contracting parties. The Infernal Kite directly changed himself into a
winged Griffin, and seizing the Duke in the one clutch, and the trusty
Lion in the other, conveyed them both in one night from the Libyan coast
to Brunswick, the towering city, founded on the lasting basis of the
Harz, which even the lying prophecies of the Zillerfeld vaticinator have
not ventured to overthrow. There he set down his burden safely in the
middle of the market-place, and vanished, just as the watchman was
blowing his horn with intent to proclaim the hour of midnight, and then
carol forth a superannuated bridal-song from his rusty mum-washed
weasand. The ducal palace, and the whole city, still gleamed like the
starry heaven with the nuptial illumination; every street resounded with
the din and tumult of the gay people streaming forward to gaze on the
decorated bride, and the solemn torch-dance with which the festival was
to conclude. The Aeronaut, unwearied by his voyage, pressed on amid the
crowding multitude through the entrance of the Palace; advanced with
clanking spurs, under the guidance of his trusty Lion, to the
banquet-chamber; drew his sword, and cried: "With me, whoever stands by
Duke Henry; and to traitors, death and hell!" The Lion also bellowed, as
if seven thunders had been uttering their united voices; shook his awful
mane, and furiously erected his tail, as the signal of attack. The
cornets and kettle-drums struck silent suddenly, and a horrid sound of
battle pealed from the tumult in the wedding-hall, up to the very Gothic
roof, till the walls rang with it, and the thresholds shook.
The golden-haired bridegroom, and his party-coloured butterflies of
courtiers, fell beneath the sword of the Duke, as the thousand
Philistines beneath the ass's jaw-bone, in the sturdy fist of the son of
Manoah; and he who escaped the sword, rushed into the Lion's throat, and
was butchered like a defenceless lamb. When the forward wooer and his
retinue of serving-men and nobles were abolished, Duke Henry, having
used his household privilege as sternly as of old the wise Ulysses to
the wooing-club of his chaste Penelope, sat down to table, refreshed in
spirit, beside his wife, who was just beginning to recover from the
deadly fright his entrance had caused her. While briskly enjoying the
dainties of his cook, which had not been prepared for him, he cast a
glance of triumph on his new conquest, and perceived that she was bathed
in ambiguous tears, which might as well refer to loss as to gain.
However, like a man that knew the world, he explained them wholly to his
own advantage; and merely reproving her in gentle words for the hurry of
her heart, he from that hour entered upon all his former rights.
Count Ernst had often listened to this strange story, from the lips of
his nurse; yet in riper years, as an enlightened sceptic, entertained
doubts of its truth. But in the dreary loneliness of his Grated Tower,
the whole incident acquired a form of possibility, and his wavering
nursery belief increased almost to conviction. A transit through the air
appeared to him the simplest thing in nature, if the Prince of Darkness,
in the gloomy midnight, chose to lend his bat-wings for the purpose.
Though in obedience to his religious principles, he no night neglected
to cut a large cross before him as he went to sleep; yet a secret
longing awoke in his heart, without its own distinct consciousness, to
accomplish the same adventure. If a wandering mouse in the night-season
happened to scratch upon the wainscot, he immediately supposed the
Hellish Proteus was announcing his arrival, and at times in thought he
went so far as settling the freight charges beforehand. But except the
illusion of a dream, which juggled him into an aerial journey to his
German native land, the Count gained nothing by his nursery faith,
except employing with these fantasies a few vacant hours; and like a
reader of novels, transporting himself into the situation of the acting
hero. Why old Abaddon showed himself so sluggish in this case, when the
kidnapping of a soul was in the wind, and in all likelihood the
enterprise must have succeeded, may be accounted for in two ways. Either
the Count's Guardian Angel was more watchful than the one to whom Duke
Henry had intrusted the keeping of his soul, and resisted so stoutly
that the Evil One could get no advantage over him; or the Prince of the
Air had grown disgusted with the transport-trade in this his own
element, having been bubbled out of his stipulated freightage by Duke
Henry after all their engagements; for when it came to the point with
Henry, his soul was found to have so many good works on her side of the
account, that the scores on the Infernal tally were altogether cancelled
by them.
