EARLY WRITINGS OF THE LATE R. C. SANDS: FOURTH NOTICE.--We resume a
consideration of the early writings of this true son of genius, in a
brief review of a characteristic production of his pen, which we are
sorry to say was never completed. It was the singular biography of
'_The Man who Never Laughed_.' It purported to be a 'German story;'
but the veil of pretended translation was quite too thin to deceive
the writer's friends, who perused the manuscript. It was entitled
'_Tristan, the Grave_.' The hero was the son of a German Baron in
the Duchy of Bremen, in Lower Saxony, 'who traced his ancestry up
to Bruno the First.' Tristan, when an infant, was a comely child,
'perfect in his parts and proportions, with a sober and serene
countenance, which seemed to indicate that he was born to be a great
dignitary in the church or in the state. His lady mother and her
attendants soon noticed, however, a strange idiosyncrasy in the
hopes of the family; which was, that he never laughed, nor indeed
did his features assume the faintest appearance of smiling! He could
cry, as other babes are wont to do, and shed as many tears as are
usual in the period of childhood; but after the squall was over,
and the cloud cleared away, no sunshine illuminated his face and
sparkled in his eyes. He looked as sedate as a little stone angel on
a monument; his lips were as rigidly fixed; and his gaze expressed
but little more intelligence. In vain they tickled and tousled him;
instead of chirruping and smiling, he showed his dissatisfaction
at this appeal to his cutaneous sensibilities, by sneezing and
snarling; and if it was prolonged, by obstreperous lamentation. In
vain did the maids snap their fingers, distort their countenances,
and make every variety of grimace and ridiculous posture before
him. He seemed to look upon their monkey tricks with an eye of
compassion, and relaxed not a whit the composed arrangement of his
muscles.'
Little Tristan's imperturbable gravity was a great 'thorn in the
flesh' of his mother, who attributed it to the _diablerie_ of a
suspicious-looking old beldame, who hung about the premises just
before he was born, and wrought the unhappy charm upon him. The old
baron, however, treated the subject of his wife's uneasiness with
levity, and swore that when his son was old enough to understand
Dutch, _he_ would make him laugh till his sides ached. The learned
Hieronymus Marascallerus, a great astrologer, who superintended at
present the baron's kennel, and was to take charge of his son's
education, when he should arrive at a suitable age, also stoutly
denied the agency of any _diablerie_ in the matter; but said that
Tristan's sober demeanor was purely the result of natural causes,
he having been born when Saturn and Jupiter were in conjunction in
Libra. His temperament was therefore that of a generous melancholy;
but whether he would make a great poet, or politician, or captain,
Marascallerus could not yet decide, as part of his ephemeris had
been eaten by the rats, and he could not adjust the horoscope to his
satisfaction! As Tristan grew up to be a tall boy, and verged to
man's estate, the same utter insensibility to ludicrous exhibitions
and associations displayed itself in his physiognomy and character.
He was not unsocial in his disposition, but very condescendingly
joined with the younger fry of the village; and in all sports and
games where violent exercise, or that dexterity which is called
manual wit was concerned, he was distinguished for length of wind
and ingenuity. When any one of his playmates tumbled head over
heels, broke the bridge of his nose, or put any of his articulations
out of joint, he saw nothing but the detriment done to the body of
the suffering individual, and was incensed by the boisterous and to
him inexplicable merriment of the others. He listened to a droll
story as he would to a tragical one; taking an apparent interest
in the incidents, but finding no farther relish in their strange
combination, than as they might have been mere matters of fact. In a
bull he saw nothing but the ignorance of the maker; and he did not
detest puns, (if he ever heard any,) because he never suspected the
jest. He heard his father's crack-joke without any other expression
than that of wonder, as if he half thought the old gentleman was
crazy.
