preposterous to believe that her fame as an educator might have
outlasted her reputation in literature, and that she might have shared
with Miss Beecher of the old Hartford Female Seminary a certain degree
of distinction in connection with the early education of women in this
country.
_IV: Whom the Gods Love_
IN the year 1822 there drifted into the friendly social life of the old
town a short, odd looking young man who, it developed, had come to take
editorial charge of "The Connecticut Mirror," a weekly newspaper,
strongly federal in politics, which had been established in 1809 by
Charles Hosmer and which, at this time, had just been bought by Messrs.
Goodsell and Wells, whose place of business was at the corner of Main
and Asylum streets.
The name of this young man was John Gardiner Calkins Brainard and he was
twenty-six years old. Those who inquired about him learned that he was a
native of New London and the son of Judge Jeremiah G. Brainard of the
Superior Court. In 1815 he had been graduated at Yale--a classmate of
that strange genius James Gates Percival, poet, physician, geologist.
After studying law in his brother's office he had practiced for a time
in Middletown, but it was rumored that his tastes were literary rather
than legal, and that the law had not proved very successful.
In spite of his rather uncouth appearance this newcomer soon became a
favorite among the young people. He was clever--any one could see that.
His frequent witty and amusing sayings gathered an arresting emphasis
from their contrast with intervals of quietness and even of apparent
depression. Perhaps this hint of an underlying seriousness had its
especial charm for the young ladies. Remember that in those days Byron
was in fashion. But there was something about this young man that
attracted also friends of his own sex. "The first time I ever saw him,"
says a writer in the "Boston Statesman," quoted by Whittier in his
memoir of Brainard, "I met him in a gay and fashionable circle. He was
pointed out to me as the poet Brainard--a plain, ordinary looking
individual, careless in his dress, and apparently without the least
claim to the attention of those who value such advantages(?). But there
was no person there so much or so flatteringly attended to. . . . He
was evidently the idol, not only of the poetry-loving and gentler
sex--but also of the young men who were about him. . . ."
We can picture young Mr. Brainard as one of the leading figures in that
"literary cotery," which Goodrich describes and which was presided over
by Mrs. Sigourney. It was in a room adjoining Goodrich's at Ripley's
Tavern that Brainard soon took up his abode and the two became fast
friends.
The discovery was soon made that young Mr. Brainard was by way of being
a poet--if, indeed, the fact was not already known. Verses, obviously
from his pen, appeared constantly in his newspaper. Indeed some of the
paper's readers may have recognized the new editor's hand through their
familiarity with the verse he had sometimes written for the "Mirror"
before his official connection with that journal. His first contribution
to the paper in his new capacity appeared in the issue for February 25,
1822, in which the change of ownership and the new editor were
announced. This contribution was in the form of a poem "On the Birthday
of Washington."--"Behold the moss'd cornerstone dropp'd from the wall,"
ran the first line. It was not a great poem, but it sounded a sincere,
patriotic note, had a genuine poetic touch and far excelled most
newspaper verse of the day.
And so this original young man, with his light brown hair, rather pale
face, large eyes and obvious "temperament" began to acquire the
character and reputation of a poet. We fancy that this reputation was
somewhat limited until on a sudden impulse he wrote "The Fall of
Niagara." This piece of blank verse, though now largely forgotten in the
lapse of years, had in its time a tremendous vogue. It was copied far
and wide, took its place in school readers and for years was declaimed
by youthful orators before committees and admiring parents at school
exhibitions.
We do not know the exact date of its composition, but it must have been
before 1825, for it appeared in the author's first collection of verse
published in that year. It was written one raw March evening in an
emergency, to make copy for the next morning's paper. Goodrich tells the
story. Brainard was half ill with a cold and Goodrich went over with him
to the "Mirror" office and started a fire in the Franklin stove, while
his companion, miserable and depressed, talked at random, abhorring the
compulsion that made writing a necessity and his procrastination that
had postponed his work, till the last moment.
"Some time passed," says Goodrich, "in similar talk,
when at last Brainard turned suddenly, took up his pen
and began to write. I sat apart and left him to his
work. Some twenty minutes passed, when, with a radiant
smile on his face, he got up, approached the fire, and,
taking the candle to light his paper, he read as
follows:
THE FALL OF NIAGARA.
