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Title: The International Monthly Magazine, Volume 1, No. 1, August 1850 - of Literature, Science and Art.
Author: Various
Language: English
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THE
INTERNATIONAL
MONTHLY
MAGAZINE
Of Literature, Science and Art.
VOLUME I.
AUGUST TO NOVEMBER, 1850.
NEW-YORK:
STRINGER & TOWNSEND, 222 BROADWAY.
FOR SALE BY ALL BOOKSELLERS.
BY THE NUMBER, 25 CTS; THE VOLUME, $1; THE YEAR, $3.
* * * * *
CONTENTS:
VOLUME I. AUGUST TO NOVEMBER, 1850.
Advancement of Learning. Portrait of Sir David Brewster, 312
Advocate, The Young.--_Household Words_, 81
_Arts, The Fine._--Elliott's Portraits, 73.--Pictures by Mr.
Kellogg, 78.--Osgood's Portrait of Captain Sutter, 73.
--Horace Vernet, 112, 175.--Mr. Healy, in Paris. 141,--
Powers's Statue of Calhoun, 174.--M. Ingres and M. de
Luynes, 207.--Gallery of Illustrious Americans, 207.--
Dr. Waagen, in England, 207.--Art in Bavaria, 269.--
Exhibition at Valenciennes, 269.--Darley's Illustrations
of "Sleepy Hollow," 269.--Chaucer's Monument, 269.--
Lessing's new Picture, 269.--Mlle. Rachel, again, 270.--
Gigantic Statue by Schwanthaler, 270.--Publications
of Goupil & Co., 270.--Mr. Powell's Picture for the Capitol,
270, 324.--German Views of Art in America, 323.--
Plans for the Promotion of Catholic Art in Rome, 623.--
Charles Muller's Group of Statues, 323.--A Hundred
Statues in Paris, 323.--Powers and his Statues, 324.--
The Barberigo Gallery at Venice, 324.--Paintings and
Sculptures of Early Northern Artists, 324.--A Statue
to Larrey, the Surgeon, 324.--The Standish Gallery,
324.--Exhibition at Dusseldorf, 324.--Works in Antwerp
Churches, 324.--Leutze's New Works, 324.--
The Colossal Frescoes of Kaulbach, 482.--Fine Public
Groups at Berlin, 482.--The Dusseldorf "Album," 482.
--Statue of Columbus, 483.--Monument to Frederick
the Great, 483.--Philadelphia Art Union, 483.--Original
Portraits of Queen Elizabeth and Sir Isaac Newton,
483.--Kellogg's Full-Length of General Scott, 483.--
Mount's New Picture, 483.--Archæological Institute,
483.--Sarah Biffen, 484.--Statues of Herder, Oudinot,
Professor Cooper, &c., 484.
_Authors and Books._--Rev. Dr. Smyth, 13.--Gen. Pepe's
New Work, 13.--Mr. Mayne Reed, 13.--J. E. Warren,
13.--Dr. Hawks, 13.--The Princess Belgioioso, 13.--Eugene
Scribe, 13.--Alice and Phoebe Carey, 14.--Mrs.
Oaksmith, 14.--Prof. Nichol on America, 14.--Dr. Croly,
14.--Sir James Alexander, 14.--Mr. James and Copyright,
39.--Albert Smith and "Protection," 39.--R. H.
Stoddard, 39.--Inedited Correspondence of Goethe and
Schiller, 39.--Margaret Fuller, 39.--Dr. Hoefer _vs._ Dr.
Layard, 40.--Mr. Boker's New Play, 40.--George Sand,
71.--G. P. R. James, 71.--Botta's Nineveh, 71.--Arago,
71.--Miss Fenimore Cooper, 72.--Prof. Agassiz, 72.--
Dr. Layard, 72.--Rogers, 72.--Harro Harring, 72, 112.--
Dr. Gutzlaff, 73.--Literature in Paris, 73.--E. P. Whipple,
105.--Evelyn's History of Religion, 105.--Leigh
Hunt and the Laureateship, 105.--E. G. Squier, 105.--
Monument to Wordsworth, 105.--Francis Bowen, &c.,
105.--Mrs. Child, 112.--The Literature of Supernaturalism,
138.--Remains of Poe, 138.--Dudley Bean, 138.--
Mr. Young's "Beranger," 138.--Livermore on Libraries,
139.--Prof. Johnson, Charlotte Cushman, Elihu Burritt,
Perley Poore, Mr. Mountford, &c., 139.--Rev. James H.
Perkins, 175.--Mrs. Esling, 175.--M. St. Hillaire and
his Spanish History, 175.--The Author of "Dr. Hookwell,"
175.--John Mills, 175.--Mr. Prescott, 175.--Maginn's
Homeric Ballads, 175.--George Wilkins Kendall,
176.--Mrs. Trollope and her Son, 176.--Dr. Wm. R.
Williams, 176.--Dr. Buckland, 176.--Dr. Wayland's
Tractate on Education, 176.--Charles Eames, 176.--
Chateaubriand, &c., 176.--Parke Godwin and his Translation
of Goethe's Autobiography, 194.--A new Life of
John Randolph, 194.--Scotch Bookseller's Society, 194.
--Prof. Dickson's Return to Charleston, 194.--John R.
Bartlett and the Boundary Commission, 194.--William
C. Richards, 194.--Guilliame Tell Poussin, 194.--Dr.
John W. Francis, 195.--Illustrated Edition of Gray's
Poems, 195.--M. Libri, Burns, Dr. Wiseman, &c., 195.--
Wordsworth's Posthumous Poem, 196.--Miss Cooper's
Rural Hours, 196.--Sydney Smith's Sketches of Modern
Philosophy, 196.--Beranger and the People, 232.--
Audubon and Washington Irving, 232.--Seba Smith in
Mathematics, 232.--M. Flandin, on Persian Antiquities,
233.--Girardin and Chateaubriand, 233.--Guizot's Poverty,
233.--History of Art, by Schasse, 233.--History of
Spain, 233.--The Paris Academy of Inscriptions, 234.--
Leverrier on the Telegraph, 234.--Works of Rev. Dr.
Woods, 234.--Orville Dewey, 234.--The Author of the
Amber Witch, 235.--The Night Side of Nature, 235.--
Milne Edwards, 235.--Miss Strickland, 235.--Sir E. L.
Bulwer, 235.--Mr. Herbert's Sporting Books, 236.--
Works in Press, 236.--Meyerbeer, 236.--A German
Prince in New Orleans, 265.--An Arabian Newspaper,
265.--Mrs. Loud's Poems, 265.--Literature of Socialism,
265.--Ebenezer Elliot, 266.--Memorial to Mrs. Osgood,
266.--Rev. Walter Colton on California, 267.--Gallery of
Illustrious Americans, 267.--Max Schlesinger, 267.--
Mayo's "Berber," 267.--French Periodicals, 268.--The
Vienne University, 268.--Works of the Asiatic Society at
Paris, 318.--The French Academy and its Prizes, 318.--
Edward Everett, 319.--Mackay's "Progress of the Intellect."
319.--Lamartine, 319.--Theodore Parker, 319.--Sir
Edward Belcher, 319.--Guizot, 319.--John G. Saxe, 319.
--Eliza Cook, 319.--Institute of Goethe, 320.--Books on
the Slave Trade, 320.--Jules Lechevalier, 320.--The
Doctrinal Tract and Book Society's Publications, 320.--
Novel by Otto Muller, 320.--New Translation of M.
Rochefoucauld's Maxims, 320.--"Armanese," 320.--
Thackery on the Literary Profession, 321.--M. de
Luynes on the Antiquities of Cyprus, 321.--Sir Robert
Peel's Memoirs, 321.--John P. Brown, 321.--
Burnet de Pesle on Egyptian Dynasties, 322.--Washington
Irving a British Subject, 322.--Arago and
Cremieux in History, 322.--New Poem by Holmes,
322.--Mr. Duganne's Satire, 322.--South Carolinian
Epics, 322.--John Neal, 322.--The Baroness Blaze
de Bury, 322.--Dr. Elliot on Slavery, 322.--Dacotah
Dictionary, 322.--Judge Breeze on the History of
Illinois, 322.--Mr. Layard, 322.--Mr. Wilson's Transted
Hindu Hymns, 322.--Dr. Shelton Mackenzie, 322.--
Paris Editions of Greek Authors, 471.--MSS. of Schiller
and Goethe, 471.--Henry Wheaton, 471.--_La Hongrie
Pittoresque_, 472.--Contributions to Science
by French Surgeons, 472.--Walter Scott in France, 472.--
Herman Melville, 472.--The Original Dr. Faust, 472.--
Rev. Albert Barnes, 473.--Ledru Rollin, 473.--Mr. Bigelow's
"Jamaica in 1850," 473.--Mr. Prescott in England,
473.--Dr. Schoolcraft's Great Work on the Indian
Tribes, 473.--Schools in American Literature,
473.--Leon de Wailly's "Stella and Vanessa," 474.--
Alaric A. Watts, "in bankruptcy," 474.--"The Lily
and the Totem," by Dr. Simms, 475.--Dr. Wainwright
on the Holy Land, 475.--Mr. Raymond's Discourse at
Burlington, 475.--E. V. Childe's Translation of "Santarem
on Americus Vespucius," 475.--Dr. Latham on
the Natural History of Man, 475.--John Britton, the
Antiquary, 476.--Dr. Layard, 476.--The "Vladika,"
476.--Mr. Bancroft, 476.--Hebrew Translations at
Padua, 476.--Theories of Light, 476.--Mr. Hildreth's
History, 476.--Hungarian Tales, 476.--Yankee Hill,
476.--Criticisms by Dr. O. A. Brownson, 477.--James
Nack, 477.--New Volume of Poems by Bryant, 477.--Science
in America, 477.--Shiller's "Anthologie," 477.
Griepenkerl, 477.--Mr Kimball's St. Leger, 477.--Etchings
by Ehninger, 477.--The Weimar Festival, 478.--M.
Bastiat, 478--Edinburgh Review for October, 478.--N.
Lenau, 478.--"The Eclectic" upon Mr. Melville,
478.--"Lonz Powers." 478.--New English Reviewals
of Ticknor, 479.--M. Villaume's History, 479.--Longfellow
Illustrated, 479.--Thackeray, 479.--London Medical
Schools, 480.--Robberies of the Vatican, 480.--Mr.
Gallagher, 480.--Mr. McLaughlin, 480.--Lamartine in
England, 480.--Discoveries in Africa, 480.--Louis Nicolardet,
480.--Hebrew Library, 480.--Berlin University,
480.--New Books, by Parke Godwin, Miss Dupuy,
Timothy Pitkin, Dr. Ruffner, Mr. Putnam, De Quincy,
J. I. Bailey, Grace Greenwood, and W. W. Lord,
481.
Author of "Ion," The. A Biographical Speech, 170
Balzac, and the Oration of Victor Hugo on his Death, 315
Beauty.--_The Leader_, 591
Belgian Lace-Makers.--_Household Words_, 123
Beranger, Jean Pierre. With a Portrait, 454
Brooks, Maria, and Southey, 67
Brougham, Lord, Anecdote of, 304
Brougham, Lord, Memoir of. (Portrait,) 305
Catching a Lion.--_C. Astor Bristed.--Fraser's Magazine_, 512
Chase, The.--_Miss Cooper's Rural Hours_, 77
Chemistry of a Candle.--_Household Words_, 292
Chinese, Remarkable Work by a 141
Church of the Vasa D'Agua.--_Eliza Cook's Journal_, 400
Class Opinions.--_Household Words_, 104
Cooling a Burning Spirit.--_De Vere_, 303
_Correspondence, Original_.--Letter from Dr. Layard, upon
Ancient Art, 5.--Rambles in the Peninsula, by John
E. Warren, 6, 37, 136
Count Monte-Leone, or the Spy in Society.--_From the
French of Saint Georges_, 494
Crime, in England and France, 224
Csikos of Hungary,--_Max Schlesinger_, 258
Death and Sleep.--_From the German of Krummacher_, 255
_Deaths Recent_--Miss Jane Porter, 10.--Matthew L. Davis,
11.--Joseph S. C. F. Frey, 11.--Count de Vittré, 11.--Richard
Wyatt, the Sculptor, 42.--Dr. Griffith, 104.--F.
Mansell Reynolds, 104.--John Roby, 104.--Professor
Canstatt, 104,--S. S. Prentiss, 140.--Nathaniel Silsbee,
140.--Sir Robert Peel, 172.--Boyer, Ex-President
of Hayti, 172.--The Duke of Cambridge, 172.--George
W. Erving, 173.--Professor John Burns, 174.--Horace
Sumner, 174.--Mr. Kirby, the Entomologist, 206.--Rev.
Dr. Gray, 207.--Augustus William Neander, 237.--Jacob
Jones, U.S.N., 237.--Julia Betterton Glover, 239.--Madame
Gavaudan, 240.--General Bertrand, 240.--Robert
R. Baird, 250.--S. Joseph, the Sculptor, 240.--James
Wright, 240.--M. Mora, 270.--B. Simmons, 290.--Louis
Philippe, 338.--Dr. Judson, 340.--John Luman, 339.--Sir
Martin Archer Shee, 341.--Gerard Troost, 342.--Professor
White, 340.--Perceval W. Banks, 342.--Bishop
Bascomb, 342.--Robert Hunt, 342.--John Comly,
342.--Count Pire, 342.--Admiral Dudley Oliver, 600.--Rev.
Dr. Ingram, President of Trinity College, 600.--Professor
Kolderup, 601.--M. Chedanau, 601.--Daniel
Belknap, 601.
Death's Jest-Book: The Fool's Tragedy, 229
Decay of Great Families.--_Burke's Aristocracy_, 260
Democracy.--_The Age and its Architects_, 592
Dom of Dantzic, The.--_Fraser's Magazine_, 43
Duke of Queensbury.--_Burke's Aristocracy_, 260
Duke Lewis of Donauworth.--_Madame Blaze de Bury_, 584
Dust, or Ugliness Redeemed.--_Household Words_, 243
Ebba, or The Emigrants of Sweden.--_E. Marmier_, 345
Egypt and its Government.--_Sharpe's Magazine_, 524
Eldorado.--_John G. Whittier_, 74
Excellent Opportunity, An.--_Household Words_, 249
Fashions, Autumn, (Illustrated,) 602
Fire in the Woods.--_Miss Fenimore Cooper_, 95
Fitch, John, Life of, by Miss Leslie, 68
Frank Hamilton.--_W. H. Maxwell_, 145
Fuller, Margaret, Marchesa D'Ossoli, 162
Estimate of her Works and Genius, _by E. A. Poe_, 162
Poem upon her Death, _by G. P. R. James_, 165
Garibaldi, Life of General, 224
George Sand and Chateaubriand, 65
German Criticism of English Female Writers, 161
Germany in the Summer of 1850.--_The Leader_, 594
Ghost Stories: The Female Wrecker, and the House
of Mystery.--_Bentley's Miscellany_, 402
Greece and Turkey.--_Bentley's Miscellany_, 255
Grote's History of Greece.--_The Times_, 10
Gutzlaff, the Missionary, 317
Hawthorne, Nathaniel, the _Athenæum_ upon, 102
Henry Lisle: A Story of the Civil War.--_G. P. R James_, 555
High Prices to Artists of the Opera, 165
Hunt, Leigh, Autobiography of, 35, 130
Hunter, on the Pilgrims Fathers.--_Literary Gazette_, 599
Hussar of Hungary, The Wild, 263
Illuminated Books of the Middle Ages, 69
Irving, Washington, and Campbell.--_The Albion_, 230
Is Love Blind?--_The Leader_, 536
Ivory Mine. The, a Tale of the Frozen Sea, 117, 156, 210
Jenny Lind at the Castle Amphitheatre. Illustrated, 448
Jones on Chantrey: A Biographical Criticism, 413
"Junius," New Discussions respecting, 469
Jurisprudence of the Moguls.--_Spectator_, 271
Kanasz, The.--_Max Schlesinger_, 262
Kane's Discourse on the Mormons, 36
Kemble's, Fanny, Readings of. (Illustrated,) 310
Killing a Giraffe.--_Cummings' Adventures_, 304
Kolombeski, The Veteran.--__, 304
Lady Lucy's Secret.--_The Ladies' Companion_, 409
Lamartine's Apology for his Confidences, 314
Lamartine's Introduction to "Genevieve," 132
Lamartine's "Genevieve" Reviewed, 466
Lamennais, The Abbe. (Portrait,) 449
Landor, Savage, Letter from.--_The Examiner_, 271
Landor, Savage, upon Savage Haynau.--_Examiner_, 586
Last of a Long Line, The.--_Dickens's Household Words_, 373
Latham on the Aborigines of America, 467
Lessons in Life.--_Eliza Cook's Journal_, 241
Lewis, George Cornewell, 4
Literary Coteries in Paris, 97
Literary Prizes in France, 458
Literature in Africa, 311
Lorgnette, The. (Portrait,) 459
Loss and Gain.--_Maria J. MacIntosh_, 548
Love, Is it Blind?--_The Leader_, 536
Man Ever the Same.--_Pendennis_, 580
Mansfield, The Great Lord.--_The Times_, 419
Marks of Barhamville.--_Fraser's Magazine_, 7
Marriage Ceremonies of the Kandians.--_Sirr's Ceylon_, 590
Memnon, The Sounding Statue of.--_Fraser's Magazine_, 528
_Miscellanies_.--Lord Brougham, 8.--A Mock Guillotine,
&c., 8.--Ledru Rollin on the Decline of England, 9.--The
Catastrophe of the Griffith, 9.--Poetical Composition,
29.--Death-Bed Superstitions, 30.--Arab Game,
30.--Marriage in America, 30.--Arabian Nights, 31.--Ambassadors,
32.--Guizot, 32.--Canning, 32.--The Cell
of the Bee, 41.--Letter from the Duke of Wellington,
42.--Laughing in the Sleeve, 64.--Antiquarian Discovery,
&c., 64.--Circumnavigating a Pope, 78.--Curious
Titles of German Papers, 79.--Remarkable Trio, 79.--True
Progress, 79.--Coffee among the Savans, 79.--Bad
Cookery, a Cause of Drunkenness, 79.--The Monkey
and the Watch, 79.--A Syrian Christian and Philosopher,
79.--The British Hierarchy, 79.--French Eulogy,
96.--What's in a Name? 104.--Names High Inscribed,
104.--Golden Rules of Life, 128.--Progress of
Milton's Blindness, 128.--Once Caught, Twice Shy,
&c., 128.--A Street Character of Cairo, 142.--Mendelssohn's
Skill as a Conductor, 142.--Manuel Godoy,141.--Superstition
in France, 143.--Libraries in Cambridge,
143.--Romantic History of the Two English Lovers,
143.--Modern School of Athens, 255.--The _Athenæum_
on American Reporting, 443.--The Emperor of
Hayti, 443.--Louis Napoleon at Lady Blessington's,
443.--American Mummies, 443.--Daniel Webster in
England, 443.--Coffins of the Chaldeans, 444.--Ancient
Prices of Labor, 444.--Making the Postman Wait, 441.--The
Restaurant of the Sister of M. Thiers, 444.--Languages
of Africa, 444.--Richardson, the Traveller,
444.--The Peace Congress at Frankfort, 445.--Project
for a Zoological Garden, 445.--Is D'Israeli a Jew? 445.--Dr.
Gross, the Surgeon, 445.--The Herder Festival at
Weimar, 445.--The Wordsworth Monument, 445.--Revolutionary
Stamps, 445.--Descendants of Warren
Hastings, 445.--Mr. Pennington's Steam Balloon, 445.--Catlin,
the Indian Traveller, 445.--Ages of Public
Men, 446.--Ancient Discovery of California, 446.--Mr.
Gliddon's Mummy, 446.--Rachel, 446.--India Rubber
in 1772, 446.--Convenient Umbrella, 446.--Irish Emigration,
447.--Dwarkanth Tagore, 447.--Madame Boulanger,
447.--Traveling in France, 447.--The Lowell
Institute, 447.--M. Libri, 447.--Guizot and Ledru Rollin,
447.--Dr. Southwood Smith, &c., 447.--Anecdote of
Guizot, 601.--Dr. Spencer, as a Monk, 601.--Slavery,
treated by _The Times_, 601.--Marshal Haynau and _The
Times_, 601.--English Titles, 601.--Guizot on Politics,
601--Anecdote of Stenterello, 601.
_Miscellanies, Scientific_.--Remingten's Bridge, 12.--Paine's
Hydro-Electric Light, 12.--New Planet, &c., 12.--The
Hair, 103.--Experiments by Lord Brougham, 112.--The
Spanish Academy of Sciences, 264.--Improvements in
the Telegraph, 264.--The British Association, 312.--American
Association for the Advancement of Science,
313.--An American Academy, 313.
Morris, George P. Review of his Songs, 487
Music, or Home and Abroad, 484
My Novel.--_Sir Edward Bulwer Lytton_, 439, 566
Mysterious Compact, The.--_Dublin Univ. Mag._, 185
New Prophet in the East.--_Athenæum_, 300
Nimrod, A Mightier Hunter than.--_Household Words_, 218
Numismatic Archæology, 257
Old Brank, the Forger.--_Dickens's Household Words_, 521
Old Churchyard Tree, The.--_Household Words_, 254
Old Man's Bequest, The.--_Dublin University Magazine_, 106
Oriental Caravans.--_Fraser's Magazine_, 42
Outspreading of the British People.--_Fraser's Mag._, 593
Peasant Life in Germany.--_The Leader_, 288
Peel, Life of Sir Robert.--_The Times_, 196
Phantom World, The, 76
Poe, Edgar A.--_Rufus W. Griswold_, 325
_Poetry, Original_.--The Bride's Farewell, _M. E. Hewitt_ 37--To
----, _Mrs. R. B. K._, 37.--The Child of Fame, _Mrs.
Hewitt_, 73.--Bob Fletcher, _Townsend Haines_, 104.--Azela,
_Alice Carey_, 135.--Country Sonnets, _William C. Richards_,
136.--Retrospect, _Hermann_, 170.--Horoscope, _Elizabeth
Oakes Smith_, 264.--Friendship, _William C. Richards_, 264.--The
Balance of Life, _Herma_, 264.--Leonora to Tasso,
_Mary E. Hewitt_, 488.--Forest Burial, _Sidney Dyer_, 488.--The
Passionate Pilgrim, _Mary E. Hewitt_, 489.--A
Rainy Morning, _W. C. Richards_, 489.--In Absence, 489.--Cradle
and Coffin, _Elizabeth Oakes Smith_, 489.--The
Hermit's Dell, _Hermann_, 489.