As he grew in years, TRISTAN was greatly vexed to find that he
lacked one of the common properties of his species, and that
his company was by no means considered an acquisition in jovial
society. A face all rosy and radiant with unquenchable laughter,
though like that of one of HOMER'S divinities, was to him like the
countenance of a baboon. He once asked MARASCALLERUS whether he
supposed any of the heroes, knights, and kings, recorded in ancient
chronicles, ever wrinkled their faces and made hysterical noises,
in the manner of those who were said to be laughing? He had several
times practised before a mirror the detested corrugations which he
had noted on the countenances of others; but on such occasions he
succeeded in producing no other expression than that which a Dutch
toy for cracking nuts would wear, without any paint; while his eyes
seemed looking out above, in wonder and scorn at the performance of
his lower features; and he turned with disgust from the image of
himself. Time, who travels on at his jog-trot pace, whether men turn
the corners of their mouths upward or downward, had carried TRISTAN
along with him into the twenty-first year of his serious existence;
when his father the baron received a letter from one of his old
friends, a brother FREIHERR, as nobly descended as himself. The
writer stated that he was waxing old, and that the dearest object
of his heart was to establish his only child, the fair CUNEGUNDA,
comfortably and according to her rank in the world, before he went
out of it; and having heard much of the wisdom and good qualities
of his old friend's son, he was anxious to effect a union of
two illustrious houses. TRISTAN professed himself ready to set
forward on the mission forthwith. Provided with a suitable answer
to the epistle which had been received, and a slenderly-furnished
purse, and mounted on the least carrion-like looking steed the old
gentleman's stables could furnish, he set forth. MARASCALLERUS stood
by, wiping away his tears with the end of a dirty apron, which he
wore at his more servile occupations, and beseeching his pupil not
to go for three days longer, as the planetary influence was just
then most malign to all about commencing a journey. But TRISTAN put
spurs to his wind-galled charger, and in a short time reached the
boundary of his father's domains. Here the beast came to a sudden
stand, and exhibited violent symptoms of oppugnancy to the goadings
and buffets he received, by way of encouraging him to proceed.
Thrice did he wheel round, quivering in all his ill-assorted
members, as if under the influence of powerful terror; and thrice
did TRISTAN compel him to put his nose in the direction he wished
to take. Then uttering a shrill and melancholy neigh, he started
forward at his wonted miscellaneous gait. The natural curiosity
of so grave a lover, touching the appearance and character of a
mistress whom he had never seen, are forcibly depicted:
'ALL along the road the people at the inns treated him with
great respect, taking him for a messenger intrusted with
important secrets and despatches, from the sobriety of his looks
and seriousness of his demeanor. After three days' journey he
reached the town of Stade, and after making a disbursement to
the improvement of his outward man, repaired to the residence of
Baron Ehrenfriedersdorf, his father-in-law elect. The baron's
dwelling stood in an old part of the town, and looked a little
the worse for wear. Tristan felt a little queerish as he lifted
the knocker, at the antiquated and half-ruined gate-way.
What sort of a young lady was Cunegunda Ehrenfriedersdorf?
Did she squint? and if so, was the obliquity single, double,
or manifold? Had she a hump? and if so, where located? On
her shoulder, or her back; or how was its topography? Was
she subject to nervous spasms? If so, how did the twitchings
exhibit themselves? All down one side of her face, or all over?
Intermittently, or all the time? Had she had the smallpox? If
so, were the cicatrices deep or shallow? Was her countenance
rivelled by it, into longitudinal or latitudinal seams, or
promiscuously? Was she a natural, or a virago? All these
doubts passed over the mind of the suitor as the iron fell
from his fingers. A hollow sound reverberated from the ruinous
establishment, and the portal was opened by a decayed-looking
serving-man, faded alike in years and in his livery. At sight
of the grave-looking young man, he bowed respectfully, taking
him for a candidate for holy orders, if not a licentiate, and
marshalled him across the court.'
The first thing the grave TRISTAN heard, as he followed the
seneschal, was 'an uproarious peal of laughter from an upper
story and a female organ.' The Baron EHRENFRIEDERSDORF and his
family were at the dinner-table; and finishing his third bottle,
he was telling one of his favorite High Dutch stories; at which
his guests, as in duty bound, including his fair daughter, were
in a roar of laughter, of that sort which the little fat schepen
died of, as related by DIEDRICH KNICKERBOCKER. An antique figure
of a man, at the right of the baron, with lantern-jaws and a long
proboscis of a nose, tipped with a pair of green goggles, a dubious
figure of fun, had a peculiar asthmatic '_Hugh! hugh! hugh!_'--an
ancient maiden of sixty or thereabout, sat near him, whose stiff,
starched deportment belied the compulsory '_He! he! he!_' which
issued from her inward person--and by _her_ side sat a reverend,
round-faced, jolly-looking personage, from whose rosy gills and
oral cavity issued an obstreperous '_Ho! ho! ho!_' which seemed to
have been fabricated in the inmost recesses of his _præcordia_.
