PART V.

There, you have my story exactly as it is related, on winter evenings,

to impress ideas of wisdom on the minds of the young Norwegians. Between

the wife of Gudbrand and the wife of Peter the Graybeard they must

choose, at their own risk and peril.

'The choice is an easy one,' says an amiable lady-friend of mine, who

has just become a grandmother. 'Gudbrand's wife is the one to imitate,

not only on account of her prudence, but for her worth. You men are much

more amusing than you fancy: when your own self-esteem is at stake, you

love truth and justice about as much as bats love a glare of light. The

greatest enjoyment these gentlemen experience is in pardoning us when

they are guilty, and in generously offering to overlook our errors when

they alone are in the wrong. The wisest thing we can do is to let them

talk, and to pretend to believe them. That is the way to tame these

proud, magnificent creatures, and, by pursuing the plan perseveringly,

one may lead them about by the nose, like Italian oxen.

'But, aunty,' says a fair young thing beside us, 'one can't keep quiet

all the time. Not to yield when you're not in the wrong, is a right.'

'And when you're wrong, my dear niece, to yield is a royal pleasure.

What woman ever abandoned this exalted privilege? We are all somewhat

akin to that amiable lady who, when all other arguments had been

exhausted, crushed her husband with a magnificent look, as she said,--

'"Sir, I give you my word of honor that I am in the right."

'What could he reply? Can one contradict the veracity of one's own wife?

And what is strength fit for if not to yield to weakness? The poor

husband hung his head, and did not utter another word. But to keep still

is not to acknowledge defeat, and _silence is not peace_!'

'Madame,' says a young married woman, 'it seems to me that there is no

choice left; when a woman loves her husband all is easy; it is a

pleasure to think and act as he does.'

'Yes, my child, that is the secret of the comedy. Every one knows it,

but no one avails herself of it. So long as even the last glow of the

honey-moon illuminates the chamber of a young couple, all goes along of

itself. So long as the husband hastens to anticipate every wish, we have

merit and sense enough to let him do it. But at a later moment, the

scene changes. How, then, are we to retain our sway? Youth and beauty

decay, and the charm of wit and intelligence is not sufficient. In order

to remain mistresses of our homes, we must practice the most divine of

all the virtues--gentleness--a blind, dumb, deaf gentleness of demeanor,

that pardons everything for the sake of pardoning.'

To love a great deal,--to love unconditionally, so as to be loved a

little in return,--that is the whole moral of the story of Gudbrand.

* * * * *

THE HUGUENOT FAMILIES IN AMERICA.

II.

The brave Admiral Coligny first conceived the plan of a colony in

America for the safety of his persecuted Huguenot brethren of France.

Such an enterprise was undertaken as early as the year 1555, with two

vessels, having on board mechanics, laborers, and gentlemen, and a few

ministers of the Reformed faith. They entered the great river which the

Portuguese had already named _Rio Janeiro_, and built a fort, calling it

'Coligny.' Here they sought a new country, where they might adore God in

freedom. Unforeseen difficulties, however, discouraged these bold

Frenchmen, and the pious expedition failed, some dispersing in different

directions, while others regained the shores of France with great

difficulty. A second attempt was also unsuccessful. Coligny, in 1562,

obtained permission from Charles IX. to found a Protestant colony in

Florida. Two ships left Dieppe with emigrants, and, reaching the

American shores, entered a large, deep river called _Port Royal_, which

name it still retains, and is, by coincidence, the spot recently

captured by the United States forces.[F] Fort Charles, in honor of the

reigning king of France, was built near by, and in a fertile land of

flowers, fruits, and singing birds. The country itself was called

_Carolina_. Reduced to the most cruel extremities of famine and death,

the remaining colonists returned to Europe.

Still undismayed by these two disastrous attempts, Coligny, the Huguenot

leader, dispatched a third expedition of three vessels to our shores,

making another attempt near the mouth of the St. John's River (Fort

Caroline). Philip II. was then on the throne, and would not brook the

heresy of the Huguenots, or Calvinism, in his American provinces.

Priests, soldiers, and Jesuits were dispatched to Florida, where the new

settlers, 'Frenchmen and Lutherans,' were destroyed in blood. Such was

the melancholy issue of the earliest attempts to establish a Huguenot or

Protestant settlement in North America. And nearly one hundred years

before it was occupied by the English, Carolina, for an instant, as it

were, was occupied by a band of Christian colonists, but, through the

remorseless spirit of religious persecution, again fell under the

dominion of the uncivilized savages. We refer to these earliest efforts

as proper to the general historical connection of our subject, although

not absolutely necessary to its investigation.

At the commencement of the seventeenth century, England, on her own

behalf, took up the generous plans of Coligny. Possessing twelve

colonies in America, when the edict of Nantes was revoked, that nation

resolved here to offer peaceful homes to persecuted Huguenots from

France. This mercy she had extended to them in England and Ireland; now

her inviting American colonies were thrown open for the same generous

purpose. Even before that insane and fatal measure of Louis XIV., the

Revocation, and especially after the fall of brave La Rochelle, numerous

Protestant fugitives, mostly from the western provinces of France, had

already emigrated, for safety, to British America. In 1662 the French

government made it a crime for the ship-owners of Rochelle to convey

emigrants to any country or dependency of Great Britain. The fine for

such an offence was ten livres to the king, nine hundred for charitable

objects, three hundred to the palace chapel, one hundred for prisoners,

and five hundred to the mendicant monks. One sea-captain, Brunet, was

accused of having favored the escape of thirty-six young men, and

condemned to return them within a year, or to furnish a legal

certificate of their death, on pain of one thousand livres, with

exemplary punishment.[G] It is imagined that these young voluntary

Huguenot exiles emigrated to Massachusetts, from the fact that the same

year when this strange cause was tried in France, Jean Touton, a French

doctor, requested from the authorities of that colony the privilege of

sojourning there. This favor was immediately granted; and from that

period _Boston_ possessed establishments formed by Huguenots, which

attracted new emigrants.

In 1679, Elie Nean, the head of an eminent family from the principality

of Soubise, in Saintonge, reached that city. This refugee, sailing

afterwards in his own merchant vessel for the island of Jamaica, was

captured by a privateer, carried back to France, confined in the

galleys, and only restored to his liberty through the intercession of

Lord Portland.

One of the first acts of the Boston Huguenots was to settle a minister,

giving him forty pounds a year, and increasing his salary afterwards.

Surrounded by the savages on every side, they erected a fort, the traces

of which, it is said, can still be seen, and now overgrown with roses,

currant bushes, and other shrubbery. Mrs. Sigourney, herself the wife of

a Huguenot descendant, during a visit to this time-honored spot, wrote

the beautiful lines,--

'Green vine, that mantlest in thy fresh embrace

Yon old gray rock, I hear that thou with them

Didst brave the ocean surge.

Say, drank thus from

The dews of Languedoc? or slow uncoiled

An infant fibre 'mid the faithful mold

Of smiling Roussillon? Didst thou shrink

From the fierce footsteps of fighting unto death

At fair Rochelle?

Hast thou no tale for me?'

Their fort did not render the French settlers safe from the murderous

assaults of savage enemies. A.W. Johnson, with his three children, were

massacred here by them; his wife was a sister of Mr. Andrew Sigourney,

one of the earliest Huguenots. After this murderous attack the French

Protestants deserted their forest home, repairing to Boston in 1696,

where vestiges of their industry and agricultural taste long remained;

to this day many of the pears retain their French names, and the region

is celebrated for its excellence and variety of this delicious fruit.

The Huguenots erected a church at Boston in 1686, and ten years

afterwards received as pastor a refugee minister from France, named

Diaillé.[H] The Rev. M. Lawrie is also mentioned as one of their

pastors. But from official records we learn more of the Rev. Daniel

Boudet, A.M. He was a native of France, born in 1652, and studied

theology at Geneva. On the revocation, he fled to England, receiving

holy orders from the Lord Bishop of London. In the summer of 1686 he

accompanied the Huguenot emigrants to Massachusetts; and Cotton Mather

speaks of him as a faithful minister 'to the French congregation at New

Oxford, in the _Nipmog_ (Indian) counties.' This was New Oxford, near

Boston. He labored for eight years, 'propagating the Christian faith,'

both among the French and the Indians. He complains, as we do in our

day, of the progress of the sale of rum among the savages,'_without

order or measure_' (July 6, 1691). We shall learn more of him at New

Rochelle, where he removed, probably, in 1695, and could preach to both

English and French emigrants. Soon after the revocation of the Edict of

Nantes, Joseph Dudley, with other proprietors, introduced into

Massachusetts thirty French Protestant families, settling them on the

easternmost part of the 'Oxford tract.'[I]

Massachusetts, peopled in part by the rigid Protestant Dissenters,

naturally favored these new victims, persecuted by a church still more

odious to them than that of England. Their sympathies were deeply

excited by the arrival of the French exiles. The destitute were

liberally relieved, the towns of Massachusetts making collections for

this purpose, and also furnishing them with large tracts of land to

cultivate. In 1686 the colony at Oxford thus received a noble grant of

11,000 acres; and other provinces followed the liberal example. Every

traveler through New England has seen 'Faneuil Hall,' which has been

called the 'Cradle of Liberty,' and where so many assemblages for the

general good have been held. This noble edifice was presented to Boston,

for patriotic purposes, by the son of a Huguenot.

Much of our knowledge concerning the Huguenots of New York has been

obtained from the documentary papers at Albany. Some of the families,

before the revocation, as early as the year 1625, reached the spot where

the great metropolis now stands, then a Dutch settlement. The first

birth in New Amsterdam, of European parents, was a daughter of George

Jansen de Rapelje, of a Huguenot family which fled to Holland after the

St. Bartholomew's massacre, and thence sailed for America. Her name was

Sarah. Her father was a Walloon from the confines of France and Belgium,

and settling on Long Island, at the _Waal-bogt_, or Walloon's Bay,

became the father of that settlement. In 1639 his brother, Antonie

Jansen de Rapelje, obtained a grant of one hundred 'morgens,' or nearly

two hundred acres of land, opposite Coney Island, and commenced the

settlement of Gravesend. Here most numerous and respectable descendants

of this Walloon are met with to this day. Jansen de Rapelje, as he was

called, was a man of gigantic strength and stature, and reputed to be a

Moor by birth. This report, probably, arose from his adjunct of _De

Salee_, the name under which his patent was granted; but it was a

mistake; he was a native Walloon, and this suffix to his name, we doubt

not, was derived from the river Saale, in France, and not Salee, or Fez,

the old piratical town of Morocco. For many years after the Dutch

dynasty, his farm at Gravesend continued to be known as Anthony Jansen's

Bowery. The third brother of this family, William Jansen de Rapelje, was

among the earliest settlers of Long Island and founders of Brooklyn.

Singularly, the descendants of _Antonie_ have dropped the Rapelje, and

retained the name of Jansen, or Johnson, as they are more commonly

called. On the contrary, George's family have left off Jansen, and are

now known as Rapelje or Rapelyea.

Most of the Huguenots who went to Ulster, N.Y., at first sought

deliverance from persecutions among the Germans, and thence sailed for

America. Ascending the Hudson, these emigrants landed at Wiltonyck, now

Kingston, and were welcomed by the Hollanders, who had prepared the way

in this wilderness for the enjoyment of civil and religious liberty.

Here was a Reformed Dutch church, and Hermanus Blomm, its pastor,

commissioned by the Classis of Amsterdam to preach 'both on water and on

the land, and in all the neighborhood, but principally in _Esopus_.'

This region, selected by the French Protestants for their future land,

was like their own delightful native France for great natural beauties.

