Between the period of his birth in 1743, and that of his dissolution in

1795, when incarcerated in a dungeon of San Leo, at Rome, Cagliostro,

rendered himself in a manner illustrious by practising upon the

credulity of his fellow-creatures. Holstein had witnessed his pretended

successes in alchemy. Strasburg had received him with admiration, as the

evangelist of a mystic religion. Paris had resounded with the marvels

revealed by his performances in Egyptian free-masonry. Molten gold was

said to stream at pleasure over the rim of his crucibles; divination by

astrology was as familiar to him as it had been of yore to Zoroaster or

Nostradamus; graves yawned at the beck of his potent finger; their

ghostly habitants, appeared at his preternatural bidding. The

necromantic achievements of Doctor Dee and William Lilly dwindled into

insignificance before those attributed to a man who, although apparently

in the bloom of manhood, was believed to have survived a thousand

winters.

Accident had supplied Cagliostro with an accomplice of suitable

depravity. In the course of his eccentric peregrinations among the

continental cities, he had formed the acquaintance of a female,

remarkable for her consummate loveliness and her boundless sensuality.

Married to this Circe, the adventurer began to thrive beyond his most

sanguine anticipations. It must be remembered, however, that in his

nefarious proceedings, Balsamo was aided by a faculty of invention

almost miraculous in its fruitfulness, and occasionally almost sublime

in its audacity. By these means, he ultimately became the most

astonishing impostor the world had ever beheld, with the solitary

exception of Mohammed.

As a forerunner of a disastrous revolution, the appearance of this

fantastic personage in the capital of civilisation was at once dismal

and prophetic. Unconsciously, he was the prophet of disaster.

Unconsciously, he was the prelude--half-solemn, half-grotesque--of a

bloody and diabolical saturnalia. History, both profane and inspired,

tells us that when the Euphrates forsook its natural channel, and the

hostile legions trampled under its gates at nightfall; when the

revellers of Belshazzar, drunk with prolonged orgies and haggard with

the shadow of an impending doom, staggered through the marble vestibules

and out upon the marble causeways, rending their purple vestures in the

moonlight, there was weeping among the lords of Chaldea,--"Wo! wo! wo!"

was walled in the streets of Babylon. A similar destiny awaited Paris,

but as yet a different spectacle was visible; as yet the carousals of

the metropolis were at their zenith; as yet the current flowed in its

ancient channel; as yet the woes of the empire were not written on the

wall of the palace. Festivities were never conducted with more

magnificence than immediately before the downfall of the monarchy and

the general desolation of the kingdom. The pomps of the religion, the

pageantries of the court, and the munificence of the nobility, were

never before characterised by so much grandeur and profusion. The

church, the sovereign, and the oligarchy, were crowning themselves for

the sacrifice.

* * * * *

Opposite the Rue de Luxembourg, and parallel with the Rue de Caumartin,

there stood, in the year 1782, a little villa-cottage or rustic

pavilion. It was separated from the Boulevard de la Madeleine by a green

paddock, and was concealed in a nest of laurustinus and clematis.

Autumn, that generous season, which seems in its bounty to impart a

smell of ripeness to the very leaves, had already scattered dyes of gold

and vermilion over the verdure of this shrubbery. A night-breeze,

impregnated with vegetable perfumes, and wafting before it one of these

leaves, stole between the branches--over the fragrant mould--across a

grass-plot--through an open window of the cottage. The leaf tinkled. It

had fallen upon the pages of a volume from which a man was reading by a

lamp. At that moment the clock of the Capuchins tolled out a doleful

TWO; it was answered by the numerous bells of Paris. Solemn, querulous,

sepulchral, quavering, silvery, close at hand, or modulated into a dim

echo by the distance, the voice of the inexorable hours vibrated over

the capital, and then ceased.

Alas, for the heart of Cagliostro!

The solitary watcher shuddered as the metallic sounds floated in from

the belfries. Although startled by the dropping of the leaf, he closed

the volume, leisurely placing it between the pages as a marker--_it_, so

brittle! so yellow! so typical of decay and mortality! The book

comprised the writings of Sir Cornelius Agrippa. Having tossed the old

alchemist from him with an air of overwhelming dejection, the student

abandoned himself to the most sorrowful reflections.

He had but recently returned from a masked ball, and a domino of

salmon-coloured satin still hung loosely over his shoulders. As the

feeble light of the lamp glimmered upon the jet-bugles and

steel-spangles of his costume, there was visible the perpetual contrast

of his destiny,--a mingling of the most abstruse researches and the most

extravagant frivolities. Jewels sparkled upon his hands and bosom; the

varicose veins on his temples throbbed with a feverish precision; the

fumes of the wine-cup flushed his cheek and disordered his imagination.

"Death," thought the Rosicrucian, "fills me with abhorrence; and yet

life is totally devoid of happiness. Happiness! O delusive phantom of

humanity, how art thou attainable? Through Fame? Fame is mine, and I am

wretched. Over the realms of civilisation my name is noised abroad; in

the populous cities the glory of my art resounds; when my barge glided

among the palaces of Venice, the blue Adriatic was purpled with blossoms

in my honour.--Fame? Fame brings not happiness to Cagliostro. Wealth?

Not so. Ducats, pistoles, louis-d'or, have brought no panacea to the

sorrows of Balsamo. Beauty? Nay; for, in the profligate experience of

capitals, the sage is saddened with the knowledge that comeliness, at

best, is but an exquisite hypocrisy. I have striven also, vainly, for

contentment in the luxuries of voluptuous living. The talisman of

Epicurus has evaded my grasp--the glittering bauble![5] The ravishing

ideal JOY, has been to me not as the statue to Pygmalion: I have

grovelled down in adoration at its feet, and have found it the same

immobile, relentless, unresponsive image. Youth is yet mine, but it is a

youth hoary in desolation. Centuries of anguish have flooded through my

bosom, even in the heyday of existence. The tangible and the intangible,

the visible and the invisible, the material and the immaterial, have

been at deadly strife in my conjectures. The present has been to me an

evasion, the future an enigma; the earth a delusion, the heavens a

doubt. Even the pomp of those inexplicable stars is a new agony of

indecision to my recoiling fancy[6]--so impassive in their

unchangeableness, so awful in the quiescence of their eternal grandeur.

Supreme, too, in my bewilderment, remains the problem of their

revolutions--the cause of their impulsion[7] as well as of their

creation. Baffled in my scrutiny of the sublime puzzle which is _domed_

over the globe at nightfall, dizzy with the contemplation of such

abysses of mystery, my thoughts have reverted to this earth, in which

pleasure sparkles but to evaporate. No solace in the investigation of

those infinitudes, which are only fathomable by a system revolting to my

judgment--the system of a theocratic philosophy; no consolation in the

dreamings evoked by the lore of the stupendous skies: my heart throbs

still for the detection and the possession of happiness. Nature has

endowed me with senses--five delicate and susceptible instruments--for

the realisation of bodily delight. Sights of unutterable loveliness,

tones of surpassing melody, perfumes of delicious fragrance, marvellous

sensibilities of touch and palate, afford me so many channels for

enjoyment. Still the insufficiency of the palpable and appreciable is

paramount; still the everlasting dolor interposes: the appetite is

satiated, the aroma palls upon the nostrils, the nerves are affected by

irritability, the harmony merges into dissonance; even the beautiful

becomes so far an abomination that man is 'mad for the sight of his eyes

that he did see.' Such is the sterile and repulsive penalty of the

searcher after happiness. Happiness! O delusive phantom of humanity, how

art thou attainable?"

A thrill pervaded the frame of the visionary as he paused in his

meditations. Subtle as the birth of an emotion--solemn as the presage of

a disaster--terrible as the throes of dissolution, was the pang that

agonised the Rosicrucian. His flesh crept upon his bones at the

consciousness of a preternatural but invisible presence--the presence of

an unseen visitant in the dead of the midnight! His heart quaked as it

drank in, like Eliphaz, "_the veins of_ ITS _whisper_."[8] There was no

sound or reverberation, and yet the language streamed upon the knowledge

of the listener with a distinctness beyond that of human articulation.

The stillness of his solitude was only broken by the rustling of the

night-breeze among the laurustines, and yet in the ears of Cagliostro

there was the utterance as of unsubstantial lips--the sense as of a

divine symphony--"the thunder, and the music, and the pomp" of an

unearthly Voice.[9]

"Balsamo!" it cried, "thy thoughts are blasphemy; thy lamentations are

foolishness; thy mind is darkened by the glooms of a most barren

dejection. Away! vain Sceptic, with the syllogisms of infidelity. The

glory of the immortal WILL evades thy comprehension in the depths of

infinitude. When in its natural brightness, the spiritual being of man

reflects that glory as in a mirror. _Thine_ is blurred by sensuality.

Tranquillity is denied thee, because of the concupiscence of thy

ambition. A profligate and venal career has troubled thy soul with

misgivings. Thou hast scorned even the five senses--those golden portals

of humanity! Know, O dreamer, that in them alone consists the enjoyment

of a finite existence: know that _through the virtuous use of those five

senses, earthly happiness is attainable_! Dost thou still tremble in thy

unbelief? Arise, Balsamo, and behold the teachings of eternity!"

As the last sentence resounded in the heart of Cagliostro, up into the

air floated the Rosicrucian and the Voice.

TIBERIUS.

Time and distance seemed to be conquered in that mysterious ascension,

and an impenetrable darkness enveloped the impostor as he felt himself

carried swiftly through the atmosphere. When he had somewhat recovered,

however, from his astonishment, the motion ceased, and the light of an

Italian evening beamed upon him from the heavens. A scene then revealed

itself around Cagliostro, the like of which his eyes had never before

beheld, or his imagination, in its wildest mood, conceived.

He was standing in a secluded grove in the island of Capreae. Fountains

sparkled under the branches; blossoms of the gaudiest colours flaunted

on the brambles, or enamelled the turf; laughter and music filled the

air with a confusion of sweet sounds; and among the intricacies of the

trees, bands of revellers flitted to and fro, clad in the antique

costumes of Rome. Under the shadow of a gigantic orange-bush, upon a

couch of luxurious softness and embroidered in gorgeous arabesques,

there reclined the figure of an old man. His countenance was hideous

with age and debauchery. Sin glimmered in the evil light of his

eyes--those enormous and bloodshot eyes with which (_praegrandibus

oculis_) the historian tells us he could see even in the night-time.[10]

Habitual intemperance had inflamed his complexion, and disfigured his

skin with disgusting eruptions; while his body, naturally robust in its

proportions, had become bloated with the indolence of confirmed

gluttony. A garment (the _toga virilis_) of virgin whiteness covered his

limbs; along the edge of the garment was the broad hem of Tyrian purple

indicative of the imperial dignity; and around the hoary brow of the

epicurean, was woven a chaplet of roses and aloe-leaves.

