The International Monthly Magazine - Volume V - No II
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Title: The International Monthly Magazine - Volume V - No II
Author: Various
Release date: December 13, 2006 [eBook #20102]
Most recently updated: June 20, 2020
Language: English
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*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE INTERNATIONAL MONTHLY MAGAZINE - VOLUME V - NO II ***
THE INTERNATIONAL MAGAZINE
Of Literature, Art, and Science.
Vol. V.
NEW-YORK, FEBRUARY 1, 1852.
No. II.
[Illustration: THE LATE MARSHAL SOULT, DUKE OF DALMATIA.]
THE LATE MARSHAL SOULT, DUKE OF DALMATIA.
CONTENTS
MARSHAL SOULT, DUKE OF DALMATIA.
THE HOMES OF COWLEY AND FOX.
CHERTSEY AND ITS FAMOUS CHARACTERS.
TRAUGOTT BROMME ON THE UNITED STATES OF NORTH AMERICA, TEXAS AND THE
COLONIES.
A VISIT TO THE FIRE WORSHIPPERS’ TEMPLE AT BAKU.
A NEW PORTRAIT OF CICERO.
LORD MAHON’S HISTORY OF THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION.
FAUST OF WITTENBERG AND FUST OF MENTZ.
SOME SMALL POEMS.
MR. JUSTICE STORY, WITH SOME REMINISCENT REFLECTIONS.
COLUMBUS AT THE GATES OF GENOA.
FEATHERTOP: A MORALIZED LEGEND.
SMILES AND TEARS.
FREEDOM OF THOUGHT AND THE LATEST MIRACLES.
THE SONG QUEEN.
LOVE SONG.
AUTUMN LINES.
THE PUNISHMENT OF GINA MONTANI.
III.
IV.
V.
VI.
VII.
VISION OF CHARLES XI.
DIVINATION, WITCHCRAFT, AND MESMERISM.
A CHAPTER OF EPITAPHS.
THE GOOD OLD TIMES IN PARIS.
THE LEGEND OF THE WEEPING CHAMBER.
THE BULL FIGHT OF MADRID.
THE LADY AND THE FLOWER.
AN OLD MAID’S FIRST LOVE.
MADEMOISELLE DE CAMARGO.
MY NOVEL:
BOOK IX. - INITIAL CHAPTER.
CHAPTER II.
CHAPTER III.
CHAPTER IV.
CHAPTER V.
CHAPTER VI.
CHAPTER VII.
CHAPTER VIII.
REMINISCENCES OF PRINTERS, AUTHORS, AND BOOKSELLERS IN NEW-YORK.
Noctes Amicæ.
Authors and Books
THE FINE ARTS
Historical Review of the Month
Scientific Discoveries and Proceedings of Learned Societies.
Recent Deaths.
Ladies’ Fashions for February.
MARSHAL SOULT, DUKE OF DALMATIA.
On the preceding page is a portrait, and under the head of Recent Deaths,
in another part of this magazine, is a sketch of the history of NICHOLAS
JEAN-DE-DIEU SOULT, the last of the great Marshals created by the Emperor
Napoleon. He was unquestionably possessed of extraordinary abilities,
fitting him for eminence in many and diverse capacities, but it cannot be
said that he was of the first rank of illustrious generals, as the world
has been led to suppose, chiefly by the masterly but partial delineations
of his career in the Peninsula by General Napier. He had a genius for war
which qualified him for every position in connection with it but that of
leader in the field. The subtle and irreversible decisions of Napoleon
followed his astonishingly quick apprehensions of facts, as suddenly as
the thunderbolt follows lightning; but Soult, profoundly familiar with all
the arts of war, and surpassing any of the great commanders with whom he
was associated except only his chief, in the wisdom of his judgments, was
yet so slow in his intellectual operations, so destitute of the
enthusiasm, passion, and fire, which in high circumstance give an almost
miraculous activity to the minds of the first order of men, that he could
never have entitled himself to all the precedences he has received in
history. Napoleon understood him, and in a few pregnant words addressed to
O’Meara, gave that measure of his character which will be adopted as the
final opinion of the world. "He is," said Napoleon, "an excellent minister
at war, or major-general of an army, one who knows much better how to
manage an army than to command in chief."
The course of Soult as a citizen, a legislator, and a minister, was not
one upon which his best biographers will linger with much satisfaction.
The glory he had achieved as one of the lieutenants of Napoleon, in that
turbulent and grand career which has no parallel for interest or
importance in human history, was his only claim to distinction in
politics. His master had an ambition as fair in its proportions as it was
vast in its extent, and brought to every purpose the same forces of
character and preternatural energy of intelligence; but Soult had no love
for civil duties, but little capacity for them, and he accepted place as a
gratification of vanity or a means of success in mercenary aims. We see in
all his private and political life "the soilure of his revolutionary
origin,"—proofs that he loved money and power far more than he loved
honor, and himself far more than his country or mankind.
The last of the imperial marshals, the last of that gigantic race who
filled the world with a red glory like the gloom which will precede the
judgment, closed his stormy life peacefully in the place where he was
born, and thence was borne to the Invalides, to "sleep well" with his old
companions."
THE HOMES OF COWLEY AND FOX.
We have in the last _Art Journal_ another of the pleasant gossipping
_Pilgrimages to English Shrines_, by Mrs. S. C. HALL, and the following
abridgement of it will please all who have perused the previous papers of
the series. In Chertsey and its neighborhood are memorials of some of the
noblest men of England.
[Illustration: ABRAHAM COWLEY.]
ABRAHAM COWLEY.
CHERTSEY AND ITS FAMOUS CHARACTERS.
The county of Surrey is rich to overflowing in memories, both of persons
and events, and the little quaint and quiet town of Chertsey could tell of
the gorgeous and gloomy past as much as many of its ancient neighbors
within a day’s drive of the city. Had its old abbey stones but tongues,
how they could discourse of years when a visit to Chertsey was an
undertaking; though now the distance is but half an hour.
Nowhere within twenty miles of London does the Thames appear more queenly,
or sweep with greater grace through its fertile dominions, than it does at
Chertsey. It is, indeed, delightful to stand on the bridge in the glowing
sunset of a summer evening, and turning from the refreshing green of the
Shepperton Range, look into the deep clear blue of the flowing river,
while the murmur of the waters rushing through Laleham Lock give a sort of
spirit music to the scene. On the right, as you leave Chertsey, the river
bends gracefully towards the double bridge of Walton, and to the left, it
undulates smoothly along, having passed Runnymede and Staines, while the
almost conical hill of St. Anne’s attracts attention by its abrupt and
singular form when viewed from the vale of the Thames.
About a mile, on the Walton side, from our favorite bridge (Old Camden
tells us so), is the spot where Cæsar crossed the Thames. Were the
peasantry as imaginative as their brethren of Killarney, what legends
would have grown out of this tradition; how often would the "noblest Roman
of them all" have been seen by the pale moonlight leading his steed over
the waters of the rapid river—how many would have heard Cassivelaunus
himself during the stillness of some particular Midsummer night working at
the rude defence which can still be traced beneath the blue waters of the
Thames. What hosts of pale and ghastly spectres would have risen from
those tranquil banks, and from the deepest hollows of the rushing current,
and—like the Huns, who almost live on the inspired canvas of
Kaulbach,—fought their last earthly battle, again and again, in the spirit
world, amid the stars! But ours is no region of romance; even remnants of
history, which go beyond the commonest capacity, are rejected as dreams,
or put aside as legends. But history has enough to tell to interest us
all; and we may be satisfied with the abundant enjoyment we have in
delicious rambles through the lanes and up the hills, along the fair
river’s banks, and among the many traditional ruins of ancient and
beautiful Surrey.
Never was desolation more complete than in the ruin of the Mitred Abbey of
Chertsey; hardly one stone remains above another to tell where this
stately edifice—since the far-away year 664—grew and flourished, lording
it with imperial sway over, not only the surrounding villages, but
extending its paternal wings into Middlesex and even as far as London. The
abbey was of the Benedictine order, and founded, almost as soon as the
Saxons were converted from Paganism; but it was finished and chiefly
endowed by Frithwald, Earl of Surrey. The endowment prospered rarely; the
establishment increased in the reputation of wealth and sanctity; that it
was "thickly populated" is certain, for when the abbey was sacked and
burnt by the Danes, in the ninth century, the abbot, and ninety monks,
were barbarously murdered by the invaders.
Standing upon the site of their now obliterated cloisters and towers,
their aisles and dormitories, cells and confessionals, seeing nothing but
the dank, damp grass, and the tracings of the fish-ponds—stagnant pools in
our day—it is almost impossible to realize the onslaught of these wild
barbarians panting for plunder, the earnest defence of men who fought (the
monks of old could wield either sword or crosier) for life or death, the
terrible destruction, the treasures and relics, and painted glass, and
monuments, the plunder of the secret almerys, the intoxicated triumph of
those rude northern hordes let loose in our fair and lovely island; what
scenes of savagery, where now the jackdaw builds, and the blackbird
whistles, and the wild water-rat plays with her brood amongst the tangled
weeds!
The fierce sea-kings being driven back to their frozen land, King Edgar,
willing to serve God after the fashion of his times, refounded the Abbey
of Chertsey, dedicating it to St. Peter, and vying with Pope Alexander in
augmenting its privileges and its wealth.
Some of the abbots took great interest in home improvements, planting
woods, conducting streams, enlarging ponds—building, now a mill, now a
dove-cot, according to the wants of the abbey or their own fancies. Henry
I. granted them permission to keep dogs, that, according to the old
chronicle, they might take "hare, fox, and cats." King John, in the first
year of his reign, gave them ample confirmation of all their privileges,
which, it would seem, they had somewhat abused, for we find that the
sovereign seized their manors of Egham and "Torp" (Thorp) on account of a
servant of the abbot’s having killed "Hagh de Torp." Oh, rare "old times!"
The abbot was mulcted in a heavy fine. Then, while Bartholomew de
Winchester was abbot, from 1272 until 1307, during the reign of our first
Edward, complaints were made to Pope Gregory X. that the possessions of
the abbey were alienated to civilians and laymen, whereupon the pope
issued a bull ordering such grants to be revoked.
It is worthy of note, that the Chertsey monastery sheltered, for a time,
the remains of the pious, but unfortunate, Henry VI.
"Poor key-cold figure of a Holy King,
Pale ashes of the house of Lancaster."
And the reader of Shakespeare will recall the scene in which Richard meets
the Lady Anne on her way to Chertsey with her husband’s body. This poor
king’s remains had a claim to be well received by the monks of Chertsey
Abbey, for he had granted to the abbot the privilege of holding a fair on
St. Anne’s-hill, then called Mount Eldebury, on the feast of St. Anne’s
(the 26th of July): the fair has changed its time and quarters as well as
its patron, and is held in the town on the 6th of August, and called Black
Cherry Fair. Manning, in his history of Surrey, says, that the tolls of
this fair were taken by the abbot, and are now taken by the owner of the
site of the Abbey House; thus the memory of King Henry VI. is commemorated
in the town of Chertsey to this day, by the sale of black cherries in the
harvest month of August!
[Illustration: "THE NUN’S WELL."]
"THE NUN’S WELL."
Centuries passed over those magnificent abbeys, whose ruins in many places
add so much beauty to our fertile landscapes; they grew and grew, and
added acre to acre, and stone to stone, and knowledge to knowledge; but
most they cherished the knowledge which blazed like a lamp under a bushel,
and kept all but themselves in darkness; they preached no freedom in
Christ to the Christian world, they abolished no serfdom, they taught no
liberty, they enslaved even those who in their turn enslaved their "born
thralls," and saw no evil in it. Oh, rare old times! Better it is for us
that the site of Chertsey Abbey should be scarcely traceable now-a-days
than that it should be as it was, with its proud pageants and pent-up
learning!—Yet we have neither sympathy no respect for that foul king, who,
to serve his own carnal purposes, overthrew the very faith which had
hallowed his throne. But he did not attack and storm the Abbey of
Chertsey, as he did other religious houses. He came to them, this Eighth
Harry, with a fair show of kindness, saying that "to the honor of God, and
for the health of his soul, he proposed and most nobly intended to refound
the late Monastery, Priory, or Abbey of Bisham in Berks, and to
incorporate and establish the Abbot and Convent of Chertsey, as Abbot and
Convent of Bisham, and to endow them with all the Manors late belonging to
Bisham." How the then Abbot John Cordrey, and his brethren, must have
shivered at the conditions; how they must have grieved at quitting their
cherished home, their stews and fish-ponds, their rich meadows of Thorpe,
overlooked by the woods of Eldebury hill, their nursing ground where their
calves and young lambs were stowed in luxurious safety in the pleasant
farm of Simple Marsh at Addlestone!
But their star was setting, and they were forced to "give, sell, grant and
confirm, to the king their house and all manors belonging to them."
The total destruction of the Abbey must have amazed the whole country. An
earthquake could hardly have obliterated it more entirely. Aubrey, writing
in the year 1673, says "of this great Abbey, scarce any thing of the old
building remains, except the out walls about it. Out of this ruin, is
built a ’fair house,’ which is now in possession of Sir Nicholas Carew,
master of the Buckhounds." Dr. Stukeley alludes to this house, in a letter
written in 1752; he speaks of the inveterate destruction, and of "the
gardener" carrying him through a "court" where he saw the remains of the
church of the Abbey. He says the "east end reached up to an artificial
mount along the garden wall; that mount and all the terraces of the
pleasure garden, to the back front of the house, are entirely made up of
the sacred _rudera_ or rubbish of continual devastations. Bones of abbots,
monks, and great personages, who were buried in large numbers in the
church and cloisters which lay on the south side of the church, were
spread thick all over the garden, _so that one may pick up whole handsfull
of them every where amongst the garden stuff_." Brayley mentions in his
pleasant History of Surrey, that this artificial mount was levelled in
1810, and its materials employed to fill up a pond. Many human skulls and
bones were found intermixed with the chalk and mortar of which it had been
formed. Fragments of old tiles were also frequently found, and are still
sometimes turned up. No trace even of the "Abbey house" is left; it was
purchased in 1809 by a stock-broker, who in the following year sold the
materials—and so ends the great monastic history of Chertsey. Where are
now its spiritualities in Surrey?—its temporalities in Berkshire and
Hampshire?—its revenues of Stanwell, and rents of assize?—its
spiritualities in Cardiganshire? Alas! they have left no sign, except on
the yellow parchment—of rare value to the antiquary.
Those who desire, like ourselves, to investigate what tradition has
sanctified, will do well to turn down a lane beyond Chertsey Church, which
leads directly to the Abbey bridge, and there, amid tangled hedge rows and
orchards, stands the fragment of an arch, partly built up, and so to say,
disfigured by brick-work, and an old wall, both evidently portions of the
Abbey. In the wall are a great number of what the people call "_black
stones_," a geological formation, making them seem fused by fire. Layers
of tiles were also inserted in this wall, and where the cement has dropped
away they can be distinctly traced; there is also an ivy, very aged
indeed; it is so knotted and thick that it seems to grow through the
stones, the soil has so evidently encroached on the wall that it is most
probably rooted at the foundation. The pleasant market garden of Mr. Roake
covers the actual ground on which the Abbey stood. The workmen frequently
turn up broken tiles and human bones, and there is no doubt that by
digging deeper much would be discovered that might elucidate the history
of the past. At the farther end of the market garden a vault has been
discovered which is of considerable length and breadth; but the water
rises so high in it (except after a long continuance of dry weather has
sealed the land springs) that it is impossible to get to the end without
wading. An enormous quantity of richly-colored and decorated encaustic
tiles have been found here; some are preserved in our local museum. But
the most interesting remains in this place are the "stews," or fish-ponds,
which run parallel to each other like the bars of a gridiron; these ponds
do not communicate one with the other, nor has the water any outlet: a
little care and attention might make them valuable for their old purposes;
but they are deplorably neglected. Occasionally you see the fin of some
huge fish, whose slow movement partakes of the character of the stagnant
water he has inhabited for years;—who can tall how many?
[Illustration: "THE GOLDEN GROVE."]
"THE GOLDEN GROVE."
"The Abbey River," as it is still called, travels slowly along its way,
fertilizing the meadows and imparting life and freshness to the placid
scene. The denizens of Chertsey have planted orchards, and in a few
instances gardens on its banks. One, the garden of Mr. Herring, is a model
of neatness, almost concealed by its roses and carefully tended shrubs. We
wandered from orchard to orchard, amid the trees and over the uneven
ground; all was so still and lonely that it required the suggestions of an
active imagination to believe it had ever been the scene of contention by
flood and field. From the Abbey Bridge the richness of the meadow scenery
is exceedingly refreshing, the grass is deep and verdant, as it cannot
fail to be, lying so low, and fertilized by perpetual moisture.
During their wide-spreading magnificence, the abbots of Chertsey erected a
picturesque chapel on the lovely hill of St. Anne: this was done somewhat
about the year 1334. Orleton, Bishop of Winchester, granted an indulgence
of forty days to such persons as should repair to, and contribute to the
fabric and its ornaments.
There is nowhere a more delightful road, than that which leads from the
"Golden Grove," rendered picturesque by its old tree, the plantations of
Monksgrove on one side, and those of the once residence of Charles James
Fox on the other. The road is perfectly embowered, and so close is the
foliage that you have no idea of the beautiful view which awaits you,
until leaving the statesman’s house to the left, you pass through a sort
of wicket gate on the right, and follow a foot-path to where two
magnificent trees crown the hill; it is wisest to wait until passing along
the level ridge you arrive at the "view point," and there, spread around
you in such a panorama as England only can show, and show against the
world for its extreme richness. On the left is Cooper’s Hill, which
Denham, that high-priest of "Local poetry," long ago made famous; in the
bend just where it meets the plain, you see the towers of Windsor Castle;
there is Harrow Hill, the sun shining brightly on its tall church; a deep
pall hovers over London, but you can see the dome of St. Paul’s looming
through the mist; nay, we have heard of those who have told the hour of
the day upon its broad-faced clock, with the assistance of a good glass.
How beautifully the Thames winds! Ay! there is the grand stand at Epsom,
and there Twickenham, delicious, soft, balmy Twickenham; and Richmond
Hill—a very queen of beauty!
[Illustration: REMAINS OF CHERTSEY ABBEY.]
REMAINS OF CHERTSEY ABBEY.
Yonder, beyond the valley, are Foxes Hills crowned with lofty pines—and
that is the church at Staines, and as you turn, there again is Cooper’s
Hill; Laleham seems spread as a tribute at your feet, and there is no end
to the villages and mansions—the parks, and cottages like snow-drops in a
parterre, and church spires more than we can number; while close behind us
are the stones piled thickly one on the other—the only relics of the holy
Chapel of St. Anne.
How grandly the promontory of St. George’s Hill stands out—sheltering
Weybridge, and forming a beautiful back-ground to Byfleet and the banks of
the Way; not forgetting its ruins—a Roman encampment of two thousand years
age, and its modern ornaments of rare trees, of which a generous nobleman
has made common property, to be enjoyed daily by all who choose. At the
foot of this richly planted hill, is the beautiful park of Oatlands—on the
eve of becoming an assemblage of villa-grounds. How pleasant to feel that
we can account, by our own knowledge of that glowing mount, for all the
shades formed by the hills and hollows, and different growths of trees in
the depths or heights of "the encampment," which forms the delight of many
a toilsome antiquary. Beyond are the more distant eminences of the North
Downs, and a tract of country extending into Kent. But we have not yet
explored the beauties of this our own hill of Chertsey; truly, to do so,
would take a day as long as that of its own black cherry fair.
