It is pretty certain, however that no person on the globe, a

GRAHAM’S MAGAZINE.

Vol. XIX. September, 1841. No. 3.

Contents

Fiction, Literature and Articles

The Fireside

Shakspeare

The Reefer of ’76

Flirtation

The Saxon’s Bridal

Misfortunes of a Timid Gentleman

Never Bet Your Head

Lame For Life, or Leslie Pierpoint

Leaves from a Lawyer’s Port-Folio

Cottage Piety

Sports and Pastimes.—The Fowling-Piece

Review of New Books

Poetry, Music and Fashion

Fragment: Written on the First Coming of Spring

The Wildwood Home

Reproof of a Bird

Oh! A Merry Life Does a Hunter Lead

The Widow’s Wealth

Death

Why Should I Love Thee?

A Belle at a Ball

To Helen

The First Kiss of Love.

My Bonnie Blue-Eyed Lassie, O!

Latest Fashions, September, 1841

Transcriber’s Notes can be found at the end of this eBook.

* * * * *

[Illustration: W. Drummond., Rawdon, Wright, Hatch & Smillie.

_The Cottage Fire-Side._

Engraved expressly for Graham’s Magazine.]

[Illustration: Eng.^d by H. S. Sadd N.Y.

_Cottage Piety._

Engraved for Graham’s Magazine from a Picture by E. Prentice.]

* * * * *

GRAHAM’S MAGAZINE.

Vol. XIX. PHILADELPHIA: SEPTEMBER, 1841. No. 3.

* * * * *

THE FIRESIDE.

It’s rare to see the morning bleeze

Like a bon-fire frae the sea—

It’s fair to see the burnie kiss

The lip o’ the flowery lea—

An’ fine it is on green hill-side,

Where hums the bonny bee—

But rarer, fairer, finer far

Is the _Ingle-Side_ for me.

Glens may be gilt wi’ gowans rare,

The birds may fill the tree,

An’ haughs hae a’ the scented ware

That simmer growth can gie—

But the canty hearth where cronies meet,

An’ the darling o’ our e’e—

That makes to us a warl complete—

O the _Ingle-Side_ for me!

_Old Song._

Who does not remember this glorious old song, with its simple melody,

and well-managed accompaniments that seem to chime in with every word

uttered by the singer, not only upholding him in his sentiment, and

illustrating his positions by all kinds of impressive flourishes, but

absolutely chuckling and caracoling over the unanswerable nature of the

argument? If ever accompaniment expressed a positive certainty that the

words of a song were the truest words in the world, it is this very

accompaniment. It takes it for granted that nobody will dispute its

opinion. It is as dogmatic as Aristotle, or Bob Hobbes, but yet, unlike

them in some respects, it seems always to know pretty well what it is

talking about. The truth is, that there are few persons who can remain

altogether unconvinced by its illustrations, or at least who can remain

unpersuaded by its ingenious manner of setting them forth. We say _its_

illustrations, for any one with half an eye can perceive that the “music

is married to the immortal verse,” and that the twain are one. We speak

of them conjointly when we maintain the force of the song’s

illustrations. What indeed can be more forcibly “put,” as the lawyers

say, (and sometimes the rhetoricians,) than the points of its thesis?

What can be more slyly seducing—what can be more apt to take a body

unawares than allusions to “canty hearths where cronies meet, an’ the

darlins o’ our e’e?” To be sure, the case might have been better made

out if the “morning bleeze” had been kept out of sight, or slurred over

as a thing of no moment. Neither was it judicious to dwell upon the

“flowery lea,” or the “bonny bee,” or the little “birds in the tree,”

and that sort of thing. The song might have taken a hint, too, from our

engraving, and said a word about a girl with blue eyes (we presume they

are blue,) and auburn hair, (we _know_ it is auburn,) and another little

girl and a little boy, both with clean faces, and a dog looking wise at

one side of the ingle, with a tabby cat at the other, watching chesnuts

in the act of being roasted, and congratulating herself that no fabulous

monkey is present to make use of her fair hand as a cat’s paw. All this

the song might have forcibly introduced—but we presume it did its best,

and we are obliged to it.

Still, we are not convinced. We were never convinced of anything in our

lives, and never intend to be convinced, for excellent reasons. It is

said there were once seven wise men—a matter which may be very well

doubted. But, admitting this point, it was of course one of the seven

who first promulgated the fact that every question has two sides. Late

discoveries have assured us that it would be no question at all if it

had not. Some questions, indeed, are trigonal, or quadrigonal, or

pentagonal, or sexagonal, or septagonal, or octagonal, or nonagonal.

Some even are polygonal, while others have an infinity of sides like the

mathematical circle, and thus there is found to be no end to them at

all, as is the case with the ordinary circle which every body

understands. These latter are questions about Tariffs, and Boundary

Lines, and National Banks, questions of privilege and drivel-ege, and

Congressional questions of order and disorder, with other matters of

that kind. Most queries, however, appear at first glance to have no more

than two sides; and it is only when we get hard and fast in the middle

of an argument respecting them, so that it is as wrong to go back as it

is preposterous to go forward, that we perceive each of the two sides

which had appeared to a cursory view so staid and so definite, branching

off, like gamblers at _Vingt Un_, into an infinitesimal series of little

divisions, each as distinct and each as perverse as the original ones.

