Massachusetts forces: but still retained his post as President of the
Provincial Congress. He seems to have combined, with rare felicity,
the qualities of a civil and a military leader. Cool yet brave, gentle
yet decided and firm, he was precisely fitted to teach and enforce
order and discipline. Mingling in the ranks, and talking with
individual soldiers as with brothers, he gained their love, and
infused into them his own ardor and sanguine confidence. He acted with
equal talent in civil council. He spent a part of each day in sharing
the deliberations of the Congress, which sat now at Watertown, ten
miles northwest from Boston. His labors ended there, he would gallop
to the camp at Cambridge. When the American commanders deliberated
upon the seizure and fortification of Dorchester Heights and Bunker
Hill, with a view to strike at the enemy's shipping, or to anticipate
them in a similar movement,--Warren opposed it. Our raw troops, he
thought, were not yet ready to cope with the trained veterans of
England. Putnam, then commander-in-chief at Cambridge, thought
differently. Warren renewed his opposition before the committee of
safety and the council of war: but when these bodies successively
resolved upon the measure, he promptly gave his whole heart to promote
its success; repeating his determination, to be, himself, ever at the
post of greatest danger. On the 16th of June, when Col. Prescott
received his orders, and marched with his thousand men to fortify
Bunker's Hill, the session at Watertown was so protracted, that Warren
could not leave it until late at night. So soon as he could, he
prepared to join Prescott--despite the dissuasion of his friends. To
their assurances, that most of the detachment, and especially
he--daring and conspicuous as he was--would in all probability be cut
off; and that he could not be spared so soon from the cause; he
replied, "I cannot help it: I must share the fate of my countrymen. I
cannot hear the cannon and remain inactive." Among the most intimate
of these friends, was the afterwards distinguished Elbridge Gerry;
with whom he lodged regularly in the same room, and, on that last
night, in the same bed. To him;--when they parted after midnight,
Warren uttered the sentiment--so truly Roman, and in this instance so
prophetic--"_dulce et decorum est, pro patria mori_." By day-break, he
was at the camp in Cambridge; where, finding that the British had not
shewn themselves, and sick with an aching head, from mental and bodily
toil, he lay down, to snatch a little repose. But he was soon roused
by tidings, that the enemy were in motion: and instantly rising, he
exclaimed, "my headache is gone." Others doubted what the object of
the enemy's threatened movement was. He at once saw it to be, the
unfinished fortification upon Bunker Hill. The committee of safety
(which sat in the house where he was) having resolved immediately to
despatch a reinforcement thither, Warren mounted his horse, and with
sword and musket, hastened to the scene of strife. He arrived just as
the fight began, and seeking out General Putnam, (who was already
there) desired to be posted where the service was to be most arduous.
Putnam expressed his sorrow at seeing him, in a place so full of
peril: "but since you have come," added he, "I will obey your orders
with pleasure." Warren replied, that he came as a volunteer--to obey
and fight; not to command. Putnam then requested him to take his stand
in the redoubt, where Prescott commanded, and which was considerably
in advance of the slighter defence, behind which Putnam and his men
were stationed. On his entering the redoubt, he was greeted with loud
huzzas: and Prescott, like Putnam, offered him the command. He again
refused it; saying, that he was a mere volunteer, and should be happy
to learn service from so experienced a soldier. We cannot, thrilling
as they are to our recollections, undertake to narrate the well known
particulars of that great day. But we commend the story, as told by
the authoress before us, to the attention of our readers. Our business
is with General Warren. He was constantly active; going through the
ranks, cheering on his comrades, sharing their perils, and plying his
musket against the advancing enemy. When the British had twice been
driven from the height, with a thousand slain; when the exhaustion of
powder and ball, leaving the Americans no means of resistance but
clubbed guns, against fixed bayonets and fourfold numbers, necessarily
made the third onset successful--Warren was the last to leave his
station. The slowest in that slow and reluctant retreat, he struggled
for every foot of ground; disdaining to quicken his steps, though
bullets whizzed and blood streamed all around him. Major Small, of the
British army, recognized him; and eager to save his life, called upon
him for God's sake to stop, and be protected from destruction. Warren
turned and looked towards him: but sickening at the sight and the
thought of his slaughtered countrymen and of the lost battle, again
moved slowly off as before. Major Small then ordered his men not to
fire at the American General: but it was too late. Just as the order
was given, a ball passed through his head; he fell, and expired.
