From suns that never more go down.'
He had a languid but not unpleasing melancholy about his life, which
entered into his verse, and moaned from every vibration of his
excelling lyre. How beautiful--how touching--how mournful, are these
bodings in his song:
'Give not to me the wreath of green--
The blooming vase of flowers;
They breathe of joy that once hath been--
Of gone and faded hours.
I cannot love the rose; though rich,
Its beauty will not last;
Give me, oh! give the bloom, o'er which
The early blight hath passed:
The yellow buds--give them to rest
On my cold brow and joyless breast,
Where life is failing fast.
'Take far from me the wine-cup bright,
In hours of revelry;
It suits glad brows, and bosoms light--
It is not meet for me;
Oh! I can pledge the heart no more,
I pledged in days gone by;
Sorrow hath touch'd my bosom's core,
And I am left to die:
Give me to drink of Lethe's wave--
Give me the lone and silent grave,
O'er which the night-winds sigh!
'Wake not, upon my tuneless ear,
Soft music's stealing strain:
It cannot soothe, it cannot cheer,
This anguish'd heart again:
But place th' æolian harp upon
The tomb of her I love;
There, when heaven shrouds the dying sun,
My weary steps will rove;
As o'er its chords night pours its breath,
To list the serenade of death,
Her silent bourne above!
'Give me to seek that lonely tomb,
Where sleeps the sainted dead.
Now the pale night-fall throws its gloom
Upon her narrow bed;
There, while the winds which sweep along
O'er the harp-strings are driven,
And the funereal soul of song
Upon the air is given,
Oh! let my faint and parting breath
Be mingled with that song of death,
And flee with it to heaven!'
* * * * *
ONE picks up a marvellous degree of gratuitous and most novel
information, from the miscellaneous people who pass hither and
thither in steam-craft. Bits of knowledge strike you unaware; and
if you believe it, you will be a much wiser man, when you greet the
morrow morn after a day's travel. For example, when we had passed the
shadowy highlands, and the Catskills were seen heaving their broad
blue shoulders against the brilliant horizon, a man with a pot-belly,
in a round-about, with a bell-crowned hat, over which was drawn a
green oil-skin, shading his tallowy cheeks, and most rubicund nose,
approached my side, and interrupted my reverie, by volunteering
some intelligence. 'Them is very respectable mountains,' he said,
'but a man don't know nothin' about articles of that kind, unless
he sees the tower of Scotland. I am not, as you may likely be about
to inquire, a natyve of that country; but I have saw friends which
has been there; and furthermore, the mountains there was all named
after relations of mine, by the mother's side. At present, all them
elewated sections of country is nick-named. Now the name of Ben.
Lomond has been curtailed into an abbreviation. That hill was named
after an uncle of my grandfather's, Benjamin Lomond. Ben. Nevis was
a brother of my grandmother's, who had the same given name; and a
better man than Benjamin Nevis never broke bread, or got up in the
morning. From all accounts, he was consid'rable wealthy, at one time;
though I've hear'n tell since, that he was a busted man. But just to
think of all them perversions! Isn't it 'orrid?' With this and other
information did this glorious volunteer in history break in upon my
musings; and when he turned upon his heel, and clattered away, he
left me with an impression of his visage in my mind akin to that
which the fat knight entertained of Bardolph: 'Thou art our admiral;
thou bearest the lantern in the nose of thee; thou art the knight of
the burning lamp. I never see thy face, but I think of hell-fire, and
Dives, that lived in purple; for there he is in his robes, burning,
burning.'
* * * * *
YOU would scarcely think, arrived at Catskill Landing, on the Hudson,
just before you enter the coach which conveys you to the mountain,
that any extraordinary prospect was about to open upon your vision.