Cagliostro recoiled in abhorrence before a spectacle at once so austere

and lascivious. His spirit quailed at the sight of a visage in which

appeared to be concentrated the infamy of many centuries. His soul

revolted at the sinister and ferocious expression pervading every

lineament, and lurking in every wrinkle. As he gazed, however, a blithe

sound startled him from the umbrage of the boughs. Quick, lively,

jocund, to the clashing of her cymbals, there bounded forth an Italian

maiden in the garb of a Bacchante. Her feet agile as the roe's, her eyes

lustrous and defiant, her hair dishevelled, her bosom heaving, her arms

symmetrical as sculpture, but glowing with the roseate warmth of youth,

the virgin still rejoiced, as it were, in the tumult of the dance.

Grapes of a golden-green relieved by the ruddy-brown of their foliage,

clustered in a garland about her temples, and leaped in unison with her

movements. Around! with her raven tresses streaming abroad in

ringlets--around! with her sandals clinking on the gravel to the

capricious beat of her cymbals--around! with her light robes flowing

back from a jewelled brooch above the knee--singing, sparkling,

undulating, circling, rustling, the Bacchante entranced the heart of the

Rosicrucian. She gleamed before him like the embodiment of enthusiasm.

She was the genius of motion, the divinity of the dance; she was

Terpsichore in the grace of her movements, Euterpe in the ravishing

sweetness of her voice. A thrill of admiration suffused with a deeper

tint even the abhorred cheek of the voluptuary.

By an almost imperceptible degree, the damsel abated the ardour of her

gyrations, her cymbals clashed less frequently, the song faded from her

lip, the flutter of her garments ceased, the vine-fruit drooped upon her

forehead. She stood before the couch palpitating with emotion, and

radiant with a divine beauty. In another instant, she had prostrated

herself upon the earth, for in the decrepit monster of Capreae, she

recognised the lord of the whole world--Tiberius.

"Arise, maiden of Apulia," he said, with an immediate sense that he

beheld another of those innocent damsels, who were stolen from their

pastoral homes on the Peninsula to become the victims of his depravity.

"Arise, and slake my thirst from yonder goblet. The tongue of Tiberius

is dry with the avidity of his passion."

An indescribable loathing entered into the imagination of the Bacchante

even as she lay upon the grass; yet she rose with precipitation and

filled a chalice to the brim with Falernian. Tiberius grasped it with an

eager hand, and his mouth pressed the lip of the cup as if to drain its

ruby vintage to the bottom. Suddenly, however, the eyes of the old man

blazed with a raging light; the scowl of lust was forgotten; the

vindictiveness of a fiend shone in his dilated eyeballs, and, with a

yell of fury, he cast the goblet into the air, crying out that the wine

_boiled like the bowl of Pluto_. He was writhing in one of those

paroxysms of rage, which justified posterity in regarding him as a

madman. The howling of Tiberius resounded among the verdure, as the

rattle of a snake might do when it raises its deadly crest from its lair

among the flowers. Quick as thought at the first sound of those

inexorable accents, the grove was thronged with the revellers. They

jostled each other in their solicitude to minister to the cruelty of the

despot; and that cruelty was as ruthless, and as hell-born, as it was

ingenious and appalling.

Obedient to a gesture of Tiberius, the Bacchante was placed upon a

pedestal. For a moment, she stood before them an exquisite statue Of

despair--exquisite even in the excess of her bewilderment. For a moment,

she stood there stunned by the suddenness of the commotion, and frantic

with the consciousness of her peril. For a moment she gazed about her

for aid, wildly but, alas! vainly. No pity beamed upon her in that more

horrible Gomorrah. The marble trembled under her feet--a sulphurous

stench shot through its crevices--the virgin shrieked and fell forwards,

scorched and blackened to a cinder. She was blasted, as if by a

thunderbolt.[11] Cagliostro looked with horror upon the ashes of the

Bacchante. He had seen youth stricken down by age; he had seen virtue

annihilated, so to speak, at the mandate of vice; he had seen--and even

_his_ callous heart exulted at the thought--he had seen innocence

snatched from pollution, when upon the very threshold of an earthly

hell. While rejoicing in this reflection, he was aroused by the

stertorous breathing of the emperor. The crowned demon of the island was

being borne away to his palace upon the shoulders of his attendants.

Although maddened by an insatiable thirst, and by a gloom that was

becoming habitual, the monster lay upon his cushions as impotent as a

child, in the midst of his diseases and iniquities.[12]

At the feet of the Rosicrucian were huddled the bones of the virgin of

Apulia; and the babbling of the fountains was alone audible in the

solitude.

"Such," said the mournful Voice, as Cagliostro again felt himself

carried through the darkness--"such, Balsamo, are the miseries of a

debauched appetite."

AGRIPPA.

In another instant, the impostor was standing upon the floor of a

gigantic amphitheatre in Palestine. The whole air was refulgent with the

light of a summer morning, and through the loopholes of the structure,

the eye caught the blue shimmer of the Mediterranean. Banners,

emblazoned with the ciphers of Rome, fluttered from the walls of the

amphitheatre. Its internal circumference was thronged with a vast

concourse of citizens; and, immediately about the Rosicrucian, groups of

foreign traders, habited as if for some unusual ceremony, were scattered

over the arena. Expectation was evinced in every movement of the

assemblage, in every murmur that floated round the benches. The

worshippers were there, it seemed, and were awaiting the high-priest.

That high-priest was approaching, and more than a high-priest; for Herod

Agrippa, the tetrarch of Judea had descended from Jerusalem to Caesarea,

for the celebration of warlike games in honour of the Emperor Claudius,

and, on the completion of those festivities, the deputed sovereign had

consented, at the intercession of Blastus, to receive a deputation of

certain Phenician ambassadors who were solicitous for an assurance of

his clemency. Those envoys--the merchant princes of Tyre and Sidon--were

tarrying in the public theatre of the city for the promised interview in

the presence of the people of Samaria.

Cagliostro marvelled, as he scanned the scene before him, whether it

were all a reality or a delusion of his fancy; but the lapping of the

surge upon the adjacent beach, and the perfume of Oriental spices which

impregnated the breezes from the Levant, and even the motes that swarmed

about him like phosphoric atoms, proved that it was no juggle of a

distempered imagination.

Suddenly the air was rent with acclamations; the crowd rose as if by a

single impulse; trumpets sounded in the seven porches of the

amphitheatre; again the plaudits shook the air like the concussion of

enthusiasm, and the deputation in the arena prostrated themselves in the

dust. Balsamo saw, at once, the reason of this rejoicing; he saw the

tetrarch of Judea seated upon a throne of ivory. The crown of Agrippa

glittered upon his forehead with an unnatural brightness--it was of the

purest gold, radiating from the brow in spikes, and flecked with pearls

of an uncommon size. Silent--erect--inflated with pride at his own

grandeur, and the adulation of the rabble, sate the King of Palestine.

Silent--awe-stricken--uncovered before the majesty of the representative

of Claudius, stood the people of Samaria and Phenicia. Extreme beauty of

an elevated and heroic character shone upon the features of Herod,

although his beard was grizzled with the passage of fifty-four winters.

In the midst of the silence of the populace, the morning sun rose,

almost abruptly, above the topmost arches of the edifice, and darted his

beams full upon the glorious garments of Agrippa. It played in sparkles

of intense lustre upon the jewels of his diadem; and upon the outer

robe, which was of silver tissue woven with consummate skill and

powdered with diamonds, the refraction of the sunlight produced an

intolerable splendour.[13] The Samaritans shielded their eyes from its

magnificence; they were dazzled; they were blinded; they thrilled with

admiration and astonishment.

Agrippa spoke.

At the first sound of his accents, there was a whisper of awe among the

multitude--it increased--it grew louder--it arose to the heavens in one

prolonged and jubilant shout of adoration.

"It is a God!" they cried--"it is a God that speaketh, not a man!"

As the language of that impious homage saluted the ears of Herod, his

mouth curled with a smile of satisfaction, his soul expanded with an

inexpressible tumult of emotions, he drank in the blasphemous flatteries

of the rabble, and assumed to himself the power and the dignity of the

Most High God. Yet in the very ecstasy of those sensations, his

countenance became ghastly, his lips writhed, his eyes beheld with

unutterable dismay the omen of his dissolution--the visible phantom of

an avenging Nemesis.[14] He staggered from his throne, crying aloud in

the extremity of his anguish; a sudden corruption had seized upon his

body--he was being devoured by worms.

The heart of Cagliostro quailed within him at the lamentations of the

people of Samaria, as they beheld their idol smitten down by death in

the midst of his surpassing pomp. Even the Jewish hagiographer tells us,

with pathetic simplicity, that King Agrippa himself wept at the wailings

of the adoring mob.

Again the Alchemist found himself enveloped in darkness, again the

unearthly Voice stole into his brain.

"Lo!" it said, "how the frame rots in the ermine: how the body and soul

are polluted by vicious passions! Such, Balsamo, are the penalties of

the lusts of the flesh."

MILTON.

Another scene then revealed itself to the Rosicrucian, but one

altogether different from those he had already witnessed. Instead of

being in an Oriental amphitheatre, he was standing in a rural lane;

instead of tumult he found tranquillity; instead of regal pageantries an

almost primitive simplicity. He inhaled the sweet smells of clover and

newly-turned mould with a zest hitherto unexperienced. The gurgling of a

brook by the wayside saluted his ears, as it struggled through the

rushes and tinkled over the pebbles, with a sound more agreeable than he

ever remembered to have heard from the instruments of court musicians.

For the first time nature seemed to disclose her real loveliness to his

comprehension. Every where she appeared to abound with beauties: in the

bee that lit upon the nettle and sucked the honey out of its blossom; in

the nettle that nodded under the weight of the bee; in the dew that

dropped like a diamond from the alder-bough when the thrush alighted on

its stem; in the thrush that warbled till the speckled feathers on its

throat throbbed as if its heart were in its song; in the slug that

trailed a silver track upon the dust; in the very dust itself that

twirled in threads and circles on the ground as the wind swerved round

the corner of the hedgerow. Cagliostro was entranced with the most novel

and pleasurable emotions, as he strolled on towards the building he had

already observed. From the elevation of the ground which he was

traversing, his glance roved with admiration over a wide and diversified

extent of country; over a prospect richly wooded and teeming with

vegetation; over orchards laden with fruit and knee-deep in grass; over

fields of barley bristling with golden ripeness; over distant mills,

churning the water into foam, and driving gusts of meal out through the

open doorway; over meadows where the sheep cropped the cool herbage, and

the cattle lay in the sunshine sleeping; over village steeples, over

homesteads brown with age, or hid amongst the verdure. The worldling

scanned the profusion of the panorama with an amazement that was

exquisite from its newness. He marvelled at the charms that strewed the

earth in such abundance, at the almost unnumbered forms and colours of

her vitality, at the wonderful harmony that subsisted amidst all those

various hues and shapes. Never had the joys derivable from the sense of

vision appeared of so much value as now that he gazed into the deep and

delicious magnificence of nature. His sight, with a sort of luxurious

abandonment, strayed over the contrasts, and penetrated into the

distances of the landscape; his bosom swelled with the consciousness of

a sympathy with that creation of which he felt himself to be but a

kindred unit, or, at best, a sentient atom.

