aims, and waited patiently to procure them.
Thus passed a month; and as in Paris every thing is soon forgotten,
people paid no attention to General A---- and his imprisonment. Public
attention, however, was reattracted to this mysterious affair. The
entertainments, concerts, and receptions of the court, made the city
joyous. The gold of countless visitors from foreign nations gave
activity to commerce, and there was an universal spirit of rivalry in
luxury and opulence. Then the Duchess de Berri gave those charming
balls, of which those who were admitted even now talk of.
The mystery of the note written to Von Apsberg by General A----, in
which he assured him he had seen the list of the venta, he had himself
certified to in the hands of the prefect of police, remained
impenetrable to the supreme _venta_, for Von Apsberg had the list the
Count had given him. The General was in close confinement, and no
intercourse could be had with him. The six other chiefs of the ventas
were ignorant of this incident of the arrest of their confederate. The
four brothers of the central venta had resolved not to suffer the
circumstance to transpire, because the Count fancied this circumstance
would chill their zeal, and make them uneasy about the new lists. On
these lists, as we have said, the decision of the time of action was
made to depend, as it would reveal to the four chiefs the exact number
of their confederates in Paris. According to the statutes of
carbonarism, the signatures of the brethren were sacred engagements,
which made it indispensable for them to give their aid to the
undertaking when the hour and day should be appointed. The lists were,
then, a kind of declaration of war against the government, in which
they must either conquer or die. This is the prudence of all bad
causes. Persons thus involved have no confidence that their associates
will keep their oaths, and put remorse and repentance out of the
question by allowing no alternative between ruin and safety. The
Vicomte d'Harcourt, but slightly recovered from his indisposition,
seldom left his father's house, and participated but slightly in the
pleasures of the season. Taddeo, whose devotion to the Neapolitan
ambassadress constantly increased, visited her every day, and went
nowhere else. Though aware that she was constantly anxious to speak of
the Count, he did not despair of being able some day to touch her
heart. So great were his attentions, that in society he was looked on
as the _cicisbéo_ of the Duchess. The Duke of Palma, devoted to his
opera-loves, seemed not at all offended at the frequent visits of
Taddeo Rovero, whose attentions did not at all shock his Italian
ideas. Von Apsberg lived more retired than ever, and rarely left his
laboratory except when he went to the Duke d'Harcourt's. There the
intelligent doctor was kindly received by all the family, Marie
included, and his fair patient's health seemed visibly to improve, as
those flowers which have been too long neglected always do when
attended to by a skilful horticulturist. Monte-Leone devoted to the
society of Paris, of which he was passionately fond, all the hours
which he passed away from the Marquise. This, however, was a duty, for
there only could he meet the Carbonari who belonged to the upper
class without giving rise to suspicion. The trial of General A---- was
soon to take place, and the preparations for it had already been
begun. Revelations or anxious inquiries might destroy the association.
Concert was required to avoid this, and Count Monte-Leone gave this
information to MM. C----, the lawyer B----, the baron de Ch----, the
banker F----, and the rich merchant Ober, who was perhaps from his
extended commercial relations, the most important of the Carbonari.
A great dinner was given by the banker F---- to enable the chiefs to
confer with Monte-Leone. But in addition to these personages, and in
order that public attention should not be fixed on them alone, F----
had invited the _élite_ of the capital, several peers of France, some
illustrious soldiers, many deputies, and several women famous for
their rank and beauty. Insensibly conversation assumed a political
tone, as at that time every thing did. Monte-Leone, whom the abuses of
the French government and the _camarilla_ of the Tuilleries made most
indignant, gave vent to his opinions and complained bitterly of the
acts of the ministry. He compassionated the people, whose liberties
were being swept away, and reprobated the censorship of the liberty of
the press and of freedom of speech--the only resource of the oppressed
and the only means of reaching the oppressors. The master of the
house, M. F----, agreed with the Count in the liberal opinions he had
expressed. Led on by the example, B---- and C---- testified their
sympathy with what the Count had said, and their wish to see a change
in the fortune of a country where the institutions satisfied neither
the wants nor the rights of the oppressed. This discussion, which had
been provoked by the Count, was so bold and so decided that many of
the guests looked on with terror, fearing they would be compromised by
the expression of such revolutionary ideas. Just then many of the
guests of M. F----, taking him aside from the table, asked anxiously
if he was satisfied of the discretion of all the persons present, and
also of their honor. M. F---- energetically repelled such fears,
saying: "The people whom I receive are not all friends of the
government. Nothing, however, said here will be repeated, for the
minister of police has no representative at my table." The words of
their host in a degree satisfied some of the most timid. It was then
said openly that amid the most eminent persons met with in society
were found individuals in the secret pay of M. Angles, and that many
ruined and extravagant nobleman did not hesitate to exist in this
manner. People said that in the drawing-room of M. F---- Monte-Leone
had determined to defy the government, and they looked on his conduct
under existing circumstances as most imprudent.
During the evening, and when all were engaged, the chiefs of _ventas_
took occasion, one by one, to isolate themselves from company and gave
the Count the rolls. It was then agreed, also, that the last of these
documents being complete, notice should be given without delay, and
during the trial of the General, of the day for the commencement of
the insurrectionary movement by which Carbonarism was to be revealed
to France and to Europe. The terrible plan, however, was foiled by
various events which attacked the society unexpectedly.
Four days after the dinner of M. F----, he, the lawyer B----, the
baron Ch----, who had taken so decided a part in the discussion
provoked by Monte-Leone, and who, on that very evening, had given him
the fatal lists of his associates, were arrested. The first was taken
in his office, the second just as he left his cabinet, and the third
on his way to the opera. The capital was amazed at this news. All the
other guests of F---- began to examine their consciences, and sought
to recall whether or not they had given utterance to any governmental
heresy at the fatal dinner, and whether they had not uttered something
rash. They were doubtful if any opinion at all might not expose them
to the resentment and vigilance of an adroit and secret police. It
seemed beyond a doubt that the remarks of the persons who had been
arrested had provoked this rigorous action, and that some ear in the
pay of the police had heard their dangerous conversation, and noted
the violent expression of their opinions. The conduct of all the
guests was then passed in review, and the public and private life of
each examined. Their domestic history and life were inquired into, and
their weak points, habits, errors, and tastes, were scrutinized.
No rank, family, sex, or social position, was neglected, and not even
intrigues, life, nor money, were considered sufficient to shield the
informer. All were anxious to tear away the mask from the common
enemy, to crush the serpent, who, sliding stealthily into society,
gnawed its very heart and lacerated that bosom which sheltered it.
The arrest of General A---- then recurred to the memory of all. This
event had taken place after a ball which the General had given. It was
after an entertainment given by F---- that he, too, had lost his
liberty. On this occasion two other important men had shared the fate
of the rich banker, and, like him, they had both been energetic,
violent, and pitiless denouncers of a ministry which defied public
opinion and outraged the nation. People then remembered that Count
Monte-Leone had provoked the conversation--that he had gone farther
than any one else on the dangerous ground--and that his daring had
surpassed that of the master of the house and his guests. All expected
he would be arrested also. This fear was especially well founded, as
Monte-Leone concealed neither his liberal opinions nor his
revolutionary doctrines, and in fact every thing in his previous
conduct pointed him out as one of the persons to whom the attention of
the police would especially be directed. People were, therefore,
amazed to see Monte-Leone preserve his liberty, and that one of the
four speakers who had been most imprudent enjoyed entire impunity.
Astonishment, however, was not all, for strange reports were soon
circulated, and rumors were heard in every direction. The impunity of
the Count became the universal subject of conversation. His private
life was taken in hand, and his whole career, as it were, extended on
the anatomical table of moral anatomy. The scalpel of public opinion,
it is well known, pitilessly dissects every subject it wishes
thoroughly to understand. The THEY SAY, that terrible creature to
which we have already referred, began to play its part. It was heard
every where. "THEY SAY Count Monte-Leone cannot be a stranger to what
is passing. He was seen to talk to General A---- on the night of the
ball for a long time."
"What! Count Monte-Leone?--a man of his rank?"
"Ah, these Italian noblemen are all suspicious."
"He--a liberal--a revolutionist!"
"Listen to me. People often change their opinions in this world,
especially when fortune disappears, and want of money and care
supervene. _They say_ he is completely ruined, yet he is still very
luxurious in his mode of life."
"True--that is strange."
"Oh, no, not at all. _They say_ the strong box of the police enables
him to maintain his style."
"That may be."
"_They say_, also, that the order to leave France given by the
minister was but a trick to divert suspicion and keep him here
usefully."
"Do you think so? Then he is a villain, and should be avoided. He is
a----"
"Oh, I know nothing of it--but _they say_ so."
_They_ did say so, but when that awful rumor was first pronounced
_they_ did not. These words were produced by the terror which the
events of the day produced on the mind of every friend, even of the
three imprisoned Carbonari. Perhaps some malevolent spirit
disseminated them. This rumor was circulated from house to house, like
a drop of oil, which though first scarcely perceptible, sullies the
fairest fabrics utterly. A trifling fault is thus made to do the part
of an atrocious crime. At first the rumor was whispered. It then grew
bolder, and finally fortified itself by a thousand corroborations
furnished by chance or gossip. Every person who detailed it added to
its incidents and arguments. Within one month after the dinner all
Paris heard of the terrible offence against society attributed to
Count Monte-Leone. As is always the case, however, the three friends
of the Count were the last to hear of this slander. Every one who was
aware of their intimacy took care not to speak to them of the rumor,
for no one wished to involve himself by repeating a story entirely
unsubstantiated, and the origin of which was unknown. The consequence
was that the three persons who could have refuted the calumny were
entirely ignorant of the stigma attached to their friend. Monte-Leone
had no more suspicion than his friends had in relation to the horrible
fable.
The other chiefs of the principal ventas, who might have told him what
was said, terrified at the fate of their associates, lived apart,
refused to see any one, and thus heard none of the imputations against
the high-priest of Carbonarism. Then commenced a series of mistakes,
surprises, and mortifications, in which Monte-Leone would see no
insult. His life, however, became an enigma, the explanation of which
he could not divine. Certain rooms under various pretexts were closed
to him. Often persons who once had been most anxious to secure his
attendance at their entertainments pretended to forget him. The world
did not dare, however, to brave an enemy whose secret power it was
ignorant of, but it exhibited a certain coldness and oblivion which
deeply wounded him. His most intimate acquaintances avoided him with
studied care, and when they accepted his hand did so with a marked
expression of annoyance. An immense void existed around him. His hotel
was a solitude, and the houses of others were shut to him. The Count
at first thought he found a motive for this in the apprehension all
entertained of his affiliation with some secret association. When he
saw that the police paid no attention to him, he was compelled to seek
some other reason for his public proscription. What this cause was he
did not divine and could not ask, for a position of this kind is such
that an honorable man thinks it beneath him to ask for an explanation
of merely natural occurrences. Wounded, disgusted, and grieved by the
strange existence created for him, Monte-Leone felt himself at once a
prey to the distrust which ostracism of this kind creates in the bosom
of all who are subject to it. The world thought that by avoiding
society Count Monte-Leone confessed the justice of its allegations. He
became every day more attentive to the charming woman he adored, and
who only waited the time when the proprieties of society would permit
her to make him her husband. In her affection he found a consolation
for all the external chagrin which annoyed him, for a mute terror had
taken possession of the Carbonari since the occurrence of the many
arrests, the motives of which were as yet wrapped in such impenetrable
mystery. An event which was altogether unexpected made his position
yet more complicated. He was one evening in one of the few houses to
which he was yet invited. This was the house of M. L----, where the
Marquis de Maulear had lost such immense sums to the Englishman who
subsequently ruined him. M. L----, either more prudent or circumspect
than others, had not listened to the reports which were circulated
about Monte-Leone, and had invited him to his magnificent hotel in the
Rue d'Antin.
Monte-Leone had avoided the crowd, and walked down the long avenue of
exotic flowers and camelias, then almost unknown in Paris. He came
upon a boudoir where several men were speaking. The Count was about to
go back, when his name struck on his ear. "Yes, gentlemen," said one
of the speakers, in a most indignant tone, "you may well be astonished
at my presence here, while my family is in tears, and my prospects
blasted and made desperate. Only eight days since I came to Paris, and
am here to find Count Monte-Leone, my challenge to whom, to deliver
which I have sought him every where, should be as solemn as the
vengeance I will exact."
No sooner had the Count heard these words than he rushed into the
boudoir, and stood face to face with the speaker, who was a young man
of twenty-eight or thirty, wearing the uniform of the royal navy. His
countenance was mild and noble, but bore an expression of perfect fury
when he saw Monte-Leone.
"Monsieur," said the Count, "you will not have to look farther for the
person of whom you have dared to speak thus. I am thankful that I am
here to spare you farther trouble in looking for me, though why you do
so I cannot conceive."
"He was listening to us," said the young man to his friends, in a tone
of the deepest contempt. "Well, after all, that is right enough."
"Chance," said the Count, resuming his _sang-froid_ and control over
himself, which he always maintained in such emergencies, "led me
within sound of your voice. You and I also should be glad that this is
the case, for it seems to me a ball is a bad place for such an
explanation as you seem to wish."
"All places are good," said the naval officer, in a most insolent
tone, "to tell you what I think of you. To repeat to you the epithet
you have overheard, and which I am willing yet again to declare to all
in these rooms."
"Sir," said Monte-Leone, with the same calmness, "will you tell me
first to whom I speak?"
"My name is A----, and I am a lieutenant of the royal navy. My father
is the person whom your infamous denunciations have caused to be
imprisoned in the Conciergerie!"
"What!" said the Count, "are you the son of General A----?"
"What influences me I cannot and will not tell you; for then it would
be out of the question for me to meet you."
"Gentlemen," said the Count, speaking to those who witnessed this
scene, to which the attention of many others had now been called,
"this young man is mad. I, more than any person, have pitied his
father, and I wish to give General A---- a new proof of my sympathy,
by granting his son a delay until to-morrow, to enable him to repair
the incredible injury he has done me. Here is my card," said he,
placing it on a table, "and I shall wait until to-morrow for an
explanation of the unintelligible conduct of Lieutenant A----."
As soon as the Count had finished he left the boudoir, and the
Lieutenant's friends kept possession of him, taking him out of the
hotel. On the next day Monte-Leone received the following note:
"COUNT--Instead of making an apology to you, I maintain all I said.
You are a coward and a scoundrel, and you know why. I repeat, that if
my voice articulated or my hand traced, why I speak thus, it would be
impossible for me to kill you and avenge myself. Do not therefore ask
me to make an explanation of what you know perfectly well. If you are
unmoved by what I now say, and if I do not bring you out, I will have
recourse to other means. I will await you and your witnesses to-day at
two o'clock, at the _bois de Bologne_, behind Longchamp. I have
selected this hour in order that I might previously see my father.
"GUSTAVE A----,
"Lieutenant, Royal Navy."
"All hell is let loose against me," said the Count, as he perused this
letter. "Why can I not penetrate the awful mystery which enshrouds
me!"
Taking a pen, he wrote the following words, which he gave to the
bearer of the challenge:
"I will be at the _bois de Bologne_ at two o'clock."
FOOTNOTES:
[7] Entered according to the Act of Congress, in the year 1850, by Stringer
& Townsend, in the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the United
States for the Southern District of New-York.
Continued from page 54.
[8] _Anglice._ Only the first step is troublesome.--TR.
From Fraser's Magazine.
POULAILLER, THE ROBBER.
Cartouche had been arrested, tried, condemned, and executed, some
seven or eight years, and no longer occupied the attention of the good
people of Paris, to whom his almost melodramatic life and death had
afforded a most interesting and enduring topic. They were languishing,
like the Athenians of old, for something new, when there arose a rumor
that another robber, more dexterous, more audacious, more
extraordinary, ay, and more cruel than Cartouche, was roaming about
the streets of their city. What was his name? whence did he come? were
questions in the mouth of every one, as each of his numerous daring
acts was made public,--questions which no one could answer.
In vain was every arm of the police put in requisition--crime after
crime was committed with impunity, and terror reigned supreme.
At last the criminal himself disdained concealment, and all
Paris--nay, a considerable portion of Europe--trembled at the name of
POULAILLER.
He appeared about the year 1730, and astonished the world by deeds,
some of them so shocking, and at the same time so wonderful, that they
gave some color to the belief of many that he was aided by
supernatural agency.
This belief was supported by a history of the circumstances attending
his birth.
There lived in a village on the coast of Brittany a man, poor but of
good repute, and well beloved by his neighbors,--an intrepid mariner,
but poor as Job himself when his friends came to comfort him. A robust
and well-knit frame, combined with a fine frank countenance, well
bronzed by the sea-breezes, was looked on favorably by all, and by
none more than by the young lasses whose furtive glances rested with
pleasure on the manly form and gallant bearing of Jacques Poulailler.
His strength was prodigious, and his temerity upon the ocean
incredible.
Such qualities are appreciated in every country; and among the
beauties of the village, one remarkable for her superiority in wealth,
as well as natural gifts, was attracted by them, and Jacques
Poulailler had the good fortune to find favor in the eyes of her who
was known in her little world as _La belle Isabeau Colomblet_.
At no great distance from this maritime village, on the crest of a
rock lashed by the waves, which at high tides was perfectly insulated,
dwelt a personage of whose origin every one was ignorant. The building
where he had established himself had long been of evil fame throughout
the country, and was only known as _La Tour Maudite_. The firesides
resounded with tales of terror enacted in this lonely and ominous
theatre. Fiends, in the olden time had made it their abode, as was
currently reported and believed. From that time, it was asserted that
no human being could dwell there without having previously entered
into a compact with the evil one. The isolation of the place, the
continued agitation of the waves at its base, the howlings of the wind
around its frowning battlements, the traces of the thunderbolts that
from time to time had blackened and almost charred its walls, the
absence of bush or tree, or any thing in the shape of blossom or
verdure--for neither wall-flower nor even moss would grow there--had
produced their effect on the superstitious spirit of the neighbors,
and the accursed place had remained untenanted by any thing earthly
for forty or fifty years.
One gloomy day, however, a man was seen prowling about the vicinity.
He came and went over the sands, and, just as a storm was rising, he
threw himself into a boat, gained the offing, and disappeared.
Every one believed that he was lost; but next morning there he was.
Surprised at this, the neighbors began to inquire who he could be; and
at last learned that he had bought the tower of the proprietor, and
had come to dwell there. This was all the information that their
restless curiosity could obtain. Whence did he come, and what had he
done? In vain were these questions asked. All were querists, and none
found a respondent. Two or three years elapsed before his name
transpired. At last it was discovered, nobody knew how, that his name
was Roussart.
He appeared to be a man above six feet in height, strongly built, and
apparently about thirty years of age. His countenance was all but
handsome, and very expressive. His conduct was orderly, and without
reproach, and, proving himself to be an experienced fisherman, he
became of importance in that country.
No one was more weatherwise than Roussart, and no one turned his
foreknowledge to such good account. He had been seen frequently to
keep the sea in such fearful tempests, that all agreed that he must
have been food for fishes if he had not entered into some agreement
with Satan. When the stoutest hearts quailed, and ordinary men
considered it suicidal to venture out, Roussart was to be seen braving
the tumult of winds and waves, and always returned to the harbor safe
and sound.
People began to talk about this, and shook their heads ominously.
Little cared Roussart for their words or gestures; but he was the only
one in the commune who never went to church. The curé at last gave out
that he was excommunicated; and from that time his neighbors broke off
all communication with him.
Things had arrived at this point, when it was rumored that the gallant
fisherman, Jacques Poulailler, had touched the heart of _La belle
Isabeau_. Soon their approaching marriage became the topic of the
village; and, finally, one Sunday, after mass, the bans were first
published by the vicar. The lads of the village, congregated on the
shore, were congratulating Poulailler on the auspicious event, when
Roussart suddenly appeared among them.
His presence was a surprise. He had always avoided the village
meetings as much as others had sought them; and this sudden change in
his habits gave a new impulse to curiosity.
The stranger appeared to seek some one with his eyes, and presently
walked straight up to the happy Jacques, who, intoxicated with joy,
was giving and receiving innumerable shakes of the hand.
"Master Poulailler," said Roussart, "you are going to be married,
then?"
"That seems sure," replied Poulailler.
"Not more sure than that your first-born will belong to the evil one.
I, Roussart, tell you so."
With that he turned on his heel, and regained his isolated dwelling,
leaving his auditors amazed by his abrupt and extraordinary
announcement, and poor Jacques more affected by it than any one else.
From that moment Roussart showed himself no more in the neighborhood,
and soon disappeared altogether, without leaving a trace to indicate
what had become of him.
Most country people are superstitious,--the Bretons eminently so, and
Jacques Poulailler never forgot the sinister prophecy of Roussart. His
comrades were not more oblivious; and when, a year after his marriage,
his first-born came into the world, a universal cry saluted the infant
boy as devoted to Satan. _Donné au diable_ were the words added to the
child's name whenever it was mentioned. It is not recorded whether or
no he was born with teeth, but the gossips remarked that during the
ceremony of baptism the new-born babe gave vent to the most fearful
howlings. He writhed, he kicked, his little face exhibited the most
horrible contortions; but as soon as they carried him out of the
church, he burst out into laughter as unearthly as it was unnatural.
After these evil omens every body expected that the little Pierre
Poulailler would be ugly and ill-formed. Not a bit of it--on the
contrary, he was comely, active, and bold. His fine fresh complexion
and well-furnished mouth were set off by his brilliant black eyes and
hair, which curled naturally all over his head. But he was a sad
rogue, and something more. If an oyster-bed, a warren, or an orchard
was robbed, Pierre Poulailler was sure to be the boy accused. In vain
did his father do all that parent could to reform him--he was
incorrigible.
Monsieur le curé had some difficulty to bring him to his first
communion. The master of the village exhausted his catalogue of
corrections--and the catalogue was not very short--without succeeding
in inculcating the first notions of the Christian faith and the
doctrine of the cross. "What is the good of it?" would the urchin say.
"Am not I devoted to the devil, and will not that be sufficient to
make my way?"
At ten years of age Pierre was put on board a merchant-ship, as
cabin-boy. At twelve he robbed his captain, and escaped to England
with the spoil. In London he contrived to pass for the natural son of
a French Duke; but his numerous frauds forced him again to seek his
native land, where, in his sixteenth year, he enlisted as a drummer in
the regiment of Champagne, commanded by the Count de Variclères.
Before he had completed his eighteenth year he deserted, joined a
troop of fortune-telling gipsies, whom he left to try his fortune with
a regular pilferer, and finally, engaged himself to a rope-dancer. He
played comedy, sold orvietan with the success of Doctor Dulcamara
himself, and in a word, passed through all the degrees which lead to
downright robbery.
Once his good angel seemed to prevail. He left his disreputable
companions and entered the army honorably. For a short time there were
hopes of him; it was thought that he would amend his life, and his
superiors were satisfied with his conduct. But the choicest weapon in
the armory of him to whom he had been devoted was directed against
him. A _vivandiere_--the prettiest and most piquante of her
tribe--raised a flame in his heart that burnt away all other
considerations; but he might still have continued in a comparatively
respectable course, if the sergeant-major had not stood forward as his
rival. The coquette had in her heart a preference for Pierre; and the
sergeant, taking advantage of his rank, insulted his subordinate so
grossly that he was repaid by a blow. The sergeant's blood was up, and
as he rushed to attack Pierre, the soldier, drawing his sabre,
dangerously wounded his superior officer, who, after lingering a few
days, went the way of all flesh. Pierre would have tasted the tender
mercies of the provost-marshal; but fortunately the regiment was lying
near the frontier, which our hero contrived to cross, and then
declared war against society at large.
The varied knowledge and acquirements of the youth--his courage, true
as steel, and always equal to the occasion--the prudence and foresight
with which he meditated a _coup de main_--the inconceivable rapidity
of his execution--his delicate and disinterested conduct towards his
comrades--all contributed to render him famous, in the _famosus_
sense, if you will, and to raise him to the first place.
Germany was the scene of his first exploits. The world had condemned
him to death, and he condemned the world to subscribe to his living.
At this period, he had posted himself in ambush on the crest of a
hill, whence his eye could command a great extent of country; and
certainly the elegance of his mien, his graceful bearing, and the
splendor of his arms, might well excuse those who did not take him for
what he really was. He was on the hillside when two beautiful young
women appeared in sight. He lost no time in joining them; and, as
youth is communicative, soon learnt, in answer to his questions, that,
tired of remaining in the carriage, they had determined to ascend the
hill on foot.
"You are before the carriage, then, mademoiselle?"
"Yes, sir; cannot you hear the whip of the postillions?"
The conversation soon became animated, and every moment made a deeper
inroad into the heart of our handsome brigand: but every moment also
made the situation more critical. On the other side of the hill was
the whole band, ranged in order of battle, and ready to pounce upon
the travellers. Having ascertained the place of abode of his fair
companions, and promised to avail himself of the first opportunity to
pay his compliments to them there, he bade them politely adieu; and
having gained a path cut through the living rock, known but to few,
descended with the agility of a chamois to his party, whom he implored
not to attack the carriage which was approaching.
But, if Poulailler had his reasons for this chivalrous conduct, his
band were actuated by no such motives, and they demurred to his
prayer. He at once conquered their hesitation by bidding them name the
value that they put on their expected booty, purchased the safety of
the travellers by the sum named, and the two fair daughters of the
Baron von Kirbergen went on their way full of the praises of the
handsome stranger whose acquaintance they had made, and in blissful
ignorance of the peril they had passed.
That very day, Poulailler left his lieutenant in the temporary command
of the band, mounted his most beautiful horse, followed his beloved to
the castle of her father, and introduced himself as the Count Petrucci
of Sienna, whom he had lately robbed, and whose papers he had taken
care to retain with an eye to future business.
His assumed name, backed by his credentials, secured for him a
favorable reception, and he well knew how to improve the occasion. An
accomplished rider, and bold in the chase, he won the good opinion of
the Baron; while his musical and conversational talent made him the
pet of the drawing-room. The young and charming Wilhelmina surrendered
her heart to the gay and amiable cavalier; and all went merrily, till
one fine morning Fortune, whose wheel is never stationary, sent the
true count to the castle. It was no case of the two Sosias, for no two
persons could well be more unlike; and as soon as the real personage
saw his representative, he recognized him as the robber who had stolen
his purse as well as his name.
Here was a pretty business. Most adventurers would have thrown up the
game as desperate; but our hero, with a front worthy of Fathom
himself, boldly proclaimed the last visitor to be an impostor, and
argued the case so ably, and with such well-simulated indignation at
the audacity of the newcomer, that the Baron was staggered, and
despatched messengers to the partners of a mercantile house at
Florence, to whom the true Petrucci was well known.
To wait for the result of the inquiry would have been a folly of which
Poulailler was not likely to be guilty; so he made a moonlight
flitting of it that very night--but not alone. Poor Wilhelmina had
cast in her lot with her lover for good or for evil, and fled with
him.
The confusion that reigned in the best of all possible castles, the
next morning, may be conceived; but we must leave the Baron
blaspheming, and the Baroness in hysterics, to follow the fugitives,
who gained France in safety, and were soon lost in the labyrinths of
Paris.
There he was soon joined by his band, to the great loss and terror of
the honest people of the good city. Every day, M. Hérault, the
lieutenant of police, was saluted by new cases of robbery and
violence, which his ablest officers could neither prevent nor punish.
The organization of the band was so complete, and the head so ably
directed the hands, that neither life nor property was considered safe
from one moment to another. Nor were accounts of the generosity of the
chief occasionally wanting to add to his fame.
One night, as Poulailler was traversing the roofs with the agility of
a cat, for the purpose of entering a house whose usual inmates were
gone into the country, he passed the window of a garret whence issued
a melancholy concert of sobs and moans. He stopped, and approached the
apartment of a helpless family, without resources, without bread, and
suffering the pangs of hunger. Touched by their distress, and
remembering his own similar sufferings before Fortune favored him, he
was about to throw his purse among them, when the door of the chamber
opened violently, and a man, apparently beside himself, rushed in with
a handful of gold, which he cast upon the floor.
"There," cried he, in a voice broken by emotion, "there,
take--buy--eat; but it will cost you dear. I pay for it with my honor
and peace of mind. Baffled in all my attempts to procure food for you
honestly, I was on my despairing return, when I beheld, at a short
distance from me, a tall but slight-made man, who walked hurriedly,
but yet with an air as if he expected some one. Ah! thought I, this is
some lover; and yielding to the temptation of the fiend, I seized him
by the collar. The poor creature was terrified, and, begging for
mercy, put into my hands this watch, two gold snuff-boxes, and those
Louis, and fled. There they are; they will cost me my life. I shall
never survive this infamy."
The starving wife re-echoed these sentiments; and even the hungry
children joined in the lamentations of the miserable father.
All this touched Pierre to the quick. To the great terror of the
family, he entered the room, and stood in the midst.
"Be comforted," said he to the astonished husband; "you have robbed a
robber. The infamous coward who gave up to you this plunder is one of
Poulailler's sentinels. Keep it; it is yours."
"But who are you?" cried the husband and wife;--"who are you, and by
what right is it that you thus dispose of the goods of another?"
"By the right of a chief over his subalterns. I am Poulailler."
The poor family fell on their knees, and asked what they could do for
him.
"Give me a light," said Pierre, "that I may get down into the street
without breaking my neck."
This reminds one of the answer which Rousseau gave to the Duc de
Praslin, whose Danish dog, as it was running before the carriage, had
upset the peripatetic philosopher.
"What can I do for you?" said the Duke to the fallen author of _La
Nouvelle Heloise_, whose person he did not know.
"You can tie up your dog," replied Jean-Jacques, gathering himself up,
and walking away.
Poulailler having done his best to render a worthy family happy, went
his way, to inflict condign punishment on the poltroon who had so
readily given up the purse and the watches.
The adventures of this accomplished robber were so numerous and
marvellous, that it is rather difficult to make a selection. One
evening, at the _bal de l'Opéra_, he made the acquaintance of a
charming woman, who, at first, all indignation, was at length induced
to listen to his proposal, that he should see her home; and promised
to admit him, "if Monseigneur should not be there."
"But who is this Monseigneur?" inquired Pierre.
"Don't ask," replied the fair lady.
"Who is he, fairest?"
"Well, how curious you are; you make me tell all my secrets. If you
must know, he is a prince of the church, out of whose revenues he
supports me; and I cannot but show my gratitude to him."
"Certainly not; he seems to have claims which ought to be attended
to."
By this time they had arrived at an elegantly furnished house, which
they entered, the lady having ascertained that the coast was clear;
and Poulailler had just installed himself, when up drove a
carriage--Monseigneur in person.
The beauty, in a state of distraction, threw herself at the feet of
her spark, and implored him to pass into a back cabinet. Poulailler
obeyed, and had hardly reached his hiding-place, when he beheld,
through the glazed door, Monseigneur, who had gone to his Semele in
all his apostolical magnificence. A large and splendid cross of
diamonds, perfect in water, shot dazzling rays from his breast, where
it was suspended by a chain of cat's-eyes, of great price, set in
gold; the button and loop of his hat blazed with other precious
stones; and his fingers sparkled with rings, whose brilliants were
even greater and more beautiful than those that formed the
constellation of his cross.
It is very seldom that the human heart, however capacious, has room
for two grand passions in activity at the same time. In this instance,
Poulailler no sooner beheld the rich and tempting sight, than he found
that the god of Love was shaking his wings and flying from his bosom,
and that the demon of Cupidity was taking the place of the more
disinterested deity. He rushed from his hiding-place, and presented
himself to the astonished prelate with a poinard in one hand and a
pistol in the other, both of which he held to the sacred breast in the
presence of the distracted lady. The bishop had not learnt to be
careless of life, and had sufficient self-possession in his terror not
to move, lest he should compromise his safety, while Poulailler
proceeded to strip him with a dexterity that practice had rendered
perfect. Diamonds, precious stones, gold, coined and ornamental,
rings, watch, snuff-box, and purse, were transferred from the priest
to the robber with marvellous celerity; then turning to the lady, he
made her open the casket which contained the price of her favors, and
left the house with the plunder and such a laugh as those only revel
in who win.
The lieutenant of police began to take the tremendous success of our
hero to heart, and in his despair at the increasing audacity of the
robber, caused it to be spread amongst his spies, archers, and
sergeants, that he who should bring Poulailler before him should be
rewarded with one hundred pistoles, in addition to a place of two
thousand livres a year.
M. Hérault was seated comfortably at his breakfast, when the Count de
Villeneuve was announced. This name was--perhaps is--principally borne
by two celebrated families of Provence and Languedoc. M. Hérault
instantly rose and passed into his cabinet, where he beheld a
personage of good mien, dressed to perfection, with as much luxury as
taste, who in the best manner requested a private interview. Orders
were immediately issued that no one should venture to approach till
the bell was rung; and a valet was placed as sentinel in an adjoining
gallery to prevent the possibility of interruption.
"Well, Monsieur le Comte, what is your business with me?"
"Oh, a trifle;--merely a thousand pistoles, which I am about to take
myself from your strong box, in lieu of the one hundred pistoles, and
the snug place, which you have promised to him who would gratify you
by Poulailler's presence. I am Poulailler, who will dispatch you to
the police of the other world with this poisoned dagger, if you raise
your voice or attempt to defend yourself. Nay, stir not--a scratch is
mortal."
Having delivered himself of this address, the audacious personage drew
from his pocket some fine but strong whip-cord, well hackled and
twisted, and proceeded to bind the lieutenant of police hand and foot,
finishing by making him fast to the lock of the door. Then the robber
proceeded to open the lieutenant's secrétaire, the drawers of which he
well rummaged, and having filled his pockets with the gold which he
found there, turned to the discomfited lieutenant with a profound bow,
and after a request that he would not take the trouble to show him
out, quietly took his departure.
There are some situations so confounding, that they paralyze the
faculties for a time; and the magistrate was so overcome by his
misfortune, that, instead of calling for aid, as he might have done
when the robber left him, he set to work with his teeth, in vain
endeavors to disengage himself from the bonds which held him fast. An
hour elapsed before any one ventured to disturb M. Hérault, who was
found in a rage to be imagined, but not described, at this daring act.
The loss was the least part of the annoyance. A cloud of epigrams flew
about, and the streets resounded with the songs celebrating
Poulailler's triumph and the defeat of the unfortunate magistrate, who
dared not for some time to go into society, where he was sure to find
a laugh at his expense.
But ready as the good people of Paris were with their ridicule, _they_
were by no means at their ease. The depredations of Poulailler
increased with his audacity, and people were afraid to venture into
the streets after nightfall. As soon as the last rays of the setting
sun fell on the Boulevards, the busy crowds began to depart; and when
that day-star sank below the horizon, they were deserted. Nobody felt
safe.
The Hôtel de Brienne was guarded like a fortress, but difficulty
seemed to give additional zest to Poulailler. Into this hôtel he was
determined to penetrate, and into it he got. While the carriage of the
Princess of Lorraine was waiting at the Opera, he contrived to fix
leathern bands, with screws, under the outside of the bottom of the
body, while his associates were treating the coachman and footman at a
_cabaret_, slipped under the carriage in the confusion of the
surrounding crowd when it drew up to the door of the theatre, and,
depending on the strength of his powerful wrists, held on underneath,
and was carried into the hôtel under the very nose of the Swiss
Cerberus.
When the stable-servants were all safe in their beds, Poulailler
quitted his painful hiding-place, where the power of his muscles and
sinews had been so severely tested, and mounted into the hay-loft,
where he remained concealed three nights and four days, sustaining
himself on cakes of chocolate. No one loved good cheer better than he,
or indulged more in the pleasures of the table; but he made himself a
slave to nothing, save the inordinate desire of other men's goods, and
patiently contented himself with what would keep body and soul
together till he was enabled to make his grand _coup_.
At last, Madame de Brienne went in all her glory to the Princess de
Marsan's ball, and nearly all the domestics took advantage of the
absence of their mistress to leave the hôtel in pursuit of their own
pleasures. Poulailler then descended from the hay-loft, made his way
to the noble dame's cabinet, forced her secrétaire, and possessed
himself of two thousand Louis d'or and a port-folio, which he
doubtless wished to examine at his ease; for, two days afterwards, he
sent it back, (finding it furnished with such securities only as he
could not negotiate with safety,) and a polite note signed with his
name, in which he begged the Princess graciously to receive the
restitution, and to accept the excuses of one who, had he not been
sorely pressed for the moderate sum which he had ventured to take,
would never have thought of depriving the illustrious lady of it;
adding, that when he was in cash, he should be delighted to lend her
double the amount, should her occasions require it.
This impudent missive was lauded as a marvel of good taste at
Versailles, where, for a whole week, every one talked of the
consummate cleverness and exquisite gallantry of the _Chevalier_ de
Poulailler.
This title of honor stuck, and his fame seemed to inspire him with
additional ardor and address. His affairs having led him to Cambray,
he happened to have for a travelling companion the Dean of a
well-known noble Belgian chapter. The conversation rolled on the
notorieties of the day, and Poulailler was a more interesting theme
than the weather. But our chevalier was destined to listen to
observations that did not much flatter his self-esteem, for the Dean,
so far from allowing him any merit whatever as a brigand,
characterized him as an infamous and miserable cutpurse, adding, that
at his first and approaching visit to Paris, he would make it his
business to see the lieutenant of police, and reproach him with the
small pains he took to lay so vile a scoundrel by the heels.
The journey passed off without the occurrence of any thing remarkable;
but about a month after this colloquy M. Hérault received a letter,
informing him that on the previous evening, M. de Potter,
_chanoine-doyen_ of the noble chapter of Brussels, had been robbed and
murdered by Poulailler, who, clad in the habits of his victim, and
furnished with his papers, would enter the barrier St. Martin. This
letter purported to have been written by one of his accomplices, who
had come to the determination of denouncing him in the hope of
obtaining pardon.
The horror of M. Hérault at the death of this dignified ecclesiastic,
who was personally unknown to him, was, if the truth must be told,
merged in the delight which that magistrate felt in the near prospect
of avenging society and himself on this daring criminal. A cloud of
police officers hovered in ambush at each of the barriers, and
especially at that which bore the name of the saint who divided his
cloak with the poor pilgrim, with directions to seize and bring into
the presence of M. Hérault a man habited as an ecclesiastic, and with
the papers of the Dean of the Brussels chapter. Towards evening the
Lille coach arrived, was surrounded and escorted to the hôtel des
Messageries, and at the moment when the passengers descended, the
officers pounced upon the personage whose appearance and vestments
corresponded with their instructions.
The resistance made by this personage only sharpened the zeal of the
officers who seized him, and, in spite of his remonstrances and cries,
carried him to the hôtel of the police, where M. Hérault was prepared
with the proofs of Poulailler's crimes. Two worthy citizens of
Brussels were there, anxious to see the murderer of their friend, the
worthy ecclesiastic, whose loss they so much deplored: but what was
their joy, and, it must be added, the disappointment of M. Hérault,
when the supposed criminal turned out to be no other than the good
Dean de Potter himself, safe and sound, but not a little indignant at
the outrage which he had sustained. Though a man of peace, his ire so
far ruffled a generally calm temper, that he could not help asking M.
Hérault whether Poulailler (from whom a second letter now arrived,
laughing at their beards) or he, M. Hérault, was the chief director of
the police?
William of Deloraine, good at need--
By wily turns, by desperate bounds,
Had baffled Percy's best bloodhounds.
Five times outlawed had he been,
By England's king and Scotland's queen.
But he was never taken, and had no occasion for his
----neck-verse at Hairibee,
even if he could have read it. Poulailler was arrested no less than
five times, and five times did he break his bonds. Like Jack Sheppard
and Claude du Val, he owed his escape in most instances to the frail
fair ones, who would have dared any thing in favor of their favorite,
and who, in Jack's case, joined on one occasion without jealousy in a
successful effort to save him.
Poulailler was quite as much the pet of the petticoats as either of
these hempen heroes. With a fine person and accomplished manners, he
came, saw, and overcame, in more instances than that of the fair
daughter of the Baron von Kirbergen; but, unlike John Sheppard or
Claude Du Val, Poulailler was cruel. Villains as they were, John and
Claude behaved well, after their fashion, to those whom they robbed,
and to the unhappy women with whom they associated. In their case, the
"ladies" did their utmost to save them, and men were not wanting who
endeavored to obtain a remission of their sentence. But Poulailler
owed his fall to a woman whom he had ruined, ill-treated, and scorned.
The ruin and ill-treatment she bore, as the women, poor things, will
bear such atrocities; but the scorn roused all the fury which the
poets, Latin and English, have written of; and his cruelties were so
flagrant, that he could find no man to say, "God bless him."
Wilhelmina von Kirbergen had twice narrowly escaped from a violent
death. Poulailler, in his capricious wrath, once stabbed her with such
murderous will, that she lay a long time on the verge of the grave,
and then recovered to have the strength of her constitution tried by
the strength of a poison which he had administered to her in
insufficient quantities. Henry the Eighth forwarded his wives, when he
was tired of them, to the other world by form of what was in his time
English law; but when Poulailler "felt the fulness of satiety," he got
rid of his mistresses by a much more summary process. But it was not
till this accomplished scoundrel openly left Wilhelmina for a younger
and more beautiful woman, that she, who had given up station, family,
and friends, to link herself with his degrading life, abandoned
herself to revenge.
She wrote to him whom she had loved so long and truly, to implore that
they might once more meet before they parted in peace for ever.
Poulailler, too happy to be freed on such terms, accepted her
invitation, and was received so warmly that he half repented his
villainous conduct, and felt a return of his youthful affection. A
splendid supper gave zest to their animated conversation; but towards
the end of it, Poulailler observed a sudden change in his companion,
who manifested evident symptoms of suffering. Poulailler anxiously
inquired the cause.
"Not much," said she; "a mere trifle--I have poisoned myself, that I
may not survive you."
"Quoi, coquine! m'aurais-tu fait aussi avaler le boucon?" cried the
terrified robber.
"That would not have sufficiently avenged me. Your death would have
been too easy. No, my friend, you will leave this place safe and well;
but it will be to finish the night at the Conciergerie; and,
to-morrow, as they have only to prove your identity, you will finish
your career on the wheel in the Place de Grève."
So saying, she clapped her hands, and, in an instant, before he had
time to move, the Philistines were upon him. Archers and other
officers swarmed from the hangings, door, and windows. For a few
moments, surrounded as he was, his indomitable courage seemed to
render the issue doubtful; but what could one man do against a host
armed to the teeth? He was overpowered, notwithstanding his brave and
vigorous resistance.
His death, however, was not so speedy as his wretched mistress
prophesied that it would be. The love of life prevailed, and in the
hope of gaining time which he might turn to account in effecting his
escape, he promised to make revelations of importance to the state.
The authorities soon found out that he was trifling with them, and the
_procureur-général_, after having caused him to be submitted to the
most excruciating torture, left him to be broken on the wheel alive.
He was executed with all the accursed refinement of barbarity which
disgraced the times; and his tormenters, at last, put the finishing
stroke to his prolonged agonies, by throwing him alive into the fire
that blazed at his feet.
Nothing can justify such penal atrocities. If any thing could,
Poulailler, it must be admitted, had wrought hard to bring down upon
himself the whole sharpness of the law of retaliation. Upwards of one
hundred and fifty persons had been murdered by him and his band.
Resistance seemed to rouse in him and them the fury of devils. Nor was
it only on such occasions that his murderous propensities were
glutted.
At the village of St. Martin, he caused the father, the mother, two
brothers, a newly-married sister, her husband, and four relations, or
friends, to be butchered in cold blood.
One of his band was detected in an attempt to betray him. Poulailler
had him led to a cellar. The traitor was placed upright in an angle of
the wall, gagged, and there they built him in alive. Poulailler, with
his own hand, wrote the sentence and epitaph of the wretch on the soft
plaster; and there it was found some years afterward, when the cellar
in which this diabolical act of vengeance was perpetrated passed into
the hands of a new proprietor.
It was current in the country where Poulailler first saw the light,
and where his father, mother, brethren, and sisters, still lived an
honorable life, embittered only by the horrible celebrity of their
relation, that, on the night which followed the day of Pierre's
execution, the isolated tower, which had been uninhabited since its
last occupant had so mysteriously disappeared, seemed all on fire,
every window remaining illuminated by the glowing element till morning
dawned. During this fearful nocturnal spectacle, it was affirmed that
infernal howlings and harrowing cries proceeded from the apparently
burning mass, and some peasants declared that they heard Pierre
Poulailler's name shouted from the midst of the flames in a voice of
thunder.