For this reason and others (reasons _are_ as plenty as blackberries,

John Falstaff to the contrary notwithstanding) for this reason and a

thousand others, we keep clear of all argumentative discourses, as it is

impossible to say when or where they may end. By keeping clear of them,

we mean to say that we never indulge in them ourselves. Yet we like them

very well in other people. Nothing amuses us more, for instance, than a

young man who fancies himself a genius in the logical line, and who will

take it upon himself, at a moment’s warning, to demonstrate that two and

three blue beans do not make five. We could listen to him by the hour;

and when at length he comes to find out that the blue-bean question,

pretty much like all other questions, is one of the polygonal species

with infinitesimal sides, we hardly know a more interesting object than

he becomes, especially if you have not been so impolite as to interrupt

him, and he has had all the discourse to himself.

Our retiring habits, in this particular, being thus understood, it will

be seen at once that we have no design of arguing the point with the Old

Song which we have quoted at the head of this paper. We cannot undertake

to support the pretensions of the “flowery lea” against those of the

“chimney corner.” In the case of hill-side versus ingle-side we beg

leave to keep aloof. We do not say with the blue-bean gentlemen that

there is much to be said on _both_ sides of the question; for the truth

is we perceive at a glance that the subject has a wonderful variety of

aspects, each highly important and interesting, and upon every one of

which we could preach a very excellent sermon if occasion required. At a

first view there is only the ordinary double-sided question, whether the

ingle-side be preferable to the hill-side, or the hill-side to the

ingle. But then we have at once in continuation, the concomitant

sub-queries whether the hill-side be a hill-side of donkey-thistle or of

purple heather—whether there be sheep on it or snakes—whether it be

winter or summer—whether it be a rainy day or a sun-shiny one—whether

the ingle be smoky or not smoky—whether, in the latter case, we choose

to be cured like bacon or be left uncured—whether wood or coal be

burnt, and whether, if coal, you have any tendency to what Dr.

Blunderbuzzard calls pulmonary phthisis.

Now each of these sub-queries involves a point of especial importance,

and each of these points must be definitely settled, before we begin to

make up our minds on the main one, and the worst of it is that each of

these points, too, may be subdivided into I cannot tell how many others,

all equally momentous, if not more so, and every one of them to be fully

discussed and permanently decided upon, before we can do anything at all

towards drawing a judicious conclusion. So that in the end we lose both

our way, and our labor, and are forced, in respect to the matter of this

song, to fall back upon one of those very rare questions which have

really but two sides, and base our final decision upon that. This

question is simply whether the lady who sings the song, be pretty or

ugly. The only difficulty about this mode of forming an opinion is that

the opinion itself is apt to have something of a variable character—but

then it would be no fashionable opinion if it had not.

At present we decide against the lea and give judgment for “The

Fireside.”

* * * * *

FRAGMENT: WRITTEN ON THE FIRST COMING OF SPRING.

BY PARK BENJAMIN.

At length has come the Spring! welcome to me

Art thou, oh! wind, that journeyest to the sea!—

The south-west wind, whose warm, health-bringing plume,

Wafts odor from a wilderness of bloom;

From groves that bend with blossoms, from broad plains

Clothed in rich garments of a thousand stains—

Blue, crimson, gold, green, azure, purple flowers,

Given in profusion by the beauteous showers.

I have heard stories of thy place of birth,—

Oh! wind, that sheddest beauty on the earth!—

Which make me sad, to think my life must glide

Slowly and coldly by the Atlantic’s side.

Thine are the “happy valleys” of our land,

Shut in by mountains, and the South-sea strand;

They never feel the tyranny of frost;

Nor hail, nor snow is on their green laps tost;

For nursed by thee successive verdures spring,

And melts the sceptre of the Winter-king!

* * * * *

SHAKSPEARE.

BY THEODORE S. FAY, AUTHOR OF “NORMAN LESLIE,” “THE COUNTESS IDA,” ETC.

In the Edinburgh Review for July, 1840, there is an article entitled

“Recent Shakspearian Literature,” very interesting to the students of

the poet. It purports to be a review of about fourteen works from

_Tieck’s Dramaturgische Blätter_, published in Breslau, 1826, to _De

Quincey’s Life of Shakspeare_, in the Encyclopædia Britannica, 1840.

As is generally the case with similar papers in this class of the

quarterlies, the article is less a _review_ of the works enumerated in

the rubric than a pouring forth of the opulence of the reviewer’s own

mind, on the occasion of a brief allusion to the productions criticized.

The author of it, in his estimate of Shakspeare, approaches nearer the

views which posterity will probably entertain of the poet, than those

which have till now characterized even the most rapturous of his

admirers. The mightiest bard, not only of modern times, but by far the

mightiest bard that has appeared among uninspired mortals, here begins

to assume a yet higher apotheosised splendor; and, if not to rank among

the constellations and the gods, like the half fabulous immortalities of

the ancient world, at least to take his place in the history of mankind,

as the mind which has reached the point farthest removed from brute

matter.

I hope the article will be widely reprinted in our own country. Its

tendency is most beneficial. We are, from necessity, in the present

point of our developement, a hard working, practical, matter-of-fact

people—full—too full of mere worldly occupation and excitement.

