Where Gingham got his classical knowledge, I had not at this time
ascertained. Certain it is, he was a very fair classic. But there was
one dreadful drawback to his character, and, in a man of his gravity,
a strange one: I mean his offensive, horrid practice of making most
atrocious Latin puns. A pun in English he viewed with utter contempt.
It stirred his bile. No English pun escaped his lips. But for a Latin
pun, he scrupled not to lay under contribution even the first-rate
Latin poets, Virgil, Ovid--nay, his favourite author, Horace; and if I,
influenced by bad example, was weak enough, in an unguarded moment, to
commit the same offence, he stole my puns, and made them again as his
own.
On the eve of our embarkation we strolled forth, after an early
dinner, for a parting view of the sunset from the castle. Walking
up town, we met the man of rum, the sleep-murdering Macbeth of the
mail-coach. Still he was talking--for want of company, talking to
himself. But his eyes were set, half-closed, and dim; his aspect was
peculiarly meditative, and his course curvilinear. He had taken on
board _plus æquo_ of his own samples. Perceiving our approach, he
gave a lurch to clear us. But his legs, being not altogether under
management, brought him exactly in the direction which he sought
to shun; his stomach, which had already suffered so many assaults
in the coach, most unfortunately impinged upon my elbow; and again
it was "ugh!" His gummy eyes expanded, and gleamed on us like two
fresh-opened oysters. Awhile he gazed with drunken gravity; then,
turning round, bent over the roadside gutter, as if about to tumble
in, and jocosely imitated the operation of drawing a cork. His organs
of vision then assumed a slow movement of horizontal oscillation, and
gradually settled on a pastry-cook's shop over the way. Towards this
point he directed his zigzag approaches, recommencing his agreeable
conference with himself, in terms of which we could catch only the
words--"Archimedes--screw--pneumatic chemistry--soda water--pop!" He
left with us the odour of a very bad cigar, which led Gingham to remark
that he was "backy plenus" in more senses than one.
The influence of bad example is dreadful. Emerging from the town in
our way to the castle, we met a merry party, male and female, all
equestrians save some six or eight, who occupied the interior and
exterior of a post-chaise. Gingham, who saw into a thing at once,
pronounced them a wedding party; and a buxom dame, who was mounted on
a lively little west country galloway, the bride. "Pony subit conjux,"
said I. "Yes," said Gingham; "but if that dear lady rides so near the
carriage, oh! oh! oh! she will infallibly be capsized! 'Pony sub curru
nimium propinqui!'" We reached the hill in time, saw a glorious sunset,
and returned to letter-writing, and a light supper on hashed duck.
As Gingham appears more than once upon the stage in the course of
my Peninsular adventures, and I should really be sorry to annoy the
reader, as much as I was annoyed myself, with his perpetual and
abominable perversions of classic latinity, I beg leave to dispose
of this part of the subject at once, before we get to sea. Suffice
it to say, then, that in the spring of the year 1838, just a quarter
of a century after the period of which I am now writing, I once more
left London for Falmouth, _en route_ to Lisbon, though with an object
far different from that of my voyage now to be recorded, and in a far
different capacity. Science, in these five-and-twenty years, had done
wonders; and I had secured my passage in London, not by a miserable tub
of a sailing packet, but by a well-found and fast Peninsular steamer.
The day before the steamer was to start from Falmouth, I walked down to
the water's side to take a view of her. On the quay stood Gingham. By
one of those strange coincidences which sometimes happen in life, we
had again met at Falmouth, and were again to cross the Bay of Biscay in
company. I recognised him: he did not recognise me. Time had somewhat
changed his look, his dress very little. Its predominant aspect was
still white. His nose, too, was unmistakeable. Perceiving at once that
he was, like myself, a passenger to the Peninsula, I availed myself of
the freedom conceded in such cases, and commenced a conversation by
some remark on the steamer.
"I presume, sir," said he, "you are a passenger?"
"Yes, Mr Gingham, and so are you. Glad to meet you." He stared, but
admitted the fact.
"But, sir," said he, "you have the advantage of me."
"Well, well," said I, "you'll find me out to-morrow on board the
Guadalquivir. Fine ship that. To-morrow, you know, as Horace said, when
he was off by the steamer:-'Cras, ingins! iterabimus æquor!"
The effect was instantaneous. Gingham did not speak, he shouted:--"Dine
with me: I have got a john dory."
We walked off to the town--I rubbing my shoulder, which Gingham shook,
when he shook my hand--he, for a few paces, thoughtful and silent. I
expected a burst of sentiment.
"By the bye," said Gingham, "while your hand was in, you might just
as well have quoted the _other_ line, for that, also, refers to our
voyage."
"The other line?"
"Yes, the other line. Don't you see that pair of rooks flying over the
harbour?"
"Rooks fly in droves. I see no rooks."
"Right," said he; "they are a couple of crows."
"But the line from Horace, referring to our voyage?"
"Not only referring to it," said Gingham, "but highly encouraging. 'Nil
desperandum two crow duce, et auspice two crow."
"Gingham, you are incorrigible."
To reach the street from the water's side we had to pass through a
narrow passage, and there met the stewardess of the steamer, who was
going on board. She stalked along in clogs on tiptoe, her left hand
gathering up, behind, her cloak, gown, petticoat, &c., while her right
hand bore an umbrella one size larger than a parasol, and a reticule
one size less than a pannier; emerging from which pannier appeared
the ugly mug of an enormous Portuguese red ram cat, the pet of the
stewardess, and the constant companion of her Peninsular voyages.
"My cat inter omnes," said Gingham.
* * * * *
But I have rambled, and am a quarter of a century wide of the mark.
The period of which I have now to write, the important period to which
my present narrative refers, is not the more recent year, 1838, but
the remoter year, 1813, glorious in the annals of England; the year
that saw the commencement of Napoleon's downfall; the year of triumph
and rout beneath the walls of Vittoria; the year of a still sterner
and equally successful conflict at St Sebastian; the year, too, that
furnished a name for a princess of a royal line, that QUEEN VICTORIA
who, in her high estate and royal clemency, remembered and rewarded the
long-forgotten and long unrecompensed heroes of those bygone times.
In the early spring of that year, 1813, I was there at Falmouth, a
raw youth, launched on the wide world in search of adventure, burning
to reach the headquarters of the Peninsular army, fully capable of
making a fool of myself when I got there, and anxiously waiting for
the sailing of the Princess Wilhelmina gun-brig, which, for want of a
better, performed the office of Lisbon packet. It was well for me that,
at Falmouth, I had already fallen into friendly hands.
On the morning of our embarkation, March the--th, 1813, Gingham went
early on board the packet, for his personal baggage was bulky and
various, to see to its stowage--part in his berth, part in the hold.
It was settled between us that he was to return ashore, that we were
to breakfast together at the hotel, and afterwards go off together to
the packet, which was still lying in the harbour, and was to sail about
noon.
I waited breakfast for Gingham, but no Gingham came. At length I
received a long note from him, dated on board the packet. It began by
stating that an attempt had been made to impose upon him, and that he
was determined not to stand it. The attempted imposition, as I learned
from him afterwards, was this:--
Gingham walked down from the hotel to the water's side, and engaged a
boat, which was to take him on board the packet for eighteen-pence;
he, Gingham, understanding thereby, according to the tenor of many
previous bargains at the same rate of payment, that he was to be taken
on board, and put on shore again. On this, however, the last day of
our abode at Falmouth, the two boatmen, thinking they might safely try
it on, and conjecturing also that Gingham's time might possibly be too
valuable to be wasted in discussion, determined to take a different
view of the subject, and exact a second fare for landing him. The boat
reached the packet, Gingham went on board, the boatmen made fast to
a harbour-buoy, and waited the result. Gingham went below, made his
arrangements, came on deck, and hailed his boat to take him ashore. The
elder boatman civilly touched his hat, and remarked, with a winning
smile, that they hadn't been paid "nuffin" for bringing him _on board_.
Gingham replied, that he should pay as usual when they had got back to
the quay. The boatman, courteous as before, again touched his hat, and
answered, simpering, "Beg your pardon, sir, but this ear last day, when
the peckit's hoff, jeddlemen hol-ways pays bode ways, cumin aboard,
and goon back again." "Oh, do they?" said Gingham, and walked down
into the cabin, where he quietly wrote his note to me, in a hand that
beat copperplate; and breakfasted upon sea biscuit, junk, and ship's
cocoa, the steward not having yet got off his stock of groceries for
the voyage. Everybody on board knew Gingham, and he had no difficulty
in getting his note brought ashore in the ship's boat, without the
knowledge of the two 'longshore fellows, who were riding at the buoy,
and who still thought they had the best of the bargain--as it is a rule
in harbour, or at any rate was in those days, that no private passenger
by a packet passed or repassed except by 'longshore boats. Gingham was
now all right, and did not care one farthing for the boatmen; for he
already had the bulk of his things on board, he was on board himself,
and his note advised me respecting his remaining matters ashore. He
continued below, having resolved, as he told me afterwards, to keep the
boatmen waiting alongside till the packet was off, and then give them
ninepence. Meanwhile he sent up, by the steward, an injunction to the
people on deck, who enjoyed not a little the false position of the two
boatmen, not on any account to let them come on board.
Gingham's note to me, which was, as I have already intimated, a
beautiful specimen of commercial penmanship, was to the following
effect:--That he was detained on board by his determination to resist
a gross imposition; that the laundress had still in her keeping a
small quantity of his linen, which she was to bring to the hotel about
breakfast-time; that he had settled with the servants that morning;
and that the landlady was indebted to him in the sum of two shillings,
he having paid his bill the night before, in which bill was included
the charge of two shillings for a cold-meat breakfast, which he should
not take; that he requested me to get back the two shillings from
the landlady; that he would also thank me to receive the linen from
the laundress, see that it was correct per invoice, (washing-bill, I
presume,) check her account, liquidate it, and bring the linen on board
with me.
Meanwhile a circumstance arose, which was of great moment in itself,
and gave Gingham a further advantage in his affair with the two
Falmouth lads. An extra mail for Lisbon had arrived from London,
sent off by despatch to catch the packet before she sailed; and, by
management of Gingham's partners, who were influential people, brought
Gingham letters on a matter of some importance. These letters were
taken off to Gingham by a trusty drab-coated Falmouth "Friend," in
another 'longshore boat, and rendered it absolutely requisite that he
should go ashore, and perhaps defer his voyage. The packet at this
time was surrounded with boats and bustle, the two boatmen still
fast to the buoy; and Gingham had no difficulty in returning ashore
by the boat which brought off his mercantile friend, without being
observed by them. In fact, they were half asleep, still secure, as they
thought, of their victim, and affording no small sport to the crew of
the packet, who saw how things were going. I shall only mention here,
that the communication, received by Gingham from London, related to
a grand financial speculation, an idea of his own, having reference
to the monetary transactions at headquarters, which were very large,
and as well conducted as circumstances permitted, but attended with
great difficulties, and considerable loss to the British government.
Gingham's plan would have been backed by private capital to any amount.
It was knocked on the head by the peace of 1814: but I have more to say
about it hereafter.
True to her time, the laundress arrived at the hotel; not bringing, as
Gingham had described it, a small quantity of linen, but attended by
a man with a barrow, wheeling two large buck-baskets, each piled with
an immense heap of shirts, white inexpressibles, white double-breasted
dimity waistcoats,--in short every thing white,--a stock for a voyage
to China. On the interior of the collar of one of the said white
double-breasted dimity waistcoats, I noticed the cypher G G!--No.
