ROBESPIERRE AND ST. JUST IN A CART CONDUCTED BY GUARDS TOWARDS THE
PLACE DE GRÊVE.
_St. Just._--So here ends our part in a tragic farce,
Hiss'd off the stage, my friend--ha, ha!
(_laughing_.)
I am content--I mean I am resigned--
As well die now as later. Does your wound
Pain you severely that you look so gravely?
Cheer thee, my comrade, we shall quickly learn
The last dread secret of our frail existence,
Few moments more will cut our barks adrift
Upon an ocean, boundless and unknown,
Even to ourselves who have despatched so many
To explore for us its dark and fathomless depths.
Give me some wine. (_they give him wine_.) Here's to a merry
voyage!
What in the fiend's name art thou musing on!
_Robes._--My thoughts were with the past--the days of youth,
And peace, and innocence, and woman's love,
And ardent hope--the blossoms of a life
So baleful in its fruits. This day, the last
Of my career, is the anniversary
Of one, from which my after life may date
Its withering influence. Wouldst thou not think
That I, whom thou hast known for a few years,
Must ever have been, even from my earliest youth,
A hard and cruel man?
_St. Just._--Much like myself.
I think you were no saint even when a child.
_Robes._--Such is the common blunder of the world
To think me, like the demon they believe in,
From the beginning, "murderer and liar;"
So let it be--I would not change their thoughts.
But I, St. Just, strange as it seems to you,
Even I, whose name, even in this age of crime,
Must stand aloft alone a blood-red beacon
And warning to posterity, was once
Young, warm, enthusiastic, generous,
Candid, affectionate, a son and brother,
But proud and sensitive. I lov'd a maid--
Yes, if entire and all-absorbed devotion
Of life and soul and being to her, were love--
If to be willing to lay down my life,
My hopes of fame and honorable notice,
And all the world holds dear, for her dear sake,
May be call'd love, then I most truly lov'd her.
I was a thriving lawyer, and could raise
My voice without reward to shield the oppress'd,
I lov'd my kind and bore a stainless name.
(_a funeral crosses the street_.)
_St. Just_ (_to the officer_.) Whose obsequies are these,
That look as if the dead one had _not_ perished
By trying our Republican proscription,
The guillotine?
_Officer._--'Tis Madame de la Harpe.
Your worthy friend there sent his satellites
To bring her to the bar of your tribunal,
The high-soul'd lady sooner than be made
A gaze for all the outcasts in the city,
As you are now, hurl'd herself from a window.
_Robes._--How strange a meeting this! Ah! foolish woman,
Had she but dar'd to live another day,
She might have died at ninety in her bed,
And I, who sought to escape her threatened doom,
Baffled of self-destruction, could not die.
(_they pass on_.)
(_to St. Just_.) How small a thing may sometimes change the stream
Of a man's life even to its source, to poison!
A trifle scarcely worthy of a name,
The sarcasms of a brute, while I was pleading
An orphan's cause, convulsed the court with mirth,
Marr'd all my rhetoric, and snatch'd the palm
Of truth and justice from my eager grasp--
My wrath boil'd forth--with loud and fierce reproach
I brav'd the judge, and thunder'd imprecations
On all around. This passion ruin'd me.
And she too laugh'd among that idiot throng--
Oh, tell not me of jealousy or hate
Or hunger for revenge--no sting so fierce,
So all tormenting to a proud man's soul
As public ridicule from lips belov'd.
Have they not rued it? Let yon engine tell:
(_pointing to the scaffold in the distance_.)
What I have been since then mankind have seen,
But could they see the scorpion that hath fed
Where once a heart beat in this breast of mine,
They would not marvel at my past career.
I quit the world with only one regret, {309}
I would have shown them how the scrivener,
Who with his tongue and pen hath rack'd this land,
Could plague it with a sword. Had yonder cowards
Who vainly hope to save themselves, but stood
As prompt to follow me as I to lead them,
Our faction would have rallied. Might the cries
Of death and rapine through this blazing city
Have been my funeral knell I had gladly died.
Then had they seen my spirit whelm'd and crush'd,
Yet gazing upward like the o'erthrown arch fiend
To a _loftier_ seat than that from which he fell.
But now----
_St. Just._--Regrets are useless! such as we
May not join hands or say farewell, like others;
But since we die together, let us face
This reptile crowd, like men who've been their lords,
And show them, though they slay, they cannot daunt
Those who were born to sway their destinies.
(_men and women surrounding the cart_.)
_1st Woman._--Descend to hell, I triumph in thy death!
Die, thou accurs'd of every wife and mother!
May every orphan's wail ring in thy ears,
And every widow's cry, and matron's groan!
_2d Woman._--Thine execution maddens me with joy:
Monster, depart--perish, even in thy crimes,
And may our curses sink thee into depths
Whence even omnipotent mercy will not raise thee!
(_they shout and hiss him_.)
_Robes._--Silence awhile these shouts, unfetter'd slaves,
Hear his last words, whose name but yesterday
Struck terror to your souls! Dare ye so soon
Think that your lives are safe, and I still breathing?
Deem ye the blow that speeds my dissolution
And gives my body to the elements,
Will be the signal to call freedom hither?
Will peace and virtue dwell among ye _then_?
Never! ye bondmen of your own vile passions;
For crested serpents are as meet to range
At large and poison-fang'd among mankind,
As ye who claim a birthright to be free.
Thank your own thirst of plunder and of blood,
That I, and such as I, could reign in France.
A tyrant ye _must_ have. I have been _one_,
And _such_ a one, that ages hence shall gaze,
Awe-struck on my pre-eminence in blood,
And men shall, marvelling, ask of your descendants
If that my name and deeds be not a fable.
I die--and, Frenchmen, triumph while you may!
The man breathes now and walks abroad among ye,
Who shall be my successor. I can see
Beyond the tomb--and when ye dare to rise
And beard the tyrant faction, now victorious,
His rule commences. He shall spill more blood
In one short day to crush your hopes of freedom,
Than I in half my reign--but God himself
Ne'er had the homage ye shall render _him_.
Champions of freedom, ye shall _worship_ him,
And in the name of liberty be plunder'd
Of all for which your sons have fought and died;
And in the name of glory he shall lead ye
On to perdition, and when ye have plac'd
Your necks beneath his feet, shall spend like dust
Your treasures and pour forth your bravest blood
To be the scourge of nations and of kings.
And he shall plant your eagles in the west,
And spread your triumphs even to northern snow,
Tormenting man and trampling every law,
Divine and human, till the very name
Of Frenchmen move to nought but hate and scorn.
Then heaven with storms, and earth with all her armies
Shall rise against ye, and the o'erwhelming tide
Of your vast conquests ebb in shame and ruin.
Then--false to honor, native land, and chief!--
Ye who could swarm like locusts on the earth
For glory or for plunder, shall desert,
Or Judas-like betray, the cause of freedom,
And tamely crouch to your now banish'd king,
When foreign swords instale him in his throne:
And laugh and sing while Prussians and Cossacks
Parade the streets of this vice-branded city,
And see without a blush the Austrian flag
And England's banner float o'er Notre Dame.
Bye-word among the nations! Fickle France!
Distant and doubtful is your day of freedom,
If ever it shall dawn, which it ne'er will,
Until ye learn, what my hate would not teach ye.
On, to the scaffold! May my blood infect
With its fierce mania every human heart--
Mourn'd as I am by none! May ye soon prove
Another ruler o'er this land like me.
WOMAN.
To woman is assigned the second grade in the order of created
beings. Man occupies the first, and to him she looks for earthly
support, protection, and a "present help" in time of need. The
stations which they occupy--the pursuits which they should engage
in--the legitimate aim to which their thoughts and wishes should
tend, are widely different, yet inseparably connected. To show the
error so prevalent in respect to these subjects, the improper mode
of education so generally adopted, and if possible, to assign to
woman her proper sphere, privileges and pursuits, is the object of
the present sketch. We have stated that woman is second _only_ in
the scale of created beings, and proceed to examine, first, the
important station which she occupies--secondly, the means usually
adopted for preparing her for this station--thirdly, the results
produced by those means--fourthly, the proper means--and lastly,
endeavor to illustrate the ideas advanced by the testimony of
history, and the observations drawn from real life.
1st. The important stations which she occupies. A daughter, a
sister--the friend and companion of both sexes and all ages--the
wife, the mistress, the mother--stations high, honorable, important.
In the second place, we will examine the means usually adopted for
preparing her for these elevated and important duties. View her
first the helpless infant--her heart uncorrupted by external
influences, and her mind, like the unsullied mirror, to be made the
reflector of those images and lessons, to which it is to be
subjected and exposed. Soon, however, the innocence of the infant
gives way to the frowardness and turbulence of the child. Generally,
no restraints of a salutary nature have been exercised over her
mind. The hacknied axiom, that "she is too young to understand," has
prevented any examination into her powers of perception or
reflection, and she has been left to follow {310} the desires of her
own heart. The petulance of a nurse, impatience or thoughtlessness
of a mother, may have frequently thwarted her little plans, or
denied her some indulgence. Her feelings were most frequently soured
by these restraints, ill humor or obstinacy was the usual
result--both either suffered to pass by unnoticed, or treated in a
manner calculated to engender feelings and passions, which in future
life are destined to exercise a powerful and painful influence over
her own happiness and that of others. Soon the child exchanges the
nursery for the school room. If her circumstances in life are
prosperous and _refined_, humorous studies and indiscriminately
selected accomplishments are forced upon her mind, or crowded upon
her hands; the former, impaired by early neglect, and enervated by
improper indulgences, is wholly incompetent to the task assigned it.
