Produced by Joshua Hutchinson, Josephine Paolucci, and the
Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net.
(This file was produced from images generously made
available by Cornell University Digital Collections).
THE
INTERNATIONAL
MONTHLY
MAGAZINE
Of Literature, Science, and Art.
VOLUME V.
JANUARY TO APRIL, 1852.
NEW-YORK:
STRINGER & TOWNSEND, 222 BROADWAY.
FOR SALE BY ALL BOOKSELLERS.
BY THE NUMBER, 25 CTS; THE VOLUME $1; THE YEAR, $3.
ADVERTISEMENT.
The April number of the INTERNATIONAL MONTHLY MAGAZINE completes the
fifth volume, and the series. The Publishers respectfully announce to
its readers and the public, that from the issue of the present Volume,
the Magazine will be blended with _Harpers' Monthly Magazine_, and,
therefore, suspended as a distinct publication.
To the numerous subscribers to THE INTERNATIONAL MAGAZINE, the
Publishers beg to say, that each one will be served with HARPER'S
MAGAZINE to the end of his term; or, if preferred, furnished with any
other Magazine to the amount of his unexpired subscription.
The Publishers cannot take leave of the friends of the work, without
expressing in terms of thankfulness their sense of the extensive and
cordial support it has received during the period of its publication.
They are happy to know that its good qualities will be perpetuated in
the prosperous, admirable, and widely circulated periodical with which
it will hereafter be united.
NEW-YORK, _March 30_, 1852.
CONTENTS.
VOLUME V. JANUARY TO APRIL, 1852.
American War-Engines: Colt and Jennings. (Seven Engravings.) 33
Ariadne, the Story of.--_By Erastus W. Ellsworth_, 45
Annuaries: A Series of Poems.--_By Alice Carey_, 87
Autumn Leaves.--_By John R. Thompson_, 188
Aztecs, At the Society Library. (Engraving.) 289
Army Private, A Word About The. 315
Ashburner, Mr., in New-York.--_By Frank Manhattan, Jr._, 324
Author of the Fool of Quality, The. 460
Adventures of an Army Physician in New-York, 496
_Arts, The Fine._--Kaulbach's Last Works, 133.--The Publication of the
Works of Ingres, 133.--The Art-Unions, 277.--An Artist Sycophant in
Naples, 277.--Kugler's History of Art, 277.--Copies of Ancient Egyptian
Sculptures, 277.--Drawings by Schiller, 277.--Kaulbach, 277.--Greenough,
267.--Kaulbach's Cartoon of Homer, 424.--Gallaît's Last Moments of
Egmont, 424.--Monument to Metastasio, 424.--New England Art-Union,
Etching of Alston's "Witch of Endor," 425.--Drawing of the American
Art-Union, 425.--Philadelphia Art-Union, 425.
_Authors and Books._--Henry Heine turned Christian, 124.--Dr. Schmidt on
German Romanticism, 125.--German version of Firdusi, 125.--Bulau's
Secret History of Enigmatical Men, 125.--Historical Concert at Dresden,
125.--Leipzig Book Fair, 125.--History of Music, 125.--Works of Bach,
125.--Lachmann, the Philologist, 125.--German work on Jonathan Edwards,
125.--Dr. Andree's _Das Westland_, 126.--The Gotha Almanac, 126.--Fruits
of Humboldt's Kosmos, 126.--Auerbach's Village Stories, 126.--Religious
Novel by Storch, 126.--Schneider's House Chronicles, 126.--Mugge's new
Book, 126.--Wells's Middle Kingdom in German, 126.--Geograpica Italiæ,
126.--German History of the British Empire in India, 126.--Reverence In
Reviewing, 126.--Adolph Stahr, 126.--Countess Hahn-Hahn, 127.--Prince
Windischgratz's History of the Hungarian War, 127.--Menzel's new Novel,
127.--Miss Bremer on the World's Fair, 127.--Frederick the Great,
127.--Kohl's last Book of Travels, 127.--Shakspeare in Swedish,
127.--New History of German Literature, 127.--Listz's new Operas,
127.--Haddock's Somnolism and Psycheism, 127.--Gervinus on German
Poetry, 127.--Silvio Pellico, 127.--English Eclectic Magazine in
Tuscany, 127.--Gioberti on the Regeneration of Italy, 128.--The Israel
of the Alps, 128.--Christian Missions in China, 129.--New work on
Horticulture in Paris, 130.--Laurent's International Law,
130.--Alexander Dumas, 130.--Prudhon's last Absurdities, 130.--M.
Lefranc on the French Revolution, 131.--The Waverly Novels in France,
131.--The Photographic Album, 131.--Guizot's Moral Studies and
Meditations, 131.--F. Arago, 131.--M. Ott, on Socialism, 131.--M.
Reybaud, 131.--Lord Brougham, 131.--Hartzenbusch's Spanish Authors,
131.--The Grenville Papers and the new volumes of Lord Mabon's History
of England, 131.--Sir James Stephens's History of France, 132.--Mr.
Merrivale's History of the Romans, 132.--Memoirs of Dr. Chalmers,
132.--Alice Carey's Clovernook, Grace Greenwood's new volume of Tales
and Letters, and Miss Cheesebro's Dreamland by Daylight, 132.--Daniel
Webster, Mr. Bancroft, and Mr. Irving, on the Life of Washington,
132.--Baucher's Horsemanship, 132.--Heroes and Martyrs of the Missionary
Enterprise, 132.--Gutzkow's Ritter Vom Geiste, 268.--Henry Taylor
reviewed in the _Grenzboten_, 268.--Germany in the Revolutionary Period
of 1522, 268.--Reading Poems, 268.--German views of Carlyle's Life of
Sterling, 268.--Curious German work on Shakspeare, by Veshe, 269.--The
Gothic Runic Alphabet, 269.--Fac Simile of an Ancient copy of the
Gospels, 269.--German Historical Monuments, 269.--Hagberg's Swedish
version, of Shakspeare, 269.--German version of Dunlap's History of
Fiction, 269.--The Vagabonds, by Holtei, 269.--New German Poems,
269.--Richers on Nature and Spirit, 270.--German Domestic Legends,
270.--Fecknor's Zend Avista, 270.--Rappert's Negromancer Virgilius,
270.--German Temperance Tales, 270.--Nichl on Civil Society,
270.--Correspondence of Goethe and Knebel, 270.--New Collection of
Eastern MSS. at Berlin, 270.--German versions of Longfellow, Dr. Mayo,
and Bunyan, 270.--Recent German Historical Literature, 271.--German
Booksellers, 271.--Wholesale system of acquiring Languages, 271.--Adolf
Stahr's Prussian Revolution, 271.--Schleisenger's Wanderings through
London, 271.--Arabic MS. of Euclid, 271.--New work by Baron Eötvös,
271.--Wagner's Journey to Persia, 271.--Continuation of Humboldt's
Kosmos, 271.--German work on Kossuth, 271.--Cheever's Sandwich Islands,
in German, 271.--Silvio Pellico, 271.--Clemens Brentano, 271.--New Books
on Scandinavia, 272.--The Widow of Weber, 272.--Professor Nuytz,
272.--Maria Monk in Germany, 272.--Works of Kepler, 272.--Works
Prohibited in Russia, 272.--Liebeck, on Landscape Gardening,
272.--Cotta's new edition of Faust, 272.--Writings of Spalatin,
272.--Scientific Works from China, 272.--Biot's Translation of an
Ancient Chinese History, 273.--The Library of Cardinal Mezzofanti,
273.--Michelet, 273.--Nicolas and Ritter, 273.--Works of Paganini,
274.--Philarete Chasles on American Literature, 274.--Lafuente's History
of Spain, 274.--New Paris edition of Fenimore Cooper, 274.--Guizot on
Shakspeare, 274.--Paris by a Hungarian, 274.--Villegos, the Spanish
Historian, 274.--Tranion on Land Tenure, 274.--Lady Bulwer's New Novel,
274.--New Works on French History, 275.--Count Joseph de Maistro,
275.--Don Antonio Saco, on Cuba, 275.--New edition of Turner's Anglo
Saxons, 275.--John Howard Hinton on the Voluntary Principle in America,
275.--New Discussions as to Junius, 275.--Smith's Natural History of the
Human Species, 275.--Bonynge's Wealth of America, 276.--The Past and
it's Legacies, by J. D. Nourse, 276.--Head's Bundle of French Sticks,
276.--Legends of Alexander in the East, 414.--Hofner, on Dresses of
Christians, in the Middle Ages, 414.--German Version of Popular
Nomenclature of American Plants, 414.--German Works on History,
414.--Count Von Hugel on India, 414.--Von Rommer's Historical Pocket
Book, 415.--The Art Journal, 415.--Beeker's Roman Antiquities,
415.--Ennemoser's Inquiries Respecting the Human Soul, 415.--New
Edition of Brackhaus's Lexikon, 415.--Sources of Popular German Songs,
415.--Saupe's Schiller and his Paternal House, 416.--German Military
Books, 416.--Thirtieth Volume of the Library of Collected German
Literature, 416.--Biography of Karl Lachmann, 416.--History of German
Literature, 416.--Ludwig Kossuth, 416.--Behse's History of the Austrian
Court, 416.--Forty Questions addressed to Mahomet, by the Jews,
416.--Böckh's Political Economy of the Athenians, 416.--Hettner's
Æsthetic Inquiries into the Modern Drama, 416.--Lepsius on Egyptian
Theology, 417.--History of the Russian Empire, 417.--Bavarian
Traditions. 417.--S. Didung, 417.--Zahn's Pompeii, 417.--Miss Bremer's
American Homes, 417.--A German Wandering Jew, 417.--Mittermaier on
American Systems of Punishment, 417.--History of Costumes, 417.--Amyot
and the Old French Translators, 417.--Silvio Pellico's Works in France,
417.--History of the Bastile, 418.--Count Montalembert, 418.--Greek
Professorship of Edinburgh, 418.--Dr. Smith's Pilgrimage to Palestine,
418.--Turkish Grammar, 418.--Bulwer's Poems, 418.--Lady Bulwer's Letters
to the Morning Post, 418.--Memoir of Lord Jeffrey, 418.--New Candidate
for the authorship of Junius, 419.--Unpublished papers of Torquato
Tasso, 419.--Bancroft's History, 419.--Palfrey's Jewish Scriptures and
Antiquities, 420.--Howadji in Syria, 420.--The History of Classical
Literature by R. W. Browne, 420.--Thompson's Literature of the Southern
States, 420.--Poems of Winthrop Mackworth Praed, 420.--New Book by G. W.
Curtis, 420.--R. H. Stoddard, 420.--Schopenhauer's "Little Philosophical
Writings," 549.--Wachsmuth's History of Civilization, 550.--German
Theology, 550. Wagner's Journey to Persia, 550.--Roman Catholic
Missions, 551.--Professor Brandes on the Mormons, 551.--Constitutions of
the Country Towns in Saxony, 551.--Gottleib Fichte's Ethics,
551.--Memoirs Of the Margravine of Bayreuth, 552.--Fannbacher's
Recollections of Greece, &c., 552.--Remains of Klaproth, 552.--Daumer's
Poems, 552.--Gutzkow's Bitter vom Geiste, 552.--New Scandinavian
Literature, 553. Philology and Politics In Denmark, 553.--Poems of
Annete Von Droste, 553.--Jahn on Beethoven, 553. German Version of
Byron, 553.--Wagner on the Opera and Drama. 553.--Record of Books on
Goethe and Schiller, 553.--German Translations of English Ballads,
553.--New Additions to the Index Expurgatorius, 553.--Hettner's Modern
Drama, 553.--Layard In German, 553.--The Tubingen Theological Quarterly,
554.--George Stephens in Sweden, 554. Eugene Sue, 554.--Villefort,
554.--New Book by Houissaye, 554.--Louis Blanc's New Volume on the
French Revolution, 554.--Edmund Texier on Paris, 554.--The Catacombs of
Rome, 554.--The Shelley Forgeries, 555.--Discovery of a corrected Text
of Shakspeare, 555.--Sir James Stephen, 555.--Miss Vandenhoff's Play,
555.--Mr. Carlyle, 555.--Mrs. Robinson and William Hazlitt,
556.--Literary Men in the English Cabinet, 556.--Life in Bombay and the
Neighboring Nations, 556.--Philarete Chasles on American Literature,
556.--The Standard Speaker, by Epes Sargent, 557.--Memoirs of Margaret
Fulier, 558.--Bayard Taylor in Africa, 558.--Works by American Women In
Press, 558.--Dr. Dunglison's Medical Dictionary, 559.--Illustrated
Edition of General Morris's Poems, 559.--Books on Austria and Hungary,
by Mr. Brace, and Mr. Stiles, 559. Foreign Versions of Ticknor's Spanish
Literature, 559.--Arvine's Anecdotes, 559.--Dr. Gardner's Tractate on
Female Physicians, 559.--Mrs. Conant's Translation of Neander on James,
559.--New Volume of Poems by Boker, 559.--Professor Stuart's Last
Commentary, 559.
Bull Fight at Madrid.--_By the Author of "The Castilian"_, 222
Brooding-Places on the Falkland Islands.--_From the German_, 45
Bancroft's History of the American Revolution, 461
Colonial Churches in Virginia: St. John's Church, Hampton.--_By Rev.
John C. M'Cabe._ (Three Engravings, after original Drawings, by Rev.
Louis P. Clover.) 39
Cicero, A New Portrait of, 162
Columbus at the Gates of Genoa.--_By the Author of
"Nile Notes of a Howadji"_, 182
Camargo, Mademoiselle De, 282
Chatsworth, A Day At (Thirteen Engravings.) 291
Cats, A Chapter On, 372
Cagliostro, the Magician.--_By Charles Wyllis Elliott_, 452
Choice Secrets, 546
Dark Deed of Days Gone By, 110
Divination, Witchcraft, and Mesmerism, 198
_Deaths, Recent._--Dr. De Kay and Dr. Manley, 140.--Sovigny, the
Naturalist, 140.--The late King of Hanover, 141.--Chevalier Levy,
141.--Augusta Byron (Mrs. Leigh), 142.--General Merchant, 142.--Matthias
Attwood, 142.--Cardinal d'Astes, 142.--Emir Pasha, 142.--Alexis de Saint
Priest, 142.--Joel R. Ponisett, LL.D., 281.--Moses Stuart D.D.,
282.--William Grimshaw, 282.--Marshal Soult, 283.--Karl Frederich
Runinhagen, 283.--Michael Sallantian, 283.--Dr. Graeffe, 283.--General
Kiel, 283.--Wilhelm Meinhold, 283.--J. W. M. Turner, 284.--Basil
Montagu, 286.--Admiral Henry G. Morris, 286.--Mr. Sapio, 286.--General
Jatrako, 284.--Presnitz, 287.--Professor Dunbar, 287.--Henry Luttrell,
287.--R. C. Taylor, 287.--Professor Franz, 287.--William Jacob, F.R.S.,
287.--Paul Burras, 287.--Dr. A. Sidney Doane, 427.--R. A. Davenport,
428.--Giovanni Berchet, 428.--Miss Berry, 428.--Louis Bertin Parant,
428.--Benjamin Laroche, 428.--Eugene Levesque, 428.--Thomas Williams,
428.--Baron Kemenyi, 429.--Herbert Rodwell, 429.--Sir Frederick
Phillipse Robinson, 430.--Rev. John Taylor Jones, 430.--Eliot Warburton,
430.--Frederick Ricci, 430.--Baron D'Ohson, 430.--Mrs. Harlowe,
431.--Acheson Maxwell, 431.--William Ware, 560.--John Frazee, 561.--Dr.
John Park, 561.--William Thompson, 561.--Robert Reinick, 562.--William
Henry Oxberry, 562. Rev. Christopher Anderson, 562.--Madame Thiers,
562.--Thomas Moore, 563.--Samuel Prout. 565.--Archbishop Murray,
565.--Bishop McNicholas, 565. Mr. Holcroft, 565.--M. Benchot,
565.--Professor Kollar, 566.--The Widow of Kotzbue, 566.--Baron
Krudener, 566.--M. de Martigny, 566.--M. Smitz, 566.--Bishop Eylert,
566.--Victor Falck, 566.
Epitaphs.--_By F. Lawrence_, 213
Edward Everett and Daniel Webster, 307
Elizabeth Barrett Browning and Miss Mitford, 310
Enemy of Virginia, The.--_By Dr. Smith_, 312
Election Row in New-York.--_By C. Astor Bristed_, 341
Emille De Coigny.--_By Richard B. Kimball._ (Illustrated
by Darley.); 444
Franklin, Grave of Sir John: Richardson's Journey, 30
Falls of the Bounding Deer.--_By Alfred B. Street_, 49
Fielding, Henry: The man and his Works, 71
Fashionable Forger, 118
Faust of Wittenburgh and Faust of Mentz, 172
Feathertop: A Moralized Legend.--_By Nathaniel Hawthorne_, 182, 333
Freedom of Thought, and the Latest Miracles, 186
French Missionaries in Tartary and Thibet, 850
Fete Days at St. Petersburg.--_By Alex. Dumas_, 508
Greece, Present State of the Ancient Monuments of (Thirteen Engravings.), 4
Good Old Times in Paris: A Tale of Robbers, 216
Gambling, Chapter On, 337
Ghosts, New Discoveries In, 381
Gentlemen's and Ladies' Fashions, (With Engravings.), 143, 287, 431, 566
Guizot and Montalembert, in the Academy, 523
Homes of Cowley and Fox, at Chertsey. (Thirteen Engravings,) 146
Happiness of Oysters, 311
Hungarian Popular Songs.--_By Charles G. Leland_, 332
Heirs of Randolph Abbey, 375, 400, 477
Historical Review of the Month, 163, 288
Hooker, Herman, and his Works. (Portrait), 442
Jackson, Flint--_By a Police Officer_, 74
Jewish Heroine: A Story of Tangier, 345
Kossuth, Louis. (Portraits of Kossuth and of his Family.), 1
Leopards: Zoological Notes and Anecdotes, 54
Legend of the East Neuk of Fife, 63
Lee, Jesse, and the Lawyers, 84
Love Song.--_By R. S. Chilton_, 188
Legend of the Weeping Chamber, 219
Leonora to Tasso.--_By Mary E. Hewitt_, 331
Lady and the Flower.--_By G. P. R. James_, 226
Lamb, The White.--_By R. H. Stoddard_, 411
Legend from the Spanish, A.--_By Mary E. Hewitt_, 451
Life in Canada.--_By Mrs. Moodie_, 470
My Novel--_By Sir Edward Bulwer Lytton_. (Continued.) 89, 239, 395, 530
Mahon's, Lord, History of the American Revolution, with Sketches of
Washington, Patrick Henry, Franklin, La Fayette, Horne Tooke, Wilkes,
Lord Thurlow, Burke, &c., 164
Men and Women of the Eighteenth Century, 300
Model Traveller: Frederick Gerstacker, 305
Mysterious History, Touching Apparitions, 306
Murder of La Tour, The.--_By W. H. Stiles_, 457
New-York Society, by the Last English Traveller, 443
Niebuhr, Barthold George, The Historian, 517
_Noctes Amicitiæ._--Ambitious Christenings, 134.--The Passport System,
134.--A Mayor's Proclamation, 134.--Ingenious way of Hiding a Secret,
134.--Last Days of Alexander Lee, 134.--Anecdotes of Elephants,
134.--Madame Kossuth on Woman's Rights, 135.--Story of an English Lord
in Paris, 135.--The Spectator on the sacrilege of Dramatists,
135.--Tipsey Drollery, 266.--Anthony Benezet and his Rats,
266.--Descartes and the Ladies, 266.--An American "Characteristic,"
266.--Broussais and Water Cure, 267.--Story of Tom Cooke, 267.--Odd
Statistics from Portugal, 267.--First Duel in New England, 267.--Ariosto
and Humbugs, 667.--Ole Bull, 267.
Opera, The.--_By Thomas Carlyle_, 29
Owen, John, at Oxford: A Biography, 80
Old Maid's First Love, 228
Pulszky, Francis, 122
Poems, Some Small.--_By R. H. Stoddard_, 174, 459
Punishment of Gina Montani, 189
Picture Advertising, in South America, 530
Reminiscences of Printers, Booksellers, Authors,
&c., in New-York--_By Dr. John W. Francis, LL.D._, 258
Reclaiming of the Angel--_By Alice Carey_, 311
Red Feather: An Indian Story.--_By I. McLellen_, 319
Robinson, John, The Pastor of the Pilgrims, 367
Rainbow Making: The Ribbon Factories, 511
Story of Dr. Lindhorst.--_By Richard B. Kimball_, 109
Soult, The late Marshal, Duke of Dalmatia. (Portrait.), 145
Story, Mr. Justice, With Reminiscent Reflections. _By A. Oakey Hall_, 175
Smiles and Tears.--_By Richard Coe_, 186
Song Queen, The.--_Written in a Concert Room, by James T, Fields_, 188
Story of Gasper Mendez.--_By Catherine Crowe_, 362
Simms, William Gilmore, LL.D. (With a Portrait.), 433
Sunset: A Sonnet.--_By R. S. Chilton_, 443
Some Small Poems.--_By R. H. Stoddard_, 459
Squier, Mr., in Nicaragua, 474
Sequel to the Jewish Heroine, 491
String of Proverbs, A. 502
_Scientific Discoveries and Proceedings of Learned Societies._--Papers
in the Paris Academy of Sciences, 139.--African Expeditions,
139.--Perpetual Motion, 139.--Grants of Parliament for Scientific
Purposes, 139.--Balloons in Ancient Nineveh, 139.--Invention for
Determining Distances, 140.--Interesting Experiments by Professor
Gorini, 140.--Count Castelnau's Paper on Men with Tails, 140.--Hatching
Turtles by Artificial Heat, 140.--Process for Contracting Fibres of
Calico, 280.--Memoir on the Production of Wool, 281.--European
Experiments in Electro-Magnetism, 281.--Curious Astronomical Fact
respecting Lalande, 281.--Mr. Squier's Address before the London Royal
Society of Literature on Mexican Hieroglyphics, 425.--Experiments in
Photography, 425.--French experiments in Electro-Magnetism applied to
Locomotives, 425.--Lord Brougham's Optical and Mathematical Inquiries,
425.--Mr. Lea's work on the Genus Unio, &c., 426.--Catlin's plan for a
Museum of Mankind, 426.--French Academy on Yellow Fever,
426.--Dissolution of the Royal Institute of the Netherlands,
426.--Society of Antiquaries at Copenhagen, 426.
Taylor and Stoddard, Poems of. (Portrait of R. H. Stoddard.), 13
Trangott Bromme's Views of America and Americans, 157
To Sundry Critics,--_By R. H. Stoddard_, 319
Threnodia,--_By Mrs. R. B. Kimball_, 323
The Palaces of Trade, (Six Engravings.), 435
Treatment of Gold and Gems, The. 524
Underground Territories of the United States. (Seven Engravings.), 17
Visit to the Fire Worshippers' Temple at Baku, 160
Vision of Charles the Twelfth, 196
Winter.--_By Alice Carey_, 28
Wits About the Throne of Louis the Fourteenth, 32
Wolf Gathering, 391
Warburton, Eliot, The Late, 459
THE INTERNATIONAL MAGAZINE
Of Literature, Art and Science.
Vol. V. NEW-YORK, JANUARY 1, 1852. No. 1.
[Illustration]
KOSSUTH.
On the preceding page is the best portrait we have seen of the
illustrious Hungarian, whose presence in America is destined to mark one
of the brightest pages in the history of Liberty. Of his personal
appearance we transcribe the description in the _Tribune_. He is taller
than had generally been supposed, and his face has an expression of
penetrating intellect which is not indicated in any portrait. It is
long, the forehead broad, but not excessively high, though a slight
baldness makes it seem so, and the chin narrow, but square in its form.
His hair is thin in front and of a dark brown, as is his beard, which is
quite long, but not very thick, and arranged with neatness and taste.
His moustache is heavy and rather long. His eyes are very large, and of
a light blue; his complexion is pale like that of a man who is not in
perfect health, and his appearance yesterday was that of the spirit
bearing up against the exhaustion of the body; he was sea-sick during
the passage, and had not slept for two or three nights. His manner in
speaking is at once incomparably dignified and graceful. Gestures more
admirable and effective, and a play of countenance more expressive and
magnetic, we remember in no other public speaker. He stands quite erect,
and does not bend forward like some orators, to give emphasis to a
sentence. His posture and appearance in repose are imposing, not only
from their essential grace and dignity, but from a sense of power they
impress upon the beholder. This sense of unused power, this certainty
that he is not making an effort and doing his utmost, but that behind
all this strength of fascination there are other treasures of strength,
other stores of ability not brought into use, possibly never brought
into use, is perhaps what constitutes the supreme charm of his oratory.
He speaks as if with little preparation, and with that peculiar
freshness which belongs to extemporaneous speaking; there is no effort
about it, and the wonderful compactness and art of his argument are not
felt until you reflect upon it afterward. His every movement is
perfectly easy, and he gesticulates much, equally well with either arm.
Nothing could be more beautiful in its way than the sweep of his right
hand, as it was raised to Heaven, when he spoke of the Deity--nothing
sweeter than the smile which at times mantles his face. His voice is not
very loud, but it was heard distinctly through the large pavilion. On
the whole our previous impression was perfectly confirmed by hearing
him. In speaking, Kossuth occasionally referred to notes which lay on
the stand before him. He was dressed after the Hungarian fashion, in a
black velvet tunic, single breasted, with standing collar and
transparent black buttons. He also wore an overcoat or sack of black
velvet with broad fur and loose sleeves. He wore light kid gloves.
Generally his English is fluent and distinct, with a marked foreign
accent, though at times this is not at all apparent. He speaks rather
slowly than otherwise, and occasionally hesitates for a word. His
command of the language, astonishing as it is in a foreigner, seems
rather the result of an utter abandonment to his thought, and a reliance
on that to express itself, than of an absolute command of the niceties
of the grammar and dictionary. He evidently has no fear of speaking
wrong, and so, as by inspiration, expresses himself often better even
than one to whom the language is native and familiar. Though he often
uses words with a foreign meaning, or a meaning different from that we
usually give them, he does not stop to correct himself, but goes on as
if there were no doubt that he would be perfectly apprehended.
The character of Kossuth has been very amply discussed in all the
journals both before and since his triumphal entry into New-York. The
judgment of the London _Examiner_ is the common judgment of at least the
Saxon race, that, while the extraordinary events of 1848 and 1849,
afforded the fairest opportunities for the advent of a great man, the
people who were ready for battle against oppression, were all stricken
down on account of the incapacity of their leaders--except in one
instance. The exception was in the case of Kossuth. And he was no new
man, but had been steadily building a great fame from his youth; had
labored in the humblest as well as highest offices of patriotism; and as
a thinker, a speaker, and a writer, had been before the public eye of
all Europe for years. He was born in 1806, at Monok, in Hungary, of
parents not rich, yet possessing land, and calling themselves noble. His
native district was a Protestant one, and in the pastor of that district
he found his first teacher. On their death, while he was still young,
more devoted to books than to farming, he was sent to the provincial
college, where he remained until eighteen years of age, and earned the
reputation of being the most able and promising youth of the district.
In 1826, he removed to the University of Pesth, where he came in contact
with the political influences and ideas of the time; and these, blending
with his own historic studies and youthful hopes, soon produced the
ardent, practical patriot, which the world has since seen in him.
According to the Constitution of Hungary, the _Comitats_ or electoral
body treated those elected to sit in the Diet more as delegates than as
deputies. They gave them precise instructions, and expected the members
not only to conform to them, but to send regular accounts of their
conduct to their constituents for due sanction, and with a view to fresh
instructions. This kind of communication was rather onerous for the
Hungarian country gentleman, and hence many of the deputies employed
such young men as Kossuth to transact their political business, and
conduct their correspondence. Acting in this capacity for many members
of the Diet, Kossuth came into intimate relations with the _comitats_,
and acquired skill in public affairs.
He was soon himself made a member, and from the first was distinguished
in the Diet as a speaker. Here he felt, and soon pointed out to his
colleagues, how idle and powerless were their debates unless these were
known to the public in some more efficient manner than by the private
correspondence of the deputies. Influenced by his representations, the
chief members of the Diet resolved to establish a journal for the
publication of their discussions; and Kossuth was selected as one of
those who were to preside over it; but the Archduke Palatine objected,
of course, because the object was to curtail the reports and garble
them. Kossuth, however, was enabled by the more liberal of his
colleagues to publish the reports on his own account. He then extended
the journal by the insertion of leading articles; and his counsels and
criticisms on the instructions of the _comitats_ to the deputies, so
stirred the bile and counteracted the views of the Austrian authorities,
that they interfered and suspended his newspaper by seizing his presses.
But, even this did not stop his pen, nor those of his many amanuenses;
until, at last, Metternich, exasperated by his obstinacy, caused him to
be seized and condemned to three years' imprisonment in the citadel of
Ofen. He was liberated in 1837; and during the years that elapsed
between that epoch and 1848 the history of Hungary was that of Kossuth,
who, amidst the many men of noble birth, wealth, high character, and
singular talents, who surrounded him, still held his ground, and shone
pre-eminent. In 1847 he was the acknowledged leader of the
constitutional party, and member for the Hungarian capital. It is
unnecessary to pursue this narrative. The events of 1848 and 1849 have
passed too recently and vividly before us to need relation. The part
that Kossuth played in those years was but the logical consequence of
his previous life. The struggle was for the rights of Hungary, in all
circumstances and against all foes. For these he fought along with the
Hungarian aristocracy, as long as they had the courage to resist
Austria; and when they wavered, he went on without them, appealing to
the _comitats_ and to the smaller landed proprietors in the absence of
the greater, and to the squires instead of the nobles.
[Illustration: THE WIFE AND CHILDREN OF KOSSUTH--FROM A RECENT
DAGUERREOTYPE.]
The result thus far we all know. The final result perhaps we in America
are to decide.
THE ANCIENT MONUMENTS OF GREECE.
[Illustration: THE ACROPOLIS.]
Every one can understand the regret with which we behold the remains of
ancient grandeur, and the capitals of buried empires. This feeling, so
profound in Jerusalem and Rome, is even more so in Athens,--
"the eye of Greece, mother of arts
And eloquence, native to famous wits,
Or hospitable--"
a city never so large as New-York, but whose inhabitants produced within
the short space of two centuries, reckoning from the battle of Marathon,
as Landor says, a larger number of exquisite models, in war, philosophy,
patriotism, oratory and poetry--in the semi-mechanical arts which
accompany or follow them, sculpture and painting--and in the first of
the mechanical, _architecture_, than the remainder of Europe in six
thousand years.
The monuments of antiquity which still exist in Athens have been
described by Chandler, Clarke, Gell, Stuart, Dodwell, Leake, and other
travellers, the most recent and competent of whom perhaps is Mr. Henry
Cook, of London, author of _Illustrations of a Tour in the Ionian
Islands, Greece, and Constantinople_, who has just made, or rather is
now making for the _Art-Journal_ a series of drawings of those which are
most important, representing them in their present condition. These
drawings by Mr. Cook, so far as they have appeared, we reproduce in the
_International_, making liberal use at the same time of his
descriptions.
Until the sacrilegious hand of the late Lord Elgin despoiled Athens of
"what Goth, and Turk, and Time had spared," the world could still see
enough to render possible a just impression of her old and chaste
magnificence. It is painful to reflect within how comparatively short a
period the chief injuries have been inflicted on such buildings as the
Parthenon, and the temple of Jupiter Olympus, and to remember how recent
is the greater part of the rubbish by which these edifices have been
choked up, mutilated, and concealed. Probably until within a very few
centuries, time had been, simply and alone, the "beautifier of the
dead," "adorner of the ruin," and, but for the vandalism of a few
barbarians, we might have gazed on the remains of former greatness
without an emotion except of admiration for the genius by which they
were created. The salient feature (probably the only one) in the present
rule at Athens is one which affords the highest satisfaction to those
interested in this subject. Slowly, indeed, and with an absence of all
energy, is going on the restoration of some, the disinterment of others,
and the conservation of all the existing monuments; and time will
probably ere long give us back, so far as is possible, all that the
vandalism or recklessness of modern ages has obscured or destroyed. On
the Acropolis the results of these efforts at restoration are chiefly
visible; day by day the debris of ruined fortifications, of Turkish
batteries, mosques, and magazines, are disappearing; every thing which
is not Pentelic marble finds its way over the steep sides of the
fortress, and in due time nothing will be left but the scattered
fragments which really belonged to the ancient temples. "The above
sketch," says Mr. Cook, "represents faithfully the present condition of
this most sublime creation. The details of the partial destruction of
this old fortress--founded 1556 years before the advent of the
Saviour--under the fire of the Venetians, commanded by Morosini, are so
well known, that I have thought it unnecessary to repeat them; but it
is impossible to recall them without a shudder, as the reflection is
forced on one, of what must have been their fate whose wickedness caused
an explosion which could scatter, as a horse's hoof may the sands of the
sea-shore, the giant masses which for ever bear witness to the power of
that mighty agent we have evoked from the earth for our mutual
destruction." At the west end of the Acropolis, by which alone it was
accessible, stood the Propylæa, its gate as well as its defence. Through
this gate the periodical processions of the Panathenaic jubilee were
wont to move, and the marks of chariot wheels are still visible on the
stone floor of its entrance. It was of the Doric order, and its right
wing was supported by six fluted columns, each five feet in diameter,
twenty-nine in height, and seven in their intercolumniation. Of the
Propylæa itself Mr. Cook gives no individual drawing, the only sketch he
had opportunity of making, being in its relation to the Acropolis
generally; "it will, however," he says, "serve in some degree to show
what has been done. Here perhaps the chief work has been accomplished;
all the now detached columns were built up with solid brickwork,
batteries were erected on the spot occupied by the Temple of 'Victory
without wings,' and on the square which answered to it on the opposite
side of the flight of marble steps; the whole of which were deeply
buried (not until they had severely suffered), beneath the ruins of the
fortification which crumbled away under the Venetian guns. These walls
have been removed, the batteries destroyed, and the material of which
they were composed taken away; the steps exhumed, and the five grand
entrances, by which the fortress was originally entered, opened,
although not yet rendered passable. It would be, I imagine, impossible
to conceive an approach more magnificent than this must have been. The
whole is on such a superb scale, the design, in its union of simplicity
and grandeur is so perfect, the material so exquisite, and the view
which one has from it of the Parthenon and the Erechtheum so beautiful,
that no interest less intense than that which belongs to these temples
would be sufficient to entice the stranger from its contemplation."
[Illustration: THE PARTHENON.]
On the right wing of the Propylæa stood the temple of Victory, and on
the left was a building decorated with paintings by the pencil of
Polygnotus, of which Pausanias has left us an account. In a part of the
wall still remaining there are fragments of excellent designs in
basso-relievo, representing the combat of the Athenians with the
Amazons; besides six columns, white as snow, and of the finest
architecture. Near the Propylæa stood the celebrated colossal statue of
Minerva, executed by Phidias after the battle of Marathon, the height of
which, including the pedestal, was sixty feet.
The chief glory of the Acropolis was the Parthenon, or temple of
Minerva. It was a peripteral octostyle, of the Doric order, with
seventeen columns on the sides, each six feet two inches in diameter at
the base, and thirty-four feet in height, elevated on three steps. Its
height, from the base of the pediments, was sixty-five feet, and the
dimensions of the area two hundred and thirty-three feet, by one hundred
and two. The eastern pediment was adorned with two groups of statues,
one of which represented the birth of Minerva, the other the contest of
Minerva with Neptune for the government of Athens. On the metopes was
sculptured the battle of the Centaurs with the Lapithæ; and the frieze
contained a representation of the Panathenaic festivals. Ictinus,
Callicrates, and Carpion, were the architects of this temple; Phidias
was the artist; and its entire cost has been estimated at seven million
and a half of dollars. Of this building, eight columns of the eastern
front and several of the lateral colonnades are still standing. Of the
frontispiece, which represented the contest of Neptune and Minerva,
nothing remains but the head of a sea-horse and the figures of two
women without heads. The combat of the Centaurs and Lapithæ is in better
preservation; but of the numerous statues with which this temple was
enriched, that of Adrian alone remains. The Parthenon, however,
dilapidated as it is, still retains an air of inexpressible grandeur and
sublimity; and it forms at once the highest point in Athens, and the
centre of the Acropolis.
[Illustration: THE ERECHTHEUM.]
To stand at the eastern wall of the Acropolis, and gaze on the
Parthenon, robed in the rich colors by which time has added an almost
voluptuous beauty to its perfect proportions--to behold between its
columns the blue mountains of the Morea, and the bluer seas of Egina and
Salamis, with acanthus-covered or icy-wedded fragments of majestic
friezes, and mighty capitals at your feet--the sky of Greece, flooded by
the gorgeous hues of sunset, above your head--Mr. Cook describes as one
of the highest enjoyments the world can offer to a man of taste. He is
opposed to the projects of its restoration, and says that, "to real
lovers of the picturesque, the Parthenon as it now stands--a ruin in
every sense of the term, its walls destroyed, its columns shivered, its
friezes scattered, its capitals half-buried by their own weight, but
clear of all else--is, if not a grander, assuredly a more impressive
object than when, in the palmiest days of Athenian glory, its marble,
pure as the unfallen snow, first met the rays of the morning sun, and
excited the reverential admiration of the assembled multitudes."
On the northeast side of the Parthenon stood the Erechtheum, a temple
dedicated to the joint worship of Neptune and Minerva. There are
considerable remains of this building, particularly those beautiful
female figures called Caryatides, which support, instead of columns,
three of the porticoes; besides three of the columns in the north
hexastyle with the roof over these last columns, the rest of the roof of
this graceful portico fell during the siege of Athens, in 1827. Lately,
much has been done in the way of excavation; the buried base of this
tripartite temple has been cleared; the walls, which had been built to
make it habitable, have been removed; the abducted Caryatid replaced by
a modern copy, the gift of Lord Guildford, and the whole prepared for a
projected restoration.
The Temple of Victory without wings, already mentioned is, with the
exception of the pavement, entirely a restoration; for nearly two
centuries all trace of it was lost, all mention omitted. In removing one
of the Turkish batteries, in order to clear the entrance to the
Propylæa, some fragments were found which led to a more minute
investigation; and, after a short time, the foundation, the pavement,
and even the bases of some of the columns were disinterred, making its
reconstruction not only very easy, but extremely satisfactory. It is
small, but of exquisite proportions, and now perfect, with the exception
of a portion of the frieze, which is in the British Museum. A
peculiarity of this temple is, that it stands at an angle slightly
differing from that of the Propylæa itself,--a fact for which, as it
clearly formed one of the chief ornaments to, and was certainly built
after, this noble portico, it is difficult to assign any very good
reason.
Such is an outline of the chief buildings of the Acropolis, which, in
its best days, had four distinct characters: being at once the fortress,
the sacred inclosure, the treasury, and the museum of art, of the
Athenian nation. It was an entire offering to the deity, unrivalled in
richness and splendor; it was the peerless gem of Greece, the glory and
the pride of genius, the wonder and envy of the world.
Beneath the southern wall of the Acropolis, near its extremity, was
situated the Athenian or Dionysiac theatre. Its seats, rising one above
another, were cut of the sloping rock. Of these, only the two highest
rows are now visible, the rest being concealed by an accumulation of
soil, the removal of which would probably bring to light the whole shell
of the theatre. Plato affirms it was capable of containing thirty
thousand persons. It contained statues of all the great tragic and comic
poets, the most conspicuous of which were naturally those of Æschylus,
Sophocles, and Euripides, among the former, and those of Aristophanes
and Menander among the latter. On the southwest side of the Acropolis is
the site of the Odeum, or musical theatre of Herodes Atticus, named by
him the theatre of Regilla, in honor of his wife. On the northeast side
of the Acropolis stood the Prytaneum, where citizens who had rendered
services to the state were maintained at the public expense. Extending
southwards from the site of the Prytaneum, ran the street to which
Pausanias gave the name of Tripods, from its containing a number of
small temples or edifices crowned with tripods, to commemorate the
triumphs gained by the Choragi in the theatre of Bacchus. Opposite to
the west end of the Acropolis is the Areopagus, or hill of Mars, on the
eastern extremity of which was situated the celebrated court of the
Areopagus. This point is reached by means of sixteen stone steps cut in
the rock, immediately above which is a bench of stone, forming three
sides of a quadrangle, like a triclinium, generally supposed to have
been the tribunal. The ruins of a small chapel consecrated to St.
Dionysius the Areopagite, and commemorating his conversion by St. Paul,
are here visible. About a quarter of a mile southwest from the centre of
the Areopagus stands Pnyx, the place provided for the public assemblies
at Athens in its palmy days. The steps by which the speaker mounted the
rostrum, and a tier of three seats hewn in the solid rock for the
audience, are still visible. This is perhaps the most interesting spot
in Athens to the lovers of Grecian genius, being associated with the
renown of Demosthenes, and the other famed Athenian orators,
"whose resistless eloquence
Wielded at will that fierce democratie,
Shook the arsenal and fulmined over Greece,
To Macedon, and Artaxerxes' throne."
[Illustration: THE ARCH OF HADRIAN.]
Descending the Acropolis, the eye is at once arrested by the magnificent
remains of the temple of Jupiter Olympus, and by the Arch of Hadrian.
Whether from its proximity to the gorgeous monument first named, or that
it is intrinsically deficient in that species of merit which appeals
directly to the senses, the Arch of Hadrian attracts comparatively
little notice. It is, however, a highly interesting monument, bearing
unmistakable marks of the decline of art; yet distinguished for much of
that quality of beauty which gives so peculiar a character to the
architecture of the Greeks. The inscriptions on the sides of the
entablature have given rise to much learned discussion, and have led to
a far more lucid arrangement of the city and its chief ornaments, than
would in all probability have been accomplished, had not inquiry and
investigation been spurred on by the difficulty of comprehending their
exact meaning. [Illustration: TEMPLE OF JUPITER OLYMPUS.]
[Illustration: ANOTHER VIEW OF THE TEMPLE OF JUPITER OLYMPUS.]
Of two views of the temple of Jupiter Olympus, Mr. Cook chose that in
which the Acropolis is seen in the distance. The three lofty Corinthian
columns in the other engraving are diminished to the scale of the arch,
while the Acropolis, from its greater complexity of parts, adds,
perhaps, something of a quality in which the subject is rather wanting.
"I am not sure," says Mr. Cook, "that the remains of the temple of
Jupiter Olympus are not the most impressive which Athens offers to the
eye and heart of the traveller, partly from their abstract grandeur--a
grandeur derived from every element which could contribute to such an
end--and partly from a position than which it would be impossible to
conceive any thing more magnificent. The gigantic columns struck me with
a sense of awe and bewilderment, almost oppressive; they consist, as may
be seen by the engraving, of sixteen, the sole representatives of the
one hundred and twenty which once formed this mightiest of Athenian
temples. The least thoughtful person could scarcely avoid the question
of where and how the remaining one hundred and four of these enormous
masses can have vanished; and assisted by the fullest information which
is to be acquired on the subject, it remains a matter of wonder to all.
That time itself has had but little to answer for, the almost perfect
preservation of portions is sufficient to prove; in some cases the
flutings are as sharp and clean as when the hand of the sculptor left
them, while, more generally, they bear disgraceful evidence of ill-usage
of every kind, from that of the cannon ball to the petty mischief of
wanton idleness. The proportion of these columns is quite perfect, and
the mind is lost in charmed wonder, as wandering from part to part of
the vast platform, it is presented at every step with combinations
perpetually changing, yet always beautiful. So difficult do I find it to
determine from what point of view these ruins are seen to the greatest
advantage, that I have appended two engravings, from which the reader
may select that which best conveys to him the magnificence of the
structure which has been thus slightly described." The temple of Jupiter
Olympus was one of the first conceived, and the last executed of the
sacred monuments of Athens. It was begun by Pisistratus, but not
finished till the time of the Roman emperor Adrian, seven hundred years
afterwards.
[Illustration: MONUMENT OF LYSICRATES.]
A proof of the varied character of the Athenian architectural genius may
be found in the exquisite model, the lantern of Demosthenes, or, as it
is more properly called, the Choragic monument of Lysierates. It is, in
common with the greater number of the remains of which we speak, of
Pentelic marble. By whomever conceived, designed, or executed, this must
have been a labor of love, and the result is such as might be
anticipated from the consequent development of the highest powers of one
to whom a people like the Athenians would entrust the task of doing
honor to those who had paid to their native land a similar tribute. It
is small, and formed of a few immense masses: the roof is one entire
block; the temple or monument itself is circular, and is formed of six
slabs of pure white marble, the joints of which are concealed by an
equal number of beautiful Corinthian columns, partly imbedded into, and
partly projecting from them. These have been fitted with such exactness,
that before the "fretting hand of time and change" had done its work,
the whole must have appeared as if cut from one solid mass. We have this
single example of a class of buildings once so numerous that they formed
an entire street; but however grateful one may feel to the hospice,
which, being built over, protected it from the ruin of its companions,
we can scarcely regret its disappearance, through which alone this
exquisite result of intellect and refined taste may be seen as
represented in the engraving.
[Illustration: TEMPLE OF THE WINDS.]
The Temple or Tower of the Winds, has been very justly termed "the most
curious existing monument of the practical gnomonics of antiquity." In
architecture no very elevated rank can be assigned to this edifice, nor
is there, even in its ornamental portions, any very remarkable evidence
of the higher order of Grecian art; the execution, indeed, can in nowise
be considered equal to the conception, which, if somewhat fancifully
elaborated, is at least highly to be esteemed, as uniting in a more
than ordinary degree the practically useful with the poetical ideal.
Near the new Agora, and consequently in the heart of the more densely
populated division of the city, this indicator of the wind and hour must
have been a valuable contribution to the Athenians, and must have given
to its founder, Andronicus Cyrrestes, a proud position among the _bene
merenti_ of the moment. Its form is octagonal, the roof being of marble,
so cut as to represent tiles; upon the upper portion of each face is
sculptured the figure of one of the eight Winds; these floating in an
almost horizontal position convey, either by their dress, the emblems
which they bear, or the expression of their features, the character of
the wind they are respectively intended to personify. Within a very
recent period this building, which was more than half buried, has been
exhumed, and many important facts have been discovered during the
process of excavation. The interior has been cleared, and in the
pavement may be seen the channels by which the water was conveyed to the
machinery by whose agency the hour was indicated, when the absence of
the sun rendered the dials described upon the marble faces of the tower
of no avail. These dials have been tested and pronounced perfectly
correct, by a no less celebrated authority than Delambre. The two arches
on the left of the illustration are the only remaining portions of the
aqueduct by which the necessary supply was conveyed, according to
Stuart, from the spring in the grotto of Pan; it is a matter of
gratulation alike to the antiquarian and the lover of the picturesque,
that these have been spared. From the amount of excavation necessary to
arrive at its basement, it is clear that this portion of the town must
have been raised, by ruins and atmospheric deposits, at least eight or
nine feet above its original level.
The temple of Theseus, apart from the present town, and in a
comparatively elevated and isolated position, built by Cimon, shortly
after the battle of Salarnis, is one of the most noble remains of the
ancient magnificence of Athens, and the most perfect, if not the most
beautiful, existing specimen of Grecian architecture. It is built of
Pentelic marble; the roof, friezes, and cornices still remain; and so
gently has the hand of time pressed upon this venerable edifice, that
the first impression of the mind in beholding it, is doubt of its
antiquity. It was raised thirty years before the Parthenon, unlike which
it appears to have been but sparingly supplied with sculptural
decoration; but that which was so dedicated was of the highest merit,
and remaining in an almost perfect condition, is most deeply interesting
to the artist and the historian: supplying to the one models of beauty,
and to the other the most undeniable data, upon which to establish the
identity of this with the temple raised by the Athenians to the
Hero-God.
[Illustration: TEMPLE OF THESEUS.]
After having been successively denominated the remains of the Palace of
Pericles, of the temple of Jupiter Olympus (an unaccountable blunder),
the Painted Portico, the Forum of the inner Ceremeicus, the magnificent
wreck of which the following engraving may convey a general idea, has
been finally decided to have formed a portion of the Pantheon of
Hadrian. For some time after this opinion had been started by Mr.
Wilkins, and sanctioned by Sir William Gell, great doubts, despite the
remarkable verification afforded by the language of Pausanias, remained
as to its truth; but the Earl of Guildford has at length placed the
matter beyond question. Some extensive excavations made under his
personal direction resulted in the discovery of the Phrygian stone so
minutely described by the enthusiastic traveller.
[Illustration: PANTHEON OF HADRIAN.]
The portico forming the next illustration was a long time considered the
only remaining portion of a temple dedicated to the Emperor Augustus,
but it is now clearly established as having been one of the entrances to
a market-place. This idea, suggested to the mind of Stuart, by certain
minute yet well marked variations in the proportion of the columns from
those devoted to sacred purposes, has been sustained by research, and
finally demonstrated to be correct by the discovery of an inscription
which has put the question at rest for ever. In one of these the names
of two prefects of the market are preserved; and another, still perfect,
is an edict of Hadrian respecting the duties to be levied on certain
articles of consumption, and regulating the sale of oils, &c. Nothing
can be more picturesque than the present condition of this portico, the
latest specimen of the pure Greek Art. Its coloring is rich and varied,
while its state of ruin is precisely that in which the eye of the
painter delights, sufficient to destroy all hardness or angularity, yet
not so great as to rob it of one element of grandeur.
[Illustration: ENTRANCE TO THE MARKET-PLACE: FORMERLY SUPPOSED TO BE
PART OF A TEMPLE DEDICATED TO AUGUSTUS.]
The building called the Monument of Philopappus, despite its somewhat
fantastic elaboration of detail, is very remarkable and interesting; it
was created either during the lifetime, or as a memorial immediately
after his death, to Caius Julius Antiochus Philopappus, a descendant of
the royalty of Syria, and an adopted citizen of Athens. It consists of a
basement supporting a pilastrade of semi-circular form, and presenting
upon its concave surface three niches, containing sitting statues, and
three recesses richly ornamented with the representation in strong
relief of a Roman triumph. Upon the basement also were various
sculptures in honor of the Emperor Trajan. These, and, indeed, all the
decorative sculpture, &c., profusely lavished upon this building have
suffered greatly. The two remaining statues are much dilapidated. From
this point a magnificent view of the Acropolis is obtained, and few are
the sights presented to the traveller, which surpass in historic
interest or actual beauty that meeting his eye, to whichever point of
the compass he may turn when standing at the foot of this remarkably
picturesque monument.
[Illustration: MONUMENT OF PHILOPAPPUS.]
The ages which produced these marvellous works in architecture had other
and different glories. Painting and sculpture reached the highest
perfection; and poetry exhibited all the grace and vigor of the Athenian
imagination. And though time has effaced all traces of the pencil of
Parrhasius, Zeuxis, and Apelles, posterity has assigned them a place in
the temple of fame beside Phidias and Praxiteles, whose works are, even
at the present day, unrivalled for classical purity of design and
perfection of execution. And after the city had passed her noon in art,
and in political greatness, she became the mother of that philosophy at
once subtile and sublime, which, even at the present hour, exerts a
powerful influence over the human mind. This era in her history has been
alluded to by Milton:
"See there the olive grove of Academe,
Plato's retirement, where the Attic bird
Trills her thick-warbled notes the summer long;
There flowery hill Hymettus with the sound
Of bees' industrious murmur oft invites
To studious musing; there Ilyssus rolls
His whispering stream; within the walls then view
The schools of ancient sages; who bred
Great Alexander to subdue the world,
Lyceum there and painted Stoa next; ...
To sage philosophy next lend thine ear.
From Heaven descended to the low roof'd house
Of Socrates; see there his tenement,
Whom, well inspired, the oracle pronounced
Wisest of men; from whose mouth issued forth
Mellifluous streams that water'd all the schools
Of Academics old and new, with those
Surnamed Peripatetics, and the sect
Epicurean, and the Stoic severe."
[Illustration]
Such is an outline of the remains of the chief Athenian edifices, which
link ancient times with the present, and which, as long as there is
taste to appreciate or genius to imitate, must arrest the attention and
command the admiration of all the generations of mankind.
TAYLOR AND STODDARD[A]
We have placed these names together, not on account of any fancied
resemblance between the two poets, but for the very opposite reason. We
wish to trace the contrasts which may be exhibited by writers living in
the same age, the same country, and under the same system of social
relations. Mr. Stoddard's volume is dedicated with evident warmth of
feeling to Bayard Taylor, and the natural conclusion is that the poets
are personal friends; yet so far from the intellectual nature of the one
having influenced that of the other, they are as strikingly opposed in
thought, feeling, and manner of expression, as two men well can be.
The time has gone by when a volume from the pen of Mr. Taylor can be
dismissed with a careless line or two. Few writers of our day have made
more rapid advances into popular favor, and no one is more justly
entitled to the place which he holds. If we are to trust contemporary
criticism, a goodly army of what are called "promising young poets"
might be raised from any state in the Union. But what becomes of them?
It is one thing to promise, and another to perform, and we fear that
this suggestion contains a hint at the whole mystery. It seems to be
comparatively easy for educated men, blinded to their incapacity by an
unwholesome passion for notoriety which is never the inspiring motive of
a real poet, to reach a certain degree of excellence which may be
denominated "promising." Many a feather has been shed, and many a wing
broken, in attempting to soar beyond it. We shall not describe Mr.