37
1 of the fourth dozen! So profuse was Gingham in his provision for the
habiliment of his own elegant exterior. I settled with the laundress,
engaged the barrow-man to go off with me in charge of the linen, and
take back the baskets, finished my breakfast, paid my bill, and went on
board. Such was my first embarkation for the Peninsula. Little dreaming
that there was a spoke in my wheel, and that some time was still to
elapse between my departure from Falmouth and my arrival at the British
headquarters, I had longed for the day of the packet's sailing. But
now, when the wished-for moment had arrived, a lot of little things,
coming upon me at the last, quite put it out of my head that I was
quitting my native land, and about to enter on new scenes, mingle
with strangers, embark in active life, and master--where alone they
could be mastered, on their vernacular soil--two ancient, expressive,
and kindred languages, which I had conned rudimentally on the banks
of Cam. Nor did I dream that I went to earn a prospective claim to a
Peninsular Medal; and jot down mental memoranda, still vividly legible,
of all I heard and saw, for the information and amusement of readers
then unborn. "Gooin' off to the peckit, sir? Here, Bill, hand the
jeddleman's boxes." Then, when we were half way to the brig,--"Wherry
'ot on the worter, sir. Ope you'll be ginnerous a little hextry for the
luggidge, sir. Wherry dry work pullin', sir."
Gingham, when I reached the packet, was not on board. The cause of his
absence was explained to me by the steward, who assisted in stowing
away the contents of the two buck-baskets in Gingham's berth. During
this operation, the steward, who fully participated in the antipathy
to 'longshore boatmen common to his class, communicated to me, with no
small glee, the occurrences of the morning; and begged me to take a
sight, when I went on deck, of the two expectant gentlemen at the buoy.
There they were, sure enough, very much at their ease--quite satisfied
that Gingham would want to be taken ashore again before the packet
sailed, that theirs was the boat that must take him, and that they had
the game in their own hands.
On deck I met our three breakfast guests of the day before. They
greeted me cordially, made many inquiries after Gingham, and introduced
me, as a particular old crony of theirs, to Staff-Surgeon Pledget, who
had arrived by the mail overnight, and was also a passenger to Lisbon,
on his return to the British army. I soon began to perceive that it was
a standing rule with my three new acquaintances, regular "Peninsulars,"
to extract fun from even the most common incidents--in fact, from
everybody and everything. Staff-Surgeon Pledget, as able a man in his
profession as any staff-surgeon attached to the Peninsular army, was
matter-of-fact personified; and the dignified cordiality with which
he received an old crony of _theirs_, evidently afforded the three
hoaxers extraordinary sport. Major M---- did the presentation with
perfect coolness and amenity. Gammon was his element. Mr Commissary
Capsicum winked his eye in the richest style of comedy, and nearly made
me spoil all by laughing. Captain Gabion looked gravely on, and laughed
internally. His sides shook, his elbows twitched, and his countenance
wore its usual expression of melancholy.
Presently after was seen approaching a man-of-war's boat, pulling at
the steady rate, which indicated that it conveyed an officer of rank.
The boat came alongside with a graceful sweep; twelve oars stood
upright, as if by magic; and a tall, military-looking man, who had
lost an arm, rose, politely took leave of the lieutenant in charge of
the boat, ascended the ship's side, with the aid of his single hand,
faster than some people perform the same difficult operation with two,
and stood on deck. This was the brave Colonel ---- of the cavalry,
who was going out with us to rejoin his regiment. He had lost his
arm at Oporto, on that memorable occasion when the French, to their
astonishment, found the British army on _their_ side of the Douro; and
when the British army, too, quite surprised at finding itself, as if by
magic, on the _opposite_ bank of a broad, deep, and rapid river, and
struck with admiration at the bold conception and skilful execution
which had effected the transition under the enemy's nose, with one
consent dubbed its illustrious leader "Old Douro." By that title,
from that time forward, he was commonly known at headquarters: and is
it not a glorious one, so won, and so conferred, and truly worthy of
descending in his family? On that occasion, I was told, Colonel ----
charged through the enemy at the head of his regiment, and, as one good
turn deserves another, thought he might as well charge back again. It
was in this second charge that he lost his arm.
Arrived on deck, the colonel made a somewhat semicircular bow to all
of us, and immediately recognised Major M----. His valet followed him,
and presently went below. The next moment, the colonel began to take a
first view of the vessel, and turned from us for that purpose. Captain
Gabion, first nudging Mr Commissary Capsicum, whispered Major M----,
"Come, major, give us the colonel." The major, having an arm too many,
in a twinkling whipped one behind him, stepped to the gangway, and did
the colonel's first appearance to the life. To execute the colonel's
recognition of himself, for want of a better substitute, he advanced,
with the colonel's three military strides, to _me_. I, carried away by
the drollery of the scene, so far forgot myself that I did the major.
This caused a general laugh; the colonel turned round, and caught me
and the major bowing, grimacing, and shaking hands. He saw at once what
had been going on, and laughed too. But the major wished to shift the
responsibility. "That Pledget," said he, "keeps us in a constant roar."
Mr Staff-Surgeon Pledget looked a little surprised. When the major
gave us the colonel's horizontal salutation to the company assembled,
Pledget took it all in earnest, and bowed in return.
One other arrival followed. A shore boat came off, having four more
passengers--a lady, two gentlemen, and a female attendant. One of the
said gentlemen, an Irishman, was the lady's brother: she, in face
and form, a perfect specimen of Irish beauty; he, both in person
and in feature, all that might be expected in the brother of such a
sister. In this respect he presented a remarkable contrast to their
fellow-passenger, who was a young Irish officer of the East India
Company's navy, and, what made it more remarkable, the accepted
swain, as we afterwards had every reason to conclude, of his fair
countrywoman. How shall I describe this lovely youth? His head was
large; his face prodigiously large and _flat_; his features were
ludicrously diminutive. Fancy a full moon seen broad and white through
a Shetland mist--in short, a full moon of putty; then fancy, stuck
exactly in the centre of this moon, the little screwed-up pug face of a
little ugly monkey, and you have him to a T. His two little twinkling
eyes, deep sunk beneath the beetling brow of his prominent and massive
forehead, and in such close proximity that nothing separated them but
the bridge of his nose, were constantly and inquisitively on the
move. The nose itself was too insignificant to merit a description.
Yet it was not exactly what is called a squashed nose, but a nose
without a nib. It conveyed to you, indeed, the painful impression that
some unfeeling barber had sliced off its extremity, and left the two
unprotected nostrils staring you full in the face, like the open ports
of a ship. His ears were like an elephant's,--large, loose, thin,
flat, and un-hemmed. His mouth, like that described by a distinguished
authoress, "had a physiognomy of its own." Not very observable when
quiescent, in speaking it became curiously expressive, and, at times,
enormously elongated or strangely curvilinear. It had also, under the
same circumstances, another peculiarity. It was a travelling mouth:
yes, it travelled. When it talked, it was constantly shifting its
position, not only up and down, but sideways and obliquely. In the
utterance of a single sentence, it would traverse the whole extent of
his face. It was now high, now low; now on this side, now on that.
It ranged, at will, the whole breadth of his countenance from ear to
ear; so that at times he was all mouth on one side of his face, and no
mouth on the other. This gave him the additional advantage, that his
profile could maintain a dialogue with you, as well as another man's
full face. When conversing with his lady-love, side by side at the
dinner-table, he never turned to look at her--he had no need. Viewing
her with one eye, like a duck, in tones of deferential tenderness he
addressed her from the cheek that was nearest hers. His perfectly
well-bred deportment, nay, elegance of manner, his inexhaustible fund
of good humour, and amusing waggery, did not, I am sorry to say,
prevent his acquiring, and bearing during the voyage, the name of
Joey: allusive, I presume, to the feats of mouth performed in those
days by the far-famed Grimaldi. The malevolent suspicion, that a title
so derogatory was any suggestion of mine, I scorn to notice. To this,
however, I do confess, that, ere we had been four-and-twenty hours at
sea, as a slight token of my profound veneration for the stateliest
and the loveliest of Erin's daughters, I proposed, and it was carried
unanimously, that she should bear the name of Juno. And, the colonel
having pronounced her brother a perfect Apollo, I also proposed,
and it was also carried unanimously, that we should call him Mr
Belvidere. But I am anticipating. On the practice of giving sobriquets,
so common at headquarters, much remains to be said hereafter. As
to the maid-servant, she was a quiet little Irishwoman of about
five-and-thirty, in a duffle cloak with pink bows, snug straw bonnet
neatly tied under her chin with a pink ribbon, and snow-white cotton
stockings, exhibiting a rather broad instep, which led me to conjecture
that she had not always worn shoes. Her mistress called her Kitty, and
that name she was allowed to keep, as no one on board thought he could
improve it.
It is time to get to sea. Gingham, where are you? what are you about?
We shall be off, and leave you behind. Noon, our hour of sailing, was
now near at hand. The anchor was hove short; the sails were shaking in
the wind; the skipper came on board; the foresail was then set; still
there was no Gingham. Those talented individuals, the two boatmen,
still supposing Gingham was on board, were getting a little uneasy.
They were now wide awake, and anxiously peering at the ship with
their hands over their eyes, watching every one that came on deck,
but watching in vain. Their uneasiness evidently increased, as our
remaining time diminished; till at length, as the town clock struck
twelve, the capstan was manned. The anchor was then hove to the tune of
"Off she goes," performed on a single fife in admirable time, marked by
the tread of many feet. The flood-tide was beginning to make; but we
didn't care for that, as we had wind enough from the north-east, and
to spare. Other sails were now set, and we were beginning to get way;
while I was intently eyeing the shore, expecting to see Gingham shove
off, and perfectly sure he would come, because he had taken no steps
for the re-landing of his baggage.
But I did not look in the right direction. Gingham, detained to the
last moment, and then, having settled all things to his satisfaction,
at liberty to prosecute his voyage, had made his arrangements with his
usual judgment. It was a near thing though. He put off from a part of
the town lower down than the quay from which he usually embarked, so
as to cut in upon us as we glided down the harbour; and was within a
few fathoms of the ship before I saw him. He was then standing upright
in his boat, completely absorbed in a London paper, but with one hand
waving his umbrella, without looking up, to stop the ship. Stopping
the ship was out of the question. Indeed, I fancied the skipper would
have been glad to go without him. The boat, coming end on, and not very
cleverly handled by the Falmouth fellows, bumped against the side of
the ship, which, as she was now under way, they were afraid of missing
altogether; and the shock almost pitched Gingham and his umbrella into
the water. He came on board amidst general laughter, and the hearty
greetings of such of the passengers as knew him--none heartier than
mine. "How his green spectacles would have frightened the fishes!" said
Mr Commissary Capsicum to Captain Gabion. "Don't joke on such a serious
subject," replied the captain; "had he gone over, we should have
quitted England without getting a sight of the last London newspaper."
The two worthies, who, still expecting to see Gingham emerge from
the cabin, had so long waited for him in vain, were by this time in
an awkward predicament. When the ship first began to move, they had
no resource but to unmoor from the buoy, out oars, and pull away in
company. But this, it was soon clear, would not do. The ship was
getting more and more way, and, had they pulled their hearts out, would
soon have left them astern; when, as their only chance, they pulled
close alongside, and made free with a rope's end that was dragging
through the water. This one of them held, after giving it a turn round
a bench; while the other kept off the boat from the ship's side by
means of the boat-hook. While they were being thus dragged through the
water, each, as he could, from time to time touching his hat, each
beseechingly simpering, each saying something that nobody could hear,
and both anxiously looking for Gingham on deck, to their great surprise
they saw him come alongside in another boat, as I have already related;
and, before they could say Jack Robinson, he was on board.
After our first greetings, I called Gingham's attention to the
disagreeable position of our two friends, who were still holding on
alongside, and dragging through the water. Indeed, I was disposed to
hold an argument with him on the subject, and thought a different view
might be taken of their case. "No, no," said Gingham; "this is the
first time any Falmouth man has ever attempted to impose upon me, and I
mean it to be the last."
The breeze, no unusual circumstance in such localities, stiffened
as we approached the entrance of the harbour, where the high land
closes in, and the sea-way is comparatively narrow; and, meeting the
swell which came tumbling in from the ocean with the flood-tide,
knocked up a little bit of an ugly ripple. The situation of the two
boatmen was becoming every moment more awkward. We were now going six
knots, (through the _water_, mind you, not _making_ six knots--that,
against such a current, was quite beyond our tubby little Wilhelmina's
capabilities;) the ripple was gradually becoming nastier; the boatmen,
still touching their hats from time to time, still blandly smiling, and
still making unheard but pathetic appeals to Gingham's generosity, did
not like to let go till they had got _something_; and I really thought
the end must be, that their boat would be swamped alongside. At length,
Gingham put an end to the farce, by screwing up ninepence in a bit of
paper, and throwing it into the boat, telling them it was threepence
more than they deserved. They then let go; and we left them poppling up
and down, like a cork, in the broken water, and scuffling about in the
bottom of the boat for the scattered coin.