_Poetry, Selected_.--Nineveh, _Edwin Atherstone_, 16.--The Garden
Gate, _Charles Mackay_, 29.--The Last Year's Leaf,
_Philip Taylor_, 31.--The Ship "Extravagance," _Charles
Swain_, 64.--Death, _Leigh Hunt_, 64.--Verses from the Bohemian
of Wraitsell, 70.--"Press on," 92.--Flowers,
96.--Old Feelings, 112.--To the Memory of Mrs. Osgood,
_Anne C. Lynch_, 114.--To W. G. R. with an Autograph
of Poe, _R. H. Stoddard_, 192.--Our "In Memoriam,"
_Punch_, 192.--The Actual, _R. B. Kimball_, 192.--English
Hexameters, _Walter Savage Landor_, 219.--Manuela,
_Bayard Taylor_, 221.--Morning Song, _Barry Cornwall_,
241.--On a Portrait of Cromwell, _James T. Fields_, 271.--Summer
Pastime, 287.--An Old Haunt, 303.--"Laugh
and Get Fat, _John Kenyon_, 344.--The Speaker Asleep,
Arminius, _Winthrop Mackworth Praed_, 230.--Legend of
the Teufal Haus, Stanzas written under a Drawing at
Cambridge, Ballad Teaching how Poetry is Best Paid
For, Covenanter's Lament for Bothwell Brigg, Hope
and Love, Private Theatricals, Alexander and Diogenes,
_W. M. Praed_, 396.--Cassandra, My Little Cousins,
_W. M. Praed_, 623.--The Convict, _Alice Carey_, 543.--Song,
_George H. Boker_, 546.--Helen, _R. H. Stoddard_, 546.--Twilight,
_Edith May_, 546.--The Tryst, _Alice Carey_,
546.--The First Doubt, _Grace Greenwood_, 548.--Sappho
to the Sybil, _Mary E. Hewitt_, 548.--Thoughts at the
Grave of a Departed Friend, Despondency, Thoughts
on Parting, _John Inman_, 555.--Two Sonnets from the
German of _Lenau_, 592.
"Poets and Poetry of America."--_Fraser's Magazine_, 165
Poets in Parliament.--_The Leader_, 144
Pompadour, Madame de.--_Fraser's Magazine_, 389
Porter, Jane, Life of. Illustrated.--_The Art Journal_, 201
Portrait of Cromwell.--_By J. T. Fields_, 271
Pottery and Porcelain.--_The Spectator_, 596
Power of Mercy, The.--_Household Words_, 85
Praed, Winthrop Mackworth, 230, 372, 523
Present Religion of Persia.--_Lieut. Colonel Chesney_, 259
Prentiss, Sergent S., Reminiscences of.--_T. B. Thorpe_, 289
Railway Wonders of the last year.--_Household Words_, 583
Religious Sects and Socialism in Russia, 461
Report of the British Registrar General.--_The Times_, 588
Rollin, Life of Ledru.--_Fraser's Magazine_, 222
Russian Serf, The, 160
Santa Cruz, General.--_Illustrated News_, 40
Serf of Pobereze, The.--_Household Words_, 177
Serpent Charming.--_Bentley's Miscellany_, 470
Sketches of the Town.--_Engraving after Darley_, 33
Snow Image, The.--_Nathaniel Hawthorne_, 537
Society in Turkey.--_Princess Belgiviso_, 595
Something about a Murder.--_Fraser's Magazine_, 24
Spanish Senate, The.--_Clarke's Guzpacho_, 261
Spirit of the Annuals for 1851, 488
Spotted Bower Bird, The.--_Fraser's Magazine_, 386
Summer Night, The.--_From Jean Paul Richter_, 38
Summer Vacation.--_The Fourth Canto of Wordsworth's
Posthumous Poem_, 208
Suwarrow, The Great Marshal.--_Fraser's Magazine_, 87
Tea Smuggling in Russia, 129
Telegraph from New York to London.--_Mechanics Magazine_, 587
Tennyson's New Poem, "In Memoriam."--_Spectator_, 34
The Theatre in Russia and Poland, 225
The Three Gifts.--_By E. Oakes Smith_, 646
The Three Visits.--_From the French of Vitu_, 490
The White Lady, 309
Tomb of Lady Blessington.--_Bentley's Miscellany_, 126
Tupper, Martin Farquhar, 2
Undertaker, An, to the Trade.--_Household Words_, 93
Versification, English, 485
Virginia Two Hundred Years Ago.--_The Athenæum_, 416
Ward, the Author of "Tremaine."--_Spectator_, 113
Warilows of Welland, The.--_Household Words_, 560
Weber, Miss, and her Writings.--_Miss Harriet Sargent_, 463
Webster, as a Statesman and as a Man of Letters, 297
Wilde, Richard Henry, and Dante, 2
Wilde, Sir Thomas, the New Chancellor, 240
Willisen, General, of the Schleswig-Holstein Army, 585
Window Love.--_By Charles G. Leland_, 544
Women and Literature in France, 193
Wordsworth's New Poem.--_The Examiner_, 271
+----------------------------------------------------------------------+
|The unusual format of VOLUME I. AUGUST TO NOVEMBER, 1850. is as in the|
|original. |
+----------------------------------------------------------------------+
INTERNATIONAL WEEKLY MISCELLANY
Of Literature, Art, and Science.
Vol. I. NEW YORK, JULY 1, 1850. No. 1.
INTRODUCTION.
Of the revolutions of the age, one of the most interesting and important
is that which has taken place in the forms of Literature and the Modes
of its Publication. Since the establishment of the _Edinburgh Review_
the finest intelligences of the world have been displayed in
periodicals. Brougham, Jeffrey, Sidney Smith, Mackintosh, Macaulay, have
owed nearly all their best fame to compositions which have appeared
first in journals, magazines and reviews; the writers of Tales and
Essays have uniformly come before the public by the same means, which
have recently served also for the original exhibition of the most
elaborate and brilliant Fictions, so that we are now receiving through
them by almost every ship from Europe installments of works by Dickens,
Bulwer, James, Croly, Lever, Reynolds, Mrs. Marsh, Mrs. Ellis, and
indeed nearly all the most eminent contemporary novelists. So complete
is the change, that all mind, except the heaviest and least popular, is
likely to flow hereafter through the Daily, Weekly, Monthly or Quarterly
Miscellanies, which compete with universities, parliaments, churches,
and libraries, for ascendency in the government of mankind.
In this country we must keep pace with the movements abroad. It will not
answer that we issue literary productions as soon as possible after
their completion. The impatient readers demand chapters by chapters, as
they are spun from the brain and the heart of the author; facts, upon
the instant of their discovery; and suggestions, as they flash from the
contact of imagination and reflection.
The INTERNATIONAL WEEKLY MISCELLANY will be a result of efforts to
satisfy a plain necessity of the times. It will combine the excellencies
of all contemporary periodicals, with features that will be peculiar to
itself.
I. A leading object will be to present the public, with the utmost
rapidity and at the cheapest possible rate, the best of those works in
Popular Literature which are appearing abroad in serials, or in separate
chapters. With this view, we print in the first number the initial
portions of the brilliant nautical romance now in course of publication
in _Blackwood's Magazine_, under the title of "The Green Hand," by the
author of the most celebrated fiction of its class in English
literature, "Tom Cringle's Log;" and other works will be selected and
carried on simultaneously, as they shall come to us with the stamp of
sufficient merit.
II. The foreign periodicals are continually rich in novelettes of from
two or three to a dozen chapters, which--being too short for separate
volumes--are rarely reproduced at all in this country. Of these the
INTERNATIONAL will contain the choicest selections.
III. Of the Quarterly Reviews the most admirable papers will be
presented in full; and those works will in all cases be carefully
examined for such valuable and striking passages as will be likely to
interest the American reader, to whom the entire articles in which they
appear may be unattractive.
IV. The Literary, Religious, Political and Scientific newspapers and
magazines will be consulted for whatever will instruct or entertain in
their several departments. The leading articles in the great journals,
upon Affairs, and Philosophy, and Art, which are now very unfrequently
reprinted in America, will appear in the INTERNATIONAL in such fullness
and combination as to display the springs and processes of the world's
action and condition.
V. But the work will not be altogether Foreign, nor a mere compilation.
In its republications there will be a constant effort to display what is
most interesting and important to the _American_; and in its original
portions it will be supported by some of the ablest and most
accomplished writers in all the fields of knowledge and opinion.
VI. As a Literary Gazette and Examiner, it is believed that it will
equal or surpass any work now or ever printed in the United States. It
will contain the earliest announcements of whatever movements in the
literary world are of chief interest to general readers; its Reviews of
Books will be honest and intelligent; and its extracts, when they can be
given in advance of the publication of the works themselves, will be the
choicest and most valuable possible. Without cant or hypocrisy, or the
influence of any clique of feeble-minded and ambitious aspirants in
letters, the INTERNATIONAL MISCELLANY will in this respect, the
publishers trust, win and preserve the respect and confidence of all who
look to published critical judgments as guides for the reading or
purchase of books.
With a view to the more successful execution of the design to make the
INTERNATIONAL MISCELLANY of the first class in Original Periodical
Literature, as well as in Selections and Abstracts of what is already
before the world abroad, contributors have been engaged to represent the
various departments of Science, and to furnish sketches of manners, &c.,
from other countries, and the different sections of our own; the
proceedings of Learned Societies will be noted; History, Biography, and
Archæology will receive attention; and in foreign and American Obituary,
such a record will be kept as will be of the most permanent and
attractive value.
MARTIN FARQUHAR TUPPER.
The recent appearance of some half dozen editions--some of them very
beautiful in typography and pictorial illustrations--of The Proverbial
Philosophy of Mr. MARTIN FARQUHAR TUPPER, reminds us of the observation
of Dana, that something "resembling poetry" is oftentimes borne into
instant and turbulent popularity, while a work of genuine character may
be lying neglected by all except the poets. But "the tide of time," says
the profound essayist, "flows on, and the former begins to settle to the
bottom, while the latter rises slowly and steadily to the surface, and
goes forward, for a spirit is in it." We are not without the hope that
Richard H. Dana will one day be in as frequent demand as Martin Farquhar
Tupper is now.
The merits of this "gentleman of acknowledged genius and sovereign
popularity," we have never been able to discover. If oddity were always
originality, if quaintness and beauty were synonymous, if paradox were
necessarily wisdom, we should be ready to grant that Mr. Tupper is a
wise, beautiful and original thinker. But thought, after all, is an
affair of mind, and though a man of genius may write what is far more
brilliant than common sense ever is, yet no man can utter valuable truth
on mortal and prudential subjects, unless he possesses a vigorous and
powerful understanding. Now Mr. Tupper's art consists in contriving, not
thought, but things that look like thoughts; fancies, in imitation of
truths. The Proverbial Philosophy, in fact, appears to us one of the
most curious impositions we have ever met with. When you first read one
of the aphorisms, it strikes you as a sentiment of extraordinary wisdom.
But look more closely at it; try to apply it; and you will find that it
is merely a trick of words. What flashed upon you as a profound
distinction in morals, turns out to be nothing but a verbal antithesis.
What was paraded, as a kind of transcendental analogy between things not
before suspected of resemblance, discovered by the "spiritual insight"
of the moral seer, is in fact no more than a grave clench,--a solemn
quibble,--a conceit; arising not from the perfection of mind, but the
imperfection of language. Those conceptions, fabricated by Fancy out of
the materials that Fancy deals in, and colored by the rays of a poetic
sentiment, wear the same relation to truths, that the prismatic hues of
the spray of a fountain in the sunshine bear to the gems which it
perhaps outshines. It dazzles and delights, but if we try to apprehend
it we become bewildered; and finally discover that we were deceived by a
brilliant phantom of air. You may admire Mr. Tupper; you may enjoy him;
but you cannot understand him: the staple of his sentences is not stuff
of the understanding. Take one of Mr. Tupper's and one of Lord Bacon's
aphorisms; they flash with an equal bravery. But try them upon the
glassy surface of life. Bacon's cut it as if it were air: Tupper's turn
into a little drop of dirty water. One was a diamond, the other but an
icicle: one was the commonest liquor artificially refrigerated; the
other was a crystal in form, but in its substance the pure carbon of
truth. If these bright delusions which Mr. Tupper turns out to the
wonder and praise of his admirers, were really _thoughts_, is it to be
supposed that he would go on in this way, stringing them together, or
evolving one out of the other, as a spider weaves its unending line, or
as a boy blows soap bubbles from the nose of a tobacco pipe! Fancies,
conceits, intellectual phantoms, may be engendered out of the mind,
brooding in self-creation upon its own suggestions: but _truth_ is to be
mined from Nature, to be wrung from experience, to be seized as the
victor's trophy on the battlefield of action and suffering. The flowers
of poetry may bud spontaneously around the meditative spirit of genius,
but the harvest of Truth, though, to be reaped by mind, must grow out of
Reality.
RICHARD HENRY WILDE AND DANTE.
It appears that our accomplished and lamented countryman, Richard Henry
Wilde, whose "Researches and Considerations concerning the Love and
Imprisonment of Tasso" have been made use of with so discreditable a
freedom by a recent English biographer of that poet, is--if another
pretender prove not less successful--to be deprived also of the fame he
earned by his discoveries in regard to Dante. A correspondent of _The
Spectator_, under the signature of G. AUBREY BEZZI, writes as follows:--
"The questions are, what share Mr. Kirkup had in the recovery of
the fresco of Giotto in the chapel of the Palazzo del Podesta at
Florence, and whether directly or indirectly I have been the means
of depriving him, or any of the coöperators in that good work, of
the merit due to their labors. I shall best enable those who take
an interest in this matter to arrive at a fair conclusion, by
giving a short history of the recovery of that beautiful fresco. It
was Mr. Wilde, and not Mr. Kirkup, who first spoke to me of this
buried treasure. Mr. Wilde, an American gentleman respected by all
that knew him, was then in Florence, engaged in a work on Dante and
his times, which unfortunately he did not live to complete. Among
the materials he had collected for this purpose, there were some
papers of the antiquarian Moreni, which he was examining when I
called one day, (I had then been three or four months in Florence,)
to read what he had already written, as I was in the habit of doing
from time to time. It was then that a foot-note of Moreni's met his
eye, in which the writer lamented that he had spent two years of
his life in unceasing and unavailing efforts to recover the
portrait of Dante, and the other portions of the fresco of Giotto
in the Bargello, mentioned by Vasari; that others before him had
been equally anxious and equally unsuccessful; and that he hoped
that better times would come, (verranno tempi migliori,) and that
the painting, so interesting both in an artistic and historical
point of view, would be again sought for, and at last recovered. I
did not then understand how the efforts of Moreni and others could
have been thus unsuccessful; and I thought that with common energy
and diligence they might have ascertained whether the painting, so
clearly pointed out by Vasari, was or was not in existence: several
months, however, of wearisome labors in the same pursuit taught me
to judge more leniently of the failures of my predecessors. Mr.
Wilde put Moreni's note before me, and suggested and urged, that
being an Italian by birth, though not a Florentine, and having
lived many years in England and among the English, I had it in my
power to bring two modes of influence to bear upon the research;
and that such being the case I ought to undertake it. My thoughts
immediately turned to Mr. Kirkup, an artist who had abandoned his
art to devote himself entirely to antiquarian pursuits, with whom I
was well acquainted, and who, having lived many years in Florence,
(I believe fifteen,) would weigh the value of Moreni's testimony on
this matter, and effectually assist me in every way, if I took it
in hand. So I called upon him, either that same day or the next;
and I found that he, like most other people, had read the passage
in Vasari's life of Giotto, in which it is explicitly said, that
the portrait of Dante had been painted with others in the Palazzo
del Podesta, and was to be seen at the time the historian was
writing; but that he had not read, or had not put any confidence
in, the note of the Florence edition of Vasari published in
1832--1838, in which it is stated, that the Palazzo del Podesta had
now become a prison--the Bargello; that the Chapel had been turned
into a _dispensa_, (it was more like a coal-hole where the rags and
much of the filth of the prison was deposited); that the walls of
this dispensa exhibited nothing but a dirty coating, and that
Moreni speaks of the painting in some published work; the annotator
concluding thus--'It is hoped that some day or other we shall be
able to see what there is under the coating of the walls.' So
everybody hoped that some day or other the thing would be done, but
nobody set about heartily to do it; and it is inconceivable to me
that Mr. Kirkup, who shows in this letter, if it be his, such
jealousy for the credit of the recovery, should have lived so many
years in Florence either entirely ignorant of that which every
shop-boy knew, or knowing there were chances of bringing such a
treasure to light, that he should have never moved one step for
that purpose. That Mr. Kirkup took no active part in this matter at
any time, is quite proved by two admissions I find in the letter of
your correspondent. He first says, 'I remember that the first time
I passed to the Bargello to see it, I found Marini on a scaffold,'
&c. The fact is, that several months had elapsed between the first
presentation of the memorial and the erection of the scaffold,
during which Mr. Kirkup admits that he never thought of visiting
the place, while I had spent hours and hours there, under not very
pleasant circumstances, and had detected raised aureolas and other
evidences of old fresco. But he continues--'Marini was permitted to
return to the work on account of the government; and at that point
Bezzi returned to England. It was _some months afterwards that I
heard that Marini had found certain figures_, and soon afterwards
the discovery of Dante himself" (sic.) These two passages
sufficiently show the nature of Mr. Kirkup's labors, and how far he
was really eager in the pursuit of this object, both during the
time when I was most deeply engaged in it, and also for 'some
months' after I had quitted Florence. But to resume: Mr. Kirkup,
however ignorant, or culpably negligent, or a little of both, he
might previously have been on the subject, yet when I brought it
before him, he at once admitted its importance, and made a liberal
offer of money, if any should be required, to carry out the
experiment. Thus encouraged by Mr. Wilde and by Mr. Kirkup, I
sought and found among English, American, and Italian friends and
acquaintances, many that were ready to assist the plan. Then it was
that I drew up a memorial to the Grand Duke; not because I am an
'advocate,' as your correspondent is pleased to call me, for that
is not the case, but simply because, having taken pains to organize
the means of working out the common object, the coöperators thought
that I could best represent what this common object was. In the
memorial, I stated that, according to what Vasari, Moreni, and
others had written, it was just possible that a treasure was lying
hidden under the dirty coatings of the walls of the dispensa in the
Bargello; that a society was already formed for the purpose of
seeking with all care for this treasure; that all expenses would be
gladly borne by the society; that should anything be found, we
would either leave the paintings untouched, or have them removed at
our expense to the gallery of the Uffizi, and that we begged of the
Grand Duke the necessary sanction to begin our operations. The
answer was favorable, and I was referred to Marchese Nerli, and to
the Director of the Academy, to make the necessary arrangements.
Then the real difficulties began: first, I was put off on account
of the precautions that were to be taken in working in a prison;
then, the Director was ill, or unavoidably engaged, or absent; I
found, in short, that the object was to tire me out, and that I had
to contend with the same power that had defeated Moreni and my
other predecessors in the attempt. This battle continued many
months. I have already spoken too much of my share in the pursuit
of this object, and I will not enter into further details--some of
them ludicrous--of this contention; but I will say explicitly,
that, besides his encouragement, and his repeated offers of money,
(which were not accepted because money was not wanted, at least not
to any amount, and what was wanted I furnished myself,) Mr. Kirkup
did not afford me any assistance. At this stage of the business, I
met indeed with a most valuable ally, without whom I believe I
should have been beaten; and that was Paolo Feroni, a Florentine
nobleman and artist, to whom I have before expressed and now repeat
my best acknowledgments. At the end of this long contention against
obstacles which often eluded my grasp, the Grand Duke, in
consequence of a second memorial I presented to him, issued a
decree appointing a commission to carry out the proposed
experiments. This commission was composed of two members I had
myself proposed, viz. the sculptor Bartolini, and the Marchese
Feroni, of myself, of the Direttore of the Edifizi Pubblici Machese
Nerli, and of the Direttore of the Accademia delle Arti, the two
latter ex-officio: further, the decree declines the proposed
voluntary subscriptions, and places at the disposal of the
Commissioners a sum of money which proved more than sufficient to
cover all the expenses of the restoration of the fresco. The
Commissioners employed the painter Marini, and the happy result of
his carefulness and ability is now before the world.
"I will now conclude by asserting, that I had nothing to do with
what has been said or written at Florence of this recovery, either
in the _Strenna_, or at the meeting of the Scienziati, which was
held in 1841, I believe, and at which the fresco of Giotto was
naturally a great object of interest. I left Florence in May 1840,
before the portrait of Dante was actually uncovered, so that I only
saw a portion of the fresco. I have never heard, or read, or said,
or written, anything tending to disparage the real coöperation of
Mr. Kirkup, or of my late lamented friend Mr. Wilde, or of anybody
else in this matter,--nay, that it was at my request that the
editor of the English translation of Kugler's Handbook of the
History of Painting, published in 1842, has in the preface of that
book mentioned Mr. Kirkup as having assisted materially in the
recovery. Besides the Marchese Feroni and the artist Signor Marini,
there are many disinterested witnesses who have stated, and if
called upon will repeat again, all the material points of my
narrative; but, better than all, there is now in London an English
gentleman, whom I am happy to be allowed to call my friend, who was
in Florence part of the time, and saw with his own eyes the share I
had in this laborious undertaking, which ought not to have brought
this bitter contention upon me: he was an intimate friend of Mr.
Wilde, with whom he had a long correspondence on this very subject,
after Mr. Wilde's return to America."
We believe Mr. Bezzi is in error as to the incompleteness of Mr. Wilde's
Life of Dante. Mr. Wilde, more than a year before his death, informed us
that his work was nearly ready for the printer; and at the same time he
confided to us for perusal his admirable translations of specimens of
Italian Lyric Poets. We hope the descendants of our learned and
ingenious friend will place these works, so creditable to his temper,
scholarship, and genius, before the world.
GEORGE CORNEWALL LEWIS.
A work on _The Influence of Authority in Matters of Opinion_ has lately
attracted much and apparently well-deserved attention in England. It is
by George Cornewall Lewis, M.P. for Herefordshire, and Under Secretary
of State for the Home Department. He is the eldest son of the Right
Honorable Sir Thomas Frankland Lewis, Bart., M.P. for Radnor District,
was born in London, in 1806, and received his school education at Eton,
which he entered in 1819, and where he was a pupil of Doctor Hawtrey,
the present head master. The _Illustrated London News_ furnishes the
following particulars of his subsequent career:
At Christmas, 1824, he left Eton, and in the following year entered
Christ Church, Oxford, where as a student he was one of the few who gave
attention to modern languages, and especially German, from which,
jointly with Mr. Tufnell, he translated Müller's "Dorians." In 1828 he
took his University degree as a first-class man in classics, and a
second-class in mathematics. In the same year he entered the Middle
Temple, and in 1831 was called to the bar, and joined the Oxford
Circuit. He had studied for the bar with no less diligence than at the
University; but in consequence of weakness of the chest, was obliged,
after his first circuit, to abandon the profession, in which, had health
allowed him, his success was certain. In 1835 he was placed upon the
commission of inquiry into the relief of the poor, (on the report of
which was founded the Irish Poor-law,) and the state of the Church in
Ireland; and afterward drew up an able report on the condition of the
Irish in Great Britain. In 1836 he was appointed, with Mr. John Austin,
a Commissioner to inquire into the Government of the Island of Malta,
especially as to its tariff and expenditure. The Commission laid an
elaborate report before Parliament, in accordance with the
recommendations of which, such reductions were made as rendered the
tariff of Malta one of the least restrictive in the world, and
materially extended its trade; and they succeeded in establishing the
freedom of the press in the island.
In January, 1839, Mr. Lewis was appointed a Poor-Law Commissioner, and
held the office until July, 1847; when, determining to enter Parliament,
he resigned, and was returned, with Mr. Joseph Bailey, Jr., and Mr.
