This tendency of certain localities to receive the electrical discharge

is further illustrated by the number of times certain buildings in every

considerable town have been struck. As before stated, the elevation of

the structure does not seem to be the determining influence in directing

the stroke, for the unfortunate edifice often stands much lower than

some others in the vicinity which have always been struck. Numerous

illustrations of this can be found in the records of European countries.

Hollis Street Church in Boston has been struck several times, though the

ground on which it stands is but little above the level of the sea,

while the State-House, on the very apex of Beacon Hill, with great

quantities of metal in surface and mass, is not known ever to have

received a disruptive discharge. It has been supposed that the copper

covering of the roof, including the gilded dome, its rain-pipes and four

excellent lightning-rods, have had the effect of neutralizing the air

about it by constant conduction of mild currents. Yet the rod on the

spire of Somerset Street Church, nearby and eastward of the State-House,

but lower, has been seen to receive a disruptive discharge. Bunker Hill

Monument, about a mile north-west and some twenty feet higher, has

several times received powerful discharges, which a good conductor has

always carried harmlessly away.

There has also been observed a tendency of the current not only to

strike certain buildings, but to enter the earth at a certain point

whenever such buildings are struck. Some of our oldest and most

successful appliers of rods believe that at certain points there are

natural electric currents, or at least readier conduction for them than

at others. Yet these points can become known only by repeated disasters.

Lightning-rod men who are adepts in their business now take care to

overcome adverse currents by enlarging the lower part of the conductors

and by carrying them to greater depth.

Soon after the powder-magazine of the Boston Navy Yard was completed the

neighboring residents grew fearful, and petitioned the authorities that

it should be better protected from lightning. It had already four

excellent rods, one at each corner of the building; but to these

peaceful and unwarlike citizens every thunderstorm was a great battle in

which their homes were in danger of destruction and their own lives in

jeopardy. The result of their action was, that a trench four feet deep

was dug entirely around the magazine, and in its bottom was laid a

continuous line of sheet copper four inches in width: to this the plate

of each rod was soldered, and then the soil was replaced.[6] No one

could doubt now that the stealthy upward stroke would be caught and the

mysterious earth-currents overcome. It is supposed that thenceforth the

tremors of the good citizens ceased. The massive magazine with its fiery

contents yet stands, though terrible peals of thunder have shaken it and

fearful bolts have fallen near.

GEORGE J. VARNEY.

FOOTNOTES:

[5] Among other beliefs in regard to lightning is that of the upward

stroke. It has even found expression in the _American Journal of Science

and Arts_. On careful consideration of the cases offered in support,

both printed and unprinted, I find that every one is susceptible of a

reasonable explanation without this theory.

[6] It is not usual that the body of moisture can be reached so near the

surface, but this magazine is situated on low ground.

THE SEA'S SECRET.

Just as it is, it hath been, love, I know--

So long ago

That time and place have faded: I forget

What rivers ran, what hills closed round us; yet

Thus much my soul remembers: thou and I

Saw the sun's rise and set, felt life slip by.

And then it was that first the deep-voiced sea

Sang low to thee and me

Its ancient secrets by the lonely shore;

And we two watched the strange birds dip and soar

Between the fading sea-line, far and dim,

And the white dazzle of the sands' long rim.

All that thou saidst--all that we heard and told

In some lost language old--

Has perished like the speech; yet _this_ remains:

From the vast desert of the ocean-plains

A great moon climbing, with a dull red glare

Like smouldering fire, far up the purple air.

And then--I cannot grasp it--yet I _know_

That something, long ago,

Held fast thy soul to mine with cords of pain

And marvellous joy, and love's sweet loss and gain.

All save that love the years have swept away--

A thousand years, a single yesterday!

But when my soul dreams, by the lonely sea,

Back to eternity,

I hear an echo, through its hollow moan,

From those lost lives drowned in the centuries gone:

I catch the haunting memory, and I know

The secret that you told me long ago.

G.A. DAVIS.

It is not usual that the body of moisture can be reached so near

the surface, but this magazine is situated on low ground.

DUNGENESS, GENERAL GREENE'S SEA-ISLAND PLANTATION.

Southernmost of those famed "Sea Islands" of Georgia, lying right in

sight of Florida's northern shore, on the northern verge of the tropic

border-land, Cumberland Island presents its beach-front to the ocean. It

unites within itself all those attractions which have made Florida

famous--all but river and lake: it has the balmiest climate in the

South; the vegetation of its forests is semi-tropical; it has game in

abundance. It has all these, and yet its territory is now a waste.

In November I visited it, and again in April, and later in August. To

reach it one must go first to St. Mary's, the town farthest south on the

Georgia coast, or to Fernandina, the northernmost city in Florida. In

either case he will have to hire a boat and a boatman, and in either

case he must carry with him his provisions.

St. Mary's in April is St. Mary's in August--a drowsy, quaint old town,

warm in the daytime and cool at night; hot in the sunlight, but with

cool sea-breezes. The streets of St. Mary's are her glory: they are one

hundred feet wide, carpeted with a green sward smooth as a shaven lawn,

lined with live-oaks and china trees. In April the latter are in full

bloom, their lilac blossoms hanging in dense panicles, the green leaves

flecking them just enough to afford contrast, and the sombre Spanish

moss depending gracefully from every branch and limb. Great gaudy

butterflies are continually hovering over them and fluttering uneasily

from flower to flower, and gleaming humming-birds, our own Northern

summer visitors (the _Trochilus colubris_), are flashing from tree to

tree, now poised a moment in air, now sipping honey from the tiny cups.

From the lighthouse dome at Fernandina one can look over half the

island, trace the white sand-beach miles to the south--follow it north

till it curves inland where Amelia Sound, the mouth of the St. Mary's

River, forms the harbor. Away north runs up Cumberland Beach, and among

the trees and over a broad stretch of marsh gleam white the ruins of

"Dungeness." West, again, one sees the gloomy pines of the main land,

behind which the sun goes down, lighting gloriously the marsh and silver

threads of the river.

Unlike the seasons of the North, there is here no perceptible line of

demarcation between them. We cannot positively assert that spring has

opened or summer or winter begun. As for autumn and harvest-time, the

crops are being continually gathered in. So since the year came in I

have seen various plants and shrubs in bloom that ought to open with

spring. Up the Ocklawaha in January I saw the blackberry or dewberry in

blossom; and ever since, along the St. John's in that month and

February, on the banks of the St. Mary's in February and March, and even

here, in Fernandina and St. Mary's, it is blossoming and bearing fruit.

It is this week--the first week in April--that we obtained the first

fruit for the table, buying it for ten cents a quart. It puzzles one to

think of planting. When must he begin? Last Christmas one of our

truck-farmers had a large crop of peas ready to harvest: a chance frost

gobbled them up, however: now (April) peas and potatoes are in their

prime.

By the middle of April the china trees have dropped their blossoms, and

the streets beneath are strewn with withered flowers. The fragrance that

filled the air has departed with the humming-birds and butterflies. The

pomegranate still continues in bloom: its vividly-scarlet flowers have

delighted us ever since the middle of March. The figs commenced leafing

with the month: now they are green with broad leaves, and in the axil of

each appears the rudiment of a fruit. They are grotesquely gnarled and

twisted, taking most unthought-of shapes and positions. The

mocking-birds have mated and begun the construction of their nests.

Their music is delightful: nearly all the day long they sing, and

sometimes in the night. It seems almost wicked--to mercenary man--to

think that birds worth twenty-five dollars apiece are freely fluttering

about unharmed. When the breeding season has opened, however, it will

not close without some family of mocking-birds being made desolate, for

the young Ethiopian hath an ear for music, and most eagerly seeketh the

young bird in its downy nest, trusting to the unsuspecting Yankee for

remuneration therefor.

The month went out in glorious style: every morning of its thirty days

had opened with unclouded sky, and each night's sun went down with a

blaze of glory that flooded the marshes with golden light and left

painted on the sky clouds of royal purple and crimson. Two or three

showers sprang upon us in the afternoon, ending after a stay of an hour

or two, cooling the air and refreshing weary man most wonderfully. Plums

and peaches are nearly grown and turning color. They afford another

illustration of the dilatory motions of vegetation here. In January I

left some plum trees in full bloom: returning a month later, I found the

same trees still white with flowers. The peaches were pink with bloom in

February and March, and even in April some blushing flowers appear.

This was Fernandina and St. Mary's in April: in August the latter town

had changed but little. The streets were as green as in early spring:

the flowers were fewer, but the air was heavy with the fragrance of

crape-myrtle and orange. It was hot in the morning, but an early breeze

from the ocean soon came in, blowing with refreshing coolness all day

long. It was even pleasanter than in spring and winter, the air clearer

and more bracing, and annoying insects had disappeared.

St. Mary's is intimately connected with Cumberland Island in history. In

the war of 1812 the island was taken, and the slaves were offered their

freedom by Admiral Cockburn; but such was their attachment to the place

and their masters that but one availed himself of this opportunity to

escape. At Point Peter, where the main land of Georgia terminates in

the marshes of St. Mary's, a fight occurred, and there are yet the

remains of an earthwork thrown up by the Americans to repulse the

British fleet in its advance on St. Mary's.

The oldest inhabitant of St. Mary's, who is said to have scored a

century, old "Daddy Paddy"--a negro who bears in his face the tattooing

of his native Africa--participated in that fight. He lives in a little

cabin on a street by the wharf, and devotes his time to fishing, at

which he is very expert. Upon being questioned regarding the fight, he

seemed rather hazy as to dates, but was positive as to the time he first

saw America: "De wah ob de rebenue was jes' clar' peace when I land at

Charleston from Afriky. Was young man den, jes' growd. No, sah, nebah

saw Gin'l Wash'tun, but heah ob him, sah: he fout wid de British, sah,

an' gain de vic'try at New Orleans, sah."

"That was General Jackson, uncle."

"No, sah! Gin'l Jackson mout ha' ben thar, but Gin'l Wash'tun, he hab a

han' in it. Yes, sah, I'se de fust settlah, sah: was in St. Mary's afo'

a street was laid out [in 1787], an' 'twas all bay-gall an' hammock."

The Indian name of Cumberland Island was Missoe ("beautiful land"), and

this was changed when Oglethorpe visited the island, at the request of

an Indian chief who had received some kindness from the duke of

Cumberland. It is related in an old English record, of which I have seen

a copy, that the duke was so well pleased at this evidence of good-will

that he caused a hunting-lodge to be erected there, and named it

Dungeness, after his country-seat, Castle Dungeness, on the cape of

Dungeness in the county of Kent. From that time until the breaking out

of the Revolution it was "owned successively by peers of the British

realm."

