The human heart loves corners. The very word "corner" is suggestive of
snugness and cosy comfort, and he who has no liking for them is
something more or less than mortal. I have seen people whose ideas of
comfort were singularly crude and imperfect; who thought that it
consisted in keeping a habitation painfully clean, and in having every
book or paper that might give token of the place being the dwelling of a
human being, carefully out of sight. We have great cause for
thankfulness that such people are not common, (for a little wholesome
negligence is by no means an unpleasant thing,) so that we can say that
mankind generally likes to snuggify itself, and is therefore fond of a
corner. This natural fondness is manifested by the child with his
playthings and infantile sports, in one of which, at least, the
attractions of corners for the feline race are brought strongly before
his inquisitive mind. And how is this liking strengthened and built up
as the child increases in secular knowledge, and learns in the course of
his poetical and historical researches all about the personal history of
Master John Horner, whose sedentary habits and manducation of festive
pastry are famous wherever the language of Shakespeare and Milton is
spoken!
This love of nooks and corners is especially observable in those who are
obliged to live in style and splendour. Many a noble English family has
been glad to escape from the bondage of its rank, and has found more
real comfort in the confinement of a Parisian _entresol_ than amid the
gloomy grandeur of its London home. Those who are condemned to dwell in
palaces bear witness to this natural love of snugness, by choosing some
quiet sunny corner in their marble halls, and making it as comfortable
as if it were a cosy cottage. Napoleon and Eugenie delight to escape
from the magnificence of the Tuileries to that quiet and homelike refuge
for people who are burdened with imperial dignity, amid the thick
foliage and green alleys of St. Cloud. Even in that mighty maze, the
Vatican, the rooms inhabited by the Sovereign Pontiff are remarkably
comfortable and unpalatial, and prove the advantages of smallness and
simplicity over gilding and grandeur, for the ordinary purposes of life.
An American gentleman once called on the great and good Cardinal
Cheverus, and while talking with him of his old friends in America, said
that the contrast between the Cardinal's position in the episcopal
palace of Bordeaux and in his former humble residence when he was Bishop
of Boston, was a very striking one. The humble and pious prelate smiled,
and taking his visitor by the arm, led him from the stately hall in
which they were conversing, into a narrow room furnished in a style of
austere simplicity: "The palace," said he, "which you have seen and
admired is the residence of the Cardinal Archbishop of Bordeaux; but
this little chamber is where John Cheverus _lives_."
Literary men and statesmen have always coveted the repose of a corner
where they might be undisturbed by the wranglings of the world.
Twickenham, and Lausanne, and Ferney, and Rydal Mount have become as
shrines to which the lover of books would fain make pilgrimages. Have we
not a Sunnyside and an Idlewild even in this new land of ours! Cicero,
in spite of his high opinion of Marcus Tullius, and his thirst for
popular applause, often grew tired of urban life, and was glad to
forsake the _Senatus populusque Romanus_ for the quiet of his snug villa
in a corner of the hill country overlooking Frascati. And did not our
own Tully love to fling aside the burden of his power, and find his
Tusculum on the old South Shore? In the Senate Chamber or the Department
of State you might see the Defender of the Constitution, but it was at
Marshfield that Webster really lived. Horace loved good company and the
entertainment of his wealthy patrons and friends, but he loved snugness
and quiet even more. In one of his odes he apostrophizes his friend
Septimius, and describes to him the delight he takes in the repose of
his Tiburtine retreat from the bustle of the metropolis, saying that of
all places in the world that corner is the most smiling and grateful to
him:--
Ille terrarum mihi praeter omnes
Angulus ridet.
If we look into our hearts, I think we shall most of us find that we
have a clinging attachment to some favourite corner, as well as Mr.
Horatius Flaccus. There is at least one corner in the city of Boston,
which has many pleasant associations for the lover of literature.
Allusion was made a few days since, in an evening paper, to the
well-known fact that the old building at the corner of Washington and
School Streets was built in 1713, and is therefore older by seventeen
years than the Old South Church. That little paragraph reminded me of
some passages in the history of that ancient edifice related to me by an
ancestor of mine, for whom the place had an almost romantic charm.
