PART I.

[The author of the ensuing article, the topic of which is just now

one of special interest, is MR. CHARLES M. MEAD, a gentleman who

has spent the last year in Germany. Having resided in the family of

Professor Jacobi, who fills the chair of history in the University

of Halle, he has had excellent opportunities for making himself

acquainted with his subject. Having a natural taste for political

studies, he has investigated it in its many bearings with calm

impartiality, and written upon it _con amore_. The conclusion will

be given in our next issue.--EDITOR CONTINENTAL.]

The struggle now going on in Prussia, whatever may be the issue, must be

regarded as one of immense political importance. To Americans certainly,

no less than to any other people, is the character and progress of this

struggle a matter of profound interest. Though it cannot be said that

the contest is that of revolutionists or even of republicans against a

legitimately ruling monarch, yet the real principles involved in the

contest are in substance those of absolutism and of democracy.

Deep and irreconcilable as is now the opposition between the two

contending elements, all Prussians are proud of Prussia's history. In

order to a correct understanding of the present circumstances of the

country, a brief survey of its previous history is necessary.

In respect to the national domain, perhaps no other instance can be

found so striking as that here presented, of a steady growth of an

insignificant territory, from the first surrounded by powerful nations,

to a size which entitles it to rank among the first Powers of the earth.

Passing over the first few hundred years of her history, during which

period much confusion prevailed as to boundaries as well as everything

else, we find that as late as 1417 the country embraced a territory of

only about seven thousand eight hundred square miles, or of about the

size of Massachusetts; whereas its present extent is about one hundred

and twelve thousand square miles, _i. e._, about as large as New

England, New York, and New Jersey.

In respect to population, the increase is proportionally great. In 1417

it was only one hundred and eighty-eight thousand five hundred; now it

is over eighteen millions. As to general culture, the progress of the

nation and its present relative position in the scale of civilization

leave little for national pride to wish.

The history of the nation commences with the conquest of Brandenburg by

the Saxon emperor Henry I., in 927. He founded the so-called _North

Mark_, and set over it a margrave. The government was administered by

margraves until 1411, when, after a century of anarchy, during which the

Mark was struggled for by many aspiring dukes, it was delivered over by

the emperor Sigismund, an almost worthless possession, to Frederick of

Hohenzollern, burggrave of Nuremberg, with the title of elector.

The house of Hohenzollern is still the reigning dynasty. In 1701,

Frederick III., who became elector in 1688, secured from the emperor

Leopold I. the title of King Frederick I. Not king of Brandenburg, since

Brandenburg belonged to the Austrian empire, but king in Prussia, the

name of a Polish duchy acquired by John Sigismund as a feudal possession

in 1621, but in 1656 made an independent possession by Frederick

William. Not king _of_ Prussia, but _in_ Prussia, because not all the

territory to which that name belonged was included in the

afore-mentioned duchy. The rest was not annexed till 1772, so that

Frederick the Great was the first king _of_ Prussia. And not till 1815

was the name Prussia strictly a designation of the whole land now so

called.

We cannot stop even to glance at the political condition of the nation

during the period of the electorate, interesting as it might be, and

important as revealing the sources of subsequent political developments.

Yet in passing, this at least must be borne in mind, that there was all

the while a struggle going on between the nobility and the monarchy, the

latter gradually gaining in strength.

Frederick I., whose vanity led him to make it his main object to secure

the _name_ of king, did less than his immediate predecessor, the 'great

elector,' toward deepening the foundations of the monarchy. The most

noticeable feature of his reign was the increase of the standing army

from twenty-five thousand to fifty thousand. He secured the _title_ of

royalty. It remained for his son and successor to secure its power and

authority.[3]

Frederick William I. was the first absolute monarch of Prussia. He was a

man of rough manners and coarse tastes. Caring little for the pomp of

royalty, he jealously sought to maintain his hold on the essence of it.

No sooner had he dried the tears shed over his deceased father, than he

dismissed the larger part of the court attendants, cut off unnecessary

expenses, inaugurated a simple style of living in the court, and began

to direct his attention to the improvement of the military and financial

condition of the country. More than any predecessor, he identified the

office of king with that of commander-in-chief of the army. His

domineering disposition carried him so far that he personally scolded

and threatened with blows whoever seemed to him lazy and shiftless,

however little the matter personally concerned him. So violent was his

temper that, because his son, afterward Frederick the Great, displayed

more taste for literature, and less for religion and warfare, than he

had wished, he became disgusted with him, threateningly raised his cane

whenever he saw him; and, when the prince, exasperated by constant

abuse, formed a plan of escape to Sinsheim, the king, having discovered

it before its execution, was so infuriated that, except for the

intervention of bystanders, he would have run him through with his

sword. As it was, at one time he beat him furiously with his cane.

Frederick's confidant was executed before his eyes, and he himself

condemned to a long banishment from the court; and not till he had shown

signs of repentance, was he readmitted to it and to his father's favor.

Frederick William is famous for the 'tobacco club' which he established,

at whose sessions over the pipe and the beer he and his friends indulged

in the most unrestrained mirth and freedom; also for his monomania

concerning 'tall fellows'--a passion for securing as many regiments as

possible of extraordinarily tall soldiers, for which he spared no pains,

and often paid little regard to the personal wishes of the tall fellows

themselves. To increase their number, he scoured all Europe, other

monarchs being not unwilling to secure his good will by providing him

with the coveted men, for whom his almost insane passion made him

willing to give any price. But the real significance of his reign in

relation to Prussia's subsequent history, is the impulse which he gave

to her military tastes, and his success in establishing firmly the

absolute authority of the monarch. The power of feudal lords had already

been shattered; it required only a strong army and a strong will to

destroy it altogether. These the king possessed. He reigned at a time

when the obstacles to the exercise of unlimited power by the king were

not what they now are, viz.: a desire on the part of the people in

general for a constitutional government. The most certain way to secure

the esteem of the people was to centralize the power in himself, and

then exercise that power in the promotion of the people's material

welfare. This the king did. He laid the foundations of the still

existing system of general school education. He invited colonists from

abroad to settle in the more uncultivated parts of his domains. He

reformed the judiciary. He diminished the taxes, and yet by his economy

increased the real revenue of the state from two and a half to seven and

a half millions. Himself disinclined to become entangled in foreign

wars, he raised the troops and the money without which his son could not

have won the military glory which has given him the title of _the

Great_.

Frederick William I. established the absolute monarchy by internal

political changes and institutions. Frederick the Great secured for it a

solid foundation in the hearts of the people. The one was thoroughly

autocratic in disposition, and not seldom displayed this disposition too

offensively; the other knew how to use his hereditary power without

seeming to care about it. In fact, under the influence of Voltaire and

the French liberalism, he himself learned to cherish very liberal

opinions respecting popular rights. But practically he was absolute, and

preferred to be so. By his brilliant military successes in the two

Silesian wars and in the Seven Years' War he roused the national

enthusiasm for the royal house to the highest pitch. He secured for

Prussia the rank of a great Power in Europe. He enlarged her boundaries,

and, notwithstanding his expensive wars, promoted the general prosperity

of the land. Genial and kind-hearted, he won the affections of the

people, so that loyalty was easy and pleasant--none the less so, the

more completely the object of the loyalty was the king's person.

The reign of Frederick William II. was not characterized by any special

development in the political condition of the country. Lacking in energy

and decision, given to self-indulgence, controlled by courtiers and

favorite women, although by the partition of Poland he increased the

national domains, and by educational measures helped to promote German

literature instead of the French preferred by his father, he was yet too

inferior to the great Frederick to be able to uphold the glory of the

royal house. By his disgraceful withdrawal from the First Coalition and

the Treaty of Basle, by which he yielded to France all of Prussia lying

beyond the Rhine, he prepared the way for her subsequent humiliation by

Bonaparte.

The long reign of Frederick William III. is the richest period of

Prussia's history. Here begins that development whose progress is now

one of the most noteworthy of our time. The king, cautious,

conscientious, patriotic, but timid, declined to join the Second

Coalition (1799), hoping thereby to secure Prussia against the ravages

of war. Prominent Prussians, moreover, were positively friendly to

Napoleon; so that, even after the latter had violated his obligations by

marching through Prussian territory, the king hesitated a year to

declare war. This was done August 9, 1806; but two months later his army

was routed at Jena; Napoleon entered Berlin; the Prussians were finally

defeated at Friedland by the French, and at Tilsit, July 9, 1807, the

Prussian king was forced to give up the half of his domains, and to

furnish the conqueror a tribute of one hundred and forty millions of

francs. For six years Prussia lay prostrate at the feet of France. In

1812 he was compelled to furnish twenty thousand men to join Napoleon's

army in his invasion of Russia. Not till after the disastrous issue of

this invasion did king or people dare to lift an arm in defence of the

national independence. But these years compose just the period which

Prussians love to call that of Prussia's regeneration. The insolence of

the conqueror united the national heart. Full of the most flaming

patriotism, and not doubting that deliverance would finally come,

statesmen and warriors, Stein, Scharnhorst, Bluecher, Schill, and others,

labored unweariedly to keep up the spirits of the people, and prepare

them for the coming War of Liberation. Now for the first time the cities

were invested with the right to regulate their own internal affairs. Now

for the first time the peasants were delivered from the serfdom under

which they had hitherto suffered. In short, the whole policy of the

Government was determined by the resolution to inspire the people with a

healthful, unconstrained, enthusiastic devotion to the national weal,

and, as a means to this end, with zeal for the king. These efforts were

fully successful. When the providential time arrived, and the king

issued, February 3, 1813, a call for volunteers, and, March 17, his

famous _Aufruf an mein Volk_, all Prussia sprang to arms. In alliance

with Russia, finally also assisted by Austria and Sweden, her troops

were engaged in nine bloody battles with the French between April 5 and

October 18, the enthusiasm of the people and the dogged intrepidity of

Bluecher being at length rewarded by the decisive victory at Leipsic. The

immediate result of this victory for Prussia was the recovery of the

territory between the Elbe and the Rhine ceded to France by the

preceding king. At the congress of Vienna there were assigned to her in

addition all that she had possessed before the Treaty of Tilsit, half of

Saxony, and an increase of the former possessions on the Rhine. Some

further acquisitions and cessions were made at the second Treaty of

Paris, November 2, 1815, since which time the boundaries of Prussia have

been little changed.

This brief sketch of the so-called War of Liberation could not have been

avoided in an attempt to describe the present political condition of

Prussia. The enthusiasm with which the semi-centennial anniversary of

the battle of Leipsic was celebrated on the 18th of last October by men

of all parties and sentiments was a lively evidence of the profound

influence of that war on the national character. The chief significance

of the war for Prussia was its influence in uniting the people in the

pursuit of a common patriotic end. It was a struggle for national

existence; and all minor considerations were for the time forgotten. It

tended to break down the barriers which before had so effectually

separated the higher from the lower classes. The Government had need of

the hearty aid of all Prussians; and, in order to secure this, it was

necessary to abandon the invidious distinctions which, in spite of all

previous reformatory measures, made a large portion of the people

practically slaves. The sentiment was encouraged, that whoever was ready

to lay down his life for his country deserved full protection from his

country. The promise was made that this should henceforth be the spirit

and practice of the Government.