'The thoughts are strange that crowd into my brain,
While I look upward to thee. It would seem
As if God pour'd thee from his 'hollow hand.'
And hung his bow upon thy awful front;
And spoke in that loud voice, which seem'd to him
Who dwelt in Patmos for his Saviour's sake,
'The sound of many waters'; and had bade
Thy flood to chronicle the ages back.
And notch his cent'ries in the eternal rocks.'
"He had hardly done reading when the [printer's] boy
came. Brainard handed him the lines--on a small scrap
of rather coarse paper--and told him to come again in
half an hour. Before this time had elapsed, he had
finished, read me the following stanza:
'Deep calleth unto deep. And what are we,
That hear the question of that voice sublime?
Oh, what are all the notes that ever rung
From war's vain trumpet by thy thundering side?
Yea, what is all the riot man can make,
In his short life, to thy unceasing roar?
And yet, bold babbler, what art thou to Him
Who drown'd a world, and heap'd the waters far
Above its loftiest mountains?--a light wave,
That breathes and whispers of its Maker's might.'
"These lines having been furnished, Brainard left his
office and we returned to Miss Lucy's parlor. He seemed
utterly unconscious of what he had done. . . . The
lines went forth and produced a sensation of delight
over the whole country."
It is not too much to say that Niagara brought Brainard fame. To the
modern ear inured to free verse its lines may sound perhaps a trifle
over sonorous and formal. But it has real poetic eloquence and
inspiration. Brainard had never been within less than five hundred miles
of the great falls.
The Niagara is the first poem in that collection of the poet's verses
published in 1825, alluded to above. Before the writer at the moment
lies a copy of this rather rare volume. Goodrich arranged for its
publication with Bliss and White of New York and with difficulty
persuaded Brainard to do the necessary work of collection and revision.
It was the only collection of his verses that was published during the
poet's life. Two others were issued after his death--one in 1832, with a
memoir by Whittier, and one, with a prefatory sketch by the Rev. Dr.
Robbins, in 1842. The copy of the first collection, now on the writer's
desk, bears on the fly-leaf this inscription in the author's
handwriting:
[Illustration: Handwritten:
Will you allow this a place in your Library and oblige
Yours very respectfully
JGCBrainard
To/D Wadsworth Esq]
The thin little book has the title, "Occasional Pieces of Poetry," which
is peculiarly appropriate, for most of Brainard's poems were suggested
by incidents of daily life that came to his attention. For example, the
stage coach from Hartford to New Haven falls through a bridge and two
lives are lost--the occurrence prompts him to write the "Lines on a
Melancholy Accident;" the visit of Lafayette to this country in 1824
occasions some verses to "the only surviving general of the Revolution;"
the death of two persons who were struck by lightning during a religious
service in Montville suggests "The Thunder Storm;" the humorous verses
entitled "The Captain" result from the genuinely amusing situation that
arose in New London harbor when the wreck of the Norwich Methodist
meeting house, that had come down the river in a freshet, collided with
an anchored schooner.
[Illustration:
OCCASIONAL
PIECES OF POETRY.
BY JOHN G. C. BRAINARD.
Some said, "John, print it;" others said, "Not so,"--
Some said, "It might do good;" others said, "No."
_Bunyan's Apology_
NEW-YORK:
PRINTED FOR K. BLISS AND E. WHITE
_Clayton & Van Norden, Printers._
1825.]
The fact that the poet took many every-day affairs as the immediate
occasion for his versifying accounts for the trivial character of some
of his work. On the other hand it illustrates the theory he held of the
need of a genuine American literature. Though he read eagerly Byron and
Scott, he deprecated in the columns of the "Mirror" the imitation of
foreign writers by American men of letters, holding that our own
history, traditions and environment gave inspiration enough.
He welcomed the appearance of Cooper with enthusiasm, and a story which
ran in the "Mirror" under the title of "Letters from Fort Braddock"
and which was largely in the Cooper manner was written by him though
published anonymously. Indeed a great part of his work dealt with local
matters. "Matchit Moodus" expresses a fantastic legend of the "Moodus
noises." "The Black Fox of Salmon River" embodies in verse another grim
local tradition. "The Shad Spirit" and "Lines to the Connecticut River"
are other similar examples of his use of the folk-lore of the
Connecticut valley.
