They never met George or Mabel again. Mrs. Morgan learned subsequently

that two young people from the city answering their description had been

guests at the opposite house, and had left Plainfield the morning after

the events hereinbefore set forth, and drew her conclusions accordingly.

But her husband preferred to cherish the secret belief that his theory

that memories might become visible had proved true in one instance at

least. EDWARD BELLAMY.

BRANDYWINE, 1777.

Toward noon of a September day, the fifth of the week and the eleventh

of the month, 1777, a few of the steady meeting-going Friends of

Birmingham had collected for their "mid-week" assembly in a

wheelwright-shop at Sconnel Town, a roadside group of shops and houses

that had disappeared entirely thirty years ago. Their usual place of

worship, the low stone structure on the hills of Birmingham, three miles

to the south, had been taken for a hospital for the sick of Washington's

army, and even on the previous First Day, as they gathered at ten

o'clock, they had found it being prepared for such a purpose, and had

taken their seats under the shade of the trees outside. The

wheelwright-shop had therefore been selected as a temporary place of

meeting.

Among those gathered on this day was Joseph Townsend, a young man of

twenty-one, who has left us an interesting narrative of the day's

events. Much of the battle of Brandywine he saw. The day, he says, was

exceedingly warm. It had been foggy in the morning, but later the mists

had dissipated--doubtless to the discontent of the husbandmen, for

little rain had fallen for a long time except on the 26th of August--and

now the September sun was pouring down, so that in the hillside fields

roundabout the ploughman, preparing his ground for winter wheat, rested

his sweating horses at the end of each furrow and wiped his own beaded

face with the handkerchief from his hat. The upland pastures were brown;

dust had settled on the forest foliage; the whole face of Nature was

athirst; and the Brandywine, flowing from north to south half a mile

away, was shrunken and narrow.

As the Friends sat in the shop, hats on heads, the elders and overseers

"facing the meeting," women on one side, men on the other, all on

hastily-arranged benches of wheelwright planks, their silent serenity

must have been inwardly disturbed, for the spiritual ear surely heard

wild voices of conflict in the air. The shock of a near battle was

impending; the very tread of the advancing invaders could almost be

heard; already, indeed, as the Friends gathered in meeting, the fighting

had begun six miles down the creek, near the ford at John and Amos

Chad's.

On the preceding 20th of July--a Sunday--General David Forman, who had

been patiently watching from the shores of New York Bay the embarkation

of the British army upon the fleet of Lord Howe, and anxiously wondering

from day to day whither the armada, with its eighteen thousand soldiers,

would sail, observed an increased activity amongst the ships. One

hundred and sixty sail lay inside of Sandy Hook. Next morning fifteen

more came down from the city, and in the afternoon yet eighty

more--mostly small brigs, schooners and sloops--came out of the Narrows

and joined the fleet, so that it numbered two hundred and fifty-five

sail.

On Wednesday the wind favored their departure. At half-past six in the

morning the admiral's signal-gun was fired, and at seven they began to

get under way. All day the vigilant Forman watched them as they passed

out of the bay and moved down the Jersey coast. In three divisions they

stretched away, steering mostly south-east, and moving like an immense

flock of white waterfowl over the placid summer seas. He riding on shore

as they sailed on the water, night found him at Shrewsbury, and thence,

with all speed, he sent couriers to General Washington and to the

Executive Council of Pennsylvania at Philadelphia. The council, in whose

archives we find his despatch, at once sent another scout, Captain John

Hunn, to the Jersey coast to watch the hostile fleet. Setting off

promptly, Hunn had reached the shore, near Little Egg Harbor, by two

o'clock of Friday, the 25th, and thence he rode slowly down to Cape May,

not seeing any of the ships, however, until the 30th, when, after three

days of "thick" weather, some of them came into the view of observers on

both capes of the Delaware. From the Delaware side, at ten in the

morning, that truculent Sussex Whig, Henry Fisher, had discerned two

hundred and twenty-eight sail, and he sent off an express to ride with

might and main, up the forest roads by Dover and Cantwell's Bridge, to

Wilmington, and so to Philadelphia. Leaving the cape at ten in the

morning, the messenger reached Chester at a quarter before six in the

afternoon, and thence hurried on.

Hunn, too, saw the ships from his post on Cape May, and only the need of

being brief is reason for not giving here his quaint and badly-spelled

despatches, which, however, in spite of imperfect orthography,

sufficiently told the movements of the fleet.

July 31st the ships were still in the offing, but the next day not one

could be seen from the Delaware capes. Howe had sailed away for the

ampler waters of the Chesapeake, though the change of plan involved

further delay on shipboard and exposure to the dangers of a greatly

lengthened voyage. August 7th his ships were seen beating down the coast

toward Cape Charles, but, encountering adverse winds, it was some ten

days later before they were heard of inside the great bay.

Washington had already moved from New Jersey, and on the 24th of August

he set forth from Philadelphia, riding at the head of his troops, who,

as they marched through the streets, were decorated with sprays of green

and watched by great crowds. With him rode the marquis de la Fayette,

and other foreign officers of renown accompanied the march--Pulaski, the

gallant Pole, the marquis de la Rouerie, and Louis de Fleury, a young

and spirited compatriot of La Fayette, on duty with Stirling's division.

Part of the army, including the division of General Stephen, had

preceded the commander's march to Chester, and at that place General

Armstrong had been for some days gathering the Pennsylvania militia.

There moved with Washington the remaining divisions of the army under

Sullivan, Stirling, Wayne and Greene, the artillery alone excepted.

This, General Nash was to place upon flatboats at Philadelphia, and so

float down to Chester.

By the 26th the whole army was in and about Wilmington, then only a

modest town, the larger part gathered on one side along the Christiana,

and the other clustered about the great mills upon the Brandywine, whose

corn-meal gave the place its chief repute. Washington fixed his

head-quarters in the mansion of one of the mill-owners (presumably

Joseph Tatnall's spacious house), and the troops occupied the hills

around, on which some traces of their lines of defence may still be

discovered. The Delaware militia, urgently called upon by Congress, had

been aroused, as far as possible, by the ever-faithful Rodney, the

Signer of the Declaration--that tall, thin, odd-looking man, with a

green patch covering the cancer that consumed his face--and they had

taken the field under the command of General Thomas Collins of Belmont

Hall in Kent, recently sheriff of that county, and afterward governor of

the State. Part of their duty had been an attempt to save from the

enemy's hands the stores, including a large quantity of that precious

article, salt, which had been gathered at the "Head of Elk."

The British had arrived. Their enormous fleet, proceeding slowly, had

kept well together, and now lay anchored in Elk River, the greatest

company by far that these quiet estuaries, the home of the wildfowl,

fish and crab, had ever seen; and on the 25th the debarkation of the

troops began, Cornwallis's command landing first, and Knyphausen's,

local chronicles say, not coming ashore until the 31st of the month. The

long voyage had been especially trying to the horses: those that

survived were almost starved, and in no condition either to carry

dragoons or drag cannon. General Howe issued a proclamation to the

people declaring that he came only to punish the rebellious, and making

all due assurances to those disposed to maintain the royal authority.

They were informed they would be paid in gold and silver for all the

horses, cattle and produce they would bring in, and the Tories, we are

told, thereupon drove in some of the stock of their Whig neighbors.

Knyphausen's men destroyed the county buildings of Cecil at Court-house

Point, and the public records were carried away, most of them being

subsequently recovered in New York. Several thousand bushels of oats and

corn were amongst the stores captured.

Heavy rains fell on the 26th, the day after the debarkation began, and

no forward movement of importance was made until the 27th, when

Cornwallis marched to Elkton (the Head of Elk), and thence issued the

proclamation referred to. The next day his advance-guard occupied Gray's

Hill, two miles to the east.

The two armies therefore confronted each other at a distance of some

fifteen to eighteen miles, and the unhappy people between sustained the

usual penalties of such a situation. The American "light-horse," part of

which was the famous command of Harry Lee, scoured the country, annoying

the British outposts and capturing numbers of prisoners. On the 28th

they secured thirty or forty, and the next day twenty-nine were

reported, besides twenty deserters who had come in, eight of them from

the fleet. General Collins, with his Delaware militia, hung upon the

right flank of the British, commanded by Knyphausen, and preserved the

lower section of New Castle county from being despoiled. Numerous

skirmishes occurred, and amongst them one which, upon the scale of other

Revolutionary encounters, almost rises to the dignity of a battle.

Should we call it by that name, it was the only battle ever fought in

Delaware during the struggle, unless we except some bloody local fights

between the Whigs and the Tories of Sussex. This affair took place on

the 3d of September. The British were then advancing slowly eastward,

and their vanguard, composed of German yagers, supported by light

infantry, encountered at Cooch's Bridge, a crossing of the White Clay

Creek, the riflemen of Maxwell and some of the Delaware militia.

Maxwell's men, posted thinly and under cover, poured a deadly fire into

the British ranks as they advanced, but were presently forced back by

their superior numbers across the stream. The Americans admitted a loss

of forty killed and wounded, and while the casualties on the other side

were not known, a woman who came the next day from the British camp

declared she had seen nine wagonloads of wounded brought in.

Meanwhile, the American commanders had been choosing a position in which

to meet the advance of the enemy. During the rains of the 26th,

Washington himself rode down nearly to the British front, and Greene and

Weeden, reconnoitring carefully, had selected the high ground of Iron

Hill, near the British lines on Gray's Hill, as a strong position. A

council of general officers, however, decided against this location,

choosing instead an advance of five or six miles out of Wilmington to

the east side of Red Clay Creek. To the position thus chosen on

September 5th the whole army moved, except a brigade under General

Irwin, which was left to occupy the defensive works around Wilmington.

On the Red Clay the line extended from near the confluence of that

stream with the Christiana on the left up to Hockessin on the right.

Greene disapproved altogether of the position. He pointed out that it

did not cover Philadelphia, and that it would be easily turned by the

march of Howe northward into Pennsylvania--exactly what subsequently

occurred.

Three days after the line of the Red Clay had been occupied, the

British, having bought and seized horses enough to serve their pressing

needs, began their forward movement. Their tents and heavy baggage, the

last to be disembarked, had now been landed, and the rear, under General

Grant, was ready to follow the onward march. On the 8th, therefore,

Cornwallis extended his left flank well up into the country above

Newark, far outreaching the American lines, while a strong column of the

right wing threatened the American front, moving directly toward it as

far as Milltown, only two miles away. This manoeuvre developed the

untenable character of the Red Clay line, and Washington hastened to

extricate himself. On the night of the 8th he broke camp and marched

rapidly northward. At two o'clock on the morning of the 9th he crossed

the Brandywine at Chad's Ford, and posted his army on the high

hill-slopes east of the creek, directly in Howe's path toward

Philadelphia. The British commander, disappointed and chagrined when he

perceived at daylight the escape of the Americans, moved also, and on

the evening of September 10th united his two columns at Kennet Square,

directly west some seven miles, by a well-used road, from Washington's

position.