We are here to mark a twofold influence on the political sentiments of

the Prussian people springing from the war against French invasion. On

the one hand, from here dates the first positive preparations for, and

expectations of, a national representative assembly--a change from an

absolute to a limited monarchy; on the other, the perfect identification

of the interests of the king with those of the people, combined with a

real love for the royal family, made the people satisfied, after the

restoration of peace, to continue under the sway of a king in whom,

though his power was unlimited, they had perfect confidence that he

would use his power with conscientious regard to their good. To this day

the recollection of those years of pious loyalty, when every citizen

cherished a feeling of filial love and trust toward Frederick William

III., is the chief element of strength in the conservative party.

Prussia, they say, is what her kings have made her; the house of

Hohenzollern has raised her from an insignificant beginning to the rank

of a great Power; under this rule the people have prospered; no tyranny

has disgraced it; there is no need of a change; there is no danger that

a continuance of the former order of things can ever inure to our hurt;

gratitude to our sovereigns requires us not to attack their hereditary

prerogatives. There is danger of foreigners, especially republicans, not

fully appreciating the force of these considerations. To us, the fact

that one king, or even a series of kings, have ruled well, is no proof

that they have a divine right to rule; still less, that, when their

policy comes into conflict with the decided wishes of the people, they

have a right by unconstitutional measures to resist the popular will.

But it must be remembered that Prussia, even in the midst of the present

conflict, is thoroughly monarchical. No party pretends to wish any

change of the present form of government. Patriotism has so long been

associated with simple devotion to the royal house, and the royal house

has so uniformly proved itself not unworthy of this devotion, that it is

no easy matter, especially for those who by nature are conservative, to

be satisfied with a change which reduces the monarchical office to a

merely empty hereditary honor. In addition to this, it would be unfair

not to recognize the fact that the most cultivated and religious part of

the Prussian people belongs to the Conservative party. This, as a

general statement, is, as all acknowledge, true. That the exceptions,

however, are very numerous, is no less true. It is also, doubtless, not

unjust to assume that the dependence of churches and universities on the

state leads to much hypocritical piety and selfish loyalty. Yet the

general fact that the most estimable citizens are royalists, is not so

to be accounted for. The War of Liberation was a war not only against

French aggression, but against a power whose origin was to be traced to

a contempt not only of time-honored political customs, but also of

Christianity itself. Revolutions and republicanism became associated

with infidelity. It was natural, therefore, that Christians should

acquire the notion that every approximation toward democracy would

involve danger to the church; especially as the church and state were

united, and the king not only professed personal belief in Christianity,

but endeavored to promote its interests by his administrative measures.

It was to them a touching recollection that their king and the Austrian

and Russian emperors kneeled together on the battle field of Leipsic to

offer to the Lord of hosts their thanks for the victory that he had

vouchsafed to them. And when two years later the same monarchs united

themselves in the Holy Alliance, it is not strange, whatever may now be

thought of their motives, that Christians should have rejoiced at the

sight of princes publicly acknowledging their obligation to rule in the

interests of Christianity, and binding themselves to promote the

religious good of their subjects. As republicanism in France had

appeared in a positively unchristian form, here monarchism appeared in a

positively Christian form. Nothing was therefore more natural than that

their devotion to the king--already, for other reasons, hearty and

enthusiastic--should be increased as they thought they saw in him the

surest defender of the church. Instead, therefore, of encouraging or

wishing a separation of church and state--a consummation which it was in

the power of leading theologians, to procure--they preferred a still

closer union. Nor is it to be wondered at that, ever since, men of the

most earnest piety have made a defence of the royal prerogatives a part

of their religion, and that some have gone even so far as to deny that

in Prussia a Christian can be anything but a Conservative. It cannot but

serve to soften many prejudices against this party to know that men like

the venerable Professor Tholuck, of Halle, are decided supporters of the

Government, and regard the triumph of the Liberal party as almost

equivalent to the downfall of the church. And it may serve in part to

excuse the persistence of the Government in its course to know that it

is advised so to persist by men who should be supposed to have the

highest good of the country at heart.

But, on the other hand, as we have remarked, the seeds of the present

Liberal party were sown during this same period of national disaster,

and that, too, by the royal hand. The regeneration of Prussia is

attributed by all to the indefatigable efforts of the minister, Baron

von Stein, and, after he was deposed by command of Napoleon, of his

successor, Count Hardenberg. Their work, however, consisted not only in

abolishing villanage, the usufruct of royal lands, serfdom, the

exemption of the nobility from taxation, and the oppressive monopoly of

the guilds; in giving to all classes the right of holding landed

possessions and high offices; in the reconstruction of the courts; in

the enfranchisement of the cities; in the promotion of general

education; in relieving military service of many abuses and

severities;--this was not all: the king was moved to issue, October 27,

1810, an edict, in which he distinctly promised to give the people a

constitution and a national parliamentary representation. A year later

this promise was renewed. 'Our intention,' says the king, 'still is, as

we promised in the edict of October 27, 1810, to give the nation a

judiciously constituted representation.' That this promise was not

immediately fulfilled is, considering the condition of the country, not

specially surprising. Whatever may then have been the king's personal

inclinations, there is perhaps no reason to doubt that he intended to

introduce the constitution as soon as the return of peace should give

him the requisite means of devoting to the subject his undivided

attention. That the promise was originally drawn from him by the urgent

influence of his counsellors, especially Von Stein and Hardenberg, there

is every reason to believe. That he should have been inclined,

unsolicited, to limit his own power, is more than can ordinarily be

expected of monarchs. The bad love power because it gratifies their

selfish lusts; the good, who really wish the weal of their subjects, can

easily persuade themselves that the more freely they can use their

power, the better it will be for all concerned. But, for whatever

reasons, the pledge was given; yet, though Frederick William reigned

thirty years after giving it, he never fulfilled the pledge. It may be

that, had he done so, the party divisions which now agitate the land

would not have been avoided. Conservatives might have complained that he

had yielded too much to the unreasonable demands of an unenlightened

populace; Liberals might have complained that he had not yielded enough;

at all events, the opposing principles, of the divine right of kings,

and of popular self-government, whatever form they might have taken,

would have divided public sentiment. This may have been; but even more

certain is it that the failure on the part of the monarch to carry out a

promise solemnly and repeatedly made, a promise which he never would

have made unless believing that it would gratify his people, could not

but lead ultimately to a deep disaffection on the part of the people.

His course resembled too much the equivocating prophecies of the witches

in Macbeth; he kept the word of promise to the ear, and broke it to the

hope. It is then not strange that many should have found their faith in

royalty weakened, and come to the conclusion that whatever was to be

gained in the point of popular government must be secured by insisting

on it as a right which the Government _nolens volens_ should be required

to concede.

Such, in general terms, is the animus of the two political parties of

Prussia. Turning to a more particular consideration of the historical

progress of events, we find that the first movement toward a freer

development of popular character was made by Frederick the Great.

Throughout his life he was inclined, theoretically, to favor a

republican form of government; and, although he was no friend of sudden

changes, and did not think that the time had come for a radical change

in Prussia, he yet recognized the truth that a king's duty is to act as

the servant of the state; and, in spite of the sternness with which, in

many relations, he exercised his power, he introduced some changes which

may be regarded as the earnests of a permanent establishment of a

constitutional government. These changes consisted specially in the

increase of freedom which he allowed respecting the press, religion, and

the administration of justice. But, as we have seen, nothing like a real

limitation of the royal power was undertaken until the War of Liberation

seemed to make it a national necessity. The changes which Frederick

William's ministers made in the social and political condition of the

people were in themselves of vast and permanent importance. They were

made under the stimulus of a more or less clear recognition of the truth

of natural, inalienable rights. Fighting against a people whose

frightful aggressions were the product of this principle abnormally

developed, they yet had to borrow their own weapons from the same

armory. Or, if the republican principle was not at all approved, the

course of the Government showed that it was so far believed in by the

people that certain concessions to it were necessary as a matter of

policy. But these changes were yet by no means equivalent to the

introduction of republican elements in the Government. An approach was

made toward the granting of equality of rights; but this was only

_granted_; the Government was still absolute; strictly speaking, it had

the right, so far as formal obligations were concerned, to remove the

very privileges which it had given. But the _promise_ of something more

was given also. Besides the already-mentioned renewal of that promise,

the king, June 3, 1814, in an order issued while he was in Paris,

intimated his intention to come to a final conclusion respecting the

particular form of the constitution after his return to Berlin. In May,

1815, he issued another edict, the substance of which was that provision

should be made for a parliamentary representation of the people; that,

to this end, the so-called estates of the provinces should be

reorganized, and from them representatives should be chosen, who should

have the right to deliberate respecting all subjects of legislation

which concern the persons and property of citizens; and that a

commission should be at once appointed, to meet in Berlin on the first

of September, whose business should be to frame a constitution. But this

commission was not then appointed, and of course did not meet on the

first of September. Two years later the commissioners were named; but

their work has never been heard of.

