THE KNICKERBOCKER.

[97]

THE NOBILITY OF NATURE.

It has been asserted that all men are created equal. The learned
have been called upon to support the declaration, and to furnish
reasons accounting for the disparity which is manifest in the different
individuals of the human race, as found in the social state. The
learned have responded to this call, and said, that it is apparent, that
different nations, as well as individuals of the same race, are surrounded
by different circumstances, and enjoy unequal means of improvement;
and as their external condition is unequal, it is but reasonable to infer,
in the absence of any other known cause, that their intellectual disparity
is mainly attributable to external circumstances. Now if it
can be made to appear, as I think it can, that the difference in the
external condition of men and nations is mainly attributable to their
mental organization, it will be obvious that the learned, who have
undertaken to solve this question, have been so unphilosophical as to
substitute the effect for the cause.

But the many have contented themselves with the response of the
learned; and are now looking forward with eager hope to the time
when the vexatious differences in the external circumstances of men
shall cease, and an intellectual level shall be fixed for the whole
human family, upon which the Esquimaux and the European, to their
mutual astonishment, shall find occasion to regard each other as equals.
They delight in the expectation of beholding the Chinese standing
upon the same eminence as the countrymen of Newton; worshippers
of Juggernaut elevated to the altars of the true Deity, and of seeing
the unhappy and debased African endowed with the same intellectual
strength as his gifted and proud oppressor. Thus they pleasantly
anticipate, that upon men’s external condition becoming equal, their
intellects and sentiments will immediately exhibit their native equality,
and that the odious distinctions which now exist among men, will be
known no more for ever.

But may we not as reasonably expect, that the benefit of this new
arrangement will not be confined to man alone, but that the whole
vegetable and animal world will participate in the advantages of this
novel law of natural equality? We must hear no more of ‘the king
of beasts,’ nor of ‘the monarch of the wood.’ The lion and the lamb
must become a match for each other in ferocity and strength. The
ivy will of course cease to entwine itself around the oak; and then
what substitute will the poets have for their much-used and lovely
emblem of weakness and dependence, when it shall lift aloft its
branches among the huge trees of the forest, and, boastful of its[98]
newly-acquired strength, shall bid defiance to the whirlwind and the
storm! The odious monarchy of the bee-hive must be done away;
the queen of bees must doff her robes of royalty, and become a commoner;
while the drones, the privileged order of this tribe of insects,
will be compelled to assume habits of industry, and will no longer be
tolerated in the enjoyment of idleness and luxury, at the expense of
their industrious fellow-citizens. The aristocracy of the ant-hill
must also be disturbed, and the levelling principle must be carried
into a new organization of this interesting little mound of earth.
Men will cease to speak of the elephant as a ‘half-reasoning animal,’
while the ass shall be distinguished for dulness and obstinacy, and
the latter must brush up, so that this disparity shall be remedied;
while, at the same time, the sagacious dog will be brought, by some
nice process, to the level of the ‘silly sheep,’ and the acute and cruel
fox to that of the dull and confiding goose; and among other things,
to excite our special wonder, the much-wronged, much-eaten oyster
will be regarded as a pure intelligence, consisting of nothing but
brain, and its necessary covering! Men will cease to eat oysters.

It would seem to require a wonderful change in ‘external circumstances,’
to produce results like these; and yet it seems to me, these
may as reasonably be anticipated, as that the condition of mankind
will ever be equal. Those who attribute men’s intellectual nature
to their external condition, have never been so fortunate as to demonstrate
in what manner the objectionable circumstances of an external
nature produced the results which they humanely deplore. The
negro is every where inferior to the Anglo-Saxon. Does the former
owe his inferior intellect to his swarthy complexion and flattened
nose? How can these affect the thinking part? To climate? Behold
him in all climes the same! To slavery? View him in his native land
a savage. To the contempt of other nations? He is the same as
when first known to the European.

But grant that the difference in air, climate, or other external
causes, operating for many centuries, could cause an inequality in the
intellects of different nations, or tribes of men; why, in the same
nation or tribe, is one inferior to another? Suppose sectional causes
to account for this disparity; then why are children of the same parents,
born and nurtured under precisely the same circumstances,
radically different from their birth? Is the fact denied? I appeal
to mothers in support of its truth.

Men are not created equal by nature. In saying this, I beg not to
be understood as denying ‘the Declaration of Independence.’ I
understand the illustrious writer of that instrument to mean no more
than this; that for good reasons, operating in the social state, all men
are to be regarded as equal, so far as to have equal respect paid to
their rights; to be entitled to equal protection, and to be judged by
one standard of legal rectitude. Or, in other words, in the eye of
the law, all men are equal.

But while I do not depart from this clause of the sacred declaration
referred to, I perceive that I differ widely from the vociferous
patriot and over-zealous philanthropist of the present day, who have
contrived to engross much more of the public attention than either
their integrity or doctrines seem to warrant.

[99]

The former overwhelms the voice of reason with his varied clamor
in favor of the equality of meanness with magnanimity—of vice
with virtue—of ignorance with intelligence—of vulgar rudeness
and barbarity, with taste and elegance; and he demands that in
social intercourse, and in the administration of government, the vicious
and ignorant shall be entitled to the same consideration and influence
as the virtuous and enlightened citizen; because ‘all men are
created equal!’

The new order of philanthropists increase the clamor of the greedy
patriot. They have discovered that the negroes are at least equal to,
if not a little better, than the best of the Europeans; and they lead
forth their colored favorites, of various hues, and demand their
admittance into a well-organized society; a benevolent concession in
favor of their equality; an admission that their heads are well formed,
their sentiments exalted, their persons delicate, and their odor savory!
They invite them to the table of the American citizen, and beckon
them to his bed; and this ‘because all men are created equal!’

There are distinctions among men, which neither the fierce patriot
nor ignorant philanthropist can eradicate; distinctions appointed by
the author of nature, and which have not failed to be acknowledged
by the most enlightened observers; a brief view of which it may
not be unprofitable to take, even in an imperfect effort to distinguish
the false from the true nobility of nature.

I am far from asserting, that all the distinctions which exist in the
social state, are so by the appointment of nature. There is an artificial
aristocracy, created by the improper constitutions of some
governments, and the arbitrary and unequal laws of all, of the cause
of whose greatness nature is entirely innocent. For instance, a man
may inherit and enjoy all his life the title and honors of nobility, who,
had he depended upon his natural resources for rank and station,
might never have ascended in the scale of human excellence, beyond
the condition of an agile circus-rider. And it is no less palpable,
that a wealthy parent, through the influence of the laws of primogeniture,
may transmit to his eldest son an inheritance which may
place him high among the aristocracy of wealth, who, but for the fruits
of a parent’s acquisitiveness, might laudably have earned his bread
by the sweat of his brow, and instead of being regarded as an exquisite
dandy, might have been celebrated for his mechanical ingenuity,
or the excellence of his ‘goods, wares, and merchandise.’ The
same causes may sometimes operate to deprive nature’s noblemen of
their just station among men. Artificial worth may assume the place
of natural; wealth and fashion may displace virtue and intellect;
and genius and talent may be compelled to give precedence to a titled
nobility, or to the possessors of vast estates.

Again. There are good objections to some natural pretenders to
rank; even dame nature has her counterfeits and false forms; her
mushrooms, her empty heads and shells. The fair-pretending tree
may never blossom, or if it do, may neglect to bear fruit. The highest
heads of wheat in the broad field are false and empty. But a correct
observer of nature may readily distinguish between her false and her
genuine productions; and a close observer of men will never be at[100]
a loss to detect, nor hesitate to deny, the bold pretensions of mere
self-esteem.

Instinctive self-esteem enables its possessor, without seeking to
form a just estimate of his own character, to regard himself as equal
to all men, and superior to most of them; to arrive at conclusions
without the dull and tedious process of reasoning, to which plodding
creatures subject themselves; to have and maintain opinions, without
the trouble of forming, or the labor of defending them; and to look
down upon his superiors, without suspecting that they despise him,
or a doubt of his own insolated and extraordinary excellence. He
proverbially carries his head high; and it has been remarked by
phrenologists, in the direction of the single organ to whose over-manifestation
they allege he is indebted for all his conscious greatness.
He forms one of nature’s wild experiments, by which she has wantonly
demonstrated, how enormous a structure of self-complacency
can be based upon—nothing at all! He is one of nature’s contradictions,
by which she has proved how great an effect may exist without
any cause whatever! In him you behold the origin of village
greatness, which is dependent upon the size of two things, to
wit: the large size of self-esteem, and the small size of the place it
inhabits.

There is another pretender to high rank among men, whose claims
are nearly as unfounded as those last under consideration. I mean
the man who claims your high regard, not for what he is, but for
what he has got—who exacts your admiration, not for what he does,
but for what he has the power to do; and who, while he performs no
good service to mankind, does not fail to impress them with the
belief, that he might, at any time, if so disposed, astonish them with
a display of generosity, and a noble exercise of the means of active
benevolence, and permanent usefulness. He is the creature of the
acquisitive instinct, whose sole merit is based upon successful efforts
at accumulation. This instinct he possesses in common with various
quadrupeds. The ground-squirrel possesses the same attribute, to a
limited extent. Who has not observed this interesting animal crowding
his cheek with autumnal fruits, and gaily carrying them to his
winter quarters? But this little creature gathers only a competence;
his instinct is a moderate one, and apparently under the guidance of
reason; while the accumulating biped seems not to be a judge of a
competency, and grows more eager in the pursuit of wealth, as it
becomes less valuable to him. No propensity of the human mind
gains more in activity and strength by exercise, than that of acquisitiveness.
It may begin as a good instinct of man’s nature, and
excite him to lay up the means of satisfying his natural, and even
his artificial wants. So far, its obvious utility demands our respect.
But all men do not stop here. Even so much exercise as to attain
this laudable end, may so heighten the natural disposition to accumulate,
that it becomes the tyrant of the soul, and takes the lead of
all the other propensities. It comes in conflict with the demands of
the stomach, the suggestions of taste, and paternal affection; and
the victim of avarice becomes also the victim of unsatisfied hunger,
ungratified taste, and unindulged kindness. To use the terms of a
science just beginning to be understood, his veneration is satisfied with[101]
adoring the matériel of Aaron’s idol, to the exclusion of all other
gods; his conscientiousness, quickened by cautiousness, is content
with forbearing to take usury, when there is reason to fear a legal
forfeiture; and his adhesiveness is never more strongly manifested,
than when he sticks to a debtor ‘closer than a brother,’ until he pays
the uttermost farthing. His secretiveness is active, when the tax-gatherer
is at his door; and his cautiousness is extreme when listening
to the tale of distress, or to the assurances of the suppliant borrower.
His locality selects places for future cities; his size divides
them into lots twenty-five by one hundred feet; and he disposes
of them to those endowed with large marvellousness. He getteth
rich—and is reverenced, because he has never been accused of
theft, nor convicted of swindling.

It is not without emotions of pleasure, that I take leave of false
pretension to rank and station, although it be to take up the humblest
claim upon our attention made by the sons of genius. And here
allow me to observe, that within the last forty years, certain individuals
have claimed, that they have traced each particular demonstration
of the various faculties and sentiments of the human mind to
its source—which they allege to be an organ of the brain—and
they have also adopted a nomenclature for the mental faculties,
highly convenient, which I beg the privilege of employing, while I
ask one farther favor of the reader, that, for the sake of convenience,
if for no other reason, he will allow me to suppose each faculty of
the mind to have its separate material organ. Even with this liberal
concession on the part of the reader, it will be difficult to assign to
each child of genius his appropriate rank in the scale of being. It
is generally true, that the organs of the faculties and sentiments,
which are not called into activity in the constitution of the man of
genius, are in point of size at mediocrity or below it. The main
strength of his character is derived from the striking fullness of the
single organ which gives the bent to his mental inclination; but
there is also a full development of certain other organs colleagued
with that, which, following its lead, help out its inclinations, and conduct
its work. These colleagues are few in number, and with their
exception, the remaining mental organs of the man of genius are
moderate, small, or inactive. His head is therefore uneven and
irregular; that is, the reader is asked to suppose it to be so, for the
sake of illustration. How often it is observed, that the man of
genius wants that strong common sense, of which a very plain man
may justly boast the possession? Does the genius lack the organ
of common sense? Unhappily for many of the human family, there
is no such organ! This excellent condition of the human mind
seldom accompanies an irregular head. It is claimed to be the result
of the equable and full development of all the organs of the human
intellect and sentiments, and of the moderate and controllable size
of all the organs of the passions. But it is otherwise in the man of
genius. The size and activity of the main organs, by whose manifestations
he is distinguished, render them the master spirits of his
mind. In the admiration which genius excites, the useful attributes
of the man are not generally looked for—and the most flagrant
moral defects are palliated, if not forgiven; nay, oftentimes they are[102]
copied by those who, not having the power to dazzle, present the
forlorn spectacle of natural dulness bedecked with the borrowed
vices of genius.

Humbly among the sons of genius, is placed the individual who
amuses a vacant hour by demonstrations of his imitative propensity.
In some respects there exists a parallel, and in others a contrast,
between him and the possessor of the acquisitive instinct. They
both rely for admiration upon what they have taken from others.
Both bleed their victims—one in their pocket, the other in their
vanity, or love of approbation. Both accumulate—the one, the
goods of this world, the other its manners. The one is a loser by
people’s taking themselves off—the other a gainer by ‘taking off’
people. One is rich in matter, the other in manner; and both are
appropriated from the stores of others. The miser is chiefly the
creature of two instincts—acquisitiveness and cautiousness; the
actor, also, of two—imitation and secretiveness. These are all
instincts of our animal nature, and do not tend to ennoble their
possessor. But the first combination is contracted, and delights only
in selfish gratification; while the latter cannot be fully gratified,
without contributing to the amusement or instruction of mankind.
Men have therefore always betrayed extensive interest in its manifestations;
and the actor wiles away a tedious hour, or affords a
lively gratification, which calls forth the applause of the many,
though he may fail to excite the admiration of the few. One may
appreciate a perfect imitation, whether grave or gay, heroic or
comic; and yet assert, with truth, that fewer faculties of the mind
are brought into action, even in the constitution of the most perfect
actor, than in that of any other child of genius, the singer only
excepted.

Above these, but in the same grade of excellence as respects each
other, does nature place her more gifted children, the musical composer,
the orator, painter, sculptor, and poet; creatures of variously
combined faculties, sentiments, and passions, but all so constituted
as to be capable of enchanting the eye, delighting the ear, or gratifying
the taste. Their works exalt the feelings, interest the heart,
or instruct the mind, of man. They blend the happiest influences
of the passions, intellect and sentiments. They portray inanimate
nature in all her creations of sight and sound, and exhibit living
nature in all her varieties of action, emotion, thought, or passion.
Nature is their universal theme, and the fruits of their labors compose
those intellectual luxuries, to banquet upon which, forms the
most characteristic feature which distinguishes polished from civilized
life—the accomplished from the merely useful man. But a man
may be either of these sons of genius, and come far short of being
either a great or a good man. Nay, he may have followed the
promptings of his genius all his life, and failed after all to benefit
mankind. Whose mental vision has not Byron dazzled? Who did
not admire the man? Who has not forgiven his faults, on account
of the magnitude of his genius, and the power of his works? And
yet who does not know that Byron lived in vain, and died without
benefitting himself or his fellow men? On the other hand, it is pleasant
to find, that genius, so dangerous in some, may be harmless in[103]
others, and that a poet may range through all nature’s works, but so
judiciously select the theme of his song, and so beautifully adorn it,
as that, while he excites the admiration, he improves the heart of
his fellow men. The immortal ‘poet of the year’ concealed all evil,
and portrayed all good. His female reaper adorns the lowest field
with mingled beauty, chastity, and innocence—and sweet Musidora,
in her plight, is seen only by the eye of modest love, abashed and
retiring from the view.

Ascending the scale of genius, for the sake of brevity, I pass the
architect and mathematician, to say a word of the great mechanical
inventor, whom I would place highest of all nature’s eccentric and
gifted sons. To that beauty or poetry of thought, sound, action,
or expression, which constitutes the chief merit of the sons of genius,
last under consideration, he adds utility and dignity, and furnishes
the means for man’s civilization. Could poetry or music be cultivated
without mechanical means? Of what avail is eloquence
among houseless savages, save to excite to deeds of horror? What
leisure would be afforded to attend to and enjoy the efforts of genius,
without the use of machinery, which has emancipated the human
race from slavery to their necessities, and elevated them to the enjoyment
of ease and luxury? The mechanical inventor approaches
one attribute of the Divinity; he may almost be said to create;
and thus to approximate to the highest exercise of power. And yet
the singer, humblest of all the children of genius, oftentimes commands
more of the world’s admiration than the most extraordinary
mechanical inventor. There are those who would listen to the song
of the nightingale, although the proud monument of Fulton’s genius
for the first time burst upon their view, ‘walking the waters like
a thing of life.’ Nay, there are doubtless those in whom a sonnet
would excite more interest than the spectacle of a noble ship gliding
swiftly into port, propelled by the lightnings of heaven. But that
is the only true estimate of mental worth, which ranks highest in the
scale of importance those faculties and dispositions of the human
mind which best subserve the happiness of men.

Above all the sons of genius, I would rank a class of men distinguished
for their talent and virtue; who together with a favorable
temperament, have heads quite above the middle, but not of the very
largest size; the organs of whose brain are equally and well proportioned;
and whose sentiments and passions are well balanced
and regulated. They are divested of the faults of the sons of genius;
they have no weaknesses, except such as are incident to the
best mental organization; and their passions incite to deeds of
goodness, since they are under the control and guidance of noble
intellectual faculties, and the higher sentiments. They avoid whatever
subverts man’s happiness. They are too wise to entertain
schemes of dangerous ambition; too good to adopt the means of its
gratification. Mankind have therefore nothing to fear from them.
In the most arbitrary governments, their opinions are not disregarded
even by tyrants; and under the freest constitution, their sentiments
and opinions constitute the unwritten but sacred law of virtuous public
sentiment, to violate which the most reckless seldom dare, and
never do, with impunity. These are nature’s aristocracy—and they[104]
constitute a formidable check upon the vices, and a barrier to the
violences, of the mob, and overawe the daring ambition of the aspiring
and desperate. The more sedulously all but these are excluded
from directing the affairs of a republic, the longer will it endure.

Highest in the scale of human excellence, is the individual of the
same description of character as the one last described, but with a
head of the largest size. Here we have presented the highest and
most perfect combination of moral and intellectual power. Here is
the source of those great eras in human affairs, where the mighty
intellect of one man has changed the moral and political condition
of nations, perhaps of the world. Above nature’s aristocracy, but
with their confidence and approbation, this gifted order of men pursue
the greatest good with the greatest energy—accomplish the
noblest ends, by the noblest means. They belong to nature’s high
nobility. Human and mortal though they be, yet are they the peers
of angels, and second only to the gods!

There was a man among my countrymen, who, whenever he appeared
upon the theatre of human affairs, was always excellently
great. He exhibited anger only in the form of virtuous indignation,
and severity only in the cause of truth and virtue. The warrant of
execution passed from his hand bedewed with his tears; and in the
foeman whom he slew, would be found only the enemy of human
happiness. He laid the foundation of a vast empire of freemen;
he guided the reins of government with noble disinterestedness and
virtue; he yielded them gladly to his successor, and with the blessings
of millions, went into honorable retirement. Whether in emotion,
thought or action, who has known one so pure, so great, and
good? A distinguished British peer said of him, that ‘he was
the only human being, for whom he felt an awful reverence.’

Washington was, indeed, the highest of the nobility of nature.

EMBLEMS.

I.

II.

Philadelphia,

W. G. C.

[105]

STANZAS.

‘There is hope of a tree, if it be cut down, that it will sprout again, and that the tender branch
thereof will not cease. Though the root thereof wax old in the earth, and the stock thereof die in
the ground, yet through the scent of water it will bud, and bring forth boughs like a plant. But
man dieth and wasteth away; yea, man giveth up the ghost, and where is he?

Job.

I.

II.

III.

IV.

V.

J. F. H.

[106]

NOTES OF A SURGEON.[1]

NUMBER ONE.

THE DISLOCATION.

The reduction of a dislocated limb, in a person of muscular frame,
is one of the most fearful and difficult operations in surgery; and
in a lad or a female, there is much in the attending circumstances
to excite the liveliest interest of the spectator. To hear the bone
click, as it returns to its place; to behold the relief which is instantly
experienced; the happiness so vividly depicted in the countenance;
the inclination to immediate repose—every feather seeming to
be a pillow to some over-strained and exhausted muscle—one
cannot help cordially uniting in the feelings of the restored sufferer;
nor can he restrain the smile which mantles his features, and is
reflected in the lineaments of the surrounding surgeons.

In a strong man, where the muscles are rigid, and every fibre
seems to be converted into a wire to resist the force exerted on them,
the ceremony is one of distressing cruelty. The inquisition can
scarcely furnish any thing more appalling, and certainly not the
practice of surgery. The pain of an amputation may be more
acute; but its very acuteness assures you that it will soon be over.
The edge of the knife itself is an index, keen as the scythe of Time,
and faithful as his march, of the progressive succession of the
moments of trial; a fiëry monitor, which every instant sinks deeper,
and will soon, very soon in the reality, but late, as it always must
be, in the reckoning of the sufferer, reach its unswerving limits, the
bone. And here the pain of the operation in a great measure ceases;
for it is hardly necessary to state, that the sawing of this structure is
not actually attended by any of the horrors with which vulgar apprehension
has invested it. The ligature of the arteries, the dressing
of the truncated member, etc., may each occasion a momentary
anguish. But as to the mere pain of the operation, it is trivial, in
comparison with that which an athletic man experiences in the
reduction of a dislocated limb, which has been any length of time
displaced.

It was a luxation of the thigh. The patient was a remarkably
stout man, and bade fair to put in requisition the whole retinue of
the hospital.

‘Remember. Mr. F——,’ said the attending surgeon, on leaving
in the morning, ‘be careful and have every thing ready—every
[107]thing. There must be no delay in seeking instruments while we are
engaged with the patient.’

‘I had better bleed him, probably?’ replied I, inquiringly.

‘Yes; an hour or so before twelve; and have him kept in the
bath until then.’

I selected a double set of apparatus, consisting of very little else
than a good strong block-and-tackle, and some padded buck-skin
girths, and soon had them in their proper place in the ‘theatre’ of
operations. This is an apartment of the hospital having very much
the appearance of an ordinary theatre, but differing from it in being
more especially appropriated to the enactment of tragedies; the
play generally consisting in the lively representation of suffering on
the part of the patient, and the exhibition of the coolest nonchalance
by the officiating surgeons. If sometimes enlivened by an interlude
between the chief actors and the subs, their sallies are wholly spontaneous,
and usually fail to receive that applause which is the customary
reward of such improvisations on other boards. The room is
small, and ranges of boxes extend on the three sides of an ovoid,
to the ceiling, forming an incommodious but commanding observatory
for spectators. The pit is separated from the boxes by a thin
partition. In this little space, lies the chief difference between the
theatre of the hospital and more strictly dramatic edifices. The
floor is the stage, on which those weekly representations take place,
that seldom fail to draw crowds of students from the neighboring
college, during its session; though it is not often that the spectacle
of misery, (too purely unpoetical,) draws a tear from the lachrymal
sac of the ardent and enthusiastic disciple of Hippocrates.

The audience are, in truth, mostly exceedingly phlegmatic in their
manifestations of sympathy. They behold the struggles of a luckless
wretch, in the clutches of the veritable Procrustes, who endeavors
to make him conform to the measure of his bed, by a few inches
of stretching, in the reduction of a luxated thigh, without apparently
any fellow-feeling for his pitiable situation. They behold one of the
lower limbs severed quite up to the hip-joint, and rivulets of blood
streaming from the divided vessels of the stump, without a tremor,
or a groan, or an exclamation, to evince the simultaneous racking of
their own nerves; although it is true, that some youthful spectator
will occasionally betray a tendency to deliquium, when he is immediately
transported to a more kindred atmosphere.

The person to be operated on, was a man of vigorous constitution,
and evinced great anxiety to have his body restored to its symmetry,
and his limb to its usefulness. Though, as is usual in such cases,
the probable severity of the operation, its duration, and the uncertainty
of success, were laid before him in their true light, he was
firm in his determination to have it done. Poor man! he could not
bring himself to believe that there was a possibility of failure; nor
did he suspect that, as strong a man as he was in resolution and
bodily powers, he would be compelled, before the ceremonials of
reduction were gone through with, to cry out, ‘Give me some drink,
Titinius, as a sick child.’ Yet that such should be the case, shows
that necessity is stronger than mortal resolution; and the same individual
who asks you to reduce his limb, and then bids you cease your[108]
harrowing attempts, will in turn rebuke you if you obey his orders,
given in the wildness of despair, and the limb thereby remain indissolubly
locked in its distorted posture, an enduring monument of his
own weakness, and of your culpable pliancy.

The patient was placed in a warm bath, and bled until faint. The
object was to make him a sick man, as a preparatory step to rendering
him whole. While superintending this necessary process, I
hailed the nurse of ward No. 13, whose duty it was to attend to the
regulation of the theatre.

‘Nurse, have you seen that every thing is in order in the theatre?’

‘I just came from there, doctor. I believe nothing is wanting.’

‘We still need a bowl or two, and some warm water. You have
the key?’

‘Oh yes; I always carry the key of the side-doors. I shall not
let any of the students in, doctor, until you say the word?’

‘It will be as well to keep them out till the surgeons come. You
must stand by, as we may want you to lend a hand.’

