bill black, longer than the head, which would seem to rank it with the
snipes, slightly bent, grooved on the upper mandible, and wrinkled at
the base; crown, back, and scapulars bright reddish rust, spotted with
black; wing coverts pale olive; quills darker; the first tipped, the
latter crossed with white; front cheeks, hind head, and sides of the
neck quite round; also the breast, grayish white, marked with small
specks of black; belly white, marked with a small crescent of black;
tail pale olive, the two middle feathers centered with black; legs and
feet ashy black; toes divided to their origin, and bordered with a
slightly scolloped membrane; irides very black.
The males and females are nearly alike in one respect, both differing
greatly in color, even at the same season, probably owing to difference
of age; some being of a much brighter red than others, and the plumage
dotted with white. In the month of September many are found destitute of
the black crescent on the belly; these have been conjectured to be young
birds.
[Illustration: SEMIPALMATED SNIPE, OR WILLET. (_Scolopax
Semipalmata._)]
Willets breed in great numbers along the shores of New York, New Jersey,
Delaware and Maryland, and afford the sportsman an easy prey and
excellent eating. The experienced gunners always select the young birds,
which are recognized by the grayness of their plumage, in preference to
the older and darker birds, which are not so tender and well flavored.
In the month of October they generally pass on to their winter-quarters
in the warmer parts of the continent. Their food consists chiefly of
small shell-fish, aquatic insects, their larvæ and mollusca, searching
for which they may be found on the muddy shores and estuaries at low
water. The Willet is peculiarly an American bird, its appearance in the
north of Europe being merely accidental, as is also that of the Ruff in
America. The Willets wade more than most of their tribe, and when
disabled by a wound they take to the water without hesitation, and swim
with apparent ease.
The length of the Willet is about fifteen and a half inches; length of
the bill to the rictus two and a half inches, much shorter in the young
bird of the season; tarsus two inches eight lines. In the summer
plumage, according to Nuttall, the general color above is brownish gray,
striped faintly on the neck, more conspicuously on the head and back,
with blackish brown; the scapulars, tertiaries and their coverts
irregularly barred with the same; tail coverts white, tail even,
whitish, thickly mottled with pale ashy brown, that color forming the
ground of the central feathers, which are barred with dusky brown toward
their extremities; spurious wing, primary coverts, a great portion of
the anterior extremities of the primaries, the axillary feathers, and
under-wing coverts black, with a shade of brown; the remaining lower and
longer portion of the primaries, and the upper row of under-wing coverts
white; the posterior primaries tipt with the same; secondaries and the
outer webs of their greater coverts white, marbled with dusky; wings
rather longer than the tail, the lower with a spotted liver-brown
streak, bounded above by a spotted white one; eyelids, chin, belly and
vent white; the rest of the under plumage brownish white, streaked on
the throat and transversely barred, or waved on the breast, shoulders,
flanks, and under tail coverts with clove-brown, the bars pointed in the
middle. Female colored like male, but an inch longer. Legs and feet dark
lead color, the soles inclining to olive, the toes broadly margined with
a sort of continuation of the web; iris hazel. Winter dress with fainter
spots on the upper plumage, and without the dark waving transverse bars
below, only the fore part of the neck and breast of a cinereous tint,
marked with small brown streaks.
* * * * *
VISITANTS FROM SPIRIT-LAND.
BY E. CURTISS HINE, U. S. N.
Then the forms of the departed
Enter at the open door,
The loved ones, the true-hearted,
Come to visit us once more.
—LONGFELLOW.
They are ever hovering round us,
A mysterious, shadowy band,
Singing songs, low, soft and plaintive
They have learned in Spirit-Land.
Bright their wings as hues elysian,
Blended on the sunset sky,
By unseen, but angel-artists,
That concealed behind it lie.
Sweet their soft and gentle voices
Mingle with each passing breeze,
And the sorrowing heart rejoices,
As amid the leafy trees
In the green and verdant summer,
Tones long-hushed are heard again,
And the quick ear some new-comer
Catches joining in their strain.
Sceptics say ’tis but the breezes
Wandering on their wayward way—
That the souls of the departed
Rest in peace and bliss for aye.
But I know the fond, the loved ones,
Cleansed from every earthly stain,
Who have passed away before us,
Come to visit us again!
True, our eyes may not behold them,
Nor the glittering robes they wear.
True, our arms may not enfold them,
Radiant phantoms formed of air!
But I often hear them round me,
And each gentle voice is known,
When some dreamy spell hath bound me,
As I sit at eve alone!
