To most of the world, Captain Mayne Reid is known only as a writer of
thrilling romances and works on natural history. It will appear in
these pages that he was also distinguished as a man of action and a
soldier, and the record of his many gallant deeds should still further
endear him to the hearts of his readers.
He was born in the north of Ireland, in April, 1818, at Ballyroney,
county Down, the eldest son of the Reverend Thomas Mayne Reid,
Presbyterian minister, a man of great learning and ability. His mother
was the daughter of the Reverend Samuel Rutherford, a descendant of the
"hot and hasty Rutherford" mentioned in Sir Walter Scott's "Marmion."
One of Mayne Reid's frequent expressions was: "I have all the talent of
the Reids and all the deviltry of the Rutherfords." He certainly may be
said to have inherited at least the "hot and hasty temper" of his
mother's family, for his father, the Reverend Thomas Mayne Reid, was of
a most placid disposition, much beloved by his parishioners, and a
favourite alike with Catholics and Protestants. It used to be said of
him by the peasantry, "Mr Reid is so polite he would bow to the ducks."
Several daughters had been born to them before the advent of their
first son. He was christened Thomas Mayne, but in after life dropped
the Thomas, and was known only as Mayne Reid. Other sons and daughters
followed, but Mayne was the only one destined to figure in the world's
history.
Young Mayne Reid early evinced a taste for war. When a small boy he was
often found running barefooted along the road after a drum and fife
band, greatly to his mother's dismay. She chided him, saying, "What
will the folks think to see Mr Reid's son going about like this?" To
which young Mayne replied, "I don't care. I'd rather be Mr Drum than
Mr Reid."
It was the ardent wish of both parents that their eldest son should
enter the Church; and, at the age of sixteen, Mayne Reid was sent to
college to prepare for the ministry of the Presbyterian Church, but
after four years' study, it was found that his inclinations were
altogether opposed to this calling. He carried off prizes in
mathematics, classics, and elocution; distinguished himself in all
athletic sports; anything but theology. It is recorded, on one occasion
when called upon to make a prayer, he utterly failed, breaking down at
the first few sentences. It was called by his fellow-students "Reid's
wee prayer."
Captain Mayne Reid has been heard to say, "My mother would rather have
had me settle down as a minister, on a stipend of one hundred a year,
than know me to be the most famous man in history."
The good mother could never understand her eldest son's ambition; but
she was happy in seeing her second son, John, succeed his father as
pastor of Closkilt, Drumgooland.
In the month of January, 1810, Mayne Reid first set foot in the new
world--landing at New Orleans. We quote his own words: "Like other
striplings escaped from college, I was no longer happy at home. The
yearning for travel was upon me, and without a sigh I beheld the hills
of my native land sink behind the black waves, not much caring whether I
should ever see them again."
Soon after landing, he thus expressed himself, showing how little store
he set upon his classical training as a stock-in-trade upon which to
begin the battle of life: "And one of my earliest surprises--one that
met me on the very threshold of my Transatlantic existence--was the
discovery of my own utter uselessness. I could point to my desk and
say, `There lie the proofs of my erudition; the highest prizes of my
college class.' But of what use are they? The dry theories I had been
taught had no application to the purposes of real life. My logic was
the prattle of the parrot. My classic lore lay upon my mind like
lumber; and I was altogether about as well prepared to struggle with
life--to benefit either my fellow-men or myself--as if I had graduated
in Chinese mnemonics. And, oh! ye pale professors, who drilled me in
syntax and scansion, ye would deem me ungrateful indeed were I to give
utterance to the contempt and indignation which I then felt for ye;
then, when I looked back upon ten years of wasted existence spent under
your tutelage; then, when, after believing myself an educated man, the
illusion vanished, and I awoke to the knowledge that I knew nothing."
We shall not here follow Mayne Reid through the ever varying scenes of
this period--his life in Louisiana, encounters on the prairies with
buffaloes, grizzly bears, and Indians on the war-path with their
trophies of scalps; his excursions with trappers and Indians up the Red
River, the Missouri, and Platte--for all of these are embodied in his
writings, which contain more reality than romance.
Mayne Reid tried his hand at various occupations, both in the civilised
and uncivilised life of the new world.