The Brandywine Valley, near the battle-ground, then, as now, teemed with

agricultural wealth. The fine farms of the thrifty English settlers,

many of whom traced their ownership back in a family line of

three-quarters of a century, spread out along the creek in fine meadows

of natural "green grass," and rolled upward over the hill-slopes, which,

though broken and irregular, nowhere rise precipitously or to great

height. The invading forces, as they marched up from the Chesapeake,

could not but see the richness of the region, and one of their officers,

conversed with by Joseph Townsend, exclaimed "in some rapture," Joseph

says, "You have got a hell of a fine country here; which we have found

to be the case ever since we landed at the Head of Elk."

Along the hill-slopes, on the east side of the Brandywine, from Chad's

Ford up to Brinton's, a distance of about three miles, the Americans lay

on the night of September 10th. Wayne was posted to guard the lower

ford, and Sullivan had his own division and those of Stirling and

Stephen stretched up along the stream. Greene's division formed the

reserve. Sullivan's duties included the guarding of the fords above

Brinton's, and he had become possessed of the unfortunate idea that

there were but three of these fordable, and that beyond the three in

question there was no place for a distance of twelve miles where the

hostile army could cross. He therefore sent detachments on this evening

of the 10th to the three fords--the Delaware regiment to Jones's, and

battalions of Hazen's regiment to Wistar's and Buffington's. With this

he rested content. It is, however, true that the cavalry at his command

seems to have been pitifully meagre: he asserts that on the morning of

the battle he had _four_ light-horsemen only, two of whom he sent on

scouting duty, retaining the other two to serve as couriers to

head-quarters.

Below the line of Washington's main army, at Pyle's Ford, were posted

the Pennsylvania militia under General Armstrong, and below their

position the Brandywine enters rocky hills, flowing between steep banks

that forbid the easy passage of an army.

Washington slept on this night at Benjamin Ring's, just east of Chad's

Ford, and La Fayette at Gideon Gilpin's, near by. Both the dwellings are

still standing and occupied as places of residence. To defend the

crossing at the ford a battery of six guns was planted in front of John

Chad's house. Its location may yet be distinctly traced. West of the

stream, Maxwell's riflemen were posted well out on the road toward

Kennet Square, where General Howe occupied Wiley's tavern, an ancient

hostelry, as his quarters. He had formed his plan of attack--to engage

the attention of the Americans by a sharp attack on the road to the

crossing at Chad's with Knyphausen's division of five thousand men,

while Cornwallis should proceed, upon roads concealed from the American

view by distance and intervening forests, far up the creek to the fords

that Sullivan had not guarded, and, crossing there, descend with

crushing force upon the American line. Sullivan himself declared, in

letters written after the battle, that he had anticipated such an

attack: it was the natural plan of battle for Howe to adopt under the

circumstances. If, then, our general had only taken sufficient

precaution to meet it!

Early on this foggy, warm morning of the 11th the British were in

motion. There was no hurry for Knyphausen, but Cornwallis's men had a

long, hard march before them. At five o'clock they set off, leaving

behind them all encumbering baggage, even their knapsacks. Turning

northward, they took the road which, pursuing a direction generally

parallel with the Brandywine, reaches the west branch of the creek at

Trimble's Ford. Howe himself rode with them. He was mounted, Townsend

says, "on a large English horse, much reduced in flesh"--thanks to short

rations on shipboard. Thirteen thousand men, the whole left wing of the

army, marched in this column. Hidden by the forests and hills, as well

as by the mists of the morning, they had moved several miles on their

way before any word of their march reached the Americans across the

creek, only three miles away.

Cornwallis having gone, Knyphausen presently took up his share of the

morning's work. At nine o'clock, or thereabout, he pressed forward on

the road toward Chad's. The opposing force between him and that place

was mainly Maxwell's command of riflemen and light infantry, whose main

body, about a thousand strong, lay upon the high ground a mile west of

the ford, but whose scouting-parties the British advance-guard speedily

encountered. A party of scouts, indeed, tradition says, had ventured to

Johnny Welsh's tavern, almost in the very embraces of Knyphausen, and

there, in cheerful disregard of precaution, had tied their horses in

front, and were making merry with the apple whiskey and New England rum

of the bar-room. Surprised thus, the patriot bacchanals ran for their

lives from the back door and escaped through the fields, emptying their

guns in one sputtering volley that wounded one of their own horses left

in the hands of the enemy.

A little farther, however, the riflemen began to fire upon the advancing

British, though, pressed by the heavy column, they fell slowly back

toward Maxwell's main body. From behind the clumps of trees, the hedges,

the walls and the houses they aimed at the invaders, and harassed, if

they did not impede, their march. The "Old Kennet" meeting-house and its

graveyard walls gave them another and yet more favorable ambush. But by

ten o'clock the fighting had become more serious. Maxwell, pressed by a

greatly superior force, resisted stoutly, and the firing on both sides

was heavy. Proctor's artillery pounded away across the stream. The

riflemen, well under cover, at first threw Knyphausen's men into

confusion, though they included some of the best regiments of the

British army, the Fourth, Fifth, Twenty-eighth, Forty-ninth and

Seventy-first being among them.

As Proctor trained his guns upon the advancing British, the house of

William Harvey (Senior--his son William, Junior, lived east of the

creek) was directly in the line of fire. William, who was a quiet but

firm old Friend, was at his home, intending to protect his goods if

possible, though he had sent his family away. His neighbor, Jacob Way,

found him at this juncture sitting on his front piazza, which ended to

the eastward against his kitchen, a semi-detached building. "Come away!"

said Jacob: "thee is in danger here. Thee will surely be killed." But

William refused. Jacob expostulated. As they exchanged words, a

twelve-pound cannon-ball came from Proctor's battery directly for the

house, passed through both walls of the kitchen, and plunged along the

piazza floor, tearing up the boards and barely avoiding William's legs,

until, a little farther on, it buried itself six feet deep in the earth.

It is recorded that William hesitated no longer, but sought a safer

place. His house was thoroughly despoiled when the British came up.

Knyphausen, however, steadily pressed the Americans back, forced them

from the high ground down to the edge of the creek, and finally drove

them across. By half-past ten o'clock this was accomplished, and the

British line was then formed half a mile back from the stream, where it

lay until half-past four in the afternoon, the artillery keeping up a

threatening but not serious fire upon Wayne's position on the east side,

which his batteries returned. On the whole, the Americans thought

themselves doing fairly well. Washington's secretary sent off a despatch

to Congress saying that the British loss must be three hundred killed

and wounded, "while ours does not exceed fifty altogether."

Part of the British force at the ford on this morning was a rifle corps

commanded by Major Patrick Ferguson, a young Scotchman recently arrived

in America, and subsequently killed in the sanguinary fight on King's

Mountain. In a letter describing the Brandywine battle he says his men

were lying concealed in a skirt of woods when "a rebel officer in a

huzzar dress" passed in front, followed by another in dark green and

blue "mounted on a good bay horse and wearing a remarkably high cocked

hat." Ferguson ordered three men to steal near and fire upon them, but

believing that they would surely be killed, so near were they riding, he

felt the act to be murder and recalled his men. Again, having first

passed to some distance, the officer on the bay horse returned, and rode

within easy shooting distance, but Ferguson again restrained himself.

The next day he learned from wounded Americans who fell into the hands

of the British "that General Washington was all the morning with the

light troops, and attended only by a French officer in a huzzar dress,

he himself mounted and dressed in every respect as above described."

The Friends whom we left gathered in the wheelwright-shop adjourned with

some agitation. "While we were sitting therein," Joseph Townsend says,

"some disturbance was discovered near the house and about the door,

which occasioned some individuals to go out to know the cause, and they

not returning and the uneasiness not subsiding, suspicions arose that

something serious was taking place: the meeting accordingly closed."

It was indeed quite time that the heads of the meeting had shaken hands

as the signal for adjourning. The "uneasiness" outside had good reason.

The cry was that the red-coats were coming. Women were weeping and

crying that "they murdered all before them, young and old." The men

endeavored to allay their fears, and urged them to be more composed; but

while this took place "our eyes were caught, on a sudden, by the

appearance of the army coming out of the woods into the fields belonging

to Emmor Jefferis, on the west side of the creek, above the

fording-place. In a few minutes the fields were literally covered over

with them, and they were hastening toward us. Their arms and bayonets,

being raised, shone bright as silver, there being a clear sky and the

day exceedingly warm."

Howe and Cornwallis, making their long detour, since five in the morning

had crossed the western branch at Trimble's Ford, and were here now, at

the undefended crossing of the eastern branch, ready to sweep down upon

the American line. Emmor Jefferis, who lived at the ford in a

substantial house, was surprised at such an arrival of visitors. There

lay in his ample cellar great store of wines and other liquors, silks,

cloths, etc., the most valuable goods of some of the merchants down at

Wilmington, which they had hauled up to this point when they considered

their own town threatened. As the British pressed their company upon

Emmor with great unreserve, they speedily found the prize in the cellar.

The casks were rolled out, the heads knocked in, and the officers,

quaffing the old madeira, drank to its rebel owners, whose chagrin may

be imagined when they heard of its fate.

To cross the creek, General Howe ordered Jefferis to act as guide and

further to direct them down the roads toward the American position.

Emmor obeyed with great hesitancy, and later, when the battle was on and

a bullet flew uncomfortably near, he flinched so perceptibly that Howe

felt called on to say, "Don't be afraid, Mr. Jefferis: they won't hurt

you." Notwithstanding which assurance, Emmor still was not happy.