A path to the left, among the fern and heather, leads to a well, famed for
its healing properties—it is called the Nun’s Well; even now, the peasants
believe that its waters are a cure for diseases of the eye; the path is
steep and dangerous, and it is far pleasanter to walk round the brow of
the hill and overlook the dense wood which conceals the well, fringing the
meadows of Thorpe, than to seek its tangled hiding-place in the dell. The
monks of old would be sorely perplexed if they could arise, to account for
the long line of smoke which marks the passage of the different trains
along their railroads. But we turn from them to enjoy a ramble round the
brow of St. Anne’s Hill; the coppice which clothes the descent into the
valley, is so thick, that though it is intersected by many paths, you
might lose yourself half-a-dozen times within an hour; if it be evening,
the nightingales in the thickets of Monksgrove have commenced their
chorus, and the town of Chertsey, down below, is seen to its full extent,
its church tower toned into beauty by the rich light of the setting sun,
while through the trees and holly thickets you obtain glimpses of the
Guildford and Leatherhead hills, so softly blue, that they meet and mingle
with the sky.
[Illustration: GATE OF FOX’S HOUSE.]
GATE OF FOX’S HOUSE.
[Illustration: SUMMER HOUSE IN FOX’S GARDEN.]
SUMMER HOUSE IN FOX’S GARDEN.
[Illustration: TEMPLE OF FRIENDSHIP.]
TEMPLE OF FRIENDSHIP.
Those who feel no interest in monkish chronicles, may reverence St. Anne’s
Hill, because of its having been the favorite residence of Charles James
Fox, the contemporary of Pitt and Burke and Sheridan and Grattan, at a
period when men felt strongly and spoke eloquently. The site of the house
on the south-eastern site of the hill is extremely beautiful, and it is
much regretted in the neighborhood that it finds so little favor in the
heart of its present noble proprietor. The grounds are laid out with much
taste; there is a noble cedar planted by Mrs. Fox when only the size of a
wand. The statesman’s widow survived her husband more than thirty-six
years, but never outlived her friends or her faculties. There is a temple
dedicated to Friendship, which was erected to perpetuate the coming of age
of one of the late Lords Holland; on a pedestal ornamented by a vase, are
inscribed some verses by General Fitzpatrick; another placed by Mrs. Fox
to mark a favorite spot where Mr. Fox loved to muse, is enriched by a
quotation from the "Flower and the Leaf," concluded by two graceful
stanzas:
"Cheerful in this sequestered bower,
From all the storms of life removed;
Here Fox enjoyed his evening hour,
In converse with the friends he loved.
And here these lines he oft would quote,
Pleased from his favorite poet’s lay;
When challenged by the warbler’s note,
That breathed a song from every spray."
At the bottom of the garden is a grotto, which must have once possessed
many attractions, and above it there is a pretty little quaint chamber
that was used as a tea-room, when, according to the custom of the time,
the English drank tea by daylight; it is adorned by painted glass windows;
there are portraits of the Prince of Wales and Mr. Fox, when both were
looking their best, and the balcony in front commands a delicious view of
the surrounding country.
The peasantry are still loud in their praise of "Madam Fox;" and some
remember with gratitude the education they received at her school, and
love to tell how the old lady was drawn there at "feast times," to see how
they all looked in their new dresses. She certainly retained her sympathy
with the young, and put away the feelings and habits of old age with a
determined hand, for it is said, when she was eighty she took lessons on
the harp. The present generation remember personally nothing of the great
statesman; he has become history to us, and we must look to history,
garbled as it always is, and always will be, by the opinions and feelings
of its writers, to determine the position of Charles James Fox in the
annals of his country. Those who were admitted to his society have written
with enthusiasm of his social qualities, and bestow equal praise on his
brilliant talents, his affability of manner, and the generosity of his
disposition. He was the third son of Henry Fox, afterwards Lord Holland,
and his mother was the eldest daughter of Charles, second Duke of
Richmond, and consequently great-granddaughter to Charles II.; the
material descent is one of blotted royalty, of which a man like Fox could
not have been proud. His academic course was unmarked by any of those
honors of which Oxford men are so ambitious, and yet, like his great
rival, William Pitt, he became a statesman before he was of age.
[Illustration: FOX’S ARBOR.]
FOX’S ARBOR.
At St. Anne’s Hill he enjoyed as many intervals of repose and tranquillity
as could fall to a statesman’s lot; in the time of wars and tumults, how
he must have luxuriated in its delicious quiet, surrounded by friends who
dearly loved him; and swayed only for good by the wife who (although it is
known that her early intimacy with him was such as prevented her general
recognition in society) according to the evidence of all who knew her, was
the minister only to his better thoughts and nobler ambitions, and who
weaned him from nearly all the follies and vices which stained his youth
and earlier manhood. Various causes led to his death, before age had added
infirmities to disease. He died at Chiswick House, and his last words,
addressed to Mrs. Fox were, "I die happy." It is said he wished to be
buried at Chertsey, but his remains were interred in Westminister Abbey.
The brilliant Sheridan pronounced so elegant an eulogium on his character,
that it is pleasant to think of it in those shades where, as we have said,
he so often sought and found repose: "When Mr. Fox ceased to live, the
cause of private honor and friendship lost its highest glory, public
liberty its most undaunted champion, and general humanity its most active
and ardent assertor. In him was united the most amiable disposition with
the most firm and resolute spirit; the mildest manners, with the most
exalted mind. With regard to that great man it might, indeed, be well
said, that in him the bravest heart and most exalted mind sat upon the
seat of gentleness."
[Illustration: COWLEY’S SEAT.]
COWLEY’S SEAT.
[Illustration: COWLEY’S HOUSE—STREET FRONT.]
COWLEY’S HOUSE—STREET FRONT.
There is, at all events, an imaginary pleasure in turning from the wearing
out turmoil of a statesman’s life, to what the world believes the tranquil
dreams of a poet’s existence. But there are few things the worldling so
little understands as literary industry, or so little sympathizes with as
literary care. We have no inclination to over-rate either its toils or its
pleasures, and perhaps no life is more abundantly supplied with both. Its
toils must be evident to any who have noted the increasing literary labor
which is necessary to produce the ordinary sources of comforts; but its
high and holy enjoyments are not so apparent; they are so different from
those of almost all others as not to be easily explained or understood;
but above all other gifts, the marvellous gift of poesy is a distinction
conferred by the Almighty, and should be acknowledged and treasured as
such. We know little of a poet’s studies except by their imperishable
produce, and it is a common but ill-founded prejudice to imagine
regularity or diligence incompatible with high genius. Genius is neither
above law, nor opposed to it; but as many have a poetic taste and
temperament _without_ the inspiration, the world is apt to mistake the
eccentricity of the pretender for the outward and visible sign of genius.
Whether or not the poet of the Porch-house of Chertsey had the actual
poetic fire we do not venture to determine. Abraham Cowley takes a
prominent position, amongst the poets of our land, and the eventful times
in which he lived, and his participation in their tumults give him
additional interest in all the relations of his anxious and not over-happy
life. It is recorded of him that he became a poet in consequence of
reading the Faery Queene, which chance threw in his way while yet a child.
In allusion to this, Dr. Johnson gave his well-known definition of genius:
"A mind of large general powers, accidentally determined to some
particular direction." We had almost dared to say this is rather the
definition of a philosopher than of one who comprehended the spirituality
of a marvellous gift. Abraham Cowley—the posthumous son of a London
grocer—owed much to his mother. She, by her exertions, procured him a
classical education at Westminster School. She lived to see him loved,
honored, and great, and what was better still, and more uncommon,
grateful. At the age of fifteen he published a volume called "Poetic
Blossoms," which he afterwards described as "commendable extravagancies in
a boy." He obtained a scholarship in Trinity College, Cambridge, in 1686,
and there took his degree; but was ejected by the Parliament, and thence
removed to Oxford. Shortly after, he followed the Queen Henrietta to
Paris, as Secretary to the Earl of St. Albans, and was employed in the
court of the exiles in the most confidential capacity. In 1656 he returned
to England, and was immediately arrested as a suspected spy. He submitted
quietly—the royalists thought too quietly—to the dominion of the
Protector, but his whole life proved that he was no traitor. At the
Restoration, that great national disappointment, his claims upon the
ungrateful monarch were met by a taunt and a false insinuation—he was told
that his pardon was his reward! Wood said, "he lost the place by certain
enemies of the Muses;" certain "friends of the Muses," however, procured
for him the lease of the Porch-house and farm at Chertsey, held under the
Queen, and the great desire of his life—solitude—was obtained.
[Illustration: COWLEY’S HOUSE—GARDEN FRONT.]
COWLEY’S HOUSE—GARDEN FRONT.
The place still seems a meet dwelling for a poet, and is, perhaps, even
more attractive to strangers than St. Anne’s hill. The porch, which caused
his residence to be called "The Porch-house," was taken down during the
last century by the father of its present proprietor, the Rev. John Crosby
Clarke, and the house is now known as "Cowley House."(1) It is situated
near the bridge which crosses a narrow and rapid stream, in a lonely part
of Guildford Street; a latticed window which overhangs the road is the
window of the room in which the poet expired; on the outside wall Mr.
Clarke has recorded his reason for removing the porch. "The porch of this
house, which projected ten feet into the highway, was taken down in the
year 1786, for the safety and accommodation of the public."
"Here the last accents flowed from Cowley’s tongue."
[Illustration: STAIRCASE—COWLEY’S HOUSE.]
STAIRCASE—COWLEY’S HOUSE.
The appearance of the house from Guildford Street, is no index to its size
or conveniences.(2) You enter by a side gate, and the new front of the
dwelling is that of a comfortable and gentlemanly home; the old part it is
said was built in the reign of James the First, and what remains is
sufficiently quaint to bear out the legend; the old and new are much
mingled, and the modern part consists of one or two bed-rooms, a large
dining-room, and a drawing-room, commanding a delicious garden view, the
meanderings of the stream, and a long tract of luxuriant meadows,
terminated by the high and richly timbered ground of St. Anne’s Hill. A
portion of the old stairway is preserved, the wood is not as has been
stated oak, but sweet chestnut. One of the rooms is panelled with oak, and
Cowley’s study is a small closet-like chamber, the window looking towards
St. Anne’s Hill. It is never difficult to imagine a poet in a _small
chamber_, particularly when his mind may imbibe inspiration from so rich
and lovely a landscape. Beside the group of trees, beneath whose shadow
the poet frequently sat, there is a horse chestnut of such exceeding size
and beauty, that it is worthy a pilgrimage, and no lover of nature could
look upon it without mingled feelings of reverence and affection.
Here then amid such tranquil scenes, and such placid beauty, the
"melancholy Cowley," passed the later days of big anxious existence; here
we may fancy him receiving Evelyn and Denham, the poets and men of letters
of his troubled day, who found the disappointments of courtly life more
than their philosophy could endure. Here his friendly biographer, Doctor
Spratt, cheered his lonely hours.
Cowley was one of those fortunate bards who obtain fame and honor during
life. His learning was deep, his reading extensive, his acquaintance with
mankind large. "To him," says Denham in his famous elegy,
"To him no author was unknown,
Yet what he wrote was all his own."
His biographer adds, "There was nothing affected or singular in his habit,
or person, or gesture; _he understood the forms of good breeding enough to
practise them without burdening himself or others_." This indeed is the
perfection of good breeding and good sense.
Having obtained, as we have said, the Porch-house at Chertsey, his mind
dwelt with pleasure—a philosophic pleasure—upon the hereafter, which he
hoped for in this life of tranquillity, and the silent labor he so dearly
loved; but he was destined to prove the reality of his own poesy:
"Oh life, thou _Nothing’s_ younger brother,
So _like_ that one might take one for the other."
The career of Abraham Cowley was never sullied by vice,(3) he was loyal
without being servile, and at once modest, independent and sincere. His
character is eloquently drawn by Doctor Spratt. "He governed his passions
with great moderation, his virtues were never troublesome or uneasy to
any, whatever he disliked in others he only corrected by the silent
reproof of a better practice."
He died at Chertsey on the 28th of July, 1667, and was interred in
Westminster Abbey. A throng of nobles followed him to his grave, and the
worthless king who had deserted him is reported to have said, that Mr.
Cowley had not left a better man behind him in England.
It is said the body of Cowley was removed from Chertsey by water, thus
making the Thames he loved so well, the highway to his grave; there is
something highly poetic in this idea of a funeral, so still and solemn,
with the oars dropping noiselessly in the blue water. Pope in allusion to
it, says:
"What tears the river shed,
When the sad pomp along his banks was led;"
which rather inclines us to the belief, that in this, as in many other
instances, the poetic reading is not the true one,
"The muses oft in lands of vision play:"
but the fact that he died at Chertsey, as much respected as a man, as he
was admired as a poet, is certain, and his house is often visited by
strangers, who are permitted to see his favorite haunts by the kindness of
its proprietor, who honors the spot so hallowed by memories of "the
melancholy Cowley:"—he who considered and described "business" as:
"The contradiction to his fate."
But we must postpone our farther rambles for the present.
[Illustration: TREES ON ST ANNE’S HILL.]
TREES ON ST ANNE’S HILL.
Chertsey loses half its romantic interest by the intrusion of the
progressive agents of our time—our noisy time, of which the spirit
willingly brooks no souvenirs of monastic repose. The old quaint quiet
town has now its railroad, and the shades of its heroes have departed.
TRAUGOTT BROMME ON THE UNITED STATES OF NORTH AMERICA, TEXAS AND THE
COLONIES.
We have at different times, by reviews or translations, endeavored to give
our readers some idea of what people think of us, in continental Europe.
But there are two sides to every thing—or there is an universal dualism,
as Emerson declares—which is perfectly true as to the method which might
be adopted in the execution of this self-imposed task. One class of
readers understand by the word _people_ the _beau monde_, and would have
us invariably follow the school of the Countesses Hahn-Hahn or Ladies
Blessington or Milords Fitz-Flummery, contented if we have but a fair name
in society. Another and more reasonable class would be satisfied to know
the opinion of the literati, or perhaps the poets, particularly when they
do fit homage to our "grand old woods," and to Niagara. Others regard with
most respect a plain literal account of our branches of industry—our
railroads, factories, and canals. They would have the country judged
purely from a mechanical or practical point of view—contenting themselves
as to other matters with the reflection. "Oh, sensible people care very
little about any thing else. If they know what we produce, and what our
resources are, they’ll understand and respect us sufficiently."
Now the opinion of each of these classes has its weight, and though not of
the _greatest_ ultimate importance, is always to be respected. If we were
questioned as to the views of which of them we yielded full regard, we
should candidly say, "to none." It is the general, universal opinion, of a
nation at large that we deem authoritative, and none other. It is that
popular opinion so readily yet often so falsely formed (at times from
trifles of almost incredible levity), and which when once fairly
developed, is well-nigh ineradicable. In a word, it is to the views of the
people.
We propose, as opportunity shall offer, to make our readers familiar with
the writings of all these different classes of travellers—and in the
present article, we shall make a few extracts from a work interesting, as
having probably contributed more than any other to a general knowledge of
the United States in Germany. It is the book which has had the greatest
currency among all classes, but particularly with the lower order of
readers and emigrants.
Before proceeding, however, to the work itself, it may be as well to
answer a question which has perhaps been suggested to the minds of a
certain class of readers. Of what great use, after all, is this nervous
regard as to the opinion of the world? Is not our character
established—are not our characteristics known, to the uttermost corners of
the earth? To which question we may answer, _Not quite_. In avoiding that
ridiculous sensitiveness which prompts so many Americans to feel
personally insulted by the weak remarks of every wandering ignoramus, we
would by no means fall into the opposite error of attaching no importance
whatever to the good opinion or the degree of consciousness as to our
existence entertained by the world at large.
Should any feel disposed to smile at such an expression, as "the
consciousness of our existence," we will take the liberty of citing a few
curious instances, for the authenticity of which we assume the entire
responsibility—instances which may perhaps astonish a few even of the
better informed. There are in many districts (not altogether provincial)
of Italy and France great numbers, who would not even in America be
classed as _ignorant_ in regard to other matters, who have not the
remotest idea as to the nature or geography of our country. An instance
has come to our knowledge of an intelligent Hungarian who, by intercourse
with the world, had acquired a fluency in five languages, and who inquired
of an American gentleman if his country were not situated somewhere in
England. The late Mr. Cooper, when placing his daughters at a celebrated
seminary on the continent, found a great curiosity had been created by the
rumor that they were coming, some supposing they were black, some that
they were copper-colored, and all unprepared to see American girls looking
for all the world like the young German ladies. We have heard of a similar
instance in which an English _gentleman_—a Cambridge graduate—inquired of
an American what was the current language of the United States. Lastly, we
may cite the case of an English author, well known to our own public, and
favorably mentioned not long since in these pages, who was under the
impression that owing to the great emigration from Germany, the English
language must with us, in a very few years, yield to that of the
_Vaterland_. Now our commercial and industrial relations are seriously
hindered by this absurd ignorance of America, which in a word prevails to
such an extent, that we have known an American, who—probably from having
been over-questioned and speered at in New England—had imbibed such a
wholesome hatred of inquisitiveness, that he wished the French government
would hang up, for the benefit of all concerned, the following list of
questions, with satisfactory answers annexed, in all the _cafés_ of the
politest nation in Europe:
Whether America is an island or a continent?
What is the color of its inhabitants?
What language do they speak?
Have they a religion and what is it?
What is the state of their morals and cookery?
Have they a correct state of feeling as regards the opera?
The reader is not to infer that this is the general state of knowledge
regarding our country. But it is worth nothing as a curious illustration
of the vast number of individuals who derive their ideas, not from what is
going on at the present day, or from available sources of information, but
from the antiquated views of a by-gone generation. And we trust it will
not be deemed inappropriate that we here speak a word of the want of
opportunities of acquiring very general information under which the
ordinary readers of continental Europe suffer. With all their libraries,
all their immense arrays of magazines and journals, we find among them an
apathy in regard to the world without (to the Fan-Qui), which appears
incredible until we reflect on the deadening influences of the censorship,
which views with distrust all information in regard to the Land of
Liberty. We are not aware, throughout the whole of continental Europe, of
a single publication so thoroughly cosmopolite in its character, so
general in the scope of its information, or which is so universally
disseminated among _all_ classes of readers, as _The International_; and
we trust we do not go too far when we assert, that it is to an extended
sale of periodical publications somewhat approaching it in the
concentration and dissemination of news from the world at large, that our
countrymen owe that superior intelligence and citizen-of-the-world
character which distinguish them from the insular Briton, self-important
Frenchman, or abstracted German.
The work from which we propose to make some extracts, is TRAUGOTT BROMME’s
_Hand und Reisebuch für Auswanderer nach den Vereinigten Staaten_ (or
Traugott Bromme’s Journey and Handbook for Emigrants to the United
States). As we have already stated, no work on America is at the present
day more familiarly known to that class of readers to whom it is
addressed. Certain remarks on the present condition of German emigration
with which it is prefaced, may not be devoid of interest to our readers,
though not constituting a part of such observations as we have more
particularly referred to:
"There is, it appears, implanted in every man an impulse to
advance and better his condition—an impulse caused by poverty,
dependent circumstances, or pressure from every side, vexing at
times even the highest in rank, and which is the cause why
thousands leave their fatherland, to seek afar a now home, and
hundreds of thousands cast around them disturbed and anxious
glances, restrained only by hard poverty, which imprisons them at
home. Such is very generally the case at present in our own
country, where—despite the political concessions of March in the
year 1848, of the published original privileges of the German
people, and of the promising prospect of a free and united
Germany, with a concluding general empire—emigration appears to be
by no means on the decrease." "These emigrants of the present day
consist not as formerly of poor people of the lower orders, who
turn their backs on the German fatherland, or liberal declaimers,
dreaming of an ideal of freedom which could scarcely be realized
in Utopia, but of sober excellent families of the middle class,
who, free from all delusive fancies, do not expect to find in the
western world wealth and honorable offices, but desire only to
inhabit a land, wherein they may dwell quietly and happily with
their children." "What the German wants is _room_—a new broad
field for his abilities—and this America extends to him in
unbounded space. No one at the present day hopes to obtain hills
of gold without labor, but every one knows that the far more
estimable treasure of perfect independence, or to speak more
correctly, of perfect _self-dependence_, with the prospect of a
future free from care, may in America be obtained at the cost of a
few years of earnest, honest industry. And what, to the man
oppressed in his fatherland by all the cares incident upon the
obtaining a bare subsistence, is two or three or even _four_ years
of hard work, when compared to a whole life of poverty and
misery?"