Here is to be discerned a manifest wavering in the mind of the king

respecting the fulfilment of his intentions. The German States, taught

by the bitter experience of the late war the disadvantages of their

dismembered condition, and bound together more closely than ever before

by the recollection of their common sufferings and common triumphs, saw

the necessity of a real union, to take the place of the merely nominal

one which had thus far existed in the shadowy hegemony of the house of

Hapsburg. The German Confederation, essentially as it still exists, was

organized at Vienna by the rulers of the several German States and

representatives from the free cities, June 8, 1815. Although there was

in this assembly no direct representation of the people, it is clear

that its deliberations were in great part determined by the unmistakable

utterances of the popular mind. For one of the first measures adopted

was to provide that in all the States of the Confederacy constitutional

governments should be guaranteed. Frederick William himself was one of

the most urgent supporters of this provision. It is therefore not

calculated to elevate our estimation of the openness, honesty, and

simplicity for which this king is praised, and to which his general

course seems to entitle him, that as late as March, 1818, in reply to a

petition from the city of Coblenz, that he would grant the promised

constitution, he remarked that 'neither the order of May 22, 1815, nor

article xiii. of the acts of the Confederacy had fixed the _time_ of the

grant, and that the determination of this time must be left to the free

choice of the sovereign, in whom unconditional confidence ought to be

placed.' We are to account for this hesitation, however, not by

supposing that he originally intended to delay the measure in question

so long as he actually did delay it, but by the fears with which he was

inspired by the popular demonstrations in the times following the close

of the war. The fact was palpable, not only that the idea of popular

rights, notwithstanding the miserable failure of the French Revolution,

had become everywhere current, but that, together with this feeling, a

desire for German unity was weakening the hold of the several princes on

their particular peoples. At this time sprang up the so-called _Deutsche

Burschenschaft_, organizations of young men, whose object was to promote

the cause of German union. The tri-centennial anniversary of the

Reformation, in 1817, was made the occasion of inflaming the public mind

with this idea. The sentiment found ready access to the German heart. It

was shared and advocated by many of the best and ablest men. As

subsidiary to the same movement, was at the same time introduced the

practice of systematic and social gymnastic exercises, an institution

which still exists, and constitutes one of the most prominent features

of the German movement. Immense concourses of gymnasts from all parts of

Germany meet yearly to practise in friendly rivalry, and inspire one

another with zeal for the good of the common fatherland. But the

_Burschenschaft_ in its pristine glory could not so long continue. The

separate German Governments were naturally jealous of the influence of

these organizations, and, though not able to accuse them of directly

aiming at treason and revolution, were ready to seize the first pretext

for striking at their power. A pretext was soon found. A certain Von

Kotzebue, a novelist of some notoriety, suspected of being a Russian

spy, wrote a book in which he attacked the _Burschenschaft_ with great

severity. A theological student at Jena, Karl Sand, whose enthusiasm in

the cause of the _Burschenschaft_ had reached the pitch of a half-insane

fanaticism, took it upon him to avenge the wounded honor of the German

name. He visited Kotzebue at the dwelling of the latter, delivered him a

letter, and, while he was reading it, stabbed him with a dagger. Sand

was of course executed, and, though it was proved that the crime was

wholly his own, though the German Confederation, through a commission

appointed specially for the purpose of searching all the papers of the

participants in the _Burschenschaft_ movement, found no evidence of

anything like treasonable purposes, yet it was resolved that these

'demagogical intrigues' must cease. The _Burschenschaft_ was pronounced

a treasonable association; its members were punished by imprisonment or

exile. The poet and professor Arndt and the professor Jahn, prominent

leaders in the movement, were not only deposed from their

professorships, but also imprisoned. The celebrated De Wette was removed

from the chair of theology in the University of Berlin, simply because,

on the ground that an erring conscience ought to be obeyed, he had

excused the deed of Sand. In short, the princes intended effectually to

crush the efforts which, though indirectly, were tending to undermine

their thrones. Seemingly they succeeded. But they had only 'scotched the

snake, not killed it.' It is easy to see that these developments must

have shaken Frederick William's purpose. Of all things, the most

unpleasant to a monarch is to be driven by his subjects. In the present

case he saw not only a loosening of the loyalty which he felt to be due

to him, but also a positive transfer of loyalty, if we may so speak,

from the Prussian throne to the German people in general. If he should

now grant a popular constitution, he would seem not only to be yielding

to a pressure, but would be surrendering what he regarded as a sacred

right, into the hands of ungrateful recipients. He therefore set himself

against the popular current, gave up his former plan, and contented

himself with restoring, in some degree, the form of government as it had

existed before the establishment of the absolute monarchy. He gave, in

1823, to the estates of the provinces, a class of men consisting partly

of nobles and owners of knights' manors, partly of representatives of

the cities and of the peasants, the right of _advising_ the crown in

matters specially concerning the several provinces. Nothing further was

done in the matter of modifying the constitution during the reign of

Frederick William III., although he declared his _intention_ of

organizing a national diet.

Comparative quiet ensued till 1830, when the French revolution, followed

by the insurrection of the Austrian Netherlands against Holland, and of

Poland against Russia, again stirred the public mind. But, although the

Polish revolution, on account of its local proximity and ancient

political relations, threatened to involve Prussia in war, she yet

escaped the danger, and passed through the excitement with little

internal commotion. But the existence of disaffection was made manifest

by sundry disturbances in the chief cities, which, however, were easily

quelled. Suffering under no palpable oppression, accustomed once more to

peace, seeing no prospect of gaining any radical change in the form of

government except through violent and bloody measures, which, as

experience had proved, would, after all, be likely to be unsuccessful,

the masses of the people had little heart for a constant agitation in

behalf of an indefinite and uncertain good. Those who did continue the

agitation exhibited less of zeal for German unity and more for that sort

of liberalism which had been current in France, than had marked the

efforts of the _Burschenschaft_. Many of the leaders were obliged to

escape the country, in order to avoid arrest.

In 1840, Frederick William IV. ascended the throne. According to the old

custom, he summoned to Koenigsberg the estates of the provinces of

Prussia and Posen to attend the coronation and take their oaths of

fealty. On this occasion he inquired of this body whether they would

elect twelve members of the East Prussian knighthood, to represent the

old order of lords, and what privileges they wished to have secured.

They replied that they saw no need of reviving that order; and as to

privileges, instead of mentioning any in particular which they desired

to see protected, they wished them all protected and confirmed. They

then reminded the king of the promise of his father to give the nation

a constitution and a diet. The king replied that their reasons for

declining the first proposal were satisfactory, but the establishment of

a general representation of the people he must decline to grant, 'on

account of the true interests of the people intrusted to his care.' The

dissatisfaction produced by this reply was somewhat tempered by the

splendor of the coronation ceremonies, and by the hitherto unknown

condescension of the king in addressing the assembled throng as he took

upon him the vow to be a just judge, a faithful, provident, merciful

prince, a Christian king, as his ever-memorable father had been.

Personally he was a man of more than ordinary talents and of estimable

character. High expectations could be, and were, entertained of the

success of his reign. One of his first acts was to release from prison

those who were there languishing for having been connected with the

_Burschenschaft_. He manifested in his general policy a mildness and

benevolence which, had he lived when nothing had ever been heard of a

constitution, would have doubtless secured for him the uninterrupted

lore and devotion of his subjects. As it was, it is probable that his

reign would have been disturbed by no serious outbreak, had the occasion

for disturbance not come from without.

FOOTNOTES:

[3] Frederick I. ruled till 1713; the succession since then has been as

follows: Frederick William I., 1713-'40; Frederick II. (the Great),

1740-'86: Frederick William II., 1786-'97; Frederick William III.,

1797-1840; Frederick William IV., 1840-'61; William I., 1861.

ASLEEP.

What, darling, asleep in this sylvan retreat!

Thy loose tresses sprinkled with rose petals sweet;

Blown in from the sunlight, some float to thy breast;

Less fragrant are they than their beautiful nest.

There flutt'ring a moment they rise and they sink,

As quivers a humbird his honey to drink,

Or fond doves a-wooing that shiver their wings,

Or throat of a song bird that throbs while he sings.

These petals at last swoon far down in thy snow,

Whose warm drifts of wonder they only can know;

And hidden they lie there all rocked by thy breath,

And pressed in soft odors to ravishing death.

Thine eyes their dear curtains now shut from the light,

Sweet veined and blue tinted they round to my sight,

Fair shells of deep oceans! And sometimes a shell,

When close to your ear, its home secrets will tell:

But in music so mystic, you cannot guess

The strange tales of Ocean it tries to confess.

So lady, thine eyelids, as skies shut the sea,

Or shells _try_ to whisper, are whisp'ring to me.

As glad streams of day 'neath the dawn's glowing tide,

So white keys of laughter thy curving lips hide,

Warm gates of the morning, when morning is new,

And red for the sunshine of smiles to break through!

Thy round arms rest o'er thee so fair and so lone,

Like that white path of stars across the night's zone:

That pathway, when twilight late vanishing dies,

Embraces the earth, though it quits not the skies.

Thus stars kiss the hills, and the trees, and the plain,

Yet never can they kiss the stars back again;

Though yearning they thirst for those arms of the sky,

They never will taste the white home where they lie.

So rivers and oceans with influence sweet,

Their mighty hearts swelling loved Luna to greet,

Strain sobbing their bosoms to hold her dear face,

And thrilled to their depths with her luminous grace,

In tossing waves rapturous rise to her smile.

In vain! Their coy queen half receding the while,

In slow fainting cadence they sink to the shore,

And hoarse tones of love-hunger moan evermore.

Ah, lady, bright sleeper, my soul, like the sea,

Illumed with thy beauty, is trembling to thee:

I kneel in the silence, and drink in the air

That, fragrant and holy, has toyed with thy hair;

And hushed in thy presence with worshipping fear--

The breeze even stills when it reaches thine ear--

My lips dare not whisper in softest refrain

The trance of my heart in its passionate pain.

Oh, open thine eyes! let their smile make me brave--

The Queen e'en of Ocean will _look_ at her slave!--

Let me drown in their light--deliciously drown,

And lay thy white hand on my head for a crown,

And chrism. And thus regally shrived, might I dare

Exhale the warm infinite incense of prayer

From my deep soul to thine. Nor then couldst thou know

The wealth of the censer. Thou wak'st!--must I go?

A CASTLE IN THE AIR.

'I built my soul a lordly pleasure-house,

Wherein at ease for aye to dwell;

I said, 'O soul, make merry and carouse,

Dear soul, for all is well.'

TENNYSON.

Times are changed. Most people (_i.e._, Bostonians) now build their

castles on the 'new land.'[4] But I belong to the old school, and I

still build mine in the air.

The situation has its advantages. As Miss Gail Hamilton observed, when I

had the pleasure of exhibiting it to her, it is airy. I need scarcely

add that it is the favorite haunt of those kindred spirits Ari-osto and

Ary Scheffer. It is too high ever to be reached by any unsavory odors

from the Back Bay. Cool in summer it is also, notwithstanding,

remarkably warm in winter. My castle is quite too retired for any

critics to intrude upon it. They cannot get at the plan of it even,

unless in the event of its being shown them by my friend, the editor of

a popular magazine, which is a betrayal too improbable to enter into my

calculations.

There is no stucco or sham about my castle. Like a fair and frank

republican, I built it all of pure freestone, from the doorsteps up to

the observatory. This observatory--I will speak of it while I think of

it--holds a telescope exactly like the one at Cambridge, except that the

tube has a blue-glass spectacle to screw on, through which it does not

put out one's eye to look at the moon.

My workmen never make mistakes nor keep me waiting. The painters paint,

the upholsterers upholster, and the carpenters _carpent_ precisely when

and as I wish. I do not have to heat myself by running over the town for

straw matting, nor to catch cold in crypts full of carpets. Everything

that I order comes to my door as soon as I order.

Every time that I go down Washington street, I choose something in the

shop windows for my castle--an engraving at Williams & Everett's, a

mosaic or classic onyx at Jordan's, or a camel's hair--for a dressing

gown, of course at Hovey's. It really costs surprisingly little, and is

an agreeable exercise of taste and judgment. It is likewise an exercise

of benevolence. I select as many things for my guests as I do for

myself. My castle is never too full. Little by little my tastes change;

and little by little, I let most of my old treasures go to make room for

new ones.

But certain principles always prevail in my selections. For instance, as

my particular friend, the Reverend George Herbert, remarked, as he

looked about him on one of his visits to my castle: 'Sober handsomeness

doth bear the bell.' I cannot admit anything gaudy, needlessly exotic,

or impertinently obtruding the idea of dollars. Now a travelled lady,

who had heard of my castle, once offered me for it a buhl cabinet, of

angry and alarming redness and a huge idol of a gilded trough, standing

on bandy legs, and gorged with artificial flowers. And I thanked her for

her kind intentions, ordered a handcart, sent the lumber to auction, and

applied the proceeds to the benefit of the insane.