A superficial knowledge of many things is the usual result, while
her vanity, long fed by the praises of menials and imprudent
commendations of friends, visitors, &c. steps in and whispers to her
credulous ear, that she _is_, or _will_ be, all that woman _can_ or
_ought_ to be. During these school-day exercises, her mind has
frequently been edified by relations of future scenes of pleasure in
ball-rooms, theatres, assemblies, &c.--that she may shine in them
being the object of her present course of study; while tales of
rivalry, conquest, hatred and revenge, are frequently related in her
presence, or placed in her hands; things which, if not really
praiseworthy in themselves, are related and heard with an _eclat_,
that induces the belief that they are the inevitable attendants on
fashionable pleasures and high life. If a stimulant is applied to
urge her on to diligence, it is to excel some companion, or some
other like inducement, which must inevitably foster feelings of envy
or emulation, calculated to poison the fountain from which is to
flow the future stream of life. Such is a fashionable or popular
education. The next stage on which we behold her, is the broad
theatre of gay life. The duties of the daughter and sister she was
never taught, and is now acting under her third station--that of the
companion and friend of both sexes and most ages. If possessed of
personal attractions, she moves about--the little magnet of her
circle. Meeting with no events to arouse evil passions, she contents
herself with exercising a petty tyranny over the hearts of the
admiring swains, who follow, bow to, and flatter her. After a few
brief months or years of pleasure, she determines to marry; and at
length selects from her _train_ the wealthiest, handsomest, or most
admired of her suitors. Her heart has no part in this transaction.
Ignorant of the nature of love--ignorant of the principles necessary
to ensure happiness in the married state, she remains ignorant of
the exalting, ennobling influence, which it exercises over minds
capable of appreciating or enjoying its blessings. She is now the
wife--the mistress--the mother. Thus are rapidly crowded on her
duties, for which she was never prepared by education, and which she
is consequently incompetent to perform. Perhaps, for a season, the
current of her life runs smooth. Her husband--either blindly devoted
to her, or bent on the gratification of his own pleasures--allows
her unrestrained to mingle in the same pleasures and gay scenes in
which he found her. She is still seemingly amiable, and perhaps
considered quite a notable woman by the most of her companions.
But a change comes! the sun of prosperity withdraws his rays. She is
now forced to abandon that, which has hitherto formed all her
happiness. Need I describe the result. Her heart, unaccustomed to
disappointments or restraints, unfortified by holy principles,
unsustained by mental resources, and perhaps too little influenced
by conjugal devotion or maternal tenderness, either frets away the
smile of peace and rose of health; or, sunk in self-consuming
mortification, envy or some unholy passion, abandons itself to the
darkness of despair, the rust of inactivity, or the canker of
discontent. Her husband, if his pride and principles have survived
his ruined prospects, may struggle for a time to keep up the dignity
of a man; but his heart is chilled, his exertions are
paralyzed--domestic happiness he cannot find, and too frequently he
is driven abroad in search of those comforts and that peace, which
can be found at home alone.
This is no ideal picture--it is only one of the thousands which may
be found in real life. If we leave our own land and direct our
attention to those countries where women hold the reins of state, we
will only see the principles of early education more powerfully
displayed. Among savage nations (and what but want of early culture
makes a savage?) see the horrid Zingha, queen of Matamba and Angola.
Nursed in scenes of carnage and blood, what could she be but a
monster, the existence of whom would fain be believed to have sprung
but in the heated imagination of a dream? In a more civilized
country, behold Christina of Sweden. She was reared by her father to
be any thing but a useful woman. She knew no restraint when young,
and when she ascended the throne, knew no law but her own will--and
what was the result? Despised at home, and finding that even on a
throne she must in self-defence yield some of her feelings to
demands of others, rather than do so she abdicated it, and leaving
her native land, roamed among other nations, a reproach to her sex
and a general object of disgust. Look at Mary, Queen of England. Her
first lessons were malice and revenge, and faithfully did she
practise them when exalted to power. And we may name the beautiful
Anne Boleyn. Ambition was the goal to which all her early energies
were directed, and to ambition she sacrificed honor, humanity, and
eventually her life. In more modern times, the lovely lady Mary W.
Montague may be noticed. Endowed with talents, accomplishments,
beauty, rank, fortune, she seemed formed to move a bright and
favored star in the world's horizon. But no early discipline had
prepared her to be happy. United to a man who idolized her, and whom
she loved--what but the want of self-control and submission to the
will of others, caused her separation from a husband every way
worthy of her? But why enumerate other cases? These are but a few,
taken from among thousands of both modern and ancient times.
In the fourth place, we proceed to point out the remedy for these
evils, by briefly shewing some of the proper plans to be adopted in
education. We again assert, that in the nursery are first sown the
seeds of future character. Where is the prudent and observing
parent, that will not acknowledge, that at a very early age the
infant is capable of forming good or bad habits, and of
discriminating between the approbation or {311} displeasure shown
towards it. None, we presume, will gainsay this point. As soon then
as this intelligence on the part of a child is discovered, so soon
does a parent's duties begin, and if faithfully discharged, the task
of rearing up a useful and ornamental member of society, will be
found comparatively easy.
If taught then to yield its desires to parental wishes and
commands--taught that the path of duty is the path of
pleasure--convinced by every day's experience that the object of all
restraints is her good, and proving continually that her happiness
is her parent's great delight, she soon becomes, both by habit and
nature, submissive,--and consequently is at peace with herself and
all around her. If a sister, early does she learn, that affection
and tenderness to those so closely united to her, is a duty, the
performance of which, brings a sweet reward. Gradually are her
duties enlarging, and gradually is she prepared by judicious
government and good habits, to fulfil them.
When the nursery is exchanged for the school room, easy is the task
to lead that child on from knowledge to knowledge. The mind is not
crowded with many and incongruous studies--but gradually is it
enlarged, and its wants supplied by a well regulated course. If in a
situation to permit the acquirement of ornamental branches, she is
taught to regard them as the light dressings of the mind, intended
not to interfere with what is useful and solid, but as a recreation
and source of future pleasure to herself and friends. When the
mental powers are sufficiently expanded, to digest what is presented
to them, books of general knowledge and taste are allowed, while the
manners have been formed by good society, and the ideas arranged by
conversation, &c. If intended to mingle in a gay circle for a
season, her character is so formed as to be able to resist, in a
great degree, the snares to which such scenes usually expose the
young and thoughtless. Taught to regard these things as trifles
compared to the other pursuits of life, she enjoys without abusing
them, and willingly returns to the sweet domestic fireside, and the
pleasures and amusements within her own bosom.
The feelings which will exist between that daughter and her parents,
deserve to be considered. The filial care and tenderness which was
exercised over her mind, will not be forgotten or unrepaid. In all
times of doubt or difficulty, to a parent's bosom and counsel will
she fly, as her surest refuge. If about to settle in life, prudence
and the heart directs her choice. To her parents she confides the
feelings and hopes that agitate her bosom. On their judgment she
relies, and knowing their sentiments are governed by the desire to
see her happy, she is prepared to weigh all their reasons, and to
act with prudence. She was early taught to reflect, and is now
capable of acting, with dignity. Her heart is capable of _love_--she
has been taught the nature of the flame, and the only solid grounds
on which it could be reared. She is capable of discriminating
between a man of _ton_ and a man of worth. Most generally, such a
woman will marry well. The man of lightness, dissipation and folly,
rarely seeks her hand. He may and does admire her, but he feels his
own inferiority, and rarely wishes to form such an alliance.
The man of sense, of virtue, and of solidity, would seek such a
companion to share his pleasure and sooth his pain. Mutual
sympathies would engender mutual esteem, and on that foundation it
is easy, very easy to rear the altar of love. A union formed with
such feelings would most generally prove a happy one. If prosperous,
such a woman is qualified to use without abusing her blessings. The
lessons learnt at her first _home_ would be practised in her second,
and she would be likely to discharge with credit the duties of a
wife, a mother, and a mistress. If misfortunes came, she would be
prepared to brave the storm. Her affections, never set on earthly
pleasures and splendid scenes, would relinquish them without grief.
Her mind, stored with useful and ornamental information, would
furnish a treasury from whence her family and herself could draw
with profit and delight. In the humblest vale of poverty, such a
woman would be a blessing to her whole circle of associates, and in
most cases preserve the affection of her husband and raise a family,
respectable and useful. This too is no ideal picture. Such women
have been found in all ages, and such women may be raised up in
almost every circle of society. If denied the extended advantage
meant by a liberal or elegant education, the principles here laid
down may be carried to the peasant's cottage, as well as to the
splended domes of the rich and great. Among the biographies of women
in all civilized nations, many beautiful examples might be adduced.
Among the wives and mothers of our own land a rich collection might
be found. One thing is here worthy of record. In tracing the history
of nearly all the great men, with whose history we are acquainted,
whether remarkable for valor, piety, or any other noble attribute,
to a mother's influence is their eminence to be attributed, in a
greater or less degree. But it is needless to enumerate instances on
this occasion, as our sketch is already extended beyond the intended
limits. Should it give rise to inquiry and serious investigation on
this important subject, or furnish a hint worthy the attention of
the serious and anxious parent, the utmost ambition of the author
will be realized.
PAULINA.
LINES TO ----.
While yet the ling'ring blush of day
Hangs sweetly on the brow of even,
And birds and flowers their homage pay
In song and incense breathed to heaven,
Accept this tribute of a friend,
Whose heart of hearts for thee is glowing;
Who prays thy path of life may wend
Through light, and flowers forever blowing.
I've seen the midnight Cereus bloom;
Th' admiring throng around it gathered,
And ere they dreampt its rapid doom,
It breathed, it bloomed, collapsed and withered!
Thus youth and beauty fill the eye,
Dear lady! oft in bloomy weather,
And time scarce rolls the season by,
When with the leaf they fade together.
Though nature 'wails the dying leaf,
And sorrows o'er her silent bowers,
She soon forgets her gloom and grief
When dew-eyed spring revives her flowers; {312}
But when affection weeps for one,
Whose daily life new charms imparted,
Alas! what power beneath the sun
Can cheer the lone--the broken-hearted!
Friendship and love must ever mourn
The faded wreath of promised pleasure,
And though the flow'ers of hope lie torn
Fond mem'ry hoards the heart's lost treasure.
Oh! cherish then, that vestal flow'r!
Simplicity, dear maiden, cherish!
'Twill shed a fragrance o'er the hour
When all thy mortal charms shall perish!
M.
READINGS WITH MY PENCIL.
No. III.
Legere sine calamo est dormire.--_Quintilian_.
21. "There is a pride, in being left behind, to find resources
within, which others seek without."--_Washington Irving_.