‘There will be some occasion, I think, doctor, if I know any
thing about a dislocation. I have been in this house fifteen years,
and have seen Dr.—— try——’

‘Well, be careful and have every thing ready.’

‘Oh, I’ll look out, doctor.’

His voice was soon heard at the farther end of the hall, summoning
the nurse of one of the neighboring wards—a fellow whom Dr.
D—— would have pronounced an O’Rang O’Tang, though he was
neither an Irishman nor a monkey in appearance.

‘I say, No. 14, have you carried that water in yet?’

‘No, but I will directly,’ replied the subaltern.

‘Well, while I’m gone down to the old lady’s after some fresh
blankets, take care and have it done.’

How far this chain of rank extended downward, I can only conjecture.
But it is probable that No. 14 did not consider himself the
last link, and gave orders in an authoritative tone to one of his inferiors,
and be d——d to him, to be careful and bring him a pail of water
from the pump, while he stood on the steps to arrange his thoughts
and shoe-strings.

I stepped down into the apothecary’s shop, and procured a couple
of drachms of tartar emetic. This I mixed up in a bowl of water,
and gave a part of it to the patient, setting the remainder in a convenient
place in the theatre. On a side-table, here, was spread out
a pocket-case of instruments, containing scissors, scalpels, and every
thing else that might be needed on an emergency.

The proper hour having now arrived, the disabled man was taken
out of the bath, wrapped in a blanket, and supported into the theatre.
On a table, in the centre of the pit, was placed the apparatus
for reduction. The patient was extended on it, on his left side, and
the young aspirants were called upon to exercise their ingenuity in
attaching several silk handkerchiefs above the knee of the dislocated
limb, (the right) with a clove-hitch. Surgeons are no sailors; and a
knot which a cartman puts a hundred times a day over the front
post of his cart, puzzles the juvenile professor exceedingly; and[109]
great is the honor bestowed on the fortunate achiever of the exploit.
Phrenologists might find, in the retentive faculties of this knot, a
desirable subject for investigation. The tighter you draw upon the
two ends looped together, the more securely is the limb grasped;
and a timber-head-hitch, as it is sometimes called, may be fixed to
the tapering extremity of a slippery hacmetack log, and it will
hold fast with the gripe of a drowning man, and allow you to drag it,
for aught that can be averred to the contrary, half way round the
globe. The mystery of this knot, unlike that of Gordian, is in the
tying, not in the untying.

A broad belt was next passed along the os ischium, and up over
the head, where it was fixed by a strong cord to the wall. Another
was placed around the middle of the thigh. To the nooses in the
end of the handkerchiefs, a small but strong pulley was attached,
which was made fast at the other end to a staple on the side of the
partition toward the patient’s feet. In this situation, he seemed much
as though stretched upon a rack, and waiting the application of the
torture from his stern inquisitors; a resemblance which was more
than justified in the progress of the operation.

The theatre was pretty well filled with students, and the arena of
exhibition itself occupied by a sufficient number of persons either to
assist, or to remain inactive spectators. The three chief surgeons
stood about the feet of the patient, consulting as to the best mode of
proceeding, and occasionally addressing a few words to the expecting
patient. The walkers, house-surgeon, and one or two professional
men, were arranged in convenient situations to afford aid.
The nurse, par excellence, was also there, where his sailor-like
promptness of hand in managing the rope was all important.

But as the reader does not, perhaps, know what a nurse is, hospitaliter
et male loquendo, (that is, as applied to males, in hospital
dialect,) it is proper that he should be made acquainted with him. I
shall therefore peninsulate him briefly in this paragraph.

Nurse!—thy burly form would throw into inextricable confusion
all ordinary notions of that soft and womanly occupation. To think
of an advertisement like this: ‘Wanted a wet-nurse, with a fresh
breast of milk,’ and of thy applying for it! Thy brachial extremities
were far better adapted to embracing a cannon, than clasping an
infant. Thou wert six feet three, leaving out the curve in thy
shoulders, and wert called Featherbody, as if to show off thy unparalleled
muscular development to better advantage. In fine, thy long
chin, decisive mouth, nose of good magnitude, well-set eyes, rather
superciliary eye-brows, low forehead, and matted hair, were sufficiently
characteristic to have made thee remembered, had not thy
extraordinary adaptation to thy office (so different from that which
most conceive it to be) rendered thee an object of admiration to all
who witnessed thy skill and prowess.

The patient thus extended upon the table, the bandages were
taken from his arms; the bowl was held, and the flow of blood
watched, to catch the first signs of failing strength. The vessel was
already beginning to brim, when he sickened and vomited. It was
now that the extension was put on. The sturdy, iron-armed nurse
seized the stick around which the end of the pulley-rope was wound[110]
to give a firmer grasp to the hands, and began slowly and leisurely
to bring the convolutions of the cord to a state of tension. His force,
not trifling of itself, and now tripled, was not an eighth of it expended
when its effects became apparent. The cord began to strain—the
belt at the head tightened—the patient was lifted from the table,
and became suspended between the two fastenings.

The surgeon, with his left hand upon the patient’s ankle, and his
right upon the upper end of the thigh-bone, while his knee, elevated
by a stool, was placed under that of the culprit, as it hung over the
end of the table, awaited the escape of the bone from its preternatural
position. At the same time, a young Colossus stood upon
the table, astride the unfortunate man, ready to lift up his thigh, and
apparently tear it from his body, if it would not otherwise yield.

The man’s groans now came thick and deep. He begged for a
moment’s intermission—rest, as he emphatically called it; and he
never felt the full force of that word before, racked though his limbs
had been, repeatedly, by the severest toil. The only consolation
which they vouchsafed him, was in terms such as these:

‘Do you feel sick—very sick?’

‘Very.’ His face was the picture of an emesis in embryo.

”Tis just what we want.’

The distressed man seemed to feel, gutturally, as if he could reject
the comfort-drawing conclusion, ab imo pectore.

‘Would you like to vomit?’

In the fulness of his stomach, he would have answered ‘yes,’
but restrained himself and his diaphragm after a moment’s rumination.

‘We don’t want you to do that.’

‘But I am exceedingly tired—wearied to death.’

‘You will be better after it is over, my friend.’

‘Give me a drink of water, doctor, for heaven’s sake!’

‘Take a little of this solution.’

‘Do open the doors, and let in some air. I can hardly draw my
breath.’

‘Oh, never fear but you will breathe long enough.’

‘I shall faint.’

‘Faint away, and we shall soon have the bone in.’

‘Doctor, I can’t stand it!’

‘Then lay it, friend,’ a favorite expression with one of the distinguished
surgeons who officiated on this occasion.

‘Wont you loosen these straps, only for a moment, so that I can
rest my leg?’

‘One minute, my good man,’ continued the speaker, while with
double vigor he reiterated his efforts to pry the bone into its cavity;
‘bear it a little longer—one minute—there—bear it only a little
while longer——’

‘O, doctor, you will break my thigh! Doctor—doctor!’

‘Don’t be alarmed, my man; if I do I will set it again.’

‘Let me have that rope!’ he exclaimed, as he made violent efforts
to spring up and catch the cord that was straining his sinews; efforts
ten times more hopeless and unavailing than those of Milton’s giant,

[111]

‘There, lie still; you must not exert yourself. Do not try to
draw your thigh up; we will take care of that.’ Let it go as if you
had nothing to do with it. Mr. R——, lift up a little more, as you
are a true surgeon.’

‘Oh, I shall die!’ gasped the cruciated wretch.

‘My good friend, you came here to have your thigh put back in its
place, and you must be patient. You cannot expect it to be returned
without pain.’

‘I know; but wait till to-morrow; or let me rest myself for an
hour or two, and then I shall feel refreshed, and be better able to
bear it.’

‘You may go to sleep, if you wish, my good fellow. I should be
glad to have you.’

‘But he could not well go in stays,’ observed one of the walkers,
in a low tone, to his neighbor.

‘The cord-drawer there should unlace,’ replied the other. ‘But
he resembles an ox triced up to be shod, more than a lady in
corsets.’

‘That saying is rather too ox-umorious for the occasion,’ returned
the éléve.

‘Do you chew tobacco, my friend?’ said the chief operator to the
almost exhausted patient.

‘I haven’t chewed any lately,’ he groaned.

‘So much the better then. Mr. Aster, let me have a little out of
your box. There—ah!’

‘Here, my good man, take that,’ he continued, presenting the
grateful boon to the patient. ‘Eat it: if you have not been accustomed
to chewing, I am in hopes it will make you sick.’

This weed, it is known, produces the most deadly nausea and exhaustion
in those not addicted to its use. It is customary to employ
it in cases of this nature, where habit does not intervene, to incapacitate
the patient for making any voluntary exertion in opposition to
the extension, which purpose it answers even better than bleeding.

The occupation temporarily relieved him by changing the current
of his thoughts, and he reclined in a state of utter listlessness and
évanouissement, only interrupted by occasional retchings. The surgeons
perceived the favorable opportunity; but the moment a movement
was made to seize it, his muscles were on the alert, and it became
a struggle between the unaided energies of a desperate man,
and the mechanically-exerted force of an equally hardy but less
excited opponent.

‘Come, be calm, and do not strain so.’

‘I can’t help it!’ The surgeons knew it.

‘Whisper to him, Parcels,’ said Aster, one of the junior assistants,
who made his brightness particularly apparent in perpetrating
puns upon the Roman vernacular, ‘whisper him, by way of consolation
and encouragement,

‘That is, I suppose, ‘If you are ill now, it is no sign you will be
sick by-and-by.”

[112]

‘Yes; and nothing could be more inspiring.’

‘Poor dog, it is true he is likely to be as much benefitted by that as
any thing else; but I will not trifle with his sufferings, even in
seeming.’

‘Cur nodus—why not? What will you do?’

‘I will help, and then——’

‘Soothe him by mild language. No, let Nature speak out her
agony in his cries, and let the surgeon utter his sympathy as best
becomes him, and as the welfare of his patient demands.’

‘In jests?’

‘In imperturbable coolness and decision: or, as you say, in jests;
for what is comfort, under these circumstances, but a jest?’

‘I think his system will not endure much more,’ said Parcels.

‘It is possible,’ replied the walker.

He was a brave man, and even in this painful situation, he took
what was offered him to increase his prostration; he chewed up a
cigar, and gulped it down; he drank swallow after swallow of tartar-emetic
solution, a most nauseating and relaxing preparation. But
still, though deadly sick, the sweat pouring out of his forehead in
clear drops, and though seemingly stretched, on this Procrustean bed,
at least three inches beyond his natural stature, his muscles showed
no disposition to relinquish their grasp upon the bone. The surgeons
again and again exerted all their strength upon the passive and suspended
limb, but it was without effect. They spoke a few words to
each other, and at length concluded to remit the extension for a few
minutes, in order to rest themselves.

It was, indeed, not only necessary for them, but for the man also,
whose frame, it was justly feared, would not bear such unremitted
torture. He seemed reprieved, in truth, by even the trifling respite
that they granted him, and looked at the Herculean tar, (that was,
before he became a nurse, thinking that his tender forces might be
better exerted in the sick-room than on board a ship,) as, in obedience
to orders, he walked up toward the slender and elegantly-wrought
brass block, with steps that might have been impressed by
an infant, which yielded only inch by inch the play that he had been
so long and diligently accumulating upon the rope; he regarded him,
I say, with a grim satisfaction, not unmixed with a tiger-like expression
about the eyes and corners of the mouth, which bespoke any
thing but pure and cordial affection.

But far from gaining the so much-coveted disenthralment, to the
full of his desires, the cords were only partially slackened, and he
was barely allowed to catch a glimpse of that freedom which would
have been to him

He might have lain about as much at his ease as Satan on the fiëry
plains of ——, when bethinking him of his late discomfiture, and
planning new schemes of vengeance.

I had seen many operations and exhibitions; but in none that I
assisted at, was I ever so struck with the utter inefficiency of the
measures resorted to, which yet seemed all of the most appropriate[113]
and potential kind. I knew that there was no fault in the operation,
and that every expedient was strictly in accordance with the rules.

‘He bears that stretching well,’ said Parcels, one of the young
éléves. ‘The dislocation must be into the ischiatic notch.’

‘It is,’ replied Berry. ‘The thigh should be pulled up more.
Rhodes, instead of sending you up there again, to straddle over this
poor fellow, we’d better put you at the halyards, and let Featherbody
mount the rostrum.’

‘It will take nothing less than the devil or a handspike to lift it
out. My handkerchief around the upper end of the thigh was a
point d’appui to the bodies of four mortal surgeons, and served as a
pivot to balance two of them on his extremities, and two at his
head.’

‘Faith, you did resemble Jupiter, weighing the ponderous merits
of the adverse parties; and ‘long time in even scale the doctors hung;’
but —— seemed inclined to kick the beam.’

‘Do you observe,’ said Berry, ‘the doctor himself looks a little
puzzled? J—— and D—— are no better off. I thought —— would
break the femur more than once.’

‘That bone is just at this time encased in an impenetrable mail of
rigid muscles. If you broke that, you would break an iron bar of
equal size,’ replied Parcels.

‘In truth,’ said Berry, ‘the relaxing medicines and bleeding seem
to have had little effect in weakening them. How much blood did
you take, Parcels, before he was brought in?’

‘Two pounds.’

‘He has lost two here, and I should think he might spare a couple
more.’

‘Yes, and two more added to them, before the bone would be in
its place,’ remarked Parcels.

‘You have no faith in nauseating mixtures, and debilitating remedies?’

‘No. While they apparently reduce the strength, they seem not
to take a whit from the power of the muscles to resist extension.’

‘You will certainly be expelled the church.’

‘There is,’ continued Parcels,’a kind of galvanism residing in the
muscles, which emanates from the brain; and all bodily remedies,
while they leave this organ in a state of intense action and excitement,
can have no beneficial effect in subduing them.’

‘Ego cycnus!’ said Aster, in a kind of Latin, which must be taken
literally to be understood, ‘I swan! this is the most untractable
member that ever came under my notice. We shall have to subscribe
for a high-heeled boot for the other leg, if we carry this out
much farther.’

‘Another trial of doctoring, I think, will shortly break off the
matter in debate,’ observed Berry.

They now for a second time drew him into mid-air. The nurse,
who had stood looking on with his hawk’s eye, and wiping the sweat
from his brow with one hand, while with the other he grappled the
end of the pulley-rope, again applied his strength; the blocks drew
nearer together; the surgeon, using the disjointed member for a
lever, and his knee as a rest, exerted his whole force upon the limb,[114]
in one strong effort to pry it out; but it gave not, although it was anticipated
that the bone might snap. The assistant upon the table,
drawing upward with all his might, endeavored to entice (somewhat
as the Irishman remonstrated) the upper end from its hiding-place.
But it would have been easier, to all appearance, to have raised the
world without Archimedes’ fulcrum, than to have displaced this little
globe from its new socket.

The surgeons regarded each other with evident indecision and inquietude,
and began to remit or grow more abrupt in their exertions.
The students looked incredulous, and exhibited a disposition to depart.
But, resolved not to incur the mortification or disgrace of a
failure, if it could be averted by any human means, the operators
determined to carry their exertions, in a final attempt, as far as was
consistent with the patient’s safety. They loosed the bandages from
the arms, and gave him an additional dose of the nauseating solution.

In this state of things, a young man leaped cautiously over the
partition into the arena, stole his way unnoticed among the surgeons,
and approaching the table stealthily, took from it a scalpel, or operating-knife,
of large size. With this, passing in front of the man,
he suddenly started up with it before his eyes, and seemed ready to
plunge it into his body. As he made this gesture, the man roused
up, in horror. Although pale from the loss of blood, he blanched
still whiter, at this palpable demonstration of a design to slay him.

‘It is necessary, my friend,’ said the young man, steadily and
clearly, ‘to cut down to your back-bone, in order to get out the head
of the thigh-bone, which is lodged there!’

Who can tell the terror that filled the sufferer’s excited imagination,
during the utterance of this awful ultimatum! ‘The sense of
death is most in apprehension;’ and in the horror of that moment,
he felt with King John:

The ready éléve now made as if he was about to lay open the bowels
of the patient, at a single rash stroke, from the stomach to the hip. Every
arm was raised to arrest him; but taken as they were by surprise, he
had ample time to execute his purpose. Leaning over and pressing his
hand upon the side of the abdomen, he drew the knife rapidly and
violently along its naked surface, from one extremity to the other.
Then hastily rising, and throwing the knife on the bloody floor, he
darted from the midst of the attendants; contriving, in the course of
the action, to cover up with a corner of the blanket the work he had
committed.

The patient, who had at first struggled, sank back; the spectators
ran to his side; the students started from their seats; and the bone
slipped into its place, with an audible ‘click!’ They hurriedly drew
off the blanket from the patient’s body, when lo! there was no[115]
wound! They went up to his side, and endeavored to arouse him
from his stupor, and make him sensible that he was not hurt. In
this they soon succeeded. The straps, pullies, and bandages were
undone, and he was laid at length upon the table.

The young operator had well observed the powerfully depressing
effect of fear on the human system, and had been incited to the ingenious
expedient just described, by witnessing the obstinacy with
which the bone had resisted all the measures for its reduction. In
a few days the patient recovered entirely from his fright, and was
seen walking about the halls of the hospital.

THE ANNIVERSARY.

BY THE REV. THOMAS DALE, ENGLAND.

I.

II.

III.

IV.

V.

VI.

VII.

VIII.

[116]

LOVE AND REASON.

AMERICAN ANTIQUITIES.

NUMBER TWO.

Byron.

In our first number, we introduced the reader to the magnificent
ruins of a once great and populous city, in the Province of Chiapa,
Central America. It was thought, it will be remembered, that a
description of the present state of the Palencian metropolis, the
character of the people who inhabited it, and the extraordinary arts
by which both were distinguished, should precede other facts and
conclusions, in relation to the early history of the American continent.
Reasons for this will have been apparent, we trust, in the
opinions expressed of the peculiarities and great antiquity of the
Tultecan people. The advanced state of knowledge to which that
people had arrived, at a very remote period of time, and the subsequent
connection which will appear to have existed between them
and that distinct class of mankind—which, at a much later, yet still
very distant date, occupied the great western valleys of the United
States—also require of us an early and more particular reference,
in again calling attention to the subject under consideration.

A brief notice of one or two of the ancient Palencian edifices,
among the few that have come down to us in the form and feature
of their primitive greatness, cannot fail to interest the lovers of the
antique and the curious:

[117]

The principal structure referred to, and with which it has been
supposed all the others were connected, in purpose at least, if not
by subterranean or other passages, presents a style of architecture
resembling the gothic. It is rude, massive, and durable. As a
whole, it has an appearance not unlike that of the ancient Egyptian
edifices; still it is peculiar, and differs from all others hitherto
known. The world nowhere exhibits the same striking characteristics,
among the remains of ancient art and early genius; nor
can we trace in any other structures the same peculiarities of arrangement
and apparent adaptation. The great permanency of the fourteen
stone buildings, standing, even to this late day, sufficiently
attest their superior style and workmanship. They are called by
the people Cassas de Piédras, or stone houses. Buildings of the
same kind, now found in other parts of Guatemala and in Yucatan,
some of which are of immense size, and of the same architectural
style, are similarly named. There seems to be but one general tradition
in relation to the character of the people who constructed
these great and strong buildings; and we are led to infer from their
internal structure and arrangement, as well as from all that can be
learned from the traditions of the natives, that the principal ones
were erected for like purposes, viz: for temples of worship, and for
the residences of kings. The great building at Palenque was
undoubtedly built for the former purpose, and occupied, from time
immemorial, by numerous priests devoted to religious ceremonies.

The entrance to the Palencian temple is on the east side, by a
portico more than one hundred feet in length, and nine feet broad.
This portico is supported by plain rectangular pillars, without pedestals,
fifteen inches in diameter. On these are laid smooth square
stones, one foot in thickness, which form an achitrave. These blocks
are nearly covered with stucco-work of shields, etc. On each pillar,
and running from one to another, rest also plain rectangular blocks
of stones, five feet long, and six feet broad. Vestiges of heads, and
various other designs in stucco, are discovered on these blocks; and
on the internal side, are seen numerous busts, representing, without
doubt, a series of kings. Between these, there is a range of windows,
along the entire length of the building, some of which are
square, and others in the form of the Greek cross. Beyond the corridor,
is a square court, which is approached by a series of seventeen
steps. The north side of the building, though in ruins, shows very
distinctly that it had a corridor and a chamber, like the other three
sides. There are four chambers, with two windows on the south
side: the east and west sides are alike, except in the devices. On the
west side is seen a mask, with a crown, and a long beard, and under
these are two Greek crosses. These specimens of workmanship
resemble Roman sculpture, particularly that of Jupiter. The mask
may be supposed to represent some of the deities worshipped in the
temple; and very probably that of Quetralcoatl, the god of the air,
and a favorite deity, as will hereafter appear.

Proceeding forward, we are ushered into another large court,[118]
similar in size and appearance to the last mentioned, having a passage
around it. In this are two chambers, and an interior gallery,
which looks into a great court-yard on one side, and over the adjacent
country, on the other. Pillars adorn the gallery, on either side,
exhibiting numerous and ingenious specimens of sculptured art.
The purposes to which it was devoted, are satisfactorily explained
by the character of the designs here represented; and, like all the
other apartments, it may be presumed to have had a distinct and
peculiar use. None, however, would seem to have had a more
melancholy appropriation. Though the character of this people
was mild and peaceful, yet it can hardly be supposed that, in the
earliest conditions of human society, some rude and barbarous customs
should not have prevailed. As with individual character, all
improvements in the manners and customs of a people must be
the result of experience. Hence the disgust which we feel in view
of the practices of many ancient nations is not always a just estimate
of the real character of that people; for they may not be more
abhorrent to us, than our own may appear to those of succeeding
ages. It will be understood that we allude to human sacrifices.
There are, in fact, in this gallery, numerous relievos, which are supposed
to represent sacrifices of the people, or of their enemies, to
the manes of their favorite deities. Some of these, with others of
the finest specimens of sculpture found in the building, have been
mutilated or removed, and afterward conveyed to Spain, where, in
all probability, they will prove of little advantage to antiquarian
literature.

In the large open court before mentioned, within the centre of the
temple, there is a high tower, now having four stories, to which there
was, in ages past, a fifth, surmounted by a cupola; all making in
height from sixty to seventy feet. The design and execution of this
tower indicate great skill and ingenuity. Within it was another,
having windows facing those in the exterior tower, which were
intended to afford light to a series of steps leading to the top. The
interior tower was plain, while the outer one was in a true and
tasteful style of architecture. The principal entrance to these
sacred and lofty structures, is on the north side, but the passages to
both towers are now entirely filled up by fallen rubbish of stones,
gravel, etc. On the south side of the building, and behind four small
chambers, are two very large apartments, supposed to have been
used as oratorios. These are richly ornamented, with figures in
stucco, some of which are beautifully enamelled. In these rooms
are numerous statues, placed along their sides, and also several Grecian
heads, which were, undoubtedly, of a sacred character. They
were variously ornamented with strings of jewels, which had been
offered them, it may be supposed, by the people in their devotional
exercises. Behind these oratorios, are still two other apartments,
each of which is eighty feet in length, and nine in width, extending
from north to south. Here was discovered one of the most singular
and perfect specimens of sculpture yet found among the ruins of
this vast city. It was one of the people’s gods astride an animal.
From the drawing taken of this, it is unquestionably an admirably-executed
relic. The proportions are most perfect throughout, and[119]
indicative of a knowledge of the art, vastly superior to that of any
ancient barbarous nation. The origin of this knowledge we are at
a loss to conjecture. The animal is descriptive of the American
lion, which was less powerful than either the African or Asiatic,
and without a mane. The same animal is represented in some of the
other apartments. From the position of the idol, it is inferred that
it was worshipped as a river-god, as with the Hindoos. Indeed, in
referring hereafter to the probable origin of these arts, it will be
seen that similar deities were worshipped by the latter people.
Analogous arts and customs will also be traced to various other
nations. One of these apartments contains an elliptical stone,
inserted in the wall, below which there is a plain rectangular block
of stone, six feet in length, three in breadth, and seven inches
thick, standing upon four feet, in the form of a table, with bas-relief
figures supporting it. Numerous characters, or symbols, adorn the
edges of this table, all of which had, without doubt, a significant
meaning; but all knowledge of that meaning, which might now be
turned to a good account, in deciphering the character and customs
of the ancient occupants of this singular temple, is entirely lost;
and, unless some fortunate discovery should be made, will ever
remain uninterpreted. The various other hieroglyphics and symbolical
designs will also, we fear, continue to be a sealed book to the
antiquarian.

At the end of one of these apartments, is an opening through the
stone pavement, six feet long and three broad, conducting, by a flight
of stone steps, to extensive subterranean apartments. These steps
have, at regular intervals, large flat landings, in each of which are
openings or doorways, to other and continuous ranges of stone steps.
All of these landings were curiously ornamented with sculpture
work. There were several other avenues to this principal underground
passage, most of which were blocked up by crumbling fragments.
It is however possible, that these avenues may lead to other
apartments, or, not improbably, to the other and neighboring buildings;
a fact strongly suspected, both from the use to which the subterranean
apartments were appropriated, and the character of their
occupants. At the second landing and doorway, torch-light is required,
after which the regular stairways conduct, by a gradual descent,
to the great subterranean rooms. From each landing, the
explorer turns to the succeeding flight of steps, until he arrives
within the gloomy chambers below, to which he is admitted by a large
stone door. The first room is one hundred and ninety-two feet in
length! Beyond this is another chamber, of the same dimensions,
which looks toward the south, by means of windows, commanding a
corridor running to the extreme of the building. In these rooms are
found plain horizontal stones, seven and a half feet long, by three
feet three inches wide, standing upon four wrought pedestals, about
two feet from the ground. These are portioned off in the form of
alcoves; and hence are supposed to have been used by the priests of
the temple as places for sleeping.

