THE KNICKERBOCKER.

[369]

‘NURSERIES OF AMERICAN FREEMEN.’

NUMBER ONE.

General Education is the attribute and glory of republican
America. It constitutes one of the strongest pledges of the success
of that interesting experiment in politics, which has astonished and
enlightened the nations of the eastern continent, and which promises,
in future times, to be the grand means of extending the blessings of
freedom to the civilized world. Education, in some of the most
enlightened European countries, is like the sun rising in majesty, and
gilding with surpassing brightness a few mountain tops. Education
in the United States is like the sun pouring his cheering radiance
over every hill, and into every valley.

The peculiar importance of universal and well-conducted education,
in a republican government, must be evident from the slightest
consideration. Every American citizen is a juror, before whom each
officer of the government is on trial, in regard to his capacity and
fidelity. The public prints are the pleaders, oftentimes very artful,
and sometimes not altogether honest; and these jurors need to be
well furnished with an enlightened understanding, that they may not be
imposed upon by misrepresentation and sophistry. Universal suffrage
can never be safely trusted but in the hands of an intelligent and virtuous
population. And it is questionable whether another country
can now be found, beside the United States, where education is sufficiently
general, and conducted upon such principles, as to form a
sufficient basis on which to rest the structure of a republican
government.

The want of a well-educated population has been the occasion of
most of the difficulties and disorders which have agitated the South
American republics, where one stormy revolution has succeeded
another, and where a strong tendency has been evinced to return to
the death-like calm of despotism. This is a great reason why France,
with all her aspirations after freedom, and all her toil, and sweat, and
blood, to obtain it, has had no more success in securing its substantial
blessings. This is one reason why reform in the English government
is a work of such immense difficulty, and why it cannot
be obtained but by a severe struggle, and, as it were, by inches.
Some master-spirits in that country, in which there is much to admire,
and to approve, and to imitate, have recently engaged in a noble
effort to advance the cause of popular education. These men,
whether they may be aware of it or not, are firing a train that may[370]
eventually produce an explosion, which will shake the lordly aristocracy
of that country to its base. There is reason, however, to
hope, that in England arbitrary power will gradually give way to
liberal principles, and that the desired end may be at length attained,
without violent convulsion. This may be hoped for with greater
confidence, since intelligence is always friendly to order.

But aside from its political bearing, a general and well-conducted
education is a matter of vast importance. Every man has a mind,
which can never take its proper rank, and secure its highest enjoyment,
without being enlightened; without a proper development of
its power, and a suitable direction in applying them to practical purposes.
A fire-side in Iceland, a land of frost and of poverty, becomes
a scene of contentment and happiness, because it is surrounded
by a reading population; and the long and dreary winter’s nights
pass pleasantly away, in the entertainment afforded by historical narration,
or native poetry, or other means of mental cultivation. Every
family is a school, and every child receives the rudiments of an education
by his own fire-side. In civilized countries, valuable books
constitute one of the cheapest, most domestic, and noblest amusements,
for the enjoyment of which, however, a good education is an
indispensable requisite.

But leaving this strain of general remark, it is proposed to give
the subject a practical bearing, by a brief consideration, in the present
number, of the importance of a legislative provision for the
support of schools, and for the qualification and preparation of
teachers.

A legislative provision for the support of schools is a matter of
great importance. Every free government is bound by the principle
of self-preservation to afford every necessary facility for the education
of its whole population. And the most substantial aid which it
has in its power to afford is, to furnish pecuniary assistance, by setting
apart adequate funds, to bring the means of instruction alike
within the reach of the poor and the rich. Schools, and especially
common schools, are the Nurseries of Freemen; and not merely of
those who are to exercise the important right of suffrage, but also,
to an unknown extent, of those who are to sustain the weight of
magistracy, and to wield the destinies of the nation. Many a man,
during the short continuance of the American republic, who has
risen to the highest stations of honor and of trust, who has surrounded
his own name and that of his country with distinguished
honor, and filled both continents with his fame, has grown up from
the humblest circumstances in life, and has been indebted to the
common schools of the country for the elements of his reputation
and his usefulness; and but for the system of universal education,
might have lived in obscurity, and never extended his influence beyond
his native village. Franklin, the statesman and the philosopher,
was once a humble printer’s boy; and had he lived in a country
where the aspirations of genius are checked by the principle that
every man must keep his place, and not attempt to rise above the
condition in which he was born, he might have lived and died a
merely respectable setter of types. David Rittenhouse, the son
of a plain farmer, was educated a goldsmith; and by his extraordinary[371]
mechanical genius, he invented a planetarium, which may
justly be regarded as one of the mechanical wonders of the world.
Pursuing his researches, he became one of the first practical astronomers
of his time, and he succeeded the venerable Franklin as President
of the American Philosophical Society, at Philadelphia. Roger
Sherman, until the age of twenty-three, occupied a shoemaker’s
bench. To him it would have been injurious to apply the adage,
‘Ne sutor ultra crepidam.’ To the acquirements of a good common
school education, he added, to a respectable extent, the higher attainments
of legal and political science; and no man brought into the
councils of this country, at the trying period of the revolution, a
sounder head, or a more patriotic heart. To these distinguished examples,
hundreds of others might be added, who, if they have not
fully equalled those that have been mentioned, in fame, have perhaps
not fallen behind them in respectability and usefulness. And what
has been true in this respect, in time past, is true at present, and is
likely to be equally true in time to come. No man now fills a greater
space in the national councils, than the son of a plain farmer in New-Hampshire,
who commenced his brilliant career on the benches of a
common school, in his native town. And no man can tell what future
farmers’ or mechanics’ sons may occupy the highest and most responsible
posts of the nation. In the free government of the United
States, every man is, to a great extent, the artificer of his own fortune
and fame. Common schools are the means by which native
genius is to be, in the first instance, taught to put forth its strength,
and by which it is to be raised from its obscurity.

The people of the United States are, to a good degree, awake to
the importance of affording legislative aid to the common and higher
schools of the country; and in every state in the Union, public funds
are, to a greater or less extent, devoted to this object. The new
states seem likely, in this respect, to equal, if not to surpass, the old.
The funds which they have appropriated to this purpose, have been
chiefly new lands, which are constantly rising in value, and which, in
many instances, promise, in a future day, to swell to a very respectable
amount.

But while the means of education are brought within the reach of
all, it is important that they be not made too cheap. Men are prone
to set a small value on that which costs them nothing; and a provision
too abundant, instead of stimulating to exertion, may but minister
to negligence. The state of Connecticut has, it is believed, at
present a greater productive school-fund, in proportion to its population,
than any other state in the Union. It amounts to about the
sum of two millions of dollars. This fund was not produced by the
contributions of its inhabitants, but originated principally from the
sale of the Western Reserve, an important part of the state of Ohio,
to which it laid claim on the ground of its original charter, and which,
by way of compromise, was ceded to it by the United States. In no
state could the experiment of an abundant public provision for the
support of schools have been tried with greater prospect of success,
than in this. Previously to this endowment, the cause of education
there was in a prosperous condition, and its population had been
taught, from their childhood, to hold it in high estimation. Although[372]
no enlightened and patriotic inhabitant of that state would wish that
this fund should be reduced in its amount, it is questionable whether
the cause of education there has advanced in proportion to the
abundance of its resources, and whether the largeness of this provision
has not, in some instances, if not generally, contributed to keep
the public mind less awake to the subject, than if its inhabitants had
been compelled to rely more extensively on their own resources and
exertions.

Without some legislative aid, there is reason to apprehend that
the advantages of education will not be universally enjoyed; and
therefore, every enlightened state will be inclined to make a competent
provision for this object. If the common schools of the country
need this aid, the higher schools and academies need it still more, as
their expenses must necessarily be greater. They are required to
carry on the work which is begun in common schools, to prepare
members for the higher seminaries of learning, and especially to
raise up a generation of teachers for the inferior schools. A number
of academies, scattered over every state, should be placed on a
respectable and permanent foundation, by a competent pecuniary
endowment. This subject has not been overlooked by the legislatures
of the respective states. A portion of the public revenue,
which has been distributed among the several states of the Union,
has been wisely set apart for the advancement of the cause of education.
What species of internal improvement can be compared to
this? Canals and rail-roads, and other similar works, are indeed of
great importance. But these things have a principal reference to the
physical wants of men. But physical wants are of minor importance,
compared with the intellectual and moral elevation of the human
mind. Republics, in a particular manner, must depend upon this
intellectual and moral elevation for their highest prosperity. Legislative
aid should be so afforded that, instead of producing apathy and
indifference on the subject of schools, it may but stimulate to greater
exertion. In proportion to the munificence of a public provision,
the standard of education should be raised; competent teachers
should be employed, and all the preparations for instruction should
be on an extended scale. Much on this subject remains to be done;
and availing themselves of the legislative aid, there is pressing need
that the most gifted minds in the country should combine their
strength to bring the schools of the nation, of every grade, and particularly
the common schools, to answer the high purposes of their
institution.

While it is important that adequate funds should be provided for
the support of schools, it is still more important, that due care should
be taken that these funds be employed in a prudent, wise, and efficient
manner. Thousands and tens of thousands of dollars may easily
be wasted, from year to year, and rendered of no avail, for the want of
a proper management. That schools should answer the object for
which they are designed, nothing is more essential, than that they
should be under the instruction of competent teachers; and that
suitable provision be made for the preparation and support of such
teachers.

[373]

The government of a school is a matter of no small difficulty and
importance; and to conduct it successfully, requires great sagacity,
and a knowledge of human nature, the fruit of much observation
and experience. The government of a school is unlike that of any
other community. It should be neither despotic nor republican; it
should be patriarchal. It bears a greater resemblance to the government
of a family than to any other, and yet it differs, in many respects,
from this. Children have grown up under the authority of their
parents; and where parental government has been in any measure
what it should be, obedience to it has become a matter of habit.
Children are, moreover, dependent on their parents for their comfort
and support, and therefore the authority of a parent is supported by
a powerful consideration, which teachers of schools have not at command.
If the proper government of a family is a difficult work, as
every parent will be ready to acknowledge, the suitable government
of a school is a work of still greater difficulty.

Without the maintenance of silence, diligence, and order, it is impossible
that the business of education should be successfully prosecuted
in schools. But to bring the volatility, and thoughtlessness, and
love of ease and of play, so natural to children and youth, to a thorough
subjection to these principles, is no easy task. The nature and dispositions
of children must be carefully and philosophically studied;
different modes of management must be tried, and those which are
found by experience to be most successful, must be adopted. Every
teacher of a school needs much of the patience of Job, and the meekness
of Moses, suitably blended with dignity and authority. He should
have an entire control over his own passions; and if he has a natural
attachment to children, it will greatly aid him in his work. It should
be his aim, by an amiable, dignified, and discreet deportment, to
secure both the affection and respect of those committed to his
charge.

But a talent for government, however important, will not alone fit
a teacher of a school for his station. He needs not only a gifted, but
a well-furnished mind. He should not only possess a thorough
acquaintance with the text-books which he uses, and be able to explain
all their intricacies, and to unravel all their difficulties, but he
needs, in addition, a great variety of collateral information, which
he may bring to bear on all the subjects of instruction. He should
be himself a living, walking, speaking text-book. Every system of
teaching which is what it should be, will be a course of familiar lecturing.
The teacher should possess a fund of information on a great
variety of subjects, and should be perpetually bringing forth, from
the treasury of a well-furnished mind, the varied riches of literature
and science. The qualifications which have been mentioned are
important, not only in the higher seminaries, but also in common
schools. The amount of instruction which will be given by a
thoroughly qualified teacher, will greatly exceed that which is given
by a person of inferior qualifications, even where very young children
are concerned, and the time of the pupil, and the money of the
parent, will be saved by the employment of such teachers.

In this view of the proper qualifications of teachers, we need only
inquire what is the character of those who are usually employed, to[374]
discover the great deficiency which exists on this subject. The
common schools of the country are extensively taught, in the winter
season, by a set of intelligent and enterprising young men, who, in
the summer season, are engaged in agricultural or other employments,
not connected with literature; or in the neighborhood of colleges, in
some instances, by young men who are in them receiving an education,
and who resort to this means to help them to sustain the expenses
which they necessarily incur. Far be it from the writer to
speak lightly of those farmers’ sons who have more taste for literature
than the generality of their fellows, and have better improved
the advantages which they have enjoyed, and who aspire to the office
of teachers; or of those young men in colleges, who are conflicting
with the disadvantages of poverty, and by diligence and perseverance,
are raising themselves to usefulness, and perhaps to fame. Many a
man, who has been an honor to his country, and sustained with reputation
the higher offices of the state, has been, in early life, a teacher
of a common school. The academies of the country have hitherto
been chiefly taught by young men, who have completed a collegiate
course, and having exhausted their patrimony, have resorted to this
means to provide themselves with the funds necessary for the study
of a profession. Before they have had time to become thoroughly
acquainted with their business, they have relinquished it for another
employment. In a large proportion of instances, the teachers of
schools have labored under the disadvantages of youth and inexperience,
and to a great extent, of a contracted education.

In the summer season, the common schools of the country have
been chiefly taught by a fine collection of amiable, virtuous, and intelligent
females, in many respects well adapted to the instruction
of those younger children who, at that busy period, are alone extensively
found in common schools. But these teachers have generally
labored under the disadvantage of a very limited education.

In the cities, teaching has been more extensively a profession, and
has received a more liberal patronage; and from these circumstances,
it might be expected that the schools of the cities would have risen
to a highly respectable standing. This has been, in some instances,
true, but is by no means a general fact. Mere pretension and display,
on the part of a teacher, often command more patronage than
solid and unostentatious merit. The advertisements of teachers, of
almost every description, in the cities, will be found to contain a
catalogue of studies nearly sufficient for a collegiate course; studies,
many of which some of these teachers do not thoroughly, if at all,
understand. And in order that illiterate parents may have a high
idea of the proficiency of their children, they are hurried through
this course with a most unprofitable rapidity. The hurry and bustle
and thousand diversions of a city are not favorable to mental cultivation.
Show extensively occupies the place of substance; and even
an intelligent teacher will often be found sacrificing his own better
judgment to a perverted public taste. Fashionable accomplishments,
particularly in the education of females, have been suffered to throw
into the back-ground those intellectual pursuits, which can alone
raise the mind to its proper dignity, and produce a full development
of its powers. If most of the teachers of the cities would pretend[375]
to less, and attempt less, they would accomplish more, in the substantial
business of education. Like some farmers in the country, they
should cultivate a less extent of ground, and they would produce
greater crops.

The interests of schools imperiously require that something effectual
should be done, to raise up a different generation of teachers
from those who have hitherto held in their hands the destinies of
American youth. In order to do this, teaching must become more extensively
a permanent profession; and such must be the support
afforded to teachers, that it shall constitute a sufficient inducement to
them not only to devote themselves to this employment, but to
undertake the labor and expense of acquiring the requisite qualifications
for this important trust; and the community must learn to
distinguish between the well-furnished teacher and the mere pretender
to literature and science.

Suppose, for a moment, that the mechanic arts were learned and
practised as the profession of teaching has extensively been. Let us
take the trade of a shoe-maker, for example. Let us suppose that
farmers’ sons, of a strong mechanical turn, during the leisure of the
winter season, should begin with mending their own shoes, and,
pleased with the efforts of their untaught ingenuity, should take in
hand the shoes of the rest of the family; and having gained a little
skill by practice, should set up as cobblers for their neighbors.
What kind of shoes, can it be thought, would be worn by the community,
if such were the common shoe-makers of the land? And
does it require less education to become a competent teacher of
youth, than a good shoe-maker? That person must think very highly
of his feet, and very meanly of his head, who can entertain such an
idea.

The community have, in some measure, yet to learn, that they will
never practice a true economy in the business of education, until they
are willing, at a reasonable expense, to secure the services of a
thoroughly-furnished instructor. It must come to be considered, that
a little smattering of information is not sufficient to prepare a person
for a teacher of a common school. A collegiate education is not
essential to this purpose, because many of the branches taught in a
college will not be required to be taught in common schools. But
in those branches which are taught, the education should not be less
thorough than that which is acquired within the walls of a college.

The academies of the country are, at present, the seminaries in
which the great body of teachers for common schools must be prepared;
and in order that the academies should become suitable seminaries
for teachers, they must be universally taught by able and experienced
men, and the business of conducting them should no longer be
made by young men a stepping stone to some other employment.
These institutions should be, especially, under the charge of men
who make teaching a permanent profession. But something beyond
this is necessary, that a supply of competent teachers of common
schools should be raised up. Seminaries should be instituted for the
express purpose of preparing teachers. Such institutions, established
on a broad foundation, and sustained by a liberal endowment,
would be of incalculable importance to the interests of common[376]
schools. The instruction given in them, being specially directed
to this object, would be more appropriate and more effectual. Connected
with such institutions, should be model-schools, in which the
most approved methods of instruction may be exemplified, and in
conducting which, those educating for teachers should occasionally
bear a part. The clerical, the legal, and the medical professions
have been most essentially benefitted, and their character has been
greatly elevated, by the establishment of institutions expressly for
the preparation of young men for these professions; and the same
result might be expected from a similar course in regard to the preparation
of teachers.

In a subsequent number, we shall offer some observations upon
text-books; the importance of a systematic arrangement and inspection
in the management of schools; the illustration of the sciences
by appropriate apparatus; and the cheering prospect which the advancement
of education holds out, in regard to the stability and permanence
of the American government.

H.

SADNESS.

Shakspeare.

I.

II.

III.

IV.

L. B. Smith.

[377]

YOUNG LOVE.

AN EXTRACT: BY J. G. PERCIVAL.

[378]

WILSON CONWORTH.

NUMBER SEVEN.

I have already described setting out for the law school at L——.
After a long and tedious ride over rocky hills, we arrived late in the
evening at the town. It is situated on a river, on each side of which
are meadows of the most fertile soil, one mile in breadth. On the
east side of this river, a short range of mountains rise, grand and
imposing, from the generally level face of the country about them.
Here is perhaps the finest scenery in New-England. You have a
great variety within one half hour’s walk. Gardens of exotics, well-tilled
farms, more resembling gardens than farms, mountains, a river,
woods, cottages, princely edifices; here a street like a city, and the
next turn brings you into something simply rural.

Here too might be found, at a later day, the finest school in the
country, perhaps in the world, if we may judge from the talent employed
in its management, and the splendor of the scale upon which
it was got up. The founders of this school are probably in our
country the only instance on record of men who had gained high
places in the literary world, leaving all their hard-bought honors, and
the ease of professorships in the first literary institution in the country,
to embark in the thankless task of keeping school. This school
has not succeeded according to its merits—as what school does?
It enjoyed a temporary reputation and success, as long as it was the
fashion and a novelty; and after the curiosity of the public was
satisfied, it diminished, and no longer numbers its three hundred
pupils. It is the same with our clergymen. People in our country
are for ever changing their ministers. It is so with servants, ploughs,
and all machinery, moral and physical. Variety, curiosity, experiment,
are the words that govern. We are forever tearing things to
pieces, to see what they are made of, and how they are constructed.
There is not and never has been a permanent private school in America;
and our endowed academies sink and rise, and only continue
to exist, because from their legal nature they cannot die.

In the town of L—— you might have found, at the time I write
of, a race peculiar to the soil of New-England; the descendants of
old families, who have inherited wealth from their fathers, and with
it a set of feelings that attaches them to old customs and habits. The
furniture of their houses is antique, and they themselves are a little
tinctured with puritanical manners. There are few places so aristocratic
as this. They do not show their pride in equipage and dress,
like new-born gentility, but in the distance of their manners, and
the seclusion of their lives. A race has grown up and flocked in
around these moss-covered families, which is thriving and industrious,
but the line is strictly marked between them and the old settlers,
who yet consider the land as their own, and themselves as the pillars
of the place.

Some of the old men wear gold-headed canes and white-topped
boots and cues, though the cocked-hat is obsolete; and the old ladies
appear upon gala-days in brocade gowns, worn by their great-grand-mothers,[379]
for aught I know, with heads carried as none but old prim,
stiff ladies know how to carry their heads: a little in the style, we
may suppose, Jupiter carries his head, when he walks among the
clouds, where there is no vulgar earth to look upon.

The morning after my arrival, I called upon Judge H——, the
principal of the law school, and found him, Cincinnatus like, digging
in his garden. He rested upon his spade, as I approached him; took
my letter and read it; gave me his hand, when he had finished, and
as I looked in his face, and saw his clear eye and benevolent countenance,
I loved him. He was a spare man, with the air of a student
about him; his face was pale, and worn with much thinking; his
manners kind and winning, with the least affectation any one can
imagine. He introduced me to his lovely family, and they made me
feel at home in a moment, by the sincerity and unostentatiousness of
their reception.

Some people, when a stranger is introduced to them, are chiefly
occupied in making an impression upon him of their importance and
dignity, while the best bred only think how he may be made easy and
comfortable.

The judge pointed a boarding-house out to me, and appointed a
time to talk farther with me, and I took my leave, thoroughly impressed
with the idea that I was the happiest man in the world, and
the judge and his family the best and most agreeable people. ‘Now
for a look at law-students at a law school,’ thinks I.

I found a fine set of fellows here, from all parts of the United
States. Here was a student from the West, with his dark eye and
coal-black hair, and Indian-red cheeks. He was remarkable for his
independence and fearlessness; for his up-and-down dealing, and for
the originality of his figures, and the indifference all western men
feel to weather, domestic comfort, and the elegancies of life. Then
comes the hot-blooded Southerner, contending between his ignorance
and his pride; for the Southerners, (although there are honorable
exceptions,) who come to the North for an education, are too much
gentlemen in their own sense, to be able to handle any thing heavier
than a cigar; though now and then bolstered up to holding a pistol
at some friend they have injured, for the sake of the éclat of the
thing. We see enough of this race of spoiled children at college,
where they attempt to lord it over the institution and its members.
They mistake the contempt which permits their folly to pass unnoticed,
for submission.

Here, too, appeared the yankee, with his honest phiz, from the
green mountains of Vermont; with his heart in his hand; telling
every body who will listen to him all his family affairs and domestic
arrangements. Nevertheless he has his points of shrewdness. You
are off your guard by his honest and simple confidence in you: find
him at a nine-pin alley, and he is your man, as he says, ”at can knock
’em down.’ Put him down to ‘all fours,’ and he will play game;
but he does not aspire to whist or billiards; of the latter perhaps he
never heard. But if you would see him in his glory, look at him at
a scrub-race, mounted on one of his father’s colts, taken without leave
from the pasture; his hat a little on one side; his neck begirt with
a colored handkerchief, the ends flying; the skirts of his coat pinned[380]
about in front, and he is in his element. A Vermonter is rarely a
drunkard, away from his native state; but to him, and the smooth-faced,
precise inhabitant of Connecticut, we are indebted for the bad
odor in which yankees are held in the middle and southern states,
among the lower order of people, by their sharp bargains, by biting
those who intended to eat them up; for they are not always the
aggressors in a bargain, beyond the latitude of trade law.

The strongest attachments of the Vermonter are for his horses and
cattle, for he was brought up among them, and is taught to regard
them as the sources of profit. Until the age of twenty-one, he is
buckled close to the barn-yard and stables; but at that age, he is free,
and goes from home to seek his fortune in the capacity of pedlar,
clerk, student at medicine or law, or to college, if he has a bookish
turn, but never as a servant.

Vermont is the most republican of any state in the Union. There,
people are more upon an equality than elsewhere; the rate of intelligence,
education, property, are more upon a par. It has no
clownish aristocracy, like New-Hampshire; no mushroom importance,
like New-York; no golden privileges, like Massachusetts; but
simple and contented, intelligent and industrious, hospitable and
honest, without pretensions and disdaining show, running into no
wild chimeras of improvement, and only a little mad upon masonry,
it stands firm as its own Green Mountains, full of the purest American
character.

Here was the inhabitant of the coast, the polished New-Englander
from sea-board, with his literature and his sectional pride, his love of
the arts, his belief that Cambridge College is the first institution in
the country, and the Unitarian doctrine the most splendid of religious
speculation. He is small in stature, for the most part, and has an
intellectual face, and a head full of bumps. His dress is simple and
neat; his feet and hands are small, but his fingers are short and
clumpish, showing that he is not anxious to talk of his grand-father.
His manners are retiring and unobtrusive, not as if he lacked self-respect,
but as if he feared others would not estimate him properly.
It is his pride of character that keeps him silent, and causes him to
stand aloof among strangers; for he would not be thought guilty of
the vulgar habit of presumption, for his right hand. Show him that
you respect him, and he is transformed in an instant; he is all openness
and sociability, ready to be obliged, or to bestow favors. He
sympathizes with you, till you almost love him like a brother—so
aptly does he glide into the bent of your feelings. You will find
him more literary than scientific; he writes better than he talks;
judges better than he acts; for he is much given to impulse and enthusiasm
of the subdued kind, which works like fire around his heart,
while the exterior man—the surface of his demeanor—is calm and
passionless; he thinks more than he says, and reads more than you
have any idea of. His taste is refined, and his sensibility acute.