Towards the east and west flowed the waters of the noble ever-rolling

Hudson, while on the north the Shamangunk Mountains, the loftiest of our

Fishkill monarchs, looked like pillars upon which the arch of heaven

there rested. No streams can charm the eye more than those which enrich

this region,--the Rosendale, far from the interior, the Walkill, with

its rapid little falls, 'the foaming, rushing, warsteed-like' Esopus

Creek, with the dashing, romantic Saugerties, fresh from the

mountain-side. Both the Dutch and the French emigrants followed these

beautiful rivers towards the south, and made their earliest settlements

there. On these quiet and retired banks their ashes repose. Hallowed be

their memories, virtues, and piety! In those regions thousands of their

descendants now enjoy the rich and glorious patrimony which have

followed their industry and frugality.

In the year 1663, the savages attacked Kingston and massacred a part of

its inhabitants, slaying twenty-four, and took forty-five prisoners.

The dominie, Blomin, escaped, and has left a description of the tragical

event.[J] 'There lay,' he writes, 'the burnt and slaughtered bodies,

together with those wounded by bullets and axes. The last agonies and

the moans and lamentations were dreadful to hear.... The houses were

converted into heaps of stones, so that I might say with Micah, "We are

made desolate;" and with Jeremiah, "A piteous wail may go forth in his

distress." With Paul I say, "Brothers, pray for us." I have every

evening, during a whole month, offered up prayers with the congregation,

on the four points of our fort, under the blue sky.... Many heathen have

been slain, and full twenty-two of our people have been delivered out of

their hands by our arms. The Lord our God will again bless our arms, and

grant that the foxes who have endeavored to lay waste the vineyard of

the Lord shall be destroyed.'

Among the prisoners were Catharine Le Fever, the wife of Louis Dubois,

with three of their children. These were Huguenots; and a friendly

Indian gave information where they could be found. The pursuers were

directed to follow the Rondout, the Walkill, and then a third stream;

and a small, bold band, with their knapsacks, rifles, and dogs,

undertook the perilous journey. Towards evening, Dubois, in advance of

the party, discovered the Indians within a few feet of him, and one was

in the act of drawing his bow, but, missing its string, from fear or

surprise, the Huguenot sprang forward and killed him with his sword, but

without any alarm. The party then resolved to delay the attack until

dark; at which hour the savages were preparing for slaughter one of

their unfortunate captives, which was none other than the missing wife

of Dubois himself. She had already been placed upon the funeral pile,

and at this trying moment was singing a martyr's psalm, the strains of

which had often cheered the pious Huguenots in days of the rack and

bloody trials. The sacred notes moved the Indians, and they made signs

to continue them, which she did, fortunately, until the approach of her

deliverers. 'White man's dogs! white man's dogs!' was the first cry

which alarmed the cruel foes. They fled instantly, taking their

prisoners with them. Dubois calling his wife by name, she was soon

restored to her anxious friends, with the other captives. At the moment

of their rescue, the prisoners were preparing for the bloody sacrifice

to savage cruelty, and singing the beautiful psalm of the 'Babylonish

Captives.' Heaven heard those strains, and the deliverance came. During

this fearful expedition the Ulster Huguenots first discovered the rich

lowlands of Paltz.

This was the section which they selected for their homes, distant some

eighty-five miles from New York, along the west shores of the Hudson,

and extending from six to ten miles in the interior. It was called _New

Paltz_, and its patent obtained from Gov. Andreas; twelve of their

brethren were religiously selected by the emigrants as the _Patentees_,

and known by the appellation of the '_Duzine_,' or the twelve patentees,

and these were regarded as the patriarchs in this little Christian

community. A list of the original purchasers has been preserved, and

were as follows: Louis Dubois, Christian Dian, since Walter Deyo,

Abraham Asbroucq, now spelt Hasbrouck, Andros Le Fever, often Le Febre

and Le Febore, John Brook, said to have been changed into Hasbrouck,

Peter Dian, or Deyo, Louis Bevier, Anthony Cuspell, Abraham Du Bois,

Hugo Freir, Isaac Dubois, Simon Le Fever.

A copy of this agreement with the Indians still exists, and the

antiquarian may find it among the State records at Albany. It is a

curious document, with the signatures of both parties, the patentees'

written in the antique French character, with the hieroglyphic marks of

the Indians. A few Indian goods--kettles, axes, beads, bars of lead,

powder, casks of wine, blankets, needles, awls, and a 'clean

pipe'--were the insignificant articles given, about two centuries ago,

for these lands, now proverbially rich, and worth millions of dollars.

The treaty was mutually executed, according to the records from which we

quote, on the 20th of May, 1677.

The patentees immediately took possession of their newly-acquired

property, their first conveyances being three wagons, which would be

rare curiosities in our day. The wheels were very low, shaped like

old-fashioned spinning-wheels, with short spokes, wide rim, and without

any iron. The settlers were three days on their way from Kingston to New

Paltz, a distance of only sixteen miles. The place of their first

encampment is still known by the name of '_Tri Cor_,' or three cars, in

honor of these earliest conveyances. Soon, however, they selected a more

elevated site, on the banks of the beautiful Walkill, where the village

now stands. Log houses were erected not far apart, for mutual defence,

and afterwards stone edifices, with port-holes, some of which still

remain.

* * * * *

MACCARONI AND CANVAS.

INTRODUCTION.

Rome is the cradle of art,--which accounts for its sleeping there.

Nature, however, is nowhere more wide awake than it is in and around

this city: therefore, Mr. James Caper, animal painter, determined to

repose there for several months.

The following sketches correctly describe his Roman life.

ARRIVAL IN ROME.

It was on an Autumn night that the traveling carriage in which sat James

Caper arrived in Rome; and as he drove through that fine street, the

Corso, he saw coming towards him a two-horse open carriage, filled with

Roman girls of the working class (_minenti_). Dressed in their

picturesque costumes, bonnetless, their black hair tressed with flowers,

they stood up, waving torches, and singing in full voice one of those

songs in which you can go but few feet, metrically speaking, without

meeting _amore_. And then another and another carriage, with flashing

torches and sparkling-eyed girls. It was one of the turnouts of the

_minenti_; they had been to Monte Testaccio, had drank all the wine they

could pay for; and, with a prudence our friend Caper could not

sufficiently admire, he noticed that the women were in separate

carriages from the men. It was the Feast Day of Saint Crispin, and all

the cobblers, or artists in leather, as they call themselves, were

keeping it up bravely.

'Eight days to make a pair of shoes?' he once asked a shoemaker. 'Si,

Signore, there are three holidays in that time.' Argument unanswerable.

As the carriages rolled by, Caper determined to observe the festivals.

The next day our artist entered his name in his banker's register, and

had the horror of seeing it mangled to 'Jams Scraper' in the list of

arrivals published in the _Giornale di Roma_. For some time after his

arrival in Rome, he was pained to receive cards, circulars, notices,

letters, advertisements, etc., from divers tradesmen, all directed to

the above name. In revenge, he here gives them a public airing. One firm

announces,--

'Manafactury of Remain Seltings, Mosaïques, Cameas, Medalls, Erasofines,

&c.' (Erasofines is the Roman-English for crucifixes.) And on a slip of

paper, handsomely printed, is an announcement that they make 'Romain

Perles of all Couloueurs'--there's color for you!

A tailor, under the head of '_Ici un parle Français_,' prints, 'Merchant

_and_ tailor. Cloths (clothes?) Reddy maid, Mercery Roman; Scarfs, etc.'

Another, 'Roman Artickles Manofactorer'--hopes to be 'honnoured with our

Custom, (American?), and flaters himsself we will find things to our

likings.' Everything but the English, you know--that is not exactly to

our liking. Another, from a lady, reads,--

_A VENTRE!_

_une Galérie decomposée de 300 d'Anciens Maitres, et de l'école romaine

peintres sur bois, sur cuivre et sur toit, &c._

_Ventre_ for _Vendre_ is bad enough, but a 'gallery of decomposed old

masters and of Roman school painters on wood and on the roof,' when it

was intended to say 'A gallery composed of 300 of the old masters--' But

let us leave it untranslated; it is already _decomposée_.

A SHORT WALK.

Mr. Caper having indignantly rejected the services of all professors of

the guiding art or 'commissionaires,' slowly sauntered out of his hotel

the morning after his arrival, and, map in hand, made his way to the

tower on the Capitoline Hill. Threading several narrow, dirty streets,

he at last went through one where in one spot there was such a heap of

garbage and broccoli stumps that he raised his eyes to see how high up

it reached against the walls of a palace; and there read, in black

letters,

_Immondezzaio_;

literally translated, A Place for Dirt. On the opposite wall, which was

the side of a church, he saw a number of black placards on which were

large white skulls and crossbones, and while examining these, a

bare-headed, brown-bearded, stout Franciscan monk passed him. From a

passing glance, Caper saw he looked good-natured, and so, hailing him,

asked why the skulls and bones were pasted there.

'Who knows?' answered the monk. 'I came this morning from the Campagna;

this is the first time in all my life I have been in this magnificent

city.'

'Can you tell me what that word means up there?' said Caper, pointing to

_immondezzaio_.

'Signore, I can not read.'

'Perhaps it is the name of the street, maybe of the city?'

'It must be so,' answered the priest, 'unless it's a sign of a lottery

office, or a caution against blasphemy up and down the pavement. Those

are the only signs we have in the country, except the government salt

and cigar shops.' ... He took a snuff-box from a pocket in his sleeve,

and with a bow offered a pinch to Mr. Caper. This accepted, they bid

each other profoundly farewell.

'There goes a brick!' remarked the traveler.

Arrived at the entrance-door to the tower of the Capitoline Hill, James

Caper first felt in one pocket for a silver piece and in the other for a

match-box, and finding them both there, rang the bell, and then mounted

to the top of the tower. Lighting a _zigarro scelto_ or papal cigar, he

leaned on both elbows on the parapet, and gazed long and fixedly over

the seven-hilled city.

'And this,' soliloquized he, _is_ Rome. Many a day have I been kept in

school without my dinner because I was not able to parse thee idly by,

_Roma_--Rome--noun of the first declension, feminine gender, that a

quarter of a century ago caused me punishment, I have thee now literally

under foot, and (knocking his cigar) throw ashes on thy head.

'My mission in this great city is not that of a picture-peddler or art

student. I come to investigate the eating, drinking, sleeping

arrangements of the Eternal City--its wine more than its vinegar, its

pretty girls more than its galleries, its _cafés_ more than its

churches. I see from here that I have a fine field to work in. Down

there, clambering over the fallen ruins of the Palace of the Cæsars, is

a donkey. Could one have a finer opportunity to see in this a moral and

twist a tail? From those fallen stones, Memory-glorious old

architect--rears a fabric wondrously beautiful; peoples it with eidolons

white and purple-robed, and gleaming jewel-gemmed; or, iron armed,

glistening with flashing light from polished steel--heroes and slaves,

conquerors and conquered; my blood no longer flows to the slow, jerking

measure of a nineteenth-century piece of mechanism, but freely, fully,

and completely. Hurrah, my blood is up! dark, liquid eyes; black,

flowing locks; strange, pleasing perfumes are around me. There is a rush

as of a strong south wind through a myriad of floating banners, and I am

borne onward through triumphal arches, past pillared temples, under the

walls of shining palaces, into the Coliseum....

'Pray, and can you tell me--if that pile of d----d old rubbish--down

there, you know--is the Forum--for I do not--see it in Murray--though

I'm sure--I have looked very clearly--and Murray you know--has

everything down in him--that a traveler....