Other nameless, or from their German patronymics unnameable guests
there were, with kindred voices and physiognomies, who expressed
their delight in the same variety of intonation. The apparition of
TRISTAN'S wo-begone phiz in the midst of this assembly struck so
forcibly the fair CUNEGUNDA'S perceptions of the ludicrous, that she
burst into a peal of tremendous cachinnation; while the under-jaw of
the baron fell convulsively, as he gazed upon 'the man who couldn't
laugh,' and the merry notes of his guests died away into a quaver of
consternation. This was a 'pretty fix' for the melancholy TRISTAN!
He was taken all aback with the beauty of the lovely heiress of
EHRENFRIEDERSDORF. Fair, plump, and just turned of eighteen, she
might have served as a model for Hebe. A forehead smooth and white
as Parian marble; arching brows, from beneath which glanced the
fires of two of the brightest eyes that ever sparkled at a merry
tale; cheeks tinted with the rose's deepest dye, and graced by a
pair of dimples which seemed the impress of Love's own fingers;
and two ruby lips, whose innocent smile disclosed a row of ivory,
fairer and purer than the pearls which gemmed her bosom, formed a
combination of beauty and expression that would well have become the
laughter-loving goddess Euphrosyne in her happiest moments. TRISTAN
made a profound obeisance to the lady, and endeavored to put a smirk
upon his face, which the sage MARASCALLERUS had tried to teach him,
and which he had been practising upon the road; but it was such
an utter distortion, that the young lady burst forth into another
exorbitant peal of laughter. Being a comely-looking youth, however,
and possessed of a sufficiency of the _savor faire_, he soon removed
the unpleasant feelings which his ill-timed entrance had produced.
He listened to, although he could not laugh at, the baron's stories;
and that was such a novelty to the old gentleman, that it 'tickled
the very cockles of his heart.' The fair CUNEGUNDA began to feel a
rising partiality for him: 'If he would only laugh a little, what a
charming youth he would be!' He, on the other hand, could not help
exclaiming mentally: 'What a happy mortal I should be, if she didn't
laugh so much!' TRISTAN retires to rest at length, and dreams all
night of his beautiful inamorata. In the morning he is awakened
by the beams of the rising sun streaming gloriously through the
casement:
'HE leaned out of the window which looked down upon the baron's
garden. It was a lovely morning in the month of June. The
twittering of the swallows on the eaves of the roof, the hum
of thousands of busy insects, the gentle murmur of the morning
breeze, as it played among the leaves of the old elms, and
the confused sounds, which, softened by distance, came upon
his ear from the awakening city, produced a soothing effect
upon Tristan. Two rosy-cheeked, rugged urchins were sporting
up and down one of the gravel walks, in all the buoyancy and
exuberant spirits of childhood. Every now and then, as some
little incident occurred, they gave vent to their feelings in
loud bursts of laughter. The sound grated upon Tristan's ear as
he turned from the window in disgust. 'Why am I thus continually
mocked?' exclaimed he, in the bitterness of his spirit; 'why
am I for ever tormented by this strange noise, which I can
neither imitate nor comprehend? Why am I alone of all mankind
denied the privilege of throwing the muscles of my face into
that congregation of wrinkles which men call smiling; or of
making that incomprehensible sound to which they give the name
of laughter? I can elevate and depress my eyebrows; I can wink,
stare, or squint, with my eyes; I can puff out, and suck in my
cheeks; I can open or pucker up my mouth. Why can't I smile? I
can make all manner of noises too. I can cough. I can whistle, I
can sneeze, I can sigh, I can groan; and I can blow the German
flute. Why can't I laugh?' Here the unfortunate young man, in
a paroxysm of impatience, gave himself several severe thumps
on his head, as if to inquire why the organ of risibility had
been jostled out of his cranium; and also several plunges in the
side with his elbow, as if to know why his diaphragm would not
vibrate spasmodically, like those of other people.'
The next evening he accompanies the baron and his daughter to the
theatre, to see 'Punch and the Devil.' The audience are ready to
die with laughter; but he preserves the most serene and staid
deportment amidst the broad grins, suppressed titters, sudden
guffaws, and obstreperous explosions, by which he is surrounded.