After accurately sketching the extreme misery and poverty oppressing the
inhabitants of many districts of Germany, of late years sadly increased by
the falling off in manufactures since the political disturbances, our
author proceeds to set forth the advantages offered by America:
"That most emigrants should rather look to America, than Poland,
Russia, Servia, or Siebenburgen, is natural enough, since all of
these countries together cannot offer so many attractions as
America. Where on earth is there such a vast array of unoccupied
lands, offered at such a moderate price—land so cheap that in many
districts twenty or thirty and even more acres, covered with wood,
are given at a price for which a single acre of similar land is
sold in Germany?"
The richness of the soil, the excellence of the climate, and the demand
for labor, are then described; to which, as the greatest inducement, he
adds the fact that in _America_ the fullest "liberty of labor and
mechanical calling or trade," is allowed. Also, that the taxes are so
light that an industrious man is able not only to live, but even to lay up
something for his old age, or his children, or to employ in the extension
of his business.
"For as there exists in America no standing army, its inhabitants
may retain their children, as the best possible assistants in
labor, and train, govern, and discipline them as can only properly
done under the eye of a parent. Furthermore, in that country every
one is permitted to enjoy the fullest civil and religious liberty.
These are the advantages to be expected from an emigration to
America, _and he who anticipates more will find himself bitterly
deceived_. But a man who can be content with this, and can live
actively, moderately, and frugally, will here, better than in any
other land in the world, ultimately attain to happiness and
fortune. In times like ours, when every branch of industry is
crowded, when tender parents think with grief and trouble on the
future prospects of their children, there are for the emigrant no
other resources save those held out by a full and bountiful
nature, and no means of livelihood which may be so certainly
depended upon as those afforded by agriculture. Here it is that
industry throws open the widest field, and affords the fullest
opportunity of doing good."
In the following extract, our author proceeds to set forth the national
character of the American:
"The national character of the American has been greatly
misunderstood; few travellers seem, in fact, to have understood
it, since they mention it as something as new and unfounded as the
country itself, and yet it is so well confirmed—so well
established in every elevated and noble characteristic of the
human race, that it may confidently be placed in comparison with
that of the most celebrated nations of antiquity. Springing
originally from England, they have the pride and manly confidence
of the Briton, for through their ancestry they claim an equal
share of all which gives dignity to those inheriting glory and a
great name. Their forefathers were those brave religious pilgrims
who were transferred by British laws (or rather by old German) and
British genius to the shores of the new world—to there give to
those laws and genius an immortality. Building still further on
this new land, they opened the temple of the Lord to all his
followers, and received with open arms all the unfortunate or
oppressed exiles of Europe. For the first time in reality in this
world they flung wide the flag of truth and freedom—fought under
its folds an unequal fight against the mightiest power in the
world—and overcame it. And when a second time they armed
themselves to combat with England, they again came forth
unconquered from the contest. Reason enough this for the national
pride of the American, for nothing could more naturally cause a
certain degree of self-content than to belong to a nation whose
brilliant deeds in war as in politics, in commerce as in
manufactures, have astonished the world. A second and not less
characteristic trait of the American is seen in a certain
earnestness, which appears to strangers to indicate a want of
sociable feeling—and yet perhaps in _no_ country is true noble
sociability as developed in domestic life, so much at home, as in
America.
"Accustomed from his cradle to reflect on himself and his
circumstances, the American from the first instant of his entry
into active life is ever on the watch to improve their condition.
Is he rich, and consequently more directly interested in the
common wealth, then every new law, every change in the personal
direction of the government, awakes in him a new care for the
future, while on the other hand, if poor, then every change in the
state may perhaps afford him a new opportunity of bettering his
condition. Therefore he is ever wide awake—ever looking out for
the future, not as a mere spectator, but as one playing a part and
occupied in maintaining the present state of affairs, or in
improving them. The entire mass of the population is continually
in a state of political agitation, and, urged by hope of their aid
or fear of their power, we see every one continually seeking for
expressions of public opinion. No man is so rich or powerful that
he need not fear them—none so wretched and poor but that he may
venture to entertain the hope of being through them aided and
relieved. Public opinion is in America the mightiest organ of
justice—shielding no one, from the president to the simplest
citizen, and proceeds, mowing, casting down, or grinding to powder
all things which oppose it and deserve its condemnation.
"This condition of perpetual agitation gives the American an
appearance of ceaseless restlessness, but it is in reality the
true ground of peace and content. _The American has no time to be
discontented_, and this is the most praiseworthy point of their
constitution and popular life. The republican has necessarily as
many severe and arduous duties to fulfil as the inhabitants of any
monarchy—but their fulfilment is gratifying and consoling—for it
is allied to the consciousness of power. The American has no
desire for the quiet temper of the European, and least of all for
the silent happiness of the German, which last, alas! appears
since the dissipation of the intoxication of the Revolution of
March, 1848, to consist, as far as the great mass of the
population is concerned, merely in the egotistic repose of
self-sufficiency, weakness, and ignorance. The American finds
repose only in his house, in his family circle, and among his
children; all without the walls of that home is an incessant
working and striving, in politics as in trade—by the streets and
canals, as in the woods of the West. Different as the elements are
from which the inhabitants of the United States are formed, and
different as the circumstances may be under which they live, there
still prevails among them a certain unity of character, an
equanimity of feeling, which it would be difficult to parallel,
resulting perhaps from the very heterogeneousness and mixture of
elements itself, since no one element allows to another
pre-eminence. They have all something in common in their
appearance, which gives them the air almost of relations—something
in their gait and manners which declares them to be other than
English, Germans, or French. Through the entire land, through
every class, there is disseminated a certain refinement of manner,
an appreciation of decency and nobility of character, which
springs from a consciousness of their own rights and respect for
mankind. Even emigrants, in America, soon learn to cast aside
their rough prejudices as regards caste, for the proud affability
of the aristocratic, the vanity of the small citizen, the want of
confidence and ease in the mechanic, the slavish servitude and
snappish insolence of liveried servants, find in America no place.
_Man_ is there esteemed only as _man_—only ability gains honor—and
where _that_ is, and there alone, can true nobility be found. No
one there inquires who a man is, or who were his parents, but
’What can he _do_, what are his capabilities, and what can he
produce?’ Rank and caste are in America unknown. Every man feels
his freedom and independence, and expresses himself accordingly.
Even the servant is a free man, who has, it is true, hired his
service, but not his entire existence. The American is polite, but
over-refined, unmeaning compliments form no part of his manners,
nor does he expect them from others. No man vexes or troubles
himself for another, in consequence of which we find in American
society very little stiffness and reserve, yet we find in every
respect that the very highest regard is there paid to propriety
and decency—particularly as regards the female sex, since in no
country, not even in England, do ladies enjoy such respect and
regard as in the United States. Ever depending upon, and confiding
in himself, the American is in his manners free, open, and
unreserved. The mass of the people is possessed of intelligence
and spirit, though not so scientifically educated as in Europe,
and a higher degree of intelligence penetrates even the lower
class, who consequently form a marked and singular contrast with
those of like rank in Europe. It is not from being versed in the
higher branches of abstract learning and science, but from the
great amount of that direct practical knowledge which exerts the
greatest influence in making life happy, that the Americans are
distinguished from other nations, and for the acquisition of which
they have made better provision and preparation than any other
people. As yet too deeply occupied with the Needful and Important,
they are compelled to leave the development of the higher branches
to the care and noble generosity of individuals. But a glance at
the sums which are annually devoted to the establishment and
maintenance of schools and universities, will suffice to evidence
the liberality with which the proper education of the people is
cared for in the United States. Knowledge is indeed esteemed, but
only according to its use and applicability to the wants of life;
so that a practical tanner is there worth more than a learned
pedant. _Wealth, or rather wealth allied to ability and
universality of talent, is there more highly esteemed than
learning,_ while hospitality, patriotism, and toleration, allowing
every one to think and feel as he likes, are universal
characteristics. So that in the United States nothing is wanting
to the attainment of a true civil and social freedom, even though
the means thereto are not invariably correctly understood or
admitted (as is indeed the case by us), and though—since men are
every where subject to the same weaknesses—they measure happiness
rather by the standard of their own intelligence and virtues, than
by fortune and nature, which latter, impartially considered, is
the basis of the physical happiness of the American. That,
however, which constitutes his _moral_ happiness is this; that in
his country, domestic life enjoys the true supremacy, _and to
this, public life and the state are subordinate_. It is true that
the American statesmen have fallen into the same error as the
European—_id est_, to believe that without _them_ the people could
never prosper, and still live in the belief that home-happiness
hangs on them, their theories and arts of governing; but the most
superficial glance teaches that if wise laws are able to effect
more for the happiness of man than they can bring about, still no
one should _there_ attempt to draw happiness from such a source
when popular and private life have combined to bestow it. But
should the happiness of the Americans ever be derived from this
side, it will be more sensible to assume that the foundation
thereof will be the release from that which in the recent culture
has passed for the deepest political wisdom. The true secret of
all the good fortune of America lies in the favorable condition of
external things. ’It is not with them as in Europe, where the poor
can only better their condition or become rich by making the rich
poor, for therein lies the source of an infinite strife which hath
been combated for centuries, with the axioms of religion and
morals. But in America, men when striving to better their
condition, instead of becoming enemies and turning their arms
against each other, strive with _Nature_, and wring from her
boundless stores that wealth which she so bountifully affords!’"
We have made these quotations less on account of any merit which they
possess, than to give our readers an idea of the general opinion
prevailing in Germany in regard to our country; and to confirm an
assertion made in a recent number of the _International_, that in no
country in Europe are we so impartially and favorably judged. There is one
particular, however, in which we find this book worthy of especial praise.
The author highly commends the flourishing state of religion in the United
States, declaring that we are in this respect superior to the Germans, and
that on the Sabbath the churches are filled to a degree unknown in Europe.
It is from our deep-rooted attachment to domestic life, and our observance
of religion, that he correctly deduces our true happiness, as separated
from the natural advantages of the country. It is greatly to be desired
that the majority of his countrymen resident in America, would allow
themselves to be impressed in a similar manner as to the advantages of
piety and Sabbath-keeping. There is in the United States a vast number of
German newspapers—conducted we should imagine for the greater part by
unprincipled and worthless adventurers of the red republican, socialist
stamp, who, despite the protection which they here enjoy, incessantly and
spitefully abuse every institution to which they are really indebted for
their asylum among us, and most of all our observation of the Sabbath, in
a style which entitles them to something severer than mere contempt. But
Herr Bromme is right. Respect for morality and religion, a due regard for
the Sabbath, and a dependence on the home-circle for pleasure and
recreation, are the surest safeguard of peace, happiness, and prosperity.
A VISIT TO THE FIRE WORSHIPPERS’ TEMPLE AT BAKU.
In a recent number of the _Russian Archives for Scientific Information_,
is an account of a visit made by a Russian lady of distinction, in company
with her husband and sons, to a temple of the Indian sect of Gebers, or
Fire Worshippers, near Baku, a city of Georgia, lying on the Caspian Sea.
We translate this interesting narrative for the _International_, as
follows:
In order the better to enjoy the spectacle of the fire, we chose the
evening for our excursion thither; but a thick fog came on, which made the
road difficult and dangerous. When we finally reached the place it was
pitch dark; the flames were rising in beautiful purity to the peaceful sky
of night, and the entire castle, within which was the temple, seemed to be
surrounded by a circle of watch-fires. These were lighted by Persians from
the neighborhood, who were busy burning lime and baking bread, dark forms
like those which worked on the tower of Babel, and burnt lime for it. They
were now brought here by the ease and cheapness of carrying on their
occupations. All that is necessary is to make a hole in the ground, touch
a burning coal to it, and an inexhaustible flame rises forth like a
spring. Behind this range of little flames and fires, rose, in the pale
light, the dirty white walls of the castle, in the centre of which there
flashed from the summit of two lofty pillars great masses of the purest,
clearest, and keenest flame, which were now bent down horizontally and
wreathed like serpents by the force of the wind, and now rose
perpendicularly to the sky, whose dome they lighted up like two vast altar
tapers. We drove around the edifice, and stopped on one side where there
were no flames rising from the earth. A fine rain was falling, but we
remained without while our guide went in to announce us. He came back
immediately with a swarthy Hindoo. The sight of this man impressed me
strangely, and I forgot that he belonged to a remote colony of a few
individuals, and asked myself if we had been suddenly transported to
India, or if India had been brought up to the Caspian.
We went into the court-yard, in which stands the temple, with its two
fire-pillars. About half way up hang a couple of large bells, which the
Hindoo sounded by way of preparing us for what we were to see. There was
something fearful in the loud clangor, and my boys crowded close beside
me. Except our party, no one was to be seen except the swart Geber, in his
white turban and long brown robe, with just enough of a pair of light blue
trowsers visible to bring into distinctness his naked black feet. His
features were noble, and his beard long and black. He looked like a
conjurer, like the lord of an enchanted castle, summoning his spirits. The
hissing fire, as if obeying him, flashed up more brightly at the crash of
the bells; now it was clear as day around us, and now it was twilight as
the wind lowered the flame. My husband and sons and the guide who had
brought us to the place, were all dressed in oriental costume, and I alone
seemed to belong to Europe. A shudder of home-sickness came over me, and
at every moment I expected to see something monstrous, to behold all the
cruelties of a heathenish and barbarous worship.
The interpreter now summoned us to follow the Geber. We were told that the
castle was built by a rich Indian nabob, who was a fire worshipper, and
who, with his followers, long inhabited it. Now, only three Hindoos remain
from that period of splendor. But nature remains eternally the same, and
whether worshipped or not, the flames still shine and awe the
superstitious, and so great is the fame of the place that many pilgrims
come yearly from distant India to pray, and to have prayers said for them,
here in the visible presence of the primeval light.
At last we came to the cell of the priest, and on his invitation entered
it. We passed through a low door, and down a few steps, and found
ourselves in a small, semicircular, low, but very white room, with a floor
of mason-work, and a small altar in the centre. Around the wall were
seats, also of mason-work. In the altar there was an opening as large as a
gun-barrel, from which rose a slender flame that lighted the room very
clearly. There were other little openings on the sides of the altar. The
Hindoo took a wisp of straw, lighted it, and touched these openings, from
which the most beautiful flames at once issued. The children, who had
never seen gas lights, or at least did not remember them, regarded all
this as the most perfect witchery. On a second altar, which, like the
first, was about the height of a common table, lay or stood the idols and
treasures of our priest. Small steps led up to it, which were used to hold
muscles, stones, shells, and other instruments employed in the sacred
rites. The idols were of metal, and ugly and monstrous, like Chinese
images. Beside these figures, we were astonished to see crosses of various
forms and sizes. We asked the Geber about them, and he answered with
oriental emphasis: "There is one God, and no one has seen him; therefore
every one adores him after his own way, and represents him after his own
way." The reply was diplomatic enough, and we could not ascertain how the
crosses had come there.
On the altar and its steps lay a great number of singularly beautiful
Indian stones, which the boys wanted very much, but which, in spite of our
large offers, we could not obtain. They were mementoes from the distant
fatherland, and possibly they served as sacred ornaments for the little
cell. There were also several censers, lamps, and little silver plates and
salvers. The air was stifling from the fumes of gas, and the heat was like
that of a vapor bath. The priest took from the altar some pieces of red
and white candied sugar, held them, praying, before his idols, sprinkled
them with holy water, and handed them to us on a silver plate.
A second Hindoo now came in, a tall old man, whose name, as he told us,
was Amintaas. He invited us into his cell, which was larger and
differently arranged. In the centre was a large kettle, set in mason-work,
with water in it, and a gas flame burning under it; the altar was in
another apartment beyond, and separated from the first by a low wall or
fence, with a passage through. Another apartment, similarly divided off,
was spread with carpets for sleeping. After we had seen the stones,
shells, and idols, which were richer and more numerous than in the former
cell, the Hindoos asked us if they should pray for us. We agreed, and the
ceremony began. A large muscle shell was washed in the kettle, the plates
were set in order at the foot of the altar, a censer began to smoke, the
silver plate with candied sugar was set over a lamp Between two bells,
whose handles were the most monstrous figures of idols. These bells
Amintaas took and began to ring vehemently. The other Hindoos stood behind
him and beat two big cymbals, accompanying this noise with the most
inhuman and frightful howling that a man’s lungs ever produced. Still,
there was method and a regular cadence in it. Finally, they made a pause,
bowed before the images, murmuring softly, after which they arranged the
plates anew, and sprinkled the sugar with holy water. My husband whispered
in my ear a line from the conjuration in "Faust," and the whole of that
scene rushed vividly into my memory.
Meanwhile the lungs of the old Amintaas had recovered their power, for he
now seized a conch shell, held it in both hands, and with incredible
strength blew long wild notes, with scarce any thing like a tune. I grew
dizzy in listening to this clamor, and at once understood what is meant by
the heathen making a "vain noise," This cannibalistic music was kept up
for a long time, and seemed to form the climax of the sacred rites. The
finale was a combination of wild shouting, banging of the cymbals, ringing
and murmuring. At last the concert was over, and we breathed freely.
Amintaas handed us the candied sugar, and my husband laid down two ducats
in its place. They were received with warm expressions of gratitude, and
laid upon the altar. We went out into the open air, but the scene had
changed. The lonely castle was crowded with Persians who had come from
their lime-burning to see the Europeans. Persian women were sitting around
by sundry little ovens of masonry, where, by the help of gas flames, they
baked their _Tsheuks_, thin cakes of unleavened bread. Followed by the
crowd, we were led a couple of hundred steps from the castle to a spring
that was covered over; the cover was taken off, and a bundle of burning
straw thrown in, when, crackling and hissing, sprung up a splendid pillar
of fire, vanishing in sparks like stars. This beautiful spectacle lasted
but for a moment, and a quarter of an hour was necessary to collect gas
enough to repeat the experiment.
We returned to Baku in the rain, more dead than alive. It was the eve of
Easter. The next morning, as I was sitting on the sofa with the children,
there came in a tall, meagre Hindoo, with gray hair; he was dressed in a
white robe, and brought me white and red sugar on a silver plate. He was
the chief priest from the temple of the Gebers, and had come to Baku to
see the Easter festivities. We took a few grains of his sugar, and I laid
a silver rouble on the plate. While he was making his bows for this, my
husband came in and told him, partly in Tartar, partly in Russian, and
partly in pantomime, that we had been to his temple the night before, and
had prayers said there. He asked at once, with eagerness, how much we had
given, and when he learned the sum, asked for a certificate to that
effect, as, without it, the others would give him no part of the money. We
sent him away without granting his request, for the two screamers of the
night previous had earned all we gave them. We learned afterwards that the
gifts of visitors occasioned quarrels, and often blows, in the romantic
fire-castle. This disgusted me, and yet it is not the fault of these poor
fellows. They must necessarily become covetous, since they profane their
most sacred ceremonies as a means of living. They have neither fields nor
gardens, and the only thing like vegetation that I saw was some lone boxes
in the court yard, filled with shrubs and plants, remains, no doubt, from
the time of the Indian nabob, who sought in vain to establish cultivation
in a soil impregnated with inflammable gas. However, I learned to my
sorrow that grass at least grows there, for, in going through it to the
spring, my feet became perfectly wet.
The air of the locality does not seem to be unwholesome for man. At least,
the Geber priests, who had lived there for years, were perfect lions for
health and vigor.
A NEW PORTRAIT OF CICERO.