'A commercial traveler?' ... interrupted Mr. Caper, speaking slowly, and

looking coolly into the eyes of the blackguard Bagman.... 'The ruins you

see there are those of the Forum. Good morning.'

MODERN ART.

'Lucrezia Borgia at the Tomb of Don Giovanni! You see,' said the artist,

'I have chosen a good name for my painting, ... and it's a great point

gained. Forty or fifty years ago, some of those fluffy old painters

would have had Venus worshiping at the shrine of Bacchus.'

'Whereas, you think it would be more appropriate for her to worship

Giove?' ... asked Capar.

'No _sir_!... I run dead against classic art: it's a drug. I tried my

hand at it when I first came to Rome. Will you believe me, I never sold

a picture. Why that very painting'--pointing to the Borgia--'is on a

canvas on which I commenced The Subjugation of Adonis.'

'H'm! You find the class of Middle Age subjects most salable then?'

'I should think I did. Something with brilliant colors, stained glass

windows, armor, and all that, sells well. The only trouble is,

ultramarine costs dear, although Dovizzelli's is good and goes a great

ways. I sold a picture to an Ohio man last week for two hundred dollars,

and it is a positive fact there was twenty _scudi_ (dollars) worth of

blue in it. But the infernal Italians spoil trade here. Why, that fellow

who paints Guide's Speranzas up there at San Pietro in Vineulo is as

smart as a Yankee. He has found out that Americans from Rhode Island

take to the Speranza, because Hope is the motto of their State, and he

turns out copies hand over fist. He has a stencil plate of the face, and

three or four fellows to paint for him; one does the features of the

face, another the hand, and another rushes in the background. Why, sir,

those paintings can be sold for five _scudi_, and money made on them at

that. But then what are they? Wretched daubs not worth house-room. Have

you any thoughts of purchasing paintings?'

Caper smiled gently.... 'I had not when I first came to Rome, but how

long I may continue to think so is doubtful. The temptations' (glancing

at the Borgia) 'are very great.' ...

'Rome,' ... interrupted the artist, ... 'is the cradle of art.'

A ROOM HUNT.

Caper, on his first arrival in Home, went to the Hotel Europe, in the

Piazza di Spagna. There for two weeks he lived like a _milordo_. He

formed many acquaintances among the resident colony of American artists,

and was received by them with much kindness. Some of the mercenary ones

of their number, having formed the opinion that he came there to buy

paintings, ignorant of his profession, were excessively polite;--but

their offers of services were declined. When Caper finally moved to

private lodgings in Babuino Street and opened a studio, hope for a

season bade these salesmen all farewell; they groaned, and owned that

they had tried but could not sell.

Among the acquaintances formed by Caper, was a French artist named

Rocjean. Born in France, he had passed eight or ten years in the United

States, learned to speak English very well, and was residing in Rome 'to

perfect himself as an artist.' He had, when Caper first met him, been

there two years. In all this time he had never entered the Vatican, and

having been told that Michael Angelo's Last Judgment was found to have a

flaw in it, he had been waiting for repairs before passing his opinion

thereon. On the other hand, he had studied the Roman _plebe_, the

people, with all his might. He knew how they slept, eat, drank, loved,

made their little economies, clothed themselves, and, above all, how

they blackguarded each other. When Caper mentioned to him that he wished

to leave his hotel, take a studio and private lodgings, then Rocjean

expanded from an old owl into a spread eagle. Hurriedly taking Caper by

the arm, he rushed him from one end of Rome to the other, up one

staircase and down another; until, at last, finding out that Rocjean

invariably presented him to fat, fair, jolly-looking landladies

(_padrone_), with the remark, 'Signora, the Signor is an Englishman and

very wealthy,' he began to believe that something was wrong. But Rocjean

assured him that it was not--that, as in Paris, it was Madame who

attended to renting rooms, so it was the _padrona_ in Rome, and that the

remark, 'he is an Englishman, and very wealthy,' were synonymous, and

always went together. 'If I were to tell them you were an American it

would do just as well--in fact, better, but for one thing, and that is,

you would be swindled twice as much. The expression "and very wealthy,"

attached to the name of an Englishman, is only a delicate piece of

flattery, for the majority of the present race of traveling English are

by no means lavish in their expenditures or very wealthy. In taking you

to see all these pretty women, I have undoubtedly given you pleasure, at

the same time I have gratified a little innocent curiosity of mine:--but

then the chance is such a good one! We will now visit the Countess ----,

for she has a very desirable apartment to let; after which we will

proceed seriously to take rooms with a home-ly view.'

The Countess ---- was a very lovely woman, consequently Caper was

fascinated with the apartment, and told her he would reflect over it.

'Right,' said Rocjean, after they had left; 'better reflect over it than

in it--as the enormous draught up chimney would in a short time compel

you to.'

'How so?'

'I have a German friend who has rooms there. He tells me that a cord of

firewood lasts about long enough to warm one side of him; when he turns

to warm the other it is gone. He has lived there three years reflecting

over this; the Countess occasionally condoles with him over the draught

of that chimney.'

'H'm! Let us go to the homely: better a drawn sword than a draught.'

They found a homely landlady with neat rooms in the via Babuino, and

having bargained for them for twelve _scudi_ a month, their labors were

over.

MACCARONICAL.

There was, when Caper first came to Rome, an eating-house, nearly

opposite the fountain Trevi, called the Gabioni. It was underground,--in

fact, a series of cellars, popularly conjectured to have been part of

the catacombs. In one of these cellars, resembling with its arched roof

a tunnel, the ceiling so low that you could touch the apex of the round

arch with your hand, every afternoon in autumn and winter, between the

hours of five and six, there assembled, by mutual consent, eight or ten

artists. The table at which they sat would hold no more, and they did

not want it to. Two waiters attended them, Giovanni for food, Santi for

wine and cigars. The long-stemmed Roman lamps of burnished brass, the

bowl that held the oil and wicks resembling the united prows of four

vessels, shedding their light on the white cloth and white walls, made

the old place cheerful. The white and red wine in the thin glass flasks

gleamed brightly, and the food was well cooked and wholesome. Here in

early winter came the sellers of 'sweet olives,' as they called them,

and for two or three cents (_baiocchi_) you could buy a plateful. These

olives were green, and, having been soaked in lime-water, the bitter

taste was taken from them, and they had the flavor of almonds.

But the maccaroni was the great dish in the Gabioni; a four-cent plate

of it would take the sharp edge from a fierce appetite, assisted as it

was by a large one-cent roll of bread. There was the white pipe-stem and

the dark ribbon (_fettucia_) species; and it was cooked with sauce (_al

sugo_), with cheese, Neapolitan, Roman and Milan fashion,

and--otherways. Wild boar steaks came in winter, and were cheap. Veal

never being sold in Rome until the calf is a two-year-old heifer, was no

longer veal, but tender beef, and was eatable. Sardines fried in oil and

batter were good. Game was plenty, and very reasonable in price, except

venison, which was scarce. The average cost of a substantial dinner was

from thirty to forty baiocchi, and said Rocjean, 'I can live like a

prince--like the Prince B----, who dines here occasionally--for half

that sum.'

The first day Caper dined in the Gabioni, what with a dog-fight under

the table, cats jumping upon the table, a distressed marchioness (fact)

begging him for a small sum, a beautiful girl from the Trastevere,

shining like a patent-leather boot, with gold ear-rings, and brooch, and

necklace, and coral beads, who sat at another table with a French

soldier--these and those other little _piquante_ things, that the

traveler learns to smile at and endure, worried him. But the dinner was

good, his companions at table were companionable, and as he finished an

extra _foglietta_ (pint) of wine, price eight cents, with Rocjean, he

concluded to give it another trial. He kept at giving it trials until

the old Gabioni was closed, and from it arose the Four Nations or

Quattre Nazione in Turkey Cock Alley (_viccolo Gallmaccio_), which, as

any one knows, is near Two Murderers' Street. (_Via Due Macelli_)

'Now that we have finished dinner,' spoke Rocjean, 'we will smoke: then

to the Caffe or Café Greco and have our cup of black coffee.'

AMERICA IN ROME.

It may be a good thing to have the conceit taken out of us--but not by

the corkscrew of ignorance; the operation is too painful. Caper, proud

of his country, and believing her in the front rank of nations, was

destined to learn, while in Rome and the Papal States, that America was

geographically unknown.

He consoled himself for this with the fact that geography is not taught

in the 'Elementary Schools' there;--and for the people there are no

others.

The following translation of a notice advertising for a schoolmaster,

copied from the walls of a palace where it was posted, shows the sum

total taught in the common schools:--

The duties of the Master are to teach Reading, Writing, the First

Four Rules of Arithmetic; to observe the duties prescribed in the

law '_Quod divina sapientia_;' and to be subject to the biennial

committee like other salaried officers of the department; as an

equivalent for which he shall enjoy (_godrá_) an annual salary of

$60, payable in monthly shares.

(Signed)

IL GONFALONIERE ---- ----.

But what can you expect when one of the rulers of the land asserted to

Caper that he knew that 'pop-corn grew in America on the banks of the

Nile, after the water went down,--for it never rains in America'?

It was a handsome man, an advocate for Prince Doria, who, once traveling

in a _vetturo_ with Caper, asked him why he did not go to America by

land, since he knew that it was in the south of England; and gently

corrected a companion of his, who told Caper he had read and thought it

strange that all Americans lived in holes in the ground, by saying to

him that if such houses were agreeable to the _Signori Americani_ they

had every right to inhabit them.

The landlord of a hotel in a town about thirty miles from Rome asked

Caper if, when he returned to New York, he would not some morning call

and see his cousin--in Peru!

This same landlord once drew his knife on a man, when, accompanied by

Caper, he went to observe a saint's day in a neighboring town. The cause

of the quarrel was this--the landlord, having been asked by a man who

Caper was, told him he was an American. The man asserted that Americans

always wore long feathers in their hair, and that he did not see any on

Caper's head. The landlord, determined to stand by Caper, swore by all

the saints that they were under his hat. The man disbelieved it. Out

came the 'hardware' with that jarring cr-r-r-rick the blade makes when

the notched knife-back catches in the spring, but Caper jumped between

them, and they put off stabbing one another--until the next saint's day.

It was with pleasure that Caper, passing down the Corso one morning, saw

there was an Universal Panorama, including views of America, advertised

to be exhibited in the Piazza Colonna. 'Here is an opportunity,' thought

he, 'for the Romans to acquire some knowledge of a land touching which

they are very much at sea. The views undoubtedly will do for them what

the tabooed geographies are not allowed to do--give them a little

education to slow music.'

Accompanied by Rocjean, he went one evening to see it, and found it on

wheels in a traveling van, drawn up at one side of the Colonna Square.

'Hawks inspected it the other evening,' said Rocjean; 'and he describes

it as well worth seeing. The explainer of the Universal Panorama

resembles the wandering Jew, exactly, with perhaps a difference about

the change in his pockets; and the paintings, comical enough in

themselves, considering that they are supposed to be serious likenesses

of the places represented, are made still funnier by the explanations of

the manager.'

Securing tickets from a stout, showy ticket-seller, adorned with a

stunning silk dress, crushing bracelets, and an overpowering bonnet,

they subduedly entered a room twenty feet long by six or eight wide,

illuminated with the mellow glow of what appeared to be about thirty

moons. The first things that caught their eye were several French

soldiers who were acting as inspection guard over several rooms, having

stacked their muskets in one corner. Their exclamations of delight or

sorrow, their criticisms of the art panoramic, in short, were full of

humor and trenchant fun. But 'the explanator' was before them; where he

came from they could not see, for his footsteps were light as velvet,

evidently having 'gums' on his feet; his milk-white hair, parted in the

middle of his forehead, hung down his back for a couple of feet, while

his milk-white beard, hanging equally low in front, gave him the

appearance of a venerable billy goat. He was an Albino, and his eyes

kept blinking like a white owl's at mid-day. He had a voice slightly

tremulous, and mild as a cat's in a dairy.