The accompanying outline illustration of this temple is a hasty
sketch of the side partly in ruins, and is intended to show, to the best
advantage, the form and general appearance of the exterior. We[120]
have by us a ground-plan, or diagram of the internal structure, which
may be given on another occasion. This view will be seen to present
the upper portion of the most curious and important structure
yet discovered, viz., the tower, where it is supposed were preserved,
with great care and veneration, the ashes of the Tultecan kings.
Attempts to reach parts of these singular structures (for there were
two, one within the other,) were unavailing. The avenue leading
within the internal one, to the summit, is now blocked up by broken
fragments and earth. Trees are to be seen growing firmly upon the
towers. The entrance was on the north side, but this is now filled
with heaps of rubbish. This tower exhibits far more ingenuity and
good taste, than any thing yet remaining of the Tultecan buildings.
Another drawing, which represents the entire external tower, with
trees standing upon various projecting parts, is in course of execution.

Leaving this edifice, with the present slight description, and proceeding
southerly to another, standing on an eminence one hundred
and twenty feet high, the same massive and peculiar style of architecture
is observed. This building is in the form of a parallelogram.
It has square pillars, an exterior gallery, and a saloon sixty feet long,
by ten and a half broad. This room has a large frontispiece, on
which are executed, in stucco relief, female figures, with children in
their arms, all of the natural size, but without heads! On each side
of the doors leading to the gallery, and on each wall, there are three
stones, nine feet in height, and three feet broad, all of which are
covered with bas-relief and hieroglyphic figures. None of these
ingeniously-executed specimens of art afford a solitary ray of light
by which to arrive at their meaning, and a better knowledge of the
people by whom they were executed. The gallery is paved throughout
with smooth and well-fitted stones. Parts of the building are in
ruins; and, in proceeding from it, masses of other ruins are seen;
which lead to the conclusion that they are the remains of edifices
once connected with it.

Passing on a short distance, in a southerly direction, through
a small valley, another building is entered by a flight of steps leading[121]
to a gallery and a saloon, similar to those we have noticed in the
other edifices. At the door of this saloon, are to be seen numerous
allegorical ornaments, in stucco work, which, like the others, surprise
us by their curious and grotesque character, but which yield us
no additional information in regard to their origin or design. At the
east of this building, three others are discovered, situated on high
triangular mounds. These are small, and nearly square, being fifty-four
feet long, by thirty-three feet broad. They present the same
antique style of architecture, but have roofings, or turrets, covered
with various ornaments and devices, in stucco. One of these has a
gallery, much decayed, at the end of which is a saloon, with a
chamber at each extremity. In the centre of the saloon is an oratory,
nine feet square, with a stone at each entrance, having upon it
a bas-relief figure of a man in full length. Other curious figures are
to be seen on various stones in this room. The stone pavement is
smooth, and admirably matched. This being perforated, and a hole
made about eighteen inches in diameter, a round earthen vessel was
discovered, one foot in size, cemented to another of the same dimension
and quality. Pursuing the excavation, a circular stone was met
with, which, on removal, presented a circular cavity containing a lance,
made of flint, two small pyramids, and the figure of a heart, made of
crystallized stone, called by the natives challa. Two other small
jars, with covers, were found, containing a ball of vermilion, etc.
Near the entrance to this oratory, in another cavity, was also discovered
small jars, with similar contents. It is presumed that this
place was devoted to the remains and memorials of heroes, and those
who had distinguished themselves in the public service, and that the
bas-reliefs and inscriptions were intended to commemorate their
names and exploits. These relics, so securely deposited beneath the
stone pavement, whether private relics of individuals, or supposed
to have been possessed of some remarkable properties, sufficiently
prove, by the situation in which they were found, that they were
held sacred by the people, or the priests of the temples.

Two other buildings, examined, have the same architectural character,
and are divided in a similar manner, the bas-reliefs only being
different. In one of these, and under the stone pavement of an oratory,
were found the same flint, lance, conical pyramids, heart, and
jars; and in another was also found articles of the same character,
which, with various bas-reliefs, etc., were removed. It has been
thought, from some similarity in the workmanship of these fragments
of art to those of the Phœnicians, Greeks, and Romans, that they were
derived from the people of those nations. The same analogous
character has been remarked in the various specimens of art found
elsewhere in this once renowned city, as we shall have occasion
to show, in speaking of the stupendous aqueducts, fortifications, etc.,
to be seen in various other parts of this once populous place.

In digging near these buildings, a great variety of other articles
were found, which, with specimens of bricks, mortar, etc., have been
removed. The remainder of the fourteen edifices do not differ
materially from those described; while some of them, as may be
imagined, have suffered much from the effects of time, and are now
crumbling amid the sea of ruins. Why, indeed, these have baffled[122]
the effects of untold ages, and come down to us as trophies of human
art, while far and near is only to be seen a general wreck of matter,
it is impossible to say. The probability that they were erected and
used for sacred purposes, may afford us reasonable grounds for the
inference, that they were either more securely built, or that, if the
causes which depopulated this vast city, arose from the ravages of a
victorious enemy, their hallowed character preserved them from the
hand of the spoiler. Time, and the researches of the anxious antiquarian,
may disclose the causes which stripped the city of its splendor,
and of its innumerable inhabitants; a circumstance much to be
desired by the curious and the learned. This inquiry, in fact, is the
first that suggests itself to the reader, or the observer. What could
have swept so many human beings from this immensely populous city?
Was it some fatal pestilence, that suddenly blotted from existence
two millions of people? Did some awful convulsion of nature
crush, by one overwhelming shock, all the magnificent fabrics that,
for sixty miles around, adorned the plain? Or did some rude and
exasperated foe, of countless numbers, fall upon the devoted city,
exterminate its population, and lay its beauty and greatness in
undistinguishable ruins? These are questions which naturally
and irresistibly present themselves at this view of our subject; but
they are those to which no satisfactory solution can yet be given.
From some data within our reach, there are afforded reasons for concluding,
that a fearful and destructive pestilence once devastated this
fair land, and swept off its previously happy inhabitants by one common
death; while there are others, said to be derived from an
authentic source—the records of the people themselves, preserved
from the general wreck of arts, and inscribed upon tablets—which
go to prove that a great proportion of the people were destroyed by
the most painful and wretched of deaths, famine. The latter, we are
of the opinion, has the better claim to truth. There are also reasons
for believing, that a neighboring enemy, powerful and barbarous,
rushed down upon this quiet people from the north, and drove them
from their magnificent city. Of the inhabitants of this wild and
savage nation, who, like the Goths and Vandals in overrunning the
south of Europe, came rushing upon southern cultivated plains—as
in all ages of the world they are found to have done—we shall
also have occasion to speak more at length. Like the people of
other remote nations, it will be seen, likewise, that the most desperate
and bloody struggles were here carried on, the particulars of which
are preserved; and, not being generally known, will be found to
possess deep interest, and to be in no respect behind those recorded
of the most extraordinary of ancient eastern nations. The interest
of these particulars will be much enhanced, by the connections which
may be traced between the original inhabitants of the United States
and those of Central America. Whether the Palencians themselves
were ever engaged in deadly strife with northern barbarous people,
save, perhaps, on the occasion of their being suddenly driven from
their great city, remains a matter of doubt. This is considered
improbable, however, from the fact that no warlike implement has
yet been discovered among the ruins of the Tultecan city. And a
very extraordinary fact it is, that this people had no knowledge of[123]
the use of iron; nor had they for mechanical, domestic, or warlike
purposes, a solitary iron implement! The question, we are aware,
will immediately suggest itself: ‘How, then, did these people rear
those mighty superstructures—ay, even a whole city, surpassing all
others in extent, and that, too, of hewn stone, admirably fitted
throughout—if they had no knowledge of iron tools?’ Such was,
nevertheless, the fact. The people to whom we refer, as having
been engaged with surrounding nations, in long and destructive warfare,
were the descendants of the primitive Tultecans, or those of
their successors, the Aztiques, while the most ancient occupants
of this continent, the ingenious builders of, and quiet residents
within, the Palencian city, were insulated, for ages, from all other
people of the earth.

The first narrative of observations made among the ruins at
Palenque, to which we have referred, were mysteriously withheld
from the public for nearly forty years. After having been written
out by the explorer, in conformity with public orders, it can
only be supposed that the extraordinary facts communicated by
him exceeded belief, or that, if thought true, and they should
be made public, they would induce visits from strangers which
might be annoying to the Spanish authorities. Visitants from
foreign countries would thus become acquainted with the internal
policy, the tyrannical misrule of the government over the virtuous
natives, and with the natural resources of their rich and extensive
country. For these, or other reasons past conjecture, the description
of the ruined city was suppressed; and it remained secreted in
a convent at Guatemala, from 1786 to 1822, when, after the revolution
in that ill-fated country, it was discovered thus hidden, by a
foreign traveller, taken to London and published in the above last-mentioned
year. Copies of this work have for many years been extremely
scarce in London. To the particulars there made known
were added an ingenious and learned treatise by a distinguished
Catholic priest upon the origin of the Tultecan people, with many
other highly interesting facts and speculations connected therewith.

This subject has since received enthusiastic attention from several
individuals, whose names have been mentioned. It was from having
been employed to engrave the illustrations of the above work, that
Waldrick, the most indefatigable of them all, was induced to cross
the Atlantic for the purpose of visiting the ruins himself. Particulars
respecting the adventures and researches of this devoted man,
during twelve years’ seclusion among the ruins; the base and outrageous
robbery committed upon him, ‘by order of the Mexican
government,’ in wresting from his possession all the valuable drawings
that he had been for years employed in making; together with
other facts and illustrations collected by other adventurous inquirers;
the records of the arts, the singular dresses, hieroglyphics, symbols, and
particularly the great Teöculi, and other immense structures, will
follow, in order of time and place.

[124]

From the hasty sketch here given of these remarkable people and
their structures, it will be seen, that comparatively little attention
was given to them by the Spanish government, or their agents. This
is justly attributable to the well-known suspicion and habitual
indolence of both the authorities and their subjects, either of which,
on a topic like this, stamps them with disgrace, in the opinion of all
enlightened men. The government itself seems not to have
been satisfied with the account given of these extensive ruins by
Del Rio; for, in 1805, Charles V. despatched a Captain Dupaix on
the same duties; since which, two other voyages have been undertaken,
by the same enterprising explorer, for the like purpose; and
now, the accounts of this individual constitute the best we have of
the ancient Palencian city. They were published in France about
a year since, and form, with the accompanying splendid illustrations,
an expensive and voluminous work. It was from this work that
Lord Kingsbury gleaned the materials for his still more costly, but,
it need not be said, less valuable, work. The sole effort of the noble
lord, in this ponderous treatise, is to prove that the people of whom
we have been speaking, were none other than the nine-and-a-half
lost tribes of the house of Israel; an effort contributing as little to
truth as it does to the establishment of his absurd theory. It will
appear a matter of surprise, to every impartial inquirer, and to those
at all acquainted with the facts in the case, that such an opinion has
been endorsed by others: but it might be stated, that the character,
not less than the expense, of the book in question, will effectually
preclude it from general perusal. We shall elsewhere state the
curious facts on which this theory is based; one of which, we may
remark, en passent, is, that the temple, of which we have given a partial
description, closely resembles the far-famed temple of Solomon,
a fact which, though not denied, proves nothing, abstractly. Reasons
exist why this isolated truth cannot be made available in a hypothesis
so plainly opposed to the first principles of physiology, not to
say probability. Whatever theory men may devise, to account for the
origin of the Tultecans—and there have been others not less crude
and chimerical than this—it is philosophically true, that they differed
from all others in those distinguishing characteristics which
have ever been assumed as the criteria of distinct species of men.
The accompanying representation, which is an exact copy, shows in
a striking manner the peculiar form of the Tultecan head, and the
curious symbolical designs with which they are generally ornamented.
The peculiar physiognomy of this people is not less forcibly
delineated in the drawing. Both the characteristic conformation
of the head and facial outline is preserved in all the specimens of
sculpture hitherto found. In connection with the Tultecan peculiarities
alluded to, those of their dress were not less remarkable.
These, if we except perhaps the sandals worn on their feet, exhibit
a strange combination of splendor, ingenuity, and oddness. So
unlike were they to those of any other nation, that we can perceive
no reason for supposing them derived from any prëexistent people.
They were so designed and executed, as to represent the most notable
data in individual and national history. This may be seen in the
form and embellishments of their dress, as sculptured, and evidently
described by phonetic characters, upon the various tablets found[125]
among the ruins of Tulteca. Curiously interwoven, and yet highly
ornamental, are the personal achievements, civil records, and religious
faith, supposed to appear in the paraphernalia of their habiliments;
and these are observable in the head-dress represented
below. Some, however, were much more complicated, and when
exhibited on solemn religious occasions, as at the great annual ceremony
on the plains of Cholula, in all the varieties of form and gorgeousness
of coloring, and, as it is supposed, by millions of people
at once, presented, altogether, the most grand and imposing spectacle
the world has ever witnessed.

It may in truth be affirmed, that in no people have distinctive characteristics
been more apparent, and more clearly defined. For the
present, therefore, they must stand by themselves as a part of the
human family; and they should be treated as a distinct and peculiar
race of men. This fact gives to our subject, as before remarked, a
romantic and unique character. Finding this people, as we do, so
far advanced in a knowledge of the useful and ornamental arts as to
preclude any rational inferences in respect to their derivation from
previously extant people, and so completely and so widely detached,
in a geographical point of view, from all other nations, bearing
resemblance in their arts, their social institutions, and in many
striking physical peculiarities, as to afford no plausible theory by
which to trace their oriental connections, we are left entirely disenthralled
from speculative opinions; and, hereafter, we may be
allowed to dwell upon novel and animating truths, without being
warped by prejudice, or swayed by conjecture.

[126]

VIVE LA BAGATELLE.

Le Chansonnier.

THE BACKWOODS.

NUMBER ONE.

JUBA.

Reader, were you ever in Carolina?—in that part, I mean, where
the long, swelling range of the Blue Ridge begins to decline gradually
to the fair and fertile plain, ‘et molli se subducere clivo?’ I shall
take it for granted you have not, and do most earnestly recommend
you (if you be not prejudiced with tales of fevers dire, which attack
only the stranger,) to wend your way thither, if practicable, the ensuing
season. Have you been cramped over the counting-house
desk till your frame pines for purer air? Seek the mountains; inhale
the balmy and bracing breeze from our thousand wood-capped
hills; and thank heaven that the air is free. Have you moved in the
monotonous and mill-horse round of city life, either in its high or its
low dissipation and frivolity, till your heart is sick within you at its
hollowness and vanity? There shall you see men of Nature’s own
make, not starched into a precise formality, nor with souls and limbs
alike fettered with artificial restraint, but with nerves, and elastic
frames, that do credit to their ‘raising,’ with quick feeling and buoyant
hopes sparkling in their eyes; in a word, Backwoodsmen. Perhaps
you may see an individual of the half-horse, half-alligator tribe;
but the species is nearly extinct, and physiologists will soon reckon[127]
them among the Megatheria of past ages—the Hipposaurus of
America.

If pure air, glorious scenery, deep woods, the sports and pleasures
of forest, field, and fell, and the assurance of full welcome, allure
you not, I consign you, sans replevin, to Dyspepsia, the city demon,
and leave you heartless, hopeless, stomachless, to all the horrors of
indigestion.

‘T was summer; not this summer, nor last summer, but the first of
June, 177-.

The sun, robed in a mantle of crimson cloud, had risen some hour or
more over the high hills which branch off from Table Rock. Their
round and undulating tops were fast changing from azure to purple,
as the light fell gradually upon them, while here and there some
massy pine, standing single from his fellows, his dark form in bold
relief against the glowing and gorgeous sky, seemed champion of his
race, tossing defiance from his waving and mighty limbs. The glorious
tint of a southern heaven, liquid and pure, spread in its intensity
of hue over the wild and magnificent scenery of the distant
landscape. The far summits of lofty mountains, whose rough peaks
were dimmed by distance, running in long succession from the north-east,
and suddenly breaking in the square and precipitous outline of
Table Rock, formed the back-ground of the picture. From the
back and sides of these swelling ridges, the land fell gradually in
a series of hillocks, some crowned with the primeval forest, as yet
untouched by the axe of the settler, some clothed with the verdure
of the rising crop, and declining into deep and peaceful valleys,
through which the wild mountain streams, girt with a fringe of green,
rushed to the lowlands.

On one of the most beautiful of these green knolls stood, at the
time of our story, the family residence of Charles Edwards. Embowered,
as is the custom of the country, in the verdant embrace of
wide-spreading trees, saved from the destruction of their companions
of the forest, its white walls and wide piazzas gleamed through their
screen, and the bright rays of the sun, reflected from the upper windows,
sparkled like fire through the shade. In front of the mansion,
a long and broad avenue, composed of the magnolia, pride of our
woods, and the white-limbed sycamore, extended to the main road,
which passed at some distance from the house.

The free mountain breeze stirred the dark green and varnished
leaves, and bore away the powerful perfume of the magnolia, sighing
the while among the foliage, as loath to leave so sweet a resting-place.
The wild carol of the happy birds came in rich melody upon the listening
ear; all was full of a deep and quiet joy; and nothing marred
the tranquillity of the scene.

Suddenly, far down in the vale, through which the road wound
upward to the hills, rose the notes of a bugle, faint in the distance;
borne slowly by, upon the light wind, they faded away in indistinct
melody. Again it rang more clear, and soon the full power of the
blast passed by, awakening the mountain echoes, which repeated its
brilliant tones far in their deep recesses; then the heavy and rolling
sound which precedes the approach of cavalry, broke upon the ear,
like the muttered growl of the gathering thunder before a storm;[128]
while at times the sharp clash of steel scabbard and stirrup, and the
ring of bridle bit and chain, as the impatient steeds tossed their
proud heads, came nearer and more near. The troop was still concealed
by the deep copse that bordered the road; but as they wheeled
into the avenue, the sunlight flashed on polished helmets and glittering
equipments, and the whole air was stirred by their martial
music.

At a rapid pace they advanced upon the house, and filing through
the gate, divided into two parties, one of which surrounded the house
and the other the ‘quarter’ where the negroes had their dwellings,
to provide against escape. After the usual orders had been given,
as to the disposition of sentinels, and the hasty refreshment of men
and horses, the officers advanced to the house, and with repeated
knocking, demanded admission.

Here we will leave them for awhile, and betake ourselves to better
company.

Charles Edwards was the descendant of a family which early
settled in the province, and had long possessed the lands on which
he himself lived. His father, who died long ere the seeds of disturbance
in these colonies had begun their rapid and stormy growth,
was devotedly loyal to his king, had held high office under the crown,
and thoroughly imbued his son in his own principles. The more
effectually to insure his attachment to the mother land, he was early
sent there to be educated, and in the time-honored halls of loyal
Oxford, Charles received those impressions which are so apt to be
our guides in future life. But he also there learned the birth-right of
an English subject, and the correlative duties of a government. He
had returned to America, and held high rank in the judiciary, until
a few years before the revolution. He had married, and was the
father of a son and daughter.

The times which tried men’s souls came on, and severe as the
struggle was, to rend from his heart-strings all that he had most venerated,
he failed not to do it. He gave himself to his suffering country;
he cast his all into the scale; and though infirmities prevented
him from personally engaging in her cause, his advice and counsel
were not wanting. He had sent his son, a noble youth of twenty, to
join Sumpter, with such hardy spirits as would follow him, and
himself retired to his family mansion, to rouse the western mountaineers.

His daughter—Maria Edwards—how can I describe her? I
have seen faces more delicately fair, but never one so calculated to
express the varying emotions of the soul. The eye that now slumbered
under that dark and beautifully-pencilled brow, and now instinct
with life and spirit, flashed with sudden light, how beautiful it
was! at one time awing by its deep and pure tranquillity, at another,
startling by its brilliancy. Why should I try so vain a task, as to note
down the items of that spiritual loveliness which one may feel but
not portray? Do you, most imaginative reader, spare me the pains of
so futile an attempt; recall to your memory the vision of her who
once shone in your eyes the polar star of your affections; the rich[129]
and perfect form that glided before you in your moments of purest
and holiest feeling, while your rapt sight rested entranced upon her
every motion, and your head was dizzy with excess of loveliness,
and your full soul throbbed in your bounding pulses, as you followed
the object of your idolatry. The eye, which beamed upon you with
insufferable light, the brightness of whose glance was your life, and
which, when it fell upon you, thrilled through blood and bone. The
hand, whose light and fairy touch could bind you more strongly than
that of a giant, and whose gentle pressure was more to you than all
the world beside; the fair, calm brow, on whose polished surface
heaven had set the impress of its own purity and innocence. Does
memory recall such a being? Such, but more spiritually beautiful,
was Maria Edwards. Such she was, worthy to be daughter, sister,
bride, of the men of olden times. She was indeed qualified to rouse
the sleeping spirit of chivalry into action—into deep, firm, and unchanging
devotedness to the cause of truth and principle. Startled
from a prophetic reverie of the future independence of her country,
by the rude clamor and clash of steel without, she at once comprehended
the horror of her situation. Her father, her idolized father,
had long been the object of suspicion to the invaders, and nothing
but the danger of sending a detachment into the neighborhood of the
mountain fastnesses, had prevented him from being long since a
prisoner; but now, after the defeat of Sumpter, at Hanging Rock,
they deemed the spirit of the country broken. Now the hour of
peril was come, and that fair girl braced herself to do and dare. The
rich color passed from her face, but resolution enthroned itself on
that high, pale brow. She descended calmly to the room where her
parents were, and found her mother, with more of woman in her
composition, clinging in wild terror to the arms of her husband.
Fear knew no place in Mr. Edwards’s mind, but the sight of his weeping
and fainting wife, as she hung upon him in despair, well nigh
unmanned him.

Maria gently unclasped her mother’s hand, and twining her own
fond arms around her, whispered, ‘Mother, if you love my father, let
him prepare himself for this emergency.’ She felt the appeal, and
with a violent effort, subduing her emotion, permitted him to leave
the room, though her tearful and straining eyes followed his retreating
form with an ardent gaze. Mr. Edwards turned, as he reached the
door, for one more look, and for a moment stood irresolute; but the
violent knocking without, roused him into action. As he turned
away, the clear, calm voice of his daughter thrilled on his ear: ‘Remember,
my father, you have a name, a country, and a God!’ ‘I do,
I will!’ was his energetic reply, as he ordered the servant to open the
door, which now rang with redoubled blows.

It opened, and the venerable form and silver hair of the old man
stood in strong contrast with the inflamed features and violent gestures
of the officer who commanded the party. Violent and ruthless
as he was, he retreated with involuntary respect; but soon recovering
his roughness of manner, he demanded why an officer of the
king was forced to stand so long before the door of his subject.

‘I thank heaven, Sir,’ said Mr. Edwards, ‘that your King has few
subjects here, and among those few, you are much mistaken if you[130]
number me. You are the first, Sir, who has ever had occasion to
impeach the hospitality of my house; the first whom I could not
heartily bid welcome.’

‘Tis very well, Sir,’ replied Captain G——, ‘but, by Heaven! I
carry with me the means of making myself at home, and scorn to
accept as a favor the forced hospitality of a hoary and ungrateful traitor,
when I can command it as my due. As long as rebellion finds a
place in this land, I am at free quarters. You, Sir, and your treasonable
practices, are well known; and you will prepare yourself to
accompany me, within this hour, to meet the doom of a traitor.’

‘Show me your warrant, even from your illegal authorities, if indeed
you cover your violence under the pretence of law.’

‘Here is one warrant,’ said the officer, touching his sword, ‘and
there are fifty more without, if you wish to see them.’

‘A most convincing authority, Sir, and one which, as I cannot resist,
I must yield to. A few minutes to prepare, and then——’

‘Well, Sir, yourself and family must be ready within an hour.
Collins, let the men dismount, and take care of their horses; and hark
ye, put careful fellows round the house, and see if you can get any
of the dark skins to join you. Promise freedom, you know, and all
that; and when we get to head quarters, we will see about a shipment
to Jamaica. Do you hear me, Sir?

‘Yes, please your honor,’ said the orderly; ‘but we have tried the
niggers every way, and they won’t join; they say they’d rather stay
in their sarvitude.’

And such was the fact. To the slaves of the southern states, the
British, as a master-stroke of policy, offered their freedom. Many
accepted it, joined the army, and were regularly ‘divisioned’ off to
the West Indies, there, in the sugar plantations, to find their boasted
liberty. But by far the greater number preferred their old and kind
masters, and stood by them to the last. Such were the negroes on
Mr. Edwards’s estate, many of whom would have given their lives
freely for their master, and their adored ‘young missis.’

When Mr. Edwards communicated to his wife and daughter the
order for their immediate departure, the one received it with tearful
resignation and joy, that in weal or wo they were not to be divided,
the other, with a high determination to let nothing pass which gave
hope of relief. Suddenly it burst upon her mind that Sumpter could
not be far off, though of late he had been concealed, she knew not
where. She determined to communicate with him, well knowing
that his acquaintance with the country would enable him to intercept
the troop, ere they could return to camp.

