THE KNICKERBOCKER.

SICILIAN SCENERY AND ANTIQUITIES.

BY THOMAS COLE.

A few months only have elapsed since I travelled over the classic land
of Sicily; and the impressions left on my mind by its picturesqueness,
fertility, and the grandeur of its architectural remains, are more
vivid, and fraught with more sublime associations, than any I received
during my late sojourn in Europe. The pleasure of travelling, it seems
to me, is chiefly experienced after the journey is over; when we can
sit down by our own snug fire-side, free from all the fatigues and
annoyances which are its usual concomitants; and, if our untravelled
friends are with us, indulge in the comfortable and harmless vanity of
describing the wonders and dangers of those distant lands, and like
Goldsmith’s old soldier, ‘Shoulder the crutch and show how fields
were won.’ I was about to remark, that those who travel only in books
travel with much less discomfort, and perhaps enjoy as much, as those
who travel in reality; but I fancy there are some of my young readers
who would rather test the matter by their own experience, than by the
inadequate descriptions which I have to offer them.

Sicily, as is well known, is the largest island in the Mediterranean
Sea. It was anciently called Trinacria, from its triangular shape, and
is about six hundred miles in circumference. Each of its extremities
is terminated by a promontory, one of which was called by the ancients
Lilybeum, and faces Africa; another called Pachynus, faces the Peloponessus
of Greece; and the third, Pelorum, now Capo di Boco, faces
Italy. The aspect of the country is very mountainous: some of the
mountains are lofty; but towering above all, like an enthroned spirit,
rises Ætna. His giant form can be seen from elevated grounds in the
most remote parts of the island, and the mariner can discern his snowy
crown more than a hundred miles. But Sicily abounds in luxuriant
plains and charming valleys, and its soil is proverbially rich: it once
bore the appellation of the Granary of Rome; and it is now said that
if properly tilled it would produce more grain than any country of its size
104in the world. Its beauty and fertility were often celebrated by ancient
bards, who described the sacred flocks and herds of Apollo on its delightful
slopes. The plain of Enna, where Proserpine and her nymphs
gathered flowers, was famous for delicious honey; and according to an
ancient writer, hounds lost their scent when hunting, in consequence of
the odoriferous flowers which perfumed the air; and this may be no
fable; for in Spring, as I myself have seen, the flowers are abundant and
fragrant beyond description; and it seemed to me that the gardens of
Europe had been supplied with two-thirds of their choicest treasures
from the wild stores of Sicily.

The history of Sicily is as varied and interesting as the features of
its surface; but of this I must give only such a brief and hurried sketch
as, to those who are not conversant with it, will serve to render the scenes
I intend to describe more intelligible and interesting than they otherwise
would be. Its early history, then, like that of most nations of antiquity,
is wrapped in obscurity. Poets feign that its original inhabitants were
Cyclops; after them the Sicani, a people supposed to have been from
Spain, were the possessors; then came the Siculi, a people of Italy. The
enterprising Phœnicians, those early monarchs of the sea, whose ships
had even visited the remote and barbarous shores of Britain, formed
some settlements upon it; and in the eighth century before Christ
various colonies of Greeks were planted on its shores, and became in
time the sole possessors of the island. These Grecian founders of Syracuse,
Gela, and Agrigentum, seduced from their own country by the
love of enterprise, or driven by necessity or revolution from their homes,
brought with them the refinement, religion, and love of the beautiful,
that have distinguished their race above all others; and in a short time
after their establishment in Sicily, the magnificence of their cities, the
grandeur of their temples, equalled if they did not surpass those of their
fatherland. About the year 480 before Christ, a fierce enemy landed on
the coast of Sicily with two thousand gallies: this was the warlike Carthaginian,
whose altars smoked with the sacrifice of human victims.
This formidable invader was defeated under the great Gelon of Syracuse,
who was called the father of his country; but the Carthaginians, returned
again and with better fortune, at length became masters of the
island. The Romans next conquered Sicily, and held it for several
centuries. The Saracens in the ninth century were in the full tide of
successful conquest. They landed first in the bay of Mazara, near
Selinuntium, and after various conflicts and fortune, finally subjugated
the whole island in the year 878. The crescent continued to glitter
over the towers of Sicily for about three centuries, when the Normans,
a band of adventurers whom the crusades of the Holy Sepulchre had
brought from their northern homes, after a conflict of thirty years under
Count Roger, expelled the Saracen in the year 1073, and planted the
banner of the cross in every city of the land. Soon after that time it
came under Spain and Austria; France and England have severally
been its rulers. It is now under the crown of Naples.

Such is a brief outline of the eventful history of Sicily; a land
formed by nature in her fairest mould; but which the crimes and ambition
105of men have desecrated by violence, oppression, and bloodshed;
and with the substitution of a word, one might exclaim with the poet:

The aspect of Sicily is widely different from that of this country;
its beauty is dependent on other forms and associations. Here, we have
vast forests that stretch their shady folds in melancholy grandeur; the
mountain tops themselves are clad in thick umbrage, which, rejoicing
in the glory of the autumnal season, array themselves in rainbow dyes.
There, no wide forests shade the land; but mountains more abrupt than
ours, and bearing the scars of volcanic fire and earthquake on their
brows, are yet clothed with flowers and odoriferous shrubs. The plains
and slopes of the mountains are now but partially under cultivation;
vineyards and olive-groves generally clothe the latter, while over the
gentler undulating country, or the plains, fenceless fields stretch far
away, a wilderness of waving grain, through which the traveller may
ride for hours nor meet a human being, nor see a habitation, save when
he lifts his eyes to some craggy steep or mountain pinnacle, where
stands the clustered village. The villages and larger towns are generally
set among groves of orange, almond, and pomegranate trees, with
here and there a dark Carruba, or Leutisk tree, casting its ample shade.
106Fields of the broad bean, the chief food of the laboring classes, serves
at times to vary with vivid green the monotony of the landscape. The
traveller rolls along over no Macadamised road in his comfortable carriage,
but mounted on his mule, leaves him to choose his own track
among the numerous ones that form what is called the strada-maëstro,
or master-road, between city and city. Here and there he will come to
a stone fountain, constructed perhaps centuries ago, which still furnishes
a delightful beverage for himself and beast. Oftentimes the road leads
through a country entirely waste, and covered with tall bunches of grass
or the dwarfish palmetto; sometimes in the cultivated districts the road
is bounded by the formidable prickly-pear, which grows to the height
of twenty feet, or by rows of the stately aloe, and not unfrequently by
wild hedges of myrtle, intertwined with innumerable climbing plants,
whose flowers the traveller can pick as he rides along. Generally the
road-side is perfectly enamelled with flowers of various hue and fragrance.
No majestic river, like the Hudson, spreads before him, with
all its glittering sails and swift steam-boats; but ever and anon the
blue and placid Mediterranean bounds his vision, or indents the shore,
with here and there a picturesque and lazy barque reflected in the waves.

I have before said that the towns and villages are generally perched
like eagles’ nests in high places. This is particularly the case with
those of the interior: many of them are inaccessible to carriages, except
the Letiga, a sort of large sedan-chair, gaudily decorated with pictures
of saints, and suspended between two mules, one of which trots before
and the other behind, to the continual din of numerous bells and the
harsh shouts of the muleteers. I never saw one of these vehicles,
which are the only travelling carriages of the interior of Sicily, without
thinking that there might be a land-sickness even worse than a sea-sickness;
for the motion of the letiga in clambering up and down the
broken steeps must be far more tempestuous than any thing ever experienced
at sea. Between village and village you see no snug villa,
farm-house, or cottage by the road-side, or nestling among the trees;
but here and there a gloomy castellated building, a lonely ruin or stern
Martello tower, whose dilapidated walls crown some steep headland,
against whose base washes the ever-murmuring waves. Now the traveller
descends to the beach, his only road; the mountains are far inland,
or dip their broad bases in the sea-foam, or impend in fearful masses
over his head. He ascends again, and journeys over wastes which
undoubtedly in the time of the Greek and the Roman were covered
with fruits and grain; but which now are treeless and desolate as the
deep whose breezes stir the flowers that deck them. At times he must
ford streams, which, if swollen with late rains, are perilous in the
extreme.

I remember once on my journey descending from one of those treeless
wastes upon a spot very different from any thing on this side of the
Atlantic. It was called Verdura, from its green and verdant character.
A stream which flowed through a plain bounded by lofty mountains here
fell into the sea. A large mill, which much resembles an ancient castle,
and in all probability had served both purposes in times gone by, stood
near. Upon the sandy beach close by, and hauled entirely out of the
107water, lay several vessels in the style of Homer’s ships; and I have
no doubt bore a strong resemblance to ships of ancient time, for they
were picturesquely formed, and painted fantastically with figures of
fishes and eyes. The wild-looking mariners were lounging lazily about
in their shaggy capotes, or engaged in loading their vessels with grain,
the product of the neighboring plains. Up the steep we had just descended
a letiga was slowly winding; and on a green declivity overlooking
the sea, a flock of goats were browsing, and their shepherd
reclined near in listless idleness. Open and treeless as was this scene,
there was such a peaceful character about it, such an air of primitive
simplicity, that it made a strong impression on my mind.

It does not come within the scope of this paper to offer any description
of the larger cities of Sicily, Palermo, Messina, etc. Most readers
have seen accounts of them more ample and more interesting than I
could offer. Of the smaller places I must content myself with giving
a very general description, so that I may retain the requisite space, in
this division of my article, for some notice of an ascent which I made
to the sublime summit of Mount Ætna.

The secondary towns to which I have alluded, such as Calatifini,
Sciacca, Caltagerone, etc., are in general picturesquely situated, and
are built in a massive and sometimes even in a magnificent style. The
churches and houses are all of hewn stone, and exhibit the various
styles of architecture of the builders; the Saracenic, the Norman-Gothic,
or the later Spanish taste. Sometimes the styles are fantastically
intermixed; but the whole, to the architect, is extremely interesting.
Flat roofs and projecting stone balconies from the upper windows
are perhaps the most characteristic features of the houses. The
churches, though large, are seldom beautiful specimens of architecture;
and the interior is in general extremely ornate, and decorated with gaudy
gilding and pictures, and images of Christ and saints, disgustingly
painted. The streets, wide or narrow, would appear to us somewhat
gloomy and prison-like; and paint is a thing scarcely known on the
exterior or perhaps interior of an ordinary house. The air of the interior
of the common houses of the Sicilian towns is as gloomy and comfortless
as can be imagined. A few wooden benches, a table firmly
fixed in the stone pavement, a fire-place composed of a few blocks of
stone placed on the floor, the smoke of which is allowed to make its
escape as it best can at the window, which is always destitute of glass,
and is closed by a rude wooden shutter when required; a bed consisting
of a mattress of the same hue as the floor, raised a few feet from it
by means of boards on a rude frame; some sheep-skins for blankets, and
sheets of coarse stuff whose color serves as an effectual check on the
curiosity of him who would pry too closely into its texture; are the
chief articles of furniture to be found in the habitations of the Sicilian
poor. Beside the human inhabitants of these uninviting abodes, there
are innumerable lively creatures, whose names it were almost impolite
to mention in polished ears; and I might not have alluded to them had
they confined themselves to such places; but they rejoice in the palace
as well as in the cottage, and to the traveller’s sorrow inflict themselves
without his consent as travelling companions through the whole Sicilian
tour.

108The houses of the more wealthy are spacious and airy, but not much
superior in point of comfort. They are often of commanding exterior,
and are called palazzi, or palaces. Of course, there are exceptions to
this general character of discomfort; but judging from my own observation,
they are few. On approaching a Sicilian village, the eye of the
traveller will almost surely be attracted by a capacious and solid building,
surmounted by a belfry-tower, and commanding the most charming
prospect in the vicinity. It is surrounded with orange groves and
cypress-trees, and looks like a place fitted for the enjoyment of a contemplative
life. He will not long remain in doubt as to the purpose of the
building whose site is so delightfully chosen; for walking slowly along
the shady path, or seated in some pleasant nook, singly or in groups, he
will perceive the long-robed monks, the reverend masters of the holy
place.

Connoisseurs say that a landscape is imperfect without figures; and as
that is the case in a picture, it is most probably so in a magazine article;
and the reader might complain if I were to neglect giving some
slight outlines of the figures of the Sicilian landscape. In travelling
from city to city, although they may not be more than twenty miles
apart, the wayfarer meets with very few persons on the road; seldom an
individual, and only now and then, at an interval of miles, a group of
men mounted on mules, each person carrying a gun; or perhaps a convoy
of loaded mules and asses with several muleteers, some mounted
and some on foot, who urge by uncouth cries and blows the weary beasts
over the rocky or swampy ground, or up some steep acclivity or across
some torrent’s bed. At times he will see a shepherd or two watching
their flocks; these are half-naked, wild looking beings, scarcely raised
in the scale of intelligence above their bleating charge. Their dwelling
may be hard by, a conical hut of grass or straw, or a ruined
tower. On the fertile slopes or plains he will sometimes observe a
dozen yokes of oxen ploughing abreast. The laborers probably chose
this contiguity for the sake of company across the wide fields. If the
grass or grain is to be cut, it is by both men and women armed with a
rude sickle only. It is seldom you meet either man or woman on foot
upon the roads; men scarcely ever. Donkeys are about as numerous
as men, and their ludicrous bray salutes your ear wherever the human
animal is to be seen.

The peasant-women through a great part of Sicily wear a semi-circular
piece of woollen cloth over their heads; it is always black or white,
and hangs in agreeable folds over the neck and shoulders. There is but
little beauty among them; and alas! how should there be? They are
in general filthy; the hair of both old and young is allowed to fall in
uncombed elf-locks about their heads; and the old women are often
hideous and disgustful in the extreme. The heart bleeds for the women:
they have more than their share of the labors of the field; they have
all the toils of the men, added to the pains and cares of womanhood.
They dig, they reap, they carry heavy burthens—burthens almost incredible.
In the vicinity of Ætna I met a woman walking down the
road knitting: on her head was a large mass of lava weighing at least
thirty pounds, and on the top of this lay a small hammer. Being puzzled
109to know why the woman carried such a piece of lava where lava
was so abundant, I inquired ‘the wherefore’ of Luigi, our guide. He
answered that as she wished to knit, and not having pockets, she had
taken that plan to carry the little hammer conveniently. That piece of
stone, which would break our necks to carry, was evidently to her no
more than a heavy hat would be to us. It may be thought that I draw
a sorry picture of these poor Islanders; but I would have it understood
that on the side of Messina, and some other parts, there is apparently a
little more civilization; but they are an oppressed and degraded peasantry;
ignorant, superstitious, filthy, and condemned to live on the coarsest
food. They are as the beasts that perish, driven by necessity to sow that
which they may not reap. How applicable are the words of Addison:

But the Sicilians are naturally a gay, light-hearted people, like the
Greeks, their forefathers; and if the cloud which now rests upon them
were removed, and we have reason to think it is lifting, they would be
as bright and sunny as their own skies. The women of the better classes
wear the black mantilla when they venture into the streets, which they
seldom do, except to attend mass or the confessional. This robe is extremely
elegant, as it is worn, but it requires an adept to adjust it gracefully.
It covers the whole person from head to foot; in parts drawn
closely to the form, in others falling in free folds. But for its color, I
should admire it much: it seems such an incongruity for a young and
beautiful female to be habited in what appear to be mourning robes. I
was often reminded of those wicked lines of Byron’s on the gondola:

But let us turn from the animate to the inanimate, and visit the famous
Ætna, called by the Sicilians Mongibello. From the silence of Homer
on the subject, it is supposed that in his remote age the fires of the mountain
were unknown; but geologists have proof that they have a far
more ancient date. The Grecian poet Pindar is the first who mentions
its eruptions. He died four hundred and thirty-five years before Christ;
from that time to this, at irregular intervals, it has vomited forth its
destructive lavas. It is computed to be eleven thousand feet high. Its
base, more than an hundred miles in circumference, is interspersed
with numerous conical hills, each of which is an extinct crater, whose
sides, now shaded by the vine, the fig tree, and the habitations of man,
once glowed with the fiery torrent. Some of them are yet almost destitute
of vegetation; mere heaps of scoriæ and ashes; but the more
110ancient ones are richly clad with verdure. Let the reader imagine a
mountain whose base is as broad as the whole range of the Catskills,
as seen from Catskill village, rising to nearly three times their height;
its lower parts are of gentle ascent, but as it rises it becomes more
and more steep, until it terminates in a broken summit. Imagine it
divided, as the eye ascends, into three regions or belts: the first and
lowest is covered with villages, gardens, vineyards, olive-groves, oranges,
and fields of grain and flax, and the date-bearing palm. The second
region, which commences about four thousand feet above the sea, is
called the Regione Sylvosa, or woody region. Here chestnuts, hexes,
and on the north pines of great size flourish. This belt reaches to the
elevation of about seven thousand feet, where the Regione Scoperta, or
bare region, commences. The lower part of this is intermingled lava,
rocks, volcanic sands, and snow; still higher are vast fields of spotless
snow, which centuries have seen unwasted, with here and there a ridgy
crag of black lava, too steep for the snows to lodge upon; and toward
the summit of the cone, dark patches of scoriæ and ashes, which, heated
by the slumbering fires, defy the icy blasts of these upper realms of
air. It will readily be supposed that, when viewed from a distance,
Mount Ætna is an object to make a deep impression on the mind:

On the ninth of May, myself and travelling companion commenced
the ascent of Mount Ætna; and as the season was not the most favorable,
the snows extending farther down the sides of the mountain than in
summer, we were equipped, under the direction of our guide, with coarse
woollen stockings to be drawn over the pantaloons, thick-soled shoes,
and woollen caps. Mounting our mules, we left Catania in the morning.
The road was good and of gradual ascent until we reached Nicolosi,
about fourteen miles up the mountain. We saw little that was particularly
interesting on our route except that the hamlets through which we
passed bore fearful evidences of the effects of earthquake. Arrived at
Nicolosi, the place where travellers usually procure guides and mules
for the mountain, it was our intention to rest for the remainder of the
111day; but Monte Rosso, an extinguished crater, being in the vicinity,
my curiosity got the better of my intention to rest, and I sallied forth to
examine it. The road lay through the village, which is built of the
lava, and is arid and black, and many of the buildings rent and twisted.
Monte Rosso was formed by the eruption of 1669, which threw out a torrent
of lava that flowed thirteen miles, destroying a great part of the city
of Catania in its resistless course to the sea, where it formed a rugged
promontory which at this day appears as black, bare, and herbless as
on the day when its fiery course was arrested by the boiling waters.
And here I would remark, that the lavas of Ætna are very different
from those of Vesuvius. The latter decompose in half a century, and
become capable of cultivation; those of Ætna remain unchanged for
centuries, as that of Monte Rosso testifies. It has now been exposed to
the action of the weather nearly two hundred years, with the exception
of the interstices where the dust and sand have collected, it is destitute
of vegetation. Broken in cooling into masses of rough but sharp fracture,
its aspect is horrid and forbidding, and it is exceedingly difficult to
walk over. If two centuries have produced so little change, how many
centuries must have served to form the rich soil which covers the greater
part of the mountain’s sides and base!