'Gen-till-men, do me the playshure to gaze within this first hole. 'Tis

the be-yu-ti-fool land of Sweet-sir-land. Vi-yew from the some-mut of

the Riggy Cool'm. Day break-in' in the dis-tant yeast. He has a blan-kit

round him, sir; for it is cold upon the moun-tin tops at break of day.

[Madame, the stupen-doss irrup-tion of Ve-soov-yus is two holes from the

corner.]

'Gen-till-men, do me the play-zure to gaze upon the second hole. 'Tis

Flor-renz the be-yu-ti-fool, be the bangs off the flowin' Arno. 'Twas

here that--'

'No matter about all that,' said Caper; 'show off America to us.' He

slipped a couple of _pauls_ into his hand, and instantly the Venerable

skipped four moons.

'Gen-till-men, do me the play-zure to gaze upon this hole. 'Tis the

be-yu-ti-fool city of Nuova Jorck in Ay-mer-i-kay, with the

flour-ish-ing cities of Brook-lyn, Nuova Jer-sais, and Long Is-lad. The

impo-sing struc-ture of rotund form is the Gr-rand Coun-cill Hall

con-tain-ing the coun-cill chamber of the Amer-i-can nations.... [You

say it is the Bat-tai-ree? It may be the Bat-tai-ree.] _What is that

road in Broo-klin_? that is the ra'l-road to Nuova Or-lins di-rect.

_What is that wash-tub_? "Tis not a wash-tub--'tis a stim-boat. They

make the stim out of coal, which is found on the ground. _Is that the

Ay-mer-i-cain eagill_? 'Tis not; 'tis a hoarse-fly which has

in-tro-doo-ced hisself behind the glass. _Are those savages in Nuova

Jer-sais_? (New Jersey.) Those are trees.'

'Pass on, illustrious gen-till-men, to the next hole. 'Tis the

be-yu-ti-fool city of Filadelfia. The houses here are all built of

woo-ood. The two rivaires that cir-cum-vent the city are the Lavar

(Delaware?) and the Hud-soon. I do not know what is "a pum-king cart,"

but the car-riage which you see before you is a fi-ah engine, be-cause

the city is all built of woo-ood. The tall stee-ple belongs to the

kay-ker (Quaker) temple of San Cristo.'

Rocjean now gave the Venerable a _paul_, requesting him to dwell at

length upon these scenes, as he was a Frenchman in search of a little of

geography.

'Excellencies, I will do my en-dea-vors. The gran-diose ship as lies in

the Lavar (Delaware) riv-aire is fool of em-i-gr-rants. The signora

de-scen-din' the side of the ship is in a dreadful sit-u-a-tion tru-ly.

[Per-haps the artist was in a boat and de-scri-bed the scene as he saw

it.] The elephant you see de-scen-din' the street is a nay-tive of this

tropi-cal re-gion, and the cock-a-toos infest the sur-round-in' air. The

Moors you see along the wharves are the spon-ta-ne-ous born of the soil.

Those are kay-kers (Quakers?) on mules with broad-brimmed hats onto

their heads; the sticks in their hands are to beat the Moors who live on

their su-gar plan-tay-tions.... Music? did you ask, Madame? We have none

in this establish-ment. Kone.

'Excellencies, the next hole. 'Tis the be-yu-ti-fool city of

Bal-ti-mory. You behold in the be-fore ground a gr-rand feast day of

Amer-i-cain peas-ants; they are be-hold-ing their noble Count

re-pair-ring to the chase with a serf on a white hoarse-bag

(horse-back?). The little joke of the cattle is a play-fool fan-cy of

the jocose artiste as did the panorama. I am un-ac-count-able for

veg-garies such as them. The riv-aire in the bag-ground is the

Signora-pippi'....

'The what?' asked Caper, shaking with laughter.

'A gen-till-man the other day told me that only the peasants in Americay

say Missus or Mis-triss, and that the riv-aire con-se-kwen-tilly was not

Missus-pippi, but, as I have had the honor of saying, the Signora-pippi

rivaire. The next hole, Excel-len-cies!--'Tis the be-yu-ti-fool city of

Vaskmenton (Washington), also on the Signora-pippi riv-aire. The white

balls on the trees is cot-ton. Those are not white balls on the ground,

those are ship;--ships as have woolen growin' onto their sides (sheep?).

'Tis not a white bar-racks: 'tis the Palazzo di Vaskmenton, a nobil

gen-e-ral woo lives there, and was for-mer-ly king of the A-mer-i-cain

nations. What does that Moor, with the white lady in his arms? it is a

negro peas-sant taking his mis-triss out to air,--'tis the customs in

those land.... That negress or fe-mail Moor with some childs is also

airring, and, the white 'ooman tyin' up her stockings is a sportive of

the artiste. He is much for the hum-or-ous.

'Excellencies, the last hole A-mer-i-cain. 'Tis the stoo-pen-doss

Signora-pippi rivaire in all its mag-gnif-fi-cent booty. What is that

cockatoo doing there? He is taking a fly. _You do not see the fly_? I

mean a flight. _What is that bust to flin-ders_? That is a stim-boat was

carryin' on too much stim, and the stim, which is made of coal, goes,

off like gun-pow-dair if you put lights onto it. This is a fir-ful and

awe-fool sight. The other stim-boat is not bustin', it is sailin'. What

is that man behind the whil-house with the cards while another signer

kicks into him on his coat-tails, I do not know. It is steel the

sportifs of the artiste.'

'Excel-len-cies, the last hole. 'Tis the be-yu-ti-fool bustin'--no, not

bustin', but ex-plo-sion of Vee-soov-yus. You can see the sublime sight,

un-terrupt-ted be me ex-play-nations. I thank you for your attentions

auri-cu-lar and pe-coo-niar-ry. _Adio_, until I have the play-shure of

seein' you oncet more.'

'I tell you what, Rocjean,' said Caper, as he came out from the

panorama, 'America has but a POOR SHOW in the Papal dominions.'

* * * * *

JOHN LOTHROP MOTLEY.

Grand with all that the young earth had of vigorous and queenly to adorn

her, rich with the spoils of victories not all bought with battle-axe

and sword, stately with a pride that had won its just and inalienable

majesty from elastic centuries of progress and culture, History, the

muse to whom fewest songs were sung, yet whose march was music's

sublimest voice, trembled upon the brink of the Dark Ages, and leaped,

in her armor, into the abyss of ignorance before her. A poetry the

purest, an art the noblest, a religion deeply symbolical, a freedom bold

and magnificent, had given to the world-histories of those early days a

melody varied and faultless, a form flowing yet well-defined, an

earnestness that was sacred, a truth that was divine. A philosophy rich

and largely suggestive had made the great men of Greece and Rome alert,

vigilant, penetrating, before luxury and oppression had dragged them

down to ruin and ignorance; and at last Ambition, splendid but

destructive, becoming the world's artist, blended the midnight tints of

decline and suffering with the carnation of triumph and liberty, and

cast over the pictures of History the Rembrandt-like shadows, heavy and

wavering, that add a fearful intensity to their charms.

To these eras, once splendid and promising, succeeded a night, long,

hopeless, disastrous. Its hours were counted by contentions, its

darkness was deepened by crime. The sun had set upon a mighty empire,

regnant upon her seven hills, glorious with conquest, drunken with

power: when the day dawned upon the thousandth year of the Christian

era, its crumbled arches and moss-grown walls alone testified to the

truth of History that had survived the universal destruction.

And now came the age of knight and paladin, of crusades and talismans.

The rough, vigorous life that had been developing at the North,

exuberant with a strength not yet so mature that it could be employed in

the wise and practical pursuits of civilized life, burst forth into an

enthusiasm half military, half religious, that pervaded all ranks, but

was 'mightiest in the mighty.' The Saxons, fair-haired, with wild blue

eyes, whence looked an inflexible perseverance, the dark-browed Normans,

and the men of fair Bretagne, swooped down falcon-like from their nests

among the rocks and by the seas of Northern Europe upon the impetuous

Saracens, and fought brave poems that were written on sacred soil with

their blood. From the strife of years the heroes returned, their flowing

locks whitened by years and suffering, the fair Saxon faces browned by

the fervent suns of the distant East. From hardship and imprisonment

they marched with gay songs amid acclamations and welcome to their homes

upon the Northern shores. Their once shining armor was dimmed and

rusted with their own blood; but they bore upon their 'spears the light'

of a culture more refined, a knowledge more subtle, than those high

latitudes had ever before known.

From this marriage of the barbaric vigor of the North with the delicate

and infinitely pliable sensuousness of the South, the classic union of

Strength and Desire, Chivalry was born. Leaping forth to light and

power, a majestic creation, glittering in the knightly panoply, noble by

its knightly vows, it stood resplendent against the dark background of

the past ages, the inevitable and legitimate offspring of the times and

circumstances that gave it birth. The courtly baptism was eagerly

sought, its requirements rigidly obeyed. The lands bristled with the

lances of their valiant sons, and Quixotic expeditions were the order of

the age. But not alone with sword and spear were gallant contests

decided; the gauntlet thrown at the feet of a proud foe was not always

of iron. _El gai saber_, the _gaye science_, held its august courts,

where princesses entered the lists and vanquished gallant troubadours

with the concord of their sweet measures. Slowly, yet with resistless

strength, a new social world was rising upon the splendid ruins of the

old. Its principles were just, if their garb was fantastical. It began

with that almost superstitious reverence for woman, which had borrowed

its religion from the Teuton, its romance from the Minnesinger and the

Trouveur: it will end in the honesty and freedom of a world mature for

its enjoyment.

Thus, while the kingdoms of Europe were rising to a height where to

oppress, to torture, to fight, were to seem their sole aim and purpose,

in a hitherto obscure corner of the great theatre of modern life an

unknown element was developing itself, which was in time to shake the

greatest nations with its power, to inflame all Europe with jealousy and

cupidity, and to dictate to empires the very terms of their existence.

And this element was LABOR. The rich lowlands of the 'double-armed'

Rhine teemed with a busy life, that, king-like, demanded a tribute of

the sea, and wrenched from the greedy waves a treasure that its industry

made priceless. Each man became a prince in his own divine right, and

every occupation had its lords and its lore, its 'mysteries,' and its

social rights. The seamen, merchants, and artisans of the Netherlands

had made their country the richest in Europe. They ranged the seas and

learned the value of the land; and while they fed the great despot of

the Middle Ages, the light of intelligence, born of energy and nurtured

by activity, cast its benignant gleams from the central island of the

Rhine, and drove from their mountain nooks the owls and bats of tyranny

and superstition. They fought first, these lords of the soil, among

themselves, for local privileges, advancing in their continuous

struggles upon the very threshold of the church. By strong alliances

they kept at bay their feudal lords, and fettered the ecclesiastical

power with the yoke of a justice, meagre, indeed, and sadly unfruitful,

but still ominous of a better day. Within the alabaster vase of

despotism, frail, yet old as ambition, the lamp of freedom had long

burned dimly: now its flames were licking, with serpent-like tongues,

the enclosure so long deemed sacred, and threatened, as they dyed the

air with their amber flood of light, to shiver their temple to

fragments. The theory of the divine right of kings was but another 'Luck

of Edenhall.' Its slender stem trembled now within the rough grasp of

the sacrilegious and burly Netherlanders, who hesitated not long ere

they dashed it with the old superstition to the ground, shaking the

civilized world to its centre by the shock. But out of the ruins a

statelier edifice was to rise, whose windows, like those of the old

legend, were stained by the lifeblood of its architect.