Professor Beers of Yale cites the exquisite little lyric beginning "The
dead leaves strew the forest walk," as about the best example of his
work. Goodrich says it was written after the departure from Hartford of
a young lady from Savannah to whom the poet had been devoted during her
visit. Very attractive, too, are the lines on "Indian Summer." The blank
verse entitled "The Invalid on the East End of Long Island," has a
melancholy note but deserves remembrance. It was there that Brainard
spent the few weeks just before the end.
He was too sensitive and unaggressive a soul both for the law and for
the political wrangling which attended the newspaper controversies of
the day. In the practical life of his country and his time, which had
small place for artistic aspiration or expression, he was an anomaly
simply because he was a real poet. To this situation may be attributed
no doubt in large measure the sense of failure, unquestionably
exaggerated, which he often expressed. "Don't expect too much of me," he
said to Goodrich at their first meeting, "I never succeeded in anything
yet. I could never draw a mug of cider without spilling more than half
of it."
His frequent depression, however, was not all temperament--it had a
physical basis. In the spring of 1827 incipient tuberculosis compelled
him to give up his work on the "Mirror," and on September 26, 1828, a
month before his thirty-second birthday, he died at his home in New
London.
His death called forth the customary poetic obituary from his friend
Mrs. Sigourney--one of the best she ever wrote--voicing a sincere and
generous appreciation. Whittier, with other poets of the day, added his
word of memory and praise. Perhaps a line from Snelling best expresses
in a few words the whole story--
"The falchion's temper ate the scabbard through."
_V: An Eccentric Visitor_
WE may be permitted to take a certain pride in the fact that most
strangers who sojourn for a time among us express admiration and liking
for the town. There has been, however, one historic and notable
exception. A young man named Percival who visited us in 1815, the year
of his graduation from Yale College, did not care for Hartford at all
and, moreover, did not hesitate to proclaim his distaste in some of the
verses he was then engaged in writing. However, poor Percival did not
like any spot very well. It is with a sense of faint amusement or, when
we know his history, of compassion, rather than with any shade of
resentment, that we now read the stanzas in which he published his
sentiments to an unappreciative world:
"Ismir! Fare thee well forever!
From thy walls with joy I go,
Every tie I freely sever,
Flying from thy den of woe.
* * * *
Ismir! Land of cursed deceivers,
Where the sons of darkness dwell
Hope, the cherub's base bereavers,--
Hateful city! Fare thee well."
When he wrote this James Gates Percival was twenty years old. Some of
the emotion of these lines arose simply from uncurbed youthful reaction
from disappointment. Most of it, however, was individual and
characteristic temperament--the same uncomfortable mental constitution
that seemed to make it impossible for him to withhold the vitriolic
verses he wrote and printed on the character of a clergyman who had
objected to Percival's suit for his daughter's hand.
The young poet had come to Hartford on the invitation of his classmate,
Horace Hooker, who later entered the ministry and whose wife wrote for
the young a number of very instructive and very pious stories which in
their day attained a considerable popularity. It was hoped that in the
literary atmosphere which at that time existed in Hartford this odd
young man, with his undoubted poetic strain and his dreamy and
contemplative nature, would find a congenial milieu.
The visit, however, was a failure. Young Percival was not popular. "He
was too shy and modest," says his biographer, "to adapt himself to
different circles. He wanted confidence, and at social gatherings [in
Hartford] he talked at great length on single subjects, but in so low a
tone that people could not hear him. He was not treated as he expected
to be; it seemed to him that he was not appreciated, and he came away in
disgust."
This charge against us of lack of appreciation finds some mitigation in
the fact that the poet departed from many places in the same frame of
mind and for the same reason. Percival was one of those pathetic spirits
who find the world an unhappy abiding place. His constitutional
wretchedness was in fact so extreme that he is said in early life to
have attempted self-destruction and one of his best poems, as well as
one of the gloomiest in the language, reflects his moods at this period
under the title of "The Suicide."