The old building (my grandfather used to tell me) was originally a
dwelling-house. It had the high wainscots, the broad staircases, the
carved cornices, and all the other blessed old peculiarities of the age
in which it was built, which we irreverently have improved away. One
hundred years ago the old corner was considered rather an aristocratic
place of residence. It was slightly suburban in its position, for the
town of Boston had an affection for Copp's Hill, and the inhabitants
clustered about that sacred eminence as if the southern parts of their
territory were a quicksand. Trees were not uncommon in the vicinity of
the foot of School Street in those days, and no innovating Hathorne had
disturbed the quiet of the place with countless omnibuses. The old
corner was then occupied by an English gentleman named Barmesyde, who
gave good dinners, and was on intimate terms with the colonial governor.
My venerated relative, to whom I have already alluded, enjoyed his
friendship, and in his latter days delighted to talk of him, and tell
his story to those who had heard it so often, that Hugh Greville
Barmesyde, Esquire, seemed like a companion of their own young days.
Old Barmesyde sprang from an ancient Somersetshire family, from which he
inherited a considerable property, and a remarkable energy of character.
He increased his wealth during a residence of many years in Antigua, at
the close of which he relinquished his business, and returned to England
to marry a beautiful English lady to whom he had engaged himself in the
West Indies. He arrived in England the day after the funeral of his
betrothed, who had fallen a victim to intermittent fever. Many of his
relations had died in his absence, and he found himself like a stranger
in the very place where he had hoped to taste again the joys of home.
The death of the lady he loved so dearly, and the changes in his circle
of friends, were so depressing to him, that he resolved to return to the
West Indies. He thought it would be easier for him to continue in the
associations he had formed there than to recover from the shock his
visit to England had given him. So he took passage in a brig from
Bristol to Antigua, and said farewell forever, as he supposed, to his
native land. Before half the voyage was accomplished, the vessel was
disabled: as Mr. Choate would express it, a north-west gale inflicted
upon her a serious, an immedicable injury; and she floated a wreck upon
the foamy and uneven surface of the Atlantic. She was fallen in with by
another British vessel, bound for Boston, which took off her company,
and with the renewal of the storm she foundered before the eyes of those
who had so lately risked their lives upon her seaworthiness. When Mr.
Barmesyde arrived in Boston, he found an old friend in the governor of
the Province of Massachusetts Bay. Governor Pownall had but lately
received his appointment from the Crown, and being a comparative
stranger in Boston, he was as glad to see Mr. Barmesyde as the latter
was to see him. It was several months before an opportunity to reach the
West Indies offered itself, and when one did occur, Mr. Barmesyde only
used it to communicate with his agent at Antigua. He had given up all
ideas of returning thither, and had settled down, with his negro servant
Cato, to housekeeping at the corner of School Street, within a few doors
of his gubernatorial friend.
Governor Pownall's term of office was not a long one, but even when he
was removed, Mr. Barmesyde stuck faithfully to the old corner. He had
found many warm friends here, and could no longer consider himself alone
in the world. He was a man of good natural powers, and of thorough
education. He was one of those who seem never to lose any thing that
they have once acquired. In person he was tall and comely, and my
grandfather said that he somewhat resembled General Washington as he
appeared twenty-five years later, excepting that Mr. Barmesyde's
countenance was more jolly and port-winy. From all I can learn, his
face, surmounted by that carefully-powdered head of hair, must have
resembled a red brick house after a heavy fall of snow. If Hugh
Barmesyde had a fault, I am afraid it was a fondness for good living. He
attended to his marketing in person, assisted by his faithful Cato, who
was as good a judge in such matters as his master, and who used to
vindicate the excellence of his master's fare by eating until he was
black in the face. For years there were few vessels arrived from England
without bringing choice wines to moisten the alimentary canal of Mr.
Barmesyde. The Windward Isles contributed bountifully to keep alight the
festive flame that blazed in his cheery countenance, and to make his
flip and punch the very best that the province could produce. Every
Sunday morning Mr. Barmesyde's best buckles sparkled in the sunbeams as
he walked up School Street to the King's Chapel. Not that he was an
eminently religious man, but he regarded religion as an institution that
deserved encouragement for the sake of maintaining a proper balance in
society. The quiet order and dignity of public worship pleased him, the
liturgy gratified his taste, and so Sunday after Sunday his big manly
voice headed the responses, and told that its possessor had done many
things that he ought not to have done, and had left undone a great many
that he ought to have done.