For a brief space he was "storekeeper" and "nigger driver," then tutor
in the family of Judge Peyton Robertson, of Tennessee. Soon tiring of
this, he set up a school of his own in the neighbourhood, erecting a
wooden building as school house, at his own expense. He was very
popular as a teacher, but hunting in the backwoods being more to his
taste, he soon went in quest of fresh sport.
At Cincinnati, Ohio, by way of a change, he joined a company of
strolling players, but very soon convinced himself that play-acting was
not his _forte_. This little episode in his life, the gallant Captain
was anxious to keep from the knowledge of his family in Ireland. They,
strict Presbyterians as they were, looked upon play-actors as almost
lost to the evil one. However, the fact got into print some years
later.
Of all his varied adventures, the Captain would never tell us of his
failure in this one line of business, though he would dwell on his
talent as "storekeeper" and schoolmaster.
Between the years 1842 and 1846 we hear of him as a poet, newspaper
correspondent and editor. In the autumn of 1842 Mayne Reid had reached
Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Here he contributed poetry to the _Pittsburgh
Chronicle_, under the _nom de plume_ of the "Poor Scholar." In the
spring of 1813 he settled in Philadelphia, and devoted all his energies
to literature, the most ambitious of his efforts being a poem, "La
Cubana," published in "Godey's Magazine." Here he also produced a
five-act tragedy "Love's Martyr," which is full of dramatic power.
During Mayne Reid's residence in Philadelphia he made the acquaintance
of the American poet, Edgar Allan Poe, and the following account of the
poet's life, written by Mayne Reid some years later, in defence of his
much maligned friend, is of interest.
"Nearly a quarter of a century ago, I knew a man named Edgar Allan Poe.
I knew him as well as one man may know another, after an intimate and
almost daily association extending over a period of two years. He was
then a reputed poet; I only an humble admirer of the Muses.
"But it is not of his poetic talent I here intend to speak. I never
myself had a very exalted opinion of it--more especially as I knew that
the poem upon which rests the head corner-stone of his fame is not the
creation of Edgar Allan Poe, but of Elizabeth Barrett Browning. In
`Lady Geraldine's Courtship,' you will find the original of `The Raven.'
I mean the tune, the softly flowing measure, the imagery and a good
many of the words--even to the `rustling of the soft and silken
curtain.'
"This does not seem like defending the dead poet, nor, _as a poet_, is
his defence intended. I could do it better were I to speak of his
prose, which for classic diction and keen analytic power has not been
surpassed in the republic of letters. Neither to speak of his poetry,
or his prose, have I taken up the pen; but of what is, in my opinion, of
much more importance than either--his moral character. Contrary to my
estimate, the world believes him to have been a great poet; and there
are few who will question his transcendent talents as a writer of prose.
But the world also believes him to have been a blackguard; and there
are but few who seem to dissent from this doctrine.
"I am one of this few; and I shall give my reasons, drawing them from my
own knowledge of the man. In attempting to rescue his maligned memory
from the clutch of calumniators, I have no design to represent Edgar
Allan Poe as a model of what man ought to be, either morally or
socially. I desire to obtain for him only strict justice; and if this
be accorded, I have no fear that those according it will continue to
regard him as the monster he has been hitherto depicted. Rather may it
be that the hideous garment will be transferred from his to the
shoulders of his hostile biographer.
"When I first became acquainted with Poe he was living in a suburban
district of Philadelphia, called `Spring Garden.' I have not been there
for twenty years, and, for aught I know, it may now be in the centre of
that progressive city. It was then a quiet residential neighbourhood,
noted as the chosen quarter of the Quakers.
"Poe was no Quaker; but, I remember well, he was next-door neighbour to
one. And in this wise: that while the wealthy co-religionist of William
Penn dwelt in a splendid four-story house, built of the beautiful
coral-coloured bricks for which Philadelphia is celebrated, the poet
lived in a lean-to of three rooms--there may have been a garret with a
closet--of painted plank construction, supported against the gable of
the more pretentious dwelling.
"If I remember aright, the Quaker was a dealer in cereals. He was also
Poe's landlord; and, I think, rather looked down upon the poet--though
not from any question of character, but simply from his being fool
enough to figure as a scribbler and a poet.
"In this humble domicile I can say that I have spent some of the
pleasantest hours of my life--certainly some of the most intellectual.