He said, it is true, that it was all very fine, because he heard
the others say so; and he joined in encoring the bravura of '_Ich
bin der Herr Ponsch!_' because CUNEGUNDA said she 'would give the
world to hear it again;' but that was the amount of his capability.
His unaltered mien and composed, imperturbable expression, however,
were attributed to his good breeding and polished manners, which
prevented him from descending so far from his dignity. He was
accordingly looked up to with increased reverence and admiration
by the more risible plebeians. But alas for TRISTAN! the stream
of love does not run more smoothly in Germany than any where
else. A storm was brewing for him. Frau EICKENSCHNAUCKER and the
venerable GRUBENHAUSEN propagated a report that he was under the
influence of the EVIL ONE! GRUBENHAUSEN whispered his insinuations,
in confidence, to SCHWILLENAEHLEN, the red-nosed butler, who
hiccupped the story over his cups, to OHTZENSTIELER, the ostler,
who told it to SCHNIPPENBRITSCHEN, the tailor, with the addition,
that TRISTAN was followed by a spirit in the shape of a black
dog; SCHNIPPENBRITSCHEN told the tale to KETTELPANSCHEN, the fat
landlord opposite the baron's, where TRISTAN used to take his
bitters every morning, and he retailed it, with various additions,
to his customers. Soon nothing was talked of in the town but 'the
grave stranger, who was possessed by the OLD NICK, and couldn't
laugh.' As soon as the baron heard the report of witchcraft, he
summoned TRISTAN before him, bluntly told him his own suspicions,
and read him a long lecture on the danger of evil communications,
and concluded by telling him that he 'must learn to laugh like
other folks, or he could be no son-in-law of his.' Poor TRISTAN
was astounded. In vain he expostulated with the baron on the
unreasonableness of his demand; and tried to prove to him that it
was undignified to express his satisfaction by twisting up the
corners of his mouth, showing his teeth, and making a strange noise
in his throat. In vain the fair CUNEGUNDA, with an imploring look,
deprecated her father's anger, and begged him to let her have a
husband, even if he should not be able to speak. Her entreaties
were in vain; and the baron swore with a High Dutch oath, that if
he couldn't laugh, he shouldn't have his daughter. She then turned
to TRISTAN, and with a look of love and a rosy smile, that would
have extorted one in return from Heraclitus himself, besought him
to gratify her father by one small snigger. It was all in vain.
Threats and entreaties were equally useless, and TRISTAN, instead
of growing pleasanter, became graver and graver every instant. In
order, however, that the unfortunate youth might not complain of the
want of a subject, or an opportunity to display his risible powers,
the baron told him he would give him a fair trial the next day, when
he meant to show him such droll sights, and tell such funny stories,
that if he did not split his sides with laughter, the Devil must
have got in him indeed. What the expedients of the baron were, and
their effects upon TRISTAN, SANDS'S patient readers waited long to
learn; but their curiosity was never gratified. Probably the very
profusion of ludicrous incidents and situations which suggested
themselves to the fertile imagination of the writer, prevented the
fulfillment of his promise and design. But 'we trifle time' and
space. Here endeth the fourth chapter.
* * * * *
THE WASHINGTON MONUMENT.--We never write the name of WASHINGTON,
without a thrill of pride that his country is _our_ country, and
that, as an American, we hold a property in his undying fame. And
we are rejoiced to perceive that a National Monument to this great
and good man, a monument worthy his towering name, is at length
to be erected in the great metropolis of America. An act was
passed last winter by the Legislature of New-York, to incorporate
the 'WASHINGTON Monument Association;' and we have been favored
with an examination of the design for the magnificent structure,
at the rooms of the architect, Mr. POLLARD. It is in the form of
a pentagon, and is to be erected of granite, in or fronting on
Union-Square; to be finished in the Gothic style of architecture,
richly and elaborately ornamented; with spacious rooms below for a
Historical Library, Gallery for Paintings, etc., approached from
the main rotundas. Its rich Gothic windows, columns, friezes,
cornices, and balustrades; its buttresses, turrets, tower, and
pinnacle; partake, in the _ensemble_, of the sublime in art; and
when the structure shall have towered to its utmost height, the
crochet of the pinnacle four hundred and twenty feet in the air,
it will be pronounced the noblest _monument_ in the known world.
