naturally a hospitable man. A guest is one of his daily wants. A
friendly face is a necessary of life, without which the heart is apt
to starve, or a luxury without which it grows parsimonious. Men who
are isolated from society by distance, feel these wants by an
instinct, and are grateful for an opportunity to relieve them. In
Meriwether the sentiment goes beyond this. It has, besides, something
dialectic in it. His house is open to everybody, as freely almost as
an inn. But to see him when he has had the good fortune to pick up an
intelligent, educated gentleman, and particularly one who listens
well!--a respectable, assentatious stranger!--All the better if he has
been in the Legislature, and better still, if in Congress. Such a
person caught within the purlieus of Swallow Barn, may set down one
week's entertainment as certain--inevitable, and as many more as he
likes, the more the merrier. He will know something of the quality of
Meriwether's rhetoric before he is gone.
Then again, it is very pleasant to see Frank's kind and considerate
bearing towards his servants and dependents. His slaves appreciate
this, and hold him in most affectionate reverence, and, therefore, are
not only contented, but happy under his dominion.
HIS WIFE.
Whilst Frank Meriwether amuses himself with his quiddities, and floats
through life upon the current of his humor, his dame, my excellent
cousin Lucretia, takes charge of the household affairs, as one who has
a reputation to stake upon her administration. She has made it a
perfect science, and great is her fame in the dispensation thereof!
Those who visited Swallow Barn will long remember the morning stir, of
which the murmurs arose even unto the chambers, and fell upon the ears
of the sleepers; the dry-rubbing of floors, and even the waxing of the
same until they were like ice;--and the grinding of coffee-mills;--and
the gibber of ducks and chickens and turkeys; and all the multitudinous
concert of homely sounds. And then, her breakfasts! I do not wish to be
counted extravagant, but a small regiment might march in upon her
without disappointment, and I would put them for excellence and variety
against anything that ever was served upon platter. Moreover, all things
go like clock-work. She rises with the lark, and infuses an early vigor
into the whole household. And yet, she is a thin woman to look upon, and
a feeble; with a sallow complexion, and a pair of animated black eyes
which impart a portion of fire to a countenance otherwise demure from
the paths worn across it, in the frequent travel of a low-country ague.
But, although her life has been somewhat saddened by such visitations,
my cousin is too spirited a woman to give up to them; for she is
therapeutical, and considers herself a full match for any reasonable
tertian in the world. Indeed, I have sometimes thought that she took
more pride in her leechcraft than becomes a Christian woman; she is even
a little vain-glorious. For, to say nothing of her skill in compounding
simples, she has occasionally brought down upon her head the sober
remonstrances of her husband, by her pertinacious faith in the efficacy
of certain spells in cases of intermittent. But there is no reasoning
against her experience. She can enumerate the cases--"and men may say
what they choose about its being contrary to reason, and all that;--it
is their way! But seeing is believing--nine scoops of water in the
hollow of the hand, from the sycamore spring, for three mornings, before
sunrise, and a cup of strong coffee with lemon-juice, will break an
ague, try it when you will." In short, as Frank says, "Lucretia will die
in that creed."
I am occasionally up early enough to be witness to her morning
regimen, which, to my mind, is rather tyrannically enforced against
the youngsters of her numerous family, both white and black. She is in
the habit of preparing some death-routing decoction for them, in a
small pitcher, and administering it to the whole squadron in
succession, who severally swallow the dose with a most ineffectual
effort at repudiation, and gallop off, with faces all rue and
wormwood.
Everything at Swallow Barn, that falls within the superintendence of
my cousin Lucretia is a pattern of industry. In fact, I consider her
the very priestess of the American system, for, with her, the
protection of manufactures is even more a passion than a principle.
Every here and there, over the estate, may be seen, rising in humble
guise above the shrubbery, the rude chimney of a log cabin, where all
the livelong day, the plaintive moaning of the spinning-wheel rises
fitfully upon the breeze, like the fancied notes of a hobgoblin, as
they are sometimes imitated in the stories with which we frighten
children. In these laboratories the negro women are employed in
preparing yarn for the loom, from which is produced not only a
comfortable supply of winter clothing for the working people, but some
excellent carpets for the house.