It was while absorbed in these sensations, that Cagliostro paused before

the rustic dwelling-house towards which his steps had been involuntarily

directed. The building was situated at a few paces from the pathway.

There was nothing about it to arrest the attention of a passer-by,

except, perhaps, all appearance of extreme but picturesque humility. The

walls were riveted together with iron-bands in crossbars and zig-zags;

the brickwork was decayed and crumbling away in blotches; the roof was

low and thatched. Yet, in spite of these evidences of poverty, the

scholar regarded the structure with a reverential aspect, with such an

aspect as he might have presented had he contemplated the hut of Baucis

and Philemon.

The threshold of this obscure edifice formed of itself a bower of

greenery, thickly covered with the blooms of the honey-suckle. Under the

porch was seated a man of a most venerable countenance. He was muffled

in a gray coat of the coarsest texture, and his legs being crossed, a

worsted stocking and a slipper of untanned leather betrayed the meanness

of his under garments. His hair, brilliant with a whiteness like that of

milk, was parted in the centre of the forehead, and fell over his

shoulders in those negligent curls called _oreilles de chien_, which

became fashionable long afterwards, during the days of the French

Directory. Had the Alchemist remained profoundly ignorant as to the

identity of the old man, he must still have observed with interest,

features which were equally characterised by the pensiveness of the

student and the paleness of the valetudinarian. He knew, however,

instinctively, as he had done upon the two preceding occasions, that he

beheld a personage of illustrious memory. And he knew rightly, for it

was Milton. While the great plague was desolating the metropolis, he had

escaped from his residence in the Artillery Walk, and sought security

from the contagion by a temporary sojourn in Buckinghamshire.

Opposite the immortal sage stood a person of about the same years, but

of a very different deportment--it was the dearest of his few friends,

and the most ardent of his many worshippers, Richardson. The latter was

leaning against the trunk of a great maple-tree that grew close to the

parlour-lattice, stretching forth its enormous branches in all

directions, and mingling its foliage with the smoke that issued from the

chimney. Richardson had been reading aloud but a moment before, from a

volume of Boccaccio; he had placed the book, however, upon the

window-sill, in obedience to a movement from his companion, and

continued, with his arms folded and his eyelids closed, a silent and

almost inanimate portion of the domestic group. The quietude which

ensued was so contagious that Cagliostro remarked with a feeling of

listlessness, the details and accessories of the spectacle--the silk

curtains of rusty green festooned before the open window, the

tobacco-pipe lying among the manuscripts upon the table, even the

slouched-hat hanging from the back of an arm-chair. The rambling

meditations of Balsamo were soon concentrated upon a loftier theme, by

the voice of Milton singing in a subdued tone the antistrophe of a

favourite ode of Pindar. As the noble words of the Greek lyrist rolled

with an indescribable gusto from the lips of Milton, it seemed to the

Rosicrucian that he had never before comprehended the true euphony of

the language. And the visage of the old bard responded to the strain of

Pindar; it was illumined with a certain majesty of expression that

imparted additional dignity to a countenance at all times beaming with

wisdom. In appreciating the Pagan poet, the poet of Christianity

appeared to glow with enthusiasm like that which entranced his whole

soul in the moments of his own superb inspiration.[15] Nor was the

grandeur of the head diminished in any manner by the unpoetical

proportions of the body, for, to the acknowledgment of his most partial

biographer, Richardson, the stature of Milton was so much below the

ordinary height, and so much beyond the ordinary bulk, that he might

almost be described as "short and thick." Yet, notwithstanding these

peculiarities of the frame, an august radiance seemed to envelope the

brow--a brow, hoary alike from years and from misfortunes--and to invest

with a sublime air the figure of that old man huddled in that old gray

coat. Cagliostro gazed with profound interest upon Milton as the rolling

melody of Pindar streamed into his ears, when suddenly the song ceased,

and the face of the singer was raised to the resplendent light of the

heavens. Alas! those eyes turned vacantly in their sockets--those eyes

which had once looked so sorrowfully on the sightless Galileo--those

eyes which had mourned over the ashes of _Lycidas_, and rained upon them

tears transmuted by poetry into a shower of precious stones! The misery

of his blindness recurred to Milton himself at that same instant. A

cloud of grief descended upon his countenance. He experienced one of

those poignant feelings of regret which, in our own day, occasionally

oppress the heart of Augustin Thierry--for with the sensibility of a

poet he _knew_ that the hour was beautiful. Never had Cagliostro seen

human face express such exquisite but patient suffering; it seemed to be

_listening_ to the loveliness of the earth; it seemed to be _inhaling_

the glories of nature, as it were, through those channels which were not

obliterated. The stirring of the leaves, the scent of the woodbine, the

pattering of the winged seeds of the maple upon the pages of Boccaccio,

the fitful twittering of the birds--all ascended as offerings of

recompense to the blind man, but they only tended to enhance the sense

of his affliction. He caught but the skirts of the goddess of that

creation whose glories he had chanted in his celestial epic; and yet no

murmur escaped from the dejected lip of Milton!

Again darkness surrounded the Rosicrucian--again the awful voice

resounded in his imagination.

"Behold!" it said, "the sorrows of the great and virtuous when the light

is quenched: behold the divine prerogative of those who see! And know,

Balsamo, that such are the boons thou hast contemned--such are the

faculties thou hast polluted."

MIRABEAU.

After a scarcely perceptible pause, the Voice resumed: "The miseries of

those who have abused or lost the powers of seeing, of tasting, or of

feeling, have been revealed to thee, O sceptic! Thine eyes have

penetrated into the dim retrospections of the past. Look onwards,

Balsamo, and thou shalt discern the things that are germinating in the

womb of the future."

Cagliostro had scarcely heard this assurance when the curtain hitherto

impenetrable to mortal, was raised--the dread shadows of the future were

dispelled. He found himself in the upper apartment of one of the most

distinguished mansions in Paris. The chamber, which was lofty and

spacious, was enriched with the most costly furniture, and the most

gorgeous decorations. Pilasters, incrusted with marble, and enamelled

with lapis-lazuli, broke the monotony of the walls and supported the

ceiling with their capitals. Between these pilasters were pedestals

surmounted with statuary and busts; and these, again, were reflected in

the mirrors hung about the room in profusion. An almost oriental luxury

characterised the Turkish carpets, as soft as the greensward, and the

draperies of velvet which concealed the windows, and fell in graceful

folds about a bed at the opposite end of the apartment. An antique

candelabrum stood upon the mantelpiece and shed a rosy and voluptuous

light over this domestic pomp, while some odorous gums crackled in a

chafing-dish upon the hearth and loaded the air with their fragrance.

Familiar as the Rosicrucian was with splendour, his glance roved over

these appurtenances with delight, for he had never before seen the

evidences of wealth so enhanced by the evidences of refinement. He

thought that the possession of such a dwelling would be something

towards the realisation of happiness. In the very conception of that

ignoble thought, however, he received a solemn and effectual admonition.

Before him, in the silent chamber, on either side of it groups of

attendants and men robed in the costumes of the court and the barracks,

was a deathbed. It was the deathbed of an extraordinary being, the owner

of all this grandeur. It was the deathbed of Honore-Gabriel de Mirabeau.

The patrician demagogue reposed upon the pillows in the final stage of

dissolution, and his broad forehead was already damp with the sweat of

his last agony. Cagliostro surveyed the dying tribune with emotion, for

in the very hideousness of his countenance there was a subtle and

indefinable fascination. The gigantic stature which had so often awed

the tumults of the National Assembly was prostrate. The voice, whose

brazen tones had sounded like a trumpet over the land, was hushed--that

voice which had exclaimed with such sublime significance to the

Marseillais,--"When the last of the Gracchi expired, he flung dust

towards heaven, and from this dust sprang Marius!"--that voice which had

conquered the aversion of Mademoiselle de Marignan with its seductive

melody--that voice which had been at once the oracle of the king and the

law of the rabble. Mirabeau lay before the Rosicrucian, with his natural

ugliness rendered yet more repulsive by the tokens of a terrible malady.

The touch of death imparted additional horror to the massive deformity

of his skull, to the coarseness of his pockmarked features, to his

sunken eyeballs, to his cheeks scared by disease, to his hair bristling

and dishevelled like that of a gorgon. Still, through all these

unsightly and almost loathsome peculiarities, there was perceptible a

sort of masculine susceptibility. It was that susceptibility which gave

zest to his debaucheries, and occasionally subdued into pathos the

storms of his dazzling and sonorous eloquence.

Never was a solitary life prized by so many millions, as that which was

then ebbing from the breast of Mirabeau. He seemed to be the only

guarantee for the solid adjustment of the Revolution. With his

disappearance, all hope of tranquillity and good government was prepared

to vanish. His was the intellect in which the extremes of that momentous

epoch were united. He was the antithesis of public opinion. Noble by

birth and plebeian by accident, a democrat in principle and a dictator

in ambition, the shield of the monarch and the sword of the people, he

was placed exactly between the contending powers of the age. He was the

arbiter between royalty and revolt: on the one side he acquired the

obedience of the sovereign through his fears, and on the other he

obtained the allegiance of the multitude through their aspirations. His

supremacy occupied at the same moment the palace, the legislative

chamber, and the marketplace; for all recognised _in_ him the omen of

their good fortune, and _through_ him, the realisation of their wishes.

Flattered by the minions of the monarchy, applauded by the members of

the National Assembly, and idolised by the mob, his influence rested, as

it were, upon a triple foundation. And yet, by a contradiction as

remarkable as the anomalies of his own character, all parties were

disposed to rejoice at the probability of his departure. The King was

gratified at the thought of his removal, forasmuch as Mirabeau was the

impersonation of a formidable sedition; the political adventurers

exulted in the prospect of his decease, because he monopolised

popularity, and rendered them insignificant by the contrast of his

colossal genius; the people, in like manner, were, not altogether

displeased at the notion of his extinction, because he appeared to them

the only obstacle between themselves, and the supreme authority. All

valued him as their present preserver, and all hated him as their future

impediment. Such were the conflicting sentiments entertained towards

Mirabeau, during the last incidents of his eccentric and volatile

career. And in the midst of so many antagonistic interests, he alone

remained unshaken and unappalled, his oratory rendering him still the

mouth-piece of the Revolution, his duplicity its diplomatist, and his

intellectual contrivance its statesman. Nor was he satisfied with these

successes; he sought others, and was equally fortunate. Profligacy and

legislation equally divided his enthusiasm between them, and proved him

to be not only the most daring politician, but the most debauched

citizen in France. His power and popularity had now, however, reached

their apogee, and Honore-Gabriel Riquetti Comte de Mirabeau was

stretched upon his deathbed.