The dawn showed the lonely tower unscathed by fire; but a fearful
tempest arose, and raged with ceaseless fury for thrice twenty-four
hours. The violence of the hurricane was such, that it was impossible
during that time for any vessel to keep the sea; and when at length
the storm subsided, the coast was covered with pieces of wreck, while
the waves continued for many days to give up their dead at the base of
the rock, from whose crest frowned _La Tour Maudite_.
From Hogg's Instructor.
THE LATE D. M. MOIR.
BY GEORGE GILFILLAN.
Pleasant and joyous was the circle wont to assemble now and then (not
_every_ night, as the public then fondly dreamed) in Ambrose's, some
twenty-five years ago: not a constellation in all our bright sky, at
present, half so brilliant. There sat John Wilson, "lord of the
lion-heart and eagle-eye," his hair somewhat thicker, and his eye
rather brighter, and his complexion as fresh, and his talk as
powerful, as now. There Lockhart appeared, with his sharp face,
_adunco naso_, keen poignant talk, and absence of all enthusiasm.
There Maginn rollicked and roared, little expecting that he was ever
destined to stand a bankrupt and ruined man over Bunyan's dust, and
cry, "Sleep on, thou Prince of Dreamers!" There De Quincey bowed and
smiled, while interposing his mild but terrible and unanswerable
"buts," and winding the subtle way of his talk through all subjects,
human, infernal, and divine. There appeared the tall military form of
old Syme, alias Timothy Tickler, with his pithy monosyllables, and
determined _nil admirari_ bearing. There the Ettrick Shepherd told his
interminable stories, and drank his interminable tumblers. There sat
sometimes, though seldom, a young man of erect port, mild gray eye,
high head, rich quivering lips, and air of simple dignity, often
forgetting to fill or empty his glass, but never forgetting to look
reverently to the "Professor," curiously and admiringly to De Quincey,
and affectionately to all: it was Thomas Aird. There occasionally
might be seen Macnish of Glasgow, with his broad fun; Doubleday of
Newcastle, then a rising litterateur; Leitch, the ventriloquist, (not
professionally so, and yet not much inferior, we believe, to the
famous Duncan Macmillan); and even a stray Cockney or two who did not
belong to the Cockney school. There, too, the "Director-general of the
Fine Arts," old Bridges, (uncle to our talented friend, William
Bridges, Esq. of London,) was often a guest, with his keen black eye,
finely-formed features, rough, ready talk, and a certain smack audible
on his lips when he spoke of a beautiful picture, a "leading article"
in "Maga," or of some of the queer adventures (_quorum pars fuit_) of
Christopher North. And there, last, not least, was frequently seen the
fine fair-haired head of Delta, the elegant poet, the amiable man, and
the author of one of the quaintest and most delightful of our Scottish
tales, "Mansie Wauch."
That brilliant circle was dissolved long ere we knew any of its
members. We question if it was ever equalled, except thrice: once by
the Scriblerus Club, composed of Swift, Pope, Arbuthnot, Gay, and
Bolingbroke; again by the "Literary Club," with its Johnson, Burke,
Garrick, Beauclerk, Gibbon, and Fox: and more recently by the
"Round-table," with its Hazlitt, Hunt, Lamb, and their minor
companions. It is now, we need not say, entirely dissolved, although
most of its members are yet alive, and although its doings and sayings
have been of late imitated in certain symposia, reminding us, in
comparison with the past, of the shadowy feasts of the dead beside
real human entertainments. The "nights" of the North are diviner than
the "days."
From this constellation, we mean, at present, to cut out one "bright,
particular star," and to discourse of him. This is Delta, the
delightful. We have not the happiness of Dr. Moir's acquaintance, nor
did we ever see him, save once. It was at the great Edinburgh
Philosophic Feed of 1846, when Macaulay, Whately, and other lions,
young and old, roared, on the whole, rather feebly, and in vulgar
falsetto, over their liberal provender. Delta, too, was a speaker, and
his speech had two merits, at least, modesty and brevity, and
contrasted thus well with Whately's egotistical rigmarole, Macaulay's
labored paradox, and Maclagan's inane bluster. He was, we understood
afterwards, in poor health at the time, and did not do justice to
himself. But we have been long familiar with his poems in "Blackwood"
and the "Dumfries Herald," to which he occasionally contributed. We
remember well when, next to a paper by North, or a poem by Aird, we
looked eagerly for one by Delta in each new number of "Ebony;" and we
now cheerfully proceed to say a few words about his true and exquisite
genius.
We may call Delta the male Mrs. Hemans. Like her, he loved principally
the tender, the soft, and the beautiful. Like her, he excelled in
fugitive verses, and seldom attempted, and still more seldom
succeeded, in the long or the labored poem. Like her, he tried a great
variety of styles and measures. Like her, he ever sought to interweave
a sweet and strong moral with his strains, and to bend them all in by
a graceful curve around the Cross. But, unlike her, his tone was
uniformly glad and genial, and he exhibited none of that morbid
melancholy which lies often like a dark funeral edge around her most
beautiful poems: and this, because he was a _masculine_ shape of the
same elegant genus.
Delta's principal powers were cultured sensibility, fine fancy, good
taste, and an easy, graceful style and versification. He sympathized
with all the "outward forms of sky and earth, with all that was
lovely, and pure, and of a good report" in the heart and the history
of humanity, and particularly with Scottish scenery, and Scottish
character and manners. His poetry was less a distinct power or vein,
than the general result and radiance of all his faculties. These
exhaled out of them a fine genial enthusiasm, which expressed itself
in song. We do not think, with Carlyle, that it is the same with _all_
high poets. _He_ says--"Poetry, except in such cases as that of Keats,
where the whole consists in a weak-eyed maudlin sensibility, and a
certain vague tunefulness of nature, is no separate faculty, no organ
which can be superadded to the rest, or disjoined from them, but
rather the result of their general harmony and completion." Now, 1st,
Carlyle is here grossly unjust to Keats. Had the author of Hyperion
nothing but maudlin sensibility? If ever man was devoured, body and
soul, by that passion for, and perception of, the beauty and glory of
the universe, which is the essence of poetry, it was poor Keats. He
was poetry incarnate--the wine of the gods poured into a frail earthy
vessel, which split around it. Nor has Burns, of whom Carlyle is here
writing, left any thing to be compared, in ideal qualities, in depth,
and massiveness, and almost Miltonic magnificence, with the
descriptions of Saturn, and the Palace of the Sun, and the Senate of
the Gods in "Hyperion." Burns was the finest lyrist of his or any age;
but Keats, had he lived, would have been one of the first of _epic_
poets. 2dly, We do not very well comprehend what Carlyle means by the
words "no organ, which can be superadded to, or disjoined from the
rest." If he means that no culture can add, or want of it take away,
poetic faculty, he is clearly right. But, if he means that nature
never confers a poetic vein distinct from, and superior to, the
surrounding faculties of the man, we must remind him of certain
stubborn facts. Gay and Fontaine were "fable-trees," Goldsmith was an
"inspired idiot." Godwin's powerful philosophic and descriptive genius
seemed scarcely connected with the man; he had to _write_ himself
_into_ it, and his friends could hardly believe him the author of his
own works! Even Byron was but a common man, except at his desk, or "on
his stool" as he himself called it. He had to "_call_" his evil spirit
from the vasty deep, and to lash himself very often into inspiration
by a whip of "Gin-_twist_." And James Hogg was little else than a
_haverer_, till he sat down to write poetry, when the "faery queen"
herself seemed to be speaking from within him. Nay, 3dly, we are
convinced that many men, of extraordinary powers otherwise, have in
them a vein of poetry as distinct from the rest as the bag of honey in
the bee is from his sting, his antennæ, and his wings, and which
requires some special circumstance or excitement to develop it. Thus
it was, we think, with Burke, Burns, and Carlyle himself. All these
had poetry in them, and have expressed it; but any of them might have
_avoided_, in a great measure, its expression, and might have solely
shone in other spheres. For example, Burke has written several works
full, indeed, of talent, but without a single gleam of that real
imagination which other of his writings display. What a contrast
between his "Thoughts on the Present Discontents," or his "Essay on
the Sublime and Beautiful," (an essay containing not one sublime, and
not two beautiful sentences in it all,) and the "rare and regal"
rhetorical and poetic glories of his "Essay on the French Revolution,"
or his "Letters on a Regicide Peace!" Burns might have been a
philosopher of the Dugald Stewart school, as acute and artificially
eloquent as any of them, had he gone to Edinburgh College instead of
going to Irvine School. Carlyle might have been a prime-minister of a
somewhat original and salvage sort, had it been so ordered. None of
the three were so essentially poetical, that all their thoughts were
"twin-born with poetry," and rushed into the reflection of metaphor,
as the morning beams into the embrace and reflection of the lake. All
were _stung_ into poetry: Burke by political zeal and personal
disappointment, Burns by love, and Carlyle by that white central heat
of dissatisfaction with the world and the things of the world, which
his temperament has compelled him to express, but which his Scottish
common sense has taught him the wisdom of expressing in earnest
masquerade and systematic metaphor. But, 4thly, there is a class of
poets who have possessed more than the full complement of human
faculties, who have added to these extensive accomplishments and
acquirements, and yet who have been so constituted, that imaginative
utterance has been as essential to their thoughts as language itself.
Such were Dante, Milton, Wordsworth, Coleridge, Shelley, &c., and such
are Wilson, Bailey, Aird, and Yendys. These are "nothing, if not
poetical." All their powers and acquisitions turn instinctively toward
poetic expression, whether in verse or prose. And near them, although
on a somewhat lower plane, stood Delta.
Poetry, with Delta, was rather the natural outflow of his whole soul
and culture combined, than an art or science. His poetry was founded
on feelings, not on principles. Indeed, we fancy that little true
poetry, in any age, has been systematic. It is generally the work of
sudden enthusiasm, wild and rapid ecstasy acting upon a nature
_prefitted_ for receiving the afflatus, whether by gift or by
accomplishment, or by both united. Even the most thoroughly furnished
have been as dependent on moods and happy hours as the least. The wind
of inspiration bloweth where it listeth. Witness Milton and Coleridge,
both of whom were masters of the theory of their art, nay, who had
studied it scientifically, and with a profound knowledge of cognate
sciences, and yet both of whom could only build up the lofty rhyme at
certain seasons, and in certain circumstances, and who frequently
perpetrated sheer dulness and drivel. The poetry of Homer, of
Eschylus, of Lucretius, of Byron, of Shelley, of Festus--in short, the
most of powerful poetry--has owed a vast deal more to excitement and
enthusiasm than to study or elaborate culture. The rhapsodists were
the first, have been the best, and shall be the last of the poets. And
with what principles of poetic art were the bards of Israel
conversant? And what systems of psychology or æsthetics had Shakspeare
studied? And in what college were trained the framers of the
ballad-poetry of the world--the lovers who soothed with song their
burning hearts--the shepherds who sang amid their green
wildernesses--the ploughmen who modulated to verse the motion of their
steers--the kings of the early time who shouted war-poetry from their
chariots--the Berserkars whose long hair curled and shook as though
life were in it, to the music of their wild melodies--and the "men of
sturt and strife," the rough Macpherson-like heroes, whose spirits
sprang away from the midst of flood and flame, from the gallows or the
scaffold, on whirlwinds of extempore music and poetry? Poetry, with
them, was the irresistible expression of passion and of imagination,
and hence its power; and to nothing still, but the same rod, can its
living waters flow amain. Certain fantastic fribbles of the present
day may talk of "principles of art," and "principles of
versification," and the necessity of studying poetry as a science, and
may exhaust the resources of midnight darkness in expressing their
bedrivelled notions; but _our_ principle is this--"Give us a gifted
intellect, and warm true heart, and stir these with the fiery rod of
passion and enthusiasm, and the result will be genuine, and high, and
lasting poetry, as certainly as that light follows the sun."
It may, perhaps, be objected, besides, that Delta has left no large or
great poem. Now, here we trace the presence of another prevalent
fallacy. Largeness is frequently confounded with greatness. But,
because Milton's Paradise Lost is both large and great, it does not
follow that every great poem must be large, any more than that every
large poem must be great. Pollok's Course of Time is a large and a
clever, but scarcely a great poem. Hamlet and Faust may be read each
in an hour, and yet both are great poems. Heraud's Judgment of the
Flood is a vast folio in size, but a very second-rate poem in
substance. Thomas Aird's Devil's Dream covers only four pages, yet who
ever read it without the impression "this is a great effort of
genius." Lalla Rookh was originally a quarto, but, although brilliant
in the extreme, it can hardly be called a poem at all. Burns's Vision
of Liberty contains, in the space of thirty-two lines, we hesitate not
to say, all the elements of a great poem. Although Delta's poems be
not large, it is not a necessary corollary that they are inferior
productions. And if none of them, perhaps, fill up the whole measure
of the term "great," many of them are beautiful, all are genuine, and
some, such as Casa Wappy, are exquisite.
Health is one eminent quality in this pleasing writer. Free
originally from morbid tendencies, he has nursed and cherished this
happy tone of mind by perusing chiefly healthy authors. He has acted
on the principle that the whole should be kept from the sick. He has
dipped but sparingly into the pages of Byron and Shelley, whereas
Wordsworth, Wilson, Southey, and Scott, are the gods of his idolatry.
Scott is transcendently clear. Indeed, we think that he gives to him,
_as a poet_, a place beyond his just deserts. His ease, simplicity,
romantic interest, and Border fire, have blinded him to his faults,
his fatal facility of verse, his looseness of construction, and his
sad want of deep thought and original sentiment. To name him beside or
above Wordsworth, the great consecrated bard of his period, is
certainly a heresy of no small order. One or two of Wordsworth's
little poems, or of his sonnets, are, we venture to say, in genuine
poetical depth and beauty, superior to Scott's _five_ larger poems put
together. _They_ are long, lively, rambling, shallow, and blue,
glittering streams. Wordsworth's ballads are deep and clear as those
mountain pools over which bends the rowan, and on which smiles the
autumn sky, as on the fittest reflector of its own bright profundity
and solemn clearness.
Well did Christopher North characterize Delta as the poet of the
spring. He was the darling of that darling season. In all his poetry
there leaped and frolicked "vernal delight and joy." He had in some of
his verses admirably, and on purpose, expressed the many feelings or
images which then throng around the heart, like a cluster of bees
settling at once upon flower--the sense of absolute newness, blended
with a faint, rich thrill of recollection--the fresh bubbling out of
the blood from the heart-springs--the return of the reveries of
childhood or youth--the intolerance of the fireside--the thirst after
nature renewed within the soul--the strange glory shed upon the earth,
all red and bare though it yet be--the attention excited by every
thing, "even by the noise of the fly upon the sunny wall, or the
slightest murmur of creeping waters"--the springing up of the sun from
his winter declinature--the softer and warmer lustre of the stars--and
the new emphasis with which men pronounce the words "hope" and "love."
To crown a spring evening, there sometimes appears in the west the
planet Venus, bright yellow-green, shivering as with ecstasy in the
orange or purple sky, and rounding off the whole scene into the
perfection of beauty. The Scottish poet of spring did not forget this
element of its glory, but sung a hymn to that fair star of morn and
eve worthy of its serene, yet tremulous splendor.
Delta was eminently a national writer. He did not gad abroad in search
of the sublime or strange, but cultivated the art of staying at home.
The scenery of his own neighborhood, the traditions or the histories
of his own country, the skies and stars of Scotland, the wild or
beautiful legends which glimmer through the mist of its past--these
were "the haunt and the main region of his song," and hence, in part,
the sweetness and the strength of his strains. Indeed, it is
remarkable that nearly all our Scottish poets have been national and
descriptive. Scotland has produced no real epic, few powerful
tragedies, few meditative poems of a high rank, but what a mass of
poetry describing its own scenery and manners, and recording its own
traditions. King James the Sixth, Gawin Douglas, Davie Lyndsay,
Ramsay, Fergusson, Ross of the "Faithful Shepherdess," Burns, Beattie,
Sir Walter Scott, Wilson, Aird, Delta, and twenty more, have been all
more or less national in their subject, or language, or both. We
attribute this, in a great measure, to the extreme peculiarity of
Scottish manners, _as they were_, and to the extreme and romantic
beauty of Scottish scenery. The poetic minds, in a tame country like
England, are thrown out upon foreign topics, or thrown in upon
themselves; whereas, in Scotland, they are arrested and detained
within the circle of their own manners and mountains. "Paint _us_
first," the hills seem to cry aloud. A reason, too, why we have had
few good tragedies or meditative poems, may be found in our national
narrowness of creed, and in our strong prejudice against dramatic
entertainments. As it is, we have only Douglas, and three or four good
plays of Miss Baillie's, to balance Shakspeare, Ben Jonson, and all
that galaxy--not to speak of the multitudes who have followed--and
only the "Grave," the "Minstrel," and the "Course of Time," to compare
with the works of George Herbert, Giles Fletcher, Quarles, Milton,
Young, Cowper, and Wordsworth.
We find in Delta little meditative power or tendency. His muse had no
"speculation" in her eye. Whether from caution, or from want of the
peculiar faculty, he never approached those awful abysses of thought
which are now attracting so many poets--attracting them, partly from a
desire to look down into their darkness, and partly from a passion for
those strange and shivering flowers which grow around their sides.
Leigh Hunt, in his late autobiography, when speaking of Blanco White,
seems to blame all religious speculation, as alike hopeless and
useless. But, in the present day, unless there be religious
speculation, there can, with men of mind, be little religion--no
creed--nor even an approximation toward one. Would Mr. Hunt destroy
that link, which in every age has bound us to the infinite and
eternal? Would he bring us back to mere brute worship, and brute
belief? Because we cannot at present form an infallible creed, should
we beware of seeking to form a creed at all? Because we cannot see all
the stars, must we never raise our eyes, or our telescopes, to the
midnight heavens? Because HE has been able to reach no consistent and
influential faith, ought all men to abandon the task? So far from
agreeing with this dogmatic denunciation, we hold that it argues on
the part of its author--revered and beloved though he be--a certain
shallowness and levity of spirit--that its tendency is to crush a
principle of aspiration in the human mind, which may be likened to an
outspringing angel pinion, and that it indirectly questions the use
and the truth of all revelation. We honor, we must say, Blanco White,
in his noble struggles, and in his divine despair, more than Leigh
Hunt, in his denial that such struggles are wiser than a maniac's
trying to leap to the sun, and in the ignoble conceptions of man's
position and destiny which his words imply. And, notwithstanding his
chilling criticism, so unlike his wont, we believe still, with
Coleridge, that not Wordsworth, nor Milton, have written a sonnet,
embodying a thought so new and magnificent, in language so sweet and
musical, and perfectly fitted to the thought, like the silvery new
moon sheathed in a transparent fleecy cloud, as that of Blanco White's
beginning with "Mysterious Night."
Delta, we have already said, gained reputation, in prose, as well as
in verse. His _Mansie Wauch, Tailor in Dalkeith_, is one of the most
delightful books in the language. It is partly, it is true, imitated
from Galt; but, while not inferior to him in humor, it has infused a
far deeper vein of poetry into the conception of common Scottish life.
Honor to thee, honest Mansie! Thou art worth twenty Alton Lockes, the
metaphysical tailor (certainly one of the absurdest creations, and
surrounded by the most asinine story of the age, although redeemed by
some glorious scenes, and _one_ character, Sandy Mackay, who is just
Thomas Carlyle _humanized_). But better than thee still, is thy
'prentice, Mungo Glen, with decline in his lungs, poetry in his heart,
and on his lips one of the sweetest laments in the language! Many
years have elapsed since we read thy life, but our laughter at thy
adventures, and our tears at the death of thy poor 'prentice, seem as
fresh as those of yesterday!
Why did Delta only open, and never dig out, this new and rich vein? He
alone seemed adequate to follow, however far off, in the steps of the
Great Wizard. Aird seemed to have exhausted his tale-writing faculty,
exquisite as it was. Wilson's tales, with all their power, lack
repose; they are too troubled, tearful, monotonous, and tempestuous.
Galt, Miss Ferrier, the authoress of the Odd Volume, Macnish, &c., are
dead....
We had not the pleasure of hearing Delta's recent lectures. They were,
chatty, conversational, lively, full of information, although neither
very eloquent, nor very profound. He knew too well the position in
which he stood, and the provender which his audience required! Nor, we
confess, did we expect to meet in them with a comprehensive or final
vidimus of the poetry of the last fifty years. His Edinburgh eye has
been too much dazzled and overpowered by the near orbs of Walter Scott
and Wilson, to do justice to remoter luminaries. Nor was criticism
exactly Delta's forte. He had not enough of subtility--perhaps not
enough of profound native instinct--and, perhaps, _some_ will think,
not enough of bad blood. But his criticism must, we doubt not, be
always sincere in feeling, candid in spirit, and manly in language.
Still, we repeat, that his power and mission were in the description
of the woods and streams, the feelings and customs, the beauties and
peculiarities, of 'dear Auld Scotland.'
It may, perhaps, be necessary to add, that the name Delta was applied to
Dr. Moir, from his signature in "Black wood," which was always [Symbol:
Delta]; that he was a physician in Musselburgh, and the author of some
excellent treaties on subjects connected with his own profession; and that
while an accomplished litterateur and beautiful poet, he never neglected
his peculiar duties, but stood as high in the medical as in the literary
world.
From Fraser's Magazine.
THE DESERTED MANSION.
A few years ago, a picture appeared in the Exhibition of the Royal
Academy, which peculiarly impressed my imagination; it represented an
ancient ruinous dwelling, surrounded by dilapidated gardens, set in
sombre woods. The venerable trees, the moat filled with nettles and
rubbish, the broken fences, green stagnant waters, the gabled,
turreted, many-windowed, mouldering mansion, a perfect medley of
chaotic architecture. The _visible silence_, the spirit of supreme
desolation brooding over the precincts, filled my mind with
involuntary sadness; while fancy conjured up strange, wild tales of
other days, in connection with the scene. I could not shake off the
belief that reality was portrayed on the canvas; and writing an
account of the various pictures to a friend who resided in the
country, I dwelt on this particular one, and my singular impressions
respecting it. When I next received a letter from my friend, she
remarked how unaccountable my fancies were; fancies which were,
however, based on the foundation of truth.
She went on to say, that reading my letter to Mrs. L----, an
octogenarian in wonderful preservation, that lady informed her of the
locality of my deserted mansion, and also of its history; the picture
being actually painted for Mrs. L----'s son; and the tale attached to
it, which my friend eventually gave me in the old lady's own words,
was as follows:
"Fifty years ago, the mansion of St. Elan's Wood was reckoned ancient,
but it was a healthful, vigorous age, interesting and picturesque.
Then, emerald turf lined the sides of the moat, and blooming flowers
clustered within its sloping shelter; white drapery fluttered within
the quaint latticed windows, and delicate climbers festooned them
without; terraced walks and thick hollow hedges were in trim order,
fountains sparkled in the sunshine, and blushing roses bent over and
kissed the clear rejoicing waters.
"Fifty years ago, joyous laughter resounded amid the greenwood glades,
and buoyant footsteps pressed the greensward; for the master of St.
Elan's had brought home a bride, and friends and relatives hastened
thither to offer congratulations, and to share the hospitalities of
the festive season.
"Lady St. Elan was a very young wife; a soft-eyed, timid creature; her
mother had died during her daughter's infancy, and her father (an
officer of high rank in the army) being abroad, a lady whom we shall
call Sabina, by whom she had been educated, accompanied her beloved
pupil, now Lady St. Elan, to this new home. The death of Lady St.
Elan's father, and the birth of a daughter, eventually mingled
rejoicing and mourning together, while great anxiety was felt for the
young mother, whose recovery was extremely tedious. The visits of
eminent physicians, who were sent for from great distances, evinced
the fears which were still entertained, even when the invalid roamed
once more in the pleasant garden and woods around. Alas! it was not
for the poor lady's bodily health they feared; the hereditary mental
malady of her family on the maternal side, but which had slumbered for
two generations, again darkly shadowed forth its dread approaches.
Slight, indeed, had been the warning as yet, subtle the demonstrations
of the deadly enemy, but enough to alarm the watchful husband, who was
well acquainted with the facts. But the alarm passed away, the
physicians came no more, and apparent health and strength, both mental
and physical, were fully restored to the patient, while the sweet babe
really deserved the epithets lavished on it by the delighted mother of
the 'divinest baby in the world.'
"During the temporary absence of her husband, on affairs of urgent
business, Lady St. Elan requested Sabina to share her chamber at
night, on the plea of timidity and loneliness; this wish was
cheerfully complied with, and two or three days passed pleasantly
away.
"St. Elan was expected to return home on the following morning, and
when the friends retired to rest on the previous night, Sabina
withdrew the window curtains, to gaze upon the glorious landscape
which stretched far away, all bathed in silver radiance, and she soon
fell into a tranquil slumber, communing with holy thoughts and
prayerful aspirations. She was suddenly awakened by a curious kind of
sound in the room, accompanied by a half-stifled jeering laugh. She
knew not how long sleep had lulled her in oblivion, but when Sabina
turned round to see from whence the sound proceeded, imagine her
horror and dismay at beholding Lady St. Elan standing near the door,
sharpening a large knife on her slipper, looking wildly round now and
then, muttering and jibing.
"'Not sharp enough yet--not sharp enough yet,' she exclaimed, intently
pursuing her occupation.
"Sabina felt instinctively, that this was no practical _joke_; she
knew instinctively the dread reality--by the maniac's eye--by the tone
of voice--and she sprang from the bed, darting towards the door. It
was locked. Lady St. Elan looked cunningly up, muttering--
"'So you thought I was so silly, did you? But I double-locked it, and
threw the key out of the window; and perhaps you may spy out in the
moonshine you're so fond of admiring,' pointing to an open casement,
at an immense height from the ground--for this apartment was at the
summit of a turret, commanding an extensive view, chosen for that
reason, as well as for its seclusion and repose, being so far distant
from the rest of the household.
"Sabina was not afflicted with weak nerves, and as the full danger of
her position flashed across her mind, she remembered to have heard
that the human eye possesses extraordinary power to quell and keep in
abeyance all unruly passions thus terrifically displayed. She was also
aware, that in a contest where mere bodily energy was concerned, her
powers must prove utterly inadequate and unavailing, when brought into
competition with those of the unfortunate lady during a continuance of
the paroxysm. Sabina feigned a calmness which she was far from feeling
at that trying moment, and though her voice trembled, yet she said
cheerfully, and with a careless air--
"'I think your knife will soon be sharp enough, Lady St. Elan; what do
you want it for?'
"'What do I want it for?' mimicked the mad woman; 'why what should I
want it for, Sabina, but to cut your throat with?'
"'Well, that is an odd fancy,' exclaimed Sabina, endeavoring not to
scream or to faint: 'but you had better sit down, for the knife is not
sharp enough for that job--there--there's a chair. Now give me your
attention while you sharpen, and I'll sit opposite to you; for I have
had such an extraordinary dream, and I want you to listen to it.'
"The lady looked maliciously sly, as much as to say, 'You shall not
cheat me, if I _do_ listen.' But she sat down, and Sabina opposite to
her, who began pouring forth a farrago of nonsense, which she
pretended to have dreamt. Lady St. Elan had always been much addicted
to perusing works of romantic fiction, and this taste for the
marvellous was, probably, the means of saving Sabina's life, who,
during that long and awful night, never flagged for one moment,
continuing her repetition of marvels in the _Arabian Night's_ style.
The maniac sat perfectly still, with the knife in one hand, the
slipper in the other, and her large eyes intently fixed on the
narrator. Oh, those weary, weary hours! When, at length, repeated
signals and knocks were heard at the chamber-door, as the morning sun
arose, Sabina had presence of mind not to notice them, as her terrible
companion appeared not to do so; but she continued her sing-song,
monotonous strain, until the barrier was fairly burst open, and St.
Elan himself, who had just returned, alarmed at the portentous murmurs
within, and accompanied by several domestics, came to the rescue.
"Had Sabina moved, or screamed for help, or appeared to recognize the
aid which was at hand, ere it could have reached her, the knife might
have been sheathed in her heart. This knife was a foreign one of
quaint workmanship, usually hanging up in St. Elan's dressing-room;
and the premeditation evinced in thus secreting it was a mystery not
to be solved. Sabina's hair which was black as the raven's wing, when
she retired to rest on that fearful night, had changed to the
similitude of extreme age when they found her in the morning. Lady St.
Elan never recovered this sudden and total overthrow of reason, but
died--alas! it was rumored, by her own hand--within two years
afterwards. The infant heiress was entrusted to the guidance of her
mother's friend and governess; she became an orphan at an early age,
and on completing her twenty-first year was uncontrolled mistress of
the fortune and estates of her ancestors.
"But long ere that period arrived, a serious question had arisen in
Sabina's mind respecting the duty and expediency of informing Mary St.
Elan what her true position was, and gently imparting the sad
knowledge of that visitation overshadowing the destinies of her race.
It was true that in her individual case the catastrophe might be
warded off, while, on the other hand, there was lurking, threatening
danger; but a high religious principle seemed to demand a sacrifice,
or self-immolation, in order to prevent the possibility of a
perpetuation of the direful malady.
"Sabina felt assured that were her noble-hearted pupil once to learn
the facts, there would be no hesitation on her part in strictly
adhering to the prescribed line of right; it was a bitter task for
Sabina to undertake, but she did not shrink from performing it when
her resolution became matured, and her scruples settled into decision,
formed on the solid basis of duty to God and man. Sabina afterwards
learnt that the sacrifice demanded of Mary St. Elan was far more
heroic than she had contemplated; and when that sweet young creature
devoted herself to a life of celibacy, Sabina did not know, that
engrossed by 'first love,' of which so much has been said and sung,
Mary St. Elan bade adieu to life's hope and happiness.
"With a woman's delicate perception and depth of pity, Sabina gained
that knowledge; and with honor unspeakable she silently read the
treasured secrets of the gentle heart thus fatally wounded--the evil
from which she had sedulously striven to guard her pupil, had not been
successfully averted--Mary St. Elan had already given away her
guileless heart. But her sorrows were not doomed to last; for soon
after that period when the law pronounced her free from control
respecting her worldly affairs, the last of the St. Elans passed
peacefully away to a better world, bequeathing the mansion house and
estate of St. Elan's Wood to Sabina and her heirs. In Sabina's
estimation, however, this munificent gift was the 'price of blood:' as
but for _her_ instrumentality, the fatal knowledge would not have been
imparted; but for _her_ the ancestral woods and pleasant home might
have descended to children's children in the St. Elan's
line,--tainted, indeed, and doomed; but now the race was extinct.
"There were many persons who laughed at Sabina's sensitive feelings on
this subject, which they could not understand; and even well-meaning,
pious folk, thought that she carried her strict notions, too far. Yet
Sabina remained immovable; nor would she ever consent that the wealth
thus left should be enjoyed by her or hers.
"Thus the deserted mansion still remains unclaimed, though it will not
be long ere it is appropriated to the useful and beneficent purpose
specified in Mary St. Elan's will--namely, failing Sabina and her
issue, to be converted into a lunatic asylum--a kind of lunatic
alms-house for decayed gentlewomen, who, with the requisite
qualifications, will here find refuge from the double storms of life
assailing them, poor souls! both from within and without."
"But what became of Sabina, and what interest has your son in this
picture?" asked my friend of old Mrs. L----, as that venerable lady
concluded her narration; "for if none live to claim the property, why
does it still remain thus?"
"Your justifiable curiosity shall be gratified, my dear," responded
the kindly dame. "Look at my hair--it did not turn white from age: I
retired to rest one night with glossy braids, black as the raven's
wing, and they found me in the morning as you now behold me! Yes, it
is even so; and you no longer wonder that Sabina's son desired to
possess this identical painting; my pilgrimage is drawing towards its
close--protracted as it has been beyond the allotted age of man--but,
according to the tenor of the afore-named will, the mansion and estate
of St. Elan must remain as they now stand until I am no more; while
the accumulated funds will amply endow the excellent charity. Were my
son less honorable or scrupulous, he might, of course, claim the
property on my decease; but respect for his mother's memory, with firm
adherence to her principles, will keep him, with God's blessing, from
yielding to temptation. He is not a rich man, but with proud humility
he may gaze on this memorial picture, and hand it down to posterity
with the traditionary lore attached; and may none of our descendants
ever lament the use which will be made, nor covet the possession, of
this deserted mansion."
From Hogg's Instructor.
ILLUSTRATIONS OF MOTIVES.
Certain it is, that in the universe there can be but one infallible
Judge of motives. None but its Maker can see into the secret springs,
and clearly comprehend the motions, of the mind. Nevertheless, "the
will for the deed" is an old understanding among mankind, in virtue of
that inward life whose world and workings they know to extend so far
beyond the visible. It is, indeed, the privilege, and in some sense a
necessity of human reason, to inquire after, at least, obvious
motives, since the smallest acquaintance with character or history
cannot be formed without taking them into account. Thus, in the
biographies of notable men, in the histories of nations, and in the
gossip which constitutes the current history of most neighborhoods,
and is relished alike by the denizens of court and hamlet, nobody is
satisfied with knowing merely what was done, for the demand invariably
follows, Why they did it? That query is often necessary to legal, and
always to moral justice. It must be, so to speak, a most mechanical
and surface life, whose daily doings the beholder can fully explain,
independent of any reference to inward feelings, unuttered memories,
or concealed hopes. How many deeds and whole courses of action,
chameleon-like, utterly change their complexions, according to the
light of attributed motives! Through that medium, the patriot of one
party becomes the heartless and designing knave of another; and the
fanatical revolutionists of their own generation turn to fearless
reformers with the next. Many an act, on the details of which most
historians are agreed, is held up by one to the world's praise, and by
another to universal censure. Henri Quatre, says the first, conformed
to Catholicism rather than continue a civil war in his kingdom; while
a second remarks of the same monarch, that he sacrificed his faith for
a crown. When Frederick-William of Prussia was just at the hottest of
that persecution of his celebrated son, for which, together with his
love of tall soldiers, he is best known to the world, the grand
dispute amongst his favorite guards at Potsdam was, whether the kicks,
cuffs, and imprisonments, which the old king bestowed so liberally on
his heir-apparent, were intended to prevent young Fritz turning an
infidel, or arose from his father's fears that he might be a greater
man than himself! On no subject are mankind more apt to differ,
probably because there are few on which observation affords so much
inferential and so little direct evidence.
Approaching the innermost circles of private life, we find that the
views entertained of motives exercise a still greater influence in
determining our estimation of kindred, friends, or lovers. Volpone, in
Ben Jonson's play, even had he been capable of it, could have no cause
for gratitude to his numerous friends for all their gifts and
attentions, knowing so perfectly as he did, that they came but in
expectation of a legacy; and many a well-portioned dame has seen cause
for applying to her most attentive suitor those lines of a homely
Scottish song--
"My lad is sae muckle in love wi' my siller,
He canna hae love to spare for me."
There is a strange difference of opinion existing at times between the
principals and the spectators of these particular affairs. Few, it has
been said, can penetrate the motives of others in matters regarding
themselves. Yet most people are wonderfully sharp-sighted where their
neighbors are concerned; and the world--as every one of us is apt to
call that fraction of society in which we live, and move, and have our
associations--though generally not over charitable, is rarely wrong in
its conclusions.
He was a keen observer of life who remarked that the rapid changes to
which most of human friendships and enmities are liable, could be no
matter of surprise to one who took note of the motives from which they
generally originate. Poor and unsubstantial enough these doubtless
are, in many a case. There have been friendships that owed their
growth solely to showers of flattery, and bitter enmities have
spontaneously sprung up in the soil of envy. It was said of Goldsmith,
that he could never hear a brother poet, or, indeed, any citizen of
the world of letters, praised, without entertaining a temporary
aversion to that individual, and a similar effect was always produced
by the smallest sign of increasing literary consequence. A report that
M---- had been taken particular notice of by such a nobleman of those
patronizing times, or that his works had been admired in some segment
of the fashionable circle, was sufficient to make the author of the
"Deserted Village" find all manner of faults with him and his, till
time, or his habitual good nature, wiped the circumstance out of
Goldsmith's remembrance.
This reminds one of Madame de Montespan, a belle of that order which
reigned most triumphantly at the court of Louis XIV., who never could
forgive her rival, even when disgraced and dead, because she had once
got a ride in the royal carriage. It is curious that the learned and
the fair, far as their general pursuits, and visibilities, too, are
known to be apart, should, according to common report, approximate so
nearly in their motives to enmity or friendship. George Colman used to
say, that, if one had any interest in getting up a quarrel between
either two fine ladies or two literary men, he had nothing to do but
to praise the one energetically to the other, and the higher his
enthusiasm rose, the fiercer would be the war.
It was asserted of both the elder and younger Scaliger, that they
never applauded any scholar with all their might, but one who was
manifestly inferior to themselves; and of Madame de Maintenon, that
she never honored any one with her special friendship who was not, in
some considerable point, beneath her. There is still a large class of
characters, in all whose attachments a something to despise seems the
indispensable ingredient. The perpetual triumph of being always "king
of the company" has a binding attraction for such minds. It confers a
kind of dictatorship to have the advantage of one's friends. Nothing
else can explain the amount of patronage and befriending generally
lavished on the most worthless members of families or societies; and
the half-grudge, half-surveillance, which, under the covert of mere
mouth-honor, often surrounds great or successful abilities.
A strange motive to enmity is illustrated in the life of General
Loudoun, one of the Scotch Jacobites, who, on the defeat of his party,
entered the Austrian service, and rose to the rank of field-marshal in
the wars of Maria Theresa. He had taken the town of Seidlitz from the
Prussians. It was a great stroke in favor of the empress queen, and
might have been rewarded with a coronet, but, in his haste to send her
majesty the intelligence, Loudoun transmitted it through her husband,
the Emperor Francis, who had a private interest in the matter, having
long carried on a speculation of his own in victualling not only his
wife's troops, but those of her Prussian enemy. King Maria, as she was
styled by her Hungarian subjects, had also some special reasons for
allowing him to have neither hand nor voice in her concerns--a fact
which the marshal had never learned, or forgotten; and her majesty was
so indignant at receiving the news through such a channel, that,
though she struck a medal to commemorate the taking of Seidlitz,
Loudoun was rewarded only with her peculiar aversion throughout the
remaining seventeen years of her reign, for which the good wishes of
that imperial speculator in forage and flour afforded but poor
consolation.
Of all the important steps of human life, that by which two are made
one appears to be taken from the greatest variety of motives.
Doubtless, from the beginning it was not so; but manifold and
heterogeneous are those which have been alleged for it in the
civilized world. Goethe said he married to attain popular
respectability. Wilkes, once called the Patriot, when sueing his wife,
who chanced to have been an heiress, for the remains of her property,
declared that he had wedded at twenty-two, solely to please his
friends; and Wycherly the poet, in his very last days, worshipped and
endowed with all his worldly goods, as the English service hath it, a
girl whom poverty had made unscrupulous, in order to be revenged on
his relations.
Princes of old were in the habit of marrying to cement treaties, which
were generally broken as soon after as possible; and simple citizens
are still addicted to the same method of amending their fortunes and
families. There was an original motive to double blessedness set forth
in the advice of a veteran sportsman in one of the border counties.
His niece was the heiress of broad lands, which happened to adjoin an
estate belonging to a younger brother of the turf; and the senior
gentleman, when dilating to her on the exploits they had performed
together by wood and wold, wound up with the following sage
counsel--"Maria, take my advice, and marry young Beechwood, and you'll
see this county hunted in style."
The numbers who, by their own account, have wedded to benefit society,
in one shape or another, would furnish a strong argument against the
accredited selfishness of mankind, could they only be believed. The
general good of their country was the standing excuse of classic
times, and philosophers have occasionally reproduced it in our own.
Most people seem to think some apology necessary, but none are so
ingenious in showing cause why they should enter the holy state, as
those with whom it is the second experiment. The pleas of the widowed
for casting off their weeds are generally prudent, and often
singularly commendable. Domestic policy or parental affection supply
the greater part of them; and the want of protectors and step-mothers
felt by families of all sizes is truly marvellous, considering the
usual consequences of their instalment.
It is to be admired, as the speakers of old English would say, for
what noble things men will give themselves credit in the way of
motives, and how little resemblance their actions bear to them.
Montaigne was accustomed to tell of a servant belonging to the
Archbishop of Paris, who, being detected in privately selling his
master's best wine, insisted that it was done out of pure love to his
grace, lest the sight of so large a stock in his cellar might tempt
him to drink more than was commendable for a bishop. A guardian care
of their neighbors' well-being, somewhat similar, is declared by all
the disturbers of our daily paths. Tale-bearers and remarkers, of
every variety, have the best interests of their friends at heart; and
what troublesome things some people can do from a sense of duty is
matter of universal experience. Great public criminals, tyrants, and
persecutors in old times, and the abusers of power in all ages, have,
especially in the fall of their authority, laid claim to most exalted
motives. Patriotism, philanthropy, and religion itself, have been
quoted as their inspirers. The ill-famed Judge Jeffries said, his
judicial crimes were perpetrated to maintain the majesty of the law.
Robespierre affirmed that he had lived in defence of virtue and his
country. But perhaps the most charitable interpretation that ever man
gave to the motives of another, is to be found in the funeral sermon
of Frederick, Prince of Wales, and father of George III. The preacher,
after several judicious remarks on the virtues of the royal deceased,
concludes, "That in the extreme to which these were carried, they
appeared like vices; for so great was his generosity, that he ruined
half the tradesmen in London; and so extraordinary his condescension,
that he kept all sorts of bad company."
It is strange, that while motives abstractly virtuous have produced
large additions to the sum of mortal ills, little of private, and
still less of public, good has sprung, even casually, from those that
are evil in themselves. "If either the accounts of history, or the
daily reports of life, are to be at all credited," said one who had
learned and thought much on this subject, "the greatest amount of
crime and folly has been committed from motives of religion and love,
as men, for the most part, know them; while those of avarice, revenge,
and fear, have originated the most extraordinary actions and important
events."
The sins of revenge have usually a leaven of what Bacon calls "wild
justice" in them. Those of avarice are, from their very nature,
notorious; but perhaps no motive has ever prompted men to such varied
and singular actions as that of fear. The working of fear was
singularly exhibited in the conduct of a certain Marquis of
Montferrat, who lived at the period of the famous Italian wars, waged
between Charles V. of Germany and Francis I. of France. The marquis
was an Alpine feudatory of the former, and served him long and
faithfully, till a German astrologer of high repute in those days
assured him, from the stars, that the emperor would be eventually
overthrown, and all his partisans utterly ruined. To avoid his
probable share in that prediction, the marquis turned traitor to his
friend and sovereign, for Charles had trusted him beyond most men; but
the next year, the emperor was completely victorious, by both sea and
land. The marquis had fallen, fighting in vain for Francis, and his
fief was bestowed on a loyal vassal of the emperor.
Divines and philosophers have had many controversies concerning
motives. A great dispute on this subject is said to have engaged the
learned of Alexandria, about the accession of the emperor Julian,
whom, says a biographer, "some of his subjects named the Apostate, and
some the Philosopher." The controversy occupied not only the Christian
Platonists, for whose numbers that city was so celebrated, but also
the Pagan wisdom, then shedding its last rays under favor of the new
emperor. Yet neither Christians nor Pagans could entirely agree with
each other, and such a division of opinion had never been heard, even
in Alexandria. Things were in this state, says the tradition, when
there arrived in the capital of Egypt a Persian, whose fame had long
preceded him. He had been one of the Magi, at the base of the
Caucasus, till the Parthians laid waste his country, when he left it,
and travelled over the world in search of knowledge, and, in both east
and west, they called him Kosro the Wise. Scarce was the distinguished
stranger fairly within their gates when the chiefs of the parties
determined to hear his opinion on matter; and a deputation, consisting
of a Christian bishop, a Jewish rabbi, a Platonist teacher, and a
priest of Isis, waited on the Persian one morning, when he sat in the
portico of a long-deserted temple, which some forgotten Egyptian had
built to Time, the instructor. The rabbi and the priest were for
actions. The Platonist and the bishop were motive men, but in the
manner of those times, for even philosophy has its fashions, the four
had agreed that each should propose a question to Kosro, as his own
wisdom dictated. Accordingly, after some preparatory compliments,
touching the extent of his fame and travels, the Platonist, who was
always notable for circumlocution, opened the business by inquiring
what he considered the chief movers of mankind.
