The Project Gutenberg EBook of The International Monthly, Volume 4, No. 4,
November 1, 1851, by Various
This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or
re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
Title: The International Monthly, Volume 4, No. 4, November 1, 1851
Author: Various
Release Date: November 2, 2011 [EBook #37904]
Language: English
*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK INTERNATIONAL MONTHLY, NOV 1, 1851 ***
Produced by Joshua Hutchinson, Josephine Paolucci and the
Online Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net.
(This file was produced from images generously made
available by Cornell University Digital Collections.)
THE INTERNATIONAL MAGAZINE
Of Literature, Art, and Science.
Vol. IV. NEW-YORK, NOVEMBER 1, 1851. No. IV.
THE GREAT EXHIBITION OF THE NEW-YORK STATE AGRICULTURAL SOCIETY AT
ROCHESTER.
[Illustration: EXTERIOR OF THE FAIR.]
This is an age of Exhibitions. From the humble collection of cattle and
counter-panes, swine and "garden sauce," at the central village of some
secluded County, up to the stupendous "World's Fair" at London, wherein all
nations and all arts are represented, "Industrial Expositions," as the
French more accurately term them, are the order of the day. And this is
well--nay, it is inspiring. It proves the growth and diffusion of a wider
and deeper consciousness of the importance and dignity of Labor as an
element of national strength and social progress. That corn and cloth are
essential to the comfortable subsistence of the human family, and of every
portion of it, was always plain enough; but the truth is much broader than
that. Not food alone, but knowledge, virtue, power, depend upon the subtle
skill of the artificer's fingers, the sturdy might of the husbandman's arm.
Let these fail, through the blighting influence of despotism,
licentiousness, superstition, or slavery, and the national greatness is
cankered at the root, and its preservation overtasks the ability of
Phocion, of Hannibal, of Cato. A nation flourishes or withers with the
development and vigor of its Industry. It may prosper and be strong without
statesmen, warriors, or jurists; it fades and falls with the decline of its
arts and its agriculture. Wisely, therefore, do rulers, nobles, field
marshals and archbishops, unite in rendering the highest honors to eminence
in the domain of Industry, dimly perceiving that it is mightier and more
enduring than their petty and fragile potencies. The empire of Napoleon,
though so lately at its zenith, has utterly passed away, while that of
Fulton is still in its youth.
A State Agricultural Society, numbering among its members some thousands of
her foremost citizens, mainly but not wholly farmers, is one of the most
commendable institutions of this great and growing commonwealth. Aided
liberally by the State government, it holds an Annual Fair at some one of
the chief towns of the interior, generally on the line of the Erie Canal,
whereby the collection of stock and other articles for exhibition is
facilitated, and the cost thereof materially lessened. Poughkeepsie,
Albany, Saratoga Springs, Utica, Syracuse (twice), Auburn, Rochester
(twice), and Buffalo, are the points at which these Fairs have been held
within the last ten years. Recently, the railroads have transported cattle,
&c., for exhibition, either at half-price, or entirely without charge,
while the State's bounty and the liberal receipts for admission to the
grounds have enabled the managers to stimulate competition by a very
extensive award of premiums, so that almost every recurrence of the State
Fair witnesses a larger and still more extensive display of choice animals.
Whether the improvement in quality keeps pace with the increase in number
is a point to be maturely considered.
The Fair of this year was held at ROCHESTER, in a large open field about a
mile south of the city, and of course near the Genesee river. Gigantic
stumps scattered through it, attested how recently this whole region was
covered with the primeval forest. Probably fifty thousand persons now live
within sight of the Rochester steeples, though not a human being inhabited
this then dense and swampy wilderness forty years ago. And here, almost
wholly from a region which had less than five thousand white inhabitants in
1810, not fewer than one hundred thousand persons, two-thirds of them adult
males, were drawn together expressly to witness this exhibition. The number
who entered the gates on Thursday alone exceeded seventy-five thousand,
while the attendance on the two preceding days and on Friday, of persons
who were not present on Thursday, must have exceeded twenty-five thousand.
Of course, many came with no definite purpose, no previous preparation to
observe and learn, and so carried home nothing more than they brought
there, save the head-ache, generated by their irregularities and excesses
while absent; but thousands came qualified and resolved to profit by the
practical lessons spread before them, and doubtless went away richly
recompensed for the time and money expended in visiting the Fair. This
Annual Exhibition is as yet the Farmers' University; they will in time have
a better, but until then they do well to make the most of that which
already welcomes them to its cheap, ready and practical inculcations.
[Illustration: ROCHESTER.]
The President of the State Society for this year is Mr. JOHN DELAFIELD,
long a master spirit among our Wall-street financiers, and for some years
President of the Phenix bank. He was finally swamped by the rascality of
the State of Illinois in virtually repudiating her public debt, whereby Mr.
Delafield, who had long acted as her financial agent in New-York, and had
staked his fortune on her integrity, was reduced from affluence to need.
Nothing daunted by this reverse, he promptly transferred his energies from
finance to agriculture, taking hold of a large farm in Seneca County, near
the beautiful village of Geneva; and on this farm he soon proved himself
one of the best practical agriculturists in our State. Before he had been
five years on the soil, he was already teaching hundreds of life-long
cultivators, by the quiet force of his successful example, how to double
the product of their lands and more than double their annual profits. His
enlightened and admirable husbandry has finally called him to the post he
now occupies--one not inferior in true dignity and opportunity for
usefulness to that of Governor of the State. And this is a fair specimen of
the elasticity of the American character and its capacity for adapting
itself to any and every change of circumstances.
[Illustration: INTERIOR OF THE FAIR.]
The Annual Address at this Fair was delivered by the Hon. STEPHEN A.
DOUGLAS, now U. S. Senator from Illinois, and a very probable "Democratic"
candidate for next President of the United States. It was an able and well
enunciated discourse, devoted mainly to political economy as affecting
agriculture, taking the "free trade" view of this important and difficult
subject, and evidently addressed quite as much to southern politicians as
to New-York farmers; but it embodied many practical suggestions of decided
force and value. This address has already received a very wide circulation.
A public entertainment was proffered on Thursday evening to the officers of
the State Society, on behalf of the city of Rochester, which was attended
by ex-President TYLER, GOV. WASHINGTON HUNT, ex-Governor and ex-Secretary
MARCY, GEN. WOOL, Governor WRIGHT of Indiana, &c. &c. Senator DOUGLAS
arrived in the train just before the gathering broke up. The presence of
ladies, and the absence of liquors, were the most commendable features of
this festivity, which was convened at an absurdly late hour, and
characterized by an afflictive amount of dull speaking. Such an
entertainment is very well on an occasion like this, merely as a means of
enabling the congregated thousands to see and hear the celebrities convened
with them; but it should be given in the afternoon or beginning of the
evening, should cost very little (the speaking being dog-cheap and the
eatables no object), and should in nearly all respects be just what the
Rochester festival was not. As an exercise in false hospitality, however,
and a beacon for future adventurers in the same line, this entertainment
had considerable merit.
[Illustration: AZALIA.
_The best Short-Horned Durham Cow over Three Years Old: Owned by Lewis G.
Morris._]
[Illustration: LORD ERYHOLM.
_The best Two Year Old Short-Horned Durham Bull: Owned by Lewis G.
Morris._]
NEAT CATTLE stood first in intrinsic value among the classes of articles
exhibited at the Fair. Probably not less than One Thousand of these were
shown on this occasion, including imported bulls and cows, working-oxen,
fat steers, blood-heifers, calves, &c. &c. Of these we could not now say
whether the Durham or Devonshire breed predominated, but the former had
certainly no such marked ascendency as at former Fairs. Our impression from
the statements of disinterested breeders was and is, that where cattle are
bred mainly for the market, a larger weight of flesh may be obtained at an
early age from the Durham than from any rival breed, though not of the
finest quality; while for milk or butter the Devon is, and perhaps one or
two other breeds are, preferable. But this is merely the inference of one,
who has no experience in the premises, from a comparison of the statements
of intelligent breeders of widely differing preferences. Probably each of
the half-dozen best breeds is better adapted to certain localities and
purposes than any other; and intelligent farmers assert, that we still need
some breeds not yet introduced in this country, especially the small Black
Cattle of the Scottish Highlands, which, from their hardiness, excellence
of flesh, small cost for wintering, &c., are specially adapted to our own
rugged upland districts, particularly that which half covers the
north-eastern quarter of our State. The subject is one of the deepest
interest to agriculturists, and is destined to receive a thorough
investigation at their hands.
[Illustration: EARL SEAHAM.
_The best Short-Horned Durham Bull over Three Years Old: Owned by J. M.
Sherwood and A. Stevens._]
[Illustration: DEVON.
_The best Devon Bull over Three Years Old: Owned by W. P. and C. S.
Wainwright._]
[Illustration: TROMP.
_The best Hereford Bull, over Three Years Old: Owned by Allen Ayrault._]
[Illustration: KOSSUTH AND BRISKA.
_Best Foreign (Hungarian) Cattle, over Two Years Old: Owned by Roswell L.
Colt._]
Of Horses, the number exhibited was of course much smaller--perhaps two
hundred in all--embracing many animals of rare spirit, symmetry, and
beauty. Some Canadian horses, and a few specimens of a famous Vermont breed
(the Morgan) were among them. Our attention was not specially drawn in this
direction, and we will leave the merits of the rival competitors to the
awards of the judges.
[Illustration: DEVON HEIFER.
_Best three-fourth bred Devon Heifer: owned by George Shaeffer._]
[Illustration: OLD CLYDE.
_Best Foreign Horse: owned by Jane Ward, Markham, Canada West._]
[Illustration: CONSTERNATION.
_Best thorough-bred horse over four years old: owned by John B. Burnet._]
[Illustration: SOUTH DOWN SHEEP.
_Best Middle-Wooled Ewe, over Two Years Old: Owned by Lewis G. Morris._]
Of Sheep, there were a large number present--at a rough guess, Two
Thousand--embracing specimens of widely contrasted varieties. The
fine-wooled Saxonies and Merioes were largely represented; so were
coarse-wooled but fine-fleshed Bakewells and Southdowns. For three or four
years past, the annual product of wool, especially of the finer qualities,
has been unequal to the demand, causing a gradual appreciation of prices,
until a standard has this year been reached above the value of the staple.
Speculators, who had observed the gradual rise through two or three
seasons, rushed in to purchase this year's clip, at prices which cannot be
maintained, and the farmers have received some hundreds of thousands of
dollars more for their wool than the buyers can ever sell it for. This has
naturally reacted on the price of sheep, whereof choice specimens for
breeding have been sold for sums scarcely exceeded during the celebrated
Merino fever of 1816-18. _Bona fide_ sales for $100 each and over have
certainly been made; and it is confidently asserted that picked animals
from the flocks of a famous Vermont breeder were sold, to improve Ohio
flocks, at the late Fair of that State--a buck for $1,000, and six ewes for
$300 each. These reports, whether veritable or somewhat inflated, indicate
a tendency of the times. Where sheep are grown mainly for the wool, it is
as absurd to keep those of inferior grades, as to plant apple-trees without
grafting and grow two or three bushels of walnut-sized, vinegar-flavored
fruit on a tree which might as well have borne ten bushels of Spitzenbergs
or Greenings. But there is room also for improvement and profit in the
breeding of sheep other than the fine-wooled species. The famous
roast-mutton of England ought to be more than rivaled among us; for we have
a better climate and far better sheep-walks than the English in the rugged
mountain districts of New-England, of Pennsylvania, and of our own State.
The breeding of large, fine-fleshed sheep of the choicest varieties, on the
lines of all the railroads communicating with the great cities, is one of
the undertakings which promise largest and surest returns to our farmers,
and it is yet in its infancy. A hundred thousand of such sheep would be
taken annually by New-York and Philadelphia at largely remunerating prices.
Thousands of acres of sterile, scantily timbered land on the Delaware and
its branches might be profitably transformed into extensive sheep-walks,
while they must otherwise remain useless and unimproved for ages. These
lands may now be bought for a song, and are morally certain to be far
higher within the next dozen years.
[Illustration: LONG-WOOLED SHEEP.
_Best long-wooled buck and ewe over two years old: owned by J. McDonald and
Wm. Rathbone._]
Of Swine there were a good many exhibited at the Fair, but we did not waste
much time upon them. The Hog Crop once stood high among the products of the
older States, but it has gradually fallen off since the settlement of the
great West, and the cheapening of intercommunication between that section
and the East, and is destined to sink still lower. Pork can be made on the
prairies and among the nutwood forests and corn-bearing intervales of the
West for half the cost of making it in New-England; no Yankee can afford to
feed his hogs with corn, much less potatoes, as his grandfather freely did.
Only on a dairy farm can any considerable quantity of pork be profitably
made east of the Ohio; and he who keeps but a pig or two to eat up the
refuse of the kitchen cares little (perhaps too little) for the breed of
his porkers. So let them pass.
"Fancy" Fowls are among the hobbies of our day, as was abundantly evinced
at the State Fair. Coops piled on coops, and in rows twenty rods long, of
Chinese, Dorking, and other breeds of the most popular domestic bird,
monopolized a large share of attention; while geese, ducks, turkies, &c.,
were liberally and creditably represented. The "Hen Convention," which was
a pet topic of Boston waggery a year or two since, might have been easily
and properly held at Rochester. Many of these choice barn-yard fowls were
scarcely inferior in size while doubtless superior in flavor to the
ordinary turky, while the farmer who opens the spring with a hundred of
them may half feed his family and at the same time quite keep down his
store-bill with their daily products. Small economies steadily pursued are
the source of thrift and competence to many a cultivator of flinty and
ungenial acres; few farmers can afford to disregard them. If thrice the
present number of fowls were kept among us, their care and food would
scarcely be missed, while their product would greatly increase the
aggregate not only of thrift but of comfort.
[Illustration: J. DELAFIELD'S CHINESE HOGS.]
"Floral Hall" was the name of a temporary though spacious structure of
scantling and rough boards, in which were exhibited, in addition to a
profusion of the flowers of the season, a display of Fruits and Vegetables
whereof Rochester might well be proud. This city seems the natural centre
of the finest fruit-growing district on the American continent--yes, in the
whole world. Its high latitude secures the richest flavors, while the harsh
northern winds, which elsewhere prove so baneful, are here softened by
passing over lake Erie or Ontario, and a climate thus produced, which, for
fruit, has no rival. Large delicious grapes of innumerable varieties;
excellent peaches; delicate, juicy, luscious pears; quinces that really
tempt the eye, though not the palate; and a profusion of fair, fragrant,
golden, mammoth apples,--these were among the products of the immediate
vicinity of Rochester exhibited in bounteous profusion. In the department
of Vegetables also there were beets and turnips of gigantic size; several
squashes weighing about one hundred and thirty pounds each; with
egg-plants, potatoes, tomatoes, and other edibles, which were all that
palate could desire. The fertility of western New-York is proverbial; but
it was never more triumphantly set forth than in the fruit and vegetables
exhibited at the State Fair.
Of butter, cheese, honey, (obtained without destroying the bees,)
maple-sugar &c., the display was much better than we have remarked on any
former occasion. And in this connection the rock salt from our own State
works around Syracuse deserves honorable mention. New-York salt has been
treated with systematic injustice by western consumers. In order to save a
shilling or two on the barrel, they buy the inferior article produced by
boiling instead of the far better obtained by solar evaporation; then they
endeavor to make a New-York standard bushel of fifty six pounds do the work
of a measured bushel of Turks Island weighing eighty pounds; and because
the laws regulating the preservation and decomposition of animal substances
will not thus be swindled, they pronounce the New-York salt impure and
worthless. Now there is no purer, no better salt than the New-York solar;
but, even of this, fifty-six pounds will not do the work of eighty. Buy the
best quality, (and even this is dog cheap,) use the proper quantity, and no
salt in the world will preserve meats better than this. The New-York solar
salt exhibited at Rochester could not be surpassed, and that which had been
_ground_ has no superior in its adaptation to the table.
There were many tasteful Counterpanes and other products of female skill
and industry exhibited, but the perpetual crowd in the 'halls' devoted to
manufactures allowed no opportunity for their critical examination. Of
stoves and ranges, heating and (let us be thankful for it, even at this
late day) ventilating apparatus and arrangements, there was a supply; and
so of daguerreotypes, trunks, harness, &c. &c. Nothing, however, arrested
our attention in this hall but the specimens of FLAX-COTTON and its various
proportions exhibited by E. G. Roberts, assignee of Claussen's patents for
the United States. We saw one intelligent influential citizen converted
from skepticism to enthusiasm for flax-cotton by his first earnest
examination. It _will_ go inevitably. A cotton fibre scarcely
distinguishable from Sea Island may be produced from flax by Claussen's
process for six cents per pound; and a machine for breaking out the fibre
from the unrotted stalk was exhibited by Mr. Clemmons of Springfield,
Massachusetts, which is calculated materially to expedite the flax-cotton
revolution. This machine renders the entire fibre, with hardly a loss of
two per cent. as 'swingle-tow,' straight and wholly separated from the
woody substance or 'shives,' at a cost which can hardly equal one cent per
pound of dressed flax. Its operation is very simple, and any man who has
seen it work a day may manage it. Its entire cost is from $125 to $200,
according to size. It will be a shame to American agricultural enterprise
if flax-cotton and linen are not both among our country's extensive and
important products within the next three years.
The department of Agricultural Machinery and Implements was decidedly the
most interesting of any. No other can at all equal it in the rapidity and
universality of progress from year to year. Of Plows, there cannot have
been less than two hundred on the ground, exhibiting a great variety of
novel excellence. One with two shares, contrived to cut two furrows at
once, seemed the most useful of any recently invented. The upper share cuts
and turns the sward to the depth of five inches, which is immediately
buried seven inches deep by the earth turned up by the deeper share. Since
it is impossible to induce one farmer in twenty to subsoil, this, as the
next best thing, ought to be universally adopted.
Seed-Sowers, Corn-Planters, Reapers, Fanning-Mills, Straw-Cutters, &c.,
&c., were abundant, and evinced many improvements on the best of former
years. A Mower with which a man, boy, and span of horses, will cut and
spread ten acres per day of grass, however heavy, on tolerably level
land--both cutting and spreading better than the hand-impelled scythe and
stick will do--was among the new inventions; also two threshers and
cleaners, each of them warranted to thresh and nearly clean, by the labor
of four men, a boy, and two horses, over one hundred bushels of wheat or
two hundred bushels of oats per day. The testimony of candid citizens who
had used them, and the evidence of our own senses, left no doubt on our
mind of the correctness of these assertions. But we do not write to commend
any article, but to call attention to the great and cheering truth which
underlies them all. Agriculture is a noble art, involving the knowledge of
almost all the practical sciences--chemistry, geology, climatology,
mechanics, &c. It is not merely progressive, but rapidly progressing, so
that fifty days' labor on the same soil produce far more grain or hay now
than they did half a century ago. And every year is increasing and
rendering more palpable the pressing need of a PRACTICAL COLLEGE, wherein
Agriculture, Mechanics, and the sciences auxiliary thereto shall be ably
and thoroughly taught to thousands and tens of thousands of our countrymen,
who shall in turn become the disseminators of the truths thus inculcated to
the youth of every county and township in the country.
And thus shall Agriculture be rendered what it should be--not only the most
essential but the most intellectual and attractive among the industrial
avocations of mankind.
HORACE GREELEY
[Illustration: THE VIRGINIA REAPER.
_Exhibited at the Crystal Palace, and the New-York State Agricultural Fair,
by Cyrus H. McCormick_.]
WILLIAM ROSS WALLACE.
[Illustration]
Of the large number of young men in this country who write verses, we
scarcely know of one who has a more unquestionable right to the title of
poet than WILLIAM ROSS WALLACE, who has just published, in a very handsome
volume, a collection of his writings, under the title of _Meditations in
America_. Mr. WALLACE has written other things which in their day have been
sufficiently familiar to the public; in what we have to say of his
capacities we shall confine ourselves to the pieces which he has himself
here selected as the truest exponents of his genius, and without giving
them indiscriminate praise shall hope to find in them evidences of peculiar
and remarkable powers, combined with a spirit eminently susceptible to the
influences of nature and of ideal and moral beauty.
Mr. Wallace is a western man, and was born in Lexington, Kentucky, in the
year 1819. His father was a Presbyterian minister, of good family, and
marked abilities, who died soon after, leaving the future poet to the care
of a mother whose chief ambition in regard to him was that he should be so
trained as to be capable of the most elevated positions in society. After
the usual preparatory studies, he went first to the Bloomington College,
and afterwards to the South Hanover College, in Indiana, and upon
graduating at the latter institution studied the law in his native city.
When about twenty-two years of age, having already acquired considerable
reputation in literature, by various contributions to western and southern
periodicals, he came to the Atlantic states, and with the exception of a
few months passed in Philadelphia, and a year and a half in Europe, he has
since resided in New-York, occupied in the practice of his profession and
in the pursuits of literature. Of his numerous poetical compositions, this
is the first collection, and the only volume, except _Alban, a Romance_,
intended to illustrate the influence of certain prejudices of society and
principles of law on individual character and destiny, which was published
in 1848.
His works generally are distinguished for a sensuous richness of style,
earnestness of temper, and much freedom of speculation. Throughout the
_Meditations in America_ we perceive that he is most at home in the serious
and stately rhythms and solemn fancies of such pieces as the hymn "To a
Wind Going Seaward," "The Mounds of America," "The Chant of a Soul," &c.;
but he occasionally writes in livelier and less peculiar measures.
The late Mr. Poe in his _Marginalia_ refers to the following as one of the
finest things in American literature; it is certainly very characteristic.
THE CHANT OF A SOUL.
My youth has gone--the glory, the delight
That gave new moons unto the night,
And put in every wind a tone
And presence that was not its own.
I can no more create,
What time the Autumn blows her solemn tromp,
And goes with golden pomp
Through our unmeasurable woods:
I can no more create, sitting in youthful state
Above the mighty floods,
And peopling glen, and wave, and air,
With shapes that are immortal. Then
The earth and heaven were fair,
While only less than gods seem'd all my fellow-men.
Oh! the delight, the gladness,
The sense yet love of madness,
The glorious choral exultations,
The far-off sounding of the banded nations,
The wings of angels at melodious sweeps
Upon the mountain's hazy steeps,--
The very dead astir within their coffin'd deeps;
The dreamy veil that wrapp'd the star and sod--
A swathe of purple, gold, and amethyst;
And, luminous behind the billowy mist,
Something that look'd to my young eyes like GOD.
Too late I learn I have not lived aright,
And hence the loss of that delight
Which put a moon into the moonless night
I mingled in the human maze;
I sought their horrid shrine;
I knelt before the impure blaze;
I made their idols mine.
I lost mine early love--that love of balms
Most musical with solemn psalms
Sounding beneath the tall and graceful palms.
Who lives aright?
Answer me, all ye pyramids and piles
That look like calmest power in your still might.
Ye also do I ask, O continents and isles!
Blind though with blood ye be,
Your tongues, though torn with pain, I know are free.
Then speak, all ancient masses! speak
From patient obelisk to idle peak!
There is a heaving of the plains,
A trailing of a shroud,
A clash of bolts and chains--
A low, sad voice, that comes upon me like a cloud,
"Oh, misery, oh, misery!"--
Thou poor old Earth! no more, no more
Shall I draw speech from thee,
Nor dare thy crypts of legendary lore:
Let silence learn no tongue; let night fold every shore.
Yet I have something left--the will,
That Mont Blanc of the soul, is towering still.
And I can bear the pain,
The storm, the old heroic chain;
And with a smile
Pluck wisdom from my torture, and give back
A love to Fate from this my mountain-rack.
I do believe the sad alone are wise;
I do believe the wrong'd alone can know
Why lives the world, why spread the burden'd skies,
And so from torture into godship grow.
Plainer and plainer beams this truth, the more
I hear the slow, dull dripping of my gore;
And now, arising from yon deep,
'Tis plain as a white statue on a tall, dark steep.
Oh, suffering bards! oh spirits black
With storm on many a mountain-rack
Our early splendor's gone.
Like stars into a cloud withdrawn--
Like music laid asleep
In dried-up fountains--like a stricken dawn
Where sudden tempests sweep.
I hear the bolts around us falling,
And cloud to cloud forever calling:
Yet WE must nor despair nor weep.
Did WE this evil bring?
Or from our fellows did the torture spring?
Titans! forgive, forgive!
Oh, know ye not 'tis victory but to live?
Therefore I say, rejoice with harp and voice!
I know not what our fate may be:
I only know that he who hath a time
Must also have eternity:
One billow proves and gives a whole wide sea.
On this I build my trust,
And not on mountain-dust,
Or murmuring woods, or starlit clime,
Or ocean with melodious chime,
Or sunset glories in the western sky:
Enough, I _am_, and shall not choose to die.
No matter what my future fate may be:
To live is in itself a majesty!
Oh! there I may again create
Fair worlds as in my youthful state;
Or Wo may build for me a fiery tomb
Like Farinata's in the nether gloom:
Even then I will not lose the name of man
By idle moan or coward groan,
But say, "It was so written in the mighty plan!"
The next poem is in a vein of lofty contemplation, and the rhetoric is
eminently appropriate and well sustained. It is one of the most striking
pieces in the book.
THE MOUNDS OF AMERICA.
Come to the mounds of death with me. They stretch
From deep to deep, sad, venerable, vast,
Graves of gone empires--gone without a sighn,
Like clouds from heaven. They stretch'd from deep to deep
Before the Roman smote his mailéd hand
On the gold portals of the dreaming East;
Before the Pleiad, in white trance of song,
Beyond her choir of stars went wandering.
The great old Trees, rank'd on these hills of death,
Have melancholy hymns about all this;
And when the moon walks her inheritance
With slow, imperial pace, the Trees look up
And chant in solemn cadence. Come and hear.
"Oh patient Moon! go not behind a cloud,
But listen to our words. We, too, are old,
Though not so old as thou. The ancient towns,
The cities throned far apart like queens,
The shadowy domes, the realms majestical,
Slept in thy younger beams. In every leaf
We hold their dust, a king in every trunk.
We, too, are very old: the wind that wails
In our broad branches, from swart Ethiop come
But now, wail'd in our branches long ago,
Then come from darken'd Calvary. The Hills
Lean'd ghastly at the tale that wan Wind told;
The Streams crept shuddering through the tremulous dark;
The Torrent of the North, from morn till eve,
On his steep ledge hung pausing; and o'er all
Such silence fell, we heard the conscious Rills
Drip slowly in the caves of central Earth.
So were the continents by His crownéd grief
Together bound, before that Genoese
Flamed on the dim Atlantic: so have we,
Whose aspect faced the scene, unchallenged right
Of language unto all, while memory holds.
"O patient Moon! go not behind a cloud,
But hear our words. We know that thou didst see
The whole that we could utter--thou that wert
A worship unto realms beyond the flood--
But we are very lonesome on these mounds,
And speech doth make the burden of sad thought
Endurable; while these, the people new,
That take our land, may haply learn from us
What wonder went before them; for no word
E'er came from thee, so beautiful, so lone.
Throned in thy still domain, superbly calm
And silent as a god.
Here empires rose and died;
Their very dust, beyond the Atlantic borne
In the pale navies of the charter'd wind,
Stains the white Alp. Here the proud city ranged
Spire after spire, like star ranged after star
Along the dim empyrean, till the air
Went mad with splendor, and the dwellers cried,
"Our walls have married Time!"--Gone are the marts,
The insolent citadels, the fearful gates,
The pictured domes that curved like starry skies;
Gone are their very names! The royal Ghost
Cannot discern the old imperial haunts,
But goes about perplexéd like a mist
Between a ruin and the awful stars.
Nations are laid beneath our feet. The bard
Who stood in Song's prevailing light, as stands
The apocalyptic angel in the sun,
And rained melodious fire on all the realms;
The prophet pale, who shuddered in his gloom,
As the white cataract shudders in its mist;
The hero shattering an old kingdom down
With one clear trumpet's will: the Boy, the Sage,
Subject and Lord, the Beautiful, the Wise--
Gone, gone to nothingness.
The years glide on,
The pitiless years! and all alike shall fail,
State after State rear'd by the solemn sea,
Or where the Hudson goes unchallenged past
The ancient warder of the Palisades,
Or where, rejoicing o'er the enormous cloud,
Beam the blue Alleghanies--all shall fail:
The Ages chant their dirges on the peaks;
The palls are ready in the peopled vales;
And nations fill one common sepulchre.
Nor goes the Earth on her dark way alone.
Each star in yonder vault doth hold the dead
In its funereal deeps: Arcturus broods
Over vast sepulchres that had grown old
Before the earth was made: the universe
Itself is but one mighty cemetery
Rolling around its central, solemn sun.
"O patient Moon! go not behind a cloud,
But listen to our words. We, too, must die--
And thou!--the vassal stars shall fail to hear
Thy queenly voice over the azure fields
Calling at sunset. They shall fade. The Earth
Shall look and miss their sweet, familiar eyes,
And, crouching, die beneath the feet of GOD.
Then come the glories, then the nobler times,
For which the Orbs travail'd in sorrow; then
The mystery shall be clear, the burden gone;
And surely men shall know why nations came
Transfigured for the pangs; why not a spot
Of this wide world but hath a tale of wo;
Why all this glorious universe is Death's.
"Go, Moon! and tell the stars, and tell the suns,
Impatient of the wo, the strength of him
Who doth consent to death; and tell the climes
That meet thy mournful eyes, one after one,
Through all the lapses of the lonesome night,
The pathos of repose, the might of Death!"
The voice is hush'd; the great old wood is still:
The Moon, like one in meditation, walks
Behind a cloud. We, too, have them for thought,
While, as a sun, GOD takes the West of Time
And smites the pyramid of Eternity.
The shadow lengthens over many worlds
Doom'd to the dark mausoleum and mound.
We do not remember any poem on Mahomet finer than the following:
EL AMIN.
Who is this that comes from Hara? not in kingly pomp and pride,
But a great, free son of Nature, lion-souled and eagle-eyed!
Who is this before whose presence idols tumble to the sod?
While he cries out--"Allah Akbar! and there is no god but God!"
Wandering in the solemn desert, he has wondered like a child
Not as yet too proud to wonder, at the sun, and star, and wild.
"Oh, thou moon! who made thy brightness? Stars! who hung you there on high?
Answer! so my soul may worship: I must worship or die!"
Then there fell the brooding silence that precedes the thunder's roll;
And the old Arabian Whirlwind called another Arab soul.
Who is this that comes from Hara? not in kingly pomp and pride,
But a great, free son of Nature, lion-souled and eagle-eyed!
He has stood and seen Mount Hara to the Awful Presence nod;
He has heard from cloud and lightning--"Know there is no god but God!"
Call ye this man an imposter? He was called "The Faithful," when,
A boy, he wandered o'er the deserts, by the wild-eyed Arab men.
He was always called "The Faithful." Truth he knew was Allah's breath;
But the Lie went darkly gnashing through the corridors of Death.
"He was fierce!" Yes! fierce at falsehood--fierce at hideous bits of wood,
That the Koreish taught the people made the sun and solitude.
But his heart was also gentle, and Affection's graceful palm,
Waving in his tropic spirit, to the weary brought a balm.
"Precepts?" "Have on each compassion:" "Lead the stranger to your door:"
"In your dealings keep up justice:" "Give a tenth unto the poor."
"Yet ambitious!" Yes! ambitious--while he heard the calm and sweet
Aiden-voices sing--to trample troubled Hell beneath his feet.
"Islam?" Yes! "Submit to Heaven!" "Prophet?" To the East thou art!
What are prophets but the trumpets blown by God to stir the heart?
And the great heart of the desert stirred unto that solemn strain,
Rolling from the trump at Hara over Error's troubled main.
And a hundred dusky millions honor still El Amin's rod--
Daily chanting--"Allah Akbar! know there is no god but God!"
Call him then no more "Impostor." Mecca is the Choral Gate
Where, till Zion's noon shall take them, nations in her morning wait.
Mr. Wallace has published a few songs. They have not the stately movement
of his other pieces, and the one which follows needs the application of the
file; but it is, like the others, very spirited:
AVELINE.
----The sunny eyes of the maiden fair
Give answer better than voice or pen
That as he loves he is loved again.--C. C. LEEDS.
Love me dearly, love me dearly with your heart and with your eyes;
Whisper all your sweet emotions, as they gushing, blushing rise;
Throw your soft white arms about me;
Say you cannot live without me:
Say, you are my Aveline; say, that you are only mine,
That you cannot live without me, young and rosy Aveline!
Love me dearly, dearly, dearly: speak you love-words silver-clearly,
So I may not doubt thus early of your fondness, of your truth.
Press, oh! press your throbbing bosom closely, warmly to my own:
Fix your kindled eyes on mine--say you live for me alone,
While I fix my eyes on thine,
Lovely, trusting, artless, plighted; plighted, rosy Aveline!
Love me dearly; love me dearly: radiant dawn upon my gloom:
Ravish me with Beauty's bloom:--
Tell me "Life has yet a glory: 'tis not all an idle story!"
As a gladdened vale in noonlight; as a weary lake in moonlight,
Let me in thy love recline:
Show me life has yet a splendor in my tender Aveline.
Love me dearly, dearly, dearly with your heart and with your eyes:
Whisper all your sweet emotions as they gushing, blushing rise.
Throw your soft white arms around me; say you _lived not_ till you found me--
Say it, say it, Aveline! whisper you are only mine;
That you cannot live without me, as you throw your arms about me,
That you _cannot_ live without me, artless, rosy Aveline!
Our limits will not permit us to quote any of the remaining poems of this
volume in full, and we conclude our extracts with a few passages penciled
while in a hasty reading. In the piece entitled The Kings of Sorrow, the
poet sings:
Was HE not sad amid the grief and strife, the Lord of light and life,
Whose torture made humanity divine, upon that woful hill of Palestine?
Then is it not far better thus to be, thoughtful, and brave, and melancholy,
Than given up to idle revelry, amid the unreligious brood of folly?
For our sorrow is a worship, worship true, and pure, and calm,
Sounding from the choir of duty like a high, heroic psalm,
In its very darkness bearing to the bleeding heart a balm.
Brothers, we must have no wailing: do we agonize alone?
Look at all the pallid millions; hear a universal moan,
From the mumbling, low-browed Bushman to a Lytton on his throne.
Nor shall we have coward faltering: Brothers! we must be sublime
By due labor at the forges blazing in the cave of Time;
Knowing life was made for duty, and that only cowards prate
Of a search for Happy Valley and the hard decrees of fate:
Seeing through this night of mourning all the future as a star,
And a joy at last appearing on the centuries afar,
When the meaning of the sorrow, when the mystery shall be plain,
When the Earth shall see her rivers roll through Paradise again.
O! the vision gives to sorrow something white and purple-plumed:
Even the hurricane of Evil comes a hurricane perfumed.
In the same:
... The Storm is silent while we speak;
The awe-struck Cloud hath paused above the peak;
The far Volcano statlier waves on high
His smoking censer to the solemn sky;
And see, the troubled Ocean folds his hands
With a great patience on the yellow sands.
In Rest:
So rest! and Rest shall slay your many woes;
Motion is god-like--god-like is repose,
A mountain-stillness, of majestic might,
Whose peaks are glorious with the quiet light
Of suns when Day is at his solemn close.
Nor deem that slumber must ignoble be.
Jove labored lustily once in airy fields;
And over the cloudy lea
He planted many a budding shoot
Whose liberal nature daily, nightly yields
A store of starry fruit.
His labor done, the weary god went back
Up the long mountain track
To his great house; there he did wile away
With lightest thought a well-won holiday;
For all the Powers crooned softly an old tune
Wishing their Sire might sleep
Through all the sultry noon
And cold blue night;
And very soon
They heard the awful Thunderer breathing low and deep.
And in the hush that dropped adown the spheres,
And in the quiet of the awe-struck space,
The worlds learned worship at the birth of years:
They looked upon their Lord's calm, kingly face.
And bade Religion come and kiss each starry place.
In the same:
See what a languid glory binds
The long dim chambers of the darkling West,
While far below yon azure river winds
Like a blue vein on sleeping Beauty's breast.
In The Gods of Old:
Not realmless sit the ancient gods
Upon their mountain-thrones
In that old glorious Grecian Heaven
Of regal zones.
A languor o'er their stately forms
May lie,
And a sorrow on their wide white brows,
King-dwellers of the sky!
But theirs is still that large imperial throng
Of starry thoughts and firm but quiet wills,
That murmured past the blind old King of Song,
When staring round him on the Thunderer's hills.
In the same:
... Still Love, sublime, shall wrap
His awful eyebrows in Olympian shrouds.
Or take along the Heaven's dark wilderness
His thunder-chase behind the hunted clouds.
And mortal eyes upturned shall behold
Apollo's robe of gold
Sweep through the long blue corridor of the sky
That, kindling, speaks its Deity:
And He, the Ruler of the Sunless Land
Of restless ghosts, shall fitfully illume
With smouldering fires, that stir in caverned eyes,
Hell's mournful House of Gloom.
In the Hymn to a Wind, Going Seaward:
Move on! Move on,
Wind of the wide wild West! Tell thou to all
The Isles, tell thou to all the Continents
The grandeur of my land! Speak of its vales
Where Independence wears a pastoral wreath
Amid the holy quiet of his flock;
And of its mountains with their cloudy beards
Tossed by the breath of centuries; and speak
Of its tall cataracts that roll their bass
Amid the choral of the midnight storms;
And of its rivers lingering through the plains
So long, that they seem made to measure time;
And of its lakes that mock the haughty sea;
And of its caves where banished gods might find
Night large enough to hide their crownless heads;
And of its sunsets broad and glorious there
O'er Prairies spread like endless oceans on--
And on--and on--over the far dim leagues
Till vision shudders o'er immensity.
In the same:
----Troubled France
Shall listen to thy calm deep voice, and learn
That Freedom must be calm if she would fix
Her mountain moveless in a heaving world.
In a Chant to the East:
Still! Oh still!
Despite of passion, sin, and ill,
Despite of all this weary world hath brought,
An angel band from Zion's holy hill
Walks gently through the open gate of Thought.
Oh, still! Oh, still!
Despite of passion, sin, and ill,
ONE in red vesture comes in sorrow's time--
ONE crowned with thorns from that far Orient clime,
Who pitying looks on me
And gently asks, "Poor man, what aileth thee?"
In the same:
The nations must forever turn to thee,
Feeling thy lustrous presence from afar;
And feed upon thy splendor as a sea
Feeds on the shining shadow of a star.
In Wordsworth:
And many a brook shall murmur in my verse;
And many an ocean join his cloudy bass;
And many a mountain tower aloft, whereon
The black storm crouches, with his deep-red eyes
Glaring upon the valleys stretch'd below;
And many a green wood rock the small, bright birds
To musical sleep beneath the large, full moon;
And many a star shall lift on high her cup
Of luminous cold chrysolite, set in gold
Chased subtilely over by angelic art;
To catch the odorous dews which poets drink
In their wide wanderings; and many a sun
Shall press the pale lips of the timorous morn
Couch'd in the bridal east: and over all
Will brood the visible presence of the ONE
To whom my life has been a solemn chant.
In the Last Words of Washington:
There is an awful stillness in the sky,
When after wondrous deeds and light supreme,
A star goes out in golden prophecy.
There is an awful stillness in the world,
When after wondrous deeds and light supreme,
Sceptres refused and forehead crowned with truth,
A Hero dies, with all the future clear
Before him, and his voice made jubilant
By coming glories, and his nation hushed,
As though they heard the farewell of a god.
A great man is to earth as God to Heaven.
In Greenwood Cemetery:
O, ye whose mouldering frames were brought and placed
By pious hands within these flowery slopes
And gentle hills, where are ye dwelling now?
For man is more than element! The soul
Lives in the body as the sunbeam lives
In trees or flowers that were but clay without.
Then where are ye, lost sunbeams of the mind?
Are ye where great Orion towers and holds
Eternity on his stupendous front?
Or where pale Neptune in the distant space
Shows us how far, in his creative mood,
With pomp of silence and concentred brows,
The Almighty walked? Or haply ye have gone
Where other matter roundeth into shapes
Of bright beatitude: Or do ye know
Aught of dull space or time, and its dark load
Of aching weariness?
Mr. Wallace is somewhat too much of a rhetorician, and he has a few defects
of manner which, from this frequent repetition, he seems to regard as
beauties. Peculiar phrases, of doubtful propriety, but which have a musical
roll, occur in many of his poems, so that they become very prominent; this
fault, however, belongs chiefly to his earlier pieces; the extracts we have
given, we think will amply vindicate to the most critical judgments, the
praise here awarded to him as a poet of singular and unusual powers,
original, earnest, and in a remarkable degree _national_. It can scarcely
be said of any of our bards that they have caught their inspiration more
directly from observation and experience, or that their effusions, whatever
the distinction they have in art, are more genuine in feeling.
AMERICA AS ABUSED BY A GERMAN.
Having made it a point to faithfully report all that is said of our country
by foreign travellers or journalists, we deem it a duty to lay before our
readers not only the more agreeable accounts given by those who have
impartially examined our institutions and manners, but also the more
prejudiced relations of those who, urged by interest or ill-nature, have
sketched simply the darker and more irregular outlines. And we are the more
induced to follow this course since we are fully convinced that it is
productive of equal good with the former. We have--particularly to English
eyes--appeared as a people who eagerly devour all that is said to our
discredit, and at the same time fiercely repudiate the slightest
insinuation that we in any thing fall short of perfection. As regards the
latter, we shall content ourselves with remarking, that even the
disposition to deny the existence of imperfection among us, redounds far
more to our credit, than the complacent exaltation of our weaker points to
virtues; while as to the former, we are certain that a higher feeling than
mere nervous, sensitive vanity, induces in us the desire
"To see ourselves as others see us,"
since there is no nation which more readily avails itself of the remarks of
others, even when by far too bitter or unjust to improve. True to our
national character of youthfulness, we are ever ready to act on every hint.
We are, _par excellence_, a _learning_ nation. Send even the _young_
Englishman on his continental tour, and the chances are ten to one that he
returns with every prejudice strengthened, and his vanity increased. But
the American--ductile as wax, evinces himself even at an advanced period of
life, susceptible of improvement, yet firm in its retention. That we
earnestly strive in every respect to improve is evident from many "little
things" which foreigners ridicule. For instance, the habitual use of "fine
language," and the attempt to clothe even our ordinary trains of thought in
an elegant garb, which has been time and again cruelly ridiculed by Yankee
goaders, is to a reflecting mind suggestive of commendation, from the very
fact, that an attempt at least is made _to improve_. Better a thousand
times the impulse to progress, even through the whirlwinds of hyperbole and
inflated expression, than the heavy miasma of a patois, the lightest breath
of which at once proclaims the cockney or provincial.
For the entertainment of those who are willing to live, laugh, and learn,
we are induced to give our readers a few extracts from a recently published
work, by a German, entitled, _Skizzen aus den Vereinigten Staaten von Nord
Amerika: Von_ DR. A. KIRSTEN, (or, _Sketches of the United States of North
America_, by Dr. A. KIRSTEN,) a work in which the author, after exhausting
all the three-penny thunder of ignorant abuse, coolly informs his readers,
that he has by no means represented things in their worst light. The
American public at large are not aware that among the rulers of Germany,
emigration to America is sternly yet anxiously discouraged. Rejoiced as
they are to behold our country a receptacle for the sweepings of their
prisons and _Fuchthaüser_, or houses of correction, they still gaze with an
alarmed glance at the almost incredible "forth-wandering" which has at
times depopulated entire villages, and borne with it an amount of wealth,
which, trifling as it may appear to us, is in a land of economy and poverty
of immense importance. The reader who judges of Germany by Great Britain
and Ireland, is mistaken. That emigration which is to the government of the
latter countries health and safety, brings to the former death and
destruction. As a proof of this, we need only point to the tone of all the
German papers which are in any manner connected with the interests of their
respective courts. In all we find the old song: Depreciation of America, as
far as applicable to the prevention of emigration. To accomplish this end,
writers are hired and poets feed; remedies against emigration are proposed
by political economists, and where possible, even clergymen are induced to
persuade their flocks to nibble still in the ancient stubble, or among the
same old barren rocks.
Dr. Kirsten, it would appear, is either a natural and habitual grumbler, or
a paid hireling. If the former, we can only pity--if the latter, despise
him. Could our voice be heard by his patrons, we would, however, advise
them to employ a better grumbler--one who can wield lance and sword against
his foes, instead of mops and muddy water. A weaker lancer, or more
impotent and impudent abuser, has rarely appeared, even among our earlier
English decriers.
Like many other weak-minded individuals, the Herr Doctor appears to have
started under the fullest conviction that our country was, if not a true
"_Schlaraffen Land_," or _Pays de Cocagne_, or Mahomet's Paradise, in which
pigeons ready roasted fly to the mouth, at least a realized _Icarie_, or
perfected Fourier-dom. All the books which he had read, relative to
America, described it in glowing colors, and inclined his mind favorably
toward it. Such was his faith in these books, or also so great his fear,
that these glorious dreams might be dissipated, that he did not even
ascertain or confirm their truth by the personal experience of those who
had been there, and we are informed naively enough in the preface, that
previous to his departure he had but once had an opportunity of conversing
with an educated German, who had resided for a long time in America. Such
weak heedlessness as this does not, to our ears at least, savor of the
characteristic prudence and deliberation of the German, and strongly
confirms us in the belief, that the doctor wandered forth well knowing what
he was about--in other words, that he went his way with his opinions
already cut and dried.
"After an eight weeks' voyage I arrived in New-York. It was at the end of
August. Even in the vicinity of the Gulf Stream a terrible heat oppressed
us, which increased as we approached land; but it was in that city that I
became aware of what the heat in America really was. Many visits which I
was obliged to make, caused during the day a cruel exhaustion, while at
night I found no refreshment in slumber, partly because the heat was hardly
diminished, and partly from the musquitoes, and to me unaccustomed alarms
of fire, which were nightly repeated, from which I found that life in
America was by no means so agreeable as I had been led to infer from books
and popular report."
From the single, mysterious, educated German with whom the doctor had
conferred previous to his departure, he had learned that, in the United
States, any thing like marked distinction of class, rank, or caste, did not
exist; and that this was particularly the case among Germans living there.
"The educated and refined knew how to draw into their society the less
gifted, and it was really singular to observe in how short a time the
latter rose to a higher degree of culture. People actually destitute of
knowledge and manners, in fact could not be found. Moreover, I there
anticipated a southern climate, for which I had some years longed."
How miserably the poor doctor was disappointed in these moderate and
reasonable anticipations, appears from the following lamentable account:
"Ere long I, indeed, became acquainted with many Germans, who received me
in the kindest manner, and of whom recollections will ever be dear to me.
But this was not the case with the Americans, as I had been led to
anticipate, nor indeed with the Germans, generally. Among these I found
neither connection nor unity, and they mostly led a life such as I had in
Germany never met with, while nothing like social cultivation, in a higher
sense, was to be found. Led into the society of those who by day were
devoted to business, but in the evening scattered themselves, here and
there, without a point of union, I found myself in the noisy, but
pleasure-wanting city, forlorn and unwell. Many, to whom I complained of
what I missed in New-York, thought that it might be found in Philadelphia."
But even in Philadelphia our pilgrim found not the promised Paradise, where
there was no distinction of rank or family, and where the more educated and
refined would eagerly adopt him, the lowly brother, into their Icarian
circle. Neither did he discover the golden tropical region--the southern
heaven--for which his soul had longed for years. Alas! no. "After a
residence of four weeks in New-York, I repaired to Philadelphia, and there
found that among the Germans, things were the same as in New-York--_in
fact, there was even less unity among them_." But although the doctor did
not discover any Germans inspired with the sublime spirit of harmony, he
certainly appears to have met with several who had acquired the American
virtue of common sense.
"A German who had been for a long time resident in the United States
asserted that he had, as yet, met with no fellow-countryman, who had been
in the beginning satisfied with America. Others were of the opinion, that I
would first be pleased with the country when I had found a profitable
employment. _And some others, that I would never be satisfied._"
And so the doctor, ever dependent on others for happiness, looked here and
there, like the pilgrim after Aden, or the hero of the Morning Watch, for
the ideal of his dreams. The so-called entirely German towns in
Pennsylvania were German only in name. The heat disgusted him with the
south--the cold with the north. After residing nine months in Poughkeepsie,
he returned to New-York, and there remained for some time, occupied, as it
would appear, solely with acquiring information. This residence at an end,
he returned to Germany.
We pass over the first chapters of his work, devoted to an ordinary account
of the climate, animals, and plants of the country, to a more interesting
picture, namely--its inhabitants. From this we learn that the American is
cold, dry, and monosyllabic, in his demeanor and conversation. During his
return to Germany he was delayed for a period of something less than nine
days at Falmouth, England, where, during his daily walks, he experienced
that in comparison with us the English are amiable, communicative, and
agreeable. Indeed, he found that when, during a promenade in America,
strangers returned his greetings, these polite individuals were invariably
Britons, "which proves that while in more recent times, the English have
assumed or approached the customs of other nations, the Americans have
remained true to the character and being of the earlier emigrants, and are
at present totally distinct from the English of to-day.
"This is especially shown by the demeanor of Americans towards foreigners,
and nearly as much so by their conduct to one another. Regard them where we
will, they are ever the same. In the larger or the smaller towns, in the
streets or in the country, every one goes his own way without troubling
himself about others, and without saluting those with whom he is
unacquainted. Never do we see neighbors associating with each other; and
neighborly friendship is here unknown. If acquaintances meet, they nod to
each other, or the one murmurs, '_How do you do?_' while the other
replies, '_Very well_,' without delaying an instant, unless business
affairs require a conversation. This concluded, they depart without a word,
unless, indeed, as an exception, they wish each other good morning, or
evening. Nor are they less distant in hotels, or during journeys in
railroad cars and steamboats."--"Continued conversations, in which several
take part, are extremely rare. Any one speaking frequently to a stranger,
at table or during a journey, runs the risk not merely of being regarded as
impertinent, but as entertaining dishonest views; and, indeed, one should
invariably be on his guard against Americans who manifest much
friendliness, since, in this manner, pickpockets are accustomed to make
their advances.
"In a corresponding degree this coldness of disposition is manifested
towards more intimate acquaintances. Never do we observe among friends a
deep and heart-inspired, or even a confiding relationship. Nay, this is not
even to be found among members of the same family. The son or the daughter,
who has not for several days seen his or her parents, returns and enters
the room without a greeting, or without any signs of joy being manifested
by either. Or else the salutation is given and returned in such a manner
that scarcely a glance passes between the parties. The direst calamities
are imparted and listened to with an apathy evincing no signs of emotion,
and a great disaster, occurring on a railroad or steamboat, in the United
States, excites in Germany more attention and sympathy than in the former
country, even when friends and perhaps relatives have thereby suffered.
Even the loss of a member of the family is hardly manifested by the
survivors."
In a recent English work we were indeed complimented for our _patience_,
but it was reserved for Doctor Kirsten to discover in us, this degree of
iron-hearted, immovable, _nil admirarism_. But when he goes on to assert
that "in the most deadly peril--in such moments as those which precede the
anticipated explosion of a steamboat boiler, even their ladies preserve the
same repose and equanimity," so that any expression from a stranger is
coldly listened to, without producing evident impression, _our_ surprise is
changed to wonder, and we are tempted to inquire, Can it be possible, that
we are such Spartans--endowed with such superior human stoicism?
"This coldness of the American is legibly impressed on his features. In
both sexes we frequently meet with pretty, and occasionally beautiful,
faces; but seldom, however, do we perceive in either, aught cheerful or
attractive. In place thereof we observe, even in the fairest, a certain
earnestness, verging towards coldness. From the great majority of faces we
should judge that no emotion could be made to express itself upon them, and
such is truly the case.
"That the nearest acquaintances address each other with _Sir_ and _Master_,
or _Miss_ and _Mistress_, and that husband and wife, parents and children,
yes, even the children themselves employ these titles to each other, has
undoubtedly much to do with their marked and cold demeanor. But this must
have a deeper ground than that merely caused by the use of distant forms of
salutation.
"And yet, the Americans are by no means of a bad disposition, since they
are neither crafty and treacherous, nor revengeful, nor even prone to
distrust; on the contrary, quite peaceable, and by the better classes,
there is much charity for apparent misery; seldom does one suffering with
bodily ailments leave the house of a wealthy man without being munificently
aided; the which charity is silently extended to him, without a sign of
emotion. Those who are capable of work--no matter what the cause of their
sufferings may be, seldom receive alms, for the Americans go upon the
principle that work is not disgraceful, and without reflecting that the
applicant may not have been accustomed to work, refuse in any manner to aid
him. If any man want work, he can apply to the overseers of the poor, who
are obliged to receive him in a poor-house, and maintain him until he find
such. Much is done at the state's expense for the aged, sick, and insane."
After this our doctor lets fall a few flattering drops of commendation by
way of admitting that this iron immobility of the American is not without
its good points, but fearing that he has spoken too favorably, he brings up
the chapter by remarking that--
"The here-mentioned good traits in the American character can, however, by
no means overbalance or destroy the evil impression which their coldness
produces, but merely soften it."
From our appearance and deportment he proceeds to a bold, hasty, and
remarkably superficial criticism of education in America. The father of a
family in America, we are informed, is occupied with business from morning
to night, and leaves all care for the education and training of his
children to the mother, who is, however, generally quite incapable to
fulfil such duty. No teacher dare correct a child, for fear of incurring
legal punishment, in consequence of which they grow up destitute of
decency, order, or obedience. Some few, indeed, find their way eventually
into academies and colleges, which are not so badly managed; but, as for
school-boys, since there is no one to insure their regular attendance at
school, they play truant _à discrétion_. As for the children of the lower
and middle classes, they pass their boyhood in idleness, and grow up in
ignorance, until at a later period they enter into business, when they are
compelled to perfect themselves in the arts of reading and writing, yet
they quickly acquire the business spirit of their fathers.
"The education of the girls is, however, of an entirely different nature.
On them the mothers expend much care and trouble, which is, however, of the
most perverted kind, since it is in its nature entirely external. Before
all, do they seek to give them an air of decency and culture, which is,
nevertheless, more apparent than real. In accordance with the republican
spirit of striving after equality, every mother--no matter how poor, or how
low her rank may be--desires to bring her daughter up in such a manner that
she may be inferior in respectability and external culture to no one." "In
fact, the daughters of the poorest workman bear themselves like those of
the richest merchant. In their mien we see a pride flashing forth, which
can hardly be surpassed by that of the haughtiest daughters of the highest
German nobility. And that their daughters may in every respect equal those
of others, we see poor men lavishing upon them their last penny; and while
the boys run in the streets, covered with ragged and dirty fragments of
clothing, the sisters wear bonnets with veils, bearing parasols, and while
at school, short dresses and drawers."
After this fearful announcement, we are informed, that the poor girls
profit as little in school as their unhappy brothers, and that no regard is
paid to their future destiny.
"Even after the maiden has left school, her mother instructs her in no
feminine employment, not even in domestic affairs, and least of all, in
cookery. While the former lives, and the daughter remains unmarried, she
(the mother,) attends to housekeeping, as far as the word can be taken in
the German sense, while her daughter passes the time in reading, more
frequently with bedecking herself, but generally in idleness. When the
daughter, however, marries, we may well imagine how a house is managed in
such hands. The principal business henceforth is self-adornment and
housekeeping. All imaginable care is bestowed upon these branches, but none
whatever on any other. Cookery is of the lowest grade; nearly every day
sees the same dishes, and those, also, which are prepared with the least
trouble. Very frequently, indeed, the husbands are obliged to prepare their
meals before and after their business hours. Knitting and spinning, either
in town or country, is unknown; only manufactured or woven stockings are
worn, and shirts are generally purchased ready-made in the shops." "Washing
is the only work which they undertake, and this is done by young ladies of
wealthy family. This takes place every Monday, for there are very few
families who own linen sufficient for more than a single week's wear.
"So long as the father lives, his daughters stick to him, useless as they
are, and heavy as the burden may be to him. It is _his_ business to see
where the money comes from wherewith to nourish and decently clothe them:
on this account the servant girls in America generally consist of Irish,
Germans, and blacks. Even these, taking pattern from their mistresses,
refuse to perform duties which are expected from every housemaid in
Germany--for examples, boot-brushing, clothes-cleaning, and the bringing of
water across the way, as well as street and step-cleaning; for which reason
we often see respectable men performing these duties."
From this terrible plague of daughters, and daughterly extravagance, the
doctor finds that poorer men in America are by no means as well off as
would be imagined from their high wages. "The father with many daughters,
so far from advancing in wealth, generally falls behind. Fearing the cost
of a family, many men remain unmarried, and in no country in the world are
there so many old maids as in the United States." From which the author
finds that dreadful instances of immorality and infanticide result.
Filial duty, he asserts, is unknown. When the son proposes emigration to
another place, or the undertaking of a new business, he announces it to his
father "perhaps the evening before; while the daughters act in like manner
as regards marriage, or, it may be, mention it to him for the first time
after it has really taken place--from which the custom results that parents
give their children no part of their property before death. Nothing is
known of a true family life, in which parents are intimately allied to
children, or brothers and sisters to each other." We spare our readers the
sneer at those writers who have praised the Americans in their domestic
relations, with which this veracious, high-minded, and unprejudiced chapter
concludes.
In science and art, we are sunk, it seems, almost beneath contempt; the
former being cultivated only so far as it is conducive to money-making. The
professions of Divinity, Law, and Medicine, are badly and superficially
taught and acquired. "There are, indeed," says the doctor, "in New-York and
Philadelphia, institutions where the student has opportunities of becoming,
if he will, an excellent physician; but these are far from being well
patronized."
As regards general education, he asserts that, though a few professors in
our colleges are highly educated men, this cannot be said of their pupils,
since the latter set no value on knowledge not directly profitable, "and
the backward condition of ancient languages, natural science, even
geography, history and statistics, save as applicable to their own country,
is really a matter of wonder."
But in the fine arts, it appears, we are sunk so far beneath contempt that
we really wonder that the doctor should have found it, in this particular,
worth while to abuse us. "There are but two monuments in all America worthy
of mention, and both are in Baltimore. Philadelphia and New-York have
nothing of the kind to show, though each city possesses two public squares
or parks planted with trees, which are well adapted to receive such works
of art, and where the eye sadly misses them." "Public and private
collections of statues and pictures are altogether wanting, and the walls
of the rich are generally devoid of paintings and copper-plate engravings.
What they have generally consists of family portraits, or those of
Washington and other presidents. But to dazzle the eye, we find in the
possession of the wealthy, the most worthless pictures in expensive gold
frames. Of late years a public gallery has been established in New-York for
the sale of such productions. As far however as the works of native artists
are concerned, we find among them none inspired by high art; on the
contrary, they are generally, to the last degree, mediocre affairs, or mere
daubs (_wahre Klecksereien_) not worth hanging up; the better however are
exaggerated and unnatural both in subject and color. This is also the case
with most of the copper-plate engravings exposed for sale in the French
shop-windows, and which appear almost as if manufactured in Paris expressly
for the American taste. The inferior appreciation of art in the Americans
and their delight in extravagance is particularly shown in the political
caricatures, which are entirely deficient in all refined wit, consisting
either of stupid allusions to eminent men or party leaders, or direct and
clumsy exaggerations."
By way of amends for all this abuse, our author admits that we excel in all
practical arts and labor-saving inventions. "But in proportion to the
backward state of the fine arts, is the advance which the Americans have
made in all pertaining to mechanics, and technical art. Particular
attention is paid to the supplanting of hand labor by machinery. Even the
most trifling apparatus or tool is constructed with regard to practical
use, and it only needs a more careful observation of this to convince us
that in all such matters they have the advantage of Germany.
"It is often truly startling to see how simply and usefully those articles
used in business are constructed--for example, the one-horse cars (_drays
or trucks?_) and hand-carts, employed in conveying merchandise to and from
stores. As a proof how far the Americans have advanced in mechanic arts, we
may mention that high houses, of wood or brick, several stories high and
entire, are transported on rollers to places several feet distant.
Occasionally, to add a story, the house is raised by screws into the air
and the building substructed. In either case the family remains quietly
dwelling therein."
But alas, even these few rays of commendatory comfort vanish in the dark,
after reflection, that it is precisely this ingenuity and enterprise in
business and practical matters which unfits us for all the kinder and more
social duties, and renders us insensible to every soothing and refining
influence. No allowance for past events, unavoidable circumstances, or our
possible future destiny, appears to cross the doctor's mind. All is dark
and desolate. True, every man of high and low degree--the laborer and
shop-man--the lawyer and clergyman, pause in the street to study any
mechanical novelty which meets their eye--but ere they do this the doctor
is mindful to suggest _that they pass picture shop-windows without deigning
to glance therein_. The professions are studied like trades, and in matters
of criminal law our condition is truly deplorable. It happened not many
months since, he informs us, that the publisher of a slanderous New-York
paper, was castigated by a lady, with a hunting whip, in Broadway, at noon.
The said lady had been (according to custom) unjustly and cruelly abused in
the journal referred to. So great was her irritation that she actually
followed the editor along the streets, lashing him continually. But the
_finale_ of this startling incident consists of the fact that the lady, on
pleading guilty, was fined six cents.
There is an obscurity attached to his manner of narrating this anecdote,
which leaves the opinion of the author a little uncertain. Six cents would
in some parts of Germany be a serious fine, worthy of appeal, mercy, and
abatement. In different parts of Suabia and even Baden, notices may be seen
posted up, in which the commission of certain local offences is prohibited
by fines ranging from four to twelve cents. On the whole, as a zealous
defender of the purity and dignity of woman, when unjustly assailed, we are
inclined to think that the author sides with _the_ LADY.
But we need not follow the doctor further in his career of discontent and
prejudice. Before concluding, we would however caution the reader against
supposing that he expresses views in any degree accordant with the feelings
and opinions of his countrymen. The best, the most numerous, the most
impartial, and we may add, by far the most favorable works on America, are
from German pens. In confirmation of our assertion that his work is
unfavorably regarded at home we may adduce the fact that it has been
severely handled by excellent reviewers among them; take for example the
following, from the Leipzig _Central Blatt_. After favorably noticing the
late excellent work of QUENTIN on the United States, he proceeds to say of
the doctor's _Sketches_, that
"HERR KIRSTEN seems to desire to be that for North America, which _Nicolai_
of noted memory was in his own time for Italy. Already, on arrival, we find
him in ill temper, caused by the excessive heat, which ill-humor is
aggravated by his being obliged to make many calls by day, and _the
musquitoes and alarms of fire which disturbed his slumbers during the
night_. In other places he was no better pleased.
"The Germans were disagreeable on account of their want of unity, the
Americans from their coldness--in short, he missed home life--could not
accustom himself to the new country, and returned after a sojourn of less
than two years to Germany. In 'sketches,' resulting from such
circumstances, we naturally encounter only the darker side of American
life. Much may indeed be true of what he asserts regarding the natural
capabilities, climate, soil, and inhabitants of the land, the manners and
customs of the latter, their common and party spirit, education of
children, and the condition of science and art; but particulars are either
too hastily generalized, or else the better points, as for example, the
characteristic traits of the people, their extraordinary progress in
physical and mental culture, and the excellent management of the country,
are either entirely omitted or receive by far too slight notice. His
narrow-minded and ill-natured disposition to find fault is also shown by
his reproaching the Americans with faults which they share in common with
every nation in America, _ourselves included_, as, for example, excesses
committed by political partisans. Still, the book may not be entirely
without value, at least to those who see every thing on the other side of
the water only in a rosy light, and believe that the German emigrant as
soon as his foot touches shore, enters a state of undisturbed happiness."
So much for the critical doctor's popularity at home. In conclusion, we may
remark that our main object in this notice, in addition to amusing our
readers, has been to prove by this exception, and the displeasure which it
excites in Germany, the rule, that by the writers of that country our own
has been almost invariably well spoken of. And we have deemed these remarks
the more requisite, lest some reader might casually infer that Dr. Kirsten
expressed the views and sentiments of any considerable number of his
countrymen.
REMINISCENCES OF THE LATE MR. COOPER.--HIS LAST DAYS.
A LETTER TO THE EDITOR OF THE INTERNATIONAL.
BY JOHN W. FRANCIS, M. D., LL. D.
NEW-YORK, _October 1st, 1851_.
MY DEAR SIR,--I readily comply with your wish that I should furnish you
with such reminiscences of the late Mr. Cooper as occur to me, although the
pressure of professional engagements absolutely forbids such details as I
would gladly record. For nearly thirty years I have been the occasional
medical adviser, and always the ardent personal friend of the illustrious
deceased; but our intercourse has been so fragmentary, owing to the
distance we have lived apart, and the busy lives we have both led, that the
impressions which now throng upon and impress me are desultory and varied,
though endearing. I first knew Mr. Cooper in 1823. He at that time was
recognized as the author of "Precaution," of "the Spy," and of "the
Pioneers." The two last-named works had attracted especial notice by their
widely extended circulation, and the novelty of their character in American
literature. He was often to be seen at that period in conversation at the
City Hotel in Broadway, near Old Trinity, where many of our most renowned
naval and military men convened. He was the original projector of a
literary and social association called the "Bread and Cheese Club," whose
place of rendezvous was at Washington Hall. They met weekly, in the
evening, and furnished the occasion of much intellectual gratification and
genial pleasure. That most adhesive friend, the poet Halleck, Chancellor
Kent, G. C. Verplanck, Wiley, the publisher of Mr. Cooper's works, Dekay,
the naturalist, C. A. Davis (Jack Downing), Charles King, now President of
Columbia College, J. Depeyster Ogden, J. W. Jarvis, the painter, John and
William Duer, and many others, were of the confederacy. Washington Irving,
at the period of the formation of this circle of friends, was in England,
occupied with his inimitable "Sketch Book." I had the honor of an early
admittance to the Club. In balloting for membership the bread declared an
affirmative; and two ballots of cheese against an individual proclaimed
non-admittance.
From the meetings of this society Mr. Cooper was rarely absent. When
presiding officer of the evening, he attracted especial consideration from
the richness of his anecdotes, his wide American knowledge, and his
courteous behavior. These meetings were often signally characterized by the
number of invited guests of high reputation who gathered thither for
recreative purposes, both of mind and body; jurists of acknowledged
eminence, governors of different States, senators, members of the House of
Representatives, literary men of foreign distinction, and authors of repute
in our own land. It was gratifying to observe the dexterity with which Mr.
Cooper would cope with some eastern friend who contributed to our delight
with a "Boston notion," or with Trelawny, the associate of Byron,
descanting on Greece and the "Younger Son," or with any guests of the Club,
however dissimilar their habits or character; accommodating his
conversation and manners with the most marvellous facility. The New-York
attachments of Mr. Cooper were ever dominant. I witnessed a demonstration
of the early enthusiasm and patriotic activity of our late friend in his
efforts, with many of our leading citizens, in getting up the Grand Castle
Garden Ball, given in honor of Lafayette. The arrival of the "Nation's
Guest" at New-York, in 1824, was the occasion of the most joyful
demonstrations, and the celebration was a splendid spectacle; it brought
together celebrities from many remote parts of the Union. Mr. Cooper must
have undergone extraordinary fatigue during the day and following night;
but nearly as he was exhausted, he exhibited, when the public festivals
were brought to a close, that astonishing readiness and skill in literary
execution for which he was always so remarkable. Adjourning near daybreak
to the office of his friend Mr. Charles King, he wrote out more quickly
than any other hand could copy, the very long and masterly report which
next day appeared in Mr. King's paper--a report which conveyed to tens of
thousands who had not been present, no inconsiderable portion of the
enjoyment they had felt who were the immediate participants in this famous
festival. The manly bearing, keen intelligence, and thoroughly honorable
instincts of Mr. Cooper, united as they were with this gift of
writing--soon most effectively exhibited in his literary labors, now
constantly increasing--excited my highest expectations of his career as an
author, and my sincere esteem for the man. There was a fresh promise, a
vigorous impulse, and especially an American enthusiasm about him, that
seemed to indicate not only individual fame, but national honor. Since that
period I have followed his brilliant course with no less admiration than
delight.
It was to me a cause of deep regret that soon after his return from Europe,
crowned with a distinct and noble reputation, he became involved in a
series of law-suits, growing out of libels, and originating partly in his
own imprudence, and partly in the reckless severity of the press. But these
are but temporary considerations in the retrospect of his achievements; and
if I mistake not, in these difficulties he in every instance succeeded in
gaining the verdict of the jury. It was a task insurmountable to overcome a
_fact_ as stated by Mr. Cooper. Associated as he was in my own mind with
the earliest triumphs of American letters, I think of him as the creator of
the genuine nautical and forest romances of "Long Tom Coffin" and
"Leatherstocking;" as the illustrator of our country's scenes and
characters to the Europeans; and not as the critic of our republican
inconsistencies, or as a litigant with caustic editors.
It is well known that for a long period Mr. Cooper, at occasional times
only, visited New-York city. His residence for many years was an elegant
and quiet mansion on the southern borders of Otsego Lake. Here--in his
beautiful retreat, embellished by the substantial fruits of his labors, and
displaying everywhere his exquisite taste, his mind, ever intent on
congenial tasks, which, alas! are left unfinished, surrounded by a devoted
and highly cultivated family, and maintaining the same clearness of
perception, serene firmness, and integrity of tone, which distinguished him
in the meridian of his life--were his mental employments prosecuted. He
lived chiefly in rural seclusion, and with habits of methodical industry.
When visiting the city he mingled cordially with his old friends; and it
was on the last occasion of this kind, at the beginning of April, that he
consulted me with some earnestness in regard to his health. He complained
of the impaired tone of the digestive organs, great torpor of the liver,
weakness of muscular activity, and feebleness in walking. Such suggestions
were offered for his relief as the indications of disease warranted. He
left the city for his country residence, and I was gratified shortly after
to learn from him of his better condition.
During July and August I maintained a correspondence with him on the
subject of his increasing physical infirmities, and frankly expressed to
him the necessity of such remedial measures as seemed clearly necessary.
Though occasionally relieved of my anxieties by the kind communications of
his excellent friend and attending physician, Dr. Johnson, I was not
without solicitude, both from his own statements as well as those of Dr.
Johnson himself, that his disorder was on the increase; certain symptoms
were indeed mitigated, but the radical features of his illness had not been
removed. A letter which I soon received induced me forthwith to repair to
Cooperstown, and on the 27th of August I saw Mr. Cooper at his own
dwelling. My reception was cordial. With his family about him he related
with great clearness the particulars of his sufferings, and the means of
relief to which he was subjected. Dr. Johnson was in consultation. I at
once was struck with the heroic firmness of the sufferer, under an
accumulation of depressing symptoms. His physical aspect was much altered
from that noble freshness he was wont to bear; his complexion was pallid;
his interior extremities greatly enlarged by serous effusion; his debility
so extreme as to require an assistant for change of position in bed; his
pulse sixty-four. There could be no doubt that the long continued hepatic
obstruction had led to confirmed dropsy, which, indeed, betrayed itself in
several other parts of the body. Yet was he patient and collected. That
powerful intellect still held empire with commanding force, clearness, and
vigor. I explained to him the nature of his malady; its natural termination
when uncontrolled; dwelt upon the favorable condition and yet regular
action of the heart, and other vital functions, and the urgent necessity of
endeavoring still more to fulfil certain indications, in order to overcome
the force of particular tendencies in the disorder. I frankly assured him
that within the limits of a week a change in the complaint was
indispensable to lessen our forebodings of its ungovernable nature.
He listened with fixed attention; and now and then threw out suggestions of
cure such as are not unfrequent with cultivated minds.
The great characteristics of his intellect were now even more conspicuous
than before. Not a murmur escaped his lips; conviction of his extreme
illness wrought no alteration of features; he gave no expression of
despondency; his tone and his manner were equally dignified, cordial, and
natural. It was his happiness to be blessed with a family around him whose
greatest gratification was to supply his every want, and a daughter for a
companion in his pursuits, who was his intelligent amanuensis and
correspondent as well as indefatigable nurse.[1]
I forbear enlarging on matters too professional for present detail. During
the night after my arrival he sustained an attack of severe fainting, which
convinced me still further of his great personal weakness. An ennobling
philosophy, however, gave him support, and in the morning he had again been
refreshed by a sleep of some few hours' duration. I renewed to him and to
his family the hopes and the discouragements in his case. Never was
information of so grave a cast received by any individual in a calmer
spirit. He said little as to his prospects of recovery. Upon my taking
leave of him, however, shortly after, in the morning, I am convinced from
his manner that he shared my apprehensions of a fatal termination of his
disorder. Nature, however strong in her gifted child, had now her healthful
rights largely invaded. His constitutional buoyancy and determination, by
leading him to slight that distant and thorough attention demanded by
primary symptoms, doubtless contributed to their subsequent aggravation.
I shall say but a few words more on this agonizing topic. The letters which
I received, after my return home, communicated at times some cheering facts
of renovation, but on the whole, discouraging demonstrations of augmenting
illness, and lessened hope, were their prominent characteristics. A letter
to me from his son-in-law, of the 14th of September, announced: "Mr. Cooper
died, apparently without much pain, to-day at half-past one, P.M., leaving
his family, although prepared by his gradual failure, in deep affliction.
He would have been sixty-two years old to-morrow."
A life of such uniform and unparalleled excellence and service, a career so
brilliant and honorable, closed in a befitting manner, and was crowned by a
death of quiet resignation. Conscious of his approaching dissolution, his
intelligence seemed to glow with increased fulness as his prostrated frame
yielded by degrees to the last summons. It is familiarly known to his most
intimate friends, that for some considerable period prior to his fatal
illness, he appropriated liberal portions of his time to the investigation
of scriptural truths, and that his convictions were ripe in Christian
doctrines. With assurances of happiness in the future, he graciously
yielded up his spirit to the disposal of its Creator. His death, which must
thus have been the beginning of a serene and more blessed life to him, is
universally regarded as a national loss.
Will you allow me to add a few words to this letter, already perhaps of
undue extent. It has been my gratification during a life of some duration
to have become personally acquainted with many eminent characters in the
different walks of professional and literary avocation. I never knew an
individual more thoroughly imbued with higher principles of action than Mr.
Cooper: he acted upon principles, and fully comprehended the principles
upon which he acted. Casual observers could scarcely, at times, understand
and appreciate his motives or conduct. An independence of character worthy
of the highest respect, and a natural boldness of temper which led him to a
frank, emphatic, and intrepid utterance of his thoughts and sentiments,
were uncongenial to that large class of people, who, from the want of moral
courage, or a feeble physical temperament, habitually conform to public
opinion, and endeavor to conciliate the world. Mr. Cooper was one of the
most genuine Americans in his tone of mind, in manly self-reliance, in
sympathy with the scenery, the history, and the constitution of his
country, which it has ever been my lot to know. His genius was American,
fresh, vigorous, independent, and devoted to native subjects. The
opposition he met with on his return from Europe, in consequence of his
patriotic, though, perhaps, injudicious attempts to point out the faults
and duties of his countrymen, threw him reluctantly on the defensive, and
sometimes gave an antagonistic manner to his intercourse; but, whoever,
recognizing his intellectual superiority, and respecting his integrity of
purpose, met him candidly, in an open, cordial and generous spirit, soon
found in Mr. Cooper an honest man, and a thorough patriot.
How strongly is impressed upon my memory his personal appearance, so often
witnessed during his rambles in Broadway and amidst the haunts of this busy
population. His phrenological development might challenge comparison with
that of the most favored of mortals. His manly figure, high, prominent
brow, clear and fine gray eye, and royal bearing, revealed the man of will
and intelligence. His intellectual hardihood was remarkable. He worked upon
a novel with the patient industry of a man of business, and set down every
fact of costume, action, expression, local feature, and detail of maritime
operations or woodland experience, with a kind of consciousness and
precision that produced a Flemish exactitude of detail, while in portraying
action, he seemed to catch by virtue of an eagle glance and an heroic
temperament, the very spirit of his occasion and convey it to the reader's
nerves and heart, as well as to his understanding. Herein Mr. Cooper was a
man of unquestionable originality. As to his literary services, some idea
may be formed of the consideration in which they are held by the almost
countless editions of many of his works in his own country, and their
circulation abroad by translations into almost every living tongue.
I may add a word or two on the extent of his sympathies with humanity. What
a love he cherished for superior talents in every ennobling pursuit in
life--how deep an interest he felt in the fortunes of his scientific and
literary friends--what gratification he enjoyed in the physical inquiries
of Dekay and Le Conte, the muse of Halleck and of Bryant, the painting of
Cole, the sculpture of Greenough! Dunlap, were he speaking, might tell you
of his gratuities to the unfortunate playwright and the dramatic performer.
With the mere accumulators of money--those golden calves whose hearts are
as devoid of emotion as their brains of the faculty of cogitation--he held
no congenial communion at any time: they could not participate in the
fruition of his pastime; and he felt in himself an innate superiority in
the gifts with which nature had endowed him. He was ever vigilant, a keen
observer of men and things; and in conversation frank and emphatic. It was
a gratifying spectacle to encounter him with old Col. Trumbull, the
historical painter, descanting on the many excellencies of Cole's pencil,
in the delineation of American forest-scenery--a theme the richest in the
world for Mr. Cooper's contemplation. A Shylock with his money-bags never
glutted over his possessions with a happier feeling than did these two
eminent individuals--the venerable Colonel with his patrician dignity, and
Cooper with his somewhat aristocratic bearing, yet democratic sentiment;
the one fruitful with the glories of the past, the other big with the
stirring events of his country's progress, in the refinement of arts, and
national power. Trumbull was one of the many old men I knew who delighted
in Cooper's writings, and who in conversation dwelt upon his captivating
genius.
To his future biographer Mr. Cooper has left the pleasing duty rightly to
estimate the breadth and depth of his powerful intellect--psychologically
to investigate the development and functions of that cerebral organ, which
for so many years, with such rapid succession and variety, poured out the
creations of poetic thought and descriptive illustration--to determine the
value of his capacious mind by the influence which, in the dawn of American
literature, it has exercised, in rearing the intellectual fabric of his
country's greatness--and to unfold the secret springs of those
disinterested acts of charity to the poor and needy, which signalized his
conduct as a professor of religious truth, and a true exampler of the
Christian graces. He has unquestionably done more to make known to the
transatlantic world his country, her scenery, her characteristics, her
aboriginal inhabitants, her history, than all preceding writers. His death
may well be pronounced a national calamity. By common consent he long
occupied an enviable place--the highest rank in American literature. To
adopt the quaint phraseology of old Thomas Fuller, the felling of so mighty
an oak must needs cause the increase of much underwood. Who will fill the
void occasioned by his too early departure from among us, time alone must
determine. With much consideration, I remain,
Dear sir, yours most truly,
JOHN W. FRANCIS.
PUBLIC HONORS TO THE MEMORY OF MR. COOPER.
In the last number of the _International_ we were able merely to announce
the death of our great countryman Mr. Cooper. The following account of
proceedings in reference to the event is compiled mainly from the _Evening
Post_.
A meeting of literary men, and others, was held at the City Hall in
New-York, on the 25th of September, for the purpose of taking the necessary
measures for rendering fit honors to the memory of the deceased author.
Rufus W. Griswold, calling the meeting to order, said it had been convened
to do justice to the memory of the most illustrious American who had died
in the present century. Since the design of such a meeting had first been
formed, a consultation among Mr. Cooper's friends had been held, and it had
been determined that the present should be only a preparatory meeting, for
the making of such arrangements as should be thought necessary for a more
suitable demonstration of respect for that eminent person, whose name, more
completely than that of any of his cotemporaries and countrymen, had filled
the world.
On motion of Judge Duer, Washington Irving was elected President of the
meeting. On motion of Joseph Blunt, Fitz Greene Halleck and Rufus W.
Griswold were appointed Secretaries.
Mr. Blunt said, that as it had been thought proper to consider this
occasion as merely preliminary, and for the purpose of making arrangements
to do honor to the distinguished author who has left us, he would move that
a committee of five be appointed by the chair, to report what measures
should be adopted, by the literary gentlemen of this city and of the
country, so far as they may see fit to join them, for the purpose of
rendering appropriate honors to the memory of the late J. Fenimore Cooper.
The motion was adopted, and the chair appointed the following gentlemen
members of the committee: Judge Duer, Richard B. Kimball, Dr. Francis, Fitz
Greene Halleck, and George Bancroft; to whom Washington Irving and Rufus W.
Griswold were subsequently added. The meeting then adjourned.
This committee afterwards met and appointed as a General Committee to carry
out the designs of the meeting: Washington Irving, James K. Paulding, John
W. Francis, Gulian C. Verplanck, Charles King, Richard B. Kimball, Rufus
W. Griswold, Lewis Gaylord Clarke, Francis L. Hawks, John A. Dix, George
Bancroft, Fitz Greene Halleck, John Duer, William C. Bryant, George P.
Morris, Charles Anthon, Samuel Osgood, J. M. Wainright, and William W.
Campbell.
R. W. Griswold, Donald G. Mitchell, Parke Godwin, C. F. Briggs, and
Starbuck Mayo were appointed a Committee of Correspondence.
Besides letters from many of the gentlemen present, others had been
received from some twenty of the most eminent literary men of the United
States, all expressing the warmest sympathy in the proposal to do every
possible honor to the memory of Mr. Cooper. We copy from these the
following:
_From Washington Irving._
SUNNYSIDE, Thursday, Sept. 18, 1851.
MY DEAR SIR:--The death of Fenimore Cooper, though
anticipated, is an event of deep and public concern,
and calls for the highest expression of public
sensibility. To me it comes with something of a shock;
for it seems but the other day that I saw him at our
common literary resort at Putnam's, in full vigor of
mind and body, a very "castle of a man," and apparently
destined to outlive me, who am several years his
senior. He has left a space in our literature which
will not easily be supplied....
I shall not fail to attend the proposed meeting on
Wednesday next. Very respectfully, your friend and
servant,
WASHINGTON IRVING.
Rev. RUFUS W. GRISWOLD.
_From William C. Bryant._
ROCHESTER, Friday, Sept. 19, 1851.
MY DEAR SIR:--I am sorry that the arrangements for my
journey to the West are such that I cannot be present
at the meeting which is about to be held to do honor to
the memory of Mr. Cooper, on losing whom not only the
country, but the civilized world and the age in which
we live, have lost one of their most illustrious
ornaments. It is melancholy to think that it is only
until such men are in their graves that full justice is
done to their merit. I shall be most happy to concur in
any step which may be taken to express, in a public
manner, our respect for the character of one to whom we
were too sparing of public distinctions in his
lifetime, and beg that I may be included in the
proceedings of the occasion as if I were present. I am,
very respectfully yours,
WM. C. BRYANT.
Rev. R. W. GRISWOLD.
_From Bishop Doane._
RIVERSIDE, Tuesday, Sept. 22, 1851.
MY DEAR SIR:--...I beg you to say, generally, in your
discretion, that I yield to no one who will be present,
in my estimate of the distinguished talents and
admirable services of Mr. Cooper, or in my readiness to
do the highest honor to his illustrious memory. His
name must ever find a place among the "household words"
of all our hearts; a name as beautiful for its
blamelessness of life, as it is eminent for its
attainments in letters, which has subordinated to the
higher interests of patriotism and piety, the fervors
of fancy and the fascinations of romance. Very
faithfully, your friend and servant,
G. W. DOANE.
Rev. RUFUS W. GRISWOLD.