In order to effect her purpose, she called Juba, her father’s known
and trusty servant, who had watched over her brother’s boyish footsteps,
and was heart and soul devoted to the family. To him she
unfolded the necessity of immediate communication, with her brother,
and leaving it to his ingenuity to devise a way of escape, hastened
him on his journey. The poor fellow had come into the room
with deep sorrow depicted on his swarthy lineaments; but as his
mistress sketched her plan, and showed him how much she depended
on his shrewdness and faithful attachment, his dark face rapidly
changed to a joyous and happy expression, and the tears rolled down,[131]
as he vowed never to cease his exertions till his master’s family were
once more safe.

His first attempt to glide off unperceived, was frustrated by the
sentinels, who, with presented arms, bade him stand back. He then
returned to the house, and taking on his head a large water-bucket,
proceeded, carelessly whistling, to a spring on the edge of the cleared
land. It was situated near the crest of a small hill, which, though
open and cleared upon one side, was upon the other covered with
forest, interlaced with the thousand wild vines and thick bushes
which form the undergrowth of our woods. Here, too, a sentinel
had been placed, and our friend Juba advanced dancing up the ascent,
swaying his body to preserve his equilibrium. The sharp
challenge of the sentry, enforced by the rattle of his musket, as it
was thrown up to his shoulder, warned him to stand.

Ki! massa; dont shoot poor nigger, Sà;’ and he recoiled in well-acted
fear. The soldier, laughing at the effect of his order, called
to him: ‘Well, my dark beauty, what are you at now? You can’t
pass here.’

‘No, Sà; on’y want lilly water, Sà, for the buckra won’t drink none,
Sà, but from dis ‘ere spring?’

‘Oh, well, if that’s all, come, and fill your tub, there; and be quick,
d’ ye hear?’

Juba soon filled his tub, and apparently struggled to lift it, but
failing to do so, applied very respectfully to the good-natured soldier
to help him. This he readily consented to do; and holding his firelock
in one hand, and grasping the handle of the tub with the other,
raised it to the height of his shoulder. This was what the wily
Juba wanted; and rapidly turning the whole contents over the dragoon,
he saluted him with the bottom of the tub upon his head, with
such force as to drive out the boards, and leave the hoops and staves
dangling round his neck, a new order of merit; and then gaining the
woods, by a succession of rapid bounds, he sped away with the
quick and light steps of the mountain deer. The soldier, who was
somewhat staggered by the blow, rapidly recovering his carbine
and presence of mind, pulled trigger on him before he reached the
covert. But the powder, thoroughly wetted, refused to ignite; and
before he could re-prime, Juba was far out of reach and sight.
‘Well,’ said the Englishman, ‘here’s a pretty go! I may as well
fire, though, and when the guard comes out, make the best of my
story. The cursed cucumber-shinned rascal! How his bandy legs
twinkled, as he ran!’

Upon the discharge of his piece, he was immediately relieved, and
conducted to the captain, who, after many an oath, ordered to sound
to horse instantly, and make the best of their way back. The
prisoners were placed in the centre, the files formed, and at a rapid
trot they entered on the long, rough, and mazy road by which they
came. To one alive to the beauty of forest and mountain scenery,
every part was in the highest degree interesting. Here, they passed
along the side of the mountain, bearded and rough with pine and
cedar; there, in the deep declivity, welled calmly out the clear and
peaceful stream, which, after its tossing and troubled course down
its rocky bed, seemed glad to be at rest. The sighing of the wind[132]
among the tree tops, and the indescribable murmur which proceeds
from a deep forest, even when the winds are at peace, grew more
full and loud, as the wild breeze increased, waving aside the lofty
and matted branches, and startling the sombre retreats of the dark
woods with rare glimpses of sunshine. Now and then the antlered
deer bounded from the thicket, and clearing the road with high and
curving leap, noiselessly glanced away on the mountain side; or the
black snake, the racer of his tribe, roused from his basking in the
sun, rapidly wound his way among the dry and rustling leaves, his
brilliant eye flashing and beaming in his swift and tortuous course.
Here the creeper of the southern woods, having mastered, in its parasitic
grasp, some tall and stately tree, flung out its crimson, trumpet-shaped
flowers, and fantastic drapery, across the rough path. All
was hushed in noon-day silence, save the occasional note of the
mocking-bird in the wild jessamine, or the harsh cream of the lordly
and lonely eagle, as he circled, on broad vans, high in the quiet air.

The party had just descended into one of the verdant dells which
issued from the mountain side, and the leading files gradually
mounted the ascent. The officer in advance turned in his saddle,
raised his arm, and was about to speak, when the sharp crack of a
rifle rang upon the silence. He struggled a moment to retain his
seat, but vainly, and fell to the earth, with a deep groan. His followers
fell back, and watched in anxiety the spot from which the report
had come. Captain G——, who by no means wanted courage,
instantly ordered them to unsling their carbines, and fire upon the
first suspicious movement. Some seconds passed by in perfect stillness,
when a slight rustling in the brushwood drew the attention of
the troopers; but ere they could come to a ‘present,’ again, from the
top of the bank, streamed the deadly shot of the backwoods rifle;
and as the slight smoke cleared away, the vacant saddles and bloody
forms below, told of their dreadful accuracy of aim.

‘First and second files! to the front! charge!’ shouted the
captain. ‘On them, my boys! Give them your carbines, and then
cold steel!’

The brave fellows dashed forward, under cover of their own fire,
and spurred for a close encounter, knowing well that their only hope
was to dislodge their half-armed antagonists. But of the bold and
brave men who rushed up that trifling ascent, how few reached the
top! The deadly aim, and rapid and continuous discharge of the
countrymen, presented an insurmountable obstacle.

They recoiled once more, in confusion and dismay. Again and
again their undaunted captain brought them to the charge, and with
a last desperate effort, he and some of his bravest attained the top,
though with terrible loss. Then the wild faces and rough hunting-shirts
of the backwoodsmen appeared, as with heavy rifles, clenched
in their sun-burnt and sinewy hands, they rushed with a loud shout to
the close. The broad-swords of the troopers flashed over their heads,
and descended with full sway, only to shiver on the solid breech of
the rifle. One by one they fell, struck down by blows which
no skill could parry, and the captain himself, with blade shivered to
the hilt, only escaped to his rear-guard, close followed by the exulting
mountaineers.

[133]

‘Stand firm, my lads!’ said he; ‘I know how to keep off their
cursed bullets.’ So saying, he seized Miss Edwards, and placing her
on the saddle before him, called to his men to retreat as fast as possible,
and keep him between them and the enemy; and thus reining
back his managed steed upon the narrow path, and with pistol pointed
at the fair girl’s head, he shouted, with loud and scornful tone:
‘Now, dogs, one step nearer, one bullet more, and this ball passes
through her brain.’ ‘Fire, for heaven and your country’s sake!’
shrieked the noble girl; ‘rid the world of this miscreant, though I
perish with him!’

Many an arm which might have matched that of Hercules, trembled
and quivered like an infant’s; many an eye, which could mark
down the squirrel from the loftiest pine, was dimmed and dazzled by
unwonted emotion. Often was the unfailing rifle raised, but with
slow and tremulous hand, which precluded any certainty of aim;
for the most daring marksman felt a dread lest his ball might, by some
slight deviation, lodge in the bosom of that fair maiden.

Deep was the gloom and anguish on the brows of the countrymen,
as the stern Englishman, laughing in scorn, slowly retreated
toward the mouth of the defile. He well knew, that if once clear
of the woods, he would have little to fear, as a few hours’ hard riding
would put him out of reach. To this was added a feeling of revenge,
in bearing away that fair prize; for her elevated beauty had raised
a deep passion in his licentious bosom; and he resolved that nothing
but death should make him resign her. Full of these wild and
varying emotions, triumph, revenge, and love, alternately raging in his
bosom, he proudly looked defiance on his baffled enemies, as his
well-managed steed stepped slowly back to the entrance of the dell.
He had now nearly attained the open and clear glade, and was
already enjoying in anticipation the security won by his daring
attempt, when he was most disagreeably interrupted by a sudden
jerk, and felt himself falling from his saddle, his arms close pinioned
in a powerful grasp.

It was our faithful friend Juba, who, when he perceived the purpose
of the Englishman to interpose his young mistress as a shield
between the parties, stood for a moment aghast at the attempt: then
turning to his young master, who was looking on in despair, he
exclaimed:

‘Ki! he t’ink he tote off young missee so! Please God, he don’t
d’ough!’ And bounding into the brush, on the side of the mountain,
he passed rapidly, and unperceived by the retreating troopers,
and ascending a large and spreading oak, whose huge branches
overhung the road, he ensconced himself directly over the path, and
crouching like the catamount, waited his opportunity. The dragoons
passed at a rapid pace, and as they attained the open ground, halted
at some distance, to await their officer. He came slowly on, his
proud lip curled with scorn; when, as he passed under the low
limb, Juba dropped upon the crupper of his horse, and grasping his
wrists with the energy of intense passion, they both rolled over to
the ground, the pistol going off in the fall. The dragoons, on seeing
their officer fall, rushed forward to liberate him, while the mountaineers
dashed onward to the rescue of the fair girl, led by her[134]
fiery-footed brother. She, in the mean time, faint and dizzy-headed,
extricated herself from the horse, and staggering to the side of the
road, was relieved by insensibility from the horrors of the new
combat.

One of the troopers, perceiving her situation, rushed suddenly
forward, at full speed, to consummate a life of villany by the deep
guilt of her murder. He careered rapidly on, and there was every
prospect that he would complete his fiendish purpose, before the
woodsmen could come up. But his doom was sealed. One who
had watched her budding infancy, was there; and as his steel waved
in the air, and his arm was raised to strike the fatal blow, the ball
which never missed its mark, passed though his heart!

The dragoons, unwilling to abide that storm of fire, and hopeless
of success, fled. Still the English captain and Juba rolled upon the
earth, in deadly contest, till at last the Englishman, with a desperate
exertion of his great strength, shook off the grasp of the black, and
rose to his knees. Juba, well-skilled in ground-fighting, instantly
caught him by the collar, and suddenly drawing up his knees to
his bosom, as he lay upon his back, and placing his feet upon the
Briton’s breast, with a violent exertion, sent him whirling over the
edge of the precipice which bordered the road.

The black bounded upon his feet, and with a loud shout of triumph,
watched the rapid descent of his antagonist. Helpless, and stunned
with the violence of his fall, the body of the Englishman rolled
over rock, and through the thin bushes, the rapidity of the descent
momentarily increasing, till at last he soused into a bed of the
blackest and softest mud on the edge of the mountain stream.
There Juba left him, and turned to his adored mistress, whom he
found insensible in the arms of her brother. In inarticulate and
trembling grief, the poor fellow watched the slow return of life;
and many a swarthy face worked with emotion, when they heard
his joyful exclamation, as the blood returned to her cheek, and her
eyes opened on her father, mother, and brother.

‘Are we then safe? Am I indeed once more in your arms, my
dear parents? Oh, it was a fearful vision!’ murmured the poor
girl.

‘You are safe, my own dear sister!’ said her brother; ‘and that
you are so, you must thank Juba.’

‘It is to you, then, my good Juba,’ said her father, ‘that we all
owe so much. Come here, not to your master, for you are free, but
to your friend.’

Juba approached, and kneeling before his former owners, murmured
in broken voice, that he did not wish to be free, if he could
not stay with his master and mistress.

‘You shall, Juba; we all owe you too much, ever to part with
you. But where is your captain?’

‘He gone rollin’ down, head-ober-heel, till he ‘tick in de branch.
Ki! he black now as eber was a nigger; and he fine red coat an’t
much ob it lef.’

Several of the woodsmen descended, and fished the poor officer
out of the mud, though not, perhaps, in the most gentle manner;[135]
and having restored him to his senses, by a copious ablution ‘in
flumine vivo,’ they left him under guard, to digest his rage and mortification
as best he might.

An opportunity of exchange soon occurring, he returned to his
chief; and there was no name more dreaded and hated, except that
of Tarleton himself, in the latter part of the war, until his career of
violence was cut short, with that of many of his comrades, by Morgan’s
mounted riflemen, at the battle of the Cowpens. The younger
Edwards returned with his brave associates, and after the war, the
family circle once more united, enjoyed that happiness, the universal
fruit of peril and danger firmly met and gallantly overcome.

Our friend Juba flourished for many a long year, in undiminished
warm-heartedness to the last; and when time had powdered his
head, and deadened the ebony lustre of his hue, he would tell of the
perils of his youth, among which the above made no small figure.

Maria Edwards, the beautiful and true-hearted, met with one who
appreciated her; and the bliss of a long life was enhanced by the
recollections of her early sufferings in the backwoods.

A. H.

THE SOUL.

J. G. Percival.

[136]

RELIGIOUS CHARLATANRY.

NUMBER TWO.

It cannot be denied, that the congregational independency of New-England,
established by her puritan ancestry, has run a race of some
steadiness. The moral imprint of the pilgrim fathers was too deep,
not to last long, and their institutions too well devised, to be easily
disturbed. But look to the Unitarian defection, of which her great
metropolis is the centre, and the first foot-marks of the banished
immigrants the strongest hold! Look to Harvard University, founded
in the faith, nurtured by the prayers, and endowed by the money, of
the pilgrims, and of their descendants, now transferred to another
and far different faith. We allude to this change, as historians
simply, and not as theological censors. Look to the whole community,
originally organized as a religious society, on the basis of a
theory, that its religious character should be abiding, and its religious
authority supreme, and lo! its religious establishment has long since
been thrown to the winds, and all religious organizations become
secondary and dependant; viewed with jealousy, and denied all
participation in affairs of state! Look at her theology, originally
Calvinistic of the highest school, and behold the gradations through
which it has passed! Unitarianism has taken her original and
strongest posts; the Edwardian metaphysical school has had its
day; Hopkinsianism is out of date; and at this moment, a system
y’clept New Divinity is in full rage! We stay not to tell of the
Taste and Exercise scheme, and others already forgotten; or to
mark the career of Wesleyanism, Free-will-ism, and nameless et
ceteras. Her primitive catechisms, alas! where are they?—and in
what account are they held? Look at her pastors, originally as
gods in the land, trampled under foot by a new regime of itinerating
society-agents, whose will is law, and whom to oppose is sedition
and undoing!

Neither can it be denied, that Presbyterianism has had some character
and force. We should almost as soon have believed, had we
been flourishing some fifty years ago, that Ben Nevis, or Ben Lomond,
or Salisbury-Crag, or Arthur’s Seat, or any other rock of
Scotland, in highland or low, would have turned to sand, and been
blown away by the winds, or melted down into mud, mingling with
the lochs, or dissolving into snow, or evaporated into clouds, as that
the religion of John Knox should have yielded to circumstances,
and been modified. But ‘time and chance happeneth to all,’ and to
every thing. Puritanism hath yielded; and why, philosophically
speaking, should not its cognate Presbyterianism? Wonderful to
relate, the alphabetical symbols of the title-page of her Confession
of Faith and Directory seem to be dancing in the eye, and menaced
with some new combination; and the original imprint is already
gone. The body of the Presbyterian Church of the United States
is transformed into another body. The tide of innovation rolls
onward irresistibly. The wheels of the chariot of reform spins to
the eye and ear like the top that has just been sprung from the fingers[137]
of the watchful little urchin; or buzz invisible, like the round
tire of the spinster, as she draws out the forming thread from
between her thumb and first digit, conscious of her powers, and
dancing to and fro with the airs of a sprite. A machinery is in
motion, before which apparently the Presbyterian Church can no
longer stand, except by the secession of a minority, and the loss of
her Seminaries and endowments. The ‘Sauve qui peut!‘ has not
yet in fact come to our ears; and it is barely possible that the retreat
of a fragment of her hosts may yet be conducted with some appearance
of order. As a matter of fact, Congregationalism, in its modified
condition, and pregnant with enterprise and change, hath stolen
into her ranks, seized her flag, and now commands her legions. It
may not be quite fair; nevertheless, triumphant invasion, like successful
insurrection, may laugh at such moral casuistry, and go on
its way rejoicing. We have nothing to do with these facts, except
as they bear on our present design of showing how the elements of
change have been operating among us, in what forms they are developed,
and to indicate their probable origin.[2]

The Episcopal Church of the United States, as is well known, is a
fragment of the Church of England—has adopted in substance the
liturgy and discipline of her parent, maintains her consistency by
attachment to these forms, and bids fair to go on without change under
an ecclesiastical polity adapted to the state of society in this country.

Of Wesleyanism, we have little to say, except in compliment of
its tolerable consistency. No hierarchy has ever been formed on
earth, at least in Christendom, of a more unlimited power of control.
And so long as they come down and adapt themselves to popular
impulses, they may do well. Mankind will never rebel against
government, however concentrated and energetic its constitutional
powers, so long as it humors, and never crosses, their prejudices.
We mean no disrespect by the comparison; but we suppose it will
hardly be denied, that Methodism began, and has principally been
supported, by aggressive movements on territories previously occupied,
though not perhaps sufficiently well improved, by other Christian
sects; and a close and rigorous discipline is indispensable to the
enterprises of invaders. Like as it happens to all conquerors, who
seem likely to maintain their ground, for the sake of peace, the
world has accorded to them the dominion they have acquired. The
fact that Methodism is Methodism still, in the midst of the turmoil
of revolution that is going on in our religious world, and that its
former characteristic wildness rather subsides into the airs of sobriety,
while the confusion of fanaticism rages in other ranks, where the
boast of comparative order was once cried as a badge of honor,
would seem to demonstrate, that the great and fundamental principle
of government which the Methodists have built upon, hath a
conservative power in it worthy to command respect.

The Baptists are a thoroughly radical denomination, with the
exception of the one great principle that binds them together. That
[138]is forever conservative in the direction of its own single aim,
which is supported by a plausible argument in the lower regions of
mind; and until the mass of mankind shall have become sufficiently
enlightened to escape from the dominion of one idea, it is likely to
have considerable influence. Bating this element, no class of Christians
are more susceptible of being driven to and fro by the shifting
blasts of fanaticism, and none have enacted wilder parts throughout
our borders. A ministry they have, in fact, because it is necessary;
but they repudiate the principle of such an order descending by
ministerial appointment in their own line, and by their own sole
ordination. In principle, if we rightly understand them, every
member of their society is on the same level.

We might characterize other minor religious bodies that have
enacted their parts in our land, and had some influence. But these
to which we have glanced, are gentes majores among our sectarian
clans; not, however, to speak disrespectfully, but merely to indulge
in some variety and sport of figure. These, it will be granted, have
taken the lead in those religious enterprises which have recently
signalized our history, and among these the descendants of the
puritans have not been the least distinguished.

If there be any truth and faithfulness in the portraiture of puritanical
character, drawn in the review of Milton’s posthumous writings,
in the Edinburgh Review, some few years ago, it would appear,
that a belief in the marvellous was one of its prominent traits. The
faith of a puritan always had power to call to its aid celestial agencies;
and that which goes deeply into the belief of enthusiastic religionists,
is likely to come to pass in some manner to satisfy their
dreams and visions. If they believe in witches, they will have them;
in ghosts, they will muster in throngs; and their existence will be
so well attested, that incredulity itself must yield to the verdict. The
faculty of high and mysterious communion with heaven, might be
set down as one of the definitions of the genius of puritanism. So
was it in the mother country; so was it in New-England. Cotton
Mather’s writings are a conscientious record of facts; of facts, the
existence of which the reverend author never entertained a doubt,
and which was the creed of the time.

We may add, there was a spice of the faith of miracles in the
puritanical creed; miracles in the natural and moral world. Was
not a generation that could swallow such marvellous accounts as
Cotton Mather’s and the like, easy of faith?

And it should be borne in mind, that this disposition was an all-powerful
element of the moral world in that age; that it naturally descended
from father to son; and that ages must necessarily pass
away, under any modifying causes whatever, before it could be
entirely effaced. New-England, and some other parts of our country,
had long reposed under the shadow of this great tree. Its
fruit dropped into their lap, and they lived on it.

Neither is it any less notable, that this character has been principally
developed in the religious form. The civil right of religious
liberty was, indeed, the original element of strife, which stirred up
the action of religion in extravagant modes. But religion was the
ruling passion. It was religion that brought the puritan emigrants[139]
to this country; religion was the basis and soul of their empire; religion
was in all their thoughts, and feelings, and plans. But it was
a religion of their own order; a religion with their own characteristic
peculiarities; a religion asserting what might be called a rampant
freedom; a religion paying great respect to the dreams of
enthusiasts; which had learned to trample on authority civil and
ecclesiastical, and which, ever after, could ill brook control of any
description.

It was also a religion of enthusiastic expectation. Based on the
marvellous, infused with the marvellous, it could be satisfied with
nothing but the marvellous. Impatient of being controlled, it was
equally impatient to use control. Like the abolitionists of this hour,
it distilled principles up to the highest possible proofs of the art,
and then swallowed and administered them, to turn men’s brains.
‘Slavery is wrong,’ say these more modern theorists; ‘therefore, be
it enacted, there shall be no more slavery from this moment.’
‘Christianity is designed to bring in the millenium; therefore,’
reasoned the puritan fathers, ‘we will have it forthwith. We will
set up society, in this new world, on this model.’ The theory was,
as we suppose, that a code-millenial would bring about the millenium.
Certain it is, that the fathers of New-England attempted, by
statutory provisions, to enact a religious and perfect state of society.
They, doubtless, believed it could be done. Confident of the correctness
of the theory, the failure was, probably, regarded as a mistake,
or some defect in the mode of its application; or, as owing to
some adverse influences; for, from that day to this, there has been
prevalent, by fits, a sort of religious epidemic, more or less extensive,
in our community, developing symptoms of a like faith, that it is
possible, by a single stage, to pass from all our imperfections to perfection;
and from the immediate conversion of our own country, to
the immediate conversion of all the world. In no part of the world,
and in no age, has there been so much abortive and disastrous
scheming for moral reform, and religious enterprise, as among us.
The original theory of a politico-religious state of society, undertaken
by the fathers of New-England, as we need not say, was necessarily
abandoned at an early period. A brief experiment proved it to
be impracticable. But this leaven of undefined and enthusiastic
expectation has ever been at work. It has appeared, in various forms,
in almost every religious sect known in the country, older or younger,
larger or smaller.

In the revivals of the time of Jonathan Edwards, and onward, it
was confidently believed that the millenium had dawned. The deep
religious feeling of the time was every where pervaded by this sentiment—an
innocent state of mind, indeed, and very romantic. It
was the natural fruit of the stock which had borne and matured it.
Good as was the tree, in the main, these faulty excrescences were
constantly shooting forth. The sap was deeply infused with a diseased
virus, and the roots were planted in a not uncongenial soil.
And the worst of it was, that the culture, for the most part, kept in
check the better qualities, and nourished the more vicious. As much
reverence as we have been taught, and accustomed to feel, for the
name, character, and talents of Jonathan Edwards, it can hardly be[140]
denied, that he was greatly influenced by the peculiar atmosphere of
his time. ‘Would to God,’ many, doubtless, will say, ‘that the
theologians of our day had more of his spirit!’ To which we cordially
say, ‘Amen!’ Were not the Tennents enthusiasts? And with
all the eloquence of Whitfield, had he not many of the qualities of
a ranter? Admitting that he gave an impulse to the religious action
of the age, what has been the subsidence? In England we have the
two hives of the Tottenham Court and Moorfields Chapels, not
very productive of honey. The Lady Huntington Connection scarcely
subsists by a semi-conformity to the Church of England. In this
country, the vehemence of its career left behind it such fruits, and
developed itself in such forms, as the Davenport faction. Doubtless
there may be a different opinion as to this connection, as cause and
effect; but with us it seems to be legitimate. Had Whitfield been
as skilful a tactician as Wesley, and organized his corps, he might
have left the field in a better plight. But the effect of his career
was, to set things loose, with no abiding power to regulate them.
Separatism, disorder, and devastation, were the natural consequence.
That Whitfield did good, who will deny? That his mode of operation
was a germ of evil, is scarcely less evident. To balance these
influences, and estimate the difference, is a nicer task than we can presume
to undertake. This much, however, we will venture to say: that
no calculation can determine this question, which does not weigh well
the importance of order to the welfare of society, in the long run.
The time, we believe, has come, even in our country, when this item
of moral arithmetic is getting to be appreciated.

Come we, then, after so long a discussion, to the more astounding
facts of our recent religious history. If, indeed, it should be thought
or said, there are more things in heaven and earth than our philosophy
has dreamed of; though doubtless some will account us as having
made good search, and perhaps will accuse us of too much philosophy;
or, if they who may feel any urgent reasons for rejecting our conclusions,
shall aver, that we have labored in vain to establish a connection
where no connection exists, which we partly opine may happen, not
so much from a consciousness of weakness in our argument, as for
the anticipated convenience of our adversaries; we nevertheless
think, that all concerned will agree in the necessity of philosophizing
a little on the phenomena subjected to our consideration. There
must be a cause for these great and impressive developments; and
the cause lies deep in the past. Human society, in the aggregate,
never comes to such results, independent of antecedent stages and
influences, that are competent to produce them; and at no time can
they be so distinctly traced, as when the long line of events which
has at last brought on a crisis, is laid under the eye of the observer,
and is capable of being calmly examined.

We pause, then, in this place, to ask: ‘What is the more prominent
and distinctive religious symptomatic feature of our age and
country?’ If we may credit the press, in all its disclosures, we are
strongly inclined to the conviction, that all the sober men in our religious
world, of all sects, will agree in the verdict, that it is a something,
which can be defined by no single and comprehensive term so
well as that of Charlatanry. The science of history seems to have[141]
been discarded, and all professional advice growing out of it in a
great measure has gone into contempt. A regular education, based
on the experience of ages, is supplanted by schools of quackery, of
mushroom growth, each propounding its own specific for the cure of
all the social and moral evils that have visited, and which are now
afflicting, mankind.

