CHAPTER X.

HARPER'S

NEW MONTHLY MAGAZINE.

NO. VI.--NOVEMBER, 1850.--VOL. I.

A PILGRIMAGE TO THE CRADLE OF AMERICAN LIBERTY.

WITH PEN AND PENCIL.

BY BENSON J. LOSSING.[1]

"How suddenly that straight and glittering shaft

Shot thwart the earth! in crown of living fire

Up comes the day! As if they conscious quaff'd

The sunny flood, hill, forest, city spire

Laugh in the waking light."

RICHARD H. DANA.

[Illustration: I]t was a glorious October morning, mild and brilliant,

when I left Boston to visit Concord and Lexington. A gentle land-breeze

during the night had borne the clouds back to their ocean birth-place,

and not a trace of the storm was left except in the saturated earth.

Health returned with the clear sky, and I felt a rejuvenescence in every

vein and muscle when, at dawn, I strolled over the natural glory of

Boston, its broad and beautifully-arbored Common. I breakfasted at six,

and at half-past seven left the station of the Fitchburg rail-way for

Concord, seventeen miles northwest of Boston. The country through which

the road passed is rough and broken, but thickly settled. I arrived at

the Concord station, about half a mile from the centre of the village,

before nine o'clock, and procuring a conveyance, and an intelligent

young man for a guide, proceeded at once to visit the localities of

interest in the vicinity. We rode to the residence of Major James

Barrett, a surviving grandson of Colonel Barrett, about two miles north

of the village, and near the residence of his venerated ancestor. Major

Barrett was eighty-seven years of age when I visited him; and his wife,

with whom he had lived nearly sixty years, was eighty. Like most of the

few survivors of the Revolution, they were remarkable for their mental

and bodily vigor. Both, I believe, still live. The old lady--a small,

well-formed woman--was as sprightly as a girl of twenty, and moved about

the house with the nimbleness of foot of a matron in the prime of life.

I was charmed with her vivacity, and the sunny radiance which it seemed

to shed throughout her household; and the half hour that I passed with

that venerable couple is a green spot in the memory.

Major Barrett was a lad of fourteen when the British incursion into

Concord took place. He was too young to bear a musket, but, with every

lad and woman in the vicinity, he labored in concealing the stores and

in making cartridges for those who went out to fight. With oxen and a

cart, himself, and others about his age, removed the stores deposited at

the house of his grandfather, into the woods, and concealed them, a

cart-load in a place, under pine boughs. In such haste were they obliged

to act on the approach of the British from Lexington, that, when the

cart was loaded, lads would march on each side of the oxen and goad them

into a trot. Thus all the stores were effectually concealed, except some

carriage-wheels. Perceiving the enemy near, these were cut up and

burned; so that Parsons found nothing of value to destroy or carry away.

[Illustration: MONUMENT AT CONCORD.]

From Major Barrett's we rode to the monument erected at the site of the

old North Bridge, where the skirmish took place. The road crosses the

Concord River a little above the site of the North Bridge. The monument

stands a few rods westward of the road leading to the village, and not

far from the house of the Reverend Dr. Ripley, who gave the ground for

the purpose. The monument is constructed of granite from Carlisle, and

has an inscription upon a marble tablet inserted in the eastern face of

the pedestal.[2] The view is from the green shaded lane which leads from

the highway to the monument, looking westward. The two trees standing,

one upon each side, without the iron railing, were saplings at the time

of the battle; between them was the entrance to the bridge. The monument

is reared upon a mound of earth a few yards from the left bank of the

river. A little to the left, two rough, uninscribed stones from the

field mark the graves of the two British soldiers who were killed and

buried upon the spot.

We returned to the village at about noon, and started immediately for

Lexington, six miles eastward.

Concord is a pleasant little village, including within its borders about

one hundred dwellings. It lies upon the Concord River, one of the chief

tributaries of the Merrimac, near the junction of the Assabeth and

Sudbury Rivers. Its Indian name was Musketaquid. On account of the

peaceable manner in which it was obtained, by purchase, of the

aborigines, in 1635, it was named Concord. At the north end of the broad

street, or common, is the house of Col. Daniel Shattuck, a part of

which, built in 1774, was used as one of the depositories of stores when

the British invasion took place. It has been so much altered, that a

view of it would have but little interest as representing a relic of the

past.

The road between Concord and Lexington passes through a hilly but

fertile country. It is easy for the traveler to conceive how terribly a

retreating army might be galled by the fire of a concealed enemy. Hills

and hillocks, some wooded, some bare, rise up every where, and formed

natural breast-works of protection to the skirmishers that hung upon the

flank and rear of Colonel Smith's troops. The road enters Lexington at

the green whereon the old meeting-house stood when the battle occurred.

The town is upon a fine rolling plain, and is becoming almost a suburban

residence for citizens of Boston. Workmen were inclosing the Green, and

laying out the grounds in handsome plats around the monument, which

stands a few yards from the street. It is upon a spacious mound; its

material is granite, and it has a marble tablet on the south front of

the pedestal, with a long inscription.[3] The design of the monument is

not at all graceful, and, being surrounded by tall trees, it has a very

"dumpy" appearance. The people are dissatisfied with it, and doubtless,

ere long, a more noble structure will mark the spot where the curtain of

the revolutionary drama was first lifted.

[Illustration: MONUMENT AT LEXINGTON.[4]]

[Illustration: NEAR VIEW OF THE MONUMENT.]

After making the drawings here given, I visited and made the sketch of

"Clark's House." There I found a remarkably intelligent old lady, Mrs.

Margaret Chandler, aged eighty-three years. She has been an occupant of

the house, I believe, ever since the Revolution, and has a perfect

recollection of the events of the period. Her version of the escape of

Hancock and Adams is a little different from the published accounts. She

says that on the evening of the 18th of April, 1775, some British

officers, who had been informed where these patriots were, came to

Lexington, and inquired of a woman whom they met, for "Mr. Clark's

house." She pointed to the parsonage; but in a moment, suspecting their

design, she called to them and inquired if it was Clark's _tavern_ that

they were in search of. Uninformed whether it was a _tavern_ or a

_parsonage_ where their intended victims were staying, and supposing the

former to be the most likely place, the officers replied, "Yes, Clark's

tavern." "Oh," she said, "Clark's tavern is in that direction," pointing

toward East Lexington. As soon as they departed, the woman hastened to

inform the patriots of their danger, and they immediately arose and fled

to Woburn. Dorothy Quincy, the intended wife of Hancock, who was at Mr.

Clark's, accompanied them in their flight.

I next called upon the venerable Abijah Harrington, who was living in

the village. He was a lad of fourteen at the time of the engagement. Two

of his brothers were among the minute men, but escaped unhurt. Jonathan

and Caleb Harrington, near relatives, were killed. The former was shot

in front of his own house, while his wife stood at the window in an

agony of alarm. She saw her husband fall, and then start up, the blood

gushing from his breast. He stretched out his arms toward her, and then

fell again. Upon his hands and knees he crawled toward his dwelling, and

expired just as his wife reached him. Caleb Harrington was shot while

running from the meeting-house. My informant saw almost the whole of the

battle, having been sent by his mother to go near enough, and be safe,

to obtain and convey to her information respecting her other sons, who

were with the minute men. His relation of the incidents of the morning

was substantially such as history has recorded. He dwelt upon the

subject with apparent delight, for his memory of the scenes of his early

years, around which cluster so much of patriotism and glory, was clear

and full. I would gladly have listened until twilight to the voice of

such experience, but time was precious, and I hastened to East

Lexington, to visit his cousin, Jonathan Harrington, an old man of

ninety, who played the fife when the minute men were marshaled on the

Green upon that memorable April morning. He was splitting fire-wood in

his yard with a vigorous hand when I rode up; and as he sat in his

rocking-chair, while I sketched his placid features, he appeared no

older than a man of seventy. His brother, aged eighty-eight, came in

before my sketch was finished, and I could not but gaze with wonder upon

these strong old men, children of one mother, who were almost grown to

manhood when the first battle of our Revolution occurred! Frugality and

temperance, co-operating with industry, a cheerful temper, and a good

constitution, have lengthened their days, and made their protracted

years hopeful and happy.[5] The aged fifer apologized for the rough

appearance of his signature, which he kindly wrote for me, and charged

the tremulous motion of his hand to his labor with the ax. How

tenaciously we cling even to the appearance of vigor, when the whole

frame is tottering to its fall! Mr. Harrington opened the ball of the

Revolution with the shrill war-notes of the fife, and then retired from

the arena. He was not a soldier in the war, nor has his life, passed in

the quietude of rural pursuits, been distinguished except by the

glorious acts which constitute the sum of the achievements of a GOOD

CITIZEN.

[Illustration: PORTRAIT OF JONATHAN HARRINGTON.]

I left Lexington at about three o'clock, and arrived at Cambridge at

half past four. It was a lovely autumnal afternoon. The trees and fields

were still green, for the frost had not yet been busy with their foliage

and blades. The road is Macadamized the whole distance; and so thickly

is it lined with houses, that the village of East Lexington and Old

Cambridge seem to embrace each other in close union.

Cambridge is an old town, the first settlement there having been planted

in 1631, contemporaneous with that of Boston. It was the original

intention of the settlers to make it the metropolis of Massachusetts,

and Governor Winthrop commenced the erection of his dwelling there. It

was called New Town, and in 1632 was palisaded. The Reverend Mr. Hooker,

one of the earliest settlers of Connecticut, was the first minister in

Cambridge. In 1636, the General Court provided for the erection of a

public school in New Town, and appropriated two thousand dollars for

that purpose. In 1638, the Reverend John Harvard, of Charlestown,

endowed the school with about four thousand dollars. This endowment

enabled them to exalt the academy into a college, and it was called

Harvard University in honor of its principal benefactor.

Cambridge has the distinction of being the place where the first

printing-press in America was established. Its proprietor was named Day,

and the capital that purchased the materials was furnished by the Rev.

Mr. Glover. The first thing printed was the "Freeman's Oath," in 1636;

the next was an almanac; and the next the Psalms, in metre.[6] Old

Cambridge (West Cambridge, or Metonomy, of the Revolution), the seat of

the University, is three miles from West Boston Bridge, which connects

Cambridge with Boston. Cambridgeport is about half way between Old

Cambridge and the bridge, and East Cambridge occupies Lechmere's Point,

a promontory fortified during the siege of Boston in 1775.

Arrived at Old Cambridge, I parted company with the vehicle and driver

that conveyed me from Concord to Lexington, and hither; and, as the day

was fast declining, I hastened to sketch the head-quarters of

Washington, an elegant and spacious edifice, standing in the midst of

shrubbery and stately elms, a little distance from the street, once the

highway from Harvard University to Waltham. At this mansion, and at

Winter Hill, Washington passed most of his time, after taking command of

the Continental army, until the evacuation of Boston in the following

spring. Its present owner is HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW, Professor of

Oriental languages in Harvard University, and widely known in the world

of literature as one of the most gifted men of the age. It is a spot

worthy of the residence of an American bard so endowed, for the

associations which hallow it are linked with the noblest themes that

ever awakened the inspiration of a child of song.

"When the hours of Day are number'd

And the voices of the Night

Wake the better soul that slumber'd

To a holy, calm delight,

Ere the evening lamps are lighted,

And, like phantoms grim and tall,

Shadows from the fitful fire-light

Dance upon the parlor wall,"

then to the thoughtful dweller must come the spirit of the place and

hour to weave a gorgeous tapestry, rich with pictures, illustrative of

the heroic age of our young republic. My tarry was brief and busy, for

the sun was rapidly descending--it even touched the forest tops before I

finished the drawing--but the cordial reception and polite attentions

which I received from the proprietor, and his warm approval of, and

expressed interest for the success of my labors, occupy a space in

memory like that of a long, bright summer day.

[Illustration: WASHINGTON'S HEAD-QUARTERS AT CAMBRIDGE.]

This mansion stands upon the upper of two terraces, which are ascended

each by five stone steps. At each front corner of the house is a lofty

elm--mere saplings when Washington beheld them, but now stately and

patriarchal in appearance. Other elms, with flowers and shrubbery,

beautify the grounds around it; while within, iconoclastic innovation

has not been allowed to enter with its mallet and trowel, to mar the

work of the ancient builder, and to cover with the vulgar stucco of

modern art the carved cornices and paneled wainscots that first enriched

it. I might give a long list of eminent persons whose former presence in

those spacious rooms adds interest to retrospection, but they are

elsewhere identified with scenes more personal and important. I can not

refrain, however, from noticing the visit of one, who, though a dark

child of Africa and a bond-woman, received the most polite attention

from the commander-in-chief. This was PHILLIS, a slave of Mr. Wheatley,

of Boston. She was brought from Africa when between seven and eight

years old. She seemed to acquire knowledge intuitively; became a poet of

considerable merit, and corresponded with such eminent persons as the

Countess of Huntingdon, Earl of Dartmouth, Reverend George Whitefield,

and others. Washington invited her to visit him at Cambridge, which she

did a few days before the British evacuated Boston; her master among

others, having left the city by permission, and retired, with his

family, to Chelsea. She passed half an hour with the commander-in-chief,

from whom and his officers she received marked attention.[7]

A few rods above the residence of Professor Longfellow is the house in

which the Brunswick general, the Baron Riedesel, and his family were

quartered, during the stay of the captive army of Burgoyne in the

vicinity of Boston. I was not aware when I visited Cambridge, that the

old mansion was still in existence; but, through the kindness of Mr.

Longfellow, I am able to present the features of its southern front,

with a description. In style it is very much like that of Washington's

head-quarters, and the general appearance of the grounds around is

similar. It is shaded by noble linden-trees, and adorned with shrubbery,

presenting to the eye all the attractions noticed by the Baroness of

Riedesel in her charming letters.[8] Upon a window-pane on the north

side of the house may be seen the undoubted autograph of that

accomplished woman, inscribed with a diamond point. It is an interesting

memento, and is preserved with great care. The annexed is a facsimile of

it.

[Illustration: THE RIEDESEL HOUSE, CAMBRIDGE.[9]]

[Illustration: AUTOGRAPH OF THE BARONESS RIEDESEL.]

During the first moments of the soft evening twilight I sketched the

"Washington elm," one of the ancient _anakim_ of the primeval forest,

older, probably, by a half century or more, than the welcome of Samoset

to the white settlers. It stands upon Washington-street, near the

westerly corner of the Common, and is distinguished by the circumstance

that, beneath its broad shadow, General Washington first drew his sword

as commander-in-chief of the Continental army, on the 3d of July, 1775.

Thin lines of clouds, glowing in the light of the setting sun like bars

of gold, streaked the western sky, and so prolonged the twilight by

reflection, that I had ample time to finish my drawing before the night

shadows dimmed the paper.

Early on the following morning I procured a chaise to visit Charlestown

and Dorchester Heights. I rode first to the former place, and climbed to

the summit of the great obelisk that stands upon the site of the redoubt

upon Breed's Hill. As I ascended the steps which lead from the street to

the smooth gravel-walks upon the eminence whereon the "Bunker Hill

Monument" stands, I experienced a feeling of disappointment and regret,

not easily to be expressed. Before me was the great memento, huge and

grand--all that patriotic reverence could wish--but the ditch scooped

out by Prescott's toilers on that starry night in June, and the mounds

that were upheaved to protect them from the shots of the astonished

Britons, were effaced, and no more vestiges remain of the handiwork of

those in whose honor and to whose memory this obelisk was raised, than

of Roman conquests in the shadow of Trajan's column--of the naval

battles of Nelson around his monument in Trafalgar-square, or of French

victories in the Place Vendôme. The fosse and the breast-works were all

quite prominent when the foundation-stone of the monument was laid, and

a little care, directed by good taste, might have preserved them in

their interesting state of half ruin until the passage of the present

century, or, at least, until the sublime centenary of the battle should

be celebrated. Could the visitor look upon the works of the patriots

themselves, associations a hundred-fold more interesting would crowd the

mind, for wonderfully suggestive of thought are the slightest relics of

the past when linked with noble deeds. A soft green sward, as even as

the rind of a fair apple, and cut by eight straight gravel-walks,

diverging from the monument, is substituted by art for the venerated

irregularities made by the old mattock and spade. The spot is beautiful

to the eye untrained by appreciating affection for hallowed things;

nevertheless, there is palpable desecration that may hardly be

forgiven.

[Illustration: BUNKER HILL MONUMENT.[10]]

The view from the top of the monument, for extent, variety, and beauty,

is certainly one of the finest in the world. A "York shilling" is

charged for the privilege of ascending the monument. The view from its

summit is "a shilling show" worth a thousand miles of travel to see.

Boston, its harbor, and the beautiful country around, mottled with

villages, are spread out like a vast painting, and on every side the eye

may rest upon localities of great historical interest, Cambridge,

Roxbury, Chelsea, Quincy, Medford, Marblehead, Dorchester, and other

places, where

"The old Continentals,

In their ragged regimentals,

Falter'd not,"

and the numerous sites of small fortifications which the student of

history can readily call to mind. In the far distance, on the northwest,

rise the higher peaks of the White Mountains of New Hampshire; and on

the northeast, the peninsula of Nahant, and the more remote Cape Anne

may be seen. Wonders which present science and enterprise are developing

and forming are there exhibited in profusion. At one glance from this

lofty observatory may be seen seven railroads,[11] and many other

avenues connecting the city with the country; and ships from almost

every region of the globe dot the waters of the harbor. Could a tenant

of the old grave-yard on Copp's Hill, who lived a hundred years ago,

when the village upon Tri-mountain was fitting out its little armed

flotillas against the French in Acadia, or sending forth its few vessels

of trade along the neighboring coasts, or occasionally to cross the

Atlantic, come forth and stand beside us a moment, what a new and

wonderful world would be presented to his vision! A hundred years ago!

"Who peopled all the city streets

A hundred years ago?

Who fill'd the church with faces meek

A hundred years ago?"

They were men wise in their generation, but ignorant in practical

knowledge when compared with the present. In their wildest dreams,

incited by tales of wonder that spiced the literature of their times,

they never fancied any thing half so wonderful as our mighty dray-horse,

"The black steam-engine! steed of iron power--

The wond'rous steed of the Arabian tale,

Lanch'd on its course by pressure of a touch--

The war-horse of the Bible, with its neck

Grim, clothed with thunder, swallowing the way

In fierceness of its speed, and shouting out,

'Ha! ha!'[12] A little water, and a grasp

Of wood, sufficient for its nerves of steel,

Shooting away, 'Ha! ha!' it shouts, as on

It gallops, dragging in its tireless path

Its load of fire."

I lingered in the chamber of the Bunker Hill monument as long as time

would allow, and descending, rode back to the city, crossed to South

Boston, and rambled for an hour among the remains of the fortifications

upon the heights of the peninsula of Dorchester. The present prominent

remains of fortifications are those of intrenchments cast up during the

war of 1812, and have no other connection with our subject than the

circumstance that they occupy the site of the works constructed there by

order of Washington. These were greatly reduced in altitude when the

engineers began the erection of the forts now in ruins, which are

properly preserved with a great deal of care. They occupy the summits of

two hills, which command Boston Neck on the left, the city of Boston in

front, and the harbor on the right. Southeast from the heights,

pleasantly situated among gentle hills, is the village of Dorchester, so

called in memory of a place in England of the same name, whence many of

its earliest settlers came. The stirring events which rendered

Dorchester Heights famous are universally known.

I returned to Boston at about one o'clock, and passed the remainder of

the day in visiting places of interest within the city--the old South

meeting-house, Faneuil Hall, the Province House, and the Hancock House.

I am indebted to John Hancock, Esq., nephew of the patriot, and present

proprietor and occupant of the "Hancock House," on Beacon-street, for

polite attentions while visiting his interesting mansion, and for

information concerning matters that have passed under the eye of his

experience of threescore years. He has many mementoes of his eminent

kinsman, and among them a beautifully-executed miniature of him, painted

in London, in 1761, while he was there at the coronation of George III.

Near Mr. Hancock's residence is the State House, a noble structure upon

Beacon Hill, the corner-stone of which was laid in 1795, by Governor

Samuel Adams, assisted by Paul Revere, master of the Masonic grand

lodge. There I sketched the annexed picture of the colossal statue of

Washington, by Chantrey, which stands in the open centre of the first

story; also the group of trophies from Bennington, that hang over the

door of the Senate chamber. Under these trophies, in a gilt frame, is a

copy of the reply of the Massachusetts Assembly to General Stark's

letter, that accompanied the presentation of the trophies. It was

written fifty years ago.

[Illustration: WASHINGTON.[13]]

After enjoying the view from the top of the State House a while, I

walked to Copp's Hill, a little east of Charlestown Bridge, at the north

end of the town, where I tarried until sunset in the ancient

burying-ground. The earliest name of this eminence was Snow Hill. It was

subsequently named after its owner, William Copp.[14] It came into the

possession of the Ancient and Honorable Artillery Company by mortgage;

and when, in 1775, they were forbidden by Gage to parade on the Common,

they went to this, their own ground, and drilled in defiance of his

threats. The fort, or battery, that was built there by the British, just

before the battle of Bunker Hill, stood near its southeast brow,

adjoining the burying-ground. The remains of many eminent men repose in

that little cemetery. Close by the entrance is the vault of the Mather

family. It is covered by a plain, oblong structure of brick, three feet

high and about six feet long, upon which is laid a heavy brown stone

slab, with a tablet of slate, bearing the names of the principal tenants

below.[15]

[Illustration: MATHER'S VAULT.]

I passed the forenoon of the next day in the rooms of the Massachusetts

Historical Society, where every facility was afforded me by Mr. Felt,

the librarian, for examining the assemblage of things curious collected

there.[16] The printed books and manuscripts, relating principally to

American history, are numerous, rare, and valuable.

There is also a rich depository of the autographs of the Pilgrim fathers

and their immediate descendants. There are no less than twenty-five

large folio volumes of valuable manuscript letters and other documents;

besides which are six thick quarto manuscript volumes--a commentary on

the Holy Scriptures--in the handwriting of Cotton Mather. From an

autograph letter of that singular man the annexed fac-simile of his

writing and signature is given. Among the portraits in the cabinet of

the society are those of Governor Winslow, supposed to have been painted

by Vandyke, Increase Mather, and Peter Faneuil, the founder of Faneuil

Hall.

[Illustration: MATHER'S WRITING.]

I had the pleasure of meeting, at the rooms of the society, that

indefatigable antiquary, Dr. Webb, widely known as the American

correspondent of the "Danish Society of Northern Antiquarians" at

Copenhagen. He was sitting in the chair that once belonged to Governor

Winthrop, writing upon the desk of the speaker of the Colonial Assembly

of Massachusetts, around which the warm debates were carried on

concerning American liberty, from the time when James Otis denounced the

Writs of Assistance, until Governor Gage adjourned the Assembly to

Salem, in 1774. Hallowed by such associations, the desk is an

interesting relic. Dr. Webb's familiarity with the collections of the

society, and his kind attentions, greatly facilitated my search among

the six thousand articles for things curious connected with my subject

and made my brief visit far more profitable to myself than it would

otherwise have been. Among the relics preserved are the chair that

belonged to Governor Carver; the sword of Miles Standish; the huge key

of Port Royal gate; a _samp-pan_, that belonged to Metacomet, or King

Philip; and the sword reputed to have been used by Captain Church when

he cut off that unfortunate sachem's head. The dish is about twelve

inches in diameter, wrought out of an elm knot with great skill. The

sword is very rude, and was doubtless made by a blacksmith of the

colony. The handle is a roughly-wrought piece of ash, and the guard is

made of a wrought-iron plate.

[Illustration: SPEAKER'S DESK AND WINTHROP'S CHAIR.]

[Illustration: PHILIP'S SAMP-PAN.]

[Illustration: CHURCH'S SWORD.]

FOOTNOTES:

[1] This sketch of Revolutionary scenes and incidents in and about

Boston, is part of an unpublished chapter from LOSSING'S

"Pictorial Field Book of the Revolution," now in course of

publication by Harper and Brothers.

[2] The following is a copy of the inscription:

HERE,

On the 19th of April, 1775,

was made the first forcible resistance to

BRITISH AGGRESSION.

On the opposite bank stood the American

militia, and on this spot the first of the enemy fell

in the WAR OF THE REVOLUTION,

which gave Independence to these United States.

In gratitude to God, and in the love of Freedom,

This Monument was erected,

A.D. 1836.

[3] The following is a copy of the inscription:

"Sacred to the Liberty and the Rights of Mankind!!! The Freedom

and Independence of America--sealed and defended with the blood of

her sons--This Monument is erected by the Inhabitants of

Lexington, under the patronage and at the expense of the

Commonwealth of Massachusetts, to the memory of their

Fellow-citizens, Ensign Robert Monroe, Messrs. Jonas Parker,

Samuel Hadley, Jonathan Harrington, jun., Isaac Muzzy, Caleb

Harrington, and John Brown, of Lexington, and Asahel Porter, of

Woburn, who fell on this Field, the first victims of the Sword of

British Tyranny and Oppression, on the morning of the

ever-memorable Nineteenth of April, An. Dom. 1775. The Die was

Cast!!! The blood of these Martyrs in the Cause of God and their

Country was the Cement of the Union of these States, then

Colonies, and gave the Spring to the Spirit, Firmness, and

Resolution of their Fellow-citizens. They rose as one man to

revenge their Brethren's blood, and at the point of the Sword to

assert and defend their native Rights. They nobly dared to be

Free!!! The contest was long, bloody, and affecting. Righteous

Heaven approved the Solemn Appeal; Victory crowned their Arms, and

the Peace, Liberty, and Independence of the United States of

America was their glorious Reward. Built in the year 1799."