Our purpose was to see the sun rise from the summit of Ætna; and
at nine in the evening, our mules and guides being ready, we put on
our Sicilian capotes, and sallied forth. We had two guides, a muleteer,
and as there was no moon, a man with a lantern to light the mules in
their passage over the beds of lava. For several miles the way was
uninteresting, it being too dark to see any thing except the horrid lava or
sand beneath the feet of the mules. At times the road was so steep that
we were ordered by our guides to lean forward on the necks of the mules,
to keep them and ourselves from being thrown back. At length we entered
the woody region. Here the path was less rocky; and as we
wound up the mountain’s side, beneath the shadows of noble trees, I could
not but feel the solemn quietness of a night on Ætna, and contrast it
with what has been and what will in all probability be again, the intermitting
roar of the neighboring volcano, and the dreadful thunder of
the earthquake. At midnight we arrived at the Casa delle Neve, or
House of Snow. This is a rude building of lava, with bare walls, entirely
destitute of furniture. We made a fire on the ground, took
some refreshments which we had brought with us, and in about an hour
remounted our mules, and proceeded on our journey. We soon left
the region of woods; and being now at an elevation of seven thousand
feet above the sea, felt somewhat cold, and buttoned our capotes
closer about us. From the ridges of lava along which we rode, by
the light of the stars which now became brilliant, we could discern
the snow stretching in long lines down the ravines on either hand; and
as we advanced, approaching nearer and nearer, until at length it spread
in broad fields before us. As the mules could go no farther, we dismounted,
and taking an iron-pointed staff in our hands, we commenced
the journey over the snows. It was now half-past one, and we had
seven miles to traverse before reaching the summit. The first part of the
ascent was discouraging, for it was steep, and the snow so slippery that
112we sometimes fell on our faces; but it became rather less steep as we
ascended, and though fatiguing, we got along comfortably. As the atmosphere
was becoming rare, and the breathing hurried, we sat on the
snow for a few minutes now and then. At such times we could not but
be struck with the splendor of the stars, far beyond any thing I had
ever seen. The milky way seemed suspended in the deep heavens, like
a luminous cloud, with clear and definite outline. We next arrived at
the Casa degli Inglese; so called, but alas for us! the ridge of the roof
and a part of the gable were all that rose above the snow. In the
midst of summer, travellers may make use of it; but to us it was unavailing,
except the gable, which served in a measure to shield us from
the icy wind which now swept over the mountain. We again partook
of a little refreshment, by way of preparation for the most arduous part
of our undertaking, and were now at the foot of the great cone. The
ascent was toilsome in the extreme. Snow, melted beneath in many
places by the heat of the mountain; sharp ridges of lava; loose sand,
ashes, and cinders, into which last the foot sank at every step, made the
ascent difficult as well as dangerous. The atmosphere was so rare that
we had to stop every few yards to breathe. At such times we could hear
our hearts beat within us like the strokes of a drum. But it was now
light, and we reached the summit of the great cone just as the sun rose.

It was a glorious sight which spread before our eyes! We took a
hasty glance into the gloomy crater of the volcano and throwing ourselves
on the warm ashes, gazed in wonder and astonishment. It would
be vain for me to attempt a description of the scene. I scarcely knew
the world in which I had lived. The hills and valleys over which we
had been travelling for many days, were comprised within the compass
of a momentary glance. Sicily lay at our feet, with all its ‘many
folded’ mountains, its plains, its promontories, and its bays; and round
all, the sea stretched far and wide like a lower sky; the Lipari islands,
Stromboli and its volcano, floating upon it like small dusky clouds; and
the Calabrian coast visible, I should suppose, for two hundred miles,
like a long horizontal bank of vapor! As the sun rose, the great
pyramidal shadow of Ætna was cast across the island, and all beneath
it rested in twilight-gloom. Turning from this wonderful scene, we
looked down into the crater, on whose verge we lay. It was a fearful
sight, apparently more than a thousand feet in depth, and a mile in
breadth, with precipitous and in some places overhanging sides, which
were varied with strange and discordant colors. The steeps were
rent into deep chasms and gulfs, from which issued white sulphurous
smoke, that rose and hung in fantastic wreaths about the horrid crags;
thence springing over the edge of the crater, seemed to dissipate in the
clear keen air. I was somewhat surprised to perceive several sheets of
snow lying at the very bottom of the crater, a proof that the internal
fires were in a deep slumber. The edge of the crater was a mere
ridge of scoriæ and ashes, varying in height; and it required some care,
in places, to avoid falling down the steep on one hand, or being precipitated
into the gulf on the other. The air was keen; but fortunately
there was little wind; and after spending about an hour on the summit,
we commenced our descent.

113We varied our course from the one we took on ascending, and visited
an altar erected to Jupiter by the ancients, now called the Torre del
Filosofo. Soon after we came upon the verge of a vast crater, the
period of whose activity is beyond the earliest records of history. Val
di Bove, as it is called, is a tremendous scene. Imagine a basin several
miles across, a thousand feet in depth at least, with craggy and perpendicular
walls on every side; its bottom broken into deep ravines and
chasms, and shattered pinnacles, as though the lava in its molten state
had been shaken and tossed by an earthquake, and then suddenly congealed.
It is into this ancient crater that the lava of the most recent
eruption is descending. It is fortunate that it has taken that direction.

In another and concluding number, the reader’s attention will be
directed to the Architectural Antiquities of Sicily, especially those of
Grecian structure, which will be described in the order in which they
were visited.

LINES TO TIME.

BY MRS. J. WEBB.

A NIGHT ON THE PRAIRIE.

BY A BUFFALO HUNTER.

While looking over my ‘omnium gatherum;’ the same being a
drawer containing scraps of poetry, unfinished letters, half-written editorials,
incidents of travel, obsolete briefs, with many other odds and
ends that have fallen from my brain during the last three years, but which
from want of quality in them or lack of energy in me, have failed to
reach the dignity of types and ink; I came across a diary kept while
hunting buffalo with the Sac and Fox Indians, some two hundred miles
west of the Mississippi, during the summer of 1842. Finding myself
interested in recurring to the incidents of that excursion, it occurred to
me that matter might be drawn therefrom which would not be without interest
to the public. I have therefore ventured to offer the following for
publication; it being an account of a night passed at the source of the
Checauque, when I did not deem my scalp worth five minute’s purchase,
and when I cheerfully would have given ten years of an ordinary life
to have been under the humblest roof in the most desolate spot in the
‘land of steady habits.’

I have said that we were in the country of the Sioux. That our situation
may be understood, I would remark farther, that between the latter
and the confederated tribes of the Sac and Fox Indians, there has
been for the last forty years, and still exists, the most inveterate hostility;
the two parties never meeting without bloodshed. The Government
of the United States, in pursuance of that policy which guides its conduct
toward the various Indian tribes, for the preservation of peace between
these two nations, have laid out between them a strip of country
115forty miles in width, denominated the ‘Neutral Ground,’ and on to which
neither nation is permitted to extend their hunting excursions.

On the occasion of which I write, the Sacs and Foxes, having been
disappointed in finding buffalo within their own limits, and perhaps feeling
quite as anxious to fall in with a band of Sioux as to obtain game,
had passed the ‘Neutral Ground,’ and were now several days’ journey
into the country of their enemies.

For the last two days we had marched with the utmost circumspection;
our spies ranged the country for miles in advance and on either
flank, while at night we had sought some valley as a place of encampment,
where our fires could not be seen from a distance. Each day we
had perceived signs which indicated that small parties of Sioux had
been quite recently over the very ground we were travelling. The
whites in the company, numbering some eleven or twelve, had remonstrated
with the Indians, representing to them that they were transgressing
the orders of the government, and that should a hostile meeting take
place they would certainly incur the displeasure of their ‘great father’
at Washington.

Heedless of our remonstrances they continued to advance until it became
evident that the Sioux and not buffalo were their object. The truth
was, they felt themselves in an excellent condition to meet their ancient
enemy. They numbered, beside old men and the young and untried,
three hundred and twenty-five warriors, mounted and armed with rifles,
many of them veterans who had seen service on the side of Great
Britain in her last war with this country, and most of whom had served
with Black Hawk in his brief but desperate contest with the United
States. Moreover, they placed some reliance on the whites who accompanied
them; all of whom, except my friend B——, of Kentucky, one
or two others and myself, were old frontier men, versed in the arts of
Indian warfare.

As for myself, I felt far from comfortable in the position in which I
found myself placed; hundreds of miles from any white settlement,
and expecting hourly to be forced into a conflict where no glory was to
be gained, and in which defeat would be certain death, while victory
could not fail to bring upon us the censure of our government. The
idea of offering up my scalp as a trophy to Sioux valor, and leaving my
bones to bleach on the wide prairie, with no prayer over my remains
nor stone to mark the spot of my sepulture, was far from comfortable.
I thought of the old church-yard amidst the green hills of New-England,
where repose the dust of my ancestors, and would much preferred
to have been gathered there, full of years, ‘like a shock of corn fully
ripe in its season,’ rather than to be cut down in the morning of life by the
roving Sioux, and my frame left a dainty morsel for the skulking wolf
of the prairie. I communicated my sentiments to B——, and found
that his views corresponded with mine. ‘But,’ said he, with the spirit
of a genuine Kentuckian, ‘we are in for it, Harry, and we must fight;
it will not do to let these Indians see us show the white feather.’

It was under such circumstances, and with these feelings, that we
pitched our tents after a hard day’s march, in a valley near the margin
of a little stream which uniting with others forms the Checauque, one
116of the tributaries of the Mississippi. The river flowed in our front. In
our rear, and surrounding us on either side, forming a sort of amphitheatre,
was a range of low hills crowned with a grove of young hickorys.
A branch on our left, running down to the stream, separated our
tents from the encampment of our Indian allies. Our camp consisted
of three tents pitched some fifteen steps apart. B—— and myself occupied
the middle one. We had a companion, a scrub of a fellow, who
forced himself upon us as we were on the point of starting, and whom
we could not well shake off. To this genius, on account of his many
disagreeable qualities, we had given the soubriquet of ‘Common Doings.’
The other whites of the party occupied the other two tents.

We had just finished the usual routine of camp duty for the night,
‘spansered’ our horses, eaten our suppers, laid in a supply of fuel for
our fires, and were sitting around them smoking our pipes and listening
to the marvellous tales of an old ‘Leatherstocking’ of the party, whose
life had been passed between the Rocky Mountains and the Mississippi,
when two of our Indian spies came in, passing in front of our tents and
across the branch to the Indian camp. One of our party followed them
to hear their report, and soon returned with the information that the
spies had seen an encampment of Sioux, and that the Sacs and Foxes
were then holding a council as to what measures it was best to pursue.
Others of our party, who understood the Indian tongue, went across for
farther information. Mean time we remained in great anxiety, canvassing
among ourselves the probable truth of the report, and speculating on
the course most proper for us to take. Our friends soon returned,
having heard the full report of the spies as it was delivered before the
chiefs in council. They had proceeded some eight miles beyond the
place of our encampment to a hill in the vicinity of Swan Lake; from
the hill they had seen a large body of Sioux, numbering as near as they
could estimate them, five or six hundred. From the manner in which
they were encamped and from other signs, they knew them to be a ‘war
party;’ and having made these observations, they withdrew, concealing
themselves as much as possible, and as they supposed, without being
discovered. The effect of this information upon us may easily be imagined.
We were ‘in for it’ sure enough! We had expected for several
days that we should meet the enemy, but to find them so near us in
such force, so far outnumbering our own, we had not anticipated.

The question now was, what were we to do? Some proposed that we
should move our camp across the branch and pitch our tent among our
Indian allies; for it was argued with much force that if our spies had
been discovered, the Sioux would follow their trail, and as it passed
directly by our tents, we should fall the first victims; that if the Sioux,
notwithstanding their superiority in numbers, should not think it prudent
to attack the main camp, they would not fail to attack, according to
their custom, the out-camps, take what scalps they could, and retreat.
But there was a strong objection to moving our camp: the Indians frequently
during the march had desired us to pitch our tents among them,
but we had always declined, preferring to be by ourselves. What would
they say if we should now break up our encampment and go among
them? ‘White men are cowards! They rejected our request when all
117was safe, but now at the approach of danger they come skulking among
us like dogs for protection.’ No; we could not do this; pride forbade
it. We next discussed the expediency of dividing ourselves into a
watch, and keeping guard by turns through the night. The more experienced
of the party, and particularly Jamison, an old hunter and Indian
fighter, said that this would only exhaust us, and would be of no avail;
that our Indian allies had spies around the encampment in every direction;
that if they failed to perceive the approach of the enemy, we could
not discover them; that the first intimation our sentinels would have
would be an arrow through the body; that our best plan would be to
extinguish our fires, prepare our arms, lie down with them in our hands,
rely on the Indian spies for notice of the enemy’s approach, and on the
first alarm make our way to the Indian camp, being careful as we approached
it to give the pass-word for the night, ‘Wal-las-ki-push-eto.’
We all finally came to this conclusion.

During the discussion, two of the party had not spoken a word; one
was our tent-mate ‘Doings,’ who was so completely paralyzed with
fright as to be unable to think or speak; the other was old ‘Leatherstocking,’
who listened with the utmost coolness to all that was said,
occasionally expressing assent or dissent by a nod or shake of the head.
I now observed him quietly examine his rifle, draw the charge and reload;
take out the flint and replace it with a new one; he then threw
himself down for the night, his bared knife in his left hand, and his
right resting on the breech of his rifle, remarking as he composed himself
to sleep, ‘We must be ready boys; there’s no telling when the varmints
will be upon us.’

B—— and myself prepared our arms: each of us wore a brace of
pistols in a belt; these were carefully loaded and buckled on; our rifles
were next examined and put in order; our hatchets were placed at hand,
and with many misgivings we laid ourselves down. It was some time
before I could sleep, and when I did, my repose was disturbed by
dreams. How long I slept I am unable to say, perhaps not more than
an hour, when I was suddenly awakened. I listened. The noise of the
horses, of which there were several hundred grazing in the valley, with
the tinkling of the bells on their necks, were the only sounds that at first
met my ear; all else was silent. Presently I heard a noise as if made
by the stealthy tread of a man; then a voice, or perhaps the cry of
some animal. It was repeated. I heard it in the grove, on the hill, then
an answering cry on the other side of the stream. I knew that Indians
in a night-attack make signals by imitating the cry of some animal; and
the sounds I heard, though like those made by wild beasts, seemed to
me to be in reality human voices. I drew a pistol from my belt, cocked
it, and with a hatchet in my other hand, crept out of the tent, and lying
on the ground, looked cautiously around. The cries continued at
intervals, and I became more and more satisfied that they were human
voices. I felt, I knew that the Sioux were about to attack us. A
thousand thoughts flashed across my mind. I thought of the home of
my childhood, my far distant kindred; a mother, sisters, brothers.
Unskilled as I was in Indian warfare, I expected to be slain. I was
alarmed; frightened perhaps, but not paralyzed. I resolved to fight
to the last, and if I must die, to fill no coward’s grave.

118As my eyes became more accustomed to the darkness, I began to distinguish
objects; and peering beyond our line of tents, I saw on our
right, between me and the grove, three dark objects like human heads
projecting out of the grass. While I was observing them, two of them
disappeared, and I could discern the grass wave as they made their way
toward our encampment. There was no longer room for doubt. I
called to B—— in a whisper; he was on his feet and by my side in an
instant, a cocked pistol in each hand. I directed his attention to what
I saw. He looked steadfastly for a moment, then raising his eyes to the
grove, exclaimed in a whisper, ‘The timber is full of Indians! I see them
advancing from tree to tree; it is time for action. I shall fall, but you
may be saved; if so, let my friends in Kentucky know that I died like
a brave man. I will arouse the rest.’

He went to the tent on our left, while I remained watching the
approach of the enemy. I could see them distinctly as they moved
from tree to tree. I heard B—— call in a whisper, ‘Jamison! Jamison!’
Jamison came out of his tent but without his arms. B—— told
him of our danger, and directed his attention to the Indians in the grove.
As he spoke Jamison stretched out his arms and gave a yawn, remarking,
‘These Injuns are mighty unsartin critters; there’s no knowing
about their motions;’ crawled into his tent again. B—— returned;
neither of us spoke. We lay down and drew our blankets over us; at
length B—— said:

‘Harry?’