"Gain and vanity," replied Kosro.
"Which is strongest?" interposed the rabbi, in whom the faculty of
beating about in argument was scarcely less developed.
"Gain was the first," said the Persian. "Its worship succeeded the
reign of Ormuz, which western poets call the golden age, and I know
not when it was; but, in later ages, vanity has become the most
powerful, for every where I have seen men do that for glory which they
would not do for gain; and many even sacrifice gain to glory, as they
think it."
"But, wise Kosro," demanded the priest, impatient with what he
considered a needless digression, "tell us your opinion--Should men be
judged by their motives or their actions?"
"Motives," said Kosro, "are the province of divine, and actions of
human, judgment. Nevertheless, because of the relation between them it
is well to take note of the former when they become visible in our
light, yet not to search too narrowly after them, but take deeds for
their value; seeing, first, that the inward labyrinth is beyond our
exploring; secondly, that most men act from mingled motives; and,
thirdly, that if, after the thought of a western poet, there were a
crystal pane set in each man's bosom, it would mightily change the
estimation of many."
And the bishop made answer--"Kosro, thou hast seen the truth; man must
at times perceive, but God alone can judge of, motives."
From Sharpe's London Journal.
THE LAST DAYS OF THE EMPEROR ALEXANDER.
FROM THE FRENCH OF ALEX. DUMAS, BY MISS STRICKLAND.
The knowledge of an extensively organized conspiracy embittered the
last years of the Emperor Alexander, and increased his constitutional
melancholy. His attachment to Tzarsko Zelo made him linger longer at
his summer palace than was prudent in a man subject to erysipelas. The
wound in his leg reopened with very unfavorable symptoms, and he was
compelled to leave his favorite residence in a closed litter for St.
Petersburgh; and the skill and firmness of Mr. Wyllie, his Scotch
surgeon, alone saved the diseased limb from amputation. As soon as he
was cured, he returned again to Tzarsko Zelo, where the spring found
him as usual alone, without a court or chamberlain, only giving
audience to his ministers twice a-week. His existence resembled rather
that of an anchorite weeping for the sins of his youth, than that of a
great Emperor who makes the happiness of his people.
He regulated his time in the following manner:--in summer he rose at
five, and in winter at six o'clock every morning, and as soon as the
duties of the toilette were ended, entered his cabinet, in which the
greatest order was observed. He found there a cambric handkerchief
folded, and a packet of new pens. He only used these pens in signing
his name, and never made use of them again. As soon as he concluded
this business, he descended into the garden, where, notwithstanding
the report of a conspiracy which had existed two years against his
life and government, he walked alone with no other guards than the
sentinels always stationed before the palace of Alexander. At five he
returned, to dine alone, and after his solitary meal was lulled to
sleep by the melancholy airs played by the military band of the guard
regiment on duty. The selection of the music was always made by
himself, and he seemed to sink to repose, and to awake, with the same
sombre dispositions and feelings which had been his companions
throughout the day.
His empress Elizabeth lived like her consort, in profound solitude,
watching over him like an invisible angel. Time had not extinguished
in her heart the profound passion with which the youthful Czarowitz
had inspired her at first sight, and which she had preserved in her
heart, pure and inviolate. His numerous and public infidelities could
not stifle this holy and beautiful attachment, which formed at once
the happiness and misery of a delicate and sensitive woman.
At this period of her life, the Empress at five-and-forty retained her
fine shape and noble carriage, while her countenance showed the
remains of considerable beauty, more impaired by sorrow than time.
Calumny itself had never dared to aim her envenomed shafts at one so
eminently chaste and good. Her presence demanded the respect due to
virtue, still more than the homage proper to her elevated rank. She
resembled indeed more an angel exiled from heaven, than the imperial
consort of a Prince who ruled a large portion of the earth.
In the summer of 1825, the last he was destined to see, the physicians
of the Emperor unanimously recommended a journey to the Crimea, as the
best medicine he could take. Alexander appeared perfectly indifferent
to a measure which regarded his individual benefit, but the Empress,
deeply interested in any event likely to restore her husband's health,
asked and obtained permission to accompany him. The necessary
preparations for this long absence overwhelmed the Emperor with
business, and for a fortnight he rose earlier, and went to bed later,
than was customary to him.
In the month of June, no visible alteration was observed in his
appearance, and he quitted St. Petersburgh, after a service had been
chanted, to bring down a blessing from above on his journey. He was
accompanied by the Empress, his faithful coachman, Ivan, and some
officers belonging to the staff of General Diebitch. He stopped at
Warsaw a few days, in order to celebrate the birthday of his brother,
the Grand-Duke Constantine, and arrived at Tangaroff in the end of
August 1825. Both the illustrious travellers found their health
benefitted by the change of scene and climate. Alexander took a great
liking to Tangaroff, a small town on the borders of the sea of Azof,
comprizing a thousand ill-built houses, of which a sixth-part alone
are of brick and stone, while the remainder resemble wooden cages
covered with dirt. The streets are large, but then they have no
pavement, and are alternately loaded with dust, or inundated with mud.
The dust rises in clouds, which conceals alike man and beast under a
thick veil, and penetrates every where the carefully closed jalousies
with which the houses are guarded, and covers the garments of their
inhabitants. The food, the water, are loaded with it; and the last
cannot be drunk till previously boiled with salt of tartar, which
precipitates it; a precaution absolutely necessary to free it from
this disagreeable and dangerous deposit.
The Emperor took possession of the governor's house, where he
sometimes slept and took his meals. His abode there in the daytime
rarely exceeded two hours. The rest of his time was passed in
wandering about the country on foot, in the hot dust or wet mud. No
weather put any stop to his outdoor exercise, and no advice from his
medical attendant nor warning from the natives of Tangaroff, could
prevail upon him to take the slightest precaution against the fatal
autumnal fever of the country. His principal occupation was, planning
and planting a great public garden, in which undertaking he was
assisted by an Englishman whom he had brought with him to St.
Petersburgh for that purpose. He frequently slept on the spot on a
camp-bed, with his head resting upon a leather pillow.
If general report may be credited, planting gardens was not the
principal object that engrossed the Russian Emperor's attention. He
was said to be employed in framing a new Constitution for Russia, and
unable to contend at St. Petersburgh with the prejudices of the
aristocracy, had retired to this small city, for the purpose of
conferring this benefit upon his enslaved country.
However this might be, the Emperor did not stay long at a time at
Tangaroff, where his Empress, unable to share with him the fatigues of
his long journeys, permanently resided, during his frequent absences
from his head quarters. Alexander, in fact, made rapid excursions to
the country about the Don, and was sometimes at Tcherkask, sometimes
at Donetz. He was on the eve of departure for Astracan, when Count
Woronzoff in person came to announce to his sovereign the existence of
the mysterious conspiracy which had haunted him in St. Petersburgh,
and which extended to the Crimea, where his personal presence could
alone appease the general discontent.
The prospect of traversing three hundred leagues appeared a trifle to
Alexander, whom rapid journeys alone diverted from his oppressive
melancholy. He announced to the Empress his departure, which he only
delayed till the return of a messenger he had sent to Alapka. The
expected courier brought new details of the conspiracy, which aimed at
the life, as well as the government of Alexander. This discovery
agitated him terribly. He rested his aching head on his hands, gave a
deep groan, and exclaimed, "Oh, my father, my father!" Though it was
then midnight, he caused Count Diebitch to be roused from sleep and
summoned into his presence. The general, who lodged in the next house,
found his master in a dreadfully excited state, now traversing the
apartment with hasty strides, now throwing himself upon the bed with
deep sighs and convulsive starts. He at length became calm, and
discussed the intelligence conveyed in the dispatches of Count
Woronzoff. He then dictated two, one addressed to the Viceroy of
Poland, the other to the Grand-Duke Nicholas.
With these documents all traces of his terrible agitation disappeared.
He was quite calm, and his countenance betrayed nothing of the emotion
that had harassed him the preceding night.
Count Woronzoff, notwithstanding his apparent calmness, found him
difficult to please, and unusually irritable, for Alexander was
constitutionally sweet-tempered and patient. He did not delay his
journey on account of this internal disquietude, but gave orders for
his departure from Tangaroff, which he fixed for the following day.
His ill-humor increased during the journey; he complained of the
badness of the roads and the slowness of the horses. He had never been
known to grumble before. His irritation became more apparent when Sir
James Wyllie, his confidential medical attendant, recommended him to
take some precaution against the frozen winds of the autumn; for he
threw away with a gesture of impatience the cloak and pelisse he
offered, and braved the danger he had been entreated to avoid. His
imprudence soon produced consequences. That evening he caught cold,
and coughed incessantly, and the following day, on his arrival at
Orieloff, an intermittent fever appeared, which soon after, aggravated
by the obstinacy of the invalid, turned to the intermittent fever
common to Tangaroff and its environs in the autumn.
The Emperor, whose increasing malady gave him a presage of his
approaching death, expressed a wish to return to the Empress, and once
more took the route to Tangaroff; contrary to the prayers of Sir James
Wyllie, he chose to perform a part of the journey on horseback, but
the failure of his strength finally forced him to re-enter his
carriage. He entered Tangaroff on the fifth of November, and swooned
the moment he came into the governor's house. The Empress, who was
suffering with a complaint of the heart, forgot her malady, while
watching over her dying husband. Change of place only increased the
fatal fever which preyed upon his frame, which seemed to gather
strength from day to day. On the eight, Wyllie called in Dr.
Stephiegen, and on the thirteenth they endeavored to counteract the
affection of the brain, and wished to bleed the imperial patient. He
would not submit to the operation, and demanded iced water, which they
refused. Their denial irritated him, and he rejected every thing they
offered him, with displeasure. These learned men were unwise, to
deprive the suffering prince of the water, a safe and harmless
beverage in such fevers. In fact, nature herself sometimes, in
inspiring the wish, provides the remedy. The Emperor on the afternoon
of that day wrote and sealed a letter, when perceiving the taper
remained burning, he told his attendant to extinguish it, in words
that plainly expressed his feelings in regard to the dangerous nature
of his malady. "Put out that light, my friend, or the people will take
it for a bier candle, and will suppose I am already dead."
On the fourteenth of November, the physicians again urged their
refractory patient to take the medicines they prescribed, and were
seconded by the prayers of the Empress. He repulsed them with some
haughtiness, but quickly repenting of his hastiness of temper, which
in fact was one of the symptoms of the disease, he said, "Attend to
me, Stephiegen, and you too, Sir Andrew Wyllie. I have much pleasure
in seeing you, but you plague me so often about your medicine, that
really I must give up your company if you will talk of nothing else."
He however was at last induced to take a dose of calomel.
In the evening, the fever had made such fearful progress that it
appeared necessary to call in a priest. Sir Andrew Wyllie, at the
instance of the Empress, entered the chamber of the dying prince, and
approaching his bed, with tears in his eyes advised him "to call in
the aid of the Most High, and not to refuse the assistance of religion
as he had already done that of medicine."
The Emperor instantly gave his consent. Upon the fifteenth, at five
o'clock in the morning, a humble village priest approached the
imperial bed to receive the confession of his expiring sovereign.--"My
father, God must be merciful to kings," were the first words the
Emperor addressed to the minister of religion; "indeed they require it
so much more than other men." In this sentence all the trials and
temptations of the despotic ruler of a great people--his territorial
ambition, his jealousy, his political ruses, his distrusts and
over-confidences, seem to be briefly comprehended. Then, apparently
perceiving some timidity in the spiritual confessor his destiny had
provided for him, he added, "My father, treat me like an erring man,
not as an Emperor." The priest drew near the bed, received the
confession of his august penitent, and administered to him the last
sacraments. Then having been informed of the Emperor's pertinacity in
rejecting medicine, he urged him to give up this fatal obstinacy,
remarking, "that he feared God would consider it absolutely suicidal."
His admonitions made a deep impression upon the mind of the prince,
who recalled Sir Andrew Wyllie, and, giving him his hand, bade him do
what he pleased with him. Wyllie took advantage of this absolute
surrender, to apply twenty leeches to the head of the Emperor; but the
application was too late, the burning fever continually increased, and
the sufferer was given over. The intelligence filled the dying chamber
with weeping domestics, who tenderly loved their master.
The Empress still occupied her place by the bed-side, which she had
never quitted but once, in order to allow her dying husband to unbosom
himself in private to his confessor. She returned to the post assigned
her by conjugal tenderness directly the priest had quitted it.
Two hours after he had made his peace with God, Alexander experienced
more severe pain than he had yet felt. "Kings," said he, "suffer more
than others." He had called one of his attendants to listen to this
remark with the air of one communicating a secret. He stopped, and
then, as if recalling something he had forgotten, said in a whisper,
"they have committed an infamous action." What did he mean by these
words? Was he suspicious that his days had been shortened by poison?
or did he allude, with the last accents he uttered, to the barbarous
assassination of the Emperor Paul? Eternity can alone reveal the
secret thoughts of Alexander I. of Russia.
During the night, the dying prince lost consciousness. At two o'clock
in the morning, Count Diebitch came to the Empress, to inform her that
an old man, named Alexandrowitz, had saved many Tartars in the same
malady. A ray of hope entered the heart of the imperial consort at
this information, and Sir Andrew Wyllie ordered him to be sent for in
haste. This interval was passed by the Empress in prayer, yet she
still kept her eyes fixed upon those of her husband, watching with
intense attention the beams of life and light fading in their
unconscious gaze. At nine in the morning, the old man was brought into
the imperial chamber almost by force. The rank of the patient,
perhaps, inspiring him with some fear respecting the consequences that
might follow his prescriptions, caused his extreme unwillingness. He
approached the bed, looked at his dying sovereign, and shook his head.
He was questioned respecting this doubtful sign. "It is too late to
give him medicine; besides, those I have cured were not sick of the
same malady."
With these words of the peasant physician, the last hopes of the
Empress vanished; but if pure and ardent prayers could have prevailed
with God, Alexander would have been saved.
On the sixteenth of November, according to the usual method of
measuring time, but on the first of December, if we follow the Russian
calendar, at fifty minutes after ten in the morning, Alexander
Paulowitz, Emperor of all the Russias, expired. The Empress, bending
over him, felt the departure of his last breath. She uttered a bitter
cry, sank upon her knees, and prayed. After some minutes passed in
communion with heaven, she rose, closed the eyes of her deceased lord,
composed his features, kissed his cold and livid hands, and once more
knelt and prayed. The physicians entreated her to leave the chamber of
death, and the pious Empress consented to withdraw to her own.[9]
The body of the Emperor lay in state, on a platform raised in an
apartment of the house where he died. The presence-chamber was hung
with black, and the bier was covered with cloth of gold. A great many
wax tapers lighted up the gloomy scene. A priest at the head of the
bier prayed continually for the repose of his deceased sovereign's
soul. Two sentinels with drawn swords watched day and night beside the
dead, two were stationed at the doors, and two stood on each step
leading to the bier. Every person received at the door a lighted
taper, which he held while he remained in the apartment. The Empress
was present during these masses, but she always fainted at the
conclusion of the service. Crowds of people united their prayers to
hers, for the Emperor was adored by the common people. The corpse of
Alexander I. lay in state twenty-one days before it was removed to the
Greek monastery of St. Alexander, where it was to rest before its
departure for interment in St. Petersburgh.
Upon the 25th December, the remains of the Emperor were placed on a
funeral car drawn by eight horses, covered to the ground with black
cloth ornamented with the escutcheons of the empire. The bier rested
on an elevated dais, carpeted with cloth of gold; over the bier was
laid a flag of silver tissue, charged with the heraldic insignia
proper to the imperial house. The imperial crown was placed under the
dais. Four major-generals held the cords which supported the diadem.
The persons composing the household of the Emperor and Empress
followed the bier dressed in long black mantles, bearing in their
hands lighted torches. The Cossacks of the Don every minute discharged
their light artillery, while the sullen booming of the cannon added to
the solemnity of the imposing scene.
Upon its arrival at the church, the body was transferred to a
catafalco covered with red cloth, surmounted by the imperial arms in
gold, displayed on crimson-velvet. Two steps led up to the platform on
which the catafalco was placed. Four columns supported the dais upon
which the imperial crown, the sceptre, and the globe, rested.
The catafalco was surrounded by curtains of crimson velvet and cloth
of gold, and four massy candelabra, at the four corners of the
platform, bore wax tapers sufficient to dispel the darkness, but not
to banish the gloom pervading the church, which was hung with black
embroidered with white crosses. The Empress made an attempt to assist
at this funeral service, but her feelings overpowered her, and she was
borne back to the palace in a swoon; but as soon as she came to
herself she entered the private chapel, and repeated there the same
prayers then reciting in the church of St. Alexander.
While the remains of the Emperor Alexander were on their way to their
last home, the report of his dangerous state, which had been forwarded
officially to the Grand-Duke Nicholas, was contradicted by another
document, which bore date of the 29th of November, announcing that
considerable amendment had taken place in the Emperor's health, who
had recovered from a swoon of eight hours' duration, and had not only
appeared collected, but declared himself improved in health.
Whether this was a political ruse of the conspirators or the new
Emperor remains quite uncertain; however, a solemn _Te Deum_ was
ordered to be celebrated in the cathedral of Casan, at which the
Empress Mother and the Grand-Dukes Nicholas and Michael were present.
The joyful crowds assembled at this service scarcely left the imperial
family and their suite a free space for the exercise of their
devotions. Towards the end of the _Te Deum_, while the sweet voices of
the choir were rising in harmonious concert to heaven, some official
person informed the Grand-Duke Nicholas that a courier from Tangaroff
had arrived with the last dispatch, which he refused to deliver into
any hand but his own. Nicholas was conducted into the sacristy, and
with one glance at the messenger divined the nature of the document of
which he was the bearer. The letter he presented was sealed with
black. Nicholas recognized the handwriting of the Empress Consort,
and, hastily opening it, read these words:
"Our angel is in heaven; I still exist on earth, but I hope soon to be
re-united to him."
The bishop was summoned into the sacristy by the new Emperor, who gave
him the letter, with directions to break the fatal tidings it
contained to the Empress Mother with the tenderest care. He then
returned to his place by the side of his august parent, who alone, of
the thousands assembled there, had perceived his absence.
An instant after, the venerable bishop re-entered the choir, and
silenced the notes of praise and exultation with a motion of his hand.
Every voice became mute, and the stillness of death reigned throughout
the sacred edifice. In the midst of the general astonishment and
attention he walked slowly to the altar, took up the massy silver
crucifix which decorated it, and throwing over that symbol of earthly
sorrow and divine hope a black veil, he approached the Empress Mother,
and gave her the crucifix in mourning to kiss.
The Empress uttered a cry, and fell with her face on the
pavement;--she comprehended at once that her eldest son was dead.
The Empress Elizabeth soon realized the sorrowful hope she had
expressed. Four months after the death of her consort she died on the
way from Tangaroff, at Beloff, and soon rejoined him she had
pathetically termed "_her_ angel in heaven."
The historical career of the Emperor Alexander is well known to every
reader, but the minor matters of every-day life mark the man, while
public details properly denote the sovereign.
The faults of Alexander are comprised in his infidelity to a
beautiful, accomplished, and affectionate wife. He respected her even
while wounding her delicate feelings by his criminal attachments to
other women. After many years of mental pain, the injured Elizabeth
gave him the choice of giving her up, or banishing an imperious
mistress, by whom the Emperor had a numerous family.
Alexander could not resolve to separate for ever from his amiable and
virtuous consort,--he made the sacrifice she required of him.
His gallantry sometimes placed him in unprincely situations, and
brought him in contact with persons immeasurably beneath him. He once
fell in love with a tailor's wife at Warsaw, and not being well
acquainted with the character of the pretty grisette, construed her
acceptance of the visit he proposed making her, into approbation of
his suit. The fair Pole was too simple, and had been too virtuously
brought up, to comprehend his intentions. Her husband was absent, so
she thought it would not be proper to receive the imperial visit
alone; she made, therefore, a re-union of her own and her husband's
relations--rich people of the bourgeoisie class--and when the emperor
entered her saloon, he found himself in company with thirty or forty
persons, to whom he was immediately introduced by his fair and
innocent hostess. The astonished sovereign was obliged to make himself
agreeable to the party, none of whom appeared to have divined his
criminal intentions. He made no further attempt to corrupt the
innocence of this beautiful woman, whose simplicity formed the
safeguard of her virtue.
A severe trial separated him for ever from his last mistress, who had
borne him a daughter; this child was the idol of his heart, and to
form her mind was the pleasure of his life. At eighteen the young lady
eclipsed every woman in his empire by her dazzling beauty and graceful
manners. Suddenly she was seized with an infectious fever, for which
no physician in St. Petersburgh could find a remedy. Her mother,
selfish and timid, deserted the sick chamber of the suffering girl,
over whom the bitter tears of a father were vainly shed, while he kept
incessant vigils over one whom he would have saved from the power of
the grave at the expense of his life and empire. The dying daughter
asked incessantly for her mother, upon whose bosom she desired to
breathe her last sigh; but neither the passionate entreaties nor the
commands of her imperial lover could induce the unnatural parent to
risk her health by granting the interview for which her poor child
craved, and she expired in the arms of her father, without the
consolation of bidding her mother a last adieu.
Some days after the death of his natural daughter, the Emperor
Alexander entered the house of an English officer to whom he was much
attached. He was in deep mourning and appeared very unhappy. "I have
just followed to the grave," said he, "as a private person the remains
of my poor child, and I cannot yet forgive the unnatural woman who
deserted the death-bed of her daughter. Besides, my sin, which I never
repented of, has found me out, and the vengeance of God has fallen
upon its fruits. Yes, I deserted the best and most amiable of wives,
the object of my first affection, for women who neither possessed her
beauty nor merit. I have preferred to the Empress even this unnatural
mother, whom I now regard with loathing and horror. My wife shall
never again have cause to reproach my broken faith."
Devotion and his strict adherence to his promise balmed the wound,
which, however, only death could heal. To the secret agony which
through life had haunted the bosom of the son was added that of the
father, and the return of Alexander to the paths of virtue and
religion originated in the loss of this beloved daughter, smitten, he
considered, for his sins.
The friendship of this prince for Madam Krudener had nothing criminal
in its nature, though it furnished a theme for scandal to those who
are apt to doubt the purity of Platonic attachments between
individuals of opposite sexes.
In regard to this Emperor's political career, full of ambition and
stratagem, we can only re-echo his dying words to his confessor:--"God
must be merciful to kings?" His career, however varied by losses on
the field or humiliated by treaties, ended triumphantly with the
laurels of war and the olives of peace, and he bore to his far
northern empire the keys of Paris as a trophy of his arms. His
moderation demands the praise of posterity, and excited the admiration
of the French nation at large.[10] His immoral conduct as a man and a
husband was afterwards effaced by his sincere repentance, and he died
in the arms of the most faithful and affectionate of wives, who could
not long survive her irreparable loss. His death was deeply lamented
by his subjects, who, if they did not enrol his name among the
greatest of their rulers, never have hesitated to denote him as the
best and most merciful sovereign who ever sat upon the Russian throne.
FOOTNOTES:
[9] The autopsy exhibited the same appearance generally discovered in those
subjects whose death has been caused by the fever of the country: the brain
was watery, the veins of the head were gorged, and the liver was soft. No
signs of poison were discovered; the death of the Emperor was in the course
of nature.
[10] The French authorities would have removed the trophies of Napoleon's
victories, and the commemoration of the Russian share in the disastrous
days of Jena and Austerlitz. The Emperor Alexander magnanimously replied,
"No, let them remain: it is sufficient that I have passed over the bridge
with my army!" A noble and generous reply. Few princes have effaced public
wrongs so completely, or used their opportunity of making reprisals so
mercifully. (See Chateaubriand's Autobiography.)
FALLEN GENIUS.
BY MISS ALICE CAREY.
No tears for him!--he saw by faith sublime
Through the wan shimmer of life's wasted flame,
Across the green hills of the future time,
The golden breaking of the morn of fame.
Faded by the diviner life, and worn,
The dust has fallen away, and ye but see
The ruins of the house wherein were borne
The birth-pangs of an immortality.
His great life from the wondrous life to be,
Clasped the bright splendors that no sorrow mars,
As some pale, shifting column of the sea,
Mirrors the awful beauty of the stars.
What was Love's lily pressure, what the light
Of its pleased smile, that a chance breath may chill?
His soul was mated with the winds of night,
And wandered through the universe at will.
Oft in his heart its stormy passion woke,
Yet from its bent his soul no more was stirred,
Than is the broad green bosom of the oak
By the light flutter of the summer bird.
His loves were of forbidden realms, unwrought
In poet's rhyme, the music of his themes,
Hovering about the watch-fires of his thought,
On the dim borders of the land of dreams.
For while his hand with daring energy
Fed the slow fire that, burning, must consume,
The ravishing joys of unheard harmony
Beat like a living pulse within the tomb.
Pillars of fire that wander through life's night,
Children of genius! ye are doomed to be,
In the embrace of your far-reaching light,
Locking the radiance of eternity.
From the London Times.
COPENHAGEN.
A more stately city than Copenhagen can scarcely be imagined. The
streets, wide and long, filled with spacious and lofty houses of
unspotted whiteness, and built with great regularity, remind one
somewhat of Bath, but that the ground is level; many of them
all but equal, in breadth, to the Irishman's test of street
architecture--Sackville-street, Dublin. But large squares break up
their continuous lines, and the eye rests on fine statues, noble
palaces, and splendid buildings devoted to the arts, to amusement, to
justice, or to the purposes of religion in every quarter of the city.
Copenhagen is but a creation of the last century, and, after a little
time spent there, a large portion of it gives the idea that it was
built all of a sudden, by some Danish Grissell and Peto, according to
contract. Surrounded by a deep foss, by ramparts and intrenchments,
defended by formidable forts and batteries, filled with the halls of
kings, with churches, museums, and castles, it combines the appearance
of a new cut made by the royal commissioners through some old London
rookery, with the air of an old feudal town. The moat prohibits any
considerable extension. Seen under a bright cold sky, the blanched
fronts of the houses, the white walls of the public edifices, the
regularity of the streets, conveyed an impression of cleanliness,
which could only be destroyed when one happened to look down at his
feet, or ceased to keep guard over his nose. The paving is of the
style which may be called Titanic, and was never intended for any foot
garb less defensive than a _sabot_ or a _caliga_. The drainage is
superficial,--that is, all the liquid refuse of the city runs, or
rather walks very leisurely, along grooves in the pavement aforesaid,
which are covered over by boards in various stages of decomposition.
In summer, the city must be worse than Berlin (which, by the by, it
very much resembles in many respects). In spring time, after rain, my
own experience tells me it suggests forcible reminiscences of the
antique odors of Fleet Ditch. One thing which soon strikes the
stranger is the apparent want of shops. But they are to be found by
those who want them. Nearly every trader carries on his business very
modestly in his front parlor, and makes a moderate display of his
stock in the ordinary window, so that the illusory and enchanting
department of trade is quite gone. A Danish gentleman can walk out
with his wife without the least fear that he will fall a victim to "a
stupendous sacrifice," or be immolated on the altar of "an imperative
necessity to clear out in a week."
Moving through these streets is a quiet, soberly-attired population.
Bigger than most foreigners, and with great roundness of muscle and
size of bone, your Dane wants the dapper air of the Frenchman, or the
solemnity of the Spaniard, while he is not so bearded or so dirty as
the German. But then he smokes prodigiously, dresses moderately in the
English style, is addicted to jewelry in excess, and has a habit of
plodding along, straight in the middle of the road, with his head
down, which must be a matter of considerable annoyance to the native
cabman. He is, however, amazingly polite. He not only takes off his
hat to every one he knows, but gives any lady-acquaintance the trouble
of recognizing him, by bowing to her before she has made up her mind
whether the individual is known or not. Another of his peculiarities
is, that he always has a dog. I should say, more correctly, there is
always a dog following him,--for I have seen an animal, which seemed
to be bound by the closest ties to a particular gentleman, placidly
leave him at the corner of a street, and set off on an independent
walk by itself. These dogs are, in fact, a feature of the place by
themselves. In number they can only be excelled by the canine
scavengers of Cairo or Constantinople, and in mongrelness and ugliness
by no place in the world--not even in Tuum before the potato rot. They
get up little extemporary hunts through the squares, the trail being
generally the remnant of an old rat, carried away by the foremost, and
dash between your legs from unexpected apertures in walls and houses,
so as to cause very unpleasant consequences to the nervous or feeble
sojourner. On seeking for an explanation of their great abundance, I
was informed that they were kept to kill rats. But this is a mere
delusion. These dogs are far too wise to lose their health by keeping
late hours in pursuit of vermin. No, they retire as soon as darkness
sets in, and with darkness, out come the rats in the most perfect
security. Such rats! they are as big as kittens, and their squeaking
under the wooden planks of the gutters as you walk home is perfectly
amazing. The celebrated dog Billy would have died in a week of violent
exercise in any one street in Copenhagen, giving him his usual
allowance of murder. I must say that, in the matters of paving, dogs,
rats, sewers, water, and lights, Copenhagen is rather behind the rest
of the world. As to the lights, they are sparely placed, and as yet
gas is not used. With a laudable economy, the oil-wicks are
extinguished when the moon shines, and the result is, that sometimes
an envious cloud leaves the whole city in Cimmerian darkness for the
rest of the night, in consequence of five minutes' moonshine in the
early part, as, once put out, they are not again relumed.
In the crowd you meet many pale, sorrow-stricken women in mourning,
and now and then a poor soldier limps before you, with recent bandages
on his stump, or hobbles along limpingly, with perhaps a sabre-cut
across the face, or an empty coat-sleeve dangling from his shoulder;
and then you remember all the horrors the late war must have caused
Denmark, when, out of her small population, 90,000 men were under arms
in the field. It can scarcely atone for this sight to meet dashing
hussars, with their red coats and sheepskin calpacks; heavy dragoons
in light-blue and dark-green; jagers in smart frocks of olive-green,
decorated with stars and ribands, and swaggering along in all the
pride of having smelt powder and done their duty. They are numerous
enough, indeed every third man is a soldier; but one of these sad
widows or orphans is an antidote to the glories of these fine heroes,
scarcely less powerful than that of the spectacle of their mutilated
and mangled comrades. This war has roused the national spirit of
Denmark; it has caused her to make a powerful effort to shake off all
connection with Germany, or dependence on her Germanic subjects, but
it has cost her £5,000,000 of money, and it has left many a home
desolate for ever.
From Household Words.
THE SHADOW OF LUCY HUTCHINSON.
There are some books that leave upon the mind a strange impression,
one of the most delightful reading can produce--a haunting of the
memory, it may be, by one form or by several, strangely real, having a
positive personal presence and identity, yet always preserving an
immaterial existence, and occupying a "removed ground," from which
they never stir to mingle with the realities of recollection. These
shadows hold their place apart, as some rare dreams do, claiming from
us an indescribable tenderness.
The "Memoirs of Colonel Hutchinson" is such a book. In many passages
it is tedious--a record of petty strategies of partisan warfare--and,
more dreary still, of factious jealousies and polemical hatreds. The
absolute truth of the book is fatal, in one direction to our
hero-worship. The leaders of the Great Rebellion, in such minute
details, appear as mere schemers, as rival agents at a borough
election; and the most fervent in professions of religious zeal are as
bitter in their revenges as the heroes of a hundred scalps; but there
arises out of the book, and is evermore associated with it, the calm
quiet shadow of a woman of exquisite purity, of wondrous constancy, of
untiring affection--Lucy Hutchinson, its writer.
John Hutchinson is at Richmond, lodging at the house of his
music-master. He is twenty-two years of age. The village is full of
"good company," for the young Princes are being educated in the
palace, and many "ingenious persons entertained themselves at that
place." The music-master's house is the resort of the king's
musicians; "and divers of the gentlemen and ladies that were affected
with music came thither to hear." There was a little girl "tabled" in
the same house with John Hutchinson, who was taking lessons of the
lutanist--a charming child, full of vivacity and intelligence. She
told John she had an elder sister--a studious and retiring person--who
was gone with her mother, Lady Apsley, into Wiltshire--and Lucy was
going to be married, she thought. The little girl ever talked of
Lucy--and the gentlemen talked of Lucy--and one day a song was sung
which Lucy had written--and John and the vivacious child walked,
another day, to Lady Apsley's house, and there, in a closet, were
Lucy's Latin books. Mr. Hutchinson grew in love with Lucy's image; and
when the talk was more rife that she was about to be married--and some
said that she was indeed married--he became unhappy--and "began to
believe there was some magic in the place, which enchanted men out of
their right senses; but the sick heart could not be chid nor advised
into health." At length Lucy and her mother came home; and Lucy was
not married. Then John and Lucy wandered by the pleasant banks of the
Thames, in that spring-time of 1638, and a "mutual friendship" grew up
between them. Lucy now talked to him of her early life; how she had
been born in the Tower of London, of which her late father, Sir John
Apsley, was the governor; how her mother was the benefactress of the
prisoners, and delighted to mitigate the hard fortune of the noble and
the learned, and especially Sir Walter Raleigh, by every needful help
to his studies and amusements; how she herself grew serious amongst
these scenes, and delighted in nothing but reading, and would never
practise her lute or harpsichords, and absolutely hated her needle.
John was of a like serious temper. Their fate was determined.
The spring is far advanced into summer. On a certain day the friends
on both sides meet to conclude the terms of the marriage. Lucy is not
to be seen. She has taken the small-pox. She is very near death. At
length John is permitted to speak to his betrothed. Tremblingly and
mournfully she comes into his presence. She is "the most deformed
person that could be seen." Who could tell the result in words so
touching as Lucy's own? "He was nothing troubled at it, but married
her as soon as she was able to quit the chamber, when the priest and
all that saw her were affrighted to look on her. But God recompensed
his justice and constancy by restoring her; though she was longer than
ordinary before she recovered to be as well as before."
They were married on the 3d of July, 1638.
In the autumn of 1641, John and Lucy Hutchinson are living in their
own house of Owthorpe, in Nottinghamshire. They have two sons. They
are "peaceful and happy." John has dedicated two years since his
marriage to the study of "school divinity." He has convinced himself
of "the great point of predestination." This faith has not, as his
wife records, produced a "carelessness of life in him," but "a more
strict and holy walking." He applies himself, in his house at
Owthorpe, "to understand the things then in dispute" between the King
and Parliament. He is satisfied of the righteousness of the
Parliament's cause; but he then "contents himself with praying for
peace." In another year the King has set up his standard in
Nottingham; the battle of Edgehill has been fought; all hope of peace
is at an end. John Hutchinson is forced out of his quiet habitation by
the suspicions of his royalist neighbors. He is marked as a Roundhead.
Lucy does not like the name. "It was very ill applied to Mr.
Hutchinson, who having naturally a very fine thick-set head of hair,
kept it clean and handsome, so that it was a great ornament to him;
although the godly of those days, when he embraced their party, would
not allow him to be religious because his hair is not in their cut."
The divinity student now becomes a lieutenant-colonel. He raises a
company of "very honest godly men." The Earl of Chesterfield is
plundering the houses of the Puritans in the vale of Belvoir, near
Owthorpe; and the young colonel has apprehensions for the safety of
his family. In the depth of winter, a troop of horse arrive one night
at the lonely house where Lucy and her children abide. They are
hastily summoned to prepare for an instant journey. They are to ride
to Nottingham before sunrise, for the soldiers are not strong enough
to march in the day. Lucy is henceforth to be the companion of her
husband in his perilous office--his friend, his comforter--a
ministering angel amongst the fierce and dangerous spirits, whom he
sways by a remarkable union of courage and gentleness.
Let us look at the shadow of Lucy Hutchinson. She tranquilly sits in
one of the upper chambers of the old and ruinous castle of which her
husband is appointed governor. It is a summer evening of 1643. In that
tower, built upon the top of the rock, tradition says that Queen
Isabel received her paramour Mortimer; and at the base of the rock are
still shown Mortimer's Well, and Mortimer's Hole, as Lady Hutchinson
saw them two centuries ago. She looks out of the narrow windows by
which her chamber is lighted. There is the Trent, peacefully flowing
on one side, amid flat meadows. On the other is the town of
Nottingham. The governor has made the ruinous castle a strong
fortress, with which he can defy the Cavaliers should they occupy the
town beneath. Opposite the towers is the old church of St. Nicholas,
whose steeple commands the platform of the castle. The Governor has
sent away his horse, and many of his foot, to guard the roads by which
the enemy could approach Nottingham. There is no appearance of danger.
The reveille is beat. Those who have been watching all night lounge
into the town. It is in the possession of the Cavaliers. The scene is
changed. The din of ordnance rouses Lucy from her calm gaze upon the
windings of the Trent. For five days and nights there is firing
without intermission. Within the walls of the castle there are not
more than eighty men. The musketeers on St. Nicholas steeple pick off
the cannoniers at their guns.
Now and then, as the assailants are beaten from the walls, they leave
a wounded man behind, and he is dragged into the castle. On the sixth
day, after that terrible period of watchfulness, relief arrives. The
Cavaliers are driven from the town with much slaughter, and the castle
is filled with prisoners. Lucy has been idle during those six days of
peril. There was a task to be performed,--a fitting one for woman's
tenderness. Within the castle was a dungeon called the Lion's Den,
into which the prisoners were cast; and as they were brought up from
the town, two of the fanatical ministers of the garrison reviled and
maltreated them. Lucy reads the commands of her Master after another
fashion. As the prisoners are carried bleeding to the Lion's Den, she
implores that they should be brought in to her, and she binds up and
dresses their wounds. And now the two ministers mutter--and their
souls abhor to see this favor done to the enemies of God--and they
teach the soldiers to mutter. But Lucy says, "I have done nothing but
my duty. These are our enemies, but they are our fellow-creatures. Am
I to be upbraided for these poor humanities?" And then she breathes a
thanksgiving to Heaven that her mother had taught her this humble
surgery. There is a tear in John's eye as he gazes on this scene. That
night the Cavalier officers sup with him, rather as guests than as
prisoners.
In the vale of Belvoir, about seven miles from Belvoir Castle, is the
little village of Owthorpe. When Colonel Hutchinson returned to the
house of his fathers, after the war was ended, he found it plundered
of all its movables--a mere ruin. In a few years it is a fit dwelling
for Lucy to enjoy a lifelong rest, after the terrible storms of her
early married days. There is no accusing spirit to disturb their
repose. John looks back upon that solemn moment when he signed the
warrant for the great tragedy enacted before Whitehall without
remorse. He had prayed for "an enlightened conscience," and he had
carried out his most serious convictions. He took no part in the
despotic acts that followed the destruction of the monarchy. He had no
affection for the fanatics who held religion to be incompatible with
innocent pleasures and tasteful pursuits. At Owthorpe, then, he lived
the true life of an English gentleman. He built--he planted--he
adorned his house with works of art--he was the first magistrate--the
benefactor of the poor. The earnest man who daily expounded the
Scriptures to his household was no ascetic. There was hospitality
within those walls--with music and revelry. The Puritans looked
gloomily and suspiciously upon the dwellers at Owthorpe. The Cavaliers
could not forgive the soldier who had held Nottingham Castle against
all assaults.
The Restoration comes. The royalist connexions of Lucy Hutchinson have
a long struggle to save her husband's life; but he is finally included
in the Act of Oblivion. He is once more at Owthorpe, without the
compromise of his principles. He has done with political strife for
ever.
On the 31st of October 1663, there is a coach waiting before the hall
of Owthorpe. That hall is filled with tenants and laborers. Their
benefactor cheerfully bids them farewell; but his wife and children
are weeping bitterly. That coach is soon on its way to London with the
husband and wife, and their eldest son and daughter. At the end of the
fourth day's journey, at the gates of that fortress within which she
had been born, Lucy Hutchinson is parted from him whose good and evil
fortunes she had shared for a quarter of a century.
About a mile from Deal stands Sandown Castle. In 1664, Colonel
Hutchinson is a prisoner within its walls. It was a ruinous place, not
weatherproof. The tide washed the dilapidated fortress; the windows
were unglazed; cold, and damp, and dreary was the room where the proud
heart bore up against physical evils. For even here there was
happiness. Lucy is not permitted to share his prison; but she may
visit him daily. In the town of Deal abides that faithful wife. She is
with him at the first hour of the morning; she remains till the latest
of night. In sunshine or in storm, she is pacing along that rugged
beach, to console and be consoled.
Eleven months have thus passed, when Lucy is persuaded by her husband
to go to Owthorpe to see her children.
"When the time of her departure came, she left with a very sad and
ill-presaging heart." In a few weeks John Hutchinson is laid in the
family vault in that Vale of Belvoir.
Lucy Hutchinson sits in holy resignation in the old sacred home. She
has a task to work out. She has to tell her husband's history, for the
instruction of her children:--"I that am under a command not to grieve
at the common rate of desolate women, while I am studying which way to
moderate my woe, and, if it were possible, to augment my love, can,
for the present, find out none more just to your dear father, nor
consolatory to myself, than the preservation of his memory."
So rests her shadow, ever, in our poor remembrance.
From Eliza Cook's Journal.
THE WIVES OF SOUTHEY, COLERIDGE, AND LOVELL.
Southey, Coleridge, and Lovell, three poets, married three sisters,
the Misses Fricker of Bristol. They were all alike poor when they
married. Southey's aunt shut her door in his face when she found he
was resolved on marrying in such circumstances; and he, postponing
entry upon the married life, though he had contracted the
responsibility of husband, parted from his wife at the church door,
and set out on a six months' visit to Portugal, preparatory to
entering on the study of the legal profession. Southey committed his
maiden wife to the care of Mr. Cottle's sisters during his absence.
"Should I perish by shipwreck," he wrote from Falmouth to Mr. Cottle,
"or by any other casualty, I have relations whose prejudice will yield
to the anguish of affection, and who will love, cherish, and give all
possible consolation to my widow." With these words Southey set sail
for Portugal, and his wife, who had persuaded him to go, and cried
when he was going, though she would not then have permitted him to
stay, meekly retired to her place of refuge, wearing her wedding-ring
round her neck.
Southey returned to England, and commenced the study of the law, but
after a year's drudgery gave it up. His wife joined him in a second
visit to Portugal, and on his return he commenced the laborious
literary career which he pursued till his death. He enjoyed on the
whole a happy married life; took pleasure in his home and his family;
loving his children and his wife Edith dearly. This is one of his own
pictures:--"Glance into the little room where sits the gray-haired
man, 'working hard and getting little--a bare maintenance, and hardly
that; writing poems and history for posterity with his whole heart and
soul; one daily progressing in learning, not so learned as he is
poor, not so poor as proud, not so proud as happy.'" Great men have
invited him to London, and he is now answering the invitation. The
thought of the journey plagues him. "Oh dear, oh dear!" he writes,
"there is such a comfort in one's old coat and old shoes, one's own
chair and own fireside, one's own writing-desk and own library--with a
little girl climbing up to my neck and saying, 'Don't go to London,
papa, you must stay with Edith'--and a little boy whom I have taught
to speak the language of cats, dogs, cuckoos, jackasses, &c., before
he can articulate a word of his own--there is such a comfort in all
these things, that _transportation_ to London seems a heavier
punishment than any sins of mine deserve." But a sad calamity fell
upon him in his old age. His dear Edith was suddenly bereft of reason.
"Forty years," he writes to Grosvenor Bedford from York, "has she been
the life of my life--and I have left her this day in a lunatic
asylum." In the same letter he expresses the resignation of a
Christian and the confident courage of a man. "God, who has visited me
with this affliction," he says, "has given me strength to bear it, and
will, _I know_, support me to the end, whatever that may be. To-morrow
I return to my poor children. I have much to be thankful for under
this visitation. For the first time in my life (he was sixty years
old) I am so far beforehand with the world that my means are provided
for the whole of next year, and that I can meet this expenditure,
considerable in itself, without any difficulty."