The island is eighteen miles in length and from half a mile to three

miles in breadth. The soil is sandy, adapted to the culture of cotton,

corn, potatoes, etc.: pomegranates, olives, dates, figs, limes, lemons,

oranges and melons yield abundant crops. The great frost of 1835, which

extended over the entire peninsula of Florida, destroyed the fine groves

of orange trees: at one time this fruit was shipped in schooner-loads,

and from one tree three thousand oranges have been gathered. The forest

trees are live-oak, cedar and a few pines. A most interesting fact in

the history of the island is found in its chronicles, for here were

obtained the timbers for the Constitution (Old Ironsides), that noble

frigate so well known to every American. Some of the stumps of the

indestructible live-oak from which the timber was cut for her ribs may

yet be seen. Deer, raccoons, bear and 'possum are abundant in the thick

forest. The climate is temperate and healthy: many of the former slaves

live to a great age. The island has never been afflicted by fever: while

the town of Brunswick, to the north, and Fernandina, just across the

channel to the south, have been scourged by Yellow Jack, Cumberland has

ever remained untouched. St. Mary's, across the marshes on the main

land, also boasts this immunity.

The creeks of the marshes swarm with fish of every sort, and there are

oyster-beds containing large and toothsome bivalves. With 'possums and

'coons, fish and oysters, is it strange that Cuffie clung to his old

home long after his master had left it? is it a matter of wonder that

there yet remains a remnant of the old slave population, houseless and

poverty-stricken, clinging to the island that once gave them so

delightful a home? At the close of the war, it is related, Mr. Stafford,

proprietor of the central portion of the island, burned his negro houses

to the ground, telling his people to go, as he had no more use for them

nor they for him. Cumberland to-day is nearly depopulated, the fertile

cotton-and corn-fields run to waste, and wild hogs and half-wild horses

roam over the pasture and scrub that cover once-cultivated fields.

The history of this island commences with that of Georgia. We read that

in 1742 the Spaniards invaded Georgia and landed on the island. With a

fleet of thirty-six sail and with more than three thousand troops from

Havana and St. Augustine, they entered the harbor of St. Simons, north

of Cumberland, and erected a battery of twenty guns. General Oglethorpe,

with eight hundred men, exclusive of Indians, was then on the island. He

withdrew to his fort at Frederica, and anxiously awaited reinforcements

from Carolina. By turning to account the desertion of a French soldier

he precipitated the attack of the Spaniards, and on their march to

Frederica they fell into an ambuscade. Great slaughter ensued, and they

retreated precipitately. The place of conflict is to this day known as

"Bloody Marsh." The Spaniards retreated south along the coast in their

vessels, and on their way attacked Fort William, at the southern

extremity of Cumberland Island, but were repulsed with loss. This fort,

which was constructed, I think, by Oglethorpe, is placed on the extreme

southern end of Cumberland in a map of the island made in 1802. Even

then the fort was half submerged at high water, and at the present day

its site is far out in the channel. The water of the river-mouth is

constantly encroaching upon the land, and the ruins of a house once

standing upon the southern point may be seen, it is said, beneath the

water at low tide. Old Fort William has been seen within the memory of

residents of St. Mary's, but likewise beneath the waves.

About 1770 that rare naturalist and botanist, William Bartram, landed

here and traversed the island, being set across to Amelia Island

(Fernandina) by a hunter whom he found living here. He was then at the

commencement of his romantic journeyings among the Seminole Indians up

the St. John's River, then running through a wilderness. Another

fortification, Fort St. Andrew, situated on the north-west point of the

island, may still be traced by the ruins of its walls. A well is known

there into which, it is said, the English threw ten thousand pounds in

silver upon the approach of the Spaniards. In this way, by vestiges of

foundation-walls, are indicated the various settlements of the

island--mansions and cabins that have passed away, leaving no other sign

but these sad memorials of the past.

At the conclusion of peace, and immediately after the close of the

Revolution, the southern portion of Cumberland Island came into the

possession of General Nathaniel Greene. It is said by some to have been

presented to him by the State of Georgia in connection with the

beautiful estate of Mulberry Grove, where he removed with his family and

took up his residence. His lamentably premature death prevented the

consummation of his design to build here a retreat in which to spend the

hot summer months. He had resided but a year upon his estate of Mulberry

Grove, and had hardly commenced to beautify and adorn this chosen

residence of his maturer years, when a sun-stroke cut him down in the

prime of his life.

The general had selected the site of the mansion to be built at

Dungeness, and had planned the grounds, laid out a garden--which

subsequently became famous for its tropical products and roses--and had

lined through the forests of live-oak those avenues which have since

grown to such magnificent proportions. As has been related, he did not

live to see the completion of his work, but died almost at its very

inception. In 1786 the year of his death, the foundation-walls were laid

of the mansion-home of Dungeness, but the building was not finished till

1803. Even after it had been occupied for years, and during the sixty

years and more it was used as a residence by the descendants of General

Greene, there remained a few unfinished rooms. A tradition in the family

to the effect that some great misfortune would befall it if the building

were finished prevented, it is said, its completion. In the early part

of the present century it was the most elegant residence on the coast.

A mound of shells, the accumulation of centuries and the result of

countless Indian feasts, rose high above the southern marsh of

Cumberland. A forest of live-oaks surrounded it on three sides, and at

its feet ran the broad creek which wound through the marsh for miles,

seeking the Sound at a point opposite the Florida shore. Here, for ages

of time, the Indians of the South had resorted to feast upon the

oysters with which the creek was filled. The Creek Indians--the most

honorable with whom the United States ever had dealings, from whom

sprang the Seminoles, and who occupied the entire territory of Georgia

and Carolina at the period of the white man's advent--were the last who

aided in the erection of this monument to a race now passed away. The

summit of this shell-mound was levelled for the site of the house, and a

terraced area of an acre or more constructed with the shells. Upon this

base, raised above the general level of the island, its foundations were

laid. It was four stories in height above the basement, and from

cellar-stone to eaves was forty-five feet. There were four chimneys and

sixteen fireplaces, and twenty rooms above the first floor. The walls at

the base were six feet in thickness, and above the ground four feet.

They were composed of the material known as "tabby," a mixture of

shells, lime and broken stone or gravel with water; which mass, being

pressed in a mould of boards, becomes when dry as hard and durable as

rock. The walls are now as solid as stone itself. The second story above

the terrace contained the principal rooms: the room in the south-east

corner was the drawing-room in the time of the Shaws and the

Nightingales. The room immediately back of the drawing-room, in the

north-east corner, was the dining-room: a wide hall ran through the

centre, upon the opposite side of which were two rooms, used

respectively as school- and sewing-room. Above these apartments, in the

third story, were the chambers. That directly above the drawing-room is

the most interesting of all, for it was occupied by General Harry Lee,

who was confined there by sickness, and there died. The interior of the

house corresponded with its exterior in beauty of finish and

magnificence of decoration and appointments.

Enclosed by a high wall of masonry (the "tabby" just described) was a

tract of twelve acres devoted to the cultivation of flowers and tropical

fruits. This wall, now broken down in places and overgrown with ivy-and

trumpet-vines, yet divides the garden from the larger fields once

devoted to cotton and cane. The gardener's house was next the mansion,

and joined to it by this high wall. The garden lay to the south,

reaching the marsh in successive terraces. On and about the semicircular

terrace immediately around the house were planted crape-myrtle, clove

trees and sago-palms: some yet remain to indicate what an Eden-like

retreat was this garden of spices and bloom half a century ago. The

first broad terrace, which ran the entire length of the garden-wall east

and west, was divided by an avenue of olives, which separated in front

of the house, leaving a space in which were two noble magnolias. A broad

walk ran from the house to the lower garden, which was divided from the

other by a thick-set hedge of mock-orange: in this garden was another

walk bordered by olives. This space was entirely devoted to flowers: on

each side was a grove of orange trees, and in the lower garden were the

fig, India-rubber and date-palm, the golden date of Africa. Of trees

there were the camphor tree, coffee, Portuguese laurel, "tree of

Paradise," crape-myrtle, guava, lime, orange, citron, pomegranate,

sago-palm and many others whose home is in the tropics. The delicious

climate of this island, several degrees warmer than that of the main

land in the same latitude, enabled the proprietors of this insular

Paradise to grow nearly all the fruits of the torrid zone.

A little tongue of land runs from the garden into the marsh, an

elevation of the original shell-mound, covered with oaks hung with long

gray moss. This was called "The Park," and here the inhabitants of this

favored estate would resort for recreation in the afternoon and evening.

Near this strip of land, beneath the shade of an immense live-oak,

luxuriates a clump of West India bamboo, said to have originated from a

single stalk brought here by General Lee. The feathery lances clash and

rattle with all the wild abandon characteristic of them in their native

isles. I have not seen a more perfect group outside the islands of the

Caribbean Sea.

From the walls of the second story--if you wish to view the

wide-extended prospect to the south you must clamber there--you can look

across three thousand acres of salt marsh to Fernandina and St. Mary's,

along the river and beach, across miles of ocean. Ivy climbs the corner

wall of the ruins and covers garden-wall and trees. Ruin everywhere

stares you in the face: on every side are deserted fields and

gardens--fields that employed the labor of four hundred negroes; fields

that were fertile and yielded large crops of the famous "Sea-Island

cotton." Bales from this estate were never "sampled." The Sea-Island

cotton that took the prize at the World's Fair in London was raised on

this island.

East of the garden, stretching toward the ocean-beach, is the

olive-grove. Seventy years ago the first olive trees were imported from

Italy and the south of France. They grew and flourished, and years ago

this grove yielded a profit to its owners. In 1755, Mr. Henry Laurens of

South Carolina imported and planted olives, capers, limes, ginger, etc.,

and in 1785 the olive was successfully grown in South Carolina; but

probably there is not at the present day a grove equal in extent to

this. It was estimated that a large tree would average a gallon of oil

per year: there were eight hundred planted and brought to a flourishing

and profitable stage of growth. There are several hundred now, scattered

through a waste of briers and scrub and overgrown with moss.

But the avenues? In the hottest day there are shade and coolness beneath

the intertwined branches of the live-oaks that arch above them. The eye

is refreshed in gazing down these vistas over the leaf-strewn floors of

sand. The sunshine sifts through the arch above, flecking the roadway

with a mosaic of leaves and boughs in light and shade. From the limbs

hang graceful pennons of Spanish moss, festooned at the sides, waved by

every wind, changing in every light. Grapevines with stems six inches in

diameter climb into the huge oaks and swing from tree to tree, linking

limb with limb: the tree-tops are purple with great fruit-clusters. To

the whole scene the dwarf palmetto gives a semi-tropic aspect. There

are no signs of life, save a lizard darting over the leaves, stopping

midway to look at you with bright eyes. In the evening the squirrels

come out in countless numbers, and their crashing leaps may be heard in

all directions; bright cardinal-birds, Florida jays and gay nonpareils

enliven the gloom; the jays chatter in the branches and mocking-birds

carol from the topmost limbs. It is one of the joys of earth to walk

through the Grand Avenue of Dungeness at sunset.

There were, when the estate was in prosperous condition, eleven miles of

avenues, seven miles of beach, eight miles of walks and nine miles of

open roads. Grand Avenue, running midway the length of the island, was

cleared eighteen miles, to High Point. There are now but three miles

cleared, but you can look straight down beneath the arch of live-oaks

for more than a mile of its length. From the Sound to the beach,

crossing Central Avenue, ran River Avenue for a distance of about a

mile.