The hour of crossing must have been near noon or a little after. They

turned down the road toward Birmingham as they reached the east side,

and soon the head of the column passed through Sconnel's, by the

meeting-house so lately vacated. "The space occupied by the main body

and flanking-parties was near a half mile wide." Sarah Boake, the wife

of Abel, whose house stood near, called to Joseph Townsend and his

brother William--who since meeting closed had gone home to secure their

horses in the stable, but had now returned--to see what fine fellows

these were. "They're something like an army!" cried she. As the column

passed "one of the most eligible houses" in the little cluster at

Sconnel, "divers of the principal officers" entered and soon "manifested

an uncommon social disposition," being full of inquiries where the

rebels now were, and especially where Mr. Washington was to be found. To

this William Townsend answered that he thought if they would have

patience they would presently meet with Mr. Washington, as he and his

men were not far distant--a dry joke that does great credit, under the

circumstances, to Quaker William. Moreover, as they plied the young men

with further inquiries, William said he had seen the commander down at

his quarters at Chad's the day before, and described him as "a stately,

well-proportioned, fine-looking man, of great ability, active, firm and

resolute, of a social disposition, and considered to be a good man."

This was observed, Joseph says, "to check their ardor for a sight of

him," though one rejoined that "he might be a good man, but he was most

damnably misled to take up arms against his sovereign." As they sat thus

talking, Cornwallis passed the house. He appeared tall and sat very

erect, wearing his scarlet uniform, richly trimmed with gold lace and

heavy epaulets. Most of the officers, our narrator says, "were rather

short, portly men, well dressed and of genteel appearance, and did not

look as if they had ever been exposed to any hardship, their skins being

as white and delicate as is customary for females brought up in large

cities or towns." A halt of the advance-guard had been made a few

minutes in the village while the horses were fed on some patches of

growing corn. These troops were Germans, "and many of them," Townsend

remarks, "wore their beards on their upper lips, which was a novelty in

that part of the country."

By two o'clock, or somewhat earlier, the British had reached Osborne's

Hill, from which they had a good view to the south and east. The high

ground around Birmingham meeting-house, on which a little later the

hurrying Americans would appear, was plainly in view. Cornwallis's men

had now marched since morning about thirteen miles under the burning

sun, wading the two branches of the Brandywine. They were halted here,

took out their dinner-rations and ate them, and about three o'clock were

rested and ready to fight.

All the fore part of the day Washington had been near the crossing at

Chad's, watching the encounter there. It must have been nearly noon when

he received intelligence of a startling character. Colonel Bland had

been across the creek (the main stream below its "forks"), and now sent

word that he had observed at a distance the march north of a large body

of the enemy. Two brigades he had distinctly seen, "and the dust

appeared to rise in their rear for a considerable distance." While this

despatch was in Washington's hand came another from Colonel Ross, who

had ridden to a point on "the Great Valley road," in the rear of Howe's

column, and sent word confirming Bland's observations. He estimated the

moving force at not less than five thousand.

With such intelligence of Howe's strategy, Washington promptly resolved

upon a bold and vigorous counter-movement--not hastily, we may presume,

for he had doubtless anticipated the contingency and formed the plan in

anticipation of such an attempt to outflank him. He now gave orders to

his division commanders--Sullivan on the right, Greene in the centre and

Wayne on the left--to prepare for an immediate offensive movement

against Knyphausen, designing to cross the creek, crush him and capture

his baggage before Howe could counter-march and come to his relief.

Sullivan says he received orders to cross and attack the enemy's left,

while the rest of the army crossed below (at Chad's) and engaged his

right. "This I was preparing to do when Major Spear, a militia officer,

rode hastily in. He informed me that he was from the upper country, that

he had come in the road where the enemy must have passed to attack our

right, and that there was not the least appearance of them in that

quarter." He added that he had been sent to reconnoitre by General

Washington. Sullivan now hesitated: he could not omit to forward such

intelligence. It contradicted certainly what Colonel Bland and Colonel

Ross had sent, but it was possible that Cornwallis had moved northward

only as a feint, and had returned to the support of Knyphausen; so that

if the Americans should now cross, they would encounter not merely the

British right, but their whole army--not five thousand men, but eighteen

thousand. Sullivan therefore sat down, took Spear's statement word for

word "from his own mouth," and forwarded it to Washington, sending Spear

himself after the messenger to report verbally. "I made no comment and

gave no opinion," says Sullivan. Upon the heels of Spear came another

keen-eyed scout who had not seen the British. This was "Sergeant Tucker

of the Light Horse." He confirmed Spear's story. Washington now recalled

his orders and abandoned the intended attack on Knyphausen.

On the hill-slope south of the present road which crosses the Brandywine

at Chad's, Washington was resting under the shade of a cherry tree

(which fell in a storm a few years ago), when, about half-past one

o'clock, there came riding across the hillside fields from above,

avoiding the circuitous roads, Squire Thomas Cheyney, his hat gone, his

black hair streaming in the wind and his black eyes blazing with

excitement. The blooded mare he rode, trained to fox-hunting, carried

his two hundred pounds easily, and cleared ditches, fences and hedges.

Cheyney had been near the upper fords, and had suddenly come upon the

British as they moved down toward Osborne's Hill. They fired upon him as

he wheeled and galloped off, but he escaped unhurt. Reporting to

Sullivan, that officer received him discourteously, the chroniclers say;

as not improbably he might, for the contradictory reports as to the

British movement were, upon a subject so terribly momentous,

exasperating enough. But as Sullivan hesitated, Cheyney demanded to see

Washington himself, and was accordingly sent to him. Washington ordered

him to dismount. "Now," said he, "draw me a sketch of the upper roads.

Where did the British cross? and where are they now?"

Cheyney alighted and made the plan. Washington seemed to hesitate, as if

doubting the information. The ardent squire, in the intensity of the

moment, cried, "Take my life, general, if I deceive you!"

If the commander doubted, however, there came on the instant further

word. Colonel Bland had sent another despatch to Sullivan, dated at "a

quarter-past one o'clock," and saying that the enemy were then arriving

in great force on Osborne's Hill, a little to the right of Birmingham

meeting-house. This despatch Sullivan sent instantly to Washington, and

the word Cheyney had brought was now made sure beyond peradventure.

Bland's confirmation of Cheyney's news aroused the injudicious but brave

commander of the right wing, and he moved his troops at once up toward

Birmingham. His immediate command, he says in one of the several

defensive letters written after the battle, marched a mile from the

position it occupied to that in which it met the enemy. On a hill just

west of the meeting-house, from which, as they looked north-west, they

could see the British on Osborne's Hill, they made their line of battle,

and Cornwallis, as he sat upon his horse watching them through his

glass, cried out with a round army oath, "The damned rebels form well!"

In what order the American line was formed we know. The division of

Stephen occupied the right, that of Stirling the centre, that of

Sullivan the left. But many of the details are vaguely and

contradictorily stated. Lossing, following the sketch of the battle in

the Pennsylvania Historical Society's collections, describes Sullivan's

circuitous march to outreach Deborre, both seeking to obtain the right

of the line, while Bancroft says that Sullivan posted his division in

advance of the extreme left, detached by a half-mile gap from the rest

of the line, but that, on being remonstrated with, he moved to close up

the space, and was attacked before he had again formed his line of

battle. What followed, however, is distinct enough. Rested and fed, the

royal army precipitated itself, three to one in strength, and equally

disproportionate in discipline and experience, upon the unready line of

the Americans. The German and British troops, we are told, "vied with

each other in fury" as they ran forward in a superb and irresistible

bayonet charge. The struggle began about four o'clock: it lasted perhaps

half an hour. As the enemy advanced they were fired upon by a body of

outposted riflemen in an orchard near the road on which the attacking

column moved; whereupon, says Joseph Townsend, who was near by watching

the movement, the Hessians ran up the bank by the roadside, and,

levelling their guns through the fence, returned the fire.

Overwhelmed by the attack, the Americans broke on the right. This was

the post of honor which Deborre, an old French officer, had obtained for

his brigade. Conway, in a letter written a few weeks later to support

Sullivan's defence, says the latter, though entitled to the right, took

the left in order to save time, and that Deborre, though the ground was

much more favorable for the quick formation of his line, was not in

order when the enemy attacked. It is agreed that Deborre's brigade broke

first, and that then the left, Sullivan's men, gave way, though Sullivan

struggled bravely to hold them. "I saw him," says De Fleury, "rallying

his men with great ardor," but unsuccessfully; and he then came to

Stirling's division, which was fighting on the hill, braving the thick

of the fire until the centre too gave way, when, at the last, he was

striving to rally the fugitives and encourage them to form a new line

behind the fences. Had Sullivan shown vigilance and discretion equal to

his courage, the day's history might have been totally different.

Thirty minutes completed this epoch of the battle. The first line was

destroyed. Those who had formed it were stretched on the sere pastures

or hurrying to the rear. Stirling and Conway, as well as Sullivan, had

shown great bravery and coolness, but the resistance, practically, had

been totally ineffective. The beaten and demoralized troops streamed

into the woods, and sought shelter or escape until they met the

reinforcements under Greene.

As the sound of Sullivan's encounter reached him--possibly

sooner--Greene had moved from his reserve position to the support of the

right flank. He marched, it is asserted, four miles in forty minutes.

Washington himself left Chad's Ford, giving the command there to Wayne,

and hurried off to the more perilous quarter of the field. Joseph Brown,

a resident of the vicinity, was impressed as a guide. He was hurriedly

mounted on a fine charger belonging to a staff officer, and Washington

bade him ride with all speed in the direction of the firing. Away they

went, Joseph's horse clearing fences and ditches gallantly, the

commander at his flank urging him on. "Push along, old man! push along,

old man!" was his repeated command, remembered and related for many

years after by Joseph. They rode, he said, to a point between

Dilworthtown and the meeting-house, half a mile away from the former

place, and here the sounds of the battle seemed close at hand. Bullets

flew thick, the general and his staff turned their attention from the

guide, and he, glad to be excused, slipped from his saddle and withdrew.

Precisely when and where Greene met the fugitives from the first rout is

another of the uncertainties. The best descriptions of the battle, upon

being compared carefully, will be found vague and to some degree

conflicting. But there are two points on the road from the meeting-house

to Dilworth, marked upon the military map of the field as the "Second

Position," where Greene undoubtedly posted his men. These positions are

near together: one is south of the road, half a mile east of the

meeting-house, on a hill-slope descending toward the west; and the other

is north of the road, at a ravine now known as Sandy Hollow.

It is said that Greene opened his lines, received the fugitives from the

front, and re-formed. Possibly this took place at this second position.

It is certain that here the British advance was sharply checked, and

the Americans stubbornly held their ground until late in the afternoon.