Subjects in no way connected with the higher exercise of the intellect

absorb the public mind. Commercial and political questions unavoidably

monopolize the national sympathies. We are compelled at present to

strain every nerve to _make money_, that the ravages of the monetary

tempest which has swept like a tornado or an earthquake, or an oriental

plague over our land, may be repaired. There is danger in this state of

things that we entirely forego the contemplation of those subjects,

which, however without temporal pecuniary profit, repay the laborer with

moral purity and elevation, which soften the asperity of the passions,

infuse gentleness and liberality into opinion, strengthen the spiritual

part of our nature, and ennoble and dignify life—at the same time that

they cheer, guide, protect and sweeten it.

There is no repose, no patient leisure and calm tranquillity in our

young and rapidly growing country. There is the same difference, I mean

in respect to literary and scientific pursuits, between us and some of

the European communities, Germany for instance, that there was between

the Israelites travelling through the desert and the same people when

gathered around the temple in the holy city. I believe we, too, are

undergoing a kind of forty years’ penance, in order to shake off such of

the habits and opinions of our European ancestors as are wrong—six

thousand years of bloody prejudices and political errors. There will

come a day of prosperity, when institutions shall be no longer doubtful,

national character no longer unsettled, when we shall have a fixed

standard of political morals far different from any that has hitherto

prevailed in the world; and when the human mind, under these more

favorable circumstances, will develop itself in a new manner.

But this depends upon ourselves. Nations, like individuals, are free

agents. We can go upwards or downwards; we can hail our Messiah or we

can reject him; and in order that we may mount not sink in the scale of

moral being, it is desirable that we should not permit ourselves to be

bound down too closely and too continually to the local and temporary

but exciting exigencies of the present hour, that pecuniary and

political subjects should not engross too much of our attention, lest we

become altogether “of the earth, earthy.” Music, poetry, painting,

sculpture, eloquence and science, the fine performances of a Forrest or

a Kean, have a tendency to mingle with our daily and (when too

exclusively persisted in) narrowing and degrading occupations; something

that turns the spirit another way, and fills, refreshes and

intellectualizes the character. Such articles as that alluded to on the

wonderful and still scarcely appreciated excellences of Shakspeare, will

be as softening and reviving in their effects upon thousands of minds,

parched and hot under the influence of merely mechanical employments, or

interested and selfish impressions, as a plentiful summer shower is to

nature, when burnt and withered with a long drought.

The reading of this article has turned me again for a few evenings to my

most favorite author, and raised many new ideas in my mind, which is

always the case when I open those fascinating pages. I propose to

furnish, in several papers, some of the thoughts which crowd upon me

while reading him. I cannot bear to read him alone. It is like listening

to an oration from the fiery lips of Cicero in an empty hall, or hearing

Channing address deserted aisles. I want a circle to share those streams

of light; I want to feel that the music-waves roll to the hearts of

others beside myself. It almost seems selfish to brood over delights so

ethereal, to gaze on vistas so resplendent, to enter a temple so

gorgeous and so vast without some one at my side to call on in the

moment of rapture.

There is, moreover, in the article of the Edinburgh Review, the

following extraordinary annunciation.

“But the work which we should have most pleasure in believing to

represent the state of German opinions, is Dr. Ulrici’s ‘Essay on

Shakspeare’s Dramatic Art, and his relation to Calderon and Goethe.’

This book seems to us to be not only one of the most solidly

philosophical pieces of criticism which have issued from the Teutonic

school, but on its own absolute merits, an unusually valuable

contribution to the literature of Shakspeare’s works. The theory upon

which the treatise rests is assuredly partial and imperfect; and also,

so far as it goes beyond opinions already received, palpably unsound;

but the aspect in which it presents the poet of all nations is one which

has been too often overlooked among ourselves, and grossly misunderstood

by some of the most celebrated of Ulrici’s countrymen. The general

discussions, which make up a considerable part of the volume, we must be

allowed to waive. We cannot, especially in the way of commentary on a

German text-book, attempt to investigate either the essence of the drama

in general, or the essential differences between the views of life

suggested respectively by Christianity and Grecian Paganism. The

religious test thus indicated is that to which the critic subjects both

Shakspeare and the poets with whom he compares him. ‘_Shakspeare’s

peculiar character_,’ says he, ‘_consists in the greater purity and

clearness, decision and completeness, with which the Christian view of

life is represented in his dramas. It consists especially in this, that

every where the two great elements of human life, and of the history of

the world, the divine guidance and the freedom of man, stand out in

their legitimate authority, in organic connexion and reciprocal action,

and thus in the whole fulness of their truth and reality._’ He insists,

emphatically, that he recognizes in Shakspeare’s dramas, not indeed

formally taught, either theologically or ethically, but embodied in the

genuine form of poetical representation, the doctrines of the universal

sinfulness of man, and of divine grace in his salvation; doctrines

which, as he truly adds, are altogether left out of sight in Goethe’s

view of life, and by Calderon either misunderstood or unpoetically used.