Francis Wegg Prosser, both Conservatives and Protectionists, without
opposition, for Herefordshire. In November, 1847, he was appointed joint
secretary of the Board of Control, with Mr. James Wilson, M.P. for
Westbury, and early in the following year made his first speech in the
House, in opposition to a motion for the production of papers in the
case of the lately deposed Rajah of Sattara. In April, 1848, Mr. Lewis
was appointed Under Secretary of State for the Home Department, and was
succeeded in the secretaryship of the Board of Control by the Hon. John
E. Elliot, M.P. for Roxburghshire. In his present office Mr. Lewis has
served on the Smithfield Market Commission, appointed in November, 1849,
which has just brought up its report; and upon that subject, the Irish
Poor-Law, and Mr. Disraeli's motion as to local burdens, has spoken in
the House. Last year he brought forward a road bill to consolidate the
management of highways, and dispose of the question of turnpike trusts
and their advances. The bill was not proceeded with last session, and
has again been brought forward this year, with reference, however, only
to highways. Mr. Lewis has earned reputation as the translator of
"Boukli's Public Economy of Athens," which, as well as the "Dorians,"
has become a textbook, and passed through a second edition; and is known
as author of an able essay on the "Use and Abuse of Political Terms,"
published in 1832; on the "Origin and Formation of the Romance
Languages," published in 1835; on "Local Disturbances in Ireland, and
the Irish Church Question," in 1836; on the "Government of
Dependencies," in 1841; and "On the Influence of Authority in Matters of
Opinion," in 1849.
ORIGINAL LETTER FROM DR. LAYARD UPON ANCIENT ART, &c.
We present in this number of the _International_ a communication from
the most celebrated traveler of the nineteenth century, AUSTEN HENRY
LAYARD, upon the sources of _Ancient Art_. It was addressed by the
distinguished author to his friend and ours, Mr. MINOR K. KELLOGG, the
well-known painter, who was for some time with DR. LAYARD in the East.
* * * * *
MY DEAR FRIEND:
I frequently wish that you were here with me; I could find you subjects
which would astonish you. However, I suppose you are desirous of hearing
something about my proceedings. When I said that the arts may have
passed from Egypt into Greece, I merely alluded to the popular opinion,
without adhering to it. It is not altogether improbable that they came
from another source. Phoenicia was too much of a trading province to
devote any great attention to the higher branches of the arts, and I am
not aware of any monuments existing which can be traced to that people,
and show a very high knowledge of architecture or sculpture. The designs
we have on their early coins, and particularly if the coins called "the
unknown of Celicia," and those belonging to cities on the southern coast
of Asia Minor, were introduced by the Phoenician colonists, evidently
show that Phoenicia had borrowed from the Assyrians and not from the
Egyptians. Indeed, as their language and written character (for the
cuneiform, you must remember, appears only to have been a monumental
character, perhaps Semetic, like the hieroglyphics of Egypt), coincided
with those of the Assyrian, it is most probable that their sympathies
were with that people.
I assume that the language of the two nations was the same; this may
have been the case at one period, but whether throughout the existence
of the Assyrian empire, may be doubtful. At any rate, I believe the real
Assyrians and the Phoenicians, like all the nations occupying Syria
and Mesopotamia, to have been of the pure Semetic stock. I regret that I
have not time to make you a sketch of a bas-relief. A specimen of this
kind would at once show you how much nearer allied the arts of Greece
are with those of Assyria, than with those of Egypt. One thing appears
now to be pretty certain--that all Western Asia, Persia, Susiana, Media,
Asia Minor, &c. were fundamentally indebted to Assyria for their
knowledge of the arts. Persepolis is a mere copy of an Assyrian
monument, as far as the sculpture and ornaments are concerned, with the
addition of external architecture, of which, as far as I am yet able to
judge, the Assyrians appear to have been almost entirely ignorant.
There is no reason, therefore, to reject altogether the supposition that
the Arts may have been transmitted from Assyria, through Phoenicia,
into Greece, or, indeed, that the Arts may have passed into that country
through Asia Minor. The Assyrians, in the extreme elegance and taste
displayed in their ornaments, in their study of anatomy, and in their
evident attempts at composition, had much in common with the Greeks. I
think artists will be surprised when they see the collection of drawings
I have been able to make, and that one of the results of the discoveries
at Nimroud will be new views with regard to the early history of the
arts.
When I first came here, all the Arabs around told me that Nimroud was
built by Athur, or Assur, and that it was the ancient capital of
Assyria. Great faith may generally be placed in such traditions in the
East. In Mesopotamia, and in the country watered by the Tigris and
Euphrates, it is astonishing how names have been preserved, even when,
during Greek, Roman, or other dominion, other cities were built on the
site and named anew. The new names have long been lost, and the old are
this day to be found in the mouth of the Bedouin. I need only mention
Tadmor and Harran. In a religious point of view, there is no doubt that
much important information may be expected from a careful investigation
of the monuments of Assyria. During my labors, without being able to
devote much thought or attention to the subject, I have been continually
struck with the curious illustrations of little understood passages in
the Bible which these records afford. In an historical and archæological
point of view, I know nothing more interesting and more promising than
the examination of the ruins of Assyria. One of the vastest empires that
ever existed--the power of whose king extended, at one period, over the
greater part of Assyria--whose advance in civilization and knowledge is
the theme of ancient historians--disappeared so suddenly from the face
of the earth, that it has left scarcely a trace, save its name, behind.
Even the names of its kings are not satisfactorily known, and out of the
various dynastic lists preserved, we are unable to select one worthy of
credit. As to their deeds, we have been in the most profound darkness,
and were it not for the record of their strength and greatness which we
find in the Scriptures, we should scarcely credit the few traditions
which the Greeks have preserved to us. After the lapse of two thousand
five hundred years, a mere chance has thrown their history in our way,
and we have now their deeds chronicled in writing and in sculpture.
Were I much given to the explanation of such things by a reference to
superhuman interference, I should be inclined to think that the Almighty
had designedly kept these monuments buried in the Earth, until the time
had arrived when man had sufficient leisure and knowledge to discover
the contents of records, written in an unknown character, that He might
prove to them how great was the power which He so suddenly destroyed,
and how fully the prophecies upon the subject were fulfilled. Had these
sculptures and inscriptions remained above ground, they would have
utterly disappeared long ere any records could have been made of their
former existence. Had they been casually discovered before the present
century, they would most probably have been used for cement in the
construction of the walls of a city. In fact, the moment for their
discovery has, in every way, been most propitious. However, I will not
enter into such speculations, but leave them to those who are that way
inclined. A. H. L.
_ORIGINAL CORRESPONDENCE._
WANDERINGS IN THE PENINSULA.
GRENADA, May 18, 1850.
MY DEAR FRIEND--It affords me much pleasure to write you from the midst
of the terrestrial paradise into which my romantic wanderings have at
length brought me. Almost every one who sets out from home with the
object of travel, looks forward to some one or two spots, which, in the
light of imagination, glitter like stars in the bright prospective. To
me, the two cities which most aroused my curiosity and pleased my fancy,
were first, Grenada, in which I now am, and Venice, to which I still
look forward with a brighter hope, gilded with the rays of memory, and
clustering with the rosebuds of coming days. In Grenada, my
expectations, sanguine as they were, have been more than realized. It is
the nearest approach to paradise that I have yet seen: a spot that
cannot disappoint any one, as the best part of its beauty, like that of
a beautiful woman, is of a nature, that not even genius itself can
describe. I visit the "Alhambra" daily, and write a letter within its
sacred precincts. Externally the "Alhambra" has a severe and forbidding
appearance, like that of an ancient fortress, but within, it exceeds in
beauty all one's preconceptions, however warm and extravagant they may
be. The terrace which conducts to it, after having passed through the
huge gate which opens into its jurisdiction, is embowered with tall,
straight, and overhanging elms, nicely trimmed and of the richest
foliage, while here and there a fountain marks the bends in the road.
Along this enchanting walk marble seats are arranged, where one can
repose for a moment to listen to the notes of the nightingales in the
adjacent groves, and charm his fancy with the melodious rippling of
water at his feet. If one has any feeling in his soul, in such a spot as
this he is sure to find it. If he has a woman with him he is certain to
fall in love, and if he has not, he may perhaps fall--_asleep_!
Besides the "Alhambra," there are numerous objects of peculiar interest
to be seen in Grenada. The Cathedral, though inferior to those of
Seville and Toledo in magnificence and grandeur, is nevertheless a
splendid edifice, and is rendered particularly interesting as being the
last resting-place of Ferdinand and Isabella, the wisest sovereigns who
ever ruled over Spain. Yesterday we visited the royal chapel, and beheld
the beautiful monument erected to their memory. In its architecture it
struck me as being exceedingly unique, the work of consummate skill and
exquisite taste. It is of delicate alabaster, and was wrought, it is
said, at Genoa, by Peralla. It is about twelve feet in length by some
ten in breadth, profusely covered with figures and ingenious designs in
relief, while upon it, as upon a bridal couch, the statues of Ferdinand
and Isabella, in their royal robes, are extended side by side--their
faces like those of life, in calm and beautiful repose, elevated toward
heaven. Having examined the monument for some time, we descended into
the little arched vault beneath, which contained the coffins of the
deceased monarchs. These were of lead, strongly bound with iron, and the
letter F., upon that of Ferdinand, was the only sign which distinguished
them from each other. While in that small chamber of the dead, my memory
ran back to the great events of the fifteenth century--the discovery of
America and the conquest of Grenada--which owed their origin to the
enterprise of the two famous personages whose ashes were inclosed in the
heavy leaden cases at my feet; and I never felt more profoundly the
insignificance of earthly renown, or the vanity of individual glory.
"The paths of glory lead but to the grave." Coming from the tomb, we
were next shown a sceptre and crown which had been used by the
illustrious dead. Also a sword which Ferdinand himself wore in his
battles with the Moors. Leaving the Cathedral, we proceeded along to the
Moorish palace called "The Generaliffe." This edifice is not far from
the "Alhambra," and is separated from it by a deep and romantic ravine.
Passing through a level avenue of cypress and rosebushes, we arrived at
its main entrance. The first view of the interior was ravishing. The
virgin stream of the Daru, here collected in a narrow canal, was rushing
with a musical sound through arbors of cypresses and files of flowery
trees, arranged like fairy sentinels on either side. Passing on, we soon
reached the "trysting-place" of Zoraya, the frail Sultana. This spot
certainly is too exquisitely beautiful for me to describe. It is of a
rectangular form, and bordered with beds of flowers and handsome trees.
On one side is an arbor of gigantic cypresses, beautifully trained, the
trunks of which were tastefully enamelled with delicate vines, laden
with blooming roses. Within the square is an artificial pond of water,
sparkling with golden fishes, in the centre of which is a fairy-like
island, teeming with flowers of numerous kinds. The general effect of
the view was like that of enchantment, or like one of those
indescribable scenes that sometimes visit us in dreams, the beauty of
which surpasses reality. But my time will not allow me to indulge very
largely in detail. From the "Generaliffe" we proceeded to several of the
churches, and afterward to an extensive mad-house. We were not a little
amused. One old gentleman, _about_ the "_maddest of the lot_," who had
formerly been a general in the Spanish army, told me he liked his
present quarters very well, but that his companions were nothing better
than a pack of fools! The grounds about this humane establishment are
prettily laid out in gardens and handsome walks, and the patients
themselves have a spacious and pleasant yard for their exercise and
recreation. All this reflects favorably upon the character of the
Spanish people, who are ever kind to such as are afflicted or in
distress. They never scoff at human suffering in any form, however fond
they may be of the savage ferocity of the bull-fight. They are
compassionate to the poor, and even when the request of a beggar is
denied, it is done in such gentle terms, that the denial is robbed of
its sting. "Pardon me for God's sake, brother," is the usual form. I
have found much to admire among the Spaniards. No nation, not even the
French, exceeds them in true politeness or good breeding. When I left
Madrid, a friend of mine procured for me an introductory letter, from a
lady whom to this day I have never seen, addressed to her children
living at Grenada. To my great surprise, the ladies called in their
carriage yesterday and inquired for me, although I had not then
presented my letter of introduction. To-day I called upon the family, in
company with Mr. Wetmore, (a young American from New York, who has just
reached Grenada from Madrid,) and was most hospitably and kindly
received. One of the young ladies has perhaps the sweetest face I ever
saw, and to her beauty her graceful manners add an indescribable charm.
I am quite certain that it would be impossible for me or any other man
to see her many times with impunity. The influence of such attractions
with me, I confess, is quite irresistible. Beauty is more potent than
any other agent of human power, and he who is able to resist it must be
a heartless Samson indeed.
Truly yours, JOHN E. WARREN.
* * * * *
BLACKWOOD ON DANCERS IN SMALLCLOTHES.
--For a man to be fond of shuffling and twirling himself out of the
dignity of step which nature gave him--picking his way through a
quadrille like a goose upon red hot bricks, or gyrating like a bad
teetotum in what English fashionables are pleased to term a "valse"--I
never see a man thus occupied without a fervent desire to kick him.
* * * * *
Sincerity is like traveling on a plain beaten road, which commonly
brings a man sooner to his journey's end than by-ways, in which men
often lose themselves.
"MARKS OF BARHAMVILLE."
We were summoned one evening some three or four months ago to the house
of an eminent New Yorker to hear read the manuscript verses of a
gentleman from South Carolina, who was quite sure that he had earned for
himself a name that should endure forever as a part of the national
glory. We had good wine and the choicest company, and these kept us from
sleep through numerous scenas and cantos, and if we formed any judgment
in the premises we believe we did not express one. In due time Messrs.
Appleton published the book, and as it has not been noticed much here,
we copy from the June _Fraser_ the following paragraphs about it,
premising that our author had no faith in American criticism, but was
quite willing to abide the decisions of English reviewers:
"The general fault of carelessness and clumsiness runs through the
volume of poems, apparently, of a Trans-atlantic author, 'Marks of
Barhamville.' The book is just three times as large as it should have
been--as is usually the case nowadays. When will poets learn that
'brevity is the soul of wit:' and more, that saying a thing in three
weak lines is no substitute whatsoever for the power of saying it in one
strong one? Of the first poem in the book, 'Elfreide of Guldal,' we are
unable to speak, having been unable to read it; but it evinces at least
more historic information than is common just now among our poets, who
seem to forget utterly that _ex nihilo nihil fit_, and that the brains
of man may be as surely pumped dry as any other vessel, if nothing be
put in to replace what is taken out. Mr. Marks cannot avoid, too, giving
us, like every one else, a set of clinical lectures on the morbid
anatomy of his own inner man, under the appropriate title of '_Weeds_
from Life's Sea-shore;' forgetting that sea-weeds must be very rare and
delicate indeed to be worth preserving in a _hortus siccus_, instead of
being usefully covered out of sight in the nearest earth-heap, there to
turn into manure. He is, however, more objective than most of his
self-exenterating compeers; but he wants the grace and cheerful
lightness of the American school. A large part of his volume is taken up
with 'Maia, a masque'--an imitation of Milton's manner, but not, alas!
of his melody and polish; as, for instance:--
"'Not a warbler wakes his lay,
Not a dewdrop pearls the spray,
Not a fleecy cloud-rack sails
'Fore the warm-breath'd summer gales,
Shedding blessings on the earth,
But heavenward points its primal birth.
"Hark! the green-sedg'd chiming rill,
Weeding down yon cot-crown'd hill,
The torrent's dash, the river's gush,
The mighty wind-resounding crush
Of the fallen monarch of the wood,
Re-echo'd by the distant flood.
"However, this masque is readable enough, though Flora and Zephyrus,
Oberon and Titania, not much wanted anywhere in the nineteenth century,
seem oddly out of place amid 'whippoor-wills,' and 'mockbirds,' and
other Yankee nationalities, pleasing and natural as they are in
themselves. How did they get into the Alleghanies? By liner or steamer?
In the main cabin or the steerage? And were they, were they sea-sick?
One would fear it from the unwonted huskiness of their new utterances.
"The best thing in the book is 'Semaël,' though the plot is neither very
apparent nor very novel, the imagery as trite as need be, the blank
verse heavy and monotonous, without breaks, grouping, or relief, and the
accents as often as not on the prepositions:--
"'_Thé_ felucca there
With lateen-sail, seen _ín_ th' horizon-skirt
Shaping its course t'ward _thé_ Egyptian shore,
"(Which Egyptian shore?)
"Gives _tó_ the moon the silv'ry foam, which breaks
"(Could it give the foam _from_ the moon?)
"'Gainst _thé_ sharp keel, and tracks the wave with light.
While just beneath him bounds the lighter skiff
With bird-like speed; and darting _tó_ the shore,
Lowers _íts_ white sail,
"(Not another bark's, mind!)
and moors its painted prow
"(Oh, schoolboy's phrase!)
"Close _tó_ the cliff. Disporting _ín_ the sheen....
"And so forth.
"And yet this whole passage, and what follows, is really imaginative and
picturesque, but spoilt by carelessness, carelessness, carelessness.
Either write verses, we say again, or prose. And unless the metre and
accent coincide with the sense, and make music when read merely as prose
is read, the lines are a makeshift and a failure, and neither worth
writing or reading, though they were as fanciful and overloaded as Mr.
Browning's, or as grandiloquent and sugary as Mr. ---- Who's?"
* * * * *
Lord Brougham, who next to the Duke of Wellington is now unquestionably
the first man of the British Empire, a few days ago in the House of
Lords complained of an instance of libel of a species which is extremely
common in the United States, and which is of all species the most
irritating and offensive. Lord Brougham observed, that no one who had
lived so long as he had in Parliament had ever taken notice so seldom of
any libellous matter published, or of any breach of privilege committed
against him. He might also add, that no person had ever been more the
object of the most indiscriminate, and he might say the most absurd and
the most unfounded abuse. Nevertheless, in all such cases he had adopted
a neutral course, and had left the truth to come out in the natural
lapse of events. There was, however, one species of breach of privilege
which he had never been disposed to pass unnoticed. Attacks one must
undergo. To be exposed to attacks was the fate of all men who lived in
public. No man ought to shrink from or be too sensitive to attacks; but,
under pretence of stating what a lord had said in Parliament, to put
words into his mouth which he had never uttered, for the purpose, the
express purpose, of calumniating him,--words which the writer of the
calumny must have well known that he had never uttered, to put such
words into his mouth for such a purpose, formed a case in which he
thought that the party calumniated was bound to bring the party so
offending under the notice of their lordships. Lord Brougham proceeded
to arraign the _Daily News_ for an example of this crime which would
have done no dishonor to the inventive faculties of the _Literary
World_.
* * * * *
A MOCK GUILLOTINE.--DELIRIUM TREMENS ON THE STAGE.--It is stated in
_Galignani's Messenger_ that at the end of the late carnival two married
women of Vidauban Department of the Var manufactured a lay figure,
entirely in white, and, after attaching a chain round its neck, placed
it in a small cart. Many of the inhabitants then paraded it through the
village in solemn procession, accompanied by a crowd of men carrying
axes, &c., and singing revolutionary songs. After a while they formed a
sort of revolutionary tribunal, and the figure, which was called
"Blanc," was gravely tried, and, by the majority of the votes of the
crowd, condemned to death, the principal judge, a man named Arnaud,
saying, "Blanc! you prevent us from dancing farandoles, and therefore we
condemn you to death!" Thereupon, a man seized the figure, placed it on
a plank, and at one blow with his axe severed the head from the body. A
bottle of wine had been placed in the neck of the figure, and, this
having been broken by the blow, a resemblance of blood was produced. The
head was then cast into the crowd and torn to pieces by them. This
scandalous scene created a most painful impression throughout the
department. A few days afterward, four men who played a principal part
in the affair, and the two women who made the figure, were brought to
trial on the charge of exciting citizens to hatred of each other. The
men pleaded drunkenness as an excuse--the women declared that they had
only intended to amuse their children. Four of the accused were
acquitted, and the other two, who had acted as judge and executioner,
were condemned to four and three months' imprisonment. It is a pity that
by the application of some such law, the disgustingly vulgar and
brutalizing piece called _The Drunkard_, which has lately been played
with "immense success" at Barnum's Theatre, (and in which the chief
characters appear in all the stages of degradation until one of them is
nearly dead with the delirium tremens), cannot be suppressed. With all
its pretensions to morality, the play is irredeemably bad and base.
* * * * *
The CINCINNATI ART UNION advertises Powers's Greek Slave as one of its
prizes, and publishes an engraving of it which should frighten away all
subscriptions.
* * * * *
AMERICAN EXTENSION AND CONQUEST.--The Daily News thus opens an article
upon the recent attempt to invade Cuba:
"Shortly after the American war; a sapient French statesman, writing
from Louisiana to his royal master in Paris, advised the French
government to cultivate a close and intimate alliance with the Cherokee
Indians, who, occupying as they did the defiles of the Alleghanies,
would form a permanent bulwark between the young Anglo-Saxon republic
and the French possessions on the Mississippi. But the permanent bulwark
could no more resist the advancing wave than a lath and plaster
breakwater could withstand the seas of the Channel. In a few short years
not a vestige of it was to be found, and in less than a quarter of a
century both French and Cherokees had disappeared from the scene. Not
only were the defiles of the Alleghanies opened, but the Alleghanies
themselves have since been virtually removed. Ever since the foundation
of the republic, our American kinsmen have been anxious to emulate and
surpass us in indulging that desire for territorial acquisition, which
seems to be, for the present at least, the ruling passion of the
Anglo-Saxon mind. Confined at first between the Alleghanies and the
Atlantic, they gradually spread westward to the Mississippi, of both
banks of which, from its sources to its _embouchure_, they possessed
themselves as early as 1806. Their coast line, which, originally, did
not extend beyond the St. Mary, was soon afterward carried round the
peninsula of Florida, and along the northern shore of the Mexican Gulf,
westward to the mouth of the Sabine. Not satisfied with this, they
planted themselves in Texas, and some years afterward transferred their
boundary to the Rio Grande. Oregon, New Mexico, and California, fell in
quick succession within the grasp of the confederacy. The entire
disappearance of the Spaniard from the continent is a consummation, not
even doubtful, but simply awaiting the convenience of the encroaching
Anglo-Saxon. For the accession of Canada, time is implicitly relied
upon--the idea of conquest in that quarter being out of the
question--and thus it is that even sober-minded men are beginning to
believe that the time is not far off when the glowing prophecies of the
most sanguine will be realized, that the boundaries of the republic
would yet be the Isthmus, the North Pole, and the two oceans."
* * * * *
LEDRU ROLLIN'S new work, "The Decline of England," of which the first
volume only has appeared, is, as might have been anticipated, savagely
attacked in most of the British journals. The _Times_ observes:
"M. Ledru Rollin professes to be a philosopher and a statesman, and,
being induced by somewhat peculiar circumstances to reflect upon the
condition of this country, he was, he tells us, driven to the conclusion
that we are a declining people, destined in no short period to exhibit
to mankind a fearful spectacle of misery and ruin. Some persons have
thought, that the many manifestations of material wealth and power which
must have presented themselves to the eyes and mind of M. Ledru Rollin,
even on the most casual observation, should have induced him in his
character of philosoper to hesitate in deciding so hastily, and with
such emphasis, that our destruction is imminent. But in our opinion
there are events of everyday occurrence connected with our social habits
and customs--events which from their frequency cease to excite our
attention--which should be deemed still more important and significant,
and which to one really deserving the name of a philosopher would appear
more powerful guarantees for the future happiness of a people among whom
they occur than any afforded by mere proofs of great wealth, power, or
skill. It is much the fashion with those who delight to deal in doleful
vaticinations as to the future destiny of England, to dwell with great
emphasis upon the amazing diversity of conditions to be seen here--to
exaggerate the suffering of the millions of our poor, and to place them
in a sort of rhetorical contrast with the extravagant wealth of a
favored few. But there is still something in the mutual relations of all
classes of society in this country that proves a healthy condition to
exist in our body politic, that shows that we are really brethren, and
that whether interest or kind sympathies govern us we are still one
people--with great differences of opinion among us indeed, openly
expressed by all, but still with a feeling prevalent in all classes of
the community that we form one people, and that we are, from the most
powerful to the most weak, bound together by ties of great regard as
well as national brotherhood."