The historian who would worthily depict such an age, such a people, such

principles, must be an artist, but one in whom the creative faculty does

not blind the moral obligations. He must bring to the work a republican

sympathy, must be governed by a republican justice, and wear a character

as noble as the struggle that he paints. And such an artist, such a

historian, such a man, we have in JOHN LOTHROP MOTLEY.

The honors of Harvard, early and nobly earned, had given to the boy at

seventeen the privileges and dignity of manhood. He was destined to

become a scholar, eminent, even among the rarely and richly cultured

minds of his own New England, for his universal knowledge, clearness of

intellect, prompt energy, and indomitable perseverance. Inspired by

these gifts and attainments, it was only natural, almost inevitable,

that his first appearance upon the literary stage should have been in

the _rôle_ of a novelist. The active young intellect was pliant and

strong, but had not yet learned its power. Before him lay the broad

fields of romance, fascinating with their royal _fleurs de lis_, rich

with the contributions of every age, some quaint and laughter-moving,

some pompous and exaggerated, some soul-stirring and grand. Impelled,

perhaps, less by a thirst for fame than a desire to satisfy the

resistless impulses of an energetic nature, and lay those fair ghosts of

enterprises dimly recognized that beckoned him onward, he followed the

first path that lay before him, and became a romance writer. His first

work, _Morton's Hope, or the Memoirs of a Provincial_, was published in

1839, and subsequently appeared _Merry Mount, a Romance of

Massachusetts_. It is curious to trace in these first flights of a

genius that has since learned its legitimate field, a tendency to the

breadth of Motley's later efforts, an instinctive and evidently

unconscious passion for the descriptive, an admirably curbed yet still

powerful impatience of the light fetters, the toy regulations of the

realm of Fiction, and an earnestness that has since bloomed in the world

of Fact and History. The very imperfections of the novelist have become

the charms of the historian. His student-life in Germany, his after-plot

in the stirring Revolutionary times, strongly as they are drawn,

animated as they are with dashes of that vivid power that stamps every

page of the histories of their author, yet lack the proof of that

unquestioned yet unobtrusive consciousness of genius that harden the

telling sentences of the _Rise of the Dutch Republic_ and the _United

Netherlands_ into blocks of adamant, polished by friction with each

other to a diamond brightness, and reflecting only the noblest

sentiments, the most profound principles. The dice had been thrown a

second time, and Motley had not won a victory. The applause of the press

was insufficient to the man, who felt that he had not yet struck the

key-note of his destiny. To be counted the follower of Cooper was not

the meet guerdon of an intellect to which the shapely monuments of

ancient literature yielded the clue to their hieroglyphic labyrinths of

knowledge, and that pierced with lightning swiftness the shell of

events, and possessed the latent principles of life in their warm

hearts. He returned, therefore, to Europe, leaving behind him a

reputation which at no distant day was destined to spring from a new and

more noble foundation into a lasting and more stately pile.

To a mind like Motley's, the department of history presented the most

attractive features. There could honestly be no dabbling with the

specious and seductive alchemy of Fiction. Truth had molded every period

of the world's life. Truth defied had tripped up nations in their

headlong race after dominion and unrighteous power. Truth victorious had

smiled upon their steady growth to greatness and honor. To write history

was to write poetry, art, philosophy, religion, life. The pen that

sketched the rise, the progress, and the fate of nations, was in fact

the chisel of a sculptor, whose theme was humanity.

And what work so fitting for the American author as the record of a

nation struggling away from the oppression of feudal institutions, which

stifled all growth either towards knowledge or civil greatness,

throwing off the trammels of religious intolerance, defying the most

powerful nation of Christendom, which had breathed an air of bigotry in

its long contest with the Moors, and waging an exhaustive war of nearly

a century's duration against fearful odds, only to win an independent

existence? We had treasured as rare heirlooms the Mechlin laces of our

grandmothers, had our favorite sets of Tournay porcelain, awaited with

curious and enthusiastic patience our shares in the floral exportations

of Harlem, trodden daily the carpetings of Brussels, and esteemed

ourselves rich with a fragment of its tapestry, or a rifle of Namur; we

had honored the vast manufacturing interest of the Netherlands, their

commercial prosperity and noble enterprise; but here all thought of them

had ended. Schiller had not taught us that the ancestors of the miners

of Mons, the artisans of Brussels, the seamen of Antwerp, the professors

of Leyden, were heroes, worthy to stand beside Leonidas and Bozzaris;

Strâda had failed to rouse us to enthusiasm at the thought of their

long, noble battle for life. Grotius had indeed painted for us with a

very Flemish nicety of detail their manners and customs, but had

forgotten to round his skeleton of a nation with the passions that

animated every stage of its development. It remained for Motley, with

all the quick sympathies of an American heart, to rouse our affections

and to command our reverence for a people so unfortunate and so brave.

It was reserved for him to teach us that William of Orange was not less

a martyr to the truth than Huss or Latimer.

It was no common scholar who so worthily finished this task. It was not

enough that the intellectual integrity of oar historian was

unquestioned, his judgment mature, his knowledge vast and comprehensive.

During the years of preparation he had become thoroughly cosmopolite;

all the _petty_ prejudices of country and blood had been swept away

before the advancing dignity of a reason that became daily more truly

and completely the master of itself. All the thousand minute refinements

of an extensive and intimate association with the commanding and courtly

minds of the age fitted him to cope more successfully with the spirit of

subtle intrigue, the fox-like sagacity, the wolfish rapacity, the cruel

lack of diplomatic honor, and the illimitable and terrible intolerance

that distinguished in so wonderful a degree the historical era of

Motley's choice. He came with all the zeal of a true lover of liberty,

himself republican, as earth's most cultured sons have been in every

age, in thought, habit, and sentiment, to trace for the future and for

us the records of a people who were willing to suffer a master, but who

revolted from a tyrant; who, with a rare but unappreciated and too nice

honor, strove to keep to the yoke that their forefathers had worn, only

asking from their ruler the respect and consideration due the faithful

servants of his crown, who were no longer the abject slaves of a

monarchy, and yet, through an inveterate habit of servitude, were

scarcely prepared for the independence of a republic. How nobly he has

fulfilled his mission, the hearty applause of two nations sufficiently

testifies.

To the wide, comprehensive vision of Motley, history appears in its true

light as a science, demanding the assistance of other sciences to the

due and harmonious development of all its parts. It relies not more upon

the correctness of the recorder's authorities and the profoundness of

his researches in the mere region of the events and mutual relation of

nations, than upon his universal acquaintance with general literature

and the sister arts of politics and philosophy. It was for the

treacherous and elegant Bolingbroke to reduce the noble art of

Thucydides from the height of sublimity and grandeur to the parlor level

of the conversations of the Hotel de Rambouillet, to introduce into the

most serious political disquisitions, concerning perhaps the welfare of

society, an imperceptible yet carefully elaborated and most effective

tone of levity that speedily proved disastrous to their object. It was

be who forced the vapid but imposing ceremonial of the _bon ton_ into

the records of church and state; who clothed his empty but pompous

periods with the ermine of royalty, to ensure them the reverence of a

deluded multitude; who stripped Virtue of her ancient prerogatives, and

fed her with the crumbs from his table. His polished diction, undeniable

talent and fine acquisitions served most unhappily to disguise his real

poverty of sentiment, and for a time, at least, diverted the current of

popular feeling from the true, beautiful, and reliable in early

literature and art, no less than in history. With what success his

faulty and imperfect theories were engrafted upon the literature of his

nation, the learned and sagacious Schlosser conclusively proves in his

_History of the Eighteenth Century_. Says this ripe scholar and deep

thinker, 'All that Bolingbroke ridicules as tedious and without talent,

all that he laughs at as useless and without taste, all that which,

urged by his labors and those of his like-minded associates, had for

eighty years disappeared from ancient history, is again brought back in

our day. So short is the triumph of falsehood.' Well may we pervert the

verses of Horace,--

'Nullæ placere diu, nec vivere _historiæ_ possunt

Quæ scribuntur aquæ potoribus.'

That was an ungenerous fountain whence Bolingbroke drank even his

chilling draughts of inspiration. Splendid, in sooth, as the great

_Brunnen_ of the luckless Abderites of Wieland, with its sea-god of

marble surrounded by a stately train of nymphs, tritons, and dolphins,

from whose jets the water only dripped like tears, because, says the

writer, with grave naïveté, 'there was scarcely enough to moisten the

lips of a single nymph.' Truly the purple wine of inspiration is as

necessary to the historian as to the poet; and if the laughing Bacchus

that holds the beaker to the student's eager lips be not clothed in the

classic robes of the senate-chamber or the flowing garments of the

professor, he wears at least the fawn's dappled hide, and in his hand

'His thyrsus holds--an ivy-crowned spear.'

Does not the gentle Euripides show us the god, 'his horned head with

dragon wreath entwined?' And those two sacred horns point back to the

dread mysteries of the Ogdoad sublime,

'The great Cabiri of earth's dawning prime.'

They trace with lines that never swerve from truth the history of the

primeval world, the early days of Noah and his ark. They recall to us

the old story of life and suffering, of deluge and salvation; on their

crescent points hangs the eternal principle of the efficacy of

sacrifice. They float with the moon-ark of Astarté Mylitta on

hyacinthine seas of night-clouds, and their high import, dimmed and lost

in the great stream of Time, rises again in the ages, uncrowned with the

early luxuriance of symbol and mystery. The mystic horns appear over the

brow of the queenly Sappho of Grillparzer, upon whose hair

'Rested the diadem, _like the pale moon_

Upon the brow of night, a silver crest;'

and the white-robed Madonna, with child-like face upraised, and deep,

tender eyes uplifted, yet rests her slender, sandaled foot upon the

horned moon, floating below her in misty clouds.

A hiatus for which we crave indulgence; a dream, and yet not all a

dream, for each of these old types encloses a living truth, and unfolds

into a history, tangled, perhaps, and imperfect, but suggestive and

reliable, of races and religions that had else passed away into

oblivion. And the earnest student of the present, or the historian of

the past, can never disregard these dim old treasures, but must draw

from them a fresher faith in his own humanity and in the eternal laws of

God, that are unchangeable as he is immortal.

The art of history advances with the art of poetry; both, and indeed all

literature, correspond aesthetically with the manners, customs,

theology, and politics of the nation of their birth. The severe

grandeur of Thucydides, the invariable sweetness of Xenophon, and the

cheerful elegance of Herodotus, recall, with their just conceptions of

harmony, their noble and sustained flow of thought, and their freedom

from the adventitious ornaments of an exaggerated rhetoric or a

sentimental morality, the golden age of Greece. We seem to stand within

the Parthenon, to gaze upon the Venus of Cnidus, to be jostled by the

gay crowd at the Olympic games. It was indeed a golden age, when all

that was beautiful in nature was reverently and assiduously nurtured,

and all that was noble and natural in art was magnificently encouraged;

an age in which refinement and nobility were not accidents, but

necessities; when politics had reached the high grade of an art, and

oratory attained a beauty and power beyond which no Pitt, Canning, or

Brougham has ever yet aspired; an age when the gifted Aspasia held her

splendid court, and Alcibiades and Socrates were proud to sit at the

Milesian's feet; when Pericles, who 'well deserved the lofty title of

Olympian,' lived and ruled: the golden age when Socrates thought and

taught, bearing in its bosom the guilty day when Socrates died.