Playmates of my joyous childhood,
Wont to laugh the hours away,
As they roamed with me the wildwood,
In life’s beauteous break-of-day;
They are spirits now, but hover
On bright pinions round me still,
Tender as some doting lover,
Warning me of every ill.
And among them comes one, brighter,
Fonder far than all beside,
Sunlight of my young existence,
Who in life’s green springtime died.
Music from her lips is gushing,
Like the wind-harps plaintive tune,
When the breeze with soft wing brushes
O’er its strings in flowery June.
O, thou white-browed peerless maiden,
Holiest star that beams for me!
Thou didst little dream how laden
Was this heart with love for thee!
Once fair garlands thou didst weave me,
But to gem EMANUEL’S throne
Thou didst soar away and leave me
In this weary world alone!
But in dreams thou comest often,
Hovering saint-like round my bed,
Telling me in gentle whispers
Of the loved and early dead!
Once, methought, thou didst a letter
Bring from one remembered well,
Who has left this world of sorrow,
In the Spirit-Land to dwell!
Strange the seal, and when ’twas broken,
Strange the characters within,
For ’twas penned in language spoken
In a world devoid of SIN;
Told, no doubt, of joys that wait them
Who shall enter spotless there,
But before I could translate them
I awoke, and found them air!
Deem not that the soul reposes
In its radiant home for aye,
On the fragrant summer roses
Sunset beams may sadly play;
But they whisper “banish sorrow,
And from bitter thoughts refrain,
On the bright and glorious morrow
We will gild your leaves again!”
* * * * *
HISTORY OF THE COSTUME OF MEN,
DURING THE EIGHTEENTH AND THE BEGINNING OF THE NINETEENTH CENTURY.
BY FAYETTE ROBINSON.
People grieve about the departure of the good old times, and prate of
the days of chivalry, which Mr. Burke sixty years ago said were gone.
That they are gone the world may well rejoice at, not only because they
were times of ignorance and cruelty, but also of discomfort and
inconvenience. In the diary of a court-officer of the days of Henry VII.
is the note of a charge for cutting rushes, to strew on the floor of the
Queen-closets; and another one mentions the number of under-garments
belonging to Henri III. of France as considerably less than any one of
the better orders in our own time would require. In those days, the
downy couch meant a bed of goose-wing feathers; gloves were not; and
when a gentleman needed a new doublet or head-piece, he went not to a
tailor or the hatter of the day, but to a blacksmith. Let the lovers of
romance talk as they please, there was little true poetry, and less
feeling, in the minds of the heroes they wish to extol, than of the
veriest apostles of commerce of our own age. Rightly enough do we date
civilization from the times when men laid aside the rugged manners of
old with the bronze and iron armor, and doffing the hammered helmet,
assumed the cap of velvet and the hat of plush; when they laid aside the
iron gauntlet for the chamois glove, and assumed the Cordovan boot in
place of the leg-pieces of steel.
The feelings of chivalry yet lingered as late as the days of the English
Charles I. and the French Louis XIII. in the minds of the nobility. A
new series of ideas, however, had arisen in the breasts of the people at
a date long previous to this. Printing had become general, and the
learning previously the property of the priests had become the heir-loom
of humanity: As a natural consequence, new ideas and new wants were
unfolded, and these same ideas had become more general. At this crisis
France took the lead, and not only in philosophy but in the minor things
of life, French manners and habits were copied. Consequently, in
describing costume, Paris will be perpetually referred to, from the fact
that from that great city emanated the fashions which controlled the
costume of the world.
It is true that other nations had their peculiar costume, handed down
and preserved by the tradition of courts, as the Norman dress continues
even now the court uniform of the state officials of the British
kingdom; Spain had her peculiar doublet, hose and cloak, and Holland her
own court apparel. If, however, we look nearer and closer, we shall
discover each of these were dresses imported from France at some
particular crisis, and retaining position and importance in their new
home, when they were forgotten in the land whence they were adopted.
The most highly civilized of all the nations of Europe at the time that
this supremacy over the costume of the world was exerted by France, it
might have been expected that its selection would have been guided by
good taste and propriety. This was not however the case, for in spite of
the progress the world has made, the women of France and our own
country, and the men also, are not to be compared to the members of the
most savage tribes, either in gracefulness of form or propriety of
dress. If the Chinese distort the foot, or the Indians of the North West
Coast of America the forehead, the civilized women of to-day compress
the waist, and men commit not less enormities.