* * * * *
THE LATE CATASTROPHE ON LAKE ERIE.--Our whole country has been once more
shocked by an appalling and unnecessary loss of life, from the burning
of the steamer Griffith. We use the expression, _unnecessary loss of
life_, not from any hasty impulse, or undue excitement, but in view of
the evident and undeniable fact, that two hundred and fifty human beings
have been sacrificed for a culpable neglect on the part of the
proprietors of the steamer to furnish suitable protection. No one
competent to judge will doubt that every individual on the Griffith
might have been saved had she been provided with life-boats. The avarice
of proprietors has generally prevented their use, though the cost of a
sufficient number for each steamer would not exceed _one thousand
dollars_. The lives of hundreds of men, women and children are of little
account to a corporation, when weighed against a thousand dollars of
their capital stock. Life-boats cannot save their _burning property_,
and why impair their own interests for the saving a few hundred lives
now and then? We have the approbation of every _disinterested_ citizen,
when we suggest to Congress some law which shall compel steamboat owners
to protect their passengers in case of accident, by suitable life-saving
apparatus. Fire-proof paints and other incombustible materials are very
wisely demanded, but our navigation is exposed to a thousand other
dangers, which can be guarded against by no other means so effectually
as by life-boats; and it should be within the duties of the inspectors
to see that steamers are in all instances furnished with a sufficient
number of them to contain their full complement of passengers.
* * * * *
M. LAMARTINE has left Paris to visit his estate in the East.
_RECENT DEATHS._
JANE PORTER.--As in the case of the recent death of Miss Edgeworth, it
is singular that so little notice has been taken of the demise of Jane
Porter, one of the most distinguished novelists which England has
produced. Miss Porter may be said to have been the first who introduced
that beautiful kind of fiction, the historical romance, which has added
such amusement and interest to English literature. The author of
"Thaddeus of Warsaw" and "The Scottish Chiefs" has done much to deserve
the lasting respect and gratitude of her country.
The family of this excellent woman and able writer, according to the
_Illustrated News_, is of Irish descent. Her father was an officer of
dragoons in the British service; he married a Miss Blenkinsopp, of the
Northumbrian house of Blenkinsopp, which Camden styles "a right ancient
and generous family." Miss Porter's father died in the prime of life,
and left his widow with five almost infant children, in slender
circumstances. The great talents of this orphan family raised them to
affluence and distinction. Three of the children were sons; of these,
the eldest perished in a dangerous climate abroad, at the commencement
of a promising career; the second (the present Dr. William Ogilvie
Porter, of Bristol) became a physician, and practiced successfully. The
third was the late Sir Robert Ker Porter, K.C.H., distinguished as an
author, a painter, and a soldier: some of our finest battle-pieces are
the work of his pencil, and he himself followed heroes to the field; he
was with Sir John Moore when he fell victoriously at Corunna, and he
earned a high reputation throughout the Peninsular war. He afterward
became a diplomatist, and was latterly consul at Venezuela. His
"Traveling Sketches in Russia and Egypt" procured him also an author's
fame. Sir Robert Ken Porter died suddenly about seven years ago; he left
by his wife, a Russian lady, an only daughter, who is married, and
resides in Russia. The two sisters of these brothers Porter were even
more distinguished. The younger of them, Miss Anna Maria Porter, became
an authoress at twelve years of age; she wrote many successful novels,
of which the most popular were the "Hungarian Brothers," the "Recluse of
Norway," and the "Village of Mariendorpt." She died at her brother's
residence at Bristol, on the 6th of June, 1832. The elder sister, Miss
Jane Porter, the subject of this notice, was born at Durham, where her
father's regiment was quartered at the time. She, with her sister, Anna
Maria, received her education under a famous Scotch tutor, Mr. Fulton,
at Edinburgh, where her widowed mother lived with her children in their
early years. The family afterward removed, first to Ditton, and thence
to Esher, in Surrey, where Mrs. Porter, a most intelligent and agreeable
lady, resided with her daughters for many years, until her death, in
1831. Mrs. Porter was buried in the churchyard at Esher; and on her tomb
the passer-by may read this inscription, "Here lies Jane Porter, a
Christian widow." As a novelist Miss Jane Porter obtained the highest
celebrity. Her three most renowned productions were her "Thaddeus of
Warsaw," written when she was about twenty years of age, her "Scottish
Chiefs," and her "Pastor's Fireside." "Thaddeus of Warsaw" had immense
popularity; it was translated into most of the Continental languages,
and Poland was loud in its praise. Kosciusko sent the author a ring
containing his portrait. General Gardiner, the British Minister at
Warsaw, could not believe that any other than an eye-witness had written
the story, so accurate were the descriptions, although Miss Porter had
not then been in Poland. The "Scottish Chiefs" was equally successful.
With regard to this romance, it is known that Sir Walter Scott admitted
to George IV., one day, in the library at Carlton Palace, that the
"Scottish Chiefs" was the parent in his mind of the Waverley Novels. In
a letter written to her friend Mr. Litchfield, about three months ago,
Miss Porter, speaking of these novels, said:--"I own I feel myself a
kind of sybil in these things; it being full fifty years ago since my
'Scottish Chiefs' and 'Thaddeus of Warsaw' came into the then untrodden
field. And what a splendid race of the like chroniclers of generous
deeds have followed, brightening the track as they have advanced! The
author of 'Waverley,' and all his soul-stirring 'Tales of my Landlord,'
&c. Then comes Mr. James, with his historical romances, on British and
French subjects, so admirably uniting the exquisite fiction with the
fact, that the whole seems equally verity. But my feeble hand" (Miss
Porter was ailing when she wrote the letter) "will not obey my wish to
add more to this host of worthies. I can only find power to say with my
trembling pen that I cannot but esteem them as a respected link with my
past days of lively interest in all that might promote the virtue and
true honor of my contemporaries from youth to age." These eloquent words
become the more touching, when we consider that within three months
after they were written, this admirable lady quitted this life in the
honored maturity of her fame.
Miss Porter wrote, in conjunction with her sister, "Tales round a
Winter's Hearth." She was also an indefatigable contributor to the
periodicals of the day. Her biographical sketch of Colonel Denham, the
African traveler, in the _Naval and Military Journal_, was much admired
as one of the most affecting tributes ever paid to departed merit. Miss
Porter was a Chanoiness of the Polish order of St. Joachim, which honor
was conferred upon her after the publication of "Thaddeus of Warsaw."
She is, in her portraits, generally represented in the habit of this
order. Miss Porter died on the 24th ult., at the residence of her
brother, Dr. Porter, in Portland-square, Bristol. That brother, so
tenderly beloved by her, and so justly respected by all who know him, is
now the last survivor of this brilliant company of brothers and sisters;
and he, too, we are sorry to say, is in an enfeebled state from
paralysis, aggravated by the recent shock of his gifted relative's
demise. Except himself and his married niece in Russia, there remains no
representative of a family which England has good cause to hold in
grateful remembrance.
* * * * *
THE COUNT DE VITTRÉ.--The Paris journals announce the death of one of
the most distinguished officers of the French army, General Count de
Vittré, Grand Officer of the Legion of Honor, &c. Charles de Raity de
Villeneuve, Count de Vittré, was descended from an old and noble family
of Poitou, was the comrade of Napoleon at the Military School, and took
a glorious part in the campaign of Russia, where he was severely
wounded. He also distinguished himself in the Spanish expedition in
1823, where he had under his orders General Changarnier, the Duke de
Crillon, and M.A. Carrel, who, on account of his valor, gave him the
surname of the Bayard of the 19th Century. General Count de Vittré was
uncle to M. Hugues de Coval, a distinguished political writer of Paris.
* * * * *
GLOVER, THE PAINTER.--A Van Diemen's Land newspaper announces the death,
at the advanced age of eighty-two, of Mr. Glover, the painter, whose
pictures of English scenery are well known to lovers of landscape art.
* * * * *
MATTHEW L. DAVIS died on the 15th June, at the age of 84. He had been
for two or three years enfeebled, and for the last year confined to his
room, but he retained his mental faculties and his physical powers until
after his eightieth year, owing, in great measure, to the temperance of
his habits, his fondness for exercise, and his elastic, hopeful
temperament. Mr. Davis was preëminently a politician through life, and
aided to organize and give triumph to "the Republican party," so called,
more than half a century ago, when the Federal or Washingtonian party
was prostrated not more by its own follies than by the ability and tact
of its leading adversaries. Half the good management and efficient
activity that served to elect Jefferson would have sufficed to defeat
him. And nowhere was the battle of Democracy fought with greater address
or against more formidable odds than in this State and City, under the
consummate generalship of Aaron Burr, of whom Davis was the untiring
lieutenant and confidential friend.
Though so long and so deeply immersed in Politics, possessing decided
talents and a thorough knowledge of public affairs, Mr. Davis never held
any prominent office. He did not seem to be an ambitious man. He was
once wealthy, and became poor, but he never seemed elated by prosperity
nor humbled by adversity. He was not a fortunate politician, and he
seemed to love the smoke of the battle more than the plunder of the
field. He was quite often on the unlucky side--for Crawford in '24--for
Adams in '28--for Clay in '32,--and so on. His side was taken from
impulse and personal liking, not from selfish calculation. He had known
almost every man who figures in the history of our country since the
Revolutionary era, and, while his faculties remained, his conversation
was remarkably instructive and entertaining. In early life Mr. Davis was
engaged in trade, and was moderately successful, but he gave up business
to devote himself more entirely to politics, He reëntered commercial
life before the last war with England, and his house (Davis & Strong)
was fortunate in South American speculations, of the profits of which he
himself received some $50,000, which, however, was soon lost. For half a
century he was an industrious writer. He produced several very clever
pamphlets upon men and affairs, and was for many years known as "The Spy
in Washington" for the _Courier and Enquirer_, and "The Genevese
Traveler" for the _London Times_. Burr bequeathed to him all his papers,
and from these and his memoranda and recollections he prepared and
published, in 1838, "Memoirs of Aaron Burr, with Miscellaneous
Selections from his Correspondence," in 2 vols. 8vo., and "The Private
Journal of Aaron Burr during his Residence of Four Years in Europe, with
Selections from his Correspondence," 2 vols. 8vo.
* * * * *
REV. JOSEPH SAMUEL C. F. FREY, a well-known Baptist clergyman, died at
Pontiac, Michigan, in the 79th year of his age, on the 5th of June. He
was born of Jewish parents, in Germany, and was for several years reader
in a Synagogue. When about twenty-five years old, he became a Christian,
and soon after a student of divinity at Berlin. He was subsequently
engaged nearly all the time in efforts to convert the Jews. It was at
his suggestion that the London Missionary Society for Promoting
Christianity among the Jews, was founded, in 1808. In 1816 he came to
the United States, and was for a time pastor of a Presbyterian Church in
this city, but changing his views upon the subject of baptism, he joined
the Baptist Church, and was settled over congregations at Newark and at
Sing Sing, until, through his means, the Society for Meliorating the
Condition of the Jews was founded, and he became its missionary. He
wrote several books, which display considerable learning and an amiable
and honorable temper. The most popular of his productions is one
entitled "Joseph and Benjamin," designed to illustrate the points of
difference between the Jews and Christians.
_SCIENTIFIC MISCELLANIES._
MR. PAINE'S HYDRO-ELECTRIC LIGHT.--All the past eras that are marked by
especial characteristics and glories must yield before our own, the AGE
OF DISCOVERY, which bequeaths to the new generations so many
applications of steam and electricity, so many inventions in all the
arts, and such vast enterprises undertaken and accomplished for the good
of mankind. These, as the _Tribune_ eloquently says, are the immortal
monuments of our times, and dwarf earlier performances into a very
inferior position. What are the pyramids to a line of steamships? What
is there in Homer or Plato worthy to be mentioned on the day when
Professor Morse sets up his telegraph, and mightier than Jupiter, the
cloud-compeller, with the lightnings of Heaven flashes intelligence from
Halifax to New Orleans, as rapidly as the behests of the mind reach the
fingers? How petty and narrow seem the ambition and desires of Alexander
or Napoleon when the bold and prophetic genius of Whitney, dealing with
continents and nations as with parishes and neighborhoods, stretches his
iron road around half the globe and shows you, moving forward and
backward over its rails, the flux and reflux of a world's commerce and
intercourse, a sublime tide of benefits and universal relations! What
poet, what artist, what philosopher, what statesman, has equalled in
grandeur these conceptions of science, or the splendid results which
have followed their practical realization? Not one. And the reason of
this is plain. These things are filled with the spirit of future
centuries, while our Art, Literature, Statesmanship, Philosophy, are
either mere dead relics of the past, or the poor makeshifts of a
present, not yet equal to the business Providence has given it to
perform.
It is claimed for Mr. Paine that he has found out the means of producing
the greatest revolution which physical science can well be supposed to
make in the business and comfort of society. As far as we apprehend his
claim, it is that he has established as a new principle of science that
electricity possesses the qualities of weight, compressibility and
gravitation; that he has proved water to be in reality a simple
elemental substance, which he can decompose or transform into either
hydrogen or oxygen gas according to its electrical condition, and
according as positive or negative electricity is applied to it; and that
he has invented the means whereby from water he can produce at will
either of these gases without any other than mechanical agency and with
no expense save that of the machine, which will cost at the outset $400
or $500, and last for an indefinite period. If this is true, it is
unquestionably the greatest discovery of modern times, and will produce
a change in affairs of all sorts so profound and extensive as to surpass
and bewilder the mind which seeks to imagine it. When with a pail of
water you can without expense light and heat your house; when coal mines
are useless, and steamships draw their fuel from the waves they
traverse; then the comforts and luxuries of life, and the means of
traveling will be diminished in price so as to come within the ability
of every man; a great deal of the most toilsome and disagreeable work
now performed will become unnecessary; and a vast step will be made
toward a more just and equal distribution of social advantages. Mr.
Paine is now engaged at the Astor House in preparations to light that
immense hotel with his hydro-electric gas, and the result of his
experiment is looked for with profound interest. We confess little faith
in his success.
* * * * *
The story of an American inventor named REMINGTON--who a year or two
since addressed to the late Mr. Senator Lewis, of Alabama, a history of
his adventures, which was published in the _Merchant's Magazine_--must
be well-remembered, for its intrinsic interest, and on account of the
denials and refutations of portions of it by certain persons in London
to whom allusion was made in Mr. Remington's letter. The invention, the
Remington Bridge, seems now to be exciting no little attention both in
England and in this country. The principle which gives to it its great
strength, is the peculiar construction of its longitudinal supporters,
investing them with all the tenacity that wood has when it is sought to
be drawn apart. Thus it is capable of sustaining as great weight as
would be required to _pull asunder the fibres_ of the longitudinal
supporters. No wooden bridge can be built of so great a span. Mr.
Remington believes that he can build a span at least 1320 feet in
length, while the span of the old wooden bridge at Fairmount, near
Philadelphia, which was one of the largest in the world, was but little
over 300 feet. The annals of mechanical art afford few instances where a
great invention has been developed and prosecuted under apparently more
adverse circumstances.
* * * * *
NEW PLANET.--The _Tempo_, of Naples, publishes a letter from M. Leopold
Del Re, Director of the Observatory at Naples, announcing that the
celebrated astronomer, Don Annibale de Gasparin, late discoverer of the
_Igea Borbonica_, has discovered a new telescope planet, being the ninth
between Mars and Jupiter. It is a star of the ninth magnitude, and is at
present in apposition with the sun.
* * * * *
IN SURGERY.--A correspondent of the _Lowell Courier_ claims for the late
Dr. Twitchell, of Keene, the honor of successfully tying the carotid
artery several months before Sir Astley Cooper made the attempt. The
latter has always had the credit of being the first to achieve this
extremely difficult and dangerous process.
AUTHORS AND BOOKS.
The Rev. THOMAS H. SMYTH, D.D. of South Carolina, whose work upon the
Unity of the Human Races, suggested by the recent declarations of
infidelity, by Professor Agassiz of Harvard College and others, has been
published by Putnam, and received with a hearty applause by Christians
and scholars, is not, as is commonly supposed, an American author,
though he has long resided in this country. He was born in Belfast, in
the North of Ireland, and educated at the Royal College in that city,
pursuing afterward his theological studies in London, and at Princeton
in New Jersey. He has been eighteen years minister of the Presbyterian
church in Charleston, where he was married, and where he will probably
always reside, while in this country; but his liberal fortune and
inquiring spirit tempt him to frequent travel, and he is now absent upon
a tour which will probably be extended to Nineveh and all the most
interesting scenes connected with the history of religion in the eastern
world. Dr. Smyth possesses one of the largest and most valuable private
libraries in the United States, and has therefore been able to compose
his learned works in theology, history, &c. under advantages but seldom
enjoyed by our authors. His chief productions are, Apostolical
Succession, 1842; Presbytery and not Prelacy the Scriptural and
Primitive Polity of the Church, 1843; Ecclesiastical Republicanism;
Ecclesiastical Catechism; Claims of the Free Church of Scotland; Life
and Character of Thomas Chalmers, with Personal Recollections; Nature
and Functions of Ruling Elders; Nature and Functions of Deacons; The
Rite of Confirmation examined; Bereaved Parents Consoled; Union to
Christ and His Church; The True Origin and Source of the Mecklenburg
Declaration of Independence, with a Continuation on Presbyterianism, the
National Declaration, and the Revolution; Denominational Education;
Pastoral Memento; Life and Character of Calvin; The Westminster
Assembly; and the Unity of the Human Races proved to be the Doctrine of
Scripture, Reason, and Science. Dr. Smyth has also written largely in
the Biblical Repertory, the Southern Presbyterian Review, and other
Periodicals.
* * * * *
THE VETERAN ITALIAN GENERAL PEPE, known in the book-world heretofore by
his Personal Memoirs, has just published a Narrative of Scenes and
Events in Italy, from 1847 to 1849. It comprises the most interesting
particulars respecting the Revolutions in Naples, Sicily, and Rome; the
Military Operations of Charles Albert; and the Siege of Venice, of which
city General Pepe held the command. It also includes the details of the
General's confidential communications and interviews with the Italian
Sovereigns, &c. &c.
* * * * *
MR. MAYNE REID, who in sundry letters published in this city last year,
claimed that he was the real hero of the Mexican war--in which he served
as a lieutenant of the New York volunteers--has recently published in
London a brace of volumes under the title of _The Rifle Rangers_. In his
preface he alleges that all his statements offered as facts are strictly
true, though at times highly colored for the sake of effect. This will
be obvious to every reader, for the book is full of adventures of all
sorts--perils by sword, fire, rivals, wild animals, bloodhounds,
&c.--which are related in a lively, dashing style, varied at times with
descriptions of the scenery, plants, and inhabitants of Central America.
One of the London journals, in a review of it, observes, "We would not
wish a more lively or interesting companion than Captain Reid,--a
_thorough Yankee soldier_, combining humor, imagination, and dashing
bravery in the highest degree." The thorough Yankee, like many others
much quoted abroad, is a clever Irish adventurer, who was in the United
States altogether some four or five years, engaged chiefly as a writer
for the journals in New York and Philadelphia.
* * * * *
Among our frequent foreign correspondents the reader will be pleased to
recognize the accomplished and adventurous traveler Mr. JOHN E. WARREN,
whose work on South America, _Para, or Scenes and Adventures on the
Banks of the Amazon_, has just been published, in two octavo volumes, by
Bentley, of London. We present the first of a series from him in our
initial number.
* * * * *
The Rev. FRANCIS L. HAWKS, LL.D. will publish in the autumn a collection
of very rare and curious tracts, illustrative of our early Colonial
History, with copious notes, &c. Dr. Hawks may be safely regarded as an
authority of the very highest value, upon whatever relates to the
religious and social history of the country. He adds to persevering and
well-directed research the soundest discrimination, and a judicial
fairness; and we trust an impression which has obtained within a few
years, that he is engaged upon an extensive work that will illustrate
his abilities in this field, is not without foundation.
* * * * *
The celebrated Princess BELGIOSO, whose achievements in the tented
field, as in the showy salons of fashion, have long been familiar, has,
as is well known in the gay world of Europe, been a successful
cultivator of letters, and has frequently delighted the readers of
French and Italian with brilliant sketches of society and manners. She
is now traveling in Greece, whence she will proceed into the romantic
and picturesque regions of Asia, and the proprietors of the _New York
Tribune_ have engaged her as one of the regular foreign correspondents
of that journal.
* * * * *
M. EUGENE SCRIBE, the writer of the libretto of _Tempesta_, just brought
out in London, at the age of eighteen years, was placed under the care
of M. Dupin, now the President of the French Legislative Assembly, to
study the Roman law. Shortly after reaching his majority he began his
dramatic career by writing a vaudeville for the Gymnase. His success
here led to an engagement to write for the Theatre Francais, and to the
establishment of his reputation as a dramatic author. He has composed
ten comedies in five acts, and twenty in one, two, or three acts, for
the Francais. He has written one hundred and fifty vaudevilles for the
Gymnase. As a lyrical poet he stands unequalled for the number of his
_libretti_, having written the poetry of forty grand operas and of one
hundred comic operas. His works, exclusive of novels, are three hundred
and forty in number.
* * * * *
The Literature of the Western States has not yet furnished any name that
shines with a fairer and serener lustre than that of ALICE CAREY,
several of whose poems, of "imagination all compact," and faultless in
rhythmical art, will live among the contributions which this age offers
to the permanent in literary creation. Her younger sister, PH[OE]BE
CAREY, is also a woman of genius, and has written almost as largely as
Alice, in a similar vein of thought and feeling. They are now on a visit
to New York, and will pass the summer among the resorts in the vicinity
of the city.
* * * * *
MRS. OAKSMITH, we are pleased to be advised, is engaged upon an epic
poem, which has been meditated several years. The _Jacob Leisler_ of
Mrs. Oaksmith is probably the finest specimen of dramatic writing of
which we can boast. Her other tragedy, _The Roman Tribute_, is in
rehearsal in Philadelphia, where it will be produced with a strong cast
and the utmost scenic magnificence. Mrs. Oaksmith will pass the summer
among the seaside retreats of Maine, with Fredrika Bremer.
* * * * *
PROFESSOR NICHOL'S sometime expected work upon the United States has
just appeared, from the press of Parker, the publisher of _Fraser's
Magazine_. It is about two years since Professor Nichol returned to
Scotland, after giving his astronomical lectures in our principal
cities, and traveling widely in the agricultural portions of the
country. His book, we understood him to state, was to be addressed to
the middling classes, and to treat principally of points connected with
emigration.
* * * * *
BAYARD TAYLOR'S "El Dorado" is praised in all the English journals as
the best book that has been written upon California. Bohn has published
it in his "Shilling Series," and it is also issued by Bentley.
