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THE INTERNATIONAL MAGAZINE
Of Literature, Art, and Science.
Vol. III. NEW-YORK, JUNE 1, 1851. No. III.
HENRY WILLIAM HERBERT, "FRANK FORESTER."
[Illustration]
We doubt whether the wood-engravers of this country have ever produced
a finer portrait than the above of the author of "The Brothers,"
"Cromwell," "Marmaduke Wyvil," "The Roman Traitor," "The Warwick
Woodlands," "Field Sports," "Fish and Fishing," &c., &c. It is from
one of the most successful daguerreotypes of Brady.
HENRY WILLIAM HERBERT is the eldest son of the late Hon. and Rev.
William Herbert, Dean of Manchester, and of the Hon. Letitia Allen.
His father was the second son of the second Earl of Carnarvon, who was
of the nearest younger branch of the house of Pembroke. He was a
member of Parliament in the earlier part of his life, and being a
lawyer in Doctors' Commons was largely employed on the part of
American shipmasters previous to the war of 1812. At a later period he
took orders, became Dean of Manchester, was distinguished as a
botanist, and as the author of many eminent works, especially
"Attila," an epic poem of great power and learning. He died about
three years ago. His mother was the second daughter of Joshua, second
Viscount Allen, of Kildare, Ireland,--closely connected with the house
of Leinster.
Mr. Herbert was born in London on the seventh of April, 1807; he was
educated at home under a private tutor till 1819, and then sent to a
private school near Brighton, kept by the Rev. Dr. Hooker, at which he
remained one year he was then transferred to Eton, and was at that
school from April, 1820, till the summer of 1825, when he left for the
university, and entered Caius College, Cambridge, in October. Here he
obtained two scholarships and several prizes,--though not a
hard-reading man, and spending much of his time in field sports--and
he graduated in the winter of 1829-30, with a distinguished reputation
for talents and scholarship. In November, 1831, he sailed from
Liverpool for New York, and for the last twenty years he has resided
nearly all the time in this city and at his place near Newark in New
Jersey, called the Cedars.
[Illustration]
In 1832, in connection with the late A. D. Patterson, he started _The
American Monthly Magazine_, nearly one half the matter of which was
composed by him. After the first year Mr. Patterson retired from it,
and during twelve months it was conducted by Mr. Herbert alone. On the
conclusion of the second year it was sold to Charles F. Hoffman, Mr.
Herbert continuing to act as a joint editor. At the commencement of
the fourth year Park Benjamin being associated in the editorship, it
was contemplated to introduce party politics into the work, and Mr.
Herbert in consequence declined further connection with it.
[Illustration]
By this time Mr. Herbert had made a brilliant reputation as a scholar
and as an author. In the _American Monthly_ he had printed the first
chapters of _The Brothers, a Tale of the Fronde_, and the entire novel
was published by the Harpers in 1834, and so well received that the
whole edition was sold in a few weeks. In 1836 and 1837 he edited _The
Magnolia_, the first annual ever printed in America on the system of
entire originality both of the literary matter, and of the
embellishments, which were all executed by American engravers from
American designs. A considerable portion of the matter for both years
was furnished by Mr. Herbert. In 1837 the Harpers published his second
novel, _Cromwell_, which did not sell so rapidly as _The Brothers_,
though generally praised by the reviewers. It 1840 it was reprinted by
Colburn in London, and was eminently successful. In 1843 he published
in New-York and London his third novel, _Marmaduke Wyvil, or the
Maid's Revenge_, a story of the English civil wars, and in 1848 the
most splendid of his romances, _The Roman Traitor_, founded on the
history of Cataline, a work which must be classed with the most
remarkable of those specimens of literary art in which it has been
attempted to illustrate classical scenes, characters, and manners.
In romantic fiction, besides the above works, Mr. Herbert has written
for the magazines of this country and Great Britain tales and sketches
sufficient to make twenty to thirty stout volumes. The subjects of his
best performances have been drawn from the middle ages and from
southern Europe, and they display besides very eminent capacities for
the historical novel, and a familiarity with the institutions of
chivalry and with contemporary manners hardly equaled in any writer of
the English language.
In 1839 Mr. Herbert commenced in the New-York _Turf Register_ a series
of papers, under the signature of "Frank Forester," from which have
grown _My Shooting Box, The Warwick Woodlands, Field Sports of the
United States and British Provinces_, and _Fish and Fishing in the
United States and British Provinces_--works which by the general
consent of the sporting world are second to none in their department,
in any of the qualities which should distinguish this sort of writing.
The principal distinction between these and all other sporting works
lies in this, that such works in general treat only of game in the
field and flood, and the modes of killing it, while these are in great
part natural histories, containing minute and carefully digested
accounts of every specie of game, beast, bird, and fish, compiled from
Audubon, Wilson, Giraud, Godman, Agassiz, De Kay, and other
authorities, besides long disquisitions into their habits, times of
migration, breeding, &c., from the personal observation and experience
of the author. Any person is at once enabled by them to distinguish
between any two even closely allied species, and to adopt the proper
nomenclature, with a knowledge of the reason for it. The sporting
precepts are admitted, throughout the western country especially, to
be superior to all others, as well as the papers relating to the
breaking and the kennel and field management of dogs, &c. The same may
be said of what he has written of guns and gunnery. Mr. Herbert has
hunted, shot, and fished during the last twenty years in every state
of the Union, from Maine to Maryland, south of the great lakes, and
from below Quebec to the Sault St. Marie northward of them. Not having
visited the southern or south western states, the accounts of sporting
in those regions are collected from the writings or oral
communications of their best sportsmen, and on these points much
valuable new information, especially as to the prairie shooting and
the sports of the Rocky Mountains, will be contained in the new
edition of the _Field Sports_ to appear in the coming autumn.
Besides his contributions to romantic and sporting literature, Mr.
Herbert has written largely in criticism, he has done much as a poet,
and his capacities in classical scholarship have been illustrated by
some of the finest examples of Greek and Latin translation that have
appeared in our time. In the aggregate his works would now make
scarcely less than fifty octavo volumes.
As we have intimated, the portrait at the beginning of this article is
remarkably good. Mr. Herbert is about five feet ten high, of athletic
habits, and an untiring and fast walker; fond, of course, of all field
sports, especially horsemanship and shooting, and priding himself upon
killing as much if not more game than any other gentleman in the
country out of New-York.
[Illustration]
TRENTON FALLS
[Illustration]
In a story called _Edith Linsey_, written by Mr. WILLIS, soon after he
left college, occurs the following description of Trenton Falls:
"Trenton Falls is rather a misnomer. I scarcely know what
you would call it, but the wonder of nature which bears the
name is a tremendous torrent, whose bed, for several miles,
is sunk fathoms deep into the earth--a roaring and dashing
stream, so far below the surface of the forest in which it
is lost, that you would think, as you come suddenly upon the
edge of its long precipice, that it was a river in some
inner world (coiled within ours, as we in the outer circle
of the firmament,) and laid open by some Titanic throe that
had cracked clear asunder the crust of this 'shallow earth.'
The idea is rather assisted if you happen to see below you,
on its abysmal shore, a party of adventurous travellers;
for, at that vast depth, and in contrast with the gigantic
trees and rocks, the same number of well-shaped pismires,
dressed in the last fashions, and philandering upon your
parlor floor, would be about of their apparent size and
distinctness.
"They showed me at Eleusis the well by which Proserpine
ascends to the regions of day on her annual visit to the
plains of Thessaly--but with the _genius loci_ at my elbow
in the shape of a Greek girl as lovely as Phryne, my memory
reverted to the bared axle of the earth in the bed of this
American river, and I was persuaded (looking the while at
the _feroniere_ of gold sequins on the Phidian forehead of
my Katinka) that supposing Hades in the centre of the earth,
you are nearer to it by some fathoms at Trenton. I confess I
have had, since my first descent into those depths, an
uncomfortable doubt of the solidity of the globe--how the
deuse it can hold together with such a crack in its bottom!
"It was a night to play Endymion, or do any Tomfoolery that
could be laid to the charge of the moon, for a more
omnipresent and radiant atmosphere of moonlight never
sprinkled the wilderness with silver. It was a night in
which to wish it might never be day again--a night to be
enamored of the stars, and bid God bless them like human
creatures on their bright journey--a night to love in, to
dissolve in--to do every thing but what night is made
for--sleep! Oh heaven! when I think how precious is life in
such moments; how the aroma--the celestial bloom and flower
of the soul--the yearning and fast-perishing enthusiasm of
youth--waste themselves in the solitude of such nights on
the senseless and unanswering air; when I wander alone,
unloving and unloved, beneath influences that could inspire
me with the elevation of a seraph, were I at the ear of a
human creature that could summon forth and measure my
limitless capacity of devotion--when I think this, and feel
this, and so waste my existence in vain yearnings--I could
extinguish the divine spark within me like a lamp on an
unvisited shrine, and thank Heaven for an assimilation to
the animals I walk among! And that is the substance of a
speech I made to Job as a sequitur of a well-meant remark of
his own, that 'it was a pity Edith Linsey was not there.' He
took the clause about the 'animals' to himself, and I made
an apology for the same a year after. We sometimes give our
friends, quite innocently, such terrible knocks in our
rhapsodies!
"Most people talk of the _sublimity_ of Trenton, but I have
haunted it by the week together for its mere loveliness. The
river, in the heart of that fearful chasm, is the most
varied and beautiful assemblage of the thousand forms and
shapes of running water that I know in the world. The soil
and the deep-striking roots of the forest terminate far
above you, looking like a black rim on the inclosing
precipices; the bed of the river and its sky-sustaining
walls are of solid rock, and, with the tremendous descent of
the stream--forming for miles one continuous succession of
falls and rapids--the channel is worn into curves and
cavities which throw the clear waters into forms of
inconceivable brilliancy and variety. It is a sort of half
twilight below, with here and there a long beam of sunshine
reaching down to kiss the lip of an eddy or form a rainbow
over a fall, and the reverberating and changing echoes:--
"Like a ring of bells whose sound the wind still alters,"
maintain a constant and most soothing music, varying at
every step with the varying phase of the current. Cascades
of from twenty to thirty feet, over which the river flies
with a single and hurrying leap (not a drop missing from the
glassy and bending sheet), occur frequently as you ascend;
and it is from these that the place takes its name. But the
falls, though beautiful, are only peculiar from the dazzling
and unequaled rapidity with which the waters come to the
leap. If it were not for the leaf which drops wavering down
into the abysm from trees apparently painted on the sky, and
which is caught away by the flashing current as if the
lightning had suddenly crossed it, you would think the vault
of the steadfast heavens a flying element as soon. The spot
in that long gulf of beauty that I best remember is a smooth
descent of some hundred yards, where the river in full and
undivided volume skims over a plane as polished as a table
of scagliola, looking, in its invisible speed, like one
mirror of gleaming but motionless crystal. Just above, there
is a sudden turn in the glen which sends the water like a
catapult against the opposite angle of the rock, and, in the
action of years, it has worn out a cavern of unknown depth,
into which the whole mass of the river plunges with the
abandonment of a flying fiend into hell, and, reappearing
like the angel that has pursued him, glides swiftly but with
divine serenity on its way. (I am indebted for that last
figure to Job, who travelled with a Milton in his pocket,
and had a natural redolence of 'Paradise Lost' in his
conversation.)
"Much as I detest water in small quantities (to drink), I
have a hydromania in the way of lakes, rivers, and
waterfalls. It is, by much, the _belle_ in the family of the
elements. _Earth_ is never tolerable unless disguised in
green. _Air_ is so thin as only to be visible when she
borrows drapery of water; and _Fire_ is so staringly bright
as to be unpleasant to the eyesight; but water! soft, pure,
graceful water! there is no shape into which you can throw
her that she does not seem lovelier than before. She can
borrow nothing of her sisters. Earth has no jewels in her
lap so brilliant as her own spray pearls and emeralds; Fire
has no rubies like what she steals from the sunset; Air has
no robes like the grace of her fine-woven and ever-changing
drapery of silver. A health (in wine!) to WATER!
[Illustration]
"Who is there that did not love some stream in his youth?
Who is there in whose vision of the past there does not
sparkle up, from every picture of childhood, a spring or a
rivulent woven through the darkened and torn woof of first
affections like a thread of unchanged silver? How do you
interpret the instinctive yearning with which you search for
the river-side or the fountain in every scene of nature--the
clinging unaware to the river's course when a truant in the
fields in June--the dull void you find in every landscape of
which it is not the ornament and the centre? For myself, I
hold with the Greek: "Water is the first principle of all
things: we were made from it and we shall be resolved into
it.""
[Illustration]
Of subsequent visits to this loveliest of spots, years after, Mr.
Willis has given descriptions in letters addressed to General Morris
for publication in the _Home Journal_, and we are soon to have from
Putnam in a beautiful volume all that he has written on the subject,
together with notices of the manner in which he enjoyed himself at Mr.
Moore's delightful hotel at the Falls, which is represented as
farthest of all summer resorts from the turmoil of the world and
nearest of all to the gates of Paradise. We borrow from these letters
a few characteristic and tempting paragraphs:
"I was here twenty years ago, but the fairest things slip
easiest out of the memory, and I had half forgotten Trenton.
To tell the truth, I was a little ashamed, to compare the
faded and shabby picture of it in my mind with the reality
before me, and if the waters of the Falls had been, by any
likelihood, the same that flowed over when I was here
before, I should have looked them in the face, I think, with
something of the embarrassment with which one meets,
half-rememberingly, after years of separation, the ladies
one has vowed to love for ever.
"The peculiarity of Trenton Falls, I fancy, consists a good
deal in the space in which you are compelled to see them.
You walk a few steps from the hotel through the wood, and
come to a descending staircase of a hundred steps, the
different bends of which are so over-grown with wild
shrubbery, that you cannot see the ravine till you are
fairly down upon its rocky floor. Your path hence, up to the
first Fall, is along a ledge cut out of the base of the
cliff that overhangs the torrent, and when you go to the
foot of the descending sheet, you find yourself in very
close quarters with a cataract--rocky walls all round
you--and the appreciation of power and magnitude, perhaps,
somewhat heightened by the confinement of the place--as a
man would have a much more realizing sense of a live lion,
shut up with him in a basement parlor, than he would of the
same object, seen from an elevated and distant point of
view.
"The usual walk (through this deep cave open at the top) is
about half a mile in length, and its almost subterranean
river, in that distance, plunges over four precipices in
exceedingly beautiful cascades. On the successive rocky
terraces between the falls, the torrent takes every variety
of rapids and whirlpools, and, perhaps, in all the scenery
of the world, there is no river, which, in the same space,
presents so many of the various shapes and beauties of
running and falling water. The Indian name of the stream
(the Kanata, which means the _amber river_) expresses one of
its peculiarities, and, probably from the depth of shade
cast by the two dark and overhanging walls 'twixt which it
flows, the water is everywhere of a peculiarly rich lustre
and color, and, in the edges of one or two of the cascades,
as yellow as gold. Artists, in drawing this river, fail,
somehow, in giving the impression of _deep-down-itude_ which
is produced by the close approach of the two lofty walls of
rock, capped by the overleaning woods, and with the sky
apparently resting, like a ceiling, upon the leafy
architraves.... If there were truly, as the poets say
figuratively, "worlds _within_ worlds," this would look as
if an earthquake had cracked open the outer globe, and
exposed, through the yawning fissure, one of the rivers of
the globe below--the usual underground level of "down among
the dead men," being, as you walk upon its banks, between
you and the daylight.
"Considering the amount of surprise and pleasure which one
feels in a walk up the ravine at Trenton, it is remarkable
how little one finds to say about it, the day after. Is it
that mere scenery, without history, is enjoyable without
being suggestive, or, amid the tumult of the rushing torrent
at one's feet, is the milk of thought too much agitated for
the cream to rise? I fancied yesterday, as I rested on the
softest rock I could find at the upper end of the ravine,
that I should tumble you out a letter to-day, with ideas
pitching forth like saw-logs over a waterfall; but my memory
has nothing in it to-day but the rocks and rapids it took
in--the talent wrapped in its napkin of delight remaining in
unimproved _statu-quo_-sity. One certainly gets the
impression, while the sight and hearing are so overwhelmed,
that one's mind is famously at work, and that we shall hear
from it to-morrow; but it is Jean Paul, I think, who says
that 'the mill makes the most noise when there is no grist
in the hopper.'
"We have had the full of the moon and a cloudless sky for
the last two or three nights, and of course we have walked
the ravine till the 'small hours,' seeing with wonder the
transforming effects of moonlight and its black shadows on
the falls and precipices. I have no idea (you will be glad
to know) of trying to reproduce these sublimities on
paper--at least not with my travelling stock of verbs and
adjectives. To 'sandwich the moon in a muffin,' one must
have time and a ladder of dictionaries. But one or two
effects struck me which perhaps are worth briefly naming,
and I will throw into the lot a poetical figure, which you
may use in your next song....
"The fourth Fall, (or the one that is flanked by the ruins
of a saw-mill) is, perhaps, a hundred feet across; and its
curve over the upper rock and its break upon the lower one,
form two parallel lines, the water everywhere falling the
same distance with the evenness of an artificial cascade.
The stream not being very full, just now, it came over, in
twenty or thirty places, thicker than elsewhere; and the
effect, from a distance, as the moonlight lay full upon it,
was that of twenty or thirty immovable marble columns
connected by transparent curtains of falling lace, and with
bases in imitation of foam. Now it struck me that this might
suggest a new and fanciful order of architecture, suitable
at least to the structure of green-houses, the glass roofs
of which are curved over and slope to the ground with very
much the contour of a waterfall....
"Subterranean as this foaming river looks by day, it looks
like a river in cloud-land by night. The side of the ravine
which is in shadow, is one undistinguishable mass of black,
with its wavy upper edge in strong relief against the sky,
and, as the foaming stream catches the light from the
opposite and moonlit side, it is outlined distinctly on its
bed of darkness, and seems winding its way between hills of
clouds, half black, half luminous. Below, where all is deep
shadow except the river, you might fancy it a silver mine
laid open to your view amid subterranean darkness by the
wand of an enchanter, or (if you prefer a military trope, my
dear General), a long white plume laid lengthwise between
the ridges of a cocked hat."
[Illustration]
NEW PROOF OF THE EARTH'S ROTATION.
"The earth does move, notwithstanding," whispered Galileo, leaving the
dungeon of the Inquisition: by which he meant his friends to
understand, that if the earth did move, the fact would remain so in
spite of his punishment. But a less orthodox assembly than the
conclave of Cardinals might have been staggered by the novelty of the
new philosophy. According to Laplace, the apparent diurnal phenomena
of the heavens would be the same either from the revolution of the sun
or the earth; and more than one reason made strongly in favor of the
prevalent opinion that the earth, not the sun, was stationary. First,
it was most agreeable to the impression of the senses; and next, to
disbelieve in the fixity of the solid globe, was not only to eject
from its pride of place our little planet, but to disturb the
long-cherished sentiment that we ourselves are the centre--the be-all
and end-all of the universe. However, the truth will out; and this is
its great distinction from error, that while every new discovery adds
to its strength, falsehood is weakened and at last driven from the
field. That the earth revolves round the sun, and rotates on its polar
axis, have long been the settled canons of our system. But the
rotation of the earth has been rendered _visible_ by a practical
demonstration, which has drawn much attention in Paris and London, and
is beginning to excite interest in this country. The inventor is M.
Foucault; and the following description has been given of the mode of
proof:
"At the centre of the dome of the Pantheon a fine wire is
attached, from which a sphere of metal, four or five inches
in diameter, is suspended so as to hang near the floor of
the building. This apparatus is put in vibration after the
manner of a pendulum. Under and concentrical with it is
placed a circular table, some twenty feet in diameter, the
circumference of which is divided into degrees, minutes,
&c., and the divisions numbered. Now, supposing the earth to
have the diurnal motion imputed to it, and which explains
the phenomena of day and night, the plane in which this
pendulum vibrates will not be affected by this motion, but
the table, over which the pendulum is suspended, will
continually change its position, in virtue of the diurnal
motion, so as to make a complete revolution round its
centre. Since, then, the table thus revolves, and the
pendulum which vibrates over it does not revolve, the
consequence is, that a line traced upon the table by a point
projecting from the bottom of the ball will change its
direction relatively to the table from minute to minute and
from hour to hour, so that if such point were a pencil, and
that paper were spread upon the table, the course formed by
this pencil would form a system of lines radiating from the
centre of the table. The practised eye of a correct
observer, especially if aided by a proper optical
instrument, may actually see the motion which the table has
in common with the earth, under the pendulum between two
successive vibrations. It is, in fact, apparent that the
ball, or rather the point attached to the bottom of the
ball, does not return precisely to the same point of the
circumference of the table after two successive vibrations.
Thus is rendered visible the motion which the table has in
common with the earth."
Crowds are said to flock daily to the Pantheon to witness this
interesting experiment. It has been successfully repeated by Professor
Ansted at the Russell Institution, in London, in a manner similar to
the experiment at the Pantheon at Paris. The wire, which suspended a
weight of twenty-eight pounds, was of the size of the middle C-string
of a piano. It was thirty feet long, and vibrated over a graduated
table fixed to the floor. The rotation of the table, implying that of
the earth on which it rested, was visible in about five minutes, and
the wonderful spectacle was presented of the rotation of the room
round the pendulum. The experiment excited the astonishment of every
beholder, and many eminent scientific gentlemen who were present
expressed their great delight in witnessing a phenomenon which they
considered the most satisfactory they had witnessed in the whole
course of their lives.
Although nothing, to minds capable of comprehending it, can add to the
force or clearness of the demonstration by which the rotation of the
earth has been established, yet even the natural philosopher himself
cannot regard the present experiment without feelings of profound
interest and satisfaction; and to the great mass, to whom the
complicated physical phenomena by which the rotation of the earth has
been established are incomprehensible, M. Foucault's very ingenious
illustration is invaluable.
A correspondent of the Newark _Daily Advertiser_ appears to have
anticipated the experiment of M. Foucault, suspending a fifty-six
pound weight by a small wire from the rafters of a barn. But however
simple and conclusive the illustration, it should be attempted only by
scientific men. Professor Sylvester, writing to the _Times_, of
experiments made in London, says:
"The experiments connected with the practical demonstration
of the phenomenon require to be conducted with great care;
and some discredit has been brought upon attempts to
illustrate it in England by persons who have not taken the
necessary precautions to protect the motion from the
excentric deviation to which it is liable, and which may,
and indeed must, have the effect of causing, in some cases,
an apparent failure, and in others a still more unfortunate,
because fallacious, success. I believe, from the character
of the persons connected with the experiments, that the true
phenomenon has been accurately produced and observed in
Paris. I doubt whether as much can be said, with entire
confidence, of any of the experiments hitherto performed
here in London.
"Any want of symmetry in the arrangements for the suspension
of the wire, or in the centering of the weight, exposure to
currents of air, or the tremulous motion occasioned by the
passage of vehicles, may operate to cause a phenomenon to
be brought about curious enough in itself, as a result of
mathematical laws, but quite different from that supposed.
The phenomenon of the progression of the apsides of an oval
orbit, which is here alluded to, is familiar to all students
in mechanics.
"It is perfectly absurd for persons unacquainted with
mechanical and geometrical science to presume to make the
experiment. Indeed, such efforts deserve rather the name of
conjuring than of experiment; but in this, as in many other
matters of life, it is true that "fools rush in where angels
fear to tread." Perhaps the too hasty rush at the
experimental verification of Foucault's law may account for
some persons in England, whose opinions when given with due
deliberation are entitled to respect, having allowed
themselves to express doubts (which I understand, however,
have been since retracted) as to the truth of the law
itself. In Paris there was no difference of opinion among
such men as Lame, Poinsol, Binet, Leonville, Sturm, Chasles,
Bruvues, I believe Arago, Hermite, and many others with whom
I conversed on the subject, except as to the best mode of
making the theory popularly intelligible."
Explanations will be necessary from lecturers and others who give
imitations of M. Foucault's ingenuity to render it intelligible to
those unacquainted with mathematics, or with the laws of gravity and
spherical motion. For instance, it will not be readily understood by
every one why the pendulum should vibrate in the same plane, and not
partake of the earth's rotation in common with the table; but this
could be _shown_ with a bullet suspended by a silkworm's thread. Next,
the apparent horizontal revolution of the table round its centre will
be incomprehensible to many, as representative of its own and the
earth's motion round its axis.
Doubtless we shall soon have public exhibitions of the demonstration
in all our cities.
The pendulum is indeed an extraordinary instrument, and has been a
useful handmaid to science. We are familiar with it as the
time-regulator of our clocks, and the ease with which they may be made
to go faster or slower by adjusting its length. But neither this nor
the Pantheon elucidation constitutes its sole application. By it the
latitude may be approximately ascertained, the density of the earth's
strata in different places, and its elliptical eccentricity of figure.
The noble Florentine already quoted was its inventor; and it is
related of Galileo, while a boy, that he was the first to observe how
the height of the vaulted roof of a church might be measured by the
times of the vibration of the chandeliers suspended at different
altitudes. Were the earth perforated from London to our antipodes, and
the air exhausted, a ball dropped through would at the centre acquire
a velocity sufficient to carry it to the opposite side, whence it
would again descend, and so oscillate forward and backwards from one
side of the globe's surface to the other in the manner of a pendulum.
Very likely, the Cardinals of the Vatican would deem this heresy, or
"flat blasphemy."
[Illustration]
THE BUTCHERS' LEAP AT MUNICH.
A correspondent of the London _Athenaeum_, writing from Munich, gives
the following account of the festival of the Butchers' Leap in the
Fountain: "This strange ceremonial, like the _Schaeffler Tanz_, is said
to have its origin in the time of the plague. While the Coopers danced
with garlands and music through the streets, the Butchers sprang into
the fountain in the market-place, to show their fellow-citizens that
its water was no longer to be dreaded as poisoned. Perhaps they were
the Sanitary Commissioners of those days; and by bathing themselves in
the water and dashing it about on the crowd would teach the true means
of putting pestilence to flight.
"Though the Coopers' Dance takes place only once in seven
years, the Butchers' Leap occurs annually, and always on
_Fasching Montag_,--the Monday before Shrove Tuesday. I
believe the ceremony is of great importance to the trade of
the Butchers; as certain privileges granted to them are
annually renewed at this time, and in connection with the
Leap. These two ceremonies--of the Coopers' Dance and the
Butchers' Leap--are now almost the last remains of the
picturesque and quaint customs of old Munich.
"The Butchers commence proceedings by attending High Mass in
St. Peter's Church,--close to the Schrannien Platz, or
market-place, in which the fountain is situated. It is a
desolate-looking church, this St. Peter's, as seen from
without,--old, decaying, and ugly; within, tawdry
and--though not desolate and decaying--ugly. From staringly
white walls frown down on the spectator torture-pictures,
alternating with huge gilt images of sentimental saints in
clumsy drapery. The altars are masses of golden clouds and
golden cherubs.
"Music, as from the orchestra of a theatre rather than from
the choir of a church, greeted us as we entered. The
Butchers were just passing out. We caught glimpses of
scarlet coats; and saw two huge silver flagons, covered with
a very panoply of gold and silver medals, borne aloft by
pompous officials clothed in scarlet. Having watched the
procession--some half-dozen tiny butchers' sons, urchins of
five and six years old, with rosy, round faces and chubby
hands, mounted on stalwart horses and dressed in little
scarlet coats, top-boots, and jaunty green velvet
hats--seven butchers' apprentices, the Leapers of the day,
also dressed in scarlet and mounted on horseback--the
musicians,--the long train of master-butchers and journeymen
in long dark cloaks and with huge nosegays in their
hats--and the scarlet officials bearing the decorated
flagons,--having watched, I say, all these good folk wend
their way in long procession up the narrow street leading
from the church, and seen them cross the market-place in the
direction of the Palace, where they are awaited by the
King,--let us look around, and notice the features of the
market-place:--for it is, in fact, a quaint old bit of the
city, and well worth a glimpse.
"If I love the Ludwig Strasse as the most beautiful portion
of the new Munich, I almost equally love the Schrannien
Platz as about the quaintest part of old Munich. It is long
and narrow as a market-place, but wide as a street. The
houses are old; many of them very handsome, and rich with
ornamental stucco-work,--
'All garlanded with carven imageries
Of fruit and flowers and bunches of knot-grass.'
The roofs are steep, red tiled, and perforated with rows of
little pent-house windows. The fronts of the houses are of
all imaginable pale tints,--stone colors, pinks, greens,
greys, and tawnies. Three of the four corners of the
market-place are adorned with tall pepper-box towers, with
domed roofs and innumerable narrow windows. At one end is
the fountain; and in the centre a heavy, but quaint
shrine,--a column supporting a gilt figure of the Madonna.
The eye wanders down various picturesque streets which open
into the market-place; and on one hand, above steep roofs,
gaze down the two striking red-brick towers of the _Frauen
Kirche_--the cathedral of Munich:--those two red towers
which are seen in all views of this city, and which belong
as much to Munich as the dome of St. Paul's does to the city
of London,--those towers which in the haze of sunset are
frequently transformed into violet-tinted columns, or about
which in autumn and winter mists cling with a strange
dreariness as if they were desolate mountain peaks!
"But the quaintest feature of all in the Schrannien Platz is
a sort of arcade which runs around it. Here, beneath the low
and massy arches, are crowded thick upon each other a host
of small shops. What queer, dark little cells they are,--yet
how picturesque! Here is a dealer in crucifixes,--next to
him a woollen-draper, displaying bright striped woollen
goods for the peasants,--then a general dealer, with heaps
and bundles and tubs and chests containing every thing most
heterogeneous,--and next to him a dealer in pipes. There are
bustle and gloom always beneath these heavy low arches,--but
they present a glorious bit of picturesque life. There are
queer wooden booths, too, along one portion of the
Schrannien Platz where it rather narrows, losing its
character of market-place, and descending to that of an
ordinary street. But the booths do not degenerate in their
picturesque character. The earthenware booths--of which
there are several--are truly delicious. Such rows and piles
of dark green, orange, ruddy chocolate-brown, sea-green,
pale yellow, and deep blue and grey vessels of all forms and
sizes--all quaint, all odd--jugs, flagons, pipkins, queer
pots with huge lids, queer tripods for which I know no
name--things which always seem to me to come out of a
witch's kitchen, but by means of which I suspect that my own
dinner is cooked every day. All these heaps of crockery lie
about the doors, and load the windows of the wooden booths,
and line shelves and shelves within the gloom of the little
shops themselves. When I first came here these old crockery
shops were a more frequent study to me than any thing else
in the old town.
"We ascended a steep, narrow staircase leading out of this
arcade into one of the houses above it, from which we were
to witness the leaping into the fountain. I looked out of
the window on the crowd that began to collect around the
fountain, and noticed the tall roofs and handsome fronts of
the houses opposite, and the crowd of pigeons--scores and
scores of pigeons--assembled just opposite the fountain on
the edge of the steep roof which rose like a red hill-side
behind them. They seemed solemnly met to witness the great
festivities about to be celebrated, and sat in silent
expectation brooding in the sunshine. Then, I wondered what
attraction the icy water could have for the children who
leaned over the fountain's side--dabbling in the water as
though it had been midsummer. The crowd increased and
increased; and seven new white buckets were brought and
placed on a broad plank which extended across one side of
the fountain basin.
"A shout from the crowd announced the arrival of the
Butchers. First of all came the tender Butcher-infants, in
scarlet coats, top-boots, and green velvet hats, borne in
the arms of their fathers through the crowd in order that
they might witness the fun. Then followed the scarlet
officials:--and then came seven of the queerest beasts man
ever set eyes on. What were they, if human? Were they seven
Esquimaux chiefs, or seven African mumbo-jumbos? They were
the heroes of the day--the seven Butcher-apprentices,
clothed in fur caps and garments--covered from shoulder to
heel with hundreds of dangling calves' tails--red, white,
black, dun!
"You may imagine the shouts that greeted them,--the peels of
laughter. Up they sprang on the broad plank,--leaping,
dancing, making their tails fly round like trundled mops.
The crowd roared with laughter. A stately scarlet
official--a butcher (_Altgesell_)--stands beside them on the
plank. Ten times they drink the health of the royal family
and prosperity to the butchers' craft. The _Altgesell_ then
striking many blows on the shoulder of the nearest
apprentice, frees him and all the remaining six from their
indentures. They are henceforth full-grown butchers. Then,
they plunge into the very centre of the fountain with a
tremendous splash. The crowd shout,--the startled pigeons
wheel in wild alarm above the heads and laughter of the
crowd. The seven Tritons dash torrents of water on the
multitude,--who fly shrieking and laughing before the
deluge. The seven buckets are plied with untiring
arms;--lads are enticed within aim by showers of nuts flung
by the 'Leapers,' and then are drenched to the skin. It is a
bewilderment of water, flying calves' tails, pelting nuts,
and shrieking urchins.
"The 'Leapers' then ascend out of their bath,--shake
themselves like shaggy dogs,--have white cloths pinned round
their necks as though they were going to be shaved,--and
have very grand medals hung round their necks suspended by
gaudy ribbons.
"The procession retires across the market-place to its
'_Herberge_,' and the crowd disperses,--but disperses only
to re-assemble in various public-houses for the merriment of
the afternoon and night. That night and the next day are
'the maddest, merriest of all the year.' Music is every
where--dancing every where. It is the end of the Carnival.
Ash Wednesday comes,--and then, all is gloom."
NEGLECT OF THE PRESERVATION OF EGYPTIAN ANTIQUITIES.
A writer in the London _Athenaeum_, writing from Alexandria, endeavors
to convince those who profess an interest in Egyptian antiquities,
that if their present neglect continues, nothing will remain of the
stupendous relics now lying over the land, but a quantity of
pulverized fragments. The colossal statue at Memphis, said to belong
to the British Museum, for years depended on the precarious protection
of an old Arab woman, who was continually expecting and claiming a
small salary of five or six pounds per annum as guardian. She received
about so much from a variety of consuls, for a time, but the payment
was at last discontinued, and, from what was told her, she based her
hopes on the learned or the powerful in England. "But the learned and
the powerful never, I suppose," says the writer, "heard of her, and
she died, leaving the statue in charge of her son, who, in his turn,
seems to live in hope. There is little prospect of his getting any
thing, however; and very probably, in spite of his unrewarded zeal,
the magnificent statue--by far the finest in Egypt--will ere long be
burnt for lime. The neighboring pyramid of Dashour is being, as I have
already said, worked as a quarry, and I shall be very much surprised
if this handy block of stone escape notice." He suggests the formation
of a committee, consisting of the principal consuls and residents in
Egypt, to watch over the preservation of the monuments of the country,
and to be supplied, by governments or by the voluntary contributions
of the learned, with the funds necessary to pay guardians and
inspectors.
A very valuable museum of Egyptian antiquities we believe is now on
the way to the United States; but it embraces no such great works as
have been transported to Rome and Paris. Is it not worth while for the
New-York merchants to set up in Union or Washington Square, the great
statue of Memphis?
Or it would not be altogether inappropriate for the Smithsonian
Institution to have it imported into Washington. How much the
diffusion of "knowledge" would be promoted by such a movement it is
not easy to say: but a figure of this kind on Capitol Hill would have
such an effect on our eloquence! and our juvenile poets could go there
and in its shade invoke the presence of twenty centuries.
HENRY ROWE SCHOOLCRAFT.
[Illustration]
Mr. Schoolcraft is of English descent by the paternal side, his
great-grandfather having come from England during the wars of Queen
Anne, and settled in what is now Schoharie county in New-York, where
in old age he taught the first English school in that part of the
country, from which circumstance his name was not unnaturally changed
by the usage of the people from Calcraft to Schoolcraft. Our author
recently attempted in his own person to revive the old family name,
but soon abandoned it, and concluded to retain that which was begotten
upon his native soil, and by which he has long been so honorably
distinguished. He is a son of Colonel Lawrence Schoolcraft, who joined
the revolutionary army at seventeen years of age, and participated in
the movements under Montgomery and Schuyler, and the memorable defence
of Fort Stanwix under Gansevoort. He was born in Guilderland, near
Albany, on the twenty-eighth of March, 1793. In a secluded part of the
country, where there were few advantages for education, and scarce any
persons who thought of literature, he had an ardent love of knowledge,
and sat at home with his books and pencils while his equals in age
were at cock-fights and horse-races, for which Guilderland was then
famous. He is still remembered by some of the octogenarians of the
village as the "learned boy." At thirteen he drew subjects in natural
history, and landscapes, which attracted the attention of the late
Lieutenant-Governor Van Rensselaer, then a frequent visitor of his
father, through whose agency he came near being apprenticed to one
Ames, the only portrait-painter at that time in Albany; but as it was
demanded that he should commence with house-painting the plan was
finally abandoned. At fourteen he began to contribute pieces in prose
and verse to the newspapers, and for several years after he pursued
without aid the study of natural history, English literature, Hebrew,
German, and French, and the philosophy of language.
Mr. Schoolcraft's first work was an elaborate treatise, but partially
known to the public, entitled Vitreology, which was published in 1817.
The design of it was to exhibit the application of chemistry to the
arts in the fusion of siliceous and alkaline substances in the
production of enamels, glass, etc. He had had opportunities of
experimenting largely and freely by his position as conductor for a
series of years of the extensive works of the Ontario Company at
Geneva in New-York, the Vermont Company at Middlebury and Salisbury in
Vermont, and the foundry of crystal glass at Keene in New Hampshire.
In 1818, and the following year, he made a geological survey of
Missouri and Arkansas to the spurs of the Rocky Mountains, and in the
fall of 1819 published in New-York his View of the Lead Mines of
Missouri, which is said by Professor Silliman to have been "the only
elaborate and detailed account of a mining district in the United
States" which had then appeared. It attracted much attention, and
procured for the author the friendship of many eminent men. In the
same year he printed Transallegania, a poetical _jeu d'esprit_ of
which mineralogy is the subject, and which preceded some clever
English attempts in the same vein. It was republished in London by Sir
Richard Phillips in the next year.
Early in 1820 he published a Journal of a Tour in the Interior of
Missouri and Arkansas, extending from Potosi toward the Rocky
Mountains. His writings having attracted the notice of the government,
he was commissioned by Mr. Calhoun, then Secretary of War, to visit
the copper region of Lake Superior, and to accompany General Cass in
his expedition to the head waters of the Mississippi. His Narrative
Journal of this tour was published in 1821, and was eminently
successful, an edition of twelve hundred copies being sold in a few
weeks. In the same year he was appointed secretary to the commission
for treating with the Indian tribes at Chicago, and on the conclusion
of his labors published his sixth work, entitled Travels in the
Central Portions of the Mississippi Valley, in which he described the
country between the regions of which he had given an account in his
previous works. His reputation was now widely and firmly established
as an explorer, and as a man of science and letters. From this time
his attention was devoted principally to the Red Race, though he still
cultivated natural history, and wrote occasionally for the reviews and
magazines.
In 1822 he was appointed by President Monroe agent for Indian Affairs,
to reside at St. Mary's, at the foot of Lake Superior. In the years
1825, 1826, and 1827, he attended the important convocations of the
north-west tribes at Prairie du Chien, Pont du Lac, and Buttes des
Morts. In 1831 he was sent on a special embassy, accompanied by
troops, to conciliate the Sioux and Ojibwas, and bring the existing
war between them to a close. In 1832 he proceeded in the same capacity
to the tribes near the head waters of the Mississippi, and availed
himself of the opportunity to trace that river, in small canoes, from
the point where Pike stopped in 1807 and Cass in 1820 to its true
source in Itasca Lake, upon which he entered on the thirteenth of
July, the one hundred and forty-ninth anniversary of the discovery of
the mouth of the river by La Salle. His account of this tour was
published in New-York in 1834, under the title of An Expedition to
Itasca Lake, and attracted much attention in all parts of the country.
From 1827 to 1831 Mr. Schoolcraft was a member of the legislative
council of Michigan. In 1828 he organized the Michigan Historical
Society, in which he was elected president, on the removal of General
Cass to Washington, in 1831. In the fall of the same year he set on
foot the Algic Society at Detroit, before which he delivered a course
of lectures on the grammatical construction of the Indian
languages,[1] and at its first anniversary a poem on The Indian
Character. Guided by patriotism and good taste, he took a successful
stand in the west against the absurd nomenclature which has elsewhere
made such confusion in geography by repeating over and over the names
of European places and characters, giving us Romes, Berlins, and
Londons in the wilderness, and Hannibals, Scipios, Homers, and
Hectors, wherever there was sufficient learning to make its possessors
ridiculous. He submitted to the legislature of the territory a system
of county and township names based upon the Indian vocabularies with
which he was familiar, and happily secured its general adoption.
At Sault Ste. Marie Mr. Schoolcraft became acquainted with Mr. John
Johnston, a gentleman from the north of Ireland, who had long resided
there, and in the person of his eldest daughter married a descendant
of the hereditary chief of Lake Superior, or Lake Algoma, as it is
known to the Indians. She had been educated in Europe, and was an
accomplished and highly interesting woman. After a residence there of
eleven years he removed to Michilimackinac, and assumed the joint
agency of the two districts. In 1836 he was appointed by President
Jackson a commissioner to treat with the north-west tribes for their
lands in the region of the upper lakes, and succeeded in effecting a
cession to the United States of some sixteen millions of acres. In the
same year he was appointed acting Superintendent of Indian Affairs for
the Northern Department, and in 1839 principal disbursing agent for
the same district.
In the last mentioned year he published two volumes of Algic
Researches, comprising Indian Tales and Legends, and soon after,
having passed more than twenty years as a traveller or resident on the
frontiers, he removed to the city of New-York, intending to prepare
for the press the great mass of his original papers which he had
accumulated in this long period. In 1841 he issued proposals for an
Indian Cyclopedia, geographical, historical, philological, etc., of
which only one number was printed, no publisher appearing willing to
undertake so costly and extensive a work of such a description. In
1842 he visited England, France, Germany, Prussia, and Holland. During
his absence his wife died, at Dundee, in Canada West, where she was
visiting her sister. Soon after his return he made another journey to
the west, to examine some of the great mounds, respecting which he has
since communicated a paper to the Royal Geographical Society of
Denmark, of which he was many years ago elected an honorary member,
and soon after published a collection of his poetical writings, under
the title of Alhalla, or the Lord of Talladega, a Tale of the Creek
War, with some miscellanies, chiefly of early date. In 1844 he
commenced in numbers the publication of Oneota, or the Red Race in
America, their History, Traditions, Customs, Poetry, Picture Writing,
etc., in extracts from Notes, Journals, and other unpublished
writings, of which one octavo volume has been completed. In 1845 he
delivered an address before a society known as the "Was-ah
Ho-de-no-sonne, or New Confederacy of the Iroquois," and published
Observations on the Grave Creek Mound in Western Virginia, in the
Transactions of the American Ethnological Society; and early in the
following year presented in the form of a Report to the legislature of
his native state, his Notes on the Iroquois, or Contributions to the
Statistics, Aboriginal History, and General Ethnology of Western
New-York.
The last and most important of Mr. Schoolcraft's works, the crowning
labor of his life, for the composition of which all his previous
efforts were but notes of preparation, is the Historical and
Statistical Information respecting the History, Condition, and
Prospects of the Indian Tribes of the United States: Collected and
prepared under the Direction of the Bureau of Indian Affairs, per act
of March 3, 1847. The initial volume of this important national
publication, profusely illustrated with engravings from drawings by
Captain Eastman, of the Army, has lately been issued in a very large
and splendid quarto, by Lippincott. Grambo & Co., of Philadelphia,
under authority of Congress. It embraces the general, national, and
tribal history of the Indian race, with their traditions, manners,
customs, languages, mythology, &c., and when completed will probably
extend to six or seven volumes. Until more of it is published, it will
not be possible to form any exact judgment of it, except such as is
warranted by a knowledge of the author's previous works: but such a
judgment must be in the highest degree favorable.
Mr. Schoolcraft's ethnological writings are among the most important
contributions that have been made to the literature of this country.
His long and intimate connection with the Indian tribes, and the
knowledge possessed by his wife and her family of the people from whom
they were descended by the maternal side, with his power of examining
their character from the European point of view, have enabled him to
give us more authentic and valuable information respecting their
manners, customs, and physical traits, and more insight into their
moral and intellectual constitution, than can be derived, perhaps,
from all other authors. His works abound in materials for the future
artist and man of letters, and will on this account continue to be
read when the greater portion of the popular literature of the day is
forgotten. With the forests which they inhabited, the red race have
disappeared with astonishing rapidity. Until recently they have rarely
been the subjects of intelligent study; and it began to be regretted,
as they were seen fading from our sight, that there was so little
written respecting them that had any pretensions to fidelity. I would
not be understood to undervalue the productions of Eliot, Loskiel,
Heckewelder, Brainerd, and other early missionaries, but they were
restricted in design, and it is not to be denied that confidence in
their representations has been much impaired, less perhaps from doubts
of their integrity than of their ability and of the advantages of the
points of view from which they made their observations. The works on
Indian philology by Roger Williams and the younger Edwards are more
valuable than any others of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries,
but it now appears that these authors knew very little of the
philosophy of the American language. Du Ponceau's knowledge was still
more superficial, and excepting Mr. Gallatin and the late Mr.
Pickering, who made use of the imperfect data furnished by others, I
believe no one besides Mr. Schoolcraft has recently produced any thing
on the subject worthy of consideration. Something has been done by
General Cass, and Mr. McKenny and Mr. Catlin have undoubtedly
accomplished much in this department of ethnography; but allowing all
that can reasonably be claimed for these artist-travellers, Mr.
Schoolcraft must still be regarded as the standard and chief authority
respecting the Algic tribes.
The influence which the original and peculiar myths and historical
traditions of the Indians is to have on our imaginative literature,
has been recently more than ever exhibited in the works of our
authors. The tendency of the public taste to avail itself of the
American mythology as a basis for the exhibition of "new lines of
fictitious creations" has been remarked by Mr. Schoolcraft himself in
Oneota, and he refers to the tales of Mrs. Oakes Smith, and to the
Wild Scenes in the Forest and the Prairie, and the Vigil of Faith, by
Mr. Charles F. Hoffman, as works in which this tendency is most
distinctly perceptible. In the writings of W. H. C. Hosmer, the
legends of Mr. Whittier, and some of the poems of Mr. Longfellow and
Mr. Lowell, we see manifestations of the same disposition.
No one who has not had the most ample opportunities of personal
observation should attempt to mould Indian life and mythology to the
purposes of fiction without carefully studying whatever Mr.
Schoolcraft has published respecting them. The chief distinction of
the Algic style with which he has made us acquainted is its wonderful
simplicity and conciseness, with which the common verbosity, redundant
description, false sentiment, and erroneous manners of what are called
Indian tales, are as little in keeping as "English figures in
moccasins, and holding bows and arrows."
The excellent portrait at the beginning of this article is from a
daguerreotype by Simons, of Philadelphia.
FOOTNOTES:
[1] Two of these lectures were published in 1834, translated into
French by the late Mr. du Ponceau, and subsequently read before the
National Institute of France.
THE MARGRAVINE OF ANSPACH.
The death, in London, a few weeks ago, of a daughter of the celebrated
Lady Craven, afterwards Margravine of Anspach, has recalled attention
to the history of that remarkable and celebrated person, whose life
has the interest of a romance.
ELIZABETH BERKELEY, Margravine of Anspach, was born in December, 1750.
She was the daughter of Augustus, fourth Earl of Berkeley, by his wife
Elizabeth, daughter of Henry Drax of Charborough. She was brought up
under the care of a native of Switzerland, the wife of a German tutor
of her uncle. She describes herself as having been a delicate,
diminutive child, addicted at an early age to reading, and of timid
and retired habits. She first beheld a play when she was twelve years
old, and from that occasion she dates the growth of her subsequent
partiality for theatrical entertainments. At the age of thirteen she
paid a short visit to France with her mother and her elder sister, and
at fourteen she had been, as she says she afterwards discovered, "in
love without knowing it" with the Marquis de Fitz James. On the 10th
May, 1767, she was married to William Craven, nephew and heir of the
fifth Lord Craven, whom he succeeded in 1769. She professes to have
felt indifference when receiving his addresses, but the marriage was
for some time a happy one, and she says, "My husband seemed to have no
other delight than in procuring for me all the luxuries and enjoyments
within his power, and it was an eternal dispute (how amiable a
dispute!) between us; _he_ always offering presents, and _I_ refusing
whenever I could." Gifted with genius and beauty, both of which she
knew well how to apply; a woman of Lady Craven's rank naturally drew
around her a large circle of admirers. She says of herself very
characteristically, "In London the Duke and Duchess of Marlborough
showed their partiality to me, and Mr. Walpole, afterwards Lord
Orford, Dr. Johnson, Garrick, and his friend Colman, were among my
numerous admirers; and Sir Joshua Reynolds did not conceal his high
opinion of me. Charles Fox almost quarrelled with me because I was
unwilling to interfere with politics--a thing which I always said I
detested, and considered as being out of the province of a woman."
It appears to have been in the year 1779 that Lady Craven discovered
the infidelities with which she charged her husband, when she
requested of him the favor "that he would not permit his mistress to
call herself Lady Craven." After an interval of about three years
spent in partial reconciliation, a separation took place. The
indifferent tone in which she treats the whole of this transaction,
and her professed readiness to overlook every slight that was not
public and glaring, are a stain on her character, which she has by her
own animated pen exhibited to an age which had forgotten the
accusations to which she was subjected. At the time of her separation
from her husband she was the mother of seven children.
Lady Craven had in the mean time produced her first play, "The
Sleepwalker," a translation from the French, printed in 1778, at her
friend Walpole's press at Strawberry Hill. In 1779 she published
"Modern Anecdotes of the Family of Kinvervankotsprakengatchdern, a
Tale for Christmas." This was a caricature of the ceremonious
pomposity of the petty German courts; it was dramatized by Mr. M. P.
Andrews. Soon after the separation, she passed some time in France,
where she met with the Margrave of Anspach. They formed a sudden
friendship for each other, and agreed to consider each other (we are
told) as brother and sister. In June, 1785, Lady Craven commenced a
tour, in which, starting from Paris, she passed by the Rhine to Italy,
went thence by the Tyrol to Vienna, passed on to Warsaw, Petersburg,
and Moscow, proceeded by the Don to Turkey, and returned by Vienna,
which she reached in August, 1786. On this occasion she ran, by her
own account, a serious risk of being made Empress of Austria. In 1789
she published an account of her tour (1 vol. 4to), in letters
addressed to the margrave, saying in the dedication, "Beside
curiosity, my friends will in these letters see, at least for some
time, where the real Lady Craven has been, and where she is to be
found--it having been the practice for some years past for a
Birmingham coin of myself to pass in most of the inns in France,
Switzerland, and England, for the wife of my husband. My arms and
coronet sometimes supporting in some measure this insolent deception;
by which, probably, I may have been seen to behave very improperly."
This work is interesting from the many sketches it contains of eminent
people--such as the Empress Catharine, the Princess Dashcoff, Prince
Potemkin, Count Romanzoff, Admiral Mordvinoff, the Duc de Choiseul,
and others. It is full of accurate observation and lively description,
expressed in clear and simple English--a style from which in later
life she considerably diverged. She descended into the grotto of
Antiparos, being the first female to undertake the adventure. The
French biographers maintain that the tameness of her description of
the scene shows a deficiency of appreciation of the wonderful and
sublime. She does not indeed ornament her description with hyperboles
and exclamations, but it is clear and expressive, and by the
distinctness of the impression which it conveys to the reader, shows
that the scene was fully noticed and comprehended by the writer. After
her return from her journey, she visited England to see her children,
and then proceeded to France, where she joined the margrave and
accompanied him to Anspach. Here, during a residence of a few years,
she established a theatre, which was chiefly supplied with dramatic
entertainments of her own composition. They were collected into two
volumes 8vo, under the title of "Nouveau Theatre d'Anspach et de
Triesdorf," the latter being the name of a country seat nine miles
from Anspach, where she laid out a park and garden in the English
manner. She established at the same time "a society for the
encouragement of arts and sciences." She soon afterwards visited, in
company with the margrave, the congenial court of Naples, where she
made the acquaintance of Sir William and Lady Hamilton. Her conduct
was the subject of much censure both in England and among the
officials of the court of Anspach, to whom her interference was a
natural subject of distrust; and if it should even be admitted that
her own account of the purity of her motives and conduct is correct,
it cannot be denied that she afforded material for forming the worst
interpretations of them. She maintains that she always opposed the
cession of his dominions to the crown of Prussia by the margrave in
1791, but she was almost his sole adviser on the occasion. She states
that she received the first hint of his design at Naples. One day
while she was dressing for dinner, a servant intimated that the
margrave desired to see her. On her appearance he said, "I must go to
Berlin _incog._--will you go with me? it is the only sacrifice of your
time I will ever require of you." They set out together, and on the
way through Anspach they found the establishment nearly in open revolt
against her influence. The king, however, was kind and generous in the
extreme, and the contracting parties are represented as only striving
to excel each other in generosity. Meanwhile the margrave's first wife
died, and Lord Craven's death occurred six months afterwards, on the
26th September, 1791. Immediately on hearing of this event, Lady
Craven was married to the margrave. "It was six weeks," she says,
"after Lord Craven's decease that I gave my hand to the margrave,
which I should have done six hours after, had I known it at the time."
As the cession of the margraviate to Prussia dates 2d December, 1791,
the marriage must have taken place about three weeks before it. The
nuptials were solemnized at Lisbon, whence the new married pair passed
through Spain and France to England.
The margrave, on the sale of his principality, resolved to spend his
days with his wife in England. They had no sooner arrived, however,
than the storm of family and public indignation which had been brewing
against the margravine burst upon her head. She received a letter from
her three daughters, saying, "with due deference to the Margravine of
Anspach, the Miss Cravens inform her that, out of respect to their
father, they cannot wait upon her," and her eldest son, Lord Craven,
refused to countenance her. The margrave received a message from the
queen, through the Prussian minister, to the effect that his wife,
though she had received a diploma from the emperor, could not be
received at court as a princess of the empire. She says that she
refused to derogate from her dignity by appearing merely as a peeress
of England; but it is not clear that she would have been received in
that capacity. She addressed a memorial on the subject to the House of
Lords, but they gave her no redress; indeed it would not have been
consistent with the practice of that body to interfere on such an
occasion. Soon after their arrival, the margrave purchased through
trustees, Lord Craven's estate of Benham, and the mansion of
Brandenburgh House, a place celebrated as afterwards affording a
retreat to Queen Caroline, the wife of George IV. Until the margrave's
death in 1806, it was a scene of continued profusion and gayety, in
which the luxuries and amusements of an English mansion were united
with those of a German court, "My whole enjoyment," says the
margravine, "during the margrave's valuable life, was to do every
thing in my power, to make him not only comfortable, but happy. Under
my management, the world imagined that he spent double his income."
Her attachment to her second husband was strong. She speaks of him
with an enthusiasm and devotion which bear the stamp of sincerity. "I
believe," she says, "a better man never existed. There never was a
being who could act upon more sincere principles. Nothing could divert
him from what was right. None could bear with patience, like himself,
the ill conduct of those to whom he was attached. None could more
easily forgive." After his decease, the margravine, who succeeded to
the large property which he left, felt impatient to recommence her
wanderings. On the restoration she sailed for France, and, after being
interrupted in her movements by the reign of the hundred days, reached
Rome, where it was said that she kept open house for all the
revolutionists of all countries who chose to accept her hospitalities.
The King of Naples afterwards presented her with a small estate, in
which she built a palace, where she resided till her death, which
occurred on January 13, 1828. Only two years previously, and when she
was seventy-six years old, she surprised and delighted the English
world by the publication of her well-known memoirs. This work is
perhaps one of the best examples of the French memoirs which English
literature possesses. It is indeed thoroughly French, not only in
spirit but in idiom, and, to the reader, has all the appearance of a
translation from that language. It thus affords, in its style, a
remarkable contrast to the book of travels above noticed. It contains
a vast variety of anecdotes and sketches of character, always amusing
if not always accurate. It has no continuity of narrative, leaping
backwards and forwards through all ages, and among every variety of
subject: from a description of the monument which she erected to the
memory of her husband, she takes occasion to give a rapid sketch of
the history of the art of sculpture. The least pleasing feature in the
work is its intense egotism. The margravine was a woman of
wonderfully versatile genius. She wrote with fluency in French and
German. She was an accomplished musician and actress; and she tells
us, "I have executed many busts myself, and among others one of the
margrave, which is generally allowed to be extremely like him."
LONDON DESCRIBED BY A PARISIAN.
M. Francis Wey, who is a college professor and _litterateur_ of some
eminence in Paris, has published for visitors from the continent to
the Great Exhibition, a volume entitled _Guides a Londres_, composed,
we believe, of a series of articles, _Les Anglais chez Eux_ (the
English at Home), which he had contributed to the _Musee des
Familles_, an old and favorite Parisian journal. It is very amusing to
see the manner in which these things are received by the British
press. The sensitiveness of which the Americans are accused is quite
equalled in that which is displayed in the London criticisms of
Monsieur Wey. And just at this time it is all the more pleasant to us,
for that our amiable Mother-Country critics are quoting with so much
enjoyment the characterizations of us poor United-Statesers, done in
the same way, by a gentleman of the same country. Even _Blackwood_
does not seem to have a suspicion that a Frenchman could caricature or
in any way exaggerate the publicities or domesticities of New-York;
but all the independent, care-for-nothing John Bulls see only
"rancor," "ill-will," and "absurdity" in the Frenchman's views of
English society. The _Literary Gazette_, the _Weekly News_, and all
the rest, have the same tone. French travellers, it is said--
"Instead of patiently collecting their facts, they _invent_
them. Instead of representing social usages as they really
are, they state them as what they choose to suppose. They
mistake flippancy for wit, and imperturbable assurance for
knowledge. They speak _ex cathedra_ of matters of which they
are profoundly ignorant. And the consequence of all this is
that they commit the drollest blunders, make the most
startling assertions, indulge in the most grotesque
appreciations, and flounder in the most extravagant
absurdities."
We wonder if a single British reviewer will introduce, with such a
paragraph, his extracts from the Letters on America, by M. XAVIER
MARMIER? Not a bit of it.
On the English language, M. Wey says--
"The Englishman has invented for himself a language adapted
to his placid manners and silent tastes. This language is a
murmur, accompanied by soft hissings; it falls from the
lips, but is scarcely articulated; if the chest or throat be
employed to increase the power of the voice, the words
become changed and scarcely intelligible; if cried aloud,
they are hoarse, and resemble the confused croaking of frogs
in marshes."
"The English are passionately attached to their language.
They have only consented to borrow one single word from us,
and that is employed by their innkeepers--_table d'hote_,
which they pronounce _taible dott_. And yet we have taken
hundreds of words from them!"
English women--
"English women give to us the preference over their own
countrymen. Our gallantry is something new to them, and our
politeness touches their hearts. But though they love us, we
are not liked by their lords and masters. There is no
exaggeration in all that has been said of the beauty of
English women--an assemblage of them would realize the
paradise of Mahomet."
Their dresses--
"Many white gowns are to be seen. White is a _recherche_
luxury in that land of tallow and smoke, where linen becomes
dirty in three hours. However, good taste is making some
progress. Ladies may be met with who are well dressed,
although, generally speaking, a sort of audacity is
displayed in wearing the most irreconcilable colors. What
gives English women a somewhat _bizarre_ appearance, is the
custom they have of swelling out their petticoats, by means
of circles of whalebone or iron:--this causes them to
resemble large bells in movement."
English manners--
"English manners, rigid and cold, and dominated by arid
rationalism, are the work of Cromwell. His bigotry and
hypocrisy, his exterior austerity, his narrow formalism,
suit the Englishman; he keeps up Cromwell's character, and
admires himself in his usages. But he has no pity for his
model--he never forgives Cromwell for having made him what
he is. His spite towards that man is the last cry of nature,
and the vague regret of a liberty of imagination of which
neither the joys or the aspirations have been known since
his time." "They have no grace, no _desinvoltura_, no poesy
in them, but are methodical, reasonable, indefatigable in
work and in amassing lucre."
How the English love--
"They love nothing with the heart; when they do love, it is
exclusively of the head."
English bankers--
"In France we have the love of display; but in London it is
not so. There, some of the principal bankers go every
morning to the butchers' shops to buy their own chops, and
they carry them ostensibly to some tavern in Cheapside or
Fleet Street, where they cook them themselves. Then they buy
three pennyworth of rye-bread, and publicly eat this Spartan
breakfast. The exhibition fills their clients with
admiration. But in the evening these good men make up for
this by taking in their own palaces suppers worthy of
Lucullus."
Flunkeys--
"The English aristocracy are distinguished by the number,
the canes, and the wigs of their lacqueys. Seeing constantly
a footman, well powdered and bewigged, carry horizontally a
large Voltaire cane behind certain sumptuous carriages, I
asked for an explanation; it was soon given--wig, powder,
and cane are aristocratic privileges. Not only must a man
have a certain number of quarterings to be authorized to
make his servants use such things, but he must pay so much
tax for the lacquey, so much for the wig, so much for the
tail to the wig, and so much for the cane."
What most strikes a Frenchman in London--
"The coldness of the men towards the fair sex, and their profound
passion for horses."
Officers of the life and horse guards--
"Cupid seems to have chosen them--they are possessed of such ideal
beauty."
English taverns--
"The Englishman likes to be alone, even at the tavern. He
fastens himself up in a box, where none can see him. There
he drinks with taciturn phlegm. He takes tea, boiling grog,
porter of the color of ink, and beer not less black. He is
very fond of brandy, and drinks large glasses of it at a
draught. He does not go to the tavern to amuse himself, but
because drinking is a grave occupation. The more he swallows
the calmer he is. One can however scarcely decide if his
obstinate moroseness be a precaution against drunkenness, or
the effect of spirituous liquors taken in excess. At some of
the taverns are three gentlemen, dressed in black, with
white cravats, who sing after one of them has struck the
table with a little hammer; they are as serious as
Protestant ministers or money-changers."
English food--
"Thick stupefying beer, meat almost raw and horribly spiced;
strong libations of port wine, followed by
plum-pudding--such is the meat of these islanders."
How the English eat--
"They eat at every hour, every where, and incessantly. The
iron constitution of their complaisant stomachs enables them
to feed in a manner which would satisfy wolves and lions.
The delicate repast of a fair and sentimental young lady
would be too much for a couple of Parisian street porters."
Stables and museums--
"Stables are clean and brilliant as museums ought to be; and
the museums are as filthy as stables in Provence."
The Queen's stables--
"They form a college of horses, with pedantic grooms for
professors, and a harness room for a library:"
English omnibuses--
"The omnibuses of London are worn out, ill built, and
remarkably dirty. Even in wet weather nobody is ever allowed
to enter the interior so long as any places are vacant
outside. We had expected to find them built of mahogany and
lined with velvet."
London--
"London, wholly devoted to private interests, offers nothing
to the heart or mind. The city is too large; a man is lost
in it; you elbow thousands of people without the hope of
meeting any one you know. Even if you have a large fortune
you would be ignored. Originality is there without effect;
vanity without an object; and the desire of shining is
chimerical. Intelligence has therefore only one opening,
politics; pride only one object, the national sentiment; but
as the people must feel enthusiasm for something, they adore
horses; and as they must admire somebody, they burn incense
under Lord Wellington's nose."
After midnight--
"At midnight the English leave the taverns, the public
gardens, the theatres, and the open air balls, and fill up
the supper saloons (not very reputable places), and the
oyster rooms, where they eat till morning. After sunrise,
the policemen are occupied in picking up in the gutters
drunkards of both sexes, and all conditions."
London rain--
"It is tallow melted in water, and perfectly black."
A bad quarter--
"Between Cornhill Street and Thames Street, there lives what
is called the populace of London; there pauperism is
frightful. The wretched inhabitants of that district are
brawlers, drunkards, and prize-fighters."
At Westminster Abbey--
"Shakspeare slumbers at a few steps from Richard II. The
tombs bear traces of Presbyterian mutilations; but in other
places the Calvinists scattered the bones of the deceased
Bishops of Geneva. Such is the intolerance of the
Protestants that they have not admitted the statue of Byron
to the Abbey, and his shadow may be heard groaning at the
door."
At Her Majesty's Theatre--
"To go with a blue cravat is _shocking_. When the doors are
open, blows with the fist and the elbow are given without
regard to age or sex. It is the peculiar fashion of entering
which the natives have. If a Frenchman be recognized the
people cry _French dog_. In the pit, the man behind you will
place his foot on your shoulder. The ladies are plunged up
to the neck in boxes. In the theatre there is an echo, which
produces an abominable effect; but such is the vile musical
taste of the English that they have never found it out. In
the saloon you hear the continual hissing of teakettles."