Tapestry, however, clever bronzes, sheathed daggers from Hassam's with

beetles crawling on the hilts, and illuminated, brazen-clasped old

tomes abound at my castle. They come to me one by one, each bringing

with it its separate pleasure. I have no fancy for buying up, at one

fell swoop, the whole establishment of some bankrupt banker or

_confiscated_ Russian nobleman. Instead of slipping at once, like a

dishonest hermit-crab, into the whole investment of somebody else, I

rather choose to come by my own, as I suppose other more happily

constituted shell-fish do, by gradual and individual accretion or

secretion.

My winter parlor looks down Beacon street. It is lofty, like all the

rest of my apartments, but otherwise small and snug. The floor is of a

dark wood, polished to the utmost. The great wood-fire loves to wink at

its own glowing face mirrored in this floor; and, when alone, I often

skate upon it. But as I do not wish to see my less sure-footed friends

disposed about it in writhing attitudes expressive of agony and broken

bones, I usually keep it covered, up to a yard's breadth from the

dark-carved wainscot, with a velvety carpet, which was woven for me at

Wilton, and represents the casting scene in the 'Song of the Bell.' The

window curtains are of velvet, of just the shade of purple that nestles

in the centre of the most splendid kind of fuchsia, and have an Etruscan

border and heavy fringes of gold bullion. The walls are covered with a

crimson velvet paper, of the hue of the outer petals of that same

fuchsia, with little golden suns shining over it everywhere. One end of

the room is further lighted up by a portrait of the terrestrial fury

Etna, in a full suit of grape vines and an explosion of fiery wrath.

Opposite is a spirited scene, by an artist who shall be nameless,

suggested by a passage in an interesting sermon by Jonathan Edwards. The

contemplation of the latter picture, especially, makes a chance

sensation of chilliness a luxury rather than the contrary.

My tawny Scotch terrier, Wye-I, always takes up his position on the

purple plush cushion at one side of the fireplace, and the Maltese cat,

Cattiva, on the crimson one opposite, by instinct, because most becoming

severally to their complexions. The cat never catches mice. There are no

mice in my castle for her to catch. The dog is much attached to her. He

is considered remarkably intelligent. In gratitude for my forbearing to

cut off his tail, he uses it as a brush, watches the coals, and, when

they snap out, sweeps them up with it. He sometimes, with a natural

sensibility which does him no discredit, accompanies the performance

with the appropriate music which has earned him his name.

My summer parlor is much larger. It is paved with little hexagonal

tiles, green, purple, and white alternately, like a bed of cool violets,

with a border of marine shells in mosaic. The walls are cloaked as

greatly as the _Cloaca Maxima_, with verdant leaves, light and dark,

through which, here and there, peeps a rock. There is no arsenic among

them. The windows look seaward to see the ships come and go. Venetian

blinds, of the kind that turn up and down, admit only green light at

noon, softer or brighter according to my mood. Lace curtains sweep the

floor with a slumberous sound when the sea breeze breathes in. Some of

my visitors might say that this room was too empty. I should promptly

disagree with them. To a person of correct taste, not to speak of a

philanthropic bias, it must be painful to see, in warm weather, anything

which calls up a vision of warm handmaidens, laborious with their brooms

and dusters. Therefore I must persist in admitting here little furniture

besides the oriental bamboo couches and porcelain barrels that flank the

room, with little daisy-and-moss-like _chenille_ rugs beside them. One

Canton tepoy holds my _aquarium_, and another, beside the most

frequented of the lounges, the last number of the most weighty of North

American periodicals. If ever I take a nap, it is here.

In the centre of the room, a white-marble Egeria, carved by Thorwaldsen,

throws up between her hands a shaft of cold crystal water, pure as

truth, which spreads into a silvery veil all around her, and plashes

down in a snowy basin: no place could be more inviting for a bath. But

in the winter Egeria shows her power of adaptation by furnishing instead

a Geyser of hot water. Then I turn my scientific friends in here, when

they call upon me, to make them feel at home.

In the position of Jack Horner, sits Miss Hosmer's Puck. Opposite is a

mate production, which she never put on exhibition. It is Ariel, perched

hiding in a honeysuckle, and leaning slyly out to play on an AEolian harp

in a cottage latticed window.

Over the somewhat frequented couch of which I have spoken, there is a

picture by Paul Delaroche of

'Sabrina fair

Under the glassy, cool, translucent wave,

In twisted braids of lilies knitting

The loose folds of her amber-dropping hair.'

On the other side hangs another painting which I prefer, partly perhaps

because even in my castle I was for a time at a loss how to procure it.

The subject was recommended to me by Hans Christian Andersen. It is the

story of a beautiful princess. Are not Danish princesses always

beautiful?

Her numerous brothers were so unfortunate as to be laid, by a witch,

under a spell of a most inconvenient sort. Every morning they were

turned into wild swans. Every day they were obliged to fly over many a

league of gray ocean to the mainland and back to their home, an island

in the midst of the sea. At every sunset they resumed their natural

shape, and were princes all night. One day they met their sister on the

shore. They undertook to carry her back with them. Her Weight made them

slower than usual. A storm came up in the after noon. There was a sad

probability of the swans being turned into princes again before they

could possibly 'see her home.'

In my picture, half of the swans are a plumy raft for her, and row her

through the air with their sweeping wings. Another relay, more tired,

perhaps, make a canopy over her, and fan her as they fly. Their

outstretched gaze sees only the island. But the princess, as she lies

facing backward, sees the danger. In despairing, motionless silence, she

looks at the sinking sun, with no color in her cheeks but that which he

casts upon her. The red, warning sun looks awfully back, face to face

with her, in the narrowing strip of blue sky between two horizontal bars

of thundering clouds, which the lightning is beginning to chain

together, that the night may come before its time, and the enchanted

princes and their sister may drown in darkness.

Church did the water very well, and Paul Weber the island. Rosa Bonheur

was so kind as to paint the swans--I need not say how. But the rest of

the picture was such a perplexity to me that I could think of nothing

better than to send for Mr. Laroy Sunderland to call one day when I was

out, and knock up Raphael to draw the princess, and Salvator Rosa, the

clouds, and Titian to see to the sky and light. When I came in again,

the completed whole met me as a pleasant surprise.

Not far off are Landseer's 'Challenge,' and a few other Arctic pieces of

his, which I look at in July to keep myself cool. But the chief of my

pictures are in the picture gallery, at the top of my castle, lighted

from above. _Connoisseurs_ assure me, with rare candor, that the

'Transfiguration,' 'Last Judgment,' 'Assumption of the Virgin,' and so

forth, there, are duplicates rather than copies of the originals.

In my library there is scarcely a single picture to be found, nor a

statue, nor a bust even, except of the duskiest, self-hiding bronze

overhead--only some dim, dark engraving, or brown, antiquated autograph,

fading in a little black frame, or a signet ring hanging against the

book written by the crumbled hand that once wore it--only relics having

the power to excite thought without distracting attention--- unobtrusive

memorials of the dead with whom I am soon to live. Rich, black, old

bookcases, carved all over in high relief, hold their immortal works or

the records of their undying deeds. Even the writings of the living are

sparingly admitted here. I stand on my guard constantly, lest I be

enslaved by their influence. It is less by obsequiousness to the Present

than by listening to the admonitions of the Past, that we may hope to

gain a hearing from the Future.

Saints and seraphs, such as they appeared to _Fra Angelico_, look in

upon me through the stained-glass windows, that I may always read and

study as if under their holy eyes. Ivy runs thickly over their deep

arched recesses, and over the stags' heads which surmount them. In

winter, little but painted beams and glow come through them. In summer,

the oriel opens of an evening to show me the phantom ships that haunt

the misty, dreamy harbor; and the lattices that look westerly over the

lake-like mouth of the Charles, are seldom shut against the sun or moon.

The floor is smoothly paved with broad, square slabs of freestone, on

which is here or there engraved one or another illustrious name, like a

'footprint on the sands of time,' with a date of birth and death. Tables

that match the bookcases support portfolios containing allegorical

designs by Relszch, Blake, and Albrecht Durer. On a writing desk, that

was once Vittoria Colonna's, a little Parian angel holds my ink for me,

kneeling as if to ask a blessing upon it, and to entreat me to blot no

pages with it in the souls whereon I write,

[Greek: 'Mede mousa moi

Genoit aoidos etis umnesei kaka']

Before the reading chairs, plenty of tiger and leopard skins lie in wait

to cherish the cool feet of students, but there is nothing to trip up my

own, along the long diameter of the long oval room, if sometimes the

fancy seizes me to walk up and down there for hours alone, listening to

the 'voices' that are not 'from without.'

At the end opposite to the oriel, I have just had placed an organ, the

twin of the new one at the Music Hall, except that the faces on the

pipes are beautiful, and do not look as if it hurt them to pipe. The

world may be too small; but the organ cannot possibly be too large.

Malibran, Jenny Lind, or Mrs. Mott usually sings to it of an evening,

accompanied by Franz, Schubert, or Mendelssohn; or Beethoven drops in to

play one of his symphonies. Sunday nights, Handel performs upon it

regularly for a choir composed of Vaughan, Herbert, the minister who

chants 'Calm on the listening ear of night,' Madame Guyon, and Sarah

Adams. Between their hymns, Robertson preaches a sermon and reads from

the liturgy of King's Chapel. This service is designed as a special

easement to the consciences and stomachs alike of those oppressed

Christians, whom modern customs and physical laws impel, of an

afternoon, to be dining and digesting precisely at the hours during

which their pastors are unaccountably and unjustifiably in the habit of

preaching.

The books upon the shelves, last not least, are less numerous than

choice. Among them still are to be found the most masterly writings of

the most masterly minds in the three learned professions, and the

noblest treatises on the nobler of the arts and sciences. There are many

'chronicles of eld,' which, if not true, as the Frenchman said, at any

rate '_meritent bien de l'etre_.' There are such few fictions as bear

the stamp of much individual thought, character, and observation.

Especially there is a great deal of biography; for biography is the

great, all-embracing epic of humanity.

Two suits of armor stand on guard, one on each side, by each

well-assorted bookcase. I always think it prudent to warn my incautious

visitors that these are _automata_, wound up and set to deal a box with

their gauntleted hands on each ear of each disorderly wight who puts a

book where it does not belong.

Below my library, and beyond my courtyard, is a boat in which I row

myself out in warm weather to visit my friends along the coast. When I

ply the oar, the crab-fishery is unproductive, droughts prevail, and I

am not often upset or drowned.

In my stable are sometimes to be found, eating unmingled oats, two tame

ponies, Mattapony and Poniatowski. They take my invalid acquaintance out

on airings in the daytime, and my lingering guests home at a reasonable

hour in the evening. The coachman thinks it is good for the horses to be

out in bad weather. He loves to wash the coach. For my own use, I keep a

large dapple-gray, an ex-charger of the purest blood. He has the

smoothest canter and the finest mouth that I ever felt; but, with decent

regard to appearances, and my private preferences, expressed or

understood, he never fails to prance in a manner to strike awe and

terror into all beholders, for full five minutes every time I mount him.