We mean not to quarrel with the advocates and promoters of revivals,
the more sober and more reasonable class of which is to be
found in our history; nor to deny that there is a philosophy in the
theory of them, when properly chastened and regulated, which can
be vindicated by scripture, and the social character of man. But
who does not know, that this theory has been over-worked in the
application, and produced the most disastrous results? Because
some apparent good had come out of public religious awakenings, it
was very natural for ardent religionists, ministers, and laymen, to
desire them more frequently and extensively. Hence the inquiry
into their causes, or immediate occasions; and hence the gradual
formation and application of a theory, as the means of producing
them. The same disposition which began to theorize, continued to
theorize; and as the common proverb hath it, ‘Practice makes perfect,’
so in this matter, practice has at least altered the theory, and
continued to alter it in every hand that took it up. Some twenty
years ago, or less, as is very well known, the great and leading revivalist
of the day theorized so minutely, not to say extravagantly, as
to be scrupulously exact in the selection of time and circumstance
for his operations; in the kind of room; preferring any other rather
than a church; any place rather than a pulpit; in the arrangement
of seats, in the grouping of his hearers, in the position and number
of lights, etc., etc. The physical-mechanical was as much a study
as the mechanical-moral. Like the lawyer who could not pursue his
argument without the thread which he had been accustomed to have
on his finger, no more could this revivalist operate with effect, independent
of his own peculiar machinery. When this came to be
generally understood, the charm of it vanished with the discovery.
The power of this genius consisted in the art of insinuation—we
mean not in the bad sense—but in coming at the mind and affections
in a still and quiet way, by the action of an unperceived machinery,
in connection with Bible truth. It is to be observed, that the theory
then prevalent among the great body of those who sympathized with
these transactions, was, that this was the way to subdue and convert
the world; that every thing else should yield to, and fall in with,
this. It was a religious catholicon. For a considerable time the
most stirring portions of our religious world were under this species
of influence. It was a particular and new form of revivals; and we
know not why it should have been distinguished from that which immediately
succeeded, by calling the latter a system of ‘new measures,’
except as one differed from the other. Both, certainly, were
new, and both prescribed one capital and fundamental principle-‘the
anxious seat.’

But another genius soon after arose, of a very different order; a
mighty mind of the giant race; a Boanerges—a very ‘son of thunder;’
the blaze of whose career eclipsed the twinkling light of his[142]
predecessor, and the noise of whose artillery silenced all former
noises of the same denomination. ‘He went not up to Jerusalem
to those who were apostles before him;’ but he ‘went down into
Arabia.’ None can boast of having been his teachers. His genealogy
is not reckoned. He was a priest of his own order, of his
own making, and after his own model.

The system of more gentle measures had begun to decline and to
lose its force; the arts of the machinery were getting to be understood.
Something more startling and more astounding was demanded
for the exigencies of the time:

Now we solemnly protest, that we intend to subject no being, or
beings, to the disadvantage of this comparison. By the whisperings
of some spirit, good or evil, it came buzzing in our ear just as the
previous sentence of sober prose was finished. Or rather, it was a
contiguous phrase, which first intruded on our attention, and which
readeth as follows:

Nay, far be it from us so much to depreciate that individual, and
the hosts which rose so soon at his bidding. Yet it cannot be denied,
that, setting aside the place where this other scene was laid, and the
class of beings engaged in it, there is some striking likeness between
the two. In either case, there was a tremendous show of fight.
Never, probably, were so many sinners driven from the error of their
ways in so short a time, by mere dint of the impression of terror on
their nerves. It is to be hoped they will stay driven; though we
confess we want confidence in conversions effected in this rude way.
Honestly, most conscientiously, we do not think it good for society,
or for the church of God, in the long run, but positively bad. It
cannot be long endured, before men see through it all, and the rëaction
is sure, great, and fearful.

Thenceforward, after the introduction of these ‘new measures,’
very extraordinary indeed, the old way could no longer prosper. A
new taste was formed, and forming, in the public mind. The appetite
for excitement, which had been over-fed, became diseased, and
its cravings unnatural. The theory of revivals had been greatly extended,
or pushed to an extreme, which we hardly know how to describe;
and the application of it overran the country in this new
form. The religious pastors of the land, who have not been sent
adrift by this flood, have maintained their ground with no little difficulty[143]
and peril. Through a very great portion of the leading sects
this spirit has been rife; and probably not a single society could be
found, that has not some sympathy with it.

As might have been expected, the end was not yet. Such an impetus
of change must be followed with change. Although a prophecy
of the stage we have just had under consideration, if it had
been uttered ten years before it came upon us, as destined so soon,
or ever, to transpire, would have been regarded as the effusion of a
madman’s brain, and utterly incredible, yet it speedily became
stale; and the appetite which it created palled for something still
more extravagant and outrageous. And lo! another genius appeared,
out-Heroding Herod! The last extravagance assumed the aspect of
sobriety in such comparison; and the very man who had introduced
the former, if we have been rightly informed, and which we can
easily believe, was shocked at the anomalies of the latter! Certainly
the two great apostles have never worked in company, but
have seemed to be looking at each other rather awry, as they have
swept to and fro over the wide range of their several itinerancies.
Not to follow the last, in the long and devious line of his labors, and
over the far-reaching scope of his influence, the whole of which exhibits
one uniform scene of devastation, as to all we are accustomed
to regard most desirable and hopeful in religious society, it is enough
that we point to the public enactments of Chatham-street Chapel,
New-York, from day to day, and from week to week, in the winter
and spring of 1837. Verily, if it be possible to render religion and
all its sacred things more ridiculous; more the laughing stock of the
vulgar and profane; more the contempt and scorn of infidelity, itself
sowing and nourishing infidelity, it can only be some other equally
unexpected and inconceivable development of the same class, which,
if it must come, we pray heaven may be the last curse and blighting
of our religious prospects.

Both these methods of procedure, which indeed are of the same
class, differing only in degree, have been cried over the land by their
leaders and advocates, who are not a few, as the way, and the only
way, to convert the world. They are two other species of the religious
charlatanry of our age and country.

God send prosperity to the Missionary cause, and establish it on
the foundation of Christ and his Apostles! It is a part of our creed,
that the Church of Christ is, ex se, a missionary institution; that
this character is a radical and essential element of its organization;
that it is a fundamental law; and that the appropriate motto of her
banner is, ‘Go ye, and teach all nations, baptizing them in the
name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost.’ And
it is no ungrateful thought, that at least one branch of the Christian
Church of this country, has, by her own public and solemn acts,
recognised this principle. We believe, moreover, that the missionary
character of the Church, under the divine commission, is so
comprehensive as to embrace every mode of action in the world for
moral and religious reform, which is in any case a duty to undertake,
at home or abroad, on the land or on the sea. The Church knows
no home but heaven, and has no narrower field of earthly enterprise
than the world. The only question of duty, at any given time, is:[144]
‘Where, by what means, in what forms, and by what measures, in
specific directions, she can most economically distribute her efforts
for the speediest attainment of the grand and ultimate designs of
Christianity?’ What we call ‘home,’ in the narrowness of our feelings,
is nothing to her, except that she commands and nourishes all the
virtues that are appropriate to our limited capacities. Thus much
for the declaration of our theory of the missionary work; and the
deduction is obvious, that it belongs to the Church to supervise it in
all its forms.

But the arrant religious propensity of our time and country, has
seemed to us to be characterized by running races in this, that, and
the other specific direction, just as the impulse may be given by
some mountebank, or some obscure coterie of mountebanks, who
may happen to have taken the start, and raised the cry of ‘Onward!’
And for the time being, the whole troop in the chase are on the same
hobby, are completely absorbed in the same object, and would have
all the world believe that if this can be gained, all is gained;
if lost, all is lost. If their watch-word were to be universally heeded,
every other interest of the Church would be abandoned. At one
time, and with one class, Foreign Missions are the hobby, and take
the lead; at another time, and with another class, Home Missions enjoy
a like prëeminence; next, Bible Societies are every thing; at another
time, Religious Tracts are going to save the world; Education
Societies plead for their supremacy; then Temperance, and in its
train, Tee-totalism; Sunday School Unions, too, must have their turn;
next, Abolitionism turns men’s brains, distracts the country, and
shakes the social fabric; and though we might extend this list, indefinitely,
we will just say, last not least, Moral Reform, technically so
called, for decency’s sake—the extravagance of all extravagances,
the incredible of incredibles—seems to have more charms in
proportion as it is more disgusting and abhorrent, and because,
forsooth, it belongs to the class of things of which an apostle says,
it is a shame to speak! None can deny that most of these, with
others that might be named, are important objects for the combined
action of the Church. Far be it from us to depreciate them. Our
remonstrance lies against making any one, or any class of them, a
hobby, to the detriment of others, as has been the fashion of the time.

And not only is there a propensity to run races of this kind, outstripping
all propriety and reason, but the forms and principles of
organization have often, if not generally, been no less the creatures
of sudden and inconsiderate impulse. The result is, that the great
and leading religious, and reforming enterprises of the country,
claiming public patronage and support, are as effectually divorced
from the Church, as the Church is from the State; as if the alliance
were as dangerous, and the connection as unnatural. In their turn
these particular forms become so much the objects of preference and
idolatry, that the Church, as such, is thrown into the back ground,
and forced to stand by, an idle spectator of the great work intrusted
by her Divine Head to her guidance and control. Her powers and
duties are usurped. A state of society has arisen, that would seem
to be entirely at variance with the design of Christianity. It is the
natural product of that spirit of innovation which is in part our[145]
design to illustrate. It opens a door, and presents the strongest
temptations—temptations which we think will prove irresistible—to
make a trade of trickery on a scale commensurate with the influence
that is acquired; and for the rëenactment of many painful
scenes, which have been a thousand times told in the history of the
Church. Tricks are already apparent in the operation of this species
of machinery; it is extensively based upon tricks; it could not last
a year, nor go an inch, without them.

Who would have imagined, that the public mind of this country
could be brought to endure, and extensively to patronize, as an
engine of benevolence and Christian enterprise, such a loathsome
and demoralizing institution as the Moral Reform Society? And
yet their agents can go over the land, and form auxiliaries, particularly
among the ladies! any where and every where. Pray tell
us, if any body be so wise, what causes have been in operation to produce
such a state of things. Let us not be ignorant, that these matters
are connected with a general state of society, and grow out of
it. Of this there can be no question. A scheme so gross, so offensive
to decency, so absolutely vile, can be palmed upon the community,
and baptized as immaculate! And so immaculate, that it can
live and walk in the midst of pollution, without being defiled! As
was to be expected, it has given birth to a new theory in morals, and
now stands based and erect upon it, viz: that the way to be pure, is
to give virtue the stern test of familiarity with impurity; that ‘vice
to be hated needs but to be seen,’ keeping back the sequence of
the poet, and jumping to the opposite conclusion, that the more it is
seen, the better; that the most shocking features and horrid scenes
of midnight debauchery can be exposed, without a veil, to the public
eye, with impunity; that it ought to be a part of common and universal
education; that the sexes can sit and talk together of these
matters, without sin, and without peril! Let any one consult the
weekly journal of this society, if we dare recommend such a task—for
they have a journal, and apparently a prosperous one—and he
will be astonished at its doctrines; at the confidence with which they
are announced and defended; and at the reports of success coming
in from all parts of the land. He will hear them affirm, that they
only are radical reformers; that the fate of society depends on them;
that they go to the bottom of corruption. That they go to the bottom,
we believe; that they come out pure, is another question.
That their specific is a cure-all, we happen to know is the common
proclamation of all such charlatanry.

The doings of this society are an instructive lesson. The disclosures
which they are in the habit of making, operate as a temptation
to the very crimes thus laid open to the public eye, and are
likely to conduct multitudes to ruin, who never would have dreamed
of such scenes, except as they have been brought to view by such
unfortunate and guilty instrumentality. On this subject, certainly,
ignorance is innocence; knowledge is death. The warm blood of
youth, and the irradicable passions of our nature, cannot be addressed
by these features of vice, without sympathy and peril. The only
way of safety, is to keep such topics for ever out of mind; in diversion;
in useful and innocent occupations.

[146]

STANZAS.

I.

II.

III.

IV.

V.

VI.

VII.

VIII.

IX.

X.

[147]

XI.

XII.

XIII.

XIV.

XV.

W. Gilmore Simms.

RANDOM PASSAGES

FROM ROUGH NOTES OF A VISIT TO ENGLAND, SCOTLAND, FRANCE, SWITZERLAND, AND GERMANY.

NUMBER FOUR.

Notwithstanding the flattering invitation from Mr. G——, (of the
agreeable party I had the honor and pleasure of joining in the Highland
tour,) business called me speedily to London, and I therefore
took berth in the ‘Caledonia’ steamer, and reluctantly bade adieu to
my hospitable friends, and to

The London steam-packets sail from New-Haven, one of the sea-ports
of Edinburgh. They are very large, and are built and rigged
like ships; with a fine dining-cabin on deck, over that of the
berths. The fare from Edinburgh to London, (about five hundred
miles by water,) is three pounds, meals included; and they make the
passage in from forty-two to fifty hours. A good library in the
cabin served to relieve the tediousness of the trip; and I found, on
reference, that I had visited or passed over many of the scenes
described in the Waverly Novels; and what a gallery of pictures
do those works exhibit! They are too familiar, however, to need
[148]any reference. One of the principal charms of Scott’s fictions, as
has been often remarked, is the accuracy and truth to nature, both
of his landscapes and his characters. He studied scenery and localities,
in the course of his frequent excursions, as well as individual
traits; and as he has himself told us, he had an original in his eye
for most of his apparently imaginary portraits.

As we sail along the coast, we have a distant view of several
remarkable places. Preston-Pans, where the chevalier and his highlanders
routed the royal army, under Sir John Cope; Dunbar, and
its castle; Dunglass Castle; Berwick-upon-Tweed, near the ‘Border;’
Lindisfame, or Holy Island, which figures in ‘Marmion;’
Flodden Field lies a few miles from the coast; and Alnwick and
Warkworth Castles,

are but a few miles from the Border, on the English side. Carlisle
and its famous castle, and Gretna-Green, are more in the interior.
The finest small views of Scottish scenery may be found in ‘Caledonia
Illustrated,’ now publishing, edited by Dr. Beattie.

On board our steam-ship, I was amused at the speculations of my
neighbors at the table, respecting a person at the other end of it,
whom they finally pronounced a yankee, from the sure evidence of
his chewing tobacco. They never suspected me, it seems, for one
of the barbarians, and looked rather blank, when I spoke to him as
a fellow countryman. He was a pretty considerable thorough-bred
down-easter; and it was not strange that John Bull detected him.

* * * We landed at the East India docks, five or six miles
from St. Paul’s, and considering myself pretty well informed in the
law, and not easily to be cheated, I hired a hack, without saying a
word as to the price, and had the pleasure of being forced to pay
five times the lawful fare, because, forsooth, the law did not extend
down the river, and moreover, it was a glass coach.

* * * The University of Oxford, which has existed
since the year 886, comprises no less than twenty-one different colleges,
each distinct and independent, with a president and faculty;
but united in a sort of federal compact, and governed by a Chancellor
and Vice-Chancellor, the latter being the acting and responsible
officer. The Duke of Wellington, as you well know, at present fills
the Chancellor’s chair. The college buildings are nearly all of the
Tudor style of architecture, and most of them, indeed, were erected
in the reigns of Henry VII. and VIII., and of Elizabeth; and
they bear now a stately and venerable aspect. They are in the
quadrangular form, covering two or three acres, with a large area
in the centre. Several of them front on High-street, which is considered
one of the most imposing in Europe.

I had no letters to Oxford; and my kind reception by Mr. and
Mrs. T——, with only a self-introduction, gave me a most favorable
impression of English hospitality. They freely invited me to their
house, and took pains to show me every thing of interest. On Sunday
I attended their church, which boasts no little antiquity, having[149]
been founded by Alfred the Great, in the eighth century. Its style
of architecture is of course Anglo-Saxon.

In the afternoon, I went with Mr. T—— to the beautiful chapel
of Magdalen college, to hear the chanting, which is performed by
a choir of boys, in the most perfect and touching manner. It was
much the most beautiful, and, as I thought, appropriate, church
music I had ever heard. The effect can scarcely be imagined by
one who has only heard the Episcopal chants in our churches. In
this chapel is a painting by Carlo Dolci, valued at eleven thousand
guineas! Addison was educated at Magdalen college; and his
favorite walk, on the banks of the Isis, is yet called ‘Addison’s
Walk.’ Gibbon, whose stately style is so strongly in contrast with
the classic ease and purity of the ‘Spectator,’ took his degree here,
also. The ‘crack’ college, in size, wealth, the extent of its library,
and gallery of paintings, and the aristocracy of its members, is
Christ Church. Most of its graduates are sons of the nobility, and
the higher classes; but yet it was in this college I was shown the
room occupied by Dr. Johnson, who was certainly a plebeian, albeit
an inveterate tory.

But I will not inflict on you a prosing account of this renowned
University, or a catalogue of her sons; are they not all written in
books? I must say a word or two, howbeit, of the two big libraries;
for, as friend Harper says, ‘that is somewhat in my line.’ The
Radcliffe library is in a circular building, with a huge dome, and an
elegant interior. It contains, beside its one hundred and fifty
thousand volumes, a fine collection of casts and busts, such as the
Laöcoon, Apollo Belvidere, Warwick Vase, etc. The Bodleian is
still more extensive. It has three hundred thousand volumes, and
a large picture-gallery, with many noble paintings, and models of
ancient temples. These immense repositories of literary treasures,
and gems of art, are alone well worth a visit to Oxford. But I could
not help thinking, that the world would not be much the wiser for a
greater part of these books. It strikes us practical yankees, that
books were made for use, rather than to fill up long shelves, to be
looked at only on the outside, and the mass of them never to be
opened, even by the ‘favored few.’ Among the rarities which they,
show here, are an Ethiopic MS. version of the Book of Enoch,
recently brought from Africa, and Queen Elizabeth’s Latin exercise-book,
in her own hand-writing. Connected with the Bodleian, is a
hall of ancient sculpture, containing about eighty statues, which
have been brought from Greece and Italy. Near by, are kept the
celebrated Arundelian marbles; and here I saw the original Parian
Chronicle, made two hundred and sixty-four years before Christ!
and of course now somewhat illegible. This chronicle, you know,
was an important authority in ancient chronology. I must not forget
the ‘Theatre,’ an edifice not for dramatic performances, but the
college anniversaries, which we call ‘commencements.’ This extensive
hall is elegantly decorated, and well contrived for a large
audience. It was here that the Emperors of Russia and Austria,
etc., were pompously received, when they visited England, in 1815.
The connoisseur in paintings will find ample entertainment in[150]
Oxford; and if you come here, especially do not omit seeing the
altar-piece in All-Soul’s chapel, a most exquisite ‘Magdalen,’ with
an expression of countenance I can never forget. A few miles from
Oxford, is the splendid palace and park of Blenheim, given by the
nation to the great Duke of Marlborough, for his military services.

Warwick Castle.—It were as well, perhaps, for me to say nothing
of these places which a thousand and one tourists have already
made familiar to you. As to this; Kenilworth, Stratford-on-Avon,
and indeed the European tour, I know the subject has been pretty
well used up, and scribblers must now be content to tell an old
story as best they may. I might tell you how I went down to this
famous castle, and knocked at the porter’s lodge, and how he took
me within it, to see the walking-stick of Guy, Earl of Warwick,
nine feet high, and his ‘porridge-pot’ of iron, which would contain
half a barrel!—how he sent me up a long circular path-way, cut
through a solid rock, to the castle itself; how I marvelled at its vastness,
and passed under the towers into the area; how I wandered
about, bewildered with the number of entrances to the huge pile,
on all sides, but finally ventured one, and got into a chapel, without
being challenged; how they took me through a range of gorgeous
apartments, extending three hundred and thirty-three feet in a line,
on only one side of the castle; and all the princely furniture, the
tables of inlaid brass and precious stones; the rare paintings and
sculpture which fill these halls; the antique armory, cut out of the
thickness of the castle walls; the earl’s family, and how naughty
he is; and sundry other matters, may be buried in oblivion. You
are aware that this is much the finest, perhaps the only one remaining
entire, of the old English baronial castles. Its walls have been
standing eight hundred years; and yet they seem imperishable. A
novice like myself is ‘taken aback’ with the grandeur of these
lordly abodes.

The change of the scene to the ruins of Kenilworth, in the
course of an hour, naturally led to instructive recollections of the
past. Here was once a castle as extensive and impregnable as the
one we had just left; but now the lofty towers are fast falling to
decay; and the sheep are grazing in peace and quiet, where once
all the magnificence of the Elizabethan age was concentrated. I
passed the same portal that admitted the great Eliza and her train,
when she came to honor the princely entertainments of her favorite
Leicester. The ruins are extremely picturesque; and they prove
that the castle was of prodigious extent. They forcibly remind one
that

[151]

Well—like all dutiful travellers, I of course added my name to
the list of illustrious pilgrims in the Album at Stratford-on-Avon.
The birth-place and the tomb of Shakspeare! Who would go to
England, and pass them by without a visit? What a host of grandissimos,
beside the multitude of humbler gentry, have deigned to
worship at this intellectual shrine!—or, in other words, to follow the
old cicerone up those narrow back stairs to the lowly apartment
where the Bard of Nature was cradled, and there to scribble their
names on the rude walls, or in the goodly quarto. There I saw the
autographs of ‘William Henry, Duke of Clarence,’ ‘Walter Scott,’
‘Countess Guicciolli,’ ‘Coleridge,’ ‘Charles Lamb,’ and scores of
similar names, beside an army from the United States. I copied
some of the many inscriptions in the ‘Ollapod’ of an album, which
you may like to have:

Washington Irving.‘

James H. Hackett.‘

The esteemed and lamented Carter:

‘1825, Nov. 18.

N. H. Carter, }

H. J. Eckford.}

Not being ‘wise above what is written,’ I shall spare you a rhapsody
of my own on the occasion. To tell the truth, as ill-luck would
have it, I could not get up a fit of enthusiasm. I was not inspired
even by the impressive little sign which is poked out over the door,
and tells the heedless urchin of Stratford, as well as the eager pilgrim
from foreign climes, that

And then to be bowed up stairs and down,

‘T was cheap, to be sure; but there was something droll in the
idea. Of course, I spent half a crown beside, for seeing the tomb in
the church, which, by-the-way, is a fine old edifice of its kind; and
mine host has also shown me, gratis, the mulberry tree in his garden,
which was planted by the great bard himself. They are going to
have a ‘grand jubilee’ here, shortly; and an oration is to be delivered[152]
by somebody whose name I have forgotten; but as he styles himself
the ‘American Tragedian,’ you will know, I suppose, to whom this
title belongs.[4]

London in May.—The ‘fashionable season’ is now in its prime.
Parliament is sitting, and every body is in town. How strangely
they arrange, or rather dis-arrange, the order of nature, here in England!
Come to town in May, for the winter season, and go into the
country in December, to spend Christmas! Yes, if you wish to see
London in all its glory, come here in the blooming month of May.
The queen of cities then puts on her gayest attire, and all her thousand
attractions and amusements are ready to draw on your purse.
First, if you like paintings, there is the Royal Academy exhibition
in Somerset House, which, by the way, is soon to be removed to a
part of the New National Gallery at Charing-Cross, which is now
nearly completed, and is to receive the collection of old masters
belonging to the nation, which have been exhibiting in Pall-Mall.
Then there is the Society of British Artists, in the latter street, and
two Societies of Painters, in water-colors; all of whose exhibitions
are crowded with fashionables. They seem to pay special attention
to this water-color department, and the present collections are really
brilliant. In books, sculpture, natural curiosities, etc., there is that
immense repository, the British Museum, freely open to all visitors.
The Benevolent Society Anniversaries take place, this month, at
Exeter Hall; and there is always a great musical treat at St. Paul’s
for the charity children, and also for the sons of the clergy. Speaking
of music, I was thriftless enough to go to Exeter Hall, last
evening, to the great musical festival, where six hundred performers,
beside the organ and big drum, concerted together a ‘concord of
sweet sounds.’ I wonder what a Connecticut singing-master, fortified,
with a pine pitch-pipe and a ‘Musica Sacra,’ would have
said to it! The Duchess of Kent and the Princess Victoria were to be
there; and when they appeared in the front gallery-seat, the whole
audience rose, and gave them three cheers, which were, of course,
‘graciously acknowledged’ by their highnesses, with sundry bows.
The Princess is now seventeen, very unnecessarily pretty, and
dresses with a neatness and simplicity which would be a pattern
for New-York belles. She looks intelligent and dignified, without
affectation, and is, no doubt, well educated, and highly accomplished.
She is evidently the darling of the people, and, I hope, deservedly so;
but she must be a very fine girl, if she can wear all her honors, and sip
all the flattery which is paid to her, and yet not be spoiled. Her
mother, the Duchess, seemed to be a restless, bustling sort of person,
and I set her down as being, at least, no more than a woman.

Among the singers, Philips stands highest. He has a rich and
highly-cultivated bass voice. He sang some fine airs in Balfé’s new
opera of ‘The Maid of Artois,’ a few weeks after this. In this, I
[153]had the good fortune to hear that wonderful vocalist, Malibran.
Those who saw her when she visited New-York, some years since,
would scarcely recognise the present brilliant tones, and great compass
of her voice, so much has it improved: and not only does she
astonish and delight you, by such singing as you never heard before,
but her manners and acting are equally extraordinary and fascinating.
She is rather small and short in figure, and her face, though not
handsome, is peculiarly expressive and intelligent. I saw her several
times in this opera, and also in ‘La Somnambula,’ and Beethoven’s
opera of Fidelio, which is her chef d’œuvre.