In the third volume of his _History of the Romans under the Empire_, just
published in London, Mr. MERIVALE gives some elaborate pieces of character
writing, one of which has for its subject CICERO. It is not good for a man
to think harshly of Cicero, and however easy it may seem to be to condemn
manifest faults in his character, it is by no means easy to be fair in the
estimate we make. Mr. Merivale sums up a character which has too often
been roughly put down as that of a great writer and a little man, as
follows:
"Many writers, it has been remarked, have related the death of
Cicero, but Plutarch alone has painted it. In the narrative here
laid before him the reader has the substance of this picturesque
account, together with some touches introduced from collateral
sources. In this, as in many other massages of his Lives, the
Greek biographer has evidently aimed at creating an effect, and
though he seems to have been mainly guided by the genuine
narrative of Tiro, Cicero’s beloved freedman, we may suspect him
of having embellished it to furnish a striking termination to one
of his favorite sketches. Nevertheless the narrative is mainly
confirmed by a fragment of Livy’s history, which has fortunately
been preserved. The Roman author vies with the Greek in throwing
dignity and interest over the great statesman’s end. But in
reviewing the uneven tenor of his career, Livy concludes with the
stern comment, "He bore none of his calamities as a man should,
except his death." These are grave words. In the mouth of one who
had cast his scrutinizing glance over the characters and exploits
of all the heroes of the great republic, and had learnt by the
training of his life-long studies to discriminate moral qualities
and estimate desert, they constitute the most important judgment
on the conduct of Cicero that antiquity has bequeathed to us. Few
indeed among the Romans ever betrayed a want of resolution in the
face of impending death. But it was in the endurance of calamity
rather than the defiance of danger that the courage of Cicero was
deficient. The orator, whose genius lay in the arts of peace and
persuasion, exhibited on more than one occasion a martial spirit
worthy of other habits and a ruder training. In the contest with
Catilina he displayed all the moral confidence of a veteran
general: in the struggle with Antonius he threw himself without
reserve into a position where there was no alternative but to
conquer or to perish. In the earlier conflict he had still his
fame to acquire, his proud ascendency to establish; and the love
of praise and glory inspired him with the audacity which makes and
justifies its own success. But in the later, he courted danger for
the sake of retaining the fame he so dearly prized. He had once
saved his country, and he could not endure that it should be said
he had ever deserted it. He loved his country; but it wan for his
own honor, which he could preserve, rather than for his country’s
freedom, which he despaired of, that he returned to his post when
escape was still possible. He might have remained silent, but he
opened the floodgates of his eloquence. When indeed he had once
launched himself on the torrent he lost all self-command; he could
neither retrace nor moderate his career; he saw the rocks before
him, but he dashed himself headlong against them. But another
grave authority has given us the judgment of antiquity, that
Cicero’s defect was the want of steadfastness. His courage had no
dignity because it lacked consistency. All men and all parties
agreed that he could not be relied upon to lead, to co-operate, or
to follow. In all the great enterprises of his party, he was left
behind, except that which the nobles undertook against Catilina,
in which they rather thrust him before them than engaged with him
on terms of mutual support. When we read the vehement claims which
Cicero put forth to the honor of association, however tardy, with
the glories and dangers of Cæsar’s assassins, we should deem the
conspirators guilty of a monstrous oversight in having neglected
to enlist him in their design, were we not assured that he was not
to be trusted as a confederate either for good or for evil.
"Of all the characters of antiquity Cicero is undoubtedly that
with which we are most intimately acquainted; for he alone has
left to us the record of his thoughts and actions for more than
half his public career in a voluminous mass of familiar as well as
political correspondence. No public character probably could pass
unscathed through the fiery ordeal to which he has thus subjected
himself. Cicero, it must be avowed, is convicted from his own
mouth of vanity, inconstancy, sordidness, jealousy, malice,
selfishness, and timidity. But on the other hand no character,
public or private, could thus bare its workings to our view
without laying a stronger claim to our sympathy, and extorting
from us more kindly consideration than we can give to the mere
shell of the human being with which ordinary history brings us in
contact. Cicero gains more than he loses by the confessions he
pours into our ear. We read in his letters what we should vainly
search for in the meagre pages of Sallust and Appian, in the
captious criticism of Dion, and even in the pleasant anecdotes of
his friendly biographer Plutarch, his amiableness, his refined
urbanity, his admiration for excellence, his thirst for fame, his
love of truth, equity, and reason. Much indeed of the patriotism,
the honesty, the moral courage he exhibited, was really no other
than the refined ambition of attaining the respect of his
contemporaries and bequeathing a name to posterity. He might not
act from a sense of duty, like Cato, but his motives, personal and
selfish as they in some sense were, coincided with what a more
enlightened conscience would have felt to be duty. Thus his
proconsulate is perhaps the purest and most honorable passage in
his life. His strict and rare probity amidst the temptations of
office arrests our attention and extorts our praise: yet assuredly
Cicero had no nice sense of honor, and was controlled by no
delicacy of sentiment, where public opinion was silent, or a
transaction strictly private. His courting his ward Publilia for
her dower, his caressing Dolabella for the sake of getting his
debt paid, his soliciting the historian Lucceius to color and
exaggerate the merits of his consulship, display a grievous want
of magnanimity and of a predominant sense of right. Fortunately
his instinct taught him to see in the constitution of the republic
the fairest field for the display of his peculiar talents; the
orator and the pleader could not fail to love the arena on which
the greatest triumph of his genius had been or were yet, as he
hoped, to be acquired. And Cicero indeed was not less ambitious
than Cæesar or Pompeius, Antonius or Octavius. To the pursuit of
fame he sacrificed many interests and friendships. He was not less
jealous of a rival in his chosen career than any of the leaders of
party and candidates for popular favor. He could not endure
competition for the throne of eloquence and the sceptre of
persuasion. It was on this account perhaps that he sought his
associates among the young, from whose rivalry he had nothing to
fear, rather than from his own contemporaries, the candidates for
the same prize of public admiration which he aimed at securing for
himself. From his pages there flows an incessant stream of abuse
of all the great masters of political power in his time; of Cæsar
and Pompeius; of Crassus and Antonius, not to mention his coarse
vituperation of Piso and Gabinius, and his uneasy sneers at the
impracticable Cato. We may note the different tone which his
disparagement assumes towards these men respectively. He speaks of
Cæsar with awe, of Pompeius with mortification, with dislike of
Crassus, with bitter malice of Antonius. Cæsar, even when he most
deeply reprobates him, he personally loves; the cold distrust of
Pompeius vexes his self-esteem; between him and Crassus there
subsists a natural antipathy of temperament: but Antonius, the
hate of his old age, becomes to him the incarnation of all the
evil his long and bitter experience of mankind have discovered in
the human heart. While we suspect Cicero of injustice towards the
great men of his day, we are bound also to specify the gross
dishonesty with which he magnifies his own merits where they are
trivial, and embellishes them where they are really important. The
perpetual recurrence to the topic of his own political deserts
must have wearied the most patient of friends, and more than
balanced the display of sordidness and time-serving which Atticus
doubtless reflected back in his share of the correspondence
between them.
"But while Cicero stands justly charged with many grave
infirmities of temper and defects of principle, while we remark
with a sigh the vanity, the inconstancy, and the ingratitude he so
often manifested, while we lament his ignoble subserviencies and
his ferocious resentments, the high standard by which we claim to
judge him is in itself the fullest acknowledgment of his
transcendent merits. For undoubtedly had he not placed himself on
a higher moral level than the statesmen and sages of his day, we
should pass over many of his weaknesses in silence, and allow his
pretensions to our esteem to pass almost unchallenged. But we
demand a nearer approach to the perfection of human wisdom and
virtue in one who sought to approve himself the greatest of their
teachers. Nor need we scruple to admit that the judgment of the
ancients on Cicero was for the most part unfavorable. The
moralists of antiquity required in their heroes virtues with which
we can more readily dispense: and they too had less sympathy with
many qualities which a purer religion and a wider experience have
taught us to love and admire. Nor were they capable, from their
position, of estimating the slow and silent effects upon human
happiness of the lessons which Cicero enforced. After all the
severe judgments we are compelled to pass on his conduct, we must
acknowledge that there remains a residue of what is amiable in his
character and noble in his teaching beyond all ancient example.
Cicero lived and died in faith. He has made converts to the belief
in virtue, and had disciples in the wisdom of love. There have
been dark periods in the history of man, when the feeble ray of
religious instruction paled before the torch of his generous
philanthropy. The praise which the great critic pronounced upon
his excellence in oratory may be justly extended to the qualities
of his heart, and even in our enlightened days it may be held no
mean advance in virtue to venerate the master of Roman
philosophy."
LORD MAHON’S HISTORY OF THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION.
Incomparably the best history of our struggle for independence that has
been written by a foreigner is that of which we have the larger portion in
the just-published fifth and sixth volumes of Lord MAHON’S _History of
England from the Peace of Utrecht_, comprising the period from 1763 to
1780—from the commencement of the popular discontents until the virtual
conclusion of the war.
The character of Lord Mahon as a historian has long been established. When
Sismondi, in 1842, had brought his History of France down to the peace of
Aix-la-Chapelle, he lamented that he could no longer be guided by Lord
Mahon, and expressed a hope that his "brilliant labors" would be
continued. The portion of his work on which the illustrious Frenchman thus
set the seal of his approval has been reprinted in this country by the
Appletons, in two large volumes (embracing the first four of the original
impression), carefully and judiciously edited by Professor Henry Reed, of
Philadelphia. It well indicates the right of its author to a place with
the best British writers in this department. History was never before
written so brilliantly or profoundly as in the last half century. Germany
in this period has boasted her Schiller, Niebuhr, Von Hammer, Heeren,
Ranke, and two Mullers; France her Sismondi, Barrante, Thierrys, Michelet,
Mignet, Guizot, and Thiers; England her Mitford, Arnold, Thirlwall, Grote,
Napier, Hallam, Mackintosh, Macaulay, Palgrave, and Mahon; and we have
ourselves the noble names of Bancroft, Prescott, and Irving, to send to
the next ages. Of the English authors we have mentioned, we regard Lord
Mahon as in many respects the first; Hallam is a laborious and wise
critic; Thirlwall and Grote, in their province, have greatly increased the
fame of British scholarship; and Macaulay, brilliant and picturesque
beyond any of his contemporaries, has an unprecedented popularity, which
will last until the worthlessness of his opinions and the viciousness of
his style are more justly appreciated than they are likely to be by the
mobs of novel readers who in this generation have preferred him to James
and Ainsworth. Lord Mahon is the most legitimate successor of the greatest
historian of his country, David Hume.
Although the chief subject of these new volumes is the American war, the
general political history of England, from the decline of the fortunes of
Bute through the administration of Grenville, Rockingham, Chatham, the
Duke of Grafton, and Lord North, is illustrated and commented on as
largely as the special purpose of the author permitted; and we have many
striking passages respecting Wilkes and his various persecutions, the
Letters of Junius and their authorship, and the common intellectual and
material progress of the British empire. The spirit in which he regards
our Revolution is illustrated by the following paragraph, on the
rejection, by the House of Peers, of the conciliatory Bill by which Lord
Chatham hoped, in 1775, to prevent the threatened separation of the
colonies:
"It may be proper, or at least pardonable, here to pause for an
inquiry, what probable issue might have attended an opposite
decision in the British Parliament? If the ministers had been
defeated on this Bill, if, in consequence, they had resigned, and
it had in other hands been carried through, would the Americans
have accepted the measure cheerfully and readily—would it for a
long time to come have closed the breach, and cemented the union
with the Mother Country? From all the facts and testimonies then
or since made public, I answer without hesitation that it would.
The sword was then slumbering in its scabbard. On both sides there
were injuries to redress, but not as yet bloodshed to avenge. It
was only a quarrel. It was not as yet a war. Even the boldest
leaders of that war in after years, whether in council or the
field, were still, in January, 1775, the firm friends of colonial
subordination. Washington himself (and he at least was no
dissembler—from him, at least, there never came any promise or
assurance that did not deserve the most implicit credit) had only
a few months before presided at a meeting of Fairfax County, in
Virginia. That meeting, while claiming relief of grievances, had
also at his instance adopted the following Resolve:—’That it is
our greatest wish and inclination, as well as interest, to
continue our connection with, and dependence upon, the British
Government.’ But further still, although the first Congress was
praised by Chatham for its moderate counsels, and although the
calmer voice of history has ratified the praise, we learn that
these moderate counsels did not lag behind, but rather exceeded
and outran the prevailing sentiment in many of the colonies. To
this fact we find an unimpeachable testimony in the letters of
President Reed, who, writing to a friend in strict confidence,
laments that ’The proceedings of Congress have been pitched on too
high a key for some of those middle provinces.’ With such
feelings, how gladly, how gratefully would they have welcomed the
hand of reconciliation stretched out by the Parliament of England!
It may be true, indeed, that such feelings as these did not
prevail in all, or nearly all, the colonies. It may be true,
especially, that no amount of good government, of forbearance, or
of kindness, would have won back Massachusetts. But herein lay, as
I think, the especial force and efficacy of Lord Chatham’s scheme,
that it did not refer the questions of parliamentary supremacy and
colonial taxation to the decision of any one province; but, as the
Americans themselves desired, to the decision of a Congress
composed from all the provinces, so that disaffection, however
firmly rooted here and there, would of course be overpowered by a
loyal and large majority. Nor do I believe that the proposal of a
new grant to the Crown, and the consequent necessity of increased
taxation to the people, would have interposed any serious
obstacle. The load of taxation on the colonies was at this period
light indeed: according to a calculation made by Lord North in
that very year, each inhabitant of England paid in taxes, upon an
average, not less than twenty-five shillings annually; but each
inhabitant of British America no more than sixpence. The
experience of the closely-following Revolutionary war proves how
easily and readily, when their feelings were involved, the
Americans could raise far greater supplies. And surely had Lord
Chatham’s scheme prevailed, their feelings would have been
involved. They would have been pleased and proud to show that
their previous refusal to pay taxes sprang from principle, and not
from inability or disaffection; and that, when once their views of
principle had been complied with, they could contribute with no
sparing hand to the exigencies of their countrymen, and to the
service of their king."
The opinion of Lord Mahon that, even after Burgoyne’s surrender, and the
treaty of alliance between France and America, the colonies might have
been preserved, had Lord Chatham lived and returned to office, we think
entirely erroneous. Our separation from England, though there had been no
stamp act or tea tax, was inevitable.
Lord Mahon is exceedingly fond of personal portraiture, in which he is
sometimes very successful. One of his most carefully-elaborated
performances in this way has for its subject Washington, and in the dozen
pages he devotes to the analysis of the character of the great chief he
has displayed his best abilities, though, we confess, without suggesting
any thing very novel. He dislikes Franklin, and loses no opportunity of
imputing to him personal dishonesty. We think the influence of Mr. William
B. Reed’s Life of President Reed is traceable in almost every allusion
made by Lord Mahon to our philosopher. Without further observation upon
the qualities of the work, we avail ourselves of the possession of an
early copy of it to present our readers with some of the most striking
passages pencilled in a hasty reading.
WASHINGTON.
During many years did Washington continue to enjoy the pleasures
and fulfil the duties of an independent country gentleman.
Field-sports divided his time with the cultivation and improvement
of his land, and the sales of his tobacco; he showed kindness to
his dependents, and hospitality to his friends; and having been
elected one of the House of Burgesses in Virginia, he was,
whenever that House met, exact in his attendance. To that
well-regulated mind nothing within the course of its ordinary and
appointed avocations seemed unworthy of its care. His ledgers and
day-books were kept by himself: he took note of all the houses
where he partook of hospitality, so that not even the smallest
courtesies might pass by unremembered; and until his press of
business in the Revolutionary War he was wont every evening to set
down the variations of the weather during the preceding day. It
was also his habit through life, whenever he wished to possess
himself perfectly of the contents of any paper, to transcribe it
in his own hand, and apparently with deliberation, so that no
point might escape his notice. Many copies of this kind were after
his death found among his manuscripts.
We may observe, however, that in the mind of Washington
punctuality and precision did not, as we often find them, turn in
any degree to selfishness. On the contrary, he was rather careless
of small points where only his own comfort was concerned. Thus he
could seldom be persuaded to take any remedy, or desist from any
business, whenever he caught a cold, but used to say, "let it go
as it came!"
Nor yet was his constant regularity of habits attended by undue
formality of manner. In one of his most private letters there
appears given incidentally, and as it were by chance, a golden
rule upon that subject:—"As to the gentlemen you mention I cannot
charge myself with incivility, or what in my opinion is
tantamount, ceremonious civility.
In figure Washington was thin and tall (above six feet high), in
countenance grave, unimpassioned, and benign. An inborn worth, an
unaffected dignity, beamed forth in every look as in every word
and deed. His first appearance and address might not convey the
idea of superior talents; such at least was the remark of his
accomplished countryman, Mr. Gallatin; but no man, whether friend
or enemy, ever viewed without respect the noble simplicity of his
demeanor, the utter absence in him of every artifice and every
affectation.
It has been justly remarked that of General Washington there are
fewer anecdotes to tell than perhaps of any other great man on
record. So equally framed were the features of his mind, so
harmonious all its proportions, that no one quality rose salient
above the rest. There were none of those chequered ques, none of
those warring emotions, in which Biography delights. There was no
contrast of lights and shades, no flickering of the flame; it was
a mild light that seldom dazzled, but that ever cheered and
warmed. His contemporaries or his close observers, as Mr.
Jefferson and Mr. Gallatin, assert that he had naturally strong
passions, but had attained complete mastery over them. In
self-control indeed he has never been surpassed. If sometimes on
rare occasions, and on strong provocation, there was wrung from
him a burst of anger, it was almost instantly quelled by the
dominion of his will. He decided surely, though he deliberated
slowly; nor could any urgency or peril move him from his serene
composure, his calm and clear-headed good sense. Integrity and
truth were also ever present in his mind. Not a single instance,
as I believe, can be found in his whole career when he was
impelled by any but an upright motive, or endeavored to attain an
object by any but worthy means. Such are some of the high
qualities which have justly earned for General Washington the
admiration even of the country he opposed, and not merely the
admiration but the gratitude and affection of his own. Such was
the pure and upright spirit to which, when its toils were over and
its earthly course had been run, was offered the unanimous homage
of the assembled Congress, all clad in deep mourning for their
common loss, as to "the man first in war, first in peace, and
first in the hearts of his fellow-citizens." At this day in the
United States the reverence for his character is, as it should be,
deep and universal, and not confined, as with nearly all our
English statesmen, to one party, one province, or one creed. Such
reverence for Washington is felt even by those who wander furthest
from the paths in which he trod. A President when recommending
measures of aggression and invasion can still refer to him whose
rule was ever to arm only in self-defence as to "the greatest and
best of men!" States which exult in their bankruptcy as a proof of
their superior shrewdness, and have devised "Repudiation" as a
newer and more graceful term for it, yet look up to their great
General—the very soul of good faith and honor—with their reverence
unimpaired!"
PATRICK HENRY.
The colony of Virginia was the place, and the the year 1736 the
time, of birth to Patrick Henry. His parents were in easy
circumstances, but burthened with a numerous family; they resided
at a country scat to which the ambitious name of Mount Brilliant
had been given. In childhood Patrick Henry gave little promise of
distinction. His person is represented as having been coarse, his
manners extremely awkward, his dress slovenly, and his aversion to
study invincible. No persuasion could bring him either to read or
to work. At sixteen his father gave him means to open a small
shop, which failed, however, in less than one year. Then he tried
a small farm, and married; then again he entered upon the life of
a tradesman, but in a few years more was a bankrupt. It was at
this period that he became acquainted with Mr. Jefferson,
afterwards President of the United States. "Mr. Henry," says
Jefferson, "had a little before broken up his store (shop), or
rather it had broken him up, but his misfortunes were not to be
traced either in his countenance or conduct. His manners had
something of coarseness in them; his passion was music, dancing,
and pleasantry. He excelled in the last, and it attached every one
to him."