It is refreshing to behold how affectionately vain our good hostess is
of Frank, and what deference she shows to him in all matters, except
those that belong to the home department; for there she is confessedly
and without appeal, the paramount power. It seems to be a dogma with
her, that he is the very "first man in Virginia," an expression which
in this region has grown into an emphatic provincialism. Frank, in
return, is a devout admirer of her accomplishments, and although he
does not pretend to have an ear for music, he is in raptures at her
skill on the harpsichord, when she plays at night for the children to
dance; and he sometimes sets her to singing "The Twins of Latona,"
and "Old Towler," and "The Rose-Tree in Full Bearing" (she does not
study the modern music), for the entertainment of his company. On
these occasions, he stands by the instrument, and nods his head, as if
he comprehended the airs.
HOW HORSE-SHOE AND ANDREW CAPTURED FIVE MEN.
(_From Horse-Shoe Robinson, a Tale of the Tory Ascendancy in
S. C._[11])
[Mistress Ramsay speaking to Horse-Shoe Robinson:]
"Who should come in this morning, just after my husband had cleverly
got away on his horse, but a young cock-a-whoop ensign, that belongs
to Ninety-Six, and four great Scotchmen with him, all in red coats;
they had been out thieving, I warrant, and were now going home again.
And who but they! Here they were, swaggering all about my house--and
calling for this--and calling for that--as if they owned the
fee-simple of every thing on the plantation. And it made my blood
rise, Mr. Horse-Shoe, to see them run out in the yard, and catch up my
chickens and ducks, and kill as many as they could string about
them--and I not daring to say a word: though I did give them a piece
of my mind, too."
"Who is at home with you?" inquired the sergeant eagerly.
"Nobody but my youngest boy, Andrew," answered the dame. "And then,
the filthy, toping rioters--" she continued, exalting her voice.
"What arms have you in the house?" asked Robinson, without heeding the
dame's rising anger.
"We have a rifle, and a horseman's pistol that belongs to John.--They
must call for drink, too, and turn my house, of a Sunday morning, into
a tavern."
[Illustration: ~State House, Columbia, S. C.~]
"They took the route towards Ninety-Six, you said, Mistress Ramsay?"
"Yes,--they went straight forward upon the road. But, look you, Mr.
Horse-Shoe, you're not thinking of going after them?"
"Isn't there an old field, about a mile from this, on that road?"
inquired the sergeant, still intent upon his own thoughts.
"There is," replied the dame; "with the old school-house upon it."
"A lop-sided, rickety log-cabin in the middle of the field. Am I
right, good woman?"
"Yes."
"And nobody lives in it? It has no door to it?"
"There ha'n't been anybody in it these seven years."
"I know the place very well," said the sergeant, very thoughtfully;
"there is woods just on this side of it."
"That's true," replied the dame; "but what is it you are thinking
about, Mr. Robinson?"
"How long before this rain began was it that they quitted this house?"
"Not above fifteen minutes."
"Mistress Ramsay, bring me the rifle and pistol both--and the
powder-horn and bullets."
"As you say, Mr. Horse-Shoe," answered the dame, as she turned round
to leave the room; "but I am sure I can't suspicion what you mean to
do."
In a few moments the woman returned with the weapons, and gave them to
the sergeant.
"Where is Andy?" asked Horse-Shoe.
The hostess went to the door and called her son, and, almost
immediately afterwards, a sturdy boy of about twelve or fourteen years
of age entered the apartment, his clothes dripping with rain. He
modestly and shyly seated himself on a chair near the door, with his
soaked hat flapping down over a face full of freckles and not less
rife with the expression of an open, dauntless hardihood of character.
"How would you like a scrummage, Andy, with them Scotchmen that stole
your mother's chickens this morning?" asked Horse-Shoe.
"I'm agreed," replied the boy, "if you will tell me what to
do." . . . . . .
Horse-Shoe now loaded the fire-arms, and having slung the pouch across
his body, he put the pistol into the hands of the boy; then
shouldering his rifle, he and his young ally left the room. Even on
this occasion, serious as it might be deemed, the sergeant did not
depart without giving some manifestation of that lightheartedness
which no difficulties ever seemed to have the power to conquer. He
thrust his head back into the room, after he had crossed the
threshold, and said with an encouraging laugh, "Andy and me will teach
them, Mistress Ramsay, Pat's point of war--we will _surround_ the
ragamuffins."