_From Mr. Bancroft._
NEWPORT, R. I., Thursday, Sept. 18, 1851.
MY DEAR SIR:--I heartily sympathize with the design of
a public tribute to the genius, manly character, and
great career of the illustrious man whose loss we
deplore. Others have combined very high merit as
authors, with professional pursuits. Mr. Cooper was, of
those who have gone from among us, the first to devote
himself exclusively to letters. We must admire the
noble courage with which he entered on a course which
none before him had tried; the glory which he justly
won was reflected on his country, of whose literary
independence he was the pioneer, and deserves the
grateful recognition of all who survive him.
By the time proposed for the meeting, I fear I shall
not be able to return to New-York; but you may use my
name in any manner that shall strongly express my
delight in the writings of our departed friend, my
thorough respect for his many virtues, and my sense of
that surpassing ability which has made his own name and
the names of the creations of his fancy, household
words throughout the civilized world. I remain, dear
sir, very truly yours,
GEORGE BANCROFT.
Rev. R. W. GRISWOLD.
_From John P. Kennedy._
BALTIMORE, October, 1851.
DEAR SIR:--Your invitation reached me too late to
enable me to participate in the meeting which has just
been held at the City Hall in your city, to render
appropriate honors to the memory of Mr. Cooper.
I rejoice to see what has been done and what you
propose to do. It is due to the eminent merits of
Fenimore Cooper, that there should be an impressive
public recognition of the loss which our country has
sustained in his death. He stood confessedly at the
head of a most attractive and popular department of our
literature, in which his extraordinary success had
raised him up a fame that became national. The country
claimed it as its own. This fame was acknowledged and
appreciated not only wherever the English tongue is the
medium of thought, but every where amongst the most
civilized nations of Europe.
Our literature, in the lifetime of the present
generation, has grown to a maturity which has given it
a distinction and honorable place in that aggregate
which forms national character. No man has done more in
his sphere to elevate and dignify that character than
Fenimore Cooper: no man is more worthy than he, for
such services, of the highest honors appropriate to a
literary benefactor. His genius has contributed a rich
fund to the instruction and delight of his countrymen,
which will long be preserved amongst the choicest
treasures of American letters, and will equally induce
to render our national literature attractive to other
nations. We owe a memorial and a monument to the man
who has achieved this. This work is the peculiar
privilege of the distinguished scholars of New-York,
and I have no doubt will be warmly applauded, and if
need be, assisted, by every scholar and friend of
letters in the Union.
With the best wishes for the success of this
enterprise, I am, my dear sir, very truly yours,
JOHN P. KENNEDY.
Rev. RUFUS W. GRISWOLD.
_From C. J. Ingersoll._
FONTHILL, PHILADELPHIA, September, 30th, 1851.
DEAR SIR:--Your favor, inviting me to a meeting of the
friends of Fenimore Cooper, did not reach me till this
morning, owing probably to irregularity of the
post-office. Otherwise I should have tried to attend
the proposed meeting, not only as a friend of Mr.
Cooper, but as one among those of his countrymen who
consider his memory a national trust for honored
preservation.
In my opinion of Fenimore Cooper as a novelist he is
entitled to one merit to which few if any one of his
cotemporary European romance writers can lay claim, to
wit, originality. Leatherstocking is an original
character, and entirely American, which is probably one
of the reasons why Cooper was more appreciated in
Continental Europe than even Scott, whose magnificent
fancy embellished every thing, but whose genius, I
think, originated nothing. And then, in my estimate of
Mr. Cooper's superior merits, was manly independence--a
rare American virtue. For the less free Englishman or
Frenchman, politically, there was a freeness in the
expression as well as adoption of his own views of men
and things. And a third kindred merit of Cooper was
high-minded and gentlemanly abstinence from
self-applause. No distinguished or applauded man ever
was less apt to talk of himself and his performances.
Unlike too many modern poets, novelists, and other
writers, apt to become debauchees, drunkards,
blackguards and the like (as if, as some think, genius
and vice go together), Mr. Cooper was a gentleman
remarkable for good plain sense, correct deportment,
striking probity and propriety, and withal
unostentatiously devout. Not meaning to disparage any
one in order by odious comparisons to extol him, I deem
his Naval History a more valuable and enduring
historical work than many others, both English and
American, of contemporaneous publication and much wider
dissemination. In short, if the gentlemen whose names I
have seen in the public journals with yours, proposing
some concentrated eulogium, should determine to appoint
a suitable person, with time to prepare it, I believe
that Fenimore Cooper may be made the subject of
illustration in very many and most striking lights,
justly reflecting him, and with excellent influence on
his country.
I do not recollect, from what I read lately in the
newspapers, precisely what you and the other gentlemen
associated with you in this proceeding propose to do,
or whether any thing is to take place. But if so,
whatever and wherever it may be, I beg you to use this
answer to your invitation, and any services I can
render, as cordial contributions, which I shall be
proud and happy to make. I am very respectfully your
humble servant,
C. J. INGERSOLL.
Rev. RUFUS W. GRISWOLD.
_From G. P. R. James._
STOCKBRIDGE, Mass., 23d September, 1851.
DEAR DOCTOR GRISWOLD:--I regret extremely that it will
not be in my power to be present at the meeting to
testify respect for the memory of Mr. Cooper. I grieve
sincerely that so eminent a man is lost to the country
and the world; and though unacquainted with him
personally, I need hardly tell you how highly his
abilities as an author, and his character, were
appreciated by yours faithfully,
G. P. R. JAMES.
_From Mr. Everett._
CAMBRIDGE, 23d September, 1851.
DEAR SIR:--I received this afternoon your favor of the
17th, inviting me to attend and participate in the
meeting to be held in your City Hall, for the purpose
of doing honor to the memory of the late Mr. Fenimore
Cooper.
I sincerely regret that I cannot be with you. The state
of the weather puts it out of my power to make the
journey. The object of the meeting has my entire
sympathy. The works of Mr. Cooper have adorned and
elevated our literature. There is nothing more purely
American, in the highest sense of the word, than
several of them. In his department he is _facile
princeps_. He wrote too much to write every thing
equally well; but his abundance flowed out of a full,
original mind, and his rapidity and variety bespoke a
resolute and manly consciousness of power. If among his
works there were some which, had he been longer spared
to us, he would himself, on reconsideration, have
desired to recal, there are many more which the latest
posterity "will not willingly let die."
With much about him that was intensely national, we
have but one other writer (Mr. Irving), as widely known
abroad. Many of Cooper's novels were not only read at
every fireside in England, but were translated into
every language of the European continent.
He owed a part of his inspiration to the magnificent
nature which surrounded him; to the lakes, and forests,
and Indian traditions, and border-life of your great
state. It would have been as difficult to create
Leatherstocking anywhere out of New-York, or some state
closely resembling it, as to create Don Quixotte out of
Spain. To have trained and possessed Fenimore Cooper
will be--is already--with justice, one of your greatest
boasts. But we cannot let you monopolize the care of
his memory. We have all rejoiced in his genius; we have
all felt the fascination of his pen; we all deplore his
loss. You must allow us all to join you in doing honor
to the name of our great American novelist. I remain,
dear sir, with great respect, very truly yours,
EDWARD EVERETT.
Rev. RUFUS W. GRISWOLD.
Letters of similar import were received from Richard H. Dana, George
Ticknor, William H. Prescott, John Neal, and many other eminent men, all
approving the design to render the highest honors to the illustrious
deceased.
At the meeting of the New-York Historical Society, on the evening of
Tuesday, the 7th of October, after the transaction of the regular business,
the following resolutions were moved by Rev. Rufus W. Griswold, and
seconded by Mr. George Bancroft:--
_Whereas_, It has pleased Almighty God to remove from
this life our illustrious associate and countryman,
JAMES FENIMORE COOPER, while his fame was in its
fulness, and his intelligence was still unclouded by
age or any infirmity, therefore:
Resolved, That this society has heard of the death of
James Fenimore Cooper with profound regret:
That it recognizes in him an eminent subject and a
masterly illustrator of our history:
That, in his contributions to our literature he
displayed eminent genius and a truly national spirit:
That, in his personal character, he was honorable,
brave, sincere, and generous, as respectable for
unaffected virtue as he was distinguished for great
capacities:
That this society, appreciating the loss which,
however heavily it has fallen upon this country and
the literary world, has fallen most heavily upon his
family, instructs its officers to convey to his family,
assurances of respectful sympathy and condolence.
Dr. JOHN W. FRANCIS addressed the society in a very interesting speech, in
support of these resolutions. Among the great men of letters, he said, whom
our country has produced, there were none greater than Mr. Cooper. I knew
him for a period of thirty years, and during all that time I never knew any
thing of his character that was not in the highest degree praiseworthy. He
was a man of great decision of character, and a fair expositor of his own
thoughts on every occasion--a thorough American, for I never knew a man who
was more entirely so in heart and principle. He was able, with his vast
knowledge, and a powerful physical structure, to complete whatever he
attempted. He had studied the history of this country with a large
philosophy, and understood our people and their character better than any
other writer of the age. He was not only perfectly acquainted with our
general history, but was thoroughly conversant with that of every state,
county, village, lake, and river. And with his vast knowledge he was no
less remarkable for ability as a historian than for his intrepidity of
personal character. I could not, said Dr. Francis, allow this opportunity
to pass without paying my tribute to the merits of this truly great man.
Mr. GEORGE BANCROFT next addressed the society. My friend, he said, has
spoken of the illustrious deceased as an American--I say that he was an
embodiment of the American feeling, and truly illustrated American
greatness. We were endeavoring to hold up our heads before the world, and
to claim a character and an intellect of our own, when Cooper appeared with
his powerful genius to support our pretensions. He came forth imbued with
American life, and feeling, and sentiment. Another like Cooper cannot
appear, for he was peculiarly suited to his time, which was that of an
invading civilization. The fame and honor which he gained, were not
obtained by obsequious deference to public opinion, but simply by his great
ability and manly character. Great as he was in the department of romantic
fiction, he was not less deserving of praise in that of history. In Lionel
Lincoln he has described the battle of Bunker Hill better than it is
described in any other work.
In his naval history of the United States he has left us the most masterly
composition of which any nation could boast on a similar subject. Mr.
Bancroft proceeded in a masterly analysis of some of Mr. Cooper's
characters, and ended with an impressive assertion of the purity of his
contributions to our literature, the eminence of his genius, and the
dignity of his personal character.
Dr. HAWKS spoke with his customary eloquence of the personal character of
Mr. Cooper, his indefectible integrity, his devotion to the best interests
of his country, and his religious spirit. He approved the resolutions which
had been offered to the society.
The Rev. SAMUEL OSGOOD said:
It must seem presumptuous in me, Mr. President, to try
to add any thing to the tribute which has been paid to
the memory of Cooper, by gentlemen so peculiarly
qualified from their experience and position to speak
of the man and his services. But all professions have
their own point of view, and I may be allowed to say a
few words upon the relation of our great novelist to
the historical associations and moral standards of our
nation. I cannot claim more than a passing acquaintance
with the deceased, and it belongs to friends more
favored to interpret the asperities and illustrate the
amenities which are likely to mark the character of a
man so decided in his make and habit. With his position
as an interpreter of American history and a delineator
of American character, we are in this society most
closely concerned. None in this presence, I am sure,
will rebuke me for speaking of the novelist as among
the most important agents of popular education,
powerful either for good or ill.
Is it not true, Sir, that the romance is the prose epic
of modern society, and that we now look to its pages
for the most graphic portraitures of men, manners, and
events? Social and political life is too complex now
for the stately march of the heroic poem, and this age
of print needs not the carefully measured verse to make
sentences musical to the ear, or to save them from
being mutilated by circulation. The romance is now the
chosen form of imaginative literature, and its gifted
masters are educators of the popular ideal. What epic
poem of our times begins to compare in influence over
the common mind with the stories of Scott and Cooper?
Our novelist loved most to treat of scenes and
characters distinctively national, and his name stands
indelibly written on our fairest lakes and rivers, our
grandest seas and mountains, our annals of early
sacrifice and daring. With some of his criticisms on
society, and some of his views of political and
historical questions, I have personally little
sympathy. But, when it is asked, in the impartial
standard of critical justice, what influence has he
exerted over the moral tone of American literature, or
to what aim has he wielded the fascinating pen of
romance, there can be but one reply. With him, fancy
has always walked hand in hand with purity, and the
ideal of true manhood, which is everywhere most
prominent in his works, is one of which we may well be
proud as a nation and as men.
The element of will, perhaps more strongly than
intellectual analysis, or exquisite sensibility, or
high imagination, is the distinguished characteristic
of his heroes, and in this his portraitures are good
types of what is strongest in the practical American
mind. His model man, whether forester, sailor, servant,
or gentleman, is always bent on bringing some especial
thing to pass, and the progress from the plan to the
achievement is described with military or naval
exactness. Yet he never overlooks any of the essential
traits of a noble manhood, and loves to show how much
of enterprise, courage, compassion, and reverence, it
combines with practical judgment and religious
principle.
It has seemed to me that his stories of the seas and
the forests are fitted to act more than ever upon the
strong hearts in training for the new spheres of
triumph which are now so wonderfully opening upon our
people. Who does not wish that his noted hero of the
backwoods might be known in every loghouse along our
extending frontier, and teach the rough pioneer always
to temper daring by humanity? Who can ever forget that
favorite character, as dear to the reader as to the
author--that paladin of the forest, that lion-heart of
the wilderness, Leatherstocking, fearless towards
man--gentle towards woman--a rough-cast gentleman of
as true a heart as ever beat under the red cross of the
crusader. The very qualities needed in those old times
of frontier strife are now needed for new emergencies
in our more peaceful border life, and our future
depends vastly upon the characters that give edge to
the advancing mass of our population now crowding
towards the rocky mountains and the Pacific coast. It
is well that this story-teller of the forest has been
so true to the best traits of our nature, and in so
many points is a moralist too. As a romancer of the
sea, Cooper's genius may perhaps be but beginning to
show its influence, as a new age of commercial
greatness is opening upon our nation.
Mr. Cooper did not shrink from battle scenes and had no
particular dread of gunpowder, yet his best laurels
upon the ocean have been won in describing feats of
seamanship and traits of manhood that need no bloody
conflict for their display, and may be exemplified in
fleets as peaceful and beneficent as ever spread their
sails to the breezes to bear kindly products to
friendly nations. As we sit here this evening under the
influence of the hour, the images of many a famous
exploit on the water seems to come out from his
well-remembered pages and mingle themselves with recent
scenes of marine achievement. Has not the "Water Witch"
herself reappeared of late in our own bay, and laden
not with contraband goods, but a freight of
stout-hearted gentlemen, borne the palm as "Skimmer of
the Seas," from all competitors in presence of the
royalty and nobility of England? And the Old Ironsides,
has not she come back again, more iron-ribbed than
ever--not to fight over the old battles which our naval
chronicler was so fond of rehearsing, but under the
name of the Baltic or (better omen) the Pacific, to win
a victory more honorable and encouraging than ever was
carried by the thundering broadsides of the noble old
Constitution! The commanders and pilots so celebrated
by the novelist, have they not successors indomitable
as they? and just now our ship-news brings good tidings
of their achievements, as they tell us of the Flying
Cloud that has made light of the storms of the fearful
southern cape, and of the return of the adventurous
fleet that has stood so well the hug of the Polar
icebergs, and shown how nobly a crew may hunt for men
on the seas with a Red Rover's daring and a Christian's
mercy.
It is well that the most gifted romancer of the sea is
an American, and that he is helping us to enact the
romance of history so soon to be fact. The empire of
the waters, which in turn has belonged to Tyre, Venice,
and England, seems waiting to come to America, and no
part of the world now so justly claims its possession
as that state in which Cooper had his home. Who does
not welcome the promise of the new age of powerful
commerce and mental blessing? Who does not feel
grateful to any man who gives any good word or work to
the emancipation of the sailor from his worst enemies,
and to the freedom of the seas from all the violence
that stains its benignant waters? While proud of our
fleet ships, let us not forget elements in their
equipment more important than oak and iron. In this age
of merchandise, let us adorn peace with something of
the old manhood that took from warfare some of its
horrors. Did time allow, I might try to illustrate the
power of an attractive literature in keeping alive
national associations and moulding national character,
but I am content to leave these few fragmentary words
with the society as my poor tribute to a writer who
charmed many hours of my boyhood, and who has won
regard anew as the entertaining and instructive
beguiler of some recent days of rural recreation. May
we not sincerely say that he has so used the treasures
of our national scenery and history as to elevate the
true ideal of true manhood, and quicken the nation's
memory in many respects auspiciously for the nation's
hopes?
It is understood that a public discourse on the life and genius of Mr.
Cooper will be delivered by one of the most eminent of his contemporaries,
at Tripler Hall, early in December, and that measures will be adopted to
secure the erection of a suitable monument to his memory in one of the
public squares or parks of the city. On this subject Mr. Washington Irving
has written the following letter:
SUNNYSIDE, October, 1851.
MY DEAR SIR:--My occupations in the country prevent my
attendance in town at the meeting of the committee, but
I am anxious to know what is doing. I signified at our
first meeting what I thought the best monument to the
memory of Mr. Cooper--a statue. It is the simplest,
purest, and most satisfactory--perpetuating the
likeness of the person. I understand there is an
excellent bust of Mr. Cooper extant, made when he was
in Italy. He was there in his prime; and it might
furnish the model for a noble statue. Judge Duer
suggested that his monument should be placed at
Washington, perhaps in the Smithsonian Institute. I was
rather for New-York, as he belonged to this State, and
the scenes of several of his best works were laid in
it. Besides, the seat of government may be changed, and
then Washington would lose its importance; whereas
New-York must always be a great and growing
metropolis--the place of arrival and departure for this
part of the world--the great resort of strangers from
abroad, and of our own people from all parts of the
Union. One of our beautiful squares would be a fine
situation for a statue. However, I am perhaps a little
too local in my notions on this matter. Cooper
emphatically belongs to the nation, and his monument
should be placed where it would be most in public view.
Judge Duer's idea therefore may be the best. There will
be a question of what material the statue (if a statue
is determined on) should be made. White marble is the
most beautiful, but how would it stand our climate in
the open air? Bronze stands all weathers and all
climates, but does not give so clearly the expression
of the countenance, when regarded from a little
distance.
These are all suggestions scrawled in haste, which I
should have made if able to attend the meeting of the
committee. I wish you would drop me a line to let me
know what is done or doing.
Yours very truly,
WASHINGTON IRVING.
The Rev. RUFUS GRISWOLD.
The plan thus recommended by Mr. Irving will undoubtedly be approved by the
committee and the public, and there is little doubt that it will soon be
carried into execution.
FOOTNOTES:
[1] The accomplished authoress of "Rural Hours."--_Ed. International._
THE LONDON TIMES ON AMERICAN INTERCOMMUNICATION.
We are by no means confident that the Mexican War, with all its victories,
was more serviceable to our reputation in Europe, than the single victory
of Mr. Stevens, in his yacht America, off the Isle of Wight. This triumph
has been celebrated in a dinner at the Astor House, but the city might have
well afforded to welcome the returning owner of the America with an
illumination, or the fathers, in council assembled, might have voted him a
statue. Mr. Collins and Mr. Stevens have together managed to deprive
England of the "trident of the seas," and as soon as it was transferred
there began a shower of honors, which continues still, from the _Times_
down to the very meanest of its imitators. From that time the Americans
have had all the "solid triumphs" in the Great Exhibition. We have been
regarded as a wonderful people, and our institutions as the most
interesting study that is offered for contemporary statesmen and
philosophers. We copy below a specimen of the leaders with which the
_Times_ has honored us, and commend it to our readers, not more for its
tone than for the valuable information contained in it:--
LOCOMOTION BY RIVER AND RAILWAY IN THE UNITED STATES.
England has been so dazzled by the splendor of her own
achievements in the creation of a new art of transport
by land and water within the last thirty years, as to
become in a measure insensible to all that has been
accomplished in the same interval and in the same
department of the arts elsewhere, improvements less
brilliant, indeed, intrinsically, than the stupendous
system of inland transport, which we lately noticed in
these columns, and having a lustre mitigated to our
view by distance, yet presenting in many respects
circumstances and conditions which may well excite
profound and general interest, and even challenge a
respectful comparison with the greatest of those
advances in the art of locomotion of which we are most
justly proud.
It will not, therefore, be without utility and
interest, after the detailed notice which we have
lately given of our own advances in the adaptation of
steam to locomotion, to direct attention to the
progress in the same department which has been
simultaneously made in other and distant countries, and
first, and above all, by our friends and countrymen in
the other hemisphere.
The inland transport of the United States is
distributed mainly between the rivers, the canals, and
the railways, a comparatively small fraction of it
being executed on common roads. Provided with a system
of natural water communication on a scale of magnitude
without any parallel in the world, it might have been
expected that the "sparse" population of this recently
settled country might have continued for a long period
of time satisfied with such an apparatus of transport.
It is, however, the character of man, but above all of
the Anglo-Saxon man, never to rest satisfied with the
gifts of nature, however munificent they be, until he
has rendered them ten times more fruitful by the
application of his skill and industry, and we find
accordingly that the population of America has not only
made the prodigious natural streams which intersect its
vast territory over so many thousands of miles,
literally swarm with steamboats, but they have,
besides, constructed a system of canal navigation,
which may boldly challenge comparison with any thing of
the same kind existing in the oldest, wealthiest, and
most civilized States of Europe.
It appears from the official statistics that, on the
1st of January, 1843, the extent of canals in actual
operation amounted to 4,333 miles and that there were
then in progress 2,359 miles, a considerable portion of
which has since been completed, so that it is probable
that the actual extent of artificial water
communication now in use in the United States
considerably exceeds 5,000 miles. The average cost of
executing this prodigious system of artificial water
communication was at the rate of 6,432_l._ per mile, so
that 5,000 miles would have absorbed a capital of above
32,000,000_l._
This extent of canal transport, compared with the
population, exhibits in a striking point of view the
activity and enterprise which characterize the American
people. In the United States there is a mile of canal
navigation for every 5,000 inhabitants, while in
England the proportion is 1 to every 9,000 inhabitants,
and France 1 to every 13,000. The ratio, therefore, of
this instrument of intercommunication in the United
States is greater than in the United Kingdom, in
proportion to the population, as 9 to 5, and greater
than in France in the ratio of 13 to 5.
The extent to which the American people have
fertilized, so to speak, the natural powers of those
vast collections of water which surround and intersect
their territory, is not less remarkable than their
enterprise in constructing artificial lines of water
communication. Besides the internal communication
supplied by the rivers, properly so called, a vast
apparatus of liquid transport is derived from the
geographical character of their extensive coast,
stretching over a space of more than 4,000 miles, from
the Gulf of St. Lawrence to the delta of the
Mississippi, indented and serrated with natural harbors
and sheltered bays, fringed with islands forming
sounds, throwing out capes and promontories which
inclose arms of the sea in which the waters are free
from the roll of the ocean, and which, for all the
purposes of navigation, have the character of rivers
and lakes. The lines of communication formed by the
vast and numerous rivers are, moreover, completed in
the interior by chains of lakes presenting the most
extensive bodies of fresh water in the known world.
Whatever question may be raised on the conflicting
claims for the invention of steam navigation, it is an
incontestable fact that the first steamboat practically
applied for any useful purpose was placed on the
Hudson, to ply between New-York and Albany, in 1808;
and, from that time to the present that river has been
the theatre of the most remarkable series of
experiments of locomotion on water ever recorded in the
history of man. The Hudson is navigable by steamers of
the largest class as high as Albany, a distance of
nearly 150 miles from New-York. The steam navigation
upon this river is entitled to attention, not only
because of the immense traffic of which it is the
vehicle, but because it forms a sort of model for all
the rivers of the Atlantic States. Two classes of
steamers work upon it--one appropriated to the swift
transport of passengers, and the other to the towing of
the vast traffic which is maintained between the city
of New-York and the interior of the State of that name,
into the heart of which the Hudson penetrates.
The passenger steamers present a curious contrast to
the sea-going steamers with which we are familiar. Not
having to encounter the agitated surface of the ocean,
they are supplied with neither rigging nor sails, are
built exclusively with a view to speed, are slender and
weak in their structure, with great length in
proportion to their beam, and have but small draught of
water. The position and form of the machinery are
peculiar. The engines are placed on deck in a
comparatively elevated situation. It is but rarely that
two engines are used. A single engine placed in the
centre of the deck drives a crank constructed on the
axle of the enormous paddle-wheels, the magnitude of
which, and the velocity imparted to them, enable them
to perform the office of fly-wheels. These vessels,
which are of great magnitude, are splendidly fitted up
for the accommodation of passengers, and have been
within the last ten or twelve years undergoing a
gradual augmentation of magnitude, to which it would
seem to be difficult to set a limit.
In the following table, which we borrow from the work
on _Railway Economy_, from which we have already
derived so large a portion of our information, are
given the dimensions and the details of fourteen of the
principal steamers plying on the Hudson in the year 1838:--
|Length of deck.
| |Breadth of beam.
| | |Draught.
| | | |Diameter of wheels.
| | | | |Length of paddles.
| | | | | |Depth of paddles.
| | | | | | |Number of engines.
| | | | | | | |Diameter of cylinder.
| | | | | | | | |Length of stroke.
| | | | | | | | | |Number of
| | | | | | | | | |revolutions.
| | | | | | | | | | |Part of stroke
| | | | | | | | | | |at which steam
Names. | | | | | | | | | | |is cut off.
-------------+----+----+----+----+----+---+--+----+----+----+-----+
| ft.| ft.| ft.| ft.| ft.|ft.| | in.| ft.| | |
Dewit Clinton| 230|28 |5·5 |21 |13·7|36 |1 |65 | 10 |29 |·75 |
Champlain | 180|27 |5·5 |22 |15 |34 |2 |44 | 10 |27·5|·50 |
Erie | 180|27 |5·5 |22 |15 |34 |2 |44 | 10 |27·5|·50 |
North America| 200|30 |5 |21 |13 |30 |2 |44·5| 8 |24 |·50 |
Independence | 148|26 | -- | -- | -- |-- |1 |44 | 10 | -- | -- |
Albany | 212|26 | -- |24·5|14 |30 |1 |65 | -- |19 | -- |
Swallow | 233|22·5|3·75|24 |11 |30 |1 |46 | -- |27 | -- |
Rochester | 200|25 |3·75|23·5|10 |24 |1 |43 | 10 |28 | -- |
Utica | 200|21 |3·5 |22 | 9·5|24 |1 |39 | 10 | -- | -- |
Providence | 180|27 |9 | -- | -- |-- |1 |65 | 10 | -- | -- |
Lexington | 207|21 | -- |23 | 9 |30 |1 |48 | 11 |24 | -- |
Narraganset | 210|26 |5 |25 |11 |30 |1 |60 | 12 |20 |·50 |
Massachusetts| 200|29·5|8·5 |22 |10 |28 |2 |44 | 8 |26 | -- |
Rhode Island | 210|26 |6·5 |24 |11 |30 |1 |60 | 11 |21 | -- |
+----+----+----+----+----+---+--+----+----+----+-----+
Averages | 200|26 |5·6 |24·8|11 |30 |--|50·8| 10 |24·8| -- |
-------------+----+----+----+----+----+---+--+----+----+----+-----+
The changes more recently made all have a tendency to
increase the magnitude and power of those vessels--to
diminish their draught of water--and to increase the
play of the expansive principle. Vessels of the largest
class now draw only as much water as the smallest drew
a few years ago, four feet five inches being regarded
as the _maximum_.
It appears from the following table that the average
length of these prodigious floating hotels is above 300
feet; some of them approaching 400. In the passenger
accommodation afforded by them no water communication
in any country can compete. Nothing can exceed the
splendor and luxury with which they are fitted up,
furnished, and decorated. Silk, velvet, the most costly
carpetings and upholstery, vast mirrors, gilding, and
carving, are profusely displayed in their decoration.
Even the engine-room in some of them is lined with
mirrors. In the Alida, for example, the end of the
engine-room is one vast mirror, in which the movements
of the brilliant and highly-finished machinery are
reflected. All the largest class are capable of running
from twenty to twenty-two miles an hour, and average
nearly twenty miles without difficulty.
In the annexed table are exhibited the details of ten
of the most recently constructed passenger vessels:--
---------------+------------------------+----------------+------------------
| DIMENSIONS OF | ENGINE. | PADDLE-
| VESSEL. | | WHEEL.
+------------------------+----------------+------------------
| |Diameter of |
| |cylinder. |
|Length. | |Length of |Diameter.
| |Breadth. | |stroke. | |Length of
| | |Depth of | | |Number | |bucket.
Names. | | |Hold. | | |of | | |Depth of
| | | |Tonnage.| | |strokes.| | |bucket.
---------------+----+-----+----+--------+---+---+--------+----+----+--------
| ft.| ft. | ft.| |in.|ft.| | ft.|ft. | in.
Isaac Newton |333 |40·4 |10·0| |81 |12 | 18-1/2 |39·0|12·4| 32
Bay State |300 |39·0 |13·2| |76 |12 | 21-1/2 |38·0|10·3| 32
Empire State |304 |39·0 |13·6| |76 |12 | 21-1/2 |38·0|10·3| 32
Oregon |308 |35·0 | -- | |72 |11 | 18 |34·0|11·0| 28
Hendrick Hudson|320 |35·0 | 9·6| 1,050 |72 |11 | 22 |33·0|11·0| 33
C. Vanderbilt |300 |35·0 |11·0| 1,075 |72 |12 | 21 |35·0| 9·0| 33
Connecticut |300 |37·0 |11·0| |72 |13 | 21 |35·0|11·6| 36
Commodore |280 |33·0 |10·6| |65 |11 | 22 |31·6| 9·0| 33
New-York |276 |35·0 |10·6| |76 |15 | 18 |44·6|12·0| 36
Alida |286 |28·0 | 9·6| |56 |12 | 24-1/2 |32·0|10·0| 32
---------------+----+-----+----+-------+----+----+-------+----+----+--------
Averages |310 |35·8 |11·0| |71·8|12·1|20·8 |35·0|10·8| 37
---------------+----+-----+----+-------+----+----+-------+----+----+--------
It may be observed, in relation to the navigation of
those eastern rivers (for we do not here speak of the
Mississippi and its tributaries), that the occurrence
of explosions is almost unheard of. During the last ten
years not a single catastrophe of this kind has been
recorded, although cylindrical boilers ten feet in
diameter, composed of plating 5-16ths of an inch thick,
are commonly used with steam of 50lb. pressure.
Previously to 1844 the lowest fare from New-York to
Albany, a distance of 145 miles, was 4s. 4d.; at
present the fare is 2s. 2d.--and for an additional sum
of the same amount the passenger can command the luxury
of a separate cabin. When the splendor and magnitude of
the accommodation is considered, the magnificence of
the furniture and accessories, and the luxuriousness of
the table, it will be admitted that no similar example
of cheap locomotion can be found in any part of the
globe. Passengers may there be transported in a
floating palace, surrounded with all the conveniences
and luxuries of the most splendid hotel, at the average
rate of twenty miles an hour, for less than _one-sixth
of a penny per mile_! It is not an uncommon occurrence
during the warm season to meet persons on board these
boats who have lodged themselves there permanently, in
preference to hotels on the banks of the river. Their
daily expenses in the boat are as follows:
Fare 2_s._ 2_d._
Separate bedroom 2 2
Breakfast, dinner, and supper 6 6
------
Total daily expense for board, lodging, 10 10
attendance, and travelling 150 miles,
at 20 miles an hour
Such accommodation is, on the whole, more economical
than a hotel. The bedroom is as luxuriously furnished
as the handsomest chamber in an hotel or private house,
and is much more spacious than the room similarly
designated in the largest packet ships.
The other class of steamers, used for towing the
commerce of the river, corresponds to the goods trains
on railways. No spectacle can be more remarkable than
this class of locomotive machines, dragging their
enormous load up the Hudson. They may be seen in the
midst of this vast stream, surrounded by a cluster of
twenty or thirty loaded craft of various magnitudes.
Three or four tiers are lashed to them at each side,
and as many more at their bow and at their stern. The
steamer is almost lost to the eye in the midst of this
crowd of vessels which cling around it, and the moving
mass is seen to proceed up the river, no apparent agent
of propulsion being visible, for the steamer and its
propellers are literally buried in the midst of the
cluster which clings to it and floats round and near
it.
As this _water-goods train_, for so it may be called,
ascends the river, it drops off its load, vessel by
vessel, at the towns which it passes. One or two are
left at Newburgh, another at Poughkeepsie, two or three
more at Hudson, one or two at Fishkill, and, finally,
the tug arrives with a residuum of some half-dozen
vessels at Albany.
The steam navigation of the Mississippi and the other
western rivers is conducted in a manner entirely
different from that of the Hudson. Every one must be
familiar with the lamentable accidents which happen
from time to time, and the loss of life from explosion
which continually takes place on those rivers. Such
catastrophes, instead of diminishing with the
improvement of art, seem rather to have increased.
Engineers have done literally nothing to check the
evil.
In a Mississippi steamboat the cabins and saloons are
erected on a flooring six or eight feet above the deck,
upon which and under them the engines are placed, which
are of the coarsest and most inartificial structure.
They are invariably worked with high-pressure steam,
and in order to obtain that effect which in the Hudson
steamers is due to a vacuum, the steam is worked at an
extraordinary pressure. We have ourselves actually
witnessed boilers of this kind, on the western rivers,
working under a full pressure of 120lb. per square inch
above the atmosphere, and we have been assured that
this pressure has been recently considerably increased,
so that it is not unfrequent now to find them working
with a bursting pressure of 200lb. per square inch!
As might naturally be expected, the chief theatre of
railway enterprise in America is the Atlantic States.
The Mississippi and its tributaries have served the
purposes of commerce and intercommunication to the
comparatively thinly scattered population of the
Western States so efficiently that many years will
probably elapse, notwithstanding the extraordinary
enterprise of the people, before any considerable
extent of railway communication will be established in
this part of the States. Nevertheless, the traveller in
these distant regions encounters occasionally detached
examples of railways even in the valley of the
Mississippi. In the State of Mississippi there are five
short lines, ten or twelve in Louisiana, and a limited
number scattered over Florida, Alabama, Illinois,
Michigan, Indiana, and Ohio. These, however, are
generally detached and single lines, unconnected with
the vast network which we shall presently notice. To
the traveller in these wild regions the aspect of such
artificial agents of transport in the midst of a
country, a great portion of which is still in the state
of native forest, is most remarkable, and strongly
characteristic of the irrepressible spirit of
enterprise of its people. Travelling in the back woods
of Mississippi, through native forests, where till
within a few years human foot never trod, through
solitudes, the silence of which was never broken, even
by the red man, we have been sometimes filled with
wonder to find ourselves transported by an engine
constructed at Newcastle-on-Tyne, and driven by an
artisan from Liverpool, at the rate of twenty miles an
hour. It is not easy to describe the impression
produced by the juxtaposition of these refinements of
art and science with the wildness of the country, where
one sees the frightened deer start from its lair at the
snorting of the ponderous machine and the appearance of
the snakelike train which follows it.
The first American railway was opened for passengers on
the last day of 1829. According to the reports
collected and given in detail in the work already
quoted, it appears that in 1849, after an interval of
just twenty years, there were in actual operation 6,565
miles of railway in the States. The cost of
construction and plant of this system of railways
appears by the same authority to have been
53,386,885_l._, being at the average rate of 8,129_l._
per mile.
The reports collected in Dr. Lardner's work come up to
the middle of 1849. We have, however, before us
documents which supply data to a more recent period,
and have computed from them the following table,
exhibiting the number of miles of railway in actual
operation in the United States, the capital expended in
their construction and plant, and the length of the
lines which are in process of construction, but not yet completed:--
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
| Railways | Cost of | Projected |Cost per
| in | Building and | and in | Mile.
| operation. | Plant. | progress. |
------------------------+-------------+--------------+-------------+--------
| Miles. | £ | Miles. | £
Eastern States, | | | |
including Maine, New | | | |
Hampshire, Vermont, | | | |
Massachusetts, Rhode | | | |
Island, and Connecticut| 2,845 | 23,100,987 | 567 | 8,123
| | | |
Atlantic States, | | | |
including New-York, the | | | |
Jerseys, Pennsylvania, | | | |
Delaware, and Maryland | 3,503 | 27,952,500 | 2,020 | 7,979
| | | |
Southern States, | | | |
including Virginia, the | | | |
Carolinas, Georgia, | | | |
Florida, and Alabama | 2,103 | 8,253,130 | 1,283 | 3,919
| | | |
Western States, | | | |
including Mississippi, | | | |
Louisiana, Texas, | | | |
Tennessee, Kentucky, | | | |
Ohio, Michigan, Indiana,| | | |
Illinois, Missouri, | | | |
Iowa, and Wisconsin | 1,835 | 7,338,290 | 5,762 | 3,999
|-------------+--------------+-------------+--------
Totals and averages | 10,289 | 66,653,907 | 9,632 | 6,478
------------------------+-------------+--------------+-------------+--------
It must be admitted that the results here exhibited
present a somewhat astonishing spectacle. It appears
from this statement that there are in actual operation
in the United States 10,289 miles of railway, and that
there are 9,632 projected and in process of execution.
So that when a few years more shall have rolled away,
this extraordinary people will actually have 20,000
miles of iron road in operation.
It appears from the above report, compared with the
previous report quoted from Dr. Lardner, that the
average cost of construction has been diminished as the
operations progressed. According to Dr. Lardner, the
average cost of construction of the 6,500 miles of
railway in operation in 1849 was 8,129_l._ per mile
whereas, it appears from the preceding table that the
actual cost of 10,289 miles now in operation has been
at the average rate of 6,478_l._ per mile. On
examining the analysis of the distribution of these
railways among the States, it appears that this
discordance of the two statements is apparent rather
than real, and proceeds from the fact that the railways
opened since Dr. Lardner's report, being chiefly in the
southern and western States, are cheaply constructed
lines, in which the landed proprietors have given to a
great extent their gratuitous co-operation, and in
which the plant and working stock is of very small
amount, so that their average cost per mile is a little
under 4,000_l._--the average cost per mile in the
eastern and northern States corresponding almost to a
fraction with Dr. Lardner's estimate. It is also worthy
of observation that the distribution of this network of
railways is extremely unequal, not only in quantity,
but in its capability, as indicated by its expense of
construction. Thus, in the populous and wealthy States
of Massachusetts, New-Jersey, and New-York, the
proportion of railways to surface is considerable,
while in the southern and western States it is
trifling. In the following table is given the number of
miles of surface for each mile of railway in some of
the principal States:--
Square miles of surface for each mile of railway.
Massachusetts 7
New-Jersey 22
New-York 28
Maryland 31
Ohio 58
Georgia 76
When it is considered that the railways in this country
have cost upon an average about 40,000_l._ per mile,
the comparatively low cost of the American railways
will doubtless appear extraordinary.
This circumstance, however, is explained partly by the
general character of the country, partly by the mode of
constructing the railways, and partly by the manner of
working them. With certain exceptions, few in number,
the tracts of country over which these lines are
carried, is nearly a dead level. Of earthwork there is
but little; of works of art, such as viaducts and
tunnels, commonly none. Where the railways are carried
over streams or rivers, bridges are constructed in a
rude but substantial manner of timber supplied from the
roadside forest, at no greater cost than that of hewing
it. The station houses, booking offices, and other
buildings, are likewise slight and cheaply constructed
of timber. On some of the best lines in the more
populous States the timber bridges are constructed with
stone pillars and abutments, supporting arches of
trusswork, the cost of such bridges varying from 46s.
per foot, for 60 feet span, to 6_l._ 10s. per foot for
200 feet span, for a single line, the cost on a double
line being 50 per cent. more.
When the railways strike the course of rivers such as
the Hudson, Delaware, or Susquehanna--too wide to be
crossed by bridges--the traffic is carried by steam
ferries. The management of these ferries is deserving
of notice. It is generally so arranged that the time of
crossing them corresponds with a meal of the
passengers. A platform is constructed level with the
line of railway and carried to the water's edge. Upon
this platform rails are laid by which the wagons which
bear the passengers' luggage and other matters of light
and rapid transport are rolled directly upon the upper
deck of the ferry boat, the passengers meanwhile going
under a covered way to the lower deck. The whole
operation is accomplished in five minutes. While the
boat is crossing the spacious river the passengers are
supplied with their breakfasts, dinner, or supper, as
the case may be. On arriving at the opposite bank the
upper deck comes in contact with a like platform,
bearing a railway upon which the luggage wagons are
rolled; the passengers ascend, as they descended, under
a covered way, and, resuming their places in the
railway carriages, the train proceeds.
But the prudent Americans have availed themselves of
other sources of economy by adopting a mode of
construction adapted to the expected traffic. Formed to
carry a limited commerce the railways are generally
single lines, sidings being provided at convenient
situations. Collision is impossible, for the first
train that arrives at a siding must enter it and remain
there until the following train arrives. This
arrangement would be attended with inconvenience with a
crowded traffic like that of many lines on the English
railways, but even on the principal American lines the
trains seldom pass in each direction more than twice a
day, and their time and place of meeting is perfectly
regulated. In the structure of the roads, also,
principles have been adopted which have been attended
with great economy compared with the English lines. The
engineers, for example, do not impose on themselves the
difficult and expensive condition of excluding all
curves but those of large radius, and all gradients
exceeding a certain small limit of steepness. Curves of
500 feet radius, and even less, are frequent, and
acclivities rising at the rate of 1 foot in 100 are
considered a moderate ascent, while there are not less
than 50 lines laid down with gradients varying from 1
in 100 to 1 in 75, nevertheless these lines are worked
with facility by locomotives, without the expedient,
even, of assistant or stationary engines. The
consequences of this have been to reduce in an immense
proportion the cost of earthwork, bridges, and
viaducts, even in parts of the country where the
character of the surface is least favorable. But the
chief source of economy has arisen from the structure
of the line itself. In many cases where the traffic is
lightest the rails consist of flat bars of iron, 2-1/2
inches broad and 6-10ths of an inch thick, nailed and
spiked to planks of timber laid longitudinally on the
road in parallel lines, so as to form what are called
continuous bearings. Some of the most profitable
American railways, and those of which the maintenance
has proved least expensive, have been constructed in
this manner. The road structure, however, varies
according to the traffic. Rails are sometimes laid
weighing only from 25lb. to 30lb. per yard. In some
cases of great traffic they are supported on transverse
sleepers of wood like the European railways, but in
consequence of the comparative cheapness of wood and
the high price of iron, the strength necessary for the
road is mostly obtained by reducing the distance
between the sleepers so as to supersede the necessity
of giving greater weight to the rails.
The same observance of the principles of economy is
maintained with regard to their locomotive stock. The
engines are strongly built, safe and powerful, but are
destitute of much of that elegance of exterior and
beauty of workmanship which has excited so much
admiration, in the machines exhibited in the Crystal
Palace. The fuel is generally wood, but on certain
lines near the coal districts coal is used. The use of
coke is nowhere resorted to. Its expense would make it
inadmissible, and in a country so thinly inhabited the
smoke proceeding from coal is not objected to. The
ordinary speed, stoppages included, is from 14 to 16
miles an hour. Independently of other considerations,
the light structure of many of the roads would not
allow a greater velocity without danger; nevertheless
we have frequently travelled on some of the better
constructed lines at the ordinary speed of the English
railways, say 30 miles an hour and upwards.
Notwithstanding the apparently feeble and unsubstantial
structure of many of the lines, accidents to passenger
trains are scarcely ever heard of. It appears by
returns now before us that of 9,355,474 passengers
booked in 1850 on the crowded railways of
Massachusetts, each passenger making an average trip of
18 miles, there were only 15 who sustained accidents
fatal to life or limb. It follows from this, by the
common principles explained by us in a former article,
that when a passenger travels one mile on these
railways the chances against an accident producing
personal injury, even of the slightest kind, are
11,226,568 to 1, and of course in a journey of 100
miles the chances against such accident are 112,266 to
1. We have shown in a former article that the chances
against accident on an English railway, under like
circumstances, are 85,125 to 1. The American railways
are, therefore, safer than the English in the ratio of
112 to 85.
The great line of communication is established, 400
miles in length, between Philadelphia and Pittsburg, on
the left bank of the Ohio, composed partly of railway
and partly of canal. The section from Philadelphia to
Columbia (82 miles) is railway; the line is then
continued by canal for 172 miles to Holidaysburg; it is
then carried by railway 37 miles to Johnstown, whence
it is continued 104 miles further to Pittsburg by
canal. The traffic on this mixed line of transport is
conducted so as to avoid the expense and inconvenience
of transhipment of goods and passengers at the
successive points where the railway and canals unite.
The merchandise is loaded and the passengers
accommodated in the boats adapted to the canals at the
dépôt in Market-street, Philadelphia. These boats,
which are of considerable magnitude and length, are
divided into segments by partitions made transversely
and at right angles to their length, so that such boat
can be, as it were, broken into three or more pieces.
These several pieces are placed each on two railway
trucks, which support it at the ends, a proper body
being provided for the trucks adapted to the form of
the bottom and keel of the boat. In this manner the
boat is carried in pieces, with its load, along the
railway. On arriving at the canal the pieces are united
so as to form a continuous boat, which being launched,
the transport is continued on the water. On arriving
again at the railway the boat is once more resolved
into its segments, which, as before, are transferred to
the railway trucks and transported to the next canal
station by locomotive engines. Between the dépôt in
Market-street and the locomotive station which is
situated in the suburbs of Philadelphia the segments of
the boat are drawn by horses on railways conducted
through the streets. At the locomotive station the
trucks are formed into a continuous train and delivered
over to the locomotive engine. As the body of the truck
rests upon a pivot, under which it is supported by
wheels, it is capable of revolving, and no difficulty
is found in turning the shortest curves, and these
enormous vehicles, with their contents of merchandise
and passengers, are seen daily issuing from the gates
of the dépôt in Market-street, and turning with
facility the corners at the entrance of each successive
street.
By a comparison of the returns published by Dr.
Lardner, in his work already quoted, with the more
recent results which we have already given, it will
appear that within the last two years not less than
3,700 miles of railway have been opened for traffic in
the United States. Among these are included several of
the most important lines, among which are more
especially to be noticed the great artery of railway
communication extending across the State of New York to
the shores of Lake Erie, the longest line which any
single company has yet constructed in the United
States, its length being 467 miles. The total cost of
this line, including the working stock, has been
4,500,000_l._ sterling, being at the average rate of
9,642_l._ per mile--a rate of expense about 50 per
cent. above the average cost of American railways taken
collectively. This is explained by the fact that the
line itself is one constructed for a large traffic
between New York and the interior, and therefore built
to meet a heavy traffic. Although it is but just
opened, its average receipts have amounted to
11,000_l._ per week, which have given a net profit of
6-1/2 per cent. on the capital, the working expenses
being taken at 50 per cent. of the gross receipts. One
of the great lines in a forward state, and likely to be
opened by the close of the present year, connects New
York with Albany, following the valley of the Hudson.
It will no doubt create surprise, considering the
immense facility of water transport afforded by this
river, that a railway should be constructed on its
bank, but it must be remembered that for a considerable
interval during the winter the navigation of the Hudson
is suspended from the frost.
A great line of railway, which will intersect the
States from south to north, connecting the port of
Mobile on the Gulf of Mexico with Lake Michigan and the
lead mines of Galena on the Upper Mississippi, is also
in progress of construction, large grants of land being
conceded to the company by the Federal Government. This
line will probably be opened in 1854.
It is difficult to obtain authentic reports from which
the movement of the traffic on the American railways
can be ascertained with precision. Dr. Lardner,
however, obtained the necessary statistical data
relating to nearly 1,200 miles of railway in the States
of New England and New York, from which he was enabled
to collect all the circumstances attending the working
of these lines, the principal of which are collected in
the following table:--
Tabular analysis of the average daily movement of the traffic on 28 of the
principal railways in the States of New England and New York.
PASSENGER TRAFFIC.--Number booked 23,981
Mileage 437,350
Receipts £2,723
Mileage of trains 8,091
GOODS TRAFFIC.--Tons booked 6,547
Mileage 248,351
Receipts £1,860
Mileage of trains 4,560
Total length of the above railways in the State of New York 490 miles
Ditto, in the States of New England 670 "
-----
Total 1,160 miles.
Average cost of construction and stock in the State of New
York £7,010
Ditto, in the States of New England £10,800
General average £9,200
| Receipts | Expenses. | Profits.
--------------------------------------+----------+------------+----------
Total average receipts, expenses, | | |
and profits per day in the State of | £ | £ | £
New York | 1,654 | 684 | 970
| | |
Ditto, States of New England | 3,040 | 1,505 | 1,535
+----------+------------+----------
Totals | 4,694 | 2,189 | 2,505
| | | Per cent.
| Per mile | Per mile | per annum
|of railway| run by | on
| per day. | trains. | capital.
--------------------------------------+----------+------------+----------
| £ | |
Receipts | 4,05 | 7s. 5d. | 16,1
Expenses | 1,89 |3s. 5-1/2d. | 7,5
+----------+------------+----------
Profits | 2,16 |2s.11-1/2d. | 8,6
Expense per cent. of receipts 46,8
Average receipts for passengers booked 27,0d.
Average distance travelled per passenger 18,2 miles
Average receipts per passenger per mile 1,47d.
Average number of passengers per train 54,0
Total average receipts per passenger train per mile 7s.
Average receipts per ton of goods booked 6s. 8-1/2d.
Average distance carried per ton 38,0 miles
Average receipts per ton per mile 1s. 8d.
Average number of tons per train 54,5
Total average receipts per goods per mile 8,2s.
The railways, of whose traffic we have here given a
synopsis, are those of the most active and profitable
description in the United States. It would, therefore,
be a great error to infer from the results here
exhibited general conclusions as to the financial
condition of the American railways. It appears, on the
other hand, from a more complete analysis, that the
dividends on the American lines, exclusive of those
contained in the preceding analysis, are in general
small, and in many instances nothing. It is, therefore,
probable that in the aggregate the average profits on
the total amount of capital invested in the American
railways does not exceed, if it indeed equal, the
average profits obtained on the capital invested in
English railways, which we have in a former article
shown to produce little more than 3 per cent.
The extraordinary extent of railway constructed at so
early a period in the United States has been by some
ascribed to the absence of a sufficient extent of
communication by common roads. Although this cause has
operated to some extent in certain districts it is by
no means so general as has been supposed. In the year
1838 the United States' mails circulated over a length
of way amounting on the whole to 136,218 miles, of
which two-thirds were land transport, including
railways as well as common roads. Of the latter there
must have been about 80,000 miles in operation, of
which, however, a considerable portion was
bridle-roads. The price of transport in the stage
coaches was, upon an average, 3.25d. per passenger per
mile, the average price by railway being about 1.47d.
per mile.
Of the entire extent of railway constructed in the
United States, by far the greater portion, as has been
already explained, consists of single lines,
constructed in a light and cheap manner, which in
England would be regarded as merely serving temporary
purposes; while, on the contrary, the entire extent of
the English system consists, not only of double lines,
but of railways constructed in the most solid,
permanent, and expensive manner, adapted to the
purposes of an immense traffic. If a comparison were to
be instituted at all between the two systems, its basis
ought to be the capital expended, and the traffic
served by them, in which case the result would be
somewhat different from that obtained by the mere
consideration of the length of the lines. It is not,
however, the same in reference to the canals, in which
it must be admitted America far exceeds all other
countries in proportion to her population.
The American railways have been generally constructed
by joint stock companies, which, however, the State
controls much more stringently than in England. In some
cases a major limit to the dividends is imposed by the
statute of incorporation, in some the dividends are
allowed to augment, but when they exceed a certain
limit the surplus is divided with the State; in some
the privilege granted to the companies is only for a
limited period, in some a sort of periodical revision
and restriction of the tariff is reserved to the State.
Nothing can be more simple, expeditious, and cheap than
the means of obtaining an act for the establishment of
a railway company in America. A public meeting is held
at which the project is discussed and adopted, a
deputation is appointed to apply to the Legislature,
which grants the act without expense, delay, or
official difficulty. The principle of competition is
not brought into play as in France, nor is there any
investigation as to the expediency of the project with
reference to future profit or loss as in England. No
other guarantee or security is required from the
company than the payment by the shareholders of a
certain amount, constituting the first call. In some
States the non-payment of a call is followed by the
confiscation of the previous payments, in others a fine
is imposed on the shareholders, in others the share is
sold, and if the produce be less than the price at
which it was delivered the surplus can be recovered
from the shareholder by process of law. In all cases
the act creating the companies fix a time within which
the works must be completed, under pain of forfeiture.
The traffic in shares before the definite constitution
of the company is prohibited.
Although the State itself has rarely undertaken the
execution of railways, it holds out in most cases
inducements in different forms to the enterprise of
companies. In some cases the State takes a great number
of shares, which is generally accompanied by a loan
made to the company, consisting in State Stock
delivered at par, which the company negotiate at its
own risk. This loan is often converted into a
subvention.
The great extent of railway communication in America in
proportion to its population must necessarily excite
much admiration. If we take the present population of
the United States at 24,000,000, and the railways in
operation at 10,000 miles, it will follow that in round
numbers there is one mile of railway for every 2,400
inhabitants. Now, in the United Kingdom there are at
present in operation 6,500 miles of railway, and if we
take the population at 30,000,000, it will appear that
there is a mile of railway for every 4,615 inhabitants.
It appears, therefore, that in proportion to the
population the length of railways in the United States
is greater than in the United Kingdom in the ratio of
46 to 24.
On the American railways passengers are not differently
classed or received at different rates of fare as on
those of Europe. There is but one class and one fare.
The only distinction observable arises from color. The
colored population, whether emancipated or not, are
generally excluded from the vehicles provided for the
whites. Such travellers are but few, and are usually
accommodated either in the luggage van or in the
carriage with the guard or conductor. But little
merchandise is transported, the cost of transport being
greater than goods in general are capable of paying;
nevertheless, a tariff regulated by weight alone,
without distinction of classes, is fixed for
merchandise.
Although Cuba is not yet _annexed_ to the United
States, its local proximity here suggests some notice
of a line of railway which traverses that island,
forming a communication between the city of Havana and
the centre of the island. This is an excellently
constructed road, and capitally worked by British
engines, British engineers, and British coals. The
impressions produced in passing along this line of
railway, though different from those already noticed in
the forests of the far west, is not less remarkable. We
are here transported at 30 miles an hour by an engine
from Newcastle, driven by an engineer from Manchester,
and propelled by fuel from Liverpool, through fields
yellow with pineapples, through groves of plantain and
cocoa-nut, and along roads inclosed by hedge-rows of
ripe oranges.
To what extent this extraordinary rapidity of
advancement made by the United States in its inland
communications is observable in other departments will
be seen by the following table, exhibiting a
comparative statement of those _data_, derived from
official sources, which indicate the social and
commercial condition of a people through a period which
forms but a small stage in the life of a nation:
1793. 1851.
Population 3,939,325 24,267,488
Imports £6,739,130 £38,723,545
Exports £5,675,869 £32,367,000
Tonnage 520,704 3,535,451
Lighthouses, beacons, and lightships 7 373
Cost of their maintenance £2,600 £115,000
Revenue £1,230,000 £9,516,000
National expenditure £1,637,000 £8,555,000
Post offices 209 21,551
Post roads (miles) 5,642 178,670
Revenue of Post-office £22,800 £1,207,000
Expenses of Post-office £15,650 £1,130,000
Mileage of mails ---- 46,541,423
Canals (miles) 0 5,000
Railways (miles) 0 10,287
Electric telegraph (miles) 0 15,000
Public libraries (volumes) 75,000 2,201,623
School libraries (volumes) 0 2,000,000
If they were not founded on the most incontestable
statistical data, the results assigned to the above
table would appear to belong to fable rather than
history. In an interval of little more than half a
century it appears that this extraordinary people have
increased above 500 per cent. in numbers; their
national revenue has augmented nearly 700 per cent.,
while their public expenditure has increased little
more than 400 per cent. The prodigious extension of
their commerce is indicated by an increase of nearly
500 per cent. in their imports and exports and 600 per
cent. in their shipping. The increased activity of
their internal communications is expounded by the
number of their post offices, which has been increased
more than a hundred-fold, the extent of their post
roads, which has been increased thirty-six-fold, and
the cost of their post-office, which has been augmented
in a seventy-two-fold ratio. The augmentation of their
machinery of public instruction is indicated by the
extent of their public libraries, which have increased
in a thirty-two-fold ratio, and by the creation of
school libraries, amounting to 2,000,000 volumes. They
have completed a system of canal navigation, which,
placed in a continuous line, would extend from London
to Calcutta, and a system of railways which,
continuously extended, would stretch from London to Van
Diemen's Land, and have provided locomotive machinery
by which that distance would be travelled over in three
weeks, at the cost of 1-1/2d. per mile. They have
created a system of inland navigation, the aggregate
tonnage of which is probably not inferior in amount to
the collective inland tonnage of all the other
countries in the world, and they possess many hundreds
of river steamers, which impart to the roads of water
the marvellous celerity of roads of iron. They have, in
fine, constructed lines of electric telegraph which,
laid continuously, would extend over a space longer by
3,000 miles than the distance from the north to the
south pole, and have provided apparatus of transmission
by which a message of 300 words despatched under such
circumstances from the north pole might be delivered
_in writing_ at the south pole in one minute, and by
which, consequently, an answer of equal length might be
sent back to the north pole in an equal interval.
These are social and commercial phenomena for which it
would be vain to seek a parallel in the past history of
the human race.
THE LAST EARTHQUAKE IN EUROPE.
A correspondent of the _Athenæum_ gives the following account--the best we
have yet seen--of the recent earthquake at Amalfi, in the kingdom of
Naples:--
"I have, however, seen several persons from Malfi; and
from their narratives will endeavor to give you some
idea of this awful visitation. The morning of the 14th
of August was very sultry, and a leaden atmosphere
prevailed. It was remarked that an unusual silence
appeared to extend over the animal world. The hum of
insects ceased--the feathered tribes were mute--not a
breath of wind moved the arid vegetation. About
half-past two o'clock the town of Malfi rocked for
about six seconds, and nearly every building fell in.
The number of edifices actually levelled with the earth
is 163--of those partially destroyed 98, and slightly
damaged 180. Five monastic establishments were
destroyed, and seven churches including the cathedral.
The awful event occurred at a time when most of the
inhabitants of a better condition were at dinner; and
the result is, that out of the whole population only a
few peasants laboring in the fields escaped. More than
700 dead bodies have already been dug out of the ruins,
and it is supposed that not less than 800 are yet
entombed. A college accommodating 65 boys and their
teachers is no longer traceable. But the melancholy
event does not end here. The adjoining village of
Ascoli has also suffered:--32 houses laving fallen in,
and the church being levelled with the ground. More
than 200 persons perished there. Another small town,
Barile, has actually disappeared; and a lake has arisen
from the bowels of the earth, the waters being warm and
brackish.
"I proceed to give a few anecdotes, as narrated by
persons who have arrived in Naples from the scene of
horror:--'I was travelling,' says one, 'within a mile
of Malfi when I observed three cars drawn by oxen. In a
moment the two most distant fell into the earth; from
the third I observed a man and a boy descend and run
into a vineyard which skirted the road. Shortly after,
I think about three seconds, the third car was
swallowed up. We stopped our carriage, and proceeded to
the spot where the man and boy stood. The former I
found stupified--he was both deaf and dumb; the boy
appeared to be out of his mind, and spoke wildly, but
eventually recovered. The poor man still remains
speechless.' Another informant says:--'Malfi, and all
around present a singular and melancholy appearance:
houses levelled or partially fallen in--here and there
the ground broken up--large gaps displaying volcanic
action--people wandering about stupified--men searching
in the ruins--women weeping--children here and there
crying for their parents, and some wretched examples of
humanity carrying off articles of furniture. The
authorities are nowhere to be found.' A third person
states:--'I am from Malfi, and was near a monastery
when the earthquake occurred. A peasant told me that
the water in a neighboring well was quite hot,--a few
moments after I saw the building fall. I fell on the
ground, and saw nothing more. I thought that I had had
a fit.'
"The town of Malfi--or, Amalfi--is 150 miles from
Naples, and about the centre of the boot. It is
difficult, therefore, to gain information. The
government, I should add, sent a company of sappers and
miners to assist the afflicted _nine days after the
earthquake_!--and a medical commission is to set off
to-morrow. In conclusion, I may observe, that Vesuvius
has for a long time been singularly quiet. The shock of
the earthquake was felt slightly, though sensibly, from
Naples round to Sorrento. I have just heard that the
shocks have not ceased in the district of Malfi; and it
is supposed that volcanic agency is still active.
Indeed, my informant anticipates that an eruption will
take place; and probably some extraordinary phenomena
may appear in this neighborhood. The volcanic action
appears to have taken the direction of Sicily, as
reports have arrived stating that the shocks were felt
in that direction far more strongly than in that of
Naples. I shall send you further particulars as soon as
I can do so with certainty."
MR. JEFFERSON ON THE STUDY OF THE ANGLO-SAXON LANGUAGE.
The trustees of the University of Virginia have had printed a few copies of
_An Essay towards facilitating Instruction in the Anglo-Saxon and Modern
Dialects of the English Language_: _By_ THOMAS JEFFERSON. The MS. has been
preserved in the library of their University ever since Mr. Jefferson's
death. It is a very characteristic production, and is printed in a thin
quarto volume, prefaced by the following letter from Mr. Jefferson to
Herbert Croft, LL.B., of London:
MONTICELLO, _Oct. 30th, 1798_.
Sir; The copy of your printed letter on the English and
German languages, which you have been so kind as to
send me, has come to hand; and I pray you to accept of
my thanks for this mark of your attention. I have
perused it with singular pleasure, and, having long
been sensible of the importance of a knowledge of the
Northern languages to the understanding of English, I
see it, in this letter, proved and specifically
exemplified by your collations of the English and
German. I shall look with impatience for the
publication of your "English and German Dictionary."
Johnson, besides the want of precision in his
definitions, and of accurate distinction in passing
from one shade of meaning to another of the same word,
is most objectionable in his derivations. From a want
probably of intimacy with our own language while in the
Anglo-Saxon form and type, and of its kindred languages
of the North, he has a constant leaning towards Greek
and Latin for English etymon. Even Skinner has a little
of this, who, when he has given the true Northern
parentage of a word, often tells you from what Greek
and Latin source it might be derived by those who have
that kind of partiality. He is, however, on the whole,
our best etymologist, unless we ascend a step higher to
the Anglo-Saxon vocabulary; and he has set the good
example of collating the English word with its kindred
word in the several Northern dialects, which often
assist in ascertaining its true meaning.
Your idea is an excellent one, in producing authorities
for the meanings of words, "to select the prominent
passages in our best writers, to make your dictionary a
general index to English literature, and thus to
intersperse with verdure and flowers the barren deserts
of Philology." And I believe with you that "wisdom,
morality, religion, thus thrown down, as if without
intention, before the reader, in quotations, may often
produce more effect than the very passages in the books
themselves;"--"that the cowardly suicide, in search of
a strong word for his dying letter, might light on a
passage which would excite him to blush at his want of
fortitude, and to forego his purpose;"--"and that a
dictionary with examples at the words may, in regard to
every branch of knowledge, produce more real effect
than the whole collection of books which it quotes." I
have sometimes myself used Johnson as a Repertory, to
find favorite passages which I wished to recollect, but
too rarely with success.
I was led to set a due value on the study of the
Northern languages, and especially of our Anglo-Saxon,
while I was a student of the law, by being obliged to
recur to that source for explanation of a multitude of
law-terms. A preface to Fortescue on Monarchies,
written by Fortescue Aland, and afterwards premised to
his volume of Reports, developes the advantages to be
derived to the English student generally, and
particularly the student of law, from an acquaintance
with the Anglo-Saxon; and mentions the books to which
the learner may have recourse for acquiring the
language. I accordingly devoted some time to its study,
but my busy life has not permitted me to indulge in a
pursuit to which I felt great attraction. While engaged
in it, however, some ideas occurred for facilitating
the study by simplifying its grammar, by reducing the
infinite diversities of its unfixed orthography to
single and settled forms, indicating at the same time
the pronunciation of the word by its correspondence
with the characters and powers of the English alphabet.
Some of these ideas I noted at the time on the blank
leaves of my Elstob's Anglo-Saxon Grammar: but there I
have left them, and must leave them, unpursued,
although I still think them sound and useful. Among the
works which I proposed for the Anglo-Saxon student, you
will find such literal and verbal translations of the
Anglo-Saxon writers recommended, as you have given us
of the German in your printed letter. Thinking that I
cannot submit those ideas to a better judge than
yourself, and that if you find them of any value you
may put them to some use, either as hints in your
dictionary, or in some other way, I will copy them as a
sequel to this letter, and commit them without reserve
to your better knowledge of the subject. Adding my
sincere wishes for the speedy publication of your
valuable dictionary, I tender you the assurance of my
high respect and consideration.
THOMAS JEFFERSON."
Of the Essay itself we have room for only the initial paragraph, which is
as follows:
"The importance of the Anglo-Saxon dialect towards a
perfect understanding of the English language seems not
to have been duly estimated by those charged with the
education of youth; and yet it is unquestionably the
basis of our present tongue. It was a full-formed
language; its frame and construction, its declension of
nouns and verbs, and its syntax were peculiar to the
Northern languages, and fundamentally different from
those of the South. It was the language of all England,
properly so called, from the Saxon possession of that
country in the sixth century to the time of Henry III.
in the thirteenth, and was spoken pure and unmixed with
any other. Although the Romans had been in possession
of that country for nearly five centuries from the time
of Julius Cæsar, yet it was a military possession
chiefly, by their soldiery alone, and with dispositions
intermutually jealous and unamicable. They seemed to
have aimed at no lasting settlements there, and to have
had little familiar mixture with the native Britons. In
this state of connection there would probably be little
incorporation of the Roman into the native language,
and on their subsequent evacuation of the island its
traces would soon be lost altogether. And had it been
otherwise, these innovations would have been carried
with the natives themselves when driven into Wales by
the invasion and entire occupation of the rest of the
Southern portion of the island by the Anglo-Saxons. The
language of these last became that of the country from
that time forth, for nearly seven centuries; and so
little attention was paid among them to the Latin, that
it was known to a few individuals only as a matter of
science, and without any chance of transfusion into the
vulgar language. We may safely repeat the affirmation,
therefore, that the pure Anglo-Saxon constitutes at
this day the basis of our language. That it was
sufficiently copious for the purposes of society in the
existing condition of arts and manners, reason alone
would satisfy us from the necessity of the case. Its
copiousness, too, was much favored by the latitude it
allowed of combining primitive words so as to produce
any modification of idea desired. In this
characteristic it was equal to the Greek, but it is
more specially proved by the actual fact of the books
they have left us in the various branches of history,
geography, religion, law, and poetry. And although
since the Norman conquest it has received vast
additions and embellishments from the Latin, Greek,
French, and Italian languages, yet these are but
engraftments on its idiomatic stem; its original
structure and syntax remain the same, and can be but
imperfectly understood by the mere Latin scholar. Hence
the necessity of making the Anglo-Saxon a regular
branch of academic education. In the sixteenth and
seventeenth centuries it was assiduously cultivated by
a host of learned men. The names of Lambard, Parker,
Spelman, Wheeloc, Wilkins, Gibson, Hickes, Thwaites,
Somner, Benson, Mareschal, Elstob, deserve to be ever
remembered with gratitude for the Anglo-Saxon works
which they have given us through the press, the only
certain means of preserving and promulgating them."
THE OBELISKS OF EGYPT.
In the last number of the _International_ we gave an interesting article
from the London _Times_ respecting "Cleopatra's Needle." The subject of its
removal has since been largely discussed in England, and Mr. Tucker, a
civil engineer, has been sent out to Alexandria to "report on the condition
and site of the obelisk," and Lord Edward Russell has been appointed to the
Vengeance to proceed to Egypt for the purpose of bringing it to England. On
the publication of these facts Mr. Nathaniel Gould writes to the _Times_ as
follows:
How far a "man-of-war" is a proper vessel for this
purpose may be seen hereafter. The Premier is, however,
ready enough to appropriate some little _éclat_ to a
member of his own family. I stated that, so far as I
could make out, the bringing the obelisk of Luxor to
Paris had cost the French Government 40,000_l._; but it
is stated by Mr. Gliddon, late United States Consul at
Cairo, that it actually cost France 2,000,000f., or
80,000_l._! Private offers have been made to bring the
Needle to England for from 7,000_l._ to 12,500_l._
within a twelvemonth; it remains to be seen what it
will cost when brought on Government account.
Notwithstanding that so much has of late appeared upon
the subject of Egyptian obelisks, but little has been
given of value to the public touching the nature,
origin, inscriptions, numbers, and localities of these
curious and interesting objects. Perhaps, Sir, you may
not think it out of the way to give room for such
information as I have got together in my researches,
while contemplating the removal of the obelisk from
Alexandria. Obelisks are of Egyptian invention, and are
purely historical records, placed in pairs before
public buildings, stating when, by whom, and for what
purpose the building was erected, and the divinity or
divinities to whom it was dedicated.
We read that the ancient Hebrews set up stones to
record signal events, and such stones are called by
Strabo "books of history;" but, as they were
uninscribed, the Egyptian monoliths are much more so.
The Celts, too, have left similar stones in every
country in which they settled, as our own islands
sufficiently prove, whether in those of the Channel or
of Ireland and Scotland. The Scandinavian nations have
in more recent periods left similar records, some of
them inscribed with Runic characters, which, like the
hieroglyphics of Egypt, are now translated.
Egyptian obelisks are all of very nearly similar
proportions, however they may differ in height; the
width of the base is usually about one-tenth of the
length of the shaft, up to the finish or pyramidion,
which, again, is one-tenth of the length of the shaft.
The image of gold set up by king Nebuchadnezzar agrees
with these proportions--viz., sixty cubits high and six
cubits wide. They are generally cut out of granite,
though there are two small ones in the British Museum
of basalt, and one at Philoe of sandstone. The
pyramidions of several appear to be rough and
unfinished, leading some persons to suppose that they
were surmounted with a cap of bronze, or of rays. Bonom
writes, that Abd El Latief saw bronze coverings on
those of Luxor and that of Materiah in the 13th
century; with such a belief it is not improbable that
the obelisk of Arles, in France, found and re-erected
to the glory of the Great Louis, was surmounted with a
gilt sun. The temples of Egypt may be considered not
only as monuments of the intelligence and ancient
civilization of mankind, as vignettes in the great book
of history, but also as possessing a peculiar interest,
as belonging to a people intimately connected with
sacred records.
As regards the original sites of the obelisks, none are
found on the west bank of the Nile, neither are any
pyramids found on the eastern bank of Egypt Proper;
this caused Bonomi to think that obelisks were intended
as decorations to the temples of the living, symbolized
by the rising sun, and pyramids decorations of the
temples of the dead, symbolized by its setting. The
greater number of obelisks are engraven on the four
faces; some are engraven on one face only, and some
have never been inscribed. Some of the faces are
engraven in one column, some in two, and some in three
columns. In some instances the side or lateral columns
have been additions in after times, in different and
inferior styles of engraving; and in some instances the
name of the king, within the oval or cartouche, has
been erased and another substituted. The inscriptions
are hieroglyphic or sacred writing, which have been
unintelligible till within the last few years. The
French occupation of Egypt commenced that discovery,
which has been perfected by the key of Young and the
alphabet of Champollion--though mainly perhaps indebted
to the Rosetta Stone, found in 1799, engraven in three
characters, hieroglyphic, Demotic and Greek. The more
ancient inscriptions are beautifully cut, and as fresh
as if just from the tool, and are curiously caved
inwardly, and exquisitely polished.
It would take too much of your space and of my time to
give a history of the progress of this wonderful
discovery, by which we now know more of the Egyptian
history before the time of Abraham than of England
before Alfred the Great, or of France before
Charlemagne. Some of these monuments are considered to
date as far back as 2,000 years before the Christian
era. It is sufficiently evident, from the small number
that are known to exist, that they were a most costly
production, requiring a long time for their completion,
and the most elaborate skill of the most perfect
sculptors to execute. Bonomi, to whose indefatigable
research, and clear and positive style of writing, and
condensation of his knowledge I am indebted, out of his
papers read before the Royal Society of Literature (of
which I am a member), gives us an account of all the
known obelisks.
The number of Egyptian obelisks now standing is 30; of
which there are remaining in Egypt, 8; in Italy, 14; in
Constantinople, 2; in France, 2; in England, 4. The
loftiest is that of the "Lateran," at Rome, which is
105 feet, though 4 feet were cut from its broken base,
to enable it to stand when re-erected. The shortest is
the minor "Florentine," which is 5 feet 10 inches. The
number of prostrate obelisks known is 12, viz.: at
Alexandria, 1; in the ruins of Saan, or Tanais, 9; at
Carnack, 2; all in Egypt, and all colossal, and of the
18th and 20th dynasties. Thus it seems that, like the
cedars of Lebanon, there are more in other parts of the
world than in the country of their original location.
The 12 obelisks at Rome were conveyed thither by the
Cæsars to adorn the eternal city; that of the Lateran
was brought by Constantine from Heliopolis to
Alexandria, and from Alexandria by Constantius, and
placed in the "Circus Maximus." It was brought from
Alexandria in an immense galley. When the barbarians
sacked Rome they overthrew all the obelisks, which were
broken in their fall; this was in three pieces, and the
base so destroyed that when raised by Fontana in 1588,
by order of Sixtus V., above 4 feet were cut from its
base; it is now 105 feet 7 inches in shaft. It is
sculptured on all four sides, and the same subject on
each. There are three columns--the inner the most
ancient and best cut. The obelisk of the Piazza del
Popolo was brought from Heliopolis by Augustus, and,
like the preceding, was broken in three pieces, and
required above three feet to be cut off its damaged
base. This, too, was re-erected by order of Sixtus V.,
in 1589. Its height, as now shortened, is 87 feet 5
inches. It is sculptured on all four sides in three
columns of different age and excellence. The obelisk of
"Piazza Rotunda" was re-erected by Clement XI., A. D.,
1711. It is 19 feet 9 inches shaft. It has only one
column of hieroglyphics, with the name of Rameses on
each. Those of Materiah and the Hippodrome at
Constantinople also have but one centre column
engraved. So much for some of those at Rome. Of the
four in England, two small ones, of basalt, are in the
British Museum; they are only 8 feet 1 inch in height.
That at Alnwick Castle was found in the Thebaid, and
presented to Lord Prudhoe by the Pacha in 1838, and got
to England by Bonomi. It is of red granite, 7 feet 3
inches in height, and 9-3/4 inches at the base. It is
inscribed on one face only. That at Corfe Castle was
brought over for Mr. Bankes by the celebrated Belzoni.
It is of granite, and 22 feet in height.
Mr. Gould proceeds to repeat the particulars respecting Cleopatra's Needle,
which were contained in the October number of this magazine. Signor
Tisvanni D'Athanasi also writes to the _Times_, proposing to undertake the
removal of this obelisk, and says:
"Every body knows that from the time of the Romans up
to the present century the only colossal objects which
have been transported from Egypt, with the exception of
the obelisk of Luxor, are the two sphynxes which are
now at St Petersburgh, and which were found and sent to
Alexandria through my means."
DR. LATHAM ON THE MOSKITO KINGDOM.
The last portion of Dr. ROBERT G. LATHAM'S learned work on the Ethnology of
the British Colonies and Dependencies, treats of American ethnology, a
branch of the subject which, though extensively investigated, is greatly in
want of systematic arrangement. Some of Dr. Latham's views are novel. The
following sketch of the Nicaraguan Indians is interesting at the present
moment for political reasons:--
"The Moskito Indians are no subjects of England, any
more than the Tahitians are of France, or the Sandwich
Islanders of America, France, and England conjointly.
The Moskito coast is a Protectorate, and the Moskito
Indians are the subjects of a native king. The present
reigning monarch was educated under English auspices at
Jamaica, and, upon attaining his majority, crowned at
Grey Town. I believe that his name is that of the
grandfather of our late gracious majesty. King George,
then, King of the Moskitos, has a territory extending
from the neighborhood of Truxillo to the lower part of
the River San Juan; a territory whereof, inconveniently
for Great Britain, the United States, and the commerce
of the world at large, the limits and definition are
far from being universally recognized. Nicaragua has
claims, and the Isthmus canal suffers accordingly. The
King of the Moskito coast, and the Emperor of the
Brazil, are the only resident sovereigns of the New
World. The subjects of the former are, really, the
aborigines of the whole line of coast between Nicaragua
and Honduras--there being no Indians remaining in the
former republic, and but few in the latter. Of these,
too--the Nicaraguans--we have no definite ethnological
information. Mr. Squier speaks of them as occupants of
the islands of the lakes of the interior. Colonel
Galindo also mentions them; but I infer, from his
account, that their original language is lost, and that
Spanish is their present tongue; just as it is said to
be that of the aborigines of St. Salvador and Costa
Rica. This makes it difficult to fix them. And the
difficulty is increased when we resort to history,
tradition, and archæology. History makes them
Mexicans--Asteks from the kingdom of Montezuma, and
colonists of the Peninsula, just as the Phoenicians
were of Carthage. Archæology goes the same way. A
detailed description of Mr. Squier's discoveries is an
accession to ethnology which is anxiously expected. At
any rate, stone ruins and carved decorations have been
found; so that what Mr. Stephenson has written about
Yucatan and Guatemala, may be repeated in the case of
Nicaragua. Be it so. The difficulty will be but
increased, since whatever facts make Nicaragua Mexican,
isolate the Moskitos. They are now in contact with
Spaniards and Englishmen--populations whose
civilization differs from their own; and populations
who are evidently intrusive and of recent origin.
Precisely the same would be the case if the Nicaraguans
were made Mexican. The civilization would be of another
sort; the population which introduced it would be
equally intrusive; and the only difference would be a
difference of stage and degree--a little earlier in the
way of time, and a little less contrast in the way of
skill and industry. But the evidence in favor of the
Mexican origin of the Nicaraguans is doubtful; and so
is the fact of their having wholly lost their native
tongue; and until one of these two opinions be proved,
it will be well to suspend our judgment as to the
isolation of the Moskitos. If, indeed, either of them
be true, their ethnological position will be a
difficult question. With nothing in Honduras to compare
them with--with nothing tangible, or with an apparently
incompatible affinity in Nicaragua--with only very
general miscellaneous affinities in Guatemala--their
ethnological affinities are as peculiar as their
political constitution. Nevertheless, isolated as their
language is, it has undoubtedly general affinities with
those of America at large; and this is all that it is
safe to say at present. But it is safe to say this. We
have plenty of data for their tongue, in a grammar of
Mr. Henderson's, published at New-York, 1846. The chief
fact in the history of the Moskitos is that they were
never subject to the Spaniards. Each continent affords
a specimen of this isolated freedom--the independence
of some exceptional and impracticable tribes, as
compared with the universal empire of some encroaching
European power. The Circassians in Caucasus, the
Tshuktshi Koriaks in North-Eastern Asia, and the
Kaffres in Africa, show this. Their relations with the
buccaneers were, probably, of an amicable description.
So they were with the negroes--maroon and imported. And
this, perhaps, has determined their _differentiæ_. They
are intertropical American aborigines, who have become
partially European, without becoming Spanish. Their
physical conformation is that of the South rather than
the North American; and, here it must be remembered,
that we are passing from one moiety of the new
hemisphere to the other. With a skin which is
olive-colored rather than red, they have small limbs
and undersized frames; whilst their habits are,
_mutatis mutandis_, those of the intertropical African.
This means, that the exuberance of soil, and the heat
of the climate, make them agriculturists rather than
shepherds, and idlers rather than agriculturists, since
the least possible amount of exertion gives them roots
and fruits, whilst it is only those wants which are
compatible with indolence that they care to satisfy.
They presume rather than improve upon the warmth of
their suns, and the fertility of the soil. When they
get liquor, they get drunk; when they work hardest,
they cut mahogany. Canoes and harpoons represent the
native industry. Wulasha is the name of their evil
spirit, and Liwaia that of a water-dog. I cannot but
think that there is much intermixture amongst them. At
the same time, the data for ascertaining the amount are
wanting. Their greatest intercourse has, probably, been
with the negro; their next greatest with the
Englishman. Of the population of the interior we know
next to nothing. Here their neighbors are Spaniards.
They are frontagers to the river San Juan. This gives
them their value in politics. They are the only well
known extant Indians between Guatemala and Veragua.
This gives them their value in ethnology. The
populations to which they were most immediately allied
have disappeared from history. This isolates them; so
that there is no class to which they can be
subordinated. At the same time, they are quite as like
the nearest known tribes as the American ethnologist
is prepared to expect. What they were in their truly
natural state, when, unmodified by either Englishman or
Spaniard, Black or Indian, they represented the
indigenous civilization (such as it was) of their
coast, is uncertain."
GOLD-QUARTZ AND SOCIETY.
The Burns Ranch Union Mining Company in California have published a
prospectus--we suppose to facilitate the sale of their stock--and the
writer indulges in some speculations respecting the influence of the
discovery that the chief mineral riches of the new state are in mines,
instead of the sands of rivers, thus:
It appears to be the destiny of America to carry on the
greatness of the future, and that Providence--which
shapes the ends of nations as well as of persons, at a
time when it was most needful for the prosecution of
her mission, when war and the expedients of political
strategy are out of vogue, and the people is most
powerful of which the individual civilization, energy,
ambition, and resources are greatest--that Providence,
at this crisis, has opened the veins of the Continent,
slumbering so many thousand years, in order that we
might derive from them all that remained necessary for
investing the United States with the leadership of the
world.
The first intelligence of the discovery of gold in
California fell upon the general mind like news of a
great and peculiar revolution. It was at once--even
before the statements on the subject assumed a definite
or certain form--it was at once felt that a new hour
was signally on the dial-plate of history. Immediately,
those immense fortunes which were acquired by the
Portuguese and Spaniards nearly four centuries
ago--fortunes which, in the decline of nations, have
still remained in families as the sign and substance of
the only nobility and power which mankind at large
acknowledge--those astonishing fortunes which raised
the enterprising poor man to the dignity and happiness
of the most elevated classes in society, were recalled,
and made suggestive of like successes to new and more
hardy adventurers. The reports came with increased
volume; every ship confirmed the rumors brought by its
predecessor, and new intelligence, that, in its turn,
tasked the popular credulity; and it came soon to be
understood that we had found a land literally flowing
with gold and silver, as that promised to the earlier
favorites of Heaven did with milk and honey. As many as
were free from controlling engagements, and had means
with which to do so, started for our El Dorado, making
haste, in fear that the wealth of the country would
quickly be exhausted--not dreaming, even yet, that
there was any thing to be acquired but flakes and
scales and scattered masses of ore, which would be
exhausted by the first hunters who should scour the
rivers and turn the surface soil.
