CHAPTER VI.

What a glorious night! How dazzling look the shining sand, the

glistening water, in the moon’s mellow rays which fall now so brightly

upon them, and bathing in its effulgence those two youthful figures who

are pacing to and fro on the ramparts of Fortress Monroe, nearest the

bay. The lady was gazing on the ground, and he—into her lovely face.

’Twas Edith and Lennard!

Vainly had he sought the interview during the day, but he could only see

her the centre of an admiring circle, for Edith was decidedly the “star

of beauty” and the “belle” amid the many who thronged the crowded

saloons of the Hygeia Hotel. At last she promised to walk with him; and

directly after tea had she gone with Charles to the garrison, and there,

’neath that brightly shining moon, had he told her of his fault—of his

love.

And Edith?

She like a _true_ woman forgave him, for she loved _much_. At first,

however, she made him writhe under her assumed inconstancy, until she

saw his agony, and then, when almost in despair of regaining his lost

treasure—her love—came her forgiveness, like the manna to the starving

Israelites. Adding, by way of _coda_ to her musical words, the laughing

exhortation, “To be a good boy, and she would—_try to love him_.”

A week later finds them _en route_ for A——, Charles Lennard

accompanying them; for he is as eager to ratify his engagement _now_ as

he was before to free himself. He had told Bel Ashton, the day after the

ball, of his engagement, and _she did not break her heart_, but was soon

as gay and as graceful as ever, “winning golden opinions” from all sorts

of people, for Mr. Ashton was very wealthy, and Bel was his only child!

Mrs. Morton was very much astonished to see Edith return so full of

happiness, and bringing back, as “quiet as a lamb,” the recreant knight.

Nor did she advert to the letter or Edith’s protestation, but once, and

that was when preparing for their marriage, she exclaimed with a smile:

“So, Edith, instead of coming back to love no one but your mother, you

only return to fill my hands full of labor and perplexity, and _my_

heart full of grief at the thoughts of parting with you, even for a

while.”

* * * * *

LINES,

SUGGESTED BY ROGERS’ STATUE OF RUTH.

BY THOMAS BUCHANAN READ.

From age to age, from clime to clime,

A spirit, bright as her own morn,

She walks the golden fields of Time,

As erst amid the yellow corn.

A form o’er which the hallowed veil

Of years bequeaths a lovelier light,

As when the mists of morning sail

Round some far isle to make it bright.

And as some reaper ’mid the grain,

Or binder resting o’er his sheaf,

Beheld her on the orient plain,

A passing vision, bright and brief;

And while he gazed let fall perchance

The sheaf or sickle from his hand—

Thus even here, as in a trance,

Before her kneeling form I stand.

But not as then she comes and goes

To live in memory alone;

The perfect soul before me glows

Immortal in the living stone.

And while upon her face I gaze

And scan her rarely rounded form,

The glory of her native days

Comes floating o’er me soft and warm;—

Comes floating, till this shadowy place

Brightens to noontide, and receives

The breath of that old harvest space

With all its sunshine and its sheaves!

It is a form beloved of yore,

And when that passed the name breathed on;

But now the form lives as before

To charm even though the name were gone.

And though the future years may dim

And mar this lovely type of Truth,

Through every action, feature, limb,

The breathing stone shall whisper Ruth!

* * * * *

FERDINAND DE CANDOLLES.

Of all the social miseries of France, none are more fruitful in

catastrophes of every kind than the idle uselessness of the well-born,

and the over-education of those who are not so. France being, as one of

her writers observes, the China of Europe, her habits, customs, and

traditions, endure, in fact, through the organized destruction of

succeeding revolutions, and whilst throne after throne lies in the dust,

the prejudices of that fictitious universe called the world, are

standing still, fixed, firm, and uprising in inflexible strength from

roots that plunge deep into the soil. For instance, the old idea that a

_gentilhomme_ or a _Grand Seigneur_ should not know how to spell,

although obsolete as far as grammar and orthography are concerned, lives

on yet in the notion that a gentleman _must not work_. This has hitherto

proved an uneradicable opinion, and the general incapability and

instinctive laziness of the upper classes in France, can, alas! amply

testify to its prevalence throughout the country. It is not that the

aristocracy of France are wanting in talent or intelligence; on the

contrary, they have far more of what may be called native capacity than

the classes beneath them—but they are unpractical, unbusiness-like,

unused to any things in the shape of affairs. They are admirable if

always in the first place, but rebel at the bare thought of helping on

the governing machine in its hidden wheels; and whilst with us every

public office counts gentlemen by the dozen, and noble names are to be

found even in the most unconspicuous, though useful places; in France an

ancient family would think itself degraded if one of its sons were to be

discovered amongst the workers of a bureau.

The following tale, the circumstances of which are yet uneffaced from

many a memory in Paris, will perhaps serve to exemplify the sad truth of

what I advance, and give a slight notion of the immediate action of

certain false principles upon our neighbors’ mind. The hero of the

ensuing pages, Ferdinand de Candolles, was the last scion of one of the

most ancient houses in France. Ferdinand’s father died whilst the boy

was in early infancy, and the entire charge of her son, whom she

idolized, fell upon Madame de Candolles. At eighteen, Ferdinand was a

tall, handsome youth, prodigiously proud of his name, highly romantic in

his notions, ready to do battle with any given number of individuals in

honor of _Dieu, le Roi, ou sa fame_, making a terrible quantity of bad

verses, but as incapable of explaining to you M. de Villèle’s last

financial measure, or the probable influence of the increasing growth of

beet-root sugar upon the colonial markets, as he would have been of

expounding the doctrines of Confucius in Chinese.

The Revolution of 1830, fell like a thunder-bolt upon France, and the

Bourbons of the elder branch allowed themselves to be driven from their

post. The elements of revolution had been for the last seven or eight

years fermenting far more in society, in the arts and in literature,

than in the political sphere; and Ferdinand, with all his heart and soul

a devoted royalist, as far as the government was concerned, was naïvely

and unsuspectingly in every thing else, a determined revolutionist,

overthrowing intellectual dynasties, spurning authority, mocking at

control, gloating over Victor Hugo, George Sand, _e tutti quanti_, and

fancying the whole was quite compatible with the political faith he

would sooner have died than resign. Sometimes Madame de Candolles would

think very seriously of what could be the future career of her son, and

the word _Nothing!_ emblazoned in gigantic ideal letters, was the only

answer her imagination ever framed. In 1832, it so happened that the now

prefect named in the department, was an old friend of the widow’s

family—a _bourgeois_, it is true, still a respectable man, whose father

and uncle had, in very difficult times, rendered more than one signal

service to Madame de Candolles’ own parents. M. Durand and his wife drew

Ferdinand and his mother as much about them as they possibly could, and

whenever he found an occasion of insinuating any thing of the kind into

the widow’s ear, the well-intentioned préfet would talk seriously, nay,

almost paternally, of her son’s future, and the little it seemed likely

to offer him. One day, after a conversation in which Madame de Candolles

had more freely than usual admitted the barrenness of the lad’s

prospects, M. Durand contrived to lead her insensibly toward the notion

of some employment whereby a becoming existence might be insured, hinted

that there were positions where political opinions need be no obstacle,

to which the nomination even did not emanate directly from the

government, and ended by proposing to invest Ferdinand with the dignity

of head librarian to the _Bibliothèque de la Ville_, a place yielding

some hundred and fifty pounds a year, and just left vacant by the death

of Madame Durand’s nephew. Madame de Candolles’ surprise was scarcely

surpassed by her indignation, and, though she managed to cover both by a

slight veil of politeness, there was in her refusal a degree of

haughtiness that went well-nigh to disturb the honest préfet’s

equanimity. As to Ferdinand, he did not exactly know, when the offer was

first made clear to him, whether he ought not to take down a certain

sword worn at Marigny by his ancestor, Palamède de Candolles, and punish

M. Durand with positive loss of life for his audacity; but, when what he

called _reason_ returned, he determined simply by the frigid dignity of

his manners in future to make the _bourgeois_ functionary of Louis

Philippe feel the full extent of his mistake, and bring him to a proper

consciousness of the wide difference between their relative positions.

Nor was this all; one day, some six months after, Madame de Candolles

took occasion to pay a visit to the préfecture, and leading M. Durand

aside, to solicit him for the still unfilled post of librarian, in favor

of Ferdinand’s foster-brother, a market-gardener’s son! He was, she

said, an exceedingly clever young man, knew Latin, Greek, and all sorts

of things, had just served his time in a notary’s office, and would be

the very thing for the situation proposed!—(successor to Madame

Durand’s own nephew!) The préfet was sufficiently master of himself to

refuse politely, alleging that he had already made choice of a

librarian; but when Madame Durand heard the story, she vowed undying

hatred to all aristocrats, and whenever she afterward met Madame de

Candolles, tossed her plumed head as though she had been a war-horse. So

ended our hero’s first and only chance of official employment, rejected,

we have seen with what disdain. He had then attained the age of

twenty-three.

In the course of the following year General de Candolles died, leaving

all he possessed to his nephew. This “all” was not much, still it was

something—some twenty-odd thousand francs, or so—and if the widow had

lived long enough, it might have increased; but, unfortunately, before

Ferdinand had reached the age of twenty-five, his mother also died,

leaving him completely—positively “alone in the world.” With what

Madame de Candolles left (her chief resources had come from a small

annuity) Ferdinand found himself at the head of about two thousand

pounds sterling. With two thousand francs a year, which this would

yield, he might have lived comfortably enough in any part of the

provinces, and indulged in a quiet laugh at the préfet, who wanted to

make a _bibliothécaire_ of him. But, of course, such sensible

arrangements did not enter into his head. He was (the _naïf_ royalist

and aristocrat!) wild with admiration of “Hernani” and _le Roi s’amuse_,

and for the moment thought of little beyond the soul-stirring delights

of seeing Bocage in _Antony_, or Madame Dorval in _Marion Delorme_. To

Paris, of course, tended all his desires, and to Paris he accordingly

went, as soon as the first months of mourning were expired, and he had

put what he termed order into his affairs.

We will not dive into the details of his existence in the great capital

during the first period of his residence there. Suffice it to say, that

the literary mania soon possessed him entirely, and he dreamt of little

short of European fame. Here, indeed, thought he, was a career into

which he might throw himself with all his energy. Lamartine and De Vigny

were gentlemen like himself, and there was in poetry nothing to sully

his escutcheon. Unfortunately, Ferdinand mistook for talent the means

afforded him by his purse for drawing flatterers about him, and for some

time he bought his most fatal illusions with his positive substance.

Dinners to journalists, and parties of pleasure with all the world, soon

reduced his capital considerably, but what did that matter? when he

should be famous, publishers would besiege him, laying thousands at his

feet for a fortnight’s labor. He was already the acknowledged idol of

certain _salons_, and when the tragedy he had written should be

performed, his name would be glorious throughout the world. By dint of

pecuniary sacrifices, the performance of this play at the Théâtre

Français had been obtained, and what with newspaper scribblers,

_claqueurs_, actresses, and human leeches of every sort who fastened

upon his pocket, the author found himself, half an hour before the

curtain drew up, on the fancied dawn of his glory, literally deprived of

every farthing he possessed, except one solitary five-franc piece in his

waistcoat pouch. Ferdinand smiled gayly on perceiving this, and thought

what a strange thing fortune was, and fame, too, and how, on the morrow,

he should be on the high road to riches!