In the common world, I myself am, I trust, often amiable--always in some

respects exemplary. In my castle, I am always all that I ought to

be--all that I wish to be. I am as stately as Juno, as beautiful as

Adonis, as elegant as Chesterfield, as edifying as Mrs. Chapone, as

eloquent as Burke, as noble as Miss Nightingale, as perennial as the

Countess of Desmond, and as robust as Dr. Windship. I also understand

everything but entomology and numismatology; and if I do not understand

them, the only reason is that, as the dear little boys say, 'I _doe_

want to.'

The blossom-end of the day I keep to myself in my castle. I spend all

the mornings alone in the library writing--_calamo currente_, like one

of the heroines of the author of 'Ohone'--the most admirable romances

and poems of the age. People very seldom call to see me. When they do,

they go away again directly on hearing that I am engaged, without as

much as sending in a message. My porter has Fortunatus's purse, and is

giving discreet largesses, in collusion with the agent of the Provident

Association, to the less opulent of the beggars who apply for my

pecuniary aid, while I am providing above for the wants of those who

crave my higher wealth. So that really the only drawback to the pleasure

enjoyed by me at such times, is the idea of the frightful quarrels which

must arise, as soon as I put anything to the press, between the

booksellers, who stand ready to contend with one another for the honor

of publishing it. The very first novel I ever completed led to a duel

between the Montague and Capulet of the trade, in which each party must

have lost his life but for the strenuous interposition of Noah

Worcester. The fear of a repetition of that scene is all which withholds

me from more frequently answering the importunate calls of the public to

appear before them. Matters were simultaneously almost as bad between

Birket Foster and Darley. But I made a compromise there, by promising

that, the next time I got out an edition, I would get out another, and

that of the two each artist should illustrate one. Each eagerly agreed

to this arrangement, naturally feeling sure that such a comparison would

forever establish his own superiority.

Did I say there was but one drawback to my pleasure? There is one more.

It is the idea of the monotonous uniformity with which the Reviews will

eulogize me. They cannot say a word of commendation beyond what is

strictly true, I am fully aware; and I am not obliged to read any more

of it than I please. Still it may appear extravagant to the very few yet

unacquainted with the merits of my works.

Of an evening I am usually at home to visitors; and three times every

winter I give the young people a ball. It breaks up at twelve. I provide

none but the lightest wines. Nor do I encourage the 'round dances.' I

really cannot. Those who do not think it right to join in them would

either do so against their consciences, or feel left out and forlorn;

pretty girls would get overheated, tumbled, and torn, and carry about

the marks of black arms on their delicate waists; and youths,

unsurpassed in the natural nobleness of their port and presence, would

make ridiculous faces in their well-founded anxiety lest they should

lose the time or meet with collisions. But I give them, to make such

amends as I can, plenty of room, pure air, neither hot nor cold, and

flowers in abundance. Soyer furnishes their supper; Strauss and Labitzky

play for them; and they are in a measure consoled for their privations

by seeing and hearing how uncommonly handsome they look to the end of

the evening. The only qualifications I require for admission to the

entertainment are, that the candidates shall be generally acquainted

with one another, respectable in character, tasteful in dress, happy and

kind in their looks, and well-mannered enough to show that they have

assembled to give and receive as much innocent pleasure as they can.

Good talkers and good listeners only are invited to my dinner parties. I

give one every Wednesday. It is a pleasant thing to look forward to

through the first half of the week, and to look back upon through the

last.

My cook likes it. She is the complement to the unhappy gentleman who had

'the temperament of genius without genius.' She has the genius without

the temperament.

Part of my waiters are the attendant hands formerly engaged in the

service of the White Cat. They are always gloved, and never spill nor

break anything. Others, who are dumb, carry everything needed safely to

and fro between table and kitchen.

The walls of my dining room are hung with portraits of all of my

presentable ancestors, from the time of Apelles down to that of Copley.

There are not too many of them to leave room for some Dutch paintings of

fruit, game, and green-grocers' shops, for whets to the hunger.

My responsibility, with regard to the banquet, begins and ends with

seeing, as I never fail to do, that each of the banqueters has a

generally agreeable and peculiarly congenial companion. As for myself, I

maintain that a host has his privileges; and I always place the Reverend

Sydney Smith very near my right hand. On my left, I enjoy a variety. The

Autocrat of the Breakfast Table is sometimes so kind as to grace that

corner of my dinner table. So is a gentleman who was once two years

before the mast as an uncommon sailor; and so is Sir Lainful, and a

child from a neighboring college town, whose society is better than that

of most men.

Nothing is more promotive of digestion than laughter. I regret that my

experience does not enable me to speak quite so favorably of choking. By

means of the latter, my bright career was, on the very first of this

series of festivities, nearly brought to a premature close. But as upon

that occasion it was impossible for me to stop laughing, so likewise was

it impossible for me to stop living. Some sort of action of the lungs

was kept up, and complete asphyxia prevented; and, having smiled myself

nearly to death, I smiled myself back to life again. Ever since, my

_convives_, apprised of this mortal frailty of mine, time their remarks

more prudently, and allow me to take alternately a joke and a morsel.

Sir Walter Scott always sits at the farther end of the table. He is the

best talker that I ever heard, but not so good for dinner as he is for

luncheon, because what he says is too interesting, and takes away one's

appetite; nor for supper either, because he makes one dream. I always

contrive that the more plethoric of my guests shall take their seats

near him.

_I_ could never be tired of Macaulay; but he contradicts people, and

once made two ladies cry. They were introduced to me by an author to

whom I owe much enjoyment, Miss Wetherell, of the State of New York. One

was the bride of the Reverend John Humphreys, and the other Mrs. Guy

Carleton. To be sure, I did not see why they should cry--unless from

habit; but still, he ought not to have made them.

After dinner, those who show no signs of having talked themselves out,

are rewarded and encouraged by being privately invited to prolong their

stay, and meet a few other guests in the library.

Shakspeare always appears there among the first, collected and calm, but

whether happy or not, his manner does not show. With regard both to his

past and present life, his reserve is impenetrable. Like a mocking bird,

he utters himself in so many different strains, that I can seldom make

out which is most his own, except when he will sing one of his little

lyrics; when, I must say, I never heard so sweet and rich a voice but

that of Milton on such occasions, or those of Shelley's skylark and

cloud. But yet, whether this voice of his own says that the heart out of

which it comes is most glad or sad, I never can distinguish.

Dante comes with him, as tall, and, I think, as strong a man; but 'Pace'

is still upon his lips and not upon his brow. He complains that heaven

is a melancholy place to him. He has become better acquainted with

Beatrice, and finds her not more beautiful than the rest of the angels,

and otherwise rather a commonplace spirit.

To Goethe I usually have myself excused. To borrow a little slang from

the critics, he 'draws' uncommonly well, especially when he draws

portraits. But I do not care to have my eye trained much by an artist

who has such an infirmity of color that he does not know black from

white.

Schiller meets with many a welcome, and rarely a heartier one than when

he brings his Wilhelm Tell or Jungfrau. I should be glad to ask some of

those who are more intimate with him than I am, whether he is not a good

deal like three wise men, whose plays Socrates and I used to go to see

performed at Athens, two or three thousand years ago, when I was there.

Further, I should be glad to ask whether it would not be better if, in

one respect, he were more like them still. As he at least has seemed to

me to do, they threw the strength of their invention into two or three

impersonations; but as he sometimes does, they always--to steal a term

from the nearest grocery--lumped all the merely necessary and accessary

people, and called them simply 'Chorus.' Thus the wise men's ingenuities

and our memories were spared the trouble of assigning and remembering a

host of insignificant names; and there was no looking back to the

_dramatis personae_, or _dramatos prosopa_, as we called them then, to

find out _who was who_.

A Government officer sometimes reports himself at my gates from Rydal,

with a washing tub of ink on castors, which he pushes about with him

wherever he goes, and in which, as in a Claude-Lorraine mirror, he

contemplates everything that he can both on earth and above. He is

constantly employed in fishing in it with a quill for ideas; and as

often as he catches one, even if it is half drowned, my door-keeper

opens to him.

Lady Geraldine was one of my most constant guests of an evening. But

after her courtship and marriage, she was too apt to bring in her

husband. I received him cordially enough two or three times,

particularly when he came with 'the good news from Ghent.' But on other

occasions his conversation was so far from agreeable, so unintelligible,

or, 'not to put too fine a point upon it,' unedifying, that at last my

porter was obliged to hand him out for immediate chastisement.[5] He

never came again. I do not quite see why not; for, if others are willing

to take pains for his good, he certainly should be no less so.

Mrs. Stowe does honor to one of the most honorable places in the

assembly--her head crowned with an everlasting glory by the spirit of

Uncle Tom.

Poor Charlotte Bronte is always present. She looks happy at last, with a

happiness that is not of this world; and if her laurels are but earthly

laurels, I often fancy that in the hand which smoothed her sisters'

deathbeds, I can discern a heavenly palm. There are not many secular

writers whom I would not turn away, if need were, to make room for her.

If I do not always admire her characters, I do her mind. I do not

altogether like her stories; but I want words to express my appreciation

of the way in which she tells them.

I may state in this place, as well as in any, that--an enlightened

conservative in all things--I always hold myself in readiness to

receive, with marked distinction, intellectual women, who 'keep to their

sphere,' such as Miss Mitchell, whose sphere is the celestial globe,

Miss Austin, whose sphere is the _beau monde_, and Miss Blackwell, whose

sphere is the pill.

Cromwell, or Frederick the Great either, would have secured a standing

invitation for Carlyle, I dare say; but it is impossible for me to

overlook his present state of politics. I have little doubt that it fell

upon him as a Nemesis, in the first place for writing bad English, and

secondly for daring to 'damn with faint praise' the loyal, generous,

joyous, chivalrous, religious soldier, Frederick, Baron de la

Motte-Fouque, and prince of romance. When the latter presents himself

for admission my castle needs short siege. The drawbridge falls before

the summons; and when I see him cross my threshold with his lovely and

noble children, Ondine and Sintram, I should be almost too happy, if I

were not afraid of his being affronted by the mischievous humor of

Cervantes.

For Cervantes will make his way in now and then. It is impossible

utterly to banish so much originality, elegance, and grace as his, even

if the fun which accompanies them is sometimes too broad; and, when he

comes to see me, he is always on his very best behavior. Sir Thomas

Browne came once; but I thought he talked too much about himself; and

scarcely anybody seemed to know him.

Hazlitt brought me a letter of introduction from the Emperor Napoleon. I

was not inclined to think much of either of them; but I knew Hazlitt was

a friend of Lamb's; and I have a regard for Lamb, on account of his

regard for his sister. So my porter asked Mr. Hazlitt to walk in; and so

Mr. Hazlitt did. Presently I heard him say, in an aside to Mrs. Jameson,

that women were usually very stupid; if not by nature, by education and

principle. The next time he called I happened to be rather particularly

engaged in writing a review of him. Nobody ever heard him say anything

afterward.

Of course, I single out merely a few even of the 'representative men and

women' among my guests, and conveniences and luxuries in my

establishment. If I told over the tithe of them, I should become

diffuse; but if there is any one thing for which, more than for any

other thing, my writings are remarkable, that one thing[6] is a

thrice-condensed conciseness--in my castle in the air.