But at length the geologists began to apprehend, what
experience soon confirmed, that, extraordinary as were
the amounts of gold found in drifts of gravel, and
deposits that had been left in the beds of streams,
these were merely the signs of far greater
riches--merely indexes of the presence of rocks and
hills, and underlayers of plains, impregnated with
gold, in quantities that the processes of nature could
never disclose, and that would reward only the
scientific efforts of miners having all the mechanical
appliances which the laborious experiments of other
nations had invented. The fact of the existence of
veins of gold in vast quartz formations, and ribs of
gold in hills, was as startling almost as the first
news of the presence of the precious metal in the
country. This at once changed the prospect, and from a
game of chance, elevated the pursuit of gold in
California to a grand industrial purpose, requiring an
energy and sagacity that invest it with the highest
dignity, and to such energy and sagacity promising,
with absolute certainty, rewards that make it worthy of
the greatest ambition.
Now, men of character and capital--the class of men
whose speculating spirit is held in subjection by the
most exact reason--began to turn to the subject their
investigations, and to connect with it their plans.
This will account for the fact that has so much
astonished the world, which had supposed our Pacific
colony to be composed of the reckless, profligate and
desperate only--the fact, that when California made her
constitution of government, it shot at once in
unquestionable wisdom directly and far in advance of
all the states on the Atlantic, presenting to mankind
the very highest type of a free government that had
ever been conceived. The demonstration that California
was a _mine_, like other mines in all but its
surpassing richness, elevated it from a scene of
gambling to one for the orderly pursuit of riches, and
by the splendor of its promises, drew to it the most
sagacious and most heroical intelligences of the time.
Astonishing as are the present and prospective results
of the discovery in California, however, we are not to
suppose that there is any possibility of a decline in
the value of the precious metals. In absolute material
civilization, the world in the last three-quarters of a
century has advanced more than it had in any previous
three full centuries; and the supply of gold, for
currency and the thousand other objects for which it
was demanded, was becoming alarmingly insufficient, so
that the addition of more than thirty per cent. to the
total annual product of the world, which we are led by
the officially-stated results thus far to expect from
California, will merely preserve the historical and
necessary proportion and standard value.
INEDITED LETTER OF DR. FRANKLIN.
The following characteristic and interesting letter by Dr. Franklin is
first printed in the _International_. Captain Falconer, to whom it is
addressed, took Dr. Franklin to France when he was appointed commissioner,
and proceeded thence with his ship to London. The letter is directed _To
Captain Nathaniel Falconer, at the Pennsylvania Coffee-house, Birchin Lane,
London_, and the autograph is in the collection of Mr. George W. Childs, of
Philadelphia:
PASSY, July 28, 1783.
DEAR FRIEND:--I received your favor of the 18th.
Captain Barney brought us the dispatches we so long
expected. Mr. Deane as you observe is lost. Dr.
Bancroft is I believe steady to the interest of his
country, and will make an agreeable passenger if you
can take him. You desire to know something of the
state of affairs here. Every thing goes well with
respect to this court and the other friendly powers;
what England is doing or means to do, or why the
definitive treaty is so long delayed, I know perhaps
less than you do; as, being in that country, you may
have opportunities of hearing more than I can. For
myself, I am at present as hearty and well as I have
been these many years; and as happy as a man can be
where every body strives to make him so. The French are
an amiable people to live with; they love me, and I
love them. Yet I do not feel myself at home, and I wish
to die in my own country. Barney will sail this week
with our dispatches. A good voyage to you, my friend,
and may God ever bless you.
B. FRANKLIN.
CAPTAIN FALCONER.
A BALLAD OF SIR JOHN FRANKLIN.
FROM A FORTHCOMING VOLUME OF POEMS BY GEORGE H. BOKER.
"The ice was here, the ice was there,
The ice was all around."--COLERIDGE.
O, whither sail you, Sir John Franklin?
Cried a whaler in Baffin's Bay.
To know if between the land and the pole
I may find a broad sea-way.
I charge you back, Sir John Franklin,
As you would live and thrive;
For between the land and the frozen pole
No man may sail alive.
But lightly laughed the stout Sir John,
And spoke unto his men:--
Half England is wrong, if he is right;
Bear off to westward then.
O, whither sail you, brave Englishman?
Cried the little Esquimaux.
Between the land and the polar star
My goodly vessels go.
Come down, if you would journey there,
The little Indian said;
And change your cloth for fur clothing,
Your vessel for a sled.
But lightly laughed the stout Sir John,
And the crew laughed with him too:--
A sailor to change from ship to sled,
I ween, were something new!
All through the long, long polar day,
The vessels westward sped;
And wherever the sail of Sir John was blown,
The ice gave way and fled.
Gave way with many a hollow groan,
And with many a surly roar;
But it murmured and threatened on every side,
And closed where he sailed before.
Ho! see ye not, my merry men,
The broad and open sea?
Bethink ye what the whaler said,
Think of the little Indian's sled!
The crew laughed out in glee.
Sir John, Sir John, 'tis bitter cold,
The scud drives on the breeze,
The ice comes looming from the north,
The very sunbeams freeze.
Bright summer goes, dark winter comes--
We cannot rule the year;
But long ere summer's sun goes down,
On yonder sea we'll steer.
The dripping icebergs dipped and rose,
And floundered down the gale;
The ships were staid, the yards were manned,
And furled the useless sail.
The summer's gone, the winter's come,
We sail not on yonder sea:
Why sail we not, Sir John Franklin?
A silent man was he.
The summer goes, the winter comes--
We cannot rule the year:
I ween, we cannot rule the ways,
Sir John, wherein we'd steer.
The cruel ice came floating on,
And closed beneath the lee,
Till the thickening waters dashed no more;
'Twas ice around, behind, before--
My God! there is no sea!
What think you of the whaler now?
What of the Esquimaux?
A sled were better than a ship,
To cruise through ice and snow.
Down sank the baleful crimson sun,
The northern light came out,
And glared upon the ice-bound ships,
And shook its spears about.
The snow came down, storm breeding storm,
And on the decks was laid;
Till the weary sailor, sick at heart,
Sank down beside his spade.
Sir John, the night is black and long,
The hissing wind is bleak,
The hard, green ice is strong as death:--
I prithee, Captain, speak!
The night is neither bright nor short,
The singing breeze is cold,
The ice is not so strong as hope--
The heart of man is bold!
What hope can scale this icy wall,
High over the main flag-staff?
Above the ridges the wolf and bear
Look down with a patient, settled stare,
Look down on us and laugh.
The summer went, the winter came--
We could not rule the year;
But summer will melt the ice again,
And open a path to the sunny main,
Whereon our ships shall steer.
The winter went, the summer went,
The winter came around;
But the hard, green ice was strong as death,
And the voice of hope sank to a breath,
Yet caught at every sound.
Hark! heard you not the noise of guns?
And there, and there again?
'Tis some uneasy iceberg's roar,
As he turns in the frozen main.
Hurra! hurra! the Esquimaux
Across the ice-fields steal:
God give them grace for their charity!
Ye pray for the silly seal.
Sir John, where are the English fields,
And where are the English trees,
And where are the little English flowers
That open in the breeze?
Be still, be still, my brave sailors!
You shall see the fields again,
And smell the scent of the opening flowers,
The grass, and the waving grain.
Oh! when shall I see my orphan child?
My Mary waits for me.
Oh! when shall I see my old mother
And pray at her trembling knee?
Be still, be still, my brave sailors!
Think not such thoughts again.
But a tear froze slowly on his cheek;
He thought of Lady Jane.
Ah! bitter, bitter grows the cold,
The ice grows more and more;
More settled stare the wolf and bear,
More patient than before.
Oh! think you, good Sir John Franklin,
We'll ever see the land?
'Twas cruel to send us here to starve,
Without a helping hand.
'Twas cruel, Sir John, to send us here,
So far from help or home,
To starve and freeze on this lonely sea:
I ween, the Lords of the Admiralty
Had rather send than come.
Oh! whether we starve to death alone,
Or sail to our own country,
We have done what man has never done--
The open ocean danced in the sun--
We passed the Northern Sea!
REMARKABLE PROPHECY.
TRANSLATED FROM THE FRENCH OF M. LAHARPE FOR THE INTERNATIONAL MAGAZINE.
BY H. J. BEYERLE, M.D.
It seems to me as if it had been but yesterday, and yet it happened in the
beginning of the year 1788. We were at table with one of our colleagues of
the Academy, a respectable and lively gentleman. The company was numerous,
and selected from all ranks: nobles, judges, professional men,
academicians, &c. We had enjoyed ourselves as is customary at a well-loaded
table. At the desert, the _malvasier_ and Cape wine exalted the pleasure
and increased in a good company that kind of liberty which does not remain
within precise limits.
People in the world had then arrived at the point where it was allowed to
say every thing, if it was the object to excite laughter. Chamfort had read
to us some of his blasphemous and unchaste tales, and the noble ladies
heard them without even taking for refuge to the fan. Then followed a whole
volley of mockery on religion. One mentioned a tirade from the Pucelle; the
other reminded us of those philosophical stanzas of Diderot, wherein he
says: "With the intestines of the last priest tie up the throat of the last
king;" and all clapped approbation. Another rises, holds up the full
tumbler, and cries: "Yes, gentlemen, I am just as certain that there is no
God, as I am certain that Homer was a fool!" and really, he was of the one
as certain as he was of the other: we had just spoken of Homer and of God,
and there were guests present, too, who had said something good of the one
and of the other.
The conversation now became more serious. We spoke with astonishment of the
revolution Voltaire had effected, and we agreed that it is the most
distinguished foundation of his fame. He had given the term to his
half-century; he had written in such a manner, that he is read in the
anteroom as well as in the hall.
One of the guests told us with great laughter, that his hairdresser, as he
powdered him, said, "You see, sir, though I am only a miserable fellow, I
yet have not more religion than others." We concluded that the revolution
would soon be completed, and that superstition and fanaticism must
absolutely yield to philosophy; we calculated the probability of the time,
and who of this company may have the happiness to live to see the reign of
reason. The older ones were sorry that they could not flatter themselves to
see this; those younger rejoiced with the hope that they shall live to the
time, and we particularly congratulated the Academy for having introduced
the great work, and that they have been the chief source, the centre, the
mainspring of freedom of thought.
One of the guests had taken no part in this gay conversation, and had even
scattered a few jokes in regard to our beautiful enthusiasm. It was M.
Cazotte, an agreeable and original gentleman; but who, unfortunately, was
prepossessed by the idle imaginations of those who believe in a higher
inspiration. He took the word, and said, in the most serious manner: "Sirs,
rejoice; you all will be witnesses of that great and sublime revolution for
which you wish so much. You are aware that I make some pretensions to
prophecy. I repeat it to you, you will all see it!"
"For this a man needs no prophetic gifts," was answered him.
"This is true," he replied, "but probably a little more for what I have to
tell you yet. Do you know what will arise from this revolution (where,
namely, reason will triumph in opposition to religion)? what her immediate
consequence, her undeniable and acknowledged effects will be?"
"Let us see," said Condorcet, with his affected look of simplicity, "a
philosopher is not sorry to meet a prophet."
"You, M. Condorcet," continued M. Cazotte, "you will be stretched out upon
the floor of a dungeon, there to yield up your ghost. You will die of
poison, which you will swallow to save yourself from the hangman--of the
poison which the good luck of the times, which then will be, will have
compelled you always to have carried with you."
This at first excited great astonishment, but we soon remembered that the
good Cazotte occasionally dreamed waking, and we all laughed heartily.
"M. Cazotte," said one of the guests, "the tale you relate to us here is
not as merry as your 'Devil in Love' (a romance which Cazotte had written).
What kind of a devil has given you the dungeon, the poison, and the
hangman?--what has this in common with philosophy, and with the reign of
Reason?"
"This is just what I told you," replied Cazotte. "In the name of
philosophy, in the name of humanity, of liberty, of reason, it shall be
that you shall take such an end; and then reason will still reign, for she
will have temples; yes, at the same time there will be no temples in all
France, but temples of Reason."
"Truly," said Chamfort, with a scornful smile, "you will not be one of the
priests in these temples?"
"This I hope," replied Cazotte, "but you, M. de Chamfort, who will be one
of them--and very worthy you are to be one--you will open your veins with
twenty-two incisions of the razor--and yet you will only die a few months
afterwards."
They look at each other, and continue to laugh. Cazotte continues:
"You, M. Vicq d'Azyr, you will not open your veins yourself; but afterwards
you will get them opened six times in one day, and during the night you
will die."
"You, M. Nicolli, you will die on the scaffold."
"You, M. Bailly, on the scaffold!"
"You, M. Malesherbes--you, on the scaffold!"
"God be thanked," exclaimed M. Roucher, "it appears M. Cazotte has it to do
only with the Academy; he has just started a terrible butchery among them;
I--thanks to heaven--"
Cazotte interrupted him: "you?--you, too, will die on the scaffold."
"Ha! this is a bet," they exclaimed from all sides; "he has sworn to
extirpate everything!"
_Cazotte._--"No, it is not I that has sworn it."
"Then we must be put under the yokes of the Turks and Tartars?--and yet--"
_Cazotte._--"Nothing less: I have told you already; you will then be only
under the reign of philosophy and reason; those who shall treat you in this
manner, will all be philosophers, will always carry on the same kind of
conversation which you have peddled out for the last hour, will repeat all
your maxims; they will, like you, cite verses from Diderot and the
Pucelle."
It was whispered into one another's ear: "You all see that he has lost his
reason--(for he remains very serious while he is talking)--Do you not see
that he is joking?--and you know that he mixes something mysterious into
all his jokes." "Yes," said Chamfort, "but I must confess his mysteries are
not agreeable, they are too scaffoldish! And when shall all this occur?"
_Cazotte._--"Six years will not expire, before all I told you will be
fulfilled."
"There are many wonders." This time it was I (namely Laharpe) who took the
word, "and of me you say nothing?"
"With you," replied Cazotte, "a wonder will take place, which will at least
be as extraordinary; you will then be a Christian!"
Here was a universal exclamation. "Now I am easy," cried Chamfort, "if we
don't perish until Laharpe is a Christian, we shall be immortal!"
"We, of the female sex," then said the Duchess de Grammont, "we are lucky
that we shall be counted as nothing with the revolutions. When I say
nothing, I do not mean to say as if we would not mingle ourselves a little
into them; but it is assumed that nobody will, on that account, loath at us
or at our sex."
_Cazotte._--"Your sex will this time not protect you, and you may ever so
much desire not to mingle into anything; you will be treated just like men,
and no distinction will be made!"
_Duchess._--"But what do you tell us here, M. Cazotte? You preach to us the
end of the world!"
_Cazotte._--"That I do not know; but what I do know, is, that you, Madame
Duchess, will be led to the scaffold, you, and many other ladies, and on
the public cart, with your hands tied on your back!"
_Duchess._--"In this case, I hope I shall have a black trimmed coach?"
_Cazotte._--"No, madam! Nobler ladies than you, shall, like you, be drawn
on that same cart, with the hands tied on the back!"
_Duchess._--"Nobler ladies? How? the princesses by birth?"
_Cazotte._-"Nobler yet!"
Now was observed a visible excitement in the whole company, and the master
of the table took on a dark appearance; they began to see that the joke had
been carried too far.
Madame de Grammont, to scatter the clouds which the last answer had
occasioned, contented herself by saying in a facetious tone: "You shall see
that he will not even allow me the comfort of a father confessor!"
_Cazotte._--"No, madam! you will not get one; neither you nor any one else!
The last one executed, who, out of mercy, will have received a father
confessor"--here he stopped a moment--
_Duchess._--"Well, who will be the fortunate one, when this fortunate
preference will be granted?"
_Cazotte._--"It will be the only preference that he shall yet keep; and
this will be the king of France!"
Now the host arose from the table, and all with him. He went to Cazotte,
and said with an excited voice, "My dear M. Cazotte, this lamentable jest
has lasted long. You carry it too far, and within a degree where you place
the company in which you are, and yourself, into danger."
Cazotte answered not, and made himself ready to go away, when madame
Grammont, who always tried to prevent the matter from being taken
seriously, and exerted herself to restore the gaiety of the company, went
to him, and said: "Now, M. Prophet! you have told us all our fortunes, but
you say nothing of your own fate?"
He was silent and cast down his eyes; then he said: "Have you, madame,
read, in Josephus, the history of the siege of Jerusalem?"
_Duchess._--"Certainly! who has not read it? but you seem to think that I
have not!"
_Cazotte._--"Well, madame, during the siege a man went round the city, upon
the walls, for seven days, in the face of the besiegers and the besieged,
and cried continually, with a mournful voice, 'Wo unto Jerusalem! Wo unto
Jerusalem!' but on the seventh day he cried, 'Wo unto me!' and at that
moment he was dashed to pieces by an immense stone, which the machines of
the enemy had thrown."
After these words, M. Cazotte bowed himself, and went away.
In relation to the above extraordinary prediction, a certain M.... has
inserted the following article in the public journals of Paris: "That he
well knew this M. Cazotte, and has often heard from him the announcement
of the great oppression which was to come over France, and this at a time
when not the least of it was suspected. The attachment to the monarchy was
the reason why, on the second of September, 1792, he was brought to the
abbey, and was saved from the hands of the bloodthirsty rabble only through
the heroic courage of his daughter, who mitigated the raging populace. This
same rabble which wanted to destroy him, led him to his house in triumph.
All his friends came to congratulate him, that he had escaped death. A
certain M. D... who visited him after the terrible days, said to him: "Now,
you are saved!"--"I believe it not," answered Cazotte; "in three days I
shall be guillotined!"--"How can this be?" replied M. D... Cazotte
continued: "Yes, my friend, in three days I will die on the scaffold!" As
he said this he was very much affected, and added: "Shortly before your
arrival, I saw a gend'armes enter, who fetched me by order of Petion; I was
under the necessity of following him: I appeared before the mayor of Paris,
who ordered me to the _Conciergerie_, and thence I came before the
revolutionary tribunal. You see, therefore (by this vision, namely, which
Cazotte had seen), my friend, that my hour has arrived; and I am so much
convinced of this, that I am arranging my papers. Here are papers for which
I care very much, which you will deliver to my wife; I entreat you to give
them to her, and to comfort her.""
M. D... declared this all folly, and left him with the conviction, that his
reason had suffered by the sight of the scenes of terror from which he had
escaped.
The next day he came again; but he learned that a gensd'arme had taken M.
Cazotte to the Municipality. M. D... went to Petion; arrived at the
mayoralty, he heard that his friend had just been taken to prison; he
hurried thither; but he was informed that he could not speak to him, he
would be tried before the revolutionary tribunal. Soon after this, he heard
that his friend had been condemned and executed.
GREENWOOD.
WRITTEN FOR THE INTERNATIONAL MONTHLY MAGAZINE.
BY MAUNSELL B. FIELD.
I would that I were dreaming,
Where lovely flowers are gleaming,
And the tall green grass is streaming
O'er the gone--for ever gone.
MOTHERWELL.
The evening glories of a summer sky
Brimming the heart with yearnings to be blest;
The wood-bird's wailing as he soars on high
Winging his weary way to distant nest;
The murmuring billows as they kiss the strand,
Bearing dim memories of stranger land;
The sad mysterious voices of the night,
Bathing the soul in reverie and love;
The low wind, whispering of its former might
To the tall trees that sigh the hills above,
Like angel-tones that roll from sphere to sphere
And dimly echo to the faithful ear;
The flitting shadows glancing o'er the sail
Of some proud ship that's dreaming on the sea;
The lighthouse fires that fitful glow and pale;
The far-off strains of martial minstrelsy;
Wechawken's hoary head o'er hill and dell,
Gloomy and proud, a giant sentinel;
Such the soft charms, thou Paradise of Death!
My languid spirit hath erewhile confest,
When wearied with the city's tainted breath,
Fever'd and faint I've sought thy shades of rest,
Where all combines in heaven, and earth, and sea,
To image life, death, immortality!--
Here where the dusky savage twanged his bow
In the old time at startled doe or fawn,
Raised the shrill war-whoop at the approach of foe,
His wild eye flashing with revenge and scorn;
Here where the Indian maiden told her love
To the soft sighing spirits of the grove.
Here, where the bloody fiend of frantic war
Flapped its red wings o'er hill-top and o'er plain--
Where the sharp musket ring, and cannon roar,
Crashed o'er the valley, thundered o'er the main,
No sound is heard, save the sweet symphony
Of Nature's all-pervading harmony.
Here the pale willow, drooping o'er the wave,
Dips its long tresses in the silvery flood;
Here the blue violet, blooming o'er the grave,
Distils its fragrance to the enamored wood,
While the complaining turtle's mournful woe
Steals on the ear in murmurs soft and low.
Here its cold shaft the polished marble rears;
Here, eloquent of grief, the sculptured urn
Bares its white bosom to the dewy tears,
Dropt pure from heaven, far purer to return!
Here the grim granite's sempeternal pile
In monumental grandeur stands the while.
Where the still stars with gentlest radiance shine
On forest green and flower-enamelled vale,
Two simple columns circled by one vine,
Tell to the traveller's eye the tender tale
Of constancy in life and death--and love,
Not e'en the horrors of the tomb could move.
Here strained, and struggling with the unequal might
Of sea and tempest, the poor foundering bark,
And the snapp'd cable, chiselled on yon height,
Where calmly sleeps the wave-tossed pilot mark;
Hope, with her anchor, pointing to the sky,
Triumphant hails the spirit flight on high!
Hark! how the solemn spirit dirge ascends
In floating cadence on the evening air,
Where with clasped hands the weeping angel bends
In human grief o'er her that's buried there;
The gentle maid, in festive garments hurled
From life's gay glitter to the gloomy world!
Thy childish laughter lingers on mine ear,
Thy fairy form still floats before mine eye;
Still is the music of thy footsteps near,
Visioned to sense by tenderest memory;
Thy soul too pure for purest mortal love,
Enraptured seraphs snatched to realms above!
Here where the sparkling fountain flings its spray
In sportive freedom, frolicksome and wild,
Mocking the wood-nymphs with its gladsome lay,
Serenely sleeps the dark-eyed forest child--
Her kinsman's glory and her nation's pride!
A chieftain's daughter and a warrior's bride!
Oft shall the pale face, pensive o'er thy mound,
Weep for the white man's shame, the red man's wrong;
Oft from spring warblers, o'er this hallowed ground,
Shall gush the tenderest melody of song,
For the poor pilgrim to that distant shore,
Her fathers loved, their sons shall see no more!
Pause, weary wanderer, pause! In yon lone glade
Where silence reigns in deep funereal gloom,
Where the pale moonbeams struggle through the shade,
Open the portals of "The Stranger's Tomb!"
No holier symbol taught since time began
The sacred sympathy of man for man!
Dear Greenwood! when the solemn heights I tread,
And catch the gray old ocean's sullen roar,
Chanting the dirge of the mighty dead,
Over whose graves the oblivious billows pour,
A tearful prayer is gushing from my breast,
"Here in thy peaceful bosom may I rest!--
"Rest till the signal calls the ransomed throng
With shouts their Saviour and their God to greet;
Rest till the harp, the trumpet, and the song
Summon the dead, Death's conqueror to meet;
And love, imperfect, man's best gift below,
In heaven eternal rapture shall bestow!"
AN AUGUST REVERIE.
WRITTEN FOR THE INTERNATIONAL MAGAZINE
BY A. OAKLEY HALL.
I have "laid" the tiniest ghost of my professional duties. I shook off city
dust twenty hours ago, and my lungs are rejoicing this August morning with
the glorious breezes that sweep from the summits of the "Trimountains" of
Waywayanda lake--that stretches its ten miles expanse before my freshened
vision.
Waywayanda lake?
A Quere. Shall I play geographer to those who are learned in the
nomenclature of snobbism? Who allow innkeepers and railroad guides to
assassinate Aboriginal terms in order that petty pride may exult in petty
fame? No! But if snobbism has a curiosity, I refer it to the first
landscape painter of its vicinage: or the nearest fisherman amateur: or the
Recorder of New-York: or sportsman Herbert and the pages of his "Warwick
Woodlands;" a list of references worthy of the spot.
And as I gaze and breathe I feel as if the waters before me had bubbled
from the fountains of rejuvenescence for which Ponce de Leon so
enthusiastically searched in the everglades of Florida; and as if, too, I
had just emerged from their embraces.
My pocket almanac says that I am living in the dogdays. Perhaps so. But
"Sirius" hath no power around these mountains and primeval solitudes. Were
the fiercest theological controversialist at my elbow, he would be as cool
as an Esquimaux.
I feel at peace with all things. My friend M. says the conscience lieth in
the stomach. Perhaps so; and perhaps I owe my quietude of spirit to the
influence of as comforting a breakfast as ever blessed the palate of a
scientific egg-breaker.
Shall I join forces with the laughing beauties who are handling maces in
the billiard room of the inn hard by? Shall I challenge my "Lady Gay
Spanker" of last night's acquaintance to a game of bowling? Shall I tempt
the unsophisticated pickerel of the lake under the shadow of yonder
frowning precipice, with glittering bait? Shall I clamber the mountain side
and feast my vision with an almost boundless view--rich expanses of farm
land stretching away for miles and miles, and edging themselves in the blue
haze of the horizon where the distant Catskill peaks rise solitary in their
sublimity?
It is very comfortable here. Is there always poetry in motion? How far
distant are the confines of dreamland: that magical kingdom where the tired
soul satiates itself in the intoxications of fancy?
I had just carefully deposited upon a velvety tuft of grass Ik Marvel's
"Reveries of a Bachelor." I had arrived at the conclusion that its pages
should be part and parcel of the landscape about. Surely there is a unison
between them both. There are always certain places where only certain
melodies can be sung to the proper harmony of the heart-strings. Who ever
learned "Thanatopsis" on the summit of the Catskills, and afterwards forgot
a line of it? Now I have seen these same "Reveries" of the said bachelor
upon many a centre-table: in the lap of many a town beauty, half cushioned
in the velvet of a drawing room sofa: but the latter half of the volume
never looked so inviting as it does here just in the middle of one of
nature's lexicons. May the page of it never be blurred.
Reveries of a Bachelor!
'Tis a sugared pill of a title. Its morals are sad will o' wisps. And if
the definition "that happiness consists in the search after it" be true, it
is so when the definition settles itself on the mind of a bachelor. Hath
_he_ reveries half so sweet for morsels under the tongues of memory and
fancy as those which come nigh to the brain of the married man? As sure as
the lesser is always included in the greater: as certain as the maxim _de
minimis lex non curat_: the reveries of the first are but bound up in the
reveries of the last; one is a _pleasing_ romance, the other its enchanting
sequel.
What is that yonder? There is a merry-faced form in the distant haze,
shaking a dreamy negative with his head. A head whose reality is miles and
miles away, airing its brow of single blessedness in foreign travel.
Let us argue the point: he smiles as if willing. Man socially is at least a
three volumed work: however much longer the James-like pen of destiny may
extend him. Volume first--bachelor. Volume second--husband. Volume
third--father. There _may_ be a dozen more--there _should_ be none less.
You have been a bachelor: you are a husband and a father. You always had,
perhaps, a bump of self-esteem attractive to the digits of Fowler. You
never believed half so well of yourself as when one morning at your
business you were first asked concerning the well being of your _family_.
At the moment, you were in a fog, like the young attorney upon the first
question of his first examination: next, memory rallied and your face
brightened; your stature increased as you replied. You felt you were going
up in the social numeration table of life. Two years ago you were a unit:
you next counted your importance by tens over the parson's shoulder; when
your child was born you felt that the leap to hundreds in the scale was far
from enough and should have been higher.
Before the publication of your third volume--the father--you had been
measurably blind. Your mental sight was afflicted with amaurosis. Like the
philosopher of old you are now tempted to grasp every one by the hand and
cry "Eureka." How indignantly you take down "Malthus" from your upper
library shelf and bury him on the lowest among the books of possible
reference. Your political views upon education are cured of their jaundice.
You pray of Sundays in the service for the widow and the orphan with a
double unction. You walk the streets with a new mantle of comfort. The
little beggar child whose importunities of the last wet day at the street
crossings excited your petulance, upon the next wet day invites your
sympathies. You stop and talk to her, nor perceive until you have
ascertained where her hard-hearted parents live, and that she is uncommonly
bright for the child of poverty and wretchedness, and that you have a half
dollar unappropriated--nor perceive until these are found out, I say, that
your umbrella has been dripping upon the skirts of your favorite coat, and
that you have stood with one foot in a puddle. How this would have annoyed
you years ago. But now--? How unconcernedly of the curious looks from
pedestrians around do you stop the careless nurse in Broadway, who has
allowed her infant charge to fall asleep in a painful attitude, and lay
"it" tenderly and comfortably in position. You recall to mind with much
remorse the execrations of five years ago, when the moanings of a dying
babe in the next apartment to your own at the hotel disturbed your rest;
and you wonder whether the mother still thinks of the little grave and the
white slab which a sympathetic fancy _now_ brings up before you.
You are at your business: the lamps are lighting: in the suggestions of
profit by an hour or longer at the desk you recognize an unholy temptation.
Now, as often before, through all the turmoils of business memory suggests
the lines of Willis:
"I sadden when thou smilest to my smile,
Child of my love! I tremble to believe
That o'er the mirror of thine eye of blue
The shadow of my soul must always pass--
That soul which from its conflicts with the world
Comes _ever_ to thy guarded cradle home,
And careless of the staining dust it brings,
Asks for its idol!"
And you dwell on them. You bless the author first, and truly think how
cruelly unjust are they who can call into torturing question the loyalty as
husband and father of him whose soul could plan and whose pen could write
such holy lines. And then you think deeper of the sentiments. And then the
profit-tempter hides himself in the farthest corner of the money-drawer;
and you begin to think your clerk a very clever manager: and wonder if
_his_ remaining will not do as well--poor fellow, he's _only_ a bachelor.
And then you decide that he will, and so yourself, "careless of the
staining dust" your coming brings, fly to "the guarded cradle home."
You have been in Italy. Or you have studied the pictures in the _Louvre_.
But the hours which you passed before the canvas whereon was embodied
Madonna and child never seemed so agreeable in their realization as they
now appear in the glass of memory, as you see the child of your love in the
arms of your life companion whose eyes, always bright to yours, and
brighter still at your coming after absence, grow brightest when they are
lifted from the slumbering innocence beneath them. Men call you rough in
your bearing, perhaps. What would they say to see how gently your arms
receive the sleeping burthen and transfer it softly to its snowy couch?
Your step abroad is heavy and impetuous: how noiselessly it falls upon the
floor--_now!_ And how the modulated voice accords with every present
thought!
You cannot give the child a sweeter sleep by watching over him so intently:
and yet you choose to stay. Moments are not so precious to you that at this
one household shrine they will become valueless in some most chastened
heart-worship! Your infant does not when awake understand the language
which your affection addresses: and yet you look with rapture to the
future, when the now inquiring eye will become one of understanding; when
the cautiously put forth arms will clasp in loving confidence; when the
fond endearing name now half intelligibly and doubtingly lisped forth will
be uttered in the boldness of love.
The shadowy form in the distant cloud over the lake has been listening
intently. It listens still; and the face of it bends towards me as if to
say, there's a hidden truth and mysterious sympathy in all you say; and yet
the language soundeth strangely in these bachelor ears--
Bachelor ears!
Listless and deaf, as yet, to all the sweeter human music of our nature.
Deafer yet to the clarion call of emulation in the race of life and
struggles for power, rank, and fame. Deafest of all to that which spurreth
on man to be a king of kings among the great men of his race.
You are a father, then, I say; and working in your mental toil by night and
day, in the severest and darkest frowning of all professions. But in the
crowded senate-room, and in the close committee-chamber; and in the
court-room among the multitudes of faces all about, (some of these
anticipating in their changing features defeat and disgrace,) there is a
_something_ which overrides all agitation: clears the heavy brain, and oils
the tongue with every pungency of rhetoric.
What is that "something?"
Were I home and in my library the downturned leaf of the duodecimo
biography in the left corner of the first shelf would tell it you at a
glance. The biography of Lord Erskine; marked at the page which speaks of
his dauntless legal debut in the Sandwich case, when not the necessity of
speaking in a crowded court-room from the obscure back benches: when not
the sarcastic eyes of a hundred (etiquette-ly termed) brethren; when not
the awful presence of Lord Mansfield nor his rebuking interruption at a
critical sentence frightened the self-possession of the enthusiastic
advocate, or stopped the current of his eloquent invective. The biography,
which goes on to tell how, when the speech was ended, all the attorneys in
the room flocked around the debutant with retainers--needed, more than all
the smiles and congratulations to be drawn from earnest heart-wells: and
how the advocate replied--(when some one, timid of the judge, asked how the
barrister had the courage to stand the rebuking interruption, and never to
quail with embarrassment before it)--_I felt my little children tugging at
my gown and crying, now is the time, father, to get us bread_.
How eloquent!
How worthy of a father's heart! And in the reference, the dullest mind
cannot fail to read the "something" which, to every father in a like
position, nerves the will, disarms all agitation, clears the heavy brain,
and oils the tongue with every pungency of rhetoric.
--The shadowy form turns closer towards me as my reverie yet chains me to
the lake side, where the mountain breezes still are freshening all the
August air.--
You have a purpose now in life, which, like the messenger of the king, that
every morning knocked at his bedroom door to say, "Oh king, remember all
this day that you are mortal," hourly brings to mind the bright reward of
every toil and every aspiration. Besides a physical frame there is a mental
constitution hinging on your own. There's a long life far beyond your own
brief years of breath to provide for. Your name is to be perpetuated. In
the very evening of your life there is to be a star that is now in its
morning of existence, which will cheer and enliven. You feel all this as in
some sad hour of the sickly night; you pace your room with the little
sufferer wrestling with disease, and you feel that in the future will be
found ample rewards for all your present bitter draughts of anxiety.
Wrestling with disease!
The thought is ugly to the mental sight. I pause to brush its cobweb from
my August Reverie as an idle vaporish thing. But the shadowy form, in the
edge of the distant cloud, over the far off waters of the lake, hisses the
words back into my brain. And then it comes nearer. And then the atmosphere
grows more dreamy and hazy about. And I half feel the mountain breezes, and
half miss them from off my temples. And next I feel my thoughts less
concentrate, as the shadowy form I know so well seems to be looking under
my half-closed lids, and dwelling on the words I brushed like
cob-webs--"wrestling with disease."
And I think of the still chamber, with the blue edge of the bracket, as it
is rimmed with the faintest glimmer of the turned-down gas. And I see the
half-closed shutters. And the tumbler with its significant spoon on the
mantel. And the pale watcher by the ghostly curtains of the bed. And I am
bending silently and almost pulseless over the sleeping boy, upon whose
face each minute the fever-flushes play like summer lightning under a satin
cloud.
And days go by. There is a strange hush in the household, with a horridly
sensitive jarring from the vehicles in the street, which never, never were
before so noisy, neither have the thronging passengers from the pavements
ever gossipped so discordantly, as they go under the windows of the silent
house. There's a strange echo of infantile prattle by the niches on the
landings of the stairs, and from the couches, and behind the curtains; but
the substantive music, whence the conjured-up echo came, is nowhere found.
Then the echo itself becomes but an illusion. And Memory is strangely and
impassionately chid for its creation.
I pass into a little room scarcely wide enough to wheel a sofa within. It
seems as boundless in its desolation as an untenanted temple-ruin. There
are mournful spirits in the little atmosphere which sting me to the
heart--not to be torn away. The little cotton-dog, and morocco-ball, and
jingling-bells, and coral-toys, so strangely scattered all about, are
prodigious ruins to the sight. There's a gleeful laugh, a cunning smile, an
artless waving of the hands, which should be here as tenants of the room.
All gone! all gone into that hushed and silent chamber where yet the
patient-watcher is by the snowy curtains; and the sickly blue still edges
the rim of the bracket light, and the fever-flushes still play about the
wasted cheek.
How long to last? What next to come? And the shadowy form no longer can
peep under the all-closed eyelids, but enters its whisperings through the
delicate passages of the ear into the brain, which tortures in a maze of
bitter conjecture and horrid contemplation. And my reverie becomes a
painful nightmare dream.
* * * * *
But the mountain-breezes, and the uprising-to-meridian sun, are merciful.
The shadowy form my reverie hinged itself upon is blown away. The open eyes
once more glance upon the glassy waters of the lake close by the shore, and
onward to the dancing ripples far away. And a merry prattling voice, from
out of loving arms, is coming nearer and nearer over the velvety lawn--a
voice so full of spirit, and life, and health, and sparkling innocence of
care, that in a moment the frightful nightmare-dream is quite forgotten.
More--
My reverie turns itself into a lesson of bright reality; a present study of
budding mind; a jealous watch of care encroaching upon innocence; a kindly
outpouring of the father's manly heart upon the shrine of his idol.
Could such a reverie better end?
HEROINES OF HISTORY--LAURA.
WRITTEN FOR THE INTERNATIONAL MONTHLY MAGAZINE BY MARY E. HEWITT.
Laura, rendered immortal by the love and lyre of Petrarch, was the daughter
of Audibert de Noves, who was of the _haute noblesse_ of Avignon. He died
in the infancy of Laura, leaving her a dowry of one thousand gold crowns,
(about fifty thousand dollars,) a magnificent portion for those times. She
was married at the age of eighteen to Hugh de Sade, a young noble only a
few years older than his bride, but not distinguished by any advantages
either of person or mind. The marriage contract is dated in January, 1325,
two years before her first meeting with Petrarch; and in it her mother, the
Lady Ermessende, and her brother, John de Noves, stipulate to pay the dower
left by her father; and also to bestow on the bride two magnificent dresses
for state occasions; one of green, embroidered with violets; the other of
crimson, trimmed with feathers. In all the portraits of Laura now extant,
she is represented in one of these two dresses, and they are frequently
alluded to by Petrarch. He tells us expressly that when he first met her at
matins in the church of Saint Claire, she was habited in a robe of green
spotted with violets. Mention is also made of a coronal of silver with
which she wreathed her hair; of her necklaces and ornaments of pearls.
Diamonds are not once alluded to because the art of cutting them had not
then been invented. From all which it appears that Laura was opulent, and
moved in the first class of society. It was customary for women of rank in
those times to dress with extreme simplicity on ordinary occasions, but
with the most gorgeous splendor when they appeared in public.
There are some beautiful descriptions of Laura surrounded by her young
female companions, divested of all her splendid apparel, in a simple white
robe and a few flowers in her hair, but still preëminent over all by her
superior loveliness.
She was in person a fair, Madonna-like beauty, with soft dark eyes, and a
profusion of pale golden hair parted on her brow, and falling in rich curls
over her neck. The general character of her beauty must have been pensive,
soft, unobtrusive, and even somewhat languid. This softness and repose must
nave been far removed from insipidity, for Petrarch dwells on the rare and
varying expression of her loveliness, the lightning of her smile, and the
tender magic of her voice, which was felt in the inmost heart. He dwells on
the celestial grace of her figure and movements, and describes the beauty
of her hand and the loveliness of her mouth. She had a habit of veiling her
eyes with her hand, and her looks were generally bent on the earth.
In a portrait of Laura, in the Laurentinian library at Florence, the eyes
have this characteristic downcast look.
Laura was distinguished, then, by her rank and fortune, but more by her
loveliness, her sweetness, and the untainted purity of her life and manners
in the midst of a society noted for its licentiousness. Now she is known as
the subject of Petrarch's verses, as the woman who inspired an immortal
passion, and, kindling into living fire the dormant sensibility of the
poet, gave origin to the most beautiful and refined, the most passionate,
and yet the most delicate amatory poetry that exists in the world.
Petrarch was twenty-three years of age when he first felt the power of a
violent and inextinguishable passion. At six in the morning on the sixth of
April, A. D. 1327, (he often fondly records the exact year, day and hour,)
on the occasion of the festival of Easter, he visited the church of Saint
Claire at Avignon, and beheld, for the first time, Laura de Sade. She was
just twenty years of age, and in the bloom of beauty--a beauty so touching
and heavenly, so irradiated by purity and smiling innocence, and so adorned
by gentleness and modesty, that the first sight stamped the image in the
poet's heart, never thereafter to be erased.
Petrarch beheld the loveliness and sweetness of the young beauty, and was
transfixed. He sought acquaintance with her, and while the manners of the
times prevented his entering her house, he enjoyed many opportunities of
meeting her in society, and of conversing with her. He would have declared
his love, but her reserve enforced silence. "She opened my breast and took
my heart into her hand, saying 'speak no word of this,'" he writes. Yet the
reverence inspired by her modesty and dignity was not always sufficient to
restrain her lover. Being alone with her on one occasion, and she appearing
more gracious than usual, Petrarch tremblingly and fearfully confessed his
passion; but she, with altered looks, replied, "I am not the person you
take me for!" Her displeasure froze the very heart of the poet, so that he
fled from her presence in grief and dismay.
No attentions on his part could make any impression on her steady and
virtuous mind. While love and youth drove him on, she remained impregnable
and firm; and when she found that he still rushed wildly forward, she
preferred forsaking to following him to the precipice down which he would
have hurried her. Meanwhile, as he gazed on her angelic countenance, and
saw purity painted on it, his love grew spotless as herself. Love
transforms the true lover into a resemblance of the object of his passion.
In a town, which was the asylum of vice, calumny never breathed a taint
upon Laura's name: her actions, her words, the very expression of her
countenance, and her slightest gestures were replete with a modest reserve
combined with sweetness, and won the applause of all.
Francesco Petrarch was of Florentine extraction, and the son of a notary,
who, being held in great esteem by his fellow-citizens, had filled several
public offices.
When the Ghibelines were banished Florence, in 1302, Petraccolo was
included in the number of exiles; his property was confiscated, and he
retired with his wife, Eletta Canigiani, whom he had lately married, to the
town of Arrezzo, in Tuscany. And here on the night of the 20th of July,
1304, Petrarch first saw the light. When the child was seven months old his
mother was permitted to return from banishment, and she established herself
at a country house belonging to her husband near Ancisa, a small town
fifteen miles from Florence. The infant who, at his birth, it was supposed
would not survive, was exposed to imminent peril during this journey. In
fording a rapid stream, the man who had charge of him carried him, wrapped
in swaddling clothes, at the end of a stick; he fell from his horse, and
the babe slipped from the fastenings into the water; but he was saved, for
how could Petrarch die until he had seen his Laura?
The youth of Petrarch was obscure in point of fortune, but it was attended
by all the happiness that springs from family concord, and the excellent
character of his parents. At the age of fifteen he was sent to study in the
university of Montpellier, then frequented by a vast concourse of students.
His father intended his son to pursue the study of the law, as the
profession best suited to ensure his reputation and fortune; but to this
pursuit Francesco was invincibly repugnant. He was soon after sent to
Bologna, where, as at Montpellier, he continued to display great taste for
literature, much to his father's dissatisfaction.
At Bologna, Petrarch made considerable progress in the study of the law,
moved thereto, doubtless, by the entreaties of his excellent parent.
After three years spent at Bologna, Petrarch was recalled to France by the
death of his father. Soon after his mother died also, and he and his
brother were left entirely to their own guidance, with very slender means,
and those diminished by the dishonesty of those whom his father named as
trustees to their fortune. Under these circumstances Petrarch entirely
abandoned the profession of the law, as it occurred to both him and his
brother that the clerical profession was their best resource in a city
where the priesthood reigned supreme. They resided at Avignon, and became
the favorites and companions of the ecclesiastical and lay nobles who
formed the papal court. His talents and accomplishments were of course the
cause of this distinction; besides that his personal advantages were such
as to prepossess every one in his favor. He was so handsome as frequently
to attract observation when he passed along the streets. When, to the
utmost simplicity and singleness of mind, were added splendid talents, the
charm of poetry, so highly valued in the country of the Troubadours, an
affectionate and generous disposition, vivacious and pleasing manners, an
engaging and attractive exterior; we cannot wonder that Petrarch was the
darling of his age, the associate of its greatest men, and the man whom
princes delighted to honor.
The passion of Petrarch for Laura was purified and exalted at the same
time. She filled him with noble aspirations, and divided him from the
common herd. He felt that her influence made him superior to vulgar
ambition, and rendered him wise, true, and great. She saved him in the
dangerous period of youth, and gave a worthy aim to all his endeavors. The
manners of his age permitted one solace; a Platonic attachment was the
fashion of the day. The Troubadours had each a lady to adore, to wait upon,
and to celebrate in song; without its being supposed that she made him any
return beyond a gracious acceptance of his devoirs, and allowing him to
make her the heroine of his verses. Petrarch endeavored to merge the living
passion of his soul into this airy and unsubstantial devotion. Laura
permitted the homage: she perceived his merit and was proud of his
admiration; she felt the truth of his affection, and indulged the wish of
preserving it and her own honor at the same time. Without her
inflexibility, this had been a dangerous experiment: but she always kept
her lover distant from her; rewarding his reserve with smiles, and
repressing by frowns all the overflowings of his heart.
By her resolute severity, she incurred the danger of ceasing to be the
object of his attachment, and of losing the gift of an immortal name, which
he has conferred upon her. But Petrarch's constancy was proof against
hopelessness and time. He had too fervent an admiration of her qualities
ever to change: he controlled the vivacity of his feelings, and they became
deeper rooted. "Untouched by my prayers," he says, "unvanquished by my
arguments, unmoved by my flattery, she remained faithful to her sex's
honor; she resisted her own young heart, and mine, and a thousand, thousand
things, which must have conquered any other. She remained unshaken. A woman
taught me the duty of a man! to persuade me to keep the path of virtue, her
conduct was at once an example and a reproach."
But whether, in this long conflict, Laura preserved her heart untouched, as
well as her virtue immaculate; whether she shared the love she inspired; or
whether she escaped from the captivating assiduities and intoxicating
homage of her lover, "fancy free;" whether coldness, or prudence, or pride,
or virtue, or the mere heartless love of admiration, or a mixture of all
together, dictated her conduct, is at least as well worth inquiry as the
color of her eyes, or the form of her nose, upon which we have pages of
grave discussion. She might have been _coquette par instinct_, if not _par
calent_; she might have felt, with feminine _tacte_, that to preserve her
influence over Petrarch, it was necessary to preserve his respect. She was
evidently proud of her conquest: she had else been more or less than woman;
and at every hazard, but that of self-respect, she was resolved to retain
him. If Petrarch absented himself for a few days, he was generally better
treated on his return. If he avoided her, then her eye followed him with a
softer expression. When he looked pale from sickness of heart and agitation
of spirits, Laura would address him with a few words of pitying tenderness.
When he presumed on this benignity, he was again repulsed with frowns. He
flew to solitude,--solitude! Never let the proud and torn heart, wrung with
the sense of injury, and sick with unrequited passion, seek that worst
resource against pain, for there grief grows by contemplating itself, and
every feeling is sharpened by collision. Petrarch sought to "mitigate the
fever of his heart" amid the shades of Vaucluse, a spot so gloomy, and so
solitary, that his very servants forsook him; and Vaucluse, its fountains,
its forests, and its hanging cliffs, reflected only the image of Laura.
He passed several years thus, cut off from society; his books were his
great resource; he was never without one in his hand. Often he remained in
silence from morning till night, wandering among the hills when the sun was
yet low; and taking refuge, during the heat of the day, in his shady
garden. At night, after performing his clerical duties (for he was canon of
Lombes), he rambled among the hills; often entering, at midnight, the
cavern, whose gloom, even during the day, struck his soul with awe. "Fool
that I was!" he exclaims in after life, "not to have remembered the first
school-boy lesson--that solitude is the nurse of love!"
While living at Vaucluse, Petrarch, invited to Rome by the Roman Senate,
repaired thither to receive the laurel crown of poesy. The ceremony was
performed in the Capitol with great solemnity, in presence of all the
nobles and high-born ladies of the city. Leaving Rome soon after his
coronation, he repaired to Parma, where Clement VI. rewarded him for
subsequent political services by naming him prior of Migliarino in the
diocese of Pisa.
Petrarch returned to Avignon. The sight of Laura gave fresh energy to a
passion which had survived the lapse of fifteen years. She was no longer
the blooming girl who had first charmed him. The cares of life had dimmed
her beauty. She was the mother of many children, and had been afflicted at
various times by illness. Her home was not happy. Her husband, without
loving or appreciating her, was ill-tempered and jealous. Petrarch
acknowledged that if her personal charms had been her sole attraction he
had already ceased to love her. But his passion was nourished by sympathy
and esteem; and, above all, by that mysterious tyranny of love, which,
while it exists, the mind of man seems to have no power of resisting,
though in feebler minds it sometimes vanishes like a dream. Petrarch was
also changed in personal appearance. His hair was sprinkled with gray, and
lines of care and sorrow trenched his face. On both sides the tenderness of
affection began to replace, in him the violence of passion, in her the
coyness and severity she had found necessary to check his pursuit. The
jealousy of her husband opposed obstacles to their seeing each other. They
met as they could in public walks and assemblies. Laura sang to him, and a
soothing familiarity grew up between them as her fears became allayed, and
he looked forward to the time when they might sit together and converse
without dread.
At length he resolved to leave Laura and Avignon forever; and instead of
plunging into solitude, to seek the wiser resource of travel and society.
Laura saw him depart with regret. When he went to take leave of her, he
found her surrounded by a circle of her ladies. Her mien was dejected; a
cloud overcast her face, whose expression seemed to say, "Who takes my
faithful friend from me?" Petrarch was struck to the heart by a sad
presentiment: the emotion was mutual; they both seemed to feel that they
should never meet again.
Petrarch departed. The plague, which had been extending its ravages over
Asia, entered Europe. It spread far and wide: nearly one half the
population of the world became its prey. Petrarch saw thousands die around
him, and he trembled for his friends. He heard that it was at Avignon. A
thousand sad presentiments haunted his mind. At last the fatal truth
reached him, Laura was dead! By a singular coincidence, she died on the
anniversary of the day when he first saw her. She was taken ill on the
third of April, and languished but three days. As soon as the symptoms of
the plague declared themselves, she prepared to die: she made her will,
which is dated on the third of April, and received the sacraments of the
church. On the sixth she died, surrounded by her friends and the noble
ladies of Avignon, who braved the dangers of infection to attend on one so
lovely and so beloved. On the evening of the same day on which she died,
she was interred in the chapel of the Cross which her husband had lately
built in the church of the Minor Friars at Avignon.
Her tomb was discovered and opened in 1533, in the presence of Francis the
First, whose celebrated stanzas on the occasion are well known.
Of the fame which, even in her lifetime, love and poetical adoration of
Petrarch had thrown around his Laura, a curious instance is given which
will characterize the manners of the age. When Charles of Luxembourg
(afterwards Emperor) was at Avignon, a grand fête was given, in his honor,
at which all the noblesse were present. He desired that Petrarch's Laura
should be pointed out to him; and when she was introduced, he made a sign
with his hand that the other ladies present should fall back; then going up
to Laura, and for a moment contemplating her with interest, he kissed her
respectively on the forehead and on the eyelids.
Petrarch survived her twenty-six years, dying in 1374. He was found
lifeless one morning in his study, his hand resting on a book.
THE KING AND OUTLAW.
WRITTEN FOR THE INTERNATIONAL MONTHLY MAGAZINE.
Robin Hood was a gentleman,
An outlaw bold was he;
He lost his Earldom and his land,
And took to the greenwood tree.
The king had just come home from war
With the Soldan over sea;
And Robin dwelt in merry Sherwood,
And lived by archerie.
Five bucks as fat as fat could be,
Were bleeding on the ground,
When up there came a hunter bright,
With a horn and leashéd hound.
"Who's this, who's this, i' th' merry greenwood?
Who's this with horn and hound?
We'll hang him, an' he pay not down
For his life a thousand pound.
"Come hither, hither, Friar John,
And count your rosarie,
And shrive this sinful gentleman,
Under the greenwood tree!"
"Stand back, stand back, thou wicked Friar,
Nor dare to stop my way;
I'll tear your cowl and cassock off,
And hurl your beads away!"
"Nay! hold your hands, my merry man!
I like his gallant mood;
Sir Hunter pray you take a staff,
And play with Robin Hood."
They played an hour with quarter staffs,
A good long hour or more,
And Robin Hood was beat at the game,
That never was beat before.
"Hold off, hold off," he said at length,
And wiped the blood away;
"Thou art a noble gentleman,
Come dine with me to-day."
"With the quarter staff, as a yeoman might,
For love I played with thee;
Now draw thy sword, as fits a knight,
And play awhile with me."
They fought an hour with rapiers keen,
A weary hour or more,
And Robin Hood began to fail,
That never failed before.
But still he fought as best he might,
In the summer's burning heat,
Till he sank at last with loss of blood,
And fell at the Stranger's feet.
He brought him water from the spring,
And took him by the hand;
"Rise up!" he said, "my good old Earl,
The best man in the land!
"Rise up, rise up, Earl Huntington,
No longer Robin Hood;
I will be king in London town,
And you in green Sherwood!"
SAINT ESCARPACIO'S BONES.
TRANSLATED FROM THE FRENCH FOR THE INTERNATIONAL MAGAZINE.
Upon a fine May morning in the year 1585, a Spanish vessel lay at anchor in
the Port of St. Jago, in the island of Cuba. She was about to sail for
Cadiz, the passengers were on board, and the sailors at their several
stations, awaiting the word of command. The captain, a small, tight-built,
shrewd-looking man, with the voice and manner of a naval officer, which,
indeed, he had formerly been, was brave and experienced, and although
somewhat wild and daring, he was a good fellow at heart, but now and then
violent and headstrong to a fault, in short, Captain Perez was the terror
of his men.
He was walking the deck with rapid strides, and exhibiting the greatest
impatience, now stopping to observe the direction of the wind, and casting
a glance at the shore, then resuming his walk with a preliminary stamp of
disappointment and vexation; no one, in the meanwhile, daring to ask why he
delayed getting under way.
At length strains of church music at a distance are heard on board the
vessel, and all eyes are directed to the shore. A long procession of monks,
holding crosses and lighted wax tapers, and singing, is seen approaching
the beach opposite the vessel. The procession moves slowly and solemnly to
the cadence of the music. Between two rows of monks dressed in deep black
is a coffin richly decorated with all the symbols of the Catholic faith,
and covered with garlands and chaplets, and, what is singular, the coffin
is carried with difficulty by six stout negroes. Four venerable Jesuits
support the corners of the pall, and, immediately behind the coffin, walks
alone, with a grave and dignified step, the Right Reverend Father Antonio,
superior of the Jesuit missionaries of the island of Cuba. An immense crowd
of citizens, the garrison of the island, and the military and civil
authorities, piously form the escort.
Suddenly the singing ceases, the procession halts, the coffin is placed on
elevated supporters. Father Antonio approaches it, and, kissing the pall
with reverence, exclaims, with a solemnity befitting the occasion,
"Adieu! Saint Escarpacio, thou worthy model of our order, adieu! In
separating myself from thy holy remains, I fulfil thy last wishes; may they
piously repose in our happy Spain, and may thy saintly vows and aspirations
be thus accomplished. But before their departure from our shores, we
conjure thee, holy saint, to look down from thy holy place of rest in
heaven, and deign to bless this people, and us, thy mourning friends on
earth."
The whole assembly then knelt upon the ground, after which the negroes,
resuming their heavy burden, carried it on board a boat, closely followed
by Father Antonio. With vigorous rowing the boat soon reached the vessel's
side, and the coffin was hoisted on board.
"You are very late, reverend father," said Captain Perez, "and you know
_wind and tide wait for no man_. I ought to have been far on my way long
before this hour."
"We could not get ready sooner, my son," the holy father replied, "but fear
not, God will reward you for the delay, and these precious remains will
speed you on your voyage. I hope you have made your own private cabin, as
you promised, worthy of their reception?"
"Yes, certainly, I have."
"You must not for a moment lose sight of the coffin."
"Make yourself easy on that point, holy father; I shall watch over it as if
it were my own. Hollo there forward, bear a hand aft," the captain cried.
Four sailors place themselves at the corners of the coffin, but they can
hardly raise it from the deck; two more are called, and the six, bending
under its weight, succeed in carrying it down into the cabin, followed by
the Captain and by Father Antonio.
When the coffin was properly bestowed, the reverend father addressed
Captain Perez in the most earnest and solemn manner:
"I hope you will be found worthy of the great confidence and trust I now
repose in you. These precious remains should occupy your every moment, and
you will sacredly and faithfully account to me for their safety--the
smallest negligence will cost you dear. On your arrival at Cadiz, you will
deliver the coffin to none other than Father Hieronimo, and not to him
even, unless he shall first place in your hands a letter from me--you
understand my instructions and commands? Now depart, and may God speed you
on your way."
Father Antonio then came upon deck, and bestowed his benediction upon the
vessel, and upon all it contained; after which, descending to the boat, he
was rowed to the shore. As he placed himself at the head of the procession,
the singing recommenced, the anchor was weighed, and, to the sound of
music, the cheering of the people, and the roar of cannon, the vessel moved
slowly on her destined voyage.
When fairly at sea, the wind was favorable, and all went well. The second
evening out, Captain Perez was alone in his private cabin, and in a
contemplative mood, when the feeble light of the single lamp glancing
across the coffin, as the vessel rocked from side to side, attracted his
attention, and led him to think about the singularity of its great weight.
"It is very strange," he said musingly, "six stout fellows to carry a man's
dry bones!--it cannot be possible. But what does the coffin contain if it
does not contain the saint's bones? Father Antonio was very, _very_
particular. I should really like to know what there is in the coffin. It
took a good half dozen strong healthy negroes, and then as many sailors, to
carry it: what can there be in the coffin? Why, after all, I _can_ know if
I please. I have but to take out a few screws, it can be done without the
slightest noise, and I am alone, and the cabin door is easily fastened."
Suiting the action to his soliloquy, he bolted the door of the cabin, took
from his tool-chest a screw-driver, and, after a moment's indecision, began
cautiously to loosen one of the screws in the lid of the coffin, his hands
all the while trembling violently.
"If," thought he, "I am committing a heinous sin, if the saint should start
up, and if, in his anger, he should in some appalling manner punish my
sacrilegious meddling with his bones?"
A cold sweat overspread his bronzed visage, and he stood still a moment,
hesitating as to whether he should go on. But curiosity conquered, and he
rallied his energies with the reflection, that if he opened the coffin,
Saint Escarpacio himself well knew it was only to find out what made his
bones so heavy; there could be no impiety in that--quite the contrary. His
conscience was by this time somewhat fortified, his superstitious fears
gradually grew fainter, and keeping his eyes steadily fixed upon the lid of
the coffin--to be sure the saint did not stir--he slowly and silently took
out the first screw. He then stopped short: the saint showed no signs of
anger.
"I knew it," said Perez, going to work more boldly upon the second screw,
"I knew there was nothing sinful in opening the coffin, for the sin lies in
the intention."
All the screws were soon drawn out, and to gratify his curiosity it only
remained to raise the coffin lid, and here his heart beat violently--but
courage--Perez did raise the lid, _and, and, he saw--no saint, but hay--the
hay is carefully removed--then strips of linen--they are removed--then hay
again, but no saint, nothing like the bone of a saint--but a wooden box_.
"Well, that is odd," thought Perez, "and what can there be in it? I must
open the box, but how? there is no key, what is to be done? Shall I force
the lock, or break the cover of the box? Either attempt would make a noise,
which the passengers or sailors might hear, but what is to be done? Good
Saint Escarpacio, take pity on me, and direct me how to open the box,"
whispered Perez, and there was perhaps a little irony in the supplication.
In feeling among the hay surrounding the box, Perez found a key at one of
its corners secured by a small iron chain.
"Ah! ha! I have it at last" Perez cried, "_the key, the key_," and quickly
putting it into the key-hole, he opened the Box--and he saw--what?
_Leathern bags filled to the top_ according to the beautifully written
tickets, with GOLD PISTOLES--SILVER CROWNS, closely ranged in shining
piles--all in the most perfect order. "But what is this? a letter? I must
read it," exclaimed the excited Perez--"_by your leave, gentle wax_," and
he tears the letter open. It began thus:
"Father Antonio, of Cuba, to the reverend fathers in Cadiz, greeting.
"As agreed between us, Most Reverend Fathers, I send you THREE HUNDRED
THOUSAND LIVRES, in the name, and under the semblance of Father Escarpacio,
whose bones I am supposed to be sending to Spain. The annexed memorandum of
accounts will show that this sum comprises the whole of our little
gleanings and savings up to this time, for the benefit of our Holy Order.
You will pardon I am sure this innocent artifice on our part, Most Reverend
Fathers, as it will prove a safeguard to the treasure, and avoid awakening
the avarice and cupidity of the person to whom I am obliged to intrust it.
(Signed) ANTONIO, of Cuba."
"Three hundred thousand livres! there are, then, three hundred thousand
livres," exclaimed Perez in amazement, as he realized that this immense sum
lay in real gold and silver coin before his eyes. "Oh, reverend, right
reverend and worthy fellows of the crafty Ignatius! you are indeed cunning
foxes! a hundred to one your trick was not discovered, for who but a Jesuit
could have imagined it, and who could have guessed that the coffin
contained _money_? And so these bags of gold are your _holy remains_, and I
too, old sea shark as I am, to be humbugged like a land lubber, with your
procession and your mummery--but I am deceived no longer, my eyes are
opened; and by my patron saint, trick for trick my pious masters--bones you
shall have, and burn me for a heretic, if you get any thing better than
bones;" and he began to untie and examine the contents of the money-bags.
"Let me consider" said he, "I want some bones, and where the devil shall I
find them?"
He was on his knees, his body bent over the box, with his hands in the open
gold-bags. His agitated countenance expressed with energy the mingled
emotions, of desire to keep the rich booty all to himself, and of fear that
in some mysterious manner it might elude his grasp--but he must, he _must_
have it.
"A lucky thought strikes me," said he; "what a fool I am to give myself any
trouble about it. What says my bill of lading? '_Received from the Reverend
Father Antonio, a coffin containing bones, said to be those of Saint
Escarpacio._' A coffin containing bones, said to be those, &c.--very good,
and have I seen the bones, _said_ to be delivered to me, and _said_ to be
the saint's bones? certainly not, and the coffin might contain--any thing
else--_the said coffin containing_--what you please--how should I know?
_said to be the bones of Saint Escarpacio_," &c. &c.
In short, Captain Perez began noiselessly and methodically to empty the box
of its bags of gold and piles of silver, taking care to stow the treasure
away in a chest, to which he alone had access. He then filled the box with
whatever was at hand, bits of rusty iron, lead, stones, shells, old junk,
hay, &c., substituting as nearly as possible pound for pound in weight if
not in value, conscientiously adding some bones which were far removed from
_canonisation_, and at last carefully screwing down the lid, the right
reverend father Antonio himself, had he been on board, could not have
discovered that the coffin had been touched by mortal hand.
In about a month the vessel arrived at the port of Cadiz. The quarantine
for some unexplained reason was much shorter than usual, and had hardly
expired, when a venerable Jesuit was the first person who stood before the
captain, a few minutes only after he had taken possession of his lodgings
on shore.
"I would speak with Captain Perez," said the Jesuit, gravely.
"I am he," the captain replied, somewhat disconcerted at the abruptness of
the inquiry. Quickly recovering his presence of mind, however, he added,
with perfect calmness, "You have probably come, holy father, to take charge
of the precious remains intrusted to my care by Father Antonio, of Cuba?"
The Jesuit bowed his head, in token of assent.
"And I have the honor of addressing Father Hieronimo?"
"You have," was the reply.
"You are no doubt the bearer of a letter for me, from Father Antonio?"
"Here it is," said Father Hieronimo, handing Captain Perez a letter.
"I beg a thousand pardons, holy father," the captain said, with much
humility, "but I hope you will not take offence at these necessary
precautions?"
"On the contrary they speak in your favor."
"I see all is right," said the captain, "and I will go myself and order the
coffin brought on shore."
The captain went immediately on board, Father Hieronimo meanwhile placing
himself at an open window whence he could over-look the vessel and watch
every movement. The coffin was brought on shore by eight sailors, who,
bending under its weight, slowly approach the captain's quarters.
"How heavy it is, how _very_ heavy," said the Jesuit, rubbing his hands in
exultation.
Captain Perez had of course accompanied the coffin from the vessel, and now
that he was about to deliver it into Father Hieronimo's keeping, he said to
him, in a solemn and impressive manner,
"I place in your hands, holy father, the precious remains intrusted to my
care."
"I receive them with pious joy."
"The responsibility was great."
"It will henceforth be mine."
"It was a precious treasure."
"Very precious."
"I have watched over it with vigilance."
"God will reward you."
"I hope so."
"From this hour every thing will prosper with you."
"Do you think so, holy father?"
"I am sure of it. I must now bid you adieu."
"You have forgotten, holy father, to give me a receipt; but if--"
"You are right," said the Jesuit, "it had escaped me." And he seated
himself at a table on which lay writing materials, first sending a servant
for his carriage.
The receipt spoke of the piety and zeal of Captain Perez in the most
flattering terms; and, while the captain was reading it with becoming
humility, the carriage drew up opposite to the coffin, which was soon
resting upon the cushioned seats within the vehicle.
"I go immediately to Madrid," said Father Hieronimo. "You can no doubt
imagine the impatience of the holy fathers to possess the sacred relics;
they have waited so long. Once more adieu, believe me we shall never forget
you."
With these words, and a parting benediction on Perez, Father Hieronimo
stepped into the carriage, and, with his holy remains by his side, started
at a brisk trot of his well-fed mules on the road to Madrid. When fairly
out of sight and hearing of Captain Perez, the good father laughed aloud.
"The captain, poor simple soul," said he, "suspects nothing."
And Perez, he too would have laughed aloud if he had dared; indeed he could
with difficulty restrain himself in presence of his crew. "The crafty old
fox," he said exultingly, "he has got his holy remains--ha! ha!--and he
_suspects nothing_."
A day or two after the delivery of the coffin, Captain Perez sailed for
Mexico.
After an interval of ten years, during which period, according to the
Jesuit's prediction, prosperity had constantly waited upon Perez, he became
weary of successful enterprise, and tired of the roving and laborious life
he was leading. Worth a million, and a bachelor, he wisely resolved to give
the remainder of his days to enjoyment. Seville was judiciously selected
for his residence, where a magnificent mansion, extensive grounds, a well
furnished cellar, good cooks, chosen friends, with all the other et ceteras
which riches can bring, enabled him to pass his days and nights joyously.
Captain Perez was indeed a _happy dog_.
One night he was at table, surrounded by his friends of both sexes. The
cook had done his duty; there were excellent fruits from the tropics; there
were wines in abundance and variety, and with songs and laughter the very
windows rattled, when Perez, the jolly Perez, _half seas over_, begged a
moment's silence.
"I say, my worthy friends, I have something to tell you better than all
your singing. I must tell you a story that will make you split your
sides--a real good one, about a capital trick I served them poor devils the
Jesuits. You must know I was lying at anchor in Cuba, and--"
Suddenly the door of the apartment is thrown open with great violence, and
a monk, clothed in deep black, enters, followed by a guard of _alguazils_
armed to the teeth.
"Profane impious wretches!" he cried, in a voice of appalling harshness,
"is it thus you do penance for your sins? Is it in riotous feasting and
drunkenness you spend the holy season of Lent?" Then, turning to Captain
Perez, he said, "Follow me to the palace of the Holy Inquisition. Before
that tribunal you must answer for your sacrilegious conduct."
The guests were stupefied with fear, and Perez, now completely sobered,
stared in affright at the monk.
"Do you recollect me, Captain Perez?" said the monk.
"No--but--it appears to me I have somewhere seen--"
"I am Father Antonio, of Cuba," cried the monk, fixing his eyes, sparkling
with savage fury, upon Perez.
"And you are a member of the Holy Inquisition?" Perez faltered out in
trembling accents.
"I am. Again I say, follow me on the instant."
Poor Captain Perez, or rather rich Captain Perez, at the early day in which
he lived had, perhaps, never heard the avowal made by a man who, in
speaking of honesty and dishonesty, declared _honesty to be the best
policy, for_, said he, _I have tried both_.
That the captain was not born to be hanged is certain; and although from
childhood a sojourner upon the ocean, it was not his destiny to be drowned.
There is a tradition handed down, that had it not been for very
considerable donations, under his hand and seal, to a religious community
in Spain, a method of bidding adieu to this life more in accordance with
the pious notions prevalent three hundred years ago, would certainly have
been chosen for our hero. Indeed, there were not wanting many
heretic-hating persons who affirmed that an _auto-da-fe_ was got up
expressly for the occasion. But we have ascertained beyond a doubt that he
reformed in his manner of living, that he secured to the Holy Order the
donations already mentioned, that the reverend fathers kindly took from his
legal heirs all trouble in the division of his riches, and that he died in
his bed at last, as a pious Catholic should die, and was buried in
consecrated ground, with every rite and ceremony belonging to the community
he had so munificently contributed to enrich.
DIRGE FOR AN INFANT.
WRITTEN FOR THE INTERNATIONAL MONTHLY MAGAZINE.
He is dead and gone--a flower
Born and withered in an hour.
Coldly lies the death-frost now
On his little rounded brow;
And the seal of darkness lies
Ever on his shrouded eyes.
He will never feel again
Touch of human joy or pain;
Never will his once-bright eyes
Open with a glad surprise;
Nor the death-frost leave his brow--
All is over with him now.
Vacant now his cradle-bed,
As a nest from whence hath fled
Some dear little bird, whose wings
Rest from timid flutterings.
Thrown aside the childish rattle,
Hushed for aye the infant prattle--
Little broken words that could
By none else be understood
Save the childless one that weeps
O'er the grave where now he sleeps.
Closed his eyes, and cold his brow--
All is over with him now!
R. S. CHILTON.
THE CHIMES.
WRITTEN FOR THE INTERNATIONAL MONTHLY MAGAZINE. BY E.W. ELLSWORTH.
It was evening in New England,
And the air was all in tune,
As I sat at an open window,
In the emerald month of June.
From the maples by the roadway,
The robins sang in pairs,
Listening and then responding,
Each to the other's airs.
Sounds of calm that wrought the feeling
Of the murmur of a shell,
Of the drip of a lifted bucket
In a wide and quiet well.
And I thought of the airs of bargemen,
Who tunefully recline,
As they float by Ehrenbreitstein,
In the twilight of the Rhine.
And then of an eve in Venice,
And the song of the gondolier,
From the far lagunes replying
To the wingéd lion pier.
And then of the verse of Milton,
And the music heard to rise,
Through the solemn night from angels
Stationed in Paradise.
Thus I said it is with music,
Wheresoe'er at random thrown,
It will seek its own responses,
It is loth to die alone.
Thus I said the poet's music,
Though a lovely native air,
May appeal unto a rhythm
That is native everywhere.
For although in scope of feeling,
Human hearts are far apart,
In the depths of every bosom,
Beats the universal heart;
Beats with wide accordant motion,
And the chimes among the towers
Of the grandest of God's temples
Seem as if they might be ours.
And we grow in such a seeming,
Till indeed we may control
To an echo, our communion
With the good and grand in soul.
As an echo in a valley
May revive a cadence there,
Of a bell that may be swaying
In a lofty Alpine air.
As a screen of tremulous metal,
From the rolling organ tone,
Rings out to a note of the music
That can never be its own.
As an earnest artist ponders
On a study nobly wrought,
Till his fingers gild his canvas
With a touch of the self-same thought.
But the sun had now descended
Far along his cloudy stairs,
And the night had come like the angels
To Abraham, unawares.
A STORY WITHOUT A NAME.[2]
WRITTEN FOR THE INTERNATIONAL MONTHLY MAGAZINE BY G. P. R. JAMES, ESQ.
CHAPTER XLVI.
Mrs. Hazleton fancied herself in high good luck; for just as she was
passing through the door into the hall, Lady Hastings' maid crossed and
made her a curtsey. Mrs. Hazleton beckoned her up, saying in a quiet, easy,
every-day tone, "I suppose your lady is awake by this time?"
"No, madam," replied the maid, "she is asleep still. She did not take her
nap as early as usual to-day; for Mistress Emily was with her, and my lady
would not go to sleep till she went out to take a walk."
Mrs. Hazleton was somewhat alarmed at this intelligence; for she had not
much confidence in her good friend's discretion. "How is Miss Emily?" she
said in a tender tone. "She seemed very sad and low when last I saw her."
"She is just the same, Madam," replied the maid. "She did not seem very
cheerful when she went out, and has been crying a good deal to-day."
Mrs. Hazleton was better satisfied, and paused for an instant to think; but
the maid interrupted her cogitations by saying--"I think I may wake my lady
now, if you please to come up, Madam."
"Oh, dear, no," replied Mrs. Hazleton. "Do not wake her. I will go in
quietly and sit with her till she wakes naturally. It is a pity to deprive
her of one moment's calm sleep. You needn't come, you needn't come. I will
ring for you when your mistress wakes;" and she quietly ascended the
stairs, though the maid offered some civil remonstrances to her undertaking
the task of watching by her sleeping mistress.
The most careful affection could not have prompted greater precautions in
opening the door of the sick lady's chamber, than those which were taken by
Mrs. Hazleton. It was a good solid door, however, well seasoned, and well
hung, and moved upon its hinges without noise. She closed it with the same
care, and then with a soft tread glided up to the side of the bed.
Lady Hastings was sleeping profoundly and quietly; and as she lay in an
attitude of easy grace, a shadow of her youthful beauty seemed to have
returned, and all the traces of after cares and anxiety were banished for
the time. On the table, near the bed-head, stood the vial of medicine, with
the glass and spoon; and Mrs. Hazleton eyed it for a moment or two without
touching it. She saw that she had hit the color exactly; but the quantity
in that vial, and the one she had with her, was somewhat different. She
felt puzzled and doubtful. She asked herself--"Would the difference be
discovered when the time came for giving her the medicine?" and a certain
degree of trepidation seized her. But she was bold, and said to
herself--"They will never see it. They suspect nothing. They will never see
it." She took the vial from her pocket, and held it for an instant or two
in her hand. Again a doubt and hesitation took possession of her. She gazed
at the sleeper with a haggard eye. The face was so calm, so sweet, so
gentle in expression, that the pleasant look perhaps did move her a little
with remorse. The voice within said again, and again, "Forbear!" She tried
to deafen herself against it, or to fill the ear of conscience with
delusive sounds. "She is dying," she said--"She will die--she cannot
recover. It is but taking away a few short hours, in order to stop that
fatal marriage, which shall never be. I am becoming a fool--a weak
irresolute fool."
Just as she thus thought, Lady Hastings moved uneasily, as if to wake from
her slumber. That moment was decisive. With a hurried hand, and quick as
light, Mrs. Hazleton changed the two vials, and concealed the one which she
had taken away.
Then it was, probably for the first time, that all the awful consequences
of the deed, for time and for eternity, flashed upon her. The scales fell
from her eyes: no longer passion, or mortified vanity, or irritated pride,
or disappointed love, distorted the objects or concealed their forms. She
stood there consciously a murderer. She trembled in every limb; and, unable
to support herself, sunk down in the chair that stood near.
Had Lady Hastings slept on, Mrs. Hazleton would have been saved; for her
impulse was immediately to reverse the very act she had done--all would
have been saved--all to whom that act brought wretchedness. But the
movement of the chair--the sound of the vial touching the marble table--the
rustle of the thick silk--dispelled what remained of slumber, and Lady
Hastings opened her eyes drowsily, and looked round. At the very moment she
would have given worlds to recall it. The deed became irrevocable. The
barrier of Fate fell: it was amongst the things done; it was written in the
book of God as a great crime committed. Nothing remained but to insure,
that the end she aimed at would be obtained; that the evil consequences, in
this world at least, should be averted from herself. There was a terrible
struggle to recover her self-command--a wrestling of the spirit--against
the turbulent and fierce emotions which shook the body. She was still much
agitated when Lady Hastings recognized her and began to speak; but her
determination was taken to obtain the utmost that she could from the act
she had committed--to have the full price of her crime. She was no Judas
Iscariot, to be content with the thirty pieces of silver for the innocent
blood, and then hang herself in despair. Oh no! She had sold her own soul,
and she would have its price.
But yet, as I have said, the struggle was terrible, and lasted longer than
usual with her.
"Dear me, my kind friend, is that you?" said Lady Hastings. "Have you been
here long? I did not hear you come in."
Her words, and her tone, were gentle and affectionate. All the coldness and
the sharpness of the preceding day seemed to have passed away, and to have
been forgotten; but words and tone were equally jarring to the feelings of
Mrs. Hazleton. The sharpest language, the most angry manner, would have
been a relief to her. They would have afforded her some sort of
strength--some sort of support.
It is painful enough to hear sweet music when we are very sad. I have known
it rise almost to agony; but the tones of friendship and regard, of
gentleness and tender kindness, to the ear of hatred and malice, must be
more terrible still.
"I have been here but a moment," said Mrs. Hazleton, gloomily--almost
peevishly. "I suppose it was my coming in woke you; but I am sure I made as
little noise as possible."
"Why, what is the matter?" said Lady Hastings. "You look quite pale and
agitated, and you speak quite crossly."
"Your sudden waking startled me," said Mrs. Hazleton; "and, besides, you
looked so ill, my dear friend. I almost thought you were dead till you
began to move."
There was malice in the sentence, simple as it seemed, and it had its
effect. Nervous, hypochondriac, Lady Hastings was frightened at the mere
sound, and her heart beat strangely at the very thought of being supposed
dead. It seemed to her to augur that she was very ill; that she was much
worse than her friends allowed her to believe; that they anticipated her
speedy dissolution, and she remained silent and sad for several minutes,
giving Mrs. Hazleton time to recover herself completely. She was a little
piqued too at the abruptness of Mrs. Hazleton's manner. Neither the speech,
nor the mode, nor the speaker, pleased her; and she replied at
length--"Nevertheless, I feel a good deal better to-day. I have slept well
for, I dare say, a couple of hours; and my dear child Emily has been with
me all the morning. I must say she bears opposition and contradiction very
sweetly."
She knew that would not please Mrs. Hazleton, and she laid some emphasis on
the words by way of retaliation. It was petty, but it was quite in her
character. "Now I think of it," she added, "you promised to tell me what
you discovered in regard to Marlow's relationship to Lord Launceston. I
find--but never mind. Tell me what you have found out."
Mrs. Hazleton hesitated. The first impulse was to tell a lie--to assert
that Marlow was not the old earl's heir; but there was something in Lady
Hastings' manner which made her suspect that she had received more certain
information, and she made up her mind to speak the truth.
"It is very true," she said; "Mr. Marlow is the old lord's nearest male
relation, and heir to his title. I suspect," she added with a silly
sounding laugh, "you have found this out yourself, my dear friend, and have
made your peace with Emily, by withdrawing your opposition to her
marriage."
Her heart was very bitter at that moment; for she really did suspect all
that she said. The idea presented itself to her mind (producing a feeling
of fierce disappointment), of all her efforts being rendered fruitless, her
dark schemes frustrated, her cunning contrivances without effect, at the
very moment when the crime, by which she proposed to insure success, was so
far consummated as to be beyond recall. She was relieved on that score in a
moment.
"Oh dear no," cried Lady Hastings. "I promised you, my dear friend, that I
would say nothing till I saw you, and I have said nothing either to my
husband or Emily. But I will of course now tell her all immediately, and I
do confess it will give me greater satisfaction than any act of my whole
life, to withdraw the opposition to her marriage which has made her so
miserable, and to bid her be happy with the man of her own choice--an
excellent good young man he is too. He has been laboring, I find, for the
last fortnight or three weeks, night and day, in our service, and has
detected the horrible conspiracy by which my husband was deprived of his
rights and property. I shall tell Emily, with great joy, as soon as ever
she comes back, that were it for nothing but this zeal in our cause, I
would receive him joyfully as my son-in-law."
"You had better wait till to-morrow morning," said Mrs. Hazleton, in a cold
but significant tone.
"Oh dear no," said Lady Hastings, somewhat petulantly, "I have waited quite
long enough--perhaps too long. You surely would not have me protract my
child's anxiety and sorrow unnecessarily. No, I will tell her the moment
she returns. She read me part of a letter from Marlow to-day, which shows
me that he has lost no time in seeking to serve us and make us happy, and I
will lose no time in making my child and him happy also."
"As you please," replied Mrs. Hazleton; "I only thought that in this
changeable world, there are so many unexpected things occurring between one
day and another, it might be well for you to pause and consider a
little--in order, I mean, that after-thought may not show you reason to
withdraw your consent, as you now withdraw your objection."
"My consent once given, shall never be withdrawn," replied Lady Hastings,
in a determined tone.
Mrs. Hazleton looked at the vial by the bedside, and then at her watch.
"You had better avoid all agitation," she said, "and at all events before
you speak with Emily, take a dose of the medicine, which Short tells me he
has given you to soothe and calm your spirits--shall I give you one now?"
"No, I thank you," replied Lady Hastings, briefly; "not at present."
"Is it not the time?" said Mrs. Hazleton, looking at her watch again: "the
good man told me you were to take it very regularly."
"But he told me," replied Lady Hastings, "that nobody was to give it to me
but Emily, and she will be back at the right time, I am sure. What o'clock
is it?"
"Past five," replied Mrs. Hazleton, advancing the hour a little.
"Then it wants three quarters of an hour to the time," said Lady Hastings,
"and Emily has only gone to take a walk. We are expecting Marlow to-night,
so she will not go far I am sure."
Mrs. Hazleton fell into profound thought. In proposing to give Lady
Hastings the portion herself, she had deviated a little from her original
plan. She had intended all along, that the mortal draught should be
administered by the hand of Emily, and she had only been tempted to depart
from that purpose by the fear of Lady Hastings withdrawing her opposition
to her daughter's marriage with Marlow before the deed was fully
accomplished. There was no help for it, however. She was obliged to take
her chance of the result; and while she mused at that moment, vague
notions--what shall I call them?--not exactly schemes or purposes, but
rather dreams of turning suspicion upon Emily herself, of making men
believe--suspect, even if they could not prove--that the daughter knowingly
deprived the mother of life, crossed her imagination. She meditated rather
longer than was quite decorous, and then suddenly recollecting herself she
said, "By the way, has Emily yet condescended to particularize her
astounding charges against your poor friend? I am really anxious to hear
them, and although I confess that the matter has afforded me some
amusement, it has brought painful feelings and doubts with it too. I have
sometimes fancied, my dear friend, that there is a slight aberration in
your poor Emily's mind, and I can account for her conduct in this instance
by no other mode. You know her grandfather, Sir John, had moments when he
was hardly sane. I have heard your own good father declare upon one
occasion, that Sir John was as mad as a lunatic. Tell me then, has Emily
brought forward any proofs, or alluded to these accusations since I saw
you? You said she would explain all in a few hours."
"She has not as yet explained all," replied Lady Hastings, "but I cannot
deny that she has alluded to the charges, and repeated them all
distinctly. She said that the delay had been rather longer than she
expected; but that as soon as Mr. Dixwell came, every thing should be
told."
"The suspense is unpleasant," said Mrs. Hazleton, somewhat sarcastically;
"I trust the young lady does not play with the feelings of her lover as she
does with those of her friends, otherwise I should pity Marlow."
Lady Hastings was a good deal nettled. "I do not think he much deserves
your pity," she replied; "and besides, I think he is quite satisfied with
Emily's conduct, as I am also. I am quite confident she has good reason for
what she says, my dear Madam--not that I mean to assert that the charges
are true, by any means--she may be mistaken, you know--she may be
misinformed--but that she brings them in good faith, and fully believes
that she can prove them distinctly, I do not for a moment doubt. If she is
wrong, nobody will be more grieved, or more ready to make atonement than
herself; but whether she is right or wrong, remains to be proved."