All this must be to many of us not a little startling; _but there lies

at the bottom of it a mighty truth_, not merely important in itself, but

bearing a _close relation to the great dramatist’s cast of thought_; a

truth which, in one sense or other, _does_ furnish _the clue to some of

the most perplexing riddles in the poet’s works_. In following out his

own system, Ulrici, as was to have been expected from its one-sidedness,

has been led to many conclusions which cannot possibly be admitted; but

_fewer of these are to be attributed to the essential parts of his

theory_, than to the peculiar way in which he has worked it out. In

several instances he has literally resolved the leading idea, in which

he represents the unity of each drama to consist, in a substantive

enunciation of a moral precept, an error against which he himself

protests. He has erred still further in acknowledging, as he seems to do

almost invariably, the principle of what has been called poetical

justice—a principle not involved in his own system upon any right

interpretation of it, and assuredly quite alien to the far-reaching

speculations of Shakspeare. But a man who thinks of poetry as Ulrici

thinks, can never write of it altogether unworthily: one who is willing

to consider Shakspeare as coming up to so lofty a standard, cannot fail

to entertain that reverence for genius, and truth, and goodness, which

is the source of all pleasure as well as soundness in criticism; and the

admirable analysis of the poet’s works which constitute the latter half

of the volume, shows the writer to be fully qualified for expounding

such a creed.”

Startling, indeed! but, if true, this is one of the most singular

discoveries ever made in literature. We have been accustomed to hear

Shakspeare praised for everything but Christianity, or, indeed, any

sense of religion. He has been sometimes represented even as a kind of

_neutral principle_, from whom flow all opinions, all creeds, all

virtues, all crimes, with a facility equally indifferent to the source

which sends them forth. He has been attacked sometimes as a bigot, and

sometimes as an infidel; sometimes as a whig, sometimes as a democrat;

but no one before, that I am aware of, ever undertook to show him forth

as a great prophet of Christianity.

I have not seen the work of Dr. Ulrici, nor are the following papers

devoted exclusively to a consideration of our author in this point of

view, but, in several parts of them, I have so considered him. They are

not written systematically. They were commenced with the intention of

saying all I had to say in a single article, but the subject is so

large, and grew so under my hand, that I was obliged to let my

observations run into several papers, and I soon found myself, moreover,

compelled not only to confine my attention principally to one tragedy,

but to leave many considerations respecting that tragedy untouched.

I wish to repeat that I am by no means _thoroughly_ acquainted with

Shakspeare, and do not dream of offering any more than the mere

momentary impressions which the perusal of such parts of him as I happen

to read make upon me. After the great students of his works, the

laborious and learned critics of different nations who have devoted

years to the understanding of him, it would be presuming to attempt to

throw light on him. I have only endeavored to express what I feel and

see and think while reading him, and to venture here and there an

examination of him upon the idea suggested by Dr. Ulrici, as it may

strike a reader like myself, unacquainted with other arguments

concerning it than those probabilities existing in the plays. The theory

of Ulrici is so beautiful and so consonant to the lofty rank which our

poet occupies, that one cannot help wishing, and scarcely believing,

that it may be true. It has the force and convincingness which

characterize the solution of an enigma. And, in this view, it possesses

something of the solemnity of the creation itself. The creation is an

enigma of which Christianity is the solution. Without that, all is

vague, contradictory, dark; an existing impossibility—powerless

omnipotence—fiendish generosity and love—the omnipresence of a

Divinity everywhere absent—a mockery—a paradox. Christianity makes all

clear and simple. It scarcely requires _proof_ more than the solution of

any other enigma. When the Divine secret is revealed, it is

self-evident.

With all reverence be it advanced, the suggestion of this theory, in

reference to the works of Shakspeare, has something of the same fitness.

The _creation_ of the poet was, before, in many places, dark and

inexplicable; but the light shed upon him by the word Christianity makes

many things clear and intelligible. It raises him to something of the

magnitude of a prophet, and the most stupendous fabric of profane

literature acquires a more solemn grandeur by this connection with the

sacred work of God.

During Shakspeare’s life, he was, it is well known, celebrated beyond

his expectations, and many of those acquainted with him and his

productions thought quite beyond his merits. He was one of the

fashionable poets of England; his verses were familiar to the lips of

kings and queens, and himself, besides having acquired a pecuniary

independence by his pen, received the highest honors, as he thought,

which could be bestowed on him. He was, in short, a successful writer,

and he passed away from the earth with the agreeable consciousness of

having procured for himself a niche in the temple of Fame.

It is pretty certain, however that no person on the globe, at the period

of his life, had any _just_ appreciation of him. Notwithstanding the

triumphant success of his career, and the high honor and opulence he

attained, his real character, as such a mighty patriarch of literature,

was not dreamed of either by himself or any of his contemporaries. As a

mind impregnated with a fire nearly beyond the mortal sphere—as one

whose birth was an event in which mankind were personally

interested—who was to give a name to his age—who, at that point of his

posthumous celebrity where other great men begin to recede into the

shadows of the past, was to start up anew, in more living distinctness

and intellectual splendor—was to pass in this apotheoside grandeur over

the usually impenetrable barriers of nations and languages, and to

become (like some of the universal and ever-enduring elements of

nature—like light, fire or air) a constant pleasure and nutriment to

the human mind—as this extraordinary, and, I may say, _mysterious_

being—no one knew him. His _full_ brightness was veiled not only from

his contemporary friends and admirers, but, as is now universally

acknowledged, from many of his most distinguished subsequent editors and

commentators. The rapturous eulogies, the commendatory verses, the

folios on folios written upon him—extravagant as they are—fall short

of his _true_ value. Even Johnson, Warburton, Theobald, Pope, and the

rest of his commentators of the same rank, appear to have meted out to

him less than the deserved measure of praise. It appears that the

_comparative_ smallness of their minds (I mean comparative with

Shakspeare’s) did not permit them to comprehend the complete dimensions

of the subject they had undertaken. They have all too much the air of

critics, instead of humble followers and pupils. They assume a

familiarity with him which their relative nature did not warrant. There

is a greater difference between him and any one who has lived with him

or subsequent to him, considered as two _minds_, than is always

understood by those who even confine themselves to panegyric.