* * * * *
MR. CYRUS EATON, of Warren, Me. has in preparation a complete History of
St. George's River, from its first discovery; of the early transactions,
Indian wars, and especially the events at St. George's Fort and other
military posts in the neighborhood; an account of the several
settlements commenced under the Waldo Patent, up to the time of their
incorporation as towns; and a full history of the town of Warren to the
present time. The work to consist of about 400 pages octavo.
* * * * *
Among the American Books reprinted by Bentley in the last month are
Bayard Taylor's "El Dorado," and "Letters of a Traveler," by "Bryant,
_the American novelist_." His original books from this country, for the
same period, are "Life in the Forest and the Frontier," by Alfred B.
Street, and a very charming book by a daughter of Fenimore Cooper,
entitled "Rural Hours in the United States."
* * * * *
The REV. DR. CROLY ON BAPTISM.--The Rev. Dr. Croly has again left poetry
and romantic fiction for religious controversy. On the 13th June he
published in London--we suppose in reply to the late work of Baptist
Noel--a volume entitled, "The Theory of Baptism, or the Regeneration of
Infants in Baptism vindicated on the testimony of Holy Scripture,
Christian Antiquity, and the Church of England."
* * * * *
MAJOR HERBERT EDWARDES, the son of a vicar in one of the midland
counties, who went to the East Indies a few years ago, and rose rapidly
by military prowess, diplomatic skill, and learning, has lately returned
to England, and Bentley announces for publication in the month of June,
in two octavos from his pen, a "Narrative of Service and Adventure on
the Punjaub Frontier during 1848 and 1849."
* * * * *
SIR JAMES ALEXANDER, who is well known in New York for his residence
here during a considerable portion of the period described in his work
on the United States, has just published in London, in two volumes, with
illustrations, "Acadie, or Seven Years' Explorations in British
America."
* * * * *
A Second Series of Coleridge's "Friend" has been published in London, in
three volumes, 8vo., under the title of "_Essays on his own Times_," by
S. T. Coleridge; edited by his daughter. It is made up mostly of his
political contributions to the _Post_ and _Courier_.
* * * * *
A Complete Edition of the philosophical works of J. F. Herbart is
announced for publication by Voss, of Leipzig. It will be completed in
twelve volumes, 8vo., edited by Prof. Hartenstein, of Leipzig, and will
be finished in about two years.
* * * * *
MR. BAIRD, of Philadelphia, has in press a richly illustrated edition of
Gray's Poems.
From the London Times.
THE HISTORY OF GREECE
BY GEORGE GROTE.
Mr. Grote's history has yet arrived only at the close of the fourth
century B.C., and the fall of the Thirty Tyrants. Two of the six
compartments in which he proposes, to use his own quaint phrase, "to
exhaust the free life of collective Hellas," still remain to be
accomplished. But the history of Greece is written. Stirring events and
great names are still to come; the romantic enterprise of Cyrus and the
retreat of the Ten Thousand, the elective trust of Thebes, and the
chivalrous glories of her one great man. Demosthenes has yet to prove
how vain is the divinest eloquence when poured to degenerate hearts.
Agis and Cleomenes have yet to exhibit the spectacle, ever fraught with
melancholy interest, of noble natures out of harmony with the present,
and spending their energies in the vain attempt to turn back the stream
of time and call again into existence the feelings and the institutions
of an irrevocable past. The monarchy of Philip is yet due to fate.
Macedon is still to Greece what Russia, before Peter the Great, was to
Europe--a half-unknown and barbarous land, full of latent energy and
power, and waiting for the rise of a master mind to discern its embryo
greatness and turn its peasants into the unconquerable phalanx.
Alexander must arise to carry forth with his victorious arms the seeds
of Greek civilization over the Eastern world. Aristotle must arise to
gather up in one boundless mind the vast results of Greek philosophy,
and found an empire vaster and more enduring than that of his great
pupil in the subjugated intellect of man. But the history of Greece is
finished. Athens and Sparta, the two great antagonistic types of Greek
society, politics, and education, have attained their full development,
passed their allotted hour of trial, and touched upon their doom. The
shades of night are gathering on the bright day of Hellas. The momentous
work of that wonderful people is accomplished; the interest of the great
intellectual and moral contest has centred in one man; the last scene of
the _Phædo_ has been enacted, and Socrates has died.
The history of Greece is written, and the character of the historian is
decided. Mr. Grote has achieved a noble work--a work which, unless the
glory of classical literature is a dream, will well repay, in usefulness
and in renown, the devotion of a scholars life. His book will be called
great while Grecian story retains its interest. Even making allowance
for the wonderful labors of the Germans and the extraordinary addition
which their learned toils have made to our knowledge of the subject, we
should say that the work before us has almost disentombed many portions
of Greek life. We cannot sufficiently extol the wonderful knowledge of
all the feelings, habits, associations, and institutions of an extinct
people which every page exhibits, and the familiar mastery with which a
mind steeped in Grecian lore analyzes, combines, criticizes, and unfolds
the mass of heterogeneous and often conjectural materials on which it
has to work. Not only have we been enabled to read Greek history with
new eyes and a new understanding, but light has been poured upon its
literature; and, to apply to Mr. Grote the compliment he pays to others,
"the poets, historians, orators, and philosophers of Greece have been
all rendered both more intelligible and more instructive to the student,
and the general picture of the Grecian world may now be conceived with a
degree of fidelity which, considering our imperfect materials, it is
curious to contemplate." Two volumes more at least must be yet to come,
but Mr. Grote's pedestal is sure; and nothing can diminish the
satisfaction he must now feel at his decided and proclaimed success but
the consciousness that the moment is approaching when he must part with
the companion of many a sweet though toilsome hour, and experience the
mingled feelings which Gibbon has so well portrayed in writing "the last
page of the last chapter" of the history of Greece.
It is pity that such high intrinsic merits should be marred, both as
regards the pleasure and the instruction of the reader, by a fatal
deficiency of style. It is pity, but it is true. Mr. Grote seems to have
lived in the works of the Greek writers till he has almost forgotten the
forms and cadence of his mother tongue. It is not only that he so
frequently has resort to an uncouth Greek compound when he might easily
express the same idea in two or three English words, if not one; there
is a perpetual clumsiness in his construction of common sentences and
his use of common words. Clarendon himself is not harder or more
tortuous. Even in purely narrative parts, which ought to flow most
easily, the understanding of the reader can seldom keep pace with his
eye. Cyclopean epithets are piled together almost at random on any
substantive which will have the complaisance to receive them. The choice
of expression and metaphor is sometimes such as almost to rival the
achievements of Castlereagh in his happiest hour. We have people
existing, "not as individual names on paper, but simply as an
imposturous nominal aggregate,"--Thucydides "reserving his flowers to
strew on the grave of Nicias,"--the Athenians "sailing out" to action,
having "left their sails at Teichiassa," and their "sailing back" to
Teichiassa for their sails,--Athens, "the mistress and successor of the
Ionian Confederacy,"--inestimable stepping-stones toward a goal, and
oligarchical conspirators against popular liberty "tying down the
patient while the process of emasculation was being consummated." We are
sorry to say that these instances are taken from the last two volumes,
so that Mr. Grote does not improve as he advances. In the first volume,
when relating the legends of early Greece, we are glad he does not
imitate the forced simplicity with which Dr. Arnold tells the legends of
early Rome; but it is too flat to describe Atalanta as "beautiful and
matchless for swiftness of foot, but living in the forest as a huntress,
and unacceptable to Aphrodite." The redeeming point, and a great
redeeming point it is, is the total absence of anything like
affectation. All the peculiarities are genuine, and everything that is
genuine in composition, though it cannot be admired, may be borne. But
for this we should be compelled to class one of the best of English
books among the very worst of English writings. Mr. Grote must remember
that no man who writes for posterity can afford to neglect the art of
composition. The trimmer bark, though less richly laden, will float
further down the stream of time, and when so many authors of real
ability and learning are competing for every niche in the temple of
fame, the coveted place will certainly be won by style.
It is this deficiency of art which can alone prevent Mr. Grote's history
from completely superseding both the works already existing of the same
magnitude. Neither the spirit of Mitford nor the solid sense of
Thirlwall could long preserve them from eclipse. The light of the former
indeed has long grown dim. He is always blundering, and his blunders are
always on the Tory side. Arnold's good word has kept him a few years
longer on our bookshelves. Dr. Thirlwall has higher qualities, but, not
to mention that he has damaged himself by writing against Mitford
instead of ignoring him, he is terribly dry, and Mr. Grote leaves him
far behind in appreciation of all that belongs to Greece, in loving
industry, in warmth of sympathy, and, well read scholars as they both
are, in deep knowledge of his subject. The cheaper and more compendious
histories of course are not affected. The light and credulous Goldsmith
is still left to contend with the more correct but duller Keightley for
the patronage of ingenuous youth. Perhaps both yield to the meritorious
little work published by the Society for the Diffusion of Useful
Knowledge. But a place, and an honorable place, is still left for any
one who can tell the story of Greece in a succinct and lively form,
availing himself of the light which Mr. Grote has shed upon the subject,
cultivating candor and right sympathies, cutting short the
ante-historical period, bringing strongly out the great states and the
great men, limiting himself to two moderate volumes, and addressing
himself especially to the unlearned and the young.
* * * * *
UNIVERSITY OF NEW YORK.--At a recent meeting of the trustees and
faculty, the Rev. George W. Bethune, D.D., was unanimously elected
Chancellor of the University, in the place of the Hon. Theodore
Frelinghuysen. At the same meeting Mr. G. C. Anthon, formerly of the
College of Louisiana, son of the Rev. Dr. Anthon of this city, was
chosen professor of Greek language and literature.
* * * * *
NINEVEH
By Edwin Atherstone.
Of NINEVEH, the mighty city of old;
The queen of all the nations. At her throne
Kings worshipp'd; and from her their subject crowns,
Humbly obedient, held; and on her state
Submiss attended; nor such servitude
Opprobrious named. From that great eminence
How, like a star, she fell, and passed away;
Such the high matter of my song shall be
The vision comes upon me! To my soul
The days of old return: I breathe the air
Of the young world: I see her giant sons.
Like to a gorgeous pageant in the sky
Of summer's evening, cloud on fiery cloud
Thronging upheaped, before me rise the walls
Of the Titanic city: brazen gates,
Towers, temples, palaces enormous piled;
Imperial NINEVEH, the earthly queen!
In all her golden pomp I see her now;
Her swarming streets; her splendid festivals;
Her sprightly damsels to the timbrel's sound
Airily bounding, and their anklets' chime;
Her lusty sons, like summer morning gay;
Her warriors stern; her rich-robed rulers grave:
I see her halls sunbright at midnight shine;
I hear the music of her banquetings;
I hear the laugh, the whisper, and the sigh.
A sound of stately treading toward me comes;
A silken wafting on the cedar floor:
As from Arabia's flowering groves, an air
Delicious breathes around. Tall, lofty browed,
Pale, and majestically beautiful;
In vesture gorgeous as the clouds of morn;
With slow proud step her glorious dames sweep by
And I look; and lo! before the walls,
Unnumbered hosts in flaming panoply;
Chariots like fire, and thunder-bearing steeds!
I hear the shouts of battle: like the waves
Of a tumultuous sea they roll and dash!
In flame and smoke the imperial city sinks!
Her walls are gone: her palaces are dust:
The desert is around her, and within:
Like shadows have the mighty passed away!
Whence and how came the ruin? By the hand
Of the oppressor were the nations bowed;
They rose against him, and prevailed: for he
The haughty monarch who the earth could rule,
By his own furious passions was o'er-ruled:
With pride his understanding was made dark,
That he the truth knew not; and, by his lusts;
The crushing burthen of his despotism;
And by the fierceness of his wrath, the hearts
Of men he turned from him. So to kings
Be he example, that the tyrannous
And iron rod breaks down at length the hand
That wields it strongest: that by virtue alone
And justice monarchs sway the hearts of men:
For there hath God implanted love of these,
And hatred of oppression; which, unseen
And noiseless though it work; yet in the end,
Even like the viewless elements of the storm,
Brooding in silence, will in thunder burst!
So let the nations learn, that not in wealth;
Nor in the grosser pleasures of the sense;
Nor in the glare of conquest; nor the pomp
Of vassal kings, and tributary lands;
Do happiness and lasting power abide:
That virtue unto man best glory is;
His strength and truest wisdom; and that vice,
Though for a season it the heart delight;
Or to worse deeds the bad man do make strong;
Brings misery yet, and terror, and remorse,
And weakness and destruction in the end.
So if the nations learn, then not in vain,
The mighty one hath been; and is no more!
* * * * *
The British Association will meet at Edinburgh, on Wednesday, the 31st
of July, under the presidency of its founder, Sir David Brewster.
* * * * *
A lover gazed on the eyes of his mistress till she blushed. He pressed
her hand to his heart and said--"My looks have planted roses on thy
cheeks; he who sows the seed should reap the harvest."
* * * * *
IF I WERE A VOICE.
If I were a voice, a persuasive voice,
That could travel the wide world through.
I would fly on the beams of the morning light,
And speak to men with a gentle might,
And tell them to be true.
I'd fly, I'd fly, o'er land and sea,
Wherever a human heart might be,
Telling a tale, or singing a song,
In praise of the right--in blame of the wrong.
If I were a voice, a consoling voice,
I'd fly on the wings of air.
The homes of sorrow and guilt I'd seek,
And calm and truthful words I'd speak
To save them from despair.
I'd fly, I'd fly, o'er the crowded town,
And drop, like the happy sunlight, down
Into the hearts of suffering men,
And teach them to rejoice again.
If I were a voice, a convincing voice,
I'd travel with the wind,
And whenever I saw the nations torn
By warfare, jealousy, or scorn,
Or hatred of their kind,
I'd fly, I'd fly, on the thunder crash,
And into their blinded bosoms flash;
And, all their evil thoughts subdued,
I'd teach them Christian brotherhood.
If I were a voice, a pervading voice,
I'd seek the kings of earth;
I'd find them alone on their beds at night,
And whisper words that should guide them right--
Lessons of priceless worth;
I'd fly more swift than the swiftest bird,
And tell them things they never heard--
Truths which the ages for aye repeat--
Unknown to the statesmen at their feet.
If I were a voice, an immortal voice,
I'd speak in the people's ear;
And whenever they shouted "_Liberty_,"
Without deserving to be free,
I'd make their error clear.
I'd fly, I'd fly, on the wings of day,
Rebuking wrong on my world-wide way,
And making all the world rejoice--
If _I_ were a voice--an immortal voice.--_C. Mackay._
From Blackwood's Magazine.
THE GREEN HAND.
BY THE AUTHOR OF "TOM CRINGLE'S LOG."
PART I.
"Come, old ship, give us a yarn!" said the younger forecastle-men to an
old one, on board of an Indiaman then swiftly cleaving the waves of the
western Atlantic before the trade-wind, and outward-bound, with a hearty
crew and a number of passengers. It was the second of the two
dog-watches, and the ship being still in the region of evening
twilights, her men in a good humor, and with leisure, were then usually
disposed, as on this occasion, to make fast their roaming thoughts by
help of a good yarn, when it could be got. There were plenty of
individuals, amongst a crew of forty, calculated by their experience, or
else by their flow of spirits, and fancy, to spin it. Each watch into
which they were divided had its especial story-teller, with whose merits
it twitted the other, and on opportunity of a general _reunion_, they
were pitted against one another like two fighting-cocks, or a couple of
rival novelists in more polished literary society at home. The one was a
grave, solemn old North-Sea whaler with one eye, who professed to look
down with contempt upon all raw head-work, on navigation compared with
seamanship, and fiction against fact. As for himself, he rested all his
fame upon actual experience, and told long dry narratives of old
shipmates, of his voyages and adventures, and sometimes of the most
incredible incidents, with a genuine briny gusto which pleased the
veteran stagers beyond expression. They were full of points of
seamanship--expedients for nice emergencies, tacks, knots, and splices.
He gave the very conversation of his characters, with all the "says he"
and "says I;" and one long recital of the old fellow's turned upon the
question between himself and a newfangled second mate about the right
way to set up back-stays, in which he, the sailor, was proved correct by
the loss of the ship.
The other story-teller, again, was a Wapping man; a lively, impudent
young Cockney, who had the most miraculous faculty of telling lies--not
only palpable lies, but lies absolutely impossible: yet they were so
sublimely told often, and he contrived to lug into them such a quantity
of gorgeous tinsel ornament, as, in his happier efforts, decidedly to
carry the day against his opponent. The London hand had seen _life_ too,
of which, with respect to what is called the world, his competitor was
as ignorant as a child. He had his sentimental vein, accordingly, in
which he took the last love-tale out of some "Penny Story-Teller" or
fashionable novel he had spelled over below, and turned it over into a
parody that would have thrown its unfortunate author into convulsions of
horror, and his critics into shrieks of laughter. The fine language of
lords and ladies, of romantic heroines, or of foreign counts and
bandits, was gravely retailed and gravely listened to by a throng of
admiring jacktars; while the old whaler smoked his pipe sulkily apart,
gave now and then a scornful glance out of his weather-eye, and called
it "all '_high-dic_' and soger's gammon."
On this occasion, however, the group forward did not solicit the
services of either candidate, as they happened to have present among
them a shipmate, who, by general confession, "took the shine" out of
both, although it was rarely they could get hold of him. "Old Jack," the
captain's private steward, was the oldest seaman on board, and having
known the captain when the latter went to sea, had sailed with him
almost ever since he commanded a ship, as well as lived in his house on
shore. He did not now keep his watch, nor take his "trick at the helm,"
except when he chose, and was altogether a privileged sort of a person,
or one of the "idlers." His name was Jacobs, which afforded a pretext
for calling him "Old Jack," with the sailor's fondness for that
Christian cognomen, which it is difficult to account for, unless because
Jonah and St. John were seafaring characters, and the Roman Catholic
holy clerk St. Nicholas was baptized "Davy Jones," with sundry other
reasons good at sea. But Old Jack was, at any rate, the best hand for a
yarn in the Gloucester Indiaman, and had been once or twice called upon
to spin one to the ladies and gentlemen in the cuddy. It was partly
because of his inexhaustible fund of good humor, and partly from that
love of the sea which looked out through all that the old tar had seen
and undergone, and which made him still follow the bowsprit, although
able to live comfortably ashore. In his blue jacket, white canvas
trowsers edged with blue, and glazed hat, coming forward to the galley
to light his pipe, after serving the captain's tea of an evening, Old
Jack looked out over the bulwarks, sniffed the sharp sea-air, and stood
with his shirt-sleeve fluttering as he put his finger in his pipe, the
very embodiment of the scene--the model of a prime old salt who had
ceased to "rough it," but could do so yet if needful.
"Come, old ship!" said the men near the windlass, as soon as Old Jack
came forward, "give us a yarn, will ye?"
"Yarn!" said Jack, smiling, "what yarn, mates? 'Tis a fine night,
though, for that same--the clouds fly high, and she's balling off a good
ten knots sin' eight bells."
"That she is, bo'--so give us a yarn now, like a reg'lar old A 1 as you
are!" said one.
"'Vast there, mate," said a man-o'-wars-man, winking to the
rest,--"you're always a-cargo-puddling, Bill! D'ye think Old Jack
answers to any other hail nor the Queen's? I say, old three-decker in
or'nary, we all wants one o' your close-laid yarns this good night.
Whaling Jim here rubs his down with a thought over much o' the tar, an'
young Joe dips 'em in yallow varnish--so if you says Nay, why, we'll all
save our grog, and get drunk as soon as may be."
"Well, well, mates," said Jack, endeavoring to conceal his flattered,
feelings, "what is it to be, though?"
"Let's see," said the man-o'-war's-man--"aye, give us the Green Hand!"
"Aye, aye, the Green Hand!" exclaimed one and all. This "Green Hand" was
a story Old Jack had already related several times, but always with such
amusing variations, that it seemed on each repetition a new one--the
listeners testifying their satisfaction by growls of rough laughter, and
by the emphatic way in which, during a pause, they squirted their
tobacco-juice on the deck. What gave additional zest to this particular
yarn, too, was the fact of its hero being no less than the captain
himself, who was at this moment on the poop quarter-deck of the ship,
pointing out something to a group of ladies by the round-house--a tall,
handsome-looking man of about forty, with all the mingled gravity and
frank good humor of a sailor in his firm, weather-tinted countenance. To
have the power of secretly contrasting his present condition and manners
with those delineated by Old Jack's episode from the "skipper's"
previous biography, was the _acme_ of comic delight to these rude sons
of Neptune, and the narrator just hit this point.
"Ye see," began he, "tis about six an' twenty years gone since I was an
able seaman before the mast, in a small Indyman they called the Chester
Castle, lying at that time behind the Isle of Dogs, in sight of Grenidge
Hospital. She was full laden, but there was a strong breeze blowing up
that wouldn't let us get under weigh; and, besides, we waited for the
most part of our hands. I had sailed with the same ship two voyages
before; so," says the captain to me one day, "Jacobs, there's a lady over
at Greenwich yonder wants to send her boy to sea in the ship--for a
sickening I s'pose. I am a going up to town myself," says he, "so take
the quarter-boat and two of the boys and go ashore with this letter, and
see the young fool. From what I've heard," says the skipper, "he's a
jackanapes as will give us more trouble than thanks. However, if you
find the lady's bent on it, why, she may send him aboard to-morrow if
she likes. Only we don't carry no young gentlemen; and if he slings his
hammock here, you must lick him into shape. I'll make a sailor of him or
a cabin-boy." "Ay, ay, sir," says I, shoving the letter into my hat; so
in half an hour's time I knocks at the door of the lady's house, rigged
out in my best, and hands over the screed to a fat fellow with red
breeches and yallow swabs on his shoulders, like a captain of marines,
that looked frightened at my hail, for I thou't he'd been deaf by the
long spell he took before he opened the door. In five minutes I heard a
woman's voice ask at the footman if there was a sailor awaiting below.
"Yes, marm," says he; and "show him up," says she. Well, I gives a
scrape with my larboard foot, and a tug to my hair, when I gets to the
door of _such_ a fine room above decks, all full o' tables, an' chairs,
an' sofers, an' piangers, an' them sort o' highflying consarns. There
was a lady all in silks and satins on one of the sofers, dressed out
like a widow, with a pretty little girl as was playing music out of a
large book--and a picter of a man upon the wall, which I at once logged
it down for him she'd parted company from. "Sarvint, ma'am," says I.