It was at this turn in the battle that La Fayette was wounded, and not

in the first encounter, as the current historical narrative would give

us to understand. A survey of the map ascertains very precisely the

place where he was shot, according to abundant testimony, and this is

more than a mile distant from Sullivan's lines. It is very unlikely that

La Fayette was in the first encounter, beyond the meeting-house. He

probably arrived on the field with Washington, or he may possibly have

accompanied Greene. The place where he was wounded is a field about

halfway from the meeting-house to Dilworth, south-west of the road and

about a hundred rods away. Trustworthy accounts say he was with

Washington at the time, both engaged in rallying the troops; and this is

quite likely: the place is only a little distance westward from the

point to which Joseph Brown guided the general. In July, 1825, when La

Fayette revisited the ground, he drove up from Wilmington in a carriage

with the Messrs. Du Pont, whom he had been visiting. Great crowds

accompanied him over the historic field, and as he drove along the road

near the place already described, the carriage was stopped and the

gallant old gentleman rose to his feet to point out the position in

which he sustained his wound. "It was," he said, "somewhere on yonder

slope. The exact spot I cannot now tell."[A]

[Footnote A: The precise nature of La Fayette's wound is differently

stated in the chronicles. It was a gun-shot injury in his left leg, and

did not immediately disable him. He rode that night to Chester, and

thence reached Bristol, from which place Henry Laurens took him to the

gentle nursing of the Moravian Sisters at Bethlehem. He remained there

two months before he rejoined the army.]

Baffled as Howe was by the stubborn resistance after Greene arrived,

this check was almost the only American triumph in the day's contest.

There was hard fighting from five o'clock until dusk. Posted in strong

positions, well supported by the artillery, commanded by Washington

himself, the patriot troops displayed their most soldierly qualities.

The brigades of Muhlenberg, the Episcopal rector, and of Weeden, the

Virginia innkeeper, stood well and fought bravely. History preserves

especially the names of three regiments as earning distinction--one from

Pennsylvania, under Colonel Stewart; and two from Virginia--the Tenth,

under Colonel Stevens, and the Third, commanded by John Marshall,

afterward chief-justice of the United States. The Marylanders, under

Smallwood, and the Delaware regiment, acquitted themselves with probably

equal credit. Amongst the officers, Sullivan, Stirling and Conway had

been conspicuous for courage; La Fayette was wounded; De Fleury had his

horse shot under him (Congress soon voted him another); Pulaski had

rendered gallant service, earning early promotion; the marquis de la

Rouerie was a prisoner.

But though resisting so well, the effect was only to cover the needful

retreat. Down at Chad's Ford the conflict had been quickly over after

the fighting began at Birmingham. The sound of the guns from the hills

set Knyphausen in motion in earnest after all his feints and pretences

since morning. He pressed forward to cross the creek. Wayne fought him

well a little while, Proctor's artillery raking the advancing Hessians

as they waded the stream until its placid waters ran crimson with their

blood. But while Knyphausen's column was itself too heavy for Wayne to

oppose successfully, the catastrophe at Birmingham followed so quickly

upon the beginning of the struggle there that the contest at the ford

was soon ended. Howe was rapidly gaining his rear when Wayne learned of

Sullivan's disaster, and there was now only one resource--to retreat

with all speed. Proctor's guns and other munitions were abandoned, and

the fragments of the left wing, like those of the right, went drifting

toward the Delaware.

As the friendly shades of night came down the British were pressing the

fugitive army off the field, though not with a hot pursuit. In the

Wilmington road, below Dilworthtown, at dusk, we have a view of

Washington riding hastily along and ordering the officers whom he met to

gather up the disorganized troops and hurry toward Chester. As the night

hid the retreat, the stars came out to shine upon the dead, the dying

and the wounded. Howe estimated the American loss at three hundred

killed, six hundred wounded and four hundred prisoners--figures which

Greene's report did not essentially contradict. The wounded were mostly

in Howe's hands: few had escaped, as one did in a "chair" hurriedly

driven over to the Black Horse tavern, on the road to Chester, by Robert

Mendinhall, a neighboring Quaker farmer. The British loss was reported

as five hundred and seventy-eight killed and wounded, including

fifty-eight officers. Even if these figures were too low, the day's

casualties aggregated fifteen hundred. The little meeting-house was

filled with the badly wounded, and Howe sent word to Washington that

more surgeons were needed, in response to which message several were

sent to the field. The dead, as usual, were hastily buried, and heavy

rains after the battle washed out many of the shallow pits, exposing

their ghastly occupants to the elements and prowling beasts. The

neighboring people were compelled to undertake the work of re-interment,

in which, Joseph Townsend says, "it would be difficult to describe the

many cases of horror and destruction of human beings" that they

encountered. The battle was over, the tide of war had swept past, but

these horrid evidences of its slaughter remained as the memorials of the

struggle by which, for a time, the British had captured Philadelphia.

HOWARD M. JENKINS.

A GREAT DAY.

FROM THE ITALIAN OF EDMONDO DE AMICIS.

The G---- family were at their villa, a few miles out of Florence, when

the Italian army was preparing to march on Rome. The enterprise was not

favorably regarded by them. The father, the mother and the two grown-up

daughters, ardent Catholics and mild patriots, desired "moral measures."

"We do not understand politics," said Madame G---- to her friends, "and

I least of all; and if I had to tell you quite clearly and distinctly

why I think as I do, I should be puzzled. But what can I do? I have a

presentiment; I hear a voice within me; I feel a thrill--something which

tells me they must not go, they ought not to go, they cannot go, to Rome

in such a manner. I remember '48; I remember '59; I remember '60. Well,

in those days I had no fear; I never felt at heart the anxiety that I

have now: I always thought things would come right. But this time, my

friends, there is no use in talking, I see trouble in the air, and a

great deal of it. You smile. Pray to Heaven that some day or other you

may not have cause to weep. That day does not seem to me far off."

The only one of the whole family who did not think thus was the son, a

young man of twenty, who was just now reading Roman history, and was in

a state of ferment. The mere mention of Rome in his presence was the

signal for a battle: there had already been one of the liveliest kind,

and it was agreed never to broach the subject again.

One evening early in September they received an official journal in

which the news was authoritatively announced that the Italian soldiers

had passed the frontier. The young man leapt for joy. The father read

the article, remained thoughtful for some time, and then, shaking his

head, muttered, "No!" and again, "No!" and a third time, "No, no, no!"

"But excuse me, papa," exclaimed the son, firing up.

"There! there!" interrupted the mother tenderly.

And during the rest of the evening no more was said about it. But

serious trouble occurred the following evening, when, shortly before

going to bed, the young man frankly and without preamble, as if he were

doing the most natural thing in the world, announced his intention of

going to Rome with the army.

There was a general cry of surprise and indignation, followed by a

tempest of reproaches and threats. "It was not a thing one could

honorably desire to see; already part of the guilt attached to each of

them as an Italian, without having to add the responsibility of being an

eye-witness; and this, that and the other; and, in fine, that anything

might be conceded or pardoned in a well-born young man except the

madness of going to see" (these were the mother's words) "_a poor old

man bombarded_. A fine war! Fine glory, indeed!"

When she had finished the young man gnashed his teeth, tore the journal

to pieces, jumped up from his seat, lighted a lamp and went to shut

himself up in his room, stamping his feet like an Italian actor playing

the part of a furious king.

But in half an hour softly, softly, on tiptoe, he returned to the

dining-room. There was no one there but the father and mother, silent

and sad. He asked pardon of his father, who growled, but suffered him to

press his hand, and then returned to his room, followed by his mother.

"Now we shall have no more of such ideas, shall we?" she said to him

tenderly, laying her hands on his shoulders.

The son answered with a kiss.

The next day he crossed the frontier of the Pontifical States.

As soon as they became aware of it at home there were tears, outbursts,

invectives, suggestions of never receiving him again, of not even

rising from their seats when he returned, of allowing a month to pass

without addressing a word to him, of striking out the item

"pocket-money" from the family budget, and a hundred other things. On

the mother's part these were words, but on the father's serious

intentions. He was not a man to waver; he was good, but stern, and at

times, when he was angry, even terrible: his son knew this, and feared

him. How he had ever been able, therefore, to offer him such an outrage

was inexplicable. The accounts of the 20th of September only served to

embitter the parents more. "He shall feel it," said they between their

teeth. "Let him come!" Their words, their gestures, their plan of

action, had all been thought over and prepared. It would be a severe

lesson.

On the morning of the 22d they were all seated at table when suddenly a

loud knock was heard at the door, and immediately after the son

appeared, red in the face, out of breath, bronzed by the sun, standing

erect and motionless on the threshold. No one moved.

"What!" exclaimed the young man, folding his arms with an air of

astonishment, "you do not know the news?"

No one answered.

"Have you been told nothing? Has no one been here from Florence? Are you

still in the dark about everything?"

No one breathed.

"The taking of Rome," one of the girls ventured to say presently, after

having consulted her papa with a glance--"we know of it."

"What! Nothing else?"

"Nothing else."

"But what a taking of Rome!" burst out the young man with a cry that

made them all tremble--"what a taking of Rome! Then I bring you the

account of it."

They all rose and gathered around him.

"But how is it possible," he went on crying, waving his hands--"how is

it possible that you know nothing of it? Has not the news spread through

the country? Have not the country-people assembled? What is the city

government doing? Listen, then--listen; seat yourselves around me; I

will relate all to you. My heart beats so that I can hardly speak."

"But what has happened?"

"Nothing: I will tell you nothing. I wish to relate everything in order:

give me breathing-time. I wish you to hear the facts one by one as I saw

them."

"Oh, you mean the Roman feasts?"

"The plebiscite?"

"The arrival of the king?"

"No, indeed, no: something quite different."

"Well, tell us."

"But sit down."

"Oh, how is it that we have heard nothing about it here?"

"How can I tell? All I know is, that to be the first who brings you this

news is the greatest pleasure I have experienced in my whole life. I

arrived this morning at Florence: they knew all about it. I left

immediately. Who knows? thought I, perhaps the news has not yet reached

home. I am out of breath."

"Tell us! tell quickly!"

They all seated themselves around him.

"You shall hear, mamma--things to make one wild! Come nearer: so! You

know all about the morning of the 21st, do you not? The other regiments

entered: crowds, noise, music, as on the previous day, until twelve

o'clock. At twelve o'clock, as if by common consent, the confusion

ceased--first in the Corso, then in the other main streets, and

gradually everywhere. The crowds of citizens stood still, formed groups

and chatted in an undertone; then they dispersed in all directions,

nodding to each other like people who expect to meet soon again. It

seemed as if the order had circulated to prepare for some great event.

