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Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine — Volume 53, No. 331, May, 1843

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Title: Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine — Volume 53, No. 331, May, 1843

Author: Various


        
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*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK BLACKWOOD'S EDINBURGH MAGAZINE — VOLUME 53, NO. 331, MAY, 1843 ***

BLACKWOOD'S EDINBURGH MAGAZINE


NO. CCCXXXI. MAY, 1843. VOL. LIII.




CONTENTS.


    DUMAS IN ITALY
    AMMALÁT BEK. A TRUE TALE OF THE CAUCASUS FROM THE
      RUSSIAN OF MARLÍNSKI.--CHAPTER VI.
    REYNOLD'S DISCOURSES. CONCLUSION
    LEAP-YEAR. A TALE
    THE BATTLE OF THE BLOCKS. THE PAVING QUESTION
    POEMS AND BALLADS OF SCHILLER.--No. VIII.
    NATURAL HISTORY OF SALMON AND SEA-TROUT
    CALEB STUKELY. PART THE LAST
    COMMERCIAL POLICY. SPAIN




DUMAS IN ITALY.

    [_Souvenirs de Voyage en Italie, par_ ALEXANDRE DUMAS. 5 vols. duod.]


France has lately sent forth her poets in great force, to travel, and to
write travels. Delamartine, Victor Hugo, Alexandre Dumas, and others,
have been forth in the high-ways and the high-seas, observing,
portraying, poetizing, romancing. The last-mentioned of these, M. Dumas,
a dramatist very ingenious in the construction of plots, and one who
tells a story admirably, has travelled quite in character. There is a
dramatic air thrown over all his proceedings, things happen as pat as if
they had been rehearsed, and he blends the novelist and tourist together
after a very bold and original fashion. It is a new method of writing
travels that he has hit upon, and we recommend it to the notice of our
countrymen or countrywomen, who start from home with the fixed idea,
happen what may, of inditing a book. He does not depend altogether upon
the incidents of the road, or the raptures of sight-seeing, or any odd
fantasy that buildings or scenery may be kind enough to suggest: he
provides himself with full half of his materials before he starts, in
the shape of historical anecdote and romantic story, which he
distributes as he goes along. A better plan for an amusing book could
not be devised. Your mere tourist, it must be confessed, however
frivolous he submits for our entertainment to become, grows heavy on our
hands; that rapid and incessant change of scene which is kindly meant to
enliven our spirits, becomes itself wearisome, and we long for some
resting-place, even though it should be obtained by that most
illegitimate method of closing the volume. On the other hand, a teller
of tales has always felt the want of some enduring thread--though, as
some one says in a like emergency, it be only _packthread_--on which his
tales may be strung--something to fill up the pauses, and prevent the
utter solution of continuity between tale and tale--something that gives
the narrator a reasonable plea for _going on again_, and makes the
telling another story an indispensable duty upon his part, and the
listening to it a corresponding obligation upon ours; and ever since the
time when that young lady of unpronounceable and unrememberable name
told the One Thousand and One Tales, telling a fragment every morning to
keep her head upon her shoulders, there has been devised many a strange
expedient for this purpose. Now, M. Dumas has contrived, by uniting the
two characters of tourist and novelist, to make them act as reliefs to
each other. Whilst he shares with other travellers the daily adventures
of the road--the journey, the sight, and the dinner--he is not compelled
to be always moving; he can pause when he pleases, and, like the
_fableur_ of olden times, sitting down in the market-place, in the
public square, at the corner of some column or statue, he narrates his
history or his romance. Then, the story told, up starts the busy and
provident tourist; lo! the _voiture_ is waiting for him at the hotel; in
he leaps, and we with him, and off we rattle through other scenes, and
to other cities. He has a track _in space_ to which he is bound; we
recognize the necessity that he should proceed thereon; but he can
diverge at pleasure through all _time_, bear us off into what age he
pleases, make us utterly oblivious of the present, and lap us in the
Elysium of a good story.

With a book written palpably for the sole and most amiable purpose of
amusement, and succeeding in this purpose, how should we deal? How but
receive it with a passive acquiescence equally amiable, content solely
to be amused, and giving all severer criticism--to him who to his other
merits may add, if he pleases, that of being the first critic. Most
especially let us not be carping and questioning as to the how far, or
what precisely, we are to set down for _true_. It is all true--it is all
fiction; the artist cannot choose but see things in an artistical form;
what ought not to be there drops from his field of vision. We are not
poring through a microscope, or through a telescope, to discover new
truths; we are looking at the old landscape through coloured glasses,
blue, or black, or roseate, as the occasion may require. And here let us
note a favourable contrast between our dramatic tourist, bold in
conception, free in execution, and those compatriots of our own, authors
and authoresses, who write travels merely because they are artists in
ink, yet without any adequate notion of the duties and privileges of
such an artist.

When a writer has got a name, the first rational use to make of the
charming possession is to get astride of it, as a witch upon her
broomstick, and whisk and scamper over half the kingdoms of the earth.
Talk of bills of exchange!--letters of credit!--we can put our name to a
whole book, and it will pass--it _will_ pass. The idea is good--quite
worthy of our commercial genius--and to us its origin, we believe, is
due; but here, as in so many other cases, the Frenchman has given the
idea its full development. Keeping steadily in view the object of his
book, which is--first, amusement--secondly, amusement--thirdly,
amusement; he adapts his means consistently to his end. Does he want a
dialogue?--he writes one: a story?--he invents one: a description?--he
takes his hint from nature, and is grateful--the more grateful, because
he knows that a hint to the wise is sufficient. It is the description
only which the reader will be concerned with; what has he to do with the
object? That is the merely traveller's affair. Now, your English
tourists have always a residue of scruple about them which balks their
genius. Not satisfied with pleasing, they aspire to be believed; are
almost angry if their anecdote is not credited; content themselves with
adding graces, giving a turn, trimming and decorating--cannot build a
structure boldly from the bare earth. This necessity of finding a
certain straw for their bricks, which must be picked up by the roadside,
not only impedes the work of authorship, but must add greatly to their
personal discomfort throughout the whole of their travels. They are in
perpetual chase of something for the book. They bag an incident with as
much glee as a sportsman his first bird in September. They are out on
pleasure, but manifestly they have their task too; it is not quite
holiday, only half-holiday with them. The prospect or the picture gives
no pleasure till it has suggested the appropriate expression of
enthusiasm, which, once safely deposited in the note-book, the
enthusiasm itself can be quietly indulged in, or permitted to evaporate.
At the dinner-table, even when champagne is circulating, if a jest or a
story falls flat, they see with an Aristotelian precision the cause of
its failure, and how an additional touch, or a more auspicious moment,
would have procured for it a better fate; they stop to pick it up, they
clean it, they revolve the chapter and the page to which it shall lend
its lustre. Nay, it is noticeable, that without much labour from the
polisher, many a dull thing in conversation has made a good thing in
print; the conditions of success are so different. Now, from all such
toils and perplexities M. Dumas is evidently free; free as the wildest
Oxonian who flies abroad in the mere wanton prodigality of spirits and
of purse. His book is made, or can be made, when he chooses: fortune
favours the bold, and incidents will always dispose themselves
dramatically to the dramatist.

Our traveller opens his campaign at Nice. It may be observed that M.
Dumas cannot be accused, like the present minister of his country, of
any partiality to the English; if the mortifying truth must be told, he
has no love of us at all; to which humour, so long as he delivers
himself of it with any wit or pleasantry, he is heartily welcome. Our
first extract will be thought, perhaps, to taste of this humour; but we
quote it for the absurd proof it affords of the manner in which we
English have overflooded some portions of the Continent:--

    "As to the inhabitants of Nice, every traveller is to them an
    Englishman. Every foreigner they see, without distinction of
    complexion, hair, beard, dress, age, or sex, has, in their
    imagination, arrived from a certain mysterious city lost in the
    midst of fogs, where the inhabitants have heard of the sun only
    from tradition, where the orange and the pine-apple are unknown
    except by name, where there is no ripe fruit but baked apples,
    and which is called _London_.

    "Whilst I was at the York Hotel, a carriage drawn by post
    horses drove up; and, soon after, the master of the hotel
    entering into my room, I asked him who were his new arrivals.

    "'_Sono certi Inglesi_,' he answered, '_ma non saprei dire se
    sono Francesi o Tedeschi_. Some English, but I cannot say
    whether French or German.'"--Vol. i. p. 9.

The little town of Monaco is his next resting-place. This town, which is
now under the government of the King of Sardinia, was at one time an
independent principality; and M. Dumas gives a lively sketch of the
vicissitudes which the little state has undergone, mimicking, as it has,
the movements of great monarchies, and being capable of boasting even of
its revolution and its republic. During the reign of Louis XIV. the
territory of Monaco gave the title of prince to a certain Honore III.,
who was under the protection of the _Grand Monarque_.

    "The marriage of this Prince of Monaco," says our annalist,
    "was not happy. One fine morning his spouse, who was the same
    beautiful and gay Duchess de Valentinois so well known in the
    scandalous chronicles of that age, found herself at one step
    out of the states of her lord and sovereign. She took refuge at
    Paris. Desertion was not all. The prince soon learned that he
    was as unfortunate as a husband can be.

    "At that epoch, calamities of this description were only
    laughed at; but the Prince of Monaco was, as the duchess used
    to say, a strange man, and he took offence. He got information
    from time to time of the successive gallants whom his wife
    thought fit to honour, and he hanged them in effigy, one after
    the other, in the front court of his palace. The court was soon
    full, and the executions bordered on the high road;
    nevertheless, the prince relented not, but continued always to
    hang. The report of these executions reached Versailles; Louis
    XIV. was, in his turn, displeased, and counselled the prince to
    be more lenient in his punishments. He of Monaco answered that,
    being a sovereign prince, he had undoubtedly the right of pit
    and gallows on his own domain, and that surely he might hang as
    many men of straw as he pleased.

    "The affair bred so much scandal, that it was thought prudent
    to send the duchess back to her husband. He, to make her
    punishment the more complete, had resolved that she should, on
    her return, pass before this row of executed effigies. But the
    dowager Princess of Monaco prevailed upon her son to forego
    this ingenious revenge, and a bonfire was made of all the
    scarecrows. 'It was,' said Madame de Sevigné, 'the torch of
    their second nuptials.' ...

    "A successor of this prince, Honore IV., was reigning
    tranquilly in his little dominions when the French Revolution
    broke out. The Monacites watched its successive phases with a
    peculiar attention, and when the republic was finally
    proclaimed at Paris, they took advantage of Honore's absence,
    who was gone from home, and not known where, armed themselves
    with whatever came to hand, marched to the palace, took it by
    assault, and commenced plundering the cellars, which might
    contain from twelve to fifteen thousand bottles of wine. Two
    hours after, the eight thousand subjects of the Prince of
    Monaco were drunk.

    "Now, at this first trial, they found liberty was an excellent
    thing, and they resolved to constitute themselves forthwith
    into a republic. But it seemed that Monaco was far too
    extensive a territory to proclaim itself, after the example of
    France, a republic one and indivisible; so the wise men of the
    country, who had already formed themselves into a national
    assembly, came to the conclusion that Monaco should rather
    follow the example of America, and give birth to a federal
    republic. The fundamental laws of the new constitution were
    then discussed and determined by Monaco and Mantone, who united
    themselves for life and death. There was a third village called
    Rocco-Bruno: it was decided that it should belong half to the
    one and half to the other. Rocco-Bruno murmured: it had aspired
    to independence, and a place in the federation; but Monaco and
    Mantone smiled at so arrogant a pretension. Rocco-Bruno was not
    the strongest, and was reduced to silence: from that moment,
    however, Rocco-Bruno was marked out to the two national
    conventions as a focus of sedition. The republic was finally
    proclaimed under the title of the Republic of Monaco.

    "The Monacites next looked abroad upon the world for allies.
    There were two nations, equally enlightened with themselves, to
    whom they could extend the hand of fellowship--the American and
    the French. Geographical position decided in favour of the
    latter. The republic of Monaco sent three deputies to the
    National Convention of France to proffer and demand alliance.
    The National Convention was in a moment of perfect good-humour:
    it received the deputies most politely, and invited them to
    call the next morning for the treaty they desired.

    "The treaty was prepared that very day. It was not, indeed, a
    very lengthy document: it consisted of the two following
    articles:--

    "'Art. 1. There shall be peace and alliance between the French
    Republic and the Republic of Monaco.

    "'Art. 2. The French Republic is delighted with having made the
    acquaintance of the Republic of Monaco.'

    "This treaty was placed next morning in the hands of the
    ambassadors, who departed highly gratified. Three months
    afterwards the French Republic had thrown its lion's paw on its
    dear acquaintance, the Republic of Monaco."--P. 14.

From Monaco our traveller proceeds to Geneva; from Geneva, by water, to
Livorno, (_Anglicé_, Leghorn.) Now there is little or nothing to be seen
at Livorno. There is, in the place _della Darnesa_, a solitary statue of
Ferdinand I., some time cardinal, and afterwards Grand-Duke of Florence.
M. Dumas bethinks him to tell us the principal incident in the life of
this Ferdinand; but then this again is connected with the history of
Bianca Capello, so that he must commence with her adventures. The name
of Bianca Capello figures just now on the title-page of one of Messrs
Colburn's and Bentley's _last and newest_. Those who have read the
novel, and those who, like ourselves, have seen only the title, may be
equally willing to hear the story of this high-spirited dame told in the
terse, rapid manner--brief, but full of detail--of Dumas. We cannot give
the whole of it in the words of M. Dumas; the extract would be too long;
we must get over a portion of the ground in the shortest manner
possible.

    "It was towards the end of the reign of Cosmo the Great, about
    the commencement of the year 1563, that a young man named
    Pietro Bonaventuri, the issue of a family respectable, though
    poor, left Florence to seek his fortune in Venice. An uncle who
    bore the same name as himself, and who had lived in the latter
    city for twenty years, recommended him to the bank of the
    Salviati, of which he himself was one of the managers. The
    youth was received in the capacity of clerk.

    "Opposite the bank of the Salviati lived a rich Venetian
    nobleman, head of the house of the Capelli. He had one son and
    one daughter, but not by his wife then living, who, in
    consequence, was stepmother to his children. With the son, our
    narrative is not concerned; the daughter, Bianca Capello, was a
    charming girl of the age of fifteen or sixteen, of a pale
    complexion, on which the blood, at every emotion, would appear,
    and pass like a roseate cloud; her hair, of that rich flaxen
    which Raphael has made so beautiful; her eyes dark and full of
    lustre, her figure slight and flexile, but of that flexibility
    which denotes no weakness, but force of character; prompt, as
    another Juliet, to love, and waiting only till some Romeo
    should cross her path, to say, like the maid of Verona--'I will
    be to thee or to the tomb!'

    "She saw Pietro Bonaventuri: the window of his chamber looked
    out upon hers; they exchanged glances, signs, promises of love.
    Arrived at this point, the distance from each other was their
    sole obstacle: this obstacle Bianca was the first to overcome.

    "Each night, when all had retired to rest in the house of the
    Salviati, when the nurse who had reared Bianca, had betaken
    herself to the next chamber, and the young girl, standing
    listening against the partition, had assured herself that this
    last Argus was asleep, she threw over her shoulders a dark
    cloak to be the less visible in the night, descended on tiptoe,
    and light as a shadow, the marble stairs of the paternal
    palace, unbarred the gate, and crossed the street. On the
    threshold of the opposite door, her lover was standing to
    receive her; and the two together, with stifled breath and
    silent caresses, ascended the stairs that led to the little
    chamber of Pietro. Before the break of day, Bianca retired in
    the same manner to her own room, where her nurse found her in
    the morning, in a sleep as profound at least as the sleep of
    innocence.

    "One night whilst our Juliet was with her Romeo, a baker's boy,
    who had just been to light his oven in the neighbourhood, saw a
    gate half open, and thought he did good service by closing it.
    Ten minutes afterwards, Bianca descended, and saw that it was
    impossible to re-enter her father's house.

    "Bianca was one of those energetic spirits whose resolutions
    are taken at once, and for ever. She saw that her whole future
    destiny was changed by this one accident, and she accepted
    without hesitation the new life which this accident had imposed
    on her. She re-ascended to her lover, related what had
    happened, demanded of him if he was ready to sacrifice all for
    her as she was for him, and proposed to take advantage of the
    two hours of the night which still remained to them, to quit
    Venice and conceal themselves from the pursuit of her parents.
    Pietro was true--he adopted immediately the proposal; they
    stepped into a gondola, and fled towards Florence.

    "Arrived at Florence, they took refuge with the father of
    Pietro--Bonaventuri the elder, who with his wife had a small
    lodging in the second floor in the place of St Mark. Strange!
    it is with poor parents that the children are so especially
    welcome. They received their son and their new daughter with
    open arms. Their servant was dismissed, both for economy and
    the better preservation of their secret. The good mother
    charged herself with the care of the little household. Bianca,
    whose white hands had been taught no such useful duties, set
    about working the most charming embroidery. The father, who
    earned his living as a copyist for public offices, gave out
    that he had retained a clerk, and took home a double portion of
    papers. All were employed, and the little family contrived to
    live.

    "Meanwhile, it will be easily imagined how great a commotion
    the flight of Bianca occasioned in the palace of the noble
    Capello. During the whole of the first day they made no
    pursuit, for they still, though with much anxiety, expected her
    return. The day passed, however, without any news of the
    fugitive; the flight, on the same morning, of Pietro
    Bonaventuri was next reported; a thousand little incidents
    which attracted no notice at the time were now brought back to
    recollection, and the result of the whole was the clear
    conviction that they had fled together. The influence of the
    Capelli was such that the case was brought immediately before
    the Council of Ten; and Pietro Bonaventuri was placed under the
    ban of the Republic. The sentence of this tribunal was made
    known to the government of Florence; and this government
    authorized the Capelli, or the officers of the Venetian
    Republic, to make all necessary search, not only in Florence,
    but throughout all Tuscany. The search, however was unavailing.
    Each one of the parties felt too great an interest in keeping
    their secret, and Bianca herself never stirred from the
    apartment.

    "Three months passed in this melancholy concealment, yet she
    who had been habituated from infancy to all the indulgences of
    wealth, never once breathed a word of complaint. Her only
    recreation was to look down into the street through the sloping
    blind. Now, amongst those who frequently passed across the
    Place of St Mark was the young grand-duke, who went every other
    day to see his father at his castle of Petraja. Francesco was
    young, gallant, and handsome; but it was not his youth or
    beauty that preoccupied the thoughts of Bianca, it was the idea
    that this prince, as powerful as he seemed gracious, might, by
    one word, raise the ban from Pietro Bonaventuri, and restore
    both him and herself to freedom. It was this idea which kindled
    a double lustre in the eyes of the young Venetian, as she
    punctually at the hour of his passing, ran to the window, and
    sloped the jalousie. One day, the prince happening to look up
    as he passed, met the enkindled glance of his fair observer.
    Bianca hastily retired."

What immediately follows need not be told at any length. Francesco was
enamoured: he obtained an interview. Bianca released and enriched her
lover, but became the mistress of the young duke. Pietro was quite
content with this arrangement; he had himself given the first example of
inconstancy. He entered upon a career of riotous pleasure, which ended
in a violent death.

Francesco, in obedience to his father, married a princess of the house
of Austria; but Bianca still retained her influence. His wife, who had
been much afflicted by this preference of her rival, died, and the
repentant widower swore never again to see Bianca. He kept the oath for
four months; but she placed herself as if by accident in his path, and
all her old power was revived. Francesco, by the death of his father,
became the reigning Duke of Tuscany, and Bianca Capello, his wife and
duchess. And now we arrive at that part of the story in which Ferdinand,
the brother of Francesco, and whose statue at Livorno led to this
history, enters on the scene.

    "About three years after their nuptials, the young Archduke,
    the issue of Francesco's previous marriage, died, leaving the
    ducal throne of Tuscany without direct heir; failing which the
    Cardinal Ferdinand would become Grand-duke at the death of his
    brother. Now Bianca had given to Francesco one son; but,
    besides that he was born before their marriage, and therefore
    incapable of succeeding, the rumour had been spread that he was
    supposititious. The dukedom, therefore, would descend to the
    Cardinal if the Grand-duchess should have no other child; and
    Francesco himself had begun to despair of this happiness, when
    Bianca announced to him a second pregnancy.

    "This time the Cardinal resolved to watch himself the
    proceedings of his dear sister-in-law, lest he should be the
    dupe of some new manoeuvre. He began, therefore, to cultivate
    in an especial manner the friendship of his brother, declaring,
    that the present condition of the Grand-duchess proved to him
    how false had been the rumours spread touching her former
    _accouchement_. Francesco, happy to find his brother in this
    disposition, returned his advances with the utmost cordiality.
    The Cardinal availed himself of this friendly feeling to come
    and install himself in the Palace Pitti.