Well, to cut the matter short, the tragedy was a dead failure, as it

merited to be, and before the last act was ended, Ferdinand’s golden

dreams were rudely dispelled, and he clutched the _pièce de cent sous_

in his waistcoat-pocket as though it were to save him from going crazy.

When the curtain dropped he escaped from the theatre unseen, muffled up

in his cloak like some criminal flying from detection. But his fate was

lying in wait for him. As he turned round the corner of the house which

led into the least frequented of the surrounding streets, he perceived

three or four carriages waiting for their occupants, and he stood for an

instant, hesitating whether to go backward or forward. At that moment, a

ray from the _réverbère_ fell upon the face of a lady who, enveloped in

mantle and hood, was waiting for the arrival of her equipage. Ferdinand

had never seen that face before, but he stood riveted to the spot, for

something in his heart whispered, _it is she—the one_! The preceding

carriages received their respective charges, and whirled them off; the

last one drew up, and the door was opened by the footman—the lady

dropped her glove, whilst turning to bid adieu to her companion.

Ferdinand, unconscious that he had sprung to her side, raised it up, and

offered it to its owner. “Thank you, Armand,” said she, “what a wretched

stupid play—was it not?” and then turning round—“A thousand pardons,

monsieur!” she exclaimed, “I mistook you for another person;” and so,

with a bow, she entered her carriage, and the door closed with a bang.

Ferdinand stood upon the spot where he had seen her stand, until a

_sergent de ville_ touched him on the arm, and told him to move on.

“_What a wretched stupid play!—was it not?_” the sentence rang in his

ear, but brought with it the echo of the tone—that magic sound that had

struck upon the chords of his secret soul, and under whose vibration

they were still striking their response—the honeyed voice, not the hard

words, had wounded him, and he confessed that, though deadly, the poison

was nectar to the taste.

Day after day, hour after hour, did Ferdinand spend in the vain attempt

to discover his unknown idol, and the less he succeeded in the

enterprise, the more the object of his pursuit became lovely in his

eyes, and was surrounded with ideal charms. It would be useless to enter

into the painful details of Ferdinand’s life during this period.

The day after the failure of his tragedy, the Marquise de Guesvillers,

an ancient dowager of the Faubourg St. Germain, and his chief

_prôneuse_, sent to beg the discomfited author would come dine with her

_tête-à-tête_. Ferdinand had a reason now for desiring to explore to the

utmost extent the upper regions of society, and he accepted the

invitation. The old lady greeted him with a half-benevolent,

half-mischievous smile—“My dear child,” said she, when the servant had

closed the door, “now that Providence has saved you from becoming an

_homme de lettres_, we must try to make something of you. Heaven be

praised! pen and ink must have lost its charm for you at last;” (a pinch

of snuff,) “it seems your play was as bad as your enemy could wish;

Madame de Rouvion was there, and has just told me so—poor dear Hector

de Candolles,” (another pinch of snuff,) “if he could have guessed that

a great-grandson of his would write a play! But, however, that is over

now, and we have only to rejoice that things were no worse: when the

recollection of your _aventure_ shall have quite subsided, we will find

a wife for you, and settle you in life! Thank Heaven! you are cured of

your taste for pen and ink!” and these last words the good lady repeated

over and over again in the course of the evening, and each time with

remarkable satisfaction. Once or twice Ferdinand was tempted to shake

the monotonous little dowager to pieces, and shout in her ear—“Woman! I

must _live_ by pen and ink, or starve!” but the remembrance of _the

face_ he had seen the night before, froze the words on his tongue, and

he submitted to the torture in silence.

For months in the _salons_, whither Madame de Guesvillers carried him,

he sought out the object of his dreams, but she never appeared, and

Ferdinand went on leading _la vie de Bohème_, until hope began almost

entirely to fade away. One evening, he had, for the fiftieth time,

accepted an invitation to some _soirée_, where his indefatigable

patroness insisted upon his going; and he was, as usual, looking on

whilst others amused (or fancied they amused) themselves, when the

conversation of two ladies near him attracted his attention—he knew not

why.

“So Blanche Vouvray is come back at last?” said one.

“She is coming here to-night,” replied the other.

As the two talkers moved away, a certain movement might have been

observed toward the middle of the room, and many and loud greetings

welcomed a new comer, who seemed to have been long absent. Mysterious

magnetism of the heart! Ferdinand knew what had happened, and was

prepared, when he turned round, to recognize at last—standing in the

midst of a group, who were pressing eagerly around her—the _one_, so

long, so vainly sought; the vision that had risen over his ruin like a

star over the tempest-torn sea, that had come and vanished in the

momentous night, when it was proved to him that his sole resources, for

a bare existence, must depend, in future, upon hard, ignoble, unavowed

and insufficient toil!

There she stood—bright, beautiful and glad, beaming on all about her;

dispensing favors in look, gesture and smile, and inflicting wound after

wound on Ferdinand’s heart by the incomparably sweet voice that, do what

he would, seemed to his ear always to repeat—“_What a wretched, stupid

play!—is it not?_” It was the only link between them—the one sole sign

whereby she had acknowledged his existence.

How long the _soirée_ lasted, was what M. de Candolles never knew; he

simply thought it a time—it might be one protracted moment—during

which there was light; then, the light went out, and darkness spread

over every thing around. He would not ask to be presented to

Mademoiselle de Vouvray; he was content to watch her; and, when she was

gone, he mechanically closed his eyes, locked up his vision within his

inmost self, and then, re-awakening, went forth, to be once more alone

with his idea!

Time passed on, and Ferdinand’s passion increased with every hour. Three

or four times in the week he found means to feast his eyes upon the

object of his adoration, and the remaining days and nights were spent in

trying to draw poetic inspiration from what threatened to be the source

of something very nearly akin to madness. Ferdinand’s actual talent,

however, was of such a perfectly ordinary stamp, that it profited in no

degree by the strong element love afforded it, and one fine

morning—when he least expected it—a blow so stunning was dealt him

that his whole fabric of existence was well-nigh shivered to the earth.

The proprietor of the paper wherein, for the last year or two, M. de

Candolles had published anonymously the chief productions of his pen,

suddenly told him that he should in future be obliged to refuse his

contributions unless _signed by his own name_! M. de Candolles, he

urged, was known in many _salons_ of the _beau monde_, and probably what

he might write would be read by a good number of people, whereas the

lucubrations of _Jaques Bargel_—Ferdinand’s _pseudonyms_—only occupied

space, and brought neither fame nor money to the journal. M. de

Candolles received the announcement, which went near to show destitution

staring him in the face, with becoming fortitude. He would sooner have

died than allow his name to be dragged forward into publicity; and at

the thought of the elegant, aristocratical, disdainful lady of his

worship discovering that he lived by writing _feuilletons_, he felt the

very ground fail beneath his feet.

Ferdinand was, after the circumstance we have just related, reduced to a

species of misery even he had as yet not suspected. Unable to pay for

the lodging, small and dirty as it was, that he had hitherto inhabited,

he was now reduced to rent a small attic belonging to the collection of

servants’ rooms in a tolerably good-looking house. The one thought that

absorbed him was fear lest Blanche de Vouvray should discover the

necessities of his life. This, and this alone, combated the wild passion

wherewith she had inspired him. But he reckoned without feminine

instinct and feminine curiosity. Blanche de Vouvray had not been

half-a-dozen times in the same _salon_ with M. de Candolles, before she

felt she was adored, and her next feeling was one of considerable

anxiety to know how she should bring her slave to confess the charm.

Blanche was a person of irreproachable conduct; but still, it was

tiresome to be so evidently worshiped, and yet know nothing at all about

it!

Poor Ferdinand! The struggle for existence was rapidly wearing him out.

The want of almost every necessary of life, the constant recourse to a

morsel of bread, or a little rice, and a few potatoes, for daily food,

coupled with the perpetual tension of the brain, required to secure even

these, miserable as they were—all this was doing its deadly work, and

M. de Candolles’ health was visibly failing every day. One evening, this

was so plain to all eyes that, at Madame de Guesvillers’ house, many

good-natured persons told Ferdinand he really must take care, or they

should hear of his going off in a galloping consumption. An hour or two

later, some one opened a window behind where he was standing—

“Do not remain where you are—_pray_!” said a voice beside him. It was

timidly yet earnestly said—the sweet voice was unsteady, and there was

such an expression in the last word, “_Pray!_” Ferdinand turned without

answering: his eyes met Blanche de Vouvray’s—she looked down, but not

before she had involuntarily replied to his passionate and melancholy

glance.

M. de Candolles soon left the room. His brain was on fire, and he rushed

homeward like one possessed. Part of his prudence was gone. He snatched

up pen and ink, and _wrote_—wrote to _her_! All that Ferdinand had

never yet found, was found now—the hidden spring was reached, and the

tide of eloquence gushed forth, strong, rapid, irresistible.

Such a letter as few women have ever received was put, the next morning,

into Mademoiselle de Vouvray’s hands. The first effect of it was

electrical—she became confused, and like one in a dream; but, almost as

soon, the feminine instinct awoke, and involuntarily she admitted that

_her end was gained—he had spoken at last_! What lay beyond was

uncertain—might be dangerous, and had best be altogether set aside. She

would avoid M. de Candolles in future. This was not so easy: that very

night she met him in the vestibule of the _Grand Opera_, with little,

old Madame de Guesvillers on his arm. He bowed to, but did not look at

her; was cold, silent and reserved, and really did seem as though he had

one foot in the tomb. He would, perhaps, not live another year—that was

a shocking thought—and Blanche shivered as she rolled over the _Pont

Royal_ in her comfortable carriage. There could be no harm in answering

his letter from a certain point of view she now adopted, and accordingly

she did answer it, and a very virtuous, and consoling, and amiable

composition her answer was. From this moment the possibility of writing

tempted both; and, from time to time, they availed themselves of it,

though it never degenerated into a habit. Ferdinand’s pecuniary

resources growing less and less with every day, he literally _starved_

himself, in order to cover the extravagance of his _heart-expenses_. For

a bouquet dropped in at her carriage-window, as she drove from the

_Italiens_—for a perfume to put upon his own handkerchief, that she

should inhale, he constantly observed a four-and-twenty hours’ fast,

broken only by a crust of bread and a glass of water.

There were days, it cannot be denied, when the fair Blanche de Vouvray

admitted to herself that it might have been better for her never to have

seen M. de Candolles. His strange adoration captivated and preoccupied

her by its very strangeness, probably far more than if it had followed

the ordinary method in such cases.

One day, after saving during three weeks, and Heaven only knows with

what pains, the sum of fifteen francs, Ferdinand therewith secured the

loan of a really handsome horse, from one of the dealers in the Champs

Elysées. When the carriage came in view—than which there was no other

in the world for him—he made his steed execute certain evolutions

gracefully enough, for he was a remarkably good horseman, darted off

upon the road to the _Bois de Boulogne_, crossed once or twice the path

of the _calèche_ he was pursuing, received _one_ look of recognition,

_one_ sign from a small gloved hand, and was over-paid! That evening,

they met in the same _salon_: a lady—who was standing by the piano

whereon Blanche had just been playing a new waltz—asked Ferdinand

whether she had not seen him on horseback in the Champs Elysées.

“I thought I would try how it might suit me now,” was his reply: “but I

find it will not do; the exercise is too strong, and I am unequal to

it.” Blanche de Vouvray grew pale, and bent down to look over some

music.