As a last resource, Patrick Henry now determined to make a trial
of the law. It cannot be said that his preparatory studies were
unduly arduous, since, as his biographer informs us, they were all
comprised in the period of six weeks. Under such unpromising
circumstances, and in the year 1763, he obtained a brief in the
long-contested cause then raging in Virginia between the clergy on
the one side, and the legislature on the other, as regarding the
stipends which the former claimed. On this occasion Henry, to the
astonishment of all who knew him, poured forth a strain of such
impassioned eloquence as not only carried the cause, contrary to
all previous expectation, but placed him ever afterwards at the
head of his profession in the colony. To this very day, says Mr.
Wirt, writing in 1818, the impression remains, and the old people
of that district think that no higher compliment can be paid to
any public speaker than to say of him in their homely phrase, "He
is almost equal to Patrick when he plead (pleaded) against the
parsons!"
The natural eloquence which on this occasion flashed forth from
the coarse and unlettered Henry, as the spark-of fire from the
flint, continued to distinguished him both as a Member of the
House of Burgesses at Williamsburg, and afterwards as a member of
Congress. He took from the first a bold and active part against
the pretensions of the mother country; indeed Mr. Jefferson goes
so far as to declare that "Mr. Henry certainly gave the earliest
impulse to the ball of revolution." His most celebrated burst of
oratory, or rather turn of phrase, was in this very year 1765,
when descanting in the House of Burgesses on the tyranny of the
Stamp Act. "Cæsar—" he cried, in a voice of thunder and with an
eye of fire—"Cæsar had his Brutus—Charles the First had his
Cromwell—and George the Third"—"Treason!" here exclaimed the
Speaker, "Treason! Treason!" re-echoed from every part of the
House. Henry did not for an instant falter, but fixing his eye
firmly on the Speaker, he concluded his sentence thus "—may profit
by their example. If this be treason make the most of it!"
Indolence and aversion to reading seemed almost as natural to
Henry’s mind as powers of debate. To the last he never overcame
them. Thus, at his death, in 1799, his books were found to be
extremely few, and these too consisting chiefly of odd volumes.
But his gift of speech was (for his hearers) sufficiently
supported by his fiery energy, his practical shrewdness, and his
ever keen glance into the feelings and characters of other. Nor
were these his only claims to his country’s favor. He retained the
manners and custom of the common people, with what his friendly
biographer terms "religious caution.—He dressed as plainly as the
plainest of them," continues Mr. Wirt, "ate only their homely
fare, and drank their simple beverage, mixed with them on a
footing of the most entire and perfect equality, and conversed
with them even in their own vicious and depraved pronunciation."
By such means he soon acquired and long retained a large measure
of popularity, and he applied himself with zeal and success before
any audience, and on every occasion which arose, to increase and
perpetuate the estrangement between the North American Colonies
and England.
FRANKLIN.
Dr. Benjamin Franklin is one of those men who have made the task
of succeeding biographers more difficult by having been in part
their own. He was born at Boston in 1706, the youngest of ten
sons. "My father," he says, "intended to devote me, as the tithe
of his sons, to the service of the Church;" but on further
reflection, the charges of a college education were thought too
burthensome, and young Benjamin became a journeyman printer. From
a very early age he showed a passionate fondness for reading, and
much ingenuity in argument, but, as he acknowledges, had at first
contracted a disputatious and wrangling turn of conversation. "I
have since observed," he says, "that persons of good sense seldom
fall into it, except lawyers, University-men, and generally men of
all sorts who have been bred at Edinburgh."
Young Franklin was at first bound apprentice to one of his elder
brothers, a printer at Boston; but some differences arising
between them, he proceeded to Philadelphia, where he soon obtained
employment, and ere long set up for himself. His success in life
was secured by his great frugality, industry, and shrewdness. In
his own words: "I spent no time in taverns, games, or frolics of
any kind; reading was the only amusement I allowed myself." His
knowledge and shrewdness,—great zeal in urging any improvements,
and great ingenuity in promoting them,—speedily raised him high in
the estimation of his fellow-townsmen, and enabled him to take a
forward part in all the affairs of his province. In England, and
indeed all Europe, he became celebrated by his experiments and
discoveries in electricity. These may deserve the greater credit
when we recollect both their practical utility and their
unassisted progress,—how much the pointed rods which he introduced
have tended to avert the dangers of lightning, and how far removed
was Franklin at the time from all scientific society, libraries,
or patronage.
It has also been stated by no less an authority in science than
Sir Humphrey Davy, that "the style and manner of Dr. Franklin’s
publication on Electricity are almost as worthy of admiration as
the doctrine it contains." The same remark may indeed be applied
to all his writings. All of them are justly celebrated for their
clear, plain, and lively style, free from every appearance of art,
but, in fact, carefully pointed and nicely poised. In public
speaking, on the other hand, he was much less eminent. His last
American biographer observes of him, that he never even pretended
to the accomplishments of an orator or debater. He seldom spoke in
a deliberative assembly, except for some special object, and then
only for a few minutes at a time.
As a slight instance of Franklin’s humor and shrewdness in all
affairs of common life I may quote the following: "QUESTION. I am
about courting a girl I have had but little acquaintance with. How
shall I come to a knowledge of her faults? ANSWER. Commend her
among her female acquaintance!"
Whether in science and study, or in politics and action, the great
aim of Franklin’s mind was ever practical utility. Here again we
may quote Sir Humphrey Davy as saying of Franklin that he sought
rather to make philosophy a useful inmate and servant in the
common habitations of man, than to preserve her merely as an
object of admiration in temples and palaces. Thus, also, in
affairs he had a keen eye to his own interest, but likewise a
benevolent concern for the public good. Nor was he ever
indifferent to cases of individual grievance or hardship. In the
pursuit of his objects, public or private, he was, beyond most
other men, calm, sagacious, and wary; neither above business nor
yet below it; never turned aside from it by flights of fancy nor
yet by bursts of passion.
Among the good qualities which we may with just cause ascribe to
Franklin we cannot number any firm reliance on the truths of
Revelation. Only five weeks before his death we find him express a
cold approbation of the "system of morals" bequeathed to us by
"Jesus of Nazareth." In his Memoirs he declares that he always
believed in the existence of a Deity and a future state of rewards
and punishments, but he adds that although he continued to adhere
to his first—the Presbyterian—sect, some of its dogmas appeared to
him unintelligible, and others doubtful. "I early absented myself
from the public assemblies of the sect; and I seldom attended any
public worship; Sunday being my studying day."
Such being Franklin’s own practice, and such his own description
of it as to public worship, it seems worthy of note that it was he
who in the American Convention brought forward a motion for daily
prayers. "I have lived, Sir," said he, "a long time, and the
longer I live the more convincing proofs I see of this truth, that
God governs in the affairs of men. And if a sparrow cannot fall to
the ground without his notice, is it probable that an empire can
rise without his aid?" But in spite of this most earnest appeal
the motion was rejected, since, as we are told, "the Convention,
except three or four persons, thought prayers unnecessary."
The accomplished American biographer, by whom this last incident
is recorded, expresses in the same passage deep regret that Dr.
Franklin did not bestow more attention than he seems to have done
on the evidences of Christianity. And indeed there are several
indications that he was less well acquainted with points of
Christian faith and discipline than with almost any other subject.
One of these indications, and surely a most strange one, occurs in
the Private Diary which he kept at Passy during part of 1784. It
appears that two young American gentlemen had come over to London
with the view of entering Holy Orders, but that the Archbishop of
Canterbury refused them Ordination unless they would take the Oath
of Allegiance. In this dilemma Franklin actually applied to the
Pope’s Nuncio at Paris to ascertain whether a Roman Catholic
Bishop in America might not perform the ceremony for them as
Protestants, and he transcribes as remarkable the natural reply:
"The Nuncio says the thing is impossible unless the gentlemen
become Roman Catholics."
The religious scepticism or indifference of Franklin, which his
present biographers justly lament, was, however, in his own day, a
recommendation and a merit with the French philosophists. On the
other hand, his hostility to England endeared him to the French
politicians. On both these grounds, as well as from his high
scientific attainments, he found himself during his residence of
several years at Paris in no common measure courted, flattered,
and caressed. A fine verse, one of the noblest which modern
Latinity can boast, describes him as having plucked the lightning
from Heaven and the sceptre from tyrants.
Descending from such lofty flights to the regions of sober
reality, we may observe that Franklin in his later years, and
especially in France, adopted to a great extent the Quaker garb.
He laid aside the huge wig which he used to wear in England, and
allowed his long white hair to flow down nearly to his shoulders.
His clothes were of the plainest cut and of the dunnest color. The
Parisians of that period, ever swayed by external impressions,
were greatly struck with, and in their writings frequently refer
to, his venerable aspect, and they compared him by turns to all
the sages of antiquity. It is also probable that his Quaker-like
attire may have tended to invest him in their estimation with the
other attributes which they assigned to the ideal Quaker
character, as simplicity, guilelessness, inviolable truth.
LA FAYETTE.
It so chanced that in the summer of 1776, La Fayette, still in his
teens, and serving as a subaltern with the French army, was
stationed with his regiment at Metz. It happened also that in the
course of a foreign tour their Royal Highnesses of Gloucester
passed a few days in that town. The principal officers entertained
the Duke at dinner, when the conversation turned to the last news
from Philadelphia and the new Declaration of Independence. Being
at that period offended with his Court, from its neglect of the
Duchess, the Duke indulged in Opposition topics, and, in some
degree at least, took the part of the Americans. The details were
new to La Fayette. He listened with eagerness, and prolonged the
conversation by asking questions of the Royal guest. The cause of
the colonies that had risen against England seemed to him just and
noble, even on the showing of one of the English princes; and
before he left the table, the thought came into his head that he
would go to America, and offer the Americans his services. He
determined to return to Paris, and make further inquiries. His
inquiries being mainly addressed to Silas Deane and other zealous
friends of the insurgents, could not fail to confirm him in his
first impressions. He became fired with an ardent zeal for
Republican principles and the American cause. That zeal continued
ever afterwards—for well nigh sixty years—the polar star of his
course. That zeal, favored as it was by fortune, adapted to the
times that came upon him, and urged forward by great personal
vanity, laid the foundations of his fame far more, as I conceive,
than any strength of mind or talents of his own. Few men have ever
been so conspicuous from afar with so little, when closely viewed,
of real weight or dimension. As a general, it can scarcely be
pretended that his exploits were either many or considerable. As
an orator, we look in vain for any high powers of debate. As a
statesman, we find only an undistinguishing eagerness to apply the
Transatlantic examples and to act the part of Washington, without
duly estimating either the immense superiority of Washington’s
character above his own, or the manifold points of difference
between America and Europe.
It was said by Napoleon at St. Helena, that "La Fayette was a man
of no ability, either in civil or military life; his understanding
was confined to narrow bounds; his character was full of
dissimulation, and swayed by vague ideas of liberty, which, in
him, were undefined and ill-digested." No doubt there is some
exaggeration in these words. No doubt the late Emperor, at that
period, was stirred by personal resentment at the hostile conduct
of the General in 1815; yet it will perhaps be found more easy by
any admirer of La Fayette to impugn the good faith of the
draughtsman than the general accuracy of the portrait.
The fortune of La Fayette was ample, his yearly income being
little short of two hundred thousand livres; and his connexions,
as we have seen, were among the first at Court. Under such
circumstances, Silas Deane felt the vast importance of securing
him. An agreement was concluded between them, by the intervention
of one Mr. Carmichael (for as yet La Fayette spoke no English, and
Deane little French), according to the terms of which the Marquis
de La Fayette was to join the American service, and to receive
from Congress the rank of Major-General—no slight temptation to a
stripling of nineteen! La Fayette was to be accompanied, or rather
attended, by the Baron de Kalb and eleven other officers of lower
rank, seeking service in America. He sent, in secret, an agent to
Bordeaux, there to purchase and prepare a vessel for their voyage.
Meanwhile he made an excursion of three weeks to London, where his
kinsman, the Marquis de Noailles, was ambassador. He was presented
to the King, and graciously received. He saw at the opera General
Clinton, who had come home on a winter leave of absence, and who
was next to meet him on a field of battle in America. But, mindful
of his own hostile designs, he deemed it proper to forbear from
prying into the military forces of the kingdom, and declined an
invitation to visit the naval armament at Portsmouth.
On his return to France, La Fayette bade farewell to his young
wife, leaving her four months gone with child, and set out for
Bordeaux. Thus far all had prospered according to his wishes. But
at Bordeaux he found that his preparations had been discovered and
complained of by Lord Stormont, and that a LETTRE DE CACHET for
his arrest was already issued. Nevertheless, he did not relinquish
his design. He crossed the Spanish frontier in the disguise of a
courier, found his vessel at Pasages, and there embarked with his
companions. Towards the middle of June he landed on the coast of
Carolina; and after a few days’ rest, pursued his route to
Philadelphia. His reception by the Congress was not at first a
warm one; but La Fayette declared that he would accept no pay, and
was willing to serve as a volunteer; and under these
circumstances, the Assembly fulfilled the terms of the secret
agreement, and bestowed on him the rank of Major-General.
At Philadelphia La Fayette saw the American troops for the first
time, and, according to his own account, was struck with their
grotesque appearance—with green boughs fastened to their
hats—coarse hunting-shirts instead of uniforms—and muskets, many
wanting bayonets, and all of unequal make and size. But he soon
learnt to think more favorably of these raw levies, when,
notwithstanding all their disadvantages, he observed their conduct
in the field. With regard to their commander, his early
impressions never changed. It was also at Philadelphia, and at a
dinner-table, comprising several members of the Congress, that La
Fayette was introduced to Washington. The boy-general found
himself warmly welcomed by the chief whom he had long admired.
"When you come to the army," said Washington, "I shall be pleased
if you will make my quarters your home, and consider yourself as
one of my family." The invitation thus frankly tendered was no
less frankly accepted. Thus did a cordial intimacy arise between
them, Washington at all times treating La Fayette with fatherly
kindness, and La Fayette looking up to Washington with filial
regard.
La Fayette had already begun to speak a little English, and by
degrees acquired more. But to the last the difficulties of the
language were a main obstacle, not only to himself, but to every
other foreigner who served with, or under, the United States. Thus
there are still preserved some of the ill-spelled and scarcely
intelligible notes of Count Pulasky, during the short time that he
served as general of cavalry. Still worse was the case of Baron
Steuben, a veteran of the school of Frederick the Second, who
joined the Americans a few months later than La Fayette, and who
greatly aided them in the establishment of discipline. The Baron,
it appears, could not teach and drill, nor even swear and curse,
but by means of an interpreter! He was, therefore, most fortunate
in securing as his aid-de-camp Captain Walker of New-York—most
fortunate, if, as his American biographer assures us, "there was
not, perhaps, another officer in the army, unless Hamilton be
excepted, who could speak French and English so as to be well
understood in both."
La Fayette did not always confine himself to the bounds of his own
profession; sometimes, and, perhaps, not greatly to his credit, he
stepped beyond them. Here is one case recorded with much
satisfaction by himself. He states, that soon after his arrival in
America, and while attending on Sunday the service of the Church
of England, he was displeased with the clergyman, because in his
sermon he had said nothing at all of politics. "I charged him to
his face," says La Fayette, "with preaching only about Heaven!...
But next Sunday," continues the keen young officer, "I heard him
again, when his loud invectives against ’the execrable House of
Hanover,’ showed that he was ready and willing to take my good
advice."
JOHN HORNE TOOKE.
His abilities were ill fitted for the profession of a clergyman,
which indeed he at last renounced, but they highly qualified him
for his favorite occupation as a demagogue. Between him and Wilkes
there now arose a violent animosity and a keen altercation carried
on in newspapers. Descending to the lowest and most selfish
details, they were not ashamed thus publicly to wrangle respecting
a Welsh pony and a hamper of claret! Even before the close of 1770
might be discerned the growing discord and weakness of Wilkes and
his city friends. At a meeting which they convened to consider
their course of action, some proposed a new Remonstrance to the
King, while others urged an impeachment of Lord North in the House
of Commons. "What is the use of a new Remonstrance?" cried Wilkes.
"It would only serve to make another paper kite for His Royal
Highness the Prince of Wales!"—"What is the use of an
impeachment?" cried Sawbridge. "Lord North is quite sure of the
Bishops and the Scotch Peers in the Upper House, and could not
fail to be acquitted!" But although these ardent patriots might
differ a little as to the means, they were bent on one and the
same end; and the Remonstrance which was at last agreed upon,
appears to have been framed by their united wisdom. As thus drawn
up it teemed with silly vagaries fit only to please the lowest
order of intellects. Thus it prayed that His Majesty would for
ever remove from his presence and councils all his Ministers and
Secretaries of State, especially Lord Mansfield (who by the way
was not one of them), and that His Majesty would not again admit
any Scotchman into the administration!
THE CHARACTER OF WILKES.
He was born in 1727, the son of a rich distiller. Early in life he
set up a brewery for himself, but soon relinquished the wearisome
business. Early in life also he improved his fortune by his
marriage with the daughter and heiress of the celebrated Dr. Mead,
the author of the "Treatise on Poisons." But this lady, being of
maturer age than himself, and of slight personal attractions, was
speedily slighted, and he left her with as much disgust as he had
his brewery. In 1757 he was elected Member of Parliament for
Aylesbury, but never obtained any success as an orator, his
speeches being, though flippant, yet feeble. In truth he had no
great ability of any kind, but dauntless courage and high animal
spirits. Nor should we deny him another much rarer praise,—a vein
of good humor and kindliness, which did not forsake him through
all his long career, amidst the riot of debauchery or the rancor
of faction. So agreeable and insinuating was his conversation,
that more than one fair dame as she listened found herself forget
his sinister squint and his ill-favored countenance. He used to
say of himself in a laughing strain, that though he was the
ugliest man in England, he wanted nothing to make him even with
the handsomest but half an hour at starting! Politics indeed
seemed at first wholly alien from Wilkes’s sphere; gayety and
gallantry were his peculiar objects. For some time he reigned the
oracle of green-rooms and the delight of taverns. In conjunction
with other kindred spirits, as Paul Whitehead and Sir Francis
Dashwood, amounting in all to twelve, he rented Medmenham Abbey,
near Marlow. It is a secluded and beautiful spot on the banks of
the Thames, with hanging woods that slope down to the crystal
stream, a grove of venerable elms, and meadows of the softest
green. In days of old it had been a convent of Cistercian monks,
but the new brotherhood took the title of Franciscans in
compliment to Sir Francis Dashwood, whom they called their Father
Abbot. On the portal, now again in ruins, and once more resigned
to its former solitude and silence, I could still a few years
since read the inscription placed there by Wilkes and his friends:
fay çe que voudras. Other French and Latin inscriptions, now with
good reason effaced, then appeared in other parts of the grounds,
some of them remarkable for wit, but all for either profaneness or
obscenity, and many the more highly applauded as combining both.
In this retreat the new Franciscans used often to meet for summer
pastimes, and varied the round of their debauchery by a mock
celebration of the principal Roman Catholic rites.
WILKES’S ESSAY ON WOMAN.
It appears that Wilkes had, several years before, and in some of
his looser hours, composed a parody of Pope’s "Essay on Man." In
this undertaking, which, according to his own account, cost him a
great deal of pains and time, he was, it is said, assisted by
Thomas Potter, second son of the late Archbishop of Canterbury,
who had been Secretary of Frederick Prince of Wales, and had since
shown ability and gained office in the House of Commons, but was
(as well became one of Wilkes’s friends) of lax morals in his
private life. The result of their joint authorship, however, has
little wit or talent to make any amends for the blasphemy and
lewdness with which it abounds. As the original had been inscribed
by Pope to Lord Bolingbroke, so was the parody by Wilkes to Lord
Sandwich; thus it began, "Awake my Sandwich!" instead of "Awake my
St. John!" Thus also, in ridicule of Warburton’s well-known
commentary, some burlesque notes were appended in the name of the
Right Reverend the Bishop of Gloucester.