Taylor with the epithet. We see nothing to justify it in his volume, on
every page of which there is actual performance. Maturity may indeed add
to his powers, and further increase his poetical insight; but there is
no necessity for waiting, lest we commit ourselves by a favorable
opinion, and no fear that such an opinion will be falsified by
succeeding efforts.
Richard Henry Stoddard doubtless has been styled a promising young poet
by half the newspaper press; therefore if we venture to say that Mr.
Stoddard has performed, and that the promising season is over with him,
it is not because we do not think that his future poems will exhibit new
and greater excellencies, but because we recognize merits in his present
collection which eminently entitle him to respectful consideration.
The evident source of Mr. Stoddard's inspiration is a love for ideal
beauty, in whatever form it may be manifested. Like all admirers of
ideal beauty, he has a strong sensual element in his composition. He is
not satisfied with the mere dreams of his imagination, but he must also
attempt to realize them through the medium of imitative art. Among the
various modes for expressing the same feelings and ideas, painting,
poetry, sculpture and music, he has chosen poetry as the one best
adapted to his purpose. We would not be understood to assert that an
artist may, at will, express his emotions in any of the arts; for a man
may be insensible to an idea expressed in sculpture or music, which is
perfectly clear to him in poetry or painting; but we assert that all the
arts are but different languages to convey the same ideas. True art
addresses itself to the moral, the intellectual, or the sensual man; and
by the predominance of one of these qualities in the artist, or by
various combinations of the three, all the radical differences between
men of genius can be accounted for, and all the seeming mysteries
explained. This truth is the groundwork of genuine criticism; and the
critic who busies himself about the accidental circumstances, which have
influenced an artist, is only prying into his history, without sounding
the depth of his nature. At least let criticism start here: it may
afterward indulge in microscopic comparisons of style, and in worn-out
accusations of imitation: but it is a sorry thing to see persons
assuming the dignified office of the critic magnifying molehills into
mountains, and similarities into thefts. All men are gifted with various
faculties, but it is not in the superiority of any or all of them that
we can account for the existence of the poet, who has something of the
divine nature in him, having a creative energy that is not a result of
the degree in which he possesses one or more of the ordinary faculties,
but is a special distinction with which he is clothed by the deity.
We will proceed to examine our two poets by the principles before
stated, not forgetting to compare or contrast them, as there may be
opportunity. In Mr. Taylor there is a just equipoise of the moral and
intellectual natures, while the sensual nature, if not so strong as the
former two, is at least calmed and subdued by their united power. With
fine animal spirits, he has but little taste for gross animal
enjoyments; and the mischief which his unlicensed spirits might commit,
is foreseen by a sensitive conscience, and checked by a mind that sees
the end in the act, and provides to-day against the future. Mr. Taylor's
inclinations are for scenes of grandeur. Sublime human actions, nature
in her awful revolutionary states, the wild desolation of a mountain
peak or a limitless desert, the storm, the earthquake, the cataract, the
moaning forest--these are the chief inspirations of his powers. Whatever
is suggestive of high emotions, that act upon his moral nature, and in
turn are acted upon by it, forms an unconquerable incentive to his
poetical exertions. Mere word-painting he has no affection for. A scene
of nature, however beautiful, would be poetically valueless to him,
unless it moved his feelings past the point of silent contemplation. The
first poem in his volume affords a striking illustration of his
apprehension of intellectual bravery. Through fasting that approaches
starvation, unanswered prayers, and repeated discomfitures, the soul of
the hero burns undimmed, and his eyes remain steadily fixed on his
purpose. Physical suffering only strengthens his resolution, and defeat
only nerves him to renewed efforts. Round these ideas the poet lingers
with a triumphant emotion, that proves his sympathies to be centred less
in the outward action of the poem, than in the power of human will--a
power which he conceives to be capable of overcoming all things, even
the gods themselves. We have before stated that nature, unless
suggestive of some intellectual emotion, is nothing to Mr. Taylor. To
arouse himself to song, he must vitalize the world, must make it live,
breathe and feel, must find books in the running brooks, and sermons in
stones, or brooks and stones are to him as if they had not been. In the
"Metempsychosis of the Pine," this characteristic is finely displayed.
The poet imagines himself to have been a pine, and retraces his
experiences while in that state of being. The pine becomes a conscious
creature, revelling in the joys of its own existence, feeling the sap
stir in its veins, and pour through a heart as susceptible as man's.
Many poets have recalled the memories which linger around a particular
tree, or, apostrophising it, have bid it relate certain histories; but
in Mr. Taylor's poem the tree speaks from within its own nature--not
with the feelings of a man, not with what we might suppose would be the
feelings of a common tree, but as a pine of many centuries--and no one
can mistake its voice. A nobler use of the dramatic faculty, in lyrical
poetry, is not within our recollection.
As may be supposed, Mr. Taylor's poetry is written under the excitement
of passion, and does not proceed from that laborious process of
constructing effects, to which a large number of poets owe their
success. The consequence is that his language is vividly metaphorical,
only dealing in similes when in a comparative repose, and never going
out of the way to hunt up one of those eternal _likes_, which have
emasculated our poetic style, and are fast becoming a leading
characteristic in American verse, to the utter destruction of every
thing like real passion. Mr. Taylor is an instructive study in this
respect. He uses ten metaphors to one simile. His ideas come forth
clothed in their figurative language, and do not bring it along neatly
tied up in a separate bundle. From this cause there is a sturdy strength
and genuine feeling about his poems, that more than compensate for the
ingenious trinkets which he despises, and leaves for the adornment of
those who need them. In him imagination predominates over fancy, and the
latter is always sacrificed to the former. We do not intend to say that
Mr. Taylor is without fancy. Far from it--he has fancy, but it never
leads him to be fanciful. His versification is polished, correct and
various, but more harmonious than melodious; that is to say, the whole
rhythmical flow of his verse is more striking than the sweetness of
particular lines. We have not mentioned all the phases of Mr. Taylor's
genius. Some of the smaller poems in his volume border on the sensuous;
and in "Hylas" he has paid a tribute to ancient fable worthy of its
refined inventors; but scenes of moral and natural sublimity are those
in which he succeeds best, and by them he should be characterized.
[Illustration: RICHARD H. STODDARD.]
Mr. Stoddard is the precise opposite to his friend. In him the sensual
vastly outranks the moral or the intellectual quality. Let it not be
supposed that we wish to hold the two latter elements as superior to the
former for poetical purposes; nor do we by asserting the greater
preponderance of any one, deny the possession of the other two. To the
sensuous in man we are indebted for the great body of Grecian poetry,
and Keats wholly, and Tennyson in part, are modern instances of what may
be achieved by imbibing the spirit of the ancient classics. Shallow
critics have professed to discover a resemblance between these English
poets and Mr. Stoddard, and Mr. Taylor has also fallen under the same
accusation, for no better reason, that we can conceive, than that all
four have drunk at the same fountain, and enjoyed its inspirations.
Mr. Stoddard's sympathies are almost entirely given up to ancient
Grecian art. He can scarcely realize that the dream has passed forever.
He sees something vital in its very ruins. For him the Phidian friezes
yet crown the unplundered Parthenon; the gigantic Athena yet gleams
through sacerdotal incense, in all her ivory whiteness, smiling upon
reeking altars and sacrificing priests; Delphos has yet an oracular
voice; Bacchus and Pan and his Satyrs yet lead their riotous train
through a forest whose every tree is alive with its dryad, and whose
every fountain is haunted by its potamid; there are yet patriot veins to
glow at the Iliad; Æschylus can yet fill a theatre; Pericles yet
thunders at Cimon from the Cema, or woos Aspasia, or tempers the
headlong Alcibiades, or prepares his darling Athens for the
Peloponnesian war. These things Mr. Stoddard feels while the locomotive
shrieks in his ears, while the omnibus, speeding to the steamship,
rattles the glass of his window, while the newsboy cries his monotonous
advertisement, or his servant hands to him a telegraphic dispatch; and
he is right. The body in which Grecian art existed, is indeed dead, but
the spirit which animated it is indestructible. There will be poets to
worship and reproduce it, there will be scholars to admire and preserve
it, when every man's field is bounded by a railway, when every housetop
is surmounted by a telegraph wire, and when the golden calf is again set
up amid the people, to be worshipped as the living God.
From the force of his sympathies, Mr. Stoddard can lean but in that
direction. Throughout his volume there is scarcely a poem which is not
the offshoot of these feelings. Some of them are confessedly upon
Grecian subjects, and all of them are animated by a corresponding
spirit. Even his few domestic poems are not treated after that modern
manner, which moralizes in the last stanza, simply to let the reader
understand how well the poet knows his own meaning. Whatever is
beautiful in Mr. Stoddard's themes is distinctly brought forward, while
the darker side of his subject is scarcely touched upon. Take, for
example, a poem of great simplicity and tenderness, filled with a sorrow
so beautiful as almost to make one in love with grief, and contrast it
with a poem, on a similar subject, by Bayard Taylor:
"Along the grassy slope I sit,
And dream of other years;
My heart is full of soft regrets,
My eyes of tender tears!
The wild bees hummed about the spot,
The sheep-bells tinkled far,
Last year when Alice sat with me
Beneath the evening star!
The same sweet star is o'er me now,
Around, the same soft hours,
But Alice moulders in the dust
With all the last year's flowers!
I sit alone, and only hear
The wild bees on the steep,
And distant bells that seem to float
From out the folds of sleep!"
_Stoddard_, _page_ 116.
This is very fine and delicate feeling, softened down to the mildest
point of passion; but it does not at all resemble the frenzy of grief
which follows:
"Moan, ye wild winds! around the pane,
And fall, thou drear December rain!
Fill with your gusts the sullen day,
Tear the last clinging leaves away!
Reckless as yonder naked tree,
No blast of yours can trouble me.
Give me your chill and wild embrace,
And pour your baptism on my face;
Sound in mine ears the airy moan
That sweeps in desperate monotone,
Where on the unsheltered hill-top beat
The marches of your homeless feet!
Moan on, ye winds! and pour, thou rain!
Your stormy sobs and tears are vain,
If shed for her whose fading eyes
Will open soon on Paradise;
The eye of Heaven shall blinded be,
Or ere ye cease, if shed for me."
_Taylor_, _page_ 92.
What a desolation of wo! how the whole man is carried away in one
overwhelming passion! A contrast of the opening poems of these two
volumes, would be a pleasant employment, but their length forbids it.
Mr. Taylor's "Romance of the Maize" we have mentioned already; Mr.
Stoddard's "Castle in the Air" is its complete antithesis. The latter
poem is a magnificent day-dream, abounding in luscious imagery, and
unrivalled for its minute descriptions of ideal scenery and its
voluptuous music of versification, by any similar creation since
Spenser's "Bower of Bliss."
To sum up Mr. Stoddard's poetical character, he has more fancy than
imagination, he is rather exquisitely sensitive than profoundly
passionate, and oftener works up his feelings to the act of composition,
than seeks it as an outlet for uncontrollable emotion. He thoroughly,
and at every point, an artist. His genius is never allowed to run riot,
but is always subjected to the laws of a delicate, but most severe
taste. His poems are probably planned with views to their artistic
effects, and are then constructed from his exhaustless wealth of
poetical material, by a nice adaptation of each part to the perfect
whole of his design. If he has less imagination than Mr. Taylor, he has
a richer and more glowing fancy; if his figures are less apt and
striking, they are more elegant and symmetrical; if the harmonious
dignity of his versification is less, its melodious sweetness is more;
if he has less passion, he has more sensibility; if moral and physical
grandeur are not so attractive to him, ideal and natural beauty are the
only elements in which his life is endurable. We might pursue these
contrasts to the end of our magazine; but if we have called the reader's
attention to them, we have done enough.
From "Love and Solitude," by Mr. Taylor, we extract the following
picture, in order to contrast it with the handling of the same subject
by Mr. Stoddard in "The South:"
"Some island, on the purple plain
Of Polynesian main,
Where never yet adventurer's prore
Lay rocking near its coral shore:
A tropic mystery, which the enamored deep
Folds, as a beauty in a charméd sleep.
There lofty palms, of some imperial line,
That never bled their nimble wine,
Crowd all the hills, and out the headlands go
To watch on distant reefs the lazy brine
Turning its fringe of snow.
There, when the sun stands high
Upon the burning summit of the sky,
All shadows wither: Light alone
Is in the world: and pregnant grown
With teeming life, the trembling island earth
And panting sea forebode sweet pains of birth
Which never come;--their love brings never forth
The human Soul they lack alone."
_Taylor_, _page_ 16.
Half-way between the frozen zones,
Where Winter reigns in sullen mirth,
The Summer binds a golden belt
About the middle of the Earth,
The sky is soft, and blue, and bright,
With purple dyes at morn and night:
And bright and blue the seas which lie
In perfect rest, and glass the sky;
And sunny bays with inland curves
Round all along the quiet shore;
And stately palms, in pillared ranks
Grow down the borders of the banks,
And juts of land where billows roar;
The spicy woods are full of birds,
And golden fruits, and crimson flowers;
With wreathéd vines on every bough,
That shed their grapes in purple showers;
The emerald meadows roll their waves,
And bask in soft and mellow light;
The vales are full of silver mist,
And all the folded hills are bright;
But far along the welkin's rim
The purple crags and peaks are dim;
And dim the gulfs, and gorges blue,
With all the wooded passes deep;
All steeped in haze, and washed in dew,
And bathed in atmospheres of Sleep!
_Stoddard_, _page_ 14.
Passages like these say more for their authors than could any
commendation from the critic. Observe how soon mere description is
abandoned by Mr. Taylor, and he begins to put life and feeling into his
scene. The deep is "enamored," the island is "in a charméd sleep," the
palms are "imperial," and "crowd the hills," and "out the headlands go
to watch the lazy brine," &c. All nature is alive. On the other hand,
Mr. Stoddard loves nature for its beauty alone, without desiring in it
any imaginable animation. The man who can read Mr. Taylor's "Kubla,"
without feeling the blood dance in his veins, should never confess it,
for he is hardening into something beyond the reach of sympathy. In "The
Soldier and the Pard," a poem of curious originality, Mr. Taylor pushes
his belief in the all-pervading existence of moral nature to its last
extreme. It closes with the following emphatic lines:
"And if a man
Deny this truth she [_the Pard_] taught me, to his face
I say he lies: a beast may have a soul!"
Without drawing too much on the tables of contents, we could not
enumerate the many note-worthy pieces in these volumes; and it would
much exceed our limits to give them even a passing word of comment.
Among Mr. Stoddard's unmentioned poems, the "Hymn to Flora," an "Ode" of
delicious melancholy, full of exquisite taste and finely-wrought
fancies, "Spring," "Autumn," a "Hymn to the Beautiful," "The Broken
Goblet," and "Triumphant Music," give the reader a clear insight into
his peculiar characteristics, and open a vision of ideal beauty that no
poet has exhibited in such Grecian perfection since the death of Keats.
A poem, on page 115, is one that awakens peculiar emotions; it describes
a state of half consciousness, when the senses are morbidly alive, and
the perceptive faculties are fettered with dreams, or inspired by a
strange memory that bears within it things not of this world, and hints
at a previous and different existence.
"The yellow moon looks slantly down,
Through seaward mists, upon the town;
And like a mist the moonshine falls
Between the dim and shadowy walls.
I see a crowd in every street,
But cannot hear their falling feet;
They float like clouds through shade and light,
And seem a portion of the night.
The ships have lain, for ages fled,
Along the waters, dark and dead;
The dying waters wash no more
The long black line of spectral shore.
There is no life on land or sea,
Save in the quiet moon and me;
Nor ours is true, but only seems,
Within some dead old world of dreams!"
_Stoddard_, _page_ 115.
With this shadowy poem we close, begging our readers not to be terrified
at the boldness with which we claim so high a place for the subjects of
our review. They have that within them which will prove our
commendations just, and establish them in the rank assigned by us, with
a firmness that will need no critic's aid, and can be shaken by no
critic's assault. We but add, let them remember that the fear of the
world is the beginning of mischief. GEORGE H. BOKER.
FOOTNOTES:
[A] _A Book of Romances, Lyrics and Songs._ By BAYARD TAYLOR. Boston,
Ticknor, Reed & Fields. 16mo. _Poems._ By RICHARD HENRY STODDARD Same publishers. 16mo.
THE UNDERGROUND TERRITORIES OF THE UNITED STATES.
[Illustration: ENTRANCE TO THE MAMMOTH CAVE.]
The extraordinary caverns which underlie various parts of this country
are of a description suitable in extent and magnificence to the general
scale of nature here, in lakes, rivers, cataracts, valleys in which
empires are cradled, prairies of scarcely conceivable vastness, and
mountains whose bases are amid perpetual flowers and where frozen seas
have never intermission of their crashing thunders. In Virginia,
New-York, and other states, the caves of Weyer, Schoharie, and many that
are less famous but not inferior in beauty or grandeur, are well known
to travellers; but the MAMMOTH CAVE, under Kentucky, is world renowned,
and such felon states as Naples might hide in it from the scorn of
mankind. Considering the common curiosity respecting that strange
subterranean country, and the fact of its being resorted to in winter by
valetudinarians, on account of its admirable climate--so that our
article is altogether seasonable--we give, chiefly from a letter by Mrs.
Child, a very full description of this eighth wonder of the
world--illustrated by engravings from recent drawings made under the
direction of the Rev. Horace Martin, who proposes soon to furnish for
tourists an ample volume on the subject.
The Mammoth Cave is in the southwest part of Kentucky, about a hundred
miles from Louisville, and sixty from Harrodsburg Springs. The word
_cave_ is ill calculated to impress the imagination with an idea of its
surpassing grandeur. It is in fact a subterranean world; containing
within itself territories extensive enough for half a score of German
principalities. It should be named Titans' Palace, or Cyclops' Grotto.
It lies among the Knobs, a range of hills, which border an extent of
country, like highland prairies, called the Barrens. The surrounding
scenery is lovely. Fine woods of oak, hickory, and chestnut, clear of
underbrush, with smooth, verdant openings, like the parks of English
noblemen.
[Illustration: ENTRANCE TO THE CAVE.--VIEW TAKEN FROM THE INSIDE.]
The cave was purchased by Dr. John Croghan, for ten thousand dollars. To
prevent a disputed title, in case any new and distant opening should be
discovered, he has likewise bought a wide circuit of adjoining land. His
enthusiasm concerning it is unbounded. It is in fact his world; and
every newly-discovered chamber fills him with pride and joy, like that
felt by Columbus, when he first kissed his hand to the fair Queen of the
Antilles. He has built a commodious hotel[B] near the entrance, in a
style well suited to the place. It is made of logs, filled in with lime;
with a fine large porch, in front of which is a beautiful verdant lawn.
Near by, is a funnel-shaped hollow of three hundred acres; probably a
cave fallen in. It is called Deer Park, because when those animals run
into it, they cannot escape. There are troops of wild deer in the
immediate vicinity of the hotel; bear-hunts are frequent, and game of
all kinds abounds.
Walking along the verge of this hollow, you come to a ravine, leading to
Green River, whence you command a view of what is supposed to be the
main entrance to the cave. It is a huge cavernous arch, filled in with
immense stones, as if giants had piled them there, to imprison a
conquered demon. No opening has ever been effected here, nor is it easy
to imagine that it could be done by the strength of man. In rear of the
hotel is a deep ravine densely wooded, and covered with a luxuriant
vegetable growth. It leads to Green River, and was probably once a water
course. A narrow ravine, diverging from this, leads, by a winding path,
to the entrance of the cave. It is a high arch of rocks, rudely piled,
and richly covered with ivy and tangled vines. At the top, is a
perennial fountain of sweet and cool water, which trickles down
continually from the centre of the arch, through the pendent foliage,
and is caught in a vessel below. The entrance of this wide arch is
somewhat obstructed by a large mound of saltpetre, thrown up by workmen
engaged in its manufacture, during the last war. In the course of their
excavations, they dug up the bones of a gigantic man; but,
unfortunately, they buried them again, without any memorial to mark the
spot. They have been sought for by the curious and scientific, but are
not yet found.
As you come opposite the entrance of the cave, in summer, the
temperature changes instantaneously, from about 85° to below 60°, and
you feel chilled as if by the presence of an iceberg. In winter, the
effect is reversed. The scientific have indulged in various speculations
concerning the air of this cave. It is supposed to get completely filled
with cold winds during the long blasts of winter, and as there is no
outlet, they remain pent up till the atmosphere without becomes warmer
than that within; when there is, of course, a continual effort toward
equilibrium. Why the air within the cave should be so fresh, pure, and
equable, all the year round, even in its deepest recesses, is not so
easily explained. Some have suggested that it is continually modified by
the presence of chemical agents. Whatever may be the cause, its
agreeable salubrity is observed by every visitor, and it is said to have
great healing power in diseases of the lungs. The amount of exertion
which can be performed here without fatigue, is astonishing. The
superabundance of oxygen in the atmosphere operates like moderate doses
of exhilarating gas. The traveller feels a buoyant sensation, which
tempts him to run and jump, and leap from crag to crag, and bound over
the stones in his path. The mind, moreover, sustains the body, being
kept in a state of delightful activity, by continual new discoveries and
startling revelations.
The wide entrance to the cavern soon contracts, so that but two can pass
abreast. At this place, called the Narrows, the air from dark depths
beyond blows out fiercely, as if the spirits of the cave had mustered
there, to drive intruders back to the realms of day. This path continues
about fourteen or fifteen rods, and emerges into a wider avenue, floored
with saltpetre earth, from which the stones have been removed. This
leads directly into the Rotunda, a vast hall, comprising a surface of
eight acres, arched with a dome a hundred feet high, without a single
pillar to support it. It rests on irregular ribs of dark gray rock, in
massive oval rings, smaller and smaller, one seen within another, till
they terminate at the top. Perhaps this apartment impresses the
traveller as much as any portion of the cave; because from it he
receives his first idea of its gigantic proportions. The vastness, the
gloom, the impossibility of taking in the boundaries by the light of
lamps--all these produce a deep sensation of awe and wonder.
From the Rotunda, you pass into Audubon's Avenue, from eighty to a
hundred feet high, with galleries of rock on each side, jutting out
farther and father, till they nearly meet at top. This avenue branches
out into a vast half-oval hall, called the Church. This contains several
projecting galleries, one of them resembling a cathedral choir. There is
a gap in the gallery, and at the point of interruption, immediately
above, is a rostrum, or pulpit, the rocky canopy of which juts over. The
guide leads up from the adjoining galleries, and places a lamp each side
of the pulpit, on flat rocks, which seem made for the purpose. There has
been preaching from this pulpit; but unless it was superior to most
theological teaching, it must have been pitifully discordant with the
sublimity of the place. Five thousand people could stand in this
subterranean temple with ease.
So far, all is irregular, jagged rocks, thrown together in fantastic
masses, without any particular style; but now begins a series of
imitations, which grow more and more perfect, in gradual progression,
till you arrive at the end. From the Church you pass into what is called
the Gothic Gallery, from its obvious resemblance to that style of
architecture. Here is Mummy Hall; so called because several mummies have
been found seated in recesses of the rock. Without any process of
embalming, they were in as perfect a state of preservation, as the
mummies of Egypt; for the air of the cave is so dry and unchangeable,
and so strongly impregnated with nitre, that decomposition cannot take
place. A mummy found here in 1813, was the body of a woman five feet ten
inches high, wrapped in half-dressed deer skins, on which were rudely
drawn white veins and leaves. At the feet, lay a pair of moccasons, and
a handsome knapsack, made of bark: containing strings of small shining
seeds; necklaces of bears' teeth, eagles' claws, and fawns' red hoofs;
whistles made of cane; two rattlesnakes' skins, one having on it
fourteen rattles; coronets for the head, made of erect feathers of rooks
and eagles; smooth needles of horn and bone, some of them crooked like
sail-needles; deers' sinews, for sewing, and a parcel of three-corded
thread, resembling twine. I believe one of these mummies is now in the
British Museum. From Mummy Hall you pass into Gothic Avenue, where the
resemblance to Gothic architecture very perceptibly increases. The wall
juts out in pointed arches, and pillars, on the sides of which are
various grotesque combinations of rock. One is an elephant's head. The
tusks and sleepy eyes are quite perfect; the trunk, at first very
distinct, gradually recedes, and is lost in the rock. On another pillar
is a lion's head; on another, a human head with a wig, called Lord
Lyndhurst, from its resemblance to that dignitary.
From this gallery you can step into a side cave, in which is an immense
pit, called the Lover's Leap. A huge rock, fourteen or fifteen feet
long, like an elongated sugar-loaf running to a sharp point, projects
half way over this abyss. It makes one shudder to see the guide walk
almost to the end of this projectile bridge, over such an awful chasm.
As you pass along, the Gothic Avenue narrows, until you come to a porch
composed of the first separate columns in the cave. The stalactite and
stalagmite formations unite in these irregular masses of brownish
yellow, which, when the light shines through them, look like transparent
amber. They are sonorous as a clear-toned bell. A pendent mass, called
the Bell, has been unfortunately broken, by being struck too powerfully.
[Illustration: ENTRANCE TO THE GOTHIC GATE.]
The porch of columns leads to the Gothic Chapel, which has the circular
form appropriate to a true church. A number of pure stalactite columns
fill the nave with arches, which in many places form a perfect Gothic
roof. The stalactites fall in rich festoons, strikingly similar to the
highly ornamented chapel of Henry VII. Four columns in the centre form a
separate arch by themselves, like trees twisted into a grotto, in all
irregular and grotesque shapes. Under this arch stands Wilkins'
arm-chair, a stalactite formation, well adapted to the human figure. The
Chapel is the most beautiful specimen of the Gothic in the cave. Two or
three of the columns have richly foliated capitals, like the Corinthian.
If you turn back to the main avenue, and strike off in another
direction, you enter a vast room, with several projecting galleries,
called the Ball Room. In close vicinity, as if arranged by the severer
school of theologians, is a large amphitheatre, called Satan's Council
Chamber. From the centre rises a mountain of big stones, rudely piled
one above another, in a gradual slope, nearly one hundred feet high. On
the top rests a huge rock, big as a house, called Satan's Throne. The
vastness, the gloom, partially illuminated by the glare of lamps,
forcibly remind one of Lucifer on his throne, as represented by Martin
in his illustrations of Milton. It requires little imagination to
transform the uncouth rocks all around the throne, into attendant
demons. Indeed, throughout the cave, Martin's pictures are continually
brought to mind, by the unearthly effect of intense gleams of light on
black masses of shadow. In this Council Chamber, the rocks, with
singular appropriateness, change from an imitation of Gothic
architecture, to that of the Egyptian. The dark, massive walls resemble
a series of Egyptian tombs, in dull and heavy outline. In this place is
an angle, which forms the meeting point of several caves, and is
therefore considered one of the finest points of view. Here parties
usually stop and make arrangements to kindle the Bengal Lights, which
travellers always carry with them. It has a strange and picturesque
effect to see groups of people dotted about, at different points of
view, their lamps hidden behind stones, and the light streaming into the
thick darkness, through chinks in the rocks. When the lights begin to
burn, their intense radiance casts a strong glare on Satan's Throne; the
whole of the vast amphitheatre is revealed to view, and you can peer
into the deep recesses of two other caves beyond. For a few moments,
gigantic proportions and uncouth forms stand out in the clear, strong
gush of brilliant light! and then--all is darkness. The effect is so
like magic, that one almost expects to see towering genii striding down
the deep declivities, or startled by the brilliant flare, shake off
their long sleep among the dense black shadows.
[Illustration: THE GOTHIC CHAPEL.]
If you enter one of the caves revealed in the distance, you find
yourself in a deep ravine, with huge piles of gray rock jutting out more
and more, till they nearly meet at top. Looking upward, through this
narrow aperture, you see, high, high above you, a vaulted roof of
_black_ rock, studded with brilliant spar, like constellations in the
sky, seen at midnight, from the deep clefts of a mountain. This is
called the Star Chamber. It makes one think of Schiller's grand
description of William Tell sternly waiting for Gessler, among the
shadows of the Alps, and of Wordsworth's picture of
"Yorkshire dales
Among the rocks and winding scars,
Where deep and low the hamlets lie,
Beneath their little patch of sky,
And little lot of stars."
[Illustration: THE STAR CHAMBER.]
In this neighborhood is a vast, dreary chamber, which Stephen, the
guide, called Bandit's Hall, the first moment his eye rested on it; and
the name is singularly expressive of its character. Its ragged roughness
and sullen gloom are indescribable. The floor is a mountainous heap of
loose stones, and not an inch of even surface could be found on roof or
walls. Imagine two or three travellers, with their lamps, passing
through this place of evil aspect. The deep, suspicions-looking recesses
and frightful crags are but partially revealed in the feeble light. All
at once, a Bengal Light blazes up, and every black rock and frowning
cliff stands out in the brilliant glare. The contrast is sublime beyond
imagination. It is as if a man had seen the hills and trees of this
earth only in the dim outline of a moonless night, and they should, for
the first time, be revealed to him in the gushing glory of the morning
sun. But the greatest wonder in this region of the cave, is Mammoth
Dome--a giant among giants. It is so immensely high and vast, that three
of the most powerful Bengal Lights illuminate it very imperfectly. That
portion of the ceiling which becomes visible, is three hundred feet
above your head, and remarkably resembles the aisles of Westminster
Abbey. It is supposed that the top of this dome is near the surface of
the ground. Another route from the Devil's Council Chamber conducts you
to a smooth, level path, called Pensacola Avenue. Here are numerous
formations of crystallized gypsum, but not as beautiful or as various as
are found farther on. From various slopes and openings, caves above and
below are visible. The Mecca's shrine of this pilgrimage is Angelica's
Grotto, completely lined and covered with the largest and richest dog's
tooth spar. A person who visited the place, a few years since, laid his
sacrilegious hands upon it, while the guide's back was turned towards
whim. He coolly demolished a magnificent mass of spar, sparkling most
conspicuously on the very centre of the arch, and wrote his own
insignificant name in its place. This was _his_ fashion of securing
immortality! It is well that fairies and giants are powerless in the
nineteenth century, else had the indignant genii of the cave crushed his
bones to impalpable powder.
[Illustration: THE BOTTOMLESS PIT.]
If you pass behind Satan's Throne, by a narrow ascending path, you come
into a vast hall where there is nothing but naked rock. This empty
dreary place is appropriately called the Deserted Chamber. Walking along
the verge, you arrive at another avenue, inclosing sulphur springs. Here
the guide warns you of the vicinity of a pit, one hundred and twenty
feet deep, in the shape of a saddle. Stooping over it, and looking
upward, you see an abyss of precisely the same shape over head; a fact
which indicates that it began in the upper region, and was merely
interrupted by this chamber.
From this, you may enter a narrow and very tortuous path, called the
Labyrinth, which leads to an immense split, or chasm, in the rocks. Here
is placed a ladder, down which you descend twenty-five or thirty feet,
and enter a narrow cave below, which brings you to a combination of rock
called the Gothic Window. You stand in this recess, while the guided
ascends huge cliffs overhead, and kindles Bengal Lights, by the help of
which you see, two hundred feet above you, a Gothic dome of one solid
rock, perfectly overawing in its vastness and height. Below, is an abyss
of darkness, which no eye but the Eternal can fathom. If, instead of
descending the ladder, you pass straight alongside the chasm, you arrive
at the Bottomless Pit, beyond which no one ever ventured to proceed till
1838. To this fact we probably owe the meagre account given by Lieber,
in the Encyclopædia Americana. He says, "This cave is more remarkable
for extent, than the variety or beauty of its productions; having none
of the beautiful stalactites found in many other caves." For a long
period this pit was considered bottomless, because, when stones were
thrown into it, they reverberated and reverberated along the sides, till
lost to the ear, but seemed to find no resting place. It has since been
sounded, and found to be one hundred and forty feet deep, with a soft
muddy bottom, which returns no noise when a stone strikes upon it. In
1838, the adventurous Stephen threw a ladder across the chasm, and
passed over. There is now a narrow bridge of two planks, with a little
railing on each side; but as it is impossible to sustain it by piers,
travellers must pass over in the centre, one by one, and not touch the
railing, lest they disturb the balance, and overturn the bridge.
This walk brings you into Pensico Avenue. Hitherto, the path has been
rugged, wild, and rough, interrupted by steep acclivities, rocks, and
big stones; but this avenue has a smooth and level floor, as if the sand
had been spread out by gently flowing waters. Through this, descending
more and more, you come to a deep arch, by which you enter the Winding
Way; a strangely irregular and zig-zag path, so narrow that a very stout
man could not squeeze through. In some places, the rocks at the sides
are on a line with your shoulders, then piled high over your head; and
then again you rise above, and overlook them all, and see them heaped
behind you, like the mighty waves of the Red Sea, parted for the
Israelites to pass through. This toilsome path was evidently made by a
rushing, winding torrent. Toward the close, the water not having force
enough to make a smooth bed, has bored a tunnel. This is so low and
narrow, that the traveller is obliged to stoop and squeeze himself
through. Suddenly he passes into a vast hall, called the Great Relief;
and this leads into the River Hall, at the side of which you have a
glimpse of a small cave, called the Smoke House, because it is hung with
rocks perfectly in the shape of hams. The River Hall descends like the
slope of a mountain. The ceiling stretches away--away--before you, vast
and grand as the firmament at midnight. No one, who has never seen this
cave, can imagine the excitement, and awe, with which the traveller
keeps his eye fixed on the rocky ceiling, which, gradually revealed in
the passing light, continually exhibits some new and unexpected feature
of sublimity or beauty.
One of the most picturesque sights in the world, is to see a file of men
and women passing along these wild and craggy paths--slowly,
slowly--that their lamps may have time to illuminate the sky-like
ceiling, and gigantic walls; disappearing behind the high cliffs,
sinking into ravines, their lights shining upward through fissures in
the rocks; then suddenly emerging from some abrupt angle, standing in
the bright gleam of their lamps, relieved against the towering black
masses around them. He who could paint the infinite variety of creation,
can alone give an adequate description of this marvellous region. At one
side of River Hall is a steep precipice, over which you can look down,
by aid of blazing missiles, upon a broad, black sheet of water, eighty
feet below, called the Dead Sea. This is an awfully impressive place,
the sights and sounds of which do not easily pass from memory. He who
has seen it will have it vividly brought before him by Alfieri's
description of Filippo: "Only a transient word or act gives us a short
and dubious glimmer, that reveals to us the abysses of his being; dark,
lurid, and terrific, as the throat of the infernal pool." As you pass
along, you hear the roar of invisible waterfalls, and at the foot of the
slope, the River Styx lies before you, deep and black, overarched with
rock. The first glimpse of it brings to mind the descent of Ulysses into
hell.
"Where the dark rock o'erhangs the infernal lake,
And mingling screams eternal murmurs make."
Across these unearthly waters, the guide can convey but two passengers
at once; and these sit motionless in the canoe, with feet turned apart,
so as not to disturb the balance. Three lamps are fastened to the prow,
the images of which are reflected in the dismal pool.
If you are impatient of delay, or eager for new adventures, you can
leave your companions lingering about the shore, and cross the Styx by a
dangerous bridge of precipices overhead. In order to do this, you must
ascend a steep cliff and enter a cave above, from an egress of which you
find yourself on the bank of the river, eighty feet above its surface,
commanding a view of those passing in the boat, and those waiting on the
shore. Seen from this height, the lamps in the canoe glare like fiery
eyeballs; and the passengers sitting there, so hushed and motionless,
look like shadows. The scene is so strangely funereal and spectral, that
it seems as if the Greeks must have witnessed it, before they imagined
Charon conveying ghosts to the dim regions of Pluto. Your companions,
thus seen, do indeed--
"Skim along the dusky glades,
Thin airy shoals, and visionary shades."
[Illustration: THE RIVER STYX.]
If you turn your eye from the canoe, to the parties of men and women,
whom you left waiting on the shore, you will see them, by the gleam of
their lamps, scattered in picturesque groups, looming out in bold relief
from the dense darkness around them.
When you have passed the Styx, you soon meet another stream,
appropriately called Lethe. The echoes here are absolutely stunning. A
single voice sounds like a powerful choir; and could an organ be played,
it would deprive the hearer of his senses. When you have crossed, you
enter a high level hall, named the Great Walk, half a mile of which
brings you to another river, called the Jordan. In crossing this, the
rocks, in one place, descend so low, as to leave only eighteen inches
for the boat to pass through. Passengers are obliged to double up, and
lie on each other's shoulders till this gap is passed. This
uncomfortable position is, however, of short duration, and you suddenly
emerge to where the vault of the cave is more than a hundred feet high.
In the fall of the year, this river often rises, almost instantaneously,
over fifty feet above low-water mark; a phenomenon supposed to be caused
by heavy rains from the upper earth. On this account, autumn is an
unfavorable season for those who wish to explore the cave throughout. If
parties happen to be caught on the other side of Jordan, when the sudden
rise takes place, a boat conveys them, on the swollen waters, to the
level of an upper cave, so low that they are obliged to enter on hands
and knees, and crawl through. This place is called Purgatory. People on
the other side, aware of their danger, have a boat in readiness to
receive them. The guide usually sings while crossing the Jordan, and his
voice is reverberated by a choir of sweet echoes. The only animals ever
found in the cave are fish, with which this stream abounds. They are
perfectly white, and without eyes; at least, they have been subjected to
a careful scientific examination, and no organ similar to an eye can be
discovered. It would indeed be a useless appendage to creatures that
dwell for ever in Cimmerian darkness. But, as usual, the acuteness of
one sense is increased by the absence of another. These fish are
undisturbed by the most powerful glare of light, but they are alarmed at
the slightest agitation of the water; and it is therefore exceedingly
difficult to catch them.
The rivers of Mammoth Cave were never crossed till 1840. Great efforts
have been made to discover whence they come, and whither they go. But
though the courageous Stephen has floated for hours up to his chin, and
forced his way through the narrowest apertures under the dark waves, so
as to leave merely his head a breathing space, yet they still remain as
much a mystery as ever--without beginning or end, like eternity. They
disappear under arches, which, even at the lowest stage of the water,
are under the surface of it. From an unknown cause, it sometimes happens
in the neighborhood of these streams, that the figure of a distant
companion will apparently loom up, to the height of ten or twelve feet,
as he approaches you. This occasional phenomenon is somewhat frightful,
even to the most rational observer, occurring as it does in a region so
naturally associated with giants and genii.
From the Jordan, through Silliman's Avenue, you enter a high, narrow
defile, or pass, in a portion of which, called the Hanging Rocks, huge
masses of stone hang suspended over your head. At the side of this
defile, is a recess, called the Devil's Blacksmith's Shop. It contains a
rock shaped like an anvil, with a small inky current running near it,
and quantities of coarse stalagmite scattered about, precisely like
blacksmith's cinders, called slag. In another place, you pass a square
rock, covered with beautiful dog's tooth spar, called the Mile Stone.
This pass brings you into Wellington's Gallery, which tapers off to a
narrow point, apparently the end of the cave in this direction. But a
ladder is placed on one side by which you ascend to a small cleft in the
rock, through which you are at once ushered into a vast apartment,
discovered about two years ago. This is the commencement of Cleveland's
Avenue, the crowning wonder and glory of this subterranean world. At the
head of the ladder, you find yourself surrounded by overhanging
stalactites, in the form of rich clusters of grapes, transparent to the
light, hard as marble, and round and polished, as if done by a
sculptor's hand. This is called Mary's Vineyard; and from it, an
entrance to the right brings you into a perfectly naked cave, whence you
suddenly pass into a large hall, with magnificent columns, and rich
festoons of stalactite, in various forms of beautiful combination. In
the centre of this chamber, between columns of stalactite, stands a mass
of stalagmite, shaped like a sarcophagus, in which is an opening like a
grave. A Roman Catholic priest first discovered this, about a year ago,
and with fervent enthusiasm exclaimed, "The Holy Sepulchre!" a name
which it has since borne.
To the left of Mary's Vineyard, is an inclosure like an arbor, the
ceiling and sides of which are studded with snow-white crystallized
gypsum, in the form of all sorts of flowers. It is impossible to convey
an idea of the exquisite beauty and infinite variety of these delicate
formations. In some places, roses and lilies seem cut on the rock, in
bas-relief; in others, a graceful bell rises on a long stalk, so slender
that it bends at a breath. One is an admirable imitation of Indian corn
in tassel, the silky fibres as fine and flexile as can be imagined;
another is a group of ostrich plumes, so downy that a zephyr waves it.
In some nooks were little parks of trees, in others, gracefully curled
leaves like the Acanthus, rose from the very bosom of the rock. Near
this room is the Snow Chamber, the roof and sides of which are covered
with particles of brilliant white gypsum, as if snowballs had been
dashed all over the walls. In another apartment the crystals are all in
the form of rosettes. In another, called Rebecca's Garland, the flowers
have all arranged themselves into wreaths. Each seems to have a style of
formations peculiar to itself, though of infinite variety. Days might be
spent in these superb grottoes, without becoming familiar with half
their hidden glories. One could imagine that some antediluvian giant had
here imprisoned some fair daughter of earth, and then in pity for her
loneliness, had employed fairies to deck her bowers with all the
splendor of earth and ocean. Like poor Amy Robsart, in the solitary
halls of Cumnor. Bengal Lights, kindled in these beautiful retreats,
produce an effect more gorgeous than any theatrical representation of
fairyland; but they smoke the pure white incrustations, and the guide
is therefore very properly reluctant to have them used. The reflection
from the shining walls is so strong, that lamplight is quite sufficient.
Moreover, these wonderful formations need to be examined slowly and in
detail. The universal glitter of the Lights is worthless in comparison.
From Rebecca's Garland you come into a vast hall, of great height,
covered with shining drops of gypsum, like oozing water petrified. In
the centre is a large rock, four feet high, and level at top, round
which several hundred people can sit conveniently. This is called
Cornelia's Table, and is frequently used for parties to dine upon. In
this hall, and in Wellington's Gallery, are deposits of fibrous gypsum,
snow-white, dry, and resembling asbestos. Geologists, who sometimes take
up their abode in the cave for weeks, and other travellers who choose to
remain over night, find this a very pleasant and comfortable bed.
Cornelia's Table is a safe centre, from which individuals may diverge on
little exploring expeditions; for the paths here are not labyrinthine,
and the hall is conspicuous from various neighboring points of view. In
most regions of the cave, it is hazardous to lose sight of the guide. If
you think to walk straight ahead, even for a few rods, and then turn
short round and return to him, you will find it next to impossible to do
so. So many paths come in at acute angles; they look so much alike; and
the light of a lamp reveals them so imperfectly, that none but the
practised eye of a guide can disentangle their windings. A gentleman who
retraced a few steps, near the entrance of the cave, to find his hat,
lost his way so completely, that he was not found for forty-eight hours,
though twenty or thirty people were in search of him. Parties are
occasionally mustered and counted, to see that none are missing. Should
such an accident happen, there is no danger, if the wanderer will remain
stationary; for he will soon be missed, and a guide sent after him. From
the hall of congealed drops, you may branch off into a succession of
small caves, called Cecilia's Grottoes. Here nearly all the beautiful
formations of the surrounding caves, such as grapes, flowers, stars,
leaves, coral, &c., may be found so low, that you can conveniently
examine their minutest features. One of these little recesses, covered
with sparkling spar, set in silvery gypsum, is called Diamond Grotto.
Alma's Bower closes this series of wonderful formations. As a whole,
they are called Cleveland's Cabinet, in honor of Professor Cleveland, of
Bowdoin College. Silliman calls this admirable series, the Alabaster
Caves. He says: "I was at first at a loss to account for such beautiful
formations, and especially for the elegance of the curves exhibited. It
is however evident that the substances have grown from the rocks, by
increments or additions to the base; the solid parts already formed
being continually pushed forward. If the growth be a little more rapid
on one side than on the other, a well-proportioned curve will be the
result; should the increased action on one side diminish or increase,
then all the beauties of the conic and mixed curves would be produced.
The masses are often evenly and longitudinally striated by a kind of
columnar structure, exhibiting a fascicle of small prisms; and some of
these prisms ending sooner than others, give a broken termination of
great beauty, similar to our form of the emblem of 'the order of the
star.' The rosettes formed by a mammillary disk surrounded by a circle
of leaves, rolled elegantly outward, are from four inches to a foot in
diameter. Tortuous vines, throwing off curled leaves at every flexure,
like the branches of a chandelier, running more than a foot in length,
and not thicker than the finger, are among the varied frost-work of
these grottoes; common stalactites of carbonate of lime, although
beautiful objects, lose by contrast with these ornaments, and dwindle
into mere clumsy, awkward icicles. Besides these, there are tufts of
'hair salt,' native sulphate of magnesia, depending like adhering
snowballs from the roof, and periodically detaching themselves by their
own increasing weight. Indeed, the more solid alabaster ornaments become
at last overgrown, and fall upon the floor of the grotto, which was
found covered with numbers quite entire, besides fragments of others
broken by the fall."
A distinguished geologist has said that he believed Cleveland's Avenue,
two miles in length, contained a petrified form of every vegetable
production on earth. If this be too large a statement, it is at least
safe to say that its variety is almost infinite. Amongst its other
productions, are large piles of Epsom salts, beautifully crystallized.
Travellers have shown such wanton destructiveness in this great temple
of Nature--mutilating beautiful columns, knocking off spar, and crushing
delicate flowers--that the rules are now very strict. It is allowable to
touch nothing, except the ornaments which have loosened and dropped by
their own weight. These are often hard enough to bear transportation.
After you leave Alma's Bower, the cave again becomes very rugged.
Beautiful combinations of gypsum and spar may still be seen occasionally
overhead: but all round you rocks and stones are piled up in the wildest
manner. Through such scraggy scenery, you come to the Rocky Mountains,
an irregular pile of massive rocks, from 100 to 150 feet high. From
these you can look down into Dismal Hollow--deep below deep--the most
frightful looking place in the whole cave. On the top of the mountain is
a beautiful rotunda, called Croghan Hall, in honor of the proprietor.
Stalactites surround this in the richest fringe of icicles, and lie
scattered about the walls in all shapes, as if arranged for a museum. On
one side is a stalagmite formation like a pine-tree, about five feet
high, with regular leaves and branches; another is in a pyramidal form,
like a cypress.
If you wind down the mountains on the side opposite from that which you
ascended, you will come to Serena's Arbor, which is thirteen miles from
the entrance of the cave, and the end of this avenue. A most beautiful
termination it is! In a semicircle of stalactite columns is a fountain
of pure water spouting up from a rock. This fluid is as transparent as
air; all the earthy particles it ever held in suspension, having been
long since precipitated. The stalactite formations in this arbor are
remarkably beautiful.
One hundred and sixty-five avenues have been discovered in Mammoth Cave,
the walk through which is estimated at about three hundred miles. In
some places, you descend more than a mile into the bowels of the earth.
The poetic-minded traveller, after he has traced all the labyrinths,
departs with lingering reluctance. As he approaches the entrance,
daylight greets him with new and startling beauty. If the sun shines on
the verdant sloping hill, and the waving trees, seen through the arch,
they seem like fluid gold; if mere daylight rests upon them, they
resemble molten silver. This remarkable richness of appearance is
doubtless owing to the contrast with the thick darkness, to which the
eye has been so long accustomed.
As you come out of the cave, the temperature of the air rises thirty
degrees instantly (if the season is summer), and you feel as if plunged
in a hot vapor bath; but the effects of this are salutary and not
unpleasant. Nature never seems so miraculous as it does when you emerge
from this hidden realm of marvellous imitations. The "dear goddess" is
so serene in her resplendent and more harmonious beauty! The gorgeous
amphitheatre of trees, the hills, the sky, and the air, all seem to wear
a veil of transfigured glory. The traveller feels that he was never
before conscious how beautiful a phenomenon is the sunlight, how
magnificent the blue arch of heaven!
There are three guides at the service of travellers, all well versed in
the intricate paths of this nether world. Stephen, the presiding genius
of Mammoth Cave, is a mulatto, and a slave. He has lived in this strange
region from boyhood, and a large proportion of the discoveries are the
result of his courage, intelligence, and untiring zeal. His vocation has
brought him into contact with many intellectual and scientific men, and
a prodigious memory, he has profited much by intercourse with superior
minds. He can recollect every body that ever visited the cave, and all
the terms of geology and mineralogy are at his tongue's end. He is
extremely attentive, and peculiarly polite to ladies. Like most of his
race, he is fond of grandiloquent language, and his rapturous
expressions, as he lights up some fine point of view, are at times fine
specimens of glorification. His knowledge of the place is ample and
accurate, and he is altogether an extremely useful and agreeable guide.
FOOTNOTES:
[B] See engraving of this hotel in the _International_ for August, 1851.
THE POEM OF THE MONTH.
The finest new poem that has fallen under our notice is the following,
from _Graham's Magazine_ for the present month. We think few who have
read Miss Carey's recent poems entitled _Lyra_, _Jessie Carol_,
_October_, and _The Winds_, with her prose volume just published by
Redfield, will be disposed to question, that in the brief period in
which she has been before the public she has entitled herself to the
highest rank among the living literary women of the United States.
WINTER, BY ALICE CAREY.
Now sits the twilight palaced in the snow,
Hugging away beneath a fleece of gold
Her statue beauties, dumb and icy cold,
And fixing her blue steadfast eyes below,
Where in a bed of chilly waves afar,
With dismal shadows o'er her sweet face blown,
Tended to death by eve's delicious star,
Lies the lost day alone.
Where late, with red mists bound about his brows,
Went the swart Autumn, wading to the knees
Through drifts of dead leaves shaken from the boughs
Of the old forest trees,
The gusts upon their baleful errands run
O'er the bright ruin, fading from our eyes,
And over all, like clouds about the sun,
A shadow lies.
For, fallen asleep upon a dreary world,
Slant to the light, one late October morn,
From some rough cavern blew a tempest cold,
And tearing off his garland of ripe corn,
Twisted with blue grapes, sweet with delicious wine,
And Ceres' drowsy flowers, so dully red,
Deep in his cavern leafy and divine,
Buried him with his dead.
Then, with big black beard glistening in the frost,
Under the icy arches of the north,
And o'er the still graves of the seasons lost,
Blustered the Winter forth--
Spring, with your crown of roses budding new,
Thought-nursing and most melancholy Fall,
Summer, with bloomy meadows wet with dew,
Blighting your beauties all.
Oh heart, your spring-time dream will idle prove,
Your summer but forerun the autumn's death,
The flowery arches in the home of love
Fall crumbling, at a breath;
And, sick at last with that great sorrow's shock,
As some poor prisoner, pressing to the bars
His forehead, calls on Mercy to unlock
The chambers of the stars--
You, turning off from life's first mocking glow
Leaning it may be, still on broken faith,
Will down the vale of Autumn gladly go
To the chill winter, Death.
Hark! from the empty bosom of the grove
I hear a sob, as one forlorn might pine--
The white-limbed beauty of a god is thine,
King of the seasons! and the night that hoods
Thy brow majestic, brightest stars enweave--
Thou surely canst not grieve;
But only far away
Makest stormy prophecies; well, lift them higher,
Till morning on the forehead of the day
Presses a seal of fire
Dearer to me the scene
Of nature shrinking from thy rough embrace,
Than Summer, with her rustling robe of green,
Cool blowing in my face.
The moon is up--how still the yellow beams
That slantwise lie upon the stirless air,
Sprinkled with frost, like pearl-entangled hair,
O'er beauty's cheeks that streams,
How the red light of Mars their pallor mocks.
And the wild legend from the old time wins,
Of sweet waves kissing all the drowning locks
Of Ilia's lovely twins.
Come, Poesy, and with thy shadowy hands
Cover me softly, singing all the night--
In thy dear presence find I best delight;
Even the saint that stands
Tending the gate of heaven, involved in beams
Of rarest glory, to my mortal eyes
Pales from the blest insanity of dreams
That round thee lies.
Unto the dusky borders of the grove
Where gray-haired Saturn, silent as a stone,
Sat in his grief alone,
Or where young Venus, searching for her love,
Walked through the clouds, I pray,
Bear me to-night away.
Or wade with me through snows
Drifted in loose fantastic curves aside,
From humble doors where Love and Faith abide,
And no rough winter blows,
Chilling the beauty of affections fair,
Cabined securely there.
Where round their fingers winding the white slips
That crown his forehead, on the grandsire's knees,
Sit merry children, teasing about ships
Lost in the perilous seas;
Or listening with a troublous joy, yet deep,
To stories about battles, or of storms,
Till weary grown, and drowsing into sleep,
Slide they from out his arms.
Where, by the log-heap fire,
As the pane rattles and the cricket sings,
I with the gray-haired sire
May talk of vanished summer-times and springs,
And harmlessly and cheerfully beguile
The long, long hours--
The happier for the snows that drift the while
About the flowers.
Winter, wilt keep the love I offer thee?
No mesh of flowers is bound about my brow;
From life's fair summer I am hastening now,
And as I sink my knee,
Dimpling the beauty of thy bed of snow--
Dowerless, I can but say--
O, cast me not away!
CARLYLE ON THE OPERA.
