We mourned with sighs your mistress's decline,
You half indulged the fond imagination,
That what seemed death was but her _emigration_.
Perhaps, quoth you, and 'twas a bold 'perhaps,'
Ere many years of exile shall elapse,
The wand'ring maid may find in foreign lands
More loving hearts and hospitable hands.
Perchance her feet, with furry buskins graced,
May shuddering walk the cold Canadian waste,
And rest contented with a bleak repose
In shrubless climes of never-thawing snows.
Yes, in those woods that gird the northern lakes,
Pathless as yet, and wild with shaggy brakes,
Or in the rank savannahs of the south,
Or sea-like prairies near Missouri's mouth,
Fate may conduct her to some sacred spot,
Where to resume her sceptre and to--squat.
Some happier settlement and simpler race,
Where, though her worship lack its ancient grace,
New days may dawn, like those of royal BESS,
And every stream a Stratford shall possess;
Where, though in marshes resonant with frogs,
And rudely housed in temples built of logs,
The nymph, regenerate in her classic robe,
May see revived the 'Fortune' and the 'Globe.'
Such was the dream your fancy dared to mould
Of what yourself had witnessed here of old;
When with your twins--your FANNY and your fame--
Among our cousins of the west you came;
But you mistook a momentary fashion
For a deep-seated and enduring passion:
Now to your own a friend's experience add,
And judge what grounds your glorious vision had.
Beyond that Cape which mortals christen Cod,
Where drifted sand-heaps choke the scanty sod,
Round the rough shore a crooked city clings,
Sworn foe to queens, it seems, as well as kings.
On three steep hills it soars, as Rome on seven,
To claim a near relationship with heaven.
Fit home for saints! the very name it bears
A kind of sacred origin declares;
Ta'en, as I find by hunting records o'er,
From one BOTOLFO, canonized of yore,[5]
Whom bards have left nor epitaph nor verse on,
Though in his day, sans doubt, a decent person:
This town, in olden times of stake and flame,
A famous nest of Puritans became;
Sad, rigid souls, who hated as they ought
The carnal arms wherewith the Devil fought;
Dancing and dicing, music, and whate'er
Spreads for humanity the hell-born snare.
Stage-plays especially their hearts abhorred,
Holding the Muses hateful to the Lord,
Save when old STERNHOLD and his brother bard
Oped their hoarse throats and strained an anthem hard.
[5] The name of Boston, in Lincolnshire, is said to be derived
from ST. BOTOLPH--quasi BOTOLPH'S town.
From that angelic race of perfect men,
(Sure seraphs never trod the world 'till then,)
Descends the race to whom the sway is given
Of the world's morals by confiding Heaven.
These of each virtue know the market price,
And shrewdly count the cost of every vice;
So, to their prudent adage faithful still,
Are honest more from policy than will.
As if with heaven a bargain they had made
To practise goodness and to be well paid.
They too, devoutly as their fathers did,
Sin, sack, and sugar equally forbid;
Holding each hour unpardonably spent
Which on the ledger leaves no monument;
While oft they read, with small but pious wit,
Th' inscription o'er the play-house portals writ,
In a bad sense--'_The entrance to the Pit._'
Among this godly tribe it was my fate
To view a triumph they enjoyed of late,
Which, lest the chroniclers who come hereafter
Omit, and cheat our children of their laughter,
I, a DAGUERRE-like sketcher of the time,
Will faintly shadow as I can in rhyme.
Once these Botolphians, when their boards you trod,
Received you almost as a demi-god;
Rushed to the teeming rows in frantic swarms,
And rained applauses not in showers but storms.
But should you now their fickle welcome ask,
Faint shouts would greet the veteran of the mask;
And ah! what anguish would it be to search
For your old play-house in a bastard church!
To find the dome wherein your hour you strutted,
Altered and maimed and circumcised and gutted;
Become in truth, all metaphor to drop,
A mongrel thing--half chapel and half shop.
Long had the augur and the priest foretold
The sad reverse they doomed it to behold;
Long had the school-boy, as he passed it by,
And maiden viewed it with presaging eye;
Oft had the wealthy deacon with a frown
Glared on the pile he longed to batter down,
And reckoned oft, with sanctimonious air,
What rents 'twould fetch if purified with prayer;[6]
While through the green-room whispered rumors went,
That heaven and earth were on its ruin bent.
[6] At the late opening of the 'Tremont Temple' in Boston, the
new proprietors chanted what they called a 'Purification
Hymn,' of which we give one stanza:
'Satan has here held empire long--
A blighting curse, a cruel reign;
By mimic scenes, and mirth and song
Alluring souls to endless pain!'
Too just a fear! The vision long foreseen
Has come at last; behold the fallen queen!
The queen of passion, stripped of all her pride,
Discrowned, indignant from her temple glide.
With draggling robe, slip-shod, her buskin loose,
She flies a barren people's cold abuse;
Summons her sister, who forbears to smile,
And leaves to rats the desecrated pile,
Which dogs and nags already had begun,
Unless by blows and hunger driv'n, to shun:
For well-bred curs and steeds genteel contemn
A stage which Taste had sunk too low for them;
Whereon the town had seen, without remorse,
A herd of bisons and a hairless horse!
Behind the two chief mourners of the band
A sad procession followed, hand in hand;
Heroes un-heroed, most unknightly knights,
Wand-broken fairies, disenchanted sprites;
Dukes no more ducal, even on the bill,
Milk-livered murd'rers too ill-fed to kill;
Mild-looking demons that a babe might daunt,
Witches and ghosts most naturally gaunt;
Lovers made pale by keener pangs than love's,
Unspangled princesses with greasy gloves;
Wits very witless--grave comedians mute,
And silent sons of violin and flute.
After these down-look'd leaders of the show,
Who creep like Trajan's Dacians, wan and slow,
Comes a long train of underlings that bear
Imperial robes that kings no more may wear;
With truncheons, helmets, thunder-bolts and casks
Of snow and lightning--bucklers, foils and masks.
As tow'rd the steep of Capitolian Jove
When chiefs victorious through the rabble strove,
With all their conquests in their trophies told,
And every battle mark'd with plundered gold;
When the whole glory of the war rolled by,
And gaping Rome seemed all one mighty eye,
Behind the living captives came the dead,
Poor noseless gods, and some without a head,
With pictures, ivory images and plumes,
And priceless tapestry from palace-looms;
Ev'n such, although Night's alchymy no more
The crinkling tinsel turns to precious ore,
Appears the pomp of this discarded race,
As heaped with spoil they quit their ancient place,
Bearing their Lares with them as they go--
Two dusty statues and a bust or so;
With mail which once a Harry Fifth had on,
Triumphal cars with all the triumph gone;
Goblets of tin mixed up with Yorick's bones,
Bags made of togas--barrows formed of thrones,
Whereon the majesty of Denmark sat;
Fie! Juliet's petticoats in Wolsey's hat!
Swords hacked at Bosworth, fasces, guns and spears
Rusted with blood before, and now with tears.
Enough of this: kind prompter, touch the bell!
Children of mirth and midnight, fare ye well!
The vision melts away, the motley crowd
Is veiled by Prospero in a passing cloud;
Like his dissolving pageantry they fade,
The vap'ry stuff whereof our dreams are made;
No more malignant winter to beguile,
Nor start the virgin's tear, the judge's smile;
Save when some annalist, like me, recalls
The ancient fame of those degraded walls;
Or till an age less hateful to the Muse
To their old shape restore the anxious pews.
T. W. P.
LETTER FROM JAMES JESSAMINE.
TO THE EDITOR OF THE KNICKERBOCKER.
SIR: It has not been until after much reflection on my own part, and I
must say, very civil encouragement on that of my friend MR. JOHN WATERS,
whose acquaintance I have chanced upon some months back, that I have
determined to venture, either in the form of an advértisement extra, or
possibly by your very polite admission of this self-introductory letter
into your fashionable pages, to submit to the view of the more refined and
intellectual part of the society of the Atlantic cities and particularly
to that of New York, the peculiar claim that I conceive myself to possess
upon their consideration and regard.
I have been hitherto deterred from taking this decisive step, as well by
the very disturbed and almost turbulent state, which, since my arrival in
this country, appears to have characterized its monetary concerns--alas!
my dear Sir, those horrid yet necessary evils and grievances of life!--as
by some expectations I had cause to entertain soon after I set foot upon
your hospitable shores, of the immediate death of a maiden aunt in
Cornwall, upon which incident, and her continued celibacy, depend very
much all my present reversionary hopes.
The health of the old lady being however at my latest intelligence
unexpectedly reinstated; the cotton crops coming forward as I understand
to good markets, and the wonderful discovery having been made of
converting western pork into sallad oil; the Tories being put down, and
the banks having entered into what some time ago seemed the _paulo post
futurum_ of specie payments; I desire to share in the general tide of
prosperity; I launch myself upon it at its flood, discard all reserve, and
shall descend at once without farther preface into the midst of what I
have to say.
I came out then some time ago _ostensibly_ to kill a trout or two in some
of your delicious streams; and indeed I may without presumption say en
passant that few professors of the Rod excel me either in the niceties of
my throw, the cool self-possession with which I take my fish, or the
indomitable perseverance and perfect tact with which I drown and then land
him with a single hair. I say _ostensibly_, for I have now no desire to
conceal from you the ulterior objects that I had in view of either making
a book to replenish my purse, or of establishing myself for life in this
your rising land of freedom and big crops.
I have had 'good luck to your fishing' sung to me more than once by most
sweet voices, and have realized it to my heart's content in the way of
trout; but this is all. Since I arrived in America there have been no less
than three travelling historians upon the ground, with whose energy of
conception, art of fabrication, facility of combination, capacity of
bitterness and established name, I could not enter the lists. And as for
matrimonial projects, foreigners seem to me to have no longer any hope of
success in consequence of the entire pre-occupation of this walk of life
by a regularly drilled and educated corps of young Americans, bred up
avowedly with no other pursuit; who talk, think, dream of nothing else
than fortune by marriage; and with a shrewdness and intelligence of
calculation that entirely distance the foreigner, (but which seem
wonderfully after the nuptials to forsake them _in stocks of another
description_,) know at a glance the value, expectations, hopes, and
dependencies of each young marriageable lady even before she comes out; so
that instead of being able to accomplish a purpose of this kind, I find it
quite as much as I can do to avoid falling in love beyond repeal with the
refinement, gentleness, grace, and untold sweetness that distinguish the
portionless beauties of New-York.
Indeed this class to which I have adverted of licensed fortune-hunters is
so numerous; the fortunes themselves except to the initiated are so
uncertain; and the entire want of that most useful profession, _les
courtiers de mariage_, is so grievous to all incidental visitors, that I
have often thought how admirable the arrangement would be, if the young
ladies were at once to adopt as a fashionable decoration some tasteful
head ornament, on which should be inscribed, in distinct but graceful
characters, some one of such legends as the following, which should
indicate the incontestible possessions of the wearer:
$30,000 State of New-York Fives.
My face is my fortune.
$200,000 Indiana State Bonds.
2 lots on Broadway, 4 in the Bowery and 1 on Union-Square.
Nothing but truth, discretion, intelligence and grace.
$60,000 Alabama Sterling Bonds.
The Tongues, and what you see.
$27,000 on indefeasible Bond and Mortgage.
A House and Shop in _Maiden-Lane_ with fixtures, and a careful
tenant at 1400 a year on lease three years unexpired.
Musick--four pianos done up since this time last year.
30,000 Pine trees and three saw-mills in Saint Lawrence county:
N. B., well situated!
A large Manufacturing Establishment with unbounded
Water-privileges, in Ulster.
Life and Trust--40 shares daily recovering.
The young gentlemen might wear appended to the third button-hole of the
left breast, epigrammatical notices of 'THE EXPECTATIONS' in which they so
generally abound, as follows:
Uncle Asa has the phthisick, I am his heir.
As I STAND, less my tailor's bill of $1800.
Plenty of LOTS, covered partly with water, partly with
parchment.
In full and successful business, owing only four times our
capital, due us five times, chiefly in Mississippi. Expect to
retire in two years and enjoy life.
Two-and-six-pence in my pocket, with great but indefinable
hopes.
A _promising_ young member of the Bar. Three suits;--[Symbol:
pointing hand] one of them in court. Grant me my fourth!
A young lady, whose nice tact and discriminating judgment are only
rivalled by her sweetness of disposition and exquisite personal
attractions, has divided the world of beaux into three generick classes:
1. The Rich who are afraid of us;
2. The Poor whom we are afraid of;
3. The Detrimentalists.
The plan I propose would aid manifestly in the due classification of all
assistants at a ball. It is not to be thought that the sex is governed by
any mercenary motive; but in the present organization of society a certain
degree of attention to the mode in which matrimonial establishments are to
be sustained is absolutely imperative.
Conceive then Mr. Editor how this explicit course would remove the
ordinary impediments on both sides. One single _tour de Valse_ and the
whole affair might be adjusted! The gentleman forsakes the lady's eyes and
fixes his own upon her tiara; she hers upon his eloquent button-hole.
During the slow movement they have deciphered the mottoes, have
ascertained, (no small desideratum in a crowded ball-room!) each the exact
value of his or her partner; they have arrived in thought, as far as mere
expediency goes, each at a decision; and are ready for question and answer
at the close of the accelerated step.
By the way, as the waltz is now conducted, the employment of the eyes
during the slow sentimental movement seems frequently to the lady a matter
of some degree of embarrassment; and the method I propose would
effectually remove any thing of the sort. There could be no want of an
object on which to rest them; no looking with a fixed gaze over the
partner's shoulder; no consulting of the cornice; no care-fraught
expression; no reluctant or displeased look, as if the lady would have
fain declined; no indeterminate thoughts, no indefinite sensations; no
languishment; and above all never more the portentous, the ominous look
which often in that entrancing dance exhibits to us the mysticism of the
Sybil, without one ray of her inspiration.
No; then would the lady look, read, decide, and dance the while. 'This
might do!'--then would she sparkle. 'Ah this would never do!'--then would
she become placid, tranquil, and complete her tour with contentment; for
as I think some one else has before me wisely observed, _the end of doubt
is the beginning of repose_. Then would the faces of the ladies generally
become vastly more attractive than at present during the enjoyment of the
waltz; for singular as may seem the remark, although I have assisted at
several New-York balls, I have met two countenances only throughout the
whole galaxy of beauty that, in dancing the Waltz, have indicated either
joy or undisturbed gratification: the one, is that of a little sylph-like
beam of pleasure, who might well carry upon her beautiful hair,
'unincumbered lots,' as her wedding-portion; who gains our hearts while
she laughs at us; and who, because I chance to be within half a score of
her father's years, threatens to call me her _vieux chéri_--while the name
of the other, if I dared write it, would recall the most tasteful and
fashionable costumes of France, with the sweetest poetry of Scotland.
But alas my master! I have gone prattling on without saying a word of my
own pretensions until my letter has gained such a length that I am forced
to defer them to another number, while I subscribe myself, dear Mr. Editor
of the KNICKERBOCKER,
Your most faithful servant,
JAMES JESSAMINE.
LOVE'S ELYSIUM.
TRANSLATED FROM THE GERMAN OF MATTHISSON BY WILLIAM PITT PALMER.
GROVE! embathed in peace celestial,
As in dew the rose's bowers,
Where Hesperia's golden fruitage
Ripens amid silver flowers;
Where a rosy-colored ether
Ever cloudless bends above,
Through whose calm abysses never
Breathed the sigh of slighted love.
PSYCHE, with a strange emotion,
Half enraptured, half dismayed,
Just escaped her earthly vesture,
Trembling greets thy glimmering shade:
Where, O joy! no misty mantle
Veils her primal purity;
And her immaterial pinions,
Like an angel's, wander free.
Ha! e'en now o'er paths of roses,
Glorious shape of light, she sweeps,
Tow'rd the shadow-peopled valley
Where the sacred Lethe sleeps;
Thither drawn by magic suasion,
As by gentle spirits led,
Fain she sees the silver billows,
And their flowery shores outspread.
Kneeling low with sweet foreboding
Griefs oblivious draught to taste,
Softly shines her trembling image
In that faithful mirror traced;
As from ocean's tranquil waters
Fair the cloudless moon outbeams,
Or from crystal stream reflected
Hesper's golden cresset gleams.
Not in vain she quaffs of Lethe;
For, anon, within the stream
Sinks the night-part of her being,
Like the phantom of a dream;
And from out the vale of shadows
Bright she soars on fearless wing,
To the hills whose golden blossoms
Smile in everlasting spring.
What an awe-inspiring silence!
Softer calm than zephyr breathes
Murmurs in the laurel foliage
And the amaranthine wreaths:
Thus in sacred stillness rested
Air and wave--in such repose
Slumbered nature, when from ocean
ANADYOMENE rose.
What an unaccustomed glory!
Earth! though fair Aurora be,
Never from her vernal features
Shone such magic light for thee:
Lo! the ivy's glossy tendrils
Bathed in purple lustre gleam,
And the flowers that crown each fountain
With a starry splendor beam!
Thus in silvan wilds the dawning,
When the modest Cynthia spied
From the skies her sleeping lover,
And descended to his side;
While the fields were bathed in brightness,
And in magic tones expressed,
Heavenly greetings murmured sweetly--
Hail, ENDYMION the blest!
GANGUERNET: OR, 'A CAPITAL JOKE.'
TRANSLATED FROM THE FRENCH BY JOHN HUNTER.
Mine is called Ganguernet: I say mine, for you have all had yours; every
one, at least once in his life-time, has met with one of those little fat,
ruddy, burly men, with straight close-cropped hair, low forehead, grey
eyes, broad nose, puffed-up cheeks, the neck between the shoulders, the
shoulders in the stomach, the stomach upon the legs; a sort of a Punch
figure, rolling, bawling, laughing, hallooing; one of those fellows who
come stealthily behind you, clap their hands on your head, and cry out
suddenly: 'Who's this?' Who pull away your chair at the moment you are
going to sit down; who snatch from you your handkerchief just when you
wish to use it; and who, on these occasions, when you look at them with an
angry air, answer you with a broad grin, and a stare of imperturbable
assurance: '_A capital joke!_'
You have had yours; and mine is named Ganguernet. My first acquaintance
with him was at Rheims. He was a complete adept in his profession, and as
a regular joke-player, master of all the tricks of his trade. Well skilled
was he in the art of attaching a piece of meat to the bell-rope of a
porter's lodge, so that all the wandering dogs about town would snap at
the tempting bait, and awaken the mystified domestics ten times a night.
Very expert was he also at cutting tradesmen's signs in two pieces, and
substituting one for another. On one occasion he took the sign of a
hair-dresser, cut it in two, and added the latter part to that of one of
my neighbours; so that it read as follows: _Monsieur Roblot lets out
carriages and false toupées, after the Paris fashion_.
But if M. Ganguernet was not the most agreeable companion in the city,
still less so was he in the country, where indeed his presence, to me at
least, was always a perfect nuisance. He knew how to scatter the hair,
adroitly clipped from a brush, between the sheets of a friend, so that the
victim, before he had been a quarter of an hour in bed, would become
furious with the itching. He would pierce the partition between two
sleeping apartments, so as to pass through it a piece of twine which he
had cunningly fastened to your bed-clothes, and then, when he found that
you were asleep, he would gently pull the string, until the covering was
all drawn down to your feet. You awake half-frozen, for Ganguernet always
chooses a cold damp night for this trick, draw up the covering, wrap
yourself carefully up, and very innocently resume your slumbers; then
Ganguernet, gently pulling his cord, again strips you naked; again you are
benumbed with cold; and when you begin to utter imprecations in the dark,
his detestable voice is heard bawling through the hole: 'What a capital
joke!'
Did Ganguernet chance to fall in with one of those simple-minded
individuals, whose countenances invite mystification, he would steal from
him during his sleep his coat and pantaloons, whose dimensions with needle
and thread he would contrive greatly to diminish. He would then awaken his
victim, begging him to dress himself as soon as possible, and join a
hunting-party. The unsuspecting subject of the joke, thus suddenly roused,
would try to put on his pantaloons, but could not get into them. 'Good
Heavens!' exclaims Ganguernet, with affected astonishment; 'why, what is
the matter, my dear Sir?--you are terribly swollen!' 'Am I?' 'You are
indeed, prodigiously!' 'Do you really mean it?' 'I may be mistaken, but
come dress yourself, and let us go down, and see what the others say.'
'But I cannot get on my clothes.'
'Ah! that's it, you are so puffed up. It must be a thundering attack of
the dropsy!'
And this would continue, the poor fellow, pale and trembling, in vain
endeavoring to get on his clothes, until the tormentor, with a hideous
chuckle, would come out with his famous sentence: 'Ha! ha! a capital
joke!'
There was one of his tricks which appeared to me to be truly abominable.
He played it upon a person reputed to be a brave man, but who was
nevertheless horribly frightened. One night, after getting snugly into
bed, this gentleman felt something cold and slimy along side of him, he
touched it with his foot; it seemed a round elongated body; he placed his
hand upon it; it was a serpent coiled upon itself! In an ecstacy of
terror, he leaped from the bed with a cry of disgust and horror, when
Ganguernet made his appearance, shaking his fat sides and roaring out:
'What a capital joke!' It was an eel-skin filled with water, that had
caused the panic. The enraged gentleman would have broken the head of the
joker, but Ganguernet throwing a pitcher of water over the sans-culotte
sufferer, made his escape, yelling out at the top of his voice: 'A capital
joke!--a capital joke!' The master of the house and his guests came
running in at the outcry, and with much difficulty succeeded in pacifying
the mystified individual; assuring him that Ganguernet, though fond of
fun, was in the main a charming good fellow, a pleasant boon companion,
and one without whom, especially in the country, it was impossible to
drive away ennui.
Our readers may perhaps think with us, that, on the contrary, this man was
one of those insufferable beings who are constantly intruding upon the
pleasures and comforts of others; like a dog in a game of nine-pins,
overturning with his paws all the arrangements of your joys and sorrows;
more insupportable, and more difficult to get rid of than the dog, they
lie in ambush to pounce upon you, and disconcert by a word or a trick the
feelings you may enjoy, or the projects you intend.