This worthless poem had remained in manuscript, and lain in
Wilkes’s desk, until in the previous spring he had occasion to set
up a press at his own house, and was tempted to print fourteen
copies only as presents to his boon companions. Of one of these
copies the Government obtained possession, through a subordinate
agent, and by not very creditable means, and Lord Sandwich holding
it forth in his hand with the air of injured innocence, denounced
it as not only scandalous and impious, but also as a breach of
Privilege against the Bishop as a Peer of Parliament. He likewise
complained of another profane parody, written by the same hand,
and printed on the same occasion; this last was entitled, "The
VENI CREATOR paraphrased." The most offensive passages of both
were now by Lord Sandwich’s order read aloud to the House, until
Lord Lyttleton with a groan entreated that they might hear no
more!
In the discussion which ensured, Bishop Warburton, forgetting that
such ribaldries could not really tarnish his character, showed a
heat which little became it. He exclaimed that the blackest fiends
in Hell would disdain to keep company with Wilkes,—and then asked
pardon of Satan for comparing them together! Both the Earl and
Bishop in their passion would have readily over-leaped the common
forms of justice. The former, after producing evidence at the Bar
as to the authorship of Wilkes, wished the House to take measures
for his prosecution, without the least delay. But the Peers,
although readily agreeing to vote the two parodies blasphemous and
breaches of Privilege, resolved, on the motion of Lord Mansfield,
to adjourn all further questions until the day after the next, so
as to give Wilkes the opportunity, if he desired it, of alleging
any matter in denial or defence.
LORD THURLOW.
With all his faults and shortcomings there was that in Thurlow
which overawed and daunted his contemporaries, and of which the
impression is not wholly lost even on posterity. It was a saying
of Mr. Fox, that no man ever yet was so wise as Thurlow looked.
His countenance was fraught with sense; his aspect stately and
commanding; his brow broad, massy, and armed with terrors like
that of the Olympian Jove, to which indeed it was often compared.
His voice loud, sonorous, and as rolling thunder in the distance,
augmented the effect of his fierce and terrible invective. Few
indeed were they who did not quail before his frown; fewer still
who would abide his onset in debate. Perhaps no modern English
statesman, in the House of Lords at least, was ever so much
dreaded. In parliament, as at the bar, his speeches were home
thrusts, conveying the strongest arguments or keenest reproofs in
the plainest and clearest words. His enemies might accuse his
style of being coarse, and sometimes even ungrammatical, but they
could never deny its energy or its effect. In private life Thurlow
was remarkable for his thorough knowledge of the Greek and Latin
writers; and no less for his skill in argument and brilliant
powers of conversation. While yet at the bar, Dr. Johnson said of
him to Boswell: "I honor Thurlow, sir; Thurlow is a fine fellow;
he fairly puts his mind to yours." And after he became Chancellor,
the same high authority added: "I would prepare myself for no man
in England but Lord Thurlow. When I am to meet him, I should wish
to know a day before." Unless with ladies, his manner was always
uncouth, and his voice a constant growl. But beneath that rugged
rind there appears to have lurked much warmth of affection and
kindliness of heart. Many acts of generous aid and unsolicited
bounty are recorded of him. Men of learning and merit seldom
needed any other recommendation to his favor. Thus, on reading
Horsley’s "Letters to Dr. Priestly," he at once obtained for the
author a stall at Gloucester, saying—what I earnestly wish all
other Chancellors had borne in mind—"that those who supported the
Church should be supported by it." Nevertheless his temper, even
when in some measure sobered down by age, was always liable to
violent and unreasonable starts of passion. It is related by a
gentleman who dined with him at Brighton only a few months before
his death—for I must ever hold that great characters are best
portrayed by little circumstances—that a plateful of peaches being
brought in, the ex-Chancellor, incensed at their ill appearance,
ordered the window to be opened, and not only the peaches but the
whole desert to be thrown out!
EDMUND BURKE.
In pamphlets, however, and political essays—and even speeches,
when revised and sent forth singly, may be comprehended in that
class,—the personal disadvantages of Burke could no longer apply;
and as regards that class of writings, it may be doubted whether
he has ever, in any age, or in any country, been excelled. The
philosophy and deep thought of his reflections—the vigor and
variety of his style—his rich flow of either panegyric or
invective—his fine touches of irony—the glowing abundance and
beauty of his metaphors—all these might separately claim applause;
how much more, then, when all blended into one glorious whole! To
give examples of these merits would be to transcribe half his
works. Yet still if one single and short instance from his maxims
be allowed me, I will observe that the generous ardor and activity
of mind called forth by competition has formed a theme of
philosophic comment from a very early age. It is touched both by
Cicero and Quintilian; it has not been neglected either by Bacon
or Montaigne. Yet still, as handled by Burke, this trite topic
beams forth, not only with the hues of eloquence, but even with
the bloom of novelty. He invites us to "an amicable conflict with
difficulty. Difficulty is a severe instructor set over us by the
supreme ordinance of a parental guardian and legislator, who knows
us better than we know ourselves, as he loves us better too. He
that wrestles with us strengthens our nerves and sharpens our
skill. Our antagonist is our helper!" If amidst so much of
eloquence and feeling as Burke’s writings display we are desired
to seek for faults, we shall find them, not in the want, but only
in the exuberance and overflow of beauties. The palate becomes
cloyed by so much richness, the eye dazzled by so much glare. His
metaphors, fraught with fancy though they be, are often bold; they
seem both too numerous and strained too far; they sometimes cease
to please, and occasionally border even on the ludicrous and low.
Of this defect, as of his excellences, a single instance shall
suffice me. In the "Letter to a Noble Lord," in 1796, Burk
compares the Duke of Bedford to a lamb already marked for
slaughter by the Marats and Robespierres of France, but still
unconscious of his doom, "pleased to the last," and who "licks the
hand just raised to shed his blood." Thus far the simile is
conducted with admirable force and humor. But not satisfied with
his success, Burke goes further; he insists on leading us into the
shambles, and makes the revolutionary butchers inquire as to their
ducal victim, "how he cuts up? how he tallows in the caul or on
the kidneys?" Apart from the beauty of the style, the value, as I
conceive, of Burke’s writings, is subject to one not unimportant
deduction. For most lofty and far-sighted views in politics they
will never be consulted in vain. On the other hand, let no man
expect to find in them just or accurate, or even consistent,
delineations of contemporary character. Where eternal principles
are at stake, Burke was inaccessible to favor or to fear. Where
only persons are concerned, he was often misled by resentments or
by partialities, and allowed his fancy full play. The rich stores
of Burke’s memory and the rare powers of his mind were not
reserved solely for his speeches or his writings; they appeared to
no less advantage in his familiar conversation. Even the most
trivial topics could elicit, even the most ignorant hearers could
discern, his genius. "Sir," said Dr. Johnson, "if Burke were to go
into a stable to see his horse dressed, the hostler would say, We
have had an extraordinary man here!" On other occasions, also, the
author of "Rasselas" extols him as "never unwilling to begin
conversation, never at a loss to carry it on, never in haste to
leave it off." His attempts at wit, indeed, were not always
successful, and he might be accused of an inordinate affection for
quibbles and puns. His favorite niece, and latterly his guest, was
sometimes provoked into a—"Really, uncle, that is very poor." But
upon the whole it may be asserted, that in social converse Burke
was equalled by none of his contemporaries and his countrymen,
except only Dr. Johnson himself and perhaps Lord Thurlow.
We have no more room for further extracts; those we have made illustrate
the temper and the style of the work, and will commend it to the favorable
consideration of American readers. Among subjects treated most elaborately
is that of the authorship of Junius; but Lord Mahon has no new facts for
the vindication of his judgment, that Sir Philip Francis was
unquestionably the writer of the famous letters under that name.
There is an appendix to each volume; and in the appendix of one, and in
the notes of both, are some curious illustrations of the worthlessness of
Mr. Sparks’s editions of the writings of Washington and Franklin. We first
called attention to this subject some five years ago, and after the
changes, &c. of Mr. Sparks had been pointed out in _The International_, a
series of carefully prepared criticisms appeared in the _Evening Post_, in
which the discrepancies between the original letters of Washington were
exhibited to a degree that at once and for ever destroyed the good
reputation of Mr. Sparks in this department. He chose not to take any
notice of the disclosures to which we refer, but it may be that Lord
Mahon’s criticism will secure his attention, and an attempt, at least, for
his vindication. Besides his comparisons of MS. and printed letters in the
appendix, Lord Mahon has several allusions to the subject, of which we
quote specimens:
"Some samples of the manner in which that gentleman (Mr. Sparks)
has thought himself at liberty to tamper with the original MSS.,
will be found," &c.
"Mr. Sparks has printed no part of the correspondence precisely as
Washington wrote it, but has greatly altered, and as he thinks,
corrected and embellished it. Such a liberty with the writings of
such a man might be justifiable, nay, even in some respects
necessary, if Washington and his principal contemporaries had been
still alive; but the date of this publication, the year (1838),
leaves, as I conceive, no adequate vindication for _tampering with
the truth of history_."
"Washington, however, in his public letter to Congress (unless Mr.
Jared Sparks has _improved_ this passage), says," &c.
"I know not whether my readers will concur with me in liking
Washington’s own and though home-spun, excellent cloth, much
better than the ’Cobweb schemes and gauze coverings’ which have,
it seems, been manufactured in its place."
A complete errata to Mr. Sparks’s editions of Washington, Franklin, and
Gouverneur Morris, would occupy several volumes; and we do not remember
one instance in which his alterations were justifiable, or in which they
were really an improvement in point of style. The reprobation with which
Mr. Sparks has been visited by the learned and judicious of his own
country and England will be a warning to future laborers in the same
field. The works edited by Mr. Sparks are no longer, we believe, regarded
by historical students as of the slightest value as authorities, and no
faithfulness or excellence which may be displayed in future works from his
hand will retrieve his lost reputation.
These volumes will be reprinted immediately by the Appletons.
FAUST OF WITTENBERG AND FUST OF MENTZ.
It were well if writers on the origin of typography would obey the
injunction of Sir Thomas Browne, who thought it not inexpedient for those
who seek to enlighten mankind on any particular subject, first to acquire
some knowledge thereof themselves, so that the labor of readers should not
so generally be profitless. In an article by Bishop McIlvaine, and another
in Frazer’s Magazine, by an anonymous contributor, the exercise of
_necromancy_ is imputed to Fust, the inventor or supposed inventor of
printing. Nine of every ten persons who write any thing on the subject
fall into the same error; they have something always to say of Fust and
the devil; curious anecdotes to rehearse of the multiplication of copies
of the Scriptures in Paris and elsewhere; spells and incantations by the
inventor of the "black" art to describe, &c. But this is all induced by
ignorance of the facts. John Fust, the putative inventor of printing, was
a shrewd silversmith, and we suspect a knavish one, for without having any
thing to do with the _invention_ of the "art preservative of arts," he
managed to rob another of the credit and profit of it. He was, however,
never in Paris; he was never in his lifetime accused of the exercise of
magical arts; he simply endeavored to make as much money as he could in
Germany by underselling the copyists in the book market. All stories in
which necromancy is attributed to him or to any other printer; all
accounts of the opposition of the priests to typography as an infernal
invention; in fine, the whole popular idea of Faust and the devil, is a
modern contrivance, and originated in this manner: Some bookmaker, about
the year 1580, undertook to write a history of printing; he had an
indistinct recollection of Professor Faustus of the University of
Wittenberg, and in his book blended as many of his adventures as he could
remember with the memoirs of John Fust the printer; and from that day a
succession of ignorant chroniclers have considered two men, of totally
different characters, living at different times, as one individual.
Faust, the necromancer, was born in the duchy of Weimer in 1491,
twenty-five years after the printer is understood to have died. He is
mentioned by Melancthon, Wierus, and many other cotemporary writers, and
was probably in his time not less distinguished as a magician than Agrippa
or Albertus Magnus. It is related of him by Godwin, that he was in his
youth adopted by an uncle, dwelling in the city of Wittenberg, who had no
children. Here he was sent to college, and was soon distinguished by the
greatness of his talents, and the rapid progress he made in every species
of learning that was put before him. He was destined by his relative to
the profession of theology. But he is said ungraciously to have set at
naught his uncle’s pious intentions. He went through his examinations with
applause, and carried off all the first prizes among sixteen competitors;
he therefore obtained the degree of doctor in divinity; but his success
only made him proud and headstrong. He disdained his theological eminence,
and sighed for distinction as a man of the world. He took his degree as a
doctor of medicine, and aspired to celebrity as a practitioner of physic.
About the same time he fell in with certain cotemporaries, of tastes
similar to his own, and associated with them in the study of Chaldean,
Greek, and Arabic science, of strange incantations and supernatural
influences, in short, of all the arts of a sorcerer.
Having made such progress as he could by dint of study and intense
application, he at length resolved to prosecute his purposes still further
by actually raising the devil. He happened one evening to walk in a thick,
dark wood, within a short distance from Wittenberg, when it occurred to
him that that was a fit place for executing his design. He stopped at a
solitary spot where four roads met, and made use of his wand to mark out a
large circle, and then two small ones within the larger. In one of these
he fixed himself, appropriating the other for the use of his expected
visitor. He went over the precise range of charms and incantations,
omitting nothing. It was now dark night, between the ninth and tenth
hours. The devil manifested himself by the usual signs of his appearance.
"Wherefore am I called?" said he, "and what is it that you demand?" "I
require," rejoined Faustus, "that you should sedulously attend unto me,
answer my inquiries, and fulfil my behests."
Immediately upon Faustus pronouncing these words, there followed a tumult
overhead, as if heaven and earth were coming together. The trees in their
topmost branches bended to their very roots. It seemed as if the whole
forest were peopled with devils, making a crash like a thousand wagons,
hurrying to the right and left, before and behind, in every possible
direction, with thunder and lightning, and the continual discharge of
great cannon. Hell appeared to have emptied itself to have furnished the
din. There succeeded the most charming music from all sorts of
instruments, and sounds of hilarity and dancing. Next came a report as of
a tournament, and the clashing of innumerable lances. This lasted so long,
that Faustus was many times about to rush out of the circle in which he
had inclosed himself, and to abandon his preparations. His courage and
resolution, however, got the better; and he remained immovable. He pursued
his incantations without intermission. Then came to the very edge of the
circle a griffin first, and next a dragon, which in the midst of his
enchantments grinned at him horribly with his teeth, but finally fell down
at his feet, and extended his length to many a rood. Faustus persisted.
Then succeeded a sort of fireworks, a pillar of fire, and a man on fire at
the top, who leaped down; and there immediately appeared a number of
globes here and there red-hot, while the man on fire went and came to
every part of the circle for a quarter of an hour. At length the devil
came forward in the shape of a gray monk, and asked Faustus what he
wanted. Faustus adjourned their further conference, and appointed the
devil to comes to him at his lodging.
He in the mean time busied himself in the necessary preparations. He
entered his study at the appointed time, and found the devil waiting for
him. Faustus told him that he had prepared certain articles, to which it
was necessary that the demon should fully accord,—that he should attend
him at all times, when required, for all the days of his life; that he
should bring him every thing he wanted; that he should come to him in any
shape that Faustus required, or be invisible, and Faustus should be
invisible too whenever he desired it; that he should deny him nothing, and
answer him with perfect veracity to every thing he demanded. To some of
these requisitions the spirit could not consent, without authority from
his master, the chief of devils. At length all these concessions were
adjusted. The devil on his part also prescribed his conditions. That
Faustus should abjure the Christian religion and all reverence for the
supreme God; that he should enjoy the entire command of his attendant
demon for a certain term of years; and that at the end of that period the
devil should dispose of him, body and soul, at his pleasure [the term was
fixed for twenty-four years]; that he should at all times steadfastly
refuse to listen to any one who should desire to convert him, or convince
him of the error of his ways, and lead him to repentance; that Faustus
should draw up a writing containing these particulars, and sign it with
his blood; that he should deliver this writing to the devil, and keep a
duplicate of it himself, that so there might be no misunderstanding. It
was further appointed by Faustus, that the devil should usually attend him
in the habit of a cordelier, with a pleasing countenance and an
insinuating demeanor. Faustus also asked the devil his name, who answered
that he was usually called Mephistophiles.
Numerous adventures of Faustus are related in the German histories. It is
said that the emperor Charles V. was at Inspruck, at a time when Faustus
also resided there. His courtiers informed the emperor that Faustus was in
the town, and Charles expressed a desire to see him. He was introduced.
Charles asked him whether he could really perform such wondrous feats as
were reported of him. Faustus modestly replied, inviting the emperor to
make trial of his skill. "Then," said Charles, "of all the eminent
personages I have ever read of, Alexander the Great is the man who most
excites my curiosity, and whom it would most gratify my wishes to see in
the very form in which he lived." Faustus rejoined that it was out of his
power truly to raise the dead, but that he had spirits at his command who
had often seen that great conqueror, and that Faustus would willingly
place him before the emperor as he required. He conditioned that Charles
should not speak to him, nor attempt to touch him. The emperor promised
compliance. After a few ceremonies, therefore, Faustus opened a door, and
brought in Alexander exactly in the form in which he had lived, with the
same garments, and every circumstance corresponding. Alexander made his
obeisance to the emperor, and walked several times round him. The queen of
Alexander was then introduced in the same manner. Charles just then
recollected he had read that Alexander had a wart on the nape of his neck;
and with proper precautions Faustus allowed the emperor to examine the
apparition by this test. Alexander then vanished.
As Faustus was approaching the last year of his term, he seemed resolved
to pamper his appetite with every species of luxury. He carefully
accumulated all the materials of voluptuousness and magnificence. He was
particularly anxious in the selection of women who should serve for his
pleasures. He had one Englishwoman, one Hungarian, one French, two of
Germany, and two from different parts of Italy, all of them eminent for
the perfections which characterized their different countries.
At length he arrived at the end of the term for which he had contracted
with the devil. For two or three years before it expired his character
gradually altered. He became subject to fits of despondency, was no longer
susceptible of mirth and amusement, and reflected with bitter agony on the
close in which the whole must terminate. He assembled his friends together
at a grand entertainment, and when it was over, addressed them, telling
them that this was the last day of his life, reminding them of the wonders
with which he had frequently astonished them, and informing them of the
condition upon which he had held this power. They, one and all, expressed
the deepest sorrow at the intelligence. They had had the idea of something
unlawful in his proceedings; but their notions had been very far from
coming up to the truth. They regretted exceedingly that he had not been
unreserved in his communications at an earlier period. They would have had
recourse in his behalf, to the means of religion, and have applied to
pious men, desiring them to employ their power to intercede with Heaven in
his favor. Prayer and penitence might have done much for him; and the
mercy of Heaven was unbounded. They advised him to still call upon God,
and endeavor to secure an interest in the merits of the Saviour.
Faustus assured them that it was all in vain, and that his tragical fate
was inevitable. He led them to their sleeping apartment, and recommended
to them to pass the night as they could, but by no means, whatever they
might happen to hear, to come out of it; as their interference could in no
way be beneficial to him, and might be attended with the most serious
injury to themselves. They lay still, therefore, as he had enjoined them;
but not one of them could close his eyes. Between twelve and one in the
night they heard first a furious storm of wind round all sides of the
house, as if it would have torn away the walls from their foundations.
This no sooner somewhat abated, than a noise was heard of discordant and
violent hissing, as if the house was full of all sorts of venomous
reptiles, but which plainly proceeded from Faustus’s chamber. Next they
heard the doctor’s room-door vehemently burst open, and cries for help
uttered with dreadful agony, but in a half-suppressed voice, which
presently grew fainter and fainter. Then every thing became still, as if
the everlasting motion of the world was suspended.
When at length it became broad day, the students went in a body to the
doctor’s apartment. But he was nowhere to be seen. Only the walls were
found smeared with his blood, and marks as if his brains had been dashed
out. His body was finally discovered at some distance from the house, his
limbs dismembered, and marks of great violence about the features of his
face. The students gathered up the mutilated parts of his body, and
afforded them private burial at the temple of Mars, in the village where
he died.