Cagliostro approached the couch and listened, for the great demagogue

was speaking. His voice was harsh even in a murmur, though it still

retained, according to Lemercier, "a slight meridional accent." The rosy

light of the candelabrum beamed upon his cadaverous lips.

"Sprinkle me with perfumes, crown me with flowers, that thus I may enter

upon eternal sleep."

Memorable words--the last words of Gabriel de Mirabeau. They embody the

spirit of his sterile philosophy, and are in unison with the

evanescence of his genius.[16] As Cagliostro observed the limbs

convulsed and the eyes glazed with a simultaneous pang, he was caught up

again into the darkness, and again his soul hearkened to the whispers of

the Holy Voice.

"Thus," it said, "are those recompensed with disease and satiety, who

are the slaves of their meanest, as of their noblest appetites; thus is

their talisman shattered in the hour of its attainment."

BEETHOVEN.

When the reproachful accents ceased, Balsamo felt his feet once more

pressing the earth, and the breezes rustling against his domino. He was

wandering in the garden of what is termed the Schwarzpanier House,

situated on a slope or glacis in the outskirts of Wahring. The evening

was so far advanced, that candles already twinkled from the upper

windows of the building, while the fires of the kitchens checkered the

shrubs and gravel with patches of glaring light. Through the flowerbeds,

and along the intricate paths of the shrubbery, the Alchemist strolled

at a languid pace, musing upon the things he had already witnessed, when

his vigilant ears caught the tones of a musical instrument. Although it

was scarcely audible from the distance, Cagliostro was struck by the

extreme beauty and _espieglerie_ of the performance. He hurried forward

in the direction from which the sounds proceeded, and at each step they

became more distinguishable and bewitching. After a momentary feeling of

indecision when he reached the walls of the Schwarzpanier, the Alchemist

ascended a flight of steps, and passed through the open casement of a

French-window into a modest sitting-room. The musician whose skill had

attracted him, was seated in the gray twilight at a piano. Cagliostro

scarcely noticed that he was a man of short stature but of muscular

proportions; he scarcely remarked, indeed, either the apartment or its

occupant; his whole consciousness was absorbed in the melody that

streamed from the instrument.

At first, the fingers of the player seemed to frolic over the keys, as

though they toyed with the vibrations of the strings. The sounds were

sportive and jocund; they rippled like laughter; they were capricious as

the merriment of a coquette. Then they merged into a sweet and warbling

cadence--a cadence of inimitable tenderness, the very suavity of which

was rendered more piquant by its lavish variations. The measure changed,

with an abrupt fling of the treble-hand: it gushed into an air quaint

and sprightly as the dance of Puck--comic--odd--sparkling on the ear

like zig-zags: it threw out a shower of notes; it was the voice of

agility and merriment; it was grotesque and fitful, droll in its absurd

confusion, and yet nimble, in its amazing ingenuity. Gradually, however,

the humorous movement resolved itself into a strain of preternatural

wildness--a strain that made the blood curdle, and the flesh creep, and

the nerves shudder. It abounded with dark and goblin passages; it was

the whirlwind blowing among the crags of the Jungfrau, and swarming with

the forms and cries of the witches of the Walpurgis; it was Eurydice,

traversing the corridors of hell; it was midnight over the wilderness,

with the clouds drifting before the moon; it was a hurricane on the deep

sea; it was every thing horrible, wierdlike, and tumultuous. And through

the very fury of these passages there would start tones of ravishing and

gentle beauty--the incense of an adoring heart wafted to the black

heavens through the lightnings and lamentations of Nineveh. Again the

musician changed the purpose of his improvisation; it was no longer

dismal and appalling, it was pathetic. The instrument became, as it

were, the organ of sadness, it became eloquent with an inarticulate wo;

it was a breast bursting with affliction, a voice broken with sorrow, a

soul dissolving with emotions. Then the variable harmonies rose from

pensiveness into frenzy, from frenzy into the noise and the shocks of a

great battle; they swelled to the din of contending armies, to the storm

and vicissitudes of warlike deeds, and soared at last into a paean such

as that of victorious legions when--

"Gaily to glory they come,

Like a king in his pomp,

To the blast of the tromp,

And the roar of the mighty drum!"

As the triumphant tones of the instrument rolled up from its recesses,

and filled the apartment with a torrent of majestic sounds, as the

musician swayed to and fro in the enthusiasm of his sublime

inspirations, and enhanced the divine symphony by the crash of many

thrilling and abrupt discords, the Rosicrucian gazed with awe upon the

responsive grandeur of his countenance. The impetus of his superb

imagination imparted an inconceivable dignity to every lineament, to his

capacious forehead, to his broad and distended nostrils, to the fierce

protrusion of his under-lip, to the mobile and generous expression of

his mouth, to the tawny yellow of his complexion, to the brown depths of

his noble and dilated eyes. There was something in unison with the

glorious sounds that reverberated through the chamber, even in the

enormous contour of his head and the gray disorder of his hair. He

seemed to exult in the torrent of melody as it gushed from the piano and

streamed out upon the dusk of the evening. While Cagliostro was

listening in an ecstasy of admiration, he was startled by a sudden

clangour among the bass-notes--the music seemed to be jumbled into

confusion, and the ear was stunned by a painful and intolerable

dissonance. On looking more intently, he perceived that the composer had

let one hand fall abstractedly upon the key-board, while the other

executed, by itself, a passage of extraordinary difficulty and

involution. Then, for the first time, the thought struck him that the

musician was deaf.[17] Alas! the supposition was too true: Beethoven was

cursed with the loss of his most precious faculty. Those who appreciate

the full splendour of his gigantic genius, those who conceive, with a

distinguished composer now living, that "Beethoven began where Haydn and

Mozart left off;" those who coincide with an eminent critic, in saying

that "the discords of Beethoven are better than the harmonies of all

other musicians;" those, in fine, who worship his memory with the

devotion inspired by his compositions, can sympathise in that terrible

deprivation of the powers of hearing, by which his art was rendered a

blank, and the latter years of his life were imbittered. They will

remember with gratitude the joys they have derived from the effusions of

his fruitful intellect; they will call to their recollection the joyous

chorus of the prisoners in _Fidelio_,--the sublime and adoring hymn of

the "Alleluia" in _The Mount of Olives_,--the matchless pomp of the

_Sinfonia Eroica_,--the passionate beauty of the sentiment of

_Adelaida_,--the aerial grace of his quartets and waltzes,--the

thrilling and almost awful pathos of the dirge written for six

trombones,--but, above all, they will recall to mind the noblest work

ever conceived and perfected by composer, one of the greatest

achievements of the human mind, _the Mass in D_. And, bearing these

wonders in their memory, their hearts will ache for the doom of Ludwig

Von Beethoven. None of these things, however, being known to the

Rosicrucian, his sympathies were aroused solely by what he himself had

heard and witnessed. Still that was more than enough to fill his whole

soul with commiseration, especially as the sounds again burst in

bewitching concert from the instrument, and a new inspiration lit up the

visage of the musician. Cagliostro found himself, with profound sorrow,

returning into the silent darkness, and the solemn Voice stealing, for

the last time, into his brain.

"Behold, Balsamo," it said, "the pleasures that may vanish with the loss

of hearing. Behold, and shudder at the remembrance of thy blasphemies.

Recognise the goodness of Omnipotence in thy five senses--value them

beyond either rank, or wealth, or dignity, or fame, or power,--value

them as the five mysterious talismans of human life; and, in their

virtuous employment, know that earthly happiness _is_ attainable!"

While these words were resounding in his mind, the Rosicrucian felt

himself carried, with inconceivable swiftness, through the atmosphere.

Immediately they ceased he became motionless, though he was still

enveloped in the shadows of night. All that had recently occurred to

him,--all the strange and moving circumstances of which he had been a

spectator, then thronged upon his recollection, and stirred his heart

with astonishment. His imagination responded to his amazement. He

revisited again, in thought, the blooming grove of Capreae, the

pageantries of Cesarea, the green lanes of Buckingham, the luxurious

_salon_ of Paris, and the twilight of the garden of Wahring. Italian

beauty lived again in his remembrance, but a beauty marred by

licentiousness and cruelty. He seemed to behold once more the multitudes

of Palestine, the landscapes of England, the dainty splendours of

France, and the tranquil homes of Germany. Gradually, however, his

reflections became less incoherent, and the meaning of the vision

appeared to evolve itself before him, in inductions fraught at once with

reproach and consolation. Coupling together the truths enunciated by the

Voice of his unseen visitant, and the spectacles revealed to him in

succession through its agency, the Alchemist bethought himself whether

his original impressions, as to the condition of humanity, might not, in

a great measure, have been erroneous. What he had just witnessed assured

him, in an unanswerable manner, that overt crimes or overt virtues were

merely the good or evil employment of one or other of the five senses;

that they were the bright and black spots upon the spiritual nature of

man, the _faculae_ and the _maculae_, as it were, on the disc of his

conscience. Satisfied, therefore, that the purity or depravity of every

mortal was merely the consequence of the different purpose to which

their senses had been directed, the Rosicrucian perceived the intimate

relationship subsisting between the immaterial being and the physical

organs. He perceived especially that those organs were the channels

through which that immaterial portion of humanity was brought into

communication with a material existence, was compelled to endure its

miseries, or was enabled to appreciate its enjoyments. In this he

recognised the veracity of that solemn assurance, that happiness is

accessible, even on this earth, to all who use their senses with a

virtuous discrimination. Nor had this consolatory truth been enforced

merely by a barren asseveration. Balsamo had been taught the inestimable

value of those senses, and the penalties of such as abused them by their

vices. Five incidents, most touching, or most appalling, had reminded

him of the exquisite pleasures derivable from created things, through

the eyes, through the nostrils, through the ears, through the palate,

and through the nerves. He had seen the anguish, moreover, of those who

suffered from the deprivation of either sense, or of those who were

tortured by the result of their own heinous misapplication. He had seen

this in the insanity of Tiberius, in the torments of Agrippa, in the

sadness of Milton, in the desolation of Mirabeau, and even in the

philosophic sorrows of Beethoven. The emperor, the tetrarch, the poet,

the demagogue, and the musician, crowded upon his memory, and appealed

to his judgment with the same melancholy distinctness. Still the

villainous predilections of the Rosicrucian contended for the mastery,

although his intellect recognised the wisdom of the Vision. A fierce

strife arose between his passions and his reason.

Suddenly his eyes opened to the splendour of an autumn morning; and as

the sunlight poured along the _Boulevard de la Madeleine_, as it gilded

every blade of grass in the paddock, and streamed in golden pencils

through the open window of the cottage, it glittered upon his cheek like

raindrops.

Cagliostro was weeping.

FOOTNOTES:

[5] Beranger has already conveyed this truth through the melody of his

delicious verse:--

"Le vois-tu bien, la-bas, la-bas,

La-bas, la-bas? dit l'Esperance;

Bourgeois, manants, rois et prelats

Lui font de loin la reverence.