    "The arrival of the Cardinal was by no means agreeable to
    Bianca, who was not at all deceived as to the true cause of
    this fraternal visit. She knew that, in the Cardinal, she had a
    spy upon her at every moment. The spy, however, could detect
    nothing that savoured of imposture. If her condition was
    feigned, the comedy was admirably played. The Cardinal began to
    think that his suspicions were unjust. Nevertheless, if there
    were craft, the game he determined should be played out with
    equal skill upon his side.

    "The eventful day arrived. The Cardinal could not remain in the
    chamber of Bianca, but he stationed himself in an antechamber,
    through which every one who visited her must necessarily pass.
    There he began to say his breviary, walking solemnly to and
    fro. After praying and promenading thus for about an hour, a
    message was brought to him from the invalid, requesting him to
    go into another room, as his tread disturbed her. 'Let her
    attend to her affairs, and I to mine,' was the only answer he
    gave, and the Cardinal recommenced his walk and his prayer.

    "Soon after this the confessor of the Grand-duchess entered--a
    Capuchin, in a long robe. The Cardinal went up to him, and
    embraced him in his arms, recommending his sister most
    affectionately to his pious care. While embracing the good
    monk, the Cardinal felt, or thought he felt, something strange
    in his long sleeve. He groped under the Capuchin's robe, and
    drew out--a fine boy.

    "'My dear brother,' said the Cardinal, 'I am now more tranquil.
    I am sure, at least, that my dear sister-in-law will not die
    this time in childbirth.'

    "The monk saw that all that remained was to avoid, if possible,
    the scandal; and he asked the Cardinal himself what he should
    do. The Cardinal told him to enter into the chamber of the
    Duchess, whisper to her what had happened, and, as she acted,
    so would he act. Silence should purchase silence; clamour,
    clamour.

    "Bianca saw that she must renounce at present her design to
    give a successor to the ducal crown; she submitted to a
    miscarriage. The Cardinal, on his side, kept his word, and the
    unsuccessful attempt was never betrayed.

    "A few months passed on; there was an uninterrupted harmony
    between the brothers, and Francesco invited the Cardinal, who
    was fond of field-sports, to pass some time with him at a
    country palace, famous for its preserves Of game.

    "On the very day of his arrival, Bianca, who knew that the
    Cardinal was partial to a certain description of tart,
    bethought her to prepare one for him herself. This flattering
    attention on the part of his sister-in-law was hinted to him by
    Francesco, who mentioned it as a new proof of the Duchess's
    amiability, but, as he had no great confidence in his
    reconciliation with Bianca, it was an intimation which caused
    him not a little disquietude. Fortunately, the Cardinal
    possessed an opal, given to him by Pope Sixtus V., which had
    the property of growing dim the moment it approached any
    poisonous substance. He did not fail to make trial of it on the
    tart prepared by Bianca. The opal grew dim and tarnished. The
    Cardinal said, with an assumed air of carelessness, that, on
    consideration, he would not eat to-day of the tart. The Duke
    pressed him; but not being able to prevail--'Well,' said he,
    'since Ferdinand will not eat of his favourite dish, it shall
    not be said that a Grand-duchess had turned confectioner for
    nothing--I will eat of it.' And he helped himself to a piece of
    the tart.

    "Bianca was in the act of bending forward to prevent him--but
    suddenly paused. Her position was horrible. She must either
    avow her crime, or suffer her husband to poison himself. She
    cast a quick retrospective glance along her past life; she saw
    that she had exhausted all the pleasures of the world, and
    attained to all its glories; her decision was rapid--as rapid
    as on that day when she had fled from Venice with Pietro. She
    also cut off a piece from the tart, and extending her hand to
    her husband, she smiled, and, with her other hand, eat of the
    poisoned dish.

    "On the morrow, Francesco and Bianca were dead. A physician
    opened their bodies by order of Ferdinand, and declared that
    they had fallen victims to a malignant fever. Three days after,
    the Cardinal threw down his red hat, and ascended the ducal
    throne."--P. 63.

But presto! Mr Dumas is traveller as well as annalist He must leave the
Middle Ages to themselves; the present moment has its exigences; he must
look to himself and his baggage. He had great difficulty in doing this
on his landing at the Port of Livorno; and now, on his departure, he is
beset with _vetturini_. Let us recur to some of these miseries of
travel, which may at least claim a wide sympathy, for most of us are
familiar with them. It is not necessary even to leave our own island to
find how great an embarrassment too much help may prove, but we
certainly have nothing in our own experience quite equal to the lively
picture of M. Dumas:--

    "I have visited many ports--I have traversed many towns--I have
    contended with the porters of Avignon--with the _facchini_ of
    Malta, and with the innkeepers of Messina, but I never entered
    so villanous a place as Livorno.

    "In every other country of the world there is some possibility
    of defending your baggage, of bargaining for its transport to
    the hotel; and if no treaty can be made, there is at least
    liberty given to load your own shoulders with it, and be your
    own porter. Nothing of this kind at Livorno. The vessel which
    brings you has not yet touched the shore when it is boarded;
    _commissionnaires_ absolutely rain upon you, you know not
    whence; they spring upon the jetty, throw themselves on the
    nearest vessel, and glide down upon you from the rigging.
    Seeing that your little craft is in danger of being capsized by
    their numbers, you think of self-preservation, and grasping
    hold of some green and slimy steps, you cling there, like
    Crusoe to his rock; then, after many efforts, having lost your
    hat, and scarified your knees, and torn your nails, you at
    length stand on the pier. So much for yourself. As to your
    baggage, it has been already divided into as many lots as there
    are articles; you have a porter for your portmanteau, a porter
    for your dressing-case, a porter for your hat-box, a porter for
    your umbrella, a porter for your cane. If there are two of you,
    that makes ten porters; if three, fifteen; as we were four, we
    had twenty. A twenty-first wished to take Milord (the dog,) but
    Milord, who permits no liberties, took him by the calf, and we
    had to pinch his tail till he consented to unlock his teeth.
    The porter followed us, crying that the dog had lamed him, and
    that he would compel us to make compensation. The people rose
    in tumult; and we arrived at the _Pension Suisse_ with twenty
    porters before us, and a rabble of two hundred behind.

    "It cost us forty francs for our portmanteaus, umbrellas, and
    canes, and ten francs for the bitten leg.[1] In all, fifty
    francs for about fifty steps."--P. 59.

    [1] This was not the only case of compensation made out against
    this travelling companion. "Milord," says our tourist, "in his
    quality of bulldog, was so great a destroyer of cats, that we
    judged it wise to take some precautions against overcharges in
    this particular. Therefore, on our departure from Genoa, in
    which town Milord had commenced his practices upon the feline
    race of Italy, we enquired the price of a full-grown,
    well-conditioned cat, and it was agreed on all hands that a cat
    of the ordinary species--grey, white, and tortoiseshell--was
    worth two pauls--(learned cats, Angora cats, cats with two
    heads or three tails, are not, of course, included in this
    tariff.) Paying down this sum for two several Genoese cats
    which had been just strangled by our friend, we demanded a
    legal receipt, and we added successively other receipts of the
    same kind, so that this document became at length an
    indisputable authority for the price of cats throughout all
    Italy. As often as Milord committed a new assassination, and
    the attempt was made to extort from us more than two pauls as
    the price of blood, we drew this document from our pocket, and
    proved beyond a cavil that two pauls was what we were
    accustomed to pay on such occasions, and obstinate indeed must
    have been the man or woman who did not yield to such a weight
    of precedent."

This was on his landing at Livorno: on his departure he gives us an
account, equally graphic, of the _vetturini_:--

    "A diligence is a creature that leaves at a fixed hour, and its
    passengers run to it; a vetturino leaves at all hours, and runs
    after its passengers. Hardly have you set your foot out of the
    boat that brings you from the steam-vessel to the shore, than
    you are assailed, stifled, dragged, deafened by twenty drivers,
    who look on you as their merchandise, and treat you
    accordingly, and would end by carrying you off bodily, if they
    could agree among them who should have the booty. Families have
    been separated at the port of Livorno, to find each other how
    they could in the streets of Florence. In vain you jump into a
    _fiacre_, they leap up before, above, behind; and at the gate
    of the hotel, there you are in the midst of the same group of
    villains, who are only the more clamorous for having been kept
    waiting. Reduced to extremities, you declare that you have come
    to Livorno upon commercial business, and that you intend
    staying eight days at least, and you ask of the _garçon_, loud
    enough for all to hear, if there is an apartment at liberty for
    the next week. At this they will sometimes abandon the prey,
    which they reckon upon seizing at some future time; they run
    back with all haste to the port to catch some other traveller,
    and you are free.

    "Nevertheless, if about an hour after this you should wish to
    leave the hotel, you will find one or two sentinels at the
    gate. These are connected with the hotel, and they have been
    forewarned by the _garçon_ that it will not be eight days
    before you leave--that, in fact, you will leave to-morrow.
    These it is absolutely necessary that you call in, and make
    your treaty with. If you should have the imprudence to issue
    forth into the street, fifty of the brotherhood will be
    attracted by their clamours, and the scene of the port will be
    renewed. They will ask ten piastres for a carriage--you will
    offer five. They will utter piercing cries of dissent--you will
    shut the door upon them. In three minutes one of them will
    climb in at the window, and engage with you for the five
    piastres.

    "This treaty concluded, you are sacred to all the world; in
    five minutes the report is spread through all Livorno that you
    are _engaged_. You may then go where you please; every one
    salutes you, wishes you _bon voyage_; you would think yourself
    amongst the most disinterested people in the world."--P. 94.

The only question that remains to be decided is that of the
drink-money--the _buona-mano_, as the Italian calls it. This is a matter
of grave importance, and should be gravely considered. On this
_buona-mano_ depends the rapidity of your journey; for the time may vary
at the will of the driver from six to twelve hours. Hereupon M. Dumas
tells an amusing story of a Russian prince, which not only proves how
efficient a cause this _buona mano_ may be in the accomplishment of the
journey, but also illustrates very forcibly a familiar principle of our
own jurisprudence, and a point to which the Italian traveller must pay
particular attention. We doubt if the necessity of a written agreement,
in order to enforce the terms of a contract, was ever made more
painfully evident than in the following instance:--

    "The Prince C---- had arrived, with his mother and a German
    servant, at Livorno. Like every other traveller who arrives at
    Livorno, he had sought immediately the most expeditious means
    of departure. These, as we have said, present themselves in
    sufficient abundance; the only difficulty is, to know how to
    use them.

    "The vetturini had learnt from the industrious porters that
    they had to deal with a prince. Consequently they demanded
    twelve piastres instead of ten, and the prince, instead of
    offering five, conceded the twelve piastres, but stipulated
    that this should include every thing, especially the
    _buona-mano_, which the master should settle with the driver.
    'Very good,' said the vetturini; the prince paid his twelve
    piastres, and the carriage started off, with him and his
    baggage, at full gallop. It was nine o'clock in the morning:
    according to his calculation, the Prince would be at Florence
    about three or four in the afternoon.

    "They had advanced about a quarter of a league when the horses
    relaxed their speed, and began to walk step by step. As to the
    driver, he sang upon his seat, interrupting himself now and
    then to gossip with such acquaintances as he met upon the road;
    and as it is ill talking and progressing at the same time, he
    soon brought himself to a full stop when he had occasion for
    conference.

    "The prince endured this for some time; at length putting his
    head out of the window, he said, in the purest Tuscan,
    '_Avanti! avanti! tirate via!_'

    "'How much do you give for _buona-mano_?' answered the driver,
    turning round upon his box.

    "'Why do you speak to me of your _buona-mano_?' said the prince.
    'I have given your master twelve piastres, on condition that it
    should include every thing.'

    "'The _buona-mano_ does not concern the master,' responded the
    driver; 'how much do you give?'

    "'Not a sou--I have paid.'

    "'Then, your excellence, we will continue our walk.'

    "'Your master has engaged to take me to Florenco in six hours,'
    said the Prince.

    "'Where is the paper that says that--the written paper, your
    excellence?'

    "'Paper! what need of a paper for so simple a matter? I have no
    paper.'

    "'Then, your excellence, we will continue our walk.'

    "'Ah, we will see that!' said the Prince.

    "'Yes, we _will_ see that!' said the driver.

    "Hereupon the prince spoke to his German servant, Frantz, who
    was sitting beside the coachman, and bade him administer due
    correction to this refractory fellow.

    "Frantz descended from the voiture without uttering a word,
    pulled down the driver from his seat, and pummelled him with
    true German gravity. Then pointing to the road, helped him on
    his box, and reseated himself by his side. The driver
    proceeded--a little slower than before. One wearies of all
    things in this world, even of beating a coachman. The prince,
    reasoning with himself that, fast or slow, he must at length
    arrive at his journey's end, counselled the princess his mother
    to compose herself to sleep; and, burying himself in one corner
    of the carriage, gave her the example.

    "The driver occupied six hours in going from Livorno to
    Pontedera; just four hours more than was necessary. Arrived at
    Pontedera, he invited the Prince to descend, as he was about to
    change the carriage.

    "'But,' said the Prince, 'I have given twelve piastres to your
    master on condition that the carriage should not be changed.'

    "'Where is the paper?'

    "'Fellow, you know I have none.'

    "'In that case, your excellence, we will change the carriage.'

    "The prince was half-disposed to break the rascal's bones
    himself; but, besides that this would have compromised his
    dignity, he saw, from the countenances of those who stood
    loitering round the carriage, that it would be a very imprudent
    step. He descended; they threw his baggage down upon the
    pavement, and after about an hour's delay, brought out a
    miserable dislocated carriage and two broken-winded horses.

    "Under any other circumstances the Prince would have been
    generous--would have been lavish; but he had insisted upon his
    right, he was resolved not to be conquered. Into this
    ill-conditioned vehicle he therefore doggedly entered, and as
    the new driver had been forewarned that there would be no
    _buona-mano_, the equipage started amidst the laughter and
    jeers of the mob.

    "This time the horses were such wretched animals that it would
    have been out of conscience to expect anything more than a walk
    from them. It took six more hours to go from Pontedera to
    Empoli.

    "Arrived at Empoli the driver stopped, and presented himself at
    the door of the carriage.

    "'Your excellence sleeps here,' said he to the prince.

    "'How! are we at Florence?'

    "'No, your excellence, you are at the charming little town of
    Empoli.'

    "'I paid twelve piastres to your master to go to Florence, not
    to Empoli. I will sleep at Florence.'

    "'Where is the paper?'

    "'To the devil with your paper!'

    "'Your excellence then has no paper?'

    "'No.'

    "'In that case, your excellence now will sleep at Empoli!'

    "In a few minutes afterwards the prince found himself driven
    under a kind of archway. It was a coach-house belonging to an
    inn. On his expressing surprise at being driven into this sort
    of place, and repeating his determination to proceed to
    Florence, the coachman said, that, at all events, he must
    change his horses; and that this was the most convenient place
    for so doing. In fact, he took out his horses, and led them
    away.

    "After waiting some time for his return, the prince called to
    Frantz, and bade him open the door of this coach-house, and
    bring somebody.

    "Frantz obeyed, but found the door shut--fastened.

    "On hearing that they were shut in, the prince started from the
    carriage, shook the gates with all his might, called out
    lustily, and looked about, but in vain, for some paving stone
    with which to batter them open.

    "Now the prince was a man of admirable good sense; so, having
    satisfied himself that the people in the house either could
    not, or would not hear him, he determined to make the best of
    his position. Re-entering the carriage, he drew up the glasses,
    looked to his pistols, stretched out his legs, and wishing his
    mother good night, went off to sleep. Frantz did the same on
    his post. The princess was not so fortunate; she was in
    perpetual terror of some ambush, and kept her eyes wide open
    all the night.

    "So the night passed. At seven o'clock in the morning the door
    of the coach-house opened, and a driver appeared with a couple
    of horses.

    "'Are there not some travellers for Florence here?' he asked
    with the tone of perfect politeness, and as if he were putting
    the most natural question in the world.

    "The prince leapt from the carriage with the intention of
    strangling the man--but it was another driver!

    "'Where is the rascal that brought us here?' he demanded.

    "'What, Peppino? Does your excellence mean Peppino?'

    "'The driver from Pontedera?'

    "'Ah, well, that was Peppino.'

    "'Then where is Peppino?'

    "'He is on his road home. Yes, your excellence. You see it was
    the fête of the Madonna, and we danced and drank together--I
    and Peppino--all the night; and this morning about an hour ago
    says he to me, 'Gaetano, do you take your horses, and go find
    two travellers and a servant who are under a coach-house at the
    _Croix d'Or_; all is paid except the _buona-mano_.' And I asked
    him, your excellence, how it happened that travellers were
    sleeping in a coach-house instead of in a chamber. 'Oh,' said
    he, 'they are English--they are afraid of not having clean
    sheets, and so they prefer to sleep in their carriage in the
    coach-house.' Now as I know the English are a nation of
    originals, I supposed it was all right, and so I emptied
    another flask, and got my horses, and here I am. If I am too
    early I will return, and come by and by.

    "'No, no, in the devil's name,' said the prince, 'harness your
    beasts, and do not lose a moment. There is a piastre for your
    _buona-mano_.'

    "They were soon at Florence.

    "The first care of the prince, after having breakfasted, for
    neither he nor the princess had eaten any thing since they had
    left Livorno, was to lay his complaint before a magistrate.

    "'Where is the paper?' said the judicial authority.

    "'I have none,' said the prince.

    "'Then I counsel you,' replied the judge, 'to let the matter
    drop. Only the next time give five piastres to the master, and
    a piastre and a half to the driver; you will save five piastres
    and a half, and arrive eighteen hours sooner.'"--P. 97.

M. Dumas, however, arrives at Florence without any such disagreeable
adventure as sleeping in a coach-house. He gives a pleasing description
of the Florentine people, amongst whom the spirit of commerce has died
away, but left behind a considerable share of the wealth and luxury that
sprang from it. There is little spirit of enterprise; no rivalry between
a class enriching itself and the class with whom wealth is hereditary;
the jewels that were purchased under the reign of the Medici still shine
without competitors on the promenade and at the opera. It is a people
that has made its fortune, and lives contentedly on its revenues, and on
what it gets from the stranger. "The first want of a Florentine," says
our author, "is repose; even pleasure is secondary; it costs him some
little effort to be amused. Wearied of its frequent political
convulsions, the town of the Medici aspires only to that unbroken and
enchanted slumber which fell, as the fairy tale informs us, on the
beautiful lady in the sleepy wood. No one here seems to labour, except
those who are tolling and ringing the church-bells, and they indeed
appear to have rest neither day nor night."

There are but three classes visible in Florence. The nobility--the
foreigner--and the people. The nobility, a few princely houses excepted,
spend but little, the people work but little, and it would be a marvel
how these last lived if it were not for the foreigner. Every autumn
brings them their harvest in the shape of a swarm of travellers from
England, France, or Russia, and, we may now add, America. The winter
pays for the long delicious indolence of the summer. Then the populace
lounges, with interminable leisure, in their churches, on their
promenades, round the doors of coffee-houses that are never closed
either day or night; they follow their religious processions; they
cluster with an easy good-natured curiosity round every thing that wears
the appearance of a fête; taking whatever amusement presents itself,
without caring to detain it, and quitting it without the least distrust
that some other quite as good will occupy its place. "One evening we
were roused," says our traveller, "by a noise in the street: two or
three musicians of the opera, on leaving the theatre, had taken a fancy
to go home playing a waltz. The scattered population of the streets
arranged themselves, and followed waltzing. The men who could find no
better partners, waltzed together. Five or six hundred persons were
enjoying this impromptu ball, which kept its course from the opera house
to the Port del Prato, where the last musician resided. The last
musician having entered his house, the waltzers returned arm-in-arm,
still humming the air to which they had been dancing."

    "It follows," continues M. Dumas, "from this commercial apathy,
    that at Florence you must seek after every thing you want. It
    never comes of itself--never presents itself before
    you;--everything there stays at home--rests in its own place. A
    foreigner who should remain only a month in the capital of
    Tuscany would carry away a very false idea of it. At first it
    seems impossible to procure the things the most indispensable,
    or those you do procure are bad; it is only after some time
    that you learn, and that not from the inhabitants, but from
    other foreigners who have resided there longer than yourself,
    where anything is to be got. At the end of six months you are
    still making discoveries of this sort; so that people generally
    quit Tuscany at the time they have learned to live there. It
    results from all this that every time you visit Florence you
    like it the better; if you should revisit it three or four
    times you would probably end by making of it a second country,
    and passing there the remainder of your lives."[2]

    [2] It is amusing to contrast the _artistic_ manner in which
    our author makes all his statements, with the style of a
    guide-book, speaking on the manufactures and industry of
    Florence. It is from Richard's _Italy_ we quote. Mark the
    exquisite medley of humdrum, matter-of-fact details, jotted
    down as if by some unconscious piece of mechanism:--"Florence
    _manufactures_ excellent silks, woollen cloths, elegant
    carriages, bronze articles, earthenware, straw hats, perfumes,
    essences, _and candied fruits_; also, all kinds of turnery and
    inlaid work, piano-fortes, philosophical and mathematical
    instruments, &c. The dyes used at this city are much admired,
    particularly the black, _and its sausages are famous throughout
    all Italy_."