[4] This view is from the Concord Road, looking eastward, and

shows a portion of the inclosure of the Green. The distant

building seen on the right is the old "Buckman Tavern." It now

belongs to Mrs. Merriam, and exhibits many scars made by the

bullets on the morning of the skirmish.

[5] The seventy-fifth anniversary of the battles of Lexington and

Concord was celebrated at the latter place on the 19th of April,

1850. In the procession was a carriage containing these venerable

brothers, aged, respectively, nearly ninety-one and ninety-three;

Amos Baker, of Lincoln, aged ninety-four; Thomas Hill, of Danvers,

aged ninety-two; and Dr. Preston, of Billerica, aged eighty-eight.

The Honorable Edward Everett, among others, made a speech on the

occasion, in which he very happily remarked, that "it pleased his

heart to see those venerable men beside him; and he was very much

pleased to assist Mr. Jonathan Harrington to put on his top coat a

few minutes ago. In doing so, he was ready to say, with the

eminent man of old, 'Very pleasant art thou to me, my brother

Jonathan!'"

[6] Records of Harvard College.

[7] Phillis wrote a letter to General Washington in October, 1775,

in which she inclosed a poem eulogistic of his character. In

February following the general answered it. I give a copy of his

letter, in illustration of the excellence of the mind and heart of

that great man, always so kind and courteous to the most humble,

even when pressed with arduous public duties.

"Cambridge, February 28, 1776.

"MISS PHILLIS--Your favor of the 26th of October did not reach my

hands till the middle of December. Time enough, you will say, to

have given an answer ere this. Granted. But a variety of important

occurrences, continually interposing to distract the mind and

withdraw the attention, I hope will apologize for the delay, and

plead my excuse for the seeming but not real neglect. I thank you

most sincerely for your polite notice of me in the elegant lines

you inclosed; and however undeserving I may be of such encomium

and panegyric, the style and manner exhibit a striking proof of

your poetical talents; in honor of which, and as a tribute justly

due to you, I would have published the poem, had I not been

apprehensive that, while I only meant to give the world this new

instance of your genius, I might have incurred the imputation of

vanity. This, and nothing else, determined me not to give it a

place in the public prints. If you should ever come to Cambridge,

or near head-quarters, I shall be happy to see a person so favored

by the Muses, and to whom nature has been so liberal and

beneficent in her dispensations. I am, with great respect, your

obedient, humble servant, GEO. WASHINGTON."

[8] She thus writes respecting her removal from a peasant's house

on Winter Hill to Cambridge, and her residence there:

"We passed three weeks in this place, and were then transferred to

Cambridge, where we were lodged in one of the best houses of the

place, which belonged to Royalists. Seven families, who were

connected by relationship, or lived in great intimacy, had here

farms, gardens, and splendid mansions, and not far off, orchards,

and the buildings were at a quarter of a mile distant from each

other. The owners had been in the habit of assembling every

afternoon in one or another of these houses, and of diverting

themselves with music or dancing, and lived in affluence, in good

humor, and without care, until this unfortunate war at once

dispersed them, and transformed all their houses into solitary

abodes, except two, the proprietors of which were also soon

obliged to make their escape....

"On the 3d of June, 1778, I gave a ball and supper, in celebration

of my husband's birthday. I had invited all our generals and

officers and Mr. and Mrs. Carter. General Burgoyne sent us an

apology, after he had made us wait for him till eight o'clock. He

had always some excuse for not visiting us, until he was about

departing for England, when he came and made me many apologies, to

which I made no other reply than that I should be extremely sorry

if he had put himself to any inconvenience for our sake. The dance

lasted long, and we had an excellent supper, to which more than

eighty persons sat down. Our yard and garden were illuminated. The

king's birth-day falling on the next day, it was resolved that the

company should not separate before his Majesty's health was drank;

which was done, with feelings of the liveliest attachment to his

person and interests. Never, I believe, was 'God Save the King'

sung with more enthusiasm, or with feelings more sincere. Our two

eldest girls were brought into the room to see the illumination.

We were all deeply moved, and proud to have the courage to display

such sentiments in the midst of our enemies. Even Mr. Carter could

not forbear participating in our enthusiasm." Mr. Carter was the

son-in-law of General Schuyler. Remembering the kindness which she

had received from that gentleman while in Albany, the baroness

sought out Mr. and Mrs. Carter (who were living in Boston), on her

arrival at Cambridge. "Mrs. Carter," she says, "resembled her

parents in mildness and goodness of heart, but her husband was

revengeful and false." The patriotic zeal of Mr. Carter had given

rise to foolish stories respecting him. "They seemed to feel much

friendship for us," says Madame De Riedesel; "though, at the same

time, this wicked Mr. Carter, in consequence of General Howe's

having burned several villages and small towns, suggested to his

countrymen to cut off our generals' heads, to pickle them, and to

put them in small barrels, and, as often as the English should

again burn a village, to send them one of these barrels; but that

cruelty was not adopted."--_Letters and Memoire relating to the

War of American Independence, by Madame De Riedesel._

[9] This is from a pencil sketch by Mr. Longfellow. I am also

indebted to him for the fac-simile of the autograph of the

Baroness of Riedesel. It will be perceived that the _i_ is placed

before the _e_ in spelling the name. It is generally given with

the _e_ first, which is according to the orthography in Burgoyne's

_State of the Expedition_, &c., wherein I supposed it was spelled

correctly. This autograph shows it to be erroneous.

[10] This monument stands in the centre of the grounds included

within the breast-works of the old redoubt on Breed's Hill. Its

sides are precisely parallel with those of the redoubt. It is

built of Quincy granite, and is two hundred and twenty-one feet in

height. The foundation is composed of six courses of stone, and

extends twelve feet below the surface of the ground and base of

the shaft. The four sides of the foundation extend about fifty

feet horizontally. There are in the whole pile ninety courses of

stone, six of them below the surface of the ground, and

eighty-four above. The foundation is laid in lime mortar; the

other parts of the structure in lime mortar mixed with cinders,

iron filings, and Springfield hydraulic cement. The base of the

obelisk is thirty feet square; at the spring of the apex, fifteen

feet. Inside of the shaft is a round, hollow cone, the outside

diameter of which, at the bottom, is ten feet, and at the top, six

feet. Around this inner shaft winds a spiral flight of stone

steps, two hundred and ninety-five in number. In both the cone and

shaft are numerous little apertures for the purposes of

ventilation and light. The observatory or chamber at the top of

the monument is seventeen feet in height and eleven feet in

diameter. It has four windows, one on each side, which are

provided with iron shutters. The cap-piece of the apex is a single

stone, three feet six inches in thickness and four feet square at

its base. It weighs two and a half tons.

Almost fifty years had elapsed from the time of the battle before

a movement was made to erect a commemorative monument on Breed's

Hill. An association for the purpose was founded in 1824; and to

give eclat to the transaction, and to excite enthusiasm in favor

of the work, General La Fayette, then "the nation's guest," was

invited to lay the corner-stone. Accordingly, on the 17th of June,

1825, the fiftieth anniversary of the battle, that revered patriot

performed the interesting ceremony, and the Honorable Daniel

Webster pronounced an oration on the occasion, in the midst of an

immense concourse of people. Forty survivors of the battle were

present; and on no occasion did La Fayette meet so many of his

fellow-soldiers in our Revolution as at that time. The _plan_ of

the monument was not then decided upon; but one by Solomon

Willard, of Boston, having been approved, the present structure

was commenced, in 1827, by James Savage, of the same city. In the

course of a little more than a year, the work was suspended on

account of a want of funds, about fifty-six thousand dollars

having then been collected and expended. The work was resumed in

1834, and again suspended, within a year, for the same cause,

about twenty thousand dollars more having been expended. In 1840,

the ladies moved in the matter. A fair was announced to be held in

Boston, and every female in the United States was invited to

contribute some production of her own hands to the exhibition. The

fair was held at Faneuil Hall in September, 1840. The proceeds

amounted to sufficient, in connection with some private donations,

to complete the structure, and within a few weeks subsequently, a

contract was made with Mr. Savage to finish it for forty-three

thousand dollars. The last stone of the apex was raised at about

six o'clock on the morning of the 23d of July, 1842. Edward

Carnes, Jr., of Charlestown, accompanied its ascent, waving the

American flag as he went up, while the interesting event was

announced to the surrounding country by the roar of cannon. On the

17th of June, 1843, the monument was dedicated, on which occasion

the Honorable Daniel Webster was again the orator, and vast was

the audience of citizens and military assembled there. The

President of the United States (Mr. Tyler), and his whole cabinet,

were present.

In the top of the monument are two cannons, named, respectively,

"Hancock" and "Adams," which formerly belonged to the Ancient and

Honorable Artillery Company. The "Adams" was burst by them in

firing a salute. The following is the inscription upon the two

guns:

"SACRED TO LIBERTY.

"This is one of four cannons which constituted the whole train of

field artillery possessed by the British colonies of North America

at the commencement of the war, on the 19th of April, 1775. This

cannon and its fellow, belonging to a number of citizens of

Boston, were used in many engagements during the war. The other

two, the property of the government of Massachusetts, were taken

by the enemy.

"By order of the United States in Congress assembled, May 19th,

1788."

[11] When I visited Boston, in 1848, it was estimated that two

hundred and thirty trains of cars went daily over the roads to and

from Boston, and that more than six millions of passengers were

conveyed in them during the preceding year.

[12] Job, xxxix. 24, 25.

[13] This is a picture of Chantrey's statue, which is made of

Italian marble, and cost fifteen thousand dollars.

[14] On some old maps of Boston it is called _Corpse Hill_, the

name supposed to have been derived from the circumstance of a

burying-ground being there.

[15] The following is the inscription upon the slate tablet: "The

Reverend Doctors Increase, Cotton, and Samuel Mather were interred

in this vault.

INCREASE died August 27, 1723, Æ. 84.

COTTON " Feb. 13, 1727, " 65.

SAMUEL " Jan. 27, 1785, " 79."

[16] This society was incorporated in February, 1794. The avowed

object of its organization is to collect, preserve, and

communicate materials for a complete history of this country, and

an account of all valuable efforts of human industry and ingenuity

from the beginning of its settlement. Between twenty and thirty

octavo volumes of its "Collections" have been published.

[From Dickens's Household Words.]

FATE DAYS AND OTHER POPULAR SUPERSTITIONS.

It is a difficult puzzle to reconcile the existence of certain

superstitions that continue to have wide influence with the

enlightenment of the nineteenth century. When we have read glowing

paragraphs about the wonderful progress accomplished by the present

generation; when we have regarded the giant machinery in operation for

the culture of the people--moved, in great part, by the collective power

of individual charity; when we have examined the stupendous results of

human genius and ingenuity which are now laid bare to the lowliest in

the realm; we turn back, it must be confessed, with a mournful

despondency, to mark the debasing influence of the old superstitions

which have survived to the present time.

The superstitions of the ancients formed part of their religion. They

consulted oracles as now men pray. The stars were the arbiters of their

fortunes. Natural phenomena, as lightning and hurricanes, were, to them,

awful expressions of the anger of their particular deities. They had

their _dies atri_ and _dies albi_; the former were marked down in their

calendars with a black character to denote ill-luck, and the latter were

painted in white characters to signify bright and propitious days. They

followed the finger posts of their teachers. Faith gave dignity to the

tenets of the star-gazer and fire-worshiper.

The priests of old taught their disciples to regard six particular days

in the year as days fraught with unusual danger to mankind. Men were

enjoined not to let blood on these black days, nor to imbibe any liquid.

It was devoutly believed that he who ate goose on one of those black

days would surely die within forty more; and that any little stranger

who made his appearance on one of the _dies atri_ would surely die a

sinful and violent death. Men were further enjoined to let blood from

the right arm on the seventh or fourteenth of March; from the left arm

on the eleventh of April; and from either arm on the third or sixth of

May, that they might avoid pestilential diseases. These barbaric

observances, when brought before people in illustration of the mental

darkness of the ancients, are considered at once to be proof positive of

their abject condition. We thereupon congratulated ourselves upon living

in the nineteenth century; when such foolish superstitions are laughed

at; and perhaps our vanity is not a little flattered by the contrast

which presents itself, between our own highly cultivated condition, and

the wretched state of our ancestors.

Yet Mrs. Flimmins will not undertake a sea-voyage on a Friday; nor would

she on any account allow her daughter Mary to be married on that day of

the week. She has great pity for the poor Red Indians who will not do

certain things while the moon presents a certain appearance, and who

attach all kinds of powers to poor dumb brutes; yet if her cat purrs

more than usual, she accepts the warning, and abandons the trip she had

promised herself on the morrow.

Miss Nippers subscribes largely to the fund for eradicating

superstitions from the minds of the wretched inhabitants of Kamschatka;

and while she is calculating the advantages to be derived from a mission

to the South Sea Islands, to do away with the fearful superstitious

reverence in which these poor dear islanders hold their native flea: a

coal pops from her fire, and she at once augurs from its shape an

abundance of money, that will enable her to set her pious undertaking in

operation; but on no account will she commence collecting subscriptions

for the anti-drinking-slave-grown-sugar-in-tea society, because she has

always remarked that Monday is her unlucky day. On a Monday her poodle

died, and on a Monday she caught that severe cold at Brighton, from the

effects of which she is afraid she will never recover.

Mrs. Carmine is a very strong-minded woman. Her unlucky day is

Wednesday. On a Wednesday she first caught that flush which she has

never been able to chase from her cheeks, and on one of these fatal days

her Maria took the scarlet fever. Therefore, she will not go to a

pic-nic on a Wednesday, because she feels convinced that the day will

turn out wet, or that the wheel will come off the carriage. Yet the

other morning, when a gipsy was caught telling her eldest daughter her

fortune, Mrs. Carmine very properly reproached the first-born for her

weakness, in giving any heed to the silly mumblings of the old woman.

Mrs. Carmine is considered to be a woman of uncommon acuteness. She

attaches no importance whatever to the star under which a child is

born--does not think there is a pin to choose between Jupiter and

Neptune; and she has a positive contempt for ghosts; but she believes in

nothing that is begun, continued, or ended on a Wednesday.

Miss Crumple, on the contrary, has seen many ghosts, in fact, is by this

time quite intimate with one or two of the mysterious brotherhood; but

at the same time she is at a loss to understand how any woman in her

senses, can believe Thursday to be a more fortunate day than Wednesday,

or why Monday is to be black-balled from the Mrs. Jones's calendar. She

can state on her oath, that the ghost of her old schoolfellow, Eliza

Artichoke, appeared at her bedside on a certain night, and she

distinctly saw the mole on its left cheek, which poor Eliza, during her

brief career, had vainly endeavored to eradicate, with all sorts of

poisonous things. The ghost, moreover, lisped--so did Eliza! This was

all clear enough to Miss Crumple, and she considered it a personal

insult for any body to suggest that her vivid apparitions existed only

in her over-wrought imagination. She had an affection for her ghostly

visitors, and would not hear a word to their disparagement.

The unearthly warnings which Mrs. Piptoss had received had well-nigh

spoiled all her furniture. When a relative dies, the fact is not

announced to her in the commonplace form of a letter; no, an invisible

sledge-hammer falls upon her Broadwood, an invisible power upsets her

loo-table, all the doors of her house unanimously blow open, or a coffin

flies out of the fire into her lap.

Mrs. Grumple, who is a very economical housewife, looks forward to the

day when the moon re-appears, on which occasion she turns her money,

taking care not to look at the pale lady through glass. This observance,

she devoutly believes, will bring her good fortune. When Miss Caroline

has a knot in her lace, she looks for a present; and when Miss Amelia

snuffs the candle out, it is her faith that the act defers her marriage

a twelvemonth. Any young lady who dreams the same dream two consecutive

Fridays, will tell you that her visions will "come true."

Yet these are exactly the ladies, who most deplore the "gross state of

superstition" in which many "benighted savages" live, and willingly

subscribe their money for its eradication. The superstition so generally

connected with Friday, may easily be traced to its source. It

undoubtedly and confessedly has its origin in scriptural history: it is

the day on which the Saviour suffered. The superstition is the more

revolting from this circumstance; and it is painful to find that it

exists among persons of education. There is no branch of the public

service, for instance, in which so much sound mathematical knowledge is

to be found, as in the Navy. Yet who are more superstitious than

sailors, from the admiral down to the cabin boy? Friday fatality is

still strong among them. Some years ago, in order to lessen this folly,

it was determined that a ship should be laid down on a Friday, and

launched on a Friday; that she should be called "Friday," and that she

should commence her first voyage on a Friday. After much difficulty a

captain was found who owned to the name of Friday; and after a great

deal more difficulty men were obtained, so little superstitious, as to

form a crew. Unhappily, this experiment had the effect of confirming the

superstition it was meant to abolish. The "Friday" was lost--was never,

in fact, heard of from the day she set sail.

Day-fatality, as Miss Nippers interprets it, is simply the expression of

an undisciplined and extremely weak mind; for, if any person will stoop

to reason with her on her aversion to Mondays, he may ask her whether

the death of the poodle, or the catching of her cold, are the two

greatest calamities of her life; and, if so, whether it is her opinion

that Monday is set apart, in the scheme of Nature, so far as it concerns

her, in a black character. Whether for her insignificant self there is a

special day accursed! Mrs. Carmine is such a strong-minded woman, that

we approach her with no small degree of trepidation. Wednesday is her

_dies ater_, because, in the first place, on a Wednesday she imprudently

exposed herself, and is suffering from the consequences; and, in the

second place, on a Wednesday her Maria took the scarlet fever. So she

has marked Wednesday down in her calendar with a black character; yet

her contempt for stars and ghosts is prodigious. Now there is a

consideration to be extended to the friends of ghosts, which

Day-fatalists can not claim. Whether or not deceased friends take a more

airy and flimsy form, and adopt the invariable costume of a sheet to

visit the objects of their earthly affections, is a question which the

shrewdest thinkers and the profoundest logicians have debated very

keenly, but without ever arriving at any satisfactory conclusion.

The strongest argument against the positive existence of ghosts, is,

that they appear only to people of a certain temperament, and under

certain exciting circumstances. The obtuse, matter-of-fact man, never

sees a ghost; and we may take it as a natural law, that none of these

airy visitants ever appeared to an attorney. But the attorney, Mr. Fee

Simple, we are assured, holds Saturday to be an unlucky day. It was on a

Saturday that his extortionate bill in poor Mr. G.'s case, was cut down

by the taxing master; and it was on a Saturday that a certain heavy bill

was duly honored, upon which he had hoped to reap a large sum in the

shape of costs. Therefore Mr. Fee Simple believes that the destinies

have put a black mark against Saturday, so far as he is concerned.

The Jew who thought that the thunder-storm was the consequence of his

having eaten a slice of bacon, did not present a more ludicrous picture,

than Mr. Fee Simple presents with his condemned Saturday.

We have an esteem for ghost-inspectors, which it is utterly impossible

to extend to Day-fatalists. Mrs. Piptoss, too, may be pitied; but Mog,

turning her money when the moon makes her re-appearance, is an object of

ridicule. We shall neither be astonished, nor express condolence, if the

present, which Miss Caroline anticipates from the knot in her lace, be

not forthcoming; and as for Miss Amelia, who has extinguished the

candle, and to the best of her belief lost her husband for a

twelvemonth, we can only wish for her, that when she is married, her

lord and master will shake her faith in the prophetic power of snuffers.

But of all the superstitions that have survived to the present time, and

are to be found in force among people of education and a thoughtful

habit, Day-fatalism is the most general, as it is the most unfounded and

preposterous. It is a superstition, however, in which many great and

powerful thinkers have shared, and by which they have been guided; it

owes much of its present influence to this fact; but reason,

Christianity, and all we have comprehended of the great scheme of which

we form part, alike tend to demonstrate its absurdity, and utter want of

all foundation.

"BATTLE WITH LIFE!"

Bear thee up bravely,

Strong heart and true!

Meet thy woes gravely,

Strive with them too!

Let them not win from thee

Tear of regret.

Such were a sin from thee,

Hope for good yet!

Rouse thee from drooping,

Care-laden soul;

Mournfully stooping

'Neath griefs control!

Far o'er the gloom that lies,

Shrouding the earth,

Light from eternal skies

Shows us thy worth.

Nerve thee yet stronger,

Resolute mind!

Let care no longer

Heavily bind.

Rise on thy eagle wings

Gloriously free!

Till from material things

Pure thou shalt be!

Bear ye up bravely,

Soul and mind too!

Droop not so gravely,

Bold heart and true!

Clear rays of streaming light

Shine through the gloom,

God's love is beaming bright

E'en round the tomb!

TRIAL AND EXECUTION OF MADAME ROLAND.

BY REV. JOHN S.C. ABBOTT.[17]

[Illustration: MADAME ROLAND.]

The Girondists were led from their dungeons in the Conciergerie to their

execution on the 31st of October, 1793. Upon that very day Madame Roland

was conveyed from the prison of St. Pélagié to the same gloomy cells

vacated by the death of her friends. She was cast into a bare and

miserable dungeon, in that subterranean receptacle of woe, where there

was not even a bed. Another prisoner, moved with compassion, drew his

own pallet into her cell, that she might not be compelled to throw

herself for repose upon the cold, wet stones. The chill air of winter

had now come, and yet no covering was allowed her. Through the long

night she shivered with the cold.

The prison of the Conciergerie consists of a series of dark and damp

subterranean vaults, situated beneath the floor of the Palace of

Justice. Imagination can conceive of nothing more dismal than these

sombre caverns, with long and winding galleries opening into cells as

dark as the tomb. You descend by a flight of massive stone steps into

this sepulchral abode, and, passing through double doors, whose iron

strength time has deformed but not weakened, you enter upon the vast

labyrinthine prison, where the imagination wanders affrighted through

intricate mazes of halls, and arches, and vaults, and dungeons, rendered

only more appalling by the dim light which struggles through those

grated orifices which pierced the massive walls. The Seine flows by upon

one side, separated only by the high way of the quays. The bed of the

Seine is above the floor of the prison. The surrounding earth was

consequently saturated with water, and the oozing moisture diffused

over the walls and the floors the humidity of the sepulchre. The plash

of the river; the rumbling of carts upon the pavements overhead; the

heavy tramp of countless footfalls, as the multitude poured into and out

of the halls of justice, mingled with the moaning of the prisoners in

those solitary cells. There were one or two narrow courts scattered in

this vast structure, where the prisoners could look up the precipitous

walls, as of a well, towering high above them, and see a few square

yards of sky. The gigantic quadrangular tower, reared above these firm

foundations, was formerly the imperial palace from which issued all

power and law. Here the French kings reveled in voluptuousness, with

their prisoners groaning beneath their feet. This strong-hold of

feudalism had now become the tomb of the monarchy. In one of the most

loathsome of these cells, Maria Antoinette, the daughter of the Cæsars,

had languished in misery as profound as mortals can suffer, till, in the

endurance of every conceivable insult, she was dragged to the

guillotine.

It was into a cell adjoining that which the hapless queen had occupied

that Madame Roland was cast. Here the proud daughter of the emperors of

Austria and the humble child of the artisan, each, after a career of

unexampled vicissitudes, found their paths to meet but a few steps from

the scaffold. The victim of the monarchy and the victim of the

Revolution were conducted to the same dungeons and perished on the same

block. They met as antagonists in the stormy arena of the French

Revolution. They were nearly of equal age. The one possessed the

prestige of wealth, and rank, and ancestral power; the other, the energy

of vigorous and cultivated mind. Both were endowed with unusual

attractions of person, spirits invigorated by enthusiasm, and the

loftiest heroism. From the antagonism of life they met in death.

The day after Madame Roland was placed in the Conciergerie, she was

visited by one of the notorious officers of the revolutionary party, and

very closely questioned concerning the friendship she had entertained

for the Girondists. She frankly avowed the elevated affection and esteem

with which she cherished their memory, but she declared that she and

they were the cordial friends of republican liberty; that they wished to

preserve, not to destroy, the Constitution. The examination was

vexatious and intolerant in the extreme. It lasted for three hours, and

consisted in an incessant torrent of criminations, to which she was

hardly permitted to offer one word in reply. This examination taught her

the nature of the accusations which would be brought against her. She

sat down in her cell that very night, and, with a rapid pen, sketched

that defense which has been pronounced one of the most eloquent and

touching monuments of the Revolution.

Having concluded it, she retired to rest, and slept with the serenity

of a child. She was called upon several times by committees sent from

the revolutionary tribunal for examination. They were resolved to take

her life, but were anxious to do it, if possible, under the forms of

law. She passed through all their examinations with the most perfect

composure, and the most dignified self-possession. Her enemies could not

withhold their expressions of admiration as they saw her in her

sepulchral cell of stone and of iron, cheerful, fascinating, and

perfectly at ease. She knew that she was to be led from that cell to a

violent death, and yet no faltering of soul could be detected. Her

spirit had apparently achieved a perfect victory over all earthly ills.

The upper part of the door of her cell was an iron grating. The

surrounding cells were filled with the most illustrious ladies and

gentlemen of France. As the hour of death drew near, her courage and

animation seemed to increase. Her features glowed with enthusiasm; her

thoughts and expressions were refulgent with sublimity, and her whole

aspect assumed the impress of one appointed to fill some great and lofty

destiny. She remained but a few days in the Conciergerie before she was

led to the scaffold. During those few days, by her example and her

encouraging words, she spread among the numerous prisoners there an

enthusiasm and a spirit of heroism which elevated, above the fear of the

scaffold, even the most timid and depressed. This glow of feeling and

exhilaration gave a new impress of sweetness and fascination to her

beauty. The length of her captivity, the calmness with which she

contemplated the certain approach of death, gave to her voice that depth

of tone and slight tremulousness of utterance which sent her eloquent

words home with thrilling power to every heart. Those who were walking

in the corridor, or who were the occupants of adjoining cells, often

called for her to speak to them words of encouragement and consolation.