It is to be built by the voluntary contributions of the people of
the United States, of _one dollar_ and upward. Some of our wealthy
citizens have already headed subscription-lists with five and ten
thousand dollars; and arrangements for the immediate commencement
of the enterprise are now fast maturing. 'May Heaven speed the
good work!' for that monument will rise in honor of one who has
'stamped his impress on the centuries;' whose virtuous deeds and
pure example will only lose their influence on the country which
he loved and whose freedom he won, 'when rolling years shall cease
to move.' If we turn over the pages of history, (says our renowned
progenitor, the immortal KNICKERBOCKER) that Man has written of
himself, what are the characters dignified by the appellation of
great, and held up to the admiration of posterity? Tyrants, robbers,
conquerors, renowned only for the magnitude of their misdeeds, and
the stupendous wrongs and miseries they have inflicted on mankind;
warriors, who have hired themselves to the trade of blood, not from
motives of virtuous patriotism, nor to protect the injured and
defenceless, but merely to gain the vaunted glory of being adroit
and successful in massacreing their fellow beings! What are the
great events that constitute a glorious era? The fall of empires;
the desolation of happy countries; splendid cities smoking in their
ruins; the proudest works of art tumbled in the dust; the shrieks
and groans of whole nations ascending unto heaven! How different
the means, how different the results, in the case of WASHINGTON!
Let a recent orator, an orator worthy his great theme, set forth in
appropriate and adequate words what we would but could not hope to
express:
'AMERICA has furnished Europe and the world with the character
of WASHINGTON. And if our institutions had done nothing
else, they would have deserved the respect of mankind.
WASHINGTON--first in war, first in peace, and first in the
hearts of his countrymen--WASHINGTON is all our own. And the
veneration and love entertained for him by the people of
the United States are proof that they are worthy of such a
countryman. I would cheerfully put the question to-day to the
intelligent men of all Europe--I will say to the intelligent
of the whole world--what character of the century stands out
in the relief of history, must pure, most respectable, most
sublime; and I doubt not that, by a suffrage approaching to
unanimity, the answer would be WASHINGTON. That monument itself
is not an unfit emblem of his character, by its uprightness,
its solidity, its durability. His public virtues and public
principles were as firm and fixed as the earth on which that
structure rests; his personal motives as pure as the serene
heavens in which its summit is lost. But, indeed, it is not an
adequate emblem. Towering far above this column that our hands
have built; beheld, not by the citizens of a single city or
a single State, but by all the families of man; ascends the
colossal grandeur of the character and life of WASHINGTON. In
all its constituent parts; in all its acts; in all its toils: in
its universal love and admiration, it is an American production.
Born upon our soil; of parents born upon our soil; never having
for a single day had a sight of the old world; reared amidst
our gigantic scenery; instructed, according to the modes of the
time, in the spare but wholesome elementary knowledge which
the institutions of the country furnish for all the children
of the people; brought up beneath and penetrated by the genial
influence of American society; partaking our great destiny of
labor; partaking and leading in that acmé of our glory, the War
of Independence; partaking and leading in that great victory of
peace, the establishment of the present Constitution; behold
him, ALTOGETHER AN AMERICAN! That glorious life,
'Where multitudes of virtues passed along,
Each pressing foremost in the mighty throng;
Contending to be seen, then making room
For other multitudes which were to come;'
that life in all its purity, in all its elevation, in all its
grandeur, was the life of an American citizen. I claim him--I
claim WASHINGTON--wholly for America.'
No wonder that 'great cheering'--that 'enthusiastic,' 'prolonged,'
'deafening,' 'long-continued,' 'renewed' applause--followed the
utterance of these sentences, from the united voices of a great
multitude which no man could number! There swelled the National
Heart; there went up to Heaven the voice of a great People, speaking
to Posterity.
* * * * *
'THE POETRY OF LIFE.'--This volume by Mrs. ELLIS, author of the
'Women' and 'Wives' of England, savors of professional book-making.