His body lay on the field all the next night. When one who knew his
person, told General Howe the next morning that Warren was among the
slain, he would not believe it; declaring it _impossible_ that the
President of the Congress should have been suffered to expose himself
so hazardously. An English surgeon, however, who had also known
Warren, identified his corpse; and, to prove the daring of which he
was capable, added, that but five days before, he had ventured alone
into Boston in a small canoe, to learn the plans of the British; and
had urged the surgeon to enter into the American service. General Howe
declared, that the death of one such adversary balanced the loss of
500 of his own men. Warren's body was buried with many others, English
and American, near the spot where he fell; whence, sometime
afterwards, it was removed to the Tremont burying ground, and finally
to the family vault under St. Paul's Church, in Boston. His brothers,
at the first disinterment, knew his remains by an artificial tooth, by
a nail wanting on one of his fingers, and by his clothes, in which he
was buried just as he fell. His youngest brother, Dr. John Warren, at
first sight of the body, fainted away, and lay for many minutes
insensible on the ground. We draw a veil over the grief of his mother,
when, after a torturing suspense of three days, the dreadful truth was
disclosed to her. In General Warren's pocket, an English soldier found
a prayer book, with the owner's name written in it. The soldier
carried it to England, and sold it for a high price to a kind-hearted
clergyman, who benevolently transmitted it to a minister in Roxbury,
with a request that he would restore it to the general's nearest
relation. It was accordingly given to his youngest brother, whose son,
Dr. John C. Warren, still retains it. It was printed in 1559, in a
character remarkably distinct, and is strongly and handsomely bound.
If our due space had not already been exceeded, we would include in
this sketch several other interesting particulars, connected with its
illustrious subject: but we must forbear.
There were ample contemporaneous testimonials to the merits of General
Warren. Amongst others, was a vote of the general Congress, that a
monument should be erected to his memory, "as an acknowledgment of his
virtues and distinguished services;" and that his children should be
supported at the public charge. Like the prayers of Homer's heroes,
this vote was half dispersed in empty air: the other half took effect,
so far as the annual payment of a moderate sum went, towards the
maintenance and education of the children. It is not until she has
mentioned this fact, that our authoress bethinks her of saying, that
General Warren was married to an excellent and amiable woman, who died
three years before him; and that he left four orphan children. So
important an event in human life might surely have been earlier told,
and more regardfully dwelt upon. We would fain have had something said
of _his_ domestic life, who filled so large a space in his country's
eye; something to exemplify what we hold as an everlasting truth--that
a good son and a true patriot is sure to make a true husband and a
good father. Situated as she is, our authoress cannot fail, by
reasonable diligence of inquiry, to learn many things, worthy of the
improved edition which we hope to see, of her interesting and
valuable, though so faulty production.
We, as one of the posterity whose gratitude and admiration General
Warren so richly earned, can read in his destiny more than a
fulfilment of the augury contained in the official account of the
Battle of Bunker Hill, drawn up by the Provincial Congress. It speaks
of him as "a man, whose memory will be endeared to his countrymen, and
to the worthy in every part and age of the world, so long as VALOUR
shall be esteemed among mankind." To VALOUR, we would add the lovelier
and nobler names of COURTESY, GENEROSITY, and INTEGRITY.
For the Southern Literary Messenger.
TO CHRISTIANA.
Sister, while life and joy are young,
While the sweet lyre of hope is strung,
Ere thou hast known a crowd of cares,
Earth's vain regrets and burning tears--
Ere the sick heart of grief is thine,
Or rapture's thrilling pulse decline--
Ere wounded pride and love shall tell
That thou hast served the world too well,
Turn thou to worship at the shrine
Of faith and holy love divine!
Bring all thy strength of feeling there;
Wait not to waste affection where
No harvest ever can repay
For all thou losest by delay.
Seek the bright path the saints have trod;
At his own altar worship God;
And find that peace whilst kneeling there
The world can neither give nor share.
Mourn thou with hope--with fear rejoice;
List to that small but awful voice,
Which tells us all things fade and die
To bloom no more beneath the sky.
Earth's brightest dreams soon melt away,
Her forms of loveliness decay--
And disappointment's chilling gloom
Blights all her flowers of fairest bloom;
But oh, remember, there is bliss
In a far better land than this:
Look thou beyond this world of care,
And hope a fadeless crown to wear.
Then may distress and sorrow come,
_Thy_ soul can ever find a home!
E. A. S.
For the Southern Literary Messenger.
THE FRIENDS OF MAN.
The young babe sat on its mother's knee,
Shaking its coral and bells with glee,
When Hope drew near with a seraph smile,
And kiss'd the lips that had spoke no guile,
Nor breath'd the words of sorrow.