Mrs. Southey, after two years' absence, returned to Keswick, the
family home, and closed her pitiable existence there. Southey was now
a broken-down man. "There is no one," he mournfully writes, "to
partake with me the recollections of the best and happiest portion of
my life; and for that reason, were there no other, such recollections
must henceforth be purely painful, except when I collect them with the
prospects of futurity." Two years after, however, Southey married
again: the marriage was one of respect on the part of Caroline Bowles,
the gifted authoress, who was his choice, and probably of convenience
and friendship on the part of Southey. We have heard that the union
greatly tended to his comfort, and that his wife tenderly soothed and
cheered his declining years.
Southey, in addition to maintaining his own wife and family at Keswick
by his literary labors, had the families of his two sisters-in-law
occasionally thrown upon his hands. He was not two-and-twenty when Mr.
Lovell, who married his wife's sister, fell ill of fever, died, and
left his widow and child without the slightest provision. Robert
Southey took mother and child at once to his humble hearth, and there
the former found happiness until his death. Coleridge, not
sufficiently instructed by a genius to which his contemporaries did
homage, in a wayward and unpardonable mood withdrew himself from the
consolations of home; and in their hour of desertion his wife and
children were saved half the knowledge of their hardships by finding a
second husband and another father in the sanctuary provided for them
by Robert Southey.
Coleridge was unpunctual, unbusiness-like, improvident, and dreamy, to
the full extent to which poets are said proverbially to be. When he
married--his pantisocratic Owenite scheme having just been exploded,
and his lectures at Bristol having proved a failure--he retired with
Sara Fricker, his wife, to a cottage at Clevedon, near Bristol. Though
the cottage was a poor one, consisting of little more than four bare
walls, for which he paid only £5 annual rental, he and his wife made
it pretty snug with the aid of the funds supplied by their constant
friend, Mr. Cottle, the Bristol bookseller. Coleridge decorated this
cottage with all the graces that his imagination and fancy could throw
around it. It is alluded to in many of his poems:--
"Low was our pretty cot! our tallest rose
Peep'd at the chamber window. We could hear
At silent noon, and eve, and early morn,
The sea's faint murmur. In the open air
Our myrtles blossom'd, and across the porch
Thick jasmines twin'd: the little landscape round
Was green and woody, and refreshed the eye.
It was a spot which you might aptly call
The valley of seclusion."
But his loved young wife was not forgotten; for again he sings:--
"My pensive Sara! thy soft cheek reclin'd
Thus on mine arm, most soothing sweet it is
To sit beside our cot--our cot o'ergrown
With white-flowered jasmine, and the broad leav'd myrtle
(Meet emblems they of innocence and love!)
And watch the clouds, that late were rich with light,
Slow saddening round, and mark the star of eve,
Serenely brilliant (such should wisdom be!)
Shine opposite."
Here their first child was born--Hartley, the dreamer--on whom the
happy parent shed tears of joy:--
"But when I saw it on its mother's arm,
And hanging at her bosom (she the while
Bent o'er its features with a tearful smile,)
Then I was thrill'd and melted, and most warm
Impress'd a father's kiss; and all beguil'd
Of dark remembrance and presageful fear,
I seem'd to see an angel's form appear--
'Twas even thine, beloved woman mild!
So for the mother's sake the child was dear,
And dearer was the mother for the child."
But writing poetry, reading Hartley and Condillac, would not make the
poet's pot boil at all briskly, and so he had to go a little nearer to
the world, and went back to Bristol. Coleridge, however, wanted
application, and could scarcely be induced to work, even though the
prospect of liberal remuneration was offered to him. Hence, a few
years after marriage, in July, 1796, we find him thus groaning in the
spirit to a friend: "It is my duty and business to thank God for all
his dispensations, and to believe them the best possible; but, indeed,
I think I should have been more thankful if He had made me a
journeyman shoemaker, instead of an author, by trade. I have left my
friends, I have left plenty," &c. "So I am forced to write for bread!
with the nights of poetic enthusiasm, when every minute I am hearing a
groan from my wife--groans, and complaints, and sickness! The present
hour I am in a quickset of embarrassments, and whichever way I turn, a
thorn runs into me! The future is a cloud and thick darkness! Poverty,
perhaps, and the thin faces of them that want bread looking up to me,"
&c. This was not the kind of spirit to make a wife happy--very
different indeed from the manly, courageous, and self-helping
Southey--and the poor wife suffered much. Whatever Coleridge touched
failed: his fourpenny paper, the _Watchman_, was an abortion; and the
verses he wrote for a London paper did little for him. He next
preached for a short time among the Unitarians, deriving a very
precarious living from that source; when at length the Messrs.
Wedgwood, struck by his great talents, granted him an annuity of £150
to enable him to devote himself to study. Then he went to Germany,
leaving his wife and little family to the hospitality of Southey; and
returned and settled down to the precarious life of a writer for the
newspapers: his eloquent conversation producing unbounded admiration,
but very little "grist." He was often distressed for money, wasting
what he had by indulgence in opium, to which he was at one time a
fearful victim. The great and unquestionable genius of Coleridge was
expended chiefly on projections. He was a man who was capable of
greatly adorning the literature of his time, and of creating an
altogether new era in its history; but he could not or would not work,
and his life was passed in dreamy idleness, in self-inflicted poverty,
often in poignant misery, in gloomy regrets, and in unfulfilled
designs. We fear the life of Mrs. Coleridge was not a happy one, good
and affectionate though she was as a wife and mother.
MY NOVEL: OR, VARIETIES IN ENGLISH LIFE.[11]
BY PISISTRATUS CAXTON.
CHAPTER XIII.
Leonard and Helen settled themselves in two little chambers in a small
lane. The neighborhood was dull enough--the accommodation humble; but
their landlady had a smile. That was the reason, perhaps, why Helen
chose the lodgings; a smile is not always found on the face of a
landlady when the lodger is poor. And out of their windows they caught
sight of a green tree, an elm, that grew up fair and tall in a
carpenter's yard at the rear. That tree was like another smile to the
place. They saw the birds come and go to its shelter; and they even
heard, when a breeze arose, the pleasant murmur of its boughs.
Leonard went the same evening to Captain Digby's old lodgings, but he
could learn there no intelligence of friends or protectors for Helen.
The people were rude and sturdy, and said that the Captain still owed
them £1 17s. The claim, however, seemed very disputable; and was
stoutly denied by Helen. The next morning Leonard set off in search of
Dr. Morgan. He thought his best plan was to inquire the address of the
Doctor at the nearest chemist's, and the chemist civilly looked into
the _Court Guide_, and referred him to a house in Bulstrode-street,
Manchester Square. To this street Leonard contrived to find his way,
much marvelling at the meanness of London. Screwstone seemed to him
the handsomest town of the two.
A shabby man-servant opened the door, and Leonard remarked that the
narrow passage was choked with boxes, trunks, and various articles of
furniture. He was shown into a small room, containing a very large
round table, whereon were sundry works on homoeopathy, Parry's
_Cymbrian Plutarch_, Davies' _Celtic Researches_, and a Sunday
newspaper. An engraved portrait of the illustrious Hahnemann occupied
the place of honor over the chimneypiece. In a few minutes the door to
an inner room opened, and Dr. Morgan appeared, and said politely,
"Come in, sir."
The Doctor seated himself at a desk, looked hastily at Leonard, and
then at a great chronometer lying on the table. "My time's short,
sir--going abroad; and now that I am going, patients flock to me. Too
late. London will repent its apathy. Let it!"
The Doctor paused majestically, and, not remarking on Leonard's face
the consternation he had anticipated, he repeated peevishly--"I am
going abroad, sir, but I will make a synopsis of your case, and leave
it to my successor. Hum! Hair chestnut; eyes--what color? Look this
way--blue,--dark blue. Hem! Constitution nervous. What are the
symptoms?"
"Sir," began Leonard, "a little girl--"
_Dr. Morgan_, (impatiently)--"Little girl! Never mind the history of
your sufferings; stick to the symptoms--stick to the symptoms."
_Leonard._--"You mistake me, Doctor; I have nothing the matter with
me. A little girl--"
_Dr. Morgan._--"Girl again! I understand it! it is she who is ill.
Shall I go to her? she must describe her own symptoms--I can't judge
from your talk. You'll be telling me she has consumption, or
dyspepsia, or some such disease that don't exist: mere allopathic
inventions--symptoms, sir, symptoms."
_Leonard_, (forcing his way)--"You attended her poor father, Captain
Digby, when he was taken ill in the coach with you. He is dead, and
his child is an orphan."
_Dr. Morgan_, (fumbling in his medical pocket-book.)--"Orphan!
nothing for orphans, especially if inconsolable, like _aconite_ and
_chamomilla_."[12]
With some difficulty Leonard succeeded in bringing Helen to the
recollection of the homoeopathist, stating how he came in charge of
her, and why he sought Dr. Morgan.
The Doctor was much moved.
"But really," said he after a pause, "I don't see how I can help the
poor child. I know nothing of her relations. This Lord Les--whatever
his name is--I know of no lords in London. I knew lords, and physicked
them too, when I was a blundering allopathist. There was the Earl of
Lansmere--has had many a blue pill from me, sinner that I was. His son
was wiser; never would take physic. Very clever boy was Lord
L'Estrange--I don't know if he was as good as he was clever--"
"Lord L'Estrange!--that name begins with Les--"
"Stuff! He's always abroad--shows his sense. I'm going abroad too. No
development for science in this horrid city; full of prejudices, sir,
and given up to the most barbarous allopathical and phlebotomical
propensities. I am going to the land of Hahnemann, sir--sold my
good-will, lease, and furniture, and have bought in on the Rhine.
Natural life there, sir--homoeopathy needs nature; dine at one
o'clock, get up at four--tea little known, and science appreciated.
But I forget. Cott! what can I do for the orphan?"
"Well, sir," said Leonard rising, "Heaven will give me strength to
support her."
The doctor looked at the young man attentively. "And yet," said he in
a gentler voice, "you, young man, are, by your account, a perfect
stranger to her, or were so when you undertook to bring her to London.
You have a good heart--always keep it. Very healthy thing, sir, a good
heart--that is, when not carried to excess. But you have friends of
your own in town?"
_Leonard._--"Not yet, sir; I hope to make them."
_Doctor._--"Bless me, you do? How? I can't make any."
Leonard colored and hung his head. He longed to say "Authors find
friends in their readers--I am going to be an author." But he felt
that the reply would savor of presumption, and held his tongue.
The Doctor continued to examine him, and with friendly interest. "You
say you walked up to London--was that from choice or economy?"
_Leonard._--"Both, sir."
_Doctor._--"Sit down again and let us talk. I can give you a quarter
of an hour, and I'll see if I can help either of you, provided you
tell all the symptoms--I mean all the particulars."
Then with that peculiar adroitness which belongs to experience in the
medical profession, Dr. Morgan, who was really an acute and able man,
proceeded to put his questions, and soon extracted from Leonard the
boy's history and hopes. But when the Doctor, in admiration at a
simplicity which contrasted so evident an intelligence, finally asked
him his name and connections, and Leonard told them, the
homoeopathist actually started. "Leonard Fairfield, grandson of my
old friend, John Avenel of Lansmere! I must shake you by the hand.
Brought up by Mrs. Fairfield!--Ah, now I look, strong family
likeness--very strong!"
The tears stood in the Doctor's eyes. "Poor Nora!" said he.
"Nora! Did you know my aunt?"
"Your aunt! Ah--ah! yes--yes! Poor Norah!--she died almost in these
arms--so young, so beautiful. I remember it as of yesterday."
The Doctor brushed his hand across his eyes, and swallowed a globule;
and, before the boy knew what he was about, had in his benevolence
thrust another between Leonard's quivering lips.
A knock was heard at the door.
"Ha! that's my great patient," cried the Doctor, recovering his
self-possession--"must see him. A chronic case--excellent
patient--tic, sir, tic. Puzzling and interesting. If I could take that
tic with me, I should ask nothing more from Heaven. Call again on
Monday; I may have something to tell you then as to yourself. The
little girl can't stay with you--wrong and nonsensical. I will see
after her. Leave me your address--write it here. I think I know a lady
who will take charge of her. Good-bye. Monday next, ten o'clock."
With this, the Doctor thrust out Leonard, and ushered in his grand
patient, whom he was very anxious to take with him to the banks of the
Rhine.
Leonard had now only to discover the nobleman whose name had been so
vaguely uttered by poor Captain Digby. He had again recourse to the
_Court Guide_; and finding the address of two or three lords the first
syllables of whose titles seemed similar to that repeated to him, and
all living pretty near to each other, in the regions of May Fair, he
ascertained his way to that quarter, and, exercising his mother-wit,
inquired at the neighboring shops as to the personal appearance of
these noblemen. Out of consideration for his rusticity, he got very
civil and clear answers; but none of the lords in question
corresponded with the description given by Helen. One was old, another
was exceedingly corpulent, a third was bed-ridden--none of them was
known to keep a great dog. It is needless to say that the name of
L'Estrange (no habitant of London) was not in the _Court Guide_. And
Dr. Morgan's assertion that that person was always abroad, unluckily
dismissed from Leonard's mind the name the homoeopathist had so
casually mentioned. But Helen was not disappointed when her young
protector returned late in the day and told her of his ill success.
Poor child! she was so pleased in her heart not to be separated from
her new brother; and Leonard was touched to how she had contrived, in
his absence, to give a certain comfort and cheerful grace to the bare
room devoted to himself. She had arranged his few books and papers so
neatly, near the window, in sight of the one green elm. She had coaxed
the smiling landlady out of one or two extra articles of furniture,
especially a walnut-tree bureau, and some odds and ends of
ribbon--with which last she had looped up the curtains. Even the old
rush-bottom chairs had a strange air of elegance, from the mode in
which they were placed. The fairies had given sweet Helen the art that
adorns a home, and brings out a smile from the dingiest corner of hut
and attic.
Leonard wondered and praised. He kissed his blushing ministrant
gratefully, and they sat down in joy to their abstemious meal, when
suddenly his face was overclouded--there shot through him the
remembrance of Dr. Morgan's words--"The little girl can't stay with
you--wrong and nonsensical. I think I know a lady who will take charge
of her."
"Ah," cried Leonard, sorrowfully, "how could I forget?" And he told
Helen what grieved him. Helen at first exclaimed that she would not
go. Leonard, rejoiced, then began to talk as usual of his great
prospects; and, hastily finishing his meal, as if there were no time
to lose, sat down at once to his papers. Then Helen contemplated him
sadly, as he bent over his delighted work. And when, lifting his
radiant eyes from his MS. he exclaimed, "No, no, you shall _not_ go.
_This_ must succeed, and we shall live together in some pretty
cottage, where we can see more than one tree"--_then_ Helen sighed,
and did not answer this time, "No, I will not go."
Shortly after she stole from the room, and into her own; and there,
kneeling down, she prayed, and her prayer was somewhat this--"Guard me
against my own selfish heart. May I never be a burden to him who has
shielded me."
Perhaps, as the Creator looks down on this world, whose wondrous
beauty beams on us more and more, in proportion as our science would
take it from poetry into law--perhaps He beholds nothing so beautiful
as the pure heart of a simple loving child.
CHAPTER XIV.
Leonard went out the next day with his precious MSS. He had read
sufficient of modern literature to know the names of the principal
London publishers; and to these he took his way with a bold step,
though a beating heart.
That day he was out longer than the last; and when he returned, and
came into the little room, Helen uttered a cry, for she scarcely
recognised him. There was on his face so deep, so concentrated a
despondency. He sat down listlessly, and did not kiss her this time,
as she stole towards him. He felt so humbled. He was a king deposed.
_He_ take charge of another life! He!
She coaxed him at last into communicating his day's chronicle. The
reader beforehand knows too well what it must be, to need detailed
repetition. Most of the publishers had absolutely refused to look at
his MSS.; one or two had good-naturedly glanced over and returned them
at once, with a civil word or two of flat rejection. One publisher
alone--himself a man of letters, and who in youth had gone through the
same bitter process of dis-illusion that now awaited the village
genius--volunteered some kindly though stern explanation and counsel
to the unhappy boy. This gentleman read a portion of Leonard's
principal poem with attention, and even with frank admiration. He
could appreciate the rare promise that it manifested. He sympathized
with the boy's history, and even with his hopes; and then he said, in
bidding him farewell--
"If I publish this poem for you, speaking as a trader, I shall be a
considerable loser. Did I publish all that I admire, out of sympathy
with the author, I should be a ruined man. But suppose that, impressed
as I really am with the evidence of no common poetic gifts in this
MS., I publish it, not as a trader, but a lover of literature, I shall
in reality, I fear, render you a great disservice, and perhaps unfit
your whole life for the exertions on which you must rely for
independence."
"How, sir?" cried Leonard--"Not that I would ask you to injure
yourself for me," he added with proud tears in his eyes.
"How, my young friend? I will explain. There is enough talent in these
verses to induce very flattering reviews in some of the literary
journals. You will read these, find yourself proclaimed a poet, will
cry 'I am on the road to fame.' You will come to me, 'And my poem, how
does it sell?' I shall point to some groaning shelf, and say, 'not
twenty copies!' The journals may praise, but the public will not buy
it. 'But you will have got a name,' you say. Yes, a name as a poet
just sufficiently known to make every man in practical business
disinclined to give fair trial to your talents in a single department
of positive life;--none like to employ poets;--a name that will not
put a penny in your purse--worse still, that will operate as a barrier
against every escape into the ways whereby men get to fortune. But,
having once tasted praise, you will continue to sigh for it: you will
perhaps never again get a publisher to bring forth a poem, but you
will hanker round the purlieus of the muses, scribble for periodicals,
fall at last into a bookseller's drudge. Profits will be so precarious
and uncertain, that to avoid debt may be impossible; then, you who now
seem so ingenuous and so proud, will sink deeper still into the
literary mendicant--begging, borrowing--"
"Never--never--never!" cried Leonard, veiling his face with his hands.
"Such would have been my career," continued the publisher. "But I
luckily had a rich relative, a trader, whose calling I despised as a
boy, who kindly forgave my folly, bound me as an apprentice, and here
I am; and now I can afford to write books as well as sell them.
"Young man, you must have respectable relations--go by their advice
and counsel; cling fast to some positive calling. Be any thing in this
city rather than poet by profession."
"And how, sir, have there ever been poets? Had _they_ other callings?"
"Read their biography, and then envy them!"
Leonard was silent a moment; but, lifting his head, answered loud and
quickly,--"I _have_ read their biography. True, their lot
poverty--perhaps hunger. Sir, I envy them!"
"Poverty and hunger are small evils," answered the bookseller, with a
grave kind smile. "There are worse,--debt and degradation,
and--despair."
"No, sir, no--you exaggerate; these last are not the lot of all
poets."
"Right, for most of our greatest poets had some private means of their
own. And for others, why, all who have put into a lottery have not
drawn blanks. But who could advise another man to set his whole hope
of fortune on the chance of a prize in a lottery? And such a lottery!"
groaned the publisher, glancing towards sheets and reams of dead
authors lying like lead upon his shelves.
Leonard clutched his MSS. to his heart, and hurried away.
"Yes," he muttered, as Helen clung to him and tried to console--"yes,
you were right: London is very vast, very strong, and very cruel;" and
his head sank lower and lower yet upon his bosom.
The door was flung widely open, and in, unannounced, walked Dr Morgan.
The child turned to him, and at the sight of his face she remembered
her father; and the tears that, for Leonard's sake, she had been
trying to suppress, found way.
The good Doctor soon gained all the confidence of these two young
hearts. And, after listening to Leonard's story of his paradise lost
in a day, he patted him on the shoulder and said, "Well, you will call
on me on Monday, and we will see. Meanwhile, borrow these of me,"--and
he tried to slip three sovereigns into the boy's hand. Leonard was
indignant. The bookseller's warning flashed on him. Mendicancy! Oh no,
he had not yet come to that! He was almost rude and savage in his
rejection; and the Doctor did not like him the less for it.
"You are an obstinate mule," said the homoeopathist, reluctantly
putting up his sovereigns. "Will you work at something practical and
prosy, and let the poetry rest awhile?"
"Yes," said Leonard doggedly, "I will work."
"Very well, then. I know an honest bookseller, and he shall give you
some employment; and meanwhile, at all events, you will be among
books, and that will be some comfort."
Leonard's eyes brightened--"A great comfort, sir." He pressed the hand
he had before put aside to his grateful heart.
"But," resumed the Doctor seriously, "you really feel a strong
predisposition to make verses?"
"I did, sir."
"Very bad symptom indeed, and must be stopped before a relapse! Here,
I have cured three prophets and ten poets with this novel specific."
While thus speaking, he had got out his book and a globule. "_Agaricus
muscarius_ dissolved in a tumbler of distilled water--tea-spoonful
whenever the fit comes on. Sir, it would have cured Milton himself."
"And now for you, my child," turning to Helen--"I have found a lady
who will be very kind to you. Not a menial situation. She wants some
one to read to her and tend on her--she is old and has no children.
She wants a companion, and prefers a girl of your age to one older.
Will this suit you?"
Leonard walked away.
Helen got close to the Doctor's ear, and whispered, "No, I cannot
leave _him_ now--he is so sad."
"Cott!" grunted the Doctor, "you two must have been reading _Paul and
Virginia_. If I could but stay in England, I would try what _ignatia_
would do in this case--interesting experiment! Listen to me--little
girl; and go out of the room, you, sir."
Leonard, averting his face, obeyed. Helen made an involuntary step
after him--the Doctor detained and drew her on his knee.
"What is your Christian name?--I forget."
"Helen."
"Helen, listen. In a year or two you will be a young woman, and it
would be very wrong then to live alone with that young man. Meanwhile,
you have no right to cripple all his energies. He must not have you
leaning on his right arm--you would weigh it down. I am going away,
and when I am gone there will be no one to help you, if you reject the
friend I offer you. Do as I tell you, for a little girl so peculiarly
susceptible (a thorough _pulsatilla_ constitution) cannot be
obstinate and egotistical."
"Let me see him cared for and happy, sir," said she firmly, "and I
will go where you wish."
"He shall be so; and to-morrow, while he is out, I will come and fetch
you. Nothing so painful as leave-taking--shakes the nervous system,
and is a mere waste of the animal economy."
Helen sobbed aloud; then, writhing from the Doctor, she exclaimed,
"But he may know where I am? We may see each other sometimes? Ah, sir,
it was at my father's grave that we first met, and I think Heaven sent
him to me. Do not part us for ever."
"I should have a heart of stone if I did," cried the Doctor
vehemently, "and Miss Starke shall let him come and visit you once a
week. I'll give her something to make her. She is naturally
indifferent to others. I will alter her whole constitution, and melt
her into sympathy--with _rhododendron_ and _arsenic_!"
CHAPTER XV.
Before he went, the Doctor wrote a line to Mr. Prickett, bookseller,
Holborn, and told Leonard to take it, the next morning, as addressed.
"I will call on Prickett myself to-night, and prepare him for your
visit. And I hope and trust you will only have to stay there a few
days."
He then turned the conversation, to communicate his plans for Helen.
Miss Starke lived at Highgate--a worthy woman, stiff and prim, as old
maids sometimes are. But just the place for a little girl like Helen,
and Leonard should certainly be allowed to call and see her.
Leonard listened and made no opposition; now that his day-dream was
dispelled, he had no right to pretend to be Helen's protector. He
could have bade her share his wealth and his fame; his penury and his
drudgery--no.
It was a very sorrowful evening--that between the adventurer and the
child. They sat up late, till their candle had burned down to the
socket; neither did they talk much; but his hand clasped hers all the
time, and her head pillowed itself on his shoulder. I fear, when they
parted, it was not for sleep.
And when Leonard went forth the next morning, Helen stood at the
street door, watching him depart--slowly, slowly. No doubt, in that
humble lane there were many sad hearts; but no heart so heavy as that
of the still quiet child, when the form she had watched was to be seen
no more, and, still standing on the desolate threshold, she gazed into
space--and all was vacant.
CHAPTER XVI.
Mr. Prickett was a believer in homoeopathy, and declared, to the
indignation of all the apothecaries round Holborn, that he had been
cured of a chronic rheumatism by Dr. Morgan. The good Doctor had, as
he promised, seen Mr. Prickett when he left Leonard, and asked him as
a favor to find some light occupation for the boy, that would serve as
an excuse for a modest weekly salary. "It will not be for long," said
the Doctor; "his relations are respectable and well off. I will write
to his grandparents, and in a few days I hope to relieve you of the
charge. Of course, if you don't want him, I will repay what he costs
meanwhile."
Mr. Prickett, thus prepared for Leonard, received him very graciously,
and, after a few questions, said Leonard was just the person he wanted
to assist him in cataloguing his books, and offered him most
handsomely £1 a-week for the task.
Plunged at once into a world of books vaster than he had ever before
won admission to, that old divine dream of knowledge, out of which
poetry had sprung, returned to the village student at the very sight
of the venerable volumes. The collection of Mr. Prickett was, however,
in reality by no means large; but it comprised not only the ordinary
standard works, but several curious and rare ones. And Leonard paused
in making the catalogue, and took many a hasty snatch of the contents
of each tome, as it passed through his hands. The bookseller, who was
an enthusiast for old books, was pleased to see a kindred feeling
(which his shop-boy had never exhibited) in his new assistant; and he
talked about rare editions and scarce copies, and initiated Leonard in
many of the mysteries of the bibliographist.
Nothing could be more dark and dingy than the shop. There was a booth
outside, containing cheap books and odd volumes, round which there was
always an attentive group; within, a gas-lamp burned night and day.
But time passed quickly to Leonard. He missed not the green fields, he
forgot his disappointments, he ceased to remember even Helen. O
strange passion of knowledge! nothing like thee for strength and
devotion.
Mr. Prickett was a bachelor, and asked Leonard to dine with him on a
cold shoulder of mutton. During dinner the shop-boy kept the shop, and
Mr. Prickett was really pleasant as well as loquacious. He took a
liking to Leonard--and Leonard told him his adventures with the
publishers, at which Mr. Prickett rubbed his hands and laughed as at a
capital joke. "Oh give up poetry, and stick to a shop," cried he;
"and, to cure you for ever of the mad whim to be an author, I'll just
lend you the _Life and Works of Chatterton_. You may take it home with
you and read before you go to bed. You'll come back quite a new man
to-morrow."
Not till night, when the shop was closed, did Leonard return to his
lodging. And when he entered the room, he was struck to the soul by
the silence, by the void. Helen was gone!
There was a rose-tree in its pot on the table at which he wrote, and
by it a scrap of paper, on which was written--
"Dear, dear Brother Leonard, God bless you. I will let you know when
we can meet again. Take care of this rose, Brother, and don't forget
poor
HELEN."
Over the word "forget" there was a big round blistered spot that
nearly effaced the word.
Leonard leant his face on his hands, and for the first time in his
life he felt what solitude really is. He could not stay long in the
room. He walked out again, and wandered objectless to and fro the
streets. He passed that stiller and humbler neighborhood, he mixed
with the throng that swarmed in the more populous thoroughfares.
Hundreds and thousands passed him by, and still--still such solitude.
He came back, lighted his candle, and resolutely drew forth the
"Chatterton" which the bookseller had lent him. It was an old
edition in one thick volume. It had evidently belonged to some
contemporary of the Poet's--apparently an inhabitant of
Bristol--some one who had gathered up many anecdotes respecting
Chatterton's habits, and who appeared even to have seen him, nay, been
in his company; for the book was interleaved, and the leaves covered with
notes and remarks in a stiff clear hand--all evincing personal knowledge
of the mournful immortal dead. At first,Leonard read with an effort; then
the strange and fierce spell of that dread life seized upon him--seized
with pain, and gloom, and terror--this boy dying by his own hand, about
the age Leonard had attained himself. This wondrous boy, of a genius beyond
all comparison--the greatest that ever yet was developed and extinguished
at the age of eighteen--self-taught--self-struggling--self-immolated.
Nothing in literature like that life and that death!
With intense interest Leonard perused the tale of the brilliant
imposture, which had been so harshly and so absurdly construed into
the crime of a forgery, and which was (if not wholly innocent) so akin
to the literary devices always in other cases viewed with indulgence,
and exhibiting, in this, intellectual qualities in themselves so
amazing--such patience, such forethought, such labor, such courage,
such ingenuity--the qualities that, well directed, make men great, not
only in books, but action. And, turning from the history of the
imposture to the poems themselves, the young reader bent before their
beauty, literally awed and breathless. How had this strange Bristol
boy tamed and mastered his rude and motley materials into a music that
comprehended every tune and key, from the simplest to the sublimest?
He turned back to the biography--he read on--he saw the proud, daring,
mournful spirit, alone in the Great City like himself. He followed its
dismal career, he saw it falling with bruised and soiled wings into
the mire. He turned again to the later works, wrung forth as tasks for
bread,--the satires without moral grandeur, the politics without
honest faith. He shuddered and sickened as he read. True, even here
his poet mind appreciated (what perhaps only poets can) the divine
fire that burned fitfully through that meaner and more sordid fuel--he
still traced in those crude, hasty, bitter offerings to dire
Necessity, the hand of the young giant who had built up the stately
verse of Rowley. But, alas! how different from that "mighty line." How
all serenity and joy had fled from these later exercises of art
degraded into journey-work. Then rapidly came on the catastrophe--the
closed doors--the poison--the suicide--the manuscripts torn by the
hands of despairing wrath, and strewed round the corpse upon the
funeral floors. It was terrible! The spectre of the Titan boy, (as
described in the notes written on the margin,) with his haughty brow,
his cynic smile, his lustrous eyes, haunted all the night the baffled
and solitary child of song.
CHAPTER XVII.
It will often happen that what ought to turn the human mind from some
peculiar tendency produces the opposite effect. One would think that
the perusal in the newspaper of some crime and capital punishment
would warn away all who had ever meditated the crime, or dreaded the
chance of detection. Yet it is well known to us that many a criminal
is made by pondering over the fate of some predecessor in guilt. There
is a fascination in the Dark and Forbidden, which, strange to say, is
only lost in fiction. No man is more inclined to murder his nephews,
or stifle his wife, after reading Richard the Third or Othello. It is
the _reality_ that is necessary to constitute the danger of contagion.
Now, it was this reality in the fate, and life, and crowning suicide
of Chatterton, that forced itself upon Leonard's thoughts, and sat
there like a visible evil thing, gathering evil like cloud around it.
There was much in the dead poet's character, his trials, and his doom,
that stood out to Leonard like a bold and colossal shadow of himself
and his fate. Alas! the bookseller, in one respect, had said truly.
Leonard came back to him the next day a new man, and it seemed even to
himself as if he had lost a good angel in losing Helen. "Oh that she
had been by my side," thought he. "Oh that I could have felt the touch
of her confiding hand--that, looking up from the scathed and dreary
ruin of this life, that had sublimely lifted itself from the plain,
and sought to tower aloft from a deluge, her mild look had spoken to
me of innocent, humble, unaspiring childhood! Ah! If indeed I were
still necessary to her--still the sole guardian and protector--then
could I say to myself, 'Thou must not despair and die! Thou hast her
to live and to strive for.' But no, no! Only this vast and terrible
London--the solitude of the dreary garret, and those lustrous eyes
glaring alike through the throng and through the solitude."
CHAPTER XVIII.
On the following Monday, Dr. Morgan's shabby man-servant opened the
door to a young man in whom he did not at first remember a former
visitor. A few days before, embrowned with healthful travel--serene
light in his eye, simple trust in his careless lip--Leonard Fairfield
had stood at that threshold. Now again he stood there pale and
haggard, with a cheek already hollowed into those deep anxious lines
that speak of working thoughts and sleepless nights; and a settled
sullen gloom resting heavily on his whole aspect.
"I call by appointment," said the boy testily, as the servant stood
irresolute. The man gave way. "Master is just called out to a patient;
please to wait, sir;" and he showed him into the little parlor. In a
few moments two other patients were admitted. These were women, and
they began talking very loud. They disturbed Leonard's unsocial
thoughts. He saw that the door into the Doctor's receiving-room was
half open, and, ignorant of the etiquette which holds such
_penetralia_ as sacred, he walked in to escape from the gossips. He
threw himself into the Doctor's own well-worn chair, and muttered to
himself, "Why did he tell me to come? What new can he think of for me?
And if a favor, should I take it? He has given me the means of bread
by work: that is all I have a right to ask from him, from any man--all
I should accept."
While thus soliloquizing, his eye fell on a letter lying open on the
table. He started. He recognized the handwriting--the same as the
letter which had enclosed £50 to his mother--the letter of his
grandparents. He saw his own name: he saw something more--words that
made his heart stand still, and his blood seem like ice in his veins.
As he thus stood aghast, a hand was laid on the letter, and a voice,
in an angry growl, muttered, "How dare you come into my room, and be
reading my letters? Er--r--r!"
Leonard placed his own hand on the Doctor's firmly, and said in a
fierce tone, "This letter relates to me--belongs to me--crushes me. I
have seen enough to know that. I demand to read all--learn all."
The Doctor looked round, and seeing the door into the waiting-room
still open, kicked it to with his foot, and then said, under his
breath, "What have you read? Tell me the truth."
"Two lines only, and I am called--I am called"--Leonard's frame shook
from head to foot, and the veins on his forehead swelled like cords.
He could not complete the sentence. It seemed as if an ocean was
rolling up through his brain, and roaring in his ears. The Doctor saw,
at a glance, that there was physical danger in his state, and hastily
and soothingly answered,--"Sit down, sit down--calm yourself--you
shall know all--read all--drink this water;" and he poured into a
tumbler of the pure liquid a drop or two from a tiny phial.
Leonard obeyed mechanically, for indeed he was no longer able to
stand. He closed his eyes, and for a minute or two life seemed to pass
from him; then he recovered, and saw the good Doctor's gaze fixed on
him with great compassion. He silently stretched forth his hand
towards the letter. "Wait a few moments," said the physician
judiciously, "and hear me meanwhile. It is very unfortunate you should
have seen a letter never meant for your eye, and containing allusions
to a secret you were never to have known. But, if I tell you more,
will you promise me, on your word of honor, that you will hold the
confidence sacred from Mrs. Fairfield, the Avenels--from all? I myself
am pledged to conceal a secret, which I can only share with you on the
same condition."
"There is nothing," announced Leonard indistinctly, and with a bitter
smile on his lip,--"nothing, it seems, that I should be proud to boast
of. Yes, I promise--the letter, the letter!"
The Doctor placed it in Leonard's right hand, and quietly slipped to
the wrist of the left his forefinger and thumb, as physicians are said
to do when a victim is stretched on the rack. "Pulse decreasing," he
muttered; "wonderful thing, _Aconite_!" Meanwhile Leonard read as
follows, faults in spelling and all:--
"Dr. MORGAN--Sir: I received your favur duly, and am glad to hear that
the pore boy is safe and Well. But he has been behaving ill, and
ungrateful to my good son Richard, who is a credit to the whole
Family, and has made himself a Gentleman, and Was very kind and good
to the boy, not knowing who and What he is--God forbid! I don't want
never to see him again--the boy. Pore John was ill and Restless for
days afterwards.--John is a pore cretur now, and has had paralytiks.
And he Talked of nothing but Nora--the boy's eyes were so like his
Mother's. I cannot, cannot see the Child of Shame. He can't cum
here--for our Lord's sake, sir, don't ask it--he can't, so Respectable
as we've always been!--and such disgrace! Base born--base born. Keep
him where he is, bind him prentis, I'll pay anything for That. You
says, sir, he's clever, and quick at learning; so did Parson Dale, and
wanted him to go to Collidge, and make a Figur--then all would cum
out. It would be my death, sir; I could not sleep in my grave, sir.
Nora that we were all so proud of. Sinful creturs that we are! Nora's
good name that we've saved now, gone, gone. And Richard, who is so
grand, and who was so fond of pore, pore Nora! He would not hold up
his Head again. Don't let him make a Figur in the world--let him be a
tradesman, as we were afore him--any trade he Takes to--and not cross
us no more while he lives. Then I shall pray for him, and wish him
happy. And have not we had enuff of bringing up children to be above
their birth? Nora, that I used to say was like the first lady o' the
land--oh, but we were rightly punished! So now, sir, I leave all to
you, and will pay all you want for the boy. And be Sure that the
secret's kep. For we have never heard from the father, and, at least,
no one knows that Nora has a living son but I and my daughter Jane,
and Parson Dale and you--and you Two are good Gentlemen--and Jane will
keep her word, and I am old, and shall be in my grave Soon, but I hope
it won't be while pore John needs me. What could he do without me? And
if _that_ got wind, it would kill me straght, sir. Pore John is a
helpless cretur, God bless him. So no more from your servant in all
dooty,
"M. AVENEL."
Leonard laid down this letter very calmly, and, except by a slight
heaving at his breast, and a death-like whiteness of his lips, the
emotions he felt were undetected. And it is a proof how much exquisite
goodness there was in his heart that the first words he spoke were,
"Thank Heaven!"
The Doctor did not expect that thanksgiving, and he was so startled
that he exclaimed, "For what?"
"I have nothing to pity or excuse in the woman I knew and honored as a
mother. I am not her son--her--"
He stopped short.
"No; but don't be hard on your true mother--poor Nora!"
Leonard staggered, and then burst into a sudden paroxysm of tears.
"Oh, my own mother!--my dead mother! Thou for whom I felt so
mysterious a love--thou, from whom I took this poet soul--pardon me,
pardon me! Hard on thee! Would that thou wert living yet, that I might
comfort thee! What thou must have suffered!"
These words were sobbed forth in broken gasps from the depth of his
heart. Then he caught up the letter again, and his thoughts were
changed as his eyes fell upon the writer's shame and fear, as it were,
of his very existence. All his native haughtiness returned to him. His
crest rose, his tears dried.--"Tell her," he said, with a stern
unfaltering voice--"tell Mrs. Avenel that she is obeyed--that I will
never seek her roof, never cross her path, never disgrace her wealthy
son. But tell her, also, that I will choose my own way in life--that I
will not take from her a bribe for concealment. Tell her that I am
nameless, and will yet make a name."
A name! Was this but an idle boast, or was it one of those flashes of
conviction which are never belied, lighting up our future for one
lurid instant, and then fading into darkness?
"I do not doubt it, my prave poy," said Dr. Morgan, growing
exceedingly Welsh in his excitement; "and perhaps you may find a
father, who--"
"Father--who is he--what is he? He lives then! But he has deserted
me--he must have betrayed her? I need him not. The law gives me no
father."
The last words were said with a return of bitter anguish; then in a
calmer tone, he resumed, "But I should know who he is--as another one
whose path I may not cross."
Dr. Morgan looked embarrassed, and paused in deliberation. "Nay," said
he at length, "as you know so much, it is surely best that you should
know all."
The Doctor then proceeded to detail, with some circumlocution, what we
will here repeat from his account more succinctly.
Nora Avenel, while yet very young, left her native village, or rather
the house of Lady Lansmere, by whom she had been educated and brought
up, in order to accept the place of governess or companion in London.
One evening she suddenly presented herself at her father's house, and
at the first sight of her mother's face she fell down insensible. She
was carried to bed. Dr. Morgan (then the chief medical practitioner of
the town) was sent for. That night Leonard came into the world, and
his mother died. She never recovered her senses, never spoke
intelligibly from the time she entered the house. "And never therefore
named your father," said Dr. Morgan. "We know not who he was."
"And how," cried Leonard, fiercely,--"how have they dared to slander
this dead mother? How knew they that I--was--was--was not the child of
wedlock?"
"There was no wedding-ring on Nora's finger--never any rumor of her
marriage--her strange and sudden appearance at her father's house--her
emotions on entrance, so unlike those natural to a wife returning to a
parent's home: these are all the evidence against her. But Mr. Avenel
deemed them strong, and so did I. You have a right to think we judged
too harshly--perhaps we did."
"And no inquiries were ever made?" said Leonard mournfully, and after
long silence--"no inquiries to learn who was the father of the
motherless child?"
"Inquiries!--Mrs. Avenel would have died first. Your grandmother's
nature is very rigid. Had she come from princes, from Cadwallader
himself," said the Welshman, "she could not more have shrunk from the
thought of dishonor. Even over her dead child, the child she had loved
the best, she thought but how to save that child's name and memory
from suspicion. There was luckily no servant in the house, only Mark
Fairfield and his wife (Nora's sister): they had arrived the same day
on a visit.
"Mrs. Fairfield was nursing her own infant, two or three months old;
she took charge of you; Nora was buried, and the secret kept. None out
of the family knew of it, but myself and the curate of the town--Mr.
Dale. The day after your birth, Mrs. Fairfield, to prevent discovery,
moved to a village at some distance. There her child died; and when
she returned to Hazeldean, where her husband was settled, you passed
as the son she had lost. Mark, I know, was a father to you, for he had
loved Nora; they had been children together."
"And she came to London--London is strong and cruel," muttered
Leonard. "She was friendless and deceived. I see all--I desire to know
no more. This father, he must indeed have been like those whom I have
read of in books. To love, to wrong her--_that_ I can conceive; but
then to leave, to abandon; no visit to her grave--no remorse--no
search for his own child. Well, well; Mrs. Avenel was right. Let us
think of _him_ no more."
The man-servant knocked at the door, and then put in his head. "Sir,
the ladies are getting very impatient, and say they'll go."
"Sir," said Leonard, with a strange calm return to the things about
him, "I ask your pardon for taking up your time so long. I go now. I
will never mention to my moth--I mean to Mrs. Fairfield--what I have
learned, nor to any one. I will work my way somehow. If Mr. Prickett
will keep me, I will stay with him at present; but I repeat, I cannot
take Mrs. Avenel's money and be bound apprentice. Sir, you have been
good and patient with me--Heaven reward you."
The Doctor was too moved to answer. He wrung Leonard's hand, and in
another minute the door closed upon the nameless boy. He stood alone
in the streets of London; and the sun flashed on him, red and
menacing, like the eye of a foe!
CHAPTER XIX.
Leonard did not appear at the shop of Mr. Prickett that day. Needless
it is to say where he wandered--what he suffered--what thought--what
felt. All within was storm. Late at night he returned to his solitary
lodging. On his table, neglected since the morning, was Helen's
rose-tree. It looked parched and fading. His heart smote him: he
watered the poor plant--perhaps with his tears.
Meanwhile Dr. Morgan, after some debate with himself whether or not to
apprise Mrs. Avenel of Leonard's discovery and message, resolved to
spare her an uneasiness and alarm that might be dangerous to her
health, and unnecessary in itself. He replied shortly, that she need
not fear Leonard's coming to her house--that he was disinclined to
bind himself an apprentice, but that he was provided for at present;
and in a few weeks, when Dr. Morgan heard more of him through the
tradesman by whom he was employed, the Doctor would write to her from
Germany. He then went to Mr. Prickett's--told the willing bookseller
to keep the young man for the present--to be kind to him, watch over
his habits and conduct, and report to the Doctor in his new home, on
the Rhine, what avocation he thought Leonard would be best suited for,
and most inclined to adopt. The charitable Welshman divided with the
bookseller the salary given to Leonard, and left a quarter of his
moity in advance. It is true that he knew he should be repaid on
applying to Mrs. Avenel; but, being a man of independent spirit
himself, he so sympathized with Leonard's present feelings, that he
felt as if he should degrade the boy did he maintain him, even
secretly, out of Mrs. Avenel's money--money intended not to raise, but
keep him down in life. At the worst, it was a sum the doctor could
afford, and he had brought the boy into the world.
Having thus, as he thought, safely provided for his two young charges,
Helen and Leonard, the Doctor then gave himself up to his final
preparations for departure. He left a short note for Leonard with Mr.
Prickett, containing some brief advice, some kind cheering; a
postscript to the effect that he had not communicated to Mrs. Avenel
the information Leonard had acquired, and that it were best to leave
her in that ignorance; and six small powders to be dissolved in water,
and a tea-spoonful every fourth hour--"Sovereign against rage and
sombre thoughts," wrote the Doctor. By the evening of the next day Dr.
Morgan, accompanied by his pet patient with the chronic tic, whom he
had talked into exile, was on the steamboat on his way to Ostend.
Leonard resumed his life at Mr. Prickett's; but the change in him did
not escape the bookseller. All his ingenious simplicity had deserted
him. He was very distant, and very taciturn; he seemed to have grown
much older. I shall not attempt to analyze metaphysically this change.