Sitting deliberately down to tell her readers how much poetry
may be extracted from the moon, trees, animals, evening, sound,
language, grief, flowers, woman, rural life, and the like, strikes
us as a 'dead set' at the sentimental; and however well the task
may be accomplished, it is but bringing together a confused mass of
pleasurable or other emotions, which may not be altogether common
to all the world and Mrs. ELLIS. In her description of the poetry
of the Bible, she has omitted by far the most prominent exhibitions
of that prevalent feature in the Sacred Word. The sublimity and
exquisite beauty which characterize the book of Job; the unequalled
story of Joseph and his Brethren; the touching pathos of PAUL; it
would not have been amiss, one would think, to have included in a
notice of the poetry of the Bible. In her essay upon the 'Poetry of
Language,' Mrs. ELLIS presents the annexed interesting exhibition of
verdancy:
'THE introduction of unpoetical images may be pardoned on the
score of inadvertency, but it is possible for such images to be
introduced in a manner which almost insults the feelings of the
reader, by the doggerel or burlesque style which obtains favor
with a certain class of readers, chiefly such as are incapable
of appreciating what is beautiful or sublime. One specimen of
this kind will be sufficient. It occurs in a volume of American
poetry:
'THERE'S music in the dash of waves
When the swift bark cleaves the foam;
There's music heard upon her deck,
The mariner's song of home.
When moon and star-beams smiling meet
At midnight on the sea--
_And there is music once a week
In Scudder's balcony._
'The moonlight music of the waves
In storms is heard no more,
When the living lightning mocks the wreck
At midnight on the shore:
And the mariner's song of home has ceased;
His course is on the sea--
_And there is music when it rains
In Scudder's balcony._'
'What could induce the poet to spoil his otherwise pretty verses
in this manner, it is difficult to imagine; but as this is by
no means a solitary instance of the kind, we are led to suppose
that the minds, in which such incongruities originate must be
influenced by the popular notion of imitating Lord BYRON, in
the wild vagaries which even his genius could scarcely render
endurable.'
Isn't this rather rich, friend HALLECK? We doubt whether Mrs. ELLIS
could take a joke, though it were shot at her from a cannon. Indeed,
she would doubtless reply to this remark: 'But how can you shoot a
joke out of a cannon? Surely, that can hardly be feasible!'
* * * * *
GOSSIP WITH READERS AND CORRESPONDENTS.--A Friend, writing to us
from the City of Brotherly Love, under date of 'Sixth-month 15th,'
respectfully inquires: 'Will the Editor accept a few remarks
on the communication of 'N. S. D.', from a plain Quaker; one,
whose ancestors were Quakers, and who, after a close historical
scrutiny, is not ashamed to claim _kith_, if he cannot _kin_, with
those of that profession who were hung on Boston Common, or were
beaten at cart-tails from village to village throughout puritanic
New-England?' To which we cheerfully answer: 'Yea, certainly, Friend
'N.' Lift up thy voice against the accuser of the brethren, and
welcome:'
'FROM the days of COTTON MATHER down to the present time, it
has been the constant aim of the defenders of the reputation
of the founders of New England, to cast upon the early Quakers
all manner of aspersions. A few years since, a writer in the
'North-American Review,' having occasion to allude to the
banishment of MARY FISHER and ANNE AUSTIN, the first Quakers
who ever visited the western world, declared that it was for
molesting and interrupting ministers in their places of worship.
This assertion is also made by a clergyman of Philadelphia, in
a discourse delivered on the anniversary of the landing of the
'Pilgrim Fathers;' with this addition, that one of these women
went naked into a place of worship. THESE CHARGES ARE NOT TRUE.
I do not believe the reviewer, nor the Doctor of Divinity (so
called) wilfully misrepresented the truth; but I believe them
culpable in taking for granted assertions of writers living long
posterior to the events they describe, without examining for
themselves the original documents remaining on the subject. The
records of the Massachusetts Colony, as collected by HAZARD,
as well as the narratives published at the time by the friends
of the sufferers, conclusively show that neither MARY FISHER
nor ANNE AUSTIN had ever set foot on the shores of New England
until they were taken as prisoners from the vessel in which
they came passengers, and carried to the jail of the colony.
Deputy governor BELLINGHAM having received intelligence that
two female Quakers were in the ship Swallow, then at anchor
in the Bay, commanded that they should be closely confined
therein, and that all their books should be taken from them,
and burned by the hangman. A writer of that day, in reference
to the person employed to effect this conflagration, quaintly
remarks: 'O, learned and malicious cruelty!--as if another man
had not been sufficient to have burnt a few harmless books, who,
like their masters, can neither fight, strike, nor quarrel.'