My idea of this wonderful prophet of poetry is that his intellectual

dimensions are too great for any _one man_ who ever lived to explore

them by himself. He could but discover a portion of the vastness of his

intelligence and contemplate one or two aspects of it. No one age could

completely seize all the meaning that lies in him. It has required two

centuries to place within the reach even of superior and well cultivated

minds a just idea of him. He died in 1616, and he is beginning to be

understood in 1840. Although aided by the accumulated Shakspearian lore

of the two preceding centuries—although the most learned and greatest

geniuses of the two ages have contributed the beams of their science and

literature to shed light on him—although innumerable theatres in so

many lands have given his plays to the world—still even yet, greatly as

he is admired and studied, he is not fully appreciated. There are

thousands and millions who often read his works with delight yet without

understanding half their profound depth and celestial beauty—and even

they who have studied him the most—who have fitted themselves for that

study by their previous pursuits—who have written books upon classes of

his characters, do not yet completely comprehend him. To-morrow,

perhaps, the wisest among them will take up one of his plays and

discover some resplendent meaning—some new beam reflected from the

human heart, never known to them before. For myself I frankly confess I

have never understood him. Every day I make new discoveries, and have no

doubt I shall continue to do so as long as I live.

The advance of Shakspeare upon the world has been as broad, deep and

steady as the on-flow of civilization itself. So much has been said and

written of him that, it may be, some will turn from the title of these

papers as from a thing of which there has been enough. They will mutter

with Hamlet, “Something too much of this.” But I may assure them that

the mere idea that they know enough of Shakspeare—that they have seen

him enough and that his praise has got to be only a fashion, is

sufficient to prove that they know nothing of him.

The true pupil kindles at the sound of his name—at the rustle of his

robe, at the sight of his foot-mark. Whoever comes with a new idea

concerning him or to speak in his praise is welcome; and so convinced is

he that a part of him as yet is _terra incognita_ that he is always on

the watch for some discovery in him.

To my eye, Shakspeare is a world. I do not understand by this a mere

phrase expressive of the variety and beauty of the plays, but I mean

those works are morally invested with attributes resembling the physical

globe. This planet is given by Providence as the abode of man’s body. A

vast extent of variegated surface, when he first began to move upon it,

he knew nothing about it. The dawn of it upon the human mind was that of

a bright scene—a circle of land—a verdant plain. The more it was

studied the more it grew in variety and size. It was found divided into

wonderful compartments and the first dazzled wanderers beheld with joy

and wonder the huge-rolling sea arrest their steps on one side, the

ice-topped mountains towering above them on the other,—broad and

winding rivers—silver lakes—fathomless caverns—and awful, sombre

forests. Each age since, the adventurous step of man has wandered

farther and farther, has climbed the mountain—crossed the

sea—circumnavigated the globe—and found out what it is—how it hangs

in the air—how it revolves around the sun and many of the secrets of

its bosom. Each age since, man has occupied himself studying its nature

and forming theories concerning it.

To me, Shakspeare—although they who have not closely and habitually

studied him, may smile at such a hyperbolical comparison—yet to me,

Shakspeare lies like this solid and wonderful globe we inhabit. He is a

second nature—a new creation—a more amazing production of the

inscrutable Deity who formed the shoreless sea—and built the cloud

cleaving Alps and Andes. He is a significant illustration of the degree

of intellectual perfection to which the human mind—so destined—so

worthy to be immortal—may reach even in this sublunary sphere.

The theory of Ulrici accords exactly with my impressions of Shakspeare.

Such an event as his coming—such superhuman powers of mind—such a

mixture of all that is grand, terrible and profound with all that is

tender—sweet, and aerial—in one brain, seems fit to be linked with a

great purpose. The idea of an ever superintending Providence being in my

mind, I cannot join those philosophers who find in our poet merely a

colossal diamond or a chance giant—as if the same hazard which gives to

the farmer an overgrown cucumber or pumpkin had dropped the rare soul of

this first of human geniuses among men. To me—I repeat, he resembles

the globe. I see in him always, as when I travel over any country, sweet

and striking scenes. I enter him as I do a landscape or an island;

looking around, above, and beneath me, and sure to find wonders and

beauties. Here, the bending rose—there—the silver brook—yonder the

swelling hill—and again the shadowy forest. I stop sometimes to examine

the hues of a violet half withdrawn from sight by the road-side—and

then I am struck at the majestic grandeur of the oak at whose root it

grows. Suddenly a storm which awes and startles my soul sweeps over

me—and then the broad sunshine breaks upon the glittering face of

nature. These are in the _foreground_ of Shakspeare, but this is not

_Shakspeare_. He has far remote wonders and beauties. If I choose to

_travel_ into him, I shall come upon things new and strange. He has

foreign countries and distant wonders like Rome or Jerusalem. There are

even in him tracts yet untravelled, and secrets—like the Pyramids and

hieroglyphics of Egypt, like the Polar seas and the central wastes of

Africa—which future time will perhaps unravel, but which we do not yet

understand.