‘What?’

‘Hoaxed! by thunder!’

The whole truth, which had been breaking in upon my mind by
degrees, now flashed upon me, and I raised a shout of laughter. At
this instant, poor ‘Doings,’ who had been awake from the commencement,
but who was so scared that he had rolled himself under the eaves
of the tent, and contracted himself into a space scarcely larger than my
arm, and who in his terror would have lain still and had his throat cut
without wagging a finger in defence; this poor, miserable ‘Doings’ exclaimed
‘Haw! haw! haw! I knew it all the time; I never see fellows
so scared!’ This was too bad. However, we had our laugh out, discussed
plans for vengeance, went to sleep and had quiet slumbers for
the rest of the night.

The next morning we ascertained that the whole story about the Sioux
encampment had been fabricated for the purpose of trying our mettle,
and that all save B——, myself and ‘Doings,’ were in the secret. The
moving objects which I had seen in the grass were Indian dogs prowling
around for food, and the Indians in the timber existed only in our
excited imaginations.

I may hereafter give an account of the modus operandi of our revenge,
and of our mode of hunting the buffalo, in which we met with much
success; and of other matters of interest which fell under my observation
during the sixty days we spent with this tribe of Indians.

H. T. H.

119

LIFE’S YOUNG DREAM.

Albany, January, 1844.A. R.

120

THE QUOD CORRESPONDENCE.

HARRY HARSON.

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIRST.

In the same room from which Craig and Jones had set out on their
ill-fated errand, and at the hour of noon on the following day, the latter
was crouching in front of the fire-place, which had been so bright and
cheery the night before, but which now contained nothing except ashes,
and a few half-burned stumps, charred and blackened, but entirely extinguished.
Over these Jones bent, occasionally shivering slightly, and
holding his hands to them, apparently unconscious that they emitted no
heat, and then dabbling in the ashes, and muttering to himself. But a
few hours had elapsed since he had left that room a bold, daring, desperate
man; yet in that short time a frightful change had come over him.
His eyes were blood-red; his lips swollen and bloody, and the under
one deeply gashed, as if he had bitten it through; his cheeks haggard
and hollow, his hair dishevelled, his dress torn, and almost dragged from
his person. But it was not in the outward man alone that this alteration
had taken place. In spirit, as well as in frame, he was crushed. His
former iron bearing was gone; no energy, no strength left. He seemed
but a wreck, shattered and beaten down—down to the very dust. At
times he mumbled to himself, and moaned like one in suffering. Then
again he rose and paced the room with long strides, dashing his hand
against his forehead, and uttering execrations. The next moment he
staggered to his seat, buried his face in his hands, and sobbed like a
child.

‘Tim,’ said he, in a low broken voice, ‘poor old Tim; I killed you,
I know I did; but blast ye! I loved you, Tim. But it’s of no use,
now; you’re dead, and can never know how much poor Bill Jones cared
for you. No, no; you never can, Tim. We were boys together, and
now I’m alone; no one left—no one, no one!’

In the very phrenzy of grief, that succeeded these words, he flung
himself upon the floor, dashing his head and hands against it, and rolling
and writhing like one in mortal pain. This outbreak of passion was
followed by a kind of stupor; and crawling to his seat, he remained
there, like one stunned and bereft of strength. Stolid, scarcely breathing,
and but for the twitching of his fingers, motionless as stone; with his
eyes fixed on the blank wall, he sat as silent as one dead; but with a
heart on fire, burning with a remorse never to be quenched; with a
soul hurrying and darting to and fro in its mortal tenement, to escape
the lashings of conscience. Struggle on! struggle on! There is no
escape, until that strong heart is eaten away by a disease for which
there is no cure; until that iron frame, worn down by suffering, has
121become food for the worm, and that spirit and its persecutor stand before
their final judge, in the relations of criminal and accuser.

A heavy step announced that some one was ascending the stairs.
Jones moved not. A loud knock at the door followed. Still he did not
stir. The door was then flung open, in no very gentle manner, for it
struck the wall behind it with a noise that made the room echo: but a
cannon might have been fired there, and Jones would not have heard it.

The person however who had thus unceremoniously opened the way
to his entrance, seemed perfectly indifferent whether his proceedings
were agreeable or otherwise. His first movement on entering the room
was to shut the door after him and lock it; his next was to look about
it to see whether it contained any other than the person of Jones.
Having satisfied himself on that score, he walked rapidly up to him
and tapped him on the shoulder.

Jones looked listlessly up at him, and then turning away, dabbled in
the ashes, without uttering a word.

‘Hello! Bill Jones,’ said the stranger, after waiting a moment or two
in evident surprise, ‘what ails you?’

The man made no reply.

‘Are you sulky?’ demanded the other; ‘Well, follow your own humor;
but answer me one question: where’s Craig?’

Jones shuddered; and his hand shook violently. Rising up, half
tottering, he turned and stood face to face with his visiter.

‘Good day to ye, Mr. Grosket,’ said he, with a ghastly smile, and
extending his hand to him. ‘Good day to ye. It’s a bright day, on
the heels of such a night as the last was.’

‘Good God! what ails you, man?’ exclaimed Grosket, recoiling before
the wild figure which confronted him; and then taking his hand,
he said: ‘Your hand is hot as fire, your eyes blood-shot, and your face
covered with blood. What have you been at? What ails you?’

Jones passed his hand feebly across his forehead, and then replied:
‘I’m sick at heart!’

He turned from Grosket, and again crouched upon the hearth, mumbling
over his last words, ‘Sick at heart! sick at heart!’—nor did he
appear to recollect Grosket’s question respecting Craig. If he did, he
did not answer it, but with his arms locked over his knees, he rocked
to and fro, like one in great pain.

‘Are you ill, man, or are you drunk?’ demanded Grosket, pressing
heavily on his shoulder. ‘Speak out, I say: what ails you? If you
don’t find your tongue, I’ll find it for you.’

Jones, thus addressed, made an effort to rally, and partially succeeded;
for after a moment he suddenly rose up erect, and in a clear, bold voice,
replied:

‘I’m not drunk, Mr. Grosket, but I am ill; God knows what’s the
matter with me. Look at me!’ he continued, stepping to where the
light was strongest; ‘Look at me well. Wouldn’t you think I’d been
on my back for months?’

‘You look ill enough;’ was the blunt reply.

‘Well, then, what do you want?’ demanded Jones, in a peevish tone;
‘why do you trouble me? I can’t bear it. Go away; go away.’

122‘I will, when you’ve answered my question. Where’s Craig?’

‘I don’t know. He was here last night; but he went out, and hasn’t
been here since.’

‘Where did he go?’

Jones shook his head: ‘He didn’t say.’

‘Was he alone?’

‘No,’ replied the other, evidently wincing under these questions;
‘No; there was a man with him, nigh about my size. He went with
him. That’s all I know about either of them. There, there; get
through with your questions. They turn my head,’ said he, in an
irritable tone.

‘Why did he take a stranger?’ demanded Grosket, without paying
the least attention to his manner. ‘You forget that I know you and he
generally hunt in couples.’

It might have been the cold of the room striking through to his very
bones that had so powerful an effect on Jones, but he shook from head
to foot, as he answered:

‘Look at me! God! would you have a man out in such a night as
that was, when he’s almost ready for his winding-sheet?’

Grosket’s only reply was to ask another question.

‘What was the name of the man who went with him?’

‘I don’t know.’

‘What did they go to do?’

Jones hesitated, as if in doubt what answer to make, and then, as if
adopting an open course, he said: ‘I’ve know’d you a good while, Mr.
Grosket, and you won’t blab, if I tell you what I suspect, will ye? It’s
only guess-work, after all. Promise me that; I know your word is
good.’

Grosket paused a moment before he made the promise; and then
said: ‘Well, I’ll keep what you tell me to myself. Now then.’

‘It was a house-breaking business,’ said Jones, sinking his voice.
‘They took pistols with them; and I heard Tim tell the other one to
take the crow-bar and the glim. That’s all I know. I was too much
down to listen. There; go away now. I’ve talked till my head is
almost split. Talking drives me mad. Go away.’

Grosket stood perfectly still in deep thought. The story might be
true; for the city was ringing with the news of the burglary, and of the
death of one of the burglars by the hands of his comrade. It was
rumored too, that the dead man had been identified by some of the officers
of the police, and that his name was Craig. It was this, taken in
connection with the facts that the attempt had been made on Harson’s
house; that an effort had been made to carry off a child who lived with
him, and of its being known to Grosket that Rust had often employed
these two men in matters requiring great energy and few scruples, that
had induced him thus early to visit their haunt, to ascertain the truth of
his suspicions; and to endeavor, if possible, to ferret out the plans of
their employer. The replies of Jones, short and abrupt as they were,
convinced him that his suspicions respecting Craig were correct; but
who could the other man be?

Engrossed with his own thoughts, he appeared to forget where he was
123and who was present; for he commenced walking up and down the
room; then stopped; folded his arms, and talked to himself in low, broken
sentences. Again he walked to the far end of the room and stopped
there.

Jones, in the mean time, to avoid farther questioning, seated himself;
and leaning his elbows on his knees, hid his face in his hand. He was
disturbed, however, by feeling himself shaken roughly by the shoulder.
‘What you’ve just been telling me, is a lie!’ said Grosket, sternly.
‘You should know me well enough not to run the risk of trifling with me.
I want the truth and nothing else. Where were you last night?’

Jones looked up at him and then answered in a sullen tone: ‘I’ve
told you once; I was here.’

Grosket went to a dark corner of the room and brought back Jones’
great-coat, completely saturated with water. ‘This room scarcely leaks
enough to do that,’ said he, throwing it on the floor in front of Jones.
‘Ha! what’s that in the pocket?’

He thrust in his hand and drew out a pistol. The hammer was down,
the cap exploded, and the inside of the muzzle blackened by burnt
powder.

‘Fired off!’ said he. ‘You told the truth. The man who went with
Craig did look like you. I know the rest. Tim Craig is dead, and you
shot him.’

An expression of strange meaning crossed the face of the burglar as
he returned the steady look of his visiter without making any reply.
But Grosket was not yet done with him; for he said in a slow, savage
tone: ‘Now mark me well. If you lie in what you tell me, I’ll hang
you. Who employed you to do this job?’

Jones eyed him for a moment, and then turned away impatiently and
said, ‘I don’t know what you’re talking about. Don’t worry me.
I’m sick and half crazy. Get away, will ye!’

‘This to me! to me!’ exclaimed the other, stepping back, his eyes
flashing fire; ‘you forget yourself.’

Jones rose up, his red hair hanging like ropes about his face, and his
bloodshot eyes and disfigured features giving him the look rather of a wild
beast than of a man. Shaking his finger at Grosket, he said, ‘Keep
away from me to day, I say. There’s an evil spell over me. Come
to-morrow, but don’t push me to-day, or God knows what you may drive
me to do. There, there—go.’

Still Grosket stirred not, but with a curling lip and an eye as bright
as his own, and voice so fearfully quiet and yet stern that at another time
it might have quelled even the strong spirit of the robber, he said
‘Enoch Grosket never goes until his object is attained.’

‘Then you won’t go?’ demanded Jones.

‘No!’

Jones made a hasty step toward him, with his teeth set and his eyes
burning like coals of fire; but whatever may have been his purpose,
and from the expression of his face, there was little doubt but that it was
a hostile one, he was diverted from it by hearing a hand on the latch of
the door and a voice from without demanding admittance.

‘It is Rust,’ exclaimed Grosket, in a sharp whisper. He touched the
124burglar on the shoulder and said in the same tone, ‘I’m going in there.’
He pointed to a closet in a dark part of the room, nearly concealed by
the wainscotting. Let him in, and betray me if you dare!’

‘You seem to know our holes well,’ muttered Jones. ‘You’ve been
here afore.’ Grosket made no reply, but hurried across the room and
secreted himself in the closet, which evidently had been constructed as
a place of concealment, either for the tenants of the room themselves, or
for whatever else it might not suit their fancy to have too closely examined.

Jones stared after him, apparently forgetting the applicant for admission,
until a renewed and very violent knocking recalled his attention to
it. He then went to the door, drew back the bolt, and walked to
his seat, without even glancing to see who came in, or whom the person
was who followed so closely at his heels. Nor did he look around until
he felt his arm roughly grasped, and a sharp stern voice hissing in
his ear:

‘So, so! a fine night’s work you’ve made of it. Tim Craig is dead
and the whole city is already ringing with the news; and you, you’re
a murderer!’

Jones started from his seat with the sudden spasmodic bound of one
who has received a mortal thrust. He stared wildly at the sharp thin
face which had almost touched his, and then sat down and said:

‘Don’t talk to me so, Mr. Rust; I can’t bear it.’

‘Ho, ho! your conscience is tender, is it? It has a raw spot that won’t
bear handling, has it? We’ll see to that. But to business,’ said
he, his face becoming white with rage; his black eyes blazing, and his
voice losing its smoothness and quivering as he spoke.

‘I’ve come here to fulfil my agreement; you were to get that child
for me to-day; I’ve come for her; where is she?’

Jones looked at him with an expression of impatience mingled with
contempt, but made him no answer.

‘Tim Craig was to have gone to that house; he was to have carried
her off; he was to have her here, here, HERE!’ said he, in the same fierce
tone. ‘Why hasn’t he done it?’

‘Because he’s dead,’ said Jones savagely.

‘I’m glad of it! I’m glad of it!’ exclaimed Rust. ‘He deserved it.
The coward! Let him die.’

‘Tim Craig was no coward,’ replied Jones, in a tone which, had Rust
been less excited, would have warned him to desist.

‘Ha!’ exclaimed Rust, scanning him from head to foot, as if surprised
at his daring to contradict him, ‘Would you gainsay me?’

Jones returned his look without flinching, his teeth firmly set and grating
together. At last he said:

‘I do gainsay you; and I do say, whoever calls Tim Craig a coward
lies!’

‘This, and from you!’ exclaimed Rust, shaking his thin finger in his
very face; ‘this from you; you, a house-breaker, a thief, and last night
the murderer of your comrade. Ho! ho! it makes me laugh! Fool!
How many lives have you? One word of mine could hang you.’

‘You’ll never hang me,’ replied Jones, in the same low, savage tone.
125‘I wish you had, before that cursed job of yours made me put a bullet
in poor Tim. I wish you had; but it is too late. You wont now.’

Words cannot describe the fury of Michael Rust at seeing himself
thus bearded by one whom he had been used to see truckle to him, whom
he considered the mere tool of Craig, and whom he had never thought
it worth while even to consult in their previous interviews.

‘Wont I? wont I? Look to yourself,’ muttered he, shaking his finger
at him with a slow, cautioning gesture, ‘Look to yourself.’

‘You’re right, I will; I say I will,’ exclaimed Jones, leaping up and
confronting him. ‘I say I will; and now I do!’ He grasped him by
the throat and shook him as if he had been a child.

‘I might as well kill him at once,’ muttered he, without heeding the
struggles of Rust. ‘It’s him or me; yes, yes, I’ll do it.’

Coming to this fatal conclusion, he flung Rust back on the floor and
leaped upon him. At this moment, however, the door of the closet was
thrown open, and Grosket, whom he had entirely forgotten, sprang suddenly
out:

‘Come, come, this wont do!’ said he; ‘no murder!’

Jones made no effort to resist the jerk at his arm with which Grosket
accompanied his words, but quietly rose, and said:

‘Well, he drove me to it. He may thank you for his life, not me.’

Relieved from his antagonist, Rust recovered his feet, and turning to
Grosket said, in a sneering tone:

‘Michael Rust thanks Enoch for having used his influence with his
friend, to prevent the commission of a crime which might have made both
Enoch and his crony familiar with a gallows. A select circle of
acquaintance friend Enoch has.’

Grosket, quietly, pointed to the closet and said:

‘You forget that I have been there ever since you came in the room;
and have overheard every thing that passed between you and my friend.’

Rust bit his lip.

‘Don’t let it annoy you,’ continued he, ‘for the most of what I heard
I knew before. I have had my eye on you from the time we parted.
With all your benevolent schemes respecting myself I am perfectly
familiar. The debt which you bought up to arrest me on; your attempt
to have me indicted on a false charge of felony; the quiet hint dropped
in another quarter, that if I should be found with my throat cut, or a
bullet in my head, you wouldn’t break your heart; I knew them all;
but I did not avail myself of the law. Shall I tell you why, Michael
Rust? Because I had a revenge sweeter than the law could give.’

‘Friend Enoch is welcome to it when he gets it,’ replied Rust, in a
soft tone. ‘But the day when it will come is far off.’

‘The day is at hand,’ replied Grosket. ‘It is here: it is now. Not
for a mine of gold would I forego what I now know; not for any thing
that is dear in the world’s eyes, would I spare you one pang that I can
now inflict.’

Rust smiled incredulously, but made no reply.

‘Your schemes are frustrated,’ continued Grosket. ‘The children
are both found; their parentage known; your name blasted. The brother
who fostered you, and loaded you with kindness will have his eyes
126opened to your true character; and you will be a felon, amenable to
the penalty of the law, whenever any man shall think fit to call it down
upon your head. But this is nothing to what is in store for you.’

‘Well,’ said Rust, with the same quiet smile; ‘please to enumerate
what other little kindnesses you have in store for me.’

‘I will,’ replied Grosket. ‘I was once a happy man. I had a wife
and daughter, whom I loved. My wife is dead; what became of my
child? I say,’ exclaimed he bitterly, ‘what became of my child?’

‘Young women will forget themselves sometimes,’ said Rust, his thin
lip curling. ‘She became a harlot—only a harlot.’