FOOTNOTES:

[4] Land recently reclaimed from the Back Bay, near the foot of Beacon

street, in which the richer citizens of Boston are continually building

and furnishing the most showy houses.

[5] I was made a convert to that excellent officer, Corporal Punishment,

by the 'happy effects,' as medical writers say of blisters, thereby

brought about in the case of a divine of tender years, who had got at

his Bible through the medium of German (not Luther's).

Taking for his text the first verse of Genesis, he paraphrased it: 'In

the beginning, all things projected themselves from within outward, and

evolved a Final Cause out of the depths of their individual

consciousness.' As soon as he had got through his discourse and

gratefully asked a blessing on all that we had 'learned and taught,' the

sexton, who apparently entertained unusually high and comprehensive view

of the duties of his calling, attended the preacher to the vestry.

Thence presently issued cries indicative not only of remorse, but of

some kind of physical distress. The two are often connected as

intimately as mysteriously in the discipline of the visible world,

although we are often assured by those who must know, that they have

nothing whatever to do with each other In the invisible. On the

reappearance of the offender, as he meekly wiped his eyes and passed

down the aisle, he was heard, in a broken voice, inquiring of the

deacons where a Hebrew dictionary could be bought; and I have since been

credibly informed that before he arrived at maturity he had learned a

good deal.

Now anybody can read German; in fact, a great many persons seem wholly

unable to stop. But if we do not keep a theological boy to read our

Greek and Hebrew for us, then what do we keep one for? Or, to make the

question intelligible to those among us who speak the Sweden-borgian

tongue, what 'uses does he perform?'

THE DEVIL'S CANON IN CALIFORNIA.

This wonderful ravine is more generally known under the name of the

_Geysers of California_, an ambitious misnomer, which associates it with

the grand Geysers of Iceland, and has given rise to erroneous ideas in

regard to the nature and action of the springs it contains.

The prevalent idea of a geyser is a hot fountain, sometimes quiescent,

but at others rising in turbulent eruption. The mere existence of a hot

spring does not imply a 'geyser,' for, if such were the case, their

number would be very great, hot springs in many parts of the world being

frequent if not general accompaniments of volcanic action.

Unquestionably, the Geysers of Iceland, the 'Strokr,' and the spring of

the Devil's Canon, the 'Witches' Caldron', are the results of volcanic

action; but that action differs essentially in its operation. The

'Strokr' and the 'Great Geyser' are intermittent, and are accounted for

by the siphon theory: the 'Witches' Caldron' is always full and boiling,

and no difference is seen in it from one year's end to another.

It is not, moreover, a fountain, but a basin in the hillside, in which a

black and muddy spring is always bubbling without overflowing.

The great eruptions of the Icelandic Geysers are, it has been observed,

accounted for by the siphon theory; in other words, this theory supposes

the existence of a chamber in the heated earth, not quite full of water,

and communicating with the upper air by means of a pipe, whose lower

orifice is _at the side_ of the cavern and _below_ the surface of the

water. The water, being kept boiling by the intense heat, generates

steam, which soon accumulates such force as to discharge the contents of

the pond into the air through the narrow vent, or, at least enough to

allow of the escape of the superfluous steam. In the Great Geyser of

Iceland this eruption occurs with tremendous power, lasting only a few

moments, when, all the volume of water falling back into the pool, it

sinks much below its ordinary level, and remains quiescent for several

days, until a fresh creation of steam repeats the phenomenon.

'The Witches' Caldron,' which is the 'Great Geyser' of California, on

the contrary, never rises into the air; the subterranean pond of which

it is the safety valve, may be considered to rise in it, as in a pipe,

to the surface. It is not necessary to suppose a siphon; a straight

pipe, communicating with the air, will account for all that is peculiar

to this hot spring.

Before attempting to describe the wonders of the 'Devil's Canon,' it may

be well to give some account of the Geysers of Iceland, to render this

essential difference in character the more striking, especially as

numerous theories, professing to account for the Californian phenomena,

have been propounded by the people of that State, none of which are

thoroughly satisfactory to any one who has examined them attentively.

The following is taken from 'Letters from High Latitudes,' which

appeared in 1861, and is only one of many accounts by Iceland

travellers. Those interested in these matters will derive much

information from the sketches of Mr. J. Ross Browne, which have had many

readers through _Harper's Magazine_. We quote:

'I do not know that I can give you a better notion of the

appearance of the place than by saying that it looked as if for

about a quarter of a mile the ground had been honey-combed by

disease into numerous sores and orifices; not a blade of grass grew

on its hot, inflamed surface, which consisted of

unwholesome-looking, red, livid clay, or crumbled shreds and shards

of slough-like incrustations. Naturally enough, our first impulse

on dismounting was to scamper off to the Great Geyser. As it lay at

the farthest end of the congeries of hot springs, in order to reach

it we had to run the gauntlet of all the pools of boiling water and

scalding quagmires of soft clay that intervened, and consequently

arrived on the spot with our ankles nicely poulticed. But the

occasion justified our eagerness.

'A smooth, silicious basin, seventy-two feet in diameter and four

feet deep, wide at the bottom, as in washing basins on board a

steamer, stood before us, brimful of water just upon the simmer;

while up into the air above our heads rose a great column of vapor,

looking as if it was going to turn into the Fisherman's Genie. The

ground above the brim was composed of layers of incrusted silica

like the outside of an oyster shell, sloping gently down on all

sides from the edge of the basin.

'As the baggage train with our tents and beds had not yet arrived,

we fully appreciated our luck in being treated to so dry a night;

and having eaten everything we could lay hands on, we sat quietly

down to chess, and _coffee brewed in geyser water_; when suddenly

it seemed as if beneath our very feet a quantity of subterranean

cannon were going off: the whole earth shook, and Sigurdr, starting

to his feet, upset the chess board (I was just beginning to get the

best of the game), and started off at full speed toward the great

basin. By the time we reached its brim, however, the noise had

ceased, and all we could see was a slight movement in the centre,

as if an angel had passed by and troubled the water. Irritated by

this false alarm, we determined to revenge ourselves by going and

tormenting the Strokr.

'The Strokr--or the _Churn_--you must know, is an unfortunate

geyser, with so little command over his temper and his stomach that

you can get a _rise_ out of him whenever you like. All that is

necessary is to collect a quantity of sods, and throw them down his

funnel. As he has no basin to protect him from these liberties, you

can approach to the very edge of the pipe, about five feet in

diameter, and look down at the boiling water, which is perpetually

seething at the bottom. In a few minutes the dose of turf you have

administered begins to disagree with him; he works himself up into

an awful passion--tormented by the qualms of incipient sickness; he

groans and hisses, and boils up and spits at you with malicious

vehemence, until at last, with a roar of mingled pain and rage, he

throws up into the air a column of water forty feet high, which

carries with it all the sods that have been chucked in, and

scatters them scalded and half digested at your feet. So irritated

has the poor thing's stomach become by the discipline it has

undergone, that long after all foreign matter has been thrown off,

it goes on retching and spluttering, until, at last, nature is

exhausted, when, sobbing and sighing to itself, it sinks back into

the bottom of its den. Put into the highest spirits by the success

of this performance, we turned to examine the remaining springs. I

do not know, however, that any of the rest are worthy of any

particular mention. They all resemble in character the two I have

described, the only difference being that they are infinitely

smaller, and of much less power and importance.

'As our principal object in coming so far was to see an eruption of

the Great Geyser, it was of course necessary to wait his pleasure;

in fact, our movements entirely depended upon his. For the next two

or three days, therefore, like pilgrims round some ancient shrine,

we patiently kept watch, but he scarcely deigned to vouchsafe us

the slightest manifestation of his latent energies. Two or three

times the cannonading we heard immediately after our arrival

recommenced--and once an eruption to the height of about ten feet

occurred; but so brief was its duration, that by the time we were

on the spot, although the tent was not eighty yards distant, all

was over; as after every effort of the fountain, the water in the

basin mysteriously ebbed back into the funnel. This performance,

though unsatisfactory in itself, gave us an opportunity of

approaching the mouth of the pipe, and looking down its scalded

gullet. In an hour afterward the basin was brimful as ever.

'On the morning of the fourth day a cry from the guides made us

start to our feet, and with one common impulse rush toward the

basin. The usual subterranean thunders had already commenced. A

violent agitation was disturbing the centre of the pool. Suddenly a

dome of water lifted itself up to the height of eight or ten

feet--then burst and fell; immediately after which a shining liquid

column, or rather sheaf of columns, wreathed in robes of vapor,

sprang into the air, and in a succession of jerking leaps, each

higher than the last, flung their silver crests against the sky.

For a few minutes the fountain held its own, then all at once

appeared to lose its ascending energy. The unstable waters

faltered--drooped--fell, 'like a broken purpose,' back upon

themselves, and were immediately sucked down into the recesses of

their pipe.

'The spectacle was certainly magnificent; but no description can

give an idea of its most striking features. The enormous wealth of

water, its vitality, its hidden power, the illimitable breadth of

sunlit vapor, rolling out in exhaustless profusion--all combined to

make one feel the stupendous energy of nature's slightest movement.

'And yet I do not believe that the exhibition was so fine as some

that have been seen: from the first burst upward to the moment the

last jet retreated into the pipe, was no more than a space of seven

or eight minutes, and at no moment did the crown of the column

reach higher than sixty or seventy feet above the surface of the

basin. Now early travellers talk of three hundred feet, which must,

of course, be fabulous; but many trustworthy persons have judged

the eruptions at two hundred feet, while well-authenticated

accounts--when the elevation of the jet has been actually

measured--make it to have attained a height of upward of one

hundred feet.'

Such are the peculiar characteristics of the Geysers of Iceland,

differing in almost every essential point from the hot springs, so

called, in California. We propose to show that the phenomena of the

Devil's Canon appear in other parts of the world in connection with some

known volcano, which has at some period in history been in active

operation, and that there is strong reason to believe that they can be

explained by the sinking of cold water into the earth, in a country rich

in salts and minerals, and encountering a volcanic focus, from which the

water is discharged hot and strongly impregnated with the salts through

which it has passed. It was Humboldt's opinion that hot springs

generally originated thus, for he says in 'Kosmos':

'A very striking proof of the origin of hot springs by the sinking

of cold meteoric water into the earth, and by its contact with a

volcanic focus, is afforded by the volcano of Jorullo. When, in

September, 1759, Jorullo was suddenly elevated into a mountain

eleven hundred and eighty-three feet above the surrounding plain,

two small rivers, the Rio de Cuitimba and the Rio de San Pedro,

disappeared, and some time afterward burst forth again during

violent shocks of an earthquake, as hot springs, whose temperature

I found, in 1803, to be 186.4 deg. Fahr.'

The most marked characteristics of the springs of the Devil's Canon are,

the small space in which they are all contained; the profusion and

variety of mineral salts, and the proximity of different minerals,

almost flowing into each other, but never mingling; the number and

different forces of the steam jets on every side; and the remarkable

appearance of the soil.