“If riding is too much for his nerves,” observed—later in the evening,

to his neighbor—one of the beardless _lions_ who happened to be

present, “I should imagine such a monstrous quantity of cake must be

equally so!” and jumping forward to Ferdinand’s side—

“_Halte là, mon vieux!_” he exclaimed, with all the elegance and

atticism of _Mabille_ in his intonation. “Leave a little of that

_Savarin_ for me, will you? _Que diable!_ why, one would swear you

hadn’t eaten since yesterday!”

Ferdinand turned round suddenly upon the ill-bred youth, and in his

haggard glance there was a flash of positive ferocity: it was but a

flash, but to an observer it would have sufficed to testify the truth of

the horrid words uttered in jest. An instant after, the impression was

chased away, and a laugh was the only visible result of the incident;

but any one who could have decyphered what was engraven on M. de

Candolles’ countenance that night, would have seen that a convulsion so

violent had passed over his whole being; that reason was almost shaken

from its throne.

The constant recurrence of these violent emotions acted more and more

visibly each day upon Ferdinand’s wasted frame; and, at last, a moment

came when he disappeared altogether from his habitual haunts. Few marked

his absence, except a few women, in whose albums he wrote bad verses,

and for whom he procured autographs from great theatrical celebrities.

Upward of ten days passed, and M. de Candolles had not yet been heard

of. His old friend, Madame de Guesvillers, drove herself to his door,

and the answer at first was—as usual—that he was “_out_.” Two days

later, however, the porter admitted that he was in reality very ill, but

that the doctor had forbidden any one from visiting him, as the

slightest agitation or exertion might produce the worst effects. That

very evening, whilst her circle of _habitués_ was around her, Madame de

Guesvillers received a note from Ferdinand, expressing his gratitude for

her inquiries, but saying that his illness was little or nothing—a

cold—and that he hoped in a few days to be able to resume his place at

her tea-table. Blanche was present, heard the contents of the note, and

if it had been any one’s interest—which it luckily was not—to watch

her, would have betrayed by many little signs, her involuntary joy. But,

on returning home, that joy was turned to dismay. There was a letter,

too, for her—such a letter—it was written from a death-bed, and

contained a last farewell! She dismissed her maid, and sat through the

first hours of the night, with the letter lying before her. Every

feeling of commiseration, of womanly sympathy was touched, and the true

womanly wish to comfort and console aroused.

When she arose the next morning, it was with the determination to afford

the last sad alleviation in her power to the sufferings she had caused.

She accordingly, after attiring herself as modestly as possible, sallied

forth, and, on foot, reached M. de Candolles’ abode. Here, for a moment,

she paused, and her courage began to fail.

It was a bright, sunny morning, and it would have seemed that all the

shopkeepers in the street were determined to take their part of air and

light, for Blanche thought they were all congregated upon their

respective thresholds to see her pass. She blushed at every step, and

felt so confused, that more than once she had nearly stumbled. Before

entering the _porte cochere_ she stood an instant still, all the blood

rushed to her heart, and she was ready to faint, _lest she should be too

late_! When she had mastered this first strong emotion she began to

reflect upon the means of gaining the sufferer’s presence.

Blanche commenced her ascent, but when she reached the topmost stair of

the fifth flight, and saw before her the narrow, winding, dirty steps

that led to the last story, she paused, and began to wonder whither she

was going. How strange that M. de Candolles should live in such a place!

M. de Candolles, who was “one of her set,” and whom she had pictured to

herself surrounded by the same elegancies of life which, to the small

number of individuals she called _every body_ were indispensable!—what

could it mean, and where was she going?

She mounted the flight of stairs, and found herself in a long, winding

corridor, lighted by skylights placed at stated distances. Doors were on

either hand, and they were numbered. Blanche de Vouvray drew her silk

dress and her cachemire shawl closely around her, to avoid the contact

of the greasy looking wall. She was hesitating whether she would not

return at once, when a low moan, followed by a short, hollow cough,

struck her ear—all the woman’s pitying sympathy was instantaneously

re-awakened, and she advanced, her hand raised in order to knock.

But, reader, let us in a few words depict to you the scene that is yet

hidden by that closed door. On a miserable bed stretched upon a

_paillasse_ of straw, lies the invalid, upon whose pallid features a ray

of light falls mournfully after having filtered through a ragged piece

of green calico hung up before the dim pane of the roof-window. The

walls are dingy and bare; in one corner only hangs something in the form

of clothing, covered by an old square of ticking. On a broken-backed

straw chair at the bed-head, rests a broken tea-pot, apparently filled

with _tisane_; whilst upon a small table near the door are crowded

together papers and perfume-bottles, inkstands and soiled gloves, a

wash-hand basin and a candlestick, a hair-brush and two or three

books—the heterogeneous symbols of all the wretched inmate’s wants,

vanities and toil!

The night had been a bad one, and the morning sun brought but small

alleviation to Ferdinand’s sufferings, whilst the malady itself held him

prisoner in its clutches; the want of proper sustenance so weakened his

frame that it could oppose no resistance to disease. The brain, without

as yet precisely wandering, still from time to time created for itself

fair illusions, gentle dreams. _One_ form ever floated before

Ferdinand’s mental vision—far, far off, as in another sphere—and he

would stretch forth his arms toward the image, and longing, cry to it

for a look, a sign of recognition.

A knock came at his door, uncertain, timid, loud; why did they disturb

him?—Another knock!—He groaned forth the word to enter, and a hand was

laid upon the key.

“Come in,” he again peevishly repeated. The door opened!

To describe what passed in the minds of the two thus suddenly face to

face to one another, is impossible. All the squalid, ugly, poverty and

apparent degradation we have tried to depict, flashed like lightning

over Blanche de Vouvray’s comprehension—she stood aghast, but the

involuntary scream that escaped her was drowned in the violence of the

exclamation that burst from M. de Candolles’ lips. With one hand drawing

over him convulsively the blanket which was his only covering, and

waving the other imperiously—“Depart hence, depart,” he shrieked in

bitter agony, and with eyes that started with horror from their sockets.

The terror was mutual; and she who had come to console fled in dismay,

and he, who would have paid with his heart’s blood a touch of her hand,

drove her from him as ruthlessly as though she had been his deadliest

foe!

Ferdinand de Candolles did not die then; he went raving mad, was

confined at Charenton for many years, grew to be a harmless maniac, and

died in the year 1848. Blanche de Vouvray is still a reigning beauty in

the _salons_ of Paris, universally respected, and only known by a very

few as the heroine of this sad tale.

* * * * *

THE GHOST-RAISER.

My Uncle Beagley, who commenced his commercial career very early in the

present century as a bagman, _will_ tell stories. Among them, he tells

his Single Ghost story so often, that I am heartily tired of it. In

self-defense, therefore, I publish the tale in order that when next the

good, kind old gentleman offers to bore us with it, every body may say

they know it. I remember every word of it.

One fine autumn evening, about forty years ago, I was traveling on

horseback from Shrewsbury to Chester. I felt tolerably tired, and was

beginning to look out for some snug way-side inn, where I might pass the

night, when a sudden and violent thunder-storm came on. My horse,

terrified by the lightning, fairly took the bridle between his teeth,

and started off with me at full gallop through lanes and cross-roads,

until at length I managed to pull him up just near the door of a

neat-looking country inn.

“Well,” thought I, “there was wit in your madness, old boy, since it

brought us to this comfortable refuge.” And alighting, I gave him in

charge to the stout farmer’s boy who acted as ostler. The inn-kitchen,

which was also the guest-room, was large, clean, neat and comfortable,

very like the pleasant hostelry described by Izaak Walton. There were

several travelers already in the room—probably, like myself, driven

there for shelter—and they were all warming themselves by the blazing

fire while waiting for supper. I joined the party. Presently, being

summoned by the hostess, we all sat down, twelve in number, to a smoking

repast of bacon and eggs, corned beef and carrots, and stewed hare.

The conversation turned naturally on the mishaps occasioned by the

storm, of which every one seemed to have had his full share. One had

been thrown off his horse; another, driving in a gig, had been upset

into a muddy dyke; all had got a thorough wetting, and agreed

unanimously that it was dreadful weather—a regular witches’ sabbath!

“Witches and ghosts prefer for their sabbath a fine moonlight night to

such weather as this!”

These words were uttered in a solemn tone, and with strange emphasis, by

one of the company. He was a tall, dark-looking man, and I had set him

down in my own mind as a traveling merchant or pedler. My next neighbor

was a gay, well-looking, fashionably-dressed young man, who, bursting

into a peal of laughter, said:

“You must know the manners and customs of ghosts very well, to be able

to tell that they dislike getting wet or muddy.”

The first speaker giving him a dark, fierce look, said:

“Young man, speak not so lightly of things above your comprehension.”

“Do you mean to imply that there are such things as ghosts?”

“Perhaps there are, if you had courage to look at them.”

The young man stood up, flushed with anger. But presently resuming his

seat, he said calmly:

“That taunt should cost you dear if it were not such a foolish one.”

“A foolish one!” exclaimed the merchant, throwing on the table a heavy

leathern purse. “There are fifty guineas. I am content to lose them, if,

before the hour is ended, I do not succeed in showing you, who are so

obstinately prejudiced, the form of any one of your deceased friends;

and if, after you have recognized him, you allow him to kiss your lips.”

We all looked at each other, but my young neighbor, still in the same

mocking manner, replied:

“You will do that, will you?”

“Yes,” said the other—“I will stake these fifty guineas, on condition

that you will pay a similar sum if you lose.”

After a short silence, the young man said, gayly:

“Fifty guineas, my worthy sorcerer, are more than a poor college sizar

ever possessed; but here are five, which, if you are satisfied, I shall

be most willing to wager.”

The other took up his purse, saying, in a contemptuous tone:

“Young gentleman, you wish to draw back?”

“_I_ draw back!” exclaimed the student. “Well! if I had the fifty

guineas, you should see whether I wish to draw back!”

“Here,” said I, “are four guineas, which I will stake on your wager.”

No sooner had I made this proposition than the rest of the company,

attracted by the singularity of the affair, came forward to lay down

their money; and in a minute or two the fifty guineas were subscribed.

The merchant appeared so sure of winning, that he placed all the stakes

in the student’s hands, and prepared for his experiment. We selected for

the purpose a small summer-house in the garden, perfectly isolated, and

having no means of exit but a window and a door, which we carefully

fastened, after placing the young man within. We put writing materials

on a small table in the summer-house, and took away the candles. We

remained outside, with the pedler amongst us. In a low, solemn voice he

began to chant the following lines:

“What riseth slow from the ocean caves

And the stormy surf?

The phantom pale sets his blackened foot

On the fresh green turf.”

Then raising his voice solemnly, he said:

“You asked to see your friend, Francis Villiers, who was drowned, three

years ago, off the coast of South America—what do you see?”

“I see,” replied the student, “a white light arising near the window;

but it has no form; it is like an uncertain cloud.”

We—the spectators—remained profoundly silent.

“Are you afraid?” asked the merchant, in a loud voice.

“I am not,” replied the student, firmly.

After a moment’s silence, the pedler stamped three times on the ground,

and sang:

“And the phantom white, whose clay-cold face

Was once so fair,

Dries with his shroud his clinging vest

And his sea-tossed hair.”

Once more the solemn question:

“You, who would see revealed the mysteries of the tomb—what do you see

now?”

The student answered in a calm voice, but like that of a man describing

things as they pass before him:

“I see the cloud taking the form of a phantom; its head is covered with

a long veil—it stands still!”

“Are you afraid?”

“I am not!”