The meaning of _Othello_ has always been locked from me. I have not yet

been a reader of commentators and, perhaps, some of the crowd of

distinguished writers who, ever since his death, have been endeavoring

to throw light on him, may have accounted for the till now inexplicable

mystery of it. But I could never conceive it. Why a perfectly noble

mind, should be so cruelly tortured without guilt on its own part; why a

scene of innocent happiness should be thus wantonly destroyed was always

an unanswerable question I asked myself on seeing or reading this, one

of the greatest of his five great tragedies. The reader will find the

mystery solved, by an extract, in the course of these papers.

_Hamlet_ is yet full of unexplained mystery. Why he does not kill the

bloody usurper? Why he ill treats Ophelia? Was he mad? etc. etc. etc.,

are long standing themes of debate.

In the _Tempest_, Act I. Scene 2, when Prospero is telling his history

to Miranda, there is one of these little enigmas which lie in our poet

like the veil sometimes thrown over the intentions of nature, known only

to those who study her habitually.

Prospero. Thy false uncle—

_Dost thou attend me?_

Miranda. Sir, most heedfully.

Pro. Being once perfected how to grant suits,

How to deny them; whom to advance, and whom

To trash for over-topping: new created

The creatures that were mine, _I say_, or chang’d ’em,

Or else new form’d ’em: having both the key

Of officer and office, set all hearts i’ the state

To what tune pleas’d his ear; that now he was

The ivy, which had hid my princely trunk,

And suck’d my verdure out on’t.—_Thou attend’st not._

Mira. O, good sir, I do.

Pro. _I pray thee, mark me._

I thus, neglecting worldly ends, all dedicate

To closeness, and the bettering of my mind,

With that, which, but by being so retired,

O’er-priz’d all popular rate, in my false brother

Awak’d an evil nature: and my trust,

Like a good parent, did beget of him

A falsehood, in its contrary as great

As my trust was; which had, indeed, no limit,

A confidence sans bound. He being thus lorded,

Not only with what my revenue yielded,

But what my power might else exact,—like one,

Who having unto truth, by telling of it,

Made such a sinner of his memory,

To credit his own lie,—he did believe

He was indeed the duke; out of the substitution,

And executing the outward face of royalty,

With all prerogative:—Hence his ambition

Growing—_Dost hear?_

Now, what means the inattention of the young girl? Why does her mind

wander from a history—one would suppose the most interesting revelation

which could be made to her—so that her father cannot, apparently, keep

her attention to the end of it? Thousands of people read and see this

play without knowing that she is under the operation of a

_sleeping-spell_, administered by her father.

Again, why is Prospero so harsh and coarse to Ariel? The most delicate

creature that ever man had to do with—all gentleness—all submission,

yet hear how the great and good magician uses him.

Pro. “Thou dost forget,” etc.

Ariel. I do not, sir.

Pro. “Thou liest, malignant thing,” etc.

Again of Sycorax—

Pro. This damn’d witch Sycorax,

For mischiefs manifold, and sorceries terrible

To enter human hearing, from Argier,

Thou know’st was banished; _for one thing she did

They would not take her life_.

Now what _was_ that _one thing_?

* * * * *

THE WILDWOOD HOME.

BY LYDIA JANE PIERSON.

Oh! show a place like the wildwood home,

Where the air is fragrant and free,

And the first pure breathings of morning come

In a gush of melody,

As she lifts the soft fringe from her dark blue eye,

With a radiant smile of love,

And the diamonds that over her bosom lie,

Are bright as the gems above.

Where noon lies down in the breezy shade

Of the glorious forest bowers,

And the beautiful birds from the sunny glade,

Sit nodding amongst the flowers.

While the holy child of the mountain spring,

Steals past with a murmur’d song,

And the wild bee sleeps in the bells that swing

Its garlanded banks along.

And spotted fawns, where the vines are twin’d,

Are dancing away the hours,

With feet as light as the summer wind

That hardly bends the flowers.

Where day steals away with a young bride’s blush,

To the soft, green couch of night,

And the moon throws o’er with a holy hush,

Her curtains of gossamer light.

The seraph that hides in the hemlock dell,

Oh! sweetest of birds is she,

Fills the dewy breeze with a trancing swell

Of melody rich and free.

Where Nature still gambols in maiden pride

By valley and pine-plumed hill,

Hangs glorious wreaths on each mountain side,

And dances in every rill.

There are glittering mansions with marble walls,

Surmounted by mighty towers,

Where fountains play in the perfumed halls,

Amongst exotic flowers,

They are fitting homes for the haughty minds,

Yet a wildwood home for me,

Where the pure, bright waters, the mountain winds,

And the bounding hearts are free.

* * * * *

REPROOF OF A BIRD.

BY JOSEPH EVANS SNODGRASS.

“Look forth on Nature’s face and see

What smiles play on her blissful cheek!

In voice of love she speaks thro’ me,

When I thy homestead, daily seek!

“Canst thou be sad while trees and flowers

Wear looks of goodness—while each spear

Of herbage which adorns thy bowers,

Its head so gladsomely, doth rear?

“Behold those dew-drops on each leaf,

But think not they of sorrow tell;

They’re tears of gladness, not of grief,

That God-ward from each petal swell.

“O’er fears of hunger brood’st thou? See

How fare we of the wing, and those

Of floral life! Nor yet toil we

Nor spin—and still none hunger knows.

“Raise, then, thy head! Dream not of woe,

Who human bosoms loves to sway!