The English Parliament--
"The House of Commons at present meets in a hole. The peers
are in their new chamber. It is small, not monumental, and
heavily ornamented. It reminds one of our tea shops, or a
_boudoir_. The lords, when assembled, are generally placed
on their backs, or rather lean on the back of the neck, and
keep their legs above their heads. The Queen's throne, like
constitutional royalty, is a gilded cage."
The new Houses of Parliament--
"They are an immense architectural plaything, and the
English only admire them because they cost a vast sum."
English love of titles--
"One of my friends gave me a letter of introduction to Sir
William P----, _Esquire_. I left the letter with my card at
the Reform Club, Pall Mall. Two hours after Sir William came
to my residence; but as I was not at home he wrote a line,
and addressed it to me with the flattering designation of
_Esquire_. England is the country of legal equality; but
this sort of equilibrium does not extend to social usages;
and although our _penchant_ for distinctions seems puerile
to the English, it would be easy to prove that they are not
exempt from it. They have not, as we have, the love of
uniforms, laced coats, epaulettes, or decorations; their
button-holes often carry a flower, but never a rosette or
knot of ribbon. But every body pretends to the title of
_Sir_, which was formerly reserved exclusively to members of
the House of Commons, to Baronets, and to some public
functionaries. As, however, the title _Sir_ has become too
vulgar, every body calls himself _Esquire_ to distinguish
himself from his neighbor. This remark, nevertheless, does
not concern my friend Sir William, for he is really an
Esquire."
English soldiers--
"The noise which announces their approach is very singular.
Picture to yourself the monotonous music of a bear's dance,
executed by twenty fifers, whilst a man beats a big drum.
The coats of the infantry are too short, and are surmounted
with large white epaulettes. The men sway their bodies about
to the beating of the drum, and carry their heads so stiffly
that they appear to be balancing spoons on their noses. All
the officers and non-commissioned officers carry long sticks
with ivory handles."
Resemblance of Englishmen one to another--
"All Englishmen are alike. They live in the same way, are
subject to the same logical rules, condemned to the same
amusements. The proof that there exists only one character
amongst them, and that they have only one way of living, is,
that it is impossible, on seeing them, to divine their
profession. A lord, a minister, a domestic, a street singer,
a merchant, an admiral, a soldier, a general, an artist, a
judge, a prize-fighter, and a clergyman, have all the same
appearance, the same language, the same costume, and the
same bearing. Each one has the air of an Englishman, and
nothing more. They live in the same way, work at the same
hours, eat at the same time, and of the same sort of food,
and are all sequestrated when away from home from the
society of women."
The French at London--
"At London the French labor under two subjects of anxiety,
caused by their national prejudices. Accustomed to consider
themselves as the first people in the world, to dazzle some,
to despise others, and to display every where the confident
pride of their supremacy, they, on treading the British
soil, experience the impression of a greatness not borrowed
from them; they are astonished at finding a people as
remarkable as ours, as original as we are, and carrying to a
still prouder degree the sentiment of their pre-eminence.
Then our countrymen become disquieted; the intolerance of
their national faith becomes mitigated; they are ill at
ease, and for the first time in their lives feel constraint.
Ceasing to believe themselves amongst slaves as in Italy,
amongst vassals as in Belgium, or amongst innkeepers as in
Switzerland or Germany, they endeavor to resemble sovereigns
visiting other sovereigns, and by forced politeness render
them involuntary homage."
Feeling of the English toward the French--
"They honor us with a marked attention, though they are
indifferent to the rest of mankind. Our opinions respecting
them cause them anxiety. They either admire us
enthusiastically, or disparage us bitterly; but, in reality,
they are obsequious and servile toward us!"
After a good deal of the numerous statues to Wellington, this at
English admiration of Waterloo--
"The trumpet of Waterloo which has been sounded in London
every where incessantly, and in every tone, during
thirty-five years, diminishes the grandeur of the English
nation. This intoxication seems that of a people who, never
having won more than one battle, and despairing to conquer a
second time, cannot recover from their surprise, nor bear in
patience an unhoped-for glory."
How the English judge Napoleon--
"Public opinion has avenged the prisoner of St Helena; but
does it follow that in 1815 the English protested with
sufficient energy against his imprisonment! No. Englishmen
are naturally indifferent and indulgent as regards their
foreign neighbors, so long as patriotism or private interest
is not at stake. Napoleon was the most terrible of their
enemies; he placed England within ten steps of bankruptcy,
and seriously menaced national manufactures. Not possessed
of military instinct, the English do not pretend to
chivalrous generosity. On the fall of the Empire, caused by
the implacable perseverance of coalitions, the nation
remembered that the Hundred Days cost its government a
million an hour, and so long as the deficit was not made up,
their resentment underwent no diminution. But now if you
celebrate his glory before them, they will not display
hostility. You must not, however, touch the till of this
tribe of tradesmen, or they will be your bitter enemies. And
the proof that they are nothing but shopkeepers is that
their first functionary sits in a gilded arm chair on a
wool-sack."
THE BEAUTIFUL STREAMLET AND THE UTILITARIAN.
Alphonse Karr's new book, _Travels in my Garden_, is full of social
heresies, but quite as full of wit. We find in _Fraser's Magazine_ for
May translations of some admirable passages, with specimens of his
peculiar speculation. Karr is an ardent lover of Nature; he takes note
of all her caprices, and respects them,--remarks under what shade the
violet loves to dwell, and tells us how certain plants--the volubulis,
the scarlet-runner, and the Westeria, for instance--invariably twine
their spiral tendrils from left to right, whereas hops and
honeysuckles as infallibly twist theirs from right to left. He knows
which are the plants that fold, when evening comes, their leaves in
two, lengthwise,--which are those that close them up like fans, and
which are the careless ones that crumple them up irregularly with
happy impunity, for the next morning's sun smooths them all alike. He
loves Nature in all her details, but with disinterested love, and has
no idea of making her subservient to his pride, or selfishly
monopolizing her; he has evidently no wish to wall in woods and
meadows, and call them a park, or to dam up sparkling, bubbling,
dancing streams, and turn them into cold, spiritless, aristocratic
sheets of water. Indeed, in one of the first chapters of the book,
there is a fanciful bit of sentiment about a happy little stream that
falls into the hands of a pitiless utilitarian, which we are tempted
to quote:--
"That stream which runs through my garden gushes from the
side of a furze-covered hill; for a long time it was a happy
little stream; it traversed meadows where all sorts of
lovely wild flowers bathed and mirrored themselves in its
waters, then it entered my garden, and there I was ready to
receive it; I had prepared green tanks for it; on its edge
and in its very bed I had planted those flowers which all
over the world love to bloom on the banks and in the bosom
of pure streams; it flowed through my garden, murmuring its
plaintive song; then, fragrant with my flowers, it left the
garden, crossed another meadow, and flung itself into the
sea, over the precipitous sides of the cliff, which it
covered with foam.
"It was a happy stream; it had literally nothing to do
beyond what I have said,--to flow, to bubble, to look
limpid, to murmur, amidst flowers and sweet perfumes. It led
the life I have chosen, and that I continue to lead, when
people let me alone, and when knaves and fools and wicked
men do not force me--who am at once the most pacific and the
most battling man on earth--to return to the fight. But
heaven and earth are jealous of the happiness of gentle
indolence.
"One day my brother Eugene, and Savage, the clever engineer,
were talking together on the banks of the stream, and to a
certain degree abusing it.
"'There,' said my brother, 'is a fine good-for-nothing
stream for you, forsooth, winding and dawdling about,
dancing in the sunshine, and revelling in the grass instead
of working and paying for the place it takes up, as an
honest stream should. Could it not be made to grind coffee
or pepper?'
"'Or tools?' added Savage.
"'Or to saw boards?' said my brother.
"I trembled for the stream, and broke off the conversation,
complaining loudly that its detractors (its would-be
tyrants) were treading down my forget-me-nots. Alas! it was
but against them alone I could protect it. Before long there
came into our neighborhood a man whom I noticed more than
once hanging about the spot where the stream empties itself
into the sea. The fellow I plainly saw was neither seeking
for rhymes, nor indulging in dreams and memories upon its
banks,--he was not lulling thought to rest with the gentle
murmur of its waters. 'My good friend,' he was saying to the
stream, 'there you are, idling and meandering about, singing
to your heart's content, while I am working and wearing
myself out. I don't see why you should not help me a bit;
you know nothing of the work to be done, but I'll soon show
you. You'll soon know how to set about it. You must find it
dull to stay in this way, doing nothing,--it would be a
change for you to make files or grind knives.' Very soon
wheels of all kinds were brought to the poor stream. From
that day forward it has worked and turned a great wheel,
which turns a little wheel, which turns a grindstone; it
still sings, but no longer the same gently-monotonous song
in its peaceful melancholy. Its song is loud and angry
now,--it leaps and froths and works now,--it grinds knives!
It still crosses the meadow, and my garden, and the next
meadow; but there, the man is on the watch for it, to make
it work. I have done the only thing I could do for it. I
have dug a new bed for it in my garden, so that it may idle
longer there, and leave me a little later; but for all that,
it must go at last and grind knives. Poor stream! thou didst
not sufficiently conceal thy happiness in obscurity,--thou
hast murmured too audibly thy gentle music."
SIR EMERSON TENNANT ON AMERICAN MISSIONS IN CEYLON.
One of the most respectable persons employed in the English colonial
service, is Sir EMERSON TENNANT, LL. D., K. C. B. &c., who was for
many years connected with the administration in Ceylon, and is now, we
believe, Governor of St. Helena. He has recently published a volume
entitled _Christianity in Ceylon_, in which there are some passages of
especial interest to American readers, displaying in a favorable
light, the services rendered to civilization by the missionaries of
this country. These parts of his work have attracted much
consideration. The _Dublin University Magazine_ remarks:
"We describe the American Mission, which acts under the direction of
one of the oldest and most remarkable of the existing associations for
the dissemination of Christianity, "The American Board of
Commissioners for Foreign Missions," whose head-quarters are at
Boston, in Massachusetts. The first settlers in Massachusetts, like
those of New England generally, were missionary colonists. Their
charter, given by Charles I., states that one of the objects of the
king and of the planters was the conversion of the natives to the true
faith; and the seal of the company thus incorporated bore the device
of a North American Indian, with the motto "_Come over and help us_."
It may be interesting to add, that the "pilgrim fathers" of the New
England States were, indirectly, the cause of the Protestant missions
of the Dutch. They were, as our author states, 'the first pioneers of
the Protestant world, and the first heralds of the Reformed religion
to the heathen of foreign lands. Their mission is more ancient than
the Propaganda of Rome, and it preceded by nearly a century any other
missionary association in Europe. It was encouraged by Cromwell, and
incorporated by Charles II.; and Cotton Mather records that it was the
example of the New England fathers, and their success amongst the
Indians, that first aroused the energy of the Dutch for the conversion
of the natives of Ceylon.'
"We cannot doubt that amongst the main causes of the prosperity of
North America are, the permanence of religious feeling, and the
blessing attendant on the fact, that the missionary spirit has never
perished. The labors of this great people on their own vast continent
have been conducted with the greatest judgment, and marked by a
success which encouraged their extension in other lands. In the year
1812, they turned their attention to the East, and, under an act of
incorporation from the state of Massachusetts, commenced their
missionary efforts in the Old World. Their first missionaries to India
appeared there in 1812, but were ordered by the Governor-General to
leave Calcutta by the same vessel in which they had arrived. One of
them landing in Ceylon, on his voyage home, was so struck with the
openings which it presented for missionary enterprise, and so much
encouraged by the Governor, Sir Robert Brownrigg, to engage in it,
that, on his representations, the American Board, in 1816, sent out
three clergymen and their wives, who fixed their residence at Jaffina,
which has been ever since the scene of their remarkable labors. These
were reinforced in 1829, and for many years their establishment has
consisted of from seven to eleven ordained ministers, with a
physician, conductors of the press, and other lay assistants; these
are selected from Congregationalists and Presbyterians. It is
gratifying to be enabled to add, that a most cordial good-will and
desire to co-operate has from the beginning prevailed between them and
the other Protestant missionaries in their neighborhood. For thirty
years they have assembled periodically in a "missionary union," to
decide on measures and compare results. "With all of them education
is," as our author says, "a diurnal occupation; whilst in their purely
clerical capacity they have felt the necessity of proceeding with more
cautious circumspection, improving rather than creating opportunities,
relying less upon formal preaching than on familiar discourses, and
trusting more to the intimate exhortation of a few than to the effect
of popular addresses to indiscriminate assemblies.'
"'The first embryo instruction is communicated by them in
free village schools, scattered everywhere throughout the
district, in which the children of the Tamils are taught in
their own tongue the simplest elements of knowledge, and the
earliest processes of education--to read from translations
of the Christian Scriptures, and to write their own
language, first by tracing the letters on the sand, and
eventually by inscribing them with an iron style upon the
prepared leaves of the _Palmyra palm_. It will afford an
idea of the extent and perseverance with which education has
been pursued in these primitive institutions, that, in the
free schools of the Americans alone, 4,000 pupils, of whom
one-fourth are females, are daily receiving instruction, and
upwards of 90,000 children have been taught in them since
their commencement, a proportion equal to one-half the
present population of the peninsula.'"
"It was soon seen that, in addition to these primary schools, the
establishment of boarding schools was extremely desirable, for the
purpose of separating the pupils from the influence of idolatry. The
attempt was made, but proved to be attended with difficulties which
would have appeared to many insurmountable. In the first place, the
natives were suspicious, not conceiving that strangers could undertake
such toil, trouble, and expense, without an interested object. The
more positive difficulty was connected with caste, with the reluctance
of parents to permit their children to associate with those of a lower
rank.
"'This the missionaries overcame, not so much by inveighing
against the absurdity of such distinctions as by practically
ignoring them, except wherever expediency or necessity
required their recognition. In all other cases where the
customs and prejudices of the Tamils were harmless in
themselves, or productive of no inconvenience to others,
they were in no way contravened or prohibited; but as
intelligence increased, and the minds of the pupils became
expanded, the most distinctive and objectionable of them
were voluntarily and almost imperceptibly abandoned.
"'When the boarders were first admitted to one of the
American schools at Batticotta, a cook-house was obliged to
be erected for them on the adjoining premises of a heathen,
as they would not eat under the roof of a Christian; but
after a twelvemonth's perseverance, the inconvenience
overcame the objection, and they removed to the refectory of
the institution. But here a fresh difficulty was to be
encountered; some of the high caste youths made an objection
to use the same wells which had been common to the whole
establishment; and it was agreed to meet their wishes by
permitting them to clear out one in particular, to be
reserved exclusively for themselves. They worked incessantly
for a day, but finding it hopeless to draw it perfectly dry,
they resolved to accommodate the difficulty, on the
principle, that having drawn off as much water as the well
contained when they began, the remainder must be
sufficiently pure for all ordinary uses.'"
"In addition to these primary and boarding-schools, the American
Mission, in 1830, established schools for teaching English, and for
elementary instruction of a more advanced description. These were all
under a discipline avowedly Christian, yet the missionaries found that
they were able not only to enforce the fee demanded, but to maintain
their regulations without loss of numbers.
"'And it is a fact,' says Sir Emerson Tennent, 'suggestive
of curious speculation as to the genius and character of
this anomalous people, that in a heathen school recently
established by Brahmans in the vicinity of Jaffna, the
Hindoo Community actually compelled those who conducted it
to introduce the reading of the Bible as an indispensable
portion of the ordinary course of instruction.'"
"This does not seem so strange to us. The shrewd Tamils, as we collect
from other observations in the work before us, perceived how the
Bible-reading children had improved in demeanor, conduct, and success
in life. For these same reasons, and possibly in some cases from a
deeper feeling never yet avowed, the Roman Catholic peasantry of
Ireland, before the introduction of the National System of Education,
and previously to, and, in many cases, long after, the expressed
hostility of their priesthood, anxiously sent their children to the
schools of the Kildare-place and the Hibernian Bible Societies.
"The other missionaries, we need hardly say, were as active as the
Americans. After some years of further experience, they all felt the
necessity of founding educational institutions of a still more
advanced description for the instruction of the natives in their own
language. It became plain to them that, from physical as well as moral
causes, the conversion of the natives could be only hoped for through
the medium of their well-taught and well-trained countrymen. The
niceties of the language and their modes of thought presented
difficulties of a most serious character to others; the very terms of
the ordinary address of a missionary suggested ideas altogether
different from what he intended. Thus, when GOD is spoken of, they
probably understand one of their own deities who yields to every vile
indulgence; by SIN, they mean ceremonial defilement, or evil committed
in a former birth, for which they are not accountable; _hell_ with
them is only a place of temporary punishment; and _heaven_ nothing
more than absorption, or the loss of individuality. Under these
impressions each of the missionary bodies at Jaffna formed for
themselves a collegiate institution, in which the best scholars from
their other schools were admitted to a still more advanced course, and
taught the sciences of Europe. That of the Church Missionary Society
of England was established at Nellore, but subsequently removed to
Chundically; the Wesleyans commenced theirs in the great square of
Jaffna; and that of the Americans was founded at Batticotta, in the
midst of a cultivated country, within sight of the sea, and at a very
few miles distant from the fort."
"'It was opened in 1823, with about fifty students chosen
from the most successful pupils of all the schools in the
province; and the course of education is so comprehensive as
to extend over a period of eight years of study. With a
special regard to the future usefulness of its alumni in the
conflict with the errors of the Brahmanical system, the
curriculum embraces all the ordinary branches of historical
and classical learning, and all the higher departments of
mathematical and physical science, combined with the most
intricate familiarization with the great principles and
evidences of the Christian religion.
"'The number which the building can accommodate is limited,
for the present, to one hundred, who reside within its
walls, and take their food in one common hall, sitting to
eat after the custom of the natives. For some years the
students were boarded and clothed at the expense of the
mission; but such is now the eagerness for instruction that
there are a multitude of competitors for every casual
vacancy; and the cost of their maintenance during the whole
period of pupilage is willingly paid in advance, in order to
secure the privilege of admission.
"'Nearly six hundred students have been under instruction
from time to time since the commencement of the American
Seminary at Batticotta, and of these upwards of four hundred
have completed the established course of education. More
than one-half have made an open profession of Christianity,
and all have been familiarized with its doctrines, and more
or less imbued with its spirit. The majority are now filling
situations of credit and responsibility throughout the
various districts of Ceylon; numbers are employed under the
missionaries themselves, as teachers and catechists, and as
preachers and superintendents of schools; many have
migrated, in similar capacities, to be attached to Christian
missions on the continent of India; others have lent their
assistance to the missions of the Wesleyans and the Church
of England in Ceylon; and amongst those who have attached
themselves to secular occupations, I can bear testimony to
the abilities, the qualifications, and integrity, of the
many students of Jaffna, who have accepted employment in
various offices under the Government of the colony.'"
"Another of the instruments of conversion adopted by these
indefatigable men is _the press_. They were long obliged to have their
tracts written out on _olahs_, or strips of the Palmyra leaf, which,
when the missionary took for distribution, were strung round the neck
of his horse. The printing establishment of the American Mission has
for many years given constant employment to upwards of eighty Tamil
workmen. Their publications are either religious or educational; and
one of their ulterior objects is to supersede the degraded legends
still in circulation. The natives of Ceylon, like most other Asiatics,
have a strong repugnance to reading. This, however, has been to some
extent already overcome, both on the continent of India and in Ceylon,
as is evident from the facts of the establishment of native presses in
Hindostan, and of the success of a missionary newspaper in Ceylon for
the last seven years, which has now more than seven hundred
subscribers, of whom five-sixths are Tamils. The Church Missionary
Society have also a press amongst the Tamils; the Wesleyans
established theirs in the Singhalese districts, and the Baptists have
one at work in Kandy. One of the greatest, among the many triumphs of
the missionaries in Ceylon, has been in the education of girls. The
position of woman in that island, as in most parts of the East, was
one of inferiority and toil. She was not permitted to sit at table
with the males, or even to eat in the presence of her husband. Her
education was so wholly neglected that, amongst the Tamils, no woman
knew her alphabet, except such as rather gave the accomplishment a bad
name--the dancing girls and prostitutes attached to the temples, who
learned to read and write that they might copy songs and the legends
of their gods. It was, however, plain that no extensive good would be
effected without the education of women. The male converts could not
get suitable wives, and the children would be in the hands of
idolaters. In addition to their natural influence in a family, the
women of the Tamils, where this new attempt in education was first
made, had rights of property, which, notwithstanding the inferiority
of their social position, gave them peculiar influence.
"'It is, we are told, a paramount object of ambition with
Tamil parents to secure an eligible alliance for their
daughters by the assignment of extravagant marriage
portions. These consist either of land, or of money secured
upon land; and as the law of Ceylon recognizes the absolute
control of the lady over the property thus conveyed to her
sole and separate use, the prevalence of the practice has,
by degrees, thrown an extraordinary extent of the landed
property of the country into the hands of the females, and
invested them with a corresponding proportion of authority
in its management.'"
Impressed with the urgency of the object, the missionaries attempted
the establishment of female schools, and especially of boarding
schools, where Hindoo girls might be trained, and separated from evil
influences until they could be settled with the approbation of the
guardians. They had at first great difficulty in getting pupils, and
only enticed them by presents of dress, or some such cogent bribe, or
by engagements to give fortunes of five or six pounds to all who
remained in their institutions until suitably married. Even with these
allurements their early efforts promised no success. Parents were
inveighed against for allowing their daughters to be instructed, and
so strong was native prejudice that the children, when learning to
read, blushed with shame. These and other obstacles have been
surmounted, and, as the following extract shows, the missionaries have
no longer to allure, but must select their scholars. The Americans
made the first experiment at Oodooville, a few miles distant from the
fort of Jaffna:--
"'The hamlet of Oodooville is in the centre of a tract of
very rich land, and the buildings occupied by the Americans
were originally erected by the Portuguese for a Roman
Catholic church, and the residence of a friar of the order
of St. Francis. It is a beautiful spot, embowered in trees,
and all its grounds and gardens are kept in becoming order,
with the nicest care and attention.
"'The institution opened in 1824, with about thirty pupils,
between the ages of five and eleven; and this, after eight
years of previous exertion and entreaty, was the utmost
number of female scholars who could be prevailed on to
attend from the whole extent of the province. This
difficulty has been long since overcome. Instead of
solicitations and promises, to allure scholars, the
missionaries have long since been obliged to limit their
admissions to one hundred, the utmost that their buildings
can accommodate; and now, so eager are the natives to secure
education for their daughters, that a short time before my
visit, on the occasion of filling up some vacancies, upwards
of sixty candidates were in anxious attendance, of whom only
seventeen could be selected, there being room for no more.
The earliest inmates of the institution were of low castes
and poor; whereas the pupils and candidates now are, many of
them, of most respectable families, and the daughters of
persons of property and influence in the district.
"'The course of instruction is in all particulars adapted to
suit the social circumstances of the community; along with a
thorough knowledge of the Scriptures and the principles of
the Christian religion, it embraces all the ordinary
branches of female education, which are communicated both in
Tamil and in English; and combined with this intellectual
culture, the girls are carefully trained, conformably to the
usages of their country, in all the discipline and
acquirements essential to economy and domestic enjoyments at
home. Of two hundred and fifty females who have been thus
brought up at Oodooville, more than half have been since
married to Christians, and are now communicating to their
children the same training and advantages of which they have
so strongly felt the benefit themselves.'"
"The consequence of these proceedings is, that the number of
households is fast increasing, where the mother, trained in the habits
of civilized life, and instructed in the principles of Christianity,
is anxious to give to her children the like advantages."
A PAPER OF ... TOBACCO.
We find a lively passage on tobacco in the pleasant new book by
Alphonse Karr. It must be borne in mind that, in France, tobacco is a
monopoly--and a very productive one--in the hands of government:--
"There is a family of poisonous plants, amongst which we may
notice the henbane, the datura stramonium, and the tobacco
plant. The tobacco plant is perhaps a little less poisonous
than the datura, but it is more so than the henbane, which
is a violent poison. Here is a tobacco plant--as fine a
plant as you can wish to see. It grows to the height of six
feet; and from the centre of a tuft of leaves, of a
beautiful green, shoot out elegant and graceful clusters of
pink flowers.
"For a long while the tobacco plant grew unknown and
solitary in the wilds of America. The savage to whom we had
given brandy gave us in exchange tobacco, with the smoke of
which they used to intoxicate themselves on grand occasions.
The intercourse between the two worlds began by this amiable
interchange of poisons.
"Those who first thought of putting tobacco dust up their
noses were first laughed at, and then persecuted more or
less. James I., of England, wrote against snuff-takers a
book entitled _Misocapnos_. Some years later, Pope Urban
VIII. excommunicated all persons who took snuff in churches.
The Empress Elizabeth thought it necessary to add something
to the penalty of excommunication pronounced against those
who used the black dust during divine service, and
authorised the beadles to confiscate the snuff-boxes to
their own use. Amurath IV. forbade the use of snuff under
pain of having the nose cut of.
"No useful plant could have withstood such attacks. If
before this invention a man had been found to say, Let us
seek the means of filling the coffers of the state by a
voluntary tax; let us set about selling something which
every body will like to do without. In America there is a
plant essentially poisonous; if from its leaves you extract
an empyreumatic oil, a single drop of it will cause an
animal to die in horrible convulsions. Suppose we offer this
plant for sale chopped up or reduced to a powder. We will
sell it very dear, and tell people to stuff the powder up
their noses.
"'That is to say, I suppose, you will force them to do so by
law?'
"'Not a bit of it. I spoke of a voluntary tax. As to the
portion we chop up, we will tell them to inhale it, and
swallow a little of the smoke from it besides.'
"'But it will kill them.'
"'No; they will become rather pale, perhaps feel giddy, spit
blood, and suffer from colics, or have pains in the
chest--that's all. Besides, you know, although it has been
often said that habit is second nature, people are not yet
aware how completely man resembles the knife, of which the
blade first and then the handle had been changed two or
three times. In man there is no nature left--nothing but
habit remains. People will become like Mithridates, who had
learnt to live on poisons.
"'The first time that a man will smoke he will feel
sickness, nausea, giddiness, and colics; but that will go
off by degrees, and in time he will get so accustomed to it,
that he will only feel such symptoms now and then--when he
smokes tobacco that is bad, or too strong--or when he is not
well, and in five or six other cases. Those who take it in
powder will sneeze, have a disagreeable smell, lose the
sense of smelling, and establish in their nose a sort of
perpetual blister.'
"'Then, I suppose it smells very nice.'
"'Quite the reverse. It has a very unpleasant smell; but, as
I said, we'll sell it very dear, and reserve to ourselves
the monopoly of it.'
"'My good friend,' one would have said to any one absurd
enough to hold a similar language, 'nobody will envy you the
privilege of selling a weed that no one will care to buy.
You might as well open a shop and write on it: Kicks sold
here; or, Such-a-one sells blows, wholesale and retail. You
will find as many customers as for your poisonous weed.'
"Well! who would have believed that the first speaker was
right, and that the tobacco speculation would answer
perfectly! The kings of France have written no satires
against snuff, have had no noses cut off, no snuff-boxes
confiscated. Far from it. They have sold tobacco, laid an
impost on noses, and given snuff-boxes to poets with their
portraits on the lid, and diamonds all round. This little
trade has brought them in I don't know how many millions a
year. The potato was far more difficult to popularize, and
has still some adversaries."
LORD JEFFREY AND JOANNA BAILLIE.
Joanna Baillie's first volume of poems was severely criticised in the
_Edinburgh Review_ by Jeffrey. In an article upon the deceased poetess
in _Chambers's Journal_, we have an account of her subsequent
relations with the reviewer. She visited Edinburgh in 1808.
"As she did not refuse to go into company, she could not be
long in that city without encountering Francis Jeffrey, the
foremost man in the bright train of _beaux-esprits_ which
then adorned the society of the Scottish capital. He would
gladly have been presented to her; and if she had permitted
it, there is little doubt that in the eloquent flow of his
delightful and genial conversation, enough of the admiration
he really felt for her poetry must have been expressed, to
have softened her into listening at least with patience to
his suggestions for her improvement. But in vain did the
friendly Mrs. Betty Hamilton (authoress of 'The Cottagers of
Glenburnie') beg for leave to present him to her when they
met in her hospitable drawing-room; and equally in vain were
the efforts made by the good-natured Duchess of Gordon to
bring about an introduction which she knew was desired at
least by one of the parties. It was civilly but coldly
declined by the poetess; and though the dignified reason
assigned was the propriety of leaving the critic more
entirely at liberty in his future strictures than an
_acquaintance_ might perhaps feel himself, there seems
little reason to doubt that soreness and natural resentment
had something to do with the refusal."
"It was in the autumn of 1820 that Miss Baillie paid her
last visit to Scotland, and passed those delightful days
with Sir Walter Scott at Abbotsford, the second of which is
so pleasantly given in Mr. Lockhart's life of the bard. Her
friends again perceived a change in her manners. They had
become blander, and much more cordial. She had probably been
now too long admired and reverently looked up to not to
understand her own position, and the encouragement which,
essentially unassuming as she was, would be necessary from
her to reassure the timid and satisfy the proud. She had
magnanimously forgiven and lived down the unjust severity of
her Edinburgh critic, and now no longer refused to be made
personally known to him. He was presented to her by their
mutual friend, the amiable Dr. Morehead. They had much
earnest and interesting talk together, and from that hour to
the end of their lives entertained for each other a mutual
and cordial esteem. After this, Jeffrey seldom visited
London without indulging himself in a friendly pilgrimage to
the shrine of the secluded poetess; and it is pleasing to
find him writing of her in the following cordial way in
later years: "_London_, April 28, 1840.--I forgot to tell
you that we have been twice out to Hampstead to hunt out
Joanna Baillie, and found her the other day as fresh,
natural, and amiable as ever--and as little like a Tragic
Muse. Since old Mrs. Brougham's death, I do not know so nice
an old woman." And again, in January 7, 1842.--"We went to
Hampstead, and paid a very pleasant visit to Joanna Baillie,
who is marvellous in health and spirits, and youthful
freshness and simplicity of feeling, and not a bit deaf,
blind, or torpid.""
_Authors and Books._
DR. TITUS TOBLER, a Swiss savan, has just published a work entitled
_Golgotha, its Churches and Cloisters_, in the course of which he
undertakes the "Jerusalem question," or the discussion of the probable
localities of the Scripture narrative of the crucifixion. Among the
able German accounts of this treatise, which cannot fail to arrest the
attention of the sacred student, we find the following notice of
Professor Robinson, the first profound and adequate contemporary
authority upon the subject: "Until the American Robinson, all the
early comparisons and criticisms upon the holy sepulchre were based
much more upon instinct and furious sectarianism, than upon a generous
love of truth and a genuine insight into the matter. Only with
wearisome effort, and not without the consent of the whole Church
power, was Robinson's mighty grasp upon pious tradition repelled. In
the main question the learned Yankee was not altogether wrong. But he
is too rash in battle, too impatient, too reckless, too ambitious, and
his armor was evidently not proof in all parts. Even the knowledge of
the Semitic orient, of its antiquities and customs, seems, if we may
say so without offence to transatlantic vanity, a little threadbare.
But the Robinsonian breach in the wall was not to be entirely
plastered up and its traces concealed. This American has first
recognized the right way of breaking into the citadel of tradition;
others, with more or less skill, have followed his track and widened
the breach. But it was reserved for the inflexible ability of Dr.
Tobler to dig up the very foundations, although he is no centaur, no
giant, and in the pride of strength, does not scorn a childlike
faith."
* * * * *
Among recent German romances we note second and third editions of
JEREMIAS GOTTHELF'S _Sylvester-Dream_, and the _Peasant's Mirror, or a
Life-History_. The author is not much known beyond Germany, but is
there recognized as having the greatest certainty and correctness in
delineation, the most genial principle, and the soundest and freshest
life of any contemporary writer. The Sylvester-Dream is as vague and
fantastic, and of the same electrical effect, as the similar sparkling
flights of Dickens and Jean Paul. _Uriel the Devil_, a satirical
romance, in eight pictures, bears the name of Kaulbach, but whether
the author is related to William Kaulbach, the great painter, we have
no means of ascertaining. This, with the _Memorabilia of a German
House-Servant_ are spoiled by their imitations of Jean Paul, and the
latter is somewhat strongly infected with Hoffman's Phantasies. But
they are both books of more than common talent. Two romances by two
women are most curtly and contemptuously noticed, in a style of
uncourteous condemnation hardly to be paralleled in England or
America, in which countries the chivalry of private respect for the
fair sex always ameliorates condemnation of their writings. "Of these
two books there is little else to say than that they are moral and
respectable, and extremely well written for women. The former author
has the rare and memorable heroism in a woman to allow her heroine to
reach her thirty-fourth year."
Levin Schuneking formerly Grand-Master at the Court of the Elector of
Cologne, has just published _The Peasant Prince_, a romance, called in
Germany his best work.
* * * * *
KOHL, the traveller or writer of travels, has just published a book
upon the Rhine, which is not of the usual character of his works, as
the author perhaps feared too much the criticising contrast of Victor
Hugo's _Rhine_, to undertake a detailed and sprightly description of
the present life and aspect of the country. The new work is, in fact,
an attempt to portray, according to Ritter's principles, a famous
river region in its geological, historical and statistical relations;
and from this point of view to present it vividly to the mind. The
contents are simple and succinctly arranged, and the book is a signal
success in the popularization of the results of recent geographical
research. It has the same relation to the old river guide books, that
Ritter's philosophical geography has to the old geographies.
* * * * *
ANASTASIUS GRUN, the famous German poet, has just edited the poetical
remains of Nicolaus Lenau, of whom Auerbach wrote a graceful
reminiscence for the German _Museum_, under the title of _Lenau's last
Summer_. The chief poem of the collection is entitled _Don Juan_,
which, although not fully finished, the German critics highly extol.
Soon after the death of Lenau, in a madhouse, last year, we gave some
account of him in the _International_.
* * * * *
Of Sir CHARLES LYELL'S Second Journey in America, which Mr. E.
Dieffenbach has rendered into German, the Germans say that its
geniality and _gentlemanliness_, its graceful and striking pictures of
the state of society, politics, and religion, and its popular
treatment of scientific subjects, make it altogether charming. A
reviewer notes what Lyell says of the universal tendency to read among
the American laboring classes, and quotes some interesting facts, as
that one house published eighty thousand copies of Eugene Sue's
Wandering Jew, in various forms and at various prices. The same house
had sold forty thousand copies of Macaulay's History of England, at
the end of the first three months, at prices varying from fifty cents
to four dollars, while other houses had sold twenty thousand copies,
and this sale of sixty thousand copies while Longman was selling
fifteen thousand at one pound twelve shillings.
* * * * *
The Countess HAHN-HAHN, who for several years has occupied in German
literature a position corresponding to that of George Sand in France,
with whose views of life and society she strongly sympathized, and
whose "Faustina" and other works were republished here, has recently
become a Roman Catholic, as our readers will have seen, and has just
written the following letter to a Hamburg journal:
"To correct some misapprehension, I feel it to be my duty to
declare that the new edition of my complete works announced
by Alexander Duncker in Berlin is no new series, but an
edition with a new title. A new series of those writings
will never appear, as I no longer recognize as my own the
spirit in which they were written.
IDA, COUNTESS HAHN-HAHN."
* * * * *
DAVID COPPERFIELD has been translated into German, with the
peculiarities of speech of the different classes of characters
unattempted. Old Pegotty and Ham speak "pure Castilian." It is easy to
see how the dramatic character of the book is thus lost. Indeed,
Dickens is almost the only very famous English author who is not much
translated. The Battle of Life, one of the least valuable and
characteristic of his works, is well known upon the Continent, because
it was so easy to translate. But what can a descendant of Dante, for
instance, ever know of the drolleries of Sam Weller? Fancy a
_spiritual_ Frenchman trying to catch the fun of Pickwick!
* * * * *
Mr. Judd's _Richard Edney_ induces a German critic to say of him,
"This is a new English poet of the Carlyle and Emerson school, who,
inspired by the example of Jean Paul, turn the English language
topsy-turvy, and introduce a jargon that makes us satisfied with our
own romantic barbarism."
* * * * *
Mrs. S. C. HALL'S _Sorrows of Women_ has been also translated into
German, and is highly praised.
* * * * *
In Vienna, most of the recent publications have more or less relation
to affairs. There is very little of pure literature. M. de Zsedenyi,
one of the most capable Hungarian political writers, has published a
work entitled _Responsibility of the Cabinet and the State of
Hungary_. The author of _The Genesis of the Revolution_, (supposed to
be Count Hartig, who was a Minister without portfolio under Prince
Metternich) has again appeared before the public with 146 closely
printed pages of _Night Thoughts_, some of which had better never have
seen the light of day. A Mr. Schwarz has published a work advocating
"protection," and in it he spares neither England nor the Austrian
Minister of Commerce. Free trade notions have indeed been attacked in
a score of books by continental thinkers lately, and free trade
opinions seem to have received, throughout Europe, a most decided
check.
* * * * *
The late Prince VALDIMAR, of Russia, made three or four years ago a
journey to India, and besides taking part with the British army in
sundry engagements, occupied himself busily in investigating the
manners and customs of the people, the antiquities, history, and
natural productions of the country. He wrote an account of his
journey, and illustrated it with numerous drawings. His family is now
causing this to be printed and the drawings to be engraved, and in a
short time the work will be completed. Only three hundred copies are
to be struck off, and they are to be presented to royal and
illustrious personages. The getting up of the publication will cost
40,000 thalers.
* * * * *
M. LEON DE MONBEILLARD has written a little treatise upon the _Ethics
of Spinoza_, in which--being a spiritualist who admits the dogma of
the creation and of human personality--he is said to have refuted the
great philosopher, yet without calumniating or disfiguring his
doctrines, and with a constant admiration of all that is truly
admirable in Spinoza.
The work has not yet crossed the sea, but we cannot help thinking that
the colossal views of so great a mind are not to be entirely disproved
in the delicate dimensions of an "_opuscule_," as the able little
treatise of M. Montbeillard is called by the critics.
* * * * *
JOSEPH RUSSEGGER, imperial director of the mines at Schemnitz, has
published the results of five years' travel in Europe, Asia, and
Africa, comprising a universal scientific and artistic as well as
social and picturesque view of those countries. It is in four volumes,
very splendidly illustrated in all these departments, and is published
at a cost of forty dollars.
* * * * *
Dr. DAVID FRIEDRICH STRAUSS, the famous rationalist, has published a
work entitled _Christian Marklein_, a picture of life and character
from the present time, giving charming if not very new views of the
Wurtemberg theological schools.
* * * * *
In the _German Universities_, it appears from the census just taken,
with the exceptions of those of Koenigsberg, Kiel, and Rostock, the
numbers for which have not been officially returned, there were for
the last term on the registers 11,945 students. The universities may
be classed, according to the number of students at each, in this
order: Berlin, Munich, Bonn, Leipsic, Breslau, Tubingen, Goettingen,
Wurzburg, Halle, Heidelberg, Giessen, Erlangen, Friburg, Jena,
Marburg, Greifswalde. Berlin has 2,107 students, and Greifswalde only
189. The number studying the law is 3,973; of theological students,
2,539; pursuing the study of philosophy and philology, 2,357; medical
students, 2,146; and there are 549 engaged in political economy. Halle
reckons the greatest proportional number of theological students,
there being 330 out of a total of 597; Heidelberg has most students of
law; Wurzburg, most of medicine; and Jena, most students of theology.
The greatest numbers of foreign students are to be found at
Heidelberg, Gottingen, Jena, Wurzburg, and Leipsic.
* * * * *
The _Independence Belge_ gives an account of Frau Pfeiffer, a woman
who left Vienna several years ago to travel alone in the most distant
and unfrequented parts of the world. After visiting Palestine and
Egypt, Scandinavia and Iceland, she landed in Brazil, penetrated the
primitive forests, and lived among the natives; from Valparaiso she
traversed the Pacific to Otaheite, thence to China, Singapore, Ceylon,
Hindostan, to the caves of Adjunta and Ellora to Bombay, whence she
sailed up the Tigris, to Bagdad, and then entered upon the arduous
journey to Babylon, Nineveh, and into Kurdistan; and passing to the
Caucasus, she embarked for Constantinople, visiting Greece in her way
home to Germany. She is now in London, visiting the Great Exposition.
* * * * *
FERDINAND HILLER, Superintendent of the Cologne Musical Academy, and a
contemporary and friend of Mendelssohn, whom, in the beginning, it was
supposed he would surpass as a composer, has been recently in Paris,
renewing his old experiences. He saw there most of the famous literary
and artistic notabilities, and gossips pleasantly about them in the
_feuilleton_ of a German journal. He saw Henry Heine, whose body is
almost dead, but whose mind is as vigorous as ever. Hiller says that
Heine chatted with him about God and himself, of the King of Prussia,
and of Hiller--of the Frankfort Parliament and his own songs. Heine's
features, he says, are interesting, and even more beautiful than they
were formerly. The fallen cheeks leave the noble oval of the head and
the delicately chiselled nose mournfully apparent. The eyes are
closed. He can only see with the left, by elevating the lid with his
finger. He wears a close-trimmed beard, and his hair is as brown and
luxuriant as ever. The slim white hand is ideally beautiful. It
belongs, according to the doctrine of Carns, to the class of the
purely psychological. Heine had just written a song for a German
composer; and that no poet can sing more sweetly for music, the many
of his verses which Schubert has "married to immortal" tune
sufficiently indicate. Mendelssohn also composed the most dreamily
delicate music to Heine's "Moonlight on the Ganges."
Ingres, the painter, now seventy years old, the pride and model of the
severe classicists of the French school, is a comely old man, with
rich dark hair, luminous eye, and smooth brow. He is still light and
active in movement, and a genial serenity broods over his whole
character and manner. His love of music is no less enthusiastic than
that of a lover for his mistress. The great German composers are great
gods to Ingres. The remembrance of a beautiful sonata fills his eyes
with tears. Ingres has recently finished a portrait, which is not
inferior to any thing he has ever done.
Of musical men, Hiller saw Halevy, a successful composer and genial
companion, with a gentle strain of irony in his conversation. Hector
Berlioz has not grown to be fifty without some of the snowy tracks of
time, but the volcanic genius is still alive. His conversation is like
an eruption, now a burning lava-stream of glowing inspiration, now
sulphurous mockery and scorn, and now, wide-flying, a shower of sharp
stones of criticism. He tells the most laughable stories of his London
life, and his musical difficulties and experiences there. In Paris he
is only librarian of the "Conservatoire," and director of great
concerts.
Jules Janin, the sparkling "J. J." of the _Journal des Debats_, and
the grand seigneur of the Parisian _feuilletonistes_, leads the most
loitering, pleasant life, and grows merry and fat thereby. He sits
upon a luxurious ottoman, wrapped in a gorgeous _robe de chambre_, by
the fire-place of his beautifully adorned study, and there among his
books and bijoux of taste and art, gives audience to all the world. He
has visits without end. He gives instruction and advice, hears all
that every body has to say, applauds extravagantly, as he writes, all
things in this world and some more, until it is time to go to dinner,
or to see a new vaudeville. He has beside a beautiful wife, and
suffers with the gout. Could his cup be fuller?
The poet Beranger, too, who seems to Hiller the songfullest of
song-writers, charmed him by the gravity, and sweetness, and nobility
of his character. Beranger received him quietly at Passy, near Paris,
where he resides, a hale old man of more than seventy years. His hair
is white, but his face has the freshness of blooming health. In his
features there is a remarkable blending of geniality and intelligent
sharpness. They are largely moulded, and their general expression is
as generous, fine, and graceful as his verses. The perfect simplicity
of his household is very striking. The only hints of any luxury are
some medallion portraits, among which Hiller observed Napoleon and
Lamartine. Yet this severity is so evidently the result of taste and
not of poverty, that it has no unpleasant effect. The beauty and
richness of his conversation filled his visitor with the greatest
regret that he could not record it all. His first great remembrance is
the destruction of the Bastille. His essay in literature was by the
songs which circulated universally in manuscript before they were
printed. But his literary ambition was toward works of great scope and
extent, and it was not until after thirty years of age that he felt
distinctly what he could do best. Of his songs he said, "I present to
myself a song, as a great composition--I sketch a complete plan,
beginning, middle, and end, and make the refrain the quintessence of
the whole."
While Beranger was finding a letter, he opened a drawer, in which
Hiller saw scraps of song and sketches of poems, which he longed to
seize, as a wistful boy would grab at the money piles in a banker's
window. The following is the letter in which Beranger speaks of the
Marseillaise:
"I thank you, Madame, for the pleasant letter which you
addressed to me. It has revealed to me a noble heart, and
although I do not believe such hearts as rare as many say,
it is always a fair fortune to meet them.
"What you say of the Marseillaise is entirely just. But
remember, Madame, that it is the people itself, which always
selects its songs, words, and melodies, uninfluenced by any
one in the world. Once made, this choice endures, with
authority even among the later generations, whose experience
would not have made it.
"I have often enough thought about a new song of the kind,
but I am too old now, and the circumstances of the time have
robbed my voice of power. You, Madame, saw the true thought
of the song which should be now sung, and I lament that you
find the poetical harness not flexible enough for it.
"As to your remarks upon my new songs, I must say that I
trouble myself as little about the destiny of my younger
daughters as about that of their elder sisters. And I am
surprised that you speak to me of a Lierman, who should have
known me. Excuse, Madame, my delay in acknowledging and
thanking you for your letter, and believe me your devoted,
BERANGER."
* * * * *
A recent Italian translation of the _Diplomats and Diplomacy of
Italy_, which first appeared in Professor Von Raumer's _Pocket Book_
for 1841, contains three hitherto unprinted MSS. from the Venetian
archives. They are curious and interesting, as indicating the strict
surveillance which the republic maintained, by means of its
ambassadors, over the whole world of the period.
* * * * *
MR. WILLIS'S _Hurry-Graphs_ have a French rival in the _Pensees d'un
Emballeur_, by M. Commerson, chief editor of the _Tintamarre_ (Paris
journal.) They are called fantastic, original and forcible.
* * * * *
A work to create some surprise, coming from Spain, is the _Persecution
of the Spanish Protestants by Philip the Second_, by Don ADOLPHO DE
CASTRO. The name of Castro is honorably distinguished in Spanish
literature. The present author is a grandson, we believe, of Rodriguez
de Castro, who wrote the BIBLIOTECA ESPANOLA. He displays abilities
and a temper suitable for the task he attempted; he has joined to
careful and intelligent research a bravery of characterization which
quite relieves his work from the censures which belong to most Spanish
compositions of its class. That he could print in Madrid a work in
which statecraft and ecclesiastical persecutions are so frankly dealt
with, is a fact of more significance than a dozen such revolutions as
have vexed the slumbers of other states. In Spain, above all
countries, the spread of a taste for historical studies must be
regarded as pregnant with important consequences. It shows that the
barriers of ignorance and self-conceit, which have so long isolated
that country from the rest of Europe, are beginning to be effectually
broken down. To the common Protestant reader, indeed, De Castro's work
will appear studiously moderate, or perhaps timid. But it should be
remembered that it was written for a public which is four or five
centuries behind our own, in all that constitutes true liberty and
enlightenment; and what would appear most gratuitous cowardice here
may easily enough be remarkable courage in Spain. To speak in favor of
Protestantism at all, still more to become the biographer of the
Protestant martyrs, is an undertaking which demands from a Spaniard,
even of the present day, no ordinary amount of resolution. And we
should be by no means surprised to hear that De Castro has been, in
one way or another, made to pay some penalty of his rash enterprise.
That it is both a dangerous and an unpopular one is manifest from the
caution with which historical as well as religious topics are treated.
Compiling what we cannot better characterize than as a Spanish
supplement to Fox's "Book of Martyrs," the author nowhere professes
himself a Protestant. And the slow and gradual way in which he unmasks
the character of Philip II., shows how haughty and sensitive are the
public whom he has undertaken to disabuse of a portion of the
inveterate pride and prejudice which they nourish on all subjects
affecting their church or their country. On the whole, however, though
the Protestant reader will occasionally desiderate a little more
warmth and indignation when chronicling such atrocities, we should say
that the book rather gains than loses by this studied moderation both
in tone and opinions. It certainly gains in dignity and
impressiveness; and it is vastly better adapted to make its way with
the author's countrymen, than if he had betrayed at the outset a
sectarian bias, which would have revolted them, before they had time
to make acquaintance with the sad and sanguinary events of which he is
the historian. The ground gone over is necessarily much the same as in
M'Crie's _History of the Reformation in Spain_, a work which possibly
suggested the undertaking, and to which De Castro gives due credit for
learning and ability. His advantage over the Scottish historian
consists in his command of a variety of documents in print and in
manuscript, to which access could be had only in Spain, especially the
publications of the Spanish reformers themselves, which are
exceedingly rare in consequence of the pains taken to destroy them by
the Inquisition. The most remarkable result obtained by De Castro's
researches, and the feature in his work for which he claims the
greatest credit is the new light he has thrown on the history of Don
Carlos. But unfortunately the question as to the Protestantism of that
prince remains in much the same obscurity as before. His having been
tainted by heretical opinions would aid certainly in accounting for
his father's malignity towards him; but otherwise there seems to be no
proof of the fact; and our own opinion is, that his tolerant views as
to the treatment of the Flemish provinces were misconstrued into bias
towards Protestant doctrines. The inference relied on by De Castro and
others, that if he had remained Catholic he must have shared his
father's extravagant bigotry, is lame. Don Carlos did no more than
follow the usual course of heirs apparent when he disapproved of his
father's tyranny; and his sympathies with Aragon are not less marked
than those with Flanders.
* * * * *
LONGWORTH, who distinguished himself in the Hungarian troubles, is
writing a history of them. There is promise of so many books upon the
subject that we shall be able to find out nothing about it. By the
way, we wonder that no one has yet chosen for a motto to place upon
his title-page, this sentence, which Lord Bolingbroke wrote more than
a hundred years ago:
"_I mean to speak of the troubles in Hungary. Whatever they
become in their progress, they were caused originally by the
usurpations and persecutions of the emperor. And when the
Hungarians were called rebels first, they were called so for
no other reason than this, that they would not be slaves_."
It is from his _Letters on History_, and occurs where he has been
speaking of the hostility of foreign powers to Austria.
* * * * *
A PENNY MAGAZINE, in the Bengalese language, is to be established in
Calcutta, under the editorship of Baboo Rajendralal Mittra, the
librarian of the Asiatic Society. It is to be illustrated by
electrotypes executed in England, of woodcuts which have already
appeared in the _Penny Magazine_, the _Saturday Magazine_, and the
_Illustrated News_.
* * * * *
A NATIVE of India has translated the tragedy of _Othello_ into
Bengalee Othello's cognomen in the Oriental version is Moor Bahadoor
(General Moor).
* * * * *
IN ITALY, at Turin and Florence, a great number of valuable works have
been issued, illustrative of the recent revolutions. They do not claim
to be histories, for history is impossible, while events are
contemporary and cannot be contemplated from a universal point of
principle and analysis. But these volumes are what the French with
their happy facility would call studies for history. They are the
material from which the great historic artists must compose their
pictures--they are the diary of the movement--they follow all the
changes of the time, hopeful or despondent, with the fidelity and
closeness of an Indian upon the trail. We have seen several of these
publications, and hope ere many months to see a treatise upon the
republican movement in Europe from a pen well able to sketch it, and
which is fed by ink which is never for a moment red.
The largest and most important of these works is that of M. Gualterio,
just published in Florence, which comprises several letters of the
Austrian lackey, Francis IV., Duke of Modenas, and throws light upon
many of the darkest passages of the dark Austria-Italico policy. Among
other letters, also, one of the most remarkable is that of the
Cardinal Gonsalvi, well known as the able and humane Prime Minister of
Pius VII., and to whose memory there is now upon the walls of St.
Peter's a monument by Thorwaldsen, of which a statue of the Cardinal
is part. This letter speaks of the miserable conduct of the political
trials, and "justice," he says, "charity, the most ordinary decency
demands that all humanity shall not be so trampled under foot. What
will the English and French journals say--not the Austrian, when they
learn of this massacre of the innocents." This was thirty years ago.
But at this moment, were there an able and humane minister at the
Vatican, how truly might he repeat Gonsalvi's words!
It is in works like these, and in the journals and pamphlets published
during the intensity of the struggle, that the still-surviving Italian
genius, which it has been so long the northern policy to smother and
repress, betrayed itself. Nor among these works, as striking another
key, ought we to omit the Souvenirs of the War of Lombardy by M. de
Talleyrand-Perigord. Duke of Dino--and the history of the Revolution
of Rome by Alphonse Balleydier. The Souvenirs are devoted to the glory
of the unhappy King Charles Albert, the dupe of his own vanity and the
victim of his own weakness.
Upon the pages of M. le Duc de Dino, however, he blazes very
brilliantly as a martyr--martyr of a cause hopeless even in the first
flush of success--martyr of an army without enthusiasm, of a
liberalism without freedom or heroism. The English royalists, the
reader will remember, were fond of the same title for the unhappy
Charles I.
In M. Balleydier's history of the Roman revolution, Rossi is the
central figure, in whose fate there was something extremely heroic,
because he had received information, just as he quitted the Pope's
palace to go to the assembly, from a priest who had heard it in
confidence, that he was to be attacked, and he must have known the
Italian, and especially the Roman character, sufficiently to have felt
assured of his fate. After hearing the priest, Rossi said to him
calmly: "I thank you, Monseigneur, the cause of the Pope is the cause
of God," and stepping into his carriage drove to the palace of the
Cancelleria, at whose door he fell dead, by a stroke that wounded much
more mortally the cause which condemned him, than the cause he
espoused.
* * * * *
With all our waste of money, and continual boasts of encouraging
individual merit, we have not yet a single pension in this country
except to homicides. "They manage these things better in France." A
return just published in the official _Moniteur_, shows that one
department of the government, that of Public Instruction, distributes
the following pensions to literary persons: five of from $400 to $480
a year; nine of $300 to $360; twenty-nine of $200 to $240; thirty-four
of $120 to $180; and fifteen of $40 to $100. To the widows and
families of deceased authors, two of $400 to $450; six of $300 to
$360; seventeen of $200 to $240; twenty-five of $120 to $180; and
thirty-one of $40 to $100. In addition to this, it may be mentioned,
that the same department distributes a large sum annually, under the
title of "Encouragements," to authors in temporary distress, or
engaged in works of literary importance and but small pecuniary
profit. It also awards several thousands to learned societies, for
literary and scientific missions, purchases of books, &c. The
department of the Interior gives $2,500 a year in subscriptions to
different works, and nearly $30,000 for "indemnities and assistance to
authors." The other departments of the government also employ
considerable sums in purchasing books, and in otherwise encouraging
literary men. It is said indeed to be no unusual thing for an author,
laboring under temporary inconvenience, to apply for a few hundred,
or, in some cases, thousand francs, and they are almost always
awarded. No shame whatever is attached to the application, and no very
extraordinary credit to the gift. Surely, France must be a Paradise
for authors.
* * * * *
A BOOKSELLER in Paris announces: "Reflections upon my conversations
with the Duke de la Vauguyon, by Louis-Augustus Dauphin, (Louis XVI.,)
accompanied by a fac simile of the MS., and with an introduction by M.
FALLOUX, formerly Minister of Public Instruction." Falloux is a
churchman of the stamp of Montalembert. We are apt to doubt the
genuineness of these luckily discovered MSS. of eminent persons. We
have no more faith in this case than we had in that of the Napoleon
novels, mentioned in the last _International_.
* * * * *
The late M. De BALZAC, who, besides being one of the cleverest writers
of the age, was a brilliant man of society, and a very notorious
_roue_, left, it appears, voluminous memoirs, to be printed without
erasure or addition, and his friends are much alarmed by the prospect
of their appearance. It is said that his custom of extorting letters
from his friends upon any subject at issue, under pretence of
possessing an imperfect memory, and his method of classing them, will
render his memoirs one of the completest scandalous _tableaux_ of the
nineteenth century that could ever be presented to the contemplation
of another age. Opposition to the publication has already been
offered, but without success, and the princess-widow is busily engaged
with the preparations for printing, intending to have the memoirs
before the world early in June. They extend minutely over more than
twenty years.
* * * * *
M. E. QUINET, who was long associated with Michelet, in the College of
France, and who is known as a writer by his _Alemagne et Italie,
Ultramontanisme, Vacances en Espagne_, etc. has published in Paris
_L'Enseignement du Peuple_. "On the 24th day of February, 1848," he
says, "a social miracle places in the hands of France the control of
its destiny. France, openly consulted, replies by taking up a position
in the scale of nations between Portugal and Naples. There must be a
cause of this voluntary servitude; the object of these pages is to
discover this cause, and, if possible, to protect futurity against the
effects of its operation." This is the problem he proposes to solve,
and he concludes that the important secret is in the fact, that the
"national religion is in direct contradiction with the national
revolution." "Chained by the circumstance of its religion to the
middle ages, France believes that it can march onward to the end of a
career opened to it solely because of its protest against every great
principle of government which those ages held sacred." He has worked
ten years, he tells us, to demonstrate two things: The first, that
catholic states are all perishing; the second, that no political
liberty can be realized in those states. "I have shown," he continues,
"Italy the slave of all Europe, Spain a slave within, Portugal a slave
within and without, Ireland a slave to England, Poland a slave to
Russia, Bohemia, Hungary, slaves of Austria--Austria herself, the
mother of all slavery, a slave to Russia. Looking for similar proofs
out of Europe, I have shown in America, on the one hand, the
increasing greatness of the heretical United States; on the other
hand, the slavery of the catholic democracies and monarchies of the
south: _in the former a_ WASHINGTON, _in the second a_ ROSAS." M.
Quinet considers that the only remedy applicable to an evil of this
magnitude is the utter separation of church and state. Leave but the
slightest connection between the two, and the former will inevitably
overpower the latter. The one is a compact, organized, single-minded
body; the other is scattered, loosely put together, swayed to and fro
by every change in the political atmosphere, and can offer no
resistance that is sufficient to oppose the steady, unremittent
attacks of its enemy. The two, therefore, must not be placed in
collision. The very indifference manifested towards the national
religion by the great bulk of the French people is the cause why so
much danger is to be apprehended from the efforts of the church.
Because a religion is dead, says M. Quinet, there is the danger. A
living religion, like that of the puritans, may certainly mould the
government into a despotic form, but it communicates to it, at least,
a portion of its own power and energy, whilst a dead religion
infallibly occasions death to the state and to the people with which
it is politically and organically united. He argues the whole subject
with eloquent force, and with not a little of the earnestness which
reminds the reader of his personal controversies with the Roman
Catholic Church.
* * * * *
A history of _Marie Stuart_, by I. M. Dargaud, has just been published
in Paris, and for its brilliancy, completeness, clearness, and
impartiality, attracts much attention. Queen Mary of Scotland was one
of the famously beautiful women whose history is romance. She must be
named with the heroines of history and the figures of poetry, with
Helen, and Aspasia, and Cleopatra. Certainly, we trace no more
sparkling and sorrowful career than hers upon the confused page of
history, and our admiration, condemnation, surprise, sorrow and
delight, fall, summed in a tear, upon her grave. In this work it
appears that she was undoubtedly privy to the death of Darnley. During
his assassination, she was dancing at Holyrood. The fearful
fascination of a brigand like Bothwell, for so proud and passionate a
nature as Mary's, is well explained by M. Dargaud. He is just, also,
to her own tragedy, the long and bitter suffering, the betrayal of
friends; the final despair, and the laying aside two crowns to mount
the scaffold. She died nobly, and as most of the illustrious victims
of history have died; as if nature, unwilling that they should live,
would yet compassionately show the world in their ending, that heroism
and nobility were not altogether unknown to them.
_Apropos_ of this history of Queen Mary, Lamartine has written a
letter to Beranger, which praises the work exceedingly, but much more
glorifies himself. The letter is a perfect specimen of that vanity,
wherein only Lamartine is sublime: "Ah! if you or I had had such a
heroine at twenty years, what epic poems and what songs would have
been the result!"
* * * * *
THE COUNT MONTALEMBERT, the fervid champion of Catholicism in the
French chamber, has just published a work, entitled _The higher and
lower Radicalism: in its enmity to Religion, Right, Freedom and
Justice, in France, Switzerland and Italy_.
* * * * *
Although M. GUIZOT appears to be as busily engaged as ever in
politics, the advertisements of the booksellers would induce a belief
that his whole attention is given to literary studies. He has just
published _Etudes Biographiques sur la Revolution de l'Angleterre_,
which, with his sketch of General Monk, he says, "form a sort of
gallery of portraits of the English Revolution, in which personages of
the most different characters appear together--chiefs or champions of
sects or parties, parliamentarians, cavaliers, republicans, levellers,
who, either at the end of the political conflicts in which they were
engaged, or when in retirement towards the close of their lives,
resolved to describe themselves, their own times, and the part they
played therein. In the drawing together of such men," he adds, "and in
the mixture of truth and vanity which characterize such works, there
is, if I do not deceive myself, sufficient to interest persons of
serious and curious minds, especially among us and in these times; for
in spite of the profound diversity of manners, contemporary
comparisons and applications will present themselves at every step,
whatever may be the pains taken not to seek them." The studies here
collected we suppose are not new; they are doubtless the articles
which the author contributed to the _Biographie Universelle_ and other
works before he became a minister--perhaps, as in the cases of his
"Monk" and "Washington," with scarcely a word of alteration. The work
is, however, interesting. The period of English history to which it
refers has been profoundly studied by Guizot, and it would probably be
impossible to select a mode of treating it that would admit of more
effective or attractive delineation. The life of Ludlow appears as the
first of the series.
* * * * *
French Literature tends in a remarkable degree towards monarchical
institutions. Guizot and his associates publicly advocate the
Restoration. M. Cousin has published a new argument against
Republicanism, and M. Romieu, whose curious book, which men doubted
whether to receive as a jest or an earnest argument, _The Era of the
Caesars_--in which he declared his belief that the true and only law
for France is _force_--is before the public again, in a volume
entitled _Le Spectre Rouge de 1852_. He predicts the subversion of all
order, and such terrible scenes as have never been witnessed even in
France, unless some one bold, resolute, scorning all "constitutional"
figments, and relying solely on his soldiers--some one who shall say
_L'etat c'est moi!_ shall save France. A Cromwell, a Francia, or in
default of such Louis Napoleon--any one who will constitute himself an
autocrat, will become the saviour of France!
* * * * *
The COUNT DE JARNAC, formerly secretary and _charge d'affaires_ of the
French embassy in London, has published a novel which is well spoken
of, entitled the _Dernier d'Egmont_.
* * * * *
A French traveller in upper Egypt has collected for the Parisian
Ethnological Museum copies of many curious inscriptions upon the walls
of the great temple of Philae. Among others, there is the modern one of
Dessaix, which the Parisians think "reflects the grandiose simplicity
of the Republic." "The sixth year of the Republic, the thirteenth
Messidor, a French army commanded by Bonaparte descended upon
Alexandria; twenty days after, the army having routed the Mamelukes at
the Pyramids, Dessaix, commanding the first division, pursued them
beyond the Cataracts, where he arrived the thirteenth Ventose of the
year seven, with Brigadier-Generals Davoust, Friant, and Belliard.
Donzelot, chief of the staff, La Tournerie, commanding the artillery,
Eppler, Chief of the twenty-first Light Infantry. The thirteenth
Ventose, year seven of the Republic, third March, year of J.C., 1799.
Engraved by Casteix." The last date, however, strikes us as a base
compromise to the _temporal_ prejudices of the world, on the part of
the author of this "simple and grandiose" inscription.
* * * * *
M. de Saint Beauve has published in Paris some hitherto inedited MSS.
of MIRABEAU, consisting of _Dialogues_ between the great orator and
the celebrated Sophie (Madame de Monnier), written when Mirabeau was
confined in the fortress of Vincennes, principally, it seems, from the
pleasure he had in reflecting on the object of his passion. He gives
an account of their first meeting, the growth of their love, and their
subsequent adventures, in the language, no doubt, as well as he could
recollect, that had passed between them, in conversation or in
letters. There is not much that is absolutely new in these papers, or
that throws any peculiar light on Mirabeau's character, but nothing
could have been written by him which is without a certain interest,
especially upon the subject of these _Dialogues_. Circulating-library
people had always a morbid desire to see illustrious personages while
under the influence of the tender passion.
* * * * *
_Progression Constante de la Democratie pendant soixante ans_, is the
title of a new Parisian brochure well noticed. Of the same character
is the _Le Mont-Saint-Michel_, by Martin Bernard, a serial publication
devoted to the details of the sufferings of Democratic martyrs. The
author is now in exile, having shown himself too republican for the
present Republic.