This live-oak forest, which covers several thousand acres, is densely

filled with scrub palmetto, impenetrable almost, and so difficult to

pierce that the deer with which the forest swarms choose the old paths

and roadways in their walks from sleeping- to feeding-grounds. The

hunters take advantage of this, and after starting their dogs in the

scrub post themselves on the main avenues where the paths intersect, and

shoot the deer as they jump out. The deer of the island are estimated by

thousands, and a State law which prohibits the hunting of deer with

dogs, except with the owner's permission, has aided in their increase.

Halfway up the island are numerous ponds, to which ducks resort in the

winter in vast numbers. Bear are plentiful in the deep woods, and their

tracks, with those of the deer in greater abundance, are often found

crossing the abandoned fields.

Three hundred feet in width, hard as stone, shell-strewn, between

wind-hollowed sand-dunes and foaming surf, this beach of Cumberland

stretches for twenty miles. The sands that border it are covered with a

network of beautiful convolvulus, tufts of sea-oats with nodding plumes,

and picturesque clumps of Spanish bayonet (_Yucca gloriosa_) with

pyramids of snowy flowers. This and the prickly pear suggest the climate

of the tropics. I find them on the sandhills bordering the ocean-beach,

the wind-swept dunes between the "beach-hammock" and the hard sand of

the wave-washed beach. They are called barren by many, these sandhills

of the Atlantic coast, but I never find them so. To me they are always

attractive, whether I am traversing the sand-slopes of Cape Cod or the

similar ones of Florida. Even the grasses possess a character of their

own--gracefully erect, tiny circles traced about them where the last

wind has caused them to brush the sand. Here too are grasses rare and

beautiful--the feathery fox-tail, the tall, loose-branched sea-oats, and

many others with names unknown, which you may see ornamenting the famous

palmetto hats.

So fascinating are these sand-dunes that one wanders among them for

hours, following in the paths worn by the feet of cattle which roam

these hills and the neighboring marsh in a half-wild state. Sometimes

the banks will shelve abruptly, hollowed out by the wind, and one can

look down into a hole ten or twenty feet deep, arched over by

thorn-bushes, grapevines and a species of bay. These sand-caverns are of

frequent occurrence. There are clumps of scrubby oak completely covered

with scarlet honeysuckle and trumpet-flower. While seeking to

investigate one of these I startled a hen-quail, which, after whirring

rapidly out of sight, returned and manifested much anxiety by plaintive

calls. This is a queer place for quail: in the neighborhood of old

fields, where they can easily run out and glean a hasty meal from weeds

and broken ground, is their chosen place for a nest.

Along the surface of the sea long lines of pelicans pursue a lumbering

flight; graceful terns (sea-swallows) skim the waves; a great blue heron

stalks across the hard sand, majestic, solitary and shy of man's

approach; and dainty little beach-birds, piping plover in snowy white

and drab, glide rapidly past the surf-line. A mile below Beach Avenue is

a high sandhill shelving abruptly toward the beach, half-buried trees

projecting from its western slope: it is now known as "Eagle Cliff," so

called by the proprietor of Dungeness from the fact of my shooting an

eagle there one day in November.

In the beach-hammock are the same wind-hollowed hills, rooted into

permanence by twisted oaks and magnolias. Upon their limbs in April the

Spanish moss and air-plants were just blossoming, the former into little

star-like, hardly-discernible flowers, the latter throwing up a green

stem with a pink terminal bud, which in August had burst into a spike of

crimson flowers. Curious lichens cover the rough trunks of these

oaks--some gray, some ashy-white, some pink, some scarlet like blotches

of blood. The _Mitchella_, the little partridge-berry, is here in bloom,

and has been since the year came in.

The marsh that borders the beach-hammock and spreads a sea of silvery

green before the mansion is not barren of attractions. Inquisitive and

faint-hearted fiddler-crabs are darting in and out of their holes in the

mud: an alligator now and then shows a hint of a head above the water of

the creek, along whose banks walk daintily and proudly egrets and herons

robed in white, and from the reeds of which myriads of water-hens send

up a deafening chatter.

Midway between the mansion and the beach, in the southern corner of the

orchard of olive trees, which overhang and surround it, is the graveyard

of the family. It is the last object to which in this narrative I call

attention, but to the visitor it is the most interesting, the fullest of

memories of the past. By a winding and secluded path from the deserted

garden, along the banks of the solitary marsh, beneath great water-oaks

hung with funereal moss, one reaches this little cemetery, a few roods

of ground walled in from the adjoining copsewood--

A lonesome acre, thinly grown

With grass and wandering vines.

Three tombs and three headstones indicate at least six of the graves

with which this little lot is filled. In one of these graves rest the

bones of her who shared the fortunes of the gallant general, the

"Washington of the South," when he rested after the last decisive battle

and retired to his Georgia plantation. In another lies buried his

daughter, and in another the gallant "Light-Horse Harry," who so ably

assisted him at Eutaw Springs--the brave and eloquent Lee. Upon the

first marble slab is engraven, "In memory of Catherine Miller (widow of

the late Major-General Nathaniel Greene, Commander-in-Chief of the

American Revolutionary Army in the Southern Department in 1783), who

died Sept. 2d, 1814, aged 59 years. She possessed great talents and

exalted virtues." Phineas Miller, Esq., a native of Connecticut and a

graduate of Yale College, who had been engaged by General Greene as

law-tutor to his son, managed the widow's estates after the general's

death, and later married her. His grave is here, though unmarked by any

stone.

And this name revives the memory of one of the greatest inventions of

the eighteenth century. Eli Whitney, the inventor of the cotton-gin, was

born in Westborough, Massachusetts, December 8, 1765. In 1792 he

obtained a position as tutor to the children of a Georgia planter, but

owing to the imperfect postal regulations his letter of acceptance was

not received, and on arriving in Savannah he found his place occupied by

another. Without means or friends, he was in great want, when his

circumstances became known to Mrs. Greene (then residing at Mulberry

Grove), who, being a lady of benevolent heart, invited him to make her

house his home until he should find remunerative employment.

One day, while this lady was engaged in working a sort of embroidery

called "tambour-work," she complained to young Whitney that the frame

she was using was too rough and tore the delicate threads. Anxious to

gratify his benefactress, Whitney quickly constructed a frame so

superior in every respect that she thought it a great invention. It

chanced shortly after that a party of gentlemen, many of them old

friends and officers who had served under General Greene, met at her

house, and were discussing the merits and profits of cotton, which had

been lately introduced into the State. One of them remarked that unless

some machine could be devised for removing the seed it would never be a

profitable crop (the cleaning of one pound of cotton being then a day's

work). Mrs. Greene, who heard the remark, replied that a young man, a

Mr. Whitney, then in her house, could probably help them. She then sent

for Whitney, introduced him, extolled his genius and commended him to

their friendship. He set to work under great disadvantages, having to

make his tools, and even his wires, which at that time could not be had

in Savannah. By Mrs. Greene and Mr. Miller he was furnished with

abundant means wherewith to complete his machine. It was first exhibited

privately to a select company, but it could not long remain a secret,

and its fame, which spread rapidly throughout the South, was the cause

of great excitement. The shop containing the model was broken open and

the machine was stolen: by this means the public became possessed of the

secret, and before another could be made a number of machines were in

successful operation.

A partnership was entered into between Miller and Whitney, and in 1793 a

large area was planted with cotton in expectation that the new gin would

enable them to market it at little expense. In 1795 their shops, which

had been removed to New Haven, were destroyed by fire, thus reducing the

firm to the verge of bankruptcy. The faith and energy of Mr. Miller are

well shown in the following letter, written from Dungeness to Whitney in

New Haven: "I think we ought to meet such events with equanimity. We are

pursuing a valuable object by honorable means, and I believe our

measures are such as are justified by virtue and morality. It has

pleased Providence to postpone the attainment of this object. In the

midst of all the reflections called up by our misfortunes, while feeling

keenly sensitive to the loss, injury and wrong we have sustained, I

feel an exultant joy that you possess a mind similar to my own, that you

are not disheartened, that you will persevere and endeavor at all

hazards to attain the main object. I will devote all my time, all my

thoughts, all my exertions, all the fortune I possess and all the money

I can borrow, to compass and complete the business we have undertaken;

and if fortune should by any future disaster deprive us of our reward,

we will at least have deserved it."

While thus embarrassed information came from England that the cotton

cleaned by their gins was ruined. Whitney nearly gave way under the

strain, and wrote to Mr. Miller at Dungeness: "Our extreme

embarrassments are now so great that it seems impossible to struggle

longer against them. It has required my utmost exertions to exist,

without making any progress in our business. I have labored hard to stem

the strong current of disappointment which threatens to carry us over

the cataract, but have labored with a shattered oar, and in vain unless

some speedy help come. Life is short at best, and six or seven of its

best years are an immense sacrifice to him who makes it."

Returning South, he constructed a new model (it is said at Dungeness),

with the object in view so to improve upon the old one as to remove the

seed without injury to the staple. It was first tried in the presence of

Mrs. Greene and Mr. Miller, but found lacking in an important

particular. Mrs. Greene exclaimed, "Why, Mr. Whitney, you want a brush,"

and with a stroke of her handkerchief removed the lint. Comprehending

her idea at once, he replied, "Mrs. Greene, you have completed the

cotton-gin."

With the further fortunes of the brave inventor we have no more to do,

as that part of his history intimately connected with Dungeness ends

here. His subsequent trials, disappointments, triumphs, all the world

knows. His friend and partner, who so nobly sustained him, lies buried

here, so tradition says, having died in 1806 of lockjaw caused by

running an orange-thorn through his hand while removing trees from

Florida to Dungeness.

Near the tomb of Mrs. Miller is another: "Sacred to pure affection.

This simple stone covers the remains of James Shaw. His virtues are not

to be learned from perishable marble; but when the records of Heaven

shall be unfolded it is believed they will be found written there in

characters as durable as the volumes of eternity. Died January 6th,

1820, aged 35 years." And by the side of this latter another marble

slab, with this inscription, which explains itself: "Louisa C. Shaw,

relict of James Shaw, Esq., and youngest daughter of Major-General

Nathaniel Greene of the Army of the Revolution. Died at Dungeness,

Georgia, April 24th, 1831, aged 45 years."

This ends the record of the residence of the family of General Greene at

Dungeness. That they made it their home for many years is evident--that

they removed here soon after the death of the general is probable. In

the division of General Greene's possessions Dungeness became the

property of Mrs. Shaw, his youngest daughter: she, dying childless, left

it to her nephew, Phineas Miller Nightingale. Mrs. Nightingale, wife of

the grandson of General Greene, to whom this property was given, was

daughter of Rufus King, governor of New York, and granddaughter of Rufus

King, minister to Great Britain during the elder Adams's administration.