At that time there was no law against Quakers; but the council
deemed that they were liable to the penalties of a law passed
in 1646, against heresy and error, which decreed to banishment
the opposers of the baptism of infants, and all such as denied
the lawfulness of war. The order of council in this case is now
before me, bearing date 'the 11th of July, 1656.' It commences
with enumerating the former laws against heretics, and goes on
to say, that, notwithstanding these, SIMON KEMPTHORN had brought
in two Quakers, who, on examination, are found to hold very
dangerous and heretical opinions, which they acknowledge they
came purposely to propagate. It directs that the books of the
prisoners shall be burned; that the prisoners themselves shall
be kept close, and none admitted to see them without leave from
the governor, deputy-governor, or two magistrates; and that the
said SIMON KEMPTHORN is hereby enjoined, speedily and directly
to transport, or cause to be transported, the said persons from
hence to Barbadoes, from whence they came, he defraying all the
charges of their imprisonment; and for the effectual performance
hereof, he is to give security in a bond of one hundred pounds
sterling, and on his refusal to give such security, he is to be
committed to prison till he do it.'
'Of the four individuals put to death at Boston, after examining
all the records extant in the respective cases, the apologies
issued by JOHN NORTON and the 'General Court' of Massachusetts,
I am prepared to say, that there is not the slightest evidence
that they were disturbers of the public peace, or violators of
public decorum. The charges brought against them prove indeed
that they came to Massachusetts, alleging it was from a sense of
religious duty, and that while there, as free-born citizens of
England, they refused a voluntary submission to laws violating
the rights guarantied them by Magna Charta, and the Common
Law of England. I wish not to consume space, but would make
a few remarks on the 'frequent occasions' in which the early
Quakers, according to 'N. S. D.', went 'stark naked into the
public assemblies.' Women of respectable connections, easy
fortunes, liberal education, and modest demeanor and carriage,
for preaching the gospel, and for merely coming to New-England
to look after their rightful possessions, were from time to
time stripped naked to the waist, and whipped from township to
township; and yet the nice sense of modesty of the New-England
folk of that day was not shocked. In 1664, when these scenes
had been enacted for seven years, LYDIA WARDELL, who had been
summoned repeatedly to appear before the congregation at
Newbury, and whose mind was no doubt under much excitement in
sympathy with her fellow-believers in their sufferings, went
into the place of worship in that village, stripped in the
manner the magistrates were continually stripping her friends.
The modesty of the people was sorely offended; and seizing her
and her female companion, they stripped the latter, and tying
their naked bodies to the whipping-posts, with many lashes
earnestly laid on, endeavored to heal the wounds inflicted on
the sense of decorum of the gaping crowd.
'I have not taken up my pen to defend the conduct of LYDIA, but
merely to state the facts of the case. Beside this instance,
one other individual, a few months afterward, under similar
excitement, performed a similar action. Now to our conclusion.
These cases, which are the only ones a close examination of
the charges of contemporaneous enemies of the Society, and the
defense of its friends exhibit any trace of, are brought forward
at this day in justification of acts of oppression committed
long before these occurred; Turn to the statements forwarded to
England to excuse the murder of STEVENSON, ROBINSON, DYER, and
LEDDRA; examine the reasons assigned by NORTON and the 'General
Court' for their proceedings. Their enmity to the Quakers
is strong, but not the slightest hint is given that these
suffered because of any indecent exposure, or that the general
persecution the Society at that time endured was occasioned by
acts of this or a kindred nature. And why? Because the first
instance of the kind occurred more than three years after the
death of LEDDRA, the last Quaker martyr in New-England. It is a
remarkable fact, that soon after these two cases of voluntary
exposure, the public stripping of Quaker women ceased. What
effect these had in changing the feelings of the community, I
cannot tell; but it is certainly a curious coincidence, that
after this period the records of courts, and the copious annals
of our Society, scarcely exhibit an instance of these cart-tail
indecencies. The rest of the charges of 'N. S. D.' are equally
unfounded; and, with sufficient space for quotations, might be
satisfactorily confuted.