Mr. Barmesyde was not a mere feeder on good things, however; he had a
cultivated taste for literature, and his invoices of wine were
frequently accompanied by parcels of new books. The old gentleman took a
great delight in the English literature of that day. Fielding and
Smollett were writing then, and no one took a keener pleasure in their
novels than he. He imported, as he used to boast, the first copy of Dr.
Johnson's Dictionary that ever came to America, and was never tired of
reading that stately and pathetic preface, or of searching for the
touches of satire and individual prejudice that abound in that
entertaining work. His well-worn copy of the Spectator, in eight
duodecimo volumes, presented by him to my grandfather, now graces one of
my book shelves. His books were always at the service of his friends,
who availed themselves of the old gentleman's kindness to such an extent
that his collection might have been called a circulating library. But it
was not merely for the frequent "feast of reason and flow of soul" that
his friends were indebted to him. He was the very incarnation of
hospitality. I am afraid that my excellent grandparent had an uncommon
admiration for this trait in the old fellow's character, for a frequent
burning twinge in one of the toes of my right foot, and occasionally in
the knuckles of my left hand, reminds me of his fondness for keeping his
legs under Mr. Barmesyde's festive mahogany. A few years ago, when a new
floor was laid in the cellar at the old corner, a large number of empty
bottles was discovered, whose appearance bore witness to the previous
good character of the place as a cellar. Some labels were also found
bearing dates like 1697, 1708, 1721, &c. To this day the occupants of
the premises take pleasure in showing the dark wine stains on the old
stairs leading to the cellar.
But Mr. Barmesyde's happiness, like the _gioia de profani_, which we
have all heard the chorus in the last scene of Lucrezia Borgia
discordantly allude to, was but transient. The dispute which had been
brewing for years between the colonies and the mother country, began to
grow unpleasantly warm. Mr. B. was a stanch loyalist. He allowed that
injustice had been done to the colonies, but still he could not throw
off his allegiance to his most religious and gracious king, George III.,
Defender of the Faith. He was ready to do and to suffer as much for his
principles as the most ardent of the revolutionists. And he was not
alone in his loyalty. There were many old-fashioned conservative people
in this revolutionary and ismatic city in those days as well as now. The
publication in this city of a translation of De Maistre's great defence
of the monarchical principle of government, (the Essay on the Generative
Principle of Political Constitutions,) and of the late Mr. Oliver's
"Puritan Commonwealth," proves that the surrender of Cornwallis and the
formation of the Federal Constitution did not destroy the confidence of
a good many persons in the truth of the principles on which the
loyalists took their stand. The unfortunate occurrence in State Street,
March 5, 1770, gave Mr. B. great pain. He regretted the bloodshed, but
he regretted more deeply to see many persons so blinded by their hatred
of the king's most excellent majesty, as to defend and praise the action
of a lawless mob just punished for their riotous conduct. The throwing
overboard of the tea excited his indignation. He stigmatized it (and not
without some reason on his side) as a wanton and cowardly act,--a
destruction of the property of parties against whom the town of Boston
had no cause of complaint,--a deed which proved how little real regard
for justice and honour there might be among those who were the loudest
in their shrieks for freedom. Of course he could not give utterance to
these sentiments without exciting the ire of many people; and feeling
that he could no longer safely remain in this country, he concluded to
return to England. In the spring of 1774, Hugh Greville Barmesyde gave
his last dinner to a few of the faithful at the old corner, and sailed
the next day with a sorrowing heart and his trusty Cato for the land of
his birth. He spent the remainder of his days in London, where he died
in 1795. He was interred in the vault belonging to his family, in the
north transept of the Parish Church of Shepton Mallet, in Somersetshire,
where there is still a handsome tablet commemorating his many virtues
and the inconsolable grief of the nephews and nieces whom his decease
enriched.
Some of the less orderly "liberty boys" bore witness to the imperfect
sympathy that existed between them and the late occupant of the old
corner, by breaking sundry panes of glass in the parlour windows the
night after his departure. The old house, during the revolutionary
struggle, followed the common prosaic course of ordinary occupancy.