* * * * *
Victor Hugo's paper, _L'Evenement_, says of Louis Philippe's Gallery
at the Palais Royal, which the heirs now wish to sell, that it has two
paintings of Gericault's, the Chasseur and the Cuirassier, and that
they symbolize the two phases of the Empire, victorious France and the
Invasion. He hopes, therefore, that they will not be permitted to go
out of France.
* * * * *
William Howitt is writing a life of George Fox.
* * * * *
Mr. Ticknor's _History of Spanish Literature_ is reviewed in _La Revue
des Deux Mondes_ by PROSPER MERIMEE, of whose recent travels in the
United States we have had occasion to speak once or twice in _The
International_. M. Merimee is the author of a _Life of Peter the
Cruel_, of which a translation has been published within a few months
by Bentley in London, and he professes to be thoroughly acquainted
with Spanish literature, from a loving study of it while residing in
Spain. Perhaps he had some thought of writing its history himself; he
certainly seems to bestow unwillingly the praises he is compelled to
give Mr. Ticknor, whose extraordinary merits he however distinctly
admits. "The writer of this History," he says, "has gone into immense
researches; he has applied himself deeply and conscientiously to the
Castilian language and the Spanish authors: he has read, he has
examined, every thing that the English, French, and Germans, had
published on this subject. He possessed an advantage over the critics
of old Europe--that of being able to treat literary questions without
mixing up with them recollections of national rivalries." He concludes
his article by saying, "This work is an inestimable repertory; it must
be eminently useful in a library. It comprises very good biographical
notices of the Spanish authors, and numerous abstracts which obviate
the necessity of reference to the original authorities. The
translations, which are copious, are executed with surpassing taste,
to afford an idea of the style of the Spanish poets. Thanks to the
flexibility of the English language, and the ability or command of the
author in using it, the translations are of signal fidelity and
elegance. The rhythm, the flow, the idiomatic grace and _curiosa
felicitas_, are rendered in the most exact and the happiest manner."
* * * * *
By a letter in the London _Times_, signed ERNESTO SUSANNI, it appears
that M. LIBRI may be a very much wronged person. The readers of the
_International_ will remember his trial, a few months ago, and his
condemnation to ten years' imprisonment (in default of judgment), and
deprivation of the various high offices he held, for having, as was
alleged, stolen from the Mazarine Library, besides others, the
following volumes: _Petrarca, gli Triomphi_, 1475: Bologna, in folio;
_Pamphyli poetae lepidissimi Epigrammatum libri quatuor; Faccio degli
Uberti, opera chiamata Ditta Munde Venezia_, 1501, quarto; _Phalaris
Epistole, traducte del Latino da Bartol: Fontio_, 1471, quarto;
_Dante, Convivio_: Florence, 1490, quarto; &c. M. Susanni alleges that
the learned bibliographer, M. Silvestre, has discovered in the
Mazarine Library that, contrary to the very circumstantial affirmation
of the deed of accusation, the above-mentioned books _are still in
their places on the shelves of that library_, from which they have
never been absent, and where any one may go and see them, and verify
the fact for himself. The persons employed to draw up the charges
against M. Libri never appeared to understand that two different
editions of a work were totally different things, and they have
accused M. Libri of having stolen a work from a public library, simply
because M. Libri possessed an edition of that work, though different
from the one the library had lost, or, better still, which it had
never lost at all. Considering all the circumstances, and the
attention which was attracted to the case throughout the learned
world, this is very curious: it will form one of the most remarkable
of the _causes celebres_.
* * * * *
The new Paris review, _La Politique Nouvelle_, starts bravely its
career as a rival of _La Revue des Deux Mondes_. The leading article,
"La Constitution, c'est l'order," is by M. Marie, who was one of the
chiefs of the Provisional Government, and Henri Martin, Gustave
Cazavan, and Paul Rochery, are among the contributors; but the best
attraction of the work to those who do not care for its politics, is
the beginning of a charming novel by Madame Charles Reybaud, the
authoress of Tales of the Old Convents of Paris.
* * * * *
Lamartine's reputation declines with every new attempt of his at
money-making. There was never a man capable of doing well a half of
what he advertises. He is writing a romance on the destruction of the
Janizaries, for the _Pays_, another romance for the _Siecle_, and
occasionally gives _feuilletons_ to other journals; he is re-editing a
complete edition of his own works, writing a history of the
Restoration, and a history of Turkey, and has lately begun to edit a
daily paper. He also continues the monthly pamphlet, of between thirty
and forty pages, the _Conseiller du Peuple_, on political matters, and
produces once a month a periodical, _Les Foyers du Peuple_, in which
he gives an account of his travels, with tales and verses.
* * * * *
The Paris correspondent of the London _Literary Gazette_ states, that
an Assyrian, named FURIS SCHYCYAC, is at present attracting some
attention in the literary circles. He had just arrived from London,
where, it appears, he translated the Bible into Arabic, for one of the
religious associations. He has accompanied his _debut_ in
Parisian society with a _mudh_, or poem, to Paris, in which he almost
out-Orientals the Orientals in his exaggerated compliments and
gorgeous imagery. Paris, he declares, amongst other things, is the
"terrestrial paradise," the "_sejour_ of houris," and "Eden;" whilst
the people are, _par excellence_, "the strong, the generous, the
brave, the sincere-hearted, with no faults to diminish their virtues."
This master-stroke has opened the Parisian circles to the cunning
Assyrian.
* * * * *
M. Leroux has published in Paris a volume of Reminiscences of Travel
and Residence in the United States, with observations on the
Administration of Justice in this country.
* * * * *
The last _Edinburgh Review_ has an article on COUSIN, in which a
general survey is taken of his life and of his works, of which he has
just completed the publication of a new edition. The _London Leader_
says that the critic ingeniously represents all Cousin's plagiarisms
as the consequences of the progressive and _assimilative_ intellect of
the eclectic chief; that it would be easy with the same facts to tell
a very different story; and correct the reviewer's "mistake," where he
talks of Cousin as the translator of Plato. Cousin's name is on the
title-page; but not one dialogue, the _Leader_ avers, did he
translate; it even doubts his ability to translate one. What he did
was to take old translations by De Grow and others, here and there
polishing the style; and the dialogues that were untranslated he gave
to certain clever young men in want of employment and glad of his
patronage. He touched up their style and wrote the Preface to each
Dialogue, for which the work bears his name! _This_ explains the
puzzling fact that the translator of Plato should so completely
misunderstand the purpose of the dialogue he is prefacing. Gigantic
indeed would be the labors of Cousin--if he performed them himself.
* * * * *
Walter Savage Landor is now seventy-six years of age. He writes no
more great works, but he is hardly less industrious than a
penny-a-liner in writing upon all sorts of subjects for the journals.
We find his communications almost every week in _The Examiner_, _The
News_, _The Leader_, _Leigh Hunt's Journal_, and other periodicals.
Sometimes he rises to his earlier eloquence, and we hear the voice
that was loudest and sweetest in the "Imaginary Conversations;" but
for the most part his newspaper pieces are feeble and splenetic,
unworthy of him. One of his latest composures has relation to Lord
Lyndhurst, by whose speech against the revolutionary aliens in England
had been excited the ire of the old poet. "In your paper of this day,
April 12," he writes to the editor of _The Examiner_, "I find repeated
an expression of Lord Lyndhurst's, which I am certain will be
offensive to many of your readers. General Klapka, a man illustrious
for his military knowledge, and for his application of it to the
defence of his country and her laws, is contemptuously called _one_
Klapka. The most obscure and the most despicable (and those only) are
thus designated. Surely to have been called by the acclamations of a
whole people to defend the most important of its fortresses is quite
as exalted a distinction as to be appointed a Lord Chamberlain or a
Lord Chancellor by the favor of one minister, and liable to be
dismissed the next morning by another. With all proper respect for the
cleverness of Lord Lyndhurst, I must entreat your assistance in
discovering one sentence he ever wrote, or spoke, denoting the man of
lofty genius or capacious mind. Memorable things he certainly has
said--such as calling by the name of aliens a third part of our
fellow-subjects in these islands, and by the prefix of a _certain_ to
the name of Klapka. It is strange that sound law should not always be
sound sense; strange that the great seal of equity should make so
faint and indistinct an impression. Klapka will be commemorated and
renowned in history as one beloved by the people, venerated by the
nobility; whose voice was listened to attentively by the magistrate,
enthusiastically by the soldier. The fame of Lord Lyndhurst is
ephemeral, confined to the Court of Chancery and the House of Peers;
dozens have shared it in each, and have gone to dinner and oblivion.
Those, and those alone, are great men whose works or words are
destined to be the heirlooms of many generations. God places them
where time passes them without erasing their footsteps. Kings can
never make them. They, if minded so, could more easily make kings.
England hath installed one Chancellor who might have been consummately
great, had there only been in his composition the two simple elements
of generosity and honesty. Bacon did not hate freedom, or the friends
of freedom; and, although he cautiously kept clear of so dangerous a
vicinity, he never came voluntarily forth, invoking the vindictive
spirit of a dead law to eliminate them in the hour of adversity from
their sanctuary."
* * * * *
The Rev. Moses Margoliouth, who was once a Jew, and who last year
published a narrative of a journey to Palestine, under the title of "A
Visit to the Land of My Fathers," has just given to the world, in
three octavos, a _History of the Jews in Great Britain_. The book is
insufferably tame and feeble; the author is of the class called in
England "religious flunkies:" a mastiff to the poor and a spaniel to
the proud. His first book was disgusting for its feebleness and
servility, and this is scarcely better, notwithstanding the richness
of its materials and the curious interest of its subject. A good
History of the Jews in England will be a work worth reading.
* * * * *
The _Ecclesiastical History Society_ have published in London
_Strype's Memorials of Cranmer_, _Heylyn's History of the
Reformation_, and _Field's Treatise of the Church_. Strype and Heylyn
are more familiar than Field, whose work is a sort of supplement to
Hooker's _Polity_. Field resembled his illustrious master and friend
in judgment, temper, and learning. In his own day his reputation was
great. James I. regretted, when he heard of his death, that he had not
done more for him; Hall, in reference to his own deanery of Worcester,
which had been sought for Field, speaks of that "better-deserving
divine," who "was well satisfied with greater hopes;" and Fuller, with
his accustomed humor of thoughtfulness, bestows his salutation on
"that learned divine whose memory smelleth like a _field_ that the
Lord hath blessed."
* * * * *
THE LIFE OF WORDSWORTH, by Dr. Christopher Wordsworth, has appeared in
London, and with some additions by Professor Henry Reed, of
Philadelphia, will soon be issued by Ticknor, Reed & Fields, of
Boston. From what the critics write of it we suspect it is a poor
affair. The _Leader_ says that, "all things considered, it is perhaps
the worst biographical attempt" it "ever waded through." The
_Examiner_ and other leading papers admit its dulness as a biography,
and its worthlessness in criticism, but claim for it a certain value
as a collection of facts respecting the histories of Wordsworth's
different poems. The work indeed professes to be no more than a
biographical commentary on the poet's writings. It does not even
affect to be critical, or to offer any labored exposition of the
principles on which Wordsworth's poems were composed. The author
describes his illustrious relative as having had no desire that any
such disquisition should be written. "He wished that his poems should
stand by themselves, and plead their own cause before the tribunal of
posterity." Strictly, then, the volumes are so exclusively subordinate
and ministerial to the poetry they illustrate, that apart from the
latter they possess hardly any interest. By enthusiasts for the poems
they will be eagerly read, but to any other class of readers we cannot
see that they present attraction. Dr. Wordsworth's part in them,
though small, is not particularly well done; and the poet's part
almost exclusively consists of personal memoranda connected with his
poems dictated in later life, and seldom by any chance refers to any
thing but himself.
Nevertheless there are in the volumes many delightful and
characteristic details, much genuine and beautiful criticism (chiefly
in the poet's letters), and occasional passages of fine sentiment and
pure philosophy. Here is Wordsworth's own description of one of his
latest visits to London, and of his appearance at court, in a letter
to an American correspondent:
"My absence from home lately was not of more than three weeks. I took
the journey to London solely to pay my respects to the Queen, upon my
appointment to the laureateship upon the decease of my friend Mr.
Southey. The weather was very cold, and I caught an inflammation in
one of my eyes, which rendered my stay in the south very
uncomfortable. I nevertheless did, in respect to the object of my
journey, all that was required. The reception given me by the Queen at
her ball was most gracious. Mrs. Everett, the wife of your minister,
among many others, was a witness to it, without knowing who I was. It
moved her to the shedding of tears. This effect was in part produced,
I suppose, by American habits of feeling, as pertaining to a
republican government. To see a gray-haired man of seventy-five years
of age, kneeling down in a large assembly to kiss the hand of a young
woman, is a sight for which institutions essentially democratic do not
prepare a spectator of either sex, and must naturally place the
opinions upon which a republic is founded, and the sentiments which
support it, in strong contrast with a government based and upheld as
ours is. I am not, therefore, surprised that Mrs. Everett was moved,
as she herself described to persons of my acquaintance, among others
to Mr. Rogers the poet. By the by, of this gentleman, now I believe in
his eighty-third year, I saw more than of any other person except my
host, Mr. Moxon, while I was in London. He is singularly fresh and
strong for his years, and his mental faculties (with the exception of
his memory a little) not at all impaired. It is remarkable that he and
the Rev. W. Bowles were both distinguished as poets when I was a
schoolboy, and they have survived almost all their eminent
contemporaries, several of whom came into notice long after them.
Since they became known, Burns, Cowper, Mason the author of
'Caractacus' and friend of Gray, have died. Thomas Warton, Laureate,
then Byron, Shelley, Keats, and a good deal later Scott, Coleridge,
Crabbe, Southey, Lamb, the Ettrick Shepherd, Cary the translator of
Dante, Crowe the author of 'Lewesdon Hill,' and others of more or less
distinction, have disappeared. And now of English poets advanced in
life, I cannot recall any but James Montgomery, Thomas Moore, and
myself, who are living, except the octogenarian with whom I began. I
saw Tennyson, when I was in London, several times. He is decidedly the
first of our living poets, and I hope will live to give the world
still better things. You will be pleased to hear that he expressed in
the strongest terms his gratitude to my writings. To this I was far
from indifferent, though persuaded that he is not much in sympathy
with what I should myself most value in my attempts, viz., the
spirituality with which I have endeavored to invest the material
universe, and the moral relations under which I have wished to exhibit
its most ordinary appearances."
Of the mention of Alfred Tennyson in the foregoing extract the
_Examiner_ remarks, that it is perhaps the greatest stretch of
appreciation or acknowledgment in regard to any living or contemporary
poet in Wordsworth. His mention of Southey's verses is always reserved
and dry. He takes no pains to conceal his poor opinion of Scott's. His
allusions to Rogers are respectful, but cold. His objection to Byron
may be forgiven. There is less reason for his appearing quite to lose
his ordinarily calm temper when Goethe is even named, or for his
extending this unreasoning dislike to Goethe's great English
expositor, Carlyle. Yet we must not omit, on the other hand, what he
says of Shelley. Shelley, he admits (much to our surprise), to have
been "one of the best artists of us all; I mean in workmanship of
style."
* * * * *
The London _Standard of Freedom_ remarks of the article on "Some
American Poets" in the last number of _Blackwood_, that "it assumes
more ignorance in England as to American poetry than actually exists."
Our readers will readily believe this when advised that the critic
regards _Longfellow_ as a greater poet than Bryant! whom he classes
with Mrs. Hemans.
* * * * *
M. COMTE has quitted metaphysics to reform the calendar, but probably
will not succeed better than those who attempted the same thing during
the first French revolution. We find a synopsis of his scheme in the
_Leader_. He proposes that each month shall be consecrated to one of
the great names that represent the intellectual and social progress of
humanity. He specializes the names of Moses, Homer, Aristotle,
Archimedes, Caesar, St. Paul, Charlemagne, Dante, Descartes, Guttenberg
(whom he probably thinks had something to do with the invention of
printing), Columbus and Frederic the Great, as most appropriate for
the designation of the twelve months; recommending, however,
particular fetes for minor heroes in the months under which they may
best be grouped--for Augustin, Hildebrand, Bernard, and Bossuet, in
St. Paul's month; Alfred and St. Louis, in Charlemagne's month;
Richelieu and Cromwell in the month of Frederic the Great, and so on.
Supplying a defect of Catholicism in this respect, he proposes what he
calls "fetes of reprobation" for the greatest scoundrels of
history--for such retrogressive men as Julian the Apostate, Philip II.
of Spain, and Bonaparte, (we don't agree to the classification, unless
he means President Louis Napoleon, who indeed is not a _great_
scoundrel, though disposed to be sufficiently retrogressive.)
According to this new calendar, a follower of Comte, writing a letter
in March, would have to date it as written on such or such a day of
_Aristotle_. We fear the proposal won't do even in France, but this,
at least, may be said for it, that it is as good as the Puseyite
practice of dating by saints' days, besides being novel, and Parisian,
and scientific. Sydney Smith used, in jest of the Puseyite practice,
to date his letters "_Washing Day--Eve of Ironing Day_;" Comte's plan
is better than that of the Puseyites--almost as good as Peter
Plimley's.
* * * * *
Among the many books lately printed in England upon the ecclesiastical
controversies, is one entitled _Remonstrance against Romish
Corruptions in the Church, addressed to the People and Parliament of
England in 1395_, now for the first time published, edited by the Rev.
F. Forshall. Biographers of Wycliffe have referred to this tract and
quoted passages in evidence of the Wycliffite heresies; but they
appear to have failed altogether of perceiving its larger scope, or
understanding its political bearing and significance. There can hardly
be a doubt, as Mr. Forshall suggests, that it was drawn up to
influence the famous parliament which met in the eighteenth year of
Richard the Second, and which was a scene of unusual excitement on the
subject of religion from the sudden clash of the old Papal party with
the new and increasing band of patriotic reformers. Wycliffe had then
been dead, and his opinions gradually on the increase, for more than
ten years. The author of the Remonstrance was his friend John Purvey,
who assisted him in the first English version of the Bible, shared
with him the duties of his parish, and attended his death-bed. He was
the most active of the reformers, the most formidable to the
ecclesiastical authorities. Another old MS. from the Cottonian
collection in the British Museum, is the _Chronicle of Battel Abbey,
from 1066 to 1176, now first translated, with Notes, and an Abstract
of the subsequent History of the Establishment_, by Mark Antony Lower.
This is extremely curious, and contains, besides the important
histories of the controversies between the ecclesiastical authorities
and Henry the Second, some very striking exhibitions of manners.
* * * * *
The vitality of SCOTT'S popularity is shown by the fact that the
Edinburgh publishers of his _Life_ and _Works_ printed and sold the
following quantities of them during the period from 1st January, 1848,
to 26th March, 1851, viz.: Novels (exclusive of the Abbotsford
edition), 4,760 sets; Poetical Works, 4,360; Prose Writings, 850;
Life, 2,610; Tales of a Grandfather (independently of those included
in the complete sets of the Prose Works), 2,990; and Selections,
4,420. It may serve as a "curiosity of literature" to give a summary
of the printing of the Writings and Life since June, 1829, when they
came under the management of the late proprietor, Mr. Cadell: Waverley
Novels, 78,270 sets; Poetical Works, 41,340; Prose Works, 8,260; Life,
26,860; Tales of a Grandfather (independently of those included in the
complete sets of the Prose Works), 22,190; Selections, 7,550. The
popularity to which the "People's Edition" has attained appears from
the fact that the following numbers, originally published in weekly
sheets, have been printed: Novels, 7,115,197; Poetry, 674,955; Prose,
269,406; Life, 459,291; total sheets, 8,518,849.
The whole copyrights, stocks, &c., of Scott's works, as possessed for
many years by Cadell, have now been transferred to the hands of
Messrs. Adam and Charles Black. The copyrights and stock have been
acquired by the present purchasers for L27,000, or L10,000 less than
Mr. Cadell paid for copyrights alone.
* * * * *
ELIZABETH BARRET BROWNING has published a new poem, _Casa Guidi
Windows_, which gives a vivid picture of the tumult and heroism of
Italian struggles for independence, as seen from the poet's windows,
at Florence, with the fervid commentary of her hopes and aspirations.
* * * * *
A novel by MRS. CAROLINE LEE HENTZ, published by Mr. Hart, of
Philadelphia, has been dramatized by Mr. Henry Paul Howard, for the
Haymarket Theatre in London, and brought out in a very splendid style,
with J. W. Wallack in the leading character.
* * * * *
COLONEL CUNNINGHAM, a son-in-law of Viscount Hardinge, has just
published in London "Glimpses of the Great Western Republic in the
year 1850."
* * * * *
We shall look with much interest for the result of the new scheme for
the encouragement of life assurance, economy, &c., among literary men
and artists in England. To bring this project into general notice, and
to form the commencement of the necessary funds, Sir Edward Bulwer
Lytton, one of its originators, has written and presented to his
associates in the cause, a new comedy in five acts, under the
significant title, _Not So Bad as we Seem_. It was to be produced on
the sixteenth ult., under the management of Mr. Charles Dickens, in a
theatre constructed for the purpose, and performed by Robert Bell,
Wilkie Collins, Dudley Costello, Peter Cunningham, Charles Dickens,
Augustus Egg, A.R.A., John Forster, R. H. Horne, Douglass Jerrold,
Charles Knight, Mark Lemon, J. Westland Marston, Frank Stone, and
others. The tickets were twenty-five dollars each, and the Queen and
Prince Albert were to be present. The comedy is hereafter to be
performed in public; and the promoters of the scheme are sanguine of
its success. Mr. Maclise has offered to paint a picture (the subject
to be connected with the performance of the comedy), and to place it
at the disposal of the guild, for the augmentation of its funds. The
prospects are encouraging.
* * * * *
The REV. C. G. FINNEY, so well known in the Presbyterian churches of
this country, has passed some time in London, and an edition of his
_Lectures on Systematic Theology_ has just been published there, with
a preface by the Rev. Dr. Redford, of Worcester, who confesses, that
"when a student he would gladly have bartered half the books in his
library to have gained a single perusal of these Lectures; and he
cannot refrain from expressing the belief, that no young student of
theology will ever regret their purchase or perusal." The book makes
an octavo of 1016 pages.
* * * * *
"TALVI," the wife of Professor ROBINSON, will leave New-York in a few
days, we understand, to pass some time in her native country. She will
be absent a year and a half, and will reside chiefly in Berlin. We
have recently given an account of the life and writings of this very
eminent and admirable woman, in the _International_, and are among the
troops of friends who wish her all happiness in the fatherland, and a
safe return to the land of her adoption. We presume the public duties
of Dr. Robinson will prevent him from being absent more than a few
weeks.
* * * * *
ALBERT SMITH has dramatised a tale from Washington Irving's "Alhambra"
for the Princess's Theatre--making a burlesque comedy.
* * * * *
MRS. SOUTHWORTH must be classed among our most industrious writers.
The Appletons have just published a new novel by her, entitled _The
Mother-in-Law_, and she has two others in press--one of which is
appearing from week to week in the _National Era_.
* * * * *
DR. SPRING, whose religious writings appear to be as popular in Great
Britain as in this country, and every where to be regarded as among
the classics of practical religious literature, has issued a second
edition of his two octavos entitled _First Things_. In style, temper,
and all the best qualities of such works, the discourses embraced in
this work are deserving of eminent praise. (M. W. Dodd.)
* * * * *
Of HENRY MARTIN, whom the religious world regards with a reverent
affection like that it gives to Cowper and Heber, the hitherto
unpublished _Letters and Journals_ have just appeared, and they seem
to us even more interesting than the so well-known Memoirs of his Life
published soon after he died. (M. W. Dodd.)
* * * * *
MRS. SIGOURNEY has published a volume entitled _Letters to my Pupils,
with Narrative and Biographical Sketches_. It embraces reminiscences
of her experience as a teacher, and we have read none of her prose
compositions that are more suggestive or more pleasing. (Robert Carter
& Brothers.)
* * * * *
A _Life of Algernon Sydney_, by G. Van Santvoord (a new author), has
been published by Charles Scribner. To describe the history and
writings of this noble republican was a task worthy of an American
scholar. Mr. Van Santvoord has performed it excellently well.
* * * * *
BAYARD TAYLOR and R. H. STODDARD have new volumes of poems in the
press of Ticknor, Reed & Fields, of Boston, and that house has never
published original volumes of greater merit, or that will be more
popular.
* * * * *
THE POEMS OF WILLIAM P. MULCHINOCK, in one volume, lately published by
Mr. Strong, Nassau-street, appear to have been received with singular
favor by the critics. Mr. Mulchinock has remarkable fluency, and a
genial spirit. His book contains specimens of a great variety of
styles, and some pieces of much merit.
* * * * *
TICKNOR & CO. have published a novelette entitled _The Solitary_, by
Santaine, the author of "Picciola." It is of the Robinson Crusoe sort
of books--better than any other imitation of Defoe.
* * * * *
The _Pocket Companion, for Machinists, Mechanics, and Engineers_, by
OLIVER BYRNE, is a remarkable specimen of perspicuous condensation. In
a beautiful pocket-book it embraces for the classes for whom it is
designed the pith of two or three ordinary octavos.
* * * * *
Among the new volumes of poems is one of Dramatic and Miscellaneous
Pieces, by CHARLES JAMES CANNON, published by Edward Dunigan. Mr.
Cannon is a writer of much cultivation, and, in his dramatic poems,
especially, there are passages of much force and elegance.
* * * * *
MR. JOHN E. WARREN, whose pleasant letters from the south of Europe
were a chief attraction of some of the early numbers of the
_International_, has in the press of Putnam, to be published in a few
days, _Paria, or Scenes and Adventures on the Banks of the Amazon_. He
saw that magnificent but little known country under such peculiar
advantages, and he writes with such spirit and so natural a grace,
that we may promise the public one of the most delightful books of the
season in "Paria." Here is a specimen, from the opening chapter.
"The shades of evening were gathering fast upon the waters,
when the little bark, in which we had safely crossed the
wide expanse of ocean, now quietly anchored in the mighty
river of the Amazons. Through the rich twilight we were able
to discern the white sandy shore, skirting a dense forest of
perennial luxuriance and beauty. Gentle zephyrs, fraught
with the most delightful fragrance from the wilderness of
flowers, softly saluted our senses; while occasionally the
plaintive voices of southern nightingales came with mellowed
sweetness to our ears. The moon, unobscured by a single
cloud, threw an indescribable charm over the enchanting
scene, reflecting her brilliant rays upon the placid surface
of the river, and shrouding the beautiful foliage of the
forest in a drapery of gold. Innumerable stars brightly
glittered in the firmament, and the constellation of the
'Southern Cross' gleamed above us like a diadem. All around
seemed to be wrapped in the most profound repose. Not a
sound disturbed the silence of the interminable solitude
save the hushed and mournful notes of evening birds, the
distant howling of prowling jaguars, or the rustling of the
wind through the forest trees. Nature appeared to us, for
the first time, in her pristine loveliness, and seemed
indeed, to our excited imagination, to present but a dreamy
picture of fairy land.
"At an early hour in the morning we weighed anchor, and with
a fresh breeze and strong tide rapidly moved up the noble
river, gliding by the most beautiful scenery that fancy can
conceive. The nearly impenetrable forest which lined the
shore was of a deep emerald green, and consisted of
exceedingly lofty trees, of remarkably curious and grotesque
figures, interlaced together by numerous vines, the
interstices of which were filled up with magnificent
shrubbery. We observed, towering high above the surrounding
trees, many singular species of palms, among which the
far-famed cocoa-nut probably stood pre-eminent. This
beautiful tree gives a peculiar witchery to a tropical
landscape, which those only who have seen it can possibly
realize. The trunk grows up perfectly perpendicular to a
great height, before it throws out its curious branches,
which bend over as gracefully as ostrich plumes, and quiver
in the slightest breeze. Consequently, the general
appearance of the tree at a distance is somewhat similar to
that of an umbrella.
"As we gradually proceeded, we now and then caught a glimpse
of smiling cottages, with the snug little verandahs and
red-tiled roofs peering from amid the foliage of the river's
banks, and giving, as it were, a character of sociability
and animation to the beauteous scene. Perhaps the most
interesting spot that we noticed was an estate bearing the
name of Pinherios, which had been formerly the site of a
Carmelite convent, but which was lately sold to the
government for a 'Hospital dos Lazaros.' Here also was an
establishment for the manufacture of earthenware tiles,
which are extensively used throughout the Brazilian empire
for roofing houses.
"So low is the valuation of land in this section of Brazil,
that this immense estate, embracing within its limits nearly
three thousand acres, and situated, as it is, within twenty
miles of the city of Para, was sold for a sum equivalent to
about _four thousand dollars_. This may be taken as a fair
standard of the value of real estate in the vicinity of
Para. That of the neighboring islands is comparatively
trifling; while there are millions of fertile acres now
wholly unappropriated, which offer the richest inducements
to emigrants who may be disposed to direct their fortunes
thither.
"The city of Para is delightfully situated on the southern
branch of the Amazon, called, for the sake of distinction,
'The Para River.' It is the principal city of the province
of the same name,--an immense territory, which has very
appropriately been styled 'The Paradise of Brazil.' The
general aspect of the place, with its low venerable looking
buildings of solid stone, its massive churches and
moss-grown ruins, its red-tiled roofs and dingy-white walls,
the beautiful trees of its gardens, and groups of tall
banana plants peeping up here and there among the houses,
constituted certainly a scene of novelty, if not of elegance
and beauty.
"The first spectacle which arrested our attention on landing
was that of a number of persons of both sexes and all ages
bathing indiscriminately together in the waters of the
river, in a state of entire nudity. We observed among them
several finely-formed Indian girls of exceeding beauty,
dashing about in the water like a troop of happy mermaids.
The heat of the sun was so intense that we ourselves were
almost tempted to seek relief from its overpowering
influence by plunging precipitately amid the joyous throng
of swimmers. But we forbore!
"The natives of Para are very cleanly, and indulge in daily
ablutions; nor do they confine their baths to the dusky
hours of evening, but may be seen swimming about the public
wharves at all hours of the day. The government has made
several feeble efforts to put a restraint upon these public
exposures, but at the time of our departure all rules and
regulations on the subject were totally disregarded by the
natives. The city is laid out with considerable taste and
regularity, but the streets are very narrow, and miserably
paved with large and uneven stones. The buildings generally
are but of one story in height, and are, with few
exceptions, entirely destitute of glass windows; a kind of
latticed blind is substituted, which is so constructed that
it affords the person within an opportunity of seeing
whatever takes place in the street, without being observed
in return. This lattice opens towards the street, and thus
affords great facilities to the beaux and gentlemen of
gallantry, who, by stepping under this covering, can have an
agreeable _tete-a-tete_ with their fair mistresses, as
secretly almost as if they were in a trellised arbor
together.
"We noticed several strange spectacles as we slowly walked
through the city. Venders of fruit marching about, with huge
baskets on their heads, filled with luscious oranges,
bananas, mangoes, pineapples, and other choice fruits of the
tropics; groups of blacks, carrying immense burdens in the
same manner; invalids reclining in their hammocks, or ladies
riding in their gay-covered palanquins, supported on men's
shoulders; and water-carriers moving along by the side of
their heavily-laden horses or mules."
In his excursions along the small streams which penetrate the forests
our traveller met with some magnificent scenes. Here is a description
of one of them:
"Now the grassy table-land would extend away for miles to
our left, gemmed here and there with solitary trees, waving
their branches mournfully in the wind, and looking like
spectres in the mystic starlight. On the outer side, a
gloomy yet splendid wilderness ran along the margin of the
stream, flinging tall shadows across the water, and adding
grandeur to the imposing landscape. As we advanced the brook
gradually narrowed, and became more and more crooked in its
course, until finally the thick clustering foliage met in a
prolonged arch of verdure over our heads.
"While winding through this natural labyrinth, the sun
emerged from his oriental couch, and besprinkled us with a
shower of luminous beams, which, falling through the
interstices of the leaves, seemed like the spirits of so
many diamonds. A more divine spectacle of beauty never was
beheld. The most gorgeous creations of the poet's
imagination, if realized, could not surpass in magnificence
this sun-lighted arbor, with its roses and flowers of varied
hues, all set like stars in a canopy of green. Sprightly
humming-birds flitted before us, sparkling like jewels for a
moment, then vanishing away from our sight for ever.
Butterflies with immense wings, and moths of gay and
striking colors, flew also from flower to flower, seeming
like appropriate inhabitants of this little paradise. But
the indefatigable mosquitoes, who were continually pouncing
upon our unprotected faces and hands, as well as the mailed
caymans, who now and then plunged under our canoe with a
terrific snort, preserved in us the conviction of our own
mortality.
"As we were moving through a wider passage of the stream, a
sudden noise in the bushes on our left arrested our
attention; in a moment after, we perceived a large animal
running as expeditiously as he was able along the banks of
the stream. We immediately raised our guns simultaneously
and fired. Although we evidently gave the creature their
full contents, yet it produced no other visible effect than
to cause him to give a boisterous snort, and then dart away
furiously into the heart of the thicket."
Here is something much more natural than Melville's introduction of
Fayaway:
"Among our olive-complexioned neighbors were two young
girls, whose fine forms and pretty faces especially elicited
our admiration. The one was named Teresa, the other Florana.
The former could not have been more than fourteen years of
age, and was rather short in stature, with exquisitely
rounded arms, and a bust of noble development; the latter
was somewhat taller, and at least three years older; they
both, however, had attained their full size. Animated as
they were beautiful, they were always overflowing with
vivacity and life; their conversation, which was incessant,
was like the chirping of nightingales, and their laughter,
like strings of musical pearls. These, then, beloved reader,
were, during our stay at least, decidedly the belles of
Jungcal. At the close of every day we were visited by all
the juveniles in the place, who, in their own sweet tongue,
bade us 'adieus,' and at the same time besought our
blessing, which latter request we only answered by patting
them gently on the head. The pretty maidens we have just
alluded to, instead of shaking hands with us, were
accustomed to salute us at eventide with a kiss on either
cheek. The propriety of this we at first doubted, but the
more we reflected upon the sweetness and innocence of the
damsels, the more inclined were we to pardon them; and, in
fact, we finally began to think their manner much more
sensible and agreeable than that of those who consider any
thing beyond cold and formal shaking of hands a grievous
sin. Besides, it must be borne in mind, that this was a
sacred custom of the place, which it would have been great
rudeness in us to have resisted. Therefore, kind reader, do
not judge us too severely; for know, O chary one! that
extreme bashfulness and modesty have always been considered
two of our principal failings! One day, Teresa and Florana
invited us to take a bathe with them in the stream. This we
declined point-blank. They then charged us with fear of
alligators. This was a poser--our courage was now called in
question, and we were literally forced to submit. Pray what
else could we have done under the circumstances? When they
had once got us into the water they took ample revenge upon
us for the uncourteous manner in which we had at first
treated their request. As we were encumbered by our clothes,
they had altogether the advantage, and, in less than ten
minutes, we cried out lustily for quarter, but no quarter
would they give us, and, to tell the truth, we were somewhat
apprehensive of being drowned by them, to say nothing of
being devoured by bloodthirsty alligators. Emerging from the
water, we walked up to Anzevedo's cottage, revolving in our
mind the severe ordeal through which we had just passed, and
determined henceforth never to refuse any request, sweetened
by the lips of a pretty maiden, unless, perchance (though
highly improbable), she should ask us for our heart! which,
alas! we have not to give...."
* * * * *
An _Album_ sent to the great Exhibition by the Emperor of Austria, and
to be presented after the show to Victoria, is thus described by a
Vienna correspondent of the _Times_: "It contains the notes in
manuscript of the national airs and dances, and far surpasses any
thing that I have ever seen in the bookbinding department. On one side
there are fourteen exquisite vignettes in oil colors, representing
different national costumes; the ornaments in enamel, carved ivory,
and ebony, are exquisite. A second album contains the works of the
ancient and modern Austrian composers; the third, Austrian scenery, by
different native artists. The bindings of some of the two hundred and
seventy volumes of Austrian authors will also not fail to excite the
astonishment--I had almost said the envy--of the trade. The whole will
form a truly imperial gift."
_The Fine Arts._
During the present month there are four Public Exhibitions of
Paintings in the city: that of the NATIONAL ACADEMY, of the ART-UNION,
of the ARTIST'S ASSOCIATION, and the DUeSSELDORF GALLERY. The first
three are composed mainly of the works of native American artists, and
it is impossible to repress an expression of regret that some
arrangement of union has not yet been effected, by which, at least,
the works of the same men should not be exhibited gratis at one place,
and for a charge at another. In the present state of things, the
gallery of the Art-Union and that of the National Academy are brought
into direct opposition, and this, beyond doubt, without the slightest
jealousy on either side, as the works painted for the Academy and
purchased by the Art-Union clearly show. But certainly the fact is
lamentable enough to challenge immediate attention, and to induce a
radical change. A free gallery of the selected works of artists will
be very apt to carry the day against an exhibition at a quarter of a
dollar of the miscellaneous and unselected works of the same men. But
here we do not mean to vex this question farther. We aim at a general
review of the peculiarities and excellences of each exhibition.
It is undoubtedly in landscape art that American talent is destined
first to excel, and the Academy exhibition and that of the Art-Union
are added proofs of the fact. The landscapes are much the most
distinguishing and distinguished feature. Mr. DURAND contributes
several characteristic works. His style is so uniform and pronounced
that it is never difficult to recognize his pictures. We should hardly
say that he does better this year than usual, but we should certainly
not say that he does worse. In the front rank of this department stand
also KENSETT and CROPSEY, both of whom show beautiful results of
summer study and winter work. Mr. Cropsey is mainly distinguished by a
really gorgeous imagination. Proof of this is to be sought in the
sketches of his portfolio rather than in his finished pictures, for in
these a thousand influences seduce an artist away from the simplicity
and splendor of his study into a care of public approbation and
satisfaction. Mr. Cropsey is as yet too much enamored of the details
and even of the mechanism of his art. And this is a tendency that is
fatal to breadth and largeness of impression. Yet his "Southern
Italy," and a "View in Rockland County," in the exhibition, are great
advances in this respect. On the other hand, the two large American
landscapes at the Art-Union, while the background in one is a splendid
success, and the brilliant atmosphere of the other is no less
successful, yet they are too much detailed, and the interest is
nowhere sufficiently concentrated. Mr. Kensett is remarkable for his
just sentiment and profound appreciation of natural beauty. It is a
sentiment singularly free from sentimentality, and an appreciation as
poetic as it is profound. The very delicacy of his touch and style
indicate the character of his enjoyment and perception of nature.
Mr. CHURCH, too, is perhaps the other name that we should mention with
these two as full of hope and promise. If he avoids a little
mannerism, to which he seems to be susceptible--not of course
forgetting that all greatness has its own manner--and pursues with the
same devotion as hitherto his studies of sea and sky, a very happy and
brilliant career seems open to him. The works of none of the younger
artists have attracted more attention. And the fame and position of
Turner show the reward of a devoted student and artistic delineator of
the peculiarities of atmospheric phenomena. We exhort Mr. Church to
entire boldness in his attempts. Why should he hope always to please
those who have only a vague susceptibility of natural observation for
their standard of criticism? He is to show us in the splendid play of
the light, and air, and clouds, that which we do not see, or seeing,
do not perceive.
Messrs. CRANCH, BOUTELLE, GIFFORD, and others, take high rank among
the landscapists, nor must we omit a very beautiful winter piece of
GIGNOUX, at the Academy, in which the crisp clearness of the sharp
air, the brittle outline of the bare boughs, and the quality of ice,
are most accurately and poetically rendered.
We are arrested by the feeling and promise of Mr. RICHARD'S
contributions, and the very beautiful poetic sentiment of Mr.
HUBBARD'S. Mr. HUNTINGDON is not great, this year. His landscapes are
not natural, and his portraits lack that vigorous moulding to which we
are accustomed upon his canvas. Mr. RANNEY has some characteristic
hunting-pieces. They are getting too much mannered. On a prairie, the
chief interest of art is not a horse or a buffalo, but the sentiment
of space. But we do not yield to any in our satisfaction at the spirit
and vigor of these works.
Leaving the landscape, we find the figure compositions of the year not
very successful, if we except the "Aztec Princess" of Mr. HICKS, which
we understand is a study from life of a Mexican woman, but which is
treated in so large, and thoughtful, and skilful a manner, that it is
most impressive for character and color, and gives the key to the
whole side of the room upon which it hangs. This artist exhibits also
some portraits, which have never been surpassed by any modern
portraits that we recall. No. 128 upon the Academy Catalogue is the
most brilliantly-colored portrait upon the walls. It is treated with
all the happy heroism of a master, and while many quarrel with its
_spotty_ color, the initiated perceive that easy mastery of the
palette which with genius is the secret of artistic success. No. 405
is equally remarkable for its vigorous moulding. This portrait shows
the accurate knowledge, as No. 128 reveals the sumptuous sentiment of
the genuine artist. Mr. ELLIOTT'S portraits have the same quiet
truthfulness as heretofore, the same easy success, but we would gladly
see more confidence in color, and a likeness more as the subject
appears to the mind than to the eye. Mr. SHEGOGUE'S productions are
certainly very pastoral. So sheepy are his sheep that all the figures,
trees, and landscape, are unmitigatedly sheepish. Mr. FLAGG'S
portraits are not successful. There is an unnatural smoothness and
hardness in his works. Mr. KELLOGG'S General Scott is vigorous and
effective. The action of the figure seems to require some explanation,
however. It contrasts well with the monotony of its pendant, Mr.
VANDERLYN'S General Taylor; but no spectator in regarding this latter
work has a right to forget that it is the production of one who has
grown gray at his post, and the winter of whose age has not yet
frozen, and can never freeze, the freshness of enthusiasm and
single-hearted devotion to art which are for ever young.
Mr. LANG'S No. 44 is a very large likeness of a very comely lady, but
the work will hardly live long in the spectator's memory. Mr. ROSSITER
takes the field boldly with "The Ideals, Types of Moral, Intellectual,
and Physical Beauty." Except for the brilliance of color, and a
certain sentiment, by which the light proceeds from the moral type, we
do not much admire the picture. The difficulty with the spectator will
be, we are sure, that he recalls within his own circle of friends
types more beautiful for each ideal. Mr. Rossiter's portraits of his
brother artists, Messrs. DARLEY and DUGGAN, are admirable likenesses,
each somewhat mellowed in expression by the artist. The sharp
intellectual precision of Mr. Duggan's countenance, and the bright
nervous sensibility of Mr. Darley's, are both somewhat subdued upon
the canvas. What we candidly say of these pictures we say boldly,
because we recognize and appreciate the fine feeling which animates
the artist. Mr. GRAY'S No. 54, "King Death," attracts much attention.
But is it the "Jolly Old Fellow," or the "King of Terrors," or the
"easeful death" of which the poet was enamored? There is something
fine in the picture--a strain of Egyptian placidity permeates the
features. And such colossal placidity is full of fate. There is a
latitude allowed the artist in these themes. Yet we do not feel
satisfied, much as we like the picture. Mr. ROTHERMEL'S No. 5,
"Murray's Defence of Toleration," is a very pleasant picture of the
Duesseldorf style. We like one thing in this work, and that is its
preservation of the balance of history, by showing that the Catholics
were not always the persecutors. The contrast of the religious repose
of the rear with the jangling fanaticism of the foreground is in
harmony with the differing qualities of light. It is a thoughtful and
beautiful picture, Mr. FREEMAN'S 359, "Study for an Angel's Head," has
a Titianesque fascination, and the earnest regard of the faces is
extremely lovely. It is none the less charming that it has a mortal
loveliness--if we might say so without treason to the immortality of
all beauty. We have no doubt, in our own critical mind, that any
beautiful woman would make a beautiful angel. Mr. MOUNT'S No. 118,
"Who'll turn Grindstone?" is one of his characteristic Yankee
incidents. It is very true and genuine in feeling, but the picture is
too white and streaked. No. 344 is a natural and spirited portrait of
the poet Stoddard by Mr. PRATT.
But we must pause here, leaving many works of which we would willingly
speak. At the Duesseldorf Gallery, LESSING'S "Martyrdom of Huss" is
still the great attraction. It is a work so full of careful study and
skilful treatment that we are not surprised at the universal pleasure
in its contemplation. We cannot in this space, however, enter into a
consideration of its artistic claims and character, but must record
our impression that it is not in the highest style of art--if there be
in art a higher style than the adequate representation of the simple
incident. The dexterous detail of the Duesseldorf pictures is
remarkable, but the fault and tendency of the school is to direct
imitation, and consequently to a hopeless struggle with nature. These
pictures are the worst possible models for the student of art.
The Art-Union Gallery is by no means full, but certainly does not
merit the harsh criticism of the daily press. The pictures are on an
average quite as good as usual. The names of most of the distinguished
artists are on the catalogue, and the specimens of their works are
characteristic and admirable. There are several poor copies of famous
pictures, and these undoubtedly somewhat neutralize the effect of the
native works. Beside, the Art-Union does not profess to open its
gallery with a complete collection. It buys as the pictures are
produced, and the criticisms, thus far, have been no less ignorant
than ill-natured. It does not follow that fifty thousand dollars'
worth of good pictures are annually painted because that sum may be
subscribed to purchase good pictures. Nor is it at all true, as we
would undertake to show, had we the space, that artists are
necessarily the best managers of a popular institution for the advance
of art.
The Exhibition of the Artists' Association offers little for remark.
We are not sufficiently acquainted with the secret of the origin of
this association to speak of the institution itself, but we observe
many of the names familiar to us at the Academy and the Art-Union, and
can truly wish that the pictures were upon the walls of one of those
galleries.
On the whole, we remark an unwonted activity and interest in art. It
is impossible not to rejoice at the fact, and at the brilliant proofs
of artistic ability that illuminate the walls of the various
galleries. The contemporary exhibitions of foreign capitals do not,
altogether, surpass those of their younger sister. American books are
now not all unread, and those who delight in galleries in which only
Turner, Kaulbach, and Couture are eminently great, could not be unjust
to these promises of American artistic success.
* * * * *
LEUTZE, the artist, has been again distinguishing himself by a work
just exhibited in Duesseldorf, "The Amazon with her Children." It
represents a beautiful and majestic woman, lying half-erect, arms and
neck bare, contemplating the gambols of her two naked children. The
brilliant golden-tone of the complexion is said to be entirely worthy
of the masterly skill in color of the artist, and was perhaps inspired
by the poet's dream, "I will take some savage woman; she shall rear my
dusky race." But in respect of composition and drawing it is called an
attempt to imitate the art of the old Italian virtuosos. The artist is
proceeding with surprising rapidity with his Washington. A portrait of
Roting by Leutze is most highly commended. Roting is in the same
atelier with Leutze, and is busy upon a scene from the life of
Columbus.
* * * * *
The Managers of the ART-UNION promise rich returns to the subscribers
for the present year. We quote the _Art-Union Journal_:
"We have never before offered so many powerful motives to
membership as the programme of the present year affords. The
improvements in the Bulletin render it a publication that is
almost indispensable to those who desire to have in a
convenient form the most recent Art intelligence, as well as
much original matter upon the subject that meets the
constant approbation of instructed readers. The numbers of
this work are furnished gratuitously to each member from the
date of his subscription. He will also be entitled to the
large engraving of _Mexican News_ by JONES, after Woodville,
and to the second part of the _Gallery of American Art_,
which contains five line engravings on steel, by the best
artists, after the following pictures: Cropsey's
_Harvesting_, Kensett's _Mount Washington_, Woodville's _Old
'76 and Young '48_, Ranney's _Marion crossing the Pedee_,
and Mount's _Bargaining for a Horse_. We desire to call
attention again to the fact that these subjects are all
American in their character, illustrating the scenery,
history, or manners of the country. They are also striking
and valuable as pictures, and we should have every reason to
feel proud of them in whatever contrast they might be
placed.
"This project of presenting a work which shall contain in
process of time the Gems of American Art, is original with
the Art-Union. Its value must be apparent to every reader.
It is a mode by which subscribers in the most distant parts
of the country, who are deprived of the opportunity of
visiting the large towns, may become well acquainted with
the character and progress of our principal artists--and
even those members who have the advantage of resorting to
public galleries, may enjoy here the privilege of studying
many pictures that from their location in private
collections must be accessible to them. The first part of
this work was given to the members of 1850, and is now ready
for distribution, Besides the inducements just enumerated,
there remains a share in the allotment of works of art
purchased by the Association, and which, judging from the
two hundred already obtained, will be the most attractive
collection ever offered by the Art-Union. The importance of
early subscriptions need not be enlarged upon at present.
The opportunity it affords of securing complete sets of the
Bulletin, and better impressions of the engravings, seems to
be recognized in all quarters. The Association at no period
of its history has had so long a roll of members at this
early season."
* * * * *
PAUL DELAROCHE has just completed, at Nice, a grand historical
composition, which the most intelligent judges decree to be his _chef
d'oeuvre_. The picture represents a tragical moment in the life of
Marie Antoinette. After a night of anguish before the revolutionary
tribunals the unhappy Queen has just heard the verdict of her guilt.
The President asks her if she has any thing to say in arrest of the
sentence. For her sole answer, she rises calm and majestic, and takes
silently the way back again to her dungeon. The artist has seized this
instant, as she passes erect and still before a crowd of
revolutionists. A man with a tri-colored scarf walks by her side,
regarding her as a tiger gloats upon a lamb. It is the personification
of terror. A single girl, too young to be cruel, yet attracted with
the others, perhaps, to applaud the punishment of the _Widow Capet_,
looks pityingly upon the Queen, her trembling lips murmur a prayer,
and the tears start in her eyes. Upon the lips of the Queen there is
almost a smile, a thought of disdain, for the outrages of men upon a
solitary and defenceless woman. From the descriptions of which we
select the prominent points, it is evident that this is another of the
representations of historical incident for which Paul Delaroche has
made himself so famous a name, as in his Death of Elizabeth, the
Children of Edward in the Tower, Cromwell at the Coffin of Charles I,
the Execution of Strafford, of Lady Jane Grey, Napoleon Crossing the
Alps, &c., &c. And there is no reason that this last work should not
be, as claimed, the greatest, since the artist adds to the greater
cunning of his hand, the sympathies of chivalrous artistic feeling for
the sorrow of a beautiful woman and a Queen of France. The picture is
already sold in London, and will presently be forwarded to its
destination; on the way it will remain a short time in Paris for the
homage of the many admirers of this artist's genius.
* * * * *
Mr. MINER K. KELLOGG, who since his professional tours in the East and
long residence in Italy, has spent some half dozen years in his native
country, has just returned to Florence, where, with his companion from
boyhood, Hiram Powers, he will probably pass the remainder of his
life. He is an artist of peculiar and great merits, and there is not
perhaps among American painters a man more uniformly regarded with
respect and affection.
* * * * *
The Brussels _Herald_ gives an account of a curious and costly work of
art, which a great landholder of the Walloon Provinces has ordered of
the Depaepes, of Bruges. These artists are instructed to copy in
Gothic letters _L'Imitation de Jesus Christ_, by the Abbe d'Assance.
The work will fill six hundred and seventy pages, each of which will
be about three-quarters of a yard in height, by eighteen inches wide.
They will have to execute one hundred and fourteen engravings, from
the great masters of the Flemish school, Van Eyck, Memling, Pourbus,
Classens, &c. The pages on which will be displayed the _Imitation of
Jesus Christ_, will be encircled with garlands and other ornaments, in
blue and gold.
* * * * *
At the last annual meeting of the NATIONAL ACADEMY OF DESIGN, the rank
of _Academician_ was conferred on T. Hicks, G.A. Baker, H.K. Brown,
J.A. Cropsey, T. Addison Richards, R. Gignoux, P.P. Duggan, Alfred
Jones, R.M. Pratt, J.W. Casilear, James Smillie and George W. Flagg.
At the same time, Messrs R.W. Hubbard, J. Thompson, and Vincent
Colyer, were made associates; and Messrs. Darley, Falconer, Lacombe,
Kellogg and Ruggles, honorary members.
From the Times.
THE MEETING OF THE NATIONS IN HYDE PARK.
BY W. M. THACKERAY.
But yesterday a naked sod,
The dandies sneered from Rotten-row,
And cantered o'er it to and fro;
And see, 'tis done!
As though 'twere by a wizard's rod,
A blazing arch of lucid glass
Leaps like a fountain from the grass
To meet the sun!
A quiet green but few days since,
With cattle browsing in the shade,
And lo! long lines of bright arcade
In order raised;
A palace as for fairy prince,
A rare paradise, such as man
Saw never, since mankind began
And built and glazed!
A peaceful place it was but now,
And lo! within its shining streets.
A multitude, of nations meets:
A countless throng,
I see beneath the crystal bow,
And Gaul and German, Russ and Turk,
Each with his native handiwork,
And busy tongue.
I felt a thrill of love and awe
To mark the different garb of each,
The changing tongue, the various speech
Together blent.
A thrill, methinks like His who saw
"All people dwelling upon earth
Praising our God with solemn mirth
And one consent."
High Sovereign in your Royal state!
Captains and Chiefs and Councillors,
Before the lofty palace doors
Are open set.
Hush! ere you pass the shining gate;
Hush! ere the heaving curtain draws,
And let the Royal pageant pause
A moment yet.
People and Prince, a silence keep!
Bow coronet and kindly crown,
Helmet and plume bow lowly down;
The while the priest
Before the splendid portal step,
While still the wondrous banquet stays,
From Heaven supreme a blessing prays
Upon the feast!
Then onwards let the triumph march;
Then let the loud artillery roll,
And trumpets ring and joy-bells toll,
And pass the gate;
Pass underneath the shining arch,
'Neath which the leafy elms are green--
Ascend unto your throne, O Queen,
And take your State!
Behold her in her Royal place:
A gentle lady--and the hand
That sways the sceptre of this land
How frail and weak!
Soft is the voice, and fair the face;
She breathes amen to prayer and hymn,
No wonder that her eyes are dim,
And pale her cheek.
This moment round her empire's shores
The winds of Austral winter sweep,
And thousands lie in midnight sleep
At rest to-day.
O! awful is that crown of yours,
Queen of innumerable realms,
Sitting beneath the budding elms
Of English May!
A wondrous sceptre 'tis to bear,
Strange mystery of God which set
Upon her brow yon coronet,--
The foremost crown
Of all the world on one so fair!
That chose her to it from her birth,
And bade the sons of all the earth
To her bow down.
The representatives of man,
Here from the far Antipodes,
And from the subject Indian seas,
In Congress meet;
From Afric and from Hindostan,
From Western continent and isle,
The envoys of her empire pile
Gifts at her feet.
Our brethren cross the Atlantic tides,
Loading the gallant decks, which once
Roared a defiance to our guns,
With peaceful store;
Symbol of peace, their vessel rides![2]
O'er English waves float Star and Stripe,
And from their friendly anchors gripe
The father-shore!
From Rhine and Danube, Rhone and Seine,
As rivers from their sources gush,
The swelling floods of nations rush,
And seaward pour:
From coast to coast in friendly chain,
With countless ships we bridge the straits;
And angry Ocean separates
Europe no more.
From Mississippi and from Nile--
From Baltic, Ganges, Bosphorus,
In England's Ark assembled thus
Are friend and guest.
Look down the mighty sunlit aisle,
And see the sumptuous banquet set,
The brotherhood of nations met
Around the feast!
Along the dazzling colonnade,
Far as the straining eye can gaze,
Gleam cross and fountain, bell, and vase,
In vistas bright.
And statues fair of nymph and maid,
And steeds and pards and Amazons,
Writhing and grappling in the bronze,
In endless fight.
To deck the glorious roof and dome,
To make the Queen a canopy,
The peaceful hosts of industry
Their standards bear.
Yon are the works of Brahmin loom;
On such a web of Persian thread
The desert Arab bows his head,
And cries his prayer.
Look yonder where the engines toil;
These England's arms, of conquest are,
The trophies of her bloodless war:
Brave weapons these.
Victorious over wave and soil,
With these she sails, she weaves, she tills
Pierces the everlasting hills,
And spans the seas.
The engine roars upon its race,
The shuttle whirrs along the woof,
The people hum from floor to roof,
With Babel tongue.
The fountain in the basin plays,
The chanting organ echoes clear,
An awful chorus 'tis to hear,
A wondrous song!
Swell organ, swell your trumpet blast,
March, Queen, and Royal pageant, march
By splendid aisle and springing arch
Of this fair Hall:
And see! above the fabric vast,
God's boundless Heaven is bending blue,
God's peaceful Sun is beaming through
And shining over all.
April 29.
FOOTNOTES:
[2] The St. Lawrence.
THE SECOND WIFE: OR, THE TABLES TURNED.
WRITTEN FOR THE INTERNATIONAL MONTHLY MAGAZINE.
Subordination is the _apparent_ lot of woman. From the domination of
nurses, parents, guardians, and teachers, during infancy and youth, to
the magisterial rule of her lord and master, during married life, and
the softer control of her children, through that valley of the shadow
of death, old age, it rarely ceases, until the neatly-crimped borders
of the death-cap rest upon the icy brow, and the unfortunate subject
is screwed down in one of those exceedingly awkward mahogany
tenements, henceforth "all which it may inhabit."
There are two ways of meeting this destiny of the sex. One is merely
to kiss the rod, and bend before the will of the oppressor, meekly
turning both cheeks to be smitten at once, and offering to lend both
coat and cloak, even before either is required. The other mode is to
boldly face down the enemy, and by a never-tiring guerilla warfare, to
hamper his movements, cut off his provisions, and finally hem him in,
after a manner that shall cause him ignominiously to surrender, to lay
down his arms, pass under the yoke, and at length--converting his
sword into a pruning-hook--leave his conqueror undisputed possession
of the land. The usual injustice of the world is seen in the success
which ordinarily attends the latter method; while the meek and gentle,
who, it is promised, shall inherit the earth, must look for a new
heaven and a new earth before they can come into their property.
Husbands, it is premised, have no small share in this domestic
despotism. How often do we see--to the shame of the male sex
generally, be it spoken--some rough, coarse-minded tyrant, linked to a
quiet, amiable woman, who after a long period of hectoring and
dragooning, ordering and counter-ordering, sinks into the grave of a
broken heart--or what is worse, a broken spirit. And sometimes--for
fate is sometimes just--the said patient wife is replaced by some
undaunted avenger of her wrongs, who in her turn dragoons, and hectors
Othello, until indeed his "occupation's gone."
My old acquaintance, Charles Boldenough, was pronounced to be, by the
tutors, as well as by the students of D---- College, "the most
unlicked cub" who ever misconstrued Virgil. Their experience was
undoubtedly great in this species of natural history, but of all the
hard characters who fell under their inspection and jurisdiction, I
question if there were one who could with any share of success,
dispute with him the enviable claim of being the hardest. Tall,
athletic, with a huge frame capable of any fatigue, and health that
never failed him; with a passionate temper, and a stentorian voice
whose thunders were the terror of the younger boys, Charles Boldenough
contrived to overawe with brute force all the small fry, and to
convince the older collegians that it was best to yield passively to
pretensions which could only be contended with any chance of success,
by wrestling powers equal to his own. He was in fact the gladiator of
D----College,--champion I should have called him, were it not that he
was constantly at war with the professors and faculty, who might be
said to represent it. The incorrigible laziness and ignorance which
marked his scholastic career, were fruitful sources of complaint and
reprimand; the frequent boating expeditions, the sporting excursions,
and fishing parties, on which he was absent, sometimes for entire
days, would unquestionably have terminated the course of his studies,
and released the freshmen from their dreaded tyrant, by his early
expulsion, had it not been for the influence of powerful family
connections, and the personal interference of his friends. But in the
course of time, he finished his collegiate labors, with all the
honors, and a scarcity of black eyes, and bloody noses, immediately
prevailed at D----, such as had not occurred for years.
I separated from him at that time, and heard nothing of him for a long
interval. When I next saw him, he was married. The person whom my
pugnacious acquaintance had made the object of his choice, was a fair
blue-eyed timid little woman, with a frail figure, delicate health,
and temper mild as the summer morning. What could have induced her, to
ally herself with this belligerent power, I never could imagine.
Whether she had fallen in love with that great burly countenance, and
loud voice; or whether, as the youngest of ten children, she had
snatched at the crown matrimonial as affording an escape from a
disagreeable home, or whether some one of her friends compelled her to
do it, I have always found it impossible to determine. I only know
that at the first interview, I saw enough to pity the poor being in my
heart. She hung upon the arm of her Alcides, like a snow-drop on a
rock. My friend had never had many pretensions to beauty; and his
rough red visage and portly figure, bore witness of a right boisterous
and jolly style of living. His first act after his marriage, was to
engage in a violent quarrel with his wife's father and eight stalwart
brothers, the result of which was a total cessation of intercourse
between the two families. His young partner was compelled to receive
the boon companions of her better half, to the entire exclusion of her
own friends. The home of Charles Boldenough was a constant scene of
dinner parties, and oyster suppers innumerable, which, as they
frequently ended by an altercation between the host and his guests,
were a continual source of agitation to his wife.
A perfect angel of peace and gentleness she was. She bore, with
unexampled resignation, the thraldom which was destroying her health
and comfort. She tried, with patience, every means of pleasing a man
who never allowed her to know what he liked, as it would have taken
away all room for grumbling. With scrupulous care she attended to his
little vexatious wants, his epicurean tastes, his trifling whimsical
peculiarities. If she wished to remain at home, he forced her to go
abroad; if she were desirous of going out, he made her stay within
doors. If she liked a person more than commonly, he, in the words of
the vulgar, "made the house too hot to hold them." If, on the
contrary, she was annoyed by the presence of one of his acquaintances,
she had time and opportunity to get rid of her abhorrence, since she
was continually visited with their company. He scolded, grumbled, and
found fault with every thing she did; with her acts and her intentions
alike. If she ordered a servant to perform any particular duty, he
immediately countermanded the orders; if she made any change, however
slight, in the family arrangements, no penance could expiate the
offence. So she lived on, with almost a struggle for her existence,
having learned the important mythological lesson, that Hymen, like
Janus, wears two faces, and that the temple of the former god, unlike
that of the latter, is _never_ closed. She had several children (who
fortunately all died before their mother), but Boldenough, on the
ground that women were not fit to bring up boys, constantly interfered
in the education of the girls, and made his wife as wretched by this
means as by any other. He punished when she rewarded, and indulged
when she reproved; he sent them to school when she would have educated
them at home, and reaped his reward, by having them secretly fear and
hate him. Poor Mrs. Boldenough complained not, but she grew thinner
and paler every year, and her voice, as if lost amid the loud tones,
forever reverberating in her ears, became so low as to be scarcely
audible.
At last she died. When it became necessary to inform him of the danger
she was in, he was at first stupefied by the unexpected intelligence,
and the feeling that he was to lose a household object, which time had
rendered not dear, but familiar. Then he flew into a violent rage,
quarreled with the attendants, servants, even the friends and
relatives. Having recovered from the shock in some degree, he set
about persecuting his poor wife during her last moments, in the same
manner he had done while she enjoyed her health, with this difference:
that it was now killing with kindness. He sent away in a rage the
family physician, although his dying wife begged him, almost with
tears, to retain him. He brought strange attendants to wait upon her,
and insisted upon her eating when she had no appetite, and when the
very sight of food created disgust. The sight of his big, cross, burly
countenance, perpetually haunting her, and his loud questions, to
which he _would_ have answers, and the eternal remedies, which he
disturbed her feverish sleep that she might swallow--were causes, as
the nurse averred, which positively sent the poor lady out of the
world--"for he wouldn't," said that worthy person, "he wouldn't have
let her get well, even if she'd been a mind to."
Poor thing! a man who, as it was universally agreed, had broken his
wife's heart, was not likely to regret her very deeply, or very long.
But he was rougher and ruder than ever; the confusion into which his
family matters immediately fell, the dishonesty of servants, the
diabolical gastronomy of his _cuisine_, and the insufferable dullness
of a home in which there was no family circle to be made uncomfortable
and to be railed at every hour in the day, induced Charles Boldenough
to mingle more freely in society, in order, as it was immediately
said, that he might marry again. Many were the denunciations of wrath
and sorrow to come, which were showered upon the head of that wretched
woman who should accept Charles Boldenough's huge bony hand. He had
the name of the worst of husbands, and it was confidently said that he
would never succeed in contracting a second alliance: an assertion to
which he gave the lie by espousing, one year after the death of the
first Mrs. Boldenough, an intrepid successor, in the person of a
damsel whom he had long been known to admire.