Science belongs to Yale College, with her grand professor Silliman;
but fine writing, criticism, and moral philosophy, belong to
Cambridge. Cambridge sends forth eloquent divines, poets, sculptors,
and painters; Yale breeds sound lawyers, scientific doctors, and
superstitious theologians.

[381]

The tall Virginian, with his rakish air, his big mouth, his large
teeth, his long legs, and profuse hair, was next pointed out to me.
He may be known the world over, by his independent way of chewing
tobacco. He squirts out the juice, black as your hat, by the gill,
as he walks the streets, or stands at the door of the hotel. He seems
as if surrounded by slaves, so towering is his look. He is rarely a
student, except in inventing strange oaths or a new-fashioned hat and
cane. His family descent is his hobby; and this, in his opinion,
makes up for all deficiencies.

Any one may single out the Georgian and the inhabitants of any
of the Gulf-states. They are small, dark, men, who look as if they
wore daggers. Their air is indolent and careless, when unexcited;
but if they receive some slight or opposition, their dark eyes flash,
and their lips close tight, with the intensest passion. They are confused
by northern manners and yankee plainness. You rarely see
them laugh, though they sneer most bitterly at things they dislike, or
which are foreign to their own customs. As they come to the North
to be educated, they herd with the Carolinians at our colleges and
schools; continually quarreling among themselves, and slandering
each other, they only agree to hate the ‘d——d yankees.’

CHAPTER XV.

I found among the students many whom I had known at college
slightly. They received me with the greatest kindness and cordiality.
They knew enough of my struggles, and thought well enough
of my good intentions, to do all they could to heal the wounds I had
received. Beside, they knew they had misjudged me at college. I
certainly had some good qualities; I was very sincere; spoke my
sentiments, any thing that came into my head, right out, without regard
to consequences. However imprudent such a course is, we
cannot help liking a person who possesses a quality so rare. It was
not a virtue in me, but I did it from a wild impulse, a recklessness
of consequences; and finding that it gained me friends, and raised
a good-natured laugh, I carried it to excess; criticizing my own faults,
confessing every weakness, and telling people just what I thought
of them.

I do not know when I have passed a more delightful evening than
the first after my arrival in this place. With me were C——, and
F——, and L——, and D——, all old friends, who had always
clung to me, and predicted my reformation. We were all changed,
as men always change after leaving college, and mingling in the
world, and getting rid of the hateful jealousy, the struggle for rank,
the boyish pride, and hot blood, which characterizes students at college,
pitted against each other for the prize of parts. We sat together
at a spot overlooking the finest landscape I know of. It was a
calm summer evening, and the holy rest of nature poured quietness and
complacency into our hearts. We silently regarded each other, and
let fall the easy remark, each word opening to us the fact that we
were different beings from what we were when we parted.

Men educated in the same way, do not talk in round sentences,[382]
like the characters in a novel. They interchange ideas by a word,
a look, a smile, a gesture; even in silence they hold communion, in
looking at a picture or a prospect. Observe how the Indians talk;
this is a perfect instance of the near sympathy they have for one another.
A shrug of the shoulder, a grunt, or a gesture, a movement of
the head or hand, is sufficient to convey their meaning.

My friends saw that I had a good room; they let me into the
habits of the place, and drew a fascinating picture of the life they led.
I never was so happy. All the dark spots in my life vanished, and I
looked only upon bright and joyous anticipations. I was away from
scenes of hateful remembrance, and seemed to have began anew. I
felt grateful for the chance that brought me there.

I do not intend to dwell long upon this law school; and I have
introduced it more for the sake of showing the effect of character
upon character, than any thing else, and to illustrate how our very
best sympathies, unless properly guarded, may lead us into error.

Law was pursued in this institution with all the plan and regularity
with which any school is conducted. Recitations were held
every day, and the lessons marked out. I admire this way of getting
into the dry details of an uninteresting profession by the beginner.
By getting lessons, short lessons, every day, at the end of a few
months the student finds himself the master of much information and
technical knowledge which he never would have attained by himself,
without the severest self-control and discipline.

It is every thing to the student at law to get a right start; to lay
the foundation well for future reading and practice. Very many lawyers,
particularly in the state of New-York, get a knowledge of their
profession after they are admitted. The time of their clerkship is
spent in copying legal instruments, and attending to the matter of
practice, while principles, and the origin and reason of these forms
and technicalities, are regarded with indifference. Surely, no man
can be a good lawyer—useful, protecting the poor, and guarding the
rights of the widow and the orphan, exposing crime and supporting
straight-forwardness and virtue—who is not also a good scholar, a
general reader, a nice observer, and sound reasoner. Certainly, a
mere machine to hold a pen, and bully in pettifogging suits, cannot
be this.

My friend C—— kept a friend’s eye upon me, for he soon saw my
failing; and so he dragged me to my duty by the gentle and strong
persuasion of a friend; the kind and well-meant hint, more influential
upon a generous mind than rivets of iron, or the severest authority.
I was a good student here for three months. My self-satisfaction
and confidence, my reasonings in my own favor, (most dangerous
to our peace are such) put me off my guard, and—— But I will
tell you.

I had frequently observed a tall, thin, pale, and very genteel young
man passing the street. I had seen him once or twice at a law lecture.
He evidently belonged to the school. I was surprised, too,
that he seemed to know no one, and none of the students bowed to
him, as they passed each other in the way. The first time I saw him,
his back was toward me. He was elegantly, fastidiously dressed.
His walk was very fine, and was the gait of a gentleman. I felt a[383]
strong interest to see his face; and when I came to look upon his pale,
melancholy countenance, haggard with care and disappointment, I
felt my heart lean toward him; I pitied him from the bottom of my
soul.

I discovered that our study-rooms were contiguous, and determined
to work myself, by some means, into an acquaintance with
him. One night, as I was sitting late at my window, looking at the
moon, and thinking of by-gone times, when I had one beside me to
enjoy such scenes with, the sweetest and most melancholy voice met
my ear I had ever heard. The song it sung was plaintive, and the
sounds seemed like breathings out of the heart. This feast continued
for hours. Now I could only hear a low chant, and then a wild burst
of melody, that seemed to pierce the sky; varied again and again,
with the most astonishing skill.

I found out, by some means, that the voice was that of Collins, the
name of the young man whom I was so anxious to know.

I could not be satisfied, until I had his acquaintance. I wished to
become his friend. I knew what it was to be wretched and lonely,
and I felt criminal in neglecting him. I talked with particular friends
about him, but they answered equivocally. ‘They did not know why
Collins did not associate more with them. His distance was his own
work; he was a singular young man, and they believed he lived upon
opium; that he was strange and eccentric, and chose to be alone.’
C—— said: ‘You had better let him alone; he can do you no good;
his case is a hopeless one, and as for his melancholy, it is all fudge.’
All I heard, only determined me to seek him out, and find what could
occasion such habitual sadness.

Collins received my advances in a very gentlemanly way, though
he showed no disposition to palm himself off upon me. He had been
absent, until a short time before I saw him, from the school, and
treated me as a new-comer; spoke very handsomely of the students,
and seemed to know the character and course of every man in the
institution. I was charmed with the elegance of his manners, the
acuteness of his mind, and his general acquaintance with literature.
He soon returned my civility, and we gradually became acquainted.

He pursued his usual habits without any secrecy, and apparently as
if there was no harm in such courses. His mornings were usually
spent in a deep sleep, more resembling a lethargy than refreshing
rest, from which nothing could rouse him. He rose about mid-day
and read until night, hardly taking any nourishment. At night he
seemed to revel in a world of his own creation; he would sit for hours
in one position, chanting low airs, his spirits kept alive by opium and
worse stimulus. I never could discover the least mark of intoxication
in Mr. Collins, as every body called him. His person was scrupulously
neat, his dress always adjusted with the nicest regard to fashion and
elegance. His language was at all times proper, and his sentiments
refined. His mien was dignified and graceful. Had it not been for
his haggard cheek, and the unnatural brightness of his eye, sensual
indulgence would be the last vice one could have attributed to him.

The mind of this young man was radically wrong. He had no
fixed principle, and if he did right, it was to be in good taste, not to
be in opposition to error. Blackstone says, that ‘to do right is only[384]
to pursue one’s own substantial happiness;’ and it may be said,
that to do right, is to pursue good taste, elegance, refinement, true
pleasure, and pure happiness.

Collins was unhappy; he hardly knew why. Possessed of a
poetic temperament—nurtured in the lap of ease and wealth—every
thing provided for him, he had never learned to think, to reason,
but gave free scope to any impulse that came across him. Misfortune
he could not bear, for he had never calculated for its inevitable
coming; disappointment unmanned him, for he esteemed that wealth
exempted him from the common lot of mortality. He had had an
unfortunate attachment—as what young man has not?—and he
thought he must be melancholy and wretched, to be Byronic and
sentimental.

He was, as I found out upon a longer acquaintance, for my own
foolish fancies made me singularly acute in tracing the rhapsodies of
feeling in others, in a false and unnatural state of mind; a maniac,
a madman, unsound. We are apt only to attach the name of madness
to extravagant actions and incoherent words, but there is a madness
which escapes the common eye—a madness of the soul, which
as effectually destroys the balance and contracts the usefulness of
man’s life, as the wildest inconsistencies of conduct.

With every means of happiness within his reach, but for a strange
and ridiculous fancy; with riches, the highest connexions, a fine
person and good education, this young man indulged the idea that
he was soon to die. It was impossible to shake off this illusion.
Considering himself as doomed, he told me that he thought he was
bound to make the most of the little time that remained for him, and
he supported himself under this idea, so terrific to an ill-regulated
mind, by opium, brandy, and any kind of stimulus.

Now his disease was this: Having taken by some accident this
impression, he resorted to a bad remedy to drive it away. Each
application only drove the poison still deeper into his system. He
allowed himself no lucid interval. Could he have been prostrated
by a fit of sickness, and placed under proper care, and recovered
slowly from his disease, his mind might have been restored. But
once in, he continued to weaken his strength by artificial stimulus, and
his mind had no opportunity to resume its natural tone. The drunkard
only can recover from his malady by going through the ordeal of
a trial by water. He must expect to be prostrated. He must suffer
intense agony for days, and perhaps weeks, but if he perseveres, his
cure is certain.

Collins visited at some houses, and was caressed by a few, as ‘a
character.’ He enjoyed the reputation of being an elegant scholar,
among persons to whom he had never given the slightest evidence of
scholarship, and who probably did not know what the classics were.
This is very common. Who ever knew a case of a young man’s
throwing himself away, particularly if his connections are respectable,
when it was not said: ‘What a pity! He is the flower of the
family; might be any thing, only——’

The ladies, dear souls! saw in him a desolated genius. It would
be laughable to tell the thousand and one stories circulated about his
love affair. They used to get him to sing his plaintive airs, and how[385]
it went to their hearts to hear the tones of a broken heart. He,
under the influence of powerful doses of opium, enjoyed this. He
yielded to the idea that he was what they thought him, and was
happy in the luxury of wo. After one of these displays, he would
ask me to relate to him what occurred the evening before, for he
did not know, though all the time he appeared to the company as
perfectly rational.

The students did not expose him, though they saw pretty nearly
what he was. I, I cannot tell why, was with him constantly, and
took pleasure in his society. It was something new to me, and gave
me an opportunity of studying myself.

The example of this man constantly before me, the fact that I
associated with him, contrary to the wishes of my friends, in the
course of time alienated from me the good feeling of my former
friends; or they felt bound to resent my neglect of them, by corresponding
coldness. I did feel bitterly toward them, for their neglect
of Collins, and always took his part; and when lightly spoken of,
resented it as an insult to myself.

In this way, I lost the confidence and friendship of those men who
could have still been, would I have permitted it, of inestimable
advantage to me in healing my own distempered mind.

Collins and myself at last were constantly together, and each
other’s only companions. I gradually fell into his habits. Certain
it is, that we enjoyed some Elysian hours. In the lonely still nights,
when all else seemed lost in sleep, and the sound of labor broke not
upon the ear to remind us that we were in a toiling world, we used
to sally forth and wander through the meadows that skirt the river
in this delightful region. Under the soothing influence of that drug,
which creates first a heaven and then a hell, we talked and sang to the
stars, and the beautiful earth, and the bright moon, and thought we
were happy. A man must be far gone for this world, who goes
straight about such an excitement of his system, when he knows, as
we did, the agony that was to follow, after the charm had ceased.
I was the greatest sufferer. My constitution was naturally strong;
capable of great action and rëaction. While Collins was left in dull
apathy and lethargy, I woke from the trance of joy to excessive
nervous pain. My mind was filled with dismal images. I had horrid
forebodings. My broken vows to my father—the probable
misery I had caused her who really loved me—the days of quiet
and peaceful happiness I might have enjoyed by a different course—my
ruin—glimpses of what I am—all came to my mind, and
inflicted the keenest torture. I lived over again all the pains I had ever
suffered. It seemed as if miseries were accumulated to crush me.
I meditated self-destruction. I prayed for death. This frame of
mind would continue for days, during which time I kept my room,
and lived upon the most simple diet. But when recovered in body
and mind, and going out with strongest resolution, as I thought,
some new temptation would assail me, and the same scene, the same
agony, the same remorse, were acted over and over again; and what
makes it more astonishing, there was a sincerity in this resistance,
which repeated failure could not lead me to doubt.

My only object in forming this acquaintance, was pity for Collins’[386]
solitary state, and a desire to alleviate the pain he seemed to suffer.
My motive, if I know my own heart, was good. Even believers in
human depravity will give me credit for honesty of intention. ‘The
way to hell is paved with good intentions,’ says the preacher. How
true!

In one of my fits of voluntary seclusion, I read ‘Hope Leslie.’
Let me here give the evidence of my own experience in favor of
that book. The study of the law was relinquished, and I read only
works of feverish interest, when I read any thing. After the indulgence
of irregular passions, every one who has suffered, knows that
the mind is left in a flighty state; we have strange visions, and think
strange thoughts; in short, we are quite poetic. Poetry, novels,
music! how grateful they are! They lead us away from ourselves,
and we are just unsound enough to yield entirely to the illusion.
Under such circumstances, I read ‘Hope Leslie.’ I was a week
about it, and I read all the time too. I was so enchanted with the
book, that I consumed it as the child eats his sugar-plums, by little
and little, to make it last the longer, dwelling over each passage;
reading a scene, and then walking the room, and picturing out the
lofty Indian, the heroic Magawisca, the generous youth, and the gentle
mother. How I revelled! Beside, I felt strengthened and elevated
by the high tone of moral sentiment contained in that work. It was
the happiest week I ever lived, infinitely surpassing all possible
reality.

LINES

IN HUMBLE IMITATION OF AN INIMITABLE SCOTTISH POET.

[387]

SONNET: TO MRS. —— —— ——

BY W. GILMORE SIMMS.

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

NUMBER SIX.

SWITZERLAND, (CONCLUDED) GERMANY.

Lausanne, August 26.—We left St. Bernard, well pleased with
our hosts, and hastened back to Martigny, where we procured an
open carriage, and proceeded directly to St. Maurice, there to lodge.
The ride along the banks of the Rhone, in the cool of the evening,
was delicious. As it grew dark, the bonfires of the chamois-hunters
were lit up here and there on the distant mountains; and among
other things, we passed a beautiful cascade, seven hundred feet high,
flowing out of a solid rock. At half past three this morning, we
were aroused from our slumbers at St. Maurice, to take the omnibus
for Villeneuve, at the head of the Lake of Geneva. It was just after
sunrise, on another soft and lovely morning, when we stepped on
board the steamer ‘Le Leman’ to sail down this glorious lake, now
placid and smooth as a mirror. The boat was well filled, principally
with English tourists. We passed near the walls of the famous
Castle of Chillon, where Bonnivard, Byron’s ‘Prisoner,’ lingered in
chains:

The castle is at the foot of the hill, on the very margin of the
lake, and seems almost to rise out of the water. The poet has finely
pictured in his ‘Prisoner’ a striking scene of loneliness, amidst nature’s[388]
fairest works. We passed Clarens, too, the ‘sweet Clarens’
of the author of ‘Helöise:’

At eleven o’clock we arrived at Lausanne, via its port, Ouchi, for
the town is a fourth of a mile up the hill. This is a large but irregularly-built
town, and is much frequented by the English. The
house where Gibbon lived yet remains, and is now occupied by an
English family. Here I took leave of the friendly party, and am to
proceed alone to regions as yet to me unknown.

Berne, August 28.—Had a moonlight night-ride from Lausanne,
whence we departed at seven, P. M. I am now coming to the Cantons
where German is usually spoken, so I suppose I must play deaf
and dumb, and talk by signs, guessing the import of what they say to
me, as I did, for example, at the diligence office, when I paid my
fare; but in this case I was left in a non-plus. When I took my
seat, they motioned me out; and I stood patiently waiting to be disposed
of. My luggage was put on, the diligence was filled and
started off, leaving me there, solus, in deep cogitation. Well,
‘thinks I to myself,’ they are very polite! Presently, however, a
smart buggy came along, and the driver civilly beckoned me to take
a seat. Feeling very cool and good-natured, in I jumped, at the
risk of going where ‘the d——l drives;’ for I really was somewhat
in the dark, and I couldn’t be positive whether it was not the ‘old
gentleman’ himself. Soon, however, these dismal doubts were dispelled
by our overtaking the diligence, and receiving an English
gentleman into the buggy; and then the simple truth flashed upon
me, that the diligence was full, and they were ‘forwarding’ me in
an extra, as they are obliged to do, by law of the land, all who apply
before the time.

In some learned discussions about England, I happened to say
that the law securing the descent of property of the nobility, there,
exclusively to the oldest son, seemed to me very unjust. My companion
said he ‘gloried in it;’ though he himself was a ‘younger
son, he abhorred democracy and equality.’ And with some more
talk, I fell asleep, and left him to his cigar.

I was somewhat diverted with a prevalent custom of the Germans—that
of embracing and kissing each other, when taking leave. I refer,
of course, to the men; for an affectionate salutation of this sort
to the ladies, it would be unpardonable to omit. But to see the
‘grave and reverend seignors’ bussing each other, is a little queer.

At two, A. M., we stopped at a place called Peterlinden, and got
some coffee in a ‘loft.’ About daylight, we were riding in sight of
Lake Neufchatel, and passed the little village of Morat, where the
[389]Swiss heroically defeated an invasion of the Burgundians, in 1440:
of which Byron says:[2]

It is vastly amusing and edifying to observe the ‘whims and oddities’
of the various people one meets with on these routes, or indeed
any where. The English and Germans generally like each other,
while both dislike the French; and all are equally prejudiced against
we poor Americans—perhaps not without reason. There are too
many young Americans, who ape the worst traits of the English
character, abroad, and make themselves ridiculous, by an affected
hauteur and reserve. There were two such at ——, whom our
Scotchman pronounced ‘contemptible puppies; for they considered
themselves too good to speak to the Misses ——, because they
kept a pension;’ and he added, rather rudely and illiberally, that ‘all
Americans are alike, when they think they have got money enough
to act the aristocrat.’ This sweeping charge was not worth notice,
and would never be made by the better class of English or Scotch;
but it must be owned, there is some ground for it; and it is too bad,
that a few dandy upstarts abroad should excite prejudice against the
whole of us.

At nine this morning, we rode through a long shady avenue, lined
with elms, into the handsome town of Berne, the capital of Switzerland.
It is built on a peninsula, formed by the windings of a little
stream called the Aar, in the midst of an extensive and fertile plain.
The two principal streets are long and uniform, the buildings being
all of gray stone, projecting on heavy arches over the side-walks.
In the Rue Grand are several public fountains, adorned with grotesque
figures. At the city-gate, a couple of wooden ‘grisly bears,’
(the arms of the Canton,) look down upon all visitors, with a scrutinizing
but rather inviting glance. The cathedral is a very curious
piece of antique architecture, especially the great door, which is
elaborately ornamented with emblematical sculpture. But the most
attractive spot in Berne is the public promenade, by the side of the
river, from whence you have a magnificent prospect of the whole
range of the Oberland Alps, covered with perpetual snows, probably
the most imposing array of mountains in the world, at least the
finest to be seen at one view. A visit to some of this range, through
the valleys of Grindelwald and Lauterbrunen, is usually a prominent
object to the Swiss tourist. Near the summit of one of these
peaks, where ‘winter reigns supreme,’ the Jung Frau, is the
awful precipice where Byron’s ‘Manfred’ was stopped by the chamois
hunter from taking a final leap.

The city and canton of Berne have always been noted as the most
aristocratic of the confederacy, both in laws and in the spirit of the
[390]
people. Each canton, it seems, has a different
costume:[4] That
of the Berne damsels is marked by white starched over-sleeves,
extending to the elbows, and a broad black lace ruffle stuck up over
the head, which makes them look like Peter Wilkins’ flying islanders.

29th.—Like Mr. Cooper, we patronize ‘Le Fauçon;’ and the
Rev. Mr. Cunningham has invited me among the Anglaise to hear
the church service read in his room. The principal topic of the
day in Berne is the dispute with Louis Phillipe, which at present
looks rather squally.

Alpnach, Lake of Luzerne, 30th.—The ride from Berne to
Thun was very agreeable, notwithstanding I was obliged to take the
interieur, among some inveterate smokers. The scenery continued
to be beautiful, but very different from that we had passed a few
days since—the ‘lofty heights’ being in full view, but far distant.

Thun is a picturesque little village situated in an enchanting place
on the Aar, near the head of the lake of the same name, which forms
one of a series of the most charming sheets of water in Europe.
Instead of the diligence route to Luzerne, I was tempted to enjoy
the luxury of a sail over these lakes; and accordingly left Thun
yesterday morning in a little steamer, which plies on the ‘Thuner
See’ to Interlachen, another pretty village, situated, as its name
implies, between two lakes, Thun and Brientz. It contains several
good pensions, and is much frequented by tourists in search of health;
and well it may be; for the region round about is a paradise. ‘The
air itself is a nosegay, the coarse bread a banquet, and the simple
whey of the Alps is worth all the elixirs of the apothecary.’ You
may not sympathize, perhaps, in my enjoyment of this Swiss tour—would
you were here to enjoy it with me!—for I know it is tantalizing
to read of the ‘fairest places of the earth,’ when one must
long in vain to be in them; and yet, it is pleasant to tell those we
love of the pleasant things we have had the good fortune to fall in
with.

On our way to Interlachen, from the boat, we passed through the
queer and romantic old town of Unterseen. Interlachen is near the
Lake of Brientz; and there, with the assistance of an obliging French
gentleman, who volunteered as my interpreter, I hired a small boat
with four rowers, to take me over the lake to the town of Brientz,
a distance of ten miles. There I got ‘some lunch,’ and hired a
horse and guide for my luggage, to Lungern, going myself, by way
of variety, on foot, over the Brunig Alp. A violent thunder-storm,
which had closely pursued us on the lake, overtook me on the summit
of the rugged Brunig, and, at the expense of a thorough drenching,
I had a fine chance to observe the sublime commotion of the
elements; and sure enough,

The movements of the clouds beneath me, after the shower, were
[391]
extremely beautiful and grand; rising in detached masses, gracefully
and majestically up the sides of the mountains, and parting slowly
from their summits, or from the green vales below, like a veil which
had covered a mystery. Huge masses of rock overhang the path
in several places, threatening to tumble suddenly upon the unwary
traveller, or the cottages below; and abundant are the proofs that
‘such things have been.’

I have said so much about fine prospects, that the one from the
Brunig shall only be referred to, and you may read of it elsewhere.
At Lungern, I dined, and hired a chaise to take me, solus, to the
Lake of the Four Cantons. The ride was along the banks of two
more lakes, Lungern and Sarnen, both of which are of a sea-green
color, deep as the blue of the ‘Leman.’ There was little to remark,
except an occasional water-fall, or the ruddy peasant girls on the
banks, spinning flax.

At sunset, after traversing four lakes, and a mountain of no mean
dimensions, since breakfast, I was received by mine host at the
‘Cheval-Blanc,’ at Alpnach, who is much noted, it seems, as an honest,
attentive, and eccentric Swiss publican ‘of the old school.’ The
hotels, be it observed, throughout Switzerland, are generally excellent.
The plain but substantial fare which they give you, among the
mountains, may be partaken of, after a ramble in those regions of
pure and bracing air, with better relish than a princely feast in
courtly halls; and in the larger towns they will spread a table d’hôte
which would do credit to Meurice, of the Rue Rivoli, or Boyden, of
the Astor House. At all the inns, visitors are expected and even
required to write in the ‘Book of Chronicles’ not only their name
and residence, but occupation, destination, and ‘where from:’ and
in the ‘highland tour’ they usually add ‘remarks,’ scraps of doggerel,
and praise or abuse of the last visited inn; such as ‘Avoid the
‘Epee‘ at Zurich;’ ‘Go by all means to the ‘Cygne‘ at Luzerne.’
Italy being blockaded by cholera and quarantines, this season, its
neighbor Switzerland is more than usually swarmed with tourists;
and a good many American names may be found recorded in the
medley albums.