"Now, Andy, my lad," said Horse-Shoe, after he had mounted Captain
Peter, "you must get up behind me. . . . ." . . . . By the time that
his instructions were fully impressed upon the boy, our adventurous
forlorn hope, as it may fitly be called, had arrived at the place
which Horse-Shoe Robinson had designated for the commencement of
active operations. They had a clear view of the old field, and it
afforded them a strong assurance that the enemy was exactly where they
wished him to be, when they discovered smoke arising from the chimney
of the hovel. Andrew was soon posted behind a tree, and Robinson only
tarried a moment to make the boy repeat the signals agreed on, in
order to ascertain that he had them correctly in his memory. Being
satisfied from this experiment that the intelligence of his young
companion might be depended upon, he galloped across the intervening
space, and, in a few seconds, abruptly reined up his steed, in the
very doorway of the hut. The party within was gathered around a fire
at the further end, and, in the corner near the door, were four
muskets thrown together against the wall. To spring from his saddle
and thrust himself one pace inside of the door, was a movement which
the sergeant executed in an instant, shouting at the same time--
"Halt! File off right and left to both sides of the house, and wait
orders. I demand the surrender of all here," he said, as he planted
himself between the party and their weapons. "I will shoot down the
first man who budges a foot."
"Leap to your arms," cried the young officer who commanded the little
party inside of the house. "Why do you stand?"
"I don't want to do you or your men any harm, young man," said
Robinson, as he brought his rifle to a level, "but, by my father's
son, I will not leave one of you to be put upon a muster-roll if you
raise a hand at this moment."
Both parties now stood, for a brief space, eyeing each other in
fearful suspense, during which there was an expression of doubt and
irresolution visible on the countenances of the soldiers, as they
surveyed the broad proportions, and met the stern glance of the
sergeant, whilst the delay, also, began to raise an apprehension in
the mind of Robinson that his stratagem would be discovered.
"Shall I let loose upon them, Captain?" said Andrew Ramsay, now
appearing, most unexpectedly to Robinson, at the door of the hut.
"Come on, boys!" he shouted, as he turned his face towards the field.
"Keep them outside of the door--stand fast," cried the doughty
sergeant, with admirable promptitude, in the new and sudden posture of
his affairs caused by this opportune appearance of the boy. "Sir, you
see that it's not worth while fighting five to one; and I should be
sorry to be the death of any of your brave fellows; so, take my
advice, and surrender to the Continental Congress and this scrap of
its army which I command."
During this appeal the sergeant was ably seconded by the lad outside,
who was calling out first on one name, and then on another, as if in
the presence of a troop. The device succeeded, and the officer within,
believing the forbearance of Robinson to be real, at length said:--
"Lower your rifle, sir. In the presence of a superior force, taken by
surprise, and without arms, it is my duty to save bloodshed. With the
promise of fair usage, and the rights of prisoners of war, I surrender
this little foraging party under my command."
"I'll make the terms agreeable," replied the sergeant. "Never doubt
me, sir. Right hand file, advance, and receive the arms of the
prisoners!"
"I'm here, captain," said Andrew, in a conceited tone, as if it were a
mere occasion of merriment; and the lad quickly entered the house and
secured the weapons, retreating with them some paces from the door.
"Now, sir," said Horse-Shoe to the Ensign, "your sword, and whatever
else you mought have about you of the ammunitions of war!"
The officer delivered his sword and a pair of pocket pistols.
As Horse-Shoe received these tokens of victory, he asked, with a
lambent smile, and what he intended to be an elegant and condescending
composure, "Your name, sir, if I mought take the freedom?"
"Ensign St. Jermyn, of his Majesty's seventy-first regiment of light
infantry."
"Ensign, your sarvant," added Horse-Shoe, still preserving this
unusual exhibition of politeness. "You have defended your post like an
old sodger, although you ha'n't much beard on your chin; but, seeing
you have given up, you shall be treated like a man who has done his
duty. You will walk out now, and form yourselves in line at the door.
I'll engage my men shall do you no harm; they are of a marciful
breed."
