I am weary, I am weary! Cometh not across my breast
Transient thought of that which shall be, presage of better rest?
And the sounds of early spring-time with an inner meaning fraught,
Seem the last notes of a requiem from some old minster brought;
Solemn mass for gentle spirits, the unsullied and the true,
Gone with all their bright aspirings, like the fragrant morning dew.
Yet the visions of their soulful glance, and the intellectual brow,
The memory of their poet words, is present with me now!
Oh! I would that I were slumbering where moaneth the sea-wave,
Where the setting sun might linger with a smile upon my grave!
Emblems fit of life's dark heaving, and of that blessed shore
Where these weary DREAMS and MEMORIES shall sadden me no more!
A FIRST NIGHT OF RACINE.
FROM DE JOUY'S 'HERMITE' OF THE FOURTH OF JANUARY, EIGHTEEN HUNDRED AND
TWELVE.
Voila de vos arrets, Messieurs les Gens de Gout!
PRIOR LA METROMAINE.
Every-body has a hobby-horse, as the English say, on which he is mounted,
even when sneering at the steeds of his neighbors. The wits themselves are
not exempt from this mental preoeccupation, which brings every taste to
bear upon only one point. Some ruin themselves in books, some in pictures
and statues, others in minerals, shells, or medals. The bibliomaniac, the
picture-dealer, the naturalist, the numismatist, all appear to me equally
absurd. I speak of course of those who have the collecting mania without
the love of science. They play at science as we play at cards, and the
ridiculous part of the matter is, the perfect seriousness with which they
do it.
One of my friends has become infatuated with a taste which is much less
common; one that he brought back with him from his travels, together with
albums, mnemonics, and Kant's Philosophy. It is a taste for autograph
letters. It is well known that the English, who are always ready to
confound what is rare with what is really admirable, are very successful
in their curiosities of this kind. They collect them at a great expense,
and employ skilful engravers to reproduce fac-similes for second-rate
amateurs, whose whole fortune would not suffice for the acquisition of the
originals.
Last week I came upon my friend the autographist, just as he was receiving
a note of Boileau, of only four lines, in which he regrets that he cannot
dine the next day with a Mr. Le Vasseur. This note, written in the most
simple style, contained no anecdote, nor curious fact, and was only
remarkable for a fault in its orthography. So that all the respect I have
for our great critic did not prevent me from testifying some surprise,
when I saw my friend pay ten Louis for a paper rag of no value at all.
'I understand your astonishment,' he said; 'but to complete a collection,
no matter of what kind, one must make sacrifices;' and at the same time he
placed his precious paper in a _carton_, labelled '_Age of Louis XIV._'
'You see,' he continued, pointing to a part of his library where several
similar cartons were arranged, 'you see the result of my collections for
some years. I have sixty thousand francs' worth of autographs in that
corner.'
'For which you cannot get ten from the grocer at the next corner, who is
probably the only person to whom the rubbish would be of any use.'
'Vandal!' he exclaimed, with a mixture of indignation and contempt; 'you
talk like a man whom posterity will never mention. Look at the names you
have insulted! Look at this letter from Montaigne to Boetius, so illegible
that it has never been printed; look at that billet of Henry IV. to the
Duchesse de Verneuil; and that Sonnet of Malherbe, written entirely by
Bacon's own hand; that letter from Madame de Maintenon to Father Le
Tellier; that order from the Prince the night before the battle of
Senef--'
'Even if I were wishing,' I answered, 'to share your veneration for some
of these relics which excite so many historical recollections, I should
not laugh the less at the zeal with which you preserve all that waste
paper, which has nothing to recommend it. For instance, what is this
letter worth which I have just taken up? It is signed by a Marquis
d'Hernouville, whom no one ever heard of, and directed to a Comte de
Monchevreuil, who is remembered only for one or two instances of gallantry
in the field, and for having been, if I am not mistaken, the governor of
the Duc de Maine.'
'You could not have furnished me with a better opportunity of proving to
you that we always run some risk in assertions upon subjects of which we
know nothing. Oblige me by reading that letter, and then laugh, if you
can, at the importance which I attach to similar papers.'