They were passed in the company of the poet himself and his wife--a lady
angelically beautiful in person and not less beautiful in spirit. No
one who remembers that dark-eyed, dark-haired daughter of Virginia--her
own name, if I rightly remember--her grace, her facial beauty, her
demeanour, so modest as to be remarkable--no one who has ever spent an
hour in her company but will endorse what I have above said. I remember
how we, the friends of the poet, used to talk of her high qualities.
And when we talked of her beauty, I well knew that the rose-tint upon
her cheek was too bright, too pure to be of earth. It was consumption's
colour--that sadly-beautiful light which beckons to an early tomb.
"In the little lean-to, besides the poet and his interesting wife, there
was but one other dweller. This was a woman of middle age, and almost
masculine aspect. She had the size and figure of a man, with a
countenance that, at first sight, seemed scarce feminine. A stranger
would have been incredulous--surprised, as I was--when introduced to her
as the mother of that angelic creature who had accepted Edgar Poe as the
partner of her life.
"Such was the relationship; and when you came to know this woman better,
the masculinity of her person disappeared before the truly feminine
nature of her mind; and you saw before you a type of those grand
American mothers--such as existed in the days when block-houses had to
be defended, bullets run in red-hot saucepans, and guns loaded for sons
and husbands to fire them. Just such a woman was the mother-in-law of
the poet Poe. If not called upon to defend her home and family against
the assaults of the Indian savage, she was against that as ruthless, as
implacable, and almost as difficult to repel--poverty. She was the
ever-vigilant guardian of the house, watching it against the silent but
continuous sap of necessity, that appeared every day to be approaching
closer and nearer. She was the sole servant, keeping everything clean:
the sole messenger, doing the errands, making pilgrimages between the
poet and his publishers, frequently bringing back such chilling
responses as `The article not accepted,' or, `The cheque not to be given
until such and such a day'--often too late for his necessities.
"And she was also messenger to the market; from it bringing back, not
the `delicacies of the season,' but only such commodities as were called
for by the dire exigencies of hunger.
"And yet were there some delicacies. I shall never forget how, when
peaches were in season and cheap, a pottle of these, the choicest gifts
of Pomona, were divested of their skins by the delicate fingers of the
poet's wife, and left to the `melting mood,' to be amalgamated with
Spring Garden cream and crystallised sugar, and then set before such
guests as came in by chance.
"Reader! I know you will acknowledge this to be a picture of tranquil
domestic happiness; and I think you will believe me, when I tell you it
is truthful. But I know also you will ask, `What has it to do with the
poet?' since it seems to reflect all the credit on his wife, and the
woman who called him her son-in-law. For all yet said it may seem so;
but I am now to say that which may give it a different aspect.
"During two years of intimate personal association with Edgar Allan Poe,
I found in him the following phases of character, accomplishment and
disposition:
"First: I discovered rare genius; not at all of the poetic order, not
even of the fanciful, but far more of a practical kind, shown in a power
of analytic reasoning such as few men possess, and which would have made
him the finest detective policeman in the world. Vidocq would have been
a simpleton beside him.
"Secondly: I encountered a scholar of rare accomplishments--especially
skilled in the lore of Northern Europe, and more imbued with it than
with the southern and strictly classic. How he had drifted into this
speciality I never knew. But he had it in a high degree, as is apparent
throughout all his writings, some of which read like an echo of the
Scandinavian `Sagas.'
"Thirdly: I felt myself in communication with a man of original
character, disputing many of the received doctrines and dogmas of the
day; but only original in so far as to dispute them, altogether
regardless of consequences to himself or the umbrage he gave to his
adversaries.
"Fourthly: I saw before me a man to whom vulgar rumour had attributed
those personal graces supposed to attract the admiration of women. This
is the usual description given of him in biographical sketches. And
why, I cannot tell, unless it has been done to round off a piquant
paragraph. His was a face purely intellectual. Women might admire it,
thinking of this; but it is doubtful if many of them ever fell, or could
have fallen, in love with the man to whom it belonged. I don't think
many ever did. It was enough for one man to be beloved by one such
woman as he had for his wife.
"Fifthly: I feel satisfied that Edgar Allan Poe was not, what his
slanderers have represented him, a rake. I know he was not; but in
truth the very opposite. I have been his companion in one or two of his
wildest frolics, and can certify that they never went beyond the
innocent mirth in which we all indulge when Bacchus gets the better of
us. With him the jolly god sometimes played fantastic tricks--to the
stealing away his brain, and sometimes, too, his hat--leaving him to
walk bareheaded through the streets at an hour when the sun shone too
clearly on his crown, then prematurely bald.