C'est le Bonheur, dit l'Esperance.

Courons, courons; doublons le pas,

Pour le trouver la-bas, la-bas,

La-bas, la-bas."

[6] "I did not dare to breathe aloud the unhallowed anguish of my mind

to the majesty of the unsympathising stars."--See _Falkland_.

[7] "Motus autem siderum," such is the reverent and sententious remark

of Grotius, "qui eccentrici, quique epicyclici dicuntur, manifeste

ostendunt _non vim materiae, sed liberi agentis ordinationem_."--See _De

Veritate Rel. Christ. Lib._ i. Sec. 7.

[8] "Now, there was a word spoken to me in private, and my ears, by

stealth as it were, received the veins of its whisper."--_Job_, chap.

iv. verse 12.

[9]

"There is a roaring in the bleak-grown pines

When Winter lifts his voice; there is a noise

Among immortals when a god gives sign

With hushing finger, how he means to load

His tongue with the full weight of utterless thought,

With thunder, and with music, and with pomp."

Such are the majestic syllables which preface the speech of Saturn in

_Hyperion_. Keats was ridding himself of the puerilities of Cockaigne

when he wrote that fragment of an epic--a fragment which is unsurpassed

by any modern attempt at heroic composition. In reading it, the very

earth seems shaking with the footsteps of fallen divinities. Even Byron,

who, like ourselves, had no great predilection for the school in which

the poetic genius of John Keats was germinated, has emphatically said of

_Hyperion_ that "it seems actually inspired by the Titans, and is as

sublime as AEschylus."--See _Byron's Works_, vol. xv., p. 92.

[10] Thus writes Suetonius--"praegrandibus oculis, qui, quod mirum esset,

noctu etiam et in tenebris, viderent, sed ad breve, et quum primum a

somno patuissent; deinde rursum hebescebant."--_Tib._ cap. lxviii.

[11] Those who are familiar with the classic historians, will see in

this description no exaggeration whatever. Instruments for the

destruction of life yet more awful and mysterious, were employed by many

of the predecessors, and many of the successors of Tiberius, as well as

by Tiberius himself: and modern science has shown that these devices,

instead of being, as was originally conjectured, the result of

black-magic, were, in reality, the effect of hydraulic, pneumatic, and

mechanical contrivances. Even the most marvellous feats of the Egyptian

sorcerers have been latterly explained by the revelations of natural

philosophy, and a multitude of these explanations may be found by the

reader in the learned work "Des Sciences Occultes," &c. written by M.

Eusebe Salverte, and published in Paris as recently as 1843. In that

remarkable volume, M. Salverte proves that natural phenomena are more

startling than necromantic tricks, and that, in the words of Roger

Bacon, "_non igitur oportet nos magicis illusionibus uti, cum potestas

philosophica doceat operari quod sufficit._" That Tiberius was capable

of atrocities yet more terrific, and that murders of the most inhuman

kind were the consequence of almost every one of his diabolical whims,

those acquainted with the picturesque narrative of Suetonius already

know. They will remember not only how he caused his nephew Germanicus to

be poisoned by the governor of Syria, but how he ordered a fisherman to

be torn in pieces by the claws of a crab, simply because he met him, in

one of his suspicious moods, when strolling in a sequestered garden of

Capreae.--_Sue. Tib._ c. lx.

[12] Suetonius assures us (cap. lxviii.), that the muscular strength of

Tiberius Claudius Nero was, in the prime of his manhood, almost as

supernatural as his crimes; that he could with his outstretched finger

bore a hole through a sound apple (_integrum malum digito terebraret_),

and wound the head of a child or even a youth with a fillip, (_caput

pueri, vel etiam adolescentis, talitro vulneraret._) His excesses must,

however, have enervated his frame long before his death by suffocation.

[13] His garb, writes Josephus, "was so resplendent as to spread a

horror over those that looked intently upon Him."--_Lib._ xix. c. 8.

[14] "An owl," says Josephus (xix. 8); "an angel of the Lord," angelos

Kyriou, say the scriptures, (Acts. xii. 23,)--in either case a spectral

illusion.

[15] It is impossible for anyone devoted to the study of "Paradise

Lost," of "Comus," even of "Sampson Agonistes," and especially of "Il

Pensoroso" and "L'Allegro," to doubt that their writer was carried away

at times by the _oestrum_, or _divine afflatus_, although Dr Johnson

discredits "these bursts of light, and involutions of darkness, these

transient and involuntary excursions and retrocessions of

invention."--See _Lives of the Poets_, vol. i. p. 188.

[16] Even M. Alphonse de Lamartine acknowledges of Mirabeau, that

"neither his character, his deeds, nor his thoughts, have the brand of

immortality."--_Hist. Giron._ Liv. i. chap. 3.

[17] This incident was suggested by a touching sentence in Schindler's

biography of Beethoven. After observing that the outward sense no longer

co-operated with the inward mind of the great composer, and that,

consequently, "the outpourings of his fancy became scarcely

intelligible," Schindler continues:--_"Sometimes he would lay his left

hand flat upon the key-board, and thus drown, in discordant noise, the

music to which his right was feelingly giving utterance._"--See _Life of

Beethoven, Edited by Ignace Moschelles_, ii. 175.

MAGA IN AMERICA.

_New York, August_ 1847.

My Dear Godfrey--You will laugh when you hear into what a practical

blunder I was led, by a desire to gratify your curiosity concerning

Maga's Icon in America. I wondered you should ask me for a description,

when it was so easy to have ordered out the thing itself; and so

resolved to save myself the trouble of writing a long story, by duly

exporting a specimen of the American Ebony, from which you might form

your own conclusions as to its counterfeit merits, and its supposed

relations to the great question of international copyright. _Segnius

irritant_--you know! What disciple of old Plunkett's will ever forget

the difference between the _demissa per aurem_, and

----"quae sunt _oculis_ subjecta fidelibus!"

I have always maintained that his illustration of this great principle

gave Dickens the hint of his Dotheboy's Hall. You remember, doubtless,

poor Harry Farmar's false quantity, and how Plunkett made him peel

onions till he cried his eyes out; asserting his confidence in Horace's

maxim, and that he had found the usual box on the ear quite incapable of

any exciting effect on Harry's mind. Who would have said that the same

Harry, surviving the operation, would have lived to hunt bisons on the

prairies of Western America, after riding on elephants in India, and

bestriding a camel's hump through the waste places of Edom! Harry's

wandering mind has developed as vagabond a habit of life as ever his

prophetic instructor ventured to predict; but he vows himself cured at

last, and that, if he ever sets foot again on England's _terra firma_,

he will at once become one of the manly hearts that guard the fair, and

settle down in contented conjugation. He it was, then, who offered to be

the bearer to yourself at C---- of any despatches, or parcels, I might

choose to send; but he affected to think me so thoroughly Americanised,

that he entered a caveat against my loading him with a consignment of

bowie knives or cotton-bales. A nicely packthreaded parcel was

accordingly put up, and duly adorned with your most Saxon name and

address, in the delusive expectation that none but your own hands would

presume

"----to set the imprison'd wranglers free,

And give them voice and utterance once again."

I was doomed to be quickly undeceived; and as I doubt not Harry will be

giving you his own version of the affair, over a glass of wine, some

three weeks hence, at the Hall, you shall know beforehand how much to

allow, in this matter, for his habitual unveracity, or rather love of

romance.

I waited on him yesterday and presented the packet; but you should have

seen him start, when I happened to mention its contents. Not the captors

of Guido Fawkes bounced with more consternation, when that eminent

pyrotechnist proposed to touch off his gunpowder for their especial

gratification and amusement. "What!" exclaimed our mutual friend--"Have

you lived so long in America, as to have forgotten the laws of a

civilised and Christian land! Would you have me seized as a smuggler;

posted in every newspaper as an importer of contraband goods; brutally

insulted by the officers of her Majesty's Customs; and perhaps actually

brought before a justice, and locked up where the only prospect would

be a distant view of New South Wales!" It was in vain that I

remonstrated with his eloquent horrors, at the thought of renewing his

travels at government cost: he insisted that my proposal might actually

have ensured the catastrophe; and from this appeal to my feelings,

passed to a bold invective against literary piracy, and concluded by a

generous compromise in favour of the cotton-bales, if I would pardon the

warm expressions with which he found himself compelled to decline my

extraordinary commission. You should have seen him, Godfrey! If he ever

takes that seat in Parliament which he threatens to make the sequel of

matrimony, I predict wo to the whole race of Humes, Brights, and

Cobdens, should they ever start him on a subject capable of

transatlantic illustration.

I could not but laugh, though, when I saw the true state of the case, at

the comical scene that might have ensued, had he taken my parcel without

explanations. Think of Harry's air of fearless innocence before the

inspectors of imports, till from the depths of an enormous trunk comes

forth a parcel, which those faithful officials at once lay bare, with

the professional dexterity of a private tearing his cartridge. The

officer stares, and Harry looks still more astounded, at the sight of a

familiar visage, peering forth from under the wrapper, and giving mute

but significant expressions of pain and displeasure. It is the head of

Geordy Buchanan! It is Blackwood, imported from New York! The confounded

servant of her Majesty's Customs begins to whisper contraband, and

expresses a wish for the undoubted original, which you, just stepping up

to welcome your friend, are enabled to supply. The fresh number from

your coat-skirts, and the suspicious importation from America, are set

together like the two Dromios before the duke. "Look on this picture,

and on that!" Behold the two Buchanans!

"One of these men is genius to the other

----Which is the natural man,

And which the spirit? Who deciphers them?"

Harry, to prevent the coming crisis, volunteers a confession, but

invites you to a comparison of the heads. With his outrageous Tory

hatred of the Yankees, he, of course, declares there's no comparison;

ridicules the fac-simile, and hastily seizing what he mistakes for the

counterfeit, confounds the company by a quotation from the Latin of

"Terence"--that very small fragment of the Eunuchus which Plunkett

forced into his head through the opposite pole of his person--

"Ne comparandus hic quidem ad illum est, ille erat

Honesta facie, et liberali!"

And finally, disgusted to find that he has ascribed the more gentlemanly

bearing to the American, he tosses the whole parcel into the docks, with

the tardy announcement that it was my friendly consignment to yourself,

as well as the very curiosity of literature which you so much desire to

see. You remember, doubtless, what I did not recollect, that there is no

port of entry in her Majesty's empire for the Icons of British copyright

property. They come with a Frenchified air from the press of Galignani;

they arrive in vulgarised costume from the cheap manufactories of New

England; but the scent of the vermin is familiar to the nose of a

collector of customs, and no rat-catching terrier, says my informant,

ever pounces upon his Norwegian with half the gusto with which such an

official snubs such an intruder. A health, I say, to the fury of this

sort of Iconoclasts!