"All that I have to request then is," said Mrs. Hazleton, "that you will be
kind enough to let me know, immediately you are yourself informed, what are
the specific charges, and upon what grounds they rest. That they must be
false, I know; and therefore I shall give myself no uneasiness about them.
All I regret is, that you should be troubled about what must be frivolous
and absurd. Nevertheless, I must beg you to let me hear immediately."
"Sir Philip will do that," replied Lady Hastings, coldly. "If Emily is
right in her views, the matter will require the intervention of a man. It
will be too serious for a woman to deal with."
"Oh, very well," said Mrs. Hazleton, with an air of offended dignity. "Good
morning, my dear Lady;" and she quitted the room.
She paused upon the broad staircase for two or three minutes, leaning upon
the balustrade in deep thought; but when she descended to the hall, she
asked a servant who stood there if Mistress Emily had returned. The man
replied in the negative, and she then inquired for Sir Philip, asking to
see him.
The servant said he was in his library, and proceeded to announce her. She
followed him so closely as to enter the room almost at the same moment, and
beheld Sir Philip Hastings, with his head leaning on his hand, sitting at
the table and gazing earnestly down upon it. There was a book before him,
but it was closed.
"I beg pardon for intruding, my dear sir," said Mrs. Hazleton, "but I
wished to ask if you know where Emily is. I want to speak with her."
"I know nothing about her," said Sir Philip, abruptly; and then muttered to
himself, "would I knew more."
"I thought I saw her in the fields as I came," said Mrs. Hazleton,
"gathering flowers and herbs--she is fond of botany, I believe."
"I know not," said Sir Philip, recovering himself a little. "Pray be
seated. Madam--I have not attended much to her studies lately."
"Thank you, I must go," said Mrs. Hazleton. "Perhaps I shall meet her as I
drive along. Do not let me interrupt you, do not let me interrupt you;" and
she quietly quitted the room.
"Gathering herbs!" said Sir Philip Hastings, "what new whim is this?"
CHAPTER XLVII.
Emily Hastings was not three hundred yards from the house when Mrs.
Hazleton drove away from the house door. She had never been more than three
hundred yards from it during that day. She had gathered no herbs, she had
wandered through no fields; but, at her mother's earnest request, she had
gone out to breathe the fresh air for half an hour, and had ascended
through the gardens to a little terrace on the hill, where she had
continued to walk up and down under the shade of some tall trees; had seen
Mrs. Hazleton arrive, and saw her depart. The scene which the terrace
commanded was very beautiful in itself, and the house below, the
well-cultivated gardens, a fountain here and there, neat hedge-rows, and
trim, well-ordered fields, gave the whole an air of home comfort, and
peaceful affluence, such as few countries but England can display.
I have shown, or should have shown, that Emily was somewhat of an
impressible character, and the brightness and the pleasant character of the
scene had its usual effect in cheering. Certainly, to any one who had stood
near her, looking over even that fair prospect, she herself would have been
the loveliest object in it. Every year had brought out some new beauty in
her face, and without diminishing one charm of extreme youth, had expanded
her fair form into womanly richness. The contour of every limb was perfect:
the whole in symmetry complete; and her movements, as she walked to and
fro, upon the terrace, were all full of that easy, floating grace, which
requires a combination of youth and health, and fine proportion, and a
pure, high mind. If there was a defect it was that she was somewhat pale
that day; for she had not slept at all during the preceding night from
agitated feelings, and busy thoughts that would not rest. But the slight
degree of languor, which watching and anxiety had given, was not without
its own peculiar charm, and the liquid brightness of her eyes seemed but
the more dazzling for the drooping of the eyelid, with its long sweeping
fringe.
There was a mixture, too, strange as it may seem to say so, of sadness and
cheerfulness, in the expression of her face that day--perhaps I should say
an alternation of the two expressions; but the change from the one to the
other was too rapid for distinctness; and the well of feelings from which
the expressions flowed, was of very mingled waters. The scene of death and
suffering which she had lately witnessed at the cottage, her father's wild
and gloomy manner, her mother's sickness, the displeasure of one parent,
however unjust, and the opposition of another, to her dearest wishes,
however unreasonable, naturally produced anxiety and sadness. But then
again, on the other hand, Marlow's letter had cheered and comforted her
much; the prospect of seeing him so speedily, rejoiced her more than she
had even anticipated, and the certainty that a few short hours would remove
for ever all doubts as to her conduct, her thoughts and her feelings, from
the mind of both her parents, and especially from that of her father, gave
her strength and happy confidence.
Poor Emily! How lovely she looked as she walked along there with the ever
varying expressions fluttering over her face, and her rich nut brown hair,
free and uncovered, floating in curls on the sportive breath of the breeze.
When first she came out the general tone of her feelings was sad; but the
bright hopes seemed to gain vigor in the open air, and her mind fixed more
and more gladly on the theme of Marlow's letter. As it did so she extracted
fresh motives of comfort from it. He had given her many details in regard
to his late proceedings. He had openly and plainly spoken of the conduct of
Mrs. Hazleton, and told her he could prove the facts which he asserted. He
had not even hinted at an injunction to secrecy, and although her first
impulse had been to wait for his arrival and let him explain the whole
himself, yet, as it was now getting late in the day, and he had not
come--as the obligation to secrecy, laid upon her by John Ayliffe, might
not be removed till the following morning, and her mother was evidently
anxious and uneasy for want of all explanations--Emily thought she might be
fully justified in reading more of Marlow's letter to Lady Hastings than
she had hitherto done, and showing her that she had asserted nothing
without reasonable cause. The sight of Mrs. Hazleton's carriage arriving
confirmed her in this intention. She knew that fair lady to possess very
great influence over her mother's mind. She believed that influence to have
been always exerted balefully, and she judged it better, much better, to
cut it short at once, rather than suffer it to endure even for another day.
When she saw the carriage drive away, then, she returned rapidly to the
house, went to her room to get Marlow's letter, and then proceeded to her
mother's chamber.
"Mrs. Hazleton has been here, my love," said Lady Hastings, as soon as
Emily approached, "and really, she has been very strange and disagreeable.
She seems not to have the slightest consideration for me; but even in my
weak state, says every thing that can agitate and annoy me."
"I trust, my dear mother, that you will see her no more," said Emily. "The
full proofs of what I told you concerning her, I cannot yet give; but
Marlow lays me under no injunction to secrecy, and I have brought his
letter to read you the part in which he speaks of her. That will show you
quite enough to convince you that Mrs. Hazleton should never be permitted
within these doors again."
"Oh read it, pray read it, my dear," said Lady Hastings. "I am all anxiety
to know the facts; for really one does not know how to behave to this
woman, and I feel in a very awkward position towards her."
Emily sat down by the bedside and read, word for word, all that Marlow had
written in reference to Mrs. Hazleton, which was interspersed, here and
there, with many kindly and respectful expressions towards Lady Hastings
and her husband, which he knew well would be gratifying to her whom he
addressed. His statements were all clear and precise, and from them Lady
Hastings learned he had obtained proof, from various different sources,
that her seeming friend had knowingly and willingly supplied John Ayliffe
with the means of carrying on his fraudulent suit against Sir Philip
Hastings: that she had been his counsel and coöperator in all his
proceedings, and had suggested many of the most criminal steps he had
taken. The last passage which Emily read was remarkable: "To see into the
dark abyss of that woman's heart, my dearest Emily," he said, "is more than
I can pretend to do; but it is perfectly clear that she has been moved in
all her proceedings for some years, by bitter personal hatred towards Sir
Philip, Lady Hastings, and yourself. Mere self-interest--to which she is by
no means insensible on ordinary occasions--has been sacrificed to the
gratification of malice, and she has even gone so far as to place herself
in a situation of considerable peril for the purpose of ruining your
excellent father, and making your mother and yourself unhappy. What offence
has been committed by any of your family to merit such persevering and
ruthless hatred, I cannot tell. I only know that it must have been
unintentional; but that it has not been the less bitterly revenged. Perhaps
the disclosures which must be made as soon as I return, may give us some
insight into the cause; but at present I can only tell you the result."
"My dear Emily," said Lady Hastings, "your father should know this
immediately. He has been very sad and gloomy since his return. I really
cannot tell what is the matter with him; but something weighs upon his
spirits, evidently; but this news will give him relief, or, at all events,
will divert his thoughts. It was very natural, my dear girl, that you
should first tell your mother, but I really think that we must now take
him into our councils."
"I will go and ask him to come here, at once," said Emily. "I think my dear
father has not understood me rightly lately, and has chilled me by cold
looks and words when I would fain have spoken to him, and poured my whole
thoughts into his bosom. Oh, I shall be glad to do any thing to regain his
confidence; and although I know it must be regained in a very, very short
space of time, yet I would gladly do any thing to prevent its being
withheld from me even a moment longer."
She took a step towards the door as she spoke; but Lady Hastings,
unhappily, called her back. "Stay, my Emily," she said. "Come hither, my
dear child; I have something to say that will cheer you and comfort you,
and give you strength to meet any little crosses of your father's with
patience and resignation. He has been sorely tried, and is much troubled.
But I was going to say, dear Emily," and she threw her arms round her
daughter's neck as she leaned over her, "that I have been thinking much of
all that was said the other day, in regard to your marriage with Marlow. I
see that your heart is set upon it, and that you can only be happy in a
union with him. I know him to be a good and excellent young man; and after
all that he has done to serve us, I must not interpose your wishes any
longer; although, perhaps, I might have chosen differently for you had the
choice rested with me. I give you, therefore, my full and free consent,
Emily, and trust you will be as happy as you deserve, my dear girl. I think
you might very well have made a higher alliance, but----"
"But none that would have made me half so happy," replied Emily, embracing
her mother. "Oh, dear mother, if you could know the load you take from my
heart, you would be amply repaid for any sacrifice of opinion you make to
your child's happiness. I cannot conceive any situation more painful to be
placed in than a conflict between two duties. My positive promise to
Marlow, my obedience to you, are now reconciled, and I thank you a thousand
thousand times for having thus relieved me from so terrible a struggle."
The tears rose in her eyes as she spoke, and Lady Hastings made her sit
down by her bedside, saying--"Nay, my dear child, do not suffer yourself to
be so much agitated. I did not know till the other day," she said, feeling
some self-reproach at having been brought to play the part she had acted
lately, "I did not know till the other day that you were really so much in
love, my Emily. But I have known what such feelings are, and can sympathize
with you. Indeed I should have yielded long ago if it had not been for the
persuasions of that horrid Mrs. Hazleton. She always stood in the way of
every thing I wanted to do, and would not even let me know the truth about
your real feelings--pretending all the time to be my friend too!"
"She has been a friend to none of us, I fear," replied Emily, "and to me
especially an enemy; although I cannot at all tell what I ever did to merit
such pertinacious hatred as she seems to feel towards me."
"Do you know, my child," said Lady Hastings, with a meaning smile, "I have
been sometimes inclined to think that she wished to marry Marlow herself?"
Emily started and looked aghast, and then that delicate feeling, that
sensitiveness for the dignity of woman's nature, which none, I suspect, but
woman's heart can clearly comprehend, caused her cheek to glow like a rose
with shame at the very thought of a woman loving unloved, and seeking
unsought. She felt, however, at once, that there might be--that there
probably was--much truth in what her mother said, that she had touched the
true point, and had discovered one at least of the causes of Mrs.
Hazleton's strange conduct. Nevertheless, she answered, "Oh, dear mother, I
hope it is not so. Sure I am that Marlow would never trifle with any
woman's love, and I cannot think that Mrs. Hazleton would so degrade
herself as even to dream of a man who never dreamt of her; besides, she is
old enough to be his mother."
"Not quite, my child, not quite," replied Lady Hastings. "She is, I
believe, younger than I am; and though old enough to be your mother, Emily,
I could not have been Marlow's, unless I had married at ten years old.
Besides, she is very beautiful, and she knows it, and may have thought that
such beauty as hers, and her great wealth, might well make up for a small
difference of years."
"Perhaps you are right," replied Emily, thoughtfully, as many a
circumstance flashed upon her memory, which had seemed to her dark and
mysterious in times past; but to which the cause suggested by her mother
seemed now to afford a key. "But if it was me, only, she hated," added
Emily, "why should she so persecute my father and yourself?"
"Perhaps," replied Lady Hastings, speaking with a clear-sighted wisdom
which she seldom evinced, "perhaps because she knew that the most terrible
blows are those which are aimed at us through those we love. Besides, one
cannot tell what offence your father may have given. He is very plain
spoken, and not accustomed to deal very tenderly. Now Mrs. Hazleton is not
well pleased to hear plain truths, nor to bear with patience any sharpness
or abruptness of manner. Moreover, my child, I have heard that it was old
Sir John Hastings' wish, when we were all young and free, that your father
should marry Mrs. Hazleton. But he preferred another, perhaps less worthy
of him in every respect."
"Oh, no, no," cried Emily, with eager affection. "More worthy of him a
thousand times in all ways. More good--more kind--more beautiful."
"Nay, nay, flatterer," said Lady Hastings, with a smile. "I was well enough
to look at once, Emily, and more to his taste. That is enough. My glass
tells me clearly that I cannot compete with Mrs. Hazleton now. But it is
growing dark, my dear, I must have lights."
"I will ring for them, and then go and seek my father," replied Emily.
She rang, and the maid appeared from the anteroom, just as Lady Hastings
was saying that it was time to take her medicine. Emily took up the vial
and the spoon, poured out the quantity prescribed, with a steady hand, very
unlike that with which Mrs. Hazleton had held the same bottle an hour
before, and having put the dose into a wine-glass, handed it to her mother.
"Bring lights," said Lady Hastings, addressing her maid; and the moment
after, she raised the glass to her lips, and drank the contents.
"It tastes very odd, Emily," she said, "I think it must be spoiled by the
heat of the room."
"Indeed," said Emily. "That is very strange. The last vial kept quite well.
But Mr. Short will be here to-night, and we will make him send some more."
She paused for a moment or two, and then added, "Now, shall I go for my
father?"
"No," said Lady Hastings, somewhat faintly; "wait till the girl comes back
with the lights."
She was silent for a few moments, and then raised herself suddenly on her
arm, saying in a tone of great alarm, "Emily, Emily! I feel very ill.--Good
God, I feel very ill!"
Emily sprang to her side and threw her arm round her; but the next instant
Lady Hastings uttered a fearful scream, like the cry of a sea-bird, and her
head fell back upon her daughter's arm.
Emily rang the bell violently: ran to the door and shrieked loudly for aid;
for she saw too well that her mother was dying.
The maid, several of the other servants, and Sir Philip Hastings himself,
rushed into the room. Lights were brought: Mr. Short was sent for; but ere
the servant had well passed the gates, Lady Hastings, after a few
convulsive sobs, had yielded up her spirit.
CHAPTER XLVIII.
When the surgeon entered the room of Lady Hastings there was a profound
silence. Sir Philip Hastings was standing by his wife's bedside, motionless
as a statue; gazing with a knitted brow and fixed stony eye upon the
features of her whom he had so well and constantly loved. Emily lay
fainting upon the floor, with her head supported by one of the maids, while
another tried to recall her to life. Two more servants were in the room,
but they, like all the rest, remained silent in presence of the awful scene
before them. The windows were not yet closed, and the faint, struggling,
gray twilight came in, and mingled sombrely with the pale light of the wax
candles, giving even a more deathlike hue to the face of the corpse, and
throwing strange crossing lights and shades upon features which remained
convulsed even after the agony of death was past.
"Good God! Sir Philip, what is this I hear?" exclaimed Mr. Short before he
caught the whole particulars of the scene.
Sir Philip Hastings made no answer. He did not even seem to hear; and the
surgeon advanced to the bedside, and gazed for an instant on the face of
Lady Hastings. He took her hand in his. It was still warm; but when he put
his fingers on her wrist, no pulse vibrated beneath his touch. The heart,
too, was quite still: not a flutter indicated a lingering spark of
vitality. The breath was gone; and though the surgeon sought on the
dressing-table for a small mirror, and applied it to the lips, it remained
undimmed. He shook his head sadly; but yet he made some efforts. Ho took a
vial of essence from his pocket, and applied it to the nostrils; he opened
a vein, and a few drops of blood issued from it, but stopped immediately;
and several other experiments he tried, that not a lingering doubt might
remain of death having taken possession completely.
At length he ceased, saying, "It is in vain. How did this happen? It is
very strange. There was not an indication of such an event yesterday. She
was decidedly better."
"And so she was this morning, sir," said Lady Hastings' maid; "she slept
quite well too, sir, before Mrs. Hazleton came."
Sir Philip Hastings remained profoundly silent; but Mr. Short gave a sudden
start at the name of Mrs. Hazleton, and asked the maid when that lady had
left her mistress.
"Not half an hour before her death, sir," replied the maid; "and even for a
little time after she was gone, my lady seemed quite well and cheerful with
Mistress Emily."
"Were you with her when she was seized so suddenly?" asked the surgeon.
"No, sir," said the maid. "No one was with her but Mistress Emily. My lady
had sent me away for lights; but just when I was coming up the stairs, I
heard my young lady ringing the bell violently, and screaming for help, and
in two minutes after I came in my lady was dead."
"I must hear the first symptoms," said Mr. Short, "and this dear young lady
needs attending to. If I know her right, this shock will well nigh kill
her."
He moved towards Emily as he spoke, but in passing across, his eye lighted
upon the vial which was standing upon the table at the bedside, with the
spoon and wine-glass which had been used in administering the medicine.
Something in the appearance of the bottle seemed to strike him suddenly,
and he raised it sharply and held it to the candle. "Good God!" exclaimed
Mr. Short; "Good God!" and his face turned as pale as death, and a fit of
trembling seized upon him.
It was several moments before he uttered another word. He put his hand to
his brow, and seemed to think deeply and anxiously. Then he examined the
bottle again, took out the cork, held it to his nostrils, tasted a single
drop poured upon the end of his finger, and shook his head sadly and
solemnly. Every eye but those of the maid, who was supporting Emily's head,
was now turned upon him. There was something in his manner so unusual, so
strange, that even the attention of Sir Philip Hastings was attracted by
it; and he looked gloomily at the surgeon for a moment, as if in a dreamy
wonder at his proceedings.
At length, Mr. Short spoke again. "Can any body tell me," he said, "when
Lady Hastings took a dose of this stuff?"
No one remarked the irreverent term which he applied to the contents of the
vial; for every one who listened to him would probably have given it the
same name, had it been a mithridate; but the maid of the deceased lady
replied at once, "Only a few minutes before she died, sir. I saw her take
it myself."
"Who gave it to her?" demanded the surgeon, sternly.
"My young lady, sir," answered the maid, "just before I went for the
lights, and I am sure she did not give her a drop too much of it; for she
measured it out carefully in the spoon before she put it into the glass."
Mr. Short remained silent again, and Sir Philip Hastings spoke for the
first time with a great effort.
"What is the matter, sir?" he asked, gloomily; "you seem confounded,
thunder-struck. What has befallen to draw your eyes from that?" and he
pointed to the bed of his dead wife.
"I am bound to say, Sir Philip," replied Mr. Short, "that it is my belief
that the dose given to Lady Hastings from that bottle, has been the cause
of her death. In a word, I believe it to be poison."
Sir Philip Hastings gazed in his face with a wild look of horror. His teeth
chattered in his head, his whole frame shook visibly to the eyes of those
around, but he uttered not a word, and it was the maid who answered,
exclaiming in a shrill voice, "Oh, how horrible! How could you send my lady
such stuff?"
"I never sent it to her, woman!" said Mr. Short, sternly; "if you had eyes
you would see that it is not of the same color, nor has it the same taste
of that which I sent. It is different in every respect; and if no other
proof were wanting that which I sent Lady Hastings was harmless, it would
be sufficient to say, that the last vial I brought was delivered to you
yourself yesterday quite full, that Lady Hastings ought to have taken four
or five doses of that medicine between that time and this, and----"
"Oh, yes!" exclaimed the maid, interrupting him, "she took it quite
regularly. I saw Mistress Emily give her three doses myself."
"Well, did those hurt her?" asked Mr. Short, sharply.
"I can't say they did," replied the woman, "indeed she always seemed better
a little while after taking them."
"Well that shows that this is not the same," said Mr. Short; "besides, this
bottle has never come out of my surgery. I always choose mine perfectly
clear and white, that I may be enabled to see if the medicine is at all
troubled or not. This has a green tinge, and must have come from some
common druggist's, and the stuff that it contains must be strictly
analyzed."
As he spoke, Sir Philip Hastings strode up to him, grasped his hand, and
wrung it hard, saying in a hollow husky tone, and pointing to the bottle,
"What is it you mean? What is it all about? What is that?"
"Poison! Sir Philip," replied Mr. Short, moved by the feelings of the
moment beyond all his ordinary prudence; "poison! and I very much fear that
it has been administered to your poor lady intentionally."
"Gathering herbs!--gathering herbs!" screamed Sir Philip Hastings, like a
madman; and tearing the hair out of his head, he rushed away from the room,
and locked himself into his library.
No one could tell to what his words alluded, nor did they trouble
themselves much to discover; for every one at once concluded that the shock
of his wife's sudden death, and the discovery of its terrible cause, had
driven him insane.
"Oh, do run after my master, sir," cried the maid; "he has gone into the
library, I heard him bang the door."
"Has he got any arms there?" asked Mr. Short, "there used to be pistols at
the Hall."
"No, sir, no," exclaimed one of the house-maids, "they are not there. They
are in his dressing-room out yonder."
"Well, then, I will leave him alone for the present," said the surgeon;
"here is one who demands more immediate care. Poor young lady! If she
should discover, in her present state of grief, how her mother has died,
and that her hand has been employed to produce such a catastrophe, it will
destroy either her life or her intellect."
"But who could have done it, sir?" exclaimed Lady Hastings' maid.
"Never you mind that for the present," said Mr. Short; "I have my
suspicions; but they are no more than suspicions at present. You stay with
me here, and let the other woman carry your poor young lady to her room. I
will be with her presently, and will give her what will do her good. One
of you, as soon as possible, send me up a man-servant--a groom would be
best."
His orders were obeyed promptly; for he spoke with a tone of decision and
command which the terrible circumstances of the moment enabled him to
assume; although in ordinary circumstances he was a man of mild and gentle
character.
As soon as poor Emily was borne away to her own chamber, Mr. Short turned
to the maid again, inquiring, "How long had Mistress Hazleton gone when
your mistress was seized with these fatal convulsions?"
"About half an hour, sir," said the maid. "It couldn't have been longer.
Mrs. Hazleton came when my lady was asleep, and went in alone, saying she
would not disturb her."
"Ha!" cried the surgeon; "was she with her for any time alone?"
"All the time that she staid, sir," replied the maid; "for I did not like
to go in, and Mistress Emily was walking on the terrace up the hill."
"I suppose then you cannot tell how long Mrs. Hazleton remained alone with
your lady before she woke?"
"Yes, I can pretty nearly, sir," answered the maid, "for though Mrs.
Hazleton told me not to come in with her, and said she would ring when my
lady waked, I came after her into the anteroom, and sat there all the time.
For about five minutes, or it might be ten, all was quiet enough; but at
the end of that time I heard my lady and Mrs. Hazleton begin to speak."
"You heard no other sounds previously?" asked the surgeon.
"Nothing but the rustle of Mrs. Hazleton's gown, as she moved about once or
twice," said the maid, "and of that I can't be rightly sure."
"You did not by chance look through the key-hole?" asked Mr. Short.
"No, that I didn't," said the maid, tossing her head, "I never did such a
thing in my life."
"Well, well. Get me a sheet of paper," replied the surgeon, "and a pen and
ink--oh, they are here are they?" But before he could sit down to write, a
groom crept in through the half-open door, and received orders from the
surgeon to saddle a horse instantly and return. Mr. Short then sat down and
wrote as follows:
"MR. ATKINSON:--As you are high constable of Hartwell, I write as a justice
of the peace for the county of ----, to authorize and require you to follow
immediately the carriage of The Honorable Mistress Hazleton, to apprehend
that lady and to keep her in your safe custody, taking care that her person
be immediately searched by some proper person, and that any vials, bottles,
powders, or other objects whatsoever bearing the appearance of drugs or
medicines, or of having contained them, be carefully preserved, and marked
for identification. I have not time or means to fill up a regular warrant;
but I will justify you in, and be responsible for, whatever you may do to
insure that Mrs. Hazleton has no means or opportunity allowed her of
concealing or making away with any thing she has carried away from this
house, where Lady Hastings has just deceased from the effects of poison.
You had better take the fresh horse of the bearer, and lose not an instant
in overtaking the carriage."
He then signed his name just as the groom returned; but ere he gave the man
the paper he added in a postscript:
"You had better search the carriage minutely, and make any preliminary
investigation that you may think fit before I arrive. The hints given above
will be sufficient for your guidance."
"Take this paper immediately to Jenny Best's cottage," said Mr. Short to
the groom. "Ask if Mr. Atkinson is there. Should he be so, give it to him,
and let him take your horse if he requires it. Should you not find him
there, seek for him either at the house of Mr. Dixwell, or at the farm
close by. Should he be at neither of those places, follow him on to his
house near Hartwell at full speed. Do you understand?"
"Oh, quite well, sir," said the groom, who was a shrewd, keen fellow; and
he left the room without more words.
When he got down to the hall door, however, he thought he might as well
know more of his errand, and read the paper which he had received with the
butler and the footman. A brief consultation followed between them, and not
a little horror and anger was excited by the information they had gained
from the paper, for Lady Hastings had been well loved by her servants, and
Mrs. Hazleton was but little loved by any of her inferiors in station.
"Go you on, John, as fast as possible," said the footman. "I'll get a horse
and come after you as fast as possible with Harry; for this grand dame has
three servants with her, and mayn't choose to be taken easily."
"Ay, come along, come along," said the groom; "we'll run her down, I'll
warrant," and hurrying away he got to his horse's back.
In the mean time Mr. Short had proceeded to the room of poor Emily
Hastings, whom he found recovering from her fainting fit, and sobbing in
the bitterness of grief.
"Oh, Mr. Short," she said, "this is very terrible. There surely was
something wrong about that medicine, for my poor mother was taken ill the
moment she had swallowed it. She had had the same quantity three times
to-day before; but she said that it tasted strange and unpleasant. It could
not surely have been spoiled by keeping so short a time, and that could not
have killed her even if it had been so. Pray do examine it."
"I will, I will, my dear," replied Mr. Short kindly, "but I don't think
the medicine I sent could spoil, and if it did it could have no evil
effect. Now quiet yourself, my dear Mistress Emily; I am going to give you
a draught which will soothe your nerves, and fit you better to bear all
these terrible things."
He then had recourse to the little store of medicines he usually carried in
his pocket, and administered first a stimulant and then a somewhat powerful
narcotic. For about ten minutes he remained seated by Emily's bedside with
her own maid standing at the foot, and during that time the poor girl spoke
once or twice, asking anxiously after her father, and expressing a great
desire to go to him. Gradually, however, her eyelids began to droop, her
sentences remained unfinished, and, in the end, she fell into a deep and
profound sleep.
"She will not wake for six or eight hours," said Mr. Short, addressing the
maid. "But when she does wake it would be better you should be with her, my
good girl. If you like, therefore, you can go and take some rest in the
meanwhile; but order yourself to be called at the end of five hours."
"If you are quite sure that she will remain asleep, sir," said the maid, "I
will lie down, for I am sure sorrow wearies one more than work."
"She won't wake," said Mr. Short, "for six hours at least. I will now go
and see Sir Philip," and descending the stairs, he knocked at the door of
the library, thinking that probably he should find it locked. The stern
voice of Sir Philip Hastings, however, said "Come in," in a wonderfully
calm tone; and when the surgeon entered he found Sir Philip seated at the
library table, and apparently reading a Greek book, the contents of which
Mr. Short could not at all divine.
CHAPTER XLIX.
I must now follow the groom on his road, first to the cottage of good Jenny
Best, where he learned that Mr. Atkinson had gone away some five minutes
before, and then to the house of the neighboring farm, where he found the
person he sought still seated on his horse, but talking to the tenant at
the door.
"Here, Mr. Atkinson," cried the groom as he came up; "here's a note for you
from Mr. Short the surgeon--a sort of warrant, I believe; for he's a
justice of the peace, you know, as well as a surgeon. Read it quick, Mr.
Atkinson, read it quick; for it won't keep hot long; and if that woman
isn't caught I think I'll hang myself."
"Bring us a light, farmer," said Mr. Atkinson, "quickly. What is all this
about, John?"
"Why, Madam Hazleton has poisoned my lady, and she's as dead as a door
nail," said the groom, "that's all; and bad enough too. Zounds, I thought
she'd do some mischief; she was always so hard upon her horses."
"Good heaven!" exclaimed Mr. Atkinson, "you do not mean to say that she has
certainly poisoned Lady Hastings?"
"Why, Mr. Short believes it, and every one believes it," answered the
groom.
Mr. Atkinson might have endeavored to reduce the number comprised in the
term "every body" to its just proportions; but before he could do so, the
farmer returned with a light shaded from the wind by his hat; and the good
high constable of Hartwell, bending over his saddle, read hurriedly Mr.
Short's brief note.
"What's the matter? what's the matter?" cried the farmer; and great was his
surprise and consternation to hear that Lady Hastings was dead, and that
strong suspicion existed of her having been poisoned by Mrs. Hazleton.
There is a stern, dogged love of justice, however, in the English peasant,
which rises into energy and excitement; and the farmer was instantly heard
calling for his horse.
"Zounds, I'll ride with you, Atkinson," he said. "This great dame has got
so many servants, she may think fit to set the law at defiance; but she
must be taught that high people cannot poison other people any more than
low ones. But you go on; you go on. I'll catch you up, perhaps. If not,
I'll come in time, don't you be afraid."
"I'm going along too," said the groom, "and two others are coming; so if
her tall men show fight, I think we'll leather their jackets."
Away they went as fast as they could go, and to say truth, Mr. Atkinson was
not at all sorry to have some assistance; for without ever committing any
one act which could be characterized as criminal, unjust, or wrong, within
the knowledge of her neighbors, Mrs. Hazleton had somehow impressed the
minds of all who surrounded her with the conviction, that hers was a most
daring and remorseless nature. The general world received their impression
of her character--and often a false one, be it good or evil--by her greater
and more important actions: the little circle that surrounds us forms a
slower but more certain judgment from minute but often repeated traits.
On rode Mr. Atkinson and the groom, as fast as their horses could carry
them. Wherever there was turf by the roadside they galloped; and at the
rate of progression made by carriages in that day, they made sure they must
be gaining very rapidly upon the object of their pursuit. When first they
set out it was very dark; but at the end of twenty minutes, in which period
they had ridden somewhat more than four miles, the edge of the moon began
to appear above the horizon, and her light showed them well nigh another
mile on the road before them. Still no carriage was in sight, and the groom
exclaimed, "Dang it, Mr. Atkinson, we must spur on, or she will get home
before we catch her."
It is impossible to run after any thing without feeling some of the
eagerness of the fox-hound, and it is not to be denied that Mr. Atkinson
shared in some degree in the impetuous spirit of the chase with the groom.
He said nothing about it, indeed; but he made his spurs mark his horse's
sides, and on they went up the opposite slope at a quicker pace than ever.
From the top was a very considerable descent into the bottom of the valley,
in which Hartwell is situated; but the moon had not yet risen high enough
to illuminate more than half the scene, and darkness, doubly dark, seemed
to have gathered over the low grounds beneath the eyes of the two horsemen.
Mr. Atkinson thought he perceived some large object below, moving on
towards Hartwell; but he could not be sure of it till he had descended some
way down the hill, when the carriage of Mrs. Hazleton, mounting a little
rise into the moonlight, became plainly visible to the eye. The groom took
off his cap and waved it, saying, "Tally ho!" but neither he nor his
companion paused in their rapid course, but went thundering down at the
risk of their necks, and of their horses' knees. The carriage moved slowly;
the pursuers went very fast: and at the end of about four minutes they had
reached and passed the two mounted men-servants, who, as customary in those
days, rode behind the vehicle. Robberies on the highway were by no means
uncommon; so that it was the custom for the attendants upon a carriage to
travel armed, and Mrs. Hazleton's two men instantly laid their hands upon
the holsters of their pistols, when those too rapid riders passed them at
such a furious pace. Mr. Atkinson, however, was not a man to be easily
frightened from anything he undertook, and wheeling his horse sharply when
in a little advance of the coachman, he exclaimed, "In the King's name I
command you to stop. I am James Atkinson, high constable of Hartwell. You
know me, sir; and I command you in the King's name to stop!"
"Why, Master Atkinson, what is all this about?" cried the coachman. "There
is nobody but Mrs. Hazleton here. Don't you know the carriage?"
"Quite well," replied Mr. Atkinson; "but you hear what I say, and will
disobey at your peril. John, ride round to the other side, while I speak to
the lady here."
Now Mrs. Hazleton had heard the whole of this conversation, and had there
been sufficient light, Mr. Atkinson, whose eye was turned towards where she
sat, would have seen her turn deadly pale. It might naturally be supposed
that in any ordinary circumstances she would have directed her first
attention to the side from which the sounds proceeded; but so far from that
being the case, she instantly put her hand in her pocket, and was almost in
the act of throwing something into the road, when John the groom presented
himself at the window, and she stopped suddenly.
"What is it, Mr. Atkinson?" she exclaimed, turning to the other window, and
speaking in a tone of high indignation. "Why do you presume to stop my
carriage on the King's highway?"
"Because I am ordered, Madam, by lawful authority, so to do," replied Mr.
Atkinson. "I am sorry, Madam, to tell you that you must consider yourself
as a prisoner."
Mrs. Hazleton would fain have asked upon what charge; but she did not dare,
and for a moment strength and courage failed her. It was but for a moment,
however, and in the next she exclaimed in a loud and more imperious tone
than ever, "This is a pretence for robbery or insult. Drive on, coachman.
Mathew--Rogerson--clear the way!"
She reckoned wrongly, however, if she counted upon any great zeal in her
servants. The two men hesitated; for the King's name was a tower of
strength which they did not at all like to assail. Their mistress repeated
her order in an angry tone, and one of them, with habitual deference to her
commands, went so far as to cock the pistol which he now held in his hand;
but at that moment the adverse party received an accession of strength
which rendered all assistance hopeless. The other two servants of Sir
Philip Hastings came down the hill at full speed, and a gentleman, followed
by a servant, rode up from the side of Hartwell, and addressed Mr. Atkinson
by his name.
"Ah, Mr. Marlow!" said Mr. Atkinson. "You come at a very melancholy moment,
sir, and to witness a very unpleasant scene; but, nevertheless, I must
require your assistance, sir, as this lady seems inclined to resist the
law."
"What is the matter?" asked Marlow. "I hope there is no mistake here. If I
see rightly this is Mrs. Hazleton's carriage. What is she charged with?"
"Murder, sir," replied Mr. Atkinson, who had been a little irritated by the
lady's resistance, and spoke more plainly than he might otherwise have
done. "The murder of Lady Hastings by poison."
It was spoken. She heard the words clearly and distinctly. She had been
detected. Some small oversight--some accidental circumstance--some
precaution forgotten--some accidental word, or gesture, had betrayed the
dark secret, revealed the terrible crime. It was all known to men, as well
as to God, and Mrs. Hazleton sunk back in the carriage overpowered by the
agony of detection.
"Oh, ho; here come the other men," said Mr. Atkinson, as the two servants
of Sir Philip Hastings rode up. "Now, coachman, drive on till I tell you to
stop. You, John, keep close to the other window, and watch it well. I will
take care of this one. The others come behind. Mr. Marlow, you had perhaps
better ride with us for half a mile or so; for I must stop at the house of
Widow Warmington, as I have orders to make a strict search."
"Oh, take me to my own house--take me to my own house," said Mrs. Hazleton,
in a faint tone.
"I dare not venture to do that, Madam," said Mr. Atkinson; "for we are
nearly three miles distant, and accidents might happen by the way which
would defeat the ends of justice. I must have a full search made at the
very first place where I can procure lights. That will be at Mrs.
Warmington's; but she is a friend of your own, Madam, and you will be
received there with all kindness."
Mrs. Hazleton did not reply; and the carriage drove on, Mr. Atkinson
keeping a keen watch upon one window, and the groom riding close to the
other.
A few minutes brought them to the house of the shrewd widow, and the bell
was rung sharply by one of the servants. A woman servant appeared in answer
to the summons, and without asking whether her mistress was at home, or
not, Atkinson took the candle from her hand, saying, "Lend me the light for
a moment. I wish to light Mrs. Hazleton into the house. Now, Madam, will
you please to descend.--John, dismount, and come round here; assist Mrs.
Hazleton to alight, and come with us on her other side."
Mrs. Hazleton saw that she could not double or turn there. She withdrew her
hand from her pocket where she had hitherto held it, resumed her forgotten
air of dignity, and though, to say the truth, she would rather have met her
"dearest foe in heaven," than have entered that house so escorted, she
walked with a firm step and dauntless eye, with the high constable on one
side, and the groom on the other.
"They shall not see me quail," she said to herself. "They shall not see me
quail. I know the worst, and I can meet it--I have had my revenge."
In the mean time, the maid had run in haste to tell her mistress the
marvels of the scene she had just witnessed, and Mrs. Warmington had
gathered enough, without divining the whole, to rejoice her with
anticipated triumph. The arrest of Shanks the attorney on a charge of
conspiracy and forgery, had set going the hundred tongues of Rumor, few of
which had spared the name of Mrs. Hazleton; and Mrs. Warmington, at the
worst, suspected that her dear friend was implicated in the guilt of the
attorney. That, however, was sufficient to give the widow considerable
satisfaction, for she had not forgotten either some coldness and neglect
with which Mrs. Hazleton had treated her for some time, or her impatient
and insolent conduct that morning; and though upon the strength of her
plumpness, and easy manners, people looked upon Mrs. Warmington as a very
good natured person, yet fat people can be very vindictive sometimes.
"Good gracious me, my dear, what is the matter?" exclaimed Mrs. Warmington,
as the prisoner was brought in, while Mr. Atkinson, speaking to those
behind, exclaimed, "Let no one touch or approach the carriage till I
return."
Mrs. Hazleton made no answer to her dear friend's questions, and the high
constable, taking a little step forward, said, "I beg pardon, Mrs.
Warmington, for intruding into your house; but I have been ordered to
apprehend this lady, and to have her person and her carriage strictly
searched, without giving the opportunity for the concealment or destruction
of any thing. It seems to me that Mrs. Hazleton has something bulky in that
left hand pocket. As I do not like to put my hand rudely upon a lady, may I
ask you, Madam, to let me see what that pocket contains?"
Without the slightest hesitation, but with a good deal of curiosity, Mrs.
Warmington advanced at once and took hold of the rich silk brocade of the
prisoner's gown.
"Out, woman!" cried Mrs. Hazleton, with the fire flashing from her eyes;
and she struck her.
But Mrs. Warmington did not quit her hold or her purpose. "Good gracious,
what a termagant!" she exclaimed, and at once thrust her right hand into
the pocket, and drew forth the vial which had been sent by the surgeon to
Lady Hastings.
"Dear me!" exclaimed Mrs. Warmington. "Why, this is the very bottle I saw
you mixing stuff in this morning, when you seemed so angry and vexed at my
coming into the still-room.--No, it isn't the same either; but it was one
very like this, only darker in the color."
"Ha!" said Mr. Atkinson. "Madam, will you have the goodness to put a mark
upon that bottle by which you can know it again?--Scratch it with a diamond
or something."
"Oh, poor I have no diamonds," said Mrs. Warmington. "My dear, will you
lend me that ring?"
Mrs. Hazleton gave her a withering glance, but made no reply; and Marlow
pointed to two peculiar spots in the glass of the bottle, saying, "By those
marks it will be known, so that it cannot be mistaken." His words were
addressed to Mr. Atkinson; for he felt disgusted and sickened by the
heartless and insulting tone of Mrs. Warmington towards her former friend.
At the sound of his voice--for she had not yet looked at him--Mrs. Hazleton
started and looked round. It is not possible to tell the feelings which
affected her heart at that moment, or to picture with the pen the varied
expressions, all terrible, which swept over her beautiful countenance like
a storm. She remembered how she had loved him. Perhaps at that moment she
knew for the first time how much she had loved him. She felt too, how
strongly love and hate had been mingled together by the fiery alchemy of
disappointment, as veins of incongruous metals have been mixed by the great
convulsions of the early earth. She felt too, at that moment, that it was
this love and this hate which had been the cause of her deepest crimes, and
all their consequences--the awful situation in which she there stood, the
lingering tortures of imprisonment, the agonies of trial, and the bitter
consummation of the scaffold.
"Oh, Marlow, Marlow," she cried--in a tone for the first time
sorrowful--"to see you mingling in these acts!"
"I have nothing to do with the present business, Mrs. Hazleton," replied
Marlow, "but I am bound to say that in consequence of information I have
procured, it would have been my duty to have caused your apprehension upon
other charges, had not this, of which I know nothing, been preferred
against you. All is discovered, madam; all is known. With a slight clue, at
first, I have pursued the intricate labyrinth of your conduct for the last
two years to its conclusion, and every thing has been made plain as day."
"You, Marlow, you?" cried Mrs. Hazleton, fixing her eyes steadfastly upon
him, and then adding, as he bowed his head in token of assent, "but all is
not known, even to you. You shall know all, however, before I die; and
perhaps to know all may wring your heart, hard though it be. But what am I
talking of?" she continued, her face becoming suddenly suffused with
crimson, and her fine features convulsed with rage. "All is discovered, is
it? And you have done it? What matters it to me, then, whose heart is
wrung--or what becomes of you, or me, or any one? A drop more or less is
nothing in the overflowing well. Why should I struggle longer? Why should I
hide any thing? Why should I fly from this charge to meet another? I did
it--I poisoned her--I put the drug by her bedside. It is all true--I did it
all--I have had my revenge as far as it could be obtained, and now do with
me what you like. But remember, Marlow, remember, if Emily Hastings marries
you, she does it with a mother's curse upon her head--a curse that will
fall upon her heart like a milldew, and wither it for ever--a curse that
will dry up the source of all fond affections, blacken the brightest hours,
and embitter the purest joys--a dying mother's curse! She knows it--she has
heard it--it can never be recalled. I have put that beyond fate. Ha ha! It
is upon you both; and if you venture to unite your unhappy destinies, may
that curse cling to you and blast you for ever."
She spoke with all the vehemence of intense passion, breaking, for the
first time in life, through strong habitual self-control; and when she had
done, she cast herself into a chair, and covered her eyes with her hands.
She wept not; but her whole frame heaved and shivered, with the terrible
emotion that tore her heart.
In the mean time, Marlow and Mrs. Warmington and the high constable spoke
upon it, consulting what was to be done with her. The prison system of
England was at that time as bad as it could be, and those who condemned and
abhorred her the most, were anxious to spare her as long as possible the
horrors of the jail. At length, after many difficulties, and a good deal of
hesitation, Mr. Atkinson agreed, at the suggestion of Mrs. Warmington, to
leave her in the house where she then was, under the charge of a constable
to be sent for from Hartwell. There was a high upper room from which there
was no possibility of escape, with an antechamber in which the constable
could watch, and there he was determined to confine her till she could be
brought before the magistrate on the following day.
"I must have her thoroughly searched in the first place," said Mr.
Atkinson; "for she may have some more of the poison about her, and in her
present state, after all she has confessed, she is just as likely to
swallow it as not. However, Mr. Marlow, you had better, I think, ride on as
fast as possible to see Sir Philip Hastings, and tell him what has occurred
here. If I judge rightly, your presence will be very needful there."
"It will indeed," said Marlow, a sudden vague apprehension of he knew not
what, seizing upon him; "God grant I have not tarried too long already;"
and quitting the room, he sprang upon his horse's back again.
FOOTNOTES:
[2] Continued from page 327.
TWO SONNETS.
WRITTEN FOR THE INTERNATIONAL MONTHLY MAGAZINE.
TRUTH.
For constant truth my aching spirit yearns,
And finds no comfort in a glorious cheat;
On the firm rock I wish to set my feet,
And look upon the star that changeless burns;
Yon gorgeous clouds that in the sunset glow,
With fire-wrought domes for angel-palace meet,
Beneath my gaze their surface beauties fleet;
With parting light how dull their splendors grow.
I cannot worship vapors, and the hue
That on the dove's neck flickers, as it veers,
Bewilders, but not charms me; whilst the blue
Of the clear sky gives comfort 'mid all fears,
And but to think on that unshadowed white,
The angels walk in, makes my dark path bright.
THE FUTURE.
Eternal sunshine withers; constant light
Would make the beauty of the world look wan;
The storm that sleeps with dark'ning terror on,
Leaves verdant freshness where it seemed to blight;
Most dreary is the land where comes no night,
For there the sun is chill, and slowly drawn
Round the horizon, spreads a sickly dawn,
No promise of a day more warm and bright.
Bless then the clouds and darkness, for we can
Discern with awe through them what angel faces
Watch and direct, and from their holy places
Smile with sublime benignity on man;
And dearly cherish sickness, pain, and sorrow,
As gloomy heralds of a bright to-morrow.
V.
THE COUNT MONTE-LEONE: OR, THE SPY IN SOCIETY.[3]
TRANSLATED FOR THE INTERNATIONAL MONTHLY MAGAZINE FROM THE FRENCH OF H. DE.
ST. GEORGES.
VIII.--THE GARRET.
Half demented, Monte-Leone left the Duke's Hotel. His existence had become
a terrible dream, a hideous nightmare, every hour producing a new terror
and surprise. D'Harcourt was gone. He went to find Von Apsberg. "He at
least will speak. He will say something about this atrocious accusation. He
will explain the meaning of the perfidious reply of the chief of police. If
he repeated this atrocious calumny, if he persisted in thinking him guilty,
his heart would be open to Monte-Leone's blows. He would at least crush and
bury one of his enemies."
A new misfortune awaited him. The doctor was not to be found. The police
had occupied the house at the time that the Vicomte was being arrested. The
doctor had beyond a doubt been previously informed of their coming and
escaped, but his papers were seized. All the archives and documents of
Carbonarism fell into the hands of M. H----. One might have said some evil
genius guided the police and led them in their various examinations into
the invisible mines of their prey. Furniture, drawers, and all were
examined. Count Monte-Leone, when he heard of the disappearance of the
Doctor and of the seizure of his papers, felt an increase of rage. The
discovery of the archives ruined for a long time, if not for ever, the
prospects of the work to which Monte-Leone had consecrated his life. The
flight of Matheus also deprived him of any means of extricating himself
from the cloud of mystery which surrounded him, and made futile any hope of
vengeance. Taddeo alone remained, and he was protected by the oath he had
taken to the Marquise. One other deception yet awaited him. A devoted
member of the Carbonari, on the next day, came to Monte-Leone's house and
informed the Count that on the day after the Vicomte's arrest and the
escape of Matheus, a similar course had been adopted against Rovero, who
was indebted for his liberty only to information from Signor Pignana on the
night before the coming of the police. A note from Aminta told Monte-Leone
of the disappearance of Rovero. The Count was then completely at sea, and
he was abandoned by all to a horrible imputation which he could neither
avenge nor dispute. He could, therefore, only suffer and bide his time.
Resignation, doubt, and delay, were terrible punishments to his energetic
and imperative character. One hope remained, which, if realized, would
enable him to contradict all the imputations on his honor. This was, that
he would be able to share the fate of his comrades, not of Von Apsberg and
Taddeo, who had escaped, but of those who languished in the cells of _la
Force_ and the _Conciergerie_. The Count knew that the police, from the
perusal of the archives, must be aware of his position, and awaited hourly
and daily his arrest. This did not take place, though he perpetually
received anonymous letters of the most perplexing and embarrassing
character, charging him, in the grossest terms of the language, with being
a spy and a traitor to the association to which he had pledged his life and
his honor. He resolved at last to play a desperate game--to exhibit an
unheard of energy and power. He repudiated the disdainful impunity which
apparently was inflicted on him intentionally. He surrendered himself to
the police....
While Count Monte-Leone acted thus courageously, the following scene took
place in a hotel whither our readers have been previously taken.
A man apparently about thirty years old sat pale and downcast at a table,
writing with extreme rapidity. Occasionally he rested his weary head on his
hand, and his eyes wandered across the sky which he saw through a
trap-window, so usual in that room of houses known as the garret.[4] He
then glanced on the paper, and wrote down the inspirations he seemed to
have evoked from the abode of angels. He was the occupant of a garret,
which, though small, seemed so disguised by taste and luxury that the
narrow abode appeared even luxurious. The table at which the writer sat was
of Buhl, and was ornamented by vases of Sevres ware. The wooden bedstead
was hidden by a silken coverlet, and a large arm-chair occupied a great
portion of the room. On the small chimney-piece of varnished stone was a
china vase filled with magnificent flowers from hot-houses, above which
arose a superb camelia. A curtain of blue shut out the glare of the sun. It
was easy to see that female taste had presided over the arrangements of
this room. A beautiful woman really had done so. The inmate of the room was
Doctor von Apsberg. The girl of whom we have spoken was Marie d'Harcourt.
On the day of René's arrest, a fortnight before the one we write of, the
Doctor was alone when the secret panel was opened. Pignana suddenly
appeared before the Doctor and told him that his house as well as the
Doctor's was surrounded by suspicious looking people. Pignana therefore
advised him to go at once. Von Apsberg was about to go to his bureau and
take possession of his papers. The police did not allow him time to do so;
they knocked at that very moment at the door and entered the house before
Von Apsberg had time to leave. It will be remembered that the studio of
the Doctor in which the archives were kept, was in the third story of the
house. Matheus was, therefore, forced to fly through the opening, into
Pignana's house, and with his ear to the wall listened to the noise made by
the police, with thankfulness for the secret passage. He heard a deep voice
say, "If your Jacobin Doctor has escaped, you shall answer for it." This
was said to Mlle. Crepineau. The good maiden swore the Doctor was absent,
as she thought, or feigned to think. Another voice, with a deep southern
accent, said the following words, which the young Doctor heard with
surprise and fear:
"The one you seek is gone. If, though, you would find him, press that
copper nail which you see on the third row of books. You will find the
means of his escape into the next house."
A cry was heard from the interior of the room. A female voice thus spoke to
the man who had just spoken: "Señor Muñez, it is abominable for you thus to
betray the poor fellows. You are a bad and heartless man."
When the Doctor heard thus revealed the secret of his retreat, he had
pushed through the inner door, and it was well he did, for it gave him time
to leave the room. The door of the library offered but a feeble resistance,
which was soon overcome, and Pignana's house was carefully entered and
searched.
He at once conceived an idea of a plan of escape. He said to Pignana, "Not
a word; but follow me." Von Apsberg, accompanied by Pignana, left the place
where they were concealed, went into the yard, and proceeded to a shed
which was separated from his house by a few badly joined planks. One of
these he removed, passed through the opening, and stood in an outhouse
where he remembered he had once made some anatomical inquiries.
"But you are going back," said Pignana, "you will again fall in the hands
of the enemy."
"You would be a bad general, Pignana," said Von Apsberg; "this is a common
_ruse de guerre_, and is known as a counter-march. These places have been
explored by the enemy, and consequently they will return no more. While the
agents are looking where we are not, we will return where they have been."
When night came, and at this time of the year it was at four o'clock,
Pignana told his companion of his plan. He purposed to scale the wall of
the yard by means of the trellices of the vines. When once on the other
side they would be in the garden of the Duke d'Harcourt, from which the
young physician expected to go to the hotel to obtain protection from the
Vicomte. The execution of this plan was easy for one as thin as d'Harcourt,
but was impracticable to a person with an abdomen like Pignana. As soon as
night had come, the latter said to Von Apsberg, "Go through the air,
Doctor, if you can. I intend to adopt a more earthly route--through the
door of the house, even if, much to Mlle. Crepineau's terror, I have the
audacity to assume the guise of the suicide, and terrify her into opening
the door for me. Besides, I am but slightly compromised, and will extricate
myself. Adieu, then, Doctor," said he, "and good luck to you amid the
clouds!" Von Apsberg clasped his hand, hurried from his retreat, ascended
the wall, passed it, and a few minutes after was in the Duke's garden.
Taking advantage of the darkness he went to the hotel, every window of
which, to his surprise, he found closed. He went without being seen to the
door of the reception rooms on the ground floor. The window had not been
shut since the arrest of the Vicomte. The Doctor entered it. At the back of
this room was a boudoir à la Louis XIV., of rare elegance, and appropriated
to Marie d'Harcourt. Amid the darkness he heard a strange sound of sighs
and sobs. The Doctor drew near, expecting that there was some pain for him
to soothe. "Who is there?" said the Duke d'Harcourt.
"It is I, my lord, Doctor Matheus."
"You here, sir!" said the Duke; "they told me that, like my unfortunate
son, you were arrested; and for the same offence."
"What say you, sir?" said Von Apsberg, with deep distress; "René, dear
René, arrested?"
"Yes, sir," said the old Duke; "arrested and torn from his father's arms.
Yet the blow did not overwhelm me. This, though, will take place ere long,
and the executioner's axe will strike father and son at once."
A footman appeared with lights, and the Doctor saw the whole family
weeping. His head rested on Marie's shoulder, and the long white hair of
the old man was mingled with the young girl's dark locks, and seemed like
the silvery light of the moon resting on her brown hair. The Duke saw at a
glance how the Doctor participated in all his sorrows, and how the fate of
his son lacerated the heart of his visitor. He gave his hand to the Doctor.
"I forgive you," said he, "the part you have had in my son's error, when I
remember how you love him, and the care you have taken of Marie."
"Alas! Monsieur," said Von Apsberg; "that duty I can discharge no longer.
The fate of René must be mine, to-morrow, to-day, in a few moments--for I
came to seek for concealment. If, though, he has lost his liberty; if all
his plans are destroyed, why should I any longer contend against
misfortune? Adieu, Duke! I will rejoin René, share his misfortune, and
defend his life; if not against men, at least against the cruel disease
which menaces his career."
As she heard these words, the cheeks of Marie d'Harcourt became pale as
marble, and she said, in tones of deep distress, "Father, will you suffer
him to go thus?"
Von Apsberg looked at her with trouble and surprise.
"No, my child," said the Duke, "the Doctor will not leave us; and we will
protect him." Von Apsberg then told the bold means by which he had entered
the house.
"No one saw," said the Duke, "_how_ you came hither?"
"No one."
"There is no suspicion?"
"None."
Assisted by Marie, the Duke contrived a plan for an impenetrable asylum for
the Doctor. In the right wing of the hotel were many rooms intended for
servants, and uninhabited; for, since the death of his other sons, the Duke
had greatly reduced his household. In one of these rooms, carefully decked
and furnished, by Marie's care, Doctor Matheus was fixed. The old secretary
of the Duke d'Harcourt alone was in the secret, and this worthy man took
charge of the food of the Doctor, who saw no one except Marie and her
father. The young girl gradually became bolder, and touched with pity at
the loneliness of the prisoner, obeyed the dictates of her own heart and
went frequently to the young Doctor's room to be sure that he was in want
of nothing. Like a consoling angel, she came with her celestial presence to
adorn the captive's retreat, and restore something of happiness to his
heart. Von Apsberg, who had been for some days left alone, had reflected
deeply on his political opinions and on their consequences. The immense
difference between all old principles and the innovating ideas of
Carbonarism caused him to doubt the triumph of the latter; the great
discouragement which Monte-Leone's _apparent treason_ had produced, and the
fate of his associates, produced a deep impression on him. Amid all these
gloomy thoughts, one fresh and prominent idea reinvigorated his mind, and
gave him ineffable joy.
Without wishing to analyze his feelings towards Marie, the Doctor was under
their influence. He did not dream of ever possessing that aristocratic
heart from which he was separated by rank, birth, and fortune. The heart of
man, nevertheless, is so constituted, that the most honest and loyal man is
never exempt from a shadow of egotism. Perhaps, therefore, in the Doctor's
mind there was a feeble hope of approaching that class whose position he so
envied. Let this be as it may, abandoning himself to the luxury of seeing
always by his side this beautiful creature, whose health his care had
already revived, the Doctor blessed his captivity, and lived in anxious
expectation of the hours when Marie used to visit him. Von Apsberg
possessed that Platonic heart which enabled him to look on Marie as a
creature of pure poetry. He entertained so respectful a tenderness for the
young girl, that he distrusted her no more than she did him.
On the day we found the Doctor writing in his retreat with such ardor, he
was writing out a _regime_ for his patient. He told her what to do, and, as
if gifted with prescience, provided for her future life.
"If," said he, "I be discovered--if the future have in reserve for the
heiress d'Harcourt"--and his heart felt as if a sharp iron had transfixed
it--"if a noble marriage separate me from her; at least in this painful
study of her health she will be able to contend against her family disease,
and perhaps will be indebted to me for life, happy and unsuffering." The
idea seemed too much for the strength of the young physician as he saw thus
fade before him all hope of a union with Marie. Steps just then were heard
outside his room just as he was concluding the sad _memoire_ we have spoken
of.
The Doctor, in obedience to the request of his host, answered no knock, and
gave no evidence of life, except at a concerted signal known only to three
persons--the Duke, his daughter, and D'Arbel. Therefore he listened. The
person who advanced paused for a time before his door, and then left
rapidly as it had come. Von Apsberg, however, by means of that lover's
intuition, guessed who it was. The eyes of his heart pierced the opacity of
the door, to enable him to admire the charming angel who had alighted at
his door and flown away. Before this angel had disappeared from the long
corridor which led to the Doctor's room, the door was opened, and he paused
to glance at the young girl who was ready to escape. Marie returned to the
Doctor, and advanced slowly towards him.
"Ah! Monsieur," said she to Matheus, "it is wrong in you not to keep your
promise better. You promised my father never to open the door without a
signal--"
"Why then, Mademoiselle, did you not give the signal?"
"I did not come to see you," said Marie; "but I brought you books and
flowers. I am so afraid you will grow weary in this little room, where you
are always alone and sad."
As she spoke, the angel girl went to the Doctor's room, as she would have
done to her brother's, without any hesitation or trouble. She was robed in
innocence; and if her heart beat a little louder than usual then, the child
attributed it entirely to the rapidity with which she had ascended the
stairs. The Doctor took the books and flowers which she had placed at his
door, and put them in the vase on the mantle. He was glad to be able to
look away from Marie's face, for he felt that his countenance told all he
thought.
"I took the most amusing books from my little library," said she. "One
learned as you are, always immersed in study, may not approve of my choice.
Perhaps though, Monsieur, as you read them you will think of your
patient--"
"Ah! I do so always," said Von Apsberg. "I was thinking of you when you
came."
"You were writing," said Marie, as she looked at the sheet Von Apsberg
pointed out to her.
"Ah! Mademoiselle, I wrote for you. You must follow one rule of conduct in
relation to your health, when you are separated from your father--when you
are married."
"Married!" said Mlle. d'Harcourt, and she grew pale. "I never thought of
being married."
"But marry you must. You will marry rich; and, Mlle., a husband worthy of
you. Ere long you will have many suitors."
"Monsieur," said the girl, "our house now is hung with mourning. The life
of my brother is in danger, and my health, as you said, is frail and
feeble. All this you know is altogether contradictory to what you say. As
for myself," said she, with an emotion she experienced for the first time,
"I am happy as I now am, and desire no other position, I must leave you,
though," added she: "for now my father must have come from the prison where
he obtained leave to visit my brother. I am anxious to hear from him. The
Duke and myself will soon tell you about him."
Light as a vapor, rapid as a cloud, the young girl left the Doctor's room,
to his eyes radiant with the lustre she left behind her.
IX.--THE CONCIERGERIE.
Eight days after the conversation between Von Apsberg and Marie, the Doctor
heard a knock at his door. The latter was reading over for the twentieth
time one of the books which had been brought him. This book was Telemachus,
the poetical romance one might have fancied Homer himself had dreamed of,
and which Virgil and Ovid had written--the book in which morals are
enwrapped in so dense a covering of flowers, that a reader often refuses to
glance at the serious part of the work, and pays attention only to the
graceful superficies. Von Apsberg, however, read the book, not for its own
sake, but for the sake of her who had given it to him. Marie had read every
page, and her hands had turned over every leaf. This fact gave the history
of the son of Ulysses an immense value in the eyes of the young Doctor, and
made Telemachus, not Fenelon's, but Marie d'Harcourt's book. The knock at
the Doctor's door was followed by the concerted signal. He opened it, and
saw the Duke's old secretary. "Monsieur," said he, "as the Duke is absent,
I am come to say that Mlle. Marie is ill. I know your care will be useful.
She does not, though, send for you, being too feeble to come up stairs, and
afraid to ask you to come down."
"Monsieur d'Arbel, let no one into the hotel; and tell Mlle. I will visit
her.
"She will see you, Monsieur, in the window next to the drawing-room. I will
send the servants out of the way, so that you can see Mlle. Marie without
fear of discovery."
All the Secretary's arrangements were carried out, and a few minutes after
Matheus waited on his fair patient. She was ill. Since her conversation
with the Doctor, her health had really changed. Something mental seemed to
influence it. Her complexion, sullied by the tears she had shed since her
brother's arrest, was faded, and a flush was visible on her cheeks alone.
These symptoms made the Doctor unhappy. He, therefore, approached Marie
with great uneasiness.
She said: "How kind you are, Doctor, to risk your liberty: I could not
otherwise have seen you. I have not strength enough."
"I will try soon to confer it on you, if God grants me power to attend to
you."
"I shall die," said she with an anxious voice, which penetrated the
Doctor's very heart, "if you cannot."
"For your sake," said Matheus, "I will defend my liberty by every means in
my power, for I wish to restore your health, and preserve an existence
indispensable to your father's happiness."
"How I suffer," said Marie, placing her hand on her snowy brow. "I have an
intense pain, which passes from temple to temple, and gives me much
suffering."
"Do you sleep well?" asked Matheus.
"No, no, for many days I have not slept, or if I have, phantoms have
flitted across my slumbers." She blushed as she spoke. This the Doctor did
not see, for he was searching out a remedy.
"Well," said he, "I think we must use a remedy which has hitherto
succeeded. Magnetism will enable you to sleep, and perhaps will soothe your
sufferings." Rising, then, he placed his hand on the patient's brow, as he
had done a few months before when the Marquise had experienced such good
effects from it. He placed his hands on the young girl's temples, and then
made passes across her face, the result of which was that she sank softly
to sleep. The state of somnambulism ensued, and Marie unfolded the
condition of her heart to the young physician. While he was thus engaged
the Duke entered.
"You here, Doctor?" said he; "how imprudent!"
"_She_ was suffering," said the physician; "now she sleeps." The Duke
thanked Von Apsberg for his care, but seemed to centre all his hope in the
young Doctor, as the sailor devotes himself to the lord of storms and
waves. Now, though, every word the Duke said seemed a reproach. He
shuddered as he thought of the confessions of Mlle. d'Harcourt, and asked
himself if he participated in her sentiments or had suffered her to divine
his. All his delicacy and loyalty revolted from the idea that this
confession would cost the unfortunate father the life of his daughter.[5]
Von Apsberg saw that henceforth it would be impossible for him to remain
longer at the Duke's hotel, and that it would be criminal to remain with
one the secret thoughts of whom he knew. He, therefore, made up his mind to
speak to the Duke. Just then Marie, who had been for some time free from
any magnetic influence, awoke calm and smiling. "How deliciously I have
slept," said she; "how well I am!"
The Duke kissed her affectionately. He said, "All this you owe to the
Doctor; and I thank heaven amid our misfortunes that he has been preserved
to us. I am glad I have been able to rescue him from his persecutors, and
preserve my daughter's health by means of his own watchful care."
Marie gave the Doctor her hand. The young girl did not remember what she
had said while she slept. This slumber of the heart, however, could not
last, and the young Doctor knew it. He resolved on the painful sacrifice
which, but for the waking of his patient, he would at once have
communicated to the Prince.
The reflections of the night confirmed the Doctor in the course he had
resolved to adopt. On the next day he put on a long cloak, which disguised
his stature, and went to the room of the Duke, after having also put on a
wig which René often wore when he visited Matheus, and which the Duke had
sent for to enable him in case of a surprise to leave unrecognized.
The distress of the Duke at the Vicomte's imprisonment increased every day.
He had only once been able to reach his son, and had contrived to inspire
the captive with hopes of liberty he was far from entertaining himself. The
Vicomte was actively watched, and his most trifling actions were observed.
Ever alone in the sad cell in which he had been confined, ennui and despair
took possession of him, and his brilliant mind, to which mirth and activity
had been indispensable, became downcast and miserable. Since the visit of
his father, also, his delicate chest had begun to suffer. What the Doctor
especially apprehended for his friend was the possibility of cold and
dampness producing a dangerous irritation of the respiratory organs. This
took place; for nothing could be more humid and icy than the cell of René.
He had a dry and incessant cough. The keepers paid no attention to it, and
the keeper of the Conciergerie treated it as a simple cold of no
importance. The Vicomte was unwilling to inform his father of it lest he
should be uneasy, and the mere indisposition rapidly became a serious and
terrible disease. This was the state of things when Von Apsberg presented
himself before the Duke. "What is the matter?" said the old man. "Are you
discovered and forced to leave us?"
"Duke," said the Doctor, "let me first express my deepest thanks for your
generous hospitality. Let me tell you how much your kindness has soothed
the cruel suffering to which I have been subjected day and night for three
weeks. I would, had it not been for your kindness, have weeks ago shared
the captivity of René; and the hope I entertained of being of use to your
daughter, alone prevented me from surrendering myself to despair at the
prospect of a crushed and prospectless life, when I saw my brethren
arrested in consequence of one whom I had always looked on as a devoted
friend."
"Do not speak to me of that man," said the Duke in a terrible tone, "for my
son, in my presence, charged him with having betrayed him."
"I have spoken to you of my gratitude," said the Doctor, "that you might
not doubt it now at our separation."
"What danger now menaces you?" said the Duke, "why do you leave us?"
"To avoid being ungrateful," said Von Apsberg. "That you may never accuse
your guest of selfishness, and that he may always deserve the esteem with
which you honor him."
"What is the meaning of this mysterious language?"
"Grant me," said the young physician, with a trembling voice, "the boon of
being permitted to keep the cause of my departure a secret. You would be as
sorry to hear as I would be to tell you."
"No," said the old man, "I will not consent to this. You shall not quit the
house which shelters you from your enemies: no, you shall not. Ah! sir,"
continued the Duke, "if you will not remain for your own sake do so for
mine, for you alone have preserved the life of my daughter thus far." The
Doctor said, as he gave a paper to the Duke: "Here is the result of my
study, in which I have traced out all the means known to science calculated
to strengthen the health of your daughter, and to parry the dangers which
menace her."
"Doctor," said the Duke, "do not distress me by leaving the hotel. Do not
make me perpetually miserable, Doctor, I am already unfortunate enough."
"Well," said the young man, unable to resist his prayers any longer, "you
shall know what forces me to go, and shall yourself judge of my duty." He
fell at the Duke's feet, and told him all he had learned during Marie's
slumber, his combats with himself, and his resolution.
"You are an honest man," said the Duke, with an expression of poignant
grief, and lifting him up: "but I am a most unfortunate father."
D'Asbel just then came in with a letter.
"From my son," said the Duke, and he opened it. The features of the old man
assumed, as he read, such an expression of terror, that Von Apsberg and the
Secretary advanced towards him and sustained him, for he seemed ready to
faint. "Read," said he, with a voice half indistinct, and he gave the
Doctor the letter. It was as follows:
"MY DEAR FATHER:--I can conceal no longer that I am dying. One man alone,
who has often soothed me by his care and advice, can now save me. This is
Von Apsberg. I cannot, though, ask him to accompany you, for he would
endanger his own liberty. Come, then, dear father, to see me for the last
time."
"Let us go, sir," said the Doctor. "Let us not delay a minute, for in an
hour--it may be too late."
"But you expose your life, Doctor, by going among your enemies," said the
Duke.
"But I will save his," said Von Apsberg. The Duke rushed into his arms.
Half an hour afterwards two men entered the Conciergerie. They were the
Vicomte's father and an English doctor whom the Duke brought to see his
son. The Director of the prison did not dare to refuse a father and
physician permission to see a sick son and patient. With the turnkeys they
passed an iron grate, beyond which was seen a vaulted passage, which, in
the darkness, seemed interminable. On the inner side of the grate sat a
morose looking man, whom nature seemed to have created exclusively to live
in one of these earthly hells. His only duty was to open and shut the
grate, to which he seemed as firmly attached as one of its own bars. His
duty was not without danger, for in case of a mutiny, the Cerberus had
orders to throw on the outside the heavy key he was intrusted with, and
thus expose himself, without means of escape, to the rage of the criminals.
They showed this man their pass. The key turned in the lock, and the grate
permitted them to enter. It then swung to, filling the vaulted passage with
its clash. Near this was a dark room, in which were several dark-browed
jailers and gend'armes.
The Duke and the Doctor were minutely examined. One of them, whose features
hidden by a dirty cap might recall one of the persons of this history, left
the group, opened the grate, and disappeared rapidly, just as a new jailer
guided the visitors to a long corridor in one of the cells, on opening
which was the Vicomte D'Harcourt. On a miserable pallet, in a kind of dark
cellar, into which the day seemed to penetrate reluctantly, through a
grated window, was René D'Harcourt, the last hope of an illustrious house,
without air or any of the attentions his situation demanded. The Duke wept
to see him. René, with hollow cheeks, and eyes sparkling with a burning
fever, arose with pain and extended his arms to his father, who embraced
him tenderly.
Fifteen days had expanded his disease, the germs of which had long slept in
his system. The bad air and icy dew, amid which he lived, the absence of
constant and vigilant care, in such cases so indispensable, had, as it
were, conspired against him. A violent and dry cough every moment burst
from his chest, and at every access his strength seemed more and more
feeble. Had he sooner informed his father of his condition, beyond doubt,
some active remedy would have been used, not for pity's sake, for at that
time little was shown to conspirators, but from fear of the liberal press,
whose censure the administration dreaded. René, however, was too disdainful
of the persons he called his executioners to ask any favors. The physician
of the prison, as we have said, was satisfied with ordering a few trifling
palliatives. The Vicomte was dying without his even being aware of it. When
the turnkey had introduced the Duke and the Englishman he left, telling
them that in a few minutes he would return. Then the Vicomte saw that a
stranger was with his father. The latter approached, and taking the young
man's hand pressed it to his heart with an affection which told the
prisoner who visited him.
"Von Apsberg! Ah! father, I knew he would come."
"Be silent, dear René; be silent," said the Doctor, "for your sake and
mine. Forget that I am your friend, and remember me only as a doctor. Tell
me how you suffer. Speak quick, for time is precious. Tell me nothing--and
do not exhaust yourself in describing--what is plain enough, I am sorry to
say. I see, I read in your eyes, what is your condition."
To hide his tears Von Apsberg looked away. A father's heart though could
not be deceived, and the Duke had seen the Doctor's tears. The old man
said, "Save, Doctor, save my son."
Von Apsberg made an effort to surmount the grief which overcame him.
"We will save him," said he, calmly; "there is a remedy for such cases,
which in a few hours will terminate the progress of the malady, and enable
us to adopt other means. He took a card from his pocket and wrote a
prescription, which he ordered to be sent immediately to the nearest
apothecary. He yet had the card in his hand when the door of the cell was
violently thrown open, and several men accompanied by gend'armes rushed in
and seized the Doctor.
"Arrest him," said an officer. "It is he, the German physician whom we have
so long sought for. He has been recognized." Nothing could equal the effect
of this scene. The Vicomte made useless attempts to leave his bed and
assist his friend. The Duke was pale and agitated; and Von Apsberg, calm
and resigned, gave himself up to the men who surrounded him. In anxiety for
René he had forgotten himself.
"Gentlemen," said he, "you may do as you please with me, but, for heaven's
sake, let me remain a few moments with this young man, and one of you hurry
for this prescription I have written."
"A paper," said the principal agent with joy, when he saw what Von Apsberg
had in his hand. "It is, perhaps, a plan of escape. This must be taken to
the Director for the _Procureur du Roi_. Another scheme, perhaps, of the
Jacobin has come to light----" He put the paper in his huge pocket.
"Take this man away, said he to the gens d'armes, and do not let him speak
a word to the prisoner." Rushing on Von Apsberg like famished wolves, they
bore him away, and left the Duke alone with his son. The shock had done the
prisoner much injury. He sunk back on his bed with a violent cough, and
felt a mortal coldness glide over his frame and chill his blood.
"A doctor, a doctor," said the Duke, rushing towards the door. "A
physician, for heaven's sake. My son is dying." The door did not close. The
poor father leaning over his child pressed his lips to his burning brow,
and then supported his head, from time to time attempting to warm his icy
hands with his breath. He continued to call in heaven's name for a
physician.
Half an hour after Von Apsberg's arrest, and while the Duke yet pressed his
son's inanimate body, three men appeared in the room. They were the
Director, Doctor, and Jailer of the prison.
"Monsieur," said the Duke to the Director, rising to his full stature, and
with a tone of painful solemnity, "you are an accomplice in a great crime,
and before the country and king, I, Duke d'Harcourt, peer of France, and
grand cordon of the Saint Esprit, will accuse you."
"What mean you, sir?" said the Director, with a terror he could not
conceal. "Of what do you complain?"
"That you have placed in a cell, without air and light, as if he were
sentenced to death, a man against whom there is now a mere suspicion; for
he has not been tried. I complain that you have wrested from me a physician
I have brought hither to attend to my son--and that with horrible brutality
you have taken possession of a prescription for a remedy which might have
preserved him, and have by this means deprived him of life."
The Duke spoke but too truly, for a kind of suffocation took possession of
the young man. His breast seemed oppressed, and every sign of death was
visible.
The Director muttered some apology in defence of himself, but the Duke
said, "Not another word here, sir; accomplish your task in peace; or at
least, give me back the paper. It is the life of my son----"
As the Director was about to go in person for it, the Doctor called him
back and pointed to the patient over whose countenance death began to
steal. He said, "It is too late!"
The Vicomte arose with difficulty and said, "Father, forgive me the wrong I
have done. Forgive me, as I forgive others. No, no, not so; for there is
one person I cannot forgive!" He looked around with an expression of
intense hatred and contempt. "He has ruined and destroyed me, and all of
us; he has delivered us to our enemies,--_that_ man, hear all of you, is
Count Monte-Leone!" His head sank on his breast, and his last breath
mingled with the kisses of his father.
"I have no son!" said the old man in despair; and he sank by the side of
the child God had taken away from him.
X.--THE CONFESSION.
As we have seen in a previous chapter, Count Monte-Leone went to the
Prefect of Police to surrender himself to his enemies. The Count did not
hesitate, for he preferred a sudden and cruel death to the intolerable life
he now led. The Prefect was as civil as possible, and altogether different
from what he would have been three days before to a person pointed out as
one of the agents. The reason was, that after the energetic protestation of
the Count in the presence of M. H---- at the Duke d'Harcourt's, grave
doubts had arisen in the mind of the chief of the political police in
relation to the services said to have been rendered by the Neapolitan.
Making use then of the police itself, and causing the man who said he was
an agent of the Count's to be watched, his conviction of the
non-participation of Monte-Leone in the treachery became almost certain,
and he began to tremble at the idea that he had been made a dupe in this
affair, and at the probable consequences. The first of these was the fear
of ridicule, that powerful instrument against a police; next, the just
recrimination to which the Count might subject them as having slandered
him; and the capital error of having left at liberty the most powerful of
the Carbonari in Europe, under the belief that he was an ally of the
Government--to which he was a mortal foe. All this crowd of faults H----
had committed in his blind confidence, and had led astray the police and
all the agents. Thus uneasy, the Chief of Police saw that but one course of
safety was left him. This was both bold and adroit, for it foresaw danger
and prepared a conductor to turn its thunders aside. H---- went to the
Prefect and owned all. The first anger of the latter having passed away,
the two chiefs saw with terror that they were equally compromised--the one
for acting, and the other for suffering his subordinate to act. They,
therefore, adopted the only course left them, Machiavelian it is true, but
which extricated them from a great difficulty. This course was, to deny all
participation in the malicious reports circulated in relation to the Count,
but to suffer the public to imagine what it pleased, and attribute their
inaction to carelessness for the result, or to the mystery necessary to be
observed in police matters. Count Monte-Leone, too, since the arrest of his
accomplices, and the discovery of his friends, was not greatly to be
feared, especially as he was now repelled by society as a double traitor.
Two things alone disturbed H----. The first was the course of the strange
man who had used the Count's name to unveil so completely the plans of the
conspiracy. He, however, was soon restored to confidence by remembering
that he was now strictly carrying out this man's plans. Besides, in case of
need, there were a thousand methods of securing this man's eternal silence.
As for the pass in Monte-Leone's name, which might be a terrible arm in the
possession of the Count in case he attacked the Government, H----learned
much to his satisfaction, from Salvatori himself, that it had been
destroyed. The Prefect, therefore, did not hesitate to receive the Count.
"Sir," said the latter, "a horrible slander is circulated against me. In
disregard of my character and name I have been charged with being one of
your agents, and beg you to contradict this."
"The Prefect says your honor is above any such suspicion, and I should fear
I injured you even by referring to so idle a tale."
"But one of your principal officers has given credit to this rumor by the
perfidious reply he made a few days since, when the Vicomte d'Harcourt was
arrested."
The Prefect rang his bell and sent for M. H----. When the latter arrived,
he asked him, sternly, if he had seemed to believe that Count Monte-Leone
had any participation in the acts of the Police.
H---- said, "The Count is in error, if he understood me thus. I did not
believe that his self-accusation was true, for I could not realize that one
so exalted in rank as the Count, could be guilty of conspiracy. I had no
idea of insulting him, as he thinks. Were it not likely to give the affair
too much gravity, I would every where repel it."
This amazed the Count. His mind, which seemed to give way beneath so many
blows, had looked on this man's reply as an answer. The object of this
perfidy yet escaped him; and reason and good sense could form no idea of
the motive.
"You see, Count," said the Prefect, "all think you so far above the calumny
of which you complain, that we would not dare even to defend you; the
character of the department makes it impossible for us to mix in
discussions about reputations."
"I have already asked this gentleman," and the Count pointed to M. H----,
"to furnish a striking proof that I am not the creature they say I am. I
now ask you the same favor." The two officials were annoyed. "I am as
guilty as those you have arrested," continued he, "and demand a fate like
that of my associates."
The Prefect said, "I never act except from the orders of a higher
authority, and have none in relation to you. I prefer to think that your
devotion to those you call your associates has caused you to exaggerate
your complicity, and when that is proven you will find us just and stern to
yourself, as we have been to them." The Prefect bowed and returned to his
private office, and the Count left in indescribable agitation. He was
deprived of his last justification, of one he wished to buy at the price of
his life. His rage and despair had no limits. He was to experience a new
shock in the death of Vicomte d'Harcourt, which was circulated through all
Paris. He also heard that the Duke charged him with being the cause of his
death, and with having denounced him.
We will now leave our hero for a few moments, to refer to a terrible event
which at this crisis overwhelmed the Royal family and France with grief.
This circumstance, yet enwrapped in mystery, was the death of the Duke de
Berry. This Prince, the hope of France, expiring in the spring time of life
beneath the dagger of a vulgar assassin; the obscurity which covered the
details of the murder distressed all Europe. There was a general outcry
against secret societies. The one, the chief members of which were now in
prison, was especially thought guilty of having instigated the murder. The
chiefs of the Carbonari _ventas_ saw their chains grow heavier and their
prisons become dungeons. Ober, the banker F----, General A----, and Von
Apsberg, were not spared: their papers were examined, their past life
scrutinized in search of some connection with this odious murder. The trial
of the ruffian was anxiously waited for, in the hope that something would
connect him with Carbonarism. Nothing, however, was found in the whole of
the long and minute examination; and it soon became evident that the crime
had been committed by a fanatic who was isolated, without adherents,
instigators, or accomplices. Thus at least France thought of the result of
the trial. This was the impression produced by the execution of Louvel.
The liberals, who had been for a time terrified by the reports circulated
in relation to their partisans, began to regain their courage, and,
fortified by their acquittal, complained of the calumnies circulated in
relation to them. The first reproach cast on Government, and especially on
the ministry of Decazes, was great injustice towards the Carbonari. The
ministry was accused of having invented a conspiracy and
conspirators--questions of political humanity were mooted--and true or
imaginary tortures, to which the prisoners had been subject, were
recounted. French generosity and pity became interested for the sake of
victims who languished in chains. One voice, though, was heard above all
others, and spoke so distinctly, that it touched every heart and mind. It
reached the very throne, and aroused one of those powerful influences which
truth alone can. This voice was that of the Duke d'Harcourt--a king in
virtue and feeling. His word was a law people of every shade of opinion
listened to, in consequence of the admiration caused by his life and
conduct. The Duke, who was entitled to sympathy from the successive death
of his sons, accused those who had taken the last from him of barbarity. He
told of the death of the Vicomte while suspected of a crime which perhaps
was imaginary; and in the sublime tones of his despair uttered loud charges
against the fallen administration. The new one trembled before a unanimous
sentiment, and sought to win popularity from clemency. This sentiment,
which in Louis XVIII. was innate, his ministers echoed. One by one the
prisons were opened and their sad inmates restored to life and light. The
chief Carbonari were less fortunate than their followers. Their trial
progressed, and though many abortive schemes were discovered, no act was
found. There were ideas, utopias, and social paradoxes, but nothing
positive. F----, B----, Ober and their associates, whose friends acted
busily, were subjected to some months' imprisonment, which, added to their
previous incarceration, seemed to their judges a sufficient punishment for
their hopes, which, though criminal, had never been realized. General A----
was exiled, and Von Apsberg was detained for a long time in the
conciergerie. He was ultimately released. As for Taddeo, all the inquiries
of Aminta and of the Prince de Maulear, who loved him as a son, were vain.
Every day increased their uneasiness on this account, bringing to light the
disappointment of some hope. Thus a year passed....
Early in April, 1821, a man of about forty sat on a bench in a little
garden attached to a modest country abode near Neuilly. The garden was on
the Seine, which was the limit of a kind of town. The man of whom we speak
was almost bent beneath the double weight of grief and suffering. His
features were sharp and thin, his eyes sunken, and his hair, almost white,
gave him the appearance of one far more advanced in age. In this person
prematurely old and wretched, none would have recognized the brilliant and
elegant Count Monte-Leone, who once had been so deservedly admired. A deep
sorrow had crushed his strong constitution--months to him had become
years--and he had suffered all that a mind, richly endowed as his was,
could. Pursued by the atrocious slanders we refer to, he had given way
beneath the blow. In vain had he striven for some time after his useless
visit to the Prefect against them. The hideous monster which pursued him
redoubled its attacks, and cries of reprobation burst from every lip. The
relations and friends of the prisoners reproached him, and adversity seemed
to have seized him with its iron claw. In vain did he protest and call for
proof. All appealed to the circumstances. His many duels made people say in
his favor only this, "_Brave as he is, he is a spy!_" Despair, then, took
possession of him, and he fled from the world which cursed him, and hid
himself. One reason alone restrained him from suicide. This was, that he
knew another life depended on his, and clung to it as the ivy does to the
oak. The Count lived that another might not die. This person was an angel
rather than a woman. It was Aminta. Watching the unfortunate man as a
mother watches a child, braving the public opinion which dishonored him she
adored, Aminta rarely left the Count, whose tears fell on her heart like
burning lava.