Whilst Count Ernst was weaving in romantic dreams a feeble shadow of
hope for deliverance from his captivity, and for a few moments in the
midst of them forgetting his dejection and misery, his returning
servants brought the Countess tidings that their master had vanished
from the camp, and none knew what had become of him. Some supposed that
he had been the prey of snakes or dragons; others that a pestilential
blast of wind had met him in the Syrian desert, and killed him; others
that he had been robbed and murdered, or taken captive, by some
plundering troop of Arabs. In one point all agreed: That he was to be
held _pro mortuo_, dead in law, and that the Countess was entirely
relieved and enfranchised from her matrimonial engagements. But to the
Countess herself, a secret foreboding still whispered that her lord was
alive notwithstanding. Nor did she by any means repress this thought,
which so solaced her heart; for hope is always the stoutest stay of the
afflicted, and the sweetest dream of life. To maintain it, she secretly
equipped a trusty servant, and sent him out for tidings, over sea into
the Holy Land. Like the raven from the Ark, this scout flew to and fro
upon the waters, and was no more heard of. Then she sent another forth;
who returned after several years' cruising over sea and land; but no
olive-leaf of hope was in his bill. Nevertheless the steadfast lady
doubted not in the least that she should yet meet her lord in the land
of the living: for she had a firm persuasion that so tender and true a
husband could not possibly have left the world without in the
catastrophe remembering his wife and little children at home, and giving
them some token of his death. Now, since the Count's departure, there
had nothing happened in the Castle; neither in the armoury by rattling
of the harness, nor in the garret by a rolling joist, nor in the
bed-chamber by a faint footstep, or heavy-booted tread. Nor had any
nightly moaning chanted its _Naenia_ down from the high battlements of
the palace; nor had the baleful bird Kreideweiss ever issued its
lugubrious death-summons. In the absence of all these signs of evil
omen, she inferred by the principles of female common-sense philosophy,
which even in our own times are by no means fallen into such desuetude
among the fair sex, as Father Aristotle's _Organum_ is among the male,
that her much-loved husband was still living; a conclusion, which we
know was perfectly correct. The fruitless issue of her first two
missions of discovery, the object of which was more important to her
than the finding of the Southern Polar Continent is to us, she allowed
not in the least to deter her from sending out a third Apostle into All
the World. This third was of a slow turn, and had imprinted on his mind
the adage, _As soon gets the snail to his bed as the swallow_; therefore
he called at every inn, and treated himself well. And it being
infinitely more convenient that the people whom he was to question about
his master should come to him, than that he should go tracking and
spying them out in the wide world, he determined on choosing a position
where he could examine every passenger from the East, with the insolent
inquisitiveness of a toll-man behind his barrier; and fixed his quarters
by the harbour of Venice. This Queen of the Waters was at that time, as
it were, the general gate, which all pilgrims and crusaders from the
Holy Land passed through in their way home. Whether this shrewd genius
chose the best or the worst means for discharging his appointed
function, will appear in the sequel.
After a seven-years narrow custody in the Grated Tower at Grand
Cairo,--a term which to the Count seemed far longer than to the Seven
Sleepers their seventy-years sleep in the Roman catacombs,--he concluded
himself to be forsaken of Heaven and Hell, and utterly gave up hope of
ever getting out in the body from this melancholy cage, where the kind
face of the sun was not allowed to visit him, and the broken daylight
struggled faintly in through a window secured with iron bars. His
devil-romance was long ago concluded; and his faith in miraculous
assistance from his Guardian Saint was lighter than a mustard-seed. He
vegetated rather than lived; and if in these circumstances any wish
arose in him, it was the wish to be annihilated.