Our friend's unusual caution has saved you the excitement of the scene I

have imagined, but it puts me to the necessity of substituting a hurried

description for the ocular satisfaction I had proposed to send you. Who

would have supposed, thirty years since, that one Maga would not be

enough for the world, and that New York would be the seat of its

flourishing double! Yet it is now twelve years since its twin started up

on this side the water, and has been battening and fattening on the

rewards of successful illegitimacy. Nay--for a portion of that period,

Maga has been "three gentlemen at once." The very pirates were pirated,

and undersold; and two reprints of Maga, both professing to be

fac-similes, were at one time supported in America, in addition to

countless republications of particular articles; such, for instance, as

the tales of "Ten Thousand a-Year," and "Caleb Stukeley"! I think I hear

you exclaim at such wholesale grand-larceny; but though not inclined to

take up the cudgels for Reprint and Co., it is but justice to tell you

what they would say in self-defence. The truth is, they would not have

known what you meant, had you told them, when their republication was

established, that there was any question as to the ethics of such a

business. The laws not only permitted, but even encouraged the

enterprise; and they do so still. The most respectable booksellers were

engaged in a similar seizure of every new novel of Bulwer's, and every

new work whatever, that had stood the experiment of success in England.

Original copies of the Magazine were rarely imported, as the importer's

charges and duties nearly doubled the first cost of each number; and

besides, it was already virtually republished, its leading articles

being constantly appropriated, in different ways, by editors of literary

periodicals, and often by the daily newspapers. Then, it must be

remembered, that England was nearly twice as far from America before the

era of steamers; and that the matter of copyright was only just

beginning to excite the attention of Parliament. As yet Lord Mahon had

not stirred up the ministry to move foreign countries to international

justice, and England was not, as now, prepared to invest their authors

with all the rights she concedes to her own. It is not surprising,

therefore, that Reprint and Co. commenced operations without any

compunctions of conscience, and were even praised for their enterprise

by honourable men. Hundreds, who could hardly forego the reading of

Maga, were unable to pay for it twice what it costs in England; and I

grant you, that when the first number was laid on my table at one-fourth

the price of an importation, I myself was not the man to throw a pebble

at the pirates, but wished them good luck and gave them my name as a

subscriber. I verily believe I did so with a virtuous delight in what

then struck me as a compliment to my favourite magazine; for somebody,

at about the same time, had started a similar republication of other

English Monthlies, and I desired to see them fairly run off the course.

You will certainly concede to the Americans some credit for a discerning

taste, when I add that Maga's competitors have long since been withdrawn

for want of backers; and she so easily walks the field, that it begins

to be a fair question whether Messrs Reprint and Co. are honestly

entitled to the purse.

I have marvelled a little, I confess, that a magazine of such

unmitigated Toryism, and of so uncomplimentary a tone towards America,

should nevertheless gain so universal a popularity in this country. I

must stand to it, Godfrey--there's a touch of the magnanimous in the

affection which exists among Americans for Christopher North, and all

his high Tory fraternity. Seldom approving, they always enjoy his

old-fashioned prejudices; and defend in Maga what, in a book of

Alison's, they would relish very little. Much is said for the kind of

affectionate regard with which they welcome to their firesides its

monthly returns, in the fact that it is the only foreign work which

American republishers have felt themselves forced, by popular feeling,

to furnish in the form of a fac-simile. It is proof of the individual

interest which it possesses, and of the rich associations which it has

imparted even to the simplicity of its outside. Every one wants old

Ebony in its own gentlemanly wear: but much as is implied in the livery

of the _Edinburgh Review_, and many as are its admirers among the

literary freethinkers of the eastern states, it is curious that no one

cares twopence to see it in any other than a semi-newspaper shape, and

that Reprint and Co. have never thought of reproducing it in all the

splendour of its popinjay surtout. In fact, I doubt whether it will long

continue in any shape at all. Its crack article is always reprinted in

another form; and oracular as its pages are deemed by the clannish

provincials of Boston, its general contents seldom go down with the

public. The truth is, no one honestly prefers porridge to roast-beef;

and in spite of a natural leaning to buff and blue, Jonathan will not be

diverted from his luxurious repasts in Maga, by anything less "hot in

the mouth."

I remember that, in one of those Ambrosial Noctes, some one remarked in

auld-lang-syne, that Maga is a ubiquity. The Shepherd assented, for he

had seen the head of Geordy alike in the hut and the hall; beaming the

same by the mirrored fire-light of the manorial villa, and "by the

peat-lowe frae the ingle o' the auld clay biggin." But think, my dear

Godfrey, what a flow of the _decalect_ would have gushed from that child

of the Yarrow, had he beheld, with me, the pirated Maga scattered

through the length and breadth of this immense republic, and devoured

with equal delight by the self-congratulating native of Massachusetts

Bay, and the home-sick immigrant of Oregon. Here, too, Maga is

ubiquitous. If you make your summer tour through the States of New

England, and stop to visit its priggish little colleges, and biggish

little schools, you shall find it on many a sophister's table, and in

many a schoolboy's hands; or, ten to one, as you pass the windows of the

barracks where they keep their terms, you will chance to hear some

full-voiced youth adding a nasal rhetoric to Maga's pages, as he retails

them, through clouds of cigar-smoke, to his assembled companions. To

your surprise, you will find Maga in every library and reading-room from

the Independent Union Lyceum of Jeffersonville, in New Hampshire, to the

Congressional lobbies at Washington. And I assure you, they not only

take it in, but they read it out and out. Often, when I have wanted but

a glimpse at its leader, I have found it, like _The Times_ at a country

inn, in the grasp of some sturdy monopolist, exploring it inch by inch,

and only pausing at intervals, to wipe his glasses, and renew his pinch

of snuff. Along the shores of the Hudson, in those snug little villas

that peep forth from the thick trees and copsewood, Maga is quite as

universal, but is found in more palmy estate. There--whether your

retreat from the city be to the banks of Westchester, to the glens of

the Highlands, or to the table-lands that underlie the Kaatskills--your

welcome you value none the less that you see volumes of old numbers in

the book-case, and the number of the month already laid on the table in

the hall; and you think of the hot noons they will help to wile away,

after the morning's sport, and before the evening drive. In homes like

these, I have usually found _Blackwood_ a favourite with the fairer

portion of American society. You shall find it lurking amongst worsteds

and flower-patterns, and very often preferred to the pretty work that

tasks a far prettier eye: or, stepping into the verandah to see a

steamer go by, you shall pick it up from a tabouret, where it lies with

a pearl-knife in its uncut pages, and the breezes playing with its

parted leaves--evidently the immediate relic of some startled and

disappearing fair one. Going south or west, you meet it on railways, and

in steamers. It is usually the companion of such travellers as are

accustomed to decline the repeated attempts of fellow-passengers to

engage them in conversation or political debate, and seems to afford

peculiar refreshment to those who have effected a retreat from the

philanthropic assaults of travelling temperance agents, and of other

affectionate inquirers as to the condition of their bodies and souls.

When you reach the Carolinas, where, in default of taverns, you may

always venture to make yourself the guest of a planter, and will be

thanked for your visit--if you would bait at noon, and turn from the

road to a hospitable-looking mansion among the pines, I'll wager that a

basking Negro, without a shirt, will start up, and take charge of your

horse, while the master of a thousand slaves gives you one open hand,

but holds in the other the ubiquitous pages, which he has been reading

in the cool of his piazza. I say then, had the Shepherd been blest with

such universal experiences as mine, with what a flow of metaphor and

illustrative wit would he have enlarged upon the proposition--Maga is an

ubiquity. Beginning with a broadside at the literary corsairs of New

York, I can fancy him bursting with indignant virtue into luxurious

comparisons between the rape of the Sabines, and that of the inimitable

Noctes--and then between Maga bodily, and her who in the field of Enna

gathering flowers, experienced a fate most gloomy; and so on till his

exuberant good-humour expands at last into an apology, as he expatiates

on the tempting character of the booty, and declares, that like apples

of gold to frolicsome schoolboys, so beautiful Maga, to covetous

Yankees, is a thing too full of relish and of beauty to be other than

pardonable plunder! Maga, like Italy, ought to be less bewitching, or

better defended. What would not some of Maga's cotemporaries give,

nevertheless, for the compliment of being perpetually ravished by the

Goths and Vandals of Letters--the merciless anti-copyright booksellers

of America? Nay--they will pout at the insinuation, and stand upon the

virtue which no one believes they possess. But assure them, dear

Godfrey, that they are in no conceivable danger. Maga shall growl, and

they shall fawn; but the republicans will not be repulsed by the honest

frankness of the one nor propitiated by the hypocritical blandishments

of the others. If they doubt it, just tell them what happened with me

the other day, and what I vouch for as fairly exhibiting the feeling of

the most intelligent Americans. I could add many other anecdotes of the

same colour and character; but I tell this as creditable to them, and

illustrative of Maga's footing among them:--

I was at the reading-rooms of "The Athenaeum"--a literary club-house in

this city, which has grown out of a small society of scholars that

existed here before the Revolution--and which, I am happy to say, is

always supplied with the genuine imported Magazine. A young man, whom I

had often met at the rooms, and who had the Magazine in his hand, called

my attention to a palpable error in an article, that reflected pretty

merrily on his countrymen. "Ha!" said I, "just like old Ebony! Why don't

you banish the rabid old Tory from these most democratic tables?"

"Banish Maga!" was the reply--"what would be left fit to read?"

"You surprise me! Edinburgh, Westminster--any thing that thinks better

of Congress, and legislative eloquence--as you do, of course!"

"Why so? Mayn't a man be a republican, without recognising a _jure

divino_ majesty in a Congressman?"

"But Maga would make out some of your Solons prodigiously long in the

ears."

"Nay--rather intolerably long in the wind, which is just the intolerable

truth. Thanks to Maga for giving them the echo of their palaver! and may

the first reformed Congress vote her a gold medal for the good she has

done to the country!"

"She sometimes makes free with the nation itself, and some of the little

peculiarities of your countrymen."

"Well, well--we are not drawn more out of proportion than the Iron

Duke's nose is in _Punch_! Why should we not laugh like heroes, who are

said to grow hale of good-humour kept up by caricatures?"

"You must allow that Maga is not always good-natured, as some of her

rivals invariably are."

"There's no comparison, sir, between the sometimes irritable merriment

of King Christopher, and the professional tinkling of a jester's

cap-and-bells. I can't argue it,--only I like _Blackwood_ for all its

Toryism; and when Kit North is testy, I reflect that he's long had the

gout! Banish Geordie Buchanan's venerable old pow--did you say? Never,

Sir, never!"