True, as when on the water, the great cloud Presence looms afar; yet
there is a long level country between it and you; and it is too early
in the day to drink in the grandeur of the scene. You are content
with watching the complex operations of that aquatic and equestrian
mystery, a horse-boat, which plies from the humble tavern at the
water's edge to the other shore of the Hudson. The animals give a
consumptive wheeze, as they start, stretching out their long necks,
indulging in faint recollections of that happy juvenescence, when
they wasted the hours of their colthood in pastures of clover, and
moving with a kind of unambitious sprawl, as if they cared but little
whether they stood or fell; a turn of mind which induces them to stir
their forward legs more glibly than those in the opposite quarter,
quickening the former from pride, and 'contracting the latter from
motives of decency.' This is said to be their philosophy; and they
act upon it with a religious devotion, 'worthy a better cause.'
* * * * *
AS you move along from the landing, by pleasant and quiet waters, and
through scenes of pastoral tranquillity, you seem to be threading a
road which leads through a peaceful and variegated plain. You lose
the memory of the highlands and the river, in the thought that you
are taking a journey into a country as level as the lowliest land in
Jersey. Sometimes, the mountains, as you turn a point of the road,
appear afar; but 'are they clouds, or are they not?' By the mass, you
shall hardly tell. Meantime, you are a _plain_-traveller--a quiet
man. All at once you are wheeled upon a vernal theatre, some five or
six miles in width, at whose extremity the bases of the Catskills
'gin to rise. How impressive the westering sunshine, sifting itself
down the mighty ravines and hollows, and tinting the far-off
summits with aërial light! How majestic yet soft the gradations
from the ponderous grandeur of the formation, up--up--to the giddy
and delicate shadowings, which dimly veil and sanctify their tops,
as 'sacristies of nature,' where the cedar rocks to the wind, and
the screaming eagle snaps his mandibles, as he sweeps a circuit of
miles with one full impulse of his glorious wing! Contrasting the
roughness of the basis with the printed beauty of the iris-hued and
skïey ultimatum, I could not but deem that the bard of 'Thanatopsis'
had well applied to the Catskills those happy lines wherein he
apostrophizes the famous heights of Europe:
'Your peaks are beautiful, ye Appenines,
In the soft light of your serenest skies;
From the broad highland region, dark with pines,
Fair as the hills of paradise, ye rise!'
* * * * *
BE not too eager, as you take the first stage of the mountain, to
look about you; especially, be not anxious to look _afar_. Now and
then, it is true, as the coach turns, you cannot choose but see a
landscape, to the south and east, _farther off_ than you ever saw one
before, broken up into a thousand vistas; but look you at them with
a sleepy, sidelong eye, to the end that you may finally receive from
_the Platform_ the full glory of the final view. In the mean time,
there is enough directly about you to employ all your eyes, if you
had the ocular endowments of an Argus. Huge rocks, that might have
been sent from warring Titans, decked with moss, overhung with rugged
shrubbery, and cooling the springs that trickle from beneath them
gloom beside the way; vast chasms, which your coach shall sometimes
seem to overhang, yawn on the left; the pine and cedar-scented air
comes freely and sweetly from the brown bosom of the woods; until,
one high ascent attained, a level for a while succeeds, and your
smoking horses rest, while, with expanding nostril, you drink in
the rarer and yet rarer air; a stillness like the peace of Eden,
(broken only by the whisper of leaves, the faint chant of embowered
birds, or the distant notes that come 'mellowed and mingling from
the vale below,') hangs at the portal of your ear. It is a time
to be still--to be contemplative--to hear no voice but your own
ejaculations, or those of one who will share and heighten your
enjoyment, by partaking it in peace, and as one with you, yet alone.
* * * * *
PASSING the ravine, where the immortal Rip Van Winkle played his
game of nine-pins with the wizards of that neighborhood, and quaffed
huge draughts of those bewildering flagons, which made him sleep for
years, I flung myself impatiently from the 'quarter-deck' of the
postillion whose place I had shared; I grasped that goodly globe of
gold and ivory which heads my customary cane--the present of 'My Hon.
friend' S----, and which once drew into itself the sustenance of life
from that hallowed mound which guards the dust of WASHINGTON--and
pushed gaily on, determined to pause not, until my weary feet stood
on the Platform. The road was smooth and good; the air refreshing and
pure, beyond description. The lungs play there without an effort;
it is a luxury to breathe. How holy was the stillness! Not a sound
invaded the solemn air; it was like inhaling the sanctity of the
empyrean. The forest tops soon began to stir with a mighty wind. I
looked, and on both sides of the road there were trees whose branches
had been broken, as if by the wings of some rushing tempest. It was
the havoc of winter snows.