The approach to the Devil's Canon is through a section of country

bearing evident traces of volcanic action, and rich in mineral springs,

of which the most important are those of the Napa Valley. First among

these, at the greatest distance from the volcano (if we may be allowed

to call it so), is the soda spring of Napa, a cold spring, greatly

resembling in flavor the water of the Congress Spring at Saratoga.

Passing up the Napa Valley, we find a tepid sulphur spring near St.

Hellon's, known as the 'White Sulphur Spring,' being strongly

impregnated with that mineral, and tasting much like the famous 'White

Sulphur' of Virginia. Its waters, however, are slightly warm, and,

although stronger than those of the 'Warm Springs' of the Blue Ridge, a

basin as clear and buoyant as that could easily be made.

This spring is owned by Mr. Alstrom, of the Lick House, at San

Francisco, and, being in a charming valley, is fast becoming the most

popular watering place on the Pacific coast. About twelve miles beyond

the Sulphur Springs are the 'Hot Springs,' which resemble the

description just given of the Icelandic Geysers--the little

geysera--there being the same quaking bog around them, which emits steam

to the tread, and the surface being scabby, like an old salt meadow

under a midsummer sun. These waters are scalding hot, but are pure,

excepting a trace of iron. If they have been analyzed, the writer has

not seen the results.

The Devil's Canon lies about fifteen miles beyond the Hot Springs, and

in the heart of a wild, mountainous country, difficult of access, and

barren of vegetation, except of the most hardy character, such as the

manzanita and Californian oak. Molten mercury, pure and rich, is found

in the crevices of the rocks. Quartz and basalt are freely met with, and

on Geyser Peak disintegrating lava.

Here the road attains an elevation of three thousand feet, and on either

hand are broad and fertile valleys, with rivers winding through them,

the Russian River valley and the Napa being the most beautiful beneath,

while before us are gorges and barren hills, that rise above each other

in picturesque confusion.

The first view of the Devil's Canon is obtained from one of these

desolate hills. At our very feet, fully two thousand feet below,

seemingly a sheer descent, rises a little column of smoke or vapor, and

the opposing hills, which rise abruptly to the height of a thousand

feet, seem cleft by a narrow chasm, the sides of which and the

neighboring hillside seem to have been burnt over by fire, and baked of

many colors, like the neighborhood of an old brick kiln. Any one who has

seen the island of St. Helena will at once recognize it as the same

phenomenon which is famous in the 'Hangings,' the blasted precipice by

the side of Longwood Farm, overhanging the valley which Napoleon chose

for his last resting place. This striking similarity is all the more

worthy of note from its occurring there in a purely volcanic island,

every inch of which is decomposed or crumbling lava or lava rock. At the

'Hangings' the soil has the appearance of having been slowly roasted,

long after the central fires which produced the island had lost their

energy.

Descending the mountain we find ourselves on the brink of a precipice,

overhanging a turbulent stream about two hundred feet below, and facing

the ravine or canon, which contains these wonders, and which is smoking

incessantly throughout its entire length.

Just at this commanding point a hotel has been erected, from the portico

of which in the early morning we can watch the grand columns of vapor

opposite, before they are shorn of a portion of their splendor by the

rising sun.

It is possible to walk the entire length of the ravine, surrounded by

jets of steam, and little bubbling springs of mineral water; some

hissing, some sputtering, others roaring, and others shrieking; the

ground being soft and hot, your stick sinking into the clayey ooze, and

a puff of spiteful steam following it as withdrawn; your shoes white or

yellow, as you tread the chalk or the sulphur banks, and your feet

burning with the hot breath of the sulphur blasts below.

If you are not stifled by the sulphur fumes above, be thankful; and when

at last you reach the 'Mountain of Fire' at the head of the ravine, and

look back upon the perils of your upward journey, you think of poor

Christian in the Valley of the Shadow of Death. Bunyan in his dreams

never imagined a more horrible place.

It is a vale of wonders--Nature's laboratory, where chemistry is to be

studied. The name and number of the springs is 'legion,' Hot Sulphur,

Warm Sulphur, Blue Sulphur, White Sulphur, Alum, Salt, and nobody knows

all the mineral compounds. You may stand with one foot in a cold bath

and another in a hot one--if you can. With one hand you may dip up alum

water, as bitter and pure as chemistry can compound it, and with the

other sulphur water, that shall sicken your very soul. If you have

rheumatism, bathe in the splendid sulphur baths or the Indian Spring; if

your eyes are weak, use the eye-water, which beats any ever charmed by

magical incantations.

In the midst of this ravine, into which so many springs are emptying

themselves, is a little stream, which, starting from the head of the

canon quite cool and pure, receives all their mingled waters, and

gradually increases in heat and abominable taste, until at last it

defies description.

Its stones and the rocks that line its banks, owing probably to the

protection of the cooler water, are tolerably firm in texture, all other

parts of the ravine being burned to a powder which crumbles in the hand,

or, when mixed with water, forms an ooze or clay. Many of these stones

by the sides of this little stream are banded with colors like the

Pictured Rocks of Lake Superior (to compare great things with small),

and probably from the same cause. These beautiful cliffs, the

Schwee-archibi-kung of the Indians, are colored by percolations of

surface-water, by which the coloring matter of various minerals and

acids is brought to the face of the precipice, and it is reasonable to

suppose that the drainage of the mountains behind the Devil's Canon,

sinking to similar beds of minerals, is thrown out by the volcano below

in the shape of steam or mineral springs. It is impossible to drill a

hole two feet deep in the side of the ravine without provoking a little

jet of steam. Now, Daubeny, who is the highest authority on volcanoes,

states that the greater part of their ascending vapor is mere steam, and

that in 'Pantellaria (a volcanic island near Sicily) steam issues from

many parts of this insular mountain, and hot springs gush forth from it

which form together a lake six thousand feet in circumference.'

Similar jets of steam and hot water are observed at St. Lucia, near the

crater Oalibou, where also there is a continual formation of sulphur

from the condensation of the vapors, a phenomenon which is lavishly

displayed in the Devil's Canon, and in fact around most known volcanoes.

The writer observed it fully two miles from the active volcano of

Kilawea, forming a fine sulphur bed, and a body of steam so dense that

rheumatic natives of Hawaii were in the habit of using it as a vapor

bath.

The jets of steam in the canon are of the most curious variety. One,

honored by the name of the 'Devil's Steamboat,' is quite a formidable

affair, high up on the hillside, and puffing uninterruptedly, and so

powerfully that the steam is invisible for at least five feet from the

vent. The ground about it is too soft to permit approach, and the heat

too great to tempt it. On a frosty morning, just before sunrise, it is a

fine sight. This, however, is only one of hundreds. It would be imagined

that if they all came from the same source, they would puff in some sort

of unison--that the beatings of the mighty heart below would be felt

simultaneously in every pulse; but the fact is quite the reverse. No

tune or concord is preserved by any two in the canon; one moves with the

quiet regularity of respiration, while the next is puffing with the

nervous anxiety of a little high-pressure tug boat. It affords endless

amusement to listen to their endless variety of complaint; some are

restless, some spiteful, and some angry, while others sound as merrily

as a teakettle, or beat a jolly 'rub-a-dub,' 'rataplan,' that makes a

man's soul merry to hear. In fact, there is a little retreat just out of

the canon, styled the Devil's Kitchen, where the pot and the saucepan,

the gridiron and the teakettle are visible to men gifted with

imaginations strong enough to grasp the unseen.

The great feature of the canon, which has given it the unmerited name of

'Geyser,' is the Witches' Caldron, a small cavity in the hillside,

seemingly running back into the hill at an angle of forty-five degrees,

filled with villanous black mud in unceasing commotion.

How different from the pellucid basin of the Great Geyser! Lord Dufferin

tells us that he '_brewed his coffee_ in the Geyser water.'

The mud boils like the angry lava-waves of a volcano; it is always of a

very high temperature, and occasionally runs over the rim of the basin,

but never rises violently into the air. It looks like black sulphur

(bitumen), and has a brimstone smell. Certainly it is a diabolical pit,

and worth coming far to see, but it shows none of the phenomena which

tempt travellers to Iceland.

It more closely resembles the salses or mud volcanoes of Central and

South America, and is a phenomenon very common on the sides of

volcanoes. As far back as the time of Pliny it was observed that 'in

Sicily eruptions of wet mud precede the glowing (lava) stream.'

Humboldt recognizes in the 'salses, or small mud volcanoes, a transition

from the changing phenomena presented by the eruptions of vapor and

thermal springs, to the more powerful and awful activity of the streams

of lava that flow from volcanic mountains.'

Although the recent discovery of the Devil's Canon in California makes

it impossible to say at what time, if ever, this smothered volcano may

have been more active, we have accounts of analogous phenomena in

Central America and San Salvador, in the Ausoles of Ahuachapan, near the

volcano of Izalco, which were described in 1576 by Licenciado Palacio,

and also in what was called the 'Infernillo,' on the side of the volcano

of San Vicente, which was mentioned by the Spanish _Conquistadores_. We

also know something of the subsequent history of these volcanoes; for M.

Arago has remarked that

'The volcano of Izalco is extremely active. Among its eruptions may

be cited those of 1798, 1805, 1807, and 1825. On the occasion of

the last eruption the course of the river Tequisquillo was altered

to the extent of several kilometres.'

Also:

'The volcano of San Vicente, called also Sacatecoluca, was

distinguished in 1643 by a very violent eruption which covered all

the surrounding country with ashes and sulphur. In January, 1835, a

new eruption of this volcano destroyed many towns and villages.'

Now let us see what old Palacio says of the springs on the side of this

fearful volcano of Izalco:

'The springs, which the Indians call 'Hell,' are all within the

space of a gunshot across, and each makes a different noise. One

imitates the sound of a fuller's mill; another that of a forge, and

a third a man snoring. The water in some is turbid; in some clear;

in others red, yellow, and various colors. They all leave deposits

of corresponding colors. Collectively the springs form the Rio

Caliente, running underground for a quarter of a league, and so hot

on reaching the surface as to take the skin off a man's feet.

Double the range of a musket shot from these springs are others,

which flow from a rock fifteen feet long by nine feet broad, split

in the centre, sending out with water columns of smoke and steam,

with a fearful sound, distinguishable for half a league.'

A later visitor has given an account of the same springs, which may be

thus condensed:

'Not far from Apaneca and in the vicinity of the town of

Ahuachapan, are some remarkable thermal springs, called _Ausoles_.

They emit a dense white steam from a semi-fluid mass of mud and

water in a state of ebullition, which continually throws off large

and heavy bubbles. [The mud bubbles of the Witches' Caldron are

quite as extraordinary.] They occupy a considerable space, the

largest not less than one hundred yards in circumference. In this

one the water is exceedingly turbid, of a light brown color, and

boils furiously. The waters in the other caldrons vary in color,

and form deposits of the finest clay of every shade. Steam ascends

in a dense white cloud, shutting out the sun; the ground is all

hot, soon becoming insupportable. In places a little jet of steam

and smoke rises fiercely from a hole in the hills, while in others

boiling water rushes out as if forced from a steam engine. The

water possesses varying mineral qualities.