There was "marrying and giving in marriage" under that steep and ancient
roof in those days, and troops of clamorous children used to play upon
the broad stone steps, and tarnish the brasses that Cato was wont to
keep so clean and bright. In the latter part of the last century the old
house underwent a painful transformation. An enterprising apothecary
perverted it to the uses of trade, and decorated its new windows with
the legitimate jars of various coloured fluids. It is now nearly half a
century since it became a bookstore. Far be it from me to offer any
disturbance to the modesty of my excellent friends, Messrs. Ticknor and
Fields, by enlarging upon the old corner in its present estate. It were
useless to write about any thing so familiar. They are young men yet,
and must pardon me if I have used the prerogative of age and spoken too
freely about their old establishment and its reminiscences. I love the
old corner, and should not hesitate to apply to it the words of Horace
which I have quoted above. I love its freedom from pretence and
ostentation. New books seem more grateful to me there than elsewhere;
for the dinginess of Paternoster Row harmonizes better with literature
than the plate glass and gairish glitter of Piccadilly or Regent Street.
The large looking-glass which stands near the Washington Street entrance
to the old corner used to adorn the dining-room where Mr. Barmesyde gave
so many feasts. It is the only relic of that worthy gentleman now
remaining under that roof. If that glass could only publish its
reflexions during the past century, what an entertaining work on the
curiosities of literature and of life it might make! It is no ordinary
place that may boast of having been the familiar resort of people like
Judge Story, Mr. Otis, Channing, Kirkland, Webster, Choate, Everett,
Charles Kemble and the elder Vandenhoff with their gifted daughters,
Ellen Tree, the Woods, Finn, Dickens, Thackeray, James, Bancroft,
Prescott, Emerson, Brownson, Dana, Halleck, Bryant, Hawthorne,
Longfellow, Holmes, Lowell, Willis, Bayard Taylor, Whipple, Parkman,
Hilliard, Sumner, Parsons, Sprague, and so many others whose names will
live in literature and history. It is a very pleasant thing to see
literary men at their ease, as they always are around those old
counters. It is a relief to find that they can throw off at times the
dignity and restraint of authorship. It is pleasant to see the lecturer
and the divine put away their tiresome earnestness and severe morality,
and come down to the jest of the day. It refreshes one to know that Mr.
Emerson is not always orphic, and that the severely scholastic Everett
can forget his elegant and harmonious sentences, and descend to common
prose. For we can no more bear to think of an orator living unceasingly
in oratory than we could of Signorina Zanfretta being obliged to remain
constantly poised on the _corde tendue_.
The bust of Sir Walter Scott has filled the space above the mirror I
have spoken of, for many years. It is a fine work of Chantrey's, and a
good likeness of that head of Sir Walter's, so many _stories_ high that
one can never wonder where all his novels came from. Except this
specimen of the plastic art, and one of Professor Agassiz, there is
little that is ornamental in the ancient haunt. The green curtain that
decorates the western corner of the establishment is a comparatively
modern institution. It was found necessary to fence off that portion of
the shop for strict business purposes. The profane converse of the world
cannot penetrate those folds. Into that _sanctissimum sanctissimorum_ no
joke, however good, may enter. What a strange dispensation of Providence
is it, that a man should have been for years enjoying the good society
that abounds at that corner, and yet should seem to have so little
liking for a quiet jest as the estimable person who conceals his
seriousness behind that green curtain!
But every thing must yield to the law of nature, and the old corner must
share the common lot. Some inauspicious night, the fire-alarm will sound
for District III.; hoarse voices will echo at the foot of School Street,
calling earnestly on No. 3 to "hold on," and No. 9 to "play away"; where
erst good liquor was wont to abound water will more abound, and when the
day dawns Mr. Barmesyde's old house will be an unsightly ruin,--there
will be mourning and desolation among the lovers of literature, and
wailing in the insurance offices in State Street. When the blackened
ruins are cleared away, boys will pick up scraps of scorched
manuscripts, and sell them piecemeal as parts of the original copy of
Hiawatha, or Evangeline, or the Scarlet Letter. In the fulness of time,
a tall, handsome stone or iron building will rise on that revered site,
and we lovers of the past shall try to invest it with something of the
unpretending dignity and genial associations of the present venerable
pile, which will then be cherished among our most precious memories.