Never, I must own, was triumph more complete. Not only did I confess,
after having perused it, that it was well worthy of the honor of the
port-folio, but I begged him to let me copy it for publication. I had some
difficulty in obtaining this favor, which was only granted me in exchange
of a letter of Hyder Ali Khan to Suffren, which I promised to send him.
This is the letter of the Marquis, which I certify to be in every respect
a true copy of the original:
'_Paris, the 30 December, 1669._
'I seize the occasion, my dear Comte, afforded me by a cold which has kept
me some days by the fire-side, to send you news from this part of the
country. The most important, and what will give you the most pleasure is,
that M. de Guise has obtained the favor of a cushion at the King's mass;
he did not fail to make use of it on Sunday, and between ourselves, with
rather too much ostentation. Every one expects wonders from the Marquis de
Chastet, who has boasted that he will soon bring the Algerians to terms,
but I have no faith in his predictions. The Duc de Vermandois has been
raised to the dignity of Admiral. Madame de la Valliere received this mark
of the royal favor with the most perfect indifference. I am quite of your
opinion: that woman is not in her proper place.
'Did your brother write you that we went together to the first
representation of Britannicus? Some admirers of Racine had praised the
piece so much to me, that not being able to get a box, I sent my valet at
ten o'clock to keep a place for me. I thought that I should never reach
the Hotel de Bourgogne, although I left my carriage at the corner of the
Rue Mauconseil: without Chapelle and Mauvillain, who know all the actors
in Paris, I should never have succeeded in getting a place. Do not mistake
this eagerness of the public; there was much more malevolence than
curiosity in it. I paid my respects to Madame de Sevigne in her box, where
I found Mesdames de Villars, de Coulanges and de La Fayette, escorted by
the little Abbe de Villars and de Grignau the _Frondeur_. You may imagine
what treatment Britannicus received in that box. Madame de Sevigne said
the other day at Madame de Villarceau's that 'Le Racine passerait comme le
cafe.' This speech made every one laugh; all agreed that it was as just as
it was good. What I most like is the presumption of this tragedy student,
who undertakes to make Romans talk for us after our great, our sublime
Corneille; but some people think that they can do any thing. I never saw
the Hotel de Bourgogne so brilliant. Such a fashionable audience deserved
a better piece. The people in the pit yawned, and those in the boxes went
to sleep. Vilandry was snoring away in the box of the Commandeur de
Louvre. Since he dines at that table, the best kept in Paris, he goes to
the theatre to digest _haciendo la siesta_, wakes up when all is over, and
pronounces the play detestable. I cannot understand what pleasure the
brave and witty Commandeur can take in the society of a man who never
opens his mouth but to eat. Despreaux, (Boileau,) beside whom I was
sitting, was furious at the coldness of the pit. He protested that it was
Racine's chef d'oeuvre; that the ancients had never written any thing
finer; that neither Tacitus nor Corneille had ever produced any thing more
forcible. He had like to have quarrelled with Subligny, because in the
scene where Nero hides behind a curtain to listen to Junia, he could not
restrain a burst of laughter, which was echoed all over the house. Perhaps
this bad play will furnish him with the materials for another 'Folle
Querelle,'[3] which will make us laugh as much as the first. Ninon and the
Prince sided with Despreaux. They defended the ground inch by inch, but
without being able to cover the retreat of Britannicus. I am curious to
know how the little rival of the great Corneille will take this failure,
for it certainly is one. The worst of the business for him is, that every
one remarked some very clear and very audacious allusions. The King said
nothing about them; but yesterday at his levee, he countermanded a ballet
in which he was to have danced at St. Germain. This may put our poet
somewhat out of favor at court; but what the devil have poets to do there?
[3] Parody of 'Andromache:' RACINE'S first tragedy of any note.