"Come in, my good man," says the lady. "You're a sailor?" says
she--asking, like, to be sure if I warn't the cook's mate in dish-guise,
I fancy. "Well, marm," I raps out, "I make bould to say as I hopes I
am!"--an' I catches a sight o' myself in a big looking-glass behind the
lady, as large as our sky-sail,--and, being a young fellow in them days,
thinks I, "Blow me, if Betsy Brown asked me that now, I'd ask her if
_she_ was a _woman_!" "Well," says she, "Captain Steel tells me in this
here letter, he's agoing to take my son." Now," says she, "I'm sore
against it--couldn't you say some'at to turn his mind?" "The best way
for that, yer ladyship," says I, "is to let him go, if it was only the
length of the Nore. The sea'll turn his stomack for him, marm," I says,
"an' then we can send him home by a pilot." "He wanted for to go into
the navy," says the lady again, "but I couldn't think on that for a
moment, on account of this fearful war; an', after all, he'll be safer
in sailing at sea nor in the army or navy--don't you think so, my good
man?" "It's all you knows about it," thinks I; hows'ever, I said there
wasn't a doubt on it. "Is Captain Steel a rash man?" says she. "How so,
marm?" says I, some'at taken aback. "I hope he does not sail at night,
or in storms, like too many of his profession, I'm afeard," says she; "I
hope he always weighs the anchor in such cases, very careful." "Oh, in
course," says I, not knowin', for the life of me, what she meant. I
didn't like to come the rig over the poor lady, seein' her so anxious
like; but it was no use, we was on such different tacks, ye see. "O yes,
marm," I says, "Captain Steel al'ays reefs taups'ls at sight of a squall
brewing to wind'rd; and we're as safe as a church, then, ye know, with a
man at the wheel as knows his duty." "This relieves my mind," the lady
says, "very much; but I couldn't think why she kept sniffing all the
time at her smelling bottle, as she wor agoin to faint. "Don't take it
to heart so, yer ladyship," I says at last; "I'll look after the young
gentleman till he finds his sea-legs." "Thank you," says she; "but, I
beg your pardon, would you be kind enough for to open the winder, and
look out if you see Edward? I think he's in the garding. I feel sich a
smell of pitch and tar!" I hears her say to the girl; and says she to me
again, "Do you see Edward there?--call to him, please." Accordingly, I
couldn't miss sight of three or four young slips alongside, for they
made plenty of noise--one of 'em on top of a water-barrel smoking a
cigar; another singing out inside of it for mercy; and the rest roaring
round about it, like so many Bedlamites. "No wonder the young scamp
wants to go to sea," thinks I, "he's got nothin' arthly to do but
mischief." "Which is the young gentleman, marm?" says I, lookin' back
into the room--"Is it him with the cigar and the red skull-cap?" "Yes,"
says the lady--"call him up, please." "Hallo!" I sings out, and all runs
off but him on the barrel, and "Hallo!" says he. "You're wanted on deck,
sir," I says; and in five minutes in comes my young gemman, as grave as
you please. "Edward," says the mother, "this is one of Captain Steel's
men." "Is he going to take me?" says the young fellow, with his hands in
his pockets. "Well, sir," I says, "'tis a very bad look-out, is the sea,
for them as don't like it. You'll be sorry ten times over you've left
sich a berth as this here afore you're down Channel." The young chap
looks me all over from clue to earing, and says he, "My mother told you
to say that!" "No sir," says I, "I says it on my own hook." "Why did you
go yourself then?" says he. "I couldn't help it," answers I. "Oh," says
the impertinent little devil, "but you're only one of the common
sailors, ain't you?" "Split me, you little beggar?" thinks I, "if I
doesn't show you the odds betwixt a common sailor, as ye call it, and a
lubber of a boy, before long!" But I wasn't goin' to let him take the
jaw out o' me, so I only laughed, an' says I, "Why, I'm captain of the
foretop at sea, any how." "Where's your huniform, then?" says the boy,
lowering his tone a bit. "O," I says, "we doesn't al'ays wear huniform,
ye know, sir. This here's what we call on-dress." "I'm sorry, sir," says
the lady, "I didn't ax you to sit down." "No offence at all, marm," I
says, but I took a couple o' glasses of brandy as was brought in. I saw
'twas no use goin' against the young chap; so, when he asked what he'd
have to do aboard, I told him nothing to speak of, except count the
sails now and then, look over the bows to see how the ship went, and go
aloft with a spy-glass. "Oh," says his mother, at this, "I hope Captain
Steel won't never allow Edward to go up those dangerous ladders! It is
my partic'lar request he should be punished if he does." "Sartainly,
marm, I'll mention it to the captain," I says, "an' no doubt he'll give
them orders as you speak on." "The captain desired me to say the young
gentleman could come aboard as soon as he likes," says I, before goin'
out of the door. "Very well, sir," says the lady, "I shall see the
tailor this same afternoon, and get his clothes, if so be it must." The
last word I said was, putting my head half in again to tell 'em, "There
was no use gettin' any huniforms at present, seein' the ship's
sail-maker could do all as was wanted afterwards, when we got to sea."
Well, two or three days after, the captain sent word to say the ship
would drop down with the morning tide, and Master Collins had better be
aboard by six o'clock. I went ashore with the boat, but the young
gemman's clothes warn't ready yet; so it was made up he was to come
aboard from Gravesend the day after. But his mother and an old lady, a
friend of theirs, would have it they'd go and see his bed-room, and take
a look at the ship. There was a bit of breeze with the tide, and the old
Indiaman bobbed up and down on it in the cold morning; you could hear
the wash of water poppling on to her rudder, with her running gear blown
out in a bend; and Missus Collins thought they'd never get up the dirty
black sides of the vessel, as she called 'em. The other said her husband
had been a captain, an' she laid claim to a snatch of knowledge.
"Sailor," says she to me, as we got under the quarter, "that there tall
mast is the main-bowsprit, ain't it? and that other is the gallant
bowling you call it, don't you?" says she. "No doubt, marm," says I,
winking to the boys not to laugh. "It's all right," I says. Howsoever,
as to the bed-room, the captain showed 'em over the cabin, and put 'em
off by saying the ship was so out of order he couldn't say which rooms
was to be which yet, though they needn't fear Master Ned would get all
comfortable; so ashore the poor woman went, pretty well pleased,
considerin' her heart was against the whole consarn.
Well, the next afternoon, lying off Gravesend, out comes a wherry with
young master. One of the men said there was a midshipman in it.
"Midshipman be blowed!" says I; "did ye ever see a reefer in a wherry,
or sitting out 'o the starn-sheets? It's neither more nor less nor the
greenhorn we've got." "Why don't the bo'sun pipe to man sideropes for
him!" says th' other; "but, my eye, Bob," says he to me; "what a sight
of traps the chap's got in the boat! 'twill be enough to heel the
Chester Castle to the side he berths upon, on an even keel. Do he mean
to have the captain's cabin, I wonder!" Up the side he scrambles, with
the help of a side-ladder, all togged out to the nines in a span-new
blue jacket and anchor buttons, a cap with a gould band, and white ducks
made to fit--as jemmy-jessamy a looking fellow as you'd see of a cruise
along London parks, with the waterman singing out alongside to send down
a tackle for the dunnage, which it took a pair of purchase-blocks to
hoist them out on board. "What's all this?" says the mate, coming
for'ard from the quarter-deck. "'Tis the young gemman's traps, sir," I
says. "What the devil!" says the mate, "d'ye think we've room to stow
all this lumber? Strike it down into the forehold, Jacobs--but get out a
blue shirt or two, and a Scotch cap for the young whelp first, if he
wants to save that smooth toggery of his for his mammy. You're as green
as cabbage, I'm feared, my lad!" says he. By this time the boy was
struck all of a heap, an' didn't know what to say when he saw the boat
pulling for shore, except he wanted to have a sight of his bed-room.
"Jacobs," says the mate, laughing like an old bear, "take him below, and
show him his bed-room, as he calls it!" So down we went to the
half-deck, where the carpenter, bo'sun, and three or four of the
'prentices, had their hammocks slung. There I left him to overhaul his
big donkey of a chest, which his mother had stowed it with clothes
enough for a lord ambassador, but not a blessed thing fit to use--I
wouldn't 'a given my bit of a black box for the whole on it, ten times
over. There was another chockful of gingerbread, pots o' presarves,
pickles, and bottles; and, thinks I, "The old lady didn't know what
_shares_ is at sea, I reckon. 'Twill all be gone for footing, my boy,
before you've seen blue water, or I'm a Dutchman."
In a short time we was up anchor, going down with a fast breeze for the
Nore; and we stood out to sea that night, havin' to join a convoy off
Spithead. My gentleman was turned in all standing, on top o' some sails
below; and next day he was as sick as a greenhorn could be, cleaning out
his land-ballast where he lay, nor I didn't see him till he'd got
better. 'Twas blowing a strong breeze, with light canvas all in aloft,
and a single reef in the tops'ls; but fine enough for the Channel,
except the rain--when what does I see but the "Green Hand" on the
weather quarter-deck, holding on by the belaying-pins, with a yumbrella
over his head. The men for'ard was all in a roar, but none of the
officers was on deck save the third mate, The mate goes up to him, and
looks in his face. "Why," says he, "you confounded long-shore picked-up
son of a green-grocer, what _are_ you after?" an' he takes the article a
slap with his larboard-flipper, as sent it flying to leeward like a puff
of smoke. "Keep off the quarter-deck, you lubber," says he, giving him a
wheel down into the lee-scuppers--"it's well the captain didn't catch
ye!" "Come aft here, some of ye," sings out the third mate again, "to
brace up the main yard; and you, ye lazy beggar, clap on this moment and
pull!" At this the greenhorn takes out a pair o' gloves, shoves his
fingers into 'em, and tails on to the rope behind. "Well, dammit!" says
the mate, "if I ever see the likes o' that! Jacobs, get a tarbucket and
dip his fists in it; larn him what his hands was made for! I never could
bear to see a fellow ashore with his flippers shoed like his feet; but
at sea, confound me, it would make a man green-sick over again!" If
you'd only seen how Master Collins looked when shoved his missy fingers
into the tar, and chucked the gloves o' board! The next moment he ups
fists and made slap at me, when in goes the brush in his mouth; the mate
gives him a kick astarn; the young chap went sprawling down into the
half-deck ladder, where the carpenter had his shavin'-glass rigged to
crop his chin--and there he gets another clip across the jaws from
Chips. "Now," says the mate, "the chap'll be liker a sailor to-morrow.
He's got some spunk in him, though, by the way he let drive at you, my
lad," says he: "that fellow 'll either catch the cat or spoil the
monkey. Look after him, Jacobs, my lad," says the third mate; "he's in
my watch, and the captain wants him to rough it out; so show him the
ropes, and let him taste an end now an' then. Ha! ha! ha!" says he
again, laughing, "'tis the first time I ever see a embreller loosed out
at sea, and but the second I've seen brought aboard even! He's the
greenest hand, sure enough, it's been my luck to come across! But green
they say's nigh to blue, so look out if I don't try to make a sailor of
the young spark!"
Well, for the next three or four days the poor fellow was knocked about
on all hands; he'd got to go aloft to the 'gallant cross-trees, and out
on the yard foot-ropes the next morning, before breakfast; and, coming
down, the men made him fast till he sent down the key of his
bottle-chest to pay his footing. If he closed his eyes a moment in the
watch, slash comes a bucket full o' Channel water over him; the third
mate would keep him two hours on end, larnin' to rig out a sternsail
boom, or grease a royal mast. He led a dog's life of it too, in the
half-deck: last come, in course, has al'ays to go and fill the bread
barge, scrub the planks, an' do all the dirty jobs. Them _owners'
'prentices_, sich as he had for messmates, is always worse to their own
kind by far nor the "_common sailors_," as the long-shore folks calls a
foremast-man. I couldn't help takin' pity on the poor lad, being the
only one as had seen the way of his up-bringing, and I felt a sort of a
charge of him like; so one night I had a quiet spell with him in the
watch, an' as soon as I fell to speak kind-ways, there I seed the water
stand i' the boy's eyes. "It's a good thing," says he, tryin' to gulp it
down--"it's a good thing mother don't see all this!" "Ho, ho," says I,
"my lad, 'tis all but another way of bein' sea-sick! You doesn't get the
land cleared out, and snuff the sea blue breeze nat'ral like, all at
once! Hows'ever, my lad," says I, "take my advice--bring your hammock
an' chest into the fok'sle; swap half your fine clothes for blue shirts
and canvas trowsers; turn-to ready and willing, an' do all that's asked
you--you'll soon find the differ 'twixt the men and a few petty officers
an' 'prentices half out their time. The men 'll soon make a sailor of
you: you'll soon see what a seaman is; you'll larn ten times the
knowledge; an', add to that, you'll not be browbeat and looked jealous
on!"
Well, next night, what does he do but follows what I said, and afore
long most of his troubles was over; nor there wasn't a willin'er nor a
readier hand aboard, and every man was glad to put Ned through anything
he'd got to do. The mates began to take note on him; and though the
'prentices never left off callin' him the Green Hand, before we rounded
the Cape he could take his wheel with the best of them, and clear away a
sternsail out of the top in handsome style. We were out ten months, and
Ned Collins stuck to the fork'sle throughout. When we got up the Thames,
he went ashore to see his mother in a check shirt, and canvas trowsers
made out of an old royal, with a tarpaulin hat I built for him myself.
He would have me to come the next day over to the house for a supper;
so, having took a kindness to the young chap, why, I couldn't say nay.
There I finds him in the midst of a lot o' soft-faced chaps and young
ladies, a spinning the wonderfullest yarns about the sea and the East
Ingees, makin' 'em swallow all sorts of horse-marines' nonsense, about
marmaids, sea-sarpents, and sich like. "Hallo, my hearty!" says he, as
soon as he saw me, "heave a-head here and come to an anchor in this here
blessed chair." "Young ladies," says he, "this is Bob Jacobs, as I told
you kissed a marmaid hisself. He's a wonderful hand, is Bob, for the
fair!" You may fancy how flabbergasted I was at this, though the young
scamp was as cool as you please, and wouldn't ha' needed much to make
him kiss 'em all round; but I was al'ays milk-an'-water along side of
women, if they topped at all above my rating. "Well," thinks I, "my lad,
I wouldn't ha' said five minutes agone there was anything of the green
about ye yet, but I see it will take another voy'ge to wash it all out."
For to my thinkin', mates, 'tis more of a land-lubber to come the rig
over a few poor creatures that never saw blue water, than not to know
the ropes you warn't told. "O Mister Jacobs!" says Missus Collins to me
that night, before I went off, "d'ye think Edward's tired of that ere
horridsome sea yet?" "Well, marm," I says, "I'm afeard not. But I'll
tell ye, marm," says I, "if you want's to make him cut the consarn, the
only thing ye can do is to get him bound apprentice to it. From what
I've seen of him, he's a lad that won't bear aught again his liberty;
an' I do believe, if he thought he couldn't get free, he'd run the next
day!" Well, after that, ye see, I didn't know what more turned up of it;
for I went myself round to Hull, and ships in a timber-craft for the
Baltic, just to see some'at new.
One day, the third voy'ge from that time, on getting the length of
Blackwall, we heared of a strong press from the men-o'-war; and as I'd
got a dreadful dislike to the sarvice, there was a lot of us
marchant-men kept stowed away close in holes an' corners till we could
suit ourselves. At last we got well tired, and a shipmate o' mine and I
wanted to go and see our sweethearts over in the town. So we hired the
slops from a Jew, and makes ourselves out to be a couple o' watermen,
with badges to suit, a carrying off a large parcel and a ticket on it.
In the arternoon we came back again within sight of the Tower, where we
saw the coast was clear, and made a fair wind along Rosemary Lane and
Cable Street. Just then we saw a tall young fellow, in a brown coat, an'
a broad-brim hat, standing in the door of a shop, with a paper under his
arm, on the look out for some one. "Twig the Quaker, Bob!" my shipmate
says to me. As soon as he saw us, out the Quaker steps, and says he to
Bill, in a sleepy sort of a v'ice, "Friend, thou'rt a waterman, I
b'lieve?" "D---- it, yes," says Bill, pretty short like, "that's what we
hails for! D'ye want a boat, master?" "Swear not, friend," says the
broad-brim; "but what I want is this, you see. We have a large vessel,
belonging to our house, to send to Havannah, and willin' to give double
wages, but we can't find any mariners at this present for to navigate.
Now," says he, "I s'pose this onfortunate state o' things is on account
of the sinful war as is goin' on--they're afraid of the risk. Hows'ever,
my friends," says he, "perhaps, as you knows the river, ye could put us
upon a way of engagin' twenty or more bold mariners, as is not afeard of
ventering for good pay?" and with this he looks into his papers; and
says Bill, "Well, sir, I don't know any myself--do you, Bob?" and he
gives me a shove, and says under the rose, "no fear, mate," says Bill,
"he's all over green--don't slip the chance for all hands of us at
Jobson's." "Why, master," I says, "what ud you give them mariners you
speaks on, now?" "Six pounds a month, friend," says he, looking up; "but
we gives tea in place of spirits, and we must have steady men. We can't
wait, neither," says he, "more nor three days, or the vessel won't sail
at all." "My eye!" says Bill, "'twont do to lose, Bob!--stick to him,
that's all." "Well, sir," I says, "I thinks I does have a notion of
some't of the sort. If you sends your papers to Jobson's Tavern
to-night, in the second lane 'twixt Barnaby Street and the Blue Anchor
Road, over the water, why, I'll get ye as many hands to sign as you
wants!" "Thanks, friend," says the young broad-brim, "I will attend to
thine advice,"--so he bids us good day, and stepped into his door again.
"Bill," says I, as he went off, "now I think on it, I can't help a
notion I've seen that chap's face afore!" "Very like," says Bill, "for
the matter o' that 'tis the same with me--them broad-brims is so much of
a piece! But that 'ere fellow don't know nothing of ships, sure enough,
or he wouldn't offer what he did, and the crimps' houses all of a swarm
with hands!"
"Take my word, mate," says I, "it's a paying trip, or he wouldn't do
it--leave a Quaker alone for that! Why, the chap's a parfit youngster,
but I am blessed if he don't look as starched as if he'd sat over a desk
for twenty year!"
Well, strike me lucky, mates all, if the whole affair warn't a complete
trap! Down comes a clerk with the papers, sure enough--but in ten
minutes more the whole blessed lot of us was puckalowed, and hard an'
fast, by a strong press-gang. They put us into a cutter off Redriff
Stairs, an' the next noon all hands was aboard of the Pandora frigate at
Sheerness. The first time of being mustered on deck, says Bill to me,
"Cuss my eyes, Bob, if there isn't the 'farnal Quaker!" I looked, and
sees a midshipman in uniform like the rest, and so it was. "The sly
soft-sauderin' beggar!" says I. "All fair in war, and a press-mate!"
says one o' the frigate's men. All the while I kept looking and looking
at the midshipman; and at last I says to Bill when we got below, giving
a slap to my thigh, "Blessed if it ain't! it's the _Green Hand_
himself!" "Green Hand!" says Bill, sulky enough, "who's the Green Hand?
Blow me Bob, if I don't think we're the green hands ourselves, if that's
what you're upon!" So I told him the story about Ned Collins. "Well,"
says he, "if a fellow was green as China rice, cuss me if the reefers'
mess wouldn't take it all out on him in a dozen watches. The softest
thing I know, as you say, Bob, just now, it's to come the smart hand
when you're a lubber; but to sham green after that style, ye know, why,
'tis a mark or two above either you or I, messmate. So for my part, I
forgives the young scamp, 'cause I ought to ha' known better!"
By the time the frigate got to sea, the story was blown over the whole
maindeck; many a good laugh it gave the different messes; and Bill, the
midshipman, and I, got the name of the "Three Green Hands."
One middle-watch, Mister Ned comes for'ard by the booms to me, and says
he, "Well, Bob Jacobs, you don't bear a grudge, I hope!" "Why," says I,
"Mister Collins, 'twould be mutiny now, I fancy, you bein' my officer!"
so I gave a laugh; but I couldn't help feeling' hurt a little, 'twas so
like a son turnin' against his father, as 'twere. "Why Bob," says he,
"did ye think me so green as not to know a seaman when I saw him? I was
afeared you'd know me that time." "Not I, sir," I answers: "why, if we
hadn't sailed so long in company, I wouldn't know ye now!" so master Ned
gave me to understand it was all for old times he wanted to ship me in
the same craft; but he knew my misliking to the sarvice, though he said
he'd rather ha' lost the whole haul of 'em nor myself. So many a yarn we
had together of a dark night, and for a couple of years we saw no small
service in the Pandora. But if ye'd seen Ned the smartest reefer aboard,
and the best liked by the men, in the fore-taups'l bunt in a gale, or
over the maindeck hatch, with an enemy's frigate to leeward, or on a
spree ashore at Lisbon or Naples, you wouldn't ha' said there was
anything green in his eye, I warrant ye! He was made acting lieutenant
of a prize he cut out near Chairboorg, before he passed examination; so
he got me for prize bo'sun, and took her into Plymouth. Soon after that
the war was ended, and all hands of the Pandora paid off. Master Ned got
passed with flying colors, and confirmed lieutenant besides, but he had
to wait for a ship. He made me say where I'd be found, and we parted
company for about a year.
Well, I was come home from a short trip, and one day Leftenant Collins
hunts me up at Wapping Docks, where I'd had myself spliced, six years
before, to Betsy Brown, an' was laid up for a spell, havin' seen a good
deal of the sea. Ye must know the young leftenant was fell deep in love
with a rich Indy Naboob's daughter, which had come over to take her back
to' the East Indgees. The old fellow was hard close-hauled against the
match, notwithstanding of the young folks makin' it all up; so he'd
taken out berths aboard of a large Company's ship, and bought over the
captain on no account to let any king's navy man within the gangways,
nor not a shoulder with a swab upon it, red or blue, beyond the ship's
company. But, above all, the old tyrant wouldn't have a blue-jacket,
from stem to starn, if so be he'd got nothing ado but talk sweet; I
s'pose he fancied his girl was mad after the whole blessed cloth. The
leftenant turns over this here log to me, and, says he, "I'll follow
her to the world's end, if need be, Bob, and cheat the old villain?"
"Quite right too, sir," says I. "Bob," says he, "I'll tell ye what I
wants you to do. Go you and enter for the Seringpatam at Blackwall, if
you're for sea just now; I'm goin' for to s'cure my passage myself, an'
no doubt doorin' the voy'ge something'll turn up to set all square; at
any rate, I'll stand by for a rope to pull!" "Why here's a go!" thinks I
to myself: "is Ned Collins got so green again, spite of all that's come
an' gone, for to think the waves is agoin' to work wonders, or ould
Neptune under the line's to play the parson and splice all!" "Well,
sir," I says, "but don't you think the skipper will smoke your
weather-roll, sir, at sea, as you did Bill Pikes an' me, you know, sir?"
says I. "Oh, Bob, my lad," says the leftenant, "leave you that to me.
The fellow most onlikest to a sailor on the Indyman's poop will be me,
and that's the way you'll know me!"
Well, I did ship with the Seringpatam for Bombay. Plenty of passengers
she had, but only clerks, naboobs, old half-pay fellows, and ladies, not
to speak o' children and nurses, black and white. She sailed without my
seein' Leftenant Collins, so I thought I was to hear no more on it. When
the passengers began to muster on the poop, by the time we got out o'
Channel, I takes a look over the ladies, in coilin' up the ropes aft, or
at the wheel. I knowed the said girl at once by her good looks, and the
old fellow by his grumpy-yallow frontispiece. All on a sudden I takes
note of a figger coming up from the cuddy, which I made out at once for
my Master Ned, spite of his wig and a pair o' high-heeled boots, as gave
him the walk of a chap treading amongst eggs. When I hears him lisp out
to the skipper at the round-house if there was any fear of wind, 'twas
all I could do to keep the juice in my cheek. Away he goes up to
windward, holding on by everything, to look over the bulwarks behind his
sweetheart, givin' me a glance over his shoulder. At night I see the two
hold a sort of a collogue abaft the wheel, when I was on my trick at the
helm. After a while there was a row got up amongst the passengers, with
the old naboob and the skipper, to find out who it was that kept a
singing every still night in the first watch, alongside of the ladies'
cabin, under the poop. It couldn't be cleared up, hows'ever, who it was.