Luzerne, August 30.—In company with a couple of very agreeable
English gentlemen, who had just returned from Italy, we took
a boat at Alpnach, and were rowed down the Lake of the Four Cantons
to this beautiful place. This lake is one of the largest, and
certainly the most picturesque, in Switzerland, being irregular in its
shape, indented with little bays, and affording, in its whole extent,
every variety of scenery. After doubling several of its promontories,
in a sail of two hours, we landed almost on the very steps of
the favorite ‘Hotel de Cygne’ at Luzerne. It is a capital house,
close to the water, and as we sit at dinner, we have on one side a
fine panoramic view of the Bay of Naples, and, on the other, the
real panorama of this beautiful lake and surrounding mountains.

We dined sumptuously at the table d’hôte, and then walked out
to a garden in the suburbs to see a famous piece of sculpture from
a model by Thorwaldsen, the Swedish artist. It is a colossal lion,[392]
pierced with a barb, cut out on the side of a hill of rock, and under
it are inscribed the names of the Swiss guards who fell in the French
revolutions of ’89 and ’30. It is remarkable that Swiss soldiers are
yet employed as the body-guards of the kings of France, Naples,
etc., as more trustworthy than their own people. These guards are
formally ‘let out’ by the Swiss government; but how such a proceeding
is compatible with national honor, I am at a loss to conceive.
There are two covered wooden bridges at Luzerne, each fourteen
hundred feet long: the interiors are adorned with curious old paintings,
of the Dutch school, comprising a regular series of scripture
subjects.

You will recollect that this is the place from whence the travellers
set out in the graphic opening scene of ‘Anne of Gierstein.’ It is
in the vicinity of the scenes of Tell’s exploits, of the battle-field of
Sempach, and many other interesting spots. The gloomy and
‘cloud-capt’ brow of Mount Pilatus, where tradition says Pontius
Pilate threw himself into the lake! is a conspicuous object on one
side; and opposite, is the isolated Mount Rhigi, on the top of which
we propose to lodge to-night, as all faithful travellers here do, for
the sake of ‘the most magnificent sunset and sunrise prospect which
the world affords.’

Summit of the Rhigi, September 1.—Yesterday, at eleven, A. M.,
I took boat with my companion, (an intelligent young student from
Cambridge, Eng.,) and we pushed across the lake to Kusnacht, near
William Tell’s chapel, and the place where he escaped from Gesler.
Thence we proceeded without a guide, the ascent appearing to be
quite easy; but we had the luck to lose our way and lose each
other: nevertheless, we pressed forward to the goal, like Bunyan’s
‘Pilgrim,’ tugging and climbing under an intensely hot sun, up, up,
up, every step seeming to be the last, until I for one almost gave up
in despair, when the friendly halloo! of some peasants pointed me
to the path. At length we met each other near the top, on the side
toward Altorf; and at six P. M. arrived at the inn, almost fainting
with hunger and fatigue, and well able to do justice to a good
supper.

Much as report had raised my anticipations, the view from the
Rhigi Kulm far exceeded them: yet perhaps that from some points
half-way to the summit, if not so extensive, is more pleasing and
beautiful.[5] From the top, the eye takes in too much; and large
towns and lakes appear like baby’s play-houses and frog-ponds, and
much as they would from a balloon. But the grand whole is certainly
magnificent; a view of the whole of Switzerland could not be
otherwise:

Thirteen lovely lakes, of which those of Luzerne, Zug and Zurich
[393]are the nearest and most conspicuous; with a hundred villages
scattered along their banks. On the south, the sublime and gigantic
array of the snowy Alps of Unterwald and the Grisons, even to the
borders of Italy; while on the other hand, ‘the view extends into the
very centre of Swabia, presenting a richly-colored relief, over which
the eye of the spectator roves in silent rapture, as the eagle, hovering
in mid air or from his aërie, in some isolated pinnacle of the Alps,
looks down upon the states and kingdoms scattered at his feet. The
sound of sheep-bells from the pastures, mingling with others that,
with a deeper and more distant chime, call the villagers to matins;
the smoke of the first fires, curling in light blue wreaths above their
sheltering woods; the lowing of herds, rushing to their morning pasture;
the mountain peaks, varying in tint and distinctness as the
light oversteps their summits; the glaciers, gradually changing their
snowy glare into a purple, and then a rosy glow; spires and pinnacles
catching the first ray of light, and assuming their wonted station
as land-marks in the scene; sails, half in shade and half in sunshine,
skimming the lakes with their rural produce and population; the
Alpine horn, pealing its signals from the pastoral bergs around; the
pilgrim-troop, with solemn chant and motley costume, bringing their
donations to the confessional of ‘Our Lady;’ the screams of the
vulture in pursuit of his prey, and many other sights and sounds
which it would be tedious to enumerate, strike the eye and imagination
of the stranger so forcibly, that he feels for a time as if transported
into the mysteries of a new world.’

This is in the early morning; but the most beautiful sight this
evening was a sea of clouds resting on the minor hills, far beneath us,
the peaks just peeping above, like so many little islands in the ocean.
Bodies of vapor also hung, like a canopy, over a part of the lakes;
but with us the sky was perfectly clear, and the sun went down in
cloudless glory; and when the last morsel disappeared, the Germans
of the party doffed their beavers, and made him a low parting bow.

Zurich, September 1.—Cooling as was the change of air on the
Rhigi, after such a warm ascent, I never felt brighter than after my
nap in that high position, five thousand seven hundred feet above
the tide. By-the-by, the announcement at nine, of ‘La lune! la
lune!‘ produced a rush from the supper table, but the keen, bracing
atmosphere soon compelled the ladies to retreat to their rooms.
At ‘four-and-a-half,’ we were roused from our slumbers by a ‘trumpet’s
martial sound,’ announcing the approach of the ‘king of day.’
It was beautiful to watch the changing tints of the sky, for an hour
before the sun appeared. Not a cloud was to be seen in the horizon,
for we were far above them; but when the sun’s dazzling rays began
to be reflected on the hill-tops, and on the sea of vapor beneath us,
and the mists began to roll away from over the lakes, gradually disclosing
their varied outline, or lifting the canopy from the quiet
towns, the scene was truly exquisite to look upon.

I left the ‘Kulm’ alone, at six, and came down in an hour and a
half, on the side toward Goldau. This is the village that was destroyed[394]
in 1806, by the fall of a part of Mount Rossberg, when nearly
five hundred persons, and property to the amount of half a million,
were suddenly buried under a mass of earth, which our Mr. Cooper
ascertained to be equal in bulk to all the buildings in New-York put
together![6]
From thence I walked along the banks of the Zuder
See, to the curious old town of Zug. This lake is nine miles long.
The road on its banks is lined with fruit trees, and I filled my pockets
with nice fresh prunes for the gathering. Blackberries in profusion
are there also. It was another delicious day, and I experienced none
of the miseries so elegantly described, à la Wordsworth, in the Album
at Alpnach:

There was ringing of bells, and firing of cannon, which made a tremendous
echo across the lake, but for what cause I did not learn.
At Zug I got dinner, and a direction to a by-path ‘across lots’ of potatoe-fields
to Horgern, on the Zurich See, where I was to take the
steam-boat to this place. I was alone, and not a soul on the way could
speak any thing but vulgar German. I was stared at as if from
the clouds; and albeit not conscious, like the third Richard, of any
special deformity, yet,

At one village, a cur at the first house commenced the salute,
which was continued to the last, by every

The folks did not know what I meant by Horgern, because I did
not roll it out with their horrid nasal pronunciation. I stopped to fill
my flask at a spring, and had the luck to learn of a farmer that I was
going just the wrong way. At length, after achieving another mountain,
a splendid landscape was spread out before me; the beautiful
Lake of Zurich, bordered with vineyards, and neat villages, flanked
by another range of snow-capped Alps. With staff in hand, and
knapsack on back, as I approached

I met a posse of ‘fair Zurich’s daughters,’ and of course doffed my
beaver to the fairest, whereat they were all vastly tickled, and perhaps
a little jealous of the ‘favored one’ (a-hem!) but bon jour, or
‘alack-well-a-day,’ was all I could say, so I proceeded to the ‘margin,’
found there was no steam-boat, hired a boat, took in a lady, who
applied for a passage, and pushed off for Zurich. It was a lovely
afternoon, and as pretty a sail as I have yet had. I had this morning
seen the sun rise from the summit of the Rhigi; and now, after walking
thirty-five miles in nine hours, under his hottest beams, I saw him
set on the Lake of Zurich. This lake is nearly twenty miles long.
[395]As we came near the town, we passed several charming pleasure-gardens,
on the very margin of the water. Zurich is situated much
like Geneva, being built on both sides of the rapid stream which
flows out at the head of the lake. It is quite a large and city-like
place, and evidently a flourishing one. I saw several large buildings
in the course of erection. The walks and rides in its environs, and
the sail on its waters, are delightful in the extreme.

It was eight o’clock, P. M., when my boatmen landed me on the
dock, and it was with no little trouble that I found the Gastoff Zum
Schwardt, or Hotel de L’Epèe, for my pronunciation of the name
would not pass. It is a good inn, near the lake, but always full, and
very dear. Mine host politely gave me a ticket for the town museum
and reading-room. I had sent my luggage here by diligence from
Luzerne, and expected to meet my Rhigi companion; but he does
not appear, and I must proceed alone to the Rhine and Germany,
‘unknowing and unknown.’

Schaffhausen, September 2. * * * In the ride to this place,
I had my first glimpse of the Rhine, at the village of Eglisan; and
now I have been out to see the celebrated Falls of the Rhine,
near Schaffhausen. I came to them from above, and was disappointed;
but I found the right view is from the bend, on the other side. The
falls are certainly beautiful and picturesque, but not very grand or
marvellous. If the falls even of the Androscoggin at good old Brunswick
were in Europe, they would be quite a ‘lion’ in their way.

Having now ‘done Switzerland,’ you may ask, ‘Have we not
scenery at home, equal to any in that land of wonders?’ And, at the
risk, as Mr. Cooper says, of being called unpatriotic and ‘spoiled by
travelling,’ I must say no—at least so far as my knowledge goes.
The ‘Notch’ at the White Mountains is equal in wildness and grandeur
to any scenery in Scotland; of course it exceeds any in England,
and probably, the rest of Europe, which is saying a good deal; but
Swiss scenery, i.e., among the higher Alps, you must bear in mind is
on a vastly larger scale than either. Think of mountains two or three
times as high as Mount Washington, in some cases rising almost perpendicularly,
or overhanging valleys eight or ten thousand feet below,
their summits tapering off in fantastic shapes, and pyramids of
rock. It is scenery of a different character, probably, from any other;
unique in its wild sublimity. So also with extensive prospects. Our
Catskill Mountain House is scarcely half as high as the Rhigi Kulm,
and as to the relative merits and variety of the view, I would again
refer you to Mr. Cooper’s comparison. But with these exceptions,
we need not go abroad to discover ‘the beauties of nature.’ Our
rivers and river scenery are as much superior to those of Europe as
Niagara is to the Falls of Trenton: even the far-famed Rhine, if I may
judge from this portion of it, is not worthy to be named with the
Connecticut, far less with our noble Hudson.

The Swiss views, recently published, with letter press by Dr.
Beattie, are very correct as well as beautiful specimens of art. They
will give you a much better notion of the country than any book I[396]
know of. You will perceive I visited most of the originals, having
passed through the cantons of Geneva, Wallis, Waadt, Freyburg,
Berne, Luzerne, Unterwalden, Schwyz, Zug, Zurich, and Schaffhausen,
beside an excursion to Savoy and Piedmont. How much
Knowles’ Mariana says in the simple exclamation;

The name will always recall to me many pleasant associations.

I am not a little puzzled in choosing my route through Germany.
I desire to go through the Tyrol to Bavaria, Munich, Prague, and
Dresden; but it is a long tour, and little travelled. ‘The Glyptique’
collection of the fine arts at Munich, and the great Dresden Gallery,
are doubtless worthy of a visit; but on the whole, I think I shall content
myself with the ‘sights’ of Frankfort, Leipsic, Mayence, the
sail down the Rhine to Coblentz and Cologne, and thence to Aix la
Chapelle, and the cities of Belgium.

GERMANY—THE RHINE.

Carlsrhue, Duchy of Baden, September 5.—I was somewhat
amused by a good-looking Irish gentleman, who, after paying some
pretty sensible compliments to the flavor of the bon vins of mine
host at Schaffhausen, very kindly offered me his confidence and friendship,
‘free gratis for nothing,’ and proposed a walk to the falls, observing
by the way, while telling me this, that, and the other, in the
between-you-and-me sort of a way, that a rascal, whom he had unsuspectingly
made his bosom friend and room-mate at Aix-la-Chapelle,
had, with equal good nature, very benevolently relieved him of
the care of his purse and gold watch. Poor Pat! I fear he was in
a fair way to be operated upon again, with equal efficacy.

Schaffhausen is a queer old Germanized town, quiet and dull. The
Hibernian and myself were the only guests at the principal hotel. I
had another dreary night-ride from thence to the frontier of this
duchy, where passports and luggage were duly inspected. At sunset,
I arrived at Offenbourg, a decent town, where I found a very
nice inn, kept by a nice man, who deals in wines and broken English.
He entertained me excellently well, and sent me on to this place
this morning in an extra. We stopped to dine at a town, which I
took for our ultimatum, and leisurely disposed myself accordingly,
when lo! by mere accident, I observed the carriage starting off, with
my portmanteaus safely behind. ‘Ou allez vous?’—’à Carlsrhue!’
So much for being among people of a strange tongue.

There seemed to be a uniformity of costume in several of the
towns. Red vests and breeches and broad-brimmed, hats, were
universal among men and boys; i.e., of the peasantry only, for they
are a distinct order of beings on the continent. The most laborious
part of farming, etc., is performed by the women; the ‘fair sex’ here
are expected to hold the plough, rake the hay, and dig the potatoes.
What brutes must the men be!

Carlsrhue, the duke of Baden’s capital and residence, is one of
the neatest towns I have seen on the continent. The streets are[397]
broad, straight, and well-paved, and the buildings all of stone, painted
cream-color. The chateau of the duke is in the form of a crescent,
opposite a block of private houses in similar style, thus making an
elegant circle, with a garden and orangery in the centre. In the rear
of the chateau, is an extensive hunting-park. The whole of this
duchy appears to be one level plain, not specially fertile; and there
is little to remark in riding over it, except the extensive squadrons
of geese, tended by the lasses like a flock of sheep, and the battalions
of ganders, in the shape of the duke’s soldiers.

Our introduction to his Serene Lowness, the Rhine, did not give us
the most favorable impression of his majesty. If one should see
that part of the river between Switzerland and Mayence, and no
more, he would pronounce its far-famed beauties all a joke. It
passes here through this flat uninteresting duchy, the banks affording
nothing more attractive than pine bushes, six feet high; and the
river itself has lost its primitive attraction at Schaffhausen, for here
it is of a brown muddy color, instead of its once transparent green.
Occasionally, however, the monotony of the shores is relieved by a
pretty town, which, the atmosphere being clear, and the view unobstructed,
may be seen from a great distance. Among others, we
passed Spires and Worms, noted for their cathedrals, which are very
conspicuous objects from the river; and Manheim, a handsome town,
with a fine palace, (now chiefly in ruins,) in the midst of a beautiful
park. Near Manheim is Heidelberg, celebrated for its university,
which is the oldest in Germany. These places are in the ‘Grand
Duchy’ of Hesse-Darmstadt, which adjoins that of Baden. The
boat stopped a short time at Manheim, and we went on shore to see
the palace.

It was dusk when we came in sight of the famous and very pretty
town of Mayence, our steamer passing through the bridge of boats
over the Rhine, which was promptly opened to admit it. The spires,
and domes of the town, as seen from the river, give it quite an
imposing appearance. We stepped on the quay, with very little
bustle, and without any obstruction or examination. The hotels
near the river were all full, but we found good lodgings at the
‘Trois Courounes’ in the interior. I shall proceed to-morrow to
Frankfort and Leipsic, with the intention of returning here to take
the Rhine to Cologne.

Frankfort on the Maine, September 7.—The ride from Mayence
to this city occupied three hours and a half. The approach
to Frankfort is not remarkable, except for the beautiful grounds and
gardens laid out on the site of the ancient walls and fortifications in
the environs. Frankfort, you know, is one of the four free cities of
Germany,[7] (Hanse-Towns,) and is entirely independent of any other
state, being a co-equal member of the Germanic confederation, and
important also as the seat of the Diet. Some parts of the city are
very handsome, and the whole has an air of busy prosperity: it seems
to be very like Paris, on a smaller scale. The hotels are renowned
[398]for their size and excellence; and as the great semi-annual Fair is in
operation, they are at present abundantly well patronized. This
Fair is quite an important affair to the city: all the public squares,
quays, etc., are filled with temporary stalls and ‘magazines’ of articles,
manufactured in different parts of Germany, the merchant
announcing himself ‘from Berlin,’ or Dresden, or Leipsic. They
often bring samples, only, of their wares, and from them make extensive
‘package sales.’ I should think that one half, at least, of these
were filled with pipes—a fair illustration of the smoking propensities
of the Germans. These pipes are long and clumsy, but most of them
are very prettily ornamented. The Germans are verily inveterate
lovers of the weed. They smoke every where and on all occasions;
the toll-keeper puffs away while he opens the gate, the conducteur,
regulating the diligence, the shop-keeper, while he makes your bill.
All classes and degrees are alike in this respect—the duke, the
‘professor,’ the peasant. The charms of the practice are especially
exemplified in the interior of a crowded diligence on a hot day,
when three fourths of the passengers are doing their best to suffocate
one another with fumes of smoke from pipes, and brimstone
from matches. Remonstrance from a novice in the science is vain,
for though otherwise polite and obliging, they seem to think smoking
so much a matter of course, to prize it above their meat and drink,
even above their wine, that they do not imagine it can be disagreeable.

The river Maine, which falls into the Rhine at Mayence, or Mainz,
is an insignificant stream, only navigable by flat boats which go down
with the current, and are drawn up by horses, as in canals. Frankfort
is built on both sides of the river, but the greater part is on the
north. The quays are broad, and afford a handsome architectural display,
the buildings being all of a light cream color, like those of the
French capital. I observed no very splendid public buildings, but
the principal street, containing several of the great hotels, is very
spacious and stately. In the Hotel de Ville is preserved, among
other archives, the original of the celebrated ‘Golden Bull.’

Leipsic, September 10.—Here am I, in the very heart of Germany,
in the centre of Europe, within ten hours’ ride of Dresden, one day
of Berlin, two of Prague, three of Munich, four of Warsaw, ten of
St. Petersburgh, and a few more of Rome, Constantinople, and Jerusalem,
all of which I would fain honor with a visit, did time and
the ‘needful’ permit; at present, however, this will be my ultimatum,
and to-morrow I shall commence what the Frenchman said Napoleon
did, after the memorable battle of this same Leipsic, not a
retreat, but a mouvement retrograde toward home. My journeyings
will now be toward the setting instead of the rising sun.

The ride to this city proved, as I expected, extremely tedious and
disagreeable. We left Frankfort at half past nine, P. M., and were
forty-one hours, including two nights, on the way; the distance being
two hundred and twenty miles. I was again doomed to the interieur,
amid five smokers, as usual, neither of whom could speak English
or French; and the idea of the mistakes and vexations to which my[399]
solitary ignorance exposed me, was any thing but comfortable. I
escaped, however, with nothing worse than the loss of a cloak in the
Frankfort diligence; for on coming to the Prussian dominions, we
were transferred to a respectable vehicle, on which was inscribed:

‘Konig. Preuss,
Schnell Post.’

(Query, mail or snail? It does not merit the latter appellation so
well as some of the French, to say the least.) The public conveyances
on the continent are all driven by a postillion, in a kind of
livery, with ‘seven league boots,’ a trumpet with tawdry tassels, and
a leathern hat: he always rides the ‘nigh’ horse, and never goes
more than one post, as each ‘team’ has its own postillion. Every
diligence is superintended by a conducteur, who has the best seat in
the coupé, but does nothing himself, except delivering the mails and
small parcels on the way. The French and Swiss conducteurs are
often surly and uncivil, but those in Prussia are very attentive, good-looking,
and even well-educated. The most learned doctors of the
university will converse with them on familiar terms, with deference
and respect.

There is evidently much less exclusiveness in grades, and less
show of haughty superiority in the wealthy, and even the noble, in
these despotic countries, than in liberal and enlightened England.
From the Grand Duke downward, it is usual to give a bow and a
‘bon jour,’ or ‘adieu,’ to the meanest servant in return for the same
salutations: and these courtesies certainly do not seem to be misconstrued
into that familiarity which breeds contempt, but rather to
strengthen respect and attachment to the superior.

In coming to Leipsic from Switzerland, I passed through no less
than eight independent states and principalities, viz.: the ‘Grand
Duchies’ of Baden, Hesse-Darmstadt, Saxe-Weimar, Saxe-Gotha,
Hesse-Cassel, the free city of Frankfort, and the kingdoms of
Prussia and Saxony. The boundaries of these great-little duchies
are marked by a plain stone on the way-side, inscribed, ‘Weimar,’
‘Gotha,’ etc., as the case may be. I observed nothing else to indicate
that the country was governed by so many different masters.
There is nothing on the route deserving the name of scenery: even
a gentle hill to relieve the dull, tame prospect of long and often
barren plains, occurs but seldom. Of the towns I shall see more on
my return.

I was sorry to find that the noted book-publisher, Mr. Tauchnitz,
Senior, died of apoplexy, very suddenly, a few months since. His
son, who continues the business, is a very courteous and intelligent
man, and speaks English fluently. He received me very kindly, and
invited me to dine with him at twelve o’clock, M.! In England, I
was several times invited to dine at seven, P. M. The usual dinner
hour at hotels in Germany is one.

Before dinner, Mr. T. escorted me to the lions. In the principal
Lutheran church, I was a little surprised to see paintings, altars and
images!—things opposed, as I thought, to the very spirit of Lutheranism.

The ‘booksellers’ have just completed a handsome ‘Exchange,’[400]
where the brethren of the ‘trade’ from all parts of Germany assemble
semi-annually, at the Easter and Michaelmas fairs, to settle
accounts, and make sales of new books, etc., by sample. The book-trade
is carried on here very extensively, and with a great deal of
system. Leipsic is the head-quarters for the business in all the German
states, and all publishers in other places have their agents here.
You will be surprised, perhaps, at the fact, that the number of new
books published annually in Germany, is greater than all issued during
the same time in Great Britain and France put together.[8] What
a nation of book-makers! What a mass of intellect in active exercise!
In a country not much exceeding in extent the single state of
New-York, there are six thousand new works, comprising nine millions
of volumes, printed every year, beside reprints of old works,
and all pamphlets and periodicals! One would think the Germans
ought to be a learned people!

Mr. Tauchnitz’s establishment is one of the most extensive in the
trade. He showed me the stereotype plates of his well-known editions
of the Greek and Latin classics, of which he publishes a complete
series, in an economical, pure text form, one set filling a box
twenty inches square. So you may easily ascertain the exact bulk of
all the intellect of antiquity!

The Leipsic University, which is one of the oldest in Germany, is
also about to occupy a neat and extensive edifice just completed.
The ancient fortifications of Leipsic, like those of Frankfort, have
been removed, and the space they occupied is laid out in gardens and
public promenades; a change decidedly for the better, as every
peaceable man will say.[9] As to beauty of architecture, this city has
little remarkable; the buildings are mostly antique and uncouth, and
the streets narrow, and without side-walks.

At dinner to-day, at Mr. ——, the second dish consisted of thin
slices of two sorts of fish, literally raw. It seemed to be regarded
as a rare delicacy, but I could not stretch my politeness enough to do
justice to it. The dinner, otherwise, was excellent. You know the
old man who made the ‘Bubbles from the Brunens,’ feelingly describes
his consternation at the never-ending courses of a German public
table; but he does not mention two-thirds of the dishes I have tasted
at a single sitting. The feast commences, all the world over, with
soup; then comes the dry soup-meat, ‘which a Grosvenor-Square
cat would not touch with his whiskers!’ but which is nevertheless
rendered quite palatable by a highly-seasoned gravy; then, cutlets,
omelets, and messes of various sorts; followed by poultry, wild fowls,
beef, etc.; fifthly, pudding, which with us is a sign that the meat is
disposed of; but lo! ‘sixthly and lastly’ comes a huge quarter of
veal, roast chickens, young lobsters, salad, etc.; seventhly, tarts and
confectionary; ‘and, to conclude, a dessert of prunes, grapes,
peaches, cakes, etc., the whole capped by sundry nibbles at a fair,
round cheese, or peradventure, as to-day, with coffee, in Lilliputian
[401]cups, which I took for baby’s play-things. Verily, one has a chance
of finding something to his taste in this variety.