'Floridor was sublime. You would have sworn that he had wagered to make
one of the worst parts he overplayed successful. I cannot tell you much of
the plot of this tragedy. How could I hear it? I sat between your brother
and the fat Vicomte. Nevertheless you may rely on me that it is bad,
decidedly bad, whatever the satirist may say about it. I am quite of his
opinion when he says, 'That a work of that importance must be listened to
with attention, and that it is unjust to pronounce upon a play in the
midst of the clamors of theatre-factions, and the chattering of that crowd
of women who are always eager to display themselves at a first
representation.' All this is very true, but not at all applicable in this
instance. This time Racine is well judged. The denouement is the most
ridiculous I ever heard. Imagine that silly, conceited Junia turning
vestal, as if Madame de Sennes were to enter the Ursuline Convent. Heaven
forbid that I should play the scholar; but I have read in Menage that it
required other formalities to take the veil in the convent of ladies of
the society of Vesta. I forgot the most essential. Your little Desoeuillet
played like an angel. I spoke to her about you in her box. I think that
you had better come and speak about it yourself. She is a girl for whom
constancy is only the interval that separates two fancies.
'If you ever get the _Nouvelles a la Main_ where you are, you will see
Racine handled without gloves. The number which treats of his play has not
yet appeared; but if Le Clerc does things as he should, and remembers the
just resentment of d'Olonne and de Crequi,[4] from whom he received two
hundred pistoles, poor Britannicus will pay for Andromache.
[4] Alluding to an epigram of RACINE on D'OLONNE and DE CREQUI,
written to revenge himself for their attacks on 'Andromache.'
'Gourrilu has probably given you the perfumes you ordered for your pretty
cousin; Martial would not receive the money. He said that he was in your
debt. Dubroussin sends his love. We had such a charming supper at his
house! You were the only one wanting. I was obliged to bring Chapelle home
in my carriage, dead drunk: to pay for it, I left him the next day under
the table at _La Pomme de Pin_, where he has passed more than one night.
'I shall try to get to the levee next Sunday. My uncle is doing his best
to make me rejoin my regiment. If he should succeed, I shall see you on my
way. I should much prefer to have the meeting take place here; but
whatever happens, believe me, etc.,
'HERNOUVILLE.'
STANZAS TO MARY.
Thine eye is like the violet,
Thou hast the lily's grace;
And the pure thoughts of a maiden's heart
Are writ upon thy face.
And like a pleasant melody
To which memory hath clung,
Falls thy voice in the loved accent
Of mine own New-England tongue.
New-England--dear New-England!
All numberless they lie,
The green graves of my people,
Beneath her far blue sky;
And the same bright sun that shineth
On thy home at early morn,
Lights the dwellings of my kindred,
And the house where I was born.
Oh, fairest of her daughters!
That bid'st me so rejoice
'Neath the starlight of thy beauty
And the music of thy voice,
While Memory hath power
In my breast her joys to wake,
I will love thee, Mary, for thine own
And for New-England's sake.
M. E. HEWITT.
ON RIVERS AND OTHER THINGS.
If I were as tedious as a King, I could find in my heart to bestow
it all on your worship.--SHAKS.
It is a comfort still remaining to me, to reflect, that after all the evil
that the Tourists, the Reviewers and the Satirists of England together
have said and done and imagined of America, they have never yet
annihilated our Lakes; dispossessed us of our Rivers; disproved our
Waterfalls; nor made bitter to us, our fountains and streams and brooks
and water-courses. I thank GOD with a full heart that from whatever cause
these still abide unchanged among us; still flow, still control the ear
with the majesty of sound, and make glad the solitary places of the heart.
It is not often indeed that they admit the existence of these objects in
set terms; nor introduce into their works a paragraph upon the subject:
nor would any one who had never visited America be expressly informed
perhaps by them, that our part of the world contained within its compass
any thing at all comparable in the way of Rivers to the Thames or the
Tweed; or to the ponds of Cumberland in the way of Lakes; or to the Pisse
Vache in Switzerland in the way of a fall of water: but yet they have not
deprived us of them; and, incidentally, when they sometimes mention their
having been shockingly annoyed and incommoded by a scrub, who spat several
times upon the floor of the steamer in their presence, during a trip of
three hundred, five hundred or a thousand miles that they have had the
mishap to make with him, (instead of using his stomach like a true born
Englishman, or his parti-coloured flag of abomination like a continental
personage,) they give the reader some idea of the scope of a River or of a
Lake in America. Or, when they note down that a parcel of knaves, with
sterling money of the realm of Great Britain, borrowed doubtless for the
purpose and, as they verily believe, never repaid to this hour, bought a
merchant ship; loaded her with every variety of live animals like an ark,
and then cruelly and nefariously precipitated her over the Falls of
Niagara, in order to gratify that national tendency for a great SPLASH,
which exists universally in every form throughout the whole of that
wretched experiment at self-government called the United States--they then
give the untravelled reader some conception of an American Fall of Water.