Fortune aggravated the disadvantage of one unfitted at the best to cope
with the world by allotting to him a life of penury. For many years he
lived as a recluse in the State Hospital Building in New Haven where he
was allowed the use of three rooms which he never permitted visitors to
enter--on one occasion even refusing to admit Henry Wadsworth
Longfellow. It is related that at another time a somewhat pompous
gentleman, accompanied by two ladies, was visiting the building and,
learning that the poet lived there, rapped at his door and then stood
waiting, a lady on each side of him. The door opened a crack and
Percival's face appeared. "I am extremely happy and rejoiced," began the
visitor, with a great deal of manner, "that I have the honor of
addressing the poet Percival--" But he got no further, for Percival
instantly ejaculated "Boo!" and slammed the door. This seems to have
been his customary manner of excusing himself to callers.
Percival's lack of means was in a way his own fault--or at least it was
the result of his peculiar disposition which, in its sensitiveness to
purely imaginary slights and its impossibility of concession or
adaptation, worked constantly against his prosperity. His friends were
faithful and long-suffering and often came to the rescue. In spite of
his oddities there seems to have been a singular charm about the man
like the charm of an unexpectedly original child. When the bane of an
intense bashfulness was removed and he was alone with one or two
intimates, his talk is said to have been delightful. He became
absolutely absorbed in any topic in which he was interested and brought
to bear upon it a wealth of allusion and comment of which few minds were
capable.
As a poet he is now forgotten, yet it is a suggestive and significant
fact that in 1828, when a project was in hand to publish a group picture
of nine living American poets, Percival was to occupy the center of the
stage, while such minor lights as Bryant, Irving and Halleck, with
others, were to surround him.
But the fame he longed for and, with an almost childlike naïveté,
claimed as his due, was short-lived. It barely touched him and passed
him by. Yet he deserves remembrance, if only for his versatility. While
it is chiefly as a poet that mention is made of him in encyclopedias and
other books of reference, he was capable, but for his temperamental
disabilities, of shining in many lines and in one pursuit other than
poetry he has left a lasting memorial. He studied law, was admitted to
the bar and never practiced. He served his medical apprenticeship under
his good friend Dr. Eli Ives of New Haven, took his degree, practiced a
little and, though he was always afterward known as "Doctor," abandoned
the profession--except that later in life he was post surgeon at Boston
till his abhorrence of examining recruits compelled him to relinquish
the work. At one time he thought of entering the ministry and he was
always an authority on theology and dogma. He gave up his appointment as
a professor of chemistry at the Military Academy at West Point because
in going to his quarters he had to use the same hallway with other
officers. He was a learned botanist and a linguist of rare attainments.
In 1827 he carried through successfully the immense task of correcting
the proofs and supervising the publication of Webster's unabridged
dictionary--and seems to have been happier in this work of enormous
detail than at any other time of his life.
But it was as a geologist that his most valuable practical work was
done. His "Report on the Geology of Connecticut," published in 1842, was
the result of five years of arduous labor and is a sufficient monument
for any man.
"While engaged in this survey," he wrote, "I can confidently say that I
have been laborious and diligent. While traveling, it was my practice
to rise early, in the longer days generally at dawn; in the shorter
generally I got my breakfast and was on my way by daybreak, I continued,
scarcely with any relaxation, as long as I had daylight and then was
generally obliged to sit up till midnight, not unfrequently till one
o'clock A. M. in order to complete my notes and arrange my specimens.
This was continued, not only week after week, but month after month,
almost without cessation."
Under the law Percival could not be paid till his report had been
approved by the governor. It is characteristic of the whimsical
geologist that he refused to submit to this approval by one whom he
considered incompetent to pass upon his labors and it was only by the
ruse of a friend who got possession of the report and presented it to
the governor, who at once approved it, that Percival secured his pay.
This work brought Percival a high reputation as a geologist. He was
engaged by the American Mining Company to investigate the lead deposits
in Wisconsin and this in turn resulted in his employment by that state
to make a geological survey similar to that of Connecticut. He had made
his first report and was engaged upon his second when he became ill and
in May, 1856, he died and was buried in Hazel Green, Wisconsin. "Eminent
as a Poet," runs his epitaph, "rarely accomplished as a Linguist,
learned and acute in Science, a Man without Guile."