'All these springs are on the side of the volcano Apaneca, one of a

cluster of which Izalco is the most active, and Santa Anna the

mother volcano.'

These accounts would be equally correct if applied to the Devil's Canon;

but the following appears to surpass it in the power of the volcano

below. It is condensed from a description by the same traveller, whose

name cannot be ascertained:

'On the north side of the volcano of San Vicente (a water volcano

occupying the geographical centre of San Salvador, seven thousand

feet above the sea), at the head of a considerable ravine, and near

the base of the mountain, is a place called 'El Infernillo.'

'For the space of several hundred yards, rills of hot water spring

from the ground, which looks red and burned, and there are numerous

orifices sending out spires of steam with a fierce vigor like the

escape of a steam engine. The principal discharge is from an

orifice thirty feet broad, opening beneath a ledge of igneous

rocks, nearly on a level with the bottom of the ravine. Smoke,

steam, and hot water are sent out with incredible velocity for a

distance of forty yards, as if from a force pump, with a roar as of

a furnace in full blast. The noise is intermittent (although never

ceasing entirely) and as regular as respiration. All around are

salts, crystallized sulphur, and deposits of clay of every shade.

There is no vegetation in the vicinity, and the stream for a mile

is too hot for the hand to bear.'

Such a striking similarity in phenomena at so great a distance apart, in

connection with active or dormant volcanoes, would seem to be enough to

prove the connection in any candid mind, and utterly refute the idle

theory that all this heat may be produced by the chemical action of

water on beds of sulphates or phosphates just below the surface. The

temperature of the water should be sufficient to show that it comes from

great depths. The writer was unable, from want of a thermometer, to

verify the temperatures of the various springs in the Devil's Canon, but

was told that they average 201 deg., and as most of them were boiling, it

appeared not to be far from the truth. Since Arago discovered, in 1821,

that the deepest artesian wells were the hottest, it has been observed

that the hottest springs are the purest; and from their geological

surroundings, many are proved to come from great depths. The Aguas

Calientes de las Trincheras, near Puerto Cabello, issue from _granite_,

at a temperature of 206 deg.; the Aguas de Comaugillas, near Guanaxuato,

from _basalt_, at 205 deg.. To more fully establish the volcanic origin of

the phenomena of California and Central America, if such a thing were

necessary, it can, however, be shown that similar phenomena are found

around the crater of a volcano in _actual eruption_.

A graphic account of 'White Island,' in the South Pacific, from the pen

of Captain Cracroft, R. N., who visited it with the Governor of New

Zealand, in H. M. S. Niger, speaks of boiling springs, 'geysers,' and

steam-escapes, in connection with a very remarkable active volcano.

As very few are acquainted with this singular island, his description of

his visit is given in full:

'Sunday, _January_ 15, 1862.

'This morning we were well inside the Bay of Plenty, and as the

wind declined to a calm, I got steam up, and stood for White

Island, on which there is a volcano in active operation. The white

cloud of smoke that always hovers over it was in sight before eight

o'clock, in shape like a huge palm tree, and at eleven o'clock, H.

E., the governor, gladly accompanied me ashore, with all the

officers of the ship that could be spared from duty.

'As we approached the island, its aspect was of the most singular

and forbidding description. Except on its northern face, to which

the sulphurous vapor does not appear to reach, it is utterly

destitute of vegetation: here and there are a few patches of

underwood; but in every other direction the island is bald, bleak,

and furrowed into countless deep-worn ravines. The centre of the

island has been hollowed out by the crater of the volcano into a

capacious basin, almost circular, and, excepting to the south,

where there is a huge cleft or rent, its sides or edges rise almost

perpendicular full eight hundred feet from the base. After some

trouble, carefully backing in with the swell, a landing was

effected on the south side, when a most extraordinary sight was

displayed to our view. Before us, in the hollow of the basin, was a

lake of yellow liquid, smoking hot, about a hundred yards in

diameter, as near as could be guessed. Around this, but chiefly

toward the north side, were numerous jets of steam spouting out of

the ground. A strong sulphurous smell pervaded the atmosphere, and

warned us what was to be expected from a nearer proximity to the

crater in active operation at the farther end of the lake, to

which, nothing daunted by its appearance, our party was determined

to penetrate. Our advance was made cautiously; the surface of the

ground was in some places soft and yielding, and we knew not to

what brimstone depths an unwary step might sink us. There were

little ravines to be crossed, which had to be first carefully

sounded. As we proceeded on the soft, crustaceous surface,

diminutive spouts of vapor would spit forth, as if to resent our

intrusion. In skirting the edge of the lake, its temperature and

taste were both tested; the former varied with the distance from

the seething bubbling going on at the extremity; in some places the

hand could be kept in, but 130 deg. was the highest registered, without

risk to the thermometer, by Mr. Lawrenson, assistant surgeon: the

taste may be imagined, but not described!

'Continuing our advance, the roaring and hissing became louder and

louder, as though a hundred locomotives were all blowing off

together, while the steam from the crater and numerous geysers

surrounding it was emitted in huge volumes, ascending full two

thousand feet in the air. Most fortunately it was a perfect calm,

or the fumes of the sulphur would alone have sufficed to stop our

progress; but there was also every reason to believe, judging from

the description I have by me of a former visit, that the volcano

was to-day in a more quiescent state than usual. Everywhere sulphur

was strewed around, and we had only to enlarge any of the vapor

holes to obtain it in its pure crystallized state. We were now

within a few yards of the crater--huge bubbles of boiling mud were

rising several feet from the surface of the lake--the heat and

sulphurous vapor were almost insupportable; it was evident that no

animal life could long exist here. But before leaving this caldron,

one of the mids, more venturous than the rest, climbed up a small,

semi-detached hill, and his example being followed, we beheld a

scene that beggars all description. In full activity a roaring

fountain shot up into the scorching atmosphere: we deemed this to

be molten sulphur, but no flame was visible in the daylight; stones

were thrown in, but they were projected into the air as high as the

ship's mast-heads. It was a sight never to be forgotten; and we

retraced our steps to the boats with the satisfaction of having

been permitted to make a closer examination of this grand natural

curiosity than any previous visitor. We saw no indication of either

animal or insect life, and it is not likely that any can exist on

this island. On the beach, which was composed of large bowlders,

lay the bones of an enormous whale, and a couple of whale birds

hovered round the boats as they pulled back to the ship.'

Here we have an account agreeing in every respect, as far as it goes,

with the appearance of the desolate valley known as 'Geyser Canon,' the

same 'burnt-out' look of the land, the same jets of steam, large and

small, and boiling caldrons of mud.

'The surface of the soil was soft and yielding,' according to the

gallant captain, and the punching of a stick called out spiteful little

jets of steam. It is to be regretted, however, that the observant

officer does not acquaint us with the taste of the waters. Probably one

swallow was enough for him, if it was sulphur water; and he does not

even tell us that, so that it is impossible to say whether the numerous

kinds of salts noticed in California are to be traced here. His

testimony is explicit that these 'geysers' occur on the sides of a great

volcano.[7]

Thus, in conclusion, it will be seen how a comparison of all the

phenomena occurring in the 'Devil's Canon'--where, without any other

positive proof, we suspect the existence of a deep-seated volcano--with

similar thermal springs and jets of steam on the sides of known

volcanoes, in many and distant parts of the world, either now or at some

recorded time in active operation, drives us irresistibly to the

inference that the so-called 'Geysers' are of similar origin, and only

another manifestation of the dormant energies of the interior of our

globe; now bursting out in lava flames, as on Hecla or Vesuvius, and now

mildly presenting us with a tepid bath.

As to the name of geyser being applied to the Californian phenomena, we

protest against it. A true geyser is a natural hydraulic machine of

magnificent power; it is a spring, to be sure, but a mineral spring is

not necessarily a geyser, and there is as much difference between the

'Geysers of California' and the Strokr or the 'Great Geyser,' as there

is between a squib and a musket-shot. Call the springs AUSOLES, if you

please, like their counterparts of Ahuachapan, or 'give the devil his

due,' and call the place as it was called by its discoverer.

THE DEVIL'S CANON is not a bad name for such a diabolical, sulphurous,

hot, and altogether infernal den.

FOOTNOTES:

[6] Said the pleader to the judge, 'If there is any one thing which,

more than any other thing, proves the thing, this thing is that thing!'

'Which thing?' said the judge to the pleader.

[7] White Island is in the Bay of Plenty, not far from Auckland, the

government seat of New Zealand, on the more northerly of the two islands

forming the group. According to Mr. George French Angas, whose Travels

in New Zealand are quoted In Dicken's _Household Words_ for October 19,

1850, the neighboring mainland (if the word may be applied to the

principal inland) abounds in hot springs of volcanic origin.

Mr. Angas says:

'I visited the boiling springs which issue from the side of a steep

mountain, called Te Rapa. There were nearly one hundred of them; they

burst out, bubbling from little orifices in the ground, which are not

more than a few inches in diameter, the steam rushes out in clouds with

considerable force: the hillside is covered with them, and a river of

hot water runs down into the lake. The soil around is a red-and-white

clay, strongly impregnated with sulphur and hydrogen gas; pyrites also

occur. Several women were busy cooking baskets of potatoes over some of

the smaller orifices: leaves and ferns were laid over the holes, upon

which the food was placed. They were capitally done.

'About two miles from this place, on the edge of a great swampy flat, I

met with a number of boiling ponds; some of them of very large

dimensions. We forded a river flowing swiftly toward the lake, which is

fed by the snows melting in the valleys of the Tongariro. In many

places, in the bed of this river, the water boils up from the

subterranean springs below, suddenly changing the temperature of the

stream, to the imminent risk of the individual who may be crossing.

Along whole tracts of land I heard the water boiling violently beneath

the crust over which I was treading. It is very dangerous travelling,

for, if the crust should break, scalding to death must ensue. I am told

that the Rotuma natives, who build their houses over the hot springs in

that district, for the sake of constant warmth at night, frequently meet

with accidents of this kind: it has happened that when a party has been

dancing on the floor, the crust has given way, and the convivial

assembly has been suddenly swallowed up in the boiling caldron beneath!

Some of the ponds are ninety feet in circumference, filled with a

transparent pale-blue boiling water, sending up columns of steam.

Channels of boiling water run along the ground in every direction, and

the surface of this calcareous flat around the margin of the boiling

ponds covered with beautiful incrustations of lime and alum, in some

parts forming flat saucer-like figures. Husk of maize, moss, and

branches of vegetable substances were incrusted in the same manner. I

also observed small deep holes, or wells, here and there among the grass

and rushes, from two inches to as many feet in diameter, filled with

boiling mud, that rises in large bubbles as thick as hasty pudding;

these mud pits sent up a strong sulphureous smell. Although the ponds

boiled violently, I noticed small flies walking swiftly, or rather

running on their surface.

The steam that rises from these boiling springs is visible for many

miles, appearing like the jets of a number of steam engines.'--Vol. ii.,

pp. 113, 114, 115.

FLY LEAVES FROM THE LIFE OF A SOLDIER.