Standing upon a stool at the door of her own cell, she grasped with her

hands the iron grating which separated her from her audience. This was

her tribune. The melodious accents of her voice floated along the

labyrinthine avenues of those dismal dungeons, penetrating cell after

cell, and arousing energy in hearts which had been abandoned to despair.

It was, indeed, a strange scene which was thus witnessed in these

sepulchral caverns. The silence, as of the grave, reigned there, while

the clear and musical tones of Madame Roland, as of an angel of

consolation, vibrated through the rusty bars, and along the dark, damp

cloisters. One who was at that time an inmate of the prison, and

survived those dreadful scenes, has described, in glowing terms, the

almost miraculous effects of her soul-moving eloquence. She was already

past the prime of life, but she was still fascinating. Combined with the

most wonderful power of expression, she possessed a voice so exquisitely

musical, that, long after her lips were silenced in death, its tones

vibrated in lingering strains in the souls of those by whom they had

ever been heard. The prisoners listened with the most profound attention

to her glowing words, and regarded her almost as a celestial spirit, who

had come to animate them to heroic deeds. She often spoke of the

Girondists who had already perished upon the guillotine. With perfect

fearlessness she avowed her friendship for them, and ever spoke of them

as _our friends_. She, however, was careful never to utter a word which

would bring tears into the eye. She wished to avoid herself all the

weakness of tender emotions, and to lure the thoughts of her companions

away from every contemplation which could enervate their energies.

Occasionally, in the solitude of her cell, as the image of her husband

and of her child rose before her, and her imagination dwelt upon her

desolated home and her blighted hopes--her husband denounced and pursued

by lawless violence, and her child soon to be an orphan--woman's

tenderness would triumph over the heroine's stoicism. Burying, for a

moment, her face in her hands, she would burst into a flood of tears.

Immediately struggling to regain composure, she would brush her tears

away, and dress her countenance in its accustomed smiles. She remained

in the Conciergerie but one week, and during that time so endeared

herself to all as to become the prominent object of attention and love.

Her case is one of the most extraordinary the history of the world has

presented, in which the very highest degree of heroism is combined with

the most resistless charms of feminine loveliness. An unfeminine woman

can never be _loved_ by men. She may be respected for her talents, she

may be honored for her philanthropy, but she can not win the warmer

emotions of the heart. But Madame Roland, with an energy of will, an

inflexibility of purpose, a firmness of stoical endurance which no

mortal man has ever exceeded, combined that gentleness, and tenderness,

and affection--that instinctive sense of the proprieties of her

sex--which gathered around her a love as pure and as enthusiastic as

woman ever excited. And while her friends, many of whom were the most

illustrious men in France, had enthroned her as an idol in their hearts,

the breath of slander never ventured to intimate that she was guilty

even of an impropriety.

The day before her trial, her advocate, Chauveau de la Garde, visited

her to consult respecting her defense. She, well aware that no one could

speak a word in her favor but at the peril of his own life, and also

fully conscious that her doom was already sealed, drew a ring from her

finger, and said to him,

"To-morrow, I shall be no more. I know the fate which awaits me. Your

kind assistance can not avail aught for me, and would but endanger you.

I pray you, therefore, not to come to the tribunal, but to accept of

this last testimony of my regard."

The next day she was led to her trial. She attired herself in a white

robe, as a symbol of her innocence, and her long dark hair fell in thick

curls on her neck and shoulders. She emerged from her dungeon the vision

of unusual loveliness. The prisoners who were walking in the corridors

gathered around her, and with smiles and words of encouragement she

infused energy into their hearts. Calm and invincible she met her

judges. She was accused of the crimes of being the wife of M. Roland and

the friend of his friends. Proudly she acknowledged herself guilty of

both those charges. Whenever she attempted to utter a word in her

defense, she was brow-beaten by the judges, and silenced by the clamors

of the mob which filled the tribunal. The mob now ruled with undisputed

sway in both legislative and executive halls. The serenity of her eye

was untroubled, and the composure of her disciplined spirit unmoved,

save by the exaltation of enthusiasm, as she noted the progress of the

trial, which was bearing her rapidly and resistlessly to the scaffold.

It was, however, difficult to bring any accusation against her by which,

under the form of law, she could be condemned. France, even in its

darkest hour, was rather ashamed to behead a woman, upon whom the eyes

of all Europe were fixed, simply for being the _wife of her husband and

the friend of his friends_. At last the president demanded of her that

she should reveal her husband's asylum. She proudly replied,

"I do not know of any law by which I can be obliged to violate the

strongest feelings of nature."

This was sufficient, and she was immediately condemned. Her sentence was

thus expressed:

"The public accuser has drawn up the present indictment against Jane

Mary Phlippon, the wife of Roland, late Minister of the Interior, for

having wickedly and designedly aided and assisted in the conspiracy

which existed against the unity and indivisibility of the Republic,

against the liberty and safety of the French people, by assembling at

her house, in secret council, the principal chiefs of that conspiracy,

and by keeping up a correspondence tending to facilitate their

treasonable designs. The tribunal having heard the public accuser

deliver his reasons concerning the application of the law, condemns Jane

Mary Phlippon, wife of Roland, to the punishment of death."

She listened calmly to her sentence, and then rising, bowed with dignity

to her judges, and, smiling, said,

"I thank you, gentlemen, for thinking me worthy of sharing the fate of

the great men whom you have assassinated. I shall endeavor to imitate

their firmness on the scaffold."

With the buoyant step of a child, and with a rapidity which almost

betokened joy, she passed beneath the narrow portal, and descended to

her cell, from which she was to be led, with the morning light, to a

bloody death. The prisoners had assembled to greet her on her return,

and anxiously gathered around her. She looked upon them with a smile of

perfect tranquillity, and, drawing her hand across her neck, made a sign

expressive of her doom. But a few hours elapsed between her sentence and

her execution. She retired to her cell, wrote a few words of parting to

her friends, played upon a harp, which had found its way into the

prison, her requiem, in tones so wild and mournful, that, floating in

the dark hours of the night, through these sepulchral caverns, they fell

like unearthly music upon the despairing souls there incarcerated.

The morning of the 10th of November, 1793, dawned gloomily upon Paris.

It was one of the darkest days of that reign of terror which, for so

long a period enveloped France in its sombre shades. The ponderous gates

of the court-yard of the Conciergerie opened that morning to a long

procession of carts loaded with victims for the guillotine. Madame

Roland had contemplated her fate too long, and had disciplined her

spirit too severely, to fail of fortitude in this last hour of trial.

She came from her cell scrupulously attired for the bridal of death. A

serene smile was upon her cheek, and the glow of joyous animation

lighted up her features as she waved an adieu to the weeping prisoners

who gathered around her. The last cart was assigned to Madame Roland.

She entered it with a step as light and elastic as if it were a carriage

for a pleasant morning's drive. By her side stood an infirm old man, M.

La Marche. He was pale and trembling, and his fainting heart, in view of

the approaching terror, almost ceased to beat. She sustained him by her

arm, and addressed to him words of consolation and encouragement in

cheerful accents and with a benignant smile. The poor old man felt that

God had sent an angel to strengthen him in the dark hour of death. As

the cart heavily rumbled along the pavement, drawing nearer and nearer

to the guillotine, two or three times, by her cheerful words, she even

caused a smile faintly to play upon his pallid lips.

The guillotine was now the principal instrument of amusement for the

populace of Paris. It was so elevated that all could have a good view of

the spectacle it presented. To witness the conduct of nobles and of

ladies, of boys and of girls, while passing through the horrors of a

sanguinary death, was far more exciting than the unreal and bombastic

tragedies of the theatre, or the conflicts of the cock-pit and the bear

garden. A countless throng flooded the streets; men, women, and

children, shouting, laughing, execrating. The celebrity of Madame

Roland, her extraordinary grace and beauty, and her aspect, not only of

heroic fearlessness, but of joyous exhilaration, made her the prominent

object of the public gaze. A white robe gracefully enveloped her perfect

form, and her black and glossy hair, which for some reason the

executioners had neglected to cut, fell in rich profusion to her waist.

A keen November blast swept the streets, under the influence of which,

and the excitement of the scene, her animated countenance glowed with

all the ruddy bloom of youth. She stood firmly in the cart, looking with

a serene eye upon the crowds which lined the streets, and listening with

unruffled serenity to the clamor which filled the air. A large crowd

surrounded the cart in which Madame Roland stood, shouting, "To the

guillotine! to the guillotine!" She looked kindly upon them, and,

bending over the railing of the cart, said to them, in tones as placid

as if she were addressing her own child, "My friends, I _am_ going to

the guillotine. In a few moments I shall be there. They who send me

thither will ere long follow me. I go innocent. They will come stained

with blood. You who now applaud our execution will then applaud theirs

with equal zeal."

Madame Roland had continued writing her memoirs until the hour in which

she left her cell for the scaffold. When the cart had almost arrived at

the foot of the guillotine, her spirit was so deeply moved by the tragic

scene--such emotions came rushing in upon her soul from departing time

and opening eternity, that she could not repress the desire to pen down

her glowing thoughts. She entreated an officer to furnish her for a

moment with pen and paper. The request was refused. It is much to be

regretted that we are thus deprived of that unwritten chapter of her

life. It can not be doubted that the words she would then have written

would have long vibrated upon the ear of a listening world.

Soul-utterances will force their way over mountains, and valleys, and

oceans. Despotism can not arrest them. Time can not enfeeble them.

The long procession arrived at the guillotine, and the bloody work

commenced. The victims were dragged from the carts, and the ax rose and

fell with unceasing rapidity. Head after head fell into the basket, and

the pile of bleeding trunks rapidly increased in size. The executioners

approached the cart where Madame Roland stood by the side of her

fainting companion. With an animated countenance and a cheerful smile,

she was all engrossed in endeavoring to infuse fortitude into his soul.

The executioner grasped her by the arm. "Stay," said she, slightly

resisting his grasp; "I have one favor to ask, and that is not for

myself. I beseech you grant it me." Then turning to the old man, she

said, "Do you precede me to the scaffold. To see my blood flow would

make you suffer the bitterness of death twice over. I must spare you the

pain of witnessing my execution." The stern officer gave a surly

refusal, replying, "My orders are to take you first." With that winning

smile and that fascinating grace which were almost resistless, she

rejoined, "You can not, surely, refuse a woman her last request." The

hard-hearted executor of the law was brought within the influence of her

enchantment. He paused, looked at her for a moment in slight

bewilderment, and yielded. The poor old man, more dead than alive, was

conducted upon the scaffold and placed beneath the fatal ax. Madame

Roland, without the slightest change of color, or the apparent tremor of

a nerve, saw the ponderous instrument, with its glittering edge, glide

upon its deadly mission, and the decapitated trunk of her friend was

thrown aside to give place for her. With a placid countenance and a

buoyant step, she ascended the platform. The guillotine was erected upon

the vacant spot between the gardens of the Tuileries and the Elysian

Fields, then known as the Place de la Revolution. This spot is now

called the Place de la Concorde. It is unsurpassed by any other place in

Europe. Two marble fountains now embellish the spot. The blood-stained

guillotine, from which crimson rivulets were ever flowing, then occupied

the space upon which one of these fountains has been erected; and a clay

statue to Liberty reared its hypocritical front where the Egyptian

obelisk now rises. Madame Roland stood for a moment upon the elevated

platform, looked calmly around upon the vast concourse, and then bowing

before the colossal statue, exclaimed, "O Liberty! Liberty! how many

crimes are committed in thy name." She surrendered herself to the

executioner, and was bound to the plank. The plank fell to its

horizontal position, bringing her head under the fatal ax. The

glittering steel glided through the groove, and the head of Madame

Roland was severed from her body.

Thus died Madame Roland, in the thirty-ninth year of her age. Her death

oppressed all who had known her with the deepest grief. Her intimate

friend Buzot, who was then a fugitive, on hearing the tidings, was

thrown into a state of perfect delirium, from which he did not recover

for many days. Her faithful female servant was so overwhelmed with

grief, that she presented herself before the tribunal, and implored them

to let her die upon the same scaffold where her beloved mistress had

perished. The tribunal, amazed at such transports of attachment,

declared that she was mad, and ordered her to be removed from their

presence. A man-servant made the same application, and was sent to the

guillotine.

The grief of M. Roland, when apprized of the event, was unbounded. For a

time he entirely lost his senses. Life to him was no longer endurable.

He knew not of any consolations of religion. Philosophy could only nerve

him to stoicism. Privately he left, by night, the kind friends who had

hospitably concealed him for six months, and wandered to such a distance

from his asylum as to secure his protectors from any danger on his

account. Through the long hours of the winter's night he continued his

dreary walk, till the first gray of the morning appeared in the east.

Drawing a long stilletto from the inside of his walking-stick, he placed

the head of it against the trunk of a tree, and threw himself upon the

sharp weapon. The point pierced his heart, and he fell lifeless upon

the frozen ground. Some peasants passing by discovered his body. A piece

of paper was pinned to the breast of his coat, upon which there were

written these words: "Whoever thou art that findest these remains,

respect them as those of a virtuous man. After hearing of my wife's

death, I would not stay another day in a world so stained with crime."

FOOTNOTE:

[17] From ABBOTT'S "History of Madame Roland," soon to be issued

from the press of Harper & Brothers.

[From Dickens's Household Words.]

CHEMICAL CONTRADICTIONS.

Science, whose aim and end is to prove the harmony and "eternal fitness

of things," also proves that we live in a world of paradoxes; and that

existence itself is a whirl of contradictions. Light and darkness, truth

and falsehood, virtue and vice, the negative and positive poles of

galvanic or magnetic mysteries, are evidences of all-pervading

antitheses, which, acting like the good and evil genii of Persian

Mythology, neutralize each other's powers when they come into collision.

It is the office of science to solve these mysteries. The appropriate

symbol of the lecture-room is a Sphinx; for a scientific lecturer is but

a better sort of unraveler of riddles.

Who would suppose, for instance, that water--which every body knows,

extinguishes fire--may, under certain circumstances, add fuel to flame,

so that the "coming man," who is to "set the Thames on fire," may not be

far off. If we take some mystical gray-looking globules of potassium

(which is the metallic basis of common pearl-ash) and lay them upon

water, the water will instantly appear to ignite. The globules will swim

about in flames, reminding us of the "death-fires" described by the

Ancient Mariner, burning "like witches' oil" on the surface of the

stagnant sea. Sometimes even, without any chemical ingredient being

added, fire will appear to spring spontaneously from water; which is not

a simple element, as Thales imagined, when he speculated upon the origin

of the Creation, but two invisible gases--oxygen and hydrogen,

chemically combined. During the electrical changes of the atmosphere in

a thunder-storm, these gases frequently combine with explosive violence,

and it is this combination which takes place when "the big rain comes

dancing to the earth." These fire-and-water phenomena are thus accounted

for; certain substances have peculiar affinities or attractions for one

another; the potassium has so inordinate a desire for oxygen, that the

moment it touches, it decomposes the water, abstracts all the oxygen,

and sets free the hydrogen or inflammable gas. The potassium, when

combined with the oxygen, forms that corrosive substance known as

caustic potash, and the heat, disengaged during this process, ignites

the hydrogen. Here the mystery ends; and the contradictions are solved;

Oxygen and hydrogen when combined, become water; when separated the

hydrogen gas burns with a pale, lambent flame. Many of Nature's most

delicate deceptions are accounted for by a knowledge of these laws.

Your analytical chemist sadly annihilates, with his scientific

machinations, all poetry. He bottles up at pleasure the Nine Muses, and

proves them--as the fisherman in the Arabian Nights did the Afrite--to

be all smoke. Even the Will-o'-the-Wisp can not flit across its own

morass without being pursued, overtaken, and burnt out by this

scientific detective policeman. He claps an extinguisher upon

Jack-o'-Lantern thus: He says that a certain combination of phosphorus

and hydrogen, which rises from watery marshes, produces a gas called

phosphureted hydrogen, which ignites spontaneously the moment it bubbles

up to the surface of the water and meets with atmospheric air. Here

again the Ithuriel wand of science dispels all delusion, pointing out to

us, that in such places animal and vegetable substances are undergoing

constant decomposition; and as phosphorus exists under a variety of

forms in these bodies, as phosphate of lime, phosphate of soda,

phosphate of magnesia, &c., and as furthermore the decomposition of

water itself is the initiatory process in these changes, so we find that

phosphorus and hydrogen are supplied from these sources; and we may

therefore easily conceive the consequent formation of phosphureted

hydrogen. This gas rises in a thin stream from its watery bed, and the

moment it comes in contact with the oxygen of the atmosphere, it bursts

into a flame so buoyant, that it flickers with every breath of air, and

realizes the description of Goethe's Mephistopheles, that the course of

Jack-o'-Lantern is generally "zig-zag."

Who would suppose that absolute darkness may be derived from two rays of

light! Yet such is the fact. If two rays proceed from two luminous

points very close to each other, and are so directed as to cross at a

given point on a sheet of white paper in a dark room, their united light

will be twice as bright as either ray singly would produce. But if the

difference in the distance of the two points be diminished only

one-half, the one light will extinguish the other, and produce absolute

darkness. The same curious result may be produced by viewing the flame

of a candle through two very fine slits near to each other in a card.

So, likewise, strange as it may appear, if two musical strings be so

made to vibrate, in a certain succession of degrees, as for the one to

gain half a vibration on the other, the two resulting sounds will

antagonize each other and produce an interval of perfect silence. How

are these mysteries to be explained? The Delphic Oracle of science must

again be consulted, and among the high priests who officiate at the

shrine, no one possesses more recondite knowledge, or can recall it more

instructively than Sir David Brewster. "The explanation which

philosophers have given," he observes, "of these remarkable phenomena,

is very satisfactory, and may easily be understood. When a wave is made

on the surface of a still pool of water by plunging a stone into it, the

wave advances along the surface, while the water itself is never carried

forward, but merely rises into a height and falls into a hollow, each

portion of the surface experiencing an elevation and a depression in its

turn. If we suppose two waves equal and similar, to be produced by two

separate stones, and if they reach the same spot at the same time, that

is, if the two elevations should exactly coincide, they would unite

their effects, and produce a wave twice the size of either; but if the

one wave should be put so far before the other, that the hollow of the

one coincided with the elevation of the other, and the elevation of the

one with the hollow of the other, the two waves would obliterate or

destroy one another; the elevation, as it were, of the one filling up

half the hollow of the other, and the hollow of the one taking away half

the elevation of the other, so us to reduce the surface to a level.

These effects may be exhibited by throwing two equal stones into a pool

of water; and also may be observed in the Port of Batsha, where the two

waves arriving by channels of different lengths actually obliterate each

other. Now, as light is supposed to be produced by waves or undulations

of an ethereal medium filling all nature, and occupying the pores of the

transparent bodies; and as sound is produced by undulations or waves in

the air: so the successive production of light and darkness by two

bright lights, and the production of sound and silence by two loud

sounds, may be explained in the very same manner as we have explained

the increase and obliteration of waves formed on the surface of water."

The apparent contradictions in chemistry are, indeed, best exhibited in

the lecture-room, where they may be rendered visible and tangible, and

brought home to the general comprehension. The Professor of Analytical

Chemistry, J.H. Pepper, who demonstrates these things in the Royal

Polytechnic Institution, is an expert manipulator in such mysteries;

and, taking a leaf out of his own magic-book, we shall conjure him up

before us, standing behind his own laboratory, surrounded with all the

implements of his art. At our recent visit to this exhibition we

witnessed him perform, with much address, the following experiments: He

placed before us a pair of tall glass vessels, each filled, apparently,

with water; he then took two hen's eggs, one of these he dropped into

one of the glass vessels, and, as might have been expected, it

immediately sank to the bottom. He then took the other egg, and dropped

it into the other vessel of water, but, instead of sinking as the other

had done, it descended only half way, and there remained suspended in

the midst of the transparent fluid. This, indeed, looked like magic--one

of Houdin's sleight-of-hand performances--for what could interrupt its

progress? The water surrounding it appeared as pure below as around and

above the egg, yet there it still hung like Mahomet's coffin, between

heaven and earth, contrary to all the well-established laws of gravity.

The problem, however, was easily solved. Our modern Cagliostro had

dissolved in one half of the water in this vessel as much common salt as

it would take up, whereby the density of the fluid was so much augmented

that it opposed a resistance to the descent of the egg after it had

passed through the unadulterated water, which he had carefully poured

upon the briny solution, the transparency of which, remaining

unimpaired, did not for a moment suggest the suspicion of any such

impregnation. The good housewife, upon the same principle, uses an egg

to test the strength of her brine for pickling.

Every one has heard of the power which bleaching gas (chlorine)

possesses in taking away color, so that a red rose held over its fumes

will become white. The lecturer, referring to this fact, exhibited two

pieces of paper; upon one was inscribed, in large letters, the word

"PROTEUS;" upon the other no writing was visible; although he assured us

the same word was there inscribed. He now dipped both pieces of paper in

a solution of bleaching-powder, when the word "Proteus" disappeared from

the paper upon which it was before visible; while the same word

instantly came out, sharp and distinct, upon the paper which was

previously a blank. Here there appeared another contradiction: the

chlorine in the one case obliterating, and in the other reviving the

written word; and how was this mystery explained? Easily enough! Our

ingenious philosopher, it seems, had used indigo in penning the one word

which had disappeared; and had inscribed the other with a solution of a

chemical substance, iodide of potassium and starch; and the action which

took place was simply this: the chlorine of the bleaching solution set

free the iodine from the potassium, which immediately combined with the

starch, and gave color to the letters which were before invisible.

Again--a sheet of white paper was exhibited, which displayed a broad and

brilliant stripe of scarlet--(produced by a compound called the

bin-iodide of mercury)--when exposed to a slight heat the color changed

immediately to a bright yellow, and, when this yellow stripe was crushed

by smartly rubbing the paper, the scarlet color was restored, with all

its former brilliancy. This change of color was effected entirely by the

alteration which the heat, in the one case, and the friction, in the

other, produced in the particles which reflected these different colors;

and, upon the same principle, we may understand the change of the color

in the lobster-shell, which turns from black to red in boiling; because

the action of the heat produces a new arrangement in the particles which

compose the shell.

With the assistance of water and fire, which have befriended the

magicians of every age, contradictions of a more marvelous character may

be exhibited, and even the secret art revealed of handling red-hot

metals, and passing through the fiery ordeal. If we take a platinum

ladle, and hold it over a furnace until it becomes of a bright red heat,

and then project cold water into its bowl, we shall find that the water

will remain quiescent and give no sign of ebullition--not so much as a

single "fizz;" but, the moment the ladle begins to cool, it will boil up

and quickly evaporate. So also, if a mass of metal, heated to whiteness,

be plunged in a vessel of cold water, the surrounding fluid will remain

tranquil so long as the glowing white heat continues; but, the moment

the temperature falls, the water will boil briskly. Again--if water be

poured upon an iron sieve, the wires of which are made red hot, it will

not run through; but, on the sieve cooling, it will run through rapidly.

These contradictory effects are easily accounted for. The repelling

power of intense heat keeps the water from immediate contact with the

heated metal, and the particles of the water, collectively, retain their

globular form; but, when the vessel cools, the repulsive power

diminishes, and the water coming into closer contact with the heated

surface its particles can no longer retain their globular form, and

eventually expand into a state of vapor. This globular condition of the

particles of water will account for many very important phenomena;

perhaps it is best exhibited in the dew-drop, and so long as these

globules retain their form, water will retain its fluid properties. An

agglomeration of these globules will carry with them, under certain

circumstances, so much force that it is hardly a contradiction to call

water itself a solid. The water-hammer, as it is termed, illustrates

this apparent contradiction. If we introduce a certain quantity of water

into a long glass tube, when it is shaken, we shall hear the ordinary

splashing noise as in a bottle; but, if we exhaust the air, and again

shake the tube, we shall hear a loud ringing sound, as if the bottom of

the tube were struck by some hard substance--like metal or wood--which

may fearfully remind us of the blows which a ship's side will receive

from the waves during a storm at sea, which will often carry away her

bulwarks.

It is now time to turn to something stronger than water for more

instances of chemical contradictions. The chemical action of certain

poisons (the most powerful of all agents), upon the human frame, has

plunged the faculty into a maze of paradoxes; indeed, there is actually

a system of medicine, advancing in reputation, which is founded on the

principle of contraries. The famous Dr. Hahnemann, who was born at

Massieu in Saxony, was the founder of it, and, strange to say, medical

men, who are notorious for entertaining contrary opinions, have not yet

agreed among themselves whether he was a very great quack or a very

great philosopher. Be this as it may, the founder of this system, which

is called HOMOEOPATHY, when translating an article upon bark in Dr.

Cullen's Materia Medica, took some of this medicine, which had for many

years been justly celebrated for the cure of ague. He had not long taken

it, when he found himself attacked with aguish symptoms, and a light now

dawned upon his mind, and led him to the inference that medicines which

give rise to the symptoms of a disease, are those which will

specifically cure it, and however curious it may appear, several

illustrations in confirmation of this principle were speedily found. If

a limb be frost-bitten, we are directed to rub it with snow; if the

constitution of a man be impaired by the abuse of spirituous liquors,

and he be reduced to that miserable state of enervation when the limbs

tremble and totter, and the mind itself sinks into a state of low

muttering delirium, the physician to cure him must go again to the

bottle and administer stimulants and opiates.