From this lethargic stupor he was suddenly aroused by the rattling of a
bunch of keys, before the door of his cell. Since the day of his
entrance, his jailor had never more performed for him the office of
turnkey; for all the necessaries of the prisoner had been conveyed
through a trap-board in the door. Accordingly, it was not without long
resistance, and the bribery of a little vegetable oil, that the rusty
bolt obeyed him. But the creaking of the iron hinges, as the door went
up with reluctant grating, was to the Count a compound of more melodious
notes than ever came from the Harmonica of Franklin. A foreboding
palpitation of the heart set his stagnant blood in motion; and he
expected with impatient longing the intelligence of a change in his
fate: for the rest, it was indifferent to him whether it brought life or
death. Two black slaves entered with his jailor, at whose signal they
loosed the fetters from the prisoner; and a second mute sign from the
solemn graybeard commanded him to follow. He obeyed with faltering
steps; his feet refused their service, and he needed the support of the
two slaves, to totter down the winding stone stair. He was then
conducted to the Captain of the Prison, who, looking at him with a
reproachful air, thus spoke: "Obstinate Frank, what made thee hide the
craft thou art acquainted with, when thou wert put into the Grated
Tower? One of thy fellow-prisoners has betrayed thee, and informed us
that thou art a master in the art of gardening. Go, whither the will of
the Sultan calls thee; lay out a garden in the manner of the Franks, and
watch over it like the apple of thy eye; that the Flower of the World
may blossom in it pleasantly, for the adorning of the East."
If the Count had got a call to Paris to be Rector of the Sorbonne, the
appointment could not have astonished him more, than this of being
gardener to the Sultan of Egypt. About gardening he understood as little
as a laic about the secrets of the Church. In Italy, it is true, he had
seen many gardens; and at Nuernberg, where the dawn of that art was now
first penetrating into Germany, though the horticultural luxury of the
Nuernbergers did not yet extend much farther than a bowling-green, and a
few beds of roman lettuce. But about the planning of gardens, and the
cultivation of plants, like a martial nobleman, he had never troubled
his head; and his botanic science was so limited, that the Flower of the
World had never once come under his inspection. Hence he knew not in the
least by what method it was to be treated; whether like the aloe it must
be brought to blossom by the aid of art, or like a common marigold by
the genial virtue of nature alone. Nevertheless, he did not venture to
acknowledge his ignorance, or decline the preferment offered him; being
reasonably apprehensive that they might convince him of his fitness for
the post, by a bastinading on the soles.
A pleasant park was assigned him, which he was to change into a European
garden. The spot had, either by the hand of bountiful Nature, or of
ancient cultivation, been so happily disposed and ornamented already,
that the new Abdalonymus, let him cudgel his brains as he would, could
perceive no error or defect in it, nothing that admitted of improvement.
Besides, the aspect of living and active nature, which for seven long
years in his dreary prison he had been obliged to forego, affected him
at once so powerfully, that he inhaled rapture from every grass-flower,
and looked at all things around him with delight, like the First Man in
Paradise, to whom the scientific thought of censuring anything in the
arrangement of his Eden did not occur. The Count therefore found himself
in no small embarrassment about discharging his commission creditably;
he feared that every change would rob the garden of a beauty, and were
he detected as a botcher, he must travel back into his Grated Tower.
In the mean time, as Shiek Kiamel, Overseer of the Gardens and favourite
of the Sultan, was diligently stimulating him to begin the work, he
required fifty slaves, as necessary for the execution of his enterprise.
Next morning at dawn, they were all ready, and passed muster before
their new commander, who as yet saw not how he should employ a man of
them. But how great was his joy as he perceived the mottled Kurt and the
ponderous Groom, his two companions of misfortune, ranked among the
troop! A hundredweight of lead rolled off his heart, the wrinkle of
dejection vanished from his brow, and his eyes were enlightened, as if
he had dipt his staff in honey and tasted thereof. He led the trusty
Squire aside, and frankly informed him into what a heterogeneous element
he had been cast by the caprices of fate, where he could neither fly nor
swim; nor could he in the least comprehend what enigmatical mistake had
exchanged his knightly sword with the gardener's spade. No sooner had he
done speaking, than the mettled Kurt, with wet eyes, fell at his feet,
then lifted up his voice and said: "Pardon, dear master! It is I that
have caused your perplexity and your deliverance from the rascally
Grated Tower, which has kept you so long in ward. Be not angry that the
innocent deceit of your servant has brought you out of it; be glad
rather that you see God's sky again above your head. The Sultan required
a garden after the manner of the Franks, and had proclamation made to
all the Christian captives in the Bazam, that the proper man should step
forth, and expect great recompense if the undertaking prospered. No one
of them durst meddle with it; but I recollected your heavy durance. Then
some good spirit whispered me the lie of announcing you as an adept in
the art of gardening, and it has succeeded perfectly. And now never vex
yourself about the way of managing the business: the Sultan, like the
great people of the world, has a fancy not for something better than he
has already, but for something different, that may be new and singular.