Shall we visit the churches of Florence with M. Dumas? No, we are not in
the vein. Shall we go with him to the theatres--to the opera--to the
Pergola? Yes, but not to discuss the music or the dancing. Every body
knows that at the great theatres of Italy the fashionable part of the
audience pay very little attention to the music, unless it be a new
opera, but make compensation by listening devoutly to the ballet. The
Pergola is the great resort of fashion. A box at the Pergola, and a
carriage for the banks of the Arno, are the _indispensables_, we are
told, at Florence. Who has these, may eat his macaroni where he
pleases--may dine for sixpence if he will, or can: it is his own affair,
the world is not concerned about it--he is still a gentleman, and ranks
with nobles. Who has them not--though he be derived from the loins of
emperors, and dine every day off plate of gold, and with a dozen
courses--is still nobody. Therefore regulate your expenditure
accordingly, all ye who would be somebody. We go with M. Dumas to the
opera, not, as we have said, for the music or the dancing, but because,
as is the way with dramatic authors, he will there introduce us, for the
sake of contrast with an institution very different from that of an
operatic company--

    "Sometimes in the midst of a cavatina or a _pas-de-deux_, a
    bell with a sharp, shrill, excoriating sound, will be heard; it
    is the bell _della misericordia_. Listen: if it sound but once,
    it is for some ordinary accident; if twice, for one of a
    serious nature; if it sounds three times, it is a case of
    death. If you look around, you will see a slight stir in some
    of the boxes, and it will often happen that the person you have
    been speaking to, if a Florentine, will excuse himself for
    leaving you, will quietly take his hat and depart. You inquire
    what that bell means, and why it produces so strange an effect.
    You are told it is the bell _della misericordia_, and that he
    with whom you were speaking is a brother of the order.

    "This brotherhood of mercy is one of the noblest institutions
    in the world. It was founded in 1244, on occasion of the
    frequent pestilences which at that period desolated the town,
    and it has been perpetuated to the present day, without any
    alteration, except in its details--with none in its purely
    charitable spirit. It is composed of seventy-two brothers,
    called chiefs of the watch, who are each in service four months
    in the year. Of these seventy-two brothers, thirty are priests,
    fourteen gentlemen, and twenty-eight artists. To these, who
    represent the aristocratic classes and the liberal arts, are
    added 500 labourers and workmen, who may be said to represent
    the people.

    "The seat of the brotherhood is in the place _del Duomo_. Each
    brother has there, marked with his own name, a box enclosing a
    black robe like that of the _penitents_, with openings only for
    the eyes and mouth, in order that his good actions may have the
    further merit of being performed in secret. Immediately that
    the news of any accident or disaster is brought to the brother
    who is upon guard, the bell sounds its alarm, once, twice, or
    thrice, according to the gravity of the case; and at the sound
    of the bell every brother, wherever he may be, is bound to
    retire at the instant, and hasten to the rendezvous. There he
    learns what misfortune or what suffering has claimed his pious
    offices; he puts on his black robe and a broad hat, takes the
    taper in his hand, and goes forth where the voice of misery has
    called him. If it is some wounded man, they bear him to the
    hospital; if the man is dead, to a chapel: the nobleman and the
    day labourer, clothed with the same robe, support together the
    same litter, and the link which unites these two extremes of
    society is some sick pauper, who, knowing neither, is praying
    equally for both. And when these brothers of mercy have quitted
    the house, the children whose father they have carried out, or
    the wife whose husband they have borne away, have but to look
    around them, and always, on some worm-eaten piece of furniture,
    there will be found a pious alms, deposited by an unknown hand.

    "The Grand-duke himself is a member of this fraternity, and I
    have been assured that more than once, at the sound of that
    melancholy bell, he has clothed himself in the uniform of
    charity, and penetrated unknown, side by side with a
    day-labourer, to the bed's head of some dying wretch, and that
    his presence had afterwards been detected only by the alms he
    had left behind."--p. 126.

It is not to be supposed that our dramatist pursues the same direct and
unadventurous route that lies open to every citizen of Paris and London.
At the end of the first volume we leave him still at Florence; we open
the second, and we find him and his companion Jadin, and his companion's
dog Milord, standing at the port of Naples, looking out for some vessel
to take them to Sicily. So that we have travels in Italy with Rome left
out. Not that he did not visit Rome, but that we have no "souvenirs" of
his visit here. As the book is a mere _capriccio_, there can be no
possible objection taken to it on this score. Besides, the island of
Sicily, which becomes the chief scene of his adventures, is less beaten
ground. Nor do we hear much of Naples, for he quits Naples almost as
soon as he had entered it. This last fact requires explanation.

M. Dumas has had the honour to be an object of terror or of animosity to
crowned heads. When at Genoa, his Sardinian Majesty manifested this
hostility to M. Dumas--we presume on account of his too liberal
politics--by dispatching an emissary of the police to notify to him that
he must immediately depart from Genoa. Which emissary of his Sardinian
Majesty had no sooner delivered his royal sentence of deportation, than
he extended his hand for a _pour boire_. Either M. Dumas must be a far
more formidable person than we have any notion of, or majesty can be
very nervous, or very spiteful. And now, when he is about to enter
Naples----but why do we presume to relate M. Dumas's personal
adventures in any other language than his own? or language as near his
own as we--who are, we must confess, imperfect translators--can hope to
give.

    "The very evening of our arrival at Naples, Jadin and I ran to
    the port to enquire if by chance any vessel, whether steam-boat
    or sailing packet, would leave on the morrow for Sicily. As it
    is not the ordinary custom for travellers to go to Naples to
    remain there a few hours only, let me say a word on the
    circumstance that compelled us to this hasty departure.

    "We had left Paris with the intention of traversing the whole
    of Italy, including Sicily and Calabria; and, putting this
    project into scrupulous execution, we had already visited Nice,
    Genoa, Milan, Florence, and Rome, when, after a sojourn of
    about three weeks at this last city, I had the honour to meet,
    at the Marquis de P----'s, our own _chargé des affaires_, the
    Count de Ludorf, the Neapolitan ambassador. As I was to leave
    in a few days for Naples, the Marquis introduced me to his
    brother in diplomacy. M. de Ludorf received me with that cold
    and vacant smile which pledges to nothing; nevertheless, after
    this introduction, I thought myself bound to carry to him our
    passports myself. M. de Ludorf had the civility to tell me to
    deposit the passports at his office, and to call there for them
    the day after the morrow.

    "Two days having elapsed, I accordingly presented myself at the
    office: I found a clerk there, who, with the utmost politeness,
    informed me that some difficulties having arisen on the subject
    of my _visa_, I had better make an application to the
    ambassador himself. I was obliged, therefore, whatever
    resolution I had made to the contrary, to present myself again
    to M. de Ludorf.

    "I found the ambassador more cold, more measured than before,
    but reflecting that it would probably be the last time I should
    have the honour of seeing him, I resigned myself. He motioned
    to me to take a chair. This was some improvement upon the last
    visit; the last visit he left me standing.

    "'Monsieur,' said he, with a certain air of embarrassment, and
    drawing out, one after the other, the folds of his shirt-front,
    'I regret to say that you cannot go to Naples.'

    "'Why so?' I replied, determined to impose upon our dialogue
    whatever tone I thought fit--'are the roads so bad?'

    "'No, monsieur; the roads are excellent, but you have the
    misfortune to be on the list of those who cannot enter the
    kingdom of Naples.'

    "'However honourable such a distinction may be, monsieur
    l'ambassadeur,' said I, suiting my tone to the words, 'it will
    at present be rather inconvenient, and I trust you will permit
    me to inquire into the cause of this prohibition. If it is
    nothing but one of those slight and vexatious interruptions
    which one meets with perpetually in Italy, I have some friends
    about the world who might have influence sufficient to remove
    it.'

    "'The cause is one of a grave nature, and I doubt if your
    friends, of whatever rank they may be, will have influence to
    remove it.'

    "'What may it be?'

    "'In the first place, you are the son of General Matthieu
    Dumas, who was minister of war at Naples during the usurpation
    of Joseph.'

    "'I am sorry,' I answered, 'to be obliged to decline any
    relationship with that illustrious general. My father was not
    General Matthieu, but General Alexandre Dumas. The same,' I
    continued, seeing that he was endeavouring to recall some
    reminiscences connected with the name of Dumas, 'who, after
    having been made prisoner at Tarentum, in contempt of the
    rights of hospitality, was poisoned at Brindisi, with Mauscourt
    and Dolomieu, in contempt of the rights of nations. This
    happened, monsieur l'ambassadeur, at the same time that they
    hanged Carracciolo in the Gulf of Naples. You see I do all I
    can to assist your recollection.'

    "M. de Ludorf bit his lips.

    "'Well, monsieur,' he resumed after a moment's silence, 'there
    is a second reason--your political opinions. You are marked out
    as a republican, and have quitted Paris, it is said, on some
    political design.'

    "'To which I answer, monsieur, by showing you my letters of
    introduction. They bear nearly all the seals and signatures of
    our ministers. Here is one from the Admiral Jacob, another from
    Marshal Soult, another from M. de Villemain; they claim for me
    the aid of the French ambassador in any case of this
    description.'

    "'Well, well,' said M. de Ludorf, 'since you have foreseen the
    very difficulty that has occurred, meet it with those means
    which are in your power. For me, I repeat, I cannot sign your
    passport. Those of your companions are quite regular; they can
    proceed when they please; but they must proceed without you.'

    "'Has the Count de Ludorf' said I, rising, 'any commissions for
    Naples?'

    "'Why so, monsieur?'

    "'Because I shall have great pleasure in undertaking them.'

    "'But I repeat, you cannot go to Naples.'

    "'I shall be there in three days.'

    "I wished M. de Ludorf good morning, and left him stupefied at
    my assurance."--Vol. ii. p. 5.

Our dramatical traveller ran immediately to a young friend, an artist
then studying at Rome, and prevailed on him to take out a passport, in
his own name for Naples. Fortified with this passport, and assuming the
name of his friend, he left Rome that evening. The following day he
reached Naples. But as he was exposed every moment to detection, it was
necessary that he should pass over immediately to Sicily. The
steam-boats at Naples, unlike the steam-boats every where else, start at
no fixed period. The captain waits for his contingent of passengers, and
till this has been obtained both he and his vessel are immovable. M.
Dumas and his companion, therefore, hired a small sailing vessel, a
_speronara_ as it is called, in which they embarked the next morning.
But before weighing anchor M. Dumas took from his portfolio the neatest,
purest, whitest, sheet of paper that it contained, and indited the
following letter to the Count de Ludorf:--

    "Monsieur le Comte,

    "I am distressed that your excellency did not think fit to
    charge me with your commissions for Naples. I should have
    executed them with a fidelity which would have convinced you of
    the grateful recollection I retain of your kind offices.

    "Accept, M. le Comte, the assurance of those lively sentiments
    which I entertain towards you, and of which, one day or other,
    I hope to give you proof.

    "ALEX. DUMAS."

    "Naples, 23d Aug. 1835."

With the crew of this _speronara_ we became as familiar as with the
personages of a novel; and, indeed, about this time the novelist begins
to predominate over the tourist.

On leaving the bay of Naples our traveller first makes for the island of
Capri. The greatest curiosity which he here visits and describes in the
_azure grotto_. He and his companion are rowed, each in a small skiff,
to a narrow dark aperture upon the rocky coast, and which appears the
darker from its contrast with the white surf that is dashing about it.
He is told to lie down on his back in the boat, to protect his head from
a concussion against the low roof.

    "In a moment after I was borne upon the surge--the bark glided
    on with rapidity--I saw nothing but a dark rock, which seemed
    for a second to be weighing on my chest. Then on a sudden I
    found myself in a grotto so marvellous that I uttered a cry of
    astonishment, and started up in my admiration with a bound
    which endangered the frail bark on which I stood.

    "I had before me, around me, above me, beneath me, a perfect
    enchantment, which words cannot describe, and which the pencil
    would utterly fail to give any impression of. Imagine an
    immense cavern, all pure azure--as if God had made a tent there
    with some residue of the firmament; a surface of water so
    limpid, so transparent, that you seem to float on air: above
    you, the pendant stalactites, huge and fantastical, reversed
    pyramids and pinnacles: below you a sand of gold mingled with
    marine vegetation; and around the margin of cave, where it is
    bathed by the water, the coral shooting out its capricious and
    glittering branches. That narrow entrance which, from the sea,
    showed like a dark spot, now shone at one end a luminous point,
    the solitary star which gave its subdued light to this fairy
    palace; whilst at the opposite extremity a sort of alcove led
    on the imagination to expect new wonders, or perhaps the
    apparition of the nymph or goddess of the place.

    "In all probability the azure grotto was unknown to the
    ancients. No poet speaks of it; and surely with their
    marvellous imagination the Greeks could not have failed to make
    it the palace of some marine goddess, and to have transmitted
    to us her history. The sea, perhaps, was higher than it is now,
    and the secrets of this cave were known only to Amphitrite and
    her court of sirens, naiads, and tritons.

    "Even now at times the sea rises and closes the orifice, so
    that those who have entered cannot escape. In which case they
    must wait till the wind, which had suddenly shifted to the east
    or west, returns to the north or south; and it has happened
    that visitors who came to spend twenty minutes in the azure
    grotto, have remained there two, three, and even four days. To
    provide against such an emergency, the boatmen always bring
    with them a certain quantity of biscuit to feed the prisoners,
    and as the rock affords fresh water in several places, there is
    no fear of thirst. It was not till we had been in the grotto
    some time that our boatmen communicated this piece of
    information; we were disposed to reproach them for this delay,
    but they answered with the utmost simplicity, that if they told
    this at first to travellers, half of them would decline coming,
    and this would injure the boatmen.

    "I confess that this little piece of information raised a
    certain disquietude, and I found the azure grotto infinitely
    less agreeable to the imagination.... We again laid ourselves
    down at the bottom of our respective canoes, and issued forth
    with the same precautions, and the same good fortune, with
    which we had entered. But we were some minutes before we could
    open our eyes; the burning sun upon the glittering ocean
    absolutely blinded us. We had not gone many yards, however,
    before the eye recovered itself, and all that we had seen in
    the azure grotto had the consistency of a dream."

From Capri our travellers proceed to Sicily. We have a long story and a
violent storm upon the passage, and are landed at Messina. Here M. Dumas
enlarges his experience by an acquaintance with the _Sirocco_. His
companion, M. Jadin, had been taken ill, and a physician had been called
in.

    "The doctor had ordered that the patient (who was suffering
    under a fever) should be exposed to all the air possible, that
    doors and windows should be opened, and he should be placed in
    the current. This was done; but on the present evening, to my
    astonishment, instead of the fresh breeze of the night--which
    was wont to blow the fresher from our neighbourhood to the
    sea--there entered at the open window a dry hot wind like the
    air from a furnace. I waited for the morning, but the morning
    brought no change in the state of the atmosphere.

    "My patient had suffered greatly through the night. I rang the
    bell for some lemonade, the only drink the doctor had
    recommended; but no one answered the summons. I rang again, and
    a third time: still no one came; at length seeing that the
    mountain would not come to me, I went to the mountain. I
    wandered through the corridor, and entered apartment after
    apartment, and found no one to address. It was nine o'clock in
    the morning, yet the master and mistress of the house had not
    left their room, and not a domestic was at his post. It was
    quite incomprehensible.

    "I descended to the portico; I found him lying on an old sofa
    all in tatters, the principal ornament of his room, and asked
    him why the house was thus deserted.

    "'Ah, monsieur!' said he, 'do you not feel the sirocco?'

    "'Sirocco or not, is this a reason why no one should come when
    I call?'

    "'Oh, monsieur, when it is sirocco no one does any thing!'

    "'And your travellers, who is to wait upon them?'

    "'On those days they wait upon themselves.'

    "I begged pardon of this respectable official for having
    disturbed him; he heaved such a sigh as indicated that it
    required a great amount of Christian charity to grant the
    pardon I had asked.

    "The hour arrived when the doctor should have paid his visit,
    and no doctor came. I presumed that the sirocco detained him
    also; but as the state of Jadin appeared to me alarming, I
    resolved to go and rouse my Esculapius, and bring him, willing
    or unwilling, to the hotel. I took my hat and sallied forth.

    "Messina had the appearance of a city of the dead: not an
    inhabitant was walking in the streets, not a head was seen at
    the windows. The mendicants themselves (and he who has not seen
    the Sicilian mendicant, knows not what wretchedness is,) lay in
    the corners of the streets, stretched out, doubled up, panting,
    without strength to stretch out their hand for charity, or
    voice to ask an alms. Pompeii, which I visited three months
    afterwards, was not more silent, more solitary, more inanimate.

    "I reached the doctor's. I rang, I knocked, no one answered. I
    pushed against the door, it opened;--I entered, and pursued my
    search for the doctor.

    "I traversed three or four apartments. There were women lying
    upon sofas, and children sprawling on the floor. Not one even
    raised a head to look at me. At last, in one of the rooms, the
    door of which was, like the rest, half-open, I found the man I
    was in quest of, stretched upon his bed.

    "I went up to him, I took him by the hand, and felt his pulse.

    "'Ah,' said he, with a melancholy voice, and scarcely turning
    his head towards me, 'Is that you? What can you want?'

    "'Want!--I want you to come and see my friend, who is no
    better, as it seems to me.'

    "'Go and see your friend!' cried the doctor, in a
    fright--'impossible!'

    "'Why impossible?'

    "He made a desperate effort to move, and taking his cane in his
    left hand, passed his right hand slowly down it, from the
    golden head that adorned it to the other extremity. 'Look you,'
    said he, 'my cane sweats.'

    "And, in fact, there fell some globules of water from it, such
    an effect has this terrible wind even on inanimate things.

    "'Well,' said I, 'and what does that prove?'

    "'That proves, that at such a time as this, there are no
    physicians, all are patients.[3]'"--P. 175.

    [3] The extreme misery of the paupers in Sicily, who form, he
    tells us, a tenth part of the population, quite haunts the
    imagination of M. Dumas. He recurs to it several times. At one
    place he witnesses the distribution, at the door of a convent,
    of soup to these poor wretches, and gives a terrible
    description of the famine-stricken group. "All these
    creatures," he continues, "had eaten nothing since yesterday
    evening. They had come there to receive their porringer of
    soup, as they had come to-day, as they would come to-morrow.
    This was all their nourishment for twenty-four hours, unless
    some of them might obtain a few _grani_ from their
    fellow-citizens, or the compassion of strangers; but this is
    very rare, as the Syracusans are familiarized with the
    spectacle, and few strangers visit Syracuse. When the
    distributor of this blessed soup appeared, there were
    unheard-of cries, and each one rushed forward with his wooden
    bowl in his hand. Only there were some too feeble to exclaim,
    or to run, and who dragged themselves forward, groaning, upon
    their hands and knees. There was in the midst of all, a child
    clothed, not in anything that could be called a shirt, but a
    kind of spider's web, with a thousand holes, who had no wooden
    bowl, and who wept with hunger. It stretched out its poor
    little meagre hands, and joined them together, to supply as
    well as it could, by this natural receptacle, the absent bowl.
    The cook poured in a spoonful of the soup. The soup was
    boiling, and burned the child's hand. It uttered a cry of pain,
    and was compelled to open its fingers, and the soup fell upon
    the pavement. The child threw itself on all fours, and began to
    eat in the manner of a dog."--Vol. iii. p. 58.

    And in another place he says, "Alas, this cry of hunger! it is
    the eternal cry of Sicily; I have heard nothing else for three
    months. There are miserable wretches, whose hunger has never
    been appeased, from the day when, lying in their cradle, they
    began to draw the milk from their exhausted mothers, to the
    last hour when, stretched on their bed of death, they have
    expired endeavouring to swallow the sacred host which the
    priest had laid upon their lips. Horrible to think of! there
    are human beings to whom, to have eaten once sufficiently,
    would be a remembrance for all their lives to come."--Vol. iv.
    p. 108.

Seeing there was no chance of bringing the doctor to the hotel, unless
he carried him there by main force, Mr Dumas contented himself with
relating the symptoms of his friend. To drink lemonade--much
lemonade--all the lemonade he could swallow, was the only prescription
that the physician gave. And the simple remedy seems to have sufficed;
for the patient shortly after recovered.

Not the least agreeable portion of these travels, is the pleasant
impression they leave of the traveller himself, one who has his humours
doubtless, but who is social, buoyant, brave, generous, and
enterprising. A Frenchman--as a chemist, in his peculiar language, would
say--is a creature "endowed with a considerable range of affinity." Our
traveller has this range of affinity; he wins the heart of all and
several--the crew of his _speronara._ We will close with the following
extract, both because it shows the frank and lively feelings of the
Frenchman, and because it introduces a name dear to all lovers of
melody. The father of Bellini was a Sicilian, and Dumas was in Sicily.