By the help of such words as Leonard may himself occasionally let
fall, the reader will dive into the boy's heart, and see how there the
change had worked, and is working still. The happy dreamy
peasant-genius, gazing on glory with inebriate, undazzled eyes, is no
more. It is a man, suddenly cut off from the old household holy
ties--conscious of great powers, and confronted on all sides by
barriers of iron--alone with hard reality, and scornful London; and if
he catches a glimpse of the lost Helicon, he sees, where he saw the
muse, a pale melancholy spirit veiling its face in shame--the ghost of
the mournful mother, whose child has no name, not even the humblest,
among the family of men.
On the second evening after Dr. Morgan's departure, as Leonard was
just about to leave the shop, a customer stepped in with a book in
his hand which he had snatched from the shop-boy, who was removing the
volumes for the night from the booth without.
"Mr. Prickett, Mr. Prickett!" said the customer, "I am ashamed of you.
You presume to put upon this work, in two volumes, the sum of eight
shillings."
Mr. Prickett stepped forth from the Cimmerian gloom of some recess,
and cried, "What! Mr. Burley, is that you? But for your voice I should
not have known you."
"Man is like a book, Mr. Prickett; the commonalty only look to his
binding. I am better bound, it is very true."
Leonard glanced towards the speaker, who now stood under the gas-lamp,
and thought he recognized his face. He looked again; yes, it was the
perch-fisher whom he had met on the banks of the Brent, and who had
warned him of the lost fish and the broken line.
_Mr. Burley_ (continuing).--"But 'The Art of Thinking,'--you charge
eight shillings for 'The Art of Thinking?'"
_Mr. Prickett._--"Cheap enough, Mr. Burley. A very clean copy."
_Mr. Burley._--"Usurer! I sold it to you for three shillings. It is
more than 150 per cent. you propose to gain from my 'Art of
Thinking.'"
_Mr. Prickett_, (stuttering and taken aback.)--"_You_ sold it to me!
Ah! now I remember. But it was more than three shillings I gave. You
forget--two glasses of brandy and water."
_Mr. Burley._--"Hospitality, sir, is not to be priced. If you sell
your hospitality, you are not worthy to possess my 'Art of Thinking.'
I resume it. There are three shillings, and a shilling more for
interest. No--on second thoughts, instead of that shilling, I will
return your hospitality; and the first time you come my way you shall
have two glasses of brandy and water."
Mr. Prickett did not look pleased, but he made no objection; and Mr.
Burley put the book into his pocket, and turned to examine the
shelves. He bought an old jest-book, a stray volume of the Comedies of
Destouches--paid for them--put them also into his pocket, and was
sauntering out, when he perceived Leonard, who was now standing at the
doorway.
"Hem! who is that?" he asked, whispering to Mr. Prickett.
"A young assistant of mine, and very clever."
Mr. Burley scanned Leonard from top to toe.
"We have met before, sir. But you look as if you had returned to the
Brent, and had been fishing for my perch."
"Possibly, sir," answered Leonard. "But my line is tough, and is not
yet broken, though the fish drags it amongst the weeds, and buries
itself in the mud."
He lifted his hat, bowed slightly, and walked on.
"He _is_ clever," said Mr. Burley to the bookseller: "he understands
allegory."
_Mr. Prickett._--"Poor youth! He came to town with the idea of turning
author: you know what _that_ is, Mr. Burley."
_Mr. Burley_, (with an air of superb dignity.)--"Bibliopole, yes! An
author is a being between gods and men, who ought to be lodged in a
palace, and entertained at the public charge on ortolans and tokay. He
should be kept lapped in down, and curtained with silken awnings from
the cares of life--have nothing to do but to write books upon tables
of cedar, and fish for perch from a gilded galley. And that's what
will come to pass when the ages lose their barbarism, and know their
benefactors. Meanwhile, sir, I invite you to my rooms, and will regale
you upon brandy and water as long as I can pay for it; and when I
cannot, you shall regale me."
Mr. Prickett muttered, "A very bad bargain, indeed," as Mr. Burley,
with his chin in the air, stepped into the street.
CHAPTER XX.
At first Leonard had always returned home through the crowded
thoroughfares--the contact of numbers had animated his spirits. But
the last two days, since the discovery of his birth, he had taken his
way down the comparatively unpeopled path of the New Road. He had just
gained that part of this outskirt in which the statuaries and
tomb-makers exhibit their gloomy wares--furniture alike for gardens
and for graves--and, pausing, contemplated a column, on which was
placed an urn half covered with a funeral mantle, when his shoulder
was lightly tapped, and, turning quickly, he saw Mr. Burley standing
behind him.
"Excuse me, sir, but you understand perch-fishing; and since we find
ourselves on the same road, I should like to be better acquainted with
you. I hear you once wished to be an author. I am one."
Leonard had never before, to his knowledge, seen an author, and a
mournful smile passed his lips as he surveyed the perch-fisher. Mr.
Burley was indeed very differently attired since the first interview
by the brooklet. He looked less like an author, but more perhaps like
a perch-fisher. He had a new white hat, stuck on one side of his
head--a new green overcoat--new gray trousers, and new boots. In his
hand was a whalebone stick, with a silver handle. Nothing could be
more fragrant, devil-me-carish, and to use a slang word, _tigrish_,
than his whole air. Yet, vulgar as was his costume, he did not himself
seem vulgar, but rather eccentric, lawless, something out of the pale
of convention. His face looked more pale and more puffed than before,
the tip of his nose redder; but the spark in his eye was of livelier
light, and there was self-enjoyment in the corners of his sensual
humorous lip.
"You are an author, sir," repeated Leonard. "Well, and what is the
report of your calling? Yonder column props an urn. The column is
tall, and the urn is graceful. But it looks out of place by the
roadside: what say you?"
_Mr. Burley._--"It would look better in the churchyard."
_Leonard._--"So I was thinking. And you are an author!"
_Mr. Burley._--"Ah, I said you had a quick sense of allegory. And so
you think an author looks better in a churchyard, when you see him but
as a muffled urn under the moonshine, than standing beneath the
gas-lamp, in a white hat, and with a red tip to his nose.
Abstractedly, you are right. But, with your leave, the author would
rather be where he is. Let us walk on." The two men felt an interest
in each other, and they walked some yards in silence.
"To return to the urn," said Mr. Burley, "you think of fame and
churchyards. Natural enough, before illusion dies; but I think of the
moment, of existence--and I laugh at fame. Fame, sir--not worth a
glass of cold without! And as for a glass of warm, with sugar--and
five shillings in one's pocket to spend as one pleases--what is there
in Westminster Abbey to compare with it?"
"Talk on, sir--I should like to hear you talk. Let me listen and hold
my tongue." Leonard pulled his hat over his brows, and gave up his
moody, questioning, turbulent mind to his new acquaintance.
And John Burley talked on. A dangerous and a fascinating talk it
was--the talk of a great intellect fallen. A serpent trailing its
length on the ground, and showing bright, shifting, glorious hues as
it grovelled. A serpent, yet without the serpent's guile. If John
Burley deceived and tempted, he meant it not--he crawled and glittered
alike honestly. No dove could be more simple.
Laughing at fame, he yet dwelt with an elegant enthusiasm on the joy
of composition. "What do I care what men without are to say and think
of the words that gush forth on my page?" cried he. "If you think of
the public, of urns, and laurels, while you write, you are no genius;
you are not fit to be an author. I write because it rejoices me,
because it is my nature. Written, I care no more what becomes of it
than the lark for the effect that the song has on the peasant it wakes
to the plough. The poet, like the lark, sings 'from his watch-tower in
the skies.' Is this true?"
"Yes, very true."
"What can rob us of this joy! The bookseller will not buy, the public
will not read. Let them sleep at the foot of the ladder of the
angels--we climb it all the same. And then one settles down into such
good-tempered Lucianic contempt for men. One wants so little from
them, when one knows what one's self is worth, and what they are. They
are just worth the coin one can extract from them in order to live.
Our life--_that_ is worth so much to us. And then their joys, so
vulgar to them, we can make them golden and kingly. Do you suppose
Burns drinking at the ale-house, with his boors around him, was
drinking, like them, only beer and whisky? No, he was drinking
nectar--he was imbibing his own ambrosial thoughts--shaking with the
laughter of the gods. The coarse human liquid was just needed to
unlock his spirit from the clay--take it from jerkin and corduroys,
and wrap it in the 'singing-robes' that floated wide in the skies: the
beer or the whisky was needed but for that, and then it changed at
once into the drink of Hebe. But come, you have not known this
life--you have not seen it. Come, give me this night. I have moneys
about me--I will fling them abroad as liberally as Alexander himself,
when he left to his share but hope. Come!"
"Whither?"
"To my throne. On that throne last sate Edmund Kean--mighty mime. I am
his successor. We will see whether in truth these wild sons of genius,
who are cited but 'to point a moral and adorn a tale,' were objects of
compassion. Sober-suited cits to lament over a Savage and a Morland--a
Porson and a Burns!--"
"Or a Chatterton," said Leonard, gloomily.
"Chatterton was an impostor in all things; he feigned excesses that he
never knew. _He_ a bacchanalian--a royster! He!--No. We will talk of
him. Come!"
Leonard went.
CHAPTER XXI.
The Room! And the smoke-reek, and the gas-glare of it. The whitewash
of the walls, and the prints thereon of the actors in their
mime-robes, and stage postures; actors as far back as their own lost
Augustan era, when the stage was a real living influence on the
manners and the age. There was Betterton in wig and gown--as Cato,
moralising on the soul's eternity, and halting between Plato and the
dagger. There was Woodward as "The Fine Gentleman," with the
inimitable rakehell air in which the heroes of Wycherly and Congreve
and Farquhar live again. There was jovial Quin as Falstaff, with round
buckler and "fair round belly." There was Colley Cibber in
brocade--taking snuff as with "his Lord," the thumb and forefinger
raised in air--and looking at you for applause. There was Macklin as
Shylock, with knife in hand; and Kemble, in the solemn weeds of the
Dane; and Kean in the place of honor over the chimneypiece.
When we are suddenly taken from practical life, with its real workday
men, and presented to the portraits of those sole heroes of a
World--Phantastic and Phantasmal, in the garments wherein they did
"strut and fret their hour upon the stage," verily there is something
in the sight that moves an inner sense within ourselves--for all of us
have an inner sense of some existence, apart from the one that wears
away our days: an existence that, afar from St. James's and St.
Giles's, the Law Courts and Exchange, goes its way in terror or mirth,
in smiles or in tears, through a vague magic land of the poets. There,
see those actors! They are the men who lived it--to whom our world was
the false one, to whom the Imaginary was the Actual. And did
Shakspeare himself, in his life, ever hearken to the applause that
thundered round the Personators of his airy images? Vague children of
the most transient of the arts, fleet shadows of running waters,
though thrown down from the steadfast stars, were ye not happier than
we who live in the Real? How strange you must feel in the great
circuit that ye now take through eternity! No prompt-books, no lamps,
no acting Congreve and Shakspeare there! For what parts in the skies
have your studies on the earth fitted you? Your ultimate destinies are
very puzzling. Hail to your effigies, and pass we on!
There, too, on the whitewashed walls, were admitted the portraits of
ruder rivals in the arena of fame--yet they, too, had known an
applause warmer than his age gave to Shakespeare; the champions of the
ring--Cribb, and Molyneux, and Dutch Sam. Interspersed with these was
an old print of Newmarket in the early part of the last century, and
sundry engravings from Hogarth. But poets, oh! they were there, too:
poets who might be supposed to have been sufficiently good fellows to
be at home with such companions. Shakspeare, of course, with his
placid forehead; Ben Jonson, with his heavy scowl; Burns and Byron
cheek by jowl. But the strangest of all these heterogeneous specimens
of graphic art was a full-length print of William Pitt!--William Pitt,
the austere and imperious. What the deuce did he do there amongst
prize-fighters, and actors, and poets? It seemed an insult to his
grand memory. Nevertheless there he was, very erect, and with a look
of ineffable disgust in his upturned nostrils. The portraits on the
sordid walls were very like the crambo in the minds of ordinary
men--very like the motley pictures of the FAMOUS hung up in your
parlour, O my Public! Actors and prize-fighters, poets and statesmen,
all without congruity and fitness, all whom you have been to see or to
hear for a moment, and whose names have stared out in your newspapers,
O my Public!
And the company? Indescribable! Comedians from small theatres, out of
employ: pale haggard-looking boys, probably the sons of worthy
traders, trying their best to break their fathers' hearts; here and
there the marked features of a Jew. Now and then you might see the
curious puzzled face of some greenhorn about town, or perhaps a
Cantab; and men of grave age, and gray-haired, were there, and amongst
them a wondrous proportion of carbuncled faces and bottle noses. And
when John Burley entered there was a shout, that made William Pitt
shake in his frame. Such stamping and hallooing, and such hurrahs for
"Burly John." And the gentleman who had filled the great high leathern
chair in his absence gave it up to John Burley; and Leonard, with his
grave observant eye, and lip half sad and half scornful, placed
himself by the side of his introducer. There was a nameless expectant
stir through the assembly, as when some great singer advances to the
lamps, and begins "_Di tanti palpiti_." Time flies. Look at the Dutch
clock over the door. Half-an-hour! John Burley begins to warm. A yet
quicker light begins to break from his eye; his voice has a mellow
luscious roll in it.
"He will be grand to-night," whispered a thin man who looked like a
tailor, seated on the other side of Leonard.
Time flies--an hour! Look again at the Dutch clock, John Burley _is_
grand, he is in his zenith, at his culminating point. What magnificent
drollery!--what luxuriant humor! How the Rabelais shakes in his easy
chair! Under the rush and the roar of this fun, (what word else shall
describe it,) the man's intellect is as clear as a gold sand under a
river. Such wit, and such truth, and, at times, such a flood of quick
eloquence. All now are listeners, silent, save in applause. And
Leonard listened too. Not, as he would some nights ago, in innocent
unquestioning delight. No; his mind has passed through great sorrow,
great passion, and it comes out unsettled, inquiring, eager, brooding
over joy itself as over a problem. And the drink circulates, and faces
change; and there are gabbling and babbling; and Burley's head sinks
in his bosom, and he is silent. And up starts a wild, dissolute,
bacchanalian glee for seven voices. And the smoke-reek grows denser
and thicker, and the gas-light looks dizzy through the haze. And John
Burley's eyes reel.
Look again at the Dutch clock. Two hours have gone. John Burley has
broken out again from his silence, his voice thick and husky, and his
laugh cracked; and he talks, O ye gods! such rubbish and ribaldry; and
the listeners roar aloud, and think it finer than before. And Leonard,
who had hitherto been measuring himself, in his mind, against the
giant, and saying inly, "He soars out of my reach," finds the giant
shrink smaller and smaller, and saith to himself, "He is but of man's
common standard after all."
Look again at the Dutch clock. Three hour have passed. Is John Burley
now of man's common standard? Man himself seems to have vanished from
the scene; his soul stolen from him, his form gone away with the fumes
of the smoke, and the nauseous steam from that fiery bowl. And
Leonard looked round, and saw but the swine of Circe--some on the
floor, some staggering against the walls, some hugging each other on
the tables, some fighting, some bawling, some weeping. The divine
spark had fled from the human face; the beast is everywhere growing
more and more out of the thing that had been man. And John Burley,
still unconquered, but clean lost to his senses, fancies himself a
preacher, and drawls forth the most lugubrious sermon upon the brevity
of life that mortal ever heard, accompanied with unctuous sobs; and
now and then, in the midst of balderdash, gleams out a gorgeous
sentence, that Jeremy Taylor might have envied; drivelling away again
into a cadence below the rhetoric of a Muggletonian. And the waiters
choked up the doorway, listening and laughing, and prepared to call
cabs and coaches; and suddenly some one turned off the gas light, and
all was dark as pitch--howls and laughter as of the damned, ringing
through the Pandemonium. Out from the black atmosphere stept the
boy-poet; and the still stars rushed on his sight, as they looked over
the grimy roof-tops.
CHAPTER XXII.
Well, Leonard, this is the first time thou hast shown that thou hast
in thee the iron out of which true manhood is forged and shaped. Thou
hast _the power to resist_. Forth, unebriate, unpolluted, he came from
the orgy, as yon star above him came from the cloud.
He had a latch key to his lodging. He let himself in, and walked
noiselessly up the creaking wooden stair. It was dawn. He passed on to
his window, and threw it open. The green elm-tree from the carpenter's
yard looked as fresh and fair as if rooted in solitudes, leagues away
from the smoke of Babylon.
--"Nature, Nature!" murmured Leonard, "I hear thy voice now. This
stills--this strengthens. But the struggle is very dread. Here,
despair of life--there, faith in life. Nature thinks of neither, and
lives serenely on."
By-and-by a bird slid softly from the heart of the tree, and dropped
on the ground below out of sight. But Leonard heard its carol. It
awoke its companions--wings began to glance in the air, and the clouds
grew red toward the east.
Leonard sighed and left the window. On the table, near Helen's
rose-tree, which bent over wistfully, lay a letter. He had not
observed it before. It was in Helen's hand. He took it to the light,
and read it by the pure healthful gleams of morn:--
"Oh, my dear brother Leonard, will this find you well, and (more happy
I dare not say, but) less sad than when we parted? I write kneeling,
so that it seems to me as if I wrote and prayed at the same time. You
may come and see me to-morrow evening, Leonard. Do come, do--we shall
walk together in this pretty garden; and there is an arbor all covered
with jessamine and honeysuckle, from which we can look down on London.
I have looked from it so many times--so many--trying if I can guess
the roofs in our poor little street; and fancying that I do see the
dear elm-tree. Miss Starke is very kind to me; and I think, after I
have seen you, that I shall be happy here--that is, if you are happy.
Your own grateful sister,
"HELEN.
"Ivy Lodge.
"P. S.--Any one will direct you to our house; it lies to the left,
near the top of the hill, a little way down a lane that is overhung on
one side with chestnut trees and lilies. I shall be watching for you
at the gate."
Leonard's brow softened, he looked again like his former self. Up from
the dark sea at his heart smiled the meek face of a child, and the
waves lay still as at the charm of a spirit.
CHAPTER XXIII.
"And what is Mr. Burley, and what has he written?" asked Leonard of
Mr. Prickett when he returned to the shop. Let us reply to that
question in our own words, for we know more about Mr. Burley than Mr.
Prickett does.
John Burley was the only son of a poor clergyman, in a village near
Ealing, who had scraped and saved and pinched, to send his son to an
excellent provincial school in a northern country, and thence to
college. At the latter, during his first year, young Burley was
remarked by the undergraduates for his thick shoes and coarse linen,
and remarkable to the authorities for his assiduity and learning. The
highest hopes were entertained of him by the tutors and examiners. At
the beginning of the second year his high animal spirits, before kept
down by study, broke out. Reading had become easy to him. He knocked
off his tasks with a facile stroke, as it were. He gave up his leisure
hours to symposia by no means Socratical. He fell into an idle
hard-drinking set. He got into all kinds of scrapes. The authorities
were at first kind and forbearing in their admonitions, for they
respected his abilities, and still hoped he might become an honor to
the university. But at last he went drunk into a formal examination,
and sent in papers after the manner of Aristophanes, containing
capital jokes upon the Dons and Bigwigs themselves. The offence was
the greater, and seemed the more premeditated, for being clothed in
Greek. John Burley was expelled. He went home to his father's a
miserable man, for with all his follies he had a good heart. Removed
from ill example, his life for a year was blameless. He got admitted
as usher into the school in which he had received instruction as a
pupil. This school was in a large town. John Burley became member of
a club formed among the tradesmen, and spent three evenings a week
there. His astonishing convivial and conversational powers began to
declare themselves. He grew the oracle of the club; and from being the
most sober peaceful assembly in which grave fathers of a family ever
smoked a pipe or sipped a glass, it grew under Mr. Burley's auspices
the parent of revels as frolicking and frantic as those out of which
the old Greek Goat Song ever tipsily rose. This would not do. There
was a great riot in the streets one night, and the next morning the
usher was dismissed. Fortunately for John Burley's conscience, his
father had died before this happened--died believing in the reform of
his son. During his ushership Mr. Burley had scraped acquaintance with
the editor of the county newspaper, and given him some capital
political articles; for Burley was like Parr and Porson, a notable
politician. The editor furnished him with letters to the journalists
in London, and John came to the metropolis and got employed on a very
respectable newspaper. At college he had known Audley Egerton, though
but slightly; that gentleman was then just rising into repute in
Parliament. Burley sympathized with some questions on which Audley had
distinguished himself, and wrote a very good article thereon--an
article so good that Egerton inquired into the authorship, found out
Burley, and resolved in his own mind to provide for him whenever he
himself came into office. But Burley was a man whom it was impossible
to provide for. He soon lost his connection with the newspaper. First,
he was so irregular that he could never be depended upon. Secondly, he
had strange honest eccentric twists of thinking, that could coalesce
with the thoughts of no party in the long run. An article of his,
inadvertently admitted, had horrified all the proprietors, staff, and
readers of the paper. It was diametrically opposite to the principles
the paper advocated, and compared its pet politician to Catiline. Then
John Burley shut himself up and wrote books. He wrote two or three
books, very clever, but not at all to the popular taste--abstract and
learned, full of whims that were _caviare_ to the multitude, and
larded with Greek. Nevertheless, they obtained for him a little money,
and among literary men some reputation.
Now Audley Egerton came into power, and got him, though with great
difficulty--for there were many prejudices against this scampish
harum-scarum son of the Muses--a place in a public office. He kept it
about a month, and then voluntarily resigned it. "My crust of bread
and liberty!" quoth John Burley, and he vanished into a garret. From
that time to the present he lived--Heaven knows how. Literature is a
business, like everything else; John Burley grew more and more
incapable of business. "He could not do task-work," he said; he wrote
when the whim seized him, or when the last penny was in his pouch, or
when he was actually in the spunging-house or the Fleet--migrations
which occurred to him, on an average, twice a year. He could generally
sell what he had positively written, but no one would engage him
beforehand. Magazines and other periodicals were very glad to have his
articles, on the condition that they were anonymous; and his style was
not necessarily detected, for he could vary it with the facility of a
practised pen. Audley Egerton continued his best supporter, for there
were certain questions on which no one wrote with such force as John
Burley--questions connected with the metaphysics of politics, such as
law reform and economical science. And Audley Egerton was the only man
John Burley put himself out of the way to serve, and for whom he would
give up a drinking-bout and do _task-work_; for John Burley was
grateful by nature, and he felt that Egerton had really tried to
befriend him. Indeed, it was true, as he had stated to Leonard by the
Brent, that, even after he had resigned his desk in the London office,
he had had the offer of an appointment in Jamaica, and a place in
India from the Minister. But probably there were other charms then
than those exercised by the one-eyed perch, that kept him to the
neighborhood of London. With all his grave faults of character and
conduct, John Burley was not without the fine qualities of a large
nature. He was most resolutely his own enemy, it is true, but he could
hardly be said to be any one else's. Even when he criticised some more
fortunate writer, he was good-humored in his very satire; he had no
bile, no envy. And as for freedom from malignant personalities, he
might have been a model to all critics. I must except politics,
however, for in these he could be rabid and savage. He had a passion
for independence, which, though pushed to excess, was not without
grandeur. No lick-platter, no parasite, no toadeater, no literary
beggar, no hunter after patronage and subscriptions; even in his
dealings with Audley Egerton, he insisted on naming the price for his
labors. He took a price, because, as the papers required by Audley
demanded much reading and detail, which was not at all to his taste,
he considered himself entitled fairly to something more than the
editor of the journal, wherein the papers appeared, was in the habit
of giving. But he assessed this extra price himself, and as he would
have done to a bookseller. And, when in debt and in prison, though he
knew a line to Egerton would have extricated him, he never wrote that
line. He would depend alone on his pen, dipped it hastily in the ink,
and scrawled himself free. The most debased point about him was
certainly the incorrigible vice of drinking, and with it the usual
concomitant of that vice--the love of low company. To be King of the
Bohemians--to dazzle by his wild humor, and sometimes to exalt, by his
fanciful eloquence, the rude gross nature that gathered round
him--this was a royalty that repaid him for all sacrifice of solid
dignity; a foolscap crown that he would not have changed for an
emperor's diadem. Indeed, to appreciate rightly the talents of John
Burley, it was necessary to hear him talk on such occasions. As a
writer, after all, he was only capable now of unequal desultory
efforts. But as a talker, in his own wild way, he was original and
matchless. And the gift of talk is one of the most dangerous gifts a
man can possess for his own sake--the applause is so immediate, and
gained with so little labor. Lower, and lower, and lower, had sunk
John Burley, not only in the opinion of all who knew his name, but in
the habitual exercise of his talents. And this seemed wilfully--from
choice. He would write for some unstamped journal of the populace, out
of the pale of the law, for pence, when he could have got pounds from
journals of high repute. He was very fond of scribbling off penny
ballads, and then standing in the street to hear them sung. He
actually once made himself the poet of an advertising tailor, and
enjoyed it excessively. But that did not last long, for John Burley
was a Pittite--not a Tory, he used to say, but a Pittite. And if you
had heard him talk of Pitt, you would never have known what to make of
that great statesman. He treated him as the German commentators do
Shakspeare, and invested him with all imaginary meanings and objects,
that would have turned the grand practical man into a sybil. Well, he
was a Pittite; the tailor a fanatic for Thelwall and Cobbett. Mr.
Burley wrote a poem, wherein Britannia appeared to the tailor,
complimented him highly on the art he exhibited in adorning the
persons of her sons; and, bestowing upon him a gigantic mantle, said
that he, and he alone, might be enabled to fit it to the shoulders of
living men. The rest of the poem was occupied in Mr. Snip's unavailing
attempts to adjust this mantle to the eminent politicians of the day,
when, just as he had sunk down in despair, Britannia reappeared to
him, and consoled him with the information that he had done all mortal
man could do, and that she had only desired to convince pigmies that
no human art could adjust to _their_ proportions the mantle of William
Pitt. _Sic itur ad astra_. She went back to the stars, mantle and all.
Mr. Snip was exceedingly indignant at this allegorical effusion, and
with wrathful shears cut the tie between himself and his poet.
Thus, then, the reader has, we trust, a pretty good idea of John
Burley--a specimen of his genus, not very common in any age, and now
happily almost extinct, since authors of all degrees share in the
general improvement in order, economy, and sober decorum, which has
obtained in the national manners. Mr. Prickett, though entering into
less historical detail than we have done, conveyed to Leonard a
tolerably accurate notion of the man, representing him as a person of
great powers and learning, who had thoroughly thrown himself away.
Leonard did not, however, see how much Mr. Burley himself was to be
blamed for his waste of life; he could not conceive a man of genius
voluntarily seating himself at the lowest step in the social ladder.
He rather supposed he had been thrust down there by Necessity.
And when Mr. Prickett, concluding, said, "Well, I should think Burley
would cure you of the desire to be an author even more than
Chatterton," the young man answered gloomily, "Perhaps," and turned to
the book-shelves.
With Mr. Prickett's consent, Leonard was released earlier than usual
from his task, and a little before sunset he took his way to Highgate.
He was fortunately directed to take the new road by the Regent's Park,
and so on through a very green and smiling country. The walk, the
freshness of the air, the songs of the birds, and, above all, when he
had got half-way, the solitude of the road, served to rouse him from
his stern and sombre meditations. And when he came into the lane
overhung with chestnut trees, and suddenly caught sight of Helen's
watchful and then brightening face, as she stood by the wicket, and
under the shadow of cool murmurous boughs, the blood rushed gayly
through his veins, and his heart beat loud and gratefully.
CHAPTER XXIV.
She drew him into the garden with such true childlike joy!
Now behold them seated in the arbor--a perfect bower of sweets and
blossoms; the wilderness of roof-tops and spires stretching below,
broad and far; London seen dim and silent, as in a dream.
She took his hat from his brows gently, and looked him in the face
with tearful penetrating eyes.
She did not say, "You have changed."--She said, "Why, why did I leave
you?" and then turned away.
"Never mind me, Helen. I am man, and rudely born--speak of yourself.
This lady is kind to you, then?"
"Does she not let me see you? Oh! very kind--and look here."
Helen pointed to fruits and cakes set out on the table. "A feast,
brother."
And she began to press her hospitality with pretty winning ways, more
playful than was usual for her, and talking very fast, and with forced
but silvery laughter.
By degrees she stole him from his gloom and reserve; and, though he
could not reveal to her the cause of his bitterest sorrow, he owned
that he had suffered much. He would not have owned _that_ to another
living being. And then, quickly turning from this brief confession,
with assurances that the worst was over, he sought to amuse her by
speaking of his new acquaintance with the perch-fisher. But when he
spoke of this man with a kind of reluctant admiration, mixed with
compassionate yet gloomy interest, and drew a grotesque though subdued
sketch of the wild scene in which he had been spectator, Helen grew
alarmed and grave.
"Oh, brother, do not go there again--do not see more of this bad man."
"Bad!--no! Hopeless and unhappy, he has stooped to stimulants and
oblivion;--but you cannot understand these things, my pretty
preacher."
"Yes I do, Leonard. What is the difference between being good and bad?
The good do not yield to temptations, and the bad do."
The definition was so simple and so wise that Leonard was more struck
with it than he might have been by the most elaborate sermon by Parson
Dale.
"I have often murmured to myself since I lost you, 'Helen was my good
angel;'--say on. For my heart is dark to myself, and while you speak
light seems to dawn on it."
This praise so confused Helen that she was long before she could obey
the command annexed to it. But, by little and little, words came to
both more frankly. And then he told her the sad tale of Chatterton,
and waited, anxious to hear her comments.
"Well," he said, seeing that she remained silent, "how can _I_ hope,
when this mighty genius labored and despaired? What did he want, save
birth and fortune, and friends, and human justice."
"Did he pray to God?" said Helen, drying her tears.
Again Leonard was startled. In reading the life of Chatterton, he had
not much noted the scepticism, assumed or real, of the ill-fated
aspirer to earthly immortality. At Helen's question, that scepticism
struck him forcibly.
"Why do you ask that, Helen?"
"Because, when we pray often, we grow so very, very patient," answered
the child. "Perhaps, had he been patient a few months more all would
have been won by him, as it will be by you, brother; for you pray, and
you will be patient."
Leonard bowed his head in deep thought, and this time the thought was
not gloomy. Then out from that awful life there glowed another
passage, which before he had not heeded duly, but regarded rather as
one of the darkest mysteries in the fate of Chatterton.
At the very time the despairing poet had locked himself up in his
garret, to dismiss his soul from its earthly ordeal, his genius had
just found its way into the light of renown. Good and learned and
powerful men were preparing to serve and save him. Another year,--nay,
perchance, another month--and he might have stood acknowledged and
sublime in the foremost front of his age.
"Oh Helen!" cried Leonard, raising his brows from which the cloud had
passed,--"Why, indeed, did you leave me?"
Helen started in her turn as he repeated this regret, and in her turn
grew thoughtful. At length she asked him if he had written for the box
which had belonged to her father, and been left at the inn.
And Leonard, though a little chafed at what he thought a childish
interruption to themes of graver interest, owned with self-reproach
that he had forgotten to do so. Should he not write now to order the
box to be sent to her at Miss Starke's.
"No; let it be sent to you. Take care of it. I should like to know
that something of mine is with you; and perhaps I may not stay here
long."
"Not stay here? That you must, my dear Helen--at least as long as Miss
Starke will keep you, and is kind. By-and-by, (added Leonard, with
something of his former sanguine tone) I may yet make my way, and we
shall have our cottage to ourselves. But--Oh Helen!--I forgot--you
wounded me; you left your money with me. I only found it in my drawers
the other day. Fie!--I have brought it back."
"It was not mine--it is yours. We were to share together--you paid
all; and how can I want it here, too?"
But Leonard was obstinate; and as Helen mournfully received back all
that of fortune her father had bequeathed to her, a tall female figure
stood at the entrance of the harbor, and said, that scattered all
sentiment to the winds--"Young man, it is time to go."
CHAPTER XXV.
"Already!" said Helen, with faltering accents, as she crept to Miss
Starke's side, while Leonard rose and bowed. "I am very grateful to
you, Madam," said he, with the grace that comes from all refinement of
idea, "for allowing me to see Miss Helen. Do not let me abuse your
kindness." Miss Starke seemed struck with his look and manner, and
made a stiff half curtsey.
A form more rigid than Miss Starke's it was hard to conceive. She was
like the grim white woman in the nursery ballads. Yet, apparently,
there was a good nature in allowing the stranger to enter her trim
garden, and providing for him and her little charge those fruit and
cakes which belied her aspect. "May I go with him to the gate?"
whispered Helen, as Leonard had already passed up the path.
"You may, child; but do not loiter. And then come back, and lock up
the cakes and cherries, or Patty will get at them."
Helen ran after Leonard.
"Write to me, brother--write to me; and do not, do not be friends with
this man who took you to that wicked, wicked place."
"Oh, Helen, I go from you strong enough to brave worse dangers than
that," said Leonard almost gaily.
They kissed each other at the little wicket gate, and parted.
Leonard walked home under the summer moonlight, and on entering his
chamber, looked first at his rose-tree. The leaves of yesterday's
flowers lay strewn round it; but the tree had put forth new buds.
"Nature ever restores," said the young man. He paused a moment, and
added, "It is that Nature is very patient?"
His sleep that night was not broken by the fearful dreams he had
lately known. He rose refreshed, and went his way to his day's
work--not stealing along the less crowded paths, but with a firm step,
through the throng of men. Be bold, adventurer--thou hast more to
suffer! Wilt thou sink? I look into thy heart, and I cannot answer.
FOOTNOTES:
[11] Continued from page 97.
[12] It may be necessary to observe, that homoeopathy professes to deal
with our moral affections as well as our physical maladies, and has a
globule for every sorrow.
From Sharpe's Magazine.
EGYPT UNDER ABBAS PASHA.
BY BAYLE ST. JOHN.
When the late Mohammed Ali heard at length of the taking of Acre by
his troops under Ibrahim, he exclaimed, "That place," adding an
energetic but somewhat unsavory expression, "that place has cost me,"
not the lives of so many thousand men, but, "so many thousand cantars
of gunpowder." These words illustrate pretty forcibly the narrow and
selfish views of that celebrated but overrated man. We do not believe,
indeed, that during the whole period of his sway in Egypt, the thought
ever crossed his mind that he was bound to govern for any other
purpose than his own personal aggrandisement, or that he was to regard
in the slightest degree the feelings, the comfort, the property or the
lives of his people.
The system which arose from this wretchedly egotistical state of mind
was to a certain extent successful. Although great schemes of
conquest, which even a more magnanimous species of selfishness might
have carried out, were destined to end in comparative shame and
disgrace, yet a somewhat brilliant _de facto_ sovereignty was erected
and maintained to the termination of the old man's life; and he died
regretting only that he had not been allowed to march to
Constantinople. To the end of his days he was rolling in wealth, and
possessed of arbitrary power in dominions of great extent, where he
was not the less arbitrary because he was compelled to acknowledge a
superior, and to send a tribute, instead of a fleet and an army, to
the shores of the Bosphorus. The provinces which he called his own,
lay sleeping in a death-like tranquillity; and because he could ride
through the streets without a guard, his flatterers told him that he
had secured the fear, respect and love of the people. For he had many
flatterers, this ancient of days;--not merely his own minions, whose
business it was, but European gentlemen, who affected to be awe-struck
in his presence, and gathered and treasured up and repeated his wise
sayings, his profound observations, and, save the mark! his wit; but
they never could impress on any impartial hearer the belief in any of
these things. His sayings and observations were sometimes very
foolish, sometimes distinguished by respectable common-sense; and his
wit consisted in prefacing a very silly or impertinent remark with a
peculiar grunt. Whenever, therefore, his courtiers, being in a
narrative mood, began to tell how on a certain occasion the pasha
said, "Hunk!" &c., a crowd of admirers were ready to smile, and one or
two disinterested lookers-on were compelled to smile likewise, though,
perhaps, for a very different reason.
Nothing is easier than to surround a man who has sufficient talents to
fight or wheedle himself into a position of authority with a halo of
false reputation; but it is rather more difficult to impress a
character on the civilization of a country, and, now-a-days, to found
an enduring dynasty. We shall not here recapitulate the enormous
blunders of Mohammed Ali, in political and economical questions, nor
explain how these blunders arose from a selfish desire to make what is
vulgarly called a "splash," nor waste an anathema on his crafty
cruelty and abominable tyranny. We wish merely to remind the reader
that his period of power having come to a close, little good had been
done, except, perhaps, improving the method of transacting public
business.
Well, there were plenty of people to succeed him. The pasha had a
large family of children and grandchildren, to whom he had behaved
sometimes with indulgence, but generally with unreasoning and perverse
severity. There was scarcely a member of his family with whom he had
not had many little quarrels, and who did not avoid his presence as
they did the plague. Even the favorite Ibrahim could not bear to live
in the same city as his presumed father; and the rest would have been
little less startled by the last summons of all, than they were by an
occasional order to appear in the presence of the angry and savage old
man. One feeling, however, was pretty general amongst them,--they
regarded the pasha as a wonderfully important personage, and
themselves consequently, being his children, as little less wonderful
and important. Their hopes were in the uncertainty of life; and very
many of them, in their own minds, had arranged what they would do in
case they came to be viceroy--how they would make the money spin, and
what mighty devices they would put in practice, to emulate and surpass
the splendors of "Effendina"--"Our Lord," _par excellence_.
It must be confessed that Abbas Pasha alone had the good sense to take
up a position of his own. Whether he was as crafty and politic as some
pretend before his elevation to power, it is difficult to decide; but
the plan, at that time generally ascribed to him, of forming what was
called a Turkish or bigoted party--a party of discontented great
folks, and fanatical Ulemas--a party which should appeal to the
religious prejudices of the good Caireens, and oppose itself to the
inroad of European adventurers and improvements,--this plan, if
distinctly formed, was certainly a very sagacious one. Let us be
frank: Europeans have done more harm than good in Egypt; that is to
say, whenever they have appeared, except as mere commercial men,
bringing the goods of their own countries, and anxious to take away
the surplus of the luxuriant crops of the valley of the Nile. As
political advisers, partly, perhaps, because men undertook to advise
who were fit only for the counting-house, partly because their own
interests were concerned, their intermeddling has been most
pernicious. Even the benefits, for some such there are, which have
been conferred by their wisdom, have been mingled with an immense
amount of misery. There is one fact which has attained an almost
mythological dignity, from its notoriety, and the admirable manner in
which it symbolises European meddling in Egypt. An English merchant,
who ought to have known the manners of the country, advised the
construction of the Mahmoudiyeh Canal. It has been most useful to
commerce; but twenty thousand people were starved or worked to death
within six weeks, in order to complete it. Fifty illustrations of the
same kind might be given; but we wish merely to have our meaning
understood, when we say that, if Abbas Pasha or his party ever
contemplated, as there is reason to suppose they did, the utter
destruction of foreign influence, the total change of a system, under
which French and English measures alternated like whig and tory
administrations, we must candidly admit they had some very good
grounds to go upon.
The creation of the party was a long and laborious work; very likely
it was brought and kept together more by mutual discontents, ambitious
hopes, and straightforward bigotry, than by any very Machiavellian
policy. Probably Abbas Pasha really liked ram-fighting, and was a
pigeon-fancier, and did not assume these tastes, as the elder Brutus
played the fool, in order to accomplish his ends. But, however this
may be, he certainly occupied a more respectable position than his
uncle Ibrahim, whose whole ideas of the duties of government were
getting money and playing at soldiers; and than any of the other
members of this most obese and heavy-headed family. Even if it be true
that he meditated a revolt against the broken-down conqueror of Syria,
and was only withheld by fear of the European powers, this fact gives
an impression of his energy, and by no means derogates from his
character in this country. The Saids and the Ahmeds, the Ismains and
the Mustaphas, would, each and all of them, strike a blow and rid the
country of their beloved relations, if the little word _impossible_
did not stare them in the face. As it is, they are in perpetual feud
with the head of the family, and there is no end to their bickerings,
heart-burnings, jealousies, and hatreds. Abbas is haughty and
overbearing to them; they as insolent as they may be to him. Be sure
that, on all sides, direful causes of affront have been given; but
probably Abbas has been provoked by unbecoming pretensions. What else
could be expected from a set of ignorant, debauched adventurers, who
have got a temporary footing in the country, and actually talk with
the pride of an ancient respectable line of hereditary princes of
their rights, and their expectations, and their rank, and so forth!
Abbas, of course, has not the same natural influence over this unruly
brotherhood as had the ruthless old man, and his more savage immediate
successor; and probably, in attempting to exert his rightful
authority, has been betrayed into undignified squabbles. It is certain
that many members of his family have fled or retired to
Constantinople; among others, Mohammed Ali Bey, and the notorious
Hazlet Hanem. Some remarks have been made on this subject, to the
effect that Abbas is frightening away his dutiful relations by his
violent and unreasonable conduct; but if Egypt never loses two of its
natives whom it can worse spare than these, it will be fortunate.
Without further inquiry than into their character, one would be
inclined to admire and respect the man who had quarrelled with them.
Mohammed Ali is a debauched worthless lad; and Madame Nazlet cannot
have justice done to her without details into which our pen is not at
liberty to enter.
It is a sad thing, certainly, to view the breaking up of a large
family; but it would be a sadder thing to witness vice unpunished, and
harmony arising out of the reckless indulgence of unbridled passions.
Abbas Pasha himself, if report speaks true, has little in his private
life to plead for lenity in judging of his public character. His taste
leads him to the most trifling amusements. Just as of old, when he was
the supposed head of a kind of Conservative Turkish party, when he was
Governor of Cairo, and silently nourishing his ambitious schemes, he
spends time and money in the undignified, though not inelegant, and
certainly innocent, occupation of a pigeon-fancier. Near the new
palace which he is building (none of these Turkish princes seem to
care about living where their fathers lived before them) rises a
magnificent square tower, entirely devoted to the loyal winged
favorites of his Highness the Viceroy, who is reported to be quite
learned in this department of natural history. Another of his tastes,
for which Englishmen will have more sympathy, is for horses; and the
public will remember his bold challenge to the Jockey Club. In what
way he passes the remainder of his leisure hours we do not inquire;
but we give him, in common with his relatives, the advantage of an
excuse that has before been urged in their favor--namely, that of an
infamous education.
Abbas Pasha has not exactly carried out the views which were
attributed to him before he reached his present elevation. He has not,
for example, done all that his fanatical anti-Frank friends could
expect in shaking off foreign influence. He began, it is true, by
getting rid, in rather a hasty and shabby manner, of many Europeans,
chiefly English, in his employ; and showed a disposition entirely to
put a stop to that enormous blunder of the Barrage. His first, and
very wise impulse, was either to destroy the works altogether, or,
abandoning them, simply allow the river to work its own majestic will.
But a clamor was raised on all sides! After throwing so many millions
of dollars into the river, why should not a few millions more be
thrown? I believe the French, who have a fondness for this undertaking
because it was suggested by or through Napoleon--(the Osiris of his
day is parent of all wonderful inventions)--I believe, I say, that
France made it almost a national question; and so this work, which
already impedes the navigation of one of the finest rivers in the
world, and which, if successful, would only achieve an object that one
quarter of the expense in the establishment of steam-engines at
various points for raising water would effectually accomplish, is
allowed to drag on slowly towards its conclusion. We must give Abbas
credit for the courageous good sense which suggested to him that the
first loss was the best; and yet we must not withhold from him some
praise for yielding to the influence of friendly persuasion, and
refraining from carrying out his own opinion, however well founded,
when he was told that, by doing so, he would incur the risk of being
accused of treason to his grandfather's fame. The old man had fondly
believed that his Barrage would join the Pyramids that look down upon
it in that restricted category of the "Wonders of the World," and
might well be supposed to lie uneasily in his grave if all the piles
which he had caused to be driven, all the mighty walls, and piers, and
arches, which he had caused to be raised with a disregard of expense
and human labor worthy of Cheops, were allowed to sink and lie
forgotten in the slimy bed of the Nile.