The Marquise had purchased an establishment near the house of Monte-Leone,
with whom she passed all her time; for her visits made his desolate heart
more serene. On the day we speak of, the Count sat in the garden, and old
Giacomo advanced towards him, taking care to announce himself with a slight
cough. "Monseigneur," said he, "it is I, your intendant. I am come to speak
to you."
"I have no intendant," said the Count, "a miserable outlaw like myself can
indulge in no such luxury. Do not call me Monseigneur; the title now is
become an ironical insult."
"It, however, is your excellency's name, and _that_ the slanderous villains
cannot deprive you of."
"They have done more than that," said the Count, with a bitter smile; "they
have destroyed my honor. You shall not call me thus any longer."
"Very well," said the good man, whom the Marquise had told not to thwart
his master; "I will call Monseigneur, Count only. You are Monseigneur, for
all that."
"Enough," said the Count, "go away, you fatigue me, you injure me."
"I injure you," said Giacomo, "when you know I would die for you?"
The Count looked around on the companion of all his life; he saw the tears
the old man shed, and threw himself into his arms. "Ah! you love me in
spite of all--"
"And so does _she_," said Giacomo, whose features became kindled with
pleasure at this sudden exhibition of his master's love; "yes, that noble,
true woman loves you dearly."
"Aminta!" said the Count, "ah! but for her you would have no master."
"Monseigneur,--no--Count!" said the old valet; "Madame la Marquise has come
hither."
"Let her come--let her come--when she is with me, I pass my only happy
hours."
"True," said Giacomo, "but she is not alone--"
"Who accompanies her? Who has come to see the informer? Who dares to brave
the leprosy?"
The old man said, "The Prince de Maulear."
"The Prince! The Prince in my house! No, no! Tell him to go, that I see no
one! I will see no one--"
"You will see me, Monsieur?" said the old nobleman, advancing with Aminta
on his arm.
"What do you wish, sir?" said Monte-Leone; "if you insult me again, you
are indeed cruel."
"Monte-Leone," said Aminta, "the Prince is your friend. His words will be
of service; I brought him hither."
The Count sank on his seat and was silent.
"Count," said the Prince, "had I not been confined at one of my estates for
eight months by an obstinate _gout_, you would have seen me long since."
"Ah!" said the Count, with surprise.
"You would have seen me brought to you by repentance for the injury I did
you. I gave way, Monte-Leone, to an indignant feeling I shall regret all my
life. Reflection has enlightened me. The account I have heard from my
daughter-in-law, the resources which you concealed, and especially your
despair, the wasted condition of your health, the ravages of your misery,
her love, her respect, have long told me how unjust I was to you."
The Count looked at the Prince with mingled astonishment and doubt. The
Prince said, "As men of our rank are glad to confess their faults, and ask
pardon for them, I beg you, sir, to forgive me." The Prince bowed to
Monte-Leone, who seemed overcome by emotion.
Taking the Prince's hand he placed it on his heart and said, "Now, sir,
feel this palpitation, and tell me whether the heart of a bad or guilty man
ever beat thus with joy, at justice being done him."
From this day Monte-Leone enjoyed two of the greatest pleasures of life--a
tender love, and a noble friendship....
A month after the first visit of the Prince de Maulear to the house at
Neuilly, the following scene took place in a sad room of the _rue Casette_
in the Faubourg St. Germain.
A sick woman lay on a bed, and a stern dark man sat beside her. "I tell
you," said she, "I want a priest, and it is cruel for you to refuse me
one."
"Bah! Signora, you are not sick enough for that. Why have a confidant in
our affairs? Confession is of no use except to the dying!"
"I am very sick," said she, "and my strength every day decreases!"
"Well, let us come to terms, then, Duchess. You shall have a priest--but
you do not intend to make your confession only to him, I know."
"Your old ideas again, Stenio!" said La Felina.
"They are not my ideas. Did you not say once when you were very sick, '_No,
I will not die until I am completely avenged. I wish to know whence came
the shaft which crushed him. I wish him to curse me as I have cursed
him!_'"
"True!" said the Duchess, who, as she listened to the Italian, seemed lost
in thought. "It is true, I said all that."
"Well, the time is come. You fear you are dying, and would not leave your
work incomplete!"
"But if I tell all," said La Felina, "do you fear nothing for yourself?"
"That man is now but a shadow," said Salvatori, "and now in my strong hand
I can grasp him, as he once grasped me, with his iron nerves, when he
stabbed me. Besides, no one would believe him. _Is he not a spy?_"
The first words of the Italian, "_That man is but a shadow_," had arrested
La Felina's attention. She said, "Is he much changed? is he very sick?" She
could not restrain her accent.
"He? yes, indeed; he is dying. Public contempt has completely crushed the
proud giant. We have effected that. Besides," continued he, "in order to
make a suitable return for the touching interest you inspired me with just
now, I must tell you I am going. You have made me rich, and if I were so
unfortunate as to lose you--Ah, words never kill," added he, as he saw how
terrified La Felina was--"I would not remain an hour in this accursed
country."
"Very well," said she; "give me writing materials." She wrote a few lines
with a trembling hand.
"To the Count," said she, giving them to Salvatori; "I expect him
to-morrow."
"Very well," said the Italian, sternly. "This will kill him."
Scarcely had he left the room when La Felina rang her bell, and the servant
who had always accompanied her entered. The Duchess drew her towards her,
and placing her lips close to the ear of the woman, as if she was afraid
some one would hear her, whispered a few words and sank back completely
exhausted.
Such was the Duchess of Palma, the famous singer of San Carlo, whom we find
dying in this unknown and obscure retreat. The hand of God, who does not
always punish the soul of the criminal alone, but who sometimes strikes the
living body, weighed heavily on her. The Duke, weary of the ties imposed by
marriage on him, and becoming more and more infatuated with his thin
_danseuse_, sought for an opportunity to throw off his chains. He soon
found one. Feigning to be jealous, the Duke, in consequence of some vague
rumors, obtained the key of the bureau in which the Duchess kept the
"confessions of the heart," as she called the detail of her brief amour
with Monte-Leone. Having gotten possession of this paper, the Duke made a
great noise, threatened her with a suit, and easily obtained the separation
he desired so much. There was a general burst of indignation. The nobles
who had been furious at the _mesalliance_ of the Duke, were more so at the
ingratitude of the guilty wife and low-born woman, who had usurped a rank
and title of which she showed herself so unworthy. The Duchess disappeared
suddenly from the world, which gladly rejected one it had so unwillingly
received. La Felina took refuge in a small house in the retired quarter we
have mentioned. For, like _Venus attached to her prey_, she would not
leave Paris, in which she could not divest herself of the idea that
Monte-Leone, completely reinstated, would some day become Aminta's husband.
Sickness had gradually enfeebled her, and Salvatori, who was master of her
secrets, had established himself in her house. Taking advantage of her
complicity, he had, by means of cunning and terror, became in a manner the
master and tyrant, now that her health was gone, of one to whom he had been
an abject slave. For this reason he had, as we have seen, treated her with
such cruel disdain.
On the very day this scene took place, Monte-Leone received the following
note: "A woman, whose handwriting you will recognize, has but a few hours
to live. Come to see her for the sake of that pity she deserves. Do not
resist the prayers of one who is on her death-bed." Below was the address
of the Duchess.
The Count had long lost sight of La Felina; he knew she was separated from
her husband, but was so indifferent that he had not even asked why. Always
kind and generous, he thought duty required him to go, and on the next day
at noon, rang at La Felina's door. Stenio had preceded him a few moments,
and in the next room prepared to enjoy the scene. No sooner had the Count
entered the bedroom than Salvatori thought he heard steps in a boudoir
connected with it, and which opened on a back stairway. Uneasy at this
noise, for which he could not account, he was yet unable to satisfy
himself; for to do so, he would have been again obliged to cross the
Duchess's room, and the Count was already with her.
When the Count and La Felina met, a cry of astonishment burst from the lips
of each. They seemed to each other two spectres.
"Count," said the Duchess, in faint and broken voice, "the time is come
when the truth must be told, ere the tongue on which it depends be cold in
the grave. You are, therefore, about to hear the truth as the dying tell it
who have lost all dread of men and their wrath."
"Speak out, Signora; my life has been so strange that nothing now can
surprise me," said the Count.
"You will be astonished; for I am about to read the riddle, the mystery,
which you have so long attempted to penetrate." The Count was attentive.
"You have," said La Felina, "sought to know who was the secret enemy who
deprived you of name and fame. I am about to tell you." The Count seemed
surprised. "Do not interrupt me," said she. "This enemy has followed your
steps and poisoned your life. Thus has it been effected: You were ruined,
really ruined, but twice have fifty thousand francs been sent to you, and
you have been made to believe that this was but a restoration of your
fortune."
"Did it not come from Lamberti?" said the Count.
"No; bankrupts never pay. A forged letter from this banker insisted on
silence in relation to this restoration, and thus the mysterious resources
were created which awakened the suspicions of the world, and caused the
report that you were an agent of the police to be believed."
The Count grew pale with horror.
"Wait," said La Felina. "A man, a devil, purchased by your enemy, in
obedience to orders, went to the house of Matheus, your associate in
Carbonarism. This devil opened the drawer in which the archives of the
association were kept, and taking possession of the lists, substituted
copies for the originals."
"Infamous," said Monte-Leone.
"This devil did more. He dared to procure you a pass as a 'Spy in Society.'
This pass your friend Taddeo Rovero saw."
"My God, my God, can I hear aright?"
"This man did not think you were as yet sufficiently degraded in the eyes
of the world and your brethren. Taking advantage of a visit you paid me, he
went into your carriage with a cloak like yours over his shoulders, and was
driven to the Prefecture of Police."
"This is hell itself," said the Count.
"Did I not say this man was a demon?" said La Felina, coldly. "All this
evidence was accumulated against you. The French Government was deceived,
and did not exert severity towards the powerful chief of the Carbonari, now
become, as it believed, its agent. The world and public opinion did their
work."
"Why was all this? what was the motive?"
"You had destroyed the happiness of your enemy, and in return the sacrifice
of your honor was exacted; you had deserted one who adored you, and sought
to marry another; to prevent this she disgraced you. Now, Count
Monte-Leone," said La Felina, rising up, "is it necessary for me to name
that woman? Do you know me?"
"Wretch!" said the Count, "are you not afraid that I will kill you?"
"Why?" said she, "am I not dying?"
"Well," said he, "you shall carry to the tomb one crime in addition to the
offences you have revealed to me. With honor you destroyed my life." Taking
a pistol from his bosom he placed it to his brow, and was about to fire--
At the last words of the Count a door was thrown open, and an arm seized
Monte-Leone's hand. He looked around and saw the Duke D'Harcourt.
"Count," said he, "one person alone can restore you the honor of which you
have been so rudely deprived. That person is the Duke D'Harcourt."
"The voice of the man, of the father," said he, and his eyes became
suffused with tears, "who charged you publicly with having denounced his
son, and surrendered him to the executioners, with having killed him.
"Ah! God himself sends you hither," said the Count, with an indescribable
accent of hope. "Yes, yes; you have heard all, and will be believed.
Monsieur," said he, with great animation, "have you not heard all? You know
how I have been treated by those monsters. You will say so. Tell me that
you will. I cast myself at your feet to implore you."
"Count," said the Duke, lifting up Monte-Leone and embracing him, "I am the
guilty man, for louder than any one I have uttered an anathema on the
innocent. I have appealed to man and God for vengeance."
"Yes," said the Count, "and touched by the immensity of my sufferings God
has led you hither."
"Yes, God," said the Duke, "and _she_;" pointing to La Felina, whose eyes
brightened up with animation, strangely contrasted with the morbid palor of
her face.
"_She?_" said the Count.
"Yes," said the Duke. "Stricken down by repentance, she besought me
yesterday to come hither to hear her confession."
Scarcely had the Duke pronounced these words, than a cry of hatred, savage
as that of the jackal, was heard in the next room.
"Save me, save me," said the Duchess, calling Monte-Leone to her, and
sheltering herself behind his body, "_He_ will murder me."
"_He?_" said the Duke and Count together.
"Whom do you refer to?" said Monte-Leone.
"To Stenio Salvatori, the accomplice in this tissue of crime."
The two noblemen rushed towards the room where the cry had been heard. A
door leading to the stairway was open, and there was no one visible. When
they returned, the invalid giving way to so severe a shock and exertion was
dying. She had only strength to repeat the request she had urged on Stenio
the day before. "A priest, for heaven's sake, a priest, that I may repeat
to God what I have said to man."
The door opened and an ecclesiastic appeared.
"Quick, father, quick," said the Duchess. "Tell me that God, like man, will
forgive me."
The priest stood for a few minutes in the middle of the room, apparently
overpowered by emotion. He said, "One person must forgive you, Madame, and
that person is the individual whose life you have made miserable, whom you
have made use of to strike this innocent man;" and he pointed to the Count.
"I, as well as the Duke, was in the adjoining room, and have heard all.
That pardon I give you."
The Duchess said, "Then Rovero, too, forgives me;" before she had finished
his name, Monte-Leone clasped Taddeo in his arms.
Two days after, a funeral portage proceeded to a place of eternal rest.
Three men followed a body to the grave. They were Monte-Leone, the Duke
d'Harcourt, and the Abbé Rovero. Love and friendship having been both
betrayed, as he thought, Taddeo sought for consolation in religion. The
Divinity, he knew, did not betray those who love him. A fugitive and an
outlaw, he had sought refuge in a seminary, and subsequently had become a
priest. Chance had assigned him to a church near La Felina's house, and he
had been pointed out by the Duchess's confidential servant, as a priest
worthy her mistress's confidence. Heaven had accomplished the rest.
All Paris, at that time, was filled with a strange report, and with
amazement learned the truth in relation to Monte-Leone. A letter from the
Duke d'Harcourt appeared in the journals of the day and unfolded this
terrible drama. The Duke told Paris and all Europe, what he had overheard
in the Duchess's boudoir.
It said, if any voice should do justice to this injured man, it is that of
a father who wrongfully accused him of being the death of a son. The moral
reaction in favor of the Count was as sudden as the censure the world had
heaped on him had been. The person who, next to Monte-Leone, enjoyed this
complete reparation, was the adorable woman who had never doubted the honor
of the man she loved.
The King sent for the Duke d'Harcourt; he understood and participated in
the grief of an unfortunate father, for he, also, had lost the heir of his
throne. When the old noble left the King he bore with him the pardon of
René's young friend, the generous Von Apsberg. The Duke went to the
conciergerie, and on the Doctor, in his gratitude, asking after Marie, the
former said, "She is a patient who will give you a great deal of trouble,
both her health and her heart being seriously affected. You will have two
grave diseases to attend to, and the husband must assist the physician."
EPILOGUE.
A month after these events--on the first of May, that festival of sunlight,
flowers, and universal rejoicings--two couples, followed by many friends
and brilliant attendants, went from the small house on the banks of the
Seine, to the village church of Neuilly. The Prince de Maulear, made young
by happiness, had Marie d'Harcourt on his arm. The Duke escorted the
Marquise, and the Count and Von Apsberg followed them. The priest stood at
the foot of the altar. This priest, who made four persons happy, but who
looked to heaven alone for his own happiness, was Taddeo Rovero.
The three fiery Carbonari gradually felt their revolutionary ardor grow
dull. The reason is, these three men were now attached to the society they
had sought to destroy, by strong ties. Two were bound to it by family
bonds, and the other by religion.
_Carbonarism_ was not crushed in Europe, by the disasters of the French
association. It slumbered for ten years, but awoke in 1830. The tree has
grown, and the world now gathers its bitter fruits.
Stenio Salvatori received in Italy the punishment due his great crimes in
France. His vile heart became the sheath of the stiletto of one of the
brethren of the _Venta_ of CASTEL LA MARC.
Our old acquaintance, Mlle. Celestine Crepinean, touched by divine grace,
repented of having made so bad a disposition of her pure and virgin love.
Like Magdalen, she threw herself at the feet of her Savior, and lived to an
advanced age, greatly to the edification of the faithful as dispenser of
holy water at the church of Saint THOMAS AQUINAS.
END OF THE SPY IN SOCIETY.
FOOTNOTES:
[3] Concluded from page 327.
Entered according to 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.
[4] _Mansarde_ Gallice, from the inventor Mansard, uncle of another
architect of the same name of the time of Louis XIV.
[5] It is one of the maxims of _magnetism_, that when once an entire
sympathy between two minds is established equality ensues, and consequently
neither can exert influence over the other.
A GHOST STORY OF NORMANDY.
BY THE AUTHOR OF "HAMON AND CATAR; OR, THE TWO RACKS."
From Bentley's Miscellany.
I.
On a fine summer evening, in 1846, I left my house, which was in the
neighborhood of Honfleur, Normandy, to take a stroll. It was July. All the
morning and all the afternoon the sun had been busily pouring down streams
of radiance like streams of boiling water, and I had kept the house, and
kept it closely shut up too, till the orb of day had gone some way down
towards the sea, as if, like a fire-eater, or like a locomotive, to get a
_drink_ after its work.
My wife being asleep, I borrowed her parasol, for English life in France is
very free and easy, and I was rather careful of my complexion. I lit a
cigar, and starting, soon left the church of St. Catharine behind. My
business in the town was to post a letter, which I got safely done, and
then passing down the fish-market, I found myself, ere long, at the foot of
the Côte de Grace--a steep hill which rises abruptly from the town, and is
scaleable at one part by a sandy zigzag.
My cigar was a bad one altogether--a bad one to look at and a bad one to
blow. Of government manufacture, it cost five sous, and was not worth one.
Its skin was as thick as an ass's hide, and no persuasion would make _it_
draw. Like a false friend, it became quite hollow when I put the fire of
trial to it; and only waxed hot and oily as it burnt on. It was a French
regalia, and had nothing of French royalty about it but bad _smoke_. The
tobacco had, I think, lost savor, as salt used to do, in passing through
the monopolizing hands of the _Citoyen Roi_. In a word, my gorge rose at
it.
I stood awhile at the foot of the zigzag, endeavoring to coax it into
usefulness, for I was a family man, and had given many hostages to fortune,
and dared not to be extravagant. I tried to doctor it by incisions, and by
giving it draughts; but all was in vain. At last it began to unwind, and
some loose ashes found their way to my eyes. I was about to throw it away
in disgust, when a young Frenchman, who had passed me a moment before with
a party (I knew him slightly and we had bowed), returned, and observing
that my cigar seemed troublesome, asked me to try one of his.
His name was Le Brun. We had met occasionally on the pier, where in the
quiet evenings I used to take refuge from the uproar of my sanctuary at
home, and for awhile almost believed myself a lay bachelor lounging through
France without a charming wife and eight children. He and I had succeeded
well in chit-chat. The Browns, he was fond of saying, were a numerous race
in England, but if he ever settled there he would be distinguished from
them as THE Brown. He was vain of this play on his name, and I always
laughed when he produced it. I had no hesitation, therefore, when he
offered me a cigar: besides, I knew that he always smoked smuggled Cubas.
We gossiped for a few moments. At length I saw him glance at my wife's
parasol, which was shielding me from the sun. He _said_ nothing, but I felt
my cheek burn with a sudden sort of shame, and immediately shut it up.
"Madame will return," he said, "and Monsieur attends her."
This was not the fact. Monsieur had to return, and Madame attended him. But
the observation was put in the narrative form, and if my friend gave me
information which I knew to be false, I was not bound to say so. I only
bowed, therefore; and he added that he was forced to join his party, and
bowed too; and so we separated.
He had scarcely left me, when I thought that if I had avowed my solitary
state he might have asked me to join his party, which was evidently a merry
one; and I internally execrated the parasol, which had been the means of
preventing this. If by any accident I should meet him again, I resolved
that he should not see me with _it_, and without the lady; so I deposited
it at a little lace-maker's, and soon after began to ascend the Côte de
Grace, not without hopes of meeting the party as they returned, perhaps
from Val-à-Reine.
Between each wind of the zigzag path was a flight of wooden steps, by which
the adventurous might ascend directly from the bottom of the hill. At the
head of some of these flights of steps were rustic seats; they were
generally on the outer edge of the path, but a few were placed far back, so
that the hill immediately below was unseen.
I always climbed the Côte by the steps, as I used ever and anon to lie down
on the green carpet which nature has spread over each of the short ascents.
On the present occasion I had not mounted far before a pleasant piece of
this turf-flooring near the top of one of the little hills seduced me from
my toils. I sat down, took Shelley's "Revolt of Islam" from my pocket,
finished my cigar, and in consequence of reading half a dozen stanzas from
the poem--fell asleep.
I woke suddenly, and as soon as I had my faculties about me, noticed that
people were speaking, and in loud tones, close above me. Otherwise, all was
still around. There was no wind among the little trees; a bee buzzed past
me now and then, and insects hummed, but further off down the hill, and
these voices sounded harsh and dissonant in the quiet air. I listened, at
first mechanically. The conversation was carried on in French.
"It is time to end this," said a stern, disagreeable voice; "and I will not
wait any longer, M. Raymond."
"But M. Gray," answered another and more pleasant voice, "you will think of
my situation--my family. I have done all I could."
"I have thought too much of your family," replied Gray; "but I must also
think of myself. Esther--your daughter--she does not speak with me, for
example, as you said she should."
"Monsieur!" exclaimed the other.
"This Le Brun--she is all ears and eyes for him. She----"
"M. Gray!" said Raymond. His voice had been deprecating before--it was firm
now. "You are so harsh to me; how can you expect kindness from her?"
"Why, sir, you promised to use your influence with her----"
"Promised, M. Gray!" Raymond burst in. "You did not think I should sell my
daughter for a debt of the table? I do not think, monsieur, you expected me
to _sell_ my Esther, for example." And there was an emphasis on these last
words which only a Frenchman could give.
"I did not say you promised that," replied the other; "but I am seeking for
the money you owe me. I love your daughter; you know it; she does not
smile, and I must wait. But my creditors will not wait. I owe money, and
come to you for what you owe me."
The voice that said this was cold and stern. Suddenly, as I listened to it,
it seemed familiar to me; but where I had heard it I could not remember.
Raymond replied:
"And suppose I had not played with you and lost? What would you have done?"
"But my friends in England are so dilatory," was the evasive answer.
"Still--if Mademoiselle Esther----"
"Sacré!" cried Raymond, starting to his feet, and stamping on the path.
Gray seemed to rise too. "You press me too far. What do I know of you,
monsieur? You live here some few months--you play high--you--you----"
"Ah, well, monsieur," said Gray, icily, as he paused.
"My daughter, too," cried Raymond; "you use my debt to you as a means----."
He stopped again in his sudden passion.
"Pardon me, monsieur," said Gray, sternly, "this is only a debt of honor;"
and he laid a stress on the word which drove it home. "In England we cannot
enforce a debt of honor."
"What do you do there when it is not paid?"
"First post the guilty man, and then shoot him," was the answer.
I felt inclined to start from my concealment and say that this was false. I
recollected, however, just in time, that it was true.
"But this is folly," pursued Gray, "and we should not quarrel. I am not
going to shoot Esther's father, for example."
The effect of this cordial and peaceful declaration was instantaneous. Glad
apparently to drop his creditor in his friend at any price, Raymond
answered kindly, and even proposed to give Gray a small sum on account of
his debt, which he accepted. They then began to ascend the zigzag, and ere
long their voices died away in the distance.
I had remained lying-to where I was all this while, and felt glad when they
left the neighborhood. I never overheard a conversation with pleasure since
I read how the Rev. Dr. Follett declared that his bamboo, and not his
cloth, should protect him from Mr. Eavesdrop. Once, indeed, I had thought
of retiring, but put it off so long that I thought I might just as well
stay out the interview.
I knew Mr. Raymond by name. He was a banker, and reputed rich. He was also
thought religious--for a Frenchman, even pious. He crossed himself at all
the twopenny representations of the Divine agony. He never galloped past a
crucifix, or calvaire, or burial-place. And yet he now showed himself a
gambler, and apparently on the way to sell his daughter's hand to a man he
did not know, for a gambling debt. The discovery made me feel sick. And yet
I thought how many of my own parisioners, who wave their heads at the
sacred name in the creed, and appear to men to worship, are as false as
this man; packing away their religion like their best hat till next Sunday,
when it seems as good to the next pew as ever.
But I felt more than an abstract discomfort at my discoveries. Le Brun's
name had been mixed up with Esther Raymond's by this Gray. Now his Cuba
cigar had bound me indissolubly to The Brown, and as long as he asked
nothing but what cost nothing, I was his faithful well-wisher and friend.
This was the time to show my friendship; and accordingly I sprang from my
couch, put Shelley into my pocket, and resumed my ascent of the Côte.
I had gained the top, and, after looking across the water to Harfleur,
which showed well in the soft light of the westering sun, was about to
walk on, when I saw a party on the rude bench which is set on the seaward
side of the top of the Côte--Le Brun with them. I looked back across the
Seine, and watched the lights and shades shift on the hills of the opposite
shore, collecting my thoughts the while. Ere they were collected, however,
he joined me.
"Ah! but madame is no longer with monsieur?" he said.
"No; she's at home now," I answered, thinking how I should best break
ground, and almost inclined to leave him to his own courses now that it was
time to act. Why should I meddle in these foreigners' affairs? What were
they to me? I felt thus for a moment; Le Brun produced his cigar-case, and
I did not feel so for another.
"I hope you liked my cigar; it is not French," he said. "Will you try
another?"
"If you will try one of mine," I answered, ashamed to take without giving,
and forgetting that my property consisted of none but the despised French
article. The young gentleman took one of the great clown-like regalias with
a slight shudder, and I saw him wince as he inhaled a mouthful of its rank
produce, and, ere long, quietly drop the thing when he thought I was not
looking, and substitute one of his own.
The flavor of his Cuba opened my heart to him, and ere long I broached the
subject with which I had no earthly business.
"You know a certain M. Gray?" I asked. He started.
"Yes," he said; "that is him talking to mademoiselle. Shall I introduce
you?"
"Not at present--no, I thank you," I answered. He looked up at me.
"Do you know him?" he asked. My eye had been bent on him for the last few
seconds.
"I think I do," I said; "I am not sure."
"He came here with the Dowlasses; he is the son of an English milord, who
allows him a thousand pounds a year."
"Why did he leave England, then?" I inquired.
"He was too gay, I believe."
"And left his debts unpaid, I suppose." He looked up at me again.
"If you do know him, or anything about him," he exclaimed, "pray tell me; I
am particularly anxious about him."
"I know you must be, and so ought mademoiselle to be," I said. He blushed
like a girl and was going to speak, but I continued: "If he is the man I
think, never play at cards with him, M. le Brun; and, between us, separate
his hat from those pink ribbons further than they are now."
His curiosity, his anxiety, was thoroughly aroused; but, as he began to
speak, a lady's voice called him. It was Esther's.
"Will you join us?" he said. In another moment I was being introduced to
the party.
I was at first surprised to find Gray and his dupe smoking and chatting as
gayly as any of the party. I am a good wonderer, but always reason my
surprises away. I soon did so now, reflecting that all men use their faces
as masks, by which they lie without speaking falsehood. And, though I
detest hypocrisy myself, I remembered that I often smiled when I could
grind my teeth with rage--that is, if they were not false ones.
Le Brun had been summoned to rejoin the circle because a curious topic had
been started. M. Raymond was proprietor of an estate near St. Sauveur, the
house of which was reported to be haunted, and Esther had dared Gray to
spend a night there.
"But I don't believe in ghosts," he recommenced, after the introduction.
"It would only be to waste a night."
"Oh, there _is_ a goblin though," replied the beautiful girl--"a male
Amina; always walking into an occupied chamber, so that you're sure to see
him. He does not, however, stop to be caught napping in the morning, like
La Sonnambula."
"I'll tell you what I'll do," answered Gray. "You've called M. le
Brun"--and he looked somewhat fiercely at my friend--"if he'll spend a
night there, I will. I'm engaged to-night, and to-morrow night, so that he
can go first. But I can't believe in your ghost, mademoiselle."
"Not if I acknowledge to have seen him myself?" she asked. There was a
general movement among the listeners. "Well, I will accept for M. le Brun;
he shall go to-night or to-morrow, and you the night after--eh, M.
Frederic?"
Le Brun murmured something about obedience to her wishes; what, I did not
hear. He evidently, however, did not like the scheme, and Gray saw it; but,
in the general interest for Esther's tale, no one else did.
I do not give it here, for divers reasons. When she had done, it was found
to be time to return. I would have left the party, but Raymond having
seperated Le Brun from Esther, he joined himself to me, and I was unable to
do so.
"What will Grace say?" thought I. "I hope she won't wait tea for me." I
should have been somewhat crusty if, on an ordinary occasion, I had
returned from a stroll and found that she and the rest had _not_ waited. Le
Brun asked me--as M. Raymond had already done--to stay all the evening with
the party. That, however, I felt to be impossible, and said so.
"Well, for the present, then," he said. "What can you tell me of M. Gray?"
he added.
"I expect my brother here to-morrow," I said, "when I will compare notes
with him. Till then I should be cautious, as I may injure an innocent man.
But do you be cautious too. How about this challenge? Shall you sleep in
the haunted house? It is romantic nonsense--this of a spirit, you know.
Mademoiselle has seen a clothes-horse, or a--a part of her dress in
moonlight. I don't believe in ghosts myself at all."
"Don't you?" said he, somewhat sadly. "I--the truth is, mon cher, I am
afraid I do."
"You must go on now, though," I said, maliciously.
"Oh, yes--of course--go on," he answered; "but, monsieur----" he hesitated.
"What is it, my dear friend?" I said.
"I thought to ask a favor of you," he replied. "Will you accompany me to
this house, monsieur? I feel I ask much--but will you?"
"Much, my very dear sir!" I exclaimed, in the fullness of my heart--"not at
all too much. I shall be happy to be of any use to you, and will sit and
smoke those cigars of yours, and let the ghosts go to old ----." I stopped
suddenly.
"And what," thought I, "will Grace say to _that_?" A sort of dampness
rushed out upon my skin; I had forgotten her. My sentence remained
unfinished, and I looked eagerly about me, as if to question the adjoining
shrubs as to what on earth I was to do. My dear Grace was the light of my
eyes, and the joy of my heart, I'm sure; the best wife, the most amiable of
the sex, but yet she had a kind of will of her own, which was apt to get
grafted, as it were, upon mine. She never opposed me positively in any
thing, but somehow, if she did not like it, it was rarely done. I had just
promised what I might not be able to perform; and yet I did not like to
confess to this foreigner that my wife led me. "A plague upon his Cubas and
him too," I thought. Still, what was to be done?
"If you cannot sleep there to-night," he said, noticing my uneasiness, "I
will claim the night's grace----"
"Grace!" I exclaimed; my wife before me in the word.
"Yes, she said to-night or to-morrow."
"Oh, to-night?--impossible!" I cried. "I have a very--an engagement
to-night. I can not possibly make it to-night. Besides," I exclaimed,
grasping at an idea like a drowner at a rope, or any thing saving,
"mademoiselle may not give leave to share your danger with any one."
"I asked her," he said--I had noticed them exchange whispers--"and she
will----"
"Bother!" I muttered; but instantly continued, with a smile, "if it is to
be so I will be at your service to-morrow. Meanwhile, let me slip away
now--that engagement, you know."
We were at the foot of the Côte de Grace by this time. He brought the party
to a stand-still, and, after some difficulty, I was allowed to desert, Le
Brun asking me to join him next day to dinner, to which I agreed. After I
left the joyous set I walked away fiercely, like a man with a purpose, till
they were out of sight; but, as I neared that sanctuary of the heart where
the tea would be waiting for me, the fierceness of my pace abated, and,
with hands in pockets and head depressed, I slackened my speed more and
more, till at last, when I reached my garden-gate, I came to a stand-still.
Unhappily I am tall, and my children are all wonderfully quick. I had not
stood at the gate three seconds before I was surrounded by my urchins,
whooping, and getting among my legs, and hanging to my tails, and playing
the wildest pranks off on me.
But suddenly I saw my wife leave the house and come down the garden without
her bonnet to welcome me. Oh, how I wished that, just for once, she had
been a shrew; I could have brazened out the matter then. But she smiled so
sweetly at me!
"Well," she exclaimed, heartily, putting her hands in mine, "you have had a
splendid afternoon for your walk! Have you enjoyed it?"
"Oh, yes," I said, "except for one thing."
"What's that?" she asked; "no accident I hope. You've never, surely, been
among the orchards again; I'm sure the grass swarms with adders and
snakes." And she looked so anxiously and tenderly up into my face that I
was forced to stoop and----. But this is weakness. "What was it? I saw you
took out that divine Shelley."
"Yes," I answered, jumping at any subject foreign to the one at my heart,
"he _is_ divine. I'll never deny it again; the very god of sleep."
"For shame!" she cried; "and I saw you took something else, too. But where
is it?--the parasol, I mean?" I had forgotten it! I think I must have
started and changed color, for she immediately proceeded: "Never mind, it's
too late to go into the fields for it now. It will be quite destroyed,
though, by the dew to-night--there's always so much in this weather. But,
never mind--and yet how could you forget it?"
"Oh, it's all right," I replied, somewhat pettishly; "we'll get it in the
morning. I left it in a shop at the foot of the Côte de Grace."
"Well, then, what was the drawback to your walk?"
"Oh! never mind it just now," I exclaimed. "Dear Grace, do let me have some
tea; I'll tell you by-and-by." And I bustled among the children towards the
house, she following in some surprise.
As soon as tea was over I dispatched the children into the garden and
solemnly commenced my tale. Commenced? I plunged into it heels over head,
as a timid bather plunges into the pool when he is the cynosure of the eyes
of all swimmers in it, and by appearing on the brink in Nature's undress
_uniform_, feels himself pledged to enter the liquid. Like him, too, when
once in, I did not find the water so cold as I feared, after all. I had
made my promise so strong by constantly referring to it, that Grace never
even proposed my giving it up. My brother would arrive by to-morrow's boat,
and so that the house would have a guardian she would not object--for once.
I inwardly vowed not to put it in her power to refuse or grant such a favor
again.
II.
So on the morrow, at the appointed time, I was comfortably seated at M. le
Brun's mahogany; and while, "for this occasion only," I played my old
_rôle_ of bachelor, I loosed the hymeneal reins, and actually told some
ancient Cider-cellar stories--in French, too,--which produced explosion
after explosion of laughter, though whether this was caused by the tales or
the telling I cannot of course guess.
By-and-by evening came, and it was time to start. Le Brun and I hastened,
therefore, to finish the bottles then in circulation; and, as soon as that
was done, rose to walk to the haunted property. And now the skeptical
blockheads who doubt every thing would say that what follows was the
consequence of our libations. Let them say what they like, I only put it to
_you_, if it is likely that a thorough-going Church and State rector would
be influenced by a few bottles of _vin ordinaire_ and a mere _thought_ of
cognac after all.
It was about nine o'clock when we arrived within sight of St. Sauveur. It
was a lovely night. Beyond the little village in the distance loomed the
hills, rising from the Eure, over which the moon was shining brilliantly.
Presently my companion turned sharply off from the main road, and we began
to ascend a narrow stony lane, so thickly fringed with bushes that the
light was excluded; but ere long we came upon a cross-path nearly as
narrow, but lighted by the rays of the bright moon; this we followed, till,
in a few minutes, we arrived before a gate, which we pushed open, and
advanced into a field.
Le Brun paused to light a fresh cigar from the smoking ruins of the last,
and, as I walked on, I suddenly became reflective. "Your life, my dear and
reverend sir," I ejaculated, "has just been like this evening's walk. Your
school and college life were all bright and silvery as the highway flooded
by the glorious beams, and so forth. Then came the stony lane of
curateship, and then you gained a cross-lane, stony still, but lighted by
the smiles of Grace, and the prospect of a reversion, which your father got
you cheap, because the occupant was young. And then this youthful rector
joined the Church of Rome, leaving the gate open for you; and so you
stepped into your twelve hundred a year, of which you only need to
sacrifice seventy for a hack to do the work. So that after a somewhat
pleasant life you can enjoy yourself in foreign parts, and----"
"Halloa!" cried a voice behind.
I started. In a moment I remembered that I was upon haunted ground, and
motioned to fly. I am no coward, but I hate a surprise, and thought that
perhaps the hero of this enchanted ground was close beside me. Le Brun's
voice, however, dissipated those fears. I had strolled from the right path
in my dream, and he wished me to re-rejoin him. I did so, and we pursued
our walk.
We soon arrived before the house. It was approachable at the rear by a road
which led to St. Sauveur, after winding about the country some two or three
miles more than necessary, as French roads are apt to do: but the main
entrance was from the fields, as we had come. It was a shabby place, and
looked in the staring moonlight as seedy as a bookseller's hack would look
in the glare of an Almack's ball. The windows were mostly broken, and the
portico, like its Greek model, was in ruins. Rude evergreens grew downward
from the rails which had fixed them, when young, in the way they were to
go, and were sprawling about the nominal garden, which was likewise overrun
by weeds and plots of grass, and fallen shrubs and flowers. The moon never
looked on a poorer spot, and yet there was an air about the tattered old
house which seemed to indicate that it had been good-looking once; as we
may see, despite the plaster-work among the wrinkles of some of our
dowagers, that they were not altogether hideous, as they now are, in the
days of the "Greatest Gentleman" in Europe.
We entered. It was too late and too dark in-doors to survey the mansion;
so, as Le Brun had been directed to the habitable room, we struck a light,
and ascended directly to it. It was handsomely furnished, and a basket
containing that refreshment which we had looked forward to stood on the
table. The windows were whole; still I thought it well to close the
shutters, as I hate Midsummer nights' draughts as much as I love the
"Midsummer Night's Dream." This done, I sank on a sofa; Le Brun drew some
wine; we fell to at an early supper, and fared well.
When we had finished we lighted cigars, and our conversation grew
frivolous. Le Brun was in the midst of a description of Esther, when I
heard a groan, and said so. He pooh-poohed me, and, half annoyed at the
interruption, proceeded. He had not got on very far before the groan was
repeated. I started up.
"Pooh!--wind!" said my companion, retaining his seat and emitting his
smoke.
"If so, it must be wind on the stomach, or wind in the lungs," I said.
"Hark!"
I heard a faint noise. We both listened intently for some minutes, I
standing. It was not repeated, however; so, growing tired, I said that I
must have been mistaken, and sat down. Le Brun agreed with me, and resumed
his description. I followed with a tale; he was reminded by it of another;
and so we continued, till our repeated potations, much speaking, and the
late hour, made both of us prosy, and then we fell, as with one accord,
asleep.
I must have slept for a considerable time, as, when I woke, I found that
the lamp had burned very low, and looked the worse for having been kept up
so late. I woke with a start, caused, as I imagined, by hearing the
room-door suddenly opened. That was a sound which, as a father of a large
family, I had got to know very well, especially about the smaller hours. I
looked towards the door, but my eyes were dim with sleep, and it was not
till Le Brun's boot was projected against my shin that I became
sufficiently awake to see if my idea was correct or no. It was.
Not only was the door open but a person was evidently standing on the
threshold. In the sickly light his face was not visible; nothing, in fact,
but an outline of him. I rose, and with as much steadiness of voice as I
could command, requested the visitor to come in. He made a deep bow, set
his hat modestly upon the floor, came across the room, and stood as if
awaiting further orders.
I had, however, none to give him. I had not sufficient impudence to bid him
sit down and help himself to wine, or what he liked; but I kicked Le Brun,
in payment for his attack on me, and motioned to him to do the honors. He
met the advance of my foot, however, in an unexpected way.
"Diable!" he cried, "Est-ce que----"
He stopped as if a gag had been thrust between his jaws; for our visitor,
doubtless applying the epithet to himself, suddenly turned his back on us,
walked to the door, picked up his hat, and, though I cried after him, as
the Master of Ravenswood cried after his dead Lucia's ghost, to stop, paid
no more heed than that virgin does to Mario, but retired quickly, his boots
screaming as he trod upon them like veritable souls in pain. We made no
motion to follow, but remained as if glued to our places, looking on each
other from our semi-sleepy eyes in a somewhat foolish manner.
"He'll come back," said Le Brun. "Hush!"
The boots had stopped at the bottom of the stairs; we heard no sound.
"If he does, don't name Sathanas, for Heaven's sake," I said. "He doesn't
like it. It may recall unpleasant things--seem personal, in fact----"
"Hush!" he exclaimed.
We listened. The screaming boots were remounting the stairs. The visitor
had got over the personality, and was coming back. "What should be done? I
am no coward; I've said so before; but I seriously thought of running to,
shutting, fastening, and setting chairs against the door. But I did not
move. The footsteps approached, and then began to recede again. This
suspense of the interest--or, rather, dragging out of it--was most
tormenting. What if he should go on walking all night? But the steps were
ere long heard once more coming near the room, and once more the visitor
stood at the door. But he did not enter now. He looked steadfastly towards
us; beckoned slowly; then, turning, began to leave us again. I drew a long,
well-satisfied breath as he disappeared and leaned back on the sofa.
"I trust he's gone for good now," I said.
"He beckoned. We must follow," said Le Brun.
"Follow! Pooh, pooh!" I exclaimed. "Let us sit still and be glad."
"Not I," was his brave response. "Be he man, or be he----"
"Hush!" I cried. "He may hear. He doesn't like the word----"
"I do not understand the impulse," said Le Brun; "but we must follow."
"I do not _feel_ the impulse," I rejoined. "Still, if you do, and obey it,
I will not desert you."
"Come," he answered. And with quick steps we chased the vocal boots down
the corridor, and ere long saw the wearer of them, having descended the
stairs, cross the hall, and wait at the door of the house.
The moon was still shining brightly, and its rays came through the broken
windows on the ground-floor, and fell on the figure of the mysterious one.
He was of middle height, and of broad and muscular build. He seemed more
like an English farmer than a French ghost. His garments were seedy, and
his hat was old; but his boots were like the boots of Thaddeus of Warsaw,
the son of Miss Porter, who was so mortally offended when asked the name of
the maker of his Bluchers, and they gleamed like boots of polished steel.
All, however, did not seem right about the stranger. His head appeared
awry, and his arms out of their places. But perhaps these blemishes were
attributable to the moonlight, and not to the man; for he showed that he
could turn his head and look at us, and use his arms to open the door. We
followed him out into the air.
He led us through the field we had already traversed, but in a rather
different direction. The night was chilly, and the long grass damp, and I
began to grow weary of the adventure. Suddenly, however, our conductor
stopped before what appeared to be a ruined cow-shed. He looked at it
earnestly for a few moments, then at us, who kept a respectful distance;
then, making an abrupt motion of his arm towards it, too rapid for us to
understand, he seemed to me to spring into the air. Whether he did so or
not, I cannot declare; but I know that when I rubbed my eyes, and looked
round about for him, he was nowhere to be seen. We examined the spot, but
he had left no traces. Boots, and hat, and all his trappery had gone with
him. He had come like a dream, and vanished like a morning dream.
We stood for a few moments uncertain what to do, and then it occurred to me
that the room we had left was warm and comfortable, and this field cold and
dreary; so I proposed to return, especially as, the stranger having
vanished, there did not appear to be any business in hand. Le Brun agreed,
and we did so, and, after talking awhile over our adventure, went to sleep
over our talk; and I did not wake again till morning was staring into the
chamber, as Le Brun threw open the shutters.
The conversation that took place is as well to be imagined as transcribed.
Enough to say that I determined to have no share in Le Brun's narrative,
but left him to heighten it for himself. I parted with him at my house,
where I found Grace looking out for me; and he promised to return in the
course of the morning to pay his respects to her.
To my surprise, however, when he came, he asked me for five minutes'
conversation, and we went together into the field belonging to my house,
which sloped down to the Seine. His countenance was _both_ joyous and
anxious, and I saw that he had something heavier on his mind than last
night's frolic.
"I have spoken to you of M. Gray," he said, "and of Mademoiselle Raymond. I
have learnt this morning that M. Gray has her father in his power."
"You learnt that from her?" I asked.
He blushed and did not answer.
I went on. I had compared notes with my brother about this Gray, and found
my suspicions correct. I therefore told Le Brun what I had overheard on the
zigzag, and he in reply told me that Raymond had accepted a bill for the
amount of the debt to Gray.
"That's serious," I said. "But before we say more, monsieur, are you
engaged to Mademoiselle Esther?"
He replied in the affirmative.
"Can you live--excuse the question--with her without dowry?"
He replied in the affirmative again.
"Then," I said, "though it may sound oddly from one of my cloth, you must
either elope with her----"
"But then M. Raymond?--But his family?"
"He must suffer for his folly; not you. And you are only going to marry one
daughter, not all of them. The other alternative is--you must pay Raymond's
acceptance, as he cannot."
"It would be ruin. I cannot, either," he replied.
"Then you must lose Esther."
"I will not. No. And yet if I was to shoot Gray----"
"Shoot?" I interrupted, with the virtuous horror of a man who has never
been tempted to fight a duel--"and would you then outrage the laws of
divine and human?"
"No; it wouldn't do to shoot him," he pursued. "But oh, monsieur, can you
not suggest something to help me--to help us?"
A thought suddenly came into my head. "Gray is pledged to spend to-night in
the haunted house, is he not?" I asked.
He answered that it was so.
"I believe the man to be an arrant coward," I went on. "To be sure, he shot
a dear friend of mine in a duel, and behaved, as the world says, like a
brave man before his witnesses. But he's a coward for all that, and we'll
test it. I don't believe in our friend the Goblin Farmer; I don't believe
we saw any body, or any spirit last night at all. Well, never mind beliefs;
don't interrupt me. I think our eyes were made the fools of other senses,
and that there's no such thing. Gray has to spend the night there--we'll go
again to-night, that is, if my wife will let me, and perhaps get my brother
to help us--eh? Suppose we give him a lesson." And I laughed.
He laughed too; and after a few more observations, he accompanied me into
my drawing-room. Grace and James, with his wife Emma, were sitting talking
there.
I have said that I am a lazy rector. During my curatehood, however, I had
learned to preach sufficiently well for the parish where I worked. To be
sure my congregation was neither large or wakeful, except in winter, when
the church was like a Wenham ice depôt, and people could not sleep. But I
was brief, and no faults were ever found in my time with brevity. My
experience in exposition and appeal now stood me in good stead.
I introduced Le Brun, and then plunged into matters. I gave a brief account
of Esther and her father. I eulogized Le Brun. After that I spoke of Gray,
and reminded James of the life and times--the death, too, of John Finnis,
whom he saved from being plucked alive in St. James's, only that he might
be shot in Hampstead. These dispatched, I opened my plans, which were
listened to with great interest; the only alteration proposed was that
James should go to find the authorities (if there were any, which he
doubted), and give notice of Gray's character to them; after which he was
to return to my house, and stay there till Le Brun and I came back from our
nocturnal expedition, as Grace and Emma feared to be left alone. Poor Emma,
indeed, declared that this was the most romantic thing she had ever heard
of, except one which happened in the village where she was born; but as
neither James or I liked to hear her speak of her origin, we cut her
narrative short.
The cresset moon was up in heaven--at least, Emma said it was--when we
started. It seemed to me nearly full; but she was poetical. I told her that
if it was a cresset, it was tilting up, and ought, therefore, to be pouring
out oil, and not light, on the earth. We started, I repeat, and a short
time after, in the language of a favorite novelist, two travellers might
have been seen slowly wending on their way, bundle in hand, towards the
haunted house.
In another hour or so, when the wind had sunk into repose, and the birds
had ceased their songs, and all things save the ever-watching stars were
sleeping (as that favorite historian might go on, if he were telling this
tale and not I), a tall and ecclesiastical form crept slowly from a place
of concealment near the house, approached it, and gently knocked at the
door. It was opened, and he entered cautiously. A few whispered sentences
passed with some friend within, which being over, he proceeded, though with
some hesitation, to mount the stairs and pace along the corridor.
My boots (for I was the ecclesiastic) creaked and crackled like mad boots.
Onward I went, like the Ghost in Hamlet, only with very vocal buskins. I
reached Gray's room and opened the door. A strange sight met my eyes
through the green glass goggles which I wore over them.
Gray was pacing up and down, in evident fear. A quantity of half-burnt
cigars, some bottles of wine, glasses, the lamp, and, above all, two
pistols were on the table. As I opened the door, and the light fell on me,
I feared that I should be discovered. But the gambler was afraid--and fear
has no eyes. I advanced into the room, and solemnly waved to him to follow.
He must have caught up a pistol ere he did so. I led the way.
It was my determination to lead him a long chase, and leave him in a ditch
if possible, Le Brun being near at hand to cudgel him. He had readily
understood my pantomime (I studied under Jones the player when in training
for orders), for I found he followed me, though at a distance.
But all my plans were disconcerted. As I reached the stair-head I heard a
noise, and stopped; so did Gray. It was as of some one forcing the house
door. Directly afterwards I heard the loud cries of the real goblin's
boots, and the sound of Le Brun in swift pursuit.
"Take care, monsieur," he cried up the stairs to me.
"By heaven they are robbers--murderers! Help! help!" roared Gray from
behind; and as the real apparition came gliding up, he fired his pistol at
it. The unexpected sound of the weapon, so close to my ear, too, stunned me
for a moment; but I recovered myself directly, and flung myself on him, in
fear lest he had his second pistol, too, and might fire at _me_. The real
goblin continued to advance, and I felt Gray tremble with terror in my arms
as _it_ survived the shot.
An unwonted boldness came over me. I felt myself committed to be brave.
"Villain!" I muttered in his ear, "you would swindle my descendant out of
all he has?"
"No--forgive me. I will not take a sou."
"His acceptance--where is it? Give it me." He shuddered.
"I will give it to you," he said.
I released him, and followed to the lamp-lighted chamber. The other
apparition creaked after him, too, and at the door I gave it the
precedence. It was well I did so. The sudden light seemed to make Gray
bold, for snatching up the other pistol he levelled it at the Simon Pure,
and before I could utter a word, fired. The shot must have passed clean
through the breast of the Mysterious Stranger--he only bowed.
Gray was now in mortal fear.
"Give up that bill," I said in solemn, pedal tones. He drew it frantically
from his pocket, and, leaping up, gave it to the mysterious one.
"Go to th----" he began, with a sort of ferocious recklessness. The next
moment he was sprawling on the floor. The Goblin reached out his hand, and
struck Gray, as it seemed, lightly with it. I would have raised him. I
motioned to do so; but my original touched me on the shoulder, handed me
the bill, and motioned to me to follow. I did not like his notes of
hand--his signature by mark on Gray's face--I therefore at once obeyed. Le
Brun had vanished.
The stranger led me by the old route till we were again close to the
tottering cow-house. Here he paused, as on the last occasion, and was,
perhaps, preparing to disappear again.
"One moment, sir," I said. "Be good enough to explain yourself more plainly
than you did last night. However much I may admire your acting, and it has
_beaucoup de l'Esprit_ about it, family arrangements will prevent me from
again assisting----"
He nodded as though he quite understood me, advanced to the side of the
shed, stopped under a sort of window, and then, deliberately sitting down
on the grass, began to pull off his boots. I gazed at him in amazement, and
was about to address him again, when a little cloud sailed across the moon,
and for a moment shaded all the place. As it passed away, and I looked to
our mysterious visitant and my mysterious Original, no remains of him were
to be seen--except the boots.
At this moment Le Brun joined me. I was the first (as before and as ever)
to throw aside my natural fears, and I advanced to the spot. There were two
highly polished Bluchers, side by side, as if they waited till the occupant
of the cow-house was out of bed and shaved. I took one of them up.
Something inside chinked. I reversed it, and three Napoleons fell upon the
turf.
I was wondering why a French farmer-ghost should choose a Blucher to
deliver Napoleons into an Englishman's hands, when Le Brun, finding nothing
in the other boot, suggested that it would be well to get Gray out of the
neighborhood, and perhaps the three Napoleons might be useful to him. To
this I agreed at once, though I was somewhat dissatisfied with the little
fellow for the small share he had taken in the risks of the evening.
I went to the room where the gambler was; he was evidently in mortal fear.
I put down the Napoleons on the table, and then in those deep, pedal, and
ecclesiastical notes, which have so often hymned my congregation to repose,
informed him that friends of John Finnis were in the town, that he was
proclaimed to the authorities, and that he had better leave the
neighborhood for ever. With this I left him, joined Le Brun, and was soon
on my way back to Honfleur.
"It was well I drew the shot from his pistols," said Le Brun, as we were
parting. I did not then see any latent meaning in his words, nor would he
ever afterwards answer any questions on the subject. I had forgotten to
remove my ghostly dresses and decorations, and Grace and Emma both uttered
gentle screams as I stalked into their presence. My tale was soon told, and
we retired to rest.
Here the whole tale ends. As the events I recorded recede into the past, I
begin almost to doubt the truth of them. But I have one living
evidence--now I am glad to say not single--and Le Brun may fairly lay it to
me that he has at this moment the most agreeable little lady in all
Normandy for his wedded wife. I am not aware if Boots still visits the
glimpses of the moon at St. Sauveur, for soon after these events I was
obliged to return to my parish to put down the Popish fooleries which I
found my hack had begun to introduce. If, however, he does, I only hope his
reappearance will be as useful as in the above little narrative, but the
Brown, the Gray--and the narrator have now done with him for ever.
CREBILLON, THE FRENCH ÆSCHYLUS.
From Fraser's Magazine.
About the year 1670, there lived at Dijon a certain notary, an original in
his way, named Melchior Jolyot. His father was an innkeeper; but of a more
ambitious nature than his sire, the son, so soon as he had succeeded in
collecting a little money, purchased for himself the office of head clerk
in the Chambres des Comptes of Dijon, with the title of Greffier of the
same. During the following year, having long been desirous of a title of
nobility, he acquired, at a very low price, a little abandoned and almost
unknown fief, that of Crebillon, situated about a league and a half from
the city.
His son, Prosper Jolyot, the future poet, was at that time a young man of
about two-and-twenty years of age, a student at law, and then on the eve of
being admitted as advocate at the French bar. From the first years of his
sojourn in Paris, we find that he called himself Prosper Jolyot _de
Crebillon_. About sixty years later, a worthy philosopher of Dijon, a
certain Monsieur J. B. Michault, writes as follows to the President de
Ruffey:--"Last Saturday (June 19th, 1762), our celebrated Crebillon was
interred at St. Gervais. In his _billets de mort_ they gave him the title
of _ecuyer_; but what appears to me more surprising, is the circumstance of
his son adopting that of _messire_."
Crebillon had then ended by cradling himself in a sort of imaginary
nobility. In 1761, we find him writing to the President de Brosse: "I have
ever taken so little thought respecting my own origin, that I have
neglected certain very flattering elucidations on this point. M. de Ricard,
máitre des comptes at Dijon, gave my father one day two titles he had
found. Of these two titles, written in very indifferent Latin, the first
concerned one Jolyot, chamberlain of Raoul, Duke of Burgundy; the second, a
certain Jolyot, chamberlain of Philippe le Bon. Both of these titles are
lost. I can also remember having heard it said in my youth by some old
inhabitants of Nuits, my father's native place, that there formerly existed
in those cantons a certain very powerful and noble family, named Jolyot."
O vanity of vanities! would it be believed that, under the democratic reign
of the Encyclopoedia, a man like Crebillon, ennobled by his own talents
and genius, could have thus hugged himself in the possession of a vain and
deceitful chimera! For truth compels us to own that, from the fifteenth to
the end of the seventeenth century, the Jolyots were never any thing more
or less than honest innkeepers, who sold their wine unadulterated, as it
was procured from the black or golden grapes of the Burgundy hills.
Meanwhile Crebillon, finding that his titles of nobility were uncontested,
pushed his aristocratic weakness so far as to affirm one day that his
family bore on its shield an eagle, or, on a field, azure, holding in its
beak a lily, proper, leaved and sustained, argent. All went, however,
according to his wishes; his son allied himself by an unexpected marriage
to one of the first families of England. The old tragic poet could then
pass into the other world with the consoling reflection that he left behind
him here below a name not only honored in the world of letters, but
inscribed also in the golden muster-roll of the French nobility. But
unfortunately for poor Crebillon's family tree, about a century after the
creation of this mushroom nobility--which, like the majority of the
nobilities of the eighteenth century, had its foundation in the sand--a
certain officious antiquary, who happened at the time to have nothing
better to do, bethought himself one day of inquiring into the validity of
his claim. He devoted to this strange occupation several years of precious
time. By dint of shaking the dust from off the archives of Dijon and
Nuits, and of rummaging the minutes of the notaries of the department, he
succeeded at length in ferreting out the genealogical tree of the Jolyot
family. Some, the most glorious of its members, had been notaries, others
had been innkeepers. Shade of Crebillon, pardon this impious archæologist,
who thus, with ruthless hands, destroyed "at one fell swoop" the brilliant
scaffolding of your vanity!
Prosper Jolyot de Crebillon was born at Dijon, on the 13th of February,
1674; like Corneille, Bossuet, and Voltaire, he studied at the Jesuits'
college of his native town. It is well known that in all their seminaries,
the Jesuits kept secret registers, wherein they inscribed, under the name
of each pupil, certain notes in Latin upon his intellect and character. It
was the Abbé d'Olivet who, it is said, inscribed the note referring to
Crebillon:--"_Puer ingeniosus sed insignis nebulo._" But it must be said
that the collegiate establishments of the holy brotherhood housed certain
pedagogues, who abused their right of pronouncing judgment on the scholars.
Crebillon, after all, was but a lively, frolicksome child, free and
unreserved to excess in manners and speech.
His father, notary and later _greffier en chef_ of the "Chambre des
Comptes" at Dijon, being above all things desirous that his family should
become distinguished in the magistracy, destined his son to the law, saying
that the best heritage he could leave him was his own example. Crebillon
resigned himself to his father's wishes with a very good grace, and
repaired to Paris, there to keep his terms. In the capital, he divided his
time between study and the pleasures and amusements natural to his age. As
soon as he was admitted as advocate, he entered the chambers of a procureur
named Prieur, son of the Prieur celebrated by Scarron, an intimate friend
of his father, who greeted him fraternally. One would have supposed that
our future poet, who bore audacity on his countenance, and genius on his
brow, would, like Achilles, have recognized his sex when they showed him
arms; but far from this being the case, not only was it necessary to warn
him that he _was_ a poet, but even to impel him bodily, as it were, and
despite himself, into the arena.
The writers and poets of France have ever railed in good set terms against
procureurs, advocates, and all such common-place, every-day personages; and
in general, we are bound to confess they have had right on their side. We
must, however, render justice to one of them, the only one, perhaps, who
ever showed a taste for poetry. The worthy man to whom, fortunately for
himself, Crebillon had been confided, remarked at an early stage of their
acquaintanceship, the romantic disposition of his pupil. Of the same
country as Piron and Rameau, Crebillon possessed, like them, the same frank
gayety and good-tempered heedlessness of character, which betrayed his
Burgundian origin. Having at an early age inhaled the intoxicating perfumes
of the Burgundian wines, his first essays in poetry were, as might be
expected, certain _chansons à boire_, none of which, however, have
descended to posterity. The worthy procureur, amazed at the degree of power
shown even in these slight drinking-songs, earnestly advised him to become
a poet by profession.
Crebillon was then twenty-seven years of age; he resisted, alleging that he
did not believe he possessed the true creative genius; that every poet is
in some sort a species of deity, holding chaos in one hand, and light and
life in the other; and that, for his part, he possessed but a bad pen,
destined to defend bad causes in worse style. But the procureur was not to
be convinced; he had discovered that a spark of the creative fire already
shone in the breast of Crebillon. "Do not deny yourself becoming a poet,"
he would frequently say to him; "it is written upon your brow; your looks
have told me so a thousand times. There is but one man in all France
capable of taking up the mantle of Racine, and that man is yourself."
Crebillon exclaimed against this opinion; but having been left alone for a
few hours to transcribe a parliamentary petition, he recalled to mind the
magic of the stage--the scenery, the speeches, the applause; a moment of
inspiration seized him. When the procureur returned, his pupil extended his
hand to him, exclaiming, enthusiastically, "You have pointed out the way
for me, and I shall depart." "Do not be in a hurry," replied the procureur;
"a _chef d'oeuvre_ is not made in a week. Remain quietly where you are,
as if you were still a procureur's clerk; eat my bread and drink my wine;
when you have completed your work, you may then take your flight."
Crebillon accordingly remained in the procureur's office, and at the very
desk on which he transcribed petitions, he composed the five long acts of a
barbarous tragedy, entitled, "The Death of Brutus." The work finished, our
good-natured procureur brought all his interest into play, in order to
obtain a reading of the piece at the Comedie Française. After many
applications, Crebillon was permitted to read his play: it was unanimously
rejected. The poet was furious; he returned home to the procureur's, and
casting down his manuscript at the good man's feet, exclaimed, in a voice
of despair, "You have dishonored me!"
D'Alembert says, "Crebillon's fury burst upon the procureur's head; he
regarded him almost in the light of an enemy who had advised him only for
his own dishonor, swore to listen to him no more, and never to write
another line of verse so long as he lived."
Crebillon, however, in his rage maligned the worthy procureur; he would not
have found elsewhere so hospitable a roof or as true a friend. He returned
to the study of the law, but the decisive step had been taken; beneath the
advocate's gown the poet had already peeped forth. And then, the procureur
was never tired of predicting future triumphs. Crebillon ventured upon
another tragedy, and chose for his subject the story of the Cretan king,
Idomeneus. This time the comedians accepted his piece, and shortly
afterwards played it. Its success was doubtful, but the author fancied he
had received sufficient encouragement to continue his new career.
In his next piece, "Atrée," Crebillon, who had commenced as a school-boy,
now raised himself, as it were, to the dignity of a master. The comedians
learned their parts with enthusiasm. On the morning of the first
representation, the procureur summoned the young poet to his bedside, for
he was then stricken with a mortal disease: "My friend," said he, "I have a
presentiment that this very evening you will be greeted by the critics of
the nation as a son of the great Corneille. There are but a few days of
life remaining for me; I have no longer strength to walk, but be assured
that I shall be at my post this evening, in the pit of the Théâtre
Française." True to his word, the good old man had himself carried to the
theatre. The intelligent judges applauded certain passages of the tragedy,
in which wonderful power, as well as many startling beauties, were
perceptible; but at the catastrophe, when Atreus compels Thyestes to drink
the blood of his son, there was a general exclamation of horror--(Gabrielle
de Vergy, be it remarked, had not then eaten on the stage the heart of her
lover). "The procureur," says D'Alembert, "would have left the theatre in
sorrow, if he had awaited the judgment of the audience in order to fix his
own. The pit appeared more terrified than interested; it beheld the curtain
fall without uttering a sound either of approval or condemnation, and
dispersed in that solemn and ominous silence which bodes no good for the
future welfare of the piece. But the procureur judged better than the
public, or rather, he anticipated its future judgment. The play over, he
proceeded to the green-room to seek his pupil, who, still in a state of the
greatest uncertainty as to his fate, was already almost resigned to a
failure; he embraced Crebillon in a transport of admiration: 'I die
content,' said he. 'I have made you a poet; and I leave a man to the
nation!'"
And, in fact, at each representation of the piece, the public discovered
fresh beauties, and abandoned itself with real pleasure to the terror which
the poet inspired. A few days afterwards, the name of Crebillon became
celebrated throughout Paris and the provinces, and all imagined that the
spirit of the great Corneille had indeed revisited earth to animate the
muse of the young Burgundian.
Crebillon's father was greatly irritated on finding that his son had, as
they said then, abandoned Themis for Melpomene. In vain did the procureur
plead his pupil's cause--in vain did Crebillon address to this true father
a supplication in verse, to obtain pardon for him from his sire; the
_greffier en chef_ of Dijon was inexorable; to his son's entreaties he
replied that he cursed him, and that he was about to make a new will. To
complete, as it were, his downfall in the good opinion of this individual,
who possessed such a blind infatuation for the law, Crebillon wrote him a
letter, in which the following passage occurs: "I am about to get married,
if you have no objection, to the most beautiful girl in Paris; you may
believe me, sir, upon this point, for her beauty is all that she
possesses."
To this his father replied: "Sir, your tragedies are not to my taste, your
children will not be mine; commit as many follies as you please, I shall
console myself with the reflection that I refused my consent to your
marriage; and I would strongly advise you, sir, to depend more than ever on
your pieces for support, for you are no longer a member of my family."
Crebillon, for all that, married, as he said, the most beautiful girl in
Paris--the gentle and charming Charlotte Peaget, of whom Dufresny has
spoken. She was the daughter of an apothecary, and it was while frequenting
her father's shop that Crebillon became acquainted with her. There was
nothing very romantic, it is true, in the match; but love spreads a charm
over all that it comes in contact with. Thus, a short time before his
marriage, Crebillon perceived his intended giving out some marshmallow and
violets to a sick customer: "My dear Charlotte," said he, "we will go
together, some of these days, among our Dijonnaise mountains, to collect
violets and marshmallows for your father."
It was shortly after his marriage and removal to the Place Maubert, that he
first evinced his strange mania for cats and dogs, and, above all, his
singular passion for tobacco. He was, beyond contradiction, the greatest
smoker of his day. It has been stated by some of the writers of the time,
that he could not turn a single rhyme of a tragedy, save in an obscure and
smoky chamber, surrounded by a noisy pack of dogs and cats; according to
the same authorities, he would very frequently, also, in the middle of the
day, close the shutters, and light candles. A thousand other extravagances
have been attributed to Crebillon; but we ought to accept with caution the
recitals of these anecdote-mongers, who were far too apt to imagine they
were portraying a man, when in reality they were but drawing a ridiculous
caricature.
When M. Melchior Jolyot learned that his son had, in defiance of his
paternal prohibition, actually wedded the apothecary's daughter, his grief
and rage knew no bounds. The worthy man believed in his recent nobility as
firmly as he did in his religion, and his son's _mesalliance_ nearly drove
him to despair: this time he actually carried his threat into execution,
and made a formal will, by virtue of which he completely disinherited the
poet.--Fortunately for Crebillon, his father, before bidding adieu to the
world and his nobility, undertook a journey to Paris, curious, even in the
midst of his rage, to judge for himself the merits and demerits of the
theatrical tomfooleries, as he called them, of his silly boy, who had
married the apothecary's daughter, and who, in place of gaining nobility
and station in a procureur's office, had written a parcel of trash for
actors to spout. We must say, however, that Crebillon could not have
retained a better counsel to urge his claims before the paternal tribunal
than his wife, the much maligned apothecary's daughter, one of the
loveliest and most amiable women in Paris; and we may add, that this
nobility of which his father thought so much--the nobility of the
robe--which had not been acquired in a Dijonnaise family until after the
lapse of three generations, was scarcely equal to the nobility of the pen,
which Crebillon had acquired by the exercise of his own talents.
The old greffier, then, came to Paris for the purpose of witnessing one of
the sad tomfooleries of that unhappy profligate, who in better times had
been his son. Fate so willed it that on that night "Atrée" should be
performed. The old man was seized with mingled emotions of terror, grief,
and admiration. That very evening, being resolved not to rest until he had
seen his son, he called a coach on leaving the theatre, and drove straight
to the Faubourg Saint Marceau, to the house which had been pointed out to
him as the dwelling of Crebillon. No sooner had the doors opened than out
rushed seven or eight dogs, who cast themselves upon the old greffier,
uttering in every species of canine _patois_ the loudest possible
demonstrations of welcome. One word from Madame Crebillon, however, was
sufficient to recall this unruly pack to order; yet the dogs, having no
doubt instinctively discovered a family likeness, continued to gambol round
the limbs of M. Melchior Jolyot, to the latter's no small confusion and
alarm. Charlotte, who was alone, waiting supper for her husband, was much
surprised at this unexpected visit. At first she imagined that it was some
great personage who had come to offer the poet his patronage and
protection; but after looking at her visitor two or three times, she
suddenly exclaimed: "You are my husband's father, or at least you are one
of the Jolyot family." The old greffier, though intending to have
maintained his incognito until his son's return, could no longer resist the
desire of abandoning himself to the delights of a reconciliation; he
embraced his daughter-in-law tenderly, shedding tears of joy, and accusing
himself all the while for his previous unnatural harshness: "Yes, yes,"
cried he, "yes, you are still my children--all that I have is yours!" then,
after a moment's silence, he continued, in a tone of sadness: "But how does
it happen that, with his great success, my son has condemned his wife to
such a home and such a supper?"
"Condemned, did you say?" murmured Charlotte; "do not deceive yourself, we
are quite happy here;" so saying she took her father-in-law by the hand,
and led him into the adjoining room, to a cradle covered with white
curtains. "Look!" said she, turning back the curtains with maternal
solicitude.
The old man's heart melted outright at the sight of his grandchild.
"Are we not happy?" continued the mother. "What more do we require? We live
on a little, and when we have no money, my father assists us."
They returned to the sitting-room.
"What wine is this?" said the old Burgundian, uncorking the bottle intended
to form part of their frugal repast. "What!" he exclaimed, "my son fallen
so low as this! The Crebillons have always drunk good wine."
At this instant, the dogs set up a tremendous barking: Crebillon was
ascending the stairs. A few moments afterwards he entered the room escorted
by a couple of dogs, which had followed him from the theatre.
"What! two more!" exclaimed the father; "this is really too much. Son," he
continued, "I am come to entreat your pardon; in my anxiety to show myself
your father, I had forgotten that my first duty was to love you."
Crebillon cast himself into his father's arms.
"But _parbleu_, Monsieur," continued the old notary, "I cannot forgive you
for having so many dogs."
"You are right, father; but what would become of these poor animals were I
not to take compassion upon them? It is not good for man to be alone, says
the Scripture. No longer able to live with my fellow-creatures, I have
surrounded myself with dogs. The dog is the solace and friend of the
solitary man."
"But I should imagine you were not alone here," said the father, with a
glance towards Charlotte, and the infant's cradle.
"Who knows?" said the young wife, with an expression of touching melancholy
in her voice. "It is perhaps through a presentiment that he speaks thus. I
much fear that I shall not live long. He has but one friend upon the earth,
and that friend is myself. Now, when I shall be no more----"
"But you shall not die," interrupted Crebillon, taking her in his arms.
"Could I exist without you?"
Madame Crebillon was not deceived in her presentiments: the poet, who, we
know, lived to a patriarchal age, lived on in widowed solitude for upwards
of fifty years.
Crebillon and his wife accompanied the old greffier back from Paris to
Dijon, where, to the great surprise of the inhabitants, the father
presented his son as "M. Jolyot de Crebillon, who has succeeded Messieurs
Corneille and Racine in the honors of the French stage." Crebillon had the
greatest possible difficulty in restraining the enthusiasm of his sire. He
succeeded, however, at length, not through remonstrance, but by the
insatiable ardor he displayed in diving into the paternal money-bags. After
a sojourn of three months at Dijon, Crebillon returned to Paris; and well
for him it was that he did so; a month longer, and the father would
indubitably have quarrelled with him again, and would have remade his will,
disinheriting this time, not the rebellious child, but the prodigal son.
Crebillon, in fact, never possessed the art of keeping his money; and in
this respect he but followed the example of all those who, in imagination,
remove mountains of gold.
Scarcely had he arrived in Paris when he was obliged to return to Dijon.
The old greffier had died suddenly. The inheritance was a most difficult
one to unravel. "I have come here," writes Crebillon to the elder of the
brothers Pâris, "only to inherit law-suits." And, true enough, he allowed
himself to be drawn blindly into the various suits which arose in
consequence of certain informalities in the old man's will, and which
eventually caused almost the entire property to drop, bit by bit, into the
pockets of the lawyers.
"I was a great blockhead," wrote Crebillon later; "I went about reciting
passages from my tragedies to these lawyers, who feigned to pale with
admiration; and this manoeuvre of theirs blinded me; I perceived not that
all the while these cunning foxes were devouring my substance; but it is
the fate of poets to be ever like La Fontaine's crow."
Out of this property he succeeded only in preserving the little fief of
Crebillon, the income derived from which he gave up to his sisters. On his
return to Paris, however, he changed altogether his style of living; he
removed his penates to the neighborhood of the Luxembourg, and placed his
establishment on quite a seignorial footing, as if he had become heir to a
considerable property. This act of folly can scarcely be explained. The
report, of course, was spread, that he had inherited property to a large
amount. Most probably he wished, by acting thus, to save the family honor,
or, to speak more correctly, the family vanity, by seeking to deceive the
world as to the precise amount of the Jolyot estate.
True wisdom inhabits not the world in which we dwell. Crebillon sought all
the superfluities of luxury. In vain did his wife endeavor to restrain him
in his extravagances; in vain did she recal to his mind their frugal but
happy meals, and the homely furniture of their little dwelling in the Place
Maubert; "_so gay for all that on sunny days_."
"Well," he would reply, "if we must return there, I shall not complain.
What matters if the wine be not so good, so that it is always your hand
which pours it out."
Fortunately, that year was one of successive triumphs for Crebillon. The
"Electre" carried off all suffrages, and astonished even criticism itself.
In this piece the poet had softened down the harshness of his tints, and
while still maintaining his "majestic" character, had kept closer to nature
and humanity.
"Electre" was followed by "Rhadamiste," which was at the time extolled as a
perfect _chef-d'oeuvre_ of style and vigor. There is in this play, if we
may be allowed the term, a certain rude nobility of expression, which is
the true characteristic of Crebillon's genius. It was this tragedy which
inspired Voltaire with the idea, that on the stage it is better to strike
hard than true. The enthusiastic auditory admitted, that if Racine could
paint love, Crebillon could depict hatred. Boileau, who was then dying, and
who, could he have had his wish, would have desired that French literature
might stop at his name, exclaimed, that this success was scandalous. "I
have lived too long!" cried the old poet, in a violent rage. "To what a
pack of Visigoths have I left the French stage a prey! The Pradons, whom we
so often ridiculed, were eagles compared to these fellows." Boileau
resembled in some respect old "Nestor" of the _Iliad_, when he said to the
Greek kings--"I would advise you to listen to me, for I have formerly mixed
with men who were your betters." The public, however, amply avenged
Crebillon for the bitter judgment of Boileau; in eight days two editions of
the "Rhadamiste" were exhausted. And this was not all: the piece having
been played by command of the Regent before the court at Versailles, was
applauded to the echo.
Despite these successes, Crebillon was not long in getting to the bottom of
his purse. In the hope of deferring as long as he possibly could the evil
hour when he should be obliged to return to his former humble style of
living, he used every possible means to replenish his almost exhausted
exchequer. He borrowed three thousand crowns from Baron Hoguer, who was the
resource of literary men in the days of the Regency; and sold to a Jew
usurer his author's rights upon a tragedy which was yet to be written. He
had counted upon the success of "Xerxes;" but this tragedy proved an utter
failure. Crebillon, however, was a man of strong mind. He returned home
that evening with a calm, and even smiling countenance: "Well," eagerly
exclaimed Madame Crebillon, who had been awaiting in anxiety the return of
her husband. "Well," replied he, "they have damned my play; to-morrow we
will return to our old habits again."
And, true to his word, on the following morning Crebillon returned to the
Place Maubert, where he hired a little apartment near his father-in-law,
who could still offer our poet and his wife, when hard pressed, a glass of
his _vin ordinaire_ and a share of his dinner. Out of all his rich
furniture Crebillon selected but a dozen cats and dogs, whom he chose as
the companions of his exile. To quote d'Alembert's words--"Like Alcibiades,
in former days, he passed from Persian luxury to Spartan austerity, and,
what in all probability Alcibiades was not, he was happier in the second
state than he had been in the first."
His wife was in retirement what she had been in the world. She never
complained. Perhaps even she showed herself in a more charming light, as
the kind and devoted companion of the hissed and penniless poet, than as
the admired wife of the popular dramatist. Poor Madame Crebillon hid their
poverty from her husband with touching delicacy; he almost fancied himself
rich, such a magic charm did she contrive to cast over their humble
dwelling. Like Midas, she appeared to possess the gift of changing whatever
she touched into gold, that is to say, of giving life and light by her
winning grace to every thing with which she came in contact. Blessed,
thrice blessed is that man, be he poet or philosopher, who, like Crebillon,
has felt and understood that amiability and a contented mind are in a wife
treasures inexhaustible, compared to which mere mundane wealth fades into
utter insignificance. No word of complaint or peevish expression ever
passed Madame Crebillon's lips; she was proud of her poet's glory, and
endeavored always to sustain him in his independent ideas; she would listen
resignedly to all his dreams of future triumphs, and knew how to cast
herself into his arms when he would declare that he desired nothing more
from mankind. One day, however, when there was no money in the house, on
seeing him return with a dog under each arm, she ventured on a quiet
remonstrance. "Take care, Monsieur de Crebillon," she said, with a smile,
"we have already eight dogs and fifteen cats."
"Well, I know that," replied Crebillon; "but see how piteously these poor
dogs look at us; could I leave them to die of hunger in the street?"
"But did it not strike you that they might possibly die of hunger here? I
can fully understand and enter into your feelings of love and pity for
these poor animals, but we must not convert the house into a hospital for
foundling dogs."
"Why despair?" said Crebillon. "Providence never abandons genius and
virtue. The report goes that I am to be of the Academy."
"I do not believe it," said Madame Crebillon. "Fontenelle and La Motte, who
are but _beaux esprits_, will never permit a man like you to seat himself
beside them, for if you were of the Academy, would you not be the king of
it?"
Crebillon, however, began his canvass, but as his wife had foreseen,
Fontenelle and La Motte succeeded in having him black-balled.
All these little literary thorns, however, only imparted greater charms to
the calm felicity of Crebillon's domestic hearth; but we must now open the
saddest page of our poet's hitherto peaceful and happy existence.
One evening, on his return from the Café Procope, the resort of all the
wits and _litterateurs_ of the eighteenth century, Crebillon found his wife
in a state of great agitation, half-undressed, and pressing their sleeping
infant to her bosom.
"Why, Charlotte, what is the matter?" he exclaimed.
"I am afraid," replied she, trembling, and looking towards the bed.
"What folly! you are like the children, you are frightened at shadows."
"Yes, I am frightened at shadows; just now, as I was undressing, I saw a
spectre glide along at the foot of the bed. I was ready to sink to the
earth with terror, and it was with the greatest difficulty that I could
muster strength enough to reach the child's cradle."
"Child yourself," said Crebillon, playfully; "you merely saw the shadow of
the bed-curtains."
"No, no," cried the young wife, seizing the poet's hand--"it was Death! I
recognized him; for it is not the first time that he has shown himself to
me. Ah! _mon ami_, with what grief and terror shall I prepare to lie down
in the cold earth! If you love me as I love you, do not leave me for an
instant; help me to die, for if you are by my side at that hour, I shall
fancy I am but dropping asleep."
Greatly shocked at what he heard, Crebillon took his child in his arms, and
carried it back to its cradle. He returned to his wife, pressed her to his
bosom, and sought vainly for words to relieve her apprehensions, and to
lead back her thoughts into less sombre channels. He at length succeeded,
but not without great difficulty, in persuading her to retire to rest; she
scarcely closed an eye. Poor Crebillon sat in silence by the bedside of his
wife praying fervently in his heart; for perhaps he believed in omens and
presentiments even to a greater degree than did Charlotte. Finding, at
length, that she had dropped asleep, he got into bed himself. When he awoke
in the morning, he beheld Charlotte bending over him in a half-raised
posture, as though she had been attentively regarding him as he slept.
Terrified at the deadly paleness of her cheeks, and the unnatural
brilliancy of her eyes, and sensitive and tender-hearted as a child, he was
unable to restrain his tears. She cast herself passionately into his arms,
and covered his cheeks with tears and kisses.
"'Tis all over now," she whispered, in a broken voice; "my heart beats too
strongly to beat much longer, but I die contented and happy, for I see by
your tears that you will not forget me."
Crebillon rose hastily and ran to his father-in-law. "Alas!" said the poor
apothecary, "her mother, who was as beautiful and as good as she, died
young of a disease of the heart, and her child will go the same way."
All the most celebrated physicians of the day were called in, but before
they could determine upon a method of treatment, the spirit of poor
Charlotte had taken flight from its earthly tabernacle.
Crebillon, inconsolable at his loss, feared not the ridicule (for in the
eighteenth century all such exhibitions of feeling were considered highly
ridiculous) of lamenting his wife; he wept her loss during half a
century--in other words, to his last hour.
During the space of two years he scarcely appeared once at the Théâtre
Française. He had the air of a man of another age, so completely a stranger
did he seem to all that was going on around him. One might say that he
still lived with his divine Charlotte; he would speak to her unceasingly,
as if her gentle presence was still making the wilderness of his solitary
dwelling blossom like the rose. After fifteen years of mourning, some
friends one day surprised him in his solitude, speaking aloud to his dear
Charlotte, relating to her his projects for the future, and recalling their
past days of happiness: "Ah, Charlotte," he exclaimed, "they all tell me of
my glory, yet I think but of thee!"
The friends of Crebillon, uneasy respecting his future destiny, had advised
him during the preceding year to present himself at court, where he was
received and recognized as a man of genius. In the early days of his
widowhood, he quitted Paris suddenly and took up his residence at
Versailles. But at Versailles he lived as he had done in Paris, immured in
his chamber, and entirely engrossed with his own sombre and lugubrious
thoughts and visions; in consequence of this, he was scarcely noticed; the
king seeing before him a species of Danubian peasant, proud of his genius
and his poverty, treated him with an almost disdainful coldness of manner.
Crebillon did not at first comprehend his position at Versailles. He was a
simple-minded philosopher, who had studied heroes and not men. At length,
convinced that a poet at court is like a fish out of water, he returned to
Paris to live more nobly with his heroes and his poverty. He retired to the
Marais, to the Rue des Deux-Portes, taking with him only a bed, a table,
two chairs, and an arm-chair, "in case," to use his own words, "an honest
man should come to visit him."
Irritated at the rebuff he had met with at Versailles, ashamed of having
solicited in vain the justice of the king, he believed henceforth only in
liberty. "Liberty," said he, "is the most vivid sentiment engraven on my
heart." Unintentionally, perhaps, he avenged himself in the first work he
undertook after this event: the tragedy of "Cromwell,"--"an altar," as he
said, "which I erect to liberty." According to D'Alembert, he read to his
friends some scenes of this play, in which our British aversion for
absolutism was painted with wild and startling energy; in consequence
thereof, he received an order forbidding him to continue his piece. His
Cromwell was a villain certainly, but a villain which would have told well
upon the stage, from the degree of grandeur and heroic dignity with which
the author had invested the character. From that day he had enemies; but
indeed it might be said that he had had enemies from the evening of the
first representation of his "Electre." Success here below has no other
retinue.
Crebillon was now almost penniless. By degrees, without having foreseen
such an occurrence, he began to hear his numerous creditors buzzing around
him like a swarm of hornets. Not having any thing else to seize, they
seized at the theatre his author's rights. The affair was brought before
the courts, and led to a decree of parliament which ordained that the works
of the intellect were not seizable, consequently Crebillon retained the
income arising from the performance of his tragedies.
Some years now passed away without bringing any fresh successes. Compelled
by the court party to discontinue "Cromwell," he gave "Semiramis," which,
like "Xerxes," some time previously, was a failure. Under the impression
that the public could not bring itself to relish "sombre horrors of human
tempests," he sought to arm himself as it were against his own nature, to
subdue and soften it. The tragedy of "Pyrrhus," which recalled the tender
colors of Racine, cost him five years' labor. At that time, so strong in
France was the empire of habit, that this tragedy, though utterly valueless
as a work of art, and wanting both in style, relief, and expression, was
received with enthusiasm. But Crebillon possessed too much good sense to be
blinded by this spurious triumph. "It is," said he, when speaking of his
work, "but the shadow of a tragedy."