The London _Keepsake_, for 1852, contains an article by Carlyle. He has
not sent something that was at hand, or thrown off any thing on the spur
of the moment, but set himself to write down to his company, and do his
best in that way. The paper is written in the character of a travelling
and philosophical American, who pours forth his thoughts on the opera;
the topics being the deterioration of music as an art, the small
beneficial result that follows so much outlay and such a combination of
artistical skill, the amount of training bestowed on the singers and
dancers, greater than that which produces great men, and the company
before the curtain, together with reflections thereanent. It is a piece
of forcible description, and of thoughtful though perhaps rather
one-sided reflection. As we heard it remarked a few days ago by a shrewd
critic, Carlyle is never so much himself as when he appears in the
character of another--for examples, in that of the strolling lecturer,
who left with his unpaid lodging-house keeper a denunciation of modern
philanthropists, or in that of the correspondent whose letters he quotes
in the Life of Sterling. In the disguise of a Yankee philosopher he thus
breaks out, after some serious and highly-wrought prefatory phrases on
the glories of true music, while yet true music partook of the divine:
"Of the account of the Haymarket Opera my account, in fine, is
this: Lustres, candelabras, painting, gilding at discretion: a
hall as of the Caliph Alraschid, or him that commanded the
slaves of the Lamp; a hall as if fitted up by the genies,
regardless of expense. Upholstery and the outlay of human
capital, could do no more. Artists, too, as they are called,
have been got together from the ends of the world, regardless
likewise of expense, to do dancing and singing, some of them
even geniuses in their craft. One singer in particular, called
Coletti, or some such name, seemed to me, by the cast of his
face, by the tones of his voice, by his general bearing, so far
as I could read it, to be a man of deep and ardent
sensibilities, of delicate intuitions, just sympathies;
originally an almost poetic soul, or man of _genius_, as we
term it; stamped by Nature as capable of far other work than
squalling here, like a blind Samson to make the Philistines
sport! Nay, all of them had aptitudes, perhaps of a
distinguished kind; and must, by their own and other people's
labor, have got a training equal or superior in toilsomeness,
earnest assiduity, and patient travail, to what breeds men to
the most arduous trades. I speak not of kings' grandees, or the
like show-figures; but few soldiers, judges, men of letters,
can have had such pains taken with them. The very ballet girls,
with their muslin saucers round them, were perhaps little short
of miraculous; whirling and spinning there in strange mad
vortexes, and then suddenly fixing themselves motionless, each
upon her left or right great-toe, with the other leg stretched
out at an angle of ninety degrees;--as if you had suddenly
pricked into the floor, by one of their points, a pair, or
rather a multitudinous cohort, of mad restlessly jumping and
clipping scissors, and so bidden them rest, with opened blades,
and stand still, in the Devil's name! A truly notable motion;
marvellous, almost miraculous, were not the people there so
used to it. Motion peculiar to the Opera; perhaps the ugliest,
and surely one of the most difficult, ever taught a female
creature in this world. Nature abhors it; but Art does at least
admit it to border on the impossible. One little Cerito, or
Taglioni the Second, that night when I was there, went bounding
from the floor as if she had been made of Indian-rubber, or
filled with hydrogen gas, and inclined by positive levity to
bolt through the ceiling; perhaps neither Semiramis nor
Catherine the Second had bred herself so carefully. Such
talent, and such martyrdom of training, gathered from the four
winds, was now here, to do its feat, and be paid for it.
Regardless of expense, indeed! The purse of Fortunatus seemed
to have opened itself, and the divine art of Musical Sound and
Rhythmic Motion was welcomed with an explosion of all the
magnificences which the other arts, fine and coarse, could
achieve. For you are to think of some Rossini or Bellini in the
rear of it, too; to say nothing of the Stanfields, and hosts of
scene-painters, machinists, engineers, enterprisers--fit to
have taken Gibraltar, written the History of England, or
reduced Ireland into Industrial Regiments, had they so set
their minds to it!
"Alas, and of all these notable or noticeable human talents,
and excellent perseverances and energies, backed by mountains
of wealth, and led by the divine art of Music and Rhythm
vouchsafed by Heaven to them and us, what was to be the issue
here this evening? An hour's amusement, not amusing either,
but wearisome and dreary, to a high-dizened select populace of
male and female persons, who seemed to me not worth much
amusing! Could any one have pealed into their hearts once, one
true thought, and glimse of Self-vision: 'High-dizened most
expensive persons, Aristocracy so called, or _Best_ of the
World, beware, beware what proofs you give of betterness and
bestness!' and then the salutary pang of conscience in reply:
'A select Populace, with money in its purse, and drilled a
little by the posture-maker: good Heavens! if that were what,
here and every where in God's Creation, I _am_? And a world all
dying because I am, and show myself to be, and to have long
been, even that? John, the carriage, the carriage; swift! Let
me go home in silence, to reflection, perhaps to sackcloth and
ashes!' This, and not amusement, would have profited those
high-dizened persons.
"Amusement, at any rate, they did not get from Euterpe and
Melpomene. These two Muses, sent for, regardless of expense, I
could see, were but the vehicle of a kind of service which I
judged to be Paphian rather. Young beauties of both sexes used
their opera-glasses, you could notice, not entirely for looking
at the stage. And it must be owned the light, in this explosion
of all the upholsteries, and the human fine arts and coarse,
was magical; and made your fair one an Armida,--if you liked
her better so. Nay, certain old Improper-Females (of quality),
in their rouge and jewels, even these looked some
_reminiscence_ of enchantment; and I saw this and the other
lean domestic Dandy, with icy smile on his old worn face; this
and the other Marquis Singedelomme, Prince Mahogany, or the
like foreign Dignitary, tripping into the boxes of said
females, grinning there awhile with dyed moustachios and
macassar-oil graciosity, and then tripping out again;--and, in
fact, I perceived that Colletti and Cerito and the Rhythmic
Arts were a mere accompaniment here.
"Wonderful to see; and sad, if you had eyes! Do but think of
it. Cleopatra threw pearls into her drink, in mere waste; which
was reckoned foolish of her. But here had the Modern
Aristocracy of men brought the divinest of its Arts, heavenly
Music itself; and, piling all the upholsteries and ingenuities
that other human art could do, had lighted them into a bonfire
to illuminate an hour's flirtation of Singedelomme, Mahogany,
and these improper persons! Never in Nature had I seen such
waste before. O Colletti, you whose inborn melody, once of
kindred as I judged to 'the Melodies eternal,' might have
valiantly weeded out this and the other false thing from the
ways of men, and made a bit of God's creation more
melodious,--they have purchased you away from that; chained you
to the wheel of Prince Mahogany's chariot, and here you make
sport for a macassar Singedelomme and his improper-females past
the prime of life! Wretched spiritual Nigger, oh, if you _had_
some genius, and were not a born Nigger with mere appetite for
pumpkin, should you have endured such a lot? I lament for _you_
beyond all other expenses. Other expenses are light; you are
the Cleopatra's pearl that should not have been flung into
Mahogany's claret-cup. And Rossini, too, and Mozart and
Bellini--Oh, Heavens, when I think that Music too is condemned
to be mad and to burn herself, to this end, on such a funeral
pile,--your celestial Opera-house grows dark and infernal to
me! Behind its glitter stalks the shadow of Eternal Death;
through it too I look not 'up into the divine eye,' as Richter
has it, 'but down into the bottomless eyesocket'--not up
towards God, Heaven, and the Throne of Truth, but too truly
down towards Falsity, Vacuity, and the Dwelling-place of
Everlasting Despair."
THE GRAVE OF SIR JOHN FRANKLIN.
Sir John Richardson has just published, in London, a very valuable work,
embracing the results of his recent travels and adventures in the polar
regions, in search of the brave navigator who is probably buried under
their eternal snows. As a narrative it is not particularly interesting;
it is rich rather in scientific facts and observations. It has northern
landscapes, painted by an observer who combines scientific knowledge
with the taste of a lover of nature; exhibitions of zeal and endurance
under hardships; and incidents interesting from their rarity or their
circumstances; but nothing different from other expeditions undertaken
to explore the same region. A large part of the scientific matter is
presented by itself. A curious account of the Indian races whose
territories were travelled over forms a succession of separate chapters,
and a series of elaborate papers on the physical geography of northern
America occupies an appendix, which fills nearly two-thirds of the
second volume. The nature of the country explored gives a freshness to
every thing connected with it, and interest even to casual observation.
This is a curious fact connected with the feeling of heat:
"The power of the sun this day in a cloudless sky was so great,
that Mr. Rae and I were glad to take shelter in the water while
the crews were engaged on the portages. The irritability of the
human frame is either greater in these Northern latitudes, or
the sun, notwithstanding its obliquity, acts more powerfully
upon it than near the Equator; for I have never felt its direct
rays so oppressive within the Tropics as I have experienced
them to be on some occasions in the high latitudes. The luxury
of bathing at such times is not without alloy; for, if you
choose the mid-day, you are assailed in the water by the
_tabani_, who draw blood in an instant with their formidable
lancets; and if you select the morning or evening, then clouds
of thirsty moschetoes, hovering around, fasten on the first
part that emerges. Leeches also infest the still waters, and
are prompt in their aggressions."
The following relate to cold and mid-winter:
"The rapid evaporation of both snow and ice in the winter and
spring, long before the action of the sun has produced the
slightest thaw or appearance of moisture, is made evident to
residents in the high latitudes by many facts of daily
occurrence; and I may mention that the drying of linen
furnishes a familiar one. When a shirt, after being washed, is
exposed in the open air to a temperature of 40° or 50° below
zero, it is instantly rigidly frozen, and may be broken if
violently bent. If agitated when in this condition by a strong
wind, it makes a rustling noise like theatrical thunder. In an
hour or two, however, or nearly as quickly as it would do if
exposed to the sun in the moist climate of England, it dries
and becomes limber....
"In consequence of the extreme dryness of the atmosphere in
winter, most articles of English manufacture made of wood,
horn, or ivory, brought to Rupert's Land, are shrivelled, bent,
and broken. The handles of razors and knives, combs, ivory
scales, and various other things kept in the warm rooms, are
damaged in this way. The human body also becomes visibly
electric from the dryness of the skin. One cold night I rose
from my bed, and having lighted a lantern, was going out to
observe the thermometer, with no other clothing than my flannel
night-dress, when, on approaching my hand to the iron latch of
the door, a distinct spark was elicited. Friction of the skin
at almost all times in winter produced the electric odor....
"Even at mid-winter we had three hours and a half of daylight.
On the 20th of December I required a candle to write at the
window at ten in the morning. On the 29th, the sun, after ten
days' absence, rose at the fishery, where the horizon was open;
and on the 8th of January, both limbs of that luminary were
seen from a gentle eminence behind the fort, rising above the
centre of Fishery Island. For several days previously, however,
its place in the heavens at noon had been denoted by rays of
light shooting into the sky above the woods. The lowest
temperature in January was 50° F. On the 1st of February the
sun rose to us at nine o'clock and set at three, and the days
lengthened rapidly. On the 23d I could write in my room without
artificial light from ten A.M. to half-past two P.M., making
four hours and a half of bright daylight. The moon in the long
nights was a most beautiful object; that satellite being
constantly above the horizon for nearly a fortnight together in
the middle of the lunar month. Venus also shone with a
brilliancy which is never witnessed in a sky loaded with
vapors; and, unless in snowy weather, our nights were always
enlivened by the beams of the Aurora."
Few if any readers will ever be in a situation to use the knowledge of
how to build a snow-house. The Arctic architecture, from a chapter on
the Esquimaux, is worth reading, should it never turn out to be worth
knowing:
"As the days lengthen, the villages are emptied of their
inhabitants, who move seaward on the ice to the seal-hunt. Then
comes into use a marvellous system of architecture, unknown
among the rest of the American nations. The fine pure snow has
by that time acquired, under the action of strong winds and
hard frosts, sufficient coherence to form an admirable light
building material, with which the Eskimo master-mason erects
most comfortable dome-shaped houses. A circle is first traced
on the smooth surface of the snow; and the slabs for raising
the walls are cut from within, so as to clear a space down to
the ice, which is to form the floor of the dwelling, and whose
evenness was previously ascertained by probing. The slabs
requisite to complete the dome, after the interior of the
circle is exhausted, are cut from some neighboring spot. Each
slab is neatly fitted to its place by running a flenching-knife
along the joint, when it instantly freezes to the wall, the
cold atmosphere forming a most excellent cement. Crevices are
plugged up, and seams accurately closed by throwing a few
shovelfuls of loose snow over the fabric. Two men generally
work together in raising a house, and the one who is stationed
within cuts a low door, and creeps out when his task is over.
The walls being only three or four inches thick, are
sufficiently translucent to admit a very agreeable light, which
serves for ordinary domestic purposes; but if more be required
a window is cut, and the aperture fitted with a piece of
transparent ice. The proper thickness of the walls is of some
importance. A few inches excludes the wind, yet keeps down the
temperature so as to prevent dripping from the interior. The
furniture--such as seats, tables, and sleeping-places--is also
formed of snow, and a covering of folded reindeer-skin or
seal-skin renders them comfortable to the inmates. By means of
ante-chambers and porches, in form of long, low galleries, with
their openings turned to leeward, warmth is insured in the
interior; and social intercourse is promoted by building the
houses contiguously, and cutting doors of communication between
them, or by erecting covered passages. Storehouses, kitchens
and other accessory buildings, may be constructed in the same
manner, and a degree of convenience gained which would be
attempted in vain with a less plastic material. These houses
are durable, the wind has little effect on them, and they
resist the thaw until the sun acquires very considerable
power."
The following account of the formation of dry land is from an earlier
portion of the journey, and refers to a region between the 50th and 55th
degrees of latitude:
"The eastern coast-line of Lake Winipeg is in general swampy,
with granite knolls rising through the soil, but not to such a
height as to render the scenery hilly. The pine forest skirts
the shore at the distance of two or three miles, covering
gently-rising lands; and the breadth of continuous lake-surface
seems to be in process of diminution, in the following way. A
bank of sand is first drifted up, in the line of a chain of
rocks which may happen to lie across the mouth of an inlet or
deep bay. Carices, balsam-poplars, and willows, speedily take
root therein; and the basin which lies behind, cut off from the
parent lake, is gradually converted into a marsh by the
luxuriant growth of aquatic plants. The sweet gale next appears
on its borders, and drift-wood, much of it rotten and
comminuted, is thrown up on the exterior bank, together with
some roots and stems of larger trees. The first spring storm
covers these with sand, and in a few weeks the vigorous
vegetation of a short but active summer binds the whole
together by a network of the roots of bents and willows.
Quantities of drift-sand pass before the high winds into the
swamp behind, and, weighing down the flags and willow branches,
prepare a fit soil for succeeding crops. During the winter of
this climate, all remains fixed as the summer left it; and as
the next season is far advanced before the bank thaws, little
of it washes back into the water, but on the contrary, every
gale blowing from the lake brings a fresh supply of sand from
the shoals which are continually forming along the shore. The
floods raised by melting snows cut narrow channels through the
frozen beach, by which the ponds behind are drained of their
superfluous waters. As the soil gradually acquires depth, the
balsam-poplars and aspens overpower the willows; which,
however, continue to form a line of demarcation between the
lake and the encroaching forest. Considerable sheets of water,
are also cut off on the northwest side of the lake, where the
bird's-eye limestone forms the whole of the coast. Very
recently this corner was deeply indented by narrow branching
bays, whose outer points were limestone cliffs. Under the
action of frost, the thin horizontal beds of this stone split
up, crevices are formed perpendicularly, large blocks are
detached, and the cliff is rapidly overthrown, soon becoming
masked by its own ruins. In a season or two the slabs break
into small fragments, which are tossed up by the waves across
the neck of the bay into the form of narrow ridgelike beaches,
from twenty to thirty feet high. Mud and vegetable matter
gradually fill up the pieces of water thus secluded; a willow
swamp is formed; and when the ground is somewhat consolidated,
the willows are replaced by aspens."
The volumes have all the value of an official survey, and they are the
most important contributions to our knowledge of the _Terra Incognita_
of the Lower Mackenzie, that have been published. The occupants of this
region are the Loucheux Indians. Fine grown men of considerable stature,
and well-knit frames, they have evidently followed the course of the
Mackenzie River, from south to north. These are the Indians of whom from
the scantiness of our previous data, information is most valuable. They
are reasonably considered to belong to the same family as the Dog-rib,
Beaver, Hare, Copper, Carrier, and other Indians, a family which some
call Chepewyan, others Athabascan, but which the present work designates
as _Tinnè_. The Esquimo and Crees, though as fully described, are better
known. The chapters, illustrative of the other branches of the natural
history of North America, are equally valuable.
WITS ABOUT THE THRONE OF LOUIS THE FOURTEENTH.
We copy the following paragraphs from Sir James Stephens's Lectures on
the History of France. The illustrious men referred to are of course
well known by educated men, but to the masses their names are familiar
chiefly from their appearance in the brilliant romances of Dumas.
"The constellation of genius, wit, and learning, in the midst
of which Louis shone thus pre-eminently, was too brilliant to
be obscured by any clouds of royal disfavor; nor would any man
have shrunken with greater abhorrence than himself, from any
attempt to extinguish or to eclipse their splendor. He wisely
felt, and frankly acknowledged, that, their glory was essential
to his own; and he invited to a seat at his table, Moliere the
roturier, to whom the lowest of his nobles would have appointed
a place among his menial servants. As Francis, and Charles, and
Leo, and Julius, and Lorenzo had assigned science, and poetry,
and painting, and architecture, and sculpture, as their
appropriate provinces, to those great master spirits of Italy,
to whom they forbade the culture of political philosophy, so
Louis, when he interdicted to the gigantic intellects of his
times and country all intervention in the affairs of the
commonwealth, summoned them to the conquest of all the other
realms of thought in which they might acquire renown, either
for him, for France, or themselves. The theatres, the
academies, the pulpits, and the monasteries of his kingdom
rivalled each other in their zealous obedience to that royal
command, and obeyed it with a success from which no competent
and equitable judge can withhold his highest admiration. At
this day, when all the illusions of the name of Louis are
exhausted, and in this country, where his Augustan age has
seldom been regarded with much enthusiasm, who can seriously
address himself to the perusal of his great tragedians,
Corneille and Racine--or of his great comedians, Moliere and
Regnard--or if his great poets, Boileau and La Fontaine--or of
his great wits, La Rochfaucauld and La Bruyere--or of his great
philosophers, Des Cartes and Pascal--or of his great divines,
Bossuet and Arnauld--or of his great scholars, Mabillon and
Montfaucon--or if his great preachers, Bourdaloue and
Masillon--and not confess that no other monarch was ever
surrounded by an assemblage of men of genius so admirable for
the extent, the variety and the perfection of their powers.
"And yet the fact that such an assemblage were clustered into a
group, of which so great a king was the centre, implies that
there must have been some characteristic quality uniting them
all to each other and to him, and distinguishing them all from
the nobles of every other literary commonwealth which has
existed among men. What, then, was that quality, and what its
influence upon them?
"Louis lived with his courtiers, not as a despot among his
slaves, but as the most accomplished of gentlemen among his
associates. The social equality was, however, always guarded
from abuse by the most punctilious observance, on their side,
of the reverence due to his pre-eminent rank. In that enchanted
circle men appeared at least to obey, not from a hard
necessity, but from a willing heart. The bondage in which they
really lived was ennobled by that conventional code of honor
which dictated and enforced it. They prostrated themselves
before their fellow-man with no sense of self-abasement, and
the chivalrous homage with which they gratified him, was
considered as imparting dignity to themselves.
"Louis acknowledged and repaid this tribute of courtesy, by a
condescension still more refined, and by attentions yet more
delicate than their own. The harshness of power was so
ingeniously veiled, every shade of approbation was so nicely
marked, and every gradation of favor so finely discriminated,
that the tact of good society--that acquired sense, which
reveals to us the impression we make on those with whom we
associate--became the indispensable condition of existence at
Versailles and Marly. The inmates of those palaces lived under
a law peculiar to themselves; a law most effective for its
purposes, though the recompense it awarded to those who pleased
their common master was but his smile, and though the penalty
it imposed on those who displeased him was but his frown."
AMERICAN WAR-ENGINES.
The probabilities of a general war in Europe invest the subject of the
following paper with an unusual interest. It is worthy of notice that
America has furnished so large a proportion of the improvements in
war-engines of every description. Fulton's schemes are well known; we
all remember something of the guns invented by Perkins; there is a
gentleman now in daily conference with Mazzini and the revolutionary
committees, in London, who proposes the noiseless discharge of twenty
thousand missiles in a minute, by means of a machine invented in Ohio;
and we find in the _Times_ an abstract of a paper read at the
Institution of Civil Engineers, on the 25th of November, by our famous
countryman Colonel Colt, "On the Application of Machinery to the
Manufacture of Rotating Chambered-Breech Fire-Arms, and the
Peculiarities of those Arms." The communication commenced with a
historical account of such rotating chamber fire-arms as had been
discovered by the author, in his researches after specimens of the early
efforts of armorers for the construction of repeating weapons, the
necessity for which appears to have been long ago admitted; and with the
attention of such an intelligent class devoted to the subject, it is
certainly remarkable that during so long a period so little was really
effected towards the production of serviceable weapons of this sort. The
collections in the Tower of London, the United Service Museum, the
Rotunda at Woolwich, Warwick Castle, the Musée d'Artillerie, and the
Hotel Cluny, at Paris, as well as some ancient Eastern arms brought from
India by Lord William Bentinck, demonstrated the early efforts that had
been made to produce arms capable of rapidly firing several times
consecutively, without the delay of loading after each discharge.
Drawings of these specimens were exhibited, comprising the match-lock,
the pyrites wheel-lock, the flint-lock, down to the percussion-lock, as
adapted by the author. Among the match-lock guns, some had as many as
eight chambers, rotating by hand. Some of the pyrites wheel-lock guns
had also as many as eight chambers, and rotated by hand; one of them,
made in the seventeenth century, had the peculiarity of igniting the
charge close behind the bullet, burning backwards towards the breech--an
arrangement identical in principle with that of the modern Prussian
"needle gun," for which great merit has been claimed. The flint-locks
induced more determined efforts, but all were abortive, as the magazines
for priming and the pan covers were continually blown off on the
explosion of the charge. Indeed, from the earliest match-lock down to
the present time, the premature explosion of several chambers, owing to
the simultaneous ignition of the charges, from the spreading of the fire
at their mouths, had been the great source of difficulty. In some of the
most ancient specimens, orifices were provided in the butt of the barrel
for the escape of the bullets in case of explosion, whilst others had
evidently been destroyed by this action. In a brass model of a pistol of
the time of Charles II., from the United Service Museum, there was an
ingenious attempt to cause the chamber to rotate, by mechanical action,
in some degree similar, but more complicated than the arms constructed
by the author. The "Coolidge" and the "Collier" guns, both flint guns of
comparatively modern manufacture, exhibited the same radical defects of
liability to premature explosion.
The invention of Nock's patent breech, and the Rev. Mr. Forsyth's
introduction of the detonating or percussion guns, which latter
principle, with the necessary mechanical arrangements for the caps, was
essential to the safe construction of repeating fire-arms, constituted a
new era in these weapons.
Colonel Colt gave a detailed and interesting account of his experiments,
which resulted in the invention of his celebrated revolvers. His
communication, the first that had been brought before the institution,
by an American, was received with acclamations; and in the discussion
which ensued, in which our Minister, the Hon. Abbott Lawrence, Captain
Sir Thomas Hastings, R.N., Captain Sir Edward Belcher, R.N., Captain
Riddell, R.N., Mr. Miles, and the members of the council took part, the
most flattering testimony was given of the efficiency of the revolvers
in active service, and the strongest opinions as to the necessity of
their use in all frontier warfare; and that without this arm it was
almost impossible, except with an overwhelming force of troops, to cope
with savage tribes. The discussion was resumed at a meeting of the
Institution, held on the second of December.
A new, and, we understand, a very important invention, in this line, is
also described in the following interesting article by a contributor to
the _International_:
SKETCH OF THE PROGRESS OF INVENTION IN OFFENSIVE ARMS: JENNING'S RIFLE.
WRITTEN FOR THE INTERNATIONAL MAGAZINE,
BY W. M. FERRIS.
It may be justly considered that mechanical invention has been the most
prominent characteristic of history for the last four centuries. The
application of science to the useful arts has been pushed to an extent
of which preceding ages never dreamed. In poetry, in painting, in
sculpture, the great masters of ancient times are still the teachers of
mankind. But in all those arts which administer to the necessities,
increase the comforts, or multiply the enjoyments of men, the present is
marvellously in advance of every former age. Prominent among those arts
which have shared in this advancement, is that of war. At first sight it
may appear improper to distinguish as useful, improvements in the method
of taking life. But, experience and philosophy unite in teaching that
every improvement in military skill tends to render war less frequent,
and the nearer its operations approach to those of an exact science, the
more reluctant is each nation to engage in it, and the more careful not
to commit those offences which render a resort to it on the part of
other nations unavoidable.
We purpose to trace a brief sketch of the progress of invention in
offensive weapons, and more particularly in that class of fire-arms used
either in hunting or war, by a single individual, and generally
denominated small-arms, in contradistinction to artillery. Such a sketch
will be interesting, not only in its subject-matter, but also as a
chapter in the general history of human progress.
The learned reader who is curious in such matters, will find in the
Natural History of Pliny (vol. vii. cap. 56, 67), a statement of the
source whence originated most of the mechanical implements, the manners
and customs, and the political and religious institutions known in the
author's time. It is to be presumed that Pliny did not intend to vouch
for the truth of all he has there stated. He probably meant merely to
give a synopsis of the traditions most generally received, and which
assigned to a divine energy almost every thing that contributed to the
happiness of men. He tells us here that "the first combats were made by
the Africans against the Egyptians with a kind of stick, which they
called _phalanges_." The evident Greek origin of this word renders the
story absurd enough, and doubtless most of our readers will continue to
acquiesce in the account given in Holy Writ, that the origin of war was
but little subsequent to the origin of the race, and that fraternal
blood first stained the breast of our mother earth. But this statement
of Pliny contains a grain of truth. The stick, or club, was undoubtedly
the first weapon made use of by men in their combats with each other,
though the spear and the sword followed at a period long anterior to any
known in historical records.
But from the earliest ages men have sought to avoid hand-to-hand
conflicts, and to make skill supply the place of strength. In contests
with wild beasts this was indispensable. Nature had provided man with no
weapon with which he could contend against the boar's tusks, the lion's
teeth, or the tiger's paw. Hence, the substitution of missiles for
manual weapons, has been the end towards which ingenuity has been
constantly directed.
The conversion of the spear into the javelin, as it was the most
obvious, so probably it was the earliest step in advance. Close upon
this followed the sling, and last the arrow and the bow. The invention
of the latter weapon is ascribed by Pliny, in the chapter above cited,
to a son of Jupiter. In the days of Homer it was the weapon of the gods;
and thousands of years after, it was the pride and glory of the English
yeoman. The classical scholar will remember the description in the
fourth book of the Iliad, of the bow with which Pandaros shot at
Menelaus an arrow which would have sent to Hades the hero dear to Mars,
had not the daughter of Jove brushed it aside with her hand, as a mother
doth a fly from her sleeping child. The bow does not appear to have been
extensively used in later times in either the Greek or Roman armies. The
ferocious Spartan preferred the close combat with manual weapons, the
Athenian won his glory upon the sea, and it was with the pike that
Alexander overcame the hosts of Persia. The Cretans, who were the most
celebrated archers in Europe, sometimes formed a separate division in
the Grecian and afterward in the Roman armies. The Romans, however,
generally preferred heavy-armed troops. But it was a peculiarity of
Roman policy always to adopt every improvement in the art of war with
which they became acquainted, whether it originated with friend or foe.
Rome never let slip any opportunity to add to the efficiency of her
legions, and they repaid her care by carrying her eagles in triumph from
the Thames to the Euphrates, and from the Danube to the Nile.
It was in the west of Europe, and from about the eleventh to the
fifteenth century, that archery flourished in the greatest perfection.
The early chronicles are filled with the exploits of the English
archers, and old and young still read with delight those ballads which
tell of the wondrous achievements of "Robin Hood and his merry men."
Indeed, with the name of that famous outlaw are connected all our ideas
of perfect skill in the use of the bow, and in the directions which in
his dying hour, he gave to his faithful man, "Little John," we seem to
hear the dirge of archery itself:
"Give me my bent bow in my hand,
And a broad arrow I'll let flee,
And where that arrow is taken up,
There shall my grave digg'd be.
"And lay me a green sod under my head,
And another at my feet,
And lay my bent bow by my side,
Which was my music sweet."
We shall not stop to dwell on the defects of the bow. The great and
insuperable one was its want of power. The strength of a man was the
limit of its capacity, and something more was necessary to pierce the
ironclad breast of the knight. But, until the invention of gunpowder, it
stood at the head of missile engines.
When and where gunpowder was invented it is impossible now to ascertain.
It seems to be described in the pages of Roger Bacon, while many are of
opinion that the returning Crusaders brought it from the east. Certain
it is that it had been known in China for many centuries, and applied to
the blasting of rocks and other useful purposes, though never to the art
of war. But the latter application of it was made by the Europeans
almost contemporaneously with their knowledge of its properties, and for
war it has been chiefly employed until the present time. The invention
of cannon preceded by a century that of small-arms, and it was by a
gradual reduction in the size of the former that the latter were
produced. Barbour, in his metrical Life of Robert Bruce, says, that
cannon were used by Edward III. in his first campaign against the Scots,
in 1327. He calls them "Crakys of war." They are also supposed to have
been employed by the French in the siege of Puy Guillaume, in 1338. But
the first use of them which rests on unimpeachable evidence, and which
seems to have been productive of much effect, was at the battle of
Cressy, in 1346. It is from this epoch that it is most usual to date the
employment of artillery. That day which witnessed the first efficient
use of a weapon destined to revolutionize the art of war, also witnessed
the most splendid achievements of the archers of England. The bowstrings
of the French had become useless by the dampness of the weather, while
those of the English, either on account of greater care or the different
material of which they were made, were uninjured. The cloth-yard arrows
of the English bowmen, directed with unerring skill, made terrible havoc
in the ranks of their enemies, while four pieces of artillery stationed
on a little hill contributed to their victory. The French troops had
none of them ever seen, and most of them never heard of such a weapon,
and the terror inspired by the noise and the smoke did more than the
balls to hasten their defeat.
The first cannons were rude in the extreme. They were made of bars of
iron hooped together like the staves of a barrel, and were larger at the
muzzle than at the breech. The size was very soon decreased, so that two
men could carry one, and fire it from a rest. The 400 cannon with which
Froissart said that the English besieged St. Malo, in 1378, were
probably of this kind. Nearly a century elapsed before small-arms were
invented. Sir S. Meyrick, to whom subsequent writers have been indebted
for most of their knowledge upon this subject, has given, upon the
authority of an eye-witness, the time and place of their invention. "It
was in 1430," says Bilius, "that they were contrived by the Lucquese,
when they were besieged by the Florentines." A French translation of
Quintus Curtius made by Vasqua de Lucene, a Portuguese, in 1468,
preserved among the Burney MSS. of the British Museum, exhibits in one
of its illuminations the earliest representation of hand fire-arms which
has yet been discovered. The following engraving is from a copy of this
illumination, contained in the Penny Cyclopædia.
[Illustration: _B.d.E.K_.]
It will be observed that this gun much resembles one of those small lead
cannons with which patriotic boys, upon each return of our national
anniversary, manifest their appreciation of the blessings of liberty. It
was fastened to a stick, and fired by a match held in the hand. We
proceed to sketch the progress of improvement from this the first gun
until we reach the repeating rifle.
If we analyze the manipulation of fire-arms, it will be found to consist
of three principal operations--namely, to charge the piece, to direct it
toward the object of attack, and to discharge it by in some manner
igniting the powder; or more concisely, to load, take aim, and fire.
That gun with which these operations can be performed most safely,
accurately, and rapidly, is the best.
The process of loading has continued to be essentially the same from the
invention of the gun to the present time. The charge is put in at the
muzzle, and rammed down to the lower end of the barrel. At a very early
period, efforts were made to construct guns which would load at the
breech; but hitherto no such gun has been able to supplant those which
load at the muzzle. The great complication of their parts, their
liability to get out of repair, their insecurity, and the long practice
required to learn their use, have been among the reasons which have
prevented any of these inventions from being adopted. Hence it is that
the muskets with which our soldiers are armed at the present day,
possess no advantage in this respect over the rude little cannon
fastened to the end of a stick, used by the soldiers of Europe four
centuries ago. But in other respects the progress of invention has been
steady and secure.
With the gun represented in the above engraving it was impossible to
take aim. Being perfectly straight, it could not be brought in the
range of the eye. The most that could be expected was, that by pointing
it in the direction of the enemy, it might chance to hit some one, in a
crowd.
The inconveniences attending the discharge of the piece were almost as
great. A puff of wind, or the slightest motion of the soldier himself,
would throw the priming from the touch-hole, and it is almost
unnecessary to add, that in rainy or even very damp weather, such a gun
was utterly useless. The first step in improvement was to place the
touch-hole on the right side of the barrel instead of upon the top, and
to attach a small pan which held the priming. By this means the priming
was kept from being blown away by the wind, though scarce any other
advantage was attained.
About the year 1475 a great advance was made by the invention of the
_arquebus_ or _bow-gun_. A spring let loose by a trigger threw the
match, which was fastened to it, forward, into the pan which contained
the priming. It was from this spring that the gun took its name.
The arquebus is mentioned by Philip de Comines, in his account of the
battle of Morat, in 1476. It appears to have been used in England in
1480.
But as yet no improvement had been made by which the soldier was enabled
to take aim. The butt of the arquebus was perfectly straight, and placed
against the breast when the gun was fired. The danger of being knocked
over by the recoil of the piece was great, that of hurting the enemy
very small. The Germans first conceived the idea of bending the butt
downward, and thus elevating the barrel so as to bring it in the range
of the eye. They also sloped it so as to fit the shoulder instead of
being held against the breast. The arquebus constructed in this manner
was used in England in the time of Henry VIII., and was variously called
haquebut, hakebut, hagbut, and hagbus, names all derived from the hooked
shape of the butt. A small sized arquebus, with a nearly semi-circular
butt, and called a demihaque, was probably the origin of the modern
pistol.
[Illustration: JENNINGS'S RIFLE.]
The musket, invented in Spain, was introduced into France in the reign
of Charles IX., by De Strozzi, Colonel-General of the King's infantry,
and thence into England. At first it was so heavy that each musketeer
was accompanied by a boy to assist him in carrying it. It was, however,
soon decreased in weight sufficiently to enable the musketeer to carry
it himself, though it was still so heavy that he could only fire it from
a rest. This rest, which each musketeer carried with him, consisted of a
stick the height of his shoulder, pointed at the lower end, and having
at the upper an iron fork in which the musket barrel was laid. In a
flask the musketeer carried his coarse powder for loading. His fine
powder for priming was in a touch-box. His bullets were in a leathern
bag, shaped much like a lady's work-bag, the strings of which he was
obliged to draw in order to get at them. In his hand were his burning
match and musket rest, and after discharging his piece he was obliged to
defend himself with his sword. The match was fixed to the cock by a kind
of tongs. Over the priming-pan was a sliding cover, which had to be
drawn back with the hand before pulling the trigger. It was necessary to
blow the ashes from the match, and take the greatest care that the
sparks did not fall upon the priming. After each discharge the match had
to be taken out of the cock and held in the hand until the piece was
reloaded; then, in order that it might come down exactly upon the
priming, the greatest care and nicety were required in fitting it again
to the cock. Other inconveniences attended the use of the match-lock
musket. The light of the burning match betrayed the position of the
soldier, and hence it could not be used by sentinels or on secret
expeditions. Various contrivances were resorted to in order to obviate
these difficulties. Walhuysen, a captain of the town of Danzig, in a
treatise entitled _L'Art Militaire pour l'Infantrie_, printed in 1615,
says: "It is necessary that every musketeer should know how to carry his
match dry in moist or rainy weather, that is, in his pocket or in his
hat, by putting the lighted match between his head and hat, or by some
other means to guard it from the weather. The musketeer should also have
a little tin tube, about a foot long, big enough to admit a match, and
pierced full of little holes, that he may not be discovered by his match
when he stands sentinel or is gone on any expedition."
The learned captain does not state whether the hair of those soldiers
who carried their lighted matches between their heads and hats, was
insured. These inconveniences were so great that many able military men
regarded fire-arms as a failure, and recommended a return to the
long-bow, which had been so terrible a weapon in the hands of the
English archers. But the art of war, like every other, never goes
backward, and men were not disposed to abandon the use of so mighty an
agent as gunpowder, merely for the want of some weapon adapted to its
use.
The fire-lock, named from its producing fire by friction, was the first
improvement upon the match-lock. Its earliest form was that known as the
wheel-lock, which is mentioned in a treatise on artillery by Luigi
Collado, printed at Venice in 1586. He says that it had been lately
invented in Germany. This lock consisted of a solid steel wheel, with an
axle, to which was fastened a chain. The axle was turned by a small
lever, and thus winding around it the chain, drew up a very strong
spring. By pulling the trigger the spring was let go, and the wheel
whirled around with great velocity. The cock was so constructed as to
bring a piece of sulphuret of iron down upon the edge of the wheel,
which was notched, and touched the priming in the pan. The friction
produced the sparks. It was from this use that the sulphuret of iron
derived the name of pyrites, or fire-stone. Afterwards a flint or any
common hard pebble was used. The complicated nature of this lock, and
its uncertainty, prevented its general adoption. The next improvement
was due to the Dutch. About the year 1600 there was in Holland a band of
marauders known as _snaphausen_, or _poultry-stealers_. However free
they were in using the property of others, they were yet unable to incur
the expense of the wheel-lock, and the match-lock, by its burning light,
exposed them on their nightly expeditions. The wit which had been
sharpened by laying "plots" and "inductions dangerous" against
unoffending hens and chickens, was turned to the invention of a gun-lock
better adapted to their purposes. The result of their cogitations was
the lock which, after its inventors, was called the snaphause. It
consisted of a flat piece of steel, furrowed like the edge of the wheel
in the wheel-lock, which was screwed on the barrel beyond the
priming-pan in such a manner as to be movable. By bringing it over the
pan, and pulling the trigger, the flint in the cock struck against the
steel, and the spark was produced. The simplicity and cheapness of this
lock soon rendered it common, and the transition from it to the ordinary
flint-lock followed almost as a matter of course. The last improvement
which we shall notice was the percussion-lock. This is due to the Rev.
Mr. Forsyth, of Belhelvie, in Scotland, though the original form of the
lock has been entirely changed by the introduction of the copper cap.
[Illustration: INTERIOR OF JENNINGS'S BREECH.]
Whilst these improvements were being made in locks, the other parts of
the gun were gradually approaching in lightness, strength, and accuracy
of finish, to the modern standard. The most valuable improvement was the
invention of the rifle barrel. It is mentioned by Pere Daniel, who wrote
in 1693, as being then well known; but the time and place of its origin
has never been ascertained. It was first employed as a military weapon
by the Americans, in the Revolutionary war, and it is in their hands
that it acquired its world-wide reputation.
It would be impossible, in an article like the present, to detail all
the various attempts which have been made, during the last half century,
to increase the efficiency of the rifle. The efforts of scientific men
and mechanics have been constantly directed towards the invention of a
gun which should fire, with the greatest possible rapidity, a number of
times without reloading, and which should possess the indispensable
requisites of safety, durability, and simplicity, both in construction
and in use. Hitherto no invention has combined these advantages in a
sufficient degree to supplant the common rifle.
In our opinion, these ends are all most simply and beautifully attained
by the invention of Mr. Jennings. But of this our readers will be able
to judge for themselves, by the above engravings and the directions for
its use.
[Illustration: CARTRIDGES AND MACHINERY OF JENNINGS'S RIFLES.]
Fill the magazine, on the top of the breech, with percussion pills or
primings, and the tube, under the barrel, with the hollow cartridges
containing gunpowder. Of these cartridges the tube will hold
twenty-four. Place the forefinger in the ring which forms the end of the
lever, _e_, and the thumb on the hammer, elevating the muzzle
sufficiently to let the cartridge nearest the breech slip, by its
gravity, into the carrier _d_; swing the lever forward, and raise the
hammer which moves the breech-pin back, and the carrier up, placing the
cartridge level with the barrel; pull the lever back, and thus force the
breech-pin forward, and shove the cartridge into the barrel, by which
motion a percussion priming is taken from the magazine by means of the
priming-rack _c_, revolving the pinion which forms the bottom of the
magazine, and it also throws up the toggle _a_, behind the breech-pin,
thus placing the piece in the condition to be discharged by a simply
upward pressure of the finger in the ring. After the discharge release
the pressure and repeat the process.
In conclusion, the reader is invited to look at the engraving we have
given of the first gun, and to compare it with the offspring of American
ingenuity we have just described.
Fire-arms are the great pioneers which have opened a way for the
progress of civilized man, and given him victory over the savage beasts
and still more savage men who have opposed his course. Civilization has
in its turn reacted upon fire-arms, and brought them to their present
state of wonderful efficiency.
The heavy match-lock of three centuries ago was almost as dangerous to
him who used it as to the enemy against whom it was directed. It would
be almost impossible for a person to injure himself by the repeating
rifle except by deliberate intention. Skilful military men advised the
abandonment of the match-lock for the bow. A good marksman with the
repeating rifle would kill a score of bowmen, before they could approach
near enough to reach him with their arrows. The practised musketeer, in
the reign of Elizabeth, could hardly fire his piece once in twenty
minutes; the merest novice can fire the repeating rifle twenty times in
one minute.
CLOVER'S COLONIAL CHURCHES IN VIRGINIA.
ST. JOHN'S CHURCH, HAMPTON.
WRITTEN FOR THE INTERNATIONAL MONTHLY MAGAZINE,
BY REV. JOHN C. M'CABE,
WITH ILLUSTRATIONS FROM ORIGINAL DRAWINGS BY REV. LEWIS P. CLOVER
"Regarded as a building what is there to engage our attention!
What is it which in this building inspires the veneration and
affection it commands? We have mused upon it when its gray
walls dully reflected the glory of the noontide sun. We have
looked upon it from a neighboring hill when bathed in the pure
light of a summer's moon, its lowly walls and tiny towers
seemed to stand only as the shell of a larger and wider
monument, amidst the memorials of the dead. Look upon it when
and where we will, we find our affections yearn towards it; and
we contemplate the little parish church with a delight and
reverence, that palaces cannot command. Whence then arises
this? It arises not from the beauties and ornaments of the
building, but _from the thoughts and recollections associated
with it_."--Molesworth.
[Illustration: ST. JOHN'S CHURCH.]
The region of country in lower Virginia, bordering, or near the James
River, from the head of tide water to the sea-board, is rich in the
possession of memorials of gone-by days, now turned up from the
bosom of the earth, in the shape of arrow-heads, and broken
war-hatchets--monuments, fragmentary monuments, of a race of forest-born
monarchs: now appealing to the antiquary in the mouldering records of
the County Court offices, and now, silently but eloquently, looking out
imploringly in the ruins of churches and tombs, which meet the eye of
the traveller, as he muses upon the faith and fortunes of generations
long departed.
Rapid as is the progress of steam upon those waters, which, in giving up
their Indian patronymies, gave up the bold hunter and his lithe canoe to
the progress of "manifest destiny," few are those who pass the venerable
site of the first colony in Virginia, Jamestown, without paying a
tribute of a sigh, and perchance a tear, to that solitary tower which is
still standing a mute watcher amid the few almost illegible tombs,--all
that are left of a busy population long departed;--the germ, however, of
a great nation, whose name is even now "a watchword to the earth."
The rank grass waves above those mouldering stones--the green corn of
summer rustles in the breeze, which seems, it its "hollow, solemn
memnonian, but saintly swell," to have "swept the field of mortality for
a hundred centuries,"[C] and that lone, ruined, vine-crested tower,
stands, the only memorial of the house, and the Temple of God. Gone are
the altars where knelt the adventurer and the exile--high-born chivalry
and manly beauty--gentle blood and noble pedigree,--and where rose
"humble voices," and beat "pure hearts," approaching the throne of the
heavenly grace! Jamestown is a city of the dead, and precious is the
dust of its pathless cemetery!
When we turn "from the wreck of the past that has perished," and stand
beside those monuments which have withstood the "corroding tooth of
time," and still stand invested with the sacred and solemn beauty of
antiquity, we approach in the venerating spirit of worshippers, and
render our thank-offerings at their base. Such is likely to be the
feeling with the pilgrim antiquary, as he stands for the first time
beneath the shadows of that venerable cruciform pile, St. John's Church,
Hampton, which has braved "the battle and the breeze" of nearly two
centuries; and then, when he crosses its worn threshold, and treads its
echoing aisles, the wish must arise, involuntarily, to know something
of the history of a spot "so sad, so fair."
With the exception of Jamestown, there is no portion of Virginia
possessing as much historic interest as Hampton, and its vicinity.
Hampton is the county seat of Elizabeth City County, which is one of the
eight original shires in which Virginia was divided. The town is
doubtless the oldest Indian settlement in Virginia, and it is a matter
of historical verity that it was the _first place_ visited by Captain
John Smith after he had cast anchor in these waters. We learn from
Burke, the historian, that while Smith and his company were "engaged in
seeking a fit place for the first settlement, they met five of the
natives, who invited them to their town, _Kecoughtan_, or _Kichotan_,
where Hampton now stands. Here they were feasted with cakes made of
Indian corn, and regaled with tobacco and a dance. In return, they
presented the natives beads and other trinkets."
We have no occasion to go specially into the history of this expedition,
as it is well known to the student, that it was the result of a
successful application on the part of a company, succeeding that of the
ill-fated Sir Walter Raleigh, and for which a charter was obtained from
James the First, in the year 1606, for the settling of Virginia. "The
design," says Stith, the historian of Virginia, "included the
establishment of a northern and southern colony, and among the articles,
instructions, and orders," of the charter, provision was made for the
due carrying out of that which is the highest end of every Christian
colony, for it is expressly ordered, that "the said president, council,
and ministers, should provide that the true word and service of God be
preached, planted, and used, according to the rites and doctrines of the
Church of England; not only in the said colonies, but also as much as
might be amongst the savages bordering upon them, and that all persons
should kindly treat the savages, and heathen people, in those parts, and
use all proper means to draw them to the true service and knowledge of
God."[D] This expedition left the shores of England, December 19, 1606,
and, after a protracted voyage, occasioned by unpropitious winds, which
kept them in sight of home for more than "six weeks," reached the capes
of Virginia. The southern cape was christened "Henry," and the northern,
"Charles," after the King's sons. This was on the 26th day of April,
1607. Accompanying this expedition was Rev. Robert Hunt, of the English
Church, as the first chaplain of that colony, which, though few as the
grains of mustard seed scattered by the morning wind, was the first
planting of that tree which was destined, in coming time, to strike its
roots deep down into the centre of empire, and to shelter beneath its
strong branches, and wide-spread shadows, the exile and the oppressed,
and to furnish home and altar for the pilgrim of civil and religious
freedom.
When we look around now and behold our country, "the observed of all
observers," exalting her "towering head," and "lifting her eyes," the
mind instinctively turns to the colony of Jamestown; and we cannot but
exclaim, in the words of the Psalmist, "Thou hast brought a vine out of
Egypt; Thou hast cast out the heathen and planted it. Thou preparedst
room before it, and didst cause it to take deep root; and it filled the
land. The hills were covered with the shadow of it, and the boughs
thereof were like the goodly cedars. She sent out her boughs unto the
sea, and her branches unto the river." But a sad memory for the days of
toil, and struggle, and blood in that little colony, will remind us that
this tree was not "transplanted from Paradise with all its branches in
full fruitage." Neither was it "sowed in sunshine," nor was it "in
vernal breezes and gentle rains that it fixed its roots, and grew and
strengthened." Oh, no! oh, no! In the mournfully beautiful words of
Coleridge, "With blood was it planted; it was rocked in tempests; the
goat, the ass, and the stag gnawed it, the wild boar whetted its tusk
upon its bark; the deep scars are still extant on its trunk, and the
path of the lightning may be traced among its higher branches!" The
first communion of the body and blood of our Lord was administered by
the pious Hunt, May 4, 1607, the day after the debarkation of the
colonists: and, "here," says the Bishop of Oxford, "on a peninsula, upon
the northern shore of James River, was sown the first seed of
Englishmen, who, in after years, were to grow and to multiply into the
great and numerous American people." It was an offering, this first
sacrament, of the "appointed sacrifice of prayer and thanksgiving;" and
we have an evidence of the pervading spirit of Hunt in that little band,
when we remember that among their very first acts after rearing their
straw-thatched houses for protection from the weather, was to erect the
church of the colony. Hunt was succeeded, after his death, in 1610, by
Master Bucke (the chaplain of Lord de la Ware), whose services were
called forth the very day of his arrival at Jamestown. According to
Purchas, "He (that is Lord Delaware) cast anchor before Jamestown, where
we landed, and our much grieved Governor, first visiting the church,
caused the bell to be rung; at which all such as were able to come forth
of their house, repayered to church, which was neatly trimmed with the
wild flowers of the country, where our minister, Master Bucke, made a
zealous and sorrowful prayer, finding all things so contrary to our
expectations, and full of misery and misgovernment." This state of
things had been brought about by the treacherous conduct of their
neighbors, the savages, domestic feuds, fluctuations in the quantity and
quality of their food, bad water, and severe climatic diseases. While
"Master Bucke" was toiling with the little band at Jamestown, Whitaker
(son of Master Whitaker of St. John's College, Cambridge) was in
Henrico, whose deeds of love and patience in his noble work we would
gladly record, but for the desire of approaching, as speedily as
possible, the beginning and planting of the church in Elizabeth City
County. The first legislature of Virginia was convened under the
administration of Governor Sir George Yeardley, in the year 1626; but
before this we find, during the _first_ administration of Governor
Wyatt, nay, before that, during that of Sir Thomas Yeardley, in 1619, _a
starting point_ for our inquiries and investigations in regard to the
Hampton Church. By reference to the histories of the period, we find
that the pay of their clergy was fixed at £200 worth of corn and
tobacco. One hundred acres were marked off for glebes in every borough,
for each of which the company at home provided six tenants at the public
cost. They applied to the Bishop of London to find them a body of
"pious, learned, and painful ministers,"--"a charitable work," says
Wilberforce, "in which he readily engaged." Two years subsequent to this
occurred the massacre at Jamestown, and two years after that, we find,
amongst thirty-five provisions, the following, for the promotion of
religious knowledge and worship: That there shall be _erected_ a _house
of worship_, and there shall be a _burial ground on every plantation_;
that the colonists, under penalty, shall attend public worship, and that
there shall be uniformity in faith and worship, with the English
Church--prescribing also the observance of the feasts of the Church, and
a fast upon the anniversary of the Jamestown massacre; not forgetting,
by the way, to enjoin "respectful treatment, and the payment of a
settled stipend to the colonial clergy." In the instructions given to
Sir William Berkeley, Governor-General of Virginia, after the return of
the royal exile, Charles the Second, to the throne of his murdered
sire,--passing over, as we do, for the sake of brevity, much that might
interest the reader during the closing period of the reign of James,
that of Charles the First, and also that of the psalm-singing
blood-hunter Cromwell,--we find the recommendation of the duties of
religion, the use of "the booke of Common Prayer, the decent repairs of
Churches, and a competent provision for conforming ministers."[E] These
suggestions, we learn, were at once acted upon by the colonial
legislature, and provision was made for the building and due furniture
of churches, &c., &c. This was in 1660. The oldest records in the County
Court office date as far back as 1635. In 1644, I find the
_churchwardens_ presenting two females for offences, to the Court; and
in 1646, I find that Nicholas Brown, and William Armistead,
_churchwardens_, present one of their body to the Court, requesting that
Thomas Eaton be compelled to collect the _parish levy_, and make his
returns. This fixes the fact, then, that this was a _parish_, and that
there was _a church_ somewhere in this region in 1644, for, from the
English laws respecting the clergy, the object of the creation of
_churchwardens_ is "to protect _the edifice of the Church_, to
superintend the ceremonies of public worship, to promote the observance
of religious duties, &c., &c.[F]" I find, in 1644, the following on
record--"To paid Mr. Mallory for preaching 2 funeral sermons, 800 pounds
of tobacco." The next year I find the Rev. Mr. Justinian Aylmere, who
continued to officiate until the early part of 1667. We now find, in
those same records, the _first mention of the church_ immediately under
consideration, and it is as follows, being an extract from a will, and
bearing date December 21, 1667:
"I, Nicholas Baker, being very sicke in body, but of perfect
memory, doe make, constitute, and ordaine this my last will and
testament, revoking and disclayming all other wills by me made.
Imprimis, I give my soule unto God my redeemer, and my body to
bee decently buried in _ye new church of Kighotan_. Item, I
give and bequeathe unto Mr. Jeremy Taylor, minister,[G] my
cloath cloak, to bee delivered to him after my corpse carrying
out of ye house."
From these extracts I learn these two facts, that there was a _new
church_, already built, and that Mr. Jeremy Taylor was the minister, and
the inference is a legitimate one, taking into consideration the
instructions given to Governor Berkeley, and acted upon by him, to which
reference is made above, that the _old church now standing in Hampton_,
built in the form of a cross, and of brick, a drawing of which,
accompanies this communication, was erected at some period about 1660,
or between that and 1667. That it was not built _before_ 1660, we have
strong reasons to presume; and that it was built between that and 1667,
we hope to show hereafter. In the time intervening between the murder of
Charles the First and the restoration, there would have been no churches
built, we presume, in the _form of the cross_--this the minions of
Cromwell would not have allowed; nor for the worship and ritual of the
Church of England, for the same reasons; and, moreover, the will above
referred to, speaks of the church as being "ye _new_ church of
Kighotan."