All sorts o' places they said it comed from--mizen-chains,
quarter-galleries, lower-deck ports, and davit-boats. But what put the
old hunks most in a rage was, the songs was every one on 'em such as
"Rule Britannia," "Bay of Biscay," "Britannia's Bulwarks," and "All in
the Downs." The captain was all at sea about it, and none of the men
would say anything, for by all accounts 'twas the best pipe at a
sea-song as was to be heard. For my part, I knowed pretty well what was
afloat. One night a man comed for'ard from the wheel, after steering his
dog-watch out, and "Well I'm blessed, mates," says he on the fok'sle,
"but that chap aft yonder with the lady--he's about the greenest hand
I've chanced to come across! What d'ye think I hears him say to old
Yallowchops an hour agone?" "What was it, mate?" I says. Says he, "'Do
ye know, Sar Chawls, is the hoshun reely green at the line--_green_ ye
know, Sar Chawls, _reely_ green?' 'No, sir,' says the old naboob, ''tis
blue.' 'Whoy, ye don't sa--ay so!' says the young chap, pullin' a long
face." "Why, Jim," another hand drops in, "that's the very chap as sings
them first-rate sea-songs of a night! I seed him myself come out o' the
mizen-chains!" "Hallo!" says another at this, "then there's some'at
queer i' the wind!" I _thought_ he gave rather a weather-look aloft,
comin' on deck i' the morning! I'll bet a week's grog the chap's
desarted from the king's flag, mates! Well, ye know, hereupon I
couldn't do no less nor shove in my oar, so I takes word from all hands
not to blow the gaff,[A] an' then gives 'em the whole yarn to the very
day, about the Green Hand--for somehow or another, I was always a
yarning sort of a customer. As soon as they heard it was a love consarn,
not a man but swore to keep a stopper on his jaw; only, at findin' out
he was a leftenant in the Royal Navy, all hands was for touching hats
when they went past.
[Footnote A: Let out the secret.]
Hows'ever, things went on till we'd crossed the line a good while; the
leftenant was making his way with the girl at every chance. But as for
the old fellow, I didn't see he was a fathom the nearer with _him_;
though, as the naboob had never clapt eyes on him to know him like,
'twain't much matter before heaving in sight o' port. The captain of the
Indyman was a rum old-fashioned codger, all for plain sailing and old
ways--I shouldn't say overmuch of a smart seaman. He read the sarvice
every Sunday, rigged the church an' all that, if it was anything short
of a reef-taups'l breeze. 'Twas queer enough, ye may think, to hear the
old boy drawling out, "As 'twas in the beginning,"--then, in the one
key, "Haul aft the mainsheet,"--"is now and ever shall be,"--"Small pull
with the weather-brace,"--"Amen,"--"Well the mainyard,"--"The Lord be
with you,--Taups'l yard well!" As for the first orficer, he was a
dandy, know-nothing young blade, as wanted to show off before the
ladies; and the second was afraid to call the nose on his face his own,
except in his watch; the third was a good seaman, but ye may fancy the
craft stood often a poor chance of being well handled.
'Twas one arternoon watch, off the west coast of Africay, as hot a day
as I mind on, we lost the breeze with a swell, and just as it got down
smooth, land was made out, low upon the starboard bow, to the
south-east. The captain was turned in sick below, and the first orficer
on deck. I was at the wheel, and I hears him say to the second how the
land-breeze would come off at night. A little after, up comes Leftenant
Collins, in his black wig and his 'long-shore hat, an' begins to squint
over the starn to nor'west'ard, "Jacobs, my lad," whispers he to me,
"how d'ye like the looks o' things?" "Not overmuch, sir," says I; "small
enough sea-room for the sky there!" Up goes he to the first officer,
after a bit. "Sir," says he, "do ye notice how we've risen the land
within the last hour and a half?" "No, sir," says the first mate; "what
d'ye mean?" "Why, there's a current here, takin' us inside the point,"
says he. "Sir," says the Company's man, "if I didn't know what's what,
d'ye think I'd larn it off a gentleman as is so confounded green?
There's nothing of the sort," he says. "Look on the starboard quarter
then," says the leftenant, "at the man-o'-war bird afloat yonder with
its wings spread. Take three minutes' look," says he. Well, the mate did
take a minute or two's look through the mizen-shroud, and pretty blue he
got, for the bird came abreast of the ship by that time. "Now," says the
leftenant, "d'ye think ye'd weather that there point two hours after
this, if a gale come on from the nor'west, sir?" "Well," says the first
mate, "I daresay we shouldn't--but what o' that?" "Why, if you'd cruised
for six months off the coast of Africa, as I've done," says the
leftenant, "you'd think there was something ticklish about that white
spot in the sky to nor'west! But on top o' that, the weather-glass is
fell a good bit since four bells." "Weather-glass!" the mate says, "why,
that don't matter much in respect of a gale, I fancy." Ye must
understand, weather-glasses wan't come so much in fashion at that time,
except in the royal navy. "Sir," says the mate again, "mind _your_
business, if you've got any, and I'll mind mine!" "If I was you," the
leftenant says, "I'd call the captain." "Thank ye," says the mate--"call
the captain for nothing!" Well, in an hour more the land was quite plain
on the starboard bow, and the mate comes aft again to Leftenant Collins.
The clouds was beginning to grow out of the clear sky astarn too. "Why,
sir," says the mate, "I'd no notion you was a _seaman_ at all! What
would you do yourself now, supposin' the case you put a little ago?"
"Well, sir," says Mr. Collins, "if you'll do it, I'll tell ye at once."
At this point of old Jack's story, however, a cabin-boy came from aft,
to say that the captain wanted him. The old seaman knocked the ashes out
of his pipe, which he had smoked at intervals in short puffs, put it in
his jacket-pocket, and got off the windlass end. "Why, old ship!" said
the man-o'-war's-man, "are ye goin' to leave us in the lurch with a
_short yarn_?" "Can't help it, bo'," said Old Jack; "orders must be
obeyed, ye know," and away he went. "Well, mates," said one, "what was
the up-shot of it, if the yarn's been overhauled already? I didn't hear
it myself." "Blessed if I know," said several--"Old Jack didn't get the
length last time he's got now." "More luck!" said the man-o-war's-man;
"'tis to be hoped he'll finish it next time!"
From Fraser's Magazine for June.
SOMETHING ABOUT A MURDER.
FOUNDED ON FACT.
A Fair and gentle girl was Barbara Comyn, the only daughter of one of
the strictest and sternest old ministers that ever adhered to Calvin.
Yet Mr. Comyn was thoroughly conscientious in all his views; and when he
frowned, he did it not through love of frowning, but that he hoped, by
gathering a cloud upon his brows, to bring down from those eyes upon
which he frowned such showers of repentance as refresh and make green
the soul sin-withered and sere from the harsh and hot suns of vice. He
was, in truth, a worthy and good man; somewhat narrow of mind and
bigoted of creed, it may be, but utterly incapable of committing an
ungenerous or dishonorable action. Still, greatly as he loved his
winsome daughter, much as he prized her for that dead woman's sake, who,
as long as she lay in his bosom, had brought him comfort, and happiness,
and honor, he was something over-harsh with her, niggardly in the
bestowing of caresses, and liberal in the gift of unnecessary rebuke.
Very severe, then, was his displeasure, when she confessed to him, with
many blushes, that she loved her young Episcopalian kinsman, John
Percival.
The cousins had not been reared together, nor had they even met before
the youth had passed his twenty-fifth, the girl her nineteenth year. But
we are not of the opinion that young people are the more prone to fall
in love with each other for the being educated together in a sort of
family domesticity. Such facts are contended for in fiction, but
realities have convinced us that such things seldom happen; and if we
ever have the fortune to possess children of our own, and wish a son or
daughter to wed a particular individual, we shall take good care, not
only to conceal our intentions from them, but to keep the pair apart
from all brother-and-sister communism, until such time as each heart
begins to have its natural craving for a congenial spirit,--when, in
sooth, it looks for others than brothers and sisters to cling to. It is
a very old, perhaps a very vulgar proverb, that "familiarity breeds
contempt;" and we assuredly think, that the constant fireside
association of young folks, trained up together in bread-and-butter
ease, is more apt to generate calm friendship than warm affection.
But, as we have said, our cousins were brought up asunder; he in
England, of which country his father was an eminent physician lately
deceased, who had bequeathed to his only son his professional ability,
with ample means of commencing his career in a handsome manner. When he
first came to Scotland to visit his mother's sister, he found her a
corpse; and there, in the house of mourning, the consoler of the
motherless Barbara, he learnt to love her with a sincerity of affection
to which she fully responded. Great was his vexation and surprise to
receive a stern denial of his suit from the minister, who, although he
had never testified any degree of partiality for his wife's nephew, had,
nevertheless, evinced no dislike of him. But when respectfully called
upon to assign a reason for so unexpected a rejection, he briefly said,
that "no child of his should with his blessing wed any man who was not a
strict Presbyterian; and that, moreover, he had other views for his
daughter." Nor were the tears of his child, nor the intercession in
their favor of his kindhearted but timid old maiden sister, of any
effect. His obstinacy was not to be subdued, nor his will opposed; and
the unrelenting preacher, who taught humility, love, and concord from
his pulpit, and who could produce not one sensible reason for thwarting
the attachment of two amiable creatures, concluded the scene by flying
into a furious passion, in which he gave John Percival clearly to
understand, that he was no longer an acceptable, or even permitted,
guest.
The young man left the manse immediately, and was not slow in quitting
Scotland; but love, which teaches many things, taught the kinsfolk means
of keeping up, though at rare intervals, an epistolary communion--so
frequently the one sustaining prop of two divided hearts!
A year or more passed, finding them true to each other. Barbara refused
several excellent proposals of marriage, nor did her father persecute
her with expressed wishes for her acceptance of any of them; until, at
length, he introduced to her one Mr. Bruce, a wealthy cloth-merchant
from Glasgow. He was a man of about fifty years of age, of a
well-favored and portly presence, and accounted a sure and somewhat sour
follower of Mr. Comyn's favorite creed. Barbara had frequently heard her
father speak highly of his Glasgow friend, but as no warning had
prepared her, she was very far from dreaming of the character he was
about to perform in her presence; and, indeed, the wooing of the honest
clothier was neither very active nor oppressive--but, alas, for all
that, it was steadfast and resolute.
A wonderful deal of what they deemed "religious discussion" was carried
on betwixt Mr. Bruce and the minister during the visit of the former at
the manse, which, we have omitted to state, (though for certain reasons
we do not intend to give it a name,) was situated out of the town of
Aberdeen, in a retired strath or valley, full of hazels and sloe-bushes,
with the Dee running through them like a huge silver snake. Although
little more than half a mile from Aberdeen, and much nearer the church
of which Mr. Comyn was minister, the manse seemed as lonely and quiet as
if thirty miles lay between it and a busy, populous town. Now, though
Mr. Bruce had hired a sleeping apartment in the cottage of Mr. Comyn's
bell-man, or sexton, which stood hard by the kirk, he spent all his
spare time with his friend at the manse, where his meals were invariably
taken; and in addition to the wonderful amount of polemical palaver we
have hinted at, a wonderful deal of whisky-toddy did the worthy minister
and his guest contrive to swallow in the heat of their arguments. Many a
time and oft did good, innocent Miss Henny Comyn declare, that when the
shake-hands hour arrived, Mr. Bruce, "puir man, seemed to toddle aff to
his cosie beddie at Davy Bain's marvellously fu' o' the spirit!" True it
was; but the ancient virgin guessed not in her guilelessness, that the
spirit was an evil one, and elicited by man and fire from the
unsuspecting barleycorn.
At last, as we have said, Mr. Comyn spoke out his wish--nay, his
commands--that Barbara should prepare to receive Mr. Bruce as a
bridegroom in six months thereafter. And now Mr. Bruce himself, a shy
and dour man at other times, found courage one day, after dinner, to
express his--"love;" so he really called it, and so we suppose must we,
in our extreme ignorance of the precise category of nomenclature to
which the feelings that actuated him belonged. Honest man! bigoted and
selfish as he was, he was neither cruel by nature nor cross-grained; and
he was even moved by the pathetic and frank avowal which Barbara made to
him on the state of her heart. But, though touched by her tears, he
understood them not, treated them but as the natural mawkishness of
girlish sentimentality; nor had her assurance that she could never love
any one but her cousin John, power to dissuade him from the prosecution
of his suit. He was void of all delicacy of feeling, was neither hurt
nor displeased with her confessed partiality for another, but satisfied
himself by quoting, misquoting, and utterly perverting Scripture, and
concluded by assuring her that it was her bounden duty to obey her
father _before_ marriage--her husband _after_. He had no doubt she would
be very happy as his wife, for "he was rich, and a steady Presbyterian!"
And with this declaration, threatening a return in six months to claim
her hand--which he had the audacity to kiss--he left her for his Glasgow
warehouses.
In this dire dilemma the poor lassie knew not what course to pursue. Her
aunt, although kind, indulgent, and pitying her, (for in youth she had
had experience of a blighted affection, and no woman-heart, that is not
naturally sour, passes through such trial without becoming
sweeter)--was bound in complete serfdom to her brother, and was quite
unable to suggest any means or likelihood of release; so Barbara wrote a
full account of her predicament to her lover. Not long afterward, so
cleverly disguised by dress as to deceive even herself, Percival was
again at Aberdeen--determined, should all other methods fail, to carry
off his kinswoman on the very eve of the bridal; and many a twilight
evening, when the minister sat over books or took his after-dinner nap,
did those two young creatures meet, unnoticed and unsuspected, on the
banks of the Dee. But those meetings must soon end, for six months have
passed, and Mr. Bruce--once more lodged in the house of Davy Bain--is
come to wed and take home his reluctant bride.
One evening--it was cloudy and threatened foul weather, though the
summer air was warm and surcharged with flower-scents--John Percival
betook himself as usual to the customary trysting-place. It was a thick
copse of hazel past which ran--heard but not seen--the river; which,
where the shrubbery ended, formed a dark, deep pool, so garnished by
overhanging nut-trees that it had acquired the name of the Nut-hole.
Beyond this pool lay the road to the manse; but as the trees here ceased
to offer concealment, the Nut-tree-hole became the limits to Percival's
attendance on his cousin in her way homeward. The rustic seat in the
centre of the coppice was still unoccupied, and he began to fear that
something had transpired to prevent her from coming. It was no use to
listen for the sounds of her light, advancing footsteps; for the Dee
made so loud and incessant a sough as it tumbled from the steep bank
that helped to form the Nut-hole, that it drowned all lesser sounds.
He was, however, soon made conscious that there were sounds which no
sough of tumbling waters could drown; for, on a sudden, neither remote
nor suppresed, a fierce, a pitiful cry, like that of one in some dread
life-peril, struck upon his ears, succeeded by the breaking asunder of
the boughs of trees, and then a plunge in the water--a heavy plunge,
that made itself heard above the monotonous murmur of the falling flood.
Astonished, almost alarmed, he rose, and was hastening through the
thicket toward the Nut-hole, whence the noise had proceeded, when, as he
was about to cross the track that led from the manse to the main road to
Aberdeen, he beheld flying toward him a dark-mantled figure: he knew it
at once. Her hands stretched toward him, her face ghastly with the
death-white of intense horror, Barbara staggered toward him, and with a
sharp, short gasp, as if she dreaded to give utterance to deep fear by a
louder sound, she fainted at his very feet.
He thought no more of the Nut-hole, or of what might have happened
there, absorbed in his solicitude for his beloved cousin, but his
endeavors to restore her to animation were fruitless. The manse lay not
two hundred yards distant; so at such a juncture, regardless of what the
consequences might be to himself, he bore her in his arms; and not
without some difficulty, for the track was narrow and broken up, and the
night had darkened with falling rain. He reached the house. Fortunately,
there was no one in the parlor but Miss Henny; and the startled maiden,
seeing a stranger bearing the body of her niece, would have screamed,
had he not at once whispered his own name, briefly explained what had
happened, and entreated her to befriend them.
"Gae awa', gae awa', laddie," said she, as she quickly brought some
vinegar from the sideboard and bathed her niece's brow with the
refreshing liquid. "My brither maunna see you; nor, if I can help it,
sall he know acht o' this. Gae awa', Johnny dear; he'll be back, belive.
She's beginning to revive. I'll get her to bed, and tell him she's too
ill to attend prayers. God bless you, my ain dawtie, what's a' this?"
added she, kissing the brow of the girl, whose eyes opened to perceive
the retiring form of her cousin.
If Barbara Comyn revealed to her good aunt the cause of her fright and
consequent illness, it is very certain that Miss Henny kept the secret.
Next morning, indeed, though with a wan face, Barbara appeared at
prayers; and Mr. Comyn had concluded reading a portion of the Gospel,
when a paper, falling out of the Bible, arrested his attention for a
moment. Only for a moment, however; for, mentally supplicating
forgiveness for that involuntary wandering of his thoughts from the act
of worship in which he was engaged, the good man knelt and prayed with
fervor. This sacred duty terminated, they sat down to the
breakfast-table, and then the minister slowly opened the paper, glanced
over it, turned deadly pale, and exclaimed,
"The great and good God be around us! Let not the delusions of Satan
prevail, but keep from us the evil spirits that make us see things that
are not!"
"What is the matter, brither?" cried the wondering Miss Henny, whilst,
as though chained to the table, Barbara neither moved nor spoke.
"Take this, woman," said he, in a tremulous voice, "and read it to me,
that I may be sure the same awful words that meet my sight also meet
yours."
And the astonished Henrietta, taking the paper, read what follows:
Last night, after leaving you, I was stopped by your sexton, my
landlord, David Bain, who led me out of the highroad to the
Nut-hole, under pretence of showing me a large salmon which he had
hooked but could not land. He there felled me to the earth, robbed
me, and flung my body into the river Dee. Pray for the soul of
SIMON BRUCE.
When the awe-struck Henrietta ceased, she found that Barbara had
fainted; and the minister, in a whirl of distracting thoughts to which
he was unaccustomed, ascribing his child's swoon to terror, placed the
ominous paper in the Bible, and determined to make known the whole
mysterious case at once to Mr. Craigie, the chief magistrate of
Aberdeen. Not for a single instant did Mr. Comyn suspect a hoax, or
imagine the affair to be only the mischievous trick of some idler.
Indeed, such was not likely; the times were superstitious, nor were
there any persons connected or at variance with the family who were
liable to be suspected of having played off such a foolish and wicked
jest at the expense of the minister, even if any motive for doing so had
existed. The minister, therefore, hastened up stairs to change his coat,
leaving the Bible containing the document from the dead on the table;
while his sister, finding her niece better, left her to see that her
brother's best hat and gloves were ready.
We wonder what Barbara is about meanwhile.
Presently Mr. Comyn returned to the parlor, and putting the Bible in his
pocket, (for he dared not again look at the horrible piece of writing,)
set off at a quick pace for the town. Nor, as he hurried on, did he give
a passing glance at the track which diverged from the highroad toward
the Nut-tree-hole. The magistrate was at home, and great indeed was his
amazement when he heard the minister's story; but lo! when Mr. Comyn,
reverently taking the Bible from his pocket, opened it to show Mr.
Craigie the note, written as he declared in the peculiar handwriting of
his friend, he found nothing where he had deposited it but a piece of
blank paper, folded up in the same form, but utterly void. And then in
truth the worthy magistrate waxed somewhat wroth; at first accusing Mr.
Comyn of being credulously duped by some pawkie servant who owed him a
grudge, and ending by setting him down as "clean daft, doited, and dazed
by too mickle study," (and in his ire he had very nearly added, "too
much toddy.") But, as in no amicable frame of temper the gentlemen were
about to quarrel downright, the magistrate asking the minister what
proof he could adduce of Mr. Bruce's not being alive and merry, a
seasonable and loud knocking at the street-door interrupted them; and
presently a servant entered to announce that a drowned man had been
found in the Dee, and that his body had been brought to the door!
With shaking limbs the minister followed Mr. Craigie down stairs to the
lobby, now full of people. It appeared that some men employed in the
salmon fisheries had, within the last hour, dragged their nets, in which
they had discovered the corpse of a man whose skull had been literally
smashed in twain by a violent blow.
It was, in fact, the body of Mr. Bruce. Here, indeed, was confirmation
strange of the statement which the mysterious and missing document had
contained; and both Mr. Craigie and the minister, exchanging looks that
expressed their mutual dismay, were sorely perplexed in their own minds
how to account for these singular events. The body was reverently laid
out in the hall, whilst the magistrate, summoning some of his officials,
and accompanied by the clergyman and one or two of the fishermen,
proceeded to the cottage of David Bain.
The bell-man was not at home, having gone, they said, "to Mr. Comyn's,
to inquire about his lodger, Mr. Bruce, who had not come home to his bed
the night before, as was customary."
Strange glances passed between the auditors; but a sign from the
magistrate imposed silence, and they departed, determining to survey the
Nut-hole, near which, in the river, the body had been found in the nets,
after which they had no doubt they would find the sexton at the manse.
As they threaded the thicket of hazel, at some distance from the pool,
one of the salmon-fishers declared, that from a plot of white-thorn and
bramble-bushes he had seen the eyes of a foumart or polecat glare out
upon him; and in a low voice, directing the attention of a comrade to
the spot, they both imagined they could detect the figure of a man
crouching among the trailing shrubs. Whispering their suspicion to Mr.
Craigie, he ordered the whole party to join quietly in a search, and
follow him and the minister to the Nut-hole. Thither, then, the
magistrate, attended only by Mr. Comyn, proceeded; and who, think ye,
found they there?
A young man, handsome and well-dressed, in the undisguised apparel of a
gentleman, stood there, evidently unconscious of the advancing twain. He
held a stout, club-like stick in his hand, which he was examining
intently--for it was covered with blood, now dried, and amidst which
stuck clots of hair! As the gentlemen came suddenly upon him he started,
and dropped the stick; whilst Mr. Comyn, staring at him in wonder, for,
as we have said, all disguise had been discarded, exclaimed--
"John Percival, is this you?"
A question which the young man could have answered in the affirmative
with strict veracity, but for the assertion from the magistrate which
followed it up.
"And you, sir, are the murderer of Mr. Bruce!"
"Good God! what do you mean!" cried the horrified youth.
"That stick, which you have just dropped, is covered with blood," said
Mr. Craigie; "a foul murder has been committed, and we find you with the
supposed instrument of that murder, near the very spot where there is
ground to believe the act was perpetrated."
A fearful pang shot through Percival's frame, but conscious innocence
made it brief, and with a calmness of demeanor which guilt never could
have assumed, and gravely smiling, he turned to his uncle saying--
"_You_ cannot believe that I am guilty?"
"No, no, John!" answered the individual appealed to. "God forbid that I
should judge you wrongfully, but--"
"But," interrupted the magistrate, "not only does it appear that you
have slain a man, but that, desirous of fixing your guilt upon another,
you have written a letter, falsely accusing an innocent person of that
crime."
"Letter!" repeated Percival, "Sir, I do not even know what you mean."
"Mr. Comyn," asked the magistrate, "this young man--the nephew of my
lamented friend, your late wife--paid court, as I understand, to your
daughter, and was by her rejected?"
"By me, sir--by me, Mr. Craigie," answered the clergyman; "the lassie
never rejected him, but _I_ did."
"And the murdered man," slowly pronounced the magistrate, "was the
betrothed husband of Miss Comyn?"
Percival started violently, uttering an ejaculation of horror and
wonder, for at last he saw the inferences which Mr. Craigie seemed
willing to draw from circumstances that certainly looked suspicious.