The second Mrs. Boldenough was a complete and entire contrast to the
first. She was so nearly equal to her husband in stature and in size
that she might almost have succeeded in giving him, what no person had
ever been known to do, and what he certainly had long required:
namely, a good flogging. She had a pair of cheeks like nothing in
_this_ world except two prize Spitzenberg apples, black eyes, fierce
and bright and far-seeing almost to a miracle, and a voice that went
through your head like a milkman's whistle, whilst the continued sound
of her conversation resembled a gong at the great hotels. Boldenough
she was by name, and Boldenough by nature; her carriage, erect and
firm, and rapid as a locomotive, seemed to require the ringing of a
little bell before her, to keep the unwary off the tracks, after the
manner of most railway trains. She was afraid of nothing in the
heavens above, or in the earth beneath, or in the waters under the
earth. She could break the most unruly horse, fire at a mark with a
perfect aim, and collar any man who should show her any impertinence,
with a coolness and strength of limb perfectly wonderful to behold.
Born to command, she was not angry but merely surprised that any one
should dream of controlling her. It was only after a long resistance
to her wishes that the full torrent of her rage burst forth, but with
an overwhelming fury.
The French say "C'est le coeur qui fait le grenadier." If this be
true, what a very respectable regiment might be formed from the ranks
of the fair sex in all parts of the world, were they but armed and
equipped as the law directs! What an irresistible army would that be
which should be formed of troops like these! My friend, Mrs.
Boldenough, would have made an excellent commander to these imaginary
forces, and would, no doubt, have been as entirely successful in
overrunning the enemy's country and driving him from his last
entrenchments, as she was in the domestic circle triumphant over
husband and servants, and sweeping before her the convivial revellers
of the former by means of the rapid extinction of feudal customs, in
the shape of suppers and dinner parties.
Mr. Boldenough attempted to make a gallant defence; he stormed, raved,
threatened, commanded, and exhorted; scenes of conflict, dreadful to
witness, took place between the warlike hosts. The lord of the
mansion's burly visage turned pale at finding himself stormed down
with a noise and clatter which almost burst the tympanum of his ears.
If _he_ had scolded _she_ had raved more loudly, if _he_ had thundered
_she_ rang out her high shrill treble with as much force and strength
as a dinner-bell. Fairly beaten and vanquished, he shrunk from the
ground; she, undismayed, "keeping the natural ruby of her cheeks,
while his were pale from fear."
Voe victis! Wo to the conquered! The reign of Mr. Boldenough was
over; a new dynasty took possession of the throne. The old servants
were packed, bag and baggage, out of the mansion; the old
acquaintances of the host were impressively given to understand that
they were "never to come there no more."
The longer any arbitrary power is established the more secure its
authority becomes. So it proved with regard to Mrs. Boldenough. There
was no escaping from her military despotism; she was an excellent
housewife, and the best of good managers, and as might have been
expected, she immediately restrained and cut off the lavish
expenditure of the household. Mr. Boldenough made a few faint expiring
efforts in behalf of his favorite luxuries. Not the better part of
valor, is, as he discovered, discretion; for his helpmate held in her
hands the buying and the ordering of his dinners and his daily food,
and if he complained he was sure to find his condition worse than it
was before. In the course of time six sturdy Boldenoughs sprung up,
robust, hardy, noisy, and passionate as their mother, whose authority
they served to confirm and strengthen. Then, indeed, it was that my
friend Charles's shadow perceptibly grew less. He shrank from the
notice of his wife and the bold Titans, his sons. The first Mrs.
Boldenough's memory was certainly avenged.
* * * * *
The last time I met my friend he was evidently sinking slowly but
surely into the vale of years. His great rubicund countenance was
sunken and emaciated, his figure bent and meagre, his voice weak and
faint as a whisper, and his hearing _entirely gone_. From what cause
my readers may perhaps imagine. He was, indeed, stone deaf. I
question, however, if this were not almost a mercy, considering the
tower of Babel in which he dwelt. Nobody cared what became of him, for
he had never cared for any body.
Charles Boldenough departed this life shortly after having survived
his second marriage fifteen years. The physician had the effrontery to
ascribe to paralysis what evidently was no natural death. His end
might have excited some pity from his acquaintances and friends, if it
had not been for two things, namely, that he had no friends, and that
he merely received himself the same treatment which he had given
others. I was not sorry for him, I confess. Justice is so rare in this
world of ours, that I am not disposed to undervalue it when it is
summarily executed. The Amazonian relict of my friend Charles never
re-married. Whether she never found that daring man, who was Van
Amburgh-like enough to put his head in the lioness's mouth without
fear of having it snapped off at one blow, or whether the charge of
her young giants was sufficient for her occupation, or whether she was
conscious of having fulfilled her _mission_, I do not know. She
retained her formidable name to the end of her days.
Reader! I have done. If you are a woman you may smile, and if a man
you will sneer; but I assure you there is a moral in the _petite
histoire_ of the second wife. Adieu!
A STORY WITHOUT A NAME[3]
WRITTEN FOR THE INTERNATIONAL MONTHLY MAGAZINE.
BY G. P. R. JAMES, ESQ.
_Continued from page 200._
CHAPTER XXVI.
There are seasons in the life of man, as well as in the course of the
year; and well, unhappily, have many poets painted them in all their
various aspects. But these seasons are subject to variations with
different men, as with different years. The summer of one man is all
bright and calm--a lapse of tranquil sunshine, and soft airs, and
gentle dews. With another, the same season passes in the thunder-storm
of passion--the tempests of war or ambition--and often, the gloomy
days of autumn or of winter overshadowed the rich land, and spoiled
the promised harvest.
It was an autumn-like period during the next three or four months of
the family of Sir Philip Hastings. For the first time, uncertainty and
doubt fell upon the family generally. There had been differences of
temper and of character. There had been slight inconveniences. There
had been occasional sickness and anxiety. There had been all those
things which in the usual course of events diminished the sum of human
happiness even to the most happy. But there had been nothing the
least like uncertainty of position. There had been no wavering anxiety
from day to day as to what the morrow was to bring forth. There had
been none of that poison-drop in which the keenest shafts of fate are
dipped, "the looking for of evil."
Now, every day brought some new intelligence, and some new
expectation, and the mass was altogether unfavorable. Had the blow
fallen at once--had any one been in power to say, "Sir Philip
Hastings, you must resign all your paternal estates, and pay back at
once the rents for nearly twenty years--you must give up the rank and
station which you have hitherto held, and occupy a totally different
position in society!" Sir Philip would have submitted at once, and
with less discomfort than most of my readers can imagine. But it was
the wearing, irritating, exciting, yet stupefying progress of a
lawsuit which had a painful and distressing effect upon his mind. One
day, he thought he saw the case quite clearly--could track the tricks
of his adversary, and expose the insecure foundation of his claim; and
then would come two or three days of doubt and discussion, and then
disappointment, and a new turn where every thing had to begin again.
But gradually proofs swelled up, first giving some show of justice to
the pretence that John Ayliffe had some claim, then amounting to a
probability in his favor, then seeming, to unlearned eyes, very
powerful as to his right.
I am no lawyer, and therefore cannot pursue all the stages of the
proceeding; but John Ayliffe had for his assistants unscrupulous men,
whose only aims were to succeed, and to shield themselves from danger
in case of detection; and their turns, and twists, and new points,
were manifold.
Sir Philip Hastings was tortured. It affected his spirits and his
temper. He became more gloomy--occasionally irritable, often
suspicious. He learned to pore over law papers, to seek out flaws and
errors, to look for any thing that might convey a double meaning, to
track the tortuous and narrow paths by which that power which bears
the name of Justice reaches the clear light of truth, or falls into
the thorny deep of error.
All this disturbed and changed him; and these daily anxieties and
discomforts affected his family too--Emily, indeed, but little, except
inasmuch as she was grieved to see her father grieve. But Lady
Hastings was not only pained and mortified herself--she contrived to
communicate a share of all she felt to others. She became
sad--somewhat sullen--and fancied all the time while she was
depressing her husband's spirits, and aggravating all he felt by
despondency and murmurs, instead of cheering and supporting him by
making light of the threatened evils, that she was but participating
sympathetically in his anxieties, and feeling a due share of his
sorrows. She had no idea of the duty of cheerfulness in a wife, and
how often it may prove the very blessing that God intended in giving
man a helpmate.
Sickness, it is true, had diminished somewhat the light spirits of her
youth, but she had assuredly become a creature of repinings--a
murmurer by habit--fit to double rather than divide any load of
misfortune which fate might cast upon a husband's shoulders.
Lady Hastings strove rather to look sad, Emily Hastings to be gay and
cheerful, and both did it perhaps a little too much for the mood and
circumstances in which Sir Philip then was. He wondered when he came
home, after an anxious day, that Lady Hastings did nothing to cheer
him--that every word was gloomy and sad--that she seemed far more
affected at the thought of loss of fortune and station than himself.
He wondered also that Emily could be so light and playful, so joyous
and seemingly unconcerned, when he was suffering such anxiety.
Poor Emily! she was forcing spirits in vain, and playing the kindliest
of hypocrites--fashioning every word, and every look, to win him away
from painful thought, only to be misunderstood.
But the misunderstanding was heightened and pointed by the hand of
malice. The emotion which Sir Philip had displayed in the court had
not been forgotten by some whom a spirit of revenge rendered keen and
clear-sighted.
It seemed impossible to mingle Emily's name directly with the law
proceedings which were taking place; but more than once in accidental
correspondence it was insinuated that secret information, which had
led to the development of John Ayliffe's claim, had been obtained from
some near relation of Sir Philip Hastings, and it became generally
rumored and credited in the county, that Emily had indiscreetly
betrayed some secrets of her father's. Of course these rumors did not
reach her ears, but they reached Sir Philip Hastings, and he thought
it strange, and more strange, that Emily had never mentioned to him
her several interviews with John Ayliffe, which he had by this time
learned were more than one.
Some strange feelings, disguised doubtless by one of those veils which
vanity or selfishness are ever ready to cast over the naked emotions
of the human heart, withheld him from speaking to his child on the
subject which caused him so much pain. Doubtless it was pride--for
pride of a peculiar kind was at the bottom of many of his actions. He
would not condescend to inquire, he thought, into that which she did
not choose to explain herself, and he went on in reality barring the
way against confidence, when, in truth, nothing would have given Emily
more relief than to open her whole heart to her father.
With Marlow, Sir Philip Hastings was more free and communicative than
with any one else. The young man's clear perceptions, and rapid
comprehensions on any point in the course of the proceedings going
on, his zeal, his anxiety, his thoughtfulness, and his keen sense of
what was just and equitable, raised him every day higher in the
opinion of Sir Philip Hastings, and he would consult with him for
hours, talk the whole matter over in all its bearings, and leave him
to solve various questions of conscience in which he found it
difficult himself to come to a decision. Only on one point Sir Philip
Hastings never spoke to him; and that was Emily's conduct with regard
to young Ayliffe. That, the father could not do; and yet, more than
once, he longed to do it.
One day, however, towards the end of six months after the first
processes had been issued, Sir Philip Hastings, in one of his morning
consultations with Marlow, recapitulated succinctly all the proofs
which young John Ayliffe had brought forward to establish a valid
marriage between his mother and the elder brother of the baronet.
"The case is very nearly complete," said Sir Philip. "But two or three
links in the chain of evidence are wanting, and as soon as I become
myself convinced that this young man is, beyond all reasonable doubt,
the legitimate son of my brother John, my course will be soon taken.
It behooves us in the first instance, Marlow, to consider how this may
affect you. You have sought the hand of a rich man's daughter, and now
I shall be a poor man; for although considerable sums have accumulated
since my father's death, they will not more than suffice to pay off
the sums due to this young man if his claim be established, and the
expenses of this suit must be saved by hard economy. The property of
Lady Hastings will still descend to our child, but neither she nor I
have the power to alienate even a part of it for our daughter's dowry.
It is right, therefore, Marlow, that you should be set free from all
engagements."
"When I first asked your daughter's hand, Sir Philip," replied Marlow,
"I heartily wished that our fortunes were more equal. Fate has granted
that wish, apparently, in making them so; and believe me, I rejoice
rather than regret that it is so, as far as I myself am concerned. We
shall have enough for comfort, Sir Philip, and not too much for
happiness. What need we more? But I cannot help thinking," he
continued, "that this suit may turn out differently from that which
you expect. I believe that the mind has its instincts, which, though
dangerous to trust to, guide us nevertheless, sometimes, more surely
than reason. There is an impression on my mind, which all the evidence
hitherto brought forward has been unable to shake, that this claim of
John Ayliffe is utterly without foundation--that it is, in fact, a
trumped up case, supported by proofs which will fall to pieces under
close examination."
Sir Philip Hastings shook his head. "But one thing more," he said,
"and I am myself convinced. I will not struggle against conviction,
Marlow; but the moment I feel morally sure that I am defending a bad
cause, that instant I will yield, be the sacrifice what it may.
Nothing on earth," he continued, in a stern abstracted tone, "shall
ever prevent my doing that which I believe right, and which justice
and honor require me to do. Life itself and all that makes life dear
were but a poor sacrifice in the eyes of an honest man; what then a
few thousand acres, and an empty designation?"
"But, my dear Sir Philip," replied Marlow, "let us suppose for one
moment that this claim is a fictitious one, and that it is supported
by fraud and forgery, you will allow that more than a few months are
required to investigate all the particulars thoroughly, and to detect
the knavery which may have been committed?"
"My dear Marlow," replied Sir Philip, "conviction comes to each mind
accordingly as it is naturally constituted or habitually regulated. I
trust I have studied the nature of evidence well--well enough to be
satisfied with much less than mere law will require. In regard to all
questions which come under the decision of the law, there are, in
fact, two juries who decide upon the merits of the evidence--one,
selected from our fellow men--the other in the bosom of the parties
before which each man shall scrupulously try the justice of his own
cause, and if the verdict be against him, should look upon himself but
as an officer to carry the verdict into execution. I will never act
against conviction. I will always act with it. My mind will try the
cause itself; and the moment its decision is pronounced, that instant
I will act upon it."
Marlow knew that it was in vain to argue farther, and could only trust
that something would occur speedily to restore Sir Philip's confidence
in his own rights.
Sir Philip, however, was now absent very frequently from home. The
unpleasant business in which he was engaged, called him continually to
the county town, and many a long and happy hour might Marlow and Emily
have passed together had not Lady Hastings at this time assumed a
somewhat new character--apparently so only--for it was, in fact,
merely a phase of the old one. She became--as far as health and
indolence would admit--the most prudent and careful mother in the
world. She insinuated that it was highly improper for Emily to walk or
ride alone with her acknowledged lover, and broadly asserted that
their previous rambles had been permitted without her knowledge, and
from inadvertence. During all Marlow's afternoon visits, she took
especial care to sit with them the whole time, and thus she sought to
deprive them of all means of free and unconstrained communication.
Such would have been the result, too, indeed, had it not been for a
few morning hours snatched now and then; partly from a habit of
indulgence, and partly from very delicate health, Lady Hastings was
rarely, if ever, down to breakfast, and generally remained in her
drawing-room till the hour of noon was past.
The hours of Sir Philip's absence were generally tedious enough to
himself. Sometimes a day of weary and laborious business occupied the
time; but that was a relief rather than otherwise. In general the day
was spent in a visit to the office of his lawyer, in finding the
information he wanted, or the case he had desired to be prepared, not
ready for him, in waiting for it hour after hour, in tedious gloomy
meditation, and very often riding home without it, reflecting on the
evils of a dilatory system which often, by the refusal of _speedy_
justice, renders ultimate justice unavailable for any thing but the
assertion of an abstract principle. He got tired of this mode of
proceeding: he felt that it irritated and disordered him, and after a
while, whenever he found that he should be detained in suspense, he
mounted his horse again, and rode away to amuse his mind with other
things.
The house of Mrs. Hazleton being so near, he more than once paid her a
visit during such intervals. His coming frequently was not altogether
convenient to her; for John Ayliffe was not an unfrequent visitor at
her house, and Mrs. Hazleton had to give the young man a hint to let
her see him early in the morning or late in the evening. Nevertheless,
Mrs. Hazleton was not at all displeased to cultivate the friendship of
Sir Philip Hastings. She had her objects, her purposes, to serve, and
with her when she put on her most friendly looks towards the baronet
she was not moved merely by that everyday instinctive hypocrisy which
leads man to cover the passions he is conscious of, with a veil of the
most opposite appearances, but it was a definite hypocrisy, with
objects distinctly seen by herself, and full of purpose.
Thus, and for these reasons, she received Sir Philip Hastings on all
occasions with the highest distinction--assumed, with a certain
chameleon quality which some persons have, the color and tone of his
mind to a considerable degree, while yet the general features of her
own character were preserved sufficiently to shield her from the
charge of affectation. She was easy, graceful, dignified as ever, with
a certain languid air, and serious quietness which was very engaging.
She never referred in her conversations with Sir Philip to the suit
that was going on against him, and when he spoke of it himself, though
she assumed considerable interest, and seemed to have a personal
feeling in the matter, exclaiming, "If this goes on, nobody's estates
will be secure soon!" she soon suffered the subject to drop, and did
not recur to it again.
One day after the conversation between Sir Philip and Marlow, part of
which has been already detailed, Sir Philip turned his horse's head
towards Mrs. Hazleton's at a somewhat earlier hour than usual. It was
just half past ten when he dismounted at the door, but he knew her
matutinal habits and did not expect to find her occupied. The servant,
however, instead of showing him into the small room where she usually
sat, took him to the great drawing-room, and as he went, Sir Philip
heard the voices of Mrs. Hazleton and another person in quick and
apparently eager conversation. There was nothing extraordinary in
this, however, and he turned to the window and gazed out into the
park. He heard the servant go into the morning room, and then
immediately all sound of voices ceased. Shortly after, a horse's feet,
beating the ground rapidly, caught the baronet's ear, but the rider
must have mounted in the courtyard and taken the back way out of the
park; for he came not within Sir Philip's sight. A moment or two
after, Mrs. Hazleton appeared, and there was an air of eagerness and
excitement about her which was not at all usual. She seated Sir Philip
beside her, however, with one of her blandest looks, and then laying
her hand on his, said, in a kind and sisterly tone, "Do tell me, Sir
Philip--I am not apt to be curious, or meddle with other people's
affairs; but in this I am deeply interested. A rumor has just reached
me from Hartwell, that you have signified your intention of abandoning
your defence against this ridiculous claim upon your property. Do tell
me if this is true?"
"Partly, and partly false," replied Sir Philip, "as all rumors are.
Who gave you this information?"
"Oh, some of the people from Hartwell," she replied, "who came over
upon business."
"The tidings must have spread fast," replied Sir Philip; "I announced
to my own legal advisers this morning, and told them to announce to
the opposite party, that if they could satisfy me upon one particular
point, I would not protract the suit, putting them to loss and
inconvenience and myself also."
"A noble and generous proceeding, indeed," said Mrs. Hazleton, with an
enthusiastic burst of admiration. "Ah, dear Emily, I can see your
mediation in this."
Sir Philip started as if a knife had been plunged into him, and with a
profound internal satisfaction, Mrs. Hazleton saw the emotion she had
produced.
"May I ask," he said, in a dry cold tone, after he had recovered
himself a little, "May I ask what my daughter can have to do with this
affair?"
"Oh, really--in truth I don't know," said Mrs. Hazleton, stammering
and hesitating, "I only thought--but I dare say it is all nonsense.
Women are always the peacemakers, you know, Sir Philip, and as Emily
knew both parties well, it seemed natural she should mediate between
them."
"Well?--" said Sir Philip Hastings to himself, slowly and
thoughtfully, but he only replied to Mrs. Hazleton, "No, my dear
Madam, Emily has had nothing to do with this. It has never formed a
subject of conversation between us, and I trust that she has
sufficient respect for me, and for herself, not to interfere unasked
in my affairs."
The serpent had done its work; the venom was busy in the veins of Sir
Philip Hastings, corrupting the purest sources of the heart's
feelings, and Mrs. Hazleton saw it and triumphed.
CHAPTER XXVII.
Emily was as gay as a lark. The light of love and happiness was in her
eyes, the hue of health was upon her cheek, and a new spirit of hope
and joy seemed to pervade all her fair form. So Sir Philip Hastings
found her on the terrace with Marlow when he returned from Hartwell.
She was dressed in a riding habit, and one word would have explained
all the gaiety of her mood. Lady Hastings, never very consequent in
her actions, had wished for some one of those things which ladies wish
for, and which ladies only can choose. She had felt too unwell to go
for it herself; and although she had not a fortnight before expressed
her strong disapprobation of her daughter and Mr. Marlow even walking
out alone in the park, she had now sent them on horseback to procure
what she wanted. They had enjoyed one of those glorious rides over the
downs, which seem to pour into the heart fresh feelings of delight at
every step, flooding the sense with images of beauty, and making the
blood dance freely in the veins. It seemed also, both to her and
Marlow, that a part of the prohibition was removed, and though they
might not perhaps be permitted to walk out together, Lady Hastings
could hardly for the future forbid them to ride. Thus they had come
back very well pleased, with light hearts within, and gay hopes
fluttering round them.
Sir Philip Hastings, on the other hand, had passed a day of
bitterness, and hard, painful thought. On his first visit to the
county town, he had, as I have shown, been obliged once more to put
off decision. Then came his conference with Mrs. Hazleton. Then he had
returned to his lawyer's office, and found that the wanting evidence
had been supplied by his opponents. All that he had demanded was
there; and no apparent flaw in the case of his adversary. He had
always announced his attention of withdrawing opposition if such
proofs were afforded, and he did so now, with stern, rigid, and
somewhat hasty determination--but not without bitterness and regret.
His ride home, too, was troubled with dull and grievous thoughts, and
his whole mind was out of tune, and unfit to harmonize with gaiety of
any kind. He forgot that poor Emily could not see what had been
passing in his bosom, could not know all that had occurred to disturb
and annoy him, and her light and cheerful spirits seemed an offence to
him.
Sir Philip passed on, after he had spoken a few words to Marlow, and
sought Lady Hastings in the room below, where she usually sat after
she came down. Sir Philip, as I have shown, had not been nurtured in a
tender school, and he was not very apt by gentle preparation to soothe
the communication of any bad tidings. Without any circumlocution,
then, or prefatory remarks of any kind, he addressed his wife in the
following words: "This matter is decided, my dear Rachel. I am no
longer Sir Philip Hastings, and it is necessary that we should remove
from this house within a month, to your old home--the Court. It will
be necessary, moreover, that we should look with some degree of
accuracy into the state of our future income, and our expenditure.
With your property, and the estate which I inherit from my mother,
which being settled on the younger children, no one can take from me,
we shall still have more than enough for happiness, but the style of
our living must be altered. We shall have plenty of time to think of
that, however, and to do what we have to do methodically."
Lady Hastings, or as we should rather call her now, Mistress Hastings,
seemed at first hardly to comprehend her husband's meaning, and she
replied, "You do not mean to say, Philip, that this horrible cause is
decided?"
"As far as I am concerned, entirely," replied Sir Philip Hastings. "I
shall offer no farther defence."
Lady Hastings fell into a fit of hysterics, and her husband knowing
that it was useless to argue with her in such circumstances, called
her maid, and left her.
There was but a dull dinner-party at the Hall that day. Sir Philip was
gloomy and reserved, and the news which had spread over the house, as
to the great loss of property which he had sustained, soon robbed his
daughter of her cheerfulness.
Marlow, too, was very grave; for he thought his friend had acted, not
only hastily, but imprudently. Lady Hastings did not come down to
dinner, and as soon as the meal was over Emily retired to her mother's
dressing-room, leaving Marlow and her father with their wine. Sir
Philip avoided the subject of his late loss, however, and when Marlow
himself, alluded to it, replied very briefly.
"It is done," he said, "and I will cast the matter entirely from my
mind, Marlow. I will endeavor, as far as possible, to do in all
circumstances what is right, whatever be the anguish it costs me.
Having done what is right, my next effort shall be to crush every
thing like regret or repining. There is only one thing in life which
could give me any permanent pain, and that would be to have an
unworthy child."
Marlow did not seem to remark the peculiar tone in which the last
words were uttered, and he replied. "There, at least, you are most
happy, Sir Philip; for surely Emily is a blessing which may well
compensate for any misfortunes."
"I trust so--I think so," said Sir Philip, in a dry and hasty manner,
and then changing the subject, he added, "Call me merely Philip
Hastings, my good friend. I say with Lord Verulam, 'The Chancellor is
gone.' I mean I am no longer a baronet. That will not distress me,
however, and as to the loss of fortune, I can bear it with the most
perfect indifference."
Mr. Hastings reckoned in some degree without his host, however. He
knew not all the petty annoyances that were in store for him. The
costs he had to pay, the back-rents which were claimed, the long and
complicated accounts that were to be passed, the eager struggle which
was made to deprive him of many things undoubtedly his own; all were
matters of almost daily trouble and irritation during the next six
months. He had greatly miscalculated the whole amount of expenses.
Having lived always considerably within his income, he had imagined
that he had quite a sufficient amount in ready money to pay all the
demands that could be made upon him. But such was far from being the
case. Before all the debts were paid, and the accounts closed, he was
obliged to raise money upon his life-interest in his mother's
property, and to remain dependent, as it were, upon his wife's income
for his whole means. These daily annoyances had a much greater effect
upon Mr. Hastings than any great and serious misfortune could have
had. He became morose, impatient, gloomy. His mind brooded over all
that had occurred, and all that was occurring. He took perverted views
of many things, and adhered to them with an obstinacy that nothing
could shake.
In the mean time all the neighbors and friends of the family
endeavored to show their sympathy and kindness by every means in their
power. Even before the family quitted the Hall, the visitors were more
numerous than they had ever been before, and this was some consolation
to Mistress Hastings, though quite the contrary to her husband, who
did not indeed appear very frequently amongst the guests, but remained
in his own study as much as possible.
It was a very painful day for every one, and for Emily especially,
when they passed the door of the old Hall for the last time, and took
their way through the park towards the Court. The furniture in great
part, the books, the plate, had gone before; the rooms looked vacant
and desolate, and as Emily passed through them one by one, ere she
went down to the carriage, there was certainly nothing very attractive
in their aspect. But there were spots there associated with many dear
memories--feelings--fancies--thoughts--all the bright things of early,
happy youth; and it was very bitter for her to leave them all, and
know that she was never to visit them again.
She might, and probably would, have fallen into one of her deep
reveries, but she struggled against it, knowing that both her father
and her mother would require comfort and consolation in the coming
hours. She exerted herself, then, steadily and courageously to bear up
without a show of grief, and she succeeded even too well to satisfy
her father. He thought her somewhat light and frivolous, and judged it
very strange that his daughter could quit her birth-place, and her
early home, without, apparently, one regretful sigh. He himself sat
stern, and gloomy, and silent, in the carriage, as it rolled away.
Mistress Hastings leaned back, with her handkerchief over her eyes,
weeping bitterly. Emily alone was calmly cheerful, and she maintained
this demeanor all the way along till they reached the Court, and
separated till dinner-time. Then, however, she wept bitterly and long.
Before she had descended to meet her parents at dinner, she did her
best to efface all traces of her sad employment for the last hour. She
did not succeed completely, and when she entered the drawing-room, and
spoke cheerfully to her father, he raised his eyes to her face, and
detected, at once, the marks of recent tears on her swollen eyelids.
"She has been weeping," said Mr. Hastings to himself; "can I have been
mistaken?"
A gleam of the truth shot through his mind, and comforted him much,
but alas, it was soon to be lost again.
From feelings of delicacy, Marlow had absented himself that day, but
on the following morning he was there early, and thenceforward was a
daily visitor at the Court. He applied himself particularly to cheer
Emily's father, and often spent many hours with him, withdrawing Mr.
Hastings' mind from all that was painful in his own situation, by
leading it into those discussions of abstract propositions of which he
was so fond. But Marlow was not the only frequent visitor at the
Court. Mrs. Hazleton was there two or three times in the week, and was
all kindness, gentleness, and sympathy. She had tutored herself well,
and she met Mr. Marlow as Emily's affianced husband, with an ease and
indifference which was marvellously well assumed. To Mrs. Hastings she
proved the greatest comfort, although it is not to be asserted that
the counsels which she gave her, proved at all comfortable to the rest
of the household, and yet Mrs. Hazleton never committed herself. Mrs.
Hastings could not have repeated one word that she said, that any one
on earth could have found fault with. She had a mode of insinuating
advice without speaking it--of eking out her words by looks and
gestures full of significance to the person who beheld them, but
perfectly indescribable to others.
She was not satisfied, however, with being merely the friend and
confidante of Mrs. Hastings. She must win Emily's father also, and she
succeeded so well that Mr. Hastings quite forgot all doubts and
suspicions, and causes of offence, and learned to look upon Mrs.
Hazleton as a really kind and amiable person, and as consistent as
could be expected of any woman.
Not one word, however, did Mrs. Hazleton say in the hearing of Emily's
father which could tend in any degree to depreciate the character of
Mr. Marlow, or be construed into a disapproval of the proposed
marriage. She was a great deal too wise for that, knowing the
character of Mr. Hastings sufficiently to see that she could effect no
object, and only injure herself by such a course.
To Emily she was all that was kind and delightful. She was completely
the Mrs. Hazleton of former days; but with the young girl she was less
successful than with her parents. Emily could never forget the visit
to her house, and what had there occurred, and the feelings which she
entertained towards Mrs. Hazleton were always those of doubt. Her
character was a riddle to Emily, as well it might be. There was
nothing upon which she could definitely fix as an indication, of a bad
heart, or of duplicity of nature, and yet she doubted; nor did Marlow
at all assist in clearing her mind; for although they often spoke of
Mrs. Hazleton, and Marlow admitted all her bright and shining
qualities, yet he became very taciturn when Emily entered more deeply
into that lady's character. Marlow likewise had his doubts, and to say
sooth, he was not at all well pleased to see Mrs. Hazleton so
frequently with Mrs. Hastings. He did not well know what it was he
feared, but yet there was a something which instinctively told him
that his interests in Emily's family would not find the most favorable
advocate in Mrs. Hazleton.
Such was the state of things when one evening there was assembled at
the house of Mr. Hastings, a small dinner party--the first which had
been given since his loss of property. The summer had returned, the
weather was beautiful, the guests were cheerful and intellectual, and
the dinner passed off happily enough. There were several gentlemen and
several ladies present, and amongst the latter was Mrs. Hazleton.
Politics at that time ran high: the people were not satisfied
altogether with the King whom they had themselves chosen, and several
acts of intolerance had proved that promises made before the
attainment of power are not always very strictly maintained when power
has been reached. Mr. Hastings had never meddled in the strife of
party. He had a thorough contempt for policy and politicians, but he
did not at all object to argue upon the general principles of
government, in an abstract manner, and very frequently startled his
hearers by opinions, not only unconstitutional, and wide and far from
any of the received notions of the day, but sometimes also, very
violent, and sometimes at first sight, irreconcilable with each other.
On the present occasion the conversation after dinner took a political
turn, and straying away from their wine, the gentlemen walked out into
the gardens, which were still beautifully kept up, and prolonged their
discussion in the open air. The ladies too--as all pictures show they
were fond of doing in those days--were walking amongst the flowers,
not in groups, but scattered here and there. Marlow was naturally
making his way to the side of Emily, who was tying up a shrub at no
great distance from the door, but Mrs. Hazleton unkindly called him to
her, to tell her the name of a flower which she did not know. In the
mean time Mr. Hastings took his daughter by the arm, leaning gently
upon her, and walking up and down the terrace, while he continued his
discussion with a Northumberland gentleman known in history as Sir
John Fenwick. "The case seems to be this," said Mr. Hastings, in reply
to some question or the other; "all must depend upon the necessity.
Violent means are bad as a remedy for any thing but violent evils, but
the greatness of the evil will often justify any degree of vigor in
the means. Will any one tell me that Brutus was not justified in
stabbing Caesar? Will any one tell me that William Tell was not
justified in all that he did against the tyrant of his country? I will
not pretend to justify the English regicides, not only because they
condemned a man by a process unknown to our laws, and repugnant to all
justice, but because they committed an act for which there was no
absolute necessity. Where an absolute necessity is shown,
indeed--where no other means can be found of obtaining freedom,
justice and security, I see no reason why a King should not be put to
death as well as any other man. Nay more, he who does the deed with a
full appreciation of its importance, a conscience clear of any private
motives, and a reasoning sense of all the bearings of the act he
commits, merits a monument rather than a gibbet, though in these days
he is sure to obtain the one and not the other."
"Hush, hush, do not speak so loud, my dear sir," said Sir John
Fenwick; "less than those words brought Sidney's head to the block."
"I am not afraid of mine," replied Mr. Hastings, with a faint smile;
"mine are mere abstract notions with regard to such things; very
little dangerous to any crowned heads, and if they thought fit to put
down such opinions, they would have to burn more than one half of all
the books we have derived from Rome."
Sir John Fenwick would not pursue the subject, however, and turned the
conversation in another course. He thought indeed that it had gone far
enough, especially when a young lady was present; for he was one of
those men who have no confidence in any woman's discretion, and he
knew well, though he did not profit much by his knowledge, that things
very slight, when taken abstractedly, may become very dangerous if
forced into connection with events. Philip Hastings would have said
what he did say, before any ears in Europe, without the slightest
fear, but as it proved, he had said too much for his own safety. No
one indeed seemed to have noticed the very strong opinions he had
expressed except Sir John Fenwick himself, and shortly after the party
gathered together again, and the conversation became general and not
very interesting.
CHAPTER XXVIII.
Men have lived and died in the pursuit of two objects the least
worthy, on which the high mind of man could ever fix, out of all the
vain illusions that lead us forward through existence from youth to
old age: the philosopher's stone, and the elixir of life. Gold, gold,
sordid gold--not competence--not independence, but wealth--profuse,
inexhaustible wealth--the hard food of Croesus; strange that it
should ever form the one great object of an immortal spirit! But
stranger still, that a being born to higher destinies should seek to
pin itself down to this dull earth forever--to dwell in a clay hut,
when a palace gates are open--to linger in a prison, when freedom may
be had--to outlive affections, friendships, hope and happiness--to
remain desolate in a garden where every flower has withered. To seek
the philosopher's stone--even could it have been found--was a madness:
but to desire the elixir of life was a worse insanity.
There was once, however, in the world's history a search--an eager
search, for that which at first sight may seem nearly the same as the
great elixir; but which was in reality very, very different.
We are told by the historians of America, that a tradition prevailed
amongst the Indians of Puerto Rico, that in one of the islands on the
coast, there was a fountain which possessed the marvellous power of
restoring, to any one who bathed in its waters, all the vigor and
freshness of youth, and that some of the Spanish adventurers sought it
anxiously, but sought in vain. Here indeed was an object worthy of
desire--here, what the heart might well yearn for, and mourn to find
impossible.
Oh, that fountain of youth, what might it not give back! The easy
pliancy of limb: the light activity of body: the calm, sweet sleep;
the power of enjoyment and acquisition: the freshness of the heart:
the brightness of the fancy: the brilliant dreams: the glorious
aspirations: the beauty and the gentleness: the innocence: the love.
We, who stand upon the shoal of memory, and look back in our faint
dreams, to the brighter land left far behind, may well long for that
sweet fountain which could renew--not life--but youth.
Oh youth--youth! Give me but one year of youth again. And it shall
come. I see it there, beyond the skies, that fountain of youth, in the
land where all flowers are immortal.
It is very strange, however, that with some men, when youth is gone,
its very memories die also. They can so little recollect the feelings
of that brighter time, that they cannot comprehend them in others:
that they become a mystery--a tale written in a tongue they have
forgotten.
It was so with Philip Hastings, and so also with his wife. Neither
seemed to comprehend the feelings of Marlow and Emily; but her father
understood them least. He had consented to their union: he approved of
her choice; but yet it seemed strange and unpleasant to him, that her
thoughts should be so completely given to her lover. He could hardly
believe that the intense affection she felt for another, was
compatible with love towards her parent. He knew not, or seemed to
have forgotten that the ordinance to leave all and cleave unto her
husband, is written in woman's heart as plainly as in the Book.
Nevertheless, that which he felt was not the least like
jealousy--although I have seen such a thing even in a parent towards a
child. It was a part of the problem of Emily's character, which he was
always trying to solve without success.
"Here," he thought, "she has known this young man, but a short
time--no years--not very many months; and yet, it is clear, that in
that short space, she has learned to love him better than those to
whom she is bound by every tie of long enduring affection and
tenderness."
Had he thought of comparing at all, her conduct and feelings with
those of his own youth, he would still have marvelled; for he would
have said, "I had no tenderness shown me in my young days--I was not
the companion, the friend, the idol, the peculiar loved one of father
or mother, so long as my elder brother lived. I loved her who first
really loved me. From _my_ parents, I had met small affection, and but
little kindness. It was therefore natural that I should fix my love
elsewhere, as they had fixed theirs. But with my child, the case is
very different."
Yet he loved Marlow well--was fond of his society--was well pleased
that he was to be his daughter's husband; but even in his case, Mr.
Hastings was surprised in a certain degree; for Marlow did not, and
could not conceal that he loved Emily's society better than her
father's--that he would rather a great deal be with her than with
Brutus himself or Cato.
This desire on the part of Marlow to be ever by her side, was a great
stumbling-block in the way of Mr. Hastings' schemes for re-educating
Marlow, and giving that strength and vigor to his character of which
his future father-in-law had thought it susceptible. He made very
little progress, and perhaps Marlow's society might even have had some
influence upon him--might have softened--mitigated his character; but
that there were counteracting influences continually at work.
All that had lately happened--the loss of fortune and of station--the
dark and irritating suspicions which had been instilled into his mind
in regard to his child's conduct--the doubts which had been produced
of her frankness and candor--the fact before his eyes, that she loved
another better, far better, than himself, with a kind word, now and
then, from Mrs. Hazleton, spoken to drive the dart deeper into his
heart, had rendered him somewhat morose and gloomy,--apt to take a bad
view of other people's actions, and to judge less fairly than he
always wished to judge. When Marlow hastened away from him to rejoin
Emily, and paint, with her, in all the brightest colors of
imagination, a picture of the glowing future, her father would walk
solitary and thoughtful, giving himself up to dark and unprofitable
reveries.
Mrs. Hastings in the mean time would take counsel with Mrs. Hazleton,
and they would settle between them that the father was already
dissatisfied with the engagement he had aided to bring about, and that
a little persevering opposition on the part of the mother, would
ultimately bring that engagement to an end.
Mrs. Hastings, too, thought--or rather seemed to feel, for she did not
reduce it to thought--that she had now a greater right to exercise
some authority in regard to her daughter's marriage, as Emily's whole
fortune must proceed from her own property. She ventured to oppose
more boldly, and to express her opinion against the marriage, both to
her husband and her child. It was against the advice of Mrs. Hazleton
that she did so; for that lady knew Mr. Hastings far better than his
own wife knew him; and while Emily's cheek burned, and her eye swam in
tears, Mr. Hastings replied in so stern and bitter a tone that Mrs.
Hastings shrunk back alarmed at what she herself had done.
But the word had been spoken: the truth revealed. Both Mr. Hastings
and Emily were thenceforth aware that she wished the engagement
between her daughter and Marlow broken off--she was opposed to the
marriage; and would oppose it.
The effect of this revelation of her views upon her child and her
husband, was very different. Emily had colored with surprise and
grief--not, as her father thought, with anger; and she resolved
thenceforth to endeavor to soften her mother's feelings towards him
she loved, and to win her consent to that upon which all her own
happiness depended; but in which her own happiness could not be
complete without a mother's approbation.
Mr. Hastings, on the contrary, entertained no expectation that his
wife would ever change her views, even if she changed her course. Some
knowledge--some comprehension of her character had been forced upon
him during the many years of their union; and he believed that, if all
open remonstrance, and declared opposition had been crushed by his
sharp and resolute answer, there would nevertheless be continual or
ever recurring efforts on Mrs. Hastings' part, to have her own way,
and thwart both his purposes and Emily's affection. He prepared to
encounter that sort of irritating guerrilla warfare of last words, and
sneers, and innuendoes, by which a wife sometimes endeavors to
overcome a husband's resolutions; and he hardened himself to resist.
He knew that she could not conquer in the strife; but he determined to
put an end to the warfare, either by some decided expression of his
anger at such proceedings, or by uniting Emily to Marlow, much sooner
than he had at first proposed.
The latter seemed the easiest method, and there was a great chance of
the marriage, which it had been agreed should be delayed till Emily
was nineteen, taking place much earlier, when events occurred which
produced even a longer delay.
One of the first steps taken by Mr. Hastings to show his wife that her
unreasonable opposition would have no effect upon him, was not only to
remove the prohibition of those lovers' rambles which Mrs. Hastings
had forbidden, but to send his daughter and her promised husband forth
together on any pretext that presented itself. He took the opportunity
of doing so, first, when his wife was present, and on the impulse of
the moment, she ventured to object. One look--one word from her
husband, however, silenced her; for they were a look and word too
stern to be trifled with, and Emily went to dress for her walk; but
she went with the tears in her eyes. She was grieved to find that all
that appertained to her happiness was likely to become a cause of
dissension between her father and her mother. Had Marlow not been
concerned--had his happiness not been also at stake--she would have
sacrificed any thing--every thing--to avoid such a result; but she
felt she had no right to yield to caprice, where he was to suffer as
well as herself.
The walk took place, and it might have been very sweet to both, had
not the scene which had immediately preceded poured a drop of
bitterness into their little cup of joy. Such walks were often renewed
during the month that followed; but Emily was not so happy as she
might have been; for she saw that her father assumed a sterner, colder
tone towards his wife, and believed that she might be the unwilling
cause of this painful alienation. She knew not that it proceeded
partly from another source--that Mr. Hastings had discovered, or
divined, that his wife had some feeling of increased power and
authority from the fact of his having lost his large estates, and of
her property being all that remained to them both.
Poor Emily! Marlow's love, that dream of joy, seemed destined to
produce, for a time at least, nothing but grief and anxiety. Her
reveries became more frequent, and more deep, and though her lover
could call her from them in a moment, no one else had the power.
One day, Marlow and his Emily--for whom every day his love increased;
for he knew and comprehended her perfectly, and he was the only
one--had enjoyed a more happy and peaceful ramble than usual, through
green lanes, and up the hill, and amidst the bright scenery which lay
on the confines of the two counties, and they returned slowly towards
the house, not anticipating much comfort there. As they approached,
they saw from the road a carriage standing before the door, dusty, as
if from a long journey, but with the horses still attached. There were
three men, too, with the carriage, besides the driver, and they were
walking their horses up and down the terrace, as if their stay was to
be but short. It was an unusual number of attendants, even in those
days, to accompany a carriage in the country, except upon some visit
of great ceremony; and the vehicle itself--a large, old, rumbling
coach, which had seen better days--gave no indication of any great
state or dignity on the part of its owner.
Why, she knew not, but a feeling of fear, or at least anxiety, came
over Emily as she gazed, and turning to Marlow, she said, "Who can
these visitors be?"
"I know not, indeed, dear love," he answered, "but the equipage is
somewhat strange. Were we in France," he added, with a laugh, "I
should think it belonged to an exempt, bearing a _lettre de cachet_."
Emily smiled also, for the idea of her father having incurred the
anger of any government or violated any law seemed to her quite out of
the question.
When they approached the door, however, they were met by a servant,
with a grave and anxious countenance, who told her that her father
wished to see her immediately in the dining hull.
"Is there any one with him?" asked Emily, in some surprise.
"Yes, Mistress Emily," replied the man, "there is a strange gentleman
with him. But you had better go in at once; for I am afraid things are
not going well."
Marlow drew her arm through his, and pressed it gently to make her
feel support; and then went into the eating-room, as it was usually
called, by her side.
When they entered they found the scene a strange and painful one. Mr.
Hastings was seated near a window, with his hat on, and his cloak cast
down on a chair beside him. His wife was placed near him, weeping
bitterly; and at the large table in the middle of the room was a
coarse-looking man, in the garb of a gentleman, but with no other
indication but that of dress of belonging to a superior class. He was
very corpulent, and his face, though shadowed by an enormous wig, was
large and bloated. There was food and wine before him, and to both he
seemed to be doing ample justice, without taking any notice of the
master of the house or his weeping lady.
Mr. Hastings, however, rose and advanced towards his daughter, as soon
as she entered, and in an instant the eye of the gormandizing guest
was raised from his plate and turned towards the party, with a look of
eager suspicion.
"Oh, my dear father, what is this?" exclaimed Emily, running towards
him.
"One of those accidents of life, my child," replied Mr. Hastings,
"from which I had hoped to be exempt--most foolishly. But it seems,"
he continued, "no conduct, however reserved, can shield one from the
unjust suspicions of princes and governments."
"Very good cause for suspicion, sir," said the man at the table,
quaffing a large glass of wine. "Mr. Secretary would not have signed a
warrant without strong evidence. Vernon is a cautious man, sir, a very
cautious man."
"And who is this person?" asked Marlow, pointing to the personage who
spoke.
"A messenger of the powers that be," replied Mr. Hastings; "it seems
that because Sir John Fenwick dined here a short time ago, and has
since been accused of some practices against the state, his Majesty's
advisers have thought fit to connect me with his doings, or their own
suspicions, though they might as well have sent down to arrest my
butler or my footman, and I am now to have the benefit of a journey to
the Tower of London under arrest."
"Or to Newgate," said the messenger, significantly.
"To London, at all events," replied Mr. Hastings.
"I will go with you," said Marlow, at once; but before the prisoner
could answer, the messenger interfered, saying, "That I cannot allow."
"I am afraid you must allow it," replied Marlow, "whether it pleases
you or not."
"I will have no one in the carriage with my prisoner," said the
messenger, striking the table gently with the haft of his knife.
"That may be," answered Marlow; "but you will not, I presume, pretend
to prevent my going where I please in my own carriage; and when once
in London, I shall find no difficulty, knowing Mr. Vernon well."
The latter announcement made a great change in the messenger's
demeanor, and he became much more tame and docile from the moment it
struck his ear.
Mr. Hastings indeed would fain have persuaded his young friend to
remain where he was, and looked at Emily with some of that tenderer
feeling of a parent which so often prompts to every sacrifice for a
child's sake. But Emily thanked Marlow eagerly for proposing to go;
and Mrs. Hastings, even, expressed some gratitude.
The arrangements were soon made. There being no time to send for
Marlow's own carriage and horses, it was agreed that he should take a
carriage belonging to Mr. Hastings, with his horses, for the first
stage; the prisoner's valet was to accompany his friend, and immediate
orders were given for the necessary preparations.
When all was ready, Emily asked some question of her father, in a low
tone, to which he replied, "On no account, my child. I will send for
you and your mother should need be; but do not stir before I do. This
is a mere cloud--a passing shower, which will soon be gone, and leave
the sky as bright as ever. We do not live in an age when kings of
England can play at foot-ball with the heads of innocent men, and I,
as you all know, am innocent."
He then embraced his wife and child with more tenderness than he was
wont to show, and entering the carriage first, was followed by the
messenger. The other men mounted their horses, and Marlow did not
linger long behind the sad cavalcade.
CHAPTER XXIX.
Philip Hastings had calculated much upon his Roman firmness; and he
could have borne death, or any great and sudden calamity, with
fortitude; but small evils often affect us more than great ones. He
knew not what it is to suffer long imprisonment, to undergo the
wearing, grinding process of life within a prison's walls. He knew not
the effect of long suspense either, of the fretful impatience for some
turn in our fate, of the dull monotony of long continued expectation
and protracted disappointment, of the creeping on of leaden despair,
which craves nothing in the end but some change, be it for better or
for worse.
They took him to Newgate--the prison of common felons, and there, in a
small room, strictly guarded, he remained for more than two months. At
first he would send for no lawyer, for he fancied that there must
either be some error on the part of the government, or that the
suspicion against him must be so slight as to be easily removable. But
day went by on day, and hour followed hour, without any appearance of
a change in his fate. There came a great alteration, however, in his
character. He became morose, gloomy, irritable. Every dark point in
his own fate and history--every painful event which had occurred for
many years--every doubt or suspicion which had spread gloom and
anxiety through his mind, was now magnified a thousand-fold by long,
brooding, solitary meditation. He pondered such things daily, hourly,
in the broad day, in the dead, still night, when want of exercise
deprived him of sleep, till his brain seemed to turn, and his whole
heart was filled with stern bitterness.
Marlow, who visited him every day by permission of the Secretary of
State, found him each day much changed, both in appearance and manner;
and even his conversation gave but small relief. He heard with small
emotion the news of the day, or of his own family. He read the letters
of his wife and daughter coldly. He heard even the intelligence that
Sir John Fenwick was condemned for high treason, and to die on a
scaffold, without any appearance of interest. He remained
self-involved and thoughtful.
At length, after a long interval--for the government was undecided how
to proceed in his and several other cases connected with that famous
conspiracy--a day was appointed for his first examination by the
Secretary of State; for matters were then conducted in a very
different manner from that in which they are treated at present; and
he was carried under guard to Whitehall.
Vernon was a calm and not unamiable man; and treating the prisoner
with unaffected gentleness, he told him that the government was very
anxious to avoid the effusion of any more blood, and expressed a hope
that Mr. Hastings would afford such explanations of his conduct as
would save the pain of proceeding against him. He did not wish by any
means, he said, to induce him to criminate himself; but merely to give
such explanations as he might think fit.
Philip Hastings replied, with stern bitterness, that before he could
give any explanations, he must learn what there was in his conduct to
explain. "It has ever been open, plain, and straightforward," he said.
"I have taken no part in conspiracies, very little part in politics. I
have nothing to fear from any thing I myself can utter; for I have
nothing to conceal. Tell me what is the charge against me, and I will
answer it boldly. Ask what questions you please; and I will reply at
once to those to which I can find a reply in my own knowledge."
"I thought the nature of the charge had been made fully known to you,"
replied Vernon. "However, it is soon stated. You are charged, Mr.
Hastings, with having taken a most decided part in the criminal
designs, if not in the criminal acts, of that unfortunate man Sir John
Fenwick. Nay, of having first suggested to him the darkest of all his
designs, namely, the assassination of his Majesty."
"I suggest the assassination of the King!" exclaimed Mr. Hastings. "I
propose such an act! Sir, the charge is ridiculous. Has not the only
share I ever took in politics been to aid in placing King William upon
the throne, and consistently to support his government since? What the
ministers of the crown can seek by bringing such a charge against me,
I know not; but it is evidently fictitious, and of course has an
object."
Vernon's cheek grew somewhat red, and he replied warmly, "That is an
over-bold assertion, sir. But I will soon satisfy you that it is
unjust, and that the crown has not acted without cause. Allow me,
then, to tell you, that no sooner had the conspiracy of Sir John
Fenwick been detected, and his apprehension been made known, than
information was privately given--from your own part of the country--to
the following effect;" and he proceeded to read from a paper, which
had evidently been folded in the form of a letter, the ensuing words:
"That on the ---- day of May last, when walking in the gardens of his
own house, called 'The Court,' he--that is yourself, sir--used the
following language to Sir John Fenwick: 'When no other means can be
found of obtaining justice, freedom, and security, I see no reason why
a king should not be put to death as well as any other man. He who
does the deed merits a monument rather than a gibbet.' Such was the
information, sir, on which government first acted in causing your
apprehension."
The Secretary paused, and for a few moments Mr. Hastings remained
gazing down in silence, like a man utterly confounded. Vernon thought
he had touched him home; but the emotions in the prisoner's bosom,
though very violent, were very different from those which the
Secretary attributed to him. He remembered the conversation well, but
he remembered also that the only one who, besides Sir John Fenwick,
was with him at the moment, was his own child. I will not dwell upon
his feelings, but they absorbed him entirely, till the Secretary went
on, saying--"Not satisfied with such slender information, Mr.
Hastings, the government caused that unhappy criminal, Sir John
Fenwick, to be asked, after his fate was fixed, if he recollected your
having used those words to him, and he replied, 'something very like
them.'"
"And I reply the same," exclaimed Philip Hastings, sternly. "I did use
those words, or words very like them. But, sir, they were in
connection with others, which, had they been repeated likewise, would
have taken all criminal application from them. May I be permitted to
look at that letter in your hand, to see how much was really told, how
much suppressed?"
"I have read it all to you," said Mr. Vernon, "but you may look at it
if you please," and he handed it to him across the table. Philip
Hastings spread it out before him, trembling violently, and then drew
another letter from his pocket, and laid them side by side. He ran his
eye from one to the other for a moment or two, and then sunk slowly
down, fainting upon the floor.
While a turnkey and one of the messengers raised him, and some efforts
were made to bring him back to consciousness, Mr. Vernon walked round
the table and looked at the two letters which were still lying on it.
He compared them eagerly, anxiously. The handwriting of the one was
very similar to that of the other, and in the beginning of that which
Mr. Hastings had taken from his pocket, the Secretary found the words,
"My dear father." It was signed, "Emily Hastings;" and Vernon
instantly comprehended the nature of the terrible emotion he had
witnessed.
He was really, as I have said, a kind and humane man, and he felt very
much for the prisoner, who was speedily brought to himself again, and
seated in a chair before the table.
"Perhaps, Mr. Hastings," said Vernon, "we had better not protract this
conversation to-day. I will see you again to-morrow, at this hour, if
you would prefer that arrangement."
"Not at all, sir," answered the prisoner, "I will answer now, for
though the body be weak, the spirit is strong. Remember, however, that
I am not pleading for life. Life is valueless to me. The block and axe
would be a relief. I am only pleading to prevent my own character from
being stained, and to frustrate this horrible design. I used the words
imputed to me; but if I recollect right, with several qualifications,
even in the sentence which has been extracted. But before that, many
other words had passed which entirely altered the whole bearing of the
question. The conversation began about the regicides of the great
rebellion, and although my father was of the party in arms against the
King, I expressed my unqualified disapprobation of their conduct in
putting their sovereign to death. I then approached as a mere matter
of abstract reasoning, in which, perhaps, I am too apt to indulge, the
subject of man's right to resist by any means an unendurable tyranny,
and I quoted the example of Brutus and William Tell; and it was in the
course of these abstract remarks, that I used the words which have
been cited. I give you my word, however, and pledge my honor, that I
entertained no thought, and had no cause whatever to believe that Sir
John Fenwick who was dining with me as an old acquaintance,
entertained hostile designs against the government of his native
land."
"Your admitted opinions, Mr. Hastings," said Vernon, "seem to me to be
very dangerous ones."
"That may be," replied the prisoner, "but in this country at least,
sir, you cannot kill a man for opinions."
"No; but those opinions, expressed in conversation with others who
proceed to acts," replied Vernon, "place a man in a very dangerous
position, Mr. Hastings. I will not conceal from you that you are in
some peril; but at the same time I am inclined to think that the
evidence, without your admissions this day, might prove insufficient,
and it is not my intention to take advantage of any thing you have
said. I shall report to his Majesty accordingly; but the proceedings
of the government will be guided by the opinion of the law officers of
the crown, and not by mine. I therefore can assure you of nothing
except my sincere grief at the situation in which you are placed."
"I little heed the result of your report, sir," replied Mr. Hastings;
"life, I say, is valueless to me, and if I am brought to trial for
words very innocently spoken, I shall only make the same defence I
have done this day, and I shall call no witness; the only witness of
the whole," he added with stern, concentrated bitterness, "is probably
on the side of the crown."
Mr. Hastings was then removed to Newgate, leaving the two letters on
the table behind him, and as soon as he was gone, Mr. Vernon sent a
messenger to an inn near Charing Cross, to say he should be glad to
speak for a few moments with Mr. Marlow. In about half an hour Marlow
was there, and was received by Vernon as an old acquaintance. The door
was immediately closed, and Marlow seated himself near the table,
turning his eyes away, however, as an honorable man from the papers
which lay on it.
"I have had an interview with your friend, Mr. Marlow," said the
Secretary, "and the scene has been a very painful one. Mr. Hastings
has been more affected than I expected, and actually fainted."
Marlow's face expressed unutterable astonishment, for the idea of
Philip Hastings fainting under any apprehension whatever, could never
enter into the mind of any one who knew him.
"Good God!" he exclaimed, "what could be the cause of that? Not fear,
I am sure."
"Something more painful than even fear, I believe," replied Mr.
Vernon; "Mr. Hastings has a daughter, I believe?"
"Yes, sir, he has," replied Marlow, somewhat stiffly.
"Do you know her handwriting?" asked the Secretary.
"Yes, perfectly well," answered Marlow.
"Then be so good as to take up that letter next you," said Vernon,
"and tell me if it is in her hand."
Marlow took up the paper, glanced at it, and at once said, "Yes;" but
the next instant he corrected himself, saying, "No, no--it is very
like Emily's hand--very, very like; but more constrained."
"May not that proceed from an attempt to disguise her hand?" asked
Vernon.
"Or from an attempt on the part of some other to imitate it," rejoined
Marlow; "but this is very strange, Mr. Vernon; may I read this
through?"
"Certainly," replied the Secretary, and Marlow read every word three
or four times over with eager attention. They seemed to affect him
very much, for notwithstanding the Secretary's presence, he started up
and paced the room for a minute or two in thought.
"I must unravel this dark mystery," he said at length. "Mr. Vernon,
there have been strange things taking place lately in the family of
Mr. Hastings. Things which have created in my mind a suspicion that
some secret and external agency is at work to destroy his peace as
well as to ruin his happiness, and still more, I fear, to ruin the
happiness of his daughter. This letter is but one link in a long chain
of suspicious facts, and I am resolved to sift the whole matter to the
bottom. The time allowed me to do so, must depend upon the course you
determine to pursue towards Mr. Hastings. If you resolve to proceed
against him I must lose no time--although I think I need hardly say,
there is small chance of your success upon such evidence as this;" and
he struck the letter with his fingers.
"We have more evidence, such as it is," replied Vernon, "and he
himself admits having used those words."
Marlow paused thoughtfully, and then replied, "He may have used
them--he is very likely to have used them; but it must have been quite
abstractedly, and with no reference to any existing circumstance. I
remember the occasion on which Sir John Fenwick dined with him,
perfectly. I was there myself. Now let me see if I can recall all the
facts. Yes, I can, distinctly. During the whole of dinner--during the
short time we sat after dinner, those words were never used; nor were
conspiracies and treason ever thought of. I remember, too, from a
particular circumstance, that when we went out into the gardens Mr.
Hastings took his daughter's arm, and walked up and down the terrace
with Sir John Fenwick at his side. That must have been the moment. But
I need hardly point out to you, Mr. Vernon, that such was not a time
when any man in his senses, and especially a shrewd, cunning, timid
man, like Sir John Fenwick, would have chosen for the development of
treasonable designs."
"Were any other persons near?" asked Vernon; "the young lady might
have been in the conspiracy as well as her father."
Marlow laughed. "There were a dozen near," he answered; "they were
subject to interruption at any moment--nay, they could not have gone
on for three minutes; for that pace of time did not elapse after the
gentlemen entered the garden where the ladies were, before I was at
Emily's side, and not one word of this kind was spoken afterwards."
"Then what could have induced her to report those words to the
government?" asked Mr. Vernon.
"She never did so," replied Marlow, earnestly; "this is not her
handwriting, though the imitation is very good--and now, sir," he
continued, "if it be proper, will you explain to me what course you
intend to pursue, that I may act accordingly? For as I before said, I
am resolved to search this mystery out into its darkest recesses. It
has gone on too long already."
Vernon smiled. "You are asking a good deal," he said, "but yet my
views are so strong upon the subject, that I think I may venture to
state them, even if the case against Mr. Hastings should be carried a
step or two farther--which might be better, in order to insure his not
being troubled on an after occasion. I shall strongly advise that a
_nolle prosequi_ be entered, and I think I may add that my advice will
be taken."
"You think I have asked much already, Mr. Vernon," said Marlow, "but I
am now going to ask more. Will you allow me to have this letter? I
give you my word of honor that it shall only be used for the purposes
of justice. You have known me from my boyhood, my dear sir; you can
trust me."
"Perfectly, my young friend," replied Vernon, "but you must not take
the letter to-day. In two days the action of the government will be
determined, and if it be such as I anticipate you shall have the
paper, and I trust it will lead to some discovery of the motives and
circumstances of this strange transaction. Most mysterious it
certainly is; for one can hardly suppose any one but a fiend thus
seeking to bring a father's life into peril."
"A fiend!" exclaimed Marlow, with a scoff, "much more like an angel,
my dear sir."
"You seem to think so," said Vernon, smiling, "and I trust, though
love is blind, he may have left you clear-sighted in this instance."
"I think he has," answered Marlow, "and as this young lady's fate is
soon to be united to mine, it is very necessary I should see clearly.
I entertain no doubt, indeed, and I say boldly, that Emily never wrote
this letter. It will give me, however, a clue which perhaps may lead
me to the end of the labyrinth, though as yet I hardly see my way. But
a strong resolution often does much."
"Might it not be better for you," asked Vernon, "to express your
doubts in regard to this letter to Mr. Hastings himself? He was
terribly affected, as well he might be, when he saw this document, and
believed it to be his own child's writing."
Marlow mused for some time ere he replied. "I think not," he answered
at length; "he is a man of peculiar disposition; stern, somewhat
gloomy, but honorable, upright, and candid. Now what I am going to say
may make me appear as stern as himself, but if he is suffering from
doubts of that dear girl, knowing her as well as he does, he is
suffering from his own fault, and deserves it. However, my object is
not to punish him, but thoroughly, completely, and for ever to open
his eyes, and to show him so strongly that he has done his child
injustice, as to prevent his ever doing the like again. This can only
be done by bringing all the proofs upon him at once, and my task is
now to gather them together. To my mere opinion regarding the
handwriting, he would not give the slightest heed, but he will not
shut his eyes to proofs. May I calculate upon having the letter in two
days?"
"I think you may," replied Vernon.
"Then when will Mr. Hastings be set free?" asked Marlow; "I should
wish to have some start of him into the country."
"That will depend upon various circumstances," replied the Secretary;
"I think we shall take some steps towards the trial before we enter
the _nolle prosequi_. It is necessary to check in some way the
expression of such very dangerous opinions as he entertains."
Marlow made no reply but by a smile, and they soon after parted.
* * * * *
One of the writers upon German politics reproduces the story of the
Englishman, Frenchman, and German, who were required by some unknown
power to draw a sketch of a camel. The Frenchman hied him to the
Jardin des Plantes, and came back with his sketch in no time. The more
conscientious Briton at once took ship for the East, and returned with
his drawing from the life of nature. But the German went to the
library of the prince of his country to ascertain what a camel was. He
lived to a great age, with the reputation of being very learned, and a
little crazed with the depth of his researches, and on his death-bed
told his physician in confidence that he did not believe there was
such an animal at all!
FOOTNOTES:
[3] Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1850, by G. P.
R. James, in the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the United
States for the Southern District of New-York.
THE COUNT MONTE-LEONE: OR, THE SPY IN SOCIETY.[4]
TRANSLATED FOR THE INTERNATIONAL MONTHLY MAGAZINE FROM THE FRENCH OF
H. DE ST. GEORGES.
_Continued from page 211_
VIII.--THE FOUR PULCINELLI.
Doctor Matheus, as the reader must have guessed from the previous
chapter, was Freiderick von Apsberg, one of the four Pulcinelli of the
ball of San Carlo, the young German who was the son of the venerable
pastor of the city of Ellogen, in Bohemia.
Freiderick von Apsberg had been educated in one of the most celebrated
universities of Germany, that of Leipsic,--where he had imbibed that
very social contagion, a passion for detestable demagogic fancies,
with which all those scientific _lazaretti_ of Germany were filled.
The dreamy and often poetic forms in which those ideas were
enunciated, easily touched the heart of that long peaceable nation,
and opened to it a field of mad and resistless hopes which could not
but plunge it into that abyss of disorder, trouble, and crime, in
which it has been recently seen sweltering.
Freiderick, not thinking his country yet prepared for the propagation
of his principles, sought for an echo among other European nations.
The rising _Carbonarism_ of Italy opened its arms to him, and received
him as one of its future supporters. There he had become acquainted
with Monte-Leone, and participated in the religion of which he was the
high priest. On his return to Germany, after his expulsion from Italy,
he had discovered that the work had advanced during his absence, that
the myth had been personified, and that the seed had germinated.
Germany, especially the _poor_ of Germany, began to be deeply
agitated; the _Carbonaro_ made many proselytes, and won many new
members to the association. The death of his father having endowed him
with some fortune, he completed his studies, and became one of the
most fervent apostles of that mysterious science of which he spoke to
the Duke d'Harcourt; but, being made uncomfortable by the German
police, he left his country, after having established a connection
with the _Vente_ which had been formed there. He then came to France,
where we find him under the name of Doctor Matheus, and living in the
awful No. 13 of Babylonne street;--his house was the rendezvous of the
principal members of the _Vente_ of Paris, where his profession amply
accounted for the many visitors he received. His three friends,
however, fearing that their frequent visits would be remarked, often
had recourse to disguises. Thus it is that we saw the Englishman, the
Auvergnot, and the peasant, so cavalierly treated by Mlle Crepineau.