Grosket grew deadly pale, and his voice became less clear, as he
answered:

‘You’re right—you’re right! why shrink from the word. It’s a
harsh one; but it’s God’s truth; she did—and she died.’

‘That’s frank,’ said Rust, ‘quite frank. I am a straight-forward
man, and always speak the truth. I’m glad to see that friend Enoch
can bear it like a Christian.’

A loud, taunting laugh broke from Grosket; and then he said:

‘Thus much for me; now for yourself, Michael Rust. You once
had a wife.’

Rust’s calm sneer disappeared in an instant, and he seemed absolutely
to wither before the keen flashing eye which was fixed steadfastly
on his.

‘She lived with you two years; and then she became—shall I tell
you what?’

Rust’s lips moved, but no sound came from them. Grosket bent his
lips to his ear, and whispered in it. Rust neither moved nor spoke.
He seemed paralyzed.

‘But she died,’ continued Grosket, ‘and she left a child—a daughter;
mine was a daughter too.’

Rust started from a state of actual torpor; every energy, every
faculty, every feeling leaping into life.

‘That daughter is now alive,’ continued Grosket, speaking slowly,
that every word might tell with tenfold force. ‘That daughter now is,
what you drove my child to be, a harlot.’

‘It’s false as hell!’ shouted Rust, in a tone that made the room ring.
‘It’s false!’

‘It’s true. I can prove it; prove it, clear as the noon-day,’ returned
Grosket, with a loud, exulting laugh.

‘Oh! Enoch! oh, Enoch!’ said Rust, in a broken, supplicating tone,
‘tell me that it’s false, and I’ll bless you! Crush me, blight me, do
what you will, only tell me that my own loved child is pure from spot
or stain! Tell me so, I beseech you; I, Michael Rust, who never
begged a boon before—I beseech you.’

He fell on his knees in front of Grosket, and clasping his hands together,
raised them toward him.

‘I cannot,’ replied Grosket, coldly, ‘for it’s as true as there is a
heaven above us!’

Rust made an effort to speak; his fingers worked convulsively, and
he fell prostrate on the floor.

127

THE SACRIFICE.

Shelter-Island.Mary Gardiner.

THE DEATH BED.

A STRAY LEAF FROM THE PORT-FOLIO OF A ‘COUNTRY DOCTOR.’

BY F. W. SHELTON.

‘Bury me in the valley, beneath the willows where I have watched
the rippling waves, among the scenes of beauty which I loved so
well, oh! my friend!’ exclaimed the dying youth; and as he grasped
my hand his lips moved tremblingly, tears gushed upon his wan cheeks,
and an expression of very sadness stole upon him. His looks were
lingering; such as one flings back upon some paradise of beauty which
he leaves forever; some home which childhood has endeared to him, and
affection has filled with the loves and graces. Pity touched my soul as
I regarded silently that beaming countenance, alas! so shrunken from
the swelling, undulating lines of his hilarious health; a pity such as
one feels whose hopes are too inexplicably bound up with another’s, who
shares his very being, and who knows by all the sympathies of a brother’s
bosom that the other’s heart-strings are snapping. Animæ dimidium
meæ!—beautiful expression of the poet, comprehended less while life
unites, than when death severs. It is only when gazing on the seal
which has been set, we inquire ‘Where is the spirit?’ and struggle in
vain to understand that great difference; when the smiles which shed
their sunshine have rapidly vanished, and the voice we loved has died
away like the music of a harp; when that which was light, joy, wit,
eloquence, has departed with the latest breath; when, in short, we are
129awakened from our revery by the clods falling on the coffin, and the
mourners moving away; it is then that the soul, diminished of its
essence, flits away with a strange sense to its unjoyous abode, as a bird
would return to its lonely nest.

There never existed one who more lived and moved, and had his
spiritual being in the affections; a sensitive nature wooed into life by the
kindness of the faintest breath, but killingly crushed by the footsteps of
the thoughtless or the cruel. For such a one, life is well deserving of
the epithet applied to it by the poet Virgil: dulcis vita, sweet life. It is
not a vulgar sensuality, a Lethean torpor; the triumph of the grosser
nature over the eternal principle within. It is already a separation of
the carnal from the spiritual; a refinement of fierce passions; a present
divorce from a close and clinging alliance; a foretaste of the waters of
life; in short, the very essence and devotion of a pure religion. Would
it seem strangely inconsistent that a being of so sweet a character as I
shall describe him, my poor young friend declared, with a gush of the
bitterest tears, that he could not go into the dark valley, for he loved life
with an inconceivable, passionate love? His was the very agony and
pathos of the dying Hoffman, when almost with his latest breath, he alluded
to ‘the sweet habitude of being.’ But it was only, thanks be to
God! a short defection, a momentary clouding of that bright faith which
was destined soon to see beyond the vale. His tears ceased to flow,
glistened a moment, and then passed away as if they had been wiped
by some gentle hand.

He leaned upon a soft couch, so very pale and haggard that his hour
seemed very near. Costly books strewed his table; pictures and many
exquisite things were scattered about with lavish hand; for wealth administered
to refined luxury, and affection crowned him with blessings which
gold can never buy. A mother hid from him her bitter tears, and spoke
the words of cheerfulness; sisters pressed around him with the poignant
grief an only brother can inspire; a beautiful betrothed betokened
to him in irrepressible tears her depth and purity of love. Letters came
to him hurried on the wings of friendship, and impressed on all their
seals with sentiments which awakened hope. Youth and beauty hovered
around him with their unintermitted care, and Age sent up its fervent
prayers to heaven. Oh! who but the ungrateful would not love a life
so filled with blandishments and crowned with blessings? Who could
see all these receding without a sigh, or feel the pressure of that kiss of
love as pure as if it had its origin in Heaven? But with the finest
organization of intellectual mind, he had been accustomed to look at all
things in the light of poetry. For one so constituted the pleasures which
are in store are as inexhaustible as the works or mercies of his God.
Not an hour which did not present some new phase of undiscovered
beauty. He revelled in the beams of the morning; the rising sun was
never a common object, nor its grandeur ever lost upon a soul so conscious
of the sublime. For all beauty in nature he found a correspondent
passion in the soul; and intoxicated alike with the music of birds
or the perfume of flowers, found no weariness in a life whose current
was like the living spring, pure, perennial and delightful.

To be so susceptible of pleasure, I would be willing to encounter all
130the keenness of pangs suffered by such natures. For such, the rational
delights of a year are crowded into a day, an hour; and the ignorant
reader of their obituary sighs mournfully, computing their lives by a
false reckoning. Yet after all, we have been disposed to regard the
death of the young as something unnatural; the violent rending asunder
of soul and body; the penalty enacted of a life artificial in its modes
and repugnant to nature. As Cicero has beautifully expressed it, it is
like the sudden quenching of a bright flame; but the death of the virtuous
Old is as expected, as free from terror as the sunset; it is the
coming of a gentle sleep after a long and weary day.

Travers was in the very gush and spring-tide of his youth; yet
crowned as he was with blessings, and every attribute for their most
perfect enjoyment, the true secret of his too fond desire to live, was that
he loved:

In her the poetry of his life centred; and as a river is swollen by divers
rills, and tributary streams, so all the thoughts and passions of his soul
hurried with a pure and rapid tide to mingle and be lost in one. But
illness, and the long looking at death, and above all, the Christian’s
hope, enable us one by one to break off the dearest ties, and to renounce
whatever we most love on earth. And so my young friend in good time
emerged from the cloud which obscured his prospects, and saw clearly
beyond the vale. It is not long since, being well assured that his fate
was inevitable, he expressed a desire, which he carried into execution,
to visit once more his well-loved haunts, and take a solemn farewell of
them all. As one grasps the hand of a friend at parting, he looked his
last at things which were inanimate. He rambled in the deep, dark
groves whither he had so often gone in health, to enjoy their Gothic
grandeur, to breathe the spirit of the religion they inspire, or to murmur
in their deepest shades the accents of his pure and passionate love.
He inscribed his name for the last time upon the smooth bark of a tree;
then leaving them forever, as he emerged into the gay meadows, he
turned to me with tears and said:

He clambered the steep hill-side, and sinking exhausted beneath a
smitten tree, enjoyed the picturesqueness of the scene; the meadows,
the streams, the pasture-grounds, the dappled herds, the sereneness of
the summer skies, cleft by the wing of the musical lark, in all their
purity of blue. He sat beside the sea-shore, and watched the big billows
breaking and bursting at his feet; and as he looked where the
waters and the sky met together in the far horizon, he exclaimed, ‘Now
indeed do I long to fly away!’ Then he returned to his pillow, never
to go forth again. ‘I shall die,’ he said, ‘when the season is in its
prime and glory; when the fields are green and the trees leafy; and the
sunlight shall shimmer down through the branches where the birds sing
over my grave.’ Then casting a look at his books, where they stood
131neatly arranged on the well-filled shelves, he lamented that he had not
time to garner half the stores of a beautiful literature; to satisfy his
perpetual thirst; to drink to the full at the ‘pure wells of English undefiled.’
There were the Greek poets, whom he would have more intimately
cherished, (he had been lately absorbed in the sublimity of the
‘Prometheus Vinctus;’) there was the great master and anatomizer of
the human heart, who knew how to detail the springs of action common
to all ages, the paragon of that deep learning which is not derived from
books, but gleaned by his genius from all nature with a rare intuition,
and with an incomprehensible power of research. In him what mines
of instruction, what sources of undiscovered delight, what philosophy
yet to be grappled with, to be laid to the heart! Charles Lamb has with
a quaint melancholy depicted the pain of parting from his books, and
from the indefinable delights laid up in each dear folio. Yet after all,
what is the literature of one age but the reproduction, the remoulding,
the condensation of the literature of another; the loss and destruction
of its waste ore, but the re-setting of its gems, and the renewed investiture
of all its beauties. There is no glowing thought, no exquisite
conception, no sublime and beautiful idea, which is not imperishable as
the mind itself, and which shall not be carried on from age to age, or
if destroyed or lost upon the written page, revived by some happy coincidence
of intellectual being, and perpetuated and enjoyed, here or
hereafter, wherever mind exists. A communion like this will be a
communion of spirits. A finer organization, expanded faculties shall
rapidly consume the past; but oh, the future! what glories are to be
crowded into its immensity? How shall knowledge be commensurate
with the stars, or wander over the universe? Now bring me the written
Revelation, the written word. It clasps within its volume all excellencies,
all sublimities of speech; secrets which could not be developed
by reason, nor found in the arcana of human wisdom. Henceforth
this shall be my only companion, and its promises shall light my passage
over the grave.’

I marked the lustrous beaming of his eye, and from that time he
looked at all things on the ‘bright side.’ His very love could think
upon its object without a tear, and look forward to a pure and eternal
re-union. At last the hour of dissolution came. I knew it by its unerring
symptoms; yet still I listened to his passionate, poetic converse.
It was for the last time; I was in the chamber of death. What observer
can mistake it; the darkened windows, the stillness, the grouping,
the subdued sobs, the awful watchfulness for the identical moment when
a lovely and intellectual spirit breaks its bonds, as if the strained vision
could detect the spiritual essence. What a heart-sickness comes over
those who love! What a change in the appearance of all things! The
very sun-light is disagreeable, the very skies a mockery; the very
roses unlovely. We look out of the casement, and see the external face
of nature still the same; how heartless, how destitute of sympathy,
now appears the whole world without, with the home, that inner world!
How can those birds sing so sweetly on the branches; how can the
flowers bloom as brightly as ever; how can those children play so
gleefully; how can yon group laugh with such unconcern! He is an
132only son. Though wan, and wasted in all his lineaments, his pure
brow, his gentle expression, tell that he was worthy to be loved. Can
no human power restore him to the arms of a fond mother? It is in vain!
The spirit flutters upon his lips; it has departed. But it has left behind
it a token; a clear, bright impress; a smile of undissembled love and
purity; an expression beaming with the last unutterable peace; the
graces which were so winning upon earth, but which shall attain their
perfection in heaven.

FREEDOM’S BEACON.

A WINTER TRIP TO TRENTON FALLS.

IN THREE SCENES.

SCENE FIRST.

Morning; eight on the clock. Billing’s Hotel, Trenton. Outside,
a clear bright sun glancing down through an atmosphere sparkling with
frost, upon as fine a road for a sleigh-ride as ever tempted green-mountain
boys and girls for a moonlight flit. Inside, a well-furnished breakfast-table,
beef-steak, coffee, toast, etc., etc. On the one side of it your
correspondent; serious, as if he considered breakfast a thing to be attended
to. He is somewhat, as the lady on the other side of the table
says, somewhat in the ‘sear leaf,’ by which name indeed she is pleased
to call him; but there is enough of spring in her, to suffice for all deficiencies
in him. Like the morning, she is a little icy, but sunshiny,
sparkling, exhilarating, thoughtful, youthful—and decided. She takes
no marked interest in the breakfast.

‘Sear leaf!’ Madam, say on.

‘I wish to go to the Falls.’

‘To what!’

‘To the Falls—to Trenton Falls.’

He drops his knife and fork. ‘Whew! what! in winter?—in the
snow?—on the ice?’

‘Certainly; that is just the season.’

‘Crazy! You were there in the summer——’

‘I know it; every one goes there in summer. I must see them
now. There’s no time like it; in their drapery of snow and ice; in
the sternness and solitude, the wild grandeur of winter!’

‘How you run on! You’ll miss the cars at Utica.’

‘I don’t care.’

‘You’ll be a day later in New-York.’

‘I don’t care. I must see them in their hoary head.’

‘You wish to see if they look as well in gray hairs as I do, perhaps.’

‘Yes.’

‘You really must go?’

‘Yes.’

‘You are a very imperious young lady; and allow me to say, that
although some young gentlemen——’

Lady, interrupting him: ‘Shall I ring the bell?’ She rings it. Enter
landlord. She orders the horse and cutter.

SCENE SECOND.

Enter landlord: ‘All ready, Sir.’

‘Will you allow me to ask if your feet are warmly clad, Madam?’

134‘I am ready for the ascent of Mont Blanc, or a ramble with a hunter
upon the shore of Hudson’s Bay.’

‘Very well; now for the cutter.’

‘Landlord, just step round, if you please, and put that buffalo-robe a
little more closely about the lady. Hold fast, hostler! That horse
likes any thing better than standing still.’

‘Ay, ay, Sir.’

‘Now we are ready. Let go! Away we dash; ‘on for the Falls!’
Gently, my good horse, gently round this corner; now ‘go ahead!’
How do you like my steed, Madam?’

‘A rein-deer could not transact this little business better.’

‘Is not this a glorious morning?’

‘Vivifying to the utmost! How far we fail of becoming acquainted
with the face of nature, when we only come to look upon it in summer!
It is as if one should only look upon the human face in the hues of
youth, and never upon the gray head; on the brow where high thoughts
have left their impress; on the face which deeper and sterner knowledge,
research, patience, have made eloquent, while stealing away the
rose. As for me, though I am but a girl, I like to see sometimes an old
man; one who in the trial-hour of life has kept his integrity; and when
the snows of age fall on him, he gently bends beneath their weight, like
those old cedars yonder by the way-side, beneath their weight of snow.
Wherever the eye can pierce their white vesture, all is still deep spring-green
beneath; unchanged at heart—strong and true. So I like to
look on you, Sere Leaf.’

‘Thank you! You have a gift at compliments.’

‘Summer reminds one of feeling and Lalla Rookh; Winter; of intellect
and Paradise Lost.’

‘How your voice rings in this clear air! Do you know what Dean
Swift says a sleigh-ride is like? ‘Sitting in the draft of a door with
your feet in a pail of cold water!’’

‘Abominable! libellous! Exhilaration and comfort are so blended
in me that—— But is not that the house?’

‘Ay; here we are! Smoke from the chimney; some one is there
to welcome us, no doubt. Gently, my Bucephalus, through this gate!
There comes the landlord. Treat my horse well, if you please; we
are going to the Falls.’

SCENE THIRD.

‘Madam, are you ready for the woods?’

‘Quite. How still the air is! Why don’t you thank me for insisting
on coming? You have no gratitude. There’s not two inches of
snow on the ground. It all seems piled upon these grand old trees.
There! see that tuft of it falling and now spreading into a cloud of
spangles in the sun-light which streams down by those old pines. Hark!
the roar of waters! The sound seems to find new echoes in these
snow-laden boughs, and lingers as if loth to depart.’

‘This way, Madam; the trees are bent too low over the path to allow
a passage there. We are near the bank which overlooks the first fall.
Take my arm; the brink may be icy. Lo! the abyss!’

135‘Magnificent! What a rush of waters! How the swollen stream
foams and rages!’

‘And see! the pathway under the shelving rock where we passed
in summer is completely colonnaded by a row of tall ice pillars; gigantic,
symmetrical—fluted, even. What Corinthian shaft ever equalled them!
What capital ever rivalled the delicacy or grace of those ice-and-hemlock
wreaths about their summits!’

‘And see those pines, rank above rank, higher and higher; stately
and still and snow-robed like tall centinels! Perhaps, Sear Leaf, the
Old Guard might have stood thus in the Russian snows over Napoleon,
when he bivouacked on the hill-side, and sought rest while his spirit
was as wildly tossed as the waters that dash beneath us.’

‘Yes, Lady; or it may be that these trees in their perpetual green,
in their calmness and dignity, may be emblematic of the way in which
the angels who watch on earth look down on man. Perfect rest on perfect
unrest.’

‘Ah! you grow gloomy.’

‘Took I not my hue from you? On, then, for the higher fall!’

‘These trees seem to have increased in stature since the summer we
were here. As we proceed, the snow lies thicker on them, and the
branches seem closer locked; the roof overhead more complete. How
still the woods are! Our very foot-fall is noiseless.’