    "It was while standing on this spot, that I asked my guide if
    he knew the father of Bellini. At this question he turned, and
    pointing out to me an old man who was passing in a little
    carriage drawn by one horse--'Look you,' said he, 'there he is,
    taking his ride into the country!'

    "I ran to the carriage and stopped it, knowing that he is never
    intrusive who speaks to a father of his son, and of such a son
    as Bellini's. At the first mention of his name, the old man
    took me by both hands, and asked me eagerly if I really knew
    his son. I drew from my portfolio a letter of introduction,
    which, on my departure from Paris, Bellini had given me for the
    Duchess de Noja, and asked him if he knew the handwriting. He
    took the letter in his hands, and answered only by kissing the
    superscription.

    "'Ah,' said he, turning round to me, 'you know not how good he
    is! We are not rich. Well, at each success there comes some
    remembrance, something to add to the ease and comfort of an old
    man. If you will come home with me, I will show you how many
    things I owe to his goodness. Every success brings something
    new. This watch I carry with me, was from _Norma_; this little
    carriage and horse, from _the Puritans_. In every letter that
    he writes, he says that he will come; but Paris is far from
    Sicily. I do not trust to this promise--I am afraid that I
    shall die without seeing him again. You will see him, you----'

    "'Yes,' I answered, 'and if you have any commission----'

    "'No--what should I send him?--My blessing?--Dear boy, I give
    it him night and morning. But tell him you have given me a
    happy day by speaking to me of him--tell him that I embraced
    you as an old friend--(and he embraced me)--but you need not
    say that I was in tears. Besides,' he added, 'it is with joy
    that I weep.--And is it true that my son has a reputation?'

    "'Indeed a very great reputation.'

    "'How strange!' said the old man, 'who would have thought it,
    when I used to scold him, because, instead of working, he would
    be eternally beating time, and teaching his sister all the old
    Sicilian airs! Well, these things are written above. I wish I
    could see him before I die.--But your name?' he added, 'I have
    forgotten all this time to ask your name.'

    "I told him: it woke no recollection.

    "'Alexandre Dumas, Alexandre Dumas,' he repeated two or three
    times, 'I shall recollect that he who bears that name has given
    me good news of my son. Adieu! Alexandre Dumas--I shall
    recollect that name--Adieu!'

    "Poor old man! I am sure he has not forgotten it; for the news
    I gave him of his son was the last he was ever to receive."--P.
    226.

Sicily is one of those _romantic_ countries, where you may still meet
with adventures in your travels, where you may be shot at by banditti
with pointed hats and long guns. M. Dumas passes not without his share
of such adventures. Perhaps, as Sicily is less trodden ground than
Italy, his "Souvenirs" will be found more interesting as he proceeds. We
have naturally taken our quotations in the order in which they presented
themselves, and we have not advanced further than the second of the five
delectably small volumes in which these travels are printed. Would our
space permit us to proceed, it is probable that our extracts would
increase, instead of diminishing, in interest.

       *       *       *       *       *




AMMALÁT BEK.

A TRUE TALE OF THE CAUCASUS. FROM THE RUSSIAN OF MARLÍNSKI.

CHAPTER VI.


_Fragments from the Diary of Ammalát Bek.--Translated from the Tartar_.

... Have I been asleep till now, or am I now in a dream?... This, then,
is the new world called _thought_!... O beautiful world! thou hast long
been to me cloudy and confused, like the milky way, which, they say,
consists of thousands of glittering stars! It seems to me that I am
ascending the mountain of knowledge from the valley of darkness and
ignorance; each step opens to me views further and more extensive.... My
breast breathes freer, I gaze in the face of the sun.... I look
below--the clouds murmur under my feet!... annoying clouds! You prevent
me from seeing the heavens from the earth; from the heaven to look upon
the earth!

I wonder how the commonest questions, _whence_ and _how_, never before
came into my head? All God's world, with every thing in it good or evil,
was seen reflected in my soul as in the sea: I only knew as much of it
as the sea does, or a mirror. In my memory, it is true, much was
preserved: but to what end did this serve? Does the hawk understand why
the hood is put on his head? Does the steed understand why they shoe
him? Did I understand why in one place mountains are necessary, in
another steppes, here eternal snows, there oceans of sand? Why storms
and earthquakes were necessary? And thou, most wondrous being, Man! it
never has entered my head to follow thee from thy cradle, suspended on a
wandering mule, to that magnificent city which I have never seen, and
which I am enchanted merely to have heard of!... I confess that I am
already delighted with the mere outside of a book, without understanding
the meaning of the mysterious letters ... but V. not only makes
knowledge attractive, but gives me the means of acquiring it. With him,
as a young swallow with its mother, I try my new wings.... The distance
and the height still astonish, but no longer alarm me. The time will
come when I shall mount upwards to the heavens!...

       *       *       *       *       *

... But yet, am I happy because V. and his books teach me to think? The
time was, when a spirited steed, a costly sabre, a good gun, delighted
me like a child. Now, that I know the superiority of mind over body, my
former pride in shooting or horsemanship appears to me ridiculous--nay,
even contemptible. Is it worth while to devote oneself to a trade, in
which the meanest broad-shouldered noúker can surpass me?... Is it worth
while to seek honour and happiness, of which the first wound may deprive
me--the first awkward leap? They have taken from me this plaything, but
with what have they replaced it?... With new wants, with new wishes,
which Allah himself can neither weary nor satisfy. I thought myself a
man of consequence; but now I am convinced of my own nothingness.
Formerly, to my memory, my grandfather and great-grandfather were at the
beginning of the night of the past, with its stories and dreaming
traditions.... The Caucasus contained my world, and I peacefully slept
in that night. I thought to be famous in Daghestán--the height of glory.
And what then? History has peopled my former desert with nations,
shattering each other for glory; with heroes, terrifying the nations by
valour to which we can never rise. And where are they? Half forgotten,
they have vanished in the dust of ages. The description of the earth
shows me that the Tartars occupy a little corner of the world; that they
are miserable savages in comparison with the European nations; and that
of the existence, not only of their brave warriors, but of the whole
nation, nobody thinks, nobody knows, nobody wishes to know. It is worth
while to be a glow-worm amongst insects. Was it worth while to expand my
mind, in order to be convinced of such a bitter truth?

       *       *       *       *       *

What is the use of a knowledge of the powers of nature to me, when I
cannot change my soul, master my heart? The sea teaches me to build
dykes--but I cannot restrain my tears!... I can conduct the lightning
from the roof, but I cannot throw off my sorrows! Was I not unhappy
enough from my feelings alone, without calling around me my thoughts,
like greedy vultures? What does the sick man gain by knowing that his
disease is incurable?... The tortures of my hopeless love have become
sharper, more piercing, more various, since my intellect has been
enlightened.

       *       *       *       *       *

No! I am unjust. Reading shortens for me the long winter-like night--the
hours of separation. In teaching me to fix on paper my flying thoughts,
V. has given me a heartfelt enjoyment. Some day I shall meet Seltanetta,
and I shall show her these pages; in which her name is written oftener
than that of Allah in the Korán. "These are the annals of my heart," I
shall say: "Look! on such a day thus thought about you--on such a night,
I saw you thus in my dreams! By these little leaves, as by a string of
diamond beads, you may count my sighs, my tears for you." O lovely, and
beloved being! you will often smile at my strange phantasies--long will
they supply matter for our conversations. But, by your side,
enchantress, shall I be able to remember the past?... No, no!... Every
thing before me, every thing around me, will then fade away, except the
present bliss--to be with you! O, how burning, and how light will my
soul be! Liquid sunshine will flow in my veins--I shall float in heaven,
like the sun! To forget all by your side is a bliss prouder than the
highest wisdom!

       *       *       *       *       *

I have read stories of love, of the charms of woman--of the perfidy of
man--but no heroine approaches my Seltanetta in loveliness of soul or
body--not one of the heroes do I resemble--I envy them the fascination,
I admire the wisdom of lovers in books--but then, how weak, how cold is
their love! It is a moonbeam playing on ice! Whence come these European
babblers of Tharsis--these nightingales of the market-place--these
sugared confections of flowers? I cannot believe that people can love
passionately, and prate of their love--even as a hired mourner laments
over the dead. The spendthrift casts his treasure by handfuls to the
wind; the lover hides it, nurses it, buries it in his heart like a
hoard.

       *       *       *       *       *

I am yet young, and I ask "what is friendship?" I have a friend in V.--a
loving, real, thoughtful friend; yet I am not _his_ friend. I feel it, I
reproach myself that I do not reciprocate his regard as I ought, as he
deserves--but is in my power? In my soul there is no room for any one
but Seltanetta--in my heart there is no feeling but love.

       *       *       *       *       *

No! I cannot read, I cannot understand what the Colonel explains to me.
I cheated myself when I thought that the ladder of science could be
climbed by me ... I am weary at the first steps, I lose my way on the
first difficulty, I entangle the threads, instead of unravelling them--I
pull and tear them--and I carry off nothing of the prey but a few
fragments. The _hope_ which the Colonel held out to me I mistook for my
own progress. But who--what--impedes this progress? That which makes the
happiness and misery of my life--love. In every place, in every thing, I
hear and see Seltanetta--and often Seltanetta alone. To banish her from
my thoughts I should consider sacrilege; and, even if I wished, I could
not perform the resolution. Can I see without light? Can I breathe
without air? Seltanetta is my light, my air, my life, my soul!

       *       *       *       *       *

My hand trembles--my heart flutters in my bosom. If I wrote with my
blood, 'twould scorch the paper. Seltanetta! your image pursues me
dreaming or awake. The image of your charms is more dangerous than the
reality. The thought that I may never possess them, touch them, see
them, perhaps, plunges me into an incessant melancholy--at once I melt
and burn. I recall each lovely feature, each attitude of your exquisite
person--that little foot, the seal of love, that bosom, the gem of
bliss! The remembrance of your voice makes my soul thrill like the chord
of an instrument--ready to burst from the clearness of its tone--and
your kiss! that kiss in which I drank your soul! It showers roses and
coals of fire upon my lonely bed--I burn--my hot lips are tortured by
the thirst for caresses--my hand longs to clasp your waist--to touch
your knees! Oh, come--Oh, fly to me--that I may die in delight, as now I
do in weariness!

       *       *       *       *       *

Colonel Verkhóffsky, endeavouring by every possible means to divert
Ammalát's grief, thought of amusing him with a boar-hunt, the favourite
occupation of the Beks of Daghestán. In answer to his summons, there
assembled about twenty persons, each attended by his noúkers, each eager
to try his fortune, or to gallop about the field and vaunt his courage.
Already had grey December covered the tops of the surrounding mountains
with the first-fallen snow. Here and there in the streets of Derbénd lay
a crust of ice, but over it the mud rolled in sluggish waves along the
uneven pavement. The sea lazily plashed against the sunken turrets of
the walls which descended to the water, a flock of bustards and of geese
whizzed through the fog, and flew with a complaining cry above the
ramparts; all was dark and melancholy--even the dull and tiresome
braying of the asses laden with faggots for the market, sounded like a
dirge over the fine weather. The old Tartars sat in the bazárs, wrapping
their shoubes over their noses. But this is exactly the weather most
favourable to hunters. Hardly had the moóllahs of the town proclaimed
the hour of prayer, when the Colonel, attended by several of his
officers, the Beks of the city, and Ammalát, rode, or rather swam,
through the mud, leaving the town in the direction of the north, through
the principal gate Keerkhlár Kápi, which is covered with iron plates.
The road leading to Tárki is rude in appearance, bordered for a few
paces to the right and left with beds of madder--beyond them lie vast
burying-grounds, and further still towards the sea, scattered gardens.
But the appearance of the suburbs is a great deal more magnificent than
those of the Southern ones. To the left, on the rocks were seen the
Keifárs, or barracks of the regiment of Koúrin; while on both sides of
the road, fragments of rock lay in picturesque disorder, rolled down in
heaps by the violence of the mountain-torrents. A forest of ilex,
covered with hoar-frost, thickened as it approached Vellikent, and at
each verst the retinue of Verkhóffsky was swelled by fresh arrivals of
_Beglar_ and _Agalar_[4]. The hunting party now turned to the left, and
they speedily heard the cry of the _ghayálstchiks_[5] assembled from the
surrounding villages. The hunters formed into an extended chain, some on
horseback, and some running on foot; and soon the wild-boars also began
to show themselves.

    [4] _Lar_ is the Tartar plural of all substantives.

    [5] Beaters for the game.

The umbrageous oak-forests of Daghestán have served, from time
immemorial, as a covert for innumerable herds of wild hogs; and although
the Tartars--like the Mussulmans--hold it a sin not only to eat, but
even to touch the unclean animal, they consider it a praiseworthy act to
destroy them--at least they practise the art of shooting on these
beasts, as well as exhibit their courage, because the chase of the
wild-boar is accompanied by great danger, and requires cunning and
bravery.

The lengthened chain of hunters occupied a wide extent of ground; the
most fearless marksmen selecting the most solitary posts, in order to
divide with no one else the glory of success, and also because the
animals make for those points where there are fewer people. Colonel
Verkhóffsky, confident in his gigantic strength and sure eye, posted
himself in the thickest of the wood, and halted at a small savannah to
which converged the tracks of numerous wild-boars. Perfectly alone,
leaning against the branch of a fallen tree, he awaited his game.
Interrupted shots were heard on the right and left of his station; for a
moment a wild-boar appeared behind the trees; at length the bursting
crash of falling underwood was heard, and immediately a boar of uncommon
size darted across the field like a ball fired from a cannon. The
Colonel took his aim, the bullet whistled, and the wounded monster
suddenly halted, as if in surprise--but this was but for an instant--he
dashed furiously in the direction whence came the shot. The froth smoked
from his red-hot tusks, his eye burned in blood, and he flew at the
enemy with a grunt. But Verkhóffsky showed no alarm, waiting for the
nearer approach of the brute: a second time clicked the cock of his
gun--but the powder was damp and missed fire. What now remained for the
hunter? He had not even a dagger at his girdle--flight would have been
useless. As if by the anger of fate, not a single thick tree was near
him--only one dry branch arose from the oak against which he had leaned;
and Verkhóffsky threw himself on it as the only means of avoiding
destruction. Hardly had he time to clamber an arschine and a half[6]
from the ground, when the boar, enraged to fury, struck the branch with
his tusks--it cracked from the force of the blow and the weight which
was supported by it.... It was in vain that Verkhóffsky tried to climb
higher--the bark was covered with ice--his hands slipped--he was sliding
downwards; but the beast did not quit the tree--he gnawed it--he
attacked it with his sharp tusks a _tchétverin_ below the feet of the
hunter. Every instant Verkhóffsky expected to be sacrificed, and his
voice died away in the lonely space in vain. No, not in vain! The sound
of a horse's hoofs was heard close at hand, and Ammalát Bek galloped up
at full speed with uplifted sabre. Perceiving a new enemy, the wild-boar
turned at him, but a sideway leap of the horse decided the battle--a
blow from Ammalát hurled him on the earth.

    [6] Rather less than an English yard.

The rescued Colonel hurried to embrace his friend, but the latter was
slashing, mangling, in a fit of rage, the slain beast. "I accept not
unmerited thanks," he answered at length, turning from the Colonel's
embrace. "This same boar gored before my eyes a Bek of Tabasóran, my
friend, when he, having missed him, had entangled his foot in the
stirrup. I burned with anger when I saw my comrade's blood, and flew in
pursuit of the boar. The closeness of the wood prevented me from
following his track; I had quite lost him; and God has brought me hither
to slay the accursed brute, when he was on the point of sacrificing a
yet nobler victim--you, my benefactor."

"Now we are quits, dear Ammalát. Do not talk of past events. This day
our teeth shall avenge us on this tusked foe. I hope you will not refuse
to taste the forbidden meat, Ammalát?"

"Not I! nor to wash it down with champagne, Colonel. Without offence to
Mahomet, I had rather strengthen my soul with the foam of the wine, than
with the water of the true believer."

The hunt now turned to the other side. From afar were heard cries and
hallooing, and the drums of the Tartars in the chase. From time to time
shots rang through the air. A horse was led up to the Colonel: and he,
feasting his sight with the boar, which was almost cut in two, patted
Ammalát on the shoulder, crying "A brave blow!"

"In that blow exploded my revenge," answered the Bek; "and the revenge
of an Asiatic is heavy."

"You have seen, you have witnessed," replied the Colonel, "how injury is
avenged by Russians--that is, by Christians; let this be not a reproach,
but--a lesson to you."

And they both galloped off towards the Line.

Ammalát was remarkably absent--sometimes he did not answer at all--at
others, he answered incoherently to the questions of Verkhóffsky, by
whom he rode, gazing abstractedly around him. The Colonel, thinking
that, like an eager hunter, he was engrossed by the sport, left him, and
rode forward. At last, Ammalát perceived him whom he was so impatiently
expecting, his hemdjék, Saphir Ali, flew to meet him, covered with mud,
and mounted on a smoking horse. With cries of "Aleikoúm Selam," they
both jumped off their horses, and were immediately locked in each
other's embrace.

"And so you have been there--you have seen her--you have spoken to her?"
cried Ammalát, tearing off his kaftán, and choking with agitation. "I
see by your face that you bring good news; here is my new _tchoukhá_[7]
for you for that. Does she live? Is she well? Does she love me as
before?"

    [7] The Tartars have an invariable custom, of taking off some
    part of their dress and giving it to the bearer of good news.

"Let me recollect myself," answered Saphir Ali. "Let me take breath. You
have put so many questions, and I myself are charged with so many
commissions, that they are crowding together like old women at the door
of the mosque, who have lost their shoes. First, at your desire, I have
been to Khounzákh. I crept along so softly, that I did not scare a
single thrush by the road. Sultan Akhmet Khan is well, and at home. He
asked about you with great anxiety, shook his head, and enquired if you
did not want a spindle to dry the silk of Derbénd. The khánsha sends you
tchokh selammóum, (many compliments,) and as many sweet cakes. I threw
them away, the confounded things, at the first resting-place.
Soúrkhai-Khan, Noutzal-Khan"----

"The devil take them all! What about Seltanetta?"

"Aha! at last I have touched the chilblain of your heart. Seltanetta, my
dear Ammalát, is as beautiful as the starry sky; but in that heaven I
saw no light, until I conversed about you. Then she almost threw herself
on my neck when we were left alone together, and I explained the cause
of my arrival. I gave her a camel-load of compliments from you--told her
that you were almost dead with love--poor fellow!--and she burst into
tears!"

"Kind, lovely soul! What did she tell you to say to me?"

"Better ask what she did not. She says that, from the time that you left
her, she has never rejoiced even in her dreams; that the winter snow has
fallen on her heart, and that nothing but a meeting with her beloved,
like a vernal sun, can melt it.... But if I were to continue to the end
of her messages, and you were to wait to the end of my story, we should
both reach Derbénd with grey beards. Spite of all this, she almost drove
me away, hurrying me off, lest you should doubt her love!"

"Darling of my soul! you know not--I cannot explain what bliss it is to
be with thee, what torment to be separated from thee, not to see thee!"

"That is exactly the thing, Ammalát; she grieves that she cannot rejoice
her eyes with a sight of him whom she never can be weary of gazing at.
'Is it possible,' she says, 'that he cannot come but for one little day,
for one short hour, one little moment?'"

"To look on her, and then die, I would be content!"

"Ah, when you behold her, you will wish to live. She is become quieter
than she was of old; but even yet she is so lively, that when you see
her your blood sparkles within you."

"Did you tell her why it is not in my power to do her will, and to
accomplish my own passionate desire?"

"I related such tales that you would have thought me the Shah of
Persia's chief poet. Seltanetta shed tears like a fountain after rain.
She does nothing else but weep."

"Why, then, reduce her to despair? 'I cannot now' does not mean 'it is
for ever impossible.' You know what a woman's heart is, Saphir Ali: for
them the end of hope is the end of love."

"You sow words on the wind, djanníon (my soul.) Hope, for lovers, is a
skein of worsted--endless. In cool blood, you do not even trust your
eyes; but fall in love, and you will believe in ghosts. I think that
Seltanetta would hope that you could ride to her from your coffin--not
only from Derbénd."

"And how is Derbénd better than a coffin to me? Does not my heart feel
its decay, without power to escape it? Here is only my corpse: my soul
is far away."

"It seems that your senses often take the whim of walking I know not
where, dear Ammalát. Are you not well at Verkhóffsky's--free and
contented? beloved as a younger brother, caressed like a bride? Grant
that Seltanetta is lovely: there are not many Verkhóffskys. Cannot you
sacrifice to friendship a little part of love?"