I have pondered a good deal on this passage, and find a beautiful
moral in what, when I first read it, I was fain to fancy but a
misanthropic, or, at the least, an unsocial sentiment. I now feel
and acknowledge its truth. "There _is_ a pride in being left behind,
to find resources within, which others seek without." What concern
have I in the greater brightness that another's name is shedding?
Let them shine on whose honor is greater. Their orbit cannot
interfere with mine. There may be something very grand and sublime
in the wide sweep of Herschel and Saturn: but planets, whose path is
smaller, are more cheered by the rays of light and warmth from the
sun, which is the centre of their revolutions.
22. "Oh the hopeless misery of March in America. Poetry, taste,
fancy, feeling,--all are chilled by that ever-snowing sky, that ever
snow clad earth. Man were happy could he be a mole for the nonce,
and so sleep out this death-in-life, an American six months'
winter."--_Subaltern in America_.
What a querulous noodle! He is one of those who can "travel from Dan
to Beersheba, and cry, All is barren!" It is March, and "March in
America," while I write. The air is bracing and full of reviving
springlike influences. I disagree with the would-be mole from whom I
quote. I love to watch every month's sweep of the sun,--while he is
performing his low wintry arc, as if almost ashamed to revolve
around the cheerless earth, and while he daily performs a wider and
wider circle, until at length he comes to stand nearly over my head
at noon. I enjoy the result the more intensely for watching its
progress. I love to watch him gradually calling out the green on the
black hills around me, whose only beauty now are the narrow stripes
of fading snow, forming white borders that intersect each other,
thus dividing the mould into something not altogether void of the
picturesque. So, on yonder field, where the sun now shines quite
cheeringly, there is a remnant of beauty. The dead grass, with its
yellow and reddish tinge, is divided by small crystal ponds and
canals, glistening in the bright ray, and seeming like the gratitude
of the poor,--able to return but little, yet determined to return
that little gladly.
23. "There is no motion so graceful as that of a beautiful girl in
the mazy meanderings of the dance. Nature cannot furnish a more
perfect illustration of the poetry of motion than this."--_Ibid._
Yes she can. I will give the traveller two far more perfect
illustrations. The _on deggiando_ movement of a light breeze, as it
passes, wave upon wave, over high grass: and the gradual and rapid
passing away of a shadow, when the sun leaves a cloud, from a hill
side of rich foliage.
24. "I have been thinking, more and more, of the probability of
departed friends' watching over those whom they have left
behind."--_Henry Kirk White_.
I have often done so; and whether the idea be a delusive one or not,
there is no delusion in believing that the Deity sees them and us at
the same instant. They turn, and we turn, at the same moment, to
him, and thus through him we enjoy a communion. If two hearts were
once preserved in reciprocal love by contemplating, when parted from
each other, the same star, how close will be the bond with those who
have gone before us, when, at such a distance, we are worshipping
the same God!
25. "_When one is angry, and edits a paper_, I should think the
temptation too strong for literary, _which is not always human
nature_."--_Lord Byron_.
There is a couple of young Irishmen who "edit a paper" not far from
the place of this present writing, who might furnish a striking
corroboration of this opinion of the noble poet. Think of a couple
of boobies, pretending to be oracles in literature, wreaking their
petty vengeance upon the productions of one against whom they have a
personal pique! Such and so contemptible are some of the "critics!"
God save the mark! of this generation!
J. F. O.
LINES TO ----.
Lady!--afar yet loved the more--
My spirit ever hovers near,
And haunts in dreams the distant shore
That prints at eve thy footstep dear.
And say--when musing by the tide,
Beneath the quiet twilight sky,
Wilt thou forget all earth beside
And mark my memory with a sigh?
The wind that wantons in thy hair--
The wave that murmurs at thy feet,
Shall whisper to thy dreaming ear
An answer--loving--true and meet.
Oh! fancy not if from thy bower
I tarry now a weary while,
My heart e'er owns another's power
Or sighs to win a stranger's smile.
Those gentle eyes, which in my dream,
With unforgotten love still shine--
Shall never glance a sadder beam
Nor dim with tears for change of mine.
I gaze not on a cloud, nor flower
That is not eloquent of thee--
The very calm of twilight's hour
Seems voiceless with thy memory.
Like waves that dimple o'er the stream
And ripple to the shores around,
Each wandering wish--each hope--each dream
Steals unto thee--their utmost bound. {313}
Oh! think of me when day light dies
Among the far Hesperian bowers--
But most of all 'neath silent skies,
When weep the stars o'er earth's dim flowers.
When the mysterious holiness
Which spell-like lulls the silent air,
Steals to the heart with power to bless,
And hallows every feeling there.
A TALE OF JERUSALEM.
BY EDGAR A. POE.
Intensos rigidam in frontem ascendere canos
Passus erat------ _Lucan_--_de Catone_.
------a bristly _bore_------ _Translation_.
"Let us hurry to the walls"--said Abel-Shittim to Buzi-Ben-Levi, and
Simeon the Pharisee, on the tenth day of the month Thammuz, in the
year of the world three thousand nine hundred and forty-one--"let us
hasten to the ramparts adjoining the gate of Benjamin, which is in
the city of David, and overlooking the camp of the
uncircumcised--for it is the last hour of the fourth watch, being
sunrise; and the idolaters, in fulfilment of the promise of Pompey,
should be awaiting us with the lambs for the sacrifices."
Simeon, Abel-Shittim, and Buzi-Ben-Levi were the Gizbarim, or
Sub-Collectors of the offering in the holy city of Jerusalem.
"Verily"--replied the Pharisee--"let us hasten: for this generosity
in the heathen is unwonted; and fickle-mindedness has ever been an
attribute of the worshippers of Baal."
"That they are fickle-minded and treacherous is as true as the
Pentateuch"--said Buzi-Ben-Levi--"but that is only towards the
people of Adonai. When was it ever known that the Ammonites proved
wanting to their own interest? Methinks it is no great stretch of
generosity to allow us lambs for the altar of the Lord, receiving in
lieu thereof thirty silver shekels per head!"
"Thou forgettest, however, Ben-Levi"--replied Abel-Shittim--"that
the Roman Pompey, who is now impiously beseiging the City of the
Most High, has no assurity that we apply not the lambs thus
purchased for the altar to the sustenance of the body, rather than
of the spirit."
"Now by the five corners of my beard"--shouted the Pharisee, who
belonged to the sect called The Dashers (that little knot of saints
whose manner of _dashing_ and lacerating the feet against the
pavement was long a thorn and a reproach to less zealous devotees--a
stumbling block to less gifted perambulators)--"by the five corners
of that beard which as a priest I am forbidden to shave!--have we
lived to see the day when a blaspheming and idolatrous upstart of
Rome shall accuse us of appropriating to the appetites of the flesh
the most holy and consecrated elements? Have we lived to see the day
when"----
"Let us not question the motives of the Philistine"--interrupted
Abel-Shittim--"for to-day we profit for the first time by his
avarice or by his generosity. But rather let us hurry to the
ramparts, lest offerings should be wanting for that altar whose fire
the rains of Heaven cannot extinguish--and whose pillars of smoke no
tempest can turn aside."
* * * * *
That part of the city to which our worthy Gizbarim now hastened, and
which bore the name of its architect King David, was esteemed the
most strongly fortified district of Jerusalem--being situated upon
the steep and lofty hill of Zion. Here a broad, deep,
circumvallatory trench--hewn from the solid rock--was defended by a
wall of great strength erected upon its inner edge. This wall was
adorned, at regular interspaces, by square towers of white
marble--the lowest sixty--the highest one hundred and twenty cubits
in height. But in the vicinity of the gate of Benjamin the wall
arose by no means immediately from the margin of the fosse. On the
contrary, between the level of the ditch and the basement of the
rampart, sprang up a perpendicular cliff of two hundred and fifty
cubits--forming part of the precipitous Mount Moriah. So that when
Simeon and his associates arrived on the summit of the tower called
Adoni-Bezek--the loftiest of all the turrets around about Jerusalem,
and the usual place of conference with the beseiging army--they
looked down upon the camp of the enemy from an eminence excelling,
by many feet, that of the Pyramid of Cheops, and, by several, that
of the Temple of Belus.
* * * * *
"Verily"--sighed the Pharisee, as he peered dizzily over the
precipice--"the uncircumcised are as the sands by the sea shore--as
the locusts in the wilderness! The valley of The King hath become
the valley of Adommin."
"And yet"--added Ben-Levi--"thou canst not point me out a
Philistine--no, not one--from Aleph to Tau--from the wilderness to
the battlements--who seemeth any bigger than the letter Jod!"
"Lower away the basket with the shekels of silver!"--here shouted a
Roman soldier in a hoarse, rough voice, which appeared to issue from
the regions of Pluto--"lower away the basket with that accursed coin
which it has broken the jaw of a noble Roman to pronounce! Is it
thus you evince your gratitude to our master Pompeius, who, in his
condescension, has thought fit to listen to your idolatrous
importunities? The God Phœbus, who is a true God, has been charioted
for an hour--and were you not to have been on the ramparts by
sunrise? Ædepol! do you think that we, the conquerors of the world,
have nothing better to do than stand waiting by the walls of every
kennel, to traffic with the dogs of the earth? Lower away! I
say--and see that your trumpery be bright in color, and just in
weight!"
"El Elohim!"--ejaculated the Pharisee, as the discordant tones of
the centurion rattled up the crags of the precipice, and fainted
away against the Temple--"El Elohim!--_who_ is the God
Phœbus?--_whom_ doth the blasphemer invoke? Thou, Buzi-Ben-Levi! who
art read in the laws of the Gentiles, and hast sojourned among them
who dabble with the Teraphim!--is it Nergal of whom the idolater
speaketh?--or Ashimah?--or Nibhaz?--or Tartak?--or Adramalech?--or
Anamalech?--or Succoth-Benoth?--or Dagon?--or Belial?--or
Baal-Perith?--or Baal-Peor?--or Baal-Zebub?"
"Verily, it is neither--but beware how thou lettest the rope slip
too rapidly through thy fingers--for should the wicker-work chance
to hang on the projection of {314} yonder crag, there will be a
woful outpouring of the holy things of the Sanctuary."
* * * * *
By the assistance of some rudely-constructed machinery, the
heavily-laden basket was now lowered carefully down among the
multitude--and, from the giddy pinnacle, the Romans were seen
crowding confusedly around it--but, owing to the vast height and the
prevalence of a fog, no distinct view of their operations could be
obtained.