After dinner, Mr. Tauchnitz ordered his barouche, with two beautiful
bays, and a footman in livery, (Mr. T. is a book-seller,) and we
rode out to the field of the memorable battle of 1813, about a mile
from the town. The whole vicinity of Leipsic, for several miles, is
one vast plain, which has always been, and probably will continue to
be, the theatre of battles, when the nations of Europe see fit to fight
at all. We walked to a slight elevation, where Napoleon had his
head-quarters during the battle. The French had garrisoned the
town for six years previous; consequently they had their choice of
position. Napoleon had made a mouvement retrograde from Dresden,
after giving up his second expedition to Russia; he was followed by
the allied army, and here they met. Three days’ hard fighting, and
the slaughter of twenty thousand men, was the consequence. The
French were routed; but their possession of the town enabled them
to proceed in their retrograde toward Frankfort, (the same route I
had come,) and on the fourth day the allies entered Leipsic. Mr. T.
was on the field during the fight, and he gave me a graphic description
of it. ‘Here stood Blucher, with his Prussians; there, Prince
Swartzenberg and the Austrians.’ What a scene of horror must that
field have been, when twenty thousand human beings lay there,
bloody corpses, and half as many more had fallen, wounded and mangled,
sighing for death as a relief from their misery!

Otho, the young king of Greece, is now in Leipsic on a visit. He
is shortly to be married to a German princess, whose name I have
forgotten.

Mayence, Sept. 13.—At six, P. M., on the tenth, I was again in the
diligence. There were but three passengers; one of them asked
me in German to sit with him in the interior, but having persuaded
him in English into a coupé seat, he complacently remarked that he
was pretty sure, from the first, that I was English. I declined the
honor, with equal good nature. ‘Scotch?’ No. ‘Irish?’ No.
He looked puzzled. ‘You must have spoken English from childhood?’
‘Yes. I never spoke any other language.’ ‘Perhaps you
have resided some time in England?’ Never was there but three
months.’ Curious whether he would discover me, I kept mum.

‘From the East Indies?’ No. ‘But you are a British subject?’
Oh, no. I acknowledge no king whatever.

‘South America?'(!) No.

And, strange to say, I was the first, after all, to hint that there was
a republic usually called the United States of America. It did not
occur to him, at the moment, that the English language was known
to some extent in ‘our country;’ but singularly enough, when the
happy land was mentioned, I found him far from being ignorant of it.
He had read of our ‘manners’ from his own Duke of Saxe-Weimar
down to Captain Hall and the Trollope; and he was now writing a
critical essay on American poetry. In short, he was Dr. O. L. B.
Wolff, professor of belles-lettres in the University of Jena; the
author, you will recollect, of the History of German Literature in[402]
the London Athenæum, and of other essays which have made his name
well known with us. He seemed a good deal interested in our literature,
and we beguiled the hours far into the night, in learned talk,
parting near the battle-field of Jena, with mutual promises of future
correspondence.

The road lies over several memorable fields. Near Lutzen, they
pointed to a stone, ‘Voila la, Gustave tombeau!‘ It was the spot
where the ‘Great Gustavus’ Adolphus fell, in the thirty years’ war.
We passed the house where Charles XII. of Sweden signed his
treaty with the Elector of Saxony. At Erfurt is the cell where Martin
Luther lived when he was an Augustine friar. At Gotha, Weimar,
Eisenbach, and Fulda, the capitals of their respective duchies,
are the ‘chateaux de residence.’

The approaches to most of the continental towns are through long
avenues, shaded by elms or poplars, extending sometimes a couple of
miles. One naturally looks for something handsome, after passing
such an imposing portal; but it does not always follow. One of the
finest of these triumphal arches leads to a filthy hamlet, which would
disgrace our backwoods.

They have a peculiar costume, at one of these towns; but in general,
there is no costume in Germany. Both at Frankfort and Leipsic,
I noticed two remarkable items, the Jews and the pretty girls.
The Jews wear long black gowns and girdles, with beards of nearly
equal length. They seem to be here a distinct and ‘peculiar people.’
As to the German ladies, there is certainly more beauty among
them than I have seen elsewhere in Europe.

My second entrance into Frankfort was from a better point of
view, crossing the stone bridge over the Main. I had been riding
four nights, sans sleep, and in the vulgar phrase, was ‘quite done up.’
It was of course delightful to find that the ‘fair’ had so thoroughly
filled the domicils of every publican in the place, that not a nook or
a corner in all those immense hotels was to be had for love or money.
I wandered here and there, houseless and alone, till dusk, with a fair
prospect of a loafer-like lodging in the street! This was actually
the only alternative to going off at ten, P. M., to Mayence. There
were probably at least ten thousand strangers in the place at that
moment.

The entrance into Mayence, at one o’clock at night, was quite impressive.
On the opposite side of the river, in Cassel, is an extensive
military establishment, through the gates and court of which we had
to pass. The postillion sounded a martial air on his trumpet, and
the sentinel, opening the ponderous gates, admitted us to the bridge
of boats on which we crossed the Rhine to the city. Every thing
was still and quiet, but our rumbling diligence; the stars and the
lights of the town were looking at their portraits in the river. At
the city portals, another blast of the trumpet[10] procured us admission,
[403]but no living thing was to be seen, except the military ‘guardians
of the night.’

To-day it rains torrents. So I will merely tell you, in guide-book
style, that Mayence, as well as Cologne, owes its origin to the Romans,
and was occasionally the residence of some of the emperors. The
city has also been an electorate of the German empire, but at present
it belongs to Prussia; and it is remarkable, that with a population
of thirty-two thousand, it has a garrison of twelve thousand soldiers.
It claims the honor of being the birth-place of Guttenberg, one,
at least, of the inventors of printing, of whom there is a statue in one
of the squares. I have been to see the cathedral, noted only for antiquity,
and for the numerous monuments and statues of church dignitaries
in the interior.

Coblentz, (on the Rhine,) September.—The steam-boat left the
quay at Mayence this morning at six, with about one hundred passengers,
mostly English, on their homeward retreat. For two or
three miles, the banks of the river continued to be low and tame.
We passed the palace of the Grand Duke of Nassau, a fine edifice,
near the river The classical Brunnens of Langen-Schwalbach are
a few miles in the interior.

We were this day to see the only interesting part of the ‘glorious
Rhine,’ that between Mayence and Cologne. Along here, there are
a plenty of little islands, and the banks of the river abound with
picturesque rocky crags, capped by ruins of castles, and relieved
here and there by a green meadow, a vineyard, or a neat village.
Johannisberg, a chateau belonging to Prince Metternich, is one of
the first from Mayence. This estate has fifty-five acres of vine-grounds,
from whence comes the most celebrated of the Rhenish
wines. Speaking of Metternich, I need not remind you of his
portraiture as ‘Beckendorf,’ in that unique production, ‘Vivian
Grey.’ Then we passed the ruins of Klopp and Ehrenfels,[11]
Vantsberg castle, at present occupied, from which we were saluted
with a gun; the ruins of Falkenberg, Guttenfels, Schöenberg, and
[404]
the rocks of ‘the Seven Sisters’ in the
river;[12] Sternberg and Liebenstein,
‘the Brothers,’ etc., all famed by many a pathetic legend.
There are also the pretty villages of Rudesheim, Geisenheim, Bingen,
Oberwesel, Saint Goar, and others, too tedious to mention;
and the rock of Lureley, with an echo which repeats seven times.

I am now before the castle of Ehrenbreitstein, the strongest fortress
in Europe, built on a rocky elevation, commanding the river for
several miles. The city of Coblentz, nearly opposite, and connected
with it by a floating bridge, is strongly fortified, and garrisoned by
five thousand Prussian soldiers. It was founded by Drusus, the Roman
general, thirteen years before Christ.

Cologne, 14th.—I am now in the ancient and honorable city of
‘Les Trois Rois,’ and of the eleven thousand virgins.

On leaving Coblentz, the shores are again ‘flat and stale,’ (though
perhaps not ‘unprofitable’ to the vinters,) until thou comest unto
Remagen, when there are a few miles of the picturesque, and then
the scenery of the Rhine is finished. On the score of natural beauty,
it would take a good many Rhines to make a Hudson; but, as Willis
says, here we are constantly reminded of the past; history, tradition,
and song, have given every thing a charm, and even these
rough old ruins are tinted with a couleur de rose; but amidst the
hills, and streams, and forests, of the so-called new world, our thoughts
stretch forward to the future. We have already the rich material,
and perhaps the time will come when Europe may not claim superiority,
even in works of art, or in historical associations and reminiscences;
albeit we have no princely palaces or baronical strongholds,
and, thanks to our democratic rulers! we are in no immediate
danger of them.

[405]

But the Rhine is interesting—intensely so; and I can only regret,
my dear ——, that you are not here to share with me this long-wished
for pleasure.

If misery loves company, as the proverb says, why should not
happiness be also sociably disposed? There is to me a special loneliness
in being in these regions of song, with a crowd of strangers,
but with no ‘congenial spirit’ who in after days would recall to us
the fond recollection of happy hours passed together in the distant
land; who with a single word might bring vividly before us a glowing
panorama of scenes remembered as a dream. And is there not
as much or more enjoyment in these remembrances, than in the
‘first impression?’

Beside the Drachenfels, there are a score of ruins this side of
Coblentz, such as Rolandzeck, Godesberg, and other hard names;
and we also passed the pretty town of Bonn, the seat of an ancient
and well-endowed university. From one of the castles, near the
river, we were saluted with three cheers by the garrison.

To-morrow I shall write from Aix-la-Chapelle, for here I must
say, albeit not in the Byronic vein,

[406]

THE SONGS OF OUR FATHERS.

Ossian.

Ione.

THE DEAD HUSBAND.[13]

BY ALPHONSO WETMORE, ESQ., AUTHOR OF THE ‘GAZETTEER OF MISSOURI.’

More than one half of the inhabitants of the globe have an imperfect
idea of the sufferings that are endured by their kindred, even in
the vicinity of their own dwellings. The same laudable sentiment
that induces display of the elegancies of life, causes concealment of
our miseries, or humiliating misfortunes. The social feeling which
induces us to lend aid to a neighbor in peril, or in the full tide of
prosperous action, tends to the exhibition of our good fortune; it is
sympathy in both instances. It is the sufferer who seeks concealment,
having no flattering prospects to offer for the congratulations
of the sympathetic. It is the jealous distrust of our natures that induces
the pedestrian, who is toiling onward with a humid brow, to
cast a nervous and discontented glance at the tenants of the post-coach,
as it darts onward; and he welcomes the cloud of dust that
insures concealment of his woes, created only by contrast. It is only
when crime brings suffering on the innocent kindred of the criminal,
that there exists serious cause of discontent.

[408]

Joseph Joplin was one of half a dozen sons of a tavern-keeper in
the county of Buncombe, North Carolina; and consequently he became
initiated in early life into the ways of the world; by which
general expression, it may be in this case understood, an acquaintance
with whiskey and tar-kilns, long rifles, and quarter-races. When
this younger son of the publican of the ‘Piny Woods’ had nearly
attained the stature of the family standard, six feet three inches, and
a few months before he had reached his twentieth year, he led up
before the township justice of the peace a hope-inspired damsel. She
vowed herself his partner, in weal and wo, in life and death. His
circumstances at the time were only middling. He owned ‘a likely
young nag, a dollar bill, and a good rifle-gun.’

A few months after the festivities of the nuptials had left the sober
realities of life in bold relief, the young couple began to look beyond
the precincts of the paternal double cabins, in order to fix the trace
leading to the most inviting region. Their departure was accelerated
by ‘a small scrimmage,’ in which Mr. Joplin was unfortunately a
principal actor, at a shooting-match. His antagonist had darkened
the manly disc of our hero a little; but then the young bridegroom
boasted that he had taken an ‘under bit out of his left ear, and stove
two of his front teeth down his throat.’

The young couple departed with the buoyancy of hope, (that flattering
endorser of accommodation paper,) for the western district;
the husband on foot, leading in the devious pathway of his bride,
who was mounted on the nag. This animal was well laden with
household stuffs, consisting principally of quilts and ‘kiverlids.’

The adventurers reached the point of destination, six miles from
the last cabin, on the borders of the Indian country, in season to
make a crop. When the corn was gathered in, the fall hunt half finished,
the venison drying, and the ‘bear bacon’ cured, the Indian
Summer, with its mild haze, shed a soft and cheering influence upon
the new-beginners.

On one of the quiet evenings, made more interesting by the tranquillity
of the day of rest, the settlers were entertaining a neighboring
family with a happy display of the best the house could afford,
with ‘a streak of fat and a streak of lean.’ While the children of
their guests were playing antic gambols about the door, a scream of
infantile alarm arrested the attention and deep interest of the settlers.
As the three males of the party snatched their arms, the anticipated
war-cry rang responsive in the precincts of the cabin. The
foremost of the assailants fell, and another shot wounded and arrested
the advance of the leading warrior, while the affrighted mothers
drew in their fugitive infants. As the cabin-door was closed
against the foe, a distracted mother saw her youngest child snatched
up by a retreating brave, while his comrades dragged off their dead
leader. A gun had been hastily charged, and the fearless Joplin,
having thrown open the door, drew it to his face; but the wary savage
held up, to shield his person, the little captive. ‘Fire!’ screamed
the distracted mother; ‘better dead than a prisoner!’ At the critical
instant when the little sufferer parted asunder its legs, the sharp
report of the rifle of the white man was heard, and the crimson current,
of a deeper hue than the painted skin of the savage, rippled[409]
down his naked trunk. He reeled, and hesitated, and ere the smoke
of the rifle had blown away, the frantic mother, with knife in hand,
was seen flying to the rescue. The savage, cool and collected, even
in the agonies of death, interposed the infant between the thrust of
the Amazon and his person, and the unhappy mother plunged her
weapon into the bosom of her own child!

The warrior’s knife closed the scene as he fell, and was bathed in
the heart’s blood of the fearless woman, the wife of Joplin’s nearest
neighbor. The Indians fled without a single scalp.

After the funeral obsequies of the mother and child had been
hastily performed, and they were consigned to the same unostentatious
grave, the neighboring settlers assembled, and rendezvoused
at Joplin’s cabin. They elected him their captain. Here
they continued during the autumn and winter, with various fortune
in sharp skirmishes with their unrelenting and always vigilant
enemy.

Early in the spring, they broke up their little settlement, and retired
back to the more populous part of the country. Captain Joplin
returned to the paternal mansion in the Piny Woods, to exhibit
the beginning of the third generation, in the person of young Buckeye
Joplin. After lingering awhile in his old haunts, and recounting
the perils he had cheerfully met and overcome, he looked out
again upon the land of promise, the western expanse, for another
channel of enterprise.

The second expedition of our hero was undertaken by water.
Having packed his family across to the Tennessee river, and exchanged
his ‘nag’ for a canoe, or ‘dug-out,’ he embarked in his long
and devious voyage to the Mississippi. Joplin occupied the stern as
steersman, but his spouse was provided with a paddle, which she
plied alternately with her knitting, as they glided onward to an unknown
land. The voyage was barren of incident, and only varied
by fishing and hunting for the subsistence of the family. They entered
the Mississippi, and descended this river to the mouth of White
river; and as this was backed up by the spring freshets, the voyagers
turned their course up the stream, and crossed the connecting cut, or
bayou, to the Arkansas river. They continued their voyage, until
they found a landing-place of an inviting aspect, near Little Rock.
Here the emigrants landed and pitched their half-face camp. After
a year or two of hardship and privation, incident to the settlement of
a new country, the Joplin family, somewhat increased in numbers,
began to enjoy the fruits of industry. The improved condition of
the captain’s pecuniary affairs afforded him the means of indulging in
his ardent propensity for attendance on all the gatherings, which he
had never dismissed from his mind while his necessities restrained
him. In the absence of her husband, the pains-taking woman kept
the shuttle flying, or sung an accompaniment to the instrumental
music of the spinning-wheel. From these gatherings Joplin sometimes
returned with marks of personal rencounters; and time, and
the soothing care of the even-tempered woman, were requisite to
soften the exasperated backwoodsman, and to obliterate the signs of the
feud on the distorted visage of her husband. On these occasions, the
ferocity of his disposition predominated on the first day after the[410]
gathering; on the second, he was moody and thoughtful; and the
third brought on repentance, and promises of reformation.

The great races at length came on; and Captain Joplin’s colt,
sired by Chain-Lightning, out of the celebrated full-blooded dam
Earthquake, had been entered for the jockey purse, and the owner
was ‘obliged to be present.’ This he promised should be his last
race, and his last fight on any race-course. The good woman ventured,
as she handed him his holy-day jeans, to urge his return home
at an earlier hour than usual. Very fair promises were made; but,
about the hour of midnight, the ‘whole team of bear-dogs’ opened
a boisterous greeting as the roistering captain approached his cabin.
The cold bacon, and cabbage, and buttermilk, were set out by the
flickering light of a Corinthian tallow peach-wicked candle, and
the meal was despatched in silence. When the gentleman from
Buncombe had picked his teeth with his pocket-knife, he whispered
an appalling secret in the ear of his wife. She drew a long sigh of
resignation, wiped her eyes with a corner of her apron, and began
packing his saddle-bags, while Joseph Joplin cleaned his ‘rifle-gun,’
which he called ‘Patsy,’ after his wife. He had finished trimming
the bullets he had cast, when, all things being ready, he rose to
depart.

‘Joseph Joplin,’ said his wife, ‘I always allowed it would come to
this; but the Lord’s will be done!’

In reply, the captain briefly remarked:

‘If he don’t die of the stab I give him, Mike Target will pass me
word, when the boys go out into the bee-woods. I leave you every
thing but the colt and my bear-dog, Gall-buster; and, so as I never
comes back, tell the boys ’tis my wish that they never gives the lie,
nor takes it.’

The period of Joplin’s absence was more than three years; during
which space of time his patient spouse kept up the monotonous
music of her wheel, and the regular vibrations of the shuttle. Her
hearth was kept warm and clean, and her children were amply clad
in cleanly attire, and well fed. Every Sunday was set apart for extra
washing of faces, combing of tow-heads, reading a chapter or
two, and chanting a hymn. She had rented her field, so as to secure
her bread-stuffs; and her little stock of cattle had increased,
while they supplied milk and butter for the subsistence of her children.
Each tedious year had she spun, wove, and made up for her
absent husband a new suit of jeans, which she hung in the cabin beside
her own holiday apparel, that she carefully abstained from wearing,
until she could attire herself and husband in their best, on some
joyous day of meeting. His Sunday hat hung on the hook where the
breech of his rifle had rested. Every day of rest she made it a
point to brush the dust from the smooth beaver, and drop a tear into
the crown. From the day of his departure, no account had ever
been received of him. The sheriff, with a rude posse, had searched
the premises on the day after the affray, and the neighboring country
had been scoured in vain. The racer had outstripped all pursuers,
and the fugitive was secure in the unexplored regions at the foot of
the Ozark mountains.

The wounded sportsman who had defrauded our hero, contrary to[411]
the most flattering hope, had been effectually cured of the wound that
Joplin, in his intoxicated rage, had inflicted. The wife, rejoicing in
this piece of good fortune, had resorted to every device within the
compass of female ingenuity to convey intelligence to the unknown
region, the abode of her husband; but she had almost despaired of
ever seeing him again, when an old bee-hunter disembarked from his
pirogue opposite her cabin, on the Arkansas river, to dry his blankets
after a hard storm. Of this old adventurer Mrs. Joplin learned that
he had met a trapper on the head waters of White river, who called
himself Griffin, and the description of his person induced the fond
wife to think it might be Captain Joplin himself. On his way out to
the bee-woods the following season, the old hunter carried with him a
letter to the following effect:

‘Deer Capting Joe Jopling; arter my best respects, hoping these lines may find
you: he arn’t dead no more nor you and mee; you mout come home, I reckon; the
childrin all right smartly groin; you would never know the baby.

‘Patsy Jopling, at the Piny Bend.’

Long and anxiously did the poor affectionate wife wait the return
of the father of her little brood, and often in the train of her flattering
imagination start as some stranger entered her cabin, with the exclamation,
‘I thought it was Capting Jopling!’ In her leisure moments,
too, she was in the habit of fixing her ardent and steady gaze on the
point of rocks behind which she had seen him depart. In all the
torture of delay, not a reproachful exclamation was ever uttered by
the sufferer. A sigh hastily drawn, and a rudely-constructed prayer,
evinced the emotion she deeply felt. The fond woman could perceive,
as her children increased in growth, strong resemblances of
their father developed in every lineament. But the likeness in ‘the
baby’ was absolutely wonderful. ‘If,’ said she, ‘little Joe was
grown, and daddy war here present, they would never know themselves
apart.’

It was on one of those mild and sunny days of rest, in the Indian
Summer of autumn, that the wanderer returned. The careful mother
was surrounded with her children, and was, at the moment he
entered the cabin, giving the last touches to the flaxen locks of the
youngest child.

‘You had as well give my hair a little combing, Patsy,’ was the
calm salutation of our hero.

‘Capting Joseph Jopling!’ exclaimed the half-frantic wife, ‘ar it
you at last!’ She smoothed down the folds of her garments as she
arose, and, with a smile of welcome, as she gave her hand, said,
‘Howdy, Joseph?’

On a close and more deliberate scrutiny of his person, Patsy seemed
to think, with her husband, that his hair needed the comb. His
locks were matted together like the wool on the forehead of a buffalo;
not a comb or an intrusive pair of scissors had interrupted the wild
luxuriance of its growth, in a period of more than three years. When
his hat had given way to the irritation of cane-brakes and green briars,
and the peltings of the storms of summer and winter, he had cultivated
the covering with which nature had bountifully provided his
cranium. By occasional cropping of his locks with his butcher-knife,[412]
as they grew out so as to obstruct his vision, he left his upper-works
with a singular aspect; and when the growth of three years’ beard
is considered, with the bears’ oil glistening on its uncombed surface,
it is not strange that his charitable wife should give him some ironical
compliments, such as these:

‘Jopling, you’re a beauty! Sally, bring the soap. Joseph, you
are a picture! The poor baby don’t know its daddy; did he think
daddy was a painter? Get your daddy’s razor out of mammy’s box;
put on the tea-kettle, Sally, and heat some water, while I make up a
pone of bread. Josey, did you cook for yourself all this time?’ and
as she bustled about, she began to sing a long-neglected air, to which
she had trod a measure in the joyous days of early youth, in the Piny
Woods of Buncombe.

The first six months after his return home, Captain Joplin was diligently
occupied in repairing his farm, which had fallen into a
slovenly condition. He was content with the society of his domestic
circle, and remained quietly at home. But, when the great annual
races came on, he was tempted to spend a day, only as a spectator,
on the track, and accordingly appeared there early on the first morning.
He had many acquaintances there, all of whom were thirsty
beings; and before the sun went down he felt rich, and generous,
and glorious. The ferocious stage of the disease came on after
dark.

The return of the husband to his cabin that night was at an earlier
hour than usual. He was pale and nervous, and blood was on his
hand, and his garments were discolored. He notified his wife of the
necessity of his immediate departure. She insisted on leave to accompany
him, which was readily granted. Such of their effects as
could be speedily packed, were hastily put in portable form. In an
hour, the family were mounted on their riding animals, and in the
road leading down the river. Few words were exchanged among
the fugitives; and the place of destination was never mentioned.
On reaching the first ferry, at about the hour of midnight, they turned
shortly to the left, and crossed to the opposite bank of the river, without
requiring the aid of ferrymen. On landing, Joplin scuttled and
sunk the ferry-flat, to cut off pursuit. They continued their route
until about ten o’clock, with little regard to road or trace; and having
found a deep ravine, apparently untrodden by human footsteps,
they halted for refreshment. After a brief repast of dried venison,
the party continued their route, and at sunset were fifty miles from
their habitation. It should have been observed, that the fugitives
left their cabin in a blaze, with a hope that in the neighborhood a
belief would prevail that the whole family had been consumed. To
strengthen this belief, the cunning woodsman had deposited the carcasses
of two deer he had killed the day before, and several joints of
bacon, in the corner where the family usually slept, that these might
be mistaken for their bones. The impression which it was policy to
make, on examination of the ashes, obtained currency to a great extent,
and it delayed pursuit. When the doubts that were entertained
by some of the destination of the fugitives finally induced search, it
was too late to discover any trace of the Joplin family. It was believed[413]
by many, who supposed they had fled, that they departed
down the river in the ferry-boat that had disappeared.