The Nightingales, descendants of General Greene, remained in undisturbed

possession until the late war, dispensing unbounded hospitality at their

princely mansion. During the war the house was occupied by Northern

troops until its close, when, through the negligence of some negro

refugees, it was burned. Its ruins alone testify to the wealth of former

years which now is departed, and the broad acreage of untilled fields

and the ruined negro cabins cry out loudly for those who will never

return to bless them.

Let us turn once more to that cemetery in the olive-grove. Another stone

claims our attention, a tablet to the memory of him who pronounced those

glowing words, "First in war, first in peace, first in the hearts of his

countrymen:" "Sacred to the memory of Gen. Henry Lee of Virginia. Obiit

25 March, 1818, aetat. 63." In 1814, General Lee was injured by a mob in

Baltimore, and never recovered. Early in 1818 he arrived at Dungeness

from Cuba, whither he had gone to regain his health. He landed from a

schooner at the river landing, a weak, decrepit old man, in whom it

would have been difficult to recognize the dashing Light-Horse Harry of

the Revolution. A grandson of General Greene's, Phineas Miller

Nightingale, was loitering near the landing. Calling him, General Lee

learned who he was, and despatched him to his aunt, Mrs. Shaw, with the

intelligence of his arrival. "Tell her," said he, "that the old friend

and companion of General Greene has come to die in the arms of his

daughter."

A carriage was sent for him, and he was installed in the southern

chamber above the drawing-room, and everything done to alleviate his

pain that the kindest forethought could suggest. He lingered here some

two months, and then passed away, and was buried in the family

burying-ground. His only baggage at the time of his arrival was an old

hair-covered trunk nailed round with brass-headed nails.

An anecdote is preserved in the family relating to the general's

residence there. One of the servants, Sara by name--commonly called "the

Duchess" from her stately demeanor--incurred his ill-will. General Lee

once threatened to throw his boot at her, and the Duchess turned upon

him and replied, "If you do I'll throw it back at you." This answer so

pleased the old general that he would afterward permit no other servant

to wait upon him.

Some years after his death a stone was placed above his grave by his

son, General Robert E. Lee, who a few months prior to his death visited

his father's grave in company with his daughter.

* * * * *

These are some of the associations that cluster about the ruins of

Dungeness, giving to those ivy-grown walls, to forest and shore, an

interest which mere attractions of scenery and climate could not awaken.

FREDERICK A. OBER.

OUR MONTHLY GOSSIP.

"WESTERN MEMORABILIA."

One of the pioneers of the old-book trade in New York was William J.

Gowans, whose career as a dealer in old and rare books covered a period

of nearly fifty years, and brought him into a contact more or less

intimate with all the literary and many of the other notables of his

day. Gowans had some literary aspirations, and in his old age projected

a book which he proposed to call _Western Memorabilia_, and which was to

consist of sketches and reminiscences of the famous men he had met in

his career. This book was never published--somewhat to the loss of

American literature, I am inclined to think after perusing some of its

scattered fragments which have recently come into my possession. These

are full of detail, and, as throwing light on the characters of some

persons of whom far too little is known, are certainly worthy of

preservation.

On Poe I find the following notes: "The characters drawn of Poe by his

various biographers and critics may with safety be pronounced an excess

of exaggeration, but this is not to be much wondered at when it is

considered that these men were his rivals, either as poets or

prose-writers, and it is well known that such are generally as jealous

of each other as are the ladies who are handsome of those who desire to

be considered so. It is an old truism, and as true as it is old, that in

the multitude of counsellors there is safety. I therefore will show you

my opinion of this gifted but unfortunate genius: it may be estimated as

worth little, but it has this merit: it comes from an eye-and

ear-witness, and this, it must be remembered, is the very highest of

legal evidence. For eight months or more, 'one house contained us, us

one table fed.' During that time I saw much of him, and had an

opportunity of conversing with him often; and I must say I never saw him

the least affected with liquor, nor ever descend to any known vice,

while he was one of the most courteous, gentlemanly and intelligent

companions I have ever met. Besides, he had an extra inducement to be a

good man, for he had a wife of matchless beauty and loveliness: her eye

could match that of any houri, and her face defy the genius of a Canova

to imitate; her temper and disposition were of surpassing sweetness; in

addition, she seemed as much devoted to him and his every interest as a

young mother is to her first-born. During this time he wrote his longest

prose romance, entitled the _Adventures of Arthur Gordon Pym_. Poe had a

remarkably pleasing and prepossessing countenance--what the ladies would

call decidedly handsome. He died after a brief and fitful career at

Baltimore, October, 1849, where his remains lie interred in an obscure

burying-ground."

Of Simms he writes, under date of Oct. 15, 1868: "To-day I had the

pleasure of a call from William Gilmore Simms, the novelist. He is quite

affable in conversation, and apparently well stocked with general

information, which he can impart with fluency. He appears somewhat

downcast, or rather, I should say, has a melancholy cast of countenance:

he is advanced in years, with a profusion of hair around his face, chin

and throat--is apparently between sixty and seventy years of age. I

requested him to enroll his name in my autograph-book, which he did with

readiness. He remarked that he was often requested to do so, especially

by the ladies. I replied that this was a debt which every man incurred

when he became public property either by his words, actions or writings.

He acquiesced in the justice of the remark. Mr. Simms was in search of a

copy of Johnson's _History of the Seminoles_, to aid him in making a new

book. He was accompanied by Mr. Duykinck."

Halleck is thus introduced: "On a certain occasion I was passing a

Roman Catholic church in New York: seeing the doors open and throngs of

people pressing in, I stepped inside to see what I could see. I had not

well got inside when I beheld Fitzgreene Halleck standing uncovered,

with reverential attitude, among the crowd of unshorn and unwashed

worshippers. I remained till I saw him leave. In doing so he made a

courteous bow, as is the polite custom of the humblest of these people

on taking their departure.

On the subject of compliments paid him for poetical talents, Mr.

Halleck once said to me, 'They are generally made by those who are

ignorant or who have a desire to please or flatter, or perhaps a

combination of all. As a general thing, they are devoid of sincerity,

and rather offensive than pleasing. There is no general rule without its

exception, however, and in my bagful of compliments I cherish one which

comes under that rule, and reflecting upon it affords me real pleasure

as it did then. On a warm day in summer a young man came into the office

with a countenance glowing with ardor, innocence and honesty, and his

eyes beaming with enthusiasm. Said he, "Is Mr. Halleck to be found

here?" I answered in the affirmative. Continued he, with evidently

increased emotion, "Could I see him?"--"You see him now," I replied. He

grasped me by the hand with a hearty vigorousness that added to my

conviction of his sincerity. Said he, "I am happy, most happy, in having

had the pleasure at last of seeing one whose poems have afforded me no

ordinary gratification and delight. I have longed to see you, and I have

dreamt that I have seen you, but now I behold you with mine own eyes.

God bless you for ever and ever! I have come eleven hundred miles, from

the banks of the Miami in Ohio, mainly for that purpose, and I have been

compensated for my pains."'

"Mr. Halleck told me that he had been solicited to write a life of his

early and beloved friend Drake. 'But,' said he, 'I did not well see how

I could grant such a request: I had no lever for my fulcrum. What could

I say about one who had studied pharmacy, dissection, written a few

poems, and then left the scene of action? I had no material, and a mere

meaningless eulogy would have been out of the question.'

"In personal appearance Halleck was rather below the medium height and

well built: in walking he had a rather slow and shuffling gait, as if

something afflicted his feet; a florid, bland and pleasant countenance;

a bright gray eye; was remarkably pleasant and courteous in

conversation, and, as a natural consequence, much beloved by all who had

the pleasure of his acquaintance. But to that brilliancy in conversation

which some of his admirers have been pleased to attribute to him in my

opinion he could lay no claim. His library was sold at auction in New

York on the evening of October 12, 1868. If the collection disposed of

on that occasion was really his library in full, it must be confessed it

was a sorry affair and meagre in the extreme. In surveying the

collection a judge of the value of such property would perhaps pronounce

it worth from one hundred and twenty-five to one hundred and fifty

dollars. The books brought fabulous prices--at least ten times their

value. The company was large, good-humored and just in the frame of mind

to be a little more than liberal, doubtless stimulated to be so from a

desire to possess a relic of the departed poet who had added fame to the

literature of his country. The following are the names of a few of the

books and the prices they brought: _Nicholas Nickleby_, with the

author's autograph, $18; Bryant's little volume of poems entitled

_Thirty Poems_, with the author's autograph, $11; Campbell's _Poems_,

with Halleck's autograph, $8.50; _Catalogue of the Strawberry Hill

Collection_, $16; _Barnaby Rudge_, presentation copy by the author to

Halleck, $15; Coleridge's _Poems_, with a few notes by Halleck, $10;

_Fanny_, a poem by Mr. Halleck, $10. The sum-total realized for his

library was twelve hundred and fifty dollars."

Aaron Burr is the subject of some interesting reminiscences: "Shortly

after I came to New York, Aaron Burr was pointed out to me as he was

slowly wending his way up Broadway, between Chambers street and the old

theatre, on the City Hall side. I frequently afterward met him in this

and other streets. He was always an object of interest, inasmuch as he

had become an historical character, somewhat notoriously so. I will

attempt to describe his appearance, or rather how he appeared to me: He

was small, thin and attenuated in form, perhaps a little over five feet

in height, weight not much over a hundred pounds. He walked with a slow,

measured and feeble step, stooping considerably, occasionally with both

hands behind his back. He had a keen face and deep-set, dark eye, his

hat set deep on his head, the back part sunk down to the collar of the

coat and the back brim somewhat turned upward. He was dressed in

threadbare black cloth, having the appearance of what is known as shabby

genteel. His countenance wore a melancholy aspect, and his whole

appearance betokened one dejected, forsaken, forgotten or cast aside,

and conscious of his position. He was invariably alone when I saw him,

except on a single occasion: that was on the sidewalk in Broadway

fronting what is now the Astor House, where he was standing talking very

familiarly with a young woman whom he held by one hand. His countenance

on that occasion was cheerful, lighted up and bland--altogether

different from what it appeared to me when I saw him alone and in

conversation with himself. Burr must have been a very exact man in his

business-affairs. His receipt-book came into my possession. I found

there receipts for a load of wood, a carpenter's work for one day, a

pair of boots, milk for a certain number of weeks, suit of clothes,

besides numerous other small transactions that but few would think of

taking a receipt for. The book was but a sorry, cheap affair, and could

not have cost when new more than fifty cents."

Edwin Forrest is thus mentioned: "At the time when Forrest was earning

his reputation on the boards of the Bowery Theatre I was connected with

that institution, and of course had an opportunity of seeing him every

night he performed. Mr. Forrest appeared to be possessed of the

perfection of physical form, more especially conspicuous when arrayed in

some peculiar costumes which tended to display it to the best advantage.