It was an old Hippocratic aphorism that two diseases can not co-exist in

the same body, wherefore, gout has actually been cured by the afflicted

person going into a fenny country and catching the ague. The fatality of

consumption is also said to be retarded by a common catarrh; and upon

this very principle depends the truth of the old saying, that rickety

doors hang long on rusty hinges. In other words, the strength of the

constitution being impaired by one disease has less power to support the

morbid action of another.

We thus live in a world of apparent contradictions; they abound in every

department of science, and beset us even in the sanctuary of domestic

life. The progress of discovery has reconciled and explained the nature

of some of them; but many baffle our ingenuity, and still remain

involved in mystery. This much, however, is certain, that the most

opposed and conflicting elements so combine together as to produce

results, which are strictly in unison with the order and harmony of the

universe.

DESCENT INTO THE CRATER OF A VOLCANO.[18]

BY REV. H.T. CHEEVER.

A descent into the Crater of the Volcano of Kilauea in the Sandwich

Islands, may be accomplished with tolerable ease by the north-eastern

cliff of the crater, where the side has fallen in and slidden downward,

leaving a number of huge, outjutting rocks, like giants'

stepping-stones, or the courses of the pyramid of Ghizeh.

By hanging to these, and the mere aid of a pole, you may descend the

first precipice to where the avalanche brought up and was stayed--a wild

region, broken into abrupt hills and deep glens, thickly set with shrubs

and old ohias, and producing in great abundance the Hawaiian

whortleberry (formerly sacred to the goddess of the volcano), and a

beautiful lustrous blackberry that grows on a branching vine close to

the ground. Thousands of birds find there a safe and warm retreat; and

they will continue, I suppose, the innocent warblers, to pair and sing

there, till the fires from beneath, having once more eaten through its

foundations, the entire tract, with all its miniature mountains and

woody glens, shall slide off suddenly into the abyss below to feed the

hunger of all-devouring fire.

No one who passes over it, and looks back upon the tall, jagged cliffs

at the rear and side, can doubt that it was severed and shattered by one

such ruin into its present forms. And the bottomless pits and yawning

caverns, in some places ejecting hot steam, with which it is traversed,

prove that the raging element which once sapped its foundations is still

busy beneath.

The path that winds over and down through this tract, crossing some of

these unsightly seams by a natural bridge of only a foot's breadth, is

safe enough by daylight, if one will keep in it. But be careful that you

do not diverge far on either side, or let the shades of night overtake

you there, lest a single mis-step in the grass and ferns, concealing

some horrible hole, or an accidental stumble, shall plunge you beyond

the reach of sunlight into a covered pen-stock of mineral fire, or into

the heart of some deep, sunken cavern.

One can hardly wander through that place alone, even in the daytime (as

I was in coming up from the crater at evening), without having his fancy

swarm with forms of evil. In spite of himself, there will

"Throng thick into his mind the busy shapes

Of cover'd pits, unfathomably deep,

A dire descent! of precipices huge--

Rocks, caves, lakes, fens, bogs, dens, and shades of death."

The way through this tract descends not abruptly for about half a mile,

to a steep bank of partially decomposed lava, somewhat furrowed by

water-courses, by which you go down some hundreds of feet more to what

every body calls the Black Ledge.

This is an immense rampart or gallery of grisly black scoria and lava,

about half a mile wide, running all round the pit, slightly sloping

inward, and not unfrequently overflowed in eruptions. By it you learn

the dimensions of the great lake to which this is now the shore. It may

be compared to the wide beach of an ocean, seldom flooded all over

except in very high tides; or to a great field of thick shore ice, from

under which the tide has retired, leaving it cracked and rent, but not

so as to break up the general evenness of its surface.

The upper crust is generally glossy, cellular, and cinder-like, brittle

and crackling under the feet; but directly underneath the superficies,

hard and compact, as proved by inspecting the great seams and fissures,

from some of which flickering currents of hot air, and from others

scalding steam and smoke are continually issuing. Pound on it, and you

will hear deep, hollow reverberations, and sometimes your pole will

break through a place like the rotten trap-door of some old ruin, and

open upon you a hideous black hole without bottom.

Over this great volcanic mole or offset, we proceeded to make our way

toward the caldron in the southeast, pounding before us with our pole,

like men crossing a river to find whether the ice ahead will bear them.

We stopped every now and then to examine and get up on to some great

cone or oven, which had been formed after the congelation of the crust,

by pent up gas blowing out from beneath the cooling lava, raising it as

in great bubbles, and letting its black, viscous vomit dribble from the

top, and flow down sluggishly and congeal before it had found a level,

like ice in very cold weather over a waterfall. Thus it would flow over

the Black Ledge, hardening sometimes in round streams like a cable, or

in serpentine forms like a great anaconda; and again it would spread out

from the foot of the cone a little way, in forms like a bronze lion's

foot.

The surface was frequently broken, or ready to break, with the weight of

one's body, from the fiery liquid having subsided after the petrifaction

of the crust. Generally, too, the hardened lava seemed to have been

flowed over, like ice near the shore when the tide rises and goes down,

with a thin scum of lava that became shelly and crepitated under the

foot like shelly ice.

Then, as we went further into the bed of the crater, gradually going

down, we would come to places where, like as in frozen mill-ponds,

whence the water has been drawn off, the congealed lava had broken in to

the depth sometimes of fifty and one hundred feet. Every where, too,

there were great fissures and cracks, as in fields of river ice, now and

then a large air-hole, and here and there great bulges and breaks, and

places from which a thin flame would be curling, or over which you would

see a glimmer like that which trembles over a body of fresh coals or a

recently-burned lime-kiln. Touch your stick there, and it would

immediately kindle.

There were also deep, wide ditches, through which a stream of liquid

lava had flowed since the petrifaction of the main body through which it

passed. Cascades of fire are said to be often seen in the course of

these canals or rivers as they leap some precipice, presenting in the

night a scene of unequaled splendor and sublimity. In some places the

banks or dikes of these rivers are excavated and fallen in with hideous

crash and ruin; and often you may go up, if you dare, to the edge on one

side and look over into the gulf, and away under the opposite

overhanging bank, where the igneous fluid has worn away and scooped it

out till the cliff hangs on air, and seems to topple and lean, like the

tower of Pisa, just ready to fall.

It would be no very comfortable reflection, if a man were not too

curiously eager and bold and intent upon the novelties he is drinking in

by the senses, to have much reflection or fear at such a time, to think

how easily an earthquake might tumble down the bank on which he is

standing, undermined in like manner with that which you are looking at

right opposite.

On our left, as we passed on to the Great Caldron, we explored, as far

as was possible between the heat and vapor, the great bank, or, more

properly, mountain-side of sulphur and sulphate of lime (plaster of

Paris), and obtained some specimens of no little beauty. There are

cliffs of sulphur through which scalding hot vapor is escaping as high

up above you as eight hundred feet; and lower down there are seams from

which lambent and flickering flames are darting, and jets of hot air

will sometimes whirl by you, involving no little danger by their

inhalation. Around these fissures are yellow and green incrustations of

sulphur, which afford a new variety of specimens.

When we had got to the leeward of the caldron, we found large quantities

of the finest threads of metallic vitrified lava, like the spears and

filaments of sealing-wax, called Pele's hair. The wind has caught them

from the jets and bubbling springs of gory lava, and carried them away

on its wings till they have lodged in nests and crevices, where they may

be collected like shed wool about the time of sheep-shearing. Sometimes

this is found twenty miles to the leeward of the volcano.

The heat and sulphur gas, irritating the throat and lungs, are so great

on that side, that we had to sheer away off from the brim of the

caldron, and could not observe close at hand the part where there was

the most gushing and bubbling of the ignifluous mineral fluid. But we

passed round to the windward, and were thus enabled to get up to the

brim so as to look over for a minute in the molten lake, burning

incessantly with brimstone and fire--

"A furnace formidable, deep, and wide,

O'erboiling with a mad, sulphureous tide."

But the lava which forms your precarious foothold, melted, perhaps, a

hundred times, can not be handled or trusted, and the heat even there is

so great as to burn the skin of one's face, although the heated air, as

it rises, is instantly swept off to the leeward by the wind. It is

always hazardous, not to say fool-hardy, to stand there for a moment,

lest your uncertain foothold, crumbling and crispy by the action of

fire, shall suddenly give way and throw you instantly into the fiery

embrace of death.

At times, too, the caldron is so furiously boiling, and splashing, and

spitting its fires, and casting up its salient, angry jets of melted

lava and spume, that all approach to it is forbidden. We slumped several

times near it, as a man will in the spring who is walking over a river

of which the ice is beginning to thaw, and the upper stratum, made of

frozen snow, is dissolved and rotten. A wary native who accompanied us

wondered at our daring, and would not be kept once from pulling me back,

as with the eager and bold curiosity of a discoverer, all absorbed in

the view of such exciting wonders, I was getting too near.

At the time we viewed it, the brim all round was covered with splashes

and spray to the width of ten or twelve feet. The surface of the lake

was about a mile in its longest diameter, at a depth of thirty or forty

feet from its brim, and agitated more or less all over, in some places

throwing up great jets and spouts of fiery red lava, in other places

spitting it out like steam from an escape-pipe when the valves are half

lifted, and again squirting the molten rock as from a pop-gun.

The surface was like a river or lake when the ice is _going out_ and

broken up into cakes, over which you will sometimes see the water

running, and sometimes it will be quite hidden. In the same manner in

this lake of fire, while its surface was generally covered with a crust

of half-congealed, dusky lava, and raised into elevations, or sunk into

depressions, you would now and then see the live coal-red stream running

along. Two cakes of lava, also, would meet like cakes of ice, and their

edges crushing, would pile up and fall over, precisely like the

phenomena of moving fields of ice; there was, too, the same rustling,

grinding noise.

Sometimes, I am told, the roar of the fiery surges is like the heavy

beating of surf. Once, when Mr. Coan visited it, this caldron was heaped

up in the middle, higher above its brim than his head, so that he ran up

and thrust in a pyrometer, while streams were running off on different

sides. At another time when he saw it, it had sunk four or five hundred

feet below its brim, and he had to look down a dreadful gulf to see its

fires.

Again, when Mr. Bingham was there, it was full, and concentric waves

were flowing out and around from its centre. Having carefully observed

its movements a while, he threw a stick of wood upon the thin crust of a

moving wave where he thought it would bear him, even if it should bend a

little, and then stood upon it a few moments. In that position,

thrusting his cane down through the cooling tough crust, about half an

inch thick, and immediately withdrawing it, forthwith there gushed up,

like ooze in a marsh or melted tar under a plank, enough of the viscid

lava to form a globular mass, which afterward, as it cooled, he broke

off and bore away.

It is not easy for one that has not himself been in a similar position,

to sympathize with and pardon the traveler at such a point, for he is

unwilling to forbear and leave it till fairly surfeited and seared with

heat and admiration, or driven off by some sudden spout and roar, or

splash of the caldron. You gaze, and gaze, and gaze in amazement,

without conscious thought, like a man in a trance, reluctant to go away,

and you want to spend at least a day and night, viewing close at hand

its ever-varying phenomena.

Had we only brought with us wrappers, I believe we should have been the

first to have slept on the Black Ledge. Now that the edge of curiosity

is a little blunted and the judgment cool, we can see that there would

be a degree of hazard and temerity in it which is not felt under the

excitement of novelty, and in the full tide of discovery. Forced by

startling admonitions, of instant danger, I had to quit suddenly the

precarious footing I had gained on the caldron's edge, like a hungry

man hurried from his repast ere he has snatched a mouthful. But the look

I caught there, and the impression of horror, awfulness, and sublimity

thence obtained, live and will live in my conscious being forever and

ever; and it is this shall help me utter what many have experienced, and

have wished to say before the poet said it for them:

"One compact hour of crowded life

Is worth an age without a name."

A moment of being under such circumstances is an epoch in the history of

one's mind; and he, perhaps, may be deemed the most highly favored of

mortals who has the most of such epochs in remembrance, provided only

that the incommunicable thoughts and emotions which, in the moment of

that experience, seemed to permeate the very substance of the mind, have

given it a moral tone and impulse running through all its subsequent

life. It is thus that thoughts are waked "to perish never," being

instamped ineffaceably upon the spiritual frame-work and foundation

stones of the soul, dignifying and consecrating them to noble uses.

It was not, I trust, without some valuable additions to our stock of

impressions in this line, that we reluctantly left that spot. Departing

thence, we passed over a tract between the level of the brim of the

caldron and the Black Ledge, in order to gain again the latter, most

strangely rugged and wild, as if convulsion after convulsion had

upheaved, and sunk, and rent, and piled the vast mineral and rocky

masses; forming here great hills like the ruins of a hundred towers, and

there deep indentations, while every block lay upon its fellow, ready to

be dislodged, edge-wise, crosswise, endwise, sidewise, angle-wise, and

every-wise, in the wildest confusion and variety possible, as if

Typhoean giants had been hurling them at each other in war; or as when

the warring angels

"From their foundations loosening to and fro,

Uptore the seated hills, with all their load,

And sent them thundering upon their adversaries.

Then hills amid the air encounter'd hills,

Hurled to and fro with jaculation dire:

Horrid confusion heap'd upon confusion rose."

Rocks, too, in earthquake commotions, have been started from the

perpendicular sides of the crater in this part, and have rolled down

eight hundred or a thousand feet with a force, one might think, that

would almost shake the world.

When we had thus encompassed the crater, and had returned to the point

where we first came down upon the Black Ledge, it was getting toward

night, and I found myself so excessively heated and feverish, and

throbbing with the headache, which most persons there suffer from, as to

be unable to go for the castellated and Gothic specimens into some ovens

that are found in the sides near by.

Leaving, therefore, my companion and the natives to hunt for them, I

proceeded slowly back, and toiled up, with difficulty, the steep side of

this stupendous crater, which may be set down at a moderate calculation

as not less than twelve miles in circumference, and one thousand feet

deep. In the centre of this vast sunken amphitheatre of volcanic fire,

"A dungeon horrible on all sides round,

As one great furnace flaming,"

a man looks up to heaven, and to the seared walls of this great prison,

and feels like a pigmy, or the veriest insect, in contrast with so

mighty and terrible a work of the Lord God Almighty.

The person who can go down into it, and come up safe from it, with a

light mind, unthankful and unawed, is as wanting in some of the best

attributes of mental manhood as of piety; and, let me say with Cowper,

"I would not enter on my list of friends,

Though graced with polished manners and fine sense,"

the man who should prove himself so brutishly insensible to the sublime

vestiges of Divine power, and to the providential care of Divine

goodness.

We spent the night by the volcano. I slept a little at intervals, just

raising myself at every awakening to look at Pele's fires, which spouted

and played like fountains, and leaped suddenly with a flash from place

to place, like electricity on wire in the experiments of the

lecture-room.

Once when I arose at midnight and went out a little beyond the range of

our screen, to enjoy in silence the august and grand spectacle, the

violence of the wind was such as to take off my unguarded hat, and carry

it clear over the brink of the crater, where it lodged for the night,

but was recovered with little injury in the morning by one of our

courageous natives.

One of the early visitors there said that, on coming near the rim, he

fell upon his hands and knees awe-struck, and crept cautiously to the

rocky brink, unwilling at once to walk up to the giddy verge and look

down as from a mast-head upon the fiery gulf at his feet. In a little

time, however, like a landsman after a while at sea, he was able to

stand very near and gaze unalarmed upon this wonder of the world.

I have myself known seamen that had faced unfearingly all the perils of

the deep, and had rushed boldly into battle with its mammoth monsters,

to stand appalled on the brink of Kilauea, and depart without daring to

try its abyss. Gazing upon it, then, at midnight, so near its brink as

we were, was rather venturing upon the edge of safety, as I found to my

cost. But woe to the man that should have a fit of somnambulism on the

spot where our tent was pitched that last night. Baron Munchausen's

seven-leagued boots could hardly save him from a warm bath in flowing

lava cherry-red.

Morning broke again upon our open encampment, clear and bracing as upon

the Green Mountains of Vermont. With fingers burned and bleeding from

the climbing and crystal-digging of yesterday, we made all the dispatch

possible in collecting and packing specimens, but it was one o'clock

before we were ready to leave. Having at length got off the natives

with their burdens, two for Hilo and two for Kau, we kneeled for the

last time by that wonderful old furnace, where the hand of God works the

bellows and keeps up his vast laboratory of elemental fire. Then we

mounted our horses and bade a final good-by, the one for Hilo, and the

other for his happy Hawaiian home.

FOOTNOTE:

[18] From "_The Island World_," a new work soon to be issued from

the press of Messrs. Harper and Brothers.

[From Chambers's Edinburgh Journal.]

THE EVERY-DAY YOUNG LADY.

The every-day young lady is neither tall nor short, neither fat nor

lean. Her complexion is not fair, but clear, and her color not bright,

but healthy. She is not vulgarly well, but has not the least illness in

the world. Her face is oval, and her hair, moderate in quantity, is

usually of a soft brown. Her features are small and unobtrusive: her

nose being what the French passports call _moyen_--that is, neither one

thing nor t'other--and her eyes as gray as glass, but clear and gentle.

It is not the eyes that give her any little character she has; although,

if you have nothing else to do, and happen to look at them for a minute

or so, they win upon you. They are not varnished eyes, in which you can

see nothing but the brightness; and not deep eyes, into which your soul

plunges as into a gulf: they are mere common skylights, winning into

them a little bit of heaven, and giving you an inkling of good temper

and feminine gentleness. Neither is it her air, nor manner, nor dress,

that stamps her individuality, if she has any, for these belong to the

class of society in which she moves; but altogether she gives you an

idea of young-womanish refinement and amiableness, and you would think

of her again when alone, if there were not so many of her friends about

her as to divide and dilute, as it were, your impressions.

The every-day young lady is usually dependent upon somebody or other,

but sometimes she has a small independence, which is much worse. In the

former case she clings like ivy, adorning, by her truth and gentleness,

the support she is proud of; while in the other she gives her £30 a year

to a relation as an inadequate compensation for her board and clothing,

and lives in a state of unheard-of bondage and awful gratitude. Her life

is diversified by friendships, in which her own feelings last the

longest; by enmities, in which she suffers and forgives; and by

loves--though almost always at second-hand. She is a confidant, a

go-between, a bridemaid; but if she finds herself on the brink of a

serious flirtation, she shrinks into her own foolish little heart in

surprise and timidity, and the affair never becomes any thing but a

mystery, which she carries with her through life, and which makes her

shake her head on occasions, and look conscious and experienced, so as

to give people the idea that this young lady has a history. If the

affair does go on, it is a public wonder how she came to get actually

married. Many persons consider that she must have been playing a part

all along for this very purpose; that her timidity and bashfulness were

assumed, and her self-denial a _ruse_; and that, in point of fact, she

was not by any means what she gave herself out to be--an every-day young

lady.

For our part we have known many such young ladies in our day--and so

have you, and you, and you: the world of society is full of them. We

have a notion of our own, indeed, that they are _the sex_; or, in other

words, that they are the class from which are drawn our conventional

notions of womankind, and that the rest--that is those women who have

what is called character--are counterfeit women. The feminine virtues

are all of a retiring kind, which does not mean that they are invisible

even to strangers, but that they are seen through a half-transparent

vail of feminine timidity and self-postponement. In like manner, the

_physique_ of women, truly so called, is not remarkable or obtrusive:

their eyes do not flash at you like a pistol, nor their voices arrest

suddenly your attention, as if they said "Stand and deliver!" That men

in general admire the exceptions rather than the rule, may be true, but

that is owing to bad taste, coarseness of mind, or the mere hurry of

society, which prevents them from observing more than its salient

points. For our part we have always liked every-day young ladies, and

sometimes we felt inclined to love a few of them; but somehow it never

went beyond inclination. This may have been owing in part to the

headlong life one leads in the world, but in part likewise--if we may

venture the surmise--to our own sensitiveness preventing us from poking

ourselves upon the sensitiveness of other people.

A great many every-day young ladies have been represented in the

character of heroines of romance; but there they are called by other

names, and made to run about, and get into predicaments, so that one

does not know what to make of them. The Countess Isabelle of Croye is an

extremely every-day young lady; but look how she runs away, and how she

sees a bishop murdered at supper, and how she is going to be married to

a Wild Boar, and how at last, after running away again, she gives her

hand and immense possessions to a young Scotsman as poor as a church

mouse! Who can tell, in such a hurry-skurry, what she is in her

individuality, or what she would turn out to be if let alone, or if the

author had a turn for bringing out every-day characters? Then we have

every-day young ladies set up for heroines without doing any thing for

it at all, and who look in the emergencies of life just as if they were

eating bread and butter, or crying over a novel at home. Of such is

Evelina, who has a sweet look for every person, and every thing, in

every possible situation, and who is expected, on the strength of that

sole endowment, to pass for a heroine of every-day life. This is

obviously improper; for an every-day young lady has a principle of

development within her like every body else. If you expose her to

circumstances, these circumstances must act upon her in one way or

another; they must bring her out; and she must win a husband for

herself, not get him by accident, blind contact, or the strong necessity

of marrying--a necessity which has no alternative in the case of a

heroine but the grave.

Such blunders, however, are now at an end; for a real every-day young

lady has come out into public life, and an illumination has been thrown

upon the class, which must proceed either from one of themselves or from

inspiration.[19] But we are not going to criticise the book; for that

would bring us to loggerheads with the critics, not one of whom has the

least notion of the nature of the charm they all confess. This charm

consists in its painting an every-day young lady to the life, and for

the first time; and it by no means consists, as it is said to do, in the

plot, which is but indifferently concocted, or in the incidents, that

are sometimes destitute both of social and artistical truth. Anne Dysart

herself, however, is a masterly portrait. Its living eyes are upon us

from first to last, following us like the eyes of those awful pictures

in the dining-room of long ago, which we could not escape from in any

corner of the room. But Anne's eyes are not awful: they are sweet, calm,

gentle. The whole figure is associated with the quieter and better parts

of our nature. It comes to us, with its shy looks and half-withdrawn

hands, like somebody we knew all our lives, and still know; somebody who

walks with us, mellowing, but not interrupting our thoughts; somebody

who sits by us when we are writing or reading, and throws a creamy hue

upon the paper; somebody whose breath warms us when it is cold, and

whose shadow stands between us and the scorching sun; somebody, in

short, who gives us assurance, we know not how, of an every-day young

lady.

To paint a character which has no salient points demands a first-rate

artist; but to see the inner life of a quiet, timid, retiring mind, is

the exclusive privilege of a poet. To suppose that there is no inner

life in such minds, or none worth observing, is a grand mistake. The

crested wave may be a picturesque or striking object in itself; but

under the calm, smooth surface of the passionless sea there are

beautiful things to behold--painted shells, and corals, and yellow

sands, and sea-plants stretching their long waving arms up to the light.

How many of us sail on without giving a glance to such things, our eyes

fixed on the frowning or inviting headland, or peopling the desert air

with phantoms! Just so do we turn away from what seems to us the void of

every-day life to grapple with the excitements of the world.

Anne Dysart is not Miss Douglas's Anne Dysart: she is yours, ours,

everybody's. She is the very every-day young lady. The author did not

invent her: she found her where the Highlandman found the tongs--by the

fireside. And that is her true position, where alone she is at home.

When she goes into society, unless it be among associates, she is always

under some sort of alarm. She is told that there is company in the

drawing-room, strangers come to visit--young ladies celebrated for their

beauty and accomplishments--and she treads the stairs with a beating

heart, feeling awkward and ignorant, and enters with a desperate

calmness. The visitors, however, like her, she is so modest and

unobtrusive; and the every-day young lady is charmed and even affected

by their patronizing kindness. She is reputed by these persons as a

"nice girl, rather amiable-looking, but not in the least like the

heroine of a novel." When she visits them in return, she is at first

oppressed with a feeling of shyness, but at length still more

overpowered by the kindness with which she is received, and she walks to

the window to conceal her emotion. In this position our Anne--for we

deny that Miss Douglas has any special property in her--comes out

strong: "As Anne now stood, dressed in deep mourning, the blackness of

her garments only relieved by a small white collar and a pair of cuffs,

the expression of her countenance very pensive, her eyes shining mildly

in the sunlight which was reflected from the crimson curtain upon her at

present somewhat pale cheek, Mrs. Grey, as she whispered to Charlotte,

'Really, poor thing, she does look very interesting!' felt the influence

of her peculiar charm, without, however, comprehending its source."

Anne attracts the attention of one of the company, a harsh-featured,

ungraceful person, under forty, with a large mouth, determined lips,

deep-set, thoughtful eyes, and a confused mass of dark hair hanging over

a large and full forehead. Whereupon she instantly feels uncomfortable

and frightened. But for all that, it is settled that the _bête noir_

walks home with her; and resting the tips of her fingers on his arm,

onward they go, these two fated individuals, in solemn silence. The

conversation which at length begins consists of unpolite questions on

the gentleman's part, and constrained answers on that of the lady; but

at length she is saved from replying to a specially disagreeable and

impertinent interrogatory by stumbling over a stone.

"_Did you fall on purpose?_" said he. The every-day young lady is both

frightened and displeased, and being further urged, feels something

actually resembling indignation. When they part, it is with a feeling on

her part of inexpressible relief, and she thinks to herself that she had

never before met so singular or so disagreeable a man.