In the mean time the flight was continued, until Joplin reached his
old haunts, in a cane-bottom on Flat Creek, a small tributary of White
River. Here security was made doubly sure by the bear-rough that
sheltered them, and by the distance they had removed from the settlement
in Arkansas. They had, moreover, taken the precaution to
locate within the boundaries of Missouri. The fugitive from justice
was likewise in the vicinity of a cave, known only to himself and the
red hunters who had formerly resided in this quarter of the country.
In this subterranean chamber, the dry bones from a neighboring battle-field
had been deposited by the tribe who had been the greatest
sufferers in a sanguinary conflict. As cheerless as this place might
appear, Joplin had reposed in it alone many nights on his former visit
to this region of country; and in this place he had cached his furs and
peltries, which now constituted his surplus for his new beginning in
the world. The erection of a cabin was a task not easily completed,
without the aid of neighbors for the raising; but, when the roof had
been placed over their heads, and fastened there with weight-poles,
and the puncheons composing the floor laid down, the mother of this
little colony began to sing, and spin, and bustle about over the irregular
surface with cautious footsteps, and stealthily, in her daily task.
She had not forgotten the essential portions of her wheel and loom
in her departure from the ruin of her old habitation, and the mechanical
ingenuity of the woodsman, with his axe, augur, hand-saw, and
butcher-knife, supplied the deficiency. The good woman continued
still to indulge on Sunday in a clean apron, a chapter, and a comb.
These were luxuries she could not readily dispense with. In his
former visit to this wild region, Joplin esteemed it no hardship to
refrain from the use of bread-stuffs; but he was constrained to make
some apology to his wife and children for the privation he would be
obliged to impose, until he could raise a crop. He however assured
them, that with a mixture of bear-meat and venison, and a ‘sprinkle’
of turkey-breast, they would do very well without bread, provided
they could get time to cut bee-trees.

This isolated family had innocence and contentment in full possession,
and independence prospectively within reach. The disturber,
known in the west by the name of ‘long green’ and ‘blue
ruin,’ in Pennsylvania, ‘old rye’ and ‘cider royal,’ and by the Indians
appropriately named ‘fire-water,’ and more emphatically ‘fool-water,’
was happily beyond their reach. The only race-path known in
this new settlement was that on which the husband and wife contended
for the prize of domestic comfort. In this, the fabrication of
jeans by one party, and the dressing of buck-skins by the other, furnished
profitable amusement. The only visit made by the daring
woodsman to the settlements secured him the patriarch of a flock,
and a few meek companions, from the fleeces of which ‘the winter
of his discontent’ was made comfortable. In their retreat, the Joplin
family were in a fair way to make their circumstances easy, by
such skill as is usually acquired in frontier experience, when a hard
winter, attended with much variable weather, set in earlier than was
anticipated. The woodsman had exerted himself violently in the[414]
chase, to secure his supply of ‘bear bacon,’ while the Indian Summer
lasted. To this cause he attributed the ‘dumb ague,’ that laid
him up when the first snow-storm commenced. With this disease he
lingered a few weeks. The only medicine within reach of the settlers
was a small parcel of walnut pills. Whether the bark of which
these were composed had been scraped up or down the tree, so as to
fit it for an emetic or a cathartic, does not appear; but no relief was
afforded by administering even ‘a double dose,’ and he grew weaker
as much with the repetition as by discontinuance of the remedy.
When he could no longer rise without assistance, or stand alone, the
anxious and confiding wife inquired, for the first time, how far it might
be to the residence of the nearest neighbor. When she was told it
was one hundred and sixty miles, it is uncertain which predominated
in her mind, hope or despair. She continued silently and thoughtfully
to minister to his wants, to the extent of her circumscribed
means, until, when, late at night, the wintry winds were rudely perforating
the openings around the cabin-door, and the house-dogs
growled a dignified response to the dismal howlings of the wolf, the
hoarse death-rattle in the throat of the sufferer was perceived. This
added consternation to alarm. To the earnest and almost unconscious
inquiry now uttered by the trembling wife, ‘Shall I send for a
doctor?’ no answer was given. Her husband had expired!

The embarrassing position now occupied by the widow had never
been anticipated. If her strength could have overcome the resistance
of the hard-frozen earth that would enable her to say to the
Indian deity of the wilderness, ‘With pious sacrilege a grave I stole,’
her force, and that of her infant children united, was insufficient for
the removal of the body. Widowed destitution was never more complete.
There was her dead husband on one side, and her weeping
and distracted babes on the other. A single night of bitter wakefulness
and watching was the last that she ventured to linger out in her
dreary abode; and it seemed to her an eternity of darkness. Early
on the morning after the death of her husband, the lone widow packed
up a supply of provision, and, with her children, mounted, left her
cabin and unburied husband to search for a neighbor. She carried
the rifle with her, in order to make fire at her encampments on the
journey. On closing the door on the house of mourning, the distress
of parting was made doubly agonizing by an inquiry of one of
the children, made in these words: ‘Are you going to leave daddy?’

The first day’s route lay up through the valley, and along the bank
of the creek on which her dwelling was situated; and she was therefore
guided by it. After the first night’s encampment, where she
had been surrounded with wolves, and nervously agitated by their
howlings, and occasionally the startling scream of a panther, she
resumed her journey. The little family of wanderers had marched
a short distance from their place of lodging, when all knowledge of
their route failed. After wandering sometimes in one direction, and
then retracing their steps and striking off at some other point of the
compass, the bewildered mother encamped for the second night.
The next morning the half-distracted traveller determined to retrace
her steps. Two days brought her back to the dreary and desolate
abode. The cabin was surrounded with a snarling pack of wolves,[415]
which were contending for the remains of her little flock of sheep.
These were scared away by the faithful dogs that had followed the
family. The interior presented the frightful evidence of mortality. A
cat had made horrid inroads on the face of the deceased, and was still
feeding on the mutilated corpse! The necessity of burial was in no
manner diminished by this horrid spectacle. The afflicted woman
scarcely knew why she had returned. She passed another long winter
night in her house of mourning, hovering with her little brood
around the cheerless hearth.

When morning at last arrived, the family again departed, having
confined the cat under a tub, to prevent a repetition of her cannibal
feast. After a journey of five days in a southwardly direction, and
when the widow began to hope she was approaching a settlement,
she was cheered with the view of smoke arising from a hunter’s
camp. He was out in search of game, but there was an abundance
of venison hanging over the embers of his camp fire. This proved
a seasonable supply, for the poor woman had that morning given the
last morsel of her stock of food to her children, while she piously
fasted herself. The hunter was as much gratified, on his return to
his camp that evening, to find it so well peopled, as he had been in
the successful hunt of the day. The hospitality of the camp was
profusely urged upon the strangers, and bear-meat, venison, and turkey,
and elk marrow-bones, were proffered with the frank and liberal
manner of a woodsman.

This camp was sixty miles from the nearest settlement; and it was
speedily arranged that the hunter should accompany the family back
to the house, to inter the dead husband. As the party approached
the cabin, the family halted, and the hunter advanced to look into the
condition of the interior, before the mourners ventured to take another
gaze of horror. Hunters, as well as sailors, have their superstitions,
which deduct somewhat from their general fearless bearing. They believe
in charms on their rifles, and sometimes employ a person skilled
in magical incantations to ‘take off the spell.’ It is not, therefore,
unaccountable, that this woodsman felt greater apprehension in approaching
the cabin where a dead body lay, than he would in conflict
with an Indian, or in a close hug with an ‘old he bear,’ provided
his butcher-knife was stiff, of approved temper, and sharp at the
point. He ‘laid out’ an old she wolf with his rifle, that was scratching
at the door of the desolate habitation, and was on the point of
raising the latch, when he heard issuing from within a low moaning
sound. Venturing to peep through an opening where the chinking
had fallen out, a single glance at the frightful and mutilated corpse
satisfied his heated imagination that the sound proceeded from the
dead husband. He ran off with wild affright, under a full conviction
that the house was haunted. The earnest entreaties of the
widow induced him, in company with herself, to approach the cabin
once more. They looked in at the same moment, and beheld, as their
superstitious imaginations severally painted the scene before them,
in the conception of the hunter, a black, cloven-footed beast, sitting
on the body of the deceased, while the widow insisted that something
like a swan was hovering over the remains of her dead husband.
The moaning was renewed; the confinement of the cat was not[416]
remembered, and the spectators of the horrors within ran away in
despair. The hunter once more ventured near enough to the cabin
to throw a torch upon its roof. When the flames had spread, and
were rapidly reducing the house to a mass of vivid ruin, the funeral
party mounted their horses, and turned their backs upon the ashes of
the Dead Husband.

THE DYING BOY.

BY THE LATE J. HUNTINGTON BRIGHT, ESQ.

A FEW THOUGHTS ON PHRENOLOGY.

IN TWO PARTS.—PART ONE.

‘Hear me for my cause, and be silent that you may hear.’—’Julius Cæsar.‘

Whatever conflicts with the opinions or prejudices of mankind,
must commend itself to public favor by something more than its
simple truth, or according to the world’s estimate of its danger or
folly, persecution or ridicule will ever wait upon its progress to general
belief.

The phrenologist has not been compelled to ascend the scaffold,
nor has he been tortured with ‘a slow fire of green wood,’ for his
heretical opinions; and for this mercy, he is indebted to the enlightenment
of the age in which he first proclaimed his discoveries: but
he has been preserved, in order to be ‘roasted’ by the burning satire
of his contemporaries, and to be ‘served up’ for the gratification of
those epicures in wit, who, with the aid of a good tailor, can do more
for the cause of truth by a look and a laugh, than a Gall or a Spurzheim,
by the labors of a life. To these laughing philosophers, your
phrenologist is a very eccentric man indeed—very; to their humble
apprehensions, his science appears quite stupid—quite; and all
he converses about, appears to them to be nothing more nor less than
‘bumpology,’ positively. Moreover, they have heard some amusing
anecdotes upon the subject. A travelling disciple of this wonderful
science, who wrote out characters for eighteen pence per head, once
departed from the scene of his labors without paying his bill, and
his landlord was represented as so far becoming a convert to his
guest’s theory, as to believe in the organ of ‘unpayativeness!’

These philosophers ill conceal their mirth at the frequent occurrence
of mistakes made by those gentlemen termed practical phrenologists,
and have been known to violate every rule for the suppression[418]
of ungentlemanly laughter, when the fact has been related,
that a manipulator of heads, supposing himself (being blindfolded,)
to be in a prison, pronounced the wealthy mayor of a city to be a
thief; a retired butcher to be a murderer; and a minister of the gospel
to have been convicted of rape!

More important opponents have been found among the traders in
the current literature of the day; as well your ‘penny-a-liner,’ as the
man who has had the courage to write a book, and the good fortune
to vend a copy-right, have been unmercifully witty at the expense of
my brethren; and without waiting to inquire whether any important
truth was concerned in phrenological investigation, they have only
sought to know whether any thing ludicrous could be derived from
it. These oracles Ignorance consulted, and the response was—a
laugh.

One American author, whose writings denote the combined action
of mirthfulness and destructiveness, very magnanimously allowed
the phrenologist the distinction of being one of the ‘Three Wise
Men of Gotham.’ He is portrayed as sallying forth with no less
enthusiasm than La Mancha’s renowned knight, nor with less ‘rueful
visage,’ upon a forlorn pilgrimage to some Golgotha, in quest of
specimens to illustrate the truths of his mighty discovery; while one
of his high compeers sails in quest of the great central hole of the
earth; and the other stands in a glow of intense rapture, viewing
the sudden perfectability of human nature. But alas for such noble
enthusiasm! If our grave author’s relation of the facts be genuine,
(and who doubts his historical accuracy?) the

met with an enviable fate, compared with that of these children of
wisdom. The captain’s boat never entered the wished-for haven;
the philanthropist failed to make the lion and the lamb lie down together
in peace and safety; and the unhappy phrenologist, in his
‘meditations among the tombs,’ erred in pronouncing upon the traits
of mind that once inhabited the poor fragments he had gathered up;
and he found his science blown to atoms, because he mistook the
cranium of a fool for that of a philosopher!—a mistake which the
vanity of an author might possibly make in his own case, with far
better opportunities of judging aright.

A science that could survive an attack like this, must have had
brains indeed to support it; and he who ventured to proclaim its
truth, after a world’s laugh had announced its folly, must have possessed
more than an ordinary share of moral courage.

But the science of Human Nature survived this satire, and having
outlived the sneers of learned prejudice, and the obstreperous
mirth of vulgar ignorance, now commands much of the serious
attention of mankind.

The world had long known the principal facts which suggested
phrenological inquiry, but had omitted to pursue the investigation
necessary to form a correct conclusion from them. Established theories
in government, civil and moral, and in mental philosophy, presented[419]
great obstacles to such an inquiry as has finally been made.
For many centuries, man had been regarded as a depraved moral
being—instinctively inclined to do wrong—without a countervailing
good sentiment; and the phrenologist has not yet been forgiven,
in certain quarters, for his refutation of this slander. To him it was
obvious, that no man could be found devoid of any good attribute.
One is condemned for injustice; may he not be benevolent?
Another professes to hate mankind, and yet loves his own offspring,
and cherishes them with the most tender solicitude and care. One
is a coward, but nevertheless benevolent and just; another is cruel,
and yet he is enthusiastic and brave. Here is a prodigal; but he is
kind and noble in his dispositions, and may yet return to paternal
love, with forgiveness and blessings upon his head. There, again,
is a thorough hater, and yet by the influence of the same temperament,
a most ardent lover, whom no maiden would despise. Who
had failed to observe as much as this?—and yet where was the
apologist of his race—the defender of man’s moral nature against
the charge of total depravity?

Again: The intellects of men varied in activity and strength, and
this difference was known to be early developed in persons born and
nurtured under the same roof, and subjected to the same mental and
moral discipline. The father who discovered that his son could not
easily acquire a knowledge of words, but could nevertheless demonstrate
with readiness the most difficult problem in mathematics,
observed the fact in profitless silence. The phrenologist pointed
the father to the conformation of his child’s brain as the origin of his
mental peculiarity; and demonstrated, that the effect which the
parent had observed in silent wonder, had an adequate cause. For
this he was ridiculed; while he who stupidly believed in the effect
without the cause, was reverently regarded as both orthodox and
wise.

The world knew that the genius of Fulton was not adapted to
the writing of romance, while no one ever supposed that Sir Walter
Scott was possessed of mechanical skill; yet it was regarded as mere
accident, or great good fortune, that these distinguished men stumbled
into a career of thought which demanded the world’s admiration;
and few dreamed that the causes of their varied excellence
were as great and different, as the effects were dissimilar. Burns
walked a poet behind his plough; and yet no other Scottish farmer
seemed a poet ‘ready made,’ although he may have been as strong,
as tall, and equally handsome. There must have been some difference
in the head of Scotia’s own bard—something that elevated his nature,
and lifted him above his walk in life. To adopt his own language,
he must have been ‘one of Nature’s noblemen, who derived
the patent for his honors directly from the Almighty;’ and yet, by
what outward seal the patent was impressed which conferred the
native title to distinction, the world knew not, and but for phrenology,
never would have known. Pope

and so did Zerah Colburn; and yet how different their numbers
were! So wonderful was this latter individual, when a mere[420]
child, that he was esteemed by his friends as an intellectual
prodigy; and parental love, fondly doting on its gifted child, and
admiring

People had not ceased to wonder at the brilliancy of the boy, when
his mediocrity as a man produced a second surprise. He excelled in
nothing but numbers—and that was very mysterious indeed!

Woman has three characteristics, in great perfection and strength,
to wit: fear, attachment, and veneration; so much so, that a wag
might define woman to be ‘a timid, affectionate, and religious animal.’
Now the phrenologist has observed, that at certain points
where he has located the organs of cautiousness, adhesiveness, and
veneration, woman’s head is much fuller than man’s. The most ordinary
observer will admit this to be the fact, upon inspection; but
the answer he will be likely to make, will be, that this is so, because
she is a woman; whereas she happens to be a woman, because this is
so! Without the full manifestations of these organs of the mind,
woman’s nature would be radically changed; her gentle dependence
upon man for safety and protection would cease; her meek reliance
upon her Creator, and her distinguished reverence for sacred things,
would fail; and the gentleness, grace, and piety of her sex would
depart from her. Ambition would usurp the place of loveliness;
the lord of the creation would have to bear a sister ‘near the throne;’
and a rough contest for dominion would as much distinguish the
sexes, as they are at present characterized by the fullest manifestation,
of mutual courtesy and kindness.

Before phrenological investigation and discovery, man’s moral and
intellectual nature seemed destined to perpetual mal-treatment.
The passion of fear was appealed to alike, to quicken the intellectual
faculties and moral sentiments of youth. If one failed to acquire
a lesson in a particular study with the same facility as another,
it was set down to his indolence; if one betrayed an unruly propensity,
which another did not manifest, it was charged to the general
corruption of human nature; and the lash, in either case, was regarded
as the blessed quickener of mental and moral dulness. The
lesson was no better acquired, nor was the dangerous propensity
diminished in activity, after the application of this remedy; and yet
the rod and the delinquent urchin remained inseparable companions.

The youth who, under the influence of angry excitement, had taken
vengeance on his fellow, was never found to have had his destructiveness
attempered with benevolence through the influence of scourging;
nor has he who neglected mathematics, for the love of poetry,
ever been flogged into an admiration of the exact sciences. The
world was wondering at the reason of the failure, when the phrenologist
stepped forth and informed them; but they laughed at him, and
whipped the children still!

Again: The man who was never forbidden to steal, may never have
stolen; while another, to whom has been repeated every day of his
life the command, ‘Thou shalt not kill,’ may nevertheless commit
murder; and yet both have been treated as though they possessed[421]
the same sentiments and passions in an equal degree; and so of
course they have received the same moral discipline. In him who
knows no fear, how vain the attempt to inspire terror as the preventor
of crime! And yet how readily would a noble sentiment respond
to your appeal, and come to the rescue, when his virtue was at
its greatest need, had it been trained to do so? Pride often concedes
what cannot be obtained from a love of justice, while love of approbation
will bestow in charity such sums as put benevolence to the
blush for her scanty gifts. Cautiousness often gives to vice the fair
aspect of virtue; while ingenuousness and courage often expose the
purest man to accusation and censure. The love of glory may stimulate
to deeds of heroism, which the dauntless patriot cannot excel;
and people may worship the hero for braving danger in their behalf,
when it was only his vanity he designed most particularly to serve.

The courtier approaches the minister of state with flattery, and
obtains power and place; the robber awaits his sojourn through a
lonely wood, and by putting in bodily fear, obtains his gold; while
the thief secretly creeps into his mansion, and carries off his choicest
plate and richest jewelry. Would the minister, the courtier, the
robber, and the thief, profit by the same moral lecture, and the like
mental discipline? Men often possess great religious reverence, who
are as often detected at cheating in trade. Is the world right in denouncing
such as hypocrites? May not great veneration and acquisitiveness,
with moderate conscientiousness, produce this result?
What correction has been applied to defects like these? Not the
right one, surely. The patient wants no more religion than he has
got, but a little more integrity. Quicken his conscientiousness, and
he is cured.

Whose benevolence is heightened by fear? Who refrains from
theft for the hope of reward? The just man tells you he has no
desire to steal. Will the fear of punishment inspire devotion? The
devout man ‘feels to adore’ his Creator. Will fear convince the
atheist of his error?—or the hope of reward convert him to a reasonable
faith? Both of these have been lavishly dealt out to him, with
very little effect. There are those who love contention better than
truth. Will argument convince such? They avoid nothing so much
as conviction, which puts an end to contention, and of course to all
the pleasure derived from it. Such interpose combativeness between
your argument and their reason, and your blows fall thick upon the
shield only, and arouse it to more and more resistance. Why spin
out the night in fruitless argument? Let them alone, and they will
be convinced as soon as the spirit of strife slumbers, and reason assumes
her throne.

The phrenologist observed all this, and much more; and he could
not fail to conclude, that men’s intellectual and moral natures varied
almost indefinitely. Here was one distinguished for passion, there
another for philosophy; one was celebrated for the brilliancy of his
fancy, another for the solidity of his judgment. Here was a mathematician,
there a poet; here a mechanic, and there a musician; and
those who resembled each other in mental dispositions, still varied in
activity and strength; so that there was as much difference in their[422]
intellectual as in their physical power. Again, as we have seen,
their sentiments were unlike. Benevolence was contrasted with
meanness in every condition of human life, and conscientiousness
warred with injustice, wherever man was found; so that the moral
aspects of men, differed no less than their countenances.

A PRACTITIONER, HIS PILGRIMAGE
PART ONE.

INVOCATION.

THE PILGRIMAGE.

‘FELIX QUI POTUIT RERUM COGNOSCERE CAUSAS.’

END OF PART FIRST.

[425]

OUR VILLAGE POST-OFFICE.[19]

BY MISS SEDGWICK.

Bryant.

The master of our village post-office for many years past was an
old man; but the real dispenser of its joys and sorrows was his son,
a youth who performed its duties with intelligence, exactness, and
delicacy. Some persons may not be aware how much the last quality
is called into requisition in a village post-master. Having the universal
country acquaintance with his neighbors’ affairs, he holds the
key to all their correspondences. He knows, long before the news
transpires, when the minister receives a call, when the speculator’s
affairs are vibrating; he can estimate the conjugal devotion of the
absent husband; but most enviable is his knowledge of those delicate
and uncertain affairs so provoking to village curiosity. Letters,
directed in well-known characters, and written with beating hearts
within locked apartments, pass through his hands. The blushing
youth steals in at twilight to receive from him his doom; and to him is
first known the results of a village belle’s foray through a neighboring
district. Our young deputy post-master rarely betrayed his involuntary
acquaintance with the nature of the missives he dispersed;
but, whenever sympathy was permitted, his bright smile and radiating
or tearful eye would show how earnest a part he took in all his
neighbors suffered or enjoyed. Never was there a kinder heart than
Loyd Barnard’s—never a truer mirror than his face.

Every family, however insignificant in the stranger’s eye, has a
world of its own. The drama and the epic have their beginning,
their middle, and their end, in the material world. The true story of
human relations never ends, and this seal of immortality it is, that
gives a dignity and interest to the affections of the humble and unknown,
beyond that which fiction and poetry, even when it makes
gods and heroes its actors, can attach to qualities and passions that
are limited to this world’s stage. This intrinsic dignity I claim for
the subjects of my humble village tale.

Loyd Barnard’s father, Colonel Jesse Barnard, belonged to that
[426]defunct body, the aristocracy of our country. He served in the
revolutionary war, he did good service to the state in the subsequent
Shay’s rebellion, and, though he afterward inexplicably fell into
the ranks of the popular or democratic party, he retained the manners
and insignia of his caste—the prescribed courtesies of the old
régime, with the neatly tied cue, and the garment that has given place
to the levelling pantaloon. He even persevered in the use of powder
till it ceased to be an article of merchandise; and to the very
last he maintained those strict observances of politeness, that are
becoming, among us, subjects of tradition and history. These, however,
are merely accidents of education and usage. His moral constitution
had nothing aristocratic or exclusive. On the contrary, his
heart was animated with what we would fain believe to be the spirit
of our democratic institutions, a universal good will. The colonel
was remarkably exempt (whether fortunately or unfortunately each
according to his taste must decide) from the virtue or mania of his
age and country; and consequently, at threescore and ten, instead
of being the proprietor of lands in the West, or ships on the sea, he
possessed nothing but his small paternal estate in B——, a pretty,
cottage-looking dwelling, with a garden and an acre of land. As
far back as the administration of Jefferson, he had received the
appointment of post-master; and, as the village grew with the prosperity
of manufactures and agriculture, the income of the office has
of late amounted to some five or six hundred dollars. This, with
the addition of his pension as a revolutionary officer, made the colonel
‘passing rich;’ for by this time his sons and daughters were married,
and dispersed from Maine to Georgia, and the youngest only,
our friend Loyd, remained at home. ‘Passing rich’ we say, and
repeat it, was the colonel. Those who have never seen an income
of a few hundred dollars well administered in rural life, can have no
conception of the comfort and independence, nay, luxury, it will
procure. In the first place, the staples of life, space, pure air, sweet
water, and a continual feast for the eye, are furnished in the country,
in unmeasured quantity, by the bounty of Providence. Then when,
as with the colonel, there are no vices to be pampered, no vanities
to be cherished, no artificial distinctions to be sustained, no conventional
wants to be supplied, the few hundred dollars do all for happiness
that money can do. The king who has to ask his Commons for
supplies, and the Crœsuses of our land who still desire more than
they have, might envy our contented colonel, or rather might have
envied him, till, after a life of perfect exemption from worldly cares,
he came, for the first time, to feel a chill from the shadows of the
coming day—a distrustful fear that the morrow might not take care
of itself.