A half-hour had already elapsed.
"We shall be too late"--sighed the Pharisee, as, at the expiration
of this period, he looked over into the abyss--"we shall be too
late--we shall be turned out of office by the Katholim."
"No more"--responded Abel-Shittim--"no more shall we feast upon the
fat of the land--no longer shall our beards be odorous with
frankincense--our loins girded up with fine linen from the Temple."
"Raca!"--swore Ben-Levi--"Raca!--do they mean to defraud us of the
purchase-money?--or, Holy Moses! are they weighing the shekels of
the tabernacle?"
"They have given the signal at last"--roared the Pharisee--"they
have given the signal at last!--pull away! Abel-Shittim!--and thou,
Buzi-Ben-Levi! pull away!--for verily the Philistines have either
still hold upon the basket, or the Lord hath softened their hearts
to place therein a beast of good weight!" And the Gizbarim pulled
away, while their burthen swung heavily upwards through the still
increasing mist.
* * * * *
"Booshoh he!"--as, at the conclusion of an hour, some object at the
extremity of the rope became indistinctly visible--"Booshoh
he!"--was the exclamation which burst from the lips of Ben-Levi.
"Booshoh he!--for shame!--it is a ram from the thickets of Engedi,
and as rugged as the valley of Jehosaphat!"
"It is a firstling of the flock," said Abel-Shittim--"I know him by
the bleating of his lips, and the innocent folding of his limbs. His
eyes are more beautiful than the jewels of the Pectoral--and his
flesh is like the honey of Hebron."
"It is a fatted calf from the pastures of Bashan"--said the
Pharisee--"the Heathen have dealt wonderfully with us--let us raise
up our voices in a psalm--let us give thanks on the shawm and on the
psaltery--on the harp and on the huggab--on the cythern and on the
sackbut."
It was not until the basket had arrived within a few feet of the
Gizbarim that a low grunt betrayed to their perception a _hog_ of no
common size.
"Now El Emanu!"--slowly, and with upturned eyes ejaculated the trio,
as, letting go their hold, the emancipated porker tumbled headlong
among the Philistines--"El Emanu!--God be with us!--it is the
unutterable flesh!"
"Let me no longer," said the Pharisee wrapping his cloak around him
and departing within the city--"let me no longer be called Simeon,
which signifieth 'he who listens'--but rather Boanerges, 'the Son of
Thunder.'"
Lucian calls unmeaning verbosity, _anemonæ verborum_. The anemone,
with great brilliancy, has no fragrance.
LEAVES FROM MY SCRAP BOOK.
I.
"I think Homer, as a poet, inferior to Scott."
_T. C. Grimckè--Pamphlet_.
The gentleman whose words I have just used, maintained on all
occasions the superiority of modern over ancient literature. He
prefers the better portions of Milman's "Samor, Lord of the Bright
City," to the better portions of the Odyssey; and contends that
"Scott's description of the battle of Flodden Hill, the midnight
visit of William of Deloraine to Melrose Abbey, &c., are unequalled
by anything in the Iliad or Æneid."
Now such comparisons are plainly unreasonable. "To read Homer's
poems, is to look upon a brightly colored nosegay whose odor is
departed," or, if not departed, at least lost to our dull and
ignorant sense. The subtle odor of idiom and provincial
peculiarity--the stronger odor of association are entirely lost to
us. I may better illustrate my idea. Every one will recollect the
following couplet in the description of William of Deloraine:
"A stark moss-trooping Scot was he,
As e'er couched border lance by knee."
Reversing the order of things, suppose these lines read by a Greek
of twenty-seven centuries ago; suppose him even well acquainted with
the English tongue--could he appreciate their beauty? Let the Greek
attempt to _translate_ the lines into his own language. He begins
with _stark_. The nice excellence of this word he knows nothing of.
He finds that its meaning is somewhere between _stout_ and _swift_,
and gives the Greek word "οχυς." The first downward step has been
taken. He next pounces upon the term, _moss-troopers_. He translates
this "Ληστης ιπποτʼ ανδρειος." _Couched_, is an idiom which he
cannot translate; he gives us by way of equivalent, "εβαλλε."
_Border lance_, is beyond his version. He contents himself with a
simple "δορυ,"--for how is the word _Border_ to be translated? It is
a word depending on collateral matters for its meaning. These
matters--involving the storied reyd and feud--must be known before
the word can be understood; and twenty centuries would blot out all
remembrance of the Percy and Douglas feuds. The word _Border_ is
therefore, wholly lost in the version.
The Greek version would read when completed--
Ληστης, καλεδονος οχυς ην ιπποτʼ ανδρειος
ʼΟυ, το δορυ μηδεις αθεμιστον, αμεινον εβαλλε,
which may be re-translated into
This Scot was a swift horse-riding robber,
And no one balanced spear by knee better,
--verses as little resembling the original as "an eyas does a true
hawk."
Translated into Latin, the original lines would read
Scotticus fuit eques, strenuus raptoque pollutus
Quo nullus hastam a genu tam apte librabat,
as great a failure as the Greek.
If Scott would suffer so much in the eyes of the Greek and Latin
reader, it is only fair to presume that Homer and Virgil suffer as
much in our eyes.
We perceive the merits of our modern poet; we are blind to the
merits of the ancient. We are consequently incapable of judging
between them. Mr. Grimckè's comparison is unreasonable.
{315} II.
"Humility is certainly beautiful, but vanity is not always
uncomely."--_Anon._
It is singular how little we appreciate the humility of some men.
Launce says, "I am an ass," and we, coinciding with him in the
sentiment, scarcely think of giving him credit for his humility. We
perhaps take the trouble to approve of his want of vanity--but this
is only a negative sort of approbation. Humility seems such a man's
province--as natural to him as the grass to a snail. To be
appreciated, humility must manifest itself in high natures. We are
captivated by the spectacle of highness contenting itself with
lowliness. The grass is natural to the snail, but the home of the
lark is the sky--and when he descends to the meadow, we, mindful of
his fleetness of pinion, marvel at his descent and love him for his
simple humility. The "great Lyttleton" was a man of the most perfect
modesty. A fine specimen of this may be found in the last paragraph
of his work upon the English laws, "And know, my son, that I would
not have thee believe, that all which I have said in these bookes is
law, for I will not presume to take this upon me. But of those
things which are not law, inquire and learn of my wise masters
learned in the law." Sir John Mandeville, who wrote in the
fourteenth century, was also remarkable for his modesty as a writer.
I will quote a fine sample of it. "I, John Maundeville, knyghte
aboveseyd (alle thoughe I be unworthi) have passed manye londes, and
many yles and contrees, and cerched manye fulle straunge places, and
have ben in manye a fulle gode honourable companye, and at manye a
faire dede of armes--alle be it that I dide none myself, for myn
unable insuffisance--etc."
VANITY in a weak man is disgusting; all pretension is disgusting.
But "vanity is not always uncomely." The vanity of a strong man is
sometimes beautiful. I remember an instance or two of this beautiful
vanity. Some lines of Spenser--a part, I believe, of the preface to
his Dreams of Petrarch, occur to me.
"This thing he writ who framed a calendar;
Who eke inscribed on monument of brass
Words brillianter than lighte of moon or star
And destinyed to lyve till alle things pass."
Southey too has given us a magnificent specimen of vanity in the
opening to "Madoc,"
"Come listen to a tale of times of old:
_Come, for ye know me; I am he who framed
Of Thalaba the wild and wondrous song._"
The younger D'Israeli has placed in the mouth of Vivian Grey some
expressions which, regarded as outbreaks of lofty confidence, and
youthful reliance upon self, are strikingly beautiful. I refer more
particularly to the page or paragraph ending with the words--"_and
have I not skill to play upon that noblest of all instruments--the
human voice?_"
III.
"Love, despair, ambition, and peace, spring up like trees from the
soil of our natures."--_E. Irving_.
This idea, by a "singular coincidence," has been carried out in the
Chinese novel, 'Yu-Kiao-Li, or the Adventures of Red Jasper and
Dream of a Peartree,'--_traduit par M. Abel Remusat_. I translate
from the French translation.
"In a fresh soil under a pleasant sky--clouded, but spanned by a
rainbow--grew a green tree. Its branches were beautifully fashioned,
and wore leaves which seemed to be chiselled from emerald. The
moonlight fell upon the tree, and so intense was the reflection that
every portion of the surrounding scenery took upon itself a gaudy
and happy coloring. This tree was _Love_--it grew from the soil of a
young nature. Alas! its life cannot be the life of the amaranth.
"The second tree was in a soil torn up and bruised--the plants of
which were freezing under a cold wind. Its branches were matted and
black. No light penetrated them. The sky above was of ebony. The
rainbow was not there. This tree was _Despair_. Alas! for the beauty
of Love! Is it not pushed from its stool by Despair?
"The third tree was in a soil firm to the eye, but undermined by the
molewarp. Its scathed branches were entombed in the sky. Its peak,
jealous of the eagle, out-towered him. About its stem, and through
its haughty boughs a strange light played. It was neither the light
of the sun nor yet the light of the moon. It was a false glare--a
glare greatest about the region of decay. This tree was _Ambition_.
Alas! for the pride and the haughty yearning of mortal men!
"In the healthy soil of a valley, on which the eye of a bright day
seemed ever open, grew the fourth tree. Its branches neither towered
haughtily nor stooped slavishly. Health was in every bough; and lo!
the rainbow which had fallen from the sky of Despair had surely been
imprisoned among its leaves. The wind fanned these leaves healthily
and their transparent cups teinted by the sunlight--as red wines
teint the fine vases of porcelain--were beautiful to behold. This
tree was _Peace_. The moonlight of Love may grow dim; the sky of
Despair is of ebony; the light of Ambition dies in the ashes of its
fuel; but the sunlight of Peace is the light of an eye ever open.
The head may be white and bowed down, but the threads of the
angel-woven rainbow are wrapped about the heart of peaceful and holy
Eld."
IV.