SOME SMALL POEMS.
WRITTEN FOR THE INTERNATIONAL MONTHLY MAGAZINE.
BY R. H. STODDARD.
A PROLOGUE.
Without, the winds of Winter blow;
Without, the Winter sifts its snow:
Within, the hearths are warm and bright,
And all the chambers full of light,
And we again are gathered here,
To greet the advent of the year.
Pile on the wood, and stir the fires,
And in our souls the sweet desires;
And let us frame a mingled rhyme,
To suit the singers and the time;
With different stops, and keys of art,
In quaint old measures, got by heart.
BY THE SEA.
By the rolling waves I roam,
And look along the sea,
And dream of the day and the gleaming sail,
That bore my love from me.
His bark now sails the Indian seas,
Far down the summer zone:
But his thoughts, like swallows, fly to me
By the Northern waves alone.
Nor will he delay, when winds are fair,
To waft him back to me;
But haste, my love! or my grave will be made
By the sad and moaning sea!
WHEAT AND SHEAVES.
Before me now the village stands,
Its cottages embowered in bloom;
Behind me lies the burying ground,
Its sepulchres in cypress gloom.
The bells before me ring aloud,
A pæan for the live and bold;
The bells behind are tolling low,
A requiem for the dead and cold.
The crowd before me tramp away,
And shout until the winds are stirred;
The crowd behind no longer move,
And never breathe a single word.
Before me many moan, and weep:
Behind, there is not one who grieves;
For blight but wastes the standing wheat.
It cannot touch the garnered sheaves!
FRAGMENT.
The gray old Earth goes on
At its ancient pace,
Lifting its thunder voice
In the choir of Space;
And the Years, as they go,
Are singing slow,
Solemn dirges, full of woe!
Tears are shed, and hearts are broken,
And many bitter words are spoken,
And many left unsaid;
And many are with the living,
That were better—better dead!
Tyrants sit upon their thrones,
And will not hear the people’s moans,
Nor hear their clanking chains;
Or if they do, they add thereto,
And mock, not ease, their pains;
But little liberty remains—
There is but little room for thee,
In this wide world, O Liberty!
But where thou hast once set thy foot,
Thou wilt remain, though oft unseen;
And grow like thought, and move like wind,
Upon the troubled sea of Mind,
No longer now serene.
Thy life and strength thou dost retain,
Despite the cell, the rack, the pain,
And all the battles won—in vain!
And even now thou seest the hour
That lays in dust the tyrant’s power,
When man shall once again be free,
And Earth renewed, and young like thee,
O Liberty! O Liberty!
CERTAIN MERRY STANZAS.
I often wish that I could know
The life in store for me,
The measure of the joy and woe
Of my futurity.
I do not fear to meet the worst
The gathering years can give;
My life has been a life accurst
From youth, and yet I live;
The Future may be overcast,
But never darker than the Past!
My mind will grow, as years depart
With all the wingéd hours;
And all my buried seeds of Art
Will bloom again in flowers;
But buried hopes no more will bloom,
As in the days of old;
My youth is lying in its tomb,
My heart is dead and cold!
And certain sad, but nameless cares
Have flecked my locks with silver hairs!
No bitter feeling clouds my grief,
No angry thoughts of thee;
For thou art now a faded leaf
Upon a fading tree.
From day to day I sea thee sink,
From deep to deep in shame;
I sigh, but dare not bid thee think
Upon thine ancient fame—
For oh! the thought of what thou art
Must be a hell within thy heart!
My life is full of care and pain—
My heart of old desires;
But living embers yet remain
Below its dying fires;
Nor do I fear what all the years
May have in store for me,
For I have washed away with tears
The blots of Memory:
But thou—despite the love on high—
What is there left thee but to die!
MR. JUSTICE STORY, WITH SOME REMINISCENT REFLECTIONS.(4)
WRITTEN FOR THE INTERNATIONAL MAGAZINE.
BY A. OAKEY HALL.
The hurrying pedestrian in Wall-street, or in some of its bisecting
avenues of commercial bustle, if he have time to glance over his shoulder,
is sure to observe a freshly-painted piece of tin (its brief rhetoric
revelling in the pride and pomp of gold leaf alphabetically shaped),
denominated by lawyers "a shingle"—setting forth that some sanguine
gentleman has then and there established himself as an Attorney and
Counsellor at Law.
The sign is by the front door, shining with self-conceit at the passers
by; and its owner is up some weary stairway, yawning over "twice told
tales" of legal lore, copying precedents for the sake of practice, or
keeping hope alive upon the back benches of the court-rooms in listening
to the eloquence of his seniors while _he_ is waiting for clients.
Heaven help many a young attorney in this "babel" of money-getting. The
race should be prayed for in churches: and it should meet with a
consideration as nearly divine as mortals can call up from crowded
heart-chambers.
Well: the sign keeps nailed up: and by and by the sun blisters it, and
dries out the pomp of the gilded letters, and perhaps the owner yawns over
his one case, or sitting upon a front bench in the court-room while case
number thirty is being heard, waits for case nine hundred and thirty,
against which on the calendar that is reposing by the side of the
complaisant clerk in the corner, his name is placed as counsel—shining
there like a pebble on a wide and extended beach.
The Physiology of the Medical Student from facetious pens was reached to
us over the Atlantic by friendly booksellers some years ago; and we should
have had by this time "the Physiology of the young Attorney." He is a good
subject for dissection; there’s plenty of venous humor in his composition;
and oh! a deal of nerve!
Talk of exploring expeditions to the Arctic regions as offering specimens
of courage and prowess; or of scientific excursions into the wilds of
Africa to the same purport! These instances are trivial compared to the
courage and prowess yearly displayed by hundreds of attorneys who plunge
into the ocean of litigation in order to swim towards the distant buoys
which the sun of prosperity always cheers with enlivening beams.
Don’t waste sympathy in this connection for the young Sawbones. _His_
thirst for action can be slaked at pauper fountains. For _him_ the
emigrant’s chamber, the cabin of the arriving ship, the dispensary, the
asylums, the hospitals, and the poor-houses, are always open; and if his
"soul be in arms," there are (Heaven knows) "frays" in this city numerous
enough for any ambitious surgical eagerness.
But for the aspiring attorney where are the avenues open for gratuitous
action? Do merchants nail up promissory notes upon awning posts for
attorneys to seize and put in suit? What "old nobs" of Wall-street are
willing to put themselves "in chancery" to oblige Hopper Tape, Esq., your
humble attendant upon the Where are the courts possessing suits without
counsel?
We may be told of unfortunate wretches who murder in drunken fits to whom
counsel are assigned. But what are ten crusts of bread per annum among a
thousand hungry dogs?
Thou must face the truth, young college boy, who now and then dost stroll
into court-rooms, or who dost lounge away an hour in a friend’s law office
admiring his books and piles of papers—thinking the while of the time when
thou wilt have graduated and obtained permission to hang up thy
pomp-gilded "shingle:" _thou must face the truth_! The counsel who so
attracts thy admiration, in thy court-room lounging, has fought weary
years with myriad obstacles; there are the ashes of many nights and days
of toil and struggle sprinkled upon his hair; he has fought his way (from
where thou sittest a listener to where he stands a speaker), as if through
an Indian gauntlet file. There were a hundred mouths waiting for the first
crumbs which came to his impatient legal digestion; and a hundred envious
heads and hearts to worry him if possible into a dyspepsia over those
crumbs. He has began with an office in a fifth story, and _climbed down_
towards the street. He commenced to hive his honey near the roof! While
out of his office he climbed a professional ladder, the holding on to
which tasked all his powers of physical, mental, and pecuniary endurance.
Face the truth!
Reach me yonder diary and legal register. Two thousand practising lawyers
in the city of New-York! Out of these one hundred are "notables;" fifty
are "distinguished;" twenty-five are eminent.
A large body of them are "conveyancers" growing thin in person and thinner
in mind over deeds and titles; a larger body "attorneys"—getters up and
supervisors of suits—providers of ammunition for "distinguished counsel"
to discharge with loud reports (the said counsel brilliant by the flash:
the attorney obscured in the smoke); many, very many, chained to
"larcenies" at the Sessions, "landlord dispossessions" at the Marine
Court, suits on butcher’s bills at Ward Courts, or "malicious
prosecutions" in the Common Pleas.
Yet there are hundreds of coral reefs and pearls for persevering divers in
this ocean of litigation. Three thousand pending cases every month are
three thousand nutshells where the meat is often fresh and oily, even with
the weary keeping on the calendar for months and years. There are _some_
counsel who pocket fees and costs to the tune of twenty thousand a year.
We know many a Quirk, Gammon and Snap, who realize an undoubted "ten
thousand a year," with no Tittlebat Titmouse for a standing annoyance. And
we can taper off on the finger many who do not realize five hundred a
year, and work like negro slaves at that: they are continually rough
hewing, but no divinity shapes their ends.
Five years of "starvation," and five more years of toil and trouble,
constitute the depth of a lawyer’s slough of despond in New-York; to say
nothing of the giants’ castles to storm upon the way, or the fights with
the Apolyons of Envy. Obviously so!
A man now-a-days will let a young Sawbones advise ice for his child’s
croup, or even experiment with his own much-abused liver, when he would
not intrust a young attorney with the suing a note where ten witnesses saw
the note signed and the "consideration money" paid over. And if the public
really knew how much danger their pockets were in when the "buttons" were
under the control of inexperienced lawyers, the number of "starvers" would
be doubled. What "eminent" lawyer is there who does not look back to the
"practice" of his youth, in perfect terror to witness the mistakes he
made, as the helmsman, who has scudded through the breakers to the open
sea, glances back at the dangers he escaped?
The young lawyers of a year back are, however, five years—perhaps ten—in
advance of the lawyers of this year’s growth. The latter have greater
rivalry in the _hordes_ of practitioners from the interior whom the "new
code" have driven from their _trespass quare clausum fregit_ into the
city. Many of them, too, were men of mark in their ports of departure,
bold and confident in their new haven!
One field, however, in the legal township of this city, offers room upon
its face for tillers—_the field of advocacy_! It is ploughed by some
twenty or thirty, and _harrowed_ by some fifty or sixty. There are a
_dozen_ whom the ghosts of Nisi Prius flock to hear upon great occasions.
And these will long hold the monopoly.
Why?
Because the advocate and barrister must have had vast experience at Nisi
Prius (or the court where matters of fact are investigated by judge and
jury); have acquired a practised tact; have had opportunities of testing
their own calibre to know if they are fitted for emergencies—as the
gunsmith tests his barrels before he "stocks" them. And the young lawyer
has small opportunity afforded him to acquire this tact—to permit this
testing. If he can play "devil" for a few years to some barrister of
extended practice, or scent "occasions" like a blood-hound on the trail of
the valuable fugitive from justice, then he is a happy man, and is in the
fair way of soon becoming a monopolist himself.
Any juryman of two years’ standing will corroborate our statement as to
the openness of the field of legal advocacy. How often has he seen cause
after cause "set down," "reserved," or "put off," because counsel are
engaged elsewhere? How often has he heard the same advocate in four or
five causes in the same week, in the same court, changing positions like
the queen of an active chess-board; profiting his fame and pocket by means
of only a hurried glance at the elaborate brief which his junior has "got
up" for him?
Some one has said that the barrister works hard, lives well, and dies
poor. Regarding the first two conditions of his life there is little doubt
upon the question of truth; the dying in poverty _may be_ problematical.
Yet in a recent print, professing to furnish a list of wealthy tax-payers,
the list contained four lawyers, and only one was a barrister. The
instance proves little, for a lawyer may be very rich and yet pay no
taxes. The assessors may fight shy of his bell-pull as they go their
rounds, because of his penchant to find flaws in their actions and bring
them official discredit in an apparently laborious task, but in reality a
sinecure of an employment.
We have often asked ourselves if barristers have stomachs. Bowels of
compassion they have not, that is certain; but have they stomachs? Say
nine times in a year they dine at the same hour of the day; and then spoon
their soup with the blood all drawn from the digestive apparatus to feed
the brain. Yet they eat like aldermen and drink like German princes....
This much of idle reverie, as, with pen in hand, we laid down the two
bulky and elaborately-published volumes whose title we have taken as text;
this much of glance at the condition of the young and old advocate of
to-day, before we digest our reflections upon the advocate and jurist of
the past.
It was our privilege in our legal novitiate (this is but _a phrase_; for a
lawyer is always in his novitiate) to have been, at the Cambridge Law
School, a pupil of Mr. Justice Story; and thus to have drank at the very
fountain head of constitutional law—that branch of our national
jurisprudence which can least fluctuate. Judges of a day and not of a
generation, or crazy legislators with spasmodic wisdom, may alter, and
overturn, and mystify by simplification, the laws and usages of every-day
life; but it is scarcely to be apprehended that the current of our
constitutional law will ever be diverted from original channels. There is
danger rather of its being dammed into stagnation.
While fully aware of his faults and foibles as a man, and his
idiosyncracies as a judge and a legal writer, we have never wavered in
loyalty to his judicial majesty, or found a flaw in the regard we paid to
his memory. And no book was more welcome to Zimmerman in his solitude than
these volumes regarding the illustrious judge, prepared by his son, were
welcome to our Christmas-holiday leisure.
Joseph Story was the eldest of eleven children, and lived to be indeed the
"Joseph" of mark and renown to his father and brothers. He was born in
Marblehead, September 18th, 1779. His father was a physician, and served
during a portion of the Revolution as army surgeon. He died when the
future judge was twenty-six years of age: yet what the son then was is
best told by one sentence from the father’s will—after making his wife
sole executrix, he recommends her to his son Joseph, adding, "and although
this perhaps is needless, I do it to mark my special confidence in his
affections, skill, and abilities." From the father, our lawyer thus
panegyrized received friendly geniality and broad understanding; from the
mother, indomitable will, vigor and enthusiasm.
Habit of observation and desire of knowledge were the prominent attributes
of his childish character; nevertheless he was ardent in all the sports of
boyhood. To the last he maintained a regard for his honor, which induced
him while yet a lad, and under promise not to divulge the name of a
schoolmate offender, to receive a severe flogging rather than to yield up
his knowledge upon the subject. At the age of sixteen, in the midst of a
Freshman term at Harvard College, he thought of matriculation; but upon
inquiry learned that he must not only be examined upon the works of
ordinary preparatory reading, but that it was necessary for him to expect
a call upon the volumes which his class had dispatched during the past
half year. At first he was daunted, but remembering there yet remained six
weeks of vacation, he addressed himself to the necessary labor—the
severity of which is best evidenced by the fact that in the short time
above mentioned he read Sallust, the odes of Horace, two books of Livy,
three books of the Anabasis, two books of the Iliad, and certain English
treatises. This sounds like the railroad instruction now much in vogue;
but its effects were permanent in value upon his mind. Few readers of his
works will accuse him of a want of proficiency in Latin! But the _often_
reading—the _saepe legendo_ was ever his habit: for he remembered the
couplet:
Gutta cavat lapidem non vi sed saepe cadendo
Sic homo fit doctus non vi sed saepe legendo.
He passed muster with the college tutors in January, 1795. Among his
classmates were the (afterwards Reverends) Dr. Tuckerman and Wm. E.
Channing—to the genius and character of the latter of whom he always bore
the most enthusiastic and hearty testimony. Indeed he contested with
Channing for the highest honor. Channing won it, but always gave the honor
himself to Story; while the latter always declared that the former won the
just meed of his genius and scholarship.
Their graduation was in the summer of 1798: and immediately upon quitting
college Mr. Story commenced the study of the law with Mr. Samuel Sewall,
afterwards Chief Justice in the Supreme Court of Massachusetts. Fourteen
hours a day was over his quantum of study. Although sometimes
disheartened, he never surrendered his determination to master the
elements and details of his new profession.
_Studying_ law in those days was a far different thing from its _reading_
now. Then it was _multum_: now it is _multa_. No copious indexes and
multifarious treatises were counted by thousands: no digests (directories
to the streets, the avenues, the fountains and the temples of the
science), abounded by scores. Libraries were carried about in wheelbarrows
and not in processions of vans, when the inexorable moving day came
around. Learned judges were not then compelled to hold courts in remote
villages (resorting hereby to a _coup de loi_), in order to escape the
_cacoethes loquendi_ of case lawyers and presuming juniors. Legal lore was
builded up like the massive stone and hard grained mortar of the edifices
of that olden time—slowly, carefully, but lastingly; not as are builded
now the brick and stuccoed mansions of the snob and parvenu. Not that
abounding treatises and familiarizing digests forbid the idea of the
perfect lawyer now-a-days: only that to-day the law student in the midst
of a large library stands more in need (when thinking of the _otium_ which
accompanies certain dignity), to utter the ejaculation, "lead us not into
temptation"—the temptation of possessing that knowledge which teaches
where to seek for information, and not the kind which is information of
itself.
In 1801 Mr. Story came to the Salem bar while at the age of twenty-two.
After being three years at practice he married his first wife, who died
within two years afterward, plunging him into the deepest grief. During
his courtship he dabbled (as almost every young lawyer does until he finds
that clients are severe critics) in poetry, and wrote a didactic poem of
two parts in heroic verse, entitled "The Power of Solitude." Adopting the
criticism of the biographers—its prominent defects were exaggeration of
feeling, confusion of imagery, want of simplicity of expression, stilted
and artificial style. But though dull as a poem, it shows facility and
talent for versification, breathes a warm aspiration for virtue and truth,
and is creditable to the scholarship of its author.
After the loss of his wife he sought relief from painful thoughts in the
laborious duties of a large and increasing business. His position at the
bar was prominent, and he was engaged in nearly all the cases of
importance. His manner to the jury was earnest and spirited; he managed
his causes with tact (that great acquirement of the successful lawyer:
being, as a distinguished barrister now dead and gone said to Dr. Hosack,
the same sheet anchor to the advocate which mercury or bark is to the
physician), was ready in attack or defence, and possessed great eloquence
of expression. As an advocate he showed a sagacity of perception which no
intricacy of detail could blind, no suddenness of attack confuse, and
which afterwards so distinguished him as a Judge. He was thrown among the
leading lawyers; and undaunted as all young lawyers should be (although
preserving their modesty of deportment and learning), he measured swords
with the most accomplished. Although sometimes vanquished, he always
received honors from even the victors.
It is a prevailing opinion with the junior members of the legal
profession, that their seniors delight in snubbing them; that they are
fond of being discourteous, and arrogant; that they are envious of some
and insulting to others. But it is rare indeed that the seniors err on
other ground in this respect than magnanimity. The industrious youngster,
the self-reliant youngster, the firm but respectful youngster, the versed
in elementary principles among youngsters, are always received with open
arms. Law begets law. If the junior commences a suit a senior may answer
it: and the reverse. The parson and the doctor are in perpetual
interference with the neighbors and brethren of their particular calling.
But lawyers, like bees in the beehive, must of necessity assist and succor
each other, or there will be less honey laid away when the summer is past
and the harvest ended.
Early in his professional career he became an ardent politician. He was a
Jeffersonian Democrat, and at the bar of his residence stood almost alone
in his partisan position. As such a party man he went into the State
Legislature, and became an acknowledged leader. He possessed that great
quality for a leader, the faculty of extempore speaking, joined with the
ability to condense and elucidate the topics he took in hand. But he never
submitted the convictions of his judgment to party dictation; and soon
after his entering the arena of legislative warfare, he bravely stemmed
party tide in advocating an increase of salaries for the State judges. The
latter were all federalists, and it was not to be wondered that the
republicans of that day, who wore in their noses the rings of party,
should shrug their shoulders at the prospect of benefiting political
opponents. But by his firm conduct, and by his confident assertion and
able arguments in favor of the measure, it was carried. And to Joseph
Story, more than any other man, Massachusetts is indebted for the
opportunity of employing ablest judicial officers, without making their
families beggars.