The tower was an after thought, as we find from the vestry-book, now in
the possession of the writer. The following bears date 2d day of March,
1761:
"Charles Cooper came into vestry, and agreed to do the brick
work of the steeple, with good and well burnt bricks and mortar
of lime, at least fifteen bushels of lime to every thousand
bricks so laid. The said Cooper to find all materials
necessary for building the said steeple, and all expenses what
kind soever at his own proper cost. The said Cooper to give
bond for the performance, agreeable to a resolve of the said
vestry on the 6 day of February last."
And, on the 16th day of June, 1761, the record below is made in the
vestry-book:
"Agreed that the steeple as before to be built, shall be joined
to the west end of the church wall, and that an half brick be
added to the thickness of the foundation of the said steeple up
to the water table."
And, on the 14th day of July, 1762, the following record on the
vestry-book will show its completion:
"Agreed, that Mr. William Westwood, and Mr. Charles Cooper,
compute the number of bricks laid in the steeple wall, and if
they two disagree, that they chuse a third person; and that
this vestry hath _this day received the said work_, so as not
to affect the counting or computing the number of bricks laid
in the said steeple."
The occasion of building the tower is found in the extract following,
made from the same source, and bearing date February 6, 1761:
"Whereas the late Mr. Andrew Kennedy, did by his last will and
testament, devise to the parish of Elizabeth City, forty pounds
sterling, to purchase a bell for the church of the said parish,
provided the vestry, and churchwardens of the said parish,
shall undertake to build a belfry for the same in twelve months
after the said Alexander Kennedy's death; and this vestry,
willing to embrace the said gift, have accordingly resolved,"
&c.
Now arises a question of some interest. The will of Nicholas Baker, made
December 21, 1667, makes mention of "ye _new_ church of Kighotan." Was
there an _old_ church of Kighotan? One older than this? We answer, yes!
And now for the writer's reasons for arriving at this conclusion. From
the old record of wills, deeds, &c., in the County Court office, and to
which I have had access freely, through the politeness and kindness of
Samuel Howard, Esq., the gentlemanly clerk of the court, I copy the
following:
"In the name of God, Amen. I, Robert Brough, clerke of
Kigquotan, in the county of Elizabeth Citty, being sicke and
weake in body, but in perfect sense and memory, praised bee God
for itt, this seven and twentyeth day of Aprill, in the yeare
of our Lord God 1667, for the quieting of my conscience, desire
to settle that estate it has pleased God to lend mee, in manner
and forme following;--And first of all, I commend my soul into
the hands of ye Almighty God my Maker, and my Saviour and
Redeemer Christ Jesus, being confident through his meritts and
blood shedd for mee, to be an inheritor with Him, His saints
and angells of everlasting life. And my body unto ye earthe
from whence it came, there to receive decent burial in _the old
parish church of Kigquotan_ aforesaid," &c.
"The _old_ parish church of Kigquotan," and "ye _new_ church of
Kighotan," cannot be one and the same. We are then led to inquire,
_where_ was the old parish church of Kigquotan, and _when_ was it
probably built? The last branch of this question, we prefer answering
first. By reference to the administration of Sir Thomas Yeardley (not
Sir George Yeardley), we find that, in 1621, among several other
Colonial enactments, provision is made for the _erection_ of a "_house
of worship, and the separation of a burial ground on every plantation_."
We presume, therefore, that it was about this time (1621-2) that the
first church of Kigquotan was erected, and we have not forgotten
the _churchwardens_ of 1644. And now, in answer to the other
question--_where_ was this church built?--we have only to turn our
footsteps to the "_Pembroke Farm_" (the property of John Jones, Esq.),
about one mile from the town of Hampton, and, as we there take our stand
among the few remaining tombs, shout "Eureka, Eureka!" Whether the old
parish church of Kigquotan was of wood, or of brick, we cannot at this
day determine. "Like the baseless fabric of a vision" it has
disappeared; but we opine it was wooden, from the fact, that the first
church (and probably the second also) in Jamestown (both of which were
destroyed by fire) was a wooden one; and the presumption is, the first
brick church erected would be at the _capital_ of the colony. However
this may be, the burial ground at Pembroke could not have been simply a
piece of ground, "bought with the field of Ephron the Hittite, for a
possession of a burying place" for a family; but that it was a _public_
cemetery, even that of the old parish church of Kigquotan, is evident
from the _character_ of the tombs which are still to be seen _above the
surface of the earth_. That there are many covered over with the
deposits of years, I have not the slightest doubt. Those tombs, we now
see, give the best evidence, in their inscriptions, that those whose
remains moulder beneath the moss-grown marbles, were not private
individuals--not members of the family owning the estate--but men in
public service, and who would not have been laid in an obscure private
burial ground, when the church-yard of the new church of Kigquotan was
but a mile distant from the spot. Moreover, it will be perceived by the
inscriptions which we shall presently give, that one of the sleepers at
Pembroke was "_minister of this parish_." Now, is it probable, that the
minister of the parish would have been buried _there_, if it had not
been a _church_-yard, when there was the new church of Kigquotan to
receive his remains, as it was fifty-two years before, to receive those
of Mr. Nicholas Baker? I have no doubt that veneration for the old
cemetery, the site of the first church of the parish, caused many to
bury their dead there, long after the present church-yard was opened.
The oldest tomb we can find in the church-yard at Hampton, and standing
in the northeast angle of the Cross, is to the memory of Captain Willis
Wilson, who departed this life the 19th day of November, 1701. The
latest date upon the stones at Pembroke is 1719. "The lapse of years,
and the ruthless hand of time," have levelled those graves in "ye old
parish church of Kigquotan;" but enough is left to the "tomb searcher,"
even in the inscriptions following, as he reads them by the slanting
rays of the setting sun, and hears the low winds dirging in the pines,
and the moaning and sighing of the distant waves, to lead him to say
with Blair:
"The time draws on
When not a single spot of burial earth,
Whether on land, or in the spacious sea,
But must give back its long-committed dust
Inviolate; and faithfully _shall these_
Make up the full account."
The following coats-of-arms and inscriptions, are taken from four black
marble tablets, six feet high and three wide, lying in a field about one
mile from Hampton.
[Illustration]
"Here lies ye body of JOHN NEVILLE, Esq., Vice Admiral of His
Majesty's fleet, and Commander in chiefe of the Squadron
cruising in ye West Indies, who dyed on board ye Cambridge, ye
17 day of August, 1697, in ye ninth yeare of the Reign of King
William ye third, aged 57 years."
[Illustration]
"In hope of a Blessed Resurrection, here lies the body of
THOMAS CURLE, gent.: who was born November 24, 1640, in the
parish of St. Michaels, in Lewis, in the county of Sussex, in
England, and dyed May 30, 1700.--When a few years are come then
I shall goe the way whence I shall not return.--Job 16. 22."
A third inscription is as follows:
"This stone was given by his Excellency FRANCIS NICHOLSON,
Esq., Lieutenant and Govenour Generall of Virginia. In memory
of PETER HAYMAN, Esqr., grandson to Sir Peter Hayman of
Summerfield, in ye county of Kent, he was Collector of ye
Customs in the Lower District of James River, and went
voluntary on board ye King's shipp Shoreham, in pursuit of a
pyrate, who greatly infested this coast. After he had behaved
himselfe seven hours with undaunted courage, was killed with a
small shott ye 29 day of Aprill, 1700, in ye engagement he
stood next ye Gouvenour upon ye quarter deck, and was here
honorably interred by his order."
And the last, which speaks for itself--
"Here lyeth the body of the Reverend Mr. ANDREW THOMPSON, who
was born at Stonehive, in Scotland, and was Minister of this
Parish seven years, and departed this life the 11 of September,
1719, in ye 46 yeare of his age, leaving ye character of a
sober religious man."
The above is followed on the tomb by a long Latin inscription, which has
been so mutilated by some modern Goth, or Goths, that it is impossible
to decipher it intelligibly.
We could fill pages with interesting memoranda from the history of old
parishes in Virginia, but a few more, in relation to the present
subject, must close our article at this time. Should this be received
with favor, perhaps the writer may make more diligent efforts to rescue,
from the perishing records of County Courts, and crumbling stones, and
family relics, _materiel_ for the future historian of the Church, to
weave into his song of her progress in our "own green forest land,"
"from gloom to glory." A closer inspection of the records will doubtless
enable him to trace an "unbroken succession," of parish ministers from
1621 to the present time. The following, however, is as near as can now
be ascertained:--In 1664, Rev. Mr. Mallory; who was succeeded, in 1665,
by Rev. Mr. Justinian Aylmere; succeeded, in 1667, by Rev. Mr. Jeremiah
Taylor; succeeded, in 1677, by Rev. Mr. John Page, who left the colony
about 1687; succeeded, in 1687, by Rev. Mr. Cope Doyley; in 1712, Rev.
Mr. Andrew Thompson, who died 1719; in 1731, Rev. Mr. William Fife, who
died in 1756; succeeded, in 1756, by Rev. Thomas Warrington, who died
1770; succeeded, in 1771, by Rev. William Selden, who either died, or
resigned, in 1783; succeeded, in 1783, by Rev. William Nixon. The
vestry-book here is defaced for some years, owing, I presume, to the
fact that in the change in the Church, from that of England, to the
Protestant Episcopal Church in the United States, begun in 1783,
consummated in 1787, and the first convention in Philadelphia, July 28,
1789, with Bishops presiding, of our own, this parish did not procure a
minister during that period; but the following inscription, on a stone
near the east entrance to the church, will show that very soon after the
change spoken of above, the parish was blessed with regular rectoral
services:
"Sacred to the memory of the Rev. JOHN JONES SPOONER, Rector of
the Church in Elizabeth City County; who departed this life
September 15, 1799, aged forty-two years."
And then to the right of the door entering from the east, another
bearing the following:
"Departed this life, January 17, 1806, the Rev. BENJAMIN BROWN,
Rector of Elizabeth City Parish, aged thirty-nine years."
On November 17, 1806, the vestry elected the Rev. Robert Seymour Sims,
and August 11, 1810, they elected the Rev. George Holson. During the
last war with Great Britain (1813), Hampton was sacked, its inhabitants
pillaged--one of its aged citizens sick and infirm, wantonly murdered in
the arms of his wife--and other crimes committed by hireling soldiers,
and by brutalized officers, over which the chaste historian must draw a
veil. The church of God itself was not spared during the saturnalia of
lust and violence. His temple was profaned, and His altars desecrated.
What British ruthlessness had left scathed and prostrate, was soon
looked upon with neglect. The moles and the bats held their revels
undisturbed within its once hallowed courts, and the "obscene owl
nestled and brought forth in the ark of the covenant." The church in
which our fathers worshipped, stabled the horse and stalled the ox. The
very tombs of the dead, sacred in all lands, became a slaughter ground
of the butcher, and an arena for pugilistic contests. A few faithful
ones wept when they remembered Zion, in her day of prosperity, and
beheld her in her hour of homeless travail, and to their cry, "How long,
oh Lord how long!" the following preamble, accompanying a subscription
list, tells the story of her woes, and breathes the language of her
returning hope:
"Whereas, from a variety of circumstances, the Episcopal Church
in the town of Hampton, is in a state of dilapidation, and will
ere long moulder into ruins, unless some friendly hand be
extended to its relief, and in the opinion of the vestry, the
only method that can be pursued to accomplish the laudable
design of restoring it to the order in which our forefathers
bequeathed it to their children, is to resort to subscription;
and they do earnestly solicit pecuniary aid from all its
friends in the full belief, that an appeal will not be made in
vain. And hoping that God will put it into the hearts of the
people to be benevolently disposed toward our long neglected
Zion."
This bears date April 28, 1826.
A committee of the citizens of Hampton was appointed to wait on the
venerable Bishop Moore, "to solicit his advice upon the best manner of
repairing the Protestant Episcopal Church in Hampton, and beg of him his
particular aid and patronage in carrying into effect the same." The
letter below will show how that "old man eloquent," felt on the subject.
It is not among the Bishop's published letters, and is without date:
"MY DEAR BRETHREN:--My long confinement at the north prevented
my reception of your letter, until very lately; and the
feebleness of my frame, since my return, must apologize to you
for any apparent neglect which has attended my reply. It will
afford me the greatest pleasure to assist you with my counsel
in the reorganization of your church, and with that purpose in
view, I will endeavor to visit Hampton in a short time, of
which you shall be duly notified, when we can converse at large
on the subject proposed for my consideration. To see that
temple repaired in which the former inhabitants of Hampton
worshipped God, and to see you placed under the care of a
faithful and judicious clergyman, will inspire my mind with the
greatest delight. May the Almighty smile on the proposed
design, and carry it into full and complete effect. Believe me,
gentlemen, very affectionately, your friend and pastor,
RICHARD CHANNING MOORE."
The citizens and friends of the church were blessed with the energetic
aid of the Rev. Mark L. Chivers, chaplain at Fortress Monroe, who for
several years officiated once on each Sabbath in Hampton. It is not
saying too much when we assert that mainly through his efforts, the
church was resuscitated. The present rector, the writer of this, with
pleasure makes this acknowledgment.
With the zeal and energy which were brought to bear, the results were
most favorable; and on Friday morning, the 8th of January, 1830, a crowd
might have been seen wending its way to those venerable walls. A rude
staging was erected for the prominent actors, and on that platform knelt
a white-haired soldier of the cross, the venerable Bishop of Virginia,
his face radiant with "faith, hope, and charity." The ritual of the
church was heard once more in that old pile, and in answer to the
invitation, "Oh, come, let us sing unto the Lord, let us heartily
rejoice in the strength of our salvation," there might soon have been
heard those beautiful words:
"And wilt thou, O Eternal God,
On earth establish thy abode?
Then look propitious from thy throne,
And take this temple for thine own."
In the archives of the church the event is thus recorded:
"Know all men by these presents, that we, Richard Channing
Moore, D.D., by Divine permission, Bishop of the Protestant
Episcopal Church in the Diocese of Virginia, did consecrate to
the service of Almighty God, on Friday, January 8th, in the
year of our Lord 1880, St. John's Church, in the town of
Hampton, Elizabeth City County. In which church the services of
the Protestant Episcopal Church are to be performed agreeably
to rubrics in such case made and provided. It is always to be
remembered, that Saint John's Church thus consecrated and set
apart to the worship of Almighty God, is by the act of
consecration thus performed, separated from all worldly and
unhallowed uses, and to be considered sacred to the service of
the _Holy and undivided Trinity_.
"In testimony whereof, I have on the day and year above
written, subscribed my hand and affixed my seal.
[Seal.] RICHARD CHANNING MOORE."
The Rev. Mr. Chivers having resigned his afternoon appointment, after
officiating for sixteen years, and ministering to them in their day of
destitution, the Rev. John P. Bausman was elected Rector in 1843, and
resigned in 1845; the Rev. William H. Good was elected in 1845, and
continued until the close of 1848; and the parish remained without
regular rectoral services, until the 1st of January, 1851, when the
writer took charge; since which time an organ (the first one) has been
put up, new pews have been added, and money enough obtained to make
permanent and comfortable repairs. If the design of the true friends of
the church, to make it a temple in which generations to come may worship
God in comfort, fail, the fault and the punishment will lie with those
who "knew their duty and did it not."
FOOTNOTES:
[C] De Quincey.
[D] See Wilberforce's History of the American Church.
[E] Burke Hist. Va.
[F] Stanton's Church Dictionary.
[G] This Jeremy Taylor was very unlike his illustrious namesake, the
Bishop of Down and Conner, for I find by the records, that he was any
thing else but a man of "holy living," whatever else he might have been
when "dying." J C. M.
BROODING-PLACES ON THE FALKLAND ISLANDS.
TRANSLATED FOR THE INTERNATIONAL FROM THE GERMAN.
By the name of "brooding-places," the navigators of the south seas
understand places selected by various sea-fowls, where they in common
build their nests, lay their eggs, and bring up their young. Here they
assemble in immense masses, and in the laying out and construction of
these places, exhibit great caution, judgment, and industry.
When a sufficient number have assembled on the shore, they appear first
to hold a consultation, and then to set about executing the great
purpose for which they have come together. First, they choose out a
level spot of sufficient extent, often of four or five acres, near the
beach. In this they avoid ground that is too stony, which would be
dangerous to their eggs. Next, they deliberate on the plan of their
future camp, after which they lay out distinctly a regular
parallelogram, offering room enough for the brother and sisterhood,
somewhere from one to five acres. One side of the place is bounded by
the sea, and is always left open for entrance and exit; the other three
sides are inclosed with a wall of stones and roots.
These industrious feathered workers first of all remove from the place
all obstacles to their design; they take up the stones with their bills
and carry them to the boundaries to compose the wall. Within this wall
they build a perfectly smooth and even foot-path some six or eight feet
wide, which is used by day as a public promenade, and by night for the
back and forward march of the sentinels.
After they have in this way completed their embankments on the three
landward sides, they lay out the remaining part of the interior into
equal little quadrangles, separated from each other by narrow
foot-paths, crossing at right angles. In each crossing of these paths an
albatross builds his nest, and in the middle of each quadrangle, a
penguin, so that every albatross is surrounded by four penguins, and
every penguin has albatross on four sides as neighbors. In this way the
whole place is regularly occupied, and only at some distance are places
left free for other sea-fowl, such as the green comorant and the
so-called Nelly.
Though the penguin and albatross live so near and in such intimacy they
not only build their nests in very different fashions, but the penguin
plunders the nest of its friend whenever it has an opportunity. The nest
of the penguin is a simple hollow in the ground, just deep enough to
keep its eggs from rolling out, while the albatross raises a little hill
of earth, grass, and muscles, eight or ten inches high, with the
diameter of a water pail, and builds its nest on the top, whence it
looks down on its next neighbors and friends.
None of the nests in the entire brooding-place is left vacant an instant
until the eggs are hatched, and the young ones old enough to take care
of themselves. The male bird goes to the sea for fish, and when he has
satisfied his hunger hurries back and takes the place of the female,
while she in turn goes in pursuit of food. Even when they are changing
places, they know how to manage it so as not to leave their eggs for a
moment uncovered. When, for instance, the male comes back from fishing,
he nestles close beside the female and gradually crowds her off the nest
with such care as to cover the eggs completely with his feathers without
exposing them to the air at all. In this way they guard their eggs
against being stolen by the other females, which are so greedy to raise
large families that they seize every chance to rob the surrounding
nests. The royal penguin is exceedingly cunning in this sort of trick,
and never loses an occasion that is offered: In this way it often
happens that the brood of this bird, on growing up turns out to be of
two or three different species, a sure proof that the parents were no
honester than their neighbors.
It is not only interesting but instructive and even touching to watch
from a little distance the life and movements of these brooding-places.
You can then see the birds walking up and down the exterior path or
public promenade in pairs, or even four, six, or eight together, looking
very like officers promenading on a parade day. Then all at once, the
whole brooding-place is in continuous commotion, a flock of the penguins
come back from the sea and waddle rapidly along through the narrow
paths, to greet their mates after this brief separation; another company
are on the way to get food for themselves or to bring in provisions. At
the same time the cove is darkened by an immense cloud of albatrosses,
that continually hover above the brooding-place, descending from their
excursions or mounting into the air to go upon them. One can look at
these birds for hours, and not grow weary of gazing, observing and
wondering at their busy social life.
ARIADNE.
WRITTEN FOR THE INTERNATIONAL MAGAZINE
BY E. W. ELLSWORTH.
I.
[Scene, part of the island of Naxos. Enter, sundry Dryads,
habited as fair young maidens adorned with flowers, and bearing
in their hands branches of trees.]
_Dryad_: We shadowy Oceanides,
Jove's warders of the island trees,
The tufted pillars tall and stout,
And all the bosky camp about,
Maintain our lives in sounding shades
Of old æolian colonnades;
But post about the neighbor land
In woof of insubstantial wear:
Our ways are on the water sand,
Our joy is in the desert air.
The very best of our delights
Are by the moon of summer nights.
Darkness to us is holiday:
When winds and waves are up at play,
When, on the thunder-beaten shore,
The swinging breakers split and roar,
Then is the moment of our glory,
In shadow of a promontory,
To trip and skip it to and fro,
Even as the flashing bubbles go.
Or on the bleaker banks that lie,
For the salt seething wash, too high,
Where rushes grow so sparse and green,
With baked and barren floors between.
We glance about in mazy quire,
With much of coming and retire;
Nor let the limber measure fail,
Till, down behind the ocean bed,
The night dividing star is sped,
And Cynthia stoops the marish vale,
Wound in clouds and vigil pale,
Trailing the curtains of the west
About her ample couch of rest.
Thus, nightly on, we lead the year
Through all the constellated sphere.
But more obscure, in brakes and bowers,
During the sun-appointed hours,
We lodge, and are at rest, and see,
Dimly, the day's festivity,
Nor hail the spangled jewel set
Upon Aurora's coronet;
Nor trail in any morning dew;
Nor roam the park, nor tramp the pool
Of lucid waters pebble cool,
Nor list the satyr's far halloo.
Noon, and the glowing hours, seem
Mutations of a laboring dream.
Yet subject, still, to Jove's decree,
That governs, from the Olympian doors,
The populous and lonely shores,
We do a work of destiny;
When any mortal, sorely spent,
Girt with the thorns of discontent,
Or care, or hapless love, invades,
This ancient neighborhood of shades,
Our gracious leave is to dispense,
Of woods, the slumbrous influence;
The waverings and the murmurings
Of umber shades and leafy wings;
Through all the courts of sense applying,
With sights, and sounds, and odorous sighing,
To the world-wearied soul of man,
The gentle universal Pan--
As now we must: the roots around,
Of forests clutch a certain sound
Of weary feet; go, sisters, out:
Some one is pining, hereabout.
II.
[Another part of the Island. Enter Ariadne.]
_Ariadne_: Here, in the heart of this sea-moated isle,
Where we, but last night, made a summer's lodge
Of transient rest from many pendulous days
Of swinging on the sick unquiet deep,
Why left he me, so lone, so unattended?
What converse had he with felonious Night,
That underneath her dark consenting cloak,
He stole unchallenged from his Ariadne?
If, out of hope, I cannot answer that,
Slant-eyed Conjecture at my elbow stands,
To whisper me of things I would not hear.
Ah me, my Theseus, wherefore art thou gone!
Ah me, my Theseus, whither art thou gone!
Oh how shall I, an unacquainted maid,
So uninformed of whereabout I am,
And in a wild completely solitary,
Hope to find out my strangely absent lord!
Sadness there is, and an unquiet fear,
Within my heart, to trace these hereabouts
Of idle woods, unthreaded labyrinths,
Rude mannered brooks, unpastured meadow sides,
All vagrant, voiceless, pathless, echoless,
Oh for the farthest breath of mortal sound!
From lacqueyed hall, or folded peasant hut,--
Some noontide echo sweetly voluble;
Some song of toil reclining from the heat,
Or low of kine, or neigh of tethered steeds,
Or honest clamor of some shepherd dog,
Laughter, or cries, or any living breath,
To make inroad upon this dreariness.
Methinks no shape of savage insolence,
No den unblest, nor hour inopportune,
Could daunt me now, nor warn my maiden feet
From friendly parle, that am distract of heart,
With doubt, desertion, utter loneliness.
Death would I seek to run from lonely fear,
And deem a hut a heaven, with company.
Yea, now to question of my true heart's lord,
And of the ports and alleys of this isle,
Which way they lead the clueless wanderer
To fields suburban, and the towers of men,
I would confront the strangest things that haunt
In horrid shades of brooding desolation:
Griffin, or satyr, sphinx, or sybil ape,
Or lop-eared demon from the dens of night,
Let loose to caper out of Acheron.
Ah me, my Theseus, wherefore art thou gone!
Who left that crock of water at my side?
Who stole my dog that loved no one but me?
Why was the tent unstruck, I unawaked,
I left, most loved, and last to be forgotten
By much obtaining, much indebted Theseus?
Left to sleep on, to dream and slumber on;
Nothing to know, save fancies of the air,
While he, so strangly covert in his thoughts,
Was softly stirring to be gone from me.
Ah me, my Theseus, whither art thou gone!
Hast thou, in pleasant sport, deserted me?
Is it a whim, a jest, a trick of task,
To mesh me in another labyrinth?
Could Theseus so make mirth of Ariadne?
Unless he did, I would not think he could.
And yet I will believe he is in jest.
More false than that, he could not be to me,
Since false to me, to his own self were false.
Now do I hold in hope what I have heard,
That love will sometimes cunning masks put on,
Speak with strange tongues, and wear odd liveries,
Transform himself to seemings most unlike,
And still be love in fearful opposites.
So may it be, but my immediate fear
Jostles that hope aside, and I remember
Of what my tutor Ætion did forewarn me.
Oh fond old man! if thou didst know me here,
Thou wouldst move heaven and earth to have me home.
Much was his care of my uncaring youth,
And, with a reverend and considerate wit,
He curbed the frolic of my pupilage,
Less by the bridle, than the feeding it
With stories ending in moralities,
With applications and similitudes
Tacked to the merest leaf I looked upon,
Till, so it was, we two did love each other,
The sage and child, with mutual amity.
Oft, hand in hand, we passed my father's gate,
At evening, when the horizontal day
Chequered his farewell on the western wall;
Shying the court, where, for the frolic lords,
Under the profaned silence of the rose,
The syrinx, and the stringed sonorous shell,
Governed the twinkling heeled Terpischore.
We softly went and turned towards the bay,
And found another world, contemplative
Of shells and pebbles by the ocean shore.
I do remember, once, on such an eve,
Pacing the polished margin of the deep,
We found two weeds that had embraced each other,
And talked of friendship, love and sympathy.
_My pupil sweet,_ said he, _beware of Love:
For thou wilt shortly be besieged by him,
From the four winds of heaven, because thou art
Daughter of Minos, and already married
To expectation of a royal dower.
But O beware! for, listen what I say,
By strong presentments I have moved thy father
Bating a fair and well intending nay,
To leave thy love to thine unmuffled eye.
This is rare scope, my girl, O use it rarely,
Be slow and nice in thy sweet liberty,
And let discretion honor thee in choice.
For love is like a cup with dregs at bottom!
Hand it with care, and pleasant it shall be--
Snatch it, and thou may'st find its bitterness._
And now, my soon, my all sufficient lord,
How shall I answer old Sir Oracle?
It is too true that I have snatched my love,
And taste already of its bitterness.
But trifle not with love, my sportful Theseus.
Affection, when it bears an outward eye,
Be it of love, or social amity,
Or open-lidded general charity,
Becomes a holy universal thing--
The beauty of the soul, which, therein lodged,
Surpasses every outward comeliness--
Makes fanes of shaggy shapes, and, of the fair,
Such presences as fill the gates of heaven.
Why is the dog, that knows no stint of heart,
But roars a welcome like an untamed bear,
And leaps a dirty-footed fierce caress,
More valued than the sleek smooth mannered cat,
That will not out of doors, whoever comes,
But hugs the fire in graceful idleness?
Birds of a glittering gilt, that lack a tongue,
Are shamed to drooping with the euphony
Of fond expression, and the voice beneath
The russet jacket of the soul of song.
What is that girdle of the Queen of Love,
Wherewith, as with the shell of Orpheus,
Things high and humble, the enthroned gods,
And tenants of the far unvisited huts
Of wildernesses, she alike subdues
Unto the awe of perfect harmony?
What else but sweetness tempered all one way,
And looks of sociable benignity?
Which when she chooseth to be all herself,
She doth put on, and in the act thereof,
Such thousand graces lacquey her about,
And in her smile such plenitude of joy--
The extreme perfection of the divine gods--
Shines affable, as, to partake thereof,
Hath oftentimes set Heaven in uproar.
By these, and many special instances,
It doth appear, or may be plainly shown,
That, of all life, affection is the savor--
The soul of it--and beauty is but dross:
Being but the outer iris--film of love,
The fleeting shade of an eternal thing.
Beauty--the cloudy mock of Tantalus;
Daughter of Time, betrothèd unto Death,
Who, all so soon as the lank anarch old
Fingers her palm, and lips her for his bride,
Suffers collapse, and straightway doth become
A hideous comment of mortality.
Know this, my lord, while thou dost run from me,
The tide of true love hath its hours of ebb,
If the attendant orb withdraw his light;
And though there be a love as strong as death,
There is a pride stronger than death or love;
And whether 'tis that I am royal born,
Or kingly blooded, or that once I was
Sometimes a mistress in my father's court,
I have of patience much--not overmuch--
And thou hadst best beware the boundary.
Oh thou too cruel and injurious thorn!
What hast thou done to my poor innocent hand!
Thou art like Theseus, thou dost make me bleed;
Offenceless I, yet thou dost make me bleed.
This scratch I shall remember well, my lord!
Deceiver false! deserter! runaway!
My quick-heeled slave! my loose ungrateful bird!
Where'er thou art, or if thou hear or no,
Know that thou art from this time given o'er,
To tarry and return what time thou wilt.
It is most like that thou dost lurk not far,
In twilight of some envious cave or bower.
Well, if thou dost--why--lurk thy heart's content.
Poor rogue! thou art not worth this weariness.
I will not flutter more, nor cry to thee.
Since thou art fledged, and toppled from the nest,
Go--pick thy crumbs where thou canst find them best.
III.
Once more, once more, O yet again once more,
Spent is my breath with fear and weariness!
Vain toil it is to track this tangled wild--
This rank o'ergrown imprisoned solitude--
Whose very flowers are fetters in my way;
Where I am chained about with vines and briers,
Led blindfold on through mazes tenantless,
And not a friendly echo answers me.
Oh for a foot as airy as the wing
Of the young brooding dove, to overpass,
On swift commission of my true heart's love,
All metes and bournes of this lone wilderness:
So should I quickly find my truant lord.
But, as it is, I can no farther go.
What shall I do? despair? lie down and die?
If I give o'er my search I shall despair,
And if I do despair, I quickly die.
Avaunt Despair! I will not yet despair.
Begone, grim herald of oblivious Death!
Strong-pinioned Hope, embrace thy wings about me;
Shake not my fingers from thy golden chain.
Oh still bear up and pity Ariadne!
Alas! what hope have I but only Theseus,
And Theseus is not here to pity me.
Ah me, my Theseus, whither art thou gone!
Thou dost forget that thou hast called me wife,
And with sweet influence of holy vows
Grappled and grafted me unto thyself.
Oh how shall I, not knowing where thou art,
Be all myself--thou dost dissever me.
Yonder I'll rest awhile, for now I see,
Through meshes of the internetted leaves,
A little plot, girt with a living wall;
A sylvan chamber, that the frolic Pan
Has built and bosomed with a leafy dome,
And windowed with a narrow glimpse of heaven.
Its floor, sky-litten with the noontide sun,
Shows garniture of many colored flowers,
More dainty than the broidered webs of Tyre;
And all about, from beeches, oaks and pines,
Recesses deep of vernal solitude,
Come sounds of calm that woo my ruffled spirits
To a resigned and quiet contemplation.
Yond brook, that, like a child, runs wide astray,
Sings and skips on, nor knows its loneliness;
A squirrel chatters at a doorless nut:
A hammer bird drums on his hollow bark;
And bits of winged life, with aëry voices,
Tinkle like fountains in a corridor.
Fair haunt of peace, ye quiet cadences,
Ye leafy caves of sadness and sweet sounds,
That have no feeling nor a fellowship
With the rash moods of terror and of pain,
I did not think ye could, in such an hour,
So steal from me, as in a sleep, a dream--
What is't that comes between me and the light?
Protect me, Jove! Lo, what untended flowers,
That all night long, like little wakeful babes,
Darkly repine, and weep themselves asleep,
In the orient morning lift their pretty eyes,
Tear smiling, to behold the sun their sire
Enter the gilded chambers of the east--
Strange droopingness! What quality of air?
[Ariadne falls asleep.--Enter, the Dryads, as before.]
_1st Dryad_: Sprinkle out of flower bells
Mortal sense entrapping spells;
Make no sound
On the ground;
Strew and lap and lay around.
Gnat nor snail
Here assail,
Beetle, slug, nor spider here,
Now descend,
Nor depend,
Off from any thorny spear.
_2d Dryad_: So conclude. Whatever seems,
We have her in a chain of dreams.
_3d Dryad_: As fair as foreign! Who is here
In disarray of princely gear?
Here were a lass whose royal port
Might make an awe in Heaven's court;
But sorrowing beauty testifies
In tears that journey from her eyes,
To touches of interior pain;
And on her hand a sanguine stain.
Hair unlooped and sandals torn,
Zone unloosened from its bourne;
Surely some wandering bride of Sorrow.
_4th Dryad_: So let her sleep, and bid good morrow.
_1st Dryad_: But, sisters, me it doth astound,
What maid it is that we have bound,
And Bacchus not, nor Ceres found.
_2d Dryad_: Bacchus has gone to Arcady;
Where certain swains, that merry be,
Have found a happy thunder stone,
That Jove has cast the vale upon;
So take occasion to be blest,
And Bacchus was invited guest.
His shaggy crew have helped the plan.
Silenus made the pipes of Pan,
The Satyrs teased the vines about,
And Bacchus sent a lubber lout,
Who lurked, and stole, ere wink of moon,
The heedless Amalthea's horn.
Now all are gone to Arcady,
Head bent on rousing jollity.
Now riot rout will be, anon,
That shall the very sun aston,
By waters whilst, and on the leas,
Under the old fantastic trees.
The oldest swain with longest cane,
And sad experience in his brain,
On such mad mirth shall fail to wink,
And grimly go aside to think.
_3d Dryad_: But, cedar-cinctured sister, say,
What news has winged our Queen away?
_2d Dryad_: Ceres has gone to see the feast
Made by the King of all East;
Who breasts a beard so black and fair;
And breathes a wealth of gorgeous air,
Now all divided with Gulnare--
Whose odorous train came up from far,
Last night, at shut of evening star,
And filled, with pomp majestical,
The gardens and the palace hall.
So Ceres runs to give them aid,
In likeness of an Indian maid--
Presents them each a dove apiece,
And wishes blessing and increase.
_3d Dryad_: Hark! hark! I hear her rolling car.
Our Queen is not so very far.
_4th Dryad_: Now make your faces long, I ween
Here comes our sweet majestic Queen.
[Enter Ceres, in likeness of a stately woman, bearing poppies
and ears of wheat in her hands, and crowned with a wreath of
flowers and berries.]
_Ceres_: What! loose, and chatting here at play,
All in the broad and staring day!
Why children! this is something queer!
_1st Dryad:_ But, mistress, see the sleeper here.
_Ceres:_ A fair excuse, I own, the sight!
Theseus deserted her last night.
_2d Dryad:_ How knew you that, my lady dear?
_Ceres:_ Well sought--for I was far from here:
Whiles o'er the crisp Ionian main
I shook the winnowed dragon rein--
_3d Dryad:_ Invented error! Sister! fie!
Our Queen has trapped you in a lie.
_2d Dryad:_ A lie!
_Ceres_ A lie?
_3d Dryad:_ Deceit forgets
How Truth is always trailing nets.
While you, sweet Empress, berry crowned,
Were on the Ionian westward bound,
Our sister puffed you towards the east,
With words about a wedding feast.
_Ceres_ How thin a bubble blame may be!
I sought for doves in Italy;
But orient was my main intent,
And on an Indian nuptial bent.
_2d Dryad:_ Now honey-lips, the lie is where?
_4th Dryad:_ She weeps--
_2d Dryad:_ Fool fingered thing!--
_Ceres_ Forbear.
Whiles o'er the crisp Ionian main
I shook the winnowed dragon rein,
A Triton clove the wake behind,
And, with a hailing will, did wind
Such parley through his crankled horn,
As all the air was echo torn.
I stayed--he told what did betide
Of truant Theseus and his bride;
Which having heard, I did repair
Unto that subterranean lair
Wherein the dreadful Sisters three
Vex out the threads of destiny,
But they were sorely overtasked;
So techy, too, that when I asked
If he could not be plagued for this
Unloving piece of business,
With knots and burs upon his thread,
They would not speak, nor lift the head:
Yet saw I how his flax did run
Smoothly, and much is yet unspun.
_4th Dryad:_ Sweet Queen, adieu--come, let's away,
We keep no sunshine holiday.
_Ceres_ Stay, children, stay.
Poor things! I do remember me,
How I did seek Proserpiné.
We must not leave her thus forlorn:
Auroral grace in her is born,
And, rarer else, the finest sense
Of feeling and intelligence.
Mortals of such ethereal grain
Are quickened both for joy and pain;
Theirs is the affluence of joy,
And pain that sorely doth annoy.
And, therefore, if we leave her thus,
To find the truth of Theseus,
She will, with such a madness burn,
And do herself so sad a turn,
As that the very thought erewhile,
Will drive us all to quit the isle.
_1st Dryad:_ Alack! O no! What must be done?
_Ceres_ Go, you, and you, and every one--
To stay such heart distracting harm,
Go, each bring flowers upon her arm:
Pink, pansy, poppy, pimpernell,
Acanthus, almond, asphodel.
[The Dryads disperse and gather flowers with which they return
to Ceres.]
_Ceres_ Now all join hands; [They join hands.]
Fair fall the eyes
Of any weary destinies!
I bruise these flowers, and so set free
Their virtue for adversity.
Then, with my unguent finger tips,
Touch twice and once on cheeks and lips.
When this sweet influence comes to naught,
Vexed she shall be, but not distraught.
And now let music winnow thought:
Bucolic sound of horn and flute,
In distant echo nearly mute.
Then louder borne, and swelling near,
Make bolder murmur in her ear.
_2d Dryad:_ See, see, what change is in her face:
_Ceres_ Break hands, the lady wakes apace.
[Ceres and the Dryads loose hands and disappear.]
IV.
_Ariadne:_ I dreamed a dream of sadness and the sea,
And I will turn again, if yet I may,
To where the rolling rondure of the deep
Broadly affront the sky's infinity.
Sleeping or waking, knew I naught but this;
Sorrow and Love, above a desolate main,
From the sheer battlements of opposite clouds,
Kissed, and embraced, and parted company....
This is the self-same bay where we put in,
Yonder the restless keel did gore the sand.
There was the sailor's fire, and up and down,
Are scattered mangled ropes, splinters, and spars,
Fragments and shreds--but ship and all are gone.
Here is my wreath. How brief, since yester eve,
Then, when the sun, like an o'erthirsty god,
Had stooped his brows behind the ocean brim,
And the west wind, bearing his martial word,
The limber-footed and the courier west,
Went smoothly whist over the furrowed floor,
To bid the night, then gazing up the sphere,
Advance his constellated banners there,
I leaned above the vessel's whispering prow,
With an unusual joy, and drink, from out
The heaven of those true repeated depths,
Infinite calm, as though I did commune
With the still spirit of the universe.
So leaning, from my hair did I unwind
This chain of flowers, and dropped it in the sea;
Blessing that twilight hour, the port, the bay,
The deep dim isle of interlunar woods,
My love, and all the world, and naming them
Waters of rest--now lies my garland here.
What words are these thus furrowed on the shore?
These are the very turns of Theseus' hand:
If from thy hook the fish to water fall,
Think not to catch that fish again at all.
Too well my thought unlocks these cruel lines.
Oh drench of grief! I thank ye, piteous powers,
Who sent not this without forewarning drops.
Oh miserable me! distressful me!
Despised, disdained, deserted, desolate:
Oh world of dew! Oh morning water drops!
Lack-lustre, irksome, dull mortality!
Oh now, oh now, that heaven all is black,
Wherein the rainbow of my joy did stand!
Oh love! oh life! oh life entire in love!
All lost, all gone, or just so little left
As is not worth the care to throw away!
All lost, all gone, wrecked, rifted, sunk, devoured:
Wrecked with false lights on Theseus' rocky heart!
Oh man, perverse, dry-eyed, untender man,
Enchanting man, so sleek so serpent-cold!
Was it for this that thou didst swear to me,
By all the gods in the three worlds at once,
That thou didst love distractedly, and I,
With certain tender and ingenuous tears,
Did presently confess to thee as much?
Was it for this, that I, who had a home,
Like an Elysium in the lap of Crete,
Did beckon buffets, and, for thee, did dare
The rough unknown and outside of the world?
Was it for this that thou didst hither bring me,
Unto this isle of thorny loneliness,
And, in the night, without foreargued cause,
Any aggrievance, any allegation,
Didst, like a coward traitor, run from me?
Thou man of snow! thou art assailed by this--
Be sure of it--thou art begrimed as black
As if thou hadst been hanged a thousand years
Under the murky cope of Pluto's den.
Oh agony! but thou shalt know my soul,
Which gropes for daggers at the thought of this.
Yea, from the day-beams of adoring love,
Goes headlong to as vast a reprobation.
Thou, Theseus, wast a cloud, and I a cloud,
Quickened from thee with such pervading flame,
As that thou canst not now so part from me
Without the fiery iterance of my heart.
Hear, hear me, love, who on the swathèd tops
Of ribbed Olympus, and thy steadfast throne,
Dost sit the sùpreme judge of gods and men,
And bear within thy palm the living bolt,
High o'er the soilèd air of this wan world;
Look on yon helot wretch, and, wheresoe'er,
Coursing what sea, or cabled in what port,
The greatness of thine eye may light on him,
Crush him with thunder!
Thou, too, great Neptune of the lower deeps,
Heave thy wet head up from the monstrous sea;
Advance thy trident high as to the clouds,
And with a not to be repeated blow,
Dash the sin-freighted ship of that rash man!
And thou, old iron-sceptred Eolus,
Shatter the bars of thine enclosed winds;
Unhinge the doors of thy great kennel house,
And 'twixt the azure and the roaring deep
Cry out thy whole inflated Strongyle--
Cry ruin on that man!
But wherefore, thus,
Do I invoke the speedy desolation
Of any mighty magisterial soul,
Whose will is weaponed with the elements!
For oh--
Let the great spies of Jove, the sun and moon,
The stars, and all the expeditious orbs
That in their motions are retributive,
Look blindly on, and seem to take no note
Of any deep and deadly stab of sin--
Let vengeance gorge a gross Cerberean sop,
Grovel and snore in swinish sluggardness,
Yea, quite forget his dagger and his cup--
It is enough, for any retribution,
That guilt retain remembrance of itself.
Guilt is a thing, however bolstered up,
That the great scale-adjusting Nemesis,
And Furies iron-eyed, will not let sleep.
Sail on unscarred--thou canst not sail so far,
But that the gorgon lash of vipers fanged
Shall scourge this howler home to thee again.
Yes, yes, rash man, Jove and myself do know
That from this wrong shall rouse an Anteros,
Fierce as an Atë, with a hot right hand,
That shall afflict thee with the touch of fire,
Till, scorpion-like, thou turn and sting thyself.
What dost thou think--that I shall perish here,
Gnawed by the tooth of hungry savageness?
Think what thou list, and go what way thou wilt.
I, that have truth and heaven on my side,
Though but a weak and solitary woman,
Forecast no fear of any violence--
But thou, false hound! thou would'st not dare come back,
Thou would'st not like to feel my eyes again.
Go get thee on, to Argos get thee on;
And let thy ransomed Athens run to thee,
With portal arms, wide open to her heart--
To stifling hug thee with triumphant joy.
Thou canst not wear such bays, thou canst not so
O'erpeer the ancient and bald heads of honor,
That I would have the back or follow thee.
Let nothing but thy shadow follow thee;
Thy shadow is to thee a curse enough;
For thou hast done a murder on thyself.
Thou hast put on the Nessus' fiery hide.
Thou hast stepped in the labyrinths of woe,
And in thy fingers caught the clue to Death.
What solace have the gods for such as thou,
That is not stabbed by this one thrust through me?
From this black hour, this curse anointing hour,
The currents of thy heart are all corrupt;
The motions of thy thoughts are serpentine;
And thy death-doing and bedabbled soul
Is maculate with spots of Erebus.
Aye me!--and yet--Oh that I should say so!
Thou wast a noble scroll of Beauty's pen,
Where every turn was grandly charactered.
Hadst thou a heart--but thou hadst no such thing--
And having none, it was not thee I loved;
Only my maiden thoughts were perfect, Theseus.
O no, no, no, I never did love thee,
Thou outside shell and carcase of a man.
And I--what was it thou didst take me for?
A paroquet of painted shallowness?
A silly thing to whistle to and fro,
And peck at plums, and then be whistled off?
Oh, Theseus, Theseus, thou didst never know me--
In this unworthy clasp of woman's mould,
This poor outside of pliant prettiness,
There was a heart and in that heart a love,
And in that love there was an affluence
Full as the ocean, infinite as time,
Deep as the spring that never knew an ebb.
Too truly feeling what I left for thee,
And with what joy I left it all for thee,
And how I would have only followed thee,
With soul, mind, purpose, to the far world's end,
I cannot think on thee as thou deservest,
But scorn is drownéd in a well of tears;
I will go sit and weep.--
Note.--Theseus, a Grecian hero, according to ancient fable,
made an expedition into Crete for the purpose of destroying the
Minotaur, a monster which infested that island. While there he
made love to Ariadne, (daughter of Minos the king of Crete) who
returned his affection, assisted him in accomplishing the
object of his expedition, and sailed with him on his return to
Athens. She was, however, abandoned by Theseus at Naxos, an
island in the Ægean sea held sacred to Bacchus. Bacchus
received Ariadne hospitably, but afterwards he too ran away
from her. We suspect (as perhaps our poem sufficiently
indicates) that the root of Ariadne's misfortunes lay in
certain infirmities of temper, which rendered her at times an
uncomfortable companion.
THE FALLS OF THE BOUNDING DEER.
WRITTEN FOR THE INTERNATIONAL MAGAZINE
BY ALFRED B. STREET.
"Good news! great discovery! new falls!" broke out in full chorus, boys
and girls, at a party given by Jobson, in Monticello.
"How did you happen to find them, Mayfield?" asked Allthings.
"I was fishing, and came upon them all at once. I heard a roar of some
waterfall or other, and the first I knew, I saw the chasm immediately
below me!"
"What was their appearance?"
"There were two falls quite precipitous, and two basins. From the second
basin the stream ran very smooth and placid again through a piece of
woodland."
"Good!--great!--new falls!" came anew the chorus.
"What is the name of the falls, Mayfield?" inquired Allthings once more.
"The people thereabouts call them Gumaer's Falls."
"Horrid!--too common!--awful! Sha'n't have such a name!" was again the
chorus.
"Let's give them a new one at once."
"Well, begin."
"Let us call them the Falls of the Melting Snow," suggested the
sentimental May Blossom.
"That would do in the spring, when the snow is really melting," said Joe
Jobson, a plain, practical young fellow, who never had a gleam of fancy
in his life; "but there's no snow there now, I reckon."
"What a heathen you are, Jobson!" broke in honest Allthings (who always
spoke out); "the name applies to the water, not the snow!"
"Why not the name of the Falls of the Silver Lace?" asked the tall,
superb Lydia Lydell, who was also given to poetry.
"Was there ever any lace made there?" again remarked Jobson.
"I move we call them by an Indian name," said Job Paddock, the
schoolmaster, who was deep in Indian lore. "Let us call them The
Kah-youk-weh-reh Ogh-ne-ka-nos, or, The Arrow Water, or The Water of the
Arrow; just as you fancy."
"Kaw--what?" again interrupted Jobson; "a real queer name
that--Kah-you-qweer-reh Oh-cane-my-nose!"
"Do hold your tongue, Jobson!" said Claypole, "you are enough to drive
one crazy!"
"Mr. Jobson is not much inclined to poetry, I believe," lisped May
Blossom, with a smile dimpling her beautiful mouth.
"Poetry is well enough in its place," grumbled Jobson; "in speaking
exercises, and so on; but what's poetry to do with naming falls of
water, I should like to know?"
"Let us call them Meadow Brook Falls," said beautiful Annie Mapes.
"There's no meadow in sight, and your brook is a torrent," said
Mayfield.
"Well, what _shall_ we call them?" burst out once more the full chorus.
"I think the best way is to go and see them first;" again grumbled
Jobson, not much relishing the idea of all the company turning against
him.
This was really the most practical remark yet made, as none of the
assemblage had seen them but Mayfield, who absolutely declined
suggesting any name, and accordingly Jobson's idea was instantly
adopted.
The next day was settled upon for the jaunt, and consequently the
company assembled at an early hour to start.
It was as bewitching an autumn day as ever beamed on the earth, such an
one as Doughty loves to fasten upon his glorious canvas. It would have
glittered with golden splendor, had it not been toned down by a delicate
haze, which could scarcely be seen near by, but which gradually
thickened on the distant landscape until it brushed away the outlines of
the mountain summits, so that they seemed steeped in a delicious swoon.
We left the village, trotted up hill and down, and skimmed over flats,
until we arrived at the long descent of a mile, beginning at the log-hut
of old Saunsalis, and ending in Mamakating Hollow at the outskirts of
Wurtsboro'. Here we turned short at the left, and pursued our way over a
narrow country road through the enchanting scenery of the Hollow toward
our destination. After passing farm-houses peering from clumps of trees,
meadows, grainfields, and woodlands, we came to a by-road leading
through a field. Here the little brook (Fawn of the "Bounding Deer")
sparkled by our track, crossing in its capricious way the road, thereby
forcing us to ford it, and then recross its ripples. We now came to the
end of our road; and alighting, we tied our steeds to the willows and
alders scattered along the streamlet's bank. Each one (laden with the
pic-nic baskets) then hastened onward, for the low deep bleat of the
"Deer" was sounding in our ears. We directly came to a sawmill, with a
high broken bank in front. Over this impediment our path lay, and over
it must we go. Accordingly we did go; and, descending the other side,
the "Deer" was before us. An amphitheatre of towering summits saluted
our eyes, clothed with wood and steeped in grateful shade. The gleam of
the waterfall cut like a scimetar on our sight, flashing through its
narrow cleft, whilst the bleating of the "Bounding Deer" was louder and
sweeter. A beautiful place for our pic-nic--a mossy log or two by the
streamlet, and a delicious greensward. The ladies busied themselves in
unpacking the baskets, whilst the "boys" distributed themselves about
the rocks. Forms were soon seen dangling from cedar bushes, and treading
carefully among clefts and gullies. Some sat where the silver spray
sprinkled their faces--some clambered the rocks jutting over the higher
Fall--some scaled the still loftier summits. All this time the organ of
the cascade was sounding like the deep strain of the wind in a pine
forest.
In about a half hour our pic-nic table was spread with various viands,
the table composed of boards spread upon two of the mossy logs, the
boards being the product of a sawmill hard by.
The company seated themselves, and immediately a desperate charge was
made by the whole force upon the eatables and drinkables, and immense
havoc ensued. An entire route having been at length effected, again the
vexed question of the name to be given to the "Fall" was brought on the
_tapis_.
"Let us call them the Falls of Aladdin," said enchanting Rose Rosebud,
lifting her azure eyes to the jewelled autumn foliage that glittered
around.
"The Falls of the Ladder!" caught up Jobson: "the very name!--why, it
describes the Falls exactly! I wonder we haven't thought of that name
before. The water looks like a ladder exactly, coming down them big
rocks."
"I'll tell you what," said Paddock, "I've now been all about the
cataract, and seen it at all points. I've hit upon the very name, I
think. What say you to the Falls of the Bounding Deer?"
"But where's the Deer?" grumbled Jobson, now thoroughly out of humor
from the contempt with which his last observation had been treated.
"Do be quiet, Mr. Jobson," chimed in the girls, "and let us hear what
Mr. Paddock urges in favor of his beautiful name."
"See," said Paddock, pointing upward, "see where the upper Fall bounds
from yon dark cleft of rock, and, gathering itself in that basin for
another effort, gives another leap down its path, and then, gathering
itself once more in the lower basin, shoots away to the protecting
woods!"
"Capital name! Just the thing, Mr. Paddock!" again broke out the chorus
of girls, like a dangling of silver bells.
"The Falls of the Bounding Deer be it then!"
The name being thus satisfactorily settled, we all commenced
scrutinizing more closely the lovely lair of the "Bounding Deer."
A dazzling display of tints was on the thickly mantling trees, changing
the whole scene into a gorgeous spectacle. The most striking
contrasts--the richest colors glowing side by side, flashed upon the
delighted vision every where.
The elm dripping with golden foliage from head to foot, in a way which
only that most beautiful tree can show (the drooping naiad of the
brook), shone beside the maple in a splendid flush of scarlet--the
birch, garbed in the richest orange, bent near the pine gleaming with
emerald--the beech displayed its tanny mantle by the dogwood robed in
deepest purple, whilst every nook, crevice, shelf, and hollow of the
umber banks and gray rocks blazed with yellow golden rods and sky-blue
asters.
How beautiful, how radiant, how glorious, the American foliage in
autumn! No pen, unless dipped in rainbows, can do it justice. And,
amidst this brilliant beauty, down her pointed rocks, down flashed the
"Bounding Deer," white with the foam of her eager and headlong speed.
The boys now prepare for another excursion amongst the rocks of the
"Falls."
Some climb the dangling grape vines; some clutch the roots of the
slanting pine trees; and some find footing in the narrow fissures. Soon
the gray rocks and yellow banks are scattered over with them. Ascending
the very loftiest pinnacle by the roots of trees and the profuse bushes,
the scene was wild, picturesque, and romantic in the extreme. A little
below, bristled the points of the rocks with cedars, dwarf pines, and
towering hemlocks shooting from the interstices. At one side, through
its deep gully, flashed the "Bounding Deer"--the waters pouring in its
first deep dark basin, cut in the granite like a goblet, thence twisting
down in another bold leap into the second basin. Not a foam flake was on
the surface of either sable cup, nothing but the wrinkles produced by
the ever circling eddies. Below--past broken edge, grassy shelf, yawning
cleft, and jutting ledge, was the broad deep hollow through which the
"Deer" (mottled with sunshine and shadow) leaped away to the woods
beyond, whilst in the meadow was seen the little "Fawn" tripping along
its green banks until lost in the verdure of the valley. Add to these,
the glittering tints that had been showered from autumn's treasury, and
the effect was complete. But, where are the girls?