One may therefore with confidence write down in a grave Essay like this,
and expect it to be believed even by those who have not Morse's Geography
before their eyes, that there still is, and long has been, a fall of Water
by common courtesy distinguished as The Cataract of Niagara; and a river
in the State of Connecticut, called, without any of our 'usual'
cisatlantic inflation, Connecticut River.
I pass over all further preliminary matter, and proceed at once to state,
that the steamer which leaves New-York in the course of the afternoon,
enters, during the night, the long and tranquil expanse of water known by
the name of the Connecticut; and that when the passengers, after a quiet
night's rest, assemble upon decks that are moist with dew in the bright,
still, cheery morning of the early summer, they are gliding onward far up
that river, cutting its glassy bosom in the direction of the rays of the
rising Sun; the overpowering lustre of which is diminished by a soft and
precious Claude-like haze that hangs like a gauze of gossamer on the
borders of their way, a bridal veil just being lifted by the Sun;
tempering while it enriches the gilding of the shores, the waters, the
far-off spire, the contented farmer's house and barns, the unfrequent
trees, the cattle gazing at the approaching object, the sail you are
overtaking or meeting, and often, the fisherman, seen in the distance,
standing in his boat on the margin of the river, in his white
shirt-sleeves, waiting the passage of the steamer.
For these shores very rarely form themselves into any picturesque
acclivity. Hardly is there on the whole course of the river one bold bluff
or headland to obstruct the sight; and the scenery might even be thought
tame and uninteresting, but for a home-born feeling that comes over the
kind heart as it approaches so close to the mowers on the meadow-field as
to scent the fragrance of the hay; to hear the song of the Boblink, or the
rhythmic whetting of the scythe; or passes the ends of those primitive,
those pilgrim-fences of post and rail, that enter the brink of the river
to mark the boundaries of the small, paternal, and though frequently
sterile, the much loved fields into which this home of industry is
divided.
The moment you have passed the fisherman, and the noise and movement of
the steamer have frightened the fish toward the shore, he darts out in his
boat with one end of a net of many roods in extent, takes a semi-circular
sweep and frequently draws in again with very little delay fraught with a
school of most luxurious Shad. It is of this fish that Basil Hall I think
says it is worth crossing the Atlantic to taste them; and although I fear
I may shock the prejudices of some of my friends who highly favour those
of the Delaware when caught above Bordentown, I cannot but opine that the
shad of the Connecticut is the best shad in the Union.
The opinion if incorrect may have arisen from the freshness with which I
have beheld them taken and have partaken of them from these nets, brought
without the least bruise or violence on board the steamer which lies
'blowing off' for a moment or two while it receives on the forward deck a
rich supply for breakfast of these broad thick-backed fellows, all wet and
spangling from the River, as stout at the dorsal fin as at the shoulder,
leaping hither and thither astonished at the suddenness of the change,
pausing at each instant to expand the deep pomegranate-coloured gills that
decorate their small and beautiful heads, and puffing on the deck as if
the air they inhaled could be nothing else but water; or else imagining
and planning an escape into their proper element; and at each exhalation
after a desperate leap, vying almost with the dolphin in the richness of
the hues of purple green and gold upon the laughing scales!