People meeting in the street spoke to each other hastily, and then each

one went his own way. From one end to the other of the Corso there was a

general bustle, some going home, others going out; some calling from the

street, others answering from the windows; the soldiers rushing to and

fro as if they had heard a call; officers on horseback trotting by; men

and boys passing with bundles of flags on their shoulders and in their

arms; all active and hurrying as if they were being pursued. I, who knew

nothing and no one, looked now at this face, now at that, to try and

discover something. They all seemed happy, but did not exhibit their

former boisterous, unrestrained joy: all betrayed a disturbing thought,

a misgiving, almost an uneasiness: one could see that they were people

concocting something. I turned into one of the smaller streets; went

farther on; stopped at two or three crossways: everywhere was the same

sight--great crowds, a great stir, great haste and an indescribable

manner of speaking and gesticulating, which I had already remarked in

the Corso, as if the whole mass of people wished to conceal something

from some one, although it was visible to every one. Knots of people

passed by me, troops, hundreds of men and women together, and not a cry

was to be heard. All were going in the same direction, as if to a place

of rendezvous."

"Where were they going?" asked the mother and father.

"Wait. I returned to the Corso. The nearer I approached, the more

distinctly I heard a dull, continuous roar, like that of an immense

crowd. I reached it: the Corso was full of people, who had all stopped

and turned toward the Campidoglio, as if they were waiting for something

from that quarter. From the Piazza del Popolo to the Piazza di Venezia

there was such a press that it was impossible to move. There was a

whispering here and there, 'They will be here in a little while;' 'They

are coming yonder,'--'Who are coming yonder?'--'The main column.'--'The

main column is coming.'--'Here it is!'--'No.'--'Yes.'--All at once the

crowd began to move turbulently. Everybody cried on all sides, 'There

they are!' And in less time than I can say it the street was cleared in

the middle, as if to make way for a procession. All heads were

uncovered. I, who had remained behind, elbowed my way across the street

and looked. I seem to feel now a thrill that ran through me from head

to foot. First advanced generals in full uniform and noblemen in black

coats with tri-colored scarfs: in the midst of the nobles and generals

came men, women and children with tattered, unbuttoned shirts; behind,

work-people, country-people, women with babies on their backs, soldiers

of all arms, grand ladies, students, whole families holding each other

by the hands so as not to get lost; all crowded and pressed, so that it

seemed strange they were able to walk; and yet only a monotonous murmur

like a buzz was to be heard--not a sound on either side of the street,

not a sound from the windows. It was a solemn sight: what with surprise

and awe I was in a trance."

"But where were they going?" asked the father, mother and sisters

eagerly.

"Let me finish," resumed the young man. "I was turned off in the mean

while, and with me gradually all those who were leaning against the wall

right and left were turned off also. Fancy what a tight squeeze! The

crowd was just like a torrent, filling both pavements, pouring people

like rushing waves into the shops, to the gates, wherever an inch of

room could be found. As the procession advanced more swarms of people

streamed into the Corso from the side streets, which were also thronged

from end to end; and the procession continued to ascend from the

Campidoglio, and the rumor spread that thousands more were coming from

Campo Vaccino. Numbers of people arrived from the Piazza di Spagna, from

the Via del Babbuino, from the Piazza del Popolo. All had something in

their hands--some garlands of flowers, some olive and laurel branches,

some banners, some rags tied on the top of sticks; some carried in both

hands sacred images over their heads--inscriptions, emblems, portraits

of the pope, of the king, of the princes and of Garibaldi. It was a

mixture, a medley, a confusion of persons and things, such as I believe

has never been seen under the sun; and always and everywhere that

subdued murmur, that slow pace, that repose, that dignity, so singular

and astonishing in such a multitude that I thought I must be dreaming."

The whole family pressed closer round the young man without speaking a

word.

"At a certain point I perceived that the crowd had turned to the left:

all fell back. Slowly, slowly, with great difficulty, trampled upon,

crushed, jostled on all sides, unable to move their arms, panting for

breath, they pressed on from street to street to the piazza in front of

the bridge of St. Angelo. The bridge was overflowing with people: the

crowd disappeared across the river in the direction of St. Peter's. The

whole right bank was swarming. The passage of the bridge was a serious

matter: it took more than a quarter of an hour. The unfortunate

creatures who were at the sides, pressed by those in the middle, clung

desperately to the railings for fear of being thrown over, and uttered

cries of terror. It was said that some accidents occurred. By degrees

all passed over. All the streets leading to the square filled up. When

the crowd reached the entrance of one of the streets which lead directly

to the Basilica, suddenly a low, hollow sound was heard, like a sea in a

storm, now far off, now near, and coming toward us in waves. It was the

multitude assembled in the Piazza di San Pietro. The crowd pressed

forward more eagerly, one on top of another, carried forward,

overturned--on, on, until it reached the piazza. Almighty God! if you

had seen it! What an astounding spectacle!--all this immense square

tightly packed, black, and all in motion: it was no longer a square--it

was a sea. On all sides--between the four rows of columns, on the

church-steps, under the portico, on the great terrace in front, in the

galleries of the cupola, on the capitals of the pillars, on the pillars

themselves; and behind--at the windows of the houses, on the balconies,

on the roofs, above, below, right and left, wherever a human creature

could plant his foot or clutch hold or hang on; everywhere heads, arms

and legs dangling, banners, gestures, voices! All Rome was there!"

"Heavens! But the Vatican?" they all cried in great agitation.

"Closed. You know that one wing of the Vatican opens on the square, and

in that is the pope's apartment. All the windows belonging to it were

closed: it seemed like a deserted palace. At that moment it had the

appearance of a cold, stern, impassive person looking down with fixed,

wide-open eyes. The multitude looked up with a murmuring noise. On one

side, toward the terrace, could be seen a great body of officers and

noblemen, who appeared to give orders which were repeated from mouth to

mouth. The agitation continued to increase. All heads were

uncovered--white heads of old men, dark heads of soldiers, blond heads

of children. A bright sun was shining; a thousand movements, a thousand

noises, a thousand colors, were waving and mingling on this immense

surface. Banners and rags fluttered, tossed back here and there as if

they were floating on the water. The seething was such it seemed as if

fire were burning under the earth. Suddenly, from all sides was heard

and spread a cry, 'The boys! the children! Bring forward the children!'

It was evidently a concerted plan. In a moment on all parts of the

square people were seen holding up the children above their heads, and

the men and women who were carrying them broke through the mass, all

going in the direction of the Vatican: the bigger boys forced their own

way, holding hands, rushing between the people's legs, ten and twenty at

a time. In a few minutes hundreds of children--a whole population of

creatures concealed until now--some by means of their own legs, some

pushed, some carried, were crowded into one corner of the square, and in

the mean while arose a deafening cry from the women, 'Take care! Slowly!

My child!' Soon after another louder and more imperative call, 'The

women! the women!' Another disturbance, another breaking through the

crowd in all directions. Then a third and more formidable cry, 'The

army! the soldiers! Forward!' And once more an indescribable upheaving,

but simultaneous, resolute, rapid. There were none of the difficulties

and delays usually seen in similar cases: all worked and helped to

accomplish the end. There was an impetuosity, a fervor, and yet an

astonishing accord: this innumerable crowd seemed ruled and controlled.

By degrees the bustle ceased, all cries were hushed, arms were dropped,

everybody looked around, and it seemed as if by enchantment the

children, the women and the soldiers had disappeared. They all stood on

the right side of the square, divided into three great masses, from the

door of St. Peter's to the middle of the Colonnade, facing the Vatican,

dense and compact. The multitude burst forth into boisterous applause."

"But the Vatican?" asked the family for the third time, all in the same

breath.

"Still closed and quiet as a convent."

"Oh! great Heavens!" they exclaimed, confounded.

"Wait! All at once the applause ceased, and all heads were seen turning

around slowly and whispering, 'Silence! silence!' The murmur ran from

the beginning to the end of the two streets which open into the square.

The whisper soon died away entirely, and there was such a stillness,

such silence, as I should never have believed possible among so many

people. It was something super-human. In the midst of this silence I

seemed suddenly to hear a faint voice that I could not understand, a

vague sound coming from a distance. Gradually, insensibly, it

increased--first an uplifting of voices, now far, now near, uncertain

and discordant; soon more distinct, more decided, finally blending as if

by magic, till a single voice, tremulous, silvery, suave, rose to

heaven, echoing like the voice of a legion of angels. It was that of

thousands of children singing the hymn to Pius IX. of 1847."

"Oh!" exclaimed the mother and daughters, clasping their hands.

"That song re-echoed in every one's heart; it ascended in such a way as

to touch the most tender chords of the soul; a thrill seemed to pass

through the crowd; there was a great moving of arms and hands, as if

they wished to speak and could not. Nothing but a confused murmur was

heard. 'Holy Father'--this is what they wished to say--'look! listen!

These are our children; they are your sons who seek you, who invoke you,

who implore your benediction; they are innocent souls. Hear their

prayer; bless them; grant that their country and their religion shall be

united in their hearts. Holy Father, one word from you, one sign, one

glance from you declaring pardon and peace, and we are with you, for

you--all of us, now, always, for ever! They are our children, your

sons.' Thousands of banners waved in the air. The song ceased: a

profound silence ensued."

"Well?" they all asked eagerly.

"No response. Then arose the women's song. There was a deep tremor in

that immense voice: you could hear a something which only issues from

the hearts of mothers; it seemed more like a cry than a song; it was

sweet and solemn. The people, from the first note, remained motionless:

suddenly, after a while, they became agitated as if moved by an

irresistible ardor; the exclamations almost overpowered the song. 'These

are our mothers,' they said, 'our wives, our sisters. Holy Father, hear

them. They have never cherished hatred or anger in their breasts; they

have always loved and hoped; they believe and pray; they implore the

privilege of teaching their children your name together with that of

Italy. Holy Father, one word from you will save them many mournful

doubts and many bitter tears. Bless our families, Holy Father.'"

The listeners questioned with their eyes and gestures.

"Nothing! Then burst forth a tumultuous, rapid song, followed by a more

violent agitation: it was the soldiers. 'These are our soldiers,' all

said together--'they will be yours: they are the sons of the field and

the shops. Holy Father, they will guard your gates and escort your

steps: they, born on your soil, they who heard as children your sublime

cry of liberty, will fight against the foreign enemy with your name and

that of the king on their lips and in their hearts. Bless them. You will

see them congregated around your throne in your hour of need, ready to

die: one word, Holy Father, and these swords, these breasts, this blood,

are yours. They implore your blessing upon the country. Remember, Holy

Father, your sublime cry.'--A window of the Vatican opened."

All seized the young man by the arm without saying a word.