_"Oui, oui!"_ exclaimed the Count de ----(a French nobleman of
illustrious descent, and a most amiable, intelligent, and accomplished
gentleman), "where de _demoiselles_--I no see 'em!"
"The what?" asked Jobson.
"De demoiselles; de--de--what _you_ call 'em, Monsieur Job?"
"Girls," answered Jobson.
"Non, non, non,--fie, Monsieur Job,--no girl; dey are--a--a--a--"
"Ladies, Count, you mean," answered Allthings.
"Oui, oui, oui--de ladees--_pas la-bas, pas la-bas!_ They must
be--a--a--_noyées_--what you call when you fall _dans l'eau_ and
_mourez_--eh?"
"Drown," returned Allthings.
"Oui, Monsieur Allting--drown."
"Sure enough," ejaculated Jobson, looking down through the branches,
"the girls are not there! Where can they be?"
_"O ciel!--noyées!--noyées!"_ shouted the Count, plunging down the bank.
_"Mon Dieu!--ces demoiselles dans les eaux!--au secours!--au secours!"_
The last we saw of the excellent Count he was going down the steep bank
on the sliding principle, shouting with all his might, and presenting a
rare sight of "ground and lofty tumbling" quite edifying to behold.
We now all looked. True, the deep hollow beneath was quite forsaken. No
ladies were there to be seen. Marvelling somewhat at the sudden
disappearance, we all descended from our respective perches by the
ladders formed of the branches, roots and tough grape vines, and set
foot upon the hollow where our dinner had transpired. Looking around at
the banks by which we were surrounded, we at length saw the girls emerge
from a twisted ravine at the lower part of the hollow scarcely
discernible from the foliage with which it was roofed, and found from
the wreaths of moss, ground pine and wild flowers in their hair and
around their persons, that they had been also making explorations,
although in a lower region than ours.
The Count now rejoined the party, after having peered most anxiously and
at various points into the lower basin to find the drowned ones, all
clustered together upon the short velvet sward near the streamlet, and
Paddock was called upon for one of his Indian legends.
He said he knew one relating to this very spot, and accordingly
commenced:
"In the old times, before the foot of the white man had startled the
beaver from the stream, or his axe sent the eagle screaming with rage
from his aërie on the lofty pine tree, there dwelt a tribe by these
waters, an offshoot of the powerful Mohawks. They were called the tribe
of the Deer, and had for their chieftain "Os-ko-ne-an-tah," meaning also
the Deer. He had one daughter, beautiful as the day, who was named
"Jo-que-yoh," or the Bluebird, for the melody of her voice. Jo-que-yoh
was affianced to a young brave of her father's tribe named "To-ke-ah,"
or the Oak. They were tenderly attached to each other. Often when the
moon of the summer night transformed these rugged rocks to pearl and
this headlong torrent to plunging silver, did the two seat themselves by
the margin of this very basin, and while Jo-que-yoh touched with simple
skill the strings of her Indian lute, To-ke-ah sang of love and the
sweet charms of his mistress. In the war-path the young brave thought
only of her, and the scalps he took were displayed to her sight in token
of his prowess. In the chase, he still thought of her solely, and the
gray coat of the deer and the brindled skin of the fierce panther were
laid at her feet. The vest of glossy beaver fur which encompassed her
lovely form was the spoil of his arrow. And the eagle plume which rose
gracefully from her brow was plucked by his hand from the wing of the
haughty soarer of the clouds, that his unerring bow had brought to the
dust. Time passed on--the crescent of Jo-que-yoh's beauty was enlarging
into the full height of maiden grace, and the tall sapling of
To-ke-ah's strength maturing into the size and vigor of his manhood's
oak. Another moon, and he was to lead Jo-que-yoh as his bride to his
lodge. The happy day at length arrived, and as soon as the first star
trembled in the heavens, the joyous ceremonial was to take place. Sunset
came, steeping the scene around in lustrous gold, and Jo-que-yoh,
arrayed by the maidens of her tribe, sat in the lodge of her father
awaiting the star that was to bring her love to her presence. Blushing
and trembling she saw "Kah-quah" (the Indian name for the sun) wheeling
down into the crimson west, and now his light was hidden. Blushing and
trembling, she saw the sweet twilight stealing over the endless forests,
and now the star--the bright star of her hope, came creeping, like a
timid fawn, into the purple heavens. She heard a footstep, she
turned--"To-ke-ah," trembled on her lips. But it was not To-ke-ah. It
was Os-ko-ne-an-tah, her father, decked in all his finest splendor, to
give away the bride. To-ke-ah she knew had departed in the afternoon
upon a neighboring trail for a brighter eagle plume to adorn the brow of
his lovely bride on this the evening of their bridal. Something has
detained him, but he will soon come. She fixed her large dark elk-like
eye upon the star. Momentarily it brightened and again another footstep.
It was the maiden she had dispatched upon the rocks to watch for her the
approaching form of To-ke-ah. Large and brighter grew the star, but
still the absent came not. A shuddering fear began to creep into her
bosom. Nothing could detain the absent from her but one reason--death!
Larger and brighter grew the star until now it flashed like the eye of
To-ke-ah from its home in the heavens. Still the absent came not. Tears
began to flow, and she at length started in wild fear from her couch of
sassafras to the towering rock to see if she could not behold the
approaching shape of To-ke-ah. By this time the sky was sparkling with
stars, and a feeble light was shed upon the forests. She saw the pointed
rocks around her--she saw the two leaps of the torrent through their
rugged pathway--she saw the still black basins on which the stars were
glittering, but no To-ke-ah. "To-ke-ah! To-ke-ah! Jo-que-yoh awaits
thee!" she cried, but she heard only the plunging of the torrents, and
the song of the whippowill wailing as if in echo to her woe. Tremblings
seized her limbs, her heart grew sick, and she was nigh swooning upon
the rock, when she saw a form hurrying from the woods where the trail
began. "To-ke-ah!" she shrieked joyfully, "I have been sad without
thee!" and she was about casting herself into the arms of the form, when
she found it was the youth who had accompanied To-ke-ah in the chase.
"Is not the brave here?" asked the youth, with astonishment; "I left him
at the first leap of the torrent, searching for the eagle-nest that is
in the cleft of the rock!"
With a wild scream Jo-que-yoh rushed away again to her wigwam; with a
wild scream she asked for To-ke-ah, and no answer being returned, she
darted to her canoe fastened in the cave above the upper leap.
"I go for To-ke-ah!" she screamed, as she seized the paddle and
unfastened the willow withe, and the canoe darted into the stream
directly towards the bend of the torrent. The star-light displayed her
slender form to the agonized sight of her father, plunging down the
foaming cataract, and she was seen no more! The canoe overturned,
emerged into the basin, and dashed down the curve of the second plunge.
The father, followed by those present, rushed down the precipice to the
basin below, and there were the fragments of the canoe floating around
in the eddying waters. A light shape was also seen in the dark pool, and
leaping in, Os-ko-ne-an-tah dragged to the margin the drooping form of
his daughter. She was dead! A stream of blood poured from her fractured
temple, and the father held in his arms only the remains of the loved
and still lovely Jo-que-yoh. But a warrior now came rushing down the
rocks with "Jo-que-yoh! Jo-que-yoh!" loud upon his tongue. It was
To-ke-ah. He had wandered farther than he thought, and hurrying home had
found the wigwam of Jo-que-yoh empty. Dashing down the precipice in his
mad search, he now came upon the sorrowing group. "Jo-que-yoh!
Jo-que-yoh!" he screamed, tearing the dead from the arms of the father,
but Jo-que-yoh did not answer. "Jo-que-yoh!" said the proud forest man,
bending his head aside in his uncontrollable grief; "I am lost without
thee!" But no Jo-que-yoh spoke. She had gone to the far land of the
happy in search of To-ke-ah.
Then took To-ke-ah the lifeless maiden in his arms and cast himself
prostrate on the earth.
"To-ke-ah!" said the father, "a great warrior should not weep like the
deer in his last agony. Rouse thee! it is Os-ko-ne-an-tah that speaks!"
But To-ke-ah answered not. He only lay and shuddered.
"Shall the tall tree of my tribe turn to a willow?" again asked
Os-ko-ne-an-tah, and this time sternly. "Rise, bravest of my people,
behold! even the maidens see thee!"
But To-ke-ah answered not. He only lay and shuddered.
Then bent Os-ko-ne-an-tah over both and essayed to take from To-ke-ah
the form of Jo-que-yoh. But the moment the father touched his daughter,
To-ke-ah leaped to his feet with Jo-que-yoh in his arms, and pealing his
war-hoop, flourished his keen hatchet over the head of the father.
"Go!" shouted he, whilst his eye flamed madly in the light of the pine
torches that now kindled up the scene. "Go! Jo-que-yoh is mine. In
death as in life, mine and mine only!" and again he threw himself, still
holding her to his heart, headlong on the earth.
Then went Os-ko-ne-an-tah sadly from the spot, followed by all his
people. Still lay To-ke-ah there, grasping the form of his dead bride.
The bright star glittered above the two, and then grew pale in the
advancing dawn, but still he stirred not. Brightly rose the sun,
striking the scene into sudden joy, but still he stirred not. Noon
glowed, and then the sunset fell, but To-ke-ah still lay there with the
dead one in his arms. Night darkened. Again the star stole out in the
red twilight, again grew bright and gleamed above the spot where
To-ke-ah rested, but still no motion there. Once more rose the sun, and
his first beam rested on To-ke-ah, but still there he lay with the dead
one lying on his bosom.
At last he rose, and delving a grave in the sod with his knife and
tomahawk, deposited therein the form of the maiden, and refilling it
with his hands, stretched himself upon the mound. Os-ko-ne-an-tah had in
the mean while often approached him, but the moment he appeared, up
sprang To-ke-ah with his threatening tomahawk, and only when the father
left, did that tomahawk sink, and the Brave again resume his posture.
Eight days and nights passed, the most tempting food and the coolest
water were placed near him upon the rocks, but still he stirred not.
Food and water were untouched. At last, at the close of the ninth day, a
thunder-cloud heaved up its black form in the west. Forth rushed the
blast, out flashed the lightning, and the thunder was terrible to hear.
But in the pauses of the storm there came a strain of guttural music
from the grave of Jo-que-yoh--it was the death song of To-ke-ah. Short
and faint and broken to the listening ear of Os-ko-ne-an-tah came the
song, and at length it ceased. Cautiously approached the father with a
torch, for even then he expected to see the flash of To-ke-ah's hatchet
over his head. Cautiously he approached, but the form stretched above
the grave of his daughter, was motionless. Cautiously he bent over him,
and then he turned him with a sudden movement, so that he could look
upon his face. To-ke-ah was dead! The faithful warrior had departed in
the shadowy trail where Jo-que-yoh had gone, and both were now engaged
in the feast of the strawberry in the bright hunting grounds of
Hah-wen-ne-yo.
When morning came the grave of Jo-que-yoh was opened by Os-ko-ne-an-tah,
and the form of To-ke-ah, still arrayed in the weapons of a chief, was
deposited in a sitting posture by her side. Again was the grave closed,
and often did the young men and the maidens of the tribe repair thither,
the first to celebrate the praises of To-ke-ah, and the latter to sing
the virtues of Jo-que-yoh.
Paddock ceased amidst the plaudits of the company.
"He must have been a great fool to starve himself to death," said
Jobson, "when he could have killed himself in a shorter time with his
hatchet, or even by drowning himself in the pool!"
"What a barbarian you are, Jobson!" said Allthings, "every thing is
matter of fact with you. Do be still!"
"Well, but I don't see the common sense," persisted Jobson, "if he was
determined to kill himself, of leaving all the pies and things that they
brought him, and starving himself and getting wet in the bargain, when
he had a shorter way of doing the job!"
"Suppose you go and ask him, Jobson!" said Paddock, smiling; "I don't
know his reasons, if he had any. At all events, I tell the tale as I
heard it, and can't alter it!"
The Count had listened to the story with all his ears, but evidently,
from his imperfect knowledge of the English language, without half
understanding it.
"Pauvre demoiselle! so she did a--a--a--what ye call dat, (making as if
pitching headlong,) a--a--a--"
"Tumble!" ejaculated Jobson.
"_Oui, oui, oui_, toomball, toomball down de--down de _roches--roches_,
pauvre demoiselle! did she se blesser?"
"She went down the torrent, Count, in her canoe and was dashed to
death!" exclaimed little Annie Mapes.
"Oh, oh, pauvre demoiselle!" answered the Count, sorrowfully. "The
lovaire did _courir_ from her--ah--ah--pauvre demoiselle!"
"No, no, Count!" returned Annie impatiently, "her lover did not forsake
her. She thought he was dead, and went in her canoe after his body!"
"Pauvre demoiselle! and did she _trouver_ him?"
"No. She was killed, and her lover had been detained in the chase, and
he came afterwards and found her dead, as Mr. Paddock has just said!"
"_Oui, oui, oui_, me understand, he try to run away and fall down--me
understand--_oui, oui, oui_--me understand."
"_No, no_, Count, you are all wrong; he starved himself to death from
grief for her loss!"
"_Oui, oui_, me understand; he try to run away--fall down--get no food
in de _roches_--but he sing to keep courage up--_oui, oui_, me
understand--bootiful story, bootiful story, Monsieur Paydook! vrai
bootiful indeed! He lay there _long temps_--six, eight, ten day, you
say! and den he sing, sing, sing, to keep courage up, for want of food!
Bootiful story, bootiful story!"
Finding it was in vain to enlighten the Count, Annie gave over her task,
and the Count kept repeating, as if to himself: "_Oui, oui_, bootiful
story, Monsieur Pay-dook, bootiful story! _bien_ bootiful story indeed!
pauvre demoiselle! pauvre demoiselle! Joe--what you call it. She too
good for Monsieur Took Ear. He run away--he fall down--he sing. She die
to get rid of him. (Shrugging his shoulders and grimacing most
laughably.) He run away--he fall down--he sing! pauvre demoiselle!"
"I think he must have been crazy!" said Jobson, "not to eat when he
could get a chance, and he hungry too, lying there a week or more; and
only think, on the damp ground all this time. I wonder he didn't catch
the rheumatism!"
"No crazy, Monsieur Jobsoon! no crazy! he sing to keep courage up. I
sing sometime to keep courage up ven I think of _la belle France_--of
Paris! Bootiful story, Monsieur Paydook! _vrai_ bootiful story! Mooch
oblege, mooch oblege!"
By this time the sun was setting, and the hollow was filled with sweet
rosy light. Every leaf flashed, and the "Bounding Deer" was tinged with
the beautiful radiance. Soon the light crept up, leaving the bottom of
this huge rocky chalice in shadow, whilst the rim was encompassed with
rich brilliance. The sun poured down one stream of glory through a cleft
in the bank or side of this Titan Goblet, like the visioned future which
glows before the sight of happy youth, and then vanished. The gold rim
vanished also; still there appeared to be no disposition among the party
to leave the scene. Twilight began to shimmer, and now the stars
trembled forth from the dusky sky. At last night settled on the
landscape, and the girls expressed a wish to see the hollow lighted up
with torchlight. Scattering ourselves amongst the trees of the bank,
some splinters of the pitch pine were procured, and matches kindled each
splinter into thick crimson flame. I clambered up as far as the basin of
the first "bound" of the "Deer," and looked down to enjoy the scene.
Scores of dark red torches were flashing in every direction, disclosing
faces, forms, water, trees and grass, in broken fitful glances and in
the most picturesque manner. Sometimes a deep light caught upon the
edges of a hemlock, then upon the form of some graceful girl, then upon
a huge rock, like the gleaming of stormy lightning, whilst the "Deer"
bounded down, tawny as the shell of the chestnut. I looked at the basin
at my foot. There were a score too of stars glittering there, but amidst
them all was one large clear orb burning with pure and steadfast lustre.
It was doubtless the star of Jo-que-yoh, and forthwith I named the basin
the "Bath of the Star!" and the lower pool--oh, that shall be called
"The Ladies' Mirror."
Soon after I descended and once more mingled with the party. Merry song
and talk again winged away the hour, until a pale radiance on the
highest cliffs gave token of the moon. Soon up she came--that hunter's
moon! moon of October! and, like a golden shield, impended from the
heavens. And how she kindled up the scene, that lovely moon of the
hunter! And by her delicious light we left the hollow, put our steeds in
motion, passed through the meadow, skimmed over the valley road, and
then turned to the right, up the turnpike leading over the "Barrens,"
homeward.
How fragrant were the odors of the pine in the pure dry air, as we
slowly toiled up the ascent of a mile towards the hut of old Gaunsalis,
and then up and down over the hills, as the yellow bird flies, we
travelled homeward. Past "Lord's Pond," through the turnpike gate, down
the Neversink Hill, up the opposite one we went until we saw, gleaming
in the heavenly moonlight, the welcome roofs of Monticello.
From Bentley's Miscellany.
LEOPARDS.
ZOOLOGICAL NOTES AND ANECDOTES.
"Where sacred Ganges pours along the plain,
And Indus rolls to swell the Eastern Main,
What awful scenes the curious mind delight!
What wonders burst upon the dazzled sight!
There giant palms lift high their tufted heads,
The plantain wide his graceful foliage spreads;
Wild in the woods the active monkey springs,
The chattering parrot claps her painted wings;
'Mid tall bamboos lies hid the deadly snake,
The tiger crouches in the tangled brake;
The spotted axis bounds in fear away;
The leopard darts on his defenceless prey,
'Mid reedy pools and ancient forests rude,
Cool peaceful haunts of awful solitude!"
There is no class of animals which combine in such a marked degree,
beauty of form, with a wily and savage nature, as that to which the
Leopard tribe belongs. The unusual pliability of the spine and joints
with which they are endowed, imparts agility, elasticity, and elegance
to their movements, whilst the happy proportions of their limbs give
grace to every attitude. Their skins, beautifully sleek, yellow above,
and white beneath, are marked with spots of brilliant black, disposed in
patterns according to the species; nor are these spots for ornament
alone; as was remarked by one of the ablest of the writers in the
"Quarterly," the different and characteristic markings of the larger
feline animals, bear a direct relation to the circumstances under which
they carry on their predatory pursuits. The tawny color of the lion
harmonizes with the parched grass or yellow sand, along which he steals
towards, or on which he lies in wait to spring upon, a passing prey; and
a like relation to the place in which other large feline animals carry
on their predatory pursuits, may be traced in their different and
characteristic markings. The royal tiger, for instance, which stalks or
lurks in the jungle of richly-wooded India, is less likely to be
discerned as he glides along the straight stems of the underwood, by
having the tawny ground-color of his coat variegated by dark vertical
stripes, than if it were uniform like the lion's. The leopard and
panther again, which await the approach of their prey, crouching on the
outstretched branch of some tree, derive a similar advantage, by having
the tawny ground-color broken by dark spots like the leaves around them;
but amidst all this variety, in which may be traced the principle of
adaptation to special ends, there is a certain unity of plan, the
differences not being established from the beginning. Thus the young
lion is spotted, during his first year, with dark spots on its lighter
ground, and transitorily shows the livery that is most common in the
genus. It is singular that man has, in a semi-barbarous state,
recognized the same principle as that which constitutes these
differences, and applied it to the same purpose. It is well-known that
the _setts_, or patterns of several of the highland tartans were
originally composed with special reference to concealment among the
heather. And with the Highlanders, perhaps, the hint was taken from the
ptarmigans and hares of their own native mountains, which change their
colors with the season, donning a snow white vest when the ground on
which they tread bears the garb of winter, and resuming their garments
of grayish brown when the summer's sun has restored to the rocks their
natural tints.
There are three species sufficiently resembling each other in size and
general appearance, to be confounded by persons unacquainted with their
characteristics, namely, the leopard, the panther, and the jaguar. The
precise distinction between the first two, is still an open question,
although the best authorities agree in considering, that they are
distinct animals; still confusion exists. An eminent dealer in furs
informed us, that in the trade, panther skins were looked upon as being
larger than leopards', and the spots more irregular, but the specimens
produced were clearly jaguar skins, which made the matter more
complicated.
The panther, _Felis pardus_, is believed to be an inhabitant of a great
portion of Africa, the warmer parts of Asia, and the islands of the
Indian Archipelago; while the leopard, _Felis leopardus_, is thought to
be confined to Africa. The jaguar, _Felis onca_ is the scourge of South
America, from Paraguay almost to the isthmus of Darien, and is
altogether a larger and more powerful animal than either of the others.
Though presenting much resemblance, there are points of distinction by
which the individual may be at once recognized. The jaguar is larger,
sturdier, and altogether more thickset than the leopard, whose limbs are
the beau ideal of symmetry and grace. The leopard is marked with
numerous spots, arranged in small irregular circles on the sides; the
ridge of the back, the head, neck, and limbs, being simply spotted,
without order. The jaguar is also marked with black spots, but the
circles formed by them are much larger, and in almost all, a central
spot exists, the whole bearing a rude resemblance to a rose; along the
back, the spots are so narrow and elongated, as to resemble stripes. The
tail of the jaguar is also considerably shorter than that of the
leopard, which is nearly as long as the whole body.
Leopards and panthers, if taken quite young, and treated with kindness,
are capable of being thoroughly tamed; the poet Cowper, describes the
great difference in the dispositions of his three celebrated hares; so
it is with other wild animals, and leopards among the rest, some
returning kindness with the utmost affection, others being rugged and
untameable from the first. Of those brought to this country, the
characters are much influenced by the treatment they have experienced on
board ship; in some cases they have been made pets by the sailors, and
are as tractable as domestic cats; but when they have been teased and
subjected to ill-treatment during the voyage, it is found very difficult
to render them sociable; there are now (September, 1851) six young
leopards in one den at the Zoological Gardens: of these, five are about
the same age, and grew up as one family; the sixth was added some time
after, and being looked upon as an intruder, was quite sent to Coventry,
and even ill-treated by the others; this he has never forgotten. When
the keeper comes to the den, he courts his caresses, and shows the
greatest pleasure, but if any of his companions advance to share them
with him, he growls and spits, and shows the utmost jealousy and
displeasure.
In the same collection, there is a remarkably fine, full-grown leopard,
presented by her Majesty, who is as tame as any creature can be; mutton
is his favorite food, but the keeper will sometimes place a piece of
beef in the den; the leopard smells it, turns it over with an air of
contempt, and coming forward, peers round behind the keeper's back to
see if he has not (as is generally the case) his favorite food
concealed. If given to him, he lays it down, and will readily leave it
at the keeper's call, to come and be patted, and whilst caressed he
purrs, and shows the greatest pleasure.
There were a pair of leopards in the Tower, before the collection was
broken up, which illustrated well the difference in disposition; the
male, a noble animal, continued to the last, as sullen and savage as on
the day of his arrival. Every kindness was lavished upon him by the
keepers, but he received all their overtures with such a sulky and
morose return, that nothing could be made of his unreclaimable and
unmanageable disposition. The female, which was the older of the two, on
the contrary, was as gentle and affectionate as the other was savage,
enjoying to be patted and caressed by the keeper, and fondly licking his
hands; one failing, however, she had, which brought affliction to the
soul of many a beau and lady fair; it was an extraordinary predilection
for the destruction of hats, muffs, bonnets, umbrellas, and parasols,
and indeed, articles of dress generally, seizing them with the greatest
quickness, and tearing them into pieces, almost before the astonished
victim was aware of the loss; to so great an extent did she carry this
peculiar taste, that Mr. Cops, the superintendent, used to say that she
had made prey of as many of these articles as there were days in the
year. Animals in menageries are sometimes great enemies to the
milliner's art; giraffes have been known to filch the flowers adorning a
bonnet, and we once saw a lady miserably oppressed by monkeys. She was
very decidedly of "a certain age," but dressed in the extreme of
juvenility, with flowers and ribbons of all the colors of the rainbow.
Her complexion was delicately heightened with rouge, and the loveliest
tresses played about her cheeks. As she languidly sauntered through the
former monkey house at the gardens, playfully poking the animals with
her parasol, one seized it so vigorously that she was drawn close to the
den; in the twinkling of an eye, a dozen little paws were protruded, off
went bonnet, curls and all, leaving a deplorable gray head, whilst
others seized her reticule and her dress, pulling it in a very
unpleasant manner. The handiwork of M. Vouillon was of course a wreck,
and the contents of the reticule, her purse, gloves, and delicately
scented handkerchief, were with difficulty recovered from out of the
cheek pouch of a baboon.
On other occasion we saw the elephant, that fine old fellow who died
some years ago, administer summary punishment to a weak minded fop, who
kept offering him cakes, and on his putting out his trunk, withdrawing
them and giving him a rap with his cane instead. One of the keepers
warned him, but he laughed, and after he had teased the animal to his
heart's content, walked away. After a time he was strolling by the spot
again, intensely satisfied with himself, his glass stuck in his eye, and
smiling blandly in the face of a young lady, who was evidently offended
at his impudence, when the elephant, who was rocking backwards and
forwards, suddenly threw out his trunk and seized our friend by the coat
tails; the cloth gave way, and the whole back of the coat was torn out,
leaving nothing but the collar, sleeves, and front. As may be supposed,
this was a damper upon his amatory proceedings; indeed we never saw a
man look so small, as he shuffled away amidst the titters of the
company, who enjoyed his just reward.
That very agreeable writer, Mrs. Lee, formerly Mrs. Bowdich, has related
in the first volume of the "Magazine of Natural History," a most
interesting account of a tame panther which was in her possession
several months. He and another were found very young in the forest,
apparently deserted by their mother; they were taken to the King of
Ashantee, in whose palace they lived several weeks, when our hero, being
much larger than his brother, suffocated him in a fit of romping, and
was then sent to Mr. Hutchinson, the resident, left by Mr. Bowdich at
Coomassie, by whom he was tamed. When eating was going on he would sit
by his master's side and receive his share with gentleness. Once or
twice he purloined a fowl, but easily gave it up on being allowed a
portion of something else; but on one occasion, when a silly servant
tried to pull his food from him, he tore a piece of flesh from the
offender's leg, but never owed him any ill-will afterwards. One morning
he broke the cord by which he was confined, and the castle gates being
shut, a chase commenced, but after leading his pursuers several times
round the ramparts, and knocking over a few children by bouncing against
them, he suffered himself to be caught and led quietly back to his
quarters, under one of the guns of the fortress. By degrees all fear of
him subsided, and he was set at liberty, a boy being appointed to
prevent his intruding into the apartments of the officers. His keeper,
however, like a true Negro, generally passed his watch in sleeping, and
Saï, as the panther was called, roamed at large. On one occasion he
found his servant sitting on the step of the door, upright, but fast
asleep, when he lifted his paw, gave him a pat on the side of the head
which laid him flat, and then stood wagging his tail as if enjoying the
joke. He became exceedingly attached to the governor, and followed him
every where like a dog. His favorite station was at a window in the
sitting-room, which overlooked the whole town; there, standing on his
hind legs, his fore paws resting on the ledge of the window, and his
chin laid between them, he amused himself with watching all that was
going on. The children were also fond of this scene; and one day,
finding Saï's presence an incumbrance, they united their efforts and
pulled him down by the tail. He one day missed the governor, and
wandered with a dejected look to various parts of the fortress in search
of him; while absent on this errand the governor returned to his private
rooms, and seated himself at a table to write; presently he heard a
heavy step coming up the stairs, and raising his eyes to the open door
beheld Saï. At that moment he gave himself up for lost, for Saï
immediately sprang from the door on to his neck: instead, however, of
devouring him, he laid his head close to the governor's, rubbed his
cheek upon his shoulder, wagged his tail, and tried to evince his
happiness. Occasionally, however, the panther caused a little alarm to
the other inmates of the castle, and on one occasion the woman, whose
duty it was to sweep the floors, was made ill by her fright; she was
sweeping the boards of the great hall with a short broom, and in an
attitude approaching all-fours, when Saï, who was hidden under one of
the sofas, suddenly leaped upon her back, where he stood waving his tail
in triumph. She screamed so violently as to summon the other servants,
but they, seeing the panther in the act of devouring her, as they
thought, gallantly scampered off as fast as their heels could carry
them; nor was the woman released from her load till the governor,
hearing the noise, came to her assistance.
Mrs. Bowdich determined to take this interesting animal to England, and
he was conveyed on board ship, in a large wooden cage, thickly barred in
front with iron. Even this confinement was not deemed a sufficient
protection by the canoe men, who were so alarmed that in their confusion
they managed to drop cage and all into the sea. For a few minutes the
poor fellow was given up for lost, but some sailors jumped into a boat
belonging to the vessel, and dragged him out in safety. He seemed
completely subdued by his ducking; and as no one dared to open the cage
to dry it, he rolled himself up in one corner, where he remained for
some days, till roused by the voice of his mistress. When she first
spoke he raised his head, listened attentively, and when she came fully
into his view, he jumped on his legs and appeared frantic, rolling over
and over, howling and seeming as if he would have torn his cage to
pieces; however, his violence gradually subsided, and he contented
himself with thrusting his nose and paws through the bars to receive her
caresses. The greatest treat that could be bestowed upon Saï was
lavender water. Mr. Hutchinson had told Mrs. Bowdich, that on the way
from Ashantee, happening to draw out a scented pocket-handkerchief, it
was immediately seized by the panther, who reduced it to atoms; nor
could he venture to open a bottle of perfume when the animal was near,
he was so eager to enjoy it. Twice a week his mistress indulged him by
making a cup of stiff paper, pouring a little lavender water into it,
and giving it to him through the bars of the cage; he would drag it to
him with great eagerness, roll himself over it, nor rest till the smell
had evaporated.
Quiet and gentle as Saï was, pigs never failed to excite indignation
when they hovered about his cage, and the sight of a monkey put him in a
complete fury. While at anchor in the Gaboon, an orang-outang was
brought on board and remained three days. When the two animals met, the
uncontrollable rage of the one and the agony of the other was very
remarkable. The orang was about three feet high, and very powerful; so
that when he fled, with extraordinary rapidity, from the panther to the
other side of the deck, neither men nor things remained upright if they
opposed his progress. As for the panther, his back rose in an arch, his
tail was elevated and perfectly stiff, his eyes flashed, and as he
howled he showed his huge teeth; then, as if forgetting the bars before
him, he made a spring at the orang to tear him to atoms. It was long
before he recovered his tranquillity; day and night he was on the
listen, and the approach of a monkey or a Negro brought back his
agitation. During the voyage to England the vessel was boarded by
pirates, and the crew and passengers nearly reduced to starvation in
consequence; Saï must have died had it not been for a collection of more
than three hundred parrots; of these his allowance was one per diem, but
he became so ravenous that he had not patience to pick off the feathers,
but bolted the birds whole: this made him very ill, but Mrs. Bowdich
administered some pills, and he recovered. On the arrival of the vessel
in the London Docks, Saï was presented to the Duchess of York, who
placed him in Exeter Change temporarily. On the morning of the duchess's
departure for Oatlands, she went to visit her new pet, played with him,
and admired his gentleness and great beauty. In the evening, when her
royal highness's coachman went to take him away to his new quarters at
Oatlands, Saï was dead from inflammation on the lungs.
To this interesting animal, the following lines by Dryden, might with
propriety have been applied:
"The Panther, sure the noblest next the Hind
And fairest creature of the spotted kind;
Oh, could her inborn stains be washed away,
She were too good to be a beast of prey!
How can I praise or blame, and not offend,
Or how divide the frailty from the friend?
Her faults and virtues lie so mixed that she,
Nor wholly stands condemned, nor wholly free."
Mr. Gordon Cumming describes two encounters with leopards, one of which
was nearly attended with fatal consequences: "On the 17th," says he, "I
was attacked with acute rheumatic fever, which kept me to my bed, and
gave me excruciating pain. Whilst I lay in this helpless state, Mr.
Orpen and Present, who had gone up the river to shoot sea cows, fell in
with an immense male leopard, which the latter wounded very baldly. They
then sent natives to camp, to ask me for dogs, of which I sent them a
pair. In about an hour the natives came running to camp, and said that
Orpen was killed by the leopard. On further inquiry, however, I found
that he was not really killed, but frightfully torn and bitten about the
arms and head. They had rashly taken up the spoor on foot, the dogs
following behind them, instead of going in advance. The consequence of
this was, that they came right upon the leopard before they were aware
of him, when Orpen fired and missed him. The leopard then sprang on his
shoulders, and dashing him to the ground lay upon him, howling and
lacerating his hands, arms, and head most fearfully. Presently the
leopard permitted Orpen to rise and come away. Where were the gallant
Present and all the natives, that not a man of them moved to assist the
unfortunate Orpen? According to an established custom among all colonial
servants, the instant the leopard sprang, Present discharged his piece
in the air, and then dashing it to the ground he rushed down the bank
and jumped into the river, along which he swam some hundred yards before
he would venture on _terra firma_. The natives, though numerous and
armed, had likewise fled in another direction."
The tenacity of life of these animals was well shown in the other
encounter: "Having partaken of some refreshment," says Mr. Cumming, "I
saddled two steeds, and rode down the banks of Ngotwani, with the
Bushman, to seek for any game I might find. After riding about a mile
along the river's bank, I came suddenly upon an old male leopard lying
under the shade of a thorn grove, and panting from the great heat.
Although I was within sixty yards of him, he had not heard the horse's
tread. I thought he was a lioness and dismounting, took a rest in my
saddle on the old gray, and sent a bullet into him. He sprang to his
feet, and ran half way down the river's bank, and stood to look about
him, when I sent a second bullet into his person, and he disappeared
over the bank. The ground being very dangerous, I did not disturb him by
following then, but I at once sent Ruyter back to camp for the dogs.
Presently he returned with Wolf and Boxer, very much done up with the
sun. I rode forward, and on looking over the bank, the leopard started
up and sneaked off alongside of the tall reeds, and was instantly out of
sight. I fired a random shot from the saddle, to encourage the dogs, and
shouted to them; they, however, stood looking stupidly round, and would
not take up his scent at all. I led them over his spoor again and again,
but to no purpose; the dogs seemed quite stupid, and yet they were Wolf
and Boxer, my two best. At length I gave it up as a lost affair, and was
riding down the river's bank, when I heard Wolf give tongue behind me,
and galloping back I found him at bay, with the leopard immediately
beneath where I had first fired at him; he was very severely wounded,
and had slipped down into the river's bed, and doubled back, whereby he
had thrown out both the dogs and myself. As I approached, he flew out
upon Wolf and knocked him over, and then running up the bed of the river
he took shelter in a thick bush. Wolf, however, followed him, and at
this moment my other dogs came up, having heard the shot, and bayed him
fiercely. He sprang out upon them, and then crossed the river's bed,
taking shelter beneath some large tangled roots on the opposite bank. As
he crossed the river, I put a third bullet into him, firing from the
saddle, and as soon as he came to bay I gave him a fourth, which
finished him. This leopard was a very fine old male. In the conflict,
the unfortunate Alert was wounded as usual, getting his face torn open.
He was still going on three legs, with all his breast laid bare by the
first water-buck."
Major Denham in his interesting travels, gives the following account of
an adventure with a huge panther, which occurred during the expedition
to Mandara: "We had started several animals of the leopard species, who
ran from us so swiftly, twisting their long tails in the air, as to
prevent our getting near them. We, however, now started one of a larger
kind, which Maramy assured me was so satiated with the blood of a negro,
whose carcase we found lying in the wood, that he would be easily
killed. I rode up to the spot just as a Shonaa had planted the first
spear in him, which passed through the neck a little above the shoulder,
and came down between the animal's legs; he rolled over, broke the
spear, and bounded off with the lower half in his body. Another Shonaa
galloped up within two arms' length and thrust a second through his
loins; and the savage animal, with a woeful howl, was in the act of
springing on his pursuer, when an Arab shot him through the head with a
ball which killed him on the spot. It was a male panther of a very large
size, and measured, from the point of the tail to the nose, eight feet
two inches."
These animals are found in great abundance in the woods bordering on
Mandara; there are also leopards, the skins of which were seen, but not
in great numbers. The panthers are as insidious as they are cruel; they
will not attack any thing that is likely to make resistance, but have
been known to watch a child for hours while near the protection of huts
or people. It will often spring on a grown person, male or female, while
carrying a burthen, but always from behind. The flesh of a child or
young kid it will sometimes devour, but when any full grown animal falls
a prey to its ferocity, it sucks the blood alone.
In India and Ceylon leopards and panthers are called Tree Tigers, and
the following narrative of an exciting encounter with one is given in
The Menageries:--"I was at Jaffna," says the writer, "at the northern
extremity of the island of Ceylon in the beginning of the year 1819,
when one morning my servant called me an hour or two before the usual
time with, 'Master! master! people sent for master's dogs; tiger in the
town!' Now my dogs chanced to be very degenerate specimens of a fine
species called the Poligar dogs. I kept them to hunt jackals, but tigers
are very different things. This turned out to be a panther; my gun
chanced not to be put together, and while my servant was doing it the
collector and two medical men, who had recently arrived, came to my
door, the former armed with a fowling-piece, and the two latter with
remarkably blunt hogspears. They insisted on setting off without waiting
for my gun, a proceeding not much to my taste. The tiger (I must
continue to call him so) had taken refuge in a hut, the roof of which,
as those of Ceylon huts in general, spread to the ground like an
umbrella; the only aperture was a small door about four feet high. The
collector wanted to get the tiger out at once. I begged to wait for my
gun, but, no! the fowling-piece, loaded with ball of course, and the two
hogspears were quite enough; I got a hedge stake and awaited my fate for
very shame. At this moment, to my great delight, there arrived from the
fort an English officer, two artillery-men, and a Malay captain, and a
pretty figure we should have cut without them, as the event will show. I
was now quite ready to attack, and my gun came a minute afterwards. The
whole scene which follows took place within an inclosure, about twenty
feet square, formed on three sides by a strong fence of palmyra leaves,
and on the fourth by the hut. At the door of this, the two artillery-men
planted themselves, and the Malay captain got at the top to frighten the
tiger out by worrying it--an easy operation, as the huts there are
covered with cocoa-nut leaves. One of the artillery-men wanted to go in
to the tiger, but we would not suffer it. At last the beast sprang; this
man received him on his bayonet, which he thrust, apparently, down his
throat, firing his piece at the same moment. The bayonet broke off
short, leaving less than three inches on the musket, the rest remained
in the animal, but was invisible to us: the shot probably went through
his cheek, for it certainly did not seriously injure him, as he
instantly rose upon his legs with a loud roar, and placed his paws upon
the soldier's breast. At this moment the animal appeared to me to be
about to reach the centre of the man's face; but I had scarcely time to
observe this, when the tiger, stooping his head, seized the soldier's
arm in his mouth, turned him half round, staggering, threw him over on
his back and fell upon him. Our dread now was, that if we fired upon the
tiger we might kill the man. For a moment there was a pause, when his
comrade attacked the beast exactly in the same manner the gallant fellow
himself had done. He struck his bayonet into his head; the tiger rose at
him, he fired, and this time the ball took effect, and in the head. The
animal staggered backwards, and we all poured in our fire; he still
kicked and writhed, when the gentlemen with the hogspears advanced and
fixed him, while some natives finished him by beating him on the head
with hedge stakes. The brave artillery-man was after all but slightly
hurt; he claimed the skin, which was very cheerfully given to him; there
was, however, a cry among the natives, that the head should be cut off;
it was, and in doing so, the knife came directly across the bayonet. The
animal measured scarcely less than four feet from the root of the tail
to the muzzle."
The following practical joke is related in the late Rev. T. Acland's
amusing volume on India:--A party of officers went out from Cuttack to
shoot; their men were beating the jungle, when suddenly all the wild cry
ceased, and a man came gliding to where all the Sahibs were standing to
tell them that there was a tiger lying asleep in his den close at hand.
A consultation was instantly held; most of the party were anxious to
return to Cuttack, but Captain B---- insisted on having a shot at the
animal; accordingly he advanced very quickly, until he came to the
place, when he saw, not a tiger, but a large leopard, lying quite still,
with his head resting on his fore-paws. He went up close and fired, but
the animal did not move. This astonished him, and on examination he
found that the brute was already dead. One of his companions had bribed
some Indians to place a dead leopard there, and to say that there was a
tiger asleep. It may be imagined what a laugh there was!
Nature, ever provident, has scattered with a bounteous hand her gifts in
the country of the Orinoco, where the jaguar especially abounds. The
savannahs, which are covered with grasses and slender plants, present a
surprising luxuriance and diversity of vegetation; piles of granite
blocks rise here and there, and, at the margins of the plains, occur
deep valleys and ravines, the humid soil of which is covered with arums,
heliconias, and llianas. The shelves of primitive rocks, scarcely
elevated above the plain, are partially coated with lichens and mosses,
together with succulent plants and tufts of evergreen shrubs with
shining leaves. The horizon is bounded with mountains overgrown with
forests of laurels, among which clusters of palms rise to the height of
more than a hundred feet, their slender stems supporting tufts of
feathery foliage. To the east of Atures other mountains appear, the
ridge of which is composed of pointed cliffs, rising like huge pillars
above the trees. When those columnar masses are situated near the
Orinoco, flamingoes, herons, and other wading birds perch on their
summits, and look like sentinels. In the vicinity of the cataracts, the
moisture which is diffused in the air produces a perpetual verdure, and
wherever soil has accumulated on the plains, it is adorned by the
beautiful shrubs of the mountains.
Such is one view of the picture, but it has its dark side also; those
flowing waters, which fertilize the soil, abound with crocodiles; those
charming shrubs and flourishing plants are the hiding-places of deadly
serpents; those laurel forests, the favorite lurking spots of the fierce
jaguar; whilst the atmosphere, so clear and lovely, abounds with
musquitoes and zancudoes to such a degree that, in the missions of
Orinoco, the first questions in the morning when two people meet, are
"How did you find the zancudoes during the night? How are we to-day for
the musquitoes?"
It is in the solitude of this wilderness that the jaguar, stretched out
motionless and silent, upon one of the lower branches of the ancient
trees, watches for its passing prey; a deer, urged by thirst, is making
its way to the river, and approaches the tree where his enemy lies in
wait. The jaguar's eyes dilate, the ears are thrown down, and the whole
frame becomes flattened against the branch. The deer, all unconscious of
danger, draws near, every limb of the jaguar quivers with excitement;
every fibre is stiffened for the spring; then, with the force of a bow
unbent, he darts with a terrific yell upon his prey, seizes it by the
back of the neck, a blow is given with his powerful paw, and with
broken spine the deer falls lifeless to the earth. The blood is then
sucked, and the prey dragged to some favorite haunt, where it is
devoured at leisure.
Humboldt surprised a jaguar in his retreat. It was near the Joval, below
the mouth of the Cano de la Tigrera, that in the midst of wild and awful
scenery, he saw an enormous jaguar stretched beneath the shade of a
large mimosa. He had just killed a chiguire, an animal about the size of
a pig, which he held with one of his paws, while the vultures were
assembled in flocks around. It was curious to observe the mixture of
boldness and timidity which these birds exhibited; for although they
advanced within two feet of the jaguar, they instantly shrank back at
the least motion he made. In order to observe more nearly their
proceedings, the travellers went into their little boat, when the tyrant
of the forest withdrew behind the bushes, leaving his victim, upon which
the vultures attempted to devour it, but were soon put to flight by the
jaguar rushing into the midst of them. The following night, Humboldt and
his party were entertained by a jaguar hunter, half-naked, and as brown
as a Zambo, who prided himself on being of the European race, and called
his wife and daughter, who were as slightly clothed as himself, Donna
Isabella and Donna Manvela. As this aspiring personage had neither house
nor hut, he invited the strangers to swing their hammocks near his own
between two trees, but as ill-luck would have it, a thunder-storm came
on, which wetted them to the skin; but their troubles did not end here,
for Donna Isabella's cat had perched on one of the trees, and frightened
by the thunder-storm, jumped down upon one of the travellers in his cot;
he naturally supposed that he was attacked by a wild beast, and as smart
a battle took place between the two, as that celebrated feline
engagement of Don Quixote; the cat, who perhaps had most reason to
consider himself an ill-used personage, at length bolted, but the fears
of the gentleman had been excited to such a degree, that he could hardly
be quieted. The following night was not more propitious to slumber. The
party finding no tree convenient, had stuck their oars in the sand, and
suspended their hammocks upon them. About eleven, there arose in the
immediately adjoining wood, so terrific a noise, that it was impossible
to sleep. The Indians distinguished the cries of sapagous, alouates,
jaguars, cougars, peccaris, sloths, curassows, paraquas, and other
birds, so that there must have been as full a forest chorus as Mr.
Hullah himself could desire.
When the jaguars approached the edge of the forest, which they
frequently did, a dog belonging to the party began to howl, and seek
refuge under their cots. Sometimes, after a long silence, the cry of the
jaguars came from the tops of the trees, when it was followed by an
outcry among the monkeys. Humboldt supposes the noise thus made by the
inhabitants of the forest during the night, to be the effect of some
contests that had arisen among them.
On the pampas of Paraquay, great havoc is committed among the herds of
horses by the jaguars, whose strength is quite sufficient to enable them
to drag off one of these animals. Azara caused the body of a horse,
which had been recently killed by a jaguar, to be drawn within
musket-shot of a tree, in which he intended to pass the night,
anticipating that the jaguar would return in the course of it, to its
victim; but while he was gone to prepare for his adventure, behold the
animal swam across a large and deep river, and having seized the horse
with his teeth, dragged it full sixty paces to the river, swam across
again with his prey, and then dragged the carcase into a neighboring
wood; and all this in sight of a person, whom Azara had placed to keep
watch. But the jaguars have also an aldermanic goût for turtles, which
they gratify in a very systematic manner, as related by Humboldt, who
was shown large shells of turtles emptied by them. They follow the
turtles towards the beaches, where the laying of eggs is to take place,
surprise them on the sand, and in order to devour them at their ease,
adroitly turn them on their backs; and as they turn many more than they
can devour in one night, the Indians often profit by their cunning. The
jaguar pursues the turtle quite into the water, and when not very deep,
digs up the eggs; they, with the crocodile, the heron, and the gallinago
vulture, are the most formidable enemies the little turtles have.
Humboldt justly remarks, "When we reflect on the difficulty that the
naturalist finds in getting out the body of the turtle, without
separating the upper and under shells, we cannot enough admire the
suppleness of the jaguar's paw, which empties the double armor of the
_arraus_, as if the adhering parts of the muscles had been cut by means
of a surgical instrument."
The rivers of South America swarm with crocodiles, and these wage
perpetual war with the jaguars. It is said, that when the jaguar
surprises the alligator asleep on the hot sandbank, he attacks him in a
vulnerable part under the tail, and often kills him, but let the
crocodile only get his antagonist into the water, and the tables are
turned, for the jaguar is held under water until he is drowned.
The onset of the jaguar is always made from behind, partaking of the
stealthy, treacherous character of his tribe; if a herd of animals, or a
party of men be passing, it is the last that is always the object of his
attack. When he has made choice of his victim, he springs upon the neck,
and placing one paw on the back of the head, while he seizes the muzzle
with the other, twists the head round with a sudden jerk which
dislocates the spine, and deprives it instantaneously of life;
sometimes, especially when satiated with food, he is indolent and
cowardly, skulking in the gloomiest depths of the forest, and scared by
the most trifling causes, but when urged by the cravings of hunger, the
largest quadrupeds, and man himself, are attacked with fury and success.
Mr. Darwin has given an interesting account of the habits of the jaguar:
the wooded banks of the great South American rivers appear to be their
favorite haunt, but south of the Plata they frequent the reeds bordering
lakes; wherever they are they seem to require water. They are
particularly abundant on the isles of the Parana, their common prey
being the carpincho, so that it is generally said, where carpinchos are
plentiful, there is little fear of the jaguar; possibly, however, a
jaguar which has tasted human flesh, may afterwards become dainty, and,
like the lions of South Africa, and the tigers of India, acquire the
dreadful character of man-eaters, from preferring that food to all
others. It is not many years ago since a very large jaguar found his way
into a church in Santa Fé; soon afterwards a very corpulent padre
entering, was at once killed by him: his equally stout coadjutor,
wondering what had detained the padre, went to look after him, and also
fell a victim to the jaguar; a third priest, marvelling greatly at the
unaccountable absence of the others, sought them, and the jaguar having
by this time acquired a strong clerical taste, made at him also, but he,
being fortunately of the slender order, dodged the animal from pillar to
post, and happily made his escape; the beast was destroyed by being shot
from a corner of the building, which was unroofed, and thus paid the
penalty of his sacrilegious propensities.
On the Parana they have killed many woodcutters, and have even entered
vessels by night. One dark evening the mate of a vessel, hearing a heavy
but peculiar footstep on deck, went up to see what it was, and was
immediately met by a jaguar, who had come on board, seeking what he
could devour: a severe struggle ensued, assistance arrived, and the
brute was killed, but the man lost the use of the arm which had been
ground between his teeth.
The Guachos say that the jaguar, when wandering about at night, is much
tormented by the foxes yelping as they follow him; this may perhaps
serve to alarm his prey, but must be as teasing to him as the attentions
of swallows are to an owl who happens to be taking a daylight promenade;
and if owls ever swear, it is under those circumstances. Mr. Darwin,
when hunting on the banks of the Uruguay, was shown three well-known
trees to which the jaguars constantly resort, for the purpose, it is
said, of sharpening their claws. Every one must be familiar with the
manner in which cats, with outstretched legs and extended claws, will
card the legs of chairs and of men; so with the jaguar; and of these
trees, the bark was worn quite smooth in front; on each side there were
deep grooves, extending in an oblique line nearly a yard in length. The
scars were of different ages, and the inhabitants could always tell when
a jaguar was in the neighborhood, by his recent autograph on one of
these trees.
We have seen tigers stretching their enormous limbs in this manner, and
were recently interested in watching the proceedings of two beautiful
young jaguars now in the Zoological Gardens, Regent's Park; they are
scarcely half-grown and as playful as kittens. After chasing and
tumbling each other over several times, they went as by mutual consent
to the post of their cage, and there carefully and with intensely placid
countenances scraped away with their claws as they would have done
against the trees had they been in their native woods. This proceeding
satisfactorily concluded, they swarmed up and down the post, appearing
to vie with each other as to which should be first. The six young
leopards are equally graceful and active with the above, and the
elegance and quickness of their movements cannot fail to command
admiration. They seem to be particularly fond of bounding up and down
the trees, and sometimes rest in the strangest attitudes, stuck in the
fork of a bough, or sitting, as it were; astride of one, with their hind
legs hanging down. M. Sonnini bears testimony to the extraordinary
climbing powers of the jaguar; "For," says he, "I have seen, in the
forests of Guiana, the prints left by the claws of the jaguar on the
smooth bark of a tree from forty to fifty feet in height, measuring
about a foot and a half in circumference, and clothed with branches near
its summit alone. It was easy to follow with the eye the efforts which
the animal had made to reach the branches; although his talons had been
thrust deeply into the body of the tree, he had met with several slips,
but had always recovered his ground; and attracted, no doubt, by some
favorite prey, had at length succeeded in gaining the very top!"
The following is the common mode of killing the jaguar in Tucuman: The
Guacho, armed with a long strong spear, traces him to his den, and
having found it, he places himself in a convenient position to receive
the animal on the point of the spear at the first spring; dogs are then
sent in, and driving him out he springs with fury upon the Guacho, who,
fixing his eyes on those of the jaguar, receives his onset kneeling, and
with such consummate coolness that he hardly ever fails. At the moment
that the spear is plunged into the animal's body the Guacho nimbly
springs on one side, and the jaguar, already impaled on the spear, is
speedily dispatched.
In one instance the animal lay stretched on the ground, like a gorged
cat, and was in such high good humor after his satisfactory meal, that
on the dogs attacking him he was disposed to play with them; a bullet
was therefore lodged in his shoulder, on which rough salute he sprang
out so quickly on his watching assailant, that he not only received the
spear in his body, but tumbled the man over, and they rolled on the
ground together. "I thought," said the brave fellow, "that I was no
longer a capitaz, as I held up my arm to protect my throat, which the
jaguar seemed in the act of seizing; but at the very moment that I
expected to feel his fangs in my flesh, the green fire which had blazed
upon me from his eyes flashed out--he fell upon me, and with a quiver
died."
Colonel Hamilton relates that when travelling on the banks of the
Magdalena, he remarked a young man with his arm in a sling, and on
inquiring the cause, was told that about a month before, when walking in
a forest, a dog he had with him began to bark at something in a dark
cavern overhung with bushes; and on his approaching the entrance, a
jaguar rushed on him with great force, seizing his right arm, and in the
struggle they both fell over a small precipice. He then lost his senses,
and on recovering found the jaguar had left him, but his arm was
bleeding and shockingly lacerated. On surprise being expressed that the
animal had not killed him, he shrugged up his shoulders, and remarked,
"La bienaventurada virgen Maria le habia salvo." The blessed Virgin had
saved him.
In the province of Buenaventura it is said that the Indians kill the
jaguar by means of poisoned arrows, about eight inches in length, which
are thrown from a blow-pipe: the arrows are poisoned with a moisture
which exudes from the back of a small green frog, found in the provinces
of Buenaventura and Choco. When the Indians want to get this poison from
the frog, they put him near a small fire, and the moisture soon appears
on his back; in this the points of the small arrows are dipped, and so
subtle is the poison that a jaguar struck by one of these little
insignificant weapons, soon becomes convulsed and dies.