Now, one fine fish lies extended at its length, wondering and appalled and
tremulous with fear, as the cook's assistant, for the first time that any
human being has touched it, lays his hand upon the fullness of that line
of beauty, the curved and satisfying swell that extends from the head to
the graceful little swallow tail that flutters and pleads so eloquently
for its wonted employment. 'Heavens! is it possible,' it says to itself--I
mean that beautiful female shad on which the hand is just laid--'can it be
that this warm hand is that of man; that the tradition of our forefathers
is indeed true; and that this fish-devouring monster is going to destroy
me after a mystick fashion of his own, so different from that of the
porpoise and the sturgeon, whom I have escaped so well! Is it for a fate
like this, that, avoiding the Delaware river and the profound Hudson, I
have returned to these scenes of my nativity and earliest youth! Is it for
an end so cruel as this, that I have taken such care of myself upon the
southern shores of this unworthy continent, feeding with a tasteful choice
and epicurean delicacy amid the marine vegetation that adorns its milder
latitudes, and plumping and beautifying myself into this admired shape,
and all to gratify at last the cormorant appetite of this unfishlike
animal, and decorate, with my remains and memory, a mere steam-boat
breakfast! O Dickens! _the_ Dickens! sworn enemy of the enemies of my
race! thou Hannibal of my expiring hopes--' Alas! her apostrophe is cut
short at the moment by the ruthless knife that strips her of her coat of
many colours, and in one fell stroke prepares her delicious belle-ship for
the broil!
It forms no part within the scope of our intention in the present Essay,
to dwell upon the various modes of cookery of this annual and precious
accession to the riches of our waters; but it is not to be supposed that
the arrival of the SHAD in this beautiful river of Connecticut can be a
slight advent to the inhabitants upon its borders, particularly in
villages and towns too densely populated to admit the idea, that their
occupants derive a livelihood, either from agriculture, fishing, or the
commerce that can be maintained by the yearly launch of a square-rigged
vessel or two, depending mainly on the profits of a freighting voyage: now
that the trade with the West-Indies, (formerly a rich source of the wealth
of this state,) has dwindled into insignificance and loss. On the
contrary, the first appearance of the shad imparts an hilarious sensation
of abundance all along the shores. The retired sea-captain, the small
annuitant, the broken-down family, and the capitalist, are all alike
interested in the welcome. The price falls immediately within the compass
of the very poorest inhabitant, while the luxury of the regale it
furnishes is one that the richest epicure might covet. The green lanes
that lead toward the shore, and that at other seasons are hardly visited
except by lovers on a moonlit evening, now grow lively with the morning
movement of the householder and his flock of little ones.
The poor man's cow now no longer browses there in a neglected and
undisturbed possession; now no longer does the stiff and shackled
plough-horse graze leisurely along the path, but is startled by some
youthful shout into an attempt at what was once a leap; now half-ripe
berries are furtively gathered in spite of all advice as to
unwholesomeness; dogs move round as if upon a hunt and on the scent for
game; the yoked goose, after more than one expression of its sense of
dignity, retires a little out of the way; and now the ground sparrow,
deeming his thistle or over-hanging Barberry-bush insecure against the
incursions of all these comers and goers, regrets at a short and watchful
distance, and with all the anxiety of a politician, that he had not built
more wisely under covert of _the other side of the hedge_.
Boys and girls, young men and maidens, old men and widows, meet each other
on the path of the green lane, like angels on the steps of Jacob's Ladder
in a Flemish picture that I have, where the ladder is represented by a
broad stone stair-case; except that blessings are here all brought _up_
instead of _down_, for a brace of Shad is in the hand of every family-man
returning from the shore.
Cordial greetings are every where interchanged, and every where the
question rises or is answered that determines the market value of the
morning; that makes known the signal success of the great haul of Enoch
Smith; the further fall of prices in the perspective; and the general
promise of the season in the way of shad; and all agree that however large
or small may be the supply, never, since the memory of man, have the shad
been quite so good as they are this season; and that Connecticut River
Shad are decidedly the best imaginable of all possible shad.
Having in my purse the ring of Gyges, which is too ponderous for ordinary
wear, I placed it on my finger and accompanied home unseen a hale
bandy-legged old gentleman with a florid complexion, a benevolent wart
upon his nose, an alert step, drab-breeches with thin worsted stockings of
pepper and salt, plated buckles worn to the brass in his shoes, and silver
ones at the knees, and the heaviest pair of shad that had appeared in the
lane during the morning. I saw him deposit the Fish safely in his kitchen
which he entered through a side gate, giving some strict injunctions to
the cook with the air of a person who had certainly made a good bargain
and was speaking to one who best knew how to appreciate it.