"Pyrrhus" obtained, after all, but a transitory success. After a brief
period, the public began to discover that it was a foreign plant, which
under a new sky gave out but a factitious brilliancy. In despair at having
wasted so much precious time in fruitless labor, and disgusted besides at
the conduct of some shameless intriguers who frequented the literary cafés
of the capital, singing his defeat in trashy verse, Crebillon now retired
almost wholly from the world. He would visit the theatre, however,
occasionally to chat with a few friends over the literary topics of the
day; but at length even this recreation was abandoned, and he was seen in
the world no more.
He lived now without any other friends than his heroes and his cats and
dogs, devouring the novels of La Calprenède, and relating long-winded
romances to himself. His son affirms having seen fifteen dogs and as many
cats barking and mewing at one time round his father, who would speak to
them much more tenderly than he would to himself. According to Freron's
account, Crebillon would pick up and carry home under his cloak all the
wandering dogs he met with in the street, and give them shelter and
hospitality. But in return for this, he would require from them an aptitude
for certain exercises; when, at the termination of the prescribed period,
the pupil was convicted of not having profited by the education he had
received, the poet would take him under his cloak again, put him down at
the corner of a street and fly from the spot with tears in his eyes.
On the death of La Motte, Crebillon was at length admitted into the
Academy. As he was always an eccentric man, he wrote his "Discourse" of
reception in verse, a thing which had never been done before. On
pronouncing this line, which has not yet been forgotten--
Aucun fiel n'a jamais empoisonné ma plume--
he was enthusiastically applauded. From that day, but from that day only,
Crebillon was recognized by his countrymen as a man of honor and virtue, as
well as genius. It was rather late in the day, however; he had lost his
wife, his son was mixing in the fashionable world, he was completely alone,
and almost forgotten, expecting nothing more from the fickle public. More
idle than a lazzarone, he passed years without writing a single line,
though his ever-active imagination would still produce, mentally, tragedy
after tragedy. As he possessed a wonderful memory, he would compose and
rhyme off-hand the entire five acts of a piece without having occasion to
put pen to paper. One evening, under the impression that he had produced a
masterpiece, he invited certain of his brother Academicians to his house to
hear his new play. When the party had assembled, he commenced, and
declaimed the entire tragedy from beginning to end without stopping.
Judging by the ominous silence with which the conclusion was received, that
his audience was not over delighted with his play, he exclaimed, in a pet--
"You see, my friends, I was right in not putting my tragedy on paper."
"Why so?" asked Godoyn.
"Because, I should have had the trouble of throwing it into the fire. Now,
I shall merely have to forget it, which is easier done."
When Crebillon seemed no longer formidable in the literary world, and all
were agreed he was in the decline of his genius, the very men who had
previously denied his power, now thought fit to combat Voltaire by exalting
Crebillon, in the same way as they afterwards exalted Voltaire so soon as
another star appeared on the literary horizon.
"With the intention of humbling the pride of Voltaire, they proceeded,"
says a writer of the time, "to seek out in his lonely retreat the now aged
and forsaken Crebillon, who, mute and solitary for the last thirty years,
was no longer a formidable enemy for them, but whom they flattered
themselves they could oppose as a species of phantom to the illustrious
writer by whom they were eclipsed; just as, in former days, the Leaguers
drew an old cardinal from out the obscurity in which he lived, to give
him the empty title of king, only that they themselves might reign under
his name."
The literary world was then divided into two adverse parties--the
Crebillonists, and the Voltairians. The first, being masters of all the
avenues, succeeded for a length of time in blinding the public. Voltaire
passed for a mere wit; Crebillon, for the sole heir of the sceptre of
Corneille and Racine. It was this clique which invented the formula ever
afterwards employed in the designation of these three poets--Corneille the
great, Racine the tender, and Crebillon the tragic. One great advantage
Crebillon possessed over Voltaire: he had written nothing for the last
thirty years. His friends, or rather Voltaire's enemies, now began to give
out that the author of "Rhadamiste" was engaged in putting the finishing
hand to a tragedy, a veritable dramatic wonder, by name "Catilina." Madame
de Pompadour herself, tired of Voltaire's importunate ambition, now went
over with her forces to the camp of the Crebillonists. She received
Crebillon at court, and recommended him to the particular care of Louis
XV., who conferred a pension on him, and also appointed him to the office
of censor royal.
"Catilina" was at length produced with great _éclat_. The court party,
which was present in force at the first performance, doubtless contributed
in a great measure to the success of the piece. The old poet, thus
encouraged, set to work on a new play, the "Triumvirat," with fresh ardor;
but as was Voltaire's lot in after years, it was soon perceptible that the
poet was but the shadow of what he had been. Out of respect, however, for
Crebillon's eighty-eight years, the tragedy was applauded, but in a few
days the "Triumvirat" was played to empty benches. Crebillon had now but
one thing left to do: to die, which, in fact, he did in the year 1762.
It cannot be denied that Crebillon was one of the remarkable men of his
century. That untutored genius, so striking in the boldness and brilliancy
of its creations, but which more frequently repels through its own native
barbarity, was eminently the genius of Crebillon. But what, above all,
characterizes the genius of the French nation--wit, grace, and
polish--Crebillon never possessed; consequently, with all his vigor and all
his force, he never succeeded in creating a living work. He has depicted
human perversity with a proud and daring hand--he has shown the
fratricide, the infanticide, the parricide, but he never succeeded in
attaining the sublimity of the Greek drama. And yet J. J. Rousseau affirmed
that of all the French tragic poets, Crebillon alone had recalled to him
the grandeur of the Greeks. If so, it was only through the nudity of
terror, for the "French Æschylus" was utterly wanting in what may be termed
human and philosophical sentiment.
There is a very beautiful portrait of Crebillon extant, by Latour. It would
doubtless be supposed that the man, so terrible in his dramatic furies, was
of a dark and sombre appearance. Far from it; Crebillon was of a fair
complexion, and had an artless expression of countenance, and a pair of
beautiful blue eyes. It must, however, be confessed, that by his method of
borrowing the gestures of his heroes, coupled, moreover, with the habit he
had acquired of contracting his eyebrows in the fervor of composition,
Crebillon in the end became a little more the man of his works. He was,
moreover, impatient and irritable, even with his favorite dogs and cats,
and occasionally with his sweet-tempered and angelic wife, the ever
cheerful partner alike of his joys and sorrows, who had so nobly resigned
herself to the chances and changes of his good and ill-fortune; that loving
companion of his hours of profusion and gaiety, when he aped the _grand
seigneur_, as well as the devoted sharer of those days of poverty and
neglect, when he retired from the world in disgust, to the old
dwelling-house of the Place Maubert.
HABITS OF FREDERICK THE GREAT.
The principal part of the life of this great monarch was spent in camp, and
in a constant struggle with a host of enemies. Yet even then, when the busy
day scarcely afforded a vacant moment, that moment, if it came, was sure to
be given to study. Let the young shopocracy of Glasgow never forget that
Frederic had _very early_ formed an attachment to reading, which neither
the opposition of his father--who thought that the scholar would spoil the
soldier--nor the schemes of ambition and conquest, which occupied him so
much in after life, were able to destroy or weaken. When at last,
therefore, he felt himself at liberty to sheathe the sword, he gave himself
up to the cultivation and patronage of literature and the arts of peace, as
eagerly as he had ever done to the pursuit of military renown. Even before
his accession to the throne, and while yet but a young man, he had
established in his residence at Rheimsberg nearly the same system of
studious application and economy in the management of his time to which he
ever afterwards continued to adhere. His relaxations even then were almost
entirely of an intellectual character; and he had collected around him a
circle of literary associates, with whom it was his highest enjoyment to
spend his hours in philosophic conversation, or in amusements not unfitted
to adorn a life of philosophy. In a letter written to one of his friends,
he says--"I become every day more covetous of my time; I render an account
of it to myself, and lose none of it but with great regret. My mind is
entirely turned toward philosophy; it has rendered me admirable services,
and I am greatly indebted to it. I find myself happy, abundantly more
tranquil than formerly; my soul is less subject to violent agitations; and
I do nothing till I have considered what course of action I ought to
adopt." Let young men contrast such conduct with the frivolities of other
noble and royal persons, and be faithful to her whose ways are
pleasantness, and whose paths are peace. I shall conclude this paper with a
sketch of his doings for the ordinary four-and-twenty hours. Dr. Towers,
who has written a history of his reign, informs us that it was his general
custom to rise at five o'clock in the morning, and sometimes earlier. He
commonly dressed his hair himself, and seldom employed more than two
minutes for that purpose. His boots were put at the bedside, for he
scarcely ever wore shoes. After he was dressed, the adjutant of the first
battalion of his guards brought him a list of all the persons that had
arrived at Potsdam, or departed from thence. When he had delivered his
orders to this officer he retired into an inner cabinet, where he employed
himself in private till seven o'clock. He then went into another apartment,
where he drank coffee or chocolate, and here he found all the letters
addressed to him from Potsdam and Berlin. Foreign letters were placed upon
a separate table. After reading all these letters, he wrote hints or notes
on the margin of those which his secretaries were to answer, and then
returning into the inner cabinet carried with him such as he meant to write
or dictate an answer to himself. Here he employed himself until nine
o'clock. At ten the generals who were about his person attended. At eleven
he mounted his horse and rode to the parade, when he reviewed and exercised
his guards; and at the same hour, says Voltaire, all the colonels did the
same throughout the provinces. He afterwards walked for some time in the
garden with his generals. At one o'clock he sat down to dinner. He had no
carver, but did the honors of the table like a private gentleman. His
dinner-time did not much exceed an hour. He then retired into his private
apartment, making low bows to his company. He remained in private till five
o'clock, when his reader waited on him. His reading lasted about two hours,
and this was succeeded by a concert upon the flute which lasted till nine.
He supped at half-past nine with his favorite _literati_, and at twelve the
king went to bed.--_Communication from David Vedder, in the Glasgow
Citizen._
THE OLD MAN'S DEATH.
A CHILD'S FIRST SIGHT OF SORROW.
From "Recollections of our Neighborhood in the West."[6]
BY ALICE CAREY.
Change is the order of nature; the old makes way for the new; over the
perished growth of last year brighten the blossoms of this. What changes
are to be counted, even in a little noiseless life like mine! How many
graves have grown green; how many locks have grown gray; how many, lately
young, and strong in hope and courage, are faltering and fainting; how many
hands that reached eagerly for the roses are drawn back bleeding and full
of thorns; and, saddest of all, how many hearts are broken! I remember when
I had no sad memory, when I first made room in my bosom for the
consciousness of death.
We have gained the world's cold wisdom now,
We have learned to pause and fear;
But where are the living founts whose flow
Was a joy of heart to hear!
I remember the twilight, as though it were yesterday--grey, and dim, and
cold, for it was late in October, when the shadow first came over my heart,
that no subsequent sunshine has ever swept entirely away. From the window
of our cottage home, streamed a column of light, in which I sat stringing
the red berries of the brier rose.
I had heard of death, but regarded it only with that vague apprehension
which I felt for the demons and witches that gather poison herbs under the
new moon, in fairy forests, or strangle harmless travelers with wands of
the willow, or with vines of the wild grape or ivy. I did not much like to
think about them, and yet I felt safe from their influence.
There might be people, somewhere, that would die some time; I did'nt know,
but it would not be myself, or any one I knew. They were so well and so
strong, so full of joyous hopes, how could their feet falter, and their
smiles grow dim, and their fainting hands lay away their work, and fold
themselves together! No, no--it was not a thing to be believed.
Drifts of sunshine from that season of blissful ignorance often come back,
as lightly
As the winds of the May-time flow,
And lift up the shadows brightly
As the daffodil lifts the snow--
the shadows that have gathered with the years! It is pleasant to have them
thus swept off--to find myself a child again--the crown of pale pain and
sorrow that presses heavily now, unfelt, and the graves that lie lonesomely
along my way, covered up with flowers--to feel my mother's dark locks fall
upon my cheek, as she teaches me the lesson or the prayer--to see my
father, now a sorrowful old man whose hair has thinned and whitened almost
to the limit of three score years and ten, fresh and vigorous, strong for
the race--and to see myself a little child, happy with a new hat and a pink
ribbon, or even with the string of briar buds that I called coral. Now I
tie it about my neck, and now around my forehead, and now twist it among my
hair, as I have somewhere read great ladies do their pearls. The winds are
blowing the last yellow leaves from the cherry tree--I know not why, but it
makes me sad. I draw closer to the light of the window, and slyly peep
within--all is quiet and cheerful; the logs on the hearth are ablaze; my
father is mending a bridle-rein, which "Traveller," the favorite riding
horse, snapt in two yesterday, when frightened at the elephant that
(covered with a great white cloth), went by to be exhibited at the coming
show,--my mother is hemming a ruffle, perhaps for me to wear to school next
quarter--my brother is reading in a newspaper, I know not what, but I see,
on one side, the picture of a bear: Let me listen--and flattening my cheek
against the pane, I catch his words distinctly, for he reads loud and very
clearly--it is an improbable story of a wild man who has recently been
discovered in the woods of some far-away island--he seems to have been
there a long time, for his nails are grown like claws, and his hair, in
rough and matted strings, hangs to his knees; he makes a noise like
something between the howl of a beast and a human cry, and, when pursued,
runs with a nimbleness and swiftness that baffle the pursuers, though
mounted on the fleetest of steeds, urged through brake and bush to their
utmost speed. When first seen, he was sitting on the ground and cracking
nuts with his teeth; his arms are corded with sinews that make it probable
his strength is sufficient to strangle a dozen men; and yet on seeing human
beings, he runs into the thick woods, lifting such a hideous scream, the
while, as make his discoverers clasp their hands to their ears. It is
suggested that this is not a solitary individual, become wild by isolation,
but that a race exists, many of which are perhaps larger and of more
terrible aspects; but whether they have any intelligible language, and
whether they live in caverns of rocks or in trunks of hollow trees, remains
for discovery by some future and more daring explorers.
My brother puts down the paper and looks at the picture of the bear. "I
would not read such foolish stories," says my father, as he holds the
bridle up to the light, to see that it is nearly mended; my mother breaks
the thread which gathers the ruffle; she is gentle and loving, and does not
like to hear even implied reproof, but she says nothing; little Harry, who
is playing on the floor, upsets his block-house, and my father, clapping
his hands together, exclaims, "This is the house that Jack built!" and
adds, patting Harry on the head, "Where is my little boy? this is not he,
this is a little carpenter; you must make your houses stronger, little
carpenter!" But Harry insists that he is the veritable little Harry, and no
carpenter, and hides his tearful eyes in the lap of my mother, who assures
him that he is her own little boy, and soothes his childish grief by
buttoning on his neck the ruffle she has just completed; and off he
scampers again, building a new house, the roof of which he makes very
steep, and calls it grandfather's house, at which all laugh heartily.
While listening to the story of the wild man I am half afraid, but now, as
the joyous laughter rings out, I am ashamed of my fears, and skipping
forth, I sit down on a green ridge which cuts the door-yard diagonally, and
where, I am told, there was once a fence. Did the rose-bushes and lilacs
and flags that are in the garden, ever grow here? I think--no, it must have
been a long while ago, if indeed the fence were ever here, for I can't
conceive the possibility of such change, and then I fall to arranging my
string of brier-buds into letters that will spell some name, now my own,
and now that of some one I love. A dull strip of cloud, from which the hues
of pink and red and gold have but lately faded out, hangs low in the west;
below is a long reach of withering woods--the gray sprays of the beech
clinging thickly still, and the gorgeous maples shooting up here and there
like sparks of fire among the darkly magnificent oaks and silvery columned
sycamores--the gray and murmurous twilight gives way to darker shadows and
a deeper hush.
I hear, far away, the beating of quick hoof-strokes on the pavement; the
horseman, I think to myself, is just coming down the hill through the thick
woods beyond the bridge. I listen close, and presently a hollow rumbling
sound indicates that I was right; and now I hear the strokes more
faintly--he is climbing the hill that slopes directly away from me; but now
again I hear distinctly--he has almost reached the hollow below me--the
hollow that in summer is starry with dandelions and now is full of brown
nettles and withered weeds--he will presently have passed--where can he be
going, and what is his errand? I will rise up and watch. The cloud passes
from the face of the moon, and the light streams full and broad on the
horseman--he tightens his rein, and looks eagerly toward the house--surely
I know him, the long red curls, streaming down his neck, and the straw hat,
are not to be mistaken--it is Oliver Hillhouse, the miller, whom my
grandfather, who lives in the steep-roofed house, has employed three
years--longer than I can remember! He calls to me, and I laughingly bound
forward, with an exclamation of delight, and put my arms about the slender
neck of his horse, that is champing the bit and pawing the pavement, and I
say, "Why do you not come in?"
He smiles, but there is something ominous in his smile, as he hands me a
folded paper, saying, "Give this to your mother;" and, gathering up his
reins, he rides hurriedly forward. In a moment I am in the house, for my
errand, "Here mother is a paper which Oliver Hillhouse gave me for you."
Her hand trembles as she receives it, and waiting timidly near, I watch her
as she reads; the tears come, and without speaking a word she hands it to
my father.
That night there came upon my soul the shadow of an awful fear; sorrowful
moans and plaints disturbed my dreams that have never since been wholly
forgot. How cold and spectral-like the moonlight streamed across my pillow;
how dismal the chirping of the cricket in the hearth; and how more than
dismal the winds among the naked boughs that creaked against my window. For
the first time in my life I could not sleep, and I longed for the light of
the morning. At last it came, whitening up the East, and the stars faded
away, and there came a flush of crimson and purple fire, which was
presently pushed aside by the golden disk of the sun. Daylight without, but
within there was thick darkness still.
I kept close about my mother, for in her presence I felt a shelter and
protection that I found no where else.
"Be a good girl till I come back," she said, stooping and kissing my
forehead; "mother is going away to-day, your poor grandfather is very
sick."
"Let me go too," I said, clinging close to her hand. We were soon ready;
little Harry pouted his lips and reached out his hands, and my father gave
him his pocket-knife to play with; and the wind blowing the yellow curls
over his eyes and forehead, he stood on the porch looking eagerly while my
mother turned to see him again and again. We had before us a walk of
perhaps two miles--northwardly along the turnpike nearly a mile, next,
striking into a grass-grown road that crossed it, in an easternly direction
nearly another mile, and then turning northwardly again, a narrow lane,
bordered on each side by old and decaying cherry-trees, led us to the
house, ancient fashioned, with high steep gables, narrow windows, and low,
heavy chimneys of stone. In the rear was an old mill, with a plank sloping
from the door-sill to the ground, by way of step, and a square open window
in the gable, through which, with ropes and pulleys, the grain was drawn
up.
This mill was an especial object of terror to me, and it was only when my
aunt Carry led me by the hand, and the cheerful smile of Oliver Hillhouse
lighted up the dusky interior, that I could be persuaded to enter it. In
truth it was a lonesome sort of place, with dark lofts and curious binns,
and ladders leading from place to place; and there were cats creeping
stealthily along the beams in wait for mice or swallows, if, as sometimes
happened, the clay nest should be loosened from the rafter, and the whole
tumble ruinously down. I used to wonder that aunt Carry was not afraid in
the old place, with its eternal rumble, and its great dusty wheel moving
slowly round and round, beneath the steady tread of the two sober horses
that never gained a hair's breadth for their pains; but on the contrary,
she seemed to like the mill, and never failed to show me through all its
intricacies, on my visits. I have unraveled the mystery now, or rather,
from the recollections I still retain, have apprehended what must have been
clear to older eyes at the time.
A forest of oak and walnut stretched along this extremity of the farm, and
on either side of the improvements (as the house and barn and mill were
called) shot out two dark forks, completely cutting off the view, save
toward the unfrequented road to the south, which was traversed mostly by
persons coming to the mill, for my grandfather made the flour for all the
neighbourhood round about, besides making corn-meal for Johny-cakes, and
"chops" for the cows.
He was an old man now, with a tall, athletic frame, slightly bent, thin
locks white as the snow, and deep blue eyes full of fire and intelligence,
and after long years of uninterrupted health and useful labor, he was
suddenly stricken down, with no prospect of recovery.
"I hope he is better," said my mother, hearing the rumbling of the
mill-wheel. She might have known my grandfather would permit no
interruption of the usual business on account of his illness--the
neighbors, he said, could not do without bread because he was sick, nor
need they all be idle, waiting for him to die. When the time drew near, he
would call them to take his farewell and his blessing, but till then let
them sew and spin, and prepare dinner just as usual, so they would please
him best. He was a stern man--even his kindness was uncompromising and
unbending, and I remember of his making toward me no manifestation of
fondness, such as grandchildren usually receive, save once, when he gave me
a bright red apple, without speaking a word till my timid thanks brought
out his "Save your thanks for something better." The apple gave me no
pleasure, and I even slipt into the mill to escape from his cold,
forbidding presence.
Nevertheless, he was a good man, strictly honest, and upright in all his
dealings, and respected, almost reverenced, by everybody. I remember once,
when young Winters, the tenant of Deacon Granger's farm, who paid a great
deal too much for his ground, as I have heard my father say, came to mill
with some withered wheat, my grandfather filled up the sacks out of his own
flour, while Tommy was in the house at dinner. That was a good deed, but
Tommy Winters never suspected how his wheat happened to turn out so well.
As we drew near the house, it seemed to me more lonesome and desolate than
it ever looked before. I wished I had staid at home with little Harry. So
eagerly I noted every thing, that I remember to this day, that near a
trough of water, in the lane, stood a little surly looking cow, of a red
color, and with a white line running along her back. I had gone with aunt
Carry often when she went to milk her, but, to-day she seemed not to have
been milked. Near her was a black and white heifer, with sharp short horns,
and a square board tied over her eyes; two horses, one of them gray, and
the other sorrel, with a short tail, were reaching their long necks into
the garden, and browsing from the currant bushes. As we approached they
trotted forward a little, and one of them, half playfully, half angrily,
bit the other on the shoulder, after which they returned quietly to their
cropping of the bushes, heedless of the voice that from across the field
was calling to them.
A flock of turkeys were sunning themselves about the door, for no one came
to scare them away; some were black, and some speckled, some with heads
erect and tails spread, and some nibbling the grass; and with a gabbling
noise, and a staid and dignified march, they made way for us. The smoke
arose from the chimney in blue, graceful curls, and drifted away to the
woods; the dead morning-glory vines had partly fallen from the windows, but
the hands that tended them were grown careless, and they were suffered to
remain blackened and void of beauty, as they were. Under these, the white
curtain was partly put aside, and my grandmother, with the speckled
handkerchief pinned across her bosom, and her pale face, a shade paler than
usual, was looking out, and seeing us she came forth, and in answer to my
mother's look of inquiry, shook her head, and silently led the way in. The
room we entered had some home-made carpet, about the size of a large
table-cloth, spread in the middle of the floor, the remainder of which was
scoured very white; the ceiling was of walnut wood, and the side walls were
white-washed--a table, an old-fashioned desk, and some wooden chairs,
comprised the furniture. On one of the chairs was a leather cushion; this
was set to one side, my grandmother neither offering it to my mother, nor
sitting in it herself, while, by way of composing herself, I suppose, she
took off the black ribbon with which her cap was trimmed. This was a more
simple process than the reader may fancy, the trimming, consisting merely
of a ribbon, always black, which she tied around her head after the cap was
on, forming a bow and two ends just above the forehead. Aunt Carry, who was
of what is termed an even disposition, received us with her usual cheerful
demeanor, and then, re-seating herself comfortably near the fire, resumed
her work, the netting of some white fringe.
I liked aunt Carry, for that she always took especial pains to entertain
me, showing me her patchwork, taking me with her to the cowyard and dairy,
as also to the mill, though in this last I fear she was a little selfish;
however, that made no difference to me at the time, and I have always been
sincerely grateful to her: children know more, and want more, and feel
more, than people are apt to imagine.
On this occasion she called me to her, and tried to teach me the mysteries
of her netting, telling me I must get my father to buy me a little bureau,
and then I could net fringe and make a nice cover for it. For a little time
I thought I could, and arranged in my mind where it should be placed, and
what should be put into it, and even went so far as to inquire how much
fringe she thought would be necessary. I never attained to much proficiency
in the netting of fringe, nor did I ever get the little bureau, and now it
is quite reasonable to suppose I never shall.
Presently my father and mother were shown into an adjoining room, the
interior of which I felt an irrepressible desire to see, and by stealth I
obtained a glimpse of it before the door closed behind them. There was a
dull brown and yellow carpet on the floor, and near the bed, on which was a
blue and white coverlid, stood a high backed wooden chair, over which hung
a towel, and on the bottom of which stood a pitcher, of an unique pattern.
I know not how I saw this, but I did, and perfectly remember it,
notwithstanding my attention was in a moment completely absorbed by the
sick man's face, which was turned towards the opening door, pale, livid,
and ghastly. I trembled, and was transfixed; the rings beneath the eyes,
which had always been deeply marked, were now almost black, and the blue
eyes within looked glassy and cold, and terrible. The expression of agony
on the lips (for his disease was one of a most painful nature) gave place
to a sort of smile, and the hand, twisted among the gray locks, was
withdrawn and extended to welcome my parents, as the door closed. That was
a fearful moment; I was near the dark steep edges of the grave; I felt, for
the first time, that I was mortal too, and I was afraid.
Aunt Carry put away her work, and taking from a nail in the window-frame a
brown muslin sun bonnet, which seemed to me of half a yard in depth, she
tied it on my head, and then clapt her hands as she looked into my face,
saying, "bopeep!" at which I half laughed and half cried, and making
provision for herself in grandmother's bonnet, which hung on the opposite
side of the window, and was similar to mine, except that it was perhaps a
little larger, she took my hand and we proceeded to the mill. Oliver, who
was very busy on our entrance, came forward, as aunt Carry said, by way of
introduction, "A little visitor I've brought you," and arranged a seat on a
bag of meal for us, and taking off his straw hat pushed the red curls from
his low white forehead, and looked bewildered and anxious.
"It's quite warm for the season," said aunt Carry, by way of breaking
silence, I suppose. The young man said "yes," abstractedly, and then asked
if the rumble of the mill were not a disturbance to the sick room, to which
aunt Carry answered, "No, my father says it is his music."
"A good old man," said Oliver, "he will not hear it much longer," and then,
even more sadly, "every thing will be changed." Aunt Carry was silent, and
he added, "I have been here a long time, and it will make me very sorry to
go away, especially when such trouble is about you all."
"Oh, Oliver," said aunt Carra, "you don't mean to go away?" "I see no
alternative," he replied; "I shall have nothing to do; if I had gone a year
ago it would have been better." "Why?" asked aunt Carry; but I think she
understood why, and Oliver did not answer directly, but said, "Almost the
last thing your father said to me was, that you should never marry any who
had not a house and twenty acres of land; if he has not, he will exact that
promise of you, and I cannot ask you not to make it, nor would you refuse
him if I did; I might have owned that long ago, but for my sister (she had
lost her reason) and my lame brother, whom I must educate to be a
school-master, because he never can work, and my blind mother; but God
forgive me! I must not and do not complain; you will forget me, before
long, Carry, and some body who is richer and better, will be to you all I
once hoped to be, and perhaps more."
I did not understand the meaning of the conversation at the time, but I
felt out of place some way, and so, going to another part of the mill, I
watched the sifting of the flour through the snowy bolter, listening to the
rumbling of the wheel. When I looked around I perceived that Oliver had
taken my place on the meal bag, and that he had put his arm around the
waist of aunt Carry in a way I did not much like.
Great sorrow, like a storm, sweeps us aside from ordinary feelings, and we
give our hearts into kindly hands--so cold and hollow and meaningless seem
the formulæ of the world. They had probably never spoken of love before,
and now talked of it as calmly as they would have talked of any thing else;
but they felt that hope was hopeless; at best, any union was deferred,
perhaps, for long years; the future was full of uncertainties. At last
their tones became very low, so low I could not hear what they said; but I
saw that they looked very sorrowful, and that aunt Carry's hand lay in that
of Oliver as though he were her brother.
"Why don't the flour come through?" I said, for the sifting had become
thinner and lighter, and at length quite ceased. Oliver smiled, faintly, as
he arose, and saying, "This will never buy the child a frock," poured a
sack of wheat into the hopper, so that it nearly run over. Seeing no child
but myself, I supposed he meant to buy me a new frock, and at once resolved
to put it in my little bureau, if he did.
"We have bothered Mr. Hillhouse long enough," said aunt Carry, taking my
hand, "and will go to the house, shall we not?"
I wondered why she said "Mr. Hillhouse," for I had never heard her say so
before; and Oliver seemed to wonder, too, for he said reproachfully, laying
particular stress on his own name, "You don't bother Mr. Hillhouse, I am
sure, but I must not insist on your remaining if you wish to go."
"I don't want to insist on my staying," said aunt Carry, "if you don't want
to, and I see you don't," and lifting me out to the sloping plank, that
bent beneath us, we descended.
"Carry," called a voice behind us; but she neither answered nor looked
back, but seeming to feel a sudden and expressive fondness for me, took me
up in her arms, though I was almost too heavy for her to lift, and kissing
me over and over, said I was light as a feather, at which she laughed as
though neither sorrowful nor lacking for employment.
This little passage I could never precisely explain, aside from the ground
that "the course of true love never did run smooth." Half an hour after we
returned to the house, Oliver presented himself at the door, saying, "Miss
Caroline, shall I trouble you for a cup, to get a drink of water?" Carry
accompanied him to the well, where they lingered some time, and when she
returned her face was sunshiny and cheerful as usual.
The day went slowly by, dinner was prepared, and removed, scarcely tasted;
aunt Carry wrought at her fringe, and grandmother moved softly about,
preparing teas and cordials.
Towards sunset the sick man became easy, and expressed a wish that the door
of his chamber might be opened, that he might watch our occupations and
hear our talk. It was done accordingly, and he was left alone. My mother
smiled, saying she hoped he might yet get well, but my father shook his
head mournfully, and answered, "He wishes to go without our knowledge." He
made amplest provision for his family always, and I believe had a kind
nature, but he manifested no little fondnesses, nor did he wish caresses
for himself. Contrary to the general tenor of his character, was a love of
quiet jests, that remained to the last. Once, as Carry gave him some drink,
he said, "You know my wishes about your future, I expect you to be
mindful."
I stole to the door of his room in the hope that he would say something to
me, but he did not, and I went nearer, close to the bed, and timidly took
his hand in mine; how damp and cold it felt! yet he spoke not, and climbing
upon the chair, I put back his thin locks, and kissed his forehead. "Child,
you trouble me," he said, and these were the last words he ever spoke to
me.
The sun sunk lower and lower, throwing a beam of light through the little
window, quite across the carpet, and now it reached the sick man's room,
climbed over the bed and up the wall; he turned his face away, and seemed
to watch its glimmer upon the ceiling The atmosphere grew dense and dusky,
but without clouds, and the orange light changed to a dull lurid red, and
the dying and dead leaves dropt silently to the ground, for there was no
wind, and the fowls flew into the trees, and the grey moths came from
beneath the bushes and fluttered in the waning light. From the hollow tree
by the mill came the bat, wheeling and flitting blindly about, and once or
twice its wings struck the window of the sick man's chamber. The last
sunlight faded off at length, and the rumbling of the mill-wheel was still:
he has fallen asleep in listening to its music.
The next day came the funeral. What a desolate time it was! All down the
lane were wagons and carriages and horses, for every body that knew my
grandfather had come to pay him the last honors. "We can do him no further
good," they said, "but it seemed right that we should come." Close by the
gate waited the little brown wagon to bear the coffin to the grave, the
wagon in which he was used to ride while living. The heads of the horses
were drooping, and I thought they looked consciously sad.
The day was mild and the doors and windows of the old house stood all open,
so that the people without could hear the words of the preacher. I remember
nothing he said; I remember of hearing my mother sob, and of seeing my
grandmother with her face buried in her hands, and of seeing aunt Carra
sitting erect, her face pale but tearless, and Oliver near her, with his
hands folded across his breast save once or twice, when he lifted them to
brush away tears.
I did not cry, save from a frightened and strange feeling, but kept wishing
that we were not so near the dead, and that it were another day. I tried to
push the reality away with thoughts of pleasant things--in vain. I remember
the hymn, and the very air in which it was sung.
"Ye fearful souls fresh courage take,
The clouds ye so much dread,
Are big with mercy, and shall break
In blessings on your head.
Blind unbelief is sure to err,
And scan his works in vain;
God is his own interpreter,
And he will make it plain."
Near the door blue flagstones were laid, bordered with a row of shrubberies
and trees, with lilacs, and roses, and pears, and peach-trees, which my
grandfather had planted long ago, and here, in the open air, the coffin was
placed, and the white cloth removed, and folded over the lid. I remember
how it shook and trembled as the gust came moaning from the woods, and
died off over the next hill, and that two or three withered leaves fell on
the face of the dead, which Oliver gently removed and brushed aside a
yellow winged butterfly that hovered near.
The friends hung over the unsmiling corpse till they were led weeping and
one by one away; the hand of some one rested for a moment on the forehead,
and then the white cloth was replaced, and the lid screwed down. The coffin
was placed in the brown wagon, with a sheet folded about it, and the long
train moved slowly to the burial-ground woods, where the words "dust to
dust" were followed by the rattling of the earth, and the sunset light fell
there a moment, and the dead leaves blew across the smoothly shapen mound.
When the will was read, Oliver found himself heir to a fortune--the mill
and the homestead and half the farm--provided he married Carry, which I
suppose he did, for though I do not remember the wedding, I have had an
aunt Caroline Hillhouse almost as long as I can remember. The lunatic
sister was sent to an asylum, where she sung songs about a faithless lover
till death took her up and opened her eyes in heaven. The mother was
brought home, and she and my grandmother lived at their ease, and sat in
the corner, and told stories of ghosts, and witches, and marriages, and
deaths, for long years. Peace to their memories! for they have both gone
home; and the lame brother is teaching school, in his leisure playing the
flute, and reading Shakspeare--all the book he reads.
Years have come and swept me away from my childhood, from its innocence and
blessed unconsciousness of the dark, but often comes back the memory of its
first sorrow!
Death is less terrible to me now.
FOOTNOTES:
[6] In press and soon to be published by J. S. Redfield.
MY NOVEL:
OR, VARIETIES IN ENGLISH LIFE.[7]
BY PISISTRATUS CAXTON.
CHAPTER XVI.
Before a table in the apartments appropriated to him in his father's house
at Knightsbridge, sat Lord L'Estrange, sorting or destroying letters and
papers--an ordinary symptom of change of residence. There are certain
trifles by which a shrewd observer may judge of a man's disposition. Thus,
ranged on the table, with some elegance, but with soldier-like precision,
were sundry little relics of former days, hallowed by some sentiment of
memory, or perhaps endeared solely by custom; which, whether he was in
Egypt, Italy, or England, always made part of the furniture of Harley's
room. Even the small, old-fashioned, and somewhat inconvenient inkstand in
which he dipped the pen as he labelled the letters he put aside, belonged
to the writing-desk which had been his pride as a school-boy. Even the
books that lay scattered round were not new works, not those to which we
turn to satisfy the curiosity of an hour, or to distract our graver
thoughts: they were chiefly either Latin or Italian poets, with many a
pencil-mark on the margin; or books which, making severe demand on thought,
require slow and frequent perusal, and become companions. Somehow or other,
in remarking that even in dumb inanimate things the man was averse to
change, and had the habit of attaching himself to whatever was connected
with old associations, you might guess that he clung with pertinacity to
affections more important, and you could better comprehend the freshness of
his friendship for one so dissimilar in pursuits and character as Audley
Egerton. An affection once admitted into the heart of Harley L'Estrange,
seemed never to be questioned or reasoned with: it became tacitly fixed, as
it were, into his own nature; and little less than a revolution of his
whole system could dislodge or disturb it.
Lord L'Estrange's hand rested now upon a letter in a stiff legible Italian
character; and instead of disposing of it at once, as he had done with the
rest, he spread it before him, and re-read the contents. It was a letter
from Riccabocca, received a few weeks since, and ran thus:--
_Letter from Signor Riccabocca to Lord Estrange._
"I thank you, my noble friend, for judging of me with
faith in my honor, and respect for my reverses.
"No, and thrice no to all concessions, all overtures,
all treaty with Giulio Franzini. I write the name, and
my emotions choke me. I must pause and cool back into
disdain. It is over. Pass from that subject. But you
have alarmed me. This sister! I have not seen her since
her childhood; and she was brought up under his
influence--she can but work as his agent. She wish to
learn my residence! it can be but for some hostile and
malignant purpose. I may trust in you. I know that. You
say I may trust equally in the discretion of your
friend. Pardon me--my confidence is not so elastic. A
word may give the clue to my retreat. But, if
discovered, what harm can ensue? An English roof
protects me from Austrian despotism; true; but not the
brazen tower of Danaë could protect me from Italian
craft. And were there nothing worse, it would be
intolerable to me to live under the eyes of a
relentless spy. Truly saith our proverb, 'He sleeps ill
for whom the enemy wakes.' Look you, my friend, I have
done with my old life--I wish to cast it from me as a
snake its skin. I have denied myself all that exiles
deem consolation. No pity for misfortune, no messages
from sympathizing friendship, no news from a lost and
bereaved country follow me to my hearth under the skies
of the stranger. From all these I have voluntarily cut
myself off. I am as dead to the life I once lived as if
the Styx rolled between _it_ and me. With that
sternness which is admissible only to the afflicted, I
have denied myself even the consolation of your
visits. I have told you fairly and simply that your
presence would unsettle all my enforced and infirm
philosophy, and remind me only of the past, which I
seek to blot from remembrance. You have complied on the
one condition, that whenever I really want your aid I
will ask it; and, meanwhile, you have generously sought
to obtain me justice from the cabinets of ministers and
in the courts of kings. I did not refuse your heart
this luxury; for I have a child--(Ah! I have taught
that child already to revere your name, and in her
prayers it is not forgotten.) But now that you are
convinced that even your zeal is unavailing, I ask you
to discontinue attempts that may but bring the spy upon
my track, and involve me in new misfortunes. Believe
me, O brilliant Englishman, that I am satisfied and
contented with my lot. I am sure it would not be for my
happiness to change it. 'Chi non ha provato il male non
conosce il bene.' ('One does not know when one is well
off till one has known misfortune.') You ask me how I
live--I answer, _alla giornata_--to the day--not for
the morrow, as I did once. I have accustomed myself to
the calm existence of a village. I take interest in its
details. There is my wife, good creature, sitting
opposite to me, never asking what I write, or to whom,
but ready to throw aside her work and talk the moment
the pen is out of my hand. Talk--and what about? Heaven
knows! But I would rather hear that talk, though on the
affairs of a hamlet, than babble again with recreant
nobles and blundering professors about commonwealths
and constitutions. When I want to see how little those
last influence the happiness of wise men, have I not
Machiavel and Thucydides? Then, by-and-by, the Parson
will drop in, and we argue. He never knows when he is
beaten, so the argument is everlasting. On fine days I
ramble out by a winding rill with my Violante, or
stroll to my friend the Squire's, and see how healthful
a thing is true pleasure; and on wet days I shut myself
up, and mope, perhaps, till, hark! a gentle tap at the
door, and in comes Violante, with her dark eyes that
shine out through reproachful tears--reproachful that I
should mourn alone, while she is under my roof--so she
puts her arms round me, and in five minutes all is
sunshine within. What care we for your English gray
clouds without?
"Leave me, my dear Lord--leave me to this quiet happy
passage towards old age, serener than the youth that I
wasted so wildly: and guard well the secret on which my
happiness depends.
"Now to yourself, before I close. Of that same
_yourself_ you speak too little, as of me too much. But
I so well comprehend the profound melancholy that lies
underneath the wild and fanciful humor with which you
but suggest, as in sport, what you feel so in earnest.
The laborious solitude of cities weighs on you. You are
flying back to the _dolce far niente_--to friends few,
but intimate; to life monotonous, but unrestrained; and
even there the sense of loneliness will again seize
upon you; and you do not seek, as I do, the
annihilation of memory; your dead passions are turned
to ghosts that haunt you, and unfit you for the living
world. I see it all--I see it still, in your hurried
fantastic lines, as I saw it when we two sat amidst the
pines and beheld the blue lake stretched below. I
troubled by the shadow of the Future, you disturbed by
that of the Past.
"Well, but you say, half-seriously, half in jest, 'I
_will_ escape from this prison-house of memory; I will
form new ties, like other men, and before it be too
late; I _will_ marry--aye, but I must love--there is
the difficulty'--difficulty--yes, and heaven be thanked
for it! Recall all the unhappy marriages that have come
to your knowledge--pray have not eighteen out of twenty
been marriages for love? It always has been so, and it
always will. Because, whenever we love deeply, we exact
so much and forgive so little. Be content to find some
one with whom your hearth and your honor are safe. You
will grow to love what never wounds your heart--you
will soon grow out of love with what must always
disappoint your imagination. _Cospetto!_ I wish my
Jemima had a younger sister for you. Yet it was with a
deep groan that I settled myself to a--Jemima.
"Now, I have written you a long letter, to prove how
little I need of your compassion or your zeal. Once
more let there be long silence between us. It is not
easy for me to correspond with a man of your rank, and
not incur the curious gossip of my still little pool of
a world which the splash of a pebble can break into
circles. I must take this over to a post-town some ten
miles off, and drop it into the box by stealth.
"Adieu, dear and noble friend, gentlest heart and
subtlest fancy that I have met in my walk through life.
Adieu--write me word when you have abandoned a
day-dream and found a Jemima.
ALPHONSO.
"_P. S._--For heaven's sake caution and re-caution your
friend the minister, not to drop a word to this woman
that may betray my hiding-place."
"Is he really happy?" murmured Harley as he closed the letter; and he sank
for a few moments into a reverie.
"This life in a village--this wife in a lady who puts down her work to talk
about villagers--what a contrast to Audley's full existence. And I can
never envy nor comprehend either--yet my own--what is it?"
He rose, and moved towards the window, from which a rustic stair descended
to a green lawn--studded with larger trees than are often found in the
grounds of a suburban residence. There were calm and coolness in the sight,
and one could scarcely have supposed that London lay so near.
The door opened softly, and a lady past middle age, entered; and,
approaching Harley, as he still stood musing by the window, laid her hand
on his shoulder. What character there is in a hand! Hers was a hand that
Titian would have painted with elaborate care! Thin, white, and
delicate--with the blue veins raised from the surface. Yet there was
something more than mere patrician elegance in the form and texture. A true
physiologist would have said at once, "there are intellect and pride in
that hand, which seems to fix a hold where it rests; and, lying so lightly,
yet will not be as lightly shaken off."
"Harley," said the lady--and Harley turned--"you do not deceive me by that
smile," she continued sadly; "you were not smiling when I entered."
"It is rarely that we smile to ourselves, my dear mother; and I have done
nothing lately so foolish as to cause me to smile _at_ myself."
"My son," said Lady Lansmere, somewhat abruptly, but with great
earnestness, "you come from a line of illustrious ancestors; and methinks
they ask from their tombs why the last of their race has no aim and no
object--no interest--no home in the land which they served, and which
rewarded them with its honors."
"Mother," said the soldier simply, "when the land was in danger I served it
as my forefathers served--and my answer would be the scars on my breast."
"Is it only in danger that a country is served--only in war that duty is
fulfilled? Do you think that your father, in his plain manly life of
country gentleman, does not fulfil, though obscurely, the objects for which
aristocracy is created and wealth is bestowed?"
"Doubtless he does, ma'am--and better than his vagrant son ever can."
"Yet his vagrant son has received such gifts from nature--his youth was so
rich in promise--his boyhood so glowed at the dream of glory?--"
"Ay," said Harley very softly, "it is possible--and all to be buried in a
single grave!"
The Countess started, and withdrew her hand from Harley's shoulder.
Lady Lansmere's countenance was not one that much varied in expression. She
had in this, as in her cast of feature, little resemblance to her son.
Her features were slightly aquiline--the eyebrows of that arch which gives
a certain majesty to the aspect: the lines round the mouth were habitually
rigid and compressed. Her face was that of one who had gone through great
emotion and subdued it. There was something formal, and even ascetic, in
the character of her beauty, which was still considerable;--in her air and
in her dress. She might have suggested to you the idea of some Gothic
baroness of old, half chatelaine, half abbess; you would see at a glance
that she did not live in the light world round her, and disdained its
fashion and its mode of thought; yet with all this rigidity it was still
the face of the woman who has known human ties and human affections. And
now, as she gazed long on Harley's quiet, saddened brow, it was the face of
a mother.
"A single grave," she said, after a long pause. "And you were then but a
boy, Harley! Can such a memory influence you even to this day? It is
scarcely possible; it does not seem to me within the realities of man's
life--though it might be of woman's."
"I believe," said Harley, half soliloquising, "that I have a great deal of
the woman in me. Perhaps men who live much alone, and care not for men's
objects, do grow tenacious of impressions, as your sex does. But oh," he
cried aloud, and with a sudden change of countenance, "oh, the hardest and
the coldest man would have felt as I do, had he known _her_--had he loved
_her_. She was like no other woman I have ever met. Bright and glorious
creature of another sphere! She descended on this earth, and darkened it
when she passed away. It is no use striving. Mother, I have as much courage
as our steel-clad fathers ever had. I have dared in battle and in
deserts--against man and the wild beast--against the storm and the
ocean--against the rude powers of Nature--dangers as dread as ever pilgrim
or Crusader rejoiced to brave. But courage against that one memory! no, I
have not!"
"Harley, Harley, you break my heart!" cried the Countess, clasping her
hands.
"It is astonishing," continued her son, so wrapped in his own thoughts that
he did not perhaps hear her outcry--"yea, verily, it is astonishing, that
considering the thousands of women I have seen and spoken with, I never see
a face like hers--never hear a voice so sweet. And all this universe of
life cannot afford me one look and one tone that can restore me to man's
privilege--love. Well, well, well, life has other things yet--Poetry and
Art live still--still smiles the heaven, and still wave the trees. Leave me
to happiness in my own way."
The Countess was about to reply, when the door was thrown hastily open, and
Lord Lansmere walked in.
The Earl was some years older than the Countess, but his placid face showed
less wear and tear; a benevolent, kindly face--without any evidence of
commanding intellect, but with no lack of sense in its pleasant lines. His
form not tall, but upright, and with an air of consequence--a little
pompous, but good-humoredly so. The pomposity of the _Grand Seigneur_, who
has lived much in provinces--whose will has been rarely disputed, and whose
importance has been so felt and acknowledged as to react insensibly on
himself; an excellent man: but when you glanced towards the high brow and
dark eye of the Countess, you marvelled a little how the two had come
together, and, according to common report, lived so happily in the union.
"Ho, ho! my dear Harley," cried Lansmere, rubbing his hands with an
appearance of much satisfaction, "I have just been paying a visit to the
Duchess."
"What Duchess, my dear father?"
"Why, your mother's first cousin, to be sure--the Duchess of Knaresborough,
whom, to oblige me, you condescended to call upon; and delighted I am to
hear that you admire Lady Mary--"
"She is very high-bred, and rather-high-nosed," answered Harley. Then
observing that his mother looked pained, and his father disconcerted, he
added seriously, "But handsome certainly."
"Well, Harley," said the Earl, recovering himself, "the Duchess, taking
advantage of our connection to speak freely, had intimated to me that Lady
Mary has been no less struck with yourself; and to come to the point, since
you allow that it is time you should think of marrying, I do not know a
more desirable alliance. What do you say, Catherine?"
"The Duke is of a family that ranks in history before the Wars of the
Roses," said Lady Lansmere, with an air of deference to her husband; "and
there has never been one scandal in its annals, or one blot in its
scutcheon. But I am sure my dear Lord must think that the Duchess should
not have made the first overture--even to a friend and a kinsman?"
"Why, we are old-fashioned people," said the Earl rather embarrassed, "and
the Duchess is a woman of the world."
"Let us hope," said the Countess mildly, "that her daughter is not."
"I would not marry Lady Mary, if all the rest of the female sex were turned
into apes," said Lord L'Estrange, with deliberate fervor.
"Good Heavens!" cried the Earl, "what extraordinary language is this! And
pray why, sir?"
_Harley._--"I can't say--there is no why in these cases. But, my dear
father, you are not keeping faith with me."
_Lord Lansmere._--"How?"
_Harley._--"You and my Lady here entreat me to marry--I promise to do my
best to obey you; but on one condition--that I choose for myself, and take
my time about it. Agreed on both sides. Whereon, off goes your
Lordship--actually before noon, at an hour when no lady without a shudder
could think of cold blonde and damp orange flowers--off goes your Lordship,
I say, and commits poor Lady Mary and your unworthy son to a mutual
admiration--which neither of us ever felt. Pardon me, my father--but this
is grave. Again let me claim your promise--full choice for myself, and no
reference to the Wars of the Roses. What war of the roses like that between
Modesty and Love upon the cheek of the virgin!"
_Lady Lansmere._--"Full choice for yourself, Harley;--so be it. But we,
too, named a condition--Did we not, Lansmere?"
The _Earl_ (puzzled).--"Eh--did we! Certainly we did."
_Harley._--"What was it?"
_Lady Lansmere._--"The son of Lord Lansmere can only marry the daughter of
a gentleman."
The _Earl._--"Of course--of course."
The blood rushed over Harley's fair face, and then as suddenly left it
pale.
He walked away to the window--his mother followed him, and again laid her
hand on his shoulder.
"You were cruel," said he gently and in a whisper, as he winced under the
touch of the hand. Then turning to the Earl, who was gazing at him in blank
surprise--(it never occurred to Lord Lansmere that there could be a doubt
of his son's marrying beneath the rank modestly stated by the
Countess)--Harley stretched forth his hand, and said, in his soft winning
tone, "you have ever been most gracious to me, and most forbearing; it is
but just that I should sacrifice the habits of an egotist, to gratify a
wish which you so warmly entertain. I agree with you, too, that our race
should not close in me--_Noblesse oblige_. But you know I was ever
romantic; and I must love where I marry--or, if not love, I must feel that
my wife is worthy of all the love I could once have bestowed. Now, as to
the vague word 'gentleman' that my mother employs--word that means so
differently on different lips--I confess that I have a prejudice against
young ladies brought up in the 'excellent foppery of the world,' as the
daughters of gentlemen of our rank mostly are. I crave, therefore, the most
liberal interpretation of this word 'gentleman.' And so long as there be
nothing mean or sordid in the birth, habits, and education of the father of
this bride to be, I trust you will both agree to demand nothing
more--neither titles nor pedigree."
"Titles, no--assuredly," said Lady Lansmere; "they do not make gentlemen."
"Certainly not," said the Earl. "Many of our best families are untitled."
"Titles--no," repeated Lady Lansmere; "but ancestors--yes."
"Ah, my mother," said Harley with his most sad and quiet smile, "it is
fated that we shall never agree. The first of our race is ever the one we
are most proud of; and pray, what ancestors had he? Beauty, virtue,
modesty, intellect--if these are not nobility enough for a man, he is a
slave to the dead."
With these words Harley took up his hat and made towards the door.
"You said yourself, '_Noblesse oblige_,'" said the Countess, following him
to the threshold; "we have nothing more to add."
Harley slightly shrugged his shoulders, kissed his mother's hand, whistled
to Nero, who started up from a doze by the window, and went his way.
"Does he really go abroad next week?" said the Earl.
"So he says."
"I am afraid there is no chance for Lady Mary," resumed Lord Lansmere, with
a slight but melancholy smile.
"She has not intellect enough to charm him. She is not worthy of Harley,"
said the proud mother.
"Between you and me," rejoined the Earl, rather timidly, "I don't see what
good his intellect does him. He could not be more unsettled and useless if
he were the merest dunce in the three kingdoms. And so ambitious as he was
when a boy! Catherine, I sometimes fancy that you know what changed him."
"I! Nay, my dear Lord, it is a common change enough with the young, when of
such fortunes; who find, when they enter life, that there is really little
left for them to strive for. Had Harley been a poor man's son, it might
have been different."
"I was born to the same fortunes as Harley," said the Earl, shrewdly, "and
yet I flatter myself I am of some use to old England."
The Countess seized upon the occasion, complimented her Lord, and turned
the subject.
CHAPTER XVII.
Harley spent his day in his usual desultory, lounging manner--dined in his
quiet corner at his favorite club--Nero, not admitted into the club,
patiently waited for him outside the door. The dinner over, dog and man,
equally indifferent to the crowd, sauntered down that thoroughfare which,
to the few who can comprehend the Poetry of London, has associations of
glory and of woe sublime as any that the ruins of the dead elder world can
furnish--thoroughfare that traverses what was once the courtyard of
Whitehall, having to its left the site of the palace that lodged the
royalty of Scotland--gains, through a narrow strait, that old isle of
Thorney, in which Edward the Confessor received the ominous visit of the
Conqueror--and, widening once more by the Abbey and the Hall of
Westminster, then loses itself, like all memories of earthly grandeur,
amidst humble passages and mean defiles.
Thus thought Harley L'Estrange--ever less amidst the actual world around
him, than the images invoked by his own solitary soul--as he gained the
bridge, and saw the dull lifeless craft sleeping on the "Silent Way," once
loud and glittering with the gilded barks of the antique Seignorie of
England.
It was on that bridge that Audley Egerton had appointed to meet L'Estrange,
at an hour when he calculated he could best steal a respite from debate.
For Harley, with his fastidious dislike to all the resorts of his equals,
had declined to seek his friend in the crowded regions of Bellamy's.
Harley's eye, as he passed along the bridge, was attracted by a still form,
seated on the stones in one of the nooks, with its face covered by its
hands. "If I were a sculptor," said he to himself, "I should remember that
image whenever I wished to convey the idea of _despondency_!" He lifted his
looks and saw, a little before him in the midst of the causeway, the firm
erect figure of Audley Egerton. The moonlight was full on the bronzed
countenance of the strong public man,--with its lines of thought and care,
and its vigorous but cold expression of intense self-control.
"And looking yonder," continued Harley's soliloquy, "I should remember that
form, when I wished to hew out from the granite the idea of _Endurance_."
"So you are come, and punctually," said Egerton, linking his arm in
Harley's.
_Harley._--"Punctually, of course, for I respect your time, and I will not
detain you long. I presume you will speak to-night."
_Egerton._--"I have spoken."
_Harley_, (with interest.)--"And well, I hope."
_Egerton._--"With effect, I suppose, for I have been loudly cheered, which
does not always happen to me."
_Harley._--"And that gave you pleasure?"
_Egerton_, (after a moment's thought.)--"No, not the least."
_Harley._--"What, then, attaches you so much to this life--constant
drudgery, constant warfare--the more pleasurable faculties dormant, all the
harsher ones aroused, if even its rewards (and I take the best of those to
be applause) do not please you?"
_Egerton._--"What?--custom."
_Harley._--"Martyr!"
_Egerton._--"You say it. But turn to yourself; you have decided, then, to
leave England next week."
_Harley_, (moodily.)--"Yes. This life in a capital, where all are so
active, myself so objectless, preys on me like a low fever. Nothing here
amuses me, nothing interests, nothing comforts and consoles. But I am
resolved, before it be too late, to make one great struggle out of the
Past, and into the natural world of men. In a word, I have resolved to
marry."
_Egerton._--"Whom?"
_Harley_, (seriously.)--"Upon my life, my dear fellow, you are a great
philosopher. You have hit the exact question. You see I cannot marry a
dream; and where out of dreams, shall I find this 'whom?'"
_Egerton._--"You do not search for her."
_Harley._--"Do we ever search for love? Does it not flash upon us when we
least expect it? Is it not like the inspiration to the muse? What poet
sits down and says, 'I will write a poem?' What man looks out and says, 'I
will fall in love.' No! Happiness, as the great German tells us, 'falls
suddenly from the bosom of the gods;' so does love."
_Egerton._--"You remember the old line in Horace: 'Life's tide flows away,
while the boor sits on the margin and waits for the ford.'"
_Harley._--"An idea which incidentally dropped from you some weeks ago, and
which I had before half meditated, has since haunted me. If I could but
find some child with sweet dispositions and fair intellect not yet formed,
and train her up, according to my ideal. I am still young enough to wait a
few years, and meanwhile I shall have gained what I so sadly want--an
object in life."
_Egerton._--"You are ever the child of romance. But what"--
Here the minister was interrupted by a messenger from the House of Commons,
whom Audley had instructed to seek him on the bridge should his presence be
required--
"Sir, the opposition are taking advantage of the thinness of the House to
call for a division, Mr. ---- is put up to speak for time, but they won't
hear him."
Egerton turned hastily to Lord L'Estrange, "You see you must excuse me now.
To-morrow I must go to Windsor for two days; but we shall meet on my
return."
"It does not matter,"' answered Harley; "I stand out of the pale of your
advice, O practical man of sense. And if," added Harley with affectionate
and mournful sweetness--"If I worry you with complaints which you cannot
understand, it is only because of old school-boy habits. I can have no
trouble that I do not confide in you."
Egerton's hand trembled as it pressed his friend's; and, without a word, he
hurried away abruptly. Harley remained motionless for some seconds, in deep
and quiet reverie; then he called to his dog, and turned back towards
Westminster.
He passed the nook in which had sat the still figure of Despondency. But
the figure had now risen, and was leaning against the balustrade. The dog
who had preceded his master paused by the solitary form, and sniffed it
suspiciously.
"Nero, sir, come here," said Harley.
"Nero," that was the name by which Helen had said that her father's friend
had called his dog. And the sound startled Leonard as he leant, sick at
heart, against the stone, he lifted his head and looked wistfully, eagerly,
into Harley's face. Those eyes, bright, clear, yet so strangely deep and
absent, which Helen had described, met his own, and chained them. For
L'Estrange halted also; the boy's countenance was not unfamiliar to him. He
returned the inquiring look fixed on his own, and recognized the student by
the book-stall.
"The dog is quite harmless, sir," said L'Estrange, with a smile.
"And you called him Nero?" said Leonard, still gazing on the stranger.
Harley mistook the drift of the question.
"Nero, sir; but he is free from the sanguinary propensities of his Roman
namesake." Harley was about to pass on, when Leonard said falteringly,--
"Pardon me, but can it be possible that you are one whom I have sought in
vain, on behalf of the child of Captain Digby?"
Harley stopped short. "Digby!" he exclaimed, "where is he? He should have
found me easily. I gave him an address."
"Ah, Heaven be thanked," cried Leonard. "Helen is saved; she will not die;"
and he burst into tears.
A very few moments, and a very few words sufficed to explain to Harley the
state of his old fellow-soldier's orphan. And Harley himself soon stood in
the young sufferer's room, supporting her burning temples on his breast,
and whispering into ears that heard him, as in a happy dream, "Comfort,
comfort; your father yet lives in me."
And then Helen, raising her eyes, said "But Leonard is my brother--more
than brother--and he needs a father's care more than I do."
"Hush, hush, Helen. I need no one--nothing now!" cried Leonard; and his
tears gushed over the little hand that clasped his own.
CHAPTER XVIII.
Harley L'Estrange was a man whom all things that belong to the romantic and
poetic side of our human life deeply impressed. When he came to learn the
tie between these two children of nature, standing side by side, alone
amidst the storms of fate, his heart was more deeply moved than it had been
for many years. In those dreary attics, overshadowed by the smoke and reek
of the humble suburb--the workday world in its harshest and tritest forms
below and around them--he recognized that divine poem which comes out from
all union between the mind and the heart. Here, on the rough deal table,
(the ink scarcely dry,) lay the writings of the young wrestler for fame and
bread; there, on the other side the partition, on that mean pallet, lay the
boy's sole comforter--the all that warmed his heart with living mortal
affection. On one side the wall, the world of imagination; on the other
this world of grief and of love. And in both, a spirit equally
sublime--unselfish Devotion--"the something afar from the sphere of our
sorrow."
He looked round the room into which he had followed Leonard, on quitting
Helen's bedside. He noted the MSS. on the table, and, pointing to them,
said gently, "And these are the labors by which you supported the soldier's
orphan?--soldier yourself, in a hard battle!"
"The battle was lost--I could not support her," replied Leonard mournfully.
"But you did not desert her. When Pandora's box was opened, they say Hope
lingered last----"
"False, false," said Leonard; "a heathen's notion. There are deities that
linger behind Hope;--Gratitude, Love, and Duty."
"Yours is no common nature," exclaimed Harley, admiringly, "but I must
sound it more deeply hereafter; at present I hasten for the physician; I
shall return with him. We must move that poor child from this low close air
as soon as possible. Meanwhile, let me qualify your rejection of the old
fable. Wherever Gratitude, Love, and Duty remain to man, believe me that
Hope is there too, though she may be oft invisible, hidden behind the
sheltering wings of the nobler deities."
Harley said this with that wondrous smile of his, which cast a brightness
over the whole room--and went away.
Leonard stole softly towards the grimy window; and looking up towards the
stars that shone pale over the roof-tops, he murmured, "O thou, the
All-seeing and All-merciful!--how it comforts me now to think that though
my dreams of knowledge may have sometimes obscured the Heaven, I never
doubted that Thou wert there!--as luminous and everlasting, though behind
the cloud!" So, for a few minutes, he prayed silently--then passed into
Helen's room, and sat beside her motionless, for she slept. She woke just
as Harley returned with a physician, and then Leonard, returning to his own
room, saw amongst his papers the letter he had written to Mr. Dale; and
muttering, "I need not disgrace my calling--I need not be the mendicant
now"--held the letter to the flame of the candle. And while he said this,
and as the burning tinder dropped on the floor, the sharp hunger, unfelt
during his late anxious emotion, gnawed at his entrails. Still even hunger
could not reach that noble pride which had yielded to a sentiment nobler
than itself--and he smiled as he repeated, "No mendicant!--the life that I
was sworn to guard is saved. I can raise against Fate the front of the Man
once more."
CHAPTER XIX.
A few days afterwards, and Helen, removed to a pure air, and under the
advice of the first physicians, was out of all danger.
It was a pretty detached cottage, with its windows looking over the wild
heaths of Norwood, to which Harley rode daily to watch the convalescence of
his young charge--an object in life was already found. As she grew better
and stronger, he coaxed her easily into talking, and listened to her with
pleased surprise. The heart so infantine, and the sense so womanly, struck
him much by its rare contrast and combination. Leonard, whom he had
insisted on placing also in the cottage, had stayed there willingly till
Helen's recovery was beyond question. Then he came to Lord L'Estrange, as
the latter was about one day to leave the cottage, and said quietly, "Now,
my Lord, that Helen is safe, and now that she will need me no more, I can
no longer be a pensioner on your bounty. I return to London."
"You are my visitor--not my pensioner, foolish boy," said Harley, who had
already noticed the pride which spoke in that farewell; "come into the
garden, and let us talk."
Harley seated himself on a bench on the little lawn; Nero crouched at his
feet; Leonard stood beside him.
"So," said Lord L'Estrange, "you would return to London!--What to do?"
"Fulfil my fate."
"And that?"
"I cannot guess. Fate is the Isis whose veil no mortal can ever raise."
"You should be born for great things," said Harley, abruptly. "I am sure
that you write well. I have seen that you study with passion. Better than
writing and better than study, you have a noble heart, and the proud desire
of independence. Let me see your MSS., or any copies of what you have
already printed. Do not hesitate--I ask but to be a reader. I don't pretend
to be a patron; it is a word I hate."
Leonard's eyes sparkled through their sudden moisture. He brought out his
portfolio, placed it on the bench beside Harley, and then went softly to
the further part of the garden. Nero looked after him, and then rose and
followed him slowly. The boy seated himself on the turf, and Nero rested
his dull head on the loud heart of the poet.
Harley took up the various papers before him and read them through
leisurely. Certainly he was no critic. He was not accustomed to analyse
what pleased or displeased him; but his perceptions were quick, and his
taste exquisite. As he read, his countenance, always so genuinely
expressive, exhibited now doubt and now admiration. He was soon struck by
the contrast in the boy's writings; between the pieces that sported with
fancy, and those that grappled with thought. In the first, the young poet
seemed so unconscious of his own individuality. His imagination, afar and
aloft from the scenes of his suffering, ran riot amidst a paradise of happy
golden creations. But in the last, the THINKER stood out alone and
mournful, questioning, in troubled sorrow, the hard world on which he
gazed. All in the thought was unsettled, tumultuous; all in the fancy,
serene, and peaceful. The genius seemed divided into twain shapes; the one
bathing its wings amidst the starry dews of heaven; the other wandering
"melancholy, slow," amidst desolate and boundless sands. Harley gently laid
down the paper and mused a little while. Then he rose and walked to
Leonard, gazing on his countenance as he neared the boy, with a new and
deeper interest.
"I have read your papers," he said, "and recognize in them two men,
belonging to two worlds, essentially distinct."
Leonard started, and murmured, "True, true!"
"I apprehend," resumed Harley, "that one of these men must either destroy
the other, or that the two must become fused and harmonized into a single
existence. Get your hat, mount my groom's horse, and come with me to
London; we will converse by the way. Look you, I believe you and I agree in
this, that the first object of every noble spirit is independence. It is
towards this independence that I alone presume to assist you; and this is a
service which the proudest man can receive without a blush."
Leonard lifted his eyes towards Harley's, and those eyes swam with grateful
tears; but his heart was too full to answer.
"I am not one of those," said Harley, when they were on the road, "who
think that because a young man writes poetry he is fit for nothing else,
and that he must be a poet or a pauper. I have said that in you there seem
to me to be two men, the man of the Ideal world, the man of the Actual. To
each of these men I can offer a separate career. The first is perhaps the
more tempting. It is the interest of the state to draw into its service all
the talent and industry it can obtain; and under his native state every
citizen of a free country should be proud to take service. I have a friend
who is a minister, and who is known to encourage talent--Audley Egerton. I
have but to say to him, 'There is a young man who will well repay to the
government whatever the government bestows on him' and you will rise
to-morrow independent in means, and with fair occasions to attain to
fortune and distinction. This is one offer, what say you to it?"
Leonard thought bitterly of his interview with Audley Egerton, and the
minister's proffered crown-piece. He shook his head and replied--
"Oh, my lord, how have I deserved such kindness? Do with me what you will;
but if I have the option, I would rather follow my own calling. This is not
the ambition that inflames me."
"Hear, then, the other offer. I have a friend with whom I am less intimate
than Egerton, and who has nothing in his gift to bestow. I speak of a man
of letters--Henry Norreys--of whom you have doubtless heard, who, I should
say, conceived an interest in you when he observed you reading at the
book-stall. I have often heard him say, that literature as a profession is
misunderstood, and that rightly followed, with the same pains and the same
prudence which are brought to bear on other professions, a competence at
least can be always ultimately obtained. But the way may be long and
tedious--and it leads to no power but over thought; it rarely attains to
wealth; and, though _reputation_ may be certain, _Fame_, such as poets
dream of, is the lot of few. What say you to this course?"
"My lord, I decide," said Leonard, firmly; and then his young face lighting
up with enthusiasm, he exclaimed. "Yes, if, as you say, there be two men
within me, I feel, that were I condemned wholly to the mechanical and
practical world, one would indeed destroy the other. And the conqueror
would be the ruder and the coarser. Let me pursue those ideas that, though
they have but flitted across me vague and formless--have ever soared
towards the sunlight. No matter whether or not they lead to fortune or to
fame, at least they will lead me upward! Knowledge for itself I
desire--what care I, if it be not power?"
"Enough," said Harley, with a pleased smile at his young companion's
outburst. "As you decide so shall it be settled. And now permit me, if not
impertinent, to ask you a few questions. Your name is Leonard Fairfield?"
The boy blushed deeply, and bowed his head as if in assent.
"Helen says you are self-taught; for the rest she refers me to
you--thinking, perhaps, that I should esteem you less--rather than yet more
highly--if she said you were, as I presume to conjecture, of humble birth."
"My birth," said Leonard, slowly, "is very--very--humble."
"The name of Fairfield is not unknown to me. There was one of that name who
married into a family in Lansmere--married an Avenel--" continued
Harley--and his voice quivered. "You change countenance. Oh, could your
mother's name have been Avenel?"
"Yes," said Leonard, between his set teeth. Harley laid his hand on the
boy's shoulder. "Then indeed I have a claim on you--then, indeed, we are
friends. I have a right to serve any of that family."
Leonard looked at him in surprise--"For," continued Harley, recovering
himself, "they always served my family; and my recollections of Lansmere,
though boyish, are indelible." He spurred on his horse as the words
closed--and again there was a long pause; but from that time Harley always
spoke to Leonard in a soft voice, and often gazed on him with earnest and
kindly eyes.
They reached a house in a central, though not fashionable street. A
man-servant of a singularly grave and awful aspect opened the door; a man
who had lived all his life with authors. Poor devil, he was indeed
prematurely old! The care on his lip and the pomp on his brow--no mortal's
pen can describe!
"Is Mr. Norreys at home?" asked Harley.
"He is at home--to his friends, my lord," answered the man, majestically;
and he stalked across the hall with the step of a Dangeau ushering some
Montmorenci to the presence of _Louis le Grand_.
"Stay--show this gentleman into another room. I will go first into the
library; wait for me, Leonard." The man nodded, and ushered Leonard into
the dining-room. Then pausing before the door of the library, and listening
an instant, as if fearful to disturb some mood of inspiration, opened it
very softly. To his ineffable disgust, Harley pushed before, and entered
abruptly. It was a large room, lined with books from the floor to the
ceiling. Books were on all the tables--books were on all the chairs. Harley
seated himself on a folio of Raleigh's History of the World, and cried--
"I have brought you a treasure!"
"What is it?" said Norreys, good-humoredly, looking up from his desk.
"A mind!"
"A mind!" echoed Norreys, vaguely. "Your own?"
"Pooh--I have none--I have only a heart and a fancy. Listen. You remember
the boy we saw reading at the book-stall. I have caught him for you, and
you shall train him into a man. I have the warmest interest in his
future--for I knew some of his family--and one of that family was very dear
to me. As for money, he has not a shilling, and not a shilling would he
accept gratis from you or me either. But he comes with bold heart to
work--and work you must find him." Harley then rapidly told his friend of
the two offers he had made to Leonard--and Leonard's choice.
"This promises very well; for letters a man must have a strong vocation as
he should have for law--I will do all that you wish."
Harley rose with alertness--shook Norreys cordially by the hand--hurried
out of the room, and returned with Leonard.
Mr. Norreys eyed the young man with attention. He was naturally rather
severe than cordial in his manner to strangers--contrasting in this, as in
most things, the poor vagabond Burley. But he was a good judge of the human
countenance, and he liked Leonard's. After a pause he held out his hand.
"Sir," said he, "Lord L'Estrange tells me that you wish to enter literature
as a calling, and no doubt to study it is an art. I may help you in this,
and you meanwhile can help me. I want an amanuensis--I offer you that
place. The salary will be proportioned to the services you will render me.
I have a room in my house at your disposal. When I first came up to London,
I made the same choice that I hear you have done. I have no cause, even in
a worldly point of view, to repent my choice. It gave me an income larger
than my wants. I trace my success to these maxims, which are applicable to
all professions--1st, Never to trust to genius--for what can be obtained by
labor; 2dly, Never to profess to teach what we have not studied to
understand; 3dly, Never to engage our word to what we do not do our best to
execute. With these rules literature, provided a man does not mistake his
vocation for it, and will, under good advice, go through the preliminary
discipline of natural powers, which all vocations require, is as good a
calling as any other. Without them a shoeblack's is infinitely better."
"Possible enough," muttered Harley; "but there have been great writers who
observed none of your maxims."
"Great writers, probably, but very unenviable men. My Lord, my Lord, don't
corrupt the pupil you bring to me." Harley smiled and took his departure,
and left Genius at school with Common Sense and Experience.
CHAPTER XX.
While Leonard Fairfield had been obscurely wrestling against poverty,
neglect, hunger, and dread temptations, bright had been the opening day,
and smooth the upward path, of Randal Leslie. Certainly no young man, able
and ambitious, could enter life under fairer auspices; the connection and
avowed favorite of a popular and energetic statesman, the brilliant writer
of a political work, that had lifted him at once into a station of his
own--received and courted in those highest circles, to which neither rank
nor fortune alone suffices for a familiar passport--the circles above
fashion itself--the circles of power--with every facility of augmenting
information, and learning the world betimes through the talk of its
acknowledged masters,--Randal had but to move straight onward, and success
was sure. But his tortuous spirit delighted in scheme and intrigue for
their own sake. In scheme and intrigue he saw shorter paths to fortune, if
not to fame. His besetting sin was also his besetting weakness. He did not
aspire--he _coveted_. Though in a far higher social position than Frank
Hazeldean, despite the worldly prospects of his old school-fellow, he
coveted the very things that kept Frank Hazeldean below him--coveted his
idle gaieties, his careless pleasures, his very waste of youth. Thus, also,
Randal less aspired to Audley Egerton's repute than he coveted Audley
Egerton's wealth and pomp, his princely expenditure, and his Castle
Rackrent in Grosvenor Square. It was the misfortune of his birth to be so
near to both these fortunes--near to that of Leslie, as the future head of
that fallen house,--near even to that of Hazeldean, since as we have seen
before, if the Squire had had no son, Randal's descent from the Hazeldeans
suggested himself as the one on whom these broad lands should devolve. Most
young men, brought into intimate contact with Audley Egerton, would have
felt for that personage a certain loyal and admiring, if not very
affectionate, respect. For there was something grand in Egerton--something
that commands and fascinates the young. His determined courage, his
energetic will, his almost regal liberality, contrasting a simplicity in
personal tastes and habits that was almost austere--his rare and seemingly
unconscious power of charming even the women most wearied of homage, and
persuading even the men most obdurate to counsel--all served to invest the
practical man with those spells which are usually confined to the ideal
one. But indeed, Audley Egerton was an Ideal--the ideal of the Practical.
Not the mere vulgar, plodding, red-tape machine of petty business, but the
man of strong sense, inspired by inflexible energy, and guided to definite
earthly objects. In a dissolute and corrupt form of government, under a
decrepit monarchy, or a vitiated republic, Audley Egerton might have been a
most dangerous citizen; for his ambition was so resolute, and his sight to
its ends was so clear. But there is something in public life in England
which compels the really ambitious man to honor, unless his eyes are
jaundiced and oblique like Randal Leslie's. It is so necessary in England
to be a gentleman. And thus Egerton was emphatically considered a
_gentleman_. Without the least pride in other matters, with little apparent
sensitiveness, touch him on the point of gentleman, and no one so sensitive
and so proud. As Randal saw more of him, and watched his moods with the
lynx eyes of the household spy, he could perceive that this hard mechanical
man was subject to fits of melancholy, even of gloom, and though they did
not last long, there was even in his habitual coldness an evidence of
something comprest, latent, painful, lying deep within his memory. This
would have interested the kindly feelings of a grateful heart. But Randal
detected and watched it only as a clue to some secret it might profit him
to gain. For Randal Leslie hated Egerton; and hated him the more because
with all his book knowledge and his conceit in his own talents, he could
not despise his patron--because he had not yet succeeded in making his
patron the mere tool or stepping-stone--because he thought that Egerton's
keen eye saw through his wily heart, even while, as if in profound disdain,
the minister helped the protégé. But this last suspicion was unsound.
Egerton had not detected Leslie's corrupt and treacherous nature. He might
have other reasons for keeping him at a certain distance, but he inquired
too little into Randal's feelings towards himself to question the
attachment, or doubt the sincerity of one who owed to him so much. But that
which more than all embittered Randal's feelings towards Egerton, was the
careful and deliberate frankness with which the latter had, more than once
repeated, and enforced the odious announcement, that Randal had nothing to
expect from the ministers--WILL, nothing to expect from that wealth which
glared in the hungry eyes of the pauper heir to the Leslies of Rood. To
whom, then, could Egerton mean to devise his fortune? To whom but Frank
Hazeldean. Yet Audley took so little notice of his nephew--seemed so
indifferent to him, that that supposition, however natural, seemed exposed
to doubt. The astuteness of Randal was perplexed. Meanwhile, however, the
less he himself could rely upon Egerton for fortune, the more he revolved
the possible chances of ousting Frank from the inheritance of Hazeldean--in
part, at least, if not wholly. To one less scheming, crafty, and
remorseless than Randal Leslie with every day became more and more, such a
project would have seemed the wildest delusion. But there was something
fearful in the manner in which this young man sought to turn knowledge into
power, and make the study of all weakness in others subservient to his own
ends. He wormed himself thoroughly into Frank's confidence. He learned
through Frank all the Squire's peculiarities of thought and temper, and
thoroughly pondered over each word in the father's letters, which the son
gradually got into the habit of showing to the perfidious eyes of his
friend. Randal saw that the Squire had two characteristics which are very
common amongst proprietors, and which might be invoked as antagonists to
his warm fatherly love. First, the Squire was as fond of his estate as if
it were a living thing, and part of his own flesh and blood; and in his
lectures to Frank upon the sin of extravagance, the Squire always let out
this foible:--"What was to become of the estate if it fell into the hands
of a spendthrift? No man should make ducks and drakes of Hazeldean; let
Frank beware of _that_," &c. Secondly, the Squire was not only fond of his
lands, but he was jealous of them--that jealousy which even the tenderest
father sometimes entertains towards their natural heirs. He could not bear
the notion that Frank should count on his death; and he seldom closed an
admonitory letter without repeating the information that Hazeldean was not
entailed; that it was his to do with as he pleased through life and in
death. Indirect menace of this nature rather wounded and galled than
intimidated Frank; for the young man was extremely generous and
high-spirited by nature, and was always more disposed to some indiscretion
after such warnings to his self-interest, as if to show that those were the
last kinds of appeal likely to influence him. By the help of such insights
into the character of father and son, Randal thought he saw gleams of
daylight illumining his own chance of the lands of Hazeldean. Meanwhile it
appeared to him obvious that, come what might of it, his own interests
could not lose, and might most probably gain, by whatever could alienate
the Squire from his natural heir. Accordingly, though with consummate tact,
he instigated Frank towards the very excesses most calculated to irritate
the Squire, all the while appealing rather to give the counter advice, and
never sharing in any of the follies to which he conducted his thoughtless
friend. In this he worked chiefly through others, introducing Frank to
every acquaintance most dangerous to youth, either from the wit that
laughs at prudence, or the spurious magnificence that subsists so
handsomely upon bills endorsed by friends of "great expectations."
The minister and his protégé were seated at breakfast, the first reading
the newspaper, the last glancing over his letters; for Randal had arrived
to the dignity of receiving many letters--ay, and notes too,
three-cornered, and fantastically embossed. Egerton uttered an exclamation,
and laid down the paper. Randal looked up from his correspondence. The
minister had sunk into one of his absent reveries.
After a long silence, observing that Egerton did not return to the
newspaper, Randal said, "Ehem--sir, I have a note from Frank Hazeldean, who
wants much to see me; his father has arrived in town unexpectedly."
"What brings him here?" asked Egerton, still abstractedly.
"Why, it seems that he has heard some vague reports of poor Frank's
extravagance, and Frank is either afraid or ashamed to meet him."
"Ay--a very great fault extravagance in the young!--destroys independence;
ruins or enslaves the future. Great fault--very! And what does youth want
that it should be extravagant? Has it not every thing in itself merely
because it _is_? Youth is youth--what needs it more?"
Egerton rose as he said this, and retired to his writing-table, and in his
turn opened his correspondence. Randal took up the newspaper, and
endeavored, but in vain, to conjecture what had excited the minister's
exclamation, and the reverie that succeeded it.
Egerton suddenly and sharply turned round in his chair--"If you have done
with the _Times_, have the goodness to place it here."
Randal had just obeyed, when a knock at the street-door was heard, and
presently Lord L'Estrange came into the room, with somewhat a quicker step,
and somewhat a gayer mien than usual.
Audley's hand, as if mechanically, fell upon the newspaper--fell upon that
part of the columns devoted to births, deaths, and marriages. Randal stood
by, and noted; then, bowing to L'Estrange, left the room.
"Audley," said L'Estrange, "I have had an adventure since I saw you--an
adventure that reopened the Past, and may influence my future."
"How?"
"In the first place, I have met with a relation of--of--the Avenels."
"Indeed! Whom--Richard Avenel?"
"Richard--Richard--who is he? Oh, I remember; the wild lad who went off to
America; but that was when I was a mere child."
"That Richard Avenel is now a rich thriving trader, and his marriage is in
this newspaper--married to an honorable Mrs. M'Catchley. Well--in this
country--who should plume himself on birth?"
"You did not say so always, Egerton," replied Harley, with a tone of
mournful reproach.
"And I say so now, pertinently to a Mrs. M'Catchley, not to the heir of the
L'Estranges. But no more of these--these Avenels."
"Yes, more of them. I tell you I have met a relation of theirs--a nephew
of--of--
"Of Richard Avenel's?" interrupted Egerton; and then added in the slow,
deliberate, argumentative tone in which he was wont to speak in public:
"Richard Avenel the trader! I saw him once--a presuming and intolerable
man!"
"The nephew has not those sins. He is full of promise, of modesty, yet of
pride. And his countenance--oh, Egerton, he has _her_ eyes."
Egerton made no answer. And Harley resumed--
"I had thought of placing him under your care. I knew you would provide for
him."
"I will. Bring him hither," cried Egerton eagerly. "All that I can do to
prove my--regard for a wish of yours."
Harley pressed his friend's hand warmly.
"I thank you from my heart; the Audley of my boyhood speaks now. But the
young man has decided otherwise; and I do not blame him. Nay, I rejoice
that he chooses a career in which, if he find hardship, he may escape
dependence."
"And that career is--"
"Letters."
"Letters--Literature!" exclaimed the statesman. "Beggary! No, no, Harley,
this is your absurd romance."
"It will not be beggary, and it is not my romance: it is the boy's. Leave
him alone, he is in my care and my charge henceforth. He is of _her_ blood,
and I said that he had _her_ eyes."
"But you are going abroad; let me know where he is; I will watch over him."
"And unsettle a right ambition for a wrong one? No--you shall know nothing
of him till he can proclaim himself. I think that day will come."
Audley mused a moment, and then said, "Well, perhaps you are right. After
all, as you say, independence is a great blessing, and my ambition has not
rendered myself the better or the happier."
"Yet, my poor Audley, you ask me to be ambitious."
"I only wish you to be consoled," cried Egerton with passion.
"I will try to be so; and by the help of a milder remedy than yours. I said
that my adventure might influence my future; it brought me acquainted not
only with the young man I speak of, but the most winning, affectionate
child--a girl."
"Is this child an Avenel too?"
"No, she is of gentle blood--a soldier's daughter; the daughter of that
Captain Digby, on whose behalf I was a petitioner to your patronage. He is
dead, and in dying, my name was on his lips. He meant me, doubtless, to be
the guardian to his orphan. I shall be so. I have at last an object in
life."
"But can you seriously mean to take this child with you abroad?"
"Seriously, I do."
"And lodge her in your own house?"
"For a year or so while she is yet a child. Then, as she approaches youth,
I shall place her elsewhere."
"You may grow to love her. Is it clear that she will love you?--not mistake
gratitude for love? It is a very hazardous experiment."