* * * * *
THERE is a wonderful deception in the approach to the Mountain-House,
which, when discovered, will strike the traveller with amazement. At
one point of the road, where the mansion which is to terminate your
pilgrimage heaves its white form in view, (you have seen it from the
river for nearly half a day,) it seems not farther than a hundred
rods, and hangs apparently on the verge of a stupendous crag over
your head; the road turns again, it is out of sight, and the summits,
near its _locus in quo_, are nearly three miles off. The effect is
wonderful. The mountain is _growing upon you_.
I continued to ascend, slowly, but with patient steps, and with a
flow of spirit which I cannot describe. Looking occasionally to the
east, I saw a line of such parti-colored clouds, (as then I deemed
them,) yellow, green, and purple, silver-laced, and violet-bordered,
that it meseemed I never viewed the like kaleidoscopic presentments.
All this time, I wondered that I had seen no land for many a weary
mile.
Hill after hill, mere ridges of the mountain, was attained--summit
after summit surmounted--and yet it seemed to me that the house
was as far off as ever. Finally it appeared, and a-nigh; to me the
'earth's one sanctuary.' I reached it; my name was on the book; the
queries of the publican, as to 'how many coach-loads were behind,'
(symptoms of a yearning for the almighty dollar, even in this holy of
nature's holies) were answered, and I stood on the Platform.
* * * * *
GOOD READER!--expect me not to describe the indescribable. I feel
now, while memory is busy in my brain, in the silence of my library,
calling up that vision to my mind, much as I did when I leaned upon
my staff before that omnipotent picture, and looked abroad upon its
God-written magnitude. It was a vast and changeful, a majestic, an
_interminable_ landscape; a fairy, grand, and delicately-colored
scene, with rivers for its lines of reflection; with highlands and
the vales of _states_ for its shadowings, and far-off mountains for
its frame. Those parti-colored and varying clouds I fancied I had
seen as I ascended, were but portions of the scene. All colors of
the rainbow--all softness of harvest-field, and forest, and distant
cities, and the towns that simply dotted the Hudson--and far beyond
where that noble river, diminished to a brooklet, rolled its waters,
there opened mountain after mountain, vale after vale, state after
state, heaved against the horizon, to the north-east and south, in
impressive and sublime confusion; while _still beyond_, in undulating
ridges, filled with all hues of light and shade, coquetting with the
cloud, rolled the rock-ribbed and ancient frame of this dim diorama.
As the sun went down, the houses and cities diminished to dots; the
evening guns of the national anniversary came booming up from the
valley of the Hudson; the bonfires blazed along the peaks of distant
mountains, and from the suburbs of countless villages along the
river; while in the dim twilight,
'From coast to coast, and from town to town,
You could see all the white sails gleaming down.'
The steam-boats, hastening to and fro, vomited their fires upon the
air, and the circuit of unnumbered miles sent up its sights and
sounds, from the region below, over which the vast shadows of the
mountains were stealing.
Just before the sun dropped behind the west, his slant beams poured
over the south mountain, and fell upon a wide sea of feathery clouds,
which were sweeping midway along its form, obscuring the vale below.
I sought an eminence in the neighborhood, and with the sun at my
back, saw a giant form depicted in a misty halo on the clouds below.
He was identified--insubstantial but extensive Shape! I stretched
forth my hand, and the giant spectre waved his shadowy arm over the
whole county of Dutchess, through the misty atmosphere; while just
at his supernatural coat-tail, a shower of light played upon the
highlands, verging toward West Point, on the river, which are to the
eye, from the Mountain-House, level slips of shore, that seem scarce
so gross as knolls of the smallest size.