"The chiefest constituent of human beauty is the hair; after which
in degree is to be ranked the eye; and lastly come the color and the
texture of the skin. The varieties of these, cause it to happen that
not unfrequently men differ in opinion as to what is comely and what
is uncomely; this man maintaining black to be the better color for
the hair as for the eye; that man maintaining a lighter color to be
the better for both."--_Burton_.
Poets are generally persons of taste, and if we could find one of
them certainly unbiassed by early recollections and the thousand
trifles which warp taste, we might consider his judgment in regard
to "the rival colors of the hair," as going far to exalt the color
of his choice above its rivals. But the first of the modern
philosophers loved squinting eyes because in his youth he had been
in love with a little girl who squinted; and no taste is free from
the influence of early recollections. Spenser's cousin, the lady who
discarded him, "had hair of a flaxen hue." He ever after preferred
this "hue," to all others. Lady Elizabeth Fitzgerald was "of a
stately person and gifted with pale glossy hair, with a sunny tinge
about it." Lord Surrey sang of these "mixed ringlets" until the day
of his death. I do not know that Ben. Jonson ever had a sweetheart,
but he surely had a taste as good as if it had never been biassed by
love for one. He speaks very well of--
"Crisped hair
Cast in a thousand snares and rings
For love's fingers and his wings:
Chesnut color or more slack
_Gold upon a ground of black_."
Leigh Hunt says that Lucrecia Borgia had hair "perfectly golden."
Neither auburn nor red, but "perfectly {316} golden." He has written
some pretty verses upon a lock of this golden hair. He speaks of
each thread as,
----"meandering in pellucid gold."
I forget the lines. This was the color beloved by a thousand poets;
and one was found who forgot in contemplating the rare masses that,
stained with it, lay upon the brow of Lucrecia Borgia, the "dark and
unbridled passions" which led her to the bed of one brother and to
the murder of another--and which have doomed her to "an immortality
of evil repute."
Anacreon preferred auburn hair.
"Deepening inwardly, a dun;
Sparkling golden next the sun,"
conveys nearly the same idea with that expressed in Jonson's "Gold
upon a ground of black."
I have two or three more verses upon hair, which I recollect to have
seen in an old English poem. They are descriptive of "Hero the _nun
of Venus_--the lady beloved of Leander." These are the lines--three
in number,
"Come listen to the tale of Hero young,
_Whom pale Apollo courted for her hair,
And offered as a dower his burning throne_."
We often meet with double tastes. Tasso loved two Leonoras. Leonora
D'Este had a fair skin. The other was a brunette.
"Bruna sei tu ma bella
Qual virgini viola."
It is difficult to decide between the rival colors of the eye. This
difficulty is set forth in a little poem called the "Dilemma," which
I find in an old number of the New England Magazine.
"I had a vision in my dreams,
I saw a row of twenty beams;
From every beam a rope was hung,
In every rope a lover swung.
I asked the hue of every eye
That bade each luckless lover die;
Ten livid lips said heavenly blue
And ten accused the darker hue."
Before ending this "scrap" I will quote some sentences written by a
friend of my own long ago--a very eccentric man, and indeed a
melancholy one. He had been crossed in love, and could rarely speak
or write without recurring to the origin of his unhappiness. He had
a great many faults, but he is dead now, and has been so for many
years; I am not anxious to say any more about them. The paragraph
which I copy from his manuscript, is a portion of a flighty book,
the aim or meaning of which I could never discover. It owes its
fanciful extravagance, I rather think, to the influence of opium
upon the author's nerves. After pointing out the numerous
particulars in which "nature imitates our women," he proceeds to
observe after the following fashion,
"In the hair, nature is most an imitator. The cascade caressing the
precipice with the threads of its silver locks, which the teeth of
the granite comb have frizled, and which the winds play at gambol
with, is only a copy. So with the vine on the rock--the great vine
whose metallic tendrils I have looked on and wondered at when the
sunshine spanned them with a cloven halo. So with the drooping
moss--the _Barba Espagna_, with its drapery of gold held by threads
of spun alabaster, hanging in _hard_ festoons from the tree beside
the Lagoon and sighing when its hues die with the sunlight. And so
with the boughs of our weeping trees. O, but are not these last most
beautiful? Place your ear to the soft grass-blades on the brink of a
valley brook, and listen to the monotone of the willow's stirred
ringlets, and watch them as the wind lifts them from the eddy
beneath to float, bejewelled by adhering globules. And then look
upon them as with the abating wind they sink lower and lower,
leaving their cool rain upon your cheek. See them trail in the
pebbly waters and conjure up in each detached leaf an Elfin barque
laden with its rare boatmen and tiny beauties. Hear the tinkle of
the little bells and the shrieks of the wrecked mariners, as they
cling to the hair of the willow (as Zal clung to the locks of his
mistress) and splash the brook into foam. And now they leap to the
backs of their skipper steeds, and ply the spur of the thistle seed,
and gallop off for the green shore, wringing their hands and
bewailing the ill fate of their holiday trim. Such marvellous
fancies, if you are fanciful, will prick your brain until the drowsy
sough of the tree-hair and the renewed trickle of the raining spray
lend your eyes sleep and call forth the dream spirit, as the fly
from its cocoon, and give it the wings of wilder vagary to flutter
away withal--whither? _Mine_ would return to my wanderings by Goluon
with her whose tomb in the valley of sweet waters often pillows my
head."
Alas for my poor friend Bob! He died of a broken heart--that is to
say _mediately_. He died _im_-mediately of hard drinking. Napoleon
remembered the Seine on his death-bed and asked to be buried upon
its sunniest bank; Bob remembered Goluon when his great temples had
the death-damp upon them. His vision had failed him; his nose had
become peaked; his body, like a jaded and worn hack, had fallen
under the spirit, which like a stout horseman had long kept it to
its paces; but the little abiding place of memory had not been
destroyed, and poor Bob muttered at times of a dead lady with fair
hair--of a valley of sweet waters--of a grave with two willows above
it--of pleasant Goluon--and died with an unuttered prayer upon his
lips, and with a strong desire at his heart. The prayer was, that I,
his friend, would bury him between the two willows--on the evening
bank of Goluon--side by side with Betty Manning his old sweetheart.
Poor Bob! May God take kind care of his soul!
V.
"I much lament that nevermore to me
Can come fleet pulse, bright heart, and frolic mood;
I much lament that nevermore may be
My tame step light, my wan cheek berry-hued."
In the lines just quoted, the poet (old Philip Allen, a Welshman)
strikes the proper key. When we have ceased to derive pleasure from
that which once afforded it to us, we should regard the change as
_in ourselves_. The grass of the hill is as green as it ever was,
but the step once "light" has become "tame." The bird sings as
sweetly as ever, but the "bright heart" into which the "honey drops
of his constant song" once fell, has been dimmed and darkened by
human passions. The berry-clusters are still in the fringe of the
thicket, but the palate has no longer any relish for them. _We have
changed._ Yet we are apt to believe the change any where rather than
in ourselves. Indeed we are for the most part like Launcelot in the
play.
_Gobbo_.--"Lord worshipped might he be! What a beard hast thou got!
Thou hast more hair on thy chin than Dobbin my thill horse, has on
his tail."
_Launcelot_.--"It would seem then that Dobbin's tail grows backward.
I am sure that he had more hair on his tail than I had on my face
when I last saw him."
It was the chin of Launcelot that had undergone the change, and not
the tail of his father Gobbo's thill horse Dobbin.
{317}
_Editorial_.
THE LOYALTY OF VIRGINIA.
In our last number, while reviewing the Ecclesiastical History of
Dr. Hawks, we had occasion to speak of those portions of Mr. George
Bancroft's _United Slates_, which have reference to the loyalty of
Virginia immediately before and during the Protectorate of Cromwell.
Since the publication of our remarks, a personal interview with Mr.
Bancroft, and an examination, especially, of one or two passages in
his History, have been sufficient to convince us that injustice (of
course unintentional) has been done that gentleman, not only by
ourselves, but by Dr. Hawks and others.
In our own review alluded to above, we concluded, in the following
words, a list of arguments adduced, _or supposed to be adduced_, in
proof of Virginia's disloyalty.
"6. Virginia was infected with republicanism. She wished to set up
for herself. Thus intent, she demands of Berkeley a distinct
acknowledgment of her Assembly's supremacy. His reply was 'I am but
the servant of the Assembly.' Berkeley, therefore, was republican,
and his tumultuous election proves nothing but the republicanism of
Virginia." To which our reply was thus.
"6. The reasoning here is reasoning in a circle. Virginia is first
declared republican. From this assumed fact, deductions are made
which prove Berkeley so--and Berkeley's republicanism, thus proved,
is made to establish that of Virginia. But Berkeley's answer (from
which Mr. Bancroft has extracted the words, 'I am but the servant of
the Assembly,') runs thus. 'You desire me to do that concerning your
titles and claims to land in this northern part of America, which I
am in no capacity to do: for I am but the servant of the Assembly:
neither do they arrogate to themselves any power farther than the
miserable distractions in England force them to. For when God shall
be pleased to take away and dissipate the unnatural divisions of
their native country, they will immediately return to their
professed obedience.'--_Smith's New York_. It will be seen that Mr.
Bancroft has been disingenuous in quoting only a _portion_ of this
sentence. _The whole_ proves incontestibly that neither Berkeley nor
the Assembly _arrogated to themselves any power beyond what they
were forced to assume by circumstances_--in a word it proves their
loyalty."
We are now, however, fully persuaded that Mr. Bancroft had not only
no intention of representing Virginia as disloyal--but that his
work, closely examined, will not admit of such interpretation. As an
offset to our argument just quoted, we copy the following (the
passage to which our remarks had reference) from page 245 of Mr.
B.'s only published volume.
"On the death of Matthews, the Virginians were without a chief
magistrate, just at the time when the resignation of Richard had
left England without a government. The burgesses, who were
immediately convened, resolving to become the arbiters of the fate
of the colony, enacted 'that the supreme power of the government of
this country shall be resident in the assembly, and all writs shall
issue in its name, until there shall arrive from England a
commission which the assembly itself shall adjudge to be lawful.'