This was the first point on which it appeared that Abbas Pasha was not
disposed to act up fully to his presumed plan of destroying European
influence altogether; but, on many occasions, he early showed a
disposition to temporize between his prejudices and his interest. We
cannot here enter into details of minor importance, but, coming down
to a recent period, we may mention another instance of a similar
nature. For many years before his death, Mohammed Ali had held out
hopes that he would construct, or allow to be constructed, a railway
from Cairo to Suez. This was preëminently an English project--not
likely to be unuseful to the country at large, it is true, but
calculated chiefly to promote the more expeditious and comfortable
transit of passengers to and from India. The Pasha, however, deceived
by an excess of cunning, really entertained no intention of performing
his promise. With great want of sagacity, he confounded the proposed
stations on the line of railway, which he might have held in his own
hands if he chose, with the counters which he was told had formed the
nuclei of the British power in India. He believed the English had some
sinister designs upon his country, and were engaged in all sorts of
schemes for introducing themselves into it. The same policy which made
him refuse to deepen the entrance of the port of Alexandria, lest a
British fleet might come in, made him unwilling to throw a railway
across the Desert of Suez, even if he kept the whole management in his
own hands. The recommendations, he saw, came all from one country: the
objections, nearly all, from another. France was opposed to the
railway because it had another darling Neapolitan project in
hand--namely, the cutting of the Isthmus of Suez, which was much
talked of once, but which now nobody mentions but to laugh at. The
difficulties of execution, immense as they were found to be by the
Austrian commission, were not the most decisive objections. The real
ones were contained in an answer to the very appropriate
question--_Cui bono?_ However, the railway was shelved for a time. It
has lately come again upon the tapis; and although it is now proposed
to lay down a line in the first instance between Alexandria and Cairo,
to compensate for the water communication which M. Moujel is spoiling
by his Barrage, yet there is every probability of proper extensions
and branches being made in due time.
If, indeed, the project be really a serious one. Many say, in spite of
the official manner in which the announcement has been made, that it
is only a _ruse_, a piece of policy in order to propitiate English
influence, and that as soon as certain manoeuvres shall have been
successful or otherwise, nothing more will be said about the railway.
There is no answering for the diplomacy of Eastern courts; but this
explanation seems a little too Machiavellian. I have no doubt the
promise has been made, in part, because it is thought to be agreeable
to the English; but I can hardly imagine Abbas Pasha is so foolish as
not to know that if he coaxes Lord Palmerston with a sugar-plum, and
when his lordship opens his mouth, puts a finger in instead, Lord
Palmerston will bite pretty sharply.
Be these things as they may, it seems admitted on all hands that Abbas
Pasha has now completely thrown overboard the party which he courted
so assiduously as heir-apparent, and is seeking foreign, especially
English, support. All this is fair enough provided he does not fall
into the old error of sacrificing the natives entirely to strangers,
as did his great predecessor, and provided he do not allow himself to
be persuaded by flatterers--and he has flatterers; what man in power
has not?--to engage in grand undertakings for the purpose of emulating
the renown of the old Pharaohs. Egypt wants neither a resuscitation of
old times, nor a hasty imitation of the new. She has to find out the
form of its own civilization: and modern improvements, as they have
been hitherto introduced, will only weigh her down into despair.
But it is said that Abbas Pasha has no views at all about the progress
of the arts, and manufactures, and commerce; no thought of the
amelioration of the country; but that in endeavoring to gain the
good-will of Europe, he wants to serve some ambitious projects of his
own. There may be something in this. Not that it is probable he
intends to play the old game over again and throw off the yoke of
Stamboul; but there is certainly a very arduous struggle now carrying
on, both by open and underhand means, between Egypt and the Porte.
There is an infinity of points of difference between the vassal and
his lord; but the gist of the matter is, that the former wishes to
preserve all the privileges, to be treated with the same indulgence,
to be left with the same freedom of action, as his grandfather; he
wishes to remain, in fact, a vassal little more than in name, free to
indulge any arbitrary whims; whilst the latter is attempting, with
some reason,--with great reason indeed, but perhaps in too precipitate
a manner, and actuated by feelings that resemble private grudge,--to
reduce Egypt to the same subjection as the rest of the Ottoman Empire.
The discussion is a serious one, and much may be said on both sides;
but it must be accorded at once in favor of the Porte, that the
Viceroy of Egypt is not to be considered as an independent sovereign
merely paying tribute to a superior power, but as an officer of the
Empire. Certainly, he holds a distinguished position; and his case is
an exceptional one; but very imprudent would be any who should advise
him to take the same ground as Mohammed Ali, even after his defeat and
expulsion from Syria, was allowed to assume. He has been levying
troops, and is said even to have victualled his fleet to give more
weight to his negotiations; but it is not probable he will draw the
sword when, by giving way a little, he may establish a character for
moderation, and be left undisturbed in a position sufficiently
splendid to satisfy a very respectable ambition.
On the other hand, it is hoped that no undue heat, no petty jealousy,
no minor considerations of self-love--excited and encouraged by the
numerous runagates from Egypt, as Artin Bey and his fellows--will
finally govern the councils of Constantinople. Many missions have
passed from this country to the Porte with the object of warding off
the blows that are being aimed at the authority of Abbas Pasha.
Probably they ask too much, as is always done in such cases; but, if
reports speak true, they have been answered with an asperity which
seems calculated rather to provoke a quarrel than to lead to a
satisfactory settlement. The great question now is about the Tanzamat
promulgated by the Porte, which may be briefly described as a
well-intended attempt to introduce some kind of order into the
administration of the empire, to substitute certain rules in place of
arbitrary will, and generally to control the actions of what are
called the great men in their relations with those who, we suppose,
may be described as the little men. Such a scheme, even if imperfect
in its details and difficult to be applied, must command our
sympathies. The provinces of the Turkish empire--and Egypt is at least
as great in degree as the remainder--have been too long the sport of
caprice; and if it be the secret object of Abbas Pasha utterly to
prevent the introduction of this new system--to refuse it even a fair
trial--he will most certainly, whatever may be the effect of obstinate
passive resistance, receive no countenance or support from England.
It is said, however, that he merely desires--and such is the purport
of his remonstrances--that certain modifications, adapted to the
peculiar situation of Egypt, shall be made. The Porte is the best
judge as to how far these modifications are compatible with the spirit
of its decree; and as the communications that have taken place have
been chiefly verbal, we will not take upon ourselves to say whether
they are even suggested by any peculiar necessity. The negotiations
are in progress; and all we can say is, that unless Abbas Pasha be
considered too dangerous a subject, and his removal be desired, it
will be better to make up by amenity of procedure for the inexorable
requirements of principle.
There was one great grievance in Mohammed Ali's time, namely, the
existence of the _ferdeh_, or tax of one-twelfth upon income of all
kinds, down to that of the poorest fellah. This was a great outrage on
legality. It was opposed to all the constitutions of the Turkish
empire; and it was understood that, after the Syrian affair, it should
be voluntarily done away with by the Pasha. But an easy source of
revenue is not easily given up; and, in spite of all remonstrances,
the tax was maintained. There was no burden to which the people
objected more than this. They paid,--but they murmured somewhat
loudly; and even in the coffee-houses many were sometimes bold enough
to say the ferdeh was illegal. On one occasion, when Ibrahim Pasha was
in Cairo, not long before his father's death, there was the semblance
of a riot on the subject; but the stick and the halter were brought
into play, and the conviction produced that, legal or not legal, the
tax must be paid. Abbas Pasha himself for some time allowed this
copious fountain to gush into his treasury; but it now suited the
policy of the Porte to return vigorously to the charge in favor of
legality; and towards the end of last year the ferdeh was finally
abolished to the infinite delight of the whole population. The
long-wished-for event was celebrated by illuminations in Alexandria
and Cairo; and the general joy might have risen to something like
enthusiasm had not a fresh, though temporary, cause of discontent
accompanied the boon.
This was the conscription, which nearly drove Egypt into a revolt last
winter. In old times, when soldiers were wanted, men were pounced upon
suddenly wherever they could be found, and marched off, leaving great
grief behind; but before any dangerous excitement could be got up.
This was justly considered a barbarous and inartificial method; and
when, for what purposes remains a mystery, a certain levy of men was
required, it was determined to proceed with regularity, and to make
each district furnish its quota according to the number of
inhabitants. The idea, at first sight, seems both fair and wise; and
if the people could have been got to acquiesce in the necessity of
their supplying soldiers in any proportion at all, would have worked
very well. But as nobody in Egypt wants to shoulder a musket, as
everybody has the utmost hatred and abhorrence of military service,
arising partly from constitutional want of energy, but chiefly from
the knowledge that the soldier is ill-paid[13] and ill-fed, and
rarely, if ever, returns--we never met but one old discharged
campaigner in the country--it is not surprising if the public
announcement of the intentions of Government produced the greatest
possible perturbation. The first impulse of the whole adult
population, except those who could boast of some very undoubted claim
of exemption, was to fly to the mountains; and every defile, every
cavern, every catacomb, every quarry in the Libyan and Arabian chains,
were soon tenanted by people running away from enlistment. Wherever we
went in our excursions, we became accustomed to see lines of human
beings perched like crows on the summit of seemingly inaccessible
cliffs, on the look-out for the enemy in the shape of the
Sheikh-el-Beled; for the task of catching and forwarding the
prescribed number of "strong active young men" devolved on the civil
authority, aided sometimes by that estimable rural police, the Arnaout
irregular cavalry. On many occasions we surprised these poor people in
their retreats; and once, when they mistook us for recruiters, were
assailed with slings diverted from their original purpose, namely,
that of frightening the sparrows away from the crops. Accounts reached
us at several places that blood had been shed; and the affair in
various ways rendered our journey somewhat melancholy. Now we came
upon a large town, as Geneh, seemingly deserted by its whole
population, with closed shops and silent streets; then we met a party
of recruits, chained neck and neck, going to their destination; and
anon we saw a crowd of women, driven to despair by the loss of son, or
husband, or brother, tossing up their arms, tearing their garments,
and invoking curses on their oppressors. Public opinion in all
despotic countries finds utterance through the weaker sex; they dare
to say what would perhaps bring condign punishment on the men; they
nearly made a revolt once in Cairo under Mohammed Ali, and on the
present occasion they expressed their mind pretty freely. Some of the
more noisy brought a good beating on themselves from some irascible
Sheikh; but in general their anathemas were received with a kind of
sheepish deprecating good-humor. It was difficult to ascertain how
many recruits were at last got together, but, as near as I could
gather, the number ordered was one in about every 180 souls.
The sight of so much unhappiness naturally excited great indignation
and disgust; but not so much perhaps on reflection as the permanent
misery and ill-treatment of a great proportion of the population.
Abbas Pasha has taken the old system as he found it, and, with the
exception of the abolition of the ferdeh, has done nothing to
alleviate the condition of the fellah. It is especially on the lands
of the great men, the pashas and the beys, that these poor serfs are
worst off. Their profession is that of agricultural laborers, but it
must not be supposed that they have freedom to carry their services to
what master they will. They belong to the land as much as do the
palm-trees; and the nature of their occupation, their hours of labor,
and their pay, are regulated by their lord and master in a perfectly
arbitrary way. At Randa, opposite Sheikh Abadeh, we found a sugar
estate occupying 1,300 men, and endeavored to ascertain in as exact a
manner as possible how they were treated. We found that, in the first
place, they were, of course, forced to work, both on the land and in
the factory, at a nominal pay of twenty-five paras, or three-halfpence
a head, and that some of them were in active employment nearly
eighteen hours a day. Now it _is_ possible for a man to exist on such
wages in that part of Egypt, even with a family; and as bare existence
is considered in most countries an adequate reward for unintelligent
labor, there seemed not so much reason to complain. But then came the
question, how was the payment made? The answer in substance was, the
men are paid twenty-five paras a day, but they never get the money;
they receive what is called its value in the refuse molasses; but this
only when it can be of little service to them, when the owner of the
estate has glutted the market, and they can only sell at a loss of
forty or fifty per cent. They would be only too happy to receive
fifteen paras in hard cash; as it is, some of them necessarily eke out
their living by stealing, and others by the produce of little plots of
land, which they cultivate at night when they should be reposing after
the fatigues of the day. The women and children assist them, when the
latter are not pressed into what is called the service of the state;
that is, compelled to dig canals, and perform other light work for
which they receive neither pay nor food. Their parents bring them
food, or some charitable person flings them a morsel of coarse bread,
otherwise they would perish.
Such is pretty nearly the state of things in the private possessions
of all the descendants of Mohammed Ali. In fairness, however, we must
remind the reader that Abbas Pasha is only answerable for acquiescing
in customs handed down. He has not established any new pernicious
regulation that we have heard of; and even if he remain perfectly
quiescent and leave things to go their own gait, King Log is better
than King Stork. The mischievous activity of Mohammed Ali is not to be
regretted; and if, by the influence of Constantinople prudently
exercised, some little check is gradually put upon the caprices and
violence of the proprietors who call themselves princes--and it is for
the interest of Abbas Pasha that this should be the case--Egypt,
though not possessed of all the happiness she wants, might not be very
discontented, and would have no reason to look back with regret on the
time of the old pasha. According to all accounts, some classes of the
agricultural laborers are gradually enriching themselves in spite of
the burdens which they bear; and, although wealth is timid to show
itself, a great amelioration in the state of the country may soon be
perceptible.
FOOTNOTES:
[13] Soldiers will often stop a European in a by-place and beg. They get
about twenty paras (a penny farthing) a day.
From Household Words.
THE JEWS IN CHINA.
There is a quaintness in the notion of a Jewish colony surrounded by
Chinese; the fixed among the fixed. The fact that such a colony
exists, or has existed when found, ought to be especially remarked,
for to ethnologists and others it may prove a valuable opportunity for
speculation. Jews in China, what will they be like? Will the Jew stand
out from the surrounding uniformity of Chinese life, like the one tree
of the desert (for which, see Panorama of Overland Mail, and hear
lecture upon same); or will he become non-entity, like among like,
adding nothing to the first idea--silence in a calm? In the Jewish
synagogue in Kai-foung-fou, concerning which we have presently to
speak, there are Chinese inscriptions. The first placed there in 1444,
by a literary Jew, is intended to prove the close analogy between
Jewish and Chinese points of doctrine. "The author," it says, "of the
law of Yse-lo-ye (Israel) is Ha-vou-lo-han (Abraham). His law was
translated by tradition to Nichè (Moses). He received his book on Mt.
Sinai. His book has fifty-four sections. The doctrine which is therein
contained is much like that of the Kings," (which are sacred volumes
of the Chinese). The author of the inscription repeats many passages
to prove that in their worship to heaven, their ceremonies, their
behavior to the old and young, their patriarchal character, their
prayers, and their mode of honoring dead ancestors, the Jews resemble
the Chinese.
The author of a second inscription, a grand mandarin in his own time,
speaks to the same purpose. "From the time of Han," says this
gentleman, whose name is Too-tang, "from the time of Han, the Jews
fixed themselves in China; and in the twentieth year of the cycle 65,
(which is, by interpretation, 1163,) they offered to the Emperor
Hiao-tsong a tribute of cloth from India. He received them well, and
permitted them to live in Kai-foung-fou. They formed then sixty-six
families. They built a synagogue where they placed their Kings, or
Divine Scriptures." This mandarin concludes with an eulogium of Jewish
virtue, after the approved manner of epitaphs.
The Jews emphatically cultivated agriculture, commerce, were faithful
in the armies, upright as magistrates, and rigid in observance of
their ceremonies. One only wants to wind up with the scrap,
"Affliction sore, long time they bore;" but affliction on the part of
the Chinese, at any rate, they certainly did not bear; they were more
than tolerated, they were understood; ceremony-men to ceremony-men
were ceremoniously polite to one another. The Jews and Chinese even
intermarried; on their first introduction by way of Persia to the
Chinese Empire, they had settled here and there in sundry Chinese
cities; but by the marriage with Chinese disciples of Confucius or
Mahomet, the Jewish colonies were melted down into the pure Chinese
metal; and when this history begins, nothing is known of any synagogue
in China, save the synagogue at Kai-foung-fou, which is a city in the
heart of the Flowery Land, the capital of the central province of
Honan; and for an account of which we are indebted to Father Ricci,
one of the Jesuit Missionaries.
Father Ricci died in the year 1610, at Pekin, which was his station.
Father Ricci, at Pekin, first heard of the Jewish synagogue at
Kai-foung-fou, and the information startled him exceedingly. The young
Jew who enlightened Father Ricci on the subject told him that there
were then at Kai-foung-fou barely a dozen Jewish families, and that
for five or six hundred years they had preserved in their synagogue a
very ancient copy of the Pentateuch. The father produced a Hebrew
Bible, and the young man recognized the characters, although he could
not read them, for he knew no language but Chinese. Four years after
this, Father Ricci (whose business at Pekin would not permit him to go
gadding) had an opportunity of sending off to Kai-foung-fou a Chinese
Jesuit, with a letter written in Chinese, to the chief of the
synagogue. He explained to the rabbi his own reverence for the books
of the Old Testament, and informed him of its fulfilled predictions,
and the advent of a Messiah. The rabbi shook his head at that, saying,
"that so it could not be, because they had yet to expect the Messiah
for ten thousand years." The good natured rabbi nevertheless did
homage to Father Ricci's great abilities. He was an old man, and saw
none about him fit to guide his people; he therefore besought the
learned Jesuit to come to Kai-foung-fou, and undertake the guidance of
the synagogue, under one only condition, a true Chinese-Jewish one,
that he would pledge himself to abstinence from all forbidden meats.
However, that was very much as if Dr. Jones of Bettws-y-Coed should
offer his practice to Sir B. Brodie of London. Father Ricci had a
larger work in hand, and so he stopped at Pekin.
In 1613, Father Aleni (such an uncommonly wise man, that the Chinese
called him the Confucius of Europe) was directed to proceed to
Kai-foung-fou and make investigation. Father Aleni, being well up in
his Hebrew, was a promising man to send on such an errand, but he
found the rabbi dead, and the Jews, though they let him see the
synagogue, would not produce their books. The particulars of nothing
having been done on this occasion are to be found related by Father
Trigaut, in choice Latin, and choicer Italian, (_de Expedit. Sinicâ,
lib. 1., cap. 2, p. 118_,) and by Father Samedo (_Relatione della
China, part 1., cap. 30, p. 193_.)
A residence was established by the Jesuits in Kai-foung-fou. _Now_,
thought those who thought at all upon such matters, we shall have
something done. If we can only compare our Old Testament texts with an
ancient exemplar, that will be no small gain. A certain father Gozani
went zealously into the whole subject, entered the synagogue, copied
the inscriptions, and transmitted them to Rome.
The Jews told Father Gozani that in a temple at Pekin was a large
volume, wherein were inscribed the sacred books of foreigners resident
in China. That volume was sought afterwards by Europeans at Pekin, but
not found. Certainly such a volume does exist among the Chinese
records. The Jews, however, told Father Gozani not only about what
existed in Pekin, but all about themselves at Kai-foung-fou. The
Father wrote a letter, dated 1704, containing what he learned in this
manner. It appears that by that application of "soft sawder" which is
or ought to be well understood by men of the world and Jesuits, the
Father gratified the Jews, so that they paid him voluntary visits. He
returned their visits by a call upon them at their synagogue, where,
he says--"I had a long conversation with them; and they showed me
their inscriptions; some of which are in Chinese, and others in their
own tongue. I saw also their _Kims_, or religious books, and they
suffered me to enter even the most secret place of their synagogue, to
which they can have no access themselves. That place is reserved for
their _Chian-Kiao_; that is to say, chief of the synagogue, who never
approaches it but with the most profound respect.
"There were thirteen tabernacles placed upon tables, each of which was
surrounded by small curtains. The sacred _Kim_ of Moses (the
Pentateuch) was shut up in each of these tabernacles, twelve of which
represented the Twelve Tribes of Israel; and the thirteenth, Moses.
The books were written on long pieces of parchment, and folded up on
rollers. I obtained leave from the chief of the synagogue to draw the
curtains of one of these tabernacles, and to unroll one of the books,
which appeared to me to be written in a hand exceedingly neat and
distinct. One of these books had been luckily saved from the great
inundation of the river _Hoang-ho_, which overflowed the city of
Kai-foung-fou, the capital of the province. As the letters of the book
have been wetted, and on that account are almost effaced, the Jews
have been at great pains to get a dozen copies made, which they
carefully preserve in the twelve tabernacles above mentioned.
"There are to be seen also in two other places of the synagogue,
coffers, in which are shut up with great care several other little
books, containing different divisions of the Pentateuch of Moses,
which they call _Ta-Kim_, and other parts of their law. They use these
books when they pray; they showed me some of them, which appeared to
be written in Hebrew. They were partly new and partly old, and half
torn. They, however, bestow as much attention on guarding them as if
they were gold or silver.
"In the middle of the synagogue stands a magnificent chair, raised
very high, and ornamented with a beautiful embroidered cushion. This
is the chair of Moses, in which every Saturday, and days of great
solemnity, they place their Pentateuch, and read some portions of it.
There also may be seen a _Van-sui-pai_, or painting, on which is
inscribed the Emperor's name; but they have neither statues nor
images. This synagogue fronts the west, and when they address their
prayers to the Supreme Being, they turn towards that quarter, and
adore him under the name of _Tien_, _Cham-Tien_, _Cham-ti_, and
_Kao-van-voe-tche_; that is to say, _Creator of all things_; and
lastly, of _Van-voe-tchu-tcai, Governor of the Universe_. They told me
that they had taken these names from the Chinese books, and that they
used them to express the Supreme Being and First Cause.
"In going out from the synagogue, I observed a hall, which I had the
curiosity to enter, but I found nothing remarkable in it, except a
great number of censers. They told me that in this hall they honored
their _Chim-gins_, or the great men of their law. The largest of these
censers, which is intended for the Patriarch Abraham, stands in the
middle of the hall, after which come those of Isaac, and Jacob, and
his twelve branches, or the Twelve Tribes of Israel; next are those of
Moses, Aaron, Joshua, Esdras, and several other illustrious persons,
both male and female.
"After quitting this apartment, they conducted us to the Hall of
Strangers, in order to give us an entertainment. As the titles of the
books of the Old Testament were printed in Hebrew at the end of my
Bible, I showed them to _Cham-Kiao_, or chief of the synagogue; he
immediately read them, though they were badly printed, and he told me
that they were the names of their _Chin-Kim_, or Pentateuch. I then
took my Bible, and the _Cham-Kiao_ took his _Beresith_ (thus they name
the Book of Genesis); we compared the descendants of Adam, until Noah,
with the age of each, and we found the most perfect conformity between
both. We afterwards ran over the names and chronology in Genesis,
Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy, which compose the
Pentateuch, or five Books of Moses. The chief of the synagogue told me
that they named these five books _Beresith_, _Veelesemoth_, _Vaiiora_,
_Vaiedabber_, and _Haddebarim_, and that they divided them into
fifty-three volumes; _viz._, Genesis into twelve, Exodus into eleven,
and the three following books into ten volumes each, which they call
_Kuen_. Some of these they opened, and presented to me to read; but it
was to no purpose, as I was unacquainted with the Hebrew language.
"Having interrogated them respecting the titles of the other books of
the Bible, the chief of the synagogue replied, that they were in
possession of some of them, but that they wanted a great many, and of
others they had no knowledge. Some of his assistants added, that they
had lost several books in the inundation of the Hoang-ho, of which I
have spoken."
Father Gozani has spoken of the inundation, but we have not, and so we
will do so now. Previously, however, we may call attention to the
distinct adoption of the Chinese "Hall of Ancestors" among these Jews,
and of a place for showing hospitality to strangers as an appendage to
their place of worship. It is in this way that, without violating
their own opinions, they became assimilated more completely to their
neighbors. Father Gozani also notes that their accounts of sacred
history were grossly disfigured with Talmudical legends, or other
stories of that class--a fact not to be lost sight of by the
speculator. The Jews, in the time of Father Gozani, composed seven
families--Phao, Kin, Che, Kao, The-Man, Li, Ngai--including in all
about one thousand souls. They intermarried with each other, and had
their own fashion of hair-cutting. These seven families of
Kai-foung-fou were the remains of seventy who had of old established
themselves in that capital. Now for the inundation. That event took
place in the year 1642, and it occurred as follows:--Li-cong-tse, a
rebel, with a big army, besieged the city. The inhabitants, after
defending themselves for six months, still refused to succumb, because
they expected rescue from the Emperor. The Emperor did come, a vastly
clever fellow, who determined to destroy the enemy by a great
master-stroke. "I'll drown every man-jack!" he said, and broke the
dikes that confined the Hoang-ho, or Yellow River, a league distant
from the city. Out poured the stream and drowned the besiegers, and
besieged the city in its turn, knocked down its walls, and destroyed
thirty thousand of its inmates. The Emperor, a cockney sportsman on
the largest scale, shot at the pigeon and killed the crow. It was in
this inundation that the number of the Jews was thinned; diluted by
the waters of the river, their Pentateuch was damaged and some other
portions of their scripture altogether lost.
Before passing down from Father Gozani, we must extract his rough
picture of the Jewish synagogue, as it existed in his day. He says of
the Jews--
"They have no other synagogue but this, in the capital of the province
of Ho-Nan. I perceived in it no altar, nor any other furniture, but
the chair of Moses, with a censer, a long table, and large
chandeliers, in which were placed candles made of tallow. This
synagogue has some resemblance to our European churches; it is divided
into three aisles; that in the middle is occupied by the table of
incense, the chair of Moses, the painting, and the tabernacles already
mentioned, in which are preserved the thirteen copies of the
Pentateuch. These tabernacles are constructed in the form of an arch,
and the middle aisle is like the choir of the synagogue; the two
others are set apart as places of prayer, and for the adoration of the
Supreme Being. Within the building there is a passage which runs quite
round.
"As there formerly were, and still are, among them Bachelors and
_Kien-sens_, which is a degree different from that of a Bachelor, I
took the liberty of asking them if they rendered homage to Confucius;
they replied that they honored him in the same manner as the rest of
the literati, and that they assisted them in solemn ceremonies, which
are performed in halls dedicated to their great men. They added, that
in spring and autumn they practised certain rites in honor of their
ancestors, according to the manner of Chinese, in the hall next to
their synagogue; that they did not present them the flesh of hogs, but
of other animals; that in other ceremonies they were contented with
offering them porcelain dishes filled with dainties and sweetmeats,
which they accompanied with perfumes and profound reverences or
prostrations. I asked them, likewise, if in their houses or Hall of
Ancestors, they had tablets in honor of their departed relations; they
replied that they used neither tablets, images, nor any thing else,
but only a few censers. We must, however, except their mandarins, for
whom alone they place in the Hall of Ancestors a tablet inscribed with
their name and rank."
Father Gozani adds, that "these Jews, in their inscriptions, call
their law the Law of Israel, _Yselals-Kiao_, which they name also
_Kon-Kiao_, Ancient Law; _Tien-Kiao_, Law of God, and _Tien-Kin-Kiao_,
to signify that they abstain from blood, and cut the nerves and veins
of the animals they kill, in order that the blood may flow more easily
from them."
This custom gives to the Jews in China, at the present day, the name
of Cut-Nerves. To the present day our story now descends; for, after
the time of Father Gozani, blank follows in the way of action. Father
Etienne, who meditated a work upon the Sacred Scriptures in reply to
the _Critici Sacri_, was eager to push on investigations. From the
letters of Father Gozani, and from those which Father Domingo and
Gambil wrote upon it, material was obtained for the memoir published
under the direction of M. L. Aimé Martin, in which he remarks that the
detail would be regarded with the more curiosity, as it had been often
demanded, and as Father du Halde had contented himself with merely
promising it in his great work, "Description de la Chine." So we have
fairly got out of the past into the present, where our story thus runs
on.
In the year 1815, the Chinese Jews endeavored unsuccessfully to
communicate with Europe by means of a Hebrew letter addressed to
London, which seems not to have been delivered. Last year the Jewish
Society of London determined, however, to communicate with them. Miss
Cooks, an energetic and devoted Jewess, placed her purse in the hands
of the Society; nothing impeded fresh research; the English bishop at
Hong Kong co-operated, Dr. Medhurst was consulted, and two Chinese
Christians were at length appointed to proceed to Kai-foung-fou. The
elder of these two was a bachelor; the younger was a student from the
Missionaries' College at Batavia; but the junior was named to head the
enterprise, because he had previously displayed zeal and ability, and
also because he could write English fluently, and would journalize in
that language. His journals, therefore, could be laid before Miss
Cooks, uninjured by translation.
Our heroes--for so we will call the two adventurers--set out from
Shanghae, on the 15th of last November, by boat to Toing-kiang-tou. In
a car, drawn by mules, they were then jolted along, following the
track of the Hoang-ho, rising at three o'clock on winter mornings, to
save time--a proceeding which involves almost supererogatory
self-denial. Population near the Yellow River they found rare and
unhealthy. Localities which figure in the geographical charts of the
empire as principal places, or as towns of the second class, are but
huge piles of rubbish, surrounded by crumbling walls. Here and there a
gate, with its inscription half-effaced, informs the traveller that he
is entering a mighty town.
Perseverance, and a mule car, brought the travellers to Kai-foung-fou.
They found there many Mahometans, openly exercising right of
conscience, and flying their religion on a flag displayed over their
gate. These Mahometans are, for the most part, hotel-keepers, and with
one of them our heroes lodged. Of him they began asking about
Cut-Nerves. Mine host of the Crescent said there were still some Jews
in Kai-foung-fou, and offered himself as a cicerone to their
synagogue. Thither they went. They found its outer wall in ruins;
briers and dirt filled the grand entrance; "the pillars of the
building, the inscribed marbles, the stone balustrade, before the
peristyle of the temple, the ornamental sculpture--all were cracked,
broken, and overturned." Under the wings of the synagogue, the chapels
built in honor of the patriarchs--nestled together, cold and naked,
sleeping on the bare stones, those objects of our European interest,
"the Jews in China." Poor and miserable as they are, they had begun to
sell the stones of their temple for bread, and a portion of land
within their sacred inclosure had been already sold to an adjacent
temple of the Buddhists.
Still, there were the cylinders inclosing the sacred rolls of the Old
Testament, which, luckily, had not proved eatable. In number, these
rolls were about a dozen, each thirty feet long by three feet wide.
They are of white sheep-skin, inscribed with very small Hebrew
characters.
For fifty years these poor Jews have been without the guidance of a
rabbi, and there is not one left who can read a word of Hebrew. In a
dozen years, probably, the last trace of the Jews in China will
expire. The travellers gave money to the mournful congregation in the
synagogue, and received leave to copy the inscriptions, about which
the Jesuits had previously informed us. Moreover, they obtained, and
have brought home, eight Hebrew manuscripts; six contain portions of
the Old Testament, namely, of Exodus, chapters 1-6, and 38-40; of
Leviticus, chapters 19, 20; of Numbers, chapters 13, 14, 15; of
Deuteronomy, chapters 11-16, and chapter 32; with portions of the
Pentateuch, the Psalms, and Prophets. The other two manuscripts are of
the Jewish Liturgy. The leaves of these manuscripts "are of a species
of card-board, on which the words, as it were, are engraved with a
point; the binding is in silk, and bears evident marks of being of
foreign origin. Two Israelitish merchants, to whom these books were
shown at Shanghae, spoke of having seen similar ones at Aken, and the
presence here and there upon the margins of Persian words,
interspersed with Hebrew annotations, seemed to indicate that the
books came originally from some western country of Asia, perhaps
Persia, or some of the high provinces of India, where Persic has from
time immemorial been the language used among people of education.
Although the annotations mentioned are numerous, and apparently
referring to different epochs, no trace of any Chinese character is to
be discovered, nor any of those marks or signs which immediately
betray Chinese origin. No date exists by which the age can be
determined."
We hope the statement is correct which tells us that these manuscripts
are to be deposited in the British Museum. Fac-similes are at the same
time promised, printed in Hebrew, accompanied with a plan of the
synagogue, made on the spot by the Chinese travellers, and the journal
of our junior hero, written in English and Chinese. The journal in
English would not be a very ponderous affair, the entire expedition
having occupied only two months--the residence at Kai-foung-fou, five
days. We may usefully remember how the good Chinese, rising so
fearfully betimes, did justice to the generosity and zeal of their
patroness. Are there not men of might at work upon investigations for
the public, who, at their ordinary rate, might have come to abandon
this business in forty years, after eliminating fifty pounds of
blue-book?
_Authors and Books._
LUDWIG FUERBACH, the last great philosopher of Young Germany, whose
doctrines have been complacently declared as "more utterly
irreconcilable with pietism or orthodox Christianity than those of any
of his predecessors," has at length published his course of lectures
"On the Existence of Religion," delivered at Heidelberg, from the
month of December 1848 to March 1849. With regard to the apparent
apathy with which he has regarded the great political events of these
latter days, and the reproach that he has taken no active part
therein--in which he forms a somewhat unfavorable contrast with Fichte
and other great thinkers of the last generation--he remarks: "It will
not appear strange that these lectures have not before been published;
for what could, at the present day, be more seasonable than a
remembrance of the year 1848? And by this souvenir I would also
remark, that these lectures have been my only public intimations of
activity during the so-called time of the Revolution. My own share in
all the political and unpolitical deeds and movements of those times,
was merely that of a critical beholder and listener, for the very
simple reason that I could take no part in aimless, and consequently
headless (silly) undertakings, having foreseen, or at least felt, from
the very beginning of the whole movement, that such would be its
result. A well-known Frenchman lately put me the question, Why I took
no active part in the revolution of 1848? I replied, Mr.
Taillandier,[14] if another revolution should break forth, and I take
an active part therein, then may you, to the terror of your
God-believing soul, be certain that this would be an overpowering
revolution, bringing with it the judgment-day of monarchy and
hierarchy. This revolution I should, alas! never survive. But I now
also take an active part in a great revolution, but one whose true
effects and results will be first developed in the course of
centuries. For you know, Mr. Taillandier, according to my
theory--which recognizes no Gods, and, consequently, no miracles in
the sphere of politics--according to my theory, of which you know and
understand nothing, though you assume to pass judgment on me instead
of studying me, if TIME and SPACE are the fundamental conditions of
all being and existence, of all thought and action, of all prosperity
and success. Not that believers in God were wanting to the parliament,
as some one humorously asserted in the Bavarian State
council-chamber--the majority, at least, were believers, and the good
Lord always sides with the majority--but because it had no
comprehension of place or time, on which account it came to such a
disgraceful and resultless end."
This, certainly, will appear to most readers to be, despite its
bitterness, a lame and weak apology for neutrality, though we imagine
that but little good could result from the intensest activity, when
directed by such principles. Taillandier has also, in his own
unassuming way, done, for so young a man, a full share of work "in the
great revolution, whose true effects and results will be first
developed in the course of centuries."
* * * * *
AUGUST KOPISCH, well known as the collector and translator of
_Agrumi_--a choice selection of Italian Popular Songs--has recently
published by Ernest and Korn of Berlin, a _Description and Explanation
of the Monument to Frederic the Second_. A far more elegant work on
the same subject, with no less than twenty excellent views of the
monument, taken from as many points, appears from Decker, to which we
may add another by Kohlheim, illustrated with a selection of ancient
and modern poems relative to the memory of "Old Fritz."
* * * * *
We observe from a prospectus recently sent forth by the publisher, J.
G. Muller, in Gotha, that the _Janus_, a well known and ably edited
quarterly, devoted to medical literature, history, biographies, and
statistics, the publication of which was suspended in 1848, on account
of the political difficulties which then agitated Germany, is again to
make its appearance, under the editorial charge of Doctors
Bretschneider, Henschel, Hensinger, and Thierfelder, who will be aided
in their efforts by many learned correspondents and contributors in
different countries. Like most revived publications, it will be
published in a style superior to its original, and to judge from the
type and paper of the prospectus, which is given as a specimen of that
with which the work is to be issued, its appearance will be truly
exquisite.
* * * * *
FRANZ KUGLER the great historian and critic of Art, has made his
appearance in a small _brochure_ of thirty pages, entitled, _Three
Articles upon Theatrical Affairs_,--which, however, appears to have
met with but little admiration, if we may judge from the hard knock
which a reviewer gives it with the word--"Unpractical as the
suggestions are, which we find allied to these observations, they
would still give us no occasion for remark, had not Herr Kugler made
them a pretence for political discussion." Apropos of Kugler we may
observe that a very excellent work entitled _Denkmaler der Kunst_
(Souvenirs of Art), consisting of very neatly engraved and very
extensive illustrations of Art in all ages and nations, intended
specially as a companion work to the Berlin professor's _History_, has
just been published for the first time in a compact form by Ebner and
Seubert of Stuttgart. Among its authors or contributors we see the
names of Dr. Ernst Guhl, Jos. Caspar, and Professor Voit of Munich.
* * * * *
The conclusion of the late JOHANN VON MULLER'S _History of the Swiss
Confederation_ has just appeared from the hands of MM. VULLIEMIN and
MONNARD. The work was commenced in 1786; when Von Muller died it was
brought down to the year 1489; and it has since been continued by four
other authors in succession. Robert Glutz-Blozheim took up the
narrative where Von Muller stopped, and continued it to 1516; after
his death, John Jacob Hottinger described the progress of the
reformation in the German cantons; but on coming to the part which the
French cantons took in this great movement, it was decided to employ a
native of that part of the Confederation, and the work was accordingly
given to Louis Vulliemin, who completed the history of the sixteenth
and seventeenth centuries. He was followed by E. Monnard, Professor in
the University of Bonn, who carried it as far as the second peace of
Paris, in 1815. Both he and M. Vulliemin had already translated into
French the volumes of their German predecessors. Their own volumes are
now being translated into German, and the entire performance will soon
be printed in both languages.
* * * * *
An interesting contribution to the religious and metaphysical history
of Germany in the last generation will be found in the _Autobiography_
of BRETSCHNEIDER, now being published in parts, by his son-in-law
Horst. It is described as a faithful as well as interesting narrative
of the life of its deceased author and subject, who must fill a
prominent place in the history of that great theological development
of which his country has recently been the scene. He was a
rationalist, but without aiming at the rejection or annihilation of
the Christian supernaturalism. The sense of dependence on God, which
was the foundation of Schleiermacher's theory, he regarded as stupid
mysticism, and the general tendency of the more recent philosophy as
obscure, abstruse, scholastic, and useless. He was a vigorous and
unsparing controversialist, and the greater part of his writings are
of that character.
* * * * *
DR. WURTH, the dramatist and theatrical director, has published a play
"with choruses, dances, _and melodramas_ (_?_) entitled _The Gipsey
Queen of Hungary in the year 1849_."
* * * * *
Those of our Philadelphia friends, who are conversant with foreign
literature, will do well to patronise Herr CHRISTERN, who has recently
opened an establishment of French, German, and Italian works at No.
232 Chesnut-st. Mr. Christern has been for several years the
superintendant of the extensive bookstore of Kaisar, the eminent
bibliographist in Berlin. We are happy thus to recommend Herr
Christern as a scholar, well acquainted with something more than the
mere titles of his wares.
* * * * *
Among "divers diversities," we note that the passion for Slavonic
literature, which has received such an impetus during the last two
years, has induced HERR SIEGFRIED KAPPER to write, after ancient
Servian legends and heroic lyrics, a poem entitled _Lazar der
Serbencar_. A new edition of CLEMENS BRENTANO'S _History of the brave
Kasperl and fair Annerl_, has also been published at Berlin by the
"United Bookselling Establishment," with an illustration.
GLASSBRENNER, the humorist, (who is, however, we believe, not
identical with his Rabelæsian pen-brother BRENNGLASER,) publishes by
Simion of Berlin a third edition of his poems, while the more recent
numbers of _Die Grenzboten_, the _Monatscrift_ and the _Europa_ are
rich in a variety of articles surpassing in general interest any thing
of the kind which we have for a long time witnessed in German
periodical literature. It is to be wished that our own literati and
miscellaneous intellectual purveyors would make a far more extended
use of these German monthlies than they have hitherto done. Except the
_International_, the _Tribune_ is almost the only periodical in the
country that makes any considerable use of the German literary
journals.
* * * * *
IMRESI, _die Ungarischen Flüchtlinge in d. Türkei_, (Imresi, or the
Hungarian Refugees in Turkey), being a collection of data relative to
the history of the emigration of 1849, from the journal of an exile,
returned from Turkey, translated from the Hungarian, with additions by
VASFI, has just appeared at Leipzig. "The _data_ alluded to in this
article," remarks a German review, "principally concern the personal
history of the Hungarian exiles in Turkey. In point of time it reaches
to their departure from Widdin to Shumla. Many articles are added
drawn from newspapers and private sources, relative to their
adventures, to the fortune of those who have emigrated to America, and
to the influence of England in these matters. A certain chapter on
Turkish manners and customs, containing nothing which has not been
already better described by other writers, might as well have been
omitted."
* * * * *
THORWALDSEN'S _Jugend_ (or The Youth of Thorwaldsen) is the title of a
work composed from the correspondence, manuscripts and notes of the
illustrious artist, written originally in Danish by Hans Wachenhufen,
and translated by J. M. Thiele, (if we mistake not, the eminent
theologian). "The style and execution is somewhat stiff and dry, which
may, however, be partly the fault of the translator, who appears to
have deemed it his duty to condense as much as possible; and has in
consequence apparently detracted in a degree from the easy,
confidential tone with which it is inspired. Nor is the translation
entirely free from errors and provincial expressions."
* * * * *
Among the most exquisite works recently published in Germany we
observe a second greatly augmented and improved edition of _Alte und
neue Kinderlieder Fabeln, Sprüche und Rathseln_, or, Old and New
Songs, Fables, Sayings, and Riddles for Children, with illustrations
by W. von Kaulbach, C. v. Aeideck, G. Konig, A. Kreling, E.
Neureuther, the humorous and popular Graf. v. Poeci, L. Richter, C. H.
Schmolze, M. v. Schwind, Stauber, &c. We have been thus particular in
mentioning these names, that those who have not as yet seen the work
may form some idea of the excellence of its illustrations. The only
objection indeed which we have to find is, that the text (despite its
title) is too far subordinate to the illustrations. A work of this
description should at least have comprised _a majority_ of those songs
heard in every Germany nursery, and which are given with such _naïve_
truthfulness in _Des Knaben Wonderhorn_. In several instances these
old songs were evidently the sources whence the spirit of the
illustration was derived, which illustration is here applied to a
limited scrap of the original; as for instance, in the exquisitely
spirited and droll picture of _das bucklig's Mannlein_, or the
hump-backed dwarf, by _Schwind_, which is far more applicable to the
droll, demi, diabolical popular ballad of that name, than to the old
scrap of verse which it over-illustrates. But as an album of admirable
designs the work is unrivalled. The engraving of the mother and child
illustrating the ballad of _Schlof Kindlein_ is truly beautiful,
conceived in a spirit of naïve fantasie, peculiarly applicable to the
odd yet childlike song. _Das Glocklein im Hersen_, in which Christ is
represented as opening the gate of Heaven to a child, by W. Kaulbach,
in its pious, gentle beauty, almost transcends praise. Our notice
already exceeds limit, yet we cannot leave this gem-book without
specially and further commending The Toy-dealer of Nuremberg, a
masterpiece of domestic life, by L. Richter, and _Es staig eim Herr zu
Rosse_, or A Rider mounting his Horse, by Schwind, which forcibly
recall the romantic etchings of Albert Durer.
* * * * *
A convention of Sclavic scholars, under the auspices of the Servian
literary society of _Matica Ilirska_, in Agram, will probably soon be
held, to consider the possibility of combining the different Sclavic
dialects into one language. This will be extremely difficult, if not
impossible, on account of the degree of cultivation which the
languages of the Sclavic stock have attained.
* * * * *
A translation of JOHN MILTON'S _Areopagitica_, a Speech for the
Liberty of unlicensed Printing, to the Parliament of England, in 1644,
has recently been executed by Dr. RICHARD RÖPELL, Professor of History
at the University of Breslau, and published by Veit and Co. of
Berlin.
* * * * *
"In every revolution, good or bad, there are blind fanatics and
selfish intriguers ready to take part, and loafers and vagabonds
(_Bummler und Gamins_) willing to raise their voices." This is the
remark of a German medical critic on a recent hydropathically insane
composition, entitled _The Sin-register of the Medical Art of
Healing_. In this work the _servum pecus_ of allopathic physicians are
richly abused, partly with biblical quotations and partly with
original anathemas. Another on the same subject and in the same
curious style, is entitled, _Gustav Schwab, the noble bard of Suabia_,
by GOTTLOB WASSERMAN (or Praise-God Water-man). In this work the
anti-Sangrado author proves to his own satisfaction, that the _noble
bard_ came to his death in consequence of having been imprudently
bled, on one occasion, some six months previous to his death.