Among other luxuries of a like nature, (the colonel was addicted
to such indulgences,) he had allowed himself to adopt a little destitute
orphan-girl, Paulina Morton. She came to the old people after
all their own girls were married and gone, and proved so dutiful and
so helpful, that she was scarcely less dear to them than their own flesh
and blood. Paulina, or Lina—for by this endearing diminutive
they familiarly called her—was a pretty, very pretty girl, in spite of
red hair, which, since it has lost the favor some beauty, divine or[427]
mortal, of classic days, won for it, is considered, if not a blemish,
certainly not an attribute of beauty. Paulina’s friends and lovers
maintained that hers was getting darker every day, and that even
were it fire-red, her soft, blue eyes, spirited, sweet mouth, coral lips,
and exquisitely tinted skin would redeem it. Indeed, good old Mrs.
Barnard insisted it was only red in certain lights, and those certain
Ithuriel lights Loyd Barnard never saw it in; for he often expressed
his surprise that any one could be so blind as to call auburn red! In
these days of reason’s supremacy, we have found out there are no
such ‘dainty spirits’ as Ariel, Puck, and Oberon. Still the lover is
not disenchanted.

‘Lina, my child,’ said the old lady, one evening, just at twilight,
while the burning brands sent a ruddy glow over the ceiling, and
were reflected by the tea-things, our ‘neat-handed lass was arranging,’
‘Lina, do you expect Mr. Lovejoy this evening?’

‘No, ma’am.’

‘To-morrow evening, then?’

‘No, ma’am; I never expect him again.’

‘You astonish me, Lina. You don’t mean you have given him his
answer?’

Lina smiled, and Mrs. Barnard continued; ‘I fear you have not
duly considered, Lina.’

‘What is the use of considering, ma’am, when we know our
feelings?’

‘We can’t afford always, my child, to consult feelings. Nobody
can say a word against Mr. Lovejoy; he made the best of husbands
to his first wife.’

‘That was a very good reason why she should love him, ma’am.’

Mrs. Barnard proceeded, without heeding the emphasis on she.
‘He has but three children, and two of them are out of the way.’

‘A poor reason, as I have always thought, ma’am, to give either to
father or children for taking the place of mother to them.’

‘But there are few that are calculated for the place; you are cut
out for a step-mother, Lina—just the right disposition for step-mother,
or step-daughter.’

Paulina’s ideas were confused by the compliment, and she was on
the point of asking whether step-daughter and daughter-in-law expressed
the same relation, but some feeling checked her, and instead
of asking she blushed deeply. The good old lady continued her
soundings.

‘I did not, Lina, expect you to marry Mr. Lovejoy for love.’

‘For what then, ma’am, should I marry him?’ asked Lina, suspending
her housewife labors, and standing before the fire while she
tied and untied the string of her little black silk apron.

‘Girls often do marry, my child, to get a good home.’

‘Marry to get a home, Mrs. Barnard! I would wash, iron, sweep,
scrub, beg to get a home, sooner than marry to get one; and, beside,
have I not the pleasantest home in the world?—thanks to your bounty
and the colonel’s.’

Mrs. Barnard sighed, took Lina’s fair, chubby hand in hers, stroked
and pressed it. At this moment, the colonel, who had, unperceived
by either party, been taking his twilight nap on his close-curtained[428]
bed in the adjoining bedroom, rose, and drew up to the fire. He
had overheard the conversation, and now, to poor Paulina’s embarrassment,
joined in it.

‘I am disappointed, Lina,’ he said; ‘it is strange it is so difficult
to suit you with a husband; you are easily suited with every thing
else.’

‘But I don’t want a husband, Sir.’

‘There’s no telling how soon you may, Lina; I feel myself to be
failing daily, and when I am gone, my child, it will be all poor Loyd
can do to take care of his mother.’

‘Can I not help him? Am I not stronger than Loyd? Would it
not be happiness enough to work for Loyd, and Loyd’s mother?’
thought Paulina; but she hemmed, and coughed, and said nothing.

‘It would be a comfort to me,’ continued the old man, ‘to see you
settled in a home of your own before I die.’ He paused, but there
was no reply. ‘I did not say a word when William Strong was
after you—I did not like the stock; nor when the young lawyer
sent his fine presents—as Loyd said, ‘he had more gab than wit;’
nor when poor Charles Mosely was, as it were, dying for you, for,
though his prospects were fine in Ohio, I felt, and so did Mrs. Barnard,
and so did Loyd, as if we could not have you go so far away
from us; but now, my child, the case is different. Mr. Lovejoy has
one of the best estates in the county; he is none of your flighty, here
to-day and gone to-morrow folks, but a substantial, reliable person,
and I think, and Loyd said—’ Here the brands fell apart; and,
while Paulina was breathless to hear what Loyd said, the old colonel
rose to adjust them. He had broken the thread, and did not take it
up in the right place. ‘As I was saying, my child,’ he resumed,
‘my life is very uncertain, and I think, and Loyd thinks—’

What Loyd thought Paulina did not learn, for at this moment the
door opened, and Loyd entered.

Loyd Barnard was of the Edwin or Wilfred order; one of those
humble and generous spirits that give all, neither asking nor expecting
a return. He seemed born to steal quietly and alone through
the shady paths of life. A cast from a carriage in his infancy had,
without producing any mutilation or visible injury, given a fatal shock
to his constitution. He had no disease within the reach of art, but
a delicacy, a fragility, that rendered him incapable of continuous exertion
or application of any sort. A merciful Providence provides
compensations, or, at least, alleviations, for all the ills that flesh is heir
to; and Loyd Barnard, in abundant leisure for reading, which he
passionately loved, in the tranquillity of a perfectly resigned temper,
and in a universal sympathy with all that feel, enjoy, and suffer, had
little reason to envy the active and prosperous, who are bustling and
struggling through the chances and changes of this busy life. His
wants were few, and easily supplied by the results of the desultory
employments he found in the village, in the intervals of his attention
to the post-office. As much of what we call virtue is constitutional,
so we suppose was Loyd’s contentment; if it was not virtue, it was
happiness, for, till of late, he had felt no more anxiety for the future
than nature’s commoners—the birds and flowers.

[429]

‘Ah, my son,’ said the old gentleman, ‘you have come just in the
right time—but where is Lina gone?’

‘She went out as I came in, Sir, and I thought she looked as if she
had been weeping.’

‘Weeping!’ echoed the colonel; and ‘Weeping!’ reëchoed the
old lady; and ‘could we have hurt her feelings?’ asked both in the
same breath.

‘Why, what, in the world have you been saying to her, mother?’

‘Nothing, Loyd—nothing—nothing—don’t look so scared.
We were only expostulating a little, as it were, and urging her to
accept Mr. Lovejoy’s offer.’

Loyd looked ten times paler than usual, and kept his eye rivetted
on his mother, till she added, ‘But somehow it seems as if she could
not any way feel to it.’

‘Thank God!’ murmured Loyd, fetching a long breath. Both
parents heard the unwonted exclamation, and to both it was a revelation.
The Colonel rose, walked to the window, and, though the
blinds were closed, stood as if gazing out, and the old lady jerked
her knitting-needle from the sheath, and rolled up the knitting-work,
though she was not in the seam-needle.

It is difficult in any case for parents to realize how soon their children
pass the bounds of childhood, and how soon, among other
thoughts incident to maturity, love and marriage enter their heads.
But there were good reasons why the Colonel and his wife should
have fancied the governing passions and objects of ordinary lives had
never risen above their son’s horizon. They considered him perfectly
incompetent to provide for the wants of the most frugal family,
and they had forgotten that love takes no counsel from prudence. It
was too late now to remember it.

The Colonel, after repeated clearings of his throat, taking off his
spectacles, wiping and putting them on again, said, ‘Are you attached
to Lina, my son?’ He used the word in its prescriptive rustic sense.

‘Yes, Sir.’

‘Strange I never mistrusted it!—How long have you been so,
Loyd?’

‘Ever since I was old enough to understand my feelings; but I did
not, till very lately, know that I could not bear the thoughts of her
becoming attached to another.’

‘Do you know what Lina’s feelings are?’

‘No, Sir.’

‘But surely you can guess, Loyd,’ interrupted his mother.

‘I can hope, mother—and I do.’

‘The sooner, my son, you both get over it the better, for there is no
kind of a prospect for you.’

‘My child,’ said the good old man, gently laying his hand on the
shoulder of his companion of fifty years, ‘trust in Providence; our
basket and store have been always full, and why should not our children’s
be? Loyd now does the business of the post-office; while I
live they can share with us, and, when I am gone, it may so be, that
the heart of the ruler will be so overruled, that the office will be continued
to Loyd.’

Loyd, either anticipating his mother’s opposing arguments, or himself[430]
impelled irresistibly to the argument of love, disappeared, and
the old lady, who, it must be confessed, lived less by faith than her
gentle spouse, replied:

‘The office continued to Loyd! Who ever heard of old Jackson’s
heart being overruled to do what he had not a mind to?’

‘My dear child!’

‘Well, my dear, do hear me out; don’t the loaves and fishes all
go on one side of the table?’

‘Why, we have had our plates filled a pretty while, my dear.’

‘Well, my dear, old Jackson could not take the bread and butter
out of the mouth of a revolutionary officer.’

‘I am sure he has proved that he would not.’

‘No, my dear, could not. Why, even his own party—and we all
know what his party are in old Massachusetts—’

‘About like the other party, my dear.’

‘My dear! how can you say so! Why, his own party are the most
violent, given-over, as it were, and low-lived people; yet they would
be ashamed to see you turned out of office.’

‘They would be sorry, I know; for we have many good friends,
and kind neighbors among them; there’s Mr. Loomis, Harry Bishop,
and Mr. Barton.’

‘Mr. Barton! Lyman Barton! My dear, every body knows, and
every body says, Lyman Barton has been waiting this last dozen
years to step into your shoes. The post-office is just what he wants.
To be sure he is a snug man, and lives within his means; but then
he has a large growing family, and they are obliged to be prudent, and
there would be enough to say he ought to have the office. And, beside,
is he not always working for the party? writing in the paper?
and serving them every way? And who was ever a Jackson man,
but for what he expected to get for it? No, no, my dear, mark my
words! you won’t be cold, before Lyman Barton will be sending off
a petition to Washington for the office, and signed by every Jackson
man in town.’

‘I don’t believe it, my dear; I don’t feel as if Lyman Barton
would ask for the office.’

‘Well, my dear, you’ll see, after you are dead and gone, how it
will be—you may laugh—I mean I shall see, if I am spared—you
always have, colonel, just such a blind faith in every body.’

‘My faith is founded on reason and experience, my dear. Through
life I have found friends kind to me beyond my deservings, and far beyond
my expectations. I have got pretty near the other shore, and
I can’t remember that ever I had an enemy.’

While this conversation was in progress, there was a tête-à-tête, on
which we dare not intrude, in another apartment of the house. The
slight veil that had covered the hearts of our true lovers dropped at
the first touch, and both, finding a mine of the only riches they coveted,
‘dared be poor’ in this world’s poor sense. Secured by the
good colonel’s indulgence, for the present they were too happy to
look beyond the sunshine that played around them for any dark entanglements
to which their path might conduct them. In any event,
they did not risk the miseries of dependence, nor the pains of starvation.
Nature, in our land, spreads an abundant table; and there[431]
is always a cover awaiting the frugal and industrious laborer (or even
gleaner) in her fruitful fields. Any thing short of absolute want, perhaps
even that, it seemed to our young friends happiness to encounter
together.

Oh ye perjured traffickers in marriage vows! ye buyers and sellers
of hearts—hearts! they are not articles of commerce—buyers and
sellers of the bodies that might envelope and contain celestial spirits,
eat, drink, and be merry, for to-morrow ye die! To-morrow your
home, that temple of the affections, which God himself has consecrated,
shall be their tomb, within whose walls shall be endured the
torpor of death with the acute consciousness of life!

Our simple friends wotted not of the miseries of artificial life.
These had never even crossed the threshold of their imaginations.
The colonel gave his hearty consent for the asking, and his prudent
help-mate was too true-hearted a woman to withhold hers. There
are those wise as serpents, if not harmless as doves, in village life;
and such shook their heads, and wondered if the colonel calculated
to live and be post-master for ever! or if Loyd could be such a fool
as to expect to succeed to the office, when every body knew it was
just as good as promised to Mr. Barton! Loyd Barnard, a steady,
consistent (our own side is always consistent) whig, expect the tender
mercies of the Jackson party! No, Loyd Barnard indulged no
such extravagant expectation. He had stood by ‘old Massachusetts’
through her obstinate or her consistent opposition to the general
government, and he expected to reap the customary reward of such
firmness or—prejudice. To confess the truth, he thought little
about the future, and not all of the Malthusian theories. His present
happiness was enough, and it was brightened with the soft and
equal light of the past. As to Paulina, it was her nature,

The preliminaries being adjusted, it was agreed on all hands that
the wedding should not be deferred. Quilts were quilted—the publishment
pasted on the church door—and the wedding-cake made.
Never had the colonel seemed better and brighter; his step was
firmer, his person more erect than usual; and his face reflected the
happiness of his children, as the leafless woods warm and kindle in
a spring sunshine.

At this moment came one of those sudden changes that mock at
human calculations. An epidemic influenza, fatal to the feeble and
the old, was passing over the whole country. Colonel Barnard was
one of its first victims. He died after a week’s illness; and though
he was some years beyond the authorized period of mortality, his
death at this moment occasioned a general shock, as if he had been
cut off in the prime of life. All—even his enemies, we should have
said, but enemies he had none—spoke of the event in a subdued
voice, and with the sincerest expressions of regret. The grief of
his own little family we have not space to describe, or, if we had, how
could we depict the desolation of a home from which such a fountain
of love and goodness was suddenly removed? Notwithstanding
the day of the funeral was one of the coldest of a severe January,[432]
the mercury being some degrees below cipher, and the gusty, cutting
wind driving the snow into billows, numbers collected from the
adjoining towns to pay the last tribute of respect to the good
colonel.

There is a reality in the honor that is rendered at a rustic funeral
to a poor, good man, a touching sincerity in sympathy where every
follower is a mourner.

The custom, growing in some of our cities, of private funerals, of
limiting the attendants to the family and nearest friends of the deceased,
is there in good taste. The parade of ceremony, the pomp
of numbers, the homage of civility, and all the show and tricks of
hollow conventional life, are never more out of place, never more revolting,
than where death has come with its resistless power and
awful truth. But a country funeral has, beside its quality of general
sorrow, somewhat of the nature of the Egyptian court that sat upon
the merits of the dead. The simplicity and frankness of country life
has truly exhibited the character of the departed, and if judged in
gentleness (as all human judgments should be rendered) it is equitably
judged.

The colonel’s humble home was filled to overflowing, so that there
were numbers who were obliged to await the moving of the procession
in the intense cold on the outside of the house; and they did
wait, patiently and reverently—no slight testimony of their respect.

The coffin was placed in the centre of the largest apartment, in
country phrase, the ‘dwelling-room.’ Within the little bedroom sat
the ‘mourners;’ but a stranger, who should have seen the crowd as
they pressed forward one after another, for a last look at their departed
friend, might have believed they were all mourning a father.
They were remembering a parent’s offices. There was the widow,
whom he had visited in her affliction; there the orphans, now grown
to be thriving men and women, fathers and mothers, whom he had
succored, counselled, and watched over; there were those whom he
had visited in prison; there were sometime enemies converted to
friends by his peace-making intervention; there was the young man
reclaimed by his wise counsel and steady friendship, for the good
colonel had a ‘skeptic smile’ for what others deemed hopeless depravity,
and believed

And there were children with wet eyes, for the rare old man who
had always a smile for their joys, and a tear for their troubles; and
one, I remember, as her mother lifted her up for the last look, whispered,
‘Oh, he is too good a man to bury up in the ground!’

And there, in the midst of this sad company, and with a face quite
as sad as his neighbors’, stood Lyman Barton. A little urchin, a
particular friend of the old colonel’s, and of mine too, who stood
beside me, pulled my ear down to his lips, and turning his flashing
eye upon Barton, whispered,

‘Ought not he to be ashamed of himself?’

‘Why, Hal, why?’

‘He is making believe cry, just like a crocodile! Every body says[433]
he has written to old Jackson already to be made post-master. I wish
he was in the colonel’s place.’

‘You could not wish him in a better, my dear.’

‘Oh, I did not mean that! I did not mean that!’

He would have proceeded; but I shook my head, and put an end
to the explanation he was eager to make.

The funeral was over, the cold wind was howling without, the
sigh of the mourners alone was heard, where a few days before all
had been cheerfulness and preparation for the happiest event of human
life. Paulina had lighted a single lamp, and placed it in the
farther part of the room, for there seemed something obtrusive even
in the cheerfulness of light. She was seated on a low chair beside
the old lady. The passiveness of grief was peculiarly unsuited to
her active and happy nature; and, as she sat as if she were paralyzed,
not even heeding the Colonel’s favorite cat, who jumped into her lap,
and purred, and looked up for its accustomed caress, one could hardly
believe she was the same girl who was for ever on the wing, laughing
and singing from morning till night. Poor Loyd too, who had so
gently acquiesced in the evils of his lot, who had bent like the reed
before the winds of adversity, suffered now as those only do who
resist while they suffer. Perhaps it was not in human nature not to
mingle the disappointment of the lover with the grief of the son, and,
while he was weeping his loss, to ponder over some of his father’s
last words. ‘Of course, my children,’ he had said, ‘you will dismiss
all thoughts of marriage—for the present, I mean. It will be all, I
am afraid more, than you can do, Loyd, when the post-office and the
pension are gone, to get bread for your mother. If you marry, you
can’t tell how many claims there may be upon you. But don’t be
discouraged, my children; cast your care upon the Lord—something
may turn up—wait—blessed are they who wait in faith.’

Both promised to wait, and both, as they now revolved their promise,
religiously resolved to abide by it, cost what it might.

Their painful meditations were interrupted by a knock at the outer
door, and Loyd admitted Major Perrit, one of his neighbors, and one
of those everlasting meddlers in others’ affairs, who, if a certain
proverb were literal, must have had as many fingers as Argus had
eyes.

‘I am sorry for your affliction, ma’am,’ said he, shaking Mrs. Barnard’s
extended hand, while a sort of simpering smile played about
his mouth, in spite of the appropriate solemnity he had endeavored
to assume; ‘don’t go out, Miss Paulina; what I have to communicate
is interesting to you, as well as to the widow and son of the
deceased.’

‘Some other time, Sir,’ interposed Loyd, whose face did not conceal
how much he was annoyed by the officiousness and bustling
manner of his visitor.

‘Excuse me, Loyd; I am older than you, and ought to be a little
wiser; we must take time by the fore-lock; others are up and doing;
why should we not be?’

[434]

Loyd now comprehended the Major’s business, and, pained and
somewhat shocked, he turned away; but, remembering the intention
was kind, though the mode was coarse, he smothered his disgust, and
forced himself to say:

‘We are obliged to you, Major Perrit, but I am not in a state of
mind to attend to any business this evening.’

‘Oh, I know you have feelings, Loyd; but you must not be more
nice than wise. They must not get the start of us. I always told
my wife it would be so, and now she sees I was right. I tell you,
Loyd, in confidence, your honored father was not cold, before Lyman
Barton was handing round his petition for the office.’ It was not in
human nature for the old lady to suppress an a-hem! at this exact fulfilment
of her prediction to the poor colonel. ‘Barton’s petition,’ continued
Perrit, ‘will go on to Washington in the mail to-morrow, and
ours must go with it; here it is.’ He took the paper from his pocket,
and, opening it, showed a long list of names. ‘A heavy list,’ he
added; ‘but every one of them whigs; we did not ask a Jackson
man; there would have been no use, you know; Lyman Barton
leads them all by the nose.’

Here Perrit was interrupted by a knock at the entry door. A
packet addressed to Loyd was handed to him. Perrit glanced at the
superscription, and exclaimed, ‘This is too much, by George! He
has had the impudence to send you the petition.’

‘I could not have believed this of him,’ thought Loyd, as he broke
the seal; for he, like his father, reluctantly believed ill of any one.
There were a few lines on the envelope; he read them to himself,
and then, with that emotion which a good man feels at an unexpected
good deed, he read them aloud:

‘My dear friend Loyd:

‘Excuse me for intruding on you, at this early moment, a business matter that
ought not to be deferred. You will see by the enclosed, that my friends and myself
have done what we could to testify our respect for the memory of your excellent
father, and our esteem for you. Wishing you the success you deserve,

‘I remain very truly yours,

‘Lyman Barton.’

The enclosed paper was a petition, headed by Lyman Barton, and
signed by almost every Jackson partisan in the town, that the office
of post-master might be given to Loyd Barnard. A short prefix to
the petition expressed the signers’ respect for the colonel, and their
unqualified confidence in his son. Perrit ran his eye over the list, and
exclaiming, ‘This is the Lord’s hand! by George!’ he seized his hat
and departed, eager to have at least the consolation of first spreading
the news through the village.

Few persons comprehend a degree of virtue beyond that of which
they are themselves capable.

‘It is, indeed, in one sense,’ said Loyd, as the door closed after
Perrit, ‘the hand of the Lord; for He it is that makes his creatures
capable of such disinterested goodness.’

Those who heard the fervid language and tone in which Loyd expressed
his gratitude, when he that night, for the first time, took his
father’s place at the family altar, must have felt that this was one of
the few cases where it was equally ‘blessed to give and to receive.’

[435]

Loyd’s appointment came by return of mail from Washington.
In due time the wedding-cake was cut, and Our Village Post-master
is as happy as love and fortune can make him.

It was a bright thought in a philanthropist of one of our cities, to
note down the actual good deeds that passed under his observation.
We have imitated his example in recording an act of rare disinterestedness
and generosity. It certainly merits a more enduring memorial;
but it has its fitting reward in the respect it inspires, and in its blessed
tendency to vanquish the prejudices and soften the asperities of
political parties.

SONNETS: BY ‘QUINCE.’

AUTUMN.

APPEARANCES.

AVARICE.

[436]

ANACREONTIC.

I.

II.

A. A. M.

OLLAPODIANA.

NUMBER XXI.

We parted, good my reader, last at the Catskills—no? ‘It was
a summer’s evening;’ and with my shadow on the mountain mist,
I ween, vanished in your thoughts the memory of me. Well, that
was natural. A hazy, dream-like idea of my whereabout may have
haunted you for a moment—but it passed. I cannot allow you to
escape so easily. ‘Lend us the loan’ of your eye, for some twenty
minutes; and if you are a home-bred and untravelled person, ’tis
likely, as the valet says in Cinderella, that ‘I may chance to make
you stare!’

In discoursing of the territorial wonderments in question, which
have been moulded by the hand of the Almighty, I cannot suppose
that you who read my reveries will look with a compact, imaginative
eye upon that which has forced its huge radius upon my own
extended vision. I ask you, howbeit, to take my arm, and step forth
with me from the piazza of the Mountain House. It is night. A few
stars are peering from a dim azure field of western sky; the high-soaring
breeze, the breath of heaven, makes a stilly music in the
neighboring pines; the meek crest of Dian rolls along the blue
depths of ether, tinting with silver lines the half dun, half fleecy
clouds; they who are in the parlors make ‘considerable’ noise; there
is an individual at the end of the portico discussing his quadrupled
julep, and another devotedly sucking the end of a cane, as if it were
full of mother’s milk; he hummeth also an air from Il Pirata, and
wonders, in the simplicity of his heart, ‘why the devil that there[437]
steam-boat from Albany, doesn’t begin to show its lights down on
the Hudson.’ His companion of the glass, however, is intent on the
renewal thereof. Calling to him the chief ‘help’ of the place, he
says: ‘Is that other antifogmatic ready?’

‘No, Sir.’

‘Well, now, person, what’s the reason? What was my last observation?
Says I to you, says I, ‘Make me a fourth of them
beverages;’ and moreover I added, ‘Just you keep doing so; be
constantly making them, till the order is countermanded.’ Give us
another; go!—vanish!—’disappear, and appear!”

The obsequious servant went; and returning with the desired,
draught, observed, probably for the thousandth time: ‘There!
that’s what I call the true currency; them’s the ginooyne mint
drops; HA—ha—ha!’—these separate divisions of his laughter
coming out of his mouth at intervals of about half a minute each.