Its little sister brought a flower,
And Hope still lingering nigh,
With sunny tress and sparkling eye,
Whisper'd of buds in a brighter bower
It might cull for itself to-morrow.
The boy came in from the wintry snow,
And mus'd by the parlor fire,--
But ere the evening lamps did glow
A stranger came with a thoughtful brow;
"What is that in your hand?" she said;
"My new-year's gift, with its covers red."
"Bring hither the book, my boy, and see
The magic spell of Memory;--
That page hath gold, and a way I'll find
To lock it safe in your docile mind:
For books have honey, the sages say,
That is sweet to the taste, when the hair is grey."
The youth at midnight sought his bed,
But ere he closed his eyes
Two forms drew near with a gentle tread,
In meek and saintly guise;
One struck a lyre of wondrous power,
With thrilling music fraught,
That chain'd the flying summer hour,
And charm'd the listener's thought--
For still would its tuneful cadence be,
"Follow me! Follow me!
And every morn a smile shall bring
As sweet as the merry lay I sing."
But when she ceas'd, with serious air
The other made reply,
"Shall he not also be my care?
May not I his pleasures share?
Sister! Sister! tell me why?
Need Memory e'er with Hope contend?
Doth not the virtuous soul still find in both a friend?"
The youth beheld the strife,
And earnestly replied,
"Come, each shall be my guide--
Both gild the path of life:"
So he gave to each a trusting kiss,
And laid him down, and his dream was bliss.
The man came forth to run his race,
And ever when the morning light
Rous'd him from the trance of night,
When singing from her nest
The lark went up with a dewy breast,
Hope by his pillow stood with angel grace--
And as a mother cheers her son,
She girded his daily harness on.
And when the star of eve from weary care
Bade him to his home repair;
When by the hearth-stone where his joys were born,
The cricket wound its tiny horn,
Sober Memory spread her board,
With knowledge richly stor'd,
And supp'd with _him_, and like a guardian blest
His nightly rest.
The old man sat in his elbow-chair,
His locks were thin and grey--
Memory, that faithful friend was there,
And he in a querulous tone did say,
"Hast thou not lost with careless key
Something that I have entrusted to thee?"
Her pausing answer was sad and low,
"It may be so! It may be so!
The lock of my casket is worn and weak,
And Time with a plunderer's eye doth seek:
Something I miss, but I cannot say
What it is he hath stolen away--
For it seems that tinsel and trifles spread
Over the alter'd path we tread:
But the gems thou didst give me when life was new,
Look! here they are, all told and true,
Diamonds and rubies of changeless hue."
Thus, while in grave debate,
Mournful and ill at ease they sate,
Finding treasures disarranged,
Blaming the fickle world, when they themselves were chang'd,
Hope, on a brilliant wing did soar,
Which folded neath her robe she long had wore,
And spread its rainbow plumes with new delight,
And hazarded its strength in a bold heavenward flight.
The dying lay on his couch of pain,
And his soul went forth to the angel train--
Yet when heaven's gate its golden bars undrew,
Memory walked that portal through,
And spread her tablet to the Judge's eye,
Heightening with clear response the welcome of the sky.
But at that threshold high,
Hope faltered with a drooping eye,
And as the expiring rose
Doth in its last adieu its sweetest breath disclose,
Laid down to die.
As a spent harp its symphony doth roll,
Faintly her parting sigh
Greeted a glorious form that stood serenely by:
"Earth's pilgrim I resign;
I cheered him to his grave--I lov'd him--he was mine;
Christ hath redeemed his soul--
Immortal Joy! 'tis thine."
L. H. S.
_Hartford, Con. Sept. 1835_.
For the Southern Literary Messenger.
THOUGHTS.
Oh Britain! on thy far, far distant shores,
Mid scenes of grandeur, scenes with beauty fraught,
Oft do I wish to stray, when fancy pours
Her rainbow colors in the urn of thought.
Each crumbling tower, and each enchanted wood,
And every haunted glen by Poets sung--
Each mountain, forest, valley, field, or flood,
O'er which romance her magic veil has hung;
Thy "stately homes," the beautiful, the grand--
Each "breezy lawn," and each embowering tree,
In Albion clothed by nature's partial hand
In bloom and verdure--all I seem to see.
I picture to myself thy regal halls,
Where pomp and splendor hold an equal sway;
Thy palaces, within whose time-stained walls
Kings have been born, have lived, and passed away;
That ancient pile,[1] where gloom and silence keep
Their vigils o'er the great and honored dead--
Where princes proud, and gifted poets sleep,
Each laid forever in his narrow bed;
The spots that hallowed in thy history stand,
The graves of those whose mem'ries cannot die,
With living gems that still adorn thy land,
All, all appear to fancy's ardent eye.