"Am not I then doing so, Saphir Ali? But if you knew how much it costs
me! It is as if I tore my heart to pieces. Friendship is a lovely thing,
but it cannot fill the place of love."

"At least, it can console us for love--it can relieve it. Have you
spoken about this to the Colonel?"

"I cannot prevail on myself to do so. The words die on my lips, when I
would speak of my love. He is so wise, that I am ashamed to annoy him
with my madness. He is so kind, that I dare not abuse his patience. To
say the truth, his frankness invites, encourages mine. Figure to
yourself that he has been in love since his childhood with a maiden, to
whom he was plighted, and whom he certainly would have married if his
name had not been by mistake put into a list of killed during the war
with the Feringhis. His bride shed tears, but nevertheless was given
away in marriage. He flies back to his country, and finds his beloved
the wife of another. What, think you, should I have done in such a case?
Plunged a dagger in the breast of the robber of my treasure!--carried
her away to the end or the world to possess her but one hour, but one
moment! Nothing of this kind happened. He learned that his rival was an
excellent and worthy man. He had the calmness to contract a friendship
with him: had the patience to be often in the society of his former
love, without betraying, either by word or deed, his new friend or his
still loved mistress."

"A rare man, if this be true!" exclaimed Saphir Ali, with feeling,
throwing away his reins. "A stout friend indeed!"

"But what an icy lover! But this is not all. To relieve both of them
from misrepresentation and scandal, he came hither on service. Not long
ago--for his happiness or unhappiness--his friend died. And what then?
Do you think he flew to Russia. No! his duty kept him away. The
Commander-in-chief informed him that his presence was indispensable here
for a year more, and he has remained--cherishing his love with hope. Can
such a man, with all his goodness, understand such a passion as mine?
And besides, there is such a difference between us in years, in
opinions. He kills me with his unapproachable dignity; and all this
cools my friendship, and impedes my sincerity."

"You are a strange fellow, Ammalát; you do not love Verkhóffsky for the
very reason that he most merits frankness and affection!"

"Who told you that I do not love him? How can I but love the man who has
educated me--my benefactor? Can I not love any one but Seltanetta? I
love the whole world--all men!"

"Not much love, then, will fall to the share of each!" said Saphir Ali.

"There would be enough not only to quench the thirst, but to drown the
whole world!" replied Ammalát, with a smile.

"Aha! This comes of seeing beauties unveiled--and then to see nothing
but the veil and the eyebrows. It seems that you are like the
nightingales of Ourmis; you must be caged before you can sing!"

Conversing in this strain, the two friends disappeared in the depths of
the forest.




CHAPTER VII.

FRAGMENT OF A LETTER FROM COLONEL VERKHÓFFSKY TO HIS BETROTHED.


_Derbénd, April._

Fly to, me, heart of my heart, dearest Maria! Rejoice in the sight of a
lovely vernal night in Daghestán. Beneath me lies Derbénd, slumbering
calmly, like a black streak of lava flowing from the Caucasus and cooled
in the sea. The gentle breeze bears to me the fragrant odour of the
almond-trees, the nightingales are calling to each other from the
rock-crevices, behind the fortress: all breathes of life and love; and
beautiful nature, full of this feeling, covers herself with a veil of
mists. And how wonderfully has that vaporous ocean poured itself over
the Caspian! The sea below gleams wavingly, like steel damasked with
gold on an escutcheon--that above swells like a silver surge lighted by
the full moon, which rolls along the sky like a cup of gold, while the
stars glitter around like scattered drops. In a moment, the reflection
of the moonbeams in the vapours of the night changes the picture,
anticipating the imagination, now astounding by its marvels--now
striking by its novelty. Sometimes I seem to behold the rocks of the
wild shore, and the waves beating against them in foam. The billows roll
onward to the charge: the rocky ramparts repel the shock, and the surf
flies high above them; but silently and slowly sink the waves, and the
silver palms arise from the midst of the inundation, the breeze stirs
their branches, playing with the long leaves, and they spread like the
sails of a ship gliding over the airy ocean. Do you see how she rolls
along, how the spray-drops sparkle on her breast, how the waves slide
along her sides. And where is she?... and where am I?... You cannot
imagine, dearest Maria, the sweetly solemn feeling produced in me by the
sound and sight of the sea. To me, the idea of eternity is inseparable
from it; of immensity--of our love. That love seems to me, like it,
infinite--eternal. I feel as if my heart overflowed to embrace the
world, even as the ocean, with its bright waves of love. It is in me and
around me; it is the only great and immortal feeling which I possess.
Its spark lights and warms me in the winter of my sorrows, in the
midnight of my doubts. Then I love so blindly! I believe so ardently!
You smile at my fantasy, friend and companion of my soul. You wonder at
this dark language; blame me not. My spirit, like the denizen of another
world, cannot bear the chill and frosty moonlight--it shakes off the
dust of the grave; it soars away, and, like the moonlight, dimly
discovers all things darkly and uncertainly. You know that it is to you
alone that I write down the pictures which fall on the magic-glass of my
heart, assured that you will guess, not with cold criticism, but with
the heart, what I would describe. Besides, next August, your happy
bridegroom will himself explain all the dark passages in his letters. I
cannot think without ecstasy of the moment of our meeting. I count the
sand-grains of the hours which separate us. I count the versts which lie
between us. And so in the middle of June you will be at the waters of
the Caucasus. And nought but the icy chain of the Caucasus will be
between two ardent hearts.... How near--yet how immeasurably far shall
we be from each other! Oh! how many years of life would I not give to
hasten the hour of our meeting! Long, long, have our hearts been
plighted.... Why have they been separated till now?

My friend Ammalát is not frank or confiding. I cannot blame him. I know
how difficult it is to break through habits imbibed with a mother's
milk, and with the air of one's native land. The barbarian despotism of
Persia, which has so long oppressed Aderbidján, has instilled the basest
principles into the Tartars of the Caucasus, and has polluted their
sense of honour by the most despicable subterfuge. And how could it be
otherwise in a government based upon the tyranny of the great over the
less--where justice herself can punish only in secret--where robbery is
the privilege of power? "Do with me what you like, provided you let me
do with my inferior what I like," is the principle of Asiatic
government--its ambition, its morality. Hence, every man, finding
himself between two enemies, is obliged to conceal his thoughts, as he
hides his money. Hence every man plays the hypocrite before the
powerful; every man endeavours to force from others a present by tyranny
or accusation. Hence the Tartar of this country will not move a step,
but with the hope of gain; will not give you so much as a cucumber,
without expecting a present in return.

Insolent to rudeness with every one who is not in power, he is mean and
slavish before rank or a full purse. He sows flattery by handfuls; he
will give you his house, his children, his soul, to get rid of a
difficulty, and if he does any body a service, it is sure to be from
motives of interest.

In money matters (this is the weakest side of a Tartar) a ducat is the
touchstone of his fidelity; and it is difficult to imagine the extent of
their greediness for profit! The Armenian character is yet a thousand
times more vile than theirs; but the Tartars hardly yield to them in
corruption and greediness--and this is saying a good deal. Is it
surprising that, beholding from infancy such examples, Ammalát--though
he has retained the detestation of meanness natural to pure
blood--should have adopted concealment as an indispensable arm against
open malevolence and secret villany? The sacred ties of relationship do
not exist for Asiatics. With them, the son is the slave of the
father--the brother is a rival. No one trusts his neighbour, because
there is no faith in any man. Jealousy of their wives, and dread of
espionage, destroy brotherly love and friendship. The child brought up
by his slave-mother--never experiencing a father's caress, and
afterwards estranged by the Arabian alphabet, (education,) hides his
feelings in his own heart even from his companions; from his childhood,
thinks only for himself; from the first beard are every door, every
heart shut for him: husbands look askance at him, women fly from him as
from a wild beast, and the first and most innocent emotions of his
heart, the first voice of nature, the first movements of his
feelings--all these have become crimes in the eyes of Mahometan
superstition. He dares not discover them to a relation, or confide them
to a friend.... He must even weep in secret.

All this I say, my sweet Maria, to excuse Ammalát: he has already lived
a year and a half in my house, and hitherto has never confessed to me
the object of his love; though he might well have known, that it was
from no idle curiosity, but from a real heartfelt interest, that I
wished to know the secret of his heart. At last, however, he has told me
all; and thus it happened.

Yesterday I took a ride out of the town with Ammalát. We rode up through
a defile in the mountain on the west, and we advanced further and
further, higher and higher, till we found ourselves unexpectedly close
to the village of Kelík, from which may be seen the wall that anciently
defended Persia from the incursions of the wandering tribes inhabiting
the Zakavkáz, (trans-Caucasian country,) which often devastated that
territory. The annals of Derbénd (Derbéndnámé) ascribe, but falsely, the
construction of it to a certain Iskender--_i.e._ Alexander the
Great--who, however, never was in these regions. King Noushirván
repaired it, and placed a guard along it. More than once since that time
it has been restored; and again it fell into ruin, and became overgrown,
as it now is, with the trees of centuries. A tradition exists, that this
wall formerly extended from the Caspian to the Black Sea, cutting
through the whole Caucasus, and having for its extremity the "iron gate"
of Derbénd, and Dariál in its centre; but this is more than doubtful as
far as regards the general facts, though certain in the particulars. The
traces of this wall, which are to be seen far into the mountains, are
interrupted here and there, but only by fallen stones or rocks and
ravines, till it reaches the military road; but from thence to the Black
Sea, through Mingrelia, I think there are no traces of its continuation.

I examined, with curiosity, this enormous wall, fortified by numerous
towers at short distance; and I wondered at the grandeur of the
ancients, exhibited even in their unreasonable caprices of
despotism--that greatness to which the effeminate rulers of the East
cannot aspire, in our day, even in imagination. The wonders of Babylon,
the lake of Moeris, the pyramids of the Pharaohs, the endless wall of
China, and this huge bulwark, built in sterile places, on the summits of
mountains, through the abyss of ravines--bear witness to the gigantic
iron will, and the unlimited power, of the ancient kings. Neither time,
nor earthquake, nor man, transitory man, nor the footstep of thousands
of years, have entirely destroyed, entirely trodden down, the remains of
immemorial antiquity. These places awake in me solemn and sacred
thoughts. I wandered over the traces of Peter the Great; I pictured him
the founder, the reformer, of a young state--building it on these ruins
of the decaying monarchies of Asia, from the centre of which he tore out
Russia, and with a mighty hand rolled her into Europe. What a fire must
have gleamed in his eagle eye, as he glanced from the heights of
Caucasus! What sublime thoughts, what holy aspirations, must have
swelled that heroic breast! The grand destiny of his country was
disclosed before his eyes; in the horizon, in the mirror of the Caspian,
appeared to him the picture of Russia's future weal, sown by him, and
watered by his red sweat. It was not empty conquest that was his aim,
but victory over barbarism--the happiness of mankind. Derbénd, Báka,
Astrabád, they are the links of the chain with which he endeavoured to
bind the Caucasus, and rivet the commerce of India with Russia.

Demigod of the North! Thou whom nature created at once to flatter the
pride of man, and to reduce it to despair by thine unapproachable
greatness! Thy shade rose before me, bright and colossal, and the
cataract of ages fell foaming at thy feet! Pensive and silent, I rode
on.

The wall of the Caucasus is faced on the north side with squared stones,
neatly and firmly fixed together with lime. Many of the battlements are
still entire; but feeble seeds, falling into the crevices and joints,
have burst them asunder with the roots of trees growing from them, and,
assisted by the rains, have thrown the stones to the earth, and over the
ruins triumphantly creep mallows and pomegranates; the eagle,
unmolested, builds her nest in the turret once crowded with warriors,
and on the cold hearthstone lie the fresh bones of the wild-goat,
dragged thither by the jackals. Sometimes the line of the ruins entirely
disappeared; then fragments of the stones again rose from among the
grass and underwood. Riding in this way, a distance of about three
versts, we reached the gate, and passed through to the south side, under
a vaulted arch, lined with moss and overgrown with shrubs. We had not
advanced twenty paces, when suddenly, behind an enormous tower, we came
upon six armed mountaineers, who seemed, by all appearance, to belong to
those gangs of robbers--the free Tabasaranetzes. They were lying in the
shade, close to their horses, which were feeding. I was astounded. I
immediately reflected how foolishly I had acted in riding so far from
Derbénd without an escort. To gallop back, among such bushes and rocks,
would have been impossible; to fight six such desperate fellows, would
have been foolhardiness. Nevertheless, I seized a holster-pistol; but
Ammalát Bek, seeing how matters stood, advanced, and cried in a calm
slow voice: "Do not handle your arms, or we are dead men!"

The robbers, perceiving us, jumped up and cocked their guns, one fine,
broad-shouldered, but extremely savage-looking Lezghín, remaining
stretched on the ground. He lifted his head coolly, looked at us, and
waved his hand to his companions. In a moment we found ourselves
surrounded by them, while a path in front was stopped by the Ataman.

"Pray, dismount from your horses, dear guests," said he with a smile,
though one could see that the next invitation would be a bullet. I
hesitated; but Ammalát Bek jumped speedily from his horse, and walked up
to the Ataman.

"Hail!" He said to him: "hail, sorvi golová! I thought not of seeing
you. I thought the devils had long ago made a feast of you."

"Softly, Ammalát Bek!" answered the other; "I hope yet to feed the
eagles with the bodies of the Russians and of you Tartars, whose purse
is bigger than your heart."

"Well, and what luck, Shermadán?" carelessly enquired Ammalát Bek.

"But poor. The Russians are watchful: and we have seldom been able to
drive the cattle of a regiment, or to sell two Russian soldiers at a
time in the hills. It is difficult to transport madder and silk; and of
Persian tissue, very little is now carried on the arbás. We should have
had to quest like wolves again to-day, but Allah has had mercy; he has
given into our hands a rich bek and a Russian colonel!"

My heart died within me, as I heard these words.

"Do not sell a hawk in the sky: sell him," answered Ammalát, "when you
have him on your glove."

The robber sat down, laid his hand on the cock of his gun, and fixed on
us a piercing look. "Hark'e, Ammalát!" said he; "is it possible that you
think to escape me?--is it possible that you will dare to defend
yourselves?"

"Be quiet," said Ammalát; "are we fools, to fight two to six? Gold is
dear to us, but dearer is our life. We have fallen into your hands, so
there is nothing to be done, unless you extort an unreasonable price for
our ransom. I have, as you know, neither father nor mother: and the
Colonel has yet less--neither kinsmen nor tribe."

"If you have no father, you have your father's inheritance. There is no
need then to count your relations with you: however, I am a man of
conscience. If you have no ducats, I will take your ransom in sheep. But
about the colonel, don't talk any more nonsense. I know for him the
soldiers would give the last button on their uniforms. Why, if for
Sh---- a ransom of ten thousand rubles was paid, they will give more for
this man. However, we shall see, we shall see. If you will be quiet....
Why, I am not a Jew, or a cannibal--Perviáder (the Almighty) forgive
me!"

"Now that's it, friend: feed us well, and I swear and promise by my
honour, we will never think of harming you--nor of escaping."

"I believe, I believe! I am glad we have arranged without making any
noise about it. What a fine fellow you have become, Ammalát! Your horse
is not a horse, your gun is not a gun: it is a pleasure to look at you;
and this is true. Let me look at your dagger, my friend. Surely this is
the Koubatchín mark upon the blade."

"No, the Kizliár mark," replied Ammalát, quietly unbuckling the
dagger-belt from his waist; "and look at the blade. Wonderful! it cuts a
nail in two like a candle. On this side is the maker's name; there--read
it yourself: Alióusta--Kóza--Nishtshekói." And while he spoke, he
twirled the naked blade before the eyes of the greedy Lezghín, who
wished to show that he knew how to read, and was decyphering the
complicated inscription with some difficulty. But suddenly the dagger
gleamed like lightning.... Ammalát, seizing the opportunity, struck
Shermadán with all his might on the head; and so fierce was the blow,
that the dagger was stopped by the teeth of the lower jaw. The corpse
fell heavily on the grass. Keeping my eyes upon Ammalát, I followed his
example, and with my pistol shot the robber who was next me, and had
hold of my horse's bridle. This was to the others a signal for flight;
the rascals vanished; for the death of their Ataman dissolved the knot
of the leash which bound them together. Whilst Ammalát, after the
oriental fashion, was stripping the dead of their arms, and tying
together the reins of the abandoned horses, I lectured him on his
dissembling and making a false oath to the robber. He lifted up his head
with astonishment: "You are a strange man, Colonel!" he replied. "This
rascal has done an infinity of harm to the Russians, by secretly setting
fire to their stacks of hay, or seizing and carrying straggling soldiers
and wood-cutters into slavery. Do you know that he would have tyrannized
over us--or even tortured us, to make us write more movingly to our
kinsmen, to induce them to pay a larger ransom?"

"It may be so, Ammalát, but to lie or to swear an oath, either in jest
or to escape misfortune, is wrong. Why could we not have thrown
ourselves directly at the robbers, and have begun as you finished?"

"No, Colonel, we could not. If I had not entered into conversation with
the Ataman, we should have been riddled with balls at the first
movement. Moreover, I know that pack right well: they are brave only in
the presence of their Ataman, and it was with him it was necessary to
begin!"

I shook my head. The Asiatic cunning, though it had saved my life, could
not please me. What confidence can I have in people accustomed to sport
with their honour and their soul? We were about to mount our horses,
when we heard a groan from the mountaineer who had been wounded by me.
He came to himself, raised his head, and piteously besought us not to
leave him to be devoured by the beasts of the forest. We both hastened
to assist the poor wretch; and what was Ammalát's astonishment when he
recognized in him one of the noúkers of Sultan Akhmet Khan of Avár. To
the question how he happened to be one of a gang of robbers, he replied:
"Shairán tempted me: the Khan sent me into Kemék, a neighbouring
village, with a letter to the famous Hakím (Doctor) Ibrahim, for a
certain herb, which they say removes every ailment, as easily as if it
were brushed away with the hand. To my sorrow, Shermadán met me in the
way! He teazed me, saying, 'Come with me, and let us rob on the road. An
Armenian is coming from Kouba with money.' My young heart could not
resist this ... oh, Allah-il-Allah! He hath taken my soul from me!"

"They sent you for physic, you say," replied Ammalát: "why, who is sick
with you?"

"Our Khanóum Seltanetta is dying: here is the writing to the leech about
her illness:" with these words he gave Ammalát a silver tube, in which
was a small piece of paper rolled up. Ammalát turned as pale as death;
his hands shook--his eyes sank under his eyebrows when he had read the
note: with a broken voice he uttered detached words. "Three nights--and
she sleeps not, eats not--delirious!--her life is in danger--save her! O
God of righteousness--and I am idling here--leading a life of
holidays--and my soul's soul is ready to quit the earth, and leave me a
rotten corse! Oh that all her sufferings could fall on my head! and that
I could lie in her coffin, if that would restore her to health. Sweetest
and loveliest! thou art fading, rose of Avár, and destiny has stretched
out her talons over thee. Colonel," he cried at length, seizing my hand,
"grant my only, my solemn prayer--let me but once more look on her!"----

"On whom, my friend?"

"On my Seltanetta--on the daughter of the Khan of Avár--whom I love more
than my life, than my soul! She is ill, she is dying--perhaps dead by
this time--while I am wasting words--and I could not receive into my
heart her last word--her last look--could not wipe away the icy tear of
death! Oh, why do not the ashes of the ruined sun fall on my head--why
will not the earth bury me in its ruins!"

He fell on my breast, choking with grief, in a tearless agony, unable to
pronounce a word.

This was not a time for accusations of insincerity, much less to set
forth the reasons which rendered it unadvisable for him to go among the
enemies of Russia. There are circumstances before which all reasons must
give way, and I felt that Ammalát was in such circumstances. On my own
responsibility I resolved to let him go. "He that obliges from the
heart, and speedily, twice obliges," is my favourite proverb, and best
maxim. I pressed in my embrace the unhappy Tartar, and we mingled our
tears together.

"My friend Ammalát," said I, "hasten where your heart calls you. God
grant that you may carry thither health and recovery, and bring back
peace of mind! A happy journey!"

"Farewell, my benefactor," he cried, deeply touched, "farewell, and
perhaps for ever! I will not return to life, if Allah takes from me my
Seltanetta. May God keep you!"

He took the wounded Aváretz to the Hakím Ibrahim, received the medicinal
herb according to the Khan's prescription, and in an hour Ammalát Bek,
with four noúkers, rode out of Derbénd.

And so the riddle is guessed--he loves. This is unfortunate, but what is
yet worse, he is beloved in return. I fancy, my love, that I see your
astonishment. "Can that be a misfortune to another, which to you is
happiness?" you ask. A grain of patience, my soul's angel! The Khan, the
father of Seltanetta, is the irreconcilable foe of Russia, and the more
so because, having been distinguished by the favour of the Czar, he has
turned a traitor; consequently a marriage is possible only on condition
of Ammalát's betraying the Russians, or in case of the Khan's submission
and pardon--both cases being far from probable. I myself have
experienced misery and hopelessness in love; I have shed many tears on
my lonely pillow; often have I thirsted for the shade of the grave, to
cool my anguished heart! Can I, then, help, pitying this youth, the
object of my disinterested regard, and lamenting his hopeless love? But
this will not build a bridge to good-fortune; and I therefore think,
that if he had not the ill-luck to be beloved in return, he would by
degrees forget her.