Not less faithful portraitures of the influences that formed them are

the histories of Livy, of Sallust, and of Tacitus. They wrote in a

language that had been sublimated into electric clouds by the warm and

splendid diffuseness of Cicero, and reduced to a granite-like strength

by the cold and exquisite simplicity of Terence. The amiable fustian,

the Falstaffian bombast of Lucan and Ovid's brilliant imagination, all

stamp their indelible seal upon the vivid coloring of Livy, the somewhat

affected severity of Sallust, and the elegant morality of Tacitus. The

banner of the monarchy flaunts across every page of these writers. They

even bear the impress of an architecture whose splendor and strength did

not atone for its disregard of the old Hellenic lines and rules. They

bear the same relation to Thucydides and Herodotus that a pillar of the

Roman Ionic order, with its angularly turned volutes and arbitrary

perpendicularity of outline, does to its graceful Greek mother, with her

primitive and expressive scrolls, and the slightly convex profile of her

shaft. In more modern times, a black-letter, quaint sentence of

Froissart or Monstrelet is like a knight in full armor, bristling with

quaint, beautiful devices, golden dragons inlaid on Milan cuirasses,

golden vines on broad Venetian blades, apes on the hilts of

grooved-bladed, firm stilettoes, or the illuminated margins of old

metrical romances. The pages of Strada are darkened by the stormy

passions of a battling age, crossed with the lurid light of Moorish

tragedies; an _ay de mi Alhama_ moans under his pride and bigotry.

Torquemadas grind each sentence into dullness and inquisitorial

harmlessness, yet now and then sweeps by a trace of Lope de Vega, a word

that reminds us of Calderon, while still oftener the euphuism of Gongora

pervades the writer's mind and flows in platitudes from his guarded pen.

As we near our own day, history is invested with new dignities; its arms

float, sea-weed like, on the raging waves of political life, as if to

grasp from some fragment of shipwrecked treaties or some passing argosy

of government a precious jewel to light its deep researches. It takes in

with nervous grasp the tendencies of literature; its keen gaze drinks in

the features of popular belief and searches out the fountains of popular

error. Fully equal to the requirements of the exacting age, Motley has

produced a work whose lightest merit is its equal conformity to the new

rules of his art. He possesses in an eminent degree the first

qualification which the old Abbé de Mably, in his _Manière d'ecrire

l'histoire_, insists upon for the historian. He recognizes the natural

rights of man, those rights which are the same in every age, and as

powerful in their demands in the sixteenth century as in the nineteenth.

His well-balanced mind acknowledges and respects the duties of man as

citizen and magistrate, and the mutual rights of nations. No splendor,

no power, no prejudice, has been able to seduce him from his high

principles, neither does a warm and manifest sympathy with his subject

delude him even into the passing extravagance of an undue praise. If he

comprehends the greatness of the national character he almost flings

upon the canvas before us, he appreciates as profoundly its weaknesses

too. Strada's history is a poison, which strikes at the very roots of

society, and would wither all the fresh young leaves of its vigorous

spring. Motley's is its powerful antidote, which restores the juices of

life to the brittle fibres, smooths out the shriveled leaves, and

clothes them again with the fresh green of hope and promise. Strada is

the slave of the victor; Motley is the champion of the vanquished.

Strada bends the dignity of Justice before the painted sceptre of

Despotism; Motley exalts the honest title of the man above the will of

the perjured monarch. Strada gilds with the false gold of sophistry the

very chains that gall his soul; Motley sharpens on the clear crystal of

his unobtrusive logic, the two-handed sword of power, and cuts his way

through an army of protocols and pacts to the fortress of Liberty.

It is, we believe, an exploded theory that the characters of modern

times are inferior to those of antiquity. 'Under the toga as under the

modern dress,' says Guizot, 'in the senate as in our councils, men were

what they still are;' and the old Jesuit takes a narrow view of the

progress of mankind, who asserts that the masculine and vigorous

treatment that was necessary to Thucydides and Livy is not required by

the historians of our puny and degenerate day. Even the Count Gobineau,

who so ably and, to his followers, conclusively proves the fallacy of

the dearest hope of every learned philanthropist and patriot, does not,

in his most earnest antagonism to the doctrine of human progress,

insinuate the existence of a principle urging the systematic and

inevitable decline of individual power from age to age. So far from

exacting less of the historian, the present age demands even a firmer

handling. Our era has its Alexanders and Cæsars; its Hannibals and

Hectors; and if these men of antiquity rise before us with an

unapproachable air of grandeur, it is because the light shining from our

distant stand-point surrounds them with deeper shadows, and throws them

in bolder relief against the background of their vanished ages. It is a

simple triumph of _chiaro-scuro_, and by no means the proof of the truth

of an absurd theory.

It is mournful enough to see the dead nations that were once young and

glorious pacing onward through an inferno like so many headless Bertrand

de Borns, bearing by the hair

'The severed member, lantern-wise

Pendent in hand.'

For ourselves, we have no fear of lighting our own spirit thus through

any Malabolge of purification. And this bold faith animates Motley; it

invigorates all his work with a firmness that inspires full confidence

in his readers. Free as he is from every puerile superstition, his

mastery of his subject is complete. He exercises over it a sort of

magistracy which extends even to his own flashing impulses. Never

pausing to display his moral learning, he avoids the tedious diffuseness

of Rollin; steering adroitly around the quicksands of political

dissertation, he escapes the pragmatical essayism of Guiccardini. Not

easily fascinated by the trifles that swim like vapid foam upon the tide

of history,--petty domestic details, the Königsmark intrigues of

royalty, the wines and flowers of the banquet table, the laces and

jewels of the court,--he leaves far in the distance the entertaining

Davila, who, says the sarcastic Schlosser, 'wrote memoirs after the

French fashion for good society,' yet whom the arbitrary and adventurous

Bolingbroke does not scruple to declare 'in many respects the equal of

Livy!' And yet no single stroke is omitted which is needed to preserve

the unity of the work. Tacitus himself did not embellish with more

commanding morality his histories. The jots and tittles of the _Groot

Privilegie_, the terms of the famous 'Pacification of Ghent,' the

solemn import of the _Act of Adjuration_, and the political ambition of

the church, are as faithfully drawn as the Siege of Leyden, or the

'Spanish Fury' of Antwerp.

Hume, in the narrowness of a so-called philosophical indifference to the

appeals of domestic life and the details of national theology and art,

gives us only a running commentary upon mere chronological events,

galvanized by the touch of his keen intellect and fine rhetoric into a

deceitful vigor, and ornamented with the poisonous night-shade blossoms

of a spurious philosophy. We may more justly seek some analogy between

Gibbon and Motley, even if the search but discover points of difference

so radical that a comparison is impossible. The solemn, measured, and

splendid rhetoric of Gibbon is met by the animated, impetuous, and

brilliant flow of Motley's thought. Neither leans to the ideal; with

both the actual prevails. The policy of a government is summoned by

neither before the partial tribunal of a sentiment, or the intricate

scheme of some Machiavelli subjected to the imperfect analysis of a

headstrong imagination. But Gibbon, though he writes in the vernacular,

has lost all the honest nationality that should give an air of sincerity

to his work; his brilliant antithesis belongs to the ornate school of

the French literature of the day; and, fascinating as is the pomp and

commanding march of his sentences, we are rather dazzled by his

eloquence than convinced by his argument. He is picturesque, rich; but

it is the picturesqueness and richness of the truly bewildering Roman

architecture of the Renaissance--half Byzantine, three-eighths Gothic,

and the remainder Greek. But Motley, with all his varied learning and

association, is still perfectly and nobly Anglo-Saxon. His short,

epigrammatic sentences ring like the click of musketry before the

charge, and swell into length and grandeur with the progress of his

theme. The simplicity, not of ignorance but of genius, characterizes

him. He does not cater to our hungry fancy, he appeals grandly to our

noblest impulses. In Motley a spirit of the most refined humanity is

everywhere visible; he is guilty of no Voltairean satiric stabs at

purity, no petulant Voltairean flings at the faith he does not share.

All is manly, terse, frank, undisguised. Honorable himself, he does not,

like Gibbon, distrust all mankind, and question with a sarcasm the very

sincerity of a martyr at the stake.

Among Americans, Motley is what Botta is to the historians of Southern

Europe. The same grand principles actuate both writers; the same

tendency to philosophical generalization is evident in the structure of

their works, the same inflexible pursuit of a fixed and visible aim, the

same enthusiastic love for freedom. But with Botta the poetical element,

which is only secondary with Motley, predominates. He holds the nervous

pen of a true Italian--more than that, of a true Italian patriot. All

the hitherto suppressed fire of his nation flames out on his pages in an

indignation as natural as it is superb. His lines vibrate with passion,

his words are tremulous with a noble pain. His very pathos is impatient,

stern, and proud; it cleaves our hearts like a battle-axe, rather than

meets them as with summer showers. His sarcasm is as keen and effective,

but far more startling; it hisses its way from some iron-cold comment,

and stabs the monarch whom it crowns. His fertility of imagination is

not weakened by contact with the details of government. The same pen

that draws in such inimitably graceful lines the sugar-plums of starving

Genoa, lingering about flower-wreathed baskets of bonbons sold in the

public squares to famishing men and women, sketches in a style as

nervous and appropriate the complex detail of governmental policy. He

unfolds his subject with the skill of an epic poet; its general effect

is sublime, and its petty details arranged with a rarely careless skill.

If he is sometimes diverted by a burst of enthusiasm, of indignation, or

of horror, into an inequality, the rough island thrown up in the sea of

his fancy is speedily verdured over with the wonderful luxuriance of his

genius. If he bends sometimes to amuse, to revel among his sonorous

Italian adjectives in the description of a coronation at Milan, or an

opera of Valetta, it is part of his purpose, giving to his picture the

rich and glowing tints that bring out, by violence of contrast, the more

elaborate tinting in of dark upon dark behind them.

Something of this we recognize in Motley; but none of Botta's tendency

to proverbial sayings, bitter with a sarcasm that wounds most deeply its

creator; as, 'To believe that abstract principle will prevail over full

purses is the folly of a madman.' Neither do we find in Motley the

occasional terse conciseness of Botta,--little epics enclosed in a short

sentence. 'Napoleon had redeemed France; but he had created Italy.' But

the Italian can not be impartial. Just he is, but it is the accident of

his political position, not the deference paid by the historian to his

art. He writes of an age from whose injustice he has suffered, of a

country whose miseries he has shared, of a people whose brother he is.

And here Motley stands second only to Thucydides among historians. In

the Greek, impartiality was almost divine, for he wrote in the very

smoke of the conflict, wrote as if with his dripping lance upon rocks

dyed with the blood of his countrymen. With Motley impartiality is the

product of a nature strictly noble, that aims through its art not only

to delight the present, but to instruct the future, and which bases its

doctrines of right and wrong upon the principles that govern universal

nature. The temper of Thucydides is lofty and even; though never genial,

he is always calm and accessible; though often sublime, he is never

pathetic; too grand to be sarcastic, he is also too proud to be selfish.

Motley, if lacking the great and admirable element of sublimity, which

Longinus extols, compensates for it by the animation and variety of his

style, which changes, as does his mood, with his subject. He enters with

all the vigor of his manhood into the spirit of the scenes which he

sketches. He describes a character, and his strokes are bold, quick,

decided; he follows the intricacies of political intrigue, and his

movement is slow, continuous, wary, while it still remains firm,

confident, and successful. He can administer the finances with Escovedo,

while his wide, keen intelligence, undismayed, masters at a glance the

wily policy of Alexander of the '_fel Gesicht_.' No modern historian has

given more comprehensive sketches of character. No quality escapes his

vigilance; he yields every faculty the consideration which is its due.