FOOTNOTES:
[16] For the benefit of the uninitiated,
assistant-deputy-paymaster-general; A. A. D. P.
M. G., acting-assistant-deputy-paymaster-general;
a long title, but not so long, by four syllables,
as that of the letter-carrier of a certain German
war-office--Ober-kriegsversammlungrathsverhandlungpapieraufhebergehülfe.
DISENCHANTMENT.
BY DELTA.
I.
Although from Adam stained with crime,
A halo girds the path of time,
As 'twere things humble with sublime,
Divine with mortal blending,
And that which is, with that which seems,--
Till blazoned o'er were Jacob's dreams
With heaven's angelic hosts, in streams,
Descending and ascending.
II.
Ask of the clouds, why Eden's dyes
Have vanished from the sunset skies?
Ask of the winds, why harmonies
Now breathe not in their voices?
Ask of the spring, why from the bloom
Of lilies comes a less perfume?
And why the linnet, 'mid the broom,
Less lustily rejoices?
III.
Silent are now the sylvan tents;
The elves to airy elements
Resolved are gone; grim castled rents
No more show demons gazing,
With evil eyes, on wandering men;
And, where the dragon had his den
Of fire, within the haunted glen,
Now herds unharmed are grazing.[17]
IV.
No more, as horror stirs the trees,
The path-belated peasant sees
Witches, adown the sleety breeze,
To Lapland flats careering:[18]
As on through storms the Sea-kings sweep,
No more the Kraken huge, asleep,
Looms like an island, 'mid the deep,
Rising and disappearing.
V.
No more, reclined by Cona's streams,
Before the seer, in waking dreams,
The dim funereal pageant gleams,
Futurity fore-showing;
No more, released from churchyard trance,
Athwart blue midnight, spectres glance,
Or mingle in the bridal dance,
To vanish ere cock-crowing.[19]
VI.
Alas! that Fancy's fount should cease!
In rose-hues limn'd, the myths of Greece
Have waned to dreams--the Colchian fleece,
And labours of Alcides:--
Nay, Homer, even thy mighty line--
Thy living tale of Troy divine--
The sceptic scholiast doubts if thine,
Or Priam, or Pelides!
VII.
As silence listens to the lark,
And orient beams disperse the dark,
How sweet to roam abroad, and mark
Their gold the fields adorning:
But, when we think of where are they,
Whose bosoms like our own were gay,
While April gladdened life's young day,
Joy takes the garb of mourning.
VIII.
Warm gushing thro' the heart come back
The thoughts that brightened boyhood's track;
And hopes, as 'twere from midnight black,
All star-like re-awaken;
Until we feel how, one by one,
The faces of the loved are gone,
And grieve for those left here alone,
Not those who have been taken.
IX.
The past returns in all we see,
The billowy cloud, and branching tree;
In all we hear--the bird and bee
Remind of pleasures cherish'd;
When all is lost it loved the best,
Oh! pity on that vacant breast,
Which would not rather be at rest,
Than pine amid the perish'd!
X.
A balmy eve! the round white moon
Emparadises midmost June,
Tune trills the nightingale on tune--
What magic! when a lover,
To him, who now, gray-haired and lone,
Bends o'er the sad sepulchral stone
Of her, whose heart was once his own:
Ah! bright dream briefly over!
XI.
See how from port the vessel glides
With streamered masts, o'er halcyon tides;
Its laggard course the sea-boy chides,
All loath that calms should bind him;
But distance only chains him more,
With love-links, to his native shore,
And sleep's best dream is to restore
The home he left behind him.
XII.
To sanguine youth's enraptured eye,
Heaven has its reflex in the sky,
The winds themselves have melody,
Like harp some seraph sweepeth;
A silver decks the hawthorn bloom,
A legend shrines the mossy tomb,
And spirits throng the starry gloom,
Her reign when midnight keepeth.
XIII.
Silence o'erhangs the Delphic cave;
Where strove the bravest of the brave,
Naught met the wandering Byron, save
A lone, deserted barrow;
And Fancy's iris waned away,
When Wordsworth ventured to survey,
Beneath the light of common day,
The dowie dens of Yarrow.
XIV.
Little we dream--when life is new,
And Nature fresh and fair to view,
When throbs the heart to pleasure true,
As if for naught it wanted,--
That, year by year, and ray by ray,
Romance's sunlight dies away,
And long before the hair is gray,
The heart is disenchanted.
FOOTNOTES:
[17] A clearer day has dispelled the marvels, which showed themselves
in heaven above and in earth beneath, when twilight and superstition
went hand in hand. Horace's
"Somnia, terrores magicos, miracula, sagas,
Nocturnos Lemures, portentaque Thessala,"
as well as Milton's
"Gorgons, Hydras, and Chimæras dire,"
have all been found wanting, when reduced to the admeasurements of
science; and the "sounds that syllable men's names, on sands, and
shores, and desert wildernesses," are quenched in silence, or only
exist in what James Hogg most poetically terms
"That undefined and mingled hum,
Voice of the desert, never dumb."
The inductive philosophy was "the bare bodkin" which gave many a
pleasant vision "its quietus." "Homo, naturæ minister," saith Lord
Bacon, "et interpres, tantum facit et intelligit, quantum de naturæ
ordine se vel mente observaverit: nec amplius scit nec potest."--_Nov.
Organum_, Aph. I.
The fabulous dragon has long acted a conspicuous part in the poetry
both of the north and south. We find him in the legends of Regnar
Lodbrog and Kempion, and in the episode of Brandimarte in the second
book of the Orlando Inamorato. He is also to be recognised as the huge
snake of the Edda; and figures with ourselves in the stories of the
Chevalier St George and the Dragon--of Moor of Moorhall and the Dragon
of Wantley--in the Dragon of Loriton--in the Laidley Worm of Spindleton
Heugh--in the Flying Serpent of Lockburne--the Snake of Wormieston,
&c. &c. Bartholinus and Saxo-Grammaticus volunteer us some curious
information regarding a species of these monsters, whose particular
office was to keep watch over hidden treasure. The winged Gryphon is
of "auld descent," and has held a place in unnatural history from
Herodotus (_Thalia_, 116, and _Melpomene_, 13, 27) to Milton (_Paradise
Lost_, book v.)--
"As when a Gryphon, through the wilderness,
With wingèd course, o'er hill or moory dale,
Pursues the Arimaspian," &c.
[18] Of the many mysterious chapters of the human mind, surely one of
the most obscure and puzzling is that of witchcraft. For some reason,
not sufficiently explained, Lapland was set down as a favourite seat of
the orgies of the "Midnight Hags." When, in the ballad of "The Witch
of Fife," the auld gudeman, in the exercise of his conjugal authority,
questions his errant spouse regarding her nocturnal absences without
leave, she is made ecstatically to answer,
"Whan we came to the Lapland lone,
The fairies war all in array;
For all the genii of the North
War keepyng their holyday.
The warlocke man and the weird womyng,
And the fays of the woode and the steep,
And the phantom hunteris all were there,
And the mermaidis of the deep.
And they washit us all with the witch-water,
Distillit fra the moorland dew,
Quhill our beauty bloomit like the Lapland rose,
That wylde in the foreste grew."
_Queen's Wake_, Night 1st.
"Like, but oh how different," are these unearthly goings on to
the details in the Walpurgis Night of Faust (Act v. Scene 1.) The
"phantom-hunters" of the north were not the "Wilde Jäger" of Burger, or
"the Erl-king" of Goethe. It is related by Hearne, that the tribes of
the Chippewas Indians suppose the northern lights to be occasioned by
the frisking of herds of deer in the fields above, caused by the hallo
and chase of their departed friends.
[19] It is very probable, that the apparitional visit of "Alonzo the
Brave" to the bridal of "the Fair Imogene," was suggested to M. G.
Lewis, by the story in the old chronicles of the skeleton masquer
taking his place among the wedding revellers, at Jedburgh Castle, on
the night when Alexander III., in 1286, espoused as his second queen,
Joleta, daughter of the Count le Dreux. These were the palmy days of
portents; and the prophecy uttered by Thomas of Ercildoune, of the
storm which was to roar
"From Ross's hills to Solway sea,"
was supposed to have had its fulfilment in the death of the lamented
monarch, which occurred, only a few months after the appearance of the
skeleton masquer, by a fall from his horse, over a precipice, while
hunting between Burntisland and Kinghorn, at a place still called "the
King's Wood-end."
Wordsworth appears to have had the subject in his eye, in two of the
stanzas of his lyric, entitled _Presentiments_,--the last of which runs
as follows:--
"Ye daunt the proud array of war,
Pervade the lonely ocean far
As sail hath been unfurled,
For dancers in the festive hall
What ghostly partners hath your call
Fetched from the shadowy world."
--_Poetical Works_, 1845, p. 176.
The same incident has been made the subject of some very spirited
verses, in a little volume--_Ballads and Lays from Scottish
History_--published in 1844; and which, I fear, has not attracted the
attention to which its intrinsic merits assuredly entitle it.
ACROSS THE ATLANTIC.[20]
Another book from the active pen of our American acquaintance, the able
seaman. The question having been raised whether Mr Herman Melville
has really served before the mast, and has actually, like the heroine
of a well-known pathetic ballad, disfigured his lily-white fingers
with the nasty pitch and tar, he does his best to dissipate all such
doubts by the title-page of his new work, on which, in large capitals,
is proclaimed that _Redburn_ is "_The Sailor-boy Confessions and
Reminiscences of the son of a gentleman in the merchant service_;" and,
collaterally, by a dedication to his younger brother, "_now a sailor
on a voyage to China_." An unmerited importance has perhaps been given
to the inquiry whether Mr Melville's voyages were made on quarterdeck
or on forecastle, and are genuine adventures or mere Robinsonades. The
book, not the writer, concerns the critic; and even as there assuredly
are circumstances that might induce a youth of gentle birth and
breeding to don flannel shirt, and put fist in tar-bucket as a merchant
seaman, so the probably unpleasant nature of those circumstances
precludes too inquisitive investigation into them. We accept Mr
Melville, therefore, for what he professes to be, and we accept his
books, also, with pleasure and gratitude when good, just as we neglect
and reject them when they are the contrary. _Redburn_, we are bound
to admit, is entitled to a more favourable verdict than the author's
last previous work. We do not like it so well as _Typee_ and _Omoo_;
and, although quite aware that this is a class of fiction to which one
cannot often return without finding it pall, by reason of a certain
inevitable sameness, we yet are quite sure we should not have liked it
so well as those two books, even though priority of publication had
brought it to a palate unsated with that particular sort of literary
diet. Nevertheless, after a decided and deplorable retrogression, Mr
Melville seems likely to go a-head again, if he will only take time and
pains, and not over-write himself, and avoid certain affectations and
pedantry unworthy a man of his ability. Many of the defects of _Mardi_
are corrected in _Redburn_. We gladly miss much of the obscurity and
nonsense that abound in the former work. The style, too, of this one
is more natural and manly; and even in the minor matter of a title, we
find reason to congratulate Mr Melville on improved taste, inasmuch as
we think an English book is better fitted with an English-sounding name
than with uncouth dissyllables from Polynesia, however convenient these
may be found for the purposes of the puff provocative.
_Redburn_ comprises four months of the life of a hardy wrong-headed
lad, who ships himself on board a trading vessel, for the voyage from
New York to Liverpool and back. As there is no question of shipwreck,
storm, pirates, mutiny, or any other nautico-dramatic incidents, during
Wellingborough Redburn's voyage out and home; and as the events of his
brief abode in England are neither numerous nor (with the exception
of one rather far-fetched episode) by any means extraordinary, it is
evident that a good deal of detail and ingenuity are necessary to
fill two volumes, on so simple and commonplace a theme. So a chapter
is devoted to the causes of his addiction to the sea, and shows how
it was that childish reminiscences of a seaport town, and stories of
maritime adventure told him by his father, who had many times crossed
the Atlantic, and visions of European magnificence, and, above all,
the frequent contemplation of an old-fashioned glass ship which stood
in his mother's sitting-room, and which is described with considerable
minuteness, and some rather feeble attempts at the facetious--how all
these things combined had imbued young Wellingborough with a strong
craving after salt water. Other circumstances concurred to drive him
forth upon the world. He hints at family misfortunes. His father had
been a merchant at New York, in a flourishing business. Things were now
less prosperous. "Some time previous, my mother had removed from New
York to a pleasant village on the Hudson river, where we lived in a
small house, in a quiet way. Sad disappointments in several plans which
I had sketched for my future life; the necessity of doing something for
myself, united to a naturally roving disposition, had now conspired
within me to send me to sea as a sailor." And yet it would appear
that he might have done better than plunge thus recklessly into the
hardships and evil associations of a merchantman's forecastle; for he
more than half admits that he was erring and wilful, and that he had
kind relatives and sympathising patrons, who would have put him in the
way of earning a living otherwise. Redburn, however, seems to have
been in some respects as precocious as in others we shall presently
find him simple and inexperienced. A mere boy, adversity had already
converted him into a misanthrope, at an age when most lads are as yet
without plans for their future, and know not disappointment in any
more important matters than a treat to the play, or an extra week's
holiday. The forwardness of the rising generation is remarkable enough
in England, and has been amusingly hit off by one of our cleverest
caricaturists. In America, therefore, which notoriously goes a-head of
the old country in most particulars, and whose inhabitants lay claim to
an extraordinary share of railroad and earthquake in their composition,
boyish precocity is possibly still more remarkable; and one must not
wonder at finding Master Redburn talking in misanthropic vein of the
world's treatment of him, how bleak and cheerless everything seemed,
and how "the warm soul of him had been flogged out by adversity."
This, at an age when the stinging memory of the schoolmaster's taws
must still have been tolerably vivid about the seat of his breeks,
seems rather absurd to begin with. It was under the influence of such
feelings, however, that this infant Timon left his home to cast his
lot upon the wide waters. His friends were evidently either very angry
with him or very poor; for they allowed him to depart with but one
dollar in his pocket, a big shooting-jacket with foxes' heads on the
buttons, and a little bundle, containing his entire kit, slung at the
end of the fowling-piece which his good-natured elder brother pressed
upon him at parting. Thus equipped, he tramps of to the steamer that
is to carry him down the Hudson, early on a raw morning, along a muddy
road, and through a drizzling rain. The skyey influences will at
times affect even the most stoical, and the dismal aspect of external
nature makes Master Redburn revert to his blighted prospects--how his
soul is afflicted with mildew, "and the fruit which, with others, is
only blasted after ripeness, with him is nipped in the first blossom
and bud." The blight he complains of is evidently of a most virulent
description, for it "leaves such a scar that the air of Paradise might
not erase it." As he has just before told us how, whilst walking along,
his fingers "worked moodily at the stock and trigger" of his brother's
rifle, and that he had thought this was indeed "the proper way to
begin life, with a gun in your hand," we feel, upon hearing him croak
so desperately, some apprehension for his personal safety, and think
his brother would have done as well to have kept his gun. On this last
point we quite make up our minds, when we shortly afterwards find him
levelling the weapon at the left eye of a steamboat passenger who is so
imprudent as to stare at him, and bullying the steward for demanding
the fare, (which is two dollars, whereas Redburn has but one,) and
looking cat-a-mounts at his less needy fellow-voyagers, because they
have the rudeness to enjoy their roast beef dinner, whilst he has had
the improvidence to leave home without even a crust in his wallet. It
seems the author's aim to start his hero in life under every possible
circumstance of disadvantage and hardship; and to do this, he rather
loses sight of probability. At last, however, Redburn reaches New York,
with gun and bundle, foxes' heads and shooting-jacket, and hastens to
visit a friend of his brother's, to whom he is recommended. A kind
welcome, good supper, and warm bed, go some way towards dissipating his
ill humour; and next morning the friend accompanies him to the docks
to seek a ship. But none of his brother's kindnesses prosper him. The
gun, as we have seen, has already led him to the verge of homicide,
the foxes' heads are yet to be the source of innumerable vexations;
and Mr Jones, a silly young man, does more harm than good, by taking
the direction of Redburn's affairs, and acting as his spokesman with
Captain Riga, of the regular trader, _Highlander_, then loading for
Liverpool.
"We found the captain in the cabin, which was a very handsome one,
lined with mahogany and maple; and the steward, an elegant-looking
mulatto, in a gorgeous turban, was setting out, on a sort of
sideboard, some dinner-service which looked like silver, but it
was only Britannia ware highly polished. As soon as I clapped my
eye on the captain, I thought to myself he was just the captain
to suit me. He was a fine-looking man, about forty, splendidly
dressed, with very black whiskers and very white teeth, and what I
took to be a free frank look out of a large hazel eye. I liked him
amazingly."
The scene that ensues is quietly humorous, and reminds us a good deal
of Marryat, in whose style of novel we think Mr Melville would succeed.
The upshot of the conference is that Redburn ships as a boy on board
the Highlander. By vaunting his respectability, and the wealth of his
relations, his injudicious friend furnishes Riga with a pretext for
withholding the customary advance of pay; and although the sale of the
fowling-piece to a Jew pawnbroker produces wherewith to purchase a red
woollen shirt, a tarpaulin hat, and jack-knife, Redburn goes on board
but slenderly provided. His reception is not very cheering.
"When I reached the deck, I saw no one but a large man in a large
dripping pea-jacket, who was calking down the main-hatches.
"'What do you want, Pillgarlic?' said he.
"'I've shipped to sail in this ship,' I replied, assuming a little
dignity to chastise his familiarity.
"'What for--a tailor?' said he, looking at my shooting-jacket.
"I answered that I was going as a 'boy;' for so I was technically
put down on the articles.
"'Well,' said he, 'have you got your traps aboard?'
"I told him I didn't know there were any rats in the ship, and
hadn't brought any 'trap.'
"At this he laughed out with a great guffaw, and said there must
be hay-seed in my hair.
"This made me mad; but, thinking he must be one of the sailors who
was going in the ship, I thought it wouldn't be wise to make an
enemy of him, so only asked him where the men slept in the vessel,
for I wanted to put my clothes away.
"'Where's your clothes?' said he.
"'Here in my bundle,' said I, holding it up.
"'Well, if that's all you've got,' he cried, 'you'd better chuck
it overboard. But go forward, go forward to the forecastle; that's
the place you live in aboard here.'
"And with that he directed me to a sort of hole in the deck of the
bow of the ship; but looking down, and seeing how dark it was, I
asked him for a light.
"'Strike your eyes together and make one,' said he, 'we don't have
any lights here.' So I groped my way down into the forecastle,
which smelt so bad of old ropes and tar, that it almost made me
sick. After waiting patiently, I began to see a little; and,
looking round, at last perceived I was in a smoky-looking place,
with twelve wooden boxes stuck round the sides. In some of these
boxes were large chests, which I at once supposed to belong to the
sailors, who must have taken that method of appropriating their
'bunks,' as I afterwards found these boxes were called. And so it
turned out.
"After examining them for a while, I selected an empty one, and
put my bundle right in the middle of it, so that there might be no
mistake about my claim to the place, particularly as the bundle
was so small."
The ship is not to sail till the next day; the crew are not yet aboard;
there is no mess, and Redburn has no money. He passes a wretched
night in his evil-smelling bunk, and next morning is crawling about
the deck, weak from hunger, when he is accosted by the first mate,
who curses him for a lubber, asks his name, swears it is too long to
be handy, rebaptizes him by that of _Buttons_, and sets him to clean
out the pig-pen, and grease the main-topmast. Having accomplished
these savoury duties, and narrowly escaped falling overboard from
his unwonted elevation, Redburn is ordered to the quarterdeck,
where the men are divided into watches, and he falls to the lot of
his friend the first mate, who tries hard to get rid of him to Mr
Rigs, the second mate; but Mr Rigs refuses the tyro, even as a free
gift. Redburn now gets sea-sick, and, when ordered on deck to stand
the first night-watch, from eight o'clock to midnight, he, feeling
qualmish, requests one of the sailors to make his excuses very civilly
to the chief mate, for that he thinks he will go below and spend the
night in his bunk. The sailor, a good-natured Greenlander, laughs at
his simplicity, and doctors him with a canikin of rum and some ship
biscuits, which enable him to get through his watch. Minute incidents
of this kind, reflections, reminiscences, and thoughts of home, occupy
many chapters; and, at times, one is inclined to think they are dwelt
upon at too great length: but, as before hinted, it is necessary to do
something to fill two volumes. A slight inconsistency strikes us in
this first portion of the book. Redburn, a sharp enough lad on shore,
and who, it has been seen, is altogether precocious in experience
of the world's disappointments, seems converted, by the first sniff
of salt water, into as arrant a simpleton as ever made mirth in a
cockpit. Mr Melville must surely have had Peter Simple in his head,
when describing "Buttons" at his first deck-washing. "The water began
to splash about all over the decks, and I began to think I should
surely get my feet wet, and catch my death of cold. So I went to the
chief mate and told him I thought I would just step below, till this
miserable wetting was over; for I did not have any waterproof boots,
and an aunt of mine had died of consumption. But he only roared out
for me to get a broom, and go to scrubbing, or he would prove a worse
consumption to me than ever got hold of my poor aunt." Now Redburn,
from what has previously been seen of him, was evidently not the lad to
care a rush about wet soles, or even about a thorough ducking. On the
Hudson river steamer, he had voluntarily walked the deck in a dreary
storm till soaked through; and his first night on board the Highlander
had been passed uncomplainingly in wet clothes. He has borne hunger
and thirst and other disagreeables most manfully, and the impression
given of him is quite that of a stubborn hardy fellow. So that this
sudden fear of a splashing is evidently introduced merely to afford Mr
Melville opportunity of making a little mild fun, and is altogether
out of character. Equally so is the elaborate _naiveté_ with which
Redburn inquires of a sailor whether, as the big bell on the forecastle
"hung right over the scuttle that went down to the place where the
watch below were sleeping, such a ringing every little while would not
tend to disturb them, and beget unpleasant dreams." The account of
his attempts at intimacy with the captain, although humorous enough,
is liable to a similar objection; and, in so sharp a lad, such simple
blunders are not sufficiently accounted for by ignorance of sea usages.
His recollection of the bland urbanity with which Captain Riga had
received him and Mr Jones, when they first boarded the Highlander,
induces him to believe that he may reckon on sympathy and attention
in that quarter, when bullied by the rough sailors, and abused by the
snappish mate. He had vague ideas of Sunday dinners in the cabin, of an
occasional lesson in navigation, or an evening game at chess. Desirous
to realise these pleasant visions, but observing that the captain takes
no notice of him, and altogether omits to invite him aft, Buttons, as
he is now universally called on board the trader, thinks it may be
expected that he, the younger man, should make the first advances. His
pig-sty and chicken-coop cleanings have not greatly improved the aspect
of his clothes, or the colour of his hands; but a bucket of water gets
off the worst of the stains, and a selection from his limited wardrobe
converts him into a decent enough figure for a forecastle, although
he still would not have excited much admiration in Broadway or Bond
Street.
"When the sailors saw me thus employed, they did not know what
to make of it, and wanted to know whether I was dressing to go
ashore. I told them no, for we were then out of sight of land, but
that I was going to pay my respects to the captain. Upon which
they all laughed and shouted, as if I were a simpleton; although
there seemed nothing so very simple in going to make an evening
call upon a friend. When some of them tried to dissuade me, saying
I was green and raw; but Jackson, who sat looking on, cried out
with a hideous grin--'Let him go, let him go, men; he's a nice
boy. Let him go; the captain has some nuts and raisins for him.'
And so he was going on, when one of his violent fits of coughing
seized him, and he almost choked.... For want of kids, I slipped
on a pair of woollen mittens, which my mother had knit for me to
carry to sea. As I was putting them on, Jackson asked me whether
he shouldn't call a carriage; and another bade me not forget
to present his best respects to the skipper. I left them all
tittering, and, coming on deck, was passing the cook-house, when
the old cook called after me, saying I had forgot my cane."
The Jackson here referred to is a prominent character in the book, an
important personage amongst the inmates of the Highlander's forecastle.
He was a yellow-visaged, whiskerless, squinting, broken-nosed ruffian,
and his head was bald, "except in the nape of his neck and just behind
the ears, where it was stuck over with short little tufts, and looked
like a worn-out shoe-brush." He claimed near relationship with General
Jackson, was a good seaman and a great bully, and, although physically
weak, and broken down by excess and disease, the other sailors gave
way to, and even petted him. He had been at sea ever since his early
childhood, and he told strange wild tales of his experiences in
many lands and on many distant seas, and of perils encountered in
Portuguese slavers on the African coast, and of Batavian fevers and
Malay pirates, and the like horrible things, which composed, indeed,
all his conversation, save when he found fault with his shipmates, and
cursed, and reviled, and jeered at them--all of which they patiently
endured, as though they feared the devil that glared out of "his deep,
subtle, infernal-looking eye." All who have read _Omoo_, (the best
of Mr Melville's books,) will remember that the author is an adept
in the sketching of nautical originals. Jackson is by no means a bad
portrait, and doubtless he is "founded on fact;" although much of his
savage picturesqueness may be attributed to the clever pencil of his
former shipmate. Riga is another good hit. The handsome captain, with
the fine clothes and the shining black whiskers, who spoke so smooth
and looked so sleek when his craft lay moored by New York quay, is
altogether another sort of character when once the anchor is up. Seamen
never judge a captain by his shore-going looks. Tyrants and martinets
afloat are often all simper and benevolence across a mahogany plank
ashore. But certainly there never was a more thorough metamorphosis
than a four-and-twenty hours' sail produced in Captain Riga. His
glossy suit and gallant airs disappeared altogether. "He wore nothing
but old-fashioned snuff-coloured coats, with high collars and short
waists, and faded short-legged pantaloons, very tight about the knees,
and vests that did not conceal his waistbands, owing to their being so
short, just like a little boy's. And his hats were all caved in and
battered, as if they had been knocked about in a cellar, and his boots
were sadly patched. Indeed, I began to think he was but a shabby fellow
after all, particularly as his whiskers lost their gloss, and he went
days together without shaving; and his hair, by a sort of miracle,
began to grow of a pepper and salt colour, which might have been owing,
though, to his discontinuing the use of some kind of dye while at sea.
I put him down as a sort of impostor." This the captain certainly
is, and ultimately proves to be something worse, for he swindles
poor Buttons and another unfortunate "boy" out of their hard-earned
wages, and proves himself altogether a far worse fellow than the rough
mate, whose first salutation is often a curse or a cuff, but who,
nevertheless, has some heart and humanity under his coarse envelope. Of
various other individuals of the ship's company sketches are given, and
prominent amongst these is the dandy mulatto steward, called Lavender
by the crew, from his having been a barber in New York. Following the
example of the captain, whose immediate dependant he is, Lavender, when
at sea, lays by his gorgeous turban, and sports his wool, profusely
scented with the residue of his stock in trade. "He was a sentimental
sort of darky, and read the _Three Spaniards_ and _Charlotte Temple_,
and carried a lock of frizzled hair in his vest pocket, which he
frequently volunteered to show to people, with his handkerchief to
his eyes." It must have been sympathy of race, not congeniality of
disposition, that made cronies of Lavender and the methodistical
black cook. Thompson, the sable Soyer of the _Highlander_, was known
as the Doctor, according to the nautical practice of confounding the
medical and the gastronomical professions. He is a capital portrait,
scarcely caricatured. On a Sunday morning, "he sat over his boiling
pots, reading out of a book which was very much soiled, and covered
with grease spots, for he kept it stuck into a little leather strap,
nailed to the keg where he kept the fat skimmed off the water in which
the salt beef was cooked." This book was the Bible, and what with
the heat of the five-feet-square kitchen, and his violent efforts to
comprehend the more mysterious passages of scripture, the beads of
sweat would roll off the Doctor's brow as he sat upon a narrow shelf,
opposite the stove, and so close to it that he had to spread his legs
out wide to keep them from scorching. During the whole voyage he was
never known to wash his face but once, and that was on a dark night,
in one of his own soup-pots. His coffee, by courtesy so called, was a
most extraordinary compound, and would not bear analysis. Sometimes
it tasted fishy, at others salt; then it would have a cheesy flavour,
or--but we abridge the unsavoury details with which Redburn disgusts us
upon this head. Sambo's devotional practices precluded due attention
to his culinary duties. For his narrow caboose he entertained a warm
affection. "In fair weather he spread the skirt of an old jacket before
the door by way of a mat, and screwed a small ringbolt into the door
for a knocker, and wrote his name, 'Mr Thompson,' over it, with a bit
of red chalk." The old negro stands before us as we read; cooking,
praying, perspiring, and with all the ludicrous self-sufficiency of
his tribe. Mr Melville is very happy in these little touches. Max
the Dutchman is another original. Although married to two highly
respectable wives, one at Liverpool and the other at New York, at sea
he is quite an old bachelor, precise and finical, with old-fashioned
straight-laced notions about the duties of sailor boys, which he tries
hard to inculcate upon Redburn. Upon the whole, however, Red Max, as he
is sometimes called--his shirt, cheeks, hair, and whiskers being all
of that colour--is tolerably kind to the youngster, in whose welfare
he occasionally shows some little interest. Jack Blunt, to whose
description the author devotes the greater part of a chapter, is not
quite so happy a hit--rather overdone--overloaded with peculiarities.
Although quite a young fellow, his hair is turning gray, and, to
check this premature sign of age, he thrice in the day anoints his
bushy locks with _Trafalgar Oil_ and _Copenhagen Elixir_, invaluable
preparations retailed to him by a knavish Yankee apothecary. He is also
greatly addicted to drugging himself: takes three pills every morning
with his coffee, and every now and then pours down "a flowing bumper of
_horse salts_." Then he has a turn for romance, and sings sentimental
songs, which must have had an odd enough sound from the lips of one
whose general appearance is that of "a fat porpoise standing on end;"
and he believes in witchcraft, and studies a dream-book, and mutters
Irish invocations for a breeze when the ship is becalmed, &c., &c.
Rather much of all this, Mr Melville, and not equal, by a long chalk,
to what you once before did in the same line. As we read, we cannot
help a comparison with some former pencillings of yours, which,
although earlier made, referred to a later voyage. Involuntarily we
are carried back to the rat-and-cockroach-haunted hull of the crazy
little Jule, and to the strange collection of originals that therein
did dwell. We think of bold Jermin and timid Captain Guy, and, above
all, of that glorious fellow Doctor Long-Ghost. We remember the easy
natural tone, and well-sustained interest of the book in which they
figured; and, desirous though we are to praise, we are compelled to
admit that, in _Redburn_, Mr Melville comes not up to the mark he
himself has made. It is evident that, on his debut, he threw off the
rich cream of his experiences, and he must not marvel if readers have
thereby been rendered dainty, and grumble a little when served with the
skim-milk. _Redburn_ is a clever book, as books now go, and we are far
from visiting it with wholesale condemnation; but it certainly lacks
the spontaneous flow and racy originality of the author's South Sea
narration.
To proceed, however. "_Redburn grows intolerably flat and stupid over
some outlandish old guide-books._" Such is the heading of Chapter
XXX.; and, from what Mr Melville says, we do not, in this instance,
presume to differ. We are now in Liverpool. Much of what Redburn
there sees, says, and does, will be more interesting to American than
to English readers, although to many even of the latter there will
be novelty in his minute account of sailor life ashore--of their
boarding-houses, haunts, and habits; of the German emigrant ships,
and the salt-droghers and Lascars, and of other matters seemingly
commonplace, but in which his observant eye detects much that escapes
ordinary gazers. We ourselves, to whom the aspect and ways of the
great trading city of northern England are by no means unfamiliar,
have derived some new lights from Redburn's account of what he there
saw. Clergymen of the Church of England, we are informed, stand up on
old casks, at quay corners, arrayed in full canonicals, and preach
thus, _al fresco_, to sailors and loose women. Paupers are allowed to
linger and perish unaided, almost in the public thoroughfare, within
sight and knowledge of neighbours and police. Curious, seemingly, of
the horrible, Redburn visits the dead-house, where he sees "a sailor
stretched out, stark and stiff, with the sleeve of his frock rolled
up, and showing his name and date of birth tattooed upon his arm. It
was a sight full of suggestions: _he seemed his own head-stone_." We
would implore Mr Melville to beware of a fault by no means uncommon
with a certain school of writers at the present day, but into which
it would be unworthy a man of his ability to fall. We refer to that
straining for striking similes, at the expense of truth and good
taste, of which he has here furnished us with a glaring example. A
dead sailor's name is tattooed upon his arm; _therefore_--mark the
consequence--he seems his own head-stone. How totally inapt is this;
how violent and distorted the figure! Such tricks of pen may, by a
sort of tinsel glitter, dazzle for a moment superficial persons,
who weigh not what they read; but they will never obtain favour, or
enhance a reputation with any for whose verdict Mr Melville need care.
Neither will he, we apprehend, gain much praise, that is worth having,
for such exaggerated exhibitions of the horrible as that afforded in
chapter VI. of his second volume. Passing through Lancelott's Hey,
a narrow street of warehouses, Redburn heard "a feeble wail, which
seemed to come out of the earth.... I advanced to an opening, which
communicated downwards with deep tiers of cellars beneath a crumbling
old warehouse; and there, some fifteen feet below the walk, crouching
in nameless squalor, with her head bowed over, was the figure of what
had been a woman. Her blue arms folded to her livid bosom two shrunken
things like children, that leaned towards her, one on each side. At
first I knew not whether they were dead or alive. They made no sign;
they did not move or stir; but from the vault came that soul-sickening
wail." We cannot quite realise the "opening" in question, but take
it for granted to be some sufficiently dreary den, and are only
puzzled to conjecture how, considering its depth, the woman and
children got there. Redburn himself seems at a loss to account for it.
This, however, his compassionate heart tarried not to inquire; but,
perceiving the poor creatures were nearly dead with want, he hurried
to procure them assistance. In an open space hard by, some squalid
old women, the wretched _chiffonières_ of the docks, were gathering
flakes of cotton in the dirt heaps. To these Redburn appealed. They
knew of the beggar-woman and her brats, who had been three days in
the pit or vault, with nothing to eat, but they would not meddle in
the matter; and one hag, with an exaggerated morality that does not
sound very probable, declared "Betsy Jennings deserved it, for she had
never been married!" Turning into a more frequented street, Redburn
met a policeman. "None of my business, Jack," was the reply to his
application. "I don't belong to that street. But what business is it of
yours? Are you not a Yankee?"
"Yes," said I; "but come, I will help you to remove that woman, if you
say so."
"There now, Jack, go on board your ship, and stick to it, and leave
these matters to the town."
Two more policemen were applied to with a like result. Appeals to
the porter at an adjacent warehouse, to Handsome Mary the hostess,
and Brandy Nan the cook at the Sailors' boarding-house, were equally
fruitless. Redburn took some bread and cheese from his dinner-room,
and carried it to the sufferers, to whom he gave water to drink in his
hat--descending with great difficulty into the vault, which was like
a well. The two children ate, but the woman refused. And then Redburn
found a dead infant amongst her rags, (he describes its appearance
with harrowing minuteness,) and almost repented having brought food to
the survivors, for it could but prolong their misery, without hope of
permanent relief. And on reflection, "I felt an almost irresistible
impulse to do them the last mercy, of in some way putting an end to
their horrible lives; and I should almost have done so, I think, had
I not been deterred by thought of the law. For I well knew that the
law, which would let them perish of themselves, without giving them
one sup of water, would spend a thousand pounds, if necessary, in
convicting him who should so much as offer to relieve them from their
miserable existence." The whole chapter is in this agreeable style, and
indeed we suppress the more revolting and exaggerated passages. Two
days longer, Redburn informs us, the objects of his compassion linger
in their foul retreat, and then the bread he throws to them remains
untasted. They are dead, and a horrible stench arises from the opening.
The next time he passes, the corpses have disappeared, and quicklime
strews the ground. Within a few hours of their death the nuisance
has been detected and removed, although for five days, according to
Redburn, they had been allowed to die by inches, within a few yards
of frequented streets, and with the full knowledge and acquiescence
of sundry policemen. We need hardly waste a comment on the more than
improbable, on the utterly absurd character, of this incident. It will
be apparent to all readers. Mr Melville is, of course, at liberty to
introduce fictitious adventure into what professes to be a narrative
of real events; the thing is done every day, and doubtless he largely
avails of the privilege. He has also a clear right to deal in the
lugubrious, and even in the loathsome, if he thinks an occasional
dash of tragedy will advantageously relieve the humorous features of
his book. But here he is perverting truth, and leading into error the
simple persons who put their faith in him. And, from the consideration
of such misguidance, we naturally glide into the story of Master
Harry Bolton. Redburn had been at Liverpool four weeks, and began to
suspect that was all he was likely to see of the country, and that he
must return to New York without obtaining the most distant glimpse
of "the old abbeys, and the York minsters, and the lord mayors, and
coronations, and the maypoles and fox-hunters, and Derby races, and
dukes, and duchesses, and Count d'Orsays," which his boyish reading
had given him the habit of associating with England,--when he one
day made acquaintance, at the sign of the Baltimore Clipper, with "a
handsome, accomplished, but unfortunate youth, one of those small but
perfectly-formed beings who seem to have been born in cocoons. His
complexion was a _mantling brunette_, feminine as a girl's; his feet
were small; his hands were white; and his eyes were large, black, and
womanly; and, poetry aside, his voice was as the sound of a harp." It
is natural to wonder what this dainty gentleman does in the sailors'
quarter of Liverpool, and how he comes to rub his dandified costume
against the tarry jackets of the Clippers' habitual frequenters.
On these points we are presently enlightened. Harry Bolton was born
at Bury St Edmunds. At a very early age he came into possession of
five thousand pounds, went up to London, was at once admitted into
the most aristocratic circles, gambled and dissipated his money in a
single winter, made two voyages to the East Indies as midshipman in
a Company's ship, squandered his pay, and was now about to seek his
fortune in the New World. On reaching Liverpool, he took it into his
head, for the romance of the thing, to ship as a sailor, and work his
passage. Hence his presence at the docks, and his acquaintance with
Redburn, who, delighted with his new acquaintance, prevails on him to
offer his services to Captain Riga of the Highlander, who graciously
accepts them.
"I now had a comrade in my afternoon strolls and Sunday
excursions; and as Harry was a generous fellow, he shared with
me his purse and his heart. He sold off several more of his fine
vests and trousers, his silver-keyed flute and enamelled guitar;
and a portion of the money thus furnished was pleasantly spent in
refreshing ourselves at the roadside inns, in the vicinity of the
town. Reclining side by side in some agreeable nook, we exchanged
our experiences of the past. Harry enlarged upon the fascinations
of a London life; described the curricle he used to drive in Hyde
Park; gave me the measurement of Madame Vestris' ankle; alluded
to his first introduction, at a club, to the madcap Marquis of
Waterford; told over the sums he had lost upon the turf on a Derby
day; and made various but enigmatical allusions to a certain Lady
Georgiana Theresa, the noble daughter of an anonymous earl."
Even Redburn, inexperienced as he is in the ways of the old
country, is inclined to suspect his new friend of "spending funds
of reminiscences not his own,"--that being as near an approach as
he can make to accusing the he-brunette with the harp-like voice of
telling lies--until one day, when passing a fashionable hotel, Harry
points out to him "a remarkable elegant coat and pantaloons, standing
upright on the hotel steps, and containing a young buck, tapping his
teeth with an ivory-headed riding-whip." The buck is "very thin and
limber about the legs, with small feet like a doll's, and a small,
glossy head like a seal's," and presently he steps to "the open window
of a flashing carriage which drew up: and, throwing himself into an
interesting posture, _with the sole of one boot vertically exposed,
so as to show the stamp on it--a coronet_--fell into a sparkling
conversation with a magnificent white satin hat, surmounted by a regal
marabout feather, inside." The young gentleman with the seal's-head
and the coroneted-boot, is, as Harry assures Redburn, whilst dragging
him hastily round a corner, Lord Lovely, a most particular "old chum"
of his own. "Sailors," Redburn somewhere observes, "only go _round_
the world without going _into_ it; and their reminiscences of travel
are only a dim recollection of a chain of tap-rooms surrounding the
globe, parallel with the equator." This being the case, we would
have him abstain from giving glimpses of the English aristocracy,
his knowledge of which seems to be based upon the revelations of
Sunday newspapers, and upon that class of novels usually supposed to
be written by discarded valets-de-chambre. But we are not let off
with this peep at a truant fashionable. Mr Bolton, having found a
purse, or picked a pocket, or in some way or other replenished his
exchequer, rigs out Redburn in a decent suit of clothes, and carries
him off to London, previously disguising himself with false whiskers
and mustaches. Enchanted to visit the capital, Redburn does not
inquire too particularly concerning these suspicious proceedings,
but takes all for granted, until he finds himself "dropped down in
the evening among gas-lights, under a great roof in Euston Square.
London at last," he exclaims, "and in the West End!" If not quite in
the West End, he is soon transported thither by the agency of a cab,
and introduced by his friend into a "semi-public place of opulent
entertainment," such as certainly exists nowhere (at least in London)
but in our sailor-author's lively imagination. The number of this
enchanted mansion is forty, it is approached by high steps, and has a
purple light at the door. Can any one help us with a conjecture? The
following passage we take to be good of its kind: "The cabman being
paid, Harry, adjusting his whiskers and mustaches, _and bidding me
assume a lounging look, pushed his hat a little to one side_, and then,
locking arms, we sauntered into the house, myself feeling not a little
abashed--it was so long since I had been in any courtly society."
A pair of tailors strutting into a casino. It would seem there are
cockneys even in America. The "courtly society" into which the Yankee
sailor boy and his anomalous acquaintance now intrude themselves is
that of "knots of gentlemanly men, seated at numerous Moorish-looking
tables, supported by Caryatides of turbaned slaves, with cut decanters
and taper-waisted glasses, journals, and cigars before them." We regret
we have not room for the description of the magnificent interior, which
is a remarkable specimen of fine writing; but we must devote a word to
the presiding genius of the mysterious palace, were it only for the
sake of a simile indulged in by Redburn. At the further end of the
brilliant apartment, "behind a rich mahogany turret-like structure, was
a very handsome florid old man, with snow-white hair and whiskers, and
in a snow-white jacket--_he looked like an almond-tree in blossom_."
Enshrined in mahogany turrets, and adorned by so imaginative a pen,
who would suspect this benign and blooming old sinner of condescending
to direct waiters and receive silver. Nevertheless these, we are told,
are his chief duties--in short, we are allowed to suppose that he is
the steward of this club, hell, tavern, or whatever else it is intended
to be. Bolton speaks a word to the almond tree, who appears surprised,
and they leave the room together. Redburn remains over a decanter of
pale-yellow wine, and catches unintelligible sentences, in which the
words _Loo_ and _Rouge_ occur. Presently Bolton returns, his face
rather flushed, and drags away Redburn, not, as the latter hoped, for
a ramble, "perhaps to Apsley House, in the Park, to get a sly peep
at the old Duke before he retired for the night," but up magnificent
staircases, through rosewood-doors and palatial halls, of all which
we have a most florid, high-flown, and classical description. Again
Bolton leaves him, after being very oracular and mysterious, and giving
him money for his journey back to Liverpool, and a letter which he is
to leave at Bury, should he (the aforesaid Bolton) not return before
morning. And thereupon he departs with the almond-tree, and Redburn is
left to his meditations, and hears dice rattle, has visions of frantic
men rushing along corridors, and fancies he sees reptiles crawling over
the mirrors, and at last, what with wine, excitement, and fatigue, he
falls asleep. He is roused by Harry Bolton, very pale and desperate,
who draws a dirk, and nails his empty purse to the table, and whistles
fiercely, and finally screams for brandy. Now all this sort of thing,
we can assure its author, is in the very stalest style of minor-theatre
melodrama. We perfectly remember our intense gratification when
witnessing, at country fairs in our boyish days, a thrilling domestic
tragedy, in which the murderer rushes on the stage with a chalked face
and a gory carving-knife, howling for "Brandy! Brandy!!" swallows a
goblet of strong toast and water, and is tranquillised. But surely Mr
Melville had no need to recur to such antiquated traditions. Nor had
he any need to introduce this fantastical gambling episode, unless it
were upon the principle of the old cakes of roses in the apothecary's
shop--to make up a show. We unhesitatingly qualify the whole of this
London expedition as utter rubbish, intended evidently to be very fine
and effective, but which totally misses the mark. Why will not Mr
Melville stick to the ship? There he is at home. The worst passages of
his sea-going narrative are better than the best of his metropolitan
experiences. In fact, the introduction at all of the male brunette is
quite impertinent. Having got him, Mr Melville finds it necessary to
do something with him, and he is greatly puzzled what that is to be.
Bolton's character is full of inconsistencies. Notwithstanding his two
voyages to the East Indies, and his great notion of "the romance" of
working his passage as a common sailor, when he comes to do duty on
board the Highlander he proves himself totally ignorant of nautical
matters, and is so nerveless a mariner that, on ascending a mast, he
nearly falls into the sea, and nothing can induce him again to go
aloft. This entails upon him the contempt and ill-treatment of his
officers and shipmates, and he leads a dog's life between Liverpool and
New York. "Few landsmen can imagine the depressing and self-humiliating
effect of finding one's self, for the first time, at the beck of
illiterate sea-tyrants, with no opportunity of exhibiting any trait
about you but your ignorance of everything connected with the sea-life
that you lead, and the duties you are constantly called on to perform.
In such a sphere, and under such circumstances, Isaac Newton and Lord
Bacon would be sea-clowns and bumpkins, and Napoleon Buonaparte be
cuffed and kicked without remorse. In more than one instance I have
seen the truth of this; and Harry, poor Harry, proved no exception."
Poor Harry, nervous, effeminate, and sensitive, was worried like a hare
by the rude sea-dogs amongst whom he had so imprudently thrust himself.
His sole means of propitiating his tormentors was by his voice, and
"many a night was he called upon to sing for those who, through the
day, had insulted and derided him." Amidst his many sufferings, Redburn
was his only comforter, and at times, of an evening, they would creep
under the lee of the long-boat and talk of the past, and still oftener
of the future; for Harry referred but unwillingly to things gone by,
and especially would never explain any of the mysteries of their London
expedition, and had bound Redburn by an oath not to question him
concerning it. He confessed, however, that his resources were at end;
that besides a chest of clothes--relics of former finery--he had but
a few shillings in the world; and, although several years his senior,
he was glad to take counsel of the sailor boy as to his future course
of life, and what he could do in America to earn a living, for he was
determined never to return to England. And when Redburn suggested that
his friend's musical talents might possibly be turned to account, Harry
caught at the idea, and volunteered the following curious information:--
"In some places in England, he said, it was customary for two
or three young men of highly respectable families, of undoubted
antiquity, but unfortunately in lamentably decayed circumstances,
and threadbare coats--it was customary for two or three young
gentlemen, so situated, to obtain their livelihood by their
voices; coining their silvery songs into silvery shillings. They
wandered from door to door, and rang the bell--_Are the ladies
and gentlemen in?_ Seeing them at least gentlemanly-looking,
if not sumptuously apparelled, the servant generally admitted
them at once; and when the people entered to greet them, their
spokesman would rise with a gentle bow, and a smile, and say, _We
come, ladies and gentlemen, to sing you a song; we are singers,
at your service._ And so, without waiting reply, forth they burst
into song; and, having most mellifluous voices, enchanted and
transported all auditors; so much so, that at the conclusion of
the entertainment they very seldom failed to be well recompensed,
and departed with an invitation to return again, and make the
occupants of that dwelling once more delighted and happy."