We looked at each other in horror-stricken silence, while the merchant,

raising his arms above his head, chanted in a sepulchral voice:

“And the phantom said, as he rose from the wave,

He shall know me in sooth!

I will go to my friend, gay, smiling and fond,

As in our first youth!”

“What do you see?” said he.

“I see the phantom advance; he lifts his veil—’tis Francis Villiers! he

approaches the table—he writes!—’tis his signature!”

“Are you afraid?”

A fearful moment of silence ensued; then the student replied, but in an

altered voice:

“I am not.”

With strange and frantic gestures the merchant then sang:

“And the phantom said to the mocking seer,

I come from the South;

Put thy hand on my hand—thy heart on my heart—

Thy mouth on my mouth!”

“What do you see?”

“He comes—he approaches—he pursues me—he is stretching out his

arms—he will have me! Help! help! Save me!”

“Are you afraid, _now_?” asked the merchant in a mocking voice.

A piercing cry, and then a stifled groan, were the only reply to this

terrible question.

“Help that rash youth!” said the merchant, bitterly. “I have, I think,

won the wager; but it is sufficient for me to have given him a lesson.

Let him keep his money and be wiser for the future.”

He walked rapidly away. We opened the door of the summer-house and found

the student in convulsions. A paper, signed with the name “Francis

Villiers,” was on the table. As soon as the student’s senses were

restored, he asked vehemently where was the vile sorcerer who had

subjected him to such a horrible ordeal—he would kill him! He sought

him throughout the inn in vain; then, with the speed of a madman, he

dashed off across the fields in pursuit of him—and we never saw either

of them again.

That, children, is my Ghost Story!

“And how is it, good uncle, that after _that_, you don’t believe in

ghosts?” said I, the first time I heard it.

“Because, my boy,” replied my uncle, “neither the student or the

merchant ever returned; and the forty-five guineas, belonging to me and

the other travelers, continued equally invisible. Those two swindlers

carried them off, after having acted a farce, which we, like ninnies,

believed to be real.”

* * * * *

WHAT DOST THOU WORK FOR?

BY CAROLINE F. ORNE.

What dost thou work for, oh, tree of the forest,

Spreading thy branches so wide and so free?

Why hast thou many years wrought in thy season?

What is the end of thy work and of thee?

“Earth, mother earth, I have wrought for and toiled for,

Life still bestows her beneficent breast;

When for her I shall garner up treasures no longer,

Back shall I sink to her bosom to rest.”

What dost thou work for, sweet flower of the wild-wood,

Spreading thy garlands of beauty and bloom?

Why dost thou toil to bring buds into blossom?

Who shall come hither to seek thy perfume?

“Earth, mother earth, ’tis for her that I labor.

Cheerfully work I by night and by day,

All she hath given, and more, shall I measure

Into her bosom, where yet I shall lay.”

Man, that art heaping up riches and treasure—

Man, that art seeking for praise and for fame—

Man, that art chasing the phantoms of pleasure—

Whose is your toil? Who your labor can claim?

“Earth, mother earth; ’tis for her we are toiling,

These are her gifts, and to her they return;

All we have gathered must go to her keeping,

When she ourselves shall in darkness inurn.”

Then who art filling each hour’s golden measure

Full of good deeds, and of kindness and love,

Who bindeth the wounded, and helpeth the weary,

For what is thy toil—who thy work shall approve?

“High heaven will approve, though my labors are humble,

For the soul’s truest welfare I toil, not in vain;

Earth from her bosom such treasures bestows not,

With the soul back to heaven return they again.”

* * * * *

APRIL.

By April, of the sunny tress,

The mighty spell of death is broke,

As marble, with a food caress,

To life the son of Belus woke.

W. H. C. H.

[Illustration: TOM MOORE. (_See page 593._)]

* * * * *

TOM MOORE.—THE POET OF ERIN.

BY BON GAULTIER.

The celebrated poet of the Irish Melodies—so long a member of that

glorious company of British bards which, a perfect galaxy of genius,

illuminated the first quarter of the present century—is no more. He saw

them all run their high careers, and pass away—and now he, too, is

gone. For the last couple of years, his brilliant and active mind had

given way—the soul had sunk before its “dark cottage,” and his life was

second childishness and mere oblivion. None of his old cotemporaries

remain, at present, but the last among them—Samuel Rogers, the

banker-poet, now between 80 and 90 years of age—who, seeing that his

poems are not likely to descend to posterity, has, at least, resolved to

go a good part of the way himself. We do not mention Montgomery—he was

never ranked in the peerage of Parnassus, to which Moore belonged.

It was time for Thomas Moore to depart; he had seen star after star

decay:—many a glorious head stoop to the dust, many a soaring spirit

extinguished—the passionate and wayward Byron, dying in a barrack,

alone, at Missolonghi—an old, worn-out man at thirty-seven; and the

delicate and sensuous Keats, in the morning of his days, exhaled into

the clear blue sky of Rome; and “the pard-like spirit” of Shelley,

passing, ere the noon, through the portals of his familiar haunt, the

sea, to mingle with the elements which he so fearfully, so fearlessly

worshiped in the world; and the Cervantic and fine-hearted Sir

Walter—noblest of Scottish Chiefs; and the consummate lyric poet of

Hope and Poland and, “by Susquehanna’s side, fair Wyoming;” and the

three kings of bardish Cumberland—the weird and metaphysical Coleridge,

as magnificent as Skiddaw—and as _misty_, for the most part—Thalaba,

Southey, the library hermit—and Wordsworth, the consecrated hermit of

the Mere and the Mountain; and, along with these “dead kings of melody,”

the Shepherd of Ettrick, Allan Cunningham, Motherwell, the stormy,

metallurgic soul of Ebenezer Elliott, and the swan-like music of Hemans.

He saw them all pass away into the world of shadows—a more goodly and

powerful troop of poets than any other age of British literature could

boast—and he himself was not unworthy of that splendid and memorable

brotherhood.

Moore was born in May, 1779, at Aungier street in the city of Dublin, of

Catholic parents. His father was a highly respectable grocer and

spirit-dealer. Young Moore was sent to the school of Mr. Samuel Whyte, a

man who enjoyed a high reputation as pedagogue in the metropolis. He had

a very refined and dignified notion of his own vocation and literature,

and was, withal, a good and kind-hearted man. He greatly encouraged the

habits of public reading and elocution in his school; and the fashion of

private theatricals being then very prevalent in the aristocratic

families of Ireland, he was often called to superintend them at various

houses. He encouraged his scholars to act scenes from plays, and was a

great hand at furnishing prologues and epilogues for stage “_pieces de

circonstance_.” Mr. Whyte was no common man; for it is, in all human

probability, to his peculiar mode of training that English literature is

indebted for two of its most brilliant ornaments. His encouragement of

theatricals and songs, among the boys, gave Richard Brinsley Sheridan a

tendency to the drama, and Moore a turn for lyrical composition and

high-life; for we firmly and potently believe in the truth of the old

hexameter embalmed in the Lindley Murray of our childhood—

’Tis Education forms the tender mind;

Just as the twig is bent, the tree’s inclined.

About a quarter of a century before Moore entered the school, Mr. Whyte

had the teaching of young Sheridan, whom, curiously enough, he

pronounced “an incorrigible dunce,” after a year’s instruction of the

boy! A dunce he was, perhaps, at the methodical “branches,” taught in a

methodic way by Mr. Whyte; but we venture to say quick enough, when the

fit was on him, at the gay work of tinkering or acting plays, or pieces

of plays—thus taking unconsciously the bias which had its results in

the School for Scandal and the Duenna. As for Tommy Moore, he was always

a spry, vivacious, black-eyed little chap, who took at once to the

business of the boards, and recited and performed to the great

satisfaction of his master. The latter, whenever he went to the houses

of the nobility and gentry to get up plays, would usually take with him

his smart show-actor—the precocious little Catholic boy, and give him

parts to sustain in the representations. In this way the plebeian

youngster was introduced—greatly to his pride and satisfaction—into

the highest families of Dublin and its vicinity, where the circumstances

of gayety and splendor, contrasting with the exclusions generally

operating against those of his class and creed, heightened the zest with

which he enjoyed his privileges, and thus early created those feelings

and sentiments of pleasure and brilliancy which influenced his

subsequent career in the world.

From reciting and acting, the transition to writing verses was a very

natural thing, and Moore showed himself as apt at rhyme as at every

thing else. Indeed, like Pope and Ovid, “he lisped in numbers, for the

numbers came.” He himself gives us from memory, part of a juvenile

effusion on resuming school tasks after the business of the stage was

over:

Our Pantaloon, who did so aged look,

Must now resume his youth, his tasks, his book,

And Harlequin, who skipped, laughed, danced and died,

Must now stand trembling at his master’s side.

And he says: “I have thus been led back, step by step, from an early

date to one still earlier, with the view of ascertaining, for those who

may take any interest in literary biography, at what period I first

showed an aptitude for the now common craft of verse-making, and the

result is—so far back in childhood lies the epoch—that I am really

unable to say at what age I first began to act, sing, and rhyme.” At the

age of twelve he wrote a Masque, in which he adapted verses to Haydn’s

“Spirit-Song,” and this was performed by himself, his sister, and some

young friends in his father’s house in Aungier street. There have been

few instances of a healthy precocity of mind beyond that of Thomas

Moore.

In 1793, at which time the French Revolution was suggesting to the kings

of Europe a little leniency to their people, Moore was permitted by the

repeal of a penal statute, to enter Trinity College Dublin—a Protestant

University. Here, being always anxious to distinguish himself, he gave

in a specimen of English verse at one of the examinations, and was

gratified by the praise of the examiners and a copy of the Voyage of

Anacharsis—a book which must have greatly helped to Orientalize the

genius of Moore. His first step in regular authorship was the

publication of the Translation of Anacreon the Greek poet. His sprightly

facility of weaving verse had been exercised during his stay in College,

on this congenial task; and in 1799, when nineteen years old, he went to

London to keep his terms as a barrister at the Middle Temple, and to

bring out his English Anacreontics. These last he was permitted, through

the interest of some of his aristocratic Irish patrons, to dedicate to

George, the Prince Regent—against whom, nevertheless, at a future

period, Moore discharged some of his sharpest arrows of personal and

political satire. After the publication of the lyrics, this young poet

gradually gave up his idea of becoming a lawyer. Themis and her Courts

were relinquished for _Musa lyræ solers et cantor Apollo_; law was

completely driven out of his head by the gay society into which his

poetical and musical qualities introduced him, and he seems to have

looked more to the patronage of his titled friends and the trade of

authorship than to any settled walk or profession. The Earl of Moira was

his great patron, and the influence of this nobleman raised the young

Irishman to a companionship with the highest and most refined societies

of the land. And certainly, the son of a Dublin grocer—a Catholic,

too—must have possessed, in a very wonderful degree, the

accomplishments and amenities of the head and heart which could thus win

the favor and friendship of a very exclusive and fastidious class.

Moore’s temperament was, in fact, a happy one, and counseled as well by

prudence as his love of pleasure, he exerted himself to the utmost to

conciliate the partiality of the aristocracy and to live at ease among

them.