* * * * *
OF the grandeur of the Catskills at sunrise; of the patriotic blazon
which our bonfire made on the Fourth, at evening; of the Falls, and
certain pecuniary trickeries connected with their grim majesty, and a
general digest of the stupendous scene, shall these not be discoursed
hereafter, and in truthful wise? Yea, reader, verily, and from the
note-book of thine, faithful to the end,
OLLAPOD.
TO THE NEW MOON.
FAIR gem on the dark brow of night,
Fancy springs up, exulting, to greet thee;
But purer than thine is the light
Of the eye smiling gladly to meet me.
It is glowing--thy crescent, late pale,
Is glowing, like spray on the ocean:
But lovelier far, through its veil,
Steals the light of Love's secret emotion.
_New-York, August, 1837._ JAMES F. OTIS.
LITERARY NOTICES.
MEMOIRS, CORRESPONDENCE, AND MANUSCRIPTS, OF GENERAL LAFAYETTE.
Published by his Family. Volume One. pp. 552. With a Portrait.
New-York: SAUNDERS AND OTLEY.
WE gather from an advertisement of the American editor of this
large and beautiful volume, WILLIAM A. DUER, Esq., that it was the
desire of LAFAYETTE that it should be considered as a legacy to the
American people. In carrying his wishes into effect, therefore, his
representatives have furnished a separate edition for this country,
in which are inserted many letters that will not appear in the
London and Paris editions, together with numerous details relating
to the American revolution. The letters referred to, were written by
LAFAYETTE, in the course of his first residence in America, when he
was little accustomed to write in the English language, and are given
exactly as they came from his pen. We need not add, that they are
replete with interest.
The general history of the great Apostle of Liberty is familiar to
the American people. In a brief notice of the volume before us,
therefore, we shall select a few only of such passages as have more
particularly impressed us, in a desultory perusal. The annexed
paragraph, from the opening of the memoir, is characteristic. The
writer, though indulging a secret project of arming and despatching
a vessel to this country, to aid the struggling colonies, is
nevertheless obliged, the better to conceal his designs, to take a
journey to England:
"I could not refuse to go, without risking the discovery of my
secret, and by consenting to take this journey, I knew I could
better conceal my preparations for a greater one. This last
measure was also thought most expedient by MM. Franklin and
Deane; for the doctor himself was then in France; and although
I did not venture to go to his home, for fear of being seen,
I corresponded with him through M. Carmichael, an American
less generally known. I arrived in London with M. de Poix;
and I first paid my respects to Bancroft, the American, and
afterwards to his British Majesty. A youth of nineteen may
be, perhaps, too fond of playing a trick upon the king he is
going to fight with--of dancing at the house of Lord Germain,
minister for the English colonies, and at the house of Lord
Rawdon, who had just returned from New-York--and of seeing
at the opera that Clinton whom he was afterwards to meet at
Monmouth. But whilst I concealed my intentions, I openly avowed
my sentiments; I often defended the Americans; I rejoiced at
their success at Trenton; and my spirit of opposition obtained
for me an invitation to breakfast with Lord Shelbourne. I
refused the offers made me to visit the sea-ports, the vessels
fitting out against the _rebels_, and every thing that might
be construed into an abuse of confidence. At the end of three
weeks, when it became necessary for me to return home, whilst
refusing my uncle, the ambassador, to accompany him to court,
I confided to him my strong desire to take a trip to Paris. He
proposed saying that I was ill during my absence, I should not
have made use of this stratagem myself, but I did not object to
his doing so."
In reading, from his own pen, the account of his leaving France--the
violent and peremptory letters from his family and government,
denouncing his purpose, and demanding its relinquishment--the grief
of his lovely wife, soon to become a mother--we are reminded of
that forcible tribute of SPRAGUE to this lofty disinterestedness,
than which nothing in the English language is more touching and
felicitous. Though doubtless familiar to many of our readers, we
cannot resist the inclination to quote a single appropriate passage:
'He left,' says he, 'the blushing vine-hills of his delightful
France. The people whom he came to succour were not _his_ people;
he knew them only in the wicked story of their wrongs. He was no
mercenary wretch, striving for the spoils of the vanquished; he
ranked among nobles, and looked unawed upon kings. He was no nameless
outcast, seeking for a grave to hide his cold heart; his children
were about him--his wife was before him. Yet from all these he turned
away, and came. As the lofty tree shakes down its green glories to
battle with the winter storm, he threw aside the trappings of pride
and place, to crusade for freedom in Freedom's holy land. He came,
not in the day of successful rebellion, when the newly-risen star of
independence had burst the cloud of time, and careered to its place
in the heavens; but he came when darkness curtained the hills, and
the tempest was abroad in its anger; when the plough stood still in
the field of promise, and briars cumbered the garden of beauty; when
the wife was binding up the gashed bosom of her husband, and the
maiden was wiping the death-damp from the brow of her lover; and when
the pious began to doubt the favor of God.'