"The song ceased, the cries were hushed: there was silence. There was

not a living soul at the window. During a few moments the very breath of

the multitude seemed suspended. Something like a shadow moved past the

window, but inside, far back, and then disappeared. There seemed to be

people passing to and fro, and a confusion within. All faces, all eyes,

were fixed motionless on the spot. Suddenly the whole multitude, as if

inspired at the same moment, pointed to the palace; thousands of women

held up the children; the soldiers swung their caps on their bayonets;

all banners were waved; a hundred thousand voices burst forth in one

tremendous shout: 'Viva! viva! viva!' At the window of the Vatican

something was seen fluttering, moving, shining, all at once floating in

the air.--Great Heavens!" exclaimed the young man, throwing himself on

his mother's neck, "it was the Italian flag!"

It would be impossible to describe the delight, the joy, the enthusiasm

of those worthy people. The young man had spoken with so much fervor, he

had become so enamored of his own deception, that by degrees he had

finally ceased to be aware of the fact that he was inventing, and truly

his eyes were moist and his voice trembled. However, not the shadow of a

suspicion had crossed the minds of his parents and sisters. They

embraced each other, laughed and wept. From how many scruples, how many

grievous conflicts between Italian hearts and Catholic consciences, did

they find themselves released! The reconciliation between Church and

State! The dream of so many years! What peace of mind henceforward!

What a beautiful life of love and concord! What free, secure repose!

"Heaven be praised!" exclaimed the mother, dropping into a low chair,

exhausted by excitement.

And then again they all rushed around the young man, one seizing his

hand, another pulling him by the coat: "Is it really true?"--"Is it not

a dream?"--"Speak!"--"Go on: tell us about everything--the pope--the

crowd--what happened."

"What followed?" resumed the young man in a fatigued voice. "To tell you

the truth, I don't know myself: I don't remember. There was such a

shouting, an upheaving, a frenzy, a delirium, that the very thought of

it even now makes my head whirl. I no longer saw anything around me but

upraised arms and banners, which concealed everything. An elbow-knock

that I received in my breast in a terrible commotion of the crowd almost

took my breath away. After a few moments I seemed to have a little more

space, and I escaped into one of the streets leading to the bridge,

determined to get out of the confusion. From all the streets of the

Borgo Pio the people dashed with loud cries toward the square. It was

said afterward that the crowd rushed to the doors of the Vatican to

force an entrance: the soldiers had to keep them back, first with their

breasts, then with their hands, finally with their weapons. I heard of

people suffocated in the press. It is not known what happened in the

interior of the Vatican: they said that the pope had given his blessing

from the window. I did not see him. Weary, exhausted, I arrived at the

bridge, and crossed it. People were still running from all sides,

attracted by the news of the great event, which had spread like

wildfire. Large troops of cavalry coursed by at full speed. Guides,

aides-de-camp, carbiniers, sent to carry orders hither and thither, ran

through the streets screaming. The people answered from the windows:

decrepit old men, invalids, women with children in their arms, stood on

the terraces, came down into the deserted streets, asked questions,

wondered and kissed each other. I reached the Corso. Suddenly a

terrific explosion was heard from the direction of the Pincio, then

another from the Porta Pia, then a third from the Porta San Pancrazio:

it was all the batteries of artillery belonging to the Italian army

greeting the Pontiff with a tumultuous salute. Presently the chiming of

the bell of the Campidoglio resounded: then gradually the bells of

hundreds of churches blending into one magnificent concert. The crowd

from the Borgo Pio rushed back impetuously to the left bank of the

Tiber, invading in a very short time the streets, the squares and the

houses; displayed the papal coat-of-arms, which had remained covered;

carried in triumph busts of Pius IX., portraits and banners; thousands

of people assembled in front of the palaces of the nobles most noted for

their devotion to the pope and burst into applause, and these nobles

appeared on their balconies and hung out the national colors. One

moment: let me take breath."

As soon as he had breathed they immediately beset him with more

questions: "And after that? and the Vatican? and the pope?"

"I don't know. I cannot tell you how beautiful, how grand, how

wonderful, Rome was that evening. The night was transcendent, and there

was an illumination such as never was seen or imagined since the

creation of the world: the Corso appeared to be on fire. The churches

were full of people, and priests preaching; in the streets were music,

singing, dancing, citizens speaking to the people in the cafes and

theatres. I wished to see the Piazza di San Pietro once more. The rumor

had spread that His Holiness needed rest: Borgo Pio was as quiet as on

the quietest nights; the square was lit up by the moon; a silent crowd

was collected around the two fountains and on the steps: some were

seated on the ground, some lying down; a great many of them, those most

overcome by the fatigue and excitement of the day, were asleep--women,

soldiers and children promiscuously; hundreds of people kneeling, and

here and there sentinels of every corps with little flags and crosses

tied to the barrels of their guns. The ground was strewn with banners,

with leaves and flowers, and hats that had been lost in the tumult. The

windows of the Vatican were illuminated; not a voice was to be heard;

all these people seemed to be holding their breath. I left there

excited, exalted, thinking over everything I had seen--of the effect

that the news would produce on Italy, on the world, on all of you--more

particularly on you, papa. I found myself at the station almost before I

was aware: there was a confusion, a deafening noise. I stepped into a

train, started off, and here I am. The news had arrived last evening in

Florence: they told me it created a furore; the king had left; the news

is already spread over the whole world."

At this point he sank into a low chair and stopped short, as if he had

no more breath in his body.

* * * * *

The newspapers, which should have arrived at the villa by noon, did not

come, so that the family retained their pleasant illusion until evening.

The dinner was animated, the young man continued to jumble detail on

detail, and the mother and family rapture on rapture, blessing on

blessing, when suddenly they heard a hasty foot on the steps, and then a

noisy ring at the bell. Presently the door opened, and a tall, dried-up

priest, with a livid face and crooked mouth, appeared on the threshold.

It was a priest whom the family had known only a short time, and of whom

they were not particularly fond, but whom they received and welcomed at

their house--more, however, out of respect for his garb than for his

person. All except the young man grouped around him, crying out, "Well!

have you heard the news? It is all over, thank Heaven! Tell us! speak!"

"But what news?" asked the priest, looking in the face of each one in

turn with a pair of rolling eyes.

They all told him at once, hastily and eagerly, of the festival, the

pardon, the reconciliation.

The priest looked at all of them with the air of a man who fears that he

has fallen into the midst of a set of lunatics: then flashing a fiery

glance upon the young man, he exclaimed with a sinister smile, "There is

not a shadow of truth in it, fortunately."

"Oh!" they all exclaimed, turning toward the son.

The latter, without seeming disconcerted, looked fixedly at the priest,

and said to him, in a half-sorrowful, half-contemptuous voice, "Only,

reverend father, do not say 'fortunately.' You are an Italian: say,

'What a pity that it is not so!'"

And all the others flew once more at the priest, and, as is generally

the case, more incensed against the one who had destroyed the illusion

than against him who had created it, they repeated almost

involuntarily, "Decidedly! Say rather, 'What a pity!'"

"I?" answered the priest, turning toward his breast a long knotty

finger: then, in a bitter vibrant voice, "Never!"

The old man, thus suddenly wounded and so rudely deprived of the

delightful emotion which had agitated him, lost his wits as usual, and

stretching out his arm toward the door framed with his lips the word

"Begone!"

The priest disappeared, slamming the door behind him. The son threw his

arms around his father's neck: the latter, looking toward the door,

muttered in a feeble voice, "Heartless man!"

A VENETIAN OF THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY.

A strange figure, a man almost wholly forgotten, but one to whom Goethe,

Schiller, Tieck and Schlegel owed not a little, is yet to be known by

whoever cares to rub the dust from old memoirs and turn the pages of

some rare and racy volumes. And in knowing this Venetian much may be

learned of the decadence of Venice, which had come to produce, not the

great and reverent and serious men who laid her stones and covered her

walls with sweet and splendid works expressive of the endurance and

piety of great souls, but such men as Casanova the gambler, Goldoni the

play-writer, Longhi and Canaletto the painters; and then, as the best

among them all, the honest Venetian whom we now meet, sometimes called

the Shakespeare of Venice, but in fact only a play-writer, a Venetian

nobleman, who depicted in a dispassionate temper the trivialities of his

age, and lacked both the _milieu_ and the material to produce a great

work.

Venice had long reached and passed the culmination of her brilliant

power, and had become the very palpitating centre of unchecked

dissipation and of an extravagant luxury of living. All Europe came to

it to be amused. It is impossible to frame with sober English words the

bas-reliefs of those licentious times as they are found to-day in the

popular songs of the Lagoons. At this epoch there was a young Venetian,

Count Carlo Gozzi, who wrote for the Venetian theatre, and may be

considered as having first invested with the dignity of literary

expression the typical figures of Italian comedy--Pantaleone, Harlequin,

Tartaglia, etc. He came from a literary family, and his brother, Count

Gaspard Gozzi, was an honored man of letters who gave several volumes to

Venetian literature, and whose vivacious face in marble may be seen in

the gallery of the ducal palace with the busts of doges, prelates and

painters of the great state of Venice. But he whom we think the more

interesting man, as well as the most representative, has not been

honored with bust or portrait, and we must look to his memoirs to find

out what manner of man he was.

Carlo Gozzi was the seventh son of one of those opulent noble Venetian

families which a century of indolent leisure and mad enjoyment of gayety

had reduced to a state bordering upon beggary. The family was

disorganized, and for the completion of its bad fortune the eldest son

fell in love with and married a foolish literary young woman, who to an

unchecked ambition of distinguishing herself either as a poetess, a

writer of plays, or as the fashionable directress of some _accademia_,

added an uncontrollable spirit of domination. She mismanaged the

household, rendering it intolerable to every one but herself. Gozzi's

good sense very soon convinced him that there was nothing to hope from

such a condition of affairs, and he sought guidance and protection from

his uncle, Almore Cesare Tiepolo, the venerated senator, who recommended

him to Girolamo Quirini, governor-general of Dalmatia. It was to go

there and to meet a new fate that Gozzi, then a lad of sixteen, left

Venice on board of a ship of war, having for his whole fortune his

youth, his guitar and a few books.