He had a stentorian voice, and must have had lungs not less invulnerable

than one of Homer's heroes. He had a fine masculine face and

prepossessing countenance, much resembling many of the notable Greeks

and Romans whose portraits have come down to our time, and a keen

intellectual eye. His countenance at times assumed an air of hauteur

which doubtless had become a habit, either from personating characters

of this stamp or from a consciousness of his merited popularity. He left

the impression on the beholder of one intoxicated with success and the

repletion of human applause. He kept aloof from all around him, and

condescended to no social intercourse with any one on the stage, and

appeared to entertain a contempt for his audience.... He has now lost

that mercurial, youthful appearance which was then so conspicuous, and

which doubtless aided in laying the foundation of his widespread

reputation. He was then straight as an arrow and elastic as a

circus-rider, the very beau-ideal of physical perfection: now he bears

the marks of decay, or rather, as is said of grain just before harvest,

he has a ripe appearance. If he would consult his renown he would retire

from the stage, and never set foot upon it again."

The fragments also contain notes on Bryant, Parton, Mrs. Siddons and

several eminent divines and journalists. Of the latter class the fullest

relate to James Gordon Bennett, founder of the _Herald_, and his

coadjutor, William H. Attree. The following are extracts: "I remember

entering the subterranean office of Mr. Bennett early in the career of

the _Herald_ and purchasing a single copy of the paper, for which I paid

the sum of one cent only. On this occasion the proprietor, editor and

vender was seated at his desk busily engaged in writing, and appeared to

pay little or no attention to me as I entered. On making known my object

in coming in, he requested me to put my money down on the counter and

help myself to a paper: all this time he continued his writing

operations. The office was a single oblong, underground room. Its

furniture consisted of a counter, which also served as a desk,

constructed from two flour-barrels, perhaps empty, standing apart from

each other about four feet, with a single plank covering both; a chair,

placed in the centre, upon which sat the editor busy at his vocation,

with an inkstand by his right hand; on the end nearest the door were

placed the papers for sale. I attribute the success of the _Herald_ to a

combination of circumstances--to the peculiar fitness of its editor for

his position, to its cheapness, and its advertising patronage, which was

considerable. In the fourth place, it early secured the assistance of

William H. Attree, a man of uncommon abilities as a reporter and a

concocter of pithy as well as ludicrous chapters greatly calculated to

captivate many readers. In fact, this clever and talented assistant in

some respects never had his match. He did not, as other reporters do,

take down in short-hand what the speaker or reader said, but sat and

heard the passing discourse like any other casual spectator: when over

he would go home to his room, write out in full all that had been said

on the occasion, and that entirely from memory. On a certain occasion I

hinted to him my incredulity about his ability to report as he had

frequently informed me. To put the matter beyond doubt, he requested me

to accompany him to Clinton Hall to hear some literary magnate let off

his intellectual steam. I accordingly accompanied him as per

arrangement. We were seated together in the same pew. He placed his

hands in his pockets and continued in that position during the delivery

of the discourse, and when it was finished he remarked to me that I

would not only find the substance of this harangue in the _Herald_ the

next day, but that I would find it word for word. On the following

morning I procured the paper, and read the report of what I had heard

the previous evening; and I must say I was struck with astonishment at

its perfect accuracy. Before Mr. Attree's time reporting for the press

in New York was a mere outline or sketch of what had been said or done,

but he infused life and soul into this department of journalism. His

reports were full, accurate, graphic; and, what is more, he frequently

flattered the vanity of the speaker by making a much better speech for

him than he possibly could for himself. Poor Attree died in 1849, and is

entombed at Greenwood."

It is probable that other fragments of this work are in existence, and

if so it is hoped that the publication of these will tend to their

discovery.

C.B.T.

CONCERNING NIGHT-NOISES.

Many a time these summer nights am I startled out of my midnight sleep

by a conversation like the following as two friends pause on the corner

beneath my suburban window:

"Well, good-night."

"_Good_-night."

"Hold on a moment. I want to--"

"Oh yes. Rely on me. Do you think he will--"

"He promised."

"Oh, then he'll do it. Well, then, good--"

"Good-night, good-night."

"Wait an instant. But how shall I--"

"... Now you understand?"

"Oh yes. Good-night."

"Good-night."

"_Good_-night."

After these exclamations, uttered with piercing distinctness, have been

exchanged, the belated revellers from some club or whist-party or an

evening at the theatre in town terminate their sweet sorrow at parting

by going their several ways to their different homes, where, no doubt,

on retiring to rest they sink at once into blameless slumber, ignorant

of the fact that for me they have murdered sleep.

I had gone to bed betimes, wornout with hard mental labor: I had hoped

for a night's repose to recruit my energies for the morrow. This sleep I

craved was no luxurious indulgence of pampered inclination, but my stock

in trade--my bone, my sinew, my heart's courage, my mental inspiration,

the immediate jewel of my soul.

Who steals my purse steals trash; 'tis something, nothing:

'Twas mine, 'tis his, and has been slave to thousands;

But he that filches from me my NIGHT'S SLEEP

Robs me of that which not enriches him,

And makes me poor indeed.

But let me now repose again: tenderly entreated, softly courted, sleep

may return. There are many specifics for bringing slumber to mutinous

eyelids. Let me remember what they are.

_First._ To think of the wind blowing on a field of grain. Watch with

your mind's eye the long wavy undulations, the golden sheen which takes

the light. What a dreamy, exquisite rhythm! (Still, I don't sleep.)

_Second._ Repeat the multiplication-table backward, from twelve times

down to twice. (Hopeless, the only result being to render my

mathematical powers acutely, preternaturally awake, so that I begin to

estimate the magnitude of my summer expenses.)

_Third._ Try to decide where to spend the August vacation. I am thinking

of Lake George, the Saguenay, Sea Girt, the White Mountains, when all at

once I begin to yield drowsily to the influence of long conversations

about nothing which take possession of my mind--mere gibberish, strings

of words without sense. Thank Heaven, I am off! I am actually going to

sleep. _Not yet!_

Down the street comes a man with an accordion. He is playing "Annie

Laurie." Every now and then he strikes a wrong note. Excruciating agony!

Did he render it correctly it might blend with a romantic dream, but

when he insists on flatting persistently, as for bonnie Annie Laurie he

offers to lay him down and die, who is to bear it? And why does he not

consummate the proffered sacrifice by dying at once? I would cheerfully

bury him. He passes slowly, lingeringly, seeming to pause outside of my

window, as if my casement enshrined that form like the snowdrift and

that throat like the swan's. But, although he vanishes finally, the

street has become alive. Two men pass in deeply-interesting

conversation, one of them assuring the other that he has not done "a

stroke's work" in two years. He is maudlin, of course. "A stroke's

work"? And as if any man could expect to find work and to do it after

keeping such hours as these!

And now comes "the whistler." I had been expecting him. He is to-night

whistling airs from _Pinafore_. The _Pirates_, thank Heaven! furnishes

him no airs. He whistles--let me confess, reluctant although I am to do

it--he whistles to perfection. There is nothing experimental, nothing

tentative, in his notes, which come clear, sharp, in perfect time and

tune.

The clock strikes two. It is the voice of doom, for presently the 2.19

freight-train will thunder slowly through our end of the town. It

renders my case utterly hopeless. One might as well expect to sleep in

momentary expectation of the Juggernaut. I know its every sound: I can

feel the bridge at ---- Junction, five miles away, tremble under it. I

listen and wait, every nerve on edge. A mile and a half the other side

of our station the engine will first snort, then begin a series of

shrieks--shrieks suggestive of warning, imminent danger, supreme peril,

the climax of a tragical catastrophe. For at least five minutes shall I

be compelled to listen while the engineer--if it be a real living

engine-man who impels this chorus of fiends--runs the full scale of his

shrill tooting, perhaps deeming it essential to the safety of the town,

which ought to be asleep, or to the dignity of his long, creeping train

of coal- and freight-laden cars.

Even the Juggernaut passes: it is gone. I emerge, faint and wornout from

the trial. Now that it is toward three o'clock, everybody except the

policeman in bed, and no more trains to come until after five, one might

suppose there was some chance for an interval of peace, of repose. I get

up and walk about a little in order to feel, with the opportunity, the

inclination for slumber. Yes, it will come....

Scarcely have I ventured to close my eyes again before there begins a

chirp, a twitter, a general thrill of sound. All the birds are awake,

and are soon in full chorus. Presently a flush of color will run around

the horizon, and it will be dawn. The actual night has flown. I can

hear Smith, our grocery-man around the corner, setting off into the

country for his milk and eggs. Several marketcarts are abroad.... There

goes an extra train, shrieking direly along the curve.

It is actually growing light. With the first gleam of day my excellent

aunt--who embodies all my future expectations of wealth--sleeping in the

next chamber, turns in her bed, yawns loudly and unreservedly, gets up

and takes an observation, opening and closing her shutters with a bang.

By breakfast-time my revered relation becomes a respectable and no

longer a riotous member of society, but during the early morning hours

her inventions for disturbing her neighbors are ingenious and

diabolical.

By five o'clock the morning-trains begin, followed at half-past six by

fifty factory-whistles. The children are awake and stirring. The

housemaid is banging her utensils on piazza and in hallway: the cook is

flirting with the milk-and butter-man at the back gate, and exclaiming

"Oh Laws!" to some news or pleasantry of his. The licensed venders are

abroad. There are all sorts of cries. It is less than an hour to

breakfast. The night is lost: one foolish, intolerable noise has spoiled

all.

L.W.

TABARIN, THE FRENCH MERRY-ANDREW.

The French word _tabarin_ is almost obsolete, and its English synonym,

_merry-andrew_, is not much in vogue, but as they are andronymics, to

coin a word, embalming the memories of two famous charlatans, they

possess an abiding interest apart from all question of their use or

disuse.

Andrew Borde and Tabarin were both charlatans and both famous, but here

all resemblance between them ceases. The former was a witty and

eccentric quack, who travelled about from place to place and country to

country selling drugs and practising medicine in fairs and marketplaces,

where his glib tongue readily gathered crowds and earned him the

nickname which has since passed current in English as a generic term for

buffoons of all sorts and conditions. The tenth volume of the _Extra

Series_ of the Early English Text Society is wholly devoted to Borde,

and well repays perusal, although probably few who read it will agree

with Mr. Furnivall, the editor, that "any one who would make him more of

a merry-andrew than anything else is a bigger fool than he would make

Borde."

Tabarin, however, was a veritable and inimitable clown, and his name has

figured in French literature both as a proper and a common noun almost

from the day that he and his partner, Mondor, set up their booth on the

Pont Neuf. They began their sale of ointments and liniments in Paris

about the year 1618, attracting custom by their absurd dialogues in the

vein of the circus-clown and ring-master of to-day. Occasionally they

left the city to try their luck in the provinces, but during most of

their career they were to be found on the bridge near the entrance to

the Place Dauphine. Tabarin retired from the business about 1630, but

his partner continued at the old stand with a new clown, who must have

been either less witty or more obscene than Tabarin, for in 1634 Mondor

was abated as a nuisance by the authorities.

Tabarin was blessed with a wife and daughter: his wife's name was

Francisquine; his daughter married the celebrated buffoon Gaultier

Garguille. The story goes that when he left Mondor he bought a small

country-place near Paris, where he passed his latter days comfortably on

his earnings. There are two traditions current as to the manner of his

death: according to one, he was killed by some noblemen in a hunting

quarrel; according to the other, he died from the effects of heavy

drinking for a wager. He is said to have styled himself Tabarin because

he usually appeared in a little tabard, called in Italian _tabarrino_,

but his true name and his nationality are alike unknown.