The portraits of Alva, of Navarre, of Farnese, of Orange, of Don John of

Austria, are so many colossal statues, that seem to unite in themselves

all the possible features and characteristics of humanity. He is indeed

rather a sculptor than a painter. His figures are round, perfect,

throbbing with life, and their hard and striking outlines, springing

sharply from the background of despotism and persecution, are more

imposing than any Rubens-like vividness of coloring which could warm

them. He treats of diplomacy as a diplomat, unwinds the reel of protocol

and treaty, and binds up with the inflexible cord the rich sheaves of

his deep researches. His reflections are suggestive but short, and his

details never weary.

He loves, too, to mark the sympathies of nature with event--the rain

falling upon the black-hung scaffold, or the laughter of gay sunshine

mingling with the shouts of a great victory. And here he differs, as

indeed he does in almost every other respect, with Macaulay. The

Englishman thinks little of nature; as he himself says of Dante, 'He

leaves to others the earth, the ocean, and the sky; his business is with

man.' Indeed, the absence of a true and universal sympathy is the one

vast defect of Macaulay. No position is so high that it may not be

overshadowed by the giant form of his violent partisanship, no character

so small that it may not be raised to the semblance of greatness by the

mere force of his political preferences. His scholarship was splendid,

his genius commanding, the beauty of his style unsurpassed; but he

perverted his knowledge to subserve certain public ends, and wielded his

magnificent powers too often in the defence of an undeserving cause.

Fascinated by his dazzling rhetoric, borne along by its rapid and

tumultuous current to the most brilliant conclusions, we forget the

narrowness of the stream. His scope of vision was indeed great, but it

had its limits, and these were not imposed by time or necessity, but by

the unyielding will of his own prejudices. As his virtues were massive,

so were his errors grievous. He ventured to grasp the great speculative

themes of existence with a mind that was neither profound nor

suggestive. He swam with all the wondrous ease of an athlete through the

billows and across the currents and counter-currents of elegant

literature, of politics, of theology, yet possessed not the diver's

power to win their sunken but priceless jewels. Rich he was with the

accumulated intellectual spoil of centuries, but the power of exhaustive

generalization was denied him. His perceptions were vigorous and acute,

and none knew more perfectly to exhaust a subject, if its requirements

were of the actual and tangible rather than of the ideal and spiritual

order. He was a thorough logician, but a superficial philosopher; a

master of style, but oblivious of those great religious truths of which

the events of his great history were but the natural outgrowth and

product. But nothing can exceed the power of his rhetoric, that is

uncontrolled by any laws, yet offends none, unless it be the

arbitrariness of his dogmatism, that concedes no favors and asks no

gifts.

Less vehement, less ornate, possibly less learned than Macaulay, with

frequent though trifling inequalities of style, Motley goes far beyond

him in real practical insight into the heart of affairs. There is a

unity in all visible life, whether of nation, of individual, of church,

or of inarticulate nature, that escaped Macaulay and impresses Motley.

The one would govern the universe with the arbitrary rules of a

political clique; the other applies to all the infallible test of a

universal philosophy. Both writers are thoroughly incorporated with

their subject; but where Macaulay was the captive of a mighty and often

just prejudice, Motley is the exponent of a living principle. Everywhere

Macaulay was a Whig and an Englishman; everywhere Motley is a Republican

and a cosmopolite.

Motley is indeed inferior to his English contemporary in many striking

points whose value every reader will determine for himself; but his

occasional and rare inaccuracies of expression and inelegances of

language are on the surface, and may be removed by the stroke of a pen

without marring the general effect of his work. He possesses, among many

charms, an unfailing geniality, which, united with his fine dramatic

powers, fascinates us completely. He abounds also in fine poetical

touches, that give us glimpses of a mind cultured to the last degree of

literary refinement. His 'rows of whispering limes and poplars' are like

arabesques of gold straying over the margins of some old _romanceros_.

His descriptions glow with the fresh and ever-varying delight of the

observant traveler, who seems to see before him for the first time the

cities which, with a few vigorous and simple strokes, he transfers to

big pages. His pictures have the charm of naturalness and a simplicity

that is more effective than the most ornate diffuseness. Thus he says of

the picturesque little city of Namur: 'Seated at the confluence of the

Sambre with the Meuse, and throwing over each river a bridge of solid

but graceful structure, it lay in the lap of a most fruitful valley. A

broad, crescent-shaped plain, fringed by the rapid Meuse, and enclosed

by gently-rolling hills, cultivated to their crests, or by abrupt

precipices of limestone crowned with verdure, was divided by numerous

hedgerows, and dotted all over with corn-fields, vine-yards, and

flower-gardens. Many eyes have gazed with delight upon that well-known

and most lovely valley, and many torrents of blood have mingled with

those glancing waters since that long-buried and most sanguinary age

which forms our theme; and still, placid as ever is the valley, brightly

as ever flows the stream. Even now, as in that banished but

never-forgotten time, nestles the little city in the angle of the two

rivers; still directly over its head seems to hang in mid-air the

massive and frowning fortress, like the gigantic helmet in the fiction,

as if ready to crush the pigmy town below.' How like the _Ueberfahrt_ of

Uhland:--

'Ueber diesen Strohm, vor Jahren,

Bin ich einmal schon gefahren,

Hier die Burg, im Abendschimmer,

Drüben rauscht das Wehr, wie immer.'

We may quote his description of the great square of Brussels, the scene

of the double execution of Montmorency, of Horn, and the gallant and

unfortunate 'Count d'Egmont,' not only as an example of his dignified

and sustained style, but also as an evidence of his sensitiveness to

those minor refinements of association and place that bespeaks the

talented artist. 'The great square of Brussels had always a striking and

theatrical aspect. Its architectural effects, suggesting in some degree

the meretricious union between Oriental and a corrupt Grecian art,

accomplished in the mediaeval midnight, have amazed the eyes of many

generations. The splendid Hotel de Ville, with its daring spire and

elaborate front, ornamented one side of the place; directly opposite was

the graceful but incoherent façade of the Brood-huis, now the last

earthly resting place of the two distinguished victims; while grouped

around these principal buildings rose the fantastic palaces of the

Archers, Mariners, and other guilds, with their festooned walls and

toppling gables bedizened profusely with emblems, statues, and quaint

decorations. The place had been alike the scene of many a brilliant

tournament and of many a bloody execution. Gallant knights had contended

within its precincts, while bright eyes rained influences from all those

picturesque balconies and decorated windows. Martyrs to religious and to

political liberty had upon the same spot endured agonies which might

have roused every stone of its pavement to mutiny or softened them to

pity. Here Egmont himself, in happier days, had often borne away the

prize of skill or of valor, the cynosure of every eye; and hence, almost

in the noon of a life illustrated by many brilliant actions, he was to

be sent, by the hand of tyranny, to his great account.'

There are, too, dashes of a healthy sarcasm among these records, not,

however, of such frequent occurrence as to darken the flow of the

narrative, but sufficiently indicative of the strength and energy of the

writer. Never attacking the honest faith of any man, his satires are

levelled at hypocrisy, never error, as when he says of the venerable

tyrant, the master of the Invincible Armada, when he had received from

the trembling secretary the assurance of the failure of the hope of

Spain: 'So the king, as fortune flew away from him, wrapped himself in

his virtue, and his counsellors, imitating their sovereign, arrayed

themselves in the same garment;' a scanty mantle, in truth, but, no

doubt, amply sufficient for the denizens of that torrid atmosphere of

bigotry in which Spain has lived for centuries.

Of what earnest stuff Motley's dreams of religious freedom are made, we

read in his terse comments upon the declaration of the principles of

liberty of conscience by the States General. 'Such words shine through

the prevailing darkness of the religious atmosphere at that epoch like

characters of light. They are beacons in the upward path of mankind.

Never before had so bold and wise a tribute to the genius of the

Reformation been paid by an organized community. Individuals walking in

advance of their age had enunciated such truths, and their voices had

seemed to die away, but at last, a little, struggling, half-developed

commonwealth had proclaimed the rights of conscience for all mankind.'

Thus we have no longer a wearisome compilation of events strung upon the

thread of chronology, but a practical history of the most momentous

epoch of modern times. No hand has before pointed out so faithfully its

great motive power or adjusted so nicely its apparent contradictions.

The structure is grand; it is the expression of a glorious faith. In the

accomplishment of so vast a design, Motley has won our warmest

gratitude, while he has awakened our deepest sympathies. Not alone to

the learned, the scholarly, and the elegant, are these volumes

addressed; their high-toned thought has met response in the people's

heart, and children bend with flushed faces over the high romance of the

struggle that cost the lives of thousands, and recognize, perhaps dimly,

the import of that great advance from the darkness of intolerance to the

light of freedom, that was so well worth the treasure of blood with

which it was bought.

And here we part with Motley the historian, only to clasp hands with

Motley the patriot. In the present tremendous struggle of people against

progress, this fierce contest between labor and the lords, these last

convulsions of the expiring giant of feudal aristocracy, whose monstrous

conception dates far back among the Middle Ages, Motley has shown

himself the true champion of the doctrines advocated in his histories.

His platform is still the same, but how changed the theatre of his

action! His letter to the London _Times_ on the 'Causes of the American

Civil War' is a masterly exposition of facts, whose naked power is

obscured by no useless displays of rhetoric. Its tone is calm,

dignified, confident; its statements are strongly maintained, its logic

convincing. All honor to the man who from his quiet researches in royal

archives and busy deciphering of dusty MSS. turned to his country in her

hour of need, and defended her where defence should have been

superfluous, but was, unhappily, of small avail. And still he works

nobly for the dear old flag, and, intimately _lié_ as he is with the

first literati and politicians of Europe, it is not easy to measure his

influence. His purely literary habits forbid all suspicion of his

disinterestedness, and will go far to commend him to the sympathies of

the commanding intellects of the age. Let us hope for the time when,

with renewed faith in his mighty theories and still renewing love for

his motherland, he shall return to the retirement which has already

produced such noble fruits, and add works as worthy to our American

classics. Meanwhile, _vive qui vince!_

* * * * *

THE LESSON OF THE HOUR.

Thou who for years hast watched the course of nature,

What time the changing seasons swept their round,

And, 'mid the play of every varying feature,

New founts of pleasure for thyself hast found;

Who, when dark clouds upon the mountain glooming,

Threaten destruction to the smiling plain,

Canst pierce the shadow and foresee the blooming

Of budding blossoms brighter for the rain:

To whom, when the dread winter's icy fingers

Have chilled to silence the gay babbling stream,

A memory of its summer music lingers,

Or April violets in the future beam;

To whom the darkness whispers of the dawning,

And sorrow's night tells of the coming day;

And even death is but the twilight morning

Of glory which shall never fade away;--

_Teach us thy lesson_. Unto us be given

The trusting faith the April flowers display;

Looking in their meek confidence to heaven,--

Trusting to God the future of the day.

Our night is dark, and perils vast surround us,

But, firm in truth and right, what shall we fear?

Has danger ever yet base cravens found us?

Who has sustained thus far will guide us here.

Ye countless legions, where each man is holding

Himself a bulwark for the cause of right,

In war's fierce furnace, where our God is molding

Each soul for his own ends in Freedom's fight,

March on to victory in overwhelming number,

Singing the peans of the noble free;

Our Liberty has just awaked from slumber,

To carry out the world's great destiny.

O mighty nation! all thy early glory

Shall be as nothing to the great renown

Which in the future ages shall come o'er thee,

For thine is Liberty's immortal crown.

Heed not the jealousies forever thronging,--

The petty envyings which gird thee round;

'Tis thine to carry out the world's great longing,

To find that liberty none else has found.