About this time, 1801-2, he spent a good deal of his time at Donington

Park, the seat of the Earl of Moira, “under whose princely roof,” as he

says himself—(and great was the charm which these princely roofs ever

had for the poet!) “I used often and long in those days find a

hospitable home.” Here the young Irishman became somewhat intimate with

kings and princes—members of Bourbon and Orleans families of France;

for whom he was in the habit of playing and singing, and with whom he

could bandy courtesies and converse. These were the Count of Provence,

afterward Charles X.; Louis Philippe and his brothers Montpensier and

Beaujolais—“all dismounted cavalry,” as Curran called them, in a

whisper, when he first found himself sitting among them; and with these

the Duke de Lorge, the Baron de Rolle, and many others of the emigrant

_noblesse_. No wonder Moore’s ideas should be so redolent of sparkling

wines, exquisite shapes of beauty, and all the perfume and rose-color of

life. He lived at Donington in the happiest and most luxurious manner;

and the range of a magnificent library was not wanting to complete the

aristocratic charm of his existence at that period. Shut up in it for

whole days he has felt, in the midst of his schemes of authorship, like

Prospero in his enchanted island. How different was the fate of his old

friend, Robert Emmett! At that very time the latter was plotting

desperately against the English government, and preparing that

rebellious uprising in which he perished.

In 1803, at the early age of 23, Moore began to reap some of the solid

fruits of his connection with the English aristocracy. He got the place

of Registrar of the Court of Admiralty at Bermuda, through the interest

of the Earl of Moira, and went to the island to take possession of his

office. But instead of doing the duties of it, he procured a deputy, and

went rambling and rhyming over the islands and on the continent of

America. He highly enjoyed the natural softness and beauty of the Summer

Islands; but many a song and poetical epistle proved that “his heart was

in Albion—his heart was not there”—that he was sighing for what he

called

The flourishing Isle of the brave and the free,

the splendid hospitalities of Donington and the _pays de cocagne_ of the

British aristocracy in general.

Passing from Bermuda, he came to Norfolk in Virginia, and thence made a

pretty lengthened tour through the States, by Washington, Philadelphia,

Buffalo and the lakes. The young votary of the Anacreontic muses—the

musical pet of the higher English circles—did not like the American

Democracy at all, and has left on record about as unfavorable an opinion

and prophecy concerning the republic as has been written at any time

since. Every thing seemed tough and unrefined; and when he made his bow

to President Thomas Jefferson, he felt a mental shock from the sight of

that simple man, wearing “Connemara stockings and slippers,” at the head

of a nation. To be sure the society of British officers and Federal

Whigs among whom he chose his friends and acquaintances was not

calculated to impress him with any favorable idea of the democratic

party. But, every allowance made, Moore said enough to show that,

Catholic as he was, and come of plebeian forefathers (at least in an

_immediate_ manner; for the name O’Moore is high on the old rolls of

Irish peerage and rebellion) he never had any hearty sympathy with

republicanism and the cause of the people. He was all for the glorious

distinctions of rank and historic _prestige_—the pride, pomp and

circumstance of lordly life; and, in fact, looked on America as a sort

of moral wilderness. He had no hopes of it, indeed. He said society here

was rotten to the core; and he wrote poetical prophecies of its speedy

decay and disappearance from among the nations of the earth!

And yet there were many things here to conciliate the fastidiousness of

the young traveler. Among the other tokens of an exceptional

civilization, was one which he himself recalls with an evident feeling

of gratified pride. The American master of the packet in which he

crossed Ontario—knowing that the young gentleman was a poet—the author

of “Anacreon Translated,” and “Juvenile Poems and Songs”—refused to

accept any money for his passage—would thus show his sense of what was

due to literature! We believe very few ship-masters in any of the old

countries would have done so courteously magnanimous a thing as that;

and Moore himself probably thought so too. The poet was, in fact, much

better pleased with the natural scenery than the people of the

continent; and scattered through the verses occasioned by his visit will

be found many tributes to the picturesque wildernesses he passed

through. Speaking of Niagara and other grand scenes he says—

Oh lady, there are miracles which man

Caged in the bounds of Europe’s narrow span

Can scarcely dream of—which his eye must see

To know how wonderful this world can be.

Moore, as well as hundreds of others, has left us his first impressions

on the sight of Niagara Falls. He says, “When we arrived at length at

the inn, in the neighborhood of the Falls, it was too late to think of

visiting them that evening, and I lay awake almost the whole night with

the sound of the cataract in my ears. The day following I consider a

sort of era in my life: and the first glimpse I got of that wonderful

cataract gave me a feeling which nothing in this world can ever awaken

again. It was through an opening among the trees, as we approached the

spot where a full view of the Falls was to burst upon us, that I caught

this glimpse of the mighty mass of waters folding smoothly over the edge

of the precipice, and so overwhelming was the notion it gave me of the

awful spectacle I was approaching, that during the short interval that

followed, imagination had far outrun the reality; and vast and wonderful

as was the scene that then opened upon me my first feeling was that of

disappointment. . . But in spite of the start thus got by imagination

the triumph of the reality was, in the end, but the greater; for the

gradual glory of the scene that opened upon me soon took possession of

my whole mind, presenting from day to day, some new beauty or wonder,

and like all that is most sublime in nature or art, awakening sad as

well as elevating thoughts. . . I should find it difficult to say on

which occasion I felt most deeply affected, when looking on the Falls of

Niagara, or when standing by moonlight among the ruins of the Coliseum.”

In 1806 Moore republished his Juvenile Poems, along with the

translations and those poems written at Bermuda and in America. But the

Edinburgh Review came down upon the book with the sharpest force of

sarcasm and severity. The first publication of his licentious

love-songs, it said, might have been excused by the great youth of the

poet, but the republication was atrociously prepense and unpardonable.

The poor lyric butterfly was broken terribly upon the wheel; but not so

much as to disable him (—we mean the _poet_—changing the figure) from

challenging the Auld Reekie editor; and the bard and critic—Francis

Jeffrey—met at Chalk Farm, to settle their differences by the duello.

But the police officers were too quick for them, and arrested both;

whereupon it was reported, amidst much laughter of the press and public,

that there were no balls in the pistols! Moore went to the trouble of

denying that he knew the state of his adversary’s engine or his own. In

this violent business the poet’s feelings were sorely tried. But his

publisher managed to thrive upon the business. The book had, of course,

received a very unexpected advertisement. Moore’s vexations did not

terminate with the foregoing. Over two years afterward, when young Lord

Byron, then in his twentieth year, charged gallantly down upon all the

poets, poetasters and critics of the English Parnassus, he laughed at

the duel, among the other matters, and “Little’s leadless pistol.” Here

was another outrage; and out came our poet once more with a challenge to

the peer. But his lordship had gone off to make material for his Giaours

and Childe Harolds in the East, and the letter remained unread till his

return, near two years after. By this time, his “sensitive and surly”

feelings had gone off, and he wrote to Moore a frank and good-natured

reply. The latter, who had, in the interim, married his wife—Miss

Dyke—and thus given hostages to fortune, felt how much pleasanter it

would be to have the young baron’s friendship than his bullet in the

body, and therefore wrote a very warm _Irish_ letter in return, which

paved the way to their mutual friendship. On this occasion Rogers got

Byron, Moore and Campbell together round his mahogany, and there they

became acquainted with one another, and shook hands all round, for the

first time.

In 1808 and 1809 Moore published his poems, “Intolerance” and

“Corruption,” satires; one on the English Constitution, and the other on

the English Church. They are fluent, but want vigor, and are read no

longer. In the “Skeptic” he writes like a good Catholic who prefers

ignorant obedience in all matters of Faith to the philosophy of Locke.

But he now prepared to sing a loftier strain. His next publication was

the First and Second Numbers of the Irish Melodies—a work which will

secure to him whatever immortality awaits his name. The melodies became

popular, at once, in England and Ireland alike. The sparkling grace and

flexibility of his verse presented an agreeable contrast to the

generality of songs sung at that period. The mixture of vivacity,

pathos, and epigrammatic point in their composition placed their author

at the head of modern song-writers; and, if the politics of poor Ireland

were doomed to be disastrous, the poetry of her beautiful music now

found itself vindicated and triumphant in the halls and palaces of the

British aristocracy. There was a savor of rebellion in some of these

songs which wonderfully took the fashionable fancy of the English; while

in Ireland the repeated allusions to the ancient glories of the land,

and the graceful sorrow which seemed to weep its many misfortunes,

touched the popular heart, and led the people—(we mean the reading

people)—to look on Moore as the genuine poet of Erin, and to applaud

him accordingly.

As for the poet himself, it would seem that his sympathy with his native

land was more a matter of sentiment than of practical reality. He could

excite the finest feelings of drawing-room rebellion. But he was not a

Tyrtæus to rouse up that deeper and more daring sentiment which prompts

people to rush into the field. He was the friend and college-mate of

Emmett and other disaffected spirits; and attended the Debating and

Historic Societies in which these ardent and enlightened young men,

mostly Protestants, spoke of the rights of man and the liberty of

Ireland. They were members of United Irish Societies; but Moore never

belonged to the last. The influence of his parents and relations was

exercised against the malcontent spirit of the time; and when the

unhappy rebellion was crushed, the young bard went to seek his fortune

in the very heart of the English aristocracy. There Moore’s patriotism

was subdued and refined; and it ever afterward delighted to exhibit

itself in the language of polemics and lyric poetry. The Irish sentiment

of the Irish Melodies is not strong enough to nourish any sort of

rebellion upon. It is remarkable that, in all Moore’s historic

allusions, he seldom or never speaks of the prowess of the Irish against

the English—the struggles of the Desmonds, O’Neills, O’Moores, and so

forth, against the Henries, Elizabeth, or the Stuarts. He goes back into

the indistinct times of Milesian sway, the palace of Tara, and the stand

of Brian or Malachi against the Danes. He passes over the recent and

authentic, such as would come more home to the present period, and weeps

or flushes, with remarkable prudence, among the legends and the whole

Irish apocrypha. But it would be too much, perhaps, to expect that the

little Catholic boy, whose early impressions were formed in the midst of

the aristocratic societies of Dublin, to which he was admitted on

sufferance, a gratified guest, could ever grow up a democrat or a rebel.

Indeed it is not difficult to discover from the tone of Moore’s writings

that he had formed a low opinion of Irish nationality—entertained a

poor notion of its past glories of all sorts, and little hope that

Ireland would ever do any thing to right herself. Indeed, if Ireland had

not her beautiful melodies, to suggest the weaving of lyric verse, and

to give it some promise of immortality, we should not probably have had

so much Irish reminiscence from Moore. It is, in fact, by a sort of

poetic licence, that he allows himself, in some of his songs, to sing

with an air of heroism or pathos, of those ancient men and things, in

which he himself, as may be gathered from the pages of his History of

Ireland, and from other places, had a very slender historical faith.

But, after all, the Melodies are beautiful things, and deserve the fame

they have won. They are full of felicities, and the hearts have been

cold indeed that have been able to resist the fascination they exercise,

in congenial moments, whether spoken or sung. The charm of an exquisite

phraseology sparkles everywhere, and the feelings with which we hear

them sung, seem incapable of more apt and musical expression.

In the intervals of several numbers of the Melodies Moore employed

himself on other things. In 1812, he began to think of his great

romance—his Opus Magnum—Lalla Rookh. Moore gives us the history of

this poem, manufacture, sale and all; but the sale of it (in MS.) went

before the manufacture. It was sold to the Messrs. Longman for 3000

guineas—not pounds: literary payments in England having been and being

still made, by respectable publishers, in the more aristocratic coin.