"This is the hour of consultation, my dear Doctor," said the Viscount
to Von Apsberg; "where are the patients?" In a serious tone the
latter replied, "In France, Italy, Germany, and all the
continent.--Their disease is a painful oppression, an extreme
lassitude in every member of the social body, a slow fever, and
general feeling of indisposition."
"What physician will cure so many diseases?" asked the Viscount.
"_Carbonarism!_"
"Are you sure of this?" asked d'Harcourt, who, probably for the first
time in his life, said any thing reasonable. This was a doubt, almost
a defection to that cause into which his generous and enthusiastic
nature had cast him. Rene d'Harcourt had originally formed but a
passing intimacy with Monte-Leone, the object of which was pleasure
alone. The latter, however, soon discovered his friend's courage and
truth, and ultimately initiated him in all his political mysteries and
dreams. D'Harcourt, attracted by the occult power exerted by the Count
over his associates, and led astray to a degree by his specious
theories in relation to national happiness, which Monte-Leone knew how
to dress so well in the most energetic language, was carried away by
the temptation of becoming a political personage; perhaps, also, as la
Felina said at the Etruscan villa, not a little under the influence of
idleness, and the wish to be able to tell wonders of himself, joined
in all these plots. He had become affiliated to the society of which
Monte-Leone was the chief, and when he was expelled from Italy,
represented himself to his particular friends as a martyr of political
faith: he had, by the by, a very faint confidence in it, and cared
very little about it; and this, even, was insensibly lessened when, on
his return to France and his family, he saw the high distinction which
his father enjoyed, and was aware that by rank and birth he would one
day be called on to play a conspicuous part in the history of his
country. He could not understand, therefore, how this country could
demand a general convulsion to obtain a hypothetical better, in place
of a positive good.
This, as we have said, was the state of his mind, when Monte-Leone,
Taddeo, and Frederick returned to Paris. They talked to him of his
oaths, of the pledge they had taken, of his position as a
_Carbonaro_,--to which he would make no reply. The Viscount a second
time falling under the influence of Monte-Leone, captivated again by
the charms of friendship, and the glory of being the regenerator of
his country, fancied himself also bound by his honor to pursue the
path on which he had entered. He therefore resumed his old chains, and
became the SEIDE of a cause to which he was attracted neither by
sympathy nor by reason.
The phrase which had escaped from the lips, or rather the good sense
of the young man, sounded to Monte-Leone like a false note in a
chorus. He said, "Rene, God forbid that we should seek to link you to
our fate if you do not believe in our cause. Remain inactive in the
strife about to ensue; your honor will be a sufficient pledge for your
silence in relation to our secrets. Henceforth be a brother to us only
in love. Von Apsberg, the grand archivest of the association, will
efface your name from our list; and whatever misfortune befall us, I
shall at least have the satisfaction of knowing that you were not
involved in our ruin."
This offer, instead of being received by Rene d'Harcourt, increased
his zeal, which otherwise would have died away.
"Leave you?" said he,--"abandon you, when the hour of danger has
come?--desert the field of battle when the combat is about to begin?
My friendship, my courage, and my honor, all forbid me to do so."
The four friends clasped their hands, and Monte-Leone said,--"Now
listen to me, for time is precious. The _Vente_ of the kingdom of
Naples, and those of all Italy, of which I refuse to be any longer the
chief, do not on that account distrust me, but have just given me a
striking proof of their confidence. It is so great that I hesitate
even to accept it."
"Speak," said all the friends at once.
"I have received this letter," said Monte-Leone.
"The delegates of all the Italian _Vente_, relying on the prudence,
valor, and judgment of Count Monte-Leone, refer to him the decision of
the time when, and the manner in which, it is proper for them to
manifest their principles. Count Monte-Leone is requested to open a
communication with the Vente of France, that there may be a
simultaneous movement with those of Italy."
"Thus," said the Count, "in accepting this mission, I become the god,
the sovereign arbiter of this immense work, and have its fate in my
hands."
Von Apsberg said, "you have that of Italy and Germany--for the _Vente_
of my country will act when I speak, or rather when you do."
An expression of pride flashed across Monte-Leone's face. He had
evidently been mortified at not becoming supreme director, yet the
staff of command was again placed in his grasp. It was not now,
though, to confer the command of a single country, but, to use his own
words, he became the all-powerful controller of Europe, and, in his
opinion, the hope of the universe. This strange man, made up of
greatness and littleness, like all the political idealists who erect
altars to the creatures of their dreams, and ignorantly make a
sacrifice of logic, good sense and reason--this man who sighed for
universal liberty, was delighted at the prospect of great, despotic,
and aristocratic power, to be exerted by his will alone in three great
countries. The Count then yielded willingly to the persuasions of his
friends, and promised to fulfil the wishes of the Italian _Vente_. He
said, "The time for action is not come. The French police, in fact,
is busy only with the known enemies of the Government, with
persons who are compromised in these petty plots originated by
self-love--regret for the past, and ambition. Our object is greater;
for we do not serve a man, but an idea, or rather the assemblage of
ideas, to be expanded everywhere at once, and to replace the darkness
of old civilization by torrents of far more dazzling light. The dawn
of that light though has not yet come."
"Yet," said Von Apsberg, "the notes I receive announce the formation
of new _Vente_ on all sides of us."
"Paris is filled with Carbonari," added d'Harcourt. "Our secret and
masonic sign reveals the existence of brothers everywhere to me. I see
them in the public places, on the benches of the lawyers, and among
the very judges."
"True," said Von Apsberg, "and as an evidence of what d'Harcourt says,
look at these voluminous names." The friends examined them carefully.
"It matters not," said Monte-Leone, "too much precipitation would ruin
all. Remember our device, _an auger piercing the globe_."
During all this conversation, Taddeo had remained silent and
thoughtful, and the Count at last observed it.
"My friend," said he, "why are you so sad? Can it be, like d'Harcourt
just now, that you have any doubt or scruple about our cause? Do you
hesitate at the dangers?"
Taddeo, as if he were aroused from a dream, said: "The dangers I
anxiously invite, as likely to free me from a life which is become a
burden."
Monte-Leone grew pale at these words, for he knew the reason of his
deep despair; and the iron of remorse pierced his heart. Before,
however, Taddeo's friends could question him, a strange accident
attracted the attention of the actors of this scene.
A noise, at first faint and then louder, which resembled that of the
spider in its web, suddenly interrupted the conversation. It seemed to
come from the interior of one of the panels.
"Here it is," said Monte-Leone, pointing at one of the book-cases.
"Yes," said Von Apsberg, with a sign of admiration.
"Can we have been overheard?" said d'Harcourt.
"I think so," said the false Matheus.
The Visconte and Taddeo at once took pistols from their pockets and
cocked them.
"It is of no use," said the physician, pointing to the arms of his
friends. "Put on your disguises, for it is unnecessary even that the
brothers should know you. Kant has said, _When there is a secret to be
kept it is desirable that all who are intrusted with it should be
deaf, blind, and dumb_. Let us then tempt no one, and remember there
is no one here but a doctor and two patients."
"But the Count," said d'Harcourt, "is he forgotten?"
"Ah," said the doctor, "he must be seen."
The noise increased, and something of impatience was remarkable in the
little taps on the wood-work.
"It is he, is it not?" said Monte-Leone.
"Yes," said Frederick, "for no one else uses that entrance."
Von Apsberg then approached the library and touched a spring which
threw open a panel on which the books were arranged. With a key the
doctor then opened another door, through which a man entered. The day
was advanced, and the shades of night enwrapped almost all the room.
The scene we describe took place in the most remote and consequently
in the darkest portion of the vast studio. The appearance of the man
assumed a terrible and fantastic air.
"Ah! what is there so urgent that you trouble thus, my dear Pignana?"
said the Count to the new comer.
Signor Pignana, our old Neapolitan acquaintance, the pretended tailor
and owner of the Etruscan House, the mysterious guide of the Count
among the ruins of San Paolo, bowed to the earth as he always did
before the Count, and was evidently about to speak, when he stopped
short and pointed to the peasant and my lord, the profiles of whom he
could see distinctly in a moonbeam which came through one of the
windows.
"They are brethren," said Matheus, "you may speak."
"Well then," said Pignana, piqued by the brusque manner of the Count,
"I thought the case _urgent_, (he accented the last word,) and
therefore came to warn your excellency of danger."
"What danger?" asked the Count, with his usual _sang-froid_.
"And since his excellency," said Pignana, "forbade me to come to his
house, I was obliged to come here, though I believe my appearance is
respectable enough to pass scrutiny anywhere."
"Signor Pignana, I must now, once for all, tell you the motives of my
conduct. I would not do so in any case were I not satisfied how
devoted you are to me."
Pignana bowed again.
"Your appearance," said the Count, "is certainly very honest and
respectable. The _fund_ of honesty is, however, perhaps not so good;
for as a smuggler, a skimmer of the seas----, but I stop here, lest I
should displease you, for you may, after all, have something on your
conscience. There is, you know, a certain Neapolitan Ambassador at
Paris who was once a minister of police in our beautiful country. Now,
Signor Pignana, people never have to do with the police without some
very unpleasant consequences. I have an idea also that the Duke of
Palma, at whose house I was a fortnight ago, did not fail to inform
the Prefect of the Police of the city, of my being in Paris. This is
a delicate attention from one police to another. The Duke, also,
probably pointed out many of my old acquaintances, among whom you have
the honor to be; you will understand, by aid of your knowledge of
_doubtful affairs_, that if it be known that I receive you here,
people will not think you come to teach me to play _the mandoline_, on
which instrument you are, I learn, a great performer. Consequently,
and not to rob myself of your invaluable services, and the care over
my household which you exercise, we have made a means of entrance for
you here, and through him you can communicate with me--how Signor
Pignana, an intelligent man like you, should understand this, without
its being necessary for me to give all these details."
"I am delighted to be assured," said Signor Pignana, proudly, "that
without these grave reasons the Count would not be unwilling to see
me."
"But," said Taddeo, "what is the danger of which you spoke just now?"
"Ah! Signor Taddeo Rovero!" said the shrewd Pignana, who had
recognized the voice of the young man.
"This is bad!" murmured Frederick.
"I am delighted to meet Signor Taddeo Rovero," said Pignana,
"especially as what I have to say relates also to him."
"To me?" said Taddeo.
"Come to the point, then," said the Count.
"Thus it is, Monsignore," said Pignana: "I was, in obedience to
orders, hanging about your excellency's house, and until to-day never
saw any thing suspicious. This evening I saw two dark figures planted
opposite to your hotel, at the corner of Verneuil-street. The
motionless position of these men seemed strange, and the manner that
they examined others who came in and out of the hotel was more so,
until at last I became satisfied that they watched you. I was
confirmed in this when approaching them in the dark I heard one of the
men say to his companion: '_He has gone out on foot, his carriage has
not left!_'"
"Go on," said the Count, "this becomes interesting."
"This is not all," said Pignana; "the same man said in a brusque tone
to his companion: '_Go to Saint Dominique-street, the other lives
there!_'"
"That is myself," said Taddeo, "and the Marquis, my sister, and I do
live in that street, in the Hotel of the Prince de Maulear."
"So I thought," said Pignana, bowing to Taddeo, "and I hurried hither
where I knew Count Monte-Leone was to be found. Your excellency will
now see that it was a matter of importance."
"Do not go home to-night!" said d'Harcourt.
"Remain here!" said von Apsberg.
"Leave Paris!" said Pignana.
"Why should I not go home? Because it pleases some robber to wait near
my hotel, to rob me? or because some bravo wishes, _a la Venitienne_,
to make a dagger-sheath of my heart? The man must act, too, _on his
own account_, for I know of no enemies in this city. Every where I am
sought for and _feted_, and our secret associates, with whom the world
is full, and who know my old adventures, secure every day a triumphal
reception for me in the saloons of Paris. But if the mysterious
watchers of whom Signor Pignana speaks, be by chance of the birds of
night--owls who have escaped from the police, I make myself more
liable to suspicion by staying away, than by returning to my hotel.
Then, by ----, as my old friend Pietro used to say--I did not furnish
a house to sleep out of it. To remain here as Von Apsberg suggests,
would be a greater mistake yet; for in this house are all our
documents and the lists of our associates. This is the treasury, the
holy ark of the society, and here, under the name of Matheus, is the
very soul. Let us then beware how we give the huntsman any clue to
this precious deposit, or all will be lost. Pignana proposes that I
should leave Paris, but I will not do so. Here are all our hopes of
probable success. The light which will illumine Paris, must radiate
hence. Besides, gentlemen," continued Monte-Leone, "I find that you
all become easily excited at a very natural thing. In case even of a
judicial investigation, you forget--_The brethren know each other, but
can furnish no evidence of the participation of each other in any
enterprise_. Our records or our deeds alone can betray us; our papers
are here beneath three locks, and our actions are yet to be. Do not,
therefore, be uneasy about my fate, and let Taddeo and myself discover
the explanation of this riddle."
"Do not be imprudent," said Von Apsberg to Monte-Leone, as he saw him
hurriedly dress himself in the costume of an Auvergnat; "remember that
we are in Paris, where the streets are crowded, and not in
Naples--that a dagger-thrust is a great event here."
"Do not be uneasy," said the Count, "for I always conform to the
usages and customs of the country in which I am. In Italy I use the
dagger, and in France the stick."
Taking hold of the baton which Taddeo bore, more completely to assume
the roll of the villager, he brandished and twisted it in his fingers,
well enough to have made Fan-Fan, the king of the stick-players of the
day, envious.
"Shall I follow your _eccelenza_?" asked Signor Pignana.
"Certainly," said he, "but as a rear-guard, twenty paces behind me, in
order that you may give evidence, as a mere passer by, that the man I
shall beat to death wished to beat me. This will make me more
interesting in the eyes of the people this difficulty will attract."
When he saw Signor Pignana about to leave the room with him, he said,
"No! Mademoiselle Crepineau, the Argus of this house, saw only three
men come in; what will she think when she sees four leaving? Go out
then by the secret door, Pignana, and join us at the corner of the
_rue_ Belle-Chasse."
The door of the library was closed on Signor Pignana.
"Do you not wish me to go with you?" asked the Vicomte of Monte-Leone.
"For shame!" said Monte-Leone, "four to one--we would look like the
allied army marching against Monaco. Remain then a few minutes with
the doctor. The consultation of the Milord naturally enough may be
long."
The Auvergnat and the peasant of the boulirue passed before the chair
of Mademoiselle Crepineau, one with his handkerchief over his cheek,
and the other with a bandage over his eye. Recollecting that they had
been since eight o'clock with the doctor, she could not refrain from
saying, "The doctor is a very skilful man, but he is slow. After all,"
added she, "he may have taken a multitude of things from them, though
no one heard them cry out. People of their rank do not mind pain."
As they approached Verneuil-street, the Count proceeded a few steps in
advance of Taddeo. "Wait for me here," said he, pointing out a house
which stood yet farther back than the others, on the alignment of the
street, "and come to me if I call out." He then left the young man,
assumed a vulgar air, and straggled towards his hotel. Soon he saw in
an angle of the wall opposite to his house a motionless shadow, which
was certainly that of the man Pignana had pointed out to him. The
Count had a quick and keen eye, which recognized objects even in the
dark. He saw the two eyes which watched him, and which were fixed on
his hotel. They were moved from time to time, but only that on turning
again they might more easily recognize every passer. Monte-Leone, with
the presence of mind which never left him, and which characterized all
the decisive actions of his life, no sooner conceived his plan than he
put it into execution. He was anxious to know with what enemies he had
to deal, and could conceive of no better way than to question the man
himself. The question he put, it is true, was rather _brusque_, as
will be seen. When a few paces behind the man, who had not the least
suspicion, and had suffered him to come close to him, the Count faced
about and rushed on the stranger. He clasped his throat with one hand,
and with the other seized the stranger's weapons, which he naturally
enough concluded he wore. The latter uttered a cry, and an only cry,
which, by the by, was terrible. He was then silent. A stranger passing
by might have fancied those men were speaking confidentially together,
but never that one was strangling the other.
"One word," said Monte-Leone. "Tell me why you are here."
"On my own business," said the man.
"That is not true," said the Count. "You are not a robber--you have
been here for two hours. Many persons well dressed have down this
street, yet you did not attack them." The living vice which bound his
throat was again compressed. The man made a sign that he wished to
speak. The Count relaxed his hold.
"Whom do you watch?"
"Yourself."
"You know me, then?"
"Yes."
"Who bade you watch me?"
The stranger was silent. Feeling the iron hand again clasp him, he
muttered, "A great lady sent me."
"Her name?" said the Count, who began to guess, but who wished to be
sure.
"The Neapolitan ambassadress."
"And why does your companion stand in the Rue Saint-Dominique?"
"Then you know all?" said the wretch.
"All that I wish to," said the Count. "Speak out," said he, again
clasping his fingers tightly as if they had been a torture-collar.
"Speak now, or you will never do so again."
"Well," said the man, "my companion is ordered to ascertain if you
were not at the hotel of the Prince de Maulear. Why should I know any
thing about it?"
"Ah! this is unworthy," said the Count. "When her passions are
concerned nothing restrains this woman."
A painful sigh was the only reply to this exclamation. The Count
looked around, and saw Taddeo standing by him, pale and trembling.
IX.--A LETTER.
Leaning over the white shoulders of the charming Marquise de Maulear,
we are about to tempt our readers to the commission of a great
indiscretion. We will force them to listen to a letter which that lady
was writing to her mother the Signora Rovero, to inform the latter of
all her secret thoughts, and of what during the last two years had
taken place in her household. She sat, one morning, about nine
o'clock, in a beautiful boudoir, hung with rose-colored silk, over
which were falls of India muslin. This room was on the second floor of
the house, and there, with her head on her hand, Aminta wrote, on a
small table incrusted with Sevres porcelain, the following letter,
exhibiting the most intimate thoughts of her soul:
"MY KIND MOTHER: Twenty months ago I left Italy and
yourself, to accompany the Marquis de Maulear and his
excellent father to Paris. Since then my letters have not
suffered you to want details of things about which you are
so curious, which occurred in the course of my trip from
Naples hither, and of my reception by my husband's family.
The family of the Marquis, as you already know, is one of
the most important of Paris, both from rank, fortune, and
nobility, and did not therefore dare to receive with
coldness a stranger who came thus to take a place in its
bosom. The tender protection of my father-in-law made it a
duty to them to seem to me what they really were to him,
benevolent, kind, and affectionate. Long ago, I saw that the
sentiments they exhibited were not sincere; and I guessed
that beneath the affectionate manners of my new family,
there was hidden an icy vanity, and want of sympathy with
the young woman who had no ancestors, no birth, and almost
no fortune, who had thus, as it were, come among them to
usurp name, position, and influence, to which no one should
pretend who had not a lineage at least as princely as
theirs. I soon learned how little faith I should have in
their politeness, and the anxiety in my behalf which were
exacted by the _exigences_ of society, and above all by the
paternal protection of the Prince de Maulear. I was eager to
find in the friendship of those with whom I was cast
something of that kind reciprocity of sentiments which I was
anxious to exhibit to them. The first person to whom I
appealed replied to me by cold glances. On this person, dear
mother, I relied, not as a substitute for yourself, but as
one to advise me in the new life I was about to lead amid a
society the customs and language of which I was almost
ignorant of. This person was the Countess of Grandmesnil,
sister of the Prince, and aunt of my husband. The Countess
was passionately fond of my husband, whom she educated, and
perhaps was wounded at the idea of his having married
without consulting her. This union also put an end to hopes
which had long before been formed in relation to a similar
connection with that of the Duke d'Harcourt's, one of the
first families in France. Mademoiselle de Grandmesnil,
therefore, received me with cautious urbanity, repelled my
confidence, and made me look on her whom I had considered an
affectionate protectress as an enemy. The Marquis was not
aware of the Countess's sentiments to me, for when they saw
how fond he was, they redoubled their apparent care and
attention. I did not, though, remain ignorant of the thorn
hidden in the rose. This strange kind of intuition, dear
mother, which you have often remarked in me, was made
apparent by the most unimportant acts of the Countess, in
which she evidently exhibited an expression of her
indifference to me, and dissatisfaction at my marriage; I
armed myself with courage, and promised to contend with the
enemy provided for me by my evil fate. I resolved not to
suffer my husband to know any thing of my troubles, nor to
suffer the Countess's treatment to diminish my husband's
attachment towards the person who had provided for his
youth. To recompense me, however, for this want of
affection, I had two substitutes--the perpetually increasing
love of the Marquis, his tender submission to my smallest
wish, and the attachment of the Prince--an enigma he has
always refused to explain. Beyond all doubt this reason is
powerful and irresistible, for the mention of my father's
name made him open his arms, which, as I told you, he at
first was determined to close hermetically. Strange must
have been those talismanic sounds, changing the
deeply-rooted sentiments of an old man's heart, and making
him abandon the invariable principles of his mind, so as to
induce him to present me, the daughter of a noble of
yesterday, as one descended from a person whose virtues had
won for him an immortal blessing. I must also tell you that
I have seen more than one of the old friends of the Prince
stand, as if they were petrified, at hearing him speak thus.
I have recounted all those happy scenes, dear mother, merely
to compare the past with the present, which presents, alas,
a far different aspect. My brilliant sky is obscured--I see
in the horizon nothing but clouds. Perhaps I am mistaken,
and my too brilliant imagination, against which you have
often warned me, fills my mind with too melancholy ideas.
Were you but with me, could I but cast myself in your arms,
press you to my heart, and imbibe confidence from you!
Listen, then, to words I shall confide to this cold paper,
read it with the eyes of your soul, and tell me if I am
mistaken or menaced with misfortune.
"During the early portion of my residence in Paris, I lived
amid a whirlwind of pleasures, balls, and entertainments,
which soon resulted in satiety and lassitude. The attention
I attracted, the homage paid to me, flattered my vanity, and
pleased me; for they seemed to increase the Marquis's love,
and to make me more precious to him. After the winter came a
calmer season, and I welcomed it gladly, thinking the
Marquis and myself, to a degree, would live for each other,
and that this feverish, agitated and turbulent life, would
be followed by a period of more happiness. Three months
passed away in that kind of retirement in which those
inhabitants of Paris, who do not leave the city, indulge.
The Prince left us to visit his estates in another part of
France, and the Marquis and myself were alone. The Countess,
it is true, was with us; but her society, instead of adding
to our pleasures, was as annoying as possible. Accustomed
during my whole life to out-door existence, to long
excursions in the picturesque vicinity of our villa, I was
sometimes anxious to take morning strolls in the beautiful
gardens of Paris. The Countess said to my husband, one day,
that a woman of my age should not go out without him. As the
Marquis often rode, an exercise with which I am not
familiar, and as he had friends to see, and political
business to attend to, I was unable to go out but rarely.
Then I will say he offered me his arm anxiously, but this
exercise neither satisfied my taste, nor the demands of
health. There was also a perpetual objection to dramatic
performances, of which I was very fond; Henri did not like
them. The Countess, also, from religious scruples, was
opposed to them, and by various little and ingeniously
contrived excuses, I was utterly deprived of this innocent
amusement. My toilette was also a subject of perpetual
comment. The Countess said that I exaggerated the fashions,
that I looked foreign, and that the court was opposed to
innovations in the toilette, or again that the court
preferred the severe forms of dress. A young and brilliant
princess, though, gives tone to her court, and by her
elegance, luxury and taste, procures a support for crowds of
the Parisian work-people. Henri, over whom his aunt has
never ceased to exercise the same influence she did in
childhood, while he wished to support my ideas, really
supported hers. I saw with regret that the chief defect of
the Marquis was weakness of character, and perpetual
controversies about little matters produced a state of
feeling between us, which subsequently required a kind of
effort for us to overcome. This, however, dear mother, is
nothing; for I have not come to the really painful point of
my confessions. The gay season has returned, and the
principal people of Paris have returned to their hotels. I
liked to see Henri jealous, because this passion was, in my
opinion, an assurance of his love. Henri, who during the
early period of our marriage, would not have left me alone
for the world, now confides me exclusively to the care of
his father. The first time this took place, his absence was
a plausible excuse. He does not now even seek a pretext; a
whim, an appointment, are sufficient motives for him to
leave me. Whither does he go? How does he occupy himself?
This is the subject of my uneasiness and torment--yet he
loves me, he says, but a heart like mine, dear mother, is
not easily deceived. He does not love me as he used to. A
magnificent ball was given during the last month, by the
Neapolitan Ambassador, the Duke of Palma, who married the
famous Felina. Henri left the Prince and myself, as soon as
we came to the rooms; the whole night nearly passed away
without our seeing him. At last, however, he returned, pale
and exhausted. The Prince, who was unacquainted with what
had transpired at Sorrento, between his son and Monte-Leone,
introduced me to him, and asked me to receive him at our
hotel. I hesitated whether I should consent or not; when the
Marquis, with an air which lacerated my very heart, asked
the Count to visit me, assuring him that he would always be
welcome.
"_Welcome to him!_ dear mother. You understand that this man
had been his rival, and loved me. I will confess to you,
dear mother, as I do to God. He loves me yet, I am sure,
though he never told me so; for his looks are what they
were, and when he spoke, his emotion told me that he was
unaltered. Since that ball, Monte-Leone, thus authorized by
the Marquis, has visited me. My husband is not at all
displeased at it; tell me, do you think he loves me still?
Yesterday, dear mother, I went into my husband's room, to
look for a bottle of salts I had forgotten. The Marquis was
absent, and his secretary was open, a strange disorder
pervaded the room; a few papers were lying about, and among
others, I saw a column of figures; I was about to look at
them, and had already extended my hand towards it, when I
heard a cry, and on turning around saw my husband, pale and
alarmed. He advanced towards me, and seizing my arm
convulsively, said, Signora, who gave you a right to examine
my papers? It is an abuse of confidence which I never can
forgive. I grew pale with surprise and grief. 'Sir, said I,
such a reproach is unmerited, if there be any thing
improper, it is your tone and air.' I left the room, for I
was overpowered, and did not wish to weep before him. One
hour afterwards, on his knees, he besought me to pardon him
for an excitement which he would never be able to pardon
himself. He was once more, dear mother, kind as he had ever
been; he repeated his vows of eternal love, and exhibited
all his former tenderness. His looks hung on me as they used
to, and I began to hope he would continue to love me. A
cruel idea, however, pursued me, what was the secret shut up
in the paper he would not suffer me to read? Why did he,
usually so calm and cold, become so much enraged?"
Just then the letter of the Marquise de Maulear was interrupted by the
bell which announced the coming of visitors. Aminta remembered that it
was reception day, and persons came to say that several visitors
awaited her. She went down stairs. On the evening of the same day she
resumed her letter.
"I resume my pen to tell you of a strange circumstance which
occurred to-day. When I broke off so suddenly, I found some
visitors awaiting me. Visiting in Paris is insignificant and
meaningless, performed on certain fixed days. Conversation
on these occasions is commonplace. People only talk of the
pleasure of meeting, and slander is so much the vogue that
it is not prudent to leave certain rooms until every one
else has gone, lest you should be hacked to pieces by those
left behind. My father-in-law came into the room and gave
some life to the conversation. The Prince was not alone, for
Count Monte-Leone came with him. Why, dear mother, should I
conceal from you, that the presence of the Count causes
always an invincible distress? This man is so decided and
resolute that he never seemed to me like other people. He
seems half god and half demon. His keen and often expressive
glance, his firm voice made mild by emotion, the _tout
ensemble_ of his character, seems to call him to great
crimes or sublime actions.
"The Prince said, 'Do you know, Aminta, that the Count is
the only person in Paris whom I have to beg to come to see
you? I have absolutely to use violence. I had just now
almost to use violence to bring him hither.'
"'The Prince, Madame,' said the Count, respectfully, 'looks
on respect as reserve. The pleasure of seeing you is too
great for me to run the risk of losing it by abusing the
privilege.'
"'Bah! bah!' said the Prince, 'mere gallantry, nothing more.
We _emigres_, from associating with the English, have lost
some of our peculiarities; and I, at least, have contracted
one excellent custom. When an Englishman says to a man, "my
house is yours," he absolutely means what he says, and the
privilege should be used. Your host looks on you as a part
of his family, and people of the neighborhood esteem you as
much a part of the household as the old grandfather's chair
is. You go, come, sit at the table, eat and drink, as if you
were at home. This generous hospitality pleases me, because
it recalls that of our own ancestors.'
"'Brother,' said the Countess, 'this hospitality can never
be acclimated in France, especially in households where
there are as pretty women as in ours.'
"'Sister, such privileges are accorded only to people of the
honor of whom we are well-assured, like the Count. Besides,
travellers like ourselves are hard to please in beauty. Not
that the Marquise is not beautiful; but if you had been as
we were at Ceprano, if you had only read the interesting
chapter I have written in relation to that country, you
would see that many perfections are needed to wound hearts
that are so cosmopolitan as ours.'
"The Count was about to reply, when the doors were opened
and the Duchess of Palma was announced. I looked at
Monte-Leone just then, and he changed countenance at once. I
saw him immediately go to the darkest part of the room. This
was the first time I had ever received the Duchess of Palma.
There seemed no motive for her visit. I had paid mine after
the ball, and there was no obligation between us. The
Duchess is a beautiful, elegant, and dignified woman. It is
said she is of a noble family; and her manners evidently
betoken high cultivation. The Duchess told me kindly that
she had not seen enough of me at the ball, and that I must
take the visit as an evidence of her devotion and
admiration. The Prince of Maulear approached. 'We are
especially flattered, Duchess,' said he, and he emphasized
the word, looking at the same time at some ladies I
received; 'we are especially flattered by the honor you
confer on us. We know how careful you are in the bestowal of
such favors. It is a favor, as pleasant as it is honorable.'
"'I have been suffering, Prince,' replied the Duchess, 'with
deep distress, and I will not reflect on any one the burden
of my sorrows.'
"'You are,' said the Prince, 'like those beautiful tropical
flowers, the source of the life of which is the sun, and
which grow pale on their stems in our land. Neapolitans need
Naples, the pure sky, the balmy air, the perfume of orange
groves, and the reflection of the azure gulf. I am
distressed, Duchess, at what you say, and hope you will
content yourself with our country. We will not permit you to
leave it.'
"'But I am dying,' said the Duchess, in a strange tone.
"'You are now alive, though,' said the Prince.
"The uneasy eyes of the Duchess passed around the room, and
when she saw the Count, became strangely animated. 'Ah!' she
remarked, 'here is Count Monte-Leone.' The Count advanced.
"'The Count,' said the Prince, 'is your compatriot, and one
of your most fervent admirers.'
"'Do you think so?' said the Duchess, almost ironically.
"'One,' said the Prince, 'to be any thing else, must neither
have seen nor heard your grace.'
"'Once, perhaps,' said she, 'I had some means of attraction,
but now all is forgotten; for I am a Duchess like all
others--less even, because I am indebted to chance for my
rank and title.'
"'You owe thanks to yourself alone,' said the Prince, 'and
the Duke was a lucky man to have it in his power to lay them
at your feet.'
"'Madame,' said I to the Duchess, 'since you deign to remind
us of your deathless talent, may I venture to ask you to
sing once more?'
"'Never!' said the Duchess, 'I left my voice on the banks of
the _Lago di Como_, and have not forgotten my last song.'
"''Twas indeed a sad epoch,' said the Prince, 'If it was the
funeral of your talent.'
"'I will never sing again!' said the Duchess, 'I remember
that day as I do all the unhappy ones of my life. Ah! they
are far more numerous than our happy days. It was evening,
and in a gay room of my villa, whither I had come still
trembling at having seen a traveller nearly drowned in the
lake. I know not what sad yet pleasant memory was nursed in
my heart, but I went to my piano and sung an air I had sung
for the last time at San Carlo. Tell me, Count
Monte-Leone--you were there--what was it?'
"'_La Griselda._'
"'It was. On that evening all my enthusiasm returned to me.
While singing, however, a strange fancy took possession of
me. I thought I saw in the mirror in front of me, the
features of one who had long been dead--dead at least to me.
My emotion was so instinct with terror and happiness, that
since then I have not sung.'
"'That is a perfect romance,' said the Prince, 'like those
of the dreamy Hoffman I met at Vienna.'
"'No, sir, it is a fact, or rather the commencement of a
series of facts, which, however, will interest no one here.
For that reason I do not tell it.'
"The Duchess of Palma rose to leave. The Prince offered her
his hand.
"'No, Prince,' said she, 'I will not trouble you, for I am
about to ask the Count to accompany me. Excuse me,' said
she, 'excuse me for taking him away, but I need not use
ceremony with a countryman.'
"Without giving him time to reply, she passed her arm
through his, went out, or rather dragged him out with her.
"I do not know why, dear mother, I have told you all this
long story, which has led me to write far differently from
what I had intended. I like, though, to talk so much with
you; and then the visit of the Count and that Duchess
agitated me, I know not why. Some instinct tells me those
mysterious beings exert an influence over my life. You think
me foolish and strange--but what can I do? I am now so sad
that I seem to look at life through a dark veil. I am wrong,
am I not? Reassure yourself and tell me what you think of my
husband's conduct. That, most of all, interests
"Your own AMINTA.
"P.S.--The Prince, the Countess and myself in vain waited
all day for the Marquis. It is now midnight and he has not
yet come."
X.--JEALOUSY.
A month had passed since the Marquise had written to her mother,
during which time the Marquis, more sedulous in his attentions to
Aminta, had begun to make her forget her fears and suspicions. A new
event, though, aroused them again.
A magnificent ball had been given by Madame de L----, in her splendid
hotel in the _rue_ d'Antin. M. de L---- aspired to the ministry; and
the fact of his having received the Duke de Bevry at his magnificent
entertainments, the favor he enjoyed at the _chateau_, and his
frequent entertainments to the _corps diplomatique_, seemed to make
his final success certain. M. de L---- aspired to popularity by
attracting around him all who seemed likely to advance his views. He
delighted to receive and mingle together in his drawing-room all the
political enemies of the tribune and the press, who, meeting as on a
central ground, thought themselves obliged to boast of the wit of
their Amphitryron, beneath whose roof they exchanged all the phrases
of diplomatic politeness to the accompaniment of Collinet's flageolet,
sat together at the card-tables, and courteously bowed at the door of
every room. On this account they did not cease to detest each other,
though their apparent reconciliation being believed at court,
contributed in no little degree to the advancement of M. L----'s
views.
The Marquis and Aminta were at the ball--and Henri left his wife for
several hours in charge of his father, who was proud of her, and
exhibited her with pride in all the rooms. The Prince heaped attention
on her, as all well-bred persons love to on those who are dear to
them. He carefully waited on her during every waltz and contra-dance;
and with paternal care replaced the spotless ermine on her whiter
shoulders. Then resuming his task of cicerone, he explained to her the
peculiarities of French society, which seemed so brilliant and
singular to a young Italian. The Marquis rejoined his wife about one
o'clock. He was very gay, and Aminta had not for a long time seen him
so amiable and lively. The Prince expressed a desire to return home,
and the young people gladly consented. As they were about to leave the
last room, an Englishman of distinguished air, but pale and agitated,
passed close to the Marquis, and as he did so, said in his native
tongue, "all is agreed." The Marquis replied in the same words, and
the Englishman left. Aminta asked what the stranger had said, "Nothing
of importance," said Henri, "a mere commonplace."
A quarter of an hour after, the carriage of the young people entered
_rue_ Saint Dominique. The Prince embraced the Marquise and retired to
his room, which was in the left wing of the hotel, and exactly
opposite the apartments of the young couple. About two all the hotel
was quiet. Aminta, though, from some peculiar presentiment, could not
sleep, yet, with her eyes half closed, she fell into that dreamy
torpor in which every passion is exaggerated. In this half-real,
half-fantastic state, Aminta saw pass before her all the important
events of her life, the horrible episode of the _casa di Tasso_, the
coming of Maulear, and the heroic devotion of _Scorpione_. Another
shadow, that of Monte-Leone, glided before her. The looks of this man
were fixed on hers, as if to read the depths of her soul. There came
also a thousand chimeras and countless mad and terrible fictions. La
Felina, pale and white as a spectre, sang, or sought to sing, for
though her lips moved no sound was heard. With her hand raised towards
Aminta, the ducal singer seemed to heap reproaches on her. Alarmed at
these sombre visions, the young woman sought to return to real life,
and arose from her bed; just then she thought she heard a door open.
Terrified, she reached toward a bell near her, but paused. The door
which was opened could be no other than that of the Marquis, for their
apartments, though separate, were side by side. She thought, too, that
the _valet de chambre_ had been detained later than usual with the
Marquis, and unwilling to make an alarm, she repressed her agitation.
No noise disturbed the profound silence. The clock above struck the
several hours with that slow and monotonous regularity, which is so
painful to those who cannot sleep; she did not, however, win the rest
she was so anxious for. All the fancies which had occupied her just
before had disappeared, but were replaced by a newer fancy, occasioned
by the remark of the Englishman, which she had not understood. The
features of the stranger, so deathly pale, constantly returned to her.
She fancied some danger menaced the man to whom she had devoted her
life; that a strange danger menaced him, and, yielding to a feverish
agitation, which she could not repress, wrapping herself in a shawl,
and afraid almost to breathe, she went to the Marquis's room, when at
the door she paused and thought.
"What would Henri say, and how could she excuse this strange visit?"
She hesitated and was about to return, when she saw that the door was
not closed, and that she could thus enter his room and satisfy herself
without disturbing him. She decided--the door turned on its hinges,
and Aminta entered. Crossing the antechamber, she had reached the
bedroom, which was separated from it by a curtained door. She advanced
to the bed, which she found had not been slept in. With a faint cry of
terror she sank on an arm-chair. The clock struck four, and when she
had heard the noises which had disturbed her it was nearly two; since
then, therefore, the Marquis had been away. Yet this had occurred when
he was within a few feet of her, and the care and secrecy with which
it was accomplished showed that it had been premeditated. Not a sound
except the opening of the door had reached Aminta's ears. The Marquise
felt the most agonizing distress--no thought of perfidy, however,
annoyed her; the idea of danger only occupying her mind. Just then her
eyes fell on an open note which had doubtless been dropped by Maulear
amid his hurry and trouble. She took it up, saying to herself, this
note doubtless contains a challenge--a rendezvous--she approached the
night lamp, and with difficulty suppressing her agitation, read as
follows--"Dear Marquis, do not fail to come to-night. You know how
anxiously you are expected,
"FANNY DE BRUNEVAL."
The letter was indeed a rendezvous, but not of the kind she had
expected. The terms of the note were clear and precise; and the
woman's name dissipated the mist from before her eyes, Maulear had
deserted her and his home in the silence of night for such a person.
She it was whom he deceived--she who had been so loyal and true, she
who sought, even when Maulear asked her hand, to protect him--who
begged him to distrust his impressions and not to act in haste. "I was
right," said she, "to fear the bonds he wished to impose on me--I was
right to object to a marriage which could not make him happy--only two
years," said she, with a voice of half stifled emotion, "and he is
already cold and indifferent to me. He has already abandoned me--and
worse still, he has done so with treachery. Mother! mother! why did
you not keep me with you? This then, is the reward of my generous
devotion. Alas! when I accepted him--when I wrested him from the death
which menaced him--when I gave myself to him, I did not love him, I
did not hesitate when perhaps----" Aminta blushed amid her tears.
"Above all," said she, "I do not wish him to find me here--I do not
wish him to reproach me as he has done with seeking to penetrate his
secrets." She returned to her room, and from exhaustion and tears sank
on her bed.
Day came at last, and Aminta dressed herself. She wished to conceal
from her servants all that she suffered. Above all, she did not wish
the conduct and disorder of the Marquis to be made a subject of
discussion. When her _femme de chambre_ entered her room, she found
her mistress on her knees at her morning devotions before a crucifix.
Had any persons, however, approached the Marquise, they must have seen
the tears falling on the delicate fingers which covered her face, and
heard her sobs. The bell rang for breakfast. Aminta started as if from
a dream; being thus recalled to real life, she saw that while the
evening before she had been happy and gay, one night had converted all
to sorrow and suffering. Aminta, though ordinarily of strong nerve,
sank beneath the blow. She felt herself wounded in her heart, her
dignity, and in her confidence, by one for whom alone she had lived.
Henceforth her life would be uncertain, and circumstances might lead
her she knew not whither.
When the Marquise entered, the Prince and Countess were about to go to
the table. The former said, "It is evident, my child, from your face,
that you are fatigued; and that balls are to you what the sun is to
roses. It does not detract from their beauty, but it makes them pale."
And finally, the Countess added, "it withers them completely. That is
the fate of all young women who turn night into day, and who, like my
beautiful niece, only really live between evening and morning."
"Come," said the Prince, "that will not do. My sister is like the fox
in the fable, she finds the ball too gay to suit herself, or rather
herself too sombre for the ball."
"A witticism," said the Countess, "is not a reason, but often exactly
the reverse. The one, my brother is familiar with; to the other, I am
sorry to say, he is more a stranger."
"You see, my child," said the Prince, with an air of submission and
resignation, "it is not well to have any trouble with the Countess,
for she returns shot for shot; though she fires a pistol in reply to a
cannon. Luckily for us, she is not a good shot. But my son does not
come down. Can it be that, though he did not dance, he is more
fatigued than his wife?"
"A letter for Madame la Marquise, from the Marquis," said a servant.
Aminta took the letter from the plateau, and looked at the Prince, as
if to ask whether she should read it.
"Read, my child, read," said her father-in-law, affectionately. "The
letter of a husband loved and loving, for thank God both are true,
should be read without any delay."
Aminta unsealed the letter, and glanced rapidly over it. Then
succumbing to emotion, deprived of strength and courage, and
especially revolting at what she had read, felt her sight grow dim,
and finally fainted. The Countess, whose mind alone was embittered for
the reasons Aminta had explained to her mother, but whose soul and
heart were generous as possible, ran to the Marquise, took her in her
arms, and was as kind as possible. The Prince, paler than Aminta,
rushed towards the window, which he threw open, and pulled away at the
bell-ropes to call the servants, and send them for the physicians.
The old nobleman exhibited the greatest alarm. The young Marquise was
taken to the drawing-room, and a few moments after she opened her
eyes. Her heart, however, was crushed; and she wept bitter tears. The
Prince was struck with terror and distress. He was alarmed for his
son's sake, and a father's anxiety was apparent.
"What has happened to my son?" said he, rushing to find the letter,
which Aminta had let fall. He read it anxiously, and when he had
concluded, laughed loud and long. "Indeed," said he, "we have come
back to the days of the Astraea. All reminds us of the _Calprenede_, of
_Urfe_, or _Scuderi_ herself. We are on the _Tendros_. This kind of
love would make that of Cyrus and Mandane trifling. Cyrus writes to
Mandane, that he went out to ride in the Bois de Cologne, and
therefore has to deprive himself of the pleasure of breakfasting with
her. Mandane therefore is suddenly taken ill. This is magnificent and
touching; but my precious child, it is a little exaggerated."
"What, then, is the matter?" said the Countess, as she handed her
niece the salts. "What a singular man you are! One never knows what
the facts of any thing are from you. You are either in the seventh
heaven or in despair. Your very gayety is enough to destroy our
niece's nerves."
"Ah!" said the Prince, "how sorry I am for the nerves. Read, however,
the letter yourself, Countess," and he gave it to Mademoiselle
Grandmesuil. "You will see the Marquise is too fond of her husband.
Her love has really become a dangerous passion. She is really
_love-mad_, and if it continues, we shall have a rehearsal of Milon's
ballet, with the exception of _Bigotini_."
The Countess read as follows:
"MY DEAR WIFE: I am unwilling to disturb your slumbers, and
have therefore left for the wood at five o'clock, having a
rendezvous with some sportsmen. We will probably breakfast
together, and I will not return until dinner-time. Remember
me affectionately.
"HENRI."
The habitual coldness of the Countess returned while she read the
letter. "I will say that I think my nephew very likely to inspire deep
love. I cannot however conceive how there can be cause for such
despair. We Frenchwomen have not such an exaggerated devotion as our
niece has. I beg her not to use it up now, for in the career of life
she will find it difficult to do without it." As if regretting that
she had soothed sorrows in which she had no sympathy, the Countess
sent for her prayer-book, and went to mass. As soon as the young
Marquise was alone with the Prince, she arose, threw herself in the
old man's arms, and said: "My father, I am very unhappy." The face of
the Prince at once became serious, and taking Aminta to a sofa, bade
her sit down, and said, kindly as possible, "Excuse my gayety and
irony, my child. _Non est hic locus_, as the sublime Horace, the
favorite of our good king Louis XVIII., once wrote. I repent of my
volatility and trifling, for I should have remembered, when I think of
the elevation of your mind, that something more important than the
absence of your husband for a few hours annoyed you. Speak to me--open
your heart to me--for I love you too well not to have a right to your
confidence and your secrets."
"He does not love me," said Aminta, leaning her head on the Prince's
shoulder.
"Alas! my daughter," said M. de Maulear, "I am about to make a strange
confession to you. I am not acquainted with my son. His soul,
sentiments, inclination, and moral nature, are unknown to me. When,
four years ago, I saw the child now twenty-six, whom I had left an
infant, and found his air, manners, and appearance distingue as
possible, and was pleased with him, I was assured that his soul was
exalted, his character true, and his sentiments honorable. I was
therefore satisfied. Two years after, he went to Naples, where I
procured a diplomatic post for him; and consequently I have neither
studied nor fathomed his instincts and habits. What I apprehend in
relation to you, my child, is a capital fault. I have discovered in my
son an extreme weakness of character, which may lead him into error.
For that reason, I wrote to him, that I would have preferred that he
had tasted of the pleasures of life before marriage. I would thus have
had an assurance of his subsequent prudence. Believe me, though, my
child, I will watch over him and you, and if I was able to forgive his
marrying without my consent, when I knew whom he married, I never will
pardon him if he make her unhappy. The deuce! we did not bring you
hither from Italy to break your heart."
Fearful lest his father should become angry with Maulear, Aminta
restrained the secret which seemed ready to burst from her lips. She
spoke of vague suspicions and anxiety at the Marquis's uneasiness, but
said nothing particular. The Prince, who never in his life had known
what jealousy was, had some difficulty in understanding how it could
create such despair. His attention, however, was not the less vigilant
in relation to the affairs of the young couple. A circumstance which
occurred soon after enabled him to ascertain much. A number of persons
assembled one night at the rooms of the Marquise de Maulear. Count
Monte-Leone had become one of Aminta's most assiduous visitors. The
tacit permission he had received from Aminta, the formal authority of
the Marquis, the sympathy of the old Prince, to whom the pleasant,
energetic character of the Count, and his noble bearing, made him
every day more attractive--all taken in connection with the intimacy
of Taddeo and Monte-Leone, authorized him to visit the Marquise
freely. The devotion of Monte-Leone to Aminta had never been
diminished. He had felt only an inclination towards La Felina, an
error of the senses and imagination, excited by mortified love, and
favored by the isolation of the Lago di Como. His heart had little
share in it. When, therefore, he saw the Marquise de Maulear more
attractive than ever, he discovered that in his whole life he had
loved her alone. The Marquis de Maulear appeared but rarely at the
hotel, coming home at a late hour and going out early.
Monte-Leone and Taddeo were talking together, and this fragment of
their conversation struck the ear of the old Prince, who seemed
entirely absorbed by a game of whist.
"Will not the Marquis be here to-night?" said the Count to Taddeo.
"I doubt it: sometimes the master of the hotel is here less frequently
than any one else."
"Perhaps he is now," said the Count, "where he goes almost every
night, they say."
"You jest," said Taddeo; "I think he is here every night."
"He should, but he is not. All I can say is, that on the night of
M.L.'s ball, he was ... where I saw him."
"Where was he?" asked Taddeo, impatiently.
"I will tell you--but come away from the whist-table."
* * * * *
"But you do not return my lead," said the Prince's partner, "you
should play hearts."
"True," said the Prince, musing; and he led hearts. His eyes, though,
followed Taddeo and Monte-Leone.
The Prince lost five points, much to his partner's discontent. He
played very badly that night, breaking up his suits, mistaking the
cards, and violating every rule, much to the surprise of the
lookers-on, who knew how well he played the game, which the emigres
had imported from England. At last they stopped, and the Prince sought
for Monte-Leone through all the rooms. The Count and Taddeo, however,
had both left. The Marquis, though, had returned, and the company soon
dispersed. The Prince went to his room, but soon left, well wrapped
up, and with his hat over his face. "Pardieu!" said he, "I will settle
things, and find out where my son passes the nights. Can any place be
more pleasant than the bedchamber of a pretty woman?" Standing at a
little distance from door, he waited about half an hour. His patience
was nearly exhausted, when the Marquis came out. Henri went to the Rue
de Bac, took the quai, crossed the pont Royale, the Carousel, and
entered la Rue de Richelieu. The poor Prince panted after him, and
kept him in sight all the time, cursing his curiosity. Sustained by a
deep interest for his daughter's happiness, he kept on.
When the Marquis came to the Rue de Menors, he paused, and turned to
see that no one followed him. The Prince had barely time to get behind
a coach which stood at the corner. The Marquis went some distance down
the Rue de Menors, and stopped at No. 7. The door was opened, and
Henri entered. "On my honor," said the Prince, "I would not have come
so far before bed, unless I could also have found out _why_ the
Marquis visits No. 7." The Prince then stopped at the door, and
knocked. The door was opened.
"What do you want?" said the porter, rather surlily.
"I wish," said the Prince, and he put a louis d'or in the porter's
hand, "to know why that man has come hither."
"Indeed," said he, pocketing the louis, "it is a great deal to pay for
so little. The gentleman has gone, as many others go, to see Mlle.
Fanny de Bruneval."
FOOTNOTES:
[4] Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1850, by
Stringer & Townsend, in the Clerk's Office of the District Court of
the United States for the Southern District of New-York.
A FESTIVAL UPON THE NEVA.
TRANSLATED FOR THE INTERNATIONAL MONTHLY MAGAZINE FROM THE FRENCH OF
KAUFMANN.
On the banks of a majestic river, where, in later times, has arisen a
city of eight thousand houses, of granite causeways, monuments,
obelisks, and palaces, nothing was to be seen at the commencement of
the eighteenth century but a few huts scattered over a marshy waste.
On one of those days, when the intense cold had transformed the river
into a plain of ice, a numerous crowd were hastening through the
streets of the young St. Petersburg. Some directed their steps towards
a little cottage; and others, over the frozen waters, towards a
fortified island. Every one looked with a curious eye at the cottage,
and the numerous sledges that were gathering for the escort at hand.
Presently, a sledge drawn by three horses covered with bear-skins,
dashed up to the cottage-gate. It was quickly opened, and an old man
of a high stature and proud bearing came forth, wearing a blue sable.
He slowly advanced and took his place.
"Pardon me, sir," said one of middle age, who hastened to take a seat
by the side of the former, "the gracious Czar had--"
"It is sufficient," prince Menzikoff, interrupted the first, in a
quick and stern tone; "I am not much accustomed to wait, but I know,
however, that it is the Czar only who can be the cause of this delay."
"You see the boyard, Alexis Nicolajewitz Tscherkaski," said one of
those present, in a whisper to his companion.
"You are not the first to tell me that," replied Nikita. "It is not
sixty years since his grandfather traversed the Caucasus with his
savage Tschetschences. He would be a little surprised if he saw his
son to-day decorated with the golden key of chamberlain, and enjoying
himself at festivals in sacred Russia. But they give the signal of
departure, for they are tying a tame bear to the sledge. Indeed, it is
a strange animal!"
"I must see him nearer," said the first. "Come, Andyuschka, let us
survey the whole train."
* * * * *
They came at last to an edifice such as was never seen before or
since. It was built upon the Neva--but not of stones. The walls, roof,
and partitions, were of solid ice; and the steps leading to the
entrance cut out of one enormous block. Two large cannons made of ice,
pierced with the greatest care, and which they were foolish enough to
charge with powder, were placed in front of this singular palace. The
interior presented an appearance not less novel. A long table, formed
of a single piece of ice, and covered with a hundred exquisite dishes,
was the principal object--oysters, in silver plates, excited the
appetite--sea-fish, of every species, from the gulf of Finland and
Pont-Euxin to the Caspian and frozen seas, disputed the supremacy with
shell-fish from the Istar and Volga. By the side of the hams of
Bayonne were roasts of bear surrounded with citron; and the sturgeon
was placed in the middle of delicious preserves. Many sledges were
filled with bottles.
But all these cold dishes composed but half the feast. Four kitchens,
built of wood, at some distance from the palace, threw up constantly
clouds of smoke. There boiled stags and elks, pullets of Archangel,
and boars of Podolie. But that which particularly attracted the
attention of the spectators were the large fires where whole oxen
turned round upon spits, for the benefit of the people, to whom were
to be also given tuns of brandy.
The sun shone yet above the horizon when the great hall of the palace
of crystal was lighted with wax candles in chandeliers of sparkling
ice. A thousand lights were thus reflected and broken upon the
transparent walls and windows. It seemed a fairy scene in the
approaching night.
While a legion of cooks, with their assistants, worked without
cessation, the two personages, the boyard Tscherkaski and the prince
Menzikoff, were not less busy in the interior of the palace. It was
readily seen that they had the charge of directing the festival about
to commence. The last-mentioned, spreading a bear-skin upon each of
the seats of ice, was addressed by his companion.
"Truly, Alexandre Michailowitz, the Czar could not have selected a
better manager of the feast than yourself. If I had any thing to do
but to take exclusive charge of the bottles, I am afraid I should
oblige every one to sit upon the naked blocks. What grimaces those
hungry foreign guests would make, such as the Frenchman Lefort, and
those like him, whom the west is ever sending to fatten upon the blood
of Russia. I should like to see them shivering to death, and at the
same time politely struggling to appear pleased in the presence of the
Czar."
"But do you know how the Czar would regard such pleasantry? You
remember Dimitri Arsenieff?"
"Arsenieff! I hope you do not compound me with that herd whom a single
glance of the Czar made tremble in their shoes. There was a time, it
is true, but all is changed now--there was a time when those
submissive slaves who filled the courts of the Kremlin, disappeared
when they heard the steps of the old Alexis Nicolajewitz. His services
were once required. He was not idle during the massacre of the
Strelitz; they had need of Tscherkaski then. But all this has passed
away. I have but one wish; it is, that in the hour of trial the swords
of those Frenchmen, or of other foreigners, may leap as slowly from
the scabbard as mine on that day when men of a nobler spirit were
assassinated."
"The Czar has not forgotten that you have--"
"O, truly," replied the boyard, with a bitter smile, "the gracious
Czar has made me the first chamberlain. He must have been in a good
humor at that time; for Poliwoi--you know him--he is skilful in
sealing bottles--he was a _valet de chambre_ in his youth--and that
English Melton or Milton, who has imported some good dogs--both of
them, at the same time with myself, received the key of the
chamberlaincy."
"But you cannot deny, Alexis, that in general the choice of our
sovereign--"
"Is the best. But what is strange about it is, that he finds so many
excellent men, and that he selects from so large a circle, when others
who, in times of calamity, are no longer considered unworthy, never
obtain their turn for preferment."
"You appear to be not in a very good humor, to-day, boyard.... Would
you fall into disfavor with the Czar?"
"Why," exclaimed the boyard, "should I not tell a friend what probably
he will learn to-day, if indeed he is ignorant of it now? You know,"
he continued with an affected calmness, "the domain of the crown
adjacent to my lands in Tula?"
"I do not," said the embarrassed Prince.
"Indeed you do, Alexandre Michailowitz; or at least you ought to. It
separates my property from yours."
"Ah! the manor."
"The same. It is not very extensive, containing only three villages
and a thousand serfs. But its situation suits me and I desire its
possession."
"Well, you ought to propose to the Czar to sell it. He will not refuse
you."
"He has already refused. 'I am sorry,' he coldly said, 'that I cannot
grant you the lands you ask; I have disposed of them to another.' I
was about to reply, but turning to speak to some one, he closed our
conversation."
"And do you know to whom he granted the domain?"
"Who? Perhaps a vicious flatterer--an intrusive coward--some fellow
from abroad who comes among us to appease his hunger; or, what is
worse, an upstart, whose only pleasure is to overturn my dearest hopes
to fulfil his own. Who is he? One of those who daily make fortunes by
hundreds in our Russia, in place of meeting with the rope which they
merit--one of those who drive out honest men to occupy their places--a
rustic bore, a cobbler, a pastry-cook!"
The features of the boyard took an expression of the most violent
anger; the muscles of his mouth contracted by a convulsive movement,
and his fiery eye gave sign that he was remembering the sanguinary
vengeance of his brethren, the sons of the Caucasus.
The countenance of Menzikoff grew dark. The word "pastry-cook," in
bringing to his recollection his former condition, awoke sentiments
whose expression it was difficult for him to restrain. "I had
intended," he said, "to ask the Czar to give me those very lands; but
I am glad that I have not done so. I would have been unhappy in
interfering with your projects, if it were even for the sake of your
amiable daughter, who, in your old days, will reward you largely for
all the grievances you experience at the Court."
"You think so, eh, Michailowitz? But you are a Russian. You belong not
to those foreign plebeians. Alexis Tscherkaski is a man who never
hides what he thinks, and I confess frankly that I do not love you; I
have never loved you. Yet I do not confound you with those vile
favorites of whom I have spoken. You are the first who has ever said
to my face that I was not born to walk in the slippery paths of a
court. You will have the honor also of offering the first counsel that
I have ever followed. Yes, Prince Menzikoff, I am firmly resolved to
leave the capital in a few days. In my solitude, accompanied only by
my Mary, I hope to forget the Czars, their favors, and all that I have
done to obtain them. Since the death of my Fedor--but let us stop
here--with him all my hopes are buried. My daughter only remains--"
"Who will be a glory to you in the evening of your life. She will
bloom as the rose, she will be a mother of sons who--"
"Yes, I desire to see her happy. She will freely choose her husband;
and if she wishes to unite her destiny with none, she shall live with
me, and one day close my eyes in death. It is among the descendants of
the boyards that she will find her beloved. He shall be a noble son of
old and sacred Russia. And I swear by all the saints interred in the
convent of Kiew, that no will, not even that of the Czar, but her own,
shall influence the choice of my daughter."
The Prince was about to reply, when loud voices were heard in front of
the house. "They come! they come!"
A long train of sledges took the direction of the Isle of the Neva,
and presented as strange a spectacle as one could well imagine.
Instead of couriers who, according to the usages of the time, took the
lead in this description of festivals, there was a sledge drawn by
four horses of different colors. In it were four men dressed in white
with a red girdle, having in their hands a staff ornamented with
ribbons, and upon their heads a bonnet decorated with plumes. The
oddest thing in this group was, that the youngest was not less than
seventy; two of them wanted a leg; the third was without an arm; and
the fourth, blind.
Then came two sledges filled with musicians who joyously sounded their
instruments. They were divided into two sections; the first would have
pleased the ear by their performances, if it were not for the second
section, every one of whom was deaf. They could not follow the
movements of the director, and he himself, also deaf, was constantly
behind the time, so that the two companies, although playing the same
air, produced one which we might imagine proceeded from mischievous
demons in a concert prepared in Pandemonium for the benefit of
condemned musicians.
In a third sledge came a patriarch of eighty years. His long white
beard and hair carefully dressed, the precious ornaments with which he
was covered, and the priests seated at his side, all announced that
the old man was going to celebrate some solemn ceremony. As he was an
intolerable stammerer, who had been released from the public services
of the church during the greater part of his life, he was fitly chosen
to deliver a discourse upon the present occasion.
The sledge following that of the patriarch's, gave to the cortege the
unmistakeable character of a nuptial festivity; for, of the four
individuals who occupied it, two wore crowns, such as those prescribed
by the Greek church to the newly married. The couple who sat in the
place of honor, and for whom this fete had been prepared were indeed
very curious looking persons. The bridegroom was an old and wrinkled
dwarf, hardly four feet high. His enormous head seemed to weigh down
his slender body, and to bend his legs into the form of sabres. His
toilette was according to the French mode of that period. A frock coat
of silver cloth, a sky blue vest and crimson velvet pantaloons, and
immense ruffles covered his long, sepulchral hands. A perruque with a
long tail, the nuptial crown, and a silver sword, which completed his
dress, confirmed the remark of one of our friends, who compared the
unfortunate bridegroom to a monkey on the rack.
The dwarf and his affianced resembled each other as two drops of
water. Upon the head of the hump-backed bride also shone the marriage
crown. Her dress was of gold cloth of the most recent Parisian mode.
Their exterior, however, presented a single contrast which rendered
them still more ridiculous; for upon the wide face of the future wife
was a presumptuous smile, while the husband, suffering under some
recent sorrow, made the most frightful grimaces.
In order better to distinguish the ugliness of this deformed couple,
there were placed upon the second seat of the sledge two children of
angelic beauty--one a girl of five years; the other, a boy of six to
eight. They both wore the ancient Russian costume, which in its
simplicity so well became the celestial sweetness of the countenance
of the rosy-cheeked girl, and the spiritual gayety which beamed from
the large black eyes of the boy. These children appeared destined to
serve as bridesboy and bridesmaid; and certainly Hymen could not have
made a better choice.
"It is the daughter of the boyard Tscherkaski! It is the little Fedor
Menzikoff!" cried the crowd.
A large number of sledges passed on. All those who occupied them were
disguised in the strangest manner. By the side of a coarse Kirghese
was a fashionable Parisien. Behind them a Chinese mandarin waited upon
a maiden Tyrolese. In the cortege could be seen not only the costumes
of all the tribes under the sceptre of Peter the Great, but of almost
every nation of Europe and Asia. The masquerade extended even to the
trappings of the horses and sledges. Some of the horses' heads wore
gilded horns of the stag and the elk, and others great wings, which
made them resemble the poet's idea of Pegasus. The last sledge in the
train worthily closed this fantastic procession. It was drawn by three
horses, and contained a single personage. Two horsemen, habited as
Turks, galloped by his side, and announced his high rank. His
thick-set figure was of the ordinary height, his face was full of a
spirit of gayety and frolic, and in the smile with which he responded
to the acclamations of the people could be perceived his satisfaction
in the preparations for the fete of the day. His dress was that of a
northern countryman, and he who had ever seen one would be at a loss
to say whether Peter the Great was an original or a copy.
The countryman held in his hand a large gold-headed cane, and
tormented a tame bear, which, standing erect upon its hind feet, and
fulfilling the functions of lackey, was from time to time punished for
his unskilfulness, to the amusement of the people.
The train arrived at the crystal palace; and although all had
descended from the sledges, none had crossed the threshold. Every one
appeared desirous to yield the first entrance to the bridegroom and
his partner, or to him who gave the feast. Prince Menzikoff and the
boyard at last advanced, bare-headed, into the presence of the Czar,
who was still occupied in teasing his bear to divert the multitude.
"What are you waiting for?" he said, at the same time taking the cap
of the Prince, and replacing it upon his head. "Why these marks of
respect? Have you quite forgotten all the duties of gallantry in thus
permitting the happy couple to wait at the door of the marriage-house?
But I see--and if I did not see, the odors of the dishes and of the
brandy would be evidence of it--that you have well performed your
duties. With this conviction, Alexandre, that you have done well for
the palates of the guests by delicious dishes, and that my old
Tscherkaski does not permit me to have a doubt as to his performances
concerning the cellar--it is, I say, from these considerations that I
pardon you both for forgetting that I am and wish to be nothing more
to-day than Peter, the countryman, who has come to celebrate with his
friends the nuptials of a couple who love each other tenderly. Come,
let us hasten, lest the temperature of the marriage-palace cool our
dinner."
"As your Majesty wishes," responded the Prince, respectfully.
"Not Majesty," replied the Emperor, and in the same moment he ran to
excuse himself to the affianced for unintentionally causing them to
wait so long.
They entered, and very soon the sound of music announced that they
were being seated at table. The Prince, at a sign from the Czar,
conducted the bride and bridegroom to the place of honor, and beside
them the two children. The rest took their places without distinction
of rank. The Holland ambassador sat next the Emperor, and in front of
him the boyard Tscherkaski, and Menzikoff sat next to Tscherkaski.
II.
The conversation, at first grave and little animated, gradually became
more lively. The Czar was in a good humor, a thing which often
occurred at the dinner-table, if nowhere else. Peter the Countryman
was not slow to assail the embarrassed couple with pleasantries, some
more or less good, and others rather equivocal. He at last requested
the old patriarch, who was perspiring with fear at the anticipation of
the request, to repeat the discourse which he had pronounced to the
great pleasure of his Majesty. A noisy gayety filled the hall, and
outside it was at its height. At the moment in which the Emperor
offered a toast to the married couple, the cannon of ice was
discharged. It flew in pieces in every direction, and instead of
producing any serious sensation lest some accident might have
occurred, it only increased the tumultuous hilarity. The wines of
Champagne and Bourgogne ran in streams. The servants were hardly
sufficient to supply the thirst of the guests. The Czar ordered to
their assistance soldiers, who, taking half a dozen bottles under each
arm, rolled them as nine-pins upon the table--a circumstance which the
ambassador of the powerful states thought so remarkable that he
mentioned it in his report a la Haye.