Of course, I allowed the good sense of these replies, and at once

explained to myself the philosophy which gave rise to them. The truth

is, there is in human nature a deep sense of "the eternal fitness of

things," which usually gives tone to the opinions of man, where undue

prejudices do not exercise an overruling control. You know, my dear

Godfrey, how unlikely it is that an American would ever care to pay you

a second visit at the Hall, should he signalise his first by

depreciating the character of Washington, or undervaluing the many

advantages which his country really enjoys. On the same principle which

would certainly betray you into marks of cool aversion towards such a

guest from this side the Atlantic, the intelligent American despises in

his heart the Briton, whose spirit is alien to the time-honoured

institutions of his ancestors, and whose life is one long blasphemy of

all that has contributed most to the glory and greatness of an empire,

whose worst symptom of decay is the fungous existence of a race of such

blasphemers, at once the morbid fruit of a free constitution, and its

fatal and cancerous disease. Whiggery is, therefore, at a discount in

the republic; and I have been surprised to hear the confession from

American democrats, that if they were Englishmen, they would be far from

any sympathy with those who call themselves reformers. This, perhaps,

will account for it, that with all the influence of the Edinburgh

Reviewers, they have never gained, in this country, any hold of the

heart, even where they have controlled the head; whilst Maga, on the

contrary, without bending the republican opinions of Americans, has

secured no small degree of their affections, and become enshrined in

their genuine regard. You may see one proof of this in the fact, that if

you contract with Reprint & Co. for their republications, and will take

_Blackwood_ and _The Quarterly_, you can have _The Edinburgh_ and _The

Westminster_ almost thrown into the bargain; like the lying little

_Mercury_ of AEsop's statuary, which was a mere gratuity to those who

would buy a _Phoebus_, and _Pallas-Athene_. In truth, if my observation

has been correct, intelligent Americans like to be republicans

themselves, because such were the fathers of their country; but an

Englishman in blue and yellow, they regard much as they do an Indian in

shoes and stockings. He is despised, as no specimen of the noble race

from which he has degenerated and dwindled into a Whig.

To return to the republished Magazine; it is not only a republication,

but, as I have said, it professes to be a fac-simile. You will ask, if

it is cleverly done. I must answer--not very, considered as a whole; and

yet, to give the mannikin its due, the face of the thing is about as

accurate as counterfeits usually are. The colour is not often right,

however, and I suspect Reprint & Co. are ignorant that the colour is of

any consequence. The thistle-framed portrait, nevertheless, is tolerably

well copied; enough so, to deserve the greatest proportion of credit

belonging to the whole, as an imitation. You look for the familiar

imprint in vain. One would never know from the publisher's part of the

title-page that the house of Blackwood & Sons was still in existence.

Instead of the usual mark, we have that of the republishers, with an

intimation that they are assisted in the sale by booksellers in Boston,

Philadelphia, Charlestown, Baltimore, Savannah, New Orleans, and PARIS!

Why they should print Paris in capitals, rather than Boston and

Philadelphia, I am at a loss to conceive; but such an announcement does

indeed demand some note of admiration at the vastness of the enterprise

of REPRINT & Co., who, to give Mr Blackwood more time to attend to the

getting up of each successive number of his work, thus undertake to

relieve him of any share in seeing to the supply of the Continent of

Europe. In this benevolent effort to take the burthen from the

proprietors of the genuine Ebony, it is fair that the French coadjutor

should have his share of the honour. His name is given as HECTOR

BOSSANGE; and his shop, if I rightly remember, adorns the Quai Voltaire.

And, now I think of it, I advise you, dear Godfrey, to skip across the

Channel this summer, and alight on the capital, (where very likely they

will just be getting up an _emeute_ in honour of the Three Days), and

there, in Monsieur Bossange's establishment, you will be permitted to

try the merits of my description and Maga's Icon at the same time, and

with no danger from officials of the Customs. So much then for the

front, which is good, except the colour. _Nimium ne crede colori_, says

Mr Reprint; and _fronti nulla fides_, say I.

The reverse cover has, of course, an outer and inner surface, with only

the thickness of the paper between the letter-press adorning the twain.

What say you, then, to the fact, that whilst the outer half is devoted

to an advertisement of Mr Reprint's imitative publications, the _better

half_ contains a bold and faithful warning against such piracy! You

stare, but I repeat it; whilst the one side of the leaf announces Mr

Reprint's arrangements for circulating throughout the States his

imitations of Blackwood, the other indignantly announces that there are

"now in circulation in the United States, SPURIOUS and HIGHLY

PERNICIOUS IMITATIONS." Alas for the difference between those who

_instruct_ the head, and those who only _dress_ it! The imitations that

are shamelessly commended are only those of _Blackwood's Magazine_;

while those which Messrs Reprint feel called upon to hold up as shocking

to every sense of virtue,--to head with IMPORTANT INFORMATION, and to

stamp with triple marks of wonder, as FRAUDULENT COUNTERFEITS--are

imitations of Rowland's Macassar Oil! Think of that, Godfrey! I learn

from this announcement of Reprint's, that there are now in the United

States men base enough to rob the immortal Rowland of his patent right,

men who have doubtless established agencies in "Boston, Philadelphia,

Baltimore, Savannah, New Orleans and PARIS," but who, as the imitation

Blackwood is circulated in just those places, will find it, by just

retribution, always in their way. _A bon chat, bon rat!_ Well, it was

wise in the agents of Rowland to employ one ubiquitous imitation to stop

another; but since the trade is much the same, it ought to be suggested

to Reprint & Co., that they do ill to expose a fellow-craftsman.

Suppose, now, the enterprising apothecaries, who do for Mr Rowland what

Reprint & Co. are doing for Mr Blackwood, should print a label for every

bottle of their "incomparable oil," warning the public that spurious

imitations of Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine are now in circulation

throughout the States, which they are compelled to stamp as FRAUDULENT

COUNTERFEITS! Would not this be quite as IMPORTANT INFORMATION as the

other? Are not the public as much concerned in having the genuine

article for their brain, as in having the unadulterated article for

their hair? Yet, how would Reprint like to see such a _Rowland_ for his

Oliver?

Strange that the same leaf that thus brands a counterfeit,--which

Reprint repudiates, hinting that respectable perfumers "sell only the

genuine article,"--should within one two-hundredth part of an inch,

contain the exposure of his own counterfeit, by his own pen, ink, and

types: and that with the announcement of a "Travelling Agent, recently

appointed to procure Subscribers in the Western States, Iowa and

Wisconsin, _who will prove his identity by a certificate from the Mayor

of Cincinnati_!" Now, it strikes me, would not a certificate from his

lordship, proving _the identity of the Magazine_, be much more to the

purpose? It is called _Blackwood's_ Magazine; and if so, the Travelling

Agent would be better certified by a commission from Mr Blackwood to be

selling his property, and that would be more to the purpose still! But

think, dear Godfrey, where this certified bagman goes! Iowa and

Wisconsin are a thousand miles inland, where even so lately as when this

reprint was begun, the Indian trail was the only post-road, and the

aborigines almost the only inhabitants, and where, even at this day, the

reader of Maga, holding the cream of civilisation and refinement in one

hand, must keep the other in close contact with his rifle, and the rifle

well loaded and cocked; for should his magazine interest him more than

his safety, he might expect at any moment the pressing salutations of a

cougar, or the warm embrace of a grisly bear. Or think, I pray you, of a

circumstance still less improbable, which will illustrate what it is to

be a bagman in Iowa. Where this "Travelling Agent" goes, he often

carries his merchandise through an Indian village, and often, I'll

venture to say, has Buchanan been seen in his hand, as centre to a

circle of fierce-visaged Red-skins, with tomahawks in their girdles, and

any thing but brotherly love in their gestures. Ah, then, the

contrabandist is afraid. Among savages he first learns to wish himself

engaged in any thing but an anti-copyright expedition; and produces in

vain the proof of his identity, signed by the Mayor of Cincinnati.

I observe that there are similar agencies in the Southern and

South-western States; so that Reprint & Co. are the monopolists of Maga,

from the mouth of the St Lawrence, to the deltas of the Mississippi, and

before long will doubtless have their travelling agents pushing its

sale in the "halls of the Montezumas," or exchanging it for peltry at

the head-waters of the Colombia. It is said in one of the newspapers of

this city, that for every copy issued in Edinburgh, two copies of the

reprint are published here; and though the estimate strikes me as, at

least, unlikely, it is far from being incredible. I can pardon Mr

Blackwood should his temper be a little ruffled, when he compares his

trouble and responsibility, and limited sale, with the _sans souci_ and

universal market of Reprint & Co.; but surely, old Christopher North

should smile with inward satisfaction when, not by cannon, or carnage,

but as the result of a greatness thrust upon him, he finds his empire,

like her Majesty's, the girdle of the earth, and his sovereignty

recognised, in the world of letters, where hers can claim no subjects,

and demand no homage. That crutch is now the sceptre of bookdom. Its

shadow stretcheth over all lands, whether the dawn project it athwart

the broad Atlantic, or the Boreal light send it overland to farthest

India. Who reads not Maga? You shall find the smutched lieutenant

turning over its pages by the camp-fire, after a terrible scratch with

the Sikhs; and within the same twenty-four hours you may fairly surmise

that some green mountain volunteer, on the wrong side of the Rio Grande,

has lighted a pine-knot, and is reading one of the Marlborough articles

to his mess, with extemporary paralellisms in favour of General Taylor,

which the shade of the great Churchill must not venture to overhear.

Swinging in his hammock, the midshipman holds Blackwood to the smoky

lamp of the orlop, as he plunges and pitches around Cape Horn. Lounging

in his state-room, and bound for Hong Kong, the sea-sick passenger

corrects his nausea with the same spicy page, and bewitched with the

flavour, forgets to sigh for Madeira, which he has passed, or to look

out for St Helena, which is somewhere on his lee. It keeps the old

Admiral from the deck as his keel scrapes the coral-reefs of the South

Pacific; and a stale back number, from the bottom of a seaman's chest,

is purchased as a prize, by him who cruises among seals, icebergs, and

spermaceti whales.

"Quis jam locus, inquit, Achate,

Quae regio in terris nostri non plena laboris!"

Yes--who reads not Maga? The flayed Radical of Parliament--the rasped

Balaamite of Congress--the spanked Cockney of an author--the jaundiced

Editor of some new no-go periodical--even these must cut the leaves of

each new number, if they die for it, or if their only reward be to find

their own sweet selves hung up in its pages, like sham Socrates in his

basket, but not looking on like live Socrates with philosophic

composure. And if they whimper, who will sympathise? Like the Shepherd

at Awmrose's, the testy public may now and then rebel, and rail for a

season at "the cawm, cauld, clear, glitterin' cruelty in the expression

of his een,"--but who can keep up a quarrel with North? Again, like the

Shepherd, they relax into a broad good humour, and, before they know it,

are drinking with all the honours, "Long live King Christopher!" So

then, in spite of Cockneys, chartists, coxcombs, rebels, radicals, and

rascally reformers, yea, and the whole alphabetical list of what is

whiggish, vulgar, and vexatious,--

"Maga still sitteth on Edina's crags,

And from her throne of beauty rules the world!"