The jaguar has the general character of being untameable, and of
maintaining his savage ferocity when in captivity, showing no symptoms
of attachment to those who have the care of him. This, like many other
points in natural history, is a popular error; there is at the present
time a magnificent jaguar in the Zoological Gardens, who is as tame and
gentle as a domestic cat. We have seen this fine creature walking up and
down the front of his den as his keeper walked, rubbing himself against
the bars, purring with manifest pleasure as his back or head was
stroked, and caressing the man's hand with his huge velvet paws. There
is in the collection another jaguar, just as savage as this one is tame.
There was also a jaguar formerly in the Tower, which was obtained by
Lord Exmouth while on the South American Station, and was afterwards
present at the memorable bombardment of Algiers. This animal was equally
gentle with that we have described, and was presented to the Marchioness
of Londonderry by Lord Exmouth on his return to England after that
engagement: it was placed by her Ladyship in the Tower, where it died.
In a state of nature these animals have been known to show not only
forbearance, but even playfulness, of which Humboldt relates the
following instance which occurred at the mission of Atures, on the banks
of the Orinoco: "Two Indian children, a boy and girl, eight or nine
years of age, were sitting among the grass near the village of Atures,
in the midst of a savannah. It was two in the afternoon when a jaguar
issued from the forest and approached the children, gambolling around
them, sometimes concealing itself among the long grass and again
springing forward with his back curved and his head lowered, as is usual
with our cats. The little boy was unaware of the danger in which he was
placed, and became sensible of it only when the jaguar struck him on the
side of the head with one of his paws. The blows thus inflicted were at
first slight, but gradually became ruder; the claws of the jaguar
wounded the child, and blood flowed with violence; the little girl then
took up the branch of a tree, and struck the animal, which fled before
her. The Indians, hearing the cries of the children, ran up, and saw the
jaguar, which bounded off without showing any disposition to defend
itself." In all probability, this fit of good humor was to be traced to
the animal having been plentifully fed; for most assuredly the children
would have stood but little chance, had their visitor been subjected to
a meagre diet for some days previously.
Mr. Edwards, in his voyage up the Amazon, tells of an exchange of
courtesies between a traveller and a jaguar. The jaguar was standing in
the road as the Indian came out of the bushes, not ten paces distant,
and was looking, doubtless, somewhat fiercely as he waited the unknown
comer. The Indian was puzzled for an instant, but summoning his presence
of mind, he took off his broad brimmed hat, and made a low bow, with
"Muito bene dias, men Señhor," or "A very good morning, Sir." Such
profound respect was not wanting on the jaguar, who turned slowly and
marched down the road with proper dignity.
It is difficult to say how many leopards and jaguar skins are annually
imported, as the majority are brought by private hands. We have been
told by an eminent furrier that about five hundred are sold each year to
the London trade. They are chiefly used as shabraques, or coverings to
officers' saddles in certain hussar regiments, but skins used for this
purpose must be marked in a particular manner, and the ground must be of
a dark rich color. Such skins are worth about three pounds; ordinary
leopard and jaguar skins are valued at about two pounds, and are chiefly
used for rugs or mats. The jaguar skins are sometimes of great size,
and we have measured one which was nine feet seven inches from tip to
tip. The leopard skins are exclusively used for military purposes, and
the jaguar's are preferred for rugs.
From the Dublin University Magazine.
A LEGEND OF THE EAST NEUK OF FIFE.
It was a cold night in the March of the year 1708. The hour of ten had
tolled from the old Gothic tower of the Collegiate Church; beating on
his drum, the drummer in the livery of the burgh had proceeded from the
Market-cross to the ruins of St. David's Castle, and from thence to the
chapel of St. Rufus, and having made one long roll or flourish at the
point from whence his peregrination began, he adjourned to the _Thane of
Fife_ to procure a dram, while the good folks of Crail composed
themselves for the night, and the barring of doors and windows announced
that those who were within had resolved to make themselves comfortable
and secure, while those unfortunate wights that were without were likely
to remain so.
Hollowly the German Sea was booming on the rocks of the harbor; and from
its hazy surface a cold east wind swept over the flat, bleak coast of
Crail; a star peeped at times between the flying clouds, and even the
moon looked forth once, but immediately veiled her face again, as if one
glance at the iron shore and barren scenery, unenlivened by hedge or
tree, were quite enough to prevent her from looking again.
The town drummer had received his dram and withdrawn, and Master
Spiggot, the gudeman or landlord of the _Thane of Fife_, the principal
tavern, and only inn or hostel in the burgh, was taking a last view of
the main street, and considering the propriety of closing for the night.
It was broad, spacious, and is still overlooked by many a tall and
gable-ended mansion, whose antique and massive aspect announces that,
like other Fifeshire burghs before the Union in the preceding year, it
had seen better days. Indeed, the house then occupied by Master Spiggot
himself, and from which his sign bearing the panoplied _Thane_ at full
gallop on a caparisoned steed swung creaking in the night wind, was one
of those ancient edifices, and in former days had belonged to the
provost of the adjoining kirk; but this was (as Spiggot said) "in the
auld warld times o' the Papistrie."
The gudeman shook his white head solemnly and sadly, as he looked down
the empty thoroughfare.
"There _was_ a time," he muttered, and paused.
Silent and desolate as any in the ruins of Thebes, the street was half
covered with weeds and rank grass that grew between the stones, and
Spiggot could see them waving in the dim starlight.
Crail is an out-of-the-way place. It is without thoroughfare and without
trade; few leave it and still fewer think of going there, for there one
feels as if on the very verge of society; for there, even by day, reigns
a monastic gloom, a desertion, a melancholy, a uniform and voiceless
silence, broken only by the croak of the gleds and the cawing of the
clamorous gulls nestling on the old church tower, while the sea booms
incessantly as it rolls on the rocky beach.
But there was a time when it was otherwise; when the hum of commerce
rose around its sculptured cross, and there was a daily bustle in the
chambers of its Town-hall, for there a portly provost and bailies with a
battalion of seventeen corpulent councillors sat solemnly deliberating
on the affairs of the burgh; and swelling with a municipal importance
that was felt throughout the whole East Neuk of Fife; for, in those
days, the bearded Russ and red-haired Dane, the Norwayer, and the
Hollander, laden with merchandise, furled their sails in that deserted
harbor, where now scarcely a fisherboat is seen; for on Crail, as on all
its sister towns along the coast, fell surely and heavily the terrible
blight of 1707, and now it is hastening rapidly to insignificance and
decay.
On the sad changes a year had brought about, Spiggot pondered sadly, and
was only roused from his dreamy mood by the sudden apparition of a
traveller on horseback standing before him; for so long and so soft was
the grass of the street that his approach had been unheard by the
dreamer, whose mind was wandering after the departed glories of the East
Neuk.
"A cold night, landlord, for such I take you to be," said the stranger,
in a bold and cheerful voice, as he dismounted.
"A cauld night and a dreary too," sighed poor Boniface, as he bowed, and
hastening to seize the stranger's bridle, buckled it to a ring at the
doorcheek; "but the sicht of a visitor does gude to my heart; step in,
sir. A warm posset that was simmering in the parlor for myself is at
your service, and I'll set the stall-boy to corn your beast and stable
it."
"I thank you, gudeman; but for unharnessing it matters not, as I must
ride onward; but I will take the posset with thanks, for I am chilled to
death by my long ride along this misty coast."
Spiggot looked intently at the traveller as he stooped, and entering the
low-arched door which was surmounted by an old monastic legend, trod
into the bar with a heavy clanking stride, for he was accoutred with
jack-boots and gilded spurs. His rocquelaure was of scarlet cloth,
warmly furred, and the long curls of his Ramillies wig flowed over it.
His beaver was looped upon three sides with something of a military air,
and one long white feather that adorned it, floated down his back, for
the dew was heavy on it. He was a handsome man, about forty years of
age, well sunburned, with a keen dark eye, and close-clipped moustache,
which indicated that he had served in foreign wars. He threw his hat and
long jewelled rapier aside, and on removing his rocquelaure, discovered
a white velvet coat more richly covered with lace than any that Spiggot
had ever seen even in the palmiest days of Crail.
According to the fashion of Queen Anne's courtiers, it was without a
collar, to display the long white cravat of point d'Espagne, without
cuffs, and edged from top to bottom with broad bars of lace, clasps and
buttons of silver the whole length; being compressed at the waist by a
very ornamental belt fastened by a large gold buckle.
"Your honor canna think of riding on to-night," urged Boniface; "and if
a Crail-capon done just to perfection, and a stoup of the best wine, at
least siccan wine as we get by the east seas, since that vile
incorporating Union--"
"Vile and damnable! say I," interrupted the stranger.
"True for ye, sir," said Spiggot with a kindling eye; "but if these puir
viands can induce ye to partake of the hospitality of my puir hostel,
that like our gude burrowtoun is no just what it has been--"
"Gudeman, 'tis impossible, for I must ride so soon as I have imbibed thy
posset."
"As ye please, sir--your honor's will be done. Our guests are now, even
as the visits of angels, unco few and far between; and thus, when one
comes, we are loath to part with him. There is a deep pitfall, and an
ugly gullyhole where the burn crosses the road at the town-head, and if
ye miss the path, the rocks by the beach are steep, and in a night like
this--"
"Host of mine," laughed the traveller, "I know right well every rood of
the way, and by keeping to the left near the Auldlees may avoid both the
blackpit and the sea-beach."
"Your honor kens the country hereawa then," said Spiggot with surprise.
"Of old, perhaps, I knew it as well as thee."
The gudeman of the _Thane_ scrutinized the traveller's face keenly, but
failed to recognize him, and until this moment he thought that no man in
the East Neuk was unknown to him; but here his inspection was at fault.
"And hast thou no visitors with thee now, friend host?" he asked of
Spiggot.
"One only, gude sir, who came here on a brown horse about nightfall. He
is an unco foreign-looking man, but has been asking the way to the
castle o' Balcomie."
"Ha! and thou didst tell of this plaguy pitfall, I warrant."
"Assuredly, your honor, in kindness I did but hint of it."
"And thereupon he stayed. Balcomie--indeed! and what manner of man is
he?"
"By the corslet which he wears under his coat, and the jaunty cock of
his beaver, I would say he had been a soldier."
"Good again--give him my most humble commendations, and ask him to share
thy boasted posset of wine with me."
"What name did you say, sir?"
"Thou inquisitive varlet, I said no name," replied the gentleman, with a
smile, "In these times men do not lightly give their names to each
other, when the land is swarming with Jacobite plotters and government
spies, disguised Jesuits, and Presbyterian tyrants. I may be the Devil
or the Pope for all thou knowest."
"Might ye no be the Pretender?" said Spiggot, with a sour smile.
"Nay, I have a better travelling name than that; but say to this
gentleman that the Major of Marshal Orkney's Dragoons requests the
pleasure of sharing a stoup of wine with him."
"Sir, it mattereth little whether ye give your name or no," replied the
host bitterly; "for we are a' nameless now. Twelve months ago we were
true Scottish men, but _now_--"
"Our king is an exile--our crown is buried for ever, and our brave
soldiers are banished to far and foreign wars, while the grass is
growing green in the streets of our capital--ay, green as it is at this
hour in your burgh of Crail; but hence to the stranger; yet say not,"
added the traveller, bitterly and proudly, "that in his warmth the
Scottish cavalier has betrayed himself."
While the speaker amused himself with examining a printed proclamation
concerning the "Tiend Commissioners and Transplantation off Paroch
Kirkis," which was pasted over the stone mantelpiece of the bar, the
landlord returned with the foreign gentleman's thanks, and an invitation
to his chamber, whither the Major immediately repaired; following the
host up a narrow stone spiral stair to a snugly wainscotted room,
against the well-grated windows of which a sudden shower was now
beginning to patter.
The foreigner, who was supping on a Crail-capon (in other words a
broiled haddock) and stoup of Bourdeaux wine, arose at their entrance,
and bowed with, an air that was undisguisedly continental. He was a man
above six feet, with a long straight nose, over which his dark eyebrows
met and formed one unbroken line. He wore a suit of green Genoese
velvet, so richly laced that little of the cloth was visible; a
full-bottomed wig, and a small corslet of the brightest steel (over
which hung the ends of his cravat), as well as a pair of silver-mounted
cavalry pistols that lay on the table, together with his unmistakable
bearing, decided the Major of Orkney's that the stranger was a brother
of the sword.
"Fair sir, little introduction is necessary between us, as, I believe,
we have both followed the drum in our time," said the Major, shaking the
curls of his Ramillie wig with the air of a man who has decided on what
he says.
"I _have_ served, Monsieur," replied the foreigner, "under Marlborough
and Eugene."
"Ah! in French Flanders? Landlord--gudeman, harkee; a double stoup of
this wine; I have found a comrade to-night--be quick and put my horse to
stall, I will not ride hence for an hour or so. What regiment, sir?"
"I was first under Grouvestien in the Horse of Driesberg."
"Then you were on the left of the second column at Ramillies--on that
glorious 12th of May," said the Major, drawing the high-backed chair
which the host handed him, and spreading out his legs before the fire,
which burned merrily in the basket-grate on the hearth, "and latterly--"
"Under Wandenberg."
"Ah! an old tyrannical dog."
A dark cloud gathered on the stranger's lofty brow.
"I belonged to the Earl of Orkney's Grey Dragoons," said the Major; "and
remember old Wandenberg making a bold charge in that brilliant onfall
when we passed the lines of Monsieur le Mareschal Villars at
Pont-a-Vendin, and pushed on to the plains of Lens."
"That was before we invested Doway and Fort-Escharpe, where old
Albergotti so ably commanded ten thousand well-beaten soldiers."
"And then Villars drew off from his position at sunset and encamped on
the plain before Arras."
"Thou forgettest, comrade, that previously he took up a position in rear
of Escharpe."
"True; but now I am right into the very melée of those old affairs, and
the mind carries one on like a rocket. Your health, sir--by the way, I
am still ignorant of your name."
"I have such very particular reasons for concealing it in this
neighborhood, that--"
"Do not think me inquisitive; in these times men should not pry too
closely."
"Monsieur will pardon me I hope."
"No apology is necessary, save from myself, for now my curiosity is
thoroughly and most impertinently whetted, to find a Frenchman in this
part of the world, here in this out-o'-the-way place, where no one comes
to, and no one goes from, on a bleak promontory of the German Sea, the
East Neuk of Fife."
"Monsieur will again excuse me; but I have most particular business with
a gentleman in this neighborhood; and having travelled all the way from
Paris, expressly to have it settled, I beg that I may be excused the
pain of prevarication. The circumstance of my having served under the
great Duke of Malborough against my own King and countrymen is
sufficiently explained when I acquaint you, that I was then a French
Protestant refugee; but now, without changing my religion, I have King
Louis's gracious pardon and kind protection extended to me."
"And so you were with Wandenberg when his troopers made that daring
onfall at Pont-a-Vendin, and drove back the horse picquets of Villars,"
said the Major, to lead the conversation from a point which evidently
seemed unpleasant to the stranger. "'Twas sharp, short, and decisive, as
all cavalry affairs should be. You will of course remember that
unpleasant affair of Wandenberg's troopers, who were accused of
permitting a French prisoner to escape. It caused a great excitement in
the British camp, where some condemned the dragoons, others Van
Wandenberg, and not a few our great Marlborough himself."
"I did hear something of it," said the stranger in a low voice.
"The prisoner whose escape was permitted was, I believe, the father of
the youths who captured him, a circumstance which might at least have
won them mercy--"
"From the Baron!"
"I forgot me--he was indeed merciless."
"But as I left his dragoons, and indeed the army about that time, I will
be glad to hear _your_ account of the affair."
"It is a very unpleasant story--the more so as I was somewhat concerned
in it myself," said the Major, slowly filling his long stemmed glass,
and watching the white worm in its stalk, so intently as he recalled all
the circumstances he was about to relate, that he did not observe the
face of the French gentleman, which was pale as death; and after a short
pause, he began as follows:
"In the onfall at Pont-a-Vendin, it happened that two young Frenchmen
who served as gentlemen volunteers with you in the dragoon regiment of
Van Wandenberg, had permitted--how, or why, I pretend not to say--the
escape of a certain prisoner of distinction. Some said he was no other
than M. le Mareschal Villars himself. They claimed a court martial, but
the old Baron, who was a savage-hearted Dutchman, insisted that they
should be given up unconditionally to his own mercy, and in an evil
moment of heedlessness or haste, Marlborough consented, and sent me (I
was his Aid-de-Camp) with a written order to that effect, addressed to
Colonel the Baron Van Wandenberg, whose regiment of horse I met _en
route_ for St. Venant, about nightfall on a cold and snowy evening in
the month of November.
"Snow covered the whole country, which was all a dead level, and a cold,
leaden-colored sky met the white horizon in one unbroken line, save
where the leafless poplars of some far-off village stood up, the
landmarks of the plain. In broad flakes the snow fell fast, and
directing their march by a distant spire, the Dutch troopers rode slowly
over the deepening fields. They were all muffled in dark blue cloaks, on
the capes of which the snow was freezing, while the breath of the men
and horses curled like steam in the thickening and darkening air.
"Muffled to the nose in a well furred rocquelaure, with my wig tied to
keep the snow from its curls, and my hat flapped over my face, I rode as
fast as the deep snow would permit, and passing the rear of the column
where, moody and disarmed, the two poor French volunteers were riding
under care of an escort, I spurred to the Baron who rode in front near
the kettle drums, and delivered my order; as I did so, recalling with
sadness the anxious and wistful glance given me by the prisoners as I
passed them.
"Wandenberg, who had no more shape than a huge hogshead, received the
dispatch with a growl of satisfaction. He would have bowed, but his neck
was too short. I cannot but laugh when I remember his strange aspect. In
form he looked nearly as broad as he was long, being nearly eight feet
in girth, and completely enveloped in a rough blue rocquelaure, which
imparted to his figure the roundness of a ball. His face, reddened by
skiedam and the frost, was glowing like crimson, while the broad beaver
hat that overshadowed it, and the feathers with which the beaver was
edged, were incrusted with the snow that was rapidly forming a pyramid
on its crown, imparting to his whole aspect a drollery at which I could
have laughed heartily, had not his well-known acuteness and ferocity
awed me into a becoming gravity of demeanor; and delivering my dispatch
with a tolerably good grace, I reined back my horse to await any reply
he might be pleased to send the Duke.
"His dull Dutch eyes glared with sudden anger and triumph, as he folded
the document, and surveyed the manacled prisoners. Thereafter he seized
his speaking trumpet, and thundered out--
"'Ruyters--halt! form open column of troops, trot!'
"It was done as rapidly as heavily armed Dutchmen on fat slow horses
knee deep among snow could perform it, and then wheeling them into line,
he gave the orders--
"'Forward the flanks--form circle--sling musquetoons!--trumpeters ride
to the centre and dismount.'
"By these unexpected manoeuvres, I suddenly found myself inclosed in a
hollow circle of the Dutch horsemen, and thus, as it were, compelled to
become a spectator of the scene that ensued, though I had his Grace of
Marlborough's urgent orders to rejoin him without delay on the road to
Aire."
"'And--and you saw--'
"Such a specimen of discipline as neither the devil nor De Martinet ever
dreamed of; but thoroughly Dutch I warrant you.
"I have said it was intensely cold, and that the night was closing; but
the whiteness of the snow that covered the vast plain, with the broad
red circle of the half-obscured moon that glimmered through the fast
falling flakes as it rose behind a distant spire, cast a dim light upon
the place where the Dutchmen halted. But deeming that insufficient, Van
Wandenberg ordered half a dozen torches to be lighted, for his troopers
always had such things with them, being useful by night for various
purposes; and hissing and sputtering in the falling snow flakes, their
lurid and fitful glare was thrown on the close array of the Dutch
dragoons, on their great cumbrous hats, on the steeple crowns of which,
I have said, the snow was gathering in cones, and the pale features of
the two prisoners, altogether imparting a wild, unearthly, and terrible
effect to the scene about to be enacted on that wide and desolate moor.
"By order of Van Wandenberg, three halberts were fixed into the frozen
earth, with their points bound together by a thong, after which the
dismounted trumpeters layed hands on one of the young Frenchmen, whom
they proceeded to strip of his coat and vest.
"Disarmed and surrounded, aware of the utter futility of resistance, the
unfortunate volunteer offered none, but gazed wistfully and imploringly
at me, and sure I am, that in my lowering brow and kindling eyes, he
must have seen the storm that was gathering in my heart.
"'Dieu vous benisse, Monsieur Officer," cried the Frenchman in a
mournful voice, while shuddering with cold and horror as he was stripped
to his shirt; 'save me from this foul disgrace, and my prayers--yea, my
life shall be for ever at your disposal.'
"'Good comrade,' said I, 'entreat me not, for here, I am powerless.'
"'Baron,' he exclaimed; 'I am a gentleman--a gentleman of old France,
and I dare thee to lay thy damnable scourge upon me.'
"'Ach Gott! dare--do you say dare? ve vill ze!' laughed Van Wandenberg,
as the prisoner was dragged forward and about to be forcibly trussed to
the halberts by the trumpeters, when animated to the very verge of
insanity, he suddenly freed himself, and rushing like a madman upon the
Baron, struck him from his horse by one blow of his clenched hand. The
horse snorted, the Dutch troopers opened their saucer eyes wider still,
as the great and corpulent mass fell heavily among the deepening snow,
and in an instant the foot of the Frenchmen was pressed upon his throat,
while he exclaimed:
"'If I slay thee, thou hireling dog, as I have often slain thy clodpated
countrymen in other days,' and the Frenchman laughed fiercely, 'by St.
Denis! I will have one foe-man less on this side of Hell!'
"'Gott in Himmel! ach! mein tuyvel! mein--mein Gott!' gasped the
Dutchman as he floundered beneath the heel of the vengeful and
infuriated Frenchman, who was determined on destroying him, till a blow
from the baton of an officer, stretched him almost senseless among the
snow, where he was immediately grasped by the trumpeters, disrobed of
his last remaining garment, and bound strongly to the halberts.
"Meanwhile the other prisoner had been pinioned and resolutely held by
his escort, otherwise he would undoubtedly have fallen also upon Van
Wandenberg, who choking with a tempest of passion that was too great to
find utterance in words, had gathered up his rotund figure, and with an
agility wonderful in a man of his years and vast obesity, so heavily
armed, in a buff coat and jack-boots ribbed with iron, a heavy sword and
cloak, clambered on the back of his horse, as a clown would climb up a
wall; and with a visage alternating between purple and blue, by the
effects of rage and strangulation, he surveyed the prisoner for a moment
in silence, and there gleamed in his piggish gray eyes an expression of
fury and pain, bitterness and triumph combined, and he was only able to
articulate one word--
"'Flog.'
"On the handsome young Frenchman's dark curly hair, glistening with the
whitening snow that fell upon it, and on his tender skin reddening in
the frosty atmosphere, on the swelling muscles of his athletic form, on
a half-healed sabre wound, and on the lineaments of a face that then
expressed the extremity of mental agony, fell full the wavering light of
the uplifted torches. The Dutch, accustomed to every species of
extra-judicial cruelty by sea and land, looked on with the most grave
stolidity and apathetic indifference; while I felt an astonishment and
indignation that rapidly gave place to undisguised horror.
"'_Flog!_'
"The other prisoner uttered a groan that seemed to come from his very
heart, and then covered his ears and eyes with his hands. Wielded by a
muscular trumpeter, an immense scourge of many-knotted cords was brought
down with one full sweep on the white back of the victim, and nine livid
bars, each red, as if seared by a hot iron, rose under the infliction,
and again the terrible instrument was reared by the trumpeter at the
full stretch of his sinewy arm.
"Monsieur will be aware, that _until_ the late Revolution of 1688, this
kind of punishment was unknown here and elsewhere, save in Holland; and
though I have seen soldiers run the gauntlet, ride the mare, and beaten
by the martinets, I shall never, oh, no! never forget the sensation of
horror with which this (to me) new punishment of the poor Frenchman
inspired me; and, sure I am, that our great Duke of Marlborough could in
no way have anticipated it.
"Accustomed, as I have said, to every kind of cruel severity, unmoved
and stoically the Dutch looked on with their gray, lacklustre eyes,
dull, unmeaning, and passionless in their stolidity, contrasting
strongly with the expression of startled horror depicted in the strained
eyeballs and bent brows of the victim's brother, when after a time he
dared to look on this revolting punishment. Save an ill-repressed sob,
or half-muttered interjection from the suffering man, no other sound
broke the stillness of the place, where a thousand horsemen stood in
close order, but the sputtering of the torches, in the red light of
which our breaths were ascending like steam. Yes! there was one other
sound, and it was a horrible one--the monotonous whiz of the scourge, as
it cut the keen frosty air and descended on the lacerated back of the
fainting prisoner. Sir, I see that my story disturbs you.
"A corpulent Provost Mareschal, with a pair of enormous moustachios,
amid which the mouth of his meerschaum was inserted, stood by smoking
with admirable coolness, and marking the time with his cane, while a
drummer tapped on his kettledrum, and four trumpeters had, each in
succession, given their twenty-five lashes and withdrawn; twice had the
knotted scourge been coagulated with blood, and twice had it been washed
in the snow that now rose high around the feet of our champing and
impatient horses; and now the fifth torturer approached, but still the
compressed lips and clammy tongue of the proud Frenchman refused to
implore mercy. His head was bowed down on his breast, his body hung
pendant from the cords that encircled his swollen and livid wrists; his
back from neck to waist was one mass of lacerated flesh, on which the
feathery snowflakes were melting; for the agony he endured must have
been like unto a stream of molton lead pouring over him; but no groan,
no entreaty escaped him, and still the barbarous punishment proceeded.
"I have remarked that there is no event too horrible or too sad to be
without a little of the ridiculous in it, and this was discernible here.
"One trumpeter, who appeared to have more humanity, or perhaps less
skill than his predecessors, and did not exert himself sufficiently, was
soundly beaten by the rattan of the trumpet-major, while the latter was
castigated by the Provost Mareschal, who, in turn for remissness of
duty, received sundry blows from the speaking-trumpet of the Baron; so
they were all laying soundly on each other for a time.
"'Morbleu!' said the Frenchmen, with a grim smile, ''twas quite in the
Dutch taste, that.'
"The Provost Mareschal continued to mark the time with the listless
apathy of an automaton; the smoke curled from his meerschaum, the drum
continued to tap-tap-tap, until it seemed to sound like thunder to my
strained ears, for every sense was painfully excited. All count had long
been lost, but when several hundred lashes had been given, Van
Wandenberg and half his Dutchman were asleep in their saddles.
"It was now snowing thick and fast, but still this hideous dream
continued, and still the scourging went on.
"At last the altered _sound_ of the lash and the terrible aspect of the
victim, who, after giving one or two convulsive shudders, threw back his
head with glazed eyes and jaw relaxed, caused the trumpeter to recede a
pace or two, and throw down his gory scourge, for some lingering
sentiment of humanity, which even the Dutch discipline of King William
had not extinguished, made him respect when dead the man whom he had
dishonored when alive.
"The young Frenchman was dead!
"An exclamation of disgust and indignation that escaped me woke up the
Baron, who after drinking deeply from a great pewter flask of skiedam
that hung at his saddlebow, muttered _schelms_ several times, rubbed his
eyes, and then bellowed through his trumpet to bind up the _other_
prisoner. Human endurance could stand this no more, and though I deemed
the offer vain, I proposed to give a hundred English guineas as a
ransom.
"'Ach Gott!' said the greedy Hollander immediately becoming interested;
'bot vere you get zo mosh guilder.'
"'Oh, readily, Mynheer Baron,' I replied, drawing forth my pocket-book,
'I have here bills on his Grace the Duke of Marlborough's paymaster and
on the Bank of Amsterdam for much more than that.'
"'Bot I cannot led off de brisoner for zo little--hunder pounds dat ver
small--zay two.'
"'If one is not enough, Mynheer Baron, I will refer to the decision of
his grace the captain-general.'
"Ach, der tuyvel! vill you?' said the Dutchman, with a savage gleam in
his little eyes, which showed that he quite understood my hint; 'vell,
me vont quarrel vid you, gib me de bills and de schelm is yours.'
"Resolving, nevertheless, to lay the whole affair before Marlborough,
the moment I reached our trenches at Aire, I gave a bill for the
required sum, and approaching the other Frenchman, requested him to keep
beside me; but he seemed too much confused by grief, and cold, and
horror to comprehend what I said. Poor fellow! his whole soul and
sympathies seemed absorbed in the mangled corpse of his brother, which
was now unbound from the halbert, and lay half sunk among the new fallen
snow. While he stooped over it, and hastily, but tenderly, proceeded to
draw the half-frozen clothing upon the stiffened form, the orders of Van
Wandenberg were heard hoarsely through his speaking-trumpet, as they
rang over the desolate plain, and his troopers wheeled back from a
circle into line--from line into open column of troops, and thereafter
the torches were extinguished and the march begun. Slowly and solemnly
the dragoons glided away into the darkness, each with a pyramid of snow
rising from the steeple crown, and ample brims of his broad beaver hat.
"It was now almost midnight; the red moon had waned, the snow storm was
increasing, and there were I and the young Frenchman, with his brother's
corpse, left together on the wide plain, without a place to shelter us."
"'Proceed, Monsieur,' said the Frenchman, as the narrator paused; 'for I
am well aware that your story ends not there.'
"It does not--you seem interested; but I have little more to relate,
save that I dismounted and assisted the poor Frenchman to raise the body
from the snow, and to tie it across the saddle of my horse; taking the
bridle in one hand, I supported him with the other, and thus we
proceeded to the nearest town."
"'To Armentieres on the Lys," exclaimed the Frenchman, seizing the hands
of the Major as the latter paused again; "to Armentieres, ten miles west
of Lisle, and there you left them, after adding to your generosity by
bestowing sufficient to inter his brother in the Protestant church of
that town, and to convey himself to his native France. Oh! Monsieur, I
am that Frenchman, and here, from my heart, from my soul, I thank you,"
and half kneeling, the stranger kissed the hand of the Major.
"_You!_" exclaimed the latter; "by Jove I am right glad to see you. Here
at Crail, too, in the East Neuk o' Fife--'tis a strange chance; and what
in heaven's name seek ye here? 'Tis a perilous time for a
foreigner--still more a Frenchman, to tread on Scottish ground. The war,
the intrigues with St. Germains, the Popish plots, and the devil only
knows what more, make travelling here more than a little dangerous."
"Monsieur, I know all that; the days are changed since the Scot was at
home in France, and the Frenchman at home in Scotland, for so the old
laws of Stuart and Bourbon made them. A few words will tell who I am and
what I seek here. Excuse my reluctance to reveal myself before, for now
you have a claim upon me. Oh! believe me, I knew not that I addressed
the generous chevalier who, in that hour of despair, redeemed my life
(and more than life), my honor, from the scourge, and enabled me to lay
the head of my poor brother with reverence in the grave. You have heard
of M. Henri Lemercier?"
"What! the great swordsman and fencer--that noble master of the science
of self-defence, with the fame of whose skill and valor all Europe is
ringing?"
"I am he of whom Monsieur is pleased to speak so highly."
"Your hand again, sir; sounds, but I dearly love this gallant science
myself, and have even won me a little name as a handler of the rapier.
There is but one man whom Europe calls your equal, Monsieur Lemercier."
"My superior, you mean, for I have many equals," replied the Frenchman,
very modestly. "You doubtless mean--"
"Sir William Hope, of Hopetoun."
"Ah! Mon Dieu, yes, he has, indeed, a great name in Europe as a fencer
and master of arms, either with double or single falchion, case of
falchions, backsword and dagger, pistol or quarter staff; and it is the
fame of his skill and prowess in these weapons, and the reputation he
has earned by his books on fencing, that hath brought me to-day to this
remote part of Scotland."
"Zounds!" said the Major, shaking back the long powdered curls of his
Ramillie wig, and looking remarkably grave; "you cannot mean to have a
bout with Sir William? He hath a sure hand and a steady eye. I would
rather stand a platoon than be once covered with his pistol."
"Monsieur, I have no enmity to this Sir William Hope, nor am I envious
of his great name as a fencer. Ma foi! the world is quite wide enough
for us both; but here lies my secret. I love Mademoiselle Athalie, the
niece of Madame de Livry--"
"How, the old flame of the great Louis?"
"Oui," said Lemercier, smiling; "and many say that Athalie bears a
somewhat suspicious resemblance to her aunt's royal lover; but that is
no business of mine; she loves me very dearly, and is very good and
amiable. Diable! I am well content to take her and her thirty thousand
louis-d'or without making any troublesome inquiries. It would seem that
my dear little Athalie is immensely vain of my reputation as a master of
fence, and having heard that this Scottish Chevalier is esteemed the
first man of the sword in Britain, and further, that report asserts he
slew her brother in the line of battle at Blenheim, fighting bravely for
a standard, she declared that ere her hand was mine, I must measure
swords with this Sir William, and dip this, her handkerchief, in his
blood, in token of his defeat, and of my conquest."
"A very pretty idea of Mademoiselle Athalie, and I doubt not Hopetoun
will be overwhelmed by the obligation when he hears of it," said the
Major of Orkney's, whose face brightened with a broad laugh; "and so
much would I love to see two such brisk fellows as thou and he yoked
together, at cut-and-thrust, that if permitted, I will rejoice in
bearing the message of M. Lemercier to Sir William, whose Castle of
Balcomie is close by here."
"Having no friend with me, I accept your offer with a thousand thanks,"
said Lemercier.
"Sir William did, indeed, slay an officer, as you have said, in that
charge at Blenheim, where the regiment of the Marquis de Livry was cut
to pieces by Orkney's Scots' Greys; but to be so good and amiable, and
to love you so much withal, Mademoiselle Athalie must be a brisk dame to
urge her favored Chevalier on a venture so desperate; for, mark me,
Monsieur Lemercier," said the Major, impressively, "none can know better
than I, the skill--the long and carefully studied skill--of Sir William
Hopetoun, and permit me to warn you--"
"It matters not--I _must_ fight him; love, honor, and rivalry, too, if
you will have it so, all spur me on, and no time must be lost."
"Enough; I should have been in my stirrups an hour ago; and dark though
the night be, I will ride to Balcomie with your message."
"A million of thanks--you will choose time and place for me."
"Say, to-morrow, at sunrise; be thou at the Standing-stone of Sauchope;
'tis a tall, rough block, in the fields near the Castle of Balcomie, and
doubt not but Sir William will meet you there."
"Thanks, thanks," again said the Frenchman, pressing the hand of the
Major, who, apparently delighted at the prospect of witnessing such an
encounter between the two most renowned swordsmen in Europe, drank off
his stoup of wine, muffled himself in his rocquelaure, and with his
little cocked hat stuck jauntily on one side of the Ramillie wig, left
the apartment, and demanded his horse and the reckoning.
"Then your honor _will_ be fule hardy, and tempt Providence," said the
landlord.
"Nay, gudeman, but you cannot tempt me to stay just now. I ride only
through the town to Balcomie, and will return anon. The Hopetoun family
are there, I believe?"
"Yes; but saving my Lady at the preachings, we see little o' them; for
Sir William has bidden at Edinburgh, or elsewhere, since his English
gold coft the auld tower from the Balcomies of that ilk, the year before
the weary union, devil mend it!"
"Amen, say I: and what callest thou English gold?"
"The doolfu' compensation, o' whilk men say he had his share."
"Man, thou liest, and they who say so lie! for to the last moment his
voice was raised against that traitorous measure of Queensbury and
Stair, and now every energy of his soul is bent to its undoing!" replied
the Major, fiercely, as he put spurs to his horse and rode rapidly down
the dark, and then grassy, street, at the end of which the clank of his
horse's hoofs died away, as he diverged upon the open ground that lay
northward of the town, and by which he had to approach the tower of
Balcomie.
The Frenchman remained long buried in thought, and as he sipped his
wine, gazed dreamily on the changing embers that glowed on the hearth,
and cast a warm light on the blue delft lining of the fireplace. The
reminiscences of the war in Flanders had called up many a sad and many a
bitter recollection.
"I would rather," thought he, "that the man I am about to encounter
to-morrow was not a Scot, for the kindness of to-night, and of that
terrible night in the snow-clad plain of Arras, inspire me with a warm
love for all the people of this land. But my promise must be redeemed,
my adventure achieved, or thou, my dear, my rash Athalie, art lost to
me!" and he paused to gaze with earnestness upon a jewel that glittered
on his hand. It was a hair ring, bound with gold, and a little shield
bearing initials, clasped the small brown tress that was so ingeniously
woven round it.
As he gazed on the trinket, his full dark eyes brightened for a moment,
as the mild memories of love and fondness rose in his heart, and a
bright smile played upon his haughty lip and lofty brow. Other thoughts
arose, and the eyebrows that almost met over the straight Grecian nose
of Lemercier, were knit as he recalled the ominous words of his recent
acquaintance--
"Mademoiselle Athalie must be a brisk dame to urge her favored Chevalier
on a venture so desperate."
One bitter pang shot through his heart, but he thrust the thought aside,
and pressed the ring to his lips.
"Oh, Athalie," he said in a low voice, "I were worse than a villain to
suspect thee."
At that moment midnight tolled from the dull old bell of Crail, and the
strangeness of the sound brought keenly home to the lonely heart of
Lemercier that he was in a foreign land.
The hour passed, but the Major did not return.
Morning came.
With gray dawn Lemercier was awake, and a few minutes found him dressed
and ready. He attired himself with particular care, putting on a coat
and vest, the embroidery of which presented as few conspicuous marks as
possible to an antagonist's eye. He clasped his coat from the cravat to
the waist, and compressed his embroidered belt. He adjusted his white
silk roll-up stockings with great exactness; tied up the flowing curls
of his wig with a white ribbon, placed a scarlet feather in his hat, and
then took his sword. The edge and point of the blade, the shell and
pommel, grasp and guard of the hilt were all examined with scrupulous
care for the last time; he drew on his gloves with care, and giving to
the landlord the reckoning, which he might never return to pay,
Lemercier called for his horse and rode through the main street of
Crail.
Following the directions he had received from his host, he hastily
quitted the deserted and grass-grown street of the burgh (the very
aspect of which he feared would chill him), and proceeded towards the
ancient obelisk still known as the _Standing-stone of Sauchope_, which
had been named as the place of rendezvous by that messenger who had not
returned, and against whom M. Lemercier felt his anger a little excited.
It was a cool March morning; the sky was clear and blue, and the few
silver clouds that floated through it, became edged with gold as the sun
rose from his bed in the eastern sea--that burnished sea from which the
cool fresh breeze swept over the level coast. The fields were assuming a
vernal greenness, the buds were swelling on hedge and tree, and the
vegetation of the summer that was to come--the summer that Lemercier
might never see--was springing from amid the brown remains of the autumn
that had gone, an autumn that he had passed with Athalie amid the
gayeties and gardens of Paris and Versailles.
At the distance of a mile he saw the strong square tower of Balcomie,
the residence of his antagonist. One side was involved in shadow, the
other shone redly in the rising sun, and the morning smoke from its
broad chimneys curled in dusky columns into the blue sky. The caw of the
rooks that followed the plough, whose shining share turned up the
aromatic soil, the merry whistle of the bonneted ploughboys, the voices
of the blackbird and the mavis, made him sad, and pleased was Lemercier
to leave behind him all such sounds of life, and reach the wild and
solitary place where the obelisk stood--a grim and time-worn relic of
the Druid ages or the Danish wars. A rough misshapen remnant of
antiquity it still remains to mark the scene of this hostile meeting,
which yet forms one of the most famous traditions of the East Neuk.
As Lemercier rode up he perceived a gentleman standing near the stone.
His back was towards him, and he was apparently intent on caressing his
charger, whose reins he had thrown negligently over his arm.
Lemercier thought he recognized the hat, edged with white feathers, the
full-bottomed wig, and the peculiar lacing of the white velvet coat, and
on the stranger turning he immediately knew his friend of the preceding
night.
"Bon jour, my dear sir," said Lemercier.
"A good morning," replied the other, and they politely raised their
little cocked hats.
"I had some misgivings when Monsieur did not return to me," said the
Frenchman. "Sir William has accepted my challenge?"
"Yes, Monsieur, and is now before you," replied the other, springing on
horseback. "_I am Sir William Hope, of Hopetoun_, and am here at your
service."
"You!" exclaimed the Frenchman, in tones of blended astonishment and
grief; "ah! unsay what you have said, I cannot point my sword against
the breast of my best benefactor--against him to whom I owe both honor
and life. Can I forget that night on the plains of Arras? Ah! my God!
what a mistake; what a misfortune. Ah! Athalie, to what have you so
unthinkingly urged me?"
"Think of her only, and forget all of me save that I am your antagonist,
your enemy, as I stand between thee and her. Come on, M. Lemercier, do
not forget your promise to Mademoiselle; we will sheath our swords on
the first blood drawn."
"So be it then, if the first is thine," and unsheathing their long and
keen-edged rapiers they put spurs to their horses, and closing up hand
to hand, engaged with admirable skill and address.
The skill of one swordsman seemed equalled only by that of the other.
Lemercier was the first fencer at the Court of France, where fencing
was an accomplishment known to all, and there was no man in Britain
equal to Sir William Hope, whose _Complete Fencing Master_ was long
famous among the lovers of the noble science of defence.
They rode round each other in circles. Warily and sternly they began to
watch each other's eyes, till they flashed in unison with their blades;
their hearts beat quicker as their passions became excited and their
rivalry roused; and their nerves became strung as the hope of conquest
was whetted. The wish of merely being wounded ended in a desire to
wound; and the desire to wound in a clamorous anxiety to vanquish and
destroy. Save the incessant clash of the notched rapiers, as each deadly
thrust was adroitly parried and furiously repeated, the straining of
stirrup-leathers, as each fencer swayed to and fro in his saddle, their
suppressed breathing, and the champing of iron bits, Lemercier and his
foe saw nothing but the gleam and heard nothing but the clash of each
other's glittering swords.
The sun came up in his glory from the shining ocean; the mavis soared
above them in the blue sky; the early flowers of spring were unfolding
their dewy cups to the growing warmth, but still man fought with man,
and the hatred in their hearts waxed fierce and strong.
In many places their richly laced coats were cut and torn. One lost his
hat and had received a severe scar on the forehead, and the other had
one on his bridle hand. They often paused breathlessly, and in weariness
lowered the points of their weapons to glare upon each other with a
ferocity that could have no end but death--until at the sixth encounter,
when Lemercier became exhausted, and failing to parry with sufficient
force a fierce and furious thrust, was run through the breast so near
the heart, that he fell from his horse, gasping and weltering in blood.
Sir William Hope flung away his rapier and sprang to his assistance, but
the unfortunate Frenchman could only draw from his finger the ring of
Athalie, and with her name on his lips expired--being actually choked in
his own blood.
Such was the account of this combat given by the horrified Master
Spiggot, who suspecting "that there was something wrong," had followed
his guest to the scene of the encounter, the memory of which is still
preserved in the noble house of Hopetoun, and the legends of the
burghers of Crail.
So died Lemercier.
Of what Sir William said or thought on the occasion, we have no record.
In the good old times he would have eased his conscience by the
endowment of an altar, or foundation of a yearly mass; but in the year
1708 such things had long been a dead letter in the East Neuk; and so in
lieu thereof he interred him honorably in the aisle of the ancient kirk,
where a marble tablet long marked the place of his repose.
Sir William did more; he carefully transmitted the ring of Lemercier to
the bereaved Athalie, but before its arrival in Paris, she had dried her
tears for the poor Chevalier, and wedded one of his numerous rivals.
Thus, she forgot him sooner than his conqueror, who reached a good old
age, and died at his Castle of Balcomie, with his last breath regretting
the combat at the Standing-stone of Sauchope.
From the London Times.
HENRY FIELDING.[H]
We are glad to see this great humorist's works put forward in a popular
form, and at a price exceedingly low. A man may be very much injured by
perusing maudlin sentimental tales, but cannot be hurt, though he may be
shocked every now and then, by reading works of sound sterling humor,
like the greater part of these, full of benevolence, practical wisdom,
and generous sympathy with mankind.
The work is prefaced by an able biography of Fielding, in which the
writer does justice to the great satirist's memory, and rescues it from
the attacks which rivals, poetasters, and fine gentlemen have made upon
it.
Those who have a mind to forgive a little coarseness, for the sake of
one of the honestest, manliest, kindest companions in the world, cannot,
as we fancy, find a better than Fielding, or get so much true wit and
shrewdness from any other writer of our language.
"With regard to personal appearance," says his biographer, "Fielding was
strongly built, robust, and in height rather exceeding six feet." He was
possessed of rare conversational powers and wit; a nobleman who had
known Pope, Swift, and the wits of that famous clique, declared that
Harry Fielding surpassed them all.
He and Hogarth between them have given us a strange notion of the
society of those days. Walpole's letters, for all their cold elegance,
are not a whit more moral than those rude coarse pictures of the former
artists. Lord Chesterfield's model of a man is more polite, but not so
honest as Tom Jones, or as poor Will Booth, with his "chairman's
shoulders, and calves like a porter."
Let us, then, not accuse Fielding of immorality, but simply admit that
his age was more free-spoken than ours, and accuse it of the fault (such
as it is) rather than him. But there is a great deal of good, on the
other hand, which is to be found in the writings of this great man, of
virtue so wise and practical, that the man of the world cannot read it
and imitate it too much. He gives a strong real picture of human life,
and the virtues which he exhibits shine out by their contrasts with the
vices which he paints so faithfully, as they never could have done if
the latter had not been depicted as well as the former. He tries to give
you, as far as he knows it, the whole truth about human nature; the good
and the evil of his characters are both practical. Tom Jones's sins and
his faults are described with a curious accuracy, but then follows the
repentance which comes out of his very sins, and that surely is moral
and touching. Booth goes astray (we do verily believe that many persons
even in these days are not altogether pure), but how good his remorse
is! Are persons who profess to take the likeness of human nature to make
an accurate portrait? This is such a hard question, that, think what we
will, we shall not venture to say what we think. Perhaps it is better to
do as Hannibal's painter did, and draw only that side of the face which
has not the blind eye. Fielding attacked it in full. Let the reader,
according to his taste, select the artist who shall give a likeness of
him or only half a likeness.
We have looked through many of the pieces of Mr. Roscoe's handsome
volume. The dramatic works could not have been spared possibly, but the
reader will have no great pleasure, as we fancy, in looking at them more
than once. They are not remarkable for wit even, though they have plenty
of _spirits_--a great deal too much perhaps.
But he was an honest-hearted fellow, with affections as tender and
simple as ever dwelt in the bosom of any man; and if, in the heyday of
his spirits and the prodigal outpouring of his jovial good humor, he
could give a hand to many "a lad and lass" whom the squeamish world
would turn its back on (indeed, there was a virtue in his benevolence,
but we dare not express our sympathies now for poor Doll Tearsheet and
honest Mistress Quickly)--if he led a sad riotous life, and mixed with
many a bad woman in his time, his heart was pure, and he knew a good one
when he found her. He married, and (though Sir Walter Scott speaks
rather slightingly of the novel in which Fielding has painted his first
wife) the picture of Amelia, in the story of that name, is (in the
writer's humble opinion) the most beautiful and delicious description of
a character that is to be found in any writer, not excepting Shakspeare.
It is a wonder how old Richardson, girded at as he had been by the
reckless satirist--how Richardson, the author of "Pamela," could have
been so blinded by anger and pique as not to have seen the merits of his
rival's exquisite performance.
Amelia was in her grave when poor Fielding drew this delightful portrait
of her; but, with all his faults, and extravagancies, and vagaries, it
is not hard to see how such a gentle, generous, loving creature as
Fielding was, must have been loved and prized by her. She had a little
fortune of her own, and he at this time inherited a small one from his
mother. He carried her to the country, and like a wise, prudent Henry
Fielding as he was, who, having lived upon nothing very jovially for
some years, thought £5,000 or £6,000 an endless wealth; he kept horses
and hounds, flung his doors open, and lived with the best of his
country. When he had spent his little fortune, and saw that there was
nothing for it but to work, he came to London, applied himself fiercely
to the law, seized upon his pen again, never lost heart for a moment,
and, be sure, loved his poor Amelia as tenderly as ever he had done. It
is a pity that he did not live on his income, that is certain: it is a
pity that he had not been born a lord, or a thrifty stock broker at the
very least; but we should not have had "Joseph Andrews" if this had been
the case, and indeed it is probable that Amelia liked him quite as well
after his ruin as she would have done had he been as rich as Rothschild.
The biographers agree that he would have been very successful at the
bar, but for certain circumstances. These ugly circumstances always fall
in the way of men of Fielding's genius: for though he amassed a
considerable quantity of law, was reputed to be a good speaker, and had
a great wit, and a knowledge of human nature which might serve him in
excellent stead, it is to be remarked that those without a certain
degree of patience and conduct will not insure a man's triumph at the
bar, and so Fielding never rose to be a Lord Chancellor or even a judge.
His days of trouble had now begun in earnest, and indeed he met them
like a man. He wrote incessantly for the periodical works of the day,
issued pamphlets, made translations, published journals and criticisms,
turned his hand, in a word, to any work that offered, and lived as best
he might. This indiscriminate literary labor, which obliges a man to
scatter his intellects upon so many trifles, and to provide weekly
varieties as sets-off against the inevitable weekly butcher's bills, has
been the ruin of many a man of talent since Fielding's time, and it was
lucky for the world and for him that at a time of life when his powers
were at the highest he procured a place which kept him beyond the reach
of weekly want, and enabled him to gather his great intellects together
and produce the greatest satire and two of the most complete romances in
our language.
Let us remark, as a strong proof of the natural honesty of the man, the
exquisite art of these performances, the care with which the situations
are elaborated, and the noble, manly language corrected. When Harry
Fielding was writing for the week's bread, we find style and sentiment
both careless, and plots hastily worked off. How could he do otherwise?
Mr. Snap, the bailiff, was waiting with a writ without--his wife and
little ones asking wistfully for bread within. Away, with all its
imperfections on its head, the play or the pamphlet must go. Indeed, he
would have been no honest man had he kept them longer on his hands, with
such urgent demands upon him as he had.
But as soon as he is put out of the reach of this base kind of want, his
whole style changes, and instead of the reckless and slovenly
hack-writer, we have one of the most minute and careful artists that
ever lived. Dr. Beattie gave his testimony to the merit of "Tom Jones."
Moral or immoral, let any man examine this romance as a work of art
merely, and it must strike him as the most astonishing production of
human ingenuity. There is not an incident ever so trifling but advances
the story, grows out of former incidents and is connected with the
whole. Such a literary providence, if we may use such a word, is not to
be seen in any other work of fiction. You might cut out the half of Don
Quixote, or add, transpose, or alter any given romance of Walter Scott,
and neither would suffer. Roderick Random, and heroes of that sort, run
through a series of adventures, at the end of which the fiddles are
brought and there is a marriage. But the history of Tom Jones connects
the very first page with the very last, and it is marvellous to think
how the author could have built and carried all this structure in his
brain, as he must have done, before he began to put it to paper.
And now a word or two about our darling "Amelia," of which we have read
through every single word in Mr. Roscoe's handsome edition. "As for
Captain Booth, Madam," writes old Richardson to one of his toadies,
"Captain Booth has done his business. The piece is short, is as dead as
if it had been published forty years ago;" indeed, human nature is not
altered since Richardson's time; and if there are rakes, male and
female, as there were a hundred years since, there are in like manner
envious critics now as then. How eager they are to predict a man's fall,
how unwilling to acknowledge his rise! If a man write a popular work, he
is sure to be snarled at; if a literary man rise to eminence out of his
profession, all his old comrades are against him.
Well, in spite of Richardson's prophecies, the piece which was dead at
its birth is alive a hundred years after, and will live, as we fancy, as
long as the English language shall endure. Fielding, in his own noble
words, has given a key to the philosophy of the work. "The nature of
man," cries honest Dr. Harrison, "is far from being in itself evil; it
abounds with benevolence, and charity, and pity, coveting praise and
honor, and shunning shame and disgrace. Bad education, bad habits, and
bad customs debauch our nature, and drive it headlong into vice." And
the author's tale is an exemplification of this text. Poor Booth's
habits and customs are bad indeed, but who can deny the benevolence, and
charity, and pity, of this simple and kindly being? His vices even, if
we may say so, are those of a man; there is nothing morbid or mawkish in
any of Fielding's heroes; no passionate pleasing extenuation, such as
one finds in the pseudo-moral romances of the sentimental character; no
flashy excuses like those which Sheridan puts forward (unconsciously,
most likely), for those brilliant blackguards who are the chief
characters of his comedies. Vice is never to be mistaken for virtue in
Fielding's honest downright books; it goes by its name, and invariably
gets its punishment.
Besides the matchless character of Amelia, whose beauty and charming
innocent consciousness of it (so delicately described by the novelist),
whose tenderness and purity are such that they endear her to a reader as
much as if she were actually alive, his own wife or mother, and make him
consider her as some dear relative and companion of his own, about whose
charms and virtues is scarcely modest to talk in public; besides Amelia,
there are other characters, not so beautiful, but not less admirably
true to nature. Miss Matthews is a wonderful portrait, and the vanity
which inspires every one of the actions of that passionate, unscrupulous
lady, the color as it were which runs through the whole of the picture
is touched with a master's hand. Mrs. James, the indifferent woman, is
not less skilful.
"Can this be my Jenny?" cries poor Amelia, who runs forward to meet her
old friend, and finds a pompous, frigid-looking personage in an enormous
hoop, the very pink of the fashion; to which Mrs. James answers, "Madam,
I believe I have done what was genteel," and wonders how any mortal can
live up three pair of stairs. "Is there," says the enthusiastic for the
first time in her life, "so delightful a sight in the world as the four
honors in one's own hand, unless it be the three natural aces at brag?"