Tabarin's pleasantries, as jotted down by members of his audiences, have

been given to the world at divers times in various forms, and have

latterly been collected and published in a body with those of his less

successful rival Grattelard; but very few of them are suited to

nineteenth-century taste, and most of them are gross to the last degree.

Some of the presentable ones are here given, and may serve as specimens

of his manner, though they will scarcely account for his reputation:

_Tab._ Who are the politest people in the world, master?

_Mon._ I've travelled in Spain, Italy and Germany, and I assure you that

the French nation is by all odds the most courteous. They are the only

people in the world that kiss and compliment, and above all take off

hats.

_Tab._ Take off hats! If that's courtesy I don't want any of it.

_Mon._ Taking off hats, Tabarin, is an ancient custom originating among

the Romans. It is done in token of good-will.

_Tab._ So you say taking off hats is the pink of politeness? Now, if

that's so, do you want to know who I think are the politest people?

_Mon._ Yes: who?

_Tab._ Why, our Paris street-thieves, for they don't stop at taking off

hats, but take cloaks off too.

* * * * *

_Tab._ Master, why don't they let women take orders?

_Mon._ Because the sex is frail, Tabarin, and not worthy to conduct the

services of the Church, which are sacred mysteries.

_Tab._ Humbug! It's because they always will have the last word, so it

wouldn't do to let them give the responses. Why, the services would

never end.

By similar logic Tabarin demonstrates, among others, the following

propositions:

An ass is a better linguist than his master, because he understands when

he is spoken to, while his lingo is all lost upon the man.

A fiddler has the hardest lot of all mankind, because his life depends

upon a bit of wood and a piece of cord, for all the world like a

malefactor's.

Cut-purses are the most liberal of all men, for they not only empty

their own purses, but those of other people.

If you put a miller, a tailor, a bailiff and an attorney in a bag, the

first thing to come out will be a thief.

The most wonderful gardener and the most wonderful tree in the world

are respectively Jack Ketch and the gallows tree, because when the

hangman plants that unpleasant vegetable it bears fruit the same day.

If you see six birds on a tree, and shoot three, there will be _none_

left, for of course the remaining three will fly away. This last jest is

so trite to-day as to be absolutely threadbare.

Tabarin's wits were not exhausted by this kind of buffoonery. He issued

comic proclamations and almanacs, and even produced short farces in

which his wife performed with him. From one of these farces Moliere is

supposed to have borrowed the ideas for his sack-scene in the

_Fourberies de Scapin_.

La Fontaine stole one of Grattelard's dialogues bodily, and converted it

into the celebrated fable of _The Acorn and the Pumpkin_. Grattelard was

contemporary with Tabarin, as remarked above: he and his partner,

Desiderio Descombes, sold quack medicines at the north end of the Pont

Neuf. The dialogue in question follows, at least so much of it as is in

point, and will serve as tailpiece to the specimens of Tabarin's wit:

_Grat._ I had a great discussion this morning with a philosopher, trying

to prove to him that Nature often makes great mistakes.

_D. D._ No, no, Grattelard: everything that Nature does is done for the

best.

_Grat._ Just wait now: let me tell you how I had to give in.

_D. D._ Well, how was it?

_Grat._ We were walking in the garden, and pretty soon we came across a

tremendous pumpkin, as big as a Swiss drum. "There!" said I: "Nature has

no better sense than to hang a great thing like that on such a slender

vine that the least breeze can break it off."

_D. D._ Then you blamed Nature in the matter of the pumpkin?

_Grat._ Yes, for of course there ought to be some proportion _inter

sustinens et sustentum_; but, by Heavens, I soon changed my mind, for

just as I was passing under a great oak tree down fell an acorn and

struck me on the nose. Of course I had to admit that Nature was right,

after all, for if she had put a pumpkin up there I should have been in a

pretty pickle.

_D. D._ Yes indeed, Grattelard: you would have cut a fine figure

drinking out of a bottle with your nose in a sling.

_Grat._ By the Georgics of Virgil, 'twould be all up with spectacles for

my old age.

Tabarin was the first of the series of clowns that enlivened the streets

of Paris for two hundred years, or, at any rate, the first to attain

celebrity: Bobeche in our own century was the last. He made a great

noise in his day, but nothing keeps his memory green except the Bobeche

of Offenbach's _Barbe-Bleue_. Tabarin, however, has a new lease of life

in two of the handy little-volumes of the _Bibliotheque Elzevirienne_.

S.E.T.

A LEGION OF DEVILS.

"Everybody knows," said Beppo, my Roman model, "that the English are

mad, signor. For has not the padre told me so? and does he not say that

the fires of Purgatory burn within them? Else why do they roll about in

a tub of water every morning, if not to cool their vitals? It is an

insult to an Italian to wash him: we only wash dead bodies;" and Beppo

draws his huge frame up to its full height, while his black eyes flash,

and I mentally acknowledge him and his begrimed rags picturesque if

filthy.

"Si, si, they are all mad," he continues, "and they keep horses and dogs

as mad as themselves; and they ride out, dressed in the very color of

the flames of Purgatory, to run screaming and shouting after poor foxes

over the Campagna, notwithstanding the Holy Father has rigorously

prohibited that sort of insanity, and has placed his gendarmerie

purposely to stop it. But who can stop _il diavolo e gli suoi angeli_?

Why, signor, if they want foxes, I myself, Beppo Donati, would catch

them any number for a paul or two. But they are all mad, all mad. And

the dogs, it is well known how they became possessed; for," lowering his

voice and coming nearer me, "I myself saw the arch-fiend himself and his

legions enter them bodily. I will tell the signor how it was.

"The signor has been in the Catacombs of the blessed martyrs, but

cannot know as much about them as myself, who was custodian for many a

year in the dangerous and least frequented ones; and it was there that I

received the hurt that caused me to turn model. Many are the hours I

have passed in the remote ones lying miles away from the Eternal City,

where the only available entrance was a tortuous, chimney-like hole

almost filled with rubbish, and so insignificant in appearance that it

had remained concealed by a few bushes from the time it was last used by

the blessed martyrs themselves till to-day.

"To descend this aperture, signor, one struggles along with much

difficulty: lying on one's chest, and with a lighted taper in one hand,

the other holding a rope that has been made fast to a tree outside, one

slides down by degrees feet foremost. The passages are usually narrowed

and choked by the rubbish, and descend nearly perpendicularly to where,

lower down, they open wider and your feet touch steps cut roughly in the

rock; but you must not trust them, for the soft stone will crumble with

your weight. After descending some sixty or seventy feet you suddenly

bump against an old stone doorway, and you are at the bottom. But on

passing the doorway your position is even worse, as the stagnant pools

of muddy water reach up to your knees, and the passages are too low to

admit of your standing upright, while you stretch your taper into a

thick darkness that closes over everything a few yards distant and

prevents your seeing anything but the horizontal niches in tiers, one

above the other, where the mortal remains of the beatific lie surrounded

by the symbols of the faith they died for. Here they keep their vigil

century after century over our Holy City, while they await their

glorious resurrection.

"I have been miles under the Campagna in these subterranean cemeteries.

No one has yet ascertained their entire extent. They branch out in every

direction, and the ramifications are so countless--not only on a level,

but in stories underlying one another--and so many of them have fallen

in or been filled with water, that no successful attempt has ever been

made to follow them to their extremities. Nor can it be found out

whether they communicate with one another or remain as they were

originally, distinct from each other.

"You have heard, signor, that the early Christians celebrated the feasts

of the Church by visiting the then newly-decorated and consecrated

subterranean cemeteries, and that on one of these occasions, when a

large crowd of persons had entered to celebrate a festival, it occurred

to the ruling authorities that the opportunity might be advantageously

used to lessen by so many the troublesome and ever-increasing population

of the new faith. Accordingly, a number of huge stones were brought and

the entrance built up and rigidly guarded till all the unfortunate

prisoners had died a martyr's death.

"After that, to guard against a repetition of such an act, various

apertures of exit were made, and may now be frequently found on the

Campagna, where, when one's foot sinks into a doubtful-looking hole

filled with rubbish, one knows it penetrates to the depths beneath.

Secret passages were also made to debouch in the private houses of

well-known Christians or buildings set apart for Christian worship; and

it was from one of these walled-up doorways that I, Beppo Donati, myself

saw _un miracolo_ performed and a legion of devils let loose.

"It was in the church of St. Prassede. St. Prassede, the signor knows,

was one of the daughters of the senator Pudens mentioned by St. Paul as

sending his greetings to Timothy. The present church stands on the site

of the very house once inhabited by this Christian family, and in the

dark crypt under the high altar there is a walled-up doorway with the

sign of the cross upon it. The crypt was originally the cellar of the

ancient house, into which debouched one of the secret entrances to the

Catacombs: at one extremity of the crypt is the doorway in question, now

strongly built up, with the cross impressed in its superficial stucco.

"For many centuries the subterranean excavations behind the crypt have

been haunted by the Evil One and his coadjutors, who break forth from

time to time in unearthly noises, racings, scamperings, moanings and

yellings, and scarcely a man, woman or child in the vicinity but has

heard them with their own veritable ears. Many special services of

exorcism have been performed in the church above to meet the occasions

as they might arise, but with no permanent effect. And, signor,

notwithstanding the cloud of witnesses that can testify to these

supernatural sounds, the city contains sceptics, and none more

determined than the learned Father Xavier of the Holy Propaganda.

"The day of the miracle that I am about to tell you of was a dark, wet

Thursday in November, when my wife Teresina and myself attended high

mass at St. Prassede, in honor of Teresina's festa. At the conclusion of

the mass strange sounds were heard behind the walls of the crypt, and

more especially at the back of the walled-up door. Gasps, yellings,

scamperings, and then a cessation, and again a repetition of the same

unearthly sounds with increased vehemence. Sometimes they would seem to

recede till they died away in the distance, and then come rushing as if

a whole legion of the enemy were close at hand. From the body of the

church the crypt is approached by an open passage down a wide flight of

steps immediately in front of the high altar, and the walled door, as

well as the whole of the crypt, can be distinctly seen from the top of

the steps. When the mysterious noises were first heard most of the

congregation had retreated precipitately to the doors, but some of the

more pious or venturesome--among whom were Teresina and myself--had

remained, and were leaning over the balusters while the padre descended

with his attendants to perform the special service appointed for the

occasion. The exorcism took effect, for the noises, from being very

uproarious, suddenly ceased altogether, and the arch-fiend seemed

pacified, if not utterly routed, until at the close of the service, a

bell was rung as appointed in the office. The sound of this bell had the

effect of increasing the demoniac uproar to such a degree that the

padre officiating was fain to hurry through the rest of the service as

best he could and beat a precipitate retreat, with the acolytes, bells

and all, to the sacristy.