This is unpromising: but it is correct. The every-day young lady

_thinks_ of the rough, odd man; and he is struck now and then by a word

or a look in her which piques his curiosity or interests his feelings.

He at length learns to look into her calm, soft eyes, and sees through

the passionless surface of her character some precious things gleaming

in its depths. The following quotation will show at what length he

arrives: "Anne pondered for a few minutes. She had a rather slow though

a sound understanding. There was some truth in what Mr. Bolton said, but

so great a want of charity, that she felt from the first as if, some way

or other, he could not be quite right. It was some time, however, ere

she discovered how he was wrong, and even then perhaps could not have

defined it." She answered gravely and modestly, but with less timidity

than usual.

"But still, Mr. Bolton, it is possible to be both agreeable and sincere.

I know it is possible, because I have seen it; and I think that though

there is some truth in what you say, yet, as far as my very limited

experience justifies me in forming an opinion, I should say that truth,

united with kindness, _is_ appreciated; indeed I am sure some people

have been liked who never flattered: I knew one person at least whom

every body loved, who would not have told a falsehood for the world, and

who _was_ all he _seemed_."

"I suppose you mean your father? Well, without exactly sharing in your

filial enthusiasm, I am inclined to believe that he was a superior man."

"Are you indeed? Why, may I ask?" said Anne very timidly, and venturing

for the first time to put a question in her turn.

"Why?" he repeated, with a momentary return of the wonderful smile.

"Because his daughter has rather more simplicity of mind, rather more

purity of heart, rather more intelligence, rather less frivolity, rather

less artifice, rather fewer coquettish tricks to flatter the vanity, and

entrap the admiration, of silly men--in short, rather more _sincerity_

than one meets every day; I guess she must have had a father somewhat

above the average." Mr. Bolton spoke in a low tone, and there was in his

voice a depth and a softness that struck his listener's ear as being

altogether different from its wont. Whatever this difference might be,

however, it was not lasting, for when, after a moment's pause, he spoke

again, it was with an exaggeration even of his ordinary harshness both

of voice and manner: "But you need not fancy I am paying you a

compliment. You are no angel; and even during our short acquaintance, I

have discovered in you some faults and follies, and doubtless there are

others behind. In some respects you are very childish, or perhaps it

would be as correct to say _womanish_." With this rude speech, Mr.

Bolton concluded, drawing back with an air of having nothing more to

say, and assuming a look which seemed to forbid any one to speak to him.

But this wild man chooses her for a wife, proposes for her hand--and is

refused. Why so? Because she was an every-day young lady. He was rich;

he had good points--nay, great ones, in his character: but he was an

uncomfortable man. She could not love him, and she could not think of

marrying a man she could not love. Had it been the young clergyman, the

case would have been different. A nice young man was he; and, like all

other young ladies of her class, Anne had her dreams of gentle

happiness, and congeniality of temper, and poetry, and flowers, and

sunsets, and a genteel cottage. But the young clergyman could not afford

to think of an almost penniless girl for a wife; and so poor Anne's

episode was ended before it was well begun; and the affair would have

assumed in her solitary heart the enduring form of a Mystery, if

exigencies had not arisen to call forth feelings and resolves that brook

no such unsubstantial companions.

This every-day young lady had a brother in Edinburgh, and the brother

fell into folly, and misery, and sickness, and desperate poverty. He

wanted a friend, a nurse, a servant, and she knew that his bedside was

her natural post. The difficulty was to get so far with her poor little

funds; but this is accomplished, and instead of the outside of the mail

on a wintry night, she has even had the good-fortune to enjoy an inside

seat, some gentleman being seized with the caprice of encountering the

frost and snow. This gentleman, she discovers afterward, is her

discarded lover; and he--how many discoveries does he make! The

every-day young lady, thrown into the battle of circumstances, rises

with the strife. She who had been accustomed to sit silent, seeming to

agree with others in what was untrue, merely from want of courage, now

endures without flinching the extremities even of actual want. Now come

out, one by one, obvious to the sight, the thousand beautiful things in

the depths of her quiet mind; and the eyes of the odd gentleman are

dimmed with emotion as he looks at them. Already had she begun to wonder

at this man, to call his austerity melancholy, to grieve that he was

unhappy, to think what he could be thinking about; and now, when she and

her darling brother are saved, protected, held up by his strong hand,

the hold he takes of her imagination communicates itself insensibly to

her heart. His features lose their harshness; his deep-set eyes become

soft; his lips relax; and finally, he cuts his hair. What more needs be

said?

But we take leave to disagree with this individual in his idea that Anne

Dysart has more simplicity, purity, and quiet intelligence than other

every-day young ladies. She is, on the contrary, nothing more than a

type of the class; and the fact is proved by the resemblance in her

portrait being at once recognized. We do not stand upon the color of her

hair, or eyes, or other physical characteristics, for these are mere

averages, and may be very different in our Anne and yours; but her

shyness, hesitation, and cowardice--her modesty, gentleness, and

truth--these are stereotyped traits, and are the same in all. But when

such qualities rise, or become metamorphosed, to meet the exigencies of

life, how do we recognize them? By intuition. We acknowledge in others

the principle of development we feel in ourselves. Our fault is, that

we pass over as worthy of no remark, no careful tending, no holy

reverence, the slumbering germs of all that is good and beautiful in the

female character, and suffer our attention to be engrossed by its

affectations and monstrosities. Let us correct this fever of the taste.

Let us learn to enjoy the still waters and quiet pastures. When we see

an every-day young lady flitting about our rooms, or crossing our paths,

or wandering by our side, let us regard her no more as if she were a

shadow, or a part of the common atmosphere, necessary, though unheeded;

let us look upon her with fondness and respect, and if we would be

blessed ourselves, let us say--God bless her!

FOOTNOTE:

[19] Anne Dysart, a Tale of Every-day Life. 3 vols. London:

Colburn. 1850.

[From Dickens's Household Words.]

HISTORY AND ANECDOTES OF BANK NOTE FORGERIES.

Viotti's division of violin-playing into two great classes--good playing

and bad playing--is applicable to Bank note making. The processes

employed in manufacturing good Bank notes have been often described; we

shall now cover a few pages with a faint outline of the various arts,

stratagems, and contrivances employed in concocting bad Bank notes. The

picture can not be drawn with very distinct or strong markings. The

tableaux from which it is copied are so intertwisted and complicated

with clever, slippery, ingenious scoundrelism, that a finished chart of

it would be worse than morally displeasing: it would be tedious.

All arts require time and experience for their development. When any

thing great is to be done, first attempts are nearly always failures.

The first Bank note forgery was no exception to this rule, and its story

has a spice of romance in it. The affair has never been circumstantially

told; but some research enables us to detail it:

In the month of August, 1757, a gentleman living in the neighborhood of

Lincoln's Inn Fields, named Bliss, advertised for a clerk. There were,

as was usual even at that time, many applicants; but the successful one

was a young man of twenty-six, named Richard William Vaughan. His

manners were so winning, and his demeanor so much that of a gentleman

(he belonged indeed to a good county family in Staffordshire, and had

been a student at Pembroke Hall, Oxford), that Mr. Bliss at once engaged

him. Nor had he occasion, during the time the new clerk served him, to

repent the step. Vaughan was so diligent, intelligent, and steady, that

not even when it transpired that he was, commercially speaking, "under a

cloud," did his master lessen confidence in him. Some inquiry into his

antecedents showed that he had, while at College, been extravagant; that

his friends had removed him thence; set him up in Stafford

as a wholesale linen-draper, with a branch establishment in

Aldersgate-street, London; that he had failed, and that there was some

difficulty about his certificate. But so well did he excuse his early

failings, and account for his misfortunes, that his employer did not

check the regard he felt growing toward him. Their intercourse was not

merely that of master and servant. Vaughan was a frequent guest at

Bliss's table; by-and-by a daily visitor to his wife, and--to his ward.

Miss Bliss was a young lady of some attractions, not the smallest of

which was a handsome fortune. Young Vaughan made the most of his

opportunities. He was well-looking, well-informed, dressed well, and

evidently made love well, for he won the young lady's heart. The

guardian was not flinty-hearted, and acted like a sensible man of the

world. "It was not," he said on a subsequent and painful occasion, "till

I learned from the servants, and observed by the girl's behavior, that

she greatly approved Richard Vaughan, that I consented; but on condition

that he should make it appear that he could maintain her. I had no doubt

of his character as a servant, and I knew his family were respectable.

His brother is an eminent attorney." Vaughan boasted that his mother

(his father was dead) was willing to re-instate him in business with a

thousand pounds; five hundred of which was to be settled upon Miss Bliss

for her separate use.

So far all went on prosperously. Providing Richard Vaughan could attain

a position satisfactory to the Blisses, the marriage was to take place

on the Easter Monday following, which, the Calendar tells us, happened

early in April, 1758. With this understanding, he left Mr. Bliss's

service, to push his fortune.

Months passed on, and Vaughan appears to have made no way in the world.

He had not even obtained his bankrupt's certificate. His visits to his

affianced were frequent, and his protestations passionate; but he had

effected nothing substantial toward a happy union. Miss Bliss's guardian

grew impatient; and, although there is no evidence to prove that the

young lady's affection for Vaughan was otherwise than deep and sincere,

yet even she began to lose confidence in him. His excuses were evidently

evasive, and not always true. The time fixed for the wedding was fast

approaching; and Vaughan saw that something must be done to restore the

young lady's confidence.

About three weeks before the appointed Easter Tuesday, Vaughan went to

his mistress in high spirits. All was right: his certificate was to be

granted in a day or two; his family had come forward with the money, and

he was to continue the Aldersgate business he had previously carried on

as a branch of the Stafford trade. The capital he had waited so long

for, was at length forthcoming. In fact, here were two hundred and forty

pounds of the five hundred he was to settle on his beloved. Vaughan then

produced twelve twenty-pound notes; Miss Bliss could scarcely believe

her eyes. She examined them. The paper she remarked seemed rather

thicker than usual. "Oh," said Bliss, "all Bank bills are not alike."

The girl was naturally much pleased. She would hasten to apprize

Mistress Bliss of the good news.

Not for the world! So far from letting any living soul know he had

placed so much money in her hands, Vaughan exacted an oath of secresy

from her, and sealed the notes up in a parcel with his own seal; making

her swear that she would on no account open it till after their

marriage.

Some days after, that is, "on the twenty-second of March," (1758)--we

are describing the scene in Mr. Bliss's own words--"I was sitting with

my wife by the fireside. The prisoner and the girl were sitting in the

same room--which was a small one--and, although they whispered, I could

distinguish that Vaughan was very urgent to have something returned

which he had previously given to her. She refused, and Vaughan went away

in an angry mood. I then studied the girl's face, and saw that it

expressed much dissatisfaction. Presently a tear broke out. I then

spoke, and insisted on knowing the dispute. She refused to tell, and I

told her that, until she did, I would not see her. The next day I asked

the same question of Vaughan; he hesitated. 'Oh!' I said, 'I dare say it

is some ten or twelve pound matter--something to buy a wedding bauble

with.' He answered that it was much more than that--it was near three

hundred pounds! 'But why all this secresy?' I said; and he answered it

was not proper for people to know he had so much money till his

certificate was signed. I then asked him to what intent he had left the

notes with the young lady? He said, as I had of late suspected him, he

designed to give her a proof of his affection and truth. I said, 'You

have demanded them in such a way that it must be construed as an

abatement of your affection toward her.'" Vaughan was again exceedingly

urgent in asking back the packet; but Bliss, remembering his many

evasions, and supposing that this was a trick, declined advising his

niece to restore the parcel without proper consideration. The very next

day it was discovered that the notes were counterfeit.

This occasioned stricter inquiries into Vaughan's previous career. It

turned out that he bore the character in his native place of a

dissipated, and not very scrupulous person. The intention of his mother

to assist him was an entire fabrication, and he had given Miss Bliss the

forged notes solely for the purpose of deceiving her on that matter.

Meanwhile the forgeries became known to the authorities, and he was

arrested. By what means, does not clearly appear. The "Annual Register"

says that one of the engravers gave information; but we find nothing in

the newspapers of the time to support that statement; neither was it

corroborated at Vaughan's trial.

When Vaughan was arrested he thrust a piece of paper into his mouth, and

began to chew it violently. It was, however, rescued, and proved to be

one of the forged notes; fourteen of them were found on his person, and

when his lodgings were searched twenty more were discovered.

Vaughan was tried at the Old Bailey, on the seventh of April, before

Lord Mansfield. The manner of the forgery was detailed minutely at the

trial: On the first of March (about a week before he gave the twelve

notes to the young lady), Vaughan called on Mr. John Corbould, an

engraver, and gave an order for a promissory note to be engraved with

these words:

"No. ----.

"I promise to pay to ----, or Bearer, ----, London ----."

There was to be a Britannia in the corner. When it was done, Mr. Sneed

(for that was the _alias_ Vaughan adopted), came again, but objected to

the execution of the work. The Britannia was not good, and the words "I

promise" were too near the edge of the plate. Another was in consequence

engraved, and on the fourth of March, Vaughan took it away. He

immediately repaired to a printer, and had forty-eight impressions taken

on thin paper, provided by himself. Meanwhile, he had ordered, on the

same morning, of Mr. Charles Fourdrinier, another engraver, a second

plate, with what he called "a direction," in the words, "For the

Governor and Company of the Bank of England." This was done, and about a

week later he brought some paper, each sheet "folded up," said the

witness, "very curiously, so that I could not see what was in them. I

was going to take the papers from him, but he said he must go up-stairs

with me, and see them worked off himself. I took him up-stairs; he would

not let me have them out of his hands. I took a sponge and wetted them,

and put them one by one on the plate in order for printing them. After

my boy had done two or three of them, I went down-stairs, and my boy

worked the rest off, and the prisoner came down and paid me."

Here the court pertinently asked, "What imagination had you when a man

thus came to you to print on secret paper, 'the Governor and Company of

the Bank of England?'"

The engraver's reply was: "I then did not suspect any thing. But I shall

take care for the future." As this was the first Bank of England note

forgery that was ever perpetrated, the engraver was held excused.

It may be mentioned as an evidence of the delicacy of the reporters,

that, in their account of the trial, Miss Bliss's name is not mentioned.

Her designation is "a young lady." We subjoin the notes of her evidence:

"A young lady (sworn). The prisoner delivered me some bills; these are

the same (producing twelve counterfeit bank notes sealed up in a cover,

for twenty pounds each), said that they were Bank bills. I said they

were thicker paper--he said all bills are not alike. I was to keep them

till after we were married. He put them into my hands to show he put

confidence in me, and desired me not to show them to any body; sealed

them up with his own seal, and obliged me by an oath not to discover

them to any body. And I did not till he had discovered them himself. He

was to settle so much in stock on me."

Vaughan urged in his defense, that his sole object was to deceive his

affianced, and that he intended to destroy all the notes after his

marriage. But it had been proved that the prisoner had asked one John

Ballingar to change first one, and then twenty of the notes; but which

that person was unable to do. Besides, had his sole object been to

dazzle Miss Bliss with his fictitious wealth, he would, most probably,

have intrusted more, if not all the notes, to her keeping.

He was found guilty, and passed the day that had been fixed for his

wedding, as a condemned criminal.

On the 11th of May, 1758, Richard William Vaughan was executed at

Tyburn. By his side, on the same gallows, there was another forger:

William Boodgere, a military officer, who had forged a draught on an

army agent named Calcroft, and expiated the offense with the first

forger of Bank of England notes.

The gallows may seem hard measure to have meted out to Vaughan, when it

is considered that none of his notes were negotiated, and no person

suffered by his fraud. Not one of the forty-eight notes, except the

twelve delivered to Miss Bliss, had been out of his possession; indeed,

the imitation must have been very clumsily executed, and detection would

have instantly followed any attempt to pass the counterfeits. There was

no endeavor to copy the style of engraving on a real bank note. That was

left to the engraver; and as each sheet passed through the press twice,

the words added at the second printing, "For the Governor and Company of

the Bank of England," could have fallen into their proper place on any

one of the sheets, only by a miracle. But what would have made the

forgery clear to even a superficial observer, was the singular omission,

of the second "n" in the word England.[20]

The criticism on Vaughan's note of a bank clerk examined on the trial

was: "There is some resemblance, to be sure; but this note" (that upon

which the prisoner was tried) "is numbered thirteen thousand eight

hundred and forty, and we never reach so high a number." Besides there

was no water-mark in the paper. The note of which a fac-simile appeared

in our eighteenth number, and dated so early as 1699, has a regular

design in the texture of the paper; showing that the water-mark is as

old as the bank notes themselves.

Vaughan was greatly commiserated. But despite the unskillfulness of the

forgery, and the insignificant consequences which followed it, the crime

was considered of too dangerous a character not to be marked, from its

very novelty, with exemplary punishment. Hanging created at that time no

remorse in the public mind, and it was thought necessary to set up

Vaughan as a warning to all future bank-note forgers. The crime was too

dangerous not to be marked with the severest penalties. Forgery differs

from other crimes not less in the magnitude of the spoil it may obtain,

and of the injury it inflicts, than in the facilities attending its

accomplishment. The common thief finds a limit to his depredations in

the bulkiness of his booty, which is generally confined to such property

as he can carry about his person; the swindler raises insuperable and

defeating obstacles to his frauds if the amount he seeks to obtain is so

considerable as to awaken close vigilance or inquiry. To carry their

projects to any very profitable extent, these criminals are reduced to

the hazardous necessity of acting in concert, and thus infinitely

increasing the risks of detection. But the forger need have no

accomplice; he is burdened with no bulky and suspicious property; he

needs no receiver to assist his contrivances. The skill of his own

individual right hand can command thousands; often with the certainty of

not being detected, and oftener with such rapidity as to enable him to

baffle the pursuit of justice.

It was a long time before Vaughan's rude attempt was improved upon: but

in the same year (1758), another department of the crime was commenced

with perfect success; namely, an ingenious alteration, for fraudulent

purposes, of real bank notes. A few months after Vaughan's execution,

one of the northern mails was stopped and robbed by a highwayman;

several bank notes were comprised in the spoil, and the robber, setting

up with these as a gentleman, went boldly to the Hatfield Post-office,

ordered a chaise and four, rattled away down the road, and changed a

note at every change of horses. The robbery was, of course, soon made

known, and the numbers and dates of the stolen notes were advertised as

having been stopped at the bank. To the genius of a highwayman this

offered but a small obstacle, and the gentleman-thief changed all the

figures "1" he could find into "4's." These notes passed currently

enough; but, on reaching the bank, the alteration was detected, and the

last holder was refused payment. As that person had given a valuable

consideration for the note, he brought an action for the recovery of the

amount; and at the trial it was ruled by the Lord Chief Justice, that

"any person paying a valuable consideration for a bank note, payable to

bearer, in a fair course of business, has an understood right to receive

the money of the bank."

It took a quarter of a century to bring the art of forging bank notes to

perfection. In 1779, this was nearly attained by an ingenious gentleman,

named Mathison, a watchmaker from the matrimonial village of Gretna

Green. Having learned the arts of engraving and of simulating

signatures, he tried his hand at the notes of the Darlington Bank; but,

with the confidence of skill, was not cautious in passing them, was

suspected, and absconded to Edinburgh. Scorning to let his talent be

wasted, he favored the Scottish public with many spurious Royal Bank of

Scotland notes, and regularly forged his way by their aid to London. At

the end of February he took handsome lodgings in the Strand, opposite

Arundel-street. His industry was remarkable: for, by the 12th of March,

he had planed and polished rough pieces of copper, engraved them, forged

the water-mark, printed and negotiated several impressions. His plan was

to travel and to purchase articles in shops. He bought a pair of

shoe-buckles at Coventry with a forged note, which was eventually

detected at the Bank of England. He had got so bold that he paid such

frequent visits in Threadneedle-street, that the bank clerks became

familiar with his person. He was continually changing notes of one, for

another denomination. These were his originals, which he procured to

make spurious copies of. One day seven thousand pounds came in from the

Stamp Office. There was a dispute about one of the notes. Mathison, who

was present, though at some distance, declared, oracularly, that the

note was a good one. How could he know so well? A dawn of suspicion

arose in the minds of the clerks; one trail led into another, and

Mathison was finally apprehended. So well were his notes forged that, on

the trial, an experienced bank clerk declared, he could not tell whether

the note handed him to examine was forged or not. Mathison offered to

reveal his secret of forging the water-mark, if mercy were shown to him;

this was refused, and he suffered the penalty of his crime.

Mathison was a genius in his criminal way, but a greater than he

appeared in 1786. In that year perfection seemed to have been reached.

So considerable was the circulation of spurious paper-money, that it

appeared as if some unknown power had set up a bank of its own. Notes

were issued from it, and readily passed current, in hundreds and

thousands. They were not to be distinguished from the genuine paper of

Threadneedle-street. Indeed, when one was presented there, in due

course, so complete were all its parts; so masterly the engraving; so

correct the signatures; so skillful the water-mark, that it was promptly

paid; and only discovered to be a forgery when it reached a particular

department. From that period forged paper continued to be presented,

especially at the time of lottery drawing. Consultations were held with

the police. Plans were laid to help detection. Every effort was made to

trace the forger. Clarke, the best detective of his day, went, like a

sluth-hound, on the track; for in those days the expressive word

"blood-money" was known. Up to a certain point there was little

difficulty; but, beyond that, consummate art defied the ingenuity of

the officer. In whatever way the notes came, the train of discovery

always paused at the lottery-offices. Advertisements offering large

rewards were circulated; but the unknown forger baffled detection.

While this base paper was in full currency, there appeared an

advertisement in the Daily Advertiser for a servant. The successful

applicant was a young man, in the employment of a musical-instrument

maker; who, some time after, was called upon by a coachman, and informed

that the advertiser was waiting in a coach to see him. The young man was

desired to enter the conveyance, where he beheld a person with something

of the appearance of a foreigner, sixty or seventy years old, apparently

troubled with the gout. A camlet surtout was buttoned round his mouth; a

large patch was placed over his left eye; and nearly every part of his

face was concealed. He affected much infirmity. He had a faint hectic

cough; and invariably presented the patched side to the view of the

servant. After some conversation--in the course of which he represented

himself as guardian to a young nobleman of great fortune--the interview

concluded with the engagement of the applicant; and the new servant was

directed to call on Mr. Brank, at 29, Titchfield-street, Oxford-street.

At this interview, Brank inveighed against his whimsical ward for his

love of speculating in lottery tickets; and told the servant that his

principal duty would be to purchase them. After one or two meetings, at

each of which Brank kept his face muffled, he handed a forty and twenty

pound bank note; told the servant to be very careful not to lose them;

and directed him to buy lottery-tickets at separate offices. The young

man fulfilled his instructions, and at the moment he was returning, was

suddenly called by his employer from the other side of the street,

congratulated on his rapidity, and then told to go to various other

offices in the neighborhood of the Royal Exchange, and to purchase more

shares. Four hundred pounds in Bank of England notes were handed him,

and the wishes of the mysterious Mr. Brank were satisfactorily effected.

These scenes were continually enacted. Notes to a large amount were thus

circulated; lottery-tickets purchased; and Mr. Brank--always in a coach,

with his face studiously concealed--was ever ready on the spot to

receive them. The surprise of the servant was somewhat excited; but had

he known that from the period he left his master to purchase the

tickets, one female figure accompanied all his movements; that when he

entered the offices, it waited at the door, peered cautiously in at the

window, hovered around him like a second shadow, watched him carefully,

and never left him until once more he was in the company of his

employer--that surprise would have been greatly increased.[21] Again and

again were these extraordinary scenes rehearsed. At last the Bank

obtained a clew, and the servant was taken into custody. The directors

imagined that they had secured the actor of so many parts; that the

flood of forged notes which had inundated that establishment would at

length be dammed up at its source. Their hopes proved fallacious, and it

was found that "Old Patch" (as the mysterious forger was, from the

servant's description, nick-named) had been sufficiently clever to

baffle the Bank directors. The house in Titchfield-street was searched;

but Mr. Brank had deserted it, and not a trace of a single implement of

forgery was to be seen.

All that could be obtained was some little knowledge of "Old Patch's"

proceedings. It appeared that he carried on his paper coining entirely

by himself. His only confidant was his mistress. He was his own

engraver. He even made his own ink. He manufactured his own paper. With

a private press he worked his own notes; and counterfeited the

signatures of the cashiers, completely. But these discoveries had no

effect; for it became evident that Mr. Patch had set up a press

elsewhere. Although his secret continued as impenetrable, his notes

became as plentiful as ever. Five years of unbounded prosperity ought to

have satisfied him; but it did not. Success seemed to pall him. His

genius was of that insatiable order which demands new excitements, and a

constant succession of new flights. The following paragraph from a

newspaper of 1786 relates to the same individual:

"On the 17th of December, ten pounds were paid into the Bank, for which

the clerk, as usual, gave a ticket to receive a Bank note of equal

value. This ticket ought to have been carried immediately to the

cashier, instead of which the bearer took it home, and curiously added

an 0 to the original sum, and returning, presented it so altered to the

cashier, for which he received a note of one hundred pounds. In the

evening, the clerks found a deficiency in the accounts; and on examining

the tickets of the day, not only that but two others were discovered to

have been obtained in the same manner. In the one, the figure 1 was

altered to 4, and in another to 5, by which the artist received, upon

the whole, nearly one thousand pounds."

To that princely felony, Old Patch, as will be seen in the sequel, added

smaller misdemeanors which one would think were far beneath his notice;

except to convince himself and his mistress of the unbounded facility of

his genius for fraud.

At that period, the affluent public were saddled with a tax on plate;

and many experiments were made to evade it. Among others, one was

invented by a Mr. Charles Price, a stock-jobber and lottery-office

keeper, which, for a time, puzzled the tax-gatherer. Mr. Charles Price

lived in great style, gave splendid dinners, and did every thing on the

grandest scale. Yet Mr. Charles Price had no plate! The authorities

could not find so much as a silver tooth-pick on his magnificent

premises. In truth, what he was too cunning to possess, he borrowed. For

one of his sumptuous entertainments, he hired the plate of a silversmith

in Cornhill, and left the value in bank notes as security for its safe

return. One of these notes having proved a forgery, was traced to Mr.

Charles Price; and Mr. Charles Price was not to be found at that

particular juncture. Although this excited no surprise--for he was often

an absentee from his office for short periods--yet in due course, and as

a formal matter of business, an officer was set to find him, and to ask

his explanation regarding the false note. After tracing a man, who he

had a strong notion was Mr. Charles Price, through countless lodgings

and innumerable disguises, the officer (to use his own expression)

"nabbed" Mr. Charles Price. But, as Mr. Clarke observed, his prisoner

and his prisoner's lady were even then "too many" for him; for, although

he lost not a moment in trying to secure the forging implements, after

he had discovered that Mr. Charles Price, and Mr. Brank, and Old Patch,

were all concentrated in the person of his prisoner, he found the lady

had destroyed every trace of evidence. Not a vestige of the forging

factory was left. Not the point of a graver, nor a single spot of ink,

nor a shred of silver paper, nor a scrap of any body's handwriting, was

to be met with. Despite, however, this paucity of evidence to convict

him, Mr. Charles Price had not the courage to face a jury, and

eventually he saved the judicature and the Tyburn executive much trouble

and expense, by hanging himself in Bridewell.

The success of Mr. Charles Price has never been surpassed; and even

after the darkest era in the history of Bank forgeries--which dates from

the suspension of cash payments, in February, 1797--"Old Patch" was

still remembered as the Cæsar of Forgers.

FOOTNOTES:

[20] Bad orthography was by no means uncommon in the most

important documents at that period; the days of the week, in the

day-books of the Bank of England itself, are spelled in a variety

of ways.

[21] Francis's History of the Bank of England.

THE OLDEST INHABITANT OF THE PLACE DE GREVE.

The Police Courts of London have often displayed many a curious

character, many a strange scene, many an exquisite bit of dialogue; so

have the Police Courts in Ireland, especially at the Petty Sessions in

Kilrush; but we are not so well aware of how often a scene of rich and

peculiar humor occurs in the Police _tribuneaux_ of Paris. We will

proceed to give the reader a "taste of their quality."

An extremely old woman, all in rags, was continually found begging in

the streets, and the Police having good-naturedly let her off several

times, were at last obliged to take her in charge, and bring her into

the court. Several magistrates were sitting. The following dialogue took

place between the President and the old woman.

_President._--Now, my good woman, what have you to say for yourself? You

have been frequently warned by the Police, but you have persisted in

troubling people with begging.

_Old Woman (in a humble, quavering tone)._--Ah, Monsieur le President,

it is not so much trouble to other people as it is to me. I am a very

old woman.

_Pres._--Come, come, you must leave off begging, or I shall be obliged

to punish you.

_Old W._--But, Monsieur le President, I can not live without--I must

beg--pardon me, Monsieur--I am obliged to beg.

_Pres._--But I say you must not. Can you do no work?

_Old W._--Ah, no, Monsieur; I am too old.

_Pres._--Can't you sell something--little cakes--bonbons?

_Old W._--No, Monsieur, I can't get any little stock to begin with; and,

if I could, I should be robbed by the _gamins_, or the little girls, for

I'm not very quick, and can't see well.

_Pres._--Your relations must support you, then. You can not be allowed

to beg. Have you no son--no daughter--no grandchildren?

_Old W._--No, Monsieur; none--none--all my relations are dead.

_Pres._--Well then, your friends must give you assistance.

_Old W._--Ah, Monsieur, I have no friends; and, indeed, I never had but

one, in my life; but he too is gone.

_Pres._--And who was he?

_Old W._--Monsieur de Robespierre--_le pauvre, cher homme_! (The poor,

dear man!)

_Pres._--Robespierre!--why what did you know of him?

_Old W._--Oh, Monsieur, my mother was one of the _tricoteurs_

(knitting-women) who used to sit round the foot of the guillotine, and I

always stood beside her. When Monsieur de Robespierre was passing by, in

attending his duties, he used to touch my cheek, and call me (here the

old woman shed tears) _la belle Marguerite: le pauvre, cher homme_!

We must here pause to remind the reader that these women, the

_tricoteurs_, who used to sit round the foot of the guillotine on the

mornings when it was at its hideous work, were sometimes called the

"Furies;" but only as a grim jest. It is well known, that, although

there were occasionally some sanguinary hags among them, yet, for the

most part, they were merely idle, gossiping women, who came there

dressed in neat white caps, and with their knitting materials, out of

sheer love of excitement, and to enjoy the _spectacle_.

_Pres._--Well, Goody; finish your history.

_Old W._--I was married soon after this, and then I used to take my seat

as a _tricoteur_ among the others; and on the days when Monsieur de

Robespierre passed, he used always to notice me--_le pauvre, cher

homme_. I used then to be called _la belle tricoteuse_, but now--now, I

am called _la vielle radoteuse_ (the old dotardess). Ah, Monsieur le

President, it is what we must all come to!

The old woman accompanied this reflection with an inimitable look at

the President, which completely involved him in the _we_, thus

presenting him with the prospect of becoming an old dotardess; not in

the least meant offensively, but said in the innocence of her aged

heart.

_Pres._--Ahem!--silence! You seem to have a very tender recollection of

Monsieur Robespierre. I suppose you had reason to be grateful to him?

_Old W._--No, Monsieur, no reason in particular; for he guillotined my

husband.

_Pres._--Certainly this ought to be no reason for loving his memory.

_Old W._--Ah, Monsieur, but it happened quite by accident. Monsieur de

Robespierre did not intend to guillotine my husband--he had him executed

by mistake for somebody else--_le pauvre, cher homme_!

Thus leaving it an exquisite matter of doubt, as to whether the "poor

dear man" referred to her husband, or to Monsieur de Robespierre; or

whether the tender epithet was equally divided between them.

[From Chambers's Edinburgh Journal.]

STORY OF A KITE.

The setting sun beamed in golden light over the country; long shadows

lay on the cool grass; the birds, which had been silent through the

sultry heat of the day, sang their joyous evening hymn: the merry voices

of the village children sounded through the clear air, while their

fathers loitered about enjoying the luxury of rest after labor. A

sun-burned traveler, with dusty shoes, walked sturdily along the high

road: he was young and strong, and his ruddy cheeks glowed in the warm

light: he carried his baggage on a stick over his shoulder, and looked

straight on toward the cottages of the village; and you might see, by

the expression of his face, that his eye was earnestly watching for the

first glimpse of the home that lay among them, to which he was

returning.

The same setting sun threw his golden beams over the great metropolis:

they lighted up streets, and squares, and parks, whence crowds were

retiring from business or pleasure to their various places of abode or

gay parties: they pierced even through the smoke of the city, and gilded

its great central dome; but when they reached the labyrinth of lanes and

courts which it incloses, their radiance was gone, for noxious vapors

rose there after the heat of the day, and quenched them. The summer sun

is dreaded in those places.

The dusky light found its way with difficulty through a small and dim

window into an upper room of a house in one of these lanes, and any one

entering it would at first have thought it was void of any living

inhabitant, had not the restless tossing and oppressed breathing that

proceeded from a bed in one corner borne witness to the contrary. A weak

sickly boy lay there, his eye fixed on the door. It opened, and he

started up in bed; but at the sight of another boy, a few years older

than himself, who came in alone, he sunk back again, crying in a

plaintive voice, "Don't you see her coming yet?"

"No, she is not in sight: I ran to the corner of the lane, and could see

nothing of her," replied the elder boy, who, as he spoke, knelt down

before the grate, and began to arrange some sticks in it.

Every thing in the room bespoke poverty; yet there was an appearance of

order, and as much cleanliness as can be attained in such an abode.

Among the scanty articles of furniture there was one object that was

remarkable as being singularly out of place, and apparently very useless

there: it was a large paper kite, that hung from a nail on the wall, and

nearly reached from the low ceiling to the floor.

"There's eight o'clock just struck, John," said the little boy in bed.

"Go and look once more if mother's not coming yet."

"It's no use looking, Jem. It won't make her come any faster; but I'll

go to please you."

"I hear some one on the stairs."

"It's only Mrs. Willis going into the back-room."

"Oh dear, dear, what _shall_ I do?"

"Don't cry, Jem. Look, now I've put the wood all ready to boil the

kettle the minute mother comes, and she'll bring you some tea: she said

she would. Now I'm going to sweep up the dust, and make it all tidy."

Jem was quieted for a few minutes by looking at his brother's busy

operations, carried on in a bustling, rattling way, to afford all the

amusement possible; but the feverish restlessness soon returned.

"Take me up, do take me up," he cried; "and hold me near the broken

pane, please, John;" and he stretched out his white, wasted hands.

John kindly lifted out the poor little fellow, and dragging a chair to

the window, sat down with him on his knee, and held his face close to

the broken pane, through which, however, no air seemed to come, and he

soon began to cry again.

"What is it, Jem?--what's the matter?" said a kind voice at the door,

where a woman stood, holding by the hand a pale child.

"I want mother," sobbed Jem.

"Mother's out at work, Mrs. Willis," said John; "and she thought she

should be home at half-past seven; but she's kept later sometimes."

"Don't cry," said Mrs. Willis's little girl, coming forward. "Here's my

orange for you."

Jem took it, and put it to his mouth; but he stopped, and asked John to

cut it in two; gave back half to the little girl, made John taste the

portion he kept, and then began to suck the cooling fruit with great

pleasure, only pausing to say, with a smile, "Thank you, Mary."

"Now lie down again, and try to go to sleep; there's a good boy," said

Mrs. Willis; "and mother will soon be here. I must go now."

Jem was laid in bed once more; but he tossed about restlessly, and the

sad wail began again.

"I'll tell you what," said John, "if you will stop crying, I'll take

down poor Harry's kite, and show you how he used to fly it."

"But mother don't like us to touch it."

"No; but she will not mind when I tell her why I did it this once. Look

at the pretty blue and red figures on it. Harry made it, and painted it

all himself; and look at the long tail!"

"But how did he fly it? Can't you show me how poor Harry used to fly

it?"

John mounted on a chest, and holding the kite at arm's length, began to

wave it about, and to make the tail shake, while Jem sat up admiring.

"This was the way he used to hold it up. Then he took the string that

was fastened here--mother has got it in the chest--and he held the

string in his hand, and when the wind came, and sent the kite up, he let

the string run through his hand, and up it went over the trees,

up--up--and he ran along in the fields, and it flew along under the blue

sky."

John waved the kite more energetically as he described, and both the

boys were so engrossed by it, that they did not observe that the mother,

so longed for, had come in, and had sunk down on a chair near the door,

her face bent and nearly hidden by the rusty crape on her widow's

bonnet, while the tears fell fast on her faded black gown.

"Oh mother, mother!" cried Jem, who saw her first, "come and take

me--come and comfort me!"

The poor woman rose quickly, wiped her eyes, and hastened to her sick

child, who was soon nestled in her arms, and seemed to have there

forgotten all his woes.

The kind, good-natured John had meanwhile hung up the kite in its place,

and was looking rather anxiously at his mother, for he well understood

the cause of the grief that had overcome her at the sight of his

occupation, when she first came in; but she stroked his hair, looked

kindly at him, and bade him make the kettle boil, and get the things out

of her basket. All that was wanted for their simple supper was in it,

and it was not long before little Jem was again laid down after the

refreshment of tea; then a mattress was put in a corner for John, who

was soon asleep; and the mother, tired with her day's hard work, took

her place in the bed by the side of her child.

But the tears that had rolled fast down her cheeks as her lips moved in

prayer before sleep came upon her, still made their way beneath the

closed eyelids, and Jem awoke her by saying, as he stroked her face with

his hot hand, "Don't cry, mother; we won't touch it again!"

"It's not that, my child; no, no: it's the thought of my own Harry. I

think I see his pleasant face, and his curly hair, and his merry eyes

looking up after his kite." It was not often she spoke out her griefs;

but now, in the silent night, it seemed to comfort her.

"Tell me about him, mother, and about his going away? I like to hear you

tell about him."

"He worked with father, you know, and a clever workman he learned to

be."

"But he was much older than me. Shall I ever be a good workman, mother?"

The question made her heart ache with a fresh anguish, and she could not

answer it; but replied to his first words, "Yes, he was much older. We

laid three of our children in the grave between him and John. Harry was

seventeen when his uncle took him to serve out his time in a

merchant-ship. Uncle Ben, that was ship's carpenter, it was that took

him.--The voyage was to last a year and a half, for they were to go to

all manner of countries far, far away. One letter I had. It came on a

sad day the day after poor father died, Jem. And then I had to leave our

cottage in our own village, and bring you two to London, to find work to

keep you; but I have always taken care to leave word where I was to be

found, and have often gone to ask after letters. Not one has ever come

again; and it's six months past the time when they looked for the ship,

and they don't know what to think. But I know what I think: the sea has

rolled over my dear boy, and I shall never see him again--never, never

in this weary world."

"Don't cry so, mother dear; I'll try to go to sleep, and not make you

talk."

"Yes--try; and if you can only get better, that will comfort me most."

Both closed their eyes, and sleep came upon them once more.

It was eight o'clock in the morning when the little boy awoke, and then

he was alone; but to that he was accustomed. His mother was again gone

to work, and John was out cleaning knives and shoes in the neighborhood.

The table, with a small piece of bread and a cup of blue milk and water

on it, stood beside him. He drank a little, but could not eat, and then

lay down again with his eyes fixed on Harry's kite.

"Could he fly it," or rather, "could he see John fly it--really out of

doors and in the air?" That was of all things what he most longed to do.

He wondered where the fields were, and if he could ever go there and see

the kite fly under the blue sky. Then he wondered if John could fly it

in the lane. He crept out of bed, and tottered to the window.

The lane was very wet and slushy, and a nasty black gutter ran down it,

and oozed out among the broken stones. There had been a heavy

thunder-shower in the night, and as there was no foot pavement, and what

stones there were, were very uneven and scattered, the black pools

lodged among them, and altogether it seemed impossible for a boy to fly

a kite there; for "how could he run along holding the string? he would

tumble among the dirty pools. There were only four children to be seen

in it now, out of all the numbers that lived in the houses, though it

was a warm summer morning, and they were dabbling with naked feet in the

mud, and their ragged clothes were all draggled. Mother would never let

him and John do like that."

Still he stood, first examining the window, then looking at the kite;

then putting his hand out through the broken pane, and pondered over a

scheme that had entered his mind.

"John," he cried, as the door opened, "don't you think we could fly

Harry's kite out of the broken pane?"

At first this idea seemed to John perfectly chimerical; but after some

consultation and explanation a plan was devised between the two boys, to

complete which they only waited for their mother's return. They expected

her at one, for this was only half a day's work.

Jem was dressed when she returned, and his excitement made him appear

better; but she saw with grief that he could not touch his dinner; and

her anxiety about him made her, less unwillingly than she otherwise

would have done, consent to the petition he made, that "only for this

once she would let him and John fly the kite outside the window." She

stifled her sigh as she sat down to needlework, lest she should cast a

gloom over the busy preparations that immediately commenced.

The difficulty had been how to get the kite out, because the window

would not open. To surmount this, John was to go down to the lane,

taking the kite with him, while Jem lowered the string out of the broken

pane.

"When you get hold of the string, you know, John, you can fasten it, and

then stand on that large stone opposite, just by where that gentleman

is, and hold up the kite, and then I will pull."

All was done accordingly. John did his part well. Jem pulled; the kite

rose to the window, and fluttered about, for the thunder had been

followed by a high wind, which was felt a little even in this close

place, and the boys gazed at it with great pleasure. As it dangled

loosely by the window in this manner, the tail became entangled, and

John was obliged to run up to help to put it right.

"Let it down to me again when I have run out," said he, as he tried to

disentangle it; "and I will stand on the stone, and hold it up, and you

can pull again. There's the gentleman still, and now there's a young man

besides. The gentleman has made him look up at the kite."

"Come and look, mother," said Jem: but she did not hear. "The young man

has such a brown face, and such curly hair."

"And he's like--mother, he is crossing over!" cried John. "He has come

into the house!"

The mother heard now. A wild hope rushed through her heart; she started

up; a quick step was heard on the stairs; the door flew open, and the

next moment she was clasped in her son's arms!

The joy nearly took away her senses. Broken words mingled with tears,

thanksgivings, and blessings, were all that were uttered for some time

between them. Harry had Jem on his knee, and John pressed close to his

side, and was holding his mother tight by the hand, and looking up in

her face, when at last they began to believe and understand that they

once more saw each other. And then he had to explain how the ship had

been disabled by a storm in the South Seas; and how they got her into

one of the beautiful islands there, and refitted her, and after six

months' delay, brought her back safe and sound, cargo and all; and how

he and Uncle Ben were both strong and hearty.

"How well you look, my dear boy!" said the happy mother. "How tall, and

stout, and handsome you are!"

"And he's got his curly hair and bright eyes still," said poor wan

little Jem, speaking for the first time.

"But you, mother, and all of you, how pale you are, and how thin! I

know--yes, don't say it--I know who's gone. I went home last night,

mother. I walked all the way to the village, and found the poor cottage

empty, and heard how he died."

"Home! You went there?"

"Yes, and the neighbors told me you were gone to London. But I slept all

night in the kitchen, on some straw. There I lay, and thought of you,

and of him we have lost, and prayed that I might be a comfort to you

yet."

Joy and sorrow seemed struggling for the mastery in the widow's heart;

but the present happiness proved the stronger, and she was soon smiling,

and listening to Harry.

"I had a hard matter to find you," he said. "You had left the lodging

they directed me to at first."

"But I left word where I had come to."

"Ay, so you had; and an old woman there told me you were at No. 10

Paradise Row."

"What could she be thinking of?"

"No one had heard of you in that place. However, as I was going along

back again to get better information, keeping a sharp look-out in hopes

I might meet you, I passed the end of this lane, and saw it was called

Eden-lane, so I thought perhaps the old lady had fancied Paradise and

Eden were all the same; and sure enough, they are both as like one as

the other, for they are wretched, miserable places as ever I saw. I

turned in here, and then No. 10 proved wrong too; and as I was standing

looking about, and wondering what I had better do next, a gentleman

touched my arm, and pointing first at the black pools in the broken

pavement, and then up at this window, he said--I remember his very

words, they struck me so--'Do not the very stones rise up in judgment

against us! Look at these poor little fellows trying to fly their kite

out of a broken pane!' Hearing him say so, I looked up, and saw my old

kite--by it I found you at last."

They all turned gratefully toward it, and saw that it still swung

outside, held there safely by its entangled tail. The talk, therefore,

went on uninterruptedly. Many questions were asked and answered, and

many subjects discussed; the sad state of poor little Jem being the most

pressing. At the end of an hour a great bustle was going on in the room:

they were packing up all their small stock of goods, for Harry had

succeeded, after some argument, in persuading his mother to leave her

unhealthy lodging that very evening, and not to risk even one more night

for poor Jem in that poisonous air. He smoothed every difficulty. Mrs.

Willis gladly undertook to do the work she had engaged to do; and with

her he deposited money for the rent, and the key of the room. He

declared he had another place ready to take his mother to; and to her

anxious look he replied, "I did good service in the ship, and the owners

have been generous to us all. I've got forty pounds."

"Forty pounds!" If he had said, "I have got possession of a gold

district in California," he would not have created a greater sensation.

It seemed an inexhaustible amount of wealth.

A light cart was soon hired and packed, and easily held not only the

goods (not forgetting the kite), but the living possessors of them; and

they set forth on their way.

The evening sun again beamed over the country; and the tall trees, as

they threw their shadow across the grass, waved a blessing on the family

that passed beneath, from whose hearts a silent thanksgiving went up

that harmonized with the joyous hymn of the birds. The sun-burnt

traveler, as he walked at the horse's head, holding his elder brother's

hand, no longer looked anxiously onward, for he knew where he was going,

and saw by him his younger brother already beginning to revive in the

fresh air, and rejoiced in his mother's expression of content and

happiness. She had divined for some time to what home she was going.

"But how did you contrive to get it fixed so quickly, my kind, good

boy?" she said.

"I went to the landlord, and he agreed at once: and do not be afraid, I

can earn plenty for us all."

"But must you go to sea again?"

"If I must, do not fear. Did you not always teach me that His hand would

keep me, and hold me, even in the uttermost parts of the sea?"

And she felt that there was no room for fear.

A week after this time, the evening sun again lighted up a happy party.

Harry and John were busied in preparing the kite for flying in a green

field behind their cottage. Under the hedge, on an old tree trunk, sat

their mother, no longer in faded black and rusty crape, but neatly

dressed in a fresh, clean gown and cap, and with a face bright with hope

and pleasure. By her was Jem, with cheeks already filling out, a tinge

of color in them, and eyes full of delight. On her other side was little

Mary Willis. She had just arrived, and was telling them how, the very

day after they left, some workmen came and put down a nice pavement on

each side of the lane, and laid a pipe underground instead of the

gutter; and that now it was as dry and clean as could be; and all the

children could play there, and there were such numbers of games going

on; and they all said it was the best thing they had done for them for

many a day; and so did their mothers too, for now the children were not

all crowded into their rooms all day long, but could play out of doors.

"Depend upon it," said Harry, "it is that gentleman's doing that spoke

to me of it the day I came first. This good old kite has done good

service, and now it shall be rewarded by sailing up to a splendid

height."

As he spoke, he held it up, the light breeze caught it, and it soared

away over their heads under the blue sky; while the happy faces that

watched it bore witness to the truth of his words--that "the good old

kite had done good service."

[From Sharp's Magazine.]

THE STATE OF THE WORLD BEFORE ADAM'S TIME.

Among the millions of human beings that dwell on the earth, how few are

those who think of inquiring into its past history. The annals of Greece

and Rome are imparted to our children as a necessary and important

branch of education, while the history of the world itself is neglected,

or at the most is confined to those who are destined for a scientific

profession; even adults are content to receive on hearsay a vague idea

that the globe was in being for some undefined period preceding the era

of human history, but few seek to know in what state it existed, or what

appearance it presented.

This is owing, partly, to the hard names and scientific language in

which geologists have clothed their science, and partly to ignorance of

the beauty and attractive nature of the study; we dread the long,

abstruse-sounding titles of Ichthyosaurus and Plesiosaurus, and are

repelled by the dry disquisitions on mineralogy into which professors of

the science are apt to stray. The truth is, however, that geology

properly is divided into two distinct branches; one of these consists of

the less attractive, though equally useful, investigation of the

chemical constituents of the strata, and the classification of the

fossil flora and fauna which belong to the various formations; this,

which may be styled geology proper, is the department which belongs

almost exclusively to men of science, and, inasmuch as it involves the

necessity of acquaintance with the sister sciences of chemistry,

mineralogy, zoology, and botany, is least adapted to the understanding

of the uninitiated. The other branch, which may be called the history of

geology, presents none of these difficulties; it is as easy of

comprehension, and as suitable to the popular mind, as any other

historical account; while it presents a variety of interest, and a

revolution of events, before which the puny annals of modern history

sink into insignificance.

Such of our readers as are unacquainted with the science, will probably

be inclined to doubt the possibility of our being aware of events which

took place ages before Adam was created; here, however, nature herself

steps in, and becoming her own historian, writes "in the living rock"

the chronicles of past ages, and so accurately and circumstantially,

that we can say positively, "Here existed the sea at such a period, and

here the tide ebbed and flowed for centuries;" nay, she shows us the

footmarks of extinct animals, and tells us the size, nature, habits, and

food of creatures which have for unnumbered ages been buried in the

grave of time. She informs us that here the ocean was calm, and that

there a river flowed into it; here forests grew and flourished, and

there volcanoes vomited forth lava, while mighty earthquakes heaved up

mountains with convulsive throes. Such are the events that mark the

world's history, and we now purpose giving a short sketch of the various

eras in its existence.

Hundreds of thousands of years ago, the earth, now so busy and full of

life, rolled on its ceaseless course, a vast, desolate, and sterile

globe. Day and night succeeded one another, and season followed season,

while yet no living form existed, and still the sun rose upon arid,

verdureless continents, and hot, caldron-like seas, on which the

steaming vapor and heavy fogs sat like an incubus. This is the earliest

period of which we glean any positive record, and it is probable that

previous to this era the universe was in a state of incandescence, or

intense heat, and that by the gradual cooling of the globe, the external

surface became hard, and formed a firm crust, in the same manner that

molten lead, when exposed to the cold air, hardens on the surface. The

vapors which previously floated around this heated mass, in like manner

became partially condensed, and gradually accumulating in the hollows,

formed the boiling seas which in after ages were destined to be vast

receptacles teeming with life.

How long such a period continued it is impossible to say, and were we

even able to number its years, we should in all probability obtain a

total of such magnitude as would render us unable to form any accurate

idea of its extent. Our ideas of time, like those of space, are

comparative, and so immense was this single period in geological

history, that any interval taken from human records would fail to

present an adequate idea of it.

As might be expected, this era was marked by vast and violent

convulsions; volcanoes raged and threw up molten granite, earthquakes

heaved and uplifted continents, seas were displaced and inundated the

land, and still the earth was enveloped in vapor and mist, arising from

the high temperature, and the light most probably penetrated only

sufficiently to produce a sickly twilight, while the sun shot lurid rays

through the dense and foggy atmosphere. Such a world must have been

incompatible with either animal or vegetable life, and we accordingly

find no remains of either in the rocks which belong to this early

period; their principal characteristic is a highly crystalline

appearance, giving strong presumptive evidence of the presence of great

heat.

After this era of desolation and gloom, we enter upon what is

technically termed the "Transition period," and here we begin to mark

the gradual preparation of the globe for the reception of its destined

inhabitants. The change is, however, at first very slight, and there is

evidence of frequent convulsions and of a high degree of temperature;

but the action of fire appears to have declined in force, and aqueous

agencies are exerting themselves. The earlier portion of this formation

is rendered peculiarly interesting by the fact, that during it the most

ancient forms of life sprang into existence. It is true that merely a

few species of shell-fish, with some corals, inhabited the depths of the

ocean, while the dry land still remained untenanted; nevertheless,

humble and scanty as they were, we can not fail to look with interest on

the earliest types of that existence, which has subsequently reached

such perfection in ourselves.

The presence of corals shows, that although the transition seas had lost

their high temperature, yet they retained a sufficient degree of heat to

encourage the development of animals requiring warmth. These minute

animals possess the remarkable property of extracting from the

elementary bodies held in solution in the waters, the materials for

forming new rocks. To the coral animalcule or polype we owe much of the

vast limestone beds which are found in every part of the world, and many

a vessel laden with the riches and productions of the earth finds a

grave on the sunken reefs that are the fruit of its labors.

As ages elapsed, and the universe became better adapted for the

reception of life, the waters swarmed with zoophytes and corals, and in

the silurian strata we find organic remains abundant; shell-fish are

numerous and distinct in form, and in some instances display a very

interesting anatomical construction. As an instance we may mention the

Trilobite, an animal of the crustacean order; the front part of its body

formed a large crescent-shaped shield, while the hinder portion

consisted of a broad triangular tail, composed of segments folding over

each other like the tail of a lobster; its most peculiar organ, however,

was the eye, which was composed of four hundred minute spherical lenses

placed in separate compartments, and so situated, that in the animal's

usual place at the bottom of the ocean it could see every thing around.

This kind of eye is also common to the existing butterfly and

dragon-fly, the former of which has 35,000, and the latter 14,000

lenses.

Continuing to trace the history of this ancient period, we reach what is

called among geologists the Old Red Sandstone age. The corals, and the

shell-fish, and the crustacea of the former period have passed away, and

in their place we find _fishes_; thus presenting to us the earliest

trace of the highest order of the animal kingdom--vertebrata. The plants

in this system are few, and it would seem as if the condition of the

world was ill-adapted for their growth. Another peculiar characteristic

of this era is the state of calm repose in which the ocean appears to

have remained; in many rocks the _ripple mark_ left by the tide on the

shores of the ancient seas is clearly visible; nevertheless considerable

volcanic action must have taken place, if we are to believe geologists,

who find themselves unable to account otherwise for the preponderance of

mineral matter which seems to have been held in solution by the waters.

We now pass on to the Carboniferous period, and a marked change at once

strikes us as having taken place. In the previous era few plants appear

to have existed; now they flourished with unrivaled luxuriance. Ferns,

cacti, gigantic equisetums, and many plants of which there are no

existing types, grew, and lived, and died in vast impenetrable forests;

while the bulrush and the cane, or genera nearly allied to them,

occupied the swamps and lowlands. This is the period when the great coal

beds and strata of ironstone were deposited, which supply us with fuel

for our fires, and materials for our machinery. The interminable forests

that grew and died in the lapse of centuries were gradually borne down

by the rivers and torrents to the ocean, at whose bottom they ultimately

found a resting place. A considerable portion of the land also seems to

have been slowly submerged, as in some cases fossil trees and plants are

found in an upright position, as they originally grew.

There is no period in geological history so justly deserving of

examination as this. To the coal beds then deposited Great Britain in a

great measure owes national and mercantile greatness. Dr. Buckland, in

speaking of this remote age, remarks in his Bridgewater Treatise, that

"the important uses of coal and iron in administering to the supply of

our daily wants, give to every individual among us, in almost every

moment of our lives, a personal concern, of which but few are conscious,

in the geological events of these very distant eras. We are all brought

into immediate connection with the vegetation that clothed the ancient

earth before one half of its actual surface had yet been formed. The

trees of the primeval forests have not, like modern trees, undergone

decay, yielding back their elements to the soil and atmosphere by which

they have been nourished; but treasured up in subterranean store-houses,

have been transformed into enduring beds of coal, which in these latter

ages have been to man the sources of heat, and light, and wealth. My

fire now burns with fuel, and my lamp is shining with the light of gas

derived from coal, that has been buried for countless ages in the deep

and dark recesses of the earth. We prepare our food, and maintain our

forges and furnaces, and the power of our steam-engines, with the

remains of plants of ancient forms and extinct species, which were swept

from the earth ere the formation of the transition strata was completed.

Our instruments of cutlery, the tools of our mechanics, and the

countless machines which we construct by the infinitely varied

applications of iron, are derived from ore, for the most part coeval

with, or more ancient than the fuel, by the aid of which we reduce it to

its metallic state, and apply it to innumerable uses in the economy of

human life. Thus, from the wreck of forests that waved upon the surface

of the primeval lands, and from ferruginous mud that was lodged at the

bottom of the primeval waters, we derive our chief supplies of coal and

iron, those two fundamental elements of art and industry, which

contribute more than any other mineral production of the earth to

increase the riches, and multiply the comforts, and ameliorate the

condition of mankind."

This may justly be styled the golden age of the pre-adamite world; the

globe having now cooled to a sufficient temperature to promote the

growth of plants without being injurious to them, is for the first time

clothed in all the rich verdure of a tropical climate. Doubtless the

earth would have presented a lovely aspect, had it been possible to have

beheld it; the mighty forests unawakened by a sound save that of the

sighing of the wind; the silent seas, in which the new-born denizens of

the deep roamed at will; the vast inland lakes for ages unruffled but by

the fitful breeze; all present to the mind's eye a picture of

surpassing, solitary grandeur.

The creatures that existed, though differing from those of the previous

age, were still confined to the waters; as yet the dry land remained

untenanted. The fishes give evidence of a higher organization, and many

of them appear to have been of gigantic dimensions. Some teeth which

have been found of one kind, the Megalichthys, equal in size those of

the largest living crocodiles.

There is one peculiarity respecting fossil fishes which is worthy of

remark. It is that, in the lapse of time from one era to another, their

character does not change _insensibly_, as in the case of many zoophytes

and testacea; on the contrary, species seem to succeed species

_abruptly_, and at certain definite intervals. A celebrated

geologist[22] has observed, that not a single species of fossil fish has

yet been found that is common to any two great geological formations, or

that is living in our own seas.

Continuing our investigation, we next find the fruitful coal era passing

away; scarcely a trace of vegetation remains; a few species of

zoophytes, shells, and fishes are to be found, and we observe the

impression of footsteps, technically called _ichnites_, from the Greek

_ichnon_, a footmark. These marks present a highly interesting memento

of past ages. Persons living near the sea-shore must have frequently

observed the distinctness with which the track of birds and other

animals is imprinted in the sand. If this sand were to be hardened by

remaining exposed to the action of the sun and air, it would form a

perfect mould of the foot; this is exactly what occurred in these early

ages, and the hollow becoming subsequently filled by the deposition of

new sediment, the lower stone retained the impression, while the upper

one presented a cast in relief. Many fossil footmarks have been found in

the rocks belonging to this period.

It is evident from the fact of footmarks being found, that creatures

capable of existing on dry land were formed about this time, and we

accordingly find the remains of a new order--Reptiles. These animals,

which now constitute but a small family among existing quadrupeds, then

flourished in great size and numbers. Crocodiles and lizards of various

forms and gigantic stature roamed through the earth. Some of the most

remarkable are those which belong to the genus Ichthyosaurus, or

fish-lizard, so called from the resemblance of their vertebræ to those

of fishes. This saurian Dr. Buckland describes as something similar in

form to the modern porpoise; it had four broad feet, and a long and

powerful tail; its jaws were so prodigious that it could probably expand

them to a width of five or six feet, and its powers of destruction must

have been enormous. The length of some of these reptiles exceeded thirty

feet.

Another animal which lived at this period was the Plesiosaurus. It lived

in shallow seas and estuaries, and would seem, from its organs of

respiration, to have required frequent supplies of fresh air. Mr.

Conybeare describes it as "swimming upon, or near the surface, arching

its long neck like the swan, and occasionally darting it down at the

fish which happened to float within its reach."

This reptile, which was smaller than the Ichthyosaurus, has been found

as long as from twelve to fifteen feet. Its appearance and habits

differed from the latter materially. The Ichthyosaurus, with its short

neck, powerful jaws, and lizard-like body, seems admirably suited to

range through the deep waters, unrivaled in size or strength, and

monarch of the then existing world; the Plesiosaurus, smaller in size

and inferior in strength, shunned its powerful antagonist, and, lurking

in shallows and sheltered bays, remained secure from the assaults of its

dangerous foe, its long neck and small head being well adapted to enable

it to dart on its prey, as it lay concealed amid the tangled sea-weed.

This has been called by geologists the "age of reptiles;" their remains

are found in great numbers in the lias, oolite, and wealden strata.

These creatures seem to form a connecting link between the fishes of

the previous era, and the mammalia of the Tertiary age; the

Ichthyosaurus differed little from a fish in shape, and its paddles or

feet are not unlike fins, the Plesiosaurus, on the contrary, as its name

denotes, partook more of the quadruped form. Dr. Buckland in describing

it, says: "To the head of a lizard it united the teeth of a crocodile; a

neck of enormous length, resembling the body of a serpent; a trunk and

tail having the proportions of an ordinary quadruped; the ribs of a

cameleon, and the paddles of a whale." Besides these animals we find the

Pterodactyle, half bird and half reptile; the Megalosaurus, or gigantic

lizard; the Hylæosaurus, or forest lizard; the Geosaurus, or land

lizard, and many others, all partaking more or less of affinity to both

the piscatory and saurian tribes.

Passing on now to the period when the great chalk rocks which prevail so

much in the southeastern counties of Great Britain were deposited, we

find the land in many places submerged; the fossil remains are eminently

marine in character, and the earth must literally have presented a

"world of waters" to the view. Sponges, corals, star-fish, and marine

reptiles inhabited the globe, and plants, chiefly of marine types, grew

on its surface. Although, however, a great portion of the earth was

under water, it must not therefore be supposed that it was returning to

its ancient desolation and solitude. The author whom we last quoted, in

speaking of this subject, says: "The sterility and solitude which have

sometimes been attributed to the depths of the ocean, exist only in the

fictions of poetic fancy. The great mass of water that covers nearly

three-fourths of the globe is crowded with life, perhaps more abundantly

than the air and the surface of the earth; and the bottom of the sea,

within a certain depth accessible to light, swarms with countless hosts

of worms and creeping things, which represent the kindred families of

low degree which crawl upon the land."

This era seems to have been one of peculiar tranquillity, for the most

part undisturbed by earthquakes or other igneous forces. The prevailing

characteristic of the scenery was flatness, and low continents were

surrounded by shallow seas. The earth is now approaching the state when

it will be fit for the reception of man, and in the next age we find

some of the existing species of animals.

It is worthy of observation, that at the different periods when the

world had attained a state suitable for their existence, the various

orders of animal and vegetable life were created. In the "dark ages" of

geological history, when the globe had comparatively lately subsided

from a state of fusion,[23] it was barren, sterile, and uninhabited;

next, the waters having become cool enough, some of the lowest orders of

shell-fish and zoophytes peopled them; subsequently, fishes were formed,

and for ages constituted the highest order of animal life; after this

we enter on the age of reptiles, when gigantic crocodiles and

lizard-like forms dwelt in fenny marshes, or reposed on the black mud of

slow moving rivers, as they crept along toward the ocean betwixt their

oozy banks; and we now reach the period when the noblest order of animal

life, the class to which man himself belongs, Mammalia, began to people

the earth.

The world now probably presented an appearance nearly similar to what it

does at present. The land, which in the chalk formation was under water,

has again emerged, and swarms with life; vast savannahs rich in verdure,

and decked in a luxuriant garb with trees, plants, grasses, and shrubs,

and inland lakes, to which the elephant, the rhinoceros, and the

hippopotamus, with many extinct races of animals, came to slake their

thirst, form the principal characteristics of this period.

There is something peculiarly interesting in looking back to this early

age, while Adam was yet dust. We picture to the mind's eye the gigantic

Deinotherium, the largest creature of terrestrial life, raking and

grabbing with its huge tusks the aquatic plants that grew in the pools

and shallow lakes, or, as Dr. Buckland describes it, sleeping with its

head hooked on to the bank, and its nostrils sustained above water so as

merely to breathe, while the body remained floating at ease beneath the

surface. We see its twin-brother in greatness, the Megatherium, as it

comes slowly stalking through the thick underwood, its foot, of a yard

in length, crushing where it treads, and its impenetrable hide defying

the attacks of rhinoceros or crocodile. In the waters we behold the

mighty whale, monarch of the deep, sporting in the pre-adamite seas as

he now does amid the icebergs of the Arctic ocean; the walrus and the

seal, now denizens of the colder climes, mingling with the tropical

manati; while in the forests the owl, the buzzard, and the woodcock,

dwelt undisturbed, and the squirrel and monkey leaped from bough to

bough.

Arrived at the close of the pre-adamite history, after having traced it

from the earliest ages of which we possess any evidence, down to the eve

of human existence, the reflection that naturally presents itself to the

mind is the strangeness of the fact, that myriads of creatures should

have existed, and that generation after generation should have lived and

died and passed away, ere yet man saw the light. We are so accustomed to

view all creatures as created solely for human use, rather than for the

pleasure of the Divine Creator, that we can at first scarcely credit the

history, though written by the hand of nature herself; and the human

race sinks into insignificance when it is shown to be but the last link

in a long chain of creations. Nevertheless, that such, however humbling

it may be, is the fact, we possess indubitable evidence: and when we

consider, as Mr. Bakewell observes, "that more than three-fifths of the

earth's present surface are covered by the ocean, and that if from the

remainder we deduct the space occupied by polar ice and eternal snows,

by sandy deserts, sterile mountains, marshes, rivers, and lakes, that

the habitable portion will scarcely exceed one-fifth of the whole globe;

that the remaining four-fifths, though untenanted by mankind, are, for

the most part, abundantly stocked with animated beings, that exult in

the pleasure of existence, independent of human control, and in no way

subservient to the necessities or caprices of men; that such is and has

been, for several thousand years, the actual condition of our planet; we

may feel less reluctance in admitting the prolonged ages of creation,

and the numerous tribes that lived and flourished, and left their

remains imbedded in the strata which compose the outer crust of the

earth."

FOOTNOTES:

[22] Dr. Buckland.

[23] The theory of the original incandescence of the earth has

been much debated, but we believe it is gaining ground among

geologists.

THE MANIA FOR TULIPS IN HOLLAND.

The inordinate passion, which at one time prevailed for Tulips, amounted

to actual madness, and well deserved the name of Tulipomania, by which

it is distinguished. The Tulip was introduced into Europe from

Constantinople in the year 1559, according to Gesner. After it became

known to the Dutch merchants and nobility at Vienna, it became a most

important branch of trade in Holland, and they sent frequently to

Constantinople for roots and seeds of the flower. In the year 1634, and

for three years after, little else was thought of in Holland but this

traffic; all embarked in it, from the nobleman to the common laborer,

and so successful were many that they rose rapidly from abject poverty

to affluence; and those who had been barely able to procure the most

scanty means of subsistence were enabled to set up their carriages, and

enjoy every convenience and luxury of life; indeed, when we read of the

enormous sums paid for a single root, we can feel no surprise at the

immense and rapid fortunes which were made. It is on record, that one

wealthy merchant gave his daughter no other portion to secure an

eligible match than a single root. The plant to this day bears the name

of the "marriage portion." We find that 2 hogsheads of wine, 4 tuns of

beer, 2 lasts of wheat, 4 lasts of rye, 2 tons of butter, 1000 pounds of

cheese, 4 fat oxen, 8 fat swine, and 12 fat sheep, a complete bed, a

suit of clothes, a silver beckess, valued at 2500 florins, were given in

exchange for a single root of the tulip called the Viceroy. This mode of

barter, being attended with inconvenience, could not be general, and

gave place to sale by weight, by which immense sums were made. Single

roots have sold for 4400 florins; 2000 florins was a common price for a

root of the Semper Augustus; and it happened that once, when only two

roots of this species could be procured, the one at Amsterdam, and the

other at Haarlem, 4600 florins, a new carriage, and a pair of horses,

with complete harness, were given for one; and for the other an exchange

made of 12 acres of land: indeed, land was frequently parted with when

cash could not be advanced for the purchase of a desired root; and

houses, cattle, furniture, and even clothes, were all sacrificed to the

Tulipomania. In the course of four months, a person has been known to

realize 60,000 florins. These curious bargains took place in taverns,

where notaries and clerks were regularly paid for attending; and after

the contracts were completed, the traders of all ranks sat down together

to a splendid entertainment. At these sales, the usual price of a root

of the Viceroy was £250; a root of the Admiral Liefkuns, £440; a root of

the Admiral Von Eyk, £160; a root of the Grebbu, £148; a root of the

Schilder, £160; a root of the Semper Augustus, £550. A collection of

Tulips of Wouter Brockholsminster was disposed of by his executors for

£9000; but they sold a root of the Semper Augustus separately, for which

they got £300, and a very fine Spanish cabinet, valued at £1000. The

Semper Augustus was, indeed, in great request. A gentleman received

£3000 for three roots which he sold; he had also the offer of £1500 a

year for his plant for seven years, with an engagement that it should be

given up as found, the increase alone having been retained during the

period. One gentleman made £6000 in the space of six months. It was

ascertained that the trade in Tulips in one city alone, in Holland,

amounted to £1,000,000 sterling. To such an extent was this

extraordinary traffic carried on, that a system of stock-jobbing was

introduced; and Tulips, which were bought and sold for much more than

their weight in gold, were nominally purchased without changing hands at

all. Beekmann, in describing this curious traffic, for which all other

merchandise and pursuit was neglected, mentions that engagements were

entered into, which were to be fulfilled in six months, and not to be

affected by any change in the value of the root during that time. Thus,

a bargain might be made with a merchant for a root at the price of 1000

florins. At the time specified for its delivery, its value may have

risen to 1500 florins, the purchaser being a gainer of 500 florins.

Should it, on the contrary, have fallen to 800 florins, the purchaser

was then a loser to the amount of 200 florins. If there had been no

fluctuation in the market, the bargain terminated without an exchange of

the money for the root, so that it became a species of gambling, at

which immense sums were lost and won. The decline of the trade was as

unexpected as its rise had been surprising. When settling day came,

there were many defaulters; some from inability to meet their

engagements, and many from dishonesty. Persons began to speculate more

cautiously, and the more respectable to feel that the system of

gambling, in which they were engaged, was by no means creditable. The

Tulip-holders then wished to dispose of their merchandise really, and

not _nominally_, but found, to their disappointment, that the demand had

decreased. Prices fell--contracts were violated--appeals were made to

the magistrates in vain; and, after violent contentions, in which the

venders claimed, and the purchasers resisted payment, the state

interposed, and issued an order invalidating the contracts, which put an

end at once to the stock-jobbing; and the roots, which had been valued

at £500 each, were now to be had for £5: and thus ended the most strange

commerce in which Europe had been ever engaged.

Some curious anecdotes connected with the mania may be found. Among them

is one of a burgomaster, who had made interest for a friend, and

succeeded in obtaining a very lucrative situation for him. The friend,

anxious to testify his gratitude, entreated of the burgomaster to allow

him to show it by some substantial proof. His generous benefactor would

accept no favor in return; all he asked was the gratification of seeing

his flower-garden, which was readily granted. The friends did not meet

again for two years. At the end of that time, the gentleman went to

visit the burgomaster. On going into his garden, the first thing that

attracted his observation was a rare Tulip of great value, which he

instantly knew must have been purloined from his garden, when his

treacherous friend had been admitted into it, two years before. He gave

vent to the most frantic passion--immediately resigned his place of

£1000 per annum--returned to his house merely to tear up his

flower-garden--and, having completed the work of destruction, left it,

never to return.

We have read of a sailor, who had brought a heavy load to the warehouse

of a merchant, who only gave him a herring as payment and refreshment.

This was very inadequate to satisfy the man's hunger, but perceiving, as

he thought, some onions lying before him, he snatched up one, and bit

it. It happened to be a Tulip-root, worth a king's ransom; so we may

conceive the consternation of the merchant, which is said to have nearly

deprived him of reason.

It has been said that John Barclay, the author of the romance of

"Angenis," was a victim to the Tulipomania. Nothing could induce him to

quit the house to which his flower-garden was attached, though the

situation was so unwholesome that he ran the risk of having his health

destroyed. He kept two fierce mastiffs to guard the flowers, which he

determined never to abandon.

The passion for Tulips was at its height in England toward the close of

the seventeenth and the commencement of the eighteenth century. The

tulip is a native of the Levant, and of many of the eastern countries.

Though common in Persia, it is highly esteemed, and considered an emblem

of love. Chardin tells us, that when a young Persian wishes to make his

sentiments known to his mistress, he presents her with one of these

flowers, which, of course, must be the flame-colored one, with black

anthers, so often seen in our gardens; as, Chardin adds, "He thus gives

her to understand, that he is all on fire with her beauty, and his

heart burned to a coal." The flower is still highly esteemed by

florists, and has its place among the few named florists' flowers. Many

suppose it to be "the Lily of the Field," mentioned in the Sermon on the

Mount, from its growing in wild profusion in Syria, and from the extreme

delicacy of the texture of its petals, and from the wonderful variety

and dazzling beauty of its colors. It may be so; and the flower acquires

from this an interest which nothing else could give.

THE SALT MINES OF EUROPE.

The salt-mines of Cheshire, and the brine-pits of Worcestershire,

according to the best authority, not only supply salt sufficient for the

consumption of nearly the whole of England, but also upward of half a

million of tons for exportation. Rock-salt is by no means confined to

England, it is found in many countries, especially where strata of more

recent date than those of the coal measures abound. Though in some

instances the mineral is pure and sparkling in its native state, it is

generally dull and dirty, owing to the matter with which it is

associated. The ordinary shade is a dull red, from being in contact with

marls of that color. But notwithstanding, it possesses many interesting

features. When the extensive subterranean halls have been lighted up

with innumerable candles, the appearance is most interesting, and the

visitor, enchanted with the scene, feels himself richly repaid for the

trouble he may have incurred in visiting the excavations.

The Cheshire mines are from 50 to 150 yards below the surface. The

number of salt-beds is five; the thinnest of them being only about six

inches, while the thickest is nearly forty feet. Besides these vast

masses, there is a large quantity of salt mixed up with the marl beds

that intervene. The method of working the rock-salt is like that adopted

for the excavation of coal; but it is much more safe and pleasant to

visit these than the other, owing to the roof of the excavations being

much more secure, and the absence of all noxious gases, with the

exception of carbonic acid gas. In the thinner coal-seams, the roof, or

rock lying above the coal, is supported by wooden pillars as the mineral

is withdrawn; while, in the thicker seams, pillars of coal are left at

intervals to support the superincumbent mass. The latter is the plan

adopted in the salt-mines. Large pillars of various dimensions are left

to support the roof at irregular intervals; but these bear a small

proportion to the mass of mineral excavated. The effect is most

picturesque; in the deep gloom of the excavation, the pillars present

tangible objects on which the eye can rest, while the intervening spaces

stretch away into night. The mineral is loosened from the rock by

blasting, and the effect of the explosions, heard from time to time

re-echoing through the wide spaces, and from the distant walls of rock,

gives a peculiar grandeur and impressiveness to the scene. The great

charm, indeed, on the occasion of a visit to these mines, even when they

are illuminated by thousands of lights, is chiefly owing to the gloomy

and cavernous appearance, the dim endless perspective, broken by the

numerous pillars, and the lights half disclosing and half concealing the

deep recesses which are formed and terminated by these monstrous and

solid projections. The pillars, owing to the great height of the roof,

are very massive. For twenty feet of rock they are about fifteen feet

thick. The descent to the mines is by a shaft--a perpendicular opening

of six, eight, or ten feet square; this opening is used for the general

purposes of ventilation, drainage, lifting the mineral, as well as the

miners. It varies in dimensions according to the extent of the

excavations. In some of the English mines the part of the bed of

rock-salt excavated amounts to several acres; but in some parts of

Europe the workings are even more extensive. The Wilton mine, one of the

largest in England, is worked 330 feet below the surface, and from it,

and one or two adjacent mines, upward of 60,000 tons of salt are

annually obtained, two-thirds of which are immediately exported, and the

rest is dissolved in water, and afterward reduced to a crystaline state

by evaporating the solution. It is not yet two hundred years since the

Cheshire mines were discovered. In the year 1670, before men were guided

by science in their investigations, an attempt was made to find coal in

the district. The sinking was unsuccessful relative to the one mineral,

but the disappointment and loss were amply met by the discovery of the

other. From that time till the present, the rock-salt has been dug, and,

as we have seen, most extensively used in England, while the surplus

supply has become an article of exportation. Previous to this discovery

the consumption was chiefly supplied from the brine-pits of

Worcestershire.

There is a remarkable deposit of salt in the valley of Cardona, in the

Pyrenees. Two thick masses of rock-salt, says Ansted, apparently united

at their bases, make their appearance on one of the slopes of the hill

of Cardona. One of the beds, or rather masses, has been worked, and

measures about 130 yards by 250; but its depth has not been determined.

It consists of salt in a laminated condition, and with confused

crystalization. That part which is exposed is composed of eight beds,

nearly horizontal, having a total thickness of fifteen feet; but the

beds are separated from one another by red and variegated marls and

gypsum. The second mass, not worked, appears to be unstratified, but in

other respects resembles the former; and this portion, where it has been

exposed to the action of the weather, is steeply scarped, and bristles

with needle-like points, so that its appearance has been compared to

that of a glacier. There is also an extensive salt-mine at Wieliczka, in

Poland, and the manner of working it was accurately described some years

since. The manner of descending into the mine was by means of a large

cord wound round a wheel and worked by a horse. The visitor, seated on a

small piece of wood placed in the loop of the cord, and grasping the

cord with both hands, was let down two hundred feet, the depth of the

first galleries, through a shaft about eight feet square, sunk through

beds of sand, alternating with limestone, gypsum, variegated marls, and

calcareous schists. Below the stage, the descent was by wooden

staircases, nine or ten feet wide. In the first gallery was a chapel,

measuring thirty feet in length by twenty-four in breadth, and eighteen

in height; every part of it, the floor, the roof, the columns which

sustained the roof, the altar, the crucifix, and several statues, were

all cut out of the solid salt; the chapel was for the use of the miners.

It had always been said that the salt in this mine had the qualities

which produced magic appearances to an uncommon degree; but it is now

ascertained that its scenery is not more enchanting than that of the

mines in Cheshire. Gunpowder is now used in the Polish as in the English

mines; but the manner of obtaining the salt at the time of the visit we

are recording was peculiar, and too ingenious to be passed over, even

though it be now superseded by the more modern and more successful mode

of blasting. "In the first place, the overman, or head miner, marked the

length, breadth, and thickness of a block he wished to be detached, the

size of which was generally the same, namely, about eight feet long,

four feet wide, and two feet thick. A certain number of blocks being

marked, the workman began by boring a succession of holes on one side

from top to bottom of the block, the holes being three inches deep, and

six inches apart. A horizontal groove was then cut, half an inch deep,

both above and below, and, having put into each of the holes an iron

wedge, all the wedges were struck with moderate blows, to drive them

into the mass; the blows were continued until two cracks appeared, one

in the direction of the line of the holes, and the other along the upper

horizontal line. The block was now loosened and ready to fall, and the

workman introduced into the crack produced by the driving of the wedges

a wooden ruler, two or three inches broad, and, moving it backward and

forward on the crack, a tearing sound was soon heard, which announced

the completion of the work. If proper care had been taken, the block

fell unbroken, and was then divided into three or four parts, which were

shaped into cylinders for the greater convenience of transport. Each

workman was able to work out four such blocks every day, and the whole

number of persons employed in the mine, varied from twelve hundred to

about two thousand." The mine was worked in galleries; and, at the time

of this visit, these galleries extended to at least eight English miles.

Since then the excavations have become much more extensive.

The method of preparing rock-salt is very simple, and differs little

from that employed in manufacturing salt from springs. The first step

in the process is, to obtain a proper strength of brine, by saturating

fresh water with the salt brought from the mine. The brine obtained in a

clear state is put into evaporating pans, and brought as quickly as

possible to a boiling heat, when a skin is formed on the surface,

consisting chiefly of impurities. This skin is taken off, so also are

the first crystals that are formed, and either thrown aside as useless,

or used for agricultural purposes. The heat is kept at the boiling point

for eight hours, during which period evaporation is going on--the liquid

becoming gradually reduced, and the salt meanwhile is being deposited.

When this part of the process is finished, the salt is raked out, put

into moulds, and placed in a drying stove, where it is dried perfectly,

and made ready for the market.

MY NOVEL; OR, VARIETIES IN ENGLISH LIFE.

(_Continued from page 672._)

CHAPTER X.

In my next chapter I shall present Squire Hazeldean in patriarchal

state--not exactly under the fig tree he has planted, but before the

stocks he has reconstructed. Squire Hazeldean and his family on the

village green! The canvas is all ready for the colors.

But in this chapter I must so far afford a glimpse into antecedents as

to let the reader know that there is one member of the family whom he is

not likely to meet at present, if ever, on the village green at

Hazeldean.

Our squire lost his father two years after his birth; his mother was

very handsome--and so was her jointure; she married again at the

expiration of her year of mourning--the object of her second choice was

Colonel Egerton.

In every generation of Englishmen (at least since the lively reign of

Charles II.) there are a few whom some elegant Genius skims off from the

milk of human nature, and reserves for the cream of society. Colonel

Egerton was one of these _terque, quaterque beati_, and dwelt apart on a

top shelf in that delicate porcelain dish--not bestowed upon vulgar

buttermilk--which persons of fashion call The Great World. Mighty was

the marvel of Pall Mall, and profound was the pity of Park-lane, when

this supereminent personage condescended to lower himself into a

husband. But Colonel Egerton was not a mere gaudy butterfly; he had the

provident instincts ascribed to the bee. Youth had passed from him--and

carried off much solid property in its flight; he saw that a time was

fast coming when a home, with a partner who could help to maintain it,

would be conducive to his comforts, and an occasional humdrum evening by

the fire-side beneficial to his health. In the midst of one season at

Brighton, to which gay place he had accompanied the Prince of Wales, he

saw a widow who, though in the weeds of mourning, did not appear

inconsolable. Her person pleased his taste--the accounts of her

jointure satisfied his understanding; he contrived an introduction, and

brought a brief wooing to a happy close. The late Mr. Hazeldean had so

far anticipated the chance of the young widow's second espousals, that,

in case of that event, he transferred, by his testamentary dispositions,

the guardianship of his infant heir from the mother to two squires whom

he had named his executors. This circumstance combined with her new ties

somewhat to alienate Mrs. Hazeldean from the pledge of her former loves;

and when she had borne a son to Colonel Egerton, it was upon that child

that her maternal affections gradually concentrated.

William Hazeldean was sent by his guardians to a large provincial

academy, at which his forefathers had received their education time out

of mind. At first he spent his holidays with Mrs. Egerton; but as she

now resided either in London, or followed her lord to Brighton to

partake of the gayeties at the Pavilion--so, as he grew older, William,

who had a hearty affection for country life, and of whose bluff manners

and rural breeding Mrs. Egerton (having grown exceedingly refined) was

openly ashamed, asked and obtained permission to spend his vacations

either with his guardians or at the old Hall. He went late to a small

college at Cambridge, endowed in the fifteenth century by some ancestral

Hazeldean; and left it, on coming of age, without taking a degree. A few

years afterward he married a young lady, country born and bred like

himself.

Meanwhile his half-brother, Audley Egerton, may be said to have begun

his initiation into the _beau monde_ before he had well cast aside his

coral and bells; he had been fondled in the lap of duchesses, and

galloped across the room astride on the canes of embassadors and

princes. For Colonel Egerton was not only very highly connected--not

only one of the _Dii majores_ of fashion--but he had the still rarer

good fortune to be an exceedingly popular man with all who knew him; so

popular, that even the fine ladies whom he had adored and abandoned

forgave him for marrying out of "the set," and continued to be as

friendly as if he had not married at all. People who were commonly

called heartless, were never weary of doing kind things to the Egertons.

When the time came for Audley to leave the preparatory school, at which

his infancy budded forth among the stateliest of the little lilies of

the field, and go to Eton, half the fifth and sixth forms had been

canvassed to be exceedingly civil to young Egerton. The boy soon showed

that he inherited his father's talent for acquiring popularity, and that

to this talent he added those which put popularity to use. Without

achieving any scholastic distinction, he yet contrived to establish at

Eton the most desirable reputation which a boy can obtain--namely, that

among his own contemporaries--the reputation of a boy who was sure to do

something when he grew to be a man. As a gentleman commoner at Christ

Church, Oxford, he continued to sustain this high expectation, though he

won no prizes and took but an ordinary degree; and at Oxford the future

"something" became more defined--it was "something in public life" that

this young man was to do.

While he was yet at the university, both his parents died--within a few

months of each other. And when Audley Egerton came of age, he succeeded

to a paternal property which was supposed to be large, and, indeed, had

once been so; but Colonel Egerton had been too lavish a man to enrich

his heir, and about £1500 a year was all that sales and mortgages left

of an estate that had formerly approached a rental of ten thousand

pounds.

Still, Audley was considered to be opulent, and he did not dispel that

favorable notion by any imprudent exhibition of parsimony. On entering

the world of London, the Clubs flew open to receive him; and he woke one

morning to find himself, not indeed famous--but the fashion. To this

fashion he at once gave a certain gravity and value--he associated as

much as possible with public men and political ladies--he succeeded in

confirming the notion that he was "born to ruin or to rule the State."

Now, his dearest and most intimate friend was Lord L'Estrange, from whom

he had been inseparable at Eton: and who now, if Audley Egerton was the

fashion, was absolutely the rage in London.

Harley Lord L'Estrange was the only son of the Earl of Lansmere, a

nobleman of considerable wealth, and allied by intermarriages to the

loftiest and most powerful families in England. Lord Lansmere,

nevertheless, was but little known in the circles of London. He lived

chiefly on his estates, occupying himself with the various duties of a

great proprietor, and rarely came to the metropolis; so that he could

afford to give his son a very ample allowance, when Harley, at the age

of sixteen (having already attained to the sixth form at Eton), left

school for one of the regiments of the Guards.

Few knew what to make of Harley L'Estrange--and that was, perhaps, the

reason why he was so much thought of. He had been by far the most

brilliant boy of his time at Eton--not only the boast of the

cricket-ground, but the marvel of the school-room--yet so full of whims

and oddities, and seeming to achieve his triumphs with so little aid

from steadfast application, that he had not left behind him the same

expectations of solid eminence which his friend and senior, Audley

Egerton, had excited. His eccentricities--his quaint sayings and

out-of-the-way actions, became as notable in the great world as they had

been in the small one of public school. That he was very clever there

was no doubt, and that the cleverness was of a high order might be

surmised not only from the originality but the independence of his

character. He dazzled the world, without seeming to care for its praise

or its censure--dazzled it, as it were, because he could not help

shining. He had some strange notions, whether political or social, which

rather frightened his father. According to Southey, "A man should be no

more ashamed of having been a republican than of having been young."

Youth and extravagant opinions naturally go together. I don't know

whether Harley L'Estrange was a republican at the age of eighteen; but

there was no young man in London who seemed to care less for being heir

to an illustrious name and some forty or fifty thousand pounds a year.

It was a vulgar fashion in that day to play the exclusive, and cut

persons who wore bad neckcloths and called themselves Smith or Johnson.

Lord L'Estrange never cut any one, and it was quite enough to slight

some worthy man because of his neckcloth or his birth, to insure to the

offender the pointed civilities of this eccentric successor to the

Dorimonts and the Wildairs.

It was the wish of his father that Harley, as soon as he came of age,

should represent the borough of Lansmere (which said borough was the

single plague of the Earl's life). But this wish was never realized.

Suddenly, when the young idol of London still wanted some two or three

years of his majority, a new whim appeared to seize him. He withdrew

entirely from society--he left unanswered the most pressing

three-cornered notes of inquiry and invitation that ever strewed the

table of a young Guardsman; he was rarely seen anywhere in his former

haunts--when seen, was either alone or with Egerton; and his gay spirits

seemed wholly to have left him. A profound melancholy was written in his

countenance, and breathed in the listless tones of his voice. At this

time the Guards were achieving in the Peninsula their imperishable

renown; but the battalion to which Harley belonged was detained at home;

and whether chafed by inaction or emulous of glory, the young Lord

suddenly exchanged into a cavalry regiment, from which a recent

memorable conflict had swept one half the officers. Just before he

joined, a vacancy happening to occur for the representation of Lansmere,

he made it his special request to his father that the family interest

might be given to his friend Egerton--went down to the Park, which

adjoined the borough, to take leave of his parents--and Egerton

followed, to be introduced to the electors. This visit made a notable

epoch in the history of many personages who figure in my narrative, but

at present I content myself with saying, that circumstances arose which,

just as the canvass for the new election commenced, caused both

L'Estrange and Audley to absent themselves from the scene of action, and

that the last even wrote to Lord Lansmere expressing his intention of

declining to contest the borough.

Fortunately for the parliamentary career of Audley Egerton, the election

had become to Lord Lansmere not only a matter of public importance, but

of personal feeling. He resolved that the battle should be fought out,

even in the absence of the candidate, and at his own expense. Hitherto

the contest for this distinguished borough had been, to use the language

of Lord Lansmere, "conducted in the spirit of gentlemen"--that is to

say, the only opponents to the Lansmere interest had been found in one

or the other of two rival families in the same county; and as the Earl

was a hospitable, courteous man, much respected and liked by the

neighboring gentry, so the hostile candidate had always interlarded his

speeches with profuse compliments to his Lordship's high character, and

civil expressions as to his Lordship's candidate. But, thanks to

successive elections, one of these two families had come to an end, and

its actual representative was now residing within the Rules of the

Bench; the head of the other family was the sitting member, and, by an

amicable agreement with the Lansmere interest, he remained as neutral as

it is in the power of any sitting member to be amidst the passions of an

intractable committee. Accordingly, it had been hoped that Egerton would

come in without opposition, when, the very day on which he had abruptly

left the place, a handbill, signed "Haverill Dashmore, Captain R.N.,

Baker-street, Portman-square," announced, in very spirited language, the

intention of that gentleman to emancipate the borough from the

unconstitutional domination of an oligarchical faction, not with a view

to his own political aggrandizement--indeed, at great personal

inconvenience--but actuated solely by abhorrence to tyranny, and

patriotic passion for the purity of election.

This announcement was followed, within two hours, by the arrival of

Captain Dashmore himself, in a carriage-and-four covered with yellow

favors, and filled, inside and out, with harum-scarum looking friends

who had come down with him to aid the canvass and share the fun.

Captain Dashmore was a thorough sailor, who had, however, taken a

disgust to the profession from the date in which a Minister's nephew had

been appointed to the command of a ship to which the Captain considered

himself unquestionably entitled. It is just to the Minister to add, that

Captain Dashmore had shown as little regard for orders from a distance,

as had immortalized Nelson himself; but then the disobedience had not

achieved the same redeeming success as that of Nelson, and Captain

Dashmore ought to have thought himself fortunate in escaping a severer

treatment than the loss of promotion. But no man knows when he is well

off; and retiring on half-pay, just as he came into unexpected

possession of some forty or fifty thousand pounds bequeathed by a

distant relation, Captain Dashmore was seized with a vindictive desire

to enter parliament, and inflict oratorical chastisement on the

Administration.

A very few hours sufficed to show the sea-captain to be a most capital

electioneerer for a small and not very enlightened borough. It is true

that he talked the saddest nonsense ever heard from an open window; but

then his jokes were so broad, his manner so hearty, his voice so big,

that in those dark days, before the schoolmaster was abroad, he would

have beaten your philosophical Radical and moralizing Democrat hollow.

Moreover he kissed all the women, old and young, with the zest of a

sailor who has known what it is to be three years at sea without sight

of a beardless lip; he threw open all the public-houses, asked a

numerous committee every day to dinner, and, chucking his purse up in

the air, declared "he would stick to his guns while there was a shot in

the locker." Till then, there had been but little political difference

between the candidate supported by Lord Lansmere's interest and the

opposing parties--for country gentlemen, in those days, were pretty much

of the same way of thinking, and the question had been really

local--viz., whether the Lansmere interest should or should not prevail

over that of the two squirearchical families who had alone, hitherto,

ventured to oppose it. But though Captain Dashmore was really a very

loyal man, and much too old a sailor to think that the State (which,

according to established metaphor, is a vessel, _par excellence_),

should admit Jack upon quarter-deck, yet, what with talking against

lords and aristocracy, jobs and abuses, and searching through no very

refined vocabulary for the strongest epithets to apply to those

irritating nouns-substantive, his bile had got the better of his

understanding, and he became fuddled, as it were, by his own eloquence.

Thus, though as innocent of Jacobinical designs as he was incapable of

setting the Thames on fire, you would have guessed him, by his speeches,

to be one of the most determined incendiaries that ever applied a match

to the combustible materials of a contested election; while, being by no

means accustomed to respect his adversaries, he could not have treated

the Earl of Lansmere with less ceremony if his Lordship had been a

Frenchman. He usually designated that respectable nobleman by the title

of "Old Pompous;" and the Mayor, who was never seen abroad but in

top-boots, and the Solicitor, who was of a large build, received from

his irreverent wit the joint sobriquet of "Tops and Bottoms!" Hence the

election had now become, as I said before, a personal matter with my

Lord, and, indeed, with the great heads of the Lansmere interest. The

Earl seemed to consider his very coronet at stake in the question. "The

man from Baker-street," with his preternatural audacity, appeared to him

a being ominous and awful--not so much to be regarded with resentment,

as with superstitious terror: he felt as felt the dignified Montezuma,

when that ruffianly Cortez, with his handful of Spanish rapscallions,

bearded him in his own capital, and in the midst of his Mexican

splendor--"The gods were menaced if man could be so insolent!" wherefore

said my Lord, tremulously, "The Constitution is gone if the Man from

Baker-street comes in for Lansmere!"

But, in the absence of Audley Egerton, the election looked extremely

ugly, and Captain Dashmore gained ground hourly, when the Lansmere

Solicitor happily bethought him of a notable proxy for the missing

candidate. The Squire of Hazeldean, with his young wife, had been

invited by the Earl in honor of Audley; and in the Squire the Solicitor

beheld the only mortal who could cope with the sea-captain--a man with a

voice as burly, and a face as bold--a man who, if permitted for the

nonce by Mrs. Hazeldean, would kiss all the women no less heartily than

the Captain kissed them; and who was, moreover, a taller, and a

handsomer, and a younger man--all three, great recommendations in the

kissing department of a contested election. Yes, to canvass the borough,

and to speak from the window, Squire Hazeldean would be even more

popularly presentable than the London-bred and accomplished Audley

Egerton himself.

The Squire, applied to and urged on all sides, at first said bluntly,

"that he would do any thing in reason to serve his brother, but that he

did not like, for his own part, appearing, even in proxy, as a Lord's

nominee; and, moreover, if he was to be sponsor for his brother, why, he

must promise and vow, in his name, to be stanch and true to the land

they lived by; and how could he tell that Audley, when once he got into

the House, would not forget the land, and then he, William Hazeldean,

would be made a liar, and look like a turncoat!"

But these scruples being overruled by the arguments of the gentlemen and

the entreaties of the ladies, who took in the election that intense

interest which those gentle creatures usually do take in all matters of

strife and contest, the Squire at length consented to confront the Man

from Baker-street, and went, accordingly, into the thing with that good

heart and old English spirit with which he went into every thing whereon

he had once made up his mind.

The expectations formed of the Squire's capacities for popular

electioneering were fully realized. He talked quite as much nonsense as

Captain Dashmore on every subject except the landed interest; there he

was great, for he knew the subject well--knew it by the instinct that

comes with practice, and compared to which all your showy theories are

mere cobwebs and moonshine.

The agricultural outvoters--many of whom, not living under Lord

Lansmere, but being small yeomen, had hitherto prided themselves on

their independence, and gone against my Lord--could not in their hearts

go against one who was every inch the farmer's friend. They began to

share in the Earl's personal interest against the Man from Baker-street;

and big fellows, with legs bigger round than Captain Dashmore's tight

little body, and huge whips in their hands, were soon seen entering the

shops, "intimidating the electors," as Captain Dashmore indignantly

declared.

These new recruits made a great difference in the muster-roll of the

Lansmere books; and, when the day for polling arrived, the result was a

fair question for even betting. At the last hour, after a neck-and-neck

contest, Mr. Audley Egerton beat the Captain by two votes. And the names

of these voters were John Avenal, resident freeman, and his son-in-law,

Mark Fairfield, an outvoter, who, though a Lansmere freeman, had settled

in Hazeldean, where he had obtained the situation of head carpenter on

the Squire's estate.

These votes were unexpected; for, though Mark Fairfield had come to

Lansmere on purpose to support the Squire's brother, and though the

Avenals had been always stanch supporters of the Lansmere Blue interest,

yet a severe affliction (as to the nature of which, not desiring to

sadden the opening of my story, I am considerately silent) had befallen

both these persons, and they had left the town on the very day after

Lord L'Estrange and Mr. Egerton had quitted Lansmere Park.

Whatever might have been the gratification of the Squire, as a canvasser

and a brother, at Mr. Egerton's triumph, it was much damped when, on

leaving the dinner given in honor of the victory, at the Lansmere Arms,

and about, with no steady step, to enter the carriage which was to

convey him to his Lordship's house, a letter was put into his hands by

one of the gentleman who had accompanied the Captain to the scene of

action; and the perusal of that letter, and a few whispered words from

the bearer thereof, sent the Squire back to Mrs. Hazeldean a much

soberer man than she had ventured to hope for. The fact was, that on the

day of nomination, the Captain having honored Mr. Hazeldean with many

poetical and figurative appellations--such as "Prize Ox," "Tony

Lumpkin," "Blood-sucking Vampyre," and "Brotherly Warming-Pan," the

Squire had retorted by a joke upon "Salt Water Jack;" and the Captain,

who, like all satirists, was extremely susceptible and thin-skinned,

could not consent to be called "Salt Water Jack" by a "Prize Ox" and a

"Blood-sucking Vampyre." The letter, therefore, now conveyed to Mr.

Hazeldean by a gentleman, who, being from the Sister Country, was deemed

the most fitting accomplice in the honorable destruction of a brother

mortal, contained nothing more nor less than an invitation to single

combat; and the bearer thereof, with the suave politeness enjoined by

etiquette on such well-bred homicidal occasions, suggested the

expediency of appointing the place of meeting in the neighborhood of

London, in order to prevent interference from the suspicious authorities

of Lansmere.

The natives of some countries--the warlike French in particular--think

little of that formal operation which goes by the name of DUELLING.

Indeed, they seem rather to like it than otherwise. But there is nothing

your thorough-paced Englishman--a Hazeldean of Hazeldean--considers

with more repugnance and aversion, than that same cold-blooded

ceremonial. It is not within the range of an Englishman's ordinary

habits of thinking. He prefers going to law--a much more destructive

proceeding of the two. Nevertheless, if an Englishman must fight, why,

he will fight. He says "it is very foolish;" he is sure "it is most

unchristian-like;" he agrees with all that Philosopher, Preacher, and

Press have laid down on the subject; but he makes his will, says his

prayers, and goes out, like a heathen!

It never, therefore, occurred to the Squire to show the white feather

upon this unpleasant occasion. The next day, feigning excuse to attend

the sale of a hunting stud at Tattersall's, he ruefully went up to

London, after taking a peculiarly affectionate leave of his wife.

Indeed, the Squire felt convinced that he should never return home

except in a coffin. "It stands to reason," said he, to himself, "that a

man, who has been actually paid by the King's Government for shooting

people ever since he was a little boy in a midshipman's jacket, must be

a dead hand at the job. I should not mind if it was with double-barreled

Mantons and small shot; but ball and pistol! they aren't human nor

sportsmanlike!" However, the Squire, after settling his worldly affairs,

and hunting up an old College friend, who undertook to be his second,

proceeded to a sequestered corner of Wimbledon Common, and planted

himself, not sideways, as one ought to do in such encounters (the which

posture the Squire swore was an unmanly way of shirking), but full front

to the mouth of his adversary's pistol, with such sturdy composure, that

Captain Dashmore, who, though an excellent shot, was at bottom as

good-natured a fellow as ever lived, testified his admiration by letting

off his gallant opponent with a ball in the fleshy part of his shoulder;

after which he declared himself perfectly satisfied. The parties then

shook hands, mutual apologies were exchanged, and the Squire, much to

his astonishment to find himself still alive, was conveyed to Limmer's

Hotel, where, after a considerable amount of anguish, the ball was

extracted, and the wound healed. Now it was all over, the Squire felt

very much raised in his own conceit; and, when he was in a humor more

than ordinarily fierce, that perilous event became a favorite allusion

with him.

He considered, moreover, that his brother had incurred at his hand the

most lasting obligations; and that, having procured Audley's return to

Parliament, and defended his interests at the risk of his own life, he

had an absolute right to dictate to that gentleman how to vote--upon all

matters at least connected with the landed interest. And when, not very

long after Audley took his seat in Parliament (which he did not do for

some months), he thought proper both to vote and to speak in a manner

wholly belying the promises the Squire had made on his behalf, Mr.

Hazeldean wrote him such a trimmer, that it could not but produce an

unconciliatory reply. Shortly afterward, the Squire's exasperation

reached the culminating point, for, having to pass through Lansmere on a

market-day, he was hooted by the very farmers whom he had induced to

vote for his brother; and, justly imputing the disgrace to Audley, he

never heard the name of that traitor to the land mentioned, without a

heightened color and an indignant expletive. Monsieur de Ruqueville--who

was the greatest wit of his day--had, like the Squire, a half-brother,

with whom he was not on the best of terms, and of whom he always spoke

as his "_frère de loin_." Audley Egerton was thus Squire Hazeldean's

"_distant brother_!"--Enough of these explanatory antecedents--let us

return to the Stocks.