Therefore, delve and devastate, and cut and carve, in this glorious
field, according to your pleasure; and depend upon it, everything you do
or purpose will be right in his eyes."
This speech was as the murmur of a running brook in the ears of a tired
wanderer in the desert. The Count drew balsam to his soul from it, and
courage to commence with boldness the ungainly undertaking. He set his
men to work at random, without plan; and proceeded with the well-ordered
shady park, as one of your "bold geniuses" proceeds with an antiquated
author, who falls into his creative hands, and, nill he will he, must
submit to let himself be modernised, that is to say, again made readable
and likeable; or as a new pedagogue with the ancient forms of the
Schools. He jumbled in variegated confusion what he found before him,
making all things different, nothing better. The profitable fruit-trees
he rooted out, and planted rosemary and valerian, and exotic shrubs, or
scentless amaranths, in their stead. The rich soil he dug away, and
coated the naked bottom with many-coloured gravel, which he carefully
stamped hard, and smoothed like a threshing-floor, that no blade of
grass might spring in it. The whole space he divided into various
terraces, which he begirt with a hem of green; and through these a
strangely-twisted flower-bed serpentised along, and ended in a knot of
villanously-smelling boxwood. And as from his ignorance of botany, he
paid no heed to the proper seasons for sowing and planting, his garden
project hovered for a long time between life and death, and had the
aspect of a suit of clothes _a feuille mourante_.
Shiek Kiamel, and the Sultan himself, allowed the Western gardener to
take his course, without deranging his conception by their interference
or their dictatorial opinion, and by premature hypercriticism
interrupting the procedure of his horticultural genius. In this they
acted more wisely than our obstreperous public, which, from our famous
philanthropic scheme of sowing acorns, expected in a summer or two a
stock of strong oaks, fit to be masts for three-deckers; while the
plantation was as yet so soft and feeble, that a few frosty nights might
have sent it to destruction. Now, indeed, almost in the middle of the
second decade of years from the commencement of the enterprise, when the
first fruits must certainly be over-ripe, it were in good season for a
German Kiamel to step forward with the question: "Planter, what art thou
about? Let us see what thy delving, and the loud clatter of thy cars and
wheelbarrows have produced?" And if the plantation stood before him like
that of the Gleichic Garden at Grand Cairo, in the sere and yellow leaf,
then were he well entitled, after due consideration of the matter, like
the Shiek, to shake his head in silence, to spit a squirt through his
teeth, and think within himself: If this be all, it might have stayed as
it was. For one day, as the gardener was surveying his new creation with
contentment, sitting in judgment on himself, and pronouncing that the
work praised the master, and that, everything considered, it had fallen
out better than he could have anticipated, his whole ideal being before
his eyes, not only what was then, but what was to be made of it,--the
Overseer, the Sultan's favourite, stept into the garden, and said:
"Frank, what art thou about? And how far art thou got with thy labour?"
The Count easily perceived that the produce of his genius would now have
to stand a rigorous criticism; however, he had long been ready for this
accident. He collected all his presence of mind, and answered
confidently: "Come, sir, and see! This former wilderness has obeyed the
hand of art, and is now moulded, after the pattern of Paradise, into a
scene which the Houris would not disdain to select for their abode." The
Shiek, hearing a professed artist speak with such apparent warmth and
satisfaction of his own performance, and giving the master credit for
deeper insight in his own sphere than he himself possessed, restrained
the avowal of his discontentment with the whole arrangement, modestly
ascribing this dislike to his inacquaintance with foreign taste, and
leaving the matter to rest on its own basis. Nevertheless, he could not
help putting one or two questions, for his own information; to which the
garden satrap was not in the least behindhand with his answers.