These matters are, however, incontestable; and though we might regret we
cannot prevent them. They simply therefore give us a clue in treating
our subject, of which we will avail ourselves. They teach us, that to
Paris belongs the incontestable empire of that mysterious power known in
France as _la_ _mode_, and in our own land as FASHION. Possibly this may
be a remnant, the sole _vestige_, of that tone of pretension which led
France in other days to aspire to universal empire. If so, the pride of
other nations which led them elsewhere to resist French assumption here
has been silent. Though not the rulers of the world by the power of the
sword; though the French idiom be not so universal as the English, even
the denizens of “_Albion perfide_” submit to the behests of the
controlling powers of the French _mode_. Let the French language be
universal or not, is to us now of no importance; that French fleets will
drive English and American squadrons from the seas, is doubtful, but it
is very certain Englishmen and Americans for all time to come will wear
French waist-coats, and Germans both in London and Philadelphia will
call themselves French bootmakers. How fond soever a people may be of
its national garb, ultimately it must submit to the trammels devised in
Paris. Ultimately all men will wear that most inconvenient article
called a hat, will insert their extremities into pantaloons, and put
their arms into the sleeves of the garment, so short before and so long
behind, they are pleased to call a coat. When all nations shall have
come to this state of subserviency, the end of the world will certainly
be at hand, whether because the _ultima perfectio_ has been reached, or
because God, who created man after his own likeness, will be angry at
the ridiculous figure they have made of his features, better theologians
than I must decide. We certainly are not very near this crisis, for
hundreds of yellow-skinned gentlemen are yet ignorant of the art and
mystery of tying a cravat, and never saw a patent leather boot.
Like great epidemics, the passion for dress often leaps over territorial
boundaries, and ships not unfrequently carry with the cholera and
_vomito_ bales of articles destined to spread this infection among lands
as yet ignorant of it; so that some day we may live to hear of Oakford
sending a case of hats to the Feejees, and of Watson making an uniform
for the general-in-chief of the King of the Cannibal Islands.
Possibly this passion for our costumes is to be attributed to the
deterioration of the morals of the savages, and if so, even dress has
its historical importance and significance, and is the true reflection
of _morale_. It may be that the days of the iron garb were days of iron
manners, and also of iron virtue, and that in adopting a silken costume
we have put on, and they may be about to adopt a silken laxity of virtue
and honor.
We will begin to treat of costume as it was in the days of Louis XIV.,
the solemn mood and ideas of whom exerted their influence even on dress,
and the era which saw all other arts become pompous and labored, also
saw costume assume the most complicated character. Costume naturally
during this reign was permanent in its character, and when Louis XV.
succeeded to the throne he found his courtiers dressed entirely as their
fathers had done, and the young king, five years of age, dressed
precisely like his great-grandfather, with peruke, cane and breeches.
When he had reached the years of discretion, Louis XV. continued to
devote himself more to the trifles of the court than to affairs of
state.
The following engraving is an illustration taken from a portrait of a
celebrated marquis of that day.
[Illustration]
This, it will be remembered, was the era when women wore whalebone
frame-works to their dresses and caps, or a kind of defensive armor over
the chest and body. The fine gentlemen also encased themselves in wires,
to distend the hips of their _culottes_ or breeches. This was the
costume of the fine gentlemen, and in it kings and heroes appeared on
the stage almost without interruption until the days of Talma, if we
except the brief and unsuccessful attempt at reform, as far as theatres
were concerned, by Le Kain and Mademoiselle Clairon.
The foregoing was the prevailing court costume, the next is the military
garb of the day, recalling the costume of Charles XII. of Sweden, and
not unlike that of our own Putnam or Mad Anthony Wayne. Thus the lowland
gentlemen who fought in ’45, dressed after this mode, were the opposing
parties of the armies at Ramilies. As a whole it is not _malapropos_,
and altogether more suitable and proper than the uniforms of our own
day. The following is the portrait of a mousquetaire just one century
after the time of Athos, Porthos, Aramis and D’Artignan, whom Dumas made
illustrious.
[Illustration]
* * * * *
MAPLE SUGAR.
BY ALFRED B. STREET.
Oh, the rich, dark maple sugar! how it tells me of the woods,
Of bland south winds and melting snows, and budding solitudes!
Oh, the melting maple sugar! as I taste its luscious sweets,
Remembrance in my raptured ear her witching song repeats;
Once more my heart is young and pure! once more my footsteps stray
Amid the scenes, the lovely scenes, of childhood’s opening day.
A frosty night! the searching air made hearth-fires a delight,
Stern Winter seemed as if again to rally in his might;
But, oh, how pure and beautiful the morning has arisen!