Parent thou art of many a cherished son,
And many a daughter crowned with wreaths of fame,
Whose talents high, or virtues rare have won
An ever glorious, ever honored name.
A Milton's genius awfully sublime,
A Shakspeare's wit in nature's garments drest,
A Scott whose fame can only end with time,
Sprung from thy soil, and sleep within its breast.
A Campbell's pure and chastened flow of thought,
A Hemans' skill poetic flowers to twine,
A Bulwer's matchless page with interest fraught,
A Landon's love-tuned lyre, all--all are thine!
But oh, between my own blest land and thee
Old Ocean's wide and restless waters spread;
Thy gifted great I may not hope to see,
And on thy shores I know I ne'er shall tread.
Yet the free spirit roves where I would go,
To other climes, the beautiful and bright,
Through fields of air, o'er ocean's trackless flow,
Eager, unchecked and chainless in its flight!
E. A. S.
[Footnote 1: Westminster Abbey.]
For the Southern Literary Messenger.
KING PEST THE FIRST.
A TALE CONTAINING AN ALLEGORY--BY ----.
The Gods do bear and well allow in kings
The things which they abhor in rascal routes.
_Buckhurst's Tragedy of Ferrex and Porrex_.
About twelve o'clock, one sultry night, in the month of August, and
during the chivalrous reign of the third Edward, two seamen belonging
to the crew of the "Free and Easy," a trading schooner plying between
Sluys and the Thames, and then at anchor in that river, were much
astonished to find themselves seated in the tap-room of an ale-house
in the parish of St. Andrews, London--which ale-house bore for sign
the portraiture of a "Jolly Tar."
The room, it is needless to say, although ill-contrived,
smoke-blackened, low-pitched, and in every other respect agreeing with
the general character of such places at the period--was, nevertheless,
in the opinion of the grotesque groups scattered here and there within
it, sufficiently well adapted for its purpose.
Of these groups our two seamen formed, I think, the most interesting,
if not the most conspicuous.
The one who appeared to be the elder, and whom his companion addressed
by the characteristic appellation of "Legs," was also much the most
ill-favored, and, at the same time, much the taller of the two. He
might have measured six feet nine inches, and an habitual stoop in the
shoulders seemed to have been the necessary consequence of an altitude
so enormous.
Superfluities in height were, however, more than accounted for by
deficiencies in other respects. He was exceedingly, wofully, awfully
thin; and might, as his associates asserted, have answered, when
sober, for a pennant at the mast-head, or, when stiff with liquor,
have served for a jib-boom. But these jests, and others of a similar
nature, had evidently produced, at no time, any effect upon the leaden
muscles of the tar. With high cheek-bones, a large hawk-nose,
retreating chin, fallen under-jaw, and huge protruding white eyes, the
expression of his countenance, although tinged with a species of
dogged indifference to matters and things in general, was not the less
utterly solemn and serious beyond all attempts at imitation or
description.
The younger seaman was in all outward appearance, the antipodes of his
companion. His stature could not have exceeded four feet. A pair of
stumpy bow-legs supported his squat, unwieldy figure, while his
unusually short and thick arms, with no ordinary fists at their
extremities, swung off, dangling from his sides like the fins of a
sea-turtle. Small eyes, of no particular color, twinkled far back in
his head. His nose remained buried in the mass of flesh which
enveloped his round, full, and purple face; and his thick upper-lip
rested upon the still thicker one beneath with an air of complacent
self-satisfaction, much heightened by the owner's habit of licking
them at intervals. He evidently regarded his tall ship-mate with a
feeling half-wondrous, half-quizzical; and stared up occasionally in
his face as the red setting sun stares up at the crags of Ben Nevis.
Various and eventful, however, had been the peregrinations of the
worthy couple in and about the different tap-houses of the
neighborhood during the earlier hours of the night. Funds even the
most ample, are not always everlasting: and it was with empty pockets
our friends had ventured upon the present hostelrie.
At the precise period then, when this history properly commences,
Legs, and his fellow Hugh Tarpaulin, sat, each with both elbows
resting upon the large oaken table in the middle of the floor, and
with a hand upon either cheek. They were eyeing, from behind a huge
flagon of unpaid-for "humming-stuff," the portentous words "No Chalk,"
which to their indignation and astonishment were scored over the
door-way by means of that very identical mineral whose presence they
purported to deny. Not that the gift of decyphering written
characters--a gift among the commonalty of that day considered little
less cabalistical than the art of inditing--could, in strict justice,
have been laid to the charge of either disciple of the sea; but there
was, to say the truth, a certain twist in the formation of the
letters--an indescribable lee-lurch about the whole--which foreboded,
in the opinion of both seamen, a long run of dirty weather; and
determined them at once, in the pithy words of Legs himself, to "pump
ship, clew up all sail, and scud before the wind."