Mr. Perry, proprietor of the Morning Chronicle, made the bargain for his

friend, the bard, and we suspect that without his influence and

shrewdness, Moore would not have got that sum. For poets, and people of

refined feelings, are the worst hands at a bargain in the world, as

everybody knows. Perry said the poet of the Melodies should have the

highest price ever given for any poetic work; and that being 3000

guineas, he held out for it and got it. The Longmans bought their pig in

a poke, as the saying is. They were to take whatever poem Moore was

pleased to write, and also to wait till it was written. This was a very

pleasant sort of trade for the poet, and he went to work with that

inspiration and cheerfulness of spirit which publishers, for their own

sake, should do every thing to encourage in their writers. Moore retired

to Mayfield Cottage, in Derbyshire, a little way from Donington Park and

its library, and began to seclude himself from mankind. Having resolved

that his romance should be Oriental, he crammed himself with every thing

written about the East that he could, in any way, lay hands on—its

manners, customs, history, religion, languages, geography, and so forth.

He then began to write a long story called the “Peri’s Daughter;” but,

after going a little way in it, his Pegasus stuck fast, and the attempt

was put aside. He tried other ideas; but to little purpose. At last, an

_Irish_ idea struck him—that of poor Catholics persecuted and kept down

for their religion. By a happy dexterity he metamorphosed them into

Guebres, and so, setting up the frame-work of the “Fire-Worshipers,” and

clothing his Hibernian sentiments—half romance half religion—in all

the sparkling phraseology of the East, he got on swimmingly. The

monster, “Prophet of the Khorassan,” “Paradise and the Peri,” and the

“Light of the Harem,” followed favorably; and in 1816, after three

years’ incubation, he gave Lalla Rookh to the purchasers of the

manuscript. To Moore’s honor, it must be said, that seeing the monetary

and other embarrassments of that year, he offered to release the

Longmans from their engagement, if they desired it. But they stuck

manfully to their bargain; and it is pleasant to add, made handsomely by

it.

Moore was now very famous. Lalla and the Melodies gave him a reputation

only second to that of the noble young “Childe Buron” himself. His

“Fire-Worshipers” was quoted with fervor in Ireland; the songs in his

“Light of the Harem” had charmed all the world; a herd of imitators

sprang up like mushrooms, and bulbuls, peris, roses, flashing swords,

and sparkling goblets, were the general order of the day. In the

meantime, Moore went with Mr. Rogers to Paris. There he gathered the

materials of the Fudge Family, which he published on his return.

In 1819 he traveled again to Paris, in company with Lord John Russell;

and both went thence to Italy. Lord John passed on to Genoa, and Moore

proceeded to visit Lord Byron at Venice, where the noble exile lived in

a very savage condition, drinking gin and water o’nights, and writing

his heart out. There the poets passed some agreeable days together,

riding along the Lido together, and going over the lagoons in a gondola.

It was on this occasion that Byron confided to Moore his “Memoirs,” to

be used as the latter should think fit. Moore afterward sold them to

Murray for 2000 guineas. But when Byron died, his widow and family

interfered, and induced Moore to withdraw and burn the

manuscript—forfeiting the money, of course. Moore has been blamed for

consenting to this sacrifice. But it is very likely he has preserved in

his Life of Byron every thing of interest contained in the papers, and

that very little was lost, except certain scandalous particulars, which

the world would very willingly let die—though the offal-eating

scandal-mongers of the day groaned horribly under the privation at the

time. After leaving Venice, Moore went to Rome. He confesses that, in

the midst of the ruins and splendors of past Roman civilization and art,

he was painfully conscious of his own want of artistic taste and

enthusiasm. He says that a sunset on the Simplon touched him with more

admiration than any thing he had seen in the Italian galleries of art.

This would hardly have been expected from Moore, who has been termed the

poet of artificial things. After his return from this tour, he published

his Rhymes on the Road and the Fables of the Holy Alliance.

But his return did not extend to England. He knew that country was no

place for him, just then. He had made a blunder in his business of the

Bermuda registrarship, the consequences of which had now reached him. He

had taken no security of the deputy he had appointed to do the duties of

that office. The latter, in the course of time and trade, fell into

temptation—the easy carelessness of Moore led him, perhaps, into

it—and he made way with the proceeds of some American cargoes, and

then, with himself—leaving the unprophetic little bard, in the heyday

of his glory, to be responsible for near six thousand pounds. The

terrible Court of Admiralty now issued a law process against “the

smiling bard of pleasure,” which the latter did not think it wise to

confront in person, and so stopped short at Paris, where—along with his

family, which had joined him—he remained till the close of 1822. His

friends, in the mean time, came forward to the rescue; and if, for a

moment, he wronged his better genius by hard thoughts against the honor

or honesty of his fellows, he was soon brought round to the nobler and

better human creed, by generous offers of gifts, loans, etc. Thus,

sustained in his exile, he passed his time pleasantly enough, at La

Butte Coaslin, near Paris, singing Spanish songs to the guitar in the

evening, in company with Madame V——, a neighbor, and spending the

mornings of the two summers he remained in France, wandering through the

noble park of St. Cloud, spinning and polishing verses and jotting down

new ideas in his memorandum-book. His exile was, certainly, pleasanter

than that of his erotic, erratic brother, Ovid, lamenting his

frost-bitten muses, long ago, on the inhospitable shores of the Black

Sea. Moore had a great many visitors at Coaslin, among them our

Washington Irving, “who still, I trust,” he says, “recollects his

reading to me some parts of his then forthcoming work, ‘Bracebridge

Hall,’ as we sat together on the grass walk that leads to the Rocher, at

La Butte.” To meet his awkward liabilities, Moore had agreed with

Messrs. Murray and Wilkie to write a Life of Sheridan; but finding

himself too distant from documents and authorities, he went on with his

customary business of verse, and projected an epistolary romance, with

Egyptian characters. But this romance was postponed: and it appeared

afterward, done in prose, as the “Epicurean.” He also took up the

allegory of “The Loves of the Angels,” and working away with his usual

octosyllabic facility, he had soon woven it into shape. For this poem he

was allowed one thousand guineas by his publisher.

On Moore’s return to England, he found that his friends had negotiated

the Americans down to a thousand pounds; and that the uncle of the

faithless deputy had been induced, in a grumbling way, to contribute

_£_300 of that sum. A friend had deposited the balance in the bank to

Moore’s credit, for the canceling of the Bermuda claim; and the poet was

happy to hand him an order on his publisher for that amount. In this

connection, Moore records (without naming the giver, but with a

quotation from Ovid, to the effect that “gifts are agreeable which are

made precious by him who makes them,”) a present of £300, made him at

that time of difficulty—the proceeds of a maiden-work—a

biography—which had been just published. The donor was Lord John

Russel; the firm friend of the poet to the end of his life.

Mr. Moore now went to live at Sloperton, two miles from Devizes, and not

far from the country seat of the Marquis of Lansdowne. His dwelling was

at first a somewhat rude cottage, in a wooded lane. But, on taking it,

the new occupants made it very comfortable and pleasant, by means of

enlargements and other improvements. In 1824, Moore published his

“Memoirs of Captain Rock,” in which he set forth the misgovernment of

England since the conquest of the island by Strongbow. In this book he

never forgets the manner for the matter: he is full of point and learned

illustration, and festoons his deplorable facts with many felicities of

metaphor and arguments of theology. But no Irishman, how hot-headed

soever, could take the Memoirs as the text-book of rebellion, or feel

his blood excited by them. Mr. Moore’s learning and imagery, in fact,

weakened his theme, as the accompaniment of rich, heavy baggage used to

obstruct the movements of the great historic armies, long ago. The

“Memoirs” are obsolete, though the Irish sufferings seem to be much the

same as usual.

At Sloperton, Moore wrote, also, his History of Ireland and the

Biographies of Richard Brinsley Sheridan, Lord Edward Fitzgerald, and

Lord Byron—the last the best of the three, a biography ranking with

Boswell’s Life of Johnson, and Lockhart’s Life of Scott. After his

“Captain Rock,” Moore published the “Irish Gentleman in search of a

Religion,” in which he girds at all Protestant doctrine, with his usual

power of theologic reading and pointed argument; and then gave to the

world his “Epicurean;” in which he intertwines his favorite ethics of

religion with the frame of a very dull story. Moore’s mind had a strong

devotional tendency, and seems to revert—with a sense of its own

insufficiency—to the problem of existence beyond the last scene of all

that ends the strange eventful history of life. His doubtings, if he

ever had any, seem to have taken ultimate refuge in Catholic orthodoxy.

He was, in fact, a dutiful son of mother Church: and great was the

uneasiness he exhibited, lest his friend, Lord Byron, should adopt, in

all their force, the atheistical ideas of Percy Bysshe Shelley, with

whom his lordship had become very intimate, in Italy. Moore earnestly

expostulated with Byron on the project of the “Liberal” newspaper, got

up by the restless Childe and supported by Hunt, Shelley, and Hazlitt.

He told his lordship that such a conjunction, with such a radical

purpose, was very far from respectable—not by any means respectable

enough for an English nobleman to engage in.

The last productions of Moore were those light and satirical verses

which appeared in the Morning Chronicle and other papers, up to 1837.

They are the happiest things of their kind, in the world, and to those

who can admire the gay dexterities of wit, woven into the tapestry work

of rhyme, they possess an interest surviving the subjects of them. In

the interweaving of pointed and witty things with the flow of colloquial

phraseology, Moore has shown himself more skillful than any of his

contemporaries, and no writer of the present day can match him.

A bright, sensuous, Celtic genius dies with Tom Moore. As a poet, he

will be chiefly remembered for the undying melodies of his native land,

with which his words are beautifully identified. His translations of

Anacreon are clever school-boy exercises—very free versions and

amplifications of the original, and contain many points and prettinesses

which the old Cyclic bard never thought of. The juvenile and erotic

songs which obtained for Moore the name of the modern Catullus, are very

slight things—mere floating gossamers of literature—flashing a little

in the light—“the purple light of love,” and then fading away from the

general appreciation. But these songs were, nevertheless, greatly in

vogue in their day, and the pathos or gayety of them found echoes in the

hearts of ten thousand festive saloons. Never was the youth of any poet

spent in the midst of greater incitements of love, friendship, and song,

than those that solicited Moore on every side during the heyday of his

years, in the high society of England. It was therefore morally

impossible that his verse should be any thing but “brilliant and light,”

full of all the levities and luxuries of sentiment. The real

arduousness, effort, and pain of life find no expression at all in

Moore. The poems respecting America and his West India voyage, exhibit

his want of sympathy with republicanism, and his ceaseless longing after

the grand associations and lordly homes of England. Nevertheless, it

must not be forgotten that he found some congenial persons and things on

this continent. He has recorded the enjoyment of his sojourn in our own

city of “brotherly love,” where, in the society of Mr. Dennie’s family,

he almost forgot he was in a republic. His recollections of Philadelphia

were happy ones.

LINES WRITTEN ON LEAVING PHILADELPHIA.

Alone by the Schuylkill a wanderer roved,

And bright were its flowery banks to his eye;

But far, very far were the friends that he loved,

And he gazed on the flowery banks with a sigh.

Nor long did the soul of the stranger remain

Unblest by the smile he had languished to meet;

Though scarce did he hope it would soothe him again,

Till the threshold of home had been pressed by his feet.

But the lays of his boyhood had stolen to their ear,

And they loved what they knew of so humble a name;

And they told him with flattery welcome and dear

That they found in his heart something better than fame.

The stranger is gone, but he will not forget

When, at home, he shall talk of the toils he has known,

To tell with a sign, what endearments he met

When he strayed by the wave of the Schuylkill alone.