This intemperate drinking soon showed its effects upon the greater
part of the guests. Peter gave himself up completely to the
infatuation of the vine, and Menzikoff, who preserved his accustomed
sobriety, saw with inquietude the Czar swallow one after another
numerous glasses of Bourgogne. The face of the monarch became
foolish--the perspiration stood upon his forehead in large drops, and
in order to cool himself he took off his perruque, and placed it upon
the head of his neighbor the ambassador, who received the insult
respectfully, but without power to repress a deep sigh. However
pleasant all this might have been, Menzikoff took no part in the
enjoyments of the society, troubled as he was through fears founded
upon an intimate knowledge of the character of his master. Experience
had too often taught him how easily the Czar passed from humor and
hilarity to anger and violence. He knew that such changes took place
almost invariably after indulgences of the bottle, and that a single
word--a single gesture--threw him into a passion that made him
detestable, while by nature he was generous and noble. The event
proved how reasonable were the presentiments of Menzikoff.
The festival was coming to an end. The Czar arose and commanded
silence.
"Hitherto," he said, in smiling, "we have only drank to the health of
the happy pair. It is time to give them a substantial token of our
friendship. Since I am myself the originator of this joyful marriage,
I must give the first example--so take that, Alexandre; put in it what
I told you, and pass it round." At these words the Emperor pointed to
a little silver basket that lay on the table.
Menzikoff took the basket, and drawing from his bosom a draft for 8000
roubles, and emptying his own purse, passed the basket to his neighbor
the boyard. The latter seemed to reflect a moment, took from his
pocket a handful of gold and silver, and with an air of contempt, cast
an old rouble into the basket, and passed it from him.
This circumstance did not escape the notice of the Emperor. His brow
darkened, but soon his gayety returned, and he said, smiling, to
Menzikoff:
"You see, Alexandre, the prudence of our Prince de Tscherkaski. He
gives only a rouble. He means to say by this that he has no very
particular interest in the married parties. It is only a ruse on his
part in order to remove any jealousy that a greater gift might awaken.
I will wager you that to-morrow he will send a present to the young
woman more becoming her rank and position."
"Your Majesty would lose the wager," responded Tscherkaski, in a
haughty tone. "The farces of fools and jugglers have never amused me,
and I have always pitied those who know not better how to employ their
time than to lose it with such creatures. Thus my contribution is at
the same time conformed to the circumstances and to my rank, since I
do not appreciate beyond measure the office of chamberlain, with which
you have gratified me."
The Emperor at first smiled at these words, but his countenance became
more stern.
"Our chamberlain," said he, after a pause, "gets angry to get calm
again. He must be in a bad humor to-day. I hope he will change his
language by the time that another affair occurs, which will interest
him more nearly."
Tscherkaski did or wished not to understand the words of the Czar. His
wandering and disdainful eyes glanced at the basket offered to the
bride and bridegroom. It was filled with gold, rings, bracelets,
jewels, and other precious gifts. The universal happiness of the
evening had removed from the mind of the Czar the remembrance of the
murmurings of the boyard, and Menzikoff had hardly taken his place
when the Emperor whispered to him:
"The dispositions you have made to-day in regard to this festivity do
you honor. You have perfectly agreed with my own taste in such
matters. You have surpassed my expectations."
"It is not I alone," humbly replied the Prince. "The boyard as well as
myself----"
"Without doubt, you and he have perfectly fulfilled my intentions. I
take not into the account the silver rouble, however," added the Czar,
"let that be as it may, ten years hence this place shall be the scene
of a similar festivity; and to let you see how I can surpass you, I
will myself take charge of the preparations. You may smile, Alexandre,
but you will be forced to admit, that without your aid I can arrange a
nuptial feast. It is besides the less difficult, since the essentials
are already decided upon--the persons to be married."
These words were overheard by those present, and a profound silence
ensued.
"Would I be guilty of too much curiosity," said Menzikoff, "if...."
"Ah! you wish to know the young couple," exclaimed the Emperor. "I
ought, perhaps, to leave you in ten years' uncertainty; but thanks to
this brilliant society whom I invite from to-day, you will know now.
Alexis Nicolajewitz," continued he, in addressing the boyard, "you
asked me the other day for certain lands near Tula, situated between
the boundaries of your property and those of Prince Menzikoff."
"I did, and your Majesty has thought fit to refuse them."
"I refused them, because I had reserved them for another. I wish to
give them as a dowry to your daughter."
The astonishment of the boyard was great He attempted to speak.
"Silence! I have attached to the grant one condition," said the Czar.
"Your Majesty will order nothing contrary to my conscience and the
honor of my house. I humbly ask, then...."
"The condition is, that your daughter shall receive her husband at my
hands."
"I have sworn upon the tomb of my wife," responded the boyard, after a
pause, "that my daughter shall espouse him only whom she herself
freely chooses. But, she is still a child,... and in ten years...."
"Indeed," interrupted the Emperor, whose countenance was sorrowful,
"if your daughter should not accept him whom I would propose, the
lands will yet belong to her; are you content now?"
"And the rank, the condition of the parties?"
"They are to be the same."
"A single word from our gracious sovereign, is at any time sufficient
to destroy all inequalities of rank," said one of the guests.
"You are right, Kurakin," returned the boyard; "as to myself, I rely
upon the word of our monarch, who has just said that there is nothing
to equalize. Every one to his opinion upon that which concerns him."
"There is a tone of very high pride in your discourse, Alexis
Nicolajewitz," responded Peter, who repressed his anger with
difficulty. "I have a great mind not to name to you to-day the husband
which I, your sovereign, have chosen for the daughter of one of my
subjects. But let your insolent vanity subside. Your future son-in-law
is of birth equal with your's and your daughter's; he is the only son
of a man whom I dearly esteem and honor with distinguished favors. I
say it in his presence, and it is my desire he should be honored by
others. In a word, your future son-in-law is the companion of your
daughter at the feast to-day; he is the little Fedor Menzikoff."
This name came to the ears of the boyard as a thunder-clap, so great
was his astonishment. The assembly waited in vain his response, but he
was silent.
"Ah well, Alexis," continued the Czar, "if these two manors are hardly
worth thanks, why should I wait for you to consent to the proposed
union?"
All eyes were directed to the boyard. No one spoke, and the Czar's
impatience yielded to a furious anger.
"And what motive," he at last said, "induces you to reject this gift?"
"The very condition that you have yourself made, gracious sovereign."
"The condition?"
"Yes, that condition which requires my daughter to give her hand to
the son of Prince Menzikoff. It can never be fulfilled. It is
impossible to accept the gift of your Majesty."
"And why?" fiercely demanded Peter.
"The Czar orders--his servant must obey. Prince Menzikoff is the son
of a serf, but the daughter of Tscherkaski shall never marry a man of
so mean extraction," and the blood mounted to the brow of the boyard.
"Insolent dog!" exclaimed Peter, striking his hand upon the table. "Do
you not know that a single word from me can make ten serfs ten
Princes, and the least among them superior to you in rank and dignity.
Oh! by my patron, the prince of the Apostles, why should I patiently
listen to this haughty descendant of the brigands of the Caucasus. I
can do more than this, proud boyard; by a breath I can degrade thee
and all thy tribe."
Hitherto Tscherkaski held his eyes downward, but now he lifted them
and looked steadily at his monarch.
"Your look braves and menaces me," thundered the Czar, beside himself,
and shaking his fist towards the boyard. "Reply if you dare, and it is
not impossible that your rebellious head rolls from your body this
very night, this hour, this minute."
"Certainly, I do not doubt your power. How could I doubt the power of
one who, on the same day, without pity and without humanity, cut off
the heads of thousands. Surely, the man who tramples under his feet
those who were once the support of his crown and authority; who has
not only stained his own hands in their blood, but that of his own
son--surely he would not hesitate to destroy an old servant, the
necessary but guilty instrument of his past vengeance. Come! the arm
that was steeped in the massacre of the Kremlin, can hardly take a
redder hue from the blood of an unimportant slave."
Peter looked with burning eyes upon his adversary. He arose, as by an
impulse, and inclining his head forward, seemed to be engaged in
discovering the meaning of those vehement words. But he was
endeavoring to stay the tempest that was sweeping over his heart. Some
minutes elapsed before he recovered himself from those bitter
recollections; and looking with an affected air of calmness and
dignity upon the astonished assembly, he said--
"Faithful Russians! you have heard the serious accusation brought by a
subject against his monarch. Whatever may be the number of the
Strelitz fallen in an unhappy day, I am not at all concerned about it;
they died for the safety and well-being of sacred Russia. If innocent
blood flowed at the Kremlin--if, among so many guilty, the sword
severed the head of one innocent, I am ready to defend the act. It was
from me that the whole transaction originated; it is mine only, and I
take the responsibility of it. I had no other means of saving our
country from the barbarism that encumbered it, and impeded its
elevation to the rank which it should occupy among the nations of
Europe. As the bold boyard has truly said, it is I who have brandished
the sword, and I ask who is the Russian who dares cite me to his
tribunal?"
The anger of the Czar was rekindled, and he began anew.
"It is to the tutelary patron of the empire that I am indebted for the
power of having executed a resolution which I judged necessary. A
disease was undermining the constitution of the empire--the evil was
terrible and appeared incurable: like a skilful physician I at once
employed the medicine which could alone be successful in arresting the
progress of the disease. Could I, in the moment of execution, place
the instrument in the trembling hands of a charlatan? No; it was my
own hand that held the knife. I felt the wounds which I made; and I
say to-day, before God and man, it is I to whom the action belongs,
and for which I am ready to answer on earth and on high. Now, as to
you, Tscherkaski, you have audaciously rejected the favor I was
willing to grant. You have not even feared to accuse your sovereign in
the midst of his subjects. If my ancestors were alive your white head
would fall from the block, but far from me the thought of shedding the
blood of an old brother in arms. Retract, and you may pass your days
tranquilly on your own lands. If not," and the voice of the Czar grew
more stern, "I send you this night into eternal exile."
"Is it permitted me to take with me my daughter?" cooly asked the old
man.
"The child belongs to its parent," replied the Emperor, surprised and
hesitating.
"Then, Alexander Michailowitz," said the boyard to Menzikoff, "give me
two of those bear-skins you placed upon the ice-chairs; it is all that
is necessary."
"Take him away at once; we have had enough of his arrogance and
audacity!" exclaimed the furious Peter, and he repelled Menzikoff, who
was endeavoring to intercede for the boyard.
"And whither?" asked the prince with a trembling voice.
"To Bareson upon the Ob----No; to Woksarski upon the Frozen sea,"
added Peter, as he beheld the smiling and triumphing air of the
boyard.
A few moments after the old man and his daughter entered a sledge. A
party of horsemen accompanied them, and away they went with the
swiftness of an eagle towards the dreary regions of the north-west.
Ten years later, Prince Menzikoff, despoiled of his goods, his honors,
and his rank, came to share the exile of the boyard. Similar
misfortune reconciled two enemies, and the union of their children
accomplished the prediction of the Czar.
POLITENESS: IN PARIS AND LONDON.
BY SIR HENRY LYTTON BULWER.
"Je me recommande a vous," was said to me the other day by an old
gentleman dressed in very tattered garments, who was thus soliciting a
"sou." The old man was a picture: his long gray hairs fell gracefully
over his shoulders. Tall--he was so bent forward as to take with a
becoming air the position in which he had placed himself. One hand was
pressed to his heart, the other held his hat. His voice, soft and
plaintive, did not want a certain dignity. In that very attitude, and
in that very voice, a nobleman of the ancient "regime" might have
solicited a pension from the Duc de Choiseul in the time of Louis XV.
I confess that I was the more struck by the manner of the venerable
suppliant, from the strong contrast which it formed with the demeanor
of his countrymen in general: for it is rare, now-a-days, I
acknowledge, to meet a Frenchman with the air which Lawrence Sterne
was so enchanted with during the first month, and so wearied with at
the expiration of the first year, which he spent in France. That look
and gesture of the "petit marquis," that sort of studied elegance,
which, at first affected by the court, became at last natural to the
nation, exist no longer, except among two or three "grands seigneurs"
in the Faubourg St. Germain, and as many beggars usually to be found
on the Boulevards. To ask with grace, to beg with as little
self-humility as possible, here perchance is the fundamental idea
which led, in the two extremes of society, to the same results: but
things vicious in their origin are sometimes agreeable in their
practice.
"Hail, ye small sweet courtesies of life, far smoother do ye make the
road of it--like grace and beauty, which beget inclination at first
sight, 'tis ye who open the door and let the stranger in." I had the
Sentimental Journey in my hand--it was open just at this passage, when
I landed not very long ago on the quay of that town which Horace
Walpole tells us caused him more astonishment than any other he had
met with in his travels. I mean Calais. "Hail, ye small sweet
courtesies of life," was I still muttering to myself, as gently
pushing by a spruce little man, who had already scratched my nose and
nearly poked out my eyes with cards of "Hotel ...," I attempted to
pass on towards the inn of Mons. Dessin. "Nom de D...," said the
Commissionaire, as I touched his elbow, "Nom de D..., Monsieur, _Je
suis Francais_! il ne faut pas me pousser, moi ... _je suis
Francais_!"--and this he said, contracting his brow, and touching a
moustache that only wanted years and black wax to make it truly
formidable. I thought that he was going to offer me his own card
instead of Mr. Meurice's. This indeed would have been little more than
what happened to a friend of mine not long ago. He was going last year
from Dieppe to Paris. He slept at Rouen, and on quitting the house the
following morning found fault with some articles in the bill presented
to him. "Surely there is some mistake here," said he, pointing to the
account. "Mistake, sir," said the _aubergiste_, adjusting his
shoulders with the important air of a man who was going to burthen
them with a quarrel--"mistake, sir, what do you mean?--a mistake--do
you think I charge a sou more than is just? Do you mean to say that?
_Je suis officier, Monsieur, officier Francais, et j'insiste sur ce
que vous me rendiez raison!!_" Now, it is undoubtedly very pleasant to
an Englishman, who has the same idea of a duel that a certain French
marquise had of a lover, when, on her death-bed, she said to her
grand-daughter, "Je ne vous dis pas, ma chere, de ne point avoir
d'amans; je me rappelle ma jeunesse. Il faut seulement n'en prendre
jamais qui soient au-dessous de votre etat"--it is doubtless very
unpleasant to an Englishman, who cares much less about fighting than
about the person he fights with, to have his host present him a bill
in one hand and a pistol in the other. In one of the islands which we
ought to discover, whenever the king sneezes all his courtiers are
expected to sneeze also. The country of course imitates the court, and
the empire is at once affected with a general cold. Sneezing here
then becomes an art and an accomplishment. One person prizes himself
on sneezing more gracefully than another, and, by a matter of general
consent, all nations who have not an harmonious manner of vibrating
their nostrils are justly condemned as savages and barbarians. There
is no doubt that the people of this island are right; and there is no
doubt that we are right in considering every people with different
usages from ourselves of very uncivilized and uncomfortable behavior.
We then, decidedly, are the people who ought justly to be deemed the
most polite.
For instance--you arrive at Paris: how striking the difference between
the reception you receive at your hotel, and that you would find in
London! In London, arrive in your carriage! (_that_ I grant is
necessary)--the landlord meets you at the door, surrounded by his
anxious attendants; he bows profoundly when you alight--calls loudly
for every thing you want, and seems shocked at the idea of your
waiting an instant for the merest trifle you can possibly _imagine_
that you desire. Now try your Paris hotel--you enter the
courtyard--the proprietor, if he happen to be there, receives you with
careless indifference, and either accompanies you saunteringly
himself, or orders some one to accompany you to the apartments which,
on first seeing you, he determined you should have. It is useless to
expect another. If you find any fault with this apartment, if you
express any wish that it had this little thing, that it had not that,
do not for one moment imagine that your host is likely to say, with an
eager air, that he "will see what can be done"--that he "would do a
great deal to please so respectable a gentleman." In short, do not
suppose him for one moment likely to pour forth any of those little
civilities with which the lips of your English innkeeper would
overflow. On the contrary, be prepared for his lifting up his eyes,
and shrugging up his shoulders, (the shrug is not the courtier-like
shrug of antique days,) and telling you that the apartment is as you
see it, that it is for Monsieur to make up his mind whether he take it
or not. The whole is the affair of the guest, and remains a matter of
perfect indifference to the host. Your landlady, it is true, is not
quite so haughty on these occasions. But you are indebted for her
smile rather to the coquetry of the beauty, than to the civility of
the hostess. She will tell you, adjusting her head-dress in the mirror
standing upon the chimney-piece in the little "salon" she
recommends--"que Monsieur s'y trouvera fort bien, qu'un milord
Anglais, qu'un prince Russe, ou qu'un colonel du ----ieme de dragons,
a occupe cette meme chambre"--and that there is just by an excellent
restaurateur and a "cabinet de lecture"--and then--her head-dress
being quite in order--the lady expanding her arms with a gentle smile,
says, "Mais apres tout, c'est a Monsieur a se decider." It is this
which makes your French gentleman so loud in praise of English
politeness. One was expatiating to me the other day on the admirable
manners of the English.
"I went," said he, "to the Duke of Devonshire's, '_dans mon pauvre
fiacre_:' never shall I forget the respect with which a stately
gentleman, gorgeously apparelled, opened the creaking door, let down
the steps, and--courtesy of very courtesies--picked, actually picked,
the dirty straws of the ignominious vehicle that I descended from, off
my shoes and stockings." This occurred to the French gentleman at the
Duke of Devonshire's. But let your English gentleman visit a French
"grand seigneur!" He enters the antechamber from the grand escalier.
The servants are at a game of dominos, from which his entrance hardly
disturbs them, and fortunate is he if any one conduct him with a
careless lazy air to the "salon." So, if you go to Boivin's, or if you
go to Howel's and James's, with what politeness, with what celerity,
with what respect your orders are received at the great man's of
Waterloo Place--with what an easy nonchalance you are treated in the
Rue de la Paix! All this is quite true; but there are things more
shocking than all this. I know a gentleman, who called the other day
on a French lady of his acquaintance, who was under the hands of her
"coiffeur." The artiste of the hair was there, armed cap-a-pie, in all
the glories of national-guardism, brandishing his comb with the grace
and dexterity with which he would have wielded a sword, and
recounting, during the operation of the toilette--now a story of
"_Monsieur son Capitaine_"--now an anecdote, equally interesting, of
"_Monsieur son Colonel_"--now a tale of "_Monsieur son Roi_, that
excellent man, on whom he was going to mount guard that very evening."
My unhappy friend's face still bore the most awful aspect of dismay,
as he told his story. "By G--d, there's a country for you," said he;
"can property be safe for a moment in such a country? There can be no
religion, no morality, with such manners--I shall order post-horses
immediately."
I did not wonder at my friend--at his horror for so fearful a
familiarity. What are our parents always, and no doubt wisely
repeating to us? "You should learn, my dear, to keep _a certain kind
of persons_ at their proper distance."
In no circumstances are we to forget this important lesson. If the
clouds hurled their thunders upon our heads, if the world tumbled
topsy-turvy about our ears,
"Si fractus illabatur orbis,"
it is to find the well-bred Englishman as it would have found the just
Roman--and, above all things, it is not to derange the imperturbable
disdain with which he is enfeoffed to his inferiors. Lady D. was going
to Scotland: a violent storm arose. Her ladyship was calmly dressing
her hair, when the steward knocked at the cabin-door. "My lady," said
the man, "I think it right to tell you there is every chance of our
being drowned." "Do not talk to me, you impertinent fellow,
about drowning," said her aristocratical ladyship, perfectly
unmoved--"that's the captain's business, and not mine."
Our great idea of civility is, that the person who is poor should be
exceedingly civil to the person who is wealthy: and this is the
difference between the neighboring nations. Your Frenchman admits no
one to be quite his equal--your Englishman worships every one richer
than himself as undeniably his superior. Judge us from our servants
and our shopkeepers, it is true we are the politest people in the
world. The servants, who are paid well, and the shopkeepers, who sell
high--scrape, and cringe, and smile. There is no country where those
who have wealth are treated so politely by those to whom it goes; but
at the same time there is no country where those who are well off live
on such cold, and suspicious, and ill-natured, and uncivil terms among
themselves.
The rich man who travels in France murmurs at every inn and at every
shop; not only is he treated no better for being a rich man--he is
treated worse in many places, from the idea that because he is rich he
is likely to give himself airs. But if the lower classes are more rude
to the higher classes than with us, the higher classes in France are
far less rude to one another. The dandy who did not look at an old
acquaintance, or who looked impertinently at a stranger, would have
his nose pulled and his body run through with a small-sword--or
damaged by a pistol-bullet--before the evening was well over. Where
every man wishes to be higher than he is, there you find people
insolent to their fellows, and exacting obsequiousness from their
inferiors--where men will allow no one to be superior to themselves,
there you see them neither civil to those above them, nor impertinent
to those beneath them, nor yet very courteous to those in the same
station. The manners, checkered in one country by softness and
insolence, are not sufficiently courteous and gentle in the other.
Time was in France, (it existed in England to a late date,) when
politeness was thought to consist in placing every one at his ease. A
quiet sense of their own dignity rendered persons insensible to the
fear of its being momentarily forgotten. Upon these days rested the
shadow of a bygone chivalry, which accounted courtesy as one of the
virtues. The civility of that epoch, as contrasted with the civility
of ours, was not the civility of the domestic or the tradesman, meant
to pamper the pride of their employer, but the civility of the noble
and the gentleman, meant to elevate the modesty of those who
considered themselves in an inferior state. Corrupted by the largesses
of an expensive and intriguing court, the "grand seigneur," after the
reign of Louis XIV., became over-civil and servile to those above him.
Beneath the star of the French minister beat the present heart of the
British mercer--and softly did the great man smile on those from whom
he had any thing to gain. As whatever was taught at Versailles was
learnt in the Rue St. Denis, when the courtier had the air of a
solicitor, every one aped the air of the courtier; and the whole
nation with one hand expressing a request, and the other an
obligation, might have been taken in the attitude of the graceful old
beggar, whose accost made such an impression upon me.
But a new nobility grew up in rivalry to the elder one; and as the
positions of society became more complicated and uncertain, a supreme
civility to some was seen side by side with a sneering insolence to
others--a revolution in manners, which embittered as it hastened the
revolution of opinions. Thus the manners of the French in the time of
Louis XVI. had one feature of similarity with ours at present. A
moneyed aristocracy was then rising into power in France, as a moneyed
aristocracy is now rising into power in England. This is the
aristocracy which demands obsequious servility--which is jealous and
fearful of being treated with disrespect; this is the aristocracy
which is haughty, insolent, and susceptible; which dreams of affronts
and gives them: this is the aristocracy which measures with an
uncertain eye the height of an acquaintance; this is the aristocracy
which cuts and sneers--this aristocracy, though the aristocracy of the
revolution of July, is now too powerless in France to be more than
vulgar in its pretensions. French manners, then, if they are not
gracious, are at all events not insolent; while ours, unhappily,
testify on one hand the insolence, while they do not on the other
represent the talent and the grace of that society which presided over
the later suppers of the old regime. We have no Monsieur de
Fitz-James, who might be rolled in a gutter all his life, as was said
by a beautiful woman of his time, "without ever contracting a spot of
dirt." We have no Monsieur de Narbonne, who stops in the fiercest of a
duel to pick up the ruffled rose that had slipped in a careless moment
from his lips during the graceful conflict! You see no longer in
France that noble air, that "_great manner_," as it was called, by
which the old nobility strove to keep up the distinction between
themselves and their worse-born associates to the last, and which of
course those associates _assiduously imitated_.
That manner is gone: the French, so far from being a polite nation at
the present day, want that easiness of behavior which is the first
essential to politeness. Every man you meet is occupied with
maintaining his dignity, and talks to you of _his_ position. There is
an evident effort and struggle, I will not say to appear better than
you are, but to appear _all_ that _you are_, and to allow no person to
think that you consider him better than you. Persons, no longer
ranked by classes, take each by themselves an individual place in
society. They are so many atoms, not forming a congruous or harmonious
whole. They are too apt to strut forward singly, and to say with a
great deal of action, and a great deal of emphasis, "I am--_nobody_."
The French are no longer polite, but in the French nation, as in every
nation, there is an involuntary and traditionary respect which hallows
what is gone-by; and among the marvels of modern France is a religion
which ranks an agreeable smile and a graceful bow as essential virtues
of its creed.
Nor does the Pere Enfantin stand alone. There is something touching in
the language of the old "seigneur," who, placed as it were between two
epochs, looking backwards and forwards to the graces of past times and
the virtues of new, thus expresses himself:
"Les progres de la lumiere et de la liberte ont certainment fait faire
de grands pas a la raison humaine; mais aussi dans sa route,
n'a-t-elle rien perdu? Moi qui ne suis pas un de ces opiniatres
proneurs de ce bon vieux temp qui n'est plus, je ne puis m'empecher de
regretter ce bon gout, cette grace, cette fleur d'enjouement et
d'urbanite qui chassait de la societe tout ennui en permettant au bon
sens de sourire et a la sagesse de se parer. Aujourd 'hui beaucoup de
gens ressemblent a un proprietaire morose, qui, ne songeant qu'a
l'utile, bannirait de son jardin les fleurs, et ne voudrait y voir que
du ble, des foins et des fruits."
From Fraser's Magazine.
THE LION IN THE TOILS.
BY C. ASTOR BRISTED.
What followed the events related in our last number gave Ashburner a
lesson against making up his mind too hastily on any points of
character, national or individual. A fortnight after his arrival at
Oldport he would have said that the Americans were the most
communicative people he had ever fallen in with, and particularly,
that the men of "our set" were utterly incapable of keeping secret any
act or purpose of their lives, any thing that had happened, or was
going to happen. _Now_ he was surprised at the discretion shown by the
men cognizant of the late row (and they comprised all the fashionables
left in the place, and some of the outsiders, like Simpson); their
dexterity and careful management, first, to prevent the affair from
coming to a fight, and then, if that were impossible, to keep it from
publicity until the parties were safe over the border into Canada,
where they might "shoot each other like gentlemen," as a young
gentleman from Alabama expressed it. Sedley himself, whose
officiousness had precipitated the quarrel, did all in his power to
prevent any further mischief, and was as sedulous for the promotion of
_silencio_ and _misterio_, as if he had been leader of a chorus of
Venetian Senators. _The Sewer_ reporters, who, in their eagerness to
collect every bit of gossip and scandal, would have given the ears
which an outraged community had permitted them to retain for a
knowledge of the fracas and its probable consequences, never had the
least inkling of it. Indeed, so quietly was the whole managed, that
Ashburner never made out the cause of the old feud, nor was able to
form any opinion on the probability of its final issue. On the former
point he could only come to the conclusion from what he heard, that
Hunter had been mythologizing, as his wont was, something to Benson's
discredit several years before, and had been trying to make mischief
between him and some of his friends or relations; but what the exact
offence was, whether Sumner was involved in the quarrel from the
first, and if so, to what extent; and whether the legend about the
horse was a part of, or only an addition to the original
grievance;--on these particulars he remained in the dark. As to the
latter, he knew that Hunter had not challenged Benson, and that he had
left the place, but whether to look up a friend or not, no one seemed
to know, or if they did, no one cared to tell. At any rate, he did not
return for a week and more, during which time Ashburner had full
opportunity of studying the behavior and feelings of a man with a duel
in prospect.
Those who defend and advocate the practice of duelling, if asked to
explain the motives leading a gentleman to fight, would generally
answer somewhat to this effect: in the first place, personal courage
which induces a man to despise danger and death, in comparison with
any question affecting his own honor, or that of those connected with
him; secondly, a respect for the opinion of the society in which he
moves, which opinion, to a certain extent, supplies and fixes the
definition of honor. Hence it would follow that, given a man who is
neither physically brave, nor bound by any particular respect for the
opinion of his daily associates, and the world he moves in, such a man
would not be likely to give or accept a challenge. The case under
Ashburner's observation afforded a palpable contradiction to this
conclusion.
Henry Benson was not personally valorous; what courage he possessed
was rather of a moral than a physical kind. Where he appeared to be
daring and heedless, it proved on examination to be the result of
previous knowledge and practice, which gave him confidence and armed
him with impunity. Thus he would drive his trotters at any thing, and
shave through "tight places" on rough and crowded roads, his
whiffle-trees tipping and his hubs grazing the surrounding wheels in a
way that at first made Ashburner shudder in spite of himself; but it
was because his experience in wagon-driving enabled him to measure
distances within half-an-inch, and to catch an available opening
immediately. On the other hand, in their pedestrian trips across
country in Westchester, he was very chary of jumping fences or ditches
till he had ascertained by careful practice his exact capacity for
that sort of exercise. He would ride his black horse, Daredevil, who
was the terror of all the servants and women in his neighborhood,
because he had made himself perfectly acquainted with all the animal's
stock of tricks, and was fully prepared for them as they came; but he
never went the first trip in a new steamboat or railroad line. He ate
and drank many things considered unhealthy, because he understood
exactly from experience what and how much he could take without
injury; but you could not have bribed him to sit fifteen minutes in
wet boots. In short, he was a man who took excellent care of himself,
_canny_ as a Scot or a New-Englander, loving the good things of life,
and not disposed to hazard them on slight grounds. Then as to the
approbation or disapprobation of those about him, he was almost
entirely careless of it. On any point beyond the cut of a coat, the
decoration of a room, the concoction of a dish, or the merits of a
horse, there were not ten people in his own set whose opinion he
heeded. To the remarks of foreigners he was a little more sensitive,
but even these he was more apt to retort upon by a _tu quoque_ than to
be influenced by. Add to all this, that he had the convenient excuse
of being a communicant at church, which, in America, implies something
like a formal profession of religion. Yet at this time he was not only
willing, but most eager to fight. The secret lay in his state of
recklessness. A moment of passion had overturned all his instincts,
principles, and common-sense, and inspired him with the feverish
desire to pay off his old debts to Storey Hunter, at whatever cost.
And as neither the possession of extraordinary personal courage, nor a
high sense of conventional honor, nor a respect for the opinion of
society, necessarily induces a feeling of recklessness, so neither
does the absence of these qualities prevent the presence of this
feeling, exactly the most favorable one to make a man engage in a
duel. Moralists have called such a condition one of temporary madness,
and it has probably as good grounds to be classed with insanity as
many of the pleas known to medical and criminal jurisprudence.
Be this as it may, Ashburner had a good opportunity of observing--and
the example, it is to be hoped, was of service to him--the
demoralization induced upon a man by the mere impending possibility of
a duel. Benson seemed careless what he did. He danced frantically, and
drank so much at all hours, that the Englishman, though pretty
strong-headed himself, wondered how he could keep sober. He was openly
seen reading _The Blackguard's Own_, a weekly of _The Sewer_ species.
He made up trotting-matches with every man in the place who owned a
"fast crab," and with some acquaintances at a distance, by
correspondence. He kept studiously out of the way of his wife and
child, lest their influence might shake his determination. All this
time he practised pistol-shooting most religiously. Neither of the
belligerents had ever given a public proof of skill in this line.
Hunter's ability was not known, and Benson's shooting so uncertain and
variable when any one looked on, that those in the secret suspected
him of playing dark and disguising his hand. All which added to the
interest of the affair.
But when eleven days had passed without signs or tidings of Hunter,
and it seemed pretty clear that he had gone away "for good," Benson
started up one morning, and went off himself to New-York, at the same
time with Harrison, whose brief and not very joyous holidays had come
to a conclusion. He accompanied the banker, in accordance with the
true American principle, always to have a lion for your companion when
you can; and as Harrison was still a man of note in Wall-street,
however small might be his influence in his own household, Benson
liked to be seen with him, and to talk any thing--even stocks--to him,
though he had no particular interest in the market at that time. But
whether an American is in business himself or not, the subject of
business is generally an interesting one to him, and he is always
ready to gossip about dollars. The unexampled material development of
the United States is only maintained by a condition of society which
requires every man to take a share in assisting that development, and
the most frivolous and apparently idle men are found sharp enough in
pecuniary matters. This trait of national character lies on the
surface, and foreigners have not been slow to notice it, and to
draw from it unfavorable conclusions. The supplementary and
counterbalancing features of character to be observed in these very
people,--that it is rather the fun of making the money than the money
itself which they care for; that when it is made, they spend it
freely, and part with it more readily than they earned it; that they
are more liberal both in their public and private charities
(considering the amount of their wealth, and of the claims upon it)
than any nation in the world,--all these traits strangers have been
less ready to dwell upon and do justice to.
Benson was gone, and Ashburner stayed. Why? He had been at Oldport
nearly a month; the place was not particularly beautiful, and the
routine of amusements not at all to his taste. Why did he stay? He had
his secret, too.
It is a melancholy but indisputable fact, that even in the most
religious and moral country in the world, the bulwark of evangelical
faith, and the home of the domestic virtues (meaning, of course,
England), a great many mothers who have daughters to marry, are not so
anxious about the real welfare, temporal and eternal, of their young
ladies, as solicitous that they should acquire riches, titles, and
other vanities of the world,--nay, that many of the daughters
themselves act as if their everlasting happiness depended on their
securing in matrimony a proper combination of the aforesaid vanities,
and put out of account altogether the greatest prize a woman can
gain--the possession of a true and loving heart, joined to a wise
head. Now, Ashburner being a very good _parti_ at home, and having run
the gauntlet of one or two London seasons, had become very skittish of
mammas, and still more so of daughters. He regarded the unmarried
female as a most dangerous and altogether to be avoided animal, and
when you offered to introduce him to a young lady, looked about as
grateful as if you had invited him to go up in a balloon. He expected
to be rather more persecuted, if any thing, in America than he had
been at home; and when he met Miss Vanderlyn at Ravenswood, if his
first thought had found articulate expression, it would probably have
been something like this:--"Now that young woman is going to set her
cap at me; what a bore it will be!"
Never was a man more mistaken in his anticipations. He encountered
many pretty girls, not at all timid, ready enough to talk, and flirty
enough among their own set, but not one of them threw herself at him,
and least of all did Miss Vanderlyn. Not that the young lady was the
victim of a romantic attachment, for she was perfectly fancy free and
heart whole; nor, on the other hand, that she was at all insensible to
the advantages of matrimony, for she kept a very fair lookout in that
direction, and had, if not absolutely down on her books, at least
engraved on the recording tablets of her mind, four distinct young
gentlemen, combining the proper requisites, any of whom would suit her
pretty well, and one of whom--she didn't much care which--she was
pretty well resolved to marry within the next two years. And as she
was stylish and rather handsome, clever enough, and tolerably provided
with the root of all evil, besides having that fortunate good humor
and accommodating disposition which go so far towards making a woman a
belle and a favorite, there was a sufficient probability that before
the expiration of that time, one of the four would offer himself. But
all her calculations were founded on shrewd common sense; her
imagination took no flights, and her aspirations only extended to the
ordinary and possible. That this young and strange Englishman,
travelling as a part of education, the son of a great man, and
probably betrothed by proxy to some great man's daughter, or going
into parliament to be a great man himself, and remain a bachelor for
the best part of his life,--that between him and herself there should
by any thing in common, any point of union which could make even a
flirtation feasible, never entered into her head. She would as soon
have expected the King of Dahomey to send an embassy with ostrich
feathers in their caps, and rings in their noses, formally to ask her
hand in marriage. Nay, even if the incredible event had come to pass,
and the young stranger had taken the initiative, even then she would
not by any means have jumped at the bait. For in the first place, she
was fully imbued with the idea that the Vanderlyns were quite as good
as any other people in the world, and that (the ordinary conceit of an
American belle) to whatever man she might give her hand, all the honor
would come from her side, and all the gain be his; therefore she would
not have cared to come into a family who might suspect her of having
inveigled their heir, and look down upon her as something beneath
them, because she came from a country where there were no noblemen.
Secondly, there is a very general feeling among the best classes in
America, that no European worth any thing at home comes to America to
get married. The idea is evidently an imperfect generalization, and
liable to exceptions; but the prevalence of it shows more modesty in
the "Upper Ten's" appreciation of themselves than they usually have
credit for. As soon, therefore, as a foreigner begins to pay attention
to a young lady in good society, it is _prima facie_ ground of
suspicion against him. The reader will see from all this how little
chance there was of Ashburner's running any danger from the unmarried
women about him. With the married ones the case was somewhat
different. It may be remembered, that at his first introduction to
Mrs. Henry Benson, the startling contrast she exhibited to the
adulation he had been accustomed to receive, totally put him down; and
that afterwards she softened off the rough edge of her satire, and
became very _piquante_ and pleasing to him. And as she greatly amused
him, so he began to suspect that she was rather proud of having such a
lion in her train, as no doubt she was, notwithstanding the somewhat
rough and cub-like stage of his existence. So he began to hang about
her, and follow her around in his green awkward way, and look large
notes of admiration at her; and she was greatly diverted, and not at
all displeased at his attentions. I don't know how far it might have
gone; Ashburner was a very correct and moral young man, as the world
goes, but rather because he had generally business enough on hand to
keep him out of mischief, than from any high religious principle; and
I am afraid that in spite of the claims of propriety, and honor, and
friendship, and the avenging Zeus of hospitality, and every other
restraining motive, he would have fallen very much in love with Mrs.
Benson but for one thing.
He was hopelessly in love with Mrs. Harrison. How or when it began he
couldn't tell; but he found himself under the influence imperceptibly,
as a man feels himself intoxicated. Sometimes he fancied that there
had been a kind of love at first sight--that with the first glimpse he
had of her, something in his heart told him that that woman was
destined to exert a mastery over him; yet his feelings must have
undergone a change and growth, for he would not now have listened to
any one speaking of her as Benson had done at that time. _Why_ it was,
he could still less divine. His was certainly not the blind
admiration which sees no fault in its idol; he saw her faults plainly
enough, and yet could not help himself. He often asked himself how it
happened that if he _was_ doomed to endure an illicit and unfortunate
passion, it was not for Mrs. Benson rather than Mrs. Harrison; for the
former was at least as clever, certainly handsomer, palpably younger,
indubitably more lady-like, and altogether a higher style of woman.
Yet with this just appreciation of them, there was no comparison as to
his feelings towards the two. The one amused and delighted him when
present; the other, in her absence, was ever rising up before his
mind's eye, and drawing him after her; and when they met, his
heart beat quicker, and he was more than usually awkward and
confused.--Perhaps there had been, in the very origin of his
entanglement and passion, some guiding impulse of honor, some sense
that Benson had been his friend and entertainer, and that to Harrison
he was under no personal obligations. For there are many shades of
honor and dishonor in dishonorable thoughts, and a little principle
goes a great way with some people, like the wind commemorated by Joe
Miller's Irishman, of which there was not much, _but what there was,
was very high_.
Be this as it may, he was loving to perdition--or thought so, at
least; and it is hard to discriminate in a very young man's case
between the conceit and the reality of love. His whole heart and mind
were taken up with one great, all-pervading idea of Mrs. Harrison, and
he was equally unable to smother and to express his flame. He was
dying to make her a present of something, but he could send nothing
without a fear of exciting suspicion, except bouquets; and of these
floral luxuries, though they were only to be procured at Oldport with
much trouble and expense, she had always a supply from other quarters.
He did not like to be one of a number in his offerings; he wanted to
pay her some peculiar tribute. He would have liked to fight some man
for her, to pick a quarrel with some one who had said something
against her. Proud and sensitive to ridicule as he was, he would have
laid himself down in her way, and let her walk over him, could he have
persuaded himself that she would be gratified by such a proof of
devotion, and that it would help his cause with her.
Had Benson been in Oldport now, there might have been trouble,
inasmuch as he was not particular about what he said, and not too well
disposed towards Mrs. Harrison, while Ashburner was just in a state of
mind to have fought with his own father on that theme. But Benson was
away, and his absence at this time was not a source of regret to
Ashburner, who felt a little afraid of him, and with some reason, for
our friend Harry was as observant as if he had a fly's allowance of
eyes, and had a knack of finding out things without looking for them,
and of knowing things without asking about them; and he would
assuredly have noticed that Ashburner began to be less closely
attached to his party, and to follow in the train of Mrs. Harrison. As
for Clara Benson, she never troubled herself about the Englishman's
falling off in his attentions to her; if any thing, she was rather
glad of it; her capricious disposition made her tire of a friend in a
short time; she could not endure any one's uninterrupted company--not
even her husband's, who therefore wisely took care to absent himself
from her several times every year.
Moreover, though Ashburner was seen in attendance on the lioness, it
was not constantly or in a pointed manner. He was still fighting with
himself, and, like a man run away with, who has power to guide his
horse though not to stop him, he was so far able to manage his passion
as to keep it from an open display. So absolutely no one suspected
what was the matter with him, or that there was any thing the matter
with him, except the lady herself. Catch a woman not finding out when
a man is in love with her! Sometimes she may delude herself with
imagining a passion where none exists, but she never makes the
converse mistake of failing to perceive it where it does. And how did
the gay Mrs. Harrison, knowing and perceiving herself to be thus
loved, make use of her knowledge? What alteration did it produce in
her conduct and bearing towards her admirer? Absolutely none at all.
Precisely as she had treated him at their first introduction did she
continue to treat him--as if he were one of her everyday
acquaintances, and nothing more. And it is precisely this line of
action that utterly breaks down a man's defences, and makes him more
hopelessly than ever the slave of his fair conqueror. If a woman
declares open hostilities against him, runs him down behind his back,
snubs him to his face, shuns his society,--this at least shows that
she considers his attachment of some consequence--consequence enough
to take notice of, though the notice be unfavorable. His self-respect
may come to the rescue, or his piqued vanity may save him by
converting love into enmity. But a perseverance in never noticing his
love, and feigning to be ignorant of its existence, completely
establishes her supremacy over him.
A Frenchman, who has conceived designs against a married lady, only
seeks to throw dust in the husband's eyes, and then if he cannot
succeed in his final object, at least to establish sufficient intimacy
to give him a plausible pretext for saying that he has succeeded; for
in such a matter he is not scrupulous about lying a little--or a great
deal. An American, bad enough for a similar intention (which usually
presupposes a considerable amount of _Parisianization_), acts as much
like a Frenchman--if anything, rather worse. An Englishman is not
usually moved to the desire of an intrigue by vanity, but driven into
it by sheer passion, and his first impulse is to run bodily off with
the object of his misplaced affection; to take her and himself out of
the country, as if he could thereby travel out of his moral
responsibilities. Reader, did you ever notice, or having noticed, did
you ever ponder upon the geographical distribution of morals and
propriety which is so marked and almost peculiar a feature of the
Anglo-Saxon mind? In certain outward looks and habits, the English may
be unchangeable and unmistakeable all over the globe; but their
ethical code is certainly not the same at home and abroad. It is
pretty much so with an American, too, before he has become irreparably
Parisianized. When he puts on his travelling habits, he takes off his
puritan habits, and makes light of doing things abroad which he would
be the first to anathematize at home. Observe, we are not speaking of
the deeply religious, nor yet of the openly profligate class in either
country, but of the general run of respectable men who travel; they
regard a great part of their morality and their manners as intended
solely for home consumption; while a Frenchman or a German, if his
home standard is not so high, lives better up to it abroad. And yet
many Englishmen, and some Americans, wonder why their countrymen are
so unpopular as foreign travellers!
Ashburner, then, wanted to run away with Mrs. Harrison. How he could
have supported her never entered into his thoughts, nor did he
consider what the effect would be on his own prospects. He did not
reflect, either, how miserably selfish it was in him, after all, to
expect that this woman would give up her fortune and position, her
children, her unbounded legitimate domination over her husband, for
his boyish passion, and how infinitesimally small the probability that
she would do so crazy a thing. Nor did Harrison ever arise before his
mind as a present obstacle or future danger; and this was less frantic
than most of his overlookings. The broker was a strong and courageous
man, and probably had been once very much in love with his wife; but
at that time, so far from putting a straw in the way of any man who
wanted to relieve him of her, he would probably have been willing to
pay his expenses into the bargain.
But how to declare his passion--that was the question. He saw that the
initiatory steps, and very decided ones, must be taken on his part;
and it was not easy to find the lady alone ten minutes together.
People lived at Newport as if they were in the open air, and the
volunteer police of ordinary gossip made private interviews between
well-known people a matter of extreme difficulty. A Frenchman
similarly placed would have brought the affair to a crisis much
sooner: he would have found a thousand ways of disclosing his
feelings, and at the same time dexterously leaving himself a loop-hole
of escape. Very clever at these things are the Gauls; they will make
an avowal in full ball-room, under cover of the music, if there is no
other chance to be had. But tact in love affairs is not a
characteristic of the Englishman, especially at Ashburner's age. He
had none of this mischievous dexterity; perhaps it is just as well
when a man has not, both for himself and for society. He thought of
writing, and actually began many letters or notes, or billet-doux, or
whatever they might be called; but they always seemed so absurd (as
truly they were), that he invariably tore them up when half-finished.
He thought of serving up his flame in verse (for about this time the
unhappy youth wrote many verses, which on his return to sanity he very
wisely made away with); but his emotion lay too deep for verse, and
his performances seemed even to himself too ridiculous for him to
dream of presenting them. Still he must make a beginning somehow; he
could not ask her to run away with him apropos of nothing.
One of his great anxieties, you may be sure, was to find out if any
other man stood in his way, and who that man might be. His first
impulses were to be indiscriminately jealous of every man he saw
talking or walking with her; but on studying out alone the result of
his observations, he could not discover that she affected any one man
more than another. For this was one of her happy arts, that she made
herself attractive to all without showing a marked preference for any
one. White, who among his other accomplishments had a knack of quoting
the standard poets, compared her to Pope's Belinda--saying, that her
lively looks disclosed a sprightly mind, and that she extended smiles
to all, and favors to none. So that Ashburner's jealousy could find no
fixed object to light on. At one time he had been terribly afraid of
Le Roi, chiefly from having heard the lady praise him for his
accomplishments and agreeable manners. But once he heard Sedley say,
that Mrs. Harrison had been worrying Le Roi half out of his wits, and
quite out of his temper.
"How so?"
"Oh, she was praising you, and saying how much she liked the English
character, and how true and honest your countrymen were--so much more
to be depended on than the French--and more manly, too; and altogether
she worked him up into such a rage against _ces insulaires_, that he
went off ready to swear."
And then Ashburner suspected what he afterwards became certain
of--that this was only one of the pleasant little ways the woman had
of amusing herself. Whenever she found two men who were enemies, or
rivals, or antagonists in any way, she would praise each to the other,
on purpose to aggravate them: and very successful she was in her
purpose; for she had the greatest appearance of sincerity, and
whatever she said seemed to come right out of her heart. But if any
lingering fears of Le Roi still haunted the Englishman's mind, they
were dispelled by his departure along with the main body of the
exclusives. Though always proud to be seen in the company of a
conspicuous character like Mrs. Harrison, the Vicomte more
particularly cultivated the fashionables proper, and gladly embraced
the opportunity of following, in the train of the Robinsons.
Perhaps, after all, Ashburner would have preferred being able to
concentrate his suspicions upon one definite person, to feeling a
vague distrust of somebody he knew not whom, especially as the
presence of a rival might have brought the affair to a crisis sooner.
To a crisis it was approaching, nevertheless, for his passion now
began to tell on him. He looked pale, and grew nervous and weak--lay
awake at nights, which he had never done before, except when going in
for the Tripos at Cambridge--and was positively off his feed, which he
had never been at any previous period of his life. He thought of
tearing himself away from the place--the wisest course, doubtless;
but, just as he had made up his mind to go by the next stage, Mrs.
Harrison, as if she divined what he was about, would upset all his
plans by a few words, or a look or smile--some little expression which
meant nothing, and could never be used against her; but which, by a
man in his state, might be interpreted to mean a great deal.
One morning the crisis came--not that there was any particular reason
for it then more than at any other time, only he could hold out no
longer. It was a beautiful day, and they had been strolling in one of
the few endurable walks the place afforded--a winding alley near the
hotel, but shrouded in trees, and it was just at the time when most of
the inhabitants were at ten-pins, so that they were tolerably alone.
Now, if ever, was the time; but the more he tried to introduce the
subject, the less possible he found it to make a beginning, and all
the while he could not avoid a dim suspicion that Mrs. Harrison knew
perfectly well what he was trying to drive at, and took a mischievous
pleasure in saying nothing to help him along. So they talked about his
travels and hers, and great people in England and France, and all
sorts of people then at Oldport, and the weather even--all manner of
ordinary topics; and then they walked some time without saying
anything, and then they went back to the hotel. There he felt as if
his last chance was slipping away from him, and in a sudden fit of
desperate courage he followed her up to her parlor without waiting for
an invitation. Hardly was the door closed--he would have given the
world to have locked it--when he begged her to listen to him a few
minutes on a subject of the greatest importance. The lady opened her
large round eyes a little wider; it was the only sign she gave of any
thing approaching to surprise. Then the young man unbosomed himself
just as he stood there--not upon his knees; people used to do that--in
books, at least--but nobody does now. He told her how long he had been
in love with her--how he thought of her all day and all night, and how
wretched he was--how he had tried to subdue his passion, knowing it
was very wrong, and so forth; but really he couldn't help it,
and--and--there he stuck fast; for all the time he had been making
this incoherent avowal, like one in a dream, hardly knowing what he
was about, but conscious only of taking a decisive step, and doing a
very serious thing in a very wild way--all this time, nevertheless, he
had most closely watched Mrs. Harrison, to anticipate his sentence in
some look or gesture of hers. And he saw that there did not move a
line in her face, or a muscle in her whole figure--not a fibre of her
dress even stirred. If she had been a great block of white marble, she
could not have shown less feeling, as she stood up there right
opposite him. If he had asked her to choose a waistcoat pattern for
him, she could not have heard him more quietly. As soon as he had
fairly paused, so that she could speak without immediate interruption,
she took up the reply. It was better that he should go no further, as
she had already understood quite enough. She was very sorry to give
him pain--it was always unpleasant to give pain to any one. She was
also very sorry that he had so deceived himself, and so misapprehended
her character, or misunderstood her conversation. He was very young
yet, and had sense enough to get over this very soon. Of course, she
would never hear any repetition of such language from him; and, on her
part, she would never mention what had occurred to any one--especially
not to Mr. Harrison (it was the first time he had ever heard her
allude to the existence of that gentleman); and then she wound up with
a look which said as plainly as the words could have done, "Now, you
may go."
Ashburner moved off in a more than usual state of confusion. As he
approached the door it opened suddenly, and he nearly walked over one
of the little Bleeckers, a flourishing specimen of Young New-York,
with about three yards of green satin round his throat, and both his
hands full of French novels, which he had been commissioned to bring
from the circulating library. Ashburner felt like choking him, and it
was only by a great effort that he contrived to pass him with a barely
civil species of nod. But as he went out, he could not refrain from
casting one glance back at Mrs. Harrison. She had taken off her bonnet
(which in America is denominated a hat), and was tranquilly arranging
her hair at the glass.
Somehow or other he found his way down stairs, and rushed off into the
country on a tearing walk, enraged and disgusted with every thing, and
with himself most of all. When a man has made up his mind to commit a
sin, and then has been disappointed in the fruition of it--when he has
sold the birthright of his integrity, without getting the miserable
mess of pottage for it which he expected, his feelings are not the
most enviable. Ashburner was angry enough to marry the first heiress
he met with. First, he half resolved to get up a desperate flirtation
with Mrs. Benson; but the success of his first attempt was not
encouraging to the prosecution of a second. To kill himself was not in
his line; but he felt very like killing some one else. He still
feared he might have been made a screen for some other man. But if the
other man existed, he could only be reached by fighting successively
all the single men of "our set," and a fair sprinkling of those in the
second set. Then he thought he must at least leave the place, but his
pride still revolted at the idea of running away before a woman.
Finally, after walking about ten miles, and losing his dinner, he
sobered down gradually, and thought what a fool he had been; and the
issue of his cogitations was a very wise double conclusion. He formed
a higher opinion of the virtue of American women, and he never
attempted any experiments on another.
From Sharpe's London Magazine.
THE MAN OF TACT.
There is no distinctive term more frequently employed, and less
generally understood, than the word "Tact." It is in every one's
mouth, and many have a vague notion of its meaning, who yet, if
required, would find no slight difficulty in giving its definition. It
is the application of perceptive common-sense to life's practical
details; the correct adaptation of means to ends, from an intuitive
knowledge of character, blended with a careful concealment, a discreet
evasion of our own, except when amiable faults are avowed, to enhance
the impression of our candor. Cameleon-like, "tact" assumes the color
of contingent circumstances,--is the vague, yet potent spirit, with
its shadowless finger arresting the impulses; an unseen ruler of the
thoughts, winding its gossamer yet adamantine meshes like a spell; the
uncaught "hic et ubique" arbiter of mortal destinies embodied in a
fellow-mortal.
When we speak of the "man of tact," as of one in whom this quality
predominates,--as hereafter we shall speak of the man of honor, of
genius, and of sense, we must confess that above most other
characteristics, this is especially absorbent in its influence, and
generally usurps the government of the whole man. It collects into its
own stream the channels of other motives, which it renders tributary,
until it pervades the whole moral surface with one obliterating
deluge. If not watched, it will hence induce a general deceptiveness,
for the other impulses will partake of its color, shrewdness will
become cunning, discretion will change into artful dexterity. Its very
progress is sinuous and oblique, never more so than when assuming the
guise of straightforwardness and truth; but if divested of its baser
elements, it will soar into the higher intellectuals, and will claim
affinity to practical observation, or, to speak phrenologically, to
causality. In this view it combines with prudence, also with
self-discipline, in the regulation of the temper; in fact, is the
child of judgment, inheriting with its parent's calmness somewhat of
her coldness too.
Observe that man sitting in the private room of one of our largest
mercantile establishments. Risen from a low grade to the direction of
a vast concern, at one time intrusted with a mission abroad of a most
important yet delicate character, he owes the eminence he has attained
entirely to tact. The features are now in repose, take your
opportunity to watch them (for they are seldom so, and if he were
aware of observation, would assume a different expression); how the
wear upon nerves, even of such flexibility, imparts to the fatigued
countenance an air of study, ceaseless even in comparative inaction.
The open and bald forehead, clear, expansive, impending over deep-set,
small, yet fathomless eyes, restless and anxious in their motion; the
lips fullish, wearing at the corner a half-contemptuous yet
good-humored self-contentment, which tells of the owner's disdain for
the game of life, and yet of triumphant complacency at his own
successful skill in it. He smiles! Ah! he is thinking of how he
deluded that shallow fop, Lord F----, whom fortune raised kindly to
conceal his puerilites by a coronet; or perhaps (as his eye dilates
with haughtier gaze) he dreams of having struck a nobler quarry, when
he outwitted the subtle Count de P----; for neither thought they were
following aught but the suggestion of their own will. This is the
mystery and mastery of tact. Had his victims seen that smile, the game
would have been lost; but he was different to each, the man was
changed. The lordling saw before him a free hearty abettor of youthful
folly, an Apicius, not a Mentor, one versed in life's vanities, yet
still ready to quaff the draught he satirized; sagacious in
criticising pleasure, yet reckless as the youngest in its pursuit; but
to the Count, the deferential air, the silent evidence of every
action, so sedulously courteous, yet so artless, attesting the
listener's (for he spoke but to inquire as if of an oracle, and
demurred but to render conviction more gracefully attractive)
reverence for the old diplomatist's sagacity; the rejoinder
dexterously introduced to confirm confidence in his visitor that he
was not wasting his instruction,--these and the thousand nameless
points of tact, dipped in the fountain of his own deep counsel,
instilled the wary practiser's motives into the mind of one,
apparently his confessed master in the art of diplomacy, convinced the
Count that he was regarded as the condensation of profound thought, of
astute sagacity; and it so happened, that if there was one
qualification in which the foreigner especially exulted more than any
other, it was upon his dexterity in deciphering disposition--in his
thorough knowledge of human nature!
We have said he was an adept in listening: indeed it was averred that
he obtained a large estate by the quiet attention with which he
listened to the toothless twaddle of a senile Dowager--age's
garrulity--the echo of an empty hall which thought has quitted. He
rarely, however, in any case interrupts the driest drawler, for he
has tutored attendants who understand not only whom to admit, but also
a hint as to the proper duration of a conference, and these with ready
message cut short the intruder's dull delay. If, also, in public or
private he be himself interrupted, he never loses his temper or the
point; resumes the thread just where it was broken, and with polite,
yet unswerving pertinacity, directs the minds of all to the wished-for
end, in spite of every purposed or involuntary attempt to distract
them into devious channels. Some men, like jackdaws, proclaim with
noisy loquaciousness their most private matters, alarming the public
horizon with egotistical chatter about their own nests: "tact," as the
master of it, Cromwell, knew, acknowledges the "safety of silence,"
and like the rat,--a subtle politician!--saps vast fabrics by an
insidious, unheard gnawing underground!
Briefly, this man listens much, speaks little--mostly the latter when
he would conceal his thoughts--keeps his eyes and ears open, his mouth
and his heart closed. With numerous admirers, he has many enemies--the
latter's hostility is however repressed by fear, and the regard of the
other, somehow, never ripens into love; it may be that selfishness,
the concomitant of tact, forbids affection. We have shown the fair
side of the portrait hitherto drawn from the respectable sphere (as it
is called) of life; but it has its evil counterpart or reverse to be
seen in a notorious receiver of stolen property, ever watched by, yet
ever baffling the police,--one, who, having helped many to the hulks,
has by sheer cunning (tact in motley!) himself escaped. The
consciences of both are similarly guided by the law of public not
private morality--interest is the ruling principle of both; even the
drudgery of each assimilates, for a life of dissimulation is a very
hard one. What actor would be _always_ on the stage? Both are
commercial men in a sense, though one lives at the west-end, the other
near Seven-dials; sometimes they meet,--the rich, upon--the poor,
before, the bench--"the Justice" in silk "frowns" on the speciously
"simple thief" in rags; yet nature has cut the countenances of both
from the same piece, and true it is that her "one touch," the
prevalence of tact, successful here,--in hard confronting
there--renders both "akin."
Yet not always does "tact" array itself in silken softness, or "stoop
to conquer:" some ply the trade with no less success under the guise
of rough and candid honesty: these men declare loudly that they always
speak their minds: come upon us with a bluff sincerity, disarming
prudence by an appearance of incautious trust and open-heartedness.
They "cannot cog," they cannot sue, they profess noisily to abhor
"humbug," as they term it, in every shape:--a strange ingratitude _to
what they chiefly thrive by_; for certain it is, that though
doubtlessly "all honorable men," these are the most insidious
tacticians, and generally of the worst kind.
Hitherto we have spoken of "tact" in its deteriorated shape, and
indeed the word seems to have got so bad a name that its bare mention
breathes distrust. Yet there is a medium class of men who, like
William of Orange, reduce violent feelings even to frigidity, and
allowing discretion her widest scope, do not entirely obliterate the
affections. Machiavelli says that "seldom men of mean fortunes attain
to high degrees without force or fraud, and generally rather by the
latter than the former," and hence he recommends guile to be
adopted--but these, to whom we now allude, practise prudence, yet
preserve their guileless sincerity. Here, though the term is rather
univocal, and seems to apply only to our concerns with others, its
healthy action is forcibly evinced on the individual's mind, for it
disciplines the impulses and reviews for ready co-action reason's
powers. So high did the ancients in their sense regard it, that they
elevated it to a divinity--"Nullum numen adest si sit Prudentia,"
though, as Addison observes, "this sort of discretion has no place in
private conversation between intimate friends. It occupies a neutral
ground between caution and art, uses expediency instead of integrity,
and hence deceives us by the first, when we look for the consistency
of the latter." Almost ever combined with conceit (the pride of
questionable success), it never possesses the magnanimity to confess
an error; for this detracting from its arrogated infallibility might
deteriorate its influence: it will acknowledge vices (if polite), but
will never plead guilty to mistakes, since the grossest charge against
the "man of tact" at the bar of self, much more of public judgment, is
not the perpetration of a sin--but the commission of a blunder!
From the "Revue des Deux Mondes."
A WRECK OF THE OLD FRENCH ARISTOCRACY.
AN INCIDENT OF TRAVEL IN THE LIMOUSIN.
It is truly a great mistake to measure the interest of a journey by
its duration, and that of a country by its remoteness; and one is
deceived in supposing that it is necessary to go afar in quest of
adventures, and make a voyage two years long in order to see curious
sights. There is a certain author who has made "a journey around his
room" more fruitful in incidents of all descriptions than the
numberless voyages of an infinity of sailors that I know; and one may
make, thank heaven! many an interesting trip without passing beyond
the "neighboring shores" from which La Fontaine forbids us to wander.
The only thing is, that it is less easy to travel after this fashion
than the other, and that it requires a lengthened preparation.
In order to observe skilfully, one must be accustomed to look around
one. We scarcely become curious except after long habit, and, strange
to say, our curiosity seems to increase in proportion as we satisfy
it. When we know a great deal we desire to know still more, and it is
remarkable that those alone desire to see no sights who have never had
any sights to see. Moreover, it is necessary to have contemplated the
grandest spectacles of nature in order to understand and love her
least conspicuous wonders; for nature does not surrender herself to
the first comer. She is a chaste and severe divinity, who admits to
her intimacy those alone who have deserved it by long contemplations
and a constant worship: and I firmly believe that it is necessary to
have travelled round the world in order profitably and agreeably to
make the tour of one's garden. If many years of youth spent in
wandering by land and sea, can render me an authority in regard to
travels, then am I justified in declaring, that in none of my more
distant courses have I found more interest and pleasure than in the
little trip I am now about to narrate.
There were, then, four of us, all alike young, gay, active, clad in
shooting costume, going straight ahead, without fixed plan or
preconcerted itinerary, marching at hap-hazard in these desert
_landes_, respiring freely the pungent odor of the broom, roaming from
hill to hill without other rallying point than the top of a mountain
which pointed out the direction of the low lands. After four hours'
walk we discovered that this mountain was still very far distant, and
that the sun was sinking below the horizon. We had already left behind
us the wildest part of the department of the _Correze_. To woods of
pine and birch succeeded enormous chestnut-trees; the sterile heath
gave place to cultivated fields. Here and there some houses displayed
their straw-colored roofs, and some scattered laborers beheld us pass
by with gaping suspicion. To tell the truth, we had all of us a
tolerably gallows look. In this wretched country, where every one
lives on from day to day without quitting his little inclosure,
without even hearing an echo from afar, four bearded marauders like
ourselves, avoiding the beaten road, and marching rapidly across
stubble and thicket, presented no ordinary rencontre. All on a sudden
the clouds began to gather, and, by way of varying our sensations, a
terrific tempest burst over our heads. It was the first incident of
our journey. Drenched through in a moment by this diluvian rain, we
rushed, with the ardor of soldiers mounting a breach, towards a
village perched like a magpie's nest on the summit of the hill we were
ascending. A house of capacious size, but of dismal and ruinous
appearance, arose before us. We rushed in at a charging pace, and
found that it was deserted, except that near the hearth, where
smouldered the embers of the most miserable fire in the world, an
infant was deposited in, or rather tied to, his cradle, according to
the fashion of the country. By the aid of a stout bandage they had
swaddled him up like a mummy, and duly sealed him to the planks of the
little box, which served him for a bed. In addition, his head was
carefully turned toward the fire, so that his cranium was in a state
of continual ebullition, such being the appointed regimen of the
neighborhood. At the sight of our strange visages, the little one,
after staring at us for a moment or two, proceeded to utter the most
lamentable outcries. I rocked his cradle with the most paternal
solicitude, but could not succeed in quieting him. On the contrary,
his screams became positively heart-rending, and we were almost ready
to smother him outright in order to put a stop to his roaring. At this
summons a woman entered abruptly into the house, and stared at us with
an expression of alarm. It was incumbent on us to explain that we were
no pilferers, and this was no easy matter. The young mother evidently
looked on us with suspicion. She was not altogether a mere
peasant,--at least she wore, instead of the little straw hat trimmed
with black velvet, which is the ordinary head-dress of the
countrywomen, a bonnet, which in the Limousin is a certain indication
of pretensions to the rank of the _bourgeoise_. Her robe, besides,
however inelegant it might be, was nevertheless town-made.