"So was William the Norman's--still he was William the Conqueror. Thou
biddest me move on from the past, and be consoled, yet thou wouldst make me
as inapt to progress as the mule in Slawkenbergius's tale, with thy cursed
interlocutions, 'Stumbling, by St. Nicholas, every step. Why, at this rate,
we shall be all night getting into--' _Happiness!_ Listen," continued
Harley, setting off, full pelt, into one of his wild whimsical humors. "One
of the sons of the prophets in Israel, felling wood near the River Jordan,
his hatchet forsook the helve, and fell to the bottom of the river; so he
prayed to have it again, (it was but a small request, mark you;) and having
a strong faith, he did not throw the hatchet after the helve, but the helve
after the hatchet. Presently two great miracles were seen. Up springs the
hatchet from the bottom of the water, and fixes itself to its old
acquaintance, the helve. Now, had he wished to coach it to Heaven in a
fiery chariot like Elias, be as rich as Job, strong as Samson, and
beautiful as Absalom, would he have obtained it, do you think? In truth, my
friend, I question it very much."
"I cannot comprehend what you mean. Sad stuff you are talking."
"I can't help that; Rabelais is to be blamed for it. I am quoting him, and
it is to be found in his prologue to the chapters on the Moderation of
Wishes. And apropos of 'moderate wishes in point of hatchet,' I want you to
understand that I ask but little from Heaven. I fling but the helve after
the hatchet that has sunk into the silent stream. I want the other half of
the weapon that is buried fathom deep, and for want of which the thick
woods darken round me by the Sacred River, and I can catch not a glimpse of
the stars."
"In plain English," said Audley Egerton, "you want"--he stopped short,
puzzled.
"I want my purpose and my will, and my old character, and the nature God
gave me. I want the half of my soul which has fallen from me. I want such
love as may replace to me the vanished affections. Reason not--I throw the
helve after the hatchet."
CHAPTER XXI.
Randal Leslie, on leaving Audley, repaired to Frank's lodgings, and after
being closeted with the young guardsman an hour or so, took his way to
Limmer's hotel, and asked for Mr. Hazeldean. He was shown into the
coffee-room, while the waiter went up stairs with his card, to see if the
Squire was within, and disengaged. The _Times_ newspaper lay sprawling on
one of the tables, and Randal, leaning over it, looked with attention into
the column containing births, deaths, and marriages. But in that long and
miscellaneous list, he could not conjecture the name which had so excited
Mr. Egerton's interest.
"Vexatious!" he muttered; "there is no knowledge which has power more
useful than that of the secrets of men."
He turned as the waiter entered, and said that Mr. Hazeldean would be glad
to see him.
As Randal entered the drawing-room, the Squire shaking hands with him,
looked towards the door as if expecting some one else, and his honest face
assumed a blank expression of disappointment when the door closed, and he
found that Randal was unaccompanied.
"Well," said he bluntly, "I thought your old school-fellow, Frank, might
have been with you."
"Have not you seen him yet, sir?"
"No, I came to town this morning; travelled outside the mail; sent to his
barracks, but the young gentleman does not sleep there--has an apartment of
his own; he never told me that. We are a plain family, the
Hazeldeans--young sir; and I hate being kept in the dark, by my own son
too."
Randal made no answer, but looked sorrowful. The Squire, who had never
before seen his kinsman, had a vague idea that it was not quite polite to
entertain a stranger, though a connection to himself, with his family
troubles, and so resumed good-naturedly:
"I am very glad to make your acquaintance at last, Mr. Leslie. You know, I
hope, that you have good Hazeldean blood in your veins?"
_Randal_, (smilingly).--"I am not likely to forget that; it is the boast of
our pedigree."
_Squire_, (heartily.)--"Shake hands again on it, my boy. You don't want a
friend, since my grandee of a half-brother has taken you up; but if ever
you should, Hazeldean is not very far from Rood. Can't get on with your
father at all, my lad--more's the pity, for I think I could have given him
a hint or two as to the improvement of his property. If he would plant
those ugly commons--larch and fir soon come into profit, sir; and there are
some low lands about Rood that would take mighty kindly to draining."
_Randal._--"My poor father lives a life so retired, and you cannot wonder
at it. Fallen trees lie still, and so do fallen families."
_Squire._--"Fallen families can get up again, which fallen trees can't."
_Randal._--"Ah, sir, it often takes the energy of generations to repair
the thriftlessness and extravagance of a single owner."
_Squire_, (his brow lowering.)--"That's very true. Frank _is_ d----d
extravagant; treats me very coolly, too--not coming; near three o'clock. By
the by, I suppose he told you where I was, otherwise how did you find me
out!"
_Randal_, (reluctantly.)--"Sir, he did; and, to speak frankly, I am not
surprised that he has not yet appeared."
_Squire._--"Eh?"
_Randal._--"We have grown very intimate."
_Squire._--"So he writes me word--and I am glad of it. Our member, Sir
John, tells me you are a very clever fellow, and a very steady one. And
Frank says that he wishes he had your prudence, if he can't have your
talents. He has a good heart, Frank," added the father, relentingly. "But,
zounds, sir, you say you are not surprised he has not come to welcome his
own father?"
"My dear sir," said Randal, "you wrote word to Frank that you had heard
from Sir John and others, of his goings-on, and that you were not satisfied
with his replies to your letters."
"Well."
"And then you suddenly come up to town."
"Well."
"Well. And Frank is ashamed to meet you. For, as you say, he has been
extravagant, and he has exceeded his allowance; and, knowing my respect for
you, and my great affection for himself, he has asked me to prepare you to
receive his confession and forgive him. I know I am taking a great liberty.
I have no right to interfere between father and son; but pray--pray think I
mean for the best."
"Humph!" said the Squire, recovering himself very slowly, and showing
evident pain. "I knew already that Frank had spent more than he ought; but
I think he should not have employed a third person to prepare me to forgive
him. (Excuse me--no offence.) And if he wanted a third person, was not
there his own mother? What the devil!--(firing up)--am I a tyrant--a
bashaw--that my own son is afraid to speak to me? Gad, I'll give it him?"
"Pardon me, sir," said Randal, assuming at once that air of authority which
superior intellect so well carries off and excuses. "But I strongly advise
you not to express any anger at Frank's confidence in me. At present I have
influence over him. Whatever you may think of his extravagance, I have
saved him from many an indiscretion, and many a debt--a young man will
listen to one of his own age so much more readily than even to the kindest
friend of graver years. Indeed, sir, I speak for your sake as well as for
Frank's. Let me keep this influence over him; and don't reproach him for
the confidence he placed in me. Nay, let him rather think that I have
softened any displeasure you might otherwise have felt."
There seemed so much good sense in what Randal said, and the kindness of it
seemed so disinterested, that the Squire's native shrewdness was deceived.
"You are a fine young fellow," said he, "and I am very much obliged to you.
Well, I suppose there is no putting old heads upon young shoulders; and I
promise you I'll not say an angry word to Frank. I dare say, poor boy, he
is very much afflicted, and I long to shake hands with him. So, set his
mind at ease."
"Ah, sir," said Randal, with much apparent emotion, "your son may well love
you; and it seems to be a hard matter for so kind a heart as yours to
preserve the proper firmness with him."
"Oh, I can be firm enough," quoth the squire--"especially when I don't see
him--handsome dog that he is--very like his mother--don't you think so?"
"I never saw his mother, sir."
"Gad! Not seen my Harry! No more you have; you must come and pay us a
visit. We have your grandmother's picture, when she was a girl, with a
crook in one hand and a bunch of lilies in the other. I suppose my
half-brother will let you come?"
"To be sure, sir. Will you not call on him while you are in town?
"Not I. He would think I expected to get something from the Government.
Tell him the ministers must go on a little better, if they want my vote for
their member. But go. I see you are impatient to tell Frank that all's
forgot and forgiven. Come and dine with him here at six, and let him bring
his bills in his pocket. Oh, I shan't scold him."
"Why, as to that," said Randal, smiling, "I think (forgive me still) that
you should not take it too easily; just as I think that you had better not
blame him for his very natural and praiseworthy shame in approaching you,
so I think, also, that you should do nothing that would tend to diminish
that shame--it is such a check on him. And therefore, if you can contrive
to affect to be angry with him for his extravagance, it will do good."
"You speak like a book, and I'll try my best."
"If you threaten, for instance, to take him out of the army, and settle him
in the country, it would have a very good effect."
"What! would he think it so great a punishment to come home and live with
his parents?"
"I don't say that; but he is naturally so fond of London. At his age, and
with his large inheritance, _that_ is natural."
"Inheritance!" said the Squire, moodily--"inheritance! he is not thinking
of that, I trust? Zounds, sir, I have as good a life as his own.
Inheritance!--to be sure the Casino property is entailed on him; but, as
for the rest, sir, I am no tenant for life. I could leave the Hazeldean
lands to my ploughman, if I chose it. Inheritance, indeed!"
"My dear sir, I did not mean to imply that Frank would entertain the
unnatural and monstrous idea of calculating on your death; and all we have
to do is to get him to sow his wild oats as soon as possible--marry, and
settle down into the country. For it would be a thousand pities if his town
habits and tastes grew permanent--a bad thing for the Hazeldean property,
that. And," added Randal, laughing, "I feel an interest in the old place,
since my grandmother comes of the stock. So, just force yourself to seem
angry, and grumble a little when you pay the bills."
"Ah, ah, trust me," said the Squire, doggedly and with a very altered air,
"I am much obliged to you for these hints, my young kinsman." And his stout
hand trembled a little as he extended it to Randal.
Leaving Limmer's, Randal hastened to Frank's rooms in St. James's Street.
"My dear fellow," said he, when he entered, "it is very fortunate that I
persuaded you to let me break matters to your father. You might well say he
was rather passionate; but I have contrived to soothe him. You need not
fear that he will not pay your debts."
"I never feared that," said Frank changing color; "I only fear his anger.
But, indeed, I feared his kindness still more. What a reckless hound I have
been! However, it shall be a lesson to me. And my debts once paid, I will
turn as economical as yourself."
"Quite right, Frank. And, indeed, I am a little afraid that when your
father knows the total, he may execute a threat that would be very
unpleasant to you."
"What's that?"
"Make you sell out, and give up London."
"The devil!" exclaimed Frank, with fervent emphasis; "that would be
treating me like a child."
"Why, it _would_ make you seem rather ridiculous to your set, which is not
a very rural one. And you, who like London so much, and are so much the
fashion."
"Don't talk of it," cried Frank, walking to and fro the room in great
disorder.
"Perhaps on the whole, it might be well not to say all you owe, at once. If
you named half the sum, your father would let you off with a lecture; and
really I tremble at the effect of the total."
"But how shall I pay the other half?"
"Oh, you must save from your allowance; it is a very liberal one; and the
tradesmen are not pressing."
"No--but the cursed bill-brokers"--
"Always renew to a young man of your expectations. And if I get into an
office, I can always help you, my dear Frank."
"Ah, Randal, I am not so bad as to take advantage of your friendship," said
Frank warmly. "But it seems to me mean, after all, and a sort of a lie,
indeed, disguising the real state of my affairs. I should not have listened
to the idea from any one else. But you are such a sensible, kind, honorable
fellow."
"After epithets so flattering, I shrink from the responsibility of advice.
But apart from your own interests, I should be glad to save your father the
pain he would feel at knowing the whole extent of the scrape you have got
into. And if it entailed on you the necessity to lay by--and give up
hazard, and not be security for other men--why it would be the best thing
that could happen. Really, too, it seems hard on Mr. Hazeldean, that he
should be the only sufferer, and quite just that you should bear half your
own burdens."
"So it is, Randal; that did not strike me before. I will take your counsel;
and now I will go at once to Limmer's. My dear father! I hope he is looking
well?"
"Oh, very. Such a contrast to the sallow Londoners! But I think you had
better not go till dinner. He has asked me to meet you at six. I will call
for you a little before, and we can go together. This will prevent a great
deal of _gêne_ and constraint. Good-bye till then.--Ha!--by the way, I
think if I were you, I would not take the matter too seriously and
penitentially. You see the best of fathers like to keep their sons under
their thumb, as the saying is. And if you want at your age to preserve your
independence, and not be hurried off and buried in the country, like a
school-boy in disgrace, a little manliness of bearing would not be amiss.
You can think over it."
The dinner at Limmer's went off very differently from what it ought to have
done. Randal's words had sunk deep, and rankled sorely in the Squire's
mind; and that impression imparted a certain coldness to his manner which
belied the hearty, forgiving, generous impulse with which he had come up to
London, and which even Randal had not yet altogether whispered away. On the
other hand, Frank, embarrassed both by the sense of disingenuousness, and a
desire "not to take the thing too seriously," seemed to the Squire
ungracious and thankless.
After dinner, the Squire began to hum and haw, and Frank to color up and
shrink. Both felt discomposed by the presence of a third person; till, with
an art and address worthy of a better cause, Randal himself broke the ice,
and so contrived to remove the restraint he had before imposed, that at
length each was heartily glad to have matters made clear and brief by his
dexterity and tact.
Frank's debts were not in reality, large; and when he named the half of
them--looking down in shame--the Squire, agreeably surprised, was about to
express himself with a liberal heartiness that would have opened his son's
excellent heart at once to him. But a warning look from Randal checked the
impulse; and the Squire thought it right, as he had promised, to affect an
anger he did not feel, and let fall the unlucky threat, "that it was all
very well once in a way to exceed his allowance; but if Frank did not, in
future, show more sense than to be led away by a set of London sharks and
coxcombs, he must cut the army, come home, and take to farming."
Frank imprudently exclaimed, "Oh, sir, I have no taste for farming. And
after London, at my age, the country would be so horribly dull."
"Aha!" said the Squire, very grimly--and he thrust back into his
pocket-book some extra bank-notes which his fingers had itched to add to
those he had already counted out. "The country is terribly dull, is it?
Money goes there not upon follies and vices, but upon employing honest
laborers, and increasing the wealth of the nation. It does not please you
to spend money in that way: it is a pity you should ever be plagued with
such duties."
"My dear father--"
"Hold your tongue, you puppy. Oh, I dare say, if you were in my shoes, you
would cut down the oaks, and mortgage the property--sell it, for what I
know--all go on a cast of the dice! Aha, sir--very well, very well--the
country is horribly dull, is it? Pray, stay in town."
"My dear Mr. Hazeldean," said Randal, blandly, and as if with the wish to
turn off into a joke what threatened to be serious, "you must not interpret
a hasty expression so literally. Why, you would make Frank as bad as Lord
A----, who wrote word to his steward to cut down more timber; and when the
steward replied, 'There are only three signposts left on the whole estate,'
wrote back, '_They've_ done growing, at all events--'down with them.' You
ought to know Lord A----, sir; so witty; and Frank's particular friend."
"Your particular friend, Master Frank? Pretty friends!"--and the Squire
buttoned up the pocket, to which he had transferred his note-book, with a
determined air.
"But I'm his friend, too," said Randal, kindly; "and I preach to him
properly, I can tell you." Then, as if delicately anxious to change the
subject, he began to ask questions upon crops, and the experiment of bone
manure. He spoke earnestly, and with _gusto_, yet with the deference of one
listening to a great practical authority. Randal had spent the afternoon in
cramming the subject from agricultural journals and Parliamentary reports;
and, like all practised readers, had really learned in a few hours more
than many a man, unaccustomed to study, could gain from books in a year.
The Squire was surprised and pleased at the young scholar's information and
taste for such subjects.
"But, to be sure," quoth he, with an angry look at poor Frank, "you have
good Hazeldean blood in you, and know a bean from a turnip."
"Why, sir," said Randal, ingenuously, "I am training myself for public
life; and what is a public man worth if he do not study the agriculture of
his country?"
"Right--what is he worth? Put that question, with my compliments, to my
half-brother. What stuff he did talk, the other night, on the malt tax, to
be sure!"
"Mr. Egerton has had so many other things to think of, that we must excuse
his want of information upon one topic, however important. With his strong
sense, he must acquire that information, sooner or later; for he is fond of
power; and, sir,--knowledge is power!"
"Very true;--very fine saying," quoth the poor Squire, unsuspiciously, as
Randal's eye rested upon Mr. Hazeldean's open face, and then glanced
towards Frank, who looked sad and bored.
"Yes," repeated Randal, "knowledge is power;" and he shook his head wisely,
as he passed the bottle to his host.
Still, when the Squire, who meant to return to the Hall next morning, took
leave of Frank, his heart warmed to his son; and still more for Frank's
dejected looks. It was not Randal's policy to push estrangement too far at
first, and in his own presence.
"Speak to poor Frank--kindly now, sir--do;" whispered he, observing the
Squire's watery eyes, as he moved to the window.
The Squire rejoiced to obey--thrust out his hand to his son--"My dear boy,"
said he, "there, don't fret--pshaw!--it was but a trifle after all. Think
no more of it."
Frank took the hand, and suddenly threw his arm round his father's broad
shoulder.
"Oh, sir, you are too good--too good." His voice trembled so, that Randal
took alarm, passed by him, and touched him meaningly.
The Squire pressed his son to his heart--heart so large, that it seemed to
fill the whole width under his broadcloth.
"My dear Frank," said he, half blubbering, "it is not the money; but, you
see, it so vexes your poor mother; you must be careful in future; and,
zounds, boy, it will be all yours one day; only don't calculate on it; I
could not bear _that_--I could not, indeed."
"Calculate!" cried Frank. "Oh, sir, can you think it!"
"I am so delighted that I had some slight hand in your complete
reconciliation with Mr. Hazeldean," said Randal, as the young men walked
from the hotel. "I saw that you were disheartened, and I told him to speak
to you kindly."
"Did you? Ah, I am sorry he needed telling."
"I know his character so well already," said Randal, "that I flatter myself
I can always keep things between you as they ought to be. What an excellent
man!"
"The best man in the world!" cried Frank, heartily; and then as his accent
drooped, "yet I have deceived him. I have a great mind to go back--"
"And tell him to give you twice as much money as you had asked for. He
would think you had only seemed so affectionate in order to take him in.
No, no, Frank; save--lay by--economize; and then tell him that you have
paid half your own debts. Something high-minded in that."
"So there is. Your heart is as good as your head. Good night."
"Are you going home so early? Have you no engagements?"
"None that I shall keep."
"Good night, then."
They parted, and Randal walked into one of the fashionable clubs. He neared
a table, where three or four young men (younger sons, who lived in the most
splendid style, heaven knew how) were still over their wine.
Leslie had little in common with these gentlemen; but he forced his nature
to be agreeable to them, in consequence of a very excellent piece of
worldly advice given to him by Audley Egerton. "Never let the dandies call
you a prig," said the statesman. "Many a clever fellow fails through life,
because the silly fellows, whom half a word well spoken could make his
_claqueurs_, turn him into ridicule. Whatever you are, avoid the fault of
most reading men: in a word, don't be a prig!"
"I have just left Hazeldean," said Randal--"what a good fellow he is!"
"Capital," said the honorable George Borrowwell. "Where is he?"
"Why, he is gone to his rooms. He has had a little scene with his father, a
thorough, rough country squire. It would be an act of charity if you would
go and keep him company, or take him with you to some place a little more
lively than his own lodgings."
"What! the old gentleman has been teasing him?--a horrid shame! Why, Frank
is not expensive, and he will be very rich--eh?"
"An immense property," said Randal, "and not a mortgage on it; an only
son," he added, turning away.
Among these young gentlemen there was a kindly and most benevolent whisper,
and presently they all rose, and walked away towards Frank's lodgings.
"The wedge is in the tree," said Randal to himself, "and there is a gap
already between the bark and the wood."
CHAPTER XXII.
Harley L'Estrange is seated beside Helen at the lattice-window in the
cottage at Norwood. The bloom of reviving health is on the child's face,
and she is listening with a smile, for Harley is speaking of Leonard with
praise, and of Leonard's future with hope. "And thus," he continued,
"secure from his former trials, happy in his occupation, and pursuing the
career he has chosen, we must be content, my dear child, to leave him."
"Leave him!" exclaimed Helen, and the rose on her cheek faded.
Harley was not displeased to see her emotion. He would have been
disappointed in her heart if it had been less susceptible to affection.
"It is hard on you, Helen," said he, "to separate you from one who has been
to you as a brother. Do not hate me for doing so. But I consider myself
your guardian, and your home as yet must be mine. We are going from this
land of cloud and mist, going as into the world of summer. Well, that does
not content you. You weep, my child; you mourn your own friend, but do not
forget your father's. I am alone, and often sad, Helen; will you not
comfort me? You press my hand, but you must learn to smile on me also. You
are born to be the Comforter. Comforters are not egotists; they are always
cheerful when they console."
The voice of Harley was so sweet, and his words went so home to the child's
heart, that she looked up and smiled in his face as he kissed her ingenuous
brow. But then she thought of Leonard, and felt so solitary--so
bereft--that tears burst forth again. Before these were dried, Leonard
himself entered, and obeying an irresistible impulse, she sprang to his
arms, and, leaning her head on his shoulder, sobbed out, "I am going from
you, brother--do not grieve--do not miss me."
Harley was much moved: he folded his arms, and contemplated them both
silently--and his own eyes were moist, "This heart," thought he, "will be
worth the winning!"
He drew aside Leonard, and whispered, "Soothe but encourage and support
her. I leave you together; come to me in the garden later."
It was nearly an hour before Leonard joined Harley.
"She was not weeping when you left her?" asked L'Estrange.
"No; she has more fortitude than we might suppose. Heaven knows how that
fortitude has supported mine. I have promised to write to her often."
Harley took two strides across the lawn, and then, coming back to Leonard,
said, "Keep your promise, and write often for the first year. I would then
ask you to let the correspondence drop gradually."
"Drop!--Ah, my lord!"
"Look you, my young friend, I wish to lead this fair mind wholly from the
sorrows of the Past. I wish Helen to enter, not abruptly, but step by step,
into a new life. You love each other now as do two children--as brother and
sister. But later, if encouraged, would the love be the same? And is it not
better for both of you, that youth should open upon the world with youth's
natural affections free and unforestalled?"
"True! and she is so above me," said Leonard, mournfully.
"No one is above him who succeeds in your ambition, Leonard. It is not
_that_, believe me!"
Leonard shook his head.
"Perhaps," said Harley, with a smile, "I rather feel that you are above me.
For what vantage-ground is so high as youth? Perhaps I may become jealous
of you. It is well that she should learn to like one who is to be
henceforth her guardian and protector. Yet, how can she like me as she
ought, if her heart is to be full of you?"
The boy bowed his head; and Harley hastened to change the subject, and
speak of letters and of glory. His words were eloquent, and his voice
kindling; for he had been an enthusiast for fame in his boyhood; and in
Leonard's his own seemed to him to revive. But the poet's heart gave back
no echo--suddenly it seemed void and desolate. Yet when Leonard walked back
by the moonlight, he muttered to himself, "Strange--strange--so mere a
child, this cannot be love! Still what else to love is there left to me?"
And so he paused upon the bridge where he had so often stood with Helen,
and on which he had found the protector that had given to her a home--to
himself a career. And life seemed very long, and fame but a dreary phantom.
Courage, still, Leonard! These are the sorrows of the heart that teach thee
more than all the precepts of sage and critic.
Another day, and Helen had left the shores of England, with her fanciful
and dreaming guardian. Years will pass before our tale reopens. Life in all
the forms we have seen it travels on. And the Squire farms and hunts; and
the Parson preaches and chides and soothes. And Riccabocca reads his
Machiavelli, and sighs and smiles as he moralizes on Men and States. And
Violante's dark eyes grow deeper and more spiritual in their lustre; and
her beauty takes thought from solitary dreams. And Mr. Richard Avenel has
his house in London, and the honorable Mrs. Avenel her opera box; and hard
and dire is their struggle into fashion, and hotly does the new man,
scorning the aristocracy, to pant become aristocrat. And Audley Egerton
goes from the office to the Parliament, and drudges, and debates, and helps
to govern the empire in which the sun never sets. Poor Sun, how tired he
must be--but none more tired than the Government! And Randal Leslie has an
excellent place in the bureau of a minister, and is looking to the time
when he shall resign it to come into Parliament, and on that large arena
turn knowledge into power. And meanwhile, he is much where he was with
Audley Egerton; but he has established intimacy with the Squire, and
visited Hazeldean twice, and examined the house and the map of the
property--and very nearly fallen a second time into the Ha-ha, and the
Squire believes that Randal Leslie alone can keep Frank out of mischief,
and has spoken rough words to his Harry about Frank's continued
extravagance. And Frank does continue to pursue pleasure, and is very
miserable, and horribly in debt. And Madame di Negra has gone from London
to Paris, and taken a tour into Switzerland, and come back to London again,
and has grown very intimate with Randal Leslie; and Randal has introduced
Frank to her; and Frank thinks her the loveliest woman in the world, and
grossly slandered by certain evil tongues. And the brother of Madame di
Negra is expected in England at least; and what with his repute for beauty
and for wealth, people anticipate a sensation; and Leonard, and Harley, and
Helen? Patience--they will all reappear.
FOOTNOTES:
[7] Continued from page 386.
FRAGMENTS FROM A VOLUME OF POEMS
BY THOMAS LOVELL BEDDOES.
[Just Published in London.]
NOTHING ALONE.
All round and through the spaces of creation
No hiding-place of the least air, or earth,
Or sea, invisible, untrod, unrained on,
Contains a thing alone. Not e'en the bird,
That can go up the labyrinthine winds
Between its pinions, and pursues the summer,--
Not even the great serpent of the billows,
Who winds him thrice around this planet's waist,--
Is by itself in joy or suffering.
LOVE.
O that sweet influence of thoughts and looks!
That change of being, which, to one who lives,
Is nothing less divine than divine life
To the unmade! Love? Do I love? I walk
Within the brilliance of another's thought,
As in a glory.
INNOCENT WELCOME TO EVIL.
How thou art like the daisy in Noah's meadow,
On which the foremost drop of rain fell warm
And soft at evening; so the little flower
Wrapped up its leaves, and shut the treacherous water
Close to the golden welcome of its breast,--
Delighting in the touch of that which led
The shower of oceans, in whose billowy drops
Tritons and lions of the sea were warring.
THE IMPARTIAL BANQUET.
The unfashionable worm,
Respectless of crown-illumined brow,
To cheek's bewitchment, or the sceptred clench,
With no more eyes than Love, creeps courtier-like,
On his thin belly, to his food,--no matter
How clad or nicknamed it might strut above,
What age or sex,--it is his dinner-time.
ARGUMENT FOR MERCY.
I have a plea,
As dewy piteous as the gentle ghost's
That sits alone upon a forest-grave
Thinking of no revenge: I have a mandate,
As magical and potent as e'er ran
Silently through a battle's myriad veins,
Undid their fingers from the hanging steel,
And drew them up in prayer: I AM A WOMAN.
O motherly-remembered be the name,
And, with the thought of loves and sisters, sweet
And comforting!
INTERCESSION BETWEEN A FATHER AND A SON.
There stands before you
The youth and golden top of your existence,
Another life of yours: for, think your morning
Not lost, but given, passed from your hand to his
The same except in place. Be then to him
As was the former tenant of your age,
When you were in the prologue of your time,
And he lay hid in you unconsciously
Under his life. And thou, my younger master,
Remember there's a kind of God in him;
And, after heaven, the next of thy religion.
Thy second fears of God, thy first of man,
Are his, who was creation's delegate,
And made this world for thee in making thee.
Authors and Books.
CARL IMMERMAN'S _Theater-Briefe_ (Letters on the Theatre), says a German
critic, "is interesting not only as a history of a German theatre, but as
an excellent addition to the literature of æsthetic criticism. This work
refers more especially to the years 1833-37, during which time, as is well
known, Immerman attempted to establish in Düsseldorf an _ideal_ theatre,
somewhat in the style of that at Weimar." We have frequently, in
conversation with a gentleman who held an appointment in this Düsseldorf
_Ideal Theatre_, received amusing and interesting accounts of Immerman's
style of management. That his plan did not succeed is undoubtedly for the
sake of Art to be regretted; yet we can by no means unconditionally approve
of the ideas upon which Immerman based his theories. He was certainly right
in endeavoring to form a unity of style in dramatic representations; but
how he could have deemed such an unity possible, when grounded upon such
diametrically opposed æsthetic bases as those of Shakespeare and Calderon,
is to us unintelligible. The remarks on the most convenient and practical
style of executing certain pieces--for example, Hamlet--are worthy of
attention, as also a few explanations relative to Immerman's own dramatic
conceptions.
* * * * *
KOHL, whose innumerable and well-known books of travel have caused him to
be cited even in book-making Germany as an instance of _Ausserordentlichen
Fruchtbarkeit_, or extraordinary fertility, has published, through Kuntze
of Dresden, yet another work, entitled _Sketches of Nature and Popular
Life_, which is however said to be inferior to the average of his
works--principally, we imagine, from his falling into the besetting sin of
German writers since the late revolutions, namely, of talking politics when
he should have quoted poetry. We should not be surprised to find some day a
treatise on qualitative chemistry, commencing with an analysis of the
Prussian constitution, or an anatomical work, concluding with a dissection
of Germany in general. Kohl possesses, however, great faculties of
observation, is an accurate describer, and has, perhaps, done as much as
any man of the age towards making different countries acquainted with each
other.
* * * * *
The friends of the Italian language and literature, will do well to cast an
occasional kindly glance on _L'Eco d'Italia_ (The Echo of Italy), an
excellent weekly paper published by Signor SECCHI DE CASALI, in this city,
at number 289 Broadway. Many admirable poems find their way from time to
time into this periodical, while its foreign correspondence is of a high
order of merit.
* * * * *
The Polish authoress NARCISA ZWICHOWSKA, well known to all who are
acquainted with the literature of that country, has received from the
Russian authorities an order to enter a convent, and no longer to occupy
herself with literature, but with labors of a manual kind, which are more
becoming to women. She is to receive from the treasury a silver ruble, or
about sixty-two and a half cents a day for her support.
* * * * *
Cooking is no doubt a great science, and its chief prophet is undeniably
EUGENE BARON BAERST. This gentleman, who is well known in Germany and
elsewhere for his gallant services in Spain, in the army of Don Carlos, has
just brought out a work in two volumes, of some six hundred and fifty pages
each, entitled _Gastrosophie, oder die Lehre von den Freuden der Tafel_
(Gastrosophy, or the Doctrine of the Delights of the Table). In this he
evinces a thoroughness of knowledge and a fire of enthusiasm well
calculated to astonish the reader, who has probably not before been aware
of the grandeur of the subjects discussed. He begins with the very elements
of his theme. "The man," he exclaims in his preface, "who undertakes to
write a cook-book, must begin by teaching the mason how to build a
fire-place, so as not merely to produce heat from above or below, but from
both at once; he must teach the butcher how to cut his meat, and above all
the baker how to make bread, and especially the _semmel_ (a sort of small
loaves with caraway or anise seed, much liked in Germany), which are often
very like leather and perfectly indigestible. It is true that in Psalm CIV.
verse 15, we are told that bread strengthens the heart of man, but the
semmel sort does no such thing; and when Linguet affirms,--and it is one of
the greatest paradoxes I know of,--that bread is a noxious article of food,
he must be thinking of just that kind. Further, it is necessary to instruct
the gardener, the vegetable woman, the cattle dealer and feeder, and a
hundred other people down to the scullion, who must learn to chop the
spinage very fine and rub and tie it well, and also not to wash the salad,
&c. And this is all the more necessary, because bad workmen,--and their
name is legion,--love no sort of instruction, but fancy that they already
know every thing better than anybody else." To this extensive and thankless
work of instruction, the Baron declares that he has devoted himself, and
that the iron will necessary to its accomplishment is his. The iron health
is however wanting, and accordingly he can do nothing better for "the
fatherland's artists in eating" than the present work. At the last advices,
the valiant Baron was dangerously ill.
* * * * *
Works on natural history and philosophy seldom possess much interest for
the uninitiated in "the physically practical." An exception to this may
however be found in the beautiful _Schmetterlingsbuch_, or _Butterfly
book_, recently published by Hoffman of Stuttgart, containing eleven
hundred colored illustrations of these "winged flowers," as the Chinese
poetically term them. Equally attractive to every lover of exquisite works
of scientific art, is the recent American _Pomology_, edited by Dr.
BRINCKLE of Philadelphia, and published by Hoffy of that city. This, we
state on the authority of the Philadelphia Art-Union Reporter, is the most
splendid work of the kind ever published in this country or Europe, with a
single exception, which was issued under royal patronage.
* * * * *
A valuable and useful book in these times is STEIN'S _Geschichte der
socialen Bewegung in Frankreich von 1789 bis auf unsere Tage_ (History of
the Social Movement in France from 1789 to our day). It is in three
volumes, published at Leipzig. The _Socialismus und Communismus_ of the
same author has given him a wide reputation for impartiality and
thoroughness, which the present work must confirm and extend. We do not
coincide in all his views, historical or critical, but cordially recommend
him to the study of all who desire to inform themselves as to one of the
most important phases of modern history.
* * * * *
An interesting work entitled _Die Macht des Kleinen_, or _The power of the
Little, as shown in the formation of the crust of our earth-ball_, has
recently been translated from the Dutch of _Schwartzkopt_, by Dr. SCHLEIDEN
of Leipzig. This book treats entirely of the works and wonders effected by
that "invisible brotherhood" of architects, the _animalculæ_, and shows how
greatly the organic world is indebted to coral insects, _foraminiferæ_,
polypi, and other cryptic beings, for its existence and progress. The
illustrations are truly admirable.
* * * * *
Among the recent publications at Halle, is a heavy octavo by Dr. J. H.
KRAUSE, on the _History of Education, Instruction and Culture among the
Greeks, Etruscans and Romans_. It is drawn from the original sources, and
is the result of a most studious and thorough investigation of the subject.
* * * * *
A very intelligent young priest, by name JOSEPH LUTZ, has recently
published by Laupp of Tübingen, a _Handbook of Catholic Pulpit Eloquence_.
This work will be found highly interesting to those desirous of
investigating the history and theories of modern eloquence. We were already
aware that in New-England smoking and whistling are regarded as vices, but
first learned from the prospectus of this work that, according to Theremin,
eloquence is a _virtue_!
* * * * *
A collection of the popular songs of Southern Russia is now being published
at Moscow by Mr. MAKSIMOWITSCH, who for twenty years has been in the
Ukraine, engaged in taking down and preserving these interesting products
of the early life of his people in that region. This is not the first
contribution of the kind that he has made to Russian literature; in 1827 he
published the _Songs of Little Russia_, consisting of one hundred and
thirty pieces for male and female voices; in 1834 the _Popular Songs of the
Ukraine_, consisting of one hundred and thirteen songs for men; and in the
same year the _Voices of Ukraine Song_, twenty-five pieces with music. The
present work is called by way of distinction _Collectaneum of Ukraine
Popular Songs_; it is to be in six parts, containing about two thousand
national poems. Each part is to be accompanied with explanatory notes, and
the last volume will contain an essay on Russian popular poetry in general,
as well as on that of the Ukraine in particular. One volume has already
appeared; it is in two divisions: the first of Ukraine _Dumy_, the second
of cradle songs and lullabys. The _Dumy_ are a particular sort of poems
peculiar to the Ukraine. They are in a most irregular measure, varying from
four to twelve syllables, with the cadence varying in each line. The only
requirement is that they should rhyme, and frequently several successive
lines are made to do so. These poems are the production of the
_Vandurists_, or bards of the country, who are even yet found on the
southern shore of the Dnieper. These singers, usually blind old men, chant
their _Dumy_ and their songs to the people, accompanying themselves with
both hands on the many-stringed _vandura_. The _Dumy_ flourished most in
the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. There are some existing composed
by Mazeppa after the battle of Pultowa, and one or two other poets have
left a _Dumy_ of the eighteenth, but they are not equal to those of more
primitive times. Since then there have been no new compositions in the way
of popular songs and ballads, but the older works have been repeated with
variations and to new melodies. The most frequent subjects of these ballads
were, of course, historic personages and warlike deeds; but often they sung
of domestic matters and feelings, winding up with a moral for the benefit
of the young. In this volume of Mr. Maksimowitsch, are twenty _Dumy_; their
subjects are such as these: Fight of the Cossack with the Tartar, the Three
Brothers, On the Victory of Gorgsun (1648). He reckons the number in
existence at thirty. Of these he publishes, four have not before been
known.
* * * * *
A new edition of Hogarth's Works is in process of republication at
Göttingen in a diminished size. There are to be twelve parts at fifty cents
each; the third part has been published.
* * * * *
Of DR. ANDREE'S great work on _America_, whose commencement we noticed some
months since, the fifth, sixth, seventh and eighth parts have just reached
us. The German savan continues to justify the high encomiums we passed upon
the earlier portions of his work. He has used with the utmost industry and
conscientiousness all the best sources of information on every subject he
treats. Gallatin, Morton and Squier he frequently quotes as authorities.
These four parts are devoted to the conclusion of the essay on the origin
and history of the American race. In this he calls attention to the fact
that all the developments of American civilization took place on high plain
lands and not in the rich vallies of the great rivers--a fact by the way
which confirms Mr. Carey's theory of the first settlement and culture of
land, though to this Dr. Andree does not refer. He then treats of Canada,
New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, the Bermudas and the United States. The leading
facts in the geography, history, the sources of population, the political
constitution, the geological structure, soil, climate, industry, resources,
and prospects of these countries are given with admirable succinctness,
thoroughness and justice. As a book of ordinary reference, none could be
more convenient or reliable. The most difficult questions are considered
with a genuine German cosmopolitan impartiality of judgment. The
predominant influence in the formation of the American democratic
institutions Dr. Andree considers to be English, or more strictly speaking
Teutonic. Other races and nations have contributed to the mass of the
people, but only the Teutonic has laid the foundation and built the
structure of the state. It is a great blessing in the history of the
continent that the French did not succeed in their plans of colonization,
for they would everywhere have founded not democratic but feudal
institutions. The slavery question he treats more in the interest of the
south than in the spirit of the abolitionists, whose course he condemns
with considerable plainness of expression. On the mode of finally solving
this question, he offers no speculations, but contents himself with showing
the great difficulties attending colonization and emancipation upon the
soil. The former he thinks impossible, the latter can only produce war
between the two races, in which the latter must be exterminated. This mode
of viewing this subject we can testify is frequent among well-educated
Germans. The statistics relating to the United States, Dr. Andree has
collected in a most lucid manner; we do not know where they are better or
more conveniently arranged. Products, imports, exports, debt of federal and
state governments, taxation, shipping, railroads, canals, schools, are all
given; nothing escapes the vigilance of this most exemplary ethnographer.
His style is no less clear and vivid in these four parts than in those
preceding. The remainder will follow regularly. The work may be found at
Westermann's, corner of Broadway and Reade street, by whose house in
Brunswick, Germany, it is published.
* * * * *
M. ALEXANDER DUVAL has a long article in the _Journal des Débats_ entitled,
_Studies upon German Love_, taking his text from Bettina von Arnim's famous
correspondence with Goethe, and from the _Book of Love_, in which the same
sentimentalist has recorded her relations with the unfortunate Günderode.
M. Duval finds that in his intercourse with Bettina, Goethe played a part
which was honorable neither to his mind nor his heart. In the _Book of
Love_, says M. Duval, there is a little of every thing--of physics, of
metaphysics, of poetry, of natural history, of biographical anecdotes, the
history of the first kiss, of the second kiss, and of the third kiss
received by Mlle. Bettina, mixed up with apostrophes to the stars, to the
ocean, to the mountains, and above all, to the moon, which she loves so
much that she never leaves it in peace. In fact, she has such a passion for
whatever is lunatic, that the moon above is not sufficient, and she invents
another, an interior and metaphysical moon, which enlightens the world of
our thoughts. About this she writes to Goethe: "When thou art about to go
to sleep, confide thyself to the inward moon, sleep in the light of the
moon of thy own nature." French literature was never disgraced by a girl's
making a god of its most illustrious representative, and his allowing the
silly incense to be burned for years upon his altars; but the evil is
getting into France as well. Rousseau did not dare to publish his
confessions, but Lamartine has had the courage, and has served up to the
public his own letters and the portraits of his mistresses. Madame Sand's
_Memoirs_ are also advertised; another step that way and Germany need no
longer envy the country of Montesquieu and Voltaire, of good sense and
action.
* * * * *
Readable and instructive is HASE'S _Neue Propheten_ (New Prophets), just
published in Germany. The new prophets are Joan d'Arc, Savonarola, and the
Anabaptists of Münster. They are treated historically and philosophically,
in a style whose simplicity, animation, and clearness, differ most
gratefully from the crabbed and long-winded sentences of the earlier German
writers, in the study of whom we dug our way into some imperfect
acquaintance with that rich and flexible tongue. The book is worthy of
translation.
* * * * *
A new book on a subject which has latterly become prominent among the
themes of European observation and thought is called _Südslavische
Wanderwagen im Sommer 1850_ (Wandering in Southern Slavonia in the Summer
of 1850). It is a series of vivid and interesting pictures of one of the
most remarkable races and regions of Europe.
* * * * *
A singular work has recently been published by Decker of Berlin, entitled
_Monasticus Irenæus, von Jerusalem, nach Bethlehem_ (or Irenæus Monasticus:
a public message to the noble Lady Ida, Countess of Hahn-Hahn: for the
profit and piety of all newly converted Catholics.) In this work we find
much talent, deep learning, and abundance of Schleiermachian philosophy;
but remark on the other hand the following weak points: Firstly, that the
author cuts down a gnat with a scimitar, or in other words overrates the
talent and abilities of his adversary; and, secondly, that he affects to
assume the tone and style in which her work was written, even in the title.
(The reader will remember that the work of the Countess was entitled "_From
Jerusalem_," and bore the motto, "SOLI DEO GLORIA.") In other respects also
is this work, if not decidedly wrong, at least quite indifferent.
* * * * *
LAMARTINE'S History of the Restoration is reviewed at length in the
_Journal des Débats_, by M. Cuvillier-Fleury. It is a very severe piece of
criticism. Lamartine is charged with injustice, confusion, and even a
systematic perversion of the truth, especially toward Napoleon. The account
of the Emperor's last days at Fontainebleau, is pronounced a tragi-comedy,
full of grimaces, of explosions, of puerile hesitations, of impossible
exaggerations. Men and facts are judged without reflection, by prejudice,
by blind passion, by a sort of fated and involuntary partiality. The method
of the book runs into declamation, turgidity, and redundancy; he does not
narrate, he discourses or expounds; he falls into mere gossip or is lost in
analysis; instead of portraits he paints miniatures, and does not conceive
an historical picture without a fancy vignette. His descriptive lyricism,
instead of imparting a grandeur to his subject, diminishes it; instead of
refining it, renders it petty. Besides, in his overstrained and exaggerated
style, he is guilty of writing bad French; M. Cuvillier-Fleury quotes
several striking examples of this. The article concludes by saying that the
historian writes without ballast, and goes at the impulse of every breeze
which swells his sails, and with no other care than the inspiration of the
moment. His subject carries him off by all the perspectives it opens to his
imagination or his memory. He is like a ship moving out of port with
streamers floating from every mast, its poop crowned with flowers, and
every sail set, but without a rudder. In spite of all criticism, however,
this history has a large sale in France: the first edition is already
exhausted. The practice of pirating, usual at Brussels and Leipzic, with
reference to French works of importance, has been prevented, in this case,
by the preparation of cheap editions for Belgium and Germany, which were
issued there cotemporaneously with the publication at Paris.
* * * * *
The second part of the third volume of HUMBOLDT'S _Kosmos_ is nearly
completed, and will soon appear. A fourth volume is to be added, in which
the geological studies of the venerable author will be set forth. He is now
nearly eighty-one years old, and is as vigorous and youthful in feeling as
ever. The first part of the third volume of _Kosmos_ appeared in German and
English several months ago.
* * * * *
A History of Polish Literature, from the remotest antiquity to 1830, is now
being published at Warsaw, by Mr. MACIEJOWKI, a writer thoroughly
acquainted with the subject. Three parts of the first volume have appeared,
bringing the history down to the first half of the seventeenth century. One
more part will complete the volume, and three volumes will complete the
work.
* * * * *
The study of Russian archæology and history is prosecuted in that country
with a degree of activity and thoroughness that other nations are not aware
of, and publications of importance are made constantly. Within the present
year the fifth part of the complete collection of _Russian Chronicles_ has
appeared, the fourth of the collection of public documents relating to the
history of Western Russia, and the beginning of a new collection of foreign
historians of Russia.
* * * * *
A curious contrast of light and shade is exhibited in the titles of two
works recently published in Vienna. SIEGFRIED WEISS (or _white_) puts forth
a book, _On the present state and trade policy of Germany_, while in the
next paragraph of the same list N. SCHWARTZ (or _black_) appears as the
author of _The situation of Austria as regards her trade policy_. This
latter we should judge to be an excellent illustration of the old phrase,
"_nomen et omen!_"
* * * * *
Periodical literature is making its way into Asia. A literary monthly has
made its appearance at Tiflis, in the Georgian language. It will discuss
Georgian literature, furnish translations from foreign tongues, and treat
of the arts and sciences, and of agriculture. What oriental students will
find most interesting in this magazine, will be its specimens of the
popular literature of the country. A new Armenian periodical has also been
commenced in the Trans-Caucasian country.
* * * * *
A German version of HAWTHORNE'S _Scarlet Letter_ has been executed by one
DU BOIS, and published by Velliagen & Klasing of Nielefeld.
* * * * *
OTTO HUBNER, the industrious German economist, is about to publish at
Leipsic a collection of the tariffs of all nations.
* * * * *
A work on Freemasonic medals has been published by Dr. MERZDORF,
superintendent of the Grand Ducal Library of Oldenburg: with plates.
* * * * *
The German Universities are well off for teachers. In the twenty-seven
institutions of the kind at the last summer term, there were engaged 1586
teachers, viz.: 816 ordinary, 330 extraordinary, and 37 honorary
professors, with 403 private tutors, exclusive of 134 masters of languages,
gymnastics, fencing and dancing. Münster has the fewest teachers, numbering
only 18, Olmütz 22, Innsbruck, 26, Gratz 22, Berne and Basle each 33,
Rostock, 38; on the other hand Berlin has 167, Munich 102, Leipzic and
Göttingen each 100, Prague 92, Bonn 90, Breslau 84, Heidelberg 81, Tübingen
77, Halle 75, Jena 74. The whole number of students in the last term was
16,074; Berlin counting 2199, Munich 1817, Prague 1204, Bonn 1026, Leipzic
846, Breslau 831, Tübingen 768, Göttingen 691, Würzburg 684, Halle 646,
Heidelberg 624, Gratz 611, Jena 434, Giessen 409, Freiburg 403, Erlangen
402, Olmütz 396, Königsberg 332, Münster 323, Marburg 272, Innsbruck 257,
Greifswald 208, Zürich 201, Berne 184, Rostock 122, Kiel 119, Basel 65.
* * * * *
Among the last poetical issues of the German press we notice _Poetis che
Schriften_, by A. HENSEL (Vienna, 2 vols.), are exaggerated, almost insane
expression of Austrian loyalty running through sonnets, lyrics, ballads and
romances; _Friedrichsehre_ (Honor to Frederick), by an anonymous author
(Posen), a new wreath for the weather-beaten old brows of Frederick the
Great; _Erwachen_ (Waking), seven poems by Hugo le Juge (Berlin), a book
with talent in it; _Lebensfrühling_, by Paul Eslin (Liepsic), the second
edition of a collection of neat and pleasing poems for children.
* * * * *
The Russian government has published some book-making statistics of Poland
in 1850. In the course of the year, 359 manuscript works were submitted to
the censorship, being 19 more than in 1849. Almost all were scientific, the
greater part treating of theology, jurisprudence, and medicine; 327 were
licensed to be printed, 4 rejected, and 15 returned to their authors for
modification; upon 13 no decision has been given. In 1850, there were
imported into the kingdom 15,986 works, in 58,141 volumes; this was 749
works less, and 1,027 volumes more than in 1849.
* * * * *
A new work on Russia is appearing at Paris with the title of _Etudes sur
les Forces Productives de la Russie_. Its author is Mr. L. DE TEGOBORSKI, a
Russian privy councillor. The first volume, a stout octavo, has been
issued. It treats of the geographical situation and extent of Russia, the
climate, fertility and configuration of the soil; population; productions
of the earth and their gross value; vegetable, animal and mineral
productions; agriculture; raising of domestic animals. The whole work will
consist of three volumes; the second is in press.
* * * * *
Notices in the later numbers of the _Europa_, of KARL QUENTIN in America,
and _The Art Journal_, are not without interest. The Grenzboten also
contains interesting articles on THOMAS MOORE, and OERSTED.
* * * * *
Of Ritter's great work, the _History of Philosophy_, of which only earlier
volumes have appeared in English, a tenth volume is shortly to be
published.
* * * * *
A new and compendious history of philosophy has been published at Leipzic
in two octavo volumes, called _Das Buch der Weltweisheit_. It gives in the
most succinct form a statement of the doctrines of the leading
philosophical thinkers of all times, and is designed for the cultivated
among the German people. Men of other nations are however not forbidden to
derive from it what advantage they can.
* * * * *
DE FLOTTE, whose election to the French Assembly made such a stir a year
since, has lately published a thick volume entitled _De la Souveraineté du
Peuple_. It is a series of essays in which he discusses with great
penetration and remarkable power of abstract thought, the spirit, ends, and
present results of the great general revolution, of which all the special
revolutions that have hitherto occurred, are merely incidents and phases.
De Flotte considers that humanity is advancing toward liberty absolute and
universal, in politics, religion, industry, and every department of life.
"One thing," he says, "has ever astonished me; this is that some men
presume to accuse the revolution of denying tradition, because they think
only of one age, or of one dynasty, while we think of all sovereigns and of
all ages; they oppose, with a curious good faith, the history of a single
epoch or a single party, to the history of all epochs and of all men.
Strange ignorance and singular forgetfulness! Why do they fail to do in
space, what they do in time, in geography what they do in history? Why do
they not deny the existence of negroes and of the Chinese because none of
them come to France? The reason is that life in space strikes the bodily
eye, while life in time strikes the eye of the mind, and theirs is
blinded!"
* * * * *
In France, 78,000 francs have been voted by the National Assembly for
excavations at Nineveh. Mr. LAYARD, without further means for the
prosecution of his researches there, is in England, and we are sorry to
learn, in ill health. His new book, _Fresh Discoveries in Nineveh_, will
soon be published by Mr. Putnam. Dr. H. WEISSENBORN has printed in
Stuttgart, _Nineveh and its Territory, in respect to the latest excavations
in the valley of the Tigris_. Some specimens of the exhumed sculptures of
Nineveh have been sent to New-York by Rev. D. W. Marsh, of the American
mission at Mosul.
* * * * *
A second series of EUGENE SUE's _Mystères du Peuple_ is announced as about
to commence at Paris. This is an attempt to set forth the history of the
French people, or working classes, the form of a modern story being merely
a frame in which to set the author's pictures of former times. The first
series completes the history of the early Gauls and of Roman domination;
the second will treat of feudalism and of the introduction of modern social
castes and distinctions. Sue has published a preamble in the form of an
address to his readers, in which he draws the outline of the subject he is
about to treat, and establishes his main historical positions by reference
to a great variety of learned authorities.
The same author is now publishing in _La Presse_ a new novel called
_Fernand Duplessis, or Memoirs of a Husband_. We have seen some eight or
ten numbers of it; so far it is comparatively free from the clap-trap
romance machinery in which French writers in general, and Sue in
particular, are apt to indulge, while it is otherwise less unobjectionable
than the mass of his stories.
* * * * *
The historian MICHELET has published a new part of his _Revolution
Française_. It is devoted to the Girondists. The conclusions of the author
are that these unfortunate politicians of a terrible epoch were personally
innocent, that they never thought of dismembering France, and had no
understanding with the enemy, but that the policy they pursued in the early
part of '93, was blind and impotent, and if followed out could only have
resulted in the destruction of the republic, and the triumph of the
royalists. The whole is treated in the Micheletian manner, in distinct
chapters, each elucidating some mind.
* * * * *
A work _On the Fabrication of Porcelain in China, with its History from
Antiquity to the present Day_, that is to say, from 583 to 1821, has just
been translated from Chinese into French by STANISLAS JULIEN, and published
at Paris. It puts the European manufacturer perfectly in possession of the
secrets of Chinese workmen, their methods, and the substances they employ.
M. Julien has previously translated a Chinese essay on education of
silkworms, and the culture of the mulberry. He is one of the most learned
sinologues in Europe.
* * * * *
A French archæeologist, M. FELIX DE VERNEILH, has published an elaborate
essay on the Cologne Cathedral, in which he denies to Germany the credit of
inventing the purest model of the pointed arch, and demonstrates that this
Cathedral was not planned at the beginning of the most brilliant period of
Christian art, but was the climax thereof, and that instead of having
served as the archetype in construction of other edifices, it shows the
influence of them, and especially of the Cathedral of Amiens.
* * * * *
An interesting and instructive little work has been published at Paris on
the Workingmen's Associations of that city and country. It is by M. ANDRÉ
COCHUT, one of the editors of _Le National_. It gives the history of each
of the more important of these establishments, with their mode of
organization, number of members, and pecuniary and social results. The
title is _Les Associations Ouvrières; Histoire et Théorie des Centatives de
Reorganisation Industrielle depuis la Révolution de 1848_.
* * * * *
A complete edition of the works of GEORGE SAND is now publishing at Paris,
in parts, with illustrations by Tony Johannot. It is to be elegant, yet
cheap, the whole only costing about $5. There will be some six hundred
illustrations. The first part contains _La Mare au Diable_ and _André_,
with a new preface to the former, in which the author contradicts the
notion that it was intended by her as the beginning of a new order of
literature, or was attempted as a new style of writing. Other authors are
to follow in the same manner.
* * * * *
The new volume of THIER's _History of the Consulate and the Empire_ is
regarded as the most able and most interesting of the series. There is to
be one other volume.
* * * * *
ALEXANDER DUMAS has written the following letter to the _Presse_:
"Sir,--I understand that a publisher who at second hand
is the owner of a book of mine called "The History of
Louis Philippe," intends to issue the work under the
title of "Mysteries of a Royal Family." I have written
the history of Louis Philippe, just as I have written
the histories of Louis XIV., and Louis XV., and Louis
XVI., the history of the revolution, and the history of
the empire. I have sold this series of historical works
to a single publisher, M. Dufour. I never had the
intention to provoke the scandal indicated by the title
with which I am threatened in substitution for the one
that I had given to the work. In the life of Louis
Philippe and the royal family there is nothing
mysterious. A fatal obstinacy in a course leading to an
abyss: there's for the king. For the queen there is
goodness, self-sacrifice, charity, religion, virtue.
For the deceased royal prince and his living brothers,
there is courage, loyalty, gallantry, intelligence,
patriotism. You see in all this there is nothing
mysterious. If he persists in giving to my book a title
which I regard as infamous, the courts of justice shall
decide between me and the publisher. May God keep me
from invoking aught but historical truth with regard to
a man who touched my hand when a king, and my heart,
when an exile.
"ALEX. DUMAS."
Conduct of this sort--the changing of titles, in violation of the wishes of
authors, or any change in a book, by a publisher--is atrocious crime, for
the punishment of which a revival of the whipping-post would not be
inappropriate. There have been many such cases in this country, and to some
of them we may hereafter call particular attention.
* * * * *
One of the most truly successful of the younger living French writers is
ALFRED DE MUSSET. His works are principally poetic and dramatic. He
originated a style of pieces called _Caprices_, which have become
exceedingly popular not only from their own point and spirit, but from the
incomparable manner in which they are rendered on the stage of the _Théâtre
Français_. M. de Musset's reputation has been achieved since the revolution
of July. The last number of the _Grenzboten_ devotes a long leading article
to the discussion of his works and his position in the world of letters. We
translate the following paragraph: "We find in him an elegance of language,
a truth of views, even though they be true only for him individually, a
sensibility to all the problems of the soul and heart, and a freedom from
the usual French prejudices, which lay a strong claim to our attention. He
never falls into that shallow pathos with which Victor Hugo in his
'greatest moments' sometimes covers an intolerable triviality; phrases
never run away with him as they do so often with the king of the
romanticists, whose profoundest monologues not seldom turn out to be empty
jingle. In clearness, delicacy and grace, he can be compared, among the
modern romanticists, with only Prosper Merimée and Charles de Bernard. They
also resemble him in the fear of being led away by general modes of
expression and reflection. They strive only for _individual_ truth; but he
differs from them in the breadth and multiformity of his perspectives, and
in a singular power of assimilation which is based on extensive reading. In
fact, the combinations of his wit and fancy often go so into the distant
and boundless, that we think we are reading a German author." The critic
then compares De Musset with Byron; the latter is more original and
spontaneous, the former richer and more comprehensive. The questions Byron
discusses have forced themselves upon him; those of De Musset are of his
own invention. For the rest he has been greatly influenced by Heine and
Hoffmann, as well as by the Faust of Goethe. The more important of his
works are: _Contes d'Espagne et d'Italie_ (1830); _Un Spectacle dans un
Fauteuil_ (1833); _Poésies Nouvelles_ (1835-40); the same (1840-49); _Les
Comédies Injouables_, a collection of small dramatic pieces (1838); _Louis,
ou il faut qu'une porte soit ouverte ou fermée_, _Les deux Martiesses_,
_Emmeline_, _Le Seuet de Javatte_, _Le Fils de Titien_, _Les Adventures de
Laagon_, _La Confession d'un Enfant du Siècle_; romances published between
1830-40. De Musset is still a young man. A good deal has been said at
sundry times about his admission to the French Academy, but the vacancies
have been filled without him.
* * * * *
The London _Leader_ announces an abridged translation of AUGUSTE COMTE'S
six volumes of _Positive Philosophy_, to appear as soon as is compatible
with the exigencies of so important an undertaking. The _Leader_ says: "a
very competent mind has long been engaged upon the task; and the growing
desire in the public to hear more about this _Bacon_ of the nineteenth
century, renders such a publication necessary." But we do not believe in
the competence of any one who proposes an _abridgment_ of Comte: the idea
is absurd. In this country, we believe, two full translations of the great
Frenchman are in progress--one by Professor Gillespie, of which the Harpers
have published the first volume, and another by one of the wisest and
profoundest scholars of the time--a personal friend of Comte, thoroughly
familiar with his system, and master of a style admirably suited for
philosophical discussion.
* * * * *
JULES JANIN has published a new romance called _Gaîté Champêtre_. The
preface has reached us in the feuilleton of the _Journal des Débats_. It is
in the usual elaborate, learned, and fanciful, but most readable style of
the author. He defends his calling as a mere man of letters, a student of
form and style, in short an artist.
* * * * *
We mentioned not long ago (_International_, vol. iii. p. 214,) the pleasant
letters of FERDINAND HILLER to a German Gazette, respecting his experiences
among authors and artists in Paris. We see that Herr Hiller has been
engaged by Mr. Lumley as musical director to Her Majesty's Theatre in
London and the Italian Opera in Paris. He has filled the appointments of
director to the Conservatoire and Maître de Chapelle, at Cologne, for some
considerable time. His post at the Conservatoire is to be occupied by M.
Liszt. He will be an important accession to society as well as to the
theatres in those cities.
* * * * *
DR. R. G. LATHAM, whose important works on _The Varieties of Man_, _The
English Language_, _the Ethnology of the British Empire_, &c., are familiar
to scholars, and have proved their author the most profound and sagacious
writer, in a wide and difficult field of science, now living, has in press
an edition of the _Germania_ of Tacitus, in which his philological
acquisitions and his skill in conjectural history will have ample room for
display.
* * * * *
MR. JAMES T. FIELDS was a passenger in the steamer Pacific, which left
New-York on the 11th ult. for Liverpool. Mr. Fields will pass the coming
winter in France and Italy.
* * * * *
We hear of four new histories of the war with Mexico, one of which will be
in three large volumes, by an accomplished officer who served under General
Scott.
* * * * *
MR. HORACE MANN is engaged on a work illustrating his ideas of the
character, condition, and proper sphere of woman. He does not quite agree
with Abby Kelly.
* * * * *
The old charge that
"Garth did not write his own Dispensary,"
has been revived with exquisite absurdity in the case of General Morris and
the song of "Woodman, Spare that Tree!" We have not seen the original
accusation which appeared in an obscure sheet in Boston, but we give place
with pleasure to the letter of the poet. We can imagine nothing less "apt
and of great credit," as Iago defines the requisites of a judicious
calumny, than this figment. The characteristics of Morris's style are
exceedingly marked, and are altogether different from those of Woodworth,
who was an excellent songwriter and a most worthy man, but was as little
like Morris in his literary manner as two men can be who write in the same
age and country. There are among our living poets few fairer and purer
literary reputations than that of General Morris; few that, in a covetous
mood, one would be more disposed to envy. It lives not in the tumult of
reckless criticism and the noisy dogmatism of friendly reviews, but in the
sympathy and enjoyment of thousands of refined and feeling hearts. His
calm, delicate, and simple genius has won its way quietly to an apprecient
admiration that no assaults can disturb, and it may now look down upon most
of its contemporaries without jealousy and without fear. It will shine in
its clear brightness when many clamorous notorieties of the day are
quenched in night and silence. The charge of the Boston editor is a mere
buffoonery. He could not expect that so ridiculous a fabrication would be
believed by any body. It is a device of common-place, stupid malice,
designed only to annoy a very amiable man. Had we been of counsel with the
poet we should have advised him to take no notice of the foolish slander;
but as he has seen fit to write a very interesting note on the subject, we
are happy to preserve it here. The gentleman to whom the note is addressed
gives the following account of the circumstances:
"Some two or three months ago, the editor of the Boston
Sunday News, took General Morris's literary character
to task, and charged him with having obtained the
famous song of 'Woodman Spare that Tree,' from the late
Samuel Woodworth. In a word, he charged that the
General was not the author of a celebrated poem, which
has long been before the world in his name.
"As the editor in question was a friend of mine, and as
I knew that he had done General Morris great injustice,
I wrote him a long letter, in which I attempted to set
him right, and thus induce him if possible to render
unto Cæsar the things that are Cæsar's. In other words,
I hoped he would correct his misstatements. Instead of
complying with my expressed hope, he thanked me for my
letter--very kindly published it; but, in the very same
paper, repeated his original charge. In common justice
to General Morris, I beg leave to remark, in closing
this note, that I have known him intimately and well
the last thirty years, and that I never knew a poet or
author in any department of literature who was more
strictly original. He is incapable of the petty conduct
attributed to him, and would scorn to wear honors that
belong to another. A more honorable, high-minded
gentleman never lived."
HOME JOURNAL OFFICE, NEW-YORK, _September 22, 1851_.
TO JOHN SMITH, JR., OF ARKANSAS: _My Dear Sir_:--I
thank you sincerely for your kind defence of me against
the unfounded aspersions of an editor of a Boston
paper. Your course was precisely what was to be
expected from a just man, and a contemporary who has
known me from my boyhood. The editor alluded to,
charges me with a crime that I abhor. It is
substantially as follows: "_That the ballad of
'Woodman, spare that tree,' was not written by me, but
by the late Samuel Woodworth, who, while in a state
intoxication, sold it to me, in a public bar-room, for
a paltry sum_." A more infamous charge was never made,
and the whole story, from beginning to end, without any
qualification whatever, is an unmitigated _falsehood_.
The history of the song in question is simply this: In
the autumn of 1837, Russell, the vocalist, applied to
me for an original ballad, and I wrote him "_Woodman,
spare that tree_," and handed it to him with a letter
which he afterwards read at his concerts, and published
in the newspapers of the day. It also accompanied the
first edition of the music. Mr. Woodworth never saw or
heard of the song until after it appeared in print. I
am not indebted to any human being, dead or alive, for
a single word, thought, or suggestion, embodied in that
song. It is entirely original and entirely my
composition, and this is also true of _all_ the
productions I have ever claimed to be the author of,
with the exception of the play of "Brier Cliff," which
is founded upon a novel by Mrs. Thayer, and the opera
of the "Maid of Saxony," dramatized from a story by
Miss Edgeworth. In both instances I duly acknowledged
my indebtedness to the authors from whom I derived my
materials for those pieces. The attack upon Mr.
Woodworth is also shameful in the extreme, and is in
keeping with the whole affair. A more pure and
honorable man never drew the breath of life, and it is
due to his memory to say that he was not less
remarkable for his habits of _temperance_, than for his
many excellent qualities of head and heart. I do not
think that he was ever intoxicated in the whole course
of his life, and he was too upright a man to lend
himself to such a bare-faced imposition as I am charged
with practising through his agency. If he were alive to
answer for himself, he would spurn, as I do, these
malicious fabrications. The whole of the charges made
against me are _untrue in every particular_, and what
motive any one can have for circulating such vile
slanders in private life, or for proclaiming them from
the house-tops of the press, baffles my ingenuity to
determine. Those who know me will doubtless consider
this vindication of myself entirely unnecessary. If I
were to follow my own inclinations I should not notice
the scandalous libel; but, as you justly remarked, "a
slander well hoed grows like the devil," and as my
silence might possibly be misunderstood, I deem it a
duty I owe myself to contradict the infamous and
malicious aspersions of the Boston editor, and to
declare, in the language of Sheridan, that "there is
not one word of truth in all _that gentleman_ has
uttered." In conclusion, I would say, that my defamer
has either been imposed upon, or that he is one of
those lawless bravos of our profession who really
imagine, because they are "permitted to print they are
privileged to insult." Again, thanking you for your
courtesy and kind interposition in my behalf, I remain,
my dear sir, yours very cordially.
GEORGE P. MORRIS.
* * * * *
PROFESSOR TORREY, of Vermont University, has published the fourth volume of
his translation of Neander's _History of the Christian Religion_--a work
which must have rank with the great historical compositions of Niebuhr and
Grote, which have or will have superseded all modern histories of the two
chief empires of antiquity. The volumes of Professor Torrey's very able
translation of Neander's History are regularly republished in rival
editions in England, and so he loses half the reward to which his service
is entitled. Puthes, of Hamburg, advertises the eleventh part (making half
of another volume), which Neander left in MS. This will, of course, be
reproduced by Professor Torrey.
* * * * *
Another translation of the _Divine Comedy_ has been made in England. It is
by a Mr. C. B. CAYLEY, and is in the original ternary rhyme. From a hasty
examination of it we incline to prefer it to Wright's or Carey's; but we
have seen no version of DANTE that in all respects satisfies us so well as
that of Dr. THOMAS W. PARSONS, of Boston, of which some ten cantos were
published a few years ago, and of which the remainder is understood to be
completed for the press. Speaking of Dante, reminds us of the fact that Mr.
Richard Henry Wilde's elaborate memoir of the great Italian has not yet
been printed. Mr. Wilde wrote to us not long before his death that he had
been occupying himself in leisure hours with the revision of some of its
chapters, and we have no doubt that the work is completed. If so, for the
honor of the lamented author, and for the honor of American criticism, it
should be given to the public.
* * * * *
From a forthcoming volume by ALICE CAREY, _Recollections of Our
Neighborhood in the West,_ (to be published early in December by J. S.
Redfield,) we copy a specimen chapter, under the title of "The Old Man's
Death," into another part of this magazine. It has no particular excellence
to distinguish it from the rest of the work; indeed it is rather below than
above the average of Miss Carey's recent compositions; but we may safely
challenge to it the scrutiny of critics capable of appreciating the finest
capacities for the illustration of pastoral life. If we look at the entire
catalogue of female writers of prose fiction in this country we shall find
no one who approaches Alice Carey in the best characteristics of genius.
Like all genuine authors she has peculiarities; her hand is detected as
unerringly as that of Poe or Hawthorne; as much as they she is apart from
others and above others; and her sketches of country life must, we think,
be admitted to be superior even to those delightful tales of Miss Mitford,
which, in a similar line, are generally acknowledged to be equal to any
thing done in England. It is the fault of our literary women that they are
commonly careless and superficial, and that in stories, when they attempt
this sort of writing, they are for the most part but feeble copyists,
without individuality, and without naturalness. We can point to very few
exceptions to this rule, but among such exceptions Alice Carey is eminent.
The book which is announced by Mr. Redfield is without the tinsel, or
sickly sentiment, or impudent smartness, which distinguish some
contemporary publications by women, but it will establish for her an
enviable reputation as an original and most graphic delineator of at least
one class in American society--the middle class, in the rural
neighborhoods, with whom rest, in our own as in other countries, the real
distinctions of national character, and the best elements of national
greatness.
* * * * *
Mr. HENRY INGALLS, a writer of considerable abilities, displayed chiefly in
anonymous compositions on questions in law, writes to a friend in New-York
from Paris, that he has devoted two years to the investigation of pretended
miracles in modern Europe; that the number of alleged miracles in the Roman
Catholic church of which he has exact historical materials, is over one
thousand; that the analyses of these will be amply suggestive of the
character of the rest; and that his work on the subject, to make three or
four large and closely printed volumes, will conclusively show complicity
on the part of the highest authorities of the church, in "the frauds that
are now most notorious and most generally acknowledged."
Mr. Ingalls is of opinion that his work will be eminently curious in
literary, philosophical, and religious points of view, and that it cannot
fail of usefulness, especially in illustrating the silly credulity which
has obtained in such poor juggleries as have lately been practiced by the
Smiths, Davises, Fishes, Harrises, and other imposters and mountebanks of
this country.
* * * * *
Among the new works in press by the Appletons is a new novel entitled
_Adrian, or the Clouds of the Mind_--the joint production of Mr. G. P. R.
JAMES and Mr. MAUNSELL B. FIELD. Such partnerships in literature were
common in the days of Elizabeth, and in our own country we have instances
in the production of _Yamoyden_, by Sands and Eastburn, &c. Mr. Field is
not yet a veteran, but he is a writer of fine talents and much cultivation.
Among the original papers in the present number of the _International_ is a
poem from his hand, under the title of _Greenwood_.
* * * * *
The first volume of a _History of the German Reformed Church_, by the late
Rev. Dr. LEWIS MAYER, has been published in Philadelphia; and Professor
SCHAFF, of Mercersburg, has printed in German the first volume of a
_History of the Christian Church, from its Establishment to the Present
Time_. Dr. MURDOCK, the well-known translator of Mosheim's History, has
published a translation of the celebrated Syriac version of the New
Testament, called the _Peshito_.
* * * * *
PROFESSOR HACKETT, of the Newton Theological Institution, has added to his
claims of distinction in sacred learning by a very able _Commentary on the
Acts of the Apostles_, (published by John P. Jewett & Co., of Boston). It
is much praised by the best critics. The last _Bibliotheca Sacra_ complains
that there is a decline of activity in this department, and that in
theology and biblical criticism no important works are now in progress.
* * * * *
Mr. MELVILLE's new novel, _The Whale_, will be published in a few days,
simultaneously, by the Harpers and by Bentley of London.
* * * * *
Mr. HENRY WILLIAM HERBERT, with the general character of whose works our
readers must be familiar, will publish immediately (through Charles
Scribner), _The Captains of the Old World, from the Persian to the Punic
Wars_. The volume embraces critical sketches of Miltiades, Themistocles,
Pausanias, Xenophon, Epaminondas, Alexander, and Hannibal, as compared with
modern generals--not _lives_ but strategetical accounts of their campaigns,
reviewed and described according to the rules and views of modern military
science--the armature and mode of fighting in all the various nations--the
fields of battle, from personal observation or the best modern
travels--with the modern names of ancient places, so that the routes of the
armies can be followed on any ordinary map. The causes of the success or
failure of this or that action are shown in a military point of view, and
the characters of the men are epigrammatically contrasted with those of the
men of the late French and English wars, involving incidental notices and
critiques of modern fields. The work is of course spirited and well
proportioned, and as Mr. Herbert is confessedly one of the best critics of
ancient manners and history, it will scarcely need any reviewer's
endorsement to insure for it an immediate and very great popularity.
* * * * *
A new edition of _St. Leger, or the Threads of Life_, by Mr. KIMBALL, has
just been published by Putnam, who, we understand, has now in press a
sequel to that remarkable and eminently successful novel. Mr. Kimball's
abilities as a writer of tales are not as well illustrated in this
performance as in several shorter stories, which will soon be collected and
reissued with fit designs by Darley. In these we think he has exhibited a
very unusual degree of pathos and dramatic skill, so that scarcely any
compositions of their class in American literature have such a power upon
the feelings or are likely to have a more permanent fame. Mr. Kimball is
one of the small number among our young writers who do not disdain
elaborately to _finish_ what they choose to submit for public criticism.
* * * * *
A new edition of Mr. JUDD's remarkable novel of _Margaret_ has just been
published, in two volumes, by Phillips & Sampson, of Boston, and the same
house has nearly ready _Memoirs of Sarah Margaret Fuller_, in two volumes,
edited by William H. Channing and Ralph Waldo Emerson. It will probably
embrace a large selection of her inedited writings.
* * * * *
The Rev. Dr. TEFFT, of Cincinnati, has published (John Ball, Philadelphia
and New-Orleans,) a very interesting and judicious work under the title of
_Hungary and Kossuth, or an American Exposition of the Hungarian
Revolution_. Dr. Tefft appears to have studied the subject well and to have
made as much of it as was warranted by his materials.
* * * * *
Mr. GREELEY has just published in a handsome volume (De Witt & Davenport)
his _Glances at Europe_, consisting of the letters written for the
_Tribune_ during his half year abroad. We frequently entirely disagree with
the author in matters of social philosophy, but we have the most perfect
confidence in the honesty of his searching after truth, and in these
letters, which were written under very apparent disadvantages, and are here
put forward modestly, we are inclined to believe there is for the mass of
readers more that is new in fact and sensible in observation than is
contained in any other volume by an American on Europe. Even when writing
of art, Mr. Greeley never fails at least to entertain.
* * * * *
Mr. JOHN L. WHEELER, late the treasurer of the state of North Carolina, has
in the press of Lippencott, Grambo, & Co., of Philadelphia, _Historical
Sketches_ of that State, from 1584 to 1851, from original records, official
documents, and traditional statements. It will be in two large octavo
volumes. Dr. Hawks has for some time had in preparation a work on the same
subject.
* * * * *
One of those wrongs for which there is no sufficient remedy in law, has
been perpetrated by Derby, Miller & Co., of Auburn, in getting up a life of
Dr. Judson, to anticipate that by the widow of the great missionary and
deprive her of the best part of the profits to which she is entitled. Their
excuse is, "A public character is public property, and we will do with one
as we please."
* * * * *
MRS. H. C. CONANT, (wife of the learned Professor Conant of the university
of Rochester), has published (through Lewis Colby) _The Epistle of St. Paul
to the Philippians, practically Explained by_ Dr. AUGUSTUS NEANDER. Mrs.
Conant, as we have before had occasion to observe, is one of the most able
and accomplished women of this country, and this version of Neander is
worthy of her.
* * * * *
A small volume entitled _Musings and Mutterings by an Invalid_, has been
published by John S. Taylor. The style is rather careless, sometimes, but
the work appears to be informed with a genuine earnestness, and to be
underlaid with a vein of good sense that contrasts strongly with much of
the desultory literature brought out in similar forms.
* * * * *
Dr. LARDNER's _Handbooks of Natural Philosophy and Astronomy_ have been
republished by Blanchard & Lea, of Philadelphia (12mo., pp. 749); carefully
revised; various errors which had escaped the attention of the author
corrected; occasional omissions supplied; and a series of questions and
practical examples appended to each subject. The volume contains treatises
on mechanics; hydrostatics, hydraulics, pneumatics, and sound, and optics.
The Fine Arts.
The London _Art Journal_ for October praises Mr. BURT's engraving of Anne
Page, issued this year by the _American Art-Union_, and thus refers to the
principal engravings announced for 1852:
The prospectus of this society for the present year
announces a large engraving by Jones, from Woodville's
picture of "American News;" a small etching of this
work accompanies the "Bulletin," to which reference has
just been made. The composition is clever, but we must
warn our friends on the other side of the Atlantic,
that it is not by the circulation of such works as
this, a feeling for true Art will be generated among
their countrymen. The subject is common-place, without
a shadow of refinement to elevate its character; it is,
we dare say, national, and may, therefore, be popular;
but they to whom is intrusted the direction of a vast
machine like the American Art-Union, should take
especial care that all its operations should tend to
refine the taste and advance the intelligence of the
community. Our own Mulready, Wilkie, and Webster, have,
we know, immortalized their names by a somewhat
analogous class of works, in which, nevertheless, we
see humor without vulgarity, and truth without
affectation.
* * * * *
The Philadelphia Art-Union issues this year two very beautiful engravings
from the well-known masterpieces of Huntington, _Mercy's Dream_ and
_Christiana and her Children_, from the celebrated collection of the late
Edward C. Carey,--an appreciating patron by whose well-directed liberality
the arts, especially painting and engraving, had more advantage than has
been conferred by any other individual in this country. _Mercy's Dream_ has
been engraved by A. H. Ritchie of this city, and _Christiana and her
Children_ by Andrews & Wagstaff of Boston, each on surfaces of sixteen by
twenty-two inches; and we know of no more perfect examples of combined
mezzotint, stipple, and line engraving. The management may well be praised
for such an exercise of judgment as secures to the subscribers of the
Art-Union two such beautiful works.
A recent visit to Philadelphia afforded us an opportunity to visit its
public galleries. Among the additions lately made to that of the Art-Union
is one of the finest compositions of Mr. Cropsey, in which the
characteristics of the scenery of Italy are combined with remarkable
effect. From a bold and vigorously executed foreground, marked by chesnut
and cypress tress, the eye is attracted by groves and streams, and convents
and palaces, and ruined temples and aqueducts, reposing under such a sky as
bends over that land alone, away to shining and sleeping waters that seem
to reach close to the gates of paradise. _The Coast of Greece_, by Paul
Weber of Philadelphia, is in the grand and imposing style of Achenbach.
There is a breadth and massiveness and solemn grandeur in this picture
which clearly indicate that the artist, who has hitherto given his
attention altogether to landscapes, has in such efforts his true vocation.
_Hagar and Ishmael in the Desert_, by A. Woodside, is a cabinet picture
which would be regarded as good beside any of the many great productions
which illustrate the same subject. In color and composition it is
excellent. Mr. Woodside is the painter of a large and attractive picture,
_The Introduction of Christianity into Britain_, which was among the prizes
of the last distribution of the American Art-Union. _Lager Beer_, by C.
Schnessele, is a genre picture, illustrative of German character in
Philadelphia at the present day. The scene is an interior of a large beer
saloon, by gaslight, in which a dozen or fifteen persons with brimming cups
are gathered round a table where a trio are singing songs of the
fatherland. The drawing, grouping, light and shade, are highly effective.
Mr. Schnessele is a Frenchman, a pupil of Delaroche, and has been in the
United States about three years. His works exhibit that skill in detail and
general execution which is a result of a cultivation very rare among
American painters. _Waiting the Ferry_, by W. T. Van Starkenburgh, is a
landscape with cattle and human figures, with some of the best qualities
conspicuous in Backhuysen's works of a similar character. _Cattskill
Creek_, by G. N. T. Van Starkenburgh,--a brother of the last mentioned
painter,--is full of the beauty of that condition of nature which soothes
the restless spirit of man, when
She glides
Into his darker musings, with a mild
And healing sympathy, that steals away
Their sharpness, ere he is aware.
Mr. Winner has some vigorous heads of old men, and other artists whom our
limits will not suffer us to mention particularly are represented by
various creditable works.
As the plan of the Philadelphia Art-Union is essentially different from
that of any other in this country, we quote from a circular in its last
"Reporter" an explanatory paragraph:
"The distinguishing and most important feature in our
plan, is that which gives the annual prize-holders the
right of selecting their prizes from among the
productions of American Art in any part of the United
States. This plan was adopted as the one which would
best secure the object for which we have been
incorporated, viz., "The Promotion of the Arts of
Design in the United States." It is evident that the
distribution of fifty prize certificates among our
members, as was the case at our last annual
distribution, with which the prize-holders themselves
could purchase their own pictures any where in the
United States, is preferable to any plan which empowers
a committee, composed of a limited number of managers,
with the entire right to control the funds involved in
the purchase, and make the selection of such a number
of pictures. In the one case, individual taste, and
local predilection for some particular style of art, or
certain class of artists, may influence the decision of
a mere picture-buying committee in the selection and
purchase of the whole number of the prizes; but in the
other case, the various taste of a large number of
prize-holders, residing in different sections of our
vast country, is made to bear upon Art, and,
consequently, there must ensue a diffusion of knowledge
upon a subject wherein those persons themselves are the
interested parties. Should a subscriber to the
Art-Union of Philadelphia, residing in St. Louis, be
allotted a prize certificate of one hundred dollars, he
has the option to order or select his picture in that
city, and thereby encourage the Fine Arts at home, just
the same as if that Art-Union were located where he
lived, and with just as much advantage to the artist as
though it were the result of that progress in art, in
his vicinity, which should cause the production of such
a picture. And there can be no doubt of the judicious
selection on the part of such a subscriber. No man with
a hundred dollars to spend for a picture, would be
likely to make such a purchase without having some
knowledge on the subject himself, or without consulting
persons of acknowledged taste in the matter; thereby
insuring more general satisfaction to all concerned,
than would a picture of the same value awarded by
chance from the selection of a committee located in
another part of the country. No committee, no matter
how great its judgment, or how well performed its
duties, could effect a more satisfactory arrangement;
for in our case the prize-holder and the artist are the
contracting parties, without the intervention of the
Art-Union, or the payment of any commission on either
side. Another argument in favor of the Art-Union of
Philadelphia is the fact, that by this plan the
Managers are merely the agents who collect the means
which are necessary to promote and foster the Arts of
Design in our rapidly progressing country, while the
prize-holders themselves actually become the persons
who make the disbursements. Thus giving to the people
at large the means to exercise a public and universal
taste in the expenditure of a large sum--the aggregate
of small contributions--large as the liberality of our
countrymen, by their generous subscription, may assist
us in accumulating."
* * * * *
The _Western-Art Union_ of Cincinnati has lately published a large and
excellent engraving by Booth, of _the Trapper's Last Shot_, and for the
coming year, it will give in the same style, _The Committee of Congress
Drafting the Declaration of Independence_, from a painting by
Rothermel--Mr. Jefferson represented reading the Declaration to the other
members of the committee before it was reported to the Congress. For prizes
of the next distribution the Union will have a bust of Washington, and one
of Franklin, in marble, by Powers, and a beautiful medallion in relief by
Palmer, and two pictures are engaged or purchased from Whittridge, two from
Rothermel, two from McConkey, one from Read, one from Mrs. Spencer, one
from Ranney, and one from Terry, besides others from Sontag, Duncanson,
Eaton, and Griswold, and other western painters.
* * * * *
Mr. HEALY has finished his large picture of _Daniel Webster replying to
Robert Y. Hayne, in the Senate of the United States_, and it has been some
time on exhibition at the rooms of the National Academy of Design. The
canvas is twenty-six feet in length by fifteen in breadth, and embraces one
hundred and thirty figures. Many persons not senators are introduced, and
it is difficult to conceive a reason for this, in the cases of several of
them, who were not then, if they were ever, at Washington. The picture has
good points, but on the whole we believe it is admitted to be a failure--so
far as the fit presentation of the illustrious orator is concerned, a most
complete and melancholy failure. Engravings of it however, if well
executed, may perhaps compete with Messrs. Anthony's immense piece of
mezzotint, studded with copies of Daguerreotypes, which has been published
under the title of Mr. Clay's last Appearance in the Senate.