The “Canadian Boat Song,” composed on the St. Lawrence, is the most

popular of the songs written at the earlier period of life—indeed, at

any period of his life. It is more frequently heard in society than any

thing else he has composed—the finest of the Melodies not excepted. As

regards these last, it has been said they are not Irish. It is, indeed,

true that Moore modified the native airs a good deal—retrenched most of

the wild cadences and free modulations which indigenously belong to

them. This, however, may not be such a very great loss after all, seeing

that, if some of the melodies, with his arrangement, would not be

intimately recognized at wakes and cow-milkings, etc., they were all the

better liked, for the curtailment and polish, in the dining-rooms and

drawing-rooms. Certainly no modern festive song-writer has produced the

effects which usually accompanied the singing of Tom Moore’s lyrics. He

was eminently the poet of the saloons. Burns was the lyrist of Love and

the lowly hearts and homes of the people. But Moore’s songs were sung in

the most splendid halls of English-speaking land, where he himself, of

all guests or sojourners in lordly dwellings, was ever the most welcome

and caressed. And when we consider the low birth, _Irishism_ and

uncompromised Catholicity of the man, we cannot possibly over-estimate

those talents of graceful conviviality, good-humor and brilliant wit

which could secure for him such social honors and triumphs through life.

Well might Byron have called him “the poet of all circles and the idol

of his own.” Moore had an exquisite musical taste, and sung some of his

own melodies in the most delightful manner. His voice was rather low,

and without compass, but it had great softness, and the expression with

which he half-chaunted, half-recited, while accompanying himself at the

piano, in “Go Where Glory Waits Thee,” “Fly Not Yet,” and others, was a

thing to be enjoyed and remembered. On some occasions when he has gone

to the piano, the servants of the house—Devonshire House, we

believe—have been permitted to come and stand at the doors to listen,

along with the delighted crowd of noble listeners. Moore’s performance

was considered one of the best treats of the evening at such gay

reunions; and Mr. N. P. Willis speaks of the little bard’s appearance,

at Lady Blessington’s piano—for a singing-while—as if his singing in

this way were an expected gratification which he was too well-bred or

too good-natured to refuse to his friends. A touching instance of the

effect he could produce on these occasions is given in a fact to which

he himself alludes. The beautiful young daughter of Colonel Bainbridge,

who was married at Ashbourne Church, in Derbyshire, in 1815, died, a few

weeks afterward, of fever. During the delirium that accompanied her

illness she sung several hymns from Moore’s collection of “Sacred Songs”

which she had heard the poet himself sing in the course of the preceding

summer. Alluding to her, he says, in the song “Weep not for Those”—

Mourn not for her, the young bride of the vale,

Our gayest and loveliest, lost to us now,

Ere life’s early lustre had time to grow pale,

And the garland of love was yet fresh on her brow.

Lalla Rookh is a splendid and elaborate romance. Hazlitt said Moore

should not have written it for three thousand guineas. This was Moore’s

own affair, not Hazlitt’s; and we question if the latter would have

refused such a sum, under such circumstances. Nevertheless, Lalla Rookh

seems below the pretensions of the poet of the Melodies. Its themes and

characters are oriental and the interest they excite is feeble. There is

a forced and exotic air over the whole performance which fails to win

our sympathies; and, in spite of the beauty of the imagery and all the

sparkling artifice of the versification, no one, we believe, was every

cordially disposed to read this romance a second time. The rythmus of

the “Veiled Prophet” is eloquently rhetorical, but loosely constructed,

and it offends our sense of what the heroic couplet is, in the hands of

Dryden, Shelley, Goldsmith and Byron. Moore’s metre, in this grave mode,

is a continuous outrage against the cæsural canons, and reads with a

certain prosaic effect—eloquent enough, to be sure; but prosaic,

nevertheless: “The Fire-Worshipers” has been considered the best portion

of Lalla Rookh. It contains a great deal of impassioned eloquence and

shows great mastery and music of versification; but the impression it

leaves is vague and uncongenial, and the catastrophe is painful,

merely—like that of the “Veiled Prophet”—both with a melodramatic and

impossible air about them. “Paradise and the Peri” has the merit of a

more attractive human interest—though almost overlaid by ornament and

orientalism. We think the “Light of the Harem” the most agreeable of

all. It is perfectly in character—a picture of Eastern luxury from

beginning to end—a feast of roses and a flow of fountains, in which we

look for nothing but sighs and perfumes—and we find them in all

customary Mooreish prodigality. The verse of this little poem is woven

music. The portrait of Nourmahal is a piece of lyric gracefulness which

aptly exemplifies the art of Moore’s sensuous and harmonic genius:

There’s a beauty, for ever unchangingly bright,

Like the long sunny lapse of a summer day’s light,

Shining on, shining on, by no shadow made tender,

Till Love falls asleep in its sameness of splendor.

This was not the beauty—oh, nothing like this,

That to young Nourmahal gave such magic of bliss!

But that loveliness, ever in motion, which plays

Like the light upon Autumn’s soft shadowy days,

Now here and now there—giving warmth as it flies,

From the lip to the cheek, from the cheek to the eyes.

When pensive, it seemed as if that very grace,

That charm, of all others, was born with her face!

And when angry—for even in the tranquillest climes,

Light breezes will ruffle the blossoms sometimes,

The short, passing anger but seemed to awaken

New beauty, like flowers that are sweetest when shaken.

If tenderness touched her, the dark of her eye

At once took a darker, a heavenlier dye,

From the depth of whose shadow, like holy revealings

From innermost shrines came the light of her feelings.

Then her mirth—O, ’twas sportive as ever took wing

From the heart with a burst like the wild-bird in spring,

Illumed by a wit that would fascinate sages,

Yet playful as Peris let loose from their cages;

While her laugh, full of glee, without any control,

But the sweet one of gracefulness, rung from her soul,

And where it most sparkled no glance could discover,

In lip, cheek or eyes, for she brightened all over;

Like any fair lake which the breeze is upon

When it breaks into dimples and laughs in the sun!

No wonder “the magnificent son of Acbar” should be set excessively

beside himself on account of such a miracle of womanhood.

Moore shows himself very incapable of sustaining himself in any flights

of imagination to compare at all with the soaring of Shelley or Byron.

The sight of his mind is less keen and ardent than theirs, his thoughts

feebler and his verse less vigorously constructed. But in his own genial

sphere—on the lower sunny slopes of the mountain, he can snatch a

thousand warbling graces beyond the art of these louder instruments.

His is the lay that lightly floats,

And his are the murmuring, dying notes

That fall as soft as snow on the sea,

And melt in the heart as instantly;

And the passionate strain, that, lightly going

Refines the bosom it trembles through

As the musk-wind, over the waters blowing,

Ruffles the wave but sweetens it too!

Moore has happily expressed the pathetic morals, gayeties and

tendernesses of sentiment. But we think he has been still more happy in

those humorous, satirical, wit-elaborated performances in which it was

his wont to assail the public men and things of English government and

English society. His metrical onslaughts on the Tory party, the Prince

Regent, the Church Establishment—individually or collectively—have

been among the most genial and applauded things he has written. In the

other walks of poetry he had overpowering rivals—in this he was

unrivaled—“within this circle none durst walk but he.” He was well

aware of the power of satire to influence the gravest argument in the

world, and felt that

A song may reach him who a sermon flies.

Much of his sarcasm was launched against the English Church

Establishment. Its existence in Ireland has long been a just cause of

popular complaint, and thousands of pamphlets have been written _pro_

and _con_ in the matter. The witty little poet took the hackneyed

question, put it into his lyric mill, and having given it a few turns,

brought it out in the following manner—intelligible to all

comprehensions—answering as well the cause of his Catholic countrymen

as the cause of simple truth and justice:

A DREAM OF HINDOSTAN.

“The longer one lives the more one learns,”

Said I, as off to sleep I went,

Bemused with thinking of tithe concerns,

And reading a book, by the Bishop of Ferns,

On the Irish Church Establishment.

But lo! in sleep not long I lay

When fancy her usual tricks began,

And I found myself bewitched away

To a goodly city in Hindostan:

A city, where he who dares to dine

On aught but rice, is deemed a sinner:

Where sheep and kine are held divine,

And, accordingly, never drest for dinner.

But how is this? I wondering cried,

As I walked that city, fair and wide,

And saw, in every marble street,

A row of beautiful butchers’ shops—

“What means, for men who can’t eat meat,

This grand display of loins and chops?”

In vain I asked—’twas plain to see

That nobody dared to answer me.

So on from street to street I strode:

And you can’t conceive how vastly odd

The butchers looked: a roseate crew,

Inshrined in _stalls_, with naught to do:

While some on a _bench_, half dozing, sat,

And the sacred cows were not more fat.

Still posed to think what all this scene

Of sinecure trade was _meant_ to mean,

“And pray,” asked I, “by whom is paid

The expense of this strange masquerade?”

“The expense—oh, that’s of course defrayed”

(Said one of these well-fed hecatombers)

“By yonder rascally rice-consumers.”

“What! _they_, who mustn’t eat meat?”—“No matter:”

(And, while he spoke, his cheeks grew fatter,)

“The rogues may munch their _Paddy_ crop,

But the rogues must still support _our_ shop:

And depend upon it, the way to treat

Heretical stomachs that thus dissent,

Is to burden all that wont eat meat

With a costly Meat Establishment.”

On hearing these words so gravely said,

With a volley of laughter loud I shook:

And my slumber fled, and my dream was sped,

And I found myself lying snug in bed,

With my nose in the Bishop of Ferns’s book.

In spite of the _prestige_ of Moore’s earlier poetry, the world has

regarded him, and very justly, as a moral man and a good Catholic. In

the domestic relations of life, as well as the social, he seems to have

gone through the world blamelessly. For the last ten years or so of his

life, he was in receipt of _£_300 a year from the British Government,

procured for him by his friends the Marquis of Lansdowne and Lord John

Russell.

Moore died on the 26th of last February, and was buried, according to

his desire, in the church-yard of Bromham, between Devizes and

Chippenham, where two of his children were buried before him—Anastasia

Mary, who died in 1829 aged sixteen, and John Russell, who died in 1848

at the age of nineteen. Another son of the poet died in the French

service at Algiers. He had, we believe, four children, all of whom

passed away before himself. Doubly dark, indeed, was the close of a life

begun so hopefully and enjoyed so much in its middle course.

If the poet had died in Ireland, he would have had a good funeral. As it

was, but a single coach, containing four persons, went to the grave with

the hearse which carried his remains. Byron reached Huckwell, in 1824,

pretty much in the same way; but, we believe, with a somewhat larger

attendance—not much, however. Moore attended his noble friend’s funeral

to the bounds of London, as the slender _cortège_ passed through, but

went no farther.

Moore was of small stature. “He is a little, very little man,” says Sir

Walter Scott, speaking of him in 1825. Hunt said of him in 1820: “His

forehead is long and full of character, with bumps of wit large and

radiant enough to transport a phrenologist: his eyes are as dark and

fine as you would wish to see under a set of vine-leaves.” The poet’s

face was, in fact, very plain, and only redeemed by the brightness of

his eyes. Irish festivity and enjoyment formed the prevailing expression

of his aspect, in his better days when he was the delight and pride of

every society he appeared in—the gayest, happiest, most appreciated wit

of his time. Poor Tom Moore! He was always called _Tom_ Moore; except in

cotemporary criticisms of his poems or polemics, nobody thought of

calling him _Mr._ Moore. We cannot fancy him a man of seventy-two! There

is an incongruity in the idea which we cannot get over. Old and insane.