* * * * *
At the end of June an eighth edition of OSCAR VON REDUITZ'S
_Amaranth_, was announced, and it has already been succeeded by a
ninth. Many of the poems in this collection are in Uhland's romantic
vein, and abound in the artistic spirit. To this we may add a
_Mahrchen_ in verse, (or Child's Tale,) a beautiful fantasie of birds,
brooks, leaves, and sunshine, reminding us at times of _The Story
without an End_, at others of Sara Coleridge's _Phantasmion_. But as
it is one of those gilded fascinations which invariably charm on a
first perusal, we leave to some more accurate reader the task of
judging more critically as to its literary merit.
* * * * *
A translation of Shakspeare's Plays into the Swedish language by
HAGBERG, Professor of Greek in the University of Lund, is now in
course of publication. Of this twelve volumes have appeared; and
although the first edition consisted of no less than two thousand
copies, the whole have been sold off, and a second edition is in
preparation.
* * * * *
The lectures of NEANDER, _On Church History_, etc., are soon to
appear, in fifteen volumes, edited by Professor JULIUS MULLER, of
Halle. The Interpretation of the Gospel of St. John, will form the
first part of the work.
* * * * *
German books and pamphlets on the Crystal Palace and the Great
Exhibition, are already in the market, or have indeed been extant for
some time. _Der Krystall Palast im Hyde Park_, is among the last in
this line.
* * * * *
M. POUSSIN, recently the minister of France to this country, has in
preparation a volume for popular circulation on the comparative merits
of the French and American constitutions.
* * * * *
The Prussian minister VON RADOWITZ has published a second series of
his _Dialogues on Church and State_, of which the first series
appeared in 1846.
* * * * *
BARON DUDEVANT, husband of GEORGE SAND, the French papers lately
declared had died in an obscure apartment in Paris; but it appears, on
the contrary, that he is still living, in true baronial style, at his
chateau on the Garonne. A correspondent of the _Tribune_ says, "he
never reads his wife's romances, and that his decease was believed in
Paris, for several literary gentlemen of eminence are said to have
laid their hands and fortunes at the feet of the large-hearted woman"
who was supposed to be a widow.
* * * * *
AUGUSTE COMTE has just published the first volume of a new work, his
_Systeme de Politique Positive_. In his great work, _Philosophie
Positive_, he was forced by his method to proceed objectively--from
the world up to man; he now proceeds subjectively--from man to the
world. This system of Positive Polity he calls a Treatise of
Sociology, instituting the Religion of Humanity.
* * * * *
EMILE DE GIRARDIN announces a new pamphlet, the title of which sets
one thinking, _La Révolution Légale par la Présidence d'un Ouvrier_.
(The Revolution Legal through the Presidency of a Workman.)
* * * * *
LAMARTINE has published the first volume of _The History of the
Restoration of the Monarchy in France_. It is intended as a sequel to
his History of the Girondins, and this initial volume comprises the
closing days of the Empire, the last great struggle of Napoleon with
the combined armies in 1814, and the abdication at Fontainbleau. The
tone throughout is derived from the partizan feelings of the present
time. Its characteristic is an elaborate and determined depreciation
of the emperor. The author's apparent ambition is to be striking, and
he sometimes is successful: to be just or wise is scarcely in his
nature. For ourselves, we are so well acquainted with the life of
Napoleon--with the workings of that most powerful practical
intelligence that God has yet suffered to exist among mankind--that we
are not in any way affected by these efforts of a hungry rhetorician
to disparage him. In his new book, as in his _Girondins_, M. Lamartine
has not chosen to give us any authorities. What he says as to facts
may be true, but we have only his word for it; and long ago, before M.
Lamartine became a great man in affairs, we learned from his
_Pilgrimage to the Holy Land_, that his word is of very little value.
We confess an admiration for parts of his _Elvire_ and for some of his
minor poems, but it is the youthful poet we admire, not the author of
the sickly sentimentalism in his recent romantic memoirs, far less the
historian, who to get himself out of difficulties induced by early
extravagancies can play marketable tricks with the most awful shade
that moves in the twilight of men's memories about the world.
* * * * *
MICHELET, driven from his chair in the University, is publishing in
the _Evénement_ his new work, _Légendes de la Démocratie_. The preface
is remarkable for its naïveté. "This book," he says, "is the true
_Légendes d'Or_ (golden legend)--free from all alloy, and in it will
be found nothing but the truth.--Nay more, every one who reads it will
become a wiser and a better man." A happy author, to have such faith
in his book!
* * * * *
M. GUIZOT'S _History of the Representative Form of Government_, is
prepared from a course of lectures delivered by the author in the
reign of Louis the Eighteenth. The preface contains frequent allusions
to the politics of the day, and the eminent author refers in it to his
attempts to reconcile authority with liberty. M. Guizot's style is
clear, but destitute of warmth or ornament, and his works have
reputation chiefly for their judicial carefulness and
honesty--qualities not so common in France as to be reasonably
neglected there.
* * * * *
M. PROUDHON, the socialist "philosopher," has written, in the prison,
in which it has been deemed necessary to shut him up, a new work,
entitled _General Idea of Revolution in the Nineteenth Century_. Among
the topics of which it treats are the Reaction of Revolutions, the
Sufficient Reason of Revolution in the Nineteenth Century, the
Principle of Association, the Principle of Authority, Organization of
Economical Forces, and Dissolution of Government under an Economical
Organization. The elements of every revolutionary history, according
to Proudhon, are the previous régime which the revolution seeks to
abolish, and which, by the instinct of self-preservation, may become a
counter-revolution; the parties which, according to their different
prejudices and interests, endeavor to turn it to their own advantage;
and the revolution itself.
* * * * *
DR. BUSHNAN, of Edinburgh, under the title of _Miss Martineau and her
Master_, has published a temperate but conclusive refutation of the
_Letters on the Laws of Man's Nature and Development_, by Miss
MARTINEAU and Mr. GEORGE ATKINSON. The shallow performance in which
these persons displayed their atheism was treated by the learned with
contempt. Douglass Jerrold said the sum of their doctrine was
contained in the formula, "There is no God, and Miss Martineau is his
prophet," and those who considered the _Letters_ more seriously, for
the most part expressed surprise and pity--never any one an
apprehension that such wretched stuff could unsettle a conviction of
the feeblest, or confirm a doubt of the most skeptical.
* * * * *
ISAAC TAYLOR, whose "Natural History of Enthusiasm," has been much
read in this country, has in press _Wesley and Methodism_.
* * * * *
Not long ago it was stated that a Mr. SIMONIDES had discovered at the
foot of Mount Athos a great number of important Greek MSS. We ventured
to express some doubts on the subject, and we now perceive that Mr.
RHANGABE, Professor of Archaiology in the University of Athens, has
published a critical examination of these pretended discoveries, in
which he proves very satisfactorily that every manuscript of an
ancient work which Mr. Simonides has allowed others to examine, and
every work which he has published, has turned out to be a modern
fabrication. A more real discovery has been made by persons engaged in
removing the earth for the foundations of a house near the Acropolis.
Fragments of inscriptions, and several relics of sculpture and
architecture, have been dug up, and it is thought they prove that the
senate house, metroon, and other buildings in which the Athenian
archives were preserved, stood in the vicinity. Apropos of M.
Simonides, in a letter from Constantinople it is alleged that from the
examination of ancient manuscripts in different Greek convents, he has
discovered an indication that the original of the _Acts of the
Apostles_ is buried in an island in the Sea of Marmora, and that he
has caused an application to be made to the Turkish government for
leave to search after it, which, it is said, is opposed by the Greek
Patriarch, from fear that the discovery of the important document may
lead to new schisms in the church!
* * * * *
We mentioned in a recent number of the _International_ the discovery
and publication of a supposed MS. work by Origen. In the June number
of the _Quarterly_ it is carefully reviewed, and in several of the
theological journals it has received the attention due to a work of
its pretensions. We see now that the Chevalier BUNSEN has in the press
of the Longmans _Five Letters to Archdeacon Hare, on Hypolitus,
Presbyter of the Church of Rome, author of the recently discovered
book ascribed to Origen, and the bearing of this work on the leading
Questions of Ecclesiastical History and Polity_.
* * * * *
Dr. CROLY has just published a new volume of poems, under the title of
_Scenes from Scripture_. The greater part of them had previously
appeared in annuals, &c. C. B. CAYLEY has given to the world a new
version of the _Divine Comedy_, in the original terza rhyme; EDMUND
PEEL, a poet of Mr. Robert Montgomery's class, has published _The Fair
Island_, descriptive of the Isle of Wight; ROBERT MONTGOMERY himself
has nearly ready his some-time promised _Poetical Works_, for the
first time collected into one volume, similar to the octavo editions
of Southey, Wordsworth, &c., including some original minor poems, and
a general preface, (only the printing being in the style of
Wordsworth.)
* * * * *
The first of the old historians to be edited in the light of the
modern discoveries in Assyria, is _Herodotus_, to appear in a new
English version, translated from the text of Gaisford, and edited by
Rev. GEORGE RAWLINSON, assisted by Col. RAWLINSON and Sir J. G.
WILKINSON, with copious notes, illustrating the history and geography
by Herodotus, from the most recent sources of information, and
embodying the chief results, historical and ethnographical, which have
been arrived at in the progress of cuneiform and hieroglyphical
discovery. This edition will be printed for Mr. Murray in four octavo
volumes. The translation has been undertaken from a conviction of the
inadequacy of any existing version to the wants of the time. The
unfaithfulness of Beloe, and the unpleasantness of his style, render
his version insufficient in an age which dislikes affectation and
requires accuracy; while the only others which exist are at once too
close to the original to be perused with pleasure by the general
reader, and defective in respect of scholarship.
* * * * *
SIR JAMES STEPHEN, whose brilliant contributions to the Edinburgh
Review are familiar through Mr. Hart's Philadelphia edition, has
nearly ready _Lectures on the History of France_, and _The History of
France_, compiled, translated and abridged from the works of De
Sismondi, and of other recent French authors, and illustrated with
historical maps and chronological and other tables.
* * * * *
J. S. BUCKINGHAM, the author of fifty volumes of _Travels_, (of which
eight large octavos are about our own unfortunate country,) has at
length succeeded in his long contest with the East India Company for
indemnification for his losses as an oriental journalist. The bill
before parliament for restitution has been withdrawn, the court of
directors and the government having agreed to settle upon him a
pension of four hundred pounds per annum.
* * * * *
We perceive that the British government has bestowed a pension of five
hundred dollars a year on Mrs. JAMESON. We think of no Englishwoman
who is more deserving of such distinction. Mrs. Jameson has spent a
pretty long life in the most judicious exercise of her literary
abilities, and as a critic of art she is unquestionably superior to
any woman who has ever written on the subject. One of her most popular
works, the _Beauties of the Court of Charles the Second_, will be
issued in a splendid edition, with all the original portraits, in a
few weeks, by the Appletons of this city.
* * * * *
SIR WILLIAM HAMILTON has published _Critical Discussions in
Philosophy, Literature, and Education with University Reform_, chiefly
from the Edinburgh Review, but now corrected, vindicated, and
enlarged.
* * * * *
Several new books of _Travels_ have lately appeared or are in press in
London. Among them are _Eight Years in Palestine, Syria, and Asia
Minor, from 1842 to 1850_, by F. A. NEALE, late of the Consular
service; _A Naturalist's Sojourn in America_, by P. H. GOSSE; a
_Journal of a Boat Voyage through Rupert's Land, and along the Central
Arctic Coasts of America_, in Search of the Discovery Ships under
command of Sir John Franklin, with an Appendix on the Physical
Geography of North America, by Sir JOHN RICHARDSON, C. B., F. R. S.,
&c.; the _Personal Narrative of an Englishman Domesticated in
Abyssinia_, by MANSFIELD PARKINS; _Contrasts of Foreign and English
Society_, or, records and recollections of a residence in various
parts of the Continent and of England, by Mrs. AUSTIN; _Narrative of
Travels to Nineveh, in 1850_, by Hon. FREDERICK WALPOLE, R. N. author
of "Four Years in the Pacific;" _Recollections of Manilla and the
Philippines, in 1848-50_, by ROBERT MACMICKING; _Recollections of a
Ramble from Sidney to Southampton, via Panama, the West Indies, the
United States, and Niagara_, (anonymous.)
* * * * *
J. J. GARTH WILKINSON has just published in London _The Human Body and
its Connection with Man, illustrated by the Principal Organs_, and it
is dedicated to Mr. Henry James of New-York, the author of _Moralism
and Christianity_. "My dear James," says the author, "this book is
indebted to you for its appearance, for without you it would neither
have been conceived nor executed. I dedicate it to you as a feeble
tribute of friendship and gratitude that would gladly seek a better
mode of expressing themselves. It may remind you of happy hours that
we have spent together, and seem to continue some of the tones of our
long correspondence. _Valeat quantum!_ It could not lay its head upon
the shelf without a last thought of affection directed to its foster
parent. That prosperity may live with you and yours, and your great
commonwealth, is the prayer of, my dear James, your faithful friend,"
&c.
* * * * *
Of new novels the most noticeable appear to be _The Lady and the
Priest_, by Mrs. Maberly; _The Tutor's Ward_; _Clare Abbey_, by author
of "The Dicipline of Life;" _Marion Wethers_, by Miss Jewsbury;
_Castle Deloraine, or the Ruined Peer_, by Miss PRISCILLA SMITH; and
_Quakerism, or the Story of My Life_, a splenetic attack on the
society of Friends.
* * * * *
The recent work of Dr. GREGORY on Animal Magnetism has attracted much
attention, and from some intimations in the papers we suspect it is to
be criticised in _Letters on the Truths contained in Popular
Superstitions, with an Account of Mesmerism_, by Dr. HERBERT MAYO,
F.R.S., to be published by Blackwood.
* * * * *
Two new works on the _Apocalypse_ are to be added to the immense
number already printed, for New-York publishers. We not long ago
undertook to ascertain how many expositions of the great mystery had
been written in this country, and paused at the sixty-fifth
title-page. One of the forthcoming works is an ingenious composition
by the Rev. Mr. James of the western part of this state, and the other
(to be published by Mr. Dodd) is by a clergyman in Connecticut.
Longmans advertise in London _The Spiritual Exposition of the
Apocalypse_, as derived from the writings of Swedenborg, and
illustrated and confirmed by ancient and modern authorities, by the
Rev. Augustus Clissold, of Exeter College; and the Rivingtons have in
press a _Commentary on the Apocalypse_ by the Rev. ISAAC WILLIAMS, of
Trinity College. England indeed is quite as prolific of such works as
the United States.
* * * * *
MR. JOHN FINCHMAN, "master shipwright of her Majesty's Dockyard, at
Portsmouth," has published a _History of Naval Architecture_, which is
praised as a just exposition of the progress and supremacy of English
ship-building. Our Mr. Collins could have furnished him, as
illustrations for an additional and very interesting chapter, drawings
of the _Pacific_ and the _Baltic_, which would perhaps make the work a
"just exposition of the supremacy" of American ship-building, of which
this Mr. Finchman seems never to have been informed.
* * * * *
Of collections of Letters on Affairs, that to be published immediately
by Mr. Murray, under the title of the _Grenville Papers_, promises to
be among the most important. It will comprise the Private
Correspondence of Richard Grenville, Earl Temple, and his Brother, the
Right Honorable George Grenville, and their friends and
cotemporaries--formerly preserved at Stowe and now for the first time
made public, and it is given out that it will contain material for the
formation of a pretty conclusive judgment as to the authorship of
Junius.
* * * * *
Among books that will bear a republication, if written with even
average ability and fairness, is _The Present State of the Republic of
the Rio de la Plata_ (_Buenos Ayres_), its Geography, Resources,
Statistics, Commerce, Debt, etc. described, with the History of the
Conquest of the Country by the Spaniards, by Sir WOODBINE PARISH,
F.R.S. Formerly British Consul General and Chargé d' Affaires in that
country.
* * * * *
LORD MAHON'S _History of England, from, the Peace of Utrecht_, volumes
5 and 6--the First Years of the American War: 1763 to 1780--was to
appear in August.
* * * * *
A new book has just appeared in London on the Pitcairn's Islanders.
* * * * *
An advertisement of the works of Archbishop WHATELEY contains
thirty-six titles. He appears to be one of the most voluminous writers
among the bishops, as well as one of the most sensible and learned.
* * * * *
MR. MACAULEY has at length completed two more volumes of his _History
of England_, and they will be published the coming autumn by Longmans.
* * * * *
The _Poems of Edith May_, from the press of E. H. Butler of
Philadelphia, will be one of the most beautiful of the illustrated
books of the season. Mr. Butler is an artist in book-making, and he
has never published anything more elegant. The lady who writes under
the pseudonym of "Edith May" is a genuine poet, and the volume will be
popular.
* * * * *
WILLIAM WARE, one of those delightful authors whose names are always
uttered by appreciating readers in tones of affection, has just
published (Phillips, Sampson, & Co., of Boston,) _Sketches of European
Capitals_. The work includes his views of Ancient Rome, St. Peters and
the Vatican, Florence, Naples, the Italians of Middle Italy, and
London, and in his preface he tells us that "the volume comes into
existence, like so many others now-a-days, as a convenient way of
disposing of matter previously used in the form of lectures;" and
adds, modestly, "It is a volume of light reading for the summer
roadside, and though, like the flowers of that season, perishing with
them, one may be permitted to hope that, like some of them, at least
it may exhale a not unpleasing fragrance while it lasts." Such a fate
awaits no book by the author of _Probus_ and _Zenobia_, of whom this
performance is by no means unworthy.
* * * * *
The HARPERS have in press _Drayton, a Tale of American Life_, in which
is traced the career of a young American from the workshop to places
of trust and honor; and a friend, who has read the manuscript, speaks
in warm terms of the frequent beauty of the style, the warmth of the
coloring, the animation of the narrative, and the general progress and
development of the story. The author is THOMAS H. SHREVE, for the last
ten or twelve years one of the editors of the _Louisville Daily
Journal_, and for twenty years well and most favorably known by
frequent and elegant contributions to western literature. _Drayton_,
we are advised, is not one of those easy pieces of writing which are
known as very hard reading, but has engaged the attention of the
author, at periods of comparative leisure, for several years past.
Within a few months it has been entirely recast and rewritten; and, if
our correspondent be not very partial in his judgment of the merits of
the work, the public will find in its patriotic and democratic pages a
mine of poetry and fine reflection.
* * * * *
A few words more of _American Reviews_. The subject is important; a
great periodical in which the best intelligence of the country shall
have expression, is necessary, for many purposes, and never was more
necessary than now. The _Princeton Review_, the _Christian Review_,
the _Biblical Repository_, the _Bibliotheca Sacra_, the _Methodist
Quarterly Review_, the _Church Review_, _Brownson's Quarterly Review_,
and several others, are in large degrees devoted to particular
religious interests, and though for the most part conducted with much
learning and discretion, do not altogether serve the purpose for which
an American Review of Literature and Affairs is demanded. The _North
American_, as we have before intimated, has no character; it
occasionally has good articles, but it has no principles; it is
sectional, which is pardonable, but displays neither the knowledge nor
the tact necessary to a sectional organ. The mineral riches of our
lake region, plans for connecting the Atlantic with the Pacific, the
Cuban question, our relations with other republics, the extraordinary
phenomena of Mormonism, the efforts of certain American women to unsex
themselves, and numerous other subjects of present interest in this
country, have been amply discussed in British and other European
Reviews during the last year, but not one of them has been mentioned
in the work to which, from its pretentions, readers would naturally
look for its most masterly exposition. It may be said that the _North
American_ is devoted to philosophy, learning, and literature rather
than to affairs: we have heard this defence, even in the face of its
elaborate papers on Hungary and Austria; but let us see how it
occupies such a ground: the bright and especial intellectual boast and
glory of New England is Jonathan Edwards, of whom Dr. Chalmers says
that he was "the greatest of theologians," Sir James Mackintosh that
"in power of subtle argument he was perhaps unmatched, certainly was
unsurpassed among men," Dugald Stewart that "he cannot be answered,"
and Robert Hall that he was the "mightiest of mankind:" such a
character was undoubtedly worthy of its criticism, but in the half
century of its existence the _North American_ has never once noticed
him! We have an illustration much more pertinent, especially in as far
as the present editor of the _Review_ is concerned: The late Hartley
Coleridge was a man of peculiar and very interesting qualities, and it
may be admitted that he possessed considerable genius; but a pretence
that his life was as remarkable or that his abilities as displayed in
his writings were as eminent as those of Edgar A. Poe, who died about
the same time, would be simply ridiculous; yet we believe every
quarterly and nearly every monthly Review published in Great Britain
has had its article on Hartley Coleridge, while even the name of Edgar
A. Poe has never appeared in our self-styled "great national journal."
And Maria Brooks, admitted by Southey, Wordsworth, Charles Lamb, Fitz
Greene Halleck, and many other masters of literary art, to have been
the greatest poet of her sex who ever wrote in any language or in any
age, though she was born and educated in the shadow of the college in
which more than one of the editors of the _North American_ have been
professors, was never once honored with its recognition.
We do not know that it will strike others so, but it seems to us that
John Quincy Adams, John C. Calhoun, Hugh S. Legaré, R. H. Wilde, J. J.
Audubon, Mathew L. Davis, Albert Gallatin, Henry Inman, Chancellor
Kent, Dr. Judson, Dr. Jarvis, Dr. Morton, Dr. Troost, M. M. Noah, Mrs.
Osgood, and many other Americans who have recently completed variously
illustrious lives, and so come before the world for a final judgment,
are subjects quite as deserving and appropriate for the _North
American Review_, as those which it has been accustomed to pick up in
the byways of the literary world abroad; and we cannot understand why
the facts connected with our own development and destiny, facts which
engross and baffle the attention of the profoundest thinkers in the
older nations, should give place in the only Review we possess, to
such foreign, antiquated, and altogether unimportant topics as
continually occupy its pages.
* * * * *
MR. JAMES W. WARD, of Cincinnati, a short time ago delivered before
one of the literary institutions of Ohio, a poem on _Woman_, which has
been noticed in terms of high commendation. A correspondent who heard
it says it was devoted in about equal parts to the foibles and the
virtues of the sex, the former of which it laid bare with a most
trenchant blade, while the latter it portrayed with elegance of
diction, and an evident love for all that is pure, elevated, and
beautiful in woman's proper character. The slave of fashion, the
politician in petticoats, and the "bloomer" in br---- pettiloons, the
female "progressive," the scold, the slattern, and the butterfly, were
all held up to merited rebuke: then came "the true woman," whose
character as sister, wife, mother, friend, and "comforter," was dwelt
on long and fondly, and portrayed in the language of true poetry and
manly devotion. Mr. Ward is not much known out of the literary circles
of the West, but several of his short poems have had a wide
circulation in this country and in England.
* * * * *
A volume entitled _Novellettes of the Musicians_, has been published
by Cornish, Lamport, & Co., with Mrs. ELLET's name on the title-page
as its author, but most of its contents are translated from the
German, and the rest are hardly worth claiming. Yet the book
altogether is entertaining, and is handsomely executed, with several
striking portraits.
* * * * *
The Rev. Mr. HUNTINGTON, once a village doctor, then a congregational
minister, next an Episcopal clergyman, and now a Catholic priest, made
his mark a year or two ago in the novel of _Alice or the Mysteries_,
in which there was displayed a great deal of talent as well as a very
peculiar morality. He has just added to his works (by Putnam) a tale
called _Alban_, in which a hero somewhat like himself is conducted
through various pursuits into the faith, and by pleasantly related
vicissitudes to a good condition. The scene is in New-York and
New-Haven, and of Roman Catholic novels we know of scarcely one more
readable. Mr. Huntington perhaps gives us a reflection of his
experience in this advice addressed to one of his characters:
"That is why I turn to literature with such predilection,"
said the young man, greatly excited by Mr. De Groot's way of
talking. "Letters," resumed Mr. De Groot, after a long
glance around his endless book-shelves, "are a pursuit that
surpasses every other, in enjoyment, and nearly every other
in dignity. We must have our own literary men. We can't
afford to let other nations write our books for us. That
were worse than policy which would hire them to fight our
battles. There is a thought and there is a sentiment which
belongs to _us_, and which we are in a manner bound to
elicit. But--I am sorry to interpose so many _buts_, young
sir--you are to consider that you must live. You cannot live
by literature. It is difficult any where, but in this
country it is impossible. As pride distinguishes the
Spaniard, revenge the Italian, lust the Saxon, and
sanguinary violence (they say) the Celt, so pecuniary
injustice is our national trait, we steal the author's right
in every book we publish, native or foreign. Now, Atherton,
you can't live by a craft where people hold themselves at
liberty to _steal_ what you have produced."
* * * * *
We mentioned a month or two ago the intention of Mr. Russell, of
Charleston, to publish the _Poetical Writings_ of WILLIAM GILMORE
SIMMS, and we are pleased to see in the _Southern Literary Gazette_
the announcement that they will appear in two handsome duodecimos of
from three to four hundred pages each. The publisher remarks very
justly in his advertisement that "the works of Mr. Simms recommended
themselves peculiarly to the South, as illustrating its history, its
traditions and legends, its scenery and its sentiments." In the North
they will be welcomed by the author's numerous friends, and by all
lovers of poetry, for their manly tone, imagination, and frequent
elaborate elegance.
* * * * *
DR. TYNG has added to the _Memoir of the late Rev. Edward
Bickersteth_, by the Rev. T. R. BIRKS, an introductory chapter, and
the work has been published in two volumes, by the Harpers. Mr.
Bickersteth was one of the most excellent and most interesting men in
the English church, and this well-written memoir will have a place
among standard religious biographies.
* * * * *
The _Home Book of the Picturesque_, to be published by Mr. Putnam,
will be upon the whole the most beautiful souvenir volume of the year.
The engravings are from pictures of the Bay of New York, by H.
Beckwith; the Clove, Cattskill, by Durand; the Alleghanies, North
Carolina, by Richards; Snow Scene on the Housatonic, by Gignoux;
Cattskill Scenery, by Kensett; Schroon Lake, by Cole; West Rock, New
Haven, by Church; Adirondach Mountains, by Durand; the Juniatta,
Pennsylvania, by Talbot; Cascade Bridge on the Erie Railroad, by
Talbott; the Rondout, by Huntington; Church at West Point, by Weir;
Wa-wa-yanda Lake, by Cropsey, &c., and these are illustrated with
letter-press by Miss Cooper, Fenimore Cooper, Irving, Bryant, Willis,
Bayard Taylor, Magoon, Bethune, and one or two persons quite unworthy
of the association to which the publisher admits them. The _Book of
Home Beauty_, also to be issued by Mr. Putnam, we judge from a few
proofs of Mr. Martin's pictures which we have seen, will be a much
more attractive volume than any "Book of Beauty" ever published
abroad. The text of this is all from the pen of Mrs. Kirkland.
* * * * *
The _Popular Cyclopedia of Biblical Literature_, by the Rev. Dr.
KITTO, has been republished in a fine large octavo, with numerous
illustrations by Gould, Kendall & Lincoln, of Boston. We have had
frequent occasion to praise the abilities, learning, and excellent
taste of Dr. Kitto, who is one of the most attractive writers and most
judicious editors engaged in the illustration of the Scriptures. We
think the present work will become the most common of all the Bible
Dictionaries, as it probably is the best.
* * * * *
Mr. Redfield has reprinted in a style quite equal to that of the
original London edition, the second series of _Episodes of Insect
Life_, by ACHETA DOMESTICA. This volume relates to insect life in the
summer, and is as entertaining as a romance. We have never read a more
attractive book in natural history.
* * * * *
MR. POMEROY JONES, of Westmoreland, in this state, has in press at
Utica, a _History of Oneida County_, in the preparation of which he
has been engaged several years, and the professors of Hamilton College
have in preparation a Natural History of the County, embracing its
Geology, Botany, Zoology, &c.
* * * * *
A volume of _Poems_ by MRS. REBECCA S. NICHOLS, of Cincinnati, will,
we understand, be issued for the next holidays. Mrs. N. has some warm
admirers, and this volume is to contain her best productions. We hope
its success may equal its deserts.
* * * * *
The fine, thoughtful _Essays Written in the Intervals of Business_,
have been reprinted by A. D. F. Randolph, of this city.
* * * * *
The Rev. ISAAC LEESER, one of the Jewish ministers of Philadelphia,
whom we have long known as a scholar and man of talents, is engaged on
a new translation of the Old Testament, on the basis of the common
English version, carefully corrected and improved according to the
best Jewish authorities. It is intended by Mr. Leeser so to render the
Hebrew text that but few explanatory notes will be needed, and he
reasonably hopes that his edition will be commonly adopted by the Jews
of this country. Dr. KENRICK, the Roman Catholic Bishop of
Philadelphia, has just published (by Dunigan & Brother, New-York,)
_The Epistles and the Apocalypse_, from the Vulgate, having previously
given to the public a translation of the Gospels; and Dr. Alexander of
Princeton, and several other men of learning, have lately been
occupied with new versions of particular portions of the sacred
volume. It is well known, too, that a society, composed for the most
part of members of one of the largest and most respectable
denominations of Christians, has been established mainly for the
purpose of publishing a revised version of the Bible, but it is not
probable that this society will ever accomplish any thing more than an
increased "contempt for God's word and commandment." The specimens we
have of its scholarship might justify some merriment if they were
connected with something less venerable and sacred.
For ourselves we are content with the Bible as it is, and cannot help
a feeling of regret that any who profess to be governed by its wisdom
are disposed to treat it with so little reverence. Undoubtedly there
are some slight verbal inaccuracies in the common version, but they
are understood, or may be easily explained in notes: we want here no
innovations, no improvements, no progress, except in the observance of
the good we understand. Nevertheless, we see with pleasure all the
studies with which really learned men illustrate their convictions of
the significance of the original. For the chief portion of mankind, in
this night in which we live, the sun does not shine with its original
splendor, but it is reflected on us by the moon, and we care not how
many thousand stars reflect it also according to their capacity.
A new version, by which it is _not proposed to displace the common
one_, is to appear from the press of Mr. Colby, in this city, and the
high reputation of its author for learning and judgment, is a
sufficient assurance that what he does at all he will do in a very
masterly manner. The Rev. Dr. Conant, Professor of Biblical Literature
in the University of Rochester, says in a letter to his publisher:
"It has long been a favorite object with me to furnish a
translation of the Holy Scriptures for unlearned readers,
which should accurately express the meaning of the original
by the aids of modern scholarship in the style and manner of
the early English versions. The translation is intended,
therefore, for the benefit of the common reader of the
Scriptures, to aid him in more clearly understanding them
wherever our common version is for any reason obscure. In
other words, it is to do directly by a translation what has
long been attempted by the awkward and circuitous method of
a commentary; viz. to make the Scriptures plain to the
unlearned reader. I should for many reasons regard it as
undesirable, and it certainly is impracticable, to supplant
the common version to any extent as the received version for
the church and the people, or the common English Bible and
common standard of appeal for those who use only the English
language."
Dr. Conant will preserve as nearly as may be the manner of the old
translations, endeavoring only to combine the fidelity and exactness
of modern scholarship with the simplicity and strength of the common
version. To such an effort, by such a man, we see no objections. The
reputation most at stake is that of Dr. Conant himself, and those who
know him do not fear that that will suffer. It will at least be
interesting to mark the differences between his renderings and those
of King James's translators.
* * * * *
Mr. Putnam publishes for the coming holidays a new impression of the
_Memorial_, which is incomparably the most interesting literary
miscellany ever printed as a gift-book in this country. The proceeds
of the sale, it is known, are to be appropriated for the erection of a
monument to the late Mrs. Osgood, in Mount Auburn Cemetery. The book
is made up of original articles by Nathaniel Hawthorne, Chancellor
Walworth, N. P. Willis, Bishop Doane, G. P. R. James, S. G. Goodrich,
John Neal, W. G. Simms, Richard B. Kimball, George P. Morris, Dr.
Mayo, Mrs. Sigourney, Mrs. Embury, Mrs. Oakes Smith, Mrs. Hewitt, Mrs.
Lynch, and indeed all the best and most brilliant writers of the time;
and it is beautifully illustrated.
* * * * *
The well-known private library of the late Rev. Dr. SAMUEL FARMER
JARVIS is to be sold in this city, by Messrs. Lyman & Rawdon, about
the beginning of October. In several departments of sacred and
classical literature it is one of the finest collections in America,
and it will probably attract large numbers of buyers, especially from
among the lovers of mediæval scholarship and theology.
* * * * *
MR. MITCHELL'S new book, the _Diary of a Dreamer_, is in press by
Charles Scribner, and the same publisher will issue for the holidays
an edition of the _Reveries of a Bachelor_, admirably illustrated by
Darley, who seems indeed never to have done better than in some of his
designs for it.
* * * * *
MR. LONGFELLOW has in the press of Ticknor, Reed and Fields, of
Boston, a new poem, entitled _The Golden Legend_. It is the longest of
his poetical works, making some 350 pages, and will soon be given to
the public.
* * * * *
There is this year a very remarkable number of new books illustrative
of the applications of science to mechanics. Every man seems
determined to master the learning which can be turned to account in
his vocation, and the booksellers are quite willing to aid them. We
suppose the most generally and importantly useful work of this kind
ever printed is Appleton's _Dictionary of Machinery, Mechanics, Engine
Work, and Engineering_, just completed in two very large compactly
printed and profusely illustrated octavo volumes. In this great work
are gathered the best results of the study and experiment of the
workers of the world. It is a cyclopedia of inventions, in which one
may be sure of finding described the best processes yet discovered for
doing every thing that is to be done by means of mechanics. The
benefits conferred on the country by this publication must be very
great; its general circulation would mark a new period in our physical
advancement, and to a degree influence our civilization, since there
is no country in the world in which every resource is so readily
applied to purposes of comfort and culture. If knowledge is power, as,
misquoting Lord Bacon, it is every day asserted, the truth is most
conspicuous in the range of those arts and occupations illustrated by
these incomparable volumes, which should be in the house of every man
who has already provided himself with the Bible and Shakspere. The
Appletons also publish a _Mechanics' Magazine_, edited in a very
admirable manner, and we understand it is largely sold.
Next to the Appletons, we believe the largest publisher in this line
is Henry C. Baird, of Philadelphia, who has now in press a _Handbook
of Locomotive Engineers_, by SEPTIMUS NORRIS, of the celebrated house,
Norris & Brother, engine manufactures; _The Practical Metal Worker's
Assistant_, by M. HOLTZAPHFEL, illustrated with many engravings, and
enlarged by the addition of American matters; SCOTT's _Cotton
Spinner_, thoroughly revised by an American editor; a new edition of
Mr. OVERMAN's important book on _Iron; The Practical Model
Calculator_, for the engineer, machinest, manufacturer, &c., by Mr.
BYRNE, (to be issued in twelve semi-monthly numbers); a _Treatise on
the American Steam-Engine_, by the same author; and several other
books of this class.
* * * * *
The Appletons will publish in a few weeks _The Women of Early
Christianity_, one of that series of splendidly illustrated volumes
composed of _Our Saviour and his Apostles_, _The Women of the Bible,
&c._
* * * * *
BRAITHWAITE'S _Retrospect of Practical Medicine_, in consequence of an
arrangement just entered into, will hereafter be published by Stringer
& Townsend, who will issue it with promptness, correctness, and
general mechanical excellence.
* * * * *
James Munroe & Co. of Boston are proceeding regularly with Mr.
HUDSON's excellent edition of Shakspeare, and they have lately issued
among several handsome volumes an edition of the works of George
Herbert. They have in press _The Philippics of Demosthenes_, with
notes critical and explanatory, by Professor M. J. Smead; _The Camel
Hunt_, a narrative of personal adventures, by Joseph Warren Fabius;
_Companions of my Solitude_, by the author of "Friends in Council,"
&c., &c.; _The Greek Girl_, and other poems, by James W. Simmons;
_Epitaphs_, taken from Copp's Hill Burying Ground in Boston, by Thomas
Bridgman; and _Domestic Pets_, their habits and management, with
illustrative anecdotes, by Mrs. Loudon.
* * * * *
The second and concluding volume of the _Life of Calvin_, by Dr.
HENRY, has just been issued by Carter & Brothers, and it is quite
equal in every respect to the first volume. Such a careful history was
well-deserved of a Christian whom even Voltaire admitted to be one in
the list of the world's twenty greatest men, and it was especially
needed for the vindication of one who had in so extraordinary a degree
been a subject of partisan hatred and calumny.
* * * * *
DR. WILLIAM R. WILLIAMS of this city has just published a volume of
_Lectures on the Lord's Prayer_, (Gould & Lincoln, Boston,) which we
shall notice more appropriately hereafter. At present we can only
remark that it is a work of extraordinary merit, worthy of an author
whose abilities and virtues render his name illustrious.
* * * * *
The Rev. Dr. WAINWRIGHT has in the press of the Appletons a work
descriptive of his Travels in Egypt. It will appear in a large and
luxuriously embellished volume, some time before Christmas.
* * * * *
The third, fourth, and fifth volumes of the _Works of John Adams_ have
been issued by Little and Brown, and the fifth and sixth volumes of
the _Works of Alexander Hamilton_, by C. S. Francis.
* * * * *
Mr. FREDERIC SAUNDERS is publishing in the _New-York Recorder_ a
series of papers under the title of _Bookcraft_ which will make a
volume not unworthy of D'Israeli.
* * * * *
M. W. DODD has published a new edition of CRUDEN's great _Concordance
of the Bible_, a book which every body knows is perfect in its kind.
* * * * *
Jewett & Co. have in press the works of the Rev. LYMAN BEECHER, D.D.
which they will publish in some half-dozen octavo volumes.
* * * * *
The approaching Trade Sales will be the largest ever held in
New-York.
FOOTNOTES:
[14] Réné Taillandier, Professor of Belles Lettres at the College of
Montpellier, declared by the _Allgemeine Zeitung_ to be more familiar with
German politics and literature than any other Frenchman living.
_The Fine Arts._
POWERS, in a letter to a friend in this city, says with satirical
humor, of his favorite work, "Eve is an old-fashioned body, and not so
well formed and attractive as are her granddaughters,--at least some
of them. She wears her hair in a natural and most primitive manner,
drawn back from the temples, and hanging loose behind, thus exposing
those very ugly features in women. _Her waist is quite too large for
our modern notions of beauty_, and her feet, they are so very broad
and large! And did ever one see such long toes! they have never been
wedged into form by the nice and pretty little shoes worn by her
lovely descendents. But Eve is very stiff and unyielding in her
disposition: _she will not allow her waist to be reduced by bandaging,
because she is far more comfortable as she is_, and besides, she has
_some regard for her health, which might suffer from such restraints
upon her lungs, heart, liver, &c., &c., &c._ I could never prevail
upon her to wear modern shoes, for she dreads corns, which, she says,
are neither convenient nor ornamental. But some allowance ought to be
made for these crude notions of hers,--founded as they are in the
prejudices and absurdities of _primitive_ days. Taking all these
things into consideration, I think it best that she should not be
exhibited, as it might subject me to censure, and severe criticisms,
and these, too, without pecuniary reward."
* * * * *
After the death of WORDSWORTH, a committee was formed among his
friends for the purpose of setting up a tablet to his memory in
Grassmere Church, where he is buried. The work intrusted to Mr. Thomas
Woolner, has been completed. Surmounted by a band of laurel leaves is
the inscription, written by Professor Keble; under which the poet's
head is sculptured in relief. The likeness to the man has received
praise from persons whose verdict is final; the intellectual likeness
to the poet will be more widely appreciated, and recognized with
cordial admiration. The meditative lines of the face, the thoughtful
forehead and eye, the compressed, sensitive mouth, are rendered with
refined intelligence. In two narrow spaces at each side of the head,
are introduced the crocus and celandine, and the snowdrop and violet,
treated with a rare union of natural beauty and sculpturesque method
and subordination. Throughout, the delicately studied execution shows
that the work has been a labor of love.
* * * * *
LEUTZE'S great historical picture of Washington Crossing the Delaware
before the Battle of Trenton, has been received in this city by
Messrs. Goupil & Co. and will soon be exhibited to the public. These
publishers will give us a large and fine engraving of it.
* * * * *
GREENOUGH'S noble group for the capitol, upon which he has been
engaged nearly twenty years, is so nearly finished that it may be
expected in the United States before the end of November. The subject
is a contrast of the Anglo-Saxon with the Indian. The group is
composed of an American Hunter, in the act of seizing an Indian who
was about to tomahawk a mother and her infant. The white man has
approached the savage from behind, and, having seized him by the arms,
and pressed him with bending knees to the ground, stands frowning
above his subjugated foe, who, with his head thrown back, gazes upward
at his conqueror with surprise and terror. At their feet a woman,
pressing a child to her bosom, sinks in alarm and agony. The effect is
very imposing, having something of the dignity and grandeur which
belong to the works of Michael Angelo. In Italy the work has much
increased Greenough's previous great reputation.
* * * * *
A monument is to be erected at Dresden to the composer VON WEBER. To
defray the expenses, performances are to be given at the various
theatres in Germany, and the proceeds formed into a fund for that
purpose. Large sums are expected from this source, as also from
private contributions throughout Europe. The monument is to be
surmounted by a statue of the composer, by Rietschel, who was an
intimate friend of his. It will be of bronze, eight feet high, and
placed on a pedestal of the same metal, ornamented with bas-reliefs.
The site chosen for its erection is immediately opposite the principal
entrance to the Royal Theatre of Dresden.
* * * * *
The distinguished painter CORNELIUS has been solicited by the Belgian
Academy of Art to send the grand cartoons on which he is employed, to
the great Belgian Exhibition. Cornelius, however, fears to risk these
drawings, the work of ten years, on a journey of such length, since
their loss could not be replaced. They already fill two large halls,
and will remain a lasting monument of the painter's genius, even if
the Cathedral, in which they are to appear as frescoes, should not be
erected during his life.
* * * * *
The publication of a work entitled _The Twelve Virgins of Raphael_,
has been commenced in Paris. It will be in twelve numbers, each
containing an engraving and letter-press description and history.
* * * * *
A sculptor of Paris has received orders from the Greek Government to
execute marble busts of Admirals de Rigny and Codington, to be placed
in the Salle where the Senate holds its sittings.
_Historical Review of the Month._
THE UNITED STATES.
The August elections, though in general not very warmly contested,
have attracted much attention. We have attempted, in the following
carefully prepared table, to exhibit the results, as well as the
character of the next Congress at large--a task somewhat difficult on
account of the diversity of parties and the frequent disregard which
has been shown for old divisions:--
XXXII CONGRESS--SENATE.
_Commenced March 4, 1851, and ends March 4, 1852._
_Term Expires._
ALABAMA.
JEREMIAH CLEMENS, 1853
William R. King, S. R. 1855
ARKANSAS.
Wm. K. Sebastian, S. R., 1853
SOLON BORLAND. 1855
CALIFORNIA.
WM. M. GWINN, 1855
Elean Heydenfeldt, L. R.[A] 1857
CONNECTICUT.
_Truman Smith_, 1855
A vacancy. 1857
DELAWARE.
_Presley Spruance_, 1855
James A. Bayard, L. R. 1857
FLORIDA.
JACKSON MORTON,[B] 1855
STEPHEN R. MALLORY.[A] 1857
GEORGIA.
_John McP. Berrien_, S. R.,[C] 1853
WM. C. DAWSON.[B] 1855
INDIANA.
James Whitcomb, L. R., 1855
JESSE D. BRIGHT. 1857
ILLINOIS.
Stephen A. Douglas, 1853
James Shields, L. R. 1855
IOWA.
George W. Jones, L. R., 1853
Augustus C. Dodge, L. R. 1855
KENTUCKY.
_Joseph R. Underwood,_ 1853
_Henry Clay._ 1855
LOUISIANA.
SOL. W. DOWNS, 1853
Pierre Soulé, S. R. 1855
MAINE.
James W. Bradbury, 1853
Hannibal Hamlin, F. S. 1857
MARYLAND.