These matters I noticed at a glance, whilst one of my companions gave
the needful explanations as to our pacific intentions. Our hostess
pretended to be satisfied. She removed the cradle, threw some shavings
into the fire to revive it, and sat herself down with a cold,
constrained manner, in which I could discover at once considerable
embarrassment, accompanied by a certain air of dignity. Never had I
seen a Limousin peasant take a seat in the presence of _gentlemen_,
and I speedily made another discovery which not a little perplexed me.
The fire as it revived had thrown a glow upon the hearthstone, which
was of cast-iron, and presented a large armorial escutcheon. This
display astonished me. I looked round again at the smoke-dried kitchen
in which we sat; it was a miserable place. The ceiling was falling
piecemeal; in the pavement, disjointed and worn, were three or four
muddy holes but rarely cleared out, the dampness of which was kept up
by the continual dripping of a dozen cream cheeses, suspended in a
long basket of osiers. Two beds, a large table, and a few dilapidated
chairs, composed the furniture of the apartment, which was pervaded by
a sour and offensive smell, apparently very attractive to a huge sow
whose grunting snout was ever and anon thrust into the entrance of the
doorway. Whence, then, this curious hearthstone? I looked more
attentively at the young woman, and discovered in her countenance a
certain air of distinction. I then inquired of her at what place we
were.
"Monsieur is jesting at me, doubtless," she pretty sharply replied.
I assured her I had no such intention, and was really ignorant of the
name of the village.
"It is not a village, sir," she resumed, "it is a town. You are at the
Puy d'Arnac, in the Canton of Beaulieu."
A native of Marseilles would hardly have named the _Canebiere_ with
greater satisfaction. I knew that the Puy d'Arnac gave its name to a
celebrated growth of the _Correze_, and I thought I understood the
lofty tone of the reply. All on a sudden, one of my companions, whom
we nicknamed the "Broker," because he groped into all sorts of places,
and, with amusing perseverance, hunted out objects of art and
curiosity even in hovels, touched my elbow, and asked me if I had
noticed the picture which was half-hidden under the serge curtains of
one of the beds. I had not yet observed it, and got up to look at it.
It was the portrait of a general officer of the time of Louis XV. The
frame, sculptured and gilt, struck me still more, being really
beautiful. "This is a discovery indeed," said my friend to me, while I
inquired of the young woman where such a portrait could have come
from.
"Where could it have come from, Monsieur?" she haughtily replied; "it
is the portrait of my grandfather."
"Aha!" we exclaimed, all four of us, turning ourselves round with
surprise. With one hand our hostess stirred the fire, with an
indifference evidently affected, while with the other she rocked the
little box in which her infant was asleep.
"Might I presume to inquire the name of Monsieur your grandfather?"
said I, drawing near to her.
"He was the Count of Anteroches," was her reply.
"What, the Count of Anteroches, who commanded the French guards at the
battle of Fontenoy?"[5]
"You have heard him spoken of, then?" resumed the peasant girl, with a
smile.
My friend the Broker stood as if stupefied before the picture. All of
a sudden he wheeled round, and, gravely removing his cap, repeated
with a theatrical air the celebrated saying of M. d'Anteroches,--"Fire
first, _Messieurs les Anglais_; we are Frenchmen, and must do you the
honors!"
This anecdote is, to my thinking, the most charming and most
thoroughly stamped with the image of the age of any recorded in
history. With regard to these celebrated sayings uttered in battles, I
must indeed confess that I am very skeptical. Little as I may be of a
soldier, I have a notion that it is not in an engagement as at the
Olympic Circus, and that in the midst of fire, smoke, and musketry,
generals must have other work on their hands than to utter these
pretty epigrams, which there is moreover no shorthand writer at hand
to take down. I know that Cambronne was annoyed when they recalled to
him his splendid exclamation at Waterloo, "_La garde meurt et ne se
rend pas!_" (The guard dies, and does not surrender!) "an invention
the more clumsy," said he, "that I am not yet dead, and that I really
did surrender." I have even discovered that this saying was invented
by a member of the Institute, for the greater satisfaction of the
readers of the "Yellow Dwarf," in which he wrote, in 1815, together
with Benjamin Constant and many other celebrated malcontents.[6] The
speeches of Leonidas find me equally incredulous. But, wheresoever
they may come from, I delight in these anecdotes, which personify an
entire epoch, and engrave it upon the memory with a single stroke. We
may defy the historian who seeks to characterize the end of the last
century and the beginning of the present, to find two epigrams more
striking than the words attributed to Anteroches and Cambronne--to two
French officers--one commanding the French guards, the other the old
guard; both fighting for their country, at an interval of seventy
years, with the same enemy, and on the same ground: for it is a
singular coincidence that Fontenoy and Waterloo are but little distant
from each other, and Heaven saw fit to ordain that the game of success
and reverse should be played out almost upon the same fields. "Fire
first, _Messieurs les Anglais_!" Is it not the type of that easy and
adorable, that ironical and _blase_ nobility, who pushed the contempt
of life even to insanity, and the worship of courtesy and honor even
to the sublime?--who endowed their country with such a renown for
elegance, high-breeding, and gallantry, that all its demagogic
saturnalia never have effaced it, and never will?--a nobility
reckless, if you please, but assuredly charming, and perfectly French
withal, who gayly passed through life without ever doing the morrow
the honor of thinking about it, and who, beholding one day the earth
give way beneath their feet, looked into the abyss without a wink,
without alarming themselves, without belying themselves, and went down
alive and whole into the gulf, disdaining all defence, "without fear,"
if not "without reproach."
Between the saying of Anteroches and that of Cambronne there is a
great gap; we find that the revolution has passed through it. The
gentleman, refined even to exaggeration, has disappeared, and we have
instead the rude language of democracy--"_La garde meurt et ne se rend
pas_"--this is heroism, no doubt, but heroism of another sort. Never
did the _chauvinism_ of this present time light upon a more cornelian
device, but do you not see in it the theatrical affectation, the
melo-dramatic emphasis of another race? That he had no fear of death,
and no idea of surrendering--this is what the gentleman of Fontenoy
had no intention of declaring; it ought to have been well known--his
followers had already given proof of it for ages past. To be brave
alone to him was nothing--he must be as elegant in battle as he was at
the ball. What signified death to that incomparable race who
afterwards composed madrigals in prison, and ascended the scaffold
with a smile, their step elastic, and their hand in the waistcoat
pocket, a cocked hat under their arm, and a rose-bud between their
lips? This epoch was personified in my eyes by the handsome and gentle
countenance of the Count of Anteroches. After more than a hundred
years I had discovered by chance, myself, an obscure wayfarer, in an
unknown and miserable cabin, where his grand-daughter was living in
the midst of her poultry, the portrait of this brilliant officer, to
whose name will ever attach an elegant and charming renown; for if,
like Cambronne, Anteroches did not really utter the words attributed
to him, they have still been lent to him, and if thus lent, assuredly
because there were grounds for it.
After these over-lengthy reflections, I turned toward the peasant
woman, who now inspired me with profound commiseration. She continued
to rock to and fro her bandaged infant, who was in very right and deed
the Count of Anteroches. I inquired what was the occupation of her
husband.
"He is dead," she replied; "I was better off during his lifetime. He
was a _gendarme_, Monsieur."
"A _gendarme_!" I repeated with surprise.
"Yes," replied Madame d'Anteroches, who understood not the cause of my
astonishment, "he had even passed as a brigadier during his latter
years: we managed our little affairs very comfortably."
He was a brigadier of gendarmerie--content to be so--he managed his
little affairs very comfortably--and his grandfather, as I find it in
the "Military Records of France," had been named Marshal on the 25th
of July, 1762; at the same time as the Marquis of Boufflers and the
Duke of Mazarine! Would not the rabble of Paris do well to inquire a
little before exclaiming so loudly against the privileges of the
aristocracy? Moreover, it seems to me that the government of France
should not allow the grandchildren of the Count of Anteroches to be
sunk--as they are--into deplorable indigence. Apocryphal or otherwise
the epigram of Fontenoy should at least be worth subsistence to all
who bear this name. Many enjoy pensions and are maintained by France,
who would find it very difficult to produce a similar claim, and the
new republic would act wisely by repairing, when occasion turns up,
the injustices of her eldest sister.
But it was now high time for us to leave. It was evident that we
embarrassed our hostess, and since we had discovered her name we were
no less embarrassed ourselves. I could not get over her coarse stuff
gown, her filthy kitchen, and her familiar sow. It would have been
cruel to ask for her hospitality, and how could we offer to pay our
score? Besides, we knew that a rich proprietor of our acquaintance
resided not far from Puy d'Arnac; we, therefore, took our leave of the
high-born peasant with many excuses and thanks. At the moment I passed
the threshold, I cast a parting glance upon the portrait. The fire
lighted it up at that instant with so singular a brilliancy that it
almost appeared animated. It seemed as if the countenance of M.
d'Anteroches was alive, and that the handsome officer looked sadly
down from the height of his gilded frame upon the utter misery of his
descendants. "Oh! decadence! decadence of France!" I exclaimed to
myself, and rushed bravely forth with my companions into the pelting
rain.
FOOTNOTES:
[5] Fontenoy, we should here observe, is, we believe, the _only_
battle in which the English were defeated by the French, and it is, of
course, a subject of no little glorification with our neighbors.
[6] The well-known burst of the Duke of Wellington at Waterloo, "Up,
guards, and at them!" has been declared, upon the best authority,
namely, his own, to be no less apocryphal than those above-mentioned.
From Fraser's Magazine
THE CLOISTER-LIFE OF THE EMPEROR CHARLES V.
The 28th of September, 1556, was a great day in the annals of Laredo,
in Biscay. Once a commercial station of the Romans, and, in later
times, the naval arsenal whence St. Ferdinand sailed to the
Guadalquivir and the conquest of Seville, its haven is now so decayed
and sand-choked, that it can scarcely afford shelter to a
fishing-craft. Here, however, on the day in question, three centuries
ago, a fleet of seventy Flemish and Spanish sail cast anchor. From a
frigate bearing the imperial standard of the house of Austria came a
group of gentlemen and ladies, of whom the principal personage was a
spare and sallow man, past the middle age, and plainly attired in
mourning. He was received at the landing-place by the bishop of
Salamanca and some attendants, and being worn with suffering and
fatigue, he was carried up from the boat in a chair. By his side
walked two ladies, in widows' weeds, who appeared to be about the same
age as himself, and whose pale features, both in cast and expression,
strongly resembled his own. Since Columbus stepped ashore at Palos,
with his red men from the New World, Spain had seen no debarkation so
remarkable; for the voyagers were, the emperor Charles V. and his
sisters, Mary queen of Hungary, and Eleanor, queen of Portugal and
France, now on their way from Brussels, where they had made their last
appearance on the stage of the world, to those Spanish cloisters,
wherein they had resolved to await the hour when the curtain should
drop on life itself.
Charles himself appears to have been powerfully affected by the scene
and circumstances around him. Kneeling upon the long-desired soil of
Spain, he is said to have kissed the earth, ejaculating, "I salute
thee, O common mother! Naked came I forth of the womb to receive the
treasures of the earth, and naked am I about to return to the bosom of
the universal mother." He then drew from his bosom the crucifix which
he always wore, and kissing it devoutly, returned thanks to the
Saviour for having thus brought him in safety to the wished-for haven.
The ocean itself furnished its comment upon the irretraceable step
which he had taken. From Flushing to Laredo, the weather had been
calm, and the voyage prosperous: but the evening of the day of
landing closed with a storm, which shattered and dispersed the fleet,
and sunk the frigate which the emperor had quitted a few hours before.
This accident must have recalled to his recollection a similar escape
which he had made many years before on his coronation-day at Bologna.
There he had just passed through a wooden gallery which connected his
palace with the church where the pope and the crown awaited him, when
the props upon which the structure rested gave way, and it fell with a
sudden crash, killing several persons in the street below.
The emperor's first care, after landing, was to send a message to the
general of the order of St. Jerome, requiring his attendance at
Valladolid, and desiring that no time might be lost in preparing the
convent of Yuste for his reception. He himself set forward, as soon as
he was able, and was carried sometimes in a horse-litter, sometimes in
a chair on men's shoulders, by slow and painful stages to Burgos. Near
that ancient city he was met by the constable of Castille, Pedro
Fernandez de Velasco, who lodged him for some days in the noble palace
of his family, known as the Casa del Cordon, from a massive cord of
St. Francis, wrought in stone, with which the architect has adorned
and protected the great portal. The little town of Duenas was the next
resting-place, and there its lord, the count of Buendia, did the
honors of his feudal castle on the adjacent height rising abruptly
from the bare plains of the Arlanzon. At Torquemada, the royal party
was received by the bishop of the diocese, Pedro de Gasca, a divine,
whose skilful diplomacy, in repressing a formidable rebellion, had
saved Peru to Castille, and who had lately been rewarded by the
emperor with the mitre of Palencia. But in spite of these
demonstrations of respect and gratitude, Charles was made painfully
sensible of the change which his own act had wrought in his condition.
The barons and the great churchmen, who, a few months before, would
have flocked from all parts to do him honor, now appeared in very
scanty numbers, or they permitted him to pass unnoticed through the
lands and by the homes which they perhaps owed to his bounty. He and
his sister Eleanor must have remembered with a sigh the time when he
first set foot in Spain, thirty-eight years before, and found the
shores of Asturias, and the highways of Castille, thronged with loyal
crowds, hastening to tender their homage. In the forgetfulness of the
new generation, he may also have been reminded how he himself had
treated, with coldness and slighting, the great cardinal Ximenes, who
had worn out his declining years in defending and maintaining the
prerogatives of the catholic crown. His long and varied experience of
men made him incapable of deriving any pleasure from their applause,
but not altogether incapable of being pained by their neglect. His
pride was hurt at finding himself so quickly forgotten; and he is said
to have evinced a bitter sense of the surprise, by the remark, "I
might well say that I was naked!" It is probable, therefore, that he
declined the honors of a public entry into Valladolid, not merely from
a desire to shun the pomps and vanities of state, but also from a
secret apprehension that it might prove but a pitiful shadow of former
pageants. That the citizens might not be balked of their show, while
the emperor entered privately on the 23rd of October, it was agreed
that the two queens, his sisters, should make their appearance there
in a public manner the next day.
Valladolid was at that time the opulent and flourishing capital of
Spain, and the seat of government, carried on under the regency of the
emperor's daughter, Juanna. This young princess was the widow of the
prince of Brazil, heir-apparent of the crown of Portugal, and mother
of the unfortunate king Sebastian. She performed the duties of her
high place with great prudence, firmness, and moderation; but with
this peculiarity, that she appeared at her public receptions closely
veiled, allowing her face to be seen only for a moment, that the
foreign ambassadors might be satisfied of her personal identity. With
her nephew, Don Carlos, then a boy of ten years old, by her side, the
Infanta met her father on the staircase of the palace of the Count of
Melito, which he had chosen for his place of sojourn. The day
following, the arrival of the two queens was celebrated by a grand
procession, and by an evening banquet and ball in the royal palace, at
which the emperor appears to have been present. Some few of the
grandees, the Admiral and the Constable of Castille, Benavente,
Astorga, Sesa, and others, were there to do honor to their ancient
lord, whose hand was also kissed in due form by the members of the
council of Castille. At this ball, or perhaps at some later festivity,
Charles caused the wives of all his personal attendants to be
assembled around him, and bade each, in particular, farewell. Perico
de Sant Erbas, a famous jester of the court, passing by at the moment,
the emperor good-humoredly saluted him by taking off his hat. "What!
do you uncover to me?" said the bitter fool; "does it mean that you
are no longer emperor?" "No, Pedro," replied the object of the jest;
"it means that I have nothing to give you beyond this courtesy."
During his stay of ten days, Charles bestowed but a passing glance on
the machine of government over which he had so long presided, and
which was now directed by his demure daughter. The secretary of the
council, Juan Vazquez de Molina, an old and trusted servant of his
own, was the only public man with whom he held any confidential
converse. The new rooms which he had caused to be erected at Yuste,
and the ordering of his life there, were now of more moment to him
than the movements of the leaguers in Flanders, or the state of
opinion in Germany. He therefore gave frequent audiences to Francisco
de Tofino, the general of the Jeromites, and to Fray Martin de Angulo,
prior of Yuste. Having resolved that his solitude should be shared by
his natural son, Don Juan of Austria, a nameless lad of ten, then
living in the family of his mayordomo, Luis de Quixada, he despatched
that trusty follower to remove his household from Castille to
Estremadura.
It was at Valladolid that Charles saw for the first and last time the
ill-fated child who bore his name, and had the prospect one day of
wearing some of his crowns. Although only ten years old, Don Carlos
had already shown symptoms of the mental malady which darkened the
long life of queen Juana, his great-grandmother by the side both of
his father, Philip of Spain, and of his mother, Mary of Portugal. Of a
sullen and passionate temper, he lived in a state of perpetual
rebellion against his aunt, and displayed in the nursery the weakly
mischievous spirit which marked his short career at his father's
court. His grandfather appears not to have suspected that his mind was
diseased, but to have regarded him as a forward and untractable child,
whose future interests would be best served by an unsparing use of the
rod. He therefore recommended increased severity of discipline, and
remarked to his sisters, that he had observed with concern the boy's
unpromising conduct and manners, and that it was very doubtful how the
man would turn out. This opinion was conveyed by queen Eleanor to
Philip II., who had requested his aunt to note carefully the
impression left by his son on the emperor's mind; and it is said to
have laid the foundation for the aversion which the king entertained
towards Carlos. Following the advice of her father, the Infanta soon
after ordered the removal of the prince to Burgos; but the plague
breaking out in that city, he was sent, by an ominous chance, to
Tordesillas, to the palace from whose windows the unhappy Juana, dead
to the living world, had gazed for forty-seven years at the sepulchre
of her fair and faithless lord.
A sojourn of about ten days at Valladolid sufficed the emperor for
rest, and for the preparations for his journey. His daughter was
occupied with the duties of administration; and of his sisters he
appears to have seen enough on the way from Flanders. Whether it was
that he was weary of these royal matrons, or that he regarded their
society as a worldly enjoyment which he ought to forego, he declined
their proposal to come and reside near his retreat, at Plasencia.
After much debate, they finally chose Guadalaxara as their residence,
where they quarelled with the duke of Infantado for refusing them his
palace, and went to open war with the alcalde for imprisoning one of
their serving-men.
Early in November,[7] their brother set out on his last earthly
journey. The distance from Valladolid to Yuste was between forty and
fifty leagues, or somewhere between 130 and 150 English miles. The
route taken has not been specified by the emperor's biographers. The
best and the easiest road lay through Salamanca and Plasencia. But as
he does not appear to have passed through the latter city, he probably
likewise avoided the former, and the pageants and orations with which
the doctors of the great university would have delighted to celebrate
his visit. In that case, he must have taken the road by Medina del
Campo and Penaranda. At Medina he doubtless was lodged in the fine old
palace of the crown, called the Torre de Mota, where, fifty years
before, his grandmother, Isabella the Catholic, ended her noble life
and glorious reign; and at Penaranda he was probably entertained in
the mansion of the Bracamontes. These two towns rise like islands in
their naked undulating plains, covered partly with corn, partly with
marshy heath. Southward, the country is clothed with straggling woods
of evergreen oak, becoming denser at the base and on the lower slopes
of the wild Sierra of Bejar, the centre of that mountain chain which
forms the backbone of the Peninsula, extending from Moncayo in Aragon,
to the Rock of Lisbon on the Atlantic. At the alpine town of Bejar,
cresting a bold height, and overhanging a tumbling stream, the great
family of the Zunigas, created dukes of the place by Isabella, and
known to fame in arts and arms and the dedication of Don Quixote,
possess a noble castle, ruined by the French, which there can be
little doubt served as a halting-place for the imperial pilgrim. He
advanced by very short stages, travelling in a litter, and often
suffering great pain. But his spirits rose as he neared the desired
haven. In the craggy gorge of Puertonuevo, as he was being carried
over some unusually difficult ground in a chair, his attendants were
deploring the extreme ruggedness of the pass. "I shall never have to
go through another," said he, "and truly it is worth enduring some
pain to reach so sweet and healthy a resting place as Yuste." Having
crossed the mountains without mischance, he arrived on the eleventh of
November, St. Martin's day, at Xarandilla, a little village at the
foot of the steep Penanegra, and then, as now, chiefly peopled with
swineherds, whose pigs, feeding in the surrounding forests, maintain
the fame of porciferous Estremadura. Here he took up his abode in the
castle of the count of Oropesa, head of a powerful branch of the great
house of Toledo, and feudal lord of Xarandilla.
This visit, which was intended to be brief, was prolonged for nearly
three months. Before entering the cloister of Yuste, the emperor
wished to pay off the greater part of his retinue. But for this
purpose money was needful, and money was the one thing always wanting
in the affairs of Spain. The delay which took place in providing it on
this occasion has often been cited as an instance of the ingratitude
of Philip II.; but it is probable that a bare exchequer and a clumsy
system of finance, which crippled his actions as a king, have also
blackened his character as a son.
The emperor endured the annoyance with his usual coolness. On his
arrival at the castle, he was waited on by the prior of Yuste, with
whom he had already become acquainted at Valladolid. He afterwards
repaid the attention by making a forenoon excursion to Yuste, and
inspecting more carefully the spot which his memory and his hope had
so long pictured as the sweetest nook in a world of disappointment.
This visit took place on the 23d of November, St. Catharine's day. On
alighting at the convent, Charles immediately repaired to the church,
and prayed there awhile; after which, he was conducted over the
monastic buildings, and then over the new apartments which had been
erected for his reception. The plan of this addition had been made by
the architect, Gaspar de Vega, from a sketch, it is said, drawn by the
emperor's own hand. He now expressed himself as quite satisfied with
the accuracy with which his ideas had been wrought out, and returned
through the wintry woods in high good humor.
The arrival at Xarandilla of Luis Quixada, with Don Juan of Austria,
was another of those little incidents which had become great events in
the life of Charles. As he did not choose during his life to
acknowledge the youth as his son, the future hero of Lepanto passed
for the page of Quixada, and was presented to his father as bearer of
an offering from Dona Magdalena de Ulloa. He was then in his twelfth
year, and was remarkable for his personal beauty and his engaging
manners. These so captivated Charles, that he ever afterwards liked to
have the boy about him; and it was one of the few solaces of his
solitude to note the princely promise of this unknown son of his old
age.
At length, the tardy treasury messenger arrived, bearing a bag of
thirty thousand ducats for the former possessor of Mexico and Peru.
The emperor was now enabled to pay their wages to the servants whom he
was about to discharge. Some of these he recommended to the notice of
the king or the princess-regent; to others he dispensed sparing
gratuities in money; and so he closed his accounts with the world.
On the afternoon of the third of February, 1557, being the feast of
St. Blas, he was lifted into his litter for the last time, and was
borne westward along the rough mountain track, beneath the leafless
oaks, to the monastery of Yuste. He was accompanied by the count of
Oropesa, Don Fernando de Toledo, and his own personal suite, including
the followers whom he had just discharged, but who evinced their
respect by attending him to his journey's close. The cavalcade reached
Yuste about five in the evening. Prior Angulo was waiting to receive
his imperial guest at the gate. On alighting, the emperor, being
unable to walk, was placed in a chair, and carried to the door of the
church. At the threshold he was met by the whole brotherhood in
procession, chanting the _Te Deum_ to the music of the organ. The
altars and the aisle were brilliantly lighted up with tapers, and
decked with their richest frontals, hangings, and plate. Borne through
the pomp to the steps of the high altar, Charles knelt down and
returned thanks to God for the happy termination of his journey, and
joined in the vesper service of the brotherhood. When that was ended,
the friars came to be presented to him one by one, each kissing his
hand and receiving his fraternal embrace. During this ceremony, his
departing servants stood round, expressing their emotion by tears and
lamentations, which were still heard late in the evening, around the
gate of the convent. Attended by the count of Oropesa and the
gentlemen of his suite, Charles then retired to take possession of his
new home, and to enter upon that life of prayer and repose for which
he had so long sighed.
The monastery of Yuste stands on the lower slopes of the lofty
mountain chain which walls towards the north the beautiful Vera, or
valley of Plasencia. The city of Plasencia is seated seven leagues to
the westward in the plains below; the village of Quacos lies about an
English mile to the south, towards the foot of the mountain. The
monastery owes its name to a streamlet which descends from the sierra,
and its origin to the piety of one Sancho Martin of Quacos, who
granted in 1402 a piece of land to two hermits from Plasencia. Here
these holy men built their cells and planted an orchard, and obtained,
in 1408, by the favor of the Infanta Don Fernando, a bull for the
foundation of a Jeromite house in the rule of St. Augustine. In spite,
however, of this authority, while the works were still in progress,
the friars of a neighboring convent, armed with an order from the
bishop of Plasencia, set upon them and dispossessed them of their land
and unfinished walls, an act of violence against which they appealed
to the archbishop of Santiago. The judgment of the primate being given
in their favor, they next applied for aid to their neighbor, Garci
Alvarez de Toledo, lord of Oropesa, who accordingly came forth from
his castle of Xarandilla, and drove out the intruders. Nor was it only
with the strong hand that this noble protected the young community;
for at the chapter of St. Jerome held at Guadalupe in 1415, their
house would not have been received into the order but for his
generosity in guaranteeing a revenue sufficient for the maintenance of
a prior and twelve brethren under a rule in which mendicancy was
forbidden. The buildings were also erected at his cost, and his
subsequent benefactions were large and frequent. He was therefore
constituted by the grateful monks protector of the convent, and the
distinction became hereditary in his descendants, the counts of
Oropesa.
Their early struggles past, the Jeromites of Yuste grew and prospered.
Gifts and bequests were the chief events in their peaceful annals.
They became patrons of the chapelries and hermitages; they made them
orchards and olive-groves, and their corn and wine increased. Their
hostel, dispensary, and other offices, were patterns of monastic
comfort and order; and in due time, they built a new church, a simple,
solid, and spacious structure, in the pointed style. A few years
before the emperor came to live amongst them, they had added to their
small antique cloister a new quadrangle of stately proportions and
elegant classical design.
Though more remarkable for the natural beauty around its walls than
for the vigor of the spiritual life within, Yuste did not fail to
boast of its worthies. The prior Jerome, a son of the great house of
Zuniga, was cited as a model of austere and active holiness. The lay
brother, Melchor de Yepes, crippled in felling a huge chesnut-tree in
the forest, was a pattern of bed-ridden patience and piety. Fray
Hernando de Corral was the scholar and book collector of the house;
although he was also, for that reason, perhaps, considered as scarcely
of a sound mind. He left many copious notes in the fly-leaves of his
black-letter folios. Fray Juan de Xeres, an old soldier of the great
Captain, was distinguished by the gift of second-sight, and was nursed
on his death-bed by the eleven thousand virgins. Still more favored
was Fray Rodrigo de Caceres, for the Blessed Mary herself, in answer
to his repeated prayers, came down in visible shape, and received his
spirit on the eve of the feast of her Assumption. And prior Diego de
San Geronimo was so popular in the Vera as a preacher, that when he
grew old and infirm, the people of Garganta la Olla endeavored to lure
him to their pulpit by making a road, which was called that of Fray
Diego.
In works of charity--that redeeming virtue of the monastic system--the
fathers of Yuste were diligent and bounteous. Six hundred fanegas, or
about one hundred and twenty quarters of wheat, in ordinary years, and
in years of scarcity, as much as fifteen hundred fanegas, were
distributed at the convent-gate; large donations of bread, meat, and
oil, and some money, were made, either publicly or in private, by the
prior, at Easter and other festivals; and the sick poor in the village
of Quacos were freely supplied with food, medicine, and advice.
The lodging, or palace, as the friars loved to call it, of the
emperor, was constructed under the eye of Fray Antonio de Villacastin,
a brother of the house, and afterwards well known to fame as the
master of the works at the Escorial. The site of it had been inspected
in May, 1554, by Philip II., then on his way to England to marry queen
Mary Tudor. Backed by the massive south wall of the church, the
building presented its simple front of two stories to the garden and
the noontide sun. Each story contained four chambers, two on either
side of a corridor, which traverses the structure from east to west,
and leads at either end into a broad porch, or covered gallery,
supported on pillars, and open to the air. All the rooms were
furnished with ample fire-places, in accordance with the Flemish wants
and ways of the inhabitants. The chambers which look on the garden are
bright and pleasant, but those on the north side are gloomy, and even
dark, the light being admitted only by windows opening on the
corridor, or on the external and deeply-shadowed porches. Charles
inhabited the upper rooms, and slept in that at the north-east corner,
from which a door or window had been cut through the church wall,
within the chancel, and close to the high altar. From the eastern
porch, or gallery, an inclined path led down into the garden, to save
him the fatigue of going up and down stairs. His attendants were, for
the most part, lodged in apartments built for them near the new
cloister; and the hostel of the convent was given up to the physician,
the bakers, and the brewers. His private rooms being surrounded on
three sides by the garden, he took exclusive possession of that, and
put it under the care of gardeners of his own. The friars established
their potherbs in a piece of ground to the eastward, behind some tall
elm trees, and adjoining the emperor's domain, but separated from it
by a high wall, which they caused to be built when they found that he
wished for complete seclusion.
Time, with its chances and changes, has dealt rudely with this fair
home of the monarch and the monk. Yuste was sacked in 1809 by the
French invader; and in later years, the Spanish reformer has
annihilated the race of picturesque drones, who, for a while,
re-occupied, and might have repaired the ruins of their pleasant hive.
Of the two cloisters, the greater is choked with the rubbish of its
fallen upper story, its richly-carved capitals peeping here and there
from the soil and wild shrubs. Two sides of the smaller and older
cloister still stands, with tottering blackened walls, and rotting
floors and ceilings. The strong, granite-vaulted church is a hollow
shell; the fine wood-work of its stalls has been partly used for fuel,
partly carried off to the parish church of Quacos; and the beautiful
blue and yellow tiles which lined the chancel are fast dropping from
the walls. In the emperor's dwelling, the lower chambers are turned
into a magazine of firewood, and in the rooms above, where he lived
and died, maize and olives are garnered, and the silkworm winds its
cocoon in dust and darkness. But the lovely face of nature, the hill,
the forest, and the field, the generous soil and the genial sky,
remain with charms unchanged, to testify how well the imperial eagle
chose the nest wherein to fold his wearied wings. From the balcony of
Charles's cabinet the eye ranges over a foreground of rounded knolls,
clad in walnut and chestnut, in which the mountain dies gently away
into the broad bosom of the Vera. Not a building is in sight, but a
summer-house, peering above mulberry tops, at the lower side of the
garden, and a hermitage of Our Lady of Solitude, about a mile distant,
hung upon a rocky height, that swells like an isle out of the sea of
forest. Immediately below the windows the garden slopes gently to the
sun, shaded here and there with the massive foliage of the fig, or
feathery almond boughs, and breathing perfume from tall orange-trees,
cuttings of which some monks, themselves transplanted, vainly strove
to keep alive at the bleak Escorial. And beyond the west wall, filling
all the wide space in front of the gates of the convent and the
palace, rises the noble shade of the great walnut-tree, _el nogal
grande_, of Yuste--a forest king, which has seen the hermit's cell
rise into a royal convent, and sink into a ruin; which has seen the
beginning and the end of the Spanish order of Jerome, and the Spanish
dynasty of Austria.
At Xarandilla, Charles had cast aside the last shreds of the purple.
The annual revenue which he had reserved to himself out of the wealth
of half the world, was twelve thousand ducats, or about fifteen
hundred pounds sterling. His confidential attendants were eleven in
number: Luis Quixada, chamberlain and chief of the household; Martin
Gatzelu, secretary; William Van Male, gentleman of the chamber; Moron,
gentleman of the chamber and almoner; Juan Gaytan, steward; Henrique
Matisio Charles Pubest, usher; and two valets. Juanelo Turiano, an
Italian engineer, who had acquired a considerable reputation by his
hydraulic works to supply water to the Alcazar of Toledo, was engaged
to assist in the philosophical experiments and mechanical labors which
formed the emperor's principal amusement. Last, but not least, a
Jeromite father from Sta. Engracia, at Zaragoza, Fray Juan de Regla,
filled the important post of confessor. The lower rank of servants,
cooks, brewers, bakers, grooms, and scullions, and a couple of
laundresses, swelled the total number of his household to about sixty
persons, an establishment not greater than was then maintained by many
a private hidalgo.
The mayordomo, Luis Quixada, or, to give him his entire appellation,
Luis Mendez Quixada Manuel de Figueredo y Mendoza, is worthy of
notice, not only as first minister of this tiny court, but as being
closely associated with one of the greatest names in the military
history of Europe. A courtier and soldier from his early youth, he was
heir of an elder brother, slain before Tunis, who had been one of the
most distinguished captains of the famous infantry of Castille; and he
had been himself for many years the tried companion-in-arms and the
trusted personal friend of the emperor. In 1549, he married Dona
Magdalena de Ulloa, a lady of ancient race and gentlest nature, with
whom he retired for a while to his patrimonial lordship of
Villagarcia, near Valladolid.
On his quitting the court at Brussels, Charles confided to his care
his illegitimate son, Don Juan of Austria, then a boy of four years
old, exacting a promise of strict secrecy as to his parentage. The boy
was accordingly brought up with the tenderest care by the childless
Magdalena: and the secret of his birth so well kept, that she, for
many years, suspected him to be the fruit of some early attachment of
her lord. When the emperor retired to Yuste, Quixada followed him
thither, removing his household from Villagarcia, and establishing it
in the neighborhood of the convent, probably in the village of Quacos.
He was thus enabled to enjoy somewhat of the society of his wife, and
the emperor had the gratification of seeing his son when he chose. Don
Juan was now a fine lad, in his eleventh year. He passed amongst the
neighbors for Quixada's page, and remained under the guardianship of
Dona Magdalena, whose efforts to imbue him with devotion towards the
Blessed Virgin are supposed by his historians to have borne good fruit
in the banners, embroidered with Our Lady's image, which floated from
his galleys at Lepanto. He likewise exercised in the Yuste forest the
cross-bow, which had dealt destruction amongst the sparrows of
Leganes, his early home in Castille.
If the number of servants in the train of Charles should savor, in
this age, somewhat of unnecessary parade, the ascetic character of the
recluse will be redeemed by a glance at the interior of his dwelling.
"The palace of Yuste, when prepared for his reception, seemed," says
the historian Sandoval, "rather to have been newly pillaged by the
enemy, than furnished for a great prince." Accustomed from his infancy
to the finest tapestry designed by Italian pencils for the looms of
Flanders, he now lived within walls entirety bare, except in his
bedchamber, which was hung with coarse brown or black cloth. The sole
appliances for rest to be found in his apartments were a bed and an
old arm-chair, not worth four reals. Four silver trenchers of the
plainest kind, for the use of his table, were the only things amongst
his goods and chattels which could tempt a thief to break through and
steal. A few choice pictures alone remained with him, as memorials of
the magnificence which he had foregone, and of the arts which he had
so loved. Over the high altar of the convent church, and within sight
of his bed, he is said to have placed that celebrated composition
known as The Glory of Titian, a picture of the Last Judgment, in which
Charles, his beautiful empress, and their royal children, were
represented, in the great painter's noblest style, as entering the
heavenly mansions of life eternal. He had also brought with him a
portrait of the empress, and a picture of Our Lord's Agony in the
Garden, likewise from the easel of Titian; and there is now at the
Escorial a masterpiece by the same hand--St. Jerome praying in his
garden, which is traditionally reputed to have hung in his oratory at
Yuste.
From the garden beneath the palace windows the emperor's table was
supplied with fruit and vegetables: and a couple of cows, grazing in
the forest, furnished him with milk. A pony and an old mule composed
the entire stud of the prince, who formerly took peculiar pleasure in
possessing the stoutest chargers of Guelderland, and the fleetest
genets of Cordova.
To atone, perhaps, for such deficiency of creature comforts, the
general of the Jeromites and the prior of Yuste had been at some pains
to provide their guest with spiritual luxuries. Knowing his passionate
love of music, they had recruited the force of their choir with
fourteen or fifteen brethren, distinguished for their fine voices and
musical skill. And for his sole benefit and delectation, they had
provided no less than three preachers, the most eloquent in the
Spanish fold of Jerome. The first of these, Fray Juan de Acaloras,
harangued his way to the bishopric of the Canaries; the second, Fray
Francisco de Villalva, also obtained by his sermons great fame, and
the post of chaplain to Philip II.; while the third, Fray Juan de
Santandres, though less noted as an orator, was had in reverence as a
prophet, having foretold the exact day and hour of his own death.
A short time sufficed for the emperor to accustom himself to the
simple and changeless tenor of monastic life. Every morning his
confessor appeared at his bed-side, to inquire how he had passed the
night, and to assist him in his private devotions. At ten he rose, and
was dressed by his valets; after which he heard mass in the convent
church. According to his invariable habit, which in Italy was said to
have given rise to the saying, _dalla messa, alla mensa_ (from mass to
mess), he went from church to dinner, about noon. Eating had ever been
one of his favorite pleasures, and it was now the only physical
gratification which he could still enjoy, or was unable to resist. He
continued, therefore, to dine upon the rich dishes against which his
ancient and trusty confessor, Cardinal Loaysa, had vainly protested a
quarter of a century before. Eel-pasties, anchovies, and frogs were
the savory food which he loved, unwisely and too well, as Frederick
afterwards loved his polenta. The meal was long, for his teeth were
few and far between; and his hands, also, were much disabled by gout,
in spite of which he always chose to carve for himself. His physician
attended him at table, and at least learned the cause of the mischiefs
which his art was to counteract. While he dined, he conversed with the
doctor on matters of science, generally of natural history, and if any
difference of opinion arose between them, the confessor was sent for
to settle the point out of Pliny. When the cloth was drawn, Fray Juan
de Regla came to read to him, generally from one of his favorite
divines,--Augustine, Jerome, or Bernard; an exercise which was
followed by conversation and an hour of slumber. At three o'clock, the
monks were assembled in the convent to hear a sermon delivered by one
of the imperial preachers, or a passage read from the Bible, usually
from the epistle to the Romans, the emperor's favorite book. To these
discourses or readings Charles always listened with profound
attention; and if sickness or letter-writing prevented his attendance,
he never failed to send a formal excuse to the prior, and to require
from his confessor an account of what had been preached or read. The
rest of the afternoon he sometimes whiled away in the workshop of
Turriano, and in the construction of pieces of mechanism, especially
clocks, of which more than a hundred were said, in one rather
improbable account, to tick in the emperor's apartments, and reckon to
a fraction the hours of his retired leisure. Sometimes he fed his pet
birds, which appear to have taken the place of the stately wolf-hounds
that followed at his heel in the days when he sat to Titian; or a
stroll amongst his fruit-trees and flowers filled up the time to
vespers and supper. At the lower end of the garden, approached by a
closely shaded path, there may still be seen the ruins of a little
summer-house, closely enbowered, and looking out upon the woodlands of
the Vera. Beyond this limit the emperor rarely extended his
excursions, which were always made, slowly and painfully, on foot; for
the first time that he mounted his pony he was seized with a violent
giddiness, and almost fell into the arms of his attendants. Such was
the last appearance, in the saddle, of the accomplished cavalier, of
whom his troopers used to say, that had he not been born a king, he
would have been the prince of light-horsemen, and whose seat and hand
excited at Calais gate the admiration of the English knights fresh
from the tournays--
"Where England vied with France in pride
On the famous field of gold."
Music, which had been one of the chief pleasures of his secular life,
continued to solace and cheer him to the last. In the conduct of the
organ and the choir he took the greatest interest, and through the
window which opened from his bedchamber upon the high altar, his voice
might often be heard accompanying the chant of the friars. His ear
never failed to detect a wrong note, and the mouth whence it came; and
he would frequently mutter the name of the offender, with the addition
of "_hideputa bermejo_," or some other epithet which savored rather of
the soldier than the saint. Guerrero, a chapel-master of Seville,
having presented him with his book of masses and motets, he caused one
of the former to be performed before him. When it was ended, he
remarked to his confessor that Guerrero was a cunning thief; and going
over the piece, he pointed out the plagiarisms with which it
abounded, and named the composers whose works had suffered pillage.
In laying down the sceptre, Charles had resolved to have no farther
personal concern with temporal affairs. The petitioners, who at first
besieged his retreat, soon ceased from troubling when they found
themselves referred to the princess-regent at Valladolid, or to the
king in Flanders. He declined giving any attention to matters beyond
the walls of the convent, unless they concerned the interests of his
children or the church. His advice was, however, frequently asked by
his son and daughter, and couriers often went and came between Yuste
and the courts. But with the patronage of the state he never
interfered, except on two occasions, when he recommended the case of a
Catalonian lady to the favorable consideration of the Infanta, and
asked for an order of knighthood for a veteran brother in arms.
The rites of religion now formed the business of his life, and he
transacted that business with his usual method and regularity. No
enthusiast novice was ever more solicitous to fulfil to the letter
every law of his rubric. On the first Sunday of his residence at the
convent, as he went to high mass, he observed the friar who was
sprinkling the holy water, hesitate when his turn came to be aspersed.
Taking the hyssop, therefore, from his hand, he bestowed a plentiful
shower upon his own face and clothes, saying as he returned the
instrument, "This, father, is the way you must do it, next time."
Another friar, offering the pyx to his lips in a similar diffident
manner, he took it between his hands, and not only kissed it
fervently, but applied it to his forehead and eyes with true oriental
reverence. Although provided with an indulgence for eating before
communion, he never availed himself of it but when he was suffering
from extreme debility; and he always heard two masses on the days when
he received the eucharist. On Ash Wednesday, he required his entire
household, down to the meanest scullion, to communicate, and on these
occasions he stood on the top step of the altar, to observe that the
muster was complete. For the benefit of his Flemings, he had a
chaplain of their country, who lived at Xarandilla, and came over at
stated times, when his flock were assembled for confession. The
emperor himself usually heard mass from the window of his bedchamber,
which looked into the church; but at complines he went up into the
choir with the fathers, and prayed in a devout and audible tone, in
his tribune. During the season of Lent, which came round twice during
his residence at Yuste, he regularly appeared in his place in the
choir, on Fridays, when it was the custom of the fraternity to perform
their discipline in public; and at the end of the appointed prayers,
extinguishing the taper which he, like the rest, held in his hand, he
flogged himself with such sincerity of purpose, that the scourge was
stained with blood, and the beholders singularly edified. On Good
Friday, he went forth at the head of his household, to adore the holy
cross; and although he was so infirm that he was obliged to be almost
carried by the men on whom he leaned, he insisted upon prostrating
himself three times upon the ground, in the manner of the friars,
before he approached the blessed symbol with his lips. The feast of
St. Matthew, his birthday--a day of great things in his life,--he
always celebrated with peculiar devotion. He appeared at mass, in a
dress of ceremony, and wearing the collar of the Fleece; and at the
time of the offertory, he went forward, and expressed his gratitude to
God by a large donation. The church was thronged with strangers; and
the crowd who could not gain admittance was so great, that one sermon
was preached outside, whilst another was being pronounced before the
emperor and his household within.
With the friars, his hosts, Charles lived on the most familiar and
friendly footing. When the visitors of the order paid their triennial
visit of inspection to Yuste, they represented to him, with all
respect, that his majesty himself was the only inmate of the convent
with whom they had any fault to find; and they entreated him to
discontinue those benefactions which he was in the habit of bestowing
on the fraternity, and which the rule of St. Jerome did not allow his
children to receive. He knew all the fathers by name and by sight, and
frequently conversed with them, as well as with the prior. One of his
favorites was a lay-brother, called Alonso Mudarra, once a man of rank
and family in the world, and now working out his own salvation in the
humble post of cook to the convent. This worthy had an only daughter,
who did not share her father's contempt for mundane things. When she
came with her husband to visit him at Yuste, Fray Alonso, arrayed in
his dirtiest apron, thus addressed her: "Daughter, behold my gala
apparel; obedience is now my treasure and my pride; for you, in your
silks and vanities, I entertain profound pity." So saying, he returned
to his kitchen, and would never see her more: an effort of holiness to
which he appears to owe his place in the chronicles of the order.
The emperor was conversing one day with his confessor, Regla, when
that priest chose to speak, in the mitre-shunning cant of his cloth,
of the great reluctance which he had felt in accepting a post of such
weighty responsibility. "Never fear," said Charles, somewhat
maliciously, and as if conscious that he was dealing with a hypocrite;
"before I left Flanders, four doctors were engaged for a whole year in
easing my conscience; so you have nothing to answer for but what
happens here."
When he had completed a year of residence at the convent, some
good-humored bantering passed between him and the master of the
novices about its being now time for him to make profession; and he
afterwards said that he was prevented from taking the vows of the
order, and becoming a monk in earnest, only by the state of his
health. St. Blas's day, 1558, the anniversary of his arrival, was held
as a festival, and celebrated by masses, the _Te Deum_, a precession
by the fathers, and a sermon by Villalva. In the afternoon, the
emperor gave a sumptuous repast to the whole convent, out in the
fields, it being the custom of the fraternity to celebrate any
accession to their number by a pic-nic. The country people about
Plasencia sent a quantity of partridges and kids to aid the feast,
which was likewise enlivened by the presence of the Flemish servants,
male and female, and his other retainers, from the village of Quacos.
The prior provided a more permanent memorial of the day by opening a
new book for the names of brethren admitted into the convent, on the
first leaf of which the emperor inscribed his name--an autograph which
remained the pride of the archives till their destruction by the
dragoons of Buonaparte.
The retired emperor had not many visitors in his solitude; and of
these few, Juan de Vega, president of the council of Castille,
was the only personage in high office. He was sent down by the
princess-regent, apparently to see that her father was treated with
due attention by the provincial authorities. But with his neighbors,
great and small, Charles lived in a state of amity which it would have
been well for the world had he been able to maintain with his
fellow-potentates of Christendom. The few nobles and gentry of the
Vera were graciously received when they came to pay their respects at
Yuste. Oropesa and his brothers frequently rode forth from Xarandilla,
to inquire after the health of their former guest. From Plasencia came
a still more distinguished and no less welcome guest, Luis de Avila,
comendador-mayor of Alcantara. Long the _fidus Achates_ of the
emperor, this soldier-courtier had obtained considerable fame by
becoming his Quintus Curtius. His Commentaries on the Wars against the
Protestants of Germany, first published in 1546, had been several
times reprinted, and had already been translated into Latin, French,
Flemish, English, and Italian. Having married the wealthy heiress of
the Zunigas, he was now living in laurelled ease at Plasencia, in that
fine palace of Mirabel, which is still one of the chief ornaments of
the beautiful city. The memoirs of the campaigns in Africa, which he
is said to have left in manuscript, were perhaps the occupation of his
leisure. Charles always received his historian with kindness, and it
is characteristic of the times, that it was noted as a mark of
singular favor, that he ordered a capon to be reserved for him from
his own well-supplied board. It may seem strange that a retired
prince, who had never been a lover of parade, should not have broken
through the ceremonial law which condemned a monarch to eat alone. But
we must remember that he was a Spaniard living amongst Spaniards; and
that, near a century later, the force of forms was still so strong,
that the great minister of France, when most wanting in ships,
preferred that the Spanish fleet should retire from the blockade of
Rochelle rather than that the admiral should wear his grandee hat in
the Most Christian presence.
The emperor was fond of talking over his feats of arms with the
veteran who had shared and recorded them. One day, in the course of
such conversation, Don Luis said he had caused a ceiling of his house
to be painted in fresco, with a view of the battle of Renti, and the
Frenchmen flying before the soldiers of Castille. "Not so," said
Charles; "let the painter modify this if he can; for it was no
headlong flight, but an honorable retreat." This was not the less
candid, that French historians claim the victory for their own side.
Considering that the action had been fought only three or four years
before it was said to have been painted, it is possible that Renti has
been substituted for the name of some other less doubtful field. But
Luis de Avila was of easy faith when the honor of Castille was
concerned, and may well be supposed capable of setting down a success
to the wrong account, when he did not hesitate to record it in his
book, that the miracle of Ajalon had been repeated at Muhlberg. Some
years afterwards, the duke of Alva, who had been in that battle, was
asked by the French king whether he had observed that the sun stood
still. "I was so busy that day," said the old soldier, "with what was
passing on earth, that I had no time to notice what took place in
heaven."
An anecdote of Avila and his master, though not falling within the
period of their retirement to Estremadura, may be related here, as
serving to show the characters of the two men. Some years before his
abdication, Charles had amused the leisure of his sick-room by making
a prose translation of Olivier de la Marches' forgotten allegorical
poem, _Le Chevalier delibere_. He then employed Fernando de Acunha, a
man of letters attached to the Saxon court, to turn his labors into
Castillian verse, and he finally handed it over to William Van Male,
one of the gentlemen of the chamber, telling him that he might publish
it for his own benefit. Avila and the other Spaniards, hearing of the
concession, wickedly affected the greatest envy at the good fortune of
the Fleming; the historian, in particular, in his quality of author,
assuring the emperor that the publication could not fail to realize a
profit of five hundred crowns. That desire to print, which, more or
less developed, exists in every man who writes, being thus stimulated
by the suggestion, that to gratify that desire, would be to confer a
favor which should cost him nothing, Charles became impatient to see
his lucubrations in type. Insisting that his bounty should be accepted
at once, he turned a deaf ear to the timid hints of Van Male, as to
the risk and expense of the speculation; and the end was, that the
poor man had to pay Jean Steels for printing and publishing two
thousand copies of a book which is now scarce, probably because the
greater part of the impression passed at once from the publisher to
the pastry-cook. The waggery on the part of Avila was the more wicked,
because the victim had translated his Commentaries into Latin for him.
It forms, however, the subject of an agreeable letter, wherein Van
Male complains of the undue expectations raised in the emperor's mind
by his "windy Spaniards," and ruefully looks forward to reaping a
harvest of mere straw and chaff.
It was not only by calling at Yuste that the noble lieges of the
emperor testified their homage. Mules were driven to his gate laden
with more substantial tokens of loyalty and affection. The Count of
Oropesa kept his table supplied with game from the forest and the
hill; and the prelates of Toledo, Mondonedo, Segovia, and Salamanca,
offered similar proofs that they had not forgotten the giver of their
mitres. The Jeromites of Guadalupe, rich in sheep and beeves, sent
calves, lambs fattened on bread, and delicate fruits; and from his
sister Catharine, queen of Portugal, there came every fortnight a
supply of conserves and linen.
The villagers of Quacos alone furnished some exceptions to the respect
in which their imperial neighbor was held. Although they received the
greater part of the hundred ducats which he dispensed every month for
charitable purposes, they poached the trout in the fish-ponds which
had been formed for his service in Garganta la Olla; and they drove
his cows to the parish pound whenever they strayed beyond their
legitimate pastures. One fellow having sold the crop on his
cherry-tree, at double its value, to the emperor's purveyor, when he
found that it was left ungathered for a few days, took the opportunity
of disposing of it a second time to another purchaser, who, of course,
left nothing but bare boughs to the rightful owner of the fruit.
Wearied with these annoyances, the emperor complained to the president
of Castille, who administered to the district judge, one Licentiate
Murga, a severe rebuke, which that functionary, in his turn, visited
upon the unruly rustics. Several culprits were apprehended; but while
Castillian justice was taking its deliberate course, some of them who
were related to friars of Yuste, by the influence of their friends at
court, got the emperor himself to petition that the sentence might be
light.
To his servants Charles was a kind and lenient master. He bore
patiently with Adrian the cook, though he left the cinnamon that he
loved out of the dishes; and he contented himself with mildly
admonishing Pelayo, the baker, who got drunk and neglected his oven,
of which the result was burnt bread that sorely tried the toothless
gums of his master. His old military habits, however, still adhered to
him, and though gentle in his manner of enforcing it, he was something
of a martinet in maintaining the discipline of his household and the
convent. Nor had he lost that love of petty economies which made him
sit bare-headed in the rain without the walls of Naumburg, saving a
new velvet cap under his arm, while they fetched him an old one from
the town. Observing in his walks, or from his window, that a certain
basket daily came and went between his garden and the garden of the
friars, he caused Moron to institute an examination, which led to the
harmless discovery that his Flemings were in the habit of bartering
egg-plants with the Jeromites for onions. He had also been disturbed
by suspicious gatherings of young women at the convent-gate, who stood
there gossiping under pretence of receiving alms. When the visitors
came their rounds, he therefore brought the matter under their notice.
The result of the complaint was that the conventional dole was ordered
to be sent round in certain portions to the alcaldes of the various
villages, for distribution on the spot; and, moreover, the crier went
down the straggling, uneven street of Quacos, making the ungallant
proclamation, that any woman who should be found nearer to Yuste than
a certain oratory, about two gunshots from the gate, should be
punished with a hundred stripes.
In the month of September, 1557, the emperor received a visit from his
sisters, the queens Eleanor and Mary. These royal widows, weary of
Guadalaxara, its unyielding duke, and its troublesome alcalde, were
once more in search of a residence. They had cast their eyes on the
banks of the Guadiana, and they were now on their way to that frontier
of Portugal. Neither the convent nor the palace of Yuste being
sufficiently commodious to receive them, they lived at Xarandilla, as
guests of Oropesa. The shattered health of the queen of France
rendered the journey from the castle to the convent, although
performed in a litter, so fatiguing to her, that she accomplished it
only twice. Nor was her brother's strength sufficient to enable him to
return the visits of his favorite sister. But queen Mary was seven
years younger, and still possessed much of the vigor which amazed
Roger Ascham, when he met her galloping into Tongres, far ahead of her
suit, although it was the tenth day she had passed in the saddle. She
therefore mounted her horse almost every day, and rode through the
fading forest to converse with the recluse at Yuste. At the end of a
fortnight, the queens took a sorrowful leave of their brother, and
proceeded on their way to Badajoz, whither the Infanta Mary of
Portugal, daughter of queen Eleanor, had come from Lisbon to receive
them. After this meeting, which was destined to be the last, the
queens returned to the little town of Talaverilla, on the bare plains
of Merida, where they had determined to fix their abode. But they
found there no continuing city. In a few weeks, Eleanor was seized
with a fever, which carried her off on the 25th of February, 1558, the
sixtieth year of her age. When the emperor heard of her illness, he
dispatched Luis Quixada to attend upon her; but she was already at
rest ere the mayordomo reached Talaverilla. Queen Mary went back with
Quixada to Yuste. Her health being much shaken, and the emperor being
unable to move from the convent, she was lodged, on this occasion, in
his apartments. At the end of eight days she bade him a last farewell,
and retired to Cigales, a hamlet two leagues north of Valladolid, and
crowning a vine-clad hill on the western side of the valley of the
Pisuerga.
FOOTNOTES:
[7] Sandoval says he left on the 4th November; Cabrera, that he left
on the 1st; and Siguenca gives the end of October as the time of his
departure.
From Household Words.
OUR PHANTOM SHIP AMONG THE ICE.
Yonder is the coast of Norway; we shall soon be at Spitzbergen. The
"Phantom" is fitted out for Arctic exploration, with instructions to
find her way, by the north-west, to Behring Straits, and take the
South Pole on her passage home. Just now, we steer due north, and
yonder is the coast of Norway. From that coast parted Hugh Willoughby,
three hundred years ago; the first of our countrymen who wrought an
ice-bound highway to Cathay. Two years afterwards his ships were
found, in the haven of Arzina, in Lapland, by some Russian fishermen;
near and about them Willoughby and his companions--seventy dead men.
The ships were freighted with their frozen crews, and sailed for
England; but, "being unstaunch, as it is supposed by their two years'
wintering in Lapland, sunk, by the way, with their dead, and them also
that brought them."
Ice floats about us now, and here is a whale blowing; a whale, too,
very near Spitzbergen. When first Spitzbergen was discovered, in the
good old times, there were whales here in abundance; then a hundred
Dutch ships in a crowd, might go to work, and boats might jostle with
each other, and the only thing deficient would be stowage room for all
the produce of the fishery. Now one ship may have the whole field to
itself, and travel home with an imperfect cargo. It was fine fun in
the good old times; there was no need to cruise. Coppers and boilers
were fitted on the island, and little colonies about them, in the
fishing season, had nothing to do but tow the whales in, with a boat,
as fast as they were wanted by the copper. No wonder that so enviable
a Tom Tidler's ground was claimed by all who had a love for gold and
silver. The English called it theirs, for they first fished; the Dutch
said, nay, but the island was of their discovery; Danes, Hamburghers,
Biscayans, Spaniards, and French put in their claims; and at length,
it was agreed to make partitions. The numerous bays and harbors which
indent the coast were divided among the rival nations; and to this
day, many of them bear, accordingly, such names as English Bay, Danes
Bay, and so forth. One bay there is, with graves in it, named Sorrow.
For it seemed to the fishers most desirable, if possible, to plant
upon this island permanent establishments, and condemned convicts were
offered, by the Russians, life and pardon, if they would winter in
Spitzbergen. They agreed; but, when they saw the icy mountains and the
stormy sea, repented, and went back, to meet a death exempt from
torture. The Dutch tempted free men, by high rewards, to try the
dangerous experiment. One of their victims left a journal, which
describes his sufferings and that of his companions. Their mouths, he
says, became so sore that, if they had food, they could not eat; their
limbs were swollen and disabled with excruciating pain; they died of
scurvy. Those who died first were coffined by their dying friends; a
row of coffins was found, in the spring, each with a man in it; two
men uncoffined, side by side, were dead upon the floor. The journal
told, how once the traces of a bear excited their hope of fresh meat
and amended health; how, with a lantern, two or three had limped upon
the track, until the light became extinguished, and they came back in
despair to die. We might speak, also, of eight English sailors, left,
by accident, upon Spitzbergen, who lived to return and tell their
winter's tale; but a long journey is before us, and we must not linger
on the way. As for our whalers, it need scarcely be related that the
multitude of whales diminished as the slaughtering went on, until it
was no longer possible to keep the coppers full. The whales had to be
searched for by the vessels, and thereafter it was not worth while to
take the blubber to Spitzbergen to be boiled; and the different
nations, having carried home their coppers, left the apparatus of
those fishing stations to decay.
Take heed. There is a noise like thunder, and a mountain snaps in two.
The upper half comes, crashing, grinding, down into the sea, and
loosened streams of water follow it. The sea is displaced before the
mighty heap; it boils and scatters up a cloud of spray; it rushes
back, and violently beats upon the shore. The mountain rises from its
bath, sways to and fro, while water pours along its mighty sides; now
it is tolerably quiet, letting crackers off as air escapes out of its
cavities. That is an iceberg, and in that way are all icebergs formed.
Mountains of ice formed by rain and snow--grand Arctic glaciers,
undermined by the sea or by accumulation overbalanced--topple down
upon the slightest provocation (moved by a shout, perhaps) and where
they float, as this black looking fellow does, they need deep water.
This berg in height is about ninety feet, and a due balance requires
that a mass nine times as large as the part visible should be
submerged. Icebergs are seen about us now which rise two hundred feet
above the water's level.
There are above head plenty of aquatic birds; ashore, or on the ice,
are bears, foxes, reindeer; and in the sea there are innumerable
animals. We shall not see so much life near the North Pole, that is
certain. It would be worth while to go ashore upon an islet there,
near Vogel Sang, to pay a visit to the eider-ducks. Their nests are
so abundant that one cannot avoid treading on them. When the duck is
driven by a hungry fox to leave her eggs, she covers them with down,
in order that they may not cool during her absence, and, moreover,
glues the down into a case with a secretion supplied to her by Nature
for that purpose. The deserted eggs are safe, for that secretion has
an odor very disagreeable to the intruder's nose.
We still sail northward, among sheets of ice, whose boundaries are not
beyond our vision from the mast-head--these are "floes;" between them
we find easy way, it is fair "sailing ice." In the clear sky to the
north, a streak of lucid white light is the reflection from an icy
surface; that is "ice-blink," in the language of these seas. The glare
from snow is yellow, while open water gives a dark reflection.
Northward still; but now we are in fog the ice is troublesome; a gale
is rising. Now, if our ship had timbers, they would crack, and if she
had a bell it would be tolling; if we were shouting to each other we
should not hear, the sea is in a fury. With wild force its breakers
dash against a heaped-up wall of broken ice, that grinds and strains
and battles fiercely with the water. This is "the pack," the edge of a
great ice-field broken by the swell. It is a perilous and exciting
thing to push through pack ice in a gale.
Now there is ice as far as eye can see, that is "an ice-field." Masses
are forced up like colossal tombstones on all sides; our sailors call
them "hummocks;" here and there the broken ice displays large "holes
of water." Shall we go on? Upon this field, in 1827, Parry adventured
with his men, to reach the North Pole, if that should be possible.
With sledges and portable boats they labored on, through snow, and
over hummocks; launching their boats over the larger holes of water.
With stout hearts, undaunted by toil or danger, they went boldly on,
though by degrees it became clear to the leaders of the expedition,
that they were almost like mice upon a treadmill cage, making a great
expenditure of leg for little gain. The ice was floating to the south
with them, as they were walking to the north; still they went on.
Sleeping by day to avoid the glare, and to get greater warmth during
the time of rest, and travelling by night,--watch-makers' days and
nights, for it was all one polar day,--the men soon were unable to
distinguish noon from midnight. The great event of one day on this
dreary waste was the discovery of two flies upon an ice hummock;
these, says Parry, became at once a topic of ridiculous importance.
Presently, after twenty-three miles walking, they only had gone one
mile forward, the ice having industriously floated twenty-two miles in
an opposite direction; and then, after walking forward eleven miles,
they found themselves to be three miles behind the place from which
they started. The party accordingly returned, not having reached the
Pole, not having reached the eighty-third parallel, for the attainment
of which there was a reward of a thousand pounds held out by
government. They reached the parallel of eighty-two degrees,
forty-five minutes, which was, and still is, the most northerly point
trodden by the foot of man. From that point they returned. In those
high latitudes they met with a phenomenon, common in alpine regions,
as well as at the Pole, red snow. The red color being caused by the
abundance of a minute plant, of low development, the last dweller on
the borders of the vegetable kingdom. More interesting to the sailors
was a fat she bear which they killed and devoured with a zeal to be
repented of; for on reaching navigable sea, and pushing in their boats
to Table Island, where some stones were left, they found that the
bears had eaten all their bread, whereon the men agreed that "Bruin
was now square with them." An islet next to Table Island--they are
both mere rocks--is the most northern land discovered. Therefore,
Parry applied to it the name of lieutenant--now Sir James--Ross. This
compliment Sir James Ross has acknowledged in the most emphatic
manner, by discovering on his part, at the other Pole, the most
southern land yet seen, and giving to it the name of Parry: "Parry
Mountains."
It very probably would not be difficult under such circumstances as
Sir W. Parry has since recommended, to reach the North Pole along this
route. Then (especially if it be true, as many believe, that there is
a region of open sea about the Pole itself) we might find it as easy
to reach Behring Straits, by travelling in a straight line over the
North Pole, as by threading the straits and bays north of America.
We turn our course until we have in sight a portion of the ice-barred
eastern coast of Greenland, Shannon Island. Somewhere about this spot
in the seventy-fifth parallel is the most northern part of that coast
known to us. Colonel--then Captain--Sabine in the "Griper," was landed
there to make magnetic and other observations; for the same purpose he
had previously visited Sierra Leone. That is where we differ from our
forefathers. They commissioned hardy seamen to encounter peril for the
search of gold ore, or for a near road to Cathay, but our peril is
encountered for the gain of knowledge, for the highest kind of service
that can now be rendered to the human race.
Before we leave the northern sea, we must not omit to mention the
voyage by Spitzbergen northward, in 1818, of Captain Buchan in the
"Dorothea," accompanied by Lieutenant Franklin, in the "Trent." It was
Sir John Franklin's first voyage to the Arctic regions. This trip
forms the subject of a delightful book by Captain Beechey.
On our way to the south point of Greenland we pass near Cape North, a
point of Iceland. Iceland, we know, is the centre of a volcanic
region, whereof Norway and Greenland are at opposite points of the
circumference. In connection with this district there is a remarkable
fact; that by the agency of subterranean forces a large portion of
Norway and Sweden is being slowly upheaved. While Greenland, on the
west coast, as gradually sinks into the sea, Norway rises at the rate
of about four feet in a century. In Greenland the sinking is so well
known that the natives never build close to the water's edge, and the
Moravian missionaries more than once have had to move farther inland
the poles on which their boats are rested.