Can comedy be finer than this? Has not every person some Matthews and
James in their acquaintance--one all passion, and the other all
indifference and vapid self-complacency? James, the good-natured fellow,
with passions and without principles: Bath, with his magnificent notions
of throat-cutting and the Christian religion, what admirable knowledge
of the world do all these characters display: what good moral may be
drawn from them by those who will take the trouble to think! This,
however, is not a task that the generality of novel-readers are disposed
to take upon them, and prefer that their favorite works should contain
as little reflection as possible; indeed, it is very probable that Mrs.
James, or Miss Matthews might read their own characters as here
described, and pronounce such writing vastly low and unnatural.
But what is especially worthy of remark is the masterly manner in which
the author paints the good part of those equivocal characters that he
brings upon his stage: James has his generosity, and his silly wife her
good nature; Matthews her starts of kindness; and Old Bath, in his
sister's dressing-gown, cooking possets for her, is really an amiable
object, whom we like while we laugh at him. A great deal of tenderness
and love goes along with this kind of laughter, and it was this mixed
feeling that our author liked so to indulge himself in, and knew so well
how to excite in others. Whenever he has to relate an action of
benevolence, honest Fielding kindles as he writes it: some writers of
fiction have been accused of falling in a passion with their bad
characters: these our author treats with a philosophic calmness: it is
when he comes to the good that he grows enthusiastic: you fancy that you
see the tears in his manly eyes; nor does he care to disguise any of the
affectionate sympathies of his great, simple heart. This is a defect in
art perhaps, but a very charming one.
For further particulars of Fielding's life, we recommend the reader to
consult Mr. Roscoe's biography. Indeed, as much as any of his romances,
his own history illustrates the maxim we have just quoted from Amelia.
Want, sorrow, and pain subdued his body at last, but his great and noble
humor rode buoyant over them all, and his frank and manly philosophy
overcame them. His generous attachment to his family comforted him to
the last; and though all the labors of the poor fellow were only
sufficient to keep him and them in a bare competence, yet it must be
remembered, to his credit, that he left behind him a friend who valued
him so much as to provide for the family he had left destitute, and to
place them beyond the reach of want. It is some credit to a man to have
been the friend of Ralph Allen; and Fielding before his death raised a
monument to his friend a great deal more lasting than bronze or marble,
placing his figure in the romance of Tom Jones under the name of
Allworthy. "There is a day, sir," says Fielding in one of his
dedications to Mr. Allen, "which no man in the kingdom can think of
without fear, but yourself--the day of your death." Can there he a finer
compliment? Nor was Fielding the man to pay it to one whom he thought
was undeserving of it.
Never do Fielding's courage, cheerfulness, and affection forsake him; up
to the last days of his life he is laboring still for his children. He
dies, and is beholden to the admiration of a foreigner, Monsieur de
Meryionnet, French consul at Lisbon, for a decent grave and tombstone.
There he lies, sleeping after life's fitful fever. No more care, no more
duns, no more racking pain, no more wild midnight orgies and jovial
laughter. Of the women who are weeping for him a pious friend takes
care. Here, indeed, it seems as if his sorrow ended; and one hopes and
fancies that the poor but noble fellow's spirit is at last pure and
serene.
FOOTNOTES:
[H] The Works of Henry Fielding, in two volumes, octavo. With a Life,
Portrait, and Autograph. London: Henry G. Bohn, Covent Garden.
[New-York: Stringer and Townsend. 1851.]
From "Recollections of a Police Officer" in Chambers's Edinburgh
Journal.
FLINT JACKSON.
Farnham hops are world-famous, or at least famous in that huge portion
of the world where English ale is drunk, and whereon, I have a thousand
times heard and read, the sun never sets. The name, therefore, of the
pleasant Surrey village, in and about which the events I am about to
relate occurred, is, I may fairly presume, known to many of my readers.
I was ordered to Farnham, to investigate a case of burglary, committed
in the house of a gentleman of the name of Hursley, during the temporary
absence of the family, which had completely nonplussed the unpractised
Dogberrys of the place, albeit it was not a riddle at all difficult to
read. The premises, it was quickly plain to me, had been broken, not
into, but out of; and a watch being set upon the motions of the very
specious and clever person left in charge of the house and property, it
was speedily discovered that the robbery had been effected by herself
and a confederate of the name of Dawkins, her brother-in-law. Some of
the stolen goods were found secreted at his lodgings; but the most
valuable portion, consisting of plate, and a small quantity of jewelry,
had disappeared: it had questionless been converted into money, as
considerable sums, in sovereigns, were found upon both Dawkins and the
woman, Sarah Purday. Now, as it had been clearly ascertained that
neither of the prisoners had left Farnham since the burglary, it was
manifest there was a receiver near at hand who had purchased the missing
articles. Dawkins and Purday were, however, dumb as stones upon the
subject; and nothing occurred to point suspicion till early in the
evening previous to the second examination of the prisoners before the
magistrates, when Sarah Purday asked for pen, ink, and paper for the
purpose of writing to one Mr. Jackson, in whose service she had formerly
lived. I happened to be at the prison, and of course took the liberty of
carefully unsealing her note and reading it. It revealed nothing; and
save by its extremely cautious wording, and abrupt, peremptory tone,
coming from a servant to her former master, suggested nothing. I had
carefully reckoned the number of sheets of paper sent into the cell, and
now on recounting them found that three were missing. The turnkey
returned immediately, and asked for the two other letters she had
written. The woman denied having written any other, and for proof
pointed to the torn fragments of the missing sheets lying on the floor.
These were gathered up and brought to me, but I could make nothing out
of them, every word having been carefully run through with the pen, and
converted into an unintelligible blot. The request contained in the
actually-written letter was one simple enough in itself, merely, "that
Mr. Jackson would not on any account fail to provide her, in
consideration of past services, with legal assistance on the morrow."
The first nine words were strongly underlined; and I made out after a
good deal of trouble that the word "pretence" had been partially
effaced, and "account" substituted for it.
"She need not have wasted three sheets of paper upon such a nonsensical
request as that," observed the turnkey. "Old Jackson wouldn't shell out
sixpence to save her or anybody else from the gallows."
"I am of a different opinion; but tell me, what sort of a person is this
former master of hers?"
"All I know about him is that he's a cross-grained, old curmudgeon,
living about a mile out of Farnham, who scrapes money together by
lending small sums upon notes-of-hand at short dates, and at a
thundering interest. Flint Jackson folk about here call him."
"At all events, forward the letter at once, and to-morrow we shall
see--what we shall see. Good-evening."
It turned out as I anticipated. A few minutes after the prisoners were
brought into the justice-room, a Guilford solicitor of much local
celebrity arrived, and announced that he appeared for both the
inculpated parties. He was allowed a private conference with them, at
the close of which he stated that his clients would reserve their
defence. They were at once committed for trial, and I overheard the
solicitor assure the woman that the ablest counsel on the circuit would
be retained in their behalf.
I had no longer a doubt that it was my duty to know something further of
this suddenly-generous Flint Jackson, though how to set about it was a
matter of considerable difficulty. There was no legal pretence for a
search-warrant, and I doubted the prudence of proceeding upon my own
responsibility with so astute an old fox as Jackson was represented to
be; for, supposing him to be a confederate with the burglars, he had by
this time in all probability sent the stolen property away--to London in
all likelihood; and should I find nothing, the consequences of
ransacking his house merely because he had provided a former servant
with legal assistance would be serious. Under these circumstances I
wrote to headquarters for instructions, and by return of post received
orders to prosecute the inquiry thoroughly, but cautiously, and to
consider time as nothing so long as there appeared a chance of fixing
Jackson with the guilt of receiving the plunder. Another suspicious
circumstance that I have omitted to notice in its place was that the
Guilford solicitor tendered bail for the prisoners to any reasonable
amount, and named Enoch Jackson as one of the securities. Bail was,
however, refused.
There was no need for over-hurrying the business, as the prisoners were
committed to the Surrey Spring Assizes, and it was now the season of the
hop-harvest--a delightful and hilarious period about Farnham when the
weather is fine and the yield abundant. I, however, lost no time in
making diligent and minute inquiry as to the character and habits of
Jackson, and the result was a full conviction that nothing but the fear
of being denounced as an accomplice could have induced such a miserly,
iron-hearted rogue to put himself to charges in defence of the
imprisoned burglars.
One afternoon, whilst pondering the matter, and at the same time
enjoying the prettiest and cheerfulest of rural sights, that of
hop-picking, the apothecary at whose house I was lodging--we will call
him Mr. Morgan; he _was_ a Welshmann--tapped me suddenly on the
shoulder, and looking sharply round, I perceived he had something he
deemed of importance to communicate.
"What is it?" I said quickly.
"The oddest thing in the world. There's Flint Jackson, his deaf old
woman, and the young people lodging with him, all drinking and boozing
away at yon alehouse."
"Show them to me, if you please."
A few minutes brought us to the place of boisterous entertainment, the
lower room of which was suffocatingly full of tipplers and
tobacco-smoke. We nevertheless contrived to edge ourselves in; and my
companion stealthily pointed out the group, who were seated together
near the farther window, and then left me to myself.
The appearance of Jackson entirely answered to the popular prefix of
Flint attached to his name. He was a wiry, gnarled, heavy-browed,
iron-jawed fellow of about sixty, with deep-set eyes aglow with sinister
and greedy instincts. His wife, older than he, and as deaf apparently as
the door of a dungeon, wore a simpering, imbecile look of wonderment, it
seemed to me, at the presence of such unusual and abundant cheer. The
young people who lodged with Jackson were really a very frank, honest,
good-looking couple, though not then appearing to advantage--the
countenance of Henry Rogers being flushed and inflamed with drink, and
that of his wife's clouded with frowns, at the situation in which she
found herself, and the riotous conduct of her husband. Their brief
history was this: They had both been servants in a family living not far
distant from Farnham--Sir Thomas Lethbridge's, I understood--when about
three or four months previous to the present time Flint Jackson, who had
once been in an attorney's office, discovered that Henry Rogers, in
consequence of the death of a distant relative in London, was entitled
to property worth something like £1500. There were, however, some law
difficulties in the way, which Jackson offered, if the business were
placed in his hands, to overcome for a consideration, and in the mean
time to supply board and lodging and such necessary sums of money as
Henry Rogers might require. With this brilliant prospect in view service
became at once utterly distasteful. The fortunate legatee had for some
time courted Mary Elkins, one of the ladies' maids, a pretty,
bright-eyed brunette; and they were both united in the bonds of holy
matrimony on the very day the "warnings" they had given expired. Since
then they had lived at Jackson's house in daily expectation of their
"fortune," with which they proposed to start in the public line.
Finding myself unrecognized, I called boldly for a pot and a pipe, and
after some manoeuvring contrived to seat myself within earshot of
Jackson and his party. They presented a strange study. Henry Rogers was
boisterously excited, and not only drinking freely himself, but treating
a dozen fellows round him, the cost of which he from time to time called
upon "Old Flint," as he courteously styled his ancient friend, to
discharge.
"Come, fork out, Old Flint!" he cried again and again. "It'll be all
right, you know, in a day or two, and a few halfpence over. Shell out,
old fellow! What signifies, so you're happy?"
Jackson complied with an affectation of acquiescent gayety ludicrous to
behold. It was evident that each successive pull at his purse was like
wrenching a tooth out of his head, and yet while the dismallest of
smiles wrinkled his wolfish mouth, he kept exclaiming: "A fine lad--a
fine lad! generous as a prince--generous as a prince! Good Lord, another
round! He minds money no more than as if gold was as plentiful as
gravel! But a fine generous lad for all that!"
Jackson, I perceived, drank considerably, as if incited thereto by
compressed savageness. The pretty young wife would not taste a drop, but
tears frequently filled her eyes, and bitterness pointed her words as
she vainly implored her husband to leave the place and go home with her.
To all her remonstrances the maudlin drunkard replied only by foolery,
varied occasionally by an attempt at a line or two of the song of "The
Thorn."
"But you _will_ plant thorns, Henry," rejoined the provoked wife in a
louder and angrier tone than she ought perhaps to have used--"not only
in my bosom, but your own, if you go on in this sottish, disgraceful
way."
"Always quarrelling, always quarrelling!" remarked Jackson, pointedly,
towards the bystanders--"_always_ quarrelling!"
"Who is always quarrelling?" demanded the young wife sharply. "Do you
mean me and Henry?"
"I was only saying, my dear, that you don't like your husband to be so
generous and free-hearted--that's all," replied Jackson, with a
confidential wink at the persons near him.
"Free-hearted and generous! Fool-hearted and crazy, you mean!" rejoined
the wife, who was much excited. "And you ought to be ashamed of yourself
to give him money for such brutish purposes."
"Always quarrelling, always quarrelling!" iterated Jackson, but this
time unheard by Mrs. Rogers--"_always_, perpetually quarrelling!"
I could not quite comprehend all this. If so large a sum as £1500 was
really coming to the young man, why should Jackson wince as he did at
disbursing small amounts which he could repay himself with abundant
interest? If otherwise--and it was probable he should not be
repaid--what meant his eternal, "fine generous lad!" "spirited young
man!" and so on? What, above all, meant that look of diabolical hate
which shot out from his cavernous eyes towards Henry Rogers when he
thought himself unobserved, just after satisfying a fresh claim on his
purse? Much practice in reading the faces and deportment of such men
made it pretty clear to me that Jackson's course of action respecting
the young man and his money was not yet decided upon in his own mind;
that he was still perplexed and irresolute; and hence the apparent
contradiction in his words and acts.
Henry Rogers at length dropped asleep with his head upon one of the
settle-tables; Jackson sank into sullen silence; the noisy room grew
quiet; and I came away.
I was impressed with a belief that Jackson entertained some sinister
design against his youthful and inexperienced lodgers, and I determined
to acquaint them with my suspicions. For this purpose Mr. Morgan, who
had a patient living near Jackson's house, undertook to invite them to
tea on some early evening, on the pretence that he had heard of a tavern
that might suit them when they should receive their fortune. Let me
confess, too, that I had another design besides putting the young people
on their guard against Jackson. I thought it very probable that it would
not be difficult to glean from them some interesting and suggestive
particulars concerning the ways, means, practices, outgoings and
incomings, of their worthy landlord's household.
Four more days passed unprofitably away, and I was becoming weary of the
business, when about five o'clock in the afternoon the apothecary
galloped up to his door on a borrowed horse, jumped off with surprising
celerity, and with a face as white as his own magnesia, burst out as he
hurried into the room where I was sitting: "Here's a pretty kettle of
fish! Henry Rogers has been poisoned, and by his wife!"
"Poisoned!"
"Yes, poisoned; although, thanks to my being on the spot, I think he
will recover. But I must instantly to Dr. Edwards: I will tell you all
when I return."
The promised "all" was this: Morgan was passing slowly by Jackson's
house, in the hope of seeing either Mr. or Mrs. Rogers, when the
servant-woman, Jane Riddet, ran out and begged him to come in, as their
lodger had been taken suddenly ill. Ill indeed! The surface of his body
was cold as death, and the apothecary quickly discovered that he had
been poisoned with sulphuric acid (oil of vitriol), a quantity of which
he, Morgan, had sold a few days previously to Mrs. Rogers, who, when
purchasing it, said Mr. Jackson wanted it to apply to some warts that
annoyed him. Morgan fortunately knew the proper remedy, and desired
Jackson, who was in the room, and seemingly very anxious and flurried,
to bring some soap instantly, a solution of which he proposed to give
immediately to the seemingly dying man. The woman-servant was gone to
find Mrs. Rogers, who had left about ten minutes before, having first
made the tea in which the poison had been taken. Jackson hurried out of
the apartment, but was gone so long that Morgan, becoming impatient,
scraped a quantity of plaster off the wall, and administered it with the
best effect. At last Jackson came back, and said there was unfortunately
not a particle of soap in the house. A few minutes afterwards the young
wife, alarmed at the woman-servant's tidings, flew into the room in an
agony of alarm and grief. Simulated alarm, crocodile grief, Mr. Morgan
said; for there could, in his opinion, be no doubt that she had
attempted to destroy her husband. Mr. Jackson, on being questioned,
peremptorily denied that he had ever desired Mrs. Rogers to procure
sulphuric acid for him, or had received any from her--a statement which
so confounded the young woman that she instantly fainted. The upshot was
that Mrs. Rogers was taken into custody and lodged in prison.
This terrible news flew through Farnham like wildfire. In a few minutes
it was upon every body's tongue: the hints of the quarrelsome life the
young couple led, artfully spread by Jackson, were recalled, and no
doubt appeared to be entertained of the truth of the dreadful charge. I
had no doubt either, but my conviction was not that of the Farnham folk.
This, then, was the solution of the struggle I had seen going on in
Jackson's mind; this the realization of the dark thought which I had
imperfectly read in the sinister glances of his restless eyes. He had
intended to destroy both the husband and wife--the one by poison, and
the other by the law! Doubtless, then, the £1500 had been obtained, and
this was the wretched man's infernal device for retaining it! I went
over with Morgan early the next morning to see the patient, and found
that, thanks to the prompt antidote administered, and Dr. Edwards's
subsequent active treatment, he was rapidly recovering. The
still-suffering young man, I was glad to find, would not believe for a
moment in his wife's guilt. I watched the looks and movements of Jackson
attentively--a scrutiny which he, now aware of my vocation, by no means
appeared to relish.
"Pray," said I, suddenly addressing Riddet, the woman-servant--"pray,
how did it happen that you had no soap in such a house as this yesterday
evening?"
"No soap!" echoed the woman with a stare of surprise. "Why"--
"No--no soap," hastily broke in her master with loud and menacing
emphasis. "There was not a morsel in the house. I bought some afterwards
in Farnham."
The cowed and bewildered woman slunk away. I was more than satisfied;
and judging by Jackson's countenance, which changed beneath my look to
the color of the lime-washed wall against which he stood, he surmised
that I was.
My conviction, however, was not evidence, and I felt that I should need
even more than my wonted good fortune to bring the black crime home to
the real perpetrator. For the present, at all events, I must keep
silence--a resolve I found hard to persist in at the examination of the
accused wife, an hour or two afterwards, before the county magistrates.
Jackson had hardened himself to iron, and gave his lying evidence with
ruthless self-possession. He had _not_ desired Mrs. Rogers to purchase
sulphuric acid; had _not_ received any from her. In addition also to his
testimony that she and her husband were always quarrelling, it was
proved by a respectable person that high words had passed between them
on the evening previous to the day the criminal offence was committed,
and _that_ foolish, passionate expressions had escaped her about wishing
to be rid of such a drunken wretch. This evidence, combined with the
medical testimony, appeared so conclusive to the magistrates that spite
of the unfortunate woman's wild protestations of innocence, and the
rending agony which convulsed her frame, and almost choked her
utterance, she was remanded to prison till that day week, when, the
magistrates informed her, she would be again brought up for the merely
formal completion of the depositions, and be then fully committed on the
capital charge.
I was greatly disturbed, and walked for two or three hours about the
quiet neighborhood of Farnham, revolving a hundred fragments of schemes
for bringing the truth to light, without arriving at any feasible
conclusion. One only mode of procedure seemed to offer, and that but
dimly, a hope of success. It was, however, the best I could hit upon,
and I directed my steps towards the Farnham orison. Sarah Purday had not
yet, I remembered, been removed to the county jail at Guilford.
"Is Sarah Purday," I asked the turnkey, "more reconciled to her position
than she was?"
"She's just the same--bitter as gall, and venomous as a viper."
This woman, I should state, was a person of fierce will and strong
passions, and in early life had been respectably situated.
"Just step into her cell," I continued, "upon some excuse or other, and
carelessly drop a hint that if she could prevail upon Jackson to get her
brought by _habeas_ before a judge in London, there could be no doubt
of her being bailed."
The man stared, but after a few words of pretended explanation, went off
to do as I requested. He was not long gone. "She's all in a twitteration
at the thoughts of it," he said; "and must have pen, ink, and paper
without a moment's delay, bless her consequence!"
These were supplied; and I was soon in possession of her letter, couched
cautiously, but more peremptorily than the former one. I need hardly say
it did not reach its destination. She passed the next day in a state of
feverish impatience; and no answer returning, wrote again, her words
this time conveying an evident though indistinct threat. I refrained
from visiting her till two days had thus passed, and found her, as I
expected, eaten up with fury. She glared at me as I entered the cell
like a chained tigress.
"You appear vexed," I said, "no doubt because Jackson declines to get
you bailed. He ought not to refuse you such a trifling service,
considering all things."
"All what things?" replied the woman, eyeing me fiercely.
"That you know best, though I have a shrewd guess."
"What do you guess? and what are you driving at?"
"I will deal frankly with you, Sarah Purday. In the first place, you
must plainly perceive that your _friend_ Jackson has cast you
off--abandoned you to your fate; and that fate will, there can be no
doubt, be transportation."
"Well," she impatiently snarled, "suppose so; what then?"
"This--that you can help yourself in this difficulty by helping me."
"As how?"
"In the first place, give me the means of convicting Jackson of having
received the stolen property."
"Ha! How do you know that?"
"Oh, I know it very well--as well almost as you do. But this is not my
chief object; there is another, far more important one," and I ran over
the incidents relative to the attempt at poisoning. "Now," I resumed,
"tell me, if you will, your opinion on this matter."
"That it was Jackson administered the poison, and certainly not the
young woman," she replied, with vengeful promptness.
"My own conviction! This, then, is my proposition: you are sharp-witted,
and know this fellow's ways, habits, and propensities thoroughly--I,
too, have heard something of them--and it strikes me that you could
suggest some plan, some device grounded on that knowledge, whereby the
truth might come to light."
The woman looked fixedly at me for some time without speaking. As I
meant fairly and honestly by her I could bear her gaze without
shrinking.
"Supposing I could assist you," she at last said, "how would that help
me?"
"It would help you greatly. You would no doubt be still convicted of the
burglary, for the evidence is irresistible; but if in the mean time you
should have been instrumental in saving the life of an innocent person,
and of bringing a great criminal to justice, there cannot be a question
that the Queen's mercy would be extended to you, and the punishment be
merely a nominal one."
"If I were sure of that!" she murmured, with a burning scrutiny in her
eyes, which were still fixed upon my countenance; "if I were sure of
that! But you are misleading me."
"Believe me, I am not. I speak in perfect sincerity. Take time to
consider the matter. I will look in again in about an hour; and pray, do
not forget that it is your sole and last chance."
I left her, and did not return till more than three hours had passed
away. Sarah Purday was pacing the cell in a frenzy of inquietude.
"I thought you had forgotten me. Now," she continued with rapid
vehemence, "tell me, on your word and honor as a man, do you truly
believe that if I can effectually assist you it will avail me with Her
Majesty?"
"I am as positive it will as I am of my own life."
"Well, then, I _will_ assist you. First, then, Jackson was a confederate
with Dawkins and myself, and received the plate and jewelry, for which
he paid us less than one-third of the value."
"Rogers and his wife were not, I hope, cognizant of this?"
"Certainly not; but Jackson's wife and the woman-servant, Riddet, were.
I have been turning the other business over in my mind," she continued,
speaking with increasing emotion and rapidity; "and oh, believe me, Mr.
Waters, if you can, that it is not solely a selfish motive which induces
me to aid in saving Mary Rogers from destruction. I was once myself--Ah
God!"
Tears welled up to the fierce eyes, but they were quickly brushed away,
and she continued somewhat more calmly: "You have heard, I dare say,
that Jackson has a strange habit of talking in his sleep?"
"I have, and that he once consulted Morgan as to whether there was any
cure for it. It was that which partly suggested--"
"It is, I believe, a mere fancy of his," she interrupted; "or at any
rate the habit is not so frequent, nor what he says so intelligible, as
he thoroughly believes and fears it, from some former circumstances, to
be. His deaf wife cannot undeceive him, and he takes care never even to
doze except in her presence only."
"This is not, then, so promising as I hoped."
"Have patience. It is full of promise, as we will manage. Every evening
Jackson frequents a low gambling-house, where he almost invariably wins
small sums at cards--by craft, no doubt, as he never drinks there. When
he returns home at about ten o'clock, his constant habit is to go into
the front parlor, where his wife is sure to be sitting at that hour. He
carefully locks the door, helps himself to brandy and water--plentifully
of late--and falls asleep in his arm-chair; and there they both doze
away, sometimes till one o'clock--always till past twelve."
"Well; but I do not see how--"
"Hear me out, if you please. Jackson never wastes a candle to drink or
sleep by, and at this time of the year there will be no fire. If he
speaks to his wife he does not expect her, from her wooden deafness, to
answer him. Do you begin to perceive my drift?"
"Upon my word, I do not."
"What; if upon awaking, Jackson finds that his wife is Mr. Waters, and
that Mr. Waters relates to him all that he has disclosed in his sleep:
that Mr. Hursley's plate is buried in the garden near the lilac-tree;
that he, Jackson, received a thousand pounds six weeks ago of Henry
Rogers's fortune, and that the money is now in the recess on the
top-landing, the key of which is in his breast-pocket; that he was the
receiver of the plate stolen from a house in the close at Salisbury a
twelvemonth ago, and sold in London for four hundred and fifty pounds.
All this hurled at him," continued the woman with wild energy and
flashing eyes, "what else might not a bold, quick-witted man make him
believe he had confessed, revealed in his brief sleep?"
I had been sitting on a bench; but as these rapid disclosures burst from
her lips, and I saw the use to which they might be turned, I rose slowly
and in some sort involuntarily to my feet, lifted up, as it were, by the
energy of her fiery words.
"God reward you," I exclaimed, shaking both her hands in mine. "You
have, unless I blunder, rescued an innocent woman from the scaffold. I
see it all. Farewell!"
"Mr. Waters," she exclaimed, in a changed, palpitating voice, as I was
passing forth; "when all is done, you will not forget me?"
"That I will not, by my own hopes of mercy in the hereafter. Adieu!"
At a quarter past nine that evening I, accompanied by two Farnham
constables, knocked at the door of Jackson's house. Henry Rogers, I
should state, had been removed to the village. The door was opened by
the woman servant, and we went in. "I have a warrant for your arrest,
Jane Riddet," I said, "as an accomplice in the plate-stealing the other
day. There, don't scream, but listen to me." I then intimated the terms
upon which alone she could expect favor. She tremblingly promised
compliance; and after placing the constables outside, in concealment,
but within hearing, I proceeded to the parlor, secured the terrified old
woman, and confined her safely in a distant out-house.
"Now, Riddet," I said, "quick with one of the old lady's gowns, a shawl,
cap, _et cetera_." These were brought, and I returned to the parlor. It
was a roomy apartment, with small, diamond-paned windows, and just then
but very faintly illuminated by the star-light. There were two large
high-backed easy-chairs, and I prepared to take possession of the one
recently vacated by Jackson's wife. "You must perfectly understand,"
were my parting words to the trembling servant, "that we intend standing
no nonsense with either you or your master. You cannot escape; but if
you let Mr. Jackson in as usual, and he enters this room as usual, no
harm will befall you: if otherwise, you will be unquestionably
transported. Now, go."
My toilet was not so easily accomplished as I thought it would be. The
gown did not meet at the back by about a foot; that, however, was of
little consequence, as the high chair concealed the deficiency; neither
did the shortness of the sleeves matter much, as the ample shawl could
be made to hide my too great length of arm; but the skirt was scarcely
lower than a Highlander's, and how the deuce I was to crook my booted
legs up out of view, even in that gloomy starlight, I could hardly
imagine. The cap also was far too small; still, with an ample kerchief
in my hand, my whiskers might, I thought, be concealed. I was still
fidgeting with these arrangements when Jackson knocked at his door. The
servant admitted him without remark, and he presently entered the room,
carefully locked the door, and jolted down, so to speak, in the fellow
easy-chair to mine.
He was silent for a few moments, and then he bawled out: "She'll swing
for it, they say--swing for it, d'ye hear, dame? But no, of course she
don't--deafer and deafer, deafer and deafer every day. It'll be a
precious good job when the parson says his last prayers over her, as
well as others."
He then got up, and went to a cupboard. I could hear--for I dared not
look up--by the jingling of glasses and the outpouring of liquids that
he was helping himself to his spirituous sleeping-draughts. He reseated
himself, and drank in moody silence, except now and then mumbling
drowsily to himself, but in so low a tone that I could make nothing out
of it save an occasional curse or blasphemy. It was nearly eleven
o'clock before the muttered self-communing ceased, and his heavy head
sank upon the back of the easy-chair. He was very restless, and it was
evident that even his sleeping brain labored with affrighting and
oppressive images; but the mutterings, as before he slept, were confused
and indistinct. At length--half an hour had perhaps thus passed--the
troubled meanings became for a few moments clearly audible.
"Ha--ha--ha!" he burst out, "how are you off for soap? Ho--ho! done
there, my boy; ha--ha! But no--no. Wall plaster! Who could have thought
it? But for that I--I--What do you stare at me so for, you infernal
blue-bottle? You--you--" Again the dream-utterance sank into
indistinctness, and I comprehended nothing more.
About half-past twelve o'clock he awoke, rose, stretched himself, and
said: "Come, dame, let's to bed; it's getting chilly here."
"Dame" did not answer, and he again went towards the cupboard. "Here's a
candle-end will do for us," he muttered. A lucifer-match was drawn
across the wall, he lit the candle, and stumbled towards me, for he was
scarcely yet awake. "Come, dame, come! Why, thee beest sleeping like a
dead un! Wake up, will thee--Ah! murder! thieves! mur"--
My grasp was on the wretch's throat; but there was no occasion to use
force: he recognized me, and nerveless, paralyzed, sank on the floor
incapable of motion much less of resistance, and could only gaze in my
face in dumb affright and horror.
"Give me the key of the recess up stairs, which you carry in your breast
pocket. In your sleep, unhappy man, you have revealed every thing."
An inarticulate shriek of terror replied to me. I was silent; and
presently he gasped: "Wha--at, what have I said?"
"That Mr. Hursley's plate is buried in the garden by the lilac-tree;
that you have received a thousand pounds belonging to the man you tried
to poison; that you netted four hundred and fifty pounds by the plate
stolen at Salisbury; that you dexterously contrived, to slip the
sulphuric acid into the tea unseen by Henry Rogers's wife."
The shriek or scream was repeated, and he was for several moments
speechless with consternation. A ray of hope gleamed suddenly in his
flaming eyes. "It is true--it is true!" he hurriedly ejaculated;
"useless--useless--useless to deny it. But you are alone, and poor,
poor, no doubt. A thousand pounds!--more, more than that: _two_ thousand
pounds in gold--gold, all in gold--I will give you to spare me, to let
me escape!"
"Where did you hide the soap on the day when you confess you tried to
poison Henry Rogers?"
"In the recess you spoke of. But think! Two thousand pounds in gold--all
in gold--"
As he spoke, I suddenly grasped the villain's hands, pressed them
together, and in another instant the snapping of a handcuff pronounced
my answer. A yell of anguish burst from the miserable man, so loud and
piercing, that the constables outside hurried to the outer-door, and
knocked hastily for admittance. They were let in by the servant-woman;
and in half an hour afterwards the three prisoners--Jackson, his wife,
and Jane Riddet--were safe in Farnham prison.
A few sentences will conclude this narrative. Mary Rogers was brought up
on the following day, and, on my evidence, discharged. Her husband, I
have heard, has since proved a better and a wiser man. Jackson was
convicted at the Guilford assize of guiltily receiving the Hursley
plate, and sentenced to transportation for life. This being so, the
graver charge of attempting to poison was not pressed. There was no
moral doubt of his guilt; but the legal proof of it rested solely on his
own hurried confession, which counsel would no doubt have contended
ought not to be received. His wife and the servant were leniently dealt
with.
Sarah Purday was convicted, and sentenced to transportation. I did not
forget my promise; and a statement of the previously-narrated
circumstances having been drawn up and forwarded to the Queen and the
Home Secretary, a pardon, after some delay, was issued. There were
painful circumstances in her history which, after strict inquiry, told
favorably for her. Several benevolent persons interested themselves in
her behalf, and she was sent out to Canada, where she had some
relatives, and has, I believe, prospered there.
This affair caused considerable hubbub at the time, and much admiration
was expressed by the country people at the boldness and dexterity of the
London "runner;" whereas, in fact, the successful result was entirely
attributable to the opportune revelations of Sarah Purday.
From the North British Review.
JOHN OWEN AT OXFORD.[I]
Two hundred years ago the Puritan dwelt in Oxford; but, before his
arrival, both Cavalier and Roundhead soldiers had encamped in its
Colleges. Sad was the trace of their sojourn. From the dining-halls the
silver tankards had vanished, and the golden candlesticks of the
cathedral lay buried in a neighboring field. Stained windows were
smashed, and the shrines of Bernard and Frideswide lay open to the
storm. And whilst the heads of marble apostles, mingling with
cannonballs and founders' coffins, formed a melancholy rubbish in many a
corner, straw heaps on the pavement and staples in the wall, reminded
the spectator that it was not long since dragoons had quartered in
All-Souls, and horses crunched their oats beneath the tower of St. Mary
Magdalene.
However, matters again are mending. Broken windows are repaired; lost
revenues are recovered; and the sons of Crispin have evacuated chambers
once more consecrated to syntax and the syllogism. Through these
spacious courts we recognize the progress of the man who has
accomplished the arduous restoration. Tall, and in the prime of life,
with cocked-hat and powdered hair, with lawn tops to his morocco boots,
and with ribbons luxuriant at his knee, there is nothing to mark the
Puritan,--whilst in his easy unembarrassed movements and kindly-assuring
air, there is all which bespeaks the gentleman; but, were it not for the
reverences of obsequious beadles and the recognitions of respectful
students, you would scarce surmise the academic dignitary. That
old-fashioned divine,--his square cap and ruff surmounting the doctor's
gown,--with whom he shakes hands so cordially, is a Royalist and
Prelatist, but withal the Hebrew Professor, and the most famous
Orientalist in England, Dr. Edward Pocock. From his little parish of
Childry, where he passes for "no Latiner," and is little prized, he has
come up to deliver his Arabic lecture, and collate some Syriac
manuscript, and observe the progress of the fig-tree which he fetched
from the Levant; and he feels not a little beholden to the
Vice-Chancellor, who, when the Parliamentary triers had pronounced him
incompetent, interfered and retained him in his living. Passing the gate
of Wadham he meets the upbreaking of a little conventicle. That no
treason has been transacting nor any dangerous doctrine propounded, the
guardian of the University has ample assurance in the presence of his
very good friends, Dr. Wallis the Savilian Professor, and Dr. Wilkins
the Protector's brother-in-law. The latter has published a dissertation
on the Moon and its Inhabitants, "with a discourse concerning the
possibility of a passage thither;" and the former, a mighty
mathematician, during the recent war had displayed a terrible ingenuity
in deciphering the intercepted letters of the Royalists. Their companion
is the famous physician Dr. Willis, in whose house, opposite the
Vice-Chancellor's own door, the Oxford Prelatists daily assemble to
enjoy the forbidden Prayer-Book; and the youth who follows, building
castles in the air, is Christopher Wren. This evening they had met to
witness some experiments which the tall, sickly gentleman in the velvet
cloak had promised to show them. The tall sickly gentleman is the
Honorable Robert Boyle, and the instrument with which he has been
amusing his brother sages, in their embryo Royal Society, is the newly
invented air-pump. Little versant in their pursuits, though respectful
to their genius, after mutual salutations, the divine passes on and pays
an evening visit to his illustrious neighbor, Dr. Thomas Goodwin. In his
embroidered night-cap, and deep in the recesses of his dusky study, he
finds the recluse old President of Magdalene; and they sit and talk
together, and they pray together, till it strikes the hour of nine; and
from the great Tom Tower a summons begins to sound calling to Christ
Church cloisters the hundred and one students of the old foundation. And
returning to the Deanery, which Mary's cheerful management has
brightened into a pleasant home, albeit her own and her little
daughter's weeds are suggestive of recent sorrows, the doctor dives into
his library.
For the old misers it was pleasant to go down into their bullion vaults
and feel that they were rich enough to buy up all the town, with the
proud Earl in his mortgaged castle. And to many people there is a
peculiar satisfaction in the society of the great and learned; nor can
they forget the time when they talked to the great poet, or had a
moment's monopoly of Royalty. But--
"That place that doth contain
My books, the best companions, is to me
A glorious court, where hourly I converse
With the old sages and philosophers;
And sometimes for variety I confer
With kings and emperors, and weigh their counsels."
Not only is there the pleasant sense of property,--the rare editions,
and the wonderful bargains, and the acquisitions of some memorable
self-denial,--but there are grateful memories, and the feeling of a high
companionship. When it first arrived, yon volume kept its owner up all
night, and its neighbor introduced him to realms more delightful and
more strange than if he had taken Dr. Wilkins's lunarian journey. In
this biography, as in a magician's mirror, he was awed and startled by
foreshadowings of his own career; and, ever since he sat at the feet of
yonder sacred sage, he walks through the world with a consciousness,
blessed and not vainglorious, that his being contains an element shared
by few besides. And even those heretics inside the wires--like caged
wolves or bottled vipers--their keeper has come to entertain a certain
fondness for them, and whilst he detests the species, he would feel a
pang in parting with his own exemplars.
Now that the evening lamp is lit, let us survey the Doctor's library.
Like most of its coeval collections, its foundations are laid with
massive folios. These stately tomes are the Polyglotts of Antwerp and
Paris, the Critici Sacri and Poli Synopsis. The colossal theologians who
flank them, are Augustine and Jerome, Anselm and Aquinas, Calvin and
Episcopius, Ballarmine and Jansenius, Baronius and the Magdeburg
Centuriators,--natural enemies, here bound over to their good behavior.
These dark veterans are Jewish Rabbis,--Kimchi, Abarbanel, and, like a
row of rag-collectors, a whole Monmouth Street of rubbish,--behold the
entire Babylonian Talmud. These tall Socinians are the Polish brethren,
and the dumpy vellums overhead are Dutch divines. The cupboard contains
Greek and Latin manuscripts, and those spruce fashionables are Spencer,
and Cowley, and Sir William Davenant. And the new books which crown the
upper shelves, still uncut and fresh from the publisher, are the last
brochures of Mr. Jeremy Taylor and Mr. Richard Baxter.[J]
This night, however, the Doctor is intent on a new book nowise to his
mind. It is the "Redemption Redeemed" of John Goodwin. Its hydra-headed
errors have already drawn from the scabbard the sword of many an
orthodox Hercules on either side of the Tweed; and now, after a
conference with the other Goodwin, the Dean takes up a ream of
manuscript, and adds a finishing touch to his refutation.
At this period Dr. Owen would be forty years of age, for he was born in
1616. His father was minister of a little parish in Oxfordshire, and his
ancestors were princes in Wales; indeed, the genealogists claimed for
him a descent from King Caractacus. He himself was educated at Queen's
College, and, under the impulse of an ardent ambition, the young student
had fully availed himself of his academic privileges. For several years
he took no more sleep than four hours a-night, and in his eagerness for
future distinction he mastered all attainable knowledge, from
mathematics to music. But about the time of his reaching majority, all
his ambitious projects were suspended by a visitation of religious
earnestness. In much ignorance of the divine specific, his conscience
grew tender, and sin appeared exceeding sinful. It was at this
conjuncture that Archbishop Laud imposed on Oxford a new code of
statutes which scared away from the University the now scrupulous
scholar. Years of anxious thoughtfulness followed, partly filled up by
his duties as chaplain successively to Sir Robert Dormer and Lord
Lovelace, when about the year 1641 he had occasion to reside in London.
Whilst there he went one day to hear Edward Calamy; but instead of the
famous preacher there entered the pulpit a country minister, who, after
a fervent prayer, gave out for his text--"Why are ye fearful, O ye of
little faith?" The sermon was a very plain one, and Owen never
ascertained the preacher's name; but the perplexities with which he had
long been harassed disappeared, and in the joy of a discovered gospel
and an ascertained salvation, the natural energy of his character and
the vigor of his constitution found again their wonted play.
Soon after this happy change, his first publication appeared. It was a
"Display of Arminianism," and, attracting the attention of the
Parliamentary "Committee for purging the Church of Scandalous
Ministers," it procured for its author a presentation to the living of
Fordham, in Essex. This was followed by his translation to the more
important charge of Coggeshall, in the same county; and so rapidly did
his reputation rise, that besides being frequently called to preach
before the Parliament, he was, in 1649, selected by Cromwell as the
associate of his expedition to Ireland, and was employed in re-modelling
and resuscitating Trinity College, Dublin. Most likely it was owing to
the ability with which he discharged this service that he was appointed
Dean of Christ Church in 1651, and in the following year Vice-Chancellor
of Oxford. It was a striking incident to find himself thus brought back
to scenes which, fourteen years before, he had quitted amidst contempt
and poverty, and a little mind would have been apt to signalize the
event by a vainglorious ovation, or a vindictive retribution. But Owen
returned to Oxford in all the grandeur of a God-fearing magnanimity, and
his only solicitude was to fulfil the duties of his office. Although
himself an Independent, he promoted well qualified men to responsible
posts, notwithstanding their Presbyterianism or their Prelacy; and
although the law gave him ample powers to disperse them, he never
molested the liturgical meetings of his Episcopalian neighbors. From
anxiety to promote the spiritual welfare of the students, in addition to
his engagements as a Divinity lecturer and the resident head of the
University, along with Dr. Goodwin he undertook to preach, on alternate
Sabbaths, to the great congregation in St. Mary's. And such was the zeal
which he brought to bear on the studies and the secular interests of the
place, that the deserted courts were once more populous with ardent and
accomplished students, and in alumni like Sprat, and South, and Ken, and
Richard Cumberland, the Church of England received from Owen's Oxford
some of its most distinguished ornaments; whilst men like Philip Henry
and Joseph Alleine, went forth to perpetuate Owen's principles; and in
founding the English schools of metaphysics, architecture, and medicine,
Locke and Wren, and Sydenham taught the world that it was no misfortune
to have been the pupils of the Puritan. It would be pleasant to record
that Owen's generosity was reciprocated, and that if Oxford could not
recognize the Non-conformist, neither did she forget the Republican who
patronized the Royalists, and the Independent who befriended the
Prelatists. According to the unsuspected testimony of Grainger, and
Burnet, and Clarendon, the University was in a most flourishing
condition when it passed from under his control; but on the principle
which excludes Cromwell's statue from Westminster Palace, the
picture-gallery at Christ Church finds no place for the greatest of its
Deans.
The retirement into which he was forced by the Restoration was attended
with most of the hardships incident to an ejected minister, to which
were added sufferings and sorrows of his own. He never was in prison,
but he knew what it was to lead the life of a fugitive; and after making
a narrow escape from dragoons sent to arrest him, he was compelled to
quit his rural retreat, and seek a precarious refuge in the capital. In
1676 he lost his wife, but before this they had mingled their tears over
the coffins of ten out of their eleven children; and the only survivor,
a pious daughter, returned from the house of an unkind husband, to seek
beside her father all that was left of the home of her childhood. Soon
after he married again; but though the lady was good, and affectionate,
and rich withal, no comforts and no kind tending could countervail the
effects of bygone toils and privations, and from the brief remainder of
his days, weakness and anguish made many a mournful deduction. Still the
busy mind worked on. To the congregation, which had already shown at
once its patience and its piety, by listening to Caryl's ten quartos on
Job, and which was afterwards to have its patience farther tried and
rewarded, in the long but invalid incumbency of Isaac Watts, Dr. Owen
ministered as long as he was able; and, being a preacher who had
"something to say," it was cheering to him to recognize among his
constant attendants persons so intelligent and influential as the late
Protector's brother-in-law and son-in-law, Colonel Desborough and Lord
Charles Fleetwood, Sir John Hartopp, the Hon. Roger Boyle, Lady Abney,
and the Countess of Anglesea, and many other hearers who adorned the
doctrine which their pastor expounded, and whose expectant eagerness
gave zest to his studies, and animation to his public addresses. Besides
during all this interval, and to the number of more than thirty volumes,
he was giving to the world those masterly works which have invigorated
the theology and sustained the devotion of unnumbered readers in either
hemisphere. Amongst others, folio by folio, came forth that Exposition
of the Hebrews, which, amidst all its digressive prolixity, and with its
frequent excess of erudition, is an enduring monument of its author's
robust understanding and spiritual insight, as well as his astonishing
industry. At last the pen dropped from his band, and on the 23d of
August, 1683, he dedicated a note to his likeminded friend, Charles
Fleetwood: "I am going to him whom my soul has loved, or rather who has
loved me, with an everlasting love, which is the whole ground of all my
consolation. I am leaving the ship of the Church in a storm; but while
the great pilot is in it, the loss of a poor under-rower will be
inconsiderable. Live, and pray, and hope, and wait patiently, and do not
despond; the promise stands invincible--that he will never leave us nor
forsake us. My affectionate respects to your lady, and to the rest of
your relations, who are so dear to me in the Lord, remember your dying
friend with all fervency." The morrow after he had sent this touching
message to the representative of a beloved family was Bartholomew day,
the anniversary of the ejection of his two thousand brethren. That
morning a friend called to tell him that he had put to the press his
"Meditations on the Glory of Christ." There was a moment's gleam in his
languid eye, as he answered, "I am glad to hear it: but, O brother
Payne! the long wished for day is come at last, in which I shall see
that glory in another manner than I have ever done, or was capable of
doing in this world." A few hours of silence followed, and then that
glory was revealed. On the fourth of September, a vast funeral
procession, including the carriages of sixty-seven noblemen and
gentlemen, with long trains of mourning coaches and horsemen, took the
road to Finsbury; and there, in a new burying-ground, within a few paces
of Goodwin's grave, and near the spot where, five years later, John
Bunyan was interred, they laid the dust of Dr. Owen. His grave is with
us to this day; but in the crowded Golgotha, surrounded with
undertakers' sheds, and blind brick walls, with London cabs and
omnibuses whirling past the gate, few pilgrims can distinguish the
obliterated stone which marks the resting-place of the mighty
Non-conformist.[K]
Many of our readers will remember Robert Baillie's description of Dr.
Twiss, the Prolocutor of the Westminister Assembly: "The man, as the
world knows, is very learned in the questions he has studied, and very
good--beloved of all, and highly esteemed--but merely bookish ... and
among the unfittest of all the company for any action." In this respect
Dr. Owen was a great contrast to his studious contemporary; for he was
as eminent for business talent as most ministers are conspicuous for the
want of it. It was on this account that he was selected for the task of
reorganizing the universities of Dublin and Oxford; and the success with
which he fulfilled his commission, whilst it justified his patron's
sagacity, showed that he was sufficiently master of himself to become
the master of other minds. Of all his brethren few were so "fit for
action." To the same cause to which he owed this practical ascendency,
we are disposed to ascribe his popularity as a preacher; for we agree
with Dr. Thompson, (Life of Owen, p. cvi.,) in thinking that Owen's
power in the pulpit must have been greater than is usually surmised by
his modern readers. Those who knew him describe him as a singularly
fluent and persuasive speaker; and they also represent his social
intercourse as peculiarly vivacious and cheerful. From all which our
inference is, that Owen was one of those happy people who, whether for
business or study, whether for conversation or public speaking, can
concentrate all their faculties on the immediate occasion, and who do
justice to themselves and the world, by doing justice to each matter as
it successively comes to their hand.
A well-informed and earnest speaker will always be popular, if he be
tolerably fluent, and if he "shew himself friendly;" but no reputation
and no talent will secure an audience to the automaton who is
unconscious of his hearers, or to the misanthrope, who despises or
dislikes them. And if, as Anthony à Wood informs us, "the persuasion of
his oratory could move and wind the affections of his admiring auditory
almost as he pleased," we can well believe that he possessed the "proper
and comely personage, the graceful behavior in the pulpit, the eloquent
elocution, and the winning and insinuating deportment," which this
reluctant witness ascribes to him. With such advantages, we can
understand how, dissolved into a stream of continuous discourse, the
doctrines which we only know in their crystallized form of heads and
particulars, became a gladsome river; and how the man who spoke them
with sparkling eye and shining face was not shunned as a buckram pedant,
but run after as a popular preacher.
And yet, to his written style Owen is less indebted for his fame than
almost any of the Puritans. Not to mention that his works have never
been condensed into fresh pith and modern portableness by any congenial
Fawcett, they never did exhibit the pathetic importunity and Demosthenic
fervor of Baxter. In his Platonic loftiness Howe always dwelt apart; and
there have been no glorious dreams since Bunyan woke amidst the beatific
vision. Like a soft valley, where every turn reveals a cascade or a
castle, or at least a picturesque cottage, Flavel lures us along by the
vivid succession of his curious analogies and interesting stories;
whilst all the way the path is green with kind humanity, and bright with
Gospel blessedness. And like some sheltered cove, where the shells are
all so brilliant, and the sea-plants all so curious, that the young
naturalist can never leave off collecting, so profuse are the quaint
sayings and the nice little anecdotes which Thomas Brooks showers from
his "Golden Treasury," from his "Box," and his "Cabinet," that the
reader needs must follow where all the road is so radiant. But Owen has
no adventitious attractions. His books lack the extempore felicities and
the reflected fellow-feeling which lent a charm to his spoken sermons;
and on the table-land of his controversial treatises, sentence follows
sentence like a file of ironsides, in buff and rusty steel, a sturdy
procession, but a dingy uniform; and it is only here and there where a
son of Anak has burst his rags, that you glimpse a thought of uncommon
stature or wonderful proportions. Like candidates for the modern
ministry, in his youth Owen had learned to write Latin, Greek, and
Hebrew; but then, as now, English had no place in the academic
curriculum. And had he been urged in maturer life to study the art of
composition, most likely he would have frowned on his adviser. He would
have urged the "haste" which "the King's business" requires, and might
have reminded us that viands are as wholesome on a wooden trencher as on
a plate of gold. He would have told us that truth needs no tinsel, and
that the road over a bare heath may be more direct than the pretty
windings of the valley. Or, rather, he would have said, as he has
written--"Know that you have to do with a person who, provided his words
but clearly express the sentiments of his mind, entertains a fixed and
absolute disregard of all elegance and ornaments of speech."
True: gold is welcome even in a purse of the coarsest canvas; and,
although it is not in such caskets that people look for gems, no man
would despise a diamond because he found it in an earthen porringer. In
the treatises of Owen there is many a sentence which, set in a sermon,
would shine like a brilliant; and there are ingots enough to make the
fortune of a theological faculty. For instance, we open the first
treatise in this new collection of his works, and we read:--"It carrieth
in it a great condecency unto Divine wisdom, that man should be restored
unto the image of God, by Him who was the essential image of the Father;
and that He was made like unto us, that we might be made like unto Him,
and unto God through him;" and we are immediately reminded of a recent
treatise on the Incarnation, and all its beautiful speculation regarding
the "Pattern-Man." We read again till we come to the following
remark:--"It is the nature of sincere goodness to give a delight and
complacency unto the mind in the exercise of itself, and communication
of its effects. A good man doth both delight in doing good, and hath an
abundant reward _for_ the doing it, _in_ the doing of it;" and how can
we help recalling a memorable sermon "On the Immediate Reward of
Obedience," and a no less memorable chapter in a Bridgewater treatise,
"On the Inherent Pleasure of the Virtuous Affections?" And we read the
chapter on "The Person of Christ the great Representative of God," and
are startled by its foreshadowings of the sermons and the spiritual
history of a remarkably honest and vigorous thinker, who, from doubting
the doctrine of the Trinity, was led to recognize in the person of Jesus
Christ the Alpha and Omega of his theology. It is possible that
Archdeacon Wilberforce, and Chalmers, and Arnold, may never have perused
the treatise in question; and it is equally possible that under the
soporific influence of a heavy style, they may never have noticed
passages for which their own minds possessed such a powerful affinity.
But by the legitimate expedient of appropriate language--perhaps by
means of some "ornament or elegance"--Jeremy Taylor or Barrow would have
arrested attention to such important thoughts; and the cause of truth
would have gained, had the better divine been at least an equal orator.
However, there are "masters in Israel," whose style has been remarkably
meagre; and perhaps "Edwards on the Will" and "Butler's Analogy," would
not have numbered many more readers, although they had been composed in
the language of Addison. We must, therefore, notice another obstacle
which has hindered our author's popularity, and it is a fault of which
the world is daily becoming more and more intolerant. That fault is
prolixity. Dr. Owen did not take time to be brief; and in his polemical
writings, he was so anxious to leave no cavil unanswered, that he spent,
in closing loop-holes, the strength which would have crushed the foe in
open battle. No misgiving as to the champion's powers will ever cross
the mind of the spectators; but movements more rapid would render the
conflict more interesting, and the victory not less conclusive.[L] In
the same way, that the effectiveness of his controversial works is
injured by this excursive tendency, so the practical impression of his
other works is too often suspended by inopportune digressions; whilst
every treatise would have commanded a wider circulation if divested of
its irrelevant incumbrances. Within the entire range of British
authorship there exists no grander contributions toward a systematic
Christology than the Exposition of the Hebrews, with its dissertations
on the Saviour's priesthood; but whilst there are few theologians who
have not occasionally consulted it, those are still fewer who have
mastered its ponderous contents; and we have frequently known valiant
students who addressed themselves to the "Perseverance of the Saints,"
or the "Justification," but like settlers put ashore in a cane-brake, or
in a jungle of prickly pears, after struggling for hours through the
Preface or the General Considerations, they were glad to regain the
water's edge, and take to their boat once more.