_James A. Pierce,_ 1855
_Thomas G. Pratt._ 1857
MASSACHUSETTS.
_John Davis_, 1853
Charles Sumner, F. S. 1857
MISSISSIPPI.
HENRY S. FOOTE, 1853
Jefferson Davis, S. R. 1857
MICHIGAN.
ALPHEUS FELCH, 1853
Lewis Cass. 1857
MISSOURI.
David R. Atchison, S. R., 1855
HEN. S. GEYER.[B] 1857
NEW HAMPSHIRE.
John P. Hale, F. S., 1853
MOSES HARRIS, jr. 1855
NEW-YORK.
_William H. Seward,_ 1855
_Hamilton Fish._ 1857
NEW JERSEY.
_Jacob W. Miller_, 1853
ROBERT F. STOCKTON. 1857
NORTH CAROLINA.
_Willie P. Mangum,_ 1853
_George E. Badger._ 1855
OHIO.
Salmon P. Chase, F. S., 1855
_B. Franklin Wade_. 1857
PENNSYLVANIA.
_James Cooper_, 1853
RICHARD BRODHEAD, jr. 1857
RHODE ISLAND.
_John H. Clarke_, 1853
Charles T. Jarves, L. R. 1857
SOUTH CAROLINA.
R. Barnwell Rhett (Sec.), 1853
A. P. Butler, S. R. 1855
TENNESSEE.
_John Bell_, 1853
A vacancy. 1857
TEXAS.
Sam Houston, 1853
Thomas J. Rusk. 1857
VERMONT.
_William Upham,_ 1853
_Solomon Foote._ 1857
VIRGINIA.
Robert M. T. Hunter, 1853
James M. Mason. 1857
WISCONSIN.
Isaac P. Walker, 1855
Henry Dodge. 1857
HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES.
ALABAMA.
1. John Bragg, S. R.,
2. JAMES ABERCROMBIE,[B]
3. Sampson W. Harris, S. R.,
4. WM. R. SMITH,
5. GEO. S. HOUSTON,
6. W. R. W. COBB,
7. ALEX WHITE.[B]
ARKANSAS.
----
CALIFORNIA.
----
----
CONNECTICUT.
1. _Charles Chapman_,
2. C. M. INGERSOLL,[B]
3. Chauncey F. Cleveland, F. S.,
4. O. S. SEYMOUR.[B]
DELAWARE.
1. George Read Riddle, L. R.
FLORIDA.
_Edward C. Cabell, L. R._
GEORGIA.
1. ----,
2. ----,
3. ----,
4. ----,
5. ----,
6. ----,
7. ----,
8. ----.
ILLINOIS.
1. Wm. H. Bissell, L. R.,
2. Willis Allen, L. R.,
3. O. R. Ficklin, L. R.,
4. R. S. Maloney, F. S.,
5. Wm. A. Richardson, L. R.,
6. T. Campbell, F. S.,
7. _Richard Yates_.
INDIANA.
1. James Lockhart,
2. Cyrus L. Dunham, L. R.,
3. John L. Robinson,
4. _Samuel W. Parker_,
5. Thomas H. Hendricks, L. R.,
6. Willis A. Gorman,
7. John G. Davis, F. S.,
8. Daniel Mace, F. S.,
9. Graham N. Fitch,
10. _Samuel Brenton_.
IOWA.
1. Lincoln Clark, L. R.,
2. Bernhardt Henn, L. R.
KENTUCKY.
1. LINN BOYD,
2. _Ben. Edward Grey, L. R._,
3. _Presley Ewing_,
4. _William T. Ward_,
5. James N. Stone (rep.),
6. _Addison White_,
7. _Humphrey Marshall_,
8. John C. Breckenridge, L. R.,
9. John C. Mason,
10. Richard H. Stanton.
LOUISIANA.
1. ----,
2. ----,
3. ----,
4. ----.
MAINE.
1. Moses McDonald, L. R.,
2. John Appleton,[A]
3. _Robert Goodenow_,
4. Charles Andrews, F. S.,
5. Ephraim K. Smart, F. S.,
6. _Israel Washburn, jr._,
7. THOMAS J. D. FULLER.
MARYLAND.
1. ----,
2. ----,
3. ----,
4. ----,
5. ----,
6. ----.
MASSACHUSETTS.
1. _William Appleton_,
2. Robert Rantoul, jr., F. S.,
3. _James H. Duncan_,
4. _B. Thompson_,
5. _Charles Allen, F. S._,
6. George T. Davis,
7. John Z. Goodrich,
8. Horace Mann, F. S.,
9. _Oron Fowler_,
10. _Zeno Scudder_.
MICHIGAN.
1. _Ebenezer J. Penniman, F. S._,
2. Charles E. Stuart, L. R.,
3. _James L. Conger, F. S._
MISSISSIPPI.
1. ----,
2. ----,
3. ----,
4. ----.
MISSOURI.
1. _John F. Darby_,
2. _Gilchrist Porter_,
3. _John G. Miller_,
4. Willard P. Hall, Anti-Benton,
5. John S. Phelps, Benton.
NEW HAMPSHIRE.
1. _Amos Tuck_,
2. CHARLES H. PEASLEE,
3. _Jared Perkins_,
4. Harry Hibbard, L. R.
NEW JERSEY.
1. Nathan T. Stratten,
2. Charles D. Skelton, L. R.,
3. ISAAC WILDRICK,
4. George H. Brown,
5. Rodman M. Price, L. R.
NEW-YORK.
1. John G. Floyd, F. S.,
2. _Obadiah Bowne_,
3. Emanuel B. Hart, L. R.,
4. _J. H. Hobart Haws_,
5. _George Briggs_,
6. _James Brooks_,
7. Abraham P. Stevens, L. R.,
8. Gilbert Dean, F. S.,
9. William Murray, F. S.,
10. _Marius Schoonmaker_,
11. Josiah Sutherland, F. S.,
12. David L. Seymour, L. R.,
13. _John L. Schoolcraft_,
14. _John H. Boyd_,
15. Joseph Russell, F. S.,
16. _John Wells_,
17. Alexander H. Buel, F. S.,
18. Preston King, F. S.,
19. Willard Ives, F. S.,
20. Timothy Jenkins, F. S.,
21. William W. Snow, F. S.,
22. _Henry Bennett_,
23. Leander Babcock, F. S.,
24. Daniel T. Jones, F. S.,
25. Thomas Y. How, Jr., F. S.,
26. _Henry S. Walbridge_,
27. _William A. Sacket_,
28. _Ab. M. Schermerhorn_,
29. _Jerediah Horsford_,
30. Reuben Robie, F. S.,
31. _Frederick S. Martin_,
32. _Solomon G. Haven_,
33. _Aug. P. Hascall_,
34. _Lorenzo Burrows_.
NORTH CAROLINA.
1. _Thomas L. Clingman_,[C]
2. _Joseph P. Caldwell, L. R._,
3. _Alfred Dackery_,
4. _James T. Morehead_,
5. Abraham W. Venable, S. R., L. R.,
6. John R. J. Daniel, S. R.,
7. WILLIAM S. ASHE,
8. _Edward Stanley_,
9. _David Outlaw_.
OHIO.
1. David T. Disney, L. R.,
2. _Lewis D. Campbell, L. R._,
3. _Hiram Bell_,
4. _Benjamin Stanton_,
5. Alfred P. Edgerton,
6. Frederick Green,
7. _Nelson Barrere_,
8. _John L. Taylor, L. R._,
9. Edson B. Olds, L. R.,
10. Charles Sweetser,
11. George H. Busby,
12. _John Welsh_,
13. James M. Gaylord,
14. _Alexander Harper_,
15. _William F. Hunter_,
16. _John Johnson, Md. L. R._,
17. Joseph Cable, L. R.,
18. David K. Cartter,
19. _Eben Newton, F. S._,
20. Josh R. Giddings, F. S.,
21. N. S. Townshend, F. S., L. R.
PENNSYLVANIA.
1. Thomas B. Florence, L. R.,[A]
2. _Joseph R. Chandler_,
3. _Henry D. Moore_, L. R.,
4. John Robbins, jr., L. R.,
5. John McNair,
6. Thomas Ross,
7. John A. Morrison, L. R.,
8. _Thaddeus Stevens_,
9. J. Glancy Jones,
10. Milo M. Dimmick,
11. _Henry M. Fuller_,[A]
12. Galusha A. Grow, F. S.,
13. James Gamble,
14. _T. M. Bibighaus_,
15. William H. Kurtz,
16. J. X. McLanahan,
17. Andrew Parker,
18. John L. Dawson,
19. _Joseph H. Kuhns_,
20. _John Allison_,
21. _Thomas M. Howe_,
22. _John W. Howe_,
23. Carlton B. Curtis, L. R.,
24. Alfred Gilmore, L. R.
RHODE ISLAND.
1. _George G. King_,
2. Benj. B. Thurston, F. S.
SOUTH CAROLINA.
1. Daniel Wallace,
2. James L. Orr,
3. Jos. A. Woodard,
4. John McQueen,
5. Armistead Burt,
6. William Aiken,
7. William F. Colcock.
TENNESSEE.
1. Andrew Johnson, L. R.,
2. _Albert G. Watkins_, L. R.,
3. _Josiah M. Anderson_, L. R.,
4. John H. Savage, S. R., L. R.,
5. GEORGE W. JONES, L. R.,
6. William H. Polk, L. R.,
7. _Meredith P. Gentry_, L. R.,
8. _William Cullom_,
9. Isham G. Harris, S. R., L. R.,
10. Frederick P. Stanton, L. R.,
11. _Christopher H. Williams_, L. R.
TEXAS.
1. ----,
2. ----.
VERMONT.
1. _Ahiman L. Miner_,
2. _William Hebard_,
3. _James Meacham_,
4. Thos. Bartlett, jr., F. S.
VIRGINIA.
1. ----,
2. ----,
3. ----,
4. ----,
5. ----,
6. ----,
7. ----,
8. ----,
9. ----,
10. ----,
11. ----,
12. ----,
13. ----,
14. ----,
15. ----.
NEBRASKA.
----.
OREGON.
1. Joseph Lane, Ind. L. R.
WISCONSIN.
1. Charles Durkee, F. S.,
2. Ben. C. Eastman, L. R.,
3. James D. Doty, Md., F. S., L. R.
MINNESOTA.
1. H. H. Sibley, Ind.
NEW MEXICO.
----.
UTAH.
----.
Democrats, in Roman; Whigs, in _italics_; "Union"-men in
SMALL-CAPITALS.
[A] Seats contested. Whig Unionists marked with a [B]; Whig
Southern Rights with a [C]; F. S., Free Soil; L. R., Land
Reform.
So far as heard from, the Delegations from thirteen States
are Democratic; six are Whig; four tied. Arkansas and Texas
to hear from, and elections are to be held in the six
remaining States.
THE ELECTIONS FOR STATE OFFICERS.
ALABAMA.--Hon. HENRY W. COLLIER, a Southern Rights Democrat,
is re-elected Governor of this State.
TENNESSEE.--Gen. WILLIAM B. CAMPBELL, Union Whig, is elected
Governor of this State over the late Democratic incumbent,
Gen. William Trowsdale.
KENTUCKY.--Lazarus W. Powell (Democrat), it is reported is
elected Governor; a John B. Thompson, (Whig) Lieut.
Governor; and Rev. Robert J. Breckenridge, (Whig)
Superintendent of Public Instruction. Not much of a party
contest for the remaining State Officers. One Congressional
District (the 5th) in doubt as we go to press, the friends
of Clement S. Hill (Whig) hoping that he is elected, but
Stone has made gains enough to secure his election.
RECAPITULATION OF CONGRESS.
SENATE. HOUSE.
_States._ _Dem._ _Whig._ _Vac._ _Dem._ _Whig._ _Vac._
Alabama 2 0 0 5 2 0
Arkansas 2 0 0 0 0 1
California 2 0 0 0 0 2
Connecticut 1 0 1 3 1 0
Delaware 1 1 0 1 0 0
Florida 1 1 0 0 1 0
Georgia 0 2 0 0 0 8
Illinois 2 0 0 6 1 0
Indiana 2 0 0 8 2 0
Iowa 2 0 0 2 0 0
Kentucky 0 2 0 5 5 0
Louisiana 2 0 0 0 0 4
Maine 2 0 0 5 2 0
Maryland 0 2 0 0 0 6
Massachusetts 1 1 0 3 7 0
Michigan 2 0 0 1 2 0
Mississippi 2 0 0 0 0 4
Missouri 1 1 0 2 3 0
New Hampshire 2 0 0 2 2 0
New Jersey 1 1 0 4 1 0
New York 0 2 0 17 17 0
North Carolina 0 2 0 3 6 0
Ohio 1 1 0 11 10 0
Pennsylvania 1 1 0 15 9 0
Rhode Island 1 1 0 1 1 0
South Carolina 2 0 0 7 0 0
Tennessee 0 1 1 6 5 0
Texas 2 0 0 0 0 2
Vermont 0 2 0 1 3 0
Virginia 2 0 0 0 0 15
Wisconsin 2 0 0 3 0 0
-- -- -- -- -- --
Total, 39 21 2 111 80 42
In New-York, the Democratic party will meet in convention on the 10th
of this present month of September, to prepare for approaching
elections, and, on the following day, the United Whig party will hold
its annual convention in the same city--the State Central Committee of
both sections of it having united in a call for that purpose.
The Convention of Virginia, which has been sitting at Richmond during
the last eight months, have at length agreed upon the form of a new
Constitution for that State, and brought its session to a close. The
Constitution has yet to be submitted to a vote of the people, but of
its acceptance no doubt appears to be entertained. It is to be voted
for on the 23d of October.
The President of the United States, accompanied by the Secretaries of
War and Interior, has been received with much enthusiasm in various
places in eastern Virginia, through which he passed on his way to the
White Sulphur Springs. The Secretary of State has been passing a few
weeks among the lakes and mountains of New Hampshire, where he will
remain probably till October; and the Secretary of the Treasury has
been detained by ill health at his residence in Ohio.
Reports from the various agricultural districts of the Union indicate
that the wheat harvest of 1851 will be the heaviest ever raised. In
New-York, Indiana, Michigan, and Wisconsin, the yield is very large,
and the wheat excellent. In the Northern and Central Illinois, heavy
rains have destroyed a portion of the crop, but in the Southern
portion of the State it will be abundant. In Ohio, advices from all
quarters of the State show that the wheat crop of the present season
will be the largest ever grown in the State. In Iowa, the yield is
indifferent. Of corn there will probably be an average crop. Potatoes
in several parts of the country have suffered from the rot.
The cholera prevails to some extent in the valley of the Mississippi,
and other parts of the Southern and Western States. Among the Sioux
Indians it has been very fatal. The treaty just formed with the Sioux
Indians, secures to the United States all the land in the entire
valley of the Minnesota, and the eastern tributaries of the Sioux,
estimated at 21,000,000 of acres.
From Texas, we learn that there has been great excitement at Rio
Grande, in consequence of the Mexicans refusing to surrender a
fugitive slave. It is said that 2,000 slaves have made their escape
into Mexico.
There have been several arrivals from California, and by every one
evidence has been furnished of a very unfortunate condition of
affairs. Dissatisfied with the manner in which justice is executed, or
perhaps with a view to the complete overthrow of the government, large
numbers of men have associated themselves at San Francisco and
elsewhere, and assumed all the functions of a magistracy, treating the
constituted authorities with contempt, and, in secret assemblies,
deciding questions of life and of all the highest interests of
society. By their directions, several persons accused of crimes have
been murdered, and all the officers of the law have been set at
defiance. In other respects, the news from California and other parts
of the Pacific coast is without remarkable features; the general
prosperity continues in mining, agriculture, and trade; and such is
the energy of the inhabitants of that city, that San Francisco has
nearly recovered from the effects of the disastrous fires with which
it has been visited. The arrival at New-York, on the 13th of August,
of the steamer Prometheus, in 29 days from San Francisco, by the new
route of Lake Nicaragua and the river San Juan, establishes the
practicability and advantages of this route. The shortest trip ever
made by the Panama route, it is said, was in 31 days.
CUBA.
The people of the United States have been kept in a state of
excitement during a portion of the last month by reports of a
revolution in the Island of Cuba. It is not yet possible to discover
very clearly, what are the facts, but it is certain, that there were
insurrectionary movements commencing about the 4th of July, in several
parts of the Island; that they were badly planned, and inefficiently
executed, and that the whole attempt, having caused the ruin of a vast
number of persons, is at an end, and has resulted in the firmer
establishment of the Spanish authority.
BRITISH AMERICA.
The Provincial Government persists in its refusal to concede the
navigation of the St. Lawrence to foreign vessels till it obtains an
equivalent from the United States. A motion against removing the
Executive Government to Quebec, until after the expiration of four
years from the time of its removal to Toronto, has been negatived the
House of Commons by a vote of 48 to 12. It is believed that the
removal will be decided on during the present season.
MEXICO.
The financial embarrassments of the government and people engross the
general attention, and though it has been believed that a scheme of
administration for augmenting the revenue would be successful, yet the
country is so unsettled, and the dissatisfaction with the government
so common, and the spirit of revolution so diffused, that only
confusion and accelerated ruin can very reasonably be predicted of the
country. Insurrectionary movements by parties having in view the
recall and dictatorship of Santa Anna, have been put down in Chiapos
and Tobasco.
SOUTH AMERICA.
In Buenos Ayres Rosas had been disturbed by the disaffection of
General Urquiza. Rosas was making active preparations to oppose
hostile attacks. The fortieth Anniversary of the Independence of
Venezuela was celebrated at Caraccas with great enthusiasm. Venezuela
remains perfectly tranquil. The insurrection in the Southern Provinces
of New-Grenada has not yet been quelled, and the troops of the
Government have suffered a defeat.
EUROPE AND ASIA.
We are compelled to abridge our notices of foreign events to a mere
statement of dates. In ENGLAND the Ecclesiastical Titles Bill finally
passed the House of Lords on the 28th of July, and receiving the royal
signature became a law. Little other business of importance was
accomplished before the prorogation of Parliament, which took place on
the 8th of August. In FRANCE the motion for a revision of the
constitution was rejected in the Assembly at Paris on Saturday, July
19. Out of 736 members, in the Assembly, 724 were present and
voted--446 in favor of the revision and 278 against it; but as a
majority of three quarters was required to carry the motion, it
failed. On the 31st of July the Assembly elected a Committee of
Permanence, consisting of twenty-five of the most dignified of its
members, to sit during the vacation, which it was decided should last
from the 10th of August to the 4th of November. From RUSSIA we have
news of an important victory of the Turkomans over the Russian troops
in the harbor of Astrabad, and the Russians have also suffered an
extraordinary and most important defeat in the Caucasus. In ITALY
every thing is calm, but the oppressions of the ecclesiastical
government are more and more intolerable and outrageous. The Pope has
returned from his residence at Castel Gandolfo to Rome. The rebellion
in the southern provinces of CHINA appears to be still unchecked.
_Recent Deaths._
The Rev. STEPHEN OLIN, D.D. president of the Wesleyan University, died
at Middletown on the 16th of August. He was a native of Vermont, and
was educated at Middlebury College. He entered the itinerant ministry
in the Methodist Episcopal Church, in 1824, uniting himself with the
South Carolina conference. His next two years were spent in
Charleston. His labors proved too severe, and in 1826 he became what
is called in the Methodist Church a supernumerary, with permission to
travel for the benefit of his health. He was a local preacher for the
same reason until 1828, but in 1829 resumed his itinerant labors. In
1832 he was again compelled to relinquish the labors the itinerancy
imposed, and was appointed by the Georgia conference a professor in
Franklin College. In 1833 he was elected president of Randolph
College, Macon, Geo., which position he held until elected President
of the Wesleyan University. In 1837 he travelled in Europe and the
East, and on his return published an account of his Travels, in two
volumes, which were very popular.
* * * * *
Baron de Ledeirir, the celebrated Russian botanist, died at Munich on
the 23d of July, aged sixty-five. At the early age of nineteen he was
appointed Professor of Botany in the University of Dorpat, and in 1820
he obtained the botanical chair in the University of St. Petersburg.
In 1821 he was elected member of the Imperial Academy of Sciences, and
by order of the Emperor Alexander undertook to compile the _Russian
Flora_. To collect materials for this great work he spent sixteen
years in visiting different parts of the vast Empire of Russia, and
went as far as the frontiers of China and into Siberia. In 1848 the
state of his health obliged him to take up his residence at Munich.
There he labored at his _Flora_, and had the satisfaction of
completing it two months before his death.
* * * * *
Edward Quillinan, son-in-law to Wordsworth, and known in the select
rather than in the wide world of letters, as a poet, a scholar, a
contributor to more than one literary publication, and the author of
one or two separate works, died in July.
* * * * *
Harriet Lee, the celebrated writer of the "Canterbury Tales," was the
youngest sister of Sophia Lee, the author of _The Recess_, and of many
popular dramas and novels. These ladies were daughters of John Lee,
who had been bred to the law, but became an actor of much repute at
Covent Garden Theatre, and ended his life as manager of the Bath
Theatre. Sophia Lee, the elder daughter, who was born more than one
hundred years ago (her sister Harriet, the subject of this notice,
being a few years her junior), produced, in 1780, a comedy, entitled,
"The Chapter of Accidents," which was performed with considerable
success. The profits enabled the two sisters to open a school at Bath,
which they carried on for many years with high credit and prosperity.
In 1782 Sophia Lee brought out her most popular novel, _The Recess_,
which was followed by other tales, and by _Almayda, Queen of Grenada_,
a tragedy, in which Mrs. Siddons acted. Soon after, Harriet Lee
published the first five volumes of her _Canterbury Tales_. Two of the
stories, _The Young Lady's Tale_, and the _The Clergyman's Tale_, were
written by her sister Sophia; the rest by herself. One of these
Canterbury Tales, by Harriet Lee, named _Kruitzner_, became afterwards
famous for having formed the subject and the plot of Byron's gloomy
tragedy of _Werner_. Harriet Lee's other principal works were the
_Error of Innocence_, a novel; the _Mysterious Marriage_, a play;
_Clara Lennox_, a novel; and a _New Peerage_, begun in 1787. The last
days of the sisters were passed near Bristol, where Sophia died in
1824, and Harriet on the first of August, 1851.
* * * * *
Dr. Julius, the author of an able work on the Prisons and Criminal Law
in the United States, died about the end of July, in London. Dr.
Julius was editor of the Berlin _Zeitungshalle_ during the revolution
of 1848, and was greatly respected for his talents and courage. Kinkel
pronounced a touching _oraison funebre_ over his grave.
* * * * *
Rev Azariah Smith, M.D., missionary of A.B.C.F.M. to the Armenians,
died at Aintab, Syria, in the early part of June, in the 35th year of
his age.
* * * * *
General Henry A. S. Dearborn, of Roxbury, died suddenly at Portland,
Me., on the twenty-ninth of July. He was a native of New-Hampshire,
and was born March 3d, 1783, and removed with his father to the county
of Kennebec in Maine in 1784. His father having been twice elected to
Congress from the Kennebec district, prior to 1801, and on the
accession of Mr. Jefferson to the Presidency, appointed Secretary of
War, his son Henry was taken to Washington, and educated at the
College of William and Mary in Virginia. In 1806 he established
himself in the profession of law, in which he continued but few years,
the excitements of public life having more attractions for him than
the quiet pursuit of that profession. He took a prominent part in the
politics, of the country, filled many important public stations, among
which was the collectorship of Boston, in which he succeeded his
father in 1812, and remained many years. He also distinguished himself
in literature, and by efforts for the promotion of public
improvements. He was a member of the Convention of Massachusetts for
revising the constitution of that state, in 1821, a member of the
Governor's Council in 1831, member of Congress in 1832,
Adjutant-General of Massachusetts in 1835, and at the time of his
death Mayor of Roxbury. He was a man of fine manners, cultivated mind,
and liberal views. While he held the office of Collector of Boston, he
improved the favorable opportunity to collect statistics relative to
the commerce of the country, and particularly that to countries
connected with the Mediterranean, which he embodied in a valuable
work, entitled _The Commerce and Navigation of the Black Sea_, in
three volumes octavo. In 1839 he published a series of letters _To the
Secretary of the State of Massachusetts, on the Internal Improvements
and the Commerce of the West_, containing extremely valuable
information on those subjects. He recently published a life of the
_Apostle Elliot_, to aid in the construction of a monument in Roxbury
to the memory of that celebrated missionary, and among his other
published writings is a _Life of Commodore Bainbridge_. He left in MS.
a work on Architecture, another on Flowers, and an extended Memoir of
his Father, embodying all his journal in his expedition through Maine
to Canada, his imprisonment in Quebec, and a vast deal of other
Revolutionary matter. He was constantly throwing off essays in various
periodicals, to promote the interests of society. Among other claims
upon public gratitude, was his untiring zeal in the cause of
horticultural and agricultural improvements. Few did more than he to
elevate this important branch of industry. As a politician he was most
prominent for his connection with the Native American party, by which
he was nominated for the Vice Presidency of the United States.
* * * * *
In another part of this magazine we have given a sketch of the late
Dr. MOIR, from the pen of Mr. Gilfillan. The deceased physician and
litterateur died at Dumfries, on the 6th of July, in the fifty-third
year of his age, having left his home in Musselburg, near Edinburgh,
to visit in Dumfries his friend, Mr. Aird. Of the poems of "Delta,"
Professor Wilson says: "Delicacy and grace characterize his happiest
composition; some of them are beautiful, in a cheerful spirit that has
only to look on nature to be happy, and others breathe to simplest and
purest pathos." Similar praise was given him by Lord Jeffrey. We do
not think so highly of his abilities. In verse, Dr. Moir had the fatal
gift of facility, and he cultivated it at the ordinary penalty. His
poetry is not made to survive him. He was a man, however, of varied
accomplishments; and is the author, besides his considerable body of
verse, of a prose narrative, _Mansie Wauch, Tailor of Dalkieth_, a
very excellent book of _Outlines of the Ancient History of Medicine_,
being a View of the Progress of the _Healing Art among the Egyptians,
Greeks, Romans, and Arabians_, and of _Sketches of the Poetical
Literature of the past Half Century, in Six Lectures_, a work which
has the sketchy character and incompleteness common to its class. The
_Legend of Généviève, with other Tales and Poems_, and _Domestic
Verses_, are the two poetical volumes of his which have been published
in a collected form.
* * * * *
General Sir Roger H. Sheaffe, Bart., died on the 17th July, at
Edinburgh, at the advanced age of 88 years. He entered the army in
1778. In 1798 he became a lieut. colonel, and the next year served in
Holland. He served in the expedition to the Baltic in 1801 under Sir
Hyde Parker and Lord Nelson. He also served in North America, and, in
1812, the Americans having invaded Upper Canada, at Queenston, when
General Brock, commanding in the province, fell in an effort to oppose
the enemy, they posted themselves on a woody height above Queenston.
Major-General Sheaffe, upon whom the command devolved, assembled some
regular troops and militia, with a few Indians, and on the same day
attacked and completely defeated the Americans, their general
delivering his sword to Major-General Sheaffe, and surrendering the
surviving troops on the field of battle, their number far exceeding
the assailants. For these brilliant services Sir Roger Sheaffe was
created a baronet of the United Kingdom.
* * * * *
Louis Jacques Maude Daguerre, whose name is for ever associated with
the photographic process, of which he was the discoverer, died on the
tenth of July, in Paris, in the sixty-second year of his age. He was a
man of extreme modesty and great personal worth, and was devoted to
art. He was favorably known to the world before the announcement of
his discovery of the Daguerreotype. His attempts to improve panoramic
painting, and the production of dioramic effects, were crowned with
the most eminent success. Among his pictures, which attracted much
attention at the time of their exhibition were, The Midnight Mass,
Land-slip in the Valley of Goldau, The Temple of Solomon, and The
Cathedral of Sainte Marie de Montreal. In these the alternate effects
of night and day, and storm and sunshine, were beautifully produced.
To these effects of light were added others, from the decomposition of
form, by means of which, for example, in The Midnight Mass, figures
appeared where the spectators had just beheld seats, altars, &c., and
again, as in The Valley of Goldau, in which rocks tumbling from the
mountains replaced the prospect of a smiling valley. The methods
adopted in these pictures were published at the same time with the
process of the Daguerreotype, by order of the French Government, who
awarded an annual pension of ten thousand francs to Daguerre and M.
Niepce, jr., whose father had contributed towards the discovery of the
Daguerreotype. Daguerre was led to experiments on chemical changes by
solar radiations, with the hope of being able to apply the phenomena
to the production of effects in his dioramic paintings. As the
question of the part taken by him in the process to which he has given
his name, has been discussed sometimes to his disadvantage, it appears
important that his position should be correctly determined. In 1802,
Wedgwood, of Etruria, the celebrated potter, made the first recorded
experiments in photography; and these, with some additional ones by
Sir Humphrey Davy, were published in the journals of the royal
institution. In 1814, Mr. Joseph Nicephore Niepce was engaged in
experiments to determine the possibility of fixing the images obtained
in the camera obscura; but there does not appear any evidence of
publication of any kind previously to 1827, when Niepce was in
England. He there wrote several letters to Mr. Bauer, the microscopic
observer, which are preserved and printed in Hunt's _Researches on
Light_. He also sent specimens of results obtained to the Royal
Society, and furnished some to the cabinets of the curious, a few of
which are yet in existence. These were pictures on metallic plates
covered with a fine film of resin. In 1824 Daguerre commenced his
researches, starting at that point at which Wedgwood left the process.
He soon abandoned the employment of the nitrate and chloride of
silver, and proceeded with his inquiry, using plates of metal and
glass to receive his sensitive coatings. In 1829 M. Vincent Chevalier
brought Niepce and Daguerre together, when they entered into
partnership to prosecute the subject in common. For a long time they
appear to have used the resinous surfaces only, when the contrast
between the resin and the metal plates not being sufficiently great to
give a good picture, endeavors were made to blacken that part of the
plate from which the resin was removed in the process of _heliography_
(sun-drawing), as it was most happily called. Amongst other materials,
iodine was employed; and Daguerre certainly was the first to notice
the property possessed by the iodine coating of changing under the
influence of the sun's rays. The following letter from Niepce to
Daguerre is on this subject:
"81, LOUP DE VARENNES, June 23, 1831.
"_Sir, and dear Partner_: I had long expected to hear from you with
too much impatience not to receive and read with the greatest pleasure
your letters of the tenth and twenty-first of last May. I shall
confine myself in this reply to yours of the twenty-first, because,
having been engaged ever since it reached me in your experiments on
iodine, I hasten to communicate to you the results which I have
obtained. I had given my attention to similar researches previous to
our connection, but without hope of success, from the impossibility,
or nearly so, in my opinion, of fixing in any durable manner the
images received on iodine, even supposing the difficulty surmounted of
replacing the lights and shadows in their natural order. My results in
this respect have been entirely similar to those which the oxide of
silver gave me; and promptitude of operation was the sole advantage
which these substances appeared to offer. Nevertheless, last year,
after you left this, I subjected iodine to new trials, but by a
different mode of application. I informed you of the results, and your
answer, not at all encouraging, decided me to carry these experiments
no farther. It appears that you have since viewed the question under a
less desperate aspect, and I do not hesitate to reply to the appeal
which you have made.
"J. N. NIEPCE."
From this and other letters it is evident that Niepce had used iodine,
and abandoned it on account of the difficulty of reversing the lights
and shadows. Daguerre employed it also, and, as it appears, with far
more promise of success than any obtained by M. Niepce. On the fifth
of July, 1833, Niepce died; in 1837 Daguerre and Isodore Niepce, the
son and heir of Nicephore Niepce, entered into a definite agreement;
and in a letter written on the first November, 1837, to Daguerre,
Isodore Niepce says, "What a difference, also, between the method
which you employ and the one by which I toil on! While I require
almost a whole day to make one design, you ask only four minutes! What
an enormous advantage! It is so great, indeed, that no person, knowing
both methods, would employ the old one." From this time it is
established, that although both Niepce and Daguerre used iodine, the
latter alone employed it with any degree of success, and the discovery
of the use of mercurial vapor to produce the positive image clearly
belongs to Daguerre. In January, 1839, the Daguerreotype pictures were
first shown to the scientific and artistic public of Paris. The
sensation they created was great, and the highest hopes of its utility
were entertained. On the 15th June, M. Duchatel, Minister of the
Interior, presented a bill to the Chamber of Deputies relative to the
purchase of the process of M. Daguerre for fixing the images of the
camera. A commission appointed by the Chamber, consisting of Arago,
Etienne, Carl, Vatout, de Beaumont, Toursorer, Delessert (François),
Combarel de Leyval, and Vitet, made their report on the third of July,
and a special commission was appointed by the Chamber of Peers,
composed of the following peers: Barons Athalin, Besson, Gay Lussac,
the Marquis de Laplace, Vicomte Simeon, Baron Thenard, and the Comte
de Noe, who reported favorably on the thirtieth July, 1839, and
recommended unanimously that the "bill be adopted simply and without
alteration." On the nineteenth of August the secret was for the first
time publicly announced in the Institute by M. Arago, the English
patent having been completed a few days before, in open defiance and
contradiction of the statement of M. Duchatel to the Chamber of
Deputies, who used these words, "Unfortunately for the authors of this
beautiful discovery, it is impossible for them to bring their labor
into the market, and thus indemnify themselves for the sacrifices
incurred by so many attempts so long fruitless. This invention does
not admit of being secured by patent." In conclusion, the Minister of
the Interior said, "You will concur in a sentiment which has already
awakened universal sympathy; you will never suffer us to leave to
foreign nations the glory of endowing the world of science and of art
with one of the most wonderful discoveries that honor our native
land." Daguerre never did much towards the improvement of his process.
The high degree of sensibility which has been attained has been due
to the experiments of others.
[Illustration: M. DAGUERRE.]
Daguerre is said to have been always averse to sitting for his own
picture, and there are but few photographs of him in existence. The
one from which our engraving is copied was taken by Mr. Meade, of this
city, and first appeared in the _Daguerrean Journal_, a monthly
periodical conducted with marked ability by S. D. Humphrey and L. L.
Hill, who are distinguished for their improvements upon Daguerre's
process. We can refer to no more striking illustration of the advance
of the beautiful art which the deceased discovered, than the existence
of such a work, with more than two thousand subscribers among those
who are occupied in the production of Daguerreotypes in this country.
* * * * *
The Rev. John Lingard, D. D., one of the most deservedly eminent
scholars and writers of the Roman Catholic church in England, and one
of the most distinguished historians of the time, died at Hornby, in
Lancashire, on the 17th of July, at the advanced age of 81 years, and
his remains were buried at Ushaw College, Durham, with which he was
once officially connected. The deceased priest has left a reputation
that will probably survive that of any of the persons of his sect who
have been brought into notice by the recent agitations in England. His
career as a controversial writer commenced while he was a young man,
and was continued through a large portion of his laborious life. He
was an unknown priest at Newcastle-on-Tyne, when, in 1804, he issued
from the local press in that town his _History of the Anglo-Saxon
Church_, a work which constituted the first and most efficient effort
to attract popular attention to those ecclesiastical institutions of
the Saxons, which are now familiar objects of study and speculation.
In 1805 he published Catholic Loyalty Vindicated. The next year, the
bishop of Durham, in a charge to his clergy, having attacked the Roman
Catholics, Mr. Lingard answered him, in Remarks on a Charge. This
brought on a sharp controversy, in which several persons of ability
took part, and Mr. Lingard published a General Vindication of the
Remarks, with Replies to the Reverend T. Le Mesurier, G. S. Faber, and
others (1808). These two pamphlets were followed, on the same subject,
by Documents to ascertain the Sentiments of British Catholics in
former Ages (1812); a Review of certain Anti-Catholic Publications
(1813); and Strictures on Doctor Marsh's Comparative View of the
Churches of England and Rome (1815). In the last of these
publications, Mr. Lingard asserted that the church of England was
modern, compared with that of Rome; an assertion which so much
irritated the late Doctor Kipling, that he was absurd enough to
threaten the author with a process in Westminster-hall, if he did not
prove the truth of what he had stated. In 1809 Mr. Lingard published
the Antiquities of the Anglo-Saxon Church in an enlarged edition.
Doctor Lingard is principally known in foreign countries as the author
of a History of England till the Revolution of 1688, of which ten
editions have appeared and which has been translated into several
languages. Although the object of this work is the vindication of the
Roman Catholic church and clergy in England from the alleged
misrepresentations of Protestant writers, yet it is allowed to be
written in a candid and dispassionate tone. As a historian, the author
is acute and perspicuous, judicious in the selection and arrangement
of his materials, and clear and interesting in his narrative. He wrote
from original sources, which he examined with care and diligence, and
on many points gave new and more correct views of manners, events and
characters. In 1826, he published a Vindication, &c., in reply to two
articles in the Edinburgh Review (Nos. 83 and 87, written by Dr.
Allen), charging him with inaccuracy and misrepresentation. A more
favorable notice of the History appeared in No. 105 of the same
Review.
The editions of his History, an English version of the Gospels, and
other learned publications, in pamphlet form, consumed the time
unoccupied by religious duty, or by converse with the neighbors and
friends, who continually courted his society.
For the last forty years Dr. Lingard held the small and retired
preferment belonging to the Roman Catholic Church in the village of
Hornby, and there the historian resided, near to Hornby Castle, the
seat of his attached and constant friend, Mr. Pudsey Dawson. After a
lingering illness, he closed in this retirement his mortal career.
Dr. Lingard's residence was a small unpretending building, with three
windows, connected with a little chapel built by himself, where, till
last autumn, he regularly officiated. A door of communication opened
into it from his house, the lower window of which lighted the room
where he usually sat, and where he wrote the History of England. His
garden consisted of a long strip, taken off a small grass field of
about half an acre in extent. Here he passed much of his time, in the
indulgence of his taste for rural occupations.
The private virtues of Dr. Lingard were as remarkable as his public
talents. His whole habits of life were charmingly simple; his nature
was kind, his disposition most affectionate. Always they were
agreeable and profitable hours passed in his society, his mind was so
richly stored, his knowledge so varied, his fund of anecdote so
inexhaustible: a pleasantry and good humor pervaded his conversation
at all times. He never sought controversy in visits among his friends.
When questioned on the matters of his own faith, he would speak
freely; those warmly attached to the Established Church or other
creeds, widely differing from him in religious principles, never felt
restraint in his society, or anticipated any sharpness or acrimony. In
personal appearance he was rather above the middle height, and of
slender frame; and though he had reached to full four-score years, his
dark brown hair was but slightly tinged with gray: his small dark
twinkling eye was singularly expressive, and his countenance bright
and animated. The annexed portrait is from the miniature taken in
1849, by Mr. Scaife, and engraved for the last edition of the History
of England.
It has been reported, though on doubtful authority, that very high
positions in the Roman Catholic Church were more than once offered to
Dr. Lingard. There is, it is believed, little or no truth in this; but
those who knew his simple habits, and his love of retirement, would
not be surprised at his preferring, even to the purple, his peaceful
residence in the loveliest locality of the loveliest of England's
northern valleys.
[Illustration: REV. JOHN LINGARD, D. D.]
* * * * *
[Illustration: MARSHAL SEBASTIANI.]
Horace François della Porta Sebastiana, Marshal of France, and for
some time Minister of Foreign Affairs under Louis Phillippe, died in
Paris on the 14th of July. He was born in Corsica, in 1775, and having
entered the French service in 1792, rose rapidly through the different
ranks to that of colonel. Colonel Sebastiani took an active part in
the revolution of the 18th Brumaire, and, in 1802, the First Consul
sent him on a mission to the Levant. After having brought about a
reconciliation of the differences between the court of Sweden and the
regency of Tripoli, and compelled the Pacha to acknowledge the Italian
republic and salute its flag, he repaired to Alexandria, and had an
interview with General Stewart, in order to insist on the terms of the
treaty of Amiens for the evacuation of Alexandria. To this demand the
English general replied that he had not received any orders from his
court. M. Sebastiani went therefore to Cairo, and in conferences with
the pacha offered to open a communication with the beys; but the offer
was not accepted, the orders of the Porte being to make it a war of
extermination. He afterwards went to St. Jean d'Acre, with the object
of settling with the pacha a treaty of commerce, and found him
pacifically inclined. In November he set out on his return to France,
having accomplished all the objects of his mission. He was, after his
arrival, employed on various services, and, among the rest in a
diplomatic mission to Germany. He distinguished himself in the
campaign of 1804, was wounded at the battle of Austerlitz, and
obtained the rank of general of division. Napoleon entertained a high
opinion of his diplomatic talents, and named him, in 1806, ambassador
to the Ottoman Porte--a mission which he filled for some years, with
much ability. He established at Constantinople a printing-office for
the Turkish and Arabic languages, and by this means contributed not a
little to the French influence in that country. The English having
forced the passage of the Dardanelles, and menaced Constantinople,
Sebastiani immediately organized a plan of defence, marked out the
batteries, and prepared for the most vigorous resistance; but the
inhabitants broke out into insurrection, and he was obliged to depart
for France. He was subsequently sent to Spain, where he distinguished
himself on numerous occasions; and he served in the Russian-German war
under Murat. July 15, 1812, he was surprised by the Russians at
Drissa, but he recovered his character by his exertions at the battle
of Borodino. On the invasion of France, he had a command in Champagne,
and defended Chalons. April 10, M. Sebastiani sent to M. Talleyrand
his adhesion to the provisional government, and, June 1, received from
the king the cross of St. Louis. On the return of Napoleon, in 1815,
he was elected deputy of the lower chamber, and after the second
abdication of Napoleon was one of the commissioners to treat for peace
with the allies. In 1819 he was elected a member of the Chamber of
Deputies, by the island of Corsica. His lucid and manly eloquence was
employed to throw light over all the great questions of finance, war,
foreign politics, and domestic administration, and he evinced at once
the talents of an orator and the knowledge of a statesman. After the
revolution of 1830, General Sebastiani received the port-folio of the
marine in the Guizot ministry, and in November that of foreign affairs
under Laffitte, which he retained under Périer. He received the baton
of Marshal from Louis Phillippe, and had retired from active political
life, when, in 1847, the assassination of his daughter, the Duchess de
Praslin, by her husband, affected him so much that he never recovered
from the blow.
Ladies' Midsummer Fashions.
[Illustration]
There are few changes to notice in the modes de Paris. Every thing at
this season is, of course, made in an airy style, and of very light
materiel. We copy two of the most graceful costumes in the recent
books of patterns.
I. _Morning Dress_ of white muslin, with flounces, ornamented with
needlework. Many dresses intended for négligé morning costume in the
country consists of a skirt of checkered or striped silk, printed
muslin, or some other light material. For morning négligé a variety of
very pretty caps have appeared; they are of worked muslin, and are
trimmed with ribbon and fine Valenciennes.
II. _Visiting Dress_ of glace or rich silk, with three flounces,
embroidered. Mantelet of a splendid black lace, lined with pink silk,
and richly trimmed with a deep fall of black lace, which also
encircles the open sleeve. Bonnets of white _paille de riz_, decorated
in the interior with red and white flounces.
_Coiffures_ are extremely simple in form. A wreath of ivy leaves
intermixed with small clusters of jewelry, and attached at the back
with a long lappet of gold lace, fastened by noeuds of pearls and
emeralds, has a fine effect. Head-dresses of blonde are extremely
becoming, forming three points. These are fashionable for concerts,
&c. They are placed backward on the head, the points at the side being
attached with a profusion of flowers, the centre one falling over the
back comb. Another style is of a lappet of white blonde, and another
of plain pink tulle; the lappet of blonde being fastened just over the
shoulder, and a little backward, with a bunch of grapes--the pink one,
which is very wide, covering the bosom like a veil, and drooping as
low as the waist.
Fashionable colors are of all light mixtures, such as gray, lilac,
fawn, mauve, green, and peach color--white, pink, and blue
predominating for evening toilette.
* * * * *
[Illustration: JAMES FENIMORE COOPER.
From a Daguerreotype by Brady, taken for the International. 1851]
[Illustration: OTSEGO HALL.
Residence of MR. COOPER. Cooperstown. From a drawing by MISS COOPER.]
End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The International Monthly, Volume 4,
No. 2, September, 1851, by Various
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