"But," you say, (and methinks I hear your silvery voice, and am
revelling in your angel's smile,) "but circumstances may change for
them, as they have changed for us. Is it possible that misfortune alone
has the privilege of being eternal in the world?"

I do not dispute this, my beloved, but I confess with a sigh that I am
in doubt. I even fear for them and for ourselves. Destiny smiles before
us, hope chaunts sweet music--but destiny is a sea--hope but a
sea-syren; deceitful is the calm of the one, fatal are the promises of
the other. All appears to aid our union--but are we yet together? I know
not why, lovely Mary, but a chill penetrates my breast, amid the warm
fountains of future bliss, and the idea of our meeting has lost its
distinctness. But all this will pass away, all will change into
happiness, when I press your hand to my lips, your heart to mine. The
rainbow shines yet brighter on the dark field of the cloud, and the
happiest moments of life are but the anticipations of sorrow.




CHAPTER VIII.


Ammalát knocked up two horses, and left two of his noúkers on the road,
so that at the end of the second day he was not far from Khounzákh. At
each stride his impatience grew stronger, and with each stride increased
his fear of not finding his beloved amongst the living. A fit of
trembling came over him when from the rocks the tops of the Khan's tower
arose before him. His eyes grew dark. "Shall I meet there life or
death?" he whispered to himself, and arousing a desperate courage, he
urged his horse to a gallop.

He came up with a horseman completely armed: another horseman rode out
of Khounzákh to meeting, and hardly did they perceive one another when
they put their horses to full speed, rode up to each other, leaped down
upon the earth, and suddenly drawing their swords, threw themselves with
fury upon each other without uttering a word, as if blows were the
customary salutation of travellers. Ammalát Bek, whose passage they
intercepted along the narrow path between the rocks, gazed with
astonishment on the combat of the two adversaries. It was short. The
horseman who was approaching the town fell on the stones, bedewing them
with blood from a gash which laid open his skull; and the victor, coolly
wiping his blade, addressed himself to Ammalát: "Your coming is
opportune: I am glad that destiny has brought you in time to witness our
combat. God, and not I, killed the offender; and now his kinsmen will
not say that I killed my enemy stealthily from behind a rock, and will
not raise upon my head the feud of blood."

"Whence arose your quarrel with him?" asked Ammalát: "why did you
conclude it with such a terrible revenge?"

"This Kharám-Záda," answered the horseman, "could not agree with me
about the division of some stolen sheep, and in spite he killed them all
so that nobody should have them ... and he dared to slander my wife. He
had better have insulted my father's grave, or my mother's good name,
than have touched the reputation of my wife! I once flew at him with my
dagger, but they parted us: we agreed to fight at our first encounter,
and Allah has judged between us! The Bek is doubtless riding to
Khounzákh--surely on a vizit to the Khan?" added the horseman.

Ammalát, forcing his horse to leap over the dead body which lay across
the road, replied in the affirmative.

"You go not at a fit time, Bek--not at all at a fit time."

All Ammalát's blood rushed to his head. "Why, has any misfortune
happened in the Khan's house?" he enquired, reining in his horse, which
he had just before lashed with the whip to force him faster to
Khounzákh.

"Not exactly a misfortune, his daughter Seltanetta was severely ill, and
now"----

"Is dead?" cried Ammalát, turning pale.

"Perhaps she is dead--at least dying. As I rode past the Khan's gate,
there arose a bustling, crying, and yelling of women in the court, as if
the Russians were storming Khounzákh. Go and see--do me the favour"----

But Ammalát heard no more, he dashed away from the astounded Ouzdén; the
dust rolled like smoke from the road, which seemed to be set on fire by
the sparks from the horse's hoofs. Headlong he galloped through the
winding streets, flew up the hill, bounded from his horse in the midst
of the Khan's court-yard, and raced breathlessly through the passages to
Seltanetta's apartment, overthrowing and jostling noúkers and maidens,
and at last, without remarking the Khan or his wife, pushed himself to
the bed of the sufferer, and fell, almost senseless, on his knees beside
it.

The sudden and noisy arrival of Ammalát aroused the sad society present.
Seltanetta, whose existence death was already overpowering, seemed as if
awakening from the deep forgetfulness of fever; her cheeks flushed with
a transient colour, like that on the leaves of autumn before they fall:
in her clouded eye beamed the last spark of the soul. She lad been for
several hours in a complete insensibility; she was speechless,
motionless, hopeless. A murmur of anger from the bystanders, and a loud
exclamation from the stupefied Ammalát, seemed to recall the departing
spirit of the sick, she started up--her eyes sparkled.... "Is it
thou--is it thou?" she cried, stretching, forth her arms to him: "praise
be to Allah! now I am contented, now I am happy," she added, sinking
back on the pillow. Her lips wreathed into a smile, her eyelids closed,
and again she sank into her former insensibility.

The agonized Asiatic paid no attention to the questions of the Khan, or
the reproaches of the Khánsha: no person, no object distracted his
attention from Seltanetta--nothing could arouse him from his deep
despair. They could hardly lead him by force from the sick chamber; he
clung to the threshold, he wept bitterly, at one moment praying for the
life of Seltanetta, at another accusing heaven of her illness! Terrible,
yet moving, was the grief of the fiery Asiatic.

Meanwhile, the appearance of Ammalát had produced a salutary influence
on the sick girl. What the rude physicians of the mountains were unable
to accomplish, was effected by his arrival. The vital energy, which had
been almost extinguished, needed some agitation to revivify its action;
but for this she must have perished, not from the disease, which had
been already subdued, but from languor--as a lamp, not blown out by the
wind, but failing for lack of air. Youth at length gained the victory;
the crisis was past, and life again arose in the heart of the sufferer.
After a long and quiet slumber, she awoke unusually strengthened and
refreshed. "I feel myself as light, mother," she cried, looking gaily
around her, "as if I were made wholly of air. Ah, how sweet it is to
recover from illness; it seems as if the walls were smiling upon me.
Yet, I have been very ill--long ill. I have suffered much; but, thanks
to Allah! I am now only weak, and that will soon pass away. I feel
health rolling, like drops of pearl, through my veins. All the past
seems to me a sort of dark vision. I fancied that I was sinking into a
cold sea, and that I was parched with thirst: far away, methought, there
hovered two little stars; the darkness thickened and thickened; I sank
deeper, deeper yet. All at once it seemed as if some one called me by my
name, and with a mighty hand dragged me from that icy, shoreless sea.
Ammalát's face glanced before me, almost like a reality; the little
stars broke into a lightning-flash, which writhed like a serpent to my
heart: I remember no more!"

On the following day Ammalát was allowed to see the convalescent. Sultan
Akhmet Khan, seeing that it was impossible to obtain a coherent answer
from him while suspense tortured his heart, that heart which boiled with
passion, yielded to his incessant entreaties. "Let all rejoice when I
rejoice," he said, as he led his guest into his daughter's room. This
had been previously announced to Seltanetta, but her agitation,
nevertheless, was very great, when her eyes met those of
Ammalát--Ammalát, so deeply loved, so long and fruitlessly expected.
Neither of the lovers could pronounce a word, but the ardent language of
their looks expressed a long tale, imprinted in burning letters on the
tablet of their hearts. On the pale cheek of each other they read the
traces of sorrow, the tears of separation, the characters of
sleeplessness and grief, of fear and of jealousy. Entrancing is the
blooming loveliness of an adored mistress; but her paleness, her
languor, that is bewitching, enchanting, victorious! What heart of iron
would not be melted by that tearful glance, which, without a reproach,
says so tenderly to you, "I am happy, but I have suffered by thee and
for thy sake?"

Tears dropped from Ammalát's eyes; but remembering at length that he was
not alone, he mastered himself, and lifted up his head to speak; but his
voice refused to pour itself in words, and with difficulty he faltered
out, "We have not seen each other for a long time, Seltanetta!"

"And we were wellnigh parted for ever," murmured Seltanetta.

"For ever!" cried Ammalát, with a half reproachful voice. "And can you
think, can you believe this? Is there not, then, another life, in which
sorrow is unknown, and separation from our kinsmen and the beloved? If I
were to lose the talisman of my life, with what scorn would I not cast
away the rusty ponderous armour of existence! Why should I wrestle with
destiny?"

"Pity, then, that I did not die!" answered Seltanetta, sportively. "You
describe so temptingly the other side of the grave, that one would be
eager to leap into it."

"Ah, no! Live, live long, for happiness, for--love!" Ammalát would have
added, but he reddened, and was silent.

Little by little the roses of health spread over the cheeks of the
maiden, now happy in the presence of her lover. All returned into its
customary order. The Khan was never weary of questioning Ammalát about
the battles, the campaigns, the tactics of the Russians; the Khánsha
tired him with enquiries about the dress and customs of their women, and
could not omit to call upon Allah as often as she heard that they go
without veils. But with Seltanetta he enjoyed conversations and tales,
to his, as well as her, heart's content. The merest trifle which had the
slightest connexion with the other, could not be passed over without a
minute description, without abundant repetitions and exclamations. Love,
like Midas, transforms every thing it touches into gold, and, alas!
often perishes, like Midas, for want of finding some material
nourishment.

But, as the strength of Seltanetta was gradually re-established, with
the reappearing bloom of health on Ammalát's brow, there often appeared
the shadow of grief. Sometimes, in the middle of a lively conversation,
he would suddenly stop, droop his head, and his bright eyes would be
dimmed with a filling of tears; heavy sighs would seem to rend his
breast; he would start up, his eyes sparkling with fury; he would grasp
his dagger with a bitter smile, and then, as if vanquished by an
invisible hand, he would fall into a deep reverie, from whence not even
the caresses of his adored Seltanetta could recall him.

Once, at such a moment, Seltanetta, leaning enraptured on his shoulder,
whispered, "Asis, (beloved,) you are sad--you are weary of me!"

"Ah, slander not him who loves thee more than heaven!" replied Ammalát;
"but I have felt the hell of separation; and can I think of it without
agony? Easier, a hundred times easier, to part from life than from thee,
my dark-eyed love!"

"You are thinking of it, therefore you desire it."

"Do not poison my wounds by doubting, Seltanetta. Till now you have
known only how to bloom like a rose--to flutter like a butterfly; till
now your will was your only duty. But I am a man, a friend; fate has
forged for me an indestructible chain--the chain of gratitude for
kindness--it drags me to Derbénd."

"Debt! duty! gratitude!" cried Seltanetta, mournfully shaking her head.
"How many gold-embroidered words have you invented to cover, as with a
shawl, your unwillingness to remain here. What! Did you not give your
heart to love before it was pledged to friendship? You had no right to
give away what belonged to another. Oh, forget your Verkhóffsky, forget
your Russian friends and the beauty of Derbénd. Forget war and
murder-purchased glory. I hate blood since I saw you covered with it. I
cannot think without shuddering, that each drop of it costs tears that
cannot be dried, of a sister, a mother, or a fair bride. What do you
need, in order to live peacefully and quietly among our mountains! Here
none can come to disturb with arms the happiness of the heart. The rain
pierces not our roof; our bread is not of purchased corn; my father has
many horses, he has arms, and much precious gold; in my soul there is
much love for you. Say, then, my beloved, you will not go away, you will
remain with us!"

"No, Seltanetta, I cannot, must not, remain here. To pass my life with
you alone--for you to end it--this is my first prayer, my last desire,
but its accomplishment depends on your father. A sacred tie binds me to
the Russians; and while the Khan remains unreconciled with them, an open
marriage with you would be impossible--the obstacle would not be the
Russians, but the Khan"----

"You know my father," sorrowfully replied Seltanetta; "for some time
past his hatred of the infidels has so strengthened itself, that he
hesitates not to sacrifice to it his daughter and his friend. He is
particularly enraged with the Colonel for killing his favourite noúker,
who was sent for medicine to the Hakím Ibrahim."

"I have more than once begun to speak to Akhmet Khan about my hopes; but
his eternal reply has been--'Swear to be the enemy of the Russians, and
then I will hear you out.'"

"We must then bid adieu to hope."

"Why to hope, Seltanetta? Why not say only--farewell, Avár!"

Seltanetta bent upon him her expressive eyes. "I don't understand you,"
she said.

"Love me more than any thing in the world--more than your father and
mother, and your fair land, and then you will understand me, Seltanetta!
Live without you I cannot, and they will not let me live with you. If
you love me, let us fly!"

"Fly! the Khan's daughter fly like a slave--a criminal! This is
dreadful--this is terrible!"

"Speak not so. If the sacrifice is unusual, my love also is unusual.
Command me to give my life a thousand times, and I will throw it down
like a copper poull.[8] I will cast my soul into hell for you--not only
my life. You remind me that you are the daughter of the Khan; remember,
too, that my grandfather wore, that my uncle wears, the crown of a
Shamkhál! But it is not by this dignity, but by my heart, that I feel I
am worthy of you; and if there be shame in being happy despite of the
malice of mankind and the caprice of fate, that shame will fall on my
head and not on yours."

    [8] Coin.

"But you forget my father's vengeance."

"There will come a time when he himself will forget it. When he sees
that the thing is done, he will cast aside his inflexibility; his heart
is not stone; and even were it stone, tears of repentance will wear it
away--our caresses will soften him. Happiness will cover us with her
dove's wings, and we shall proudly say, 'We ourselves have caught her!'"

"My beloved, I have lived not long upon earth, but something at my heart
tells me that by falsehood we can never catch her. Let us wait: let us
see what Allah will give! Perhaps, without this step, our union may be
accomplished."

"Seltanetta, Allah has given me this idea: it is his will. Have pity on
me, I beseech you. Let us fly, unless you wish that our marriage-hour
should strike above my grave! I have pledged my honour to return to
Derbénd; and I must keep that pledge, I must keep it soon: but to depart
without the hope of seeing you, with the dread of hearing that you are
the wife of another--this would be dreadful, this would be
insupportable! If not from love, then from pity, share my destiny. Do
not rob me of paradise! Do not drive me to madness! You know not whither
disappointed passion can carry me. I may forget hospitality and kindred,
tear asunder all human ties, trample under my feet all that is holy,
mingle my blood with that of those who are dearest to me, force villany
to shake with terror when my name is heard, and angels to weep to see my
deeds!--Seltanetta, save me from the curse of others, from my own
contempt--save me from myself! My noúkers are fearless--my horses like
the wind; the night is dark, let us fly to benevolent Russia, till the
storm be over. For the last time I implore you. Life and death, my
renown and my soul, hang upon your word. Yes or no?"

Torn now by her maiden fear, and her respect for the customs of her
forefathers, now by the passion and eloquence of her lover, the innocent
Seltanetta wavered, like a light cork, upon the tempestuous billows of
contending emotions. At length she arose: with a proud and steady air
she wiped away the tears which, glistened on her eyelashes, like the
amber-gum on the thorns of the larch-tree, and said, "Ammalát! tempt me
not! The flame of love will not dazzle, the smoke of love will not
suffocate, my conscience. I shall ever know what is good and what is
bad; and I well know how shameful it is, how base, to desert a father's
house, to afflict loving and beloved parents! I know all this--and now,
measure the price of my sacrifice. I fly with you--I am yours! It is not
your tongue which has convinced--it is my own heart which has vanquished
me! Allah has destined me to see and love you: let, then, our hearts be
united for ever--and indissolubly, though their bond be a crown of
thorns! Now all is over! Your destiny is mine!"

If heaven had clasped Ammalát in its infinite wings, and pressed him to
the heart of the universe--to the sun--even then his ecstacy would have
been less strong than at this divine moment. He poured forth the most
incoherent cries and exclamations of gratitude. When the first
transports were over, the lovers arranged all the details of their
flight. Seltanetta consented to lower herself by her bed-coverings from
her chamber, to the steep bank of the Ouzén. Ammalát was to ride out in
the evening with his noúkers from Khounzákh, as if on a hawking party;
he was to return to the Khan's house by circuitous roads at nightfall,
and there receive his fair fellow-traveller in his arms. Then they were
to take horses in silence, and then--let enemies keep out of their road!

A kiss sealed the treaty; and the lovers separated with fear and hope in
heart.

Ammalát Bek, having prepared his brave noúkers for battle or flight,
looked impatiently at the sun, which seemed loth to descend from the
warm sky to the chilly glaciers of the Caucasus. Like a bridegroom he
pined for night, like an importunate guest he followed with his eyes the
luminary of day. How slowly it moved--it crept to its setting! An
interminable space seemed to intervene between hope and enjoyment.
Unreasonable youth! What is your pledge of success? Who will assure you
that your footsteps are not watched--your words not caught in their
flight? Perhaps with the sun, which you upbraid, your hope will set.

About the fourth hour after noon, the time of the Mozlem's dinner, the
Sultan Akhmet Khan was unusually savage and gloomy. His eyes gleamed
suspiciously from under his frowning brows; he fixed them for a long
space, now on his daughter, now on his young guest. Sometimes his
features assumed a mocking expression, but it again vanished in the
blush of anger. His questions were biting, his conversation was
interrupted; and all this awakened in the soul of Seltanetta
repentance--in the heart of Ammalát apprehension. On the other hand, the
Khánsha, as if dreading a separation from her lovely daughter, was so
affectionate and anxious, that this unmerited tenderness wrung tears
from the gentle-hearted Seltanetta, and her glance, stealthily thrown at
Ammalát, was to him a piercing reproach.

Hardly, after dinner, had they concluded the customary ceremony of
washing the hands, when the Khan called Ammalát into the spacious
court-yard. There caparisoned horses awaited them, and a crowd of
noúkers were already in the saddle.

"Let us ride out to try the mettle of my new hawks," said the Khan to
Ammalát; "the evening is fine, the heat is diminishing, and we shall yet
have time, ere twilight, to shoot a few birds."

With his hawk on his fist, the Khan rode silently by the side of
Ammalát. An Avarétz was climbing up to a steep cliff on the left, by
means of a spiked pole, fixing it into the crevices, and then,
supporting himself on a prong, he lifted himself higher. To his waist
was attached a cap containing wheat; a long crossbow hung upon his
shoulders. The Khan stopped, pointed him out to Ammalát, and said
meaningly, "Look at yonder old man, Ammalát Bek! He seeks, at the risk
of his life, a foot of ground on the naked rock, to sow a handful of
wheat. With the sweat of his brow he cultivates it, and often pays with
his life for the defence of his herd from men and beasts. Poor is his
native land; but why does he love this land? Ask him to change it for
your fruitful fields, your rich flocks. He will say, 'Here I do what I
please; here I bow to no one; these snows, these peaks of ice, defend my
liberty.' And this freedom the Russians would take from him: of these
Russians you have become the slave, Ammalát."

"Khan, you know that it is not Russian bravery, but Russian generosity,
that has vanquished me. Their slave I am not, but their companion."

"A thousand times the worse, the more disgraceful for you. The heir of
the Shamkhál pines for a Russian epaulette, and glories in being the
dependent of a colonel!"

"Moderate your words, Sultan Akhmet. To Verkhóffsky I owe more than
life: the tie of friendship unites us."

"Can there exist a holy tie between us and the Giaour? To injure them,
to destroy them, when possible, to deceive them when this cannot be
done, is the commandment of the Korán, and the duty of every true
believer."

"Khan! let us cease to play with the bones of Mahomet, and to menace
others with what we do not believe. You are not a moólla, I am no
fakir. I have my own notions of the duty of an honest man."

"Really, Ammalát Bek? It were well, however, if you were to have this
oftener in your heart than on your tongue. For the last time, allow me
to ask you, will you hearken to the counsels of a friend whom you
quitted for the Giaour? Will you remain with us for good?"

"My life I would lay down for the happiness you so generously offer; but
I have given my promise to return, and I will keep it."

"Is this decided?"

"Irrevocably so."

"Well then, the sooner the better. I have learned to know you. _Me_ you
know of old. Insincerity and flattery between us are in vain. I will not
conceal from you, that I always wished to see you my son-in-law. I
rejoiced that Seltanetta had pleased you; your captivity put off my
plans for a time. Your long absence--the rumours of your
conversion--grieved me. At length you appeared among us, and found every
thing as before; but you did not bring to us your former heart. I hoped
you would fall back into your former course; I was painfully mistaken.
It is a pity; but there is nothing to be done. I do not wish to have for
my son-in-law a servant of the Russians."