In the intervals of that heart destroying malady, sea-sickness,
Lafayette employed his time, during the voyage, in acquiring some
knowledge of the English language; and when at last he arrived on
our coast, he found it swarming with hostile vessels, and landed
at midnight at Georgetown, South Carolina. He soon started for
Philadelphia, which he reached after a month's toilsome journey of
nine hundred miles, on horseback. Even here he was met, at first,
with coldness; for, although arriving at an important moment to the
common cause, it was at a period peculiarly unfavorable to strangers:
"The Americans were displeased with the pretensions, and
disgusted with the conduct, of many Frenchmen; the imprudent
selections they had in some cases made, the extreme boldness of
some foreign adventurers, the jealousy of the army, and strong
national prejudices, all contributed to confound disinterested
zeal with private ambition, and talents with quackery.
Supported by the promises which had been given by Mr. Deane,
a numerous band of foreigners besieged the Congress; their
chief was a clever but very imprudent man, and although a good
officer, his excessive vanity amounted almost to madness. With
M. de Lafayette, Mr. Deane had sent out a fresh detachment, and
every day such crowds arrived, that the Congress had finally
adopted the plan of not listening to any stranger. The coldness
with which M. de Lafayette was received, might have been taken
as a dismissal; but, without appearing disconcerted by the
manner in which the deputies addressed him, he entreated them
to return to Congress, and read the following note:
"'After the sacrifices I have made, I have the right to exact
two favors: one is, to serve at my own expense--the other is,
to serve at first as volunteer.'"
"This style, to which they were so little accustomed, awakened
their attention; the despatches from the envoys were read over,
and, in a very flattering resolution, the rank of major-general
was granted to M. de Lafayette."
Here Lafayette beheld, for the first time, the 'Father of his
Country.' 'It was impossible,' says he, 'to mistake, for a moment,
his majestic figure and deportment; nor was he less distinguished by
his noble affability of manner.' The following is a picture of the
American army, at this time stationed a few miles from Philadelphia:
"About eleven thousand men, ill armed, and still worse
clothed, presented a strange spectacle to the eye of the young
Frenchman: their clothes were parti-colored, and many of them
were almost naked; the best clad wore _hunting-shirts_, large
gray linen coats which were much used in Carolina. As to their
military tactics, it will be sufficient to say that, for a
regiment ranged in order of battle to move forward on the right
of its line, it was necessary for the left to make a continued
countermarch. They were always arranged in two lines, the
smallest men in the first line; no other distinction as to
height was ever observed. In spite of these disadvantages, the
soldiers were fine, and the officers zealous; virtue stood in
place of science, and each day added both to experience and
discipline. Lord Stirling, more courageous than judicious,
another general, who was often intoxicated, and Greene,
whose talents were only then known to his immediate friends,
commanded as majors-general. General Knox, who had changed
the profession of bookseller to that of artillery officer,
was there also, and had himself formed other officers, and
created an artillery. 'We must feel embarrassed,' said General
Washington, on his arrival, 'to exhibit ourselves before an
officer who has just quitted French troops.' 'It is to learn
and not to teach, that I come hither,' replied M. de Lafayette;
and that modest tone, which was not common in Europeans,
produced a very good effect."
What freeman can peruse the subjoined, and not feel his heart burn
with a noble pride, that he is an AMERICAN--the offspring of those
whom no temptation could corrupt, no suffering appal, no tyranny
subdue: