among the Southern Democracy, was Hunter, of Virginia. He is a
thickly-built person, with a countenance possessing but little
expression, and far from intellectual; and would rather be noticed by
one sitting in the gallery for the negligence of his dress, utter want
of dignity, and exceedingly unsenatorial bearing, than for any other
external qualities. But when he had spoken a few moments, a decided
soundness of head, and shrewdness, appeared to enter into the
composition of his mind. No man in the Senate had a juster idea of
financial philosophy; and his services on the Committee devoted to that
department, were highly appreciated by every one. He was, however,
little trusted by loyal Senators, and his frequent professions of
devotion to the Union, failed to conceal the bent of his mind toward
those with whom he is now in intimate concert. Sincerity had least place
of all the virtues in his breast; and his hypocrisy, somewhat hidden by
the apparent ingenuousness and conciliatory address of his manner,
became manifest in actions and votes, rather than in words. He was, so
far as can now be ascertained, one of the prime movers of the Senatorial
cabal, or caucus, which was devoted either to the complete dominance of
the Southern element in the Union, or to their forcible secession from
the Union; and was probably as active and earnest a traitor, long before
the doctrine of secession was ventured upon, as the most fiery of
South-Carolina fire-eaters. Mr. Hunter is, in private, courteous and
affable, and, indeed, in the debates in which he took part, he never
transgressed the rules of respect due to his colleagues, or violated the
dicta of parliamentary etiquette.
His colleague, Mason, is an irritable, petulant, arrogant man, not
without a certain ability in debate, but censorious, and unconfined by
the restraints of decency in his tirades against the North. He was 'one
of the finest-looking men,' if we speak phrenologically, in the last
Senate; and would always be noticed for his dignified manner and fine
head, by a stranger visiting the Chamber for the first time. We have
briefly noticed him, rather on account of the notoriety recently
attached to his name by the 'Trent' affair, than from his prominence
among Southern orators and statesmen--his talent, being, in fact, of a
decidedly mediocre description.
While speaking of Mason, it will be _apropos_ to allude to his late
companion in trouble, John Slidell, who was certainly the shrewdest
politician and party tactician among his friends on the north side of
the chamber; he is indeed the Nestor of intriguers. From the time when,
early in life, he aspired to, and in a degree succeeded in controlling
the politics of the Empire City, up to this hour, when he is with
snake-like subtleness attempting to poison French honor, his career has
been a series of successful intrigues. Utterly devoid of moral
principle, he resembles his late colleague, Benjamin, in the immorality
of his life, and the baseness of his ends, attained by as base means. He
is rather a good-looking man, short, with snowy-white hair and red face,
his countenance indicative of the secretiveness and cunning of his
character. He was rather the caucus adviser and manager than one of the
orators of his party; seldom speaking, and never except briefly and to
the point. Imagination in him has been warped and made torpid by a life
of dissipation, as well as by his practical tendencies. He is, like many
other Southern statesmen, courteous and pleasing in social conversation;
but is heartless, selfish, and malignant in his enmities.
Robert Toombs stood deservedly high in the traitorous cabal in the
Senate; for, to a bold and energetic spirit, great arrogance of manner,
and activity, he added a powerful mind and a clear head. In the street,
he would strike you as a self-conceited, bullying, contemptuous person,
with brains in the inverse proportion to his body, which was large and
apparently strong. His manner, when addressing the Senators, had indeed
much of an overbearing and insolent spirit; but the impression, in
regard to his character, after hearing him speak, was much better than
before. There was an indication of strength behind the bullying,
blustering air which he put on, which raised one's respect for his
attainments. One of the most rabid and uncompromising of secession
leaders, and bigoted in his hatred of the North, he was yet, in private,
a courteous and hospitable gentleman, and, apparently at least, frank in
the expression of opinion. Probably he had as little principle in
political and social life as most of his associates in treason; while
his great self-reliance, activity, and mental ability gave him a very
high position in their confidence. He was tall and stout, though not
corpulent; and was very negligent of his toilet and dress. Self-conceit
was written on his countenance, and displayed itself in his arrogant
assumptions of superiority. But his method of dealing with his Northern
opponents was open and bold, although insolent and overbearing, and not
like Hunter, Davis, and Benjamin, using ingenious sophistry and hidden
sarcasm, cautiously smoothing over their real purpose, by rhetoric and
elegant sentiment. Mr. Toombs became early an object of peculiar dislike
to Northern men, by the rude ingenuousness with which he announced the
last conclusions of his political creed, and the intolerable insolence
with which, not heeding the admonitions of his more cautious
confederates, he thundered out his anathemas of hatred and vengeance on
what he was pleased to call 'Northern tyranny.' It was only when the
crisis came, that others unfolded together their base character and
their hypocrisy. Davis, who had been fondled by New-Englanders but a
year or two since, and Hunter, who had cried for peace and compromise,
standing forth at last in the true light of traitors, and thereby
proclaiming their past life a game of hypocrisy. Toombs, therefore, who
was an original fire-eater, and hence could not be called a hypocrite,
has become less an object of hatred to us of the loyal States, than
those who, while they sat at the cabinet councils, or were admitted to
the confidence of the Executive, or were sent to foreign courts, or
presided over the Upper House, were using the power of such high trusts
for the consummation of a conspiracy against their country, yet
retaining the cant of patriotism and feigning a devotion to the Union.
We have dwelt almost exclusively, in the present chapter, upon Senators
whose highest honors have been tarnished or obliterated by the gravest
of crimes, that of treason toward a vast community. But it has been
with the idea that the least should be presented first, and that the
greater should close the scene; as in royal processions, the monarch
always brings up the rear. We conceive that the great talents which we
have acknowledged, and which doubtless all will agree with us in
acknowledging, the leaders of the Southern rebellion to possess, only
enhance the magnitude of their offense, and serve to illustrate with
greater force the enormity of their purposes. That a brainless fanatic
like Lord George Gordon, or the Neapolitan fisherman, Massaniello,
should stir up tremendous agitation, may be matter for critical study,
but is hardly a subject of wonder. But that men gifted with exalted
ability, undoubted caution, well-balanced intellect, and apparently
refined reason, all of which have been appreciated and acknowledged,
should propound an erroneous doctrine of a chaotic system, and proceed
to the violence of civil war, on what they must know to be a false and
heretical plea, can only remind us of those devils who have been
pictured by the matchless art of Milton, of Dante, and of Goethe, as
possessing stately intellects with perfectly vicious hearts. We propose,
in a future number, if these remarks on public characters are
acceptable, to continue our remarks, by introducing the loyal Senators
of the last Congress, a band of men who will be found to equal in
talent, and immeasurably to surpass in moral rectitude and earnest
patriotism, the bad company from whom we now part.
MACCARONI AND CANVAS.
V.
THE GRECO.
The Café Greco, like the belle of many seasons, lights up best at night.
In morning, in _deshabille_, not all the venerability of its age can
make it respectable. Caper declares that on a fresh, sparkling day, in
the merry spring-time, he once really enjoyed a very early breakfast
there; and that, with the windows of the Omnibus-room open, the fresh
air blowing in, and the sight of a pretty girl at the fourth-story
window of a neighboring house, feeding a bird and tending a rose-bush,
the old café was rose-colored.
This may be so; but seven o'clock in the evening was _the_ time when the
Greco was in its prime. Then the front-room was filled with Germans, the
second room with Russians and English, the third room--the Omnibus--with
Americans, English, and French, and the fourth, or back-room, was brown
with Spaniards. The Italians were there, in one or two rooms, but in a
minority; only those who affected the English showed themselves, and
aired their knowledge of the Anglo-Saxon tongue and habits.
'I habituate myself,' said a red-haired Italian of the Greco to Caper,
'to the English customs. I myself lave with hot water from foot to head,
one time in three weeks, like the English. It is an idea of the most
superb, and they tell me I am truly English for so performing. I have
not yet arrive to perfection in the lessons of box, but I have a smart
cove of a bool-dog.'
Caper told him that his resemblance to an English 'gent' was perfect, at
which the Italian, ignorant of the meaning of that fearful word, smiled
assent.
The waiter has hardly brought you your small cup of _caffe nero_, and
you are preparing to light a cigar, to smoke while you drink your
coffee, when there comes before you a wandering bouquet-seller. It is,
perhaps, the dead of winter; long icicles are hanging from fountains,
over which hang frosted oranges, frozen myrtles, and frost-nipped
olives, Alas! such things are seen in Rome; and yet, for a dime you are
offered a bouquet of camellia japonicas. By the way, the name camellia
is derived from _Camellas_, a learned Jesuit; probably _La Dame aux
Camélias_ had not a similar origin. You don't want the flowers.
'Signore,' says the man, 'behold a ruined flower-merchant!'
You are unmoved. Have you not seen or heard of, many a time, the
heaviest kind of flour-merchants ruined by too heavy speculations, burst
up so high the crows couldn't fly to them; and heard this without
changing a muscle of your face?
'But, signore, do buy a bouquet to please your lady?'
'Haven't one.'
'_Altro_!' answers the man, triumphantly, 'whom did I see the other day,
with these eyes, (pointing at his own,) in a magnificent carriage,
beside the most beautiful _Donna Inglesa_ in Rome? _Iddio giusto_!'....
At this period, he sees he has made a ten strike, and at once follows it
up by knocking down the ten-pin boy, so as to clear the alley, thus:
'For _her_ sake, signore.'
You pay a paul, (and give the bouquet to--your landlady's daughter,)
while the departing _mercante di fiori_ assures you that he never, no,
never expects to make a fortune at flowers; but if he gains enough to
pay for his wine, he will be very tipsy as long as he lives!
Then comes an old man, with a chessboard of inlaid stone, which he
hasn't an idea of selling; but finds it excellent to 'move on,' without
being checkmated as a beggar without visible means of s'port. The first
time he brought it round, and held it out square to Caper, that cool
young man, taking a handful of coppers from his pocket, arranged them as
checkers on the board, without taking any notice of the man; and after
he had placed them, began playing deliberately. He rested his chin on
his hand, and with knitted brows, studied several intricate moves; he
finally jumped the men, so as to leave a copper or two on the board; and
bidding the old man good-night, continued a conversation with Rocjean,
commenced previous to his game of draughts.
Next approaches a hardware--merchant, for, in Imperial Rome, the peddler
of a colder clime is a merchant, the shoemaker an artist, the artist a
professor. The hardware-man looks as if he might be 'touter' to a
broken-down brigand. All the razors in his box couldn't keep the small
part of his face that is shaved from wearing a look as if it had been
blown up with gunpowder, while the grains had remained embedded there.
He tempts you with a wicked-looking knife, the pattern for which must
have come from the _litreus_ of Etruria, the land called the _mother of
superstitions_, and have been wielded for auguries amid the howls and
groans of lucomones and priests. He tells you it is a Campagna-knife,
and that you must have one if you go into that benighted region; he says
this with a mysterious shake of his head, as if he had known Fra Diavolo
in his childhood and Fra 'Tonelli in his riper years. The
crescent-shaped handle is of black bone; the pointed blade long and
tapering; the three notches in its back catch into the spring with a
noise like the alarum of a rattle-snake. You conclude to buy one--for a
curiosity. You ask why the blade at the point finishes off in a circle?
He tells you the government forbids the sale of sharp-pointed knives;
but, signore, if you wish to _use it_, break off the circle under your
heel, and you have a point sharp enough to make any man have an
_accidente di freddo_, (death from cold--steel.)
Victor Hugo might have taken his character of Quasimodo from the wild
figure who now enters the Greco, with a pair of horns for sale; each
horn is nearly a yard in length, black and white in color; they have
been polished by the hunchback until they shine like glass. Now he
approaches you, and with deep, rough voice, reminding you of the lowing
of the large grey oxen they once belonged to, begs you to buy them. Then
he facetiously raises one to each side of his head, and you have a
figure that Jerome Bosch would have rejoiced to transfer to canvas. His
portrait has been painted by more than one artist.
Caper, sitting in the Omnibus one evening with Rocjean, was accosted by
a very seedy-looking man, with a very peculiar expression of face,
wherein an awful struggle of humor to crowd down pinching poverty
gleamed brightly. He offered for sale an odd volume of one of the early
fathers of the Church. Its probable value was a dime, whereas he wanted
two dollars for it.
'Why do you ask such a price?' asked Rocjean, 'you never can expect to
sell it for a twentieth part of that.'
'The moral of which,' said the seedy man, no longer containing the
struggling humor, but letting it out with a hearty laugh; 'the moral of
which is--give me half a baioccho!'
Ever after that, Caper never saw the man, who henceforth went by the
name of _La Morale é un Mezzo Baioccho_! without pointing the moral with
a copper coin. Not content with this, he once took him round to the
_Lepre_ restaurant, and ordered a right good supper for him. Several
other artists were with him, and all declared that no one could do
better justice to food and wine. After he had eaten all he could hold,
and drank a little more than he could carry, he arose from table, having
during the entire meal sensibly kept silence, and wiping his mouth on
his coat-sleeve, spoke:
'The moral this evening, signori, I shall carry home in my stomach.'
As he was going out of the restaurant, one of the artists asked him why
he left two rolls of bread on the table; saying they were paid for, and
belonged to him.
'I left them,' said he, 'out of regard for the correct usages of
society; but, having shown this, I return to pocket them.'
This he did at once, and Caper stood astonished at the seedy-beggar's
phraseology.
In addition to these characters, wandering musicians find their way into
the café, jugglers, peddlers of Roman mosaics and jewelry, plaster-casts
and sponges, perfumery and paint-brushes. Or a peripatetic shoemaker,
with one pair of shoes, which he recklessly offers for sale to giant or
dwarf. One morning he found a purchaser--a French artist--who put them
on, and threw away his old shoes. Fatal mistake. Two hours afterward,
the buyer was back in the Greco, with both big toes sticking out of the
ends of his new shoes, looking for that _cochon_ of a shoemaker.
To those who read men like books, the Greco offers a valuable
circulating library. The advantage, too, of these artistical works is,
that one needs not be a Mezzofanti to read the Russian, Spanish, German,
French, Italian, English, and other faces that pass before one
panoramically. There sits a relation of a hospodar, drinking Russian
tea; he pours into a large cup a small glass of brandy, throws in a
slice of lemon, fills up with hot tea. Do you think of the miles he has
traveled, in a _telega_, over snow-covered steppes, and the smoking
_samovar_ of tea that awaited him, his journey for the day ended? Had he
lived when painting and sculpture were in their ripe prime, what a fiery
life he would have thrown into his works! As it is, he drinks cognac,
hunts wild-boars in the Pontine marshes--and paints Samson and Delilah,
after models.
The Spanish artist, over a cup of chocolate, has lovely dreams, of burnt
umber hue, and despises the neglected treasures left him by the Moors,
while he seeks gold in--castles in the air.
The German, with feet in Italy and head far away in the Fatherland,
frequents the German-club in preference to the Greco; for at the club is
there not lager beer?.... In imperial Rome, there are lager beer
breweries! He has the profundities of the esthetical in art at his
finger-ends; it is deep-sea fishing, and he occasionally lands a whale,
as Kaulbach has done; or very nearly catches a mermaid with Cornelius.
Let us respect the man--he _works_.
The French artist, over a cup of black coffee, with perhaps a small
glass of cognac, is the lightning to the German thunder. If he were
asked to paint the portrait of a potato, he would make eyes about it,
and then give you a little picture fit to adorn a boudoir. He does every
thing with a flourish. If he has never painted Nero performing that
celebrated violin-solo over Rome, it is because he despaired of
conveying an idea of the tremulous flourish of the fiddle-bow. He reads
nature, and translates her, without understanding her. He will prove to
you that the cattle of Rosa Bonheur are those of the fields, while he
will object to Landseer that his beasts are those of the guinea
cattle-show. He blows up grand facts in the science of art with
gunpowder, while the English dig them out with a shovel, and the Germans
bore for them. He finds Raphael, king of pastel artists, and never
mentions his discovery to the English. He is more dangerous with the
_fleurette_ than many a trooper with broadsword. Every thing that he
appropriates, he stamps with the character of his own nationality. The
English race-horse at Chantilly has an air of curl-papers about his mane
and tail.
The Italian artist--the night-season is for sleep.
The English artist--hearken to Ruskin on Turner! When one has hit the
bull's-eye, there is nothing left but to lay down the gun, and go and
have--a whitebait dinner.
The American artist--there is danger of the youthful giant kicking out
the end of the Cradle of Art, and 'scatterlophisticating rampageously'
over all the nursery.
'I'd jest give a hun-dred dol-lars t'morrow, ef I could find out a way
to cut stat-tures by steam,' said Chapin, the sculptor.
'I can't see why a country with great rivers, great mountains, and great
institutions generally, can not produce great sculptors and painters,'
said Caper sharply, one day to Rocjean.
'It is this very greatness,' answered Rocjean, 'that prevents it. The
aim of the people runs not in the narrow channel of mountain-stream, but
with the broad tide of the ocean. In the hands of Providence, other
lands in other times have taken up painting and sculpture with their
whole might, and have wielded them to advance civilization. They have
played--are playing their part, these civilizers; but they are no longer
chief actors, least of all in America. Painting and sculpture may take
the character of subjects there; but their rôle as king is--played out.'
'Much as you know about it,' answered Caper, 'you are all theory!'
'That maybe,' quoth Rocjean; 'you know what THEOS means in Greek, don't
you?'
AMONG THE WILD BEASTS.
There came to Rome, in the autumn, along with the other travelers, a
caravan of wild beasts, ostensibly under charge of Monsieur Charles, the
celebrated Tamer, rendered illustrious and illustrated by Nadar and
Gustave Doré, in the _Journal pour Rire_. They were exhibited under a
canvas tent in the Piazza Popolo, and a very cold time they had of it
during the winter. Evidently, Monsieur Charles believed the climate of
Italy belonged to the temperance society of climates. He erred, and
suffered with his '_superbe et manufique_ ÉLLLLLÉPHANT!' 'and when we
reflec', ladies _and_ gentlemen, that there _are_ persons, forty and
even fifty years old, who have never seen the Ellllephant!!!...and who
DARE TO SAY so!!!...' Monsieur Charles made his explanations with teeth
chattering.
Caper, anxious to make a sketch of a very fine Bengal tiger in the
collection, easily purchased permission to make studies of the animals
during the hours when the exhibition was closed to the public; and as
he went at every thing vigorously, he was before long in possession of
several fine sketches of the tiger and other beasts, besides several
secrets only known to the initiated, who act as keepers.
The royal Bengal tiger was one of the finest beasts Caper had ever seen,
and what he particularly admired was the jet-black lustre of the stripes
on his tawny sides and the vivid lustre of his eyes. The lion curiously
seemed laboring under a heavy sleep at the very time when he should have
been awake; but then his mane was kept in admirable order. The hair
round his face stood out like the bristles of a shoe-brush, and there
was a curl in the knob of hair at the end of his tail that amply
compensated for his inactivity. The hyenas looked sleek and happy, and
their teeth were remarkably white; but the elephant was the constant
wonder of all beholders. Instead of the tawny, blue-gray color of most
of his species, he was black, and glistened like a patent-leather boot;
while his tusks were as white as--ivory; yea, more so.
'I don't understand what makes your animals look so bright,' said Caper
one day to one of the keepers.
'Come here to-morrow morning early, when we make their toilettes, and
you'll see,' replied the man, laughing. 'Why, there's that old hog of a
lion, he's as savage and snaptious before he has his medicine as a
corporal; and looks as old as Methusaleh, until we arrange his beard and
get him up for the day. As for the ellllephant ... ugh!'
Caper's curiosity was aroused, and the next morning, early, he was in
the menagerie. The first sight that struck his eye was the elephant,
keeled over on one side, and weaving his trunk about, evidently as a
signal of distress; while his keeper and another man were--blacking-pot
and shoe-brushes in hand--going all over him from stem to stern.
'Good day,' said the keeper to him, 'here's a pair of boots for you! put
outside the door to be blacked every morning, for five francs a day.
It's the dearest job I ever undertook...and the boots are ungrateful!
Here, Pierre,' he continued to the man who helped him, 'he shines
enough; take away the breshes, and bring me the sand-paper to rub up his
tusks. Talk about polished beasts! I believe, myself, that we beat all
other shows to pieces on this 'ere point. Some beasts are more knowing
than others; for example, them monkeys in that cage there. Give that big
fool of a shimpanzy that bresh, Pierre, and let the gentleman see him
operate on tother monkeys.'