"While acknowledging this as one of Poe's failings, I can speak truly of
its not being habitual; only occasional, and drawn out by some
accidental circumstance--now disappointment; now the concurrence of a
social crowd, whose flattering friendship might lead to champagne, a
single glass of which used to affect him so much that he was hardly any
longer responsible for his actions, or the disposal of his hat.
"I have chronicled the poet's crimes, all that I ever knew him to be
guilty of, and, indeed, all that can be honestly alleged against him;
though many call him a monster. It is time to say a word of his
virtues. I could expatiate upon these far beyond the space left me; or
I might sum them up in a single sentence by saying that he was no worse
and no better than most other men.
"I have known him to be for a whole month closeted in his own house--the
little `shanty' supported against the gable of the rich Quaker--all the
time hard at work with his pen, poorly paid, and hard driven to keep the
wolf from his slightly-fastened door, intruded on only by a few select
friends, who always found him, what they knew him to be, a generous
host, an affectionate son-in-law and husband; in short, a respectable
gentleman.
"In the list of literary men, there has been no such spiteful biographer
as Dr Rufus Griswold, and never such a victim of posthumous spite as
poor Edgar Allan Poe."
Mayne Reid left Philadelphia in the spring of 1846, spending the summer
at Newport, Rhode Island, as correspondent to the _New York Herald_,
under the name of "Ecolier." In September of the same year he was in
New York, and had secured a post on Wilkes' _Spirit of the Times_, but
in November he abandoned the pen for the sword.
The following extract from a letter of Mayne Reid to his father tells
something of his life in Philadelphia:
"Headquarters, U.S. Army,
"City of Mexico,
"January 20th, 1848.
"Can I expect that my silence for several years will be pardoned? When
I last wrote you I made a determination that our correspondence, on my
side at least, should cease until I had made myself worthy of continuing
that correspondence. Since then circumstances have enabled me to take
rank among _men_--to prove myself not unworthy of that gentle blood from
which I am sprung. Oh, how my heart beats at the renewal of those
tender ties--paternal, fraternal, filial affection; those golden chains
of the heart so long, so sadly broken.
"If I mistake not, my last letter to you was written in the city of
Pittsburgh. I was then on my way from the West to the cities of the
Atlantic. Shortly after I reached Philadelphia, where for a while my
wild wanderings ceased. In this city I devoted myself to literature,
and for a period of two or three years earned a scanty but honourable
subsistence with my pen. My genius, unfortunately for my purse, was not
of that marketable class which prostitutes itself to the low literature
of the day. My love for tame literature enabled me to remain poor--ay,
even obscure, if you will--though I have the consolation of knowing that
there are understandings, and those, too, of a high order, who believe
that my capabilities in this field are not surpassed, if equalled, by
any writer on this continent. This is the under-current of feeling
regarding me in the United States; the current, I am happy to say, that
runs in the minds of the educated and intelligent. Perhaps in some
future day this under-current may break through the surface, and shine
the brighter for having been so long concealed.
"But I have now neither time nor space for theories. Facts will please
you better, my dear father and best friend. During my trials as a
writer, my almost anonymous productions occasionally called forth warm
eulogies from the press. A little gold rubbed into the palm of an
editor would have made them wonders! During this time I made many
friends, but none of that class who were able and willing to lift me
from the sink of poverty.
"There are no Maecenases in the United States. I found none to forge
golden wings for me, that I might fly to the heights of Parnassus.
During this probation I frequently sent you papers and magazines,
containing my productions, generally, I believe, under the _nom de
plume_ of `The Poor Scholar.' Have these missiles ever reached you? As
I have said, for three or four years I struggled on through this life of
literature, and amid the charlatanism and quackery of the age I found I
must descend to the everyday nothings of the daily press. I edited,
corresponded, became disgusted. The war broke out with Mexico. I flung
down the pen and took up the sword. I entered the regiment of New York
Volunteers as a 2nd lieutenant, and sailing--"
The letter is torn here, and the remaining portion has unfortunately
been lost. The regiment in which Mayne Reid obtained a commission was
the 1st New York Volunteers, the first regiment raised in New York for
the Mexican War, and of which Ward B. Burnett was colonel. Mayne Reid
sailed with his regiment in December, 1846, for Vera Cruz.