Influenced by the scene, they pass on in silence along the path which
leads round the foot of the cone-like hill toward the cottage by the higher
Falls, whose deep roar now breaks upon the ear, and rolls through the
motionless forest. Thus then the Lady to Sear Leaf:

‘Has God any other temple like this?’

‘Never a one, reared by any hand save His!’

‘What organ ever rolled so deep a bass through arches so grand!
See how the sunlight glances amid the gnarled branches of the roof, and
here and there falls through on the floor below; making those low icy
forms look like the shrubs of the valley of diamonds in the eastern
story. Just so it is that the light of truth struggles through entangled
and dark mazes of human error, and here and there illuminate some
humble mind with its pure ray; while others, tall and strong and
haughty, like those old trees, are left darkened.’

‘You have a noble nature, and should be nobly mated. But here we
are upon the brow of the hill which leads to the cottage. The snow is
deeper here: gently, now; a slide down this bank might check even
your enthusiasm. Take my arm; there—so; safe at the bottom! Let
us go forward upon the platform of the cottage over the Falls. No
bench? Well, sit upon my cloak.’

‘No, I won’t.’

‘You must. There; be pleased to sit and rest. What a gorgeous
display of frost-work and flashing light on fantastic forms of ice! How
the spray rises and waves and changes its hues in the sun! And the
trees, how delicately each sprig of the evergreens is covered with a
dress so white and shining ‘as no fuller on earth could whiten them.’’

‘Even so, Sear Leaf; And I love to think that the same one who
wove the glorious dress to which you refer, to gladden Peter, made this
136dazzling drapery, and gave us eyes to look upon it. It recalls to my
mind the song of the Seraphim: ‘The whole earth is full of thy glory!’’

‘Did they not, Lady, sing of a moral glory?’

‘No; decidedly no. There was no moral glory in the earth when
they sang that song. Even the chosen people of God are then and
there denounced as having abandoned Him. No; it was the glory of
the works of His hands, such as we look upon this day, which elicited
their praise.’

‘I believe your exegesis is right. The scene is glorious. Summer
in all her loveliness has no dress like this. She has no hues equal to
the play of colors on these walls and columns of ice, extending far as
the eye can reach down the ravine, and towering in more than colossal
grandeur. The water is in treble volume, and force and voice; and
as it rolls its white folds of spotless foam down the valley, it reminds
one of the great white throne of the Revelations, and this wavy foam the
folds of the robe that filled the temple.’

‘It is inexpressibly, oppressively beautiful, Sear Leaf!’

‘Speaking of Revelation, how accurate is the description in Manfred
of this scene!’

‘Let me hear it:’

‘Well, Madam, why are you silent? Shall we go?’

‘No. I could stay here till nightfall. I was thinking of the lines
succeeding those you have repeated:

‘Am I nobody?’

‘We are alone here. How many of the light of heart, in youth and
strength and beauty, climbed these rocks, shouted in these old woods,
and gathered the summer flowers along these banks—and passed away!
Where are they now! Some who wrote their names in the traveller’s
book in this cottage, have them now written by others on their tombstone.
One I knew well, who, full of health and beauty, passed up this
wild ravine, who has faded like the flowers she culled, and is now in her
father’s house, to pass in a few more days to heaven. And of all the
rest, did we know their history, what a picture would it give of life!’

‘You are thoughtful for one so young.’

‘Are not twenty years enough to make one a moment thoughtful?
Tell me now, thou of the gray head, of what art thou thinking?’

‘Of earth’s fairest scene, blent with her fairest daughter.’

‘Bravo! For what fair lady on your native mountains did you frame
that compliment twenty years ago?’

‘Madam!’

‘Well?’

‘It is time to return.’

G. P. T.

137

THE RUINS OF BURNSIDE.

Kenneth Rookwood.

CORONATION OF GEORGE THE FOURTH.

BY THE LATE WILLIAM ABBOTT.

There is one great and peculiar characteristic in all the movements
of John Bull. A more gullible epitome of the human race does not
exist. Let the case be right or wrong, only apply to him an inflammatory
preparation, through the medium of a little exaggerated truth, and
his frame is prepared to receive the largest dose of monstrous improbabilities
that can possibly be administered; and till he has had his ‘full
swing’ in the expression of his outraged feelings and boiling indignation,
you might as easily attempt to check the mighty torrent of Niagara.
John, however, is a free agent, and on the truest principles of freedom
will hear but one side of the question as long as his prejudices continue;
and after all, I believe it may fairly be put down to an honest impulse
in favor of the oppressed, and a determination that no man, however
elevated in rank, shall be screened from that equal justice which England
delights in according. But the scales of justice, though equally
balanced in the courts, get so bruised and bespattered in the minds of
the fickle multitude, that time alone will bring them to their proper
equilibrium. Let us travel back to the impeachment of the Duke of
York, in the case of the celebrated Mrs. Clark. To attempt to palliate
the acts of His Royal Highness was to commit an overt act of treason
against the sovereign people; to admit his indiscretions, but deny his
guilty participation, or even knowledge of the peculations committed in
his name, would expose one to the reputation of being either a fool or a
madman. The sage counsellors of the city, those bright constellations
immortalized in all ages, not only set the noble example of awarding
139the freedom of the city to the immortal Colonel Wardle for his
wholesale calumnies, but services of plate poured in from all parts; and
even a portion of the legislators of Great Britain were offering up their
humble adoration at the shrine of an accomplished courtezan. What
was the result? Reflection gradually triumphed; all the gross and
filthy exaggerations were sifted through the dirty channels which had
given rise to them; a sober judgment at length was given; and the
Duke, though not freed from the responsibility of having been betrayed
into great errors, was honorably and universally acquitted of all intentional
wrong. From that moment a more popular prince was not in
existence; and with the exception of those human infirmities ‘which flesh
is heir to,’ few men descended to the grave more really beloved. The
chief of the gang of persecutors, Colonel Wardle, shrunk into miserable
retirement, and died ‘unwept, unhonored, and unsung.’

This, however, was nothing when compared with the mighty fever of
excitement produced in the public mind by the arrival of Queen Caroline
in England. Here was political diet to satisfy the cravings of all
parties; a stepping-stone to popularity in which all ranks participated.
The peer, the lawyer, the church-warden, down to the very skimmings
of the parish; sober rational people; the class so honorably prized in
England, the middle class, also became enthusiasts in the cause of the
‘most virtuous Queen that ever graced these realms.’ The independent
voters of Westminster; the illustrious class of donkey-drivers; the retailers
of cats’-meat; all, all felt a noble indignation at the treatment of
‘Keveen Caroline.’ Days that if allotted to labor would have increased
the comforts of their homes and families, were freely sacrificed to
processions in honor of Her Majesty. Addresses poured in from every
parish in the vast metropolis; representatives of virtuous females were
hired, all dressed in white—sweet emblem of their purity! Perhaps
England was never nearer the brink of engulphing ruin. The high
Tory aristocracy almost stood alone at this momentous period. The
public sentiment took but one tone at the theatres; and ‘God save the
Queen’ was continually called for. At Covent-Garden and Drury-Lane
an occasional struggle was made against the popular cry, but it
was speedily drowned in clamor. The trial commenced, and an unfortunate
witness appeared on behalf of the crown, who obtained the universal
cognomen of ‘Non mi Ricordo.’ This added fuel to the fire; and
the irritation of the public mind was roused into phrenzy by the impression
that perjured witnesses were suborned from foreign countries to
immolate the Queen upon the altar of vengeance. If the Queen’s
counsel had been satisfied with allowing the evidence for the prosecution
to remain uncontradicted, and suffered the case to stand upon its
own merits, Her Majesty must have been acquitted; but ‘by your own
lips I will condemn you’ was made too manifest in the defence. The
division left so small a majority, that ministers wisely abandoned any
farther prosecution of the case. I heard most of the speeches of the
defence; and it was curious to observe the different modes of argument
adopted. Brougham was an advocate, pleading eagerly a doubtful
cause; Denman was the enthusiastic defender of a Queen conscious of
her innocence, and setting all personal considerations at defiance. The
140public feeling, no longer fed by an opposing power, calmly settled down,
and men began to wonder at the cause of their phrenzy. The innocence
of the Queen did not appear so manifest, as the unwise and heartless
treatment she experienced. ‘A widowed wife, a childless mother;’
these were powerful enough to excite the deepest sympathy; and certainly
a much harder lot could not have befallen the humblest of her sex. Theatres
are very commonly the touchstones by which one may discover the
bearing of the public mind; and Her Majesty, by way of proving it,
visited all the minor theatres, which were densely crowded upon each
attendance. A play was then commanded at the two Theatres Royal.
The effect produced at Drury-Lane I do not recollect; but it is certain
that the announcement at Covent-Garden reduced rather than increased
the receipts. The pit was but moderately attended, and the boxes nearly
deserted. This was a touchstone from which there was no escaping;
and it was really a mortifying scene to witness the utter neglect with
which majesty was received. But alas! the bitter cup of mortification
was to be drained to the very dregs; and the Queen’s own rashness, or
the bad advice of wrong-headed counsellors, hastened the catastrophe.

A short period had elapsed, when the public attention was gradually
directed toward the Coronation. The court papers teemed with descriptions
of the expected magnificence. The length of time that had
intervened between the coronation of George III. and the intended
pageant of George IV., excited all the feeling of novelty. The known
magnificence of the King, his undisputed taste, and his gallant, princely
bearing, all kept attention on the qui vive. The unfortunate Queen, who
obstinately rejected all compromise, remained in the country; and like
an ignis fatuus, disturbed the serenity of men’s minds, and kept alive a
feeling of anxiety. Mr. Harris, the manager and one of the proprietors
of Covent-Garden, was gifted with a tact always ready to take advantage
of scenes of passing interest. He lost no time in reviving the
second part of Henry IV., with all the splendor of the coronation. The
champion on this occasion excited much more interest than all the beauties
of Shakspeare, and the theatre was nightly crowded to suffocation.
The whole company of performers paraded in the procession; and though
a member of the peerage, I cannot exactly call to mind the title I bore;
which, however, with my accustomed good fortune, I exchanged for a
real character at the real coronation. Having the honor of being known
most particularly to the Earl of Glengall, he with the greatest kindness
made me his page upon that memorable occasion. This certainly was
a very distinguished mark of his friendship, for only one Esquire was
allotted to each peer, and the greatest interest was made to obtain those
appointments.

The eventful morning came; and London presented at day-break
crowds of carriages of every description, and its floating population
pouring in dense masses to every point that possessed the slightest degree
of interest. Lord Glengall, in order to avoid the misery of passing
through crowded streets, and of being every moment impeded in his
course, engaged apartments in Lambeth, at Godfrey and Jule’s, the
boat-builders, where he slept the night preceding. His lordship had
appointed me to breakfast with him there, at six o’clock on that eventful
141morning; I was resolved to be in time, and at half past two, A. M., I
left my home and fell in with a line of carriages on my way toward
Westminster bridge. I found that many of them had been there from
twelve the preceding night; peers and peeresses in their robes, gently
moving, not hastening, to the desired spot. After waiting some two
hours with exemplary patience, and finding my case entirely hopeless,
I wisely took the precaution of driving to the water-side at Chelsea, for
the purpose of procuring a boat. As it is possible that some of the distinguished
artists of the day may wish to convey my appearance to posterity,
I will give a description of my dress; and I shall also feel greatly
obliged, if at the same time they will select the best-looking portrait of
me for the likeness: a scarlet tunic, embroidered with gold-thread; a
purple satin sash, with a deep gold fringe; a ruff à la Elizabeth; white
satin pantaloons; shoes with crimson rosettes; black velvet hat and
feathers. My hair, not naturally curling, had been put in graceful
papillote the preceding evening. As I write in the reign of Queen
Victoria, the reader will readily believe that people are not much in
the habit of walking about the streets in such a costume. Imagine
therefore my arrival at the watermen’s landing very soon after five
o’clock in the morning; a splendid sun pouring, if not absolutely a flood
of light, yet its lovely beams upon my person. Crowds of little girls and
boys instantly gathered on the spot, receiving me with small voices but
loud huzzahs, as I descended from the carriage. A boat was immediately
ordered; but as there were several at the landing, all but the
one engaged naturally felt the cruelty of not being permitted to come
in for their share of extortion on such an occasion.

‘I say, Sir,’ said one of the unwashed, ‘them’s a pretty pair of red
ribbands in your shoes; I want just such a pair for my little ’un at
home.’

I knew there was only one way of dealing with them; I therefore
put on one of my blandest smiles, and gently replied: ‘Well, my good
fellow, if you will give me your address, I will send you a pair to-morrow.’
This settled the affair in good humor, and I was suffered to reach
the boat without farther annoyance. We had put into the stream but
a short distance, when I encountered a boat-full of roysterers; for old
father Thames was thickly studded on this occasion with boats of all
classes; when one turned to another in the boat and cried out in the
most lugubrious accents, which did not fail to excite shouts of laughter:

‘I say, Bill, is that ’ere feller a man or a voman?’

I thought now I had fairly passed my ordeal and might go on in peace;
but no; we were obliged to pull in near shore, as we were rowing
against tide. Milbank was crowded, and from the midst of the polite
assemblage a gentle female voice cried out:

‘My eyes! Tom! if there isn’t one of Astley’s riders!’

I at length arrived at my place of appointment, and had a good hearty
laugh at breakfast over my little annoyances. While engaged in that
interesting meal, the shouts of the people passed across the water. It
was occasioned by the arrival of the Queen, who was refused admittance
to the Abbey. Almost all parties blamed her for the attempt, nor
did she produce the sensation she had evidently calculated upon. It
142was like trying to renew a lost game, when all interest had subsided.
It was the final blow to all her ambitious aspirations, which speedily
ended, where all our vanities must end, in the silent grave. I wish it
to be perfectly understood that I have no idea of entering into a rivalry
with Hume, in giving another History of England; but as these events
of stirring interest passed within my own time, and of which I was a
close observer, I trust the introduction will not appear misplaced; taking
into consideration that I profess to give my general reminiscences, and
not simply to confine them to my profession. Perhaps it would be wise
on my part to drop a veil over the gorgeous spectacle; for like a visit
to the Falls of Niagara, the most enlarged description a prudent person
ought to indulge in, would be simply, ‘I have seen the Falls;’ so if I
were to show my prudence, I should say, ‘I saw the Coronation.’ But
how is it possible to refrain from giving expression, however slight and
sketchy, to scenes of such unexampled magnificence?

We crossed the river at seven o’clock, and had the advantage of
passing through the private residence of one of the principal officers of
the House of Commons, and marched on to Westminster Hall without
impediment. I had a distinct ticket for the Abbey where I had no duty
to perform; and indeed throughout the day it was purely nominal. I
had therefore all the advantages of passing and repassing at my own
will and discretion, and of paying visits to the Palace-Yard to different
friends who had secured places to witness the procession. On first
entering that most magnificent of halls, it was impossible not to be
struck with its gigantic proportions and superb embellishments. Galleries
were erected for the peeresses, foreign ambassadors, and the most
distinguished visitors. Admirable arrangements were also made for
that portion of the public who had been so fortunate as to procure a
Lord Chamberlain’s ticket. Costume also was strictly attended to here,
no gentleman being admitted save in full court-suit or military uniform;
and the ladies of course shone in all the splendor that gave grace to
their lovely forms, and added a native lustre to all the artificial aids
which gave such light and brilliancy to the glowing scene.

The monotony of the early part of the morning was relieved by the
absurd evolutions of the gentlemen from the cinque-ports who had the
privilege of carrying the Canopy of the Cloth of Gold over His Majesty.
If truth may be told on state occasions, it must be said that they did
not perform their movements with much grace. They were not regularly
disciplined troops, but fairly occupied the position of the ‘awkward
squad.’ It had the effect, however, of exciting a good deal of merriment;
indeed I have seldom seen a rehearsal produce such striking
effects. The high and imposing ceremonies of the Church, partaking
largely of the grand and mystic formula which belonged to our cathedral
service before the Reformation, and which again bids fair, at least
partially, to occupy its altars, impressed upon the vast and brilliant
assemblage gathered beneath the Gothic roof a mingled feeling of
royalty and devotion, which was in former days the very essence of
chivalry, and which seemed to have taken new growth in this advanced
age, from the associating link of ancient costume, which met the eye
at every turn. The austere and solemn silence of the place was lost
143in the mingled feelings which occupied all hearts; and as the lofty
chants of the church swelled into divine melody, a half-breathing, a
solemn, suppressed emotion, spoke deeply to the heart of other realms
above. It is impossible to hear the loud swell of the organ and exquisite
melody of the varieties of the human voice harmoniously blended, and
bursting forth together in one loud and glorious song of praise, without
feeling that our destiny is more than earthly. It should be taken into
consideration that there is a vast multitude on the outside, who are
really getting impatient for their part of the pageant. It is true, those
who have secured places in the different splendid pavilions erected in
the immediate vicinity of the platform, are more at their ease, and with
the aid of long purses can indulge in all the luxuries so amply provided
by liberal caterers; but still ‘fair play’ is our motto; and we will at
once throw open the abbey-doors and marshal forth the most brilliant
cortége that ever issued from its sacred walls; the herb-woman, Miss
Fellows, and her attendants, strewing the path with flowers, blending the
red rose and the white together, symbolical of the fact, that ‘no longer
division racked the state,’ but that unreserved allegiance was due to the
monarch before them. The excitement of the morning with respect to
the Queen had not entirely subsided; and some few greetings must
have caught the King’s ear, that were not expressive of unbounded
loyalty; but these formed a very slight proportion of the people. Lord
Castlereagh came in also for his share of these unseemly greetings;
but his noble glance and really majestic appearance; his smile, not
of disdain, but which marked an unflinching firmness of resolve;
speedily converted their anger into applause. The Duke of York and
Prince Leopold excited great interest by their dignified and elegant
deportment. The King, as he passed up the hall, was greeted with the
most enthusiastic cheering and the waving of handkerchiefs from the
élite of both sexes; but he appeared oppressed and worn down with
fatigue, in which doubtless anxiety had its portion. His Majesty then
retired to an apartment prepared for his reception, to take some repose
during the royal banquet.