* * * * *
The illustrations of the life of MARTIN LUTHER published at Hamburg, from
the pencil of GUSTAV KÖNIG, of which the fourth series has just appeared,
continue to receive the praise which has been bestowed on the previous
series. The first, which came out in 1847, consisted of fifteen engravings,
the second in 1848 of ten engravings, the third in 1849 of ten, and the
fourth, which concludes the work, has thirteen. The accompanying
letter-press is furnished by Professor Gelzer, and though very elaborate,
is spoken of as only partially successful. The illustrations on the other
hand are said by competent judges to leave nothing to be desired, and as
far as the earlier series are concerned, we can almost agree with even so
unbalanced commendation. Mr. König has every where taken care to give
faithful portraits of the personages represented, which adds to the value
of his work, for foreign readers especially. At the same time his
compositions are undeniably most spirited and effective.
* * * * *
The long expected work of LEUTZE, _Washington Crossing the Delaware_, is
now at the Stuyvesant Institute, and it appears generally to have given the
most perfect satisfaction to the critics; to be regarded indeed as the best
picture yet given to the world in illustration of American history. Our
readers will remember that we have already given in the _International_ a
particular description of it, from a German writer who saw it at
Düsseldorf: so that it is unnecessary here to enter further into details on
the subject. We are pleased to learn that Messrs. Goupil, who own it,
intend to have this work engraved in line by Girardet in the highest style,
and upon a plate of the largest size ever used. The print will indeed cover
a surface equal to that of the famous one of Cardinal Richelieu, which some
of our readers will not fail to remember.
Noctes Amicæ.
The "figure we cut" in the Crystal Palace was for a long time a subject of
sneers by amiable foreign critics, and a cause of ingenuous shame by too
sensitive young gentlemen in white gloves, who went over from New-York and
Boston to see society and the show. We remember that Mr. Greeley was said
to be making himself appear excessively ridiculous by writing home that we
should come out very well notwithstanding we had no Kohinoor, and but
little to boast of in the way of fancy articles in general. An excellent
neighbor of ours down Broadway, who left London before the tide turned,
sent a letter to the _Evening Post_, we believe, of the regret felt by the
"respectable Americans in Europe" that we had been so weak as to enter into
this competition at all. But see what the _Times_ has said of the matter
since the first of October:
"One point that strikes us forcibly on a survey of the
last few months is, the extraordinary contrast which
the attractive and the useful features of the display
present. It will be remembered that the American
department was at first regarded as the poorest and
least interesting of all foreign countries. Of late it
has justly assumed a position of the first importance,
as having brought to the aid of our distressed
agriculturists a machine which, if it realizes the
anticipations of competent judges, _will amply
remunerate England for all her outlay connected with
the Great Exhibition_. The reaping machine from the
United States is the most valuable contribution from
abroad to the stock of our previous knowledge that we
have yet discovered."
Again:
"It seems to us that the great event of 1851 will
hereafter be found blemished by a _grand oversight_.
Attracted by the novelty and splendid success of the
occasion, we have certainly yielded more admiration to
the grand and the beautiful than to the unostentatious,
the practical, and the useful. The captivating luxuries
which are adapted to the few have entered more largely
into our imaginations and our hearts, than those
objects which are adapted to supply the homely comforts
and the unpretending wants of the many. We have thought
more of gold and silver work--of silks, satins, and
velvets--of rich brocades, splendid carpets, glowing
tapestry, and all that tends to embellish and adorn
life, than of the vast and still unexplored fields
which the necessities of the humbler classes all over
the world are constantly opening up to us. France has
thus been enabled to run quietly away with fifty-six
out of about one hundred and sixty of our great medals,
while to the department of American "notions" we owe
the most confessed and the most important contribution
to our industrial system."
Again:
"Well worthy of notice is the Maynard primer, a
substitution for the percussion-cap, which is simply a
coil of paper, at intervals in which spots of
detonating powder are placed. The action of the doghead
carries out from the chamber in which it is contained
this cheap and self-acting substitute for the ordinary
gun apparatus, which is a vast economy in expense as
well as in time. In its character the invention is one
which admits of being easily adapted to every
description of firearms at present commonly in use, and
that at a trifling cost."
In the same pleasant way are noticed our Mr. Hobbs, his locks, and a score
or so of similarly ingenious productions; and as for Mr. Palmer's _leg_, it
is declared the chief astonisher contributed by all the world--so perfect,
indeed, that some of the journals recommend a general cutting off of
natural understandings in order to adopt the always comfortable and
well-conditioned substitute introduced by our countryman.
* * * * *
A considerable number of shameless women and feeble-minded men met in
convention--a sort of caldron of sickly sentimentalism, brazen atheism, and
whatever is most ridiculous and disgusting in the diseases of society,--at
Worcester in Massachusetts, on the 14th of October, and continued in
session three days. A Mrs. Rose (who, we understand, generally makes the
leading speeches of the Tom Paine birth-night festivals in New-York), and
Abby Kelley Foster, and William L. Garrison, were among the principal
actors. The main propositions before this convention, so far as they can be
ascertained from the newspaper reports, involve the setting aside of the
laws of God as they are revealed in the Bible; the laws of custom in all
savage and civilized, pagan and Christian communities, in every age; and
the laws of analogy--vindicating the existing order of society--in every
grade of animated nature. Complaints have been made that persons of
character, like the Rev. H. W. Beecher of Brooklyn, in some way sanctioned
the mummery by writing letters to its managers. Such eccentricities may be
pardonable, but the public will be sure to remember them.
* * * * *
A female, probably a cheap dress maker, named Dexter, has been lecturing in
London on the "Bloomer costume;" and it appears to have been assumed by
her, as well as in many English journals, that this ridiculous and indecent
dress is common in American cities, where, as of course our readers know,
if it is ever seen, it is on the persons of an abandoned class, or on those
of vulgar women whose inordinate love of notoriety is apt to display itself
in ways that induce their exclusion from respectable society. _Punch_ has
some very clever caricatures of "Bloomerism," but it would surprise the
conductor of that sprightly paper to learn, that, except persons who walk
our St. Giles's at late hours, scarcely any New-Yorker has ever seen such a
dress.
* * * * *
There have never been remarked so many sudden deaths and suicides in Paris
and in the suburbs, as within the last few weeks. The following is one of
the most extraordinary cases of suicide:
"The body of a young man was found floating in the
Seine, near St. Cloud. The corpse appeared to have
remained some days in the water. The deceased appeared
to have been about 25 years of age, and to have
belonged to the higher class of society. His features
were handsome, his hair brown, and his beard long and
black. His linen was of the finest quality, and his
other clothing made in the latest fashion. A small
glass bottle, corked and sealed, was suspended from his
neck, in which was a paper writing, containing the
following words:--"I am about to die! young, it is
true! and if my body be discovered a complaint may
perhaps be made. This I do not wish. An angel appeared
to me in a dream, who said to me, 'I am the Genius of
France. Royal blood circulates in your veins; but
before you occupy the sovereign power, which parties
are disputing in France, you must go to see the Eternal
Sovereign of all things.... God! ... die. Let the
waters of the Seine swallow your body. Fear not, you
shall revive when the hour of your triumph shall have
struck! I have spoken!' and the angel disappeared. I
have accomplished his desire. But I leave this writing
in case the celestial envoy may have deceived me. I
pray the Attorney-General to prosecute him,
"THE FUTURE KING OF FRANCE."
The body has not been claimed, and the police authorities have instituted
an inquiry to discover his family.
* * * * *
The following clever and extraordinary story is told in the Paris _Droit_:
"A commercial traveller, whose business frequently
called him from Orleans to Paris, M. Edmund D----, was
accustomed to go to an hotel, with the landlord of
which he was acquainted. Liking, like almost all
persons of his profession, to talk and joke, he was the
favorite of everybody in the hotel. A few days ago he
arrived, and was received with pleasure by all, but it
was observed that he was much less gay than usual. The
stories that he told, instead of being interesting as
formerly, were of a lugubrious character. On Thursday
evening, after supper, he invited the people of the
hotel to go to his chamber to take coffee, and he
promised to tell them a tale full of dramatic incident.
On entering the room, his guests saw on the bed, near
which he seated himself, a pair of pistols. 'My story,'
said he, 'has a sad _dénouement_, and I require the
pistols to make it clearly understood.' As he had
always been accustomed, in telling his tales, to
indulge expressive pantomime, and to take up anything
which lay handy, calculated to add to the effect, no
surprise was felt at his having prepared pistols. He
began by narrating the loves of a young girl and a
young man. They had both, he said, promised, under the
most solemn oaths, inviolable fidelity. The young man,
whose profession obliged him to travel, once made a
long absence. Whilst he was away, he received a legacy,
and on his return hastened to place it at her feet. But
on presenting himself before her he learned that, in
compliance with the wishes of her family, she had just
married a wealthy merchant. The young man thereupon
took a terrible resolution. 'He purchased a pair of
pistols, like these,' he continued, taking one in each
hand, 'then he assembled his friends in his chamber,
and, after some conversation, placed one under his
chin, in this way, as I do, saying in a joke that it
would be a real pleasure to blow out his brains. And at
the same moment he pulled the trigger.' Here the man
discharged the pistol, and his head was shattered to
pieces. Pieces of the bone and portions of the brain
fell on the horrified spectators. The unfortunate man
had told his own story."
* * * * *
We find in the _Evening Post_ the following notice of the citation of Mr.
G. P. R. JAMES in the courts, under the head of "Brown Linen against Law
Calf:"
"Immediately previous to the sort of intermittent
equinoctial which has recently prevailed, the full
bench of the Supreme Court of Massachusetts, presided
over by Chief Justice Shaw, were at session at Lenox,
in the county of Berkshire. Among the cases that were
brought up for adjudication, was an action of _trespass
quare clausum fregit_, brought by a farmer against a
number of individuals, who in common with many others,
had, at a time last winter, when the public highway was
rendered impassible by ice and snow, made a temporary
road over the farmer's grounds without leave or license
first had and obtained. Mr. Sumner, of Barrington, the
leading counsel of the county, appeared for the
defence, and in enforceing his views, took occasion to
read from Macaulay's late History of England, several
passages to illustrate the state of land communication
in that county, at the time of which he writes. From
that author it appears that upon one occasion, worthy
Mr. Pepys, our friend of the 'naif' diary, while
travelling somewhere (we think in Lincolnshire, but
have not the book before us for reference), got his
'_belle voiture_', as Cardinal Richelieu used to call
his antediluvian vehicle, stuck in the mud so that it
could not be extricated, and Mr. Sumner went on to
argue, that by the common law, Mr. Pepys then was, and
anybody now is, justified, in cases of necessity, in
passing over private domains without becoming liable to
the owner in damages. Mr. Porter, recently District
Attorney, was for the plaintiff, and, in answering that
part of his adversary's argument, to which we have
above alluded, claimed the indulgence of the court to
state, that a certain author had been quoted upon the
other side, who had hardly as yet been recognized as
authority in a court of justice, upon a mere law
question, at least; that such being the case, he
claimed the liberty to read from another writer, the
late historiographer royal of Great Britain, a
gentleman whose statements were certainly entitled to
overrule the others in a question of that sort; and
thereupon Mr. Porter commenced reading the first
chapter of Mr. G. P. R. James's new novel of 'The
Fate,' in which he so indignantly denounces the falsity
of Macaulay's picture of the social condition of
England two centuries ago. This created no little
merriment, both on the bench and among the gentlemen of
the robe, all admitting that it was the first time
within their knowledge, that the black linen and the
brown paper had usurped the place of the consecrated
law calf, before an American tribunal at least."
* * * * *
A French critic has just revealed a portrait of the favorite of Lamartine
and numerous other writers on the Revolution--St. Just, from which it
appears that he was the author of a long poem entitled _Orgaut_. The
opinion which the historians have caused the public to form of this man
was, that he was a fanatic--implacable, but sincere--a ruthless minister of
the guillotine, but deeming wholesale slaughter indispensable for securing,
what he conscientiously considered, the welfare of the people. He was, we
might imagine, something like the gloomy inquisitors of old, who thought it
was doing God service to burn heretics at the stake.
A correspondent of the _Athenæum_ observes, that "To
justify this opinion, one would have expected to have
found in a poem written by him when the warm and
generous sentiments of youth were in all their
freshness, burning aspirations for what it was the
fashion of his time to call _vertu_, and lavish
protestations of devotedness to his country and the
people. But instead of that, the work is, it appears,
from beginning to end, full of the grossest
obscenity--it is the delirium of a brain maddened with
voluptuousness--it is coarser and more abominable than
the 'Pucelle' of Voltaire, and is not relieved, as that
is, by sparkling wit and graces of style. In a moral
point of view, it is atrocious--in a literary point of
view, wretched. The discovery of such a production will
be a sad blow to the stern fanatics of these days, who
look on the blood-stained men of the Revolution with
admiration and awe--who make them the martyred saints
of their calendar--and whose hope by day and dream by
night is to have the opportunity of imitating them. Of
the whole band St. Just has hitherto been considered
the purest--he has always been accepted as the very
personification of 'virtue' in its most sublime form.
Even the immaculate Maximilien Robespierre himself has
never had the honor of having admitted that he
approached him in moral grandeur. And now, behold! this
'virtuous' angel is proved to have been a debauched and
loathsome-minded wretch! But, to be sure, that was
before he began cutting off heads, and wholesale
murders on the political scaffold redeem a multitude of
sins."
* * * * *
A few days ago the French President received a gift of the most rich
bouquets from the market women of Paris, and at the same time an
application for permission to visit him at the palace. This was granted,
and full three hundred of the flower of the female merchants in fruit and
vegetables of the faubourgs, dressed in their utmost finery, were received
by the officers in attendance, and ushered through the saloons of the
Elysee.
The London _Times_ correspondent says:
"After admiring the furniture, paintings, &c., they
were conducted to the gardens, where they enjoyed
themselves for some time. Refreshments were then laid
out in the dining-room, and they were invited to
partake of the President's hospitality. The champagne
was passing round pretty freely when the President
entered. They received him with acclamations of '_Vive
Napoléon!_' The President, after the usual salutations,
took a glass of wine, and proposed the toast, '_A la
santé des dames de la Halle de Paris!_' which was
responded to in a becoming manner; and '_La santé de
Napoléon!_' was in turn proposed by an elderly matron,
and loudly cheered. The ladies were particularly
pleased at finding the bouquets presented yesterday
arranged in the dining-room. Louis Napoleon chatted for
some time with his visitors, and expressed, in warm
terms, the pleasure he felt at seeing them under his
roof. The ladies requested that one of their
companions--the most distinguished for personal
attractions, as for youth--should be allowed to embrace
him in the name of the others. _Such_ a request no man
could hesitate to grant, and the fair one who was
deputed to bestow the general salute advanced, blushing
and trembling, to perform the duty. Louis Napoleon went
through the pleasing ceremony with much credit to
himself, and apparently to the great satisfaction of
those present. In a short time the visitors asked
permission to retire, after again thanking the
President for the honor he did them. Before separating
they united in one last and loud acclamation of '_Vive
Napoléon_.'"
* * * * *
JOHNSON J. HOOPER, the author of _Captain Simon Suggs_, and several other
works similar to that famous performance in humor and in the
characteristics of southern life, is editor of _The Chambers Tribune_,
published somewhere in Alabama. Few papers have as much of the quality
which is commonly described by the word "spicy." In a late number we have
an election anecdote which will serve as a specimen. The hero is Colonel A.
Q. Nicks, of Talladega. We quote:
"The Colonel had incurred, somehow, the enmity of a
certain preacher--one who had once been ejected from
his church and subsequently restored. The parson,
besides, was no favorite with his neighbors. Well, when
Nicks was nominated, parson Slashem 'norated' it
publicly that when Nicks should be elected, his (the
parson's) land would be for sale, and himself ready to
emigrate. Well, the Colonel went round the county a
time or two, and found he was 'bound to go;' and
shortly after arriving at that highly satisfactory
conclusion, espying the parson in a crowd he was
addressing, sung out to him: 'I say, brother Slashem,
begin to fix up your _muniments_--draw your deeds--I am
going to represent these people, _certain_! But before
you leave, let me give you thanks for declaring your
intention as soon as you did; for on that account I am
getting all of your church and the most part of your
neighbors!' The parson has not been heard of since."
* * * * *
In a late number of Mr. CHARLES DICKENS'S _Household Words_, there is an
amusing and suggestive paper on Nursery Rhymes, wherein the ferocious
morals embalmed in jog-trot verse are indicated, for the reflective
consideration of all parents. A terrible case is made out against these
lisping moralists: slaughter, cruelty, bigotry, injustice, wanton delight
in terrible accidents and awful punishments for trivial offences, ferocity
of every kind--such a mass of "shocking notions" as would people our
nurseries with demons, were it not for the happy indifference of children
to anything but the rhyme, rhythm, and quaint image.
* * * * *
In France, we have the _Univers_ regretting that Luther was not burnt, and
that the church has not still the power to use the stake; and in England we
have the _Rambler_, a journal which is considered the organ of the moderate
party, as distinct from that of the _Tablet_, boldly expressing wishes and
hopes of an even more debatable character. The creed of the king of Naples
is authoritatively declared to be that of every Catholic. In a late number
it is said--
"Believe us not, Protestants of England and Ireland,
for an instant, when you see us pouring forth our
liberalisms. When you hear a Catholic orator at some
Catholic assemblage declaring solemnly that 'this is
the most humiliating day in his life, when he is called
upon to defend once more the glorious principle of
religious freedom'--(especially if he says any thing
about the Emancipation Act and the 'toleration' it
_conceded_ to Catholics)--be not too simple in your
credulity. These are brave words, but they mean
nothing; no, nothing more than the promises of a
parliamentary candidate to his constituents on the
hustings. _He is not talking Catholicism, but nonsense
and Protestantism_; and he will no more act on these
notions in different circumstances, than _you_ now act
on them yourselves in your treatment of him. You ask,
if he were lord in the land, and you were in a
minority, if not in numbers yet in power, what would he
do to you? That, we say, would entirely depend upon
circumstances. If it would benefit the cause of
Catholicism, he would tolerate you: if expedient he
would imprison you, banish you, fine you; possibly, _he
might even hang you_. But be assured of one thing: he
would never tolerate you for the sake of the 'glorious
principles of civil and religious liberty.'"
Again, it is said--
"Why are we so anxious to make the church wear the garb
of the world? Why do we stoop, and bow, and cringe
before that enemy whom we are sent to conquer and
_annihilate_? Why are we ashamed of the deeds of our
more consistent forefathers, _who did only what they
were bound to do by the first principles of
Catholicism_?... Shall I foster that damnable doctrine,
that Socinianism, and Calvinism, and Anglicanism, and
Judaism, are not every one of them mortal sins, like
murder and adultery? Shall I lend my countenance to
this unhappy persuasion of my brother, that he is not
flying in the face of Almighty God every day that he
remains a Protestant? Shall I hold out hopes to him
that I will not meddle with his creed if he will not
meddle with mine? Shall I lead him to think that
religion is a matter for private opinion, and tempt him
to forget _that he has no more right to his religious
views than he has to my purse, or my house, or my
life-blood_? No! Catholicism is the most intolerant of
creeds. It is intolerance itself, for it is truth
itself. We might as rationally maintain that a sane man
has a right to believe that two and two do not make
four, as this theory of religious liberty. Its impiety
is only equalled by its absurdity."
We refer above to the _Univers_, the organ of the Roman Catholic party in
France. The editor of that print, at a dinner recently given for Bishop
Hughes, at the Astor House, was complimented in a toast by our excellent
collector, Maxwell, who, of course, endorses the following choice
paragraph:
"A heretic," observes the editor of the _Univers_,
"examined and convicted by the church, used to be
delivered over to the secular power, and punished with
death. Nothing has ever appeared to us more natural, or
more necessary. More than 100,000 persons perished in
consequence of the heresy of Wicliff; a still greater
number by that of John Huss; it would not be possible
to calculate the bloodshed caused by the heresy of
Luther, and _it is not yet over_. After three centuries
we are at the eve of a recommencement. The prompt
repression of the disciples of Luther, and a crusade
against Protestantism, would have spared Europe three
centuries of discord and of catastrophes in which
France and civilization may perish. It was under the
influence of such reflections that I wrote the phrase
which has so excited the virtuous indignation of the
Red journals. Here it is:--'For my part, I avow frankly
my regret is not only that they did not sooner burn
John Huss, but that they did not equally burn Luther;
and I regret, further, that there had not been at the
same time some prince sufficiently pious and politic to
have made a crusade against the Protestants.' Well,
this paragraph might have been better penned; but as I
have the happiness to belong to those who care little
about mere forms of expression, I will not revoke it. I
accept it as it is, and with a certain satisfaction at
finding myself faithful to my opinions. That which I
wrote in 1838 I still believe. Let the Red
philanthropists print their declaration in any sort of
type they please, and as often as they please. Let them
add their commentaries, and place all to my account.
The day that I cancel it, they will be justified in
holding the opinion of me which I hold of them."
Far be it from us to meddle with the quarrels of the theologians--even by
reprinting any attack an adversary makes on the worst of them. We merely
copy these paragraphs from famous defenders of the Catholic Church, as an
act of justice to her, against those slandering Protestants who say she has
changed--she, the infallible and ever consistent!
* * * * *
The "leading journal of the world" occasionally indulges in a pleasantry,
as in this example:
"A surgical operation under the influence of chloroform
has just terminated fatally, to the regret of the
public, to whom the patient was well known. One of the
brown bears in the Zoological Garden suffering from
cataract of the eye, an eminent surgeon and a party of
_gelehrter_ assembled to undertake his cure. Bruin was
tempted to the bars of his den by the offer of some
bread, and then secured by ropes and a muzzle. After a
stout resistance, chloroform was administered. In a
state of insensibility the cataract was removed, and
the bonds untied, but the patient showed no signs of
life! Feathers to the nose, cold buckets of water, and
bleeding produced no effect. Poor Bruin had gone
whither the great tortoise, two ostriches, and the
African lion have preceded him, for the managers of the
Berlin gardens are decidedly unlucky. With the trifling
drawback of the death of the subject, the operation was
skilfully and successfully performed."
* * * * *
We find the following anecdote as related by Baron OLDHAUSEN: it conveys an
admirable lesson:
"Charles XII., of Sweden, condemned a soldier, and
stood at a distance from the place of execution. The
fellow, when he heard this, was in hopes of a pardon,
but being assured that he was mistaken, replied with a
loud voice, 'My tongue is still free, and I will use it
at my pleasure.' He did so, and charged the king, with
much insolence, and as loud as he could speak, with
injustice and barbarity, and appealed to God for
revenge. The king, not hearing him distinctly, inquired
what the soldier had been saying. A general officer,
unwilling to sharpen his resentment against the poor
man, told his majesty he had only repeated with great
earnestness, 'That God loves the merciful, and teaches
the mighty to moderate their anger.' The king was
touched by these words, and sent his pardon to the
criminal. A courtier, however, in an opposite interest,
availed himself of this occasion and repeated to the
king exactly the licentious expressions which the
fellow uttered, adding gravely, that 'men of quality
ought never to misrepresent facts to their sovereign.'
The king for some moments stood pausing, and then
turned to the courtier, saying, with reproving looks,
'This is the first time I have been betrayed to my
advantage; but the lie of your enemy gave me more
pleasure than your truth has done.'"
* * * * *
A report is current in Europe that an expedition is to be sent from France
into the sea of Japan. It is said that it will consist of a frigate, a
corvette, and a steamer, under the orders of a Rear-Admiral who has long
navigated in the Pacific Ocean and the Chinese seas. "This expedition
will", it is added, "be at once military, commercial, and scientific, and
has for object to open to European commerce states which have been closed
against it since the sixteenth century." Notwithstanding the sanction which
the principle involved received a few years ago, from an illustrious
American, we cannot regard the proposed expedition otherwise than as an act
of the most shameless villainy by a nation. The Japanese are a peculiar
race, and our readers who have seen a series of articles on the subject of
their civilization and polity in late numbers of the _Tribune_, will not be
disposed to think the people of Japan inferior to those of France, just
now, in any of the best elements of a state. We, as well as the Japanese
themselves, understand perfectly well that the opening of their ports to
the Europeans and Americans, would be followed by the demoralization and
overthrow of their empire.
* * * * *
Mr. CARLYLE, in the following brief composition, of which the original was
shown us a few days ago, furnishes a model for autograph writers.
"George W. C----, of Philadelphia, wants my autograph,
and here gets it: much good may it do him.
T. CARLYLE.
LONDON, _November 2, 1850_."
* * * * *
The following on the silence of wives under conjugal infelicity, is as
sententious and as true as any thing in La Bruyère:
"However much a woman may detest her husband, the
grievance is too irremediable for her to find any
comfort in talking about it; there is never any
consolation in complaining of great troubles--silence
and forgetfulness are the only anodynes. Women have
generally a Spartan fortitude in the matter of
husbands: if they have made an unblessed choice, it is
a secret they instinctively conceal from the world,
cloaking their sufferings under every imaginable color
and pretence. They apparently feel that to blame their
husbands is to blame themselves at second-hand."
* * * * *
We published in the _International_ some time ago a sketch, pleasantly
written, of the eccentric Lord Chancellor Thurlow, and his terrible
swearing. The following from the Manchester _Courier_, shows that the great
lawyer has a worthy follower in Baron Platt:
"At the recent assizes at Liverpool, a stabbing case
from Manchester was heard before Baron Platt, who, in
summing up to the jury, used these words: 'One of the
witnesses tells you that he said to the prisoner, 'If
you use your knife you are a d----d coward;' I say
also,' continued the learned judge, apparently in deep
thought, 'that he was a d----d coward, and any man is a
d----d coward who will use a knife.'"
* * * * *
The printers of London are endeavoring to establish, in imitation of the
_Printers' Library_ in New-York, a literary institution to be called "The
Printers' Athenæum," and have received considerable encouragement from
compositors, and the trades connected with printing, as typefounders,
bookbinders, engravers, letter-press and copper-plate printers, &c., the
members of which are eligible. The object is to combine the social
advantages of a club with the mental improvement of a literary and
scientific institution, and to adapt them for the position and
circumstances of the working classes. All persons engaged in the production
of a newspaper, or book, such as editors, authors, reporters, readers, &c.,
although strictly not belonging to the profession, are competent to become
members, and persons not so connected will be permitted to join the society
on their being proposed by a member. It is expected that the Athenæum will
be opened before the commencement of the ensuing year.
* * * * *
A MADRID correspondent writes to one of the London journals:
"The infant princess to whom the Duchess of Montpensier
has just given birth has received the names of Maria
Amalia Luisa Enriqueta Felipa Antonia Fernanda Cristina
Isabel Adelaida Jesusa Josefa Joaquina Ana Francisca de
Asis Justa Rufina Francisca de Paula Ramona Elena
Carolina Bibiana Polonia Gaspara Melchora Baltasara
Augustina Sabina."
Doubtless there was an extra charge for the christening.
Historical Review of the Month.
An increasing activity is observable in whatever points to the next
Presidential election, and several eminent persons have recently defined
their relations to the most exciting and important questions to be affected
in that contest. Among others, ex-Vice President Dallas, ex-Secretary of
the Navy Paulding, and Mr. Henry Clay, have written letters on the state of
the nation as respects the slavery question. Meantime, the people of South
Carolina have repudiated the doctrine and policy of secession by electing
only two members in the whole state favorable to their views in the
Convention called for the consideration of that subject; Georgia and
Mississippi have given overwhelming majorities on the same side; and
Pennsylvania appears to have asserted not less unquestionably her
attachment to the Union and the Compromise, in electing Mr. Bigler
governor.
The affairs of the several states are without special significance except
in the matter of elections, of which we have indicated the general results
as altogether favorable to the Union and the enforcement of the laws of
Congress. Returns, however, are at the time when we go to press so
imperfect, that we attempt no particular details respecting candidates or
majorities. In Pennsylvania and Ohio, as in the Southern States, the
democrats have a perfect ascendency; in Maryland the whigs have been
successful; in California it appears to be doubtful as to the Governor, but
the democrats have a control in the Legislature.
The most important news from California relates to the movement for
dividing the state, and making that part of it lying south of the
thirty-seventh degree of north latitude a separate commonwealth. If this
project should be carried into effect, slavery would, no doubt, be
introduced into Southern California; but there is not much prospect of its
being successful. A convention of delegates from the southern counties, to
be held at Los Angelos, Santa Barbara, or Monterey, is called for the
purpose of interchanging sentiments on the subject, so that the Legislature
may take the matter into consideration. The accounts from the mining
districts continue to be favorable; improvements are in successful progress
in various gold-bearing districts; and the yield of the precious metal is
such as to reward the enterprise and industry of the miner. San Francisco
and Sacramento have again been disgraced by the conduct of scoundrel bands
usurping the functions of government and putting to death such persons as
were obnoxious to their prejudices or guilty of offences which the law
officers might have punished.
From the Mormon City at Salt Lake, intelligence is received of continued
prosperity. Mr. Bernheisel, last year agent for the territory in this city
to obtain a library for Utah, is chosen territorial delegate to Congress.
After a protracted contest for Provisional Bishop of the diocese of
New-York, Dr. Creighton, of Tarrytown, has been elected to that office. He
is a native of this city, and graduated in Columbia College in 1812,
afterwards officiated in Grace Church, was next appointed Rector of St.
Mark's, Bowery, whence he was called to Tarrytown, where he now resides.
Louis Kossuth, having been set at liberty by the Turkish government, will
very soon arrive in the United States, where extraordinary demonstrations
of respect will be offered to him in several of the principal cities. About
nine months ago Kossuth committed to the care of Mr. Frank Taylor, a young
American visiting Broussa, the MS. of an address to the people of this
country, which was published in a translation, at New-York, on the 18th of
October--having been withheld until that time lest its earlier appearance
should affect injuriously the interests of its author in Europe. The
friends of liberty will rejoice that Kossuth is free, and in a land of
liberty; but it is not improbable that future events will demonstrate, that
the Austrian government was not altogether unreasonable in protesting
against his enlargement. Kossuth and Mazzini are scarcely less terrible to
tyrants, as writers, than as the leaders of armies and the masters of
cabinets.
Although extraordinary prosperity in a state may sometimes lead to
arrogance and injustice, the position of this country toward several
European powers who intimate an intention of compelling a certain policy on
our part in regard to Spain, must insure a triumphant consideration of the
_Union_, in which we have a strength that may laugh their leagues to scorn.
The details of an arrangement between Spain, France, and Great Britain, are
not yet perfectly understood in the United States, but it is generally
known that some plan has been adopted which will be likely to draw from the
Secretary of State a sequel to his letter to Mr. Hulseman, the Austrian
_chargé d'Affaires_, whose experiences were made known a year ago.
The vessels of the American exploring expedition in search of Sir John
Franklin returned--the _Advance_ on the 30th of September, and the
_Rescue_, which had separated from her on the banks of Newfoundland, a few
days after. It is probable that a full account of this heroic enterprise,
so honorable to its authors and to all engaged in it, will soon be given to
the public, by Dr. Kane, or one of the other officers; and as any such
brief statement as we could present of its history would be unsatisfactory,
we shall not now go further into details than to say no traces of Sir John
Franklin, except such as we have already noticed, were discovered, and that
the crews came home after a year's absence in excellent health. The nearly
simultaneous return of the British expedition has caused considerable
discussion in England. It appears to be felt very generally that it is not
justifiable to abandon the pursuit until the fate of Sir John Franklin has
been demonstrated by actual observation. Such satisfaction is due to
science and to humanity. Proposals are now, we believe, before the
Admiralty, for sending into the Arctic seas one or more steamers, with
which alone the search can be advantageously prosecuted further.
A New-York ship, the Flying Cloud, made the passage round the Horn to San
Francisco in ninety days--shorter than any voyage on record. Her fastest
day's run was 374 miles, beating the fleetest of Collins's steamers by
fifty miles. In three successive days she made 992 miles. At this rate she
would cross the Atlantic in less than nine days.
Discouraging accounts have been received respecting the whale fleet in the
North Pacific Ocean. After wintering in the gulf of Anadir, the fleet
attempted to pass into the Arctic Ocean, when it became surrounded with
fields of ice, by which not less than eight vessels are known to have been
destroyed, and it was supposed that upwards of sixty others had experienced
the same fate. Some of the crews of the lost ships reached the main land,
but afterwards got into difficulty with the natives and in consequence many
of them were killed. The whale fishing, during the season, is said to have
been an entire failure, and a number of vessels were on their return to the
northwest coast, in the hope of retrieving their ill fortune.
Several disastrous "accidents" have recently happened in various parts of
the country. On the 21st September, the steamer James Jackson, exploded
near Shawneetown in Illinois, killing and wounding 35. On the 26th
September, the Brilliant exploded near Bayou Sara, killing a yet larger
number; and many such events of less importance, but probably involving
more or less criminality, have occurred on steamboats and railroads in
various parts of the country. The most destructive fire since the
completion of our last number was one at Buffalo, commencing on the 25th
September, and continuing until 200 buildings, on more than 30 acres, were
destroyed, and an immense number of poor families were made homeless. The
fire extended over the meanest part of the town, but the loss is estimated
at $300,000. For several days a destructive gale prevailed along the
eastern coast, producing an immense loss of life; a large number of dead
bodies were taken from the holds of vessels. Great excitement has prevailed
in Gloucester, Newburyport and other towns, a large portion of whose
populations were exposed to the fury of the storm. Further east, on the
coast of Nova-Scotia, the remains of sixty persons, lost during the storm,
are said to have been buried in one grave. No less than 160 vessels, of all
kinds, are reported to have been wrecked.
The Grand Jury sitting at Philadelphia have found bills of indictment
against four white men and twenty-seven negroes, for treason, in
participating in the outrage at Christiana, in the state of Pennsylvania.
At Syracuse on the 1st of October an attempt was made to rescue a slave,
but he was captured and his abettors arrested and conveyed to Auburn for
examination.
The jury in the case of Margaret Garrity, who was tried at Newark for the
murder of a man named Drum, who seduced her under a promise of marriage,
and afterwards deserted her for another, rendered a verdict of not guilty,
on the ground of insanity, on the 13th ult. This disgraceful proceeding had
precedents in New Jersey, and it appears to have excited but little of the
indignation which it deserved. Margaret Garrity murdered her paramour under
extraordinary circumstances, which, doubtless, would have had proper weight
with the pardoning power. It is evidently absurd to say, that she, more
than any murderess, was insane, and the jury were altogether unjustifiable
in rendering a verdict which is unsupported by evidence; and of an
assumption of the authority of the Governor of the State, in setting at
liberty a criminal for whose conduct there appeared to be merely some sort
of extenuation or excuse in the conduct of her victim. It would be as well
to have no juries as juries so ignorant or reckless of their obligations.
A general council of the once grand confederacy of the Five Nations of
Indians, the Mohawks, Onondagas, Oneidas, Cayugas, Senecas, and
Tuscaroras--was held at Tonawanda on Friday, September 19th, to celebrate
the funeral rites of their last Grand Sachem, John Blacksmith, deceased,
and of electing a Grand Sachem in his place, electing Chiefs, &c. Ely S.
Parker (Do-ne-ha-ga-wa), was proclaimed Grand Sachem of the Six Nations. He
was invested with the silver medal presented by Washington to the
celebrated war-chief Red Jacket, and worn by him until his death.
The new Canadian Ministry, so far as formed, is as follows:
Inspector-General, Mr. Hincks; President of the Council, Dr. Rolph;
Postmaster-General, Malcolm Cameron; Commissioner of Crown Lands, William
Morris; Attorney-General for Canada West, W. B. Richards; Attorney-General
for Canada East, Mr. Drummond; Provincial Secretary, Mr. Morin. Three
appointments are yet to be made. The government will be eminently liberal.
A revolution set on foot in Northern Mexico promises to be successful. The
chief causes alleged by the conspirators are the enormous duties upon
imports, and too severe punishment for smuggling, the excessive authority
of the Central Government over the individual States, the quartering of
regular troops upon citizens, the mal-administration of the national
finances, the bad system of military government inherited from the Spanish
establishment, and the want of a system of public education. The insurgents
declare that they lay aside all idea of secession or annexation, yet it is
not impossible that the movement will soon have such an end. The revolution
commenced at Camargo, where the insurgents attacked the Mexicans, and came
off victorious, having taken the town by storm, with a loss on the side of
the Mexicans of 60. The Government troops were intrenched in a church with
artillery. The revolutionists are commanded by Carvajal, who has also with
him two companies of Texans. At our last dates, the 9th of September, they
had taken the town of Reynosa, meeting but little resistance. One
field-piece and a quantity of other arms fell into their hands. General
Canales, the Governor of Tamaulipas, was approaching Metamoras, and General
Avalajos was on the way to meet him, whether as friend or foe is uncertain.
It was supposed that Canales would assume the chief command of the
revolutionists.
From New Grenada we learn that General Herrara has entirely subdued the
revolt lately undertaken, and that the country is quiet. A revolt has
broken out in Chili (a country remarkable in South America for the
stability of its affairs), and in several towns the troops had declared in
favor of a new man for the Presidency: the disorganizers were sweeping all
before them, and the country was in a most excited condition. From
Montevideo the latest intelligence is so confused that we can arrive at no
definite conclusion, except that the domestic war is prosecuted with
unusual savageness. An insurrection has broken out in the states of San
Salvador and Guatemala. General Carrera, with a force of 1,500 men, had
attacked the enemy in San Salvador, who mustered 4,000 strong, and defeated
them with a loss of four men killed. He then evacuated the country.
From Great Britain we have no political news of importance. The royal
family were still in the north. The whig politicians appear to be agitating
new schemes of parliamentary reform, and several distinguished persons have
recently made addresses to their constituents. Sir Edward Bulwer Lytton is
before his county as a protectionist candidate for the House of Commons,
with fair prospects. The submarine telegraph to France has been completed.
The great cable which was intended to reach the whole distance proved too
short by half a mile, owing to the irregularity of the line in which it was
laid down. It was pieced out with a coil of wire coated with gutta percha.
This will, however, have to be taken up and supplied with cable. The
connection is complete with France, and messages are sent across with
perfect success. Mr. Lawrence, the American minister, having gone to
Ireland, for the purpose of seeing the scenery of the country, has been
embarrassed with honors; public addresses have been presented to him,
banquets given to him, railway directors and commissioners of harbors have
attended him in his journeys, a steamboat was specially fitted up to carry
him down the Shannon, and in every way such demonstrations of interest and
honor were offered as were suitable for a people's reception of a messenger
from the home of their children. The visit of Mr. Lawrence promises some
happy results in directing attention to projects for a steam communication
directly with the United States. The differences between the government of
Calcutta and the court of Hyderabad, have been arranged for the present
without any actual confiscation of the Nizam's territory. A considerable
sum has been lodged in the hands of the Resident, and security offered for
the partial liquidation of the remainder. Moolraj, the ex-Dewan of Mooltan,
expired on the 11th August, while on his journey to the fortress of
Allahabad, and the Vizier Yar Mohammed Khan, of Herat, died on the 4th of
June. The eldest son of the latter, Seyd Mahommed Khan, has succeeded to
the throne of Herat. Dost Mohammed is resolved to oppose him, and, for that
purpose, has placed his son, Hyder Khan, at the head of a large army, with
orders to invade Herat. The Admiralty have advertised for tenders for a
monthly mail line of screw-steamers to and from England and the west coast
of Africa. The ports to be touched at are Goree, Bathurst, Sierra Leone,
Monrovia (Liberia), Cape Coast Castle, Accra, Whydah Badagry, Lagos, Bonny,
Old Calabar, Cameroons, and Fernando Po. The whole range of the slave coast
will thus be included; and it is understood that the object of the line,
which, in the first instance, of course will carry scarcely any passengers
or letters, is to promote the extinction of that traffic, not only by
cultivating commerce with the natives, but by the rapid and regular
information it will convey from point to point. Of the Caffre war, we have
intelligence by an arrival at Boston direct from the Cape of Good Hope,
later than has been received by way of England. There appeared to be some
prospect of the war being brought to a close; reinforcements of troops had
arrived, and Sir Harry Smith, the Governor, was in excellent spirits. In
the mean time, however, the Caffres and Hottentots continued making sad
havoc on the settlements, and the people were suffering from a lack of
provisions, and cattle and stock were starving to death. Efficient measures
however had in England been taken for their relief.
From France, in the recess of the Assembly, there is no news of general
importance. The persecution of the press, by which more than one ruler of
that country has heretofore lost his place, is persevered in, and a large
number of editors (including two sons of Victor Hugo) have been imprisoned
and fined. All foreigners intending to reside permanently in Paris, or
exercise any calling there, must henceforth present themselves personally
to the authorities, and obtain permission to remain. This new and stringent
police-regulation is, it is said, to be extended to every department of
France. Such fear of foreigners contrasts strangely with the unsuspicious
welcome which they receive in America and England. The President is
evidently not willing his "subjects" should know what the world says of his
administration.
The Government of Naples has caused to be published a formal reply to Mr.
Gladstone's letters to Lord Palmerston in respect to its unjustifiable
severity to political prisoners, particularly the ex-minister Poerio. It
mainly consists of an exposure of some inaccuracies of detail on the part
of Mr. Gladstone, such as an exaggeration of the number of political
prisoners at present confined in Naples, the alleged innocence of Poerio,
the unhealthy state of the prisons, &c.; but it does not do away with the
charge of savage severity in the punishment of Poerio and his
fellow-prisoners, which formed the main accusation advanced by Mr.
Gladstone against the Neapolitan Government, and it is not likely in any
considerable degree to affect the opinion of the world on the subject. The
Papal Court has addressed a note to the French Government, complaining of
the toleration, by the latter, of incendiary writings against Italian
states. The note observes that if the French journals were not to publish
these writings, the demagogues would be at a loss for organs of
circulation, because the English newspapers are much less read in Italy.
The Emperor of Austria has been making a tour through his Italian
provinces, in which he has been received with "respectful silence" in
streets deserted by all except the military and ungoverned children.
From a diplomatic correspondence between the representatives of Austria and
Turkey, in regard to the liberation of Kossuth and his companions, it is
very evident that Austria feels very keenly the discomfiture she has
sustained, and that she will be very likely to resent this disregard of her
wishes, by seeking cause of war with Turkey. She is stirring up rebellion
in the Bosnian provinces, and concentrating her troops upon that frontier,
to take advantage of any contingency that may arise. The authorities in
Hungary have been absurd enough to evince the spleen of the Austrians in
hanging effigies of Kossuth and his associates, condemned for treason _in
contumace_.
In Portugal vigorous preparations were being made for elections, in which
it was expected that Saldanha's friends would generally be defeated. At the
Cape de Verde Islands a terrible disease, described as a black plague, was
very fatal.
The differences between the governments of Turkey and Egypt are still
unsettled, and the fate of the Egyptian railroad therefore remains
doubtful.
Scientific Discoveries and Proceedings of Learned Societies.
Some recently received numbers of the _Nordische Biene_ contain interesting
information concerning the organization and labors of the Russian
Geographical Society. This body, like the Geographical and Statistical
Society organized a few weeks since in New-York, is modelled upon the
general plan of the Royal Geographical Society in London. It is, however,
far from being so universal in its aims; in fact, its members confine their
investigations to the Russian empire, and to tribes and countries
contiguous therewith. The annual meeting is held on April 5th. At the last,
two prizes were given; one of these was a gold medal offered by Prince
Constantine, the other a money prize for the best statistical work. The
medal was awarded to Lieutenant-Colonel Buckhardt Lemm, for a series of
astronomical observations, determining the latitude and longitude of some
four hundred places in Russia and the neighboring regions in Asia, as far
as Mesched in Persia. These determinations are of particular value for the
geography of inner Asia. The statistical prize was awarded to a Mr.
Woronoff for a historical and statistical survey of the educational
establishments in the district of St. Petersburg from 1715 to 1828. It is
in fact a history of the development of mental culture in that most
important part of the empire. The annual report, giving a survey of the
Society's doings, was interesting. A special object of attention is the
publication of maps of the separate governments or provinces. The Society
had also caused an expedition to be sent to the Ural, under Colonel
Hoffmann. The triangulation of the country about Mount Ararat had been
completed. A map of Asia Minor had been prepared by Col. Bolotoff, and sent
to Paris to be engraved; a map of the Caspian sea, and the countries
surrounding it, was nearly completed by Mr. Chanykoff; the same savan was
still at work on a map of Asia between 35° and 40° north latitude, and 61°
and 81° east longitude; two astronomers were engaged in that region making
observations to assist in its completion. Another map of Kokand and Bokhara
was also forthcoming, and the Society had employed Messrs Butakoff and
Chanykoff to prepare a complete atlas of Asia between 33° and 56° north
latitude and 65° and 100° east longitude. A Russian nobleman had given
12,000 rubles to pay for making and publishing a Russian translation of
Ritter's geography, but the society had determined not to undertake so
immense a work (it is some 15,000 printed pages), and had determined only
to take up those countries which have an immediate interest for Russia,
using along with Ritter a great body of materials to which he had not
access. These countries are Southern Siberia, Northern China, Turan,
Korassan, Afghanistan and Persia. In Ritter's work these occupy 4,500
pages. No doubt the labors of the Society will greatly enrich geographical
science.
The Society have in hand an expedition to the peninsula of Kamschatka, in
which they have been greatly assisted by the contributions of private
persons. They also promise a classification of a vast collection of objects
they have received bearing upon the ethnography of Russia.
* * * * *
We learn from the last Number of the _Revue des Deux Mondes_ that the
French government has lately made a literary acquisition of no ordinary
interest and value. A French gentleman of the name of Perret has been
engaged for six years in exploring THE CATACOMBS UNDER ROME, and copying,
with the most minute and scrupulous fidelity, the remains of ancient art
which are hidden in those extraordinary chambers. Under the authority of
the papal government, and assisted by M. Savinien Petit, an accomplished
French artist, M. Perret has explored the whole of the sixty catacombs
together with the connecting galleries. Burying himself for five years in
this subterranean city, he has thoroughly examined every part of it, in
spite of difficulties and perils of the gravest character: for example, the
refusal of his guides to accompany him; dangers resulting from the
intricacy of the passages, from the necessity for clearing a way through
galleries choked up with earth which fell in from above almost as fast as
it was removed; hazards arising from the difficulty of damming up streams
of water which ran in upon them from above, and from the foulness of the
air and consequent difficulty of breathing and preserving light in the
lower chambers;--all these, and many other perils, have been overcome by
the honorable perseverance of M. Perret, and he has returned to France with
a collection of drawings which extends to 360 sheets in large folio; of
which 154 sheets contain representations of frescoes, 65 of monuments, 23
of paintings on glass (medallions inserted in the walls and at the bottoms
of vases) containing 86 subjects, 41 drawings of lamps, vases, rings, and
instruments of martyrdom to the number of more than 100 subjects, and
finally 90 contain copies of more than 500 sepulchral inscriptions. Of the
154 drawings of frescoes two-thirds are inedited, and a considerable number
have been only lately discovered. Amongst the latter are the paintings on
the celebrated wells of Platonia, said to have been the place of interment,
for a certain period, of St. Peter and St. Paul. This spot was ornamented
with frescoes by order of Pope Damasus, about A.D. 365, and has ever since
remained closed up. Upon opening the empty tomb, by permission of the Roman
government, M. Perret discovered fresco paintings representing the Saviour
and the Apostles, and two coffins [tombeaux] of Parian marble. On the
return of M. Perret to France, the minister of the interior (M. Leon
Faucher) entered into treaty with him for the acquisition of his collection
for the nation. The purchase has been arranged, and the necessary amount,
upwards of 7,500_l._, obtained by a special vote of the National Assembly.
The drawings will be published by the French government in a style
commensurate with their high importance, both as works of art and as
invaluable monuments of Christian antiquity.
* * * * *
A Dr. JECKER has left the Paris _Academy of Sciences_ $40,000 to found an
annual prize in organic chemistry.
Recent Deaths.
The celebrated Mrs. SHERWOOD, the most popular and universally known female
writer of the last generation, died on the 22d of September, at Twickenham,
in England. She was a daughter of Dr. George Butt, chaplain to George III.,
vicar of Kidderminster, and rector of Stanford, in the county of Worcester.
Dr. Butt was the representative of the family of Sir William De Butts, well
known as physician to Henry VIII., and mentioned as such by Shakspeare.
Mary Martha Butt, afterwards Mrs. Sherwood, was born at Stanford,
Worcestershire, on the 6th of May, 1775. In 1803 she married her cousin,
Henry Sherwood, of the 53d regiment of foot. In 1805 she accompanied her
husband to India, where, in consequence of her zealous labors in the cause
of religion amongst the soldiers and natives dwelling around her, Henry
Martyn and the Right Rev. Daniel Corrie, D.D., late Bishop of Madras,
became acquainted with her, and the intimacy which then commenced also
remained unbroken until death. Her principal works were that favorite tale
of _Little Henry and his Bearer_, _The Lady of the Manor_, _The Church
Catechism_, _The Nun_, _Henry Milner_, _The Fairchild Family_, and more
recently, _The Golden Garland of Inestimable Delights_. In some of her
later compositions, she evinced a tendency to the doctrine of the
Universalists, which lessened her popularity. The great number of her books
prevents an enumeration of even the most popular of them. Mrs. Sherwood's
husband, Captain Sherwood, expired, after a most trying illness, at
Twickenham, on the 6th of December, 1849; the fatigue she went through, in
devoted attention to him, and the bereavement she experienced at the
severance by fate of a union of nearly half a century, were the ultimate
causes of her own demise. Though she was of advanced age, her mental
faculties never failed her, and she preserved a religious cheerfulness of
mind to the last. She expired, surrounded by her family, leaving one son,
the Rev. Henry Martyn Sherwood, Rector of Broughton-Hacket, and Vicar of
White Ladies Aston, Worcestershire, and two daughters. The elder daughter
is the wife of a clergyman, and mother of a numerous family. The younger
has always resided with her parent; she has of late years ably assisted in
her mother's writings, and bids fair to sustain well her reputation. She
has been, we are informed, intrusted, by her mother's especial desire, with
the papers containing the records of Mrs. Sherwood's life, which is
intended soon for publication. The editions of Mrs. Sherwood's writings
have been numerous. The best is that of the Harpers, in ten or twelve
volumes.
* * * * *
Rev. JAMES H. HOTCHKISS, died at Prattsburgh, Steuben county, New-York, on
September 2d, aged seventy years. He was the author of a _History of the
Churches in Western New-York_, published in a large octavo volume, about
two years ago, and had just preached his half-century sermon. He was the
son of Rev. Beriah Hotchkiss, the pioneer missionary of large sections of
the State of New-York. The son graduated at Williams College, 1800; studied
theology with Dr. Porter, of Catskill, was ordained by an Association,
installed at East Bloomfield in 1802, removed to Prattsburgh in 1809, and
there labored twenty-one years. The _Genesee Evangelist_ gives the
following sketch of his character:
"He had a mind of a strong, masculine order, well disciplined by various
reading, and remarkably stored with general knowledge. The doctrinal views
of the good old orthodox New England stamp, which he imbibed at first, he
maintained strenuously to the last; and left a distinct impression of them
wherever he had an opportunity to inculcate them. His labors, through the
half-century, were 'abundant,' and indefatigable; and to him, more than to
any other one man probably, is the Genesee country indebted for its present
literary, moral and religious character. Under his ministry there were many
religious revivals, and some signal ones, especially in Prattsburgh. The
years 1819 and 1825 were eminently signalized in this way. He had the
happiness of closing his life in the scenes of his greatest usefulness."
* * * * *
BRIGADIER-GENERAL HENRY WHITING, of the Quartermaster's Department, died at
St Louis, Mo., on the 16th of September. He arrived at St Louis, as we
learn from the _Republican_ of the 17th, on Sunday, the 14th, from a tour
of official duty in Texas, being in his usual health. On Tuesday afternoon,
while in his room at the Planter's House, he was, without any premonition
whatever, stricken dead instantaneously. The cause of his death, in all
probability, was an affection of the heart. His remains were taken to
Jefferson Barracks on the 17th, for interment.
Gen. Whiting, who was among the oldest officers of the army, was a native
of Lancaster, in Massachusetts, a son of Gen. John Whiting, also a native
of that place. He was not only an accomplished officer in the department in
which he has spent a large portion of his life, but he made extensive
scientific and literary attainments, and was a gentleman of great private
worth. In hours stolen from official duties, he was for many years a large
contributor to the literature of the country. His articles which from time
to time appeared in the _North-American Review_, were of an eminently
practical and useful character, and highly creditable to his scholarship
and sound judgment. The biographical sketch of the late President Taylor,
in a recent number, confined chiefly to his military life, and embracing a
graphic description of the extraordinary successes in Mexico, was from Gen.
Whiting's pen. He published a few years ago an important collection of the
_General Orders of Washington_. He was deserving of praise also as a poet
and as a dramatic author.
* * * * *
COMMODORE LEWIS WARRINGTON, of the United States navy, died in Washington,
on the 12th October, after a painful illness. He was a native of Virginia,
and was born in November, 1782. From a sketch of his life in the _Herald_,
it appears that he entered the navy on the 6th of January, 1800, and soon
after joined the frigate Chesapeake, then lying at Norfolk. In this ship he
remained on the West India station until May, 1801, when he returned to the
United States and joined the frigate President, under Commodore Dale, and
soon blockaded Tripoli until 1802, when he again returned to the United
States, and joined the frigate New-York, which sailed, and remained on the
Mediterranean station until 1803. On his return from the Mediterranean he
was ordered to the Vixen, and again joined the squadron which had lately
left, where he remained during the attack on the gun-boats and batteries of
Tripoli, in which the Vixen always took part. In November, 1804, he was
made acting lieutenant; and in July, 1805, he joined the brig Siren, a
junior lieutenant. In March, 1806, he joined the Enterprise, as first
lieutenant, and did not return to the United States until July, 1807--an
absence of four years. After his return in 1807 he was ordered to the
command of a gun-boat on the Norfolk station, then under the command of
Commodore Decatur. This was a position calculated to damp the ardor of the
young officer, as it was so far below several he had filled. He, however,
maintained his usual bearing for two years, when he was again ordered to
the Siren as first lieutenant. On the return of this vessel from Europe,
whither she went with dispatches, Lieut. Warrington was ordered to the
Essex, as her first lieutenant, in September of the same year. In the Essex
he cruised on the American coast, and again carried out dispatches for the
government, returning in 1812. He was then ordered to the frigate Congress
as her first lieutenant, and sailed, on the declaration of war, with the
squadron under Commodore Rodgers, to intercept the British West India
fleet, which was only avoided by the latter in consequence of a heavy fog,
which continued for fourteen days. He remained in the Congress until 1813,
when he became first lieutenant of the frigate United States, in which he
remained until his promotion to the rank of master commandant, soon after
which he took command of the sloop-of-war Peacock. While cruising in the
Peacock, in latitude 27 deg. 40 min., he encountered the British
brig-of-war Epervier. His own letter to the Secretary of the Navy,
descriptive of that encounter, is as follows:
At Sea, April 29, 1814.
SIR:--I have the honor to inform you that we have this
morning captured, after an action of forty-two minutes,
his Britannic Majesty's brig Epervier, rating and
mounting eighteen thirty-two pound cannonades, with one
hundred and twenty-eight men, of whom eleven were
killed and fifteen wounded, according to the best
information we could obtain. Among the latter is her
first lieutenant, who has lost an arm, and received a
severe splinter wound in the hip. Not a man in the
Peacock was killed, and only two wounded, neither
dangerously. The fate of the Epervier would have been
decided in much less time, but for the circumstance of
our foreyard having been totally disabled by two
round-shot in the starboard quarter, from her first
broadside, which entirely deprived us of the use of our
fore-topsails, and compelled us to keep the ship large
throughout the remainder of the action. This, with a
few topmast and topgallant backstays cut away, and a
few shot through our sails, is the only injury the
Peacock has sustained. Not a round-shot touched our
hull, and our masts and spars are as sound as ever.
When the enemy struck he had five feet of water in his
hold; his maintopmast was over the side; his mainboom
shot away; his foremast cut nearly away, and tottering;
his forerigging and stays shot away; his bowsprit badly
wounded, and forty-five shot-holes in his hull, twenty
of which were within a foot of his water-line, above
and below. By great exertions we got her in sailing
order just as night came on. In fifteen minutes after
the enemy struck, the Peacock was ready for another
action, in every respect, except the foreyard, which
was sent down, fished, and we had the foresail set
again in forty-five minutes--such was the spirit and
activity of our gallant crew. The Epervier had under
convoy an English hermaphrodite brig, a Russian, and a
Spanish ship, which all hauled their wind, and stood to
the E. N. E. I had determined upon pursuing the former,
but found that it would not be prudent to leave our
prize in her then crippled state, and the more
particularly so as we found she had on board one
hundred and twenty thousand dollars in specie. Every
officer, seaman, and marine did his duty, which is the
highest compliment I can pay them.
I am, &c.,
L. WARRINGTON.
Capt. Warrington brought his prize safely home, and was received with great
honor, because of his success in the encounter. In the early part of the
year 1815, he sailed in the squadron under Commodore Decatur, for a cruise
in the Indian Ocean. The Peacock and Hornet were obliged to separate in
chasing, and did not again meet until they arrived at Tristan d'Acunha, the
place appointed for rendezvous. After leaving that place, the Peacock met
with a British line-of-battle ship, from which she escaped, and gained the
Straits of Sunda, where she captured four vessels, one of which was a brig
of fourteen guns, belonging to the East India Company's service. From this
vessel Captain Warrington first heard of the ratification of peace. He then
returned to the United States. While in command of the Peacock, Capt.
Warrington captured nineteen vessels, three of which were given up to
prisoners, and sixteen destroyed.
Since the close of the war, Commodore Warrington has filled many
responsible stations in the service for a long time, having been on
shore-duty for twenty-eight years. He was appointed one of the Board of
Naval Commissioners, and subsequently held the post of chief of the Bureau
of Ordnance in the Navy Department, which post he held at the time of his
death. His whole career of service extended through a period of more than
fifty-one years, during all of which time he was respected, and held as one
of the most prominent officers of the United States navy. At the time of
his death there was but one older officer in service.
* * * * *
JOHN KIDD, M.D., of the University of Oxford, died suddenly early in
September. He was formerly Professor of Chemistry, and since 1822 Regius
Professor of Medicine. Dr. Kidd did good service in his time, as his
publications testify, in various departments of mineralogical, chemical,
and geological research, and about ten years ago he put forth some
observations on medical reform. Dr. Kidd was one of the eminent men
selected under the Earl of Bridgewater's will to write one of the
well-known "Bridgewater Treatises." The subject was, _On the Adaptation of
External Nature to the Physical Condition of Man_. Together with the Regius
Professorship of Medicine, to which the mastership of Ewelme Hospital, in
the county of Oxford, is attached, Dr. Kidd held the office of librarian to
the Radcliffe Library.
* * * * *
THE EARL OF DONOUGHMORE died on the 12th of September, at Palmerstown
House, county of Dublin, in the sixty-fourth year of his age. He was
lord-lieutenant of the county of Tipperary, and had a seat in the House of
Lords as a British peer with the title of Viscount Hutchinson, of
Knocklofty, but will be better remembered in history as the gallant Colonel
Hutchinson, who was one of the parties implicated in the celebrated escape
of Lavalette, in the year 1815, shortly after the restoration of the
Bourbons. He is succeeded in his extensive estates in the south of Ireland
by Viscount Suirdale, his lordship's son by his first wife, the daughter of
the Lord Mountjoy, who lost his life in the royal service during the Irish
rebellion of 1798.
WILLIAM NICOL, F.R.S.E., died in Edinburgh on the 2nd of September, in his
eighty-third year. Mr. Nicol commenced his career as assistant to the late
Dr. Moyes, the eminent blind lecturer on natural philosophy. Dr. Moyes, at
his death, bequeathed his apparatus to Mr. Nicol, who then lectured on the
same subject. His contributions to the _Edinburgh Philosophical Journal_
were various and valuable; the more important being his description of his
successful repetition of Döbereiner's celebrated experiment of igniting
spongy platina by a stream of cold hydrogen gas; and his method of
preparing fossil woods for microscopic investigation, which led to his
discovery of the structural difference between the arucarian and coniferous
woods, by far the most important in fossil botany. But the most valuable
contribution to physical science, with which his name will ever be
associated, was his invention of the single image prism of calcareous spar,
known to the scientific world as Nicol's prism.
* * * * *
The Rev. G. G. FREEMAN, the well-known English missionary, died on the 8th
of September at the baths of Homburg, in Germany, of an attack of rheumatic
fever. Mr. Freeman had only a little while before returned home from a
visit to the mission stations in South Africa, and his latest important
labor was the writing of a volume, in which the social, spiritual, and
political condition of South Africa was depicted. Mr. Freeman was
fifty-seven years of age. He was born in London, educated at Hoxton
Academy, and after many years of successful devotion to his profession in
England, he proceeded in 1827 to Madagascar, under the direction of the
London Missionary Society, and for nine years labored there with eminent
energy and success. The share he had in translating the Scriptures, in
preparing school-books, and in superintending the mission schools, cannot
be recited in this brief sketch, but was such as greatly facilitated the
progress of the Christian religion, till, in 1835, the queen proscribed
Christianity, and virtually expelled the missionaries from the island. Mr.
Freeman then went to the Cape of Good Hope, where he became much interested
in South African missions, but the ill health of his wife compelled his
return to England, where he arrived about the end of 1836. New duties and
labors now awaited him; he had to confer with the directors, and to visit
the constituents of the London Missionary Society in all parts of the
kingdom. The want of an Institution for the education of the daughters of
missionaries having been strongly felt, he took a leading part in the
establishment of a school for that purpose in the village of Walthamstow,
where he had become connected with the congregational church. In 1841, the
loss of health having obliged the Rev. William Ellis to relinquish his
official connection with the London Missionary Society, he was appointed
foreign secretary, and appeared at the annual meeting of that year in that
capacity, and shared with Dr. Tidman the labor of reading the report. How
faithfully he fulfilled the duties of that office at home, and at what risk
of health and life he sought, in a late voyage to the Mauritius, and
journey throughout Southern Africa, to inform himself and the Society of
the true state of affairs, both in Madagascar and Caffraria, his
publications will show.
* * * * *
JAMES RICHARDSON, the enterprising African traveller, died on the 4th of
March last, at a small village called Ungurutua, six days distant from
Kouka, the capital of Bornou. Early in January, he and the companions of
his mission, Drs. Barth and Overweg, arrived at the immense plain of
Damergou, when, after remaining a few days, they separated, Dr. Barth
proceeding to Kanu, Dr. Overweg to Guber, and Mr. Richardson taking the
direct route to Kouka, by Zinde. There it would seem his strength began to
give way, and before he had arrived twelve days' distance from Kouka, he
became seriously ill, suffering much from the oppressive heat of the sun.
Having reached a large town called Kangarras, he halted three days, and
feeling himself refreshed he renewed his journey. After two days, during
which his weakness greatly increased, he arrived at the Waddy Mallaha.
Leaving this place on the 3d of March, he reached in two hours the village
of Ungurutua, when he became so weak that he was unable to proceed. In the
evening he took a little food and tried to sleep--but became very restless,
and left his tent supported by his servant. He then took some tea and threw
himself again on his bed, but did not sleep. His attendants having made
some coffee, he asked for a cup, but had no strength to hold it. He
repeated several times, "I have no strength;" and after having pronounced
the name of his wife, sighed deeply, and expired without a struggle about
two hours after midnight. Early in the morning, the body wrapped in linen,
and covered with a carpet, was borne to a grave four feet deep, under the
shade of a large tree, close to the village, followed by all the principal
Sheichs and people of the district.
* * * * *
Those who have read--and very few persons of middle age in this country
have not read--the interesting and somewhat apocryphal narrative of Captain
Riley's shipwreck on the coast of Africa and long experience of suffering
as a slave among the Arabs, will remember the amiable British Consul of
Mogadore, in Barbary, Mr. WILLIAM WILLSHIRE. While Capt. Riley, Mr.
Robbins, and others of the crew of the "Commerce" (which was the name of
the American ship that was wrecked), were in the midst of the great desert,
in utter helplessness, Mr. Willshire heard of some of them, and came to
their relief with money and provisions, and paid, himself, the price of
their ransom, redeeming them from an otherwise perpetual captivity. He took
the afflicted and worn-out Americans to his own house at Mogadore, made
them, after long suffering and privation, enjoy the luxuries of a bed and
the comforts of a home, his wife and daughters uniting with him to
alleviate their sufferings, and he afterwards supplied them with the
necessary money and provided them the means of a return to their own
country. Riley, in the latter part of his life, settled in Ohio, where the
name of _Willshire_ has been given to the town in which he lived, and we
believe our government made some demonstration of the general feeling of
gratefulness with which the American people regarded Mr. Willshire's noble
conduct in this case. Mr. Willshire was a model for consuls, and was kept
constantly in service by his government. Several years ago he was appointed
to Adrianople, where he died suddenly, at an advanced age, on the 4th of
August.
The Paris papers announce the death at the age of seventy-six, of M. J. R.
DUBOIS,--director successively of the _Gaîté_, the _Porte-Saint-Martin_,
and the _Opéra_, under the Restoration,--and author of a great variety of
pieces played in the different theatres of Paris thirty or forty years ago.
GUSTAV CARLIN, the author of several historical essays, and a novel founded
on Mexican legends, died in Berlin on the 15th of September, aged
sixty-nine. He resided several years in New-York, we believe as a political
correspondent of some German newspaper.
Ladies' Autumn Fashions.
The light dresses of the summer, with unimportant apparent changes, were
retained this year later than usual, but at length the more sober colors
and heavier material of the autumn have taken their places. There are
indications that furs will be much worn this season, and there are a
variety of new patterns. We select--
[Illustration]
I. _The Palatine Royale in Ermine_, for illustration and description. The
palatine royale is a fur victorine of novel form, and it may fairly claim
precedence as being the first article of winter costume prepared in
anticipation of the approaching change of season. The addition of a hood,
which is lined with quilted silk, and bound with a band of ermine, not only
adds to its warmth, but renders it exceedingly convenient for the opera and
theatres. This hood, we may mention, can be fixed on and removed at
pleasure; an obvious advantage, which no lady will fail to appreciate. To
the lower part of the hood is attached a large white silk tassel. We must
direct particular attention to the new fastening attached to the palatine
royale. This fastening is formed of an India-rubber band and steel clasp,
by means of which the palatine will fit comfortably to the throat of any
lady. The band and clasp being in the inside are not visible, and on the
outside there is an elegant fancy ornament of white silk, of the
description which the French call a brandebourg.
[Illustration]
II. _A Palatine in Sable_, has the same form and make as that just
described, except that our engraving shows the back of one made of sable
instead of ermine. The hood is lined with brown sable-colored silk, and the
tassel and brandebourg are of silk of the same color. We need scarcely
mention that the color employed for lining the hood, and for the silk
ornaments, is wholly optional, and may be determined by the taste of the
wearer.
[Illustration]
The first figure in the above engraving, displays a very handsome _Walking
Dress_. It is of steel-color _poult de soie_, trimmed in a very novel and
elegant style with bouillonnées of ribbon. The ribbon employed for these
bouillonnées is steel color, figured and edged with lilac. The
bouillonnées, which are disposed as side-trimmings on the skirt of the
dress, are set on in rows obliquely, and graduated in length, the lowest
now being about a quarter of a yard long. The corsage is a pardessus of the
same material as the dress; the basque slit up at each side, and the
pardessus edged all round with ribbon bouillonnée. The sleeves are
demi-long, and loose at the ends, and slit up on the outside of the arm.
Loose under-sleeves of muslin, edged with a double frill of needlework. The
pardessus has under-fronts of white cambric or coutil, thus presenting
precisely the effect of a gentleman's waistcoat. This gilet corsage, as it
is termed by the French dressmakers, has recently been gaining rapid favor
among the Parisian belles. That which our illustration represents has a row
of buttons up the front, and a pocket at each side. It is open at the upper
part, showing a chemisette of lace. Bonnet of fancy straw and crinoline in
alternate rows, lined with drawn white silk, and trimmed with white ribbon.
On one side, a white knotted feather. Undertrimming, bouquets of white and
lilac flowers, mixed with white tulle. Over this dress may be worn a rich
India cashmere shawl.
In the second figure we have an example of the heavy and large plaided
silks, and generally our latest Parisian plates, like this, exhibit the use
of deep fringes. Flounces of ribbon are in vogue to a degree, but are not
likely to be much worn.
It will be seen by the first figure on this page that the European ladies
are approximating to the styles of gentlemen in the upper parts of their
costume, as American women seem disposed to imitation in the matter of
inexpressibles. Attempts to introduce the style of dress worn by the lower
orders of women in Northern Europe have failed as decidedly in England as
in this country.
End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The International Monthly, Volume 4,
No. 4, November 1, 1851, by Various
*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK INTERNATIONAL MONTHLY, NOV 1, 1851 ***
***** This file should be named 37904-8.txt or 37904-8.zip *****
This and all associated files of various formats will be found in:
https://www.gutenberg.org/3/7/9/0/37904/
Produced by Joshua Hutchinson, Josephine Paolucci and the
Online Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net.
(This file was produced from images generously made
available by Cornell University Digital Collections.)
Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions
will be renamed.
Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no
one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation
(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without
permission and without paying copyright royalties. Special rules,
set forth in the General Terms of Use part of this license, apply to
copying and distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works to
protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm concept and trademark. Project
Gutenberg is a registered trademark, and may not be used if you
charge for the eBooks, unless you receive specific permission. If you
do not charge anything for copies of this eBook, complying with the
rules is very easy. You may use this eBook for nearly any purpose
such as creation of derivative works, reports, performances and
research. They may be modified and printed and given away--you may do
practically ANYTHING with public domain eBooks. Redistribution is
subject to the trademark license, especially commercial
redistribution.
*** START: FULL LICENSE ***
THE FULL PROJECT GUTENBERG LICENSE
PLEASE READ THIS BEFORE YOU DISTRIBUTE OR USE THIS WORK
To protect the Project Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting the free
distribution of electronic works, by using or distributing this work
(or any other work associated in any way with the phrase "Project
Gutenberg"), you agree to comply with all the terms of the Full Project
Gutenberg-tm License (available with this file or online at
https://gutenberg.org/license).
Section 1. General Terms of Use and Redistributing Project Gutenberg-tm
electronic works
1.A. By reading or using any part of this Project Gutenberg-tm
electronic work, you indicate that you have read, understand, agree to
and accept all the terms of this license and intellectual property
(trademark/copyright) agreement. If you do not agree to abide by all
the terms of this agreement, you must cease using and return or destroy
all copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in your possession.
If you paid a fee for obtaining a copy of or access to a Project
Gutenberg-tm electronic work and you do not agree to be bound by the
terms of this agreement, you may obtain a refund from the person or
entity to whom you paid the fee as set forth in paragraph 1.E.8.
1.B. "Project Gutenberg" is a registered trademark. It may only be
used on or associated in any way with an electronic work by people who
agree to be bound by the terms of this agreement. There are a few
things that you can do with most Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works
even without complying with the full terms of this agreement. See
paragraph 1.C below. There are a lot of things you can do with Project
Gutenberg-tm electronic works if you follow the terms of this agreement
and help preserve free future access to Project Gutenberg-tm electronic
works. See paragraph 1.E below.
1.C. The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation ("the Foundation"
or PGLAF), owns a compilation copyright in the collection of Project
Gutenberg-tm electronic works. Nearly all the individual works in the
collection are in the public domain in the United States. If an
individual work is in the public domain in the United States and you are
located in the United States, we do not claim a right to prevent you from
copying, distributing, performing, displaying or creating derivative
works based on the work as long as all references to Project Gutenberg
are removed. Of course, we hope that you will support the Project
Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting free access to electronic works by
freely sharing Project Gutenberg-tm works in compliance with the terms of
this agreement for keeping the Project Gutenberg-tm name associated with
the work. You can easily comply with the terms of this agreement by
keeping this work in the same format with its attached full Project
Gutenberg-tm License when you share it without charge with others.
1.D. The copyright laws of the place where you are located also govern
what you can do with this work. Copyright laws in most countries are in
a constant state of change. If you are outside the United States, check
the laws of your country in addition to the terms of this agreement
before downloading, copying, displaying, performing, distributing or
creating derivative works based on this work or any other Project
Gutenberg-tm work. The Foundation makes no representations concerning
the copyright status of any work in any country outside the United
States.
1.E. Unless you have removed all references to Project Gutenberg:
1.E.1. The following sentence, with active links to, or other immediate
access to, the full Project Gutenberg-tm License must appear prominently
whenever any copy of a Project Gutenberg-tm work (any work on which the
phrase "Project Gutenberg" appears, or with which the phrase "Project
Gutenberg" is associated) is accessed, displayed, performed, viewed,
copied or distributed:
This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or
re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
1.E.2. If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is derived
from the public domain (does not contain a notice indicating that it is
posted with permission of the copyright holder), the work can be copied
and distributed to anyone in the United States without paying any fees
or charges. If you are redistributing or providing access to a work
with the phrase "Project Gutenberg" associated with or appearing on the
work, you must comply either with the requirements of paragraphs 1.E.1
through 1.E.7 or obtain permission for the use of the work and the
Project Gutenberg-tm trademark as set forth in paragraphs 1.E.8 or
1.E.9.
1.E.3. If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is posted
with the permission of the copyright holder, your use and distribution
must comply with both paragraphs 1.E.1 through 1.E.7 and any additional
terms imposed by the copyright holder. Additional terms will be linked
to the Project Gutenberg-tm License for all works posted with the
permission of the copyright holder found at the beginning of this work.
1.E.4. Do not unlink or detach or remove the full Project Gutenberg-tm
License terms from this work, or any files containing a part of this
work or any other work associated with Project Gutenberg-tm.
1.E.5. Do not copy, display, perform, distribute or redistribute this
electronic work, or any part of this electronic work, without
prominently displaying the sentence set forth in paragraph 1.E.1 with
active links or immediate access to the full terms of the Project
Gutenberg-tm License.
1.E.6. You may convert to and distribute this work in any binary,
compressed, marked up, nonproprietary or proprietary form, including any
word processing or hypertext form. However, if you provide access to or
distribute copies of a Project Gutenberg-tm work in a format other than
"Plain Vanilla ASCII" or other format used in the official version
posted on the official Project Gutenberg-tm web site (www.gutenberg.org),
you must, at no additional cost, fee or expense to the user, provide a
copy, a means of exporting a copy, or a means of obtaining a copy upon
request, of the work in its original "Plain Vanilla ASCII" or other
form. Any alternate format must include the full Project Gutenberg-tm
License as specified in paragraph 1.E.1.
1.E.7. Do not charge a fee for access to, viewing, displaying,
performing, copying or distributing any Project Gutenberg-tm works
unless you comply with paragraph 1.E.8 or 1.E.9.
1.E.8. You may charge a reasonable fee for copies of or providing
access to or distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works provided
that
- You pay a royalty fee of 20% of the gross profits you derive from
the use of Project Gutenberg-tm works calculated using the method
you already use to calculate your applicable taxes. The fee is
owed to the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark, but he
has agreed to donate royalties under this paragraph to the
Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation. Royalty payments
must be paid within 60 days following each date on which you
prepare (or are legally required to prepare) your periodic tax
returns. Royalty payments should be clearly marked as such and
sent to the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation at the
address specified in Section 4, "Information about donations to
the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation."
- You provide a full refund of any money paid by a user who notifies
you in writing (or by e-mail) within 30 days of receipt that s/he
does not agree to the terms of the full Project Gutenberg-tm
License. You must require such a user to return or
destroy all copies of the works possessed in a physical medium
and discontinue all use of and all access to other copies of
Project Gutenberg-tm works.
- You provide, in accordance with paragraph 1.F.3, a full refund of any
money paid for a work or a replacement copy, if a defect in the
electronic work is discovered and reported to you within 90 days
of receipt of the work.
- You comply with all other terms of this agreement for free
distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm works.
1.E.9. If you wish to charge a fee or distribute a Project Gutenberg-tm
electronic work or group of works on different terms than are set
forth in this agreement, you must obtain permission in writing from
both the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation and Michael
Hart, the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark. Contact the
Foundation as set forth in Section 3 below.
1.F.
1.F.1. Project Gutenberg volunteers and employees expend considerable
effort to identify, do copyright research on, transcribe and proofread
public domain works in creating the Project Gutenberg-tm
collection. Despite these efforts, Project Gutenberg-tm electronic
works, and the medium on which they may be stored, may contain
"Defects," such as, but not limited to, incomplete, inaccurate or
corrupt data, transcription errors, a copyright or other intellectual
property infringement, a defective or damaged disk or other medium, a
computer virus, or computer codes that damage or cannot be read by
your equipment.
1.F.2. LIMITED WARRANTY, DISCLAIMER OF DAMAGES - Except for the "Right
of Replacement or Refund" described in paragraph 1.F.3, the Project
Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation, the owner of the Project
Gutenberg-tm trademark, and any other party distributing a Project
Gutenberg-tm electronic work under this agreement, disclaim all
liability to you for damages, costs and expenses, including legal
fees. YOU AGREE THAT YOU HAVE NO REMEDIES FOR NEGLIGENCE, STRICT
LIABILITY, BREACH OF WARRANTY OR BREACH OF CONTRACT EXCEPT THOSE
PROVIDED IN PARAGRAPH 1.F.3. YOU AGREE THAT THE FOUNDATION, THE
TRADEMARK OWNER, AND ANY DISTRIBUTOR UNDER THIS AGREEMENT WILL NOT BE
LIABLE TO YOU FOR ACTUAL, DIRECT, INDIRECT, CONSEQUENTIAL, PUNITIVE OR
INCIDENTAL DAMAGES EVEN IF YOU GIVE NOTICE OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH
DAMAGE.
1.F.3. LIMITED RIGHT OF REPLACEMENT OR REFUND - If you discover a
defect in this electronic work within 90 days of receiving it, you can
receive a refund of the money (if any) you paid for it by sending a
written explanation to the person you received the work from. If you
received the work on a physical medium, you must return the medium with
your written explanation. The person or entity that provided you with
the defective work may elect to provide a replacement copy in lieu of a
refund. If you received the work electronically, the person or entity
providing it to you may choose to give you a second opportunity to
receive the work electronically in lieu of a refund. If the second copy
is also defective, you may demand a refund in writing without further
opportunities to fix the problem.
1.F.4. Except for the limited right of replacement or refund set forth
in paragraph 1.F.3, this work is provided to you 'AS-IS' WITH NO OTHER
WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO
WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTIBILITY OR FITNESS FOR ANY PURPOSE.
1.F.5. Some states do not allow disclaimers of certain implied
warranties or the exclusion or limitation of certain types of damages.
If any disclaimer or limitation set forth in this agreement violates the
law of the state applicable to this agreement, the agreement shall be
interpreted to make the maximum disclaimer or limitation permitted by
the applicable state law. The invalidity or unenforceability of any
provision of this agreement shall not void the remaining provisions.
1.F.6. INDEMNITY - You agree to indemnify and hold the Foundation, the
trademark owner, any agent or employee of the Foundation, anyone
providing copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in accordance
with this agreement, and any volunteers associated with the production,
promotion and distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works,
harmless from all liability, costs and expenses, including legal fees,
that arise directly or indirectly from any of the following which you do
or cause to occur: (a) distribution of this or any Project Gutenberg-tm
work, (b) alteration, modification, or additions or deletions to any
Project Gutenberg-tm work, and (c) any Defect you cause.
Section 2. Information about the Mission of Project Gutenberg-tm
Project Gutenberg-tm is synonymous with the free distribution of
electronic works in formats readable by the widest variety of computers
including obsolete, old, middle-aged and new computers. It exists
because of the efforts of hundreds of volunteers and donations from
people in all walks of life.
Volunteers and financial support to provide volunteers with the
assistance they need are critical to reaching Project Gutenberg-tm's
goals and ensuring that the Project Gutenberg-tm collection will
remain freely available for generations to come. In 2001, the Project
Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation was created to provide a secure
and permanent future for Project Gutenberg-tm and future generations.
To learn more about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation
and how your efforts and donations can help, see Sections 3 and 4
and the Foundation web page at https://www.pglaf.org.
Section 3. Information about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive
Foundation
The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation is a non profit
501(c)(3) educational corporation organized under the laws of the
state of Mississippi and granted tax exempt status by the Internal
Revenue Service. The Foundation's EIN or federal tax identification
number is 64-6221541. Its 501(c)(3) letter is posted at
https://pglaf.org/fundraising. Contributions to the Project Gutenberg
Literary Archive Foundation are tax deductible to the full extent
permitted by U.S. federal laws and your state's laws.
The Foundation's principal office is located at 4557 Melan Dr. S.
Fairbanks, AK, 99712., but its volunteers and employees are scattered
throughout numerous locations. Its business office is located at
809 North 1500 West, Salt Lake City, UT 84116, (801) 596-1887, email
[email protected]. Email contact links and up to date contact
information can be found at the Foundation's web site and official
page at https://pglaf.org
For additional contact information:
Dr. Gregory B. Newby
Chief Executive and Director
[email protected]
Section 4. Information about Donations to the Project Gutenberg
Literary Archive Foundation
Project Gutenberg-tm depends upon and cannot survive without wide
spread public support and donations to carry out its mission of
increasing the number of public domain and licensed works that can be
freely distributed in machine readable form accessible by the widest
array of equipment including outdated equipment. Many small donations
($1 to $5,000) are particularly important to maintaining tax exempt
status with the IRS.
The Foundation is committed to complying with the laws regulating
charities and charitable donations in all 50 states of the United
States. Compliance requirements are not uniform and it takes a
considerable effort, much paperwork and many fees to meet and keep up
with these requirements. We do not solicit donations in locations
where we have not received written confirmation of compliance. To
SEND DONATIONS or determine the status of compliance for any
particular state visit https://pglaf.org
While we cannot and do not solicit contributions from states where we
have not met the solicitation requirements, we know of no prohibition
against accepting unsolicited donations from donors in such states who
approach us with offers to donate.
International donations are gratefully accepted, but we cannot make
any statements concerning tax treatment of donations received from
outside the United States. U.S. laws alone swamp our small staff.
Please check the Project Gutenberg Web pages for current donation
methods and addresses. Donations are accepted in a number of other
ways including including checks, online payments and credit card
donations. To donate, please visit: https://pglaf.org/donate
Section 5. General Information About Project Gutenberg-tm electronic
works.
Professor Michael S. Hart was the originator of the Project Gutenberg-tm
concept of a library of electronic works that could be freely shared
with anyone. For thirty years, he produced and distributed Project
Gutenberg-tm eBooks with only a loose network of volunteer support.
Project Gutenberg-tm eBooks are often created from several printed
editions, all of which are confirmed as Public Domain in the U.S.
unless a copyright notice is included. Thus, we do not necessarily
keep eBooks in compliance with any particular paper edition.
Most people start at our Web site which has the main PG search facility:
https://www.gutenberg.org
This Web site includes information about Project Gutenberg-tm,
including how to make donations to the Project Gutenberg Literary
Archive Foundation, how to help produce our new eBooks, and how to
subscribe to our email newsletter to hear about new eBooks.