The only female vocalist who is named in the same breath with
Malibran, is Julia Grisi, of the Italian Opera. Grisi is tall, very
pretty, and lady-like, sings sweetly, and is evidently a great favorite.
The queen attended her benefit the other evening, beside many a
‘bright particular star.’ I had a good chance to stare at her majesty,
who is tall and slim, and looks very like a queen. The popular feeling
seems to have changed in her favor; and I heard her styled ‘an
excellent and exemplary woman.’ I saw her a few days since, with
the king, riding out to Windsor, after the levee at St. James’ Palace.
But to the singers.

La Blache, a portly, good-looking personage, has the most tremendous
bass voice I ever heard. Tamburini and Rubini are the tenors.
The King’s Theatre, or Opera-House, is one of the most extensive
and elegant, certainly the most expensive, in Europe. * * *

I have had the good luck to hear Braham, too, who yet looks
youthful, although now about sixty, and whose singing seems as
much prized as ever. But time fails me to tell you of Liston,
Macready, Charles Matthews, Jr., and other lions of the day, who
figure where the Siddons and Garricks have ‘held the mirror up to
nature.’

We have passed a leisure hour in finding out some of the antiquities
and literary curiosities of the metropolis; such as Boar’s Head
Tavern, (Mrs. Quickly’s), where Falstaff, Poins, and ‘Hal’ called for
their cups of sack. In Buckingham-street, near us, is the house
where Peter the Great lodged, when in London. 43 Lombard-street
was the residence of Jane Shore. In the Old Bailey, Jonathan
Wild and Oliver Goldsmith lodged. Chapter Coffee-House, where
Dr. Johnson and his coterie frequented, is yet the resort of penny-a-liners
and newspaper-readers. In Bolt Court, Fleet-street, we saw
the literary leviathan’s residence, and we found also those of Byron,
Blackstone, Cowley, Hogarth, Pope, Lord Bacon, Garrick, Gibbon,
Handel, Hans Holbein, Hume, Sir Joshua Reynolds, Sir Thomas
Lawrence, West, Sheridan, Sterne, Spenser, etc.

York Minster.—I did not repent varying my route a little to visit
the ancient city of York, and its noble cathedral, unquestionably the
finest Gothic structure in Great Britain, if not in the world. This
grand edifice is five hundred and twenty-four feet in length, and, of
course, exceeds St. Paul’s on this score; but in other respects, they[154]
can scarcely be compared, as the style of architecture is entirely different.
It stands in bold relief above all the rest of the town,
albeit not on a rising ground. To use the words of the book, it is
like ‘a mountain starting out of a plain, and thus attracting all the
attention of the spectator. The petty, humble dwellings of men appear
to crouch at its feet, while its own vastness and beauty impress
the observer with awe and sublimity.’ It dates its origin as far
back as A. D. 642;[5] but the present walls seem to have been erected
in the thirteenth or fourteenth century. The screen and the choir,
particularly, are elaborate and exquisite specimens of the Gothic
style. It seems strange to us, who make the most of our room, that
they should only use so small a portion of these cathedrals for what
one would suppose was their chief purpose—divine worship. Service
can only be held in what is called the ‘choir,’ an enclosure
near the centre of the church, which has seats for perhaps from one
hundred to two hundred persons. I went in, during the evening
prayers, and had an opportunity of hearing the gigantic organ, accompanied
by the choir, in some fine anthems. The whole of the
east wing of the cathedral was fired in 1829, by Martin, the lunatic,
who secreted himself behind the organ, during service, and so thoroughly
effected his purpose, that the whole interior, including the
choir, was destroyed. The great painted glass window, seventy-five
feet by thirty-two, (capable of admitting a large three-story house,)
was saved as if by miracle. It is remarkable, that the whole of this
wing has been restored, so precisely in the original form, as scarcely
to be suspected for a modern work. The architect was Robert
Smirke, Esq. It is asserted, by the knowing ones, that a work
of equal magnitude to York Cathedral could not be performed, at
the present day, for ten millions of dollars, nor in less time than fifty
or even a hundred years.

House of Lords.—There is no admittance for plebeians to this
‘august assembly,’ without a written order from a peer; but we were
not to be daunted on this wise. We wrote a billet to some of the
great ‘uns, as follows:

‘To His Grace the Duke of Wellington:

‘My Lord Duke: The undersigned, a stranger from the United States, presumes to
solicit your Grace’s permission to visit the House of Lords this evening.

‘I am, my Lord Duke,

‘Your Grace’s Humble Servant,
——  ——.’

This circular was addressed also to the Duke of Buccleugh, Viscount
Melbourne, Marquis of Londonderry, etc., for the Lords; and to
O’Connell, Hume, Spring Rice, and Sergeant Talfourd, for the Commons.
To insure success, I took a cab, and called on their graces
and lordships in person. At Whitehall-Gardens, the powdered and
gold-laced footman, gracefully bowing for a sixpence ‘to drink my
[155]health,’ presented me with a note, neatly sealed with the duke’s arms,
which purported thus:

‘The Duke of Buccleugh presents his compliments to Mr. ——, and has the honor to
enclose an order for the House of Lords.’

* * * This for my friend. Now to the premier’s for myself.
The viscount’s house is certainly not more ostentatious than his
neighbors.

‘On business?’ asked the porter, as I presented my ‘little affair.’

‘Yes,’ said I, stoutly.

‘Then you must take it to the office, in Downing-street. His lordship
transacts no business at home.’

‘Oh! it is private business—very special, and requires an immediate
answer,’ returned I, remembering the advantage of an air of
consequence, with these ‘gentlemen’s gentlemen.’

The official disappeared, and soon brought me a roughly-folded
note, addressed in true great men’s hieroglyphics:

It enclosed the order. Next, to Apsley House: ‘The duke will
send an answer.’ To Piccadilly: ‘The Marquis not in town.’ To
Cavendish-Square: ‘The duke will be at home shortly; an answer
at two o’clock.’ To Langham-Place: Answer written on back of
request:

‘Finding Mr. —— is not a resident of a slave-holding state, Mr. O’Connell has the
honor to comply with his request.’

‘Admit the bearer to the gallery.‘

Daniel O’Connell.‘

To Guildhall: Mr. Talfourd, the author of ‘Ion,’ to whom I had
a letter, is in court, examining a witness. Asked the constable to
give him my note, when he was disengaged; but he pushed inside,
before judge and jury, thinking I had something touching the case
in hand. Luckily the sergeant was busy, and I escaped. A brace
of orders came from him in season, so I supplied my friends; for no
member can give an order for more than one person at a time.

We went to the House of Lords at five P. M. The room is about
the same size as that of the Commons, but looks, of course, a little
more ‘genteel.’ The throne is a large arm-chair, under a crimson
canopy, not particularly splendid. The members’ seats are elevated
on each side, and covered with red moreen. The ‘ministerial bench’
is in front, near the woolsack and the bishops; and their party (at
present whigs) all sit on the same side, while the opposition, or
tories, occupy the other, facing their opponents. In this house, the
tories, or conservatives, of course predominate. The members were
in plain citizen’s dress, except the bishops, the chancellor, and the
clerks, who all wear a black gown and big wigs. When we entered,
a witness was being examined in an election-bribery case: Presently
the house was called to order, and the chancellor (Lord Cottenham)
took his seat on the woolsack, which is nothing more than a good-sized
red ottoman. An ordinary-looking man, who it appeared[156]
was the Earl of Wicklow, then rose, and made a studied speech, in
which there were far more words than ideas, against appropriations
for a charity-school in Ireland, which he alleged was under Catholic
influence. Some one at the door announced, ‘My luds! a message
from the House of Commons!’ and on each repetition of this, the
chancellor, poor man, had to leave his seat and come down the hall
with a bag, which they call the purse, to receive the ‘message.’ One
of the prelates (the Bishop of Exeter) rose and supported the Earl
of Wicklow’s motion; and then presented petitions from manufacturing
districts, praying for interference in behalf of the children employed
in factories, who were often required to work twenty hours
out of the twenty-four, and were otherwise ill-treated. The bishop
made some remarkable statements in the course of his appeal, which
was manly and sensible; and I observed Melbourne, the minister,
who is a full-sized, elderly man, leave his seat and whisper somebody,
and then return with a point-blank contradiction to one of the
bishop’s assertions, which of course produced a rejoinder.

When I re-visited the house on the 17th, the Marquis of Londonderry
had the floor. My object was to see Wellington. ‘Pray is he
here?’ ‘Yes; don’t you see his nose?’ Ah, there’s no mistaking
the duke. There he sits, between the dandy-exquisite-moustached-tory-Duke
of Cumberland (the king’s brother) and Lord Lyndhurst,
the intellectual giant of the house, the ablest peer of them all, and
the best orator, perhaps the only orator, among them. ‘He is an
extraordinary man, that,’ said my neighbor. ‘No doubt,’ thought I.
‘His father was a native of our own Boston.’ ‘That tall man, with
a short neck, and black hair, is Lord Ellenborough, and he in the
rear, the Earl of Devon, all tories—’birds of a feather.’ ‘Brougham
is not here; he appears to have retired of late from public life.
But hush! The duke is going to speak! Lo! the great captain,
who is at once two dukes, (Spanish and English,) a prince, (of Belgium,)
two marquisses, three generals, a ‘field-marshal, four or five
ex-premiers, knight of the garter, Chancellor of the University of
Oxford, Constable of the Tower, and filling I know not how many
other stations; the conqueror of Napoleon; the commander of three
great armies; the leader at the ball of Brussels, when

this famous great-little man rose to speak. And he spoke ‘pretty
well, considering.’ He hesitates and stutters at times, but when he
gets warm with his subject, as he is now, he waxes quite eloquent.
He is evidently listened to with much deference and attention. They
have not forgotten Waterloo.

I usually attend church on Sunday afternoons at Westminster
Abbey. I love to go there. One can read sermons on the walls.
The very tombs discourse history, poetry, and philosophy. The
verbal preachers are usually sufficiently dull. Among others, I have
heard the Bishops of Hereford, Chester, and Exeter; and (in his[157]
own church) the Rev. George Croly, the poet, author of ‘Salathiel.’
Croly is a man of fifty, or thereabout, a high tory, and distinguished
for his eloquence; but according to my humble opinion,
neither of these great guns will compare with our Dr. H—— as pulpit
orators. But there is something impressive in the church service
in such a place as this venerable abbey. Here you may sit within
a few steps of the spot where sleep the mortal remains of the royal
Edwards, Henrys, Richards, of old; the knights of chivalry repose
at your feet; from the valiant deeds of the Black Prince, the bloody
career of the monster Gloucester, the mad pranks of Falstaff’s
dearly beloved ‘Hal,’ the brilliant court of Elizabeth, and the woes
of the unfortunate Mary Stuart, your thoughts turn, on a glance at
other tablets, to the lofty strains of him who sung of

and to the splendid creations of the Bard of Avon; the epitaphs of
the time-honored Chaucer; ‘O Rare Ben Johnson;’ and the whole
host of poets, statesmen, and philosophers—stars of the first magnitude
in English literature—meet your eye on every side; and while
you are so forcibly reminded that

the rich, full notes of the organ, softened by the voices of the juvenile
choir, are echoed through the lofty and venerable arches, as they
chant in harmonious chorus:

Windsor Castle, July 11.—At the ‘White Horse Cellar,’
Piccadilly, I perched myself on a Windsor coach, and off we rattled
by Apsley House, Hyde-Park, and Kensington Gardens, our coachee
skilfully threading his way between the innumerable omnibuses and
other vehicles which ply between the modern Babel and the hundred-and-one
villages in its environs. We passed through Kensington,
Kingsbridge, Hounslow, Brentford, Hammersmith, Kew, Turnham
Green, and a series of gardens between. The castle is first seen
from the road, crowning an elevation about three miles distant, on
the left; the coach makes a short turn through the town of Eton,
where is the celebrated school, or college, in which noblemen are
proud to have been educated; and with a glance at its curious Gothic
chapel, we crossed a bridge over the Thames, and were at once
in the respectable old town of Windsor, where there are no doubt
as many ‘merry wives’ as in the days of Shakspeare and sweet
Anne Page. There are several approaches to the castle, the chief
one being from the Great Park; but the public are admitted only on
the side of the town, through the two ‘outer walls,’ each of which
are well flanked with towers of stone. The castle itself covers as
much space as a small village, and a novice is somewhat puzzled in
its labyrinths of arches, donjons, inner and outer walls, towers, and[158]
gate-ways. It is indeed a magnificent and kingly structure, or rather
assemblage of structures, for the various parts have been built at
widely different periods, and in every variety of form; but the
whole seems most happily combined in one vast and imposing edifice,
in which the strength, grandeur, and castellated style of the old
baronial strong holds, is as remarkable, as the elegance, splendor,
and comfort of a modern palace. It is well described by Von Raumer,
in his letters. His majesty, it appeared, had not been advised
of my visit, and had gone to take his déjeuner at Kew; but I found
that a couple of his representatives, in the shape of shilling-pieces,
would introduce me at once into the state apartments; and I can
conscientiously give my full approval of the audience-chambers, the
throne room, ball-room, and St. George’s Hall, as being magnificent,
in the highest degree. This part of the castle has been recently
renovated and modernized, at great expense. All the rooms
are adorned with fine paintings and tapestries, of which latter,
the ‘History of Esther’ series is particularly beautiful. At the Hampton-Court
Palace I saw the duplicate original of those tapestries
from Raphael, which we had in New-York. From the terraces of the
castle, you have a thoroughly English landscape; green meadows,
winding streams, and gentle elevations. St. George’s Chapel, adjoining
the castle, is considered a gem of Gothic architecture. It
contains the twenty-four stalls of the knights of the garter, with
their banners suspended above. In the park, adjoining the castle, I
looked for Hearne’s oak, and sure enough, there was the tree where
tradition says Falstaff was enticed and pinched by the fairies; and
near it is the foot-path to Dachet Mead, where they ducked him in
the buck-basket.

The approach to the castle from the Great Park, and the sweet
little lake called Virginia Water, is through a noble avenue, extending
three miles in a perfectly strait and level line, shaded by rows of
stately elms. One of the best views of the castle is from the hill,
at the end of this avenue. I have made up my mind, that Windsor
and Warwick cannot be equalled, ‘in their way,’ as Mr. Cooper
says, in all Europe.

On the way back, there was an amusing dispute on the top of the
coach between a tory, a moderate reformer, and a fiery radical. I
was astonished to observe the freedom and boldness with which they
settled the affairs of the nation, and railed at each other’s party, or
individuals composing it. John Bull certainly allows his children
some liberties—those of speech, the press, and conscience—(though
perhaps scarcely the last,) and a stranger may gain more insight into
the character and opinions of the people, in a mixed company, like
that of a stage-coach, than from all the books in the museum.

The police of London is, perhaps, more efficient, without being
oppressive, than any other in the world. In Paris, the agents of the
police are very numerous; but they act in secret service; they are
spies on the people; and though I am not aware of having seen a[159]
policeman there, it is extremely probable that I met them daily at
the cafês and dining-rooms. But in London, they are in no disguise.
They are distinguished by a uniform suit of blue and a cockade, and
are to be seen at every turn and corner, day and night, always on the
watch for the least show of disturbance. There must be, at least, two
or three thousand of these men constantly employed for the seemingly
idle purpose of walking the streets. Disorder is consequently
rare, and is always checked in the bud; and drunken vagrants, if
ever seen, are soon disposed of, for a policeman is always within call.
There is, also, a night horse-patrol for the environs. Each of the
public buildings is sentinelled by one or more of the ‘Life Guards,’
who are richly dressed in scarlet, with tremendous black, bushy
caps, à la grenadier Francaise. These valiant troops also attend the
members of the royal family, when they visit public places. A part
of them are mounted, and have their head-quarters at the ‘Horse
Guards’ in Whitehall and St. James’ Park.

The working classes, and even the ‘tradesmen’ of England, as well
as I could judge, are far from being so well informed as those of the
United States. One of the most obvious reasons is, the comparatively
high price of books and newspapers in England, which places
these luxuries beyond the reach of such as gain the scanty pittance
of their daily bread by the sweat of their brow. Many, even those
who may be said to belong to the middle classes, appear to have access
to newspapers only at the public dining-rooms; and as to the
publications of the day, they are well content with the loan of them
from a circulating-library, for nearly as much as the whole book may
be bought for in New York. How many of the thousands among
us who get the last novel of Bulwer, James, or Marryat, for the
trifling sum of fifty cents, would make the purchase, if they had to
pay one pound eleven shillings and sixpence, or seven dollars, as in
London? New novels can only be afforded there by the librarian,
the nobility, or the millionaire. But with us, all classes have books;
and the mechanic’s apprentice, with the penny paper in his hand,
may discuss the politics of the day as wisely, perhaps, as his master,
or the president himself.

I would not assume a critical nicety in matters which belong to
more learned heads, but I must say, that the vulgar pronunciation of
many words, not only among the cockney tribe, but, according to Mr.
Cooper,[6] reaching even to the bishops, was continually grating on
my ear, in London. I inquired for Holborn, which seemed to be a
place unknown, until I learned that the English of it was Hobun.
Lombard, you must call Lumbud; Warwick, Warrick; Thames, Tems;
Pall Mall, Pell-Mell, and so on. We have even the high authority
of Lord Brougham, or rather Lord Broom, for calling Birmingham
Brummagem. I really think that we yankee rebels are far more loyal
to the king’s English, than his majesty’s liege subjects.

[160]

There are many words which the English use in quite a different
sense from ourselves, and many articles which they call by a different,
and often more appropriate, name. Every body knows that by a
clever man, they mean a man of genius and talent; and a very clever
man would be with them a person of extraordinary celebrity; whereas
we only apply the word to a good-natured ‘hale fellow well met.’
The coachman would feel his dignity insulted, if you called him
driver; and you should also be careful to say luggage instead of
baggage, or there may be a whisper of scandal. Nice is peculiarly
an English word. Several of our own coining have been endorsed
in England, such as talented, dutiable, etc.

The peasantry, and others of the lowest classes in England, are a
robust and hardy, but certainly an ignorant and boorish race. Their
highest enjoyment would seem to be a horse-race, a mug of ale, or
‘pot o’ ‘alf-and-‘alf;’ and they drink these brain-muddling beverages
in prodigious quantities. With their ale and roast beef, it is no
wonder that the English are not of the lean kind!

It is to be hoped that ignorance respecting the American people,
and groundless prejudice against them, is daily becoming less prevalent
in England; but a visitor from the United States is yet often as
much astonished as amused, at the notions of the people there about
us. A traveller is always sure to fall in with conversible companions;
and it is gratifying to find on the way many agreeable and intelligent
persons, who, with but partial advances on your part, will enter
into your plans, and without impertinent curiosity, will readily impart
information, or render assistance. At Warwick, a few days after I
first landed at Liverpool, I met with a couple of gentlemen of this
stamp; and, in the course of conversation, I mentioned that I was an
American. They both seemed surprised, and remarked that I spoke
English very well; ‘they should never have taken me for an American;’
and gravely inquired if ‘the English language was usually
spoken in the United States.’ This was evidently a ‘man of substance,’
and he had just been complaining of the wretched state of
public education in England! I seldom confessed that I was any
other than ‘a native born and bred,’ but whenever I did plead guilty
of being an American, I always observed an expression of wonder,
if not of absolute incredulity. It will scarcely be believed, but it is
not more strange than true, that many in this land of learning
expect to see in an ‘American’ a person of different color, habits,
and language, from themselves. They seem to apply the word
American only to the aborigines; and the descendants of those who
have come from England, Scotland, or other European countries,
they consider as still belonging to his ‘father-land;’ and the mass
of people in England have the most vague and crude notions about
matters and things in this distant republic. Ten to one you may
be asked what state Virginia is in, or if there are ‘many Indians in
New-York,’ meaning the city. One good lady had an idea that the
Indians were black, and that they were the same as our present
slaves! When the Americans, in Paris, joined the English residents[161]
in congratulating the king on his escape from assassination, one of
the English committee proposed, that the republicans should appear
in their ‘own court dress!’ One would think, that with the present
facility of intercourse between the two countries, they might be
better informed; but it is certainly the fact, that in the present 1836,
you will hear blunders, such as these specimens, from five persons
out of eight, in England, who have any thing to say concerning the
United States.

THE WAVES.

‘I could never tire of gazing upon waves. Whether watching them by the shore of an inland
lake, as they roll up, in hues of emerald, to the reedy marge, or listening to their swelling monotone,
as they break upon the long sea-beach, or curl into white foam in mid-ocean, they are alike beautiful
and inspiring to me.’

Letter from a Friend.

I.

II.

III.

IV.

Hartford, 1837.

Zelotes.

[162]

OLLAPODIANA.

NUMBER TWENTY.

Whether you be gentle or simple, reader—whether poetical or
prose-enamored—you have been free from any inflictions or productions
of mine—whichsoever you may please to call them—any
time these several months. If the omission has been grievous, you
have had a monition that your life is not all sunshine, many things
being oft anticipated, which come not to hand of him that desireth
them; if pleasing, you are now reminded, that pleasures of a sublunary
character are too brief to have long uniform continuance, since
‘diuturnity of delight is a dream, and folly of expectation.’ So much
for prefatory philosophy. Plato, when he paced along the olive-walks,
beneath the groves of Academe, or listened to the prattle of
shining Grecian streams of yore, never knew what it was to meditate
the exordium of a magazine paper. As yet, when he flourished,
‘editors and agents of periodicals’ never took prominent parts in university
processions, with toll-gate keepers, sea-serpents, and American
eagles, as was jocosely related of the late conflagratory assemblage
in the edifice of Brown, on Providence Plantations.

By the way, I laughed extremely at the piece to which I allude,
which was full of delightsome and most facetious things, right
aptly conceited. It was an imaginary procession at Brown University,
on occasion of burning all the literary productions of the students
for the last five or six years. Had the sacrificial mandate extended
to the honorary members of her societies, then would Ollapod have
been obliged to be present with his offering to the insatiate elements;
and with ‘survivors of the Boston massacre, in coaches,’ or
‘superannuated toll-keepers of the Pawtucket Turnpike,’ followed in
the train of the great marine visitor at Nahant, or that supposed bird,
met by the dreamer (immortalized by the muse of Sands) who sailed
a-nigh it in his vision, what time his spectral charger waved to the
breeze of midnight

I’ll warrant me a dozen of Burgundy, with all olives and appurtenances
thereunto properly belonging, that this same humorous description
gave offence to those who support the dignity of a time-honored
alma-mater. But they must have laughed in their sleeves at
the witty conception of it. Yet it is an old saying, ‘A blow with a
word strikes deeper than one with a sword.’ ‘Many men,’ saith the
profound old Democritus, Junior, ‘are as much gauled with a jest,
a pasquil, satyre, apologe, epigram, or the like, as with any misfortune
whatever. Princes and potentates, that are otherwise happy,
and have all at command, secure and free, are grievously vexed with
these pasquilling satyrs: they fear a railing Aretine, more than an
enemy in the field; which made most princes of his time, as some[163]
relate, allow him a liberal pension, that he should not tax them in his
satyrs. The gods had their Momus, Homer his Zoïlus, Achilles his
Thersites, Philip his Demades: the Cæsars themselves in Rome
were commonly taunted. There was never wanting a Petronius, a
Lucian, in those times; nor will be a Rabelais, an Euphormio, a
Boccalinus, in ours. Adrian the Sixth, pope, was so highly offended
and grievously vexed with pasquils at Rome, he gave command that
satyre should be demolished and burned, the ashes flung into the river
Tiber, and had done it forthwith, had not Ludovicus, a facete
companion, dissuaded him to the contrary, by telling him that
pasquils would turn to frogs in the bottom of the river, and croak
worse and louder than before.’ A right pithy description is this, of
the effect of wit and words.