This being done, Sir William Berkeley was elected governor, and
acknowledging the validity of the acts of the burgesses, whom it was
expressly agreed he could in no event dissolve, he accepted the
office to which he had been chosen, and recognized, without a
scruple, the authority to which he owed his elevation. 'I am,' said
he, 'but a servant of the assembly.' _Virginia did not lay claim to
absolute independence; but anxiously awaited the settlement of
affairs in England._"
It will here be seen, that the words italicized beginning "Virginia
did not lay claim," &c. are very nearly, if not altogether
equivalent to what we assume as proved by _the whole_ of Berkeley's
reply, viz. _that neither Berkeley nor the Assembly arrogated to
themselves any power beyond what they were forced to assume by
circumstances_. Our charge, therefore, of disingenuousness on the
part of Mr. Bancroft in quoting only a portion of the answer, is
evidently unsustained, and we can have no hesitation in recalling
it.
At page 226 of the History of the United States, we note the
following passage.
"At Christmas, 1648, there were trading in Virginia, ten ships from
London, two from Bristol, twelve Hollanders, and seven from New
England. The number of the colonists was already twenty thousand;
and they, who had sustained no griefs, were not tempted to engage in
the feuds by which the mother country was divided. They were
attached to the cause of Charles, not because they loved monarchy,
but because they cherished the liberties of which he had left them
in undisturbed possession; and after his execution, though there
were not wanting _some_ who favored republicanism, _the government
recognized his son without dispute. The loyalty of the Virginians
did not escape the attention of the royal exile._ From his retreat
in Breda he transmitted to Berkeley a new commission, and _Charles
the Second, a fugitive from England, was still the sovereign of
Virginia_."
This passage alone will render it evident that Mr. Bancroft's
readers have been wrong in supposing him to maintain the disloyalty
of the State. It cannot be denied, however, (and if we understand
Mr. B. he does not himself deny it,) that there is, about some
portions of his volume, an ambiguity, or perhaps a laxity of
expression, which it would be as well to avoid hereafter. The note
of Dr. Hawks we consider exceptionable, inasmuch as it is not
sufficiently explanatory. The passages in Mr. B.'s History which we
have noted above, and other passages equally decisive, were pointed
out to Dr. Hawks. He should have therefore not only stated that Mr.
B. disclaimed the intention of representing Virginia as republican,
but also that his work, if accurately examined, would not admit of
such interpretation. The question of Virginia's loyalty may now be
considered as fully determined.
CHIEF JUSTICE MARSHALL.
It is with great pleasure, at the opportunity thus afforded us of
correcting an error, that we give place to the following letter.
_Philadelphia, March 25, 1836_.
SIR,--A mistake, evidently unintentional, having appeared in the
February number of your journal for {318} this year, we feel
convinced you will, upon proper representation, take pleasure in
correcting it, as an impression so erroneous might have a
prejudicial tendency. Under the notice of the Eulogies on the Life
and Character of the late Chief Justice Marshall, it is there stated
that "for several years past Judge Marshall had suffered under a
most excruciating malady. A surgical operation by Dr. Physick of
Philadelphia at length procured him relief; but a hurt received in
travelling last Spring seems to have caused a return of the former
complaint with circumstances of aggravated pain and danger. Having
revisited Philadelphia in the hope of again finding a cure, his
disease there overpowered him, and he died on the 6th of July, 1835,
in the 80th year of his age."
Now, sir, the above quotation is incorrect in the following respect:
Judge Marshall never had a return of the complaint for which he was
operated upon by Dr. Physick. After the demise of Chief Justice
Marshall, it became our melancholy duty to make a _post mortem_
examination, which we did in the most careful manner, and
ascertained that his bladder did not contain one particle of
calculous matter; its mucous coat was in a perfectly natural state,
and exhibited not the slightest traces of irritation.
The cause of his death was a very diseased condition of the liver,
which was enormously enlarged, and contained several tuberculous
abscesses of great size; its pressure upon the stomach had the
effect of dislodging this organ from its natural situation, and
compressing it in such a manner, that for some time previous to his
death it would not retain the smallest quantity of nutriment. By
publishing this statement, you will oblige
Yours, very respectfully,
N. CHAPMAN, M.D.
J. RANDOLPH, M.D.
_To T. W. White, Esq._
MAELZEL'S CHESS-PLAYER.
Perhaps no exhibition of the kind has ever elicited so general
attention as the Chess-Player of Maelzel. Wherever seen it has been
an object of intense curiosity, to all persons who think. Yet the
question of its _modus operandi_ is still undetermined. Nothing has
been written on this topic which can be considered as decisive--and
accordingly we find every where men of mechanical genius, of great
general acuteness, and discriminative understanding, who make no
scruple in pronouncing the Automaton a _pure machine_, unconnected
with human agency in its movements, and consequently, beyond all
comparison, the most astonishing of the inventions of mankind. And
such it would undoubtedly be, were they right in their supposition.
Assuming this hypothesis, it would be grossly absurd to compare with
the Chess-Player, any similar thing of either modern or ancient
days. Yet there have been many and wonderful automata. In Brewster's
Letters on Natural Magic, we have an account of the most remarkable.
Among these may be mentioned, as having beyond doubt existed,
firstly, the coach invented by M. Camus for the amusement of Louis
XIV when a child. A table, about four feet square, was introduced,
into the room appropriated for the exhibition. Upon this table was
placed a carriage, six inches in length, made of wood, and drawn by
two horses of the same material. One window being down, a lady was
seen on the back seat. A coachman held the reins on the box, and a
footman and page were in their places behind. M. Camus now touched a
spring; whereupon the coachman smacked his whip, and the horses
proceeded in a natural manner, along the edge of the table, drawing
after them the carriage. Having gone as far as possible in this
direction, a sudden turn was made to the left, and the vehicle was
driven at right angles to its former course, and still closely along
the edge of the table. In this way the coach proceeded until it
arrived opposite the chair of the young prince. It then stopped, the
page descended and opened the door, the lady alighted, and presented
a petition to her sovereign. She then re-entered. The page put up
the steps, closed the door, and resumed his station. The coachman
whipped his horses, and the carriage was driven back to its original
position.
The magician of M. Maillardet is also worthy of notice. We copy the
following account of it from the _Letters_ before mentioned of Dr.
B., who derived his information principally from the Edinburgh
Encyclopædia.
"One of the most popular pieces of mechanism which we have seen, is
the Magician constructed by M. Maillardet, for the purpose of
answering certain given questions. A figure, dressed like a
magician, appears seated at the bottom of a wall, holding a wand in
one hand, and a book in the other. A number of questions, ready
prepared, are inscribed on oval medallions, and the spectator takes
any of these he chooses, and to which he wishes an answer, and
having placed it in a drawer ready to receive it, the drawer shuts
with a spring till the answer is returned. The magician then arises
from his seat, bows his head, describes circles with his wand, and
consulting the book as if in deep thought, he lifts it towards his
face. Having thus appeared to ponder over the proposed question, he
raises his wand, and striking with it the wall above his head, two
folding doors fly open, and display an appropriate answer to the
question. The doors again close, the magician resumes his original
position, and the drawer opens to return the medallion. There are
twenty of these medallions, all containing different questions, to
which the magician returns the most suitable and striking answers.
The medallions are thin plates of brass, of an elliptical form,
exactly resembling each other. Some of the medallions have a
question inscribed on each side, both of which the magician answered
in succession. If the drawer is shut without a medallion being put
into it, the magician rises, consults his book, shakes his head, and
resumes his seat. The folding doors remain shut, and the drawer is
returned empty. If two medallions are put into the drawer together,
an answer is returned only to the lower one. When the machinery is
wound up, the movements continue about an hour, during which time
about fifty questions may be answered. The inventor stated that the
means by which the different medallions acted upon the machinery, so
as to produce the proper answers to the questions which they
contained, were extremely simple."
The duck of Vaucanson was still more remarkable. It was of the size
of life, and so perfect an imitation of the living animal that all
the spectators were deceived. It executed, says Brewster, all the
natural movements {319} and gestures, it eat and drank with avidity,
performed all the quick motions of the head and throat which are
peculiar to the duck, and like it muddled the water which it drank
with its bill. It produced also the sound of quacking in the most
natural manner. In the anatomical structure the artist exhibited the
highest skill. Every bone in the real duck had its representative in
the automaton, and its wings were anatomically exact. Every cavity,
apophysis, and curvature was imitated, and each bone executed its
proper movements. When corn was thrown down before it, the duck
stretched out its neck to pick it up, swallowed, and digested it.[1]
[Footnote 1: Under the head _Androides_ in the Edinburgh
Encyclopædia may be found a full account of the principle automata
of ancient and modern times.]
But if these machines were ingenious, what shall we think of the
calculating machine of Mr. Babbage? What shall we think of an engine
of wood and metal which can not only compute astronomical and
navigation tables to any given extent, but render the exactitude of
its operations mathematically certain through its power of
correcting its possible errors? What shall we think of a machine
which can not only accomplish all this, but actually print off its
elaborate results, when obtained, without the slightest intervention
of the intellect of man? It will, perhaps, be said, in reply, that a
machine such as we have described is altogether above comparison
with the Chess-Player of Maelzel. By no means--it is altogether
beneath it--that is to say provided we assume (what should never for
a moment be assumed) that the Chess-Player is a _pure machine_, and
performs its operations without any immediate human agency.
Arithmetical or algebraical calculations are, from their very
nature, fixed and determinate. Certain _data_ being given, certain
results necessarily and inevitably follow. These results have
dependence upon nothing, and are influenced by nothing but the
_data_ originally given. And the question to be solved proceeds, or
should proceed, to its final determination, by a succession of
unerring steps liable to no change, and subject to no modification.
This being the case, we can without difficulty conceive the
_possibility_ of so arranging a piece of mechanism, that upon
starting it in accordance with the _data_ of the question to be
solved, it should continue its movements regularly, progressively,
and undeviatingly towards the required solution, since these
movements, however complex, are never imagined to be otherwise than
finite and determinate. But the case is widely different with the
Chess-Player. With him there is no determinate progression. No one
move in chess necessarily follows upon any one other. From no
particular disposition of the men at one period of a game can we
predicate their disposition at a different period. Let us place the
_first move_ in a game of chess, in juxta-position with the _data_
of an algebraical question, and their great difference will be
immediately perceived. From the latter--from the _data_--the second
step of the question, dependent thereupon, inevitably follows. It is
modelled by the _data_. It must be _thus_ and not otherwise. But
from the first move in the game of chess no especial second move
follows of necessity. In the algebraical question, as it proceeds
towards solution, the _certainty_ of its operations remains
altogether unimpaired. The second step having been a consequence of
the _data_, the third step is equally a consequence of the second,
the fourth of the third, the fifth of the fourth, and so on, _and
not possibly otherwise_, to the end. But in proportion to the
progress made in a game of chess, is the _uncertainty_ of each
ensuing move. A few moves having been made, _no_ step is certain.