Should it not be added that these errant minstrels of ancient
family, decayed circumstances, and courtly manners, had their faces
lamp-blacked, and carried bones and banjos, and sang songs in negro
slang with gurgling choruses? Some such professors we have occasionally
seen parading the streets of English towns, although we are not aware
of their being customarily welcomed in drawing-rooms. We ask Mr Herman
Melville to explain to us his intention in this sort of writing. Does
it contain some subtle satire, imperceptible to our dull optics? Does
he mean it to be humorous? Or is he writing seriously? (although that
seems scarcely possible,) and does he imagine he is here recording
a common English custom? If this last be the case, we strongly urge
him immediately to commence a work "On the Manners and Customs of the
British Isles." We promise him a review, and guarantee the book's
success. But we have not quite done with Harry Bolton, and may as
well finish him off whilst our hand is in. Objections being found to
troubadourising in New York, the notion of a clerkship is started,
Harry being a good penman; and this brings on a discussion about
hands, and Redburn utterly scouts the idea of slender fingers and
small feet being indicative of gentle birth and far descent, because
the half-caste paupers in Lima are dainty-handed and wee-footed, and
moreover, he adds, with crushing force of argument, a fish has no feet
at all! But poor Harry's tender digits and rosy nails have grievously
suffered from the pollution of tar-pots, and the rough contact of
ropes, and oftentimes he bewails his hand's degradation, and sighs for
the palmy days when it handed countesses to their coaches, and pledged
Lady Blessington, and ratified a bond to Lord Lovely, &c. &c. All which
is abundantly tedious and commonplace, and will not bear dwelling upon.
Part of the Highlander's cargo on home-voyage was five hundred
emigrants, to accommodate whom the "between-decks" was fitted up with
bunks, rapidly constructed of coarse planks, and having something
the appearance of dog-kennels. The weather proved unfavourable, the
voyage long, the provisions of many of the emigrants (who were chiefly
Irish) ran short, and the consequences were disorder, suffering, and
disease. Once more upon his own ground, and telling of things which
he knows, and has doubtless seen, Mr Melville again rises in our
estimation. His details of emigrant life on board are good; and so is
his account of the sailors' shifts for tobacco, which runs short, and
of Jackson's selfishness, and singular ascendency over the crew. And
also, very graphic indeed, is the picture of the steerage, when the
malignant epidemic breaks out, and it becomes a lazar-house, frightful
with filth and fever, where the wild ignorant Irishmen sat smoking
tea leaves on their chests, and rise in furious revolt, to prevent
the crew from taking the necessary sanitary measures of purification,
until at last favourable breezes came, and fair mild days, and fever
fled, and the human stable (for it was no better) was cleansed, and the
Highlander bowled cheerily onwards, over a pleasant sea, towards the
much-desired haven. Two incidents of especial prominence occur during
the voyage--one at its outset, the other near its close. Whilst yet
in the Prince's Dock, three drunken sailors are brought on board the
Highlander by the crimps. One of them, a Portuguese, senseless from
intoxication, is lowered on deck by a rope and rolled into his bunk,
where the crimp tucks him in, and desires he may not be disturbed till
out at sea. There he lies, regardless of the mate's angry calls, and
seemingly sunk in a trance, until an unpleasant odour in the forecastle
arouses attention, and Jackson discovers that the man is dead. Yet the
other sailors doubt it, especially when, upon Red Max holding a light
to his face, "the yellow flame wavered for a moment at the seaman's
motionless mouth. But then, to the silent horror of all, two threads
of greenish fire, like a forked tongue, darted out from between the
lips; and in a moment the cadaverous face was crawled over by a swarm
of wormlike flames. The lamp dropped from the hand of Max, and went
out, which covered all over with spires and sparkles of flame, that
faintly crackled in the silence; the uncovered parts of the body burned
before us, precisely like a phosphorescent shark in a midnight sea."
Spirit-drinking, the seaman's bane, had made an end of Miguel the
Portuguese. What shocked Redburn particularly, was Jackson's opinion
"that the man had been actually dead when brought on board the ship;
and that knowingly, and merely for the sake of the month's advance,
paid into his hand upon the strength of the bill he presented, the
body-snatching crimp had shipped a corpse on board the Highlander."
The men trembled at the supernatural aspect of the burning body, but
reckless Jackson, with a fierce jeer, bade them hurl it overboard,
which was done. Jackson knew not how soon the waves were to close over
his own corpse. Off Cape Cod, when the smell of land was strong in the
nostrils of the weary emigrants, orders were given, one dark night, in
a stiff breeze, to reef topsails; and Jackson, who had been deadly ill
and off duty most part of the voyage, came upon deck, to the surprise
of many, to do his duty with the rest, by way of reminder, perhaps, to
the captain, that he was alive and expected his wages. Having pointed
pretty freely to Mr Melville's defects, it is fair to give an example
of his happier manner.
"At no time could Jackson better signalise his disposition to
work, than upon an occasion like the present; which generally
attracts every soul on deck, from the captain to the child in the
steerage.
"His aspect was damp and deathlike; the blue hollows of his
eyes were like vaults full of snakes, [another of Mr Melville's
outrageous similes]; and, issuing so unexpectedly from his dark
tomb in the forecastle, he looked like a man raised from the dead.
"Before the sailors had made fast the reef-tackle, Jackson
was tottering up the rigging; thus getting the start of them,
and securing his place at the extreme weather end of the
topsail-yard--which is accounted the post of honour. For it was
one of the characteristics of this man, that, though when on duty
he would shy away from mere dull work in a calm, yet in tempest
time he always claimed the van, and would yield it to none; and
this, perhaps, was one cause of his unbounded dominion over the
men.
"Soon we were all strung along the main-topsail yard; the ship
rearing and plunging under us, like a runaway steed; each man
griping his reef-point, and sideways leaning, dragging the sail
over towards Jackson, whose business it was to confine the reef
corner to the yard.
"His hat and shoes were off; and he rode the yard-arm end, leaning
backward to the gale, and pulling at the earing-rope like a
bridle. At all times, this is a moment of frantic exertion with
sailors, whose spirits seem then to partake of the commotion
of the elements, as they hang in the gale, between heaven and
earth--and then it is, too, that they are the most profane.
"'Haul out to windward!' coughed Jackson with a blasphemous cry,
and he threw himself back with a violent strain upon the bridle
in his hand. But the wild words were hardly out of his mouth when
his hands dropped to his side, and the bellying sail was spattered
with a torrent of blood from his lungs.
"As the man next him stretched out his arm to save, Jackson fell
headlong from the yard, and, with a long seethe, plunged like a
diver into the sea.
"It was when the ship had rolled to windward; which, with the long
projection of the yard-arm over the side, made him strike far out
upon the water. His fall was seen by the whole upward-gazing crowd
on deck, some of whom were spotted with the blood that trickled
from the sail, while they raised a spontaneous cry, so shrill
and wild, that a blind man might have known something deadly had
happened.
"Clutching our reef-points, we hung over the stick, and gazed down
to the one white, bubbling spot, which had closed over the head of
our shipmate; but the next minute it was brewed into the common
yeast of the waves, and Jackson never arose. We waited a few
moments, expecting an order to descend, haul back the foreyard,
and man the boat; but instead of that, the next sound that greeted
us was, 'Bear a hand, and reef away, men!' from the mate."
If it be possible (we are aware that it is very difficult) for an
author to form a correct estimate of his own productions, it must
surely have struck Mr Melville, whilst glancing over the proof-sheets
of _Redburn_, that plain, vigorous, unaffected writing of this sort
is a far superior style of thing to rhapsodies about Italian boys and
hurdy-gurdies, to gairish descriptions of imaginary gambling-houses,
and to sentimental effusions about Harry Bolton, his "Bury blade,"
and his "Zebra," as he called him--the latter word being used, we
suppose, to indicate that the young man was only one remove from a
donkey. We can assure Mr Melville he is most effective when most simple
and unpretending; and if he will put away affectation and curb the
eccentricities of his fancy, we see no reason for his not becoming a
very agreeable writer of nautical fictions. He will never have the
power of a Cringle, or the sustained humour and vivacity of a Marryat,
but he may do very well without aspiring to rival the masters of the
art.
_Redburn_ is not a novel; it has no plot; the mysterious visit to
London remains more or less an enigma to the end. But having said so
much about Harry Bolton, the author deems it expedient to add a tag
touching the fate of this worthy, whom Redburn left in New York; in
charge of a friend, during his own temporary absence, and who had
disappeared on his return. For years he hears nothing of him, but then
falls in, whilst on a whaling cruise in the Pacific, with an English
sailor, who tells how a poor little fellow, a countryman of his, a
gentleman's son, and who sang like a bird, had fallen over the side of
a Nantucket craft, and been jammed between ship and whale. And this is
Harry Bolton. A most lame and impotent conclusion, and as improbable a
one as could well be devised, seeing that a sailor's life was the very
last the broken down gambler was likely to choose, after his experience
of his utter incapacity for it, and after the persecution and torments
he had endured from his rude shipmates on board the Highlander.
When this review of his last work meets the eye of Mr Herman Melville,
which probably it will do, we would have him bear in mind that, if
we have now dwelt upon his failings, it is in the hope of inducing
him to amend them; and that we have already, on a former occasion,
expended at least as much time and space on a laudation of his merits,
and many undeniable good qualities, as a writer. It always gives us
pleasure to speak favourably of a book by an American author, when we
conscientiously can do so. First, because Americans, although cousins,
are not _of the house_; although allied by blood, they are in some
sort strangers; and it is an act of more graceful courtesy to laud
a stranger than one of ourselves. Secondly, because we hope thereby
to encourage Americans to the cultivation of literature--to induce
some to write, who, having talent, have not hitherto revealed it; and
to stimulate those who have already written to increased exertion
and better things. For it were false modesty on our part to ignore
the fact, that the words of Maga have much weight and many readers
throughout the whole length and breadth of the Union--that her verdict
is respectfully heard, not only in the city, but in the hamlet, and
even in those remote back-woods where the law of Lynch prevails. And,
thirdly, we gladly praise an American book because we praise none but
good books, and we desire to see many such written in America, in the
hope that she will at last awake to the advantages of an international
copyright. For surely it is little creditable to a great country to see
her men of genius and talent, her Irvings and Prescotts, and we will
also say her Coopers and Melvilles, publishing their works in a foreign
capital, as the sole means of obtaining that fair remuneration which,
although it should never be the sole object, is yet the legitimate and
honourable reward of the labourer in literature's paths.
FOOTNOTES:
[20] _Redburn: his First Voyage._ By HERMAN MELVILLE, author of
_Typee_, _Omoo_, and _Mardi_. 2 vols. London, 1849.
PEACE AND WAR AGITATORS.
If the experience of the last twelve months has not opened the eyes
of the most inveterate of Mr Cobden's quondam admirers to the real
quality of their idol, we very much fear that such unhappy persons
are beyond the reach of the moral oculist. From the first moment of
his appearance upon the political stage, while yet unbe-praised by
Peel, and unrewarded by that splendid testimonial, accorded unto him
by judicious patriots, one moiety of whom have since done penance for
their premature liberality in the _Gazette_, we understood the true
capabilities of the man, and scrupled not to say that a more conceited
personage never battered the front of a hustings. Some excellent but
decidedly weak-minded people were rather offended with the freedom of
our remarks upon the self-sufficient Cagliostro of free trade, in whose
powers of transmutation they were disposed to place implicit reliance
and belief. The Tamworth certificate, which we shrewdly suspect its
author would now give a trifle to recall, was founded on as evidence
sufficient to condemn our obstinate blindness and illiberality; for who
could doubt the soundness of an opinion emanating from a statesman who
was just then depositing, in a mahogany wheelbarrow, the first sod,
raised with a silver spade, on a railway which, when completed, was to
prove a perfect California to the shareholders? It is not impossible
that, at this moment, some of the shareholders may be on their way
to the actual California--having found, through bitter experience,
that some kinds of diggings are anything but productive, and having
learned that elderly orators, who make a practice of studying the
gyrations of the weather-cock, may be sometimes mistaken in their
calculations. Matters fared worse with us, when it was bruited through
the trumpet of fame, that, in every considerable capital of Europe,
multitudes had assembled to do homage to the apostle of the new era.