It was their own loss, however, that they did not reach the interior;
for there they would have found themselves in the presence of one of the
greatest of Theological intellects. Black and Cavendish were born
ready-made chemists, and Linnæus and Cuvier were naturalists, in spite
of themselves; and so, there is a mental conformation which almost
necessitated Augustine and Athanasius, Calvin and Arminius, to be
dogmatists and systematic divines. With the opposite aptitudes for large
generalization and subtile distinction, as soon as some master-principle
had gained possession of their devout understandings, they had no
greater joy than to develop its all-embracing applications, and they
sought to subjugate Christendom to its imperial ascendency. By itself,
the habit of lofty contemplation would have made them pietists or
Christian psalmists, and a mere turn for definition would have made them
quibblers or schoolmen; but the two united, and together animated by a
strenuous faith, made them theologians. In such intellects the
seventeenth century abounded, but we question if in dialectic skill,
guided by sober judgment, and in extensive acquirements, mellowed by a
deep spirituality, it yielded an equivalent to Dr. Owen.
Although there is only one door to the kingdom of heaven, there is many
an entrance to scientific divinity. There is the gate of Free Inquiry as
well as the gate of Spiritual Wistfulness. And although there are
exceptional instances, on the whole we can predict what school the
new-comer will join, by knowing the door through which he entered. If
from the wide fields of speculation he has sauntered inside the sacred
inclosure; if he is an historian who has been carried captive by the
documentary demonstration--or a poet who has been arrested by the
spiritual sentiment--or a philosopher who has been won over by the
Christian theory, and who has thus made a hale-hearted entrance within
the precincts of the faith,--he is apt to patronize that gospel to which
he has given his accession, and like Clemens Alexandrinus, or Hugo
Grotius, or Alphonse de Lamartine, he will join that school where Taste
and Reason alternate with Revelation, and where ancient classics and
modern sages are scarcely subordinate to the "men who spake as they were
moved by the Holy Ghost." On the other hand, if "fleeing from the wrath
to come," through the crevice of some "faithful saying," he has
struggled into enough of knowledge to calm his conscience and give him
peace with Heaven, the oracle which assured his spirit will be to him
unique in its nature and supreme in its authority, and, a debtor to that
scheme to which he owes his very self, like Augustine, and Cowper, and
Chalmers, he will join that school where Revelation is absolute, and
where "Thus saith the Lord" makes an end of every matter. And without
alleging that a long process of personal solicitude is the only right
commencement of the Christian life, it is worthy of remark that the
converts whose Christianity has thus commenced have usually joined that
theological school which, in "salvation-work," makes least account of
man and most account of God. Jeremy Taylor, and Hammond, and Barrow,
were men who made religion their business; but still they were men who
regarded religion as a life _for_ God rather than a life _from_ God, and
in whose writings recognitions of Divine mercy and atonement and
strengthening grace are comparatively faint and rare. But Bolton, and
Bunyan, and Thomas Goodwin, were men who from a region of carelessness
or ignorance were conducted through a long and darkling labyrinth of
self-reproach and inward misery, and by a way which they knew not were
brought out at last on a bright landing-place of assurance and praise;
and, like Luther in the previous century, and like Halyburton, and
Whitefield, and Jonathan Edwards, in the age succeeding, the strong
sense of their own demerit led them to ascribe the happy change from
first to last to the sovereign grace and good Spirit of God. It was in
deep contrition and much anguish of soul that Owen's career began; and
that creed, which is pre-eminently the religion of "broken hearts,"
became his system of theology.
"Children, live like Christians; I leave you the covenant to feed upon."
Such was the dying exhortation of him who protected so well England and
the Albigenses; and "the convenant" was the food with which the devout
heroic lives of that godly time were nourished. This covenant was the
sublime staple of Owen's theology. It suggested topics for his
parliamentary sermons;--"A Vision of Unchangeable Mercy," and "The
Steadfastness of Promises." It attracted him to that book of the Bible
in which the federal economy is especially unfolded. And,
whether discoursing on the eternal purposes, or the extent of
redemption--whether expounding the Mediatorial office, or the work of
the sanctifying Spirit--branches of this tree of life re-appear in every
treatise. In such discussions some may imagine that there can be nothing
but barren speculation, or, at the best, an arduous and transcendental
theosophy. However, when they come to examine for themselves they will
be astonished at the mass of Scriptural authority on which they are
based; and, unless we greatly err, they will find them peculiarly
subservient to correction and instruction in righteousness. Many writers
have done more for the details of Christian conduct; but for purposes of
heart-discipline and for the nurture of devout affections, there is
little uninspired authorship equal to the more practical publications of
Owen. In the Life of that noble-hearted Christian philosopher, the late
Dr. Welsh, it is mentioned that in his latter days, besides the Bible,
he read nothing but "Owen on Spiritual-Mindedness," and the "Olney
Hymns;" and we shall never despair of the Christianity of a country
which finds numerous readers for his "Meditations on the Glory of
Christ," and his "Exposition of the hundred and thirtieth Psalm."
And here we may notice a peculiarity of Owen's treatises, which is at
once an excellence and a main cause of their redundancies. So systematic
was his mind that he could only discuss a special topic with reference
to the entire scheme of truth; and so constructive was his mind, that,
not content with the confutation of his adversary, he loved to state and
establish positively the truth impugned: to which we may add, so devout
was his disposition, that, instead of leaving his thesis a dry
demonstration, he was anxious to suffuse its doctrine with those
spiritual charms which it wore to his own contemplation. All this adds
to the bulk of his polemical writings. At the same time it adds to their
value. Dr. Owen makes his reader feel that the point in debate is not an
isolated dogma, but a part of the "whole counsel of God;" and by the
positive as well as practical form in which he presents it, he does all
which a disputant can to counteract the skeptical and pragmatical
tendencies of religious controversy. Hence, too, it comes to pass that,
with one of the commonplaces of Protestantism or Calvinism for
a nucleus, his works are most of them virtual systems of
doctrino-practical divinity.
The alluvial surface of a country takes its complexion from the
prevailing rock-formation. The Essays of Foster, and the Sermons of
Chalmers excepted, the evangelical theology of the last hundred years
has been chiefly alluvial; and in its miscellaneous composition the
element which we chiefly recognize is a detritus from Mount Owen. To be
sure, a good deal of it is the decomposition of a more recent
conglomerate, but a conglomerate in which larger boulders of the
original formation are still discernible. The sermon-makers of the
present day may read Cecil and Romaine and Andrew Fuller; and in doing
this they are studying the men who studied Owen. But why not study the
original? It does good to an ordinary understanding to hold fellowship
with a master mind; and it would greatly freshen the ministrations of
our pulpits, if, with the electric eye of modern culture, and with minds
alive to our modern exigency, preachers held converse direct with the
prime sources of British theology. We could imagine the reader of Boston
producing a sermon as good as Robert Walker's, and the reader of Henry
producing a commentary as good as Thomas Scott's, and the reader of
Bishop Hall producing sketches as good as the "Horæ Homileticæ:" but we
grow sleepy when we try to imagine Scott diluted or Walker desiccated,
and from a congregation top-dressed with bone-dust from the "Skeletons,"
the crop we should expect would be neither fervent Christians nor
enlightened Churchmen. And, even so, a reproduction of the men who have
repeated or translated Owen, is sure to be commonplace and feeble; but
from warm hearts and active intellects employed on Owen himself, we
could expect a multitude of new Cecils and Romaines and Fullers.
As North British Reviewers, we congratulate our country on having
produced this beautiful reprint of the illustrious Puritan; and from the
fact that they have offered it at a price which has introduced it to
four thousand libraries, we must regard the publishers as benefactors to
modern theology. The editor has consecrated all his learning and all his
industry to his labor of love; and, by all accounts, the previous copies
needed a reviser as careful and as competent as Mr. Goold. Dr.
Thompson's memoir of the author we have read with singular pleasure. It
exhibits much research, and a fine appreciation of Dr. Owen's
characteristic excellencies, and its tone is kind and catholic. Such
reprints, rightly used, will be a new era in our Christian literature.
They can scarcely fail to intensify the devotion and invigorate the
faculties of such as read them. And if these readers be chiefly
professed divines, the people will in the long-run reap the benefit. Let
taste and scholarship and eloquence by all means do their utmost; but it
is little which these can do without materials. The works of Owen are an
exhaustless magazine; and, without forgetting the source whence they
were themselves supplied, there is many an empty mill which their garner
could put into productive motion. Like the gardens of Malta, many a
region, now bald and barren, might be rendered fair and profitable with
loam imported from their Holy Land; and many is the fair structure which
might be reared from a single block of their cyclopean masonry.
FOOTNOTES:
[I] _The Works of John Owen, D.D._ Edited by the Rev. WILLIAM H. GOOLD,
Edinburgh. Vols. 1, 2, 5, 6, 8, 9, 14, (to be completed in Fifteen
Volumes.) London and Edinburgh. 1850-51. New-York, Carter & Brother,
1852.
[J] In his elaborate "Memoirs of Dr. Owen," (p. 345.) Mr. Orme mentions
that "his library was sold in May, 1684, by Millington, one of the
earliest of our book auctioneers;" and adds, "considering the doctor's
taste as a reader, his age as a minister, and his circumstances as a
man, his library, in all probability, would be both extensive and
valuable." Then, in a foot note, he gives some interesting particulars
as to the extent of the early No-conformist libraries, viz., Dr. Lazarus
Seaman's, which sold for £700; Dr. Jacomb's, which sold for £1300; Dr.
Bates's, which was bought for five or six hundred pounds by Dr.
Williams, in order to lay the foundation of Red Cross Street library;
and Dr. Evans's, which contained 10,000 volumes; again subjoining, "It
is probable Dr. Owen's was not inferior to some of these." It would have
gratified the biographer had he known that a catalogue of Owen's library
is still in existence. Bound up with other sale-catalogues in the
Bodleian, is the "Bibliotheca Oweniana; sive catalogus librorum plurimis
facultatibus insignium, instructissimæ Bibliothecæ Rev. Doct. Viri D.
Joan. Oweni (quondam Vice-Cancellarii et Decani Ædis Christi in Academia
Oxoniensi) nuperrime defuncti; cum variis manuscriptis Græcis Latinis,
&c., propria manu Doct. Patricii Junii aliorumq. conscriptis: quorum
auctio habebitur Londini apud domum auctionariam, adverso Nigri Cygni in
vico vulgo dicto Ave Mary Lane, prope Ludgate Street, vicesimo sexto die
Maii, 1684. Per Eduardum Millington, Bibliopolam." In the Preface, the
auctioneer speaks of Dr. Owen as "a person so generally known as a
generous buyer and great collector of the best books;" and after
adverting to his copies of Fathers, Councils, Church Histories, and
Rabbinical Authors, he adds, "all which considered together, perhaps for
their number are not to be paralleled, or upon any terms to be procured,
when gentlemen are desirous of, or have a real occasion for the perusal
of them." The number of volumes is 2889. For the knowledge of the
existence of this catalogue, and for a variety of curious particulars
regarding it, the Reviewer is indebted to one of the dignitaries of
Oxford, whose bibliographical information is only exceeded by the
obligingness with which he puts it at the command of others, the Rev.
Dr. Macbride, Principal of Magdalene Hall.
[K] A copious Latin epitaph was inscribed on his tombstone, of which Mr.
Orme speaks, in 1826, as "still in fine preservation." (Memoirs, p.
346.) We are sorry to say that three letters, faintly traceable, are all
that can now be deciphered. The tomb of his illustrious colleague,
Goodwin, is in a still more deplorable condition: not only is the
inscription effaced, but the marble slab, having been split with
lightning, has never been repaired.
[L] In his delightful reminiscences of Dr. Chalmers, Mr. J. J. Gurney
says, "I often think that particular men bear about with them an analogy
to particular animals: Chalmers is like a good-tempered lion;
Wilberforce is like a bee." Dr. Owen often reminds us of an elephant;
the same ponderous movements--the same gentle sagacity--the same vast
but unobtrusive powers. With a logical proboscis able to handle the
heavy guns of Hugo Grotius, and to untwist withal the tangled threads of
Richard Baxter, in his encounters with John Goodwin he resembles his
prototype in a leopard-hunt, where sheer strength is on the one side,
and brisk ability on the other. And, to push our conceit no further,
they say that this wary animal will never venture over a bridge till he
has tried its strength, and is assured that it can bear him; and if we
except the solitary break-down in the Waltonian controversy, our
disputant was as cautious in choosing his ground as he was formidable
when once he took up his position.
JESSE LEE AND THE LAWYERS.
Jesse Lee, one of the first Methodist preachers in New England, combined
unresting energy, and sensibility, with an extraordinary propensity to
wit. Mr. Stephens, in his new work on the _Memorials of Methodism_,
gives the following specimen of Lee's _bonhommie_:
As he was riding on horseback one day, between Boston and Lynn, he was
overtaken by two young lawyers, who knew that he was a Methodist
preacher, and were disposed to amuse themselves somewhat at his expense.
Saluting him, and ranging their horses one on each side of him, they
entered in a conversation something like the following:--_First Lawyer._
I believe you are a preacher, sir? _Lee._ Yes; I generally pass for one.
_First lawyer._ You preach very often, I suppose? _Lee._ Generally every
day, frequently twice, or more. _Second Lawyer._ How do you find time to
study, when you preach so often? _Lee._ I study when riding, and read
when resting. _First Lawyer._ But you do not write your sermons? _Lee._
No; not very often. _Second Lawyer._ Do you not often make mistakes in
preaching extemporaneously? _Lee._ I do, sometimes. _Second Lawyer._ How
do you do then? Do you correct them? _Lee._ That depends upon the
character of the mistake. I was preaching the other day, and I went to
quote the text: "All liars shall have their part in the lake that
burneth with fire and brimstone;" and, by mistake, I said, "All
_lawyers_ shall have their part"--_Second Lawyer_ (interrupting him).
"What did you do with that? Did you correct it?" _Lee._ "Oh, no, indeed!
It was so nearly true, I didn't think it worth while to correct it."
"Humph!" said one of them, with a hasty and impatient glance at the
other; "I don't know whether you are the more knave or fool!" "Neither,"
he quietly replied, turning at the same time his mischievous eyes from
one to the other; "I believe I am just _between_ the two!"
Finding they were measuring wit with a master, and mortified at their
discomfiture, the knights of the green bag drove on, leaving the victor
to solitude and his own reflections.
ANNUARIES,
BY ALICE CAREY.
I.
A year has gone down silently
To the dark bosom of the Past,
Since I beneath this very tree
Sat hoping, fearing, dreaming, last.
Its waning glories, like a flame,
Are trembling to the wind's light touch--
All just a year ago the same,
And I--oh! I am changed so much!
The beauty of a wildering dream
Hung softly round declining day;
A star of all too sweet a beam
In Eve's flushed bosom trembling lay.
Changed in its aspect, yet the same,
Still climbs that star from sunset's glow,
But its embraces of pale flame
Clasp not the weary world from wo!
Another year shall I return,
And cross this solemn chapel floor,
While round me memory's shrine-lamps burn--
Or shall this pilgrimage be o'er?
One that I loved, grown faint with strife,
When drooped and died the tenderer bloom,
Folded the white tent of young life
For the pale army of the tomb.
The dry seeds dropping from their pods,
The hawthorn apples bright as dawn,
And the pale mullen's starless rods,
Were just as now a year agone.
But changed is every thing to me,
From the small flower to sunset's glow,
Since last I sat beneath this tree,
A year--a little year--ago.
I leaned against this broken bough,
This faded turf my footstep pressed;
But glad hopes that are not there now,
Lay softly trembling in my breast:
Trembling, for though the golden haze,
Rose, as the dead leaves drifted by,
As from the Vala of old days,
The mournful voice of prophecy.
Give woman's heart one triumph hour,
Even on the borders of the grave,
And thou hast given her strength and power
The saddest ills of life to brave.
Crush that far hope down, thou dost bring
To the poor bird the tempest's wrath,
Without the petrel's stormy wing
To beat the darkness from its path.
Once knowing mortal hope and fear,
Whate'er in heaven's sweet clime thou art,
Bend, pitying mother, softly near,
And save, O save me from my heart!
Be still pale-handed memory,
My knee is trembling on the sod,
The heir of immortality,
A child of the eternal God.
II.
When last year took her mournful flight,
With all her train of wo and ill,
As pale processions sweep at night
Across some lonesome burial hill--
My soul with sorrow for its mate,
And bowed with unrequited wrong,
Stood knocking at the starry gate
Of the wild wondrous realm of song.
For hope from my poor hert was gone,
With all the sheltering peace it gave,
And a dim twilight, stealing on,
Foretold the night-time of the grave.
Past is that time of dim unrest,
Hope reillumes its faded track,
And the soft hand of love has prest
Death's deep and awful shadows back.
A year agone, when wildly shrill
The wind sat singing on this bough,
The churchyard on the neighboring hill
Had not so many graves as now.
When the May-morn, with hand of light,
The clouds above her bosom drew,
And o'er the blue, cold steeps of night
Went treading out the stars like dew--
One, whose dear joy it had been ours
Two little summer times to keep,
Folded his white hands from the flowers,
And, softly smiling, fell asleep.
And when the northern light streamed cold
Across October's moaning blast,
One whose brief tarriance was foretold
All the sweet summer that was past,
Meekly unlocked from her young arms
The scarcely faded bridal crown,
And in death's fearful night of storms
The dim day of her life went down.
While still beneath the golden hours,
That like a roof the woods o'erspread,
Among the few and faded flowers,
Musing this idle rhyme I tread.
Above yon reach of level mist
Bright shines the cross-crowned spire afar,
As in the sky's clear amethyst
The splendor of some steadfast star.
And still beneath its steady light
The waves of time heave to and fro,
From night to day, from day to night,
As the dim seasons come and go.
Some eager for ambition's strife,
Some to love's banquet hurrying on,
Like pilgrims on the hills of life
We cross each other, and are gone.
But though our lives are little drops,
Welled from the infinite fount above,
Our deaths are but the mystic stops
In the great melody of love.
III.
Burying the basement of the skies
October's mists hang dull and red,
And with each wild gust's fall and rise,
The yellow leaves are round me spread.
'Tis the third autumn, ay, so long,
Since memory 'neath this very bough,
Thrilled my sad lyre strings into song--
What shall unlock their music now?
Then sang I of a sweet hope changed,
Of pale hands beckoning, glad health fled,
Of hearts grown careless or estranged,
Of friends, or living, lost, or dead.
O living lost, forever lost,
Your light still lingers, faint and far,
As if an awful shadow crossed
The bright disk of the morning star.
Blow, autumn, in thy wildest wrath,
Down from the northern woodlands, blow!
Drift the last wild-flowers from my path--
What care I for the summer now?
Yet shrink I, trembling and afraid,
From searching glances inward thrown;
What deep foundation have I laid,
For any joyance, not my own?
While with my poor, unskilful hands,
Half hopeful, half in vague alarm,
Building up walls of shining sands
That fell and faded with the storm,
E'en now my bosom shakes with fear,
Like the last leaflets of this bough,
For through the silence I can hear,
"Unprofitable servant, thou!"
Yet have there been, there are to-day
In spite of health, or hope's decline,
Fountains of beauty sealed away
From every mortal eye but mine.
Even dreams have filled my soul with light,
and on my way their beauty left,
As if the darkness of the night
Were by some planet's rising cleft.
And peace hath in my heart been born,
That shut from memory all life's ills,
In walking with the blue-eyed morn
Among the white mists of the hills.
And joyous, I have heard the wails
That heave the wild woods to and fro,
When autumn's crown of crimson pales
Beneath the winter's hand of snow.
Once, leaving all its lovely mates,
On yonder lightning-withered tree,
That vainly for the springtime waits,
A wild bird perched and sang for me.
And listening to the clear sweet strain
That came like sunshine o'er the day
My forehead's hot and burning pain,
Fell like a crown of thorns away.
But shadows from the western height
Are stretching to the valley low,
For through the cloudy gates of night
The day is passing, solemn, slow.
While o'er yon blue and rocky steep
The moon, half hidden in the mist,
Waits for the loving wind to keep
The promise of the twilight tryst--
Come thou, whose meek blue eyes divine,
What thou, and only thou canst see,
I wait to put my hand in thine--
What answer sendest thou to me?
Ah! thoughts of one whom helpless blight
Had pushed from all fair hope apart,
Making it thenceforth hers to fight
The stormy battles of the heart.
Well, I have no complaint of wrath,
And no reproaches for my doom;
Spring cannot blossom in thy path
So bright as I would have it bloom.
IV.
O sorrowful and faded years,
Gathered away a time ago,
How could your deaths the fount of tears
Have troubled to an overflow?
I muse upon the songs I made
Beneath the maple's yellow limbs,
When down the aisles of thin cold shade
Sounded the wild birds' farewell hymns.
But no sad spell my spirit binds
As when, in days on which it broods,
October hunted with the winds
Along the reddening sunset woods.
Alas, the seasons come and go,
Brightly or dimly rise and set
The days, but stir no fount of woe,
Nor kindle hope, nor wake regret.
I sit with the complaining night,
And underneath the waning moon,
As when the lilies large and white
Lay round the forehead of the June.
What time within a snowy grave
Closed the blue eyes so heavenly dear,
Darkness swept o'er me like a wave,
And time has nothing that I fear.
The golden wings of summer hours
Make to my heart a dirge-like sound,
The spring's sweet boughs of bridal flowers
Lie bright across a smooth-heaped mound.
What care I that I sing to-day
Where sound not the old plaintive hymns,
And where the mountains hide away
The sunset maple's yellow limbs?
From Blackwood's Magazine.
MY NOVEL:
OR, VARIETIES IN ENGLISH LIFE.[M]
BY PISISTRATUS CAXTON.
BOOK VIII.--CHAPTER IV.
With his hands behind him, and his head drooping on his breast--slow,
stealthy, noiseless, Randal Leslie glided along the streets on leaving
the Italian's house. Across the scheme he had before revolved, there
glanced another yet more glittering, for its gain might be more sure and
immediate. If the exile's daughter were heiress to such wealth, might he
himself hope--He stopped short even in his own soliloquy, and his breath
came quick. Now in his last visit to Hazeldean, he had come in contact
with Riccabocca, and been struck by the beauty of Violante. A vague
suspicion had crossed him that these might be the persons of whom the
Marchesa was in search, and the suspicion had been confirmed by
Beatrice's description of the refugee she desired to discover. But as he
had not then learned the reason for her inquiries, nor conceived the
possibility that he could have any personal interest in ascertaining the
truth, he had only classed the secret in question among those the
farther research into which might be left to time and occasion.
Certainly the reader will not do the unscrupulous intellect of Randal
Leslie the injustice to suppose that he was deterred from confiding to
his fair friend all that he knew of Riccabocca, by the refinement of
honor to which he had so chivalrously alluded. He had correctly stated
Audley Egerton's warning against any indiscreet confidence, though he
had forborne to mention a more recent and direct renewal of the same
caution. His first visit to Hazeldean had been paid without consulting
Egerton. He had been passing some days at his father's house, and had
gone over thence to the Squire's. On his return to London, he had,
however, mentioned this visit to Audley, who had seemed annoyed and even
displeased at it, though Randal well knew sufficient of Egerton's
character to know that such feeling could scarce be occasioned merely by
his estrangement from his half brother. This dissatisfaction had,
therefore, puzzled the young man. But as it was necessary to his views
to establish intimacy with the Squire, he did not yield the point with
his customary deference to his patron's whims. He therefore observed,
that he should be very sorry to do any thing displeasing to his
benefactor, but that his father had been naturally anxious that he
should not appear positively to slight the friendly overtures of Mr.
Hazeldean.
"Why naturally?" asked Egerton.
"Because you know that Mr. Hazeldean is a relation of mine--that my
grandmother was a Hazeldean."
"Ah!" said Egerton, who as it has been before said, knew little, and
cared less, about the Hazeldean pedigree, "I was either not aware of
that circumstance, or had forgotten it. And your father thinks that the
Squire may leave you a legacy?"
"Oh, sir, my father is not so mercenary--such an idea never entered his
head. But the Squire himself has indeed said--'Why, if any thing
happened to Frank, you would be next heir to my lands, and therefore we
ought to know each other.' But--"
"Enough," interrupted Egerton, "I am the last man to pretend to the
right of standing between you and a single chance of fortune, or of aid
to it. And whom did you meet at Hazeldean?"
"There was no one there, sir; not even Frank."
"Hum. Is the Squire not on good terms with his parson? Any quarrel about
tithes?"
"Oh, no quarrel. I forgot Mr. Dale; I saw him pretty often. He admires
and praises you very much, sir."
"Me--and why? What did he say of me?"
"That your heart was as sound as your head; that he had once seen you
about some old parishioners of his; and that he had been much impressed
with a depth of feeling he could not have anticipated in a man of the
world, and a statesman."
"Oh, that was all; some affair when I was member from Lansmere?"
"I suppose so."
Here the conversation had broken off; but the next time Randal was led
to visit the Squire he had formally asked Egerton's consent, who, after
a moment's hesitation, had as formally replied, "I have no objection."
On returning from this visit, Randal mentioned that he had seen
Riccabocca; and Egerton, a little startled at first, said composedly,
"Doubtless one of the political refugees; take care not to set Madame di
Negra on his track. Remember, she is suspected of being a spy of the
Austrian government."
"Rely on me, sir," said Randal; "but I should think this poor Doctor can
scarcely be the person she seeks to discover?"
"That is no affair of ours," answered Egerton; "we are English
gentlemen, and make not a step towards the secrets of another."
Now, when Randal revolved this rather ambiguous answer, and recalled the
uneasiness with which Egerton had first heard of his visit to Hazeldean,
he thought that he was indeed near the secret which Edward desired to
conceal from him and from all--viz., the incognito of the Italian whom
Lord l'Estrange had taken under his protection.
"My cards," said Randal to himself, as, with a deep-drawn sigh, he
resumed his soliloquy, "are become difficult to play. On the one hand,
to entangle Frank into marriage with this foreigner, the Squire could
never forgive him. On the other hand, if she will not marry him without
the dowry--and that depends on her brother's wedding this
countrywoman--and that countrywoman be as I surmise, Violante--and
Violante be this heiress, and to be won by me! Tush, tush. Such delicate
scruples in a woman so placed and so constituted as Beatrice di Negra,
must be easily talked away. Nay, the loss itself of this alliance to her
brother, the loss of her own dowry--the very pressure of poverty and
debt--would compel her into the sole escape left to her option. I will
then follow up the old plan; I will go down to Hazeldean, and see if
there be any substance in the new one;--and then to reconcile
both--aha--the House of Leslie shall rise yet from its ruin--and--"
Here he was startled from his reverie by a friendly slap on the
shoulder, and an exclamation,--"Why, Randal, you are more absent than
when you used to steal away from the cricket ground, muttering Greek
verses at Eton."
"My dear Frank," said Randal, "you--you are so _brusque_, and I was just
thinking of you."
"Were you? And kindly, then, I am sure," said Frank Hazeldean, his
honest handsome face lighted up with the unsuspecting genial trust of
friendship; "and Heaven knows," he added, with a sadder voice, and a
graver expression on his eye and lip--"Heaven knows I want all the
kindness you can give me!"
"I thought," said Randal, "that your father's last supply, of which I
was fortunate enough to be the bearer, would clear off your more
pressing debts. I don't pretend to preach, but really I must say once
more, you should not be so extravagant."
_Frank_ (seriously).--"I have done my best to reform. I have sold off my
horses, and I have not touched dice nor card these six months: I would
not even put into the raffle for the last Derby." This last was said
with the air of a man who doubted the possibility of obtaining belief to
some assertion of preternatural abstinence and virtue.
_Randal._--"Is it possible? But, with such self-conquest, how is it that
you cannot contrive to live within the bounds of a very liberal
allowance?"
_Frank_ (despondingly).--"Why, when a man once gets his head under
water, it is so hard to float back again on the surface. You see, I
attribute all my embarrassments to that first concealment of my debts
from my father, when they could have been so easily met, and when he
came up to town so kindly."
"I am sorry, then, that I gave you that advice."
"Oh, you meant it so kindly, I don't reproach you; it was all my own
fault."
"Why, indeed, I did urge you to pay off that moiety of your debts left
unpaid, with your allowance. Had you done so, all had been well."
"Yes, but poor Borrowwell got into such a scrape at Goodwood; I could
not resist him--a debt of honor, _that_ must be paid; so when I signed
another bill for him, he could not pay it, poor fellow: really he would
have shot himself, if I had not renewed it; and now it is swelled to
such an amount with that cursed interest, that _he_ never can pay it;
and one bill, of course, begets another, and to be renewed every three
months; 'tis the devil and all! So little as I ever got for all I have
borrowed," added Frank with a rueful amaze. "Not £1500 ready money; and
it would cost me almost as much yearly,--if I had it."
"Only £1500."
"Well, besides seven large chests of the worst cigars you ever smoked;
three pipes of wine that no one would drink, and a great bear, that had
been imported from Greenland for the sake of its grease."
"That should at least have saved you a bill with your hairdresser."
"I paid his bill with it," said Frank, "and very good-natured he was to
take the monster off my hands; it had already hugged two soldiers and
one groom into the shape of a flounder. I tell you what," resumed Frank,
after a short pause, "I have a great mind even now to tell my father
honestly all my embarrassments."
_Randal_ (solemnly).--"Hum!"
_Frank._--"What? don't you think it would be the best way? I never can
save enough--never can pay off what I owe; and it rolls like a
snowball."
_Randal._--"Judging by the Squire's talk, I think that with the first
sight of your affairs you would forfeit his favor for ever; and your
mother would be so shocked, especially after supposing that the sum I
brought you so lately sufficed to pay off every claim on you. If you had
not assured her of that, it might be different; but she who so hates an
untruth, and who said to the Squire, 'Frank says this will clear him;
and with all his faults, Frank never yet told a lie.'"
"Oh my dear mother!--I fancy I hear her!" cried Frank with deep emotion.
"But I did not tell a lie, Randal; I did not say that that sum would
clear me."
"You empowered and begged me to say so," replied Randal with grave
coldness; "and don't blame me if I believed you."
"No, no! I only said it would clear me for the moment."
"I misunderstood you, then, sadly; and such mistakes involve my own
honor. Pardon me, Frank; don't ask my aid in future. You see with the
best intentions I only compromise myself."
"If you forsake me, I may as well go and throw myself into the river,"
said Frank in a tone of despair; "and sooner or later my father must
know my necessities. The Jews threaten to go to him already; and the
longer the delay, the more terrible the explanation."
"I don't see why your father should ever learn the state of your
affairs; and it seems to me that you could pay off these usurers, and
get rid of these bills, by raising money on comparatively easy terms."
"How?" cried Frank eagerly.
"Why, the Casino property is entailed on you, and you might obtain a sum
upon that, not to be paid until the property becomes yours."
"At my poor father's death? Oh, no--no! I cannot bear the idea of this
cold-blooded calculation on a father's death. I know it is not uncommon;
I know other fellows who have done it, but they never had parents so
kind as mine; and even in them it shocked and revolted me. The
contemplating a father's death and profiting by the contemplation,--it
seems a kind of parricide--it is not natural, Randal. Besides, don't you
remember what the governor said--he actually wept while he said it,
'Never calculate on my death; I could not bear that.' Oh, Randal, don't
speak of it!"
"I respect your sentiments; but still all the post-obits you could raise
could not shorten Mr. Hazeldean's life by a day. However, dismiss that
idea; we must think of some other device. Ha, Frank! you are a handsome
fellow, and your expectations are great--why don't you marry some woman
with money?"
"Pooh!" exclaimed Frank, coloring. "You know, Randal, that there is but
one woman in the world I can ever think of, and I love her so devotedly,
that, though I was as gay as most men before, I really feel as if the
rest of her sex had lost every charm. I was passing through the street
now,--merely to look up at her windows--"
"You speak of Madame di Negra? I have just left her. Certainly she is
two or three years older than you; but if you can get over that
misfortune, why not marry her?"
"Marry her!" cried Frank in amaze, and all his color fled from his
cheeks. "Marry her!--are you serious?"
"Why not?"
"But even if she, who is so accomplished, so admired--even if she would
accept me, she is, you know, poorer than myself. She has told me so
frankly. That woman has such a noble heart! and--and--my father would
never consent, nor my mother either. I know they would not."
"Because she is a foreigner?"
"Yes--partly."
"Yet the Squire suffered his cousin to marry a foreigner."
"That was different. He had no control over Jemima; and a
daughter-in-law is so different; and my father is so English in his
notions; and Madame di Negra, you see, is altogether so foreign. Her
very graces would be against her in his eyes."
"I think you do both your parents injustice. A foreigner of low
birth--an actress or singer, for instance--of course would be highly
objectionable; but a woman, like Madame di Negra, of such high birth and
connections--"
Frank shook his head. "I don't think the governor would care a straw
about her connections, if she were a king's daughter. He considers all
foreigners pretty much alike. And then, you know"--Frank's voice sank
into a whisper--"you know that one of the very reasons why she is so
dear to me would be an insuperable objection to the old-fashioned folks
at home."
"I don't understand you, Frank."
"I love her the more," said young Hazeldean, raising his front with a
noble pride, that seemed to speak of his descent from a race of
cavaliers and gentlemen. "I love her the more because the world has
slandered her name--because I believe her to be pure and wronged. But
would they at the hall--they who do not see with a lover's eyes--they
who have all the stubborn English notions about the indecorum and
license of Continental manners, and will so readily credit the
worst?--O, no--I love--I cannot help it--but I have no hope."
"It is very possible that you may be right," exclaimed Randal, as if
struck and half-convinced by his companion's argument--"very possible;
and certainly I think that the homely folks at the Hall would fret and
fume at first, if they heard you were married to Madame di Negra. Yet
still, when your father learned that you had done so, not from passion
alone, but to save him from all pecuniary sacrifice--to clear yourself
of debt--to--"
"What do you mean?" exclaimed Frank impatiently.
"I have reason to know that Madame di Negra will have as large a portion
as your father could reasonably expect you to receive with any English
wife. And when this is properly stated to the Squire, and the high
position and rank of your wife fully established and brought home to
him--for I must think that these would tell, despite your exaggerated
notions of his prejudices--and then, when he really sees Madame di
Negra, and can judge of her beauty and rare gifts, upon my word, I
think, Frank, that there would be no cause for fear. After all, too, you
are his only son. He will have no option but to forgive you; and I know
how anxiously both your parents wish to see you settled in life."
Frank's whole countenance became illuminated. "There is no one who
understands the Squire like you, certainly," said he, with lively joy.
"He has the highest opinion of your judgment. And you really believe you
could smooth matters!"
"I believe so, but I should be sorry to induce you to run any risk; and
if, on cool consideration, you think that risk is incurred, I strongly
advise you to avoid all occasion of seeing the poor Marchesa. Ah, you
wince; but I say it for her sake as well as your own. First, you must be
aware, that, unless you have serious thoughts of marriage, your
attentions can but add to the very rumors that, equally groundless, you
so feelingly resent; and, secondly, because I don't think any man has a
right to win the affections of a woman--especially a woman who seems
likely to love with her whole heart and soul--merely to gratify his own
vanity."
"Vanity! Good heavens, can you think so poorly of me? But as to the
Marchesa's affections," continued Frank, with a faltering voice, "do you
really and honestly believe that they are to be won by me?"
"I fear lest they may be half won already," said Randal, with a smile
and a shake of the head; "but she is too proud to let you see any effect
you may produce on her, especially when, as I take it for granted, you
have never hinted at the hope of obtaining her hand."
"I never till now conceived such a hope. My dear Randal, all my cares
have vanished--I tread upon air--I have a great mind to call on her at
once."
"Stay, stay," said Randal. "Let me give you a caution. I have just
informed you that Madame di Negra will have, what you suspected not
before, a fortune suitable to her birth; any abrupt change in your
manner at present might induce her to believe that you were influenced
by that intelligence."
"Ah!" exclaimed Frank, stopping short, as if wounded to the quick. "And
I feel guilty--feel as if I _was_ influenced by that intelligence. So I
am, too, when I reflect," he continued, with a _naïveté_ that was half
pathetic; "but I hope she will not be so _very_ rich--if so, I'll not
call."
"Make your mind easy, it is but a portion of some twenty or thirty
thousand pounds, that would just suffice to discharge all your debts,
clear away all obstacle to your union, and in return for which you could
secure a more than adequate jointure and settlement on the Casino
property. Now I am on that head, I will be yet more communicative.
Madame di Negra has a noble heart, as you say, and told me herself, that
until her brother on his arrival had assured her of this dowry, she
would never have consented to marry you--never crippled with her own
embarrassments the man she loves. Ah! with what delight she will hail
the thought of assisting you to win back your father's heart! But be
guarded, meanwhile. And now, Frank, what say you--would it not be well
if I run down to Hazeldean to sound your parents? It is rather
inconvenient to me to be sure, to leave town just at present; but I
would do more than that to render you a smaller service. Yes, I'll go to
Rood Hall to-morrow, and thence to Hazeldean. I am sure your father will
press me to stay, and I shall have ample opportunities to judge of the
manner in which he would be likely to regard your marriage with Madame
di Negra--supposing always it were properly put to him. We can then act
accordingly."
"My dear, dear Randal. How can I thank you? If ever a poor fellow like
me can serve you in return--but that's impossible."
"Why, certainly, I will never ask you to be security to a bill of mine,"
said Randal, laughing. "I practise the economy I preach."
"Ah!" said Frank with a groan, "that is because your mind is
cultivated--you have so many resources; and all my faults have come from
idleness. If I had any thing to do on a rainy day, I should never have
got into these scrapes."
"Oh! you will have enough to do some day managing your property. We who
have no property must find one in knowledge. Adieu, my dear Frank; I
must go home now. By the way, you have never, by chance, spoken of the
Riccaboccas to Madame di Negra?"
"The Riccaboccas? No. That's well thought of. It may interest her to
know that a relation of mine has married her countryman. Very odd that I
never did mention it; but, to say truth, I really do talk so little to
her; she is so superior, and I feel positively shy with her."
"Do me the favor, Frank," said Randal, waiting patiently till this reply
ended--for he was devising all the time what reason to give for his
request--"never to allude to the Riccaboccas either to her or to her
brother, to whom you are sure to be presented."
"Why not allude to them?"
Randal hesitated a moment. His invention was still at fault, and, for a
wonder, he thought it the best policy to go pretty near the truth.
"Why, I will tell you. The Marchesa conceals nothing from her brother,
and he is one of the few Italians who are in high favor with the
Austrian court."
"Well!"
"And I suspect that poor Dr. Riccabocca fled his country from some mad
experiment at revolution, and is still hiding from the Austrian police."
"But they can't hurt him here," said Frank, with an Englishman's dogged
inborn conviction of the sanctity of his native island. "I should like
to see an Austrian pretend to dictate to us whom to receive and whom to
reject."
"Hum--that's true and constitutional, no doubt; but Riccabocca may have
excellent reasons--and, to speak plainly, I know he has (perhaps as
affecting the safety of friends in Italy),--for preserving his
incognito, and we are bound to respect those reasons without inquiring
further."
"Still, I cannot think so meanly of Madame di Negra," persisted Frank
(shrewd here, though credulous elsewhere, and both from his sense of
honor), "as to suppose that she would descend to be a spy, and injure a
poor countryman of her own, who trusts to the same hospitality she
receives herself at our English hands. Oh, if I thought that, I could
not love her!" added Frank, with energy.
"Certainly you are right. But see in what a false position you would
place both her brother and herself. If they knew Riccabocca's secret,
and proclaimed it to the Austrian government, as you say, it would be
cruel and mean; but if they knew and concealed it, it might involve them
both in the most serious consequences. You know the Austrian policy is
proverbially so jealous and tyrannical!"
"Well, the newspapers say so, certainly."
"And, in short, your discretion can do no harm, and your indiscretion
may. Therefore, give me your word, Frank. I can't stay to argue now."
"I'll not allude to the Riccaboccas, upon my honor," answered Frank;
"still I am sure that they would be as safe with the Marchesa as with--"
"I rely on your honor," interrupted Randal, hastily, and hurried off.
CHAPTER V.
Towards the evening of the following day, Randal Leslie walked slowly
from a village in the main road (about two miles from Rood Hall), at
which he had got out of the coach. He passed through meads and
corn-fields, and by the skirts of woods which had formerly belonged to
his ancestors, but had long since been alienated. He was alone amidst
the haunts of his boyhood, the scenes in which he had first invoked the
grand Spirit of Knowledge, to bid the Celestial Still One minister to
the commands of an earthly and turbulent ambition. He paused often in
his path, especially when the undulations of the ground gave a glimpse
of the gray church tower, or the gloomy firs that rose above the
desolate wastes of Rood.
"Here," thought Randal, with a softening eye--"here, how often,
comparing the fertility of the lands passed away from the inheritance of
my fathers, with the forlorn wilds that are left to their mouldering
hall--here, how often have I said to myself--'I will rebuild the
fortunes of my house.' And straightway Toil lost its aspect of drudge,
and grew kingly, and books became as living armies to serve my thought.
Again--again--O thou haughty Past, brace and strengthen me in the battle
with the Future." His pale lips writhed as he soliloquized, for his
conscience spoke to him while he thus addressed his will, and its voice
was heard more audibly in the quiet of the rural landscape, than amidst
the turmoil and din of that armed and sleepless camp which we call a
city.
Doubtless, though ambition have objects more vast and beneficent than
the restoration of a name--_that_ in itself is high and chivalrous, and
appeals to a strong interest in the human heart. But all emotions, and
all ends, of a nobler character, had seemed to filter themselves free
from every golden grain in passing through the mechanism of Randal's
intellect, and came forth at last into egotism clear and unalloyed.
Nevertheless, it is a strange truth that, to a man of cultivated mind,
however perverted and vicious, there are vouchsafed gleams of brighter
sentiments, irregular perceptions of moral beauty, denied to the brutal
unreasoning wickedness of uneducated villany--which, perhaps ultimately
serve as his punishment--according to the old thought of the satirist,
that there is no greater curse than to perceive virtue, yet adopt
vice. And as the solitary schemer walked slowly on, and his
childhood--innocent at least of deed--came distinct before him through
the halo of bygone dreams--dreams far purer than those from which he now
rose each morning to the active world of man--a profound melancholy
crept over him, and suddenly he exclaimed aloud, "_Then_ I aspired to be
renowned and great--_now_, how is it that, so advanced in my career, all
that seemed lofty in the means has vanished from me, and the only means
that I contemplate are those which my childhood would have called poor
and vile? Ah! is it that I then read but books, and now my knowledge has
passed onward, and men contaminate more than books? But," he continued
in a lower voice, as if arguing with himself, "if power is only so to be
won--and of what use is knowledge if it be not power--does not success
in life justify all things? And who prizes the wise man if he fails?" He
continued his way, but still the soft tranquillity around rebuked him,
and still his reason was dissatisfied, as well as his conscience. There
are times when Nature, like a bath of youth, seems to restore to the
jaded soul its freshness--times from which some men have emerged, as if
reborn. The crises of life are very silent. Suddenly the scene opened on
Randal Leslie's eyes. The bare desert common--the dilapidated
church--the old house, partially seen in the dank dreary hollow, into
which it seemed to Randal to have sunken deeper and lowlier than when he
saw it last. And on the common were some young men playing at hockey.
That old-fashioned game, now very uncommon in England, except at
schools, was still preserved in the primitive simplicity of Rood by the
young yeomen and farmers. Randal stood by the stile and looked on, for
among the players he recognized his brother Oliver. Presently the ball
was struck towards Oliver, and the group instantly gathered round that
young gentleman, and snatched him from Randal's eye; but the elder
brother heard a displeasing din, a derisive laughter. Oliver had shrunk
from the danger of the thick clubbed sticks that plied around him, and
received some strokes across the legs, for his voice rose whining, and
was drowned by shouts of, "Go to your mammy. That's Noll Leslie--all
over. Butter shins."
Randal's sallow face became scarlet. "The jest of boors--a Leslie!" he
muttered, and ground his teeth. He sprang over the stile, and walked
erect and haughtily across the ground. The players cried out
indignantly. Randal raised his hat, and they recognized him, and stopped
the game. For him at least a certain respect was felt. Oliver turned
round quickly, and ran up to him. Randal caught his arm firmly, and
without saying a word to the rest, drew him away towards the house.
Oliver cast a regretful, lingering look behind him, rubbed his shins,
and then stole a timid glance towards Randal's severe and moody
countenance.
"You are not angry that I was playing at hockey with our neighbors,"
said he deprecatingly, observing that Randal would not break the
silence.
"No," replied the elder brother; "but, in associating with his
inferiors, a gentleman still knows how to maintain his dignity. There is
no harm in playing with inferiors, but it is necessary to a gentleman to
play so that he is not the laughing-stock of clowns."
Oliver hung his head and made no answer. They came into the slovenly
precincts of the court, and the pigs stared at them from the palings, as
they had stared, years before, at Frank Hazeldean.
Mr. Leslie, senior, in a shabby straw hat, was engaged in feeding the
chickens before the threshold, and he performed even that occupation
with a maundering lack-a-daisical slothfulness, dropping down the grains
almost one by one from his inert dreamy fingers.
Randal's sister, her hair still and for ever hanging about her ears, was
seated on a rush-bottom chair, reading a tattered novel; and from the
parlor window was heard the querulous voice of Mrs. Leslie, in high
fidget and complaint.
Somehow or other, as the young heir to all this helpless poverty stood
in the courtyard, with his sharp, refined, intelligent features, and his
strange elegance of dress and aspect, one better comprehended how, left
solely to the egotism of his knowledge and his ambition, in such a
family, and without any of the sweet nameless lessons of Home, he had
grown up into such close and secret solitude of soul--how the mind had
taken so little nutriment from the heart, and how that affection and
respect which the warm circle of the hearth usually calls forth had
passed with him to the graves of dead fathers, growing, as it were,
bloodless and ghoul-like amidst the charnels on which they fed.
"Ha, Randal, boy," said Mr. Leslie, looking up lazily, "how d'ye do? Who
could have expected you? My dear--my dear," he cried, in a broken voice,
and as if in helpless dismay, "here's Randal, and he'll be wanting
dinner, or supper, or something." But in the mean while, Randal's sister
Juliet had sprung up and thrown her arms round her brother's neck, and
he had drawn her aside caressingly, for Randal's strongest human
affection was for this sister.
"You are growing very pretty, Juliet," said he, smoothing back her hair;
"why do yourself such injustice--why not pay more attention to your
appearance, as I have so often begged you to do?"
"I did not expect you, dear Randal; you ways come so suddenly, and catch
us _en dish-a-bill._"
"Dish-a-bill!" echoed Randal, with a groan. "_Dishabille!_--you ought
never to be so caught!"
"No one else does so catch us--nobody else ever comes! Heigho," and the
young lady sighed very heartily.
"Patience, patience; my day is coming, and then yours, my sister,"
replied Randal, with genuine pity, as he gazed upon what a little care
could have trained into so fair a flower, and what now looked so like a
weed.
Here Mrs. Leslie, in a state of intense excitement--having rushed
through the parlor--leaving a fragment of her gown between the yawning
brass of the never mended Brummagem work table--tore across the
hall--whirled out of the door, scattering the chickens to the right and
left, and clutched hold of Randal in her motherly embrace. "La, how you
do shake my nerves," she cried, after giving him a most hearty and
uncomfortable kiss. "And you are hungry, too, and nothing in the house
but cold mutton! Jenny, Jenny, I say Jenny! Juliet, have you seen Jenny!
Where's Jenny? Out with the old man, I'll be bound."
"I am not hungry, mother," said Randal; "I wish for nothing but tea."
Juliet, scrambling up her hair, darted into the house to prepare the
tea, and also to "tidy herself." She dearly loved her fine brother, but
she was greatly in awe of him.
Randal seated himself on the broken pales. "Take care they don't come
down," said Mr. Leslie with some anxiety.
"Oh, sir, I am very light; nothing comes down with me."
The pigs stared up, and grunted in amaze at the stranger.
"Mother," said the young man, detaining Mrs. Leslie, who wanted to set
off in chase of Jenny--"mother, you should not let Oliver associate with
those village boors. It is time to think of a profession for him."
"Oh, he eats us out of house and home--such an appetite! But as to a
profession--what is he fit for? He will never be a scholar."
Randal nodded a moody assent; for, indeed, Oliver had been sent to
Cambridge, and supported out of Randal's income from his official
pay;--and Oliver had been plucked for his Little Go.
"There is the army," said the elder brother--"a gentleman's calling. How
handsome Juliet ought to be--but--I left money for masters--and she
pronounces French like a chambermaid."
"Yet she is fond of her book too. She's always reading, and good for
nothing else."
"Reading!--those trashy novels!"
"So like you--you always come to scold, and make things unpleasant,"
said Mrs. Leslie, peevishly. "You are grown too fine for us, and I am
sure we suffer affronts enough from others, not to want a little respect
from our own children."
"I did not mean to affront you," said Randal, sadly. "Pardon me. But who
else has done so?"
Then Mrs. Leslie went into a minute and most irritating catalogue of all
the mortifications and insults she had received; the grievances of a
petty provincial family, with much pretension and small power; of all
people, indeed, without the disposition to please--without the ability
to serve--who exaggerate every offence, and are thankful for no
kindness. Farmer Jones had insolently refused to send his wagon twenty
miles for coals. Mr. Giles, the butcher, requesting the payment of his
bill, had stated that the custom at Rood was too small for him to allow
credit. Squire Thornhill, who was the present owner of the fairest slice
of the old Leslie domains, had taken the liberty to ask permission to
shoot over Mr. Leslie's land, since Mr. Leslie did not preserve. Lady
Spratt (new people from the city, who hired a neighboring country seat)
had taken a discharged servant of Mrs. Leslie's without applying for the
character. The Lord-Lieutenant had given a ball, and had not invited the
Leslies. Mr. Leslie's tenants had voted against their landlord's wish at
the recent election. More than all, Squire Hazeldean and his Harry had
called at Rood, and though Mrs. Leslie had screamed out to Jenny, "Not
at home," she had been seen at the window, and the Squire had actually
forced his way in, and caught the whole family "in a state not fit to be
seen." That was a trifle, but the Squire had presumed to instruct Mr.
Leslie how to manage his property, and Mrs. Hazeldean had actually told
Juliet to hold up her head and tie up her hair, "as if we were her
cottagers!" said Mrs. Leslie, with the pride of a Montfydget.
All these and various other annoyances, though Randal was too sensible
not to perceive their insignificance, still galled and mortified the
listening heir of Rood. They showed, at least, even to the well-meant
officiousness of the Hazeldeans, the small account in which the fallen
family was held. As he sat still on the moss-grown pale, gloomy and
taciturn, his mother standing beside him, with her cap awry, Mr. Leslie
shamblingly sauntered up, and said in a pensive dolorous whine--
"I wish we had a good sum of money, Randal, boy!"
To do Mr. Leslie justice, he seldom gave vent to any wish that savored
of avarice. His mind must be singularly aroused, to wander out of its
normal limits of sluggish, dull content.
So Randal looked at him in surprise, and said, "Do you, sir?--why?"
"The manors of Rood and Dulmansberry, and all the lands therein, which
my great-grandfather sold away, are to be sold again when Squire
Thornhill's eldest son comes of age, to cut off the entail. Sir John
Spratt talks of buying them. I should like to have them back again. 'Tis
a shame to see the Leslie estates hawked about, and bought by Spratts
and people. I wish I had a great--great sum of ready money."
The poor gentleman extended his helpless fingers as he spoke, and fell
into a dejected reverie.
Randal sprang from the paling, a movement which frightened the
contemplative pigs, and set them off squalling and scampering. "When
does young Thornhill come of age?"
"He was nineteen last August. I know it, because the day he was born I
picked up my fossil of the sea-horse, just by Dulmansberry church, when
the joy-bells were ringing! My fossil sea-horse! It will be an
heir-loom, Randal--"
"Two years--nearly two years--yet--ah, ah!" said Randal; and his sister
now appearing to announce that tea was ready, he threw his arm around
her neck and kissed, her. Juliet had arranged her hair and trimmed up
her dress. She looked very pretty, and she had now the air of a
gentlewoman--something of Randal's own refinement in her slender
proportions and well-shaped head.
"Be patient, patient still, my dear sister," whispered Randal, "and keep
your heart whole for two years longer."
The young man was gay and good-humored over his simple meal, while his
family grouped round him. When it was over, Mr. Leslie lighted his pipe,
and called for his brandy and water. Mrs. Leslie began to question about
London and Court, and the new King and the new Queen, and Mr. Audley
Egerton, and hoped Mr. Egerton would leave Randal all his money, and
that Randal would marry a rich woman, and that the King would make him a
prime-minister one of these days; and then she would like to see if
Farmer Jones would refuse to send his wagon for coals! And every now and
then, as the word "riches" or "money" caught Mr. Leslie's ear, he shook
his head, drew his pipe from his mouth, and muttered, "A Spratt should
not have what belonged to my great-great-grandfather. If I had a good
sum of ready-money!--the old family estates!" Oliver and Juliet sat
silent, and on their good behavior; and Randal, indulging his
own reveries, dreamily heard the words "money," "Spratt,"
"great-great-grandfather," "rich, wife," "family estates;" and they
sounded to him vague and afar off, like whispers from the world of
romance and legend--weird prophecies of things to be.
Such was the hearth which warmed the viper that nestled and gnawed at
the heart of Randal, poisoning all the aspirations that youth should
have rendered pure, ambition lofty, and knowledge beneficent and divine.