What glorious floods of sunshine! off! the dwelling is a prison!
Off, off! run, leap, and drink the air! off! leave man’s roofs behind!
Nature has more of pleasure now than haunts of human kind.
How free the blood is bounding! how soft the sunny glow!
And, hearken! fairy tones are ringing underneath the snow!
Slump, slump! the gauzy masses glide from hemlock, fence and rock,
And yon low, marshy meadow seems as spotted with a flock;
Drip, drip, the icicle sends its tears from its sparkling tip, and still
With tinkle, tinkle, beneath the snow rings many a viewless rill.
We cross the upland pasture, robed with a brown and sodden pall,
The maple ridge heaves up before—a sloping Titan wall!
The maple ridge! how gloriously, in summer it pitches tent:
Beneath, what a mossy floor is spread! above, what a roof is bent!
What lofty pillars of fluted bark! what magical changeful tints
As the leaves turn over and back again to the breeze’s flying prints.
Up, up, the beaten path I climb, with bosom of blithesome cheer,
For the song, oft varied with whistle shrill of the woodsman Keene, I
hear;
The bold and hardy woodsman, whose rifle is certain death,
Whose axe, when it rings in the wilderness, makes its glory depart like
breath,
Whose cabin is built in the neighboring dell, whose dress is the skin of
the doe,
And who tells long tales of his hunting deeds by the hearth-fire’s
cheerful glow.
The summit I gain—what soaring trunks—what spreading balloon-like tops!
And see! from the barks of each, the sap, slow welling and limpid, drops;
A thicket I turn—the gleam of a fire strikes sudden upon my view,
And in the midst of the ruddy blaze two kettles of sooty hue,
Whilst bending above, with his sinewy frame, and wielding with ready skill
His ladle amidst the amber depths, proud king of the scene is Will.
The boiling, bubbling liquid! it thickens each moment there,
He stirs it to a whirlpool now, now draws thin threads in air;
From kettle to kettle he ladles it to granulate rich and slow,
Then fashions the mass in a hundred shapes, congealing them in the snow,
While the blue-bird strikes a sudden joy through the branches gaunt and
dumb,
As he seems to ask in his merry strain if the violet yet has come.
The rich, dark maple sugar! thus it brings to me the joy,
The dear warm joy of my heart, when I was a careless, happy boy;
When pleasures so scorned in after life, like flowers, then strewed my
way,
And no dark sad experience breathed “doomed sufferer be not gay!”
When Life like a summer ocean spread before me with golden glow,
And soft with the azure of Hope, but concealing the wrecks that lay below.
* * * * *
TO MY LOVE.
BY HENRY H. PAUL.
Dewy buds of Paphian myrtle
Strew, ye virgins, as I sing;
Chaplets weave from Love’s bright fountain—
O’er my lyre their fragrance fling.
What—what is gay Pieria’s rose,
What is Paphos’ blushing flower,
Whilst Beauty doth my spirit thrall,
Whilst all my pulses feel thy power?
With Cyprian fire thine eye is sparkling,
Like the morning’s tender light;
Through thy silken lashes straying,
Shafts resistless wing their flight:
O! the time I first beheld thee,
Blushing in thy early teens,
Rose nor lily ne’er excelled thee,
Though the garden’s rival queens.
* * * * *
SOFTLY O’ER MY MEMORY STEALING.
MUSIC COMPOSED FOR “GRAHAM’S MAGAZINE,”
BY PROFESSOR JOHN A. JANKE, JR.
_WORDS BY SAMUEL D. PATTERSON._
[Illustration]
Softly o’er my mem’ry stealing,
Comes the light of other days,
Visions of past joys revealing,
Lit by Hope’s enchanting rays.
’Twas
[Illustration]
in that blest time I knew thee,
And thy glance and gentle tone,
Thrill’d with magic influence through me,
Waking joys till then unknown.
SECOND VERSE.
Time has sped with ceaseless motion;
Chance and change have wrought their will—
But my heart, with fond devotion,
Clings to thee, belov’d one, still.
Nor can life yield richer pleasure,
Or a brighter gift impart,
Than the pure and priceless treasure,
Of thy fond and faithful heart.
* * * * *
CATHARA.
BY WALTER COLTON, U. S. N.
Cathara had that pure Ionian face,
Which melts its way in music to the heart;
Each look and line betrayed that breathing grace,
Which Genius has embalmed in classic art,
Or sculptured in the Aphrodite—where glows
Immortal life, in marble’s still repose.