When the little squad of prisoners submitted to this command, and came
to the door, they were stricken with equal astonishment and
mortification to find, in place of the detachment of cavalry which
they expected to see, nothing but a man, a boy, and a horse. Their
first emotions were expressed in curses, which were even succeeded by
laughter from one or two of the number. There seemed to be a
disposition on the part of some to resist the authority that now
controlled them; and sundry glances were exchanged, which indicated a
purpose to turn upon their captors. The sergeant no sooner perceived
this, than he halted, raised his rifle to his breast, and at the same
instant, gave Andrew Ramsay an order to retire a few paces, and to
fire one of the captured pieces at the first man who opened his lips.
"By my hand," he said, "if I find any trouble in taking you, all five,
safe away from this here house, I will thin your numbers with your own
muskets! And that's as good as if I had sworn to it."
"You have my word, sir," said the Ensign. "Lead on."
"By your leave, my pretty gentlemen, you will lead and I'll follow,"
replied Horse-Shoe. "It may be a new piece of drill to you; but the
custom is to give the prisoners the post of honor."
"As you please, sir," answered the Ensign. "Where do you take us to?"
"You will march back by the road you came," said the sergeant.
Finding the conqueror determined to execute summary martial law upon
the first who should mutiny, the prisoners submitted, and marched in
double file from the hut back towards Ramsay's--Horse-Shoe, with
Captain Peter's bridle dangling over his arm, and his gallant young
auxiliary Andrew, laden with double the burden of Robinson Crusoe
(having all the fire-arms packed upon his shoulders), bringing up the
rear. In this order victors and vanquished returned to David Ramsay's.
"Well, I have brought you your ducks and chickens back, mistress,"
said the sergeant, as he halted the prisoners at the door; "and,
what's more, I have brought home a young sodger that's worth his
weight in gold."
"Heaven bless my child! my brave boy!" cried the mother, seizing the
lad in her arms, and unheeding anything else in the present
perturbation of her feelings. "I feared ill would come of it; but
Heaven has preserved him. Did he behave handsomely, Mr. Robinson? But
I am sure he did."
"A little more venturesome, ma'am, than I wanted him to be," replied
Horse-Shoe; "but he did excellent service. These are his prisoners,
Mistress Ramsay; I should never have got them if it hadn't been for
Andy. In these drumming and fifing times the babies suck in quarrel
with their mother's milk. Show me another boy in America that's made
more prisoners than there was men to fight them with, that's all!"
FOOTNOTE:
[11] By permission of G. P. Putnam's Sons, N. Y.
HUGH SWINTON LEGARÉ.
~1797=1843.~
HUGH SWINTON LEGARÉ (pronounced Le-gr[=e]e´) was born in Charleston,
South Carolina, of Huguenot and Scotch descent. He was educated at
South Carolina College which he entered at the age of fourteen, and
became an excellent scholar, especially in the languages both ancient
and modern. He studied law, and then completed his education in the
good old way by a course of travel and study in Europe. His learning
is said to have been almost phenomenal: he was one of the founders of
the "Southern Review."
On his return from Europe, 1820, he was elected to the State
Legislature: 1830, he was made Attorney-General of the State; from
1832 to 1836 he was _chargé d'affaires_ at Brussels; in 1836 he was
elected to Congress, and in 1841 appointed Attorney-General of the
United States. He died in Boston, whither he had gone to take part in
the Bunker Hill Celebration.
Chief-Justice Story said of him: "His argumentation was marked by the
closest logic; at the same time he had a _presence_ in speaking which
I have never seen excelled." See Life, by Paul Hamilton Hayne.
WORKS.
Essays, Addresses, &c.
Journal at Brussels.
Memoir and Writings, (edited by his sister, Mrs. Bullen).
COMMERCE AND WEALTH VS. WAR.
(_From a speech in the House, 1837._)
A people well clad and well housed will be sure to provide themselves
with all the other comforts of life; and it is the diffusion of these
comforts, and the growing taste for them, among all classes of society
in Europe, it is the desire of riches, as it is commonly called, that
is gradually putting an end to the destructive and bloody game of war,
and reserving all the resources hitherto wasted by it, for enterprises
of industry and commerce, prosecuted with the fiery spirit which once
vented itself in scenes of peril and carnage.
But, sir, the result of all this is that very inequality of wealth,
that accumulation of vast masses of it in a few hands, against which
we have heard so much said lately, as if it were something
inconsistent with the liberties, the happiness, and the moral and
intellectual improvement of mankind. Gigantic fortunes are acquired by
a few years of prosperous commerce--mechanics and manufacturers rival
and surpass the princes of the earth in opulence and splendor. The
face of Europe is changed by this active industry, working with such
mighty instruments, on so great a scale.