I have sometimes guffawed immeasurably, at the sharp cuts and
thrusts not seldom indulged in by the current writers of our country,
both in periodicals and newspapers. Not that I particularly affect
the vapid abortions which appear in each department, as now and
then they must inevitably do: but names and sources might readily
be mentioned in both, whereat the general lip shall curl you a smile,
as if by intuition. Our magazines have a goodly sprinkling of the
cheerful; and in dull times, one can but wish that they even had
more. There is a spirit—and I mentioned but now the name of its
incarnate habitation—which has gone from among us, no more to
return. Ah me!—that spirit! It was stored with sublunary lore;
calm, philosophical, observant; a lens, through which the colors of a
warm heart, full of genuine philanthropy and goodness, shone forth
upon the world. It was sportive in its satire, and its very sadness
was cheerful. Grasping and depicting the Great, it yet ennobled
and beautified the Small. Its messengers of thought, winged and
clothed with beautiful plumage, went forth in the world, to please by
their changeableness, or to impress the eye of fancy with their enduring
loveliness. Such was the spirit of Sands, whose light was
quenched forever, while ‘inditing a good matter’ for the very pages
which now embody this feeble tribute to his genius. I well remember,
when I first approached his native city, after his death,
how thick-coming were the associations connected with his memory,
which brought the tears into my eyes. The distant shades of Hoboken,
where he so loved to wander; the spreading bay, whereon his
‘rapt, inspired’ eye has so often rested; the city, towering sleepily
afar; the fairy hues of coming twilight, trembling over the glassy
Hudson, sloop-bestrown; the half-silver, half-emerald shades, blending
together under the heights of Weehawken—these, appealing to
my eye, recalled the Lost to my side. I looked to the shore, and
there

[164]

No bard, ‘holy and true,’ was ever more deeply imbued than
Sands with ‘the spirit of song.’ Sublimity, tenderness, description,
all were his. But in his dissertations on all subjects, his struggling
humor at last came uppermost. From classic stores, he could educe
the novel jeu d’esprit; from fanciful premises, the most amusing conclusions.
Having given a pleasant line or two from one of his happiest
sketches, I feel irresistibly inclined to encompass the whole.
It is necessary, beforehand, to discern the preamble of the argument.
A fellow-minstrel has indited and published to the world a fanciful
picture of the national eagle, in all his original wildness, surrounded
with characteristic scenery. The picture is a grand one, but over-colored;
and would seem to have been drawn according to the admitted
principle of the writer in composition, that ‘whatever he
writes is either superlatively good, or sheer nonsense.’ The former
quality predominates; but there is enough of the latter in all he has
written. The minstrel just mentioned also gave birth to a midnight
phantom, or the sketch of a most supernal steed; the burlesque presentment
whereof is hereto annexed, together with certain allusions
to the feathery emblem of the republic, which show that the limner
knew how to kill two rare objects with one satirical ‘fragment of
granite:’

[166]

Sands was a lover of nature, with an affection ‘passing the love
of women;’ and he entered into the very heart of her mysteries.
Lately, I made a pilgrimage to a scene which he has depainted, in
one of those quiet, rich, and noble sketches, which have gained such
celebrity to his pen. It was the Catskills.

It fell on a day, when the guns and thunder of artillery proclaimed,
according to the Fourth-of-July orators,’the birth-day of freedom,’ that
we made our way from the crowded city, to the majestic craft that
was to convey us up the Hudson. What a contrast did the embarkation
scene present to the tranquil Delaware, and the calm, sweet city
of fraternal affection! Thousands of garish pennons were abroad
on the gale; the winds, as they surged along on their viewless wings,
were heavy with the sound of cannon, the rolling of chariot-wheels,
and the shouts of multitudes. To me, it is an edifying and a thought-inspiring
sight, to look from the promenade-deck of a receding
steamer upon a city, as it glides into distance. The airy heights,
dwelling-crowned, around; the craft going to and fro; the thousand
destinations of the throngs that fill them; the hopes and fears that
impel them. Some are on errands of business; some, on those of
pleasure:

Yonder a gay ship, her sails filled with air and sunshine, hastens
through the Narrows. She is a packet, outward bound. We see
her as she goes. Within her are hearts sighing to leave their
native land; from tearful eyes there extends the level of the telescope
which brings the distant near; and at some upper casement
in the town, a trembling hand waves the white ‘kerchief, still descried;
at last it trembles into a glimmer; the ocean haze rises
between, and the bosom which it cheered goes below to heave with
the nausea marina, and feel the benefits of an attentive steward.

It is beautiful to ascend the Hudson, on, the birth-day christened as
aforesaid. On every green point where the breeze rustles the
foliage, and around which the crystal waters roll, you may see the
grim ordnance, belching forth its thunder-clap and grass-wadding;
the brave officers and ‘marshals of the day,’ sporting their emblems of
immortal glory; the urchins, with chequered pantaloons, and collars
turned over their coats, their tender hearts and warm imaginations
excited and wild with the grandeur of the scene; and as you pass
some beautiful town, you may see the stars and stripes waving from
an eminence, near the meeting-house or town-hall; and as you pass
the line of a street which tends to the river, you may eke observe
‘the orator of the day,’ with his roll of patriotism and eloquence
in his hand, marching sublimely onward, behind prancing chargers,
heroes in gay attire, meditating death to any possible foes of the
country, on any future battailous emergency; and sustained and
soothed (he, the orator,) by the brattling of brass horns, and the roll[167]
of the stirring drums behind him; the ladies, meanwhile—God bless
them!—looking neat and cheerful at the windows, or in the streets.
Then for the tourist to see the places in such a transit, hallowed in
his country’s history; the old head-quarters of Washington, as at
Newburgh, above whose humble roof, near which one tall and solitary
Lombard waved and whispered mournfully in the air, there streamed
a faded red banner, that had caught the roll of the war-drum in the
revolution, and rustled its folds more quickly at the gun-peals that
sent an iron storm into invading breasts! And then, to think that
millions on millions, in ‘many a lovely valley out of sight,’ in states,
and territories stretching to the flowery prairies, and where the setting
sun flames along the far mountains of the west, the same anthems
were ascending; the same glorious love of country inculcated;
it is a train of thought ennobling—pure—imperishable! Then it
is, that the mind has visions which no vocabulary can clothe and
wreak upon expression; when the faculties ache with that indescribable
blending of love, hope, and pride, such as was faintly shadowed
by the minstrel, when he sang:

Presupposing that a man is possessed of a soul, it is my belief that
he cannot traverse the Hudson, even if it be for the hundredth time,
without new and delicious sensations. The noble shores, now
broken into sweet and solemn vistas, until they become steeped
in romance—the capacious bays—the swelling sails—the craft of
all sorts, hastening to and fro—all are impressive and beautiful.
You have such a variety of steamer-life about you, too—that is the
best of it—odd congregations of character. Yonder stands, looking
at the shores, and now and then at his watch, a man who, by his
look, should be a divine. He hath a white cravat around his neck,
tied behind, with extreme closeness, at ‘the precise point betwixt
ornament and strangulation.’ He proceedeth to the bow of the boat
to look to his luggage. Such an one I saw; and he was accosted,
somewhat abruptly, by a clock-pedlar, who had been whittling a pine
shrub, near the taffrail, (and whistling the sublime national song of
Yankee Doodle—that most dignified effusion)—and who bespake
him thus: ‘Square, you don’t know nawthing about that youg woman,
yender, do ye?—with that lay-lock dress on to her—do ye?’
‘No,’ replied the ambassador for the high court above, ‘I do not;
and I wonder at your asking me such a question.’

‘Why, I axed you, ’cause I seen you a-looking at her yourself;
and ’cause I think she’s blamenation elegint!’

‘That’s enough, my friend; you had better run along,’ was the
august reply; and the colloquy ended.

Paused for a moment at Rhinebeck, to release a passenger in a
small boat, let down amid the agitated foam at the steamer’s side.[168]
How sad, that the beauty of a landscape should be stained by the
memories of death! Here once lived, drinking the spirit of golden
youthful hours, and rejoicing in existence, a warm and devoted
friend, now alas! no more—John Rudolph Sutermeister. The
pestilence, for such it was, swept him from being, in the pride of
his intellect, and the full flush of his manhood. As I surveyed the
place where he had embarked for the last time for the metropolis,
in whose romantic suburbs his bones were so soon to lie, the illusion,
as it were of a dream, came over me, and I almost fancied I
could see him coming on board. I thought of the many pleasant
hours we had consumed together, in walks where romance and early
friendship sanctified the groves, as the red sun, tinting the lake, and
closing the flowers, and beautifying the tender woodlands of spring,
went down behind the cedars of the west, in a sea of gold, and
crimson, and purple. Those were blessed hours; moments when
the enthusiasm, the glowing hopes, the far-reaching thoughts, which
take to themselves the wings of the eagle, and soar into the mysteries
of unborn years, coloring the future from the gorgeous prism
of the imagination, all were ours. How, at that point of reminiscence,
did they throng back to my experience and my view! I fancied
that my friend was by my side, his arm in mine; and a
voice, like the tones of a spirit, seemed breathing in my ear:

Poor Shade! He seemed ever to have a presentiment of his
coming and early doom; and his prophetic vision often pierced the
future, in lines akin to the solemn stanzas which close his beautiful
‘Night Thoughts:’

But he was translated to an early paradise, by the kind fiat of
a benevolent God. Pure in heart, fresh and warm in his affections,
he loved to live, because he lived to love; and he is now in
that better country,

[169]

He had a languid but not unpleasing melancholy about his life,
which entered into his verse, and moaned from every vibration of
his excelling lyre. How beautiful—how touching—how mournful,
are these bodings in his song:

One picks up a marvellous degree of gratuitous and most novel
information, from the miscellaneous people who pass hither and
thither in steam-craft. Bits of knowledge strike you unaware; and
if you believe it, you will be a much wiser man, when you greet the
morrow morn after a day’s travel. For example, when we had
passed the shadowy highlands, and the Catskills were seen heaving
their broad blue shoulders against the brilliant horizon, a man with
a pot-belly, in a round-about, with a bell-crowned hat, over which
was drawn a green oil-skin, shading his tallowy cheeks, and most
rubicund nose, approached my side, and interrupted my reverie, by[170]
volunteering some intelligence. ‘Them is very respectable mountains,’
he said, ‘but a man don’t know nothin’ about articles of that
kind, unless he sees the tower of Scotland. I am not, as you may
likely be about to inquire, a natyve of that country; but I have
saw friends which has been there; and furthermore, the mountains
there was all named after relations of mine, by the mother’s side.
At present, all them elewated sections of country is nick-named.
Now the name of Ben. Lomond has been curtailed into an abbreviation.
That hill was named after an uncle of my grandfather’s, Benjamin
Lomond. Ben. Nevis was a brother of my grandmother’s,
who had the same given name; and a better man than Benjamin
Nevis never broke bread, or got up in the morning. From all
accounts, he was consid’rable wealthy, at one time; though I’ve
hear’n tell since, that he was a busted man. But just to think of all
them perversions! Isn’t it ‘orrid?’ With this and other information
did this glorious volunteer in history break in upon my musings; and
when he turned upon his heel, and clattered away, he left me with
an impression of his visage in my mind akin to that which the fat
knight entertained of Bardolph: ‘Thou art our admiral; thou
bearest the lantern in the nose of thee; thou art the knight of the
burning lamp. I never see thy face, but I think of hell-fire, and
Dives, that lived in purple; for there he is in his robes, burning,
burning.’

You would scarcely think, arrived at Catskill Landing, on the
Hudson, just before you enter the coach which conveys you to the
mountain, that any extraordinary prospect was about to open upon
your vision. True, as when on the water, the great cloud Presence
looms afar; yet there is a long level country between it and you;
and it is too early in the day to drink in the grandeur of the scene.
You are content with watching the complex operations of that
aquatic and equestrian mystery, a horse-boat, which plies from the
humble tavern at the water’s edge to the other shore of the Hudson.
The animals give a consumptive wheeze, as they start, stretching
out their long necks, indulging in faint recollections of that
happy juvenescence, when they wasted the hours of their colthood
in pastures of clover, and moving with a kind of unambitious sprawl,
as if they cared but little whether they stood or fell; a turn of mind
which induces them to stir their forward legs more glibly than those
in the opposite quarter, quickening the former from pride, and ‘contracting
the latter from motives of decency.’ This is said to be their
philosophy; and they act upon it with a religious devotion, ‘worthy
a better cause.’

As you move along from the landing, by pleasant and quiet waters,
and through scenes of pastoral tranquillity, you seem to be threading
a road which leads through a peaceful and variegated plain. You
lose the memory of the highlands and the river, in the thought that
you are taking a journey into a country as level as the lowliest land
in Jersey. Sometimes, the mountains, as you turn a point of the road,[171]
appear afar; but ‘are they clouds, or are they not?’ By the mass,
you shall hardly tell. Meantime, you are a plain-traveller—a quiet
man. All at once you are wheeled upon a vernal theatre, some five
or six miles in width, at whose extremity the bases of the Catskills
‘gin to rise. How impressive the westering sunshine, sifting itself down
the mighty ravines and hollows, and tinting the far-off summits with
aërial light! How majestic yet soft the gradations from the ponderous
grandeur of the formation, up—up—to the giddy and delicate
shadowings, which dimly veil and sanctify their tops, as ‘sacristies
of nature,’ where the cedar rocks to the wind, and the screaming
eagle snaps his mandibles, as he sweeps a circuit of miles with one
full impulse of his glorious wing! Contrasting the roughness of the
basis with the printed beauty of the iris-hued and skïey ultimatum,
I could not but deem that the bard of ‘Thanatopsis’ had well
applied to the Catskills those happy lines wherein he apostrophizes
the famous heights of Europe:

Be not too eager, as you take the first stage of the mountain, to
look about you; especially, be not anxious to look afar. Now and
then, it is true, as the coach turns, you cannot choose but see a landscape,
to the south and east, farther off than you ever saw one before,
broken up into a thousand vistas; but look you at them with a sleepy,
sidelong eye, to the end that you may finally receive from the Platform
the full glory of the final view. In the mean time, there is
enough directly about you to employ all your eyes, if you had the
ocular endowments of an Argus. Huge rocks, that might have been
sent from warring Titans, decked with moss, overhung with rugged
shrubbery, and cooling the springs that trickle from beneath
them gloom beside the way; vast chasms, which your coach shall sometimes
seem to overhang, yawn on the left; the pine and cedar-scented
air comes freely and sweetly from the brown bosom of the
woods; until, one high ascent attained, a level for a while succeeds,
and your smoking horses rest, while, with expanding nostril, you
drink in the rarer and yet rarer air; a stillness like the peace of
Eden, (broken only by the whisper of leaves, the faint chant of embowered
birds, or the distant notes that come ‘mellowed and mingling
from the vale below,’) hangs at the portal of your ear. It is a
time to be still—to be contemplative—to hear no voice but your
own ejaculations, or those of one who will share and heighten your
enjoyment, by partaking it in peace, and as one with you, yet alone.

Passing the ravine, where the immortal Rip Van Winkle played
his game of nine-pins with the wizards of that neighborhood, and
quaffed huge draughts of those bewildering flagons, which made him
sleep for years, I flung myself impatiently from the ‘quarter-deck’[172]
of the postillion whose place I had shared; I grasped that goodly globe
of gold and ivory which heads my customary cane—the present of
‘My Hon. friend’ S——, and which once drew into itself the sustenance
of life from that hallowed mound which guards the dust of
Washington—and pushed gaily on, determined to pause not, until
my weary feet stood on the Platform. The road was smooth and good;
the air refreshing and pure, beyond description. The lungs play
there without an effort; it is a luxury to breathe. How holy was
the stillness! Not a sound invaded the solemn air; it was like
inhaling the sanctity of the empyrean. The forest tops soon began
to stir with a mighty wind. I looked, and on both sides of the road
there were trees whose branches had been broken, as if by the wings
of some rushing tempest. It was the havoc of winter snows.

There is a wonderful deception in the approach to the Mountain-House,
which, when discovered, will strike the traveller with amazement.
At one point of the road, where the mansion which is to terminate
your pilgrimage heaves its white form in view, (you have seen
it from the river for nearly half a day,) it seems not farther than a
hundred rods, and hangs apparently on the verge of a stupendous
crag over your head; the road turns again, it is out of sight, and the
summits, near its locus in quo, are nearly three miles off. The effect
is wonderful. The mountain is growing upon you.

I continued to ascend, slowly, but with patient steps, and with a
flow of spirit which I cannot describe. Looking occasionally to
the east, I saw a line of such parti-colored clouds, (as then I deemed
them,) yellow, green, and purple, silver-laced, and violet-bordered,
that it meseemed I never viewed the like kaleidoscopic presentments.
All this time, I wondered that I had seen no land for many
a weary mile.

Hill after hill, mere ridges of the mountain, was attained—summit
after summit surmounted—and yet it seemed to me that the
house was as far off as ever. Finally it appeared, and a-nigh; to me
the ‘earth’s one sanctuary.’ I reached it; my name was on the book;
the queries of the publican, as to ‘how many coach-loads were
behind,’ (symptoms of a yearning for the almighty dollar, even in
this holy of nature’s holies) were answered, and I stood on the Platform.

Good Reader!—expect me not to describe the indescribable. I
feel now, while memory is busy in my brain, in the silence of my
library, calling up that vision to my mind, much as I did when I
leaned upon my staff before that omnipotent picture, and looked
abroad upon its God-written magnitude. It was a vast and changeful,
a majestic, an interminable landscape; a fairy, grand, and delicately-colored
scene, with rivers for its lines of reflection; with
highlands and the vales of states for its shadowings, and far-off mountains
for its frame. Those parti-colored and varying clouds I fancied
I had seen as I ascended, were but portions of the scene. All colors
of the rainbow—all softness of harvest-field, and forest, and distant
cities, and the towns that simply dotted the Hudson—and far beyond[173]
where that noble river, diminished to a brooklet, rolled its waters,
there opened mountain after mountain, vale after vale, state after
state, heaved against the horizon, to the north-east and south, in impressive
and sublime confusion; while still beyond, in undulating
ridges, filled with all hues of light and shade, coquetting with the
cloud, rolled the rock-ribbed and ancient frame of this dim diorama.
As the sun went down, the houses and cities diminished to dots;
the evening guns of the national anniversary came booming up from
the valley of the Hudson; the bonfires blazed along the peaks of
distant mountains, and from the suburbs of countless villages along
the river; while in the dim twilight,

The steam-boats, hastening to and fro, vomited their fires upon the
air, and the circuit of unnumbered miles sent up its sights and sounds,
from the region below, over which the vast shadows of the mountains
were stealing.

Just before the sun dropped behind the west, his slant beams
poured over the south mountain, and fell upon a wide sea of feathery
clouds, which were sweeping midway along its form, obscuring the
vale below. I sought an eminence in the neighborhood, and with
the sun at my back, saw a giant form depicted in a misty halo on the
clouds below. He was identified—insubstantial but extensive
Shape! I stretched forth my hand, and the giant spectre waved his
shadowy arm over the whole county of Dutchess, through the misty
atmosphere; while just at his supernatural coat-tail, a shower of
light played upon the highlands, verging toward West Point, on the
river, which are to the eye, from the Mountain-House, level slips of
shore, that seem scarce so gross as knolls of the smallest size.

Of the grandeur of the Catskills at sunrise; of the patriotic
blazon which our bonfire made on the Fourth, at evening; of the
Falls, and certain pecuniary trickeries connected with their grim
majesty, and a general digest of the stupendous scene, shall these
not be discoursed hereafter, and in truthful wise? Yea, reader,
verily, and from the note-book of thine, faithful to the end,

Ollapod.

TO THE NEW MOON.

New-York, August, 1837.

James F. Otis.

[174]

LITERARY NOTICES.

Memoirs, Correspondence, and Manuscripts, of General Lafayette. Published
by his Family. Volume One. pp. 552. With a Portrait. New-York: Saunders
and Otley.

We gather from an advertisement of the American editor of this large and
beautiful volume, William A. Duer, Esq., that it was the desire of Lafayette that
it should be considered as a legacy to the American people. In carrying his wishes
into effect, therefore, his representatives have furnished a separate edition for this
country, in which are inserted many letters that will not appear in the London and
Paris editions, together with numerous details relating to the American revolution.
The letters referred to, were written by Lafayette, in the course of his first residence
in America, when he was little accustomed to write in the English language, and
are given exactly as they came from his pen. We need not add, that they are replete
with interest.

The general history of the great Apostle of Liberty is familiar to the American
people. In a brief notice of the volume before us, therefore, we shall select a few
only of such passages as have more particularly impressed us, in a desultory perusal.
The annexed paragraph, from the opening of the memoir, is characteristic. The
writer, though indulging a secret project of arming and despatching a vessel to this
country, to aid the struggling colonies, is nevertheless obliged, the better to conceal his
designs, to take a journey to England:

“I could not refuse to go, without risking the discovery of my secret, and by consenting
to take this journey, I knew I could better conceal my preparations for a greater
one. This last measure was also thought most expedient by MM. Franklin and Deane;
for the doctor himself was then in France; and although I did not venture to go to his
home, for fear of being seen, I corresponded with him through M. Carmichael, an American
less generally known. I arrived in London with M. de Poix; and I first paid my
respects to Bancroft, the American, and afterwards to his British Majesty. A youth of
nineteen may be, perhaps, too fond of playing a trick upon the king he is going to fight
with—of dancing at the house of Lord Germain, minister for the English colonies,
and at the house of Lord Rawdon, who had just returned from New-York—and of
seeing at the opera that Clinton whom he was afterwards to meet at Monmouth. But
whilst I concealed my intentions, I openly avowed my sentiments; I often defended
the Americans; I rejoiced at their success at Trenton; and my spirit of opposition
obtained for me an invitation to breakfast with Lord Shelbourne. I refused the offers
made me to visit the sea-ports, the vessels fitting out against the rebels, and every thing
that might be construed into an abuse of confidence. At the end of three weeks, when
it became necessary for me to return home, whilst refusing my uncle, the ambassador,
to accompany him to court, I confided to him my strong desire to take a trip to Paris.
He proposed saying that I was ill during my absence, I should not have made use of
this stratagem myself, but I did not object to his doing so.”

In reading, from his own pen, the account of his leaving France—the violent and
peremptory letters from his family and government, denouncing his purpose, and
demanding its relinquishment—the grief of his lovely wife, soon to become a mother—we
are reminded of that forcible tribute of Sprague to this lofty disinterestedness,[175]
than which nothing in the English language is more touching and felicitous.
Though doubtless familiar to many of our readers, we cannot resist the inclination to
quote a single appropriate passage: ‘He left,’ says he, ‘the blushing vine-hills of
his delightful France. The people whom he came to succour were not his people;
he knew them only in the wicked story of their wrongs. He was no mercenary
wretch, striving for the spoils of the vanquished; he ranked among nobles, and
looked unawed upon kings. He was no nameless outcast, seeking for a grave to
hide his cold heart; his children were about him—his wife was before him. Yet
from all these he turned away, and came. As the lofty tree shakes down its green
glories to battle with the winter storm, he threw aside the trappings of pride and
place, to crusade for freedom in Freedom’s holy land. He came, not in the day of
successful rebellion, when the newly-risen star of independence had burst the cloud of
time, and careered to its place in the heavens; but he came when darkness curtained
the hills, and the tempest was abroad in its anger; when the plough stood still in the
field of promise, and briars cumbered the garden of beauty; when the wife was
binding up the gashed bosom of her husband, and the maiden was wiping the death-damp
from the brow of her lover; and when the pious began to doubt the favor of
God.’

In the intervals of that heart destroying malady, sea-sickness, Lafayette employed
his time, during the voyage, in acquiring some knowledge of the English language;
and when at last he arrived on our coast, he found it swarming with hostile vessels,
and landed at midnight at Georgetown, South Carolina. He soon started for Philadelphia,
which he reached after a month’s toilsome journey of nine hundred miles,
on horseback. Even here he was met, at first, with coldness; for, although arriving
at an important moment to the common cause, it was at a period peculiarly unfavorable
to strangers:

“The Americans were displeased with the pretensions, and disgusted with the conduct,
of many Frenchmen; the imprudent selections they had in some cases made, the
extreme boldness of some foreign adventurers, the jealousy of the army, and strong
national prejudices, all contributed to confound disinterested zeal with private ambition,
and talents with quackery. Supported by the promises which had been given by Mr.
Deane, a numerous band of foreigners besieged the Congress; their chief was a clever
but very imprudent man, and although a good officer, his excessive vanity amounted
almost to madness. With M. de Lafayette, Mr. Deane had sent out a fresh detachment,
and every day such crowds arrived, that the Congress had finally adopted the
plan of not listening to any stranger. The coldness with which M. de Lafayette was
received, might have been taken as a dismissal; but, without appearing disconcerted
by the manner in which the deputies addressed him, he entreated them to return to
Congress, and read the following note:

“‘After the sacrifices I have made, I have the right to exact two favors: one is, to
serve at my own expense—the other is, to serve at first as volunteer.'”

“This style, to which they were so little accustomed, awakened their attention; the
despatches from the envoys were read over, and, in a very flattering resolution, the
rank of major-general was granted to M. de Lafayette.”

Here Lafayette beheld, for the first time, the ‘Father of his Country.’ ‘It was
impossible,’ says he, ‘to mistake, for a moment, his majestic figure and deportment;
nor was he less distinguished by his noble affability of manner.’ The following
is a picture of the American army, at this time stationed a few miles from Philadelphia:

“About eleven thousand men, ill armed, and still worse clothed, presented a strange
spectacle to the eye of the young Frenchman: their clothes were parti-colored, and
many of them were almost naked; the best clad wore hunting-shirts, large gray linen
coats which were much used in Carolina. As to their military tactics, it will be sufficient
to say that, for a regiment ranged in order of battle to move forward on the right
of its line, it was necessary for the left to make a continued countermarch. They were
always arranged in two lines, the smallest men in the first line; no other distinction as
to height was ever observed. In spite of these disadvantages, the soldiers were fine,[176]
and the officers zealous; virtue stood in place of science, and each day added both to
experience and discipline. Lord Stirling, more courageous than judicious, another general,
who was often intoxicated, and Greene, whose talents were only then known to his
immediate friends, commanded as majors-general. General Knox, who had changed
the profession of bookseller to that of artillery officer, was there also, and had himself
formed other officers, and created an artillery. ‘We must feel embarrassed,’ said General
Washington, on his arrival, ‘to exhibit ourselves before an officer who has just
quitted French troops.’ ‘It is to learn and not to teach, that I come hither,’ replied
M. de Lafayette; and that modest tone, which was not common in Europeans, produced
a very good effect.”