There is a bench near the verge of the Platform where, when you
sit at evening, the hollow-sounding air comes up from the vast vale
below, like the restless murmurs of the ocean. Anchor yourself
here for a while, reader, with me. It being the evening of the
national anniversary, a few patriotic individuals are extremely busy
in piling up a huge pyramid of dried pine branches, barrels covered
with tar, and kegs of spirits, to a height of some fifteen or twenty
feet—perhaps higher. A bonfire is premeditated. You shall see
anon, how the flames will rise. The preparations are completed;
the fire is applied. Hear how it crackles and hisses! Slowly but
spitefully it mounts from limb to limb, and from one combustible to
another, until the whole welkin is a-blaze, and shaking as with thunder!
It is a beautiful sight. The gush of unwonted radiance rolls
in effulgent surges adown the vale. How the owl hoots with surprise
at the interrupting light! Bird of wisdom, it is the Fourth!
and you may well add your voice to swell the choral honors of the
time. How the tall old pines, withered by the biting scathe of Eld,
rise to the view, afar and near—white shafts, bottomed in darkness,
and standing like the serried spears of an innumerable army! The
groups around the beacon are gathered together, but are forced to
enlarge the circle of their acquaintance, by the growing intensity of
the increasing blaze. Some of them, being ladies, their white robes
waving in the mountain breeze, and the light shining full upon them,
present, you observe, a beautiful appearance. The pale pillars of the
portico flash fitfully into view, now seen and gone, like columns of
mist. The swarthy African who kindled the fire regards it with
perspiring face and grinning ivories; and lo! the man who hath
mastered the quintupled glass of metamorphosed eau-de-vie, standing
by the towering pile of flame, and, reaching his hand on high, he
smiteth therewith his sinister pap, with a most hollow sound—the
knell, as it were, of his departing reason. In short, he is making an
oration!

Listen to those voiceful currents of air, traversing the vast profound
below the Platform! What a mighty circumference do they[438]
sweep! Over how many towns, and dwellings, and streams, and
incommunicable woods! Murmurs of the dark, sources and awakeners
of sublime imagination, swell from afar. You have thoughts
of eternity and power here, which shall haunt you evermore. But
we must be early stirrers in the morning. Let us to bed.

You can lie on your pillow at Catskill, and see the god of day
look upon you from behind the pinnacles of the White Mountains
in New-Hampshire, hundreds of miles away. Noble prospect! As
the great orb heaves up in ineffable grandeur, he seems rising from
beneath you, and you fancy that you have attained an elevation where
may be seen the motion of the world. No intervening land to limit
the view, you seem suspended in mid-air, without one obstacle to
check the eye. The scene is indescribable. The chequered and
interminable vale, sprinkled with groves, and lakes, and towns, and
streams; the mountains afar off, swelling tumultuously heavenward,
like waves of the ocean, some incarnadined with radiance, others
purpled in shade; all these, to use the language of an auctioneer’s
advertisement, ‘are too tedious to mention, but may be seen on the
premises.’ I know of but one picture which will give the reader an
idea of this ethereal spot. It was the view which the angel Michael
was polite enough, one summer morning, to point out to Adam, from
the highest hill of Paradise:

Of the falls, sooth to say, little can be ejaculated in the eulogistic
way. The cataract is only ‘on hand’ for a part of the time. It is
kept in a dam, and let down for two shillings. The demand for the
article has sometimes exceeded the supply, especially in dry weather.[439]
We quote the sales, as per register, while there, at perhaps some
three hundred yards. Oh, Mercury! Scenery by the square foot!
Sublimity by the quintal!

It looks to be a perilous enterprise, to descend the Catskills.
You feel, as you commence the ‘facilis descensus,’ (what an unhackneyed
phrase, to be sure!) very much the sort of sensation probably
experienced by Parachute Cocking, whose end was so shocking.
The wheels of the coach are shod with the preparation of
iron slippers, which are essential to a hold-up; and as you bowl and
grate along, with wilderness-chasms and a brawling stream mayhap
on one hand, and horrid masses of stone seemingly ready to tumble
upon you on the other—the far plain stretching like the sea beneath
you, in the mists of the morning—your emotions are fidgetty. You
are not afraid—not you, indeed! Catch you at such folly! No;
but you wish most devoutly that you were some nine miles down,
notwithstanding—and are looking eagerly for that consummation.

We paused just long enough at the base of the mountain, to water
the cattle, and hear a bit of choice grammar from the landlord;
a burly, big individual, ‘careless of the objective case,’ and studious
of ease, in bags of tow-cloth, (trowsers by courtesy,) and a roundabout
of the same material; the knees of the unmentionables apparently
greened by kneeling humbly at the lactiferous udder of his
only cow, day by day. He addressed ‘the gentleman that driv’ us
down:’

‘Well, Josh—I seen them rackets!’

‘Wa’n’t they almighty bright?’ was the inquisitive reply.

This short colloquy had reference to a train of fire-works which
were set off the evening before at the Mountain-House—long snaky
trails of light, flashing in their zig-zag course through the darkness.
It was beautiful to see those fiëry sentences written fitfully on the
sky, fading one by one, like some Hebrew character—some Nebuchadnezzar
scroll—in the dark profound, and showing, as the
rocket fell and faded, that beneath the lowest deep to which it
descended, there was one yet lower still, to which it swept ‘plumb-down,
a shower of fire.’

We presently rolled away, and were soon drawn up in front of
the Hudson and the horse-boat, at the landing. The same unfortunate
animals were peering forth from that aquatic vehicle; one of
them dropping his hairy lip, with a melancholy expression, and the
other strenuously endeavoring to remove a wisp of straw which had
found a lodgment on his nose. The effort, however, was vain;
his physical energies sank under the task; he gave it up, and was
soon under way for the opposite shore, with his four-legged fellow
traveller, and three bipeds, who were smoking segars.

It is right pleasant and joyous to see the number of juvenile patriots
who are taken forth into the country, (whose glories for the first
time, perhaps, are shed upon their town-addicted eyes,) on the great[440]
national holiday. To them, the flaunting honors of the landscape
have a new beauty, and a joyous meaning; the sun hangs above
them like a great ball of fire in the sky; the waters wear a glittering
sheen; and the wide moving pulse of life beats with a universal
thrill of happiness to them. I could not but note the number of
urchins in the steamer, whom their ‘paternal derivatives’ were
guiding around, and showing, to their vision at least, ‘all the kingdoms
of the world, and the glory of them.’

Well, to those who are disposed to glean philosophy from the
mayhap less noticeable objects of this busy world, there are few
sights more lovely than childhood. The little cherub who now sits
at my knee, and tries, with tiny effort, to clutch the quill with which I
am playing for you, good reader; whose capricious taste, varying from
ink-stand to paper, and from that to books, and every other portable
thing—all ‘movables that I could tell you of’—he has in his little
person those elements which constitute both the freshness of our
sublunary mortality, and that glorious immortality which the mortal
shall yet put on. Gazing upon his fair young brow, his peach-like
cheek, and the depths of those violet eyes, I feel myself rejuvenated.
That which bothered Nicodemus, is no marvel to me. I feel
that I have a new existence; nor can I dispel the illusion. It is
harder, indeed, to believe that he will ever be what I am, than that I
am otherwise than he is now. I cannot imagine that he will ever become
a pilosus adult, with harvests for the razor on that downy chin.
Will those golden locks become the brown auburn? Will that forehead
rise as a varied and shade-changing record of pleasure or care?
Will the classic little lips, now colored as by the radiance of a ruby,
ever be fitfully bitten in the glow of literary composition?—and will
those sun-bright locks, which hang about his temples like the soft
lining of a summer cloud, become meshes where hurried fingers shall
thread themselves in play? By the mass, I cannot tell. But this
I know. That which hath been, shall be: the lot of manhood, if he
live, will be upon him; the charm—the obstacle—the triumphant
fever—the glory, the success—the far-reaching thoughts,

I might ‘prattle out of reason,’ and fancy what, in defiance of
precedent furnished by propinquity of blood, he possibly might be;
an aldermanic personage, redolent of wines and soup—goodly in
visage, benevolent in act, but strict in justice. I might fancy him
with a most voluminous periphery, and a laugh that shakes the diaphragm,
from the imo pectore to the vast circumference of the outer
man. These things may be imagined, but not believed. Yet it is
with others as with ourselves: ‘We know what they are, but not
what they may be.’ Time adds to the novel thoughts of the child,
the tricks and joyance of the urchin—the glow of increasing years,
the passion of the swelling heart, when experience seems to school
its energies. But in the flush of young existence, I can compare a
child—the pride and delight of its mother and its kindred—to
nothing else on earth, of its own form or image. It is like a young[441]
and beautiful bird—heard, perhaps, for once, in the days of our
juvenescence, and remembered ever after, though never seen again.
Its thoughts, like the rainbow-colored messenger discoursed of in
the poetic entomology of La Martine,

In truth, I do especially affect that delightful period in the life of
every descendant of old Fig Leaves, in Eden, which may truly be
called the April of the heart. How sweet are its smiles! And on
the face of babyhood, ‘the tears,’ to use the dainty term of Sir
Philip Sidney, ‘come dropping down like raine in y^e sunshine, and
no heed being taken to wype them, they hang upon the cheekes and
lippes, as upon cherries which the dropping tree bedeweth.’ Halcyon
season! Its pure thoughts and rich emotions come and go,
like the painted waftage of a morning cloud; or most like that fulness
of pearls which may be shaken from the matin spray. The
night, to such, comes with its vesper hush and stillness, like the shadow
of a shade. Sorrow is transient, and Hope ever new. Sabbath
of the soul, fresh from its God! To the vision of these, how brightly
the leaves move, and the breeze-crisped waters quiver! How their
quick pulses bound, in the newness of existence, at that which is
ancient and disdained of the common eye! To them, every color
is prismatic, and wears the hue of Eden. With thoughts like these,
however un-novel, I apostrophize ‘My Boy:’

[442]

In the wonder which we feel as to children growing old, we are apt
to associate ourselves with them. When one who, in the hey-dey of
his blood, and before the glow of the purpureum lumen of his ‘better-most
hours’ has begun to diminish, is led to regard (and to hear, beside,
for the fact rings often at his auricular portals,) that a vital
extract is extant, he wonders if that ’embryon atom’ will ever come
to denominate the agent of his being as ‘the old gentleman!’ Of
course, it must be impossible. Yet ‘there is no mistake on some
points.’ In the course of his travels, Old Time effects many a marvel;
but he pushes on with his agricultural implement, and streaming fore-lock;
(nobody ‘does him proud,’ and he disdains the toupée,) until
his oldest friends are metamorphosed, and his youngest begin to experience
how ‘tempora mutantur, et nos mutamur in illis.’ This reminds
me of a song, which I like amazingly, because it contains
such a mingling of truth, beauty, and melody:

In what strange contrast with a picture like this, does the beautiful
Uhland place some of his nature-colored characters! How sweetly
does he draw the picture of two devoted beings, practising palmistry,
with palm to palm, and uttering a world of downy nonsense beneath
the rolling moon:

These are very apt verses to be made directly out of a man’s head,
ar’n’t they? How the author must have been haunted with visions;
all

I forgot to observe, that the postillion of whom I have spoken,
was rather profane. He told a story of his experience some years
before, with a divine, who was riding with him, on his professional
seat, in the west, to attend a ‘protracted meeting.’ ‘It was about
‘lection time,’ said he, ‘and I had just gi’n in my vote. Of course,
I was used with hospitality; and I was a leetle ‘how-come-you-so?’
as Miss Kimball says in her Tower. Well I driv on, at an uncommon
rapid rate; (that’s a fact;) and whensumever I threw out
the mail-bags at a stoppin’ place, I replenished the inner individual.
At last I became, as the parson observed, ‘manifestly inebriated;’
and he ondertook for to lecter me! I said nothing, until he observed,
or rather remarked, that ‘he should not be surprised if I fell from
my seat some day, and would be found with my head broke, and
extravagantsated blood on the pious matter.”

‘Well,’ says I, ‘I shouldn’t be surprised; it would be just my
d——d etarnal luck!”

‘He didn’t say no more all the trip. I shot him up.’

‘But the election’—it was inquired—’did you succeed in that?’

‘Oh, yes; and the man that we put in, made a fool of himself at
Albany, into the Legislature, and there was a piece put into a book
about him a’terwards.’

‘Ah?—what was it?

‘Here it is,’ was the reply of my gentleman, as he drew from his
pocket a worn fragment of a printed page.

[444]

‘On the first day of the session, he was enabled to utter the beginning
of a sentence, which would probably have had no end, if it
had not been cut short, as it was, by the Speaker. On the presentation
of some petitions, which he thought had a bearing on his favorite
subject, the election by the people of public notaries, inspectors
of beef and pork, sole-leather, and staves and heading, he got on
his legs. ‘When,’ said he, ‘Mr. Speaker, we consider the march of
intellect in these united, as I may say confederated, states, and how
the genius of liberty soars, in the vast expanse, stretching her eagle
plumes from the Pacific Ocean to Long-Island Sound, gazing with
eyes of fire upon the ruins of empires——’ just at which point of
aërial elevation, the Speaker brought down the metaphorical flight of
the genius, and that of the aspiring orator together, by informing the
latter that he should be happy to hear him when in order, but that
there was now no question before the House!’[20]

‘But what was the name of this man?’ was a query following this
eloquent extract.

‘Smith, Sir, was his name; Smith, John Smith, of Smithopolis,
and surrogate of Smith County. He was the first man in Smithville;
was a blacksmith in his youth, a goldsmith a’terwards, and
John Smith through all. A consistent man, Sir; no change with
him; always upright, but always poor; unchanging, for he had nothing
to change with! He was a distinguished man; had letters
advertised in the post office; owned a blood horse; led the choir at
church; read ‘the Declaration’ on every Fourth-of-July; made all
the acquaintances he could; was exceedingly fussy on all occasions.
In short, he was a very great man in a small way. His speech will
stand as a memorial of his genius, when the Kattskill shall be troubled
with the mildew of time, and the worms of decay!’

Well—the reign of autumn, for the present year, has come;
and there will doubtless be the annual quotations of description in
the newspaper market. Some of it will remain on first hands, and
the rest will find a ready circulation. Meditation will vent itself
upon apostrophe; poetry will be engendered; old songs will be
re-sung. It is, in truth, a delicious season, and no one can be blamed
for yielding himself up to its influences. When the first yellow
surges of September sunlight seem to roll through the atmosphere;
when the dust of the city street, as you look at some stately carriage,
whose wheels are flashing toward the west, seems rising around them
like an atmosphere, colored betwixt the hue of gold and crimson;
when the mountains put on their beautiful garments, where tints of
the rainbow mingle with the aërial blue of the sky; when the winds
have a melancholy music in their tone, and the heaven above us is
enrobed in surpassing purity and lustre—then, the dwellers in great
capitals may perhaps conceive of the richness and fruition of the
country; but they cannot approach the reality. The harvest moon
has waned; the harvest home been held; the wheat is in the garner;
[445]the last peaches hang blushing on the topmost branches where they
grew; the fragrant apples lie in fairy-colored mounds beneath the
orchard trees, and the cheerful husbandman whistles at the cider-press.
As September yields her withered sceptre into the grasp of
October, the hills begin to invest themselves in those many-colored
robes which are the livery of their new sovereign. As my observant
friend, (a well-belovéd Epinetus,) who hath discoursed of matters
outre-mer, so richly hymns it, then there comes

To me, there is nothing of that dark solemnity about the autumnal
season, which it has to the morbid or the foreboding. It comes,
laden with plenty, and breathing of peace. There seems a sweet
monition in every whisper of the gale, and the rustle of every
painted leaf, which may speak a world of tranquillity to the contemplative
mind. If there be sadness around and within, it is the sadness
which is cherished, and the gloom that purifies; it is that doubtful
twilight of the heart, which is succeeded at last by a glorious morning.
We think with the serene and heavenly-minded Malcolm, of
the distant, or the departed, who have gone before us to lay down
their heads upon pillows of clay, and repose in the calm monotony
of the tomb. Reflection asserts her sway, and the spirit expands
into song:

And now, reader, Benedicite! ‘Hail—and farewell!’

Decidedly thine,

Ollapod.

LAMENT
OF THE LAST OF THE PEACHES.[21]

W. G. C.

I.

II.

III.

[447]

LITERARY NOTICES.

The Token and Atlantic Souvenir. A Christmas and New Year’s Present.
Edited by S. G. Goodrich, pp. 312. Boston: American Stationers’ Company.
New-York: Wiley and Putnam.

Talent of a high order has been employed to enrich both the pictorial and literary
departments of the ‘Token’ for the coming year; and, in our judgment, the work
greatly exceeds in merit, as it certainly does in size, any of its predecessors. Let us
first take a running glance at the embellishments. The presentation-plate, from a
tasteful design by Chapman, is engraved on wood by Adams; and in so masterly a
manner is it executed, that it seems more like a fine steel engraving, than a cutting
upon wood. The succeeding picture, ‘The Expected Canoe,’ painted by Chapman,
and engraved by Andrews and Jewett, is very spirited in its conception, and finished
in execution. The rising storm, the lightning, the anxious countenance of the
Indian maiden, and the ease and grace of her position, are worthy of especial praise.
There is something quite yankeeish in Chapman‘s design of the frontispiece—a
cupid leaning over a huge pumpkin to see another carve a ‘token’ upon the rind. We
can say little for ‘The Only Daughter,’ although engraved by Andrews, from a
painting by Newton. The subject is harsh and unpleasing. There is Chapman‘s
old fault in the ‘Indian Maiden at her Toilet,’ or ‘The Token.’ There is not an
Indian feature, nor the semblance of one, in the face of the girl. Otherwise, the picture
is well conceived. One of the richest plates in the volume, is ‘English Scenery,’
engraved by Smillie, from a painting by Brown. It is mellow and soft, in the ensemble,
yet distinct in minute detail, and there is about it an almost living atmosphere.
A very clever picture, too, is Healy‘s ‘Young American on the Alps,’ and it
has received ample justice at the hands of the engraver, G. H. Cushman. ‘The Last
of the Tribe,’ painted by Brown, and engraved by Ellis, should have been called
‘A Mountain Scene,’ and the Indian figure omitted. He lacks the proper physiognomy,
sadly. The scenery is well imagined. ‘The Fairies in America,’ like all attempts
at depicting such nondescript creatures of air, strikes us as a failure. Leaving
out all the figures, both the painting and engraving reflect credit upon the artists,
Chapman and Smillie. ‘Martha Washington,’ engraved by Cheney and Kellogg,
is a good engraving of a far more beautiful female than we have been accustomed to
consider the original, from the portraits we have hitherto seen. She is here depicted
in her young and rosy years,’plump as a partridge,’ and most delectable to look upon.
Thus much for the plates; and now a few words touching the literary contents.

‘The Wonders of the Deep,’ by Pierpont, well deserves the place of honor which
it occupies. It is a poem, without the form of verse; and its poetry is of a high order.
We ask attention to the annexed paragraphs:

“What a wonder is the sea itself! How wide does it stretch out its arms, clasping
islands and continents in its embrace! How mysterious are its depths!—still more
mysterious its hoarded and hidden treasures! With what weight do its watery masses[448]
roll onward to the shore, when not a breath of wind is moving over its surface! How
wonderfully fearful is it, when its waves, in mid ocean, are foaming and tossing their
heads in anger under the lash of the tempest! How wonderfully beautiful, when, like
a melted and ever-moving mirror, it reflects the setting sun, or the crimson clouds, or
the saffron heavens after the sun has set; or when its ‘watery floor’ breaks into myriads
of fragments the image of the quiet moon that falls upon it from the skies!

“Wonderful, too, are those hills of ice that break off, in thunder, from the frozen barriers
of the pole, and float toward the sun, their bristling pinnacles glistening in his
beams, and slowly wasting away under his power, an object at once of wonder and of
dread to the mariner, till they are lost in the embrace of more genial deeps. And that
current is a wonder, which moves for ever onward from the southern seas, to the colder
latitudes, bearing in its waters the influence of a tropical sun, and saying to the icebergs
from the pole, ‘Hitherto may ye come, but no farther.’ And, if possible, still
more wonderful are those springs of fresh water which, among the Indian Isles, gush
up from the depths of a salt ocean, a source of refreshment and life to the seaman who
is parching with thirst ‘beneath a burning sky.’ And is it not as wonderful, when, not a
spring of fresh water, but a column of volcanic fire shoots up from ‘the dark unfathomed
caves of ocean,’ and throws its red glare far over the astonished waves, that heave
and tremble with the heaving and trembling earth below them! wonderful, when that
pillar of fire vanishes, leaving a smoking volcano in its place! and wonderful, when
that volcano, in its turn, sinks back, and is lost in the depths whence it rose!

“Then there are other wonders in the living creatures of the deep, from the animalcule,
that ‘no eye can see,’ and that scarcely ‘glass can reach,’ up to ‘that Leviathan
which God hath made to play therein.’ In ‘this great and wide sea are things creeping
innumerable, both small and great beasts.’ Yet He, who hath made them all, even
there openeth his hand and satisfieth the desires of all. Wonderful is it, that, of these
‘creatures innumerable,’ each one finds its food in some other, and in its turn, serves
some other for food; and that this great work of destruction and reproduction goes on
in an unbroken circle from age to age, in the deep silence of those still deeper waters
where the power of man is neither felt nor feared!

“What a wonder, too, is that line of phosphoric light, which, in the darkest night,
streams along ‘the way of a ship in the midst of the sea!’ What is it that gives out
this fire, which, like that of love, ‘many waters cannot quench, neither can the floods
drown it?’ Theorists may speculate, naturalists may examine, chemists may analyze;
but none of them can explain; and all agree in this, that it is a wonder, a mystery, a
marvel. A light that only motion kindles! a fire that burns nothing! a fire, too, seen,
not in a bush on Horeb, which is not burned, but in the deep waters of the ocean that
cannot be! Is not this a wonder?

“And, if that path of light is a wonder, which streams back from the rudder of a ship,
is not that ship itself a wonder? That a fabric so gigantic as a first rate ship, of traffic or
of war, framed of ponderous timbers, compacted with bolts and bands of still more ponderous
iron, holding in its bosom masses of merchandise, under whose weight strong cars
have groaned, and paved streets trembled, or bearing on its decks hosts of armed men,
with the thundering armament of a nation—that a fabric thus framed and thus freighted,
should float in a fluid, into which, if a man fall, he sinks and is lost, is in itself a wonder.
But that such a fabric should traverse oceans, struggling on amid the strife of seas and
storms, that it should hold on its way like ‘a thing of life,’ nay, like a thing of intellect,
a being endued with courage, and stimulated by a high purpose, a traveller that has seen
the end of his voyage from the beginning, that goes forth upon it without fear, and
completes it as with the feeling of a triumph, is, as it seems to me, a greater wonder
still. Let me ask you to stand, as you perhaps have stood, upon the deck of such a
ship,

‘In the dead waist and middle of the night,’

now in the strong light of the moon, as it looks down upon you between the swelling
sails, or now in the deep shadow that the sails throw over you. Hear the majestic
thing that bears you, breasting and breaking through the waves that oppose themselves
to her march! She is moving on alone, on the top of the world, and through the dread
solitude of the sea. Nothing is heard, save, perhaps, the falling back of a wave, that
has been showing its white crest to the moon, or, as your ship is plowing her way, the
rushing of the water along her sides. Yet she seems to care for all that she contains,
and to watch, while they sleep as sweetly in her bosom as in their own beds at home:
and, though she sees no convoy to guard her, and no torch-bearer to guide her, she
seems as conscious that she is safe, as she is confident that she is going right. Is
not all this a wonder?”

‘Peter Goldthwait’s Treasure’ is from the pen, and in the peculiar vein, of the author
of ‘Twice-Told Tales,’ whose writings are well known, in every sense, to our
readers. We think we are not in error in attributing the spirited sketch, ‘Endicott
and the Red Cross,’ to the same source. ‘The Shaker Bridal,’ may be traced to a[449]
kindred paternity not less unerringly by the table of contents, than by a certain style,
which, although sui generis, partakes nevertheless of many of the simple graces of
the fine old English prose writers. Of the merits of ‘Our Village Post-Office,’ by
Miss Sedgwick, our readers are enabled to judge; and our opinion of it is expressed
‘where they may turn the leaf to read it.’ There are pleasant love-stories for the
ladies, and young lovers of both sexes, as ‘The Love Marriage,’ by Mrs. Hale,
‘Sylph Etherege,’ ‘Xeri, or A Day in Batavia,’ translated from the German, by
Nathaniel Greene, Esq., ‘Jaques De Laid,’ etc. We could almost forgive the
author of ‘A Tale of Humble Life’ for drawing so revolting, and we must add unnatural
a portrait, as that of George Cavendish, in consideration of the following
graphic description of the advent of a New-England festival:

“It was the night before Thanksgiving; that season whose very name speaks of happiness;
when the prosperous are called upon to remember whence their blessings come,
and the wretched to observe that there is no such thing as unmitigated misery; the most
forlorn having something in their lot for which they may thank God. Abundance
walked with her cornucopia through the land, leaving no virtuous poor, starving amid
unrewarded toils; the ties of kindred brought merry groups round many a blazing
hearth, and friendship or hospitality threw open the domestic sanctuary, and admitted
into the kindly circle those whom the chances of life had separated from their own
homes and kindred.