"As God is my judge, that is the truth," replied the minister, "and I
had forgotten all about it. Oh! John Percival, as you are the nephew of
my beloved Mary, answer me with truth, and say that you are innocent of
this heinous deed!"
"I am indeed innocent, my dear uncle," said the young man; "nor did I
know until this moment who the unfortunate man was, of whose untimely
death I am accused."
"Here he is, gentlemen; we've got him safe and sound!" cried several
voices; and dragging a wild and haggard-faced man, the fishers and
officials of justice approached the trio who stood by the Nut-tree-hole.
"The Lord be our guide!" exclaimed Mr. Comyn, "it is really David Bain!"
and as the wretched sexton struggled to free himself from the arms that
pinioned him, the minister, prompted by a sudden impulse, advancing
toward him, and looking steadily in his face, said--
"David Bain, look not to deny your crime, but confess it, and implore
your Maker's pardon, even at this the eleventh hour. In my Bible, this
morning, I found a paper, written by the spirit of him you murdered here
last night, and charging you with the commission of the deed."
At these strange words, which in our modern times might have produced
mirth, the guilty creature, losing all self-possession, uttered a loud
cry, and pointing to the bloody cudgel which still lay at the
magistrate's feet, exclaimed--
"I did it with that! I did it with that!" and fell back in a fit.
It would be easy to lengthen out our historiette into one of
circumstantial evidence, trial, condemnation, and ultimate discovery;
but we have preferred telling it as it really happened. On the person of
David Bain were found a pocket-book and purse, recognized as the
property of the late Mr. Bruce, and containing bank-notes and bills to a
considerable amount; the sight of which, in the possession of his
lodger, had evoked the cupidity of the bell-man. He made a full
confession, and in due time suffered the penalty due to his offence.
Meanwhile the minister, in the thankfulness of his soul to find his
nephew guiltless, embraced him tenderly, and freely permitted that
courtship to proceed between his daughter and him, which he had before
so strenuously opposed.
One circumstance still remained a mystery, undeveloped to all save
Barbara's aunt, Percival, and the worthy magistrate,--by whose advice,
indeed, it was concealed from the minister; who, to his dying day,
confidently believed that the paper he had found in his Bible had been
placed there by supernatural interposition. But the hand of the dead had
nothing to do with it, as we mean to explain.
On the evening of the murder, Barbara Comyn sallied forth to meet her
cousin, leaving Mr. Bruce and her father discussing punch and polemics.
She was later than usual, and as she sped along, she became aware of the
approach from Aberdeen of an individual, whom she could not avoid
meeting if she proceeded direct to the tryst. She therefore stole into a
different track, thinking to make a circuit which would occupy the time
the stranger might take in passing the copse of hazels; but,
unfortunately (or fortunately, was it?), she met a poor woman, the wife
of a neighboring peasant, who was on her way to the manse to implore
some black currant jelly for a child suffering from sore throat. The
call of distress was never disregarded by Barbara, and she flew back to
the manse, procured the jelly, and giving it to the woman, hastened
amidst falling rain to the trysting-place. As she was about to round the
point which hid the Nut-hole from view, she heard the sounds of
struggling feet and wrestling arms; and, regardless of danger to herself
in her fears for Percival, she forced her way through some bushes, and
beheld two men, in no friendly embrace, staggering on the very verge of
the pool. Before she could look again the one had fallen on the earth;
and the other, with a desperate blow of his stick on the head of the
prostrate man, uttered an oath in a voice whose peculiar tones were
well-known to Barbara, and in the twinkling of an eye shoved the wounded
man over the bank into the Nut-tree hole!
Her blood curdling with horror, Barbara found no voice, no strength, to
speak or stir; but she became, so to speak, all eye; and as the
murderer, swiftly cramming into his hat and pockets something which she
could not define, rose up, and forgetful of the cudgel, which lay
blood-dabbled on the grass, rushed from the place where he had taken the
burden of a deadly sin upon his soul, she saw his face, and recognized
her father's sexton--David Bain.
In terror, that found no tongue, she reached her lover, and became
insensible; nor was it till her recovery, when she found herself alone
with her aunt, that she felt how important to her future life might be
the events of that night. She resolved, ere yet she spoke one word in
reply to the questions of her aunt, to ascribe her swoon to anything but
the real cause; and it was, perhaps, well she so determined, for she
remembered that, in her flight from the fatal spot where she had
witnessed the perpetration of so foul a deed, she had picked up a
letter, which she had hid in her bosom, scarcely conscious of what she
did, yet, perhaps, imperceptibly aware--with the foresight of
inexplicable convictions--that it might yet prove of essential service.
When she retired to her chamber, and had got rid of Aunt Henny, she took
the paper from its concealment, and saw that it was the empty cover of a
letter addressed to "Mr. Bruce, at the house of David Bain, Sexton;" and
then the certainty struck her of the murdered man being her affianced
husband.
The character of David Bain was marked by extreme avarice, and Barbara's
conclusions as to the instigating cause of the crime he had committed
were easily formed. But what means could she pursue in order to convict
guilt, without at the same time rendering her own appearance before a
public court of justice necessary? from which she shrank nervously,
since the cause of her presence in such a spot, and at such an hour,
must of course be revealed. A sudden thought struck her--and, wild as it
was, she put it into instant execution. She knew her father's belief in
supernatural agency, and trusted strongly to the effect such a document
as that which she now prepared would have upon him. She wrote the note
which Mr. Comyn discovered in the Bible, imitating Mr. Bruce's hand,
which was peculiar, as closely as she could; and then, when the minister
left it there--a circumstance which, though she did not foresee,
rejoiced her--she subtracted it thence, uninterrupted and unsuspected.
But when it pleased the Almighty to make manifest the murderer by the
means thus strangely suggested to her, she confessed the whole to the
indulgent Henny and her lover, and by their advice took the magistrate
also into her confidence.
We have nothing more to relate, but that Barbara Comyn and John Percival
were soon after united by the worthy minister; whilst Miss Henny was as
busy as a bee in preparations for the wedding, and as happy in
witnessing the happiness of others as if she had never known a care of
her own.
* * * * *
THIERS has abandoned politics and history for the summer to visit
England.
Miscellanies.
[From Charles Mackay's New Volume of Poems, "Egeria," &c.]
THE GARDEN GATE.
"Stand back, bewildering politics!
I've placed my fences round;
Pass on, with all your party tricks,
Nor tread my holy ground.
Stand back--I'm weary of your talk,
Your squabbles, and your hate:
You cannot enter in this walk--
I've closed my garden gate.
"Stand back, ye thoughts of trade and pelf!
I have a refuge here;
I wish to commune with myself--
My mind is out of gear.
These bowers are sacred to the page
Of philosophic lore;
Within these bounds no envies rage--
I've shut my garden door.
"Stand back, Frivolity and Show.
It is a day of Spring;
I want to see my roses blow,
And hear the blackbird sing.
I wish to prune my apple-trees,
And nail my peaches straight;
Keep to the causeway, if you please--
I've shut my garden gate.
"I have no room for such as you,
My house is somewhat small:
Let Love come here, and Friendships true
I'll give them welcome all;
They will not scorn my household stuff,
Or criticize my store.
Pass on--the world is wide enough--
I've shut my garden door.
"Stand back, ye Pomps! and let me wear
The liberty I feel.
I have a coat at elbows bare--
I love its _dishabille_.
Within these precincts let me rove,
With Nature, free from state;
There is no tinsel in the grove--
I've shut my garden gate.
"What boots continual glare and strife?
I cannot always climb;
I would not struggle all my life--
I need a breathing time.
Pass on--I've sanctified these grounds
To friendship, love, and lore:
Ye cannot come within the bounds--
I've shut the garden door."
* * * * *
POETICAL COMPOSITION.--If metre and melody be worth anything at all, let
them be polished to perfection; let an author "keep his piece nine
years," or ninety and nine, till he has made it as musical as he can--at
least, as musical as his other performances. Not that we counsel
dilatory and piecemeal composition. The thought must be struck off in
the passion of the moment; the sword-blade must go red-hot to the anvil,
and be forged in a few seconds: true; but after the forging, long and
weary polishing and grinding must follow, before your sword-blade will
cut. And melody is what makes poetry cut; what gives it its life, its
power, its magic influence, on the hearts of men. It must ring in their
ears; it must have music in itself; it must appeal to the senses as well
as to the feelings, the imagination, the intellect: then, when it seizes
at once on the whole man, on body, soul, and spirit, will it "swell in
the heart, and kindle in the eyes," and constrain him, he knows not why,
to believe and to obey.--_Fraser, for June._
* * * * *
POETRY OF THE LAST AGE AND THE PRESENT.--A writer in the last number of
_Fraser's Magazine_ says well that, "there is in periodicals and
elsewhere, a vast amount of really poetic imagery, of true and tender
feeling, and cultivated ingenuity, scattered up and down in the form of
verse. We have no new great poets, but very many small ones--layers, as
it were, and seedlings from the lofty geniuses of the last generation,
showing in every line the influence of Scott, Shelley, Burns,
Wordsworth, and their compeers, seeing often farther than their masters
saw, but dwarfs on giants' shoulders. Not that we complain of this.
Elizabethan ages must be followed by Caroline ones; and our second
Elizabethan galaxy is past; Tennyson alone survives, in solitary
greatness, a connecting link between the poetry of the past and that of
the future. In poetry, and in many other things, ours is a Caroline age;
greater than the first one, as every modern cycle in a God-taught world,
will be nobler, richer, wiser than its ancient analogue; but still a
merely Caroline age--an age of pedantries and imbecilities, of effete
rulers, side by side with great nether powers, as yet unaccredited,
anarchic, unconscious of their own laws and destinies--an age of
formalisms and Pharisaisms, of parties embittered by the sense of their
own decrepitude--an age of small men, destined to be the fathers of
great ones. And in harmony with this, we have a poetic school of
Herberts and Vaughans, Withers and Daniels, to be followed hereafter, it
may be, by a Milton, of whom as yet the age has given no sign."
* * * * *
DEATH-BED SUPERSTITIONS.--The practice of opening doors and boxes when a
person dies is founded on the idea that the minister of purgatorial
pains took the soul as it escaped from the body, and flattening it
against some closed door, (which alone would serve the purpose,) crammed
it into the hinges and hinge openings; thus the soul in torment was
likely to be miserably pinched and squeezed by the movement on casual
occasion of such door or lid. An open or swinging door frustrated this,
and the fiends had to try some other locality. The friends of the
departed were at least assured that they were not made the unconscious
instruments of torturing the departed in their daily occupations. The
superstition prevails in the north as well as in the west of England;
and a similar one exists in the south of Spain, where I have seen it
practiced. Among the Jews at Gibraltar there is also a strange custom
when a death occurs in a house; and this consists in pouring away all
the water contained in any vessel, the superstition being that the angel
of death may have washed his sword therein.
* * * * *
Old authors notice the training of camels to move in measured time by
placing the animal on gradually heated plates, and at the same time
sounding a musical instrument.
* * * * *
AN ARAB GAME.--The Arabs are far more amusable, far more jovial and
open-hearted. They have their coffee-houses every night, and their
religious festivities periodically; they play at all sorts of
complicated games, resembling draughts and chess, and find means
ingeniously to vary their sports. If they compromise their dignity, they
succeed in whiling away their leisure time far more successfully than
the pride-stuffed Levantine. One of their amusements--called the game of
plaff--is worth mentioning, especially as it is not only indulged in by
the vulgar, but formed the chief delight of the venerable Moharrem Bey
himself. Two men, often with respectable gray beards, sit on a carpet at
a little distance one from the other. All Easterns are usually dry
smokers; but on this occasion they manage to foment a plentiful supply
of saliva, and the game simply consists in a series of attempts on the
part of the two opponents to spit on the tips of each others noses. At
first, this cleanly interchange of saliva goes on slowly and
deliberately--Socrates never measured the leap of a flea with more
seriousness--but presently one receives a dab in the eye, another in the
mouth. They begin to grow hot and angry. "I hit your nose," cries one.
"No, it was my cheek!" replied the other. They draw a little nearer, in
order to ascertain the truth by feeling; spit, spit, they still go, like
two vicious old cats; their palates grow dry; their throats become
parched; but the contest continues, and they exhaust themselves in
making spittoons of each other's faces and beards. Hamlet and Laertes
were not more eager and desperate. "A hit, a very palpable hit!" they
exclaim, as they hawk up their last supply of ammunition. Each denies
the truth; they mutually proceed to a verification, and the game of
plaff often ends in a regular match of nose-pulling.--_Two Years'
Residence in a Levantine Family._
* * * * *
A MARRIAGE IN AMERICA.--A respectable farmer came in from some distance,
and married the cook. The bridegroom was about fifty, and the bride was
thirty years of age. The landlord and many of his boarders assisted at
the ceremony, which was performed in the evening, and those of the
boarders who had not been present were invited in afterward by the
bridegroom to partake of wine and cake. After all were charged, he gave
this sentiment, "Friendship to all, love to a few, and hatred to none."
So systematically were matters managed, that next morning the bridegroom
was sitting in the stove at the bar at seven o'clock, and at half-past
seven breakfasted as usual at the public table, at which, of course, his
wife, the cook, did not appear, and in the afternoon the happy pair left
for their home. When I asked the landlord what the wife was like, he
answered, "She is as pretty as a picture, and straight as a
candle."--_Sir J. Alexander's "Acadie," just published._
* * * * *
ARABIAN NIGHTS ENTERTAINMENTS IN OUR OWN TIME.--The Arabs, who have
among them most imaginative and finished _improvisatori_, compare the
elegant movements of a beautiful bride to those of a young camel. The
_Thousand and One Nights_, like most clever fables, have some foundation
in fact, as is well known to the friends of the Arabian man of rank, who
keeps his professed story-teller as an indispensable part of his
establishment. African travelers relate that these friends will assemble
before his tent, or on the platform with which the house of a Moorish
Arab is roofed, and there listen night after night, to a consecutive
history, related for sixty or even one hundred nights in succession. The
listeners on such occasions have all the air of being spell-bound,
especially while hearing some of their native songs, which are
frequently extemporized, full of fire, and appealing with irresistible
force to the passions. "I have seen," says Major Denham, "a circle of
Arabs straining their eyes with a fixed attention at one moment and
bursting with loud laughter; at the next melting into tears and clasping
their hands in all the ecstacy of grief and sympathy."--_Leaves from the
Diary of a Naturalist._
* * * * *
THE LAST YEAR'S LEAF.
The last year's leaf, its time is brief
Upon the beechen spray;
The green bud springs, the young bird sings
Old leaf, make room for May:
Begone, fly away,
Make room for May.
Oh, green bud smile on me awhile,
Oh, young bird, let my stay--
What joy have we, old leaf, in thee?
Make room, make room for May:
Begone, fly away,
Make room for May.--_Philip Taylor_.
* * * * *
DIVINATION BY THE BIBLE AND KEY.--This superstition is very prevalent
amongst the peasantry of this and adjoining parishes. When any article
is suspected to have been stolen, a Bible is procured; and opened at the
1st chapter of Ruth; the stock of a street door key is then laid on the
16th verse of the above chapter, the handle protruding from the edge of
the Bible; and the key is secured in this position by a string, bound
tightly round the book. The person who works the charm then places his
two middle fingers under the handle of the key, and this keeps the Bible
suspended. He then repeats in succession the names of the parties
suspected of theft; repeating at each name a portion of the verse on
which the key is placed, commencing, "Whither thou goest, I will go,"
&c. When the name of the guilty party is pronounced, the key turns off
the fingers, the Bible falls to the ground, and the guilt of the party
is determined. The belief of some of the more ignorant of the lower
orders in this charm is unbounded. I have seen it practiced in other
counties, the key being laid over the 5th verse of the 19th chapter of
Proverbs, instead of the 1st chapter of Ruth.--Godalming, April,
1850.--_Notes and Queries._
* * * * *
SIR THOMAS MORE'S HOUSEHOLD.--The conduct of this great man's house was
a model to all, and as near an approach to his own Utopia as might well
be. Erasmus says, "I should rather call his house a school or university
of Christian religion, for there is none therein but readeth or studieth
the liberal sciences; their special care is piety and virtue; there is
no quarreling or intemperate words heard; none are seen idle; which
household that worthy gentleman doth not govern, but with all courteous
benevolence." The servant men abode on one side of the house, the women
on the other, and met at prayer time or on Church festivals, when More
would read and expound to them. He suffered no cards or dice, but gave
each one his garden-plot for relaxation, or set them to sing or "play
music." He had an affection for all who truly served him, and his
daughters' nurse is as affectionately mentioned in his letters when from
home as they are themselves. "Thomas More sendeth greeting to his most
dear daughters Margaret, Elizabeth and Cecily; and to Margaret Giggs as
dear to him as if she were his own," are his words in one letter; and
his valued and trustworthy domestics appear in the family pictures of
the family by Holbein. They requited his attachment by truest fidelity
and love; and his daughter Margaret, in her last passionate interview
with her father on his way to the Tower, was succeeded by Margaret Giggs
and a maid-servant, who embraced and kissed their condemned master, "of
whom he said after, it was homely but very lovingly done." Of these and
other of his servants, Erasmus remarks, "after Sir Thomas More's death,
none ever was touched with the least suspicion of any evil fame."--_Mrs.
Hall, in the Art Journal._
* * * * *
THE "PASSION PLAY" IN BAVARIA.--This year, the foreign journals state,
is the year of the passion play of the Ammergau in Bavaria. The last
representation took place in the month of July; the spectators were
betwixt eight and nine thousand, collected in an open air theatre; the
corps of actors, three hundred and fifty in number, some of them, says a
French account, men and women as old as eighty years.
The play, which was written in 1633, and which had been recently
retouched, is in twelve acts and eleven _entr'acts_ interspersed with
_tableaux_. The representation lasted from eight o'clock in the morning,
till four in the afternoon, was most elaborately prepared, and perfectly
executed. At its close, the actors fell on their knees and recited
prayers in which they thanked God that their performance had succeeded
so well. They were of the peasant class, and almost all belonged to the
Ammergau. "This same Ammer-valley," says the _Athenæum_, "lies in a most
picturesque country, betwixt Munich and Innspruck--on the road by the
Lake of Staremberg and Partenkirch."
* * * * *
AMBASSADORS.--Holland, Germany, France, America, Spain, send forth their
eminent lawyers, historians, merchants, jurists, and publicists, to fill
embassies and conduct negotiations; while we content ourselves with
recruiting our diplomatic corps from the younger branches of the
aristocracy, or from the sons of men of wealth apeing the manners and
travestying the mode of life of the grand seigneurs, who conceive
themselves made of "the porcelain of earth's clay." The
Schimmelpennicks, the De Serres, the Rushes, the Wheatons, the Clays,
the Adamses, the Jeffersons, the Rufus Kings, the Daniel Websters, the
Dr. Bankses, have all been lawyers; the Washington Irvings, the
Bancrofts, the Guizots, the Bunsens, the Niebuhrs, the Humboldts, the
Ancillons, were men of letters before and during the period they
continued ambassadors.--_Fraser._
* * * * *
M. GUIZOT has been compelled to sell at auction a portion of his
valuable and extensive library, and a London paper describes some of the
more remarkable books, and states the prices for which they were sold.
"Comte Auguste de Bastard, Peintures et Ornemens des Manuscrits Français
depuis le huitième siècle jusqu'à la fin du seizième," 20 parts, all at
present published, in five portfolios, Paris, 1835. This splendid work
was described as the most sumptuous, unique, and costly book that has
ever been produced. Each part contains eight plates, copied from the
most superb examples known to exist; they are colored and finished with
gold and silver equal to the exquisite originals; the whole series
extends to 160 engravings in 20 _livraisons_, each of which was sold to
subscribers only at 1800f., amounting in the whole to 36,000f., or in
our money to 1,500_l._ No perfect copy of this production has been
offered for sale in this country prior to the present time; it was sold
for 200_l._ "Voyage de la Corvette l'Astrolabe pendant les Années, 1826,
1827, 1828, 1829, sous le Commandement de Capitaine d'Urville,"
containing copious descriptions of all the objects in science and
history met with on the voyage, the whole being illustrated by splendid
engravings, 30_l._; "Voyage Pittoresque et Romantique en Bretagne," one
of the most magnificent and extensive works ever published on the
scenery and antiquities of any part of the world; the illustrations to
this were executed in the most superb style of lithography; the stones
were broken as soon as the plates were printed; 26_l._ 5_s._
* * * * *
SIR STRATFORD CANNING.--This eminent civilian and ambassador, whose
former residence in this country is remembered with so much pleasure by
his friends here, is thus referred to in a series of papers on the
Diplomacy, Diplomatists, and Diplomatic Servants of England, now in
course of publication in _Fraser's Magazine_: "He who has been
forty-three years in the public service, who commenced his duties as
precis-writer in the Foreign Office in July 1807, and who, having served
as Secretary of Embassy to the Porte, as Envoy to the Swiss
Confederation, as Minister to the United States, as Plenipotentiary on a
special mission to Russia, as Plenipotentiary on a special mission to
Spain, and as Ambassador three times near the Sublime Porte, is now
serving with credit and advantage in that very Stamboul whose towers and
minarets he first saw in 1808."
* * * * *
THE SEVEN-MILE TUNNEL THROUGH THE ALPS.--Dr. Granville says: "To give at
once some idea of the boldness of Chev. Mons' undertaking, we may, in
the first place, state that in its progress the tunnel must pass under
some of the most elevated crests of Mont Cenis,--one, in particular,
where there will be 4,850 feet of mountain, capped with eternal
glaciers, over head, at the middle of the tunnel, so that not only will
the workmen and machinery in construction, and the passengers and trains
in transit, be buried to that depth in the heart of the mountain, but
all idea of shafts, either to facilitate excavation, or to promote
ventilation, must be out of the question. The breath of life itself must
be respired, from either extremity, with artificial aid, in shape of
currents of fresh air transmitted, and of foul air withdrawn, by
mechanical apparatus ever at work, at least during excavation, which is
also itself to be effected by machinery of a new and simple nature,
worked by water-power of mountain streams whereby the trains are also to
be run through the tunnel, which ascends, from the northern or Savoy
side, at Modane, all the way to its exit at Bardonneche, with a gradient
equal to 19 in 1000. The machine, once presented to the rock, projects
into it simultaneously four horizontal series of sixteen scalpels,
working backward and forward, by means of springs cased in, and put in
motion by the same water power. While these are at work, one vertical
series on each side works simultaneously up and down, so that together
they cut out four blocks, or rather insulate four blocks on all sides,
except on the rock behind, from which they are afterward detached by
hand. It has been already ascertained that each of the two machines, at
the opposite ends of the tunnel, will excavate to the extent of 22 feet
a day, and it is estimated that the whole excavation will be completed
in four years. The gallery to be perforated by the machines will be 13
feet wide by 7 feet high, and this once cut through, the bore will be
enlarged by ordinary means to 25 feet in width and 19 feet in height,
and a double line of rails laid. The estimated cost of this great tunnel
is only 13,804,942f. It is to be immediately commenced at the north
entrance."
* * * * *
Medicine has killed as many people as war. Powder and pills are as fatal
as powder and ball. Be careful, therefore, how you allow people to shoot
them into you.
*** End of this LibraryBlog Digital Book "The International Monthly Magazine, Volume 1, No. 1, August 1850 - of Literature, Science and Art." ***
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