During his employment in Wisconsin his friends had bought a lot and
built a house for him in New Haven. It was a queer structure, built
after the poet's own plans, with the entrance at the rear, blind windows
at the front, and of only one story in height. He was looking forward to
spending here his last years, close to his college, with his few
intimate friends, surrounded by his books. During an interval in his
Wisconsin employment he came to New Haven to inspect his future home and
is said to have broken down completely as he was compelled to leave by
the duty that called him westward.
He was a strange creature, impossible to get along with, handicapped by
an over-sensitiveness that led him into resentments that often held the
implication of ingratitude, and with a constant grudge against the
world. He should have been endowed and relieved of all the detail of
life. Even then it is doubtful if he would have produced great poetry,
unless he had been rigorously trained by some dominant master to
condense, revise and work over again and again his diffuse, sentimental
and dreamy verses. A few of them retained for a time a certain vogue and
then gradually passed into oblivion. Perhaps the two that were longest
remembered were "To Seneca Lake" and "The Coral Grove." It is an odd
thing, but some selections from a boyish effort entitled "Seasons of New
England," hitherto generally cited as evidence of his youthful
absurdities, would make excellent examples of the free verse that
nowadays is taken so seriously. In this respect, at least, he was ahead
of his time.
In his review of the "Life and Letters" Lowell seems rather dogmatic and
intolerant, but with his inevitable insight and art of statement he
crystalizes into one sentence the whole trouble with Percival. "He
appears," writes Lowell, "as striking an example as could be found of
the poetic temperament unballasted with those less obvious qualities
which make the poetic faculty."
It should be recorded that children loved this old bachelor in spite of
his eccentricities and that with them he seemed to feel unrestrained
and free, forgetting the shyness that formed an insuperable barrier to
ready friendship with adults. In our Connecticut history he should not
be forgotten and if any of the spirits of the departed revisit the
glimpses of the moon this strange apparition ought sometimes to be met,
driving his phantom buggy through forgotten lanes of the state he loved,
or with his hammer and bag of specimens, climbing on foot the hills and
ledges he knew so well.
_VI: Who Was Peter Parley?_
IF your great-grandmother were living, dear reader, she would be
appalled at your ignorance in propounding this question. Everybody knew
the identity of "Peter Parley." In his day his name was as familiar a
_nom de plume_ as Mark Twain. He was, of course, Samuel G. Goodrich. And
who--alas for the question!--was Samuel G. Goodrich?
"Ah, pensive scholar, what is fame?
A fitful tongue of leaping flame;
A giddy whirlwind's fickle gust,
That lifts a pinch of mortal dust;
A few swift years, and who can show
Which dust was Bill, and which was Joe?"
He does not deserve to be forgotten. Born at Ridgefield, Connecticut, in
1793, he died at New York City in 1860. For twenty-four hours his body
lay in state in St. Bartholomew's Church where crowds passed his bier
and at Southbury, Connecticut, where he was buried, groups of children
preceded the coffin and strewed flowers in its path.
It was a fitting and touching ceremony, for all his life he had been the
friend of children. It was almost entirely for them that he wrote his
two hundred books, of which he estimated, five years before his death,
that seven million copies had then been sold, including, we assume,
those editions that had been translated into nearly every modern
language, even Greek and Persian.
Rummage among the top shelves of any old library and you will be pretty
sure to discover some of these almost forgotten volumes--Parley's "Tales
of the Sea," "Tales About the Sun, Moon and Stars," tales about New
York, about ancient Rome, about Great Britain, about animals, about
almost everything in this interesting world and outside of it. Of his
"Natural History" George Du Maurier says--"Last, but not least of our
library, was Peter Parley's 'Natural History,' of which we knew every
word by heart," and a writer in the "Congregationalist" a quarter of a
century ago ventured the opinion, "We have no doubt, were it needed,
that 1,000 aged people could rise and repeat the widely famous lines,
'The world is round and, like a ball, seems swinging in the air.'"