Her presence on your love and wonder stole
With such an atmosphere of softened light,
It seemed as some Aurora of the Pole,
Were melting down the starry depths of night;
Or Dian had her glowing form unrolled
From out her floating orb of liquid gold.
Her features were most delicately moulded,
And so transparent shone her dimpled cheek,
That when her large black eyes their rays unfolded.
Its bloom was lighted like some Alpine peak,
When zephyrs roll the circling mists away,
And on its summit breaks the blush of day.
Her raven hair in showering ringlets fell,
That veiled her sylph-like form from human vision;
Her step was light as that of the gazelle,
And yet its airy motions had precision;
The circling air displayed, where’er she went,
A wave of light in rainbow beauty bent.
Her voice was sweet as warble of a bird;
The accent flowed so softly through the tone,
It seemed as ’twere the _thought_ itself you heard—
Like music, which the summer’s breeze hath thrown
O’er silent waters, from some woodland lyre,
Or humming stream, or old cathedral quire.
Her beauty broke not on a sudden glance,
But if you watched its soft progressive ray,
Some hidden charm of form, or countenance,
Like silver planets at the close of day—
Would cast its slender veil of shadows by,
And timidly advance upon the eye.
Her heart was that from which her features took
The tender tone their aspect ever wore;
The pensive thoughts which saddened in her look,
Were what you feel upon a lonely shore,
Where not a sound is heard except the surge,
In which some billow hymns its dying dirge.
Her eyes would swim, her bosom heave with grief,
When pale misfortune poured its tragic theme;
As in the quick wind shakes the forest leaf,
An orphan’s wo would tremble in her dream;
The tears despair had hardened into stone,
Would melt to dew, when mingled with her own.
You deemed that such an one, if death were nigh,
Might cheer and soothe you, tho’ she might not save;
You thought how sweetly on your closing eye
Would fall each glance her tender spirit gave;
While meekness showed where guilt might be forgiven,
And mercy plumed the parting soul for Heaven.
* * * * *
THE DEPARTED.
BY MRS. MARY S. WHITAKER.
Bid sorrow cease; she rests in peace—
Her task, at last, is done;
And decked with youth, and bright with truth,
Cold lies thy martyred one.
But thine the crime, and through all time,
Remorse shall follow thee,
With phantom form, through calm and storm,
On land and on the sea.
Her shadowy hair, her bosom fair,
So often heaving sighs;
Her smile so bland, her lily hand,
Her mildly mournful eyes—
Which long did weep—in troubled sleep,
How lovely will they come,
All fresh with life, and free from strife,
From out the marble tomb.
Her voice of love, all price above,
Shall speak, as once it spoke,
With gushing flow of tender wo,
The while her heart was broke;
When thy distrust had bowed to dust
Her bosom’s modest pride,
Ere like a flower, beneath the shower
Too rude, she meekly died.
’Twill whisper soft, “Beloved, how oft
Thy brow grows dark and stern;
I know not why, yet in thy eye
Strange coldness I discern;
A heavy blight, the spirit’s night,
Falls darkly on my soul;
This inward grief, without relief,
Thou only canst control!”
These accents clear, thy waking ear
Shall lose in silence dread;
But from thy heart shall ne’er depart,
The wailing of the dead;
Her wasted bloom, her early doom,
Shall haunt thee evermore!
While she, at rest, with spirits blest,
Lives on the better shore.
* * * * *
THE DEAD.
BY “AN AULD HEAD ON YOUNG SHOUTHERS.”
Dead! dead! they are dying—dying!
Oh! for the hands that were clasping ours!
Passed like a breeze in its own sad sighing,
Falling like leaves from the wasted flowers,
Dropping away, so still—so still!
Call them again, so cold and chill!
Dead? dead? Oh! _how could_ they die?
Laughed they not, sang they not joyfully?
Were they not with us—and now are they gone?
Why have they left us, and where have they flown?
Spake they not oft of a deathless tie?
Are they not sleeping? Oh! where do they lie?
_Here!_ not here! ’tis a fearful place—
Were they not gentle, with steps of grace?
Were they not glad as the birds in June?
With hearts like a fountain of joyful tune?
They were with us at morn, and with us at night,
Their locks were of gold, and their eyes of light!
Yet—yet, ye say they are dead;
Tell us the land where their footsteps tread!
Oh! there is _one_ who hath sought its shore,
Never to smile with us, weep with us more;
Soon, _too_ soon; ’tis a mournful thing
To pass with the bier o’er the flowers of spring!