What though across the swelling, broad Atlantic

Comes scornful menace? it is naught to thee--

'Tis but the jealous raving, wild and frantic,

Of those who would, but never can, be free;--

Who, slaves to selfish passions bold ambition,

Hold up their shackled arms in heaven's broad light,

And prate of freedom, boast their high position,

And strive to turn to interest Truth and Right.

_We need more faith!_ What though the means be weakness?

With God supreme, the victory must be ours!

From imperfection he works out completeness;

From feeble means makes overwhelming powers.

How shall this be? The knowledge is not given;

Each to his duty in the field of Right;

Sure as th' Almighty ruleth earth and heaven,

His arm will do it in resistless might.

* * * * *

AMONG THE PINES.

'Dee ye tink Massa Davy wud broke his word, sar?' said the old negress,

bridling up her bent form, and speaking in a tone in which indignation

mingled with wounded dignity; 'p'raps gemmen do dat at de Norf--dey

neber does it har.'

'Excuse me, Aunty; I know your master is a man of honor; but he's very

much excited, and very angry with Scip.'

'No matter for dat, sar; Massa Davy neber done a mean ting sense he war

born.'

'Massa K---- tinks a heap ob de Gunnel, Aunty; but he reckons he'm sort

o' crazy now; dat make him afeard,' said Scip, in an apologetic tone.

'What ef he am crazy? You'se safe _har_,' rejoined the old woman,

dropping her aged limbs into a chair, and rocking away with much the

same air which ancient white ladies occasionally assume.

'Won't you ax Massa K---- to a cheer?' said Scip; 'he hab ben bery kine

to me.'

The negress then offered me a seat; but it was some minutes before I

rendered myself sufficiently agreeable to thaw out the icy dignity of

her manner. Meanwhile I glanced around the apartment.

Though the exterior of the cabin was like the others on the plantation,

the interior had a rude, grotesque elegance about it far in advance of

any negro hut I had ever seen. The logs were chinked with clay, and the

one window, though destitute of glass, and ornamented with the

inevitable board-shutter, had a green moreen curtain, which kept out the

wind and the rain. A worn but neat and well-swept carpet partly covered

the floor, and on the low bed was spread a patch-work counterpane.

Against the side of the room opposite the door stood an antique,

brass-handled bureau, and an old-fashioned table, covered with a faded

woolen cloth, occupied the centre of the apartment. In the corner near

the fire was a curiously-contrived side-board, made of narrow strips of

yellow pine, tongued and grooved together, and oiled so as to bring out

the beautiful grain of the wood. On it were several broken and cracked

glasses, and an array of irregular crockery. The rocking-chair, in which

the old negress passed the most of her time, was of mahogany, wadded and

covered with chintz, and the arm-seat I occupied, though old and patched

in many places, had evidently moved in good society.

The mistress of this second-hand furniture establishment was arrayed in

a mass of cast-off finery, whose gay colors were in striking contrast

with her jet-black skin and bent, decrepit form. Her gown, which was

very short, was of flaming red and yellow worsted stuff, and the

enormous turban that graced her head and hid all but a few tufts of her

frizzled, 'pepper-and-salt' locks, was evidently a contribution from the

family stock of worn-out pillow-cases. She was very aged,--upwards of

seventy,--and so thin that, had she not been endowed with speech and

motion, she might have passed for a bundle of whalebone thrown into

human shape, and covered with a coating of gutta-percha. It was evident

she had been a valued house-servant, whose few remaining years were

being soothed and solaced by the kind and indulgent care of a grateful

master.

Scip, I soon saw, was a favorite with the old-negress, and the marked

respect he showed me quickly dispelled the angry feeling excited by my

doubts of 'Massa Davy,' and opened her heart and her mouth at the same

moment. She was terribly garrulous; her tongue, as soon as it got under

way, ran on as if propelled by machinery and acquainted with the secret

of perpetual motion; but she was an interesting study. The

single-hearted attachment she showed for her master and his family gave

me a new insight into the practical working of 'the peculiar

institution,' and convinced me that even slavery, in some of its

aspects, is not so black as it is painted.

When we were seated, I said to Scip, 'What induced you to lay hands on

the Colonel? It is death, you know, if he enforces the law.'

'I knows dat, massa; I knows dat; but I had to do it. Dat Moye am de ole

debil, but de folks round har wud hab turned on de Cunnel, shore, ef

he'd killed him. Dey don't like de Cunnel; dey say he'm a stuck-up

seshener.'

'The Colonel, then, has befriended you at some time?'

'No, no, sar; 'twarn't dat; dough I'se know'd him a long w'ile,--eber

sense my ole massa fotched me from de Habana,--but 'twarn't dat.'

'Then _why_ did you do it?'

The black hesitated a moment, and glanced at the old negress, then

said,--

'You see, massa, w'en I fuss come to Charles'n, a pore little ting, wid

no friend in all de worle, dis ole aunty war a mudder to me. She nussed

de Cunnel; he am jess like her own chile, and I know'd 'twud kill her ef

he got hisself enter trubble.'

I noticed certain convulsive twitchings about the corners of the old

woman's mouth as she rose from her seat, threw her arms around Scip,

and, in words broken by sobs, faltered out,--

'_You_ am my chile; I loves you better dan Massa Davy--better dan all de

worle.'

The scene, had they not been black, would have been one for a painter.

'You were the Colonel's nurse, Aunty,' I said, when she had regained her

composure. 'Have you always lived with him?'

'Yas, sar, allers; I nussed him, and den de chil'ren--all ob 'em.'

'All the children? I thought the Colonel had but one--Miss Clara.'

'Wal, he habn't, massa, only de boys.'

'What boys? I never heard he had sons.'

'Neber heerd of young Massa Davy, nor Massa Tommy! Hain't you _seed_

Massa Tommy, sar?'

'Tommy! I was told he was Madam P----'s son.'

'So he am; Massa Davy had _her_ long afore he had missus.'

The truth flashed upon me; but could it be possible? Was I in South

Carolina or in Utah?

'Who is Madam P----?' I asked.

The old woman hesitated a moment, as if in doubt whether she had not

said too much; but Scip quietly replied,--

'She'm jess what aunty am--_de Cunnel's slave!_'

'His _slave_! it can't be possible; she is white!'

'No, massa; she am brack, and de Cunnel's slave!'

Not to weary the reader with a long repetition of negro-English, I will

tell in brief what I gleaned from an hour's conversation with the two

blacks.

Madam P---- was the daughter of Ex-Gov. ----, of Virginia, by a

quarteron woman. She was born a slave, but was acknowledged as her

father's child, and reared in his family with his legitimate children.

When she was ten years of age her father died, and his estate proving

insolvent, the land and negroes were brought under the hammer. His

daughter, never having been manumitted, was inventoried and sold with

the other property. The Colonel, then just of age, and a young man of

fortune, bought her and took her to the residence of his mother in

Charleston. A governess was provided for her, and a year or two

afterwards she was taken to the North to be educated. There she was

frequently visited by the Colonel; and when fifteen her condition became

such that she was obliged to return home. He conveyed her to the

plantation, where her elder son, David, was soon afterwards born, 'Aunt

Lucy' officiating on the occasion. When the child was two years old,

leaving it in charge of the aged negress, she accompanied the Colonel to

Europe, where they remained for a year. Subsequently she passed another

year at a Northern seminary; and then, returning to the plantation, was

duly installed as its mistress, and had ever since presided over its

domestic affairs. She was kind and good to the negroes, who were greatly

attached to her, and much of the Colonel's wealth was due to her

excellent management of the estate.

Six years after the birth of 'young Massa Davy,' the Colonel married his

present wife, that lady having full knowledge of his left-handed

connection with Madam P----, and consenting that the 'bond-woman' should

remain on the plantation, as its mistress. The legitimate wife resided,

during most of the year, in Charleston, and when at the homestead took

little interest in domestic matters. On one of her visits to the

plantation, twelve years before, her daughter, Miss Clara, was born, and

within a week, and under the same roof, Madam P---- presented the

Colonel with a son,--the lad Thomas, of whom I have spoken. As the

mother was a slave, the children were so also at their birth, but _they_

had been manumitted by their father. One of them was being educated in

Germany; and it was intended that both should spend their lives in that

country, the taint in their blood being an insuperable bar to their ever

acquiring social position at the South.

As she finished the story, the old woman said, 'Massa Davy am bery kind

to de missus, sar, but he _love_ de ma'am; an' he can't help it, 'cause

she'm jess so good as de angels.'[K]

I looked at my watch,--it was nearly ten o'clock, and I rose to go. As I

did so the old negress said,--

'Don't yer gwo, massa, 'fore you hab sum ob aunty's wine; you'm good

friends wid Scip, and I knows _you'se_ not too proud to drink wid brack

folks, ef you am from de Norf.'

Being curious to know what quality of wine a plantation slave indulged

in, I accepted the invitation. She went to the side-board, and brought

out a cut-glass decanter, and three cracked tumblers, which she placed

on the table. Filling the glasses to the brim, she passed one to Scip,

and one to me, and, with the other in her hand, resumed her seat.

Wishing her a good many happy years, and Scip a pleasant journey home, I

emptied the glass. It was Scuppernong, and the pure juice of the grape!

'Aunty,' I said, 'this wine is as fine as I ever tasted.'

'Oh yas, massa, it am de raal stuff. I growed de grapes myseff.'

'You grew them?'

'Yas, sar, an' Massa Davy make de wine. He do it ebery yar for de ole

nuss.'

'The Colonel is very good. Do you raise anything else?'

'Yas, I hab collards and taters, a little corn, and most ebery ting.'

'But who does your work? _You_ certainly can't do it?'

'Oh, de ma'am looks arter dat, sar; she'm bery good to de ole aunty.'

Shaking hands with both the negroes, I left the cabin, fully convinced

that all the happiness in this world is not found within plastered

apartments.

The door of the mansion was bolted and barred; but, rapping for

admission, I soon heard the Colonel's voice asking, 'Who is there?'

Giving a satisfactory answer, I was admitted. Explaining that he

supposed I had retired to my room, he led the way to the library.

That apartment was much more elegantly furnished than the drawing-rooms.

Three of its sides were lined with books, and on the centre-table,

papers, pamphlets, and manuscripts were scattered in promiscuous

confusion. In an armchair near the fire, Madam P---- was seated,

reading. The Colonel's manner was as composed as if nothing had

disturbed the usual routine of the plantation; no trace of the recent

terrible excitement was visible; in fact, had I not been a witness to

the late tragedy, I should have thought it incredible that he, within

two hours, had been an actor in a scene which had cost a human being his

life.

'Where in creation have you been, my dear fellow?' he asked, as we took

our seats.

'At old Lucy's cabin, with Scip,' I replied.

'Indeed. I supposed the darky had gone.'

'No, he doesn't go till the morning.'

'I told you he wouldn't, David,' said Madam P----; 'now, send for

him,--do make friends with him before he goes.'

'No, Alice, it won't do. I bear him no ill-will, but it won't do. It

would be all over the plantation in an hour.'

'No matter for that; our people would like you the better for it.'

'No, no. I can't do it. I mean him no harm, but I can't do that.'

'He told me _why_ he interfered between you and Moye,' I remarked.

'Why did he?'

'He says old Lucy, years ago, was a mother to him; that she is greatly

attached to you, and it would kill her if any harm happened to you; and

that your neighbors bear you no good-will, and would have enforced the

law had you killed Moye.'

'It is true, David; you would have had to answer for it.'

'Nonsense! what influence could this North County scum have against

_me_?'

'Perhaps none. But that makes no difference; Scipio did right, and you

should tell him you forgive him.'