sex, not to have displayed some qualities less suited to the rigid
temper and habits of her spouse. She had not escaped censure for some
indications of worldly-mindedness, such as every good puritan was
in duty bound to set his heart and face against. But all the sober
teachings of a score of five-hour discourses could not eradicate
from the breast of woman the unfailing distinctions of her sex.
Faithful was in early youth, despite her rigid education, fond of
what her husband was wont to denominate worldly show. The cut of
her dress was apt to depart from some of the plain features of that
of her grand-mother, and accord itself with some of the later and
more gaudy fashions, worn by the less puritanical matrons of the
village; and Comfort was often fain to think there were more lively
colors in the ribbon with which she decked her bonnet, than comported
with the strictness of the principles which they had inherited. So,
too, he sometimes imagined his natural discernment had not failed
him in detecting a lack of heart in some of the services which were
maintained. Faithful had indeed professed her belief, that fatiguing
exertions, continued early and late during six days of the week,
formed ample excuse for nodding irregular measure to the drowsy god
during some of the services on the Sabbath.
But the good puritan was most alarmed at a foreboding that the tinge
of worldliness which affected the moral character of his wife, might
interfere with the course he should pursue to train up his children
in the nurture and admonition of the Lord. Perchance all these might
have passed unheeded in the presence of more striking fallings-off
within the limits that confined the earthly pilgrimage of the
puritan; but he was a restless being, and for want of others more
important, the trivial backslidings of his help-meet furnished ample
incentive to the wailing of spirit in which he so often indulged.
Eleven children--six sons and five daughters--blessed the union of
Comfort and Faithful Makepeace, and the expressive appellations which
they received, denoted well the vocabulary from which the names were
selected. Comfort, junior, Ezekiel, Hezekiah, Micah, Habakkuk, and
Preserved, told the males of the family, and those of the other sex
were distinguished by names of equal import; Patience, Hope, Faith,
Peace, and Charity. One after another, in regular succession, they
grew up, and with the labor of older days sought to repay the care
expended in their training. Their parents had entailed upon them no
feeble constitutions, and the rigid rules by which they were reared,
permitted of no such fashion of dress as should endanger the proper
harmony of the system. Though a connoisseur might have applied to
the features of the girls some more expressive epithet than that of
mere plainness, they boasted of ruddy cheeks, and sparkling eyes, and
healthful forms, that many a pale-looking belle might have envied.
Comfort had little faith in the teachings of later sages, who waged
war with the precepts of Solomon, and he felt no inclination to spoil
the child by spare use of the correcting rod. Many a puritanical
principle, that illy accorded with the free spirit of childhood, was
drummed into the characters of his progeny; and the same effective
engine was often put in requisition to check them from the commission
of some worldly action. One could not look upon that staid
household, from the iron-framed father down to the little tottering
urchin who, ex-officio, as youngest, claimed all the privileges of
pet, without comprehending at a glance the grave and rigid creed by
which its concerns were regulated.
The puritanism of Comfort Makepeace was not confined to the mere
matters of household regulations, or religious worship. It extended
to all his business transactions, and marked all the social relations
into which he was led. In the former, the most scrupulous honesty was
at all times professed, though there were those, such as had little
respect for the severity of his creed, who were ready to assert
that he had a conscience so nice as to distinguish between telling
a truth with intent to deceive, and absolute falsehood. A notorious
stickler for what he termed the right, he was always found ready to
drive a good bargain; and if report spoke truly, to overreach his
neighbor, where it might be done without a palpable infringement of
the rules of trade. In his neighborly intercourse, he ever preserved
the same sober demeanor, using no unnecessary language, rarely
indulging in a smile, and never in a decided laugh. Comfort could
not be called unneighborly, nor did he ever acquire the credit of
liberality. The poor went not away empty-handed, if copious meeds
of advice and exhortation counted or availed aught; and sometimes
they might rejoice in the gift of more substantial worldly aid. All
may have heard of the person who excused dry eyes at an affecting
charity discourse, by professing to belong to another parish; and
it might not have unfrequently happened, that those who appealed to
the benevolence of Comfort Makepeace, found him in a situation not
widely dissimilar. Certainly, the rigidity of his principles did not
permit him to associate with those who were denominated unsaintly,
any farther than was necessary in the transaction of his worldly
affairs. Yet Comfort lived too late in the world, to be wholly devoid
of generous feeling. Apparent distress seldom failed to moisten his
cheek with the tear of sympathy, or to touch him in that generally
less sensitive spot--the purse.