Our Phantom Ship stands fairly now along the western coast of
Greenland into Davis Straits. We observe that upon this western coast
there is, by a great deal, less ice than on the eastern. That is a
rule generally. Not only the configuration of the straits and bays,
but also the earth's rotation from west to east, causes the currents
here to set towards the west, and wash the western coasts, while they
act very little on the eastern. We steer across Davis Strait, among
"an infinite number of great countreys and islands of yee;" there,
near the entrance, we find Hudson Strait, which does not now concern
us. Islands probably separate this well-known channel from Frobisher
Strait to the north of it, yet unexplored. Here let us recall to mind
the fleet of fifteen sail, under Sir Martin Frobisher, in 1578,
tossing about and parting company among the ice. Let us remember how
the crew of the "Anne Frances," in that expedition, built a pinnace
when their vessel struck upon a rock, although they wanted main timber
and nails. How they made a mimic forge, and "for the easier making of
nails, were forced to break their tongs, gridiron, and fire-shovel, in
pieces." How Master Captain Best, in this frail bark, with its
imperfect timbers held together by the metamorphosed gridiron and
fire-shovel, continued in his duty, and did "depart up the straights
as before was pretended." How a terrific storm arose, and the fleet
parted, and the intrepid captain was towed "in his small pinnace, at
the stern of the 'Michael,' thorow the raging seas; for the bark was
not able to receive or relieve half its company." The "tongs,
gridyron, and fire-shovell," performed their work only for as many
minutes as were absolutely necessary, for "the pinesse came no sooner
aboord the ship, and the men entred, but she presently shivered and
fell in pieces, and sunke at the ship's stern with all the poor men's
furniture."
Now, too, as we sail up the strait, explored a few years after these
events by Master John Davis, how proudly we remember him as a right
worthy forerunner of those countrymen of his and ours who since have
sailed over his track. Nor ought we to pass without calling to mind
the melancholy fate, in 1606, of Master John Knight, driven, in the
"Hopwell," among huge masses of ice, with a tremendous surf, his
rudder knocked away, his ship half full of water, at the entrance to
these straits. Hoping to find a harbor, he set forth to explore a
large island, and landed, leaving two men to watch the boat, while he,
with three men and the mate, set forth and disappeared over a hill.
For thirteen hours the watchers kept their post; one had his trumpet
with him, for he was a trumpeter, the other had a gun. They trumpeted
often and loudly, they fired, but no answer came. They watched ashore
all night for the return of their captain and his party, "but they
came not at all."
The season is advanced. As we sail on, the sea steams like a
lime-kiln, "frost-smoke" covers it. The water, cooled less rapidly, is
warmer now than the surrounding air, and yields this vapor in
consequence. By the time our vessel has reached Baffin's Bay, still
coasting along Greenland, in addition to old floes and bergs, the
water is beset with "pancake ice." That is the young ice when it first
begins to cake upon the surface. Innocent enough it seems, but it is
sadly clogging to the ships. It sticks about their sides like treacle
on a fly's wing; collecting unequally, it destroys all equilibrium,
and impedes the efforts of the steersman. Rocks split on the Greenland
coast with loud explosions, and more icebergs fall. Icebergs we soon
shall take our leave of; they are only found where there is a coast on
which glaciers can form; they are good for nothing but to yield fresh
water to the vessels; it will be all field, pack, and salt-water ice
presently.
Now we are in Baffin's Bay, explored in the voyages of Bylot and
Baffin, 1615-16. When, in 1817, a great movement in the Greenland ice
caused many to believe that the northern passages would be found
comparatively clear; and when, in consequence of this impression, Sir
John Barrow succeeded in setting a-foot that course of modern Arctic
exploration, which has been continued to the present day, Sir John
Ross was the first man sent to find the north-west passage. Buchan and
Parry were commissioned at the same time to attempt the North Sea
route. Sir John Ross did little more on that occasion than effect a
survey of Baffin's Bay, and prove the accuracy of the ancient pilot.
In the extreme north of the bay there is an inlet or a channel, called
by Baffin Smith's Sound; this Sir John saw, but did not enter. It
never has been explored. It may be an inlet only; but it is also very
possible that by this channel ships might get into the Polar Sea, and
sail by the north shore of Greenland to Spitzbergen. Turning that
corner, and descending along the western coast of Baffin's Bay, there
is another inlet called Jones's Sound by Baffin, also unexplored.
These two inlets, with their very British titles, Smith and Jones, are
of exceeding interest. Jones's Sound may lead by a back way to
Melville Island. South of Jones's Sound there is a wide break in the
shore, a great sound, named by Baffin, Lancaster's, which Sir John
Ross, in that first expedition, failed also to explore. Like our
transatlantic friends at the South Pole, he laid down a range of
clouds as mountains, and considered the way impervious; so he came
home.
Parry went out next year, as a lieutenant, in command of his first and
most successful expedition. He sailed up Lancaster Sound, which was in
that year (1819) unusually clear of ice: and he is the discoverer
whose track we now follow in our Phantom Ship. The whole ground being
new, he had to name the points of country right and left of him. The
way was broad and open, due west, a most prosperous beginning for a
north-west passage. If this continued, he would soon reach Behring
Strait. A broad channel to the right, directed, that is to say,
southward, he entered on the Prince of Wales's birthday, and so called
it the "Prince Regent's Inlet." After exploring this for some miles,
he turned back to resume his western course, for still there was a
broad strait leading westward. This second part of Lancaster Sound, he
called after the Secretary of the Admiralty who had so indefatigably
labored to promote the expeditions, Barrow's Strait. Then he came to a
channel, turning to the right or northward, and he named that
Wellington Channel. Then he had on his right hand ice, islands large
and small, and intervening channels; on the left, ice, and a cape
visible, Cape Walker. At an island, named after the First Lord of the
Admiralty Melville Island, the great frozen wilderness barred further
progress. There he wintered. On the coast of Melville Island they had
passed the latitude of one hundred and ten degrees, and the men had
become entitled to a royal bounty of five thousand pounds. This group
of islands Parry called North Georgian, but they are usually called by
his own name, Parry Islands. This was the first European winter party
in the Arctic circle. Its details are familiar enough. How the men cut
in three days through ice seven inches thick, a canal two miles and a
half long, and so brought the ships into safe harbor. How the genius
of Parry equalled the occasion; how there was established a theatre
and a _North Georgian Gazette_, to cheer the tediousness of a night
which continued for two thousand hours. The dreary dazzling waste in
which there was that little patch of life, the stars, the fog, the
moonlight, the glittering wonder of the northern lights, in which, as
Greenlanders believe, souls of the wicked dance tormented, are
familiar to us. The she-bear stays at home; but the he-bear hungers,
and looks in vain for a stray seal or walrus--woe to the unarmed man
who meets him in his hungry mood! Wolves are abroad, and pretty white
arctic foxes. The reindeer have sought other pasture-ground. The
thermometer runs down to more than sixty degrees below freezing, a
temperature tolerable in calm weather, but distressing in a wind. The
eye-piece of the telescope must be protected now with leather, for the
skin is destroyed that comes in contact with cold metal. The voice at
a mile's distance can be heard distinctly. Happy the day when first
the sun is seen to graze the edge of the horizon; but summer must
come, and the heat of a constant day must accumulate, and summer wane,
before the ice is melted. Then the ice cracks, like cannons
over-charged, and moves with a loud grinding noise. But not yet is
escape to be made with safety. After a detention of ten months, Parry
got free; but, in escaping, narrowly missed the destruction of both
ships, by their being "nipped" between the mighty mass and the
unyielding shore. What animals are found on Melville Island, we may
judge from the results of sport during ten months' detention. The
Island exceeds five thousand miles square, and yielded to the gun,
three musk oxen, twenty-four deer, sixty-eight bears, fifty-three
geese, fifty-nine ducks, and one hundred and forty-four patarmigans,
weighing together three thousand seven hundred and sixty-six
pounds--not quite two ounces of meat per day to every man. Lichens,
stunted grass, saxifrage, and a feeble willow, are the plants of
Melville Island, but in sheltered nooks there are found sorrel, poppy,
and a yellow butter-cup. Halos and double suns are very common
consequences of refraction in this quarter of the world. Franklin
returned from his first and most famous voyage with his men all safe
and sound, except the loss of a few fingers, frost-bitten. We sail
back only as far as Regent's Inlet, being bound for Behring Strait.
The reputation of Sir John Ross being clouded by the discontent
expressed against his first expedition, Mr. Felix Booth, a rich
distiller, provided seventeen thousand pounds to enable his friend to
redeem his credit. Sir John accordingly, in 1829, went out in the
"Victory," provided with steam-machinery that did not answer well. He
was accompanied by Sir James Ross, his nephew. He it was who, on this
occasion, first surveyed Regent's Inlet, down which we are now sailing
with our Phantom Ship. The coast on our right hand, westward, which
Parry saw, is called North Somerset, but farther south, where the
inlet widens, the land is named Boothia Felix. Five years before this,
Parry, in his third voyage, had attempted to pass down Regent's Inlet,
where among ice and storm, one of his ships, the "Hecla," had been
driven violently ashore, and of necessity, abandoned. The stores had
been removed, and Sir John was able now to replenish his own vessel
from them. Rounding a point at the bottom of Prince Regent's Inlet, we
find Felix Harbor, where Sir John Ross wintered. His nephew made from
this point scientific explorations; discovered a strait, called after
him the Strait of James Ross, and on the northern shore of this
strait, on the main land of Boothia, planted the British flag on the
Northern Magnetic Pole. The ice broke up, so did the "Victory;" after
a hairbreadth escape, the party found a searching vessel, and arrived
home after an absence of four years and five months, Sir John Ross
having lost his ship, and won his reputation. The friend in need was
made a baronet for his munificence; Sir John was reimbursed for all
his losses, and the crew liberally taken care of. Sir James Ross had a
rod and flag signifying "Magnetic Pole," given to him for a new crest,
by the Heralds' College, for which he was no doubt greatly the better.
We have sailed northward to get into Hudson Strait, the high road into
Hudson Bay. Along the shore are Exquimaux in boats, extremely active,
but these filthy creatures we pass by; the Exquimaux in Hudson Strait
are like the negroes of the coast, demoralized by intercourse with
European traders. These are not true pictures of the loving children
of the north. Our "Phantom" floats on the wide waters of Hudson
Bay--the grave of its discoverer. Familiar as the story is of Henry
Hudson's fate, for John King's sake how gladly we repeat it. While
sailing on the waters he discovered, in 1611, his men mutinied; the
mutiny was aided by Henry Green, a prodigal, whom Hudson had
generously shielded from ruin. Hudson, the master, and his son, with
six sick or disabled members of the crew, were driven from their
cabins, forced into a little shallop, and committed helpless to the
water and the ice. But there was one stout man, John King, the
carpenter, who stepped into the boat, abjuring his companions, and
chose rather to die than even passively be partaker in so foul a
crime. John King, we who live after, will remember you.
Here on an island, Charlton Island, near our entrance to the bay, in
1631, wintered poor Captain James with his wrecked crew. This is a
point outside the Arctic circle, but quite cold enough. Of nights,
with a good fire in the house they built, hoar frost covered their
beds, and the cook's water in a metal pan before the fire, was warm on
one side, and froze on the other. Here "it snowed and froze extremely,
at which time we, looking from the shore towards the ship, she
appeared a piece of ice in the fashion of a ship, or a ship resembling
a piece of ice." Here the gunner, who had lost his leg, besought that,
"for the little time he had to live, he might drink sack altogether."
He died and was buried in the ice far from the vessel, but when
afterwards two more were dead of scurvy, and the others, in a
miserable state, were working with faint hope about their shattered
vessel, the gunner was found to have returned home to the old vessel;
his leg had penetrated through a porthole. They "digged him clear out,
and he was as free from noisomness," the record says, "as when we
first committed him to the sea. This alteration had the ice, and
water, and time, only wrought on him, that his flesh would slip up and
down upon his bones, like a glove on a man's hand. In the evening we
buried him by the others." These worthy souls, laid up with the
agonies of scurvy, knew that in action was their only hope; they
forced their limbs to labor, among ice and water, every day. They set
about the building of a boat, but the hard frozen wood had broken all
their axes, so they made shift with the pieces. To fell a tree, it was
first requisite to light a fire around it, and the carpenter could
only labor with his wood over a fire, or else it was like stone under
his tools. Before the boat was made they buried the carpenter. The
captain exhorted them to put their trust in God; "His will be done. If
it be our fortune to end our days here, we are as near Heaven as in
England. They all protested to work to the utmost of their strength,
and that they would refuse nothing that I should order them to do to
the utmost hazard of their lives. I thanked them all." Truly the North
Pole has its triumphs. If we took no account of the fields of trade
opened by our Arctic explorers, if we thought nothing of the wants of
science in comparison with the lives lost in supplying them, is not
the loss of life a gain, which proves and tests the fortitude of noble
hearts, and teaches us respect for human nature? All the lives that
have been lost among these Polar regions, are less in number than the
dead upon a battle-field. The battle-field inflicted shame upon our
race--is it with shame that our hearts throb in following these Arctic
heroes? March 31st, says Captain James, "was very cold, with snow and
hail, which pinched our sick men more than any time this year. This
evening, being May eve, we returned late from our work to our house,
and made a good fire, and chose ladies, and ceremoniously wore their
names in our caps, endeavoring to revive ourselves by any means. On
the 15th, I manured a little patch of ground that was bare of snow,
and sowed it with pease, hoping to have some shortly to eat, for as
yet we could see no green thing to comfort us." Those pease saved the
party; as they came up the young shoots were boiled and eaten, so
their health began to mend, and they recovered from their scurvy.
Eventually, after other perils, they succeeded making their escape.
A strait, called Sir Thomas Rowe's Welcome, leads due north out of
Hudson Bay, being parted by Southampton Island from the strait through
which we entered. Its name is quaint, for so was its discoverer, Luke
Fox, a worthy man, addicted much to euphuism. Fox sailed from London
in the same year in which James sailed from Bristol. They were rivals.
Meeting in Davis Straits, Fox dined on board his friendly rival's
vessel, which was very unfit for the service upon which it went. The
sea washed over them and came into the cabin, so says Fox, "sauce
would not have been wanted if there had been roast mutton." Luke Fox
being ice-bound and in peril, writes, "God thinks upon our
imprisonment with a _supersedeas_;" but he was a good and honorable
man as well as euphuist. His "Sir Thomas Rowe's Welcome," leads into
Fox Channel; our "Phantom Ship" is pushing through the welcome passes
on the left-hand Repulse Bay. This portion of the Arctic regions, with
Fox Channel, is extremely perilous. Here Captain Lyon, in the
"Griper," was thrown anchorless upon the mercy of a stormy sea, ice
crashing around him. One island in Fox Channel is called Mill Island,
from the incessant grinding of great masses of ice collected there. In
the northern part of Fox Channel, on the western shore, is Melville
Peninsula, where Parry wintered on his second voyage. Here let us go
ashore and see a little colony of Esquimaux.
Their huts are built of blocks of snow, and arched, having an ice pane
for a window. They construct their arched entrance and their
hemispherical roof, on the true principles of architecture. Those wise
men, the Egyptians, made their arch by hewing the stones out of shape,
the Esquimaux have the true secret. Here they are, with little food in
winter and great appetites; devouring a whole walrus when they get it,
and taking the chance of hunger for the next eight days--hungry or
full, for ever happy in their lot--here are the Esquimaux. They are
warmly clothed, each in a double suit of skins sewn neatly together.
Some are singing, with good voices, too. Please them, and they
straightway dance; activity is good in a cold climate. Play to them on
the flute, or if you can sing well, sing, or turn a barrel-organ, they
are mute, eager with wonder and delight; their love of music is
intense. Give them a pencil, and, like children, they will draw. Teach
them, and they will learn, oblige them, and they will be grateful.
"Gentle and loving savages," one of our old worthies called them, and
the Portuguese were so much impressed with their teachable and gentle
conduct, that a Venetian ambassador writes, "His serene majesty
contemplates deriving great advantage from the country, not only on
account of the timber, of which he has occasion, but of the
inhabitants, who are admirably calculated for labor, and are the best
I have ever seen." The Esquimaux, of course, will learn vice, and in
the region visited by whale ships, vice enough has certainly been
taught him. Here are the dogs, who will eat old coats, or any thing;
and, near the dwellings, here is a snow-bunting,--robin redbreast of
the Arctic lands. A party of our sailors once, on landing, took some
sticks from a large heap, and uncovered the nest of a snow-bunting
with young, the bird flew to a little distance, but seeing that the
men sat down and harmed her not, continued to seek food and supply her
little ones, with full faith in the good intentions of the party.
Captain Lyon found a child's grave partly uncovered, and a
snow-bunting had built its nest upon the infant's bosom.
Sailing round Melville Peninsula, we come into the gulf of Akkolee,
through Fury and Hecla Straits, discovered by Parry. So we get back to
the bottom of Regent's Inlet, which we quitted a short time ago, and
sailing in the neighborhood of the magnetic pole, we reach the estuary
of Black's River, on the north-east coast of America. We pass then
through a straight, discovered in 1839, by Dean and Simpson, still
coasting along the northern shore of America, on the Great Stinking
Lake, as Indians call this ocean. Boats, ice permitting, and our
"Phantom Ship," of course, can coast all the way to Behring Strait.
The whole coast has been explored by Sir John Franklin, Sir John
Richardson, and Sir George Back, who have earned their knighthoods
through great peril. As we pass Coronation Gulf--the scene of
Franklin, Richardson, and Back's first exploration from the Coppermine
River--we revert to the romantic story of their journey back, over a
land of snow and frost, subsisting upon lichens, with companions
starved to death; where they plucked wild leaves for tea, and ate
their shoes for supper; the tragedy by the river; the murder of poor
Hood, with a book of prayers in his hand; Franklin at Fort Enterprise,
with two companions at the point of death, himself gaunt, hollow-eyed,
feeding on pounded bones, raked from the dunghill; the arrival of Dr.
Richardson and the brave sailor; their awful story of the cannibal
Michel;--we revert to these things with a shudder. But we must
continue on our route. The current still flows westward, bearing now
large quantities of drift-wood, out of the Mackenzie River. At the
name of Sir Alexander Mackenzie, also, we might pause, and talk over
the bold achievements of another arctic hero; but we pass on, by a
rugged and inhospitable coast, unfit for vessels of large
draught,--pass the broad mouth of the Youcon, pass Point Barrow, Icy
Cape, and are in Behring Strait. Had we passed on, we should have
found the Russian Arctic coast line, traced out by a series of Russian
explorers; of whom the most illustrious--Baron Von Wrangell--states,
that beyond a certain distance to the northward, there is always found
what he calls the _Polynja_ (open water.) This is the fact adduced by
those who adhere to the old fancy that there is a sea about the pole
itself quite free from ice.
We pass through Behring Straits. Behring, a Dane by birth, but in the
Russian service, died here in 1741, upon the scene of his discovery.
He and his crew, victims of scurvy, were unable to manage their vessel
in a storm; and it was at length wrecked on a barren island, there,
where "want, nakedness, cold, sickness, impatience, and despair were
their daily guests." Behring, his lieutenant, and the master died.
Now we must put a girdle round the world, and do it with the speed of
Ariel. Here we are already in the heats of the equator. We can do no
more than remark, that if air and water are heated at the equator, and
frozen at the poles, there will be equilibrium destroyed, and
constant currents caused. And so it happens, so we get the prevailing
winds, and all the currents of the ocean. Of these, some of the uses,
but by no means all, are obvious. We urge our "Phantom" fleetly to the
southern pole. Here, over the other hemisphere of the earth, there
shines another hemisphere of heaven. The stars are changed; the
southern cross, the Magellanic clouds, the "coal-sack" in the milky
way, attract our notice. Now we are in the southern latitude that
corresponds to England in the north; nay, at a greater distance, from
the pole, we find Kerguelen's Land, emphatically called "The Isle of
Desolation." Icebergs float much further into the warm sea on this
side of the equator, before they dissolve. The South Pole is evidently
a more thorough refrigerator than the North. Why is this? We shall
soon see. We push through pack-ice, and through floes and fields, by
lofty bergs, by an island or two covered with penguins, until there
lies before us a long range of mountains, nine or ten thousand feet in
height, and all clad in eternal snow. That is a portion of the
Southern Continent. Lieutenant Wilkes, in the American exploring
expedition, first discovered this, and mapped out some part of the
coast, putting a few clouds in likewise,--a mistake easily made by
those who omit to verify every foot of land. Sir James Ross, in his
most successful South Pole Expedition, during the years 1839-43,
sailed over some of this land, and confirmed the rest. The Antarctic,
as well as the Arctic honors he secured for England, by turning a
corner of the land, and sailing far southward, along an impenetrable
icy barrier, to the latitude of seventy-eight degrees, nine minutes.
It is an elevated continent, with many lofty ranges. In the extreme
southern point reached by the ships, a magnificent volcano was seen
spouting fire and smoke out of the everlasting snow. This volcano,
twelve thousand four hundred feet high, was named Mount Erebus; for
the "Erebus" and "Terror," now sought anxiously among the bays, and
sounds, and creeks of the North Pole, then coasted by the solid
ice-walls of the south. Only as "Phantoms" can we cross this land and
live. These lofty mountain-ranges, cold to the marrow, these vast
glaciers, and elevated plains of ice, no wonder that they cast a chill
about their neighborhood. Our very ghosts are cold, and the volcanoes
only make the frost colder by contrast. We descend upon the other
side, take ship again, and float up the Atlantic, through the tropics.
We have been round the world now, and among the ice, and have not
grown much older since we started.
* * * * *
Other "Phantoms" are to be added to those thus described. Besides the
expeditions now in the ice regions, from England and America, one, and
perhaps two more, have in the last two months started in the search
for Franklin.
MADAME DE GENLIS AND MADAME DE STAEL.
This curious piece has recently appeared in the _Gazette de France_,
and has excited much remark. It is given out to be the production of
Charles X., when Monsieur, and was communicated to M. Neychens by the
Marquis de la Roche Jacqueleine.
"Before the Revolution, I was but very slightly acquainted with Mme.
de Genlis, her conduct during that disastrous period having not a
little contributed to sink her in my estimation; and the publication
of her novel, 'The Knights of the Swan' (the _first_ edition),
completed my dislike to a person who had so cruelly aspersed the
character of the queen, my sister-in-law.
"On my return to France, I received a letter full of the most
passionate expressions of loyalty from beginning to end; the missive
being signed Comtesse de Genlis; but imagining this could be but a
_plaisanterie_ of some intimate friend of my own, I paid no attention
whatever to it. However, in two or three days it was followed by a
second epistle, complaining of my silence, and appealing to the great
sacrifices the writer had made in the interest of my cause, as giving
her a _right_ to my favorable attention. Talleyrand being present, I
asked him if he could explain this enigma.
"'Nothing is easier,' replied he; 'Mme. de Genlis is unique. She has
lost her own memory, and fancies others have experienced a similar
bereavement.'
"'She speaks,' pursued I, 'of her virtues, her misfortunes, and
Napoleon's persecutions.'
"'Hem! In 1789 her husband was quite ruined, so the events of that
period took nothing from _him_; and as to the tyranny of Bonaparte, it
consisted, in the first place, of giving her a magnificent suite of
apartments in the Arsenal; and in the second place, granting her a
pension of six thousand francs a year, upon the sole condition of her
keeping him every month _au courant_ of the literature of the day.'
"'What shocking ferocity!' replied I, laughing; 'a case of infamous
despotism indeed. And this martyr to our cause asks to see me.'
"'Yes; and pray let your royal highness grant her an audience, were it
only for once: I assure you she is most amusing.'
"I followed the advice of M. de Talleyrand, and accorded to the lady
the permission she so pathetically demanded. The evening before she
was to present herself, however, came a third missive, recommending a
certain Casimir, the _phenix_ of the _epoque_, and several other
persons besides; all, according to Mme. de Genlis, particularly
celebrated people; and the postscript to this effusion prepared me
also beforehand for the request she intended to make, of being
appointed governess to the children of my son, the Duc de Berry, who
was at that time not even married.
"Just at this period it so happened that I was besieged by more than a
dozen persons of every rank in regard to Mme. de Stael, formerly
exiled by Bonaparte, and who had rushed to Paris without taking
breath, fully persuaded every one there, and throughout all France,
was impatient to see her again. Mme. de Stael had a double view in
thus introducing herself to me; namely, to direct my proceedings
entirely, and to obtain payment of the two million francs deposited in
the treasury by her father during his ministry. I confess I was not
prepossessed in favor of Mme. de Stael, for she also, in 1789, had
manifested so much hatred towards the Bourbons, that I thought all she
could possibly look to from us, was the liberty of living in Paris
unmolested: but I little knew her. She, on her side, imagined we ought
to be grateful to her for having quarrelled with Bonaparte--her own
pride being, in fact, the sole cause of the rupture.
"M. de Fontanes and M. de Chateaubriand were the first who mentioned
her to me; and to the importance with which they treated the matter, I
answered, laughing, 'So, Mme. la Baronne de Stael is then a supreme
power?'
"'Indeed she is, and it might have very unfavorable effects did your
royal highness overlook her: for what she asserts, every one believes,
and then--she has suffered _so_ much!'
"'Very likely; but what did she make my poor sister-in-law, the queen,
suffer? Do you think I can forget the abominable things she said, the
falsehoods she told? and was it not in consequence of them, and the
public's belief of them, that she owed the possibility of the
ambassadress of Sweden's being able to dare insult that unfortunate
princess in her very palace?'
"Mme. de Stael's envoys, who manifested some confusion at the fidelity
of my memory, implored me to forget the past, think only of the
future, and remember that the genius of Mme. de Stael, whose
reputation was European, might be of the utmost advantage, or the
reverse. Tired of disputing I yielded; consented to receive this
_femme celebre_, as they all called her, and fixed for her reception
the same day I had notified to Mme. de Genlis.
"My brother has said, 'Punctuality is the politeness of kings'--words
as true and just as they are happily expressed; and the princes of my
family have never been found wanting in good manners; so I was in my
study waiting when Mme. de Genlis was announced. I was astonished at
the sight of a long, dry woman, with a swarthy complexion, dressed in
a printed cotton gown, any thing but clean, and a shawl covered with
dust, her habit-shirt, her hair even bearing marks of great
negligence. I had read her works, and remembering all she said about
neatness, and cleanliness, and proper attention to one's dress, I
thought she added another to the many who fail to add example to their
precepts. While making these reflections, Mme. de Genlis was firing
off a volley of curtsies; and upon finishing what she deemed the
requisite number, she pulled out of a great huge bag four manuscripts
of enormous dimensions.
"'I bring,' commenced the lady, 'to your royal highness what will
amply repay any kindness you may show to me--No. 1 is a plan of
conduct, and the project of a constitution; No. 2 contains a
collection of speeches in answer to those likely to be addressed to
Monsieur; No. 3, addresses and letters proper to send to foreign
powers, the provinces, &c., and in No. 4, Monsieur will find a plan of
education, the only one proper to be persued by royalty, in reading
which, your royal highness will feel as convinced of the extent of my
acquirements as of the purity of my loyalty.'
"Many in my place might have been angry; but, on the contrary, I
thanked her with an air of polite sincerity for the treasures she was
so obliging as to confide to me, and then condoled with her upon the
misfortunes she had endured under the tyranny of Bonaparte.
"'Alas! Monsieur, this abominable despot dared to make a mere
plaything of _me_! and yet I strove, by wise advice, to guide him
right, and teach him to regulate his conduct properly: but he would
not be led. I even offered to mediate between him and the pope, but he
did not even so much as answer me upon this subject; although (being a
most profound theologian) I could have smoothed almost all
difficulties when the Concordat was in question.'
"This last piece of pretension was almost too much for my gravity.
However, I applauded the zeal of this new mother of the church, and
was going to put an end to the interview, when it came into my head to
ask her if she was well acquainted with Mme. de Stael.
"'God forbid!' cried she, making a sign of the cross: 'I have no
acquaintance with _such people_; and I but do my duty in warning those
who have not perused the works of that lady, to bear in mind that they
are written in the worst possible taste, and are also extremely
immoral. Let your royal highness turn your thoughts from such books;
you will find in _mine_ all that is necessary to know. I suppose
Monsieur has not yet seen _Little Necker_?'
"'Mme. la Baronne de Stael Holstein has asked for an audience, and I
even suspect she may be already arrived at the Tuileries.'
"'Let your royal highness beware of this woman! See in her the
implacable enemy of the Bourbons, and in me their most devoted slave.'
"This new proof of the want of memory in Madame de Genlis amused me as
much as the other absurdities she had favored me with; and I was in
the act of making her the ordinary salutations of adieu, when I
observed her blush purple, and her proud rival entered.
"The two ladies exchanged a haughty bow, and the comedy, which had
just finished with the departure of Mme. de Genlis, recommenced under
a different form when Mme. de Stael appeared on the stage. The
baroness was dressed, not certainly dirty, like the countess, but
quite as absurdly. She wore a red satin gown, embroidered with flowers
of gold and silk; a profusion of diamonds; rings enough to stock a
pawnbroker's shop; and, I must add, that I never before saw so low a
cut corsage display less inviting charms. Upon her head was a huge
turban, constructed on the pattern of that worn by the Cumean sybil,
which put a finishing stroke to a costume so little in harmony with
her style of face. I scarcely understand how a woman of genius _can_
have such a false, vulgar taste. Mme. de Stael began by apologizing
for occupying a few moments which she doubted not I should have
preferred giving to Mme. de Genlis. 'She is one of the illustrations
of the day,' observed she, with a sneering smile--'a colossus of
religious faith, and represents in her person, she fancies, all the
literature of the age. Ah! ah! Monsieur, in the hands of _such people_
the world would soon retrograde; while it should, on the contrary, be
impelled forward, and your royal highness be the first to put yourself
at the head of this great movement. To you should belong the glory of
giving the impulse, guided by _my experience_.'
"'Come,' thought I, 'here is another going to plague me with plans of
conduct, and constitutions, and reforms, which I am to persuade the
king my brother to adopt. It seems to be an insanity in France this
composing of new constitutions.' While I was making these reflections,
madame had time to give utterance to a thousand fine phrases, every
one more sublime than the preceding. However, to put an end to them, I
asked her if there was any thing she wished to demand.
"'Ah, dear!--oh yes, prince!' replied the lady in an indifferent tone.
'A mere trifle--less than nothing--two millions, without counting the
interest at five per cent. But these are matters I leave entirely to
my men of business, being for my own part much more absorbed in
politics and the science of government.'
"'Alas! madame, the king has arrived in France with his mind made up
upon most subjects, the fruit of twenty-five years' meditation; and I
fear he is not likely to profit by your good intentions.'
"'Then so much the worse for him and for France! All the world knows
what it cost Bonaparte his refusing to follow my advice, and pay me my
two millions. I have studied the Revolution profoundly, followed it
through all its phases, and I flatter myself I am the only pilot who
can hold with one hand the rudder of the state, if at least I have
Benjamin for steersman.'
"'Benjamin! Benjamin--who?' asked I in surprise.
"'It would give me the deepest distress,' replied she, 'to think that
the name of M. le Baron de Rebecque Benjamin de Constant has never
reached the ears of your royal highness. One of his ancestors saved
the life of Henry Quatre. Devoted to the descendants of this good
king, he is ready to serve them; and among several _constitutions_ he
has in his portfolio, you will probably find one with annotations and
reflections by myself, which will suit you. Adopt it, and choose
Benjamin Constant to carry the idea out.'
"It seemed like a thing resolved--an event decided upon--this proposal
of inventing a constitution for us. I kept as long as I could upon the
defensive, but Mme. de Stael, carried away by her zeal and her
enthusiasm, instead of speaking of what personally concerned herself,
knocked me about with arguments, and crushed me under threats and
menaces; so, tired to death of entertaining, instead of a clever,
humble woman, a roaring politician in petticoats, I finished the
audience, leaving her as little satisfied as myself with the
interview. Mme. de Genlis was ten times less disagreeable, and twenty
times more amusing.
"That same evening I had M. le Prince de Talleyrand with me, and I was
confounded by hearing him say, 'So, your royal highness has made Mme.
de Stael completely quarrel with me now?'
"'Me! I never so much as pronounced your name.'
"'Notwithstanding that, she is convinced that I am the person who
prevents your royal highness from employing her in your political
relations, and that I am jealous of Benjamin Constant. She is resolved
on revenge.'
"'Ha, ha!--and what can she do?'
"'A very great deal of mischief, Monseigneur. She has numerous
partisans; and if she declares herself Bonapartiste, we must look to
ourselves.'
"'That _would_ be curious.'
"'Oh, I shall take upon myself to prevent her going so far; but she
will be Royalist no longer, and we shall suffer from that.'
"At this time I had not the remotest idea of what a mere man, still
less a mere woman, could do in France: but now I understand it
perfectly, and if Mme. de Stael was living--Heaven pardon me!--I would
strike up a flirtation with her."
From Chambers's Edinburgh Journal.
THE SMUGGLER MALGRE LUI.
There is perhaps no more singular anomaly in the history of the human
mind than the very different light in which a fraud is viewed
according to the circumstances in which it is practised. The singular
revelations made to the Chancellor of the Exchequer by a late
deputation will probably be fresh in the remembrance of most of our
readers. Even the learned gentleman himself could hardly maintain his
professional gravity when informed of the ingenious contrivances
adopted for defrauding the revenue. Advertisements floating through
the air attached to balloons, French gloves making their way into the
kingdom in separate detachments of right and left hands, mutilated
clocks travelling without their wheels--such were some of the divers
modes by which the law was declared to be evaded, and the custom-house
officers baffled. We are by no means disposed either to think or speak
with levity of this system of things. However much a man may succeed
in reconciling any fraud to his own conscience, or however leniently
it may be viewed by his fellow-men, it will yet assuredly help to
degrade his moral nature, and its repetition will slowly, but surely,
deaden the silent monitor within his breast. All we affirm is the
well-known fact, that laws are in most cases ineffective, except in so
far as they harmonize with the innate moral convictions of mankind;
and that many a man who would not for worlds cheat his next door
neighbor of a penny, will own without a blush, and perhaps even with a
smile of triumph, that he has cheated the government of thousands! It
is not often, however, that so daring and successful a stroke of this
nature is effected as that which we find related of a celebrated Swiss
jeweller, who actually succeeded in making the French director-general
of the customs act the part of a smuggler!
Geneva, as must be well known to all our readers, supplies half Europe
with her watches and her jewelry. Three thousand workmen are kept in
continual employment by her master goldsmiths; while seventy-five
thousand ounces of gold, and fifty thousand marks of silver, annually
change their form, and multiply their value beneath their skilful
hands! The most fashionable jeweller's shop in Geneva is
unquestionably that of Beautte; his trinkets are those which beyond
all others excite the longing of the Parisian ladies. A high duty is
charged upon these in crossing the French frontier; but, in
consideration of a brokerage of five per cent., M. Beautte undertakes
to forward them safely to their destination through contraband
channels; and the bargain between the buyer and seller is concluded
with this condition as openly appended and avowed as if there were no
such personages as custom-house officers in the world.
All this went on smoothly for some years with M. Beautte; but at
length it so happened that M. le Comte de Saint-Cricq, a gentleman of
much ability and vigilance was appointed director-general of the
customs. He heard so much of the skill evinced by M. Beautte in
eluding the vigilance of his agents, that he resolved personally to
investigate the matter, and prove for himself the truth of the
reports. He consequently repaired to Geneva, presented himself at M.
Beautte's shop, and purchased thirty thousand francs' worth of
jewelry, on the express condition that they should be transmitted to
him free of duty on his return to Paris. M. Beautte accepted the
proposed condition with the air of a man who was perfectly accustomed
to arrangements of this description. He, however, presented for
signature to M. de Saint-Cricq a private deed, by which the purchaser
pledged himself to pay the customary five per cent. _smuggling dues_,
in addition to the thirty thousand francs' purchase-money.
M. de Saint-Cricq smiled, and taking the pen from the jeweller's hand,
affixed to the deed the following signature--"L. de Saint-Cricq,
Director-General of the Customs in France." He then handed the
document back to M. Beautte, who merely glanced at the signature, and
replied with a courteous bow--
"_Monsieur le Directeur des Douanes_, I shall take care that the
articles which you have done me the honor of purchasing shall be
handed to you in Paris directly after your arrival." M. de
Saint-Cricq, piqued by the man's cool daring and apparent defiance of
his authority and professional skill, immediately ordered post-horses,
and without the delay of a single hour set out with all speed on the
road to Paris.
On reaching the frontier, the Director-General made himself known to
the _employes_ who came forward to examine his carriage--informed the
chief officer of the incident which had just occurred, and begged of
him to keep up the strictest surveillance along the whole of the
frontier line, as he felt it to be a matter of the utmost importance
to place some check upon the wholesale system of fraud which had for
some years past been practised upon the revenue by the Geneva
jewellers. He also promised a gratuity of fifty louis-d'ors to
whichever of the _employes_ should be so fortunate as to seize the
prohibited jewels--a promise which had the effect of keeping every
officer on the line wide awake, and in a state of full activity,
during the three succeeding days.
In the meanwhile M. de Saint-Cricq reached Paris, alighted at his own
residence, and after having embraced his wife and children, and passed
a few moments in their society, retired to his dressing-room, for the
purpose of laying aside his travelling costume. The first thing which
arrested his attention when he entered the apartment was a very
elegant looking casket, which stood upon the mantelpiece, and which he
did not remember to have ever before seen. He approached to examine
it; his name was on the lid; it was addressed in full to "M. le Comte
de Saint-Cricq, Director-General of Customs." He accordingly opened it
without hesitation, and his surprise and dismay may be conceived when,
on examining the contents, he recognized at once the beautiful
trinkets he had so recently purchased in Geneva!
The count rung for his valet, and inquired from him whether he could
throw any light upon this mysterious occurrence. The valet looked
surprised, and replied, that on opening his master's portmanteau, the
casket in question was one of the first articles which presented
itself to his sight, and its elegant form and elaborate workmanship
having led him to suppose it contained articles of value, he had
carefully laid it aside upon the mantelpiece. The count, who had full
confidence in his valet, and felt assured that he was in no way
concerned in the matter, derived but little satisfaction from this
account, which only served to throw a fresh veil of mystery over the
transaction; and it was only some time afterwards, and after long
investigation, that he succeeded in discovering the real facts of the
case.
Beautte, the jeweller, had a secret understanding with one of the
servants of the hotel at which the Comte de Saint-Cricq lodged in
Geneva. This man, taking advantage of the hurried preparations for the
count's departure, contrived to slip the casket unperceived into one
of his portmanteaus, and the ingenious jeweller had thus succeeded in
making the Director-General of Customs one of the most successful
_smugglers_ in the kingdom!
THE TRUE HISTORY OF AGNES SOREL.
BY R. H. HORNE, AUTHOR OF "ORION," ETC.
Agnes Sorel was born in 1409, at the village of Fromenteau, in
Touraine. Her father was the Seigneur de St. Gerand, a gentleman
attached to the house of the Count de Clermont. At the age of fifteen,
she was placed as maid of honor to Isabel of Lorraine, duchess of
Anjou, and accompanied this princess when she went to Paris, in 1431.
At this period, Agnes Sorel was considered to be the most beautiful
woman of her day. Her conversation and wit were equal to her beauty.
In the "Histoire des Favorites" she is said to have been noble-minded,
full of generosity, with sweetness of manners, and sincerity of heart.
The same writer adds that every body fell in love with her, from the
king to the humblest officers. Charles VII. became passionately
attached to her; and in order to insure her constant presence at
court, he placed her as maid of honor to the queen. The amour was
conducted with secrecy; but the fact became manifest by the favors
which the king lavished upon the relations of Agnes, while she herself
lived in great magnificence amidst a very poor court. She was fond of
splendor, and has been quaintly described by Monstrelet as "having
enjoyed all the pleasures of life, in wearing rich clothes, furred
robes, and golden chains of precious stones, and whatever else she
desired." When she visited Paris, in attendance upon the queen, the
splendor and expense of Agnes were so excessive that the people
murmured greatly; whereupon the proud beauty exclaimed against the
Parisians as churls.
During the time that the English were actually in possession of a
great part of France, it was in vain that the queen (Mary of Anjou)
endeavored to rouse her husband from his lethargy. That the king was
not deficient in energy and physical courage, is evident from the
manner in which he signalized himself on various occasions. At the
siege of Montereau in 1437, (according to the Chronicle de Charles
VII. par M. Alain Chartier, Nevers, 1594,) he rushed to the assault,
now thrusting with the lance, now assisting the artillery, now
superintending the various military engines for heaving masses of
stone or wood; but during the period above-mentioned he was lost to
all sense of royal glory, and had given himself up entirely to hunting
and all sorts of pleasures.
He was recalled by Agnes to a sense of what was due to his kingdom.
She told him, one day, says Brantoine, that when she was a girl, an
astrologer had predicted that she would be loved by one of the most
valiant kings of Christendom; that when His Majesty Charles VII. had
done her this honor, she thought, of course, he was the valiant king
who had been predicted; but now, finding he was so weak, and had so
little care as to what became of himself and his affairs, she saw that
she had made a mistake, and that this valiant prince could not be
Charles, but the King of England. Saying these words, Agnes rose, and
bowing reverentially to the king, asked leave to retire to the court
of the English king, since the prophecy pointed at him. "Charles," she
said, "was about to lose his crown, and Henry to unite it to his." By
this rebuke the king was much affected. He gave up his hunting, left
his gardens for the field of battle, and succeeded in driving the
English out of France. This circumstance occasioned Francis I. to make
the following verses, which, it is said, he wrote under a portrait of
Agnes:--
"Plus de louange et d'honneur tu merite,
La cause etant de France recouvrer,
Que ce que peut dedans un cloitre ouvrer,
Close nonnain, ou bien devol hermite."
The king lavished gifts and honors upon Agnes. He built a chateau for
her at Loches; he gave her, besides the comte de Penthievre, in
Bretagne, the lordships of Roche Serviere, of Issoudun, in Berri, and
the Chateau de Beaute, at the extremity of the wood of Vincennes, that
she might be, as he said, "in deed and in name the Queen of Beauty."
It is believed that she never made a bad use of her influence with the
king for any political purposes or unkind private feelings;
nevertheless, the Dauphin (afterwards Louis XI.) conceived an
implacable jealousy against her, and carried his resentment so far, on
one occasion, as to give her a blow.
She retired, in 1445, to Loches, and for nearly five years declined
appearing at court; but the king's love for her still continued, and
he took many journeys into Touraine to visit her. But eventually the
queen, who had never forgotten her noble counsels to the king, which
had roused him from his lethargy, persuaded her to return to court.
The queen appears to have felt no jealousy, but to have had a regard
for her. It seems, also, that Agnes had become very popular, partly
from her beauty and wit, partly because she was considered in a great
measure, to have saved France, and partly because she distributed
large sums in alms to the poor, and to repair decayed churches.
After the taking of Rouen, and the entire expulsion of the English
from France, the king took up his winter-quarters in the Abbey of
Jumiege. Agnes hastened to the Chateau de Masnal la Belle, a league
distant from this abbey, for the purpose of warning the king of a
conspiracy. The king only laughed at the intelligence; but the death
of Agnes Sorel, which immediately followed, gives some grounds for
crediting the truth of the information which she communicated. At this
place Agnes, still beautiful, and in perfect health, was suddenly
attacked by a dysentery which carried her off. It is believed that she
was poisoned. Some affirm that it was effected by direction of the
Dauphin; others accuse Jacques Coeur, the king's goldsmith (as the
master of the treasury was then called), and others attribute it to
female jealousy.
The account given of her death by Monstrelet is to the following
effect: Agnes was suddenly attacked by a dysentery which could not be
cured. She lingered long, and employed the time in prayer and
repentance; she often, as he relates, called upon Mary Magdalen, who
had also been a sinner, and upon God and the blessed Virgin for aid.
After receiving the sacrament, she desired the book of prayers to be
brought her, in which she had written with her own hand the verses of
St. Barnard, and these she repeated. She then made many gifts, which
were put down in writing: and these, including alms and the payment of
her servants, amounted to 60,000 crowns. The fair Agnes, the once
proud beauty, perceiving her end approaching, and now feeling a
disgust to life proportioned to the fulness of her past enjoyment of
all its gayeties, vanities, and pleasures, said to the Lord de la
Tremouille and others, and in the presence of all her damsels, that
our insecure and worldly life was but a foul ordure. She then
requested her confessor to give her absolution, according to a form
she herself dictated, with which he complied. After this, she uttered
a loud shriek, and gave up the ghost. She died on Monday, the 9th day
of February, 1449, about six o'clock in the afternoon, in the fortieth
year of her age.
This account, though bearing every appearance of probability, is yet
open to some doubts, from the manifestation of a tendency, on the part
of Monstrelet, to give a coloring to the event, and to the character
of Agnes Sorel. He even attempts to throw a doubt upon her having been
the king's mistress, treating the fact as a mere scandal. He says that
the affection of the king was attributable to her good sense, her wit,
her agreeable manners, and gayety, quite as much as to her beauty.
This was, no doubt, the case; but it hardly helps the argument of the
historian. Monstrelet finds it difficult, however, to dispose of the
children that she had by the king: he admits that Agnes had a daughter
which she said was the king's, but that he denied it. The compilation
by Denys Codefroy takes the same view, but nearly the whole account is
copied verbatim from Monstrelet, without acknowledgment.
The heart and intestines of Agnes were buried at Jumiege. Her body was
placed in the centre of the choir of the collegiate church of the
Chateau de Loches, which she had greatly enriched.
Her tomb was in existence at Loches, in 1792. It was of black marble.
The figure of Agnes was in white marble; her head resting upon a
lozenge, supported by angels, and two lambs were at her feet.
The writer of the life of Agnes Sorel in the "Biographie Universelle,"
having access to printed books and MSS. of French history which are
not in the public libraries of this country, the following statements
are taken from that work: the writer does not give his authorities.
The canons of the church pretended to be scandalized at having the
tomb of Agnes placed in their choir, and begged permission of Louis
XI. to have it removed. "I consent," replied the king, "provided you
give up all you have received from her bounty."
The poets of the day were profuse in their praises of the memory of
Agnes. One of the most memorable of these is a poem by Baif, printed
at Paris in 1573. In 1789 the library of the chapter of Loches
possessed a manuscript containing nearly a thousand Latin sonnets in
praise of Agnes, all acrostics, and made by a canon of that city.
A marble bust of her was long preserved at the Chateau de Chinon, and
is now placed in the Museum des Augustins.
Agnes Sorel had three daughters by Charles VII., who all received
dowries, and were married at the expense of the crown. They received
the title of daughters of France, the name given at that time to the
natural daughters of the kings. An account of the noble families into
which they married, together with the honors bestowed upon the brother
of Agnes, will be found in Moreri's "Dictionnaire Historique."
From the London Examiner.
PROSPECTS OF AFRICAN COLONIZATION.
Africa has never been propitious to European settlement or
colonization, but quite the contrary. The last founded state of the
Anglo-American Union, of about two years' growth, is alone, at this
moment, worth more than all that has been effected by the European
race in Africa in two-and-twenty centuries. The most respectable
product of African colonization is a Cape boor, and this is certainly
not a finished specimen of humanity. Assuredly, for the last three
hundred years, Africa has done nothing for the nations of Europe but
seduce them into crime, folly, and extravagance.
The Romans were the first European settlers in Africa; it was at their
very door, and they held it for eight centuries. Now, there is not
left in it hardly a trace of Roman civilization; certainly fewer, at
all events, than the Arabs have left in Spain. The Vandal occupation
of Mediterranean Africa lasted only half a century. We should not have
known that Vandals had ever set their feet on the Continent but for
the written records of civilized men. There is nothing Vandal there,
unless Vandalism in the abstract. The Dutch came next, in order of
time, in another portion of Africa, and we have already alluded to the
indistinct "spoor" which they have left behind them after an
occupation of a hundred and fifty years.
The English have settled in two different quarters of the African
continent, one of them within eight degrees of the equatorial line,
and the other some thirty-four south of it. The first costs us civil
establishments, forts, garrisons, and squadrons included (for out of
Africa and its people comes the supposed necessity for the squadron),
a good million a year. The most valuable article we get from tropical
Africa is the oil of a certain palm, which contributes largely towards
an excise duty of about a million and a half a year, levied on what
has been justly called a second necessary of life--to wit, soap.
We have been in possession of the southern promontory of Africa for
above fifty years. In this time, besides its conquest twice over from
a European power, and in addition to fleets and armies, it has cost
us, in mere self-defence against savages, three million pounds, while
at this moment we are engaged in the same kind of defence, with the
tolerable certainty of incurring another million. No one will venture
to say that this sum alone does not far exceed the value of the fee
simple and sovereignty of the southern promontory of Africa. What we
get from it consists chiefly in some purgative aloes, a little
indifferent wool, and a good deal of execrable wine, on the
importation of which we pay a virtual bounty! As for _our subjects_ in
this part of the African continent, they amount to about two hundred
thousand, and are composed of Anglo-Saxons, Dutch, Malays, Hottentots,
Bushmen, Gaikas, Tambookies, Amagarkas, Zulas, and Amazulas, speaking
a very Babel of African, Asiatic, and European tongues, perilous to
delicate organic structures even to listen to.
Now for French African colonization. If we have not been very wise
ourselves, our neighbors, who have never been eminently happy in their
attempts at colonization, have been much less so. They have been in
possession of an immense territory in Algeria for twenty years, and
have now about fifty thousand colonists there, with an army which has
generally not been less than one hundred thousand, so that every
colonist requires two soldiers to keep his throat from being cut, and
his property from being robbed or stolen. This is about ten times the
regular army that protects twenty-eight millions of Anglo-Americans
from nearly all the savages of North America. The local revenue of
Algeria is half a million sterling; but the annual cost of the
experiment to France amounts to eight times as much as the revenue;
and it has been computed that the whole charge to the French nation,
from first to last (it goes on at the same rate), has been sixty
million pounds. This is without exception the most monstrous attempt
at colonization that has ever been made by man. If war should
unfortunately arise with any maritime power, the matter will be still
worse. At least one hundred thousand of the flower of the French army
will then be worse than lost to France. For, pent up as it will be in
a narrow strip of eighty miles broad along the shore of the
Mediterranean, it may be blockaded from the sea by any superior naval
power; and assuredly will be so, from the side of the desert, by a
native one. To hold Algeria is to cripple France.
What, then, is the cause of the fatality which has thus ever attended
African colonization by Europeans? In tropical Africa, the heat and
insalubrity, and consequently the total unfitness for European life,
are causes quite sufficient to account for the failure; and the
failure has been eminent with French, Dutch, English, and Danes. But
this will not account for want of success in temperate Africa, whether
beyond the northern or southern tropic. The climate of this last,
especially, is very good; and that of the first being nearly the same
as their own, ought not to be hurtful to the constitutions of southern
Europeans.
Drought, and the intermixture of deserts and wastes of sand with
fertile lands, after the manner of a chess-board, without the
regularity, is, of course, unpropitious to colonization, but cannot
prevent its advancement, as we see by the progress of our Australian
colonies. These causes, however, combined with the character of the
native or congenial inhabitants of the country, have been quite
sufficient to prove insuperable obstacles to a prosperous
colonization. A nomad and wandering population has in fact been
generated, incapable either of advancement or amalgamation, having
just a sufficient knowledge of the arts to be dangerous neighbors, not
capable of being driven to a distance from the settlers, nor likely to
be destroyed by gunpowder or brandy. The lion and shepherd recede
before the white man in southern Africa, but not the Caffir.
The inhabitant of northern Africa, whether Arabian or Numidian, is, in
relation to an European colony, only a more formidable Caffir, from
greater numbers and superior skill. Heretofore, a garrison of five
thousand men at the most has been sufficient to protect the Cape
colony, although six thousand miles distant from England. The
territory of Algeria, of about the same extent, requires about twenty
times that number, although within a day's sail of France. Arab and
Numidian seem to be alike untamable both by position and by race. The
Arabs (and it shows they were capable of better things) were a
civilized and industrious people while in the fair regions of Spain;
driven from it, they have degenerated into little more than predatory
shepherds, or freebooters; but they are only the more formidable to
civilized men on this very account.
What, then, will be the fate of the French and English colonies in
temperate Africa? We confess we can hardly venture to predict.
Assuredly, neither north nor south Africa will ever give birth to a
great or flourishing community, such as North America has done, and as
Australia and New Zealand will certainly do. The Caffirs may possibly
be driven to a distance, after a long course of trouble and expense;
but the Arabs and Kabyles are as inexpungable as the wandering tribes
of Arabia Petraea or Tartary. With them, neither expulsion, nor
extermination, nor amalgamation is practicable. Very likely France and
England will get heartily tired of paying yearly millions for their
unavailable deserts, and there is no knowing what they may be driven
to do in such an extremity. At all events, we may safely assert that
France would have saved sixty millions of pounds, and the interminable
prospect of a proportional annual expenditure, had she confined
herself to the town and fortress of Algiers; and England would have
been richer and wiser, had she kept within the bounds of the original
Dutch colony. The best thing we ourselves can do with our
extra-tropical Africa, is to leave the colonists to govern, and also
to defend themselves from all but enemies by sea: that the French,
unfortunately, cannot do.
MY NOVEL:
OR, VARIETIES IN ENGLISH LIFE.
BY PISISTRATUS CAXTON.
_Continued from page 269._
BOOK V.--INITIAL CHAPTER.
"I hope, Pisistratus," said my father, "that you do not intend to be
dull!"
"Heaven forbid, sir! what could make you ask such a question?
_Intend!_ No! if I am dull it is from innocence."
"A very long Discourse upon Knowledge!" said my father; "very long. I
should cut it out!"
I looked upon my father as a Byzantian sage might have looked on a
Vandal. "Cut it out!"
"Stops the action, sir!" said my father, dogmatically.
"Action! But a novel is not a drama."
"No, it is a great deal longer--twenty times as long, I dare say,"
replied Mr. Caxton with a sigh.
"Well, sir--well! I think my Discourse upon Knowledge has much to do
with the subject--is vitally essential to the subject; does not stop
the action--only explains and elucidates the action. And I am
astonished, sir, that you, a scholar, and a cultivator of knowledge--"
"There--there!" cried my father, deprecatingly; "I yield--I yield.
What better could I expect when I set up for a critic! What author
ever lived that did not fly into a passion--even with his own father,
if his father presumed to say--'Cut out!' _Pacem imploro_--"
_Mrs. Caxton._--"My dear Austin, I am sure Pisistratus did not mean to
offend you, and I have no doubt he will take your--"
_Pisistratus_, (hastily.)--"Advice _for the future_, certainly. I will
quicken the action and--"
"Go on with the Novel," whispered Roland, looking up from his eternal
account-book. "We have lost L200 by our barley!"
Therewith I plunged my pen into the ink, and my thoughts into the
"Fair Shadowland."
CHAPTER II.
"Halt!" cried a voice; and not a little surprised was Leonard when the
stranger who had accosted him the preceding evening got into the
chaise.
"Well," said Richard, "I am not the sort of man you expected, eh! Take
time to recover yourself." And with these words Richard drew forth a
book from his pocket, threw himself back, and began to read. Leonard
stole many a glance at the acute, hardy, handsome face of his
companion, and gradually recognized a family likeness to poor John, in
whom, despite age and infirmity, the traces of no common share of
physical beauty were still evident. And, with that quick link in ideas
which mathematical aptitude bestows, the young student at once
conjectured that he saw before him his uncle Richard. He had the
discretion, however, to leave that gentleman free to choose his own
time for introducing himself, and silently revolved the new thoughts
produced by the novelty of his situation. Mr. Richard read with
notable quickness--sometimes cutting the leaves of the book with his
penknife, sometimes tearing them open with his forefinger, sometimes
skipping whole pages altogether. Thus he galloped to the end of the
volume--flung it aside--lighted his cigar, and began to talk.
He put many questions to Leonard relative to his rearing, and
especially to the mode by which he had acquired his education; and
Leonard, confirmed in the idea that he was replying to a kinsman,
answered frankly.
Richard did not think it strange that Leonard should have acquired so
much instruction with so little direct tuition. Richard Avenel himself
had been tutor to himself. He had lived too long with our go-ahead
brethren, who stride the world on the other side the Atlantic with the
seven-leagued boots of the Giant-killer, not to have caught their
glorious fever for reading. But it was for a reading wholly different
from that which was familiar to Leonard. The books he read must be
new; to read old books would have seemed to him going back in the
world. He fancied that new books necessarily contained new ideas--a
common mistake--and our lucky adventurer was the man of his day.
Tired with talking, he at length chucked the book he had run through
to Leonard, and, taking out a pocket-book and pencil, amused himself
with calculations on some detail of his business, after which he fell
into an absorbed train of thought--part pecuniary, part ambitious.
Leonard found the book interesting; it was one of the numerous works,
half-statistic, half-declamatory, relating to the condition of the
working-classes, which peculiarly distinguish our century, and ought
to bind together rich and poor, by proving the grave attention which
modern society bestows upon all that can affect the welfare of the
last.
"Dull stuff--theory--clap-trap," said Richard, rousing himself from
his reverie at last: "it can't interest you."
"All books interest me, I think," said Leonard, "and this especially;
for it relates to the working-class, and I am one of them."
"You were yesterday, but you mayn't be to-morrow," answered Richard
good-humoredly, and patting him on the shoulder. "You see, my lad,
that it is the middle class which ought to govern the country. What
the book says about the ignorance of country magistrates is very good;
but the man writes pretty considerable trash when he wants to regulate
the number of hours a free-born boy should work at a factory--only ten
hours a-day--pooh! and so lose two to the nation! Labor is wealth: and
if we could get men to work twenty-four hours a-day, we should be just
twice as rich. If the march of civilization is to proceed," continued
Richard, loftily, "men, and boys too, must not lie a-bed doing nothing
_all night_, sir." Then with a complacent tone--"We shall get to the
twenty-four hours at last; and, by gad, we must, or we shan't flog the
Europeans as we do now."
On arriving at the inn at which Richard had first made acquaintance
with Mr. Dale, the coach by which he had intended to perform the rest
of the journey was found to be full. Richard continued to perform the
journey in post chaises, not without some grumbling at the expense,
and incessant orders to the postboys to make the best of the way.
"Slow country this, in spite of all its brag," said he--"very slow.
Time is money--they know that in the States; for why, they are all men
of business there. Always slow in a country where a parcel of lazy
idle lords, and dukes, and baronets, seem to think 'time is
pleasure.'"
Towards evening the chaise approached the confines of a very large
town, and Richard began to grow fidgety. His easy cavalier air was
abandoned. He withdrew his legs from the window, out of which they had
been luxuriously dangling; pulled down his waistcoat; buckled more
tightly his stock: it was clear that he was resuming the decorous
dignity that belongs to state. He was like a monarch who, after
travelling happy and incognito, returns to his capital. Leonard
divined at once, that they were nearing their journey's end.
Humble foot-passengers now looked at the chaise, and touched their
hats. Richard returned the salutation with a nod--a nod less gracious
than condescending. The chaise turned rapidly to the left, and stopped
before a smart lodge, very new, very white, adorned with two Doric
columns in stucco, and flanked by a large pair of gates. "Hollo!"
cried the postboy, and cracked his whip.
Two children were playing before the lodge, and some clothes were
hanging out to dry on the shrubs and pales round the neat little
building.
"Hang those brats! they are actually playing," growled Dick. "As I
live, the jade has been washing again! Stop, boy." During this
soliloquy, a good-looking young woman had rushed from the
door--slapped the children, as catching sight of the chaise, they ran
towards the house--opened the gates, and, dropping a curtsey to the
ground, seemed to wish that she could drop into it altogether, so
frightened and so trembling seemed she to shrink from the wrathful
face which the master now put out of the window.
"Did I tell you, or did I not," said Dick, "that I would not have
these horrid disreputable clubs of yours playing just before my lodge
gates?"
"Please, sir--"
"Don't answer me. And did I tell you, or did I not, that the next time
I saw you making a drying-ground of my lilacs, you should go out, neck
and crop--"
"Oh, please, sir--"
"You leave my lodge next Saturday: drive on, boy. The ingratitude and
insolence of those common people are disgraceful to human nature,"
muttered Richard, with an accent of the bitterest misanthropy.
The chaise wheeled along the smoothest and freshest of gravel roads,
and through fields of the finest land, in the highest state of
cultivation. Rapid as was Leonard's survey, his rural eye detected the
signs of a master in the art agronomial. Hitherto he had considered
the Squire's model farm as the nearest approach to good husbandry he
had seen: for Jackeymo's finer skill was developed rather on the
minute scale of market-gardening than what can fairly be called
husbandry. But the Squire's farm was degraded by many old fashioned
notions, and concessions to the whim of the eye, which would not be
found in model farms now-a-days,--large tangled hedgerows, which,
though they constitute one of the beauties most picturesque in old
England, make sad deductions from produce; great trees, overshadowing
the corn, and harboring the birds; little patches of rough sward left
to waste; and angles of woodland running into fields, exposing them to
rabbits, and blocking out the sun. These and such like blots on a
gentleman's agriculture, common-sense and Giacomo had made clear to
the acute comprehension of Leonard. No such faults were perceptible in
Richard Avenel's domain. The fields lay in broad divisions, the hedges
were clipped and narrowed into their proper destination of mere
boundaries. Not a blade of wheat withered under the cold shade of a
tree; not a yard of land lay waste; not a weed was to be seen, not a
thistle to waft its baleful seed through the air: some young
plantations were placed, not where the artist would put them, but just
where the farmer wanted a fence from the wind. Was there no beauty in
this? Yes, there was beauty of its kind--beauty at once recognizable
to the initiated--beauty of use and profit--beauty that could bear a
monstrous high rent. And Leonard uttered a cry of admiration which
thrilled through the heart of Richard Avenel.
"This _is_ farming!" said the villager.
"Well, I guess it is," answered Richard, all his ill-humor vanishing.
"You should have seen the land when I bought it. But we new men, as
they call us--(damn their impertinence)--are the new blood of this
country."
Richard Avenel never said any thing more true. Long may the new blood
circulate through the veins of the mighty giantess; but let the grand
heart be the same as it has beat for proud ages.
The chaise now passed through a pretty shrubbery, and the house came
into gradual view--a house with a portico--all the offices carefully
thrust out of sight.
The postboy dismounted, and rang the bell.
"I almost think they are going to keep me waiting," said Mr. Richard,
well-nigh in the very words of Louis XIV.
But that fear was not realized--the door opened; a well-fed servant
out of livery presented himself. There was no hearty welcoming smile
on his face, but he opened the chaise-door with demure and taciturn
respect.
"Where's George? why does not he come to the door?" asked Richard,
descending from the chaise slowly, and leaning on the servant's
outstretched arm with as much precaution as if he had had the gout.
Fortunately, George here came into sight, settling himself hastily
into his livery coat.
"See to the things, both of you," said Richard, as he paid the
postboy.
Leonard stood on the gravel sweep, gazing at the square white house.
"Handsome elevation--classical, I take it--eh?" said Richard, joining
him. "But you should see the offices."
He then, with familiar kindness, took Leonard by the arm, and drew him
within. He showed him the hall, with a carved mahogany stand for hats;
he showed him the drawing-room, and pointed out its beauties--though
it was summer the drawing-room looked cold, as will look rooms newly
furnished, with walls newly papered, in houses newly built. The
furniture was handsome, and suited to the rank of a rich trader. There
was no pretence about it, and therefore no vulgarity, which is more
than can be said for the houses of many an honorable Mrs. Somebody in
Mayfair, with rooms twelve feet square, chokeful of buhl, that would
have had its proper place in the Tuileries. Then Richard showed him
the library, with mahogany book-cases and plate glass, and the
fashionable authors handsomely bound. Your new men are much better
friends to living authors than your old families who live in the
country, and at most subscribe to a book-club. Then Richard took him
up-stairs, and led him through the bedrooms--all very clean and
comfortable, and with every modern convenience; and, pausing in a very
pretty single gentleman's chamber, said, "This is your den. And now,
can you guess who I am?"
"No one but my Uncle Richard could be so kind," answered Leonard.
But the compliment did not flatter Richard. He was extremely
disconcerted and disappointed. He had hoped that he should be taken
for a lord at least, forgetful of all that he had said in
disparagement of lords.
"Pish!" said he at last, biting his lip--"so you don't think that I
look like a gentleman! Come, now, speak honestly."
Leonard wonderingly saw he had given pain, and with the good breeding
which comes instinctively from good nature, replied--"I judged you by
your heart, sir, and your likeness to my grandfather--otherwise I
should never have presumed to fancy we could be relations."
"Hum!" answered Richard. "You can just wash your hands, and then come
down to dinner; you will hear the gong in ten minutes. There's the
bell--ring for what you want."
With that, he turned on his heel; and, descending the stairs, gave a
look into the dining-room, and admired the plated salver on the
sideboard, and the king's pattern spoons and forks on the table. Then
he walked to the looking-glass over the mantel-piece; and, wishing to
survey the whole effect of his form, mounted a chair. He was just
getting into an attitude which he thought imposing, when the butler
entered, and being London bred, had the discretion to try to escape
unseen; but Richard caught sight of him in the looking-glass, and
colored up to the temples.
"Jarvis," said he mildly--"Jarvis, put me in mind to have these
inexpressibles altered."