"Akhmet Khan, I once"----

"Let me finish. Your agitated arrival, your ravings at the door of the
sick Seltanetta, betrayed to every body your attachment, and our mutual
intentions. Through all the mountains, you have been talked of as the
affianced bridegroom of my daughter: but now the tie is broken, it is
time to destroy the rumours; for the honour of my family--for the
tranquillity of my daughter--you must leave us--and immediately. This is
absolutely necessary and indispensable. Ammalát, we part friends, but
here we will meet only as kinsmen, not otherwise. May Allah turn your
heart, and restore you to us as an inseparable friend. Till then,
farewell!"

With these words the Khan turned his horse, and rode away at full gallop
to his retinue. If on the stupefied Ammalát the thunderbolt of heaven
had fallen, he could not have been more astounded than by this
unexpected explanation. Already had the dust raised by the horse's hoofs
of the retiring Khan been laid at rest; but he still stood immovable on
the hill now darkening in the shadow of sunset.




CHAPTER IX.


Colonel Verkhóffsky, engaged in reducing to submission the rebellious
Daghestánetzes, was encamped with his regiment at the village of
Kiáfir-Kaúmik. The tent of Ammalát Bek was erected next to his own, and
in it Saphir-Ali, lazily stretched on the carpet, was drinking the wine
of the Don, notwithstanding the prohibition of the Prophet. Ammalát Bek,
thin, pale, and pensive, was resting his head against the tent-pole,
smoking a pipe. Three months had passed since the time when he was
banished from his paradise; and he was now roving with a detachment,
within sight of the mountains to which his heart flew, but whither his
foot durst not step. Grief had worn out his strength; vexation had
poured its vial on his once serene character. He had dragged a sacrifice
to his attachment to the Russians, and it seemed as if he reproached
every Russian with it. Discontent was visible in every word, in every
glance.

"A fine thing wine!" said Saphir Ali, carefully wiping the glasses;
"surely Mahomet must have met with sour dregs in Aravéte, when he
forbade the juice of the grape to true believers! Why, really these
drops are as sweet as if the angels themselves, in their joy, had wept
their tears into bottles. Ho! quaff another glass, Ammalát; your heart
will float on the wine more lightly than a bubble. Do you know what
Hafiz has sung about it?"

"And do you know? Pray, do not annoy me with your prate, Saphir Ali: not
even under the name of Sadi and Hafiz."

"Why, what harm is there? If even this prate is my own, it is not an
earring: it will not remain hanging in your ear. When you begin your
story about your goddess Seltanetta, I look at you as at the juggler,
who eats fire, and winds endless ribbons from his cheeks. Love makes you
talk nonsense, and the Donskoi (wine of the Don) makes me do the same.
So we are quits. Now, then, to the health of the Russians!"

"What has made you like the Russians?"

"Say rather--why have you ceased to love them?"

"Because I have examined them nearer. Really they are no better than our
Tartars. They are just as eager for profit, just as ready to blame
others, and not with a view of improving their fellow-creatures, but to
excuse themselves: and as to their laziness--don't let us speak of it.
They have ruled here for a long time, and what good have they done; what
firm laws have they established; what useful customs have they
introduced; what have they taught us; what have they created here, or
what have they constructed worthy of notice? Verkhóffsky has opened my
eyes to the faults of my countrymen, but at the same time to the defects
of the Russians, to whom it is more unpardonable; because they know what
is right, have grown up among good examples, and here, as if they have
forgotten their mission, and their active nature, they sink, little by
little, into the insignificance of the beasts."

"I hope you do not include Verkhóffsky in this number."

"Not he alone, but some others, deserve to be placed in a separate
circle. But then, are there many such?"

"Even the angels in heaven are numbered, Ammalát Bek: and Verkhóffsky
absolutely is a man for whose justice and kindness we ought to thank
heaven. Is there a single Tartar who can speak ill of him? Is there a
soldier who would not give his soul for him? Abdul-Hamet, more wine! Now
then, to the health of Verkhóffsky!"

"Spare me! I will not drink to Mahomet himself."

"If your heart is not as black as the eyes of Seltanetta, you will
drink, even were it in the presence of the red-bearded Yakhoúnts of the
Shakhéeds[9] of Derbént: even if all the Imáms and Shieks not only
licked their lips but bit their nails out of spite to you for such a
sacrilege."

    [9] Shakhéeds, traders of the sect of Souni. Yakhoúnt the
    senior moóllah.

"I will not drink, I tell you."

"Hark ye, Ammalát: I am ready to let the devil get drunk on my blood for
your sake, and you won't drink a glass of wine for mine."

"That is to say, that I will not drink because I do not wish--and I
don't wish, because even without wine my blood boils in me like
fermenting boozá."

"A bad excuse! It is not the first time that we have drunk, nor the
first time that our blood boils. Speak plainly at once: you are angry
with the Colonel."

"Very angry."

"May I know for what?"

"For much. For some time past he has begun to drop poison into the honey
of his friendship: and at last these drops have filled and overflowed
the cup. I cannot bear such lukewarm friends! He is liberal with his
advice, not sparing with his lectures; that is, in every thing that
costs him neither risk nor trouble."

"I understand, I understand! I suppose he would not let you go to Avár!"

"If you bore my heart in your bosom you would understand how I felt when
I received such a refusal. He lured me on with that hope, and then all
at once repulsed my most earnest prayer--dashed into dust, like a
crystal kalián, my fondest hopes.... Akhmet Khan was surely softened,
when he sent word that he wished to see me; and I cannot fly to him, or
hurry to Seltanetta."

"Put yourself, brother, in his place, and then say whether you yourself
would not have acted in the same way."

"No, not so! I should have said plainly from the very beginning,
'Ammalát, do not expect any help from me.' I even now ask him not for
help. I only beg him not to hinder me. Yet no! He, hiding from me the
sun of all my joy, assures me that he does this from interest in
me--that this will hereafter bring me fortune. Is not this a fine
anodyne?"

"No, my friend! If this is really the case, the sleeping-draught is
given to you as to a person on whom they wish to perform an operation.
You are thinking only of your love, and Verkhóffsky has to keep your
honour and his own without spot; and you are both surrounded by
ill-wishers. Believe me, either thus or otherwise, it is he alone who
can cure you."

"Who asks him to cure me? This divine malady of love is my only joy: and
to deprive me of it is to tear out my heart, because it cannot beat at
the sound of a drum!"----

At this moment a strange Tartar entered the tent, looked suspiciously
round, and bending down his head, laid his slippers before
Ammalát--according to Asiatic custom, this signified that he requested a
private conversation. Ammalát understood him, made a sign with his head,
and both went out into the open air. The night was dark, the fires were
going out, and the chain of sentinels extended far before them. "Here we
are alone," said Ammalát Bek to the Tartar: "who art thou, and what dost
thou want?"

"My name is Samit: I am an inhabitant of Derbénd, of the sect of Souni:
and now am at present serving in the detachment of Mussulman cavalry. My
commission is of greater consequence to you than to me.... _The eagle
loves the mountains_!"

Ammalát shuddered, and looked suspiciously at the messenger. This was a
watchword, the key of which Sultan Akhmet had previously written to him.
"How can he but love the mountains?" ... he replied; "In the mountains
there are many lambs for the eagles, and _much silver for men_."

"_And much steel for the valiant_," (yigheeds.)

Ammalát grasped the messenger by the hand. "How is Sultan Akhmet Khan?"
he enquired hurriedly: "What news bring you from him--how long is it
since you have seen his family?"

"Not to answer, but to question, am I come.... Will you follow me?"

"Where? for what?"

"You know who has sent me. That is enough. If you trust not him, trust
not me. Therein is your will and my advantage. Instead of running my
head into a noose to-night, I can return to-morrow to the Khan, and tell
him that Ammalát dares not leave the camp."

The Tartar gained his point: the touchy Ammalát took fire. "Saphir Ali!"
he cried loudly.

Saphir Ali started up, and ran out of the tent.

"Order horses to be brought for yourself and me, even if unsaddled; and
at the same time send word to the Colonel, that I have ridden out to
examine the field behind the line, to see if some rascal is not stealing
in between the sentries. My gun and shashka in a twinkling!"

The horses were led up, the Tartar leaped on his own, which was tied up
not far off, and all three rode off to the chain. They gave the word and
the countersign, and they passed by the videttes to the left, along the
bank of the swift Azen.

Saphir Ali, who had very unwillingly left his bottle, grumbled about the
darkness, the underwood, the ditches, and rode swearing by Ammalát's
side; but seeing that nobody began the conversation, he resolved to
commence it himself.

"My ashes fall on the head of this guide! The devil knows where he is
leading us, and where he will take us. Perhaps he is going to sell us to
the Lezghíns for a rich ransom. I never trust these squinting fellows!"

"I trust but little even to those who have straight eyes," answered
Ammalát; "but this squinting fellow is sent from a friend: he will not
betray us!"

"And the very first moment he thinks of any thing like it, at his first
movement I will slice him through like a melon. Ho! friend," cried
Saphir Ali, to the guide; "in the name of the king of the genii, it
seems you have made a compact with the thorns to tear the embroidery
from my tschoukhá. Could you not find a wider road? I am really neither
a pheasant nor a fox."

The guide stopped. "To say the truth, I have led a delicate fellow like
you too far!" he answered. "Stay here and take care of the horses,
whilst Ammalát and I will go where it is necessary."

"Is it possible you will go into the woods with such a cut-throat
looking rascal, without me?" whispered Saphir Ali to Ammalát.

"That is, you are afraid to remain here _without me_!" replied Ammalát,
dismounting from his horse, and giving him the reins: "Do not annoy
yourself, my dear fellow. I leave you in the agreeable society of wolves
and jackals. Hark how they are singing!"

"Pray to God that I may not have to deliver your bones from these
singers," said Saphir Ali. They separated. Samit led Ammalát among the
bushes, over the river, and having passed about half a verst among
stones, began to descend. At the risk of their necks they clambered
along the rocks, clinging by the roots of the sweet-briar, and at
length, after a difficult journey, descended into the narrow mouth of a
small cavern parallel with the water. It had been excavated by the
washing of the stream, erewhile rapid, but now dried up. Long
stalactites of lime and crystal glittered in the light of a fire piled
in the middle. In the back-ground lay Sultan Akhmet Khan on a boúrka,
and seemed to be waiting patiently till Ammalát should recover himself
amid the thick smoke which rolled in masses through the cave. A cocked
gun lay across his knees; the tuft in his cap fluttered in the wind
which blew from the crevices. He rose politely as Ammalát hurried to
salute him.

"I am glad to see you," he said, pressing the hands of his guest; "and I
do not hide the feeling which I ought not to cherish. However, it is not
for an empty interview that I have put my foot into the trap, and
troubled you: sit down, Ammalát, and let us speak about an important
affair."

"To me, Sultan Akhmet Khan?"

"To us both. With your father I have eaten bread and salt. There was a
time when I counted you likewise as my friend."

"But counted!"

"No! you were my friend, and would ever have remained so, if the
deceiver, Verkhóffsky, had not stepped between us."

"Khan, you know him not."

"Not only I, but you yourself shall soon know him. But let us begin with
what regards Seltanetta. You know she cannot ever remain unmarried. This
would be a disgrace to my house: and let me tell you candidly, that she
has already been demanded in marriage."

Ammalát's heart seemed torn asunder. For some time he could not recover
himself. At length he tremblingly asked, "Who is this bold lover?"

"The second son of the Shamkhál, Abdoul Moússelin. Next after you, he
has, from his high blood, the best right, of all our mountaineers, to
Seltanetta's hand."

"Next to me--after me!" exclaimed the passionate Bek, boiling with
anger: "Am I, then, buried? Is then my memory vanished among my
friends?"

"Neither the memory, nor friendship itself is dead in my heart; but be
just, Ammalát; as just as I am frank. Forget that you are the judge of
your own cause, and decide what we are to do. You will not abandon the
Russians, and I cannot make peace with them."

"Do but wish--do but speak the word, and all will be forgotten, all will
be forgiven you. This I will answer for with my head, and with the
honour of Verkhóffsky, who has more than once promised me his mediation.
For your own good, for the welfare of Avár, for your daughter's
happiness, for my bliss, I implore you, yield to peace, and all will be
forgotten--all that once belonged to you will be restored."

"How boldly you answer, rash youth, for another's pardon, for another's
life! Are you sure of your own life, your own liberty?"

"Who should desire my poor life? To whom should be dear the liberty
which I do not prize myself?"

"To whom? Think you that the pillow does not move under the Shamkhál's
head, when the thought rises in his brain, that you, the true heir of
the Shamkhalát of Tarki, are in favour with the Russian Government?"

"I never reckoned on its friendship, nor feared its enmity."

"Fear it not, but do not despise it. Do you know that an express, sent
from Tarki to Yermóloff, arrived a moment too late, to request him to
show no mercy, but to execute you as a traitor? The Shamkhál was before
ready to betray you with a kiss, if he could; but now, that you have
sent back his blind daughter to him, he no longer conceals his hate."

"Who will dare to touch me, under Verkhóffsky's protection?"

"Hark ye, Ammalát; I will tell you a fable:--A sheep went into a kitchen
to escape the wolves, and rejoiced in his luck, flattered by the
caresses of the cooks. At the end of three days he was in the pot.
Ammalát, this is your story. 'Tis time to open your eyes. The man whom
you considered your first friend has been the first to betray you. You
are surrounded, entangled by treachery. My chief motive in meeting you
was my desire to warn you. When Seltanetta was asked in marriage, I was
given to understand from the Shamkhál, that through him I could more
readily make my peace with the Russians, than through the powerless
Ammalát--that you would soon be removed in some way or other, and that
there was nothing to be feared from your rivalry. I suspected still
more, and learned more than I suspected. To-day I stopped the Shamkhál's
noúker, to whom the negotiations with Verkhóffsky were entrusted, and
extracted from him, by torture, that the Shamkhál offers a thousand
ducats to get rid of you. Verkhóffsky hesitates, and wishes only to send
you to Siberia for ever. The affair is not yet decided; but to-morrow
the detachment retires to their quarters, and they have resolved to meet
at your house in Bouináki, to bargain about your blood. They will forge
denunciations and charges--they will poison you at your own table, and
cover you with chains of iron, promising you mountains of gold." It was
painful to see Ammalát during this dreadful speech. Every word, like
red-hot iron, plunged into his heart; all within him that was noble,
grand, or consoling, took fire at once, and turned into ashes. Every
thing in which he had so long and so trustingly confided, fell to
pieces, and shrivelled up in the flame of indignation. Several times he
tried to speak, but the words died away in a sickly gasp; and at last
the wild beast which Verkhóffsky had tamed, which Ammalát had lulled to
sleep, burst from his chain: a flood of curses and menaces poured from
the lips of the furious Bek. "Revenge, revenge!" he cried, "merciless
revenge, and woe to the hypocrites!"

"This is the first word worthy of you," said the Khan, concealing the
joy of success; "long enough have you crept like a serpent, laying your
head under the feet of the Russians! 'Tis time to soar like an eagle to
the clouds; to look down from on high upon the enemy who cannot reach
you with their arrows. Repay treachery with treachery, death with
death!"

"Then death and ruin be to the Shamkhál, the robber of my liberty; and
ruin be to Abdoul Moússelin, who dared to stretch forth his hand to my
treasure!"

"The Shamkhál? His son--his family? Are they worthy of your first
exploits? They are all but little loved by the Tarkovétzes; and if we
attack the Shamkhál, they will give up his whole family with their own
hands. No, Ammalát, you must aim your first blow next to you; you must
destroy your chief enemy; you must kill Verkhóffsky."

"Verkhóffsky!" exclaimed Ammalát, stepping back.... "Yes!.... he is my
enemy; but he was my friend. He saved me from a shameful death.

"And has now sold you to a shameful life!.... A noble friend! And then
you have yourself saved him from the tusks of the wild-boar--a death
worthy of a swine-eater! The first debt is paid, the second remains due:
for the destiny which he is so deceitfully preparing for you"....

"I feel ... this ought to be ... but what will good men say? What will
my conscience say?"

"It is for a man to tremble before old women's tales, and before a
whimpering child--conscience--when honour and revenge are at stake? I
see Ammalát, that without me you will decide nothing; you will not even
decide to marry Seltanetta. Listen to me. Would you be a son-in-law
worthy of me, the first condition is Verkhóffsky's death. His head shall
be a marriage-gift for your bride, whom you love, and who loves you. Not
revenge only, but the plainest reasoning requires the death of the
Colonel. Without him, all Daghestán will remain several days without a
chief, and stupefied with horror. In this interval, we come flying upon
the Russians who are dispersed in their quarters. I mount with twenty
thousand Avarétzes and Akoushétzes: and we fall from the mountains like
a cloud of snow upon Tarki. Then Ammalát, Shamkhál of Daghestán, will
embrace me as his friend, as his father-in-law. These are my plans, this
is your destiny. Choose which you please; either an eternal banishment,
or a daring blow, which promises you power and happiness; but know, that
next time we shall meet either as kinsmen, or as irreconcilable foes!"

The Khan disappeared. Long stood Ammalát, agitated, devoured by new and
terrible feelings. At length Samit reminded him that it was time to
return to the camp. Ignorant himself how and where he had found his way
to the shore, he followed his mysterious guide, found his horse, and
without answering a word to the thousand questions of Saphir Ali, rode
up to his tent. There, all the tortures of the soul's hell awaited him.
Heavy is the first night of sorrow, but still more terrible the first
bloody thoughts of crime.

       *       *       *       *       *




REYNOLDS'S DISCOURSES. CONCLUSION.