The long tables running down the hall on each side were covered
with rich damask; triumphal arches and every ingenious device that
could by possibility bear upon the pageant, were lavishly placed upon
the tables, splendidly ornamented with artificial flowers, rivalling the
goddess Flora herself. The entrance to the hall was a grand Gothic
archway; but one of the most singular effects produced, was by the
numerous chandeliers in ormolu hanging from the lofty roof, sending
forth myriads of little twinkling stars, that essayed to dim the light of
the sun, who here and there sent in his beams through the narrow loopholes
and windows of the hall, to catch a glimpse of the splendid ceremonies.
The banquet commenced; and it was not a little amusing to
see the city authorities maintain their charter by commencing a most
formidable attack upon the turtle and the viands which were so profusely
spread over the table. Not a moment was lost. Triumphal
arches quickly assumed the appearance of shapeless ruins, and wines
from every quarter of the globe paid a heavy duty upon being deposited
in the city vats!

144At length the martial clangor of the trumpet announced the royal
banquet. His Majesty took his seat on the dais, with the imperial crown
upon his head amid the deafening shouts of the up-standing noblesse of
the land. Lord Glengall’s seat was high up in the hall; and next to
him, on one side, was the Earl of Blessington, whom I had the honor
of knowing, and the Earl of Falmouth on the other, both of whom are
now gathered to their fathers. They insisted upon my taking a seat
with them, to which of course I was nothing loath; and there I fully
participated in all the luxuries of the table, instead of waiting like an humble
page for the remains of the feast. Lord Blessington requested me
to go into the peeresses’ gallery and endeavour to procure refreshments
for Lady Blessington. I had never seen her ladyship; but her famed
beauty and talents did not render the task one of great difficulty. Amid
a blaze of beauty, I soon discovered the fair lady, to whom I was to enact
my part of Esquire. In return for the attentions I had the good fortune
to offer, I received most gracious smiles, and the blandest of speeches,
and felt myself rise in stature as I again paced the ancient hall. At
length one of the most imposing ceremonies commenced; and many a
swan-like neck was stretched to catch a glimpse of the unapproachable
magnificence of the scene; the entrance of the champion (accompanied
by the hero of a thousand battles,) in a full suit of armor and superbly
mounted on a white charger with a plume of feathers on its head; the
Marquis of Anglesea, similarly caparisoned; the Lord Howard of
Effingham, and others of comparatively less note. It had been whispered
that Mr. Horace Seymour (now Sir Horace,) had been selected
by His Majesty for that important character, and his splendid appearance
would perhaps under other circumstances have justified the choice. The
right, however, was hereditary, and the real representative would indeed
have shown craven, and unworthy the high distinction, if he had relinquished
so honorable a position. The anecdote which is related at the
coronation of George III., of the challenge having been accepted in behalf
of Prince Charles Stuart, after the gauntlet was dashed upon the
earth, was here omitted; for here, happily, there was an undisputed
succession. After the champion had drank to the health of ‘George the
Fourth, the rightful monarch of Great Britain,’ in a cup of gold sent
by His Majesty, (and which is retained by the champion,) he and the
accompanying nobles backed their horses the whole distance down the
hall, gracefully bowing to their monarch at distinct intervals, amid the
most enthusiastic cheering.

Walter Scott was there, his eye sparkling with delight, and devouring
that magnificence of which his pen alone could convey the unlimited
splendor. Non nobis Domine was given by a numerous choir most
superbly; and the whole of the ceremonies were at length concluded.
I left the hall with the loss of my cap and feathers, and in a humble
beaver, which I borrowed from a friend in the immediate vicinity, I
elbowed my way through the crowd, sated with splendor and fairly exhausted.
London was a blaze of light, and Hyde Park, I presume for
the first time, was brilliantly illuminated. Fireworks of the most dazzling
description shot meteor-like from every open spot in the vast metropolis,
and the pyrotechnical art displayed in the parks at the government
145expense beggared all description. As I have already stated,
Covent-Garden Theatre made a golden harvest by anticipating the
coronation; but it was left for Drury-Lane to give as near as possible a
fac-simile of the one that had so recently taken place. A platform was
thrown over the centre of the pit, across which the procession took place.
Elliston repeated it so often to crowded houses, that at length he fancied
himself the King de jure; and his enthusiasm carried him to such
an extent, that on one occasion he stopped suddenly in the centre of the
platform, and with a most gracious and benignant smile, extended his
arms at full length and gave the audience a regal blessing, in the following
pithy sentence: ‘Bless ye, my people!’

I FOLLOW.

New-York, December, 1843. Mary E. Hewitt.

146

REMINISCENCES OF A DARTMOOR PRISONER.

NUMBER ONE.

It was my fortune to be taken prisoner in India during the war of
1812. I was, with others, confined in Fort William at Calcutta, for
several months, until the authorities could find an opportunity to send
us to England. At length the Bengal fleet being ready for their return
voyage, the prisoners were distributed on board the several vessels
which composed it. I was placed with a few others on board the
‘Lord Wellington,’ and being in a destitute condition, I agreed to assist
in working the ship to England, at the same rate as the regular hands
on board. The fleet rendezvoused in the near vicinity, and consisted of
something over thirty sail, most of them of the largest class, and equal
in size to a line-of-battle ship. They were well armed, some carrying
thirty or forty guns, with a plentiful supply of muskets, pikes, etc.
This had been customary for many years, as a protection against the
French privateers and men-of-war, which swarmed the Indian ocean;
in many instances proving themselves more than a match for their
enemies, and sometimes beating off large class frigates.

On going on board, I found between four and five hundred people,
including officers, passengers, and crew. The captain was a large
heavy-built man, very unwieldy, and remarkable only for having a
large, long body placed upon very small legs. He reminded me of an
ill-constructed building, ready to fall by its own weight. He appeared
never to be happy unless he was ‘in hot water,’ either with the passengers
or crew. There were six mates, or more properly lieutenants,
for all the officers were in uniform. There were also a dozen or more
midshipmen, a boatswain and his two mates, gunners, quarter-masters,
armorers, sail-makers, and carpenters in abundance. In short, we
were fitted out in complete man-of-war fashion; not forgetting the
cat-o’-nine-tails, which was used with great liberality. The crew was
made up of all nations, but the majority consisted of broken-down men-of-war’s
men, who being unfit for His Majesty’s service had little fear
of imprisonment. The others were composed of Portuguese, Dutch,
Italian, etc.; and taken altogether, one would have inferred that they
must have been drafted from Falstaff’s regiment of taterdamallions.

One fine morning the fleet got under way. Nothing note-worthy or
interesting however occurred until we made the island of Ceylon, where
we lay a couple of days; during which time the crew got and kept most
unaccountably drunk. The officers tried every method to solve the
mystery, but without effect. The truth was, the men became suddenly
fond of cocoa-nuts, selecting them from the bum-boats in preference to
any other fruit. The secret was, that the shell was bored before the nut
was quite ripe, the juice poured out, and Arrack substituted in its
place. Our next place of stopping was Madras, where we took in
147more cargo, but no more cocoa-nuts, as no fruit-boats put off to us,
the weather being too rough to admit of it.

We had now been at sea several weeks, and had many among our
crew and passengers upon the sick-list. Of the former, was a young
man on his first voyage. He had been ill more than a week, and there
being no physician on board, there was little or nothing done for him.
At length he became delirious at intervals; and during the whole of
the last night of his existence he made the most piercing and heart-rending
cries; calling incessantly for his mother and sister, and
lamenting that he should never see them more. Poor fellow! before the
next night he was sewed up in his hammock, with a couple of shot at
his feet; prayers were read over him, and in the presence of his silent
and pensive ship-mates, he was consigned to the ocean, that vast and
sublime grave of countless millions of our race. Several weeks after
this occurrence, one of the passengers, a Frenchman, died of the consumption,
and was buried in the same way; and had not the subject
been of too serious a nature, the event would have partaken somewhat
of the ludicrous. As usual, the shot was placed at the feet of the dead
body, but proved to be insufficient to sink it. The consequence was,
that the head and shoulders remained above the surface, bobbing up and
down, until we lost sight of it in the distance. The captain’s clerk
always officiated as Chaplain at the funerals and divine service;
which latter, by the way, was more of a farce than any thing else; for
I have known more than one instance where they have been interrupted
in the very midst by a squall of wind. Then to see the hubbub; the
congregation dispersed; some ordered aloft, with such pious (though
sometimes more forcible) ejaculations as: ‘Lay aloft there, you lubbers!
D—n your bloods! I’ll see your back-bones! I’ll set the cat at
you!’ etc.

We now approached the Cape of Good Hope. The weather became
lowering; and as the day advanced, heavy masses of black clouds gradually
arose above the horizon, and palled the sky. Night came on
suddenly, and with it the threatened storm in all its fury. The darkness
was as it were the quintessence of an ink-bottle. Nothing could be
seen, save when the lightning gleamed, or when the rockets which were
sent up from the Commodore, and broke forth, spreading their lurid,
baleful light to give notice to the squadron of their position; then for an
instant the whole scene was lit up with a hideous glare, when all would
subside again into tenfold darkness. This, accompanied by the whistling
of the wind, the roar of thunder, and the booming of a gun at intervals
from the Commodore, to give notice for putting about, gave a
grandeur and sublimity to the scene, which I have never seen surpassed.
Fear gave way to excitement; and the idea of perishing amid
this terrible war of the elements was worth years of the monotony of
every-day life. I thought too of the Flying Dutchman, but did not fall
in with him until some time after, and then it was by day-light, and
without the poetry of ‘darkness, and cloud, and storm.’

The tempest gradually subsided, and at the end of two or three days
scarcely a breath of wind was to be felt. Angry Nature had changed
her frowns for sportive smiles; the face of the great deep was like polished
148glass; but there was a long swell of the ocean, apparently of miles in
length; its bosom heaving and sinking, as if still oppressed with its late
troubles. Our ship lay utterly unmanageable, her sails flapping idly
against the masts. There was not sufficient wind to make her answer
the helm; and there we lay, rolling and plunging, expecting every moment
to see our masts go by the board. The lower yards dipped at every
roll; and so great was the strain, that it drew the strong iron ring-bolts
by which the guns were secured, and the lashings which fastened the
large water-butts broke loose. This was at night; and the power and
speed with which these heavy articles were driven from side to side was
truly terrific. It took all hands the whole night, (and not without great
danger) to secure them. The next day, a new and greater danger presented
itself in a different form. A large ship, about the size of our
own, lay in the same helpless condition; and by reason of a current, or
some other cause, approached so near that it became truly alarming.
Both vessels were rolling their keels nearly out of the water; and had
they come in contact, it would have been certain destruction to both.
It was necessary that something should be done immediately; and the
crews of both vessels were ordered into their respective boats, with
lines attached to the ships; and with several hours’ hard labor at the
oars, they were enabled to separate them.

It was about this time that I had a view, not of the Flying Dutchman
exactly, but of his ship, while standing on the forecastle early one morning.
There had been a fog during the night, and a portion of the vapor
still hung over the surface of the water. I had remained in that position
but a few moments, when my attention was called by the boatswain’s-mate,
who stood near by: ‘Look yonder!’ said he, pointing with his finger.
I looked in the direction indicated, and lo! there lay the mystic
‘Phantom Ship.’ She was only a few yards off; perfectly becalmed,
with no more motion than if painted on canvass, and apparently not over
six feet long, yet perfect in every respect. I was gazing in admiration,
with my eyes rivetted upon the object, when there came a light breath
of air, so light that I could hardly feel it; presently the mist began
gradually to rise and disperse; the ship began to recede; the magic
scene was at an end! A breeze had sprung up, and the phantom-ship
proved to be one of the fleet; and by a signal from the Commodore, she
took her station in line with the other vessels. I never saw any
thing like it before nor since. The atmospheric delusion was astonishing;
but it was nothing new to the old boatswain’s-mate. All the other
vessels were obscured by the fog, and this happened to be the nearest to
us. Had the others been in sight they might (or might not) have presented
the same appearance. Possibly the position of that particular
ship helped to produce the effect. The sight of so large a fleet formed in
two lines, extending four or five miles, each convoyed by a man-of-war,
like a troop of soldiers led on in single-file by its officers, was ‘beautiful
exceedingly;’ especially when the rising or setting sun illuminated
their white sails, and a signal-gun from the Commodore changed their
course; every ship in that vast fleet, at the cry of ‘About ship!’ moving
as by one mind, and gracefully bowing to, and as it were saluting, the
breeze! It was a scene never to be forgotten.

149The wind gradually increased until it became a smart breeze, and we
soon neared the Island of St. Helena. Here we first heard of the
downfall of Napoleon, the greatest warrior of all ages; one who struck
such terror into the souls of combined Europe, that they dared not let
him go free, and imposed upon Great Britain the honorable task of becoming
his jailor; and her very heart quaked within her bosom while
life remained in his; doomed though he was to perpetual and hopeless
exile, upon an isolated rock in the midst of the ocean. On seeing the yellow
flags, with the motto ‘Orange boven,’ flying at the mast-heads of the
shipping, and hearing of the overthrow of the power of France, our old
Dutch boatswain’s-mate, (who in his youth had served with the brave
Admiral De Winter, and who had braved the ‘battle and the breeze’ for
more than half a century,) was touched to the very depths of his stout
heart. He was completely melted, and wept like a child over the fallen
fortunes of Napoleon. ‘Holland,’ said he, ‘has lost her best friend.
Who like him will watch over and protect my country!’ He was naturally
of a cheerful disposition; but from that time to the close of the
voyage, he appeared sad and disheartened, and a smile scarce ever
came over his countenance. I may remark in passing, that there were
on board of our ship some ten or fifteen Dutch prisoners, who were the
remnant of a large force that had formerly been garrisoned at the
island of Java. All but these few had been gradually wasted away by
pestilence and the poisoned spears and knives of the natives; and Holland,
being so much engaged in her wars at home, had no means of aiding
so distant a colony. Such was their condition when the island fell
into the hands of the English; and they were rescued from destruction
by the natives, only by becoming prisoners of war to the English.
They were all old men, and some of them could speak a little English:
they used to relate to me their former condition, and talk of their future
prospects. The tale was a sad one. When young they were ‘kidnapped,’
as they termed it, by the government, as no volunteers could be
got to serve in that sickly climate. They were forced from home and
their parents at a tender age and sent to that far country, whence they
had no prospect of ever returning, or hearing from their friends. Some
of them had been absent for forty years, during which time they had
seen none of their connexions, and seldom heard from them; for many
years all intercourse had been dropped. They felt themselves entire
strangers in the world; they were going to Holland to be sure, but not
to their home. After the lapse of so many years, where could they
seek for their friends? Death and other causes had removed and scattered
them; and they almost dreaded the time when they should again
set their feet upon the land of their fathers. Having been many months
their associate in imprisonment, I took a deep interest in these poor fellows;
participated in their feelings, and parted from them with regret.
Peace to their memories! They have without doubt long ere this
ended their weary pilgrimage of life.

We remained at St. Helena several weeks, waiting for the China
fleet, during which time we took in a fresh supply of provisions, water,
etc. This now famed island is nothing more nor less than a huge irregular
block of granite, rising perpendicularly from the midst of the sea.
150The town, what there is of it, is built in a gully or chasm in the rock:
the inhabitants are composed mostly of the military establishment and
those connected with it, with perhaps a few exceptions. The island is
only useful as a stopping-place for outward and homeward bound India-men,
etc; and the inhabitants would be in a state of starvation, were
it not for the supplies of provisions which they obtain from the shipping
which put in there. All manner of coins from all manner of countries
are in circulation here; and all copper coin goes for a penny, be it
twice the size of a dollar, or as small as a five-cent piece. A person
that way minded might soon make a large and curious collection here.

The China fleet now made its appearance, and after a few days’
delay we all got under weigh, with a convoy of a frigate, a sloop-of-war,
and a transport full of troops, who on their arrival in England
were ordered immediately to the United States, where they were sadly
cut up at the battle of New-Orleans. We left the island with a stiff
breeze, which continued with fine clear weather for several days. The
fleet amounted to over seventy sail, and was arranged in two lines;
and in fine weather, with all sail set, we composed a beautiful spectacle.
During the whole of the voyage the utmost precaution was used to prevent
an attack or capture by privateers, or national vessels of the
enemy. Lights of every kind were strictly forbidden at night, except
through a special order from a superior officer, and a double watch
was kept day and night.

‘Land, ho!’ cried the look-out at the mast-head, one day. It proved
to be what is termed the Western Islands, which lay directly ahead of
us. ‘Sail, ho!’ was the next cry; and all eyes were turned toward
the strangers. They were two ‘long, low, black-looking schooners,’
lying-to very quietly, about three miles ahead. ‘See the d——d
Yankees!’ shouted all hands, in full chorus, as the American flag was
displayed at their gaff. A thrill shot through my nerves; my heart
swelled, and my eyes filled with tears, as I beheld the Flag of my
Country for the first time for many months. No one can imagine the
love he bears his native land, until he tests it as I have done. Many
were the speculations as to the probability of capturing the saucy privateersman;
for by this time all the sail that the convoy could possibly
set was spread in chase of the enemy, who as yet had made no attempt
to fly, although apparently but a stone’s throw ahead of us. Our captain
was the only one in my hearing who seemed to doubt their being
taken: ‘The d——d scamps know too well,’ said he, ‘what their craft
can do, to trust themselves so near us.’ We now appeared close on
board of them, and the chase well under way, when each fired a gun
in defiance or derision, and darted off like birds. It was now nearly
dark, and we were not far from land, for which one of the schooners
seemed to fly right before the wind, closely pursued by the frigate, under
all the canvass she could set. The other put out to sea, close-hauled
upon the wind. The brig and transport, the fastest craft in the fleet,
crowded all sail, but without nearing the schooner, as she could lie at
least two points more to windward than her pursuers. They both
escaped! The frigate being disabled, by springing her fore-top-mast,
gave up the chase; the others relinquished the pursuit as fruitless, and
rejoined the fleet.