What freeman can peruse the subjoined, and not feel his heart burn with a noble
pride, that he is an American—the offspring of those whom no temptation could
corrupt, no suffering appal, no tyranny subdue:

“Notwithstanding the success in the north, the situation of the Americans had never
been more critical than at the present moment. A paper money, without any certain
foundation, and unmixed with any specie, was both counterfeited by the enemy, and
discredited by their partizans. They feared to establish taxes, and had still less the
power of levying them. The people, who had risen against the taxation of England,
were astonished at paying still heavier taxes now; and the government was without any
power to enforce them. On the other side, New-York and Philadelphia were overstocked
with gold and various merchandizes; the threatened penalty of death could not
stop a communication that was but too easy. To refuse the payment of taxes, to
depreciate the paper currency, and feed the enemy, was a certain method of attaining
wealth; privations and misery were only experienced by good citizens. Each proclamation
of the English was supported by their seductions, their riches, and the intrigues
of the tories. Whilst a numerous garrison lived sumptuously at New-York, some hundreds
of men, ill-clothed and ill-fed, wandered upon the shores of the Hudson. The
army of Philadelphia, freshly recruited from Europe, abundantly supplied with everything
they could require, consisted of eighteen thousand men: that of Valley-Forge
was successively reduced to five-thousand men; and two marches on the fine Lancaster
road, (on which road also was a chain of magazines,) by establishing the English
in the rear of their right flank, would have rendered their position untenable; from
which, however, they had no means of retiring. The unfortunate soldiers were in want
of every thing; they had neither coats, hats, shirts, nor shoes; their feet and legs froze
till they became black, and it was often necessary to amputate them. From want of
money, they could neither obtain provisions nor any means of transport; the colonels
were often reduced to two rations, and sometimes even to one. The army frequently
remained whole days without provisions, and the patient endurance of both soldiers and
officers was a miracle which each moment served to renew. But the sight of their
misery prevented new engagements: it was almost impossible to levy recruits; it was
easy to desert into the interior of the country. The sacred fire of liberty was not
extinguished, it is true, and the majority of the citizens detested British tyranny; but
the triumph of the north, arid the tranquillity of the south, had lulled to sleep two-thirds
of the continent. The remaining part was harassed by two armies; and, throughout
this revolution, the greatest difficulty was, that, in order to conceal misfortunes
from the enemy, it was necessary to conceal them from the nation also; that by awakening
the one, information was likewise given to the other; and that fatal blows would
have been struck upon the weakest points, before democratic tardiness could have been
roused to support them. It was from this cause that, during the whole war, the real
force of the army was always kept a profound secret; even Congress was not apprized of
it, and the generals were often themselves deceived. General Washington never placed
unlimited confidence in any person, except in M. de Lafayette; because for him alone,
perhaps, confidence sprung from warm affection. As the situation grew more critical,
discipline became more necessary. In the course of his nocturnal rounds, in the midst
of heavy snows, M. de Lafayette was obliged to break some negligent officers. He
adopted in every respect the American dress, habits, and food. He wished to be more
simple, frugal, and austere than the Americans themselves. Brought up in the lap of
luxury, he suddenly changed his whole manner of living, and his constitution bent itself
to privation as well as to fatigue. He always took the liberty of freely writing his ideas
to congress; or, in imitation of the prudence of the general, he gave his opinion to
some members of a corps or state assembly, that, being adopted by them, it might be
brought forward in the deliberations of congress.

“In addition to the difficulties which lasted during the whole of the war, the winter
of Valley-Forge recalls others still more painful. At Yorktown, behind the Susquehanhah,
congress was divided into two factions, which, in spite of their distinction of south
and east, did not the less occasion a separation between members of the same state.
The deputies substituted their private intrigues for the wishes of the nation. Several
impartial men had retired; several states had but one representative, and in some cases[177]
not even one. Party spirit was so strong, that three years afterwards congress still
felt the effects of it. Any great event, however, would awaken their patriotism; and
when Burgoyne declared that his treaty had been broken, means were found to stop the
departure of his troops, which every thing, even the few provisions for the transports, had
foolishly betrayed.”

In his letter to his wife, written at this time, Lafayette speaks of American simplicity
of manners, kindness of heart, and love of country. ‘They are all,’ says he,
brethren of one family. The richest and the poorest man are completely on a level;
and although there are some immense fortunes in this country, I may challenge any
one to point out the slightest difference in their respective manner toward each other.’
Would that this picture of republican character were a faithful transcript of the
features of our time! We should be glad, did our limits permit, to collate numerous
passages from his correspondence, to show how dear to the heart of this peer of the
‘nobility of nature,’ were those simple habits and manners, from which we have, as
a nation, so widely departed. Thank heaven, he did not live to behold the great and
increasing change.

The letters of Lafayette to General Washington, contained in the present volume,
were penned in English, with which the marquis was but imperfectly acquainted,
and are presented precisely as written. He does not, of course, overcome
the troublesome idioms; but the reader will often be struck with the happy combinations
of expressions, and pleasing involutions of sentences; while there is now and
then to be met with a new-coined word, than which nothing could be more expressive.
Such an one is contained in his objections to a military court-martial, wherein he asks
General Washington if it is ‘right forever to ridiculize a man of respectable rank,
simply for drinking two or three gills of rum.’ We here segregate this word, and
introduce it to the American reader, with the hope that it will speedily become nationalized.
It is different from, and better than, ‘ridiculed.’

The correspondence, contained in the volume under notice, is brought down to the
year 1781. The letters to Madame Lafayette, while they breathe the tenderest affection,
yet burn with that noble disinterestedness and devotion to the cause of freedom,
which characterized the life of the writer; while his epistles to General Washington,
whether detailing reverses, expressing fears, or announcing glad tidings, are full of
the warmest expressions of friendship, which time only served to rivet into an attachment
that waxed stronger and stronger until death. Two extracts from Washington’s
answers to the letters of his renowned compeer, must close our notice of this admirable
book. The first is from an epistle written soon after the marquis’s first return
to France:

“It gave me infinite pleasure to hear from your sovereign, and of the joy which your
safe arrival in France had diffused among your friends. I had no doubt that this would
be the case; to hear it from yourself, adds pleasure to the account; and here my dear
friend, let me congratulate you on your new, honorable, and pleasing appointment in
the army commanded by the Count de Vaux, which I shall accompany with an assurance
that none can do it with more warmth of affection, or sincere joy, than myself.
Your forward zeal in the cause of liberty; your singular attachment to this infant
world; your ardent and persevering efforts, not only in America, but since your return
to France, to serve the United States; your polite attention to Americans, and your
strict and uniform friendship for me, have ripened the first impressions of esteem and
attachment which I imbibed for you, into such perfect love and gratitude, as neither
time nor absence can impair. This will warrant my assuring you that, whether in the
character of an officer at the head of a corps of gallant Frenchmen, if circumstances
should require this; whether as a major-general, commanding a division of the American
army; or whether, after our swords and spears have given place to the plough-share
and pruning-hook, I see you as a private gentleman, a friend and companion, I shall
welcome you with all the warmth of friendship to Columbia’s shores; and, in the latter
case, to my rural cottage, where homely fare and a cordial reception shall be substituted
for delicacies and costly living.

[178]

“I have a great pleasure in the visit which the Chevalier de la Luzerne and Monsieur
Marbois did me the honor to make at this camp; concerning both of whom I have imbibed
the most favorable impressions, and I thank you for the honorable mention you
made of me to them. The chevalier, till he had announced himself to congress, did not
choose to be received in his public character; if he had, except paying him military
honors, it was not my intention to depart from that plain and simple manner of living
which accords with the real interest and policy of men struggling under every difficulty
for the attainment of the most inestimable blessing of life, liberty. The chevalier was
polite enough to approve my principle, and condescended to appear pleased with our
Spartan living. In a word, he made us all exceedingly happy by his affability and good
humor, while he remained in camp.

“You are pleased, my dear marquis, to express an earnest desire of seeing me in
France, after the establishment of our independency, and do me the honor to add, that
you are not singular in your request. Let me entreat you to be persuaded, that, to meet
you any where, after the final accomplishment of so glorious an event, would contribute
to my happiness; and that to visit a country to whose generous aid we stand so much
indebted, would be an additional pleasure; but remember, my good friend, that I am
unacquainted with your language, that I am too far advanced in years to acquire a
knowledge of it, and that to converse through the medium of an interpreter, upon common
occasions, especially with the ladies, must appear so extremely awkward, insipid,
and uncouth, that I can scarcely bear it in idea. I will, therefore, hold myself disengaged
for the present; but when I see you in Virginia, we will talk of this matter, and fix our
plans.

“The declaration of Spain in favor of France has given universal joy to every Whig:
while the poor Tory droops like a withering flower under a declining sun. We are
anxiously expecting to hear of great and important events on your side of the Atlantic;
at present, the imagination is left in the wide field of conjecture; our eyes one moment
are turned to an invasion of England, then of Ireland, Minorca, Gibraltar; in a word,
we hope every thing, but know not what to expect, or where to fix. The glorious success
of Count d’Estaing in the West Indies, at the same time that it adds dominion to
France, and fresh lustre to her arms, is a source of new and unexpected misfortune to
our tender and generous parent, and must serve to convince her of the folly of quitting
the substance in pursuit of a shadow; and, as there is no experience equal to that which
is bought, I trust she will have a superabundance of this kind of knowledge, and be convinced,
as I hope all the world and every tyrant in it will be, that the best and only
safe road to honor, glory, and true dignity, is justice. * * * The operations of the
enemy this campaign have been confined to the establishment of works of defence,
taking a post at King’s Ferry, and burning the defenceless towns of New-Haven, Fairfield,
and Norwalk, on the Sound, within reach of their shipping, where little else was,
or could be opposed to them, than the cries of distressed women and helpless children;
but these were offered in vain. Since these notable exploits, they have never stepped
out of their works or beyond their lines. How a conduct of this kind is to effect the
conquest of America, the wisdom of a North, a Germain, or a Sandwich, can best
decide; it is too deep and refined for the comprehension of common understandings and
the general run of politicians.”

---

“When I look back to the length of this letter, I have not the courage to give it a
careful reading for the purpose of correction: you must, therefore, receive it with all its
imperfections, accompanied with this assurance, that, though there may be many inaccuracies
in the letter, there is not a single defect in the friendship of, my dear marquis,
yours,” etc.

In answer to a letter from Lafayette, asking the opinion of the commander-in-chief
in regard to a duel with Lord Carlisle—whom, for an insult offered, as the marquis
conceived, to France, in a letter to congress, he had challenged—Washington advises
him to give up the idea of so foolish a thing. ‘Experience,’ says the Pater
Patria, ‘has proved, that chance is often as much concerned in deciding these matters
as bravery, and always more than the justice of the cause. I would not, therefore,
have your life, by the remotest possibility, exposed, when it maybe reserved for
so many great occasions.’ Such was the opinion of Washington—a tolerably brave
man, it is generally admitted—of duelling. He had that moral courage, in relation
to this gladiatorial practice, which we are glad to perceive is every year increasing
in our country.

We may renew our notice of the present volume, in connection with a review of
its successor, which will doubtless soon be forthcoming. In the mean time, we commend
the first to every true American.

[179]

The Life and Services of Commodore William Bainbridge, United States’
Navy. By Thomas Harris, M. D., Surgeon United States’ Navy, and Member
of the American Philosophical Society. In one volume, pp. 254. Philadelphia:
Carey, Lea and Blanchard.

The late hour at which we receive this valuable addition to American Biography,
must constitute our apology for the brevity which marks our notice of its contents.
The whole is a tribute to a brave officer, and an honorable and accomplished man,
who has been fortunate in a biographer who enjoyed a close intimacy with him,
who had seen him under all circumstances of disease and health, of exhilaration and
depression, and who had thus the best opportunity of studying his character. The
writer has therefore eminently succeeded in his purpose of drawing a plain and faithful
narrative of the prominent events of Commodore Bainbridge’s life. These are
connected with a history of the partial hostilities with the French republic, and the
various actions with the Barbary powers, under the command of Commodore Preble,
and others, in which he was actively engaged. Most of the writer’s materials are
fresh and interesting, having been mainly obtained from the private journals and extensive
correspondence of Bainbridge, from conversations with him, and those who
have served under him, and from a manuscript biography of a portion of his life, by
General H. A. S. Dearborn.

We had marked a few characteristic passages from the early history of Bainbridge,
previous to his entering the navy, where his bravery is more familiar to American
readers, but are compelled to omit them. A spirited mezzo-tint portrait, by Sartain,
from a painting by Gilbert Stuart, embellishes the volume.

Midshipmen’s Expedients. By the Author of ‘Rattlin the Reefer;’ and Other Tales,
by Celebrated Writers. In two volumes. pp. 376. Philadelphia: Carey, Lea and
Blanchard.

How large a portion, reader, of these two volumes, do you suppose the ‘work‘
which gives them their title consumes? ‘Marry, tell us that, and unyoke.’ Thirty-two
pages, all told! ‘Midshipmen’s Expedients,’ quotha? Whosoever shall disburse
the quid pro quo, in the belief that he is to read a new work, in two volumes, by
the author of ‘Rattlin, the Reefer,’ (a clever, rattling sort of book enough, and popular
withal,) will be inclined to give these volumes another and more appropriate title,
namely, ‘Booksellers’ Expedients.’ The ‘other tales,’ again, as in the case of Boz’s
‘Tuggs at Ramsgate,’ are out of all proportion; since they predominate in number
by just eighteen! They are well enough, in their way, as English magazine papers;
but they are not ‘Midshipmen’s Expedients,’ as any purchaser would be led to suppose.
‘On the contrary, quite the reverse,’ as the annexed list of contents will show.
The first volume has ‘Sandie Sandeman, the Piper,’ ‘The Old Farm-House, ‘Mrs.
Smith at Home, or More Smiths,’ ‘The Landlord of Royston,’ ‘The Irish,’ ‘Lord
Lieutenant and His Double,’ and ‘John Smith.’ The second volume contains, ‘The
Guerilla,’ by Knowles, ‘One Witness,’ a law story, Douglas Jerrold’s ‘Preacher
Parrot, or The Trials of Truth,’ ‘The Man with many Namesakes,’ ‘The Pleasure
Party,’ and ‘The Rival Colors.’ The two volumes are of that scrappy cast, so much
desiderated by steam-boat travellers, and such as are troubled with ennui, a disease
peculiarly incident to those who have nothing to do.

[180]

EDITORS’ TABLE.

Pocahontas—A tragedy.—There are certain dreamers, who flatter themselves
that they are philanthropists, yet cannot believe that the recitation of a moral essay or
dramatic poem, or a representation of a historical fact, by a combination of ingenious
individuals, can be an evil. They think that a living, moving, and speaking picture of
an event will impress it more indelibly on the mind, than the historian’s page can possibly
do. They imagine that moral truths, conveyed by fable, apologue, or parable, and
the characters introduced by the teacher presented to the eye, and acting, speaking,
looking the thoughts, expressions, and combined movements of the story, must be more
delightful and impressive, than any other mode of instruction; in short, that a good
play, represented by good performers, to an enlightened, judicious, and virtuous audience,
is one of the most effective methods of conveying instruction that the wit of man has
devised.[7]

The question then presents itself, ‘Why are theatres avoided and reprobated by very
many of the wise and good?’ Is it not because they are prostituted to the pleasures of
the foolish and wicked? And why are they thus prostituted? Is it not because their
directors have nothing in view but pecuniary emolument? Garrick said, ‘Those who
live to please, must please to live.’ Every wretch that allures to vice, by meretricious
display, may say the same, and think he is excused. But is there no better mode
of living? Is there no way by which a theatre can be supported, but by enticing within
it the votaries of folly, vice, and guilt?

Where a king or despot rules, he can open a theatre at the expense of the state, and
exclude from its walls much that contaminates the seats of similar establishments in
great cities generally. This has been done. We would ask, then, why a combination of
private individuals, in a republic, moderately rich, prudently liberal, loving instruction
in its most delightful and impressive form, wishing to inspire their children with the
desire for knowledge, by making its lessons pleasure, and, by imbuing them with taste,
guarding them against the allurements of sensuality—why, we would ask, may not
such a combination establish a theatre, as well as a lyceum or athenæum?

Performers should be chosen for their moral characters as well as their talents; auditors
admitted only of known respectability; a committee of directors, elected from the
proprietors, and the pieces to be represented, decided upon by them.

Such a theatre would not be shunned by the ‘good and the wise.’ No parent would
fear to lead his child to such a school; and the pieces represented might be as attractive
as ‘Mother Goose,’ ‘Tom and Jerry,’ or any other modern effort of genius.

The directors of such an institution might find that it would not be costly to the proprietors.
Emolument must not be sought. Authors might be encouraged to compose
dramatic works, such as would be appropriate for a theatre so conducted; and the committee
would, in the mean time, find many prepared to begin with.

[181]

The tragedy, whose name appears at the head of this article, is one that would honor
the choice of such a committee. It is the production of a man of genius, learning, taste,
and morality. It adheres to historical truth, and exhibits, in an instructive light, the
vices and virtues of both savage and civilized society. We might select many passages,
and even scenes, with commendation; but shall only ask the attention of the reader to
the following beautiful illustration of the power of letters, and the admiration excited in
the minds of the aborigines by written communication.

Foreign Correspondence.—A kind friend, a man of education and refinement,
and an acute observer, now in England, has addressed us the first of a series of familiar
letters, from which we hope often to quote, for the pleasure or benefit of our readers.
His journeyings abroad will be greatly diversified, and out of the beaten track, both as
to countries, and portions of countries, which he will traverse. The initiatory epistle,
now before us, though necessarily limited in incident, contains a passage or two, which
we shall venture to present, since they certainly, in more than one sense, are good
‘evidence of things hoped for.’ Speaking of the Thames, he says: ‘On the morning
of the last day of our voyage, the exceedingly turbid state of the water informed me
that we were in the vast estuary of the Thames. To me, it seems strange, that Watts
and other poets should have so often attached the epithet ‘silver’ to this river. From
London to its very mouth it is both muddy and yellow.’ * * * ‘Our sails and spars
are housed below, and ‘booms’ disposed of; a ‘mud-pilot’ is on board, and we are now
what is technically called ‘threading the needle.’ The pilot roars through his speaking-trumpet,
‘starboard!’ ‘larboard!’ ‘port!—port hard!’ as we glide through forests of
shipping—(you must be on the bosom of ‘Father Tems,’ to realize the truth of this
common simile,) and are passed, up and down, by innumerable small steam-boats, one
of which exhibited no smoke, being propelled by the agency of quicksilver. The river
is some fifteen hundred feet wide, yet our ship frequently turns up the mud from the
bottom. By law, three hundred feet are left in mid-channel, for ingress and egress.
At length, we are ushered through an enormous lock into the celebrated St. Catherine’s
Docks, a vast reservoir, enclosed by immense warehouses, in the formation of which,
several thousand families were removed, and their houses pulled down.’ * * * ‘I
shall send you, in a few days, some interesting articles for your Magazine, which
will serve to diversify the pages so admirably filled—I mean no flattery—by your
numerous American contributors. They are from the pen of a lady, of distinguished
talents, author of ‘The Bride of Sicily,’ and other poems, and for some late years a
popular writer in the ‘Foreign Quarterly,’ ‘British Magazine,’ and ‘Frazer’s Magazine,’
to which latter periodical she recently contributed those clever papers, ‘Remembrances
of a Monthly Nurse,’ ‘April Fools,’ ‘Mary Magdalene,’ etc. You shall hear
from me again, at no distant period.’

In connection with this fragment of correspondence, we annex an extract from a
letter written from London by another friend, some months ago, but which has probably
‘been i’ the Indies twice,’ since it passed from the hands of the writer, as it has but
just reached us. We fear some portions of it may seem to smack of undue self-laudation;
but we beg the reader to bear in mind, that we quote from a source wholly disinterested;[183]
and to believe, that what may appear calculated to induce a satisfied vanity,
is but a ‘spur to prick the sides of our intent:’

‘A knowledge of, and respect for, American Literature, appear to be gaining ground
in England; but still, very few of our writers can boast much foreign fame; and many
a name, and many a book, familiar to us, have scarcely been heard of, in the land of
Shakspeare. There are some bright exceptions, however. It is superfluous to say, that
I often heard Irving and his writings spoken of with enthusiasm; and the early novels,
especially, of Cooper, stand as high in popular favor throughout Europe, as they ever
did at home. But the English are disposed, it would seem, to claim these two writers
as their own; many, at least, never allude to them as American. The essays of Dr.
Channing have attained a wide celebrity in Great Britain. I have seen no less than
three rival editions. Add to these three names those of Washington and Franklin,
and you can scarcely mention another American name which enjoys a thorough European
reputation. A number of our books have been re-published, it is true, and are
known, to some extent. I saw English editions of one or more of the works of Miss
Sedgwick, Paulding, Simms, Flint, Fay, and Dr. Bird. Our poets they are but little
acquainted with. Mr. Irving, you know, endorsed a London edition of Bryant, and
Barry Cornwall conferred the same honor on Willis; and his prose sketches I have
heard highly praised. He has certainly written himself into considerable notoriety.
Percival’s poems were printed in England several years since. Some of Halleck’s,
and others, are well known through the various specimens of American poets. The
classical text-books on oriental and biblical literature, from Andover, Cambridge, etc.,
are re-printed, and considered high authority by English scholars and critics. Several
American books, of a useful and practical character, such as Abbott’s ‘Young Christian,’
Mrs. Child’s ‘Frugal Housewife,’ etc., have had an immense sale in England
and Scotland. At least twenty thousand copies of each of the two mentioned have
been sold in the kingdom. The sneering question of the Quarterly, ‘Who reads an
American book?’ is no longer asked; but English prejudice is yet slow to admit that
‘any good thing can come out of Nazareth.’ I was told by a London publisher, that
if an American book were re-printed, it would be bad policy to acknowledge its origin.
I know several instances of our books having been published in London and Glasgow
as original, and without a word of the source, or any alteration, except the omission of
local names, by which they might have been detected! In one case, an English copy
of a book thus re-printed, verbatim, except the title, was received by a New-York house,
published as an English work, and one thousand copies were sold, before it was discovered
that the copy-right belonged to the author and publisher in Philadelphia! American
periodicals, however, are doing much toward diffusing a knowledge of our literary
men and resources abroad—in England, Scotland, and France, especially; and there
is, on all hands, a great and growing interest in every thing which relates to our noble
republic.’ * * * ‘Some of our higher periodicals are favorably known here. Silliman’s
‘Journal of Science’ is appreciated and praised by scientific men throughout Europe;
one or two hundred copies of the ‘North American Review’ are taken in London; and
the ‘Knickerbocker,’ I am informed, is held in much estimation. Your sometime correspondent,
Dr. Metcalf, (who is engaged in important studies and investigations
here, connected with his theory of the great pervading principle of life,) tells me, that
he finds numbers who agree with him in the opinion, that the ‘Knickerbocker’ is not
surpassed in talent, variety, or interest, by any English magazine whatsoever.’

‘There are two dealers in London, who import American books, viz., O. Rich and
R. J. Kennett; and two in Scotland, J. Reid and J. Symington and Co., of Glasgow.
I have had the pleasure of personal acquaintance with most of the distinguished
publishers in London and Scotland, and have made notes of some facts, and comparative
statistics, in which you may perhaps be interested. For the present, however, I
will bestow upon you no more of my tediousness.’

[184]

Samuel Woodworth, Esq.—It is known to most of our readers, whose aid may be
rendered effectively, that a ‘benefit’ is soon to take place at one of our theatres, the
proceeds of which are to be devoted to the relief of the popular poet, Samuel Woodworth,
and his large and amiable family, to whose support he has latterly been wholly
unable to contribute, by reason of a partial loss of sight, and a paralytic shock, with
which he has been visited. We hope the edifice where the dramatic entertainment is
to ‘come off,’ will be crowded from dome to ceiling; so shall the beneficiary be made
to rejoice in the belief that the milk of human kindness which flows in his own bosom,
is not altogether absent from the breasts of the many who ‘know him but to love him,’
and who ‘name him but to praise.’

‘Knickerbocker Hall.‘—’A good name is every thing,’ says some didactic school-book
maker, and we are about to agree with him. ‘Knickerbocker Hall,’ a large and
commodious establishment, recently erected adjoining the Park Theatre, we doubt
not will, under the supervision of Terrapin Welch, Esq., P. H. T. C.,—a capable
representative of all the Knickerbockers—be ‘everything’ that the reputation of its
illustrious founder may lead the public to anticipate. ‘Moreover, and which is more,’
he is to be aided by his son-in-law, Mr. Adams, also a noted publican. Spacious dining-halls,
ample private supper-rooms, airy and commodious lodging apartments, a
renowned cuisine, and the most central of locations—these are matters not likely to
be lightly regarded by citizens, or strangers who have ever ‘heard tell o’ Sandy.’ Long
may he reign!

LITERARY RECORD.

New-York Review.—We are well pleased to learn, that the ‘New-York Review
and Quarterly Church Journal’ is not, as we had been led to fear, to be abandoned.
It will hereafter be published regularly by Mr. George Dearborn. Its editorial
supervision is confided, as before, to Rev. C. S. Henry, an announcement which
will be amply satisfactory to all who have read the first number. If this work but
sustain ‘the promise of its spring’—and that it will do so, with its corps of able contributors,
and the aid of the accomplished writer and scholar at its head, we cannot
doubt—it will prove an honor, and a high one, to the periodical literature of this
country.

‘Book of the United States.‘—This little volume, like all from the pen of its
world-renowned author, is entertaining as well as instructive, and admirably adapted
to secure the attention and excite the imagination of the young. It exhibits the great
features of the country, on a principle of classification which embraces in one view all
that may relate to a particular topic, as mountains, rivers, cities, lakes, etc., which are
contrasted with those of other countries, the better to impress them upon the memory.
A free, colloquial style, illustrative sketches and anecdotes, and numerous wood engravings,
render this little work what such works should be, eminently attractive. Boston:
Charles J. Hendee.