Alas for the brightest vaunt of human intellect and glory! But Tom Moore

will be ever freshly remembered with the undying melodies of his native

land.

* * * * *

A LIFE OF VICISSITUDES.

BY G. P. R. JAMES.

[Entered according to act of Congress, in the year 1852, by

George Payne Rainsford James, in the Clerk’s Office of the

District Court of the United States for the District of

Massachusetts.]

(_Continued from page 494._)

LONDON, FIFTY YEARS AGO.

There was a night coach to London, and I was very anxious to arrive in

the great city; but Father Bonneville was now feeling strongly the

effects of age, and I would not expose him to the fatigue of a long

night journey. We set off therefore on the following morning, and I can

hardly express the effect produced upon my mind by the first sight of

the vehicle which was to convey us. It was the stage-coach in its utmost

perfection, light, small, and compact, beautifully painted, newly

washed, with leather harness, and four bay horses, which seemed, to my

eyes, fitted for the race-course. It was so unlike any thing I had ever

seen in Germany, in France, or in America, so light, so neat, so jaunty,

so rapid, so perfect in all its parts and appointments, that it stood

out at once from every thing else in my mind, as a pure and

unadulterated bit of England—an exponent, as it were, of the habits of

the country and the mind of the people. When we came to get in, indeed,

and take our seats, we found ourselves a little cramped for room. The

back, too, was stiff and rigid, and our legs had but little space to

stretch themselves out, intertwined with those of our fellow passengers.

“This, too, is a bit of England,” I thought.

When at length the coachman had mounted the box—when the reins were

gathered up, and the first smack of the whip given, poor Father

Bonneville looked more nervous and uneasy than he had done while I was

driving him down the hill over the frontier of France. On we went,

however, at a pace which seemed to take away his breath, rattling in and

out amongst carts and wagons, and horses and dogs, touching nothing,

though seeming every moment about to be dashed to pieces against some

great lumbering dray, or to kill a score or two of old people and

children. The coach was heavily laden on the top: men’s legs and feet

were hanging down in all quarters, and we seemed to sway from side to

side with a terrible inclination to precipitate ourselves into the

window of some early-risen shopkeeper in Portsmouth.

At length, much to my satisfaction, we were out of the town; and after

passing over some wide and curious-looking downs, unlike any thing else

I had ever seen in other lands, we entered upon a richer and better

cultivated country, and the real face of England—old England—merry

England, as it has been endearingly called, spread out before me like a

garden. And it is a garden—the garden of the world. I know not why, but

the very heaths and moors—and we passed several of them—seemed to have

an air of comfort and sunny cheerfulness, superior to the cultivated

fields of other lands. From time to time when we stopped to change

horses, though it was done with a marvelous rapidity, which allowed but

little time for questions, I asked an ostler or a waiter the names of

various places we had passed; and I remarked that the English must be

very fond of the devil, as they had made him god-father to every place

for which they could not well find an epithet. I heard of Devil’s dykes,

and Devil’s punch-bowl, and Devil’s jumps, at every step.

We paused to dine, as it was called, at a small town, beautifully

situated amongst some fine sweeping hills, and on asking the name, found

that it was called Godalming.

“_Gott Allgemein_,” I said, turning to Father Bonneville, who nodded his

head. But it was an unfortunate speech; for one of our fellow-travelers,

a great, fat, black-looking man, dressed in mourning, who had never

opened his mouth during the day, but who had continued reading a book,

let the coach rattle and roll as it would, now fixed upon me as an

antiquary, and tormented me during the whole of the rest of the journey

with a dissertation upon pottery, and sepulchral urns, and Roman coins,

when I wished to observe the country, and gain information regarding the

new land which I had just entered. He evidently took me for an

Englishman; but my companion he soon found out to be an emigrant, and

compensated in some degree for his tiresomeness, by giving us the names

of several good inns—“Where,” as he added, with a gentle inclination of

his head toward Father Bonneville, “there were waiters who could speak

French.”

My good old friend was a little mortified, I believe; for he flattered

himself that his English was without accent.

Night fell while we were yet some distance from London, and still we

rattled on at the same velocity, till our heavy friend in the corner

thought fit to inform us that we were entering London. It did not seem

to be an agreeable entrance at all; for the dark streets, lighted by

very dim globe lamps shining through a fog, into which we seemed to

plunge, had a somewhat forbidding aspect to the eye of a stranger, and

the multitude of figures hurrying along on both sides of the way, now

seen, now lost, as they came under the lamps, or passed the blazing

shop-fronts, looked like phantoms of the dead pursued by some evil

spirit. The noise too was intolerable; for vehicles were running in

every direction, making an awful clatter as we clattered by them, while

through the whole was heard a dull, everlasting grumble, as if the city

suffered under one continual thunder-storm.

At length, we dashed up to the door of an inn, and every one began to

jump out or down, and to scramble for trunks or portmanteaus, as best he

might.

I cannot say that our first night’s residence in London was peculiarly

agreeable; for besides being both heated and tired, stiff and cramped,

we had the delight of being half-devoured by bugs till dawn of day.

Poor Father Bonneville rose late, nearly as much fatigued with his

night’s rest as with his day’s journey. But immediately after breakfast,

we set out to seek for better accommodation. I proposed that we should

go to one of the inns which had been mentioned; but he advised,

strongly, that we should take a small lodging, adding—“London, when I

recollect it, was the greatest place for lodgings in the world.”

So we still found it; for in many streets as we walked along, we saw

“Furnished lodgings to let,” written on a piece of paper, and stuck up

in the window of almost every other house. Some of these we passed by,

as likely to be too fine and expensive for our purposes. We looked at

others, and were not satisfied. In one, dirt and smoke were too evident

to both eye and nose. At another, the young ladies of the mansion

appeared not such as we wished to dwell amongst. In other places, again,

we were not fortunate enough to give satisfaction ourselves. One stout

lady, to whom Father Bonneville addressed some inquiries, stuck her

large, bare, blue arms akimbo, and said she would not let her lodgings

“to foriners,” adding—in not a very indistinct tone—“They’se all on um

so dirty.”

The good Father, the cleanest man upon the face of earth, was deeply

mortified at this insinuation, and turned away indignant. I laughed and

followed; and at length we found a little place, which seemed to suit us

well, in a street running from the Haymarket, westward. For a guinea and

a half a week, we were to have two bed-rooms and a sitting-room. The

lady of the house, or her she helot, was to cook for us for five

shillings per week more, and all promised very well, when I had nearly

spoiled the whole bargain by inquiring if there were any bugs.

“Bugs!” cried the indignant dame. “Bugs! If you think there are any

bugs, you had better not come here, young man.”

I found afterward that no house in London is ever admitted to have bugs

during the day, however potently they may make their existence known

during the night. She was quieted down at length, however, and seemed

quite pacified, when I paid her down the first week’s rent before hand,

so as to secure her revenue whether there were bugs or not; and when she

saw four or five very respectable looking trunks of American manufacture

brought to the house from the inn, she became exceedingly reverential,

and, to do her all justice, remained so till the end of our stay.

To finish with bugs, however, at once and for ever, I may as well add

that, two days after our arrival, I found a very unpleasant looking

gentleman, in a brown coat, walking over my dressing-table, and calling

the landlady, I pointed it out to her.

“Good lauk-a-daisy!” she exclaimed, in a tone of sweet simplicity: “What

can it be? I never saw such a thing in my life. If it’s a bug, sir, you

must have brought it from the inn with your pokemantles. That would be a

sad case to have the house stocked with um.”

I said, nothing more, lest I should provoke her to bring an action for

damages against me; but I found that, in the course of the morning, she

went over all the rooms with a curious sort of an instrument, like a tin

kettle, from which she emitted jets of scalding steam into all the

cracks and crevices, and I will acknowledge that boiled bugs are not

half so offensive as raw.

It took us a whole day to get shaken into our new abode, and to eat some

exceedingly fat mutton-chops—about the fourth part of what the lady had

provided for our dinner. What became of the remainder we never

discovered, and I perceived, though Father Bonneville did not, that

either from the sea air which we had lately enjoyed, or from some other

cause, we had become inhumanly carnivorous, consuming at least, ten

times the quantity of beef and mutton in a week than we had ever

consumed in our lives before, together with an enormous quantity of

bread and butter, and tea enough to have poisoned a Mandarin.

On the following day, with the good Father on my arm, I set out in

search of Madame de Salins, taking care to ask our landlady, in the

first place, the way to Swallow street.

“If you will just strike away by the market, sir—that is, St. James’

market—I don’t mean Carnaby, that’s a great way off, and take away up

toward Oxford street, you’ll come right upon the end of Swallow

street—or you can turn in by Major Foubert’s passage.”

I explained to her that I knew neither of the markets she mentioned, and

had not the slightest acquaintance with her military friend who kept the

passage; and then she laughed, and cried—

“Good lauk-a-daisy! I forgot. What a head I have to be sure; but there

are so many things always a runnin’ in it.”

She then entered more into detail, told me the streets I was to take, by

the designation of right hand and left hand, and counted up the turnings

on her fat fingers, with which better information we set out, and

steered pretty accurately. As we went, I could not refrain from talking

to my good old friend about Madame de Salins and Mariette.

“Dear little thing,” I said: “I wonder if she recollects me.”

“She is probably no little thing now, Louis,” replied Father Bonneville,

with a smile. “You always speak of her as if she was still a child; but

she must be nearly a woman now.”

I gave a sigh; for I would fain have had Mariette always a child—the

same little Mariette I had loved so well. I did not think she had any

right to grow older; and the idea of that sweet little creature

metamorphosed into a great, raw school-girl, of between fourteen and

fifteen, was almost as painful to me, as the sight of sweet Anne Page

changed into a great lubberly boy to poor Slender.

I was destined to a worse disappointment, however. Of all the streets in

London, Swallow street was perhaps the most dim, dingy, and

unprepossessing I had as yet seen, and when we found out number three,

it presented to us a chemist’s shop, of a very poor class, with the

windows so dirty, and spotted with dust and rain, that the blue and red

bottles within were hardly visible. Over the door was the name of the

proprietor “Giraud,” which was promising as a French name, and in we

dived to make inquiries. Monsieur Giraud himself, proved, as we

expected, a French emigrant, but he was the most sullen,

uncommunicative, repulsive Frenchman I ever met with. I suppose exile,

misfortune, and a poor trade had soured him. However, he showed us

nothing but brutality as long as we spoke English, and was not very

civil when we began to talk to him in French.

He knew nothing of Madame de Salins, he said: there was no such person

in his house. There had been a whole heap of them, he added, when he

bought the place some six months before, and he believed there was a

woman and her daughter amongst them, but he had turned them all out, and

knew nothing more of them.

The idea of Madame de Salins and my pretty little Mariette being forced

to dwell at all in such a dim and dingy den, and then being turned into

the street by such an old weazle-faced animal as that, roused my

indignation, and I replied sharply, that he seemed to have very little

compassion for his fellows in misfortune.

“_Sacre bleu!_ Why should I have compassion upon any men?” he asked

bitterly; “they have had no compassion upon me. But I can have

compassion, too. There’s that old rogue of a marquis up stairs. I let

him have the room, dirt cheap, at his prayers and entreaties, although

he would have turned up his nose at me in Paris. You can go and ask him

if he knows any thing of the people you want—There, up that stairs.”