Our compassionate friends, possibly deeming us irretrievably committed
to folly, put on mourning for our transgression, and ceased to combat
with our adversaries, who classed us with the worst of unbelievers.
One facetious gentleman proposed that we should be exhibited in a
glass-case, as a specimen of an extinct animal; another, indulging
in a more daring flight of fancy, stigmatised us as a cankerworm,
gnawing at the root of the tree of liberty. We fairly confess that
we were pained at the alienation of friends whom we had previously
considered as staunch as the steel of Toledo: as for our foemen, we,
being used to that kind of warfare, treated them with consummate
indifference. Yet not the less, on that account, did we diligently
peruse the journals, which, from various lands, winged their way
to the table of our study, each announcing, in varied speech, that
Richard Cobden was expatiating upon the blessings of free-trade and
unlimited calico to the nations. These we had not studied long, ere
we discovered that, upon one or two unfortunate points, there was a
want of understanding between the parties who thus fraternised. The
foreign audiences knew nothing whatever about the principles which the
orator propounded; and the orator knew, if possible, still less of the
languages in which the compliments of the audiences were conveyed. In
so far as any interchange of ideas was concerned, Mr Cobden might as
well have been dining on cold roast monkey with the King of Congo and
his court, as with the bearded patriots who entertained him in Italy
and Spain. His talk about reciprocity was about as distinct to their
comprehension, as would have been his definition of the differential
calculus; nevertheless their shoutings fell no whit less gratefully
on the ear of the Manchester manufacturer, who interpreted the same
according to his own sweet will, and sent home bragging bulletins to
his backers, descriptive of the thirst for commercial interchange which
raged throughout Europe, and of the pacific tendencies of the age.
Need we remind our readers of what followed? Never had unfortunate
prophet been possessed by a more lying and delusive demon. The words
were hardly out of his mouth, before the thunderstorm of revolution
broke in all its fury upon France, and rolled in devastating wrath
over every kingdom of the Continent. Amongst the foremost agents in
this unholy work were the friends and entertainers of Mr Cobden, for
whose tranquil dispositions he had been foolish enough to volunteer a
pledge. How he must have cursed "my friend Cremieux," when he found
that unscrupulous gentleman giving the lie to all his asseverations!
No man, unless cased in a threefold covering of brass, could have
held up his head to the public, after so thorough and instantaneous
an exposure of his miserable fallacies. But our Richard is not to be
easily put down. No one understands the trade of the agitator better;
for, when baffled, put to silence, and covered with ridicule on one
topic, he straightway shifts his ground, and is heard declaiming on
another. It is his misfortune that he has been compelled to do this
rather frequently, for in no one single instance have events realised
his predictions. Free trade, which was to make every man rich, has
plunged the nation in misery. Reciprocity, for all practical purposes,
is an obsolete word in the dictionary. The Continental apostles of
commercial exchange have been amusing themselves by cutting each
others' throats, and hatching villanous schemes for the subversion of
all government; nor has one of them a maravedi left, to expend in the
purchase of calico. The colonies are up in arms against the policy of
the mother country. Undismayed by these failures, still the undaunted
Cobden lifts up his oracular voice, advocating in turn the extension
of the suffrage, the abolition of standing armies, financial reform,
and what not. It matters not to him that, on each new attempt, the
rotten tub on which he takes his stand is either kicked from under his
feet, or goes crashing down beneath the weight of the husky orator--up
he starts from the mire like a new Antæus, and, without stopping to
wipe away the unsavoury stains from his visage, holds forth upon a
different text, the paragon of pertinacious preachers. We could almost
find it in our hearts to be sorry that such singular pluck should go
without its adequate reward. But a patriot of this stamp is sure to
become a nuisance. However numerous his audience may be at first, they
are apt to decline when the folly of the harangue is made patent to
the meanest capacity, and when current events everlastingly combine
to expose the nature of the imposture. The popularity of Cobden, for
some time back, has been terribly on the wane. Few and far between are
his present political ovations; and even men of his own class begin to
consider him a humbug. We are given to understand that, in a majority
of the commercial rooms, the first glass of the statutory pint of wine
is no longer graced with an aspiration for his prosperity and length
of years; and some ungrateful recreants of the road now hint, that to
his baleful influence may be attributed the woful diminution of orders.
That exceedingly mangy establishment, ycleped the Free-trade Club,
of which he was the father and founder, has just given up the ghost;
and great is the joy of the denizens of St James's Square at being
relieved from the visitations of the crew that haunted its ungarnished
halls. Ordinary men might be disheartened by a succession of such
reverses--not so Cobden. Like an ancient Roman, he gathers his calico
around him, and announces to a gratified world that he is ready to
measure inches with the Autocrat of all the Russias!
Cobden is fond of this kind of feat. About a year ago he put out the
same challenge to the Duke of Wellington and the Horse Guards, just
as we find it announced in the columns of _Bell's Life in London_,
that Charles Onions of Birmingham is ready to pitch into the Champion
of England for five pounds aside, and that his money is deposited at
the bar of the Pig and Whistles. But even as the said champion does
not reply to the defiance of the full-flavoured Charles, so silent
was He of the hundred fights when Richard summoned him to the field.
Failing this meditated encounter, our pugnacious manufacturer next
despatches a cartel to Nicholas, and no response having arrived from
St Petersburg, he magnanimously professes himself ready to serve out
the house of Hapsburg! Really there is no setting bounds to the valour
or the ambition of this vaunting Achilles, who, far stronger than his
prototype, or even than the fabled Hercules, states that he can crumple
up kingdoms in his hand as easily as a sheet of foolscap. We stand
absolutely appalled at the temerity of unappeasable Pelides.
Our readers are probably aware that, for some time past, there has
been an attempt to preach up a sort of seedy Crusade, having for
its ostensible object the universal pacification of mankind. With
such an aim no good man or sincere Christian can quarrel. Peace and
good-will are expressly inculcated by the Gospel, and even upon lower
grounds than these we are all predisposed in their favour. So that,
when America sent us a new Peter the Hermit, in the shape of one
Elihu Burritt, heretofore a hammerer of iron, people were at a loss
to comprehend what sort of a mission that could be, which, without
any fresh revelation, was to put the matter in a clearer light than
was ever exhibited before. We care not to acknowledge that we were
of the number of those who classed the said Elihu with the gang of
itinerant lecturers, who turn a questionable penny by holding forth to
ignorant audiences upon subjects utterly beyond their own contracted
comprehension. Nor have we seen any reason to alter our opinion since;
for the accession of any amount of noodles, be they English, French,
Dutch, Flemish, or Chinese, can in no way give importance to a movement
which is simply and radically absurd. If the doctrines and precepts
of Christianity cannot establish peace, cheek aggression, suppress
insubordination, or hasten the coming of the millennium, we may be
excused for doubting, surely, the power of Peace Congresses, even when
presided over by so saintly a personage as Victor Hugo, to accomplish
those desirable ends. We do not know whether Alexander Dumas has as yet
given in his adhesion. If not, it is a pity, for his presence would
decidedly give additional interest to the meetings.
Even on the score of originality, the founders of the Peace
Associations cannot claim any merit. The idea was long ago struck out,
and promulgated, by that very respectable sect the Quakers; and though
in modern times some of that fraternity, John Bright for example, have
shown themselves more addicted to wrangling than befits the lamb-like
docility of their profession, we believe that opposition to warfare is
still their leading tenet. We can see no reason, therefore, why the
bread should be so unceremoniously taken from the mouth of Obadiah. If
the ingenious author of _Lucretia Borgia_ and _Hans of Iceland_ wishes
to become the leader of a great pacific movement, he ought, in common
justice, to adopt the uniform of the existing corps. He certainly
should treat the promenaders of the Boulevards to a glimpse of the
broad-brimmed hat and sober drab terminations, and conform to the
phraseology as well as the habiliments of the followers of William Penn.
It may be questionable whether, if the experiment of free trade had
succeeded, Elihu would have obtained the countenance of so potent
an auxiliary as Cobden. Our powers of arithmetic are too limited to
enable us, at this moment, to recall the precise amount of additional
annual wealth which the member for the West Riding, and the wiseacres
of _The Economist_, confidently predicted as the necessary gain to
the nation; it was something, the bare mention of which was enough
to cause a Pactolus to distil from the chops of a Chancellor of the
Exchequer, especially if he belonged to the Whig persuasion, and was,
therefore, unaccustomed to the miracle of a bursting revenue. But as no
such miracle ensued; and as, on the contrary, Sir Charles Wood was put
to his wit's end--no very formidable stretch--to diminish a horrible
deficit by the sale of rope-ends, rusty metal, and other material which
was classed under the head of government stores, it was clearly high
time for our nimble Cobden to shift his ground. Accordingly he fell
foul of the army, which he would fain have insisted on disbanding;
and this move, of course, brought him within the range of the orbit
already occupied by the eccentric Elihu.
It is not very easy to attain to a distinct understanding of the means
which the Peace Association proposed to adopt, for carrying out this
benevolent scheme. Most of the gentlemen who have already figured at
their debates are so excessively muddleheaded, that it seems impossible
to extract from their speeches the vestige of a distinct idea. This
much, however, after diligent study, we have gathered, that it is
proposed to substitute arbitration in place of war, and to render that
mode of arrangement almost necessary by a general European disarmament.
Nothing could tally better with the views of Cobden. A higher principle
than that of mere retrenchment is thus brought to bear upon his darling
scheme of wiping off the army and the navy; and we must needs confess
that, to a considerable proportion of the population of modern Europe,
the scheme must be extremely palatable.
Standing armies, we are told, are of no earthly use in the time of
peace, and their expense is obviously undeniable. If peace could be
made universal and perpetual, there would be an end of standing armies.
The best means for securing perpetual peace is to do away with standing
armies, because without standing armies there would be no facilities
for war. This is the sort of argument which we are now asked to accept;
but, unfortunately, we demur both to the premises and the conclusion.
Indeed, in a matter of this kind, we utterly repudiate the aid of
logic, even were it a great deal more scientifically employed. That of
the free-traders is, if possible, worse than their arithmetic, though,
a year or two ago, they were ready to have staked their existence on
the infallibility of the latter.
The experience of the last eighteen months has given us all some
tangible proof of the advantages of standing armies. Setting aside the
Denmark affair, and also the occupation of Rome, there has been one
aggressive war waged in Europe by sovereign against sovereign. That
war, we need hardly say, was commenced by Charles Albert of Sardinia,
who, basely and perfidiously availing himself of the intestine
difficulties of Austria, attempted to seize the opportunity of making
himself master of Lombardy. We need not recapitulate the history of
that campaign, so glorious to the veteran Radetsky, and so shameful
to his unprincipled opponent: but it is well worth remarking, that
the whole of the sympathies of Mr Cobden and his radical confederates
are enlisted on the side of the Italian insurgents; and that, with
all their professed horror for war, we never hear them attribute the
slightest blame to the Sardinians for having marched in hostile array
across the frontier of a friendly power. Nor is this all. In every
case where the torch of insurrection has been lighted, we find the
advocates of peace clamorous in their approbation of the movement.
Without knowledge, without judgment, without anything like due
consideration either of the provocation given on the one side, or the
license claimed on the other, they have invariably lent their voices to
swell the revolutionary cry, and backed the drunken populace in their
howl against order and government. Whoever was loyal and true has been
branded as a ruffian and a murderer. Assassination, when it proceeded
from the mob, was in their eyes no offence at all. Some of them,
employing terms which we never thought to have heard an Englishman
utter, have rather chuckled over the spectacle of nobles, priests, and
statesmen stabbed, shot down, hewn with axes, or torn limb from limb by
savages, whose atrocity was not equalled by that of the worst actors in
the early French Revolution,--and have not been ashamed to vindicate
the authors of such hideous outrage.