"Teresina and myself had fled to the door of the church, where we

stationed ourselves in a convenient place for a start when the occasion

might require it. We had not been there long when we saw Father

Xavier--the sceptic I told the signor about--enter the church with two

assistants armed with crowbars and pickaxes, and proceed immediately to

the crypt, where no doubt could exist as to the noises at that moment,

as the yellings, scamperings and scramblings were loud enough in all

conscience. The sacristan came out from the body of the church and

suggested another exorcism to the reverend father, who answered that he

preferred the pickaxe, and, turning to beckon to his workmen, found they

had fled. Nowise daunted, the reverend gentleman took off his coat,

rolled up his sleeves and went to work with a will, making the vault

re-echo with his blows. This operation, while it had the effect of

thinning the audience still further in the church, where Teresina and I

lingered, certainly abated the noises behind the door, until the padre's

blows, continuing with unabated energy, effected a breach where the very

head and claws of the Evil One himself were actually to be seen

protruding through the aperture: in one moment more the whole troop of

the enemy had dashed through the opening, upset the padre, and were in

full career through the church, from whence the whole assembly took

flight into the streets, uttering frantic shouts and seeking safety in

the houses. The legionaries of Satan had it all to themselves, and

continued their career until they arrived at the place where the English

keep their hounds, where, with a tremendous yell, they leaped over the

gate and disappeared in the kennels.

"I myself saw this, signor," said Beppo, giving his head an emphatic

nod, "and have I not every reason for saying that the hounds, as well

as their masters, are possessed?"

Beppo's story still leaving some physiological questions unsolved in my

dark Protestant mind, I took occasion to speak to Father Xavier himself

about it when I next met him. From him I learned that on the morning in

question a party of English left the city on a hunting-excursion on the

Campagna. A fox was unearthed after considerable delay, and a sharp run

started, when suddenly fox, dogs and all disappeared down one of the

numerous holes leading to the Catacombs. As the occurrence was not

unusual, the hunt waited, expecting them to reappear up some other

aperture; but after lingering the greater part of the day they were

obliged to return to the city without the dogs, who had found their way

through the dark and intricate passages to the door of the crypt, where

the sceptical padre, as we have seen, liberated them.

M.S.D.

THE DEMIDOFFS.

Readers of the agreeable memoirs of Madame Le Brun may remember the

passage in which she speaks of a certain "M. Demidoff, le plus riche

particulier de la Russie." His father, she goes on to say, had left him

an inheritance of great value in the shape of mines, the products of

which he sold to the government on very profitable terms. His enormous

wealth enabled him to obtain the hand of a Miss Strogonov, the daughter

of one of the most ancient families of the land. Their union was an

harmonious one, and they left two sons, "of whom one," concludes our

author, "lives most of the time at Paris, and, like his father, is very

fond of art."

Madame Le Brun's friend was Nicolai Demidoff (1774-1828), one of the

least distinguished members of his family, who have been the

mining-kings of Russia for two centuries. The contemporary of Peter the

Great was ennobled by him (without receiving a title), and in the patent

it was decreed that the family should be for ever free from military and

other service, "that they may devote themselves to the discovery of

metals." Nicolai's son Anatoli was born in Moscow March 24, 1813: he

was sent to Paris to be educated, and remained there till his eighteenth

year, studying at various institutions, including the law-school and the

Ecole Polytechniqne. Shortly after his return his father died, and he

came into possession of an enormous property, which he immediately began

to spend, lavishly, but generously. In St. Petersburg he bought and

furnished a large building to serve as a charitable institution. From

its kitchen two hundred thousand meals are given yearly to the poor, and

in it one hundred and fifty orphans are housed and fed, one hundred and

fifty girls are trained to be capable servants, and forty impoverished

gentlewomen find a home. When the cholera raged in the same city not

long afterward he not only established a hospital, but is said to have

devoted himself personally to the care of the sick. In the furtherance

of science and art he was still more munificent. He founded the Demidoff

prizes, which annually distribute nearly four thousand dollars to the

authors of the most useful works published during the year, while from

his mines in Siberia eight young men went forth yearly to acquire a

thorough technical education at his expense. In 1837, urged by the great

need of coal felt by the Russian industrial classes, he began a three

years' exploration of the Black Sea country, accompanied by a staff of

six professors, who produced a detailed report, not only of the

coal-deposits, but also of the zoology, botany and geology of the region

traversed. The results of their labors are described in four octavo

volumes--_Voyage dans la Russie meridionale, executee sous la direction

de M. Anatole de Demidoff_--and inscribed to the emperor Nicholas. One

reward of this labor was election to the Institute de France, his

competitors being Parry and Sir John Franklin.

Some years before this time he had entered the diplomatic service, being

attache, first, at Vienna, then at Rome, then charge d'affaires at

Florence. Here he met and married Mathilde Bonaparte, who, through her

mother, was closely connected with his sovereign. Nicolai's daughter had

been allowed to make a love-match in marrying the duke of Leuchtenberg,

son of Eugene Beauharnais, and the emperor was by no means pleased to

have another mesalliance in the family. What most offended him, however,

was the fact that M. Demidoff, in the Catholic as well as in the Greek

marriage ceremony, had promised to educate his children in the faith of

the officiating priest. In consequence of this he was deprived of such

titular honors as he possessed and was ordered to live abroad. As the

married pair did not get on very well, and as, after a childless union

of four years, they agreed to separate, Demidoff was again received into

the imperial favor. He had meantime bought the fine estate and mansion

of San Donato, near Florence; and as he thought the possessor of so much

wealth and the husband of so noble a lady deserved to have a title, he

dubbed himself "prince," and continued to enjoy this self-given title,

probably in the hope that an uncontested use would give him a

prescriptive right to bear it. In this hope he was disappointed, for

Count Medem, an attache of the Russian embassy at Paris, noticing

"Prince Demidoff" on the list of the members of the Jockey Club, crossed

the name out, adding the observation, "Il n'y a pas de prince Demidoff."

A bloodless duel followed.

In the lately-published memoirs of the German novelist Hacklaender--who

in 1843 figured as secretary to the crown-prince of Wuertemberg during

his visit to Italy--we have an agreeable picture of M. Demidoff at San

Donato. "His paintings, sculptures, odd furniture, bronzes and weapons

were arranged in an irregular and apparently arbitrary fashion, so that

they did not produce the wearisome effect of an ordinary collection, but

looked rather like treasures with which their owner had surrounded

himself partly for use, partly only to look at." Demidoff "was a tall,

thin man," continues Mr. Hacklaender, "with light, almost yellow,

complexion, and always dressed with extreme elegance. On the occasion of

our first visit to his town-house the princess was painting in her

studio, in which art she was more than a dilettante. The prince went

first to her with Demidoff, and after they had come back we heard from

her a peal of the heartiest laughter, which rung down through five large

rooms. Soon after she came out and greeted us in the kindest fashion.

She was then a young and handsome woman, with a splendid figure,

graceful curves, fine eyes and complexion,--all beautified and illumined

by her pleasant voice and happy manner."

In 1851, Demidoff bought the villa of San Martini, which Bonaparte

occupied during his stay in Elba, improved the building at a cost of

forty thousand dollars, and made of it a museum in which were to be seen

all sorts of curiosities connected with the great emperor--hats,

swords, pistols, portraits of the king of Rome, and manuscripts for

which he paid one hundred thousand dollars. His uncle's other

collections the present M. (or, if you like, Prince) Demidoff sold at

auction the present year: I have not heard whether the Elba relics were

sold with them.

Florence, as well as St. Petersburg, owes much to M. Demidoff--among

other things, an asylum in which fifty boys are trained in silk-weaving.

It was in Paris, however, not in the city which he so long honored with

his residence, that in 1870 this philanthropic and enterprising man took

leave of worldly vanities.

A.V.

LITERATURE OF THE DAY.

A History of Classical Greek Literature. By the Rev. J.P. Mahaffy,

M.A., Fellow and Professor of Ancient History, Trinity College,

Dublin. New York: Harper & Brothers.

It is easy to imagine a history of Greek literature which should be not

only useful and stimulative to the student, but fascinating to the

general mass of intelligent readers. The literature of Greece is not,

like that of modern nations, the mirror of a many-colored life; but the

originality, variety and perfection of its forms make it on the whole

the most complete and splendid representation of thought and imagination

which the world possesses. While it owed little or nothing to any

foreign influence, it was itself the source of all later conceptions of

literary art, and though it exists only in fragmentary remains, these

still furnish the chief standard of excellence in nearly every

department. The subject is therefore unique both in the value of its

materials and in the definiteness of its limits. What is demanded for

the adequate treatment of it is not universal knowledge, but minute and

thorough scholarship; not a wide and diversified experience, an

unlimited range of sympathies, the power of detecting subtle motives and

disentangling complicated threads of action, but a comprehension of the

simple and eternal elements of character and conduct, the faculty of

tracing a specific development from its origin to its decline, while

indicating its connection with other indigenous growths of the same

soil, and a vivid sense of the marvellous rapidity and exquisite beauty

of the simultaneous or successive unfoldings. Given these powers,

unhampered by any defect of mere technical skill, and it is hard to see

how any mind susceptible of being interested in their application to

such a topic could resist their sway.

We do not know what ideal Mr. Mahaffy may have formed of the task he has

undertaken or of the qualities demanded for it. His preface gives no

intimation on this point, and his "introduction" affords only negative

evidence in his refusal to follow "the usual practice with historians of

Greek literature" and "begin with a survey of the character and genius

of the race, the peculiar features of the language, and the action which

physical circumstances have produced upon the development of all these

things." Instead of any discussions of this nature, which "in many

German books are," it appears, "so long and so vague that the student is

wearied before he arrives at a single fact," the natural division of

literature into poetry and prose is made the starting-point. The former,

in accordance with "a well-known law of human progress," precedes the

latter, but is gradually supplanted by it. "This may be seen among us in

the education of children, who pass in a few years through successive

stages not unlike those of humanity at large in its progress from mental

infancy to mature thought. We know that little children can be taught to

repeat and remember rhymes long before they will listen to the simplest

story in prose." On the other hand, "when the majority of people begin

to read, poetry loses its hold upon the public, and the prose-writer,

who composes with greater simplicity and less labor, at last obtains an

advantage over his rival the poet, who is put into competition with all

the older poets now circulating among a more learned public." In

accordance with this profound yet simple theory--from which we gather

that the Golden Age of the poets was that in which there were no

readers--the work is divided into two nearly equal parts, the first

dealing with poetry and the second with prose, and this "is now the

accepted order among the German writers on the subject."