“The lover of Jane had been compelled, by the death of his father in Vermont, to
take a long journey at the approach of this festival; and business was to detain him
yet a few days longer. It was not for him therefore that she sat listening in the corner
of the roaring chimney, turning her head eagerly as the merry sleighs dashed jingling
by. Half a dozen noisy youngsters about her threatened demolition to the old flag-bottomed
chairs in a game of blind-man’s buff, while one rosy urchin sat in her lap,
struggling against sleep, and whining in reply to her whispered admonitions, ‘I don’t
want to go to bed till cousin George comes.’ At last a sleigh stopped at the door; the
blindfold hero of the game tore the bandage from his eyes, the drowsy boy in the corner
jumped up wide awake, and clapped his hands, and a young man, muffled in a cloak
and seal-skin cap, sprung into the room, as one sure of a welcome. In an instant, the
arms of Jane were round her only brother, and the redoubled clamors of the children
brought the matron from the pantry, redolent of fresh-baked pies, and the old man from
the cellar, laden with a basket of apples worthy of the Hesperides. All was noise and
confusion, and the young stranger was loudest and gayest of the throng.”

‘Night Sketches beneath an Umbrella,’ and ‘Martha Washington,’ the latter by
Mrs. Sigourney, are the only prose articles which we have not named, and they are
in all respects worthy the excellent company they keep.

The poetry is rather above than below the general ‘annual’ standard. Among
the contributors to this department, are Miss H. F. Gould, O. W. Holmes, Grenville
Mellen, H. Hastings Weld, Rev. J. H. Clinch, and others not unknown
to fame; but our space obliges us to confine ourselves to these brief comments, and to
forego extracts. And we must here conclude, by recommending the ‘Token’ to
American readers, as a work every way worthy of general patronage.

Confessions of a Roman Catholic Priest. Edited by Samuel F. B. Morse, A. M.
New-York: John S. Taylor.

This work is from the pen of a French gentleman, now in this country, and but
lately a Roman Catholic priest. Portions of it, in the view of the editor, afford
strong if not conclusive proofs of a systematic design in Europe to create a strong
Popish party in this country. The personal narrative of the writer is replete with
the interest of romance, especially those parts of it which describe the love-passages
and trials of the priest, and his fair penitents of the confessional. The editor
affirms that the author is known to be what he professes himself to be, and that his
book is strictly true.

[450]

EDITORS’ TABLE

Henry Russell.—Would that every reader upon whom the portrait of Russell in
the present number may smile, could hear the ‘voice of melody’ roll from those lips
which has gone to the hearts of so many in our Atlantic cities! Simplicity, tenderness,
strength, and mellowness, are the agents by which Mr. Russell produces his effects;
and the result is always the same. It is not our purpose here to enter upon an analysis
of his extraordinary musical powers; since we have on two or three occasions heretofore
spoken of his voice and execution at some length. His style, so simple yet so
effective, which ‘catches a grace beyond the reach of art,’ is lightly regarded, we believe,
by certain of those who consider themselves as ‘great shakes‘ in the musical world,
simply because they can shake, and trill, and quaver, in that ‘difficult’ manner which
it was once so much the mode to admire, but which, thanks to Russell, and one or
two other distinguished melodists, has had its little day. These demurring professors
may find some countenance in their attempts to foist upon the public an unnatural taste
for a species of music wholly unsuited to the genius of our people, but it will proceed
from such as care more for the music of fashion than of the heart, and who have travelled
abroad to import new ideas of the art, with not a little conceit, arrogance, and
foppery. But the crowds who attend the concerts of Mr. Russell, carry away with
them ‘remembered harmonies’ which will not die, nor fade with the changes of time.
Success to simple melody! Success to that music which can awaken human sympathies,
and enliven and enlarge the affections!

‘Mr. Russell is a young man, having but recently completed his twenty-fourth year;
yet he has acquired a reputation far beyond his years, and that too in the country
which, youthful as it is, was the fosterer of the genius of Malibran. He was born in
England, and there imbibed his earliest lessons in the divine art of which he is so distinguished
a professor. He went to Italy at an early age, after studying under King,
in London, for some time. Here he was a pupil of Rossini for three years, and thereafter
he returned to England for the space of two more, during which time he was chorus-master
of the Italian opera in London. Returning once more to Italy, he studied
under Generale, Mayerbeer, and other masters, and received a gold medal from the
hand of royalty, for the best composition at the conservatorio at Naples. He acquired
the language, as well as the musical lore of that lovely country, during his sojourn there,
so perfectly as not only to sing, but also to write and converse in Italian, with equal
fluency and facility. Coming again to his native country, he married the accomplished
daughter of an opulent and distinguished merchant, and soon after came to Canada,
where he was invited by some gentlemen of Rochester, in this state, to settle in that
thriving city. He accepted the invitation, and was appointed professor of music in an
academy devoted to the cultivation of that science.’

It is a source of personal gratification to the editors of this Magazine, that they were
the first, in this community and that of Philadelphia, to call public attention to the rare
musical endowments of one who was himself too modest and retiring to present his
claims to general patronage and regard, beyond the precincts of the public-spirited town
where he had been generously taken by the hand, and his gifts properly appreciated.
Since his first appearance here, however, Mr. Russell‘s course has been due on toward
the goal of success; and we cannot doubt that he has yet even more signal triumphs
to gain, in the production of extended operatic compositions. We shall see.

[451]

To those whose good fortune it has been to see and hear Mr. Russell, we need not
say that the portrait contained in the present number is an almost speaking likeness of
the gifted original; and to none is it deemed necessary to add any thing in praise of the
superior execution of the engraving.

Criticism.—That was a charming trait in Scott‘s character, which prompted him
to ‘set an author upon his legs,’ by quoting the better passages of his works, as an offset
to the objectionable portions, which a censor of the meat-axe school was dwelling
upon with characteristic gusto, to the exclusion of every thing of an opposite character.
No critic should read for mere occasion of censure, and for the sole purpose of dragging
forth lurking errors; nor should he be ambitious to act the part of a judge who determines
beforehand to hang every man that may come before him for trial. Such censorial
dogmatism is both unjust and injurious. We do not object to severe criticism, so
that it be just and honest; but we devoutly eschew the captious, cavilling strain of
quibble, in which it is getting to be so much the fashion to indulge, and that without
any exertion of thought, or labor of investigation, in the discussion of the work condemned.
Unfavorable criticism should be so tempered as to be instructive and consolatory,
yet at the same time just, to the youthful aspirant. We have been led to these
remarks, by noticing the wholesale condemnation which has been poured out upon a
small volume of poems, by a young graduate of Yale College, William Thompson
Bacon, which was briefly reviewed in our last number. Now we do not know Mr.
Bacon, nor any one who does, nor did we ever receive a line from him, or any of his friends,
nor from any body else, in relation to his book. The qualified praise which we rendered
to his little work, was therefore wholly disinterested, unsolicited, and sincere; and to
prove that it was just, we annex the omitted extract, referred to in our last:

A very young writer, capable of lines like these, is met with scarce a word of encouragement,
but contrariwise, forced satire and second-hand denunciation; and this
often from critics unable to produce any thing half so creditable as many of the effusions
in the volume in question.

[452]

Politics and Literature.—We regret to perceive that our contemporary, the ‘American
Monthly,’ has pushed out upon the stormy sea of politics. We believe with Daniel
Webster, that our literary periodicals ought rather to constitute a happy restraint
upon the asperities which political controversies engender, than to aid in creating them.
Let us keep literature and politics distinct. We need a kind of neutral ground, on which
men of all creeds and all politics may meet, and forget the bitterness of party feeling.
Literature should be this ground; and the only prominent objection to this position,
that we have yet seen, is that the English periodicals are some of them political, and
that therefore ours should be so too! To say nothing of the independent, republican
spirit evinced in imitating foreign works, as if we were incapable of originality in any
thing, let us look at the different circumstances of the case. In America, politics are
in every body’s hands, in the newspapers of the day, large and small, for the merest
trifle of cost. In Great Britain, on the contrary, it is the very reverse. The metropolitan
daily journals cost so much, that thousands are wholly unable to procure them;
and national politics are conveyed to a large proportion of the public through the less
frequently published magazines, one number of which frequently passes into fifty or an
hundred hands. How small the necessity or demand, on the other hand, in this country,
for an admixture of politics in our literary periodicals, when the partizan may take
his daily political dish for a single penny, or at most, three! Beside, premeditately
long political disquisitions are universally considered as sad bores, at the best. They
are rarely read by more than one side, and make no converts. Let no sinister motive be
ascribed to these remarks; for, in our own case, this Magazine possesses the good will
of all parties, and has neither the indifference nor the opposition of any. We speak but
for the common cause of American literature.

The Fine Arts.—Some months since, an eminent American writer attempted to
set forth in these pages the fact that liberty and a republic were no barriers, as had often
been alleged, against the progress and perfection of the fine arts in this country; and
this position he maintained and supported by triumphant argument. His train of reasoning has
since been frequently brought to our minds, by corroborative testimony which
has fallen under our own observation; all going to establish the truth, that the enjoyment
of a rational freedom, such as we of the United States are blessed with, associated
with a general liberal diffusion of property and intelligence, which always carry
with them an improvement in taste, is more favorable to the cultivation of the fine arts,
than the patronage of kings, princes, and nobles. We were forcibly impressed with
the correctness of this assumption, in a recent visit to the studio of the Brothers Thompson,
whom many of our readers doubtless now hear named for the first time. The
elder of the two, C. Giovanni Thompson, has but recently removed to this city. He
has pursued his art with great industry, and his efforts have been marked by gradual yet
constant improvement, during a residence of some years in Boston and Providence.
His pictures in the Athenæum Gallery, in the former city, won for him a high repute,
and brought to his easel several of the first citizens of the New-England capital; and
we can speak in terms of high commendation both of the faithfulness and skill with
which he has transferred to the canvass many of the élite of the city of Roger Williams.
The portrait of President Wayland, of Brown University, would be sufficient, were
other evidence wanting, of the distinguished talents of the artist, whose success, since
his arrival in New-York, has been no less decided. Of his portraits in general, we may
say, that they are animated and well-colored, while the attitudes are unconstrained, natural,
and agreeable. There is great merit, too, in the pervading tone of his pictures,
and especially in the grace, spirit, and expression of his female portraitures.

Of the efforts of Jerome Thompson, whose stay has been more prolonged among us,
and who has acquired a metropolitan reputation from those of our citizens who have[453]
sat under his facile pencil, it may not be necessary to speak, farther than to say, that
we know of no young artist whose improvement has been more regularly progressive.
We have marked him from the beginning, and think we can appreciate the study and
taste which have made him favorably known to the New-York public, and even procured
for him honorable and profitable engagements in England, whenever he may
deem it expedient to turn his face thitherward. He is remarkable not less for the excellence
of his likenesses, than for the professional qualities he possesses in common
with his brother, which we have already enumerated. The success of these young gentlemen,
as we have already hinted, has impressed us with the truth of the remark of
the distinguished contributor alluded to, in the commencement of this paragraph, that
‘our artists need no longer to go abroad to earn a livelihood, or gain a name. Those
who have talents and industry, meet with employment and liberal compensation, and
receive quite as much, and sometimes a great deal more, than is given for similar productions
in Europe.’

Gulliverana.—Lying is a bad practice at best; but there is a species of sportive
‘white lie,’ which, when well managed, has an ‘ear-kissing smack’ in it that is quite delightful.
Gulliver’s talent in this line has seldom been approached. Whether in Lilliput or
Brobdignag, he never forgets himself. The keeping of every thing is admirable; and if
any one deems such skeptical relations an easy matter, let him try to sustain a kindred
specimen, in all its parts. He must have the eye of a painter, and be well versed in the
management of contrasts, to succeed at all in the undertaking. By the way, that was
a good story of a man travelling in a stage-coach, who had been listening for an hour or
more to the marvellous tales of personal adventure, told by two inflated bucks from the
city. ‘My uncle,’ said he, ‘had three children; my father had the same number;
all boys. There was some property in dispute between the families; and after a protracted
quarrel, it was agreed that the question should be decided by combat between the
six sons. My eldest brother fought first, and his antagonist was mortally wounded,
and carried off; my next eldest cousin was successful in slaying the brother next before
me; and it was with great trepidation that I took my position in front of my
youngest cousin. We fired, and——’

Here was a pause for a moment; and the excited cockneys eagerly inquired, ‘Well,
what was the result?’ ‘Why, I was killed on the spot!’ was the reply; my adversary’s
bullet pierced my heart, and I expired without a groan! My murderer became possessed
of the property in dispute, which he soon dissipated, and is now a mountebank conjurer.
It was only yesterday that I saw him at his tricks, in a little village through which
we passed. He had placed a ladder in the open street, its top in the air; and when I
lost sight of him, as the stage wheeled away, he had reached the uppermost round, and
was drawing the ladder up after him!’ The town-bred Munchausens reserved their
marvels, during the remainder of the journey. This undoubted narrative is akin to the
following story, which we have from the best authority. Two passengers, coming
down the Mississippi in a steam-boat, were shooting birds, etc., on shore, from the deck.
Some sportsman converse ensued, in which one remarked, that he would turn his back
to no man in killing rackoons; that he had repeatedly shot fifty in a day. ‘What o’
that?’ said a Kentuckian; ‘I make nothing of killing a hundred ‘coon a day, or’nary
luck.’ ‘Do you know Capting Scott, of our state?’ asked a Tennessean by-stander.
‘He now is something like a shot. A hundred ‘coon! Why he never p’ints at one,
without hitting him. He never misses, and the ‘coons know it. T’other day he
levelled at an old ‘un, in a high tree. The varmint looked at him a minute, and then
bawled out: ‘Hello, Cap’n Scott!—is that you?’ ‘Yes,’was the reply. ‘Well, don’t
shoot!’ says he; it’s no use! ‘Hold on; I’ll come down; I give in!’—which he did!’
It is unnecessary to add, that this was the last hunting story.

[454]

Brown vs. Kirkham.—We have received from Mr. Goold Brown a rejoinder to the
article of Mr. Kirkham, published in our last number. We are reluctant to extend this
controversy, in which we fear a great proportion of our readers take little if any interest;
and having just now, moreover, but narrow space, we are compelled to decline
the publication of the article in question. It is proper to say, however, that Mr. Brown
denies that Kirkham’s works have ever ascribed to Rush, Murray, and Walker, the contradictory
passages quoted against himself; and that if they had so ascribed them, the
ascription would have been untrue; that the brackets, the removal of which was so vehemently
complained of, would neither abate the error alleged, nor make Kirkham’s
version of the text good grammar; and that he never in his life spoke in favor of the
grammar of his antagonist. With this ‘curtailed abbreviation compressing the particulars’
of a syllabus, we take our leave of the matter, trusting that each lingual belligerent
will hereafter revolve in his own cycle of declensions, conjugations, syntaxes
and prosodies.

Our Portrait of Diedrich Knickerbocker.—’Why,’ says an esteemed foreign
correspondent, ‘have you, in the frontispiece of your cover, represented the venerable and
benevolent author of the right veritable ‘History of New-York’ with such a rigid and
austere expression of countenance? Surely, the painter or engraver has belied his
character. I have had his counterfeit presentment for many years in my mind’s eye;
and whenever I look at yours, I think, with Charles Lamb, ‘Alas! what is my book
of his countenance good for, which I have read so long, and thought I understood its
contents, when there comes your heart-breaking errata,’ to rob me of my beau ideal?’
To all this we answer, in the usual Yankee manner, by asking our friend, if he does
not remember, that when Diedrich Knickerbocker was writing his renowned work,
at the Columbian Hotel, his literary labors were often interrupted by his landlady coming
into his room, and ‘putting his papers to rights,’ in such wise that it took him a
week to find them again? Think of these untimely intrusions, while the melancholy
historian was writing as follows: ‘Grievous and very much to be commiserated is the
task of the feeling historian who writes the history of his native land. * * * I cannot
look back on the happier days of our city, which I now describe, without a sad dejection
of the spirits. With a faltering hand do I withdraw the curtain of oblivion, that
veils the modest merits of our venerable ancestors, and as their figures rise to my mental
vision, humble myself before the mighty shades. Such are my feelings when I revisit
the family mansions of the Knickerbockers, and spend a lonely hour in the chamber
where hang the portraits of my forefathers, shrouded in dust, like the forms they
represent. With pious reverence do I gaze on the countenances of those renowned
burghers, who have preceded me in the steady march of existence; whose sober and
temperate blood now meanders through my veins, flowing slower and slower in its feeble
conduits, until its currents shall soon be stopped for ever! These, say I to myself,
are but frail memorials of the mighty men who nourished in the days of the patriarchs;
but who, alas! have long since mouldered in that tomb, toward which my footsteps are
insensibly and irresistibly hastening! As I pace the darkened chamber, and lose myself
in melancholy musings, the shadowy images around me almost seem to steal once
more into existence—their countenances to assume the animation of life—their eyes
to pursue me in every movement! Carried away by the delusions of fancy, I almost
imagine myself surrounded by the shades of the departed, and holding sweet converse
with the worthies of antiquity! Ah, hapless Diedrich! born in a degenerate age, abandoned
to the buffetings of fortune—a stranger and a weary pilgrim in thy native land—blest
with no weeping wife, nor family of helpless children; but doomed to wander neglected
through these crowded streets, and elbowed by foreign upstarts from those fair
abodes, where once thine ancestors held sovereign empire!’ Now we have it from the[455]
best authority, that while these melting sentences were not yet dry upon the paper before
the historian, his pestilent landlady bustled into his apartment, and after an uneasy
stay of a minute or two, began to indulge in oblique allusions to ‘her little bill’ for board,
and finally observed, that ‘she thought it high time somebody had a sight of somebody’s
money!’ It is at the moment of this inopportune dun, that our sketch is taken;
and who could look benign under such circumstances? Is our friend answered?

LITERARY RECORD.

The Quarterlies.—We have before us the last North-American, American Quarterly,
and New-York Reviews, and should be gratified to afford our readers a taste of
their several contents; but the tyranny of space forbids other than a brief reference to
some of their more prominent papers. The ‘New-York‘ has an admirable article upon
the writings of Jean Paul Richter, and a laughable and well-reasoned satire upon
‘Dietetic Charlatanry,’ or the ‘Modern Ethics of Eating.’ In some of the short critical
notices, there is less research, and more flippancy, or mere ipse dixit, than might
reasonably have been expected from such a quarter. The number is a good one, natheless,
although inferior to its predecessor. Miss Martineau’s ‘Society in America,’ Lockhart’s
Life of Scott, the Military Academy at West Point, and the poems of Grenville
Mellen, are among the reviews of the American Quarterly, which is a large as well as
very able number. In the North-American, that philosopher in petticoats, Miss Martineau,
is most happily served up. The irony is keen but smooth, and the spirit mild,
though unflinching. Gallantry has nothing to do with such a subject. The ‘Palmyra
Letters’ are reviewed with discrimination, and high but just praise. Of the existence of
‘Miriam, a Dramatic Poem,’ we are here for the first time informed; but the production
can scarcely remain long unknown to the American public. We may refer more in detail
to these able American periodicals, in a subsequent number.

Animal Magnetism.—But for the fact that Col. Stone‘s Letter on Animal Magnetism,
containing an account of a remarkable interview between the author and Miss
Loraina Brackett, of Providence, (R. I.,) while in a state of somnambulism, is
the theme of conversation and newspaper comment, in every section of the country,
we should be tempted to occupy three or four of these pages with the extraordinary facts
therein narrated. As it is, we shall simply run the risk of being the first to apprize some
half dozen American, and an hundred or two foreign readers, that the work records,
in easy and exciting detail, an imaginary visit of Miss Brackett to this city, while in a
state of somnambulism, portions of which she describes with astonishing accuracy;
that she accompanies the author to his own house, where she describes, with wonderful
minuteness, localities, furniture, pictures, etc.—and all this, without ever having
been in New-York in her life, or hearing or knowing any thing in relation to the scenes
and objects visible to her mind’s eye! We are not believers in animal magnetism—oh,
no! Yet we are not exactly skeptics, either. A ‘state of betweenity‘ aptly expresses
our situation in regard to these strange matters.

A New Theory or Animal Magnetism.—Since the above was placed in type, Messrs.
Wiley and Putnam have issued a coarsish volume, of some two hundred and twenty
pages, entitled, ‘Exposition of a New Theory of Animal Magnetism, with a Key to its
Mysteries: Demonstrated by Experiments with the most celebrated Somnambulists
in America;’ together with ‘Strictures’ upon the Letter noticed above. By C. F.
Durant. At the present writing hereof, we have but time and room to say, that so far
as we have advanced in the work, Mr. Durant seems to be probing the whole matter
quite thoroughly, and to have recorded his proceedings in a style of laughable mock-irony,
though in language generally not a little careless, and sometimes—shade of Priscian!—sadly
ungrammatical; the result, doubtless, of hasty publication.

[456]

Pickwick.—Mr. James Turney, Jr., 55 Gold-street, is publishing in numbers, as
they appear in England, the Pickwick Papers, with copies of Cruikshank‘s spirited
illustrations. Some of the engravings are cleverly executed, while others are miserable
enough. The numbers, however, are very cheaply afforded, and meet with a wide and
rapid sale; the exceeding small coterie of anti-Pickwickians—who have no conception
of the burlesque or humorous, and care little for a hearty laugh, that most innocent of
diuretics—to the contrary notwithstanding. A southern critic has gravely attempted
to show that the old twaddler, Pickwick, does not act and converse as such a man
should! He reminds us of the systematic tailor at Laputa, who took Gulliver’s altitude
by a quadrant, and then with rule and compasses described the dimensions and outlines
of his whole body, all which he entered upon paper, and in due time brought back his
clothes ill made, having mistaken a figure in the calculation. The idea of subjecting
‘Pickvick’ and ‘Samivel Veller’ to a regular standard of criticism!

‘Mathematical Miscellany.‘—This unpretending but well-conducted and valuable
periodical, issued at Flushing, Long Island, is gradually winning its way to merited
distinction. In a cursory examination of the recent numbers, we observe that many
of its contributors are ‘men of mark’ and science, in various sections of the country;
and that so strong is the feeling in its favor, that several eminent mathematicians have
associated together to prevent its discontinuance, in any contingency. Prof. Gill, of
the Institute at Flushing, sustains, and ably, its editorial responsibilities. It contains
upward of seventy large pages, and is published semi-annually, at the low price of two
dollars per annum.

Gazetteer of Missouri.—The Brothers’ Harper have published, in a large and
handsome volume, of some three hundred and eighty pages, ‘A Gazetteer of the State
of Missouri: with a Map of the State, from the office of the Surveyor General, including
the latest Additions and Surveys.’ The compiler, Alphonso Wetmore, Esq., of Missouri,
has performed his task with signal ability; and his spirited frontier sketches, a
specimen of which may be found elsewhere in these pages, evince, that his talents are
not alone confined to statistics and business facts. A frontispiece, engraved on steel,
adds to the attractions of the volume.

A Treatise on Astronomy: Illustrated by Maps and Plates. By Mrs. L. H.
Tyler, Middletown, (Conn.)—When ladies come into the field of competition for literary
honors and scientific research, it behooves us to treat them with gallantry. But in
this instance, the lady has little need of favor; for her work may fairly challenge comparison
with the best efforts of the male tribe. It is a right down sturdy, lucid, well-executed,
and thorough treatise; ‘not a mere compilation,’ as Professor Smith of the
University of Middletown says, ‘but bearing throughout the impress of the author’s
own mind. Professor Smith hazards nothing in predicting, that it will be extensively
adopted as a text-book in our high schools and academies.

Unpublished Poems of J. Huntington Bright, Esq.—We have recently given several
articles of poetry from the unpublished MSS. of the late J. Huntington Bright,
and shall present others hereafter. ‘The Dying Boy,’ however, in preceding pages,
was originally published, some years since, as we understand, in the ‘Albany Argus.’ It
deserves, notwithstanding, a more permanent record than the columns of a newspaper;
and we take pleasure in transferring so beautiful a gem to our casket.

‘Van Tassel House.‘—Mr. Clover, at 294 Broadway, has issued a very pretty
colored lithograph of this charming country-seat of Washington Irving, at Tarrytown;
the same, as we are given to understand, that was occupied, many years ago, by old
Baltus Van Tassel, and his blooming daughter Katrine, and the scene of Ichabod
Crane’s world-renowned adventures.

⁂ Our theatrical critiques for the month, although in type, are unavoidably deferred until the
next number.