Again I bid thee look—for lo!

All else but thee wear smiles to-day!”

Sweet bird! reprove no more;—thy song

Shames these sad feelings in my breast,

Which it hath cherished far too long,

As if some welcome angel-guest.

I own, if cherish’d, they too soon,

Like fabled serpent in the breast,

Would venom only leave as boon,

For being by a fool carest!

Of gladness speak thy notes alone—

Of calmest self-content—and say

Plainly to hearts of sadden’d tone—

_’Tis best to cast sad thoughts away_.

* * * * *

THE REEFER OF ’76.

BY THE AUTHOR OF “CRUIZING IN THE LAST WAR.”

SCOURING THE CHANNEL.

“How is the night overhead?” asked Westbrook, as I came down into the

mess-room, and, pushing the jug toward me, he added, “you see, we’re

going to make a night of it; take a pull at the Jamaica—it’s rare

stuff.”

“Misty, with a light breeze; we’ll make the land, if we keep on this

course, before morning. We’ve harried the enemy’s shipping enough in the

chops of the channel—I can’t see what the skipper means by running in

so close to the English coast.”

“Faith! he’s after some harum-scarum prank—blowing a stray merchantman

out of water in sight of land, or throwing a shot into Portsmouth by way

of bravado to the fleet. Well, what need we care? A short life and a

merry one—cut away at the junk, my good fellow; cut deeper—ay! that’s

it, a slice like we lawyers take of our client’s money, the better half

of the whole.”

“A lawyer!—what do you know of the profession?” said I.

“I was once a lawyer myself,” said he, as he transferred a huge slice of

the beef into his mouth.

“A lawyer!—a land shark!—you a lawyer!” were the exclamations of

astonishment which burst from every lip.

“Ay! am I the first jolly fellow who gave up a bad trade for a good one?

I beg your pardon, Parker—I believe you come from a race of lawyers;

but if so, it is no more than happened to myself. My friends made a land

shark of me, but as nature intended me for something better, the

experiment failed. My first case was enough for me, and I cut the

profession, or, rather, it cut me. The court asked me to repeat an

authority I had quoted, but I was so taken aback by something that had

happened to me just before, and which I’ll tell you by and bye, that,

for the life of me, I couldn’t call to mind a single point decided. I

grew embarrassed, stammered, looked down, came to a dead halt; and at

length, when I heard the spectators tittering around me, I grasped my

hat, shot from the court-house, and have never entered one since without

an anguish shiver. The judge said I was a fool; my client agreed with

him; I never got a cent; everybody laughed at me; and so I kicked Coke

and Plowden into the fire, cursed the law to my heart’s content, and

took to the service in a fortnight, thinking it better to thrive on

biscuit and salt junk, than to work for nothing and starve for my

pains.”

“Shure, and a dacent gentleman”—said O’Shaughnessy—“would have been

spoilt in making a black-gown of you, Westbrook. But it was a great

mistake, that breaking down in your spache; you should have served them

like my old chum, Terence McBalawhangle, thricked the tutors of

Trinity.”

“How was that?” asked the mess, in a breath.

“Fath, pour us out a brimmer, and I’ll tell you the same. A nate, dacent

lad, and a witty, was Terence; and many’s the time he’s made my sides

ache for a week, by raison of laughing at his droll sayings, the sinner.

And I thought I should have died when the tutor tould him to recite the

task from the essay on the human understanding—a crusty, metaphysical

work, bad cess to it. Divil a bit did Terence know of the same—he

hadn’t a turn, he said, for the dry bones of Ezakiel—but he put a good

face on the matter, and ran on, like a petrel over the waves, never

halting even to breathe, until the tutor stopped him, and tould him

there was nothing in the text-book like what he was saying. ‘Shure, and

I know that,’ says Terence, without moving a muscle of his face, ‘but,

you see, I didn’t agree with Mr. Locke, so I thought I’d just give ye my

own sentiments.’”

“Your friend Terence,” said Westbrook, filling a bumper, after the roars

of laughter which followed this anecdote had subsided, “ought to have

had a New Jersey justice, instead of a fellow of Trinity, to mystify. He

might have succeeded better.”

“Maybe they’re like old Sir Peter Beverly, of the county of Clare, one

of the quorum, and never right but by mistake. Many’s the poor fellow

he’s had transported becase the man was brought up before dinner, when

the justice was out of humor. Shure and didn’t he send off Teague

O’Daly, the brightest lad at a wake or a fair within thirty miles

around, just for no other raison than becase Teague made love to his

daughter’s maid?—and didn’t he refuse the testimony of Teague’s cousin,

only ten removes off, becase he said the lad was suspected of staling a

watch?—and when they all shwore at his injustice—the gouty

porpoise—he said, with a big oath that made my hair stand on end—I was

younger then ye know—‘Constable, stop that noise; here I’ve had to

commit three fellows without being able to hear a word of their

defence.’”

“Well, I can’t say I ever saw an Irish justice, O’Shaughnessy, at least

not one like Sir Peter; but the justice court of New Jersey is almost a

match for him.”

“How’s that?”