In the first volume epic, lyric and dramatic poetry are dealt with in

the order in which they are here named, while in the second the

arrangement is strictly chronological, taking up historians,

philosophers and orators as they appeared upon the scene. Except in the

case of the epic and the drama there is no examination of the rise or

nature of any particular form of composition, and the exceptions merely

touch the familiar ground of the origin of the Homeric poems and the

rise of the AEschylean tragedy. Some account is given of the principal

authors, their works are more or less fully enumerated and some of them

analyzed, style and similar matters are discussed in a summary and

decisive tone--critics, ancient and modern, who have held different

views from those of Mr. Mahaffy being sharply reprehended--and the final

sections of some of the chapters are devoted to bibliography, including

modern imitations and translations. Although Mr. Mahaffy is never

otherwise than terse--or, more properly speaking, curt--he sometimes

condescends to repetition. Thus he tells us in three or four different

places that Sophocles and Thucydides "play at hide-and-seek with the

reader." These two authors, thus happily classed together, represent

"the artificial obscurity of the Attic epoch," in distinction from "the

pregnant obscurity" of Heracleitus and AEschylus and "the redundant

obscurity of some modern poets." The attempt of "Classen and others" to

explain the involutions and anacolutha of Thucydides by "the undeveloped

condition of Attic prose, and the difficulties of wrestling with an

unformed idiom to express adequately great and pregnant thoughts," is

triumphantly refuted by the statement that "Euripides and Cratinus had

already perfected the use of Attic Greek in dramatic dialogue," and "in

Attic prose Antiphon had already attained clearness, as we can see in

his extant speeches." As Classen, in his discussion of the question, has

not omitted to notice Antiphon, it may be doubted whether he would

accept this fact as conclusive. Another point in regard to Thucydides is

introduced in a manner that prepares us for some startling disclosures:

"As regards the historian's trustworthiness, it has been so universally

lauded that it is high time to declare how far his statements are to be

accepted as absolute truths." But expectation subsides when we are

assured in the next sentence that "on contemporary facts his authority

is very good, and so far there has been no proof of any inaccuracy

brought home to him." He is open to doubt, it appears, "only when he

goes into archaeology," by which term Mr. Mahaffy understands early

Sicilian history, which "reaches back three hundred years, nay to three

hundred years before the advent of the Greeks." It has "only lately," it

appears, been discovered that Thucydides had no personal knowledge of

the events of that remote period, but "copied from Dionysius of

Syracuse," and hence "the whole tradition requires careful

consideration." In that case, we fear, the "high time" for deciding on

the "absolute truth" of the historian's statements will have to be

indefinitely postponed. Meantime we learn from the work before us the

striking fact, that "the night-escape of the Plateans from their city,"

as related in the third book of Thucydides, "has been reproduced in our

own day by Sir E. Creasy, in his Greek novel, _The Old Love and the

New_." It has sometimes been debated whether the Greeks had any novels:

it is now settled that they had one--written by an Englishman. It is to

be hoped that this discovery will give a new impetus to the interest in

Greek literature, which must be at a low ebb if Mr. Mahaffy be correct

in stating that "even diligent scholars find it a task to read a

dialogue of Plato honestly through." To be sure, if Plato's style and

matter were simply such as Mr. Mahaffy describes them, there would be no

great inducement to make the attempt. The same remark would apply to

most of the extant plays of Sophocles. The _Oedipus Rex_, in

particular, reveals itself in Mr. Mahaffy's analysis as a mere farrago

of inconsistencies and absurdities. In allusion to the very different

estimate of Professor Campbell, Mr. Mahaffy remarks, "Though I deeply

respect this simple-hearted enthusiasm, it does not appear to me the

best way of stimulating the study of any writer." Still, Mr. Mahaffy can

occasionally defend a Greek author against the strictures of other

critics. Thus he cannot agree with Mr. Simcox in giving "some credence

to the attacks on Demosthenes charging him with unchastity. These," he

observes, "the whole man's life and his portrait-statue forbid us to

believe." We do not quite understand how the fact that Demosthenes was a

"whole man" tends to rebut the charge referred to, and if what Mr.

Mahaffy meant to say be "the man's whole life," this is simply begging

the question, a part of that whole being the point of dispute. But the

evidence of the "portrait-statue" is, of course, resistless, and one

cannot but regret, in the interests of public decency, that testimony so

conclusive is not admitted in modern trials involving a similar issue.

One great characteristic of Mr. Mahaffy's style is an unsparing use of

the first personal pronoun. "I think," "I do not think," "I conceive,"

"I believe," "I advocate," "I infer," "I would select," "I had

predicted," are forms of expression strewn abundantly, often in

clusters, over the pages of the work, the subject to which they refer

being generally one on which most other people do not "think" or

"conceive" as Mr. Mahaffy does. One is reminded of an epigram on

Whewell, master of Trinity College (Oxford, not Dublin), after the

appearance of his _Plurality of Worlds_:

His eye, as it ranges through boundless infinity,

Finds the chief work of God the master of Trinity.

William Cowper. By Goldwin Smith. (English-Men-of-Letters Series.)

New York: Harper & Brothers.

Much thoughtful and sympathetic criticism has been written on the life

and writings of Cowper, without any new facts being brought to light or

any decided progress made. His character reveals itself and his life is

minutely recorded in his correspondence; but the few points which his

letters leave unexplained still remain obscure after long search and

study. The question of his rupture with Lady Austen, for instance, is

just where Hayley left it. His poems present elements so apparently

irreconcilable that, while their qualities are universally recognized,

their place in literature is still an unsettled one. The reader of _The

Task_ may ask himself in one breath whether it is poetry at all, or

whether it be not great poetry. There is no trace of the instinctive

poetic utterance of bards such as Shelley and Keats, but there is a

constant appeal to the strongest and most elementary human feelings,

rarely met with in any but the greatest works of art. It was never

Cowper's fate to be exposed to that brilliant but unsympathetic

criticism which is the most short-sighted kind. No comprehension of him

can be got without bringing in feeling as a factor of judgment, and it

would not be singular if the moral beauty of his verse should blind

readers to its artistic faults. As a matter of fact, however, the

tendency now-a-days is to exaggerate Cowper's position rather than his

qualities, and this arises not from warmth of feeling, but from hasty

dogmatizing. There is a marked difference between _The Task_ and any

poem preceding it, but the distance from _The Task_ to _The Excursion_

is still wider. The resemblance to Wordsworth in the former poem is

tolerably superficial: it is a likeness with a difference. Cowper was

the observer, not the priest, of Nature, watching her minutely and

tenderly, but with none of Wordsworth's passion. The finest passages in

_The Task_ are wholly descriptive, and of description pure and simple

there is very little in Wordsworth's writings. Neither is there any

strong proof of Cowper's influence in the work of his successor, though

the influence felt most strongly by each was the same--that of Milton.

When M. Taine speaks of the revolution effected by Cowper as one of

style, when Mr. Lowell characterizes Wordsworth's blank verse as

"essentially the blank verse of Cowper," those eminent critics agree in

exalting Cowper above his age at the very point where he is most closely

bound to it. In sentiment he made a certain advance toward Wordsworth,

though on a lower plane, but in diction he is distinctly of the

eighteenth century. His style is often as artificial as that of any of

its rhymesters: it is full of inversions, freighted with long, formal

words, and still more marred by others of a false dilettante ring.

Wordsworth would never have spoken of "embellished Nature," "embroidered

banks," or applied the word "elegant" to a rose, any more than he would

have used "lubricity" or "stercoraceous" in verse.

Yet, formal as Cowper's language often is, narrow as are the ideas which

take up a large part of his writings, the essence of his poetry is its

truth. A false note in feeling he seldom struck, and the most artificial

language cannot hinder his lines from going direct to the heart. The

high-water mark of his genius was reached in two or three poems in which

the words are in full harmony with the thought and reflect it limpidly,

with no attempt at the "embellishment" which he too frequently employed.

In a book designed to introduce the subject to many readers we could

have wished for a little more sympathy of tone than Mr. Goldwin Smith

has allowed himself in his otherwise admirable volume. It is hardly

necessary, for instance, to insist on the obvious narrowness of Cowper's

religion. That the book is too short is a failing on the right side, and

chargeable to the plan of the series rather than the writer, whose terse

style and excellent arrangement make it full of interest. Cowper's life

and poetry are bound together in a singularly close union. He belongs by

circumstances rather than by genius to those unfortunate minds which,

thrown off the proper balance, have gained a deeper insight and a

stronger hold upon others through their very weakness. What lends a

peculiar pathos and charm to his figure is the purity and gentleness of

his mind, the efforts by which he clung to truth in the cruel darkness

of mental disease, and the innocent gayety and light-heartedness which

alternated with gloom. Like Rousseau, Cowper had, by the very reaction

from sadness, a rare keenness of enjoyment. Little things were enough to

feast it, and hence the most trivial matters came naturally into his

verse. His poems have certainly had a varied history. Written to afford

occupation to a mind on the verge of madness, linked with the slightest

events of his daily life, it has been their fate to serve for a long

time as poetic tracts, and afterward to be exalted by critics as

prophecies of a new order of things, the beginning of a literary

revolution.

_Books Received._

Barbara; or, Splendid Misery. By Miss M.E. Braddon.--For Her Dear Sake.

By Mary Cecil Hay.--Daireen. By Frank Frankfort Moore.--Two Women. By

Georgiana M. Craik.--Prince Hugo. By Maria M. Grant.--From Generation to

Generation: A Novel. By Lady Augusta Noel.--Young Lord Penrith: A Novel.

By John Berwick Harwood.--Clara Vaughan: A Novel. By R.D.

Blackmore.--The Heart of Holland. By Henry Havard. Translated by Mrs.

Cashel Hoey.--Reata: What's in a Name? A Novel. By E.D. Gerard.--Mary

Anerley: A Yorkshire Tale. By R.D. Blackmore.--Poet and Peer: A Novel.

By Hamilton Aide.--The Pennant Family. By Anne Beale. (Franklin Square

Library.) New York: Harper & Brothers.

The Diary of a Man of Fifty, and A Bundle of Letters. By Henry James,

Jr.--Tales from the Odyssey, for Boys and Girls. By

"Materfamilias."--Life of Charlemagne. By Eginhard.--The Right Honorable

William Ewart Gladstone: A Biographical Sketch. By Henry W. Lucy. With

Portrait.--British and American Education. By Mayo W. Hazeltine.--Mrs.

Austin. By Margaret Veley.--Business Life in Ancient Rome. By Charles G.

Herbermann, Ph.D. (Harper's Half-Hour Series.) New York: Harper &

Brothers.

The Spell-bound Fiddler: A Norse Romance. By Kristofer Janson.

Translated from the original by Auber Forestier. Chicago: S.C. Griggs &

Co.

Studies of Irving. By Charles Dudley Warner, William Cullen Bryant and

George Palmer Putnam. New York: G.P. Putnam's Sons.

Sketches and Studies in Southern Europe. By John Addington Symonds. 2

vols. New York: Harper & Brothers.

Eminent Israelites of the Nineteenth Century. By Henry Samuel Morais.

Philadelphia: Edward Stern & Co.

The Throat and its Functions. By Louis Elsberg, A.M., M.D. Illustrated.

New York: G.P. Putnam's Sons.

The Independent Movement in New York. By Junius. New York: G.P.

Putnam's Sons.

Preadamites. By Alexander Winchell, M.D. Chicago: S.C. Griggs & Co.

Ethylization. By R.J. Levis, M.D. Philadelphia.