Ah! my dear Godfrey of Godfrey Hall, in the county of Kent, Esquire,--I

know what you are thinking of. You were certainly meant for trade, and

'twas a loss to the Bank of England, that you ever wore a

shooting-jacket. There was ever a commercial crotchet in your head, and I

am sure it now suggests the rejoinder--that to rule the world is nothing,

so long as one can't rule the market. But I respectfully ask, do you go

for absolute monarchy? Would you have Maga more potent than her Majesty?

I grant there should be something coming to Mr Blackwood for the

thousands that profit by his labours in America--but if it can't be so,

let the glory suffice him, and let _Sic vos non vobis_ be his song of

patient resignation. The parallel between his case and that of the

Virgilian sufferers, is perfect. Who concentrates more pungency, or

collects more sweets than the busy bee? Who keeps more musical throats in

time than the motherly bird? Who lends the agricultural interest greater

assistance than the labouring ox; or who suffers more by the

manufacturers than the fleeced lamb? Undoubtedly, the answer is,--Mr.

Blackwood! Well then, I say, he must comfort himself by philosophy and

_Sic vos non vobis_. He may, indeed, utter one word of remonstrance

against literary and commercial piracy, like that first great sufferer by

anti-copyright,--Mr. Virgilius Maro, of Mantua--

"Hos ego versiculos _emi_, tulit alter honores."

Or, in other words, I pay for every line and letter of Maga, and lo! Mr

Bathyllus Reprint, of New York, carries off the sesterces! Think,

Godfrey, what a charm of a life this Bathyllus must make of it! His are

all the honey, and the bird's nests, the corn-bags, and the fleeces of

the Ebony estates; and yet he has no trouble to see his banks furnished

with bees, or to preserve game in the brake; no care to drive away

crows, or to stifle the blatter of sheep. For him--to descend from the

firmament of metaphor, to the plain prose of George Street and

Paternoster Row--for him, Mr North inspects boxes of Balaam, with the

patience of a proofreader, and deciphers pages of wit and pathos with

the perseverance of a Champollion. For him, with each new moon, and

punctual to the day, comes forth the Maga of the month, the fruit of

incredible diligence, and the flower of admirable skill. For him the

foreign purveyor of all he lives by pays down the golden _honorarium_,

fifty guineas for the sheet, that he may have the whole for less than

fifty pence. For him--the same benevolent provider takes pains to

silence, by the same metallic spell, ten thousand other claims and

clamours, contingent to each lunation of Maga. All things work for him!

For him the steamer ploughs Atlantic surges; and for him, when she gains

her port, two hundred miles of wire are put into galvanic tremor,

bidding him prepare his covers, and rally his compositors. It is there

that Reprint, with a grateful sense (perhaps) of all that has been done

for him, and a still more gratifying sense of the very little that

remains for him to do, finds himself called to bestir from a fortnight's

nap, and proceed to do that little. With railway speed, and thunder

step, the Express of Harnden brings to his hand almost the only emigrant

original of _Blackwood_ that ever touches these occidental shores. No

prosy correspondence--no botheration manuscript--no rejectable

contribution--but the choicest literary matter that the genius of the

British empire can furnish, all picked, packed, and laid at his feet, in

fair white printed copy, without pains and without cost! Another's all

the toil--his, all the profits! In a turn or two of his hand the

American market is supplied. Sure sale--no risk--all clear gains, and

quick returns! I am sure Mr Bathyllus Reprint must be the happiest of

men, and the most amiable of publishers; and I can conceive that few of

the more legitimate craft would be able to stand upon dignity, or refuse

his kind invitation to meet a little company at his board--

"At the close of the day, when the market is still,

And mortals the sweets of comestibles prove."

But hold! When is the market still. For a fortnight after he has set it

astir with a new number, his announcements confront you as you open your

"folio of four pages." His placards smite the eye at the crossings of

the streets; they return your glance at the shop-window, and confound

your senses at every turn. "Old Ebony for the month,"--"Kit North again

in the field,"--"A racy new number of _Blackwood_,"--such are the

headings of newspaper puffs, and the bawlings of hawkers on the steps of

Astor House. They pursue you to the Boston railway-station, or to the

Hudson-river steamer; they follow you on the road to Niagara; meet you

afresh at Detroit and Chicago, and hardly provoke any additional

surprise when the bagman accosts you with the same syllables, through

the nose, as you arrive in the buffalo-season on the debateable grounds

of Oregon! To quote once more the oracular words of the Ettrick orator

and poet, "Ane gets tired o' that eternal soun'--_Blackwood's

Magazeen,--Blackwood's Magazeen_--dinnin' in ane's lugs, day and nicht!"

So vast and so varied I suppose to be the commercial relations of

Reprint & Co., and such, beyond a doubt, is Maga's empire in America.

No more by this steamer. Let me see; in ten days, perhaps, Harry will be

with you at breakfast, discussing my letter, and lamenting my lot, to

live so far from the world. For me, however, a contented disposition,

the steamers twice a-month, and _Blackwood_ monthly, do wonders. I see

as much of the world as a good man need wish to see; and at any time,

you know, it's not a fortnight's work, by God's blessing, to rejoin the

old friends and true friends, that so often go fishing under your

patronage, and tell improbable stories around your table. Wait till I

get into my own chair beside you, and I will tell stories of my sojourn

in America that will put Harry's Indian romances to the blush. He now

goes out with a stock of prairie-adventures, that out-Sinbad Sinbad, and

yet he tells them with an air of honesty that would gull Gulliver. Wait

till I rejoin you, and you shall see how a plain tale will put him down.

Yours, &c.

THE TIMES OF GEORGE II.[18]

Female authorship is beginning to flourish in England. To this

employment no rational objection can be raised. The want of occupation

for female life in the higher classes has long been a subject of

complaint, and any honest change which removes it will be a change for

the better. The quantity of time and thread which has been wasted on

chainstitch, and roundstitch, and all the other mysteries of the needle,

in the last three centuries, is beyond all calculation. If the fair

artists had been workers at the loom, they might have clothed half the

living population in "fine linen," if not in purple. If they had been

equally diligent in brickmaking, they might have built ten Babels; or if

they had devoted similar energies, on Iago's hint, "to suckle fools, and

chronicle small beer," they might have tripled the population, or

anticipated the colossal vats of Messrs Truman & Co. What myriads of

young faces have grown old over worsted parrots and linsey-wolsey maps

of the terrestrial globe! What exquisite fingers have been thinned to

the bone, in creating carnations to be sat upon, and cowslip beds for

the repose of favourite poodles! What bright eyes have been reduced to

spectacles, in the remorseless fabrication of patchwork, quilts and

flowery footstools for the feet of gouty gentlemen! Nay, what thousands

and tens of thousands have been flung into the arms of their only

bridegroom, Consumption, leaving nothing to record their existence but

an accumulation of trifles, which cost them only their health, their

tempers, their time, their charms, and their usefulness!

But the age of knitting and tambour passed away. The spinning-jenny was

its mortal enemy. The most inveterate of fringemakers, the most

painstaking devotee of patchwork, when she found that Arkwright could

make in a minute more than with all her diligence she could make in a

month, and that old Robert Peel could pour out figured muslins, by a

twist of a screw, sufficient to give gowns to the whole petticoat

population of England, had only to give in; the spinsterhood were forced

to feel that their "occupation was o'er."

Even then, however, the female fingers were not suffered to "forget

their cunning;" and the age of purse-making began. The land was

inundated with purses of every shape, size, and substance. Then

followed another change. The Berlin manufacturers had contrived to bring

back the age of worsted wonders, though, by a happy art, they saved the

fair artists all the trouble of drawing and design. We are still under a

Gothic invasion of trimmings and tapestry, of needlework nondescripts,

moonlight minstrels in canvass, playing under cross-bar balconies; and

all the signs of the zodiac brought down to the level of the ivory

fingers of womankind.

To this, we must acknowledge, that the incipient taste of the ladies for

historical publications, for diving into the trunks of family memorials,

and giving us those private correspondences which are to be found only

by the desperate determination to find something and every thing, is a

fortunate turn of the wheel.

It is true, that England boasts of many distinguished female writers;

that the works of Mrs Radcliffe opened a new vein of rich description

and solemn mystery; that the comedies of Inchbald netted her innocent

and persevering spirit some thousand pounds; and that Joanna Baillie's

tragedies entitle her to an enduring fame. We also acknowledge, with

equal sincerity and gratification, the merits of many of our female

novelists in the past half century; their keen insight into character,

their close anatomy of the general impulses of the human heart, and the

mingled delicacy and force with which they seize on personal

peculiarities, belong to woman alone. But their day, too, has gone down.

They were first rivalled by the "high-life novel," the most vulgar of

all earthly caricatures. They are now extinguished by the low-life

novel; the most intolerable of all earthly realities. The true novel,

true in its fidelity to nature, polished without affectation, and

vigorous without rudeness, now sleeps in the grave, and must sleep,

until posterity shall, with one voice, demand its revival.

Yet, until another race of genius shall arise, and the laurel of

Fielding or of Shakspeare shall descend on our female authors, we must

be grateful for their gentle labours in the rather rugged field of

history.

It must be owned, that gallantry has a good deal to do in giving these

works the name of history. They want all the vigour, all the philosophy,

and all the eloquence of history. Of course, no human being will ever

apply to them as authorities. Still, they have the merit of giving

general statements to general readers, of supplying facts in their

regular order, and probably, of inducing the multitude, who would shrink

from the formalities of Hume or Gibbon in solemn quartos and ponderous

octavos, to dip into pages having all the look and nearly all the

slightness of the modern novel. At all events, if they do nothing else,

they employ the time of pens, which might be much worse occupied; and

that pens are often much worse occupied, we have evidence from hour to

hour.

The French novels are making rapid way into our circulating libraries.

Yet nothing can be more unfortunate, for nothing can be more corrupting

than a French novel of the nineteenth century. France, always a

profligate country, always had profligate writers. But they were

generally confined to "Memoirs," "Court anecdotes," and the ridicule of

the world of Versailles; their criminality was at least partially

concealed by their good breeding, and their vice was not altogether

lowered to the grossness of the crowd.

The Revolution created a new school. All there was hatred to duty,

faith, and honour. The deepest profligacy was pictured as scarcely less

than the natural right of man; and all the abominations of the human

heart were excited, encouraged, and propagated by daring pens, sometimes

subtle, sometimes eloquent, and in all instances appealing to the most

tempting abominations of man.

But the Revolution fell, and with the ascendant of Napoleon another

school followed. War, public business, the general objects of the active

faculties, and strong ambition of a people with Europe at its feet,

partially superseded alike the frivolous taste of the monarchy, and the

rabid ferocities of revolutionary authorship. The Bulletins of the

"Grande Armee" told a daily tale of romance, to which the brains of a

Parisian scribbler could find no rival, and men with the sound of

falling thrones echoing in their ears, forgot the whispers of low

intrigue and commonplace corruption.