151The night was extremely dark; and the next morning two large
vessels were missing. It seemed that the privateers had returned, and
hovering around, watched their opportunity, and captured two of our
most richly-freighted ships; but as those seas were swarming with
British cruisers, they were shortly re-captured and sent to England,
where the whole fleet soon arrived. The West-India fleet came into
port about the same time; and the amount of wealth brought into London
by the safe arrival of the Bengal, China, and West-India fleets,
must have been almost incredible. For myself, I was consigned to a
dreary prison, ‘as will more particularly appear’ in an ensuing number.

A VERITABLE SEA STORY.

BY HARRY FRANCO.

153

ON A PASSAGE IN MACBETH.

Let us put on one side for a few moments the horrid midnight murder
of the gracious Duncan. Let us suppose of the buried majesty of
Scotland,

Let us for the moment imagine Mrs. Siddons to have been the veritable
Lady Macbeth, and acknowledge that never was man more powerfully
tempted into evil, nor more deeply punished with his fall from Virtue,
than this, the Thane of Glamis and of Cawdor. My concernment in this
Essay is neither with his virtue, nor his fall. I neither come to praise, nor
bury Cæsar:

In the reading I desire should be here given to the language of the immortal
bard, it will be perceived that the last pronoun is made emphatic.
‘Get thee to bed.’

The household of the castle of Macbeth, excited and disturbed as its
members had been throughout the day by the unexpected arrival of the
King of Scotland at Inverness, are now subsiding into rest. The King
has retired. His suite are provided for in various parts of the quadrangle;
and all the tumultuary sounds of preparation and of festive
enjoyment have followed the departed day; and Banquo charged with
a princely gift to the Lady Macbeth under the title of most kind hostess,
from her confiding and now slumbering monarch, has paid his compliments
and gone.

Now comes the deeper stillness, and the witching hour of that eventful
night; and the noble Thane, having gone the rounds of his hushed
castle to place all entrances under both watch and ward, turns to his
torch-bearer, the last remaining household servant of the train, and
dismisses him with the message I have read. The words excite no surprise
in the mind of the attendant. He receives the command and departs
upon his errand; to deliver it as had doubtless been his office before,
and then retire for the night:

Admired Editor, I have now that to say in thine ear that may possibly
startle thy preceptions, shock thy wishes, and for the moment interfere
with thy store of tragick recollection. I would have thee imagine
with me, that Macbeth, stifling all murderous intent, and all disloyal
thought, had honestly gone down at the sound of the bell, and, as must
have been his wont as is shewn from the manner in which his attendant receives
the charge, had soberly partaken of the warm and grateful drink
his noble partner had prepared for his refreshing and composing use.

Imagine the illustrious and majestick pair, their household having
154entirely withdrawn, seated in the deep silence of the night, on either
side of a small table as was their happy wont, and gently, calmly, dispassionately,
and elegantly sipping that prepared beverage; that ‘drink
made ready’ by hands then yet innocent and spotless. Imagine the
ingredients of which that dilution must have been composed! Not
wine for wine is always ‘ready.’ O call it not by any other W! Let
it not be named Glenlivet; think not upon Ferintosh. It was PURE
REALITY IN THE LUSTRE OF A MILD GLORIFICATION, mingled with droppings
of the dew of morning.

They say that the mind of man is a mere bundle of associations, and
that our success in moving it to our purpose depends on our awakening
the most powerful, or most agreeable of them. I know not of what
associations that of the reader may be composed; but for my own part
I think a little warm drink before going to bed upon a night when owls
hoot and chimnies are to be blown down, prepared by the small hands that
one loves, and that all admire; where a dimple takes place of what in a
plebeian hand is a knuckle, and the round fingers taper gently off toward
points that are touched with damask and bordered with little rims of ivory;
where bright eyes beam with kindness as well as wit; and words fall in
silvery tones from a beautifully-formed mouth, like the renewal of life
upon the soul of man! I think where one could enjoy all this, it was a
monstrous act of folly on the part of Macbeth to fret about the principality
of Cumberland, or covet even the whole kingdom of Scotland. For my
own part I must say, give me the warm drink and the sweet companionship
of that night, and let old Duncan with a hearty welcome sleep up
to his heart’s content the whole ‘ravelled sleeve of care!’

Oh Woman! dear, good, kind, blessed, beautiful Woman! chosen of
Heaven (and O how well!) for the meet companion of our otherwise
forlorn race! is there a moment throughout that whole circle of the Sun
which we call Day more sweet to us, than that which follows the well-performed
duties of our lot and that gives thee altogether to us at its
close, gentle, refined, affectionate, soothing, bland, and unreserved? The
hour that precedes retirement for the night, when the early luxury of
languor begins to take possession of the senses? When the eyes are
not heavy, but threaten to become so, and long silken lashes first make
love to each other? When it is time to confine part of that rich hair
en papilotte and fold the whole into that pretty cap; to place the feet in
small graceful slippers, and let ease put fashion tastefully on one side
in the arrangement of the dress?

Doubtless there is a period during the delirium of youthful fancy
when the calmer pleasures are unappreciated at their value, but the
Andante of existence follows the Allegro of boyhood; its precious strains
fall deeper and more touchingly upon the Sense; and the full Soul longs
to yield itself to them, and to share its emotions with the beloved one in
tones heard only in her ivory ear——how beautiful! Oh pure of heart,
how beautiful!——and, when the belle, still delighting to please, has become
the friend; and the mistress, still fascinating, the wife; and one
interest, one faith, one hope, one joy, one passion, one life, animate both
hearts——oh then,

John Waters.

155

THE SMITHY.

BY ALFRED B. STREET.

156

THE FINE ARTS.

A FEW HINTS ON THE PHILOSOPHY OF SIZE IN ITS RELATION TO THE FINE ARTS.

BY GEORGE HARVEY.

It is a common remark made by most persons who visit the mightiest
cataract in the world, that it fails to impress one’s mind with that just
idea of its grandeur which truly belongs to its vastness, and which is
always formed from attentively reading or listening to a correct verbal
or written description of it. Even the most faithful drawings cannot
awaken an adequate conception of the majesty, the greatness of Niagara.
Now the law of optics will serve to convince us that this must ever be
so, since the image formed in the dark chamber of the eye is exceedingly
small; and as the Falls are always approached gradually from a
distance, the surrounding landscape occupies by far the largest portion
of the field of vision; hence the descending stream can only sustain a
subordinate part in the general view; but when you have approached
the very verge of the precipice over which the rolling waters rush with
maddening roar; or when, from beneath, you stand upon the piles of
broken rocks, and look upward or around, and can only embrace a small
portion of the falling waters; then and then only, do the anticipated
emotions crowd upon the soul, causing it to stand in trembling awe,
vibrating in unison with the fragments of the fallen precipice upon
which you tread.

I remember some years since, in looking at an image of the ‘American
Falls’ reflected in a camera-obscura which was built on the opposite
shore, noticing how extremely insignificant it appeared, notwithstanding
the table of vision was five feet in diameter. The descending foam as
it was unevenly projected in billowy masses, appeared to move very
slowly in its downward course, causing a feeling of impatience at its
tardiness: in truth, the whole scene looked very tame and unsatisfactory,
and I could not help remarking to a friend who was with me, how utterly
impossible it would be for any artist to be thought successful in an
attempt to represent them. Nevertheless I made some twenty sketches
from as many different points of view; one only of which has procured
any commendation, as conveying an idea of the grandeur of the Great
Cataract. It is evident therefore that what the eye can take in at
one look will never of itself impress the mind with those sublime emotions
which we conceive should belong to vastness. Yet there is a
physical attribute belonging to subjects having this property of vastness,
that will command more attention than the same scene upon a small
scale: but the mind must be impressed with the fact, and must draw
largely upon it for any emotion of the sublime. It is therefore upon this
principle that large portraits will command from the multitude more applause
than small miniatures; large oil-paintings than small water-color
drawings. The statues on the outside of the Grecian temples
157were colossal, yet in their position they looked small. Most of the
works of Michael Angelo are so; but in consequence of the distance
at which they are seen, they lose greatly their power to produce grand
ideas, because in all cases the image formed upon the optic nerve varies
but little in its actual size; since the distance at which things are viewed
is in some degree regulated by the size: thus before a large picture,
you must station yourself at a relative distance, so as to embrace the
whole, while before the small drawing you must be within arm’s reach;
or if a miniature portrait, it must be seen within a few inches, thus
making the mirrored picture on the eye vary but little in actual size.

These few hints will readily account for the mortification experienced
by many artists who have painted exceedingly impressive pictures when
they are seen in the studios where they were executed, but when they
are taken into a large gallery or rotunda, seem lost and look insignificant,
save to the few of cultivated minds, who may take the trouble to
approach within a proper distance, and shut out all objects which interfere
or intrude, and which prevent a true appreciation of their merits.
The knowing, time-serving artists, who paint exhibition pictures, have
long since understood this law; and accordingly they paint up to what
is called ‘exhibition-pitch,’ where brilliance and flashiness of color, with
an absence of detail, which might interfere with breadth of effect, are
of the first importance. Attention is also given to masses of light and
shade, that all the forms introduced in the picture may have their due
prominence; and a judicious balancing of warm and cool tints, by which
harmony is produced, and the eye prevented from being offended by its
evident exaggeration of the ‘modesty of nature.’

Turner may be instanced as the most successful in this style of
painting, which he has followed to such an extreme, that his pictures
are now attractive only at a great distance, for when they are seen near
by, they fail to please, if they do not produce positive disgust. Report
represents him as having accumulated upward of one hundred thousand
pounds sterling, which he could only have done by adopting this distant,
effective style; for if he had continued to finish his pictures in the
same manner as he did those of his early works, which procured for
him the foundation of his present wide-spread reputation, he would not
have realized one eighth of that sum. To paint one of the former,
costs but a few hours’ labor, but one of the latter would employ many
days if not weeks; yet the momentary effect of pleasure derived from
seeing the one is greater than that of the other. Hence those who visit
exhibitions, having but a limited time, are gratified; but place one of
the chaste productions of Claude Lorraine, who diligently followed nature
with all the tenderness of a modest student, by the side of one of
the tinsel class, and observe the ultimate effect. The former will
gradually win your admiration, and continue to arouse pleasing reminiscences;
the latter will finally lose its charm, and be regarded with
something of the feeling with which one looks upon the ornamental
paper of a room. We have had many exhibitions of single large pictures,
such as Dubufe’s ‘Don Juan,’ which have produced handsome
returns to those who have purchased them for such speculating purposes.
The parties have been well aware of the physical effects of size; for
158had the same subjects been painted upon a small scale, though equally
well executed, they would have been less attractive to the multitude;
yet the smaller ones would have reflected the same sized images in the
camera of the eye; since, as I have already hinted, to see them properly
they must be viewed at short distances, as the large pictures must be at
greater proportionate ones.

I will here digress for a moment, in the hope that I may be permitted
to make mention of my own works, without incurring the charge of
undue egotism. Let me, however, by way of apology for calling public
attention to the series of forty small Water-Color Drawings, (painted
con amore, and with no idea of gain,) which are now before the public,
mention the fact, that the commencement of their publication was owing
to a suggestion of Gen. Cass, who urged me to undertake the enterprise
while I was in Paris. The drawings then consisted of half the present
number of landscape views; the localities and subjects of the latter
half have been chosen with the purpose of writing appropriate chapters
illustrating the progress of civilization and of refinement in the northern
part of this continent. The foregoing brief remark applies only to their
publication; for their origin dates back to the halcyon days of early
life, when I had but just passed my teens; when boyish enthusiasm
lends a charm to every dream that finds a home in the fancy or the
heart. Then it was that the latent wish was formed of being able, at
some future day, to paint the History of the Day; and to carry out this
impulsive feeling, I have been brought into sweet communion with divine
Nature; and oh! how bounteously has she repaid my studious contemplation
with infinite delight! It is not for me to speak of the results.
There they are; and every lover of the country may judge of the
degree of success I have achieved. I am not so certain that I have
equal ability in the use of the pen. The chapters of the first number
will speak for themselves; but I must not omit to acknowledge the many
obligations I am under to Washington Irving, for the friendly revision
of my ms. He has given many an elegant turn to a prose sentence,
and clothed rude images with graceful drapery. But to resume.

Since then it follows that a small picture, being viewed at its proper
focal distance, reflects the same sized image as a larger one at its proper
focal distance, I can see no good reason why the physical attribute of
largeness should be so eagerly sought for by the public. Surely a gallery
of small pictures, provided they be not painfully small, should be
preferred to one filled with large ones. We see the principle I am contending
for carried out in libraries. The ordinary sized volumes are
preferred, for most purposes, to the cumbrous tomes of large folio editions.
It is true, a large book will produce in the minds of many persons
greater respect than a miniature copy of the same work; but the
ideas contained in the one are no better or more impressive than the
same contained in that of the other; save the feeling with which the
larger one inspires the votary who looks no farther than the outside of
the page. The series of forty landscapes alluded to in the above digression,
if viewed at the focal distance of eighteen inches, will appear as
large as those twice the size, viewed at their proportionate increased
distance. An elaborately finished picture, to be seen to advantage,
159must be examined near by. A coarser work, theatrical scenes for
instance, painted for distant effect, must be seen accordingly, if you
would secure pleasurable emotions. As a general approximative rule,
the focal distance at which the spectator should stand in viewing works
of art is to be found by measuring the same length from the picture as
its size: Thus, one of ten feet in length is to be viewed at that distance;
one of eighteen inches at about twenty inches; a small miniature of six
inches, at about eight inches. If the work should have no detail, this
rule will not hold good; but if there is a faithful transcript of Nature;
and she ever delights in unobtrusive beauties, which are particularly
obvious in the fore-ground, for she strews them at your feet; then if you
approach the artist’s effort, a work of patient diligence, you can hold
converse with her through the medium of his labors.

I do not attempt to deny the importance of size in winning our first
regard: it is a law inseparable from the thing itself; but I must protest
against the taste of the age being supplied always with mere physical
attributes. The purling stream and babbling brook; the small rill falling
from on high, till its feathery stream is lost in mist, are and should
be as much sought after as the roaring torrent or the thundering cascade.
The effect of the one is to produce awe, that of the other tranquil pleasure.
The human mind is not always to be upon the stretch; to remain
lifted up as it were upon stilts; our common communion is to be found
in enjoyments that are quietly exciting. It is a common remark, that
the English language has lost some of its truthfulness by our habit of
expressing ourselves in the language of superlatives, through a desire
to astonish. Thus we leave nothing for the innate love of truth; nothing
to work out the necessary sympathy. Is not this parallel with the
desire to see large pictures?—and should it not receive some regulation
from those who have the requisite influence?

I find the few hints to which in the outset I proposed to confine myself
have grown to a greater length than was intended. I will therefore,
in closing, simply reiterate the remark, that I see no good reason
why the painter of a large picture (or the work itself) should be regarded
with more favor than he who paints equally well, but limits the size,
unless we consider the white-wash brush a nobler instrument than the
camel’s-hair pencil.

LIFE: A SONNET.

J. G. Percival.

160

TWO PICTURES.

LOVE CELESTIAL.

LOVE TERRESTRIAL.

B.

THE HERMIT OF THE PRAIRIE.

BY PETER VON GEIST.

Wednesday, June twenty-first. How little do people who ride along
in their carriages, or rattle over the ground in stage-coaches, or rush
over its surface in rail-cars, know of the pleasures of travelling! They
roll over the country; they cannot be said to pass through it. They
may see new rivers, new mountains, and new faces; but for all the
good the last does them, they might as well have stood on the corner of
the street in a city half a day, and watched the passers-by. And better
too; for hotel-keepers, and waiters, and the whole tribe of public
functionaries, have all an artificial, professional look; so that it is difficult
to come at their real characters, if indeed they have any. The
same is the case, to some extent, with their fellow-passengers. All are
so absorbingly interested in their own brilliant thoughts; or they deem
it incumbent on them to assume the dignity and authority befitting persons
in high stations; (which dignity at home, by the by, is put one
side into a dark corner and never thought of,) that it is about as profitable
an undertaking to attempt to find out the personal feelings and sentiments
of a mask, as theirs.

But here am I, walking stoutly and merrily along, unincumbered
with luggage or care; and because I do not care what the next day or
hour may bring forth, every thing seems to turn up just as I would have
it if I had the ordering of events. I shall not pause to offer any philosophical
conjectures as to the reason why we are invariably disappointed
162in our conclusions, (excepting they are mathematical ones) concerning
the future; merely asking the amiable reader whether he ever knew such
an anticipation to be exactly realized. I shall not stop to make any
such conjectures, because I should only get deeper into the dark, and I
am in deep enough for comfort now; and secondly, it is against my principles.
I am living out of doors, and make mention only of things out
of doors.