We omit any notice of the other written works of Sir Joshua--his
"Journey to Flanders and Holland," his Notes to Mason's verse
translation of Du Fresnoy's Latin poem, "Art of Painting," and his
contributions to the "Idler." The former is chiefly a notice of
pictures, and of value to those who may visit the galleries where most
of them may be found; and in some degree his remarks will attach a value
to those dispersed; the best part of the "Journey," perhaps, is his
critical discrimination of the style and genius of Rubens. The marrow of
his Notes to Du Fresnoy's poem, and indeed of his papers in the "Idler,"
has been transferred to his Discourses, which, as they terminate his
literary labours, contain all that he considered important in a
discussion on taste and art. The notes to Du Fresnoy may, however, be
consulted by the practical painter with advantage, as here and there
some technical directions may be found, which, if of doubtful utility in
practice, will at least demand thought and reasoning upon this not
unimportant part of the art. To doubt is to reflect; judgment results,
and from this, as a sure source, genius creates. There are likewise some
memoranda useful to artists to be read in Northcote's "Life." The
influence of these Discourses upon art in this country has been much
less than might have been expected from so able an exposition of its
principles. They breathe throughout an admiration of what is great, give
a high aim to the student, and point to the path he should pursue to
attain it: while it must be acknowledged our artists as a body have
wandered in another direction. The Discourses speak to cultivated minds
only. They will scarcely be available to those who have habituated their
minds to lower views of art, and have, by a fascinating practice,
acquired an inordinate love for its minor beauties. It is true their
tendency is to teach, to _cultivate_: but in art there is too often as
much to unlearn as to learn, and the _unlearning_ is the more irksome
task; prejudice, self-gratulation, have removed the humility which is
the first step in the ladder of advancement. With the public at large,
the Discourses have done more; and rather by the reflection from that
improvement in the public taste, than from any direct appeal to artists,
our exhibitions have gained somewhat in refinement. And if there is,
perhaps, less vigour now, than in the time of Sir Joshua, Wilson, and
Gainsborough, those fathers of the English School, we are less seldom
disgusted with the coarseness, both of subject and manner, that
prevailed in some of their contemporaries and immediate successors. In
no branch of art is this improvement more shown than in scenes of
familiar life--which meant, indeed "Low Life." Vulgarity has given place
to a more "elegant familiar." This has necessarily brought into play a
nicer attention to mechanical excellence, and indeed to all the minor
beauties of the art. We almost fear too much has been done this way,
because it has been too exclusively pursued, and led astray the public
taste to rest satisfied with, and unadvisedly to require, the less
important perfections. From that great style which it may be said it was
the sole object of the Discourses to recommend, we are further off than
ever. Even in portrait, there is far less of the historical, than Sir
Joshua himself introduced into that department--an adoption which he has
so ably defended by his arguments. But nothing can be more unlike the
true historical, as defined in the precepts of art, than the modern
representation of national (in that sense, historical) events. The
precepts of the President have been unread or disregarded by the
patronized historical painters of our day. It would seem to be thought a
greater achievement to identify on canvass the millinery that is worn,
than the characters of the wearers, silk stockings, and satins, and
faces, are all of the same common aim of similitude; arrangement,
attitude, and peculiarly inanimate expression, display of finery, with
the actual robes, as generally announced in the advertisement, render
such pictures counterparts, or perhaps inferior counterfeits to Mrs
Jarley's wax-work. And, like the wax-work, they are paraded from town to
town, to show the people how much the tailor and mantua-maker have to do
in state affairs; and that the greatest of empires is governed by very
ordinary-looking personages. Even the Venetian painters, called by way
of distinction the "Ornamental School," deemed it necessary to avoid
prettinesses and pettinesses, and by consummate skill in artistical
arrangement in composition, in chiaro-scuro and colour, to give a
certain greatness to the representations of their national events. There
is not, whatever other faults they may have, this of poverty, in the
public pictures of Venice; they are at least of a magnificent ambition:
they are far removed from the littleness of a show. We are utterly gone
out of the way of the first principles of art in our national historical
pictures. Yet was the great historical the whole subject of the
Discourses--it was to be the only worthy aim of the student. If the
advice and precepts of Sir Joshua Reynolds have, then, been so entirely
disregarded, it may be asked what benefit he has conferred upon the
world by his Discourses. We answer, great. He has shown what should be
the aim of art, and has therefore raised it in the estimation of the
cultivated. His works are part of our standard literature; they are in
the hands of readers, of scholars; they materially help in the formation
of a taste by which literature is to be judged and relished. Even those
who never acquire any very competent knowledge of, or love for pictures,
do acquire a respect for art, connect it with classical poetry--the
highest poetry, with Homer, with the Greek drama, with all they have
read of the venerated works of Phidias, Praxiteles, and Apelles; and
having no too nice discrimination, are credulous of, or anticipate by
remembering what has been done and valued--the honour of the profession.
We assert that, by bringing the precepts of art within the pale of our
accepted literature, Sir Joshua Reynolds has given to art a better
position. Would that there were no counteracting circumstances which
still keep it from reaching its proper rank! Some there are, which
materially degrade it, amongst which is the attempt to force patronage;
the whole system of Art Unions, and of Schools of Design, the "in formâ
pauperis" petitioning and advertising, and the rearing innumerable
artists, ill-educated in all but drawing, and mere degrading still, the
binding art, as it were, apprenticed to manufacture in such Schools of
Design; connecting, in more than idea, the drawer of patterns with the
painter of pictures. Hence has arisen, and must necessarily arise, an
inundation of mediocrity, the aim of the painter being to reach some
low-prize mark, an unnatural competition, inferior minds brought into
the profession, a sort of painting-made-easy school, and pictures, like
other articles of manufacture, cheap and bad. We should say decidedly,
that the best consideration for art, and the best patronage too, that we
would give to it, would be to establish it in our universities of
Cambridge and Oxford. In those venerated places to found professorships,
that a more sure love and more sure taste for it may be imbedded with
every other good and classical love and taste in the early minds of the
youth of England's pride, of future patrons; and where painters
themselves may graduate, and associate with all noble and cultivated
minds, and be as much honoured in their profession as any in those
usually called "learned." But to return to Sir Joshua. He conferred upon
his profession not more benefit by his writings and paintings, than by
his manners and conduct. To say that they were irreproachable would be
to say little--they were such as to render him an object of love and
respect. He adorned a society at that time remarkable for men of wit and
wisdom. He knew that refinement was necessary for his profession, and he
studiously cultivated it--so studiously, that he brought a portion of
his own into that society from which he had gathered much. He abhorred
what was low in thought, in manners, and in art. And thus he tutored his
genius, which was great rather from the cultivation of his judgment, by
incessantly exercising his good sense upon the task before him, than
from any innate very vigorous power. He thought prudence the best guide
of life, and his mind was not of an eccentric daring, to rush heedlessly
beyond the bounds of discretion. And this was no small proof of his good
sense; when the prejudice of the age in which he lived was prone to
consider eccentricity as a mark of genius; and genius itself,
inconsistently with the very term of a silly admiration, an
_inspiration_, that necessarily brought with it carelessness and
profligacy. By his polished manners, his manly virtues, and his
prudential views, which mainly formed his taste, and enabled him to
disseminate taste, Sir Joshua rescued art from this degrading prejudice,
which, while it flattered vanity and excused vice, made the objects of
the flattery contemptible and inexcusable. If genius be a gift, it is
one that passes through the mind, and takes its colour; the love of all
that is pure, and good, and great, can alone invest genius with that
habit of thought which, applied to practice, makes the perfect painter.
Castiglione considered painting the proper acquirement of the perfect
gentleman--Sir Joshua Reynolds thought that to be in mind and manners
the "gentlemen," was as necessary to perfect the painter. The friend of
Johnson and Burke, and of all persons of that brilliant age,
distinguished by abilities and worth, was no common man. In raising
himself, he was ever mindful to raise the art to which he had devoted
himself, in general estimation.

We have noticed a charge against the writer of the Discourses, that he
did not pursue that great style which he so earnestly recommended.
Besides that this is not quite true--for he unquestionably did adopt so
much of the great manner as his subjects would, generally speaking,
allow--there was a sufficient reason for the tone he adopted, that it
was one useful and honourable, and none can deny that it was suited to
his genius. He was doubtless conscious of his own peculiar powers, and
contemplated the degree of excellence which he attained. He felt that he
could advance that department of his profession, and surely no
unpardonable prudential views led him to the adoption of it. It was the
one, perhaps, best suited to his abilities; and there is nothing in his
works which might lead us to suspect that he would have succeeded so
well in any other. The characteristic of his mind was a nice
observation. It was not in its native strength creative. We doubt if Sir
Joshua Reynolds ever attempted a perfectly original creation--if he ever
designed without having some imitation in view. We mean not to say, that
in the process he did not take slight advantages of accidents, and, if
the expression may be used, by a second sort of creation, make his work
in the end perfectly his own. But we should suppose that his first
conceptions for his pictures, (of course, we speak principally of those
not strictly portraits,) came to him through his admiration of some of
the great originals, which he had so deeply studied. In almost every
work by his hand, there is strongly marked his good sense--almost a
prudent forbearance. He ever seemed too cautious not to dare beyond his
tried strength, more especially in designing a subject of several
figures. His true genius as alone conspicuous in those where much of the
portrait was admissible; and such was his "Tragic Muse," a strictly
historical picture: was it equally discernible in his "Nativity" for the
window in New College Chapel? We think not. There is nothing in his
"Nativity" that has not been better done by others; yet, as a whole, it
is good; and if the subject demands a more creative power, and a higher
daring than was habitual to him, we are yet charmed with the good sense
throughout; and while we look, are indisposed to criticise. We have
already remarked how much Sir Joshua was indebted to a picture by
Domenichino for the "Tragic Muse." Every one knows that he borrowed the
"Nativity" from the "Notte" of Correggio, and perhaps in detail from
other and inferior masters. His "Ugolino" was a portrait, or a study, in
the commencement; it owes its excellence to its retaining this character
in its completion. If we were to point to failures, in single figures,
(historical,) we should mention his "Puck" and his "Infant Hercules."
The latter we only know from the print. Here he certainly had an
opportunity of displaying the great style of Michael Angelo; it was
beyond his daring; the Hercules is a sturdy child, and that is all, we
see not the _ex pede Herculem_. We can imagine the colouring, especially
of the serpents and back-ground, to have been impressive. The picture is
in the possession of the Emperor of Russia. The "Puck" is a somewhat
mischievous boy--too substantially, perhaps heavily, given for the
fanciful creation. The mushroom on which he is perched is unfortunate in
shape and colour; it is too near the semblance of a bullock's heart. His
"Cardinal Beaufort," powerful in expression, has been, we think,
captiously reprehended for the introduction of the demon. The mind's eye
has the privilege of poetry to imagine the presence; the personation is
therefore legitimate to the sister art. The National Gallery is not
fortunate enough to possess any important picture of the master in the
historical style. The portraits there are good. There was, we have been
given to understand, an opportunity of purchasing for the National
Gallery the portrait of himself, which Sir Joshua presented to his
native town of Plympton as his substitute, having been elected mayor of
the town--an honour that was according to the expectation of the
electors thus repaid. The Municipal Reform brought into office in the
town of Plympton, as elsewhere, a set of men who neither valued art nor
the fame of their eminent townsman. Men who would convert the very mace
of office into cash, could not be expected to keep a portrait; so it was
sold by auction, and for a mere trifle. It was offered to the nation;
and by those whose business it was to cater for the nation, pronounced a
copy. The history of its sale did not accompany the picture; when that
was known, as it is said, a very large sum was offered, and refused. It
is but justice to the committee to remind them of the fact, that Sir
Joshua himself, as he tells us, very minutely examined a picture which
he pronounced to be his own, and which was nevertheless a copy.
Unquestionably his genius was for portrait; it suited his strictly
observant character; and he had this great requisite for a
portrait-painter, having great sense himself, he was able to make his
heads intellectual. His female portraits are extremely lovely; he knew
well how to represent intellect, enthusiasm, and feeling. These
qualities he possessed himself. We have observed, in the commencement of
these remarks upon the Discourses, that painters do not usually paint
beyond themselves, either power or feeling--beyond their own grasp and
sentiments; it was the habitual good sense and refinement of moral
feeling that made Sir Joshua Reynolds so admirable a portrait-painter.
He has been, and we doubt not justly, celebrated as a colourist.
Unfortunately, we are not now so capable of judging, excepting in a few
instances, of this his excellence. Some few years ago, his pictures, to
a considerable amount in number, were exhibited at the British
Institution. We are forced to confess that they generally looked too
brown--many of them dingy, many loaded with colour, that, when put on,
was probably rich and transparent: we concluded that they had changed.
Though Sir Joshua, as Northcote in his very amusing Memoirs of the
President assures us, would not allow those under him to try
experiments, and carefully locked up his own, that he might more
effectually discourage the attempt--considering that, in students, it
was beginning at the wrong end--yet was he himself a great
experimentalist. He frequently used wax and varnish; the decomposition
of the latter (mastic) would sufficiently account for the appearance
those pictures wore. We see others that have very much faded; some that
are said to be faded may rather have been injured by cleaners; the
colouring when put on with much varnish not bearing the process of
cleaning, may have been removed, and left only the dead and crude work.
It has been remarked, that his pictures have more especially suffered
under the hands of restorers. It must be very difficult for a
portrait-painter, much employed, and called upon to paint a portrait,
where short time and few sittings are the conditions, to paint a lasting
work. He is obliged to hasten the drying of the paint, or to use
injurious substances, which answer the purpose only for a short present.
Sir Joshua, too, was tempted to use orpiment largely in some pictures,
which has sadly changed. An instance may be seen in the "Holy Family" in
our National Gallery--the colour of the flesh of the St John is ruined
from this cause. It is, however, one of his worst pictures, and could
not have been originally designed for a "holy family." The Mater is
quite a youthful peasant girl: we should not regret it if it were
totally gone. Were Sir Joshua living, and could he see it in its present
state, he would be sure to paint over it, and possibly convert it into
another subject. We do not doubt, however, that Sir Joshua deserved the
reputation he obtained as a colourist in his day. We attribute the
brown, the horny asphaltum look they have, to change. It is
unquestionably exceedingly mortifying to see, while the specimens of the
Venetian and Flemish colourists are at this day so pure and fresh,
though painted centuries before our schools, our comparatively recent
productions so obscured and otherwise injured. Tingry, excellent
authority, the Genevan chemical professor, laments the practice of the
English painters of mixing varnish with their colours, which, he says,
shows that they prefer a temporary brilliancy to lasting beauty; for
that it is impossible, that with this practice, pictures should either
retain their brilliancy or even be kept from decay. We do not remember
to have seen a single historical picture of Sir Joshua's that has not
suffered; happily there are yet many of his portraits fresh, vigorous,
and beautiful in colouring. It should seem, that he thought it worth
while to speculate upon those of least value to his reputation.

Portrait-painting, at the commencement of Sir Joshua's career, was
certainly in a very low condition. A general receipt for face-making,
with the greatest facility seemed to have been current throughout the
country. Attitudes and looks were according to a pattern; and,
accordingly, there was so great a family resemblance, however
unconnected the sitters, that it might seem to have been intended to
promote a brotherly and sisterly bond of union among all the descendants
of Adam. Portrait-painting, which had in this country been so good, was
in fact, with here and there an exception, and generally an exception
not duly estimated, in a degraded state: the art in this respect, as in
others, had become vulgarized. From this universal family-likeness
recipe, Reynolds came suddenly, and at once successfully, before the
world, with individual nature, and variety of character, and portraits
that had the merit of being pictures as well as portraits. He led to a
complete revolution in this department, so that if he had rivals--and he
certainly had one in Gainsborough--they were of his own making. The
change is mostly perceptible in female portraits. They assumed grace and
beauty. Our grandmothers and great-grandmothers were strangely vilified
in their unpleasing likenesses. The somewhat loose satin evening-dress,
with the shepherdess's crook, was absurd enough; and no very great
improvement upon the earlier taste of complimenting portraits with the
personation of the heathen deities. The poetical pastoral, however, very
soon descended to the real pastoral; and, as if to make people what they
were not was considered enough of the historical of portrait, even this
took. We suspect Gainsborough was the first to sin in this degradation
line, by no means the better one for being the furthest from the
divinities. He had painted some rustic figures very admirably, and made
such subjects a fashion; but why they should ever be so, we could never
understand; or why royalty should not be represented as royalty, gentry
as gentry; to represent them otherwise, appears as absurd as if our
Landseer should attempt a greyhound in the character of a Newfoundland
dog. A picture of Gainsborough's was exhibited, a year or two ago, in
the British Institution, Pall-Mall, which we were astonished to hear was
most highly valued; for it was a weak, washy, dauby, ill-coloured
performance, and the design as bad as well could be. It was a scene
before a cottage-door, with the children of George the Third as peasant
children, in village dirt and mire. The picture had no merit to
recommend it; if we remember rightly, it had been painted over, or in
some way obscured, and unfortunately brought to light. Although Sir
Joshua Reynolds generally introduced a new grace into his portraits, and
mostly so without deviating from the character as he found it,
dispensing indeed with the old affectation, we fear he cannot altogether
be acquitted from the charge of deviating from the true propriety of
portrait. Ladies as Miranda, as Hebe, and even as Thais, no very moral
compliment, are examples--some there are of the lower pastoral. Mrs
Macklin and her daughter were represented at a spinning-wheel, and Miss
Potts as a gleaner. There is one of somewhat higher pretensions, but
equally a deviation from propriety, in his portraits of the Honourable
Mistresses Townshend, Beresford, and Gardiner. They are decorating the
statue of Hymen; the grace of one figure is too theatrical, the others
have but little. The one kneeling on the ground, and collecting the
flowers, is, in one respect, disagreeable--the light of the sky, too
much of the same hue and tone as the face, is but little separated from
it--in fact, only by the dark hair; while all below the face and bosom
is a too heavy dark mass. Portrait-painters are very apt to fail
whenever they colour their back-grounds to the heads of a warm and light
sky-colour; the force of the complexion is very apt to be lost, and the
portrait is sure to lose its importance. The "General on Horseback," in
our National Gallery, (Ligonier,) a fine picture, is in no small degree
hurt by the absence of a little greyer tone in the part of the sky about
the head. By far the best portraits by Sir Joshua--and, fortunately,
they are the greater part--are those in real character. His very genius
was for unaffected simplicity; attitudinizing recipes could never have
been adopted by him with satisfaction to himself. Some of his slight,
more sketchy portraits, as yet unexperimented upon by his powerful,
frequently rather too powerful, colouring, his deep browns and yellows,
are unrivalled. Such is his Kitty Fisher, not long since exhibited in
the British Gallery, Pall-Mall. There the character is not overpowered
by the effect.

Gainsborough was the only painter of his day that could, with any
pretension, vie with Sir Joshua Reynolds in portrait. In some respects
they had similar excellences. Both were alike, by natural taste, averse
to affectation, and both were colourists. As a colourist, Gainsborough,
as his pictures are now, may be even preferred to Reynolds. They seem to
have been painted off more at once, and have therefore a greater
freshness; his flesh tints are truly surprising, most true to life. He
probably painted with a more simple palette. The pains and labour which
Sir Joshua bestowed, and which were perhaps very surprising when his
pictures were fresh from the easel, have lost much of their virtue. The
great difference between these great cotemporaries lay in their power of
character. Gainsborough was as true as could be to nature, where the
character was not of the very highest order. Plain, downright common
sense he would hit off wonderfully, as in his portrait of Ralphe
Schomberg--a picture, we are sorry to find, removed from the National
Gallery. The world's every-day men were for his pencil. He did not so
much excel in women. The bent of Sir Joshua's mind was to elevate, to
dignify, to intellectualize. Enthusiasm, sentiment, purity, and all the
varied poetry of feminine beauty, received their kindred hues and most
exquisite expression under his hand. Whatever was dignified in man, or
lovely in woman, was portrayed with its appropriate grace and strength.
Sir Joshua was, in fact, himself the higher character; ever endeavouring
to improve and cultivate his own mind, to raise it by a dignified aim in
his art and in his life, and gathering the beauty of sentiment to
himself from its best source--the practice of social and every amiable
charity--he was sure to transfer to the canvass something characteristic
of himself. Gainsborough was, in his way, a gentle enthusiast,
altogether of an humbler ambition. Even in his landscapes, he showed
that he saw little in nature but what the vulgar see; he had little idea
that what is commonly seen are the materials of a better creation.
Gainsborough was unrivalled in his portraiture of common truth, Reynolds
in poetical truth. Gainsborough spoke in character in one of his
letters, wherein he said, that he "was well read in the volume of
nature, and that was learning sufficient for him." It is said that he
was proud--perhaps his pride was shown in this remark--but it was not a
pride allied with greatness. The pride of Reynolds was quite of another
stamp; it did not disagree with his soundest judgment; his estimate of
himself was more true, and it showed itself in modesty. That such men
should meet and associate but little, is not surprising. That Reynolds
withdrew in "cold and carefully meted out courtesy," is not surprising,
though the expressions quoted are written to disparage Reynolds. The man
of fixed purpose may appear cold when he does not assimilate with the
man of caprice, (as was Gainsborough,) in whose company there is nothing
to call forth a congeniality, a sympathy; and it is probable that
Gainsborough felt as little disposed as Sir Joshua, to preserve, or even
to seek, an intimacy. Their final parting at the deathbed of
Gainsborough was most honourable to them both; and the merit of seeking
it was entirely Gainsborough's. It is singular that any facts should be
so perverted, as to justify an insinuation that Reynolds, whose whole
life exhibited the continued acts of a kind heart, was a cautious and
cold calculator. Good sense has ever a reserve of manner, the result of
a habit of thinking--and in one of a high aim, it is apt to acquire
almost a stateliness; but even such stateliness is not inconsistent with
modesty and with feeling; it is, in fact, the carriage of the mind, seen
in the manner and the person. We make these remarks under a disgust
produced by the singularly illiberal Life of Reynolds by Allan
Cunningham; we think we should not err in saying, that it is maliciously
written. We were reading this Life, and made many indignant remarks as
we read, when the death of the author was announced in the newspapers.
We had determined, as far as our power might extend, to rescue the name
and fame of Reynolds from the mischief which so popular a writer as
Allan Cunningham was likely to inflict. Death has its sanctity, and we
hesitated; indeed, in regret for the loss of a man of talent, we felt
for a time little disposed to think of the ill he may have done; nor
was, on mature consideration, the regret less, that he could not, by our
means, be called to review his own work--his "Lives of the British
Painters"--in a more candid spirit than that in which they appear to
have been written. It is to be lamented that he did not revise it. Its
illiberality and untruth render it very unfit for a "Family Library,"
for which it was composed. Yet it must be confessed, that such regret
was rather one of momentary feeling, than accompanied with any thing
like conviction, or even hope, that our endeavour would have been
successful. There was no one better acquainted with the life of one of
the painters in his work than ourselves. His Life, too, was written in a
most illiberal spirit, though purposely in praise of the artist. But it
was as untrue as it was illiberal. In a paper in _Blackwood_, some years
ago, we noticed some of the errors and mistatements. This, we happen to
know, was seen by the author of the "Lives;" for we were, in
consequence, applied to upon the subject; and there being an intention
expressed to bring out a new edition, we were invited to correct what
was wrong. We did not hesitate, and wrote some two or three letters for
the purpose, and entertained but little doubt of their having been
favourably received, and that they would be used, until we were
surprised by a communication, that the author "was much obliged, but was
perfectly satisfied with his own account." That is, that he was much
_obliged_ for an endeavour to mislead him by falsehood. For both
accounts could not be true. There were, then, but small grounds to hope
that Allan Cunningham would have so revised his work, as to have done
justice to Sir Joshua Reynolds. Besides, after all, "respect for the
dead" moves both ways. The question is between the recently dead and the
long since dead. In the literary world, and in the world of art, both
yet live; and the author of the Life has this advantage, that thousands
read the "Family Library," whilst but few, comparatively speaking, make
themselves acquainted with Sir Joshua Reynolds and his works. We revere
this founder of our English school, and feel it due to the art we love,
to condemn the ungenerous and sarcastic spirit of The Life, by Allan
Cunningham. And if the dead could have any interest in and guidance of
things on earth, we can imagine no work that would be more pleasing to
them, than the removal of even the slightest evils they may have
inflicted; thus making restitution for them. It is very evident
throughout the "Lives," that the author ha

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