It was only after he had become an old man that he wrote the story of

his life, and that he so piquantly portrayed the physiognomy of the

Venetian people in his famous _Memorie inutile_, which, as he quaintly

says, he published "from humility." The _Memorie inutile_ in which Gozzi

has depicted himself with such lifelike realism are sincere and

vivacious, and rival Diderot and Rousseau for directness, luminousness

and interest. Gozzi's nature is as free from conceit as it is from that

reserve which is sometimes mistaken for the enviable result of

hereditary culture, when it often is but the makeshift of vanity to

cover mental penury. The serenity of his soul never fails him even under

the most disheartening circumstances. His unalterable gayety, his

playfulness and his genial humor, just a little bit satirical, made him

the best of fellows and the most capital companion. None of the changes

or chances of an adventurous life seem to have either abated or checked

the flow of his animal spirits. He took hold of things and of the people

he met by their laughable side. Hence the remarkable elasticity and the

buoyancy of his writings. How far he stands from the reactionary

romantic movement of a later literature we may know if we notice that

there is no morbid self-retrospection and no shadow of melancholy in any

one page he ever wrote. When domestic difficulties and the complications

attending the dismemberment of the family after the death of his

paralytic father--whom he worshipped--absorbed his whole mind, and he

had to call upon his reserved strength of character to endure sorrow,

Gozzi kept up a brave heart. He believed in his vocation as a writer of

plays, and he fed his talent by an indulgent and sympathetic

comprehension of human nature.

He says: "It is an endless amusement for me to see the world, such as it

is in my century, and to contemplate the big caldron in which all our

follies are kept boiling. Is it not an immense farce? and am I not right

to make it the plaything of my reflections, and to laugh as I keep

counting the somersaults of humanity?" These "somersaults" are precisely

what Gozzi has so successfully reproduced upon the scene.

It was while he lived in wild Dalmatia that Gozzi had first revealed to

him his own dramatic genius. His protector there was a man of letters,

who lent him books and encouraged him to exercise his literary taste and

talent in scribbling sketches of character, poetical essays and such

things as usually serve as the magnetic conductor between a youth and

the people around him, whom he hardly knows. The dramatic troupe in Zara

was composed of young Venetian officers only. To amuse the governor and

his suite they distributed among themselves the different roles of men

and women, and upon some given theme they improvised those comedies

which are so much to the taste of Italians. What a chance there was for

individual talent to reveal itself! Gozzi created spontaneously his own

role--it was that of an Illyrian chambermaid--and in it he used the

Dalmatian _patois_ with such dexterity, he railed at feminine foibles

with so much _finesse_, and, using recent social scandals, he touched

the whole with such apt satire, that he had an immense success. The role

of the fictitious chambermaid won universal admiration. Ladies of rank

inquired who was that inimitable young man, and expressed the wish to

have presented to them the amateur actor. Their disappointment was

unconcealed upon finding him reserved in manner, simple, and almost

timid and taciturn. We appreciate his surprise when he tells us, "I

wondered that my love of study, my chaste tastes, some literary

aptitude, and some serious views of life above those of my age did not

produce as favorable an impression upon the sex as did my fancy dress of

a Dalmatian chambermaid and my skill in gymnastic performances. But,

then, had I yet gone down into the inextricable depths of the feminine

mind? and was I already acquainted with the laws that rule the magnetic

attractions of the most bizarre of brains?"

The stories Gozzi tells us of life in Dalmatia have a fresh, primitive

flavor. No one ever told them before him. Their bloom is untouched, and

much of the pleasure one has in reading them comes from that. Some of

his pictures of manners are as crisp and as vivid as a fine etching.

At the time of his residence there that little, out-of-the-way corner of

Europe had not yet been awakened from the stupor of its feudal sleep,

nor had the faintest breath of modern ideas so much as rippled over the

sullen surface of hereditary slavery to traditional customs. From time

immemorial the habits of the people were the same, and singularly

uninfluenced by the presence of the gay gallants of Venice who were

stationed there. It is not difficult to imagine the distaste with which

they left all the enervating delights of their resplendent island of

marble, with its mantling of sunlight and the tranquil beauty of its

dreamy days, for tedious exile among an inhospitable and untamed

population, the severe silence and sombre forests or the monotony of

barren rocks. "If you have read your Virgil or Homer," Gozzi tells us,

"you have seen Illyrians. These people are quite as pagan in their rites

of marriage and the burying of their dead as any people of pagan

antiquity. One of their favorite national games consists in lifting a

tremendous disk cut out of marble and hurling it to a great distance. Is

not this Diomedes and Turnus?

"Contempt weighs down upon every family who has not had several of its

men killed, or has not executed cruel vengeance on the right and on the

left, or has not been itself the object of outrageous retaliation. It

was not long before I had the opportunity to ascertain the truth of what

the old priest had told me as we walked together under the walls of the

city.

"A woman about fifty years old came one day and threw herself at the

feet of the governor. From her shoulder hung down a cumbrous gamebag,

and out of it she pulled a mass of hair clinging to a dried-up skull:

then, placing the hideous object before the governor, she struck her

head against the ground, crying, 'Justice! justice!' I inquired what

could possibly be the motive of so extraordinary an exhibition, and I

learnt that the skull was that of the woman's mother, who was

assassinated _thirty years before_--that the murderers had been

executed, but that the greed for vengeance not being yet appeased in

that wild daughter of Dalmatia, she had never failed to repeat the same

ceremony at the installation of each successive governor, always

exhibiting the same thirst for avenging herself upon the family of her

enemies, the same gamebag and the same skull!"

"It was impossible to have introduced into Dalmatia any such

agricultural reform or innovation as would have ameliorated the

cultivation of its fertile plains. The Dalmatian peasants were wedded to

the unintelligent routine of their forefathers, and in their ideas or

apprehension of things no landmark was ever removed. But, then, is the

mere industry which clears the soil of any good if courage and

intelligence do not second and direct material labor? Why do we so

little care for the improvement of men? Machines and inventions are not

a sufficient development: it is the heart and the mind which should be

worked upon, changed, electrified into new activity. Will men never

comprehend that civilization can never begin except at the soul, and

that whatever is purely material must ever be overruled by what is

intellectual?" This was written nearly a century and a half ago.

The series of little pictures which Gozzi has left us of those days,

when upon his return from Dalmatia he realized the abasement into which

the family had finally fallen, are most vivid, and remind us of the

honest realism of the Dutch painters. And the charm of Gozzi's writings

lies precisely in that sense of genuineness which more than anything

else inspires us with trust in a writer. You feel sure that whatever he

relates is the thing he has himself observed or felt, just as it

happened. All the puerile inconsistency of an age not fecundated by any

belief, in which a strong religious sense is replaced by childish

superstition and bold materialism, is admirably rendered in the episode

of the death of the old senator Almore Cesare Tiepolo. He was a man of

great benevolence, and he distinguished himself from his peers by a rare

courtesy of manner toward his servants and the people of that class. It

happened one day that as he was stepping out of his gondola his foot

caught in the folds of his senatorial robe, and he fell down. In trying

to hold him up his gondolier let go the oar, which struck Tiepolo's arm

and broke it. He, however, showed no sign of pain and no irritation

toward his man, but quietly walked home and sent for the surgeon. Forty

days he was kept motionless in bed, and during all that time the same

unalterable regard for the feelings of others made him gentle and

uncomplaining and grateful for the care he received. But the old

Venetian loved a good table; so every morning he had his gondolier come

to his bedside and tell him what fish was in the market, how it looked,

how much it cost; and, giving himself up to his culinary enthusiasm with

the appreciative appetite of a connoisseur, he established the relative

merit of the different fish and discussed their flavor, till one day,

while he was engaged in his favorite morning occupation, the end of

things came for him, and Almore Cesare Tiepolo turned his face toward

the wall, like the prophet of old, and, surrendering himself to acts of

fervid contrition with the aid of his confessor, he obtained a last

parting benediction and died.

Two writers, two rival would-be poets, and critics one of the other,

held then the literary sway over Venice. One was the licentious and

unscrupulous Abbe Chiari, who imitated with a certain success the

artificial manner of the brilliant French writers of the day: the other

was Goldoni, then at the height of his fame. It is difficult for us,

placed as we are so far from that tinselly age, to form an idea of the

fever and furore of admiration which raged in Venice for these two men.

A deluge of adulatory literary expression poured on every side in the

shape of comedies, tragedies, plays, sonnets, poems, songs and

apologies, all of them inflating with a fervid enthusiasm the

inflammable youth of the most mobile of populations. The comedies of

Goldoni were the fashion. They were found in everybody's hands, in

ladies' rooms, on shop counters and on the benches of workmen. The plain

literal copy of Nature, the unblushing _sans-gene_ of a sportive

cynicism, pleased the indolent imagination of the blase and immoral

Venetians. And the infatuation was carried so far that a certain abbe,

the fashionable preacher of the day, boasted that he preached his Lent

sermons only after he had read a comedy of Goldoni!

Gozzi fell in the very midst of that literary ebullition, and watched

curiously its ephemeral duration; for, like a brilliant soap-bubble

blown by merry children, it soon vanished into nothing. Even Goldoni

could not retain his hold on minds which, if they knew it not, needed a

more satisfying nourishment than the uninspiring, material rendering of

characters overcharged with vices or virtues inharmoniously collocated.

Gozzi, persecuted by extreme poverty, stepped on the scene with the

determination and the power to substitute for works full of defects and

cynical in their influence his own conceptions of life. It was throwing

the glove in the face of popular favor, and it opened literary

skirmishes which lasted from 1757 to 1761, and determined his vocation

as a a writer of plays and a theatrical manager. If we remember how

minds had lost all nice critical perception, and had become too confused

to distinguish between a good and a bad literary style, having

accustomed themselves to admire at large whatever served for amusement,

we shall better understand what was the task that Gozzi took upon

himself, and appreciate the way he fulfilled it. His work was the

creation of a national theatre. He used his vivid imagination and the

ingenious turn of his fancy to personify the pet vices and the fatal

frivolity of the Venetians. He created fantastic beings, brilliant

caricatures and grotesque characters. They made a hit and became popular

favorites.

His plays, written especially for the dramatic troupe which he had taken

under his paternal protection, and which he loved, cared for, watched

over during twenty-five years of his life, are a strong and spicy satire

upon the follies of the eighteenth century--a subtle and sagacious

criticism of its universal immorality. Our humorist was greatly aided in

the prosecution of his work by the sustained rectitude of his own life.

With the naive confidence of a child he relates to us some of his

strange experiences of men and of women--mostly of women--and we feel

sorry when he is so cruelly and so unnecessarily deceived, and he must

lose his implicit trust in that young prima donna in whose purity of

soul he so unreservedly believed. How many years he had seen her, day

after day, first as a mere girl, then as a young wife and a young

mother, and always surrounding her with the homage of his admiration and

of his respect! She appears like one of those enshrined figures one is

surprised to find in out-of-the-way places, and which, after all, have

to be left to other eyes. Gozzi came very near losing the dignity of his

mental quietude--and that in spite of his mature age, for he was then

nearly fifty--in a Don Quixotism well worthy of a man who had so deeply

immersed his fancy in the fount of the Spanish drama, and whose head was

filled with romantic adventures. A strange, an almost unaccountable,

devotion bound him during five years to the erratic destiny of Ricci.