Having accordingly drank up what remained of the ale, and looped up
the points of their short doublets, they finally made a bolt for the
street. Although Tarpaulin rolled twice into the fire-place, mistaking
it for the door, yet their escape was at length happily effected--and
half after twelve o'clock found our heroes ripe for mischief, and
running for life down a dark alley in the direction of St. Andrew's
Stair, hotly pursued by the landlord and landlady of the "Jolly Tar."
* * * * *
At the epoch of this eventful tale, and periodically, for many years
before and after, all England, but more especially the metropolis,
resounded with the fearful cry of "Pest! Pest! Pest!" The city was in
a great measure depopulated--and in those horrible regions, in the
vicinity of the Thames, where amid the dark, narrow, and filthy lanes
and alleys, the Demon of Disease was supposed to have had his
nativity, awe, terror, and superstition were alone to be found
stalking abroad.
By authority of the king such districts were placed _under ban_, and
all persons forbidden, under pain of death, to intrude upon their
dismal solitude. Yet neither the mandate of the monarch, nor the huge
barriers erected at the entrances of the streets, nor the prospect of
that loathsome death which, with almost absolute certainty,
overwhelmed the wretch whom no peril could deter from the adventure,
prevented the unfurnished and untenanted dwellings from being
stripped, by the hand of nightly rapine, of every article such as
iron, brass, or lead-work, which could in any manner be turned to a
profitable account.
Above all, it was usually found, upon the annual winter opening of the
barriers, that locks, bolts, and secret cellars had proved but slender
protection to those rich stores of wines and liquors which, in
consideration of the risk and trouble of removal, many of the numerous
dealers having shops in the neighborhood had consented to trust,
during the period of exile, to so insufficient a security.
But there were very few of the terror-stricken people who attributed
these doings to the agency of human hands. Pest-Spirits,
Plague-Goblins, and Fever-Demons were the popular imps of mischief;
and tales so blood-chilling were hourly told, that the whole mass of
forbidden buildings was, at length, enveloped in terror as in a
shroud, and the plunderer himself was often scared away by the horrors
his own depredations had created; leaving the entire vast circuit of
prohibited district to gloom, silence, pestilence, and death.
* * * * *
It was by one of these terrific barriers already mentioned, and which
indicated the region beyond to be under the Pest-Ban, that, in
scrambling down an alley, Legs and the worthy Hugh Tarpaulin found
their progress suddenly impeded. To return was out of the question,
and no time was to be lost, as their pursuers were close upon their
heels. With thorough-bred seamen to clamber up the roughly fashioned
plank work was a trifle; and, maddened with the twofold excitement of
exercise and liquor, they leaped unhesitatingly down within the
enclosure, and holding on their drunken course with shouts and
yellings, were soon bewildered in its noisome and intricate recesses.
Had they not, indeed, been intoxicated beyond all sense of human
feelings, their reeling footsteps must have been palsied by the
horrors of their situation. The air was damp, cold and misty. The
paving stones loosened from their beds, lay in wild disorder amid the
tall, rank grass, which sprang up hideously around the feet and
ancles. Rubbish of fallen houses choked up the streets. The most fetid
and poisonous smells every where prevailed--and by the occasional aid
of that ghastly and uncertain light which, even at midnight, never
fails to emanate from a vapory and pestilential atmosphere, might be
discerned lying in the bypaths and alleys, or rotting in the
windowless habitations, the carcass of many a nocturnal plunderer
arrested by the hand of the plague in the very perpetration of his
robbery.
But it lay not in the power of images, or sensations, or impediments
like these, to stay the course of men who, naturally brave, and at
that time especially, brimful of courage and of "humming-stuff," would
have reeled, as straight as their condition might have permitted,
undauntedly into the very jaws of the Archangel Death. Onward--still
onward stalked the gigantic Legs, making the desolate solemnity echo
and re-echo with yells like the terrific warwhoop of the Indian: and
onward--still onward rolled the dumpy Tarpaulin, hanging on to the
doublet of his more active companion, and far surpassing the latter's
most strenuous exertions in the way of vocal music by bull-roarings
_in basso_, from the profundity of his Stentorian lungs.