It is the disgrace of our country that its judicial officers are the most
poorly paid of all professions and pursuits. And in every section of the
Union, that distinguished lawyer who accepts a seat upon the bench, must
hold the glories of his honor at a very high price, to surrender his
ordinary professional emoluments for the wretched pittance which the
various States dole out for days of public toil and nights of private
study. We desire to look no further than this Empire State for examples.
This Empire State, with its magnificent resources and proudly developing
energies, should be the last to unite in adjudging its judicial officers
to the labors of galley slaves, and to then pay them by the year less than
a ballet-dancer receives by the month in all its principal cities. Two
thousand five hundred dollars per year is the astounding sum which this
same Empire State pays to its highest judicial officers. If we reverse the
saying of Walpole, and read "_every price has its man_," we may not wonder
if Dogberries and grandmothers are occasionally found upon the bench,
dispensing their honest but destructive platitudes, and their Malaprop
constructions of commercial law, to juries of astounded merchants.
From the arena of State politics, Mr. Story next changed his position to
the temple of national discussions at Washington. His career in Congress
was, however, limited to one session, and to a vacancy-seat occasioned by
a death. He declined re-election; for in the words of his autobiographical
account of this portion of his career, he had lost all relish for
political controversy, and had found that an entire obedience to party
projects required such constant sacrifices of opinion and feeling, that he
preferred to devote himself with singleness of heart to the study of the
law, which was at all times the object of his admiration and almost
exclusive devotion. Public sentiment, however, forced him again into the
State councils at home, where more liberty of professional engagement was
permitted. He was in political life but a brief period again, before, in
his thirty-second year, President Madison pressed his acceptance of a
vacant Associate Justiceship in the Supreme Court of the United States,
which had been declined by Levi Lincoln and by John Quincy Adams, then in
Russia. Although the acceptance involved the surrender of heavy
professional emolument, the high honor, the permanence of the tenure, and
the opportunity of gratifying his juridical studies that he so much loved,
joined in compelling his acquiescence.
"The atrocious crime of being a young man," which had compelled a hatred
of William Pitt the younger, in a former day, was now brought up against
him by many whose party subserviency fairly blushed before his manly
integrity, and by others who envied him his success. But one year at the
Circuit silenced all complaint. And in his thirty-third year he was
acknowledged to be the able jurist whom, at his death in his sixty-sixth
year of age, a whole nation mourned.
Dismissing for the present all consideration of his judicial life, and all
estimate of his ability upon the bench, and passing over nearly twenty
years of his life, we meet him in the possession of his fourth great honor
in life—but an honor which was ever the first prized by him in all his
after career—the appointment of Law Professor in Cambrige Law School.
Mr. Nathan Dane, whose Abridgement of American law in many volumes had
obtained for him the gratitude of the profession at large, and the more
substantial testimonial of pecuniary profit, had determined, about the
fiftieth year of Judge Story’s life, to repay the law some of the profits
which its votaries had bestowed upon him, by donating ten thousand dollars
for the establishment of a new professorship. He annexed to his donation,
however, the condition that Judge Story should be the incumbent. To the
great delight of the donor, and of the College Fellows, the Judge
assented, and was inaugurated as Dane Professor of Law, with a special
view to Lectures upon the Law of Nations, Commercial and Maritime Law,
Federal Law and Equity—a station which he filled to the day of his
lamented death.
This brief survey of his life presents him then in several public aspects;
as a student, as an advocate, as a statesman, as a judge, and as an
expounder of the great principles of law, which he worshipped with an
idolatry of love.
To speak of his political career would not belong to the scope of our
article. And to sit in judgment upon his judicial career would be our
presumption. Older and abler pens must render their tributes to the extent
and varied richness of his legal lore, which, taking root in principles,
branched into the minutiæ of detail, under every sun and in every clime
where law is recognized as a rule of human action. His judicial fame can
never be increased or diminished by individual estimate. The law of
patents, of admiralty and prizes, the jurisprudence of equity, and above
all, his luminous explorations of what were once constitutional
labyrinths, are monuments as indestructible as the Pyramids. If every
trace of their original oneness be lost, they will yet live in the hours
of future judicial days, in professional acts, and in the guiding policy
of a remote posterity. His library of treatises are legal classics; and
the worst defects which flippant carpers and canvassers of their claims to
merit have discovered in their pages, have been their richness of detail
and polish of learning! And no one can deny that as a judge he was the
very example which ’Hobbes’ in his ’Leviathan,’ carried in mind when he
thus wrote—"the things that make a good judge or good interpreter of the
laws, are first—a right understanding of that principal law of nature
called Equity, which depending not on the reading of other men’s writings,
but on the goodness of a man’s own natural reason and meditation, is
presumed to be in those most who have had most leisure and the most
inclination to meditate thereon; second—contempt of unnecessary riches and
preferments; third—to be able in judgment to divest himself of all fear,
anger, hatred, love and compassion; fourthly and lastly—patience to hear,
diligent attention in hearing, and memory to retain, digest, and apply
what he hath heard."
Not the least amiable phase of the life of Judge Story, was the attention
which he gave to letters and literary pursuits. He was no _mere_ lawyer:
no stringer of professional centos. He never hid his heart with the veil
of dignity; nor smothered his fresh impulses (preserved intact from
worldly rust since boyhood) with the weight of his judicial and
professional labors. While he believed that the law was a jealous
mistress, he knew that this mistress was too stable and sensible to decree
that a gentle dalliance or seasonable flirtation with her maids of
honor—Poetry, or the Arts, or Literature, or Love—was an unloyal act. He
could turn from Grotius to Dickens, from Vattel to Thackeray. He could
digest the points of the elaborate arguments of eminent counsel, and then
turn aside to a gentle tonic from the administrating hand of Smollett or
Walter Scott. Method was his master-key to all the combinations in the
locks of labor.
Twice married he never ceased to eulogize the bliss of domesticity.
Surrounded by loving eyes, the currents of his freshened affection flowed
deeper and clearer every year. How he treasured home and home joys may be
collected in the following lines from his poem on solitude (before
referred to), written in his twenty-second year.
"Grandeur may dazzle with its transient glare
The herd of folly, and the tribe of care,
Who sport and flutter through their listless days,
Like motes that bask in Summer’s noontide blaze,
With anxious steps round vacant splendor while,
Live on a look, and banquet on a smile;
But the firm race whose high endowments claim
The laurel-wreath that decks the brow of fame;
Who warmed by sympathy’s electric glow,
In rapture tremble, and dissolve in woe,
Blest in _retirement_, scorn the frowns of fate,
And feel a transport power can ne’er create."
Touching the poem from which these lines are taken, we remember being
shown the only copy of the published book which was known to exist, by the
family of the Judge. The Assistant Librarian (who was born for his station
in all that regards enthusiastic love of his duties), of the Harvard
College library, showed us, with great triumph, a small sheep-bound
volume, entitled "Solitude and other Poems, by Joseph Story," printed
sometime in the commencement of this century: saying, "the Judge has
burned all the copies he can pick up, and this is only to be read here."
This poem was a sore subject to the author. He viewed it as not only a
blot upon his dignity, but an annoyance to his professional fame. Numerous
critics have laughed at it; but apart from the shorter poems, the main
theme showed much aptitude of poetic imagery, invention, and harmony of
expression. Glance at the following lines, which contain much of the
genuine spark:
"Till nature’s self the Vandal torch should raise,
And the vast alcove of creation blaze."
Or this—
"Blaze the vast domes inwrought with fretted gold,
The sumptuous pavements veins or pearl unfold,
Arch piled on arch with columned pride ascend,
Grove linked to grove their mingling shadows blend."
Or this—
"Let narrow prudence boast its grovelling art
To chill the generous sympathies of heart,
Teach to subdue each thought sublimely wild,
And crush, like Herod, fancy’s new-born child."
It is highly probable that the learned Justice, knowing his taste for the
poetical and fanciful, and his aptitude at the harmony of language, often
erred in his judicial writings and treatises, by avoiding beauty of
expression, in fear lest the dignity of his subject should be injured by
too much association with the creatures of fancy. We have known most
accomplished lawyers err through this same caution. Our biographer himself
(Mr. William W. Story) has certainly done himself great injustice as a
writer in his work on "Contracts," when, in the pages before us, he
presents us with so much delicacy of fancy and rhetorical finish.
Blackstone in his "Commentaries," Jones in his "Bailment" treatise,
Stephens in his essay upon "Pleading," time-honored Fearne in his
"Contingent Remainders," have shown how grateful and how suitable it is
for the legal readers to find brilliancy of rhetoric adorning the most
profound learning.
But certainly Judge Story possessed to a remarkable degree the faculty of
condensation in his poetical works. His rhyme was not reason run mad; but
reason in modest holiday attire. Where are lines at once so compact and so
searching in their wisdom as the following, penned in 1832, as matters of
advice to a young law student:
"Whene’er you speak, remember every cause
Stands not on eloquence, but stands on laws—
Pregnant in matter, in expression brief,
Let every sentence stand in bold relief;
On trifling points nor time nor talents waste,
A sad offence to learning and to taste;
Nor deal with pompous phrase; nor e’er suppose
Poetic flights belong to reasoning prose,
Loose declamation may deceive the crowd,
And seem more striking as it grows more loud;
But sober sense rejects it with disdain,
As nought but empty noise, and weak as vain.
The froth of words, the school-boy’s vain parade
Of books and cases—all his stock in trade—
The pert conceits, the cunning tricks and play
Of low attorneys, strung in long array,
The unseemly jest, the petulent reply,
That chatters on, and cares not how, or why,
Studious, avoid—unworthy themes to scan,
They sink the speaker and disgrace the man.
Like the false lights, by flying shadows cast,
Scarce seen when present, and forgot when past.
Begin with dignity: expound with grace
Each ground of reasoning in its time and place;
Let order reign throughout—each topic touch,
Nor urge its power too little, or too much.
Give each strong thought its most attractive view,
In diction clear, and yet severely true,
And as the arguments in splendor grow,
Let each reflect its light on all below.
When to the close arrive make no delays
By petty flourishes, or verbal plays,
But sum the whole in one deep solemn strain,
Like a strong current hastening to the main."
If Mr. Story had never been elevated to the bench it is not likely his
name would ever have become national property. Although plunged into
politics in his earlier life, he was not fitted for the life. His devotion
to the law, and his dread of becoming that slave to party usages which all
public men must necessarily more or less fashion of themselves, would have
retained him in his native state, and made his usefulness sectional. To
the politicians of the school of General Jackson, and to the
administration of that President, he was particularly distasteful. His
tenacious conservatism drew forth from the "old hero," on one occasion,
the remark, that "he was the most dangerous man in the country." Lord
Eldon, with his doubts and pertinacious toryism was not more unpopular
among the reformers in England than was Judge Story—the last of the old
regime of federal judges—with the bank radicals of 1832.
When Chief Justice Marshall died he felt almost broken-hearted. A new race
of constitutional expounders had arisen around him. Brother justices, with
modern constructions, and more liberal notions of national law, were by
his side. In many decisions he was now a sole dissenter. His pride was
invaded; his self-love tortured; his adoration of certain legal
constructions which he had deemed immutable in their nature, was
desecrated. And, for many years previous to his decease, he had
contemplated resigning from the federal judiciary, and living alone for
his darling law school.
This school was his adopted child. He had taken it in a feeble and
helpless infancy. He had given it strength and increased vitality. He
brought it up to a vigorous and useful maturity. It was loved by only a
handful of students when he gave his name and talents to aid its life: but
when he died, a hundred and fifty pupils were its warm suitors, and
hundreds of lawyers over the whole union cherished its prosperity as a
link in their own chains of happiness.
And, although he thought not of it, his labors in the law school secure
for his memory in the present generation a more brilliant existence than
his array of judicial decisions, and his thousands of written pages, can
ever bestow. In some pine forest settlement of Maine, or in some rude
court-house in California, there are lawyers who bring before them every
day his genial smiles and his impressive lectures, looked upon and heard
by them in former times at Cambridge. Over all the Union, in almost every
village, town, and city, are his pupils. Each one of them may sometimes
reflect with rapture upon their days of college life, or remember with
pride their first professional success: but not one of these
considerations of reminiscence is so grateful to his mind as the thought
of his novitiate with Justice Story. Depend upon it he treasures up those
Cambridge text-books, those Cambridge note-books whose leaves
daguerreotype the learning of the eminent deceased, those catalogues of
students where his name is proudly found, as the most valuable portions of
his library. He will never part with them: but they will descend to his
children.
It was our privilege and pleasure also to know Mr. Justice Story at
Cambridge; to have spent days of pleasure in the hours of his society; to
have rendered to his teachings the tribute of delighted attention and
grateful recollection. We, too, have been fascinated with that
conversation, whose variety of exuberance and sometimes egotism, were its
greatest ornaments. In the sunshine of his intellect our mind has sunned
itself, and been warmed into zealous and proselyting admiration. To his
gray-haired teachings we have paid personal reverence, and we unaffectedly
hope to have caught from his society and intercourse a spark of that
professional enthusiasm which is the only true guiding-star of the
plodding lawyer.
The December blasts are hoarsely sobbing to-night through Mount Auburn,
the garden of his mortal repose—the hallowed spot which his eloquence
consecrated in its origin, and which his religious love in his lifetime
sacredly cherished. The snows of winter and the autumn-woven carpet of
fallen leaves are heaped upon his honored grave, the sodded paths to
which, in the glowing spring-time and fragrant summer, are pressed most
frequent with the tread of faithful mourners. Years have passed since that
honored grave was first closed upon him. Longer years have flown since we
were under his teachings. But we seem to view him the same as of yore.
Again the class is assembled in the hushed lecture-room as his familiar
tread is heard at the door; or as the burst of applause, where there is no
sycophantic flattery known or felt, greets his entrance to his seat. Again
we see him adjusting his genial spectacles, and looking around upon the
upturned faces with parental pride. Again we hear his mellowed, although
often impetuous accents, expounding familiar principles of law, and
descending to the consideration of "first things" with as much pride and
carefulness as the artist treats his Rubens or Titian, which for years and
years has hung before him in all lights and shades and in every
combination of position.
Again, we occupy a modest corner of the library while he is holding his
moot court; infusing into the dignity of his manner a marked suavity of
disposition which never forsook him; or he is perpetrating some
appropriate legal joke to his audience, who never played upon his ease or
good nature.
Again, we have stolen into the self-same library while he is holding an
equity term of his circuit, to listen to the words of judicial wisdom
which came from his utterance, exuberant as pearls of fancy from the mouth
of an inspired poet.
Again, we see him at the summer twilight, seated by the trellised portico
of his hospitable and happy homestead, surrounded by family or friends,
enjoying the amenities of life with unaffected pleasure, and sometimes
awakening the garden echoes with his cheerful ringing laugh; or we see him
in the same hour of the day driving under the venerable elms of the
numerous commons, gazing and bowing around with all the pleasure which the
king of the fairy book marked upon his face when the love of his subjects,
among whom he passed, came forth with the evening breeze to bless and
greet him.
And then we pass into "reverie," and live a few minutes of "dream-life,"
recalling to mind the maxims and sayings which were uttered in our
presence; and the many bright exemplars placed before his pupils, and the
kindly greetings which were showered all about—for he was no distinguisher
of persons so long as honor of feeling and uprightness of motive abounded
in his presence.
He is gone! Yet in these pages of biography before us he will always live.
From infancy to the ripened greatness of old age, his life is preserved to
posterity by the hand of his faithful and grateful son, whose duty has
been most ably and interestingly performed. The very minutiæ of his life
are presented with fidelity and modesty of reference. Some may carp at
this; to these let us say with the French proverbialist, _Rien n’est
indifférent dans la vie d’un grand homme; le genie se revéle dans ses
moindres actions_. The straws of every day life mark the direction of the
breezes of individual action.
To the hearts of his pupils we would send this epitaph, and ask them if
aught less tributary could be said of one who was and is to them a father.
Here sleeps the mortality of Joseph Story, who lived his days so well that
he won in a short lifetime an immortality of fame. His career as a _Man_
reflected lustre upon the lustre of an honored father’s manhood, and added
to the virtues which his mother bequeathed him. As a _Politician_, he
rendered obeisance only to his conscience. As a _Lawyer_, he never
disgraced his profession by a thought, and even honored it by his
slightest acts. The colleague of Marshall, the two now shine together as
twin stars in the often contemplated firmament of _Judicial Renown_. Not
selfish of his _Learning_, it is scattered to the uttermost parts of the
earth, and is treasured wherever it has fallen. The learning which he
borrowed from continental Europe he repaid with magnificent interest. In
Westminster Hall his name is associated with Nottingham, Hale, Mansfield,
and Stowell. Counting as dross the wealth of professional eminence, he
became from the love of it an expounder of law to its tyros. He has spread
for thousands of adopted children a banquet of the treasures of legal
lore, and next to reverencing his paternal love they cherish with profound
gratitude the memory of his slightest instructions. While the Union of his
birthplace exists, her citizens will regard with unfeigned admiration his
constitutional teachings.
COLUMBUS AT THE GATES OF GENOA.
WRITTEN FOR THE INTERNATIONAL MAGAZINE
BY THE AUTHOR OF "NILE NOTES OF A HOWADJI."
Christopher Columbus was born at Genoa in 1437. In 1851 the Genoese are
finishing his monument.
I am Columbus: will ye let me in?
Or Doria in his palace by the sea.
Proud Andrea Doria named il Principe,
In your Republic named il Principe,
By Charles the Fifth, the Emperor of Spain,
Monopolizes he your meed of fame
Before the awful Judgment seat of Time.
Well, and Pisani, the Venetian, he,
Venice as Doria was Genoa,—
Why, wide-mouthed Europe clanged their stunning praise,
And history with their names adorns herself,
Dazzing the eyes of pious pilgrims, who
Press flowers from Doria’s garden, dreaming float
Upon Pisani’s silent waters, and
Proceed, much meditating human fate.
And they had pleasures, palaces. They stood,
And sat, and went, all men admiring,
Men of a day, in its brief life they lived,
In its swift dying died. Men of a day,
Brave, generous, and noble—not enough.
Voluptuous Venice, Genoa superb,
Far fascinating meteors that flashed,
Then fell forgotten. Do I carp? Not I.
Ye love your own, I mine, mine me, amen!
O pious pilgrims and ye Genoese,
Proceed, much meditating human fate,
And meditate this well.
A wanderer driven
By every adverse gust of evil times.
Wrecked upon barren reefs of blandest smiles,
Wan victim of a solitary thought
Too masculine to die unrealized.
Tortured with tortuous diplomacy,
Beseeching monarchs still in vain besought,
Not to give kingdoms but to take a world,
Unloved of Fortune, best beloved of Hope,—
When Doria was a lisping boy at school,—
This wanderer puts forth one summer morn,
Among the other fishers of the sea,
And with a world returns.
Nay! nay! no words.
Your hemisphere was only half enough,
And Christopher Columbus globed his fame.
And now ye build my statue, Genoese,
After three silent centuries have died,
When the old fourth is failing, ye do well
With lagging stones to pile the pedestal,
And shape my sculptured seeming. Not with wrath,
Nor scorn. Good God and less with gratitude,
Be those worn features wreathed. I love ye not,
Ye are no friends of mine. I did not ask
A block of marble for my memory,
But gold to carve my hope. It was not much—
Nay, had it been your all, was it not well
To wreck your fortune on a hope sublime?
And, Merchants! The brave chance; a small outlay,
And income inconceivable! You chose.
My stately Spain was wiser. So much gold,
A little fleet,—some sailors—leaders known—
If not investment, speculation safe,
The honor of the enterprise, and chance—
Always the siren chance—Spain risked and won,
And Genoa lost a world.
Sir Advocate!
I understand your meaning; it were hard
Fame drafts upon the Future should be paid
Ere present recognition! ’Twere unjust
That hope unhazarded in act, were crowned
With the same coronal that crowns success.
The starving mariner upon your shore—
The riddle of the West unsolved—stood not
In the same light to set his worthiness,
As when an unimagined Future streamed
All over him in glory. Yet he stood
In that l
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