But I trudge stoutly forward, whistling as I go; making myself as agreeable
as possible to myself and to every body whom I meet; on jocose
terms with every thing; decidedly agricultural in my tastes and pursuits,
at every farmer’s house where I happen to put up for the night: at one
place in search of employment as a day-laborer; at another, an artist;
by turns every thing. Is not this the way to travel? My steps wander
where they choose; and if I keep on to the end of the earth, what will it
matter? I will go to the north; assume the dress, language and manners
of those who dwell within the frozen circle; I will become a Greenlander;
I will go and preach the religion of Mohammed to the inhabitants of
Patagonia; I will brush up the gods of Rome; dust that old mythology;
compound and simplify the whole into a good, comfortable, believable
system, and proclaim Olympian Jove in the deserts of Amazonia. I
will be a Turk, an Indian, a Pirate; I will be any thing. What do I
care, and who shall say me nay? This sensation of freedom is too
delicious to be interrupted by any companionship. And for my part, I
want no better companions than this wind, which free as I am, blows
against my cheek, and those clouds, that fly in unending succession over
my head. O! ye blue chariots of the Thunderer! whither hurry ye
so rapidly? Over hill and valley, and countries and cities of men, ye
fly unheeding; and borne forward on the swift pinions of the wind, ye
speed on your mission afar! What to you are states, and kingdoms, or
land or ocean? Furiously driving in black armies to meet opposing
armies, or singly floating in that waveless sea of blue, your existence
is above the earth; men look up to you with wonder or terror, but your
glance is never downward. Onward ye wander, in your unbounded
career, at your own free will. Nothing bounds my career or my will.
Fleecy ears! if ye would sustain the form of a mortal, triumphantly
would you and I sail over the heads of men! Softly, obedient to the
impulse of chance, would we glide over continent and sea, and explore
the mysteries of undiscovered islands and climes; calmly would I look
down on the strife or toil of human passions, and calmly would we ride
on forever, through night and day! But if the clouds are not, the earth
is, mine—and I am my own! There are none to molest or make me
afraid with the useless importunities or warnings of friendship. My
destiny is my own; and it is pleasant not to care what I may be or do.
Pleasure is now; sorrow is prospective; and life will be only pleasure,
because I let the past and the future go, and crowd as many happy
thoughts as possible into the present moment.

What a spacious plain of the world! Dotted with habitations and
with men of all colors, and customs, and conditions! Every one thinks
he possesses a soul; and in virtue thereof, he considers himself entitled
to set up as an independent existence, and endeavors to move in a little
163path of his own. But in fact, he plods humbly along, and repeats with
patient toil the example of labor and unspeculating perseverance that
his fathers have set him. A vast multitude, they darken the land!
Mighty hopes and aspirations swell each small bosom. Each imagines
that his designs are peculiar, and for him in particular was every thing
mainly made. An unceasing rush of footsteps and clash of voices!
And must I be confounded in the crowd? Let me preserve my individuality
in the desert! If I were not an insect, it might be different; but
as I am no larger than other men, I will not daily measure myself by
their standard; I will forget in solitude the littleness of my stature.

The shades of evening tinge the green of the fields with a darker
hue; and the young farmer goes wearily and yet lightly homeward.
Lightly, for he leaves behind him labor and trouble, and his fair-haired
wife will greet him with her constant and love-lit smile. Cheerily will
the small family draw around their board, covered with the simple and
satisfying products of their own soil. And when all care is ended, when
night is duskily stealing over the earth, he and his bride will sit down
alone in their cottage door, in the red light of the western clouds.
Over all the dim landscape there are no sights or sounds; and in themselves
there are no feelings but those of contentment and love. In his
strong palm her soft hand, on his broad breast reclining her head, their
hearts are filled and overflow with sweet thoughts and gentle words of
present happiness. Fair prospects also of the future rise up before them.
Many years crowned with prosperity they see in store for them; and in
each one, many an evening like this, of deep confiding love. Hour
after hour, into the deepening night, their low tones and slow words murmur
on brokenly; and they know of nothing in all the world that is
wanting to their blessedness. What if the dream should last all their
life? It may; or if this passes away, another will take its place. The
question then seems to be, whether it is better to live in a delusion and
be happy, or to wake and be miserable? Whether it is profitable for a
man to walk joyfully through life, covering and coloring over every defect
in human nature that he may love it, and keep within him a contented
heart, or industriously spy out its deformities, and hate it and himself
for possessing it? If nature is in reality naked and rugged, happy is
he whose imagination can throw over her a robe of grace. Most happy
he who can see in his fellow-creatures such qualities that he can love
them. For me, I will love sterner scenes and sterner thoughts.
Human beauty is an illusion; and it does not become the sober wisdom
of manhood to be deceived by it. The young farmer and his young wife
may be happy; and so may those who find delight in the crowded hall
where taste and beauty meet; where are the sounds of clear-ringing,
girlish voices, and many glancing feet, and the innumerable light of
maiden’s eyes, and heavy folds of auburn hair, and the flush of thought
and emotion continually passing over fair faces, with the swell of music
that thrills, and the air laden with fragrance that intoxicates. Or in the
still twilight, by the side of her whose every note makes his pulse to
tremble with the breathing of song, and the incense of flowers, and forgetfulness
of the world, to feel the thought stealing over his heart that
perhaps he is not uncared for. It is sweet, but vain; sweet and vain
164as the smiling, blushing slumber of a young girl. Dream on! dream
on! for if you can always sleep, what will matter to you the storms and
confusion without?

But as for me, I cannot sleep. Every thing my eye rests on is harsh
and ungraceful, because, having passed through the seven-times heated
furnace, I must look through the covering and see the reality.

MOONLIGHT ON THE RIVER AND PRAIRIE.

Wearily I mount this steep eminence, and on its bald summit take
off my hat, that I may feel the cool breeze. It comes fresh with the
dew that it has snatched in its flight from the bosom of Lake Superior.
It rolls over the tall grass of the prairie, which bends beneath its weight,
sighs by me, and seems to cling to me as it passes, and moves on toward
the arid plains of the South. The Ohio sweeps down in calmness and
majesty. With its surface of quicksilver, and the little waves dancing
up in gladness, and its heavy dull wash, it rolls along its mighty mass
of waters, hastening to pour itself into the mightier mass of the Mississippi.
Occasionally a giant tree, torn from its place, and cast root and
branch into the flood, comes booming down, and glides swiftly past on
its long, long race. Pleasantly the ripples break over the prostrate
monarch of the forest that is lodged against the beach, and projects,
branchless and barkless, into the stream; and mournfully the worn
trunk sways up and down, as though tired of this rocking which has
continued the same year after year; weary, and desiring to be at rest.
Floods come rushing down upon floods with heavy tread, glance successively
under the moonlight that is poured into the channel before me,
and then are forced forward into the darkness of the future. But every
wave seems as full of joy as though for it alone was the moonlight sent,
and as though there were not unnumbered millions of waves to succeed
it. Every little wave leaps up as it comes under the light, and smiles
toward the round-faced orb above, who seems to smile back upon it.
Thou small thing, thou art a fool! The queen, in the beam of whose
countenance thou disportest thyself, is altogether deceitful and loves
thee not. She has smiled as kindly on thousands who have gone before
thee, and will upon thousands who shall come after thee. And more
than all, she would send down just as bright and loving a glance, if
thou and all thy race had never existed. How then canst thou say, ‘I
love her,’ or, ‘she loves me?’

But perhaps it is not so. When I look again, each one of the great
multitude appears aware of its own insignificance. Jostled, confined,
crowded and confused, they go tumbling by, regardless of all above or
below, and engrossed with their own fleeting existence. Not remembering
whence they came, they take no thought of the present, and are
utterly careless of the future. For what would it profit? Their business,
and it is business enough, is to dispute and fight with each other
for room to move in. All thoughts as to whither they are hastening,
must be doubtful, angry and despairing; and care of any thing present,
165except what concerns the present instant, would be useless. Therefore
they resign themselves to be drawn onward and downward unresistingly;
and therein are they wise. But whether joyful, or despairing, or not
feeling at all, the waters roll by, an unceasing flood; and with their
rushing dull roar in my ear, my eye rests on a scene of beauty and
quietness. Far away to the northward and westward, and still farther
away, stretches an immense plain. Rolling hillocks, like the waves of
the sea after a storm, and at long intervals, a few stunted shrubs, alone
diversify the prospect. Vast, unmeasured, Nature’s unenclosed meadow,
the prairie, is spread out! The tall grass waves gently and rustlingly
to the breeze; and down upon it settles the moonlight, in a dim silver-gossamer
veil, like that which to the mind’s eye is thrown over the
mountains and ruins and castles of the Old World, by the high-born
daring and graces of chivalry, the wand of Genius, and the lapse of
solemn years. With the same painful feeling of boundlessness, of vastness
that will not be grasped by the imagination, that one feels in sailing
on the ocean, there is also an air of still, stern desolation brooding upon
the plain. It may be that at some former day, the punishment of fire
swept over it, consuming its towering offspring, and laying bare and
scorching its bosom; and now the proud sufferer, naked and chained,
endures the summer’s heat and the winter’s storms, with no sighing
herbage or wailing tree to tell to the winds its wo.

A single snow-white cloud slumbers and floats far up in the heavens;
the moon is gliding slowly down the western arch; and the vast dome,
studded with innumerable brilliants, ‘fretted with golden fires,’ rests its
northern and western edge on the plain, its southern on blue mountain-tops,
its eastern on the forests, and shuts us, the river, the prairie, the
moon and I, together and alone. And here will we dwell together
alone! Sweet companions will ye be to me; and standing here on this
eminence, I promise to love you. I promise to come here often, and to
hold communion with you. I will put away all thoughts of sorrow, all
swellings of bitterness, from my mind. Contentedly, calmly, unheedingly,
will we let the years pass by; for what will it matter to us? Oh!
ye are dear to me! Your voice is not heard, yet comes there constantly
to my ear the murmur of your song. You speak to me in music and
poetry; and while I listen, my thoughts revert only with shuddering to
the vain world I have left behind. Thus let us converse always. This
vaulted firmament which shuts down upon us now, let it be immoveable,
and enclose us forever; here let the wanderings of the wanderer cease,
and here will we live together and alone!

And we have lived here many years. The lessons of my constant
companions have calmed and elevated me to a gentler and better spirit.
From them I have learned humility as well as self-reliance; while from
the history of the actions and thoughts of men in past ages, I have
learned perhaps something of the machinery of human nature. The
forms of the noblest of preceding generations, and the shapes of beauty
which their imaginations have conceived and made to live, visit me at
166my bidding. But among all the pictures that daily rise up before my
eyes, the brightest, the most beautiful, the most loved, are the sweet
faces of the friends of my early years. There are no regrets or repinings
when I look back now; it must be that it has all been for the
best, that every thing is for the best, and I am at peace. The recollection
of madness and folly, of a life useless, of energies wasted, do not
disturb the calmness of my soul. The error has been great, but I feel
it; and in the next state of existence I shall be wiser and more active.
If I have wantonly and recklessly turned away from the offered happiness
of society and of the world, it has, in the end, been better for me,
for I have found another, a purer and more lasting.

Thus I look cheerfully on, and see the sands of my life run out.
They fall faster and faster, as their number is diminished, and time
flies by me with constantly accelerating speed. ‘Oh, my days are
swifter than a weaver’s shuttle!’—the last one I see but a little distance
before me; it will soon be here; and I shall step forth with a joyful,
courageous heart, into the indistinct, dimly-revealed future!

TRANSLATION FROM CATULLUS.

BY REV. GEORGE W. BETHUNE.

167

THE PAINTED ROCK.

BY CHARLES F. POWELL.

The tract of country through which meanders the Tennessee river,
for wild, sublime and picturesque scenery, is scarcely surpassed by any
in the United States. This river was anciently called the Hogohege,
and also Cherokee river: it takes its rise in the mountains of Virginia,
in the thirty-seventh degree of latitude, and pursues a course of one
thousand miles south and south-west nearly to the thirty-fourth degree of
latitude, receiving from both sides large tributary streams. It then
changes its direction to the north, circuitously winding until it mingles
with the waters of the Ohio, sixty miles from its mouth. There is a
place near the summit of the Cumberland mountains, which extends
from the great Kenhawa to the Tennessee, where there is a very remarkable
ledge of rocks, thirty miles in length and nearly two hundred
feet high, showing a perpendicular face to the south-east, which for
grandeur and magnificence surpass any fortification of art in the known
world. It has been the modern hypothesis, that all the upper branches
of the Tennessee formerly forced their way through this stupendous
pile.

On the Tennessee, about four hundred and fifty miles from its mouth,
and nearly two hundred above what is called Muscle-Shoals, there is
another ledge of rocks stretching along the shore to the extent of one
mile, with a perpendicular front toward the river, of the most perfect
regularity. This ledge varies in height from thirty to three hundred
feet, being much the highest at the centre, and diminishing at each end
into ragged cliffs of rock and broken land. This variegated surface extends
for many miles, affording a constant succession of fanciful and
romantic views. The whole rocky formation in this vicinity is composed
of a light gray lime-stone, indented with broad dark lines formed by
the dripping of the water which falls from the scanty covering of soil
on the top to the deep channel below. The thin surface of soil sustains
a shabby, stinted growth of fir, oak, and other trees, which seldom grow
above the height of tall shrubbery. From the crevices of the rock also
may occasionally be seen a tree of diminutive dimensions springing out
with scarcely a particle of visible sustenance for its roots. The shrubbery
upon the peak of this acclivity presents a curious appearance as it
hangs over the ascent, not unlike the bushy eye-brows of a sullen and
frowning face. With this ledge of rocks terminate the Cumberland
mountains, which cross the State of Tennessee to the margin of the
river. The stream here flows nearly west, through a beautiful valley of
alluvial land, formed by the Cumberland mountains and a continuation
of the Blue Ridge of Virginia. Immediately opposite the termination
of the Cumberland mountains commences a broken and rocky surface,
which extends along the shore of the river for many miles, presenting
168the most varied and novel scenery in nature; while the other shore is
level, fertile, and mostly in a high state of cultivation, abounding in verdant
fields of meadow, corn and tobacco.

The middle portion of the ledge proper, which I have described, rises
nearly or quite three hundred feet above the level of the river; a vast
wall of solid lime-stone, echoing with never-ceasing moans the gurgling
current of the river, which at this place is deep and very rapid; and
has worn a series of caves and hollows in the base of the rock, which
contribute greatly to this ‘language of the waters.’

The summit or peak of this ledge in the centre is called ‘The Painted
Rock.’ It is so called from the fact of there being, about sixty feet
below the highest peak, letters and characters painted in different colors,
and evidently drawn by a tutored hand. What is most remarkable,
these paintings are upon the perpendicular face of the rock, probably two
hundred feet above the river, and in a place where there is no apparent
possibility for mortal man to arrive. They are composed of the initials
of two persons, together with characters and drawings, some of which
are illegible from the river. The first consists of the letters ‘J. W. H.,’
quite well done in dark blue or green paint. The next is ‘A. L. S.,’
done in red, and also a trefoil leaf of clover in green, beside several
rude characters and drawings in blue and red. The traveller passing
this interesting spot gazes with wonder and astonishment, but is referred
to tradition for a history of the circumstances which led to the name
of Painted Rock; for the paintings were drawn and the name given,
long before the country was permanently settled by the whites. The
story handed down is this:

The original possessors of the soil in this part of the country were
the tribes of Cherokee and Chicasaw Indians. The country was explored
as early as 1745, by a company who had grants of land from the
government, and settlements commenced previous to the French war.
Of the first-comers of whites there were not more than sixty families,
who were either destroyed or driven off before the end of the following
year. Some few families had settled at a place not far distant from the
Painted Rock, where lived a Cherokee Sagamore, named Shagewana,
whose tribe was considered the most inhuman of any in the nation.
The top of the rock is flat, and slopes back from the river, and at the
base is a large spring surrounded by bushes. Shagewana occupied the
summit of the acclivity as his council-ground; and when danger was
apprehended from the whites, or when an innovation was made on his
limits, he forthwith called his warriors together for consultation, and
set fire to faggots and other combustibles as a signal for his neighbors
to advance to his aid. The whites settled near the Painted Rock at
this time were mostly composed of traders, who had brought various
articles of clothing and ornaments to dispose of to the Indians; and
under the assurance of the Chicasaws, who rarely commenced the work
of destruction on the whites, that they should be unmolested, built up a
cluster of huts, and cleared a small territory for the raising of corn and
other vegetables.

Shagewana from some cause became incensed toward them, and resolved
to burn the buildings and destroy their inhabitants. He called
his people together, and the war-cry was sounded throughout the mountains.
169Taking advantage of the night, they surrounded the settlement,
and applying torches to the dwellings, rushed into the midst with tomahawk
in hand, and murdered all save two young men, who fought so
bravely that they spared their lives in order to torture them with more
prolonged sufferings. The names of these young men it is said were
Harris and Snelling. They were bound and taken to the rock, where
the savages went through a dance, as was their custom after a victory
had been achieved; and as day-light advanced, they prepared a feast.
Harris and Snelling were placed under keepers, who amused themselves
by tormenting their unhappy prisoners in various ways; such as
pricking them with their knives, cutting off small pieces of their ears
and fingers, and pulling out clumps of their hair. Before the close of
the day, the captives feigning sleep, the Indians left them for a moment
and went to the spring for water. Thereupon the young men burst
their bands and escaped into the bushes. Crawling upon the other side
of the rock, and being hotly pursued, it is supposed that they were
forced upon a narrow projection, about twelve inches wide, and four
feet below the inscription, where with some paint or coloring substance
which they carried about them they traced the characters to which we
have referred, and which have given the place the name of ‘The
Painted Rock.’ The fate of the young men is not positively known;
but it is believed that they were discovered and hurled down the precipice.

LINES TO J. T. OF IRELAND.

BY THE AUTHOR OF ‘HINTS ON ETIQUETTE.’

C. W. Day.