Yet his affection for her did not go beyond a sustained solicitude for

her welfare and an active interest in the development of her talent. For

a long time he blindly believed in her moral capacities, and he went to

work with the hope of winning her permanently to a pure and an elevated

life. It is touching to watch him centring his whole interest and

placing his paternal pride in that delusive will-o'-the-wisp glimmer of

goodness which must inevitably lead hope astray. Gozzi broke off his

friendship for her the day he found out she was less than he expected

her to be. But this time he did not laugh, though he tells his readers

that they may well laugh at him for his credulity, his childish,

untaught experience, his romantic effort to believe in and to create an

impossible ideal.

What makes Gozzi's memoirs so interesting is, above all, their vitality.

A fresh, bounding current of life runs through them, and while watching

it you take no notice of those _debris_ of character which an austere

moralist would surely count up and remember. In the midst of extreme

licentiousness, Gozzi endeavored to awaken in the Venetians a sense of

the dignity of existence by placing before their eyes tangible ideas of

virtue. The public is a materialist by right of usage, and therefore

prefers the reality of the theatre to all other forms of teaching or of

amusement. Rouge and tinsel have the gift of persuasion. Gozzi felt that

instinctively, and few play-writers have been more successful as an

influence than he was. At the avenue of every new sensation, and gifted

with a quick-catching sense of gayety, he lost nothing of the play which

men and women enacted before him. He observed, he listened carefully:

nothing escaped the grasp of his constructive and fanciful mind. His

daily walks through the most populous streets; his habitual lingering

around the fashionable shops where pretty modistes attracted the idle

admiration of idlers; his morning visit to the Rialto, and his

never-failing appearance on the Piazza when everybody was assembled

there in the afternoon,--these were the varied sources of his study of

his contemporaries and also of his dramatic inspiration. Though at that

time there were several playhouses in Venice, and going to the theatre

was then, as it is now, the favorite way of spending the evening, no

theatre was so well patronized and so crowded as that of San Samuele,

where Venetian nobles and high-born women dazzled the eye of the people

with their splendor, while an unbounded admiration welcomed some new

play from the well-known, the genial and much-loved Count Carlo Gozzi.

And yet, reading these same plays, may we not somewhat wonder at the

extravagant praise that was showered upon them in those far-off days?

They are sketchy, sparkling, interesting by their movement and color.

Like a piece of faceted glass they catch and radiate light. But they are

not distinguished by any originality of thought nor by a profound and

far-reaching philosophy. They are society-studies, an exact portraying

of what was considered _le beau monde_. Gozzi had too much common sense

and too much honesty of nature not to be very much shocked by the avowed

cynicism which it was the fashion then to parade. He takes pains to aim

against it the full and spicy expression of his disfavor, considering it

as a fatal outgrowth of French infidelity. Therefore he deserves to be

considered a moral writer. The freedom of his language is only the seal

of realism affixed to his writings, such as we find it in Shakespeare.

Nothing could be more unlike and dissimilar in the after-taste which

they leave on the mental palate than these very plays which we are

considering and any French play of our own time. In Gozzi the moralist

lines the writer, and that, perhaps more than anything else, establishes

the different character of his literary influence from that of Goldoni.

He says that he wrote his plays for his own pleasure first, and with a

wish to illustrate for his fellow-citizens a joyous and wholesome moral.

One hundred years ago one of the most famous comedies of Gozzi was given

to the Venetian public. _Le Droghe d'Amore_ ("Love's Potion") caused so

much perturbation in its author, and so much excitement and importance

in the Venetian people, so much manoeuvring and intriguing was set to

work for and against it, and so much more was said and felt and suffered

about it, that for its adventurous _entree_ into the world, if for

nothing else, it deserves a special notice. What was, then, the cause of

all this stirring-up of passions and of prejudices? And how could it

happen that an inoffensive dramatic representation of character should

have proved the spark which suddenly set on fire a perfect powder-house

of human interests? It occurred in this manner: On the night of the

first representation the Venetian public recognized in the character of

Don Adone the well-known and fashionable figure of Pietro Gratarol,

secretary of the august Senate of Venice, and, in spite of such a

charge, one of the most unscrupulous profligates and successful _roues_

of the time. Young as he was, and handsome, he had acquired the marked

reputation of an exquisite in the salons of Venice, where he was a

leader and used the prestige of his influence to introduce foreign

customs. No man was more universally known in every grade of society

than he was, and his _bonnes fortunes_ as a gambler and as a man of

pleasure formed an important subject of the daily conversation of the

men and women who dispensed public favor. He was therefore a conspicuous

person, and whatever happened to him became an object of general

interest to people as frivolous as he. It was of course impossible for

him to remain indifferent to the spectacle of his own ridicule placed

before the laughter of the public. His indignation was immense, and with

the help of such of his admirers as he could rally around him he formed

a clique bent upon destroying Gozzi as a writer. They employed every

means of calumny to effect it, but failed. The piece, which for a time

had been withdrawn by superior order, was again given, and was received

with triumphant applause. It was something gained to have in a manner

brought the censorship to terms and forced it to change its verdict. The

star of Gratarol set for ever. He was no longer admired, but he was

pitilessly laughed at or patronized with crushing compassion wherever he

appeared; and wounded self-love, wounded vanity, everything, combined to

excite a desire for revenge. But honest Gozzi had not intended any

personal allusion in the writing of his play, and was hardly responsible

for the characterization of a quick-witted public. Parties, however,

became so envenomed about the whole affair that Gratarol was finally

banished from Venice, on the ground of having slanderously attacked the

reputation of Gozzi in a pamphlet which was suppressed; and he withdrew

to Stockholm, where he died.

But for that episode of his picturesque life Gozzi would never have

given us his memoirs. He wrote them not from a motive of vanity, but

only to let the world have a fair chance of judging his character

correctly. Surely, a man as conspicuous as he was in his day had the

right to get a hearing before his contemporaries, and to leave unblurred

by prejudices or false impressions the mirror of public memory in which

his figure was to reflect itself.

When Aristophanes amused the Athenians with his satirical or comical

allusions to those great men of the republic who were his

contemporaries--Euripides, Plato, Socrates or Cleon--was he not mostly

prompted by his indomitable conservatism, which made him the avowed

enemy of all innovation in ideas and customs? It is that resemblance

between the Greek poet and the Venetian writer which has made some

critics call Gozzi the Aristophanes of the eighteenth century. He hated

the bold and sacrilegious hands of modern philosophy, because it pulled

down and trampled under foot the traditions and the usages which the

cherishing care of centuries had consecrated as the guiding-star of

honor in the heart of the people. He hated the inroad of foreign ideas

and of foreign independence in the conduct of life. He believed in the

sacredness of custom and authority, and he preached it _con amore_ in

all his writings.

Gozzi lived an isolated and studious life. He seldom left his old ruined

palace, where at night "dances of rats" alone disturbed his quiet,

except on his way to rehearsals or to the evening representations. No

man in Venice was more loved; and well might he be, for he gave bread

and support to the whole of that little dramatic world of which he was

the centre and the inspiration. As he never consented to sell his work,

he remained very poor. His habits were simple, and with his own

inimitable _naivete_ he confesses that the whole of his worldly care

consists in having the largest of silver buckles on his shoes and

keeping his wig in the fashion.

Venice during the eighty years of Gozzi's life was the Venice of

unprincipled, corrupt men and women. It had become a masked ball, a mad

pleasure-place, where intrigue and adventure gave the chief interest to

each day. In art, in letters and in the conduct of life the most

frivolous or trivial or fleeting occupations engaged the attention and

absorbed the time. The old men forgot the dignity of their age in a

puerile leisure, and the young men were dissipated and purposeless.

People had nothing to do but to laugh at each other and to play with the

passing moment; and the loss of all sense of moral responsibility left

them adrift in the midst of the most glorious of national memories. One

has to wonder at the strange indifference which settled over those

descendants of the illustrious men whose names are built into the

magnificent palaces on both sides of the Grand Canal; and there is

perhaps no greater lesson than that which may be learnt from studying

the private history of the noble patrician families of Venice of the

fifteenth and sixteenth centuries--men whose hearts were opened to all

great emotions--and by looking at the marionette life of the men and

women of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, such as it is

portrayed in the pictures of Longhi, where the _Chamber of Sighs_ never

empties itself of the opulent gamblers who patronized the Ridotto night

and day.

When Gozzi was a young man his first initiation into life had been a

repeated experience of the playful capriciousness of the sex, and he

never forgot it. What a commentary on the fair Venetians is his remark,

"I do not admit the possibility for a woman to know love"! In his eyes

she remains a being incapable of any grand and sustained sacrifice of

her instincts to the ennobling mastery of moral responsibility. In all

his dramas, plays and comedies there is but one character of a woman

which is at all magnetic or lovable--that of Angela, the heroine of the

play of the _Deer Ring_. It is a pleasure to meet at last that gentle

and guileless feminine personality after you have wearied of the tinsel

flimsiness, the bubbling frivolity, the sparkling emptiness of the

society-women who so turned the head of the age in which they lived, and

have so scandalously immortalized it.

Goldoni and Gozzi have both given us plays which show us that scandal

and intrigue were the favorite seasoning of the stale stuff of Venetian

life after it had lost its religion and its patriotic ideal. Triviality

for triviality, we prefer Gozzi.

As for Venice and her people, merely born to bloom and drop,

Here on earth they bore their fruitage: mirth and folly were the crop.

What of soul was left, I wonder, when the kissing had to stop?

H. M. BENSON.

HEINE.

BUCH DER LIEDER.

Pain brings us more than pleasure;

Tears comfort more than wine;

Grief's hands are full of treasure,

And sorrow is divine.

The nightingale that's making

Night happy with his strain,

His little heart is breaking:

He sings to still its pain.

Better than laughing folly,

Gay songs and wassail ale,

Thy tuneful melancholy,

O poet nightingale!

I have no ear for gladness

When thou with song dost make

Such rapture out of sadness--

Such transport of heart-break.

CHARLES QUIET.

THE MARQUIS OF LOSSIE.

BY GEORGE MACDONALD, AUTHOR OF "MALCOLM."