I have travelled in parts of the continent which the spirit of gain,
with its usual concomitants, industry and improvement, has invaded
since the peace, at an interval of fifteen years, and been struck with
the revolution that is going on. There is a singularly beautiful,
though rather barren tract of country between Liege and Spa, where, in
1819, my attention had been principally attracted by the striking
features of a mountainous region, with here and there a ruin of the
feudal past, and here and there a hovel of some poor hind,--the very
haunt of the "Wild Boar of Ardennes" in the good old times of the
House of Burgundy.
I returned to it in 1835, and saw it covered with mills and factories,
begrimed with the smoke and soot of steam-engines; its romantic beauty
deformed, its sylvan solitudes disturbed and desecrated by the sounds
of active industry, and the busy hum of men. I asked what had brought
about so great a change, and found that the author of it,--a man
having a more numerous band of retainers and dependents than any
baron bold of the fourteenth century, and in every respect more
important than many of the sovereign princes on the other side of the
Rhine--was an English manufacturer, who had established himself there
some twenty years ago, without much capital, and had effected all this
by his industry and enterprise.
Such, sir, is the spirit of the age; of course, in this young and
wonderfully progressive country, it is more eager and ardent--and
therefore occasionally extravagant--than anywhere else. But it is in
vain to resist it. Nay, I believe it is worse than vain. It is
evidently in the order of nature, and we must take it with all its
good and all its evils together.
DEMOSTHENES' COURAGE.
[_From the Essay on Demosthenes._]
The charge of effeminacy and want of courage in battle seems to be
considered as better founded. Plutarch admits it fully. His foppery is
matter of ridicule to Æschines, who, at the same time, in rather a
remarkable passage in his speech on the Crown, gives us some clue to
the popular report as to his deficiency in the military virtues of
antiquity. "Who," says he "will be there to sympathize with him? Not
they who have been trained with him in the same gymnasium? No, by
Olympian Jove! for, in his youth, instead of hunting the wild boar and
addicting himself to exercises which give strength and activity to the
body, he was studying the arts that were one day to make him the
scourge of the rich." Those exercises were, in the system of the
Greeks, . . . considered as absolutely indispensable to a liberal
education. That of Demosthenes was certainly neglected by his
guardians, and the probability is that the effeminacy with which he
was reproached meant nothing more than that he had not frequented in
youth the palestra and the gymnasium, and that his bodily training had
been sacrificed to his intellectual.
That he possessed moral courage of the most sublime order is passed
all question; but his nerves were weak. If the tradition that is come
down to us in regard to his natural defects as an orator is not a
gross exaggeration, he had enough to occupy him for years in the
correction of them. But what an idea does it suggest to us of the
mighty will, the indomitable spirit, the decided and unchangeable
vocation, that, in spite of so many impediments, his genius fulfilled
its destiny, and attained at last to the supremacy at which it aimed
from the first! His was that deep love of ideal beauty, that
passionate pursuit of eloquence in the abstract, that insatiable
thirst after perfection in art for its own sake, without which no man
ever produced a masterpiece of genius. Plutarch, in his usual graphic
style, places him before us as if he were an acquaintance,--aloof from
the world; immersed in the study of his high calling, with his brow
never unbent from care and thought; severely abstemious in the midst
of dissoluteness and debauchery; a water-drinker among Greeks; like
that other Agonistes, elected and ordained to struggle, to suffer, and
to perish for a people unworthy of him:--
"His mighty champion, strong above compare,
Whose drink was only from the liquid brook."
Let any one who has considered the state of manners at Athens just at
the moment of his appearance upon the stage of public life, imagine
what an impression such a phenomenon must have made upon a people so
lost in profligacy and sensuality of all sorts. What wonder that the
unprincipled though gifted Demades, the very personification of the
witty and reckless libertinism of the age, should deride and scoff at
this strange man, living as nobody else lived, thinking as nobody else
thought; a prophet, crying from his solitude of great troubles at
hand; the apostle of the past; the preacher of an impossible
restoration; the witness to his contemporaries that their degeneracy
was incorrigible and their doom hopeless; and that another seal in the
book was broken, and a new era of calamity and downfall opened in the
history of nations.