“Why, you see, each township has its justice, and when the county court

is held, all the justices come up to the county town to preside at the

trials. The court-house, however, at Skanamuctum—shove us up the

jug—was always too small, and the bench especially wouldn’t hold a

quarter of the judges, so that the man who got into court first secured

the best seat. Sometimes, however, on a hot day, the old fellows

couldn’t hold out, or else they saw a crony in the crowd whom they

thought likely to treat, so that, one by one, they would drop off the

bench; but as there were always a dozen or two awaiting to get on, the

judges’ seats were never empty. As for knowing anything about the

case—ah! this is prime!—they never pretended to it. Indeed, I’ve often

seen not a single judge on the bench, when the verdict was rendered, who

had been there when the trial began.”

“That beats you, O’Shaughnessy,” roared a reefer, almost suffocated with

laughter, from the foot of the table.

“Bravo!” said I; “you made a good escape, Westbrook, when you gave up

pleading before such Shallows—but you haven’t yet told us what happened

to you to embarrass you so at your _début_.”

“Oh, no! I had forgot. I was just admitted, you must know, and all my

friends advised me to make my maiden speech on one of the cases coming

up at the next Oyer and Terminer. I looked around for some burglar,

horse-thief, or other sort of rascal, for a client, but not a sinner of

a one could I find willing to trust himself in my hands. I began to

despair, thinking I should never have the chance to figure so again, for

the celebrated Judge Traskey himself had come down special, to try a

desperate case of murder, and the whole bar were itching to show off

before him. He was said to be as sharp as a north-easter, and every

other word was either an opinion, a growl, or a witticism. You may judge

my joy, when, on walking down to the court-house, and looking very

imposing in my own opinion, but scarcely daring to hope for such a

God-send as a client, I heard the sheriff tell me that there was a

poverty-struck sheep-stealer in the dock, who was in want of a lawyer,

and would be glad to get a brisk hand for a trifle of a fee. Such a

chance of making a speech wasn’t to be lost, and, thinking all the time

what a sensation I should create, I asked to see the prisoner. As the

sheriff couldn’t bring him out into the bar, I went into the dock. Well,

I heard through the poor rascal’s story—and a long one it was—and I

was just about to leave him, when I found that the sheriff had gone, in

the mean time, to bring in the judge in procession, and, forgetting all

about me, had left me locked in. Here was a scrape with a vengeance. To

wait till the judge entered, and then sneak out of the dock, the

laughing stock of the bar, was not to be thought of. What was to be

done? The railing around the dock was high, and guarded by iron spikes,

but over it was my only outlet, and springing up at once, I began to

clamber out of the hole. At that very instant his honor entered the

court-room, and the first thing that caught his eye was a man leaping

the dock. ‘Sheriff, look to your prisoner,’ said he. ‘May it please your

honor,’ said I, attempting to explain, and essaying to leap down, in

which endeavor the spikes caught in the skirts of my coat, and I hung

fast—‘may it please your honor—’ ‘It doesn’t please me, you rascal,’

said the judge, waxing angry, ‘to be bearded by a prisoner.’ ‘It’s all a

mistake,’ said I, struggling to get loose, while the perspiration rolled

off me, and I heard the suppressed tittering around. ‘So says every

thief,’ retorted the judge, in a towering passion. ‘But I’m an

attorney!’ I answered. ‘All the worse for you,’ roared his honor. ‘I’m

counsel in the case!’ said I, ‘Then, if you defend yourself, you have a

fool for a client,’ said the judge, beside himself with rage. At this

point the mirth of the spectators could no longer be controlled, but

burst forth in roars of laughter which effectually silenced my further

explanations. At length the mistake was made clear to the bench, and I

was suffered to be taken down. I tried to brave it out, by delivering my

speech afterwards, but an unlucky mention of the word ‘mistake’ set the

bar in a roar, and so completely confounded me that I talked nonsense at

random, until I broke down as I told you, and, since then, I never think

of a law-point without a cold sweat all over.”

“By the staff of St. Patrick! and you’re right,” said O’Shaughnessy.

“Here’s confusion to lawyers, and a bumper for the girls!”

“The girls—hurrah!” sang the mess in one voice. “No heel-taps!” and it

was drank enthusiastically.

“Ah! and Parker has a song on the sweet angels,” said Westbrook; “we’ll

all join in the chorus.”

“The song—the song!” roared the mess.

Thus pressed, I had no escape, and taking a pull at the beaker to clear

my throat, I sang the following stanzas:

THE GIRLS WE LOVE.

Air—_Nancy Dawson_.

Our country’s girls have azure eyes,

And tresses like the sunset skies,

And hearts to seek, nor need disguise—

As pure as heav’n above, sir;

With voices like a seraph’s light,

And forms that swim before the sight,

And waists to tempt an anchorite—

They are the girls to love, sir.

Though France may boast her dark brunette,

And Spain her eyes of flashing jet,

And Greece her tones you ne’er forget—

So like the song of dove, sir—

Columbia’s maids have tones as sweet,

And cheeks where snow and roses meet:

Such lips, and then, egad! such feet!

They are the girls to love, sir.

Oh! we are reefers bold and gay;

We brave the storm and court the fray,

Yet ne’er forget the girls away,

However far we rove, sir.

I sometimes fancy they’re decoys

To lure us on to fancied joys;

They’ll be our ruin yet, my boys!—

Here’s to the girls we love, sir.

The deafening chorus of the last three lines of this song, repeated by

the whole mess in full voice, had scarcely died away, when the

quarter-master knocked at the door, and told us that we had given chase

to a strange sail, and that there would soon be hot work on deck. Before

he had well finished the room was empty, and we had all sprung up the

gangway.