"Where are the glorious fruit-trees," began the Shiek, "which stood on
this sandy level, loaded with peaches and sweet lemons, which solaced
the eye, and invited the promenader to refreshing enjoyment?"
"They are all hewn away by the surface, and their place is no longer to
be found."
"And why so?"
"Could the garden of the Sultan admit such trash of trees, which the
commonest citizen of Cairo cultivates, and the fruit of which is offered
for sale by assloads every day?"
"What moved thee to desolate the pleasant grove of dates and tamarinds,
which was the wanderer's shelter against the sultry noontide, and gave
him coolness and refection under the vault of its shady boughs?"
"What has shade to do in a garden which, while the sun shoots forth
scorching beams, stands solitary and deserted, and only exhales its
balsamic odours when fanned by the cool breeze of evening?"
"But did not this grove cover, with an impenetrable veil, the secrets of
love, when the Sultan, enchanted by the charms of a fair Circassian,
wished to hide his tenderness from the jealous eyes of her companions?"
"An impenetrable veil is to be found in that bower, overarched with
honeysuckle and ivy; or in that cool grotto, where a crystal fountain
gushes out of artificial rocks into a basin of marble; or in that
covered walk with its trellises of clustering vines; or on the sofa,
pillowed with soft moss, in the rustic reed-house by the pond; nor will
any of these secret shrines afford lodging for destructive worms, and
buzzing insects, or keep away the wafting air, or shut up the free
prospect, as the gloomy grove of tamarinds did."
"But why hast thou planted sage, and hyssop which grows upon the wall,
here on this spot where formerly the precious balm-tree of Mecca
bloomed?"
"Because the Sultan wanted no Arabian, but a European garden. In Italy,
and in the German gardens of the Nuernbergers, no dates are ripened, nor
does any balm-tree of Mecca bloom."
To this last argument no answer could be made. As neither the Shiek nor
any of the Heathen in Cairo had ever been at Nuernberg, he had nothing
for it but to take this version of the garden from Arabic into German,
on the word of the interpreter. Only, he could not bring himself to
think that the present horticultural reform had been managed by the
pattern of the Paradise, appointed by the Prophet for believing
Mussulmans; and, allowing the pretension to be true, he promised to
himself, from the joys of the future life, no very special consolation.
There was nothing for him, therefore, but, in the way above mentioned,
to shake his head, contemplatively squirt a dash of liquid out over his
beard, and go the way whence he had come.
The Sultan who at that time swayed the Egyptian sceptre was the gallant
Malek al Aziz Othman, a son of the renowned Saladin. The fame of Sultan
Malek rests less upon his qualities in the field or the cabinet, than
upon the unexampled numerousness of his offspring. Of princes he had so
many, that had every one of them been destined to wear a crown, he might
have stocked with them all the kingdoms of the then known world.
Seventeen years ago, however, this copious spring had, one hot summer,
finally gone dry. Princess Melechsala terminated the long series of the
Sultanic progeny; and, in the unanimous opinion of the Court, she was
the jewel of the whole. She enjoyed to its full extent the prerogative
of youngest children, preference to all the rest; and this distinction
was enhanced by the circumstance, that of all the Sultan's daughters,
she alone had remained in life; while Nature had adorned her with so
many charms, that they enchanted even the paternal eye. For this must in
general be conceded to the Oriental Princes, that in the scientific
criticism of female beauty they are infinitely more advanced than our
Occidentals, who are every now and then betraying their imperfect
culture in this point.[18] Melechsala was the pride of the Sultan's
family; her brothers themselves were unremitting in attentions to her,
and in efforts to outdo each other in affectionate regard. The grave
Divan was frequently employed in considering what Prince, by means of
her, might be connected, in the bonds of love, with the interest of the
Egyptian state. This her royal father made his smallest care; he was
solely and incessantly concerned to grant this darling of his heart her
every wish, to keep her spirit always in a cheerful mood, that no cloud
might overcast the serene horizon of her brow.
[18] _Journal of Fashions_, June 1786.