Different spectators of the game would advise different moves. All
is then dependant upon the variable judgment of the players. Now
even granting (what should not be granted) that the movements of the
Automaton Chess-Player were in themselves determinate, they would be
necessarily interrupted and disarranged by the indeterminate will of
his antagonist. There is then no analogy whatever between the
operations of the Chess-Player, and those of the calculating machine
of Mr. Babbage, and if we choose to call the former a _pure machine_
we must be prepared to admit that it is, beyond all comparison, the
most wonderful of the inventions of mankind. Its original projector,
however, Baron Kempelen, had no scruple in declaring it to be a
"very ordinary piece of mechanism--a _bagatelle_ whose effects
appeared so marvellous only from the boldness of the conception, and
the fortunate choice of the methods adopted for promoting the
illusion." But it is needless to dwell upon this point. It is quite
certain that the operations of the Automaton are regulated by
_mind_, and by nothing else. Indeed this matter is susceptible of a
mathematical demonstration, _a priori_. The only question then is of
the _manner_ in which human agency is brought to bear. Before
entering upon this subject it would be as well to give a brief
history and description of the Chess-Player for the benefit of such
of our readers as may never have had an opportunity of witnessing
Mr. Maelzel's exhibition.
[Illustration]
The Automaton Chess-Player was invented in 1769, by Baron Kempelen,
a nobleman of Presburg in Hungary, who afterwards disposed of it,
together with the secret of its operations, to its present
possessor. Soon after its completion it was exhibited in Presburg,
Paris, Vienna, and other continental cities. In 1783 and 1784, it
was taken to London by Mr. Maelzel. Of late years it has visited the
principal towns in the United States. Wherever seen, the most
intense curiosity was excited by its appearance, and numerous have
been the attempts, by men of all classes, to fathom the mystery of
its evolutions. The cut above gives a tolerable representation of
the figure as seen by the citizens of Richmond a few weeks ago. The
right arm, however, should lie more at length upon the box, a
chess-board should appear upon it, and the cushion should not be
seen while the pipe is held. Some immaterial alterations have been
made in the costume of the player since it came into the possession
of Maelzel--the plume, for example, was not originally worn.
{320} At the hour appointed for exhibition, a curtain is withdrawn,
or folding doors are thrown open, and the machine rolled to within
about twelve feet of the nearest of the spectators, between whom and
it (the machine) a rope is stretched. A figure is seen habited as a
Turk, and seated, with its legs crossed, at a large box apparently
of maple wood, which serves it as a table. The exhibiter will, if
requested, roll the machine to any portion of the room, suffer it to
remain altogether on any designated spot, or even shift its location
repeatedly during the progress of a game. The bottom of the box is
elevated considerably above the floor by means of the castors or
brazen rollers on which it moves, a clear view of the surface
immediately beneath the Automaton being thus afforded to the
spectators. The chair on which the figure sits is affixed
permanently to the box. On the top of this latter is a chess-board,
also permanently affixed. The right arm of the Chess-Player is
extended at full length before him, at right angles with his body,
and lying, in an apparently careless position, by the side of the
board. The back of the hand is upwards. The board itself is eighteen
inches square. The left arm of the figure is bent at the elbow, and
in the left hand is a pipe. A green drapery conceals the back of the
Turk, and falls partially over the front of both shoulders. To judge
from the external appearance of the box, it is divided into five
compartments--three cupboards of equal dimensions, and two drawers
occupying that portion of the chest lying beneath the cupboards. The
foregoing observations apply to the appearance of the Automaton upon
its first introduction into the presence of the spectators.
Maelzel now informs the company that he will disclose to their view
the mechanism of the machine. Taking from his pocket a bunch of keys
he unlocks with one of them, door marked 1 in the cut above, and
throws the cupboard fully open to the inspection of all present. Its
whole interior is apparently filled with wheels, pinions, levers,
and other machinery, crowded very closely together, so that the eye
can penetrate but a little distance into the mass. Leaving this door
open to its full extent, he goes now round to the back of the box,
and raising the drapery of the figure, opens another door situated
precisely in the rear of the one first opened. Holding a lighted
candle at this door, and shifting the position of the whole machine
repeatedly at the same time, a bright light is thrown entirely
through the cupboard, which is now clearly seen to be full,
completely full, of machinery. The spectators being satisfied of
this fact, Maelzel closes the back door, locks it, takes the key
from the lock, lets fall the drapery of the figure, and comes round
to the front. The door marked 1, it will be remembered, is still
open. The exhibiter now proceeds to open the drawer which lies
beneath the cupboards at the bottom of the box--for although there
are apparently two drawers, there is really only one--the two
handles and two key holes being intended merely for ornament. Having
opened this drawer to its full extent, a small cushion, and a set of
chessmen, fixed in a frame work made to support them
perpendicularly, are discovered. Leaving this drawer, as well as
cupboard No. 1 open, Maelzel now unlocks door No. 2, and door No. 3,
which are discovered to be folding doors, opening into one and the
same compartment. To the right of this compartment, however, (that
is to say the spectators' right) a small division, six inches wide,
and filled with machinery, is partitioned off. The main compartment
itself (in speaking of that portion of the box visible upon opening
doors 2 and 3, we shall always call it the main compartment) is
lined with dark cloth and contains no machinery whatever beyond two
pieces of steel, quadrant-shaped, and situated one in each of the
rear top corners of the compartment. A small protuberance about
eight inches square, and also covered with dark cloth, lies on the
floor of the compartment near the rear corner on the spectators'
left hand. Leaving doors No. 2 and No. 3 open as well as the drawer,
and door No. 1, the exhibiter now goes round to the back of the main
compartment, and, unlocking another door there, displays clearly all
the interior of the main compartment, by introducing a candle behind
it and within it. The whole box being thus apparently disclosed to
the scrutiny of the company, Maelzel, still leaving the doors and
drawer open, rolls the Automaton entirely round, and exposes the
back of the Turk by lifting up the drapery. A door about ten inches
square is thrown open in the loins of the figure, and a smaller one
also in the left thigh. The interior of the figure, as seen through
these apertures, appears to be crowded with machinery. In general,
every spectator is now thoroughly satisfied of having beheld and
completely scrutinized, at one and the same time, every individual
portion of the Automaton, and the idea of any person being concealed
in the interior, during so complete an exhibition of that interior,
if ever entertained, is immediately dismissed as preposterous in the
extreme.
M. Maelzel, having rolled the machine back into its original
position, now informs the company that the Automaton will play a
game of chess with any one disposed to encounter him. This challenge
being accepted, a small table is prepared for the antagonist, and
placed close by the rope, but on the spectators' side of it, and so
situated as not to prevent the company from obtaining a full view of
the Automaton. From a drawer in this table is taken a set of
chess-men, and Maelzel arranges them generally, but not always, with
his own hands, on the chess board, which consists merely of the
usual number of squares painted upon the table. The antagonist
having taken his seat, the exhibiter approaches the drawer of the
box, and takes therefrom the cushion, which, after removing the pipe
from the hand of the Automaton, he places under its left arm as a
support. Then taking also from the drawer the Automaton's set of
chess-men, he arranges them upon the chess-board before the figure.
He now proceeds to close the doors and to lock them--leaving the
bunch of keys in door No. 1. He also closes the drawer, and,
finally, winds up the machine, by applying a key to an aperture in
the left end (the spectators' left) of the box. The game now
commences--the Automaton taking the first move. The duration of the
contest is usually limited to half an hour, but if it be not
finished at the expiration of this period, and the antagonist still
contend that he can beat the Automaton, M. Maelzel has seldom any
objection to continue it. Not to weary the company, is the
ostensible, and no doubt the real object of the limitation. It will
of course be understood that when a move is made at his own table,
by the antagonist, the corresponding move is made at the box of the
{321} Automaton, by Maelzel himself, who then acts as the
representative of the antagonist. On the other hand, when the Turk
moves, the corresponding move is made at the table of the
antagonist, also by M. Maelzel, who then acts as the representative
of the Automaton. In this manner it is necessary that the exhibitor
should often pass from one table to the other. He also frequently
goes in rear of the figure to remove the chessmen which it has
taken, and which it deposits, when taken, on the box to the left (to
its own left) of the board. When the Automaton hesitates in relation
to its move, the exhibitor is occasionally seen to place himself
very near its right side, and to lay his hand, now and then, in a
careless manner, upon the box. He has also a peculiar shuffle with
his feet, calculated to induce suspicion of collusion with the
machine in minds which are more cunning than sagacious. These
peculiarities are, no doubt, mere mannerisms of M. Maelzel, or, if
he is aware of them at all, he puts them in practice with a view of
exciting in the spectators a false idea of pure mechanism in the
Automaton.
The Turk plays with his left hand. All the movements of the arm are
at right angles. In this manner, the hand (which is gloved and bent
in a natural way,) being brought directly above the piece to be
moved, descends finally upon it, the fingers receiving it, in most
cases, without difficulty. Occasionally, however, when the piece is
not precisely in its proper situation, the Automaton fails in his
attempt at seizing it. When this occurs, no second effort is made,
but the arm continues its movement in the direction originally
intended, precisely as if the piece were in the fingers. Having thus
designated the spot whither the move should have been made, the arm
returns to its cushion, and Maelzel performs the evolution which the
Automaton pointed out. At every movement of the figure machinery is
heard in motion. During the progress of the game, the figure now and
then rolls its eyes, as if surveying the board, moves its head, and
pronounces the word _echec_ (check) when necessary.[2] If a false
move be made by his antagonist, he raps briskly on the box with the
fingers of his right hand, shakes his head roughly, and replacing
the piece falsely moved, in its former situation, assumes the next
move himself. Upon beating the game, he waves his head with an air
of triumph, looks round complacently upon the spectators, and
drawing his left arm farther back than usual, suffers his fingers
alone to rest upon the cushion. In general, the Turk is
victorious--once or twice he has been beaten. The game being ended,
Maelzel will again, if desired, exhibit the mechanism of the box, in
the same manner as before. The machine is then rolled back, and a
curtain hides it from the view of the company.
[Footnote 2: The making the Turk pronounce the word _echec_, is an
improvement by M. Maelzel. When in possession of Baron Kempelen, the
figure indicated a _check_ by rapping on the box with his right
hand.]
There have been many attempts at solving the mystery of the
Automaton. The most general opinion in relation to it, an opinion
too not unfrequently adopted by men who should have known better,
was, as we have before said, that no immediate human agency was
employed--in other words, that the machine was purely a machine and
nothing else. Many, however maintained that the exhibiter himself
regulated the movements of the figure by mechanical means operating
through the feet of the box. Others again, spoke confidently of a
magnet. Of the first of these opinions we shall say nothing at
present more than we have already said. In relation to the second it
is only necessary to repeat what we have before stated, that the
machine is rolled about on castors, and will, at the request of a
spectator, be moved to and fro to any portion of the room, even
during the progress of a game. The supposition of the magnet is also
untenable--for if a magnet were the agent, any other magnet in the
pocket of a spectator would disarrange the entire mechanism. The
exhibiter, however, will suffer the most powerful loadstone to
remain even upon the box during the whole of the exhibition.
The first attempt at a written explanation of the secret, at least
the first attempt of which we ourselves have any knowledge, was made
in a large pamphlet printed at Paris in 1785. The author's
hypothesis amounted to this--that a dwarf actuated the machine. This
dwarf he supposed to conceal himself during the opening of the box
by thrusting his legs into two hollow cylinders, which were
represented to be (but which are not) among the machinery in the
cupboard No. 1, while his body was out of the box entirely, and
covered by the drapery of the Turk. When the doors were shut, the
dwarf was enabled to bring his body within the box--the noise
produced by some portion of the machinery allowing him to do so
unheard, and also to close the door by which he entered. The
interior of the Automaton being then exhibited, and no person
discovered, the spectators, says the author of this pamphlet, are
satisfied that no one is within any portion of the machine. This
whole hypothesis was too obviously absurd to require comment, or
refutation, and accordingly we find that it attracted very little
attention.
In 1789 a book was published at Dresden by M. I. F. Freyhere in
which another endeavor was made to unravel the mystery. Mr.
Freyhere's book was a pretty large one, and copiously illustrated by
colored engravings. His supposition was that "a well-taught boy very
thin and tall of his age (sufficiently so that he could be concealed
in a drawer almost immediately under the chess-board") played the
game of chess and effected all the evolutions of the Automaton. This
idea, although even more silly than that of the Parisian author, met
with a better reception, and was in some measure believed to be the
true solution of the wonder, until the inventor put an end to the
discussion by suffering a close examination of the top of the box.
These bizarre attempts at explanation were followed by others
equally bizarre. Of late years however, an anonymous writer, by a
course of reasoning exceedingly unphilosophical, has contrived to
blunder upon a plausible solution--although we cannot consider it
altogether the true one. His Essay was first published in a
Baltimore weekly paper, was illustrated by cuts, and was entitled
"An attempt to analyze the Automaton Chess-Player of M. Maelzel."
This Essay we suppose to have been the original of the _pamphlet_ to
which Sir David Brewster alludes in his letters on Natural Magic,
and which he has no hesitation in declaring a thorough and
satisfactory explanation. The _results_ of the analysis are
undoubtedly, in the main, just; but we can only account for
Brewster's pronouncing the Essay a {322} thorough and satisfactory
explanation, by supposing him to have bestowed upon it a very
cursory and inattentive perusal. In the compendium of the Essay,
made use of in the Letters on Natural Magic, it is quite impossible
to arrive at any distinct conclusion in regard to the adequacy or
inadequacy of the analysis, on account of the gross misarrangement
and deficiency of the letters of reference employed. The same fault
is to be found in the "Attempt &c." as we originally saw it. The
solution consists in a series of minute explanations, (accompanied
by wood-cuts, the whole occupying many pages) in which the object is
to show the _possibility_ of _so shifting the partitions_ of the
box, as to allow a human being, concealed in the interior, to move
portions of his body from one part of the box to another, during the
exhibition of the mechanism--thus eluding the scrutiny of the
spectators. There can be no doubt, as we have before observed, and
as we will presently endeavor to show, that the principle, or rather
the result, of this solution is the true one. Some person _is_
concealed in the box during the whole time of exhibiting the
interior. We object, however, to the whole verbose description of
the _manner_ in which the partitions are shifted, to accommodate the
movements of the person concealed. We object to it as a mere theory
assumed in the first place, and to which circumstances are
afterwards made to adapt themselves. It was not, and could not have
been, arrived at by any inductive reasoning. In whatever way the
shifting is managed, it is of course concealed at every step from
observation. To show that certain movements might possibly be
effected in a certain way, is very far from showing that they are
actually so effected. There may be an infinity of other methods by
which the same results may be obtained. The probability of the one
assumed proving the correct one is then as unity to infinity. But,
in reality, this particular point, the shifting of the partitions,
is of no consequence whatever. It was altogether unnecessary to
devote seven or eight pages for the purpose of proving what no one
in his senses would deny--viz: that the wonderful mechanical genius
of Baron Kempelen could invent the necessary means for shutting a
door or slipping aside a pannel, with a human agent too at his
service in actual contact with the pannel or the door, and the whole
operations carried on, as the author of the Essay himself shows, and
as we shall attempt to show more fully hereafter, entirely out of
reach of the observation of the spectators.
In attempting ourselves an explanation of the Automaton, we will, in
the first place, endeavor to show how its operations are effected,
and afterwards describe, as briefly as possible, the nature of the
_observations_ from which we have deduced our result.
It will be necessary for a proper understanding of the subject, that
we repeat here in a few words, the routine adopted by the exhibiter
in disclosing the interior of the box--a routine from which he
_never_ deviates in any material particular. In the first place he
opens the door No. 1. Leaving this open, he goes round to the rear
of the box, and opens a door precisely at the back of door No. 1. To
this back door he holds a lighted candle. He then _closes the back
door_, locks it, and, coming round to the front, opens the drawer to
its full extent. This done, he opens the doors No. 2 and No. 3, (the
folding doors) and displays the interior of the main compartment.
Leaving open the main compartment, the drawer, and the front door of
cupboard No. 1, he now goes to the rear again, and throws open the
back door of the main compartment. In shutting up the box no
particular order is observed, except that the folding doors are
always closed before the drawer.
Now, let us suppose that when the machine is first rolled into the
presence of the spectators, a man is already within it. His body is
situated behind the dense machinery in cupboard No. 1, (the rear
portion of which machinery is so contrived as to slip _en masse_,
from the main compartment to the cupboard No. 1, as occasion may
require,) and his legs lie at full length in the main compartment.
When Maelzel opens the door No. 1, the man within is not in any
danger of discovery, for the keenest eye cannot penetrate more than
about two inches into the darkness within. But the case is otherwise
when the back door of the cupboard No. 1, is opened. A bright light
then pervades the cupboard, and the body of the man would be
discovered if it were there. But it is not. The putting the key in
the lock of the back door was a signal on hearing which the person
concealed brought his body forward to an angle as acute as
possible--throwing it altogether, or nearly so, into the main
compartment. This, however, is a painful position, and cannot be
long maintained. Accordingly we find that Maelzel _closes the back
door_. This being done, there is no reason why the body of the man
may not resume its former situation--for the cupboard is again so
dark as to defy scrutiny. The drawer is now opened, and the legs of
the person within drop down behind it in the space it formerly
occupied.[3] There is, consequently, now no longer any part of the
man in the main compartment--his body being behind the machinery in
cupboard No. 1, and his legs in the space occupied by the drawer.
The exhibiter, therefore, finds himself at liberty to display the
main compartment. This he does--opening both its back and front
doors--and no person is discovered. The spectators are now satisfied
that the whole of the box is exposed to view--and exposed too, all
portions of it at one and the same time. But of course this is not
the case. They neither see the space behind the drawer, nor the
interior of cupboard No. 1--the front door of which latter the
exhibiter virtually shuts in shutting its back door. Maelzel, having
now rolled the machine around, lifted up the drapery of the Turk,
opened the doors in his back and thigh, and shown his trunk to be
full of machinery, brings the whole back into its original position,
and closes the doors. The man within is now at liberty to move
about. He gets up into the body of the Turk just so high as to bring
his eyes above the level of the chess-board. It is very probable
that he seats himself upon the little square block or protuberance
which is seen in a corner of the main compartment when the doors are
open. In this position he sees the chess-board through the bosom of
the Turk which is of gauze. Bringing his right arm across his {323}
breast he actuates the little machinery necessary to guide the left
arm and the fingers of the figure. This machinery is situated just
beneath the left shoulder of the Turk, and is consequently easily
reached by the right hand of the man concealed, if we suppose his
right arm brought across the breast. The motions of the head and
eyes, and of the right arm of the figure, as well as the sound
_echec_ are produced by other mechanism in the interior, and
actuated at will by the man within. The whole of this
mechanism--that is to say all the mechanism essential to the
machine--is most probably contained within the little cupboard (of
about six inches in breadth) partitioned off at the right (the
spectators' right) of the main compartment.
[Footnote 3: Sir David Brewster supposes that there is always a
large space behind this drawer even when shut--in other words that
the drawer is a "false drawer" and does not extend to the back of
the box. But the idea is altogether untenable. So commonplace a
trick would be immediately discovered--especially as the drawer is
always opened to its full extent, and an opportunity thus afforded
of comparing its depth with that of the box.]
In this analysis of the operations of the Automaton, we have
purposely avoided any allusion to the manner in which the partitions
are shifted, and it will now be readily comprehended that this point
is a matter of no importance, since, by mechanism within the ability
of any common carpenter, it might be effected in an infinity of
different ways, and since we have shown that, however performed, it
is performed out of the view of the spectators. Our result is
founded upon the following _observations_ taken during frequent
visits to the exhibition of Maelzel.[4]