There was probably no point in his creed, upon which Comfort
insisted with more stubborn zeal, than that which poised the lance
against amusements. I have said that he was seldom seen to smile,
and never to indulge in a laugh outright. Every thing that was not
included in the stern duties laid down in his laws of morality, was
deemed frivolous and worldly, and meet to be discountenanced by all
straight-walking servants of the Lord. Of course, the ebullitions
of wit or humor were too strongly tinctured with the same unsaintly
character, to find favor in his eyes. The theatre was a sink of
pollution, and its extirpation he deemed an object worthy the prayers
of every good man; and as for the drama--if perchance it was alluded
to--he was wont to term it the distilled product of the devil's
brain. But of all, most resolutely had Comfort set his face against
dancing. It is doubtful if he esteemed the worship of the crucifix
itself, or any other heathenish form of prelatical reverence, a more
decided sin than the practice of promiscuous dancing. Despite his
reverence for his puritan ancestry, Comfort was apt to be in many
things a little peculiar, and in nothing more so than in his manner
of reasoning. All representations of witches and goblins, he said,
were agreed in their frisking and dancing; and it was certainly a
mild expression to say, that no good might arise from an exercise in
which the imps of deviltry were, from their very nature, accustomed
to indulge. But I will not attempt to follow the worthy old man
through all the reasonings of the prolix discourse which he used
so often to rehearse against the utter abomination of promiscuous
dancing.
Comfort Makepeace was not insensible to the rapid progress of
opinions and principles less rigid than those which he had inherited
from his pilgrim fathers. He mourned often and deeply over the
degeneracy of modern times, and grew more and more morose, as all
the world about him waxed more frivolous and worldly-minded. His
neighbors relaxed in the severity of the governing principles which
had been handed down to them, and the rising generation were still
more widely departing from the faith of their fathers. The land where
puritanism had bid fair to hold permanent sway, was fast relapsing
into grossest heresy, and the very evils, to escape from which his
revered ancestor fled from the land of his birth, were swallowing up
the whole people. Old men laughed and chatted, in familiar strains,
and the young obeyed the impulse of a buoyant spirit, in revelling
unchecked in the delights of social intercourse. Amusements the most
frivolous, nay impious, feasting, theatre-going, and dancing, were
creeping in apace, and leading frail human nature from her moorings.
Even his old and favorite expounder of the faith, who had led his
flock for half a century through the green pastures of righteousness,
was forced to retire before the alarming spirit of innovation and
worldliness. He had been superseded by a young man of airy habits,
who had studied the frivolous rules of empty declamation, and who
shortened, to a fearful degree, the length of his discourses; while
every other exercise of the holy Sabbath became impregnated with the
same spirit that was infecting the manners of the whole people. There
was no limit to the terrible doctrines that were destroying the land.
Comfort Makepeace groaned often and audibly, as he witnessed the
changes that had been for years going on around him. His neighbors,
despite the zealous appeals he made, were fast falling off from the
path of the faithful, and numbering themselves among the worldly
sects. Morning prayer no longer sent them forth to labor, and their
incoming from the field at night was no longer accompanied by the
same devotional exercise. Exhortations, those heavenly weapons,
were become less frequent; and even grace at meals was by very many
dispensed with altogether. One had gone so far as to treat slightly,
if not with absolute worldly ridicule, his respect for the holy
scriptures. 'Mr. Makepeace, why give your son so outlandish a name as
Habakkuk?' 'Outlandish! Why, neighbor, it is a name from scripture!'
'Pooh!' replied the worlding, 'and so is Beelzebub!' The old man
groaned from his inmost breast, but was silent.
But there were symptoms of falling off within the very household of
the faithful, that still more afflicted the worthy puritan. In face
of the solemn precepts that had been inculcated in long and frequent
lectures, his own children gave indications of imbibing the dangerous
sentiments which were abroad in the land. They were remiss in the
performance of their duties, and had even advanced to the commission
of deeds absolutely worldly. I have mentioned the conscientious
scruples of the old man on the subject of dancing. Comfort had been
accustomed to consider it as the quintessence of wickedness. What
then was his surprise, when three of his sons, in a single breath,
demanded of him his consent to their attendance upon a new-comer
in the village, who promised to instruct its youth in the very art
which he had so often had occasion to pronounce an utter abomination!
Comfort could scarce trust the evidence of his senses, until two
daughters appeared, and joined in the earnest petition. He then
clasped his hands, and sank back with a groan of intense agony, as if
yielding up his spirit. His children were alarmed at the strength of
his emotion; and though they could not give over entirely the project
which had produced it, the subject was not soon again mentioned in
his presence. But exhortations, made with all the sincerity and
fervor of a Luther or a Knox, were not sufficient to restrain his
progeny within the rigid bounds which he had established. He had not
been entirely mistaken in his forebodings of the worldliness with
which the temper and habits of his wife would taint the education
of his children. The five daughters grew up comely and fair to look
upon, and less than maternal feeling would have prompted to pride in
their healthful forms and handsome features. Nor was it womanly to
hold to faith in the maxim, that beauty unadorned is most adorned.
The father had often occasion to sigh over some newly-bought finery,
with which the Sunday dresses of the daughters would be set off;
and there were not unfrequently other decided indications of vanity
and fondness for show, meet for earnest exhortation and reproof.
It were an endless task to follow through half the mortifications
which Comfort experienced, from the turn which affairs were taking
throughout the land.
Comfort Makepeace was naturally gloomy, from his birth, and his
temperament had by no means grown lighter in his old age. He grew
daily more unhappy and austere, until the cloud on his brow became
settled and irremovable. The spirit of irreligion that was abroad,
and particularly the advances it had made within the circle of
his own family, were fast wearing upon his strength, and the iron
constitution which had resisted a thousand shocks, gave way to the
force of mental affliction.
Comfort Makepeace died lamented, and, as in a thousand other cases,
the deceased acquired more honor than the living had gained respect.
One, of his strongly-marked character, could hardly expect to
pass through life without experiencing the bitterness of enmity.
Yet his uncompromising independence and stern integrity won for
him a reverence among his fellow men, which few, devoid of those
qualities, ever receive. The confirmed austerity of his manners did
not permit him to enjoy the delights of friendship, or to appreciate
its value. The bigoted illiberality with which his religious
sentiments were marked, suited not the character of so late an age;
but the unimpeachable honesty of his faith insured it from obvious
disrespect. Long and loud were his dying lamentations over the faults
of the age, and not less particularly over the best hope that the
rites and observances of the puritans would be perpetuated in his own
family.
W. A. B.
MY MOTHER'S GRAVE.
'If e'er the blest to earth descend,
O come, my mother and my friend,
And GOD by thee will comfort send,
To cheer this gloom!
EPITAPH IN A COUNTRY CHURCH-YARD.
MY Mother! o'er thy lowly grave
The stormy winds may blow,
And spreading branches rudely wave,
Nor break thy rest below.
The bird that mounts on joyous wing,
To hail the rising day,
Though sweet the careless warbler sing,
Pours not for thee his lay!
The stranger, as with pensive eye,
He scans thy burial-stone,
May heave, perchance, a transient sigh
For sorrows of his own;
But few of all the friendly band
Who smiled thy face to see,
Untouched by the Destroyer's hand,
Remain to think of thee!
Yet often, mingling with the crowd
Who thronged yon house of prayer,
In humble posture thou hast bowed,
And loved to worship there.
The solemn notes of sacred lays
Which through those arches rung,
Once filled thy heart with grateful praise,
And trembled on thy tongue!
And oft thy sympathizing breast
The passing tribute gave,
As lightly on the turf thou pressed,
Which covers now thy grave!
I stood beside the hallowed ground,
That marks thy resting-place,
When rolling years had soothed the wound
Which Time can ne'er efface.
And scenes a mother's kindness wove,
When life and hope were new,
Bearing the record of her love,
Came rising to my view:
I thought on all thy tender care,
Thy nature sweet and mild,
Which used my little griefs to share,
And blessed me when a child.
Long, long within the silent tomb
Thy cherished form has laid,
And other woes have chased the gloom
That dark bereavement made;
Yet bright to Memory's fond survey
Each lineament appears,
As when it shed its living ray
On eyes undimmed by tears!
No more the buoyant hopes of youth
Their wonted joy impart,
And childhood's dream of changeless truth
Has ceased to warm my heart;
But while its languid pulses move,
Life's crimson tide to bear,
The sweet remembrance of thy love
Shall still be treasured there!
X.
LITERARY NOTICES.
LETTERS OF LUCIUS M. PISO, from Palmyra, to his Friend MARCUS
CURTIUS, at Rome. Now first Translated and Published. In two
volumes, 12mo. pp. 498. New-York: C. S. FRANCIS. Boston: JOSEPH
H. FRANCIS.
WE shall offer no apology, nor will our readers deem one necessary,
for devoting so large a portion of the review department of the
present number of this Magazine to an extended notice of the work
before us. The letters contained in the first volume have already
appeared in our pages; and the great and deserved popularity which
they have acquired, will insure eager readers for the remainder,
(the issue of which public opinion has hastened,) which advance in
interest to the very close of the work. The conception of the plan
is most felicitous--the execution masterly, beyond modern example.
The author seems, primarily, to have _saturated_ his mind with the
very spirit of the past. He has rolled back the tide of time, and
placed us in Palmyra, the magnificent capital of the East, and
caused all her glories to pass palpably before us, as if we were
gazing upon a moving panorama. Commencing with the first faint dawn
of the Christian faith, he infuses into the reader 'a soul of old
religion.' His characters are marked with great force; while a nice
verisimilitude of individual nature is combined with elegance of
fancy, and a richness of ideal coloring, wholly unsurpassed by any
kindred writer. The plot--if a succession of events converging to a
final point may be so denominated--is natural and unperplexed; while
the minor descriptive scenes, which are often interwoven, and the
inferior characters, are equally well sketched. Though fluctuating
between history and romance, the work no where fails to disguise
the presence of the latter. The reader is _with_ the characters and
_of_ them, from first to last, such is the author's happy freedom of
delineation, and the harmony and ease both of incident and style.
We proceed to justify our encomiums by liberal extracts, commencing
with a stirring picture, which our readers would readily recognise,
without consulting the _quis sculpsit_.
"I am just returned from a singular adventure. My hand trembles
as I write. I had laid down my pen, and gone forth upon my
Arab, accompanied by Milo, to refresh and invigorate my frame
after our late carousal--shall I term it?--at the palace. I
took my way, as I often do, to the Long Portico, that I might
again look upon its faultless beauty, and watch the changing
crowds. Turning from that, I then amused my vacant mind by
posting myself where I could overlook, as if I were indeed
the builder or superintendent, the laborers upon the column
of Aurelian. I became at length particularly interested in
the efforts of a huge elephant, who was employed in dragging
up to the foundations of the column, so that they might be
fastened to machines, to be then hoisted to their place,
enormous blocks of marble. He was a noble animal, and, as it
seemed to me, of far more than common size and strength. Yet
did not his utmost endeavor appear to satisfy the demands of
those who drove him, and who plied without mercy the barbed
scourges which they bore. His temper at length gave way. He
was chained to a mass of rock, which it was evidently beyond
his power to move. It required the united strength of two, at
least. But this was nothing to his inhuman masters. They ceased
not to urge him with cries and blows. One of them, at length,
transported by that insane fury which seizes the vulgar when
their will is not done by the brute creation, laid hold upon
a long lance, terminated with a sharp iron goad, long as my
sword, and rushing upon the beast, drove it into his hinder
part. At that very moment, the chariot of the Queen, containing
Zenobia herself, Julia, and the other princesses, came suddenly
against the column, on its way to the palace. I made every
possible sign to the charioteer to turn and fly. But it was
too late. The infuriated monster snapped the chains that held
him to the stone at a single bound, as the iron entered him,
and trampling to death one of his drivers, dashed forward to
wreak his vengeance upon the first object that should come in
his way. That, to the universal terror and distraction of the
gathered, but now scattered and flying crowds, was the chariot
of the Queen. Her mounted guards, at the first onset of the
maddened animal, put spurs to their horses, and by quick leaps
escaped. The horses attached to the chariot, springing forward
to do the same, urged by the lash of the charioteer, were met
by the elephant with straightened trunk and tail, who, in the
twinkling of an eye, wreathed his proboscis around the neck of
the first he encountered, and wrenching him from his harness,
whirled him aloft, and dashed him to the ground. This I saw was
the moment to save the life of the Queen, if it was indeed to
be saved. Snatching from a flying soldier his long spear, and
knowing well the temper of my horse, I put him to his speed,
and running upon the monster as he disengaged his trunk from
the crushed and dying Arabian for a new assault, I drove it
with unerring aim into his eye, and through that opening on
into the brain. He fell as if a bolt from heaven had struck
him. The terrified and struggling horses of the chariot were
secured by the now returning crowds, and the Queen with the
princesses relieved from the peril which was so imminent, and
had blanched with terror every cheek but Zenobia's. She had
stood the while--I was told--there being no exertion which she
could make--watching with eager and intense gaze my movements,
upon which she felt that their safety, perhaps their lives,
depended.
"It all passed in a moment. Soon as I drew out my spear
from the dying animal, the air was rent with the shouts of
the surrounding populace. Surely, at that moment I was the
greatest, at least the most unfortunate, man in Palmyra.
These approving shouts, but still more the few words uttered
by Zenobia and Julia, were more than recompense enough for
the small service I had performed; especially, however, the
invitation of the Queen:
"'But come, noble Piso, leave not the work half done: we need
now a protector for the remainder of the way. Ascend, if you
will do us such pleasure, and join us to the palace.'
"I needed no repeated urging, but taking the offered
seat--whereupon new acclamations went up from the now augmented
throngs--I was driven, as I conceived, in a sort of triumph to
the palace, where passing an hour, which, it seems to me, held
more than all the rest of my life, I have now returned to my
apartment, and relate what has happened for your entertainment.
You will not wonder that for many reasons my hand trembles, and
my letters are not formed with their accustomed exactness."
The reader would scarcely pardon an omission to record the return of
Calpurnius, the captive brother of the noble Piso, in whose fate he
must have become deeply interested. While at the palace, soon after
the adventure above recorded, the writer is interrupted by a confused
noise of running to and fro. Presently, some one with a quick, light
foot approaches:
"The quick, light foot by which I was disturbed, was Fausta's.
I knew it, and sprang to the door. She met me with her bright
and glowing countenance bursting with expression: 'Calpurnius!'
said she, 'your brother, is here'--and seizing my hand drew me
to the apartment, where he sat